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A. This letter of ours corresponds to the first symbol in
the Phoenician alphabet and in almost all its descendants. In
Phoenician, a, like the symbols for e and for o, did not
represent a vowel, but a breathing; the vowels originally were
not represented by any symbol. When the alphabet was adopted by
the Greeks it was not very well fitted to represent the sounds
of their language. The breathings which were not required in
Greek were accordingly employed to represent some of the vowel
sounds, other vowels, like i and u, being represented by
an adaptation of the symbols for the semi-vowels y and w.
The Phoenician name, which must have corresponded closely to
the Hebrew Aleph, was taken over by the Greeks in the form
Alpha (alpsa). The earliest authority for this, as for the
names of the other Greek letters, is the grammatical drama
(grammatike Ieoria) of Callias, an earlier contemporary of
Euripides, from whose works four trimeters, containing the names
of all the Greek letters, are preserved in Athenaeus x. 453 d.
The form of the letter has varied considerably. In the
earliest of the Phoenician, Aramaic and Greek inscriptions
(the oldest Phoenician dating about 1000 B.C., the oldest
Aramaic from the 8th, and the oldest Greek from the 8th
or 7th century B.C.) A rests upon its side thus--@. In
the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles
the modern capital letter, but many local varieties can be
distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle
at which the cross line is set-- @, &c. From the Greeks of
the west the alphabet was borrowed by the Romans and from them
has passed to the other nations of western Europe. In the
earliest Latin inscriptions, such as the inscription found
in the excavation of the Roman Forum in 1899, or that on a
golden fibula found at Praeneste in 1886 (see ALPHABET).
Fine letters are still identical in form with those of the
western Greeks. Latin develops early various forms, which
are comparatively rare in Greek, as @, or unknown, as
@. Except possibly Faliscan, the other dialects of Italy
did not borrow their alphabet directly from the western Greeks
as the Romans did, but received it at second hand through the
Etruscans. In Oscan, where the writing of early inscriptions
is no less careful than in Latin, the A takes the form
@, to which the nearest parallels are found in north Greece
(Boeotia, Locris and Thessaly, and there only sporadically) .
In Greek the symbol was used for both the long and the short
sound, as in English father (a) and German Ratte
a; English, except in dialects, has no sound corresponding
precisely to the Greek short a, which, so far as can be
ascertained, was a mid-back-wide sound, according to the
terminology of H. Sweet (Primer of Phonetics, p. 107).
Throughout the history of Greek the short sound remained practically
unchanged. On the other hand, the long sound of a in the
Attic and Ionic dialects passed into an open e-sound, which
in the Ionic alphabet was represented by the same symbol as
the original e-sound (see ALPHABET: Greek). The vowel
sounds vary from language to language, and the a symbol has,
in consequence, to represent in many cases sounds which are
not identical with the Greek a whether long or short, and
also to represent several different vowel sounds in the same
language. Thus the New English Dictionary distinguishes about
twelve separate vowel sounds, which are represented by a in
English. In general it may be said that the chief changes
which affect the a-sound in different languages arise from
(1) rounding, (2) fronting, i.e. changing from a sound
produced far back in the mouth to a sound produced farther
forward. The rounding is often produced by combination with
rounded consonants (as in English was, wall, &c.), the
rounding of the preceding consonant being continued into
the formation of the vowel sound. Rounding has also been
produced by a following l-sound, as in the English fall,
small, bald, &c. (see Sweet's History of English Sounds,
2nd ed., sec. sec. 906, 784). The effect of fronting is seen in
the Ionic and Attic dialects of Greek, where the original
name of the Medes, Madoi, with a in the first syllable
(which survives in Cyprian Greek as Madoi), is changed
into Medoi (Medoi), with an open e-sound instead
of the earlier a. In the later history of Greek this
sound is steadily narrowed till it becomes identical with
i (as in English seed). The first part of the process
has been almost repeated by literary English, a (ah)
passing into e (eh), though in present-day pronunciation
the sound has developed further into a diphthongal ei
except before r, as in hare (Sweet, op. cit. sec. 783).
In English a represents unaccented forms of several
words, e.g. an (one), of, have, he, and or various
prefixes the history of which is given in detail in the New
English Dictionary (Oxford, 1888), vol. i. p. 4. (P. GI.)
As a symbol the letter is used in various connexions
and for various technical purposes, e.g. for a note in
music, for the first of the seven dominical letters (this
use is derived from its being the first of the litterae
nundinales at Rome), and generally as a sign of priority.
In Logic, the letter A is used as a symbol for the universal
affirmative proposition in the general form ``all x is y.''
The letters I, E and O are used respectively for the particular
affirmative ``some x is y,'' the universal negative ``no x
is y,'' and the particular negative ``some x is not y.''
The use of these letters is generally derived from the vowels
of the two Latin verbs AffIrmo (or AIo), ``I assert,'' and
nEgO, ``I deny.'' The use of the symbols dates from the 13th
century, though some authorities trace their origin to the Greek
logicians. A is also used largely in abbreviations (q.v.).
In Shipping, A1 is a symbol used to dennote quality of
construction and material. In the various shipping registers
ships are classed and given a rating after an official
examination, and assigned a classification mark, which
appears in addition to other particulars in those registers
after the name of the ship. See SHIPBUILDING. It is
popularly used to indicate the highest degree of excellence.
AA, the name of a large number of small European rivers.
The word is derived from the Old German aha, cognate to
the Latin aqua, water (cf. Ger.-ach; Scand. a, aa,
pronounced o). The following are the more important
streams of this name:--Two rivers in the west of Russia, both
falling into the Gulf of Riga, near Riga, which is situated
between them; a river in the north of France, falling into
the sea below Gravelines, and navigable as far as St Omer;
and a river of Switzerland, in the cantons of Lucerne and
Aargau, which carries the waters of Lakes Baldegger and
Hallwiler into the Aar. In Germany there are the Westphalian
Aa, rising in the Teutoburger Wald, and joining the Werre at
Herford, the Munster Aa, a tributary of the Ems, and others.
AAGESEN, ANDREW (1826-1879), Danish jurist, was educated
for the law at Kristianshavn and Copenhagen, and interrupted
his studies in 1848 to take part in the first Schleswig war,
in which he served as the leader of a reserve battalion. In
1855 he became professor of jurisprudence at the university of
Copenhagen. In 1870 he was appointed a member of the commission
for drawing up a maritime and commercial code, and the navigation
law of 1882 is mainly his work. In 1879 he was elected a member
of the Landsthing; but it is as a teacher at the university
that he won his reputation. Among his numerous juridical
works may be mentioned: Bidrag til Laeren om Overdragelse
af Ejendomsret, Bemaerkinger om Rettigheder over Ting
(Copenhagen, 1866, 1871-1872); Fortegnelse over Retssamlinger,
Retslitteratur i Danmark, Norge, Sverige (Copenhagen,
1876). Aagesen was Hall's successor as lecturer on Roman law
at the university, and in this department his researches were
epoch-making. All his pupils were profoundly impressed by
his exhaustive examination of the sources, his energetic
demonstration of his subject and his stringent search after
truth. His noble, imposing, and yet most amiable personality
won for him, moreover, universal affection and respect.
See C. F. Bricka, Dansk. Brog. Lex. vol. i. (Copenhagen, 1887); Szmlade
Skrifter, edited by F. C. Bornemann (Copenhagen, 1863). (R. N. B.)
AAL, also known as A'L, ACH, or AICH, the Hindustani
names for the Morinda tinctoria and Morinda citrifalia,
plants extensively cultivated in India on account of the
reddish dye-stuff which their roots contain. The name
is also applied to the dye, but the common trade name
is Suranji. Its properties are due to the presence
of a glucoside known as Morindin, which is compounded
from glucose and probably a trioxy-methyl-anthraquinone.
AALBORG, a city and seaport of Denmark, the seat of a bishop,
and chief town of the amt (county) of its name, on the south
bank of the Limfjord, which connects the North Sea and the
Cattegat. Pop. (1901) 31,457. The situation is typical of
the north of Jutland. To the west the Linifjord broadens
into an irregular lake, with low, marshy shores and many
islands. North-west is the Store Vildmose, a swamp where the
mirage is seen in summer. South-east lies the similar Lille
Vildmose. A railway connects Aalborg with Hjorring,
Frederikshavn and Skagen to the north, and with Aarhus and
the lines from Germany to the south. The harbour is good
and safe, though difficult of access. Aalborg is a growing
industrial and commercial centre, exporting grain and
fish. An old castle and some picturesque houses of the
17th century remain. The Budolphi church dates mostly from
the middle of the 18th century, while the Frue church was
partially burnt in 1894, but the foundation of both is of
the 14th century or earlier. There are also an ancient
hospital and a museum of art and antiquities. On the north
side of the fjord is Norre Sundby, connected with Aalborg
by a pontoon and also by an iron railway bridge, one of the
finest engineering works in the kingdom. Aabborgt received
town privileges in 1342 and the bishopric dates from 1554.
AALEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Wurttemberg,
pleasantly situated on the Kocher, at the foot of the Swabian
Alps, about 50 m. E. of Stuttgart, and with direct railway
communication with Ulm and Cannstatt. Pop. 10,000. Woollen
and linen goods are manufactured, and there are ribbon
looms and tanneries in the town, and large iron works in the
neighbourhood. There are several schools and churches, and a
statue of the poet Christian Schubart. Aalen was a free imperial
city from 1360 to 1802, when it was annexed to Wurttemberg.
AALESUND, a seaport of Norway, in Romsdal amt (county), 145
m. N. by E. from Bergen. Pop. (1900) 11,672. It occupies
two of the outer islands of the west coast, Aspo and
Norvo, which enclose the picturesque harbour. Founded
in 1824, it is the principal shipping-place of Sondmore
district, and one of the chief stations of the herring
fishery. Aalesund is adjacent to the Jorund and Geiranger
fjords, frequented by tourists. From Oje at the head of
Jorund a driving-route strikes south to the Nordfjord, and
from Merck on Geiranger another strikes inland to Otta, on
the railway to Liilehammer and Christiania. Aalesund is a
port of call for steamers between Bergen, Hull, Newcastle
and Hamburg, and Trondhjem. A little to the south of the
town are the ruins of the reputed castle of Rollo, the
founder, in the 9th century, of the dynasty of the dukes of
Normandy. On the 23rd of January 1904, Aalesund was the
scene of one of the most terrible of the many conflagrations
to which Norwegian towns, built largely of wood, have been
subject. Practically the whole town was destroyed, a gale aiding
the flames, and the population had to leave the place in the
night at the notice of a few minutes. Hardly any lives were
lost, but the sufferings of the people were so terrible that
assistance was sent from all parts of the kingdom, and by the
German government, while the British government also offered it.
AALI, MEHEMET, Pasha (1815-1871), Turkish statesman, was born
at Constantinople in 1815, the son of a government official.
Entering the diplomatic service of his country soon after reaching
manhood, he became successively secretary of the Embassy in
Vienna, minister in London, and foreign minister under Reshid
Pasha. In 1852 he was promoted to the post of grand vizier,
but after a short time retired into private life. During the
Crimean War he was recalled in order to take the portfolio
of foreign affairs for a second time under Reshid Pasha,
and in this capacity took part in 1855 in the conference of
Vienna. Again becoming in that year grand vizier, an office
he filled no less than five times, he represented Turkey
at the congress of Paris in 1856. In 1867 he was appointed
regent of Turkey during the sultan's visit to the Paris
Exhibition. Aali Pasha was one of the most zealous advocates
of the introduction of Western reforms under the sultans Abdul
Mejid and Abdul Aziz. A scholar and a linguist, he was a
match for the diplomats of the Christian powers, against whom
he successfully defended the interests of his country. He
died at Erenkeni in Asia Minor on the 6th of September 1871.
AAR, or AARE, the most considerable river which both
rises and ends entirely within Switzerland. Its total
length (including all bends) from its source to its junction
with the Rhine is about 181 m., during which distance it
descends 5135 ft., while its drainage area is 6804 sq.
m. It rises in the great Aar glaciers, in the canton of
Bern, and W. of the Grimsel Pass. It runs E. to the Grimsel
Hospice, and then N.W. through the Hasli valley, forming on the
way the magnificent waterfall of the Handegg (151 ft.), past
Guttannen, and pierces the limestone barrier of the Kirchet
by a grand gorge, before reaching Meiringen, situated in a
plain. A little beyond, near Brienz, the river expands
into the lake of Brienz, where it becomes navigable. Near
the west end of that lake it receives its first important
affluent, the Lutschine (left), and then runs across the
swampy plain of the Bodoli, between Interlaken (left) and
Unterseen (right), before again expanding in order to form
the Lake of Thun. Near the west end of that lake it receives
on the left the Kander, which has just before been joined
by the Simme; on flowing out of the lake it passes Thun, and
then circles the lofty bluff on which the town of Bern is
built. It soon changes its north-westerly for a due westerly
direction, but after receiving the Saane or Sarine (left)
turns N. till near Aarberg its stream is diverted W. by the
Hagneck Canal into the Lake of Bienne, from the upper end of
which it issues through the Nidau Canal and then runs E. to
Buren. Henceforth its course is N.E. for a long distance,
past Soleure (below which the Grosse Emme flows in on the
right), Aarburg (where it is joined by the Wigger, right),
Olten, Aarau, near which is the junction with the Suhr on the
right, and Wildegg, where the Hallwiler Aa falls in on the
right. A short way beyond, below Brugg, it receives first the
Reuss (right), and very shortly afterwards the Limmat or Linth
(right). It now turns due N., and soon becomes itself an
affluent of the Rhine (left), which it surpasses in volume
when they unite at Coblenz, opposite Waldshut. (W. A. B. C.)
AARAU, the capital of the Swiss canton of Aargau. In 1900
it had 7831 inhabitants, mostly German-speaking, and mainly
Protestants. It is situated in the valley of the Aar, on the
right bank of that river, and at the southern foot of the range
of the Jura. It is about 50 m. by rail N.E. of Bern, and 31
m. N.W. of Zurich. It is a well-built modern town, with
no remarkable features about it. In the Industrial Museum
there is (besides collections of various kinds) some good
painted glass of the 16th century, taken from the neighbouring
Benedictine monastery of Muri (founded 1027, suppressed
1841---the monks are now quartered at Gries, near Botzen, in
Tirol). The cantonal library contains many works relating to
Swiss history and many MSS. coming from the suppressed Argovian
monasteries. There are many industries in the town, especially
silk-ribbon weaving, foundries, and factories for the manufacture
of cutlery and scientific instruments. The popular novelist
and historian, Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848), spent most of
his life here, and a bronze statue has been erected to his
memory. Aarau is an important military centre. The slopes
of the Jura are covered with vineyards. Aarau, an ancient
fortress, was taken by the Bernese in 1415, and in 1798 became
for a time the capital of the Helvetic republic. Eight miles
by rail N.E. are the famous sulphur baths of Schinznach,
just above which is the ruined castle of Habsburg, the
original home of that great historical house. (W. A. B. C.)
AARD-VARK (meaning ``earth pig''), the Dutch name for
the mammals of genus Orycteropus, confined to Africa (see
EDEN-TATAI. Several species have been named. Among them
is the typical form, O. capensis, or Cape ant-bear from
South Africa, and the northern aard-vark (O. aethiopicus)
of north-eastern Africa, extending into Egypt. In form
these animals are somewhat pig-like; the body is stout,
with arched back; the limbs are short and stout, armed with
strong, blunt claws; the ears disproportionately long; and
the tail very thick at the base and tapering gradually. The
greatly elongated head is set on a short thick neck, and at
the extremity of the snout is a disk in which the nostrils
open. The mouth is small and tubular, furnished with a long
extensile tongue. The measurements of a female taken in the
flesh, were head and body 4 ft., tail 17 1/2 in.; but a large
individual measured 6 ft. 8 in. over all. In colour the
Cape aard-vark is pale sandy or yellow, the hair being scanty
and allowing the skin to show; the northern aard-vark has
a still thinner coat, and is further distinguished by the
shorter tail and longer head and ears. These animals are of
nocturnal and burrowing habits, and generally to be found near
ant-hills. The strong claws make a hole in the side of the
ant-hill, and the insects are collected on the extensile
tongue. Aard-varks are hunted for their skins; but the
flesh is valued for food, and often salted and smoked.
AARD-WOLF (earth-wolf), a South and East African carnivorous
mammal (Proteles cristatus), in general appearance like a
small striped hyena, but with a more pointed muzzle, sharpe
ears, and a long erectile mane down the middle line of the
neck and back. It is of nocturnal and burrowing habits, and
feeds on decomposed animal substances, larvae and termites.
AARGAU (Fr. Argovie), one of the more northerly Swiss
cantons, comprising the lower course of the river Aar (q.v.),
whence its name. Its total area is 541.9 sq. m., of which
517.9 sq. m. are classed as ``productive'' (forests covering
172 sq. m. and vineyards 8.2 sq. m.). It is one of the least
mountainous Swiss cantons, forming part of a great table-land,
to the north of the Alps and the east of the Jura, above which
rise low hills. The surface of the country is beautifully
diversified, undulating tracts and well-wooded hills alternating
with fertile valleys watered mainly by the Aar and its
tributaries. It contains the famous hot sulphur springs of
Baden (q.v.) and Schinznach, while at Rheinfelden there are
very extensive saline springs. Just below Brugg the Reuss
and the Limmat join the Aar, while around Brugg are the ruined
castle of Habsburg, the old convent of Konigsfelden (with
fine painted medieval glass) and the remains of the Roman
settlement of Vindonissa [Windisch]. The total population
in 1900 was 206,498, almost exclusively German-speaking, but
numbering 114,176 Protestants to 91,039 Romanists and 990
Jews. The capital of the canton is Aarau (q.v.), while
other important towns are Baden (q.v.), Zofingen (4591
inhabitants), Reinach (3668 inhabitants), Rheinfelden (3349
inhabitants), Wohlen (3274 inhabitants), and Lenzburg (2588
inhabitants). Aargau is an industrious and prosperous canton,
straw-plaiting, tobacco-growing, silk-ribbon weaving, and
salmon-fishing in the Rhine being among the chief industries.
As this region was, up to 1415, the centre of the Habsburg
power, we find here many historical old castles (e.g.
Habsburg, Lenzburg, Wildegg), and former monasteries (e.g.
Wettingen, Muri), founded by that family, but suppressed in
1841, this act of violence being one of the main causes
of the civil war called the ``Sonderbund War,'' in 1847 in
Switzerland. The cantonal constitution dates mainly from
1885, but since 1904 the election of the executive council
of five members is made by a direct vote of the people. The
legislature consists of members elected in the proportion of
one to every 1100 inhabitants. The ``obligatory referendum''
exists in the case of all laws, while 5000 citizens have the
right of ``initiative'' in proposing bills or alterations
in the cantonal constitution. The canton sends 10 members
to the federal Nationalrat, being one for every 20,000,
while the two Standerate are (since 1904) elected by
a direct vote of the people. The canton is divided into
eleven administrative districts, and contains 241 communes.
1415 the Aargau region was taken from the Habsburgs by the Swiss
Confederates. Bern kept the south-west portion (Zofingen,
Aarburg, Aarau, Lenzburg, and Brugg), but some districts,
named the Freie Amter or ``free bailiwicks'' (Mellingen,
Muri, Villmergen, and Bremgarten), with the county of Baden,
were ruled as ``subject lands'' by all or certain of the
Confederates. In 1798 the Bernese bit became the canton of
Aargau of the Helvetic Republic, the remainder forming the
canton of Baden. In 1803, the two halves (plus the Frick
glen, ceded in 1802 by Austria to the Helvetic Republic)
were united under the name of Kanton Aargau, which was then
admitted a full member of the reconstituted Confederation.
See also Argovia (published by the Cantonal Historical
Society), Aarau, from 1860; F. X. Bronner, Der Kanton Aargau,
2 vols., St Gall and Bern, 1844; H. Lehmann, Die argauische
Strohindustrie, Aarau, 1896; W. Merz, Die mittelalt.
Burganlagen und Wehrbauten d. Kant. Argau (fine illustrated
work on castles), Aarau, 2 vols., 1904--1906; W. Merz and
F. E. Welti, Die Rechtsquellen d. Kant. Argau, 3 vols.,
Aarau, 1898--1905; J. Muller, Der Aargau, 2 vols., Zurich,
1870; E. L. Rochholz, Aargauer Weisthumer, Atarau, 1877; E.
Zschokke, Geschichte des Aargaus, Aarau, 1903. (W. A. B. C.)
AARHUS, a seaport and bishop's see of Denmark, on the
east coast of Jutland, of which it is the principal port;
the second largest town in the kingdom, and capital of
the amt (county) of Aarhus. Pop. (1901) 51,814. The
district is low-lying, fertile and well wooded. The town
is the junction of railways from all parts of the country.
The harbour is good and safe, and agricultural produce is
exported, while coal and iron are among the chief imports.
The cathedral of the 13th century (extensively restored) is
the largest church in Denmark. There is a museum of art and
antiquities. To the south-west (13 m. by rail), a picturesque
region extends west from the railway junction of Skanderborg,
including several lakes, through which flows the Gudenaa,
the largest river in Jutland, and rising ground exceeding
500 ft. in the Himmelbjerg. The railway traverses this
pleasant district of moorland and wood to Silkeborg, a modern
town having one of the most attractive situations in the
kingdom. The bishopric of Aarhus dates at least from 951.
AARON, the traditional founder and head of the Jewish
priesthood, who, in company with Moses, led the Israelites
out of Egypt (see EXODUS; MOSES) . The greater part of
his life-history is preserved in late Biblical narratives,
which carry back existing conditions and beliefs to the
time of the Exodus, and find a precedent for contemporary
hierarchical institutions in the events of that period.
Although Aaron was said to have been sent by Yahweh (Jehovah)
to meet Moses at the ``mount of God'' (Horeb, Ex.iv.27),he
plays only a secondary part in the incidents at Pharaoh's
court. After the ``exodus'' from Egypt a striking account
is given of the vision of the God of Israel vouchsafed to
him and to his sons Nadab and Abihu on the same holy mount
(Ex. xxiv. 1 seq. 9-11), and together with Hur he was at the
side of Moses when the latter, by means of his wonder-working
rod, enabled Joshua to defeat the Amalekites (xvii. 8-16).
Hur and Aaron were left in charge of the Israelites when
Moses and Joshua ascended the mount to receive the Tables of
the Law (xxiv. 12-15), and when the people, in dismay at the
prolonged absence of their leader, demanded a god, it was at
the instigation of Aaron that the golden calf was made (see
CALF, GOLDEN). This was regarded as an act of apostasy
which, according to one tradition, led to the consecration
of the Levites, and almost cost Aaron his life (cp. Deut.
ix. 20). The incident paves the way for the account of the
preparation of the new tables of stone which contain a series
of laws quite distinct from the Decalogue (q.v.) (Ex. xxxiii.
seq.). Kadesh, and not Sinai or Horeb, appears to have been
originally the scene of these incidents (Deut. xxxiii. 8
seq. compared with Ex. xxxii. 26 sqq.), and it was for some
obscure offence at this place that both Aaron and Moses were
prohibited from entering the Promised Land (Num. xx.). In
what way they had not ``sanctified'' (an allusion in the
Hebrew to Kadesh ``holy'') Yahweh is quite uncertain, and
it would appear that it was for a similar offence that the
sons of Aaron mentioned above also met their death (Lev. x. 3;
cp. Num. xx. 12, Deut. xxxii. 51). Aaron is said to have
died at Moserah (Deut. x. 6), or at Mt. Hor; the latter is
an unidentified site on the border of Edom (Num. xx. 23,
xxxiii. 37; for Moserah see ib. 30-31), and consequently
not in the neighbourhood of Petra, which has been the
traditional scene from the time of Josephus (Ant. iv. 4. 7).
Several difficulties in the present Biblical text appear to
have arisen from the attempt of later tradition to find a
place for Aaron in certain incidents. In the account of the
contention between Moses and his sister Miriam (Num. xii.),
Aaron occupies only a secondary position, and it is very doubtful
whether he was originally mentioned in the older surviving
narratives. It is at least remarkable that he is only thrice
mentioned in Deuteronomy (ix. 20, x. 6, xxxii. 50). The
post-exilic narratives give him a greater share in the plagues of
Egypt, represent him as high-priest, and confirm his position
by the miraculous budding of his rod alone of all the rods of
the other tribes (Num. xvii.; for parallels see Gray comm.
ad loc., p. 217). The latter story illustrates the growth
of the older exodus-tradition along with the development of
priestly ritual: the old account of Korah's revolt against the
authority of Moses has been expanded, and now describes (a)
the divine prerogatives of the Levites in general, and (b)
the confirmation of the superior privileges of the Aaronites
against the rest of the Levites, a development which can
scarcely be earlier than the time of Ezekiel (xliv. 15 seq.).
Aaron's son Eleazar was buried in an Ephraimite locality
known after the grandson as the ``hill of Phinehas'' (Josh.
xxiv. 33). Little historical information has been preserved of
either. The name Phinehas (apparently of Egyptian origin)
is better known as that of a son of Eli, a member of the
priesthood of Shiloh, and Eleazar is only another form of
Eliezer the son of Moses, to whose kin Eli is said to have
belonged. The close relation between Aaronite and Levitical
names and those of clans related to Moses is very noteworthy,
and it is a curious coincidence that the name of Aaron's
sister Miriam appears in a genealogy of Caleb (1 Chron. iv.
17) with Jether (cp. JETHRO) and Heber (cp. KENITES). In
view of the confusion of the traditions and the difficulty of
interpreting the details sketched above, the recovery of the
historical Aaron is a work of peculiar intricacy. He may
well have been the traditional head of the priesthood, and
R. H. Kennett has argued in favour of the view that he was
the founder of the cult at Bethel (Journ. of Theol. Stud.,
1905, pp. 161 sqq.), corresponding to the Mosaite founder
of Dan (q.v.). This throws no light upon the name, which
still remains quite obscure: and unless Aaron (Aharon) is
based upon Aron, ``ark'' (Redslob, R. P. A. Dozy, J. P.
N. Land), names associated with Moses and Aaron, which are,
apparently, of South Palestinian (or North-Arabian) origin.
For the literature and a general account of the Jewish
priesthood, see the articles LEVTTES and PRIEST. . (S. A. C.)
AARON'S ROD, the popular name given to various tall flowering
plants (``hag taper,', ``golden rod,'' &c.). In architecture
the term is given to an ornamental rod with sprouting leaves,
or sometimes with a serpent entwined round it (from the
Biblical references in Exodus vii. 10 and Numbers xvii. 8).
AARSSENS, or AARSSEN, FRANCIS VAN (1572-1641), a
celebrated diplomatist and statesman of the United Provinces.
His talents commended him to the notice of Advocate Johan
van Oldenbarneveldt, who sent him, at the age of 26 years,
as a diplomatic agent of the states-general to the court of
France. He took a considerable part in the negotiations of
the twelve years' truce in 1606. His conduct of affairs having
displeased the French king, he was recalled from his post by
Oldenbarneveldt in 1616. Such was the hatred he henceforth
conceived against his former benefactor, that he did his
very utmost to effect his ruin. He was one of the packed
court of judges who in 1619 condemned the aged statesman to
death. For his share in this judicial murder a deep stain
rests on the memory of Aarssens. He afterwards became the
confidential counsellor of Maurice, prince of Orange, and
afterwards of Frederick Henry, prince of Orange, in their
conduct of the foreign affairs of the republic. He was sent
on special embassies to Venice, Germany and England, and
displayed so much diplomatic skill and finesse that Richelieu
ranked him among the three greatest politicians of his time.
AASEN, IVAR (1813-1896), Norwegian philologist and
lexicographer, was born at Aasen i Orsten, in Sondmore,
Norway, on the. 5th of August 1813. His father, a small
peasant-farmer named Ivar Jonsson, died in 1826. He was
brought up to farmwork, but he assiduously cultivated all
his leisure in reading, and when he was eighteen he opened an
elementary school in his native parish. In 1833 he entered
the household of H. C. Thoresen the husband of the eminent
writer Magdalene Thoresen, in Hero, and here he picked up
the elements of Latin. Gradually, and by dint of infinite
patience and concentration, the young peasant became master
of many languages, and began the scientific study of their
structure. About 1841 he had freed himself from all the
burden of manual labour, and could occupy his thoughts with
the dialect of his native district, the Sondmore; his
first publication was a small collection of folk-songs in
the Sondmore language (1843) . His remarkable abilities now
attracted general attention, and he was helped to continue his
studies undisturbed. His Grammar ofthe Norwegian Dialects
(1848) was the result of much labour, and of journeys taken
to every part of the country. Aasen's famous Dictionary
of the Norwegian Dialects appeared in its original form in
1850, and from this publication dates all the wide cultivation
of the popular language in Norwegian, since Aasen really did
no less than construct, out of the different materials at his
disposal, a popular language or definite folke-maal for
Norway. With certain modifications, the most important of which
were introduced later by Aasen himself, this artificial language
is that which has been adopted ever since by those who write in
dialect, and which later enthusiasts have once more endeavoured
to foist upon Norway as her official language in the place of
Dano-Norwegian. Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite
dialect to show how it should be used; one of these dramas,
The Heir (1855), was frequently acted, and may be considered
as the pioneer of all the abundant dialect-literature of the
last half-century, from Vinje down to Garborg. Aasen continued
to enlarge and improve his grammars and his dictionary. He
lived very quietly in lodgings in Christiania, surrounded by
his books and shrinking from publicity, but his name grew into
wide political favour as his ideas about the language of the
peasants became more and more the watch-word of the popular
party. Quite early in his career, 1842, he had begun to
receive a stipend to enable him to give his entire attention
to his philological investigations; and the Storthing--.
conscious of the national importance of his woth---treated hm
in this respect with more and more generosity as he advanced in
years. He continued his investigations to the last, but it
may be said that, after the 1873 edition of his Dictionary,
he added but little to his stores. Ivar Aasen holds perhaps
an isolated place in literary history as the one man who has
invented, or at least selected and constructed, a language
which has pleased so many thousands of his countrymen that
they have accepted it for their schools, their sermons
and their songs. He died in Christiania on the 23rd of
September 1896, and was buried with Public honours. (E. G.)
AB, the fifth month of the ecclesiastical and the
eleventh of the civil year of the Jews. It approximately
Corresponds to the period of the 15th of July to the 15th of
August. The word is of Babylonian origin, adopted by the
Jews with other calendar names after the Babylonian exile.
Tradition ascribes the death of Aaron to the first day of Ab.
On the ninth is kept the Fast of Ab, or the Black Fast, to
bewail the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadrezzar
(586 B.C.) and of the second by Titus (A.D. 70).
ABA. (1) A form of altazimuth instrument, invented by, and Cabled
after, Antoine d'Abbadie; (2) a rough homespun manufactured in
Bulgariai (3) a long coarse shirt worn by the Bedouin Arabs.
ABABDA (the Gebadei of Pliny, probably the Troglodytes of
classical writers), a nomad tribe of African ``Arabs,, of Hamitic
origin. They extend from the Nile at Assuan to the Red Sea,
and reach northward to the Kena-Kosseir road, thus occupying
the southern border of Egypt east of the Nile. They call
themselves ``sons of the Jinns.'' With some of the clans of
the Bisharin (q.v.) and possibly the Hadendoa (q.v.) they
represent the Blemmyes of classic geographers, and their location
to-day is almost identical with that assigned them in Roman
times. They were constantly at war with the Romans, who at
last subsidized them. In the middle ages they were known as
Beja (q.v.), and convoyed pilgrims from the Nile valley to
Aidhab, the port of embarkation for Jedda. From time immemorial
they have acted as guides to caravans through the Nubian
desert and up the Nile valley as far as Sennar. To-day many of
them are employed in the telegraph service across the Arabian
desert. They intermarried with the Nuba, and settled in small
Colonies at Shendi and elsewhere long before the Egyptian
invasion (A.D. 1820-1822). They are still great trade
carriers, and visit very distant districts. The Ababda of
Egypt, numbering some 30,000, are governed by an hereditary
``chief.'' Although nominally a vassal of the Khedive he pays no
tribute. Indeed he is paid a subsidy, a portion of the
road-dues, in return for his safeguarding travellers from Bedouin
robbers. The sub-sheikhs are directly responsible to him.
The Ababda of Nubia, reported by Joseph von Russegger, who
visited the country in 1836, to number some 40,000, have since
diminished, having probably amalgamated with the Bisharin,
their hereditary enemies when they were themselves a powerful
nation. The Ababda generally speak Arabic (mingled with
Barabra [Nubian] words), the result of their long-continued
contact with Egypt; but the southern and south-eastern portion
of the tribe in many cases still retain their Beja dialect,
ToBedawiet. Those of Kosseir will not speak this before
strangers, as they believe that to reveal the mysterious
dialect would bring ruin on them. Those nearest the Nile
have much fellah blood in them. As a tribe they claim an Arab
origin, apparently through their sheikhs. They have adopted
the dress and habits of the fellahin, unlike their kinsmen
the Bisharin and Hadendoa, who go practically naked. They
are neither so fierce nor of so fine a physique as these
latter. They are lithe and well built, but small: the average
height is little more than 5 ft., except in the sheikh clan,
who are obviously of Arab origin. Their complexion is more
red than black, their features angular, noses straight and hair
luxuriant. They bear the character of being treacherous and
faithless, being bound by no oath, but they appear to be honest
in money matters and hospitable, and, however poor, never
beg. Formerly very poor, the Ababda became wealthy after
the British occupation of Egypt. The chief settlements are in
Nubia, where they live in villages and employ themselves in
agriculture. Others of them fish in the Red Sea and then
hawk the salt fish in the interior. Others are pedlars,
while charcoal burning, wood-gathering and trading in gums
and drugs, especially in senna leaves, occupy many. Unlike
the true Arab, the Ababda do not live in tents, but build
huts with hurdles and mats, or live in natural caves, as
did their ancestors in classic times. They have few horses,
using the camel as beast of burden or their ``mount'' in
war. They live chiefly on milk and durra, the latter
eaten either raw or roasted. They are very superstitious,
believing, for example, that evil would overtake a family
if a girl member should, after her marriage, ever set eyes
on her mother: hence the Ababda husband has to make his
home far from his wife's village. In the Mahdist troubles
(1882-1898) many ``friendlies'' were recruited from the tribe.
For their earlier history see BEJA; see also BISHARIN,
HADENDOA, KABBABish; and the following authorities:---Sir
F. R. Wingate, Mahdism and the Egyptian Sudan (Lond.
1891); Giuseppe Sergi, Africa: Antropologia della Stirpe
Camitica (Turin, 1897); A. H. Keane, Ethnology of Egyptian
Sudan (Lond. 1884); Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, edited by
Count Gleichen (Lond. 1905); Joseph von Russegger, Die
Reisen in Afrika (Stuttgart, 1841-1850). (T. A. J.)
ABACA, or ABAKA, a native name for the plant Musa textilis,
which produces the fibre called Manila Hemp (q.v.). .
ABACUS (Gr. abax, a slab Fr. abaque, tailloir), in
architecture, the upper member of the capital of a column.
Its chief function is to provide a larger supporting surface
for the architrave or arch it has to carry. In the Greek Doric
order the abacus is a plain square slab. In the Roman and
Renaissance Doric orders it is crowned by a moulding. In the
Archaic-Greek Ionic order, owing to the greater width of the
capital, the abacus is rectangular in plan, and consists of a
carved ovolo moulding. In later examples the abacus is square,
except where there are angle volutes, when it is slightly
curved over the same. In the Roman and Renaissance Ionic
capital, the abacus is square with a fillet On the top of an
ogee moulding, but curved over angle volutes. In the Greek
Corinthian order the abacus is moulded, its sides are concave
and its angles canted (except in one or two exceptional Greek
capitals, where it is brought to a sharp angle); and the same
shape is adopted in the Roman and Renaissance Corinthian and
Composite capitals, in some cases with the ovolo moulding
carved. In Romanesque architecture the abacus is square with
the lower edge splayed off and moulded or carved, and the
same was retained in France during the medieval period; but
in England,in Early English work, a circular deeply moulded
abacus was introduced, which in the 14th and 15th centuries
was transformed into an octagonal one. The diminutive of
Abacus, ABACISCUS, is applied in architecture to the chequers
or squares of a tessellated pavement . ``Abacus'' is also the
name of an instrument employed by the ancients for arithmetical
calculations; pebbles, hits of bone or coins being used as
counters. Fig. 1 shows a Roman abacus taken from an ancient
monument. It contains seven long and seven shorter rods
or bars, the former having four perforated beads running
on them and the latter one. The bar marked 1 indicates
units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads on the
shorter bars denote fives,--five units, five tens, &c. The
rod O and corresponding short rod are for marking ounces;
and the short quarter rods for fractions of an ounce.
The Swan-Pan of the Chinese (fig. 2) closely resembles
the Roman abacus in its construction and use. Computations
are made with it by means of balls of bone or ivory running
on slender bamboo rods, similar to the simpler board,
fitted up with beads strung on wires, which is employed in
teaching the rudiments of arithmetic in English schools.
FIG. 2.--Chinese Swan-Pan. The name of ``abacus'' is also
given, in logic, to an instrument, often called the ``logical
machine,'' analogous to the mathematical abacus. It is
constructed to show all the possible combinations of a set of
logical terms with their negatives, and, further, the way in which
these combinations are affected by the addition of attributes
or other limiting words, i.e. to simplify mechanically the
solution of logical problems. These instruments are all more
or less elaborate developments of the ``logical slate,'' on
which were written in vertical columns all the combinations
of symbols or letters which could be made logically out of a
definite number of terms. These were compared with any given
premises, and those which were incompatible were crossed
off. In the abacus the combinations are inscribed each on a
single slip of wood or similar substance, which is moved by a
key; incompatible combinations can thus be mechanically removed
at will, in accordance with any given series of premises.
The principal examples of such machines are those of W. S.
Jevons (Element. Lessons in Logic, C. xxiii.), John Venn
(see his Symbolic Logic, 2nd ed., 1894, p. 135), and Allan
Marquand (see American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1885, pp.
303-7, and Johns Hopkins University Studies in Logic, 1883).
ABADDON, a Hebrew word meaning ``destruction.'' In poetry
it comes to mean ``place of destruction,'' and so the
underworld or Sheol (cf. Job xxvi. 6; Prov. xv. 11). In Rev.
ix. 11 Abaddon ((Abaddon) is used of hell personified,
the prince of the underworld. The term is here explained
as Apollyon (q.v.), the ``destroyer.', W. Baudissin
(Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklo padie) notes that Hades and
Abaddon in Rabbinic writings are employed as personal names,
just as shemayya in Dan. iv. 23, shamayim (``heaven''),
and makom (``place'') among the Rabbins, are used of God.
ABADEH, a small walled town of Persia, in the province of
Fars, situated at an elevation of 6200 ft. in a fertile
plain on the high road between Isfahan and Shiraz, 140 m.
from the former and 170 m. from the latter place. Pop.
4000. It is the chief place of the Abadeh-Iklid district,
which has 30 villages; it has telegraph and post offices,
and is famed for its carved wood-work, small boxes, trays,
sherbet spoons, &c., made of the wood of pear and box trees.
ABAE (rabai), a town in the N.E. corner of Phocis, in
Greece, famous in early times for its oracle of Apollo,
one of those consulted by Croesus (Herod. i. 46). It was
rich in treasures (Herod. viii. 33), but was sacked by the
Persians, and the temple remained in a ruined state. The
oracle was, however, still consulted, e.g. by the Thebans
before Leuctra (Paus. iv. 32. 5). The temple seems to have
been burnt again during the Sacred War, and was in a very
dilapidated state when seen by Pausanias (x. 35), though
some restoration, as well as the building of a new temple,
was undertaken by Hadrian. The sanctity of the shrine
ensured certain privileges to the people of Abac (Bull.
Corresp. Hell. vi. 171), and these were confirmed by the
Romans. The polygonal wabs of the acropolis may still be
seen in a fair state of preservation on a circular hill
standing about 500 ft. above the little plain of Exarcho;
one gateway remains, and there are also traces of town walls
below. The temple site was on a low spur of the hill, below the
town. An early terrace wall supports a precinct in which are
a stoa and some remains of temples; these were excavated by the
British School at Athens in 1894, but very little was found.
See also W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ii. p. 163i Journal
of Hellenic Studies, xvi. pp. 291-312 (V. W. Yorke). . (E. GR.)
ABAKANSK, a fortified town of Siberia, in the Russian
government of Yeniseisk, on the river Yenisei, 144 m. S.S.W.
of Krasnoyarsk, in lat. 54 deg. 20' N., long. 91 deg. 40' E. This is
considered the mildest and most salubrious place in Siberia, and
is remarkable for certain tumuli (of the Li Kitai) and statues
of men from seven to nine feet high, covered with hieroglyphics.
Peter the Great had a fort built here in 1707. Pop. 2000.
ABALONE, the Spanish name used in California for various
species of the shell-fish of the Haliotidae family, with a
richly coloured shell yielding mother-of-pearl. This sort
of Haliotis is also commonly called ``ear-shell,'' and in
Guernsey ``ormer'' (Fr. ormier, for oreille de mer).
The abalone shell is found especially at Santa Barbara and
other places on the southern Californian coast, and when
polished makes a beautiful ornament. The mollusc itself is
often eaten, and dried for consumption in China and Japan.
ABANA (or AMANAH, classical Chrysorrhoas) and PHARPAR,
the ``rivers of Damascus'' (2 Kings v. 12), now generally
identified with the Barada (i.e. ``cold'') and the A`waj
(i.e. ``crooked'') respectively, though if the reference
to Damascus be limited to the city, as in the Arabic
version of the Old Testament, Pharpar would be the modern
Taura. Both streams run from west to east across the plain of
Damascus, which owes to them much of its fertility, and lose
themselves in marshes, or lakes, as they are called, on the
borders of the great Arabian desert. John M'Gregor, who gives
an interesting description of them in his Rob Roy on the
Jordan, affirmed that as a work of hydraulic engineering,
the system and construction of the canals, by which the Abana
and Pharpar were used for irrigation, might be considered as
one of the most complete and extensive in the world. As the
Barada escapes from the mountains through a narrow gorge,
its waters spread out fan-like, in canals or ``rivers'', the
name of one of which, Nahr Banias, retains a trace of Abana.
ABANCOURT, CHARLES XAVIER JOSEPH DE FRANQUE VILLE D',
(1758-1792), French statesman, and nephew of Calonne. He was
Louis XVI.'s last minister of war (July 1792), and organized
the defence of the Tuileries for the 10th of August. Commanded
by the Legislative Assembly to send away the Swiss guards, he
refused, and was arrested for treason to the nation and sent
to Orleans to be tried. At the end of August the Assembly
ordered Abancourt and the other prisoners at Orleans to
be transferred to Paris with an escort commanded by Claude
Fournier, ``the American.'' At Versailles they learned of the
massacres at Paris, and Abancourt and his fellow-prisoners
were murdered in cold blood on the 8th of September 1792.
Fournier was unjustly charged with complicity in the crime.
ABANDONMENT (Fr. abandonnement, from abandonner, to
abandon, relinquish; abandonner was originally equivalent
to mettrea bandon, to leave to the jurisdiction, i.e. of
another, bandon being from Low Latin bandum, bannum, order,
decree, ``ban''), in law, the relinquishment of an interest,
claim, privilege or possession. Its signification varies
according to the branch of the law in which it is employed,
but the more important uses of the word are summarized below.
ABANDONMENT OF AN ACTION is the discontinuance of proceedings
commenced in the High Court of Justice either because the
plaintiff is convinced that he will not succeed in his action
or for other reasons. Previous to the Judicature Act of 1875,
considerable latitude was allowed as to the time when a suitor
might abandon his action, and yet preserve his right to bring
another action on the same suit (see NONSUIT); but since 1875
this right has been considerably curtailed, and a plaintiff who
has deilvered his reply (see PLEADING), and afterwards wishes
to abandon his action, can generally obtain leave so to do only
on condition of bringing no further proceedings in the matter.
ABANDONMENT IN MARINE INSURANCE is the surrender of the ship
or goods insured to the insurers, in the case of a constructive
total loss of the thing insured. For the requisites and
effects of abandonment in this sense See INSURANCE, MARINE.
ABANDONMENT OF WIFE AND CHILDREN is dealt with under
DESERTION, and the abandonment or exposure of a
young child under the age of two, which is an indictable
misdemeanour, is dealt with under CHILDREN, CRUELTY TO.
ABANDONMENT OF DOMICILE is the ceasing to reside permanently
in a former domicile coupled with the intention of choosing a new
domicile. The presumptions which will guide the court in deciding
whether a former domicile has been abandoned or not must be
inferred from the facts of each individual case. See DOMICILE.
ABANDONMENT OF AN EASEMENT is the relinquishment of some
accommodation or right in another's land, such as right of
way, free access of light and air, &c. See EASEMENT.
ABANDONMENT OF RAILWAYS has a legal signification in England
recognized by statute, by authority of which the Board of
Trade may, under certain circumstances, grant a warrant to a
railway authorizing the abandonment of its line or part of it.
ABANO, PIETRO D, (1250-1316), known also as PETRUS DE
APONO or APONENSIS, Italian physician and philosopher,
was born at the Italian town from which he takes his name
in 1250, or, according to others, in 1246. After studying
medicine and philosophy at Paris he settled at Padua, where
he speedily gained a great reputation as a physician, and
availed himself of it to gratify his avarice by refusing
to visit patients except for an exorbitant fee. Perhaps
this, as well as his meddling with astrology, caused him to
be charged with practising magic, the particular accusations
being that he brought back into his purse, by the aid of the
devil, all the money he paid away, and that he possessed the
philosopher's stone. He was twice brought to trial by the
Inquisition; on the first occasion he was acquitted, and he
died (1316) before the second trial was completed. He was
found guilty, however, and his body was ordered to be exhumed
and burned; but a friend had secretly removed it, and the
Inquisition had, therefore, to content itself with the public
proclamation of its sentence and the burning of Abano in
effigy. In his writings he expounds and advocates the medical
and philosophical systems of Averroes and other Arabian
writers. His best known works are the Conciliator differentiarum
quae inter philosophos et medicos versantur (Mantua, 1472;
V.enice, 1476), and De venenis eorumque remediis (1472),
of which a French translation was published at Lyons in 1593.
ABANO BAGNI, a town of Venetia, Italy, in the province of
Padua, on the E. slope of the Monti Euganei; it is 6 m. S.W.
by rail from Padua. Pop. (1901) 4556. Its hot springs and
mud baths are much resorted to, and were known to the Ronlans
as Aponi fons or Aquae Patavinae. Some remains of the
ancient baths have been discovered (S. Mandruzzato, Trattato
dei Bagni d' Abano, Padua, 1789). An oracle of Geryon lay
near, and the so-called sortes Praenestinae (C.I.L. i.,
Berlin, 1863; 1438-1454), small bronze cylinders inscribed, and
used as oracles, were perhaps found here in the 16th century.
ABARIS, a Scythian or Hyperborean, priest and prophet
of Apollo, who is said to have visited Greece about 770
B.C., or two or three centuries later. According to
the legend, he travelled throughout the country, living
without food and riding on a golden arrow, the gift of
the god; he healed the sick, foretold the future, worked
miracles, and delivered Sparta from a plague (Herod. iv. 36;
Iamblichus, De Fit. Pythag. xix. 28). Suidas credits him
with several works: Scythian oracles, the visit of Apollo to
the Hyperboreans, expiatory formulas and a prose theogony.
ABATED, an ancient technical term applied in masonry and
metal work to those portions which are sunk beneath the
surface, as in inscriptions where the ground is sunk round
the letters so as to leave the letters or ornament in relief.
ABATEMENT (derived through the French abattre, from the
Late Latin battere, to beat), a beating down or diminishing or
doing away with; a term used especially in various legal phrases.
ABATEMENT OF A NUISANCE is the remedy allowed by law to
a person or public authority injured by a public nuisance
of destroying or removing it, provided no breach of the
peace is committed in doing so. In the case of private
nuisances abatement is also allowed provided there be no
breach of the peace, and no damage be occasioned beyond
what the removal of the nuisance requires. (See NUISANCE.)
ABATEMENT OF FREEHOLD takes place where, after the death of
the person last seised, a stranger enters upon lands before
the entry of the heir or devisee, and keeps the latter out of
possession. It differs from intrusion, which is a similar
entry by a stranger on the death of a tenant for life, to
the prejudice of the reversioner, or remainder man; and from
disseisin, which is the forcible or fraudulent expulsion
of a person seised of the freehold. (See FREEHOLD.)
ABATEMENT OE DEBTS AND LEGACIES. When the equitable assets
(see ASSETS) of a deceased person are not sufficient to
satisfy fully all the creditors, their debts must abate
proportionately, and they must accept a dividend. Also, in
the case of legacies when the funds or assets out of which
they are payable are not sufficient to pay them in full, the
legacies abate in proportion, unless there is a priority given
specially to any particular legacy (see LEGACY). Annuities
are also subject to the same rule as general legacies.
ABATEMENT IN PLEADING, or plea in abatement, was the
defeating or quashing of a particular action by some matter of
fact, such as a defect in form or the personal incompetency
of the parties suing, pleaded by the defendant. It did not
involve the merits of the cause, but left the right of action
subsisting. In criminal proceedings a plea in abatement was at
one time a common practice in answer to an indictment, and was
set up for the purpose of defeating the indictment as framed,
by alleging misnomer or other misdescription of the defendant.
Its effect for this purpose was nullified by the Criminal Law
Act 1826, which required the court to amend according to the
truth, and the Criminal Procedure Act 1851, which rendered
description of the defendant unnecessary. All pleas in abatement
are now abolished (R.S.G. Order 21, r. 20). See PLEADING.
ABATEMENT IN LITIGATION. In civil proceedings, no action
abates by reason of the marriage, death or bankruptcy of any
of the parties, if the cause of action survives or continues,
and does not become defective by the assignment, creation or
devolution of any estate or title pendente lite (R.S.C. Order
17, r. 1). Criminal proceedings do not abate on the death of
the prosecutor, being in theory instituted by the crown, but
the crown itself may bring about their termination without any
decision on the merits and without the assent of the prosecutor.
ABATEMENT OF FALSE LIGHTS. By the Merchant Shipping Act
1854, the general lighthouse authority (see LIGHTHOUSE) has
power to order the extinguishment or screening of any light
which may be mistaken for a light proceeding from a lighthouse.
ABATEMENT IN COMMERCE is a deduction sometimes made at a
custom-house from the fixed duties on certain kinds of goods, on
account of damage or loss sustained in warehouses. The rate and
conditions of such deductions are regulated, in England, by the
Customs Consolidation Act 1853. (See also DRAWBACK; REBATE.)
ABATEMENT IN HERALDRY is a badge in coat-armour, indicating some
kind of degradation or dishonour. It is called also rebatement.
ABATI, or DELL' ABBATO, NICCOLO (1512--1571), a celebrated
fresco-painter of Modena, whose best works are there and at
Bologna. He accompanied Primaticcio to France, and assisted
in decorating the palace at Fontainebleau (1552--1571). His
pictures exhibit a combination of skill in drawing, grace
and natural colouring. Some of his easel pieces in oil are
in different collections; one of the finest, in the Dresden
Gallery, represents the martyrdom of St Peter and St Paul.
ABATIS,ABATTIS or ABBATTIS (a French word meaning
a heap of material thrown), a term in field fortification
for an obstacle formed of the branches of trees laid
in a row, with the tops directed towards the enemy and
interlaced or tied with wire. The abatis is used alone or
in combination with wire-entanglements and other obstacles.
ABATTOIR (from abattre, to strike down), a French word often
employed in English as an equivalent of ``slaughter-house''
(q.v.), the place where animals intended for food are killed.
ABAUZIT, FIRMIN (1679-1767), a learned Frenchman, was born of
Protestant parents at Uzes, in Languedoc. His father died when
he was but two years of age; and when, on the revocation of the
edict of Nantes in 1685, the authorities took steps to have him
educated in the Roman Catholic faith, his mother contrived his
escape. For two years his brother and he lived as fugitives in
the mountains of the Cevennes, but they at last reached Geneva,
where their mother afterwards joined them on escaping from
the imprisonment in which she was held from the time of their
flight. Abauzit at an early age acquired great proficiency in
languages, physics and theology. In 1698 he went to Holland,
and there became acquainted with Pierre Bayle, P. Jurieu and J.
Basnage. Proceeding to England, he was introduced to Sir Isaac
Newton, who found in him one of the earliest defenders of his
discoveries. Sir Isaac corrected in the second edition of
his Principia an error pointed out by Abauzit, and, when
sending him the Commercium Epistolicum, said, ``You are
well worthy to judge between Leibnitz and me.'' The reputation
of Abauzit induced William III. to request him to settle in
England, but he did not accept the king's offer, preferring
to return to Geneva. There from 1715 he rendered valuable
assistance to a society that had been formed for translating
the New Testament into French. He declined the offer of
the chair of philosophy in the university in 1723, but
accepted, in 1727, the sinecure office of librarian to the
city of his adoption. Here he died at a good old age, in
1767. Abauzit was a man of great learning and of wonderful
versatility. Whatever chanced to be discussed,it used to be
said of Abauzit, as of Professor W. Whewell of more modern
times, that he seemed to have made it a subject of particular
study. Rousseau, who was jealously sparing of his praises,
addressed to him, in his Nouvelle Heloise, a fine panegyric;
and when a stranger flatteringly told Voltaire he had come
to see a great man, the philosopher asked him if he had seen
Abauzit. Little remains of the labours of this intellectual
giant, his heirs having, it is said, destroyed the papers
that came into their possession, because their own religious
opinions were different. A few theological, archaeological
abd astronomical articles from his pen appeared in the
Journal Helvetique and elsewhere, and he contributed
several papers to Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique
(1767). He wrote a work throwing doubt on the canonical
authority of the Apocalypse, which called forth a reply
from Dr Leonard Twells. He also edited and made valuable
additions to J. Spon's Histoire de la republique de Geneve.
A collection of his writings was published at Geneva in
1770 (OEuvres de feu M. Abauzit), and another at London
in 1773 (OEuvres diverses de M. Abauzit). Some of them
were translated into English by Dr Edward Harwood (1774).
Information regarding Abauzit will be found in J.
Senebier's HIstoire Litteraire de Geneve, Harwood's
Miscellanies, and W. Orme's Bibliotheca Biblica (1824).
'ABAYE, the name of a Babylonian 'amora (q.v.),
born in the middle of the 3rd century. He died in 339.
'ABBA 'ARIKA, the name of thc Babylonian 'amora (q.v.) of
the 3rd century, who established at Sura the systematic study
of the Rabbinic traditions which, using the Mishnah as text, led
to the compilation of the Talmud. He is commonly known as Rab.
ABBADIDES, a Mahommedan dynasty which arose in Spain on the
downfall of the western caliphate. It lasted from about 1023
till 1091, but during the short period of its existence was
singularly active and typical of its time. The founder of
the house was Abd-ul-Qasim Mahommed, the cadi of Seville in
1023. He was the chief of an Arab family settled in the city
from the first days of the conquest. The Beni-abbad were not
of ancient descent, though the poets, whom they paid largely,
made an illustrious pedigree for them when they had become
powerful. They were, however, very rich. Abd-ul-Qasim gained
the confidence of the townsmen by organizing a successful
resistance to the Berber soldiers of fortune who were grasping
at the fragments of the caliphate. At first he professed to
rule only with the advice of a council formed of the nobles,
but when his power became established he dispensed with this
show of republican government, and then gave himself the
appearance of a legitimate title by protecting an impostor
who professed to be the caliph Hisham II. When Abd-ul-Qasim
died in 1042 he had created a state which, though weak in
itself, was strong as compared to the little powers about
it. He had made his family the recognized leaders of the
Mahommedans of Arab and native Spanish descent against
the Berber element, whose chief was the king of Granada.
Abbad, surnamed El Motaddid, his son and successor, is
one of the most remarkable figures in Spanish Mahommedan
history. He had a striking resemblance to the Italian princes
of the later middle ages and the early renaissance, of the
stamp of Fiiipo Maria Visconti. El Motaddid was a poet and
a lover of letters, who was also a poisoner, a drinker of
wine, a sceptic and treacherous to the utmost degree. Though
he waged war all through his reign he very rarely appeared in
the field, but directed the generals, whom he never trusted,
from his ``lair'' in the fortified palace, the Alcazar of
Seville. He killed with his own hand one of his sons who had
rebelled against him. On one occasion he trapped a number
of his enemies, the Berber chiefs of the Ronda, into visiting
him, and got rid of them by smothering them in the hot room
of a bath. It was his taste to preserve the skulls of the
enemies he had killed--those of the meaner men to be used as
flower-pots, while those of the princes were kept in special
chests. His reign until his death on the 28th of February
1069 was mainly spent in extending his power at the expense
of his smaller neighbours, and in conflicts with his chief
rival the king of Granada. These incessant wars weakened the
Mahommedans, to the great advantage of the rising power of
the Christian kings of Leon and Castile, but they gave the
kingdom of Seville a certain superiority over the other little
states. After 1063 he was assailed by Fernando El Magno of
Castile and Leon, who marched to the gates of Seville, and
forced him to pay tribute. His son, Mahommed Abd-ul-Qasim
Abenebet---who reigned by the title of El Motamid--was the
third and last of the Abbadides, He was a no less remarkable
person than his father and much more amiable. Like him he was
a poet, and a favourer of poets. El Motamid went, however,
considerably further in patronage of literature than his father,
for he chose as his favourite and prime minister the poet Ibn
Ammar. In the end the vanity and featherheadedness of Ibn
Ammar drove his master to kill him. El Motamid was even
more influenced by his favourite wife, Romaica, than by his
vizir. He had met her paddling in the Guadalquivir, purchased
her from her master, and made her his wife. The caprices
of Romaica, and the lavish extravagance of Motamid in his
efforts to please her, form the subject of many stories.
In politics he carried on the feuds of his family with the
Berbers, and in his efforts to extend his dominions could be
as faithless as his father. His wars and his extravagance
exhausted his treasury, and he oppressed his subjects by
taxes. In 1080 he brought down upon himself the vengeance of
Alphonso VI. of Castile by a typical piece of flighty oriental
barbarity. He had endeavoured to pay part of his tribute to the
Christian king with false money. The fraud was detected by a
Jew, who was one of the envoys of Alphonso. El Motamid, in
a moment of folly and rage, crucified the Jew and imprisoned
the Christian members of the mission. Alphonso retaliated
by a destructive raid. When Alphonso took Toledo in 1085,
El Motamid called in Yusef ibn Tashfin, the Almoravide (see
SPAIN, History, and ALMORAVIDES). During the six years
which preceded his deposition in 1091, El Motamid behaved
with valour on the field, but with much meanness and political
folly. He endeavoured to curry favour with Yusef by betraying
the other Mahommedan princes to him, and intrigued to secure
the alliance of Alphonso against the Almoravide. It was
probably during this period that he surrendered his beautiful
daughter Zaida to the Christian king, who made her his
concubine, and is said by some authorities to have married
her after she bore him a son, Sancho. The vacillations and
submissions of El Motamid did not save him from the fate
which overtook his fellow-princes. Their scepticism and
extortion had tired their subjects, and the mullahs gave Yusef
a ``fetva'' authorzing him to remove them in the interest of
religion. In 1091 the Almoravides stormed Seville. El
Motamid, who had fought bravely, was weak enough to order his
sons to surrender the fortresses they still held, in order
to save his own life. He died in prison in Africa in 1095.
AUTHORITIES.--Dozy, Histoire des Musulmans d'Espagne,
Leiden, 1861; and Historia Abbadidarum (Scriptorum
Arabum loci de Abbadidio), Leiden, 1846. (D. II.)
ABBADIE, ANTOINE THOMSON D', (1810-1897), and ARNAUD MICHEL
D', (1815-1893), two brothers notable for their travels in
Abyssinia during the first half of the 19th century. They
were both born in Dublin, of a French father and an Irish
mother, Antoine in 1810 and Arnaud in 1815. The parents
removed to France in 1818, and there the brothers received
a careful scientific education. In 1835 the French Academy
sent Antoine on a scientific mission to Brazil, the results
being published at a later date (1873) under the title of
Observations relatives a! la physique du globe faites au
Bresil et en Ethiopie. The younger Abbadie spent some
time in Algeria before, in 1837, the two brothers started for
Abyssinia, landing at Massawa in February 1838. They visited
various parts of Abyssinia, including the then little-known
districts of Ennarea and Kaffa, sometimes together and
sometimes separately. They met with many difficulties and
many adventures, and became involved in political intrigues,
Antoine especially exercising such influence as he possessed
in favour of France and the Roman Catholic missionaries. After
collecting much valuable information concerning the geography,
geology, archaeology and natural history of Abyssinia, the
brothers returned to France in 1848 and began to prepare their
materials for publication. The younger brother, Arnaud, paid
another visit to Abyssinia in 1853. The more distinguished
brother, Antoine, became involved in various controversies
relating both to his geographical results and his political
intrigues. He was especially attacked by C. T. Beke, who
impugned his veracity, especially with reference to the journey to
Kana. But time and the investigations of subsequent explorers
have shown that Abbadie was quite trustworthy as to his facts,
though wrong in his contention--hotly contested by Beke--that
the Blue Nile was the main stream. The topographical results
of his explorations were published in Paris in 1860-1873 in
Geodesie d'Ethiopie, full of the most valuable information and
illustrated by ten maps. Of the Geographie de l'Ethiopie
(Paris, 1890) only one volume has been published. In Un
Catalogue raisonne de manuscrits ethiopiens (Paris, 1859)
is a description of 234 Ethiopian manuscripts collected by
Antoine. He also compiled various vocabularies, including
a Dictionnaire de la langue amarinna (Paris, 1881), and
prepared an edition of the Shepherd of Hermas, with the
Latin version, in 1860. He published numerous papers dealing
with the geography of Abyssinia, Ethiopian coins and ancient
inscriptions. Under the title of Reconnaissances magnetiques
he published in 1890 an account of the magnetic observations
made by him in the course of several journeys to the Red
Sea and the Levant. The general account of the travels of
the two brothers was published by Arnaud in 1868 under the
title of Douze ans dans la Haute Ethiopie. Both brothers
received the grand medal of the Paris Geographical Society in
1850. Antoine was a knight of the Legion of Honour and a
member of the Academy of Sciences. He died in 1897, and
bequeathed an estate in the Pyrenees, yielding 40,000 francs
a year, to the Academy of Sciences, on condition of its
producing within fifty years a catalogue of half-a-million
stars. His brother Arnaud died in 1893. (J. S. K.)
ABBADIE, JAKOB (1654?-1727), Swiss Protestant divine,
was born at Nay in Bern. He studied at Sedan, Saumur and
Puylaurens, with such success that he received the degree of
doctor in theology at the age of seventeen. After spending
some years in Berlin as minister of a French Protestant church,
where he had great success as a preacher, he accompanied
Marshal Schomberg, in 1688, to England, and next year became
minister of the French church in the Savoy, London. His
strong attachment to the cause of King William appears in
his elaborate defence of the Revolution (Defense de la
nation britannique, 1692) as well as in his history of the
conspiracy of 1696 (Histoire de la grande conspiration
d'Angleterre). The king promoted him to the deanery of Killaloe
in Ireland. He died in London in 1727. Abbadie was a man
of great ability and an eloquent preacher, but is best known
by his religious treatises, several of which were translated
from the original French into other languages and had a wide
circulation throughout Europe. The most important of these are
Traite de la verite de la religion chretienne (1684); its
continuation, Traite de la divinite de Jesus-Christ
(1689); and L'Art de se connaitre soi-meme (1692).
'ABBAHU, the name of a Palestinian 'amora (q.v.)
who flourished c. 279-320. 'Abbahu encouraged the
study of Greek by Jews. He was famous as a collector of
traditional lore, and is very often cited in the Talmud.
ABBA MARI (in full, Abba Mari ben Moses benJoseph), French
rabbi, was born at Lunel, near Montpellier, towards the end of
the 13th century. He is also known as Yarhi from his birthplace
(Heb. Yerah, i.e. moon, lune), and he further took the
name Astruc, Don Astruc or En Astruc of Lunel. The descendant
of men learned in rabbinic lore, Abba Mari devoted himself
to the study of theology and philosophy, and made himself
acquainted with the writing of Moses Maimonides and Nachmanides
as well as with the Talmud. In Montpellier, where he lived
from 1303 to 1306, he was much distressed by the prevalence
of Aristotelian rationalism, which, through the medium of
the works of Maimonides, threatened the authority of the Old
Testament, obedience to the law, and the belief in miracles and
revelation. He, therefore, in a series of letters (afterwards
collected under the title Minhat Kenaot, i.e. ``Jealousy
Offering'') called upon the famous rabbi Solomon ben Adret
of Barcelona to come to the aid of orthodoxy. Ben Adret,
with the approval of other prominent Spanish rabbis, sent a
letter to the community at Montpellier proposing to forbid the
study of philosophy to those who were less than thirty years
of age, and, in spite of keen opposition from the liberal
section, a decree in this sense was issued by ben Adret in
1305. The result was a great schism among the Jews of Spain
and southern France, and a new impulse was given to the study
of philosophy by the unauthorized interference of the Spanish
rabbis. On the expulsion of the Jews from France by Philip
IV. in 1306, Abba Mari settled at Perpignan, where he
published the letters connected with the controversy. His
subsequent history is unknown. Beside the letters, he was
the author of liturgical poetry and works on civil law.
AUTHORITIES.--Edition of the Minhat Kenaot by M. L.
Bislichis (Pressburg, 1838); E. Renan, Les rabbins francais,
pp. 647 foll.; Perles, Salomo ben Abrahann ben Adereth,
pp. 15-54; Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v. ``Abba Mari.''
ABBAS I. (1813-1854), pasha of Egypt, was a son of Tusun
Pasha and grandson of Mehemet Ali, founder of the reigning
dynasty. As a young man he fought in Syria under Ibrahim Pasha
(q.v.), his real or supposed uncle. The death of Ibrahim
in November 1848 made Abbas regent of Egypt, and in August
following, on the death of Mehemet Alh--who had been deposed
in July 1848 on account of mental weakness,--Abbas succeeded
to the pashalik. He has been generally described as a mere
voluptuary, but Nubar Pasha spoke of him as a true Turkish
gentleman of the old school. He was without question a
reactionary, morose and taciturn, and spent nearly all his
time shut up in his palace. He undid, as far as lay in his
power, the works of his grandfather, good and bad. Among
other things he abolished trade monopolies, closed factories
and schools, and reduced the strength of the army to 9000
men. He was inaccessible to adventurers bent on plundering
Egypt, but at the instance of the British government
allowed the construction of a railway from Alexandria to
Cairo. In July 1854 he was murdered in Benha Palace by two
of his slaves, and was succeeded by his uncle, Said Pasha.
ABBAS II. (1874-- ), khedive of Egypt. Abbas Hilmi Pasha,
great-great-grandson of Mehemet Ali, born on the 14th of
July 1874, succeeded his father, Tewfik Pasha, as khedive
of Egypt on the 8th of January 1892. When a boy he visited
England, and he had an English tutor for some time in
Cairo. He then went to school in Lausanne, and from there
passed on to the Theresianum in Vienna. In addition to
Turkish, his mother tongue, he acquired fluency in Arabic,
and a good conversational knowledge of English, French and
German. He was still at college in Vienna when the sudden
death of his father raised him to the Khedivate; and he was
barely of age according to Turkish law, which fixes majority
at eighteen in cases of succession to the throne. For
some time he did not co-operate very cordially with Great
Britain. He was young and eager to exercise his new
power. His throne and life had not been saved for him by the
British, as was the case with his father. He was surrounded
by intriguers who were playing a game of their own, and for
some time he appeared almost disposed to be as reactionary
as his great-uncle Abbas I. But in process of time he learnt
to understand the importance of British counsels. He paid
a second visit to England in 1900, during which he frankly
acknowledged the great good the British had done in Egypt,
and declared himself ready to follow their advice and to
co-operate with the British officials administering Egyptian
affairs. The establishment of a sound system of native
justice, the great remission of taxation, the reconquest
of the Sudan, the inauguration of the stupendous irrigation
works at Assuan, the increase of cheap, sound education,
each received his approval and all the assistance he could
give. He displayed more interest in agriculture than in
statecraft, and his farm of cattle and horses at Koubah,
near Cairo, would have done credit to any agricultural
show in England; at Montaza, near Alexandria, he created
a similar establishment. He married the Princess Ikbal
Hanem and had several children. Mahommed Abdul Mouneim,
the heir-apparent, was born on the 20th of February 1899.
ABBAS I. (e. 1557-1628 or 1629), shah of Persia, called
the Great, was the son of shah Mahommed (d. 1586) . In the
midst of general anarchy in Persia, he was proclaimed ruler of
Khorasan, and obtained possession of the Persian throne in
1586. Determined to raise the fallen fortunes of his country,
he first directed his efforts against the predatory Uzbegs,
who occupied and harassed Khorasan. After a long and severe
struggle, he regained Meshed, defeated them in a great battle
near Herat in 1597, and drove them out of his dominions. In
the wars he carried on with the Turks during nearly the whole
of his reign, his successes were numerous, and he acquired,
or regained, a large extent of territory. By the victory he
gained at Bassora in 1605 he extended his empire beyond the
Euphrates; sultan Ahmed I. was forced to cede Shirvan and
Kurdistan in 1611; the united armies of the Turks and Tatars
were completely defeated near Sultanieh in 1618, and Abbas
made peace on very favourable terms; and on the Turks renewing
the war, Bagdad fell into his hands after a year's siege in
1623. In 1622 he took the island of Ormuz from the Portuguese,
by the assistance of the British, and much of its trade was
diverted to the town of Bander-Abbasi, which was named after the
shah. When he died, his dominions reached from the Tigris
to the Indus. Abbas distinguished himself, not only by his
successes in arms, and by the magnificence of his court and
of the buildings which he erected, but also by his reforms in
the administration of his kingdom. He encouraged commerce,
and, by constructing highways and building bridges, did much
to facilitate it. To foreigners, especially Christians, he
showed a spirit of tolerance; two Englishmen, Sir Anthony
and Sir Robert Shirley, or Sherley, were admitted to his
confidence. His fame is tarnished, however, by numerous deeds
of tyranny and cruelty. His own family, especially, suffered
from his fits of jealousy; his eldest son was slain, and
the eyes of his other children were put out, by his orders.
See The Three Brothers, or Travels of Sir Anthony, Sir
Robert Sherley, &c. (London, 1823); Sir C. R. Markham,
General Sketch of the History of Persia (London, 1874).
ABBASIDS, the name generally given to the caliphs of Bagdad,
the second of the two great dynasties of the Mahommedan
empire. The Abbasid caliphs officially based their claim
to the throne on their descent from Abbas (A.D. 566-652),
the eldest uncle of Mahomet, in virtue of which descent they
regarded themselves as the rightful heirs of the Prophet as
opposed to the Omayyads, the descendants of Omayya. Throughout
the second period of the Omayyads, representatives of this
family were among their most dangerous opponents, partly by
the skill with which they undermined the reputation of the
reigning princes by accusations against their orthodoxy,
their moral character and their administration in general,
and partly by their cunning manipulation of internecine
jealousies among the Arabic and non-Arabic subjects of the
empire. In the reign of Merwan II. this opposition culminated
in the rebellion of Ibrahim the Imam, the fourth in descent
from Abbas, who, supported hy the province of Khorasan, achieved
considerable successes, but was captured (A.D. 747) and died
in prison (as some hold, assassinated). The quarrel was taken
up by his brother Abdallah, known by the name of Abu'l-Abbas
as-Saffah, who after a decisive victory on the Greater Zab
(750) finally crushed the Omayyads and was proclaimed caliph.
The history of the new dynasty is marked by perpetual
strife and the development of luxury and the liberal arts,
in place of the old-fashioned austerity of thought and
manners. Mansur, the second of the house, who transferred
the seat of government to Bagdad, fought successfully against
the peoples of Asia Minor, and the reigns of Harun al-Rashid
(786--809) and Mamun (813-833) were periods of extraordinary
splendour. But the empire as a whole stagnated and then decayed
rapidly. Independent monarchs established themselves in
Africa and Khorasan (Spain had remained Omayyad throughout),
and in the north-west the Greeks successfully encroached.
The ruin of the dynasty came, however, from those Turkish
slaves who were constituted as a royal bodyguard by Moqtasim
(833-842). Their power steadily grew until Radi (934-941) was
constrained to hand over most of the royal functions to Mahommed
b. Raik. Province after province renounced the authority
of the caliphs, who were merely lay figures, and finally
Hulagu, the Mongol chief, burned Bagdad (Feb. 28th, 1258).
The Abbasids still maintained a feeble show of authority,
confined to religious matters, in Egypt under the Mamelukes,
but the dynasty finally disappeared with Motawakkil III., who
was carried away as a prisoner to Constantinople by Selim I.
See CALIPHATE (Sections B, 14 and C), where a
detailed account of the dynasty will be found.
ABBAS MIRZA (c. 1783-1833), prince of Persia, was a
younger son of the shah, Feth Ali, but on account of his
mother's royal birth was destined by his father to succeed
him. Entrusted with the government of a part of Persia, he
sought to rule it in European fashion, and employed officers
to reorganize his army. He was soon at war with Russia, and
his aid was eagerly solicited by both England and Napoleon,
anxious to checkmate one another in the East. Preferring
the friendship of France, Abbas continued the war against
Russia, but his new ally could give him very little assistance,
and in 1814 Persia was compelled to make a disadvantageous
peace. He gained some successes during a war between Turkey
and Persia which broke out in 1821, but cholera attacked his
army, and a treaty was signed in 1823. His second war with
Russia, which began in 1825, was attended with the same want of
success as the former one, and Persia was forced to cede some
territory. When peace was made in 1828 Abbas then sought
to restore order in the province of Khorasan, which was
nominally under Persian supremacy, and while engaged in the
task died at Meshed in 1833. In 1834 his eldest son, Mahommed
Mirza, succeeded Feth Ali as shah. Abbas was an intelligent
prince, possessed some literary taste, and it noteworthy
on account of the comparative simplicity of his life.
ABBAS-TUMAN, a spa in Russian Transcaucasia, government of
Tiflis, 50 m. S.W. of the Borzhom railway station and 65
m. E. of Batum, very picturesquely situated in a cauldron-shaped
valley. It has hot sulphur baths (93 1/2 deg. -118 1/2 deg.
Fahr.) and an astronomical observatory (4240 ft.).
ABBAZIA, a popular summer and winter resort of Austria, in
Istria, 56 m. S.E. of Trieste by rail. Pop. (1900) 2343. It
is situated on the Gulf of Quarnero in a sheltered position at
the foot of the Monte Maggiore (4580 ft.), and is surrounded
by beautiiul woods of laurel. The average temperature is 50 deg.
Fahr. in winter, and 77 deg. Fahr. in summer. The old abbey,
San Giacomo della Priluca, from which the place derives its
name, has been converted into a villa. Abbazia is frequented
annually by about 16,000 visitors. The whole sea-coast to
the north and south of Abbazia is rocky and picturesque,
and contains several smaller winter-resorts. The largest
of them is Lovrana (pop. 513), situated 5 m. to the south.
ABBESS (Lat. abbatissa, fem. form of abbas, abbot),
the female superior of an abbey or convent of nuns. The
mode of election, position, rights and authority of an abbess
correspond generally with those of an abbot (q.v.). The
office is elective, the choice being by the secret votes of the
sisters from their own body. The abbess is solemnly admitted
to her office by episcopal benediction, together with the
conferring of a staff and pectoral cross, and holds for life,
though liable to be deprived for misconduct. The council of
Trent fixed the qualifying age at forty, with eight years of
profession. Abbesses have a right to demand absolute obedience
of their nuns, over whom they exercise discipline, extending
even to the power of expulsion, subject, however, to the
bishop. As a female an abbess is incapable of performing the
spiritual functions of the priesthood belonging to an abbot.
She cannot ordain, confer the veil, nor excommunicate. In
England abbesses attended ecclesiastical councils, e.g. that
of Becanfield in 694, where they signed before the presbyters.
By Celtic usage abbesses presided over joint-houses of monks and
nuns. This custom accompanied Celtic monastic missions to France
and Spain, and even to Rome itself. At a later period, A.D.
1115, Robert, the founder of Fontevraud, committed the government
of the whole order, men as well as women, to a female superior.
In the German Evangelical church the title of abbess (Aebtissin)
has in some cases--e.g. Itzehoe--survived to designate the
heads of abbeys which since the Reformation have continued as
Stifte, i.e. collegiate foundations, which provide a home
and an income for unmarried ladies, generally of noble birth,
called canonesses (Kanonissinen) or more usually Stiftsdamen.
This office of abbess is of considerable social dignity, and
is sometimes filled by princesses of the reigning houses.
ABBEVILLE, a town of northern France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Somme, on the Somme, 12
m. from its mouth in the English Channel, and 28 m. N,W. of
Amiens on the Northern railway. Pop. (1901) 18,519; (1906)
18,971. It lies in a pleasant and fertile valley, and is
built partly on an island and partly on both sides of the
river, which is canalized from this point to the estuary. The
streets are narrow, and the houses are mostly picturesque old
structures, built of wood, with many quaint gables and dark
archways. The most remarkable building is the church of St
Vulfran, erected in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The
original design was not completed. The nave has only two bays
and the choir is insignificant. The facade is a magnificent
specimen of the flamboyant Gothic style, flanked by two Gothic
towers. Abbeville has several other old churches and an
hotel-de-ville, with a belfry of the 13th century. Among
the numerous old houses, that known as the Maison de Francois
Ie, which is the most remarkable, dates from the 16th century.
There is a statue of Admiral Courbet (d. 1885) in the chief
square. The public institutions include tribunals of first instance
and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, and a communal
college. Abbeville is an important industrial centre; in addition
to its old-established manufacture of cloth, hemp-spinning,
sugar-making, ship-building and locksmiths' work are carried on;
there is active commerce in grain, but the port has little trade.
Abbeville, the chief town of the district of Ponthieu, first
appears in history during the 9th century. At that time
belonging to the abbey of St Riquier, it was afterwards
governed by the counts of Ponthieu. Together with that county,
it came into the possession of the Alencon and other French
families, and afterwards into that of the house of Castillo,
from whom by marriage it fell in 1272 to Edward I., king of
England. French and English were its masters by turns till
1435 when, by the treaty of Arras, it was ceded to the duke of
Burgundy. In 1477 it was annexed by Louis XI., king of France,
and was held by two illegitimate branches of the royal family in
the 16th and 17th centuries, being in 1696 reunited to the crown.
ABBEY, EDWIN AUSTIN (1852- ), American painter, was born at
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of April 1852. He left
the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the
age of nineteen to enter the art department of the publishing
house of Harper & Brothers in New York, where, in company
with such men as Howard Pyle, Charles Stanley Reinhart, Joseph
Pennell and Alfred Parsons, he became very successful as an
illustrator. In 1878 he was sent by the Harpers to England
to gather material for illustrations of the poems of Robert
Herrick. These, published in 1882, attracted much attention,
and were followed by illustrations for Goldsmith's She
Stoops to Conquer (1887), for a volume of Old Songs
(1889), and for the comedies (and a few of the tragedies) of
Shakespeare. His water-colours and pastels were no less
successful than the earlier illustrations in pen and ink.
Abbey now became closely identified with the art life of
England, and was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters
in Water-Colours in 1883. Among his water-colours are ``The
Evil Eye'' (1877); ``The Rose in October'' (1879); ``An Old
Song'' (1886); ``The Visitors'' (1890), and ``The Jongleur''
(1892). Possibly his best known pastels are ``Beatrice,''
``Phyllis,'' and ``Two Noble Kinsmen.'' In 1890 he made his
first appearance with an oil painting, ``A May Day Morn,'' at
the Royal Academy in London. He exhibited ``Richard duke of
Gloucester and the Lady Anne'' at the Royal Academy in 1896,
and in that year was elected A.R.A., becoming a full R.A. in
1898. Apart from his other paintings, special mention must
be made of the large frescoes entitled ``The Quest of the Holy
Grail,'' in the Boston Public Library, on which he was occupied
for some years; and in 1901 he was commissioned by King Edward
VII. to paint a picture of the coronation, containing many
portraits elaborately grouped. The dramatic subjects, and the
brilliant colouring of his on pictures, gave them pronounced
individuality among the works of contemporary painters.
Abbey became a member not only of the Royal Academy, but also
of the National Academy of Design of New York, and honorary
member of the Royal Bavarian Society, the Societe Nationale
des Beaux Arts (Paris), the American Water-Colour Society,
etc. He received first class gold medals at the International
Art Exhibition of Vienna in 1898, at Philadelphia in 1898,
at the Paris Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900, and at Berlin in
1903; and was made a chevalier of the French Legion of Honour.
ABBEY (Lat. abbatia; from Syr. abba, father), a
monastery, or conventual establishment, under the government
of an ABBOT or an ABBESS. A priory only differed from
an abbey in that the superior bore the name of prior instead
of abbot. This was the case in all the English conventual
cathedrals, e.g. Canterbury, Ely, Norwich, &c., where the
archbishop or bishop occupied the abbot's place, the superior
of the monastery being termed prior. Other priories were
originally offshoots from the larger abbeys, to the abbots
of which they continued subordinate; but in later times the
actual distinction between abbeys and priories was lost.
The earliest Christian monastic communities (see MONASTICISM)
with which we are acquainted consisted of groups of cells or
huts collected about a common centre, which was usually the abode
of some anchorite celebrated for superior holiness or singular
asceticism, but without any attempt at orderly arrangement.
The formation of such communities in the East does not date
from the introduction of Christianity. The example had been
already set by the Essenes in Judea and the Therapeutae in Egypt.
In the earliest age of Christian monasticism the ascetics
were accustomed to live singly, independent of one another,
at no great distance from some village, supporting themselves
by the labour of their own hands, and distributing the
surplus after the supply of their own scanty wants to the
poor. Increasing religious fervour, aided by persecution,
drove them farther and farther away from the abodes of men
into mountain solitudes or lonely deserts. The deserts
of Egypt swarmed with the ``cells'' or huts of these
anchorites. Anthony, who had retired to the Egyptian Thebaid
during the persecution of Maximin, A.D. 312, was the most
celebrated among them for his austerities, his sanctity, and
his power as an exorcist. His fame collected round him a
host of followers, emulous of his sanctity. The deeper he
withdrew into the wilderness, the more numerous his disciples
became. They refused to be separated from him, and built
their ceils round that of their spiritual father. Thus arose
the first monastic community, consisting of anchorites living
each in his own little dwelling, united together under one
superior. Anthony, as Neander remarks (Church History,
vol. iii. p. 316, Clark's trans.), ``without any conscious
design of his own, had become the founder of a new mode
of living in common, Coenobitism.'' By degrees order was
introduced in the groups of huts. They were arranged in
lines like the tents in an encampment, or the houses in a
street. From this arrangement these lines of single cells
came to be known as Laurae, Laurai, "streets" or "lanes."
The real founder of coenobian koinos, common, and bios,
life) monasteries in the modern sense was Pachomius, an Egyptian
of the beginning of the 4th century. The first community
established by him was at Tabennae, an island of the Nile in Upper
Egypt. Eight others were founded in his lifetime, numbering 3000
monks. Within fifty years from his death his societies could
reckon 50,000 members. These coenobia resembled vilIages,
peopled by a hard-working religious community, ail of one
sex. The buildings were detached, small and of the humblest
character. Each cell or hut, according to Sozomen (H.R. iii.
14), contained three monks. They took their chief meal in a
common refectory at 3 P.M., up to which hour they usually
fasted. They ate in silence, with hoods so drawn over their
faces that they could see nothing but what was on the table
before them. The monks spent all the time, not devoted to
religious services or study, in manual labour. Palladius,
who visited the Egyptian monasteries about the close of the
4th century, found among the 300 members of the coenobium of
Panopolis, under the Pachomian rule, 15 tailors, 7 smiths, 4
carpenters, 12 cameldrivers and 15 tanners. Each separate
community had its own oeconomus or steward, who was subject
to a chief oeconomus stationed at the head establishment.
All the produce of the monks' labour was committed to him, and
by him shipped to Alexandria. The money raised by the sale
was expended in the purchase of stores for the support of the
communities, and what was over was devoted to charity. Twice
in the year the superiors of the several coenobia met at
the chief monastery, under the presidency of an archimandrite
(``the chief of the fold,'' from miandra, a fold), and at
the last meeting gave in reports of their administration for the
year. The coenobia of Syria belonged to the Pachomian
institution. We learn many details concerning those in the
vicinity of Antioch from Chrysostom's writings. The monks
lived in separate huts, kalbbia, forming a religious hamlet
on the mountain side. They were subject to an abbot, and
observed a common rule. (They had no refectory, but ate their
common meal, of bread and water only, when the day's labour
was over, reclining on strewn grass, sometimes out of doors,)
Four times in the day they joined in prayers and psalms.
Santa Laura, Mount Athos.
The necessity for defence from hostile attacks, economy of
space and convenience of access from one part of the community
to another, by degrees dictated a more compact and orderly
arrangement of the buildings of a monastic coenobium. Large
piles of building were erected, with strong outside walls,
capable of resisting the assaults of an enemy, within which
all the necessary edifices were ranged round one or more
open courts, usually surrounded with cloisters. The usual
Eastern arrangement is exemplified in the plan of the convent
of Santa Laura, Mount Athos (Laura, the designation of a
monastery generally, being converted into a female saint).
This monastery, like the oriental monasteries generally, is
surrounded by a strong and lofty blank stone wall, enclosing
an area of between 3 and 4 acres. The longer side extends to
a length of about 500 feet. There is only one main entrance,
on the north side (A), defended by three separate iron
doors. Near the entrance is a large tower (M), a constant
feature in the monasteries of the Levant. There is a small
postern gate at L. The enceinte comprises two large open
courts, surrounded with buildings connected with cloister
galleries of wood or stone. The outer court, which is much the
larger, contains the granaries and storehouses (K), and the
kitchen (H) and other offices connected with the refectory
(G). Immediately adjacent to the gateway is a two-storied
guest-house, opening from a cloister (C). The inner court is
surrounded by a cloister (EE), from which open the monks' cells
(II). In the centre of this court stands the catholicon
or conventual church, a square building with an apse of
the cruciform domical Byzantine type, approached by a domed
narthex. In front of the church stands a marble fountain
(F), covered by a dome supported on columns. Opening from
the western side of the cloister, but actually standing in
the outer court, is the refectory (G), a large cruciform
building, about 100 feet each way, decorated within with
frescoes of saints. At the upper end is a semicircular
recess, recalling the triclinium of the Lateran Palace
A. Gateway.
B. Chapels.
C. Guest-house.
D. Church.
E. Cloister.
F. Fountain.
G. Refectory.
H. Kitchen.
I. Cells.
K. Storehouses.
L. Postern gate.
M. Tower.
FIG. 1.---Monastery of Santa Laura, Mount Athos (Lenoir).
at Rome, in which is placed the seat of the hegumenos or
abbot. This apartment is chiefly used as a hall of meeting, the
oriental monks usually taking their meals in their separate cells.
Vatopede
St Laura is exceeded in magnitude by the convent of Vatopede
also on Mount Athos. This enormous establishment covers at
least 4 acres of ground, and contains so many separate buildings
within its massive walls that it resembles a fortified town. It
lodges above 300 monks, and the establishment of the hegumenos is
described as resembling the court of a petty sovereign prince.
The immense refectory, of the same cruciform shape as that of
St Laura, will accommodate 500 guests at its 24 marble tables.
The annexed plan of a Coptic monastery, from Lenoir,
shows a church of three aisles, with cellular apses, and
two ranges of cells on either side of an oblong gallery.
Benedictine.
Monasticism in the West owes its extension and development
to Benedict of Nursia (born A.D. 480). His rule was
diffused with miraculous rapidity from the parent foundation
on Monte Cassino through the whole of western Europe, and
every country witnessed the erection of monasteries far
exceeding anything that had yet been seen in spaciousness and
splendour. Few great towns in Italy were without their
Benedictine convent, and they quickly rose in all the great
centres of population in England, France and Spain. The number
of these monasteries founded between A.D. 520 and 700 is
amazing. Before the Council of Constance, A.D. 1415, no
fewer than 15,070 abbeys had been established of this order
alone. The buildings of a Benedictine abbey were uniformly
arranged ofter one plan, modified where necessary (as at
Durham and Worcester, where the monasteries stand close to the
steep bank of a river) to accommodate the arrangement to local
circumstances. We have no existing examples of the earlier
monasteries of the Benedictine order. They have all yielded
to the ravages of time and the violence of man. But we
have fortunately preserved to us an elaborate plan of the
great Swiss monastery of St Gall, erected about A.D. 820,
which puts us in possession of the whole arrangements of a
monastery of the first class towards the early part of the 9th
century. This curious and interesting plan has been made
the subject of a memoir both by Keller (Zurich, 1844) and by
Professor Robert Willis (Arch. Journal, 1848, vol. v. pp.
86-117. To the latter we are indebted for the substance of
the following description, as well as for the plan, reduced
from his elucidated transcript of the original preserved
FIG. 2.---Plan of Coptic Monastery.
A. Narthex. B. Church.
C. Corridor, with cells on each side.
D. Staircase.
in the archives of the convent. The general apperance
of the convent is that of a town of isolated houses with
streets running between them. It is evidently planned in
compliance with the Benedictine rule, which enjoined that,
if possible, the monastery should contain within itself
every necessary of life, as well as the buildings more
intimately connected with the religious and social life of its
inmates. It should comprise a mill, a bakehouse, stables
and cow-houses, together with accommodation for carrying
on all necessary mechanical arts within the walls, so as to
obviate the necessity of the monks going outside its limits.
The general distribution of the buildings may be thus
described:-The church, with its cloister to the south, occupies
the centre of a quadrangular area, about 430 feet square. The
buildings, as in all great monasteries, are distributed into
groups. The church forms the nucleus, as the centre of the
religious life of the community. In closest connexion with
the church is the group of buildings appropriated to the
monastic line and its daily requirements---the refectory for
eating, the dormitory for sleeping, the common room for social
intercourse, the chapter-house for religious and disciplinary
conference. These essential elements of monastic life
are ranged about a cloister court, surrounded by a covered
arcade, affording communication sheltered ftom the elements
between the various buildings. The infirmary for sick monks,
with the physician's house and physic garden, lies to the
east. In the same group with the infirmary is the school for
the novices. The outer school, with its headmaster's house
against the opposite wall of the church, stands outside the
convent enclosure, in close proximity to the abbot's house,
that he might have a constant eye over them. The buildings
devoted to hospitality are divided into three groups,--one
for the reception of distinguished guests, another for monks
visiting the monastery, a third for poor travellers and
pilgrims. The first and third are placed to the right and
left of the common entrance of the monastery,---the hospitium
for distinguished guests being placed on the north side of the
church, not far from the abbot's house; that for the poor
on the south side next to the farm buildings. The monks are
lodged in a guest-house built against the north wall of the
church. The group of buildings connected with the material
wants of the establishment is placed to the south and west
of the church, and is distinctly separated from the monastic
buildings. The kitchen, buttery and offices are reached by a
passage from the west end of the refectory, and are connected
with the bakehouse and brewhouse, which are placed still farther
away. The whole of the southern and western sides is devoted to
workshops, stables and farm-buildings. The buildings, with some
exceptions, seem to have been of one story only, and all but
the church were probably erected of wood. The whole includes
thirty-three separate blocks. The church (D) is cruciform,
with a nave of nine bays, and a semicircular apse at either
extremity. That to the west is surrounded by a semicircular
colonnade, leaving an open ``paradise'' (E) between it and
the wall of the church. The whole area is divided by screens
into various chapels. The high altar (A) stands immediately
to the east of the transept, or ritual choir; the altar
of St Paul (B) in the eastern, and that of St Peter (C) in
the western apse. A cylindrical campanile stands detached
from the church on either side of the western apse (FF).
The ``cloister court', (G) on the south side of the nave of the
FIG. 3.--Ground-plan of St
CHURCH. U. House for blood-letting.
A. High altar. V. School.
B. Altar of St Paul. W. Schoolmaster's lodgings.
C. Altar of St Peter. X1X1. Guest-house for those
D. Nave. of superior rank
E. Paradise. X2X2. Guest-house for the poor.
FF. Towers. Y. Guest-chamber for strange monks.
MONASTIC BUILDINGS
G. Cloister. MENIAL DEPARTMENT.
H. Calefactory, with Z. Factory.
dormitory over. a. Threshing-floor
I. Necessary. b. Workshops.
J. Abbot's house. c, c. Mills.
K. Refectory. d. Kiln.
L. Kitchen. e. Stables.
M. Bakehouse and brewhouse. f Cow-sheds.
N. Cellar. g. Goat-sheds.
O. Parlour. (over. h. Pig-sties. i. Sheep-folds.
P1. Scriptorium with library k, k, k. Servants' and workmen's
P2. Sacristy and vestry. sleeping-chambers.
Q. House of Novices--1.chapel; l. Gardener's house
2. refectory; 3. calefactory; m,m. Hen and duck house.
4. dormitory; 5. master's room n. Poultry-keeper's house.
6. chambers. o. Garden.
R. Infirmary--1--6 as above in q. Bakehouse for sacramental
the house of novices.
S. Doctor's house. s, s, s. Kitchens.
T. Physic garden. t, t, t. Baths.
church has on its east side the ``pisalis'' or ``calefactory',
(H), the common sitting-room of the brethren, warmed by
flues beneath the floor. On this side in later monasteries
we invariably find the chapterhouse, the absence of
which in this plan is somewhat surprising. It appears,
however, from the inscriptions on the plan itself, that the
north walk of the cloisters served for the purposes of a
chapter-house, and was fitted up with benches on the long
sides. Above the calefactory is the ``dormitory'' opening
into the south transept of the church, to enable the monks
to attend the nocturnal services with readiness. A passage
at the other end leads to the ``necessarium'' (I), a portion
of the monastic buildings always planned with extreme
care. The southern side is occupied by the ``refectory''
(K), from the west end of which by a vestibule the kitchen
(L) is reached. This is separated from the main buildings
of the monastery, and is connected by a long passage with
a building containing the bake house and brewhouse (M), and
the sleeping-rooms of the servants. The upper story of the
refectory is the ``vestiarium,'' where the ordinary clothes of
the brethren were kept. On the western side of the cloister
is another two story building (N). The cellar is below,
and the larder and store-room above. Between this building
and the church, opening by one door into the cloisters, and
by another to the outer part of the monastery area, is the
``parlour'' for interviews with visitors from the external
world (O). On the eastern side of the north transept is the
``scriptorium'' or writing-room (P1), with the library above.
To the east of the church stands a group of buildings comprising
two miniature conventual establishments, each complete in
itself. Each has a covered cloister surrounded by the usual
buildings, i.e. refectory, dormitory, &c., and a church or
chapel on one side, placed back to back. A detached building
belonging to each contains a bath and a kitchen. One of these
diminutive convents is appropriated to the ``oblati'' or novices
(Q), the other to the sick monks as an ``imfirmary'' (R).
The ``residence of the physicians'' (S) stands contiguous to the
infirmary, and the physic garden (T) at the north-east corner of
the monastery. Besides other rooms, it contains a drug store,
and a chamber for those who are dangerously ill. The ``house
for bloodletting and purging'' adjoins it on the west (U).
The ``outer school,'' to the north of the convent area, contains
a large schoolroom divided across the middle by a screen or
partition, and surrounded by fourteen little rooms, termed
the dwellings of the scholars. The head-master's house (W)
is opposite, built against the side wall of the church. The
two ``hospitia'' or `' guest-houses'' for the entertainment
of strangers of different degrees (X1 X2) comprise a large
common chamber or refectory in the centre, surrounded by
sleeping-apartments. Each is provided with its own brewhouse
and bakehouse, and that for travellers of a superior order has
a kitchen and storeroom, with bedrooms for their servants and
stables for their horses. There is also an ``hospitium'' for
strange monks, abutting on the north wall of the church (Y).
Beyond the cloister, at the extreme verge of the convent
area to the south, stands the `factory'' (Z), containing
workshops for shoemakers, saddlers (or shoemakers, sellarii),
cutlers and grinders, trencher-makers, tanners, curriers,
fullers, smiths and goldsmiths, with their dwellings in the
rear. On this side we also find the farmbuildings, the large
granary and threshing-floor (a), mills (c), malthouse
(d). Facing the west are the stables (e), ox-sheds
(f), goatstables (gl, piggeries (h), sheep-folds (i),
together with the servants' and labourers' quarters (k).
At the south-east corner we find the hen and duck house, and
poultry-yard (m), and the dwelling of the keeper (n).
Hard by is the kitchen garden (o), the beds bearing the
names of the vegetables growing in them, onions, garlic,
celery, lettuces, poppy, carrots, cabbages, &c., eighteen in
all. In the same way the physic garden presents the names
of the medicinal herbs, and the cemetery (p) those of
the trees, apple, pear, plum, quince, &c., planted there.
Canterbury Cathedral.
A curious bird's-eye view of Canterbury Cathedral and its
annexed conventual buildings, taken about 1165, is preserved
in the Great Psalter in the library of Trinity College,
Cambridge. As elucidated by Professor Willis,1 it exhibits
the plan of a great Benedictine monastery in the 12th century,
and enables us to compare it with that of the 9th as seen at St
Gall. We see in both the same general principles of arrangement,
which indeed belong to all Benedictine monasteries, enabling
us to determine with precision the disposition of the various
buildings, when little more than fragments of the walls
exist. From some local reasons, however, the cloister and
monastic buildings are placed on the north, instead, as is far
more commonly the case, on the south of the church. There is
also a separate chapter-house, which is wanting at St Gall.
The buildings at Canterbury, as at St Gall, form separate
groups. The church forms the nucleus. In immediate contact
with this, on the north side, lie the cloister and the
group of buildings devoted to the monastic life. Outside of
these, to the west and east, are the ``halls and chambers
devoted to the exercise of hospitality, with which every
monastery was provided, for the purpose of receiving as
guests persons who visited it, whether clergy or laity,
travellers, pilgrims or paupers.'' To the north a large
open court divides the monastic from the menial buildings,
intentionally placed as remote as possible from the conventual
buildings proper, the stables, granaries, barn, bakehouse,
brewhouse, laundries, &c., inhabited by the lay servants of the
establishment. At the greatest possible distance from the
church, beyond the precinct of the convent, is the eleemosynary
department. The almonry for the relief of the poor,
with a great hall annexed, forms the paupers' hospitium.
The most important group of buildings is naturally that devoted
to monastic life. This includes two Cloisters, the great
cloister surrounded by the buildings essentially connected with
the daily life of the monks,---the church to the south, the
refectory or frater-house here as always on the side opposite
to the church, and farthest removed from it, that no sound or
smell of eating might penetrate its sacred precincts, to the
east the dormitory, raised on a vaulted undercroft, and the
chapter-house adjacent, and the lodgings of the cellarer to the
west. To this officer was committed the provision of the
monks' daily food, as well as that of the guests. He was,
therefore, appropriately lodged in the immediate vicinity of
the refectory and kitchen, and close to the guest-hall. A
passage under the dormitory leads eastwards to the smaller
or infirmary cloister, appropriated to the sick and infirm
monks. Eastward of this cloister extend the hall and chapel of
the infirmary, resembling in form and arrangement the nave and
chancel of an aisled church. Beneath the dormitory, looking
out into the green court or herbarium, lies the ``pisalis''
or ``calefactory,'' the common room of the monks. At its
north-east corner access was given from the dormitory to the
necessarium, a portentous edifice in the form of a Norman
hall, 145 ft. long by 25 broad, containing fifty-five seats. It
was, in common with all such offices in ancient monasteries,
constructed with the most careful regard to cleanliness and
health, a stream of water running through it from end to
end. A second smaller dormitory runs from east to west for
the accommodation of the conventual officers, who were bound
to sleep in the dormitory. Close to the refectory, but outside
the cloisters, are the domestic offices connected with it:
to the north, the kitchen, 47 ft. square, surmounted by a
lofty pyramidal roof, and the kitchen court; to the west, the
butteries, pantries, &c. The infirmary had a small kitchen of its
own. Opposite the refectory door in the cloister are two
lavatories, an invariable adjunct to a monastic dining-hall,
at which the monks washed before and after taking food.
The buildings devoted to hospitality were divided into three
groups. The prior's group ``entered at the south-east angle
of the green court, placed near the most sacred part of the
cathedral, as befitting the distinguished ecclesiastics or
nobility who were assigned to him.'' The cellarer's buildings
were near the west end of the nave, in which ordinary visitors
of the middle class were hospitably entertained. The inferior
pilgrims and paupers were relegated to the north hall or almonry,
just within the gate, as far as possible from the other two.
Westminster Abbey.
Westminster Abbey is another example of a great Benedictine
abbey, identical in its general arrangements, so far as they
can be traced, with those described above. The cloister and
, monastic buildings lie to the south side of the church.
Parallel to the nave, on the south side of the cloister,
was the refectory, with its lavatory at the door. On the
eastern side we find the remains of the dormitory, raised
on a vaulted substructure and communicating with the south
transept. The chapter-house opens out of the same alley of the
cloister. The small cloister lles to the south-east of
the larger cloister, and still farther to the east we have
the remains of the infirmary with the table hall, the
refectory of those who were able to leave their chambers. The
abbot's house formed a small courtyard at the west entrance,
close to the inner gateway. Considerable portions of this
remain, including the abbot's parlour. celebrated as ``the
Jerusalem Chamber,'' his hall, now used for the Westminster
King's Scholars, and the kitchen and butteries beyond.
York.
St Mary's Abbey, York, of which the ground-plan is annexed,
exhibits the usual Benedictine arrangements. The precincts
are surrounded by a strong fortified wall on three sides,
the river Ouse being sufficient protection on the fourth
side. The entrance was by a strong gateway (U) to the
north. Close to the entrance was a chapel, where is now
the church of St Olaf (W), in which the new-comers paid
their devotions immediately on their arrival. Near the
gate to the south was the guest-hall or hospitium (T).
The buildings are completely ruined, but enough remains to
enable us to identify the grand cruciform church (A), the
cloister-court with the chapterhouse (B), the refectory (I),
the kitchen-court with its offices (K, O, O) and the other
principal apartments. The infirmary has perished completely.
Some Benedictine houses display exceptional arrangements,
dependent upon local circumstances, e.g. the dormitory of
Worcester runs from east to west, from the west walk of the
cloister, and that of Durham is built over the west, instead of
FIG. 4
St Mary's Abbey, York (Benedictine).--Churton's Monnastic Ruins.
A. Church. O. Offices.
B. Chapter-house. P. Cellars.
C. Vestibule to ditto. Q. Uncertain.
E. Library or scriptorium. R. Passage to abbot's house.
F. Calefactory. S. Passage to common house.
G. Necessary. T. Hospitium.
H. Parlour. U. Great gate.
I. Refectory. V. Porter's lodge.
K. Great kitchen and court. W. Church of St Olaf.
L. Cellarer's office. X. Tower.
M. Cellars. Y. Entrance from Bootham.
N. Passage to cloister.
as usual, over the east walk; but, as a general rule, the arrangements
deduced from the examples described may be regarded as invariable.
The history of monasticism is one of alternate periods of
decay and revival. With growth in popular esteem came increase
in material wealth, leading to luxury and worldliness. The
first religious ardour cooled, the strictness of the rule was
relaxed, until by the 10th century the decay of discipline
was so complete in France that the monks are said to have
been frequently unacquainted with the rule of St Benedict,
and even ignorant that they were bound by any rule at
all. The reformation of abuses generally took the form of
the establishment of new monastic orders, with new and more
stringent rules, requiring a modification of the architectural
arrangements. One of the earliest of these reformed orders
was the Cluniac. This order took its name from,the little
village of Cluny, 12 miles N.W. of Macon, near which, about
A.D. 909, a reformed Benedictine abbey was founded by William,
duke of Aquitaine and count of Auvergne, under Berno, abbot of
Beaume. He was succeeded by Odo, who is often regarded as
the founder of the order. The fame of Cluny spread far and
wide. Its rigid rule was adopted by a vast number of the
old Benedictine abbeys, who placed themselves in affiliation
to the mother society, while new foundations sprang up in
large numbers, all owing allegiance to the ``archabbot,''
established at Cluny. By the end of the 12th century the
number of monasteries affiliated to Cluny in the various
countries of western Europe amounted to 2000. The monastic
establishment of Cluny was one of the most extensive
and magnificent in France. We may form some idea of its
enormous dimensions from the fact recorded, that when, A.D.
1245, Pope Innocent IV., accompanied by twelve cardinals,
FIG. 5--Abbey of Cluny, from
A. Gateway. F. Tomb of St Hugh. M. Bakehouse.
B. Narthex. G. Nave. N. Abbey buildings.
C. Choir. H. Cloister. O. Garden.
D. High-altar. K. Abbot's house. P. Refectory.
E. Retro-altar. L. Guest-house.
a patriarch, three archbishops, the two generals of the
Carthusians and Cistercians, the king (St Louis), and three
of his sons, the queen mother, Baldwin, count of Flanders
and emperor of Constantinople, the duke of Burgundy, and
six lords, visited the abbey, the whole party, with their
attendants, were lodged withn the monastery without disarranging
the monks, 400 in number. Nearly the whole of the abbey
buildings, including the magnificent church, were swept away
at the close of the 18th century. When the annexed ground-plan
was taken, shortly before its destruction, nearly all the
monastery, with the exception of the church, had been rebuilt.
The church, the ground-plan of which bears a remarkable
resemblance to that of Lincoln Cathedral, was of vast
dimensions. It was 656 ft. high. The nave (G) had double
vaulted aisles on either side. Like Lincoln, it had an
eastern as well as a western transept, each furnished with
apsidal chapels to the east. The western transept was 213
ft. long, and the eastern 123 ft. The choir terminated in
a semicircular apse (F), surrounded by five chapels, also
semicircular. The western entrance was approached by an
ante-church, or narthex (B), itself an aisled church of
no mean dimensions, flanked by two towers, rising from a
stately flight of steps bearing a large stone cross. To the
south of the church lay the cloister-court (H), of immense
size, placed much farther to the west than is usually the
case. On the south side of the cloister stood the refectory
(P), an immense building, 100 ft. long and 60 ft. wide,
accommodating six longitudinal and three transverse rows of
tables. It was adorned with the portraits of the chief
benefactors of the abbey, and with Scriptural subjects. The
end wall displayed the Last Judgment. We are unhappily unable
to identify any other of the principal buildings (N). The
abbot's residence (K), still partly standing, adjoined the
entrance-gate. The guest-house (L) was close by. The bakehouse
(M), also remaining, is a detached building of immense size.
English Cluniac
The first English house of the Cluniac order was that of
Lewes, founded by the earl of Warren, c. A.D. 1077. Of
this only a few fragments of the domestic buildings exist.
The best preserved Cluniac houses in England are Castle Acre,
Norfolk, and Wenlock, Shropshire. Ground-plans of both are
given in Britton's Architectural Antiquities. They show
several departures from the Benedictine arrangement. In
each the prior's house is remarkably perfect. All Cluniac
houses in England were French colonies, governed by priors
of that nation. They did not secure their independence nor
become ``abbeys'' till the reign of Henry VI. The Cluniac
revival, with all its brilliancy, was but short-lived.
The celebrity of this, as of other orders, worked its moral
ruin. With their growth in wealth and dignity the Cluniac
foundations became as worldly in life and as relaxed in
discipline as their predecessors, and a fresh reform was needed.
Cistercian
The next great monastic revival, the Cistercian, arising in
the last years of the 11th century, had a wider diffusion,
and a longer and more honourable existence. Owing its real
origin, as a distinct foundation of reformed Benedictines, in
the year 1098, to Stephen Harding (a native of Dorsetshire,
educated in the monastery of Sherborne), and deriving its
name from Citeaux (Cistercium), a desolate and almost
inaccessible forest solitude, on the borders of Champagne and
Burgundy, the rapid growth and wide celebrity of the order
are undoubtedly to be attributed to the enthusiastic piety
of St Bernard, abbot of the first of the monastic colonies,
subsequently sent forth in such quick succession by the
first Cistercian houses, the far-famed abbey of Clairvaux
(de Clara Valle), A.D. 1116. The rigid self-abnegation,
which was the ruling principle of this reformed congregation
of the Benedictine order, extended itself to the churches and
other buildings erected by them. The characteristic of the
Cistercian abbeys was the extremest simplicity and a studied
plainness. Only one tower--a central one --was permitted, and
that was to be very low. Unnecessary pinnacles and turrets
were prohibited. The triforium was omitted. The windows
were to be plain and undivided, and it was forbidden to
decorate them with stained glass. All needless ornament was
proscribed. The crosses must be of wood; the candlesticks of
iron. The renunciation of the world was to be evidenced
in all that met the eye. The same spirit manifested itself
in the choice of the sites of their monasteries. The more
dismal, the more savage, the more hopeless a spot appeared,
the more did it please their rigid mood. But they came
not merely as ascetics, but as improvers. The Cistercian
monasteries are, as a rule, found placed in deep well-watered
valleys. They always stand on the border of a stream; not
rarely, as at Fountains, the buildings extend over it. These
valleys, now so rich and productive, wore a very different
aspect when the brethren first chose them as the place of their
retirement. Wide swamps, deep morasses, tangled thickets,
wild impassable forests, were their prevailing features. The
``bright valley,'' Clara Vallis of St Bernard, was known
as the ``valley of Wormwood,'' infamous as a den of robbers.
``It was a savage dreary solitude, so utterly barren that
at first Bernard and his companions were reduced to live on
beech leaves.''-(Milman's Lat. Christ. vol. iii. p. 335.)
Clairvaux
All Cistercian monasteries, unless the circumstances of the
locality forbade it, were arranged according to one plan. The
general arrangement and distribution of the various
buildings, which went to make up one of these vast
establishments, may be gathered from that of St Bernard's own
abbey of Clairvaux, which is here given. It will be observed
that the abbey precincts are surrounded by a strong wall,
furnished at intervals with watch-towers and other defensive
works. The wall is nearly encircled by a stream of water,
artificially diverted from the small rivulets which flow
through the precincts, furnishing the establishment with
an abundant supply in every part, for the litigation of
the gardens and orchards, the sanitary requirements of the
brotherhood and for the use of the offices and workshops.
The precincts are divided across the centre by a wall,
running from N. to S., into an outer and inner ward,--the
former containing the menial, the latter the monastic
buildings. The precincts are entered by a gateway (P), at
the extreme western extremity, giving admission to the lower
ward. Here the barns, granaries, stables, shambles, workshops
and workmen,s lodgings were placed, without any regard to
symmetry, convenience being the only consideration. Advancing
eastwards, we have before us the wall separating the
FIG. 6.--.Clairvaux, No. 1 (Cistercian), General
A. Cloisters. I. Wine-press and O. Public presse.
B. Ovens, and corn hay-chamber P. Gateway.
oil-mills K. Parlour R. Remains of old monastery
C. St Bernard's cell. L. Workshops and.
D. Chief entrance. workmen's lodgings S. Oratory.
E. Tanks for fish. V. Tile-works.
F. Guest-house. M. Slaughter-house. X. Tile-kiln.
G. Abbot's house. N. Barns and stables. V. Water-courses.
H. Stables.
outer and inner ward, and the gatehouse (D) affording communication
between the two. On passing through the gateway, the outer
court of the inner ward was entered, with the western facade
of the monastic church in front. Immediately on the right
of entrance was the abbot's house (G), in close proximity to
the guest-house (F). On the other side of the court were the
stables, for the accommodation of the horses of the guests
and their attendants (H). The church occupied a central
position. To the south was the great cloister (A),
surrounded by the chief monastic buildings, and farther to
the east the smaller cloister, opening out of which were
the infirmary, novices' lodgings and quarters for the aged
monks. Still farther to the east, divided from the monastic
buildings by a wall, were the vegetable gardens and orchards,
and tank for fish. The large fish-ponds, an indispensable
adjunct to any ecclesiastical foundation, on the formation
of which the monks lavished extreme care and pains, and
which often remain as almost the only visible traces of these
vast establishments, were placed outside the abbey walls.
Plan No. 2 furninshes the ichnography of the distinctly
monastic buildings on a larger scale. The usually unvarying
arrangement of the Cistercian houses allows us to accept
this as a type of the monasteries of this order. The church
(A) is the chief feature. It consists of a vast nave of
eleven bays, entered by a narthex, with a transept and short
apsidal choir. (It may be remarked that the eastern limb in
all unaltered Cistercian churches is remarkably short, and
usually square.) To the east of each limb of the transept
are two square chapels, divided according to Cistercian
rule by solid walls. Nine radiating chapels, similarly
divided, surround the apse. The stalls of the monks,
forming the ritual choir, occupy the four eastern bays of the
nave. There was a second range of stalls in the extreme
western bays of the nave for the fratres conversi, or lay
brothers. To the south of the church, so as to secure as
much sun as possible, the cloister was invariably placed,
except when local reasons forbade it. Round the cloister
(B) were ranged the buildings connected with the monks' daily
life. The chapter-house (C) always opened out of the east
walk of the cloister in a line with the south transept.
FIG. 7.--Clairvaux, No. 2 (Cistercian), Monastic
A. Church. L. Lodgings of novices. S. Cellars and storehouses.
B. Cloister.
C. Chapter-house. M. Old guest-house. T. Water-course.
D. Monks' parlour. N. Old abbot's lodgings. U. Saw-mill and oil mill
E. Calefactory.
F. Kitchen and court. O. Cloister of V. Currier's shop.
G. Refectory. supernumerary monks.
H. Cemetery. X. Sacristy.
I. Little cloister. P. Abbot's hall. Y. Little library.
K. Infirmary. Q. Cell of St Bernard. Z. Undercroft of dormitory.
R. Stables.
In Cistercian houses this was quadrangular, and was divided
by pillars and arches into two or three aisles. Between
it and the transept we find the sacristy (X), and a small
book-room (Y) armariolum, where the brothers deposited the
volumes borrowed from the library. On the other side of the
chapter-house, to the south, is a passage (D) communicating
with the courts and buildings beyond. This was sometimes
known as the parlour, colloquii locus, the monks having the
privilege of conversation here. Here also, when iscipline
became relaxed, traders, who had the liberty of admission,
were allowed to display their goods. Beyond this we often
find the calefactorium or day-room--an apartment warmed
by flues beneath the pavement, where the brethren, half
frozen during the night offices, betook themselves after
the conclusion of lauds, to gain a little warmth, grease
their sandals and get themselves ready for the work of the
day. In the plan before us this apartment (E) opens from the
south cloister walk, adjoining the refectory. The place usually
assigned to it is occupied by the vaulted substructure of the
dormitory (Z). The dormitory, as a rule, was placed on the
east side of the cloister, running over the calethetory and
chapter-house, and joined the south transept, where a flight
of steps admitted the brethren into the church for nocturnal
services. Opening out of the dormitory was always the
necessarium, planned with the greatest regard to health and
cleanliness, a water-course invariably running from end to
end. The refectory opens out of the south cloister at G.
The position of the refectory is usually a marked point of
difference between Benedictine and Cistercian abbeys. In the
former, as at Canterbury, the refectory ran east and west
parallel to the nave of the church, on the side of the cloister
farthest removed from it. In the Cistercian monasturies, to
keep the noise and smell of dinner still farther away from
the sacred building, the refectory was built north and south,
at right angles to the axis of the church. It was often
divided, sometimes into two, sometimes, as here, into three
aisles. Outside the refectory door, in the cloister,
was the lavatory, where the monks washed their hands at
dinner-time. The buildings belonging to the material life of
the monks lay near the refectory, as far as possible from the
church, to the S.W. With a distinct entrance from the outer
court was the kitchen court (F), with its buttery, scullery
and larder, and the important adjunct of a stream of running
water. Farther to the west, projecting beyond the line of
the west front of the church, were vast vaulted apartments
(SS), serving as cellars and storehouses, above which was
the dormitory of the conversi. Detached from these, and
separated entirely from the monastic buildings, were various
workshops, which convenience repuired to be banished to
the outer precincts, a saw-mill and oil-mill (UU) turned
by water, and a currier's shop (V), where the sandals
and leathern girdles of the monks were made and repaired.
Returning to the cloister, a vaulted passage admitted to the small
cloister (l), opening from the north side of which were eight
small cells, assigned to the scribes employed in copying works
for the library, which was placed in the upper story, accessible
by a turret staircase. To the south of the small cloister
a long hall will be noticed. This was a lecture-hall, or
rather a hall for the religious disputations customary among the
Cistercians. From this cloister opened the infirmary (K),
with its hall, chapel, cells, blood-letting house and other
dependencies. At the eastern verge of the vast group of buildings
we find the novices' lodgings (L), with a third cloister
near the novices' quarters and the original guest-house (M).
Detached from the great mass of the monastic edifices was the
original abbot's house (N), with its dining-hall (P). Closely
adjoining to this, so that the eye of the father of the whole
establishment should be constantly over those who stood the
most in need of his watchful care,--those who were training
for the monastic life, and those who had worn themselves
out in its duties,--was a fourth cloister (O), with annexed
buildings, devoted to the aged and infirm members of the
establishment. The cemetery, the last resting-place of the
brethren, lay to the north side of the nave of the church (H).
It will be seen from the above account that the arrangement of
a Cistercian monastery was in accordance with a clearly defined
system, and admirably adapted to its purpose. The base court
nearest to the outer wall contained the buildings belonging to
the functions of the body as agriculturists and employers of
labour. Advancing into the inner court, the buildings`devoted
to hospitality are found close to the entrance; while those
connected with the supply of the material wants of the brethren,
--the kitchen, cellars, &c.,--form a court of themselves
outside the cloister and quite detached from the church.
The church refectory, dormitory and other buildings belonging
to the professional life of the brethren surround the great
cloister. The small cloister beyond, with its scribes' cells,
library, hall for disputations, &c., is the centre of the
literary life of the community. The requirements of sickness
and old age are carefully provided for in the infirmary
cloister and that for the aged and infirm members of the
establishment. The same group contains the quarters of the novices.
This stereotyped arrangement is further shown by the
illustration of the mother establishment of Citeaux.
Citeaux.
A cross (A), planted on the high road, directs travellers to
the gate of the monastery. reached by an avenue of trees. On
one side of the gate-house (B) is a long building (C), probably
the almonry, with a dormitory above for the lower class of
guests. On the other side is a chapel (D). As soon as the
porter heard a stranger knock at the gate, he rose, saying,
Deo gratias, the opportunity for the exercise of hospitality
being regarded as a cause for thankfulness. On opening the
door he welcomed the new arrival with a blessing --Benedicite.
He fell on his knees before him, and then went to inform the
abbot. However important the abbot's occupations might
be, he at once hastened to receive him whom heaven had
sent. He also threw himself at his guest's feet, and
conducted him to the chapel (D) purposely built close to the
gate. After a short prayer, the abbot committed the guest
to the care of the brother hospitaller, whose duty it was
to provide for his wants and conduct the beast on which he
might be riding to the stable (F), built adjacent to the inner
gatehouse (E). This inner gate conducted into the base court
(T), round which were placed the barns, stables, cow-sheds, &c.
On the eastern side stood the dormitory of the lay brothers,
fratres conversi (G), detached from the cloister, with
cellars and storehouses below. At H, also outside the monastic
buildings proper, was the abbot's house, and annexed to it the
guest-house. For these buildings there was a separate door
of entrance into the church (S). The large cloister, with its
surrounding arcades, is seen at V. On the south end projects
the refectory (K), with its kitchen at I, accessible from
the base court. The long gabled building on the east side of
the cloister contained on the ground floor the chapter-house
and calefactory, with the monks' dormitory above (M),
communicating with the south transept of the church. At L
was the staircase to the dormitory. The small cloister is at
W, where were the carols or cells of the scribes, with the
library (P) over, reached by a turret staircase. At R we see
a portion of the infirmary. The whole precinct is surrounded
by a strong buttressed wall (XXX), pierced with arches,
FIG. 8.---Bird's-eye view of
A. Cross. H. Abbot's house. R. Infirmary.
B. Gate-house. I. Kitchen. S. Door to the church
C. Almonry. K. Refectory. for the lay brothers.
D. Chapel. L. Staircase to dormitory.
E. Inner gate-house. T. Base court.
F. Stable. M. Dormitory. V. Great cloister.
G. Dormitory of lay N. Church. W. Small cloister.
brethren. P. Library. X. Boundary wall.
through which streams of water are introduced. It will
be noticed that the choir of the church is short, and has
a square end instead of the usual apse. The tower, in
accordance with the Cistercian rule, is very low. The windows
throughout accord with the studied simplicity of the order.
Kirkstall Abbey.
The English Cistercian houses, of which there are such extensive
and beautiful remains at Fountains, Rievaulx, Kirkstall,
Tintern, Netley, &c., were mainly arranged after the same
plan, with slight local variations. As an example, we give
the groundplan of Kirkstall Abbey. which is one of the best
preserved. The church here is of the Cistercian type, with
a short chancel of two squares, and transepts with three
eastward chapels to each, divided by solid walls (2 2 2).
The whole is of the most studied plainness. The windows
are unornamented, and the nave has no triforium. The
cloister to the south (4) occupies the whole length of the
nave. On the east side stands the two-aisled chapter-house
(5), between which and the south transept is a small
sacristy (3), and on the other side two small apartments,
one of which was probably the parlour (6). Beyond this
stretches southward the calefactory or day-room of the monks
(14). Above this whole range of building runs the monks'
dormitory, opening by stairs into the south transept of the
church. At the other end were the necessaries. On thc south
side of the cloister we have the remains of the old refectory
(11), running, as in Benedictine houses, from east to west,
and the new refectory (12), which, with the increase of the
inmates of the house, superseded it, stretching, as is usual
in Cistercian houses, from north to south. Adjacent to this
apartment are the remains of the kitchen, pantry and buttery.
The arches of the lavatory are to be seen near the refectory
entrance. The western side of the cloister is, as usual,
occupied by vaulted cellars, supporting on the upper story
the dormitory of the lay brothers (8). Extending from the
FIG. 9 Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire
1. Church. 10. Common room.
2. Chapels. 11. Old refectory.
3. Sacristy. 12. New refectory.
4. Cloister. 13. Kitchen court.
5. Chapter-house. 14. Calefactory or day-room.
6. Parlour. 15. Kitchen and offices.
7. Punishment cell (?). 16-19. Uncertain; perhaps offices
8. Cellars, with dormitories for connected with the infirmary.
conversi over.
9. Guest-house. 20. Infirmary or abbot's house.
south-east angle of the main group of buildings are the
walls and foundations of a secondary group of considerable
extent. These have been identified either with the hospitium
or with the abbot's house, but they occupy the position in
which the infirmary is more usually found. The hall was
a very spacious apartment, measuring 83 ft. in length by
48 ft. 9 in. in breadth, and was divided by two rows of
columns. The fish-ponds lay between the monastery and
the river to the south. The abbey mill was situated
about 80 yards to the north-west. The millpool may be
distinctly traced, together with the gowt or mill stream.
Fountains Abbey.
Fountains Abbey, first founded A.D. 1132, is one of the
largest and best preserved Cistercian houses in England.
But the earlier buildings received considerable additions
and alterations in the later period of the order, causing
deviations from the strict Cistercian type. The church
stands a short distance to the north of the river Skell, the
buildings of the abbey stretching down to and even across the
stream. We have the cloister (H) to the south, with the
three-aisled chapter-house (I) and calefactory (L) opening from
its eastern walk, and the refectory (S), with the kitchen (Q)
and buttery (T) attached, at right angles to its southern walk.
FIG. 10.--Ground-plan of Fountains Abbey,
A. Nave of the church. N. Cellar. Z. Gate-house.
B. Transept. O. Brewhouse. ABBOT'S HOUSE.
C. Chapels. P. Prisons. 1. Passage
D. Tower. Q. Kitchen. 2. Great hall.
E. Sacristy. R. Offices. 3. Refectory.
F. Choir. S. Refectory. 4. Refectory.
G. Chapel of nine alters. T. Buttery. 5. Storehouse.
H. Cloister. U. Cellars and storehouses. 6. Chapel.
I. Chapter-house. V. Necessary. 7. Kitchen.
K. Base court. W. Infirmary (?). 8. Ashpit.
L. Calefactory. X. Guest-houses. 9. Yard.
M. Water-course. Y. Mill bridge. 10. Kitchen tank.
Parallel with the western walk is an immense vaulted substructure
(U), incorrectly styled the cloisters, serving as cellars and
store-rooms, and supporting the dormitory of the conversi
above. This building extended across the river. At its S.W.
corner were the necessaries (V), also built, as usual, above
the swiftly flowing stream. The monks' dormitory was in its
usual position above the chapter-house, to the south of the
transept. As peculiarities of arrangement may be noticed
the position of the kitchen (Q), between the refectory and
calefactory, and of the infirmary (W) (unless there is some
error in its designation) above the river to the west, adjoining
the guest-houses (XX). We may also call attention to the
greatly lengthened choir, commenced by Abbot John of York,
1203-1211, and carried on by his successor, terminating, like
Durham Cathedral, in an eastern transept, the work of Abbot
John of Kent, 1220-1247, and to the tower (D), added not long
before the dissolution by Abbot Huby, 1494-1526, in a very
unusual position at the northern end of the north transept.
The abbot's house, the largest and most remarkable example of
this class of buildings in the kingdom, stands south to the
east of the church and cloister, from which it is divided by
the kitchen court (R), surrounded by the ordinary domestic
offices. A considerable portion of this house was erected on
arches over the Skell. The size and character of this house,
probably, at the time of its erection, the most spacious
house of a subject in the kingdom, not a castle, bespeaks
the wide departure of the Cistercian order from the stern
simplicity of the original foundation. The hall (2) was one
of the most spacious and magnificent apartments in medieval
times, measuring 170 ft. by 70 ft. Like the hall in the
castle at Winchester, and Westminster Hall, as originally
built, it was divided by 18 pillars and arches, with 3
aisles. Among other apartments, for the designation of which
we must refer to the ground-plan, was a domestic oratory or
chapel, 46 1/2 ft. by 23 ft. and a kitchen (7), 50 ft. by 38
ft. The whole arrangements and character of the building
bespeak the rich and powerful feudal lord, not the humble
father of a body of hard-working brethren, bound by vows to a
life of poverty and self-denying toil. In the words of Dean
Milman, ``the superior, once a man bowed to the earth with
humility, care-worn, pale, emaciated, with a coarse habit
bound with a cord, with naked feet, had become an abbot
on his curvetting palfrey, in rich attire, with his silver
cross before him, travelling to take his place amid the
lordliest of the realm.'' --(Lat. Christ. vol. iii. p. 330.)
Austin Canons.
The buildings of the Austin canons or Black canons (so
called from the colour of their habit) present few distinctive
peculiarities. This order had its first seat in England at
Colchester, where a house for Austin canons was founded about
A.D. 1105, and it very soon spread widely. As an order
of regular clergy, holding a middle position between monks
and secular canons, almost resembling a community of parish
priests living under rule, they adopted naves of great length
to accommodate large congregations. The choir is usually
long, and is sometimes, as at Llanthony and Christ Church
(Twynham), shut off from the aisles, or, as at Bolton, Kirkham,
&c., is destitute of aisles altogether. The nave in the northern
houses, not unfrequently, had only a north aisle, as at Bolton,
Brinkburn and Lanercost. The arrangement of the monastic
buildings followed the ordinary type. The prior's lodge was
almost invariably attached to the S.W. angle of the nave.
Bristol Cathedral.
The annexed plan of the Abbey of St Augustine's at Bristol,
now the cathedral church of that city, shows the arrangement
of the buildings, which departs very little from the
ordinary Benedictine type. The Austin canons' house at
Thornton, in Lincolnshire, is remarkable for the size
and magnificence of its gate-house, the upper floors of
which formed the guest-house of the establishment, and for
possessing an octagonal chapter-house of Decorated date.
Premonstratensians.
The Premonstratensian regular canons, or White canons, had
as many as 35 houses in England, of which the most perfect
remaining are those of Easby. Yorkshire, and Bayham, Kent.
The head house of the order in England was Welbeck. This order
was a reformed branch of the Austin canons, founded, A.D.
1119, by Norbert (born at Xanten, on the Lower Rhine, c.
1080) at Premontre, a secluded marshy valley in the forest
of Coucy in the diocese of Laon. The order spread widely.
Even in the founder's lifetime it possessed houses in Syria and
Palestine. It long maintained its rigid austerity, till in
the course of years wealth impaired its discipline, and its
members sank into indolence and luxury. The Premonstratensians
were brought to England shortly after A.D. 1140, and were
first settled at Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, near the Humber.
The ground-plan of Easby Abbey, owing to its situation on the
edge of the steeply sloping banks of a river, is singularly
irregular. The cloister is duly placed on the south side of the
church, and the chief buildings occupy their usual positions
round it. But the cloister garth, as at Chichester, is not
rectangular, and all the surrounding buildings are thus made
to sprawl in a very awkward fashion. The church follows
the plan adopted by the Austin canons in their northern
abbeys, and has only one aisle to the nave--that to the
north; while the choir is long, narrow and aisleless. Each
transept has an aisle to the east, forming three chapels.
The church at Bayham was destitute of aisles either to nave or
choir. The latter terminated in a three-sided apse. This church
is remarkable for its exceeding narrowness in proportion to its
length. Extending in longitudinal dimensions 257 ft., it is
FIG. 11.--St Augustine's Abbey, Bristol (Bristol
A. Church. H. Kitchen. S. Friars' lodging.
B. Great cloister. I. Kitchen court. T. King's hall.
C. Little cloister. K. Cellars. V. Guest-house.
D. Chapter-house. L. Abbot's hall. W. Abbey gateway.
E. Calefactory. P. Abbot's gateway. X. Barns, stables, &c
F. Refectory. R. Infirmary. Y. Lavatory.
G. Parlour.
not more than 25 ft. broad. Stern Premonstratensian canons
wanted no congregations, and cared for no possessions;
therefore they built their church like a long room.
Carthusians.
The Carthusian order, on its establishment by St Bruno,
about A.D. 1084, developed a greatly modified form and
arrangement of a monastic institution. The principle of this
order, which combined the coenobitic with the solitary life,
demanded the erection of buildings on a novel plan. This
plan, which was first adopted by St Bruno and his twelve
companions at the original institution at Chartreux, near
Grenoble, was maintained in all the Carthusian establishments
throughout Europe, even after the ascetic severity of the order
had been to some extent relaxed, and the primitive simplicity
of their buildings had been exchanged for the magnificence
of decoration which characterizes such foundations as the
Certosas of Pavia and Florence. According to the rule of
St Bruno, all the members of a Carthusian brotherhood lived
in the most absolute solitude and silence. Each occupied a
small detached cottage, standing by itself in a small garden
surrounded by high walls and connected by a common corridor or
cloister. In these cottages or cells a Carthusian monk
passed his time in the strictest asceticism, only leaving
his solitary dwelling to attend the services of the Church,
except on certain days when the brotherhood assembled in the
refectory. The peculiarity of the arrangements of a Carthusian
monastery, or charter-house, as it was called in England,
from a corruption of the French chartreux, is exhibited
in the plan of that of Clermont, from Viollet-le-Duc.
Clermont.
The whole establishment is surrounded hy a wall, furnished
at intervals with watch towers (R) . The enclosure is divided
into two courts, of which the eastern court, surrounded by a
cloister, from from which the cottages of the monks (I) open,
is musch the larger. The two courts are divided by the main
buildings of the monastery, including the church, the sanctuary
(A), divided from B, the monks' choir, by a screen with two
altars, the smaller cloister to the south (S) surrounded by
the chapter-house (E), the refectory (X)---these buildings
occupying their normal position--and the chapel of Pontgibaud
(K). The kitchen with its offices (V) lies behind the
relectory, accessible ftom the outer court without entering the
cloister. To the north of the church, beyond the sacristy
(L), and the side chapels (M), we find the cell of the sub-prior
(a), with its garden. The lodgings of the prior (G) occupy
the centre of the outer court, immediately in front of the
west door of the church, and face the gateway of the convent
(O). A small raised court with a fountain (C) is before
it. This outer court also contains the guest-chambers (P),
the stables and lodgings of the lay brothers (N), the barns
and granaries (Q), the dovecot (H) and the bakehouse (T).
At Z is the prison. In this outer court, in all the earlier
foundations, as at Witham, there was a smaller church in
addition to the larger church of the monks.) The outer and
inner courts are connected by a long passage (F), wide enough
to admit a cart laden with wood to supply the cells of the
brethren with fuel. The number of cells surrounding the great
A. Church.
B. Monks' choir.
C. Prior's garden.
D. Great cloister.
E. Chapter-house.
F. Passage.
G. Prior's lodgings.
H. Dovecot.
I. Cells.
K. Chapel of Pontgibaud.
L. Sacristy.
M. Chapel.
N. Stables.
O. Gateway.
P. Guest-chambers.
Q. Barns and granaries.
R. Watch-tower.
S. Little cloister.
T. Bakehouse.
V. Kitchen.
X. Refectory.
Y. Cemetery.
Z. Prison.
a. Cell of subprior
b. Garden of do.
FIG. 12.--Carthusian monastery of Clermont.
cloister is 18. They are all arranged on a uniform plan.
Each little dwelling contains three rooms: a sitting-room
(C), warmed by a stove in winter; a sleeping-room (D),
furnished with a bed, a table, a bench, and a bookcase; and
a closet (E). Between the cell and the cloister gallery (A)
is a passage or corridor (B), cutting off the inmate of the
cell from all sound or movement which might interrupt his
meditations. The superior had free access to this corridor, and
through open niches was able to inspect the garden without being
seen. At I is the hatch or turn-table, in which the daily
allowance of food was deposited by a brother appointed for that
purpose, affording no view either inwards or outwards. H is the
garden, cultivated by the occupant of the cell. At K is the
wood-house. F is a covered walk, with the necessary at the end.
The above arrangements are found with scarcely any variation
in all the charter-houses of western Europe. The Yorkshire
Charter-house of Mount Grace, founded by Thomas Holland, the
young duke of Surrey, nephew of Richard II. and marshal of
England, during the revival of the popularity of the order,
about A.D. 1397, is the most perfect and best preserved English
example. It is characterized by all the simplicity of the
order. The church is a modest building, long, narrow and
aisleless. Within the wall of enclosure are two courts.
The smaller of the two, the south, presents the usual
arrangement of church, refectory, &c., opening out of a
cloister. The buildings are plain and solid. The northern
court contains the cells, 14 in number. It is surrotmded by a
double stone wall, the two walls being about 30 ft. or 40 ft.
apart. Between these, each in its own garden, stand the cells;
low-built two-storied cottages, of two or three rooms on the
ground-floor, lighted by a larger and a smaller window to the
side, and provided with a doorway to the court, and one at the
back, opposite to one in the outer wall, through which the
monk may have conveyed the sweepings of his cell and the refuse
of his garden to the ``eremus'' beyond. By the side of the
door to the court is a little hatch through which the daily
pittance of food was supplied, so contrived by turning at an
angle in the wall that no one could either look in or look
out. A very perfect example of this hatch---an arrangement
belonging to all Carthusian houses--exists at Miraflores, near
Burgos, which remains nearly as it was completed in 1480.
A. Cloister gallery.
B. Corridor.
C. Living-room.
D. Sleeping-room.
E. Closets.
F. Covered walk.
G. Necessary.
H. Garden.
I. Hatch.
K. Wood-house.
FIG. 13--Carthusian cell, Clermont.
There were only nine Carthusian houses in England. The
earliest was that at Witham in Somersetshire, founded
by Henry II., by whom the order was first brought into
England. The wealthiest and most magnificent was that of
Sheen or Richmond in Surrey, founded by Henry V. about A.D.
1414. The, dimensions of the buildings at Sheen are stated
to have been remarkably large. The great court measured
300 ft. by 250 ft.; the cloisters were a square of 500 ft.;
the hall was 110 ft. in length by 60 ft. in breadth. The
most celebrated historically is the Charter house of London,
founded by Sir Walter Manny A.D. 1371, the name of which
is preserved by the famous public school established on the
site by Thomas Sutton A.D. 1611, now removed to Godalming.
Mendicant Friars.
An article on monastic arrangements would be incomplete without
some account of the convents of the Mendicant or Preaching
Friars, including the Black Friars or Dominicans, the Grey
or Franciscans, the White or Carmelites, the Eremite or
Austin, Friars. These orders arose at the beginning of the
13th century, when the Benedictines, together with their
various reformed branches, had terminated their active
mission, and Christian Europe was ready for a new religious
revival. Planting themselves, as a rule, in large towns,
and by preference in the poorest and most densely populated
districts, the Preaching Friars were obliged to adapt their
buildings to the requirements of the site. Regularity of
arrangement, therefore, was not possible, even if they had
studied it. Their churches, built for the reception of
large congregations of hearers rather than worshippers, form
a class by themselves, totally unlike those of the elder
orders in ground-plan and character. They were usually long
parallelograms unbroken by transepts. The nave very usually
consisted of two equal bodies, one containing the stalls
of the brotherhood, the other left entirely free for the
congregation. The constructional choir is often wanting,
the whole church forming one uninterrupted structure, with
a continuous range of windows. The east end was usually
square, but the Friars Church at Winchelsea had a polygonal
apse. We not unfrequently find a single transept, sometimes of
great size, rivalling or exceeding the nave. This arrangement
is frequent in Ireland, where the numerous small friaries
afford admirable exemplifications of these peculiarities of
ground-plan. The friars' churches were at first destitute of
towers; but in the 14th and 15th centuries, tall, slender towers
were commonly inserted between the nave and the choir. The
Grey Friars at Lynn, where the tower is hexagonal, is a good
example. The arrangement of the monastic buildings is equally
peculiar and characteristic. We miss entirely the regularity
of the buildings of the earlier orders. At the Jacobins at
Paris, a cloister lay to the north of the long narrow church
of two parallel aisles, while the refectory--a room of immense
length, quite detached from the cloister--stretched across
the area before the west front of the church. At Toulouse the
nave also has two parallel aisles, but the choir is apsidal,
with radiating chapel. The refectory stretches northwards at
right angles to the cloister, which lies to the north of the
church, having the chapter-house and sacristy on the east.
Norwich. Gloucester.
As examples of English friaries, the Dominican house at
Norwich, and those of the Dominicans and Franciscans at
Gloucester, may be mentioned. The church of the Black
Friars of Norwich departs from the original type in the
nave (now St Andrew's Hall), in having regular aisles. In
this it resembles the earlier examples of the Grey Friars at
Reading. The choir is long and aisleless; an hexagonal tower
between the two, like that existing at Lynn, has perished. Thc
cloister and monastic buildings remain tolerably perfect to the
north. The Dominican convent at Gloucester still exhibits the
cloister-court, on the north side of which is the desecrated
church. The refectory is on the west side and on the south
the dormitory of the 13th century. This is a remarkably good
example. There were 18 cells or cubicles on each side, divided
by partitions, the bases of which remain. On the east side
was the prior's house, a building of later date. At the Grey
or Franciscan Friars, the church followed the ordinary type in
having two equal bodies, each gabled, with a continuous range of
windows. There was a slender tower between the nave and the choir.
Hulne.
Of the convents of the Carmelite or White Friars we have a
good example in the Abbey of Hulne, near Alnwick, the first
of the order in England, founded A.D. 1240. The church
is a narrow oblong, destitute of aisles, 123 ft. long by
only 26 ft. wide. The cloisters are to the south, with
the chapter-house, &c., to the east, with the dormitory
over. The prior's lodge is placed to the west of the
cloister. The guest-houses adjoin the entrance gateway, to
which a chapel was annexed on the south side of the conventual
area. The nave of the church of the Austin Friars or Eremites
in London is still standing. It is of Decorated date, and
has wide centre and side aisles, divided by a very light and
graceful arcade. Some fragments of the south walk of the
cloister of the Grey Friars remained among the buildings of
Christ's Hospital (the Blue-Coat School), while they were still
standing. Of the Black Friars all has perished but the
name. Taken as a whole, the remains of the establishments of
the friars afford little warrant for the bitter invective of
the Benedictine of St Alban's, Matthew Paris:---``The friars
who have been founded hardly 40 years have built residences
as the palaces of kings. These are they who, enlarging day
by day their sumptuous edifices, encircling them with lofty
walls, lay up in them their incalculable treasures, imprudently
transgressing the bounds of poverty and violating the very
fundamental rules of their profession.'' Allowance must here be
made for jealousy of a rival order just rising in popularity.
Cells.
Every large monastery had depending upon it one or more smaller
establishments known as cells. These cells were monastic
colonies, sent forth by the parent house, and planted on some
outlying estate. As an example, we may refer to the small
religious house of St Mary Magdalene's, a cell of the great
Benedictine house of St Mary's, York, in the valley of the
Witham, to the south-east of the city of Lincoln. This consists
of one long narrow range of building, of which the eastern part
formed the chapel and the western contained the apartments of
the handful of monks of which it was the home. To the east
may be traced the site of the abbey mill, with its dam and
mill-lead. These cells, when belonging to a Cluniac house,
were called Obedientiae. The plan given by Viollet-le-Duc
of the Priory of St Jean des Bons Hommes, a Cluniac cell,
situated between the town of Avallon and the village of
Savigny, shows that these diminutive establishments comprised
every essential feature of a monastery,---chapel, cloister,
chapter-room, refectory, dormitory, all grouped according to the
recognized arrangement. These Cluniac obedientiae differed
from the ordinary Benedictine cells in being also places of
punishment, to which monks who had been guilty of any grave
infringement of the rules were relegated as to a kind of
penitentiary. Here they were placed under the authority of a
prior, and were condemned to severe manual labour, fulfilling
the duties usually executed by the lay brothers, who acted as
farmservants. The outlying farming establishments belonging to
the monastic foundations were known as villae or granges.
They gave employment to a body of conversi and labourers
under the management of a monk, who bore the title of Brother
Hospitaller ---the granges, like their parent institutions,
affording shelter and hospitality to belated travellers.
AUTHORITIES.--Dugdale, Monasticon; Lenoir,
Architecture monastique (1852--1856); Veollet-le-Duc,
Dictionnaire raisonnee de l'architecture francaise;
Springer, Klosterleben und Klosterkunst (1886); Kraus,
Geschichte der christlichen Kunst (1896). (E. V.)
ABBON OF FLEURY, or ABBO FLORIACENSIS (c. 945-1004), a
learned Frenchman, born near Orleans about 945. He distinguished
himself in the schools of Paris and Reims, and was especially
proficient in science as known in his time. He spent two
years in England, assisting Archbishop Oswald of York in
restoring the monastic system, and was abbot of Romsey. After
his return to France he was made abbot of Fleury on the Loire
(988). He was twice sent to Rome by King Robert the Pious
(986, 996), and on each occasion succeeded in warding off a
threatened papal interdict. He was killed at La Reole in
1004, in endeavouring to quell a monkish revolt. He wrote an
Epitomie de vitis Romanorum pontificum, besides controversial
treatises, letters, &c. (see Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol.
139). His life, written by his disciple Aimoin of Fleury, in
which much of Abbon's correspondence was reproduced, is of great
importance as a source for the reign of Robert II., especially
with reference to the papacy (cf. Migne, op. cit. vol. 139).
See Ch. Pfister, Etudes sur le regne de Robert le Pieux (1885);
Cuissard-Gaucheron, ``L'Ecole de Fleury-sur-Loire a la fin du 10
siecle,'' in Memoires de la societe de l'Orleanais, xiv.
(Orleans, 1875); A. Molinier, Sources de l'histoire de France.
ABBOT, EZRA (1819--1884), American biblical scholar, was
born at Jackson, Waldo county, Maine, on the 28th of April
1819. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1840; and in
1847, at the request of Prof. Andrews Norton, went to
Cambridge, where he was principal of a public school until
1856. He was assistant librarian of Harvard University from
1856 to 1872, and planned and perfected an alphabetical card
catalogue, combining many of the advantages of the ordinary
dictionary catalogues with the grouping of the minor topics
under more general heads, which is characteristic of a systematic
catalogue. From 1872 until his death he was Bussey Professor
of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Harvard
Divinity School. His studies were chiefly in Oriental languages
and the textual criticism of the New Testament, thoygh his
work as a bibliographer showed such results as the exhaustive
list of writings (5300 in all) on the doctrine of the future
life, appended to W. R. Alger's History of the Doctrine of
a Future Life, as it has prevailed in all Nations and Ages
(1862), and published separately in 1864. His publications,
though always of the most thorough and scholarly character,
were to a large extent dispersed in the pages of reviews,
dictionaries, concordances, texts edited by others, Unitarian
controversial treatises, &c.; but he took a more conspicuous
and more personal part in the preparation (with the Baptist
scholar, Horatio B. Hackett) of the enlarged American edition
of Dr (afterwards Sir) William Smith's Dictionary of the
Bible (1867-1870), to which he contributed more than 400
articles besides greatly improving the bibliographical
completeness of the work; was an efficient member of the
American revision committee employed in connexion with the
Revised Version (1881-1885) of the King James Bible; and aided
in the preparation of Caspar Rene Gregory's Prolegomena to
the revised Greek New Testament of Tischendorf. His principal
single production, representing his scholarly method and
conservative conclusions, was The Authorship af the Fourth
Gospel: External Evidences (1880; second edition, by J. H.
Thayer, with other essays, 1889), originally a lecture, and
in spite of the compression due to its form, up to that time
probably the ablest defence, based on external evidence,
of the Johannine authorship, and certainly the completest
treatment of the relation of Justin Martyr to this gospel.
Abbot, though a layman, received the degree of S. T. D. from
Harvard in 1872, and that of D.D. from Edinburgh in 1884. . He
died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 21st of March 1884.
See S. J. Barrows, Ezra Abbot (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).
ABBOT, GEORGE (1562-1633), English divine, archbishop of
Canterbury, was born on the 19th of October 1562, at Guildford in
Surrey, where his father was a cloth-worker. He studied, and
then taught, at Balliol College, Oxford, was chosen master of
University College in 1597, and appointed dean of Winchester in
1600. He was three times vice-chancellor of the university,
and took a leading part in preparing the authorized version
of the New Testament. In 1608 he went to Scotland with the
earl of Dunbar to arrange for a union between the churches
of England and Scotland. He so pleased the king (James
I.) in this affair that he was made bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry in 1609, was translated to the see of London a month
afterwards, and in less than a year was raised to that of
Canterbury. His puritan instincts frequently led him not
only into harsh treatment of Roman Catholics, but also into
courageous resistance to the royal will, e.g. when he
opposed the scandalous divorce suit of the Lady Frances Howard
against the earl of Essex, and again in 1618 when, at Croydon,
he forbade the reading of the declaration permitting Sunday
sports. He was naturally, therefore, a promoter of the match
between the elector palatine and the Princess Elizabeth,
and a firm opponent of the projected marriage of the prince
of Wales with the infanta of Spain. This policy brought
upon him the hatred of Laud (with whom he had previously
come into collision at Oxford) and the court, though the
king himself never forsook him. In 1622, while hunting in
Lord Zouch's park at Bramshill, Hampshire, a bolt from his
cross-bow aimed at a deer happened to strike one of the
keepers, who died within an hour, and Abbot was so greatly
distressed by the event that he fell into a state of settled
melancholy. His enemies maintained that the fatal issue of
this accident disqualified him for his office, and argued
that, though the homicide was involuntary, the sport of
hunting which had led to it was one in which no clerical
person could lawfully indulge. The king had to refer the
matter to a commission of ten, though he said that ``an angel
might have miscarried after this sort.'' The commission was
equally divided, and the king gave a casting vote in the
archbishop's favour, though signing also a formal pardon or
dispensation. After this the archbishop seldom appeared
at the council, chiefly on account of his infirmities. He
attended the king constantly, however, in his last illness,
and performed the ceremony of the coronation of Charles I.
His refusal to license the assize sermon preached by Dr Robert
Sibthorp at Northampton on the 22nd of February 1626-1627, in
which cheerful obedience was urged to the king's demand for a
general loan, and the duty proclaimed of absolute non-resistance
even to the most arbitrary royal commands, led Charles to
deprive him of his functions as primate, putting them in
commission. The need of summoning parliament, however,
soon brought about a nominal restoration of the archbishop's
powers. His presence being unwelcome at court, he lived
from that time in retirement, leaving Laud and his party in
undisputed ascendancy. He died at Croydon on the 5th of August
1633, and was buried at Guildford, his native place, where
he had endowed a hospital with lands to the value of L. 300 a
year. Abbot was a conscientious prelate, though narrow in view
and often harsh towards both separatists and Romanists. He
wrote a large number of works, the most interesting being his
discursive Exposition on the Prophet Jonah (1600), which was
reprinted in 1845. His Geography, or a Brief Description
of the Whole World (1599), passed through numerous editions.
The best account of him is in S. R. Gardiner's History of England.
ABBOT, GEORGE (1603-1648), English writer, known as ``The
Puritan,'' has been oddly and persistently mistaken for
others. He has been described as a clergyman, which he never
was, and as son of Sir Morris (or Maurice) Abbot, and his
writings accordingly entered in the bibliographical authorities
as by the nephew of the archbishop of Canterbury. One of the
sons of Sir Morris Abbot was, indeed, named George, and he
was a man of mark, but the more famous George Abbot was of a
different family altogether. He was son or grandson (it is
not clear which) of Sir Thomas Abbot, knight of Easington,
East Yorkshire, having been born there in 1603--1604,
his mother (or grandmother) being of the ancient house of
Pickering. Of his early life and training nothing is
known. He married a daughter of Colonel Purefoy of Caldecote,
Warwickshire, and as his monument, which may still be seen
in the church there, tells, he bravely held the manor house
against Princes Rupert and Maurice during the civil war. As
a layman, and nevertheless a theologian and scholar of rare
ripeness and critical ability, he holds an almost unique
place in the literature of the period. The terseness of his
Whole Booke of Job Paraphrased, or made easy for any to
understand (1640, 4to), contrasts favourably with the usual
prolixity of the Puritan expositors and commentators. His
Vindiciae Sabbathi (1641, 8vo) had a profound and lasting
influence in the long Sabbatarian controversy. His Brief
Notes upon the Whole Book of Psalms (1651, 4to), as its date
shows, was posthumous. He died on the 2nd of February 1648.
AUTHORITIES--MS.collections at Abbeyville for history of all
of the name of Abbot, by J. T. Abbot, Esq., F.S.A., Darlington;
Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, 1730 p. 1099; Wood's
Athenae (Bliss), ii.141, 594; Cox's Literature of the Sabbath.
ABBOT, ROBERT (1588?-1662?), English Puritan divine. Noted
as this worthy was in his own time, and representative in
various ways, he has often since been confounded with others,
e.g. Robert Abbot, bishop of Salisbury. He is also wrongly
described as a relative of Archbishop Abbot, from whom he
acknowledges very gratefully, in the first of his epistles
dedicatory of A Hand of Fellowship to Helpe Keepe out Sinne
and Antichrist (1623, 4to), that he had ``received all'' his
``worldly maintenance,'' as well as ``best earthly countenance',
and ``fatherly incouragements.', The worldly maintenance
was the presentation in 1616 to the vicarage of Cranbrook in
Kent. He had received his education at Cambridge, where he
proceeded M.A., and was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. In
1639, in the epistle to the reader of his most noticeable book
historically, his Triall of our Church-Forsakers, he tells
us, ``I have lived now, by God's gratious dispensation, above
fifty years, and in the place of my allotment two and twenty
full.'' The former date carries us back to 1588-1589, or
perhaps 1587-1588 ---the ``Armada'' year---as his birth-time;
the latter to 1616-1617 (ut supra). In his Bee Thankfull
London and her Sisters (1626), he describes himself as
formerly ``assistant to a reverend divine . . . now with
God,'' and the name on the margin is ``Master Haiward of Wool
Church (Dorset).'' This was doubtless previous to his going to
Cranbrook. Very remarkable and effective was Abbot's
ministry at Cranbrook, where his parishioners were as his
own ``sons and daughters'' to him. Yet, Puritan though he
was, he was extremely and often unfairly antagonistic to
Nonconformists. He remained at Cranbrook until 1643, when,
Parliament deciding against pluralities of ecclesiastical
offices, he chose the very inferior living of Southwick,
Hants, as between the one and the other. He afterwards
succeeded the ``extruded'' Udall of St Austin's, London,
where according to the Warning-piece he was still pastor in
1657. He disappears silently between 1657-1658 and 1662.
Robert Abbot's books are conspicuous amongst the productions
of his time by their terseness and variety. In addition to
those mentioned above he wrote Milk for Babes, or a Mother's
Catechism for her Children (1646), and A Christian Family
builded by God, or Directions for Governors of Families (1653).
AUTHORITIES.--.Brook's Puritans, iii. 182, 3; Walker's
Sufferings, ii. 183; Wood's Athenae (Bliss), i. 323;
Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. ii. 218, which confuses him most
oddly of all with one of the ejected ministers of 1662.
ABBOT, WILLIAM (1798--1843), English actor, was born in
Chelsea, and made his first appearance on the stage at Bath
in 1806, and his first London appearance in 1808. At Covent
Garden in 1813, in light comedy and melodrama, he made his
first decided success. He Was Pylades to Macready's Orestes
in Ambrose Philips's Distressed Mother when Macready made
his first appearance at that theatre (1816). He created the
parts of Appius Claudius in Sheridan Knowles's Virginius
(1820) and of Modus in his Hunchback (1832). In 1827 he
organized the company, including Macready and Miss Smithson,
which acted Shakespeare in Paris. On his return to London
he played Romeo to Fanny Kemble's Juliet (1830). Two of
Abbot's melodramas, The Youthful Days of Frederick the Great
(1817) and Swedish Patriotism (1819), were produced at
Covent Garden. He died in poverty at Baltimore, Maryland.
ABBOT (from the Hebrew ab, a father, through the Syriac
abba, Lat. abbas, gen. abbatis, O.E. abbad, fr. late
Lat. form abbad-em changed in 13th century under influence
of the Lat. form to abbat, used abternatively till the end
of the 17th century; Ger. Abt; Fr. abbe), the head and
chief governor of a community of monks, called also in the
East hegumenos or archimandrite. The title had its origin
in the monasteries of Syria, whence it spread through the
East, and soon became accepted generally in all languages as
the designation of the head of a monastery. At first it was
employed as a respectful title for any monk, as we learn from St
Jerome, who denounced the custom on the ground that Christ had
said, ``Call no man father on earth'' (in Epist. ad Gal.
iv. 6, in Matt. xxiii. 9), but it was soon restricted to the
superior. The name ``abbot,'' though general in the West,
was never universal. Among the Dominicans, Carmelites,
Augustinians, &c., the superior was called Praepositus,
``provost,'' and Prior; among the Franciscans, Custos,
``guardian''; and by the monks of Camaldoi, Major.
In Egypt, the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction
of the abbot, or archimandrite, was but loosely defined.
Sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over
several, each of which had its own abbot as well. Cassian
speaks of an abbot of the Thebaid who had 500 monks under
him, a number exceeded in other cases. By the rule of St
Benedict, which, until the reform of Cluny, was the norm
in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one
community. The rule, as was inevitable, was subject to
frequent violations; but it was not until the foundation of
the Cluniac Order that the idea of a supreme abbot, exercising
jurisdiction over all the houses of an order, was definitely
recognized. New styles were devised to express this new
relation; thus the abbot of Monte Cassino was called abbas
abbatum, while the chiefs of other orders had the tities
abbas generails, or magister or minister generalis.
Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot
any exception. All orders of clergy, therefore, even the
``doorkeeper,', took precedence of him. For the reception
of the sacraments, and for other religious offices, the
abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest
church (Nocellae, 133, c. ii.). This rule naturally proved
inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at
a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the ordination
of abbots. This innovation was not introduced without a
struggle, ecclesiastical dignity being regarded as inconsistent
with the higher spiritual life, but, before the close of
the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost
universally to have become deacons, if not presbyters. The
change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of
abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th
century, and partially so up to the 11th. Ecclesiastical
councils were, however, attended by abbots. Thus at that
held at Constantinople, A.D. 448, for the condemnation of
Eutyches, 23 archimandrites or abbots sign, with 30 bishops,
and, c A.D. 690, Archbishop Theodore promulgated a
canon, inhibiting bishops from compelling abbots to attend
councils. Examples are not uncommon in Spain and in England
in Saxon times. Abbots were permitted by the second council
of Nicaea, A.D. 787, to ordain their monks to the inferior
orders. This rule was adopted in the West, and the strong
prejudice against clerical monks having gradually broken down,
eventually monks, almost without exception, took holy orders.
Abbots were originally subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and
continued generally so, in fact, in the West till the 11th
century. The Code of Justinian (lib. i. tit. iii. de Ep. leg.
xl.) expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight.
The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot
from episcopal control is that of Faustus, abbot of Lerins,
at the council of Arles, A.D. 456; but the exorbitant claims
and exactions of bishops, to which this repugnance to episcopal
control is to be traced, far more than to the arrogance of
abbots, rendered it increasingly frequent, and, in the 6th
century, the practice of exempting religious houses partly or
altogether from episcopal control, and making them responsible
to the pope alone, received an impulse from Gregory the
Great. These exceptions, introduced with a good object, had
grown into a widespread evil by the 12th century, virtually
creating an imperium in imperio, and depriving the bishop
of all authority over the chief centres of influence in his
diocese. In the 12th century the abbots of Fulda claimed
precedence of the archbishop of Cologne. Abbots more and
more assumed almost episcopal state, and in defiance of the
prohibition of early councils and the protests of St Bernard and
others, adopted the episcopal insignia of mitre, ring, gloves and
sandals. It has been maintained that the right to wear mitres
was sometimes granted by the popes to abbots before the 11th
century, but the documents on which this claim is based are
not genuine (J. Braun, Liturgische Gewandung, p. 453). The
first undoubted instance is the bull by which Alexander II.
in 1063 granted the use of the mitre to Egelsinus, abbot of
the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury (see MITRE). The
mitred abbots in England were those of Abingdon, St Alban's,
Bardney, Battle, Bury St Edmund's, St Augustine's Canterbury,
Colchester, Croyland, Evesham, Glastonbury, Gloucester,
St Benet's Hulme, Hyde, Malmesbury, Peterborough, Ramsey,
Reading, Selby, Shrewsbury, Tavistock, Thorney, Westminster,
Winchcombe, St Mary's York. Of these the precedence was
originally yielded to the abbot of Glastonbury, until in
A.D. 1154 Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspear) granted it to the
abbot of St Alban's, in which monastery he had been brought
up. Next after the abbot of St Alban's ranked the abbot of
Westminster. To distinguish abbots from bishops, it was ordained
that their mitre should be made of less costly materials,
and should not be ornamented with gold, a rule which was soon
entirely disregarded, and that the crook of their pastoral
staff should turn inwards instead of outwards, indicating
that their jurisdiction was limited to their own house.
The adoption of episcopal insignia by abbots was followed
by an encroachment on episcopal functions, which had to be
specially but ineffectually guarded against by the Lateran
council, A.D. 1123. In the East, abbots, if in priests'
orders, with the consent of the bishop, were, as we have
seen, permitted by the second Nicene council, A.D. 787,
to confer the tonsure and admit to the order of reader; but
gradually abbots, in the West also, advanced higher claims,
until we find them in A.D. 1489 permitted by Innocent
IV. to confer both the subdiaconate and diaconate. Of
course, they always and everywhere had the power of admitting
their own monks and vesting them with the religious habit.
When a vacancy occurred, the bishop of the diocese chose
the abbot out of the monks of the convent, but the right
of election was transferred by jurisdiction to the monks
themselves, reserving to the bishop the confirmation of the
election and the benediction of the new abbot. In abbeys
exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, the confirmation and
benediction had to be conferred by the pope in person, the house
being taxed with the expenses of the new abbot's journey to
Rome. By the rule of St Benedict, the consent of the laity
was in some undefined way required; but this seems never
to have been practically enforced. It was necessary that
an abbot should be at least 25 years of age, of legitimate
birth, a monk of the house, unless it furnished no suitable
candidate, when a liberty was allowed of electing from another
convent, well instructed himself, and able to instruct others,
one also who had learned how to command by having practised
obedience. In some exceptional cases an abbot was allowed
to name his own successor. Cassian speaks of an abbot in
Egypt doing this; and in later times we have another example
in the case of St Bruno. Popes and sovereigns gradually
encroached on the rights of the monks, until in Italy the
pope had usurped the nomination of all abbots, and the king in
France, with the exception of Cluny, Premontre and other
houses, chiefs of their order. The election was for life,
unless the abbot was canonically deprived by the chiefs of
his order, or when he was directly subject to them, by the
pope or the bishop. The ceremony of the formal admission of
a Benedictine abbot in medieval times is thus prescribed by
the consuetudinary of Abingdon. The newly elected abbot was
to put off his shoes at the door of the church, and proceed
barefoot to meet the members of the house advancing in a
procession. After proceeding up the nave, he was to kneel
and pray at the topmost step of the entrance of the choir,
into which he was to be introduced by the bishop or his
commissary, and placed in his stall. The monks, then kneeling,
gave him the kiss of peace on the hand, and rising, on the
mouth, the abbot holding his staff of office. He then put
on his shoes in the vestry, and a chapter was held, and
the bishop or his commissary preached a suitable sermon.
The power of the abbot was paternal but absolute, limited,
however, by the canons of the church, and, until the general
establishment of exemptions, by episcopal control. As a
rule, however, implicit obedience was enforced; to act
without his orders was culpable; while it was a sacred duty
to execute his orders, however unreasonable, until they were
withdrawn. Examples among the Egyptian monks of this blind
submission to the commands of the superiors, exalted into
a virtue by those who regarded the entire crushing of the
individual will as the highest excellence, are detailed by
Cassian and others,--- e.g. a monk watering a dry stick,
day after day, for months, or endeavouring to remove a huge
rock immensely exceeding his powers. St Jerome, indeed, lays
down, as the principle of the compact between the abbot and his
monks, that they should obey their superiors in all things,
and perform whatever they commanded (Ep. 2, ad Eustoch. de
custod. virgin.). So despotic did the tyranny become in the
West, that in the time of Charlemagne it was necessary to
restrain abbots by legal enactments from mutilating their
monks and putting out their eyes; while the rule of St
Columban ordained 100 lashes as the punishment for very slight
offences. An abbot also had the power of excommunicating
refractory nuns, which he might use if desired by their abbess.
The abbot was treated with the utmost submission and reverence
by the brethren of his house. When he appeared either in
church or chapter all present rose and bowed. His letters
were received kneeling, like those of the pope and the
king. If he gave a command, the monk receiving it was also to
kneel. No monk might sit in his presence, or leave it without his
permission. The highest place was naturally assigned to him,
both in church and at table. In the East he was commanded to
eat with the other monks. In the West the rule of St Benedict
appointed him a separate table, at which he might entertain
guests and strangers. This permission opening the door to
luxurious living, the council of Aix, A.D. 817, decreed that
the abbot should dine in the refectory, and be content with
the ordinary fare of the monks, unless he had to entertain a
guest. These ordinances proved, however, generally ineffectual
to secure strictness of diet, and contemporaneous literature
abounds with satirical remarks and complaints concerning the
inordinate extravagance of the tables of the abbots. When the
abbot condescended to dine in the refectory, his chaplains waited
upon him with the dishes, a servant, if necessary, assisting
them. At St Alban's the abbot took the lord's seat, in the
centre of the high table, and was served on silver plate, and
sumptuously entertained noblemen, ambassadors and strangers of
quality. When abbots dined in their own private hall, the rule
of St Benedict charged them to invite their monks to their table,
provided there was room, on which occasions the guests were
to abstain from quarrels, slanderous talk and idle gossiping.
The ordinary attire of the abbot was according to rule to be
the same as that of the monks. But by the 10th century the
rule was commonly set aside, and we find frequent complaints of
abbots dressing in silk, and adopting sumptuous attire. They
sometimes even laid aside the monastic habit altogether, and
assumed a secular dress.1 This was a necessary consequence of
their following the chase, which was quite usual, and indeed at
that time only natural. With the increase of wealth and power,
abbots had lost much of their special religious character, and
become great lords, chiefly distinguished from lay lords by
celibacy. Thus we hear of abbots going out to sport, with
their men carrying bows and arrows; keeping horses, dogs and
huntsmen; and special mention is made of an abbot of Leicester,
c. 1360, who was the most skilled of all the nobility in
harehunting. In magnificence of equipage and retinue the
abbots vied with the first nobles of the realm. They rode
on mules with gilded bridles, rich saddles and housings,
carrying hawks on their wrist, followed by an immense train of
attendants. The bells of the churches were rung as they
passed. They associated on equal terms with laymen of the
highest distinction, and shared all their pleasures and
pursuits. This rank and power was, however, often used most
beneficially. For instance, we read of Whiting, the last
abbot of Glastonbury, judicially murdered by Henry VIII.,
that his house was a kind of well-ordered court, where as
many as 300 sons of noblemen and gentlemen, who had been sent
to him for virtuous education, had been brought up, besides
others of a meaner rank, whom he fitted for the universities.
His table, attendance and officers were an honour to the
nation. He would entertain as many as 500 persons of rank at
one time, besides relieving the poor of the vicinity twice a
week. He had his country houses and fisheries, and when
he travelled to attend parliament his retinue amounted to
upwards of 100 persons. The abbots of Cluny and Vendome
were, by virtue of their office, cardinals of the Roman church.
In process of time the title abbot was improperly transferred
to clerics who had no connexion with the monastic system,
as to the principal of a body of parochial clergy; and
under the Carolingians to the chief chaplain of the king,
Abbas Curiae, or military chaplain of the emperor, Abbas
Castrensis. It even came to be adopted by purely secular
officials. Thus the chief magistrate of the republic at Genoa
was called Abbas Populi. Du Cange, in his glossary, also gives
us Abbas Campanilis, Clocherii, Palatii, Scholaris, &c.
Lay abbots (M. Lat. defensores, abbacomites, abbates laici,
abbates milites, abbates saeculares or irreligiosi,
abbatiarii, or sometimes simply abbates) were the outcome
of the growth of the feudal system from the 8th century
onwards. The practice of commendation, by which---to meet
a contemporary emergency--the revenues of the community were
handed over to a lay lord, in return for his protection,
early suggested to the emperors and kings the expedient of
rewarding their warriors with rich abbeys held in commendam.
During the Carolingian epoch the custom grew up of granting
these as regular heritable fiefs or benefices, and by the 10th
century, before the great Cluniac reform, the system was firmly
established. Even the abbey of St Denis was held in commendam
by Hugh Capet. The example of the kings was followed by the
feudal nobles, sometimes by making a temporary concession
permanent, sometimes without any form of commendation
whatever. In England the abuse was rife in the 8th
century, as may be gathered from the acts of the council of
Cloveshoe. These lay abbacies were not merely a question of
overlordship, but implied the concentration in lay hands
of all the rights, immunities and jurisdiction of the
foundations, i.e. the more or less complete secularization of
1 Walworth, the fourth abbot of St Alban's, c. 930, is
charged by Matthew Paris with adopting the attire of a sportsman.
spiritual institutions. The lay abbot took his recognized
rank in the feudal hierarchy, and was free to dispose of
his fief as in the case of any other. The enfeoffment of
abbeys differed in form and degree. Sometimes the monks were
directly subject to the lay abbot; sometimes he appointed a
substitute to perform the spirtual functions, known usually
as dean (decanus), but also as abbot (abbas legitimas,
monasticus, regularis). When the great reform of the 11th
century had put an end to the direct jurisdiction of the lay
abbots, the honorary title of abbot continued to be held by
certain of the great feudal famines, as late as the 13th century
and later, the actual head of the community retaining that of
dean. The connexion of the lesser lay abbots with the
abbeys, especially in the south of France, lasted longer;
and certain feudal families retained the title of abbes
chevaliers (abbates milltes) for centuries, together with
certain rights over the abbey lands or revenues. The abuse was
not confined to the West. John, patriarch of Antioch, at the
beginning of the 12th Century, informs us that in his time most
monasteries had been handed over to laymen, bencficiarii,
for life, or for part of their lives, by the emperors.
In conventual cathedrals, where the bishop occupied the
place of the abbot, the functions usually devolving on
the superior of the monastery were performed by a prior.
The title abbe (Ital. abbate), as commonly used in the
Catholic church on the European continent, is the equivalent
of the English ``Father,'' being loosely applied to all who
have received the tonsure. This use of the title is said to
have originated in the right conceded to the king of France,
by the concordat between Pope Leo X. and Francis I. (1516),
to appoint abbes commendataires to most of the abbeys in
France. The expectation of obtaining these sinecures drew
young men towards the church in considerable numbers, and
the class of abbes so formed ---abbes de cour they were
sometimes called, and sometimes (ironically) abbes de sainte
esperance, abbes of St Hope---came to hold a recognized
position. The connexion many of them had with the church
was of the slenderest kind, consisting mainly in adopting
the name of abbe, after a remarkably moderate course of
theological study, practising celibacy and wearing a distinctive
dress--a short dark-violet coat with narrow collar. Being
men of presumed learning and undoubted leisure, many of the
class found admission to the houses of the French nobility
as tutors or advisers. Nearly every great family had its
abbe. The class did not survive the Revolution; but the
courtesy title of abbe, having long lost all connexion in
people's minds with any special ecclesiastical function, remained
as a convenient general term applicable to any clergyman.
In the German Evangelical church the title of abbot (Abt) is
sometimes bestowed, like abbe, as an honorary distinction,
and sometimes survives to designate the heads of monasteries
converted at the Reformation into collegiate foundations. Of
these the most noteworthy is the abbey of Lokkum in Hanover,
founded as a Cistercian house in 1163 by Count Wilbrand of
Hallermund, and reformed in 1593. The abbot of Lokkum, who
still carries a pastoral staff, takes precedence of all the
clergy of Hanover, and is ex officio a member of the consistory
of the kingdom. The governing body of the abbey consists of
abbot, prior and the ``convent'' of canons (Stiftsherren).
See Joseph Bingham, Origines ecclesiasticae (1840); Du
Cange, Glossarium med. et inf. Lat. (ed. 1883); J. Craigie
Robertson, Hist. of the Christian Church (1858-1873); Edmond
Martene, De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus (Venice, 1783); C.
F. R. de Montalembert, Les moines d'occident depuis S. Benoit
jusqu'a S. Bernard (1860--1877); Achille Luchaire, Manuel
des institutions francaises (Par. 1892). (E.V.; W.A.P.)
1 The Architectural History of the Conventual Buildings of
the Monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury. By the Rev. Robert
Willis. Printed for the Kent Archaeological Society, 1869.
ABBOTSFORD, formerly the residence of Sir Walter Scott,
situated on the S. bank of the Tweed, about 3 m. W. of Melrose,
Roxburghshire, Scotland, and nearly 1 m. from Abbotsford Ferry
station on the North British railway, connecting Selkirk and
Galashiels. The nucleus of the estate was a small farm of 100
acres, called Cartleyhole, nicknamed Clarty (i.e. muddy)
Hole, and bought by Scott on the lapse of his lease (1811)
of the neighbouring house of Ashestiel. It was added to
from time to time, the last and principal acquisition being
that of Toftfield (afterwards named Huntlyburn), purchased in
1817. The new house was then begun and completed in 1824.
The general ground-plan is a parallelogram, with irregular
outlines, one side overlooking the Tweed; and the style is
mainly the Scottish Baronial. Into various parts of the fabric
were built relics and curiosities from historical structures,
such as the doorway of the old Tolbooth in Edinburgh. Scott
had only enjoyed his residence one year when (1825) he met
with that reverse of fortune which involved the estate in
debt. In 1830 the library and museum were presented to him
as a free gift by the creditors. The property was wholly
disencumbered in 1847 by Robert Cadell, the publisher, who
cancelled the bond upon it in exchange for the family's share
in the copyright of Sir Walter's works. Scott's only son Walter
did not live to enjoy the property, having died on his way
from India in 1847. Among subsequent possessors were Scott's
son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, J. R. Hope Scott, Q.C., and his
daughter (Scott's great-granddaughter), the Hon. Mrs Maxwell
Scott. Abbotsford gave its name to the ``Abbotsford Club,''
a successor of the Bannatyne and Maitland clubs, founded
by W. B. D. D. Turnbull in 1834 in Scott's honour, for
printing and publishing historical works connected with his
writings. Its publications extended from 1835 to 1864.
See Lockhart, Life of Scott; Washington Irving, Abbotsford
and Newstead Abbey; W. S. Crockett, The Scott Country.
ABBOTT, EDWIN ARROTT (1838- ), English schoolmaster and
theologian, was born on the 20th of December 1838. He
was educated at the City of London school and at St John's
College, Cambridge, where he took the highest honours in the
classical, mathematical and theological triposes, and became
fellow of his college. In 1862 he took orders. After holding
masterships at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and at
Clifton College, he succeeded G. F. Mortimer as headmaster
of the City of London school in 1865 at the early age of
twenty-six. He was Hulsean lecturer in 1876. He retired
in 1889, and devoted himself to literary and theological
pursuits. Dr Abbott's liberal inclinations in theology
were prominent both in his educational views and in his
books. His Shakespearian Grammar (1870) is a permanent
contribution to English philology. In 1885 he published a
life of Francis Bacon. His theological writings include three
anonymously published religious romances--Philochristus
(1878), Onesimus (1882), Sitanus (1906). More weighty
contributions are the anonymous theological discussion The
Kernel and the Husk (1886), Philomythus (1891), his book
on Cardinal Newman as an Anglican (1892), and his article
``The Gospels'' in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, embodying a critical view which caused considerable
stir in the English theological world; he also wrote St
Thomas of Canterbury, his Death and Miracles (1898),
Johannine Vocabulary (1905), Johannine Grammar (1906).
His brother, Evelyn Abbott (1843-1901), was a well-known tutor of
Balliol, Oxford, and author of a scholarly History of Greece.
ABBOTT, EMMA (1849-1891), American singer, was born at
Chicago and studied in Milan and Paris. She had a fine soprano
voice, and appeared first in opera in London under Colonel
Mapleson's direction at Covent Garden, also singing at important
concerts. She organized an opera company known by her name,
and toured extensively in the United States, where she had
a great reputation. In 1873 she married E. J. Wethereil.
She died at Salt Lake City on the 5th of January 1891.
ABBOTT, JACOB (1803-1879), American writer of books for the
young, was born at Hallowell, Maine, on the 14th of November
1803. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1820; studied at
Andover Theological Seminary in 1821, 1822, and 1824; was
tutor in 1824-1825, and from 1825 to 1829 was professor of
mathematics and natural philosophy in Amherst College; was
licensed to preach by the Hampshire Association in 1826;
founded the Mount Vernon School for young ladies in Boston in
1829, and was principal of it in 1829--1833; was pastor of
Eliot Congregational Church (which he founded), at Roxbury,
Mass., in 1834-1835; and was, with his brothers, a founder,
and in 1843--1851 a principal of Abbott's Institute, and in
1845--1848 of the Mount Vernon School for boys, in New York
City. He was a prolific author, writing juvenile stories,
brief histories and biographies, and religious books for
the general reader, and a few works in popular science.
He died on the 31st of October 1879 at Farmington, Maine,
where he had spent part of his time since 1839, and where
his brother Samuel Phillips Abbott founded in 1844 the Abbott
School, popularly cailed ``Little Blue.'' Jacob Abbott's
``Rollo Books''-Rollo at Work, Rollo at Play, Rollo in
Europe, &c. (28 vols.)---are the best known of his writings,
having as their chief characters a representative boy and his
associates. In them Abbott did for one or two generations
of young American readers a service not unlike that performed
earlier, in England and America, by the authors of Evenings at
Home, Sandford and Merton, and the Parent's Assistant. Of
his other writings (he produced more than two hundred volumes
in all), the best are the Franconia Stories (10 vols.),
twenty-two volumes of biographical histories in a series of
thirty-two volumes (with his brother John S. C. Abbott), and
the Young Christian,---all of which had enormous circulations.
His sons, Benjamin Vaughan Abbott (1830-1890), Austin Abbott
(1831-1896), both eminent lawyers, Lyman Abbott (q.v.), and
Edward Abbott (1841-1908), a clergyman, were also well-known
authors. See his Young Christian, Memorial Edition, with
a Sketch of the Author by one of his sons, i.e. Edward
Abbott (New York, 1882), with a bibliography of his works.
ABBOTT, JOHN STEVENS CABOT (1805-1877), American writer,
was born in Brunswick, Maine, on the 18th of September
1805. He was a brother of Jacob Abbott, and was associated
with him in the management of Abbott's Institute, New York
City, and in the preparation of his series of brief historical
biographies. He is best known, however, as the author of
a partisan and unscholarly, but widely popular and very
readable History of Napoleon Bonaparte (1855), in which
the various elements and episodes in Napoleon's career are
treated with some skill in arrangement, but with unfailing
adulation. Dr Abbott graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825,
prepared for the ministry at Andover Theological Seminary,
and between 1830 and 1844, when he retired from the ministry,
preached successively at Worcester, Roxbury and Nantucket,
Massachusetts. He died at Fair Haven, Connecticut, on the 17th
of June 1877. He was a voluminous writer of books on Christian
ethics, and of histories, which now seem unscholarly and
untrustworthy, but were valuable in their time in cultivating
a popular interest in history. In general, except that
he did not write juvenile fiction, his work in subject and
style closely resembles that of his brother, Jacob Abbott.
ABBOTT, LYMAN (1835- ), American divine and author, was
born at Roxbury, Massachusetts, on the 18th of December 1835,
the son of Jacob Abbott. He graduated at the University
of New York in 1853, studied law, and was admitted to the
bar in 1856; but soon abandoned the legal profession, and,
after studying theology with his uncle, J. S. C. Abbott,
was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in
1860. He was pastor of a church in Terre Haute, Indiana, in
1860-1865, and of the New England Church in New York City in
1865--1869. From 1865 to 1868 he was secretary of the American
Union (Freedman's) Commission. In 1869 he resigned his pastorate
to devote himself to literature. He was an associate editor of
Harper's Magazine, was editor of the Illustrated Christian
Weekly, and was co-editor (1876-1881) of The Christian
Union with Henry Ward Beecher, whom he succeeded in 1888 as
pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. From this pastorate he
resigned ten years later. From 1881 he was editor-in-chief
of The Christian Union, renamed The Outlook in 1893; this
periodical reflected his efforts toward social reform, and, in
theology, a liberality, humanitarian and nearly unitarian.
The latter characteristics marked his published works also.
His works include Jesus of Nazareth (1869); Illustrated
Commentary on the New Testament (4 vols., 1875); A Study
in Human Nature (1885); Life of Christ (1894); Evolution
of Christianity (Lowell Lectures, 1896); The Theology of
an Evolutionist (1897); Christianity and Social Problems
(1897); Life and Letters of Paul, (1898); The Life that
Really is (1899); Problems of Life (1900); The Rights
of Man (1901); Henry Ward Beecher (1903); The Christian
Ministry (1905); The Personality of God (1905); Industrial
Problems (1905); and Christ's Secret of Happiness (1907).
He edited Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher (2 vols., 1868).
ABBOTTADAD, a town of British India, 4120 ft. above
sealevel, 63 m. from Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the
Hazara district in the N.W. Frontier Province, called after
its founder, Sir James Abbott, who settled this wild district
after the annexation of the Punjab. It is an important
military cantonment and sanatorium, being the headquarters of
a brigade in the second division of the northern army corps.
In 1901 the population of the town and cantonment was 7764.
ABBREVIATION (Lat. brevis, short), strictly a shortening;
more particularly, an ``abbreviation'' is a letter or group
of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to
represent them for the sake of brevity. Abbreviations, both
of single words and of phrases, having a meaning more or
less fixed and recognized, are common in ancient writings
and inscriptions (see PALAEOGRAPHY and DIPLOMATIC), and
very many are in use at the present time. A distinction is
to be observed between abbreviations and the contractions
that are frequently to be met with in old manuscripts, and
even in early printed books, whereby letters are dropped
out here and there, or particular collocations of letters
represented by somewhat arbitrary symbols. The commonest
form of abbreviation is the substitution for a word of its
initial letter; but, with a view to prevent ambiguity, one
or more of the other letters are frequently added. Letters
are often doubled to indicate a plural or a superlative.
I. CLASSICAL ABBREVIATIONS.---The following list
contains a selection from the abbreviations that occur
in the writings and inscriptions of the Romans:--
A.
A. Absolvo, Aedilis, Aes, Ager, Ago, Aio, Amicus, Annus, Antiquo,
Auctor, Auditor, Augustus, Aulus, Aurum, Aut.
A.A. Aes alienum, Ante audita, Apud agrum, Aurum argentum.
AA. Augusti. AAA. Augusti tres.
A.A.A.F.F. Auro argento acre flando feriundo.1
A.A.V. Alter ambove.
A.C. Acta causa, Alins civis.
A.D. Ante diem; e.g. A.D.V. Ante diem quintum.
A.D.A. Ad dandos agros.
AEO. Aedes, Aedilis, Aedilitas.
AEM. and AIM. Aemilius, Aemilia.
AER. Aerarium. AER.P. Aere publico.
A.F. Acture fide, Auli filius.
AG. Ager, Ago, Agrippa.
A.G. Ammo grato, Aulus Gellius.
A.L.AE. and A.L.E. Arbitrium litis aestimandae.
A.M. and A.MILL. Ad milliarium.
AN. Aniensis, Annus, Ante.
ANN. Annales, Anni, Annona.
ANT. Ante, Antonius.
A.O. Alii omnes, Amico optimo.
AP. Atppius, Apud.
A.P. Ad pedes, Aedilitia potestate.
A.P.F. Auro (or argento) publico feriundo.
A.P.M. Amico posuit monumentum, Annorum plus minus.
A.P.R.C. Anno post Romam conditam.
ARG. Argentum.
AR.V.V.D.D.Aram votam volens dedicavit, Arma votiva dono dedit.
AT A tergo. Also A TE. and A TER.
A.T.M.D.O. Aio te mihi dare oportere.
AV. Augur, Augustus, Aurelius.
A.V. Annos vixit.
A.V.C. Ab urbe condita.
AVG. Augur, Augustus.
AVGG. Augusti (generally of two). AVGGG. Augusti tres.
AVT.PR.R. Auctoritas provinciae Romanorum.
B.
B. Balbius, Balbus, Beatus, Bene, Beneficiarius, Beneficium,
Bonus, Brutus, Bustum.
B.for V. Berna Bivus, Bixit.
B.A. Bixit anos, Bonis auguriis, Bonus amabilis.
BB.or B.B. Bene bene, i.e. optime, Optimus.
B.D. Bonae deae, Bonum datum.
B.DD. Bonis deabus.
B.D.S.M. Bene de se merenti.
B.F. Bona femina, Bona fides, Bona fortuna, Bonum factum.
B.F. Bona femina, Bona filia.
B.H. Bona hereditaria, Bonorum heres.
B.I. Bonum judicium. B.I.I. Boni judicis judicium.
B.M. Beatae memoriae, Bene merenti.
B.N. Bona nostra, Bonum nomen.
BN.H.I. Bona hic invenies.
B.P. Bona paterna, Bonorum potestas, Bonum publicum.
B.Q. Bene quiescat, Bona quaesita.
B.RP.N. Boho reipublicae natus.
BRT. Britannicus.
B.T. Bonorum tutor, Brevi tempore.
B.V. Bene vale, Bene vixit, Bonus vir.
B.V.V. Balnea vina Venus.
BX. Bixit, for vixit.
C.
C. Caesar, Cains, Caput, Causa, Censor, Civis, Conors, Colonia,
Comitialis (dies), Condemno, Consul, Cum, Curo, Custos.
C. Caia, Centuria, Cum, the prefix Con.
C.B. Civis bonus, Commune bonum, Conjugi benemerenti, Cui bono.
C.C. Calumniae causa, Causa cognita, Conjugi carissimae, Consilium
cepit, Curiae consulto.
C.C.C. Calumniae cavendae causa.
C.C.F. Caesar (or Caius) curavit faciendum, Cains Caii filius.
CC.VV. Clarissimi viri.
C.D. Caesaris decreto, Cains Decius, Comitialibus diebus.
CES. Censor, Censores. CESS. Censores.
C.F. Causa fiduciae, Conjugi fecit, Curavit faciendum.
C.H. Custos heredum, Custos hortorum.
C.I. Caius Julius, Consul jussit, Curavit judex. .
CL. Clarissimus, Claudius, Clodius, Colonia.
CL.V. Clarissimus vir, Clypeum vovit.
C.M. Caius Marius, Causa mortis.
CN. Cnaeus.
COH. Coheres, Conors.
COL. Collega, Collegium, Colonia, Columna.
COLL. Collega, Coloni, Coloniae.
COM. Comes, Comitium, Comparatum.
CON. Conjux, Consensus, Consiliarius, Consul, Consularis.
COR. Cornelia (tribus), Cornelius, Corona, Corpus.
COS. Consiliarius, Consul, Consulares. COSS. Consules.
C.P. Carissimus or Clarissimus puer, Civis publicus, Curavit
ponendum.
C.R. Cains Rufus, Civis Romanus, Curavit reficiendum.
CS. Caesar, Communis, Consul.
C.V. Clarissimus or Consularis vir.
CVR. Cura, Curator, Curavit, Curia.
D.
D. Dat, Dedit, &c., De, Decimus, Decius, Decretum, Decurio,
Deus, Dicit, &c., Dies, Divus, Dominus, Domus, Donum.
D.C. Decurio coloniae, Diebus comitialibus, Divus Caesar.
D.D. Dea Dia, Decurionum decreto, Dedicavit, Deo dedit, Dono dedit.
D.D.D. Datum decreto decurionum, Dono dedit dedicavit.
D.E.R. De ea re.
DES. Designatus.
D.I. Dedit imperator, Diis immortalibus, Diis inferis.
D.l.M. Deo invicto Mithrae, Diis inferis Manibus.
D.M. Deo Magno, Dignus memoria, Diis Manibus, Dolo malo.
D.O.M. Deo Optimo Maximo.
D.P.S. Dedit proprio sumptu, Deo perpetuo sacrum, De pecunia
sua.
E.
E. Ejus, Eques, Erexft, Ergo, Est, Et, Etiam, Ex.
EG. Aeger, Egit, Egregius.
E.M. Egregiae memoriae, Ejusmodi, Erexit monumentum.
EQ.M. Equitum magister.
E.R.A. Ea res agitur.
F.
F. Fabius, Facere, Fecit, &c., Familia, Fastus (dies), Felix,
Femina, Fides, Filius, Flamen, Fortuna, Frater, Fuit, Functus.
F.C. Faciendum curavit, Fidei commissume, Fiduciae causa.
F.D. Fidem dedit, Flamen Dialis, Fraude donavit.
F.F.F. Ferro flamma fame, Fortior fortuna fato.
FL. Filius, Flamen, Flaminius, Flavius.
F.L. Favete linguis, Fecit libens, Felix liber.
FR. Forum, Fronte, Frumentarius.
F.R. Forum Romanum.
G.
G. Gaius (=Caius), Gallia, Gaudium, Gellius, Gemma, Gens,
Gesta, Gratia.
G.F. Gemma fidelis (applied to a legion). So G.P.F. Gemma
pia fidelis.
GL. Gloria.
GN. Genius, Gens, Genus, Gnaeus (=Cnaeus).
G.P.R. Genro populi Romani.
H.
H. Habet, Heres, Hic, Homo, Honor, Hora.
HER. Heres, Herennius. HER. and HERC. Hercules.
H.L. Hac lege, Hoc loco, Honesto loco.
H.M. Hoc monumentum, Honesta mulier, Hora mala.
H.S.E. Hic sepultus est, Hic situs est.
H.V. Haec urbs, Hic vivit, Honeste vixit, Honestus vir.
I.
I. Immortalis, Imperator, In, Infra, Inter, Invictus, Ipse, Isis,
Judex, Julius, Junius, Jupiter, Justus.
IA. Jam, Intra.
I.C. Julius Caesar, Juris Consultum, Jus civile.
ID. Idem, Idus, Interdum.
l.D. Inferis diis, Jovi dedicatnm, Jus dicendum, Jussu Dei.
I.D.M. Jovi deo magno.
I.F. In foro, In fronte.
I.H. Jacet hic, In honestatem, Justus homo.
IM. Imago, Immortalis, Immunis, Impensa.
IMP. Imperator, Imperium.
I.O.M. Jovi optimo maximo.
I.P. In publico, Intra provinciam, Justa persona.
I.S.V.P. Impensa sua vivus posuit.
K.
K. Kaeso, Caia, Calumnia, Caput, Carus, Castra.
K., KAL. and KL. Kalendae.
L.
L. Laelius, Legio, Lex, Libens, Liber, Libra, Locus, Lollius,
Lucius, Ludus.
LB. Libens, Liberi, Libertus.
L.D.D.D. Locus datus decreto decurionum.
LEG. Legatus, Legio.
LIB. Liber, Liberalitas, Libertas, Libertus, Librarius.
LL. Leges, Libentissime, Liberti.
L.M. Libens merito, Locus monumenti.
L.S. Laribus sacrum, Libens solvit, Locus sacer.
LVD. Ludus.
LV.P.F. Ludos publicos fecit.
M.
M. Magister, Magistratus, Magnus, Manes, Marcus, Marins,
Marti, Mater, Memoria, Mensis, Miles, Monumentum, Mortuus,
Mucius, Mulier.
M'. Manius.
M.D. Magno Deo, Manibus diis, Matri deum, Merenti dedit.
MES. Mensis. MESS. Menses.
M.F. Mala fides, Marci filius, Monumentum fecit.
M.I. Matri Idaeae, Matii Isidi, Maximo Jovi.
MNT. and MON. Moneta.
M.P. Male positus, Monumentum posuit.
M.S. Manibus sacrum, Memoriae sacrum, Manu scriptum.
MVN. Municeps, or municipium; so also MN., MV. and MVNIC.
M.V.S. Marti ultori sacrum, Merito votum solvit.
N.
N. Natio, Natus, Nefastus (dies), Nepos, Neptunus, Nero,
Nomen, Non, Nonae, Noster, Novus, Numen, Numerius,
Numerus, Nummus.
NEP. Nepos, Neptunus.
N.F.C. Nostrae fidei commissum.
N.L. Non licet, Non liquet, Non longe.
N.M.V. Nobilis memoriae vir.
NN. Nostri. NN., NNO. and NNR. Nostrorum.
NOB. Nobilis. NOB., NOBR. and NOV. Novembris.
N.P. Nefastus primo (i.e. priore parto diei), Non potest.
O.
O. Ob, Officium, Omnis, Oportet, Optimus, Opus, Ossa.
OB. Obiit, Obiter, Orbis.
O.C.S. Ob cives servatos.
O.H.F. Omnibus honoribus functus.
O.H.S.S. Ossa hic sita sunt.
OR. Hora, Ordo, Ornamentum.
O.T.B.Q. Ossa tua bene quiescant.
P.
P. Pars, Passus, Pater, Patronus, Pax, Perpetuus, Pes, Pius,
Plebs, Pondo, Populus, Post, Posuit, Praeses, Praetor,
Primus, Pro, Provincia, Publicus, Publius, Puer.
P.C. Pactum conventum, Patres conscripti, Pecunia constituta,
Ponendum curavit, Post consulatum, Potestate censoria.
P.F. Pia fidelis, Pius felix, Promissa fides, Publii filius.
P.M. Piae memoriae, Pius minus, Pontifex maximus.
P.P. Pater patratus, Pater patriae, Pecunia publica, Praepositus,
Primipilus, Propraetor.
PR. Praeses, Praetor, Pridie, Princeps.
P.R. Permissu reipublicae, Populus Romanus.
P.R.C. Post Romam conditam.
PR.PR. Praefectus praetorii, Propraetor.
P.S. Pecunia sua, Plebiscitum, Proprio sumptu, Publicae saluti.
P.V. Pia victrix, praefectus urbi, Praestantissimus vir.
Q.
Q. Quaestor, Quando, Quantus, Que, Qui, Quinquennalis,
Quintus, Quirites.
Q.D.R. Qua de re.
Q.I.S.S. Quae infra scripta sunt; so Q.S.S.S. Quae supra, &c.
QQ. Quaecunque, Quinquennalis, Quoque.
Q.R. Quaestor reipublicae.
R.
R. Recte, Res, Respublica, Retro, Rex, Ripa, Roma, Romanus,
Rufus, Rursus.
R.C. Romana civitas, Romanus civis.
RESP. and RP. Respublica.
RET.P. and RP. Retro pedes.
S.
S. Sacrum, Scriptus, Semis, Senatus, Sepultus, Servius,
Servus, Sextus, Sibi, Sine, Situs, Solus, Solvit, Sub, Suus.
SAC. Sacerdos, Sacrificium, Sacrum.
S.C. Senatus consultum.
S.D. Sacrum diis, Salutem dicit, Senatus decreto, Sententiam
S.D.M. Sacrum diis Manibus, Sine dolo malo.
SER. Servius, Servus.
S.E.T.L. Sit ei terra levis.
SN. Senatus, Sententia, Sine.
S.P. Sacerdos perpetua, Sine pecunia, Sua pecunia.
S.P.Q.R. Senatus populusque Romanus.
S.S. Sanctissimus senatus, Supra scripture.
S.V.B.E.E.Q.V. Si vales bene est, ego quidem valeo.
T.
T. Terminus, Testamentum, Titus, Tribunus, Tu, Turma, Tutor.
TB., TI. and TIB. Tiberius.
TB., TR. and TRB. Tribunus.
T.F. Testamentum fecit, Titi filius, Titulum fecit, Titus Flavius.
TM. Terminus, Testamentum, Thermae.
T.P. Terminum posuit, Tribunicia potestate, Tribunus plebis.
TVL. Tullius, Tunus.
V.
V. Urbs, Usus, Uxor, Vale, Verba, Vestalis, Vester, Vir, Vivus,
Vixit, Volo, Votum.
VA. Veterano assignatus, Vixit annos.
V.C. Vale conjux, Vir clarissimus, Vir consularis.
V.E. Verum etiam, Vir egregius, Visum est.
V.F. Usus fructus, Verba fecit, Vivus fecit.
V.P. Urbis praefectus, Vir perfectissimus, Vivus posuit.
V.R. Urbs Roma, Uti rogas, Votum reddidit.
II. MEDIEVAL ABBREVIATIONS.--Of the different kinds of
abbreviations in use in the middle ages, the following are
examples:--
A.M. Ave Maria.
B.P. Beatus Paulus, Beatus Petrus. .
CC. Carissimus (atso plur. Carissimi), Clarissimus, Circum.
D. Deus, Dominicus, Dux.
D.N.PP. Dominus hoster Papa.
U.F. Felicissimus, Fratres, Pandectae (prob. for Gr. II).
I.C. or I.X. Jesus Christus.
I.D.N. In Dei nomine.
KK. Karissimus (or-mi).
MM. Magistri, Martyres, Matrimonium, Meritissimus.
O.S.B. Ordinis Sancti Benedicti.
PP. Papa, Patres, Piissimus.
R.F. Rex Francorum.
R.P.D. Reverendissimus Pater Dominus.
S.C.M. Sacra Caesarea Majestas.
S.M.E. Sancta Mater Ecclesia.
S.M.M. Sancta Mater Maria.
S.R.I. Sanctum Romanum Imperium.
S.V. Sanctitas Vestra, Sancta Virgo.
V. Venerabilis, Venerandus. .
V.R.P. Vestra Reverendissima Paternitas.
III. ABBREVIATIONS NOW IN USE.--The import of these
will often be readily understood from the connexion in which
they occur. There is no occasion to explain here the common
abbreviations used for Christian names, books of Scripture,
months of the year, points of the compass, grammatical and
mathematical terms, or familiar titles, like ``Mr,'' &c.
The ordinary abbreviations, now or recently in use, may
be conveniently classified under the following headings:-
I. ABBREVIATED TITLES AND DESIGNATIONS.
A.A. Associate of Arts.
A.B. Able-bodied seaman; (in America) Bachelor of Arts.
A.D.C. Aide-de-Camp.
A.M. (Artium Magister), Master of Arts.
A.R.A. Associate of the Royal Academy.
A.R.I.B.A. Associate of the Royal Institution of British Architects.
A.R.S.A. Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy.
B.A. Bachelor of Arts.
Bart. Baronet.
B.C.L. Bachelor of Civil Law.
B.D. Bachelor of Divinty.
B.LL. Bachelor of Laws.
B.Sc. Bachelor of Science.
C. Chairman.
C.A. Chartered Accountant.
C.B. Companion of the Bath.
C.E. Civil Engineer.
C.I.E. Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire.
C.M. (Chirurgiae Magister), Master in Surgery.
C.M.G. Companion of St Michael and St George.
C.S.I. Companion of the Star of India.
D.C.L. Doctor of Civil Law.
D.D. Doctor of Divinity.
D.Lit. or Litt. D. Doctor of Literature.
D.M. Doctor of Medicine (Oxford).
D.Sc. Doctor of Science.
D.S.O. Distinguished Service Order.
Ebor. (Eboracensis) of York.2
F.C.S. Fellow of the Chemical Society.
F.D. (Fidei Defensor), Defender of the Faith.
F.F.P.S. Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow)
F.G.S. Fellow of the Geological Society.
F.K.Q.C.P.I. Fellow of King and Queen's College of Physicians
in Ireland.
F.L.S. Fellow of the Linnaean Society.
F.M. Field Marshal.
F.P.S. Fellow of the Philological Society.
F.R.A.S. Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
F.R C.P. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
F.R.C.P.E. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
F.R.C.S. Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.
F.R.G.S. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
F.R.H.S. Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society.
F.R.Hist.Soc. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
F.R.I.B.A. Fellow of the Royal Institution of British Architects.
F.R.S. Fellow of the Royal Society.
F.R.S.E. Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
F.R.S.L. Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
F.S.A. Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
F.S.S. Fellow of the Statistical Society.
F.Z.S. Fellow of the Zoological Society.
G.C.B. Knight Grand Cross of the Bath.
G.C.H. Knight Grand Cross of Hanover.
G.C.I.E. Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian
Empire.
G.C.M.G. Knight Grand Cross of St Michael and St George.
G.C.S.I. Knight Grand Commander of the Star of india.
G.C.V.O. Knight Grand Commander of the Victorian Order.
H.H. His or Her Highness.
H.I.H. His or Her Imperial Highness.
H.I.M. His or Her Imperial Majesty.
H.M. His or Her Majesty.
H.R.H. His or Her Royal Highness.
H.S.H. His or Her Serene Highness.
J. Judge.
J.C.D. (Juris Canonici Doctor, or Juris Civilis Doctor),
Doctor of Canon or Civil Law.
J.D. (Juris utriusque Doctor), Doctor of Civil and Canon Law.
J.P. Justice of the Peace.
K.C. King's Counsel.
K.C.B. Knight Commander of the Bath.
K.C.I.E. Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire.
K.C.M.G. Knight Commander of St Michael and St George.
K.C.S.I. Knight Commander of the Star of India.
K.C.V.O. Knight Commander of the Victorian Order.
K.G. Knight of the Garter.
K.P. Knight of St Patrick.
K.T. Knight of the Thistle.
L.A.H. Licentiate of the Apothecaries' Hall.
L.C.C. London County Council, or Councillor.
L.C.J. Lord Chief Justice
L.J. Lord Justice.
L.L.A. Lady Literate in Arts.
LL.B. (Legum Baccalaureus), Bachelor of Laws.
LL.D. (Legum Doctor), Doctor of Laws.
LL.M. (Legum Magister), Master of Laws.
L.R.C.P. Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.
L.R.C.S. Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons.
L.S.A. Licentiate of the Apothecaries' Society.
M.A. Master of Arts.
M.B. (Medicinae Baccalaureus), Bachelor of Medicine
M.C. Member of Congress.
M.D. (Medicinae Doctor), Doctor of Medicine.
M.Inst.C.E. Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers.
M.P. Member of Parliament.
M.R. Master of the Rolls.
M.R.C.P. Member of the Royal College of Physicians.
M.R.C.S. Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
M.R.I.A. Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Mus.B. Bachelor of Music.
Mus.D. Doctor of Music.
M.V.O. Member of the Victorian Order.
N.P. Notary Public.
O.M. Order of Merit.
P.C. Privy Councillor.
Ph.D. (Philosophiae Doctor), Doctor of Philosophy.
P.P. Parish Priest.
P.R.A. President of the Royal Academy.
R. (Rex, Regina), King, Queen.
R. & I. Rex et Imperator.
R.A. Royal Academician, Royal Artillery.
R.A.M. Royal Academy of Music.
R.E. Royal Engineers.
Reg. Prof. Regius Professor.
R.M. Royal Marines, Resident Magistrate.
R.N. Royal Navy.
S. or St. Saint.
S.S.C. Solicitor before the Supreme Courts of Scotland.
S.T.P. (Sacrosanctae Theologiae Professor), Professor of Sacred
Theology.
V.C. Vice-Chancellor, Victoria Cross.
V.G. Vicar-General.
V.S. Veterinary Surgeon.
W.S. Writer to the Signet [in Scotland]. Equivalent to Attorney
2. ABBREVIATIONS DENOTING MONIES, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES.
ac. acre. lb. or lb. (libra), pound (weight).
bar. barrel. m. or mi. mile, minute.
bus. bushel. m. minim.
c. cent. mo. month.
c. (or cub.) ft. &c. cubic foot,&c. na. nail.
cwt. hundredweight. oz. ounce.
d. (denarius), penny. pk. peck.
deg. degree. po. pole.
dr. drachm or dram. pt. pint.
dwt. pennyweight. q. (quadrans), farthing.
f. franc. qr. quarter.
fl. florin. qt. quart.
ft. foot. ro. rood.
fur. furlong. Rs.4 rupees.
gal. gallon. s. or / (solidus), shilling.
gr. grain. s. or sec. second.
h. or hr. hour. sc. or scr. scruple.
hhd. hogshead. sq. ft. &c, square foot, &c.
in. inch. st. stone.
kilo. kilometre. yd. yard.
L.,3 L. ,2 or l. (libra), pound (money).
3. MISCELLANEOUS ABBREVIATIONS.
A. Accepted.
A.C. (Ante Christum), Before Christ.
acc., a/c. or acct. Account.
A.D. (Anno Domini), In the year of our Lord.
A.E.I.O.U. Austriae est imperare orbi universo,5 or
Alles Erdreich Ist Oesterreich Unterthan.
Aet. or Aetat. (Aetatis, [anno]), In the year of his age.
A.H. (Anno Hegirae), In the year of the Hegira (the Mohammedan
era).
A.M. (Anno Mundi), In the year of the world.
A.M. (Ante meridiem), Forenoon.
Anon. Anonymous.
A.U.C. (Anno urbis conditae), In the year from the building
of the city (i.e. Rome).
A.V. Authorized version of the Bible.
b. born.
B.V.M. The Blessed Virgin Mary.
B.C. Before Christ.
c. circa, about.
C. or Cap. (Caput), Chapter.
C. Centigrade (or Celsius's) Thermometer.
cent.6 (Centnim), A hundred, frequently L. 100.
Cf. or cp. (Confer), Compare.
Ch. or Chap. Chapter.
C.M.S. Church Missionary Society.
Co. Company, County.
C.O.D. Cash on Delivery.
Cr. Creditor.
curt. Current, the present month.
d. died.
D.G. (Dei gratia), By the grace of God.
Do. Ditto, the same.
D.O.M. (Deo Optimo Maximo), To God the Best and Greatest.
Dr. Debtor.
D.V. (Deo volente), God willing.
E.& O.E. Errors and omissions excepted.
e.g. (Exempti gratia), For example.
etc. or &c. (Et caetera), And the rest; and so forth.
Ex. Example.
F. or Fahr. Fahrenheit's Thermometer.
fec. (Fecit), He made (or did) it.
fl. Flourished.
Fo. or Fol. Folio.
f.o.b. Free on board.
G.P.O. General Post Office.
H.M.S. His Majesty's Ship, or Service.
Ib. or Ibid. (Ibidem), In the same place.
Id. (Idem), The same.
ie. (Id est), That is.
I.H.S. A symbol for ``Jesus,', derived from the first three letters
of the Greek (I E S); the correct origin was lost
sight of, and the Romanized letters were then interpreted
erroneously as standing for Jesus, Hominum Salvator,
the Latin ``h'' and Greek long ``e'' being confused.
I.M.D.G. (In majorem Dei gloriam), To the greater glory of God.
Inf. (Infra), Below.
Inst. Instant, the present month.
I.O.U. I owe you.
i.q. (Idem quod), The same as.
k.t.l. (gr kai ta loipa) Et caetera, and the rest.
L. or Lib. (Liber), Book.
Lat. Latitude.
l.c. (Loco citato), In the place cited.
Lon. or Long. Longitude.
L.S. (Locus sigilli), The place of the seal.
Mem. (Memento), Remember, Memorandum.
MS. Manuscript. MSS. Manuscripts.
N.B. (Nota bene), Mark well; take notice.
N.B. North Britain (i.e. Scotland).
N.D. No date.
nem. con. (Nemine contradicente), No one contradicting.
No. (Numero), Number.
N.S. New Style.
N.T. New Testament.
ob. (Obiit), Died.
Obs. Obsolete.
O.H.M.S. On His Majesty's Service.
O.S. Old Style.
O.S.B. Ordo Sancti Benedicti (Benedictines).
O.T. Old Testament.
P. Page. Pp. Pages.
@ (Per), For; e.g. @ lb., For one pound.
Pinx. (Pinxit), He painted it.
P.M. (Post Meridiem), Afternoon.
P.O. Post Office, Postal Order.
P.O.O. Post Office Order.
P.P.C. (Pour prendre conge), To take leave.
P.R. Prize-ring.
prox. (Proximo [mense]), Next month.
P.S. Postscript.
Pt. Part.
p.t. or pro tem. (Pro tempore), For the time.
P.T.O. Please turn over.
Q., Qu., or Qy. Query; Question.
q.d. (Quasi dicat), As if he should say: as much as to say.
Q.E.D. (Quod erot demonstrandum), Which was to be demonstrated.
Q.E.F. (Quod erat faciendum), Which was to be done.
q.s. or quant. suff. (Quantum sufficit), As much as is
sufficient.
q.v. (Quod vide), Which see.
R. or @. (Recipe), Take.
sqrt. (=r. for radix), The sign of the square root.
R.I.P. (Requiescat in pace!), May he rest in peace!
R.S.V.P. (i Respondes s'il vous plait), please reply.
sc. (Scilicet), Namely; that is to say.
Sc. or Sculp. (Sculpsit), He engraved it.
S.D.U.K. Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
seq. or sq., seqq. or sqq. (Sequens, sequenitia), The following.
S.J. Society of Jesus.
sp. (Sine prole), Without offspring.
S.P.C.K. Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
S.P.G. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
S.T.D. }
S.T.B. }Doctor, Bachelor, Licentiate of Theology.
S.T.L. }
Sup. (Supra), Above.
s.v. (Sub voce), Under the word (or heading).
T.C.D. Trinity College, Dublin.
ult. (Ultimo [mense]), Last month.
U.S. United States.
U.S.A. United States of America.
v. (versus), Against.
v. or vid: (Vide), See.
viz. (Videlicet), Namely.
Xmas. Christmas. This X is a Greek letter, corresponding to Ch.
See also Graevius's Thesaurus Antiquitatum (1694, sqq.);
Nicolai's Tractatus de Sigils Veterum; Mommsen's Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum (1863, sqq.); Natalis de Wailly's
Paleographie (Paris, 1838); Alph. Chassant's Paleographie
(1854), and Dictionnaire des Abreviations (3rd ed.
1866); Campelli, Duzionario di Abbreviature (1899).
1 Describing the function of the triumviri monetales.
2 An archbishop or bishop, in writing his signature, substitutes
for his surname the name of his see; thus the prelates of
Canterbury, York, Oxford, London, &c., subscribe themselves
with their initials (Christian names only), followed by
Cantuar., Ebor., Oxon., Londin. (sometimes London.), &c.
3 Characters, not properly abbreviations, are used in the same
way; e.g. `` deg. '' for ``degrees, minutes, seconds'' (circular
measure); @, @, @ for ``ounces, drachms, scruples.'' @ is
probably to be traced to the written form of the z in ``oz.''
4 These forms (as well as $, the symbol for the
American dollar) are placed before the amounts.
5It is given to Austria to rule the whole earth.
The device of Austria, first adopted by Frederick III.
6``Per cent.'' is often signified by %, a form traceable to "100."
ABBREVIATORS, a body of writers in the papal chancery,
whose business was to sketch out and prepare in due form the
pope's bulls, briefs and consistorial decrees before these are
written out in extenso by the scriptores. They are first
mentioned in Extravagantes of John XXII. and of Benedict
XII. Their number was fixed at seventy-two by Sixtus IV.
From the time of Benedict XII. (1334-1342) they were classed
as de Parco majori or Praesidentiae majoris, and de
Parco minnori. The name was derived from a space in the
chancery, surrounded by a grating, in which the officials sat,
which is called higher or lower (major or minor) according to
the proximity of the seats to that of the vice-chancellor.
After the protonotaries left the sketching of the minutes
to the abbreviators, those de Parco majori, who ranked as
prelates, were the most important officers of the apostolic
chancery. By Martin V. their signature was made essential to
the validity of the acts of the chancery; and they obtained in
course of time many important privileges. They were suppressed
in 1908 by Pius X. and their duties were transferred to the
protonotarii apostolici participantes. (See CURIA ROMANA.)
ABDALLATIF, or ABD-UL-LATIF (1162-1231), a celebrated
physician and traveller, and one of the most voluminous writers
of the East, was born at Bagdad in 1162. An interesting
memoir of Abdallatif, written by himself, has been preserved
with additions by Ibn-Abu-Osaiba (Ibn abi Usaibia), a
contemporary. From that work we learn that the higher education
of the youth of Bagdad consisted principally in a minute and
careful study of the rules and principles of grammar, and in
their committing to memory the whole of the Koran, a treatise
or two on philology and jurisprudence, and the choicest Arabian
poetry. After attaining to great proficiency in that kind of
learning, Abdallatif applied himself to natural philosophy and
medicine. To enjoythe society of the learned, he went first
to Mosul (1189), and afterwards to Damascus. With letters of
recommendation from Saladin's vizier, he visited Egypt, where
the wish he had long cherished to converse with Maimonides,
``the Eagle of the Doctors,'' was gratified. He afterwards
formed one of the circle of learned men whom Saladin gathered
around him at Jerusalem. He taught medicine and philosophy at
Cairo and at Damascus for a number of years, and afterwards,
for a shorter period, at Aleppo. His love of travel led him
in his old age to visit different parts of Armenia and Asia
Minor, and he was setting out on a pilgrimage to Mecca when
he died at Bagdad in 1231. Abdallatif was undoubtedly a
man of great knowledge and of an inquisitive and penetrating
mind. Of the numerous works--mostly on medicine---which
Osaiba ascribes to bim, one only, his graphic and detailed
Account of Egypt (in two parts), appears to be known in
Europe. The manuscript, discovered by Edward Pococke the
Orientalist, and preserved in the Bodleian Library, contains
a vivid description of a famine caused, during the author's
residence in Egypt, by the Nile failing to overflow its banks.
It was translated into Latin by Professor White of Oxford in
1800, and into French, with valuable notes, by De Sacy in 1810.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN, the name borne by five princes of the Omayyad dynasty,
amirs and caliphs of Cordova, two of them being rulers of great capacity.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN I. (756-788) was the founder of the branch of
the family which ruled for nearly three centuries in Mahommedan
Spain. When the Omayyads were overthrown in the East by the
Abbasids he was a young man of about twenty years of age.
together with his brother Yahya, he took refuge with Bedouin
tribes in the desert. The Abbasids hunted their enemies
down without mercy. Their soldiers overtook the brothers;
Yahya was slain, and Abd-ar-rahman saved himself by fleeing
first to Syria and thence to northern Africa, the common
refuge of all who endeavoured to get beyond the reach of the
Abbasids. In the general confusion of the caliphate produced
by the change of dynasty, Africa had fallen into the hands
of local rulers, formerly amirs or lieutenants of the Omayyad
caliphs, but now aiming at independence. After a time
Abd-ar-rahman found that his life was threatened, and he
fled farther west, taking refuge among the Berber tribes of
Mauritania. In the midst of all his perils, which read like
stories from the Arabian Nights, Abd-ar-rahman had been
encouraged by reliance on a prophecy of his great-uncle Maslama
that he would restore the fortune of the family. He was
followed in all his wanderings by a few faithful clients of the
Omayyads. In 755 he was in hiding near Ceuta, and thence
he sent an agent over to Spain to ask for the support of
other clients of the family, descendants of the conquerors of
Spain, who were numerous in the province of Elvira, the modern
Granada. The country was in a state of confusion under the
weak rule of the amir Yusef, a mere puppet in the hands of a
faction, and was torn by tribal dissensions among the Arabs
and by race conflicts between the Arabs and Berbers. It
offered Abd-ar-rahman the opportunity he had falled to find in
Africa. On the invitation of his partisans he landed at
Almunecar, to the east of Malaga, in September 755. For a
time he was compelled to submit to be guided by his supporters,
who were aware of the risks of their venture. Yusef opened
negotiations, and offered to give Abdar-rahman one of his
daughters in marriage and a grant of land. This was far less
than the prince meant to obtain, but he would probably have
been forced to accept the offer for want of a better if the
insolence of one of Yusef's messengers, a Spanish renegade,
had not outraged a chief partisan of the Omayyad cause. He
taunted this gentleman, Obeidullah by name, with being unable
to write good Arabic. Under this provocation Obeidullah drew
the sword. In the course of 756 a campaign was fought in
the valley of the Guadalquivir, which ended, on the 16th of
May, in the defeat of Yusef outside Cordova. Abdar-rahman's
army was so ill provided that he mounted almost the only good
war-horse in it; he had no banner, and one was improvised by
unwinding a green turban and binding it round the head of a
spear. The turban and the spear became the banner of the Spanish
Omayyads. The long reign of Abd-arrahman I. was spent in a
struggle to reduce his anarchical Arab and Berber subjects to
order. They had never meant to give themselves a master, and
they chafed under his hand, which grew continually heavier.
The details of these conflicts belong to the general history of
Spain. It is, however, part of the personal history of
Abd-ar-rahman that when in 763 he was compelled to fight at the
very gate of his capital with rebels acting on behalf of the
Abbasids, and had won a signal victory, he cut off the heads
of the leaders, filled them with salt and camphor and sent
them as a defiance to the eastern caliph. His last years were
spent amid a succession of palace conspiracies, repressed with
cruelty. Abd-ar-rahman grew embittered and ferocious. He was
a fine example of an oriental founder of a dynasty, and did his
work so well that the Omayyads lasted in Spain for two centuries
and a half.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN II. (822-852) was one of the weaker of
the Spanish Omayyads. He was a prince with a taste for
music and literature, whose reign was a time of confusion.
It is chiefly memorable for having included the story of
the ``Martyrs of Cordova,'' one of the most remarkable
passages in the religious history of the middle ages.
ABD-AR-RAHMAN III. (912-961) was the greatest and the most
successful of the princes of his dynasty in Spain (for the
general history of his reign see SPAIN, History). He
ascended the throne when he was barely twenty-two and reigned
for half a century. His life was so completely identified
with the government of the state that he offers less material
for biography than his ancestor Abd-ar-rahman I. Yet it
supplies some passages which show the real character of an
oriental dynasty even at its best. Abd-ar-rahman III. was
the grandson of his predecessor, Abdallah, one of the weakest
and worst of the Spanish Omayyads. His father, Mahommed,
was murdered by a brother Motarrif by order of Abdallah The
old sultan was so far influenced by humanity and remorse
that he treated his grandson kindly.
Abd-ar-rahman III.
came to the throne when the country was exhausted by more
than a generation of tribal conflict among the Arabs, and
of strife between them and the Mahommedans of native Spanish
descent. Spaniards who were openly or secretly Christians
had acted with the renegades. These elements, which formed
the bulk of the population, were not averse from supporting
a strong ruler who would protect them against the Arab
aristocracy. These restless nobles were the most serious
of Abd-ar-rahman's enemies. Next to them came the Fatimites
of Egypt and northern Africa, who claimed the caliphate,
and who aimed at extending their rule over the Mahommedan
world, at least in the west. Abd-ar-rahman subdued the nobles
by means of a mercenary army, which included Christians.
He repelled the Fatimites, partly by supporting their
enemies in Africa, and partly by claiming the caliphate for
himself. His ancestors in Spain had been content the the
title of sultan. The caliphate was thought only to belong
to the prince who ruled over the sacred cities of Mecca and
Medina. But the force of this tradition had been so far
weakened that Abd-ar-rahman could proclaim himself caliph on
the 16th of January 929, and the assumption of the title gave
him increased prestige with his subjects, both in Spain and
Africa. His worst enemies were always his fellow Mahommedans.
After he was defeated by the Christians at Alhandega
in 939 through the treason of the Arab nobles in his
army (see SPAIN, History) he never again took the
field. He is accused of having sunk in his later years
into the self-indulgent habits of the harem. When the
undoubted prosperity of his dominions is quoted as an
example of successful Mahommedan rule, it is well to remember
that he administered well not by means of but in spite of
Mahommedans. The high praise given to his administration may
even excite some doubts as to its real excellence. We are
told that a third of his revenue sufficed for the ordinary
expenses of government, a third was hoarded and a third spent on
buildings. A very large proportion of the surplus must
have been wasted on the palace-town of Zahra, built three
miles to the north of Cordova, and named after a favourite
concubine. Ten thousand workmen are said to have been employed
for twenty-five years on this wonder, of which no trace now
remains. The great monument of early Arabic architecture in
Spain, the mosque of Cordoya, was built by his predecessors,
not by him. It is said that his harem included six thousand
women. Abd-ar-rahman was tolerant, but it is highly probable
that he was very indifferent in religion, and it is certain
that he was a thorough despot. One of the most authentic
sayings attributed to him is his criticism of Otto I. of
Germany, recorded by Otto's ambassador, Johann, abbot of
Gorze, who has left in his Vita an incomplete account
of his embassy (in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Scriptores, iv.
355-377). He blamed the king of Germany for trusting his nobles,
which he said could only increase their pride and leaning to
rebellion. His confession that he had known only twenty happy
days in his long reign is perhaps a moral tale, to be classed
with the ``omnia fui, et nil expedit'' of Septimius Severus.
In the agony of the Omayyad dynasty in Spain, two princes
of the house were proclaimed caliphs for a very short time,
Abd-ar-rahman IV. Mortada (1017), and Abd-ar-rahman V. Mostadir
(1023-1024). Both were the mere puppets of factions, who
deserted them at once. Abd-ar-rahman IV. was murdered
in the year in which he was proclaimed, at Guadiz, when
fleeing from a battle in which he had been deserted by his
supporters. Abd-ar-rahman V. was proclaimed caliph in
December 1023 at Cordova, and murdered in January 1024 by a
mob of unemployed workmen, headed by one of his own cousins.
The history of the Omayyads in Spain is the subject of the Histoire
des Musulmans d'Espagne, by R. Dozy (Leiden, 1861). (D. H.)
ABD-EL-AZIZ IV. (1880- ), sultan of Morocco, son of Sultan
Mulai el Hasan III. by a Circassian wife. He was fourteen
years of age on his father's death in 1894. By the wise action
of Si Ahmad bin Musa, the chamberlain of El Hasan, Abd-el
Aziz's accession to the sultanate was ensured with but little
fighting. Si Ahmad became regent and for six years showed
himself a capable ruler. On his death in 1900 the regency
ended, and Abd-el-Aziz took the reins of government into his own
hands, with an Arab from the south, El Menebhi, for his chief
adviser. Urged by his Circassian mother, the sultan sought
advice and counsel from Europe and endeavoured to act up to
it. But disinterested advice was difficult to obtain, and
in spite of the unquestionable desire of the young ruler to
do the best for the country, wild extravagance both in action
and expenditure resulted, leaving the sultan with depleted
exchequer and the confidence of his people impaired. His
intimacy with foreigners and his imitation of their ways were
sufficient to rouse fanaticism and create dissatisfaction.
His attempt to reorganize the finances by the systematic levy
of taxes was hailed with delight, but the government was not
strong enough to carry the measures through, and the money
which should have been used to pay the taxes was employed
to purchase firearms. Thus the benign intentions of Mulai
Abdel-Aziz were interpreted as weakness, and Europeans were
accused of having spoiled the sultan and of being desirous of
spoiling the country. When British engineers were employed
to survey the route for a railway between Mequinez and
Fez, this was reported as indicating an absolute sale of the
country. The fanaticism of the people was aroused, and a
revolt broke out near the Algerian frontier. Such was the
condition of things when the news of the Anglo-French Agreement
of 1904 came as a blow to Abd-el-Aziz, who had relied on
England for support and protection against the inroads of
France. On the advice of Germany he proposed the assembly of
an international conference at Algeciras in 1906 to consult
upon methods of reform, the sultan's desire being to ensure
a condition of affairs which would leave foreigners with no
excuse for interference in the control of the country, and
would promote its welfare, which Abd-el-Aziz had earnestly
desired from his accession to power. The sultan gave his
adherence to the Act of the Algeciras Conference, but the
state of anarachy into which Morocco fell during the latter
half of 1906 and the beginning of 1907 showed that the young
ruler lacked strength sufficient to make his will respected
by his turbulent subjects. In May 1907 the southern tribes
invited Mulai Hafid, an elder brother of Abd-el-Aziz, and
viceroy at Marrakesh, to become sultan, and in the following
August Hafid was proclaimed sovereign there with all the usual
formalities. In the meantime the murder of Europeans
at Casablanca had led to the occupation of that port by
France. In September Abd-el-Aziz arrived at Rabat from Fez
and endeavoured to secure the support of the European powers
against his brother. From France he accepted the grand cordon
of the Legion of Honour, and was later enabled to negotiate a
loan. His leaning to Christians aroused further opposition
to his rule, and in January 1908 he was declared deposed by
the ulema of Fez, who offered the throne to Hafid. After
months of inactivity Abd-el-Aziz made an effort to restore
his authority, and quitting Rabat in July he marched on
Marrakesh. His force, largely owing to treachery, was
completely overthrown (August 19th) when near that city,
and Abd-el-Aziz fled to Settat within the French lines
round Casablanca. In November he came to terms with his
brother, and thereafter took up his residence in Tangier
as a pensioner of the new sultan. He declared himself more
than reconciled to the loss of the throne, and as looking
forward to a quiet peaceful life. (See MOROCCO, History.)
ABD-EL-KADER (c. 1807-1883), amir of Mascara, the great
opponent of the conquest of Algeria by France, was born near
Mascara in 1807 or 1808. His family were sherifs or descendants
of Mahomet, and his father, Mahi-ed-Din, was celebrated
throughout North Africa for his piety and charity. Abd-el
Kader received the best education attainable by a Mussulman
of princely rank, especially in theology and philosophy, in
horsemanship and in other manly exercises. While still a
youth he was taken by his father on the pilgrimage to Mecca
and Medina and to the tomb of Sidi Abd-el-Kader El Jalili at
Bagdad--events which stimulated his natural tendency to religious
enthusiasm. While in Egypt in 1827, Abd-el-Kader is stated
to have been impressed, by the reforms then being carried out
by Mehemet Ali with the value of European civilization, and
the knowledge he then gained affected his career. Mahi-ed-Din
and his son returned to Mascara shortly before the French
occupation of Algiers (July 1830) destroyed the government
of the Dey. Coming forward as the champion of Islam against
the infidels, Abd-el-Kader was proclaimed amir at Mascara in
1832. He prosecuted the war against France vigorously and
in a short time had rallied to his standard all the tribes
of western Algeria. The story of his fifteen years' struggle
against the French is given under ALGERIA. To the beginning
of 1842 the contest went in favour of the amir; thereafter
he found in Marshal Bugeaud an opponent who proved, in the
end, his master. Throughout this period Abd-el-Kader showed
himself a born leader of men, a great soldier, a capable
administrator, a persuasive orator, a chivalrous opponent.
His fervent faith in the doctrines of Islam was unquestioned,
and his ultimate failure was due in considerable measure
to the refusal of the Kabyles, Berber mountain tribes whose
Mahommedanism is somewhat loosely held, to make common cause
with the Arabs against the French. On the 21st of December
1847, the amir gave himself up to General Lamoriciere at Sidi
Brahim. On the 23rd, his submission was formally made to the
duc d'Aumale, then governor of Algeria. In violation of the
promise that he would be allowed to go to Alexandria or St Jean
d'Acre, on the faith of which he surrendered, Abd-el-Kader and
his family were detained in France, first at Toulon, then at
Pau, being in November 1848 transferred to the chateau of
Amboise. There Abd-el-Kader remained until October 1852, when
he was released by Napoleon III. on taking an oath never again
to disturb Algeria. The amir then took up his residence in
Brusa, removing in 1855 to Damascus. In July 1860, when the
Moslems of that city, taking advantage of disturbances among
the Druses of Lebanon, attacked the Christian quarter and
killed over 3000 persons, Abd-el-Kader helped to repress the
outbreak and saved large numbers of Christians. For this
action the French government, which granted the amir a pension
of L. 4000, bestowed on him the grand cross of the Legion of
Honour. In 1865, he visited Paris and London, and was again in
Paris at the exposition of 1867. In 1871, when the Algerians
again rose in revolt, Abd-el-Kader wrote to them counselling
submission to France. After his surrender in 1847 he devoted
himself anew to theology and philosophy, and composed a
philosophical treatise, of which a French translation was
published in 1858 under the title of Rappel a l'intelligent.
Avis a l'indifferent. He also wrote a book on the Arab
horse. He died at Damascus on the 26th of May 1883.
See Commdt. J. Pichon, Abd el Kader, 1807--1883
(Paris [1899]): Alex. Bellemare, Abd-el-Kader: sa
vie politique et militaire (Paris, 1863); Col. C. H.
Churchill, The Life of Abdel Kader (London, 1867).
ABDERA, an ancient seaport town on the south coast of Spain,
between Malaca and New Carthage, in the district inhabited by the
Bastuli. It was founded by the Carthaginians as a trading
station, and after a period of decline became under the Romans
one of the more important towns in the province of Hispania
Baetica. It was situated on a hill above the modern Adra
(q.v.). Of its coins the most ancient bear the Phoenician
inscription abdrt with the head of Heracles (Melkarth) and
a tunny-fish; those of Tiberius (who seems to have made the
place a colony) show the chief temple of the town with two
tunny-fish erect in the form of columns. For inscriptions
relating to the Roman municipality see C.I.L. ii. 267.
ABDERA, a town on the coast of Thrace near the mouth of the
Nestos, and almost opposite Thasos. Its mythical foundation
was attributed to Heracles, its historical to a colony from
Clazomenae in the 7th century B.C. But its prosperity
dates from 544 B.C., when the majority of the people of
Teos migrated to Abdera after the Ionian revolt to escape
the Persian yoke (Herod. i. 168); the chief coin type, a
gryphon, is identical with that of Teos; the coinage is
noted for the beauty and variety of its reverse types. The
town seems to have declined in importance after the middle
of the 4th century. The air of Abdera was proverbial as
causing stupidity; but among its citizens was the philosopher
Democritus. The ruins of the town may still be seen on
Cape Balastra; they cover seven small hills, and extend
from an eastern to a western harbour; on the S.W. hills
are the remains of the medieval settlement of Polystylon.
Mittheil. d. deutsch. Inst. Athens, xii. (1887),
p. 161 (Regel); Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions,
xxxix. 211; K. F. Hermann, Ges. Abh. 90-111, 370 in.
ABDICATION (Lat. abdicatio, disowning, renouncing,
from ab, from, and dicare, to declare, to proclaim as
not belonging to one), the act whereby a person in office
renounces and gives up the same before the expiry of the time
for which it is held. In Roman law, the term is especially
applied to the disowning of a member of a family, as the
disinheriting of a son, but the word is seldom used except
in the sense of surrendering the supreme power in a state.
Despotic sovereigns are at liberty to divest themselves of
their powers at any time, but it is otherwise with a limited
monarchy. The throne of Great Britain cannot be lawfully
abdicated unless with the consent of the two Houses of
Parliament. When James II., after throwing the great
seal into the Thames, fled to France in 1688, he did not
formally resign the crown, and the question was discussed
in parliament whether he had forfeited the throne or had
abdicated. The latter designation was agreed on, for in a
full assembly of the Lords and Commons, met in convention,
it was resolved, in spite of James's protest, ``that King
James II. having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of
the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king
and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked
persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having
withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, has abdicated the
government, and that the throne is thereby vacant.'' The
Scottish parliament pronounced a decree of forfeiture and
deposition. Among the most memorable abdications of
antiquity may be mentioned that of Sulla the dictator, 79
B.C., and that of the Emperor Diocletian, A.D. 305. The
following is a list of the more important abdications of later
A.D.
Benedict IX., pope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1048
Stephen II. of Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1131
Albert (the Bear) of Brandenburg . . . . . . . . . . 1169
Ladislaus III. of Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206
Celestine V., pope . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dec. 13, 1294
John Baliol of Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1296
John Cantacuzene, emperor of the East . . . . . . . 1355
Richard II. of England . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 29, 1399
John XXIII., pope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1415
Eric VII; of Denmark and XIII. of Sweden . . . . . . 1439
Murad II., Ottoman Sultan . . . . . . . . .1444 and 1445
Charles V., emperor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1556
Christina of Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1654
John Casimir of Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1618
James II. of England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1688
Frederick Augustus of Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . 1704
Philip V. of Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1724
Victor Amadeus II. of Sardinia . . . . . . . . . . . 1730
Ahmed III., Sultan of Turkey . . . . . . . . . . . . 1730
Charles of Naples (on accession to throne of Spain). 1759
Stanislaus II. of Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1795
Charles Emanuel IV. of Sardinia . . . . . . June 4, 1802
Charles IV. of Spain . . . . . . . . . . . .Mar. 19, 1808
Joseph Bonaparte of Naples . . . . . . . . . June 6, 1808
Gustavus IV. of Sweden . . . . . . . . . . .Mar. 29, 1809
Louis Bonaparte of Holland . . . . . . . . . July 2, 1810
Napoleon I., French Emperor. . . . . . . . .April 4, 1814, and June 22, 1815
Victor Emanuel of Sardinia . . . . . . . . .Mar. 13, 1821
Charles X. of France . . . . . . . . . . . . Aug. 2, 1830
Pedro of Brazil 1 . . . . . . . . . . . .April 7, 1831
Miguel of Portgual . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 26, 1834
William I. of Holland . . . . . . . . . . . Oct. 7, 1840
Louis Philippe, king of the French . . . . .Feb. 24, 1848
Louis Charles of Bavaria . . . . . . . . . .Mar. 21, 1848
Ferdinand of Austria . . . . . . . . . . . . Dec. 2, 1848
Charles Albert of Sardinia . . . . . . . . .Mar. 23, 1849
Leopold II. of Tuscany . . . . . . . . . . .July 21, 1859
Isabella II. of Spain . . . . . . . . . . . June 25, 1870
Amadeus I. of Spain . . . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 11, 1873
Alexander of Bulgaria . . . . . . . . . . . Sept. 7, 1886
Milan of Servia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mar. 6, 1889
1 Pedro had succeeded to the throne of Portugal in
1826, but abdicated it at once in favour of his daughter.
ABDOMEN (a Latin word, either from abdere, to hide,
or from a form adipomen, from adeps, fat), the belly,
the region of the body containing most of the digestive
organs. (See for anatomical details the articles ALIMENTARY
CANAL, and ANATOMY, Superficial and Artistic.)
ABDOMINAL SURGERY.---The diseases affecting this region
are dealt with generally in the article DIGESTIVE ORGANS,
and under their own names (e.g. APPENDICITIS). The term
``abdominal surgery'' covers generally the operations which
involve opening the abdominal cavity, and in modern times this
field of work has been greatly extended. In this Encyclopaedia
the surgery of each abdominal organ is dealt with, for the
most part, in connexion with the anatomical description of
that organ (see STOMACH, KIDNEY, LIVER, &c.); but here the
general principles of abdominal surgery may be discussed.
Exploratory Laparotomy.---In many cases of serious intra-abdominal
disease it is impossible for the surgeon to say exactly
what is wrong without making an incision and introducing his
finger, or, if need be, his hand among the intestines. With
due care this is not a perilous or serious procedure, and the
great advantage appertaining to it is daily being more fully
recognized. It was Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes, the American
physiologist and poet, who remarked that one cannot say of
what wood a table is made without lifting up the cloth; so
also it is often impossible to say what is wrong inside the
abdomen without making an opening into it. When an opening
is made in such circumstances---provided only it is done soon
enough--the successful treatment of the case often becomes a
simple matter. An exploratory operation, therefore, should
be promptly resorted to as a means of diagnosis, and not left
as a last resource till the outlook is well-nigh hopeless.
It is probable that if the question were put to any experienced
hospital surgeon if he had often had cause to regret having
advised recourse to an exploratory operation on the abdomen,
his answer would be in the negative, but that, on the other
hand, he had not infrequently had cause to regret that he
had not resorted to it, post-mortem examination having
shown that if only he had insisted on an exploratioui being
made, some band, some adhesion, some tumour, some abscess
might have been satisfactorily dealt with, which, left
unsuspected in the dark cavity, was accountable for the
death. A physician by himself is helpless in these cases.
Much of the rapid advance which has of late been made in
the results of abdominal surgery is due to the improved
relationship which exists between the public and the surgical
profession. In former days it was not infrequently said, ``If
a surgeon is called in he is sure to operate.'' Not only have
the public said this, but even physicians have been known to
suggest it, and have indeed used the equivocal expression,
the ``apotheosis of surgery,'' in connexion with the operative
treatment of a serious abdominal lesion. But fortunately
the public have found out that the surgeon, being an honest
man, does not advise operation unless he believes that it is
necessary or, at any rate, highly advisable. And this happy
discovery has led to much more confidence being placed in his
decision. It has truly been said that a surgeon is a physician
who can operate, and the public have begun to realize the fact
that it is useless to try to relieve an acute abdominal lesion
by diet or drugs. Not many years ago cases of acute, obscure
or chronic affections of the abdomen which were admitted into
hospital were sent as a matter of course into the medical
wards, and after the effect of drugs had been tried with
expectancy and failure, the services of a surgeon were called
in. In acute cases this delay spoilt all surgical chances, and
the idea was more widely spread that surgery, after all, was
a poor handmaid to medicine. But now things are different.
Acute or obscure abdominal cases are promptly relegated to
the surgical wards; the surgeon is at once sent for, and if
operation is thought desirable it is performed without any
delay. The public have found that the surgeon is not a reckless
operator, but a man who can take a broad view of a case in all
its bearings. And so it has come about that the results of
operations upon the interior of the abdomen have been improving
day by day. And doubtless they will continue to improve.
A great impetus was given to the surgery of wounded, mortified
or diseased pieces of intestine by the introduction from
Chicago of an ingenious contrivance named, after the inventor,
Murphy's button. This consists of a short nickel-plated
tube in two pieces, which are rapidly secured in the divided
ends of the bowel, and in such a manner that when the
pieces are subsequently ``married'' the adjusted ends of
the bowel are securely fixed together and the canal rendered
practicable. In the course of time the button loosens itself
into the interior of the bowel and comes away with the alvine
evacuation. In many other cases the use of the button has
proved convenient and successful, as in the establishment of
a permanent communication between the stomach and the small
intestine when the ordinary gateway between these parts of
the alimentary canal is obstructed by an irremovable malignant
growth; between two parts of the small intestine so that
some obstruction may be passed; betw:en smal' and large
intestine. The operative procedure goes by the name of
short-circuiting; it enables the contents of the bowel to get
beyond an obstruction. In this way also a permanent working
communication can be set up between the gallbladder, or a
dilated bile-duct, and the neighbouring small intestine---the
last-named operation bears the precise but very clumsy name
of choledocoduodenostomy. By the use of Murphy's ingenious
apparatus the communication of two parts can be secured in
the shortest possible space of time, and this, in many of
the cases in which it is resorted to, is of the greatest
importance. But there is this against the method---that
sometimes ulceration occurs around the rim of the metal button,
whilst at others the loosened metal causes annoyance in its
passage along the alimentary canal. Some surgeons therefore
prefer to use a bobbin of decalcified bone or similar soft
material, while others rely upon direct suturing of the
parts. The last-named method is gradually increasing in
popularity, and of course, when time and circumstances permit,
it is the ideal method of treatment. The cause of death
in the case of intestinal obstruction is usually due to the
blood being poisoned by the absorption of the products of
decomposition of the fluid contents of the bowel above the
obstruction. It is now the custom, therefore, for the surgeon to
complete his operation for the relief of obstruction by drawing
out a loop of the distended bowel, incising and evacuating
it, and then carefully suturing and returning it. The surgeon
who first recognized the lethal effect of the absorption of
this stagnant fluid---or, at any rate, who first suggested the
proper method of treating it---was Lawson Tait of Birmingham,
who on the occurrence of grave symptoms after operating on
the abdomen gave small, repeated doses of Epsom salts to wash
away the harmful liquids of the bowel and to enable it at the
same time to empty itself of the gas, which, by distending the
intestines, was interfering with respiration and circulation.
Amongst still more recent improvements in abdominal surgery
may be mentioned the placing of the patient in the sitting
position as soon as practicable after the operation, and
the slow administration of a hot saline solution into the
lower bowel, or, in the more desperate cases, of injecting
pints of this ``normal saline'' fluid into the loose
tissue of the armpit. Hot water thus administered or
injected is quickly taken into the blood, increasing its
volume, diluting its impurities and quenching the great
thirst which is so marked a symptom in this condition.
Gunshot wounds of the Abdomen.---If a revolver bullet passes
through the abdomen, the coils of intestine are likely to be
traversed by it in several places. If the bullet be small and,
by chance, surgically clean, it is possible that the openings
may tightly close up behind it so that no leakage takes place
into the general peritoneal cavity. If increasing collapse
suggests that serious bleeding is occurring within the abdomen,
the cavity is opened forthwith and a thorough exploration
made. When it is uncettain lf the bowel has been traversed
or not, it is well to wait before opening the abdomen, due
preparation being made for performing that operation on the
first appearance of symptoms indicative of perforation having
occurred. Small perforating wounds of the bowel are treated
by such suturing as the circumstances may suggest, the interior
of the abdominal cavity being rendered as free from septic
micro-organisms as possible. It is by the malign influence of
such germs that a fatal issue is determined in the case of an
abdominal wound, whether inflicted by firearms or by a pointed
weapon. If aseptic procedure can be promptly resorted
to and thoroughly carried out, abdominal wounds do well,
but these essentials cannot be obtained upon the field of
battle. When after an action wounded men come pouring into
the field-hospital, the many cannot be kept waiting whilst
preparations are being made for the thorough carrying out
of a prolonged aseptic abdominal operation upon a solitary
case. Experience in the South African war of 1899-1902 showed
that Mauser bullets could pierce coils of intestine and leave
the soldiers in such a condition that, if treated by mere
``expectancy,'' more than 50% recovered, whereas if operations
were resorted to, fatal septic peritonitis was likely to ensue.
In the close proximity of the fight, where time, assistants,
pure water, towels, lotions and other necessaries for carrying
out a thoroughly aseptic operation cannot be forthcoming,
gunshot wounds of the abdomen had best not be interfered with.
Stabs of the abdomen are serious if they have penetrated the
abdominal wall, as, at the time of injury, septic germs may
have been introduced, or the bowel may have been wounded. In
either case a fatal inflammation of the peritoneum may be set
up. It is inadvisable to probe a wound in order to find out
if the belly-cavity has been penetrated, as the probe itself
might carry inwards septic germs. In case of doubt it is
better to enlarge the wound in order to determine its depth,
and to disinfect and close it if it be non-penetrating. If,
however, the bellycavity has been opened, the neighbouring
pieces of bowel should be examined, cleansed and, if need be,
sutured. Should there have been an escape of the contents of
the bowel the ``toilet of the peritoneum'' would be duly made,
and a drainage-tube would be left in. If the stab had injured
a large blood-vessel either of the abdominal cavity, or of the
hiver or of some other organ, the bleeding would be arrested
by ligature or suture, and the extravasated blood sponged
out. Before the days of antiseptic surgery, and of exploratory
abdominal operations, these cases were generally allowed
to drift to almost certain death, unrecognized and almost
untreated: at the present time a large number of them are saved.
Intussusception.---This is a terribly fatal disease of
infants and children, in which a piece of bowel slips into,
and is gripped by, the piece next below it. Formerly it was
generally the custom to endeavour to reduce the invagination
by passing air or water up the rectum under pressure--a
speculative method of treatment which sometimes ended in a
fatal rupture of the distended bowel, and often---one might
almost say generally--failed to do what was expected of
it. The teaching of modern surgery is that a small incision
into the abdomen and a prompt withdrawal of the invaginated
piece of bowel can be trusted to do all that, and more than,
infection can effect, without blindly risking a rupture of the
bowel. It is certain that when the surgeon is unable to
unravel the bowel with his fingers gently applied to the parts
themselves, no speculative distension of the bowel could
have been effective. But the outlook in these distressing
cases, even when the operation is promptly resorted to, is
extremely grave, because of the intensity of the shock which
the intussusception and resulting strangulation entail.
Still, every operation gives them by far the best chance.
Cancer of the Intestine.---With the introduction of aseptic
methods of operating, it has been found that the surgeon can
reach the bowel through the peritoneum easily and safely.
With the peritoneum opened, moreover, he can explore the
diseased bowel and deal with it as circumstances suggest.
If the cancerous mass is fairly movable the affected piece
of bowel is excised and the cut ends are spliced together,
and the continuity of the alimentary canal is permanently
re-established. Thus in the case of cancer of the large
intestine which is not too far advanced, the surgeon expects
to be able not only to relieve the obstruction of the bowel,
but actually to cure the patient of his disease. When the
lowest part of the bowel was found to be occupied by a cancerous
obstruction, the surgeon used formerly to secure an easy escape
for the contents of the bowel by making an opening into the
colon in the left loin. But in recent years this operation of
lumbar colotomy has been almost entirely replaced by opening
the colon in the left groin. This operation of iniguinal
colotomy is usually divided into two stages: a loop of the
large intestine is first drawn out through the abdominal
wound and secured by stitches, and a few days afterwards,
when it is firmly glued in place by adhesive inflammation,
it is cut across, so that subsequently the motions can no
longer find their way into the bowel below the artificial
anus. If at the first stage of the operation symptoms of
obstruction are urgent, one of the ingenious glass tubes
with a rubber conduit, which Mr F. T. Paul has invented,
may be forthwith introduced into the distended bowel, so
that the contents may be allowed to escape without fear of
soiling the peritoneum or even the surface-wound. (E. O.*)
ABDUCTION (Lat. abductio, abducere, to lead away), a
law term denoting the forcible or fraudulent removal of a
person, limited by custom to the case where a woman is the
victim. In the case of men or children, it has been usual
to substitute the term kidnapping (q.v.). The old English
laws against abduction, generally contemplating its object
as the possession of an heiress and her fortune, have been
repealed by the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which
makes it felony for any one from motives of lucre to take
away or detain against her will with intent to marry or
carnally know her, &c., any woman of any age who has any
interest in any real or personal estate, or is an heiress
presumptive, or co-heiress, or presumptive next of kin to
any one having such an interest; or for any one to cause
such a woman to be married or carnally known by any other
person; or for any one with such intent to allure, take
away, or detain any such woman under the age of twenty-one,
out of the possession and against the will of her parents or
guardians. By s. 54, forcible taking away or detention
against her will of any woman of any age with like intent is
felony. The same act makes abduction without eyen any such
intent a misdemeanour, where an unmarried girl under the
age of sixteen is unlawfully taken out of the possession and
against the will of her parents or guardians. In such a case
the girl's consent is immaterial, nor is it a defence that the
person charged reasonably believed that the girl was sixteen or
over. The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 made still more
stringent provisions with reference to abduction by making
the procuration or attempted procuration of any virtuous
female under the age of twenty-one years a misdemeanour, as
well as the abduction of any girl under eighteen years of
age with the intent that she shall be carnally known, or the
detaining of any female against her will on any premises,
with intent to have, or that another person may have, carnal
knowledge of her. In Scotland, where there is no statutory
adjustment, abduction is similarly dealt with by practice.
ABD-UL-AZIZ (1830-1876), sultan of Turkey, son of Sultan
Mahmud II., was born on the 9th of February 1830, and
succeeded his brother Abd-ul-Mejid in 1861. His personal
interference in government affairs was not very marked, and
extended to little more than taking astute advantage of the
constant issue of State loans during his reign to acquire
wealth, which was squandered in building useless palaces
and in other futile ways: he is even said to have profited,
by means of ``bear'' sales, from the default on the Turkish
debt in 1875 and the consequent fall in prices. Another
source of revenue was afforded by Ismail Pasha, the khedive
of Egypt, who paid heavily in bakshish for the firman of
1866, by which the succession to the khedivate was made
hereditary from father to son in direct line and in order
of primogeniture, as well as for the subsequent firmans of
1867, 1869 and 1872 extending the khedive's prerogatives. It
is, however, only fair to add that the sultan was doubtless
influenced by the desire to bring about a similar change
in the succession to the Ottoman throne and to ensure the
succession after him of his eldest son, Yussuf Izz-ed-din.
Abd-ul-Aziz visited Europe in 1867, being the first Ottoman
sultan to do so, and was made a Knight of the Garter by Queen
Victoria. In 1869 he received the visits of the emperor of
Austria, the Empress Eugenie and other foreign princes, on their
way to the opening of the Suez Canal, and King Edward VII.,
while prince of Wales, twice visited Gonstantinople during his
reign. The mis-government and financial straits of the
country brought on the outbreak of Mussulman discontent and
fanaticism which eventually culminated in the murder of two
consuls at Salonica and in the ``Bulgarian atrocities,'' and
cost Abd-ul-Aziz his throne. His deposition on the 30th of
May 1876 was hailed with joy throughout Turkey; a fortnight
later he was found dead in the palace where he was confined,
and trustworthy medical evidence attributed his death to
suicide. Six children survived him: Prince Yussuf Izz-ed-din,
born 1857; Princess Salina, wife of Kurd Ismall Pasha;
Princess Nazime, wife of Khalid Pasha; Prince Abd-ul-Mejid,
born 1869; Prince Self-ed-din, born 1876; Princess Emine,
wife of Mahommed Bey; Prince Shefket, born 1872, died 1899.
ABD-UL-HAMID I.,(1725-1789), sultan of Turkey, son of Ahmed
III., succeeded his brother Mustafa III. in 1773. Long
confinement in the palace aloof from state affairs had left
him pious, God-fearing and pacific in disposition. At his
accession the financial straits of the treasury were such that
the usual donative could not be given to the janissaries. War
was, however, forced on him, and less than a year after his
accession the complete defeat of the Turks at Kozluja led
to the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji ( 21st July 1774), the most
disastrous, especially in its after effects, that Turkey
has ever been obliged to conclude. (See TURKEY.) Slight
successes in Syria and the Morea against rebellious outbreaks
there could not compensate for the loss of the Crimea, which
Russia soon showed that she meant to absorb entirely. In
1787 war was again declared against Russia, joined in the
following year by Austria, Joseph II. being entirely won over to
Catherine, whom he accompanied in her triumohal progress in the
Crimea. Turkey held her own against the Austrians, but in
1788 Ochakov fell to the Russians. Four months later, on
the 7th of April 1789, the sultan died, aged sixty-four.
ABD-UL-HAMID II. (1842- ), sultan of Turkey, son of Sultan
Abd-ul-Mejid, was born on the 21st of September 1842, and
succeeded to the throne on the deposition of his brother Murad
V., on the 31st of August 1876. He accompanied his uncle
Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz on his visit to England and France in
1867. At his accession spectators were struck by the fearless
manner in which he rode, practically unattended, on his way
to be girt with the sword of Eyub. He was supposed to be of
liberal principles, and the more conservative of his subjects
were for some years after his accession inclined to regard him
with suspicion as a too ardent reformer. But the circumstances
of the country at his accession were ill adapted for liberal
developments. Default in the public funds and an empty
treasury, the insurrection in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, the
war with Servia and Montenegro, the feeling aroused throughout
Europe by the methods adopted in stamping out the Bulgarian
rebellion, all combined to prove to the new sultan that he
could expect little aid from the Powers. But, still clinging
to the groundless belief, for which British statesmen had, of
late at least, afforded Turkey no justification, that Great
Britain at all events would support him, he obstinately refused
to give ear to the pressing requests of the Powers that the
necessary reforms should be instituted. The international
Conference which met at Constantinople towards the end of
1876 was, indeed, startled by the salvo of guns heralding
the promulgation of a constitution, but the demands of the
Conference were rejected, in spite of the solemn warnings
addressed to the sultan by the Powers; Midhat Pasha, the
author of the constitution, was exiled; and soon afterwards
his work was suspended, though figuring to this day on the
Statute-Book. Early in 1877 the disastrous war with Russia
followed. The hard terms, embodied in the treaty of San
Stefano, to which Abd-ul-Hamid was forced to consent, were
to some extent amended at Berlin, thanks in the main to
British diplomacy (see EUROPE, History); but by this
time the sultan had lost all confidence in England, and
thought that he discerned in Germany, whose supremacy was
evidenced in his eyes by her capital being selected as the
meeting-place of the Congress, the future friend of Turkey.
He hastened to employ Germans for the reorganization of his
finances and his army, and set to work in the determination to
maintain his empire in spite of the difficulties surrounding
him, to resist the encroachments of foreigners, and to take
gradually the reins of absolute power into his own hands,
being animated by a profound distrust, not unmerited, of his
ministers. Financial embarrassments forced him to consent to
a foreign control over the Debt, and the decree of December
1881, whereby many of the revenues of the empire were handed
over to the Public Debt Administration for the benefit of the
bondholders, was a sacrifice of principle to which he could
only have consented with the greatest reluctance. Trouble in
Egypt, where a discredited khedive had to be deposed, trouble
on the Greek frontier and in Montenegro, where the Powers were
determined that the decisions of the Berlin Congress should
be carried into effect, were more or less satisfactorily got
over. In his attitude towards Arabi, the would-be saviour of
Egypt, Abd-ul-Hamid showed less than his usual astuteness, and
the resulting consolidation of England's hold over the country
contributed still further to his estrangement from Turkey's old
ally. The union in 1885 of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia, the
severance of which had been the great triumph of the Berlin
Congress, was another blow. Few people south of the Balkans
dreamed that Bulgaria could be anything but a Russian province,
and apprehension was entertained of the results of the union
until it was seen that Russia really and entirely disapproved of
it. Then the best was made of it, and for some years the sultan
preserved towards Bulgaria an attitude skilfully calculated
so as to avoid running counter either to Russian or to German
wishes. Germany's friendship was not entirely disinterested,
and had to be fostered with a railway or loan concession from
time to time, until in 1899 the great object aimed at, the
Bagdad railway, was conceded. Meanwhile, aided by docile
instruments, the sultan had succeeded in reducing his ministers
to the position of secretaries, and in concentrating the
mhole administration of the country into his own hands at
Yildiz. But internal dissension was not thereby lessened.
Crete was constantly in turmoil, the Greeks were dissatisfied,
and from about 1890 the Armenians began a violent agitation
with a view to obtaining the reforms promised them at
Berlin. Minor troubles had occurred in 1892 and 1893 at
Marsovan and Tokat. In 1894 a more serious rebellion in
the mountainous region of Sassun was ruthlessly stamped
out; the Powers insistently demanded reforms, the eventual
grant of which in the autumn of 1895 was the signal for a
series of massacres, brought on in part by the injudicious
and threatening acts of the victims, and extending over many
months and throughout Asia Minor, as well as in the capital
itself. The reforms became more or less a dead letter.
Crete indeed profited by the grant of extended privileges,
but these did not satisfy its turbulent population, and early
in 1897 a Greek expedition salled to unite the island to
Greece. War followed, in which Turkey was easily successful
and gained a small rectification of frontier; then .a few
months later Crete was taken over ``en depot'' by the Four
Powers---Germany and Austria not participating,---and Prince
George of Greece was appointed their mandatory. In the next year
the sultan received the visit of the German emperor and empress.
Abd-ul-Hamid had always resisted the pressure of the European
Powers to the last moment, in order to seem to yield only
to overwhelming force, while posing as the champion of Islam
against aggressive Christendom. The Panislamic propaganda
was encouraged; the privileges of foreigners in the Ottoman
Empire-often an obstacle to government--were curtailed; the
new railway to the Holy Places was pressed on, and emissaries
were sent to distant countries preaching Islam and the
caliph's supremacy. This appeal to Moslem sentiment was,
however, powerless against the disaffection due to perennial
misgovernment. In Mesopotamia and Yemen disturbance was
endemic; nearer home, a semblance of loyalty was maintained
in the army and among the Mussulman population by a system
of delation and espionage, and by wholesale arrests; while,
obsessed by terror of assassination, the sultan withdrew
himself into fortified seclusion in the palace of Yildiz.
The national humiliation of the situation in Macedonia
(q.v.), together with the resentment in the army against
the palace spies and informers, at last brought matters to a
crisis. The remarkable revolution associated with the names
of Niazi Bey and Enver Bey, the young Turk leaders, and
the Committee of Union and Progress is described elsewhere
(see TURKEY: History); here it must suffice to say that
Abd-ul-Hamid, on learning of the threat of the Salonica troops
to march on Constantinople (July 23), at once capitulated.
On the 24th an irade announced the restoration of the
suspended constitution of 1875; next day, further irades
abolished espionage and the censorship, and ordered the
release of political prisoners. On the 10th of December
the sultan opened the Turkish parliament with a speech
from the throne in which he said that the first parliament
had been ``temporarily dissolved until the education of
the people had been brought to a sufficiently high level
by the extension of instruction throughout the empire.''
The correct attitude of the sultan did not save him from
the suspicion of intriguing with the powerful reactionary
elements in the state, a suspicion confirmed by his attitude
towards the counter-revolution of the 13th of April, when
an insurrection of the soldiers and the Moslem populace of
the capital overthrew the committee and the ministry. The
comittee, restored by the Salonica troops, now decided on
Abdul-Hamid's deposition, and on the 27th of April his brother
Reshid Effendi was proclaimed sultan as Mahommed V. The
ex-sultan was conveyed into dignified captivity at Salonica.
ABD-UL-MEJID (1823-.1861), sultan of Turkey, was born on
the 23rd of April 1823, and succeeded his father Mahmud II.
on the 2nd of July 1839. Mahmud appears to have been unable
to effect the reforms he desired in the mode of educating
his children, so that his son received no better education
than that given, according to use and wont, to Turkish
princes in the harem. When Abd-ul-Mejid succeeded to the
throne, the affairs of Turkey were in an extremely critical
state. At the very time his father died, the news was on
its way to Constantinople that the Turkish army had been
signally defeated at Nezib by that of the rebel Egyptian
viceroy, Mehemet Ali; and the Turkish fleet was at the same
time on its way to Alexandria, where it was handed over by its
commander, Ahmed Pasha, to the same enemy, on the pretext
that the young sultan's advisers were sold to Russia. But
through the intervention of the European Powers Mehemet Ali
was obliged to come to terms, and the Ottoman empire was saved.
(See MEHEMET ALI.) In compliance with his father's express
instructions, Abd-ul-Mejid set at once about carrying out
the reforms to which Mahmud had devoted himself. In November
1839 was proclaimed an edict, known as the Hatt-i-sherif of
Dulhane, consolidating and enforcing these reforms, which
was supplemented at the close of the Crimean war by a similar
statute issued in February 1856. By these enactments it was
provided that all classes of the sultan's subjects should
have security for their lives and property; that taxes should
be fairly imposed and justice impartially administered; and
that all should have full religious liberty and equal civil
rights. The scheme met with keen opposition from the Mussulman
governing classes and the ulema, or privileged religious
teachers, and was but partially put in force, especially in
the remoter parts of the empire; and more than one conspiracy
was formed against the sultan's life on account of it. Of
the other measures of reform promoted by Abd-ul-Mejid the more
important were---the reorganization of the army (1843-1844),
the institution of a council of public instruction (1846),
the abolition of an odious and unfairly imposed capitation
tax, the repression of slave trading, and various provisions
for the better administration of the public service and for
the advancement of commerce. For the public history of his
times--the disturbances and insurrections in different parts of
his dominions throughout his reign, and the great war successfully
carried on against Russia by Turkey, and by England, France and
Sardinia, in the interest of Turkey(1853-1856)-- see TURKEY,
and CRIMEAN WAR. When Kossuth and others sought refuge in
Turkey, after the failure of the Hungarian rising in 1849,
the sultan was called on by Austria and Russia to surrender
them, but boldly and determinedly refused. It is to his
credit, too, that he would not allow the conspirators against
his own life to be put to death. He bore the character of
being a kind and honourable man, if somewhat weak and easily
led. Against this, however, must be set down his excessive
extravagance, especially towards the end of his life. He
died on the 25th of June 1861, and was succeeded by his
brother, Abd-ul-Aziz, as the oldest survivor of the family of
Osman. He left several sons, of whom two, Murad V. and
Abd-ul-Hamid II., eventually succeeded to the throne. In his
reign was begun the reckless system of foreign loans, carried
to excess in the ensuing reign, and culminating in default,
which led to the alienation of European sympathy from Turkey
and, indirectly, to the dethronement and death of Abd-ul-Aziz.
ABDUR RAHMAN KHAN, amir of Afghanistan (c. 1844-1901),
was the son of Afzul Khan, who was the eldest son of Dost
Mahomed Khan, the famous amir, by whose success in war the
Barakzai family established their dynasty in the rulership of
Afghanistan. Before his death at Herat, 9th June 1863, Dost
Mahomed had nominated as his successor Shere Ali, his third
son, passing over the two elder brothers, Afzul Khan and Azim
Khan; and at first the new amir was quietly recognized. But
after a few months Afzul Khan raised an insurrection in the
northern province, between the Hindu Kush mountains and the
Oxus, where he had been governing when his father died; and
then began a fierce contest for power among the sons of Dost
Mahomed, which lasted for nearly five years. In this war,
which resembles in character, and in its striking vicissitudes,
the English War of the Roses at the end of the 15th century,
Abdur Rahman soon became distinguished for ability and daring
energy. Although his father, Afzul Khan, who had none of
these qualities, came to terms with the Amir Shere Ali, the
son's behaviour in the northern province soon excited the
amir's suspicion, and Abdur Rahman: when he was summoned to
Kabul, fled across the Oxus into Bokhara. Shere Ali threw
Afzul Khan into prison, and a serious revolt followed in
south &fghanistan; but the amir had scarcely suppressed it by
winning a desperate battle, when Abdur Rahman's reapearance
in the north was a signal for a mutiny of the troops
stationed in those parts and a gathering of armed bands to his
standard. After some delay and desultory fighting, he and
his uncle, Azim Khan, occupied Kabul (March 1866). The amir
Shere All marched up against them from Kandahar; but in the
battle that ensued at Sheikhabad on 10th May he was deserted
by a large body of his troops, and after his signal defeat
Abdur Rahman released his father, Afzul Elian, from prison
in Ghazni, and installed him upon the throne as amir of
Afghanistan. Notwithstanding the new amir's incapacity, and
some jealousy between the real leaders, Abdur Rahman and his
uncle, they again routed Shere All's forces, and occupied
Kandahar in 1867; and when at the end of that year Afzul Khan
died, Azim Khan succeeded to the rulership, with Abdur Rahman
as his governor in the northern province. But towards the end
of 1868 Shere Ali's return, and a general rising in his favour,
resulting in their defeat at Tinah Khan on the 3rd of January
1869, forced them both to seek refuge in Persia, whence Abdur
Rahman proceeded afterwards to place himself under Russian
protection at Samarkand. Azim died in Persia in October 1869.
This brief account of the conspicuous part taken by Abdur
Rahman in an eventful war, at the beginning of which he was
not more than twenty years old, has been given to show the
rough school that brought out his qualities of resource and
fortitude, and the political capacity needed for rulership in
Afghanistan. He lived in exile for eleven years, until on the
death, in 1879, of Shere Ali, who had retired from Kabul when the
British armies entered Afghanistan, the Russian governorgeneral
at Tashkent sent for Abdur Rahman, and pressed him to try his
fortunes once more across the Oxus. In March 1880 a report
reached India that he was in northern Afghanistan; and the
governor-general, Lord Lytton, opened communications with him
to the effect that the British government were prepared to
withdraw their troops, and to recognize Abdur Rahman as amir of
Afghanistan, with the exception of Kandahar and some districts
adjacent. After some negotiations, an interview took place
between him and Mr (afterwards Sir) Lepel Griffin, the
diplomatic representative at Kabub of the Indian government,
who described Abdur Rahman as a man of middle height, with
an exceedingly intelligent face and frank and courteous
manners, shrewd and able in conversation on the business in
hand. At the durbar on the 22nd of July 1880, Abbdur Rahman
was officially recognized as amir, granted assistance in
arms and money, and promised, in case of unprovoked foreign
aggression, such further aid as might be necessary to repel
it, provided that he followed British advice in regard to
his external relations. The evacuation of Afghanistan was
settled on the terms proposed, and in 1881 the British troops
also made over Kandahar to the new amir; but Ayub Khan,
one of Shere Ali's sons, marched upon that city from Herat,
defeated Abdur Rahman's troops, and occupied the place in
July. This serious reverse roused the amir, who had not
at first displayed much activity. He led a force from
Kabul, met Ayub's army close to Kandahar, and the complete
victory which he there won forced Ayub Khan to fly into
Persia. From that time Abdur Rahman was fairly seated on the
throne at Kabul, and in the course of the next few years he
consolidated his dominion over all Afghanistan, suppressing
insurrections by a sharp and relentless use of his despotic
authority. Against the severity of his measures the powerful
Ghilzai tribe revolted, and were crushed by the end of 1887.
In that year Ayub Khan made a,fruitless inroad from Persia;
and in 1888 the amir's cousin, Ishak Khan, rebelled against
him in the north; but these two enterprises came to nothing.
In 1885, at the moment when (see AFGHANISTAN) the amir
was in conference with the British viceroy, Lord Dufferin,
in India, the news came of a collision between Russian
and Afghan troops at Panjdeh, over a disputed point in the
demarcation of the north-western frontier of Afghanistan.
Abdur Rahman's attitude at this critical juncture is a good
example of his political sagacity. To one who had been a man
of war from his youth up, who had won and lost many fights,
the rout of a detachment and the forcible seizure of some
debateable frontier lands was an untoward incident; but it
was no sufficent reason for calling upon the British, although
they had guaranteed his territory's integrity, to vindicate
his rights by hostilities which would certainly bring upon
him a Russian invasion from the north, and would compel his
British allies to throw an army into Afghanistan from the
south-east. His interest lay in keeping powerful neighbours,
whether friends or foes, outside his kingdom. He knew this
to be the only policy that would be supported by the Afghan
nation; and although for some time a rupture with Russia seemed
imminent, while the Indian government made ready for that
contingency, the amir's reserved and circumspect tone in the
consultations with him helped to turn the balance between
peace and war, and substantially conduced towards a pacific
solution. Abdur Rahman left on those who met him in India
the impression of a clear-headed man.of action, with great
self-reliance and hardihood, not without indications of the
implacable severity that too often marked his administration.
His investment with the insignia of the highest grade of the
Order of the Star of India appeared to give him much pleasure.
From the end of 1888 the amir passed eighteen months in
his northern provinces bordering upon the Oxus, where
he was engaged in pacifying the country that had been
disturbed by revolts, and in punishing with a heavy hand
all who were known or suspected to have taken any part in
rebellion. Shortly afterwards (1892) he succeeded in
finally beating down the resistance of the Hazara tribe, who
vainly attempted to defend their immemorial independence,
within their highlands, of the central authority at Kabul.
In 1893 Sir Henry Durand was deputed to Kabul by the government
of India for the purpose of settling an exchange of territory
required bu the demarcation of the boundary between north-eastern
Afghanistan and the Russian possessions, and in order to discuss
with the amir other pending questions. The amir showed his
usual ability in diplomatic argument, his tenacity where his
own views or claims were in debate, with a sure underlying
insight into the real situation. The territorial exchanges
were amicably agreed upon; the relations between the Indian and
Afghan governments, as previously arranged, were confirmed; and
an understanding was reached upon the important and difficult
subject of the border line of Afghanistan on the east, towards
India. In 1895 the amir found himself unable, by reason of
ill-health, to accept an invitation from Queen Victoria to visit
England; hut his second son Nasrullah Khan went in his stead.
Abdur Rahman died on the 1st of October 1901, being succeeded
by his son Habibullah. He had defeated all enterprises by
rivals against his throne; he had broken down the power of
local chiefs, and tamed the refractory tribes; so that his
orders were irresistible throughout the whole dominion.
His government was a military despotism resting upon a
well-appointed army; it was administered through officials
absolutely subservient to an inflexible will and controlled
by a widespread system of espionage; while the exercise
of his personal authority was too often stained by acts of
unnecessary cruelty. He held open courts for the receipt
of petitioners and the dispensation of justice; and in the
disposal of business he was indefatigable. He succeeded in
imposing an organized government upon the fiercest and most
unruly population in Asia; he availed himself of European
inventions for strengthening his armament, while he sternly
set his face against all innovations which, like railways
and telegraphs, might give Europeans a foothold within his
country. His adventurous life, his forcible character,
the position of his state as a barrier between the Indian
and the Russian empires, and the skill with which he held
the balance in dealing with them, combined to make him a
prominent figure in contemporary Asiatic politics and will
mark his reign as an epoch in the history of Afghanistan.
The amir received an annual subsidy from the British
government of 18-1/2 lakhs of rupees. He was allowed to
import munitions of War. In 1896 he adopted the title of
Tia-ul-hlillat-ud Din (Light of the nation and religion);
and his zeal for the cause of Islam induced him to publish
treatises on Jehad. His eldest son Habibullah Khan, with
his brother Nasrullah Khan, was born at Samarkand. His
youngest son, Mahomed Omar Jan, was born in 1889 of an Afghan
mother, connected by descent with the Barakzai family.
See also S. Wheeler, F.R.G.S., The Amir Abdur Rahman (London,
1895); The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, G.C.B.,
G.C.S.L, edited by Mir Munshi, Sultan Mahommed Khan (2 vols.,
London, 1900); At the Court of the Amir, by J. A. Grey (1895).
(A. C. L.)
ABECEDARIANS, a nickname given to certain extreme
Anabaptists (q.v.), who regarded the teaching of the Holy
Spirit as all that was necessary, and so despised all human
learning and even the power of reading the written word.
A BECKETT, GILBERT ARBOTT (1811-1856), English writer, was
born in north London on the 9th of January 1811. He belonged
to a family claiming descent from the father of St Thomas
Becket. His elder brother, Sir William a Beckett (1806-1869),
became chief justice of Victoria (Australia). Gilbert Abbott
a Beckett was educated at Westminster school, and was called
to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1841. He edited Figaro in
London, and was one of the original staff of Punch and
a contributor all his life. He was an active journalist on
The Times and The Morning Herald, contributed a series
of light articles to The Illustrated London News, conducted
in 1846 The Almanack of the Month and found time to produce
some fifty or sixty plays, among them dramatized versions of
Dickens's shorter stories in collaboration with Mark Lemon.
As poor-law commissioner he presented a valuable report to the
home secretary regarding scandals in connexion with the Andover
Union, and in 1849 he became a metropolitan pouce magistrate.
He died at Boulogne on the 30th of August 1856 of typhus fever.
His eldest son GILBERT ARTHUR A BECKETT (1837-1891) was born
at Hammersmith on the 7th of April 1837. He went up to Christ
Church, Oxford, as a Westminster scholar in 1855, graduating in
1860. He was entered at Lincoln's Inn, but gave his attention
chiefly to the drama, producing Diamonds and Hearts at
the Haymarket in 1867, which was followed by other light
comedies. His pieces include numerous burlesques and
pantomimes, the libretti of Savonarola (Hamburg, 1884) and
of The Canterbury Pilgrims (Drury Lane, 1884) for the music
of Dr (afterwards Sir) C. V. Stanford. The Happy Land (Court
Theatre, 1873), a political burlesque of W. S. Gilbert's Wicked
World, was written in collaboration with F. L. Tomline.
For the last ten years of his life he was on the regular staff
of Punch. His health was seriously affected in 1889 by the
death of his only son, and he died on the 15th of October 1891.
A younger son, ARTHUR WILLIAM A BECKETT (1844--1909), a
well-known journalist and man of letters, was also on the
staff of Punch from 1874 to 1902, and gave an account of his
father and his own reminiscences in The A Becketts of Punch
(1903). He died in London on the 14th of January 1909.
See also M. H. Spielmann, The History of Punch (1895).
ABEDNEGO, the name given in Babylon to Azariah, one of
the companions of Daniel (Dan. i. 7, &c.). It is probably a
corruption, perhaps deliberate, of Abednebo, ``servant of
Nebo,'' though G. Hoffmann thinks that the original form was
Abednergo, for Abednergal, ``servant of the god Nergal.'' C.
H. Toy compares Barnebo, ``son of Nebo''; of which he regards
Barnabas as a slightly disguised form (Jewish Encyclopaedia).
ABEKEN, HEINRICH (1809-1872), German theologian and
Prussian official, was born at Berlin on the 8th of August
1809. He studied theology at Berlin and in 1834 became
chaplain to the Prussian embassy in Rome. In 1841 he visited
England, being commissioned by King Frederick William IV.
to make arrangements for the establishment of the Protestant
bishopric of Jerusalem. In 1848 he received an appointment
in the Prussian ministry for foreign affairs, and in 1853
was promoted to be privy councillor of legation (Geheimer
Legationsrath). He was much employed by Bismarck in the
writing of official despatches, and stood high in the favour
of King William, whom he often accompanied on his journeys
as representative of the foreign office. He was present with
the king during the campaigns of 1866 and 1870-71. In 1851 he
published anonymously Babylon unnd Jerusalem, a slashing
criticism of the views of the Countess von Hahn-Hahn (q.v.).
See Heinrich Abeken, ein schlichtes Leben in bewegter Zeit
(Berlin, 1898), by his widow. This is valuable by reason
of the letters written from the Prussian headquarters.
ABEL (Hebrew for breath), the second son of Adam, slain
by Cain, his elder brother (Gen. iv. 1-16). The narrative
in Genesis which tells us that ``the Lord had respect unto
Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering
he had not respect,'' is supplemented by the statement of the
New Testament, that ``by faith Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain'' (Heb. xi. 4), and that Cain
slew Abel ``because his own works were evil and his brother's
righteous'' (1 John iii. 12). See further under CAIN. The
name has been identified with the Assyrian ablu, ``son,'' but
this is far from certain. It more probably means ``herdsman''
(cf. the name Jabal), and a distinction is drawn between the
pastoral Abel and the agriculturist Cain. If Cain is the eponym
of the Kenites it is quite possible that Abel was originally
a South Judaean demigod or hero; on this, see Winckler,
Gesch. Israels, ii. p. 189; E. Meyer, Israelitein, p.
395. A sect of Abelitae, who seem to have lived in North
Africa, is mentioned by Augustine (De Haeresibus, lxxxvi.).
ABEL, SIR FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, BART. (1827-1902), English
chemist, was born in London on the 17th of July 1827. After
studying chemistry for six years under A. W. von Hofmann at the
Royal College of Chemistry (established in London in 1845), he
became professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy in
1851, and three years later was appointed chemist to the War
Department and chemical referee to the government. During
his tenure of this office, which lasted until 1888, he carried
out a large amount of work in connexion with the chemistry of
explosives. One of the most important of his investigations
had to do with the manufacture of guncotton, and he developed
a process, consisting essentially of reducing the nitrated
cotton to fine pulp, which enabled it to be prepared with
practically no danger and at the same time yielded the
product in a form that increased its usefulness. This work
to an important extent prepared the way for the ``smokeless
powders'' which came into general use towards the end of the
19th century; cordite, the particular form adopted by the
British government in 1891, was invented jointly by him and
Professor James Dewar. Our knowledge of the explosion of
ordinary black powder was also greatly added to by him, and
in conjunction with Sir Andrew Noble he carried out one of
the most complete inquiries on record into its behaviour when
fired. The invention of the apparatus, legalized in 1879, for
the determination of the flash-point of petroleum, was another
piece of work which fell to him by virtue of his official
position. His first instrument, the open-test apparatus, was
prescribed by the act of 1868, but, being found to possess
certain defects, it was superseded in 1879 by the Abel close-test
instrument (see PETROLEUM). In electricity Abel studied
the construction of electrical fuses and other applications
of electricity to warlike purposes, and his work on problems
of steel manufacture won him in 1897 the Bessemer medal of the
Iron and Steel Institute, of which from 1891 to 1893 he was
president. He was president of the Institution of Electrical
Engineers (then the Society of Telegraph Engineers) in
1877. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1860,
and received a royal medal in 1887. He took an important
part in the work of the Inventions Exhibition (London) in
1885, and in 1887 became organizing secretary and first
director of the Imperial Institute, a position he held till
his death, which occurred in London on the 6th of September
1902. He was knighted in 1891, and created a baronet in 1893.
Among his books were--Handbook of Chemistry (with C. L.
Bloxam), Modern History of Gunpowder (1866), Gun-cotton
(1866), On Explosive Agents (1872), Researches in
Explosives (1875), and Electricity applied to Explosive
Purposes (1884). He also wrote several important articles
in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
ABEL, KARL FRIEDRICH (1725-1787), German musician, was
born in Kothen in 1725, and died on the 20th of June 1787 in
London. He was a great player on the viola da gamba,
and composed much music of importance in its day for that
instrument. He studied under Johann Sebastian Bach at
the Leipzig Thomasschule; played for ten years (1748-1758)
under A. Hasse in the band formed at Dresden by the elector
of Saxony; and then, going to England, became (in 1759)
chamber-musician to Queen Charlotte. He gave a concert
of his own compositions in London, performing on various
instruments, one of which, the pentachord, was newly
invented. In 1762 Johann Christian Bach, the eleventh son
of Sebastian, came to London, and the friendship between
him and Abel led, in 1764 or 1765, to the establishment of
the famous concerts subsequently known as the Bach and Abel
concerts. For ten years these were organized by Mrs Comelys,
whose enterprises were then the height of fashion. In 1775
the concerts became independent of her, and were continued
by Abel unsuccessfully for a year after Bach's death in
1782. At them the works of Haydn were first produced in
England. After the failure of his concert undertakings
Abel still remained in great request as a player on various
instruments new and old, but he took to drink and thereby
hastened his death. He was a man of striking presence, of whom
several fine portraits, including two by Gainsborough, exist.
ABEL, NIELS HENRIK (1802-1829), Norwegian mathematician,
was born at Findoe on the 25th of August 1802. In 1815 he
entered the cathedral school at Christiania, and three years
later he gave proof of his mathematical genius by his brilliant
solutions of the original problems proposed by B. Holmboe.
About this time, his father, a poor Protestant minister,
died, and the family was left in straitened circumstances;
but a small pension from the state allowed Abel to enter
Christiania University in 1821. His first notable work was a
proof of the impossibility of solving the quintic equation by
radicals. This investigation was first published in 1824
and in abstruse and difficult form, and afterwards (1826)
more elaborately in the first volume of Crelle's Journal.
Further state aid enabled him to visit Germany and France in
1825, and having visited the astronomer Heinrich Schumacher
(178-1850) at Hamburg, he spent six months in Berlin, where
he became intimate with August Leopold Crelle, who was then
about to publish his mathematical journal. This project
was warmly encouraged by Abel, who contributed much to the
success of the venture. From Berlin he passed to Freiberg,
and here he made his brilliant researches in the theory of
functions, elliptic, hyperelliotic and a new class known as
Abelians being particularly studied. In 1826 he moved to
Paris, and during a ten months' stay he met the leading
mathematicians of France; but he was little appreciated, for
his work was scarcely known, and his modesty restrained him
from proclaiming his researches. Pecuniary embarrassments,
from which he had never been free, finally compelled him
to abandon his tour, and on his return to Norway he taught
for some time at Christiania. In 1829 Crelle obtained a
post for him at Berlin, but the offer did not reach Norway
until after his death near Arendal on the 6th of April.
The early death of this talented mathematician, of whom
Legendre said ``quelle tete celle du jeune Norvegien!'',
cut short a career of extraordinary brilliance and promise.
Under Abel's guidance, the prevailing obscurities of analysis
began to be cleared, new fields were entered upon and the
study of functions so advanced as to provide mathematicians
with numerous ramifications along which progress could be
made. His works, the greater part of which originally
appeared in Crelle's Journal, were edited by Holmbor and
published in 1839 by the Swedish government, and a more
complete edition by L. Sylow and S. Lie was published in 1881.
For further details of his mathematical investigations see the
articles GROUPS, THEORY OF, and FUNCTIONS OF COMPLEX VARIABLES.
See C. A. Bjerknes, Niels Henrik Abel: Tableau de sa
vie et son action scientifique (Paris, 1885); Lucas
de Peslouan, Niels Henrik Abel (Paris, 1906).
ABEL (better ABELL), THOMAS (d. 1540), an English priest
who was martyred during the reign of Henry VIII. The place
and date of his birth are unknown. He was educated at Oxford
and entered the service of Queen Catherine some time before
1528, when he was sent by her to the emperor Charles V. on a
mission relating to the proposed divorce. On his return he
was presented by Catherine to the living of Bradwell, in Essex,
and remained to the last a staunch supporter of the unfortunate
queen. In 1533, he published his Invicta Veritas (with
the fictitious pressmark of Luneberge, to avoid suspicion),
which contained an answer to the numerous tracts supporting
Henry's ecclesiastical claims. After an imprisonment of more
than six years, Abel was sentenced to death for denying the
royal supremacy in the church, and was executed at Smithfield
on the 30th of July 1540. There is still to be seen on the
wall of his prison in the Tower the symbol of a bell with
an A upon it and the name Thomas above, winch he carved
during his confinement. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII.
See J. Gillow's Bibl. Dictionary of Eng. Catholics, vol. i.;
Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII., vols. iv.-vii. passim.
ABELARD, PETER (1079-1142), scholastic philosopher, was born
at Pallet (Palais), not far from Nantes, in 1079. He was the
eldest son of a noble Breton house. The name Abaelardus
(also written Abailardus, Abaielardus, and in many other
ways) is said to be a corruption of Habelardus, substituted
by himself for a nickname Bajolardus given to him when a
student. As a boy, he showed an extraordinary quickness of
apprehension, and, choosing a learned life instead of the
knightly career natural to a youth of his birth, early became
an adept in the art of dialectic, under which name philosophy,
meaning at that time chiefly the logic of Aristotle transmitted
through Latin channels, was the great subject of liberal
study in the episcopal schools. Roscellinus, the famous
canon of Compiegne, is mentioned by himself as his teacher;
but whether he heard this champion of extreme Nominalism in
early youth, when he wandered about from school to school
for instruction and exercise, or some years later, after he
had already begun to teach for himself, remains uncertain.
His wanderings finally brought him to Paris, still under
the age of twenty. There, in the great cathedral school of
Notre-Dame, he sat for a while under the teaching of William
of Champeaux, the disciple of St Anselm and most advanced of
Realists, but, presently stepping forward, he overcame the
master in discussion, and thus began a long duel that issued
in the downfall of the philosophic theory of Realism, till
then dominant in the early Middle Age. First, in the teeth
of opposition from the metropolitan teacher, while yet only
twenty-two, he proceeded to set up a school of hs own at
Melun, whence, for more direct competition, he removed to
Corbeil, nearer Paris. The success of his teaching was
signal, though for a time he had to quit the field, the
strain proving too great for his physical strength. On his
return, after 1108, he found William lecturing no longer at
Notre-Dame, but in a monastic retreat outside the city, and
there battle was again joined between them. Forcing upon
the Realist a material change of doctrine, he was once more
victorious, and thenceforth he stood supreme. His discomfited
rival still had power to keep him from lecturing in Paris, hut
soon failed in this last effort also. From Melun, where he
had resumed teaching, Abelard passed to the capital, and set
up his school on the heights of St Genevieve, looking over
Notre-Dame. From his success in dialectic, he next turned to
theology and attended the lectures of Anselm at Laon. His triumph
over the theologian was complete; the pupil was able to give
lectures, without previous training or special study, which
were acknowledged superior to those of the master. Abelard
was now at the height of hs fame. He stepped into the chair at
Notre-Dame, being also nominated canon, about the year 1115.
Few teachers ever held such sway as Abelard now did for a
time. Distinguished in figure and manners, he was seen
surrounded by crowds--it is said thousands of students,
drawn from all countries by the fame of hs teaching, in which
acuteness of thought was relieved by simplicity and grace of
exposition. Enriched by the offerings of his pupils, and
feasted with universal admiration, he came, as he says,
to think himself the only philosopher standing in the
world. But a change in his fortunes was at hand. In his
devotion to science, he had hitherto lived a very regular
life, varied only by the excitement of conflict: now, at
the height of his fame, other passions began to stir within
him. There lived at that time, within the precincts of
Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the canon Fulbert, a
young girl named Heloise, of noble extraction, and born about
1101. Fair, but still more remarkable for her knowledge,
which extended beyond Latin, it is said, to Greek and Hebrew,
she awoke a feeling of love in the breast of Abelard; and
with intent to win her, he sought and gained a footing in
Fulbert's house as a regular inmate. Becoming also tutor to
the maiden, he used the unlimited power which he thus obtained
over her for the purpose of seduction, though not without
cherishing a real affection which she returned in unparalleled
devotion. Their relation interfering with his public work, and
being, moreover, ostentatiously sung by himself, soon became
known to all the world except the too-confiding Fulbert; and,
when at last it could not escape even his vision, they were
separated only to meet in secret. Thereupon Heloise found
herself pregnant, and was carried off by her lover to Brittany,
where she gave birth to a son. To appease her furious uncle,
Abelard now proposed a marriage, under the condition that it
should be kept secret, in order not to mar his prospects of
advancement in the church; but of marriage, whether public
or secret, Heloise would hear nothing. She appealed to him
not to sacrifice for her the independence of his life, nor
did she finally yield to the arrangement without the darkest
forebodings, only too soon to be reallzed. The secret of
the marriage was not kept by Fulbert; and when Heloise, true
to her singular purpose, boldly denied it, life was made so
unsupportable to her that she sought refuge in the convent of
Argenteuil. Immediately Fulbert, believing that her husband,
who aided in the flight, designed to be rid of her, coinceived
a dire revenge. He and some others broke into Abelard's
chamber by night, and perpetrated on him the most brutal
mutilation. Thus cast down from his pinnacle of greatness
into an abyss of shame and misery, there was left to the
brilliant master only the life of a monk. The priesthood
and ecclesiastical office were canonically closed to him.
Heloise, not yet twenty, consummated her work of self-sacrifice
at the call of his jealous love, and took the veil.
It was in the abbey of St Denis that Abelard, now aged
forty, sought to bury himself with his woes out of sight.
Finding, however, in the cloister neither calm nor solitude,
and having gradually turned again to study, he yielded after
a year to urgent entreaties from without and within, and
went forth to reopen his school at the priory of Maisonceile
(1120). His lectures, now framed in a devotional spirit, were
heard again by crowds of students, and all his old influence
seemed to have returned; but old enmities were revived
also, against which he was no longer able as before to make
head. No sooner had he put in writing his theological
lectures (apparently the Introductio and Theolo giam
that has come down to us), than his adversaries fell foul of
his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma.
Charging him with the heresy of Sabellius in a provincial
synod held at Soissons in 1121, they procured by irregular
practices a condemnation of his teaching, whereby he was made
to throw his book into the flames and then was shut up in
the convent of St Medard at Soissons. After the other, it
was the bitterest possible experience that could befall him,
nor, in the state of mental desolation into which it plunged
him, could he find any comfort from being soon again set free.
The life in his own monastery proved no more congenial than
formerly. For this Abelard himself was partly responsible.
He took a sort of malicious pleasure in irritating the monks.
Quasijocando, he cited Bede to prove that Dionysius the
Areopagite had been bishop of Corinth, while they relied upon
the statement of the abbot Hilduin that he had been bishop of
Athens. When this historical heresy led to the inevitable
persecution, Abelard wrote a letter to the abbot Adam in
which he preferred to the authority of Bede that of Eusebius'
Historia Ecelesiastica and St Jerome, according to whom
Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, was distinct from Dionysius
the Areopagite, bishop of Athens and founder of the abbey,
though, in deference to Bede, he suggested that the Areopagite
might also have beeit bishop of Corinth. Life in the
monastery was intolerable for such a troublesome spirit, and
Abelard, who had once attempted to escape the persecution
he had called forth by flight to a monastery at Provins,
was finally allowed to withdraw. In a desert place near
Nogent-sur-Seine, he built himself a cabin of stubble and
reeds, and turned hermit. But there fortune came back to him
with a new surprise. His retreat becoming known, students
flocked from Paris, and covered the wilderness around him
with their tents and huts. When he began to teach again he
found consolation, and in gratitude he consecrated the new
oratory they built for him by the name of the Paraclete.
Upon the return of new dangers, or at least of fears, Abelard
left the Paraclete to make trial of another refuge, accepting
an invitation to preside over the abbey of St Gildas-de-Rhuys,
on the far-off shore of Lower Brittany. It proved a wretched
exchange. The region was inhospitable, the domain a prey to
lawless exaction, the house itself savage and disorderly.
Yet for nearly ten years he continued to struggle with fate
before he fled from his charge, yielding in the end only under
peru of violent death. The misery of those years was not,
however, unrelieved; for he had been able, on the breaking
up of Heloise's convent at Argenteuil, to establish her as
head of a new religious house at the deserted Paraclete, and
in the capacity of spiritual director he often was called to
revisit the spot thus made doubly dear to him. All this time
Heloise had lived amid universal esteem for her knowledge and
character, uttering no word under the doom that had fallen upon
her youth; hut now, at last, the occasion came for expressing
all the pent-up emotions of her soul. Living on for some time
apart (we do not know exactly where), after his flight from St
Gildas, Abelard wrote, among other things, his famous Historia
Calamitatum, and thus moved her to peu her first Letter,
which remains an unsurpassed utterance of human passion and
womanly devotion; the first being followed by the two other
Letters, in which she finally accepted the part of resignation
which, now as a brother to a sister, Abelard commended to
her. He not long after was seen once more upon the field
of his early triumphs lecturing on Mount St Genevieve in
1136 (when he was heard by John of Salisbury), but it was
only for a brief space: no new triumph, but a last great
trial, awaited him in the few years to come of his chequered
life. As far back as the Paraclete days, he had counted
as chief among his foes Bernard of Clairvaux, in whom was
incarnated the principle of fervent and unhesitating faith,
from which rational inquiry like his was sheer revolt, and
now this uncompromising spirit was moving, at the instance of
others, to crush the growing evil in the person of the boldest
offender. After preliminary negotiations, in which Bernard
was roused by Abelard's steadfastness to put forth all his
strength, a council met at Sens (1141), before which Abelard,
formally arraigned upon a number of heretical charges, was
prepared to plead his cause. When, however, Bernard, not without
foregone terror in the prospect of meeting the redoubtable
dialectician, had opened the case, suddenlly Abelard appealed to
Rome. The stroke availed him nothing; for Bernard, who had
power, notwithstanding, to get a condemnation passed at the
council, did not rest a moment till a second condemnation was
procured at Rome in the following year. Meanwhile, on his way
thither to urge his plea in person, Abelard had broken down
at the abbey of Cluny, and there, an utterly fallen man, with
spirit of the humblest, and only not bereft of his intellectual
force, he lingered but a few months before the approach of
death. Removed by friendly hands, for the relief of his
sufferings, to the priory of St Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saone,
he died on the 21st of April 1142. First buried at St Marcel,
his remains soon after were carried off in secrecy to the
Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Heloise, who
in time came herself to rest beside them (1164). The bones
of the pair were shifted more than once afterwards, but they
were marvellously preserved even through the vicissitudes
of the French Revolution, and now they lie united in the
well-known tomb in the cemetery of Pere-la-Chaise at Paris.
Great as was the influence exerted by Abelard on the minds of
his contemporaries and the course of medieval thought, he has
been little known in modern times but for his connexion with
Heloise. Indeed, it was not till the 19th century, when Cousin
in 1836 issued the collection entitled Ouvrages inedits
d'Abelard, that his philosophical performance could be judged
at first hand; of his strictly philosophical works only one,
the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum, having been published
earlier, namely, in 1721. Cousin's collection, besides giving
extracts from the theological work Sic et Non (an assemblage
of opposite opinions on doctrinal points, culled from the
Fathers as a basis for discussion, the main interest in which
lles in the fact that there is no attempt to reconcile the
different opinions), includes the Dialectica, commentaries
on logical works of Aristotle, Porphyry and Boothius, and a
fragment, De Generibus et Speciebus. The last-named
work, and also the psychological treatise De Inteilectibus,
published apart by Cousin (in Fragmens Philosophiques,
vol. ii.), are now considered upon internal evidence not to
be hy Abelard himself, but only to have sprung out of his
school. A genuine work, the Glossulae super Porphyrium,
from which Charles de Remusat, in his classical monograph
Abelard (1845), has given extracts, remains in manuscript.
The general importance of Abelard lles in his having fixed
more decisively than any one before him the scholastic manner
of philosophizing, with its object of giving a formally
rational expression to the received ecclesiastical doctrine
. However his own particular interpretations may have been
condemned, they were conceived in essentially the same spirit
as the general scheme of thought afterwards elaborated in
the 13th century with approval from the heads of the church.
Through him was prepared in the Middle Age the ascendancy
of the philosophical authority of Aristotle, which became
firmly established in the half-century after his death, when
first the completed Organon, and gradually ail the other
works of the Greek thinker, came to be known in the schools:
before his time it was rather upon the authority of Plato
that the prevailing Realism sought to lean. As regards his
so-called Conceptualism and his attitude to the question of
Universals, see SCHOLASTICISM. Outside of his dialectic,
it was in ethics that Abelard showed greatest activity of
philosophical thought; laying very particular stress upon
the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral
character, at least the moral value, of human action. His
thought in this direction, wherein he anticipated something
of modern speculation, is the more remarkable because his
scholastic successors accomplished least in the field of
morals, hardly venturing to bring the principles and rules of
conduct under pure philosophical discussion, even after the
great ethical inquiries of AAstotle became fully known to them.
BIBLIOGRAPHY --Abelard's own works remain the best sources
for his life, especially his Historia Culamitatum, an
autobiography, and the correspondence with Heloise. The
literature on Abelard is extensive, but consists principally
of monographs on different aspects of his philosophy.
Charles de Remusat's Abelard (2 vols., 1845) remains an
authority; it must be distinguished from his drama Abelard
(1877), which is an attempt to give a picture of medieval
life. McCabe's life of Abelard is written closely from
the sources. eee also the valuable analysis by Nitsch
in the article ``Abalard'' There is a comprehensive
bibliograohy in U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources
hist. du moyen age, s. ``Abailard.'' (G. C. R.; J. T. S.*)
ABELIN, JOHANN PHILIPP, an early 16th-century German
chronicler, was born, probably, at Strasburg, and died there
between the years 1634 and 1637. He wrote numerous histories
over the pseudonyms of Philipp Arlanibaus, Abeleus and Johann
Eudwighottfaed or Gotofredus, his earliest works of importance
being his history of the German wars of Gustavus Adolphus,
entitled Arma Suecica (pub. 1631-1634, in 12 parts), and the
Inventarium Sueciae (1632)---both compilations from existing
records. His best known work is the Theatrum Europaeum, a
series of chronicles of the chief events in the history of the
world down to 1619. He was himself responsible for the first two
volumes. It was continued by various writers and grew to
twenty-one volumes (Frankf. 1633-1738). The chief interest
of the work is, however, its illustration by the beautiful
copperplate engravings of Matthaus Meriah (1593-1650). Abelin
also wrote a history of the antipodes, Historia Antipodum
(posthumously pub. Frankf. 1655), and a history of India.
See G. Droysen, Arlanibaeus, Godofredus, Abelinus (Berlin,
1864); and notice in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographic.
ABENCERRAGES, a family or faction that is said to have held a
prominent position in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in the 15th
century. The name appears to have been derived from the Yussuf
ben-Serragh, the head of the tribe in the time of Mahommed
VII., who did that sovereign good service in his struggles
to retain the crown of which he was three times deprived.
Nothing is known of the family with certainty; but the name
is familiar from the interesting romance of Gines Perez de
Hita, Guerras civiles de Granada, which celebrates the feuds
of the Abencerrages and the rival family of the Zegris, and
the cruel treatment to which the former were subjected. J.
P. de Florian's Gonsalve de Cordoue and Chateaubriand's Le
dernier des Abencerrages are imitations of Perez de Hita's
work. The hall of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra takes its
name from being the reputed scene of the massacre of the family.
ABENDANA, the name of two Jewish theologians. (1) JACOB
(1630-i695), rabbi (Hakham) of the Spanish Jews in London
from 1680. Like his brother Isaac, Jacob Abendana had
a circle of Christian friends, and his reputation led to
the appreciation of Jewish scholarship by modern Christian
theologians. (2) ISAAC (c. 1650-1710), his brother,
taught Hebrew at Cambridge and afterwards at Oxford. He
compiled a Jewish Calendar and wrote Discourses on the
Ecclesiastical and Civil Polity of the Jews (1706).
ABENEZRA (IBN EZRA), or, to give him his full name,
ABRAHAM BEN MEIR IBN Ezra (1092 or 1093-1167), one of the
most distinguished Jewish men of letters and writers of the
Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo, left his native land of
Spain before 1140 and led until his death a life of restless
wandering, which took him to North Africa, Egypt, Italy (Rome,
Lucca, Mantua,Verona), Southern France(Narbonne, Beziers),
Northern France (Dreux), England (London), and back again to
the South of France. At several of the above-named places he
remained for some time and developed a rich literary activity.
In his native land he had already gained the reputation of a
distinguished poet and thinker; but, apart from his poems, his
works, which were all in the Hebrew language, were written
in the second period of his life. With these works, which
cover in the first instance the field of Hebrew philology and
Biblical exegesis, he fulfilled the great mission of making
accessible to the Jews of Christian Europe the treasures of
knowledge enshrined in the works written in Arabic which he
had brought with him from Spain. His grammatical writings,
among which Moznayim (``the Scales,'' written in 1140)
and Zahot (``Correctness,'' written in 1141) are the most
valuable, were the first expositions of Hebrew grammar in the
Hebrew language, in which the system of Hayyuj and his school
prevailed. He also translated into Hebrew the two writings
of Hayyuj in which the foundations of the system were laid
down. Of greater original value than the grammatical works of
Ibn Ezra are his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible,
of which, however, a part has been lost. His reputation as an
intelligent and acute expounder of the Bible was founded on his
commentary on the Pentateuch, of which the great popularity is
evidenced by the numerous commentaries which were written upon
it. In the editions of this commentary (ed. princ. Naples
1488) the commentary on the book of Exodus is replaced by a
second, more complete commentary of Ibn Ezra, while the
first and shorter commentary on Exodus was not printed until
1840. The great editions of the Hebrew Bible with rabbinical
commentaries contained also commentaries of Ibn Ezra's on the
following books of the Bible: Isaiah, Minor Prophets, Psalms,
Job, Pentateuch, Daniel; the commentaries on Proverbs, Ezra
and Nehemiah which bear his name are really those of Moses
Kimhi. Ibn Ezra wrote a second commentary on Genesis as he
had done on Exodus, but this was never finished. There are
second commentaries also by him on the Song of Songs, Esther and
Daniel. The importance of the exegesis of Ibn Ezra consists
in the fact that it aims at arriving at the simple sense of
the text, the so-called ``Pesohat,'' on solid grammatical
principles. It is in this that, although he takes a great
part of his exegetical material from his predecessors, the
originality of his mind is everywhere apparent, an originality
which displays itself also in the witty and lively language of his
commentaries. To judge by certain signs, of which Spinoza
in his Tractatus Theologico Politicus makes use, Ibn
Ezra belongs to the earliest pioneers of the criticism of the
Pentateuch. His commentaries, and especially some of the longer
excursuses, contain numerous contributions to the philosophy of
religion. One writing in particular, which belongs to this
province (Vosod Mera), on the division and the reasons
for the Biblical commandments, he wrote in 1158 for a London
friend, Joseph b. Jacob. In his philosophical thought
neo-platonic ideas prevail; and astrology also had a place
in his view of the world. He also wrote various works on
mathematical and astronomical subjects. Ibn Ezra died on the
28th of January 1167, the place of his death being unknown.
Among the literature on Ibn Ezra may be especially mentioned:
M. Friedlander, Essays on the Writings of Ibn Ezra
(London, 1877); W. Bacher, Abraham Ibn Ezra als Grammatiker
(Strasburg, 1882); M. Steinschneider, Abraham Ibn Ezra, in
the Zeitschrift fur Mathematik und Physik, Band xxv.,
Supplement; D. Rosin, Die Religions philosophie Abraham
Ibn Ezra's in vols. xiii. and xliii. of the Monatschrift
fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums; his Diwan
was edited by T. Egers (Berlin, 1886): a collection of his
poems, Reime und Gedichte, with translation and commentary,
were published by D. Rosin in several annual reports of the
Jewish theological Seminary at Breslau (1885--1894). (W. BA.)
ABENSBERG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the
Abens, a tributary of the Danube, 18 m. S.W. of Regensburg,
with which it is connected by rail. Pop. 2202. It has a small
spa, and its sulphur baths are resorted to for the cure of
rheumatism and gout. The town is the Castra Abusina of the
Romans, and Roman remains exist in the neighbourhood. Here,
on the 20th of April 1809, Napoleon gained a signal victory
over the Austrians under the Archduke Louis and Genegal Hiller.
ABEOKUTA, a town of British West Africa in the Egba
division of the Yoruba country, S. Nigeria Protectorate. It
is situated in 7 deg. 8' N., 3 deg. 25' E., on the Ogun river, 64
m. N. of Lagos by railway, or 81 m. by water. Population,
approximately 60,000. Abeokuta lies in a beautiful and fertile
country, the surface of which is broken by masses of grey
granite. It is spread over an extensive area, being surrounded
by mud walls 18 miles in extent. Abeokuta, under the reforming
zeal of its native rulers, was largely transformed during
the early years of the 20th century. Law courts, government
offices, prisons and a substantial bridge were built, good roads
made, and a large staff of sanitary inspectors appointed.
The streets are generally narrow and the houses built of
mud. There are numerous markets in which a considerable
trade is done in native products and articles of European
manufacture. Palm-oil, timber, rubber, yams and shea-butter
are the chief articles of trade. An official newspaper is
published in the Yoruba and English languages. Abeokuta is
the headquarters of the Yoruba branch of the Church Missionary
Societyi and British and American, missionaries have met
with some success in their civilizing work. In their schools
about 2000 children are educated. The completion in 1899
of a railway from Lagos helped not only to develop trade
but to strengthen generally the influence of the white man.
Abeokuta (a word meaning ``under the rocks,''), dating
from 1825, owes its origin to the incessant inroads of the
slavehunters from Dahomey and Ibadan, which compelled the
village populations scattered over the open country to take
refuge in this rocky stronghold against the common enemy.
Here they constituted themselves a free confederacy of many
distinct tribal groups, each preserving the traditional customs,
religious rites and even the very names of their original
villages. Yet this apparently incoherent aggregate held
its ground successfully against the powerful armies often
sent against the place both by the king of Dahomey from the
west, and by the people of Ibadan from the north-east.
The district of Egba, of which Abeokuta is the capital, has
an estimated area of 3000 sq. m. and a population of some
350,000. It is officially known as the Abeokuta province
of the Southern Nigeria protectorate. It contains luxuriant
forests of palmtrees, which constitute the chief wealth of the
people. Cotton is indigenous and is grown for export.
The Egbas are enthusiastic farmers and have largely adopted
European methods of cultivation. They are very tenacious
of their independence, but accepted without opposition the
establishment of a British protectorate, which, while putting
a stop to inter-tribal warfare, slave-raiding and human
sacrifices, and exercising control over the working of the
laws, left to the people executive and fiscal autonomy. The
administration is in the hands of a council of chiefs which
exercises legislative, executive and, to some extent, judicial
functions. The president of this council, or ruling chief
---chosen from among the members of the two recognized
reigning families--is called the alake, a word meaning
``Lord of Ake,'' Ake being the name of the principal quarter
of Abeokuta, after the ancient capital of the Egbas. The
alake exercises little authority apart from his councili
the form of government being largely democratic. Revenue
is chiefly derived from tolls or import duties. A visit
of the alake to England in 1904 evoked considerable public
interest. The chief was a man of great intelligence, eager
to study western civilization, and an ardent agriculturist.
See the publications of the Church Missionary Society
dealing mith the Voruba Mission; Col. A. B. Ellis's The
Yoruba-speaking Peoples (London, 1894); and an article on
Abeokuta by Sir Wm. Macgregor, sometime governor of Lagos, in
the African Society's Journal, No. xii. (London, July 1904).
ABERAVON, a contributory parliamentary and municipal borough
of Glamorganshire, Wales, on the right bank of the Avon, near
its mouth in Swansea Bay, 11 m. E.S.E. of Swansea and 170 m.
from London by rail. Pop. (1901) 7553. It has a station on the
Rhondda and Swansea Bay railway and is also on the main South
Wales line of the Great Western, whose station, however, is at
fort Talbot, half a mile distant, on the eastern side of the
Avon. The valley of the Avon, which is only some three miles
long, has been from about 1840 a place of much metallurgical
activity. There are tinplate and engineering works within
the borough. At Cwmavon, 1 1/2 m. to the north-east, are
large copper-smelting works established in 1838, acquired
two years later by the governor and Company of the Copper
Miners of England, but now worked by the Rio Tinto Copper
Company. There are also iron, steel and tinplate works
both at Cwmavon and at Port Talbot, which, when it consisted
only of docks, was appropriately known as Aberavon Port.
The town derives its name from the river Avon (corrupted from
Avan), which also gave its name to a medieval lordship. On
the Norman conquest at Glamorgan, Caradoc, the eldest son of
the defeated prince, Lestyn ab Gwrgan, continued to hold this
lordship, and for the defence of thc passage of the river
built here a castle whose foundations are still traceable in
a field near the churchyard. His descendants (who from the
13th century onwards styled themselves De Avan or D'Avene)
established, under line protection of the castle, a chartered
town, which in 1372 received a further charter from Edward
Le Despenser, into whose family the lordship had come on an
exchange of lands. In modern times these charters were not
acted upon, the town being deemed a borough by prescription,
but in 1861 it was incorporated under the Municipal
Corporations Act. Since 1832 it has belonged to the Swansea
parliamentary district of boroughs, uniting with Kenfig,
Loughor, Neath and Swansea to return one member; but in 1885
the older portion of Swansea was given a separate member.
ABERCARN, an urban district in the southern parliamentary
division of Monmouthshire, England, 10 m. N.W. of Newport
by the Great Western railway. Pop. (1901) 12,607. There are
collieries, ironworks and tinplate works in the district;
the town, which lies in the middle portion of the Ebbw
valley, being situated on the south-eastern flank of the
great mining region of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire.
ABERCORN, JAMES HAMILTON, 1ST EARL OF (c. 1575-1618),
was the eldest son of Claud Hamilton, Lord Paisley (4th son of
James, 2nd earl of Arran, and duke of Chatelherault), and of
Margaret, daughter of George, 6th Lord Seton. He was made
sheriff of Linlithgow in 1600, received large grants of
lands in Scotland and Ireland, was created in 1603 baron of
Abercorn, and on the 10th of July 1606 was rewarded for his
services in the matter of the union by being made earl of
Abercorn, and Baron Hamilton, Mount Castle and Kilpatrick.
He married Marion, daughter of Thomas, 5th Lord Boyd, and left
five sons, of whom the eldest, baron of Strabane, succeeded
him as 2nd earl of Abercorn. He died on the 23rd of March
1618. The title of Abercorn, held by the head of the Hamilton
family, became a marquessate in 1790, and a dukedom in 1868,
the 2nd duke of Abercorn (b. 1838) being a prominent Unionist
politician and chairman of the British South Africa Company.
ABERCROMRIE, JOHN (1780-1844), Scottish physician, was the son
of the Rev. George Abercrombie of Aberdeen, where he was born
on the 10th of October 1780. He was educated at the university
of Edinburgh, and after graduating as M.D. in 1803 he settled
down to practise in that city, where he soon attained a leading
position. From 1816 he published various papers in the
Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, which formed the basis
of his Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases
of the Brain and Spinal Cord, and of his Researches on the
Diseases of the Intestinal Canal, Liver and other Viscera
of the Abdomen, both published in 1828. He also found time
for philosophical speculations, and in 1830 he published his
Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers of Man and
the Investigation of Truth, which was followed in 1833 by a
sequel, The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings. Both works,
though showing little originality of thought, achieved wide
popularity. He died at Edinburgh on the 14th of November 1844.
ABERCROMBY, DAVID, a 17th-century Scottish physician who
was sufficiently noteworthy a generation after the probable
date of his death to have his Nova Medicinae Praxis
reprinted at Paris in 1740. During his lifetime his Tuta
ac efficax luis venereae saepe absque mercurio ac semper
absque salivatione mercuriali curando methodus (1684) was
translated into French, Dutch and German. Two other works
by him were De Pulsus Variatione (London, 1685), and Ars
explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sapore
(London, 1685--1688); His Opuscula were collected in 1687.
These professional writings gave him a place and memorial
in A. von Haller's Bibliotheca Medicinae Pract. (4 vols.
8vo, 1779, tom. iii. p. 619); but he claims notice rather by
his remarkable controversial books in theology and philosophy
than by his medical writings. Bred up at Douai as a Jesuit,
he abjured popery, and published Protestancy proved Safer
than Popery' (London, 1686). But the most noticeable of
his productions is A Discourse of Wit (London, 1685), which
contains some of the most characteristic and most definitely-put
metaphysical opinions of the Scottish philosophy of common
sense. It was followed by Academia Scientiarum (1687),
and by A Moral Treatise of the Power. of Interest (1690),
dedicated to Robert Boyle. A Short Account of Scots Divines,
by him, was printed at Edinburgh in 1833, edited by James
Maidment. The exact date of his death is unknown, but
according to Haller he was alive early in the 18th century.
ABERCROMBY, PATRICK (1656-c.1716), Scottish physician
and antiquarian, was the third son of Alexander Abercromby
of Fetterneir in Aberdeenshire, and brother of Francis
Abercromby, who was created Lord Glasford by James II. He
was born at Forfar in 1656 apparently of a Roman Catholic
family. Intending to become a doctor of medicine he entered
the university of St Andrews, where he took his degree of M.D.
in 1685, but apparently he spent most of his youthful years
abroad. It has been stated that he attended the university of
Paris. The Discourse of Wit (1685), sometimes assigned to
him, belongs to Dr David Abercromby (q.v.). On his return to
Scotland, he is found practising as a physician in Edinburgh,
where, besides his professional duties, he gave himself with
characteristic zeal to the study of antiquities. He was
appointed physician to James II. in 1685, but the revolution
deprived him of the post. Living during the agitations for
the union of England and Scotland, he took part in the war
of pamphlets inaugurated and sustained by prominent men on
both sides of the Border, and he crossed swords with no less
redoubtable a foe than Daniel Defoe in his Advantages of the
Act of Security compared with those of the intended Union
(Edinburgh, 1707), and A Vindication of the Same against Mr
De Foe (ibid.). A minor literary work of Abercromby's was
a translation of Jean de Beaugue's Histoire de la guerre
d'Ecosse (1556) which appeared in 1707. But the work with
which his name is permanently associated is his Martial
Atchievements of the Scots Nation, issued in two large folios,
vol. i. 1711, vol. ii. 1716. In the title-page and preface
to vol. i. he disclaims the ambition of being an historian,
but in vol. ii., in title-page and preface alike, he is no
longer a simple biographer, but an historian. Even though,
read in the light of later researches, much of the first volume
must necessarily be relegated to the region of the mythical,
none the less was the historian a laborious and accomplished
reader and investigator of all available authorities, as well
manuscript as printed; while the roll of names of those who
aided him includes every man of note in Scotland at the time,
from Sir Thomas Craig and Sir George Mackenzie to Alexander
Nisbet and Thomas Ruddiman. The date of Abercromby's death is
uncertain. It has been variously assigned to 1715, 1716,
1720, and 1726, and it is usually added that he left a widow
in great poverty. The Memoirs of the Abercrombys, commonly
attributed to him, do not appear to have been published.
See Robert Chambers, Eminent Scotsmen, s.v.; William Anderson,
Scottish Nation, s.v.; Alexander Chalmers, Biog. Dict.,
s.v.; George Chalmers, Life of Ruddiman; William Lee, Defoe.
ABERCROMBY, SIR RALPH (1734-1801), British lieutenant-general,
was the eldest son of George Abercromby of Tillibody,
Clackmannanshire, and was born in October 1734. Educated
at Rugby and Edinburgh University, in 1754 he was sent to
Leipzig to study civil law, with a view to his proceeding
to the Scotch bar. On returning from the continent he
expressed a strong preference for the military profession,
and a cornet's commission was accordingly obtained for him
(March 1756) in the 3rd Dragoon Guards. He served with his
regiment in the Seven Years' war, and the opportunity thus
afforded him of studying the methods of the great Frederick
moulded his military character and formed his tactical
ideas. He rose through the intermediate grades to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel of the regiment (1773) and brevet colonel
in 1780, and in 1781 he became colonel of the King's Irish
infantry. When that regiment was disbanded in 1783 he retired upon
half-pay. That up to this time he had scarcely been engaged
in active service was owing mainly to his disapproval of the
policy of the government, and especially to his sympathies with
the American colonists in their struggles for independence;
and his retirement is no doubt to be ascribed to similar
feelings. On leaving the army he for a time took up political
life as member of Parliament for Clackmannanshire. This,
however, proved uncongenial, and, retiring in favour of his
brother, he settled at Edinburgh and devoted himself to the
education of his children. But on France declaring war against
England in 1793, he hastened to resume his professional duties;
and, being esteemed one of the ablest and most intrepid
officers in the whole British forces, he was appointed to the
command of a brigade under the duke of York, for service in
Holland. He commanded the advanced guard in the action at Le
Cateau, and was wounded at Nijmwegen. The duty fell to him of
protecting the British army in its disastrous retreat out of
Holland, in the winter of 1794-1795. In 1795 he received the
honour of a knighthood of the Bath, in acknowledgment of his
services. The same year he was appointed to succeed Sir Charles
Grey, as commander-in-chief of the British forces in the West
Indies. In 1796 Grenada was suddenly attacked and taken by a
detachment of the army under his orders. He afterwards obtained
possession of the settlements of Demerara and Essequibo, in
South America, and of the islands of St Lucia, St Vincent and
Trinidad. He returned in 1797 to Europe, and, in reward for
his important services, was appointed colonel of the regiment
of Scots Greys, entrusted with the governments of the Isle of
Wight, Fort-George and Fort-Augustus, and raised to the rank of
lieutenant-general. He held, in 1797-1798, the chief command
of the forces in Ireland. There he laboured to maintain the
discipline of the army, to suppress the rising rebellion,
and to protect the people from military oppression, with a
care worthy alike of a great general and an enlightened and
beneficent statesman. When he was appointed to the command
in Ireland, an invasion of that country by the French was
confidently anticipated by the English government. He used
his utmost efforts to restore the discipline of an army that
was utterly disorganized; and, as a first step, he anxiously
endeavoured to protect the people by re-establishing the
supremacy of the civil power, and not allowing the military
to be called out, except when it was indispensably necessary
for the enforcement of the law and the maintenance of
order. Finding that he received no adequate support from the
head of the Irish government, and that all his efforts were
opposed and thwarted by those who presided in the councils
of Ireland, he resigned the command. His departure from
Ireland was deeply lamented by the reflecting portion of the
people, and was speedily followed by those disastrous results
which he had anticipated, and which he so ardently desired
and had so wisely endeavoured to prevent. After holding for
a short period the office of commander-in-chief in Scotland,
Sir Ralph, when the enterprise against Holland was resolved
upon in 1799, was again called to command under the duke of
York. The campaign of 1799 ended in disaster, but friend and
foe alike confessed that the most decisive victory could not
have more conspicuously proved the talents of this distinguished
officer. His country applauded the choice when, in 1801, he
was sent with an army to dispossess the French of Egypt. His
experience in Holland and the West Indies particularly fitted
him for this new command, as was proved by his carrying his
army in health, in spirits and with the requisite supplies,
in spite of very great difficulties, to the destined scene of
action. The debarkation of the troops at Aboukir, in
the face of strenuous opposition, is justly ranked among
the most daring and brilliant exploits of the English
army. A battle in the neighbourhood of Alexandria (March
21, 1801) was the sequel of this successful landing, and it
was Abercromby's fate to fall in the moment of victory. He
was struck by a spent ball, which could not be extracted,
and died seven days after the battle. His old friend and
commander the duke of York paid a just tribute to the great
soldier's memory in general orders: ``His steady observance
of discipline, his ever-watchful attention to the health
and wants of his troops, the persevering and unconquerable
spirit which marked his military career, the splendour of
his actions in the field and the heroism of his death, are
worthy the imitation of all who desire, like him, a life of
heroism and a death of glory.'' By a vote of the House of
Commons, a monument was erected in his honour in St Paul's
cathedral. His widow was created Baroness Abercromby of
Tullibody and Aboukir Bay, and a pension of L. 2000 a year
was settled on her and her two successors in the title.
A memoir of the later years of his life (1793-1801) by his
third son, James (who was Speaker of the House of Commons,
1835-1839, and became Lord Dunfermline), was published in
1861. For a shorter account of Sir Ralph Abercromby see
Wilkinson, Twelve British Soldiers (London, 1899).
ABERDARE, HENRY AUSTIN BRUCE, 1ST BARON (1815-1895), English
statesman, was born at Duffryn, Aberdare, Glamorganshire, on
the 16th of April 1815, the son of John Bruce, a Glamorganshire
landowner. John Bruce's original family name was Knight,
but on coming of age in 1805 he assumed the name of Bruce,
his mother, through whom he inherited the Duffryn estate,
having been the daughter of William Bruce, high sheriff of
Glamorganshire. Henry Austin Bruce was educated at Swansea
grammar school, and in 1837 was called to the bar. Shortly
after he had begun to practise, the discovery of coal beneath
the Duffryn and other Aberdare Valley estates brought the
family great wealth. From 1847 to 1852 he was stipendiary
magistrate for Merthyr Tydvil and Aberdare, resigning the
position in the latter year, when he entered parliament
as Liberal member for Merthyr Tydvil. In 1862 he became
under-secretary for the home department, and in 1869, after
losing his seat at Merthyr Tydvil, but being re-elected
for Renfrewshire, he was made home secretary by W. E.
Gladstone. His tenure of this office was conspicuous for a
reform of the licensing laws, and he was responsible for the
Licensing Act of 1872, which constituted the magistrates the
licensing authority, increased the penalties for misconduct in
public-houses and shortened the number of hours for the sale of
drink. In 1873 he relinquished the home secretaryship, at
Gladstone's request, to become lord president of the council,
and was almost simultaneously raised to the peerage as Baron
Aberdare. The defeat of the Liberal government in the following
year terminated Lord Aberdare's official political life, and
he subsequently devoted himself to social, educational and
economic questions. In 1876 he was elected F.R.S.; from 1878
to 1892 he was president of the Royal Historical Society;
and in 1881 he became president of the Royal Geographical
Society. In 1882 he began a connexion with West Africa which
lasted the rest of his life, by accepting the chairmanship
of the National African Company, formed by Sir George Taubman
Goldie, which in 1886 received a charter under the title of the
Royal Niger Company and in 1899 was taken over by the British
government, its territories being constituted the protectorate of
Nigeria. West African affairs, however, by no means exhausted
Lord Aberdare's energies, and it was principally through his
efforts that a charter was in 1894 obtained for the university
of Wales at Cardiff. Lord Aberdare, who in 1885 was made a
G.C.B., presided over several Royal Commissions at different
times. He died in London on the 25th of February 1895.
His second wite was the daughter of Sir William Napier, the
historian of the Peninsular war, whose Life he edited.
ABERDARE, a market town of Glamorganshire, Wales, situated (as
the name implies) at the confluence of the Dar and Cynon, the
latter being a tributary of the Tain. Pop. of urban district
(1901), 43,365. It is 4 m. S.W. of Merthyr Tydvil, 24 from
Cardiff and 160 from London by rail. It has a station on the
Pontypool and Swansea section of the Great Western railway,
and is also served by the Llwydcoed and Abernant stations
which are on a branch line to Merthyr. The Tain Vale line
(opened 1846) has a terminus in the town. The Glamorgan canal
has also a branch (made in 1811) running from Abercynon to
Aberdare. From being, at the beginning of the 19th century,
a mere village in an agricultural district, the place grew
rapidly in population owing to the abundance of its coal and
iron ore, and the population of the whole parish (which was only
1486 in 1801) increased tenfold during the first half of the
century. Ironworks were established at Llwydcoed and Abernant
in 1799 and 1800 respectively, followed by others at Gadlys
and Aberaman in 1827 and 1847. These have not been worked
since about 1875, and the only metal industries remaining
in the town are an iron foundry or two and a small tinplate
works at Gadlys (established in 1868). Previous to 1836,
most of the coal worked in the parish was consumed locally,
chiefly in the ironworks, but in that year the working of
steam coal for export was begun, pits were sunk in rapid
succession, and the coal trade, which at least since 1875
has been the chief support of the town, soon reached huge
dimensions. There are also several brickworks and breweries.
During the latter half Of the 19th century, considerable
public improvements were effected in the town, making it,
despite its neighbouring collieries, an agreeable place of
residence. Its institutions included a post-graduate
theological college (opened in connexion with the Church
of England in 1892, until 1907, when it was removed to
Llandaff). There is a public park of fifty acres with two small
lakes. Aberdare, with the ecclesiastical parishes of St
Fagan's (Trecynon) and Aberaman carved out of the ancient
parish, has some twelve Anglican churches, one Roman Catholic
church (built in 1866 in Monk Street near the site of a
cell attached to Penrhys Abbey) and over fifty Noncoformist
chapels. The services in the majority of the chapels are in
Welsh. The whole parish falls within the parliamentary borough
of Merthyr Tydvil. The urban district includes what were
once the separate villages of Aberaman, Abernant, Cwmbach,
Cwmaman, Cwmdare, Llwydcoed and Trecynon. There are several
cairns and the remains of a circular British encampment on
the mountain between Aberdare and Merthyr. Hirwaun moor,
4 m. to the N.W. of Aberdare, was according to tradition
the scene of a battle at which Rhys ap Jewdwr, prince of
Dyfed, was defeated by the ailied forces of the Norman Robert
Fitzhamon and Iestyn ab Gwrgan, the last prince of Glamorgan.
ABERDEEN, GEORGE GORDON, 1ST EARL OF (1637-1720), lord
chancellor of Scotland, son of Sir John Gordon, 1st baronet
of Haddo, Aberdeenshire, executed by the Presbyterians in
1644, was born on the 3rd of October 1637. He graduated
M.A., and was chosen professor at King's College, Aberdeen, in
1658. Subsequently he travelled and studied civil law abroad.
At the Restoration the sequestration of his father's lands was
annulled, and in 1665 he succeeded by the death of his elder
brother to the baronetcy and estates. He returned home in
1667, was admitted advocate in 1668 and gained a high legal
reputation. He represented Aberdeenshire in the Scottish
parliament of 1669 and in the following assemblies, during his
first session strongly opposing the projected union of the two
legislatures. In November 1678 he was made a privy councillor
for Scotland, and in 1680 was raised to the bench as Lord
Haddo. He was a leading member of the duke of York's
administration, was created a lord of session in June and
in November 1681 president of the court. The same year
he is reported as moving in the council for the torture of
witnesses.1 In 1682 he was made lord chancellor of Scotland,
and was created, on the 13th of November, earl of Aberdeen,
Viscount Formartine, and Lord Haddo, Methllck, Tarves and
Kellie, in the Scottish peerage, being appointed also sheriff
principal of Aberdeenshire and Midlothian. Burnet reflects
unfavourably upon him, calls him ``a proud and covetous man,''
and declares ``the new chancellor exceeded all that had gone
before him.''2 He executed the laws enforcing religious
conformity with severity, and filled the parish churches, but
resisted the excessive measures of tyranny prescribed by the
English government; and in consequence of an intrigue of the
duke of Queensberry and Lord Perth, who gained the duchess of
Portsmouth with a present of L. 27,000, he was dismissed in 1684.
After his fall he was subjected to various petty prosecutions
by his victorious rivals with the view of discovering some
act of maladministration on which to found a charge against
him, but the investigations only served to strengthen his
credit. He took an active part in parliament in 1685 and
1686, but remained a non-juror during the whole of William's
reign, being frequently fined for his non-attendance, and
took the oaths for the first time after Anne's accession, on
the 11th of May 1703. In the great affair of the Union in
1707, while protesting against the completion of the treaty
till the act declaring the Scots aliens should be repealed,
he refused to support the opposition to the measure itself
and refrained from attending parliament when the treaty was
settled. He died on the 20th of April 1720, after having
amassed a large fortune. He is described by John Mackay as
``very knowing in the laws and constitution of his country and
is belleved to be the solidest statesman in Scotland, a fine
orator, speaks slow but sure.'' His person was said to be
deformed, and his ``want of mine or deportment'' was alleged
as a disqualification for the office of lord chancellor. He
married Anne, daughter and sole heiress of George Lockhart of
Torbrecks, by whom he had six children, his only surviving
son, William, succeeding him as 2nd earl of Aberdeen.
See Letters to George, earl of Aberdeen (with memoir: Spalding
Club, 1851); Hist. Account of the Senators of-the College
of Justice, by G. Brunton and D. Haig (1832), p. 408; G.
Crawfurd's Lives of the Officers of State (1726), p. 226;
Memoirs of Affairs in Scotland, by Sir G. Mackenzie (1821),
p. 148; Sir J. Lauder's (Lord Fountainhall) Journals (Scottish
Hist. Society, vol. xxxvi., 1900); J. Mackay's Memoirs
(1733), p. 215; A. Lang's Hist. of Scotland, iii. 369, 376.
(P. C. Y.)
1 Sir J. Lauder's Hist. Notices (Bannatyne Club, 1848), p. 297.
2 Hist. of his own Times, i. 523.
ABERDEEN, GEORGE HAMILTON GORDON, 4TH EARL OF (1784-1860),
English statesman, was the eldest son of George Gordon, Lord
Haddo, by his wife Charlotte, daughter of William Baird of
Newbyth, Haddingtonshire, and grandson of George, 3rd earl of
Aberdeen. Born in Edinburgh on the 28th of January 1784,
he lost his father in 1791 and his mother in 1795; and as
his grandfather regarded him with indifference, he went to
reside with Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville. At
the age of fourteen he was permitted by Scotch law to name
his own curators, or guardians, and selecting William Pitt
and Dundas for this office he spent much of his time at their
houses, thus meeting many of the leading politicians of the
day. He was educated at Harrow, and St John's College, Cambridge,
where he graduated as a nobleman in 1804. Before this time,
however, he had become earl of Aberdeen on his grandfather's
death in 1801, and had travelled over a large part of the
continent of Europe, meeting on his journeys Napoleon Bonaparte
and other persons of distinction. He also spent some time in
Greece, and on his return to England founded the Athenian
Society, membership of which was confined to those who had
travelled in that country. Moreover, he wrote an article in
the Edinburgh Review of July 1805 criticizing Sir William
Gill's Topography of Troy, and these circumstances led Lord
Byron to refer to him in Eniglish Bardo and Scotch Reviewers
as ``the travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen.'' Having attained
his majority in 1805, he married on the 28th of July Catherine
Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of John James, 1st marquess of
Abercorn. In December 1806 he was elected a representative
peer for Scotland, and took his seat as a Tory in the House of
Lords, but for some years he took only a slight part in public
business. However, by his birth, his abilities and his
connexions alike he was marked out for a high position, and
after the death of his wife in February 1812 he was appointed
ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at
Vienna, where he signed the treaty of Toplitz between Great
Britain and Austria in October 1813; and accompanying the
emperor Francis I. through the subsequent campaign against
France, he was present at the battle of Leipzig. He was
one of the British representatives at the congress of
Chatillon in February 1814, and in the same capacity was
present during the negotiations which led to the treaty of
Paris in the following May. Returning home he was created
a peer of the United Kingdom as Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen
(1814), and made a member of the privy council. On the 15th
of Juby 1815 he married Harriet, daughter of the Hon. John
Douglas, and widow of James, Viscount Hamilton, and thus
became doubly connected with the family of the marquess of
Abercorn. During the ensuing thirteen years Aberdeen took a
less prominent part in public affairs, although he succeeded
in passing the Entail (Scotland) Act of 1825. He kept in
touch, however, with foreign politics, and having refused to
join the ministry of George Canning in 1827, became a member
of the cabinet of the duke of Wellington as chancellor of the
duchy of Lancaster in January 1828. In the following June he
was transferred to the office of secretary of state for foreign
affairs, and having acquitted himself with credit with regard
to the war between Russia and Turkey, and to affairs in Greece,
Portugal and France, he resigned with Wellington in November
1830, and shared his leader's attitude towards the Reform
Bill of 1832. As a Scotsman, Aberdeen was interested in the
ecclesiastical controversy which culminated in the disruption of
1843. In 1840 he introduced a bill to settle the vexed question
of patronage; but disliked by a majority in the general assembly
of the Scotch church, and unsupported by the government, it
failed to become law, and some opprobrium was cast upon its
author. In 1843 he brought forward a similar measure ``to
remove doubts respecting the admission of ministers to
benefices.'' This Admission to Benefices Act, as it was called,
passed into law, but did not reconcile the opposing parties.
During the short administration of Sir Robert Peel in 1834
and 1835, Aberdeen had filled the office of secretary for
the colonies, and in September 1841 he took office again
under Peel, on this occasion as foreign secretary; the
five years during which he held this position were the most
fruitful and successful of his public life. He owed his
success to the confidence placed in him by Queen Victoria,
to his wide knowledge of European politics, to his intimate
friendship with Guizot, and not least to his own conciliatory
disposition. Largely owing to his efforts, causes of quarrel
between Great Britain and France in Tahiti, over the marriage
of Isabella II. of Spain, and in other directions, were
removed. More important still were his services in settling
the question of the boundary between the United States and
British North America at a time when a single injudicious
word would probably have provoked a war. In 1845 he supported
Peel when in a divided cabinet he proposed to suspend the duty
on foreign corn, and left office with that minister in July
1846. After Peel's death in 1850 he became the recognized
leader of the Peelites, although since his resignation his
share in public business had been confined to a few speeches
on foreign affairs. His dislike of the Ecclesiastical Titles
Assumption Bill, the rejection of which he failed to secure in
1851, prevented him from joining the government of Lord John
Russell, or from forming an administration himself in this
year. In December 1852, however, be became first lord of
the treasury and head of a coalition ministry of Whigs and
Peelites. Although united on free trade and in general
on questions of domestic reform, a cabinet which contained
Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, in addition to
Aberdeen, was certain to differ on questions of foreign
policy. The strong and masterful character of these and
other colleagues made the task of the prime minister one
of unusual difficulty, a fact which was recognized by
contemporaries. Charles Greville in his Memoirs says,
``In the present cabinet are five or six first-rate men of
equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, none of them likely to
acknowledge the superiority or defer to the opinions of any
other, and every one of these five or six considering himself
abler and more important than their premier''; and Sir James
Graham wrote, ``It is a powerful team, but it will require good
driving.'' The first year of office passed off successfully,
and it was owing to the steady support of the prime minister
that Gladstone's great budget of 1853 was accepted by the
cabinet. This was followed by the outbreak of the dispute
between France and Turkey over the guardianship of the
holy places at Jerusalem, which, after the original cause
of quarrel had been forgotten, developed into the Crimean
war. The tortuous negotiations which preceded the struggle
need not be discussed here, but in defence of Aberdeen
it may be said that he hoped and strove for peace to the
last. Rightly or wrongly, however, he held that Russell was
indispensable to the cabinet, and that a resignation would
precipitate war. His outlook, usually so clear, was blurred
by these considerations, and he lacked the strength to force
the suggestions which he made in the autumn of 1853 upon his
imperious colleagues. Palmerston, supported by Russell and
well served by Lord Stratford de Redcllffe, British ambassador
at Constantinople, favoured a more aggressive policy, and
Aberdeen, unable to control Palmerston, and unwilling to let
Russell go, cannot be exonerated from blame. When the war
began he wished to prosecute it vigorously; but the stories
of misery and mismanagement from the seat of war deprived
the ministry of public favour. Russell resigned; and on
the 29th of January 1855 a motion by J. A. Roebuck, for the
appointment of a select committee to enquire into the conduct
of the War, was carried in the House of Commons by a large
majority. Treating this as a vote of want of confidence
Aberdeen at once resigned office, and the queen bestowed
upon him the order of the Garter. He smoothed the way for
Palmerston to succeed him, and while the earl of Clarendon
remained at the foreign office he aided him with advice and
was consulted on matters of moment. He died in London on the
14th of December 1860, and was buried in the family vault at
Stanmore. By his first wife he had one son and three
daughters, all of whom predeceased their father. By his second
wife, who died in August 1833, he left four sons and one
daughter. His eldest son, George John James, succeeded as 5th
earl; his second son was General Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon,
K.C.B.; his third son was the Reverend Douglas Hamilton-Gordon;
and his youngest son Arthur Hamilton, after holding various
high offices under the crown, was created Baron Stanmore in
1893. Among the public offices held by the earl were those of
lord-lieutenant of Aberdeenshire, president of the society of
Antiquaries from 1812 to 1846 and fellow of the Royal Society.
Aberdeen was a distinguished scholar with a retentive memory
and a wide knowledge of literature and art. His private life
was exemplary, and he impressed his contemporaries with the
loftiness of his character. His manner was reserved, and
as a speaker he was weighty rather than eloquent. In public
life he was remarkable for his generosity to his political
opponents, and for his sense of justice and honesty. He
did not, however, possess the qualities which impress the
populace, and he lacked the strength which is one of the
essential gifts of a statesman. His character is perhaps best
described by a writer who says ``his strength was not equal
to his goodness.'' His foreign policy was essentially one of
peace and non-intervention, and in pursuing it he was accused
of favouring the despotisms of Europe. Aberdeen was a model
landlord. By draining the land, by planting millions of trees
and by erecting numerous buildings, he greatly improved the
condition of his Aberdeenshire estates, and studied continually
the welfare of his dependants. A bust of him by Matthew Noble
is in Westminster Abbey, and his portrait was painted by Sir
Thomas Lawrence. He wrote An Inquiry into the Principles
of Beauty in Grecian Architecture (London, 1822), and the
Correspondence of the Earl of Aberdeen has been printed
privately under the direction of his son, Lord Stanmore.
The 6th earl, George (1841-1870), son of the 5th earl,
was drowned at sea, and was succeeded by his brother
John Campbell Gordon, 7th earl of Aberdeen, (b. 1847), a
prominent Liberal politician, who was lord-lieutenant of
Ireland in 1886, governor-general of Canada 1893--1898,
and again the lord-lieutenant of Ireland when Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman formed his ministry at the close of 1905.
See Lord Stanmore, The Earl of Aberdeen (London, 1893); C.
C. F. Greville, Memoirs, edited by H. Reeve (London, 1888);
Spencer Walpole, History of England (London, 1878-1886),
and Life of Lord John Russell (London, 1889); A. W.
Kinglake, Invasion of the Crimea (London, 1877-1888);
Sir T. Martin, Life of the Prince Consort (London,
1875-1880); J. Morley, Life of Gladstone (London, 1903).
(A. W. H. deg. )
ABERDEEN, a royal burgh, city and county of a city,
capital of Aberdeenshire, and chief seaport in the north of
Scotland. It is the fourth Scottish town in population,
industry and wealth, and stands on a bay of the North
Sea, between the mouths of the Don and Dee, 130 1/2 m. N.
E. of Edinburgh by the North British railway. Though Old
Aberdeen, extending from the city suburbs to the southern
banks of the Dob, has a separate charter, privileges and
history, the distinction between it and New Aberdeen can no
longer be said to exist; and for parliamentary, municipal
and other purposes, the two towns now form practically one
community. Aberdeen's popular name of the ``Granite City,'
is justified by the fact that the bulk of the town fs built
of granite, but to appreciate its more poetical designation
of the ``Silver City by the Sea,'' it should be seen after
a heavy rainfall when its stately structures and countless
houses gleam pure and white under the brilliant sunshine.
The area of the city extends to 6602 acres, the burghs of
Old Aberdeen and Woodside, and the district of Torry (for
parliamentary purposes in the constituency of Kincardineshire)
to the south of the Dee, having been incorporated in 1891.
The city comprises eleven wards and eighteen ecclesiastical
parishes, and is under the jurisdiction of a council with
lord provost, bailies, treasurer and dean of guild. The
corporation owns the water (derived from the Dee at a spot 21
m. W.S.W. of the city) and gas supplles, electric lighting and
tramways. Since 1885 the city has returned two members to
Parliament. Aberdeen is served by the Caledonian, Great North
of Scotland and North British railways (occupying a commodious
joint railway station), and there is regular communication by
sea with London and the chief ports on the eastern coast of
Great Britain and the northern shores of the Continent. The mean
temperature of the city for the year is 45.8 deg. F., for summer
56 deg. F., and for winter 37.3 deg. F. The average yearly rainfall
is 30.57 inches. The city is one of the healthiest in Scotland.
Streets and Buildings.--Roughly, the extended city runs
north and south. From the new bridge of Don to the ``auld
brig'' of Dee there is tramway communication via King
Street, Union Street and Holburn Road--a distance of over five
miles. Union Street is one of the most imposing thoroughfares
in the British Isles. From Castle Street it runs W. S. W.
for nearly a mile, is 70 ft. wide, and contains the principal
shops and most of the modern public buildings, all of granite.
Part of the street crosses the Denburn ravine (utilized for
the line of the Great North of Scotland railway) by a fine
granite arch of 132 ft. span, portions of the older town
still fringing the gorge, fifty feet below the level of Union
Street. Amongst the more conspicuous secular buildings in the
street may be mentioned the Town and County Bank, the Music
Hall, with sitting accommodation for 2000 persons, the Trinity
Hall of the incorporated trades (originating in various years
between 1398 and 1527, and having charitable funds for poor
members, widows and orphans), containing some portraits
by George Jamesone, a noteworthy set of carved oak chairs,
dating from 1574, and the shields of the crafts with quaint
inscriptions; the office of the Aberdeen Free Press, one of
the most influential papers in the north of Scotland; the Palace
Hotel; the office of the Nnrthern Assurance Company, and the
Nutional Bank of Scotland. In Castle Street, a continuation
eastwards of Union Street, are situated the Municipnl and
County Buildings, one of the most splendid granite edifices
in Scotland, in the Franco-Scottish Gothic style, built in
1867-1878. They are of four stories and contain the great
hall with an open timber ceiling and oak-panelled walls; the
Sheriff Court House; the Town Hall, with excellent portraits
of Prince Albert (Prince Consort), the 4th earl of Aberdeen,
the various lord provosts and other distinguished citizens.
In the vestibule of the entrance corridor stands a suit of
black armour believed to have been worn by Provost Sir Robert
Davidson, who feh in the battle of Harlaw, near Inverurie, in
1411. From the south-western corner a grand tower rises to
a height of 210 ft., commanding a fine view of the city and
surrounding country. Adjoining the municipal buildings is
the North of Scotland Bank, of Greek design, with a portico
of Corinthian columns, the capitals of which are exquisitely
carved. On the opposite side of the street is the fine
building of the Union Bank. At the upper end of Castle Street
stands the Salvation Army Citadel, an effective castellated
mansion, the most imposing ``barracks'' possessed anywhere
by this organization. In front of it is the Market Cross,
a beautiful, open-arched, hexagonal structure, 21 ft. in
diameter and 18 ft. high. The original was designed in 1682
by Jnhn Montgomery, a native architect, but in 1842 it was
removed hither from its old site and rebuilt in a better
style. On the entablature surmounting the Ionic columns are
panels containing medallions of Scots sovereigns from James
I. to James VII. From the centre rises a shaft, 12 1/2 ft.
high, with a Corinthian capital on which is the royal,unicorn
rampant. On an eminence east of Castle Street are the military
barracks. In Market Street are the Mechanics' Institution,
founded in 1824, with a good library; the Post and Telegraph
offices; and the Market, where provisions of all kinds and
general wares are sold. The Fish Market, on the Albert Basin,
is a busy scene in the early morning. The Art Gallery and
Museum at Schoolhill, built in the Italian Renaissance style
of red and brown granite, contains an excellent Collection of
pictures, the Macdonald Hall of portraits of contemporary
artists by themselves being of altogether exceptional
interest and unique of its kind in Great Britain. The public
llbrary, magnificently housed, contains more than 60,000
volumes. The theatre in Guild Street is the chief seat of
dramatic, as the Palace Theatre in Bridge Place is of variety
entertainment. The new buildings of Marischal College fronting
Broad Street, opened by King Edward VII. in 1906, form one
of the most splendid examples of modern architecture in Great
Britain; the architect, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, a native
of Aberdeen, having adapted his material, white granite, to
the design of a noble building with the originality of genius.
Churches.---Like most Scottish towns, Aberdeen is well
equipped with churches, most of them of good design, but
few of special interest. The East and West churches of St
Nicholas, their kirkyard separated from Union Street by an Ionic
facade, 147 1/2 ft. long, built in 1830, form one continuous
building, 220ft. in length, including the Drum Aisle (the
ancient burial-place of the Irvines of Drum) and the Colllson
Aisle, which divide them and which formed the transept of the
12th-century church of St Nicholas. The West Church was built in
1775, in the Italian style, the East originally in 1834 in the
Gothic. In 1874 a fire destroyed the East Church and the
old central tower with its fine peal of nine bells, one of
which, Laurence or ``Lowrie,'' was 4 ft. in diameter at the
mouth, 3 1/2 ft. high and very thick. The church was rebuilt
and a massive granite tower erected over the intervening
aisles at the cost of the municipality, a new peal of 36
bells, cast in Holland, being installed to commemorate the
Victorian jubilee of 1887. The Roman Catholic Cathedral in
Huntly Street, a Gothic building, was erected in 1859. The
see of Aberdeen was first founded at Mortlach in Banffshire
by Malcolm II. in 1004 to celebrate his victory there over
the Danes, but in 1137 David I. transferred the bishopric
to Old Aberdeen, and twenty years later the cathedral of
St Machar, situated a few hundred yards from the Don, was
begun. Save during the episcopate of William Elphinstone
(1484-1511), the building progressed slowly. Gavin Dunbar,
who followed him in 1518, was enabled to complete the
structure by adding the two western spires and the southern
transept. The church suffered severely at the Reformation,
but is still used as the parish church. It now consists of the
nave and side aisles. It is chiefly built of outlayer granite,
and, though the plainest cathedral in Scotland, its stately
simplicity and severe symmetry lend it unique distinction.
On the flat panelled ceiling of the nave are the heraldic
shields of the princes, noblemen and bishops who shared in its
erection, and the great west window contains modern painted
glass of excellent colour and design. The cemeteries are St
Peter's in Old Aberdeen, Trinity near the links, Nellfield
at the junction of Great Western and Holburn Roads, and
Allenvale, very tastefully laid out, adjoining Duthie Park.
Education.---Aberdeen University consists of King's College
in Old Aberdeen, founded by Bishop Elphinstone in 1494,
and Marischal College, in Broad Street, founded in 1593 by
George Keith, 5th earl Marischal, which were incorporated in
1860. Arts and divinity are taught at King's, law, medicine
and science at Marischal. The number of students exceeds 800
yearly. The buildings of both colleges are the glories of
Aberdeen. King's forms a quadrangle with interior court, two
sides of which have been rebuilt, and a library wing has been
added. The Crown Tower and the Chapel, the oldest parts, date from
1500. The former is surmounted by a structure about 40 ft.
high, consisting of a six-sided lantern and royal crown, both
sculptured, and resting on the intersections of two arched
ornamental slips rising from the four corners of the top of the
tower. The choir of the chapel still contains the original
oak canopied stalls, miserere seats and lofty open screens in
the French flamboyant style, and of unique beauty of design and
execution. Their preservation was due to the enlightened
energy of the principal at the time of the Reformation, who
armed his folk to save the building from the barons of the
Mearns after they had robbed St Machar's of its bells and
lead. Marischal College is a stately modern building, having
been rebuilt in 1836-1841, and greatly extended several years
later at a cost of L. 100,000. The additions to the buildings
opened by King Edward VII. in 1906 have been already mentioned.
The beautiful Mitchell Tower is so named from the benefactor (Dr
Charles Mitchell) who provided the splendid graduation hall.
The opening of this tower in 1895 signalized the commemoration
of the four hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the
university. The University Library comprises nearly 100,000
books. A Botanic Garden was presented to the university in
1899. Aberdeen and Glasgow Universities combine to return
one member to Parliament. The United Free Church Divinity
Hall in Alford Place, in the Tudor Gothic style, dates from
1850. The Grammar School, founded in 1263, was removed in
1861-1863 from its old quarters in Schoolhill to a large new
building, in the Scots Baronial style, off Skene Street.
Robert Gordon's College in Schoolhill was founded in 1729
by Robert Gordon of Straloch and further endowed in 1816 by
Alexander Simpson of Collyhill. Originally devoted (as Gordon's
Hospital) to the instruction and maintenance of the sons of poor
burgesses of guild and trade in the city, it was reorganized
in 1881 as a day and night school for secondary and technical
education, and has since been unusually successful. Besides
a High School for Girls and numerous board schools, there are
many private higher-class schools. Under the Endowments Act
1882 an educational trust was constituted which possesses a
capital of L. 155,000. At Blairs, in Kincardineshire, five
miles S.W. of Aberdeen, is St Mary's Roman Catholic College
for the training of young men intended for the priesthood.
Charities.---The Royal Infimary, in Woolmanhill, established
in 1740, rebuilt in the Grecian style in 1833-1840, and
largely extended after 1887 as a memorial of Queen Victoria's
jubilee; the Royal Asylum, opened in 1800; the Female Orphan
Asylum, in Albyn Place, founded in 1840; the Blind Asylum,
in Huntly Street, established in 1843; the Royal Hospital
for Sick Children; the Maternity Hospital, founded in 1823;
the City Hospital for Infectious Diseases; the Deaf and Dumb
Institution; Mitchell's Hospital in Old Aberdeen; the East
and West Poorhouses, with lunatic wards; and hospitals devoted
to specialized diseases, are amongst the most notable of
the charitable institutions. There are, besides, industrial
schools for boys and girls and for Roman Catholic children, a
Female School of Industry, the Seabank Rescue Home, Nazareth
House and Orphanage, St Martha's Home for Girls, St Margaret's
Convalescent Home and Sisterhood, House of Bethany, the
Convent of the Sacred Heart and the Educational Trust School.
Parks and Open Spaces.---Duthie Park, of 50 acres, the gift
of Miss Elizabeth Crombie Duthie of Ruthrieston, occupies an
excellent site on the north bank of the Dee. Victoria Park
(13 acres) and its extension Westburn Park (13 acres) are
situated in the north-western area; farther north lies Stewart
Park (11 acres), called after Sir D. Stewart, lord provost in
1893. The capacious links bordering the sea between the
mouths of the two rivers are largely resorted to for open-air
recreation; there is here a rifle range where a ``wapinschaw,''
or shooting tournament, is held annually. Part is laid out
as an 18-hole golf course; a section is reserved for cricket
and football; a portion has been railed off for a race-course,
and a bathing-station has been erected. Union Terrace
Gardens are a popular rendezvous in the heart of the city.
Statues.---In Union Terrace Gardens stands a colossal statue
in bronze of Sir William Wallace, by W. G. Stevenson, R.S.A.
(1888). In the same gardens are a bronze statue of Burns
and Baron Marochetti's seated figure of Prince Albert. In
front of Gordon's College is the bronze statue, by T. S.
Burnett, A.R.S.A., of General Gordon (1888). At the east
end of Union Street is the bronze statue of Queen Victoria,
erected in 1893 by the royal tradesmen of the city. Near the
Cross stands the granite statue of the 5th duke of Gordon (d.
1836). Here may also be mentioned the obelisk of Peterhead
granite, 70 ft. high, erected in the square of Marischal
College to the memory of Sir James M`Grigor (1778-1851), the
military surgeon and director-general of the Army Medical
Department, who was thrice elected lord rector of the College.
Bridges.--The Dee is crossed by four bridges,--the old
bridge, the Wellington suspension bridge, the railway bridge,
and Victoria Bridge, opposite Market Street. The first, till
1832 the only access to the city from the south, consists of
seven semicircular ribbed arches, is about 30 ft. high, and
was built early in the 16th century by Bishops Elphinstone and
Dunbar. It was nearly all rebuilt in 1718--1723, and in
1842 was widened from 14 1/2 to 26 ft. The bridge of Don has
five granite arches, each 75 ft. in span, and was built in
1827--1832. A little to the west is the Auld Brig o'
Balgownie, a picturesque single arch spanning the deep
black stream, said to have been built by King Robert I.,
and celebrated by Byron in the tenth canto of Don Juan.
Harbour.--A defective harbour, with a shallow sand and gravel
bar at its entrance. long retarded the trade of Aberdeen, but
under various acts since 1773 it was greatly deepened. The
north pier, built partly by Smeaton in 1775-1781, and partly
by Telford in 1810-1815, extends nearly 3000 ft. into the North
Sea. It increases the depth of water on the bar from a few
feet to 22 or 24 ft. at spring tides and to 17 or 18 ft. at
neap. A wet dock, of 29 acres, and with 6000 ft. of quay,
was completed in 1848 and called Victoria Dock in honour
of the queen's visit to the city in that year. Adjoining
it is the Upper Dock. By the Harbour Act of 1868, the Dee
near the harbour was diverted from the south at a cost of
L. 80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres
formerly made up) were provided on the north side of the
river for the Albert Basin (with a graving dock), quays and
warehouses. A breakwater of concrete, 1050 ft. long, was
constructed on the south side of the stream as a protection
against south-easterly gales. On Girdleness, the southern
point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833. Near the
harbour mouth are three batteries mounting nineteen guns.
Industry.---Owing to the variety and importance of its chief
industries Aberdeen is one of the most prosperous cities in
Scotland. Very durable grey granite has been quarried near
Aberdeen for more than 300 years, and blocked and dressed
paving ``setts,'' kerb and building stones, and monumental
and other ornamental work of granite have long been exported
from the district to all parts of the world. This, though
once the predominant industry, has been surpassed by the
deep-sea fisheries, which derived a great impetus from
beam-trawling, introduced in 1882, and steam line fishing
in 1889, and threaten to rival if not to eclipse those of
Grimsby. Fish trains are despatched to London daily. Most
of the leading industries date from the 18th century, amongst
them woollens (1703), linen (1749) and cotton (1779). These
give employment to several thousands of operatives. The
paper-making industry is one of the most famous and oldest in
the city, paper having been first made in Aberdeen in 1694.
Flax-spinning and jute and combmaking factories are also very
flourishing, and there are successful foundries and engineering
works. There are large distilleries and breweries, and
chemical works employing many hands. In the days of wooden
ships ship-building was a flourishing industry, the town being
noted for its fast clippers, many of which established records
in the ``tea races.'' The introduction of trawllng revived
this to some extent, and despite the distance of the city
from the iron fields there is a fair yearly output of iron
vessels. Of later origin are the jam, pickle and potted
meat factories, hundreds of acres having been laid down in
strawberries and other fruits within a few miles of the city.
History.--Aberdeen was an important place as far back as the
12th century. William the Lion had a residence in the city, to
which he gave a charter in 1179 confirming the corporate rights
granted by David I. The city received other royal charters
later. It was burned by the English king, Edward III., in
1336, but it was soon rebuilt and extended, and called New
Aberdeen. The burgh records are the oldest in Scotland.
They begin in 1398 and with one brief break are complete to
the present day. For many centuries the city was subject to
attacks by the neighbouring barons, and was strongly fortified,
but the gates were all removed by 1770. In 1497 a blockhouse
was built at the harbour mouth as a protection against the
English. During the struggles between the Royalists and
Covenanters the city was impartially plundered by both
sides. In 1715 the Earl Marischal proclaimed the Old
Pretender at Aberdeen, and in 1745 the duke of Cumberland
resided for a short time in the city before attacking
the Young Pretender. The motto on the city arms is ``Bon
Accord,'' which formed the watchword of the Aberdonians
while aiding Robert Bruce in his battles with the English.
Population.---In 1396 the population was about 3000. By 1801 it had
become 26,992; in 1841 it was 63,262; (1891) 121,623; (1901) 153,503.
AUTHORITIES.--The charters of the burgh; extracts from
the council register down to 1625, and selections from the
letters. guildry and treasurer's accounts, forming 3 vols.
of the Spalding Club; Cosmo Innes, Registrum Episcopatus
Aberdonensis, Spalding Club; Walter Thore, The History
of Aberdeen (1811); Robert Wilson, Historical Account and
Delineation of Aberdeen (1822); William Kennedy, The Annals
of Aberdeen (1818); Orem, Descripjion of the Chanonry,
Cathedral and King's College of Old Aberdeen, 1724-1725
(1830); Sir Andrew Leith Hay of Rannes, The Castellated
Architecture of Aberdeen; Giles, Specimens of old
Castellated Houses of Aberdeen (1838); James Bryce, Lives
of Eminent Men of Aberdeen (1841); J. Gordon, Description
of Both Towns of Aberdeen (Spalding Club, 1842); Joseph
Robertson, The Book of Bon-Accord (Aberdeen, 1839); W.
Robbie, Aberdeen: its Traditions and History (Aberdeen,
1893); C. G. Burr and A. M. Munro, Old Landmarks of Aberdeen
(Aberdeen, 1886); A. M. Munro, Memorials of the Aldermen,
Provosts and Lord Provosts of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1897);
P. J. Anderson, Charters, &c., illustrating the History
of Records of Marischal College (New Spalding 1890);
Selections from the Records of Marischal College (New
Spalding Club, 1889, 1898..1899); J. Cooper, Chartulary of
the Church of St Nicholas (New Spalding Club, 1888, 1892);
G. Cadenhead, Sketch of the Territorial History of the
Burgh of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1876); W. Cadenhead, Guide to
the City of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1897); A. Smith, History
and Antiquities of New and Old Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1882).
ABERDEEN, a city and the county-seat of Brown county, South
Dakota, U.S.A., about 125 m. N.E. of Pierre. Pop. (1890)
3182; (1900) 4087, of whom 889 were foreign born; (1905) 5841;
(1910) 10,753. Aberdeen is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee
and St Paul, the Great Northern, the Minneapolis and St
Louis, and the Chicago and North Western railways. It is
the financial and trade centre for the northern part of the
state, a fine agricultural region, and in 1908 had five banks
and a number of wholesale houses. The city is the seat of the
Northern Normal and Industrial School, a state institution,
and has a Carnegie Library; the principal buildings are the
court house and the government buildings. Artesian wells
furnish good water-power, and artesian-well supplies, grain
pitchers, brooms, chemicals and flour are manufactured. The
municipality owns and operates the water-works. Aberdeen
was settled in 1880, and was chartered as a city in 1883.
ABERDEENSHIRE, a north-eastern county of Scotland, bounded
N. and E. by the North Sea, S. by Kincardine, Forfar and
Perth, and W. by Inverness and Banff. It has a coast-line
of 65 m., and is the sixth Scottish county in area, occupying
1261,887 acres or 1971 sq. m. The county is generally
hilly, and from the south-west, near the centre of Scotland,
the Grampians send out various branches, mostly to the
north-east. The shire is popularly divided into five
districts. Of these the first is Mar, mostly between the
Dee and Don, which nearly covers the southern half of the
county and contains the city of Aberdeen. It is mountainous,
especially Braemar (q.v.), which contains the greatest
mass of elevated land in the British Isles. The soil on the
Dee is sandy, and on the Don loamy. The second district,
Formartine, between the lower Don and Ythan, has a sandy
coast, which is succeeded inland by a clayey, fertile, tilled
tract, and then by low hills, moors, mosses and tilled land.
Buchan, the third district, lies north of the Ythan, and,
comprising the north-east of the county, is next in size to
Mar, parts of the coast being bold and rocky, the interior bare,
low, flat, undulating and in places peaty. On the coast, 6
m. S. of Peterhead, are the Bullers of Buchan--a basin in
which the sea, entering by a natural arch, boils up violently
in stormy weather. Buchan Ness is the most easterly point of
Scotland. The fourth district, Garioch, in the centre of the
shire, is a beautiful, undulating, loamy, fertile valley.
formerly called the granary of Aberdeen. Strathbogie, the
fifth district, occupying a considerable area south of the
Deveron, mostly consists of hills, moors and mosses. The
mountains are the most striking of the physical features of the
county. Ben Macdhui (4296 ft.), a magnificent mass, the
second highest mountain in Great Britain, Braeriach (4248),
Cairntoul (4241), Ben-na-bhuaird (3924), Ben Avon (3843),
``dark'' Lochnagar (3786), the subject of a well-known song by
Byron, Cairn Eas (3556), Sgarsoch (3402), Culardoch (2953),
are the principal heights in the division of Mar. Farther
north rise the Buck of Cabrach (2368) on the Banffshire border,
Tap o' Noth (1830), Bennachie (1698), a beautiful peak which
from its central position is a landmark visible from many
different parts of the county, and which is celebrated in John
Imlah's song, ``O gin I were where Gadie rins,'' and Foudland
(1529). The chief rivers are the Dee, 90 m. long; the Iyon,
82 m.; the Ythan, 37 m., with mussel-beds at its mouth; the
Ugie, 20 m., and the Deveron, 62 m., partly on the boundary of
Banffshire. The rivers abound with salmon and trout, and the
pearl mussel occurs in the Ythan and Don. A valuable pearl
in the Scottish crown is said to be from the Ythan. Loch
Muick, the largest of the few lakes in the county, 1310 ft.
above the sea, 2 1/2 m. long and 1/3 to 1/2 m. broad, lies some
8 1/2 m. S.W. of Ballater, and has Altnagiuthasach, a royal
shooting-box, near its south-western end. Loch Strathbeg, 6
m. S.E. of Fraserburgh, is only separated from the sea by
a narrow strip of land. There are noted chalybeate springs
at Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Pannanich near Ballater.
Geology.---The greater part of the county is composed of
crystalline schists belonging to the metamorphic rocks of
the Eastern Highlands. In the upper parts of the valleys
of the Dee and the Don they form well-marked groups, of
which the most characteristic are (1) the black schists and
phyllites, with calcflintas, and a thin band of tremolite
limestone, (2) the main or Blair Atholl limestone, (3) the
quartzite. These divisions are folded on highly inclined or
vertical axes trending north-east and south-west, and hence
the same zones are repeated over a considerable area. The
quartzite is generally regarded as the highest member of the
series. Excellent sections showing the component strata
occur in Glen Clunie and its tributary valleys above Braemar.
Eastwards down the Dee and the Don and northwards across the
plain of Buchan towards Rattray Head and Fraserburgh there
is a development of biotite gneiss, partly of sedimentary
and perhaps partly of igneous origin. A belt of slate which
has been quarried for roofing purposes runs along the west
border of the county from Turriff by Auchterless and the
Foudland Hills towards the Tap o' Noth near Gartly. The
metamorphic rocks have been invaded by igneous materials, some
before, and by far the larger series after the folding of the
strata. The basic types of the former are represented by
the sills of epidiorite and hornblende gneiss in Glen Muick
and Glen Callater, which have been permeated by granite and
pegmatite in veins and lenticles, often foliated. The later
granites subsequent to the plication of the schists have a
wide distribution on the Ben Macdhui and Ben Avon range, and
on Lochnagar; they stretch eastwards from Ballater by Tarland
to Aberdeen and north to Bennachie. Isolated masses appear
at Peterhead and at Strichen. Though consisting mainly of
biotite granite, these later intrusions pass by intermediate
stages into diorite, as in the area between Balmoral and the
head-waters of the Gairn. The granites have been extensively
quarried at Rubislaw, Peterhead and Kemnay. Serpentine and
troctolite, the precise age of which is uncertain, occur at
the Black Dog rock north of Aberdeen, at Belhelvie and near Old
Meldrum. Where the schists of sedimentary origin have been
pierced by these igneous intrusions, they are charged with
contact minerals such as sillimanite, cordierite, kyanite and
andalusite. Cordierite-bearing rocks occur near Ellon, at the
foot of Bennachie, and on the top of the Buck of Cahrach. A
banded and mottled calc-silicate hornfels occurring with the
limestone at Iyerry Falls, W. N.W. of Braemar, has yielded
malacolite, wollastonite, brown idocrase, garnet, sphene and
hornblende. A larger list of minerals has been obtained
from an exposure of limestone and associated beds in Glen
Gairn, about four miles above the point where that river
joins the Dee. Narrow belts of Old Red Sandstone, resting
unconformably on the old platform of slates and schists, have
been traced from the north coast at Peterhead by Turriff to
Fyvie, and also from Huntly by Gartly to Kildrummy Castle.
The strata consist mainly of conglomerates and sandstones,
which, at Gartly and at Rhyme, are associated with lenticular
bands of andesite indicating contemporaneous volcanic
action. Small outliers of conglomerate and sandstone of this
age have recently been found in the course of excavations in
Aberdeen. The glacial deposits, especially in the belt
bordering the coast between Aberdeen and Peterhead, furnish
important evidence. The ice moved eastwards off the high
ground at the head of the Dee and the Don, while the mass
spreading outwards from the Moray Firth invaded the low
plateau of Buchan; but at a certain stage there was a marked
defection northwards parallel with the coast, as proved by
the deposit of red clay north of Aberdeen. At a later date
the local glaciers laid down materials on top of the red
clay. The committee appointed by the British Association
(Report for 1897, p. 333) proved that the Greensand, which
has yielded a large suite of Cretaceous fossils at Moreseat,
in the parish of Cruden, occurs in glacial drift, resting
probably on granite. The strata from which the Moreseat
fossils were derived are not now found in place in that part
of Scotland, but Mr Jukes Brown considers that the horizon
of the fossils is that of the lower Greensand of the Isle of
Wight or the Aptien stage of France. Chalk flints are widely
distributed in the drift between Fyvie and the east coast of
Buchan. At Plaidy a patch of clay with Liassic fossils
occurs. At several localities between Logie Coldstone and Dinnet
a deposit of diatomite (Kieselguhr) occurs beneath the peat.
Flora and Fauna.---The tops of the highest mountains have an
arctic flora. At the royal lodge on Loch Muick, 1350 ft. above
the sea, grow larches, vegetables, currants, laurels, roses,
&c. Some ash-trees, four or five feet in girth, are growing
at 1300 ft. above the sea. T rees, especially Scotch fir and
larch, grow well, and Braemar is rich in natural timber, said
to surpass any in the north of Europe. Stumps of Scotch fir
and oak found in peat are sometimes far larger than any now
growing. The mole is found at 1800 ft. above the sea, and the
squirrel at 1400. Grouse, partridges and hares are plentiful,
and rabbits are often too numerous. Red deer abound in
Braemar, the deer forest being the most extensive in Scotland.
Climate and Agriculture.---The climate, except in the
mountainous districts, is comparatively mild, owing to
the proximity of much of the shire to the sea. The mean
annual temperature at Braemar is 43.6 deg. F., and at Aberdeen
45.8 deg. . The mean yearly rainfall varies from about 30 to 37
in. The summer climate of the upper Dee and Don valleys is
the driest and most bracing in the British Isles, and grain
is cultivated up to 1600 ft. above the sea, or 400 to 500
ft. higher than elsewhere in North Britain. Poor, gravelly,
clayey and peaty solis prevail, but tile-draining, bones and
guano, and the best methods of modern tillage, have greatly
increased the produce. Indeed, in no part of Scotland has
a more productive soil been made out of such unpromising
material. Farm-houses and steadings have much improved, and
the best agricultural implements and machines are in general
use. About two-thirds of the population depend entirely
on agriculture . Farms are small compared with those in
the south-eastern counties. Oats are the predominant crop,
wheat has practically gone out of cultivation, but barley
has largely increased. The most distinctive industry is
cattle-feeding. A great number of the home-bred crosses
are fattened for the London and local markets, and Irish
animals are imported on an extensive scale for the same
purpose, while an exceedingly heavy business in dead meat
for London and the south is done all over the county.
Sheep, horses and pigs are also raised in large numbers.
Fisheries.---A large fishing population in villages along
the coast engage in the white and herring fishery, which is the
next most important industry to agriculture, its development
having been due almost exclusively to the introduction of steam
trawlers. The total value of the annual catch, of which
between a half and a third consists of herrings, amounts to
L. 1,000,000. Haddocks are salted and rock-dried (speldings)
or smoked (finnans). The ports and creeks are divided
into the fishery rllstricts of Peterhead, Fraserburgh and
Aberdeen, the last of which includes also three Kincardineshire
ports. The herring season for Aberdeen, Peterhead and
Fraserburgh is from June to September, at which time
the ports are crowded with boats from other Scottish
districts. There are valuable salmon-fishings--rod, net
and stake-net--on the Dee, Don, Ythan and Ugie. The average
annual despatch of salmon from Aberdeenshire is about 400 tons.
Other Industries.--Manufactures are mainly prosecuted in or
near the city of Aberdeen, but throughout the rural districts
there is much milling of corn, brick and tile making, smith-work,
brewing and distilling, cart and farm-implement making,
casting and drying of peat, and timber-felling, especially
on Deeside and Donside, for pit-props, railway sleepers,
laths and barrel staves. There are a number of paper-making
establishments, most of them on the Don near Aberdeen.
The chief source of mineral wealth is the noted durable
granite, which is quarried at Aberdeen, Kemnay, Peterhead and
elsewhere. An acre of land on being reclaimed has yielded L. 40 to
L. 50 worth of causewaying stones. Sandstone and other rocks
are also quarried at different parts. The imports are mostly
coal, lime, timber, iron, slate, raw materials for the textile
manufactures, wheat, cattle-feeding stuffs, bones, guano, sugar,
alcoholic liquors, fruits. The exports are granite (roughdressed
and polished), flax, woollen and cotton goods, paper, combs,
preserved provisions, oats, barley, live and dead cattle.
Communications.---From the south Aberdeen city is approached
by the Caledonian (via Perth, Forfar and Stonehaven), and the
North British (via Dundee, Montrose and Stonehaven) railways,
and the shire is also served by the Great North of Scotland
railway, whose main line runs via Kintore and Huntly to Keith and
Elgin. There are branch lines from various points opening up
the more populous districts, as from Aberdeen to Ballater by
Deeside, from Aberdeen to Fraserburgh (with a branch at Maud
for Peterhead and at Ellon for Cruden Bay and Boddam), from
Kintore to Alford, and from Inverurie to Old Meldrum and also to
Macduff. By sea there is regular communication with London,
Leith, Inverness, Wick, the Orkneys and Shetlands, Iceland and the
continent. The highest of the macadamized roads crossing the
eastern Grampians rises to a point 2200 ft. above sea-level.
Population and Government.---In 1801 the population numbered
284,036 and in 1901 it was 304,439 (of whom 159,603 were
females), or 154 persons to the sq. m. In 1901 there were 8
persons who spoke Gaelic only, and 1333 who spoke Gaelic and
English. The chief towns are Aberdeen (pop. in 1901, 153,503),
Bucksburn (2231), Fraserburgh (9105), Huntly (4136), Inverurie
(3624), Peterhead (11,794), Turriff (2273). The Supreme Court
of Justiciary sits in Aberdeen to try cases from the counties of
Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine. The three counties are under
a sheriff, and there are two sheriffs-substitute resident in
Aberdeen, who sit also at Fraserburgh, Huntly, Peterhead and
Turriff. The sheriff courts are held in Aberdeen and
Peterhead. The county sends two members to parliament
--one for East Aberdeenshire and the other for West
Aberdeenshire. The county town, Aberdeen (q.v.), returns two
members. Peterhead, Inverurie and Kintore belong to the Elgin
group of parliamentary burghs, the other constituents being
Banff, Cullen and Elgin. The county is under school-board
jurisdiction, and there are also several voluntary schools.
There are higher-class schools in Aberdeen, and secondary
schools at Huntly, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, and many of
the other schools in the county earn grants for secondary
education. The County Secondary Education Committee dispense
a large sum, partly granted by the education department and
partly contributed by local authorities from the ``residue''
grant, and support, besides the schools mentioned, local
clases and lectures in agriculture, fishery and other technical
subjects, in addition to subsidizing the agricultural department
of the university of Aberdeen. The higher branches of
education have always been thoroughly taught in the schools
throughout the shire, and pupils have long been in the
habit of going directly from the schools to the university.
The native Scots are long-headed, shrewd, careful, canny,
active, persistent, but reserved and blunt, and without
demonstrative enthusiasm. They have a physiognomy distinct
from the rest of the Scottish people, and have a quick,
sharp, rather angry accent. The local Scots dialect is
broad, and rich in diminutives, and is noted for the use
of e for o or u, f for wh, d for th, &c.
So recently as 1830 Gaelic was the fireside language of
almost every family in Braemar, but now it is little used.
History.---The country now forming the shires of Aberdeen
and Banff was originally peopled by northern Picts, whom
Ptolemy called Taixall, the territory being named Taixalon.
Their town of Devana, once supposed to be the modern Aberdeen,
has been identified by Prof. John Stuart with a site in the
parish of Peterculter, where there are remains of an ancient
camp at Normandykes, and by Dr W. F. Skene with a station
on Loch Davan, west of Aboyne. So-called Roman camps have
also been discovered on the upper Ythan and Deveron, but
evidence of effective Roman occupation is still to seek.
Traces of the native inhabitants, however, are much less
equivocal. Weems or earth-houses are fairly common in the
west. Relics of crannogs or lake-dwellings exist at Loch
Ceander, or Kinnord, 5 m. north-east of Ballater, at Loch
Goul in the parish of New Machar and elsewhere. Duns or forts
occur on hills at Dunecht, where the dun encloses an area
of two acres, Bnrra near Old Meldrum, Tap o' Noth, Dunnideer
near Insch and other places. Monoliths, standing stones and
``Druidical'' circles of the pagan period abound, and there are
many examples of the sculptured stones of the early Christian
epoch. Efforts to convert the Picts were begun by Teman
in the 5th century, aad continued by Columba (who founded
a monastery at Old Deer), Drostan, Maluog and Machar, but
it was long before they showed lasting results. Indeed,
dissensions within the Columban church and the expulsion
of the clergy from Pictland by the Pictish king Nectan in
the 8th century undid most of the progress that had been
made. The Vikings and Danes periodically raided the coast,
but whhen (1040) Macbeth ascended the throne of Scotland the
Northmen, under the guidance of Thorfinn, refrained from further
trouble in the north-east. Macbeth was afterwards slain at
Lumphanan (1057), a cairn on Perkhill marking the spot. The
influence of the Norman conquest of England was felt even in
Aberdeenshire. Along with numerous Anglo-Saxon exiles, there
also settled in the country Flemings who introduced various
industries, Saxons who brought farming, and Scandinavians
who taught nautical skill. The Celts revolted more than
once, but Malcolm Canmore and his successors crushed them
and confiscated their lands. In the reign of Alexander
I. (d. 1124) mention is first made of Aberdeen (originally
called Abordon and, in the Norse sagas, Apardion), which
received its charter from William the Lion in 1179, by which
date its burgesses had alfeady combined with those of Banff,
Elgin, Inverness and other trans-Grampian communities to form
a free Hanse, under which they enjoyed exceptional trading
privileges. By this time, too, the Church had been organized,
the bishopric of Aberdeen having been established in 1150.
In the 12th and 13th centuries some of the great Aberdeenshire
famines arose, including the earl of Mar (c. 1122), the
Leslies, Freskins (ancestors of the dukes of Sutherland),
Durwards, Bysets, Comyns and Cheynes, and it is significant
that in most cases their founders were immigrants. The
Celtic thanes and their retainers slowly fused with the
settlers. They declined to take advantage of the disturbed
condition of the country during the wars of the Scots
independence, and made common cause with the bulk of the
nation. Though John Comyn (d. 1300?), one of the competitors
for the throne, had considerable interests in the shire, his
claim received locally little support. In 1296 Edward I. made
a triumphal march to the north to terrorize the more turbulent
nobles. Next year Wilham Wallace surprised the English garrison
in Aberdeen, but failed to capture the castle. In 1303 Edward
again visited the county, halting at the Castle of Kildrummy,
then in the possession of Robert Bruce, who shortly afterwards
became the acknowledged leader of the Scots and made Aberdeen
his headquarters for several months. Despite the seizure of
Kildrummy Castle by the English in 1306, Bruce's prospects
brightened from 1308, when he defeated John Comyn, earl of
Buchan (d. 1313?), at Inverurie. For a hundred years after
Robert Bruce's death (1329) there was intermittent anarchy
in the shire. Aberdeen itself was burned by the English in
1336, and the re-settlement of the districts of Buchan and
Strathbogie occasioned constant quarrels On the part of the
dispossessed. Moreover, the crown had embroiled itself
with some of the Highland chieftains, whose independence it
sought to abolish. This policy culminated in the invasion of
Aberdeenshire by Donald, lord of the Isles, who was, however,
defeated at Harlaw, near Inverurie, by the earl of Mar in
1411. In the 15th century two other leading county families
appeared, Sir Alexander Forbes being created Lord Eorbes
about 1442, and Sir Alexander Seton Lord Gordon in 1437 and
earl of Huntly in 1445. Bitter feuds raged between these
families for a long period, but the Gordons reached the
height of their power in the first half of the 16th century,
when their domains, already vast, were enhanced by the
acquisition, through marriage, of the earldom of Sutherland
(1514). Meanwhile commerce with the Low Countries, Poland
and the Baltic had grown apace, Campvere, near Flushing in
Holland, becoming the emporium of the Scottish traders, while
education was fostered by the foundation of King's College
at Aberdeen in 1497 (Marischal College followed a century
later). At the Reformation so little intuition had the
clergy of the drift of opinion that at the very time that
religious structures were being despoiled in the south, the
building and decoration of churches went on in the shire.
The change was acquiesced in without much tumult, though
rioting took place in Aberdeen and St Machar's cathedral in
the city suffered damage. The 4th earl of Huntly offered
some resistance, on behalf of the Catholics, to the influence
of Lord James Stuart, afterwards the Regent Murray, but
was defeated and killed at Corrichie on the hill of Fare in
1562. As years passed it was apparent that Presbyterianism
was less generally acceptable than Episcopacy, of which system
Aberdeenshire remained for generations the stronghold in
Scotland. Another crisis in ecclesiastical affairs arose in
1638, when the National Covenant was ordered to be subscribed,
a demand so grudgingly responded to that the marquis of
Montrose visited the shire in the following year to enforce
acceptance. The Cavaliers, not being disposed to yield,
dispersed an armed gathering of Covenanters in the affair
called the Trot of Turriff (1639), in which the first blood
of the civil war was shed. The Covenanters obtained the upper
hand in a few weeks, when Montrose appeared at the bridge
of Dee and compelled the surrender of Aberdeen, which had no
choice but to cast in its lot with the victors. Montrose,
however, soon changed sides, and after defeating the Covenanters
under Lord Balfour of Burleigh (1644), delivered the city to
rapine. He worsted the Covenanters again after a stiff
fight on the 2nd of July 1645, at Alford, a village in the
beautiful Howe of Alford. Peace was temporarily restored
on the ``engagement', of the Scots commissioners to assist
Charles I. On his return from Holland in 1650 Charles II.
was welcomed in Aberdeen, but in little more than a year
General Monk entered the city at the head of the Cromwellian
regiments. The English garrison remained till 1659, and
next year the Restoration was effusively hailed, and prelacy
was once more in the ascendant. Most of the Presbyterians
conformed, but the Quakers, more numerous in the shire
and the adjoining county of Kincardine than anywhere else
in Scotland, were systematically persecuted. After the
Revolution (1688) episcopacy passed under a cloud, but the
clergy, yielding to force majeure, gradually accepted the
inevitable, hoping, as long as Queen Anne lived, that prelacy
might yet be recognized as the national form of Church
government. Her death dissipated these dreams, and as George
I., her successor, was antipathetic to the clergy, it happened
that Jacobitism and episcopalianism came to be regarded in the
shire as identical, though in point of fact the non-jurors as
a body never countenanced rebellion. The earl of Mar raised
the standard of revolt in Braemar (6th of September 1715); a
fortnight later James was proclaimed at Aberdeen cross; the
Pretender landed at Peterhead on the 22nd of December, and
in February 1716 he was back again in France. The collapse
of the first rising ruined many of the lairds, and when the
second rebellion occurred thirty years afterwards the county
in the main was apathetic, though the insurgents held Aberdeen
for five months, and Lord Lewis Gordon won a trifling victory
for Prince Charles Edward at Inverurie (23rd of December
1745). The duke of Cumberland relieved Aberdeen at the end
of February 1746, and in April the Young Pretender was a
fugitive. Thereafter the people devoted themselves to
agriculture, industry and commerce, which developed by leaps
and bounds, and, along with equally remarkable progress in
education, transformed the aspect of the shire and made the
community as a whole one of the most prosperous in Scotland.
See W. Watt, History of Aberdeen and Banff (Edinburgh,
1900); Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen
and Banff. (edited by Dr Joseph Robertson, Spalding Club); Sir
A. Leith-Hay, Castles of Aberdeenshire (Aberdeen, 188R);
J; Davidson, Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch
(Edinburgh, 1878); Pratt, Buchan (rev. by) R. Anderson),
(Aberdeen, 1900); A. I. M'Connochie, Deeside (Aberdeen, 1895).
ABERDOUR, a village of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pleasantly
situated on the shore of the Firth of Forth, 17 1/2 m. N.W.
of Edinburgh by the North British railway and 7 m. N.W. of
Leith by steamer, it is much resorted to for its excellent
sea-bathing. There are ruins of a castle and an old decayed
church, which contains some fine Norman work. About 3
m. S.W. is Donibristle House, the seat of the earl of Murray
(Moray), and the scene of the murder (Feb. 7, 1592) of James,
2nd (Stuart) earl of Murray. The island of Inchcolm, or
Island of Columba, 1/4 m. from the shore, is in the parish of
Aberdour. As its name implies, its associations date back
to the time of Columba. The primitive stone-roofed oratory
is supposed to have been a hermit's ceil. The Augustinian
monastery was founded in 1123 by Alexander I. The buildings
are well preserved, consisting of a low square tower, church,
cloisters, refectory and small chapterhouse. The island
of Columba was occasionally plundered by English and other
rovers, but in the 16th century it became the property of
Sir James Stuart, whose grandson became 2nd earl of Murray
by virtue of his marriage to the elder daughter of the 1st
earl. From it comes the earl's title of Lord St Colme (1611).
ABERDOVEY (Aberdyfi: the Dyfi is the county frontier), a
seaside village of Merionethshire, North Wales, on the Cambrian
railway. Pop. (1901) 1466. It lies in the midst of beautiful
scenery, 4 m. from Towyn, on the N. bank of the Dyfi estuary,
commanding views of Snowdon, Cader Idris, Arran Mawddy and
Plynllmmon. The Dyfi, here a mile broad, is crossed by a
ferry to Borth sands, whence a road leads to Aberystwyth.
The submerged ``bells of Aberdovey'' (since Seithennin ``the
drunkard'' caused the formation of Cardigan Bay) are famous
in a Welsh song. Aberdovey is a health and bathing resort.
ABERFOYLE, a village and parish of Perthshire, Scotland, 34 1/4
m. N. by W. of Glasgow by the North British railway. Pop.
of parish (1901) 1052. The village is situated at the base of
Craigmore (1271 ft. high) and on the Laggan, a head-water of the
Forth. Since 1885, when the duke of Montrose constructed a
road over the eastern shoulder of Craigmore to join the older
road at tho entrance of the Trossachs pass, Aberfoyle has become
the alternauve route to the Trossachs and Loch Katrine. Loch
Ard, about 2 m. W. of LIberfoyle, lies 105 ft. above the
sea. It is 3 m. long (including the narrows at the east end)
and 1 m. broad. Towards the west end is Eilean Gorm (the
green isle), and near the north-western shore are the falls of
Ledard. Two m. N.W. is Loch Chon, a90 ft. above the sea,
1 1/4 m. long, and about 1/2 m. broad. It drains by the Avon
Dhu to Loch Ard, which is drained in turn by the Laggan. The
slate quarries on Craigmore are the Only industry in Aberfoyle.
ABERGAVENNY, a market town and municipal borough in the
northern parliamentary division of Monmouthshire, England, 14
m. W. of Monmouth on the Great Western and the London and
North-Western railways. Pop. (1901) 7795. It is situated
at the junction of a small stream cailed the Gavenny with the
river Usk; and the site, almost surrounded by lofty hills,
is very beautiful. The town was formerly walled, and has the
remains of a castle built soon after the conquest, frequently
the scene of border strife. The church of St Mary belonged
originally to a Benedictine monastery founded early in the 12th
century. The existing building, however, is Decorated and
Perpendicular, and contains a fine series of memorials of dates
from the 13th to the 17th century. There is a free grammar
school, which till 1857 had a fellowship at Jesus College,
Oxford. Breweries, ironworks, quarries, brick fields and
collieries in the neihbourhood are among the principal industrial
establishments. Abergavenny was incorporated in 1899, and is
governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 825 acres.
This was the Roman Gobannium, a small fort guarding the
road along the valley of the Usk and ensuring quiet among
the hill tribes. There is practically no trace of this
fort. Abergavenny (Bergavenny) grew up under the protection
of the lords of Abergavenny, whose title dated from William
I. Owing to its situation, the town was frequently embroiled
in the border warfare of the 12th and 13th centuries, and
Giraldus Cambrensis relates how in 1173 the castle was seized
by the Welsh. Hamelyn de Baalun, first lord of Abergavenny,
founded the Benedictine priory, which was subsequently
endowed by William de Braose with a tenth of the profits
of the castle and town. At the dissolution of the priory
part of this endowment went towards the foundation of a
free grammar school, the site itself passing to the Gunter
family. During the Civil War prior to the siege of Ragban
Castle in 1645, Charles I. visited Abergavenny, and presided
in person over the trial of Sir Trevor Williams and other
parliamentarians. In 1639 Abergavenny received a charter
of incorporation under the title of bailiff and burgesses.
A charter with extended privileges was drafted in 1657, but
appears never to have been enrolled or to have come into effect.
OV1ng to the refusal of the chief officers of the corporation
to take the oath of allegiance to William III. in 1688, the
charter was annullod, and the town subseunentlv declined in
prosperity. The act of 27 Henry VIII., which provided that
llonmouth, as county town, should return one burgess to
parliament, further stated that other ancient Monmouthshire
boroughs were to contribute towards the payment of the
member. In consequence of this clause Abergavenny on various
occasions shared in the election, the last instance being in
1685. Reference to a market at Abergavenny is found in a charter
granted to the prior by William de Braose (d. r211). The right
to hold two weekly markets and three yearly fairs, as hitherto
held, was confirmed in 1657. Abergavenny was celebrated for
the production of Welsh flannel, and also for the manufacture,
whilst the fashion prevailed, of periwigs of goats, hair.
The title of Baron Abergavenny, in the Neville family, dates
from Edward Neville (d. 1476), who was the youngest son of
the 1st earl of Westmoreland by Joan Beaufort, daughter of
John of Gaunt. He married the heiress of Richard, earl of
Worcester, whose father had inherited the castle and estate of
Abergavenny, and was summoned in 1392 to parliament as Lord
Bergavenny. Edward Neville was summoned to parliament with
this title in 1450. His direct male descendants ended in 1387
in Henry Neville, but a cousin, Edward Neville (d. 1622), was
confirmed in the barony in 1604. From him it has descended
continuously, the title being increased to an earldom in
1784; and in 1876 William Nevill (sic) 5th earl (b. 1826),
an indefatigable and powerful supporter of the conseruative
party, was created 1st marquess of Abergavenny. (See NEVILLE.)
ABERIGH-MACKAY, GEORGE ROBERT (1848-1881), Anglo-Indian
writer, son of a Bengal chaplain, was born on the 25th
of July 1848, and was educated at Magdalen College School
and Cambridge University. Entering the Indian education
department in 1870, he became professor of English literature
in Delhi College in 1873, tutor to the raja of Rutlam
1876, and principal of the Rajkumar College at Indore in
1877. He is best known for his book Twenty-one Days in India
(1878--1879), a satire upon Anglo-Indian society and modes of
thought. This book gave promise of a successful literary
Career, but the author died at the age of thirty-three.
ABERNETHY, JOHN (1680-1740), Irish Presbyterian divine,
was born at Coleraine, county Londonderry, where his father
was Nonconformist minister, on the 19th of October 1680. In
his thirteenth year he entered the university of Glasgow, and
on concluding his course thore went on to Edinburgh, where
his intellectual and social attainments gained him a ready
entrance into the most cultured circles. Returning home he
received licence to preach from his Presbytery before he was
twenty-one. In 1701 he was urgently invited to accept charge
of an important congregation in Antrim; and after an interval
of two years, mostly spent in further study in Dublin, he
was ordained there on the 8th of August 1703. Here he did
notable work, both as a debater in the synods and assemblies
of his church and as an evangelist. In 1712 he lost his wife
(Susannah Jordan), and the loss desolated his life for many
years. In 1717 he was invited to the congregation of Usher's
Quay, Dublin, and contemporaneously to what was called the
Old Congregation of Belfast. The synod assigned him to
Dublin. After careful consideration he declined to accede,
and remained at Antrim. This refusal was regarded then as
ecclesisstical high-treason; and a controversy of the most
intense and disproportionate character followed, Abernethy
standing firm for religious freedom and repudiating the
sacerdotal assumptions of all ecclesiastical courts. The
controversy and quarrel bears the name of the two camps in the
conflict, the ``Subscribers'' and the ``Non-subscribers.''
Out-and-out evangelical as (John Abernethy was, there can
be no question that he and his associates sowed the seeds
of that after-struggle (1821--1840) in which, under the
leadership of Dr Henry Cooke, the Arian and Socinian elements
of the Irish Presbyterian Church were thrown out. Much of
what he contended for, and which the ``Subscribers'' opposed
bitterly, has been silently granted in the lapse of time.
In 1726 the ``Non-subscribers,'' spite of an almost wofully
pathetic pleading against separation by Abernethy, were cut
off, with due ban and solemnity, from the Irish Presbyterian
Church. In 1730, although a ``Non-subscriber,'' he was
invited to Wood Street, Dublin, whither he removed. In
1731 came on the greatest controversy in which Abernethy
engaged, viz. in relation to the Test Act nominally, but
practically on the entire question of tests and disabilities.
His stand was ``against all laws that, upon account of mere
differences of religious opinions and forms of worship,
excluded men of integrity and ability from serving their
country.'' He was nearly a century in advance of his age.
He had to reason with those who denied that a Roman Catholic
or Dissenter could be a ``man of integrity and ability.''
His Tracts---afterwards collected--did fresh service,
generations later, and his name is honoured by all who love
freedom of conscience and opinion. He died in December 1740.
See Dr Duchal's Life, prefixed to Sermons (1762): Diary in
MS., 6 vols. 4to; Reid's Presbyterian Church in Ireland, iii. 234.
ABERNETHY, JOHN (1764-1831), English surgeon, grandson of
John Abernethy (see above), was born in London on the 3rd of
April 1764. His father was a London merchant. Educated at
Wolverhampton grammar school, he was apprenticed in 1779 to
Sir Charles Blicke (1745-1815), surgeon to St Bartholomew's
Hospital, London. He attended the anatomical lectures of
Sir William Blizard (1743-1835) at the London Hospital,
and was early employed to assist as ``demonstrator'';
he also attended Percival Pott's surgical lectures at St
Bartholomew's Hospital, as well as the lectures of John
Hunter. On Pott's resignation of the office of surgeon of St
Bartholomew's, Sir Charles Blicke, who was assistant-surgeon,
succeeded him, and Abernethy was elected assistant-surgeon in
1787. In this capacity he began to give lectures at his
house in Bartholomew Close, which were so well attended
that the governors of the hospital built a regular theatre
(1790-1791), and Abernethy thus became the founder of the
distinguished school of St Bartholomew's. He held the office
of assistant-surgeon of the hospital for the long period of
twenty-eight years, till, in 1815, he was elected principal
surgeon. He had before that time been appointed lecturer in
anatomy to the Royal College of Surgeons (1814). Abernethy
was not a great operator, though his name is associated with
the treatment of aneurism by ligature of the external iliac
artery. His Surgical Observations on the Constitutional
Origin and Treatment of Local Diseases (1809)--known as ``My
Book,'' from the great frequency with which he referred his
patients to it, and to page 72 of it in particular, under that
name--was one of the earliest popular works on medical science,
He taught that local diseases were frequently the results
of disordered states of the digestive organs, and were to be
treated by purging and attention to diet. As a lecturer he was
exceedingly attractive, and his success in teaching was largely
attributable to the persuasiveness with which he enunciated his
views. It has been said, however, that the influence he exerted
on those who attended his lectures was not beneficial in this
respect, that his opinions were delivered so dogmatically,
and all who differed from him were disparaged and denounced
so contemptuously, as to repress instead of stimulating
inquiry. The celebrity he attained in his practice was due
not only to his great professional skill, but also in part
to the singularity of his manners. He used great plainness
of speech in his intercourse with his patients, treating them
often brusquely and sometimes even rudely. In the circle of
his family and friends he was courteous and affectionate; and
in all his dealings he was strictly just and honourable. He
resigned his position at St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1827,
and died at his residence at Enfield on the 20th of April 1831.
A collected edition of his works was published in 1830. A biography,
Memoirs of John Abernethy, by George Macilwain, appeared in 1853.
ABERRATION (Lat. ab, from or away, errare, to wander),
a deviation or wandering, especially used in the figurative
sense: as in ethics, a deviation from the truth; in pathology,
a mental derangement; in zoology and botany, abnormal
development or structure. In optics, the word has two special
applications: (1) Aberration of Light, and (2) Aberration
in Optical Systems. These subjects receive treatment below.
I. ABERIIATION OF LIGHT This astronomical phenomenon may
be defined as an apparent motion of the heavenly bodies; the
stars describing annually orbits more or less elliptical,
according to the latitude of the star; consequently at
any moment the star appears to be displaced from its true
position. This apparent motion is due to the finite velocity
of light, and the progressive motion of the observer with the
earth, as it performs its yearly course about the sun. It
may be familiarized by the following illustrations. Alexis
Claude Clairaut gave this figure: Imagine rain to be falling
vertically, and a person carrying a thin perpendicular tube
to be standing on the ground. If the bearer be stationary,
rain-drops will traverse the tube without touching its sides;
if, however, the person be walking, the tube must be inchued
at an angle varying as his velocity in order that the rain
may traverse the tube centrally. (J. J. L. de Lalande gave
the illustration of a roofed carriage with an open front: if
the carriage be stationary, no rain enters; if, however, it be
moying, rain enters at the front. The ``umbrella', analogy
is possibly the best known figure. When stationary, the most
efficient position in which to hold an umbrella is obviously
vertical; when walking, the umbrella must be held more and
more inclined from the vertical as the walker quickens his
pace. Another familiar figure, pointed Out by P. L. M. de
Maupertuis, is that a sportsman, when aiming at a bird on the
wing, sights his gun some distance ahead of the bird, the
distance being proportional to the velocity of the bird.
The mechanical idea, named the parallelogram of velocities,
permits a ready and easy graphical representation of these
facts. Reverting to the analogy of Clairaut, let AB (fig.
1) represent the velocity of the rain, and AC the relative
velocity of the person bearing the tube. The diagonal AD
of the parallelogram, of which AB and AC are adjacent sides,
will represent, both in direction and magnitude, the motion
of the rain as apparent to the observer. Hence for the
rain to centrally traverse the tube, this must be inclined
at an angle BAD to the vertical; this angle is conveniently
termed the aberration: due to these two motions. The
umbrella analogy is similarly explained; the most efficient
position heing when the stick points along the resultant AD.
The discovery of the aberration of light in 1725, due to James
Bradley, is one of the most important in the whole domain of
astronomy. That it wus unexpected there can be no doubt;
and it was only by extraordinary perseverance and perspicuity
that Bradley was able to explain it in 1727. Its origin is
seated in attempts made to free from doubt the prevailing
discordances as to whether the stars possessed appreciable
parallaxes. The Copernican theory of the solar system--that
the earth revolved annually about the sun--had received
confirmation by the observations of Galileo and Tycho
Brahe, and the mathematical investigations of Kepler and
Newton. As early as 1573, Thomas Digges had suggested that
this theory should necessitate a parallactic shifting of
the stars, and, consequently, if such stellar parallaxes
existed, then the Copernican theory would receive additional
confirmation. Many observers claimed to have determined such
parallaxes, but Tycho Brahe and G. B. Riccioll concluded
that they existed only in the minds of the observers, and
were due to instrumental and personal errors. In 1680 Jean
Picard, in his Voyage d'Uranibourg, stated, as a result
of ten years' observations, that Polaris, or the Pole
Star, exhibited variations in its position amounting to 40"
annually; some astronomers endeavoured to explain this by
parallax, but these attempts were futile, for the motion
was at variance with that which parallax would occasion. J.
Flamsteed, from measurements made in 1689 and succeeding
years with his mural quadrant, similarly concluded that the
declination of the Pole Star was 40" less in July than in
September. R. Hooke, in 1674, pubilshed his observations of
g Draconis, a star of the second magnitude which passes
practically overhead in the latitude of London, and whose
observations are therefore singularly free from the complex
corrections due to astronomical refraction, and concluded
that this star was 23" more northerly in July than in October.
When James Bradley and Samuel Moineux entered this sphere of
astronomical research in 1725, there consequently prevailed
much uncertainty as to whether stellar parallaxes had been
observed or not; and it was with the intention of definitely
answering this question that these astronomers erected a large
telescope at the house of the latter at Kew. They determined
to reinvestigate the motion of g Draconis; the telescope,
constructed by George Graham (1675-1751), a celebrated
instrument-maker, was affixed to a vertical chimneystack,
in such manner as to permit a small oscillation of the
eyepiece, the amount of which, i.e. the deviation from the
vertical, was regulated and measured by the introduction
of a screw and a plumb-line. The instrument was set up
in November 1725, and observations on g Draconis were
made on the 3rd, 5th, 11th, and 12th of December. There
was apparently no shifting of the star, which was therefore
thought to be at its most southerly point. On the 17th of
December, however, Bradley observed that the star was moving
southwards, a motion further shown by observations on the
20th. These results were unexpected, and, in fact, inexplicable
by existing theories; and an examination of the telescope
showed that the observed anomalies were not due to instrumental
errors. The observations were continued, and the star was
seen to continue its southerly course until March, when it
took up a position some 20" more southerly than its December
position. After March it began to pass northwards, a motion
quite apuarent by the middle of April; in June it passed
at the same distance from the zenith as it did in December;
and in September it passed through its most northerly
position, the extreme range from north to south, i.e. the
angle between the March and September positions, being 40".
This motion is evidently not due to parallax, for, in this
case, the maximum range should be between the June and
December positions; neither was it due to observatiooal
errors. Bradley and Molyneux discussed several hypotheses in
the hope of fixing the solution. One hypothesis was: while
g Draconis was stationary, the plumb-line, from which
the angular measurements were made, varied; this would follow
if the axis of the earth varied. The oscillation of the
earth's axis may arise in two distinct ways; distinguished
as ``nutation of the axis'' and ``variation of latitude.''
Nutation, the only form of oscillation imagined by Bradley,
postulates that while the earth's axis is fixed with respect
to the earth, i.e. the north and south poles occupy permanent
geographical positions, yet the axis is not directed towards
a fixed point in the heavens; variation of latitude, however,
is associated with the shifting of the axis within the earth,
i.e. the geographical position of the north pole varies.
Nutation of the axis would determine a similar apparent
motion for all stars: thus, all stars having the same polar
distance as g Draconis should exhibit the same apparent
motion after or before this star by a constant interval.
Many stars satisfy the condition of equality of polar distance
with that of g Draconis, but few were bright enough to
be observed in Molyneux's telescope. One such star, however,
with a right ascension nearly equal to that of g Draconis,
but in thc opposite sense, was selected and kept under
observation. This star was seen to possess an apparent
motion similar to that which would be a consequence of the
nutation of the earth's axis; but since its declination
varied only one half as much as in the case of g Draconis,
it was obvious that nutation did not supply the requisite
solution. The question as to whether the motion was due to
an irregular distribution of the earth's atmosphere, thus
involving abnormal variations in the refractive index, was
also investigated; here, again, negative results were obtained.
Bradley had already perceived, in the case of the two stars
previously scrutinized, that the apparent difference of
declination from the maximum positions was nearly proportional
to the sun's distance from the equinoctial points; and he
reallzed the necessity for more observations before any
generalization could be attempted. For this purpose he
repaired to the Rectory, Wanstead, then the residence of Mrs
Pound, the widow of his uncle James Pound, with whom he had
made many observations of the heavenly bodies. Here he had set
up, on the 19th of August 1727, a more convenient telescope
than that at Kew, its range extending over 6 1/4 deg. on each
side of the zenith, thus covering a far larger area of the
sky. Two hundred stars in the British Catalogue of
Flamsteed traversed its field of view; and, of these, about
fifty were kept under close observation. His conclusions
may be thus summatized: (1) only stars near the solstitial
colure had their maximum north and south positions when the
sun was near the equinoxes, (2) each star was at its maximum
positions when it passed the zenith at six o'clock morning
and evening (this he afterwards showed to be inaccurate, and
found the greatest change in declination to be proportional
to the latitude of the star), (3) the apparent motions of
all stars at about the same time was in the same direction.
A re-examination of his previously considered hypotheses as
to the cause of these phenomena was fruitless; the true theory
was ultimately discovered by a pure accident, comparable in
simplicity and importance with the association of a falling
apple with the discovery of the principle of universal
gravitation. Sailing on the river Thames, Bradley repeatedly
observed the shifting of a vane on the mast as the boat altered
its courser and, having been assured that the motion of the
vane meant that the boat, and not the wind, had altered its
direction, he realized that the position taken up by the vane
was determined by the motion of the boat and the direction of the
wind. The application of this observation to the phenomenon
which had so long perplexed him was not difficult, and, in
1727, he published his theory of the aberration of light--a
corner-stone of the edifice of astronomical science. Let
S (fig. 2) be a star and the observer be carried along the
line AB; let SB be perpendicular to AB. If the observer be
stationary at B, the star will appear in the direction BS;
if, however, he traverses the distance BA in the same time
as light passes from the star to his eye, the star will E
appear in the direction AS. Since, however, the observer is
not conscious of his own translatory motion with the earth
in its orbit, the star appears to have a displacement which
is at all times parallel to the motion of the observer. To
generalize this, let S (fig. 3) be the sun, ABCD the earth's
orbit, and s the true position of a star. When the earth
is at A, in consequence of aberration, the star is displaced
to a point a, its displacement sa being parallel to the
earth's motion at A; when the earth is at B, the star appears
at b; and so on throughout an orbital revolution of the
earth. Every star, therefore, describes an apparent orbit,
which, if the line joining the sun and the star be perpendicular
to the plane ABCD, will be exactly similar to that of the
earth, i.e. almost a circle. As the star decreases in
latitude, this circle will be viewed more and more obliquely,
becoming a flatter and flatter ellipse until, with zero
latitude, it degenerates into a straight line (fig. 4).
The major axis of any such aberrational ellipse is always parallel
to AC, i.e. the ecliptic, and since it is equal to the ratio
of the velocity of light to the velocity of the earth, it is
necessarily constant. This constant length subtends an angle
of about 40" at the earth; the ``constant of aberration'' is
half this angle. The generally accepted value is 20.445", due
to Struve; the last two figures are uncertain, and all that can
be definitely affirmed is that the value lies between 20.43" and
20.48". The minor axis, on the other hand, is not constant,
but, as we have already seen, depends on the latitude, being
the product of the major axis into the sine of the latitude.
Assured that his explanation was true, Bradley corrected his
observations for aberration, but he found that there still
remained a residuum which was evidently not a parallax, for
it did not exhibit an annual cycle. He reverted to his early
idea of a nutation of the earth's axis, and was rewarded by the
discovery that the earth did possess such an osculation (see
ASTRONOMY). Bradley recognized the fact that the experimental
determination of the aberration constant gave the ratio of the
velocities of light and of the earth; hence, if the velocity
of the earth be known, the velocity of light is determined.
In recent years much attention has been given to the nature
of the propagation of light from the heavenly bodies to the
earth, the argument generally being centred about the relative
effect of the motion of the aether on the velocity of light.
This subject is discussed in the articles AETHER and LIGHT.
REFERENCES.--A detailed account of Bradley's work is
given in S. Rigaud, Memoirs of Bradley (1832), and in
Charles Hutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary
(1795); a particularly clear and lucid account is given
in H. H. Turner, Astronomical Discovery (1904). The
subject receives treatment in all astronomical works.
II. ABERRIATION IN OPTICAL SYSTEMS Aberration in optical
systems, i.e. in lenses or mirrors or a series of them,
may be defined as the non-concurrence of rays from the
points of an object after transmission through the system;
it happens generally that an image formed by such a system
is irregular, and consequently the correction of optical
systems for aberration is of fundamental importance to the
instruunent-maker. Reference should he made to the articles
REFLEXION, REFRACTION and CAUSTIC for the general characters
of reflected and refracted rays (the article LENS considers
in detail the properties of this instrument, and should also
be consulted); in this article will be discussed the nature,
varieties and modes of aberrations mainly from the practical
point of view, i.e. that of the optical-instrument maker.
Aberrations may be divided in two classes: chromatic (Gr.
oroma, colour) aberrations, caused by the composite
nature of the light generally applied (e.g. white light),
which is dispersed by refraction, and monochromatic (Gr.
monos, one) aberrations produced without dispersion.
Consequently the monochromatic class includes the aberrations
at reflecting surfaces of any coloured light, and at refracting
surfaces of monochromatic or light of single wave length.
(a) Monochromatic Aberration. The elementary theory of optical
systems leads to the theorem; Rays of light proceeding from
any ``object point,' unite in an ``image point''; and therefore
an ``object space'' is reproduced in an ``image space.'' The
introduction of simple auxiliary terms, due to C. F. Gauss
(Dioptrische Untersuchungen, Gottingen, 1841), named the
focal lengths and focal planes, permits the determination
of the image of any object for any system (see LENS). The
Gaussian theory, however, is only true so long as the angles
made by all rays with the optical axis (the symmetrical axis
of the system) are infinitely small, i.e. with infinitesimal
objects, images and lenses; in practice these conditions are
not realized, and the images projected by uncorrected systems
are, in general, ill defined and often completely blurred,
if the aperture or field of view exceeds certain limits.
The investigations of James Clerk Maxwell (Phil.Mag., 1856;
Quart. Journ. Math., 1858, and Ernst Abbe1) showed that
the properties of these reproductions, i.e. the relative
position .and magnitude of the images, are not special
properties of optical systems, but necessary consequences of
the supposition (in Abbe) of the reproduction of all points
of a space in image points (Maxwell assumes a less general
hypothesis), and are independent of the manner in which the
reproduction is effected. These authors proved, however, that
no optical system can justify these suppositions, since they
are contradictory to the fundamental laws of reflexion and
refraction. Consequently the Gaussian theory only supplies
a convenient method of approximating to reality; and no
constructor would attempt to realize this unattainable ideal.
All that at present can be attempted is, to reproduce a single
plane in another plane; but even this has not been altogether
satisfactorily accomplished, aberrations always occur, and
it is improbable that these will ever be entirely corrected.
This, and related general questions, have been treated--besides
the above-mentioned authors--by M. Thiesen (Berlin.
Akad. Sitzber., 1890, xxxv. 799; Berlin.Phys.Ges.
Verb., 1892) and H. Bruns (Leipzig. Math. Phys.
Ber., 1895, xxi. 325) by means of Sir W. R. Hamilton's
``characteristic function'' (Irish Acad. Trans., ``Theory
of Systems of Rays,,' 1828, et seq.). Reference may also
be made to the treatise of Czapski-Eppenstein, pp. 155-161.
A review of the simplest cases of aberration will now be
given. (1) Aberration of axial points (Spherical aberration
in the restricted sense). If S (fig.5) be any optical
system, rays proceeding from an axis point O under an angle
u1 will unite in the axis point O'1; and those under an
angle u2 in the axis point O'2. If there be refraction
at a collective spherical surface, or through a thin positive
lens, O'2 will lie in front of O'1 so long as the angle
u2 is greater than u1 (``under correction''); and
conversely with a dispersive surface or lenses (``over
correction''). The caustic, in the first case, resembles
the sign > (greater than); in the second K (less than). If
the angle u1 be very small, O'1 is the Gaussian image;
and O'1 O'2 is termed the ``longitudinal aberration,''
and O'1R the ``lateral aberration'' of the pencils with
aperture u2. If the pencil with the angle u2 be that
of the maximum aberration of all the pencils transmitted,
then in a plane perpendicular to the axis at O'1 there is
a circular ``disk of confusion'' of radius O'1R, and in a
parallel plane at O'2 another one of radius O'2R2; between
these two is situated the ``disk of least confusion.''
The largest opening of the pencils, which take part in the
reproduction of O, i.e. the angle u, is generally determined
by the margin of one of the lenses or by a hole in a thin
plate placed between, before, or behind the lenses of the
system. This hole is termed the ``stop'' or ``diaphragm'';
Abbe used the term ``aperture stop'' for both the hole and
the limiting margin of the lens. The component S1 of the
system, situated between the aperture stop and the object
O, projects an image of the diaphragm, termed by Abbe the
``entrance pupil''; the ``exit pupil'' is the image formed
by the component S2, which is placed behind the aperture
stop. All rays which issue from O and pass through the aperture
stop also pass through the entrance and exit pupils, since these
are images of the aperture stop. Since the maximum aperture
of the pencils issuing from O is the angle u subtended by the
entrance pupil at this point, the magnitude of the aberration
will be determined by the position and diameter of the entrance
pupil. If the system be entirely behind the aperture stop,
then this is itself the entrance pupil (``front stop'');
if entirely in front, it is the exit pupil (``back stop'').
If the object point be infinitely distant, all rays received
by the first member of the system are parallel, and their
intersections, after traversing the system, vary according
to their ``perpendicular height of incidence,'' i.e. their
distance from the axis. This distance replaces the angle
u in the preceding considerations; and the aperture, i.e.
the radius of the entrance pupil, is its maximum value.
(2) Aberration of elements, i.e. smallest objects at right
angles to the axis.--If rays issuing from O (fig. 5) be
concurrent, it does not follow that points in a portion
of a plane perpendicular at O to the axis will be also
concurrent, even if the part of the plane be very small.
With a considerable aperture, the neighbouring point N will
be reproduced, but attended by aberrations comparable in
magnitude to ON. These aberrations are avoided if, according to
Abbe, the ``sine condition,'' sin u'1/sin u1=sin u'2jsin
u2, holds for all rays reproducing the point O. If the
object point O be infinitely distant, u1 and u2 are
to be replaced by pi and h2, the perpendicular heights of
incidence; the ``sine condition', then becomes sin u,1jh1
sin u'2/h2. A system fulfilling this condition and free
from spherical aberration is called ``aplanatic'' (Greek
a-, privative, plann, a wandering). This word was
first used by Robert Blair (d. 1828), professor of practical
astronomy at Edinburgh University, to characterize a superior
achromatism, and, subsequently, by many writers to denote
freedom from spherical aberration. Both the aberration of axis
points, and the deviation from the sine condition, rapidly
increase in most (uncorrected) systems with the aperture.
(3) Aberration of lateral object points (points beyond the
axis) with narrow pencils. Astigmatism.---A point O (fig.
6) at a finite distance from the, axis (or with an infinitely
distant object, a point which subtends a finite angle at the
system) is, in general, even then not sharply reproduced, if
the pencil of rays issuing from it and traversing the system
is made infinitely narrow by reducing the aperture stop; such
a pencil consists of the rays which can pass from the object
point through the now infinitely small entrance pupil. It
is seen (ignoring exceptional cases) that the pencil does
not meet he refracting or reflecting surface at right angles;
therefore it is astigmatic (Gr. a-, privative, stigmia, a
point). Naming the central ray passing through the entrance
pupil the ``axis of the pencil,' or ``principal ray,'' we
can say: the rays of the pencil intersect, not in one point,
but in two focal lines, which we can assume to be at right
angles to the principal ray; of these, one lies in the plane
containing the principal ray and the axis of the system,
i.e. in the ``first principal section'' or ``meridional
section,', and the other at right angles to it, i.e. in the
second principal section or sagittal section. We receive,
therefore, in no single intercepting plane behind the system,
as, for example, a focussing screen, an image of the object
point; on the other hand, in each of two planes lines O' and
O" are separately formed (in neighbouring planes ellipses are
formed), and in a plane between O' and O" a circle of least
confusion. The interval O'O", termed the astigmatic difference,
increases, in general, with the angle W made by the principal
ray OP with the axis of the system, i.e. with the field of
view. Two ``astigmatic image surfaces'' correspond to one
object plane; and these are in contact at the axis point; on
the one lie the focal lines of the first kind, on the other
those of the second. Systems in which the two astigmatic
surfaces coincide are termed anastigmatic or stigmatic.
Sir Isaac Newron was probably the discoverer of astigmation;
the position of the astigmatic image lines was determined by
Thomas Young (A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy,
1807); and the theory has been recently developed by A.
Gullstrand (Skand. Arch. f. physiol., 1890, 2, p. 269;
Allgemeine Theorie der monochromat. Aberrationen, etc.,
Upsala, 1900; Arch. f. Ophth., 1901, 53, pp. 2, 185). A
bibliography by P. Culmann is given in M. von Rohr's Die
Bilderzeugung in opitschen Instrumenten (Berlin, 1904).
(4) Aberration of lateral object points with broad pencils.
Coma. ---By opening the stop wider, similar deviations arise
for lateral points as have been already discussed for axial
points; but in this case they are much more complicated.
The course of the rays in the meridional section is no longer
symmetrical to the principal ray of the pencil; and on an
intercepting plane there appears, instead of a luminous
point, a patch of light, not symmetrical about a point, and
often exhibiting a resemblance to a comet having its tail
directed towards or away from the axis. From this appearance
it takes its name. The unsymmetrical form of the meridional
pencil--formerly the only one considered--is coma in the
narrower sense only; other errors of coma have been treated by
A. Konig and M. von Rohr (op. cit.), and more recently by
A. Gullstrand (op. cit.; Ann. d. Phys., 1905, 18, p. 941).
(5) Curvature of the field of the image.---If the above errors
be eliminated, the two astigmatic surfaces united, and a sharp
image obtained with a wide aperture--there remains the necessity
to correct the curvature of the image surface, especially when
the image is to be received upon a plane surface, e.g. in
photography. In most cases the surface is concave towards the system.
(6) Distortion of the image.--If now the image be sufficiently
sharp, inasmuch as the rays proceeding from every object point
meet in an image point of satisfactory exactitude, it may happen
that the image is distorted, i.e. not sufficiently like the
object. This error consists in the different parts of the
object being reproduced with different magnifications; for
instance, the inner parts may differ in greater magnification
than the outer (``barrel-shaped distortion''), or conversely
(``cushion-shaped distortion'') (see fig. 7). Systems free
of this aberration are called ``orthoscopic'' (orthos ,
right, skopein to look). This aberration is quite distinct
from that of the sharpness of reproduction; in unsharp,
reproduction, the question of distortion arises if only parts of
the object can be recognized in the figure. If, in an unsharp
image, a patch of light corresponds to an object point, the
``centre of gravity'' of the patch may be regarded as the image
point, this being the point where the plane receiving the
image, e.g. a focussing screen, intersects the ray passing
through the middle of the stop. This assumption is justified
if a poor image on the focussing screen remains stationary
when the aperture is diminished; in practice, this generally
occurs. This ray, named by Abbe a ``principal ray'' (not to be
confused with the ``principal rays'' of the Gaussian theory),
passes through the centre of the enttance pupil before the first
refraction, and the centre of the exit pupil after the last
refraction. From this it follows that correctness of drawing
depends solely upon the principal rays; and is independent
of the sharpness or curvature of the image field. Referring
to fig. 8, we have O'Q'/OQ = a' tan w'/a tan w = 1/N,
where N is the ``scale'' or magnification of the image. For
N to be constant for all values of w, a' tan w'/a tan
w must also be constant. If the ratio a'/a be sufficiently
constant, as is often the case, the above relation reduces
to the ``condition of Airy,'' i.e. tan w'/ tan w= a
constant. This simple relation (see Camb. Phil. Trans.,
1830, 3, p. 1) is fulfilled in all systems which are symmetrical
with respect to their diaphragm (briefly named ``symmetrical
or holosymmetrical objectives''), or which consist of two like,
but different-sized, components, placed from the diaphragm
in the ratio of their size, and presenting the same curvature
to it (hemisymmetrical objectives); in these systems tan
w' / tan w = 1. The constancy of a'/a necessary for
this relation to hold was pointed out by R. H. Bow (Brit.
Journ. Photog., 1861), and Thomas Sutton (Photographic
Notes, 1862); it has been treated by O. Lummer and by M. von
Rohr (Zeit. f. Instrumentenk., 1897, 17, and 1898, 18, p. 4).
It requires the middle of the aperture stop to be reproduced in
the centres of the entrance and exit pupils without spherical
aberration. M. von Rohr showed that for systems fulfilling
neither the Airy nor the Bow-Sutton condition, the ratio a'
tan w'/a tan w will be constant for one distance of the
object. This combined condition is exactly fulfilled
by holosymmetrical objectives reproducing with the scale
1, and by hemisymmetrical, if the scale of reproduction
be equal to the ratio of the sizes of the two components.
Analytic Treatment of Aberrations.---The preceding review
of the several errors of reproduction belongs to the ``Abbe
theory of aberrations,'' in which definite aberrations are
discussed separately; it is well suited to practical needs, for
in the construction of an optical instrument certain errors are
sought to be eliminated, the selection of which is justified by
experience. In the mathematical sense, however, this selection
is arbitrary; the reproduction of a finite object with a finite
aperture entails, in all probability, an infinite number of
aberrations. This number is only finite if the object and
aperture are assumed to be ``infinitely small of a certain
order''; and with each order of infinite smallness, i.e. with
each degree of approximation to reality (to finite objects and
apertures), a certain number of aberrations is associated. This
connexion is only supplied by theories which treat aberrations
generally and analytically by means of indefinite series.
A ray proceeding from an object point O (fig. 9) can be defined
by the co-ordinates (x, e). Of this point O in an object
plane I, at right angles to the axis, and two other co-ordinates
(x, y), the point in which the ray intersects the entrance
pupil, i.e. the plane II. Similarly the corresponding image
ray may be defined by the points (x', e'), and (x',
y'), in the planes I' and II'. The origins of these four
plane co-ordinate systems may be collinear with the axis
of the optical system; and the corresponding axes may be
parallel. Each of the four co-ordinates x', e', x', y'
are functions of x, e, x, y; and if it be assumed that the
field of view and the aperture be infinitely small, then x,
e, x, y are of the same order of infinitesimals; consequently
by expanding x', e', x', y' in ascending powers of x,
e, x, y, series are obtained in which it is only necessary
to consider the lowest powers. It is readily seen that if the
optical system be symmetrical, the orqins of the co-ordinate
systems collinear with the optical axis and the corresponding
axes parallel, then by changing the signs of x, e, x,
y, the values x', e', x', y' must likewise change their
sign, but retain their arithmetical values; this means that the
series are restricted to odd powers of the unmarked variables.
The nature of the reproduction consists in the rays proceeding
from a point O being united in another point O'; in general,
this will not be the case, for x', e' vary if x, e be
constant, but x, y variable. It may be assumed that the
planes I' and II' are drawn where the images of the planes
I and II are formed by rays near the axis by the ordinary
Gaussian rules; and by an extension of these rules, not,
however, corresponding to reality, the Gauss image point
O'0, with co-ordinates x'0, e'0, of the point O at
some distance from the axis could be constructed. Writing
Dx'=x'-x'0 and De'=e'-e'0, then Dx' and
De' are the aberrations belonging to x, e and x, y,
and are functions of these magnitudes which, when expanded in
series, contain only odd powers, for the same reasons as given
above. On account of the aberrations of all rays which
pass through O, a patch of light, depending in size on
the lowest powers of x, e, x, y which the aberrations
contain, will be formed in the plane I'. These degrees,
named by (J. Petzval (Bericht uber die Ergebnisse einiger
dioptrischer Untersuchnungen, Buda Pesth, 1843; Akad.
Sitzber., Wien, 1857, vols. xxiv. xxvi.) ``the numerical
orders of the image,'' are consequently only odd powers; the
condition for the formation of an image of the mth order
is that in the series for Dx' and De' the coefficients
of the powers of the 3rd, 5th . . . (m-2)th degrees must
vanish. The images of the Gauss theory being of the third
order, the next problem is to obtain an image of 5th order,
or to make the coefficients of the powers of 3rd degree
zero. This necessitates the satisfying of five equations;
in other words, there are five alterations of the 3rd order,
the vanishing of which produces an image of the 5th order.
The expression for these coefficients in terms of the constants
of the optical system, i.e. the radii, thicknesses, refractive
indices and distances between the lenses, was solved by L.
Seidel (Astr. Nach., 1856, p. 289); in 1840, J. Petzval
constructed his portrait objective, unexcelled even at the present
day, from similar calculations, which have never been published
(see M. von Rohr, Theorie und Geschichte des photographischen
Objectivs, Berlin, 1899, p. 248). The theory was elaborated
by S. Finterswalder (Munchen. Acad. Abhandl., 1891,
17, p. 519), who also published a posthumous paper of Seidel
containing a short view of his work (Munchen. Akad.
Sitrber., 1898, 28, p. 395); a simpler form was given by A.
Kerber (Beitrage zur Dioptrik, Leipzig, 1895-6-7-8-9). A.
Konig and M. von Rohr (see M. von Rohr, Die Bilderzeugung
in optischen Instrumenten, pp. 317-323) have represented
Kerber's method, and have deduced the Seidel formulae from
geometrical considerations based on the Abbe method, and have
interpreted the analytical results geometrically (pp. 212-316).
The aberrations can also be expressed by means of the
"characteristic function'' of the system and its differential
coefficients, instead of by the radii, &c., of the lenses;
these formulae are not immediately applicable, but give,
however, the relation between the number of aberrations and the
order. Sir William Rowan Hamilton (British Assoc. Report,
1833, p. 360) thus derived the aberrations of the third order;
and in later times the method was pursued by Clerk Maxwell
(Proc. London Math. Soc., 1874--1875; (see also the treatises
of R. S. Heath and L. A. Herman), M. Thiesen (Berlin. Akad.
Sitzber., 1890, 35, p. 804), H. Bruns (Leipzig. Math.
Phys. Ber., 1895, 21, p. 410), and particularly successfully
by K. Schwartzschild (Gottingen. Akad. Abhandl., 1905,
4, No. 1), who thus discovered the aberrations of the 5th
order (of which there are nine), and possibly the shortest
proof of the practical (Seidel) formulae. A. Gullstrand (vide
supra, and Ann. d. Phys., 1905, 18, p. 941) founded his
theory of aberrations on the differential geometry of surfaces.
The aberrations of the third order are: (1) aberration of the
axis point; (2) aberration of points whose distance from the
axis is very small, less than of the third order---the deviation
from the sine condition and coma here fall together in one class;
(3) astigmatism; (4) curvature of the field; (5) distortion.
(1) Aberration of the third order of axis points is dealt with
in all text-books on optics. It is important for telescope
objectives, since their apertures are so small as to permit
higher orders to be neglected. For a single lens of very
small thickness and given power, the aberration depends upon
the ratio of the radii r:r', and is a minimum (but never
zero) for a certain value of this ratio; it varies inversely
with the refractive index (the power of the lens remaining
constant). The total aberration of two or more very thin lenses
in contact, being the sum of the individual aberrations, can be
zero. This is also possible if the lenses have the same algebraic
sign. Of thin positive lenses with n=1.5, four are necessary
to correct spherical aberration of the third order. These
systems, however, are not of great practical importance. In
most cases, two thin lenses are combined, one of which has
just so strong a positive aberration (``under-correction,''
vide supra) as the other a negative; the first must be a
positive lens and the second a negative lens; the powers,
however: may differ, so that the desired effect of the lens is
maintained. It is generally an advantage to secure a great
refractive effect by several weaker than by one high-power
lens. By one, and likewise by several, and even by an
infinite number of thin lenses in contact, no more than two
axis points can be reproduced without aberration of the third
order. Freedom from aberration for two axis points, one of which
is infinitely distant, is known as ``Herschel's condition.''
All these rules are valid, inasmuch as the thicknesses and
distances of the lenses are not to be taken into account.
(2) The condition for freedom from coma in the third order
is also of importance for telescope objectives; it is
known as ``Fraunhofer's condition.'' (4) After eliminating
the aberration On the axis, coma and astigmatism, the
relation for the flatness of the field in the third order is
expressed by the ``Petzval equation,'' S1/r(n'-n) =
0, where r is the radius of a refracting surface, n
and n' the refractive indices of the neighbouring media,
and S the sign of summation for all refracting surfaces.
Practical Elimination of Aberrations.---The existence of
an optical system, which reproduces absolutely a finite plane
on another with pencils of finite aperture, is doubtful; but
practical systems solve this problem with an accuracy which
mostly suffices for the special purpose of each species of
instrument. The problem of finding a system which reproduces
a given object upon a given plane with given magnification
(in so far as aberrations must be taken into account) could
be dealt with by means of the approximation theory; in most
cases, however, the analytical difficulties are too groat.
Solutions, however, have been obtained in special cases (see
A. Konig in M. von Rohr's Die Bilderzeugung, p. 373; K.
Schwarzschild, Gottingen. Akad. Abhandl., 1905, 4, Nos.
2 and 3). At the present time constructors almost always employ
the inverse method: they compose a system from certain, often
quite personal experiences, and test, by the trigonometrical
calculation of the paths of several rays, whether the system
gives the desired reproduction (examples are given in A.
Gleichen, Lehrbuch der geometrischen Optik, Leipzig and Berlin,
1902). The radii, thicknesses and distances are continually
altered until the errors of the image become sufficiently
small. By this method only certain errors of reproduction are
investigated, especially individual members, or all, of those named
above. The analytical approximation theory is often employed
provisionally, since its accuracy does not generally suffice.
In order to render spherical aberration and the deviation from
the sine condition small throughout the whole aperture, there
is given to a ray with a finite angle of aperture u* (width
infinitely distant objects: with a finite height of incidence
h*) the same distance of intersection, and the same sine
ratio as to one neighbouring the axis (u* or h* may not be
much smaller than the largest aperture U or H to be used in the
system). The rays with an angle of aperture smaller than
u* would not have the same distance of intersection and
the same sine ratio; these deviations are called ``zones,''
and the constructor endeavours to reduce these to a minimum.
The same holds for the errors depending upon the angle of
the field of view, w: astigmatism, curvature of field
and distortion are eliminated for a definite value, w*,
``zones of astigmatism, curvature of field and distortion,'
attend smaller values of w. The practical optician names
such systems: ``corrected for the angle of aperture u*
(the height of incidence h*) or the angle of field of
view w*.'' Spherical aberration and changes of the sine
ratios are often represented graphically as functions of the
aperture, in the same way as the deviations of two astigmatic
image surfaces of the image plane of the axis point are
represented as functions of the angles of the field of view.
The final form of a practical system consequently rests
on compromise; enlargement of the aperture results in
a diminution of the available field of view, and vice
versa. The following may be regarded as typical:--(1)
Largest aperture; necessary corrections are--for the axis
point, and sine condition; errors of the field of view are
almost disregarded; example-- high-power microscope objectives.
(2) Largest field of view; necessary corrections are--for
astigmatism, curvature of field and distortion; errors of
the aperture only slightly regarded; examples--photographic
widest angle objectives and oculars. Between these extreme
examples stands the ordinary photographic objective: the
portrait objective is corrected more with regard to aperture;
objectives for groups more with regard to the field of
view. (3) Telescope objectives have usually not very large
apertures, and small fields of view; they should, however,
possess zones as small as possible, and be built in the simplest
manner. They are the best for analytical computation.
(b) Chromatic or Colour Aberration. In optical systems
composed of lenses, the position, magnitude and errors
of the image depend upon the refractive indices of the
glass employed (see LENS, and above, ``Monochromatic
Aberration''). Since the index of refraction varies with
the colour or wave length of the light (see DISPERSION),
it follows that a system of lenses (uncorrected) projects
images of different colours in somewhat different places
and sizes and with different aberrations; i.e. there are
``chromatic differences'' of the distances of intersection,
of magnifications, and of monochromatic aberrations. If
mixed light be employed (e.g. white light) all these images
are formed; and since they are ail ultimately intercepted
by a plane (the retina of the eye, a focussing screen of a
camera, &c.), they cause a confusion, named chromatic
aberration; for instance, instead of a white margin on a dark
background, there is perceived a coloured margin, or narrow
spectrum. The absence of this error is termed achromatism,
and an optical system so corrected is termed achromatic.
A system is said to be ``chromatically under-corrected''
when it shows the same kind of chromatic error as a thin
positive lens, otherwise it is said to be ``over-corrected.''
If, in the first place, monochromatic aberrations be neglected
---in other words, the Gaussian theory be accepted---then
every reproduction is determined by the positions of the focal
planes, and the magnitude of the focal lengths, or if the focal
lengths, as ordinarily happens, be equal, by three constants of
reproduction. These constants are determined by the data
of the system (radii, thicknesses, distances, indices, &c.,
of the lenses); therefore their dependence on the refractive
index, and consequently on the colour, are calculable (the
formulae are given in Czapski-Eppenstein, Grundzuge der
Theorie der optischen Instrumente (1903, p. 166). The
refractive indices for different wave lengths must be known
for each kind of glass made use of. In this manner the
conditions are maintained that any one constant of reproduction
is equal for two different colours, i.e. this constant is
achromatized. For example, it is possible, with one thick
lens in air, to achromatize the position of a focal plane of
the magnitude of the focal length. If all three constants
of reproduction be achromatized, then the Gaussian image for
all distances of objects is the same for the two colours,
and the system is said to be in ``stable achromatism.''
In practice it is more advantageous (after Abbe) to determine
the chromatic aberration (for instance, that of the distance
of intersection) for a fixed position of the object, and
express it by a sum in which each component conlins the amount
due to each refracting surface (see Czapski-Eppenstein, op.
cit. p. 170; A. Konig in M. v. Rohr's collection, Die
Bilderzeugung, p. 340). In a plane containing the image point
of one colour, another colour produces a disk of confusion;
this is similar to the confusion caused by two ``zones'' in
spherical aberration. For infinitely distant objects the
radius Of the chromatic disk of confusion is proportional to
the linear aperture, and independent of the focal length (vide
supra, ``Monochromatic Aberration of the Axis Point''); and
since this disk becomes the less harmful with au increasing
image of a given object, or with increasing focal length,
it follows that the deterioration of the image is propor-,
tional to the ratio of the aperture to the focal length,
i.e. the ``relative aperture.'' (This explains the gigantic
focal lengths in vogue before the discovery of achromatism.)
Examples.--(a) In a very thin lens, in air, only one constant
of reproduction is to be observed, since the focal length and
the distance of the focal point are equal. If the refractive
index for one colour be n, and for another n+dn, and the
powers, or reciprocals of the focal lengths, be f and f + d
f, then (1) df/f = dn/(n-1) = 1/n; dn is called
the dispersion, and n the dispersive power of the glass.
(b) Two thin lenses in contact: let f1 and f2 be
the powers corresponding to the lenses of refractive indices
n1 and n2 and radii r'1, r"1, and r'2,
r"2 respectively; let f denote the total power, and d
f, dn1, dn2 the changes of f, n1, and n2
with the colour. Then the following relations hold:--
(2) f = f1-f2== (n1 - 1)(1/r'1-1/r''1) +(n2-1)(1/
r'2 - 1/r''2) = (n1 - 1)k1 + (n2 - 1)k2; and
(3) df = k1dn1 + k2dn2.
For achromatism df = 0, hence, from (3),
(4) k1/k2 = -dn2 / dn1, or f1/f2 = -n1/
n2. Therefore f1 and f2 must have different algebraic
signs, or the system must be composed of a collective and a
dispersive lens. Consequently the powers of the two must be
different (in order that f be not zero (equation 2)), and
the dispersive powers must also be different (according to 4).
Newton failed to perceive the existence of media of
different dispersive powers required by achromatism;
consequently he constructed large reflectors instead of
refractors. James Gregory and Leonhard Euler arrived at the
correct view from a false conception of the achromatism of
the eye; this was determined by Chester More Hall in 1728,
Klingenstierna in 1754 and by Dollond in 1757, who constructed
the celebrated achromatic telescopes. (See TELESCOPE.)
Glass with weaker dispersive power (greater v) is named
``crown glass''; that with greater dispersive power, ``flint
glass.'' For the construction of an achromatic collective lens
(f positive) it follows, by means of equation (4), that a
collective lens I. of crown glass and a dispersive lens II. of
flint glass must be chosen; the latter, although the weaker,
corrects the other chromatically by its greater dispersive
power. For an achromatic dispersive lens the converse must be
adopted. This is, at the present day, the ordinary type,
e.g., of telescope objective (fig. 10); the values of
the four radii must satisfy the equations (2) and (4). Two
other conditions may also be postulated: one is always the
elimination of the aberration on the axis; the second either
the ``Herschel'' or ``Fraunhofer Condition,'' the latter being
the best vide supra, ``Monochromatic Aberration''). In
practice, however, it is often more useful to avoid the second
condition by making the lenses have contact, i.e. equal
radii. According to P. Rudolph (Eder's Jahrb. f. Photog.,
1891, 5, p. 225; 1893, 7, p. 221), cemented objectives of
thin lenses permit the elimination of spherical aberration
on the axis, if, as above, the collective lens has a smaller
refractive index; on the other hand, they permit the elimination
of astigmatism and curvature of the field, if the collective
lens has a greater refractive index (this follows from the
Petzval equation; see L. Seidel, Astr. Nachr., 1856, p.
289). Should the cemented system be positive, then the more
powerful lens must be positive; and, according to (4), to the
greater power belongs the weaker dispersive power (greater
v), that is to say, clown glass; consequently the crown
glass must have the greater refractive index for astigmatic
and plane images. In all earlidr kinds of glass, however,
the dispersive power increased with the refractive index;
that is, v decreased as n increased; but some of the
Jena glasses by E. Abbe and O. Schott were crown glasses of
high refractive index, and achromatic systems from such crown
glasses, with flint glasses of lower refractive index, are
called the ``new achromats,'' and were employed by P. Rudolph
in the first ``anastigmats'' (photographic objectives).
Instead of making df vanish, a certain value can be assigned
to it which will produce, by the addition of the two lenses,
any desired chromatic deviation, e.g. sufficient to eliminate
one present in other parts of the system. If the lenses I.
and II. be cemented and have the same refractive index for one
colour, then its effect for that one colour is that of a lens
of one piece; by such decomposition of a lens it can be made
chromatic or achromatic at will, without altering its spherical
effect. If its chromatic effect (df/f) be greater than
that of the same lens, this being made of the more dispersive
of the two glasses employed, it is termed ``hyper-chromatic.''
For two thin lenses separated by a distance D the condition
for achromatism is D = v1f1+v2f2; if v1=v2
(e.g. if the lenses be made of the same glass), this reduces
to D= 1/2 (f1+f2), known as the ``condition for oculars.''
If a constant of reproduction, for instance the focal length,
be made equal for two colours, then it is not the same for
other colours, if two different glasses are employed. For
example, the condition for achromatism (4) for two thin lenses
in contact is fulfilled in only one part of the spectrum, since
dn2/dn1 varies within the spectrum. This fact was first
ascertained by J. Fraunhofer, who defined the colours by means
of the dark lines in the solar spectrum; and showed that the
ratio of the dispersion of two glasses varied about 20% from the
red to the violet (the variation for glass and water is about
50%). If, therefore, for two colours, a and b, fa =
fb = f, then for a third colour, c, the focal length is
different, viz. if c lie between a and b, then fc<
f, and vice versa; these algebraic results follow from
the fact that towards the red the dispersion of the positive
crown glass preponderates, towards the violet that of the
negative flint. These chromatic errors of systems, which
are achromatic for two colours, are called the ``secondary
spectrum,'' and depend upon the aperture and focal length
in the same manner as the primary chromatid errors do.
In fig. 11, taken from M. von Rohr,s Theoric und Geschichte des
photographischen Objectivs, the abscissae are focal lengths, and the
ordinates wave-lengths; of the latter the Fraunhofer lines used are--
A' C D Green Hg. F G' Violet Hg.
767.7 656.3 589.3 546.1 486.2 454.1 405.1 mm,
and the focal lengths are made equal for the lines C and F.
In the neighbourhood of 550 mm the tangent to the curve
is parallel to the axis of wave-lengths; and the focal
length varies least over a fairly large range of colour,
therefore in this neighbourhood the colour union is at its
best. Moreover, this region of the spectrum is that which
appears brightest to the human eye, and consequently this
curve of the secondary on spectrum, obtained by making
fc = fF, is, according to the experiments of Sir G.
G. Stokes (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1878), the most suitable for
visual instruments (``optical achromatism,'). In a similar
manner, for systems used in photography, the vertex of the
colour curve must be placed in the position of the maximum
sensibility of the plates; this is generally supposed to be at
G'; and to accomplish this the F and violet mercury lines are
united. This artifice is specially adopted in objectives for
astronomical photography (``pure actinic achromatism''). For
ordinary photography, however, there is this disadvantage:
the image on the focussing-screen and the correct adjustment
of the photographic sensitive plate are not in register; in
astronomical photography this difference is constant, but in
other kinds it depends on the distance of the objects. On this
account the lines D and G' are united for ordinary photographic
objectives; the optical as well as the actinic image is
chromatically inferior, but both lie in the same place; and
consequently the best correction lies in F (this is known as
the ``actinic correction'' or ``freedom from chemical focus'').
Should there be in two lenses in contact the same focal lengths
for three colours a, b, and c, i.e. fa = fb =
fc = f, then the relative partial dispersion (nc-
nb) (na-nb) must be equal for the two kinds of glass
employed. This follows by considering equation (4) for the
two pairs of colours ac and bc. Until recently no glasses
were known with a proportionap degree of absorption; but R.
Blair (Trans. Edin. Soc., 1791, 3, p. 3), P. Barlow, and
F. S. Archer overcame the difficulty by constructing fluid
lenses between glass walls. Fraunhofer prepared glasses which
reduced the secondary spectrum; but permanent success was
only assured on the introduction of the Jena glasses by E.
Abbe and O. Schott. In using glasses not having proportional
dispersion, the deviation of a third colour can be eliminated
by two lenses, if an interval be allowed between them; or
by three lenses in contact, which may not all consist of
the old glasses. In uniting three colours an ``achromatism
of a higher order'' is derived; there is yet a residual
``tertiary spectrum,'' but it can always be neglected.
The Gaussian theory is only an approximation; monochromatic
or spherical aberrations still occur, which will be different
for different colours; and should they be compensated for one
colour, the image of another colour would prove disturbing.
The most important is the chromatic difference of aberration
of the axis point, which is still present to disturb the
image, after par-axial rays of different colours are united
by an appropriate combination of glasses. If a collective
system be corrected for the axis point for a definite
wave-length, then, on account of the greater dispersion in
the negative components--the flint glasses,--over-correction
will arise for the shorter wavelengths (this being the
error of the negative components), and under-correction for
the longer wave-lengths (the error of crown glass lenses
preponderating in the red). This error was treated by
Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and, in special detail, by C. F.
Gauss. It increases rapidly with the aperture, and is more
important with medium apertures than the secondary spectrum
of par-axial rays; consequently, spherical aberration must
be elliminated for two colours, and if this be impossible,
then it must be eliminated for those particular wave-lengths
which are most effectual for the instrument in question (a
graphical representation of this error is given in M. von Rohr,
Theorie und Geschichte des photographischen Objectivs).
The condition for the reproduction of a surface element in the
place of a sharply reproduced point--the constant of the sine
relationship must also be fulfilled with large apertures for
several colours. E. Abbe succeeded in computing microscope
objectives free from error of the axis point and satisfying
the sine condition for several colours, which therefore,
according to his definition, were ``aplanatic for several
colours''; such systems he termed ``apochromatic''. While,
however, the magnification of the individual zones is the
same, it is not the same for red as for blue; and there is a
chromatic difference of magnification. This is produced in the
same amount, but in the opposite sense, by the oculars, which
ate used with these objectives (``compensating oculars''), so
that it is eliminated in the image of the whole microscope.
The best telescope objectives, and photographic objectives
intended for three-colour work, are also apochromatic, even
if they do not possess quite the same quality of correction
as microscope objectives do. The chromatic differences of
other errors of reproduction have seldom practical importances.
1 The investigations of E. Abbe on geometrical optics,
originally published only in his university lectures, were
first compiled by S. Czapski in 1893. See below, AUTHORITIES.
AUTHORITIES.---The standard treatise in English is H. D.
Taylor, A System of Applied Optics (1906); reference may also
be made to R. S. Heath, A Treatise on Geometrical Optics (2nd
ed., 1895); and L A. Herman, A Treatise on Geometrical Optics
(1900). The ideas of Abbe were first dealt with in S. Czapski,
Theorie der optischen Instrumente nach Abbe, published
separately at Breslau in 1893, and as vol. ii. of Winkelmann's
Handbuch der Physik in 1894; a second edition, by Czapski
and O. Eppenstein, was published at Leipzig in 1903 with the
title, Grundzuge der Theorie der optischen Instrumente nach
Abbe, and in vol. ii. of the 2nd ed. of Winkelmann's Handbuch
der Physik. The collection of the scientific staff of Carl
Zeiss at Jena, edited by M. von Rohr, Die bilderzeugung in
optischen Instrumenten vom Standpunkte der geometrischen
Optik (Berlin, 1904), contains articles by A. Konig and
M. von Rohr specially dealing with aberrations. (O. E.)
ABERSYCHAN, an urban district in the northern parliamentary
division of Monmouthshire, England, 11 m. N. by W. of Newport,
on the Great Western, London and North-Western, and Rhymney
railways. Pop. (1901) 17,768. It lies in the narrow upper
valley of the Afon Lwyd on the eastern edge of the great coal
and iron mining district of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire,
and its large industrial population is occupied in the mines
and ironworks. The neighbourhood is wild and mountainous.
ABERTILLERY, an urban district in the western parliamentary
division of Monmouthshire, England, 16 m. N.W. of Newport, on
the Great Western railway. Pop. (1891) 10,846; (1901) 21,945.
It lies in the mountainous mining district of Monmouthshire
and Glamorganshire, in the valley of the Ebbw Fach, and the
large industrial population is mainly employed in the numerous
coalmines, ironworks and tinplate works. Farther up the
valley are the mining townships of NANTYOLO and BLAINA,
forming an urban district with a population (1901) of 13,489.
ABERYSTWYTH, a municipal borough, market-town and seaport of
Cardiganshire, Wales, near the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth
and Rheidol, about the middle of Cardigan Bay. Pop. (1901)
8013. It is the terminal station of the Cambrian railway,
and also of the Manchester and Milford line. It is the
most popular watering-place on the west coast of Wales, and
possesses a pier, and a fine sea-front which stretches from
Constitution Hill at the north end of the Marine Terrace to the
mouth of the harbour. The town is of modern appearance, and
contains many public buildings, of which the most remarkable
is the imposing but fantastic structure of the University
College of Wales near the Castle Hill. Much of the finest
scenery in mid-Wales hes within easy reach of Aberystwyth.
The history of Aberystwyth may be said to date from the time
of Gilbert Strongbow, who in 1109 erected a fortress on the
present Castle Hill. Edward I. rebuilt Strongbow's castle
in 1277, after its destruction by the Welsh. Between the
years 1404 and 1408 Aberystwyth Castle was in the hands of
Owen Glendower, but finally surrendered to Prince Harry of
Monmouth, and shortly after this the town was incorporated
under the title of Ville de Lampadarn, the ancient name of the
place being Llanbadarn Gaerog, or the fortified Llanbadarn,
to distinguish it from Llanbadarn Fawr, the village one mile
inland. It is thus styled in a charter granted by Henry
VIII., but by Elizabeth's time the town was invariably termed
Aberystwyth in all documents. In 1647 the parliamentarian
troops razed the castle to the ground, so that its remains
are now inconsiderable, though portions of three towers still
exist. Aberystwyth was a contributory parliamentary borough
until 1885, when its representation was merged in that of the
county. In modern times Aberystwyth has become a Welsh
educational centre, owing to the erection here of one of the
three colleges of the university of Wales (1872), and of a
hostel for women in connexion with it. In 1905 it was decided
to fix here the site of the proposed Welsh National Library.
ABETTOR (from ``to abet,'' O. Fr. abeter, a and beter, to
bait, urge dogs upon any one; this word is probably of Scandinavian
origin, meaning to cause to bite), a law term implying one
who instigates, encourages or assists another to commit an
offence. An abettor differs from an accessory (q.v.) in that
he must be present at the commission of the crime; all abettors
(with certain exceptions) are principals, and, in the absence
of specific statutory provision to the contrary, are punishable
to the same extent as the actual perpetrator of the offence.
A person may in certain cases be convicted as an abettor in
the commission of an offence in which he or she could not be a
principal, e.g. a woman or boy under fourteen years of age
in aiding rape, or a solvent person in aiding and abetting
a bankrupt to commit offences against the bankruptcy laws.
ABEYANCE (O. Fr. abeance, ``gaping''), a state of
expectancy in respect of property, titles or office, when the
right to them is not vested in any one person, but awaits the
appearance or determination of the true owner. In law, the
term abeyance can only be applied to such future estates as
have not yet vested or possibly may not vest. For example, an
estate is granted to A for life, with remainder to the heir of
B, the latter being alive; the remainder is then said to be in
abeyance, for until the death of B it is uncertain who his heir
is. Similarly the freehold of a benefice, on the death of the
incumbent, is said to be in abeyance until the next incumbent
takes possession. The most common use of the term is in
the case of peerage dignities. If a peerage which passes to
heirs-general, like the ancient baronies by writ, is held
by a man whose heir-at-law is neither a male, nor a woman
who is an only child, it goes into abeyance on his death
between two or more sisters or their heirs, and is held by
no one till the abeyance is terminated; if eventually only
one person represents the claims of all the sisters, he or
she can claim the termination of the abeyance as a matter of
right. The crown can also call the peerage out of abeyance at
any moment, on petition, in favour of any one of the sisters
or their heirs between whom it is in abeyance. The question
whether ancient earldoms created in favour of a man and his
``heirs'' go into abeyance like baronies by writ has been
raised by the claim to the earldom of Norfolk created in 1312,
discussed before the Committee for Privileges in 1906. It is
common, but incorrect, to speak of peerage dignities which are
dormant (i.e. unclaimed) as being in abeyance. (J. H. R.)
ABGAR, a name or title borne by a line of kings or
toparchs, apparently twenty-nine in number, who reigned in
Osrhoene and had their capital at Edessa about the time of
the Christian era. According to an old tradition, one of
these princes, perhaps Abgar V. (Ukkama or Uchomo, ``the
black''), being afflicted with leprosy, sent a letter to
Jesus, acknowledging his divinity, craving his help and
offering him an asylum in his own residence, but Jesus wrote
a letter declining to go, promising, however, that after his
ascension he would send one of his disciples. These letters
are given by Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. i. 13), who declares
that the Syriac document from which he translates them had
been preserved in the archives at Edessa from the time of
Abgar. Eusebius also states that in due course Judas, son of
Thaddaeus, was sent (in 340 = A.D. 29). In another form of
the story, derived from Moses of Chorene, it is said further
that Jesus sent his portrait to Abgar, and that this existed
in Edessa (Hist. Armen., ed. W. Whiston, ii. 29-32).
Yet another version is found in the Syriac Doctrina Addaei
(Addaeus=Thaddaeus), edited by G. Phillips (1876). Here it
is said that the reply of Jesus was given not in writing, but
verbally, and that the event took place in 343 (A.D. 32).
Greek forms of the legend are found in the Acta Thaddaei
(C. Tischendorf, Acta apostoloruiu apocr. 261 ff.).
These stories have given rise to much discussion. The testi-
mony of Augustine and Jerome is to the effect that Jesus wrote
nothing. The correspondence was rejected as apocryphal by
Pope Gelasius and a Roman Synod (c. 495), though, it is
true, this view has not been shared universally by the Roman
church (Tillemont, Memoires, i. 3, pp. 990 ff ). Amongst
Evangelicals the spuriousness of the letters is almost generally
admitted. Lipsius (Die Edessenische Abgarsage, 1880) has
pointed out anachronisms which seem to indicate that the story
is quite unhistorical. The first king of Edessa of whom we have
any trustworthy information is Abgar VIII., bar Ma'nu (A.D.
176-213). It is suggested that the legend arose from a desire
to trace the christianizing of his kingdom to an apostolic
source. Eusebius gives the legend in its oldest form; it was
worked up in the Doctrina Addaei in the second half of the 4th
century; and Moses of Chorene was dependent upon both these sources.
BIBLIOGRAPHY---R, Schmidt in Herzoe-Hauck, Realencyklopadie;
Die Edessenische Abgarsage kritisch untersucht (1880);
Matthes, Die Edessenische Abgarsage auf ihre Fortbildung
untersucht (1882); Les Origines de l'eglise d'Edesse
et la legende d'A. (1888); A. Harnack, Geschichte d.
altchristlichen Litteratur, i. 2 (1893); L. Duchesne,
Bulletin critique, 1889, pp. 41-48; for the Epistles see
APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE, sect. ``New Testament'' (c.)
ABHIDHAMMA, the name of one of the three Pitakas, or
baskets of tradition, into which the Buddhist scriptures
(see BUDDHISM) are divided. It consists of seven works: 1.
Dhamma Sangani (enumeration of qualities). 2. Vibhanga
(exposition). 3. Katha Vatthu (bases of opinion). 4.
Puggala Pannatti (on individuals). 5. Dhatu Katha (on
relations of moral dispositions). 6. Yamaka (the pairs, that
is, of ethical states). 7. Patthana (evolution of ethical
states). These have now been published by the Pah Text
Society. The first has been translated into English, and an
abstract of the third has been published. The approximate
date of these works is probably from about 400 B.C. to
about 250 B.C., the first being the oldest and the third
the latest of the seven. Before the publication of the texts,
when they were known only by hearsay, the term Abhidhamma
was usually rendered ``Metaphysics.'' This is now seen to be
quite erroneous. Dhamma means the doctrine, and Abhidhamma
has a relation to Dhamma similar to that of by-law to
law. It expands, classifies, tabulates, draws corollaries
from the ethical doctrines laid down in the more popular
treatises. There is no metaphysics in it atnall, only
psychological ethics of a peculiarly dry and scholastic kind.
And there is no originality in it; only endless permutations
and combinations of doctrines already known and accepted.
As in the course of centuries the doctrine itself, in certain
schools, varied, it was felt necessary to rewrite these secondary
works. This was first done, so far as is at present known,
by the Sarvastivadins (Realists), who in the century before
and after Christ produced a fresh set of seven Abhidhamma
books. These are lost in India, but still exist in Chinese
translations. The translations have been analysed in a
masterly way by Professor Takakusu in the article mentioned
below, They deal only with psychological ethics. In the
course of further centuries these hooks in turn were superseded
by new treatises; and in one school at least, that of the
Maha-yana (great Vehicle) there was eventually developed a
system of metaphysics. But the word Abhidhamma then fell
out of use in that school, though it is still used in the
schools that continue to follow the original seven books.
See Buddhist Psychology by Caroline Rhys Davids (London, 1900),
translation of the Dhamma Sangani, with valuable introduction;
or the Royal Asiatic Society, 1892, contains an abstract of the
Katha ``On the Abhidhamma books of the Sarvastivadins,'' by
Prof. Takakusu, in Journal of the Pali Text Society, 1905.
(l'. W. R. D.)
ABHORRERS, the name given in 1679 to the persons who
expressed their abhorrence at the action of those who
had signed petitions urging King Charles II. to assemble
parliament. Feel ing against Roman Catholics, and especially
against James, duke of York, was running strongly; the
Exclusion Bill had been passed by the House of Commons,
and the popularity of James, duke of Monmouth, was very
great. To prevent this bill from passing into law, Charles
had dissolved parliament in July 1679, and in the following
October had prorogued its successor without allowing it to
meet. He was then deluged with petitions urging him to
call it together, and this agitation was opposed by Sir
George Jeffreys (q.v.) and Francis Wythens, who presented
addresses expressing ``abhorrence'' of the ``Petitioners,''
and thus initiated the movement of the abhorrers, who
supported the action of the king. ``The frolic went all
over England,'' says Roger North; and the addresses of
the Abhorrers which reached the king from all parts of the
country formed a counterblast to those of the Petitioners.
It is said that the terms Whig and Tory were first applied
to English political parties in consequence of this dispute.
ABIATHAR (Heb. Ebyathar, ``the [divine] father is
pre-eminent''), in the Bible, son of Ahimelech or Ahijah,
priest at Nob. The only one of the priests to escape from
Saul's massacre, he fled to David at Keilah, taking with him
the ephod (1 Sam. xxii. 20 f., xxiii. 6, 9). He was of great
service to David, especially at the time of the rebellion
of Absalom (2 Sam. xv. 24, 29, 35, xx. 25). In 1 Kings iv.
4 Zadok and Abiathar are found acting together as priests
under Solomon. In 1 Kings i. 7, 19, 25, however, Abiathar
appears as a supporter of Adonijah, and in ii. 22 and 26
it is said that he was deposed by Solomon and banished to
Anathoth. In 2 Sam. viii. 17 ``Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech''
should be read, with the Syriac, for ``Ahimelech, the son
of Abiathar.'' For a similar confusion see Mark ii. 26.
ABICH, OTTO WILHELM HERMANN VON (1806-1886), German
mineralogist and geologist, was born at Berlin on the 11th
of December 1806, and educated at the university in that
city. His earliest scientific work related to spinels and other
minerals, and later he made special studies of fumaroles, of the
mineral deposits around volcanic vents and of the structure of
volcanoes. In 1842 he was appointed professor of mineralogy
in the university of Dorpat, and henceforth gave attention
to the geology and mineralogy of Russia. Residing for some
time at Tiflis he investigated the geology of the Caucasus.
Ultimately' he retired to Vienna, where he died on the 1st
of July 1886. The mineral Abichite was named after him.
PUBLICATIONS.---Vues illustratives de quelques phenomenes
geologiques, prises sur le Vesuve et l'Etna, pendant
les annees 1833 et 1834 (Berlin, 1836); Ueber die
Natur und den Zusammenhang der vulcanischen Bildungen
(Brunswick, 1841); Geologische Forschungen in den
Kaukasischen Landern (3 vols., Vienna, 1878, 1882, and 1887).
ABIGAIL (Heb. Abigayil, perhaps ``father is joy''), or
ABIGAL (2 Sam. iii. 3), in the Bible, the wife of Nabal the
Carmelite, on whose death she became the wife of David (1 Sam.
xxv.). By her David had a son, whose name appears in the
Hebrew of 2 Sam. iii. 3 as Chileab, in the Septuagint as
Daluyah, and in 1 Chron. iii. 1 as Daniel. The name
Abigail was also borne by a sister of David (2 Sam. xvii.
25; 1 Chron. ii. 16 f.). From the former (self-styled
``handmaid'' 1 Sam. xxv. 25 f.) is derived the colloquial use
of the term for a waiting-woman (cf. Abigail, the ``waiting
gentlewoman,'' in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady.)
ABIJAH (Heb. Abiyyah and Abiyyahu, ``Yah is father''),
a name borne by nine different persons mentioned in the Old
Testament, of whom the most noteworthy are the following. (i)
The son and successor of Rehoboam, king of Judah (2 Chron.
xii. 16--xiii.), reigned about two years (918-915 B.C..)
The accounts of him in the books of Kings and Chronicles are
very conflicting (compare 1 Kings xv. 2 and 2 Chron. xi.20
with 2 Chron. xiii.2). The Chronicler tells us that he has
drawn his facts from the Midrash (commentary) of the prophet
Iddo This is perhaps sufficient to explain the character of
the narrative. (2) The second son of Samuel (1 Sam. viii.
2; 1 Chron. vi. 28 [13j). He and his brother Joel judged at
Beersheba. Their misconduct was made by the elders of
Israel a pretext for demanding a king (1 Sam. viii. 4).
(3) A son of Jeroboam I., king of Israel; he died young
(1 Kings xiv. 1 ff., 17). (4) Head of the eighth order of
priests (1 Chron. xxiv. 10), the order to which Zacharias,
the father of John the Baptist, belonged (Luke i. 5).
The alternative form Abijam is probably a
mistake, though it is upheld by M. Jastrow.
ABILA, (1) a city of ancient Syria, the capital of the
tetrarchy of Abilene, a territory whose extent it is impossible
to define. It is generally called Abila of Lysanias, to
distinguish it from (2) below. Abila was an important town on
the imperial highway from Damascus to Heliopolis (Baalbek).
The site is indicated by ruins of a temple, aqueducts, &c.,
and inscriptions on the banks of the river Barada at Suk
Wadi Barada, a village called by early Arab geographers
Abil-es-Suk, between Baalbek and Damascus. Though the names
Abel and Abila differ in derivation and in meaning, their
similarity has given rise to the tradition that this was the
place of Abel's burial. According to Josephus, Abilene was a
separate Iturean kingdom till A.D. 37, when it was granted
by C to Agrippa I.; in 52 Claudius granted it to Agrippa II.
(See also LYSANIAS.) (2) A city in Perea, now Abil-ez-Zeit.
ABILDGAARD, NIKOLAJ ABRAHAM (1744-1809), called ``the
Father of Danish Painting,'' was born at Copenhagen, the
son of Soren Abildgaard, an antiquarian draughtsman of
repute. He formed his style on that of Claude and of Nicolas
Poussin, and was a cold theorist, inspired not by nature but by
art. As a technical painter he attained remarkable success,
his tone being very harmonious and even, but the effect, to a
foreigner's eye, is rarely interesting. His works are scarcely
known out of Copenhagen, where he won an immense fame in his
own generation. He was the founder of the Danish school of
painting, and the master of Thorwaldsen and Eckersherg.
ABIMELECH (Hebrew for ``father of [or is] the king'').
(1) A king of Gerar in South Palestine with whom Isaac, in
the Bible, had relations. The patriarch, during his sojourn
there, alleged that his wife Rebekah was his sister, but the
king doubting this remonstrated with him and pointed out how
easily adultery might have been unintentionally committed (Gen.
xxvi.). Abimelech is called ``king of the Philistines,'' but
the title is clearly an anachronism. A very similar story
is told of Abraham and Sarah (ch. xx.), but here Abimelech
takes Sarah to wife, although he is warned by a divine vision
before the crime is actually committed. The incident is
fuller and shows a great advance in bdeas of morality. Of
a more primitive character, however, is another parallel
story of Abraham at the court of Pharaoh, king of Egypt (xii.
10-20), where Sarah his wife is taken into the royal household,
and the plagues sent by Yahweh lead to the discovery of the
truth. Further incidents in Isaac's life at Gerar are narrated
in Gen. xxvi. (cp. xxi. 22-34, time of Abraham), notably a
covenant with Abimelech at Beer-sheba (whence the name is
explained ``well of the oath''); (see ABRAHAM.) By a pure
error, or perhaps through a confusion in the traditions, Achish
the Philistine (of Gath, 1 Sam. xxi., xxvii.), to whom David
fled, is called Abimelech in the superscription to Psalm xxxiv.
(2) A son of Jerubbaal or Gideon (q.v.), by his Shechemite
concubine (Judges viii. 31, ix.). On the death of Gideon,
Abimelech set himself to assert the authority which his
father had earned, and through the influence of his mother's
clan won over the citizens of Shechem. Furnished with money
from the treasury of the temple of Baal-berith, he hired a
band of followers and slew seventy (cp. 2 Kings x. 7) of his
brethren at Ophrah, his father's home. This is one of the
earliest recorded instances of a practice common enough on
the accession of Oriental despots. Abimelech thus became
king, and extended his authority Over central Palestine.
But his success was short-lived, and the subsequent discord
between Abimelech and the Shechemites was regarded as a just
reward for his atrocious massacre. Jotham, the only one who
is said to have escaped, boldly appeared on Mount Gerizim
and denounced the ingratitude of the townsmen towards the
legitimate sons of the man who had saved them from Midian.
``Jotham's fable'' of the trees who desired a king may be
foreign to the context; it is a piece of popular lore, and
cannot be pressed too far: the nobler trees have no wish to
rule over others, only the bramble is self-confident. The
``fable'' appears to be antagonistic to ideas of monarchy.
The origin of the conflicts which subsequently arose is not
clear. Gaal, a new-comer, took the opportunity at the time
of the vintage, when there was a festival in tho temple, to
head a revolt and seized Shechem. Abimelech, warned by his
deputy Zebul, left his residence at Arumah and approached the
city. In a fine bit of realism we are told how Gaal observed
the approaching foe and was told by Zebul, ``You see the
shadow of the hills as men,'' and as they drew nearer Zebul's
ironical remark became a taunt, ``Where is now thy mouth?
is not this the people thou didst despise? go now and fight
them!'' This revolt, which Abimelech successfully quelled,
appears to be only an isolated episode. Another account
tells of marauding bands of Shechemites which disturbed the
district. The king disposed his men (the whole chapter is
specially interesting for the full details it gives of the
nature of ancient military operations), and after totally
destroying Shechem, proceeded against Thebez, which had also
revolted. Here, while storming the citadel, he was struck on
the head by a fragment of a millstone thrown from the wall by a
woman. To avoid the disgrace of perishing by a woman's hand,
he begged his armour-bearer to run him through the body, but
his memory was not saved from the ignominy he dreaded (2 Sam.
xi. 21). It is usual to regard Abimelech's reign as the first
attempt to establish a monarchy in Israel, but the story is
mainly that of the rivalries of a half-developed petty state,
and of the ingratitude of a community towards the descendants
of its deliverer. (See, further, JEWS, JUDGES.) (S. A. C.)
ABINGDON, a market town and municipal borough in the
Abingdon parliamentary division of Berkshire, England, 6
m. S. of Oxford, the terminus of a branch of the Great
Western railway from Radley. Pop. (1901) 6480. It lies
in the fiat valley of the Thames, on the west (right) bank,
where the small river Ock flows in from the Vale of White
Horse. The church of St Helen stands near the river, and
its fine Early English tower with Perpendicular spire is the
principal object in the pleasant views of the town from the
river. The body of the church, which has five aisles, is
principally Perpendicular. The smaller church of St Nicholas
is Perpendicular in appearance, though parts of the fabric are
older. Of a Benedictine abbey there remain a beautiful
Perpendicular gateway, and ruins of buildings called the prior's
house, mainly Early English, and the guest house, with other
fragments. The picturesque narrow-arched bridge over the Thames
near St Helen's church dates originally from 1416. There may
be mentioned further the old buildings of the grammar school,
founded in 1563, and of the charity called Christ's Hospital
(1583); while the town-hall in the marketplace, dating from
1677, is attributed to Inigo Jones. The grammar school now
occupies modern buildings, and ranks among the lesser public
schools of England, having scholarships at Pembroke College,
Oxford. St Peter's College, Radley, 2 m. from Abingdon, is
one of the principal modern public schools. It was opened in
1847. The buildings he close to the Thames, and the school is
famous for rowing, sending an eight to the regatta at Henley each
year. Abingdon has manufactures of clothing and carpets and
a large agricultural trade. The borough is under a mayor,
four aldermen and twelve councillors. Area, 730 acres.
Abingdon (Abbedun, Abendun) was famous for its abbey, which
was of great wealth and importance, and is believed to have
been founded in A.D. 675 by Cissa, one of the subreguli of
Centwin. Abundant charters from early Saxon monarchs are
extant confirming laws and privileges to the abbey, and the
earliest of these, from King Ceadwalla, was granted before
A.D. 688. in the reign of Alfred the abbey was destroyed
by the Danes, but it was restored by Edred, and an imposing
list of possessions in the Domesday survey evidences recovered
prosperity. William the Conqueror in 1084 celebrated Easter at
Abingdon, and left his son, afterwards Henry I., to be educated
at the abbey. After the dissolution in 1538 the town sank
into decay, and in 1555, on a representation of its pitiable
condition, Queen Mary granted a charter establishing a mayor,
two bailiffs, twelve chief burgesses, and sixteen secondary
burgesses, the mayor to be clerk of the market, coroner and
a Justice of the peace. The council was empowered to elect
one burgess to parliament, and this right continued until the
Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885. A town clerk and other
officers were also appointed, and the town boundaries described
in great detail. Later charters from Elizabeth, James I.,
James II., George Il. and George III. made no considerable
change. James II. changed the style of the corporation to
that of a mayor, twelve aldermen and twelve burgesses. The
abbot seems to have held a market from very early times, and
charters for the holding of markets and fairs mere granted by
various sovereigns from Edward I. to George II. In the 13th
and 14th centuries Abingdon was a flourishing agricultural
centre with an extensive trade in wool, and a famous weaving
and clothing manufacture. The latter industry declined
before the reign of Queen Mary, but has since been revived.
The present Christ's Hospital originally belonged to
the Gild of the Holy Cross, on the dissolution of which
Edward VI. founded the hospital under its present name.
See Victoria County History, Berkshire; Joseph
Stevenson, Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, A.D.
201--1189 (Rolls Series, 2 vols., London, 1858).
ABINGER, JAMES SCARLETT, 1ST BARON (1769-1844), English
judge, was born on the 13th of December 1760 in Jamaica, where
his father, Robert Scarlett, had property. In the summer of
1785 he was sent to England to complete his education, and
went to Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in
1789. Having entered the Inner Temple he was called to the
bar in 1791, and joined the northern circuit and the Lancashire
sessions. Though he had no professional connexions, by steady
application he gradually obtained a large practice, ultimately
confining himself to the Court of King's Bench and the northern
circuit. He took silk in 1816, and from this time till the
close of 1834 he was the most successful lawyer at the bar;
he was particularly effective before a jury, and his income
reached the high-water mark of L. 18,500, a large sum for that
period. He began life as a Whig, and first entered parliament in
1819 as member for Peterborough, representing that constituency
with a short break (1822-1823) till 1830, when he was elected
for the borough of Malton. He became attorney-general, and was
knighted when Canning formed his ministry in 1827; and though
he resigned when the duke of Wellington came into power in
1828, he resumed office in 1829 and went out with the duke of
Wellington in 1830. His opposition to the Reform Bill caused
his severance from the Whig leaders, and having joined the
Tories he was elected, first for Colchester and then in 1832
for Norwich, for which borough he sat until the dissolution of
parliament. He was appointed lord chief baron of the exchequer
in 1834, and presided in that court for more than nine
years. While attending the Norfolk circuit on the 2nd of
April he was suddenly seized with apoplexy, and died in his
lodgings at Bury on the 7th of April 1844. He had been raised
to the peerage as Baron Abinger in 1835, taking his title from
the Surrey estate he had bought in 1813. The qualities which
brought him success at the bar were not equally in place on
the bench; he was partial, dictatorial and vain; and complaint
was made of his domineering attitude towards juries. But his
acuteness of mind and clearness of expression remained to the
end. Lord Abinger was twice married (the second time only
six months before his death), and by his first wife (d. 1829)
had three sons and two daughters, the title passing to his
eldest son Robert (1794-1861). His second son, General Sir
James Yorke Scarlett (1799-1871), leader of the heavy cavalry
charge at Balaclava, is dealt with in a separate article; and
his elder daughter, Mary, married John, Baron Campbell, and
was herself created Baroness Stratheden (Lady Stratheden and
Campbell) (d. 1860). Sir Philip Anglin Scarlett (d. 1831),
Lord Abinger's younger brother, was chief justice of Jamaica.
See P. C. Scarlett, Memoir of Jaimes, 1st Lord Abinger (1877);
Foss's Lives of the Judges; E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904).
ABINGTON, FRANCES (1737-1815), English actress, was the
daughter of a private soldier named Barton, and was, at
first, a flower girl and a street singer. She then became
servant to a French milliner, obtaining a taste in dress
and a knowledge of French which afterwards stood her in good
stead. Her first appearance on the stage was at the Haymarket
in 1755 as Miranda in Mrs Centlivre's Busybody. In 1756, on
the recommendation of Samuel Foote, she became a member of the
Drury Lane company, where she was overshadowed by Mrs Pritchard
and Kitty Clive. In 1759, after an unhappy marriage with her
music-master, one of the royal trumpeters, she is mentioned in
the bills as Mrs Abington. Her first success was in Ireland
as Lady Townley, and it was only after five years, on the
pressing invitation of Garrick, that she returned to Drury
Lane. There she remained for eighteen years, being the
original of more than thirty important characters, notably
Lady Teazle (1777). Her Beatrice, Portia, Desdemona and
Ophelia were no less liked than her Miss Hoyden, Biddy Tipkin,
Lucy Lockit and Miss Prue. It was in the last character in
Love for Love that Reynolds painted his best portrait of
her. In 1782 she left Drury Lane for Covent Garden. After an
absence from the stage from 1790 until 1797, she reappeared,
quitting it finally in 1799. Her ambition, personal wit
and cleverness won her a distinguished position in society,
in spite of her humble origin. Women of fashion copied her
frocks, and a head-dress she wore was widely adopted and known
as the ``Abington cap.'' She died on the 4th of March 1815.
ABIOGENESIS, in biology, the term, equivalent to the older
terms ``spontaneous generation,'' Generatio acquivoca,
Generatio primaria, and of more recent terms such as
archegenesis and archebiosis, for the theory according to which
fully formed living organisms sometimes arise from not-living
matter. Aristotle explicitly taught abiogenesis, and laid it
down as an observed fact that some animals spring from putrid
matter, that plant lice arise from the dew which falls on
plants, that fleas are developed from putrid matter, and so
forth. T. J. Parker (Elementary Biology) cites a passage from
Alexander Ross, who, commenting on Sir Thomas Browne's doubt
as to ``whether mice may be bred by putrefaction,'' gives a
clear statement of the common opinion on abiogenesis held until
about two centuries ago. Ross wrote: ``So may he (Sir Thomas
Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated;
or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies,
locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like,
be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive
the form of that creature to which it is by formative power
disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and
experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and
there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of
the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.''
The first step in the scientific refutation of the theory
of abiogenesis was taken by the Italian Redi, who, in 1668,
proved that no maggots were ``bred'' in meat on which flies
were prevented by wire screens from laying their eggs.
From the 17th century onwards it was gradually shown that,
at least in the case of all the higher and readily visible
organisms, abiogenesis did not occur, but that omne vivum e
vivo, every living thing came from a pre-existing living thing.
The discovery of the microscope carried the refutation
further. In 1683 A. van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria,
and it was soon found that however carefully organic matter
might be protected by screens, or by being placed in stoppered
receptacles, putrefaction set in, and was invariably accompanied
by the appearance of myriads of bacteria and other low
organisms. As knowledge of microscopic forms of life increased,
so the apparent possibilities of abiogenesis increased, and
it became a tempting hypothesis that whilst the higher forms
of life arose only by generation from their kind, there was
a perpetual abiogenetic fount by which the first steps in the
evolution of living organisms continued to arise, under suitable
conditions, from inorganic matter. It was due chiefly to L.
Pasteur that the occurrence of abiogenesis in the microscopic
world was disproved as much as its occurrence in the macroscopic
world. If organic matter were first sterilized and then
prevented from contamination from without, putrefaction did
not occur, and the matter remained free from microbes. The
nature of sterilization, and the difficulties in securing
it, as well as the extreme delicacy of the manipulations
necessary, made it possible for a very long time to be doubtful
as to the application of the phrase omne vivum e vivo to
the microscopic world, and there still remain a few belated
supporters of abiogenesis. Subjection to the temperature of
boiling water for, say, half an hour seemed an efficient mode
of sterilization, until it was discovered that the spores of
bacteria are so involved in heat-resisting membranes, that only
prolonged exposure to dry, baking heat can be recognized as an
efficient process of sterilization. Moreover, the presence of
bacteria, or their spores, is so universal that only extreme
precautions guard against a re-infection of the sterilized
material. It may now be stated definitely that all known
living organisms arise only from pre-existing living organisms.
So far the theory of abiogenesis may be taken as disproved.
It must be noted, however, that this disproof relates only
to known existing organisms. All these are composed of a
definite substance, known as protoplasm (q.v.), and the
modern refutation of abiogenesis applies only to the organic
forms in which protoplasm now exists. It may be that in the
progress of science it may yet become possible to construct
living protoplasm from non-living material. The refutation
of abiogenesis has no further bearing on this possibility than
to make it probable that if protoplasm ultimately be formed in
the laboratory, it will be by a series of stages, the earlier
steps being the formation of some substance, or substances,
now unknown, which are not protoplasm. Such intermediate
stages may have existed in the past, and the modern refutation
of abiogenesis has no application to the possibility of
these having been formed from inorganic matter at some past
time. Perhaps the words archebiosis, or archegenesis,
should be reserved for the theory that protoplasm in the
remote past has been developed from not-living matter by a
series of steps, and many of those, notably T. H. Huxley, who
took a large share in the process of refuting contemporary
abiogenesis, have stated their belief in a primordial
archebiosis. (See BIOGENESIS and LIFE.) (P. C. M.)
ABIPONES, a tribe of South American Indians of Guaycuran
stock recently inhabiting the territory lying between Santa
Fe and St Iago. They originally occupied the Chaco district
of Paraguay, but were driven thence by the hostility of the
Spaniards. According to Martin Dobrizhoffer, a Jesuit missionary,
who, towards the end of the 18th century, lived among them
for a period of seven years, they then numbered not more than
5000. They were a well-formed, handsome people, with black
eyes and aquiline noses, thick black hair, but no beards.
The hair from the forehead to the crown of the head was pulled
out, this constituting a tribal mark. The faces, breasts and
arms of the women were covered with black figures of various
designs made with thorns, the tattooing paint being a mixture
of ashes and blood. The lips and ears of both sexes were
pierced. The men were brave fighters, their chief weapons
being the bow and spear. No child was without bow and arrows;
the bow-strings were made of foxes' entrails. In battle
the Abipones wore an armour of tapir's hide over which a
jaguar's skin was sewn. They were excellent swimmers and good
horsemen. For five months in the year when the floods were
out they lived on islands or even in shelters built in the
trees. They seldom married before the age of thirty, and were
singularly chaste. ``With the Abipones,'' says Darwin, ``when
a man chooses a wife, he bargains with the parents about the
price. But it frequently happens that the girl rescinds
what has been agreed upon between the parents and bridegroom,
obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. She often
runs away and hides herself, and thus eludes the bridegroom.''
Infanticide was systematic, never more than two children being
reared in one family, a custom doubtless originating in the
difficulty of subsistence. The young were suckled for two
years. The Abipones are now believed to be extinct as a tribe.
Martin Dobrizhoffer's Latin Historia de Abiponibus
(Vienna, 1784) was translated into English by Sara
Coleridge, at the suggestion of Southey, in 1822, under
the title of An Account of the Abipones (3 vols.).
ABITIBBI, a lake and river of Ontario, Canada. The lake,
in 49 deg. N., 80 deg. W., is 60 m. long and studded with islands.
It is shallow, and the shores in its vicinity are covered
with small timber. It was formerly employed by the Hudson's
Bay Company as part of a canoe route to the fur lands of the
north. The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway
through this district has made it of some importance. Its
outlet is Abitibbi river, a rapid stream, which after a course
of 200 m. joins the Moose river, flowing into James Bay.
ABJURATION (from Lat. abjurare, to forswear), a solemn
repudiation or renunciation on oath. At common law, it
signified the oath of a person who had taken sanctuary to
leave the realm for ever; this was abolished in the reign of
James I. The Oath at Abjuration, in English history, was
a solemn disclaimer, taken by members of parliament, clergy
and laymen against the right of the Stuarts to the crown,
imposed by laws of William III., George I. and George III.;
but its place has since been taken by the oath of allegiance.
ABKHASIA, or ABHASIA, a tract of Russian Caucasia,
government of Kutais. The Caucasus mountains on the N. and
N.E. divides it from Circassia; on the S.E. it is bounded
by Mingrelia; and on the S.W. by the Black Sea. Though the
country is generally mountainous, with dense forests of oak and
walnut, there are some deep, well-watered valleys, and the
climate is mild. The soil is fertile, producing wheat, maize,
grapes, figs, pomegranates and wine. Cattle and horses are
bred. Honey is produced; and excellent arms are made. This
country was subdued (c. 550) by the Emperor Justinian, who
introduced Christianity. Native dynasties ruled from 735 to
the 15th century, when the region was conquered by the Turks
and became Mahommedan. The Russians acquired possession
of it piecemeal between 1829 and 1842, but their power was
not firmly established until after 1864. Area, 2800 sq.
m. The principal town is Sukhum-kaleh. Pop. 43,000, of whom
two-thirds are Mingrelians and one-third Abkhasians, a Cherkess
or Circassian race. The total number of Abkhasians in the
two governments of Kutais and Kuban was 72,103 in 1897; large
numbers emigrated to the Turkish empire in 1864 and 1878.
ABLATION (from Lat. ablatus, carried away), the process of
removing anything; a term used technically in geology of the wearing
away of a rock or glacier, and in surgery for operative removal.
ABLATITIOUS (from Lat. ablatus, taken away). reducina
or withdrawing; in astronomy a force which interferes
between the moon and the earth to lessen the strength
of gravitation is called ``ablatitious,'' just as it is
called ``addititious'' when it increases that strength.
ABLATIVE (Lat. ablativus, sc. casus, from ablatum, taken
away), in grammar, a case of the noun, the fundamental sense
of which is direction from; in Latin, the principal language in
which the case exists, this has been extended, with or without
a preposition, to the instrument or agent of an act, and the
place or time at, and manner in, which a thing is done. The
case is also found in Sanskrit, Zend, Oscan and Umbrian, and
traces remain in other languages. The ``Ablative Absolute,''
a grammatical construction in Latin, consists of a noun in
the ablative case, with a participle, attribute or qualifying
word agreeing with it, not depending on any other part of the
sentence, to express the time, occasion or circumstance of a fact.
ABLUTION (Lat. ablutio, from ablucre, ``to wash off''),
a washing, in its religious use, destined to secure that
ceremonial or ritualistic purity which must not be confused
with the physical or hygienic cleanliness of persons and
things obtained by the use of soap and water.1 Indeed the
two states may contradict each other, as in the case of the
4th-century Christian pilgrim to Jerusalem who boasted that
she had not washed ner face for eighteen years for fear of
removing therefrom the holy chrism of baptism. The purport,
then, of ablutions is to remove, not dust and dirt, but the---to
us imaginary--stains contracted by contact with the dead,
with childbirth, with menstruous women, with murder whether
wilful or involuntary, with almost any form of bloodshed, with
persons of inferior caste, with dead animal refuse, e.g.
leather or excrement, with leprosy, madness and any form of
disease. Among all races in a certain grade of development
such associations are vaguely felt to be dangerous and to impair
vitality. In a later stage the taint is regarded as alive,
as a demon or evil spirit alighting on and passing into the
things and persons exposed to contamination. In general,
water, cows' urine and blood of swine are the materials used in
ablutions. Of these water is the commonest, and its efficacy
is enhanced if it be running, and still more if a magical or
sacramental virtue has been imparted to it by ritual blessing or
consecration. Some concrete examples will best illustrate the
nature of such ablutions. In the Atharva-Veda, vii. 116,
we have this allopathic remedy for fever. The patient's skin
burns, that of a frog is cold to the touch; therefore tie to
the foot of the bed a frog, bound with red and black thread,
and wash down the sick man so that the water of ablution falls
1 in its technical ecclesiastical sense the ablution is
the ritual washing of the chalice and of the priest's fingers
after the celebration of Holy Communion in the Catholic
Church. The wine and water used for this purpose are themselves
sometimes called ``the ablution.'' on the frog. Let the
medicine man or magician pray that the fever may pass into
the frog, and the frog be forthwith re-leased, and the cure
will be effected. In the old Athenian Anthesteria the blood
of victims was poured over the unclean. A bath of bulls'
blood was much in vogue as a baptism in the mysteries of
Attis. The water must in ritual washings run off in order
to carry away the miasma or unseen demon of disease; and
accordingly in baptism the early Christians used living or
running water. Nor was it enough that the person baptized
should himself enter the water; the baptizer must pour it
over his head, so that it run down his person. Similarly
the Brahman takes care, after ablution of a person, to wipe
the cathartic water off from head to feet downwards, that the
malign influence may pass out through the feet. The same care
is shown in ritual ablutions in the Bukovina and elsewhere.
Water and fire, spices and sulphur, are used in ritual
cleansings, says Iamblichus in his book on mysteries (v. 23),
as being specially full of the divine nature. Nevertheless in
all religions, and especially in the Brahmanic and Christian,
the cathartic virtue of water is enhanced by the introduction
into it by means of suitable prayers and incantations of
a divine or magical power. Ablutions both of persons and
things are usually cathartic, that is, intended to purge
away evil influences (kathairein, to make katharos,
pure). But, as Robertson Smith observes, ``holiness is
contagious, just as uncleanness is''; and common things and
persons may become taboo, that is, so holy as to be dangerous
and useless for daily life through the mere infection of
holiness. Thus in Syria one who touched a dove became taboo
for one whole day, and if a drop of blood of the Hebrew
sin-offering fell on a garment it had to be ritually washed
off. It was as necessary in the Hebrew religion for the
priest to wash his hands ofter handling the sacred volume as
before. Christians might not enter a church to say their
prayers without first washing their hands. So Chrysostom
says: ``Although our hands may be already pure, yet unless
we have washed them thoroughly, we do not spread them upwards
in prayer.'' Tertullian (c. 200) had long before condemned
this as a heathen custom; none the less, it was insisted on
in later ages, and is a survival of the pagan lustrations or
perirranteria. Sozomen (vi. 6) tells how a priest sprinkled
Julian and Valentinian with water according to the heathen custom
as they entered his temple. The same custom prevails among
Mahommedans. Porphyry (de Abst. ii. 44) relates that one
who touched a sacrifice meant to avert divine anger must bathe
and wash his clothes in running water before returning to his
city and home, and similar scruples in regard to holy objects
and persons have been observed among the natives of Polynesia,
New Zealand and ancient Egypt. The rites, met within all
lands, of pouring out water or bathing in order to produce
rain from heaven, differ in their significance from ablutions
with water and belong to the realm of sympathetic magic.
There are certain forms of purification which one does not
know whether to describe as ablutions or anointings. Thus
Demosthenes in his speech ``On the crown', accused Aeschines
of having ``purified the initiated and wiped them clean
with (not from) mud and pitch.'' Smearing with gypsum
(titanos. titanos) had a similar purifying effect,
and it has been suggested i that the Titans were no more
than old-world votaries who had so disguised themselves.
Perhaps the use of ashes in mourning had the same origin.
In the rite of death-bed penance given in the old Mozarabic
Christian ritual of Spain, ashes were poured over the sick man.
AUTHORITIES.--W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites;
Jul. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums (=Skizzen und
Verarbeiten, ritualibus (Tubingae, 1732); Art. ``Clean
and Unclean'' in Hastings' Bible Dictionary and in Jewish
Encyclopedia, vol. iv.; J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis,
Osiris (London, 1906); Joseph Bingham, Antiquities
(of the Christian Church, bk. viii.; Hermann Oldenberg,
Die Religion des Veda's, Berlin, 1894. (F. C. C.)
ABNAKI (``the whitening sky at daybreak,'' i.e. Easterners),
a confederacy of North American Indians of Algonquian stock,
1 By J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to Creek Religion, p. 493.
called Terrateens by the New England tribes and colonial
writers. It included the Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Norridgewock,
Malecite and other tribes. It formerly occupied what is now
Maine and southern New Brunswick. All the tribes were loyal
to the French during the early years of the 18th century, but
after the British success in Canada most of them withdrew to St
Francis, Canada, subsequently entering into an agreement with
the British authorities. The Abnaki now number some 1600.
For details see Handbook of American Indians,
edited by F. W. Hodge (Washington, 1907). .
ABNER (Hebrew for ``father of [or is a light''), in
the Bible, first cousin of Saul and commander-in-chief of
his army (I Sam. xiv. 50, xx. 25). He is only referred
to incidentally in Saul's history (1 Sam. xvii. 55, xxvi.
5), and is not mentioned in the account of the disastrous
battle of Gilboa when Saul's power was crushed. Seizing
the only surviving son, Ishbaal, he set him up as king over
Israel at Mahanaim, east of the Jordan. David, who was
accepted as king by Judah alone, was meanwhile reigning at
Hebron, and for some time war was carried on between the two
parties. The only engagement between the rival factions which
is told at length is noteworthy, inasmuch as it was preceded
by an encounter at Gibeon between twelve chosen men from each
side, in which the whole twenty-four seem to have perished
(2 Sam. ii. 12).i In the general engagement which followed,
Abner was defeated and put to flight. He was closely pursued
by Asahel, brother of Joab, who is said to have been ``light
of foot as a wild roe.'' As Asahel would not desist from the
pursuit, though warned, Abner was compelled to slay him in
self-defence. This originated a deadly feud between the
leaders of the opposite parties, for Joab, as next of kin to
Asahel, was by the law and custom of the country the avenger
of his blood. For some time afterwards the war was carried
on, the advantage being invariably on the side of David. At
length Ishbaal lost the main prop of his tottering cause by
remonstrating with Abner for marrying Rizpah, one of Saul's
concubines, an alliance which, according to Oriental notions,
implied pretensions to the throne (cp. 2 Sam. xvi. 21 sqq.; 1
Kings ii. 21 sqq.). Abner was indignant at the deserved rebuke,
and immediately opened negotiations with David, who welcomed
him on the condition that his wife Michal should be restored to
him. This was done, and the proceedings were ratified by a
feast. Almost immediately after, however. Joab, who had
been sent away, perhaps intentionally returned and slew
Abner at the gate of Hebron. The ostensible motive for the
assassination was a desire to avenge Asahel, and this would
be a sufficient justification for the deed according to the
moral standard of the time. The conduct of David after the
event was such as to show that he had no complicity in the
act, though he could not venture to punish its perpetrators
(2 Sam. iii. 31-39; cp. 1 Kings ii. 31 seq.). (See DAVID.)
1 The object of the story of the encounter is to explain the name
Helkath-hazzurim, the meaning of which is doubtful (Ency. Bib. col.
2006; Batten in Zeit. f. alt-test. Wissens. 1906, pp. 90 sqq.).
ABO (Finnish Turku), a city and seaport, the capital
of the province of Abo-Bjorneborg, in the grand duchy of
Finland, on the Aura-joki, about 3 m. from where it falls
into the gulf of Bothnia. Pop. (1810) 10,224; (1870) 19,617;
(1904) 42,639. It is 381 m. by rail from St Petersburg
via Tavastehus, and is in regular steamer communication
with St Petersburg, Vasa, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Hull.
It was already a place of importance when Finland formed
part of the kingdom of Sweden. When the Estates of Finland
seceded from Sweden and accepted the Emperor Alexander of
Russia as their grand duke at the Diet of Borga in 1809,
Abo became the capital of the new state, and so remained
till 1819 when the seat of government was transferred to
Helsingfors. In November 1827 nearly the whole city was burnt
down, the university and its valuable library being entirely
destroyed. Before this calamity Abo contained 1110 houses
and 13,000 inhabitants; and its university had 40 professors,
more than 500 students, and a library of upwards of 30,000
volumes, together with a botanical garden, an observatory and
a chemical laboratory. The university has since been removed
to Helsingfors. Abo remains the ecclesiastical capital of
Finland, is the seat of the Lutheran archbishop and contains a
fine cathedral dating from 1258 and restored after the fire of
1827. The cathedral is dedicated to St Henry, the patron saint
of Finland, an English missionary who introduced Christianity
into the country in the 12th century. Abo is the seat of the
first of the three courts of appeal of Finland. It has two high
schools, a school of commerce and a school of navigation. The
city is second only to Helsingfors for its trade; sail-cloth,
cotton and tobacco are manufactured, and there are extensive
saw-mills. There is also a large trade in timber and a
considerable butter export. Ship-building has considerably
developed, torpedo-boats being built here for the Russian
navy. Vessels drawing 9 or 10 feet come up to the town,
but ships of greater draught are laden and discharged at its
harbour (Bornholm, on Hyrvinsala Island), which is entered
yearly by from 700 to 800 ships, of about 200,000 tons.
ABO-BJORNEBORG, a province occupying the S.W. corner of
Finland and including the Aland islands. It has a total
area of 24,171 square kilometres and a population (1900) of
447,098, of whom 379,622 spoke Finnish and 67,260 Swedish;
446,900 were of the Lutheran religion. The province occupies
a prominent position in Finland for its manufacture of cottons,
sugar refinery, wooden goods, metals, machinery, paper, &c.
Its chief towns are: Abo (pop. 42,639), Bjorneborg (16,053),
Raumo (5501), Nystad (4165), Mariehamn (1171), Nadendal (917).
ABODE (from ``abide,'' to dwell, properly ``to wait for'', to
bide), generally, a dwelling. In English law this term has a
more restricted meaning than domicile, being used to indicate
the place of a man's residence or business, whether that be
either temporary or permanent. The law may regard for certain
purposes, as a man's abode, the place where he carries on
business, though he may reside elsewhere) so that the term
has come to have a looser significance than residence,
which has been defined as ``where a man lives with his family
and sleeps at night'' (R. v. Hammond, 1852, 17 Q.B.
772). In serving a notice of action, a solicitor's place of
business may be given as his abode (Roberts v. Williams,
1835, 5 L.J.M.C. 23), and in more recent decisions it
has been similarly held that where a notice was required
to be served under the Public Health Act 18l5, either
personally or to some inmate of the owner's or occupier's
``place of abode,'' a place of business was sufficient.
ABOMASUM (caillette), the fourth or rennet stomach of
Ruminantia. From the omasum the food is finally deposited
in the abomasum, a cavity considerably larger than either the
second or third stomach, although less than the first. The base
of the abomasum is turned to the omasum. It is of an irregular
conical form. It is that part of the digestive apparatus
which is analogous to the single stomach of other Mammalia, as
the food there undergoes the process of chymification, after
being macerated and ground down in the three first stomachs.
ABOMEY, capital of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, West
Africa, now included in the French colony of the same name.
It is 70 m. N. by rail of the seaport of Kotonu, and has
a population of about 15,000. Abomey is built on a rolling
plain, 800 ft. above sea-level, terminating in short bluffs to
the N.W., where it is bounded by a long depression. The town
was surrounded by a mud wall, pierced by six gates, and was
further protected by a ditch 5 ft. deep, filled with a dense
growth of prickly acacia, the usual defence of West African
strongholds. Within the walls, which had a circumference of
six miles, were villages separated by fields, several royal
palaces, a market-place and a large square containing the
barracks. In November 1892, Behanzin, the king of Dahomey,
being defeated by the French, set fire to Abomey and fled
northward. Under French administration the town has been
rebuilt, placed (1905) in railway communication with the coast,
and given an ample water supply by the sinking of artesian wells.
ABOMINATION (from Lat. ab, from, and ominare, to forebode),
anything contrary to omen, and therefore regarded with aversion;
a word used often in the Bible to denote evil doctrines
or ceremonial practices which were impure. An incorrect
derivation was ab homine (i.e. inhuman), and the spelling of the
adjective ``abominable'' in the first Shakespeare folio is always
``abhominable.'' Colloquially ``abomination'' and ``abominable''
are used to mean simply excessive in a disagreeable sense.
ABOR HILLS, a tract of country on the north-east frontier of
India, occupied by an independent tribe called the Abors. It
lies north of Lakhimpur district, in the province of eastern
Bengal and Assam, and is bounded on the east by the Mishmi Hills
and on the west by the Miri Hills, the villages of the tribe
extending to the Dibong river. The term Abor is an Assamese
word, signifying ``barbarous'' or ``independent,'' and is applied
in a general sense by the Assamese to many frontier tribes;
but in its restricted sense it is specially given to the above
tract. The Abors, together with the cognate tribes of Miris,
Daphlas and Akas, are supposed to be descended from a Tibetan
stock. They are a quarrelsome and sulky race, violently divided
in their political relations. In former times they committed
frequent raids upon the plains of Assam, and have been the
object of more than one retaliatory expedition by the British
government. In 1893-94 occurred the first Bor Abor expedition.
home military police sepoys were murdered in British territory,
and a force of 600 troops was sent, who traversed the Abor
country, and destroyed the villages concerned in the murder
and all other villages that opposed the expedition. A second
expedition became necessary later on, two small patrols having
been treacherously murdered; and a force of 100 British troops
traversed the border of the Abor country and punished the tribes,
while a blockade was continued against them from 1894 to 1900.
See Colonel Dalton's Ethnology of Bengal, 1872.
ABORIGINES,
a mythical people of central Italy, connected in legendary
history with Aeneas, Latinus and Evander. They were supposed
to have descended from their mountain home near Reate (an
ancient Sabine town) upon Latium, whence they expelled the
Siceli and subsequently settled down as Latini under a King
Latinus (Dion Halic. i. 9. 60). The most generally accepted
etymology of the name (ab origine), according to which they
were the original inhabitants ( = Gk. autochthones) of the
country, is inconsistent with the fact that the oldest authorities
(e.g. Cato in his Origines) regarded them as Hellenic
immigrants, not as a native Italian people. Other explanations
suggested are arborigines, ``tree-born,'' and aberrigines,
``nomads.'' Historical and ethnographical discussions have
led to no result; the most that can be said is that, if not
a general term, ``aborigines'' may be the name of an Italian
stock, about whom the ancients knew no more than ourselves`
In modern times the term ``Aborigines'' has been extended in
signification, and is used to indicate the inhabitants found in a
country at its first discovery, in contradistinction to colonies or
new races, the time of whose introduction into the country is known.
The Aborigines' Protection Society was founded in 1838 in
England as the result of a royal commission appointed at
the instance of Sir T. Fowell Buxton to inquire into the
treatment of the indigenous populations of the various British
colonies. The inquiry revealed the gross cruelty and injustice
with which the natives had been often treated. Since its
foundation the society has done much to make English colonization
a synonym for humane and generous treatment of savage races.
ABORTION (from Lat. aboriri, to fail to be born, or perish),
in obstetrics, the premature separation and expulsion of the
contents of the pregnant uterus. It is a common terminology to
call premature labour of an accidental type a ``miscarriage,',
in order to distinguish ``abortion', as a deliberately induced
act, whether as a medical necessity by the accoucheur, or as
a criminal proceeding (see MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE); otherwise
the term ``abortion'' would ordinarily be used when occurring
before the eighth month of gestation, and ``premature labour''
subsequently. As an accident of pregnancy, it is far fram
uncommon, although its relative frequency'' as compared
with that of completed gestation, has been very differently
estimated by accoucheurs. It is more liable to occur in
the earlier than in the later months of pregnancy, and
it would also appear to occur more readily at the periods
corresponding to those of the menstrual discharge. It may
be induced by numerous causes, both of a local and general
nature. Malformations of the pelvis, accidental injuries
and the diseases and displacements to which the uterus is
liable, on the one hand; and, on the other, various morbid
conditions of the ovum or placenta leading to the death of
the foetus, are among the direct local causes. The general
causes embrace certain states of the system which are apt to
exercise a more or less direct influence upon the progress of
utero-gestation. The tendency to recurrence in persons who
have previously miscarried is well known, and should ever
be borne in mind with the view of avoiding any cause likely
to lead to a repetition of the accident. Abortion resembles
ordinary labour in its general phenomena, excepting that in
the former hemorrhage often to a large extent forms one of
the leading symptoms. The treatment embraces the means to
be used by rest, astringents and sedatives, to prevent the
occurrence when it merely threatens; or when, on the contrary,
it is inevitable, to accomplish as speedily as possible
the complete removal of the entire contents of the uterus.
Among primitive savage races abortion is practised to a
far less extent than infanticide (q.v.), which offers a
simpler way of getting rid of inconvenient progeny. But it
is common among the American Indians, as well as in China,
Cambodia and India, although throughout Asia it is generally
contrary both to law and religion. How far it was considered
a crime among the civilized nations of antiquity has long been
debated. Those who maintain the impunity of the practice rely
for their authority upon certain passages in the classical
authors, which, while bitterly lamenting the frequency of this
enormity, yet never allude to any laws by which it might be
suppressed. For example, in one of Plato's dialogues
(Theaet.), Socrates is made to speak of artificial
abortion as a practice, not only common but allowable;
and Plato himself authorizes it in his Republic (lib.
v.). Aristotle (Polit. 222hb. vii. c. 17) gives it as his
opinion that no child ought to be suffered to come into the
world, the mother being above forty or the father above
fifty-five years of age. Lysias maintained, in one of his
pleadings quoted by Harpocration, that forced abortion could
not be considered homicide, because a child in utero was
not an animal, and had no separate existence. Among the
Romans, Ovid (Amor. hb. ii.), Juvenal (Sat. vi. 594) and
Seneca Consol. ad Hel. 16) mention the frequency of the
offence, but maintain silence as to any laws for punishing
it. On the other hand, it is argued that the authority of
Galen and Cicero (pro Cluentio) place it beyond a doubt
that, so far from being allowed to pass with impunity, the
offence in question was sometimes punished by death; that the
authority of Lysias is of doubtful authenticity; and that the
speculative reasonings of Plato and Aristotle, in matters of
legislation, ought not to be confounded with the actual state
of the laws. Moreover, Stobaeus (Serm. 73) has preserved
a passage from Musonius, in which that philosopher expressly
states that the ancient law-givers inflicted punishments on
females who caused themselves to abort. After the spread of
Christianity among the Romans, however, foeticide became equally
criminal with the murder of an adult, and the barbarian hordes
which afterwards overran the empire also treated the offence
as a crime punishable Fith death. This severe penalty remained
in force in all the countries of Europe until the Middle
Ages. With the gradual disuse of the old barbarous punishments
so universal in medieval times came also a reversal of opinion as
to the magnitude of the crime involved in killing a child not yet
born. But the exact period of transition is not clearly marked.
In England the Anglo-Saxons seem to have regarded abortion only
as an ecclesiastical offence. Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676)
tells us that if anything is done to ``a woman quick or great
with child, to make an abortion, or whereby the child within
her is killed, it is not murder or manslaughter by the law
of England, because it is not yet in rerum natura.'' But
the common law appears, nevertheless, to have treated as a
misdemeanour any attempt to effect the destruction of such an
infant, though unsuccessful. Blackstone (1723-1780), to be
sure, a hundred years later, says that, ``if a woman is quick
with child, and by poison or otherwise killeth it in her
womb, or if any one beat her, whereby the child dieth in her
body, and she is delivered of a dead child, this, though not
murder, was, by the ancient law, homicide or manslaughter.''
Whatever may have been the exact view taken by the common
law, the offence was made statutory by an act of 1803, making
the attempt to cause the miscarriage of a woman, not being, or
not being proved, to be quick with child, a felony, punishable
with fine, imprisonment, whipping or transportation for any
term not exceeding fourteen years. Should the woman have
proved to have quickened, the attempt was punishable with
death. The provisions of this statute were re-enacted in
1828. The English law on the subject is now governed by
the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which makes the
attempting to cause miscarriage by administering poison or
other noxious thing, or unlawfully using any instrument equally
a felony, whether the woman be, or be not, with child. No
distinction is now made as to whether the foetus is or is not
alive, legislation appearing to make the offence statutory
with the object of prohibiting any risk to the life of the
mother. If a woman administers to herself any poison or
other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or
other means to procure her own miscarriage, she is guilty of
felony. The punishment for the offence is penal servitude
for life or not less than three years, or imprisonment
for not more than two years. If a child is born alive,
but in consequence of its premature birth, or of the means
employed, afterwards dies, the offence is murder; the
general law as to accessories applies to the offence.
In all the countries of Europe the causing of abortion is now
punishable with more or less lengthy terms of imprisonment.
Indeed, the tendency in continental Europe is to regard the
abortion as a crime against the unborn child, and several
codes (notably that of the German Empire) expressly recognize
the life of the foetus, while others make the penalty more
severe if abortion has been caused in the later stages of
pregnancy, or if the woman is married. According to the weight
of authority in the United States abortion was not regarded
as a punishable offence at common law, if the abortion was
produced with the consent of the mother prior to the time
when she became quick with child; but the Supreme Courts of
Pennsylvania and North Carolina held it a crime at common
law, which might be committed as soon as gestation had begun
(Mills v. Com. 13 Pa. St. 630; State v. Slagle, 83
N.C. 630). The attempt is a punishable offence in several
states, but not in Ohio. Nor was it ever murder at common
law to take the life of the child at any period of gestation,
even in the very act of delivery (Mitchell v. Com. 78 Ky.
204). If the death of the woman results it is murder at
common law (Com. v. Parker, 9 Met. [Mass.] 263). It is
now a statutory offence in all states of the Union, but the
woman must be actually pregnant. In most states not only is
the person who causes the abortion punishable, but also any
one who supplies any drug or instrument for the purpose. The
woman, however, is not an accomplice (except by statute as in
Ohio, State v. M`Coy, 39 N.E. 316), nor is she guilty
of any crime unless by statute as in New York (Penal Code,
sec. 295) and California (Penal Code, sec. 275) and Connecticut
(Gen. Stats. 1902, sec. 1156). She may be a witness, and her
testimony does not need corroboration. The attempt is also a
crime in New York (1905, People v. Conrad, 102 App. D. 566).
AUTHORITIES.---Ploncouet, Commentarius Medicus in processus
criminales super homicidie et infanticidio, &c. (1736);
Burao Ryan, Infanticide, its Law, Prevalence, Prevention
and History (1862); G. Greaves, Observations on the Laws
referring to Child-Murder and Criminal Abortion (1864);
Storer and Heard, Criminal Abortion, its Nature, Evidence
and Law (Boston, 1868); J. Cave Browne, Infanticide, its
Origin, Progress and Suppression (1857); T. R. Beck, Medical
Jurisprudence (1842); A. S. Taylor, Principles and Practice
of Medical Jurisprudence (1894); Sir J. Stephen, History
of the Criminal Law of England (1883); Sir W. O. Russell,
Crimes and Misdemeanours (3 vols., 1896); Archbold's
Pleading and Evidence in Criminal:Cases (1900); Roscoe's
Evidence in Criminall Cases (1898) Treub, van Oppenraag and
Vlaming, The Right to Life of the Unborn Child (New
York, 1903); L. Hochheimer, Crimes and Criminal Procedure
(York, 1897); A. A. Tardieu, Etude medico-legal sur
l'avortement (Paris, 1904); F. Berolzheimer, System der
Rechts- und Wissenschaftsphilosophie (Munich, 1904).
ABOUKIR, a village on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, 14 1/2
m. N.E. of Alexandria by rail, containing a castle used
as a state prison by Mehemet Ali. Near the village are
many remains of ancient buildings, Egyptian, Greek and
Roman. About 2 m. S.E. of the village are ruins supposed to
mark the site of Canopus. A little farther east the Canopic
branch of the Nile (now dry) entered the Mediterranean.
Stretching eastward as far as the Rosetta mouth of the
Nile is the spacious bay of Aboukir, where on the 1st of
August 1798 Nelson fought the battle of the Nile, often
referred to as the battle of Aboukir. The latter title is
applied more properly to an engagement between the French
expeditionary army and the Turks fought on the 25th of July
1799. Near Aboukir, on the 8th of March 1801, the British
army commanded by Sir R. Abercromby landed from its transports
in the face of a strenuous opposition from a French force
entrenched on the beach. (See FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS.)
ABOUT, EDMOND FRANCOIS VALENTIN (1828-1885), French novelist,
publicist and journalist, was born on the 14th of February
1828, at Dieuze, in Lorraine. The boy's school career was
brilliant. In 1848 he entered the Ecole Normale, taking the
second place in the annual competition for admission, Taine being
first. Among his college contemporaries were Taine, Francisque,
Sarcey, Challemel-Lacour and the ill-starred Prevost-Paradol.
Of them all About was, according to Sarcey, the most highly
vitalized, exuberant, brilliant and ``undisciplined.'' At
the end of his college career he joined the French school in
Athens, but if we may believe his own account, it had never
been his intention to follow the professorial career, for
which the Ecole Normale was a preparation, and in 1853 he
returned to France and frankly gave himself to literature and
journalism. A book on Greece, La Grece contemporaine (1855),
which did not spare Greek susceptibilities, had an immediate
success. In Tolla (1855) About was charged with drawing too
freely on an earlier Italian novel, Vittoria Savelii (Paris,
1841). This caused a strong prejudice against him, and he
was the object of numerous attacks, to which he was ready
enough to retaliate. The Lettres d'un bon jeune homme,
written to the Figaro under the signature of Valentin de
Quevilly, provoked more animosities. During the next few
years, with indefatigable energy, and generally with full
public recognition, he wrote novels, stories, a play---which
failed,---a book-pamphlet on the Roman question, many
pamphlets on other subjects of the day, newspaper articles
innumerable, some art criticisms, rejoinders to the attacks
of his enemies, and popular manuals of political economy, L'A
B C du travailleur (1868), Le progres (1864). About's
attitude towards the empire was that of a candid friend. He
believed in its improvability, greeted the liberal ministry
of Emile Ollivier at the beginning of 1870 with delight and
welcomed the Franco-German War. That day of enthusiasm had a
terrible morrow. For his own personal part he lost the loved
home near Saverne in Alsace, which he had purchased in 1858
out of the fruits of his earlier literary successes. With
the fall of the empire he became a republican, and, always an
inveterate anti-clerical, he threw himself with ardour into
the battle against the conservative reaction which made head
during the first years of the republic. From 1872 onwards
for some five or six years his paper, the XIXe Siecle,
of which he was the heart and soul, became a power in the
land. But the republicans never quite forgave the tardiness
of his conversion, and no place rewarded his later zeal. On
the 23rd January 1884 he was elected a member of the French
Academy, but died on the 16th of January 1885, before taking his
seat. His journalism---of which specimens in his earlier
and later manners will be found in the two series of Lettres
d'un bon jeune homme a sa cousine Madeleine (1861 and
1863), and the posthumous Collection, Le dix-neuvieme
siecle (1892)---was of its nature ephemeral. So were
the pamphlets, great and small. His political economy
was that of an orthodox popularizer, and in no sense epoch.
making. His dramas are negligible. His more serious novels,
Madelon (1863), L'infame (1867), the three that form the
trilogy of the Vieille Roche (1866), and Le roman d'un
brave homme (1880)---a kind of counterblast to the view of
the French workman presented in Zola's Assommoir---contain
striking and amusing scenes, no doubt, but scenes which are
often suggestive of the stage, while description, dissertation,
explanation too frequently take the place of life. His best
work after all is to be found in the books that are almost
wholly farcical, Le nez d'un notaire (1862); Le roi des
montagnes (1856); L'homme a l'oreille cassee (1862);
Trente et quarante (1858); Le cas de M. Guerin (1862).
Here his most genuine wit, his sprightliness, his vivacity,
the fancy that was in him, have free play. ``You will never
be more than a little Voltaire,'' said one of his masters when
he was a lad at school. It was a true prophecy. (F. T. M.)
ABRABANEL, ISAAC, called also ABRAVANEL, ABARBANEL
(1437-1508), Jewish statesman, philosopher, theologian and
commentator, was born at Lisbon of an ancient family which
claimed descent from the royal house of David. Like many of
the Spanish Jews he united scholarly tastes with political
ability He held a high place in the favour of King Alphonso
V., who entrusted him with the management of important state
affairs. On the death of Alphonso in 1481, his counsellors
and favourites were harshly treated by his successor John,
and Abrabanel was compelled to flee to Spain, where he held
for eight years (14841492) the post of a minister of state
under Ferdinand and Isabella. When the Jews were banished
from Spain in 1492, no exception was made in Abrabanel's
favour. He afterwards resided at Naples, Corfu and Monopoli,
and in 1503 removed to Venice, where he held office as a
minister of state till his death in 1508. His repute as
a commentator on the Scriptures is still high; in the 17th
and 18th centuries he was much read by Christians such as
Buxtorf. Abrabanel often quotes Christian authorities,
though he opposed Christian exegesis of Messianic passages.
He was one of the first to see that for Biblical exegesis it
was necessary to reconstruct the social environment of olden
times, and he skilfully applied his practical knowledge of
statecraft to the elucidation of the books of Samuel and Kings.
ABRACADABRA, a word analogous to Abraxas (q.v.), used as
a magical formula by the Gnostics of the sect of Basilides
in invoking the aid of beneficent spirits against disease and
misfortune. It is found on Abraxas stones which were worn as
amulets. Subsequently its use spread beyond the Gnostics,
and in modern times it is applied contemptuously (e g. by
the early opponents of the evolution theory) to a conception
or hypothesis which purports to be a simple solution of
apparently insoluble phenomena. The Gnostic physician Serenus
Sammonicus gave precise instructions as to its mystical use
in averting or curing agues and fevers generally. The paper
on which the word was written had to be folded in the form
of a cross, suspended from the neck by a strip of linen so
as to rest on the pit of the stomach, worn in this way for
nine days, and then, before sunrise, cast behind the wearer
into a stream running to the east. The letters were usually
arranged as a triangle in one of the following ways:--
ABRACADABRA ABRACADABRA
ABRACADABR BRACADABR
ABRACADAB RACADAB
ABRACADA ACADA
ABRACAD CAD
ABRACA A
ABRAC
ABRA
ABR.
AB
A
ABRAHAM, or ABRAM (Hebrew for ``father is high''), the
ancestor of the Israelites, the first of the great Biblical
patriarchs. His life as narrated in the book of Genesis
reflects the traditions of different ages. It is the latest
writer (P) who mentions Abram (the original form of the name),
Nahor and Haran, sons of Terah, at the close of a genealogy
of the sons of Shem, which includes among its members Eber
the eponym of the Hebrews. Terah is said to have come from
Ur of the Chaldees, usually identified with Mukayyar in south
Babylonia. He migrated to Haran1 in Mesopotamia, apparently
the classical Carrhae, on a branch of the Habor. Thence,
after a short stay, Abram with his wife Sarai, and Lot
the son of Haran, and all their followers, departed for
Canaan. The oldest tradition does not know of this twofold
move, and seems to locate Abram's birthplace and the homes
of his kindred at Haran (Gen. xxiv. 4, 7, xxvii. 43). At
the divine command, and encouraged by the promise that Yahweh
would make of him, although hitherto childless, a great
nation, he journeyed down to Shechem, and at the sacred tree
(cf. xxxv. 4, Josh. xxiv. 26, Judg. ix. 6) received a new
promise that the land would be given unto his seed. Having
built an altar to commemorate the theophany, he removed to a
spot between Bethel and Ai, where he built another altar and
called upon (i.e. invoked) the name of Yahweh (Gen. xii.
1-9). Here he dwelt for some time, until strife arose between
his herdsmen and those of Lot. Abram thereupon proposed to Lot
that they should separate, and allowed his nephew the first
choice. Lot preferred the fertile land lying east of the
Jordan, whilst Abram, after receiving another promise from
Yahweh, moved down to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron and built an
altar. In the subsequent history of Lot and the destruction
of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abram appears prominently in a
fine passage where he intercedes with Yahweh on behalf of
Sodom, and is promised that if ten righteous men can be
found therein the city shall be preserved (xviii. 16-33).
A peculiar passage, more valuable for the light it throws upon
primitive ideas than for its contribution to the history of
Abram, narrates the patriarch's visit to Egypt. Driven by a
famine to take refuge in Egypt (cf. xxvi. 11 xli. 57, xlii.
1), he feared lest his wife's beauty should arouse the evil
designs of the Egyptians and thus endanger his own safety,
and alleged that Sarai was his sister. This did not save
her from the Pharaoh, who took her into the royal harem and
enriched Abram with herds and servants. But when Yahweh
``plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues'' suspicion
was aroused, and the Pharaoh rebuked the patriarch for his
deceit and sent him away under an escort (xii. 10-xiii.
1). This story of Abram and his increased wealth (xiii. 2)
receives no comment at the hands of the narrator, and in its
present position would make Sarai over sixty years of age
(xii. 4, xvii. 1, 17). A similar experience is said to have
happened to Abraham and Sarah at Gerar with the Philistine
king Abimelech (xx. E), but the tone of the narrative is
noticeably more advanced, and the presents which the patriarch
receives are compensation for the king's offence. Here,
however, Sarah has reached her ninetieth year (xvii. 17).
(The dates are due to the post-exilic framework in which
the stories are inserted.) Still another episode of the same
nature is re-corded of Isaac and Rebekah at Gerar, also with
Abimelech. Ethically it is the loftiest, and Isaac obtains
his wealth simply through his successful farming. Arising out
of the incident is an account of a covenant between Abimelech
and Isaac (xxvi. 16-33, J), a duplicate of which is placed in
the time of Abraham (xxi. 22-34, J and E). Beersheba, which
figures in both, is celebrated by the planting of a sacred
tree and (like Bethel) by the invocation of the name of
Yahweh. This district is the scene of the birth of Ishmael
and Isaac. As Sarai was barren (cf. xi. 30)2 the promise
that his seed should possess the land seemed incapable of
fulfilment. According to one rather obscure narrative,
Abram's sole heir was the servant, who was over his household,
apparently a certain Eliezer of Damascus3 (xv. 2, the text is
corrupt). He is now promised as heir one of his own flesh,
and a remarkable and solemn passage records bow the promise
was ratified by a covenant. The description is particularly
noteworthy for the sudden appearance of birds of prey,
which attempted to carry off the victims of the sacrificial
covenant. The interpretation of the evil omen is explained
by an allusion to the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt
and their return in the fourth generation (xv. 16; contrast
v. 13, after four hundred years; the chapter is extremely
intricate and has the appearance of being of secondary
origin). The main narrative now relates how Sarai, in
accordance with custom, gave to Abram her Egyptian handmaid
Hagar, who, when she found she was with child, presumed upon
her position to the extent that Sarai, unable to endure the
reproach of barrenness (cf. the story of Hannah, 1 Sam. i.
6), dealt harshly with her and forced her to flee (xvi.
1-14, J; on the details see ISHMAEL.) Another tradition
places the expulsion of Hagar after the birth of Isaac.
It was thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael, according
to the latest narratives, that God appeared unto Abram with
a renewed promise that his posterity should inhabit the
land. To mark the solemnity of the occasion, the patriarch's
name was changed to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah.4
A covenant was concluded with him for all time, and as a sign
thereof the rite of circumcision was instituted (xvii. P).
The promise of a son to Sarah made Abraham ``laugh'', a punning
allusion to the name Isaac (q.v.) which appears again in other
forms. Thus, it is Sarah herself who ``laughs'' at the
idea, when Yahweh appears to Abraham at Mamre (xviii. 1-15,
J), or who, when the child is horn cries ``God hath made
me laugh; every one that heareth will laugh at me'' (xxi.
6, E). Finally, there is yet another story which attributes
the flight of Hagar and Ishmael to Sarah's jealousy at the
sight of Ishmael's ``mocking'' (rather dancing or playing, the
intensive form of the verb ``to laugh'') on the feast day when
Isaac was weaned (xxi. 8 sqq.). But this last story is clearly
out of place, since a child who was then fourteen years old
(cf. xvii. 24, xxi. 5) could scarcely be described as a weak
babe who had to be carried (xxi. 14; see the commentaries).
Abraham was now commanded by God to offer up Isaac in the land of
Moriah. Proceeding to obey, he was prevented by an angel as
he was about to sacrifice his son, and slew a ram which he
found on the spot. As a reward for his obedience he received
another promise of a numerous seed and abundant prosperity
(xxii. E). Thence he returned to Beersheba. The story is
one of the few told by E, and significantly teaches that human
sacrifice was not required by the Almighty (cf. Mic. vi. 7
seq.). The interest of the narrative now extends to Isaac
alone. To his ``only son'' (cp. xxii. 2, 12) Abraham gave
all he had, and dismissed the sons of his concubines to the
lands outside Palestine; they were thus regarded as less
intimately related to Isaac and his descendants (xxv. 1-4,
6). The measures taken by the patriarch for the marriage
of Isaac are circumstantially described. His head-servant
was sent to his master's country and kindred to find a
suitable bride, and the necessary preparation for the story
is contained in the description of Nahor's family (xxii.
20-24). The picturesque account of the meeting with Rebekah
throws interesting light on oriental custom. Marriage with
one's own folk (cf. Gen. xxvii. 46, xxix. 19; Judg. xiv. 3),
and especially with a cousin, is recommended now even as in the
past. For its charm the story is comparable with the account
of Jacob's experiences in the same land (xxix.). For the
completion of the history of Abraham the compiler of Genesis
has used P's narrative. Sarah is said to have died at a good
old age, and was buried in the cave of Machpelah near Hebron,
which the patriarch had purchased, with the adjoining field,
from Ephron the Hittite (xxiii.); and here he himself was
buried. Centuries later the tomb became a place of pilgrimage
and the traditional site is marked by a fine mosque.5
The story of Abraham is of greater value for the study of
Old Testament theology than for the history of Israel. He
became to the Hebrews the embodiment of their ideals, and
stood at their head as the founder of the nation, the one to
whom Yahweh had manifested his love by frequent promises and
covenants. From the time when he was bidden to leave his
country to enter the unknown land, Yahweh was ever present to
encourage him to trust in the future when his posterity should
possess the land, and so, in its bitterest hours, Israel could
turn for consolation to the promises of the past which enshrined
in Abraham its hopes for the future. Not only is Abraham the
founder of religion, but he, of all the patriarchal figures,
stands out most prominently as the recipient of the promises
(xii. 2 seq. 7, xiii. 14-17, xv., xvii., xviii. 17-19, xxii.
17 seq.; cf. xxiv. 7), and these the apostle Paul associates
with the coming of Christ, and, adopting a characteristic
and artificial style of interpretation prevalent in his time,
endeavours to force a Messianic interpretation out of them.6
For the history of the Hebrews the life of Abraham is of the
same value as other stories of traditional ancestors. The
narratives, viewed dispassionately, represent him as an
idealized sheikh (with one important exception, Gen. xiv.,
see below), about whose person a number of stories have
gathered. As the father of Isaac and Ishmael, he is ultimately
the common ancestor of the Israelites and their nomadic
fierce neighbours, men roving unrestrainedly like the wild
ass, troubled by and troubling every one (xvi. 12). As the
father of Midian, Sheba and other Arabian tribes (xxv. 1-4),
it is evident that some degree of kinship was felt by the
Hebrews with the dwellers of the more distant south, and
it is characteristic of the genealogies that the mothers
(Sarah, Hagar and Keturah) are in the descending scale as
regards purity of blood. This great ancestral figure came,
it was said, from Ur in Babylonia and Haran and thence to
Canaan. Late tradition supposed that the migration was
to escape Babylonian idolatry (Judith v., Jubilees xii.;
cf. Josh. xxiv. 2), and knew of Abraham's miraculous escape
from death (an obscure reference to some act of deliverance
in Is. xxix. 22). The route along the banks of the Euphrates
from south to north was so frequently taken by migrating
tribes that the tradition has nothing improbable in itself,
but the prominence given in the older narratives to the view
that Haran was the home gives this the preference. It was
thence that Jacob, the father of the tribes of Israel, came
and the route to Shechem and Bethel is precisely the same in
both. A twofold migration is doubtful, and, from what is
known of the situation in Palestine in the 15th century
B.C., is extremely improbable. Further, there is yet
another parallel in the story of the conquest by Joshua
(q.v.), partly implied and partly actually detailed (cf.
also Josh. viii. 9 with Gen. xii. 8, xiii. 3), whence it would
appear that too much importance must not be laid upon any
ethnological interpretation which fails to account for the three
versions. That similar traditional elements have influenced
them is not unlikely; but to recover the true historical
foundation is difficult. The invasion or immigration of
certain tribes from the east of the Jordan; the presence
of Aramaean blood among the Israelites (see JACOB); the
origin of the sanctity of venerable sites,---these and other
considerations may readily be found to account .for the
traditions. Noteworthy coincidences in the lives of Abraham
and Isaac, noticed above, point to the fluctuating state of
traditions in the oral stage, or suggest that Abraham's life
has been built up by borrowing from the common stock of popular
lore.7 More original is the parting of Lot and Abraham at
Bethel. The district was the scene of contests between
Moab and the Hebrews (cf. perhaps Judg. iii.), and if this
explains part of the story, the physical configuration of
the Dead Sea may have led to the legend of the destruction of
inhospitable and vicious cities (see SODOM AND GOMORRAH.)
Different writers have regarded the life of Abraham differently.
He has been viewed as a chieftain of the Amorites (q.v.),
as the head of a great Semitic migration from Mesopotamia;
or, since Ur and Haran were seats of Moon-worship, he has
been identified with a moon-god. From the character of
the literary evidence and the locale of the stories it
has been held that Abraham was originally associated with
Hebron. The double name AbramAbraham has even suggested
that two personages have been combined in the Biblical
narrative; although this does not explain the change from
Sarai to Sarah.8 But it is important to remember that the
narratives are not contemporary, and that the interesting
discovery of the name Abi-ramu (Abram) on Babylonian contracts
of about 2000 B.C. does not prove the Abram of the Old
Testament to be an historical person, even as the fact that
there were ``Amorites'' in Babylonia at the same period
does not make it certain that the patriarch was one of their
number. One remarkable chapter associates Abraham with
kings of Elam and the east (Gen. xiv.). No longer a peaceful
sheikh but a warrior with a small army of 318 followers,9
he overthrows a combination of powerful monarchs who have
ravaged the land. The genuineness of the narrative has been
strenuously maintained, although upon insufficient grounds.
``It is generally recognized that this chapter holds quite
an isolated place in the Pentateuchal history; it is the
only passage which presents Abraham in the character of a
warrior, and connects him with historical names and political
movements, and there are no clear marks by which it can be
assigned to any one of the documents of which Genesis is made
up. Thus, while one school of interpreters finds in the chapter
the earliest fragment of the political history of western Asia,
some even holding with Ewald that the narrative is probably
based on old Canaanite records, other critics, as Noldeke,
regard the whole as unhistorical and comparatively late in
origin. On the latter view, which finds its main support 1n the
intrinsic difficulties of the narrative, it is scarcely possible
to avoid the conclusion that the chapter is one of the latest
additions to the Pentateuch (Wellhausen and many others).''
On the assumption that a recollection of some invasion in
remote days may have been current, considerable interest is
attached to the names. Of these, Amraphel, king of Shinar
(i.e. Babylonia, Gen. x. 10), has been identified with
Khammurabi, one of the greatest of the Babylonian kings
(c. 2000 B.C.), and since he claims to have ruled as
far west as the Mediterranean Sea, the equation has found
considerable favour. Apart from chronological difficulties,
the identification of the king and his country is far from
certain, and at the most can only be regarded as possible.
Arioch, king of Ellasar, has been connected with Eriaku of
Larsa--the reading has been questioned---a contemporary with
Khammurabi. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, bears what is
doubtless a genuine Elamite name. Finally, the name of Tid'al,
king of Goiim, may be identical with a certain Tudhulu the
son of Gazza, a warrior, but apparently not a king, who is
mentioned in a Babylonian inscription, and Goiim may stand
for Gutim, the Guti being a people who lived to the east of
Kurdistan. Nevertheless, there is as yet no monumental
evidence in favour of the genuineness of the story, and at
the most it can only be said that the author (of whatever
date) has derived his names from a trustworthy source,
and in representing an invasion of Palestine by Babylonian
overlords has given expression to a possible situation.11
The improbabilities and internal difficulties of the narrative
remain untouched, only the bare outlines may very well be
historical. If, as most critics agree, it is a historical
romance (cf., e.g., the book of Judith), it is possible
that a writer, preferably one who lived in the post-exilic
age and was acquainted with Babylonian history, desired to
enhance the greatness of Abraham by exhibiting his military
success against the monarchs of the Tigris and Euphrates,
the high esteem he enjoyed in Palestine and his lofty
character as displayed in his interview with Melchizedek.
See further, Pinches, Old Test. in Light of Hist. Records,
pp. 208. 236) Driver, Genesis, p. xlix., and notes on ch.
xiv.; Addis, Documents of the Hexateuch, ii. pp. 208-213;
Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch, i. pp.
157-159, 168, Bezold, Bab.-Assyr. Keilinschriften, pp. 24
sqq., 54 sqq.; A. Jeremias, Altes Test. im Lichte d. Alten
Orients,2,, pp. 343 seq.; also the literature to the art.
GENESIS. Many fanciful legends about Abraham founded on
Biblical accounts or spun out of the fancy are to be found in
Josephus, and in post-Biblical and Mahommedan literature;
for these, reference may be made to Beer, Leben Abrahams
(1859); Grunbaum, Neue Beitrage z. semit. Sagenkunde,
pp. 89 seq. (1893); the apocryphal ``Testament of Abraham''
(M. R. James in Texts and Studies, 1892); W. Tisdall,
Original Sources of the Quran, passim (1905). (S. A. C.)
1 The name is not spelt with the same guttural as Haran the son of Terah.
2 Barrenness is a motif which recurs in the stories
of Rebekah, Rachel, the mother of Samson, and Hannah
(Gen. xxv. 21, xxix. 31; Judg. xiii. 2; 1 Sam. i. 5).
3Ebram's connexion with Damascus is supplemented in the traditions
of Nicolaus of Damascus as cited by Josephus (Antiq. 1. 7. 2).
4 Abram (or Abiram) is a familiar and old-attested name meaning
``(my) father is exalted''; the meaning of Abraham is obscure a,nd
the explanation Gen. xvii. 3 is mere word-play. It is possible
that raham was originally only a dialectical form of ram.
5 See Sir Charles Warren's description, Hasting's Dict.
Bible, vol. iii. pp. 200 seq. The so-called Babylonian colouring
of Gen. xxiii. has been much exaggerated; see S. R. Driver,
Genesis, ad loc.; S. A, Cook, Laws of Moses, p. 208.
6 See H. St. J. Thackeray, Relation of St Paul to
Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 69 seq. (1900).
7 On the other hand, the coincidences in xx. xxi.
are due to E, who is also the author of xxii. Apart
from these the narratives of Abraham are from J and P.
8 According to Breasted (Amer. Journ. of Sem. Lit.,
1904, p. 56), the ``field of Abram'' occurs among the places
mentioned in the list of the Egyptian king Shishak (No. 71-2)
in the 10th century. See also his History of Egypt, p. 530.
9 The number is precisely that of the total numerical
value of the consonants of the name ``Eliezer'' (Gen.
xv. 2); an astral signification has also been found.
10 W. R. Smith, Ency. Brit. (9th ed., 1883), art. ``Melchizedek.''
11 That the names may be those of historical personages
is no proof of historical accuracy: ``We cannot therefore
conclude that the whole account is accurate history, any more
than we can argue that Sir Walter Scott's Anne of Geirstein
is throughout a correct account of actual events because we
know that Charles the Bold and Margaret of Anjou were real
people'' (W. H. Bennett, Century Bible: Genesis, p. 186).
ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA (1644-1709), Austrian divine,
was born at Kreenheinstetten, near Messkirch, in July
1644. His real name was Ulrich Megerle. In 1662 he joined
the order of Barefooted Augustinians, and assumed the name
by which he is known. In this order he rose step by step
until he became prior provincialis and definitor of his
province. Having early gained a great reputation for pulpit
eloquence, he was appointed court preacher at Vienna in
1669. The people flocked to hear him, attracted by the
force and homeliness of his language, the grotesqueness of
his humour, and the impartial severity with which he lashed
the follies of all classes of society and of the court in
particular. In general he spoke as a man of the people, the
predominating quality of his style being an overflowing and
often coarse wit. There are, however, many passages in his
sermons in which he rises to loftier thought and uses more
dignified language. He died at Vienna on the 1st of December
1709. In his published writings he displayed much the same
qualities as in the pulpit. Perhaps the most favourable
specimen of his style is his didactic novel entitled
Judas der Erzschelm (4 vols., Salzburg, 1686-1695).
His works have been several times reproduced in whole or
in part though with many serious interpolations. The best
edition is that published in 21 vols. at Passau and Lindau
(1835-1854). See Th. G. von Karaiesn, Abraham a Sancta
Clara (Vienna, 1867); Wanckenburr, Studien uber die Sprache
Abrahams al S. C. (Halle, 1897); Sexto, Abraham a S. C.
(Sigmaringen, 1896); Schnell, Pater A. a S. C. (Munich,
1895); H. Mareta, Uber Judas d. Erzschelm (Vienna, 1875).
ABRAHAM IBN DAUD (c. 1110-1180), Jewish historiographer
and philosopher of Toledo. His historical work was the
Book of Tradition (Sepher Haqabala), a chronicle down
to the year 1161. This was a defence of the traditional
record, and also contains valuable information for the
medieval period. It was translated into Latin by Genebrad
(1519). His philosophy was expounded in an Arabic work
better known under its Hebrew title 'Emunah Ramah
(Sublime Faith.) This was translated into German by Well
(1882). Ibn Daud was one of the first Jewish scholastics to
adopt the Aristotelian system; his predecessors were mostly
neo-Platonists. Maimonides owed a good deal to him.
ABRAHAMITES, a sect of deists in Bohemia in the 18th
century, who professed to be followers of the pre-circumcised
Abraham. Believing in one God, they contented themselves
with the Decalogue and the Paternoster. Declining to be
classed either as Christians or Jews, they were excluded from
the edict of toleration promulgated by the emperor Joseph
II. in 1781, and deported to various parts of the country,
the men being drafted into frontier regiments. Some became
Roman Catholics, and those who retained their ``Abrahamite',
views were not able to hand them on to the next generation.
ABRAHAM-MEN, the nickname for vagrants who infested England
in Tudor times. The phrase is certainly as old as 1561, and
was due to these beggars pretending that they were patients
discharged from the Abraham ward at Bedlam. The genuine
Bedlamite was allowed to roam the country on his discharge,
soliciting alms, provided he wore a badge. This humane
privilege was grossly abused, and thus gave
rise to the slang phrase ``to sham Abraham.''
ABRANTES, a town of central Portugal, in the district of
Santarem, formerly included in the province of Estremadura;
on the right bank of the river Tagus, at the junction of
the Madrid-Badajoz--Lisbon railway with the Guarda-Abrantes
line. Pop. (1900) 7255. Abrantes, which occupies the crest
of a hill covered with olive woods, gardens and vines, is a
fortified town, with a thriving trade in fruit, olive oil and
grain. As it commands the highway down the Tagus valley to
Lisbon, it has usually been regarded as an important military
position. Originally an Iberian settlement, founded about
300 B.C., it received the name Aurantes from the Romans;
perhaps owing to the alluvial gold (aurum) found along the
Tagub. Roman mosaics, coins, the remains of an aqueduct, and
other antiquities have been discovered in the neighbourhood.
Abrantes was captured on the 24th of November 1807 by the
French under General Junot, who for this achievement was created
duke of Abrantes. By the Convention of Cintra (22nd of August
1808) the town was restored to the British and Portuguese.
ABRASION (from Lat. ab, off, and radere, to scrape), the
process of rubbing off or wearing down, as of rock by moving
ice, or of coins by wear and tear; also used of the results of
such a process as an abrasion or excoriation of the skin. In
machinery, abrasion between moving surfaces has to be prevented as
much as possible by the use of suitable materials, good fitting and
lubrication. Engineers and other craftsmen make extensive use
of abrasion, effected by the aid of such abrasives as emery and
carborundum, in shaping, finishing and polishing their work.
ABRAUM SALTS (from the German Abraum-salze, salts
to be removed), the name given to a mixed deposit of
salts, including halite, carnallite, kieserite, &c., found
in association with rocksalt at Stassfurt in Prussia.
ABRAXAS, or ABRASAX, a word engraved on certain antique
stones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used
as amulets or charms. The Basilidians, a Gnostic sect, attached
importance to the word, if, indeed, they did not bring it into
use. The letters of abraxas, in the Greek notation, make
up the number 365, and the Basilidians gave the name to the
365 orders of spirits which, as they conceived, emanated in
succession from the Supreme Being. These orders were supposed
to occupy 365 heavens, each fashioned like, but inferior
to that above it; and the lowest of the heavens was thought
to be the abode of the spirits who formed the earth and its
inhabitants, and to whom was committed the administration of
its affairs. Abraxas stones are of very little value. In
addition to the word Abraxas and other mystical characters,
they have often cabalistic figures engraved on them. The
commonest of these have the head of a fowl, and the arms and
bust of a man, and terminate in the body and tail of a serpent.
ABROGATION (Lat. abrogare, to repeal or annul a law;
rogare, literally ``to ask,'' to propose a law), the
annulling or repealing of a law by legislative action.
Abrogation, which is the total annulling of a law, is to
be distinguished from the term derogation, which is used
where a law is only partially abrogated. Abrogation may be
either express or implied. It is express either when the new
law pronounces the annulment in general terms, as when in a
concluding section it announces that all laws contrary to the
provisions of the new one are repealed, or when in particular
terms it announces specifically the preceding laws which it
repeals. It is implied when the new law contains provisions
which are positively contrary to the former laws without
expressly abrogating those laws, or when the condition of things
for which the law had provided has changed and consequently
the need for the law no longer exists. The abrogation of
any statute revives the provisions of the common law which
had been abrogated by that statute. See STATUTE; REPEAL.
ABRUZZI E MOLISE, a group of provinces (compartimento)
of Southern Italy, bounded N. by the province of Ascoli, N.W.
and W. by Perueia, S.W. by Rome and Casertz, S. by Benevento.
E. by Foggia and N.E. by the Adriatic Sea. It comprises the
provinces of Teramo (population in 1901, 307,444), Aquila
(396,620), Chieti (370,907) and Campobasso (366,571), which,
under the kingdom of Naples, respectively bore the names
Abruzzo Ulteriore I., Abruzzo Ulteriore II., Abruzzo Citeriore
(the reference being to their distance from the capital) and
Molise. The total area is 6567 sq. m. and the population
(1901) 1,441,551. The district is mainly mountainous in the
interior, including as it does the central portion of the
whole system of the Apennines and their culminating point,
the Gran Sasso d'Italia. Towards the sea the elevation
is less considerable, the hills consisting mainly of somewhat
unstable clay and sand, but the zone of level ground along
the coast is quite inconsiderable. The coast line itself,
though over 100 miles in length, has not a single harbour of
importance. The climate varies considerably with the
altitude, the highest peaks being covered with snow for the
greater part of the year, while the valleys running N.E.
towards the sea are fertile and well watered by several small
rivers, the chief of which are the Tronto, Vomano, Pescara,
Sangro, Trigno and Biferno. These are fed by less important
streams, such as the Aterno and Gizio, which water the valleys
between the main chains of the Apennines. They are liable to
be suddenly swollen by rains, and floods and landslips often
cause considerable damage. This danger has been increased,
as elsewhere in Italy, by indiscriminate timber-felling on
the higher mountains without provision for re-afforestation,
though considerable oak, beech, elm and pine forests still
exist and are the home of wolves, wild boars and even
bears. They also afford feeding-ground for large herds of
swine, and the hams and sausages of the Abruzzi enjoy a high
reputation. The rearing of cattle and sheep was at one time
the chief occupation of the inhabitants, and many of them
still drive their flocks down to the Campagna di Roma for the
winter months and back again in the summer, but more attention
is now devoted to cultivation. This flourishes especially in
the valleys and in the now drained bed of the Lago Fucino.
The industries are various, but none of them is of great
importance. Arms and cutlery are produced at Campobasso and
Agnone. At the exhibition of Abruzzese art, held at Chieti
in 1905, fine specimens of goldsmiths' work of the 15th and
16th centuries, of majolica of the 17th and 18th centuries,
and of tapestries and laces were brought together; and the
reproduction of some of these is still carried on, the small
town of Castelli being the centre of the manufacture. The river
Pescara and its tributary the Tirino form an important source
of power for generating electricity. The chief towns are (1)
Teramo, Atri, Campli, Penne, Castellammare Adriatico; (2)
Aquila, Avezzano, Celano, Tagliacozzo, Sulmona; (3) Chieti,
Lanciano, Ortona, Vasto; (4) Campobasso, Agnone, Iscrnia.
Owing to the nature of the country, communications are not
easy. Railways are (i) the coast railway (a part of the
Bologna-Gallipoli line), with branches from Giulianova to
Teramo and from Termoli to Campobasso; (2) a line diverging
S.E. from this at Pescara and running via Sulmona (whence
there are branches via Aquila and Rieti to Terni, and via
Carpinone to (a) Isernia and Caianello, on the line from
Rome to Naples, and (b) Campobasso and Benevento), and
Avezzano (whence there is a branch to Roccasecca) to Rome.
The name Abruzzi is conjectured to be a medieval corruption of
Praetuttii. The district was, in Lombard times, part of the
duchy of Spoleto, and, under the Normans, a part of that of
Apulia; it was first formed into a single province in 1240 by
Frederick II., who placed the Justiciarius Aprutii at Solmona
and founded the city of Aquila. After the Hohenstauffen lost
their Italian dominions, the Abruzzi became a province of the
Angevin kingdom of Naples, to which it was of great strategic
importance. The division into three parts was not made until
the 17th century. The Molise, on the other hand, formed part
of the Lombard duchy of Benevento, and was placed under the
Justiciarius of Terra di Lavoro by Frederick II.: after various
changes it became part of the Capitanata, and was only formed
into an independent province in 1811. The people are remark.
ably conservative in beliefs, superstitions and traditions.
See V. Bindi, Monumenti storici ed artistici degli Abruzzi (Naples,
1889); A. de Nino, Ulsi e costumi Abruzzesi (Florence, 1879-1883).
ABSALOM (Hebrew for ``father of [or is] peace''), in the
Bible, the third son of David, king of Israel. He was deemed
the handsomest man in the kingdom. His sister Tamar having
been violated by David's eldest son Amnon, Absalom, after
waiting two years, caused his servants to murder Amnon at
a feast to which he had invited all the king's sons (2 Sam.
xiii.). After this deed he fled to Talmai, ``king'' of Geshur
(see Josh. xii. 5 or xiii. 2), his maternal grandfather, and
it was not until five years later that he was fully reinstated
in his father's favour (see JOAB.) Four years after this he
raised a revolt at Hebron, the former capital. Absalom was
now the eldest surviving son of David, and the present position
of the narratives (xv.-xx.)--after the birth of Solomon and
before the struggle between Solomon and Adonijah---may represent
the view that the suspicion that he was not the destined
heir of his father's throne excited the impulsive youth to
rebellion. All Israel and Judah flocked to his side, and
David, attended only by the Cherethites and Pelethites
and some recent recruits from Gath, found it expedient to
flee. The priests remained behind in Jerusalem, and their
sons Jonathan and Ahimaaz served as his spies. Absalom reached
the capital and took counsel with the renowned Ahithophel.
The pursuit was continued and David took refuge beyond the
Jordan. A battle was fought in the ``wood of Ephraim'' (the
name suggests a locality west of the Jordan) and Absalom's
army was completely routed. He himself was caught in the
boughs of an oak-tree, and as David had strictly charged his
men to deal gently with the young man, Joab was informed.
What a common soldier refused to do even for a thousand
shekels of silver, the king's general at once undertook.
Joab thrust three spears through the heart of Absalom as he
struggled in the branches, and as though this were not enough,
his ten armour-bearers came around and slew him. The king's
overwhelming grief is well known. A great heap of stones was
erected where he fell, whilst another monument near Jerusalem
(not the modern ``Absalom's Tomb,'' which is of later origin)
he himself had erected in his lifetime to perpetuate his name
(2 Sam. xviii. 17 seq.). But the latter notice does not seem
to agree with xiv. 27 (cf. 1 Kings xv. 2). On the narratives
in 2 Sam. xiii.-xix., see further DAVID; SAMUEL, BOOKS OF.
ABSALON (c. 1128-1201), Danish archbishop and statesman,
was born about 1128, the son of Asser Rig of Fjenneslev,
at whose castle he and his brother Esbjorn were brought up
along with the young prince Valdemar, afterwards Valdemar
I. The Rigs were as pious and enlightened as they were
rich. They founded the monastery of Soro as a civilizing
centre, and after giving Absalon the rudiments of a sound
education at home, which included not only book-lore but every
manly and martial exercise, they sent him to the university of
Paris. Absalon first appears in Saxo's Chronicle as a
fellow-guest at Roskilde, at the banquet given, in 1157, by
King Sweyn to his rivals Canute and Valdemar. Both Absalon and
Valdemar narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of their
treacherous host on this occasion, but at length escaped to
Jutland, whither Sweyn followed them, but was defeated and slain
at the battle of Grathe Heath. The same year (1158) which saw
Valdemar ascend the Danish throne saw Absalon elected bishop of
Roskilde. Henceforth Absalon was the chief counsellor of
Valdemar, and the promoter of that imperial policy which, for
three generations, was to give Denmark the dominion of the
Baltic. Briefly, it was Absalon's intention to Clear the
northern sea of the Wendish pirates, who inhabited that portion
of the Baltic littoral which we now call Pomerania, and ravaged
the Danish coasts so unmercifully that at the accession of
Valdemar one-third of the realm of Denmark lay wasted and
depopulated. The very existence of Denmark demanded the
suppression and conversion of these stiff-necked pagan
freebooters, and to this double task Absalon devoted the
best part of his life. The first expedition against the
Wends, conducted by Absalon in person, set out in 1160,
but it was not till 1168 that the chief Wendish fortress,
at Arkona in Rugen, containing the sanctuary of their god
Svantovit, was surrendered, the Wends agreeing to accept
Danish suzerainty and the Christian religion at the same
time. From Arkona Absalon proceeded by sea to Garz, in south
Rugen, the political capital of the Wends, and an all but
impregnable stronghold. But the unexpected fall of Arkona
had terrified the garrison, which surrendered unconditionally
at the first appearance of the Danish ships. Absalon, with
only Sweyn, bishop of Aarhus, and twelve ``house carls,''
thereupon disembarked, passed between a double row of Wendish
warriors, 6000 strong, along the narrow path winding among the
morasses, to the gates of the fortress, and, proceeding to the
temple of the seven-headed god Rugievit, caused the idol to
be hewn down, dragged forth and burnt. The whole population
of Garz was then baptized, and Absalon laid the foundations
of twelve churches in the isle of Rugen. The destruction of
this chief sally-port of the Wendish pirates enabled Absalon
considerably to reduce the Danish fleet. But he continued
to keep a watchful eye over the Baltic, and in 1170 destroyed
another pirate stronghold, farther eastward, at Dievenow
on the isle of Wollin. Absalon's last military exploit was
the annihilation, off Strela (Stralsund), on Whit-Sunday
1184, of a Pomeranian fleet which had attacked Denmark's
vassal, Jaromir of Rugen. He was now but fifty-seven, but
his strenuous life had aged him, and he was content to resign
the command of fleets and armies to younger men, like Duke
Valdemar, afterwards Valdemar II., and to confine himself
to the administration of the empire which his genius had
created. In this sphere Absalon proved himself equally
great. The aim of his policy was to free Denmark from the German
yoke. It was contrary to his advice and warnings that Valdemar
I. rendered fealty to the emperor Frederick Barbarossa at
Dole in 1162; and when, on the accession of Canute V. in
1182, an imperial ambassador arrived at Roskilde to receive
the homage of the new king, Absalon resolutely withstood
him. ``Return to the emperor,'' cried he, ``and tell him that
the king of Denmark will in no wise show him obedience or
do him homage.'' As the archpastor of Denmark Absalon also
rendered his country inestimable services, building churches
and monasteries, introducing the religious orders, founding
schools and doing his utmost to promote civilization and
enlightenment. It was he who held the first Danish Synod at
Lund in 1167. In 1178 he became archbishop of Lund, but very
unwillingly, only the threat of excommunication from the
holy see finally inducing him to accept the pallium. Absalon
died on the 21st of March 1201, at the family monastery of
Soro, which he himself had richly embellished and endowed.
Absalon remains one of the most striking and picturesque
figures of the Middle Ages, and was equally great as
churchman, statesman and warrior. That he enjoyed warfare
there can be no doubt; and his splendid physique and early
training had well fitted him for martial exercises. He
was the best rider in the army and the best swimmer in the
fleet. Yet he was not like the ordinary fighting bishops
of the Middle Ages, whose sole concession to their sacred
calling was to avoid the ``shedding of blood'' by using a mace
in battle instead of a sword. Absalon never neglected his
ecclesiastical duties, and even his wars were of the nature of
Crusades. Moreover, all his martial energy notwithstanding,
his personality must have been singularly winning; for it is
said of him that he left behind not a single enemy, all his
opponents having long since been converted by him into friends.
See Saxo, Gesta Danorum, ed. Holder (Strassburg, 1886), books
xvi.; Steinstrup, Danmark's Riges Historic. Oldtiden og den (eldre
Middelalder, pp. 570-735 (Copenhagen, 1897-1905). (R. N. B.)
ABSCESS (from Lat. abscedere, to separate), in pathology,
a collection of pus among the tissues of the body, the result
of bacterial inflammation. Without the presence of septic
organisms abscess does not occur. At any rate, every acute
abscess contains septic germs, and these may have reached the
inflamed area by direct infection, or may have been carried
thither by the blood-stream. Previous to the formation of
abscess something has occurred to lower the vitality of the
affected tissue--- some gross injury, perchance, or it may be
that the power of resistance against bacillary invasion was
lowered by reason of constitutional weakness. As the result,
then, of lowered vitality, a certain area becomes congested and
effusion takes place into the tissues. This effusion coagulates
and a hard, brawny mass is formed which softens towards the
centre. If nothing is done the softened area increases in
size, the skin over it becomes thinned, loses its vitality
(mortifies) and a small ``slough'' is formed. When the slough
gives way the pus escapes and, tension being relieved, pain
ceases. A local necrosis or death of tissue takes place at
that part of the inflammatory swelling farthest from the healthy
circulation. When the attack of septic inflammation is very
acute, death of the tissue occurs en masse, as in the
core of a boil or carbuncle. Sometimes, however, no such
mass of dead tissue is to be observed, and all that escapes
when the skin is lanced or gives way is the creamy pus. In
the latter case the tissue has broken down in a molecular
form. After the escape of the core or slough along with a
certain amount of pus, a space, the abscess-cavily', is left,
the walls of which are lined with new vascular tissue which
has itself escaped destruction. This lowly organized material
is called granulation tissue, and exactly resembles the
growth which covers the floor of an ulcer. These granulations
eventually fill the contracting cavity and obliterate it by
forming interstitial scar-tissue. This is called healing
by second intention. Pus may accumulate in a normal cavity,
such as a joint or bursa, or in the cranial, thoracic or
abdominal cavity. In all these situations, if the diagnosis
is clear, the principle of treatment is evacuation and
drainage. When evacuating an abscess it is often advisable
to scrape away the lining of unhealthy granulations and
to wash out the cavity with an antiseptic lotion. If the
after-drainage of the cavity is thorough the formation of
pus ceases and the watery discharge from the abscess wall
subsides. As the cavity contracts the discharge becomes less,
until at last the drainage tube can be removed and the external
wound allowed to heal. The large collections of pus which
form in connexion with disease of the spinal column in the
cervical, dorsal and lumbar regions are now treated by free
evacuation of the tuberculous pus, with careful antiseptic
measures. The opening should be in as dependent a position as
possible in order that the drainage may be thorough. If tension
recurs after opening has been made, as by the blocking of the
tube, or by its imperfect position, or by its being too short,
there is likely to be a fresh formation of pus, and without
delay the whole procedure must be gone through again. (E. O.*)
ABSCISSA (from the Lat. abscissus, cut off), in the
Cartesian system of co-ordinates, the distance of a point
from the axis of y measured parallel to the horizontal
axis (axis of x.) Thus PS (or OR) is the abscissa of
P. The word appears for the first time in a Latin work
written by Stefano degli Angeli (1623-1697), a professor
of mathematics in Rome. (See GEOMETRY, sec. Analytical.)
ABSCISSION (from Lat. abscinidere), a tearing away, or
cutting off; a term used sometimes in prosody for the elision of
a vowel before another, and in surgery especially for abscission
of the cornea, or the removal of that portion of the eyeball
situated in front of the attachments of the recti muscles; in
botany, the separation of spores by elimination of the connexion.
ABSCOND (Lat. abscondcre, to hide, put away), to depart in
a secret manner; in law, to remove from the jurisdiction of the
courts or so to conceal oneself as to avoid their jurisdiction.
A person may ``abscond'' either for the purpose of avoiding
arrest for a crime (see ARREST), or for a fraudulent purpose,
such as the defrauding of his creditors (see BANKRUPTCY.)
ABSENCE (Lat. absentia), the fact of being ``away,''
either in body or mind; ``absence of mind'' being a
condition in which the mind is withdrawn from what is
passing. The special occasion roll-call at Eton College
is called ``Absence,'' which the boys attend in their tall
hats. A soldier must get permission or ``leave of absence'
before he can be away from his regiment. Seven years'
absence with no sign of life either by letter or message
is held presumptive evidence of death in the law courts.
ABSENTEEISM, a term used primarily of landed proprietors who
absent themselves from their estates, and live and spend their
incomes elsewhere; in its more extended meaning it includes
all those (in addition to landlords) who live out of a country
or locality but derive their income from some source within
it. Absenteeism is a question which has been much debated,
and from both the economic and moral point of view there is
little doubt that it has a prejudicial effect. To it has been
attributed in a great measure the unprosperous condition of the
rural districts of France before the Revolution, when it was
unusual for the great nobles to live on their estates unless
compelled to do so by a sentence involving their ``exile'' from
Paris. It has also been an especial evil in Ireland, and
many attempts were made to combat it. As early as 1727 a
tax of four shillings in the pound was imposed on all persons
holding offices and employments in Ireland and residing in
England. This tax was discontinued in 1753, but was re-imposed in
1769. In 1774 the tax was reduced to two shillings in the
pound, but was dropped after some years. It was revived by the
Independent Parliament in 1782 and for some ten years brought in
a substantial amount to the revenue, yielding in 1790 as much as
63,089 pounds.
AUTHORITIES.--For a discussion of absenteeism from the economic
point of view see N. W. Senior, Lectures on the Rate of Wages,
Political Economy; J. S. Mill, Political Economy; J. R.
Mcculloch, Treatises and Essays on Money, &c., article
``Absenteeism''; A. T. Hadley, Economics; on absenteeism in
Ireland see A. Young, Tour in Ireland (1780); T. Prior, List
of. Absentees (1729); E. Wakefield, Account of Iteland (1812);
W. E. H. Lecky, Ireland in the 18th Century (1892): A. E.
Murray, History of the Commercial and Financial Relations
between England and Helanid (1903); Parliamentary Papers,
Ireland, 1830, vii., ditto, 1845, xix.-xxii.; in France, A.
de Monchretien, Traicte de l'oekonomie politique (1615);
A. de Tocqueville, L'Ancien Regime (1857); H. Taine, Les
Origines de la France contemporaine, l'ancien Regime (1876).
ABSINTHE a liqueur or aromatized spirit, the characteristic
flavouring matter of which is derived from various species of
wormwood (Artemisia absinthium.) Among the other substances
generally employed in its manufacture are angelica root,
sweet flag, dittany leaves, star-anise fruit, fennel and
hyssop. A colourless ``alcoholate'' (see LIQUEURS) is
first prepared, and to this the well-known green colour of
the beverage is imparted by maceration with green leaves of
wormwood, hyssop and mint. Inferior varieties are made by
means of essences, the distillation process being omitted.
There are two varieties of absinthe, the French and the Swiss,
the latter of which is of a higher alcoholic strength than the
former. The best absinthe contains 70 to 80% of alcohol. It is
said to improve very materially by storage. There is a popular
belief to the effect that absinthe is frequently adulterated
with copper, indigo or other dye-stuffs (to impart the green
colour), but, in fact, this is now very rarely the case. There
is some reason to believe that excessive absinthe-drinking
leads to effects which are specifically worse than those
associated with over-indulgence in other forms of alcohol.
ABSOLUTE (Lat. absolvere, to loose, set free), a term
having the general signification of independent, self-existent,
unconditioned. Thus we speak of ``absolute'' as opposed to
``limited'' or ``constitutional'' monarchy, or, in common
parlance, of an ``absolute failure,'' i.e. unrelieved by
any satisfactory circumstances. In philosophy the word has
several technical uses. (1) In Logic, it has been applied
to non-connotative terms which do not imply attributes
(see CONNOTATION), but more commonly, in opposition to
Relative, to terms which do not imply the existence of some
other (correlative) term; e.g. ``father'' implies ``son,''
``tutor'' ``pupil,'' and therefore each of these terms is
relative. In fact, however, the distinction is formal, and,
though convenient in the terminology of elementary logic,
cannot be strictly maintained. The term ``man,'' for example,
which, as compared with ``father,'' ``son,'' ``tutor,'' seems
to be absolute, is obviously relative in other connexions; in
various contexts it implies its various possible opposites,
e.g. ``woman,'' ``boy,'' ``master'', ``brute.'' In other
words, every term which is susceptible of definition is ipso
facto relative, for definition is precisely the segregation
of the thing defined from all other things which it is not,
i.e. implies a relation. Every term which has a meaning
is, therefore, relative, if only to its contradictory.
(2) The term is used in the phrase ``absolute knowledge'' to
imply knowledge per se. It has been held, however, that,
since all knowledge implies a knowing subject and a known
object, absolute knowledge is a contradiction in terms (see
RELATIVITY.) So also Herbert Spencer spoke of ``absolute
ethics,'' as opposed to systems of conduct based on particular
local or temporary laws and conventions (see ETHICS.)
(3) By far the most important use of the word is in the phrase
``the Absolute'' (see METAPHYSICS.) It is sufficient here
to indicate the problems involved in their most elementary
form. The process of knowledge in the sphere of intellect
as in that of natural science is one of generalization,
i.e. the co-ordination of particular facts under general
statements, or in other words, the explanation of one fact by
another, and that other by a third, and so on. In this way
the particular facts or existences are left behind in the
search for higher, more inclusive conceptions; as twigs are
traced to one branch, and branches to one trunk, so, it is
held, all the plurality of sense-given data is absorbed in
a unity which is all-inclusive and self-existent, and has no
``beyond.'' By a metaphor this process has been described as
the odos ano (as of tracing a river to its source). Other
phrases from different points of view have been used to describe
the idea, e.g. First Cause, Vital Principle (in connexion
with the origin of life), God (as the author and sum of all
being), Unity, Truth (i.e. the sum and culmination of all
knowledge), Causa Causans, &c. The idea in different senses
appears both in idealistic and realistic systems of thought.
The theories of the Absolute may be summarized briefly
as follows. (1) The Absolute does not exist, and is not
even in any real sense thinkable. This view is held by
the empiricists, who hold that nothing is knowable save
phenomena. The Absolute could not be conceived, for all
knowledge is susceptible of definition and, therefore,
relative. The Absolute includes the idea of necessity, which
the mind cannot cognize. (2) The Absolute exists for thought
only. In this theory the absolute is the unknown x which
the human mind is logically compelled to postulate a priori
as the only coherent explanation and justification of its
thought. (3) The Absolute exists but is unthinkable, because
it is an aid to thought which comes into operation, as it
were, as a final explanation beyond which thought cannot
go. Its existence is shown by the fact that without it all
demonstration would be a mere circulus in probando or verbal
exercise, because the existence of separate things implies some
one thing which includes and explains them. (4) The Absolute
both exists and is conceivable. It is argued that we do in
fact conceive it in as much as we do conceive Unity, Being,
Truth. The conception is so clear that its inexplicability
(admitted) is of no account. Further, since the unity of
our thought implies the absolute, and since the existence
of things is known only to thought, it appears absurd that
the absolute itself should be regarded as non-existent.
The Absolute is substance in itself, the ultimate basis and
matter of existence. All things are merely manifestations of
it, exist in virtue of it, but are not identical with it.
(5) Metaphysical idealists pursue this line of argument in a
different way. For them nothing exists save thought; the only
existence 1hat can be predicated of any thing and, therefore,
of the Absolute, is that it is thought. Thought creates
God, things, the Absolute. (6) Finally, it has been held that
we can conceive the Absolute, though our conception is only
partial, just as our concepuon of all things is limited by
the imperfect powers of human intellect. Thus the Absolute
exists for us only in our thought of it (4 above). But
thought itself comes from the Absolute which, being itself
the pure thought of thoughts, separates from itself individual
minds. It is, therefore, perfectly natural that human thought,
being essentially homogeneous with the Absolute, should be
able by.the consideration of the universe to arrive at some
imperfect conception of the source from which all is derived.
The whole controversy is obscured by inevitable difficulties in
terminology. The fundamental problem is whether a thing which
is by hypothesis infinite can in any sense be defined, and if
it is not defined, whether it can be said to be cognized or
thought. It would appear to be almost an axiom that anything
which by hypothesis transcends the intellect (i.e. by including
subject and object, knowing and known) is ipso facto beyond the
limits of the knower. Only an Absolute can cognize an absolute.
ABSOLUTION (Lat. absolutio from absolvo, loosen, acquit),
a term used in civil and ecclesiastical law, denoting the
act of setting free or acquitting. In a criminal process it
signifies the acquittal of an accused person on the ground
that the evidence has either disproved or failed to prove the
charge brought against him. In this sense it is now little
used, except in Scottish law in the forms assoilzie and
absolvitor. The ecclesiastical use of the word is essentially
different from the civil. It refers not to an accusation,
but to sin actually committed (after baptism); and it denotes
the setting of the sinner free from the guilt of the sin, or
from its ecclesiastical penalty (excommunication), or from
both. The authority of the church or minister to pronounce
absolution is based on John xx. 23; Matt. xviii. 18; James v.
16, &c. In primitive times, when confession of sins was made
before the congregation, the absolution was deferred till
the penance was completed; and there is no record of the use
of any special formula. Men were also encouraged, e.g. by
Chrysostom, to confess their secret sins secretly to God. In
course of time changes grew up. (1) From the 3rd century onwards,
secret (auricular) confession before a bishop or priest was
practised. For various reasons it became more and more common,
until the fourth Lateran council (1215) ordered all Christians
of the Roman obedience to make a confession once a year at
least. In the Greek church also private confession has become
obligatory. (2) In primitive times the penitent was reconciled
by imposition of hands by the bishop with or without the clergy:
gradually the office was left to be discharged by priests,
and the outward action more and more disused. (3) It became
the custom to give the absolution to penitents immediately
after their confession and before the penance was performed.
(4) Until the Middle Ages the form of absolution after private
confession was of the nature of a prayer, such as ``May the
Lord absolve thee''; and this is still the practice of the Greek
church. But about the 13th century the Roman formula was
altered, and the council of Trent (1551) declared that the
``form'' and power of the sacrament of penance lay in the
words Ego te absolvo, &c., and that the accompanying prayers
are not essential to it. Of the three forms of absolution
in the Anglican Prayer Book, that in the Visitation of the
Sick (disused in the church of Ireland by decision of the
Synods of 1871 and 1877) runs ``I absolve thee,'' tracing
the authority so to act through the church up to Christ:
the form in the Communion Service is precative, while that
in Morning and Evening Prayer is indicative indeed, but so
general as not to imply anything like a judicial decree of
absolution. In the Lutheran church also the practice of
private confession survived the Reformation, together with
both the exhibitive (I forgive, &c.) and declaratory (I declare
and pronounce) forms of absolution. In granting absolution,
even after general confession, it is in some places still
the custom for the minister, where the numbers permit of
it, to lay his hands on the head of each penitent. (W. O. B.)
ABSOLUTISM, in aesthetics, a term applied to the theory
that beauty is an objective attribute of things, not merely
a subjective feeling of pleasure in him who perceives. It
follows that there is an absolute standard of the beautiful by
which all objects can be judged. The fact that, in practice,
the judgments even of connoisseurs are perpetually at variance,
and that the so-called criteria of one place or period are
more or less opposed to those of all others, is explained away
by the hypothesis that individuals are differently gifted in
respect of the capacity to appreciate. (See AESTHETICS.)
In political philosophy absolutism, as opposed to constitutional
government, is the despotic rule of a sovereign unrestrained by
laws and based directly upon force. In the strict sense such
governments are rare. but it is customary to apply the term to a
state at a relatively backward stage of constitutional development.
ABSORPTION OF LIGHT. The term ``absorption'' (from Lat.
absorbere) means literally ``sucking up'' or ``swallowing,'' and
thus a total incorporation in something, literally or figuratively;
it is technically used in animal physiology for the function of
certain vessels which suck up fluids; and in light and optics
absorption spectrum and absorption band are terms used in
the discussion of the transformation of rays in various media.
If a luminous body is surrounded by empty space, the light
which it emits suffers no loss of energy as it travels
outwards. The intensity of the light diminishes merely
because the total energy, though unaltered, is distributed
over a wider and wider surface as the rays diverge from the
source. To prove this, it will be sufficient to mention that
an exceedingly small deficiency in the transparency of the free
aether would be sufficient to prevent the light of the fixed
stars from reaching the earth, since their distances are so
immense. But when light is transmitted through a material
medium, it always suffers some loss, the light energy being
absorbed by the medium, that is, converted partially or
wholly into other forms of energy such as heat, a portion of
which transformed energy may be re-emitted as radiant energy
of a lower frequency. Even the most transparent bodies known
absorb an appreciable portion of the light transmitted through
them. Thus the atmosphere absorbs a part of the sun's
rays, and the greater the distance which the rays have to
traverse the greater is the proportion which is absorbed,
so that on this account the sun appears less bright towards
sunset. On the other hand, light can penetrate some distance
into all substances, even the most opaque, the absorption
being, however, extremely rapid in the latter case.
The nature of the surface of a body has considerable
influence on its power of absorbing light. Platinum
black, for instance, in which the metal is in a state of
fine division, absorbs nearly all the light incident on
it, while polished platinum reflects the greater part. In
the former case the light penetrating between the particles
is unable to escape by reflexion, and is finally absorbed.
The question of absorption may be considered from either of
two points of view. We may treat it as a superficial effect,
especially in the case of bodies which are opaque enough or
thick enough to prevent all transmission of light, and we
may investigate how much is reflected at the surface and how
much is absorbed; or, on the other hand, we may confine our
attention to the light which enters the body and inquire into
the relation between the decay of intensity and the depth of
penetration. We shall take these two cases separately.
Absorptive Power.--When none of the radiations which fall
on a body penetrates through its substance, then the ratio
of the amount of radiation of a given wave-length which
is absorbed to the total amount received is called the
``absorptive power'' of the body for that wave-length.
Thus if the body absorbed half the incident radiation its
absorptive power would be 1/2, and if it absorbed all the
incident radiation its absorptive power would be 1. A body
which absorbs all radiations of all wavelengths would be
called a ``perfectly black body.'' No such body actually
exists, but such substances as lamp-black and platinum-black
approximately fulfil the condition. The fraction of the
incident radiation which is not absorbed by a body gives a
measure of its reflecting power, with which we are not here
concerned. Most bodies exhibit a selective action on light,
that is to say, they readily absorb light of particular
wave-lengths, light of other wave-lengths not being largely
absorbed. All bodies when heated emit the same kind of
radiations which they absorb---an important principle known
as the principle of the equality of radiating and absorbing
powers. Thus black substances such as charcoal are very
luminous when heated. A tile of white porcelain with a black
pattern on it mill, if heated red-hot, show the pattern bright
on a darker ground. On the other hand, those substances
which either are good reflectors or good transmitters, are
not so luminous at the same temperature; for instance, melted
silver, which reflects well, is not so luminous as carbon
at the same temperature, and common salt, which is very
transparent for most kinds of radiation, when poured in a
fused condition out of a bright red-hot crucible, looks almost
like water, showing only a faint red glow for a moment or
two. But all such bodies appear to lose their distinctive
properties when heated in a vessel which nearly encloses them,
for in that case those radiations which they do not emit are
either transmitted through them from the walls of the vessel
behind, or else reflected from their surface. This fact may
be expressed by saying that the radiation within a heated
enclosure is the same as that of a perfectly black body.
Coefficient of Absorption, and Law of Absorption.---The law
which governs the rate of decay of light intensity in passing
through any medium may be readily obtained. If I0 represents
the intensity of the light which enters the surface, I1 the
intensity after passing through 1 centimetre, I2 the intensity
after passing through 2 centimetres, and so on; then we should
expect that whatever fraction of I0 is absorbed in the first
centimetre, the same fraction of I1 will be absorbed in the
second. That is, if an amount jI0 is absorbed in the first
centimetre, JI1 is absorbed in the second, and so on. We have then
I1 = I0(1--j)
I2 = I1(1--j) = I0(1--j)2
I3 = I2(1--j) = I0(1--j)3
and so on, so that if I is the intensity after
passing through a thickness t in centimetres
I = I0(1--j)t (1).
We might call j, which is the proportion absorbed in one
centimetre, the ``coefficient of absorption'' of the medium.
1/2t would, however, not then apply to the case of a body
for which the whole light is absorbed in less than one
centimetre. It is better then to define the coefficient of
absorption as a quantity k such that k/n of the light is
absorbed in 1/nth part of a centimetre, where n may be
taken to be a very large number. The formula (1) then becomes
I=I0e-kt (2)
where e is the base of Napierian logarithms, and
k is a constant which is practically the same
as for bodies which do not absorb very rapidly.
There is another coefficient of absorption (k) which occurs
in Helmholtz's theory of dispersion (see DISPERSION.)
It is closely related to the coefficient k which we have
just defined, the equation connecting the two being k=4
pk/l, l being the wavelength of the incident light.
The law of absorption expressed by the formula (2) has been
verified by experiments for various solids, liquids and
gases. The method consists in comparing the intensity after
transmission through a layer of known thickness of the absorbent
with the intensity of light from the same source which has
not passed through the medium, k being thus obtained for
various thicknesses and found to be constant. In the case of
solutions, if the absorption of the solvent is negligible, the
eflect of increasing the concentration of the absorbing solute
is the same as that of increasing the thickness in the same
ratio. In a similar way the absorption of light in the
coloured gas chlorine is found to be unaltered if the thickness
is reduced by compression, because the density is increased
in the same ratio that the thickness is reduced. This is
not strictly the case, however, for such gases and vapours
as exhibit well-defined bands of absorption in the spectrum,
as these bands are altered in character by compression.
If white light is allowed to fall on some coloured
solutions, the transmitted light is of one colour when the
thickness of the solution is small, and of quite another
colour if the thickness is great. This curious phenomenon
is known as dichromatism (from di-, two, and chroma,
colour). Thus, when a strong light is viewed through a
solution of chlorophyll, the light seen is a brilliant green
if the thickness is small, but a deep blood-red for thicker
layers. This effect can be explained as follows. The solution
is moderately transparent for a large number of rays in the
neighborhoodood of the green part of the spectrum; it is,
on the whole, much more opaque for red rays, but is readily
penetrated by certain red rays belonging to a narrow region
of the spectrum. The small amount of red transmitted is at
first quite overpowered by the green, but having a smaller
coefficient of absorption, it becomes finally predominant.
The effect is complicated, in the case of chlorophyll and
many other bodies, by selective reflexion and fluorescence.
For the molecular theory of absorption, see SPECTROSCOPY.
REFERENCES.---A. Schuster's Theory of Optics (1904); P. K. L.
Drude's Theory of Optics (Eng. trans., 1902); F. H. Wullner's
Lehrbuch der Experimentalphysik, Bd. iv. (1899). (J. R. C.)
ABSTEMII (a Latin word. from abs. away from. temetum.
intoxicating liquor, from which is derived the English
``abstemious'' or temperate), a name formerly given to such
persons as could not partake of the cup of the Eucharist
on account of their natural aversion to wine. Calvinists
allowed these to communicate in the species of bread only,
touching the cup with their lip; a course which was deemed a
profanation by the Lutherans. Among several Protestant sects,
both in Great Britain and America, abstemii on a somewhat
different principle have appeared in modern times. These are
total abstainers, who maintain that the use of stimulants is
essentially sinful, and allege that the wine used by Christ and
his disciples at the supper was unfermented. They accordingly
communicate in the unfermented ``juice of the grape.''
ABSTINENCE (from Lat. abstinere, to abstain), the fact
or habit of refraining from anything, but usually from the
indulgence of the appetite and especially from strong drink.
``Total abstinence'' and ``total abstainer'' are associated
with taking the pledge to abstain from alcoholic liquor (see
TEMPERANCE.) In the discipline of the Christian Church
abstinence is the term for a less severe form of Fasting (q.v..)
ABSTRACTION (Lat. abs and trahere), the process or
result of drawing away; that which is drawn away, separated or
derived. Thus the noun is used for a summary, compendium
or epitome of a larger work, the gist of which is given in
a concentrated form. Similarly an absent-minded man is said
to be ``abstracted,'' as paying no attention to the matter in
hand. In philosophy the word has several closely related
technical senses. (1) In formal logic it is applied to those
terms which denote qualities, attributes, circumstances,
as opposed to concrete terms, the names of things; thus
``friend'' is concrete, ``friendship'' abstract. The term
which expresses the connotation of a word is therefore an
abstract term, though it is probably not itself connotative;
adjectives are concrete, not abstract, e.g. ``equal'' is
concrete, ``equality'' abstract (cf. Aristotle's aphaeresis
and prosthesis.) (2) The process of abstraction takes
an important place both in psychological and metaphysical
speculation. The psychologist finds among the earliest
of his problems the question as to the process from the
perception of things seen and heard to mental conceptions,
which are ultimately distinct from immediate perception
(see PSYCHOLOGY.) When the mind, beginning with isolated
individuals, groups them together in virtue of perceived
resemblances and arrives at a unity in plurality, the process
by which attention is diverted from individuals and concentrated
on a single inclusive concept (i.e. classification) is one of
abstraction. All orderly thought and all increase of knowledge
depend partly on establishing a clear and accurate connexion
between particular things and general ideas, rules and
principles. The nature of the resultant concepts belongs
to the great controversy between Nominalism, Realism and
Conceptualism. Metaphysics, again, is concerned with the
ultimate problems of matter and spirit; it endeavours to go
behind the phenomena of sense and focus its attention on the
fundamental truths which are the only logical bases of natural
science. This, again, is a process of abstraction, the
attainment of abstract ideas which, apart from the concrete
individuals, are conceived as having a substantive existence.
The final step in the process is the conception of the Absolute
(q.v.), which is abstract in the most complete sense.
Abstraction differs from Analysis, inasmuch as its object is to
select a particular quality for consideration in itself as it is
found in all the ob)ects to which it belongs, whereas analysis
considers all the qualities which belong to a single object.
ABSTRACT OF TITLE, in English law, an epitome of the
various instruments and events under and in consequence
of which the vendor of an estate derives his title
thereto. Such an abstract is, upon the sale or mortgage
of an estate, prepared by some competent person for the
purchaser or mortgagee, and verified by his solicitor by a
comparison with the original deeds. (See CONVEYANCING.)
ABT, FRANZ (1819-1885), German composer, was born on the
22nd of December 1819 at Eilenburg, Saxony, and died at
Wiesbaden on the 31st of March 1885. The best of his popular
songs have become part of the recognized art-folk-music of
Germany; his vocal works, solos, part-songs, &c., enjoyed
an extraordinary vogue all over Europe in the middle of the
19th century, but in spite of their facile tunefulness have
few qualities of lasting beauty. Abt was kapellmeister
at Bernburg in 1841, at Zurich in the same year and at
Brunswick from 1852 to 1882, when he retired to Wiesbaden.
ABU, a mountain of Central India, situated in 24 deg. 36' N.
lat. and 72 deg. 43' E. long., within the Rajputana state of
Sirohi. It is an isolated spur of the Aravalli range, being
completely detached from that chain by a narrow valley 7
miles across, in which flows the western Banas. It rises
from the surrounding plains of Marwar like a precipitous
granite island, its various peaks ranging from 4000 to 5653
feet. The elevations and platforms of the mountain are
covered with elaborately sculptured shrines, temples and
tombs. On the top of the hill is a small round platform
containing a cavern, with a block of granite, bearing the
impression of the feet of Data-Bhrigu, an incarnation of
Vishnu. This is the chief place of pilgrimage for the
Jains, Shrawaks and Banians. The two principal temples are
situated at Deulwara, about the middle of the mountain, and
five miles south-west of Guru Sikra, the highest summit.
They are built of white marble, and are pre-eminent alike for
their beauty and as typical specimens of Jain architecture in
India. The more modern of the two was built by two brothers,
rich merchants, between the years 1197 and 1247, and for
delicacy of carving and minute beauty of detail stands
almost unrivalled, even in this land of patient and lavish
labour. The other was built by another merchant prince, Vimala
Shah, apparently about A.D. 1032, and, although simpler and
bolder in style, is as elaborate as good taste would allow
in a purely architectural object. It is one of the oldest as
well as one of the most complete examples of Jain architecture
known. The principal object within the temple is a cell
lighted only from the door, containing a cross-legged seated
figure of the god Parswanath. The portico is composed of
forty-eight pillars, the whole enclosed in an oblong courtyard
about 140 feet by 90 feet, surrounded by a double colonnade
of smaller pillars, forming porticos to a range of fifty-five
cells, which enclose it on all sides, exactly as they do in
a Buddhist monastery (vihara.) In this temple, however,
each cell, instead of being the residence of R monk, is
occupied by an image of Parswanath, and over the door, or on
the jambs of each, are sculptured scenes from the life. of the
deity. The whole interior is magnificently ornamented.
Abu is now the summer residence of the governor-general's agent
for Rajputana, and a place of resort for Europeans in the hot
weather. It is 16 miles from the Abu road station of the Rajputana
railway. The annual mean temperature is about 70 deg. , rising to
90 deg. in April; but the heat is never oppressive. The annual
rainfall is about 68 inches. The hills are laid out with
driving-roads and bridle-paths, and there is a beautiful little
lake. The chief buildings are a church, club, hospital and a
Lawrence asylum school for the children of British soldiers.
ABU-BEKR (573-634), the name (``Father of the virgin'') of
the first of the Mahommedan caliphs (see CALIPH.) He was
originally called Abd-el-Ka'ba (``servant of the temple''),
and received the name by which he is known historically in
consequence of the marriage of his virgin daughter Ayesha to
Mahomet. He was born at Mecca in the year A.D. 573, a
Koreishite of the tribe of Beni-Taim. Possessed of immense
wealth, which he had himself acquired in commerce, and
held in high esteem as a judge, an interpreter of dreams
and a depositary of the traditions of his race, his early
accession to Islamism was a fact of great importance. On
his conversion he assumed the name of Abd-Alla (servant of
God). His own belief in Mahomet and his doctrines was
so thorough as to procure for him the title El Siddik
(the faithful), and his success in gaining converts was
correspondingly great. In his personal relationship to the
prophet he showed the deepest veneration and most unswerving
devotion. When Mahomet fled from Mecca, Abu-Bekr was
his sole companion, and shared both his hardships and his
triumphs, remaining constantly with him until the day of his
death. During his last illness the prophet indicated Abu-Bekr
as his successor by desiring him to offer up prayer for the
people. The choice was ratified by the chiefs of the army,
and ultimately confirmed, though Ali, Mahomet's son-in-law,
disputed it, asserting his own title to the dignity. After
a time Ali submitted, but the difference of opinion as to his
claims gave rise to the controversy which still divides the
followers of the prophet into the rival factions of Sunnites and
Shiites. Abu-Bekr had scarcely assumed his new position
(632), under the title Califet-Resul-Allah (successor of the
prophet of God), when he was called to suppress the revolt
of the tribes Hejaz and Nejd, of which the former rejected
Islamism and the latter refused to pay tribute. He encountered
formidable opposition from different quarters, but in every
case he was successful, the severest struggle being that with
the impostor Mosailima, who was finally defeated by Khalid
at the battle of Akraba. Abu-Bekr's zeal for the spread of
the new faith was as conspicuous as that of its founder had
been. When the internal disorders had been repressed and
Arabia completely subdued, he directed his generals to foreign
conquest. The Irak of Persia was overcome by Khalid in a single
campaign, and there was also a successful expedition into
Syria. After the hard-won victory over Mosailima, Omar, fearing
that the sayings of the prophet would be entirely forgotten
when those who had listened to them had all been removed by
death, induced Abu-Bekr to see to their preservation in a written
form. The record, when completed, was deposited with Hafsa,
daughter of Omar, and one of the wives of Mahomet. It was held
in great reverence by all Moslems, though it did not possess
canonical authority, and furnished most of the materials out
of which the Koran, as it now exists, was prepared. When
the authoritative version was completed all copies of Hafsa's
record were destroyed, in order to prevent possible disputes and
divisions. Abu-Bekr died on the 23rd of August 634. Shortly
before his death, which one tradition ascribes to poison,
another to natural causes, he indicated Omar as his successor,
after the manner Mahomet had observed in his own case.
ABU HAMED, a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on the right
bank of the Nile, 345 m. by rail N. of Khartum. It stands
a4 the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and
from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across
the Nubian desert, a little west of the old caravan route to
Korosko. A branch railway, 138 m. long, from Abu Hamed
goes down the right bank of the Nile to Kareima in the
Dongola mudiria. The town is named after a celebrated
sheikh buried here, by whose tomb travellers crossing the
desert used formerly to deposit all superfluous goods,
the sanctity of the saint's tomb ensuring their safety.
ABU HANIFA AN-NU`MAN IBN THABIT, Mahommedan canon
lawyer, was born at Kufa in A.H. 80 (A.D. 699) of non-Arab
and probably Persian parentage. Few events of his life are
known to us with any certainty. He was a silk-dealer and a
man of considerable means, so that he was able to give his
time to legal studies. He lectured at Kufa upon canon law
(fiqh) and was a consulting lawyer (mufti), but refused
steadily to take any public post. When al-Mansur, however,
was building Bagdad (145--140) Abu Hanifa was one of the
four overseers whom he appointed over the craftsmen (G. Le
Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate, p. 17). In
A.H. 150 (A.D. 767) he died there under circumstances which
are very differently reported. A persistent but apparently
later tradition asserts that he died in prison after severe
beating, because he refused to obey al-Mansur's command to act
as a judge (cadi, qadi.) This was to avoid a responsibility
for which he felt unfit ---a frequent attitude of more pious
Moslems. Others say that al-Mahdi, son of al-Mansur, actually
constrained him to be a judge and that he died a few days
after. It seems certain that he did suffer imprisonment and
beating for this reason, at the hands of an earlier governor
of Kufa under the Omayyads (Ibn Qutaiba, Ma`arif, p.
248). Also that al-Mansur desired to make him judge, but
compromised upon his inspectorship of buildings (so in Tabari).
A late story is that the judgeship was only a pretext with
al-Mansur, who considered him a partisan of the `Alids and
a helper with his wealth of Ibrahim ibn'Abd Allah in his
insurrection at Kufa in 145 (Weil, Geschichte, ii. 53 ff.).
For many personal anecdotes see de Slane's transl. of
Ibn Khalhkan iii. 555 ff., iv. 272 ff. For his place
as a speculative jurist in the history of canon law, see
MAHOMMEDAN LAW. He was buried in eastern Bagdad, where
his tomb still exists, one of the few surviving sites from
the time of ahmansur, the founder. (Le Strange 191 ff.)
See C. Brockelmann, Geschichte, i. 169 ff.; Nawawi's Biogr.
Dict. pp. 698-770: Ibn Hajar al-Haitami's Biography, publ. Cairo,
A.H. 1304; legal bibliography under MAHOMMEDAN LAW) (D. B. MA.)
ABU KLEA, a halting-place for caravans in the Bayuda
Desert, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It is on the road from Merawi
to Metemma and 20 m. N. of the Nile at the last-mentioned
place. Near this spot, on the 17th of January 1885, a British
force marching to the relief of General Gordon at Khartum
was attacked by the Mahdists, who were repulsed. On the
19th, when the British force was nearer Metemma, the Mahdists
renewed the attack, again unsuccessfully. Sir Herbert
Stewart, the commander of the British force, was mortally
wounded on the 19th, and among the killed on the 17th was
Col. F. G. Burnaby (see EGYPT, Military Operations.)
ABU-L-`ALA UL-MA.ARRI [Abu-l-`Alaa Ahmad ibn `Abdallah
ibn Sulaiman] (973-1057), Arabian poet and letter-writer,
belonged to the South Arabian tribe Tanukh, a part of which
had migrated to Syria before the time of Islam. He was born
in 973 at Ma'arrat un-Nu`man, a Syrian town nineteen hours'
journey south of Aleppo, to the governor of which it was
subject at that time. He lost his father while he was still
an infant, and at the age of four lost his eyesight owing to
smallpox. This, however, did not prevent him from attending
the lectures of the best teachers at Aleppo, Antioch and
Tripoli. These teachers were men of the first rank, who
had been attracted to the court of Saif-ud-Daula, and their
teaching was well stored in the remarkable memory of the
pupil. At the age of twenty-one Abu-l-'Ala returned to
Ma`arra, where he received a pension of thirty dinars
yearly. In 1007 he visited Bagdad, where he was admitted
to the literary circles, recited in the salons, academies
and mosques, and made the acquaintance of men to whom he
addressed some of his letters later. In 1009 he returned to
Ma`arra, where he spent the rest of his life in teaching and
writing. During this period of scholarly quiet he developed
his characteristic advanced views on vegetarianism, cremation
of the dead and the desire for extinction after death.
Of his works the chief are two collections of his poetry and
two of his letters. The earlier poems up to 1029 are of the
kind usual at the time. Under the title of Saqt uz-Zand they
have been published in Bulaq (1869), Beirut (1884) and Cairo
(1886). The poems of the second collection, known as the
Luzum ma lam ralzann, or the Luzumiy'yat, are written
with the difficult rhyme in two consonants instead of one,
and contain the more original, mature and somewhat pessimistic
thoughts of the author on mutability, virtue, death, &c.
They have been published in Bombay (1886) and Cairo (1889)
. The letters on various literary and social subjects were
published with commentary by Shain Effendi in Beirut (1894),
and with English translation, &c., by prof. D. S. Margoliouth
in Oxford (1898). A second collection of letters, known
as the Risalat ul-Ghufran, was summarized and partially
translated by R. A. Nicholson in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society (1900, pp. 637 ff.; 1902, pp. 75 ff., 337
ff., 813 ff.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.---C. Rieu, De Abu-l-`Alae
Poetae Arabici vita et carminibus (Bonn, 1843); A. von
Kremer, Uber die philosophischen Gedichte des Abu-l-.Ala
(Vienna, 1888); cf. also the same writer's articles in the
Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft
(vols. xxix., xxx., xxxi. and xxxviii.). For his life see the
introduction to D. S. Margoliouth's edition of the letters,
supplemented by the same writer's articles ``Abu-l-`Ala
al-Ma`arri's Correspondence on Vegetarianism'' in the Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society (1902, pp. 289 ff.). (G. W. T.)
ABU-L-`ATAHIYA [Abu Ishaq Isma`il ibn Qasim
al-`Anazi] (748-828), Arabian poet, was born at Ain ut-Tamar
in the Hijaz near Medina. His ancestors were of the tribe of
Anaza. His youth was spent in Kufa, where he was engaged
for some time in selling pottery. Removing to Bagdad, he
continued his business there, but became famous for his
verses, especially for those addressed to Utba, a slave of
the caliph al-Mahdi. His affection was unrequited, although
al-Mahdi, and after him Harun al-Rashid, interceded for
him. Having offended the caliph, he was in prison for a short
time. The latter part of his life was more ascetic. He died in
828 in the reign of al-Ma`mun. The poetry of Abu-l-'Atahiya
is notable for its avoidance of the artificiality almost
universal in his days. The older poetry of the desert had
been constantly imitated up to this time, although it was
not natural to town life. Abu-l-'Atahiya was one of the
first to drop the old qasida (elegy) form. He was very
fluent and used many metres. He is also regarded as one of
the earliest philosophic poets of the Arabs. Much of his
Poetry is concerned with the observation of common life and
morality, and at times is pessimistic. Naturally, under
the circumstances, he was strongly suspected of heresy.
His poems (Diwan) with life from Arabian sources have
been published at the Jesuit Press in Beirut (1887,
2nd ed. 1888). On his position in Arabic literature
see W. Ahlwardt, Diwan des Abu Nowas (Greifswald,
1861), pp. 21 ff.; A. von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des
Orients (Wien, 1877), vol. ii. pp. 372 ff. (G. W. T.)
ABULPARAJ [Abu-l-Faraj,Ah ibn ul-Husain ul-Isbahani]
(897--967), Arabian scholar, was a member of the tribe of the
Quraish (Koreish) and a direct descendant of Marwan, the last
of the Omayyad caliphs. He was thus connected with the Omayyad
rulers in Spain, and seems to have kept up a correspondence with
them and to have sent them some of his works. He was born in
Ispahan, but spent his youth and made his early studies in
Bagdad. He became famous for his knowledge of early Arabian
antiquities. His later life was spent in various parts of
the Moslem world, in Aleppo with Saif-ud-Daula (to whom he
dedicated the Book of Songs), in Rai with the Buyid vizier
Ibn'Abbad and elsewhere. In his last years he lost his
reason. In religion he was a Shiite. Although he wrote
poetry, also an anthology of verses on the monasteries of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, and a genealogical work, his fame rests
upon his Book of Songs (Kitab ul-Aghani), which gives
an account of the chief Arabian songs, ancient and modern,
with the stories of the composers and singers. It contains
a mass of information as to the life and customs of the early
Arabs, and is the most Valuable authority we have for their
pre-Islamic and early Moslem days. A part of it was published
by J. G. L. Rosegarten with Latin translation (Greifswald,
1840). The text was published in 20 vols. at Bulaq in
1868. Vol. xxi. was edited by R. E. Brunnow (Leyden,
1888). A volume of elaborate indices was edited by I. Guidi
(Leyden, 1900), and a missing fragment of the text was
published by J. Wellhausen in the Zeitschrift der deutschen
morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, vol; 50, pp. 146 ff.
Biographical Dictionary, vol. ii. pp. 249 ff. (G. W. T.)
ABUL PAZL, wazir and historiographer of the great Mogul
emperor, Akbar, was born in the year A.D. 1551. His
career as a minister of state, brilliant though it was,
would probably have been by this time forgotten but for the
record he himself has left of it in his celebrated history.
The Akbar Nameh, or Book of Akbar, as Abul Fazl's chief
literary work, written in Persian, is called, consists of two
parts--the first being a complete history of Akbar's reign
and the second, entitled Ain-i-Akbari, or Institutes of
Akbar, being an account of the religious and political
constitution and administration of the empire. The style is
singularly elegant, and the contents of the second part possess
a unique and lasting interest. An excellent translation
of the Ain by Francis Gladwin was published in Calcutta,
1783-1786. It was reprinted in London very inaccurately,
and copies of the original edition are now exceedingly rare
and correspondingly valuable. It was also translated by
Professor Blockmann in 1848. Abul Fazl died by the hand of
an assassin, while returning from a mission to the Deccan in
1602. The murderer was instigated by Prince Sehm, afterwards
Jahangir, who had become jealous of the minister's influence.
ABULFEDA [Abud-Fida' Isma'Il ibn'Ah,Imad-ud-Dni]
(1273-1331), Arabian historian and geographer, was born at
Damascus, whither his father Malik ul-Afdal, brother of
the prince of Hamah, had fled from the Mongols. He was a
descendant of Ayyub, the father of Saladin. In his boyhood
he devoted himself to the study of the Koran and the sciences,
hut from his twelfth year was almost constantly engaged in
military expeditions, chiefly against the crusaders. In 1285
he was present at the assault of a stronghold of the knights
of St John, and he took part in the sieges of Tripoli, Acre
and Qal'at ar-Rum. In 1298 he entered the service of the
Mameluke Sultan Malik al-Nasir and after twelve years was
invested by him with the governorship of Hamah. In 1312 he
became prince with the title Malik us-Salhn, and in 1320
received the hereditary rank of sultan with the title Malik
ul-Mu'ayyad. For more than twenty years altogether he reigned
in tranquillity and splendour, devoting himself to the duties
of government and to the composition of the works to which
he is chiefly indebted for his fame. He was a munificent
patron of men of letters, who came in large numbers to his
court. He died in 1331. His chief historical work in
An Abridgment of the History at the Human Race, in the
form of annals extending from the creation of the world
to the year 1329 (Constantinople, 2 vols. 1869). Various
translations of parts of it exist, the earliest being a Latin
rendering of the section relating to the Arabian conquests in
Sicily, by Dobelius, Arabic professor at Palermo, in 1610
(preserved in Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, vol.
i.). The section dealing with the pre-Islamitic period
was edited with Latin translation by H. O. Fleischer under
the title Abulfedae Historia Ante-Islamica (Leipzig,
1831). The part dealing with the Mahommedan period was
edited, also with Latin translation, by J. J. Reiske as
Annales Muslemici (5 vols., Copenhagen, 1789--1794) . His
Geography is, like much of the history, founded on the
works of his predecessors, and so ultimately on the work of
Ptolemy. A long introduction on various geographical matters
is followed by twenty-eight sections dealing in tabular
form with the chief towns of the world. After each name
are given the longitude, latitude, ``climate,'' spelling,
and then observations generally taken from earlier authors.
Parts of the work were published and translated as early
as 1650 (cf. Carl Brockelmann's Geschichte der Arabischen
Litteratur, Berlin, 1902, vol. ii. pp. 44-46). The text
of the whole was published by M`G. de Slane and M. Reinaud
(Paris, 1840), and a French translation with introduction by
M. Reinaud and Stanislas Guyard (Paris, 1848-1883). (G. W. T.)
ABU-L-QASIM [Khalaf ibn'Abbas uz-Zahrawi], Arabian
physician and surgeon, generally known in Europe as
ABULCASIS, flourished in the tenth century at Cordova as
physician to the caliph 'Abdur-Rahman III. (912--961). No
details of his life are known. A part of his compendium
of medicine was published in Latin in the 16th century as
Liber theoricae nec non practicae Alsaharavii (Augsburg,
1519). His manual of surgery was published at Venice in
1497, at Basel in 1541, and at Oxford Abulcasis de Chirurgia
arabice et latine cura Johannis Channing (2 vols. 1778).
For his other works see Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen
Litteratur (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 239-240. (G. W. T.)
ABUNDANTIA (``Abundance''), a Roman goddess, the personification
of prosperity and good fortune. Modelled after the Greek Demeter,
she is practically identical with Copia, Annona and similar
goddesses. On the coins of the later Roman emperors she is
frequently represented holding a cornucopia, from which she
shakes her gifts, thereby at the same time in- dicating the
liberality of the emperor or empress. She may be compared
with Domina Abundia (Old Fr. Dame Habonde, Notre Dame
d'Abondance), whose name often occurs in poems of the Middle
Ages, a beneficent fairy, who brought plenty to those whom she
visited (Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, tr. 1880, i. 286-287).
ABU NUWAS [Abu,Ah Hal-asan ibn Hani'al-Hakami] (c.
756-810), known as Abu Nuwas, Arabian poet, was born in al
Ahwaz, probably about 756. His mother was a Persian, his
father a soldier, a native of Damascus. His studies were made
in Basra under Abu Zaid and Abu'Ubaida (q.v.), and in
Kufa under Khalaf al-Ahmar. He is also said to have spent a
year with the Arabs in the desert to gain purity of language.
Settling in Bagdad he enjoyed the favour of Harun al-Rashid
and al-Amin, and died there probably about 810. The greater
part of his life was characterized by great licentiousness
and disregard of religion, but in his later days he became
ascetic. Abu Nuwas is recognized as the greatest poet of his
time. His mastery of language has led to extensive quotation
of his verses by Arabian scholars. Genial, cynical, immoral, he
drew on all the varied life of his time for the material of his
poems. In his wine-songs especially the manners of the upper
classes of Bagdad are revealed. He was one of the first to
ridicule the set form of the qasida (elegy) as unnatural,
and has satirized this form in several poems. See I. Goldziher,
Abhandlungen zur Arabischen Philologie (Leyden, 1896),
i. pp. 145 ff. His poems were collected by several Arabian
editors. One such collection (the MS. of which is now in
Vienna) contains nearly 5000 verses grouped under the ten
headings: wine, hunting, praise, satire, love of youths, love
of women, obscenities, blame, elegies, renunciation of the
world. His collected poems (Diwan) have been published
in Cairo (1860) and in Beirut (1884). The wine-songs
were edited by W. Ahlwardt under the title Diwan des Abu
Nowas. 1. Die lveinlieder (Greifswald, 1861). (G. W. T.)
ABU SIMBEL, or IPSAMBUL, the name of a group of temples
of Rameses II. (c. 1250 B.C.) in Nubia, on the left
bank of the Nile, 56 m. by river S. of Korosko. They are
hewn in the cliffs at the riverside, at a point where the
sandstone hills on the west reach the Nile and form the
southern boundary of a wider portion of the generally barren
valley. The temples are three in number. The principal
temple, probably the greatest and most imposing of all rock-hewn
monuments, was discovered by Burckhardt in 1812 and opened by
Belzoni in 1817. (The front has been cleared several times,
most recently in 1892, but the sand is always pressing forward
from the north end.) The hillside was recessed to form the
facade, backed against which four immense seated colossi of
the king, in pairs on either side of the entrance, rise from
a platform or forecourt reached from the river by a flight of
steps. The colossi are no less than 65 ft. in height, of
nobly placid design, and are accompanied by smaller figures
of Rameses' queen and their sons and daughters; behind and
over them is the cornice, with the dedication below in a
line of huge hieroglyphs, and a long row of apes, standing in
adoration of the rising sun above. The temple is dedicated
primarily to the solar gods Amenre of Thebes and Raharakht of
Heliopolis, the true sun god; it is oriented to the east so
that the rays of the sun in the early morning penetrate the
whole length of two great halls to the innermost sanctuary and
fall upon the central figures of Amenre and Rameses, which are
there enthroned with Ptah of Memphis and Raharakht on either
side. The interior of the temple is decorated with coloured
sculpture of fine workmanship and in good preservation; the
scenes are more than usually interesting; some are of religious
import (amongst them Rameses as king making offerings to
himself as god), others illustrate war in Syria, Libya and
Ethiopia: another series depicts the events of the famous
battle with the Hittites and their allies at Kadesh, in which
Rameses saved the Egyptian camp and army by his personal
valour. Historical stelae of the same reign are engraved
inside and outside the temple; the most interesting is that
recording the marriage with a Hittite princess in the 34th
year. Not the least important feature of the temple belongs
to a later age, when some Greek, Carian and Phoenician
soldiers of one of the kings named Psammetichus (apparently
Psammetichus II., 594-589 B.C.) inscribed their names upon
the two southern colossi, doubtless the only ones then clear of
sand. These graffiti are of the highest value for the early
history of the alphabet, and as proving the presence of Greek
mercenaries in the Egyptian armies of the period. The upper
part of the second colossus (from the south) has fallen;
the third was repaired by Sethos II. not many years after
the completion of the temple. This great temple was wholly
rock-cut, and is now threatened by gradual ruin by sliding
on the planes of stratification. A small temple, immediately
to the south of the first, is believed to have had a built
antechamber: it is the earliest known example of a ``birth
chapel,'' such as was usually attached to Ptolemaic temples
for the accommodation of the divine mother-consort and her
son. The third and northernmost temple, separated from
the others by a ravine, is on a large scale; the colossi of
the facade are six in number and 53 ft. high, representing
Rameses and his queen Nefrere, who dedicated the temple
to the goddess Hathor. The whole group forms a singular
monument of Rameses' unbounded pride and self-glorification.
See EGYPT; J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt,
vol. iii. pp. 124 et seq., esp. 212; ``The Temples
of Lower Nubia,'' in the American Journal of Semitic
Languages and Literatures, October 1906. (F. LL. G.)
ABU TAMMAM [Habib ibn Aus] (807-846), Arabian poet,
was, like Buhturi, of the tribe of Tai (though some say
he was the son of a Christian apothecary named Thaddeus,
and that his genealogy was forged). He was born in Jasim
(Josem), a place to the north-east of the Sea of Tiberias or
near Manbij (Hierapolis). He seems to have spent his youth
in Homs, though, according to one story, he was employed
during his boyhood in selling water in a mosque in Cairo.
His first appearance as a poet was in Egypt, but as he failed
to make a living there he went to Damascus and thence to
Mosul. From this place he made a visit to the governor of
Armenia, who awarded him richly. After 833 he lived mostly in
Bagdad, at the court of the caliph Mo,tasim. From Bagdad he
visited Khorassan, where he enjoyed the favour of Abdallah ibn
Tahir. About 845 he was in Ma'arrat un Nu`man, where he met
Buhturi. He died in Mosul. Abu Tammam is best known in
literature as the compiler of the collection of early poems
known as the Hamasa (q.v..) Two other h collections of
a similar nature are ascribed to him. His own poems I
have been somewhat neglected owing to the success of his
compilations, but they enjoyed great repute in his lifetime,
and were distinguished for the purity of their style, the merit
of the verse and the excellent manner of treating subjects.
His poems (Diwan) were published in Cairo (A.D. 1875).
See Life in Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary,
trans. by M`G. de Slane (Paris and London, 1842), vol. i.
pp. 348 ff.; and in the Kitab ul-Aghani (Book of Songs)
of Abulfaraj (Bulaq, 1869), vol. xv. pp. 100-108. (G.W. T.)
ABUTILON (from the Arabic aubutilun, a name given by
Avicenna to this or an allied genus), in botany, a genus of
plants, natural order Malvaceae (Mallows), containing about
eighty species, and widely distributed in the tropics. They
are free-growing shrubs with showy bell-shaped flowers, and
are favorite greenhouse plants. They may be grown outside
in England during the summer months, but a few degrees of
frost is fatal to them. They are readily propagated from
cuttings taken in the spring or at the end of the summer. A
large number of horticultural varieties have been developed
by hybridization, some of which have a variegated foliage.
ABUTMENT, a construction in stone or brickwork designed to
receive and resist the lateral pressure of an arch, vault or
strut. When built outside a wall it is termed a buttress.
ABU UBAIDA [Ma,mar ibn ul-Muthanna] (728-825), Arabian
scholar, was born a slave of Jewish Persian parents in Basra,
and in his youth was a pupil of Abu,Amr ibn ul-,Ala. In
803 he was called to Bagdad by Harun al-Rashjd. He died in
Basra. He was one of the most learned and authoritative
scholars of his time in all matters pertaining to the Arabic
language, antiquities and stories, and is constantly cited by
later authors and compilers. Juhiz held him to be the most
learned scholar in all branches of human knowledge, and Ibn
Hisbam accepted his interpretation even of passages in the
Koran. The titles of 105 of his works are mentioned in the
Fihrist, and his Book of Days is the basis of parts of
the history of Ibn al-Athir and of the Book of Songs
(see ABULFARAJ), but nothing of his (except a song) seems to
exist now in an independent form. He is often described as a
Kharijite. This, however, is true only in so far as he
denied the privileged position of the Arab people before
God. He was, however, a strong supporter of the Shu'ubite
movement, i.e. the movement which protested against the
idea of the superiority of the Arab race over all others.
This is especially seen in his satires on Arabs (which made
him so hated that no man followed his bier when he died). He
delighted in showing that words, fables, customs, &c., which
the Arabs believed to be peculiarly their own, were derived
from the Persians. In these matters he was the great rival
of Asma'i (q.v..) M`G. de Slane (Paris and London, 1842),
vol. iii. pp. 388-398; also I. Goldziher's Muhammedanische
Studien (Halle, 1888), vol. i. pp. 194-206. (G. W. T.)
ABYDOS, an ancient city of Mysia, in Asia Minor, situated at
Nagara Point on the Hellespont, which is here scarcely a mile
broad. It probably was originally a Thracian town, but was
afterwards colonized by Milesians. Here Xerxes crossed the
strait on his bridge of boats when he invaded Greece. Abydos
is celebrated for the vigorous resistance it made against Philip
V. of Macedon (200 B.C.), and is famed in story for the loves
of Hero and Leander. The town remained till late Byzantine
times the toll station of the Hellespont, its importance being
transferred to the Dardanelles (q.v.), after the building
of the ``Old Castles'' by Sultan Mahommed II. (c. 1456).
See Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage dans l'empire ottoman (Paris, 1842).
ABYDOS, one of the most ancient cities of Upper Egypt,
about 7 m. W. of the Nile in lat. 26 deg. 10' N. The Egyptian
name was Abdu, ``the hill of the symbol or reliquary,''
in which the sacred head of Osiris was preserved. Thence
the Greeks named it Abydos, like the city on the Hellespont;
the modern Arabic name is Arabet el Madfuneh. The history
of the city begins in the late prehistoric age, it having
been founded by the pre-Menite kings (Petrie, Abydos,
ii. 64), whose town, temple and tombs have been found
there. The kings of the Ist dynasty, and some of the IInd
dynasty, were also buried here, and the temple was renewed
and enlarged by them. Great forts were built on the desert
behind the town by three kings of the IInd dynasty. The
temple and town continued to be rebuilt at intervals down
to the times of the XXXth dynasty, and the cemetery was used
continuously. In the XIIth dynasty a gigantic tomb was
cut in the rock by Senwosri (or Senusert) III. Seti I. in
the XIXth dynasty founded a great new temple to the south
of the town in honour of the ancestral kings of the early
dynasties; this was finished by Rameses (or Ramessu) II., who
also built a lesser temple of his own. Mineptah (Merenptah)
added a great Hypogeum of Osiris to the temple of Seti. The
latest building was a new temple of Nekhtnebf in the XXXth
dynasty. From the Ptolemaic times the place continued to decay
and no later works are known (Petrie, Abydos, i. and ii.).
The worship here was of the jackal god Upuaut (Ophols,
Wepwoi), who ``opened the way'' to the realm of the dead,
increasing from the Ist dynasty to the time of the XIIth
dynasty and then disappearing after the XVIIIth. Anher
appears in the XIth dynasty; and Khentamenti, the god of the
western Hades, rises to importance in the middle kingdom and
then vanishes in the XVIIIth. The worship here of Osiris
in his various forms begins in the XIIth dynasty and becomes
more important in later times, so that at last the whole
place was considered as sacred to him (Abydos, ii. 47).
The temples successively built here on one site were nine
or ten in number, from the Ist dynasty, 5500 B.C. to the
XXVIth dynasty, 500 B.C.. The first was an enclosure,
about 30X 50 ft., surrounded by a thin wall of unbaked
bricks. Covering one wall of this came the second temple of
about 40 ft. square in a wall about 10 ft. thick. An outer
temenos (enclosure) wall surrounded the ground. This outer
wall was thickened about the IInd or IIIrd dynasty. The old
temple entirely vanished in the IVth dynasty, and a smaller
building was erected behind it, enclosing a wide hearth of black
ashes. Pottery models of offerings are found in the ashes,
and these were probably the substitutes for sacrifices decreed
by Cheops (Khufu) in his temple reforms. A great clearance of
temple offerings was made now, or earlier, and a chamber full
of them has yielded the fine ivory carvings and the glazed
figures and tiles which show the splendid work of the Ist
dynasty. A vase of Menes with purple inlaid hieroglyphs
in green glaze and the tiles with relief figures are the
most important pieces. The noble statuette of Cheops in
ivory, found in the stone chamber of the temple, gives
the only portrait of this greatest ruler. The temple was
rebuilt entirely on a larger scale by Pepi I. in the VIth
dynasty. He placed a great stone gateway to the temenos, an
outer temenos wall and gateway, with a colonnade between the
gates. His temple was about 40X50 ft. inside, with stone
gateways front and back, showing that it was of the processional
type. In the XIth dynasty Menthotp (Mentuhotep) III. added
a colonnade and altars. Soon after, Sankhkere entirely
rebuilt the temple, laying a stone pavement over the area,
about 45 ft. square, besides subsidiary chambers. Soon after
Senwosri (Senusert) I. in the XIIth dynasty laid massive
foundations of stone over the pavement of his predecessor. A
great temenos was laid out enclosing a much larger area, and
the temple itself was about three times the earlier size. .
The XVIIIth dynasty began with a large chapel of Amasis
(Ahmosi, Aahmes) I., and then Tethmosis (Thothmes, Tahutmes)
III. built a far larger temple, about 130X200 ft. He made
also a processional way past the side of the temple to the
cemetery beyond, with a great gateway of granite. Rameses III.
added a large building; and Amasis II. in the XXVIth dynasty
rebuilt the temple again, and placed in it a large monolith
shrine of red granite, finely wrought. The foundations of
the successive temples were comprised within about 18 ft.
depth of ruins; these needed the closest examination to
discriminate the various buildings, and were recorded by over
4000 measurements and 1000 levellings (Petrie, Abydos, ii.).
The temple of Seti I. was built on entirely new ground
half a mile to the south of the long series of temples just
described. This is the building best known as the Great
Temple of Abydos, being nearly complete and an impressive
sight. A principal object of it was the adoration of the early
kings, whose cemetery, to which it forms a great funerary
chapel, lies behind it. The long list of the kings of the
principal dynasties carved on a wall is known as the ``Table
of Abydos.'' There were also seven chapels for the worship of
the king and principal gods. At the back were large chambers
connected with the Osiris worship (Caulfield, Temple of the
Kings); and probably from these led out the great Hypogeum
for the celebration of the Osiris mysteries, built by Mineptah
(Murray, Osireion.) The temple was originally 550 ft. long,
but the forecourts are scarcely recognizable, and the part in
good state is about 250 ft. long and 350 ft. wide, including
the wing at the side. Excepting the list of kings and a
panegyric on Rameses II., the subjects are not historical but
mythological. The work is celebrated for its delicacy and
refinement, but lacks the life and character of that in earlier
ages. The sculptures have been mostly published in hand copy,
not facsimile, by Mariette in his Abydos, i. The adjacent
temple of Rameses II. was much smaller and simpler in plan; but
it had a fine historical series of scenes around the outside,
of which the lower parts remain. A list of kings, similar
to that of Seti, formerly stood here; but the fragments were
removed by the French consul and sold to the British Museum.
The Royal Tombs of the earliest dynasties were placed about
a mile back on the great desert plain. The earliest is about
10X20ft. inside, a pit lined with brick walls, and originally
roofed with timber and matting. Others also before Menes
are 15X25 ft. The tomb probably of Menes is of the latter
size. After this the tombs increase 111 size and complexity.
The tomb-pit is surrounded by chambers to hold the offerings,
the actual sepulchre being a great wooden chamber in the
midst of the brick-lined pit. Rows of small tomb-pits for the
servants of the king surround the royal chamber, many dozens
of such burials being usual. By the end of the IInd dynasty
the type changed to a long passage bordered with chambers
on either hand, the royal burial heing in the middle of the
length. The greatest of these tombs with its dependencies
covered a space of over 3000 square yards. The contents of
the tombs have been nearly destroyed by successive plunderers;
enough remained to show that rich jewellery was placed on the
mummies, a profusion of vases of hard and valuable stones
from the royal table service stood about the body, the
store-rooms were filled with great jars of wine, perfumed
ointment and other supplies, and tablets of ivory and of
ebony were engraved with a record of the yearly annals of the
reigns. The sealings of the various officials, of which
over 200 varieties have been found, give an insight into
the public arrangements (Petrie, Royal Tombs, i. and ii.).
The cemetery of private persons begins in the Ist dynasty with
some pit tombs in the town. It was extensive in the XIIth
and XIIIth dynasties and contained many rich tombs. In the
XVIIIth-XXth dynasties a large number of fine tombs were made,
and later ages continued to bury here till Roman times. Many
hundred funeral steles were removed by Mariette's workmen,
without any record of the burials (Mariette, Abydos, ii. and
iii.). Later excavations have been recorded by Ayrton, Abydos,
iii.; Maclver, El Amrah and Abydos; and Garstang, El Arabah.
The forts lay behind the town. That known as Shunet ez
Zebib is about 450X250 ft. over all, and still stands 30 ft.
high. It was built by Rhasekhemui, the last king of the IInd
dynasty. Another fort nearly as large adjoined it, and
is probably rather older. A third fort of a squarer form
is now occupied by the Coptic convent; its age cannot
be ascertained (Ayrton, Abydos, iii.). (W. M. F. P.)
ABYSS (Gr. a-, privative, bussos, bottom), a bottomless
depth; hence any deep place. From the late popular abyssimus
(superlative of Lon Latin abyssus) through the French abisme
(i.e. abime) is derived the poetic form abysm, pronounced
as late as 1616 to rhyme with time. The adjective ``abyssal''
or ``abysmal'' has been used by zoologists to describe deep
regions of the sea; hence abysmal zone, abysmal flora and
fauna, abysmal accumulations, the deposit on the abysmal
bed of the ocean. In heraldry, the abyss is the middle of an
escutcheon. In the Greek version of the Old Testament the
word represents (1) the,-original chaos (Gen. i. 2), (2)
the Hebrew tehom (``a surging water-deep''), which is used
also in apocalyptic and kabbalistic literature and in the New
Testament for hell; the place of punishment (cf. Eurip. Phoen.
for the ``yawning chasm of Tartarus''); in the Revised (not
the Authorized) version abyss is generally used for this
idea. Primarily in the Septuagint cosmography the word is
applied (a) to the waters under the earth which originally
covered it, and from which the springs and rivers are supplied,
(b) to the waters of the firmament which were regarded as
closely connected with those below. Derivatively, from the
general idea of depth, it acquired the meaning of the place
of the dead, though apparently never quite the same as Sheol.
In Revelation it is the prison of evil spirits whence they
may occasionally be let loose, and where Satan is doomed to
spend 1000 years. Beneath the altar in the temple of Jerusalem
there was believed to be a passage which led down to the abyss
of the world, where the foundation-stone of the earth was
laid. In rabbinical cosmography the abyss is a region of
Gehenna situated below the ocean bed and divided into three or
seven parts imposed one above the other. In the Kabbalah the
abyss as the opening into the lower world is the abode of evil
spirits, and corresponds to the opening of the abyss to the
world above. In general the abyss is regarded vaguely as a
place of indefinite extent, the abode of mystery and sorrow.
See G. Schiaparelli, Astronomy in tha Old
Testament (Eng. trans., Oxford, 1905).
ABYSSINIA (officially ETHIOPIA), an inland country and
empire of N.E. Africa lying, chiefly, between 5 deg. and 15 deg. N.
and 35 deg. and 42 deg. E. It is bounded N. by Eritrea (Italian).
W. by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, S. by British East Africa,
S.E. and E. by' the British. Ita!ian and French possessions
in Somaliland and on the Red Sea. The coast lands held by
European powers, which cut off Abyssinia from access to the
sea, vary in width from 40 to 250 miles. The country approaches
nearest to the ocean on its N.E. border, where the frontier is
drawn about 40 m. from the coast of the Red Sea. Abyssinia is
narrowest in the north, being here 230 n1. across from east to
west. It broadens out southward to a width of 900 m. along
the line of 9 deg. N., and resembles in shape a triangle with
its apex to the north. It is divided into Abyssinia proper
(i.e. Tigre, Amhara, Gojam, &c.), Shoa, Kaffa and Galla
land----all these form a geographical unit---and central
Somaliland with Harrar. To the S.W. Abyssinia also includes
part of the low country of the Sobat tributary of the
Nile. The area of the whole state is about 350,000 sq.
m., of which Abyssinian Somaliland covers fully a third.
(1) Physical Features.-- Between the valley of the Upper Nile
and the low lands which skirt the south-western shores of the
Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden is a region of elevated plateaus
from which rise various mountain ranges. These tablelands
and mountains constitute Abyssinia, Shoa, Kaffa and Galla
land. On nearly every side the walls of the plateaus rise
with considerable abruptness from the plains, constituting
outer mountain chains. The Abyssinian highlands are thus
a clearly marked orographic division. From Ras Kasar (18 deg.
N.) to Annesley Bay (15 deg. N.) the eastern wall of the plateau
runs parallel to the Red Sea. It then turns due S. and follows
closely the line of 40 deg. E. for some 400 m. About 9 deg. N. there
is a break in the wall, through which the river. Hawash flows
eastward. The main range at this point trends S.W., while
south of the Hawash valley, which is some 3000 ft. below the
level of the mountains, another massif rises in a direct line
south. This second range sends a chain (the Harrar hills)
eastward to the Gulf of Aden. The two chief eastern ranges
maintain a parallel course S. by W., with a broad upland
valley between---in which valley are a series of lakes---to
about 3 deg. N., the outer (eastern) spurs of the plateau still
keeping along the line of 40 deg. E. The southern escarpment of
the plateau is highly irregular, but has a general direction
N.W. and S.E. from 6 deg. N. to 3 deg. N. It overlooks the depression
in which is Lake Rudolf and---east of that lake--southern
Somaliland. The western wall of the plateau from 6 deg. N.
to 11 deg. N. is well marked and precipitous. North of 11 deg.
N. the hills turn more to the east and fall more gradually
to the plains at their base. On its northern face also
the plateau falls in terraces to the level of the eastern
Sudan. The eastern escarpment is the best defined of these
outer ranges. It has a mean height of from 7000 to 8000
ft., and in many places rises almost perpendicularly from the
plain. Narrow and deep clefts, through which descend mountain
torrents to lose themselves in the sandy soil of the coast
land, afford means of reaching the plateau, or the easier
route through the Hawash valley may be chosen. On surmounting
this rocky barrier the traveller finds that the encircling
rampart rises little above the normal level of the plateau.
(2) The aspect of the highlands is most impressive. The
northern portion, lying mainly between 10 deg. and 15 deg. N.,
consists of a huge mass of Archaean rocks with a mean height
of from 7000 to 7500 ft. above the sea, and is fl00ded in a
deep central depression by the waters of Lake Tsana. Above
the plateau rise several irregular and generally ill-defined
mountain ranges which attain altitudes of from 12,000 to over
15,000 ft. Many of the mountains are of weird and fantastic
shape. Characteristic of the country are the enormous
fissures which divide it, formed in the course of ages by
the erosive action of water. They are in fact the valleys
of the rivers which, rising on the uplands or mountain
sides, have cut their way to the surrounding lowlands. Some
of the valleys are of considerable width; in other cases the
opposite walls of the gorges are but two or three hundred
yards apart, and fall almost vertically thousands of feet,
representing an erosion of hard rock of many millions of cubic
feet. One result of the action of the water has been the
formation of numerous isolated flat-topped hills or small
plateaus, known as ambas, with nearly perpendicular sides.
The highest peaks are found in the Simen (or Semien) and Gojam
ranges. The Simen Mountains he N.E. of Lake Tsana and
culminate in the snow-covered peak of Daschan (Dajan), which
has an altitude of 15,160 ft. A few miles east and north
respectively of Dajan are Mounts Biuat and Abba Jared, whose
summits are a few feet only below that of Dajan. In the Chok
Mountains in Gojam Agsias Fatra attains a height of 13,600 ft.
Parallel with the eastern escarpment are the heights of Baila
(12,500 ft.), Abuna Josef (13,780 ft.), and Kollo (14,100
ft.), the last-named being S.W. of Magdala. The valley
between these hills and the eastern escarpment is one of
the longest and most profound chasms in Abyssinia. Between
Lake Tsana and the eastern hills are Mounts Guna (13,800
ft.) and Uara Sahia (13,000 ft.). The figures given are,
however, approximate only. The southern portion of the
highlands---the 10 deg. N. roughly marks the division between
north and south---has more open tableland than the northern
portion and fewer lofty peaks. Though there are a few heights
between 10,000 and 12,000 ft., the majority do not exceed 8000
ft. But the general character of the southern regions is
the same as in the north---a much-broken hilly plateau.
Most of the Abyssinian uplands have a decided slope to the
north-west, so that nearly all the large rivers find their way
in that direction to the Nile. Such are the Takazze in the
north, the Abai in the centre, and the Sobat in the south, and
through these three arteries is discharged about four-fifths
of the entire drainage. The rest is carried off, almost due
north by the Khor Baraka, which occasionally reaches the Red
Sea south of Suakin; by the Hawash, which runs out in the
saline lacustrine district near the head of Taiura Bay; by the
Webi Shebeli (Wabi Shebeyli) and Juba, which flow S.E. through
Somaliland, though the Shebeli fails to reach the Indian Ocean;
and by the Omo. the main feeder of the closed basin of Lake Rudolf.
The Takazze, which is the true upper course of the Atbara,
has its head-waters in the central tableland; and falls from
about 7000 to 2500 ft. in the tremendous crevasse through
which it sweeps round west, north and west again down to the
western terraces, where it passes from Abyssinian to Sudan
territory. During the rains the Takazze (i.e. the
``Terrible'') rises some 18 ft. above its normal level, and
at this time forms an impassable barrier between the northern
and central provinces. In its lower course the river is
known by the Arab name Setit. The Setit is joined (14 deg. 10'
N., 36 deg. E.) by the Atbara, a river formed by several streams
which rise in the mountains W. and N.W. of Lake Tsana.
The Gash or Mareb is the most northerly of the Abyssinian
rivers which flow towards the Nile valley. Its head-waters
rise on the landward side of the eastern escarpment within
50 miles of Annesley Bay on the Red Sea. It reaches the
Sudan plains near Kassala, beyond which place its waters are
dissipated in the sandy soil. The Mareb is dry for a great
part of the year, but like the Takazze is subject to sudden
freshets during the rains. Only the left bank of the upper
course of the river is in Abyssinian territory, the Mareb
here forming the boundary between Eritrea and Abyssinia.
(3) The Abai---that is, the upper course of the Blue Nile--has
its source near Mount Denguiza in the Goiam highlands (about
11 deg. N. and 37 deg. E.), and first flows for 70 m. nearly due
north to the south side of Lake Tsana. Tsana (q.v.), which
stands from 2500 to 3000 ft. below the normal level of the
plateau, has somewhat the aspect of a flooded crater. It has
an area of about 1100 sq. m., and a depth in some parts of 250
ft. At the south-east corner the rim of the crater is, as
it were. breached by a deep crevasse through which the Abai
escapes, and here dovelb. ps a great semicircular bend like that
of the Takazzo, but in the reverse direction---east, south
and north-west---down to the plains of Sennar, where it takes
the name of Bahr-el-Azrak or Blue Nile. The Abai has many
tributaries. Of these the Bashilo rises near Magdala and
drains eastern Amhara; the Jamma rises near Ankober and drains
northern Shoa; the Muger rises near Adis Ababa and drains
south-western Shoa; the Didessa, the largest of the Abai's
affluents, rises in the Kaffa hills and has a generally S. to
N. course; the Yabus runs near the western edge of the plateau
escarpment. All these are perennial rivers. The right-hand
tributaries, rising mostly on the western sides of the
plateau, have steep slopes and are generally torrential in
character. The Bolassa, however, is perennial, and the
Rahad and Dinder are important rivers in flood-time.
In the mountains and plateaus of Kaffa and Galla in the
south-west of Abyssinia rise the Baro, Gelo, Akobo and
other of the chief affluents of the Sobat tributary of the
Nile. The Akobo, in about 7 deg. 50' N. and 33 deg. E., joins the
Pibor, which in about 8 1/2 deg. N. and 33 deg. 20' E. unites with
the Baro, the river below the confluence taking the name of
Sobat. These rivers descend from the mountains in great
falls, and like the other Abyssinian streams are unnavigable in
their upper courses. The Baro on reaching the plain becomes,
however, a navigable stream affording an open waterway to the
Nile. The Baro, Pibor and Akobo form for 250 m. the W. and
S.W. frontiers of Abyssinia (see NILE, SOBAT and SUDAN.)
The chief river of Abyssinia flowing east is the Hawash
(Awash, Awasi), which rises in the Shoan uplands and makes
a semicircular bend first S.E. and then N.E. It reaches the
Afar (Danakil) lowlands through a broad breach in the eastern
escarpment of the plateau, beyond which it is joined on its
left bank by its chief affluent, the Germama (Kasam), and
then trends round in the direction of Tajura Bay. Here the
Hawash is a copious stream nearly 200 ft. wide and 4 ft.
deep, even in the dry season, and during the floods rising
50 or 60 ft. above low-water mark, thus inundating the plains
for many miles along both its banks. Yet it fails to reach
the coast, and after . a winding course of about 500 m.
passes (in its lower reaches) through a series of badds
(lagoons) to Lake Aussa, some 60 or 70 m. from the head.of
Tajura Bay. In this lake the river is lost. This remarkable
phenomenon is explained by the position of Aussa in the
centre of a saline lacustrine depression several hundred
feet below sea-level. While most of the other lagoons are
highly saline, with thick incrustations of salt round their
margins, Aussa remains fresh throughout the year, owing to
the great body of water discharged into it by the Hawash.
Another lacustrine region extends from the Shoa heights
south-west to the Samburu (Lake Rudolf) depression.
In this chain of lovely upland lakes, some fresh, some
brackish, some completely closed, others connected by short
channels, the chief links in their order from north to south
are:---Zwai, communicating southwards with Hara and Lamina,
all in the Arusi Galla territory; then Abai with an outlet
to a smaller tarn in the romantic Baroda and Gamo districts,
skirted on the west sides by grassy slopes and wooded ranges
from 6000 to nearly 9000 ft. high; lastly, in the Asille
country, Lake Stefanie, the Chuwaha of the natives, completely
closed and falling to a level of about 1800 ft. above the
sea. To the same system obviously belongs the neighbouring
Lake Rudolf (q.v.), which is larger than all the rest put
together. This lake receives at its northern end the waters
of the ()mo, which rises in the Shoa highlands and is a
perennial river with many affluents. In its course of some
370 m. it has a total fall of about 6000 ft. (from 7600
at its source to 1600 at lake-level), and is consequently
a very rapid stream, being broken by the Kokobi and other
falls, and navigable only for a short distance above its
mouth. The chief rivers of Somaliland (q.v.), the Webi
Shebeli and the Juba (q.v.), have their rise on the
south-eastenn slopes of the Abyssinian escarpment, and the
greater part of their course is through territory belonging to
Abyssinia. There are numerous hot springs in Abyssinia, and
earthquakes, though of no great severity, are not uncommon.
(4) Geology.----The East African tableland is continued
into Abyssinia. Since the visit of W. T. Blanford in
1870 the geology has received little attention from
travellers. The following formations are represented:--
Sedimentary and Metamorphic.
Recent. Coral, alluvium, sand.
Tertiary. (?) Limestones of Harrar.
Jurassic. Antalo Limestones.
Triassic (?). Adigrat Sandstones.
Archaean. Gneisses, schists, slaty rocks.
Igneous.
Recent. Aden Volcanic Series.
Tertiary, Cretaceous (?). Magdala group.
Jurassic. Ashangi group.
Archaean.--The metamorphic rocks compose the main mass
of the tableland, and are exposed in every deep valley
in Tigre and along the valley of the Blue Nile. Mica
schists form the prevalent rocks. Hornblende schist
also occur and a compact felspathic rock in the Suris
defile. The foliae of the schists strike north and south.
Triassic (?).---In the region of Adigrat the metamorphic
rocks are invariably overlain by white and brown sandstones,
unfossiliferous, and attaining a maximum thickness of 1000
feet. They are overlain by the fossiliferous limestones of
the Antalo group. Around Chelga and Adigrat coal-bearing beds
occur, which Blanford suggests may be of the same age as the
coal-bearing strata of India. The Adigrat Sandstone possibly
represents some portion of the Karroo formation of South Africa.
Jurassic.---The fossiliferous limestones of Antalo are
generally horizontal, but are in places much disturbed
when interstratified with trap rocks. The fossils are
all characteristic Oolite forms and include species of
Hemicidaris, Pholadomya, Ceromya, Trigonia and Alaria.
Igneous Rocks.---Above a height of 8000 ft. the country consists
of bedded traps belonging to two distinct and unconformable
groups. The lower (Ashangi group) consists of basalts and
dolerites often amygdaloidal. Their relation to the Antalo
limestones is uncertain, but Blanford considers them to be
not later in age than the Oolite. The upper (Magdala group)
contains much trachytic rock of considerable thickness,
lying perfectly horizontally, and giving rise to a series of
terraced ridges characteristic of central Abyssinia. They are
interbedded with unfossiliferous sandstones and shales. Of
more recent date (probably Tertiary) are some igneous rocks,
rich in alkalis, occurring in certain localities in southern
Abyssinia. Of still more recent date are the basalts and
ashes west of Massawa and around Annesley Bay and known as
the Aden Volcanic Series. With regard to the older igneous
rocks, the enormous amount they have suffered from denudation
is a prominent feature. They have been worn into deep and
narrow ravines, sometimes to a depth of 3000 to 4000 ft.
(5) Climate.---The climate of Abyssinia and its dependent
territories varies greatly. Somaliland and the Danakil lowlands
have a hot, dry climate producing semi-desert conditions; the
country in the lower basin of the Sobat is hot, swampy and
malarious. But over the greater part of Abyssinia as well
as the Galla highlands the climate is very healthy and
temperate. The country lies wholly within the tropics, but
its nearness to the equator is counterbalanced by the elevation
of the land. In the deep valleys of the Takazze and Abai,
and generally in places below 4000 ft., the conditions are
tropical and fevers are prevalent. On the uplands, however,
the air is cool and bracing in summer, and in winter very
bleak. The mean range of temperature is between 60 deg. and
80 deg. F. On the higher mountains the climate is Alpine in
character. The atmosphere on the plateaus is exceedingly
clear, so that objects are easily recognizable at great
distances. In addition to the variation in climate dependent
on elevation, the year may be divided into three seasons.
Winter, or the cold season, lasts from October to February,
and is followed by a dry hot period, which about the middle of
June gives place to the rainy season. The rain is heaviest in
the Takazze basin in July and August. In the more southern
districts of Gojam and Wallega heavy rains continue till
the middle of September, and occasionally October is a wet
month. There are also spring and winter rains; indeed rain
often falls in every month of the year. But the rainy season
proper, caused by the south-west monsoon, lasts from June to
mid-September, and commencing in the north moves southward.
In the region of the Sobat sources the rains begin earlier
and last longer. The rainfall varies from about 30 in. a
year in Tigre and Amhara to over 40 in. in parts of Galla
land. The rainy season is of great importance not only to
Abyssinia but to the countries of the Nile valley, as the
prosperity of the eastern Sudan and Egypt is largely dependent
upon the rainfall. A season of light rain may be sufficient
for the needs of Abyssinia, but there is little surplus water
to find its way to the Nile; and a shortness of rain means
a low Nile, as practically all the flood water of that river
is derived from the Abyssinian tributaries (see NILE.)
(6) Flora and Fauna.--As in a day's journey the traveller
may pass from tropical to almost Alpine conditions of
climate, so great also is the range of the flora and fauna.
In the valleys and lowlands the vegetation is dense, but
the general appearance of the plateaus is of a comparatively
bare country with trees and bushes thinly scattered over
it. The glens and ravines on the hillside are often thickly
wooded, and offer a delightful contrast to the open downs.
These conditions are particularly characteristic of the northern
regions; in the south the vegetation on the uplands is more
luxuriant. Among the many varieties of trees and plants
found are the date palm, mimosa, wild olive, giant sycamores,
junipers and laurels, the myrrh and Other gum trees (gnarled
and stunted, these flourish most on the eastern foothills),
a magnificent pine (the Natal yellow pine, which resists the
attacks of the white ant), the fig, orange, lime, pomegranate,
peach, apricot, banana and other fruit trees; the grape vine
(rare), blackberry and raspberry; the cotton and indigo
Plants, and occasionally the sugar cane. There are in the
south large forests of valuable timber trees; and the coffee
plant is indigenous in the Kaffa country, whence it takes its
name. Many kinds of grasses and flowers abound. Large areas
are covered by the kussa, a hardy member of the rose family,
which grows from 8 to 10 ft. high and has abundant pendent red
blossoms. The flowers and the leaves of this plant are
highly prized for medicinal purposes. The fruit of the
hurarina, a tree found almost exclusively in Shoa, yields
a black grain highly esteemed as a spice. On the tableland
a great variety of grains and vegetables are cultivated.
A fibrous plant, known as the sanseviera, grows in a wild
state in the semi-desert regions of the north and south-east.
In addition to the domestic animals enumerated below (sec. 8) the
fauna is very varied. Elephant and rhinoceros are numerous in
certain low-lying districts, especially in the Sobat valley.
The Abyssinian rhinoceros has two horns and its skin has no
folds. The hippopotamus and crocodile inhabit the larger
rivers flowing west, but are not found in the Hawash, in which,
however, otters of large size are plentiful. Lions abound
in the low countries and in Somaliland. In central Abyssinia
the lion is no longer found except occasionally in the river
valleys. Leopards, both spotted and black, are numerous and
often of great size; hyaenas are found everywhere and are
hardy and fierce; the lynx, wolf, wild dog and jackal are also
common. Boars and badgers are more rarely seen. The giraffe
is found in the western districts, the zebra and wild ass
frequent the lower plateaus and the rocky hills of the
north. There are large herds of buffalo and antelope, and
gazelles of many varieties and in great numbers are met
with in most parts of the country. Among the varieties are
the greater and lesser kudu (both rather rare); the duiker,
gemsbuck, hartebeest, gerenuk (the most common--it has
long thin legs and a camel-like neck); klipspringer, found
on the high plateaus as well as in the lower districts;
and the dik-dik, the smallest of the antelopes, its weight
rarely exceeding 10 lb. , common in the low countries and the
foothills. The civet is found in many parts of Abyssinia,
but chiefly in the Galla regions. Squirrels and hares
are numerous, as are several kinds of monkeys, notably
the guereza, gelada, guenon and dog-faced baboon. They
range from the tropical lowlands to heights of 10,000 ft.
Birds are very numerous, and many of them remarkable for the
beauty of their plumage. Great numbers of eagles, vultures, hawks,
bustards and other birds of prey are met with; and partridges,
duck, teal, guinea-fowl, sand-grouse, curlews, woodcock, snipe,
pigeons, thrushes and swallows are very plentiful. A fine
variety of ostrich is commonly found. Among the birds prized
for their plumage are the marabout, crane, heron, blacks bird,
parrot, jay and humming-birds of extraordinary brilliance,
Among insects the most numerous and useful is the bee, honey
everywhere constituting an important part of the food of the
inhabitants. Of an opposite class is the locust. Serpents
are not numerous, but several species are poisonous. There
are thousands of varieties of butterflies and other insects.
(7) Provinces and Towns.--Politically, Abyssinia is divided
into provinces or kingdoms and dependent territories. The
chief provinces are Tigro, which occupies the N.E. of the
country; Amhara or Gondar, in the centre; Gojam, the district
enclosed by the great semicircular sweep of the Abai; and Shoa
(q.v.), which lies east of the Abai and south of Amhara.
Besides these ancient provinces and several others of smaller
size, the empire includes the Wallega region, lying S.W. of
Gojam; the Harrar province in the east; Kaffa (q.v.) and Galla
land, S.W. and S. of Shoa; and the central part of Somaliland.
With the exception of Harrar (q.v.), a city of Arab
foundation, there are no large towns in Abyssinia. Harrar
is some 30 m. S.E. of Dire Dawa, whence there is a railway
(188 m. long) to Jibuti on the Gulf of Aden. The absence
of large towns in Abyssinia proper is due to the provinces
into which the country is divided having been for centuries
in a state of almost continual warfare, and to the frequent
change of the royal residences on the exhaustion of fuel
supplies. The earliest capital appears to have been Axum
(q.v.) in Tigre, where there are extensive ruins. In
the middle ages Gondar in Amhara became the capital of the
country and was so regarded up to the middle of the 19th
century. Since 1892 the capital has been Adis Ababa in the
kingdom of Shoa.
The other towns of Abyssinia worthy of mention may be grouped
according to their geographical position. None of them has
a permanent population exceeding 6000, but at several large
markets are held periodically. In Tigre there are Adowa
or Adua ( 17 m. E. by N. of Axum), Adigrat, Macalle and
Antalo The three last-named places are on the high plateau
near its eastern escarpment and on the direct road south
from Massawa to Shoa. West of Adigrat is the monastery of
Debra-Domo, one of the most celebrated sanctuaries in Abyssinia.
In Amhara there are:---Magdala (q.v.), formerly the residence
of King Theodore, and the place of imprisonment of the British
captives in 1866. Debra-Tabor (``Mount Tabor''), the chief
royal residence during the reign of King John, occupies a strong
strategic position overlooking the fertile plains east of Lake
Tsana, at a height of about 8,620 ft. above the sea; it has
a population of 3000, including the neighbouring station of
Samara, headquarters of the Protestant missionaries in the
time of King Theodore. Ambra-Mariam, a fortified station
midway between Gondar and Debra-Tabor near the north-east
side of Lake Tsana, with a population of 3000; here is the
famous shrine and church dedicated to St Mary, whence the
name of the place, ``Fort St Mary.'' Mahdera-Mariam (``Mary's
Rest''), for some time a royal residence, and an important
market and great place of pilgrimage, a few miles south-west
of Debra-Tabor; its two churches of the ``Mother'' and the
``Son'' are held in great veneration by all Abyssinians; it
has a permanent population estimated at over 4000, Gallas and
Amharas, the former mostly Mahommedan. Sokota, one of the
great central markets, and capital of the province of Waag in
Amhara, at the converging point of several main trade routes;
the market is numerously attended, especially by dealers in the
salt blocks which come from Lake Alalbed. The following towns
are in Shoa:---Ankober, formerly the capital of the kingdom;
Aliu-Amba, east of Ankober on the trade route to the Gulf of
Aden; Debra-Berhan (Debra-Bernam) (``Mountain of Light''),
once a royal residence; Liche (Litche), one of the largest
market towns in southern Abyssinia. Licka, the largest market
in Galla land, has direct communications with Gojam, Shoa and
other parts of the empire. Bonga, the commercial centre of
Kaffa, and Jiren, capital of the neighbouring province of
Jimma, are frequented by traders from all the surrounding
provinces, and also by foreign merchants from the seaports
on the Gulf of Aden. Apart from these market-places there
are no settlements of any size in southern Abyssinia.
Communications.--The J'buti-Dire Dawa railway has been mentioned
above. The continuation of this railway to the capital was
begun in 1906 from the Adis Ababa end. There are few roads
in Abyssinia suitable for wheeled traffic. Transport is
usually carried on by mules, donkeys, pack-horses and (in the
lower regions) camels. From Dire Dawa to Harrar there is a
well-made carriage road, and from Harrar to Adis Ababa the
caravan track is kept in good order, the river Hawash being
spanned by an iron bridge. There is also a direct trade
route from Dire Dawa to the capital. Telegraph lines connect
Adis Ababa and several important towns in northern Abyssinia
with Massawa, Harrar and Jibuti. There is also a telephonic
service, the longest line being from Harrar to the capital.
(8) Agriculture.--The soil is exceedingly fertile, as is
evident from the fact that Egypt owes practically all its
fertility to the sediment carried into the Nile by its Abyssinian
tributaries. Agriculture is extensively followed, chiefly
by the Gallas, the indolence of the Abyssinians preventing
them from being good farmers. In the lower regions a wide
variety of crops are grown --among them maize, durra, wheat,
barley, rye, teff, pease, cotton and sugar-cane---and many
kinds of fruit trees are cultivated. Teff is a kind of
millet with grains about the size of an ordinary pin-head,
of which is made the bread commonly eaten. The low grounds
also produce a grain, tocussa, from which black bread is
made. Besides these, certain oleaginous plants, the
suf, nuc and selite (there are no European equivalents
for the native names), and the ground-nut are largely
grown. The castor bean grows wild, the green castor in the
low, damp regions, the red castor at medium altitudes. The
kat plant, a medicinal herb which has a tonic quality, is
largely grown in the Harrar province. On the higher plateaus
the hardier cereals only are cultivated. Here the chief
crops are wheat, barley, teff, peppers, vegetables of all
kinds and coffee. Above 10,000 ft. the crops are confined
practically to barley, oats, beans and occasionally wheat.
Coffee is one of the most important products of the country,
and its original home is believed to be the Kaffa highlands.
It is cultivated in the S., S.E. and S.W. provinces, and to
a less extent in the central districts. Two qualities of
coffee are cultivated, one known as Abyssinian, the other as
Harrar-Mocha. The ``Abyssinian'' coffee is grown very extensively
throughout the southern highlands. Little attention is paid
to the crop, the berries being frequently gathered from the
ground, and consequently the coffee is of comparatively low
grade. ``Harrar-Mocha'' is of first-class quality. It is
grown in the highlands of Harrar, and cultivated with extreme
care. The raising of cotton received a considerable impetus
in the early years of the 20th century. The soil of the
Hawash valley proved particularly suitable for raising this
crop. In the high plateaus the planting of seeds begins in
May, in the lower plateaus and the plains in June, but in
certain parts where the summer is long and rain abundant
sowing and reaping are going on at the same time. Most
regions yield two, many three crops a year. The methods
of culture are primitive, the plough commonly used being a
long pole with two vertical iron teeth and a smaller pole
at right angles to which oxen are attached. This implement
costs about four shillings. The ploughing is done by the
men, but women and girls do the reaping. The grain is usually
trodden out by cattle and is often stored in clay-lined
pits. Land comparatively poor yields crops eight to tenfold
the quantity sown; the major part of the land yields twenty to
thirtyfold. In the northern parts of the empire very little
land is left uncultivated. The hillsides are laid out in
terraces and carefully irrigated in the dry season, the
channels being often two miles or more long. Of all the
cereals barley is the most widely grown. The average rate
of pay to an agricultural labourer is about threepence a
day in addition to food, which may cost another penny a day.
The Abyssinians keep a large number of domestic animals. Among
cattle the Sanga or Galla ox is the most common. The bulls
are usually kept for ploughing, the cow being preferred for
meat. Most of the cattle are of the zebu or hump-backed
variety, hut there are also two breeds----one large, the other
resembling the Jersey cattle---which are straight-backed.
The horns of the zebu variety are sometimes four feet long.
Sheep, of which there are very large flocks, belong to the short
and fat-tailed variety. The majority are not wool-bearing,
but in one district a very small black sheep is raised for
wool. The small mountain breed of sheep weigh no more than 20
to 30 lb. apiece. Goats are of both the long and short-haired
varieties. The horns of the large goats are often thirty
inches in length and stand up straight from the head. The
goats from the Arusi Galla country have fine silky hair which
is sometimes sixteen inches long. The meat of both sheep and
goats is excellent; that of the latter is preferred by the
natives. In 1904 the estimated number of sheep and goats
in the country was 20,000,000. Large quantities of butter,
generally rancid, are made from the milk of cows, goats and
sheep. In the Leka province small black pigs are bred in
considerable numbers. The horses (very numerous) are small hut
strong; they are generally about 14 hands in height. The best
breeds come from the Shoa uplands. The ass is also small and
strong; and the mule, bred in large numbers, is of excellent
quality, and both as a transport animal and as a mount is
preferred to the horse. The mule thrives in every condition
of climate, is fever-proof, travels over the most difficult
mountain passes with absolute security, and can carry with
ease a load of 200 lb. The average height of a mule is 124
hands. The country is admirably adapted for stock-raising.
(9) Minerals.---In the south and south-west provinces
placer gold mines by the banks of watercourses are worked by
Gallas as an industry subsidiary to tending their flocks and
fields. In the Wallega district are veins of gold-bearing
quartz, mined to a certain extent. There are also gold
mines in southern Shoa The annual output of gold is worth not
less than L. 500,000. Only a small proportion is exported.
Besides gold, silver, iron, coal and other minerals are
found. Rock-salt is obtained from the province of Tigre.
Trade and Currency.---Abyssinia being without seaports,
the external trade is through Massawa (Italian) in the
north, Jibuti (French), Zaila and Berbera (British) in the
south, and for all these ports Aden is a distributing
centre. For Tigre and Amhara products Massawa is the best
port, for the rest of the empire, Jibuti. For southern
Abyssinia, Kaffa and Galla lands, Harrar is the great
entrepot, goods being forwarded thence to Jibuti and the other
Somaliland ports. There is also a considerable trade with the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan through the frontier towns of Rosaires and
Gallabat. At the French and British ports thore is freedom
of trade, but on goods for Abyssinia entering Massawa a
discriminating tax is levied if they are not imported from Italy.
The chief articles of export are coffee, skins, ivory, civet,
ostrich feathers, gum, pepper, kat plant (used by Moslems for
its stimulating properties), gold (in small quantities) and
live stock. The trade in skins is mainly with the L 1ited
States through Aden; America also takes a large proportion
of the coffee exported. For live stock there is a good
trade with Madagascar. The chief imports are cotton goods,
the yearly value of this trade being fully L. 250,000; the
sheetings are largely American; the remainder English and
Indian. No other article of import approaches cotton in
importance, but a considerable trade is done in arms and
ammunition, rice, sugar, flour and other foods, and a still
larger trade in candles and matches (from Sweden), oil,
carpets (oriental and European), hats and umbrellas. Commerce
long remained in a backward condition; but under the Emperor
Menelek II. efforts were made to develop the resources of
the country, and in 1905 the total volume of trade exceeded
Until the end of the 19th century the usual currency was the
Maria Theresa dollar, bars of rock-salt and cartridges. In
1894 a new coinage was introduced, with the Menelek dollar
or talari, worth about two shillings, as the standard.
This new coinage gradually superseded the older currency.
In 1905 the Bank of Abyssinia, the first banking house in the
country, was founded, with its headquarters at Adis Ababa.
The bank, which was granted a monopoly of banking business in
the empire for fifty years, has a capital of L. 500,000, has
the power to issue notes, to mint the Abyssinian coinage,
and to engage in commercial operations. It was founded under
Egyptian law by the National Bank of Egypt, which institution
had previously obtained a concession from the emperor Menelek.
(10) Government.---The political institutions are of a feudal
character. Within their provinces the rases (princes)
exercise large powers. The emperor, styled negus negusti
(king of kings), is occasionally assisted by a council of
rases. In October 1907 an imperial decree announced the
constitution of a cabinet on European lines, ministers
being appointed to the portfolios of foreign affairs, war,
commerce, justice and finance. The legal system is said to
be based on the Justinian code. From the decisions of the
judges there is a right of appeal to the emperor. The chief
judicial official is known as the affh-negus (breath of the
king). The Abyssinian church (q.v.) is presided over
by an abuna, or archbishop. The land is not held in fee
simple, but is subject to the control of the emperor or the
church. Revenue is derived from an ad valorem tax on all
imports; the purchase and sale of animals; from royalties on
trading concessions, and in other ways, including fees for
the administration of justice. Education, of a rudimentary
character, is given by the clergy. In 1907 a system of compulsory
education ``of all male children over the age of 12'' was
decreed. The education was to be state provided, Coptic teachers
were brought from Egypt and school buildings were erected.
The Abyssinian calendar is as follows:---The Abyssinian year
of 365 days (366 in leap-year) begins on the 1st of Maskarram,
which corresponds to about the 10th of September. The
months have thirty days each, and are thus named: Maskarram,
Tekemt, Hadar, Tahsas, Tarr, Yekatit, Magawit, Miaziah,
Genbot, Sanni, Hamle, Nas'hi. The remaining five days in
the year, termed Pagmen or Quaggimi (six in leap-year, the
extra day being named Kadis Yohannis), are put in at the
end and treated as holidays. Abyssinian reckoning is about
seven years eight months behind the Gregorian. Festivals,
such as Easter, fall a week later than in western Europe.
Army.--A small standing army is maintained in each province
of Abyssinia proper. Every able-bodied Abyssinian is expected
to join the army in case of need, and a force, well armed with
modern weapons, approaching 250,000 can be placed in the field.
The cavalry is chiefly composed of Galla horsemen. (F. R. C.)
ETHNOLOGY (i1) The population of the empire is estimated
at from 3,500,000 to 5,000,000. The inhabitants consist
mainly of the Abyssinians, the Galla and the Somali (the two
last-named peoples are separately noticed). Of non-African
races the most numerous are Armenians, Indians, Jews and
Greeks. There is a small colony of British, French, Italians and
Russians. The following remarks apply solely to Abyssinia
proper and its inhabitants. It should be remembered that the
term ``Abyssinian'' is purely geographical, and has little
or no ethnical significance; it is derived from the Arabic
Habesh, ``mixed,'' and was a derisive name applied by the
Arabs to the heterogeneous inhabitants of the Abyssinian plateau.
Abyssinia appears to have been originally peopled by the eastern
branch of the Hamitic family, which has occupied this region
from the remotest times, and still constitutes the great bulk
of its inhabitants, though the higher classes are now strongly
Semitized. The prevailing colour in the central provinces
(Amhara, Gojam) is a deep brown, northwards (Tigre, Lasta)
it is a pale olive, and here even fair complexions are
seen. Southwards (Shoa, Kobbo, Amuru) a decided chocolate
and almost sooty black is the rule. Many of the people
are distinctly negroid, with big lips, small nose, broad
at the base, and frizzly or curly black hair. The negroid
element in the population is due chiefly to the number of
negro women who have been imported into the harems of the
Abyssinians. The majority, however, may be described as a
mixed Hamito-Semitic people, who are in general well formed and
handsome, with straight and regular features, lively eyes,
hair long and straight or somewhat curled and in colour dark
olive, approaching to black. The Galla, who came originally
from the south, are not found in many parts of the country,
but predominate in the Wollo district, between Shoa and
Amhara. It is from the Galla that the Abyssinian army is
largely recruited, and, indeed, there are few of the chiefs
who have not an admixture of Galla blood in their veins.
As regards language, several of the indigenous groups, such as
the Khamtas of Lasta, the Agau or Agaos of Agaumeder (``Agao
land'') and the Falashas (q.v.), the so-called ``Jews''
of Abyssinia, still speak rude dialects of the old Hamitic
tongue. But the official language and that of all the
upper classes is of Semitic origin, derived from the ancient
Himyaritic, which is the most archaic member of the Semitic
linguistic family. Geez, as it is called, was introduced
with the first immigrants from Yemen, and although no longer
spoken is still studied as the liturgical language of the
Abyssinian Christians. Its literature consists of numerous
translations of Jewish, Greek and Arabic works, besides a
valuable version of the Bible. (See ETHIOPIA.) The best
modern representative of Geez is the Tigrina of Tigre and
Lasta, which is much purer but less cultivated than the Amharic
dialect, which is used in state documents, is current in the
central and southern provinces and is much affected by Hamitic
elements. All are written in a peculiar syllabic script
which, un- like all other Semitic forms, runs from left to
right, and is derived from that of the Sabaeans and Minaeans,
still extant in the very old rock-inscriptions of south Arabia.
The hybridism of the Abyssinians is reflected in their
political and social institutions, and especially in their
religious beliefs and practices. On a seething mass of African
heathendom, already in early times affected by primitive
Semitic ideas, was suddenly imposed a form of Christianity
which became the state religion. While the various ethnical
elements have been merged in the composite Abyssinian nation,
the primitive and more advanced religious ideas have nowhere
been fused in a uniform Christian system. Foreigners are
often surprised at the strange mixture of savagery and lofty
notions in a Christian community which, for instance, accounts
accidental manslaughter as wilful murder. Recourse is still
had to dreams as a means of detecting crime. A priest is
summoned, and, if his prayers and curses fail, a small boy is
drugged, and ``whatever person he dreams of is fixed on as
the criminal. . . . If the boy does not dream of the person
whom the priest has determined on as the criminal, he is kept
under drugs until he does what is required of him'' (Count
Gleichen, With the Mission to Menelik, chap. xvi., 1898).
The Abyssinian character reflects the country's history.
Murders and executions are frequent, yet cruelty is not a marked
feature of their character; and in war they seldom kill their
prisoners. When a man is convicted of murder, he is handed
over to the relatives of the deceased, who may either put him
to death or accept a ransom. When the murdered person has no
relatives, the priests take upon themselves the office of
avengers. The natural indolence of the people has been
fostered by the constant wars, which have discouraged peaceful
occupations. The soldiers live by plunder, the monks by alms.
The haughtiest Abyssinian is not above begging, excusing himself
with the remark, ``God has given us speech for the purpose of
begging.'' The Abyssinians are vain and selfish, irritable but
easily appeased; and are an intelligent bright people, fond of
gaiety. On every festive occasion, as a saint's day, birth,
marriage, &c., it is customary for a rich man to collect
his friends and neighbours, and kill a cow and one or two
sheep. The principal parts of the cow are eaten raw while yet
warm and quivering, the remainder being cut into small pieces
and cooked with the favourite sauce of butter and red pepper
paste. The raw meat eaten in this way is considered to
be very superior in taste and much more tender than when
cold. The statement by James Bruce respecting the cutting
of steaks from a live cow has frequently been called in
question, but there can be no doubt that Bruce actually saw
what he narrates. Mutton and goat's flesh are the meats
most eaten: pork is avoided on religious grounds, and the
hare is never touched, possibly, as in other countries, from
superstition. Many forms of game are forbidden; for
example, all water-fowl. The principal drinks are me'mse,
a kind of mead, and bousa, a sort of beer made from
fermented cakes. The Abyssinians are heavy eaters and
drinkers, and any occasion is seized as an excuse for a
carouse. Old and young, of both sexes, pass days and nights
in these symposia, at which special customs and rules
prevail. Little bread is eaten, the Abyssinian preferring
a thin cake of durra meal or teE, kneaded with water and
exposed to the sun till the dough begins to rise, when it is
baked. Salt is a luxury; ``he eats salt'' being said of a
spendthrift. Bars of rock-salt, after serving as coins, are,
when broken up, used as food. There is a general looseness of
morals: marriage is a very slight tie, which can be dissolved
at any time by either husband or wife. Polygamy is by no means
uncommon. Hence there is little family affection, and what
exists is only between children of the same father and mother.
Children of the same father, but of different mothers, are
said to be ``always enemies to each other.'' (Samuel Gobat's
Journal of a Three Years' Residence in Abyssinia, 1834.)
The dress of the Abyssinians is much like that of the
Arabs. It consists of close-fitting drawers reaching below the
knees, with a sash to hold them, and a large white robe. The
Abyssinian, however, is beginning to adopt European clothes
on the upper part of the body, and European hats are becoming
common. The Christian Abyssinians usually go barehead and barefoot,
in contrast to the Mahommedans, who wear turbans and leather
sandals. The women's dress is a smock with sleeves loose to the
wrist, where they fit tightly. The priests wear a white jacket
with loose sleeves, a head-cloth like a turban and a special
type of shoe with turned-up toes and soles projecting at the
heel. In the Woldeba district hermits dress in ochre-yellow
cloths, while the priests of some sects wear hides dyed
red. Clothes are made of cotton, though the nobles and great
people wear silk robes presented by the emperor as a mark of
honour. The possessor of one of these is allowed to appear in
the royal presence wearing it instead of having one shoulder
bared, as is the usual Abyssinian method of showing respect.
A high-born man covers himself to the mouth in the presence of
inferiors. The men either cut their hair short or plait it;
married women plait their hair and wind round the head a black
or parti-coloured silk handkerchief; girls wear their hair
short. In the hot season no Abyssinian goes without a
flag-shaped fan of plaited rushes. The Christian Abyssinians,
men and women, wear a blue silk cord round the neck, to
which is often attached a crucifix. For ornament women wear
silver ankle-rings with bells, silver necklaces and silver
or gold rosettes in the ears. Silver rings on fingers and
also on toes are common. The women are very fond of strong
scents, which are generally oils imported from India and
Ceylon. The men scarcely ever appear without a long curved
knife, generally they carry shield and spear as well. Although
the army has been equipped with modern rifles, the common
weapon of the people is the matchlock, and slings are still in
use. The original arms were a sickle-shaped sword, spear and
shield. The Abyssinians are great hunters and are also
clever at taming wild beasts. The nobles hunt antelopes with
leopards, and giraffes and ostriches with horse and greyhound.
In elephant-hunting iron bullets weighing a quarter of a pound
are used; throwing-clubs are employed for small game, and
lions are hunted with the spear. Lion skins belong to the
emperor, but the slayer keeps a strip to decorate his shield.
Stone and mortar are used in building, but the Abyssinian
houses are of the roughest kind, being usually circular huts,
ill made and thatched with grass. These huts are sometimes
made simply of straw and are surrounded by high thorn hedges,
but, in the north, square houses, built in stories, flat-roofed,
the roof sometimes laid at the same slope as the hillside,
and some with pitched thatched roofs, are common. The inside
walls are plastered with cow-dung, clay and finely chopped
straw. None of the houses have chimneys, and smoke soon
colours the interior a dark brown. Generally the houses are
filthy and ill ventilated and swarm with vermin. Drainage
and sanitary arrangements do not exist. The caves of the
highlands are often used as dwellings. The most remarkable
buildings in Abyssinia are certain churches hewn out of the
solid rock. The chief native industries are leather-work,
embroidery and filigree metal-work; and the weaving of straw
mats and baskets is extensively practised. The baskets are
particularly well made, and are frequently used to contain milk.
Abyssinian art is crude and is mainly reserved for rough
frescoes in the churches. These frescoes, however, often
exhibit considerable skill, and are indicative of the lively
imagination of their painters. They are in the Byzantine style
and the colouring is gaudy. Saints and good people are always
depicted full face, the devil and all bad folk are shown in
profile. Among the finest frescoes are those in the church
of the Holy Trinity at Adowa and those in the church at
Kwarata, on the shores of Lake Tsana. The churches are usually
circular in form, the walls of stone, the roof thatched.
The chief musical instruments are rough types of trumpets and
flutes, drums, tambourines and cymbals, and quadrangular harps.
HISTORY
(12) Abyssiania, or at least the northern portion of it, was
included in the tract of country known to the ancients as
Ethiopia, the northern limits of which reached at one time to
about Syene. The connexion between Egypt and Ethiopia was in
early times very intimate, and occasionally the two countries
were under the same ruler, so that the arts and civilization
of the one naturally found their way into the other. In early
times, too, the Hebrews had commercial intercourse with the
Ethiopians; and according to Abyssinian tradition the queen
of Sheba who visited Solomon was a monarch of their country,
and from their son Menelek the kings of Abyssinia claim
descent. During the Captivity many of the Jews settled here
and brought with them a knowledge of the Jewish religion.
Under the Ptolemies, the arts as well as the enterprise of the
Greeks entered Ethiopia, and led to the establishment of Greek
colonies. A Greek inscription at Adulis, no longer extant,
but copied by Cosmas of Alexandria, and preserved in his
Topographia Christiana, records that Ptolemy Euergetes, the
third of the Greek dynasty in Egypt, invaded the countries
on both sides of the Red Sea, and having reduced most of the
provinces of Tigre to subjection, returned to the port of
Adulis, and there offered sacrifices to Jupiter, Mars and
Neptune. Another inscription, not so ancient, found at Axum,
states that Aizanas, king of the Axumites, the Homerites,
&c., conquered the nation of the Bogos, and returned thanks
to his father, the god Mars, for his victory. Out of these
Greek colonies appears to have arisen the kingdom of Auxume
which flourished from the ist to the 7th century A.D.
and was at one time nearly coextensive with Abyssinia
proper. The capital Auxume and the seaport Adulis were then
the chief centres of the trade with the interior of Africa
in gold dust, ivory, leather, aromatics, &c. At Axum, the
site of the ancient capital, many vestiges of its former
greatness still exist; and the ruins of Adulis, which was
once a seaport on the bay of Annesley, are now about 4 m.
from the shore (see ETHIOPIA, The Axumite Kingdom.)
Introduction of Christianity.
(13) Christianity was introduced into the country by Frumentius
(q.v.), who was consecrated first bishop of Ethiopia by St
Athanasius of Alexandria about A.D. 330. From the scanty
evidence available it would appear that the new religion
at first made little progress, and the Axumite kings seem
to have been among the latest converts. Towards the close
of the 5th century a great company of monks are believed to
have established themselves in the country. Since that time
monachism has been a power among the people and not without
its influence on the course of events. In the early part of
the 6th century the king of the Homerites, on the opposite
coast of the Red Sea, having persecuted the Christians, the
emperor Justinian I. requested the king of Auxume, Caleh or
El-Esbaha, to avenge their cause. He accordingly collected
an army, crossed over into Arabia, and conquered Yemen (c.
525), which remained subject to Ethiopia for about fifty
years. This was the most flourishing period in the annals
of the country. The Ethiopians possessed the richest part of
Arabia, carried on a large trade, which extended as far as
India and Ceylon, and were in constant communication with
the Greek empire. Their expulsion from Arabia, followed
by the conquest of Egypt by the Mahommedans in the middle
of the 7th century, changed this state of affairs, and the
continued advances of the followers of the Prophet at length
cut them off from almost every means of communication with
the civilized world; so that, as Gibbon says, ``encompassed
by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept for
near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they
were forgotten.'' About A.D. 1000, a Jewish princess,
Judith, conceived the design of murdering all the members
of the royal family, and of establishing herself in their
stead. During the execution of this project, the infant king
was carded off by some faithful adherents, and conveyed to
Shoa, where his authority was acknowledged, while Judith
reigned for forty years over the rest of the kingdom, and
transmitted the crown to her descendants. In 1268 the kingdom
was restored to the royal house in the person of Yekunu Amlak.
Portuguese Influence.
(14) Towards the close of the 15th century the Portuguese
missions into Abyssinia began. A belief had long prevailed
in Europe of the existence of a Christian kingdom in the far
east, whose monarch was known as Prester John, and various
expeditions had been sent in quest of it. Among others who
had engaged in this search was Pedro de Covilham, who arrived
in Abyssinia in 1490, and, believing that he had at length
reached the far-famed kingdom, presented to the negus, or
emperor of the country, a letter from his master the king of
Portugal, addressed to Prester John. Covilham remained in the
country, but in 1507 an Armenian named Matthew was sent by the
negus to the king of Portugal to request his aid against the
Mahommedans. In 1520 a Portuguese fleet, with Matthew on
board, entered the Red Sea in compliance with this request,
and an embassy from the fleet visited the negus, Lebna Dengel
Dawit (David) II., and remained in Abyssinia for about six
years. One of this embassy was Father Francisco Alvarez,
from whom we have the earliest and not the least interesting
account of the country. Between 1528 and 1540 armies of
Mahommedans, under the renowned general Mahommed Gran (or
Granye, probably a Somali or a Galla), entered Abyssinia
from the low country to the south-east, and overran the
kingdom, obliging the emperor to take refuge in the mountain
fastnesses. In this extremity recourse was again had to the
Portuguese. John Bermudez, a subordinate member of the
mission of 1520, who had remained in the country after the
departure of the embassy, was, according to his own statement
(which is untrustworthy), ordained successor to the abuna
(archbishop), and sent to Lisbon. Bermudez certainly came to
Europe, but with what credentials is not known. Be that as
it may, a Portuguese fleet, under the command of Stephen da
Gama, was sent from India and arrived at Massawa in February
1541. Here he received an ambassador from the negus beseeching
him to send help against the Moslems, and in the July following
a force of 450 musqueteers, under the command of Christopher
da Gama, younger brother of the admiral, marched into the
interior, and being joined by native troops were at first
successful against the enemy; but they were subsequently
defeated, and their commander taken prisoner and put to death
(August 1542). On the 21st of February 1543, however, Mahommed
Granye was shot in an engagement and his forces totally
routed. After this, quarrels arose between the negus and
Bermudez, who had returned to Abyssinia with Christopher
da Gama and who now wished the emperor publicly to profess
himself a convert to Rome. This the negus refused to do,
and at length Bermudez was obliged to make his way out of the
country. The Jesuits who had accompanied or followed the da
Gama expedition into Abyssinia, and fixed their headquarters
at Fremona (near Adowa), were oppressed and neglected, but
not actually expelled. In the beginning of the 17th century
Father Pedro Paez arrived at Fremona, a man of great tact and
judgment, who soon rose into high favour at court, and gained
over the emperor to his faith. He directed the erection of
churches, palaces and bridges in different parts of the
country, and carried out many useful works. His successor
Mendez was a man of much less conciliatory manners, and
the feelings of the people became strongly excited against
the intruders, till at length, on the death of the negus
Sysenius, Socinius or Seged I., and the accession of his son
Fasilidas in 1633, they were all sent out of the country, after
having had a footing there for nearly a century and a half.
Visits of Poncet and Bruce.
The French physician C. J. Poncet, who went there in 1698,
via Sennar and the Blue Nile, was the only European
that afterwards visited the country before Bruce in
1769. James Bruce's main object was to discover the sources
of the Nile, which he was convinced lay in Abyssinia.
Accordingly, leaving Massawa in September 1769, he travelled
via Axum to Gondar, where he was well received by King
Tekla Haimanot II. He accompanied the king on a warlike
expedition round Lake Tsana, moving S. round the eastern
shore, crossing the genuine Blue Nile (Abai) close to its
point of issue from the lake and returning via the western
shore. On a second expedition of his own he proved to his
own satisfaction that the river originated some 4o miles
S.W. of the lake at a place called Geesh (4th of November
1770). He showed that this river flowed into the lake, and
left it by its now well-known outlet. Bruce subsequently
returned to Egypt (end of 1772) via Gondar, the upper Atbara,
Sennar, the Nile, and the Korosko desert (see BRUCE, JAMES).
(15) In order to attain a clear view of native Abyssinian
history, as distinct from the visits and influence of
Europeans, it must be borne in mind that during the last
three hundred years, and indeed for a longer period, for
the old chroniclers may be trusted to have given a somewhat
distorted view of the importance of the particular chieftains
with whom they came in contact, the country has been merely
a conglomeration of provinces and districts, ill defined,
loosely connected and generally at war with each other. Of
these the chief provinces have been Tigre (northern), Amhara
(central) and Shoa (southern). The seat of government, or
rather of overlordship, has usually been in Amhara, the ruler
of which, calling himself negus negusti (king of kings, or
emperor), has exacted tribute, when he could, from the other
provinces. The title of negus negusti has been to a
considerable extent based on the blood in the veins of the
claimant. All the emperors have based their claims on their
direct descent from Solomon and the queen of Sheba; but it
is needless to say that in many, if not in most, cases their
success has been due more to the force of their arms than
to the purity of their lineage. Some of the rulers of the
larger provinces have at times been given, or have given
themselves, the title of negus or king, so that on occasion
as many as three, or even more, neguses have been reigning
at the same time; and this must be borne in mind by the
student of Abyssinian history in order to avoid confusion of
rulers. The whole history of the country is in fact one
gloomy record of internecine wars, barbaric deeds and unstable
governments, of adventurers usurping thrones, only to be
themselves unseated, and of raids, rapine and pillage. Into
this chaos enter from time to time broad rays of sunshine,
the efforts of a few enlightened monarchs to evolve order from
disorder, and to supply to their people the blessings of peace and
civilization. Bearing these matters in mind, we find that during
the 18th century the most prominent and beneficent rulers were
the emperor Yesu of Gondar, who died about 1720, Sebastie,
negus of Shoa (1703-1718), Amada Yesus of Shoa, who extended
his kingdom and founded Ankober (1743-1774), Tekla Giorgis
of Amhara (1770-1798?) and Asfa Nassen of Shoa (1774-1807),
the latter being especially renowned as a wise and benevolent
monarch. The first years of the 19th century were disturbed
by fierce campaigns between Guxa, ras of Gondar, and Wolda
Selassie, ras of Tigre, who were both striving for the
crown of Guxa's master, the emperor Eguala Izeion. Wolda
Selassie was eventually the victor, and practically ruled
the whole country till his death in 1816 at the age of eighty.
British mission and missionary enterprise.
(16) Mention must here be made of the first British mission,
under Lord Valentia and Mr Henry Salt, which was sent in 1805
to conclude an alliance with Abyssinia, and obtain a port on
the Red Sea in case France secured Egypt by dividing up the
Turkish empire with Russia. This mission was succeeded by many
travellers, missionaries and merchants of all countries, and
the stream of Europeans continued until well into Theodore's
reign. For convenience' sake we insert at this point a
partial list of missionaries and others who visited the country
during the second third of the 19th century---merely calling
attention to the fact that their visits were distributed
over widely different parts of the country, ruled by distinct
lines of monarchs or governors. In 1830 Protestant missionary
enterprise was begun by Samuel Gobat and Christian Kugler,
who were sent out by the Church Missionary Society, and were
well received by the ras of Tigre. Mr Kugler died soon
after his arrival, and his place was subsequently supplied
by Mr C. W. Isenberg, who was followed by Dr Ludwig Krapf,
the discoverer of Mount Kenya, and others. Mr (afterwards
Bishop) Gobat proceeded to Gondar, where he also met with
a favourable reception. In 1833 he returned to Europe, and
published a journal of his residence in Abyssinia. In 1834
Gobat went back to Tigre, but in 1836 ill health compelled
him to leave. In 1838 other missionaries were obliged to
leave the country, owing to the opposition of the native
priests. Messrs Isenberg and Krapf went south, and established
themselves at Shoa. The former soon after returned to England,
but Mr Krapf remained in Shoa till March 1842, when he
removed to Mombasa. Dr E. Ruppell, the German naturalist,
visited the country in 1831, and remained nearly two years.
M. E. Combes and M. Tamisier arrived at Massawa in 1835, and
visited districts which had not been traversed by Europeans
since the time of the Portuguese. One who did much at the
time to extend our geographical knowledge of the country was
Dr C. T. Boke (q.v.), who was there from 1840 to 1843.
Mr Mansfield Parkyns was there from 1843 to 1846, and wrote
the most interesting book on the country since the time of
Bruce. Bishop Gobat having conceived the idea of sending lay
missionaries into the country, who would engage in secular
occupations as well as carry on missionary work, Dr Krapf
returned to Abyssinia in 1855 with Mr Flad as pioneers of that
mission; Krapf, however, was not permitted to remain in the
country. Six lay workers came out at first, and they were
subsequently joined by others. Their secular work, however,
appears to have been more valuable to Theodore than their
preaching, so that he employed them as workmen to himself,
and established them at Gaffat, near his capital. Mr Stern
arrived in Abyssinia in 1860, and after a visit to Europe
returned in 1863, accompanied by Mr and Mrs Rosenthal.1
Rivalry of British and French factions
(17) Wolda Selassie of Tigre was succeeded in 1817, through
force of arms, by Sabagadis of Agame, and the latter, as
ras of Tigre, introduced various Englishmen, whom he much
admired, into the country. He increased the prosperity of
his land considerably. but by so doing roused the jealousy
of Ras Marie of Amhara--to whom he had refused tribute--and
Ubie, son of Hailo Mariam, a governor of Simen. In an
ensuing battle (in January 1831), both Sabagadis and Marie
were killed, and Ubie retired to watch events from his own
province. Marie was shortly succeeded in the ras-ship
of Amhara by Ali, a nephew of Guxa and a Mahommedan. But
Ubie, who was aiming at the crown, soon attacked Ras Ali,
and after several indecisive campaigns proclaimed himself
negus of Tigre. To him came many French missionaries and
travellers, chief of whom were Lieut. Lefebvre, charged
(1839) with political and geographical missions, and
Captains Galinier and Ferret, who completed for him a useful
triangulation and survey of Tigre and Simen (1840-1842).
The brothers Antoine and Arnaud d'Abbadie (q.v.) spent
ten years (1838-1848) in the country, making scientific
investigations of great value, and also involving themselves
in the stormy politics of the country. Northern Abyssinia
was now divided into two camps, the one, Amhara and Ras
Ali, under Protestant British, and the other, Tigre and
Ubie, under Roman Catholic French, influence. The latent
hostility between the two factions threatened at one time to
develop into a religious war, but no serious campaigns took
place until Kassa (later Theodore) appeared on the scene.
Rise of the emperor Theodore.
(18) Lij (= Mr) Kassa was born in Kwara, a small district
of Western Amhara, in 1818. His father was a small local
chief, and his uncle was governor of the districts of Dembea,
Kwara and Chelga between Lake Tsana and the undefined N.W.
frontier. He was educated in a monastery, but preferred a
more active life, and by his talents and energy came rapidly
to the front. On the death of his uncle he was made chief of
Kwara, but in consequence of the arrest of his brother Bilawa
by Ras Ali, he raised the standard of revolt against the
latter, and, collecting a large force, repeatedly beat the
troops that were sent against him by the ras (1841-1847).
On one occasion peace was restored by his receiving Tavavich,
daughter of Ras Ali, in marriage; and this lady is said to
have been a good and wise counsellor during her lifetime. He
next turned his arms against the Turks, in the direction of
Massawa, but was defeated; and the mother of Ras Ali having
insulted him in his fallen condition, he proclaimed his
independence. As his power was increasing, to the detriment
of both Ras Ali and Ubie, these two princes combined against
him, but were heavily defeated by him at Gorgora (on the
southern shore of Lake Tsana) in 1853. Ubie retreated to
Tigre, and Ras Ali fled to Begemeder, where he eventually
died. Kassa now ruled in Amhara, but his ambition was to
attain to supreme power, and he turned his attention to
conquering the remaining chief divisions of the country,
Gojam, Tigre and Shoa, which still remained unsubdued.
Berro, ras of Gojam, in order to save himself, attempted
to combine with Tigre, but his army was intercepted by
Kassa and totally destroyed, himself being taken prisoner
and executed (May 1854). Shortly afterwards Kassa moved
against Tigre, defeated Ubie's forces at Deragie,
in Simen (February 1855), took their chief prisoner and
proclaimed himself negus negusti of Ethiopia under the
name of Theodore III. He now turned his attention to Shoa.
Growing power of Shoa
(19) Retracing our steps for a moment in that direction, we
find that in 1813 Sahela (or Sella) Selassie, younger son
of the preceding ras, Wassen Seged, had proclaimed himself
negus or king. His reign was long and beneficent. He
restored the towns of Debra-Berhan and Angolala, and founded
Entotto, the strong stone-built town whose ruins overlook
the modern capital, Adis Ababa. In the terrible ``famine of
St Luke'' in 1835, Selassie still further won the hearts of
his subjects by his wise measures and personal generosity;
and by extending his hospitality to Europeans, he brought
his country within the closer ken of civilized European
powers. During his reign he received the missions of Major
W. Cornwallis Harris, sent by the governor-general of India
(1841), and M. Rochet d'Hericourt, sent by Louis Philippe
(1843), with both of whom he concluded friendly treaties on
behalf of their respective governments. He also wrote to Pope
Pius IX., asking that a Roman Catholic bishop should be sent to
him. This request was acceded to, and the pope despatched
Monsigneur Massaja to Shoa. But before the prelate could
reach the country, Selassie was dead (1847), leaving his
eldest son, Haeli Melicoth, to succeed him. Melicoth at once
proclaimed himself negus, and by sending for Massaja, who
had arrived at Gondar, gave rise to the suspicion that he
wished to have himself crowned as emperor. By increasing
his dominions at the expense of the Gallas, he still further
roused the jealousy of the northerners, and a treaty which
he concluded with Ras Ali against Kassa in 1850 determined
the latter to crush him at the earliest opportunity.
Thus it was that in 1855 Kassa, under the name of the emperor
Theodore, advanced against Shoa with a large army. Dissensions
broke out among the Shoans, and after a desperate and futile
attack on Theodore at Debra-Berhan, Haeli Melicoth died of
exhaustion and fever, nominating with his last breath his
eleven-year-old son Menelek2 as successor (November 1855).
Darge, Haeli's brother, took charge of the young prince, but
after a hard fight with Angeda, one of Theodore's rases, was
obliged to capitulate. Menelek was handed over to the negus,
taken to Gondar, and there trained in Theodore's service.
(20) Theodore was now in the zenith of his career. He is
described as being generous to excess, free from cupidity,
merciful to his vanquished enemies, and strictly continent,
but subject to violent bursts of anger and possessed of
unyielding pride and fanatical religious zeal. He was also
a man of education and intelligence, superior to those among
whom he lived, with natural talents for governing and gaining
the esteem of others. He had, further, a noble bearing and
majestic walk, a frame capable of enduring any amount of
fatigue, and is said to have been ``the best shot, the best
spearman, the best runner, and the best horseman in Abyssinia.''
Had he contented himself with the sovereignty of Amhara and
Tigre, he might have maintained his position; but he was led
to exhaust his strength against the Wollo Gallas, which was
probably one of the chief causes of his ruin. He obtained
several victories over that people, ravaged their country,
took possession of Magdala, which he afterwards made his
principal stronghold, and enlisted many of the chiefs and
their followers in his own ranks. As has been shown, he also
reduced the kingdom of Shoa, and took Ankober, the capital;
but in the meantime his own people were groaning under his
heavy exactions, rebellions were breaking out in various parts
of his provinces, and his good queen Tavavich was now dead.
Theodore's quarrel with great Britain
The British consul, Walter C. Plowden, who was strongly
attached to Theodore, having been ordered by his government
in 1860 to return to Massawa, was attacked on his way by a
rebel named Garred, mortally wounded, and taken prisoner.
Theodore attacked the rebels, and in the action the murderer
of Mr Plowden was slain by his friend and companion Mr J. T.
Bell, an engineer, but the latter lost his life in preserving
that of Theodore. The deaths of the two Englishmen were
terribly avenged by the slaughter or mutilation of nearly
2000 rebels. Theodore soon after married his second wite
Terunish, the proud daughter of the late governor of Tigre,
who felt neither affection nor respect for the upstart who had
dethroned her father, and the union was by no means a happy
one. In 1862 he made a second expedition against the Gallas,
which was stained with atrocious cruelties. Theodore had
now given himself up to intoxication and lust. When the
news of Mr Plowden's death reached England, Captain C. D.
Cameron was appointed to succeed him as consul, and arrived
at Massawa in February 1862. He proceeded to the camp of the
king, to whom he presented a rifle, a pair of pistols and a
letter in the queen's name. In October Captain Cameron was
sent home by Theodore, with a letter to the queen of England,
which reached the Foreign Office on the 12th of February
1863. This letter was put aside and no answer returned,
and to this in no small degree are to be attributed the
difficulties that subsequently arose with that country. In
November despatches were received from England, but no answer
to the emperor's letter, and this, together with a visit paid
by Captain Cameron to the Egyptian frontier town of Kassala,
greatly offended him; accordingly in January 1864 Captain
Cameron and his suite, with Messrs Stern and Rosenthal, were
cast into prison. When the news of this reached England, the
government resolved, when too late, to send an answer to the
emperor's letter, and selected Mr Hormuzd Rassam to be its
bearer. He arrived at Massawa in July 1864, and immediately
despatched a messenger requesting permission to present
himself before the emperor. Neither to this nor a subsequent
application was any answer returned till August 1865, when
a curt note was received, stating that Consul Cameron had
been released, and if Mr Rassam still desired to visit the
king, he was to proceed by the route of Gallabat. Later
in the year Theodore became more civil, and the British
party on arrival at the king's camp in Damot, on the 25th
of January 1866, were received with all honour, and were
afterwards sent to Kwarata, on Lake Tsana, there to await
the arrival of the captives. The latter reached Kwarata
on the 12th of March, and everything appeared to proceed
favourably. A month later they started for the coast, but had
not proceeded far when they were ail brought back and put into
confinement. Theodore then wrote a letter to the queen,
requesting European workmen and machinery to be sent to
him, and despatched it by Mr Flad. The Europeans, although
detained as prisoners, were not at first unkindly treated;
but in the end of June they were sent to Magdala, where they
were soon afterwards put in chains. They suffered hunger,
cold and misery, and were in constant fear of death, till the
spring of 1869 when they were relieved by the British troops.
Sir Robert Napier's expedition. (21) In the meantime
the power of Theodore in the country was rapidly waning.
Shoa had already shaken off his yoke; Gojam was virtually
independent; Walkeit and Simen were under a rebel chief;
and Lasta, Waag and the country about Lake Ashangi had
submitted to Wagshum Gobassie, who had also overrun
Tigre and appointed Dejaj Kassai his governor. The latter,
however, in 1867 rebelled against his master and assumed
the supreme power of that province. This was the state of
matters when the English troops made their appearance in the
country. With a view if possible to effect the release of
the prisoners by conciliatory measures, Mr Flad was sent
back, with some artisans and machinery, and a letter from
the queen, stating that these would be handed over to his
majesty on the release of the prisoners and their return to
Massawa. This, however, failed to influence the emperor,
and the English government at length saw that they must have
recourse to arms. In July 1867, therefore, it was resolved
to send an army into Abyssinia to enforce the release of
the captives, under Sir Robert Napier (1st Baron Napier of
Magdala). The landingplace selected was Mulkutto (Zula),
on Annesley Bay, the point of the coast nearest to the site
of the ancient Adulis, and we are told that ``the pioneers
of the English expedition followed to some extent in the
footsteps of the adventurous soldiers of Ptolemy. and met
with a few faint traces of this old-world enterprise'' (C. R.
Markham). The force amounted to upwards of 16,000 men,
besides 12,640 belonging to the transport service, and
followers, making in all upwards of 32,000 men. The task to
be accomplished was to march over 400 miles of a mountainous
and little-known country, inhabited by savage tribes, to
the camp or fortress of Theodore, and compel him to deliver
up his captives. The commander-in-chief landed on the 7th
of January 1868, and soon after the troops began to move
forward through the pass of Senafe, and southward through
the districts of Agame, Tera, Endarta, Wojerat, Lasta and
Wadela. In the meantime Theodore had been reduced to great
straits. His army, which at one time numbered over 100,000
men, was rapidly deserting him, and he could hardly obtain
food for his followers. He resolved to quit his captial
Debra-Tabor, which he burned, and set out with the remains
of his army for Magdala. During this march he displayed an
amount of engineering skill in the construction of roads, of
military talent and fertility of resource, that excited the
admiration and astonishment of his enemies. On the afternoon
of the 10th of April a force of about 3000 men suddenly poured
down upon the English in the plain of Arogie, a few miles from
Magdala. They advanced again and again to the charge, but
were each time driven back, and finally retired in good
order. Early next morning Theodore sent Lieut. Prideaux, one
of the captives, and Mr Flad, accompanied by a native chief,
to the English camp to sue for peace. Answer was returned,
that if he would deliver up all the Europeans in his hands, and
submit to the queen of England, he would receive honourable
treatment. The captives were liberated and sent away, and
accompanying a letter to the English general was a present
of 1000 cows and 500 sheep, the acceptance of which would,
according to Eastern custom, imply that peace was granted.
Through some misunderstanding, word was sent to Theodore
that the present would be accepted, and he felt that he was
now safe; but in the evening he learned that it had not been
received, and despair again seized him. Early next morning
he attempted to escape with a few of his followers, but
subsequently returned. The same day (13th April) Magdala was
stormed and taken, practically without loss, and within they
found the dead body of the emperor, who had fallen by his own
hand. The inhabitants and troops were subsequently sent
away, the fortifications destroyed and the town burned. The
queen Terunish having expressed her wish to go back to her own
country, accompanied the British army, but died during the
march, and her son Alamayahu, the only legitimate son of the
emperor, was brought to England, as this was the desire of
his father.3 The success of the expedition was in no small
degree owing to the aid afforded by the several native chiefs
through whose country it passed, and no one did more in this
way than Dejaj Kassa or Kassai of Tigre. In acknowledgment of
this, several pieces of ordnance, small arms and ammunition,
with much of the surplus stores, were handed over to
him, and the English troops left the country in May 1868.
Menelek II., king of Shoa (22) It is now time to return
to the story of the young prince Menelek, who, as we have
seen, had been nominated by his late father as ruler of Shoa,
but was in Theodore's power in Tigre. The following table
shows his descent since the beginning of the 19th century:--
Asfa Nassen, d. 1807
|
Wassan Seged = Woizero Zenebe Work
d. 1811 |
|
---------------------------------
| |
Becurraye Sella Selassie = Woizero Betsabesh
(1795-1847) |
|
---------------------------------------------------
| | |
Haeli Melicoth = Ejigayu Siefu Darge
(1825-1855) | (1826-1860) b. 1827
| |
Menelek II. = Taitu Mashasha
b. 1844 |
|
----------------------------------------
| | |
1 son Zauditu Tanina Work
(dead) (Judith) (daughter)
On the retirement of Theodore's forces from Shoa in 1855,
Siefu, brother of Haeli Melicoth, proclaimed himself negus
of Shoa at Ankober, and beat the local representatives of
the northern government. The emperor returned, however,
in 1858, and after several repulses succeeded in entering
Ankober, where he behaved with great cruelty, murdering or
mutilating all the inhabitants. Siefu kept up a gallant
defence for two more years, but was then killed by Kebret,
one of his own chiefs. Thus chaos again reigned supreme in
Shoa. In 1865, Menelek, now a desjazmach 4 of Tigre,
took advantage of Theodore's difficulties with the British
government and escaped to Workitu, queen of the Wollo Galla
country. The emperor, who held as hostage a son of Workitu,
threatened to kill the boy unless Menelek were given up;
but the gallant queen refused, and lost both her son and her
throne. The fugitive meanwhile arrived safely in Shoa, and
was there acclaimed as negus. For the next three years
Menelek devoted himself to strengthening and disciplining
his army, to legislation, to building towns, such as Liche
(near Debra-Berhan), Worra Hailu (Wollo Galla country),
&c., and to repelling the incursions of the Gallas.
King John attains supreme power.
On the death of Theodore (13th April 1868) many Shoans,
including Ras Darge, were released, and Menelek began to
feel himself strong enough, after a few preliminary minor
campaigns, to undertake offensive operations against the
northern princes. But these projects were of little avail,
for Kassai of Tigre, as above mentioned, had by this time
(1872) risen to supreme power in the north. With the help
of the rifles and guns presented to him by the British,
he had beaten Ras Bareya of Tigre, Wagshum Gobassie of
Amhara and Tekla Giorgis of Condar, and after proclaiming
himself negus negusti under the name of Johannes or John,
was now preparing to march on Shoa. Here, however, Menelek
was saved from probable destruction through the action of
Egypt. This power had, by the advice of Werner Munzinger
(q.v.), their Swiss governor of Massawa, seized and
occupied in 1872 the northern province of Bogos; and, later
on, insisted on occupying Hamasen also, for fear Bogos
should be attacked. John, after futile protests, collected
an army, and with the assistance of Ras Walad Michael,
hereditary chief of Bogos, advanced against the Egyptian
forces, who were under the command of one Arendrup, a
Dane. Meeting near the Mareb, the Egyptians were beaten in
detail, and almost annihilated at Gundet (13th November
1875). An avenging expedition was prepared in the spring
of the following year, and, numbering 14,000 men under Ratib
Pasha, Loring (American), and Prince Hassan, advanced to
Gura and fortified a position in the neighbouthood. Although
reinforced by Walad Michael, who had now quarrelled with
John, the Egyptians were a second time (25th March 1876)
heavily beaten by the Abyssinians, and retired, losing an
enormous quantity of both men and rifies. Colonel C. G.
Gordon, governor-general of the Sudan, was now ordered to
go and make peace with John, but the king had moved south
with his army, intending to punish Menelek for having raided
Gondar whilst he, John, was engaged with the Egyptians.
(23) Menelek's kingdom was meanwhile torn in twain by serious
dissensions, which had been instigated by his concubine
Bafana. This lady, to whom he was much attached, had been
endeavouring to secure the succession of one of her own sons
to the throne of Shoa, and had almost succeeded in getting
rid of Mashasha, son of Siefu and cousin of Menelek, who
was the apparent heir. On the approach of John, the Shoans
united for a time against their common enemy. But after a
few skirmishes they melted away, and Menelek was obliged to
submit and do obeisance to John. The latter behaved with
much generosity, but at the same time imposed terms which
effectually deprived Shoa of her independence (March 1878).
In 1879 Gordon was sent on a fresh mission to John on behalf of
Egypt; but he was treated with scant courtesy, and was obllgcd
to leave the country without achieving anything permanent.
Beginning of Italian influence.
The Italians now come on the scene. Assab, a port near the
southern entrance of the Red Sea, had been bought from the
focal sultan in March 1870 by an Italian company, which,
after acquiring more land in 1879 and 1880, was bought
out by the Italian government in 1882. In this year Count
Pietro Antonelli was despatched to Shoa in order to improve
the prospects of the colony by treaties with Menelek and
the sultan of Aussa. Several missions followed upon this
one, with more or less successful results; but both John and
Menelek became uneasy when Beilul, a port to the north of
Assab Bay, was occupied by the Italians in January 1885, and
Massawa taken over by them from Egypt in the following month.
This latter act was greatly resented by the Abyssinians, for
by a treaty concluded with a British and Egyptian mission
under Admiral Hewett and Mason Pasha 5 in the previous
year, free transit of goods was to be allowed through this
port. Matters came to a head in January 1887, when the
Abyssinians, in consequence of a refusal from General Gene
to withdraw his troops, surrounded and attacked a detachment
of 500 Italian troops at Dogali, killing more than 400 of
them. Reinforcements were sent from Italy, whilst in the
autumn the British government stepped in and tried to mediate
by means of a mission under Mr (afterwards Sir Gerald)
Portal. His mission, however proved abortive, and after many
difficulties and dangers he returned to Egypt at the end of the
year. In April 1888 the Italian forces, numbering over 20,000
men, came into touch with the Abyssinian army; but negotiations
took the place of fighting, with the result that both forces
retired, the Italians only leaving some 5000 troops in
Eritrea, as their colony was now called. Meanwhile John had
not been idle with regard to the dervishes, who had in the
meantime become masters of the Egyptian Sudan. Although he
had set his troops in motion too late to relieve Kassala,
Ras Alula, his chief general, had succeeded in inflicting
a handsome defeat on Osman Digna at Kufit in September
1885. Fighting between the dervishes and the Abyssinians
continued, and in August 1887 the dervishes entered and
sacked Gondar. After some delay, King John took the field
in force against the enemy, who were still harassing the
north-west of his territory. A great battle ensued at
Gallabat, in which the dervishes, under Zeki Tumal, were
beaten. But a stray bullet struck the king, and the Abyssinians
decided to retire. The king died during the night, and his
body fell into the hands of the enemy (9th March 1889).
Menelek emperor.
(24) Immediately the news of John's death reached Menelek,
he proclaimed himself emperor, and received the submission
of Gondar, Gojam and several other provinces. In common
with other northern princes, Mangasha, reputed son and heir
of King John, with the yellow-eyed Ras Alula,6 refused to
acknowledge the sovereignty of Menelek; but, on the latter
marching against them in the following January with a large
army, they submitted. As it happened, Count Antonelli
was with Menelek when he claimed the throne, and promptly
concluded (2nd of May 1889) with him on behalf of Italy a
friendly treaty, to be known hereafter as the famous Uccialli
treaty. In consequence of this the Italians occupied Asmara,
made friends with Mangasha and received Ras Makonnen7,
Menelek's nephew, as his plenipotentiary in Italy. Thus it
seemed as though hostilities between the two countries had
come to a definite end, and that peace was assured in the
land. For the next three years the land was fairly quiet,
the chief political events being the convention (6th February
1891) between Italy and Abyssinia, protocols between Italy
and Great Britain (24th March and 15th April 1891) and a
proclamation by Menelek (10th April 1891), all on the subject of
boundaries. As, however, the Italians became more and more
friendly with Mangasha and Tigre the apprehensions of Menelek
increased, till at last, in February 1893, he wrote denouncing
the Uccialli treaty, which differed in the Italian and Amharic
versions. According to the former, the negus was bound
to make use of Italy as a channel for communicating with
other powers, whereas the Amharic version left it optional.
Meanwhile the dervishes were threatening Eritrea. A fine
action by Colonel Arimondi gained Agordat for Italy (21st
December 1893), and a brilliant march by Colonel Baratieri
resulted in the acquisition of Kassala (17th July 1894).
On his return Baratieri found that Mangasha was intriguing
with the dervishes, and had actually crossed the frontier
with a large army. At Koatit and Senafe (13th to 15th
January 1895) Mangasha was met and heavily defeated by
Baratieri, who occupied Adrigat in March. But as the year
wore on the Italian commander pushed his forces unsupported
too far to the south. Menelek was advancing with a large
army in national support of Mangasha, and the subsequent
reverses at Amba Alagi (7th December 1895) and Macalle
(23rd January 1896) forced the Italians to fall back.
Battle of Adowa. Reinforcements of many thousands were
meanwhile arriving at Massawa, and in February Baratieri took
the field at the head of over 13,000 men. Menelek's army,
amounting to about 90,000, had during this time advanced,
and was occupying a strong position at Abba Garima, near
Adua (or Adowa). Here Baratieri attacked him on the 1st
of March, but the difficulties of the country were great,
and one of the four Italian brigades had pushed too far
forward. This brigade was attacked by overwhelming numbers,
and on the remaining brigades advancing in support, they were
successively cut to pieces by the encircling masses of the
enemy. The Italians lost over 4500 white and 2000 native
troops killed and wounded, and over 2500 prisoners, of which
1600 were white, whilst the Abyssinians owned to a loss of over
3000. General Baldissera advanced with a large body of
reinforcements to avenge this defeat, but the Abyssinians,
desperately short of supplies, had already retired, and beyond
the peaceful relief of Adrigat no further operations took
place. It may here be remarked that the white prisoners
taken by Menelek were exceedingly well treated by him, and
that he behaved throughout the struggle with Italy with
the greatest humanity and dignity. On the 26th of October
following a provisional treaty of peace was concluded at
Adis Ababa, annulling the treaty of Uccialli and recognizing
the absolute independence of Abyssinia. This treaty was
ratified, and followed by other treaties and agreements
defining the Eritrean-Abyssinian and the Abyssinian-Italian
Somaliland frontiers (see ITALY, History, and SOMALILAND, Italian
Menelek as independent monarch.
(25) The war, so disastrous to Italy, attracted the attention of
all Europe to Abyssinia and its monarch, and numerous
missions, two Russian, three French and one British, were
despatched to the country, and hospitably received by
Menelek. The British one, under Mr (afterwards Sir) Rennell
Rodd, concluded a friendly treaty with Abyssinia (15th
of May 1897), but did not, except in the direction of
Somaliland, touch on frontier questions, which for several
years continued a subject of discussion. During the same
year (1897) a small French expedition under Messrs Clochette
and de Bonchamps endeavoured to reach the Nile, but, after
surmounting many difficulties, stuck in the marshes of the
Upper Sobat, and was obliged to return. Another expedition
of Abyssinians, under Dejaj Tasamma and accompanied by three
Europeans---Faivre (French), Potter (Swiss) and Artomonov
(Russian)--started early in 1898, and reached the Nile at the
Sobat mouth in June, a few days only before Major Marchand
and his gallant companions arrived on the scene. But no
contact was made, and the expedition returned to Abyssinia.
In the same year Menelek proceeded northwards with a large
army for the purpose of chastising Mangasha, who was again
rebelling against his authority. After some trifling fighting
Mangasha submitted, and Ras Makonnen despatched a force
to subdue Beni Shangul, the chief of which gold country,
Wad Tur el Guri, was showing signs of disaffection. This
effected, the Abyssinians almost came into contact with the
Egyptian troops sent up the Blue Nile (after the occupation
of Khartum) to Famaka and towards Gallabat; but as both
sides were anxious to avoid a collision over this latter
town, no hostile results ensued. An excellent understanding
was, in fact, established between these two contiguous
countries, in spite of occasional disturbances by bandits
on the frontier. On this frontier question, a treaty
was concluded on the 15th of May 1902 between England and
Abyssinia for the delimitation of the Sudan-Abyssinian
frontier. Menelek, in addition, agreed not to obstruct the
waters of Lake Tsana, the Blue Nile or the Sobat, so as not
to interfere with the Nile irrigation question, and he also
agreed to give a concession, if such should be required,
for the construction of a British railway through his
dominions, to connect the Sudan with Uganda. A combined
British-Abyssinian expedition (Mr A. E. Butter's) was despatched
in 1901 to propose and survey a boundary between Abyssinia
on the one side and British East Africa and Uganda on the
other; and the report of the expedition was made public by
the British government in November 1904. It was followed
in 1908 by an agreement defining the frontiers concerned.
Co-operation with Britain against the Somali mullah.
(26) In 1899 the rebellion of the so-called ``mad'' mullah
(Hajji Mahommed Abdullah) began on the borders of British
Somaliland. An Abyssinian expedition was, at Great
Britain's request, sent against the mullah, but without much
effect. In the spring and summer of 1901 a fresh expedition
from Harrar was undertaken against the mullah, who was
laying waste the Ogaden country. Two British officers
accompanied this force, which was to co-operate with British
troops advancing from Somaliland; but little was achieved
by the Abyssinians, and after undergoing considerable
privations and losses, and harassing the country generally,
including that of some friendly tribes, it returned to
Harrar. During the 1902-3 campaign of General (Sir) W. H.
Manning, Menelek provided a force of 5000 to co-operate with
the British and to occupy the Webi Shebeli and south-western
parts of the Hand. This time the Abyssinians were more
successful, and beat the rebels in a pitched fight; but
the difficulties of the country again precluded effective
co-operation. During General Egerton's campaign (1903-4)
yet another force of 5000 Abyssinians was despatched towards
Somaliland. Accompanied by a few British officers, it worked
its way southward, but did not contribute much towards the
final solution. In any case, however, it is significant
that the Abyssinians have repeatedly been willing to
co-operate with the British away from their own country.
Growth of European influence. Regarding the question of
railways, the first concession for a railway from the coast
at Jibuti (French Somaliland) to the interior was granted
hy Menelek to a French company in 1894. The company having
met with numberless difficulties and financial troubles, the
French government, on the extinction of the company's funds,
came to the rescue and provided money for the construction.
(In the alternative British capitalists interested in the
company would have obtained control of the line.) The French
government's help enabled the railway to be completed to
Dire Dawa, 28 m. from Harrar, by the last day of 1902.
Difficulties arose over the continuation of the railway to
Adis Ababa and beyond, and the proposed internationalization
of the line. These difficulties, which hindered the work
of construction for years, were composed (so far as the
European Powers interested were concerned) in 1906. By the
terms of an Anglo-French-Italian agreement, signed in London
on the 13th of December of that year, it was decided that
the French company should fund the railway as far as Adis
Ababa, while railway construction west of that place should
be under British auspices, with the stipulation that any
railway connecting Italy's possessions on the Red Sea with
its Somaliland protectorate should be built under Italian
auspices. A British, an Italian and an Abyssinian representative
were to be appointed to the board of the French company, and a
French director to the board of any British or Italian company
formed. Absolute equality of treatment on the railway and
at Jibuti was guaranteed to the commerce of all the Powers.
Meanwhile the country slowly developed in parts and opened
out cautiously to European influences. Most of the Powers
appointed representatives at Menelek's capital--the British
minister-plenipotentiary and consul-general, Lieut.-Colonel
Sir J. L. Harrington, having been appointed shortly after
the British mission in 1897. In December 1903 an American
mission visited Adis Ababa, and a commercial treaty between
the United States and Abyssinia was signed. A German
mission visited the country early in 1905 and also concluded
a treaty of commerce with the negus. Later in the year a
German minister was appointed to the court of the emperor.
After 1897 British influence in Abyssinia, owing largely no
doubt to the conquest of the Sudan, the destruction of the
dervish power and the result of the Fashoda incident, was
sensibly on the increase. Of the remaining powers France
occupied the most important position in the country. Ras
Makonnen, the most capable and civilized of Menelek's probable
successors, died in March 1906, and Mangasha died later in
the same year; the question of the succession therefore
opened up the possibility that, in spite of recent civilizing
influences, Abyssinia might still relapse in the future
into its old state of conflict. The Anglo-French-Italian
agreement of December 1906 contained provisions in view of
this contingency. The preamble of the document declared
that it was the common interest of the three Powers ``to
maintain intact the integrity of Ethiopia,'' and Article
I. provided for their co-operation in maintaining ``the
political and territorial status quo in Ethiopia.'' Should,
however, the status quo be disturbed, the powers were to
concert to safeguard their special interests. The terms
of the agreement were settled in July 1906, and its text
forthwith communicated to the negus. After considerable
hesitation Menelek sent, early in December, a note to the
powers, in which, after thanking them for their intentions,
he stipulated that the agreement should not in any way limit
his own sovereign rights. In June 1908, by the nomination of
his grandson, Lij Yasu (b. 1896), as his heir, the emperor
endeavoured to end the rivalry between various princes
claiming the succession to the throne. (See MENELEK.) A
convention with Italy, concluded in the same year, settled
the frontier questions outstanding with that country. (G.*)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For general information see A. B. Wylde's
Modern Abyssinia (London, 1901), a volume giving the result
of many years' acquaintance with the country and people;
Voyage en Abyssinie . . . 1839-43, par une commission
scientifique, by Th. Lefebvre and others (6 vols. and atlas, 3
vols., Paris, 1845--54); Elisee Reclus, Nouvelle geographie
universelle, vol. x. chap. v. (Paris, 1885). For latest
geographical and kindred information consult the Geographical
Journal (London), especially ``A Journey through Abyssinia,''
vol. xv. (1900), and ``Exploration in the Abai Basin,'' vol.
xxvii. (1906), both by H. Weld Blundell, and ``From the
Somali Coast through S. Ethiopia to the Sudan,'' vol. xx.
(1902), by C. Neumann; Antoine d'Abbadie, Geographie de
l'Ethiopie (Paris, 1890). The British parliamentary paper
Africa, No. 13 (1904), is a report on the survey of the
S.E. frontier by Capt. P. Maud, R.E., and contains a valuable
map. For geology, &c., see W. T. Blanford, Observations
on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia (London, 1870); C.
Futterer, ``Beitrage zur Kenntniss des Jura in Ost-Afrika,''
Zeit. Deutsch. Geol. Gesell. xlix. p. 568 (1897); C.
A. Raisin, ``Rocks from Southern Abyssinia,'' Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. lix. pp. 292-306 (1903).
Among works by travellers describing the country are---James
Bruce's Travels to discover the Source of the Nile 1768-1773
(Edinburgh, 1813, 3rd ed., 8 vols.); The Highlands of
Aethiopia (3 vols., London, 1844), by Sir W. Cornwallis
Harris, dealing with the Danakil country, Harrar and
Shoa; Mansfield Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia; being notes
collected during three years' residence and travels (2nd
ed., London, 1868); Antoine d'Abbadie, Douze ans dans
La Haute Ethiopie (Paris, 1868); P. H. G. Powell-Cotton,
A Sporting Trip through Abyssinia (London, 1902); A.
Donaldson Smith, Through Unknown African Countries (London,
1897); M. S. Wellby, Twixt Sirdar and Menelik (London,
1901). For history see -- A. M. H. J. Stokvis' Manuel
d'histoire, vol. i. pp. 439-46, and vol. ii. pp. lxxiv-v
(Leiden, 1888-89), which contains lists of the sovereigns
of Abyssinia, Shoa and Harrar, from the earliest times,
with brief notes. Texts of treaties between Abyssinia and
the European Powers up to 1896 will be found in vol. i. of
Sir E. Hertslet's The Map of Africa by Treaty (London,
1896). L. J. Morie's Histoire de l'Ethiopie: Tome ii,
``L'Abyssinie'' (Paris, 1904), is a comprehensive survey
(the views on modern affairs being coloured by a strong
anti-British bias). For more detailed historical study consult
C. Beccari's Notizia e Saggi di opere e documenti inediti
riguardanti la Storia di Etiopia durante i Secoli XVI.,
XVII. e XVIII. (Rome. 1903), a valuable guide to the period
indicated; E. Glaser, Die Abessinier in Arabien und Afrika
(Munich, 1895); The Portuguese Expedition to Abysinnia in
1541-1543 as narrated by Castanhoso (with the account of
Bermudez), translated and edited by R. S. Whiteway (London,
Hakluyt Society, 1902), which contains a bibliography; Futu
el-Habacha, a contemporary Arab chronicle of the wars of
Mahommed Gran, translated into French by Antoine d'Abbadie
and P. Paulitschke (Paris,1898); A Voyage to Abyssinia by
Father Jerome Lobo, from the French [by Samuel Johnson]
(London, 1735); Record of the Expedition to Abyssinia, 3
vols., an official history of the war of 1868, by Major T. J.
Holland and Capt. H. Hosier (London, 1870); Hormuzd Rassam,
Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore [1865-1868]
(2 vols., London, 1869); Henry Blanc, A Narrative of
Captivity in Abyssinia (London, 1868 ), by one of Theodore's
prisoners; Sir Gerald H. Portal, My Mission to Abyssinia
(London, 1892), an account of the author's embassy to King
John in 1887; Count A. E. W. Gleichen, With the Mission to
Menelik, 1897 (London, 1898), containing the story of the
Rennell Rodd mission; R. P. Skinner, Abyssinia of To-Day
(London, 1906), a record of the first American mission to the
country; G. F. H. Berkeley, The Campaign of Adowa and the
Rise of Menelik (London, 1902). Books dealing with missionary
enterprise are---Journal of a Three Years' Residence in
Abyssinia, by Bishop Samuel Gobat (London, 1834); J. L.
Krapf, Travels, Researches and Missionary Labours during
an 18 years' residence in Eastern Africa (London, 1860);
Cardinal G. Massaja, I miei Trentacinque anni di Missione
nell' Alta Etiopia (10 vols., Milan, 1886-1893). Political
questions are referred to by T. Lennox Gilmour, Abyssinia:
the Ethiopian Railway and the Powers (London, 1906);
H. le Roux, Menelik et nous (Paris, 1901); Charles
Michel, La question d'Ethiopie (Paris, 1905). (F. R. C.)
1 Since Theodore's time Protestant missionary
work, except by natives, has been stopped.
2 Menelek means ``a second self.''
3 He was subsequently sent to school at Rugby, but
died in his nineteenth year, on the 14th of Nnvember
1879. He was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor.
4 A title variously translated. A dejazmach (dejaj)
is a high official, ranking immediately belaw a ras,
5 The main object of this mission was to seek John's
assistance in evacuating the Egyptian garrisons in
the Sudan, which were threatened by the dervishes.
6/0 Ras Alula died February 1897, aged about 52. He had
raised himself by his military talents from being a groom and
private soldier to the position of generalissimo of the army.
7 Ras of Harrar, which province had been conquered
and occupied by Menelek in January 1887.
ABYSSINIAN CHURCH. As the chronicle of Axum relates,
Christianity was adopted in Abyssinia in the 4th century.
About A.D. 330 Frumentius was made first bishop of Ethiopia by
Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. Cedrenus and Nicephorus
err in dating Abyssinian Christianity from Justinian, c.
542. From Frumentius to the present day, with one break, the
Metropolitan (Abuna) has always been appointed from Egypt,
and, oddly enough, he is always a foreigner. Little is
known of church history down to the period of Jesuit rule,
which broke the connexion with Egypt from about 1500 to
1633. But the Abyssinians rejected the council of Chalcedon,
and still remain monophysites. Union with the Coptic Church
(q.v.) continued after the Arab conquest in Egypt. Abu
Sallh records (12th century) that the patriarch used always to
send letters twice a year to the kings of Abyssinia and Nubia,
till Al Hakim stopped the practice. Cyril, 67th patriarch,
sent Severus as bishop, with orders to put down polygamy
and to enforce observance of canonical consecration for all
churches. These examples show the close relations of the two
churches in the Middle Ages. But early in the 16th century
the church was brought under the influence of a Portuguese
mission. In 1439, in the reign of Zara Yakub, a religious
discussion between an Abyssinian, Abba Giorgis, and a Frank
had led to the despatch of an embassy from Abyssinia to the
Vatican; but the initiative in the Roman Catholic missions
to Abyssinia was taken, not by Rome, but by Portugal, as an
incident in the struggle with the Mussulmans for the command
of the trade route to India by the Red Sea. In 1507 Matthew,
or Matheus, an Armenian, had been sent as Abyssinian envoy
to Portugal to ask aid against the Mussulmans, and in 1520
an embassy under Dom Rodrigo de Lima landed in Abyssinia.
An interesting account of this mission, which remained
for several years, was written by Francisco Alvarez, the
chaplain. Later, Ignatius Loyola wished to essay the task
of conversion, but was forbidden. Instead, the pope sent
out Joao Nunez Barreto as patriarch of the East Indies,
with Andre de Oviedo as bishop; and from Goa envoys went to
Abyssinia, followed by Oviedo himself, to secure the king's
adherence to Rome. After repeated failures some measure of
success was achieved, but not till 1604 did the king make
formal submission to the pope. Then the people rebelled and
the king was slain. Fresh Jesuit victories were followed
sooner or later by fresh revolt, and Roman rule hardly
triumphed when once for all it was overthrown. In 1633 the
Jesuits were expelled and allegiance to Alexandria resumed.
There are many early rock-cut churches in Abyssinia, closely
resembling the Coptic. After these, two main types of
architecture are found--one basilican, the other native. The
cathedral at Axum is basilican, though the early basilicas
are nearly all in ruin -e.g. that at Adulis and that of
Martula Mariam in Gojam, rebuilt in the 16th century on
the ancient foundations. These examples show the influence
of those architects who, in the 6th century, built the
splendid basilicas at Sanaa and elsewhere in Arabia. Of
native churches there are two forms---one square or oblong,
found in Tigre; the other circular, found in Amhara and
Shoa. In both, the sanctuary is square and stands clear in the
centre. An outer court, circular or rectangular, surrounds the
body of the church. The square type may be due to basilican
influence, the circular is a mere adaptation of the native
hut: in both, the arrangements are obviously based on Jewish
tradition. Church and outer court are usually thatched,
with wattled or mud-built walls adorned with rude frescoes.
The altar is a board on four wooden pillars having upon
it a small slab (tabut) of alabaster, marble, or shittim
wood, which forms its essential part. At Martula Mariam,
the wooden altar overlaid with gold had two slabs of solid
gold, one 500, the other 800 ounces in weight. The ark kept
at Axum is described as 2 feet high, covered with gold and
gems. The liturgy was celebrated on it in the king's palace
at Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and Feast of the Cross.
Generally the Abyssinians agree with the Copts in ritual and
practice. The LXX. version was translated into Geez, the
literary language, which is used for all services, though hardly
understood. Saints and angels are highly revered, if not adored,
but graven images are forbidden. Fasts are long and rigid.
Confession and absolution, strictly enforced, give great power
to the priesthood. The clergy must marry, but once only.
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem is a religious duty and covers many sins.
AUTHORITIES.--Tellez, Historia de Ethiopia (Coimbra,
1660); Alvarez, translated and edited for the Hakluyt Soc.
by Lord Stanley of Aderley, under the title Narrative
of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia (London, 1881);
Ludolphus, History of Ethiopia (London, 1684, and other
works); T. Wright, Christianity of Arabia (London, 1855);
C. T. Beke, ``Christianity among the Gallas,'' Brit. Mag.
(London, 1847); J. C. Hotten, Abyssinia Described (London,
1868); ``Abyssinian Church Architecture,'' Royal Inst.
Brit. Arch. Transactions, 1869; Ibid. Journal, March
1897; Archaeologia, vol. xxxii.; J. A. de Graca Barreto,
Documenta historiam ecclesiae Habessinarum illustrantia
(Olivipone, 1879); E. F. Kromrei, Glaubenlehre und Gebrauche
der alteren Abessinischen Kirche (Leipzig, 1895); F. M. E.
Pereira, Vida do Abba Samuel (Lisbon, 1894); Idem, Vida do
Abba Daniel (Lisbon, 1897); Idem, Historia dos Martyres de
Nagran (Lisbon, 1899); Idem, Chronica de Susenyos (Lisbon,
text 1892, tr. and notes 1900); Idem, Martyrio de Abba Isaac
(Coimbra, 1909); Idem, Vida de S. Paulo de Thebas (Coimbra,
1904); Archdeacon Dowling, The Abyssinian Church, (London,
1909); and periodicals as under COPTIC CHURCH. (A. J. B.)
ACACIA, a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the family
Leguminosae and the sub-family Mimoseae. The small flowers
are arranged in rounded or elongated clusters. The leaves are
compound pinnate in general (see fig.). In some instances,
however, more especially in the Australian species, the leaflets
are suppressed and the leaf-stalks become vertically flattened,
and serve the purpose of leaves. The vertical position protects
the structure from the intense sunlight, as with their
edges towards the sky and earth they do not intercept light
so fully as ordinary horizontally placed leaves. There
are about 450 species of acacia widely scattered over the
warmer regions of the globe. They abound in Australia and
Africa. Various species yield gum. True gum-arabic is the
product of Acacia Senegal, abundant in both east and west
tropical Africa. Acacia arabica is the gum-arabic tree of
India, but yields a gum inferior to the true gum-arabic.
An astringent medicine, called catechu (q.v.) or cutch,
is procured from several species, but more especially from
Acacia catechu, by boiling down the wood and evaporating
the solution so as to get an extract. The bark of Acacia
arabica, under the name of babul or babool, is used
in Scinde for tanning. The bark of various Australian
species, known as wattles, is also very rich in tannin
and forms an important article of export. Such are Acacia
pycnantha, golden wattle, A. decurrens, tan wattle, and A.
dealbata, silver wattle. The pods of Acacia nilotica,
under the name of neb-neb, and of other African species
Acacia Senegal, flowering branch, natural size (after A. Meyer
and Schumann).
From Strasburger's Lehrbuch der Botanik.
is rich in tannin and used by tanners. The seeds of Acacia
niopo are roasted and used as snuff in South America.
Some species afford valuable timber; such are Acacia
melanoxylon, black wood of Australia, which attains a great
size; its wood is used for furniture, and takes a high
polish; and Acacia homalophylla (also Australian), myall
wood, which yields a fragrant timber, used for ornamental
purposes. Acacia formosa supplies the valuable Cuba timber
called sabicu. Acacia seyal is supposed to be the shittah
tree of the Bible, which supplied shittim-wood. Acacia
heterophylla, from Mauritius and Bourbon, and Acacia koa
from the Sandwich Islands are also good timber trees. The
plants often bear spines, especially those growing in arid
districts in Australia or tropical and South Africa. These
sometimes represent branches which have become short, hard
and pungent, or sometimes leaf-stipules. Acacia armata is
the kangaroo-thorn of Australia, A. giraffae, the African
camelthorn. In the Central American Acacia sphaerocephala
(bullthorn acacia) and A. spadicigera, the large thorn-like
stipules are hollow and afford shelter for ants, which feed on
a secretion of honey on the leaf-stalk and curious food-bodies
at the tips of the leaflets; in return they protect the
plant against leaf-cutting insects. In common language the
term Acacia is often applied to species of the genus Robinia
(q.v.) which belongs also to the Leguminous family, but
is placed in a different section. Robinia Pseud-acacia,
or false acacia, is cultivated in the milder parts of
Britain, and forms a large tree, with beautiful pea-like
blossoms. The tree is sometimes called the locust tree.
ACADEMIES. The word ``academy'' is derived from ``the
olive grove of Academe, Plato's retirement,'' the birthplace
of the Academic school of philosophy (see under ACADEMY,
GREEK). The schools of Athens after the model of the
Academy continued to flourish almost without a break for
nine centuries till they were abolished by a decree of
Justinian. It was not without significance in tracing the
history of the word that Cicero gave the name to his villa near
Puteoli. It was there that he entertained his cultured
friends and held the symposia which he afterwards elaborated in
Academic Questions and other philosophic and moral dialogues.
``Academy,'' in its modern acceptation, may be defined
as a society or corporate body having for its object the
cultivation and promotion of literature, of science and
of art, either severally or in combination, undertaken
for the pure love of these pursuits, with no interested
motive. Modern academies, moreover, have, almost without
exception, some form of public recognition; they are either
founded or endowed, or subsidized, or at least patronized,
by the sovereign of the state. The term ``academy'' is
very loosely used in modern times; and, in essentials, other
bodies with the title of ``society'' or ``college,'' or even
``school,'' often embody the same idea; we are only concerned
here, however, with those which, bearing the title of academy,
are of historical importance in their various spheres.
Early History.---The first academy, as thus defined,
though it might with equal justice claim to be the first
of universities, was the museum of Alexandria founded at
the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. by the first of
the Ptolemies. There all the sciences then known were
pursued, and the most learned men of Greece and of the
East gathered beneath its spacious porticos. Here, too,
was the nucleus of the famous library of Alexandria.
Passing over the state institute for the promotion of
science founded at Constantinople by Caesar Bardas in the
9th century, and the various academies established by the
Moors at Granada, at Corduba and as far east as Samarkand,
we come to the academy over which Alcuin presided, a branch
of the School of the Palace established by Charlemagne in
782. This academy was the prototype of the learned coteries
of Paris which Moliere afterwards satirized. It took
all knowledge for its province; it included the learned
priest and the prince who could not write his own name,
and it sought to solve all problems by witty definitions.
The David of Alcuin's academy (such was the name that the
emperor assumed) found no successors or imitators, and the
tradition of an Oxford academy of Alfred the Great has been
proved to rest on a forgery. The academy of arts founded
at Florence in 1270 by Brunetto Latini was short-lived and
has left no memories, and modern literary academies may
be said to trace their lineage in direct descent from the
troubadours of the early 14th century. The first Floral
Games were held at Toulouse in May 1324, at the summons of a
gild of troubadours, who invited ``honourable lords, friends
and companions who possess the science whence spring joy,
pleasure, good sense, merit and politeness'' to assemble
in their garden of the ``gay science'' and recite their
works. The prize, a golden violet, was awarded to Vidal
de Castelnaudary for a poem to the glory of the Virgin. In
spite of the English invasion and other adversities the Floral
Games survived till, about the year 1500, their permanence
was secured by the munificent bequest of Clemence Isaure,
a rich lady of Toulouse. In 1694 the Academie des Jeux
Floraux was constituted an academy by letters patent of
Louis XIV.; its statutes were reformed and the number Of
members raised to 36. Suppressed during the Revolution it was
revived in 1806, and still continues to award amaranths of
gold and sliver lilies, for which there is keen competition.
Provence led the way, but Italy of the Renaissance is the
soil in which academies most grew and flourished. The
Accademia Pontaniana, to give it its subsequent title,
was founded at Florence in 1433 by Antonio Beccadelli of
Palermo and fostered by Laurentius Valla. Far more famous
was the Accademia Platonica, founded c. 1442 by Cosimo
de' Medici, which numbered among its members Marsilio
Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli and Angelo
Poliziano. It was, as the name implies, chiefly occupied
with Plato, but it added to its objects the study of Dante
and the purification of the Italian language, and though
it lived for barely half a century, yet its influence as a
model for similar learned societies was great and lasting.
Modern Academies.--Academies have played an important part
in the revival of learning and in the birth of scientific
inquiry. They mark an age of aristocracies when letters
were the distinction of the few and when science had not
been differentiated into distinct branches, each with its
own specialists. Their interest is mainly historical, and
it cannot be maintained that at the present day they have
much direct influence on the advancement of learning either
by way of research or of publication. For example, the
standard dictionaries of France, Germany and England are
the work, not of academies, but of individual scholars, of
Littre, Grimm and Murray. Matthew Arnold's plea for an
English academy of letters to save his countrymen from
the note of vulgarity and provinciality has met with no
response. Academies have been supplanted, socially by the
modern club, and intellectually by societies devoted to
special branches of science. Those that survive from the past
serve, like the Heralds' College, to set an official stamp
on literary and scientific merit. The principal academies
of Europe, past and present, may be dealt with in various
classes, according to the subjects to which they are devoted.
I. SCIENTIFIC ACADEMIES Austria.---The Kaiserliche Akademie
der Wissenschaften at Vienna, originally projected by Leibnitz,
was founded by the emperor Ferdinand I. in 1846, and has two
classes---mathematics and natural science, and history and philology.
Belgium and the Netherlands.-A literary society was founded at
Brussels in 1769 by Count Cobenzl, the prime minister of Maria
Theresa, which after various changes of name and constitution
became in 1816 the Academie imperiale et royale des
sciences et belles-lettres, under the patronage of William
I. of the Netherlands. It has devoted itself principally to
natural history and antiquities. The Royal Institute of the
Low Countries was founded in 1808 by King Louis Bonaparte.
It was replaced in 1851 by the Royal Academy of Sciences at
Amsterdam, to which in 1856 a literary section was added.
Denmark.---The Kongelige danske videnskabernes selskab
(Royal Academy of Sciences) at Copenhagen owes its origin
to Christian VI., who in 1742 invited six Danish numismatists
to arrange his cabinet of medals. Historians and antiquaries
were called in to assist at the sittings, and the commission
developed into a sort of learned club. The king took it
under his protection, enlarged its scope by the addition
of natural history, physics and mathematics, and in 1743
constituted it a royal academy with an endowment fund.
France.---The old Academie des sciences had the same
origin as the more celebrated Academie francaise. A
number of men of science had for some thirty years met
together, first at the house of P. Marsenne, then at that of
Montmort, a member of the Council of State, afterwards at
that of Melchisedec Thevenot, the learned traveller. It
included Descartes, Gassendi, Blaise and Etienne Pascal.
Hobbes, the author of Leviathan, was presented to it during
his visit to Paris in 1640. Colbert conceived the idea of
giving an official status to this learned club. A number of
chemists, physicians, anatomists and eminent mathematicians,
among whom were Christian Huyghens and Bernard Frenicle
de Bessy (1605-1675), the author of a famous treatise on
magic squares, were chosen to form the nucleus of the new
society. Pensions were granted by Louis XIV. to each of
the members, and a fund for instruments and experiment was
placed at their disposal. They began their session on the
22nd of December 1666 in the Royal Library, meeting twice a
week--the mathematicians on Wednesdays, the physicists on
Saturdays. Duhamel was appointed permanent secretary, a post
he owed more to his polished Latinity than to his scientific
attainments, all the proceedings of the society being recorded
in Latin, and C. A. Couplet was made treasurer. At first the
academy was rather a laboratory and observatory than an academy
proper. Experiments were undertaken in common and results
discussed. Several foreign savants, in particular the
Danish astronomer Roemer, joined the society, attracted hy the
liberality of the Grand Monarque; and the German physician and
geometer Tschirnhausen and Sir Isaac Newton were made foreign
associates. The death of Colbert, who was succeeded by
Louvois, exercised a disastrous effect on the fortunes of the
academy. The labours of the academicians were diverted
from the pursuit of pure science to such works as the
construction of fountains and cascades at Versailles, and
the mathematicians were employed to calculate the odds of
the games of lansquenet and basset. In 1699 the academy was
reconstituted by Louis Phelypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain,
under whose department as secretary of state the academies
came. By its new constitution it consisted of twenty-five
members, ten honorary, men of high rank interested in
science, and fifteen pensionaries, who were the working
members. Of these three were geometricians, three
astronomers, three mechanicians, three anatomists, and three
chemists. Each of these three had two associates, and,
besides, each pensionary had the privilege of naming a
pupil. There were eight foreign and four free associates.
The officers were, a president and a vice-president, named by
the king from among the honorary members, and a secretary and
treasurer chosen from the pensionaries, who held office for
life. Fontenelle, a man of wit, and rather a popularizer of
science than an original investigator, succeeded Duhamel as
secretary. The constitution was purely aristocratical,
differing in that respect from that of the French Academy, in
which the principle of equality among the members was never
violated. Science was not yet strong enough to dispense with
the patronage of the great. The two leading spirits of the
academy at this period were Clairault and Reaumur. To trace
the subsequent fortunes of this academy would be to write
the history of the rise and progress of science in France.
It has reckoned among its members Laplace, Buffon, Lagrange,
D'Alembert, Lavoisier, and Jussieu, the father of modern
botany. On the 21st of December 1792 it met for the last time,
and it was suppressed with its sister academies by the act of
the Convention on the 8th of April 1793. Some of its members
were guillotined, some were imprisoned, more were reduced to
poverty. The aristocracy of talent was almost as much
detested and persecuted by the Revolution as that of rank.
In 1795 the Convention decided on founding an Institut
National which was to replace all the academies, and its first
class corresponded closely to the old academy of sciences.
In 1816 the Academie des sciences was reconstituted as a
branch of the Institute. The new academy has reckoned among
its members, besides many other brilliant men, Carnot the
engineer, the physicists Fresnel, Ampere, Arago, Blot, the
chemists Gay-Lussac and Thenard, the zoologists G. Cuvier
and the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires. In France there were
also considerable academies in most of the large towns.
Montpellier, for example, had a royal academy of sciences,
founded in 1706 by Louis XIV., on nearly the same footing as
that of Paris, of which, indeed, it was in some measure the
counterpart. It was reconstituted in 1847, and organized under
three sections--medicine, science and letters. Toulouse also
has an academy, founded in 1640, under the name of Soeiete
de lanternistes; and there were analogous institutions
at Nimes, Arles, Lyons, Dijon, Bordeaux and elsewhere.
Germany.---The Collegium Curiosum was a scientific society,
founded by J. C. Sturm, professor of mathematics and natural
philosophy in the university of Altorf, in Franconia, in 1672, on
the plan of the Accademia del Cimento. It originally consisted
of twenty members, and continued to flourish long after the
death of its founder. The early labours of the society were
devoted to the repetition (under varied conditions) of the most
notable experiments of the day, or to the discussion of the
results. Two volumes (1676-1685) of proceedings were published by
Sturm. The former, Collegium Experimentale sive Curiosum,
begins with an account of the diving-bell, ``a new invention'';
next follow chapters on the camera obscura, the Torricellian
experiment, the air-pump, microscope, telescope, &c.
The Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, if judged
by the work it has produced, holds the first place in
Germany. Its origin was the Societas Regia Scientiarum,
constituted in 1700 by Frederick I. on the comprehensive
plan of Leibnitz, who was its first president. Hampered and
restricted under Frederick William I., it was reorganized
under Frederick II. on the French model furnished by
Maupertuis, and received its present constitution in
1812. It is divided into two classes and four sections
--physical and mathematical, philosophical and historical.
Each section has a permanent secretary with a salary of 1200
marks, and each of the 50 regular members is paid 600 marks a
year. Among the contributors to its transactions (first
volume published in 1710), to name only the dead, we
find Immanuel Bekker, Bockling, Bernoulli, F. Bopp, P.
Buttmann, Encke (of comet fame), L. Euler, the brothers
Grimm, the two Humboldts, Lachmann, Lagrange, Leibnitz, T.
Mommsen, J. Muller, G. Niebuhr, C. Ritter (the geographer),
Savigny and Zumpt. Frederick II. presented in 1768 A
Dissertation on Ennui. To the Berlin Academy we owe the
Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, the Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, and the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
The Akademie der Wissenschaflen zu Mannheim was founded
by the elector Palatine in 1755. Since 1780 it has
devoted itself specially to meteorology, and has published
valuable observations under the title of Ephemerides
Societatis Meteorologicae Theodoro-Palatinae.
The Bavarian Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Munchen was
founded in 1759. It is distinguished from other academies
by the part it has played in national education. Maximilian
Joseph, the enlightened elector (afterwards king) of
Bavaria, induced the government to hand over to it the
organization and superintendence of public instruction,
and this work was carried out by Privy-councillor Jacobi,
the president of the academy. In recent years the academy
has specially occupied itself with natural history.
The Konigliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, at Erfurt,
which dates from 1754 and devotes itself to applied science,
and the Hessian academy of sciences at Giessen, which
publishes medical transactions, also deserve mention.
Great Britain and Ireland.--- In 1616 a scheme for founding
a royal academy was started by Edmund Bolton, an eminent
scholar and antiquary, who in his petition to King James I.,
which was supported by George Villiers, marquis of Buckingham,
proposed that the title of the academy should be ``King James,
his Academe or College of honour.'' A list of the proposed
original members is still extant, and includes the names of
George Chapman, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, John Selden,
Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir Henry Wotton. The constitution is
of interest as reflecting the mind of the learned king. The
academy was to consist of three classes,---tutelaries, who
were to be Knights of the Garter, auxiliaries, all noblemen
or ministers of state, and the essentials, ``called from out
of the most famous lay gentlemen of England, and either living
in the light of things, or without any title of profession
or art of life for lucre.'' Among other duties to be assigned
to this academy was the licensing of all books other than
theological. The death of King James put an end to the
undertaking. In 1635 a second attempt to found an academy
was made under the patronage of Charles I., with the title of
``Minerva's Museum,'' for the instruction of young noblemen
in the liberal arts and sciences, but the project was soon
dropped. (For the ``British Academy'' see III. below.) About
1645 the more ardent followers of Bacon used to meet, some
in London, some at Oxford, for the discussion of subjects
connected with experimental science. This was the original of
the Royal Society (q.v.), which received its charter in 1662.
A society was formed in Dublin, similar to the Royal Society
in London, as early as 1683; but the distracted state of
the country proved unpropitious to the cultivation of
philosophy and literature. The Royal Irish Academy grew
from a society established in Dublin about 1782 by a number
of gentlemen, most of whom belonged to the university. They
held weekly meetings and read, in turn, essays on various
subjects. They professed to unite the advancement of
science with the history of mankind and polite literature.
The first volume of transactions appeared in 1788.
Hungary.--The Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia (Hungarian
Academy of Sciences) was founded in 1825 by Count Stephen
Szechenyi for the encouragement of the study of the
Hungarian Ianguage and the various sciences. It has about
300 members and a fine building in Budapest containing a
picture gallery and housing various national collections.
Italy.--The Academia Secretorum Natarae was founded
at Naples in 1560 by Giambattista della Porta. It arose
like the French Academy from a little club of friends
who met at della Porta's house and called themselves
the Otiosi. The condition of membership was to have
made some discovery in natural science. Della Porta was
suspected of practising the black arts and summoned to
Rome to justify himself before the papal court. He was
acquitted by Paul V., but commanded to close his academy.
The Accademia dei Lincei, to which della Porta was admitted
when at Rome, and of which he became the chief ornament,
had been founded in 1603 by Federigo Cesi, the marchese di
Monticelli. Galileo and Colonna were among its earliest
members. Its device was a lynx with upturned eyes, tearing a
Cerberus with its claws. As a monument the Lincei have left
the magnificent edition of Fernandez de Oviedo's Natural
History of Mexico (Rome, 1651, fol.), printed at the
expense of the founder and elaborately annotated by the
members. This academy was resuscitated in 1870 under the
title of Reale Accademia dei Lincei, with a literary
as well as a scientific side, endowed in 1878 by King
Humbert; and in 1883 it received official recognition from
the Italian government, being lodged in the Corsini palace,
whose owner made over to it his library and collections.
The Accademia del Cimento was founded at Florence in 1657 by
Leopold de' Medici, brother of the grand duke Ferdinand II.,
at the instigation of Vincenzo Viviani, the geometrician.
It was an academy of experiment, a deliberate protest against
the deductive science of the quadrivium. Its founder left
it when he was made a cardinal, and it lasted only ten
years, but the grand folio published in Italian (afterwards
translated into Latin) in 1667 is a landmark in the history of
science. It contains experiments on the pressure of the
air (Torricelli and Borelli were among its members), on
the incompressibility of water and on universal gravity.
Science in Italy is now represented by the Reale Accademia
delle Scienze (Royal Academy of Sciences), founded in 1757
as a private society, and incorporated under its present name
by royal warrant in 1783. It consists of 40 full members,
who must be residents of Turin, 20 non-resident, and 20
foreign members. It publishes a yearly volume of proceedings
and awards prizes to learned works. There are, besides,
royal academies of science at Naples, Lucca and Palermo.
Portugal.--The Academia Real das Sciencias (Royal
Academy of Sciences) at Lisbon dates from 1779. It was
reorganized in 1851 and since then has been chiefly occupied
in the publication of Portugaliae Monumenta Historica.
Russia.--The Academie Imperiale des sciences de
Saint-Petersbourg, Imperatorskaya Akademiya nauk, was projected
by Peter the Great. The advice of Wolff and Leibnitz was
sought, and several learned foreigners were invited to become
members. Peter himself drew the plan, and signed it on the
10th of February 1724; but his sudden death delayed its
fulfilment. On the 21st of December 1725, however, Catherine
I. established it according to his plan, and on the 27th
the society met for the first time. On the 1st of August
1726, Catherine honoured the meeting with her presence, when
Professor G. B. Bilfinger, a German scientist, delivered an
oration upon the determination of magnetic variations and
longitude. Shortly afterwards the empress settled a fund
of L. 4982 per annum for the support of the academy; and
15 eminent members were admitted and pensioned, under the
title of professors in the various branches of science and
literature. The most distinguished of these were Nicholas and
Daniel Bernouilli, the two Delisles, Bilfinger, and Wolff.
During the short reign of Peter II. the salaries of members
were discontinued, and the academy neglected by the Court;
but it was again patronized by the empress Anne, who added a
seminary under the superintendence of the professors. Both
institutions flourished for some time under the direction
of Baron Johann Albrecht Korin (1697--1766). At the
accession of Elizabeth the original plan was enlarged and
improved; learned foreigners were drawn to St Petersburg;
and, what was considered a good omen for the literature of
Russia, two natives, Lomonosov and Rumovsky, men of genius
who had prosecuted their studies in foreign universities,
were enrolled among its members. The annual income was
increased to L. 10,659, and sundry other advantages were
conferred upon the institution. Catherine II. utilized
the academy for the advancement of national culture. She
altered the court of directors greatly to the advantage
of the whole body, corrected many of its abuses, added to
its means, and infused a new vigour and spirit into its
researches. By her recommendation the most intelligent
professors visited all the provinces of her vast dominions,
with most minute and ample instructions to investigate the
natural resources, conditions and requirements, and report
on the real state of the empire. The result was that no
country at that time could boast, within so few years, such
a number of excellent official publications on its internal
state, its natural productions, its topography, geography and
history, and on the manners, customs and languages of the
different tribes that inhabited it, as came from the press
of this academy. In its researches in Asiatic languages,
oriental customs and religions, it proved itself the worthy
rival of the Royal Asiatic Society in England. The first
transactions, Commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis
Petropolitanae ad annum 1726, with a dedication to Peter
II., were published in 1728. This was continued until
1747, when the transactions were called Novi Commentarii
Academiae, &c.; and in 1777, Acta Academiae Scientiarum
Imperialis Petropolitanae, with some alteration in the
arrangements and plan of the work. The papers, hitherto
in Latin only, were now written indifferently in Latin or
in French, and a preface added, Partie Historique, which
contains an account of the society's meetings. Of the
Commentaries, fourteen volumes were published: of the New
Commentaries (1750--1776) twenty. Of the Acta Academiae
two volumes are printed every year. In 1872 there was
published at St Petersburg in 2 vols., Tableau general des
matieres contenues dans les publieations de l'Academie
Imperiale des Sciences de St Petersbourg. The academy is
composed, as at first, of fifteen professors, besides the
president and director. Each of the professors has a house
and an annual stipend of from L. 200 to L. 600. Besides the
professors, there are four pensioned adjuncts, who are present
at the meetings of the society, and succeed to the first
vacancies. The buildings and apparatus of this academy are
on a vast scale. There is a fine library, of 36,000 books and
manuscripts; and an extensive museum, considerably augmented
by the collections made by Pallas, Gmelin, Guldenstadt
and other professors, during their expeditions through the
Russian empire. The motto of the society is Paulatim.
Spain.---The Real Academia Espanola at Madrid (see
below) had a predecessor in the Academia Naturae curiosorum
(dating from 1657) modelled on that of Naples. It was
reconstituted in 1847 after the model of the French academy.
Sweden.--The Kongliga Svenska Vetenskaps Akademien owes
its institution to six persons of distinguished learning,
among whom was Linnaeus. They met on the 2nd of June 1739,
and formed a private society, the Collegium Curiosorum;
and at the end of the year their first publication made
its appeamnce. As the meetings continued and the members
increased the society attracted the notice of the king; and
on the 31st of March 1741 it was incorporated as the Royal
Swedish Academy. Though under royal patronage and largely
endowed, it is, like the Royal Society in England, entirely
self-governed. Each of the members resident at Stockholm
becomes in turn president, and continues in office for
three months. The dissertations read at each meeting
are published in the Swedish language, quarterly, and
make an annual volume. The first forty volumes, octavo,
completed in 1779, are called the Old Transactions.
United States of America.--The oldest scientific association
in the United States is the American Philosophical Society
Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge. It owed
its origin to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1743 published ``A
Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British
Plantations in America,'' which was so favourably received
that in the same year the society was organized, with
Thomas Hopkinson (1709-1751) as president and Franklin as
secretary. In 1769 it united with another scientific society
founded by Franklin, called the American Society Held at
Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge, and adopted its
present name, adding the descriptive phrase from the title
of the American Society, and elected Franklin president,
an office which he held until his death (1790). The
American Philosophical Society is national in scope and is
exclusively scientific; its Transactions date from 1771, and
its Proceedings from 1838. It has a hall in Philadelphia,
with meeting-rooms and a valuable library and collection
of interesting portraits and relics. David Rittenhouse was
its second and Thomas Jefferson was its third president.
In 1786 John Hyacinth de Magellan, of London, presented a
fund, the income of which was to supply a gold medal for
the author of the most important discovery ``relating to
navigation, astronomy or natural philosophy (mere natural
history excepted).'' An annual general meeting is held.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Boston), the
second oldest scientific organization in the United States,
was chartered in Massachusetts in 1780 by some of the most
prominent men of that time. James Bowdoin was its first
president, John Adams its second. The Academy published
Memoirs beginning in 1785, and Proceedings from 1846. The
Rumford Premium awarded through it for the most ``important
discovery or useful improvement on Heat, or on Light'' is
the income of $5000 given to the Academy by Count Rumford.
The National Academy of Sciences (1863) was incorporated
by Congress with the object that it ``shall, whenever called
upon by any department of the Government, investigate,
examine, experiment and report upon any subject of science
or art.'' Its membership was first limited to 50; after
the amendment of the act of incorporation in 1870 the limit
was placed at 100; and in 1907 it was prescribed that the
resident membership should not exceed 150 in number, that
not more than 10 members be elected in any one year, and
that the number of foreign associates be restricted to 50.
The Academy is divided into six committees: mathematics
and astronomy; physics and engineering; chemistry;
geology and palaeontology; biology; and anthropology. It
gives several gold medals for meritorious researches and
discoveries. It publishes scientific monographs (at the
expense of the Federal Government). Its presidents have been
Alexander D. Bache, Joseph Henry, Wm. B. Rogers, Othuiel C.
Marsh, Wolcott Gibbs, Alexander Agassiz and Ira Remsen.
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia was organized in
1812. It has a large library, very rich in natural history,
and its museum, with nearly half a million specimens, is
particularly strong in conchology and ornithology. The
society has published Journals since 1817, and Proceedings
since 1841; it also has published the American Journal
of Conchology. The American Entomological Society (in
1859-1867 the EntomoIogical Society of Philadelphia, and
since 1876 part of this academy) has published Proceedings
since 1861, and the Entomological news (a monthly).
There are also other scientific organizations like the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (chartered in 1874,
as a continuation of the American Association of Geologists,
founded in 1840 and becoming in 1842 the American Association
of Geologists and Naturalists), which publishes its proceedings
annually; the American Geographical Society (1852), with
headquarters in New Ynrk: the National Geographic Society
(1888), with headquarters in Washington, D.C.; the Geological
Society of America (1888), the American Ornithologists' Union
(1883), the American Society of naturalists (1883), the
Botanical Society of America (1893), the American Academy of
Medicine (1876); and local academies of science, or of special
sciences, in many of the larger cities. The Smithsonian
Institution at Washington is treated in a separate article.
II. ACADEMIES OF BELLES LETTRES Belgium.-- Belgium
has always been famous for its literary societies. The
little town of Diest boasts that it possessed a society
of poets in 1302, and the Catherinists of Alost date from
1107. It is at least certain that numerous Chambers
of Rhetoric (so academies were then called) existed in
the first years of the rule of the house of Burgundy.
France.---The French Academy (l'Academie Francaise) was
established by order of the king in the year 1635, but in its
original form existed four or five years earlier. About the
year 1629 certain literary friends in Paris agreed to meet
informally each week at the house of Valentin Courart, the
king's secretary. The conversation turned mostly on literary
topics; and when one of the number had finished some literary
work, he read it to the rest, and they gave their opinions upon
it. The fame of these meetings, though the members were
bound to secrecy, reached the ears of Cardinal Richelieu,
who promised his protection and offered to incorporate the
society by letters patent. Nearly all the members would have
preferred the charms of privacy, but, considering the risk
they would run in incurring the cardinal's displeasure, and
that by the letter of the law all meetings of any sort were
prohibited, they expressed their gratitude for the high honour
the cardinal thought fit to confer on them, proceeded at once
to organize their body, settle their laws and constitution,
appoint officers and choose a name. Letters patent were
granted by the king on the 29th of January 1635. The officers
consisted of a director and a chancellor, chosen by lot, and
a permanent secretary, chosen by vote. They elected also a
publisher, not a member of the body. The director presided
at the meetings, being considered as primus inter pares.
The chancellor kept the seals and sealed all the official
documents of the academy. The cardinal was ex officio
protector. The meetings were held weekly as before.
The object for which the academy was founded, as set forth
in its statutes, was the purification of the French language.
``The principal function of the academy shall be to labour with
all care and diligence to give certain rules to our language,
and to render it pure, eloquent and capable of treating the
arts and sciences'' (Art. 24). They proposed ``to cleanse
the language from the impurities it has contracted in the
mouths of the common people, from the jargon of the lawyers,
from the misusages of ignorant courtiers, and the abuses of
the pulpit'' (Letter of Academy to Cardinal Richelieu) .
The number of members was fixed at forty. The original
members formed a nucleus of eight, and it was not till 1639
that the full number was completed. Their first undertaking
consisted of essays written by the members in rotation. To
judge by the titles and specimens which have come down to
us, these possessed no special originality or merit, but
resembled the epideixeis of the Greek rhetoricians.
Next, at the instance of Cardinal Richelieu, they undertook a
criticism of Corneille's Cid, the most popular work of the
day. It was a rule of the academy that no work could be
criticized except at the author's request, and fear of
incurring the cardinal's displeasure wrung from Corneille
an unwilling consent. The critique of the academy was
re-written several times before it met with the cardinal's
approbation. After six months of elaboration, it was published
under the title, Sentiments de l'academie francaise sur le
Cid. This judgment did not satisfy Corneille, as a saying
attributed to him on the occasion shows. ``Horatius,'' he
said, referring to his last play, ``was condemned by the
Duumviri, but he was absolved by the people.'' But the crowning
labour of the academy, begun in 1639, was a dictionary of
the French language. By the twenty-sixth article of their
statutes, they were pledged to compose a dictionary, a
grammar, a treatise on rhetoric and one on poetry. Jean
Chapelain, one of the original members and leading spirits of
the academy, pointed out that the dictionary would naturally
be the first of these works to be undertaken, and drew up
a plan of the work, which was to a great extent carried
out. A catalogue was to be made of all the most approved
authors, prose and verse: these were to be distributed among
the members, and all approved words and phrases were to be
marked for incorporation in the dictionary. For this they
resolved themselves into two committees, which sat on other
than the regular days. C. F. de Vaugelas was appointed editor
in chief. To remunerate him for his labours, he received
from the cardinal a pension of 2000 francs. The first
edition of this dictionary appeared in 1694, the sixth and
last in 1835, since when complements have been added.
This old Academie francaise perished with the other
prerevolutionary academies in 1793, and it has little
but the name in common with the present academy, a
section of the Institute. That Jean Baptiste Suard,
the first perpetual secretary of the new, had been a
member of the old academy, is the one connecting link.
The chronicles of the Institute down to the end of 1895
have been given in full by the count de Franqueville in Le
premier siecle de l'Institut de France, and from it we
extract a few leading facts and dates. Before the Revolution
there were in existence the following institutions--(1)
the Academie de poesie et de musique, founded by
Charles IX. in 1570 at the instigation of Baif, which
counted among its members Ronsard and most of the Pleiade;
(2) the Academie des inscriptions et medailles, founded
in 1701; (3) the Academie des inscriptions et belles
lettres; (4) the old Academie des sciences; (5) the
Academie de peinture et de sculpture, a school as
well as an academy; (6) the Academie d'architecture.
The object of the Convention in 1795 was to rebuild all the
institutions that the Revolution had shattered and to combine
them in an organic whole; in the words of the preamble:--``
Il y a pour toute la Republique un Institut national charge
de recueiller les deconvertes, de perfectionner les arts
et les sciences.'' As Renan has remarked, the Institute
embodied two ideas, one disputable, the other of undisputed
truth--that science and art are a state concern, and that
there is a solidarity between all branches of knowledge and
human activities. The Institute was at first composed of
184 members resident in Paris and an equal number living
in other parts of France, with 24 foreign members, divided
into three classes, (1) physical and mathematical science,
(2) moral and political science, (3) literature and the fine
arts. It held its first sitting on the 4th of April
1796. Napoleon as first consul suppressed the second class,
as subversive of government, and reconstituted the other
classes as follows: (1) as before, (2) French language and
literature, (3) ancient history and literature, (4) fine
arts. The class of moral and political science was restored
on the proposal of M. Guizot in 1832, and the present
Institute consists of the five classes named above. Each
class or academy has its own special jurisdiction and work,
with special funds; but there is a general fund and a common
library, which, with other common affairs, are managed by a
committee of the Institute---two chosen from each academy,
with the secretaries. Each member of the Institute receives
an annual allowance of 1200 francs, and the secretaries
of the different academies have a salary of 6000 francs.
The class of the Institute which deals with the language and
literature takes precedence, and is known as the Academie
francaise. There was at first no perpetual secretary, each
secretary of sections presiding in turn. Shortly afterwards
J. B. Suard was elected to the post, and ever since the history
of the academy has been determined by the reigns of its
successive perpetual secretaries. The secretary, to borrow
an epigram of Sainte-Beuve, both reigns and governs.
There have been in order: Suard (13 years), Francois Juste
Raynouard (9 years), Louis Simon Auger, Francois Andrieux,
Arnault, Villemain (34 years), Henri Joseph Patin, Charles
Camille Doucet (19 years), Gaston Boissier. Under Raynouard
the academy ran a tilt against the abbe Delille and his
followers. Under Auger it did battle with romanticism, ``a
new literary schism.'' Auger did not live to see the election
of Lamartine in 1829, and it needed ten more years for Victor
Hugo after many vain assaults to enter by the breach. The
academy is professedly non-political. It accepted and even
welcomed in succession the empire, the restoration and the
reign of Louis Phillppe, and it tolerated the republic of
1848; but to the second empire it offered a passive resistance,
and no politician of the second empire, whatever his gifts as
an orator or a writer, obtained an armchair. The one seeming
exception, Emile Ollivier, confirms the rule. He was elected
on the eve of the Franco-German war, but his discours de
reception, a eulogy of the emperor, was deferred and never
delivered. The Institute appears in the annual budget for a
grant of about 700,000 fr. It has also large vested funds in
property, including the magnificent estate and library of
Chantilly bequeathed to it by the duc d'Aumale. It awards
various prizes, of which the most considerable are the Montyon
prizes, each of 20,000 fr., one for the poor Frenchman who
has performed the most virtuous action during the year,
and one for the French author who has published the book
of most service to morality. The conditions are liberally
interpreted; the first prize is divided among a number of
the deserving poor, and the second has been assigned for
lexicons to Moliere, Corneille and Madame de Sevigne.
One alteration in the methods of the French Academy has
to be chronicled: in 1869 it became the custom to discuss
the claims of the candidates at a preliminary meeting of
the members. In 1880, on the instance of the philosopher
Caro, supported by A. Dumas fils, and by the aged
Desire Nisard, it was decided to abandon this method.
A point of considerable interest is the degree in which,
since its foundation, the French Academy has or has not
represented the best literary life of France. It appears
from an examination of the lists of members that a surprising
number of authors of the highest excellence have, from
one cause or another, escaped the honour of academic
``immortality.'' When the academy was founded in 1634, the
moment was not a very brilliant one in French letters.
Among the forty original members we find only ten who are
remembered in literary history; of these four may reasonably
be considered famous still--Balzac, Chapelain, Racan and
Voiture. In that generation Scarron was never one of the
forty, nor do the names of Descartes, Malebranche or Pascal
occur; Descartes lived in Holland, Scarron was paralytic,
Pascal was best known as a mathematician--(his Lettres
provinciales was published anonymously)---and when his fame
was rising he retired to Port Royal, where he lived the
life of a recluse. The duc de la Rochefoucauld declined the
honour from a proud modesty, and Rotrou died too soon to be
elected. The one astounding omission of the 17th century,
however, is the name of Moliere, who was excluded by his
profession as an actor.1 On the other hand, the French Academy
was never more thoroughly representative of letters than
when Boileau, Corneille, La Fontaine, Racine, and Quinault
were all members. Of the great theologians of that and the
subsequent age, the Academy contained Bossuet, Flechier,
Fenelon, and Massillon, but not Bourdaloue. La Bruyere
and Fontenelle were among the forty, but not Saint-Simon,
whose claims as a man of letters were unknown to his
contemporaries. Early in the 18th century almost every
literary personage of eminence found his place naturally in the
Academy. The only exceptions of importance were Vauvenargues,
who died too early for the honour, and two men of genius but
of dubious social position, Le Sage and the abbe Prevost
d'Exiles. The approach of the Revolution affected gravely
the personnel of the Academy. Montesquieu and Voltaire
belonged to it, but not Rousseau or Beaumarchais. Of the
Encyclopaedists, the French Academy opened its doors to
D'Alembert, Condorcet, Volney, Marmontel and La Harpe, but
not to Diderot, Rollin, Condillac, Helvetius or the Baron
d'Holbach. Apparently the claims of Turgot and of Quesnay
did not appear to the Academy sufficient, since neither was
elected. In the transitional period, when the social life
of Paris was distracted and the French Academy provisionally
closed, neither Andre Chenier nor Benjamin Constant nor
Joseph de Maistre became a member. In the early years of the
19th century considerations of various kinds excluded from
the ranks of the forty the dissimilar names of Lamennais,
Prudhon, Comte and Beranger. Critics of the French
Academy are fond of pointing out that neither Stendhal, nor
Balzac, nor Theophile Gautier, nor Flaubert, nor Zola
penetrated into the Mazarine Palace. It is not so often
remembered that writers so academic as Thierry and Michelet
and Quinet suffered the same exclusion. In later times
neither Alphonse Daudet nor Edmond de Goncourt, neither Guy
de Maupassant nor Ferdinand Fabre, has been among the forty
immortals. The non-election, after a long life of distinction,
of the scholar Fustel de Coulanges is less easy to account
for. Verlaine, although a poet of genius, was of the
kind that no academy can ever be expected to recognize.
Concerning the influence of the French Academy on the
language and literature, the most opposite opinions have been
advanced. On the one hand, it has been asserted that it
has corrected the judgment, purified the taste and formed
the language of French writers, and that to it we owe the
most striking characteristics of French literature, its
purity, delicacy and flexibility. Thus Matthew Arnold,
in his Essay on the Literary Influence of Academies, has
pronounced a glowing panegyric on the French Academy as a
high court of letters, and a rallying-point for educated
opinion, as asserting the authority of a master in matters
of tone and taste. To it he attributes in a great measure
that thoroughness, that openness of mind, that absence of
vulgarity which he finds everywhere in French literature;
and to the want of a similar institution in England he traces
that eccentricity, that provincial spirit, that coarseness
which, as he thinks, are barely compensated by English
genius. Thus, too, Renan, one of its most distinguished
members, says that it is owing to the academy ``qu'on peut
tout dire sans appareil scholastique avec la langue des gens
du monde.'' ``Ah ne dites,'' he exclaims, ``qu'ils n'ont
rien fait, ces obscures beaux esprits dont la vie se passe
a instruire le proces des mots, a peser les syllables.
Ils ont fait un chef-d'oeuvre--la langue francaise.'' On the
other hand, its inherent defects have been well summed up by
P. Lanfrey in his Histoire de Napoleon: ``This institution
had never shown itself the enemy of despotism: Founded by
the monarchy and for the monarchy, eminently favourable to
the spirit of intrigue and favouritism, incapable of any
sustained or combined labour, a stranger to those great
works.pursued in common which legitimize and glorify the
existence of scientific bodies, occupied exclusively with
learned trifles, fatal to emulation, which it pretends to
stimulate, by the compromises and calculations to which it
subjects it, directed in everything by petty considerations,
and wasting all its energy in childish tournaments, in which
the flatteries that it showers on others are only a foretaste
of the compliments it expects in return for itself, the
French Academy seems to have received from its founders the
special mission to transform genius into bel esprit, and
it would be hard to introduce a man of talent whom it has
not demoralized. Drawn in spite of itself towards politics,
it alternately pursues and avoids them; but it is specially
attracted by the gossip of politics, and whenever it has
so far emancipated itself as to go into opposition, it does
so as the champion of ancient prejudices. If we examine its
influence on the national genius, we shall see that it has
given it a flexibility, a brilliance, a polish, which it never
possessed before; but it has done so at the expense of its
masculine qualities, its originality, its spontaneity, its vigour,
its natural grace. It has disciplined it, but it has
emasculated. impoverished and rigidified it. It sees in
taste, not a sense of the beautiful, but a certain type
of correctness, an elegant form of mediocrity. It has
substituted pomp for grandeur, school routine for individual
inspiration, elaborateness for simplicity, fadeur and the
monotony of literary orthodoxy for variety, the source and
spring of intellectual life; and in the works produced under
its auspices we discover the rhetorician and the writer,
never the man. By all its traditions the academy was made
to be the natural ornament of a monarchical society.
Richelieu conceived and created it as a sort of superior
centralization applied to intellect, as a high literary
court to maintain intellectual unity and protest against
innovation. Bonaparte, aware of all this, had thought of
re-establishing its ancient privileges; but it had in his eyes
one fatal defect--esprit. Kings of France could condone a
witticism even against themselves, a parvenu could not.''
On the whole the influence of the French Academy has been
conservative rather than creative. It has done much by its
example for style, but its attempts to impose its laws on
language have, from the nature of the case, failed. For,
however perfectly a dictionary or a grammar may represent
the existing language of a nation, an original genius is
certain to arise---a Victor Hugo or an Alfred de Musset--who
will set at defiance all dictionaries and academic rules.
Germany.---Of the German literary academies the most celebrated
was Die Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (the Fruitful Society),
established at Weimar in 1617. Five princes were among the
original members. The object was to purify the mother tongue.
The German academies copied those of Italy in their quaint
titles and petty ceremonials, and exercised little permanent
influence on the language or literature of the country.
Italy.---Italy in the 16th century was remarkable for
the number of its literary academies. Tiraboschi, in
his History of Italian Literature, has given a list of
171; and Jarkius, in his Specimen Historiae Academiarum
Conditarum, enumerates nearly 700. Many of these, with a
sort of Socratic irony, gave themselves ludicrous names, or
names expressive of ignorance. Such were the Lunatici of
Naples, the Estravaganti, the Fulminales, the Trapessati,
the Drowsy, the Sleepers, the Anxious, the Confused,
the Unstable, the Fantastic, the Transformed, the
Ethereal. ``The first academies of Italy chiefly directed
their attention to classical literature; they compared
manuscripts; they suggested new readings or new interpretations;
they deciphered inscriptions or coins, they sat in judgment
on a Latin ode or debated the propriety of a phrase. Their
own poetry had, perhaps, never been neglected; but it was not
till the writings of Bembo furnished a new code of criticism
in the Italian language that they began to study it with the
same minuteness as modern Latin.'' ``They were encouragers
of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself,
and throwing for ever little specks of light on the still
ocean of the past, but not very favourable to comprehensive
observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry
the honours of real learning.'' s The Italian nobility,
excluded as they mostly were from politics, and living in
cities, found in literature a consolation and a career.
Such academies were oligarchical in their constitution; they
encouraged culture, but tended to hamper genius and extinguish
originality. Far the most celebrated was the Accademia
della Crusca or Furfuratorum; that is, of bran, or of
the sifted, founded in 1582. The title was borrowed from a
previous society at Perugia, the Accademia degli Scossi,
of the well-shaken. Its device was a sieve; its motto, ``Il
piu bel fior ne coglie'' (it collects the finest flower); its
principal object the purification of the language. Its great
work was the Vocabulario della Crusca, printed at Venice in
1612. It was composed avowedly on Tuscan principles, and
regarded the 14th century as the Augustan period of the
language. Paul Beni assailed it in his Anti-Crusca, and
this exclusive Tuscan purism has disappeared in subsequent
editions. The Accademia della Crusca is now incorporated
with two older societies--the Accademia degli Apatici
(the Impartials) and the Accademia Florentina.
Among the numerous other literary academies of Italy we may
mention the academy of Naples, founded about 1440 by Alphonso,
the king; the Academy of Florence, founded 1540, to illustrate
and perfect the Tuscan tongue, especially by the close study of
Petrarch; the Intronati of Siena, 1525; the Infiammati of
Padua, 1534; the Rozzi of Siena, suppressed by Cosimo, 1568.
The Academy of Humorists arose from a casual meeting of
witty noblemen at the marriage of Lorenzo Marcini, a Roman
gentleman. It was carnival time, and to give the ladies some
diversion they recited verses, sonnets and speeches, first
impromptus and afterwards set compositions. This gave them
the name, Beni Humori, which, after they resolved to form
an academy of belles lettres, they changed to Humoristi.
In 1690 the Accademia degli Arcadi was founded at Rome, for
the purpose of reviving the study of poetry, by Crescimbeni,
the author of a history of Italian poetry. Among its members
were princes, cardinals and other ecclesiastics; and, to
avoid disputes about pre-eminence, all came to its meetings
masked and dressed like Arcadian shepherds. Within ten years
from its establishment the number of academicians was 600.
The Royal Academy of Savoy dates from 1719, and was made a royal
academy by Charles Albert in 1848. Its emblem is a gold orange
tree full of flowers and fruit; its motto ``Flores fructusque
oerennes,'' the same as that of the famous Florimentane Academy,
founded at Annecy by St Francis de Sales. It has published
valuable memoirs on the history and antiquities of Savoy.
Spain.--The Real Academia Espanola at Madrid held its
first meeting in July 1713, in the palace of its founder, the
duke d'Fscalona. It consisted at first of 8 academicians,
including the duke; to which number 14 others were afterwards
added, the founder being chosen president or director.
In 1714 the king granted them the royal confirmation and
protection. Their device is a crucible in the middle of the
fire, with this motto, Limpia, fixa, y da esplendor--``It
purifies, fixes, and gives brightness.'' The number of its
members was limited to 24; the duke d'Escalona was chosen
director for life, but his successors were elected yearly, and
the secretary for life. Their object, as marked out by the
royal declaration, was to cultivate and improve the national
language. They were to begin with choosing carefully such
words and phrases as have been used by the best Spanish writers;
noting the low, barbarous or obsolete ones; and composing a
dictionary wherein these might be distinguished from the former.
Sweden.--The Svenska Akademien was founded in 1786, for the
purpose of purifying and perfecting the Swedish language. A medal
is struck by its direction every year in honour of some illustrious
Swede. This academy does not publish its transactions.
III. ACADEMIES OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY France.---The old
Academie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (or ``Petite
Academie,'' founded in 1663) was an offshoot of the French
Academy, which then at least contained the elite of French
learning. Louis XIV. was of all French kings the one most
occupied with his own aggrandisement. Literature, and even
science, he only encouraged so far as they redounded to his
own glory. Nor were literary men inclined to assert their
independence. Boileau well represented the spirit of the age
when, in dedicating his tragedy Berenice to Colbert, he
wrote: ``The least things become important if in any degree
they can serve the glory and pleasure of the king.'' Thus it
was that the Academy of Inscriptions arose. At the suggestion
of Colbert a company (a committee we should now call it) had
been appointed by the king, chosen from the French Academy,
charged with the office of furnishing inscriptions, devices
and legends for medals. It consisted of four academicians:
Chapelain, then considered the poet laureate of France, one
of the authors of the critique on the Cid; the abbe Amable
de Bourzeis (1606-1671); Francois Charpentier (1620-1702),
an antiquary of high repute among his contemporaries; and
the abbe Jacques de Cassagnes (1636-1679), who owed his
appointment more to the fulsome flattery of his odes than
to his really learned translations of Cicero and Sallust.
This company used to meet in Colbert's library in the winter,
at his country-house at Sceaux in the summer, generally on
Wednesdays, to serve the convenience of the minister, who was
always present. Their meetings were principally occupied with
discussing the inscriptions, statues and pictures intended for
the decoration of Versailles; but Colbert, a really learned
man and an enthusiastic collector of manuscripts, was often
pleased to converse with them on matters of art, history and
antiquities. Their first published work was a collection of
engravings, accompanied by descriptions, designed for some
of the tapestries at Versailles. Louvois, who succeeded
Colbert as a superintendent of buildings, revived the
company, which had begun to relax its labours. Felibien,
the learned architect, and the two great poets Racine and
Boileau, were added to their number. A series of medals
was commenced, entitled Medailles de la Grande Histoire,
or, in other words, the history of the Grand Monarque.
But it was to M. de Pontchartrain, comptroller-general of
finance and secretary of state, that the academy owed its
institution. He added to the company Renaudot and Jacques
Tourreil, both men of vast learning, the latter tutor to his
son, and put at its head his nephew, the abbe Jean Paul
Bignou. librarian to the king. By a new regulation, dated
the 16th of July 1701, the Academie royale des inscriptions
et medailles was instituted, being composed of ten honorary
members, ten pensioners, ten associates, and ten pupils. Its
constitution was an almost exact copy of that of the Academy of
Sciences. Among the regulations we find the following, which
indicates clearly the transition from a staff of learned
officials to a learned body: ``The academy shall concern
itself with all that can contribute to the perfection of
inscriptions and legends, of designs for such monuments and
decorations as may be submitted to its judgment; also with
the description of all artistic works, present and future,
and the historical explanation of the subject of such works;
and as the knowledge of Greek and Latin antiquities. and
of these two languages, is the best guarantee for success
in labours of this class, the academicians shall apply
themselves . to all that this division of learning includes,
as one of the most worthy objects of their pursuit.''
Among the first honorary members we find the indefatigable
Mabillon (excluded from the pensioners by reason of his orders),
Pere La Chaise, the king's confessor, and Cardinal Rohan;
among the associates Fontenelle and Rollin, whose Ancient
History was submitted to the academy for revision. In 1711
they completed L'Histoire metallique du roi, of which
Saint-Simon was asked to write the preface. In 1716 the regent
changed its title to that of the Academie des inscriptions et
belleslettres, a title which better suited its new character.
In the great battle between the Ancients and the Moderns
which divided the learned world in the first half of the 18th
century, the Academy of Inscriptions naturally espoused the
cause of the Ancients, as the Academy of Sciences did that of the
Moderns. During the earlier years of the French Revolution
the academy continued its labours uninterruptedly; and on the
22nd of January 1793, the day after the death of Louis XVI,
we find in the Proceedinigs that M. Brequigny read a paper
on the projects of marriage between Queen Elizabeth and the
dukes of Anjou and Alencon. In the same year were published
the 45th and 46th vols. of the Memoires de l'academie.
On the 2nd of August of the same year the last seance of
the old academy was held. More fortunate than its sister
Academy of Sciences, it lost only three of its members by
the guillotine. One of these was the astronomer Sylvain
Bailly. Three others sat as members of the Convention;
but for the honour of the academy, it should be added
that all three were distinguished by their moderation.
In the first draft of the new Institute, October 25, 1795, no
class corresponded exactly to the old Academy of Inscriptions;
but most of the members who survived found themselves re-elected
either in the class of moral and political science, under
which history and geography were included as sections, or
more generally under the class of literature and fine arts,
which embraced ancient languages, antiquities and monuments.
In 1816 the academy received again its old name. The Proceedings
of the society embrace a vast field, and are of very various
merits. Perhaps the subjects on which it has shown most
originality are comparative mythology, the history of science
among the ancients, and the geography and antiquities of
France. The old academy has reckoned among its members De
Sacy the orientalist, Dansse de Villoison (1750-1805) the
philologist, Anquetil du Perron the traveller, Guillaume J.
de C. L. Sainte-Croix and du Theil the antiquaries, and Le
Beau, who has been named the last of the Romans. The new
academy has inscribed on its lists the names of Champollion,
A. Remusat, Raynouard, Burnout and Augustin Thierry.
In consequence of the attention of several literary men in
Paris having been directed to Celtic antiquities, a Celtic
Academy was established in that city in 1805. Its objects were,
first, the elucidation of the history, customs, antiquities,
manners and monuments of the Celts, particularly in France;
secondly, the etymology of all the European languages, by
the aid of the Celto-British, Welsh and Erse; and, thirdly,
researches relating to Druidism. The attention of the members
was also particularly called to the history and settlements
of the Galatae in Asia. Lenoir, the keeper of the museum of
French monuments, was appointed president. The academy still
exists as La societe nationale des antiquaires de France.
Great Britain.---The British Academy was the outcome of
a meeting of the principal European and American academies,
held at Wiesbaden in October 1899. A scheme was drawn up
for an international association of the academies of the
world under the two sections of natural science and literary
science, but while the Royal Society adequately represented
England in science there was then no existing institution
that could claim to represent England in literature, and at
the first meeting of the federated academies this chair was
vacant. A plan was proposed by Professor H. Sidgwick to add a
new section to the Royal Society, but after long deliberation
this was rejected by the president and council. The promoters
of the plan thereupon determined to form a separate society,
and invited certain persons to become the first members of a
new body, to be cailed ``The British Academy for the promotion
of historical, philosophical and philological studies.'' The
unincorporated body thus formed petitioned for a charter,
and on the 8th of August 1902 the royal charter was granted
and the by-laws were allowed by order in council. The objects
of the academy are therein defined--``the promotion of the
study of the moral and political sciences, including history,
philosophy, law, politics and economics, archaeology and
philology.'' The number of ordinary fellows (so all members
are entitled) is restricted to one hundred, and the academy
is governed by a president (the first being Lord Reay)
and a council of fifteen elected annually by the fellows.
Italy.--Under this class the Accademia Ercolanese (Academy
of Herculaneum) properly ranks. It was established at
Naples about 1755, at which period a museum was formed of
the antiquities found at Herculaneum, Pompeii and other
places, by the marquis Tanucci, who was then minister of
state. Its object was to explain the paintings, &c., discovered
at those places. For this purpose the members met every
fortnight, and at each meeting three paintings were submitted
to three academicians, who made their report at their next
sitting. The first volume of their labours appeared in 1775,
and they have been continued under the title of Antichita di
Ercolano. They contain engravings of the principal paintings,
statues, bronzes, marble figures, medals, utensils, &c., with
explanations. In the year 1807 an academy of history and
antiquities, on a new plan, was established at Naples by Joseph
Bonaparte. The number of members was limited to forty, twenty
of whom were to be appointed by the king; and these twenty
were to present to him, for his choice, three names for each
of those needed to complete the full number. Eight thousand
ducats were to be annually allotted for the current expenses,
and two thousand for prizes to the authors of four works
which should be deemed by the academy most deserving of such a
reward. A grand meeting was to be held every year, when
the prizes were to be distributed and analyses of the works
read. The first meeting took place on the 25th of April
1807; but the subsequent changes in the political state
of Naples prevented the full and permanent establishment
of this institution. In the same year an academy was
established at Florence for the illustration of Tuscan
antiquities, which published some volumes of memoirs.
IV. ACADEMIES OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY Austria.---The
defunct Academy of Surgery at Vienna was instituted in
1784 by the emperor Joseph II. under the direction of the
distinguished surgeon, Giovanni Alessandro Brambilla ( 1728-
1800) . For many years it did important work, and though closed
in 1848 was reconstituted by the emperor Francis Joseph in
1854. In 1874 it ceased to exist; its functions had become
mainly military, and were transferred to newer schools.
France.---Academie de Medecine. Medicine is a science
which has always engaged the attention of the kings of
France. Charlemagne established a school of medicine in the
Louvre, and various societies have been founded, and privileges
granted to the faculty by his successors. The Acadimie de
medecine succeeded to the old Academie royale de chirurgie
et societe royale de medecine. It was erected by a royal
ordinance, dated December 20, 1820. It was divided into three
sections--medicine, surgery and pharmacy. In its constitution
it closely resembled the Academie des sciences. Its
function was to preserve or propagate vaccine matter, and
answer inquiries addressed to it by the government on the
subject of epidemics, sanitary reform and public health
generally. It has maintained an enormous correspondence in
all quarters of the globe and published extensive minutes.
Germany.--The Academia Naturae Curiosi, afterwards
called the Academia Caesaraea Leopoldina, was founded in
1662 by J. L. Bausch, a physician of Leipzig, who published
a general invitation to medical men to communicate all
extraordinary cases that occurred in the course of their
practice. The works of the Naturae Curiosi were at first
published separately; but in 1770 a new arrangement was
planned for publishing a volume of observations annually.
From some cause, however, the first volume did not make
its appearance until 1784, when it was published under the
title of Ephemerides. In 1687 the emperor Leopold took the
society under his protection, and its name was changed in his
honour. This academy has no fixed abode, but follows the
home of its president. Its library remains at Dresden. By its
constitution the Leopoldine Academy consists of a president,
two adjuncts or secretaries and unlimited colleagues or
members. At their admission the last come under a twofold
obligation--first, to choose some subject for discussion out
of the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdoms, not previously
treated by any colleague of the academy; and, secondly, to apply
themselves to furnish materials for the annual Ephemerides.
V. ACADEMIES OF THE FINE ARTS France.---The Academie
royale de peinture et de sculpture at Paris was founded by
Louis XIV. in 1648, under the title of Academie royale des
beaux arts, to which was afterwards united the Academie
d'architecture, founded 1671. It is composed of painters,
sculptors, architects, engravers and musical composers.
From among the members of the society who are painters,
is chosen the director of the French Academie des beaux
arts at Berne, also instituted by Louis XIV. in 1677. The
director's province is to superintend the studies of the
painters, sculptors, &c., who, chosen by competition, are
sent to Italy at the expense of the government, to complete
their studies in that country. Most of the celebrated
French painters have begun their career in this way.
The Academie nationale de musique is the official and
administrative name given in France to the grand opera. In
1570 the poet Baif established in his house a school of
music, at which ballets and masquerades were given. In 1645
Mazarin brought from Italy a troupe of actors, and established
them in the rue du Petit Bourbon, where they gave Jules
Strozzi's Achille in Sciro, the first opera performed in
France. After Moliere's death in 1673, his theatre in the
Palais Royal was given to Sulu, and there were performed
all Gluck's great operas; there Vestris danced, and there
was produced Jean Jacques Rousseau's Devin du Village.
Great Britain.--The Royal Academy of Arts in London, founded in
1768, is described in a separate article. (See ACADEMY, ROYAL.)
The Academy of Ancient Music was established in London in
1710, with the view of promoting the study and practice of
vocal and instrumental harmony. This institution had a fine
musical library, and was aided by the performances of the
gentlemen of the Chapel Royal and the choir of St Paul's,
with the boys belonging to each, and continued to flourish
for many years. About 1734 the academy became a seminary
for the instruction of youth in the principias of music
and the laws of harmony. The Royal Academy of Music was
formed for the performance of operas, composed by Handel,
and conducted by him at the theatre in the Haymarket. The
subscription amounted to L. 50,000, and the king, besides
subscribing L. 1000, allowed the society to assume the title
Royal. It consisted of a governor, deputy-governor and twenty
directors. A contest between Handel and Senesino, one of
the performers, in which the directors took the part of the
latter, occasioned the dissolution of the academy after it
had existed with honour for more than nine years. The present
Royal Academy of Music dates from 1822, and was incorporated in
1830. It instructs pupils of both sexes in music. (See
also the article CONSERVATOIRE for colleges of music. )
Italy.--In 1778 an academy of painting and sculpture was
established at Turin. The meetings were held in the palace
of the king, who distributed prizes among the most successful
members. In Milan an academy of architecture was established
so early as 1380, by Gian Galeazzo Visconti. About the
middle of the 18th century an academy of the arts was
established there, after the example of those at Paris and
Rome. The pupils were furnished with originals and models,
and prizes were distributed by competent judges annually.
The prize for painting was a gold medal. Before the effects
of the French Revolution reached Italy this was one of the
best establishments of the kind in that kingdom. In the hall
of the academy were some admirable examples of Correggio,
as well as several statues of great merit, particularly a
small bust of Vitellins, and a torso of Agrippina, of most
exquisite beauty. The academy of the arts, which had been
long established at Florence, fell into decay, but was
restored in the end of the 18th century. In it there are halls
for nude and plaster figures, for the use of the sculptor
and the painter, with models of all the finest statues in
Italy. But the treasures of this and the other institutions
for the fine arts were greatly diminished during the occupancy
of Italy by the French. The academy of the arts at Modena,
after being plundered by the French, dwindled into a petty
school for drawing from living models. There is also an
academy of the fine arts in Mantua, and another at Venice.
Russia.--The academy of St Petersburg was established in
1757 by the empress Elizabeth, at the suggestion of Count
Shuvalov, and annexed to the academy of sciences. The fund for
its support was L. 4000 per annum, and the foundation admitted
forty scholars. Catherine II. formed it into a separate
institution, augumented the annual revenue to L. 12,000, and
increased the number of scholars to three hundred; she
built for it a large circular building, which fronts the
Neva. The scholars are admitted at the age of six, and
continue until they have attained that of eighteen. They
are clothed, fed and lodged at the expense of the crown;
and are instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, French,
German and drawing. At the age of fourteen they are at
liberty to choose any of the following arts; first, painting
in all its branches, architecture, mosaic, enamelling,
&c.; second, engraving on copper-plates, sealcutting,
&c.; third, carving on wood, ivory and amber; fourth,
watch-making, turning, instrument-making, casting statues
in bronze and other metals, imitating gems and medals in
paste and other compositions, gilding and varnishing. Prizes
are annually distributed, and from those who have obtained
four prizes, twelve are selected, who are sent abroad at
the charge of the crown. A certain sum is paid to defray
their travelling expenses; and when they are settled in any
town, they receive during four years an annual salary of
L. 60. The academy has a small gallery of paintings for
the use of the scholars; and those who have made great
progress are permitted to copy the pictures in the imperial
collection. For the purpose of design, there are
full-size models of the best antique statues in Italy.
South America.---There are several small academies in the
various towns of South America, the only one of note being
that of Rio de Janeiro, founded by John VI. of Portugal in
1816 and now known as the Escola Nacional de Bellas Artes.
Spain.---In Madrid an academy for painting, sculpture and
architecture, the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando,
was founded by Philip V. The minister for foreign affairs is
president. Prizes are distributed every three years. In Cadiz
a few students are supplied by government with the means of
drawing and modelling from figures; and such as are not able
to purchase the requisite instruments are provided with them.
Sweden.---An academy of the fine arts was founded at
Stockholm in the year 1733 by Count Tessin. In its hall are
the ancient figures of plaster presented by Louis XIV. to
Charles XI. The works of the students are publicly exhibited,
and prizes are distributed annually. Such of them as display
distinguished ability obtain pensions from government, to
enable them to reside in Italy for some years, for the purposes
of investigation and improvement. In this academy there are
nine professors and generally about four hundred students.
Austria.--In the year 1705 an academy of painting,
sculpture and architecture was established at Vienna,
with the view of encouraging and promoting the fine arts.
United States of America.--In America the institution similar
to the Royal Academy of Arts in London is the National Academy
of Design (1826), which in 1906 absorbed the Society of American
Artists, the members of the society becoming members of the academy.
The volume of excerpts from the general catalogue of
books in the British Museum, ``Academies,'' 5 parts and
index, furnishes a complete bibliography. (F. S.)
1 The Academy has made the amende honorable by placing in the
Salle des seances a bust of Moliere, with the inscription
``Rienne manque a sa gloire, it manquait a la notre.''
2 Hallam's Int. to Lit. of Europe, vol. i. p. 654, and vol. ii. p. 502.
ACADEMY, GREEK or ACADEME (Gr. akademeia or
ekademia), the name given to the philosophic successors of
Plato. The name is derived from a pleasure-garden or
gymnasium situated in the suburb of the Ceramicus on the
river Cephissus about a mile to the north-west of Athens
from the gate called Dipylum. It was said to have belonged
to the ancient Attic hero Academus, who, when the Dioscuri
invaded Attica to recover their sister Helen, carried off by
Theseus, revealed the place where she was hidden. Out of
gratitude the Lacedaemonians, who reverenced the Dioscuri,
always spared the Academy during their invasions of the
country. It was walled in by Hipparchus and was adorned
with walks, groves and fountains by Cimon (Plut. Cim.
13), who bequeathed it as a public pleasure-ground to
his fellow-citizens. Subsequently the garden became the
resort of Plato (q.v.), who had a small estate in the
neighbourhood. Here he taught for nearly fifty years till
his death in 348 B.C., and his followers continued to
make it their headquarters. It was closed for teaching by
Justinian in A.D. 529 along with the other pagan schools.
Cicero borrowed the name for his villa near Puteoll,
where he Composed his dialogue The Academic Questions.
The Platonic Academy (proper) lasted from the days of Plato
to those of Cicero, and during its whole course there is
traceable a distinct continuity of thought which justifies
its examination as a real intellectual unit. On the
other hand, this continuity of thought is by no means an
identity. The Platonic doctrine was so far modified in
the hands of successive scholarchs that the Academy has
been divided into either two, three or five main sections
(Sext. Empir. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 220). Finally,in the days
of Philo, Antiochus and Cicero, the metaphysical dogmatism
of Plato had been changed into an ethical syncretism which
combined elements from the Scepticism of Carneades and the
doctrines of the Stoics; it was a change from a dogmatism
which men found impossible to defend, to a probabilism
which afforded a retreat from Scepticism and intellectual
anarchy. Cicero represents at once the doctrine of the later
Academy and the general attitude of Roman society when he
says, ``My words do not proclaim the truth, like a Pythian
priestess; but I conjecture what is probable, like a plain
man; and where, I ask, am I to search for anything more than
verisimilitude?'' And again: ``The characteristic of the
Academy is never to interpose one's judgment, to approve what
seems most probable, to compare together different opinions,
to see what may be advanced on either side and to leave one's
listeners free to judge without pretending to dogmatize.''
The passage from Sextus Empiricus, cited above, gives the
general view that there were three academies: the first, or
Old, academy under Speusippus and Xenocrates; the second,
or Middle, academy under Arcesilaus and Polemon; the third,
or New, academy under Carneades and Clitomachus. Sextus
notices also the theory that there was a fourth, that of Philo
of Larissa and Charmidas, and a fifth, that of Antiochus.
Diogenes Laertius says that Lacydes was the founder of the
New Academy (i. 19, iv. 59). Cicero (de Orat. iii. 18, &c.)
and Varro insist that there were only two academies, the Old
and the New. Those who maintain that there is no justification
for the five-fold division hold that the agnosticism of
Carneades was really latent in Plato, and became prominent
owing to the necessity of refuting the Stoic criterion.
The general tendency of the Academic thinkers was towards
practical simplicity, a tendency due in large measure to
the inferior intellectual capacity of Plato's immediate
successors. Cicero (de Fin. v. 3) says generally of the
Old Academy: ``Their writings and method contain all liberal
learning, all history, all polite discourse; and besides they
embrace such a variety of arts, that no one can undertake any
noble career without their aid. . . . In a word the Academy
is, as it were, the workshop of every artist.'' It is true
that these men turned to scientific investigation, but in
so doing they escaped from the high altitudes in which Plato
thought, and tended to lay emphasis on the mundane side of
philosophy. Of Plato's originality and speculative power,
of his poetry and enthusiasm they inherited nothing, ``nor
amid all the learning which has been profusely lavished upon
investigating their tenets is there a single deduction calculated
to elucidate distinctly the character of their progress or
regression'' (Archer Butler, Lect. on Anc. Phil. ii. 515).
The modification of Academic doctrine from Plato to
Cicero may be indicated briefly under four heads.
(1) Plato's own theory of Ideas was not accepted even by
Speusirinus and Xenocrates. They argued that the Good cannot
be the origin of things, inasmuch as Goodness is only found
as an attribute of things. Therefore, the idea of Good must
be secondary to some other more fundamental principle of
existence. This unit Speusippus attempted to find in
the Pythagorean number-theory. From it he deduced three
principles, one for numbers, one for magnitude, one for the
soul. The Deity he conceived as that living force which
rules all and resides everywhere. Xenocrates, though like
Speusippus infected with Pythagoreanism, was the most faithful
of Plato's successors. He distinguished three spheres, the
sensible, the intelligible, and a third compounded of the
two, to which correspond respectively, sense, intellect and
opinion (doxa). Cicero notes, however, that both Speusippus
and Xenocrates abandon the Socratic principle of hesitancy.
(2) Up to Arcesilaus, the Academy accepted the principle of
finding a general unity in all things, by the aid of which a
principle of certainty might be found. Arcesilaus, however,
broke new ground by attacking the very possibility of certainty.
Socrates had said, ``This alone I know, that I know nothing.''
But Arcesilaus went farther and denied the possibility of
even the Socratic minimum of certainty: ``I cannot know even
whether I know or not.'' Thus from the dogmatism of the master
the Academy plunged into the extremes of agnostic criticism.
(3) The next stage in the Academic succession was the moderate
scepticism of Carneades, which owed its existence to his
opposition to Chrysippus, the Stoic. To the Stoical theory
of perception, the fantasia kataleptike, by which they
expressed a conviction of certainty arising from impressions
so strong as to amount to science, he opposed the doctrine
of acatalepsia, which denied any necessary correspondence
between perceptions and the objects perceived. He saved
himself, however, from absolute scepticism by the doctrine
of probability or verisimilitude, which may serve as a
practical guide in life. Thus his criterion of imagination
(fantasia) is that it must be credible, irrefutable and
attested by comparison with other impressions; it may be
wrong, but for the person concerned it is valid. In ethics
he was an avowed sceptic. During his official visit to Rome,
he gave public lectures, in which he successively proved
and disproved with equal ease the existence of justice.
(4) In the last period we find a tendency not only
to reconcile the internal divergences of the Academy
itself, but also to connect it with parallel growths of
thought. Philo of Larissa endeavours to show that Carneades
was not opposed to Plato, and further that the apparent
antagonism between Plato and Zeno was due to the fact that
they were arguing from different points of view. From this
syncretism emerged the prudent non-committal eclecticism
of Cicero, the last product of Academic development.
For detailed accounts of the Academicians see SPEUSIPPUS,
XENOCRATES, &c.; also STOICS and NEOPLATONISM. Consult
histories of philosophy by Zeller and Windelband, and Th.
Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, ii. 270 (Eng. tr., London, 1905).
ACADEMY, ROYAL. The Royal Academy of Arts in London, to
give it the original title in full, was founded in 1768,
``for the purpose of cultivating and improving the arts of
painting, sculpture and architecture.'' Many attempts had
previously been made in England to form a society which
should have for its object the advancement of the fine
arts. Sir Jumes Thornbill, his son-in-law Hogarth, the
Dilettanti Society, made efforts in this direction, but their
schemes were wrecked by want of means. Accident solved the
problem. The crowds that attended an exhibition of pictures
held in 1758 at the Foundling Hospital for the benefit
of charity, suggested a way of making money hitherto
unsuspected. Two societies were quickly formed, one
calling itself the ``Society of Artists'' and the other the
``Free Society of Artists.'' The latter ceased to exist in
1774. The former flourished, and in 1765 was granted a royal
charter under the title of the ``Incorporated Society of
Artists of Great Britain.'' But though prosperous it was not
united. A number of the members, including the most eminent
artists of the day, resigned in 1768, and headed by William
Chambers the architect, and Benjamin West, presented on
28th November in that year to George III., who had already
shown his interest in the fine arts, a memorial soliciting
his ``gracious assistance, patronage and protection,'' in
``establishing a society for promoting the arts of design.',
The memorialists stated that the two principal objects they
had in view were the establishing of ``a well-regulated
school or academy of design for the use of students in the
arts, and an annual exhibition open to all artists of
distinguished merit; the profit arising from the last of these
institutions'' would, they thought, ``fully answer all the
expenses of the first,'' and, indeed, leave something over
to be distributed ``in useful charities.'' The king expressed
his agreement with the proposal, but asked for further
particulars. These were furnished to him on the 7th of
December and approved, and on the 10th of December they
were submitted in form, and the document embodying them
received his signature, with the words, ``I approve of this
plan; let it be put into execution.'' This document, known
as the ``Instrument,'' defined under twenty-seven heads the
constitution and government of the Royal Academy, and contained
the names of the thirty-six original members nominated by the
king. Changes and modifications in the laws and regulations
laid down in it have of course been made, but none of them
without the sanction of the sovereign, and the ``Instrument''
remains to this day in all essential particulars the Magna
Charta of the society. Four days after the signing of this
document--on the 14th of Decemben--twentyeight of the first
nominated members met and drew up the Form of Obligation
which is still signed by every academician on receiving his
diploma, and also elected a president, keeper, secretary,
council and visitors in the schools; the professors being chosen
at a further meeting held on the 17th. No time was lost in
establishing the schools, and on the 2nd of January 1769 they
were opened at some rooms in Pall Mall, a little eastward of
the site now occupied by the Junior United Service Club, the
president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, delivering on that occasion the
first of his famous ``discourses.'' The opening of the first
exhibition at the same place followed on the 26th of April.
The king when founding the Academy undertook to supply out
of his own privy purse any deficiencies between the receipts
derived from the exhibitions and the expenditure incurred on
the schools, charitable donations for artists, &c. For twelve
years he was called upon to do so, and contributed in all
something over L. 5000, but in 1781 there was a surplus, and no
further call has ever been made on the royal purse. George
III. also gave the Academy rooms in what was then his own
palace of Somerset House, and the schools and offices were
removed there in 1771, but the exhibition continued to be held
in Pall Mall, till the completion in 1780 of the new Somerset
House. Then the Academy took possession of the apartments
in it which the king, on giving up the palace for government
offices, had expressly stipulated should be provided. Here
it remained till 1837, when the government, requiring the use
of these rooms, offered in exchange a portion of the National
Gallery, then just erected in Trafalgar Square. The offer,
which contained no conditions, was accepted. But it was
not long before the necessity for a further removal became
imminent. Already in 1850 notice was given by the government
that the rooms occupied by the Academy would be required for
the purposes of the National Gallery, and that they proposed
to give the academy L. 40,000 to provide themselves with a
building elsewhere. The matter slumbered, however, till 1858,
when the question was raised in the house of Commons as to
whether it would not be justifiable to turn the Academy out
of the National Gallery without making any provision for it
elsewhere. Much discussion followed, and a royal commission
was appointed in 1863 ``to inquire into the present position
of the Royal Academy in relation to the fine arts, and into
the circumstances and conditions under which it occupies
a portion of the National Gallery, &c.'' In their report,
which contained a large number of proposals and suggestions,
some of them since carried out, the commissioners stated
that they had ``come to the clear conclusion that the Royal
Academy have no legal, but that they have a moral claim to
apartments at the public expense.'' Negotiations had been
already going on between the government and the Academy for
the appropriation to the latter of a portion of the site
occupied by the recently purchased Burlington House, on which
the Academy offered to erect suitable buildings at its own
expense. The negotiations were renewed in 1866, and in
March in the following year a lease of old Burlington
House, and a portion of the garden behind it, was granted
to the Academy for 999 years at a peppercorn rent, subject
to the condition that ``the premises shall be at all times
exclusively devoted to the purpose of the cultivation of
the fine arts.'' The Academy immediately proceeded to
erect, on the garden portion of the site thus acquired,
exhibition galleries and schools, which were opened in
1869, further additions being made in 1884. An upper storey
was also added to old Burlington House, in which to place
the diploma works, the Gibson statuary and other works of
art. Altogether the Academy, out of its accumulated savings,
has spent on these buildings more than L. 160,000. They are
its own property, and are maintained entirely at its expense.
The government of the Academy was by the ``Instrument'' vested
in ``a president and eight other persons, who shall form
a council.'' Four of these were to retire every year, and
the seats were to go by rotation to every academician. The
number was increased in 1870 to twelve, and reduced to ten
in 1875. The rules as to retirement and rotation are still in
force. Newly elected academicians begin their two years'
service as soon as they have received their diploma. The
council has, to quote the ``Instrument'', ``the entire
direction and management of the business'' of the Academy
in all its branches; and also the framing of new laws and
regulations, but the latter, before coming into force, must
be sanctioned by the general assembly and approved by the
sovereign. The general assembly consists of the whole body of
academicians, and meets on certain fixed dates and at such
other times as the business may require; also at the request
to the president of any five members. The principal executive
officers of the Academy are the president, the keeper, the
treasurer, the librarian and the secretary, all now elected
by the general assembly, subject to the approval of the
sovereign. The president is elected annually on the foundation
day, 10th December, but the appointment is virtually for
life. No change has ever been made in the conditions attached
to this office, with the exception of its being now a salaried
instead of an unsalaried post. The treasurership and
librarianship, both offices originally held not by election but
by direct appointment from the sovereign, are now elective,
the holders being subject to re-election every five years,
and the keepership is also held upon the same terms; while
the secretaryship, which up to 1873 had always been filled
like the other offices by an academician, has since then
been held by a layman. Other officers elected by the general
assembly are the auditors (three academicians, one of whom
retires every year), the visitors in the schools (academicians
and associates), and the professors of painting, sculpture
and architecture---who must be members---and of anatomy and
chemistry. There are also a registrar, and curators and
teachers in the schools, who are appointed by the council.
The thirty-six original academicians were named by George III.
Their successors have been elected, up to 1867, by academicians
only---since that date by academicians and associates together.
The original number was fixed in the ``Instrument'' at forty,
and has so remained. Each academician on his election has to
present an approved specimen of his work---called his diploma
work---before his diploma is submitted to the sovereign for
signature. On receiving his diploma he signs the Roll of
Institution as an academician, and takes his seat in the general
assembly. The class of associates, out of whom alone the
academicians can be elected, was founded in 1769---they were
``to be elected from amongst the exhibitors, and be entitled
to every advantage enjoyed by the royal academicians,
excepting that of having a voice in the deliberations or any
share in the government of the Academy.'' Those exhibitors
who wished to become candidates had to give in their names
at the close of the exhibition. This condition no longer
exists, candidates having since 1867 merely to be proposed and
seconded by members of the Academy. On election, they attend
at a council meeting to sign the Roll of Institution as an
associate, and receive a diploma signed by the president and
secretary. In 1867 also associates were admitted to vote
at all elections of members; in 1868 they were made eligible
to serve as visitors in the schools, and in 1886 to become
candidates for the professorships of painting, sculpture and
architecture. At first the number of associates was limited
to twenty; in 1866 the number was made indefinite with a
minimum of twenty, and in 1876 the minimum was raised to
thirty. Vacancies in the lists of academicians and associates
caused by death or resignation can be filled up at any time
within five weeks of the event, except in the months of
August, September and October, but a vacancy in the associate
list caused by election only dates from the day on which
the new academician receives his diploma. The mode of
election is the same in both cases, first by marked lists
and afterwards by ballot. All who at the first marking have
four or more votes are marked for again, and the two highest
then go to the ballot. Engravers have always constituted
a separate class, and up to 1855 they were admitted to the
associateship only, the number, six, being in addition to
the other associates; now the maximum is four, of whom not
more than two may be academicians. A class of honorary
retired academicians was established in 1862, and of honorary
retired associates in 1884. The first honorary foreign
academicians were elected in 1869. The honorary members
consist of a chaplain, an antiquary, a secretary for foreign
correspondence, and professors of ancient history and ancient
literature. These posts, which date from the foundation of
the Academy, have always been held by distinguished men.
Academy Schools.--One of the most important functions of the
Royal Academy, and one which for nearly a century it discharged
alone, was the instruction of students in art. The first
act, as has been shown, of the newly founded Academy was to
establish schools ---``an Antique Academy,'' and a ``School
for the Living Model'' for painters, sculptors and architects.
In the first year, 1769, no fewer than seventy-seven students
entered. A school of painting was added in 1815, and special
schools of sculpture and architecture in 1871. It would
occupy too much space to follow the various changes that
have been made in the schools since their establishment. In
one important respect, however, they remain the same, viz.
in the instruction being gratuitous--no fees have ever been
charged. Up to the removal of the Academy to its present
quarters the schools could not be kept permanently open, as
the rooms occupied by them were wanted for the exhibition.
They are now open all the year round with the exception
of a fortnight at Christmas, and the months of August and
September. They consist of an antique school, upper and
lower schools of painting, a school of drawing from the life,
a school of modelling from the life and an architectural
school. Admission is gained by submitting certain specimens
of drawing or modelling, and the successful candidates, called
probationers, have then to undergo a further test in the
schools, on passing which they are admitted as students
for three years. At the end of that time they are again
examined, and if qualified admitted for a further term of two
years. These examinations are held twice a year, in January
and July. Female students were first admitted in 1860.
There are many scholarships, money prizes and medals to be
gained by the various classes of students during the time of
studentship, including travelling studentships of the value
of L. 200 for one year, gold and silver medals, and prizes
varying from L. 50 to L. 10. There are permanent curators and
teachers in all the schools, but the principal teaching is
done by the visitors, academicians and associates, elected
to serve in each school. The average cost of maintaining
these schools, including salaries, fees, cost of models,
prizes, books, maintenance of building, &c., is from L. 5000 to
L. 6000 a year, apart from certain scholarships and prizes
derived from moneys given or bequeathed for this purpose,
such as the Landseer scholarships, the Creswick prize, the
Armitage prizes and the Turner scholarship and gold medal.
Charities. -- Another of the principal objects to which
the profits of the Royal Academy have been devoted has been
the relief of disiressed artists and their families. From
the commencement of the institution a fund was set apart for
this purpose, and subsequently a further sum was allotted
to provide pensions for necessitous members of the Academy
and their widows. Both these funds were afterwards merged
in the general fund, and various changes have from time to
time been made in the conditions under which pensions and
donations have been granted and in their amount. At the
present time pensions not exceeding a certain fixed amount
may be given to academicians and associates, sixty years of
age, who have retired and whose circumstances show them to
be in need, provided the sum given does not make their total
annual income exceed a certain limit, and the same amounts
can be given to their widows subject to the same conditions.
No pensions are granted without very strict inquiry into
the circumstances of the applicant, who is obliged to make
a yearly declaration as to his or her income. The average
annual amount of these pensions has been latterly about
L. 2000. Pensions are also given according to the civil
service scale to certain officers on retirement. lt may be
stated here that with the exception of these pensions and
of salaries and fees for official services, no member of the
Academy derives any pecuniary benefit from the funds of the
institution. Donations to distressed artists who are or
have been exhibitors at the Royal Academy, their widows
and children under twenty-one years of age, are made twice
a year in February and August. The maximum amount that
can be granted to any one applicant in one donation is
L. 100, and no one can receive a grant more than once a
year. The average yearly amount thus expended is from
L. 1200 to L. 1500. In addition to these charities from its
general funds, the Academy administers for the benefit of
artists, not members of the Academy, certain other funds
which have been bequeathed to it for charitable purposes,
viz. the Turner fund, the Cousins fund, the Cooke fund,
the Newton bequest and the Edwards fund (see below).
Exhibitions. -- The source from which have been derived
the funds for carrying on the varied work of the Royal
Academy, its schools, its charities and general cost of
administration, and which has enabled it to spend large sums
on building, and provided it with the means of maintaining
the buildings, has been the annual exhibitions. With the
exception of the money left by John Gibson, R.A., some
of which was spent in building the gallery containing the
statues and bas-reliefs bequeathed by him, these exhibitions
have provided the sole source of revenue, all other moneys
that have come to the Academy having been either left in
trust, or been constituted trusts, for certain specific
purposes. The first exhibition in 1769 contained 136 works,
of which more than one-half were contributed by members, and
brought in L. 699: 17: 6. In 1780, the first year in which the
receipts exceeded the expenditure, the number of works was
489, of which nearly one-third were by members, and the sum
received was L. 3069: 1s. This increase continued gradually
with fluctuations, and in 1836, the last year at Somerset
House, the number of works was 1154, and the receipts were
L. 5179: 19s. No great addition to the number of works exhibited
took place at Trafalgar Square, but the receipts steadily
grew, and their careful management enabled the Academy, when
the time came for moving, to erect its own buildings and
become no longer dependent on the government for a home.
The greater space afforded by the galleries at Burlington
House rendered it possible to increase the number of works
exhibited, which of late years has reached a total of over
2000, while the receipts have also been such as to provide
the means for further building, and for a largely increased
expenditure of all kinds. It may be noted that the number
of works sent for exhibition soon began to exceed the space
available. In 1868, the last year at Trafalgar Square, the
number sent was 3011. This went on increasing, with occasional
fluctuations, at Burlington House, and in the year 1900 it
reached the number of 13,462. The annual winter exhibition
of works by old masters and deceased British artists was
begun in 1870. It was never intended to be a source of
revenue, but appreciation by the public has so far prevented
it from being a cause of loss. The summer exhibition
of works by living artists opens on the first Monday in
May, and closes on the first Monday in August. The winter
exhibition of works by deceased artists opens on the first
Monday in Januaty. and closes on the second Saturday in
March. The galleries containing the diploma works, the
Gibson statuary and other works of art are open daily, free.
Presidents of the Royal Academy.--Sir Joshua Reynolds,
1768-1792; Benjamin West (resigned), 1792-1805; James Wyatt
(president-elect), 1805; Benjamin West (re-elected), 1806-1820;
Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1820--1830; Sir Martin Archer Shee, 1830-1850;
Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, 1850--1865; Sir Francis Grant,
1866-1878; Frederick, Lord Leighton of Stretton, 1878--1896;
Sir John Everett Millais, 1896; Sir Edward John Poynter, 1896.
The library contains about 7000 volumes, dealing with
the history, the theory and the practice of the various
branches of the fine arts, some of them of great
rarity and value. It is open daily to the students and
members, and to other persons on a proper introduction.
The trust funds administered by the Royal Academy are --
The Turner fund (J. M. W. Turner, R.A.), which provides
sixteen annuities of L. 50 each, for artists of repute
not members of the Academy, also a biennial scholarship
of L. 50 and a gold medal for a landscape painting.
The Chantrey fund (Sir Francis Chantrey, R.A.), the
income of which, paid over by the Chantrey trustees,
is spent on pictures and sculpture. (See CHANTREY.)
The Creswick fund (Thomas Creswick, R.A.), which provides
an annual prize of L. 30 for a landscape painting in oil.
The Cooke fund (E.W. Cooke, R.A.), which provides
two annuities of L. 35 each for painters not members
of the Academy, over sixty years of age and in need.
The Landseer fund (Charles Landseer, R.A.), which provides
four scholarships of L. 40 each, two in painting and two
in sculpture, tenable for two years, open to students
at the end of the first two years of studentship, and
given for the best work done during the second year.
The Armitage fund (E. Armitage, R.A.), which provides two annual prizes
of L. 30 and L. 10, for a design in monochrome for a figure picture.
The Cousins fund (S. Cousins, R.A.), which provides
seven annuities of L. 80 each for deserving artists,
not members of the Academy, in need of assistance.
The Newton bequest (H. C. Newton), which provides an
annual sum of L. 60 for the indigent widow of a painter.
The Bizo.fund (John Bizo), to be used in the scientific
investigation into the nature of pigments and varnishes, &c.
The Edwards fund (W. J. Edwards), producing L. 40 a year
for the benefit of poor artists or artistic engravers.
The Leighton bequest (Lord Leighton, P.R.A.), received
from Mrs Orr and Mrs Matthews in memory of their
brother, the income from which, about L. 300, is expended
on the decoration of public places and buildings.
The literature concerning the Royal Academy consists
chiefly of pamphlets and articles of more or less ephemeral
value. More serious works are: William Sandby, The History
of the Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1862) (withdrawn
from circulation on a question of copyright); Report
from the Select Committee on Arts and their Connexion with
Manufactures, with the Minutes of Evidence and Appendix
(London, 1836 ); Report of the Royal Commission on the
Royal Academy, with Minutes of Evidence and Appendix
(London, 1863); Martin Archer Shee, The Life of Sir M. A.
Shee, P.R.A. (London, 1860); C. R. Leslie, R.A., and Tom
Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.
(London, 1865); J. E. Hodgson, R.A. (the late), and
Fred. A. Eaton, Sec. R.A., ``The Royal Academy in the
Last Century,'' Art Journal, 1889-1901. But the chief
sources of information on the subject are the minute-books
of the council and of the general assembly, and the annual
reports, which, however, only date from 1859. (F. A. E.)
ACADIAN, in geology, the name given by Sir J. W. Dawson
in 1867 to a series of black, red and green shales and
slates, with dark grey limestones, which are well developed
at St John, New Brunswick; Avalon in E. Newfoundland, and
Braintree in E. Massachusetts. These rocks are of Middle
Cambrian age and possess a Paradoxides fauna. They
have been correlated with limestone beds in Tennessee,
Alabama, central Nevada and British Columbia (St Stephen).
See CAMBRIAN SYSTEM; also C. D. Walcott, Bull.
U.S. Geol. Survey, No. 81, 1891; and Sir J. W.
Dawson, Acadian Geology, 1st ed. 1855, 3rd ed. 1878.
ACADIE, or ACADIA, a name given by the French in 1603 to
that part of the mainland of North America lying between the
latitudes 40 deg. and 46 deg. . In the treaty of Utrecht (1713)
the words used in transferring the French possessions to
Britain were ``Nova Scotia or Acadia.'' See NOVA SCOTIA
for the limits included at that date under the term.
ACAMTHOCEPHALA, a compact group of cylindrical, parasitic
worms, with no near allies in the animal kingdom. Its
members are quite devoid of any mouth or alimentary canal,
but have a well-developed body cavity into which the eggs
are dehisced and which communicates with the exterior by
From Cambridge Natural History, vol. ii., ``Worms,
&c.,'' by permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
Fig. 1. A, Five specimens of Echinorhynchus acus,
Rud., attached to a piece of intestinal wall, X 4.
B, The proboscis of one still more highly magnified.
means of an oviduct. The size of the animals varies greatly,
from forms a few millimetres in length to Gigantorhynchus
gigas, which measures from 10 to 65 cms. The adults live
in great numbers in the alimentary canal of some vertebrate,
usually fish, the larvae are as a rule encysted in the
body cavity of some invertebrate, most often an insect or
crustacean, more rarely a small fish. The body is divisible
into a proboscis and a trunk with sometimes an intervening neck
region. The proboscis bears rings of recurved hooks arranged
in horizontal rows, and it is by means of these hooks that the
animal attaches itself to the tissues of its host. The hooks
may be of two or three shapes. Like the body, the proboscis
is hollow, and its cavity is separated from the body cavity
by a septum or proboscis sheath. Traversing the cavity of
the proboscis are muscle-strands inserted into the tip of the
proboscis at one end and into the septum at the other. Their
contraction causes the proboscis to be invaginated into its
cavity (fig. 2). But the whole proboscis apparatus can also
be, at least partially, withdrawn into the body cavity, and
this is effected by two retractor muscles which run from the
posterior aspect of the septum to the body wall (fig. 3).
The skin is peculiar. Externally is a thin cuticle; this
covers the epidermis, which consists of a syncytium with
no cell limits. The syncytium is traversed by a series
of branching tubules containing fluid and is controlled
by a few wandering, amoeboid nuclei (fig. 2). Inside the
syncytium is a not very regular layer of circular muscle
fibres, and within this again some rather scattered
longitudinal fibres; there is no endothelium. In their
minute structure the muscular fibres resemble those of
Nematodes. Except for the absence of the longitudinal fibres
the skin of the proboscis resembles that of the body, but
the fluid-containing tubules of the latter are shut off
from those of the body. The canals of the proboscis open
ultimately into a circular vessel which runs round its base.
From the circular canal two sac-like diverticula called the
From Cambridge Natural History, vol. ii.,
``Worms, &c.,'' by permission of Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
FIG. 2.--A longitudinal section through the
anterior end of Echinorhynchus haeruca, Rud. (from
a, The proboscis not fully expanded.
b, Proboscis-sheath.
c, Retractor muscles of the proboscis.
d, Cerebral ganglion.
e, Retinaculum enclosing a nerve
f, One of the retractors of the sheath.
g, A lemniscus.
h, One of the spaces in the sub-cuticular tissue.
i, Longitudinal muscular layer.
j, Circular muscular laver.
k, Line of division between the sub-cuticular tissue of the trunk
and that of the proboscis with the lemnisci.
``lemnisci'' depend into the cavity of the body (fig. 2). Each
consists of a prolongation of the syncytial material of the
proboscis skin, penetrated by canals and sheathed with a scanty
muscular coat. They seem to act as reservoirs into which the
fluid of the tense, extended proboscis can withdraw when it
is retracted, and from which the fluid can be driven out when
it is wished to expand the proboscis.
There are no alimentary canal or specialized organs for
circulation or for respiration. Food is imbibed through the skin from
the digestive juices of the host in which the Acanthocephala
live.
J. Kaiser has described as kidneys two organs something like
minute shrubs situated dorsally to the generative ducts into
which they open. At the end of each twig is a membrane
pierced by pores, and a number of cilia depend into the lumen
of the tube; these cilia maintain a constant motion.
The central ganglion of the nervous system lies in the
proboscis sheath or septum. It supplies the proboscis with nerves and
gives off behind two stout trunks which supply the body (fig. 2).
Each of these trunks is surrounded by muscles, and the
complex retains the old name of ``retinaculum.'' In the male at
least there is also a genital ganglion. Some scattered papillae
may possibly be sense-organs.
The Acanthocephala are dioecious. There is a ``stay'' called
the ``ligament'' which runs from the hinder end of the
proboscis sheath to the posterior end of the body. In this the two testes
lie (fig. 3). Each opens in a vas deferens which bears three
diverticula or vesiculae seminales, and three pairs of cement
glands also are found which pour their secretions through a duct into
the vasa deferentia. The latter unite and end in a penis which opens
posteriorly.
Fig. 3.---An optical section through a male Neorhynchus
clavaeceps, Zed. (from Hamann).
a, Proboscis.
b, Proboscis sheath.
c, Retractor of the proboscis.
d, Cerebral ganglion.
f, f, Petractors of the proboscis sheath.
g, g, Lemnisci, each with two giant nuclei.
h, Space in sub-cuticular layer of the skin.
l, Ligament.
m, m, Testes.
o, Glands on vas deferens.
p, Giant nucleus in skin.
q, Opening of vas deferens.
The ovaries arise like the testes as rounded bodies in the
ligament. From these masses of ova dehisce into the body
cavity and float in its fluid. Here the eggs are fertilized
and here they segment so that the young embryos are formed
within their mother's body. The embryos escape into the
uterus through the ``bell,'' a funnel like opening continuous
with the uterus. Just at the junction of the ``bell''
and the uterus there is a second small opening situated
dorsally. The ``bell'' swallows the matured embryos and
passes them on into the uterus, and thus out of the body via
the oviduct, which opens at one end into the uterus and at
the other on to the exterior at the posterior end of the
body. But should the ``bell'' swallow any of the ova, or
even one of the younger embryos, these are passed back
into the body cavity through the second and dorsal opening.
The embryo thus passes from the body of the female into
the alimentary canal of the host and leaves this with the
faeces. It is then, if lucky, eaten by some crustacean, or
insect, more rarely by a fish. In the stomach it casts
its membranes and becomes mobile, bores through the stomach
walls and encysts usually in the cavity of its first and
invertebrate host. By this time the embryo has all the
organs of the adult perfected save only the reproductive;
these develop only when the first host is swallowed
by the second or final host, in which case the parasite
attaches itself to the wall of the alimentary canal and
A curious feature shared by both larva and adult is the large
size of many of the cells, e.g. the nerve cells and the bell.
O. Hamann has divided the group into three
families, to which a fourth must be added.
(i.) Fam. Echinorhynchidae.This is by far the largest
family and contains the commonest species; the larva of
Echinorhynchus proteus lives in Gammarus pulex and in
small fish, the adult is common in many fresh-water fish: E.
polymorphus, larval host the crayfish, adult host the duck:
E. angustotus occurs as a larva in Asellus aquaticus,
as an adult in the perch, pike and barbel: E. moniliformis
has for its larval host the larvae of the beetle Blaps
mucronata, for its final host certain mice, if introduced
into man it lives well: E. acus is common in whiting: E.
porrigeus in the fin-whale, and E. strumosus in the seal.
A species named E. hominis has been described from a boy.
(ii.) Fam. Gigantorhynchidae. A small family of large forms
with a ringed and flattened body. Gigantorhynchus gigas
lives normally in the pig, but is not uncommon in man in
South Russia, its larval host is the grub of Melolontha
vulgaris, Cetonis auratus, and in America probably of
Lachnosterna arcuata: G. echinodiscus lives in the
intestine of ant-eaters: G. spira in that of the
Fig. 4.
A, The larva of Echinorhynchus proteus from the body cavity of
Phoxinus laevis, with the proboscis retracted and the whole still
enclosed in a capsule.
B, A section through the same; a, the invaginated proboscis;
b, proboscis sheath; c, beginning of the neck; d,
lemniscus. Highlymagnified (both from Hamann).
king vulture, Sarcorhampus papa, and G.
taeniodes in Dicholopus cristatus, a cariama.
(iii.) Fam. Neorhynchidae. Sexually mature whilst still
in the larval stage. Neorhynchus clavaeceps in Cyprinus
carpio has its larval form in the larva of Sialis
lularia and in the leech Nephelis octcculii: tact
K. agilis is found in Mugil auratus and M. cephalus.
(iv.) Apororhynchidae. With no proboscis. This family contains
the single species Apororhynchus hemignathi, found near
the anus of Hemignathiis procerus, a Sandwich Island bird.
Fig. 5. -- Fully formed larva of Echinorhynchus
proteus from the body cavity of Phoxinus laevis
(from Hamann). Highly magnified. a, Proboscis;
b, bulla; c, neck; d, trunk; e, e, lemnisci.
AUTHORITIES. - O. Hamann, O. Jen. Zeitschr. xxv., 1891,
p. 113; Zool. Anz. xv., 1892, 195; J. Kaiser, Bibl.
Zool. ii., 1893: A. E. Shipley, Quart. Journ. Micr.
Sci. Villot, Zool. Anz. viii., 1885, p. 19. (A. E. S.)
ACANTHUS (the Greek and Latin name for the plant, connected
with ake, a sharp point), a genus of plants belonging to
the natural order Acanthaceae. The species are natives of
the southern parts of Europe and the warmer parts of Asia and
Africa. The best-known is Acanthus mollis (brank-ursine, or
bears' breech), a common species throughout the Mediterranean
region, having large, deeply cut, hairy, shining leaves. Another
species, Acanthus spinosus, is so called from its spiny
heaves. They are bold, handsome plants, with stately spikes,
2 to 3 ft. high, of flowers with spiny bracts. A. mollis, A.
lalifolius and A. longifolius are broad-leaved species; A.
spinosus and A. spinosissimus have narrower, spiny toothed
leaves. In decoration, the acanthus was first reproduced in
metal, and subsequently carved in stone by the Greeks. It was
afterwards, with various changes, adopted in all succeeding
styles of architecture as a basis of ornamental decoration.
There are two types, that found in the Acanthus spinosus,
which was followed by the Greeks, and that in the Acanthus
mollis, which seems to have been preferred by the Romans.
ACAPULCO, a city and port of the state of Guerrero on
the Pacific coast of Mexico, 190 m. S.S.W. of the city
of Mexico, Pop. (1900) 4932. It is located on a deep,
semicircular bay, almost land-locked, easy of access, and
with so secure an anchorage that vessels can safely lie
alongside the rocks that fringe the shore. It is the best
harbour on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and it is a port
of Call for steamship lines running between Panama and San
Francisco. The town is built on a narrow strip of low
land, scarcely half a mile wide, between the shore line and
the lofty mountains that encircle the bay. There is great
natural beauty in the surroundings, but the mountains render
the town difficult of access from the interior, and give it
an exceptionally hot and unhealthy climate. The effort to
admit the cooling sea breezes by cutting through the mountains
a passage called the Abra de San Nicolas had some beneficial
effect. Acapulco was long the most important Mexican port
on the Pacific, and the only depot for the Spanish fleets
plying between Mexico and Spain's East Indian colonies from
1778 until the independence of Mexico, when this trade was
lost. The town has been chosen as the terminus for two railway
lines seeking a Pacific port--the Interoceanic and the Mexican
Central. The town suffered considerably from earthquakes in
July and August 1909. There are exports of hides, cedar and
fruit, and the adjacent district of Tabares produces cotton,
tobacco, cacao, sugar cane, Indian corn, beans and coffee.
ACARNANIA, a district of ancient Greece, bounded on
the W. by the Ionian Sea, on the N. by the Ambracian
Gulf, on the E. and S. by Mt. Thyamus and the Acholous.
The Echinades islands, off the S.W. coast, are gradually
being joined up to the mainland. Its most populous region
was the plain of the Acholous, commanded by the principal
town Stratus; communication with the coast was impeded by
mountain ridges and lagoons. Its people long continued in
semi-barbarism, having little intercourse with the rest of
Greece. In the 5th century B.C. with the aid of Athens
they subdued the Corinthian factories on their coast. In
391 they submitted to the Spartan king Agesilaus; in 371
they passed under Theban control. In the Hellenistic age
the Acarnanians were constantly assailed by their Aetolian
neighbours. On the advice of Cassander they made effective
their ancient cantonal league, apparently after the pattern of
Aetolla. In the 3rd century they obtained assistance from
the Illyrians, and formed a close alliance with Philip V. of
Macedonia, whom they supported in his Roman wars, their new
federal capital, Lencas, standing a siege in his interest.
For their sympathy with his successor Perseus they were
deprived of Lencas and required to send hostages to Rome
(167). The country was finally desolated by Augustus, who
drafted its inhabitants into Nicopoiis and Patrae. Acarnania
took a prominent part in the national uprising of 1821; it
is now joined with Aetolia as a nome. The sites of several
ancient towns in Acarnania are marked by well preserved
walls, especially those of Stratus, Oeniadae and Limnaea.
AUTHORITIES.-Strabo vii. 7, x. 2; Thucydides; Polybius iv.
40; Livy xxxiii. 16-17; Corpus Inscr. Graecarum, no. 1739; E.
Oberhummer, Akarnanien im Altertum (Munich, 1887); Heuzey, Mt.
Olympe et l'Acarnanie (Paris, 1860). (M. O. B. C.; E. GR.)
ACARUS (from Gr. akari, a mite), a genus of
Arachnids, represented by the cheese mite and other forms.
ACASTUS, in Greek legend, the son of Pohas, king of Iolcus in
Thessaly (Ovid, Metam. vili. 306; Apollonius Rhodius i. 224;
Pindar, Nemea, iv. 54, v. 26). He was a great friend of Jason,
and took part in the Calydonian boar-hunt and the Argonautic
expedition. After his father's death he instituted splendid
funeral games in his honour, which were celebrated by artists
and poets, such as Stesichorus. His wife Astydameia (called
Hippolyte in Horace, Odes, iii. 7. 17) fell in love with
Peleus (q.v.), who had taken refuge at Iolcus, but when her
advances were rejected accused him falsely to her husband.
Acastus, to avenge his fancied wrongs, left Peleus asleep
on Mount Pellon, having first hidden his famous sword. On
awaking, Peleus was attacked by the Centaurs, but saved by
Cheiron. Having re-covered his sword he returned to Iolcus
and slew Acastus and Astydameia. Acastus was represented
with his famous horses in the painting of the Argonautic
expedition by Micon in the temple of the Dioscuri at Athens.
ACATALEPSY (Gr. a-, privative, and katalambanein, to
seize), a term used in Scepticism to denote incomprehensibility.
ACAULESCENT (Lat. acaulescens, becoming stemless, from a,
not, and caulis, a stem), a term used of a plant apparently
stemless, as dandelion, the stem being almost suppressed.
ACCA LARENTIA (not Laurentia), in Roman legend, the
wife of the shepherd Faustulus, who saved the lives of the
twins Romulus and Remus after they had been thrown into the
Tiber. She had twelve sons, and on the death of one of them
Romulus took his place, and with the remaining eleven founded
the college of the Arval brothers (Fratres Arvales). The
tradition that Romulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf has
been explained by the suggestion that Larentia was called
lupa (``courtesan'', literally ``she-wolf'') on account
of her immoral character (Livy i. 4; Ovid, Fasti, iii.
55). According to another account, Larentia was a beautiful
girl, whom Hercules won in a game of dice (Macrobius i. 10;
Plutarch, Romulus, 4, 5, Quaest. Rom. 35; Aulus Genius
vi. 7). The god advised her to marry the first man she met
in the street, who proved to be a wealthy Etruscan named
Tarutius. She inherited all his property and bequeathed it to
the Roman people, who out of gratitude instituted in her honour
a yearly festival called Larentalia (Dec. 23). According to
some, Acca Larentia was the mother of the Lares, and, like
Ceres, Teilus, Flora and others, symbolized the fertility
of the earth--in particular the city lands and their crops.
See Mommsen, ``Die echte und die falsche Larentia,'' in
Romische Forschungen, ii. 1879; E. Pais, Ancient
Legends of Roman History (Eng. trans. 1906) whose views
on the subject are criticized by W. W. Fowler in W. H.
D. Rouse's The Year's Work in Classical Studies (1907);
C. Pascal, Studii di alntichita e Mitologia (1896).
ACCELERATION (from Lat. accelerare, to hasten, celer,
quick), hastening or quickening; in mechanics, a term
employed to denote the rate at which the velocity of a
body, whose motion is not uniform, either increases
or decreases. (See MECHANICS and HODOGRAPH.)
ACCENT. The word ``accent'' has its origin in the Lat.
accentus, which in its turn is a literal translation of
the Gr. prosodia. The early Greek grammarians used this
term for the musical accent which characterized their own
language, but later the term became specialized for quantity
in metre, whence comes the Eng. prosody. Besides various
later developments of usage it is important to observe that
``accent'' is used in two different and often contrasted
senses in connexion with language. In all languages
there are two kinds of accent: (1) musical chromatic or
pitch accent; (2) emphatic or stress accent. The former
indicates differences in musical pitch between one sound
and another in speech, the latter the difference between
one syllable and another which is occasioned by emitting
the breath in the production of one syllable with greater
energy than is employed for the other syllables of the same
word. These two senses, it is to be noticed, are different
from the common usage of the word in the statement that
some one talks with a foreign or with a vulgar accent. In
these cases, no doubt, both differences of intonation and
differences of stress may be included in the statement, but
other elements are frequently no less marked, e.g. the
pronunciation of t and d as real dentals, whereas the
English sounds so described are really produced not against
the teeth but against their sockets, the inability to produce
the interdental th whether breathed as in thin or voiced
as in this and its representation by d or z, the
production of o as a uniform sound instead of one ending as
in English in a slight u sound, or such dialect changes as
lydy (laidy) for lady, or toime for time (taime).
In different languages the relations between pitch and stress
differ very greatly. In some the pitch or musical accent
predominates. In such languages if signs are employed to
mark the position of the chief accent in the word it will
be the pitch and not the stress accent which will be thus
indicated. Amongst the languages of ancient times Sanskrit
and Greek both indicate by signs the position of the chief
pitch accent in the word, and the same method has been
employed in modern times for languages in which pitch accent
is welf marked, as it is, for example in Lithuanian, the
language still spoken by some two millions of people on the
frontier between Prussia and Russia in the neighbourhood
of Konigsberg and Vilna. Swedish also has a well-marked
musical accent. Modern Greek has changed from pitch to
stress, the stress being generally laid upon the same
syllable in modern as bore the pitch accent in ancient Greek.
In the majority of European languages, however, stress is
more conspicuous than pitch, and there is plenty of evidence
to show that the original language from which Greek, Latin,
Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic and other languages of Europe are
descended, possessed stress accent also in a marked degree.
To the existence of this accent must be attributed a large
part of the phenomena known as Ablaut or Gradation (see
INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES). In modern languages we can see
the same principle at work making Acton out of the O. Eng.
(Anglo-Saxon) ac-tun (oak-town), and in more recent times
producing the contrast between New Town and Newton. In
French, stress is less marked than it is in English, but
here also there is evidence to show that in the development
from Latin to French a very strong stress accent must have
existed. The natural result of producing one syllable of a
word with greater energy than the others is that the other
syllables have a less proportion of breath assigned to
them and therefore tend to become indistinct or altogether
inaudible. Thus the strong stress accent existing in the
transition period between Latin and French led to the curtailing
of long Latin words like latrocinium or hospitale into
the words which we have borrowed from French into English
as larceny and hotel. It will be observed that the first
syllable and that which bears the accent are the two which
best withstand change, though the strong tendency in English
to stress heavily the first syllable bids fair ultimately
to oust the e in the pronunciation of larceny. No such
changes arise when a strong pitch accent is accompanied
by a weaker stress accent, and hence languages like
ancient Sanskrit and ancient Greek, where such conditions
existed, preserve fuller forms than their sister languages
or than even their own descendants, when stress takes the
place of pitch as the more important element in accent.
In both pitch and stress accent different gradations may be
observed. In pitch, the accent may be uniform, rising or
falling. Or there may be combinations of rising and falling
or of falling and rising accents upon the same syllable.
In ancient Greek, as is well known, three accents are
distinguished--(1) the acute ('), a rising accent; (2) the
grave (`), apparently merely the indication that in particular
positions in the sentence the acute accent is not used where
it would occur in the isolated word; and (3) the circumflex,
which, as its form (^) shows, and as the ancient grammarians
inform us, is a combination of the rising and the falling
accent upon the same syllable, this syllable being always
long. Different Greek dialects, however, varied the syllables
of the word on which the accent occurred, Aeolic Greek,
for example, never putting the acute on the last syllable
of a word, while Attic Greek had many words so accented.
The pitch accent of the Indo-European languages was originally
free, i.e. might occur on any syllable of a word, and
this condition of things is still found in the earliest
Sanskrit literature. But in Greek before historical times
the accent had become limited to the last three syllables
of a word, so that a long word like the Homeric genitive
feromenoio could in no circumstances be accented on
either of its first two syllables, while if the final
syllable was long, as in the accusative plural feromenous,
the accent could go back only to the second syllable from
the end. As every vowel has its own natural pitch, and a
frequent interchange between e ( a high vowel) and o
(a low vowel) occurs in the Indo-European languages, it has
been suggested that e originally went with the highest
pitch accent, while o appeared in syllables of a lower
pitch. But if there is any foundation for the theory, which
is by no means certain, its effects have been distorted
and modified by all manner of analogical processes. Thus
poimen with acute accent and daimon with the acute accent
on the preceding syllable would correspond to the rule, so
would aletes and epos, but there are many exceptions
like odos where the acute accent accompanies an o
vowel. Somewhat similar distinctions characterize syllables
which are stressed. The strength of the expiration may be
greatest either at the beginning, the end or the middle of
the syllable, and, according as it is so, the accent is a
failing, a rising, or a rising and falling one. Syllables in
which the stress is produced continuously whether increasing
or decreasing are called single-pointed syllables, those in
which a variation in the stress occurs without being strong
enough to break the syllable into two are called double-pointed
syllables. These last occur in some English dialects, but
are commonest in languages like Swedish and Lithuanian, which
have a ``sing-song'' pronunciation. It is often not easy
to decide whether a syllable is double-pointed or whether
what we hear is really two-single-pointed syllables. There
is no separate notation for stress accent, but the acute (')
is used for the increasing, the grave (`) for the decreasing
stress, and the circumflex (^) for the rising and falling
(increasing and decreasing) and (@) for the opposite. A
separate notation is much to be desired, as the nature of the
two accents is so different, and could easily be devised by
using (@) for the falling, (') for the rising stress, and
(@) for the combination of the two in one syllable. This
would be clearer than the upright stroke (|) preceding the
stressed syllable, which is used in some phonetic works.
The relation between the two accents in the same language
at the same time is a subject which requires further
investigation. It is generally assumed that the chief stress
and the chief pitch in a word coincide, but this is by no
means certain for all cases, though the incidence of the chief
stress accent in modern Greek upon the same syllable as had
the chief pitch accent in ancient times suggests that the
two did frequently fall upon the same syllable. On the other
hand, in words like the Sanskrit sapta, the Gr. epta,
the pitch accent which those languages indicate is upon a
syllable which certainly, in the earliest times at least,
did not possess the principal stress. For forms in other
languages, like the Lat. septem or the Gothic sibun, show
that the a of the final syllables in Sanskrit and Greek is
the representative of a reduced syllable in which, even in the
earliest times, the nasal alone existed (see under N for the
history of these so-called sonant nasals). It is possible that
sporadic changes of accent, as in the Gr. meter compared
with the Sanskrit mata, is owing to the shifting of the
pitch accent to the same syllable as the stress occupied.
There is no lack of evidence to show that the stress accent
also may shift its position in the history of a language from
one syllable to another. In prehistoric times the stress
in Latin must have rested upon the first syllable in all
cases. Only on this hypothesis can be explained forms like
peperci (perfect of parco) and collido (a compound
of laedo). In historical times, when the stress in Latin
was on the second syllable from the end of the word if that
syllable was long, or on the third syllable from the end if
the second from the end was short, we should have expected
to find *peparci and *collaedo, for throughout the
historical period the stress rested in these words upon the
second syllable from the end. The causes for the change of
position are not always easy to ascertain. In words of four
syllables with a long penult and words of five syllables
with a short penult there probably developed a secondary
accent which in course of time replaced the earlier accent
upon the first syllable. But the number of such long words
in Latin is comparatively small. It is no less possible
that relations between the stress and pitch accents were
concerned. For unless we are to regard the testimony of
the ancient Latin grammarians as altogether untrustworthy
there was at least in classical Latin a well-marked pitch
as well as a stress accent. This question, which had
long slumbered, has been revived by Dr J. Vendryes in
his treatise entitled Recherches sur l'histoire et les
effets de l'intensite initiale en latin (Paris, 1902).
In English there is a tendency to throw the stress on to the
first syllable, which leads in time to the modification of
borrowed words. Thus throughout the 18th century there was
a struggle going on over the word balcony, which earlier
was pronounced balcony. Swift is the first author quoted
for the pronunciation balcony. and Cowper's balcony
in ``John Gilpin'' is among the latest instances of the old
pronunciation. Disregarding the Latin quantity of orator
and senator, English by throwing the stress on the first
syllable has converted them into orator and senator,
while Scots lawyers speak also of a curator. How far
French influence plays a part here is not easy to say.
Besides the accent of the syllable and of the word, which
have been already discussed, there remains the accent of
the sentence. Here the problem is much more complicated.
The accent of a word, whether pitch or stress, may be
considerably modified in the sentence. From earliest times
some words have become parasitic or enclitic upon other
words. Pronouns more than most words are modified from
this cause, but conjunctions like the Gr. te (``and''),
the Lat. qiie, have throughout their whole history been
enclitic upon the preceding word. A very important word
may be enclitic, as in English don't, shan't. It is to be
remembered that the unit of language is rather the sentence
than the word, and that the form which is given to the word
in the dictionary is very often not the form which it takes
in actual speech. The divisions of words in speech are quite
different from the divisions on the printed page. Sanskrit
alone amongst languages has consistently recognized this, and
preserves in writing the exact combinations that are spoken.
Accent, whether pitch or stress, can be utilized in the sentence
to express a great variety of meanings. Thus in English
a sentence like You rode to Newmarket yesterday, which
contains five words, may be made to express five different
statements by putting the stress upon each of the words in
turn. By putting the stress on you the person addressed
is marked out as distinct from certain others, by putting
it upon rode other means of locomotion to Newmarket are
excluded, and so on. With the same order of words five
interrogative sentences may also be expressed, and a third
series of exclamatory sentences expressing anger, incredulity,
&c., may be obtained from the same words. It is to be noticed
that for these two series a different intonation, a different
musical (pitch) accent appears from that which is found in the
same words when employed to make a matter-of-fact statement.
In languages like Chinese, which have neither compound words
nor inflection, accent plays a very important part. As the
words are all monosyllabic, stress could obviously not be so
important as pitch as a help to distinguish different senses
attached to the same syllable, and in no other language is
variety of pitch so well developed as in Chinese. In languages
which, like English, show comparatively little pitch accent
it is to be noticed that the sentence tends to develop a more
musical character under the influence of emotion. The voice
is raised and at the same time greater stress is generally
employed when the speaker is carried away by emotion, though the
connexion is not essential and strong emotion may be expressed
by a lowering as well as by a raising of the voice. In either
case, however, the stress will be greater than the normal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--H. Sweet, Primer of Phonetics (1890,
now in 3rd edition), sec. 96 ff., History of English Sounds
(1888), sec. 110 ff., and other works; E. Sievers, Grundzuge
der Phonetik (1893), sec. 532 ff.; O. Jespersen, Lehrbuch
der Phonetik (1904), an abbreviated German translation of
the author's larger work in Danish, sec. 216 ff. The books
of Sievers and Jespersen give (especially Sievers) full
references to the literature of the subject. For the accent
system of the Indo-European languages see ``Betonung'' in
Brugmann's Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der
indogermanischen Sprachen, vol. i. (1897), or, with considerable
modifications, his Kurze vergleichende Grammatik der
idg. Sprachen (1902), sec. sec. 32-65 and 343-350. (P. Gi.)
ACCEPTANCE (Lat. acceptare, frequentative form of accipere,
to receive), generally, a receiving or acknowledgment of
receipt; in law, the act by which a person binds himself
to comply with the request contained in a bill of exchange
(q.v.), addressed to him by the drawer. In all cases it
is understood to be a promise to pay the bill in money,
the law not recognizing an acceptance in which the promise
is to pay in some other way, e.g. partly in money and
partly by another bill. Acceptance may be either general or
qualified. A general acceptance is an engagement to pay
the bill strictly according to its tenor, and is made by
the drawee subscribing his name, with or without the word
``accepted,'' at the bottom of the bill, or across the face
of it. Qualified acceptance may be a promise to pay on a
contingency occurring, e.g. on the sale of certain goods
consigned by the drawer to the acceptor. No contingency
is allowed to be mentioned in the body of the bill, but a
qualified acceptance is quite legal, and equally binding with
a general acceptance upon the acceptor when the contingency
bas occurred. It is also qualified acceptance where the
promise is to pay only part of the sum mentioned in the
bill, or to pay at a different time or place from those
specified. As a qualified acceptance is so far a disregard of
the drawer's order, the holder is not obliged to take it; and
if he chooses to take it he must give notice to antecedent
parties, acting at his own risk if they dissent. In all
cases acceptance involves the signature of the acceptor
either by himself or by some person duly authorized on his
behalf. A bill can be accepted in the first instance only
by the person or persons to whom it is addressed; but if
he or they fail to do so, it may, after being protested for
non-acceptance, be accepted by some one else ``supra protest,''
for the sake of the honour of one or more of the parties
concerned in it, and he thereupon acquires a claim against
the drawer and all those to whom he could have resorted.
ACCEPTILATION (from Lat. acceptilatio), in Roman and Scots
law, a verbal release of a verbal obligation. This formal mode
of extinguishing an obligation contracted verbally received
its name from the book-keeping term acceptilatio, entering a
receipt, i.e. carrying it to credit. The words conveying
the release had to correspond to, or strictly cover, the
expressed obligation. Figuratively, in theology, the word
acceptilation means free remission or forgiveness of sins.
ACCESS (Lat. accessus), approach, or the means of
approaching. In law, the word is used in various connexions.
The presumption of a child's legitimacy is negatived if it be
proved that a husband has not had access to his wife within
such a period of time as would admit of his being the father.
(See LEGITIMACY.) In the law of easements, every person
who has land adjoining a public road or a public navigable
river has a right of access to it from his land. So, also,
every person has a right of access to air and light from
an ancient window. For the right of access of parents to
children under the guardianship of the court, see INFANT.
ACCESSION (from Lat. accedere, to go to, to approach),
in law, a method of acquiring property adopted from Roman
law, by which, in things that have a close connexion with
or dependence on one another, the property of the principal
draws after it the property of the accessory, according
to the principle, accessio cedet principali. Accession
may take place either in a natural way, such as the growth
of fruit or the pregnancy of animals, or in an artificial
way. The various methods may be classified as (1) land to
land by accretion or alluvion; (2) moveables to land (see
FIXTURES); (3) moveables to moveables; (4) moveables added
to by the art or industry of man; this may be by specification,
as when wine is made out of grapes, or by confusion, or
commixture, which is the mixing together of liquids or solids,
respectively. In the case of industrial accession ownership is
determined according as the natural or manufactured substance
is of the more importance, and, in general, compensation is
payable to the person who has been dispossessed of his property.
In a historical or constitutional sense, the term
``accession'' is applied to the coming to the throne of a
dynasty or line of sovereigns or of a single sovereign.
``Accession'' sometimes likewise signifies consent or
acquiescence. Thus, in the bankruptcy law of Scotland,
where there is a settlement by a trust-deed, it is accepted
on the part of each creditor by a ``deed of accession.''
ACCESSORY, a person guilty of a felonious offence, not as
principal, but by participation; as by advice, command,
aid or concealment. In certain crimes, there can be no
accessories; all concerned being principals, whether present
or absent at the time of their commission. These are
treason, and all offences below the degree of felony, as
specified in the Offences against the Person Act 1861.
There are two kinds of accessories -- before the fact, and
after it. The first is he who commands or procures another
to commit felony, and is not present himself; for if he be
present, he is a principal. The second is he who receives,
harbours, assists, or comforts any man that has done murder or
felony, whereof he has knowledge. An accessory before the
fact is liable to the same punishment as the principal; and
there is now indeed no practical difference between such an
accessory and a principal in regard either to indictment,
trial or punishment. Accessories after the fact are in general
punishable with imprisonment (with or without hard labour) for
a period not exceeding two years, but in the case of murder
punishable by penal servitude for life, or not less than three
years, or by imprisonment (with or without hard labour) to the
extent of two years. The law of Scotland makes no distinction
between the accessory to any crime and the principal (see
ART AND PART). Except in the case of treason, accession
after the fact is not noticed by the law of Scotland unless
as an element of evidence to prove previous accession.
ACCIAJUOLI, DONATO (1428-1478), Italian scholar, was born at
Florence in 1428. He was famous for his learning, especially
in Greek and mathematics, and for his services to his native
state. Having previously been entrusted with several
important embassies, he became Gonfalonier of Florence in
1473. He died at Milan in 1478, when on his way to Paris
to ask the aid of Louis XI. on behalf of the Florentines
against Pope Sixtus IV. His body was taken back to
Florence, and buried in the church of the Carthusians at
the public expense, and his daughters were portioned by his
fellow-citizens, the fortune he left being, owing to his
probity and disinterestedness, very small. He wrote a Latin
translation of some of Plutarch's Lives (Florence, 1478);
Commentaries on Aristotle's Ethics and Politics; and the
lives of Hannibal, Scipio and Charlemagne. In the work on
Aristotle he had the co-operation of his master Argyropulus.
ACCIDENCE (a mis-spelling of ``accidents,'' from the Latin
neuter plural accidentia, casual events), the term for
the grammatical changes to which words are subject in their
inflections as to gender, number, tense and case. It is
also used to denote a book containing the first principles
of grammar, and so of the rudiments of any subject or art.
ACCIDENT (from Lat. accidere, to happen), a word of widely
variant meanings, usually something fortuitous and unexpected;
a happening out of the ordinary course of things. In the
law of tort, it is defined as ``an occurrence which is due
neither to design nor to negligence''; in equity, as ``such
an unforeseen event, misfortune, loss, act or omission, as
is not the result of any negligence or misconduct.'' So, in
criminal law, ``an effect is said to be accidental when the
act by which it is caused is not done with the intention
of causing it, and when its occurrence as a conseiguence
of such act is not so probable that a person of ordinary
prudence ought, under the circumstances, to take reasonable
precaution against it'' (Stephen, Digest of Criminal Law,
art. 210).The word may also have in law the more extended
meaning of an unexpected occurrence, whether caused by
any one's negligence or not, as in the Fatal Accidents Act
1846, Notice of Accidents Act 1894. See also CONTRACT,
CRIMINAL LAW, EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY, INSURANCE, TORT, &c.
In logic an ``accident'' is a quality which belongs to a
subject but not as part of its essence (in Aristotelian
language kata sumbebekos, the scholastic per accidens).
Essential attributes are necessarily, or causally, connected
with the subject, e.g. the sum of the angles of a triangle;
accidents are not deducible from the nature, or are not part
of the necessary connotation, of the subject, e.g. the
area of a triangle. It follows that increased knowledge,
e.g. in chemistry, may show that what was thought to
be an accident is really an essential attribute, or vice
versa. It is very generally held that, in reality, there is
no such thing as an accident, inasmuch as complete knowledge
would establish a causal connexion for all attributes. An
accident is thus merely an unexplained attribute. Accidents
have been classed as (1) ``inseparable,'' i.e. universally
present, though no causal connexion is established, and (2)
``separable,'' where the connexion is neither causally explained
nor universal. Propositions expressing a relation between
a subject and an accident are classed as ``accidental,''
``real'' or ``ampliative,'' as opposed to ``verbal'' or
``analytical,'' which merely express a known connexion,
e.g. between a subject and its connotation (q.v.).
ACCIDENTALISM, a term used (1) in philosophy for any system
of thought which denies the causal nexus and maintains that
events succeed one another haphazard or by chance (not in
the mathematical but in the popular sense). In metaphysics,
accidentalism denies the doctrine that everything occurs
or results from a definite cause. In this connexion it is
synonymous with Tychism (tuchu, chance), a term used by
C. S. Peirce for the theories which make chance an objective
factor in the process of the Universe. Opponents of this
accidentalism maintain that what seems to be the result
of chance is in reality due to a cause or causes which,
owing to the lack of imagination, knowledge or scientific
instruments, we are unable to detect. In ethics the term is
used, like indeterminism, to denote the theory that mental
change cannot always be ascribed to previously ascertained
psychological states, and that volition is not causally
related to the motives involved. An example of this theory
is the doctrine of the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae
(``liberty of indifference''), according to which the choice
of two or more alternative possibilities is affected neither
by contemporaneous data of an ethical or prudential kind
nor by crystallized habit (character). (2) In painting, the
term is used for the effect produced by accidental lights
(Ruskin, Modern Painters, I. II. 4, iii. sec. 4, 287).
(3) In medicine, it stands for the hypothesis that disease is
only an accidental modification of the healthy condition, and
can, therefore, be avoided by modifying external conditions.
ACCIUS, a Latin poet of the 16th century, to whom
is attributed a paraphrase of Aesop's Fables, of
which Julius Scaliger speaks with great praise.
ACCIUS, LUCIUS, Roman tragic poet, the son of a freedman,
was born at Pisaurum in Umbria, in 170 B.C. The year of
his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great
age, since Cicero (Brutus, 28) speaks of having conversed
with him on literary matters. He was a prolific writer and
enjoyed a very high reputation (Horace, Epistles, ii. 1,
56; Cicero, Pro Plancio, 24). The titles and considerable
fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been
preserved. Most of these were free translations from the
Greek, his favourite subjects being the legends of the
Trojan war and the house of Pelops. The national history,
however, furnished the theme of the Brutus and Decius,
---the expulsion of the Tarquins and the self-sacrifice of
Publius Decius Mus the younger. The fragments are written
in vigorous language and show a lively power of description.
Accius wrote other works of a literary character:
Didascalicon and Pragmaticon libri, treatises
in verse on the history of Greek and Roman poetry, and
dramatic art in particular; Parerga and Praxidica
(perhaps identical) on agriculture; and an Annales. He
also introduced innovations in orthography and grammar.
See Boissier, Le Poete Accius, 1856; L. Muller,
De Accii fabulis Disputatio (1890); Ribbeck,
Geschichte der romischen Dichtung (1892); editions
of the tragic fragments by Ribbeck (1897), of the others
by Bahrens (1886); Plessis, Poesue Latine (1909).
ACCLAMATION (Lat. acclamatio, a shouting at), in
deliberative or electoral assemblies, a spontaneous shout of
approval or praise. Acclamation is thus the adoption of a
resolution or the passing of a vote of confidence or choice
unanimously, in direct distinction from a formal ballot or
division. In the Roman senate opinions were expressed and
votes passed by acclamation in such forms as Omnes, omnes,
Aequum est, Justum est, &c.; and the praises of the emperor
were celebrated in certain pre-arranged sentences, which
seem to have been chanted by the whole body of senators. In
ecclesiastical councils vote by acclamation is very common,
the question being usually put in the form, placet or non
placet. The Sacred College has sometimes elected popes by
acclamation, when the cardinals simultaneously and without
any previous consultation ``acclaimed'' one of their number as
pontiff. A further ecclesiastical use of the word is in its
application to set forms of praise or thanksgiving in church
services, the stereotyped responses of the congregation.
In modern parliamentary usage a motion is carried by
acclamation when, no amendment being proposed, approval
is expressed by shouting such words as Aye or Agreed.
ACCLIMATIZATION, the process of adaptation by which animals
and plants are gradually rendered capable of surviving and
flourishing in countries remote from their original habitats,
or under meteorological conditions different from those which
they have usually to endure, and at first injurious to them.
The subject of acclimatization is very little understood,
and some writers have even denied that it can ever take
place. It is often confounded with domestication or
with naturalization; but these are both very different
phenomena. A domesticated animal or a cultivated plant
need not necessarily be acclimatized; that is, it need not
be capable of enduring the severity of the seasons without
protection. The canary bird is domesticated but not
acclimatized, and many of our most extensively cultivated
plants are in the same category. A naturalized animal or
plant, on the other hand, must be able to withstand all
the vicissitudes of the seasons in its new home, and it may
therefore be thought that if must have become acclimatized.
But in many, perhaps most cases of naturalization (see
Appendix below) there is no evidence of a gradual adaptation
to new conditions which were at first injurious, and this is
essential to the idea of acclimatization. On the contrary,
many species, in a new country and under somewhat different
climatic conditions, seem to find a more congenial abode than
in their native land, and at once flourish and increase in
it to such an extent as often to exterminate the indigenous
inhabitants. Thus L. Agassiz (in his work on Lake Superior)
tells us that the roadside weeds of the north-eastern United
States, to the number of 130 species, are all European,
the native weeds having disappeared westwards; while in New
Zealand there are, according to T. Kirk (Transactions of
the New Zealand Institute, vol. ii. p. 131), no less than
250 species of naturalized plants, more than 100 of which
spread widely over the country and often displace the native
vegetation. Among animals, the European rat, goat and pig
are naturalized in New Zealand, where they multiply to such
an extent as to injure and probably exterminate many native
productions. In none of these cases is there any indication
that acclimatization was necessary or ever took place.
On the other hand, the fact that an animal or plant cannot
be naturalized is no proof that it is not acclimatized.
It has been shown by C. Darwin that, in the case of most
animals and plants in a state of nature, the competition of
other organisms is a far more efficient agency in limiting
their distribution than the mere influence of climate. We
have a proof of this in the fact that so few, comparatively,
of our perfectly hardy garden plants ever run wild; and even
the most persevering attempts to naturalize them usually
fail. Alphonse de Candolle (Geographic botanique, p.
798) informs us that several botanists of Patis, Geneva,
and especially of Montpellier, have sown the seeds of many
hundreds of species of exotic hardy plants, in what appeared
to be the most favourable situations, but that in hardly a
single case has any one of them become naturalized. Attempts
have also been made to naturalize continental insects in
Britain, in places where the proper food-plants abound and
the conditions seem generally favourable, but in no case
do they seem to have succeeded. Even a plant like the
potato, so largely cultivated and so perfectly hardy, has not
established itself in a wild state in any part of Europe.
Different Degrees of Climatal Adaptation in Animals and
Plants.---Plants differ greatly from animals in the closeness
of their adaptation to meteorological conditions. Not only
will most tropical plants refuse to live in a temperate
climate, but many species are seriously injured by removal a
few degrees of latitude beyond their natural limits. This is
probably due to the fact, established by the experiments of
A. C. Becquerel, that plants possess no proper temperature,
but are wholly dependent on that of the surrounding medium.
Animals, especially the higher forms, are much less sensitive
to change of temperature, as shown by the extensive range
from north to south of many species. Thus, the tiger
ranges from the equator to northern Asia as far as the river
Amur, and to the isothermal of 32 deg. Fahr. The mountain
sparrow (Fasser montana) is abundant in Java and
Singapore in a uniform equatorial climate, and also inhabits
Britain and a considerable portion of northern Europe.
It is true that most terrestrial animals are restricted to
countries not possessing a great range of temperature or
very diversified climates, but there is reason to believe
that this is due to quite a different set of causes, such
as the presence of enemies or deficiency of appropriate
food. When suppllad with food and partially protected from
enemies, they often show a wonderful capacity of enduring
climates very different from that in which they originally
flourished. Thus, the horse and the domestic fowl, both
natives of very warm countries, flourish without special
protection in almost every inhabited portion of the
globe. The parrot tribe form one of the most pre-eminently
tropical groups of birds, only a few species extending into
the warmer temperate regions; yet even the most exclusively
tropical genera are by no means delicate birds as regards
climate. In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History
for 1868 (p. 381) is a most interesting account, by Charles
Buxton, of the naturalization of parrots at Northrops Hall,
Norfolk. A considerable number of African and Amazonian
parrots, Bengal parroquets, four species of white and rose
crested cockatoos, and two species of crimson lories, remained
at large for many years. Several of these birds bred, and
they almost all lived in the woods the whole year through,
refusing to take shelter in a house constructed for their
use. Even when the thermometer fell 6 deg. below zero, all
appeared in good spirits and vigorous health. Some of these
birds have lived thus exposed for many years, enduring the
English cold easterly winds, rain, hail and snow, all through
the winter--a marvellous contrast to the equable equatorial
temperature (hardly ever less than 70 deg. ) to which many of
them had been accustomed for the first year or years of their
existence. Similarly the recent experience of zoological
gardens, particularly in the case of parrots and monkeys, shows
that, excluding draughts, exposure to changes of temperature
without artificial heat is markedly beneficial as compared
with the older method of strict protection from cold.
Hardly any group of Mammalia is more exclusively tropical
than the Quadrumana, yet, if other conditions are favourable,
some of them can withstand a considerable degree of cold.
Semnopithecus schistaceus was found by Captain Hutton at an
elevation of 11,000 feet in the Himalayas, leaping actively
among fir-trees whose branches were laden with snow-wreaths.
In Abyssinia a troop of dog-faced baboons was observed by W. T.
Blanford at 9000 feet above the sea. We may therefore conclude
that the restriction of the monkey tribe to warm latitudes is
probably determined by other causes than temperature alone.
Similar indications are given by the fact of closely allied
species inhabiting very extreme climates. The recently extinct
Siberian mammoth and woolly rhinoceros were closely allied to
species now inhabiting tropical regions exclusively. Wolves
and foxes are found alike in the coldest and hottest parts
of the earth, as are closely allied species of falcons, owls,
sparrows and numerous genera of waders and aquatic birds.
A consideration of these and many analogous facts might induce
us to suppose that, among the higher animals at least, there
is little constitutional adaptation to climate, and that in
their case acclimatization is not required. But there are
numerous examples of domestic animals which show that such
adaptation does exist in other cases. The yak of Thibet cannot
long survive in the plains of India, or even on the hills
below a certain altitude; and that this is due to climate,
and not to the increased density of the atmosphere, is shown
by the fact that the same animal appears to thrive well in
Europe, and even breeds there readily. The Newfoundland
dog will not live in India, and the Spanish breed of fowls
in this country suffer more from frost than most others.
When we get lower in the scale the adaptation is often more
marked. Snakes, which are so abundant in warm countries,
diminish rapidly as we go north, and wholly cease at lat.
62 deg. . Most insects are also very susceptible to cold, and
seem to be adapted to very narrow limits of temperature.
From the foregoing facts and observations we may conclude,
firstly, that some plants and many animals are not
constitutionally adapted to the climate of their native country
only, but are capable of enduring and flourishing under
a more or less extensive range of temperature and other
climatic conditions; and, secondly, that most plants and
some animals are, more or less closely, adapted to climates
similar to those of their native habitats. In order to
domesticate or naturalize the former class in countries not
extremely differing from that from which the species was
brought, it will not be necessary to acclimatize, in the
strict sense of the word. In the case of the latter class,
however, acclimatization is a necessary preliminary to
naturalization, and in many cases to useful domestication,
and we have therefore to inquire whether it is possible.
Acclimatization by Individual Adaptation.---It is evident
that acclimatization may occur (if it occurs at all) in two
ways, either by modifying the constitution of the individual
submitted to the new conditions, or by the production of
offspring which may be better adapted to those conditions
than their parents. The alteration of the constitution
of individuals in this direction is not easy to detect,
and its possibility has been denied by many writers. C.
Darwin believed, however, that there were indications that
it occasionally occurred in plants, where it can be best
observed, owing to the circumstance that so many plants are
propagated by cuttings or buds, which really continue the
existence of the same individual almost indefinitely. He
adduced the example of vines taken to the West Indies from
Madeira, which have been found to succeed better than those
taken directly from France. But in most cases habit, however
prolonged, appears to have little effect on the constitution of
the individual, and the fact has no doubt led to the opinion
that acclimatization is impossible. There is indeed little
or no evidence to show that any animal to which a new climate
is at first prejudicial can be so acclimatized by habit that,
after subjection to it for a few or many seasons, it may
live as healthily and with as little care as in its native
country; yet we may, on general principles, believe that under
proper conditions such an acclimatization would take place.
Acclimatization by Variation.---A mass of evidence exists
showing that variations of every conceivable kind occur
among the offspring of all plants and animals, and that,
in particular, constitutional variations are by no means
uncommon. Among cultivated plants, for example, hardier and
more tender varieties often arise. The following cases are
given by C. Darwin:-Among the numerous fruit-trees raised
in North America some are well adapted to the climate of the
northern States and Canada, while others only succeed well
in the southern States. Adaptation of this kind is sometimes
very close, so that, for example, few English varieties of
wheat will thrive in Scotland. Seed-wheat from India produced
a miserable crop when planted by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley
on land which would have produced a good crop of English
wheat. Conversely, French wheat taken to the West Indies
produced only barren spikes, while native wheat by its side
yielded an enormous harvest. Tobacco in Sweden, raised
from home-grown seed, ripens its seeds a month earlier
than plants grown from foreign seed. In Italy, as long as
orange trees were propagated by grafts, they were tender;
but after many of the trees were destroyed by the severe
frosts of 1709 and 1763, plants were raised from seed, and
these were found to be hardier and more productive than the
former kinds. Where plants are raised from seed in large
quantities, varieties always occur differing in constitution,
as well as others differing in form or colour; but the
former cannot be perceived by us unless marked out by their
behaviour under exceptional conditions, as in the following
cases. After the severe winter of 1860-1861 if was observed
that in a large bed of araucarias some plants stood quite
unhurt among numbers killed around them. In C. Darwin's
garden two rows of scarlet runners were entirely killed by
frost, except three plants, which had not even the tips of
their leaves browned. A very excellent example is to be
found in Chinese history, according to E. R. Huc, who, in his
L' Empire chinois (tom. ii. p. 359), gives the following
extract from the Memoirs of the Emperor Khang:---``On the
1st day of the 6th moon I was walking in some fields where
rice had been sown to be ready for the harvest in the 9th
moon. I observed by chance a stalk of rice which was already in
ear. It was higher than all the rest, and was ripe enough
to be gathered. I ordered it to be brought to me. The grain
was very fine and well grown, which gave me the idea to
keep it for a trial, and see if the following year it would
preserve its precocity. It did so. All the stalks which came
from it showed ear before the usual time, and were ripe in
the 6th moon. Each year has multiplied the produce of the
preceding, and for thirty years it is this rice which has
been served at my table. The grain is elongate and of a
reddish colour, but it has a sweet smell and very pleasant
taste. It is called Vu-mi, Imperial rice, because it was
first cultivated in my gardens. It is the only sort which
can ripen north of the great wall, where the winter ends
late and begins very early; but in the southern provinces,
where the climate is milder and the land more fertile, two
harvests a year may be easily obtained, and it is for me
a sweet reflection to have procured this advantage for my
people.'' Huc adds his testimony that this kind of rice
flourishes in Manchuria, where no other will grow. We
have here, therefore, a perfect example of acclimatization
by means of a spontaneous constitutional variation.
That this kind of adaptation may be carried on step by step to
more and more extreme climates is illustrated by the following
examples. Sweet-peas raised in Calcutta from seed imported
from England rarely blossom, and never yield seed; plants
from French seed flower better, but are still sterile;
but those raised from Darjeeling seed (originally imported
from England) both flower and seed profusely. The peach
is believed to have been tender, and to have ripened its
fruit with difficulty, when first introduced into Greece;
so that (as Darwin observes) in travelling northward during
two thousand years it must have become much hardier. Sir J.
Hooker ascertained the average vertical range of flowering
plants in the Himalayas to be 4000 ft., while in some cases
if extended to 8000 ft. The same species can thus endure a
great difference of temperature; but the important fact is,
that the individuals have become acclimatized to the altitude
at which they grow, so that seeds gathered near the upper
limit of the range of a species will be more hardy than those
gathered near the lower limit. This was proved by Hooker
to be the case with Himalayan conifers and rhododendrons,
raised in Britain from seed gathered at different altitudes.
Among animals exactly analogous facts occur. When geese
were first introduced into Bogota they laid few eggs at long
intervals, and few of the young survived. By degrees the
fecundity improved, and in about twenty years became equal
to what it is in Europe. The same author tells us that,
according to Garcilaso, when fowls were first introduced
into Peru they were not fertile, whereas now they are
as much so as in Europe. C. Darwin adduced the following
examples. Merino sheep bred at the Cape of Good Hope have
been found far better adapted for India than those imported
from England; and while the Chinese variety of the Ailanthus
silk-moth is quite hardy, the variety found in Bengal will
only flourish in warm latitudes. C. Darwin also called
attention to the circumstance that writers of agricultural
works generally recommend that animals should be removed
from one district to another as little as possible. This
advice occurs even in classical and Chinese agricultural
books as well as in those of our own day, and proves
that the close adaptation of each variety or breed to the
country in which if originated has always been recognized.
Constitutional Adaptation often accompanied by External
Modification.--Although in some cases no perceptible
alteration of form or structure occurs when constitutional
adaptation to Climate has taken place, in others it
is very marked. C. Darwin collected a large number of
cases in his Animals and Plants under Domestication.
In his Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection
(p. 167), A. R. Wallace has recorded cases of simultaneous
variation among insects, apparently due to climate or
other strictly local causes. He found that the butterflies
of the family Papilionidae, and some others, became
similarly modified in different islands and groups of
islands. Thus, the species inhabiting Sumatra, Java and
Borneo are almost always much smaller than the closely
allied species of Celebes and the Moluccas; the species or
varieties of the small island of Amboyna are larger than
the same species or closely allied forms inhabiting the
surrounding islands; the species found in Celebes possess
a peculiar form of wing, quite distinct from that of the
same or closely allied species of adjacent islands; and,
lastly, numerous species which have tailed wings in India and
the western islands of the Archipelago, gradually lose the
tail as we proceed eastward to New Guinea and the Pacific.
Many of these curious modifications may, it is true, be due
to other causes than climate only, but they serve to show how
powerfully and mysteriously local conditions affect the form
and structure of both plants and animals; and they render it
probable that changes of constitution are also continually
produced, although we have, in the majority of cases, no
means of detecting them. It is also impossible to determine
how far the effects described are produced by spontaneous
favourable variations or by the direct action of local
conditions; but it is probable that in every case both causes
are concerned, although in constantly varying proportions.
Selection and Survival of the Fittest as Agents in
Naturalization. ---We may now take it as an established
fact that varieties of animals and plants occur, both in
domesticity and in a state of nature, which are better or
worse adapted to special climates. There is no positive
evidence that the influence of new climatal conditions
on the parents has any tendency to produce variations in
the offspring better adapted to such conditions. Neither
does it appear that this class of variations are very
frequent. It is, however, certain that whenever any animal
or plant is largely propagated constitutional variations will
arise, and some of these will be better adapted than others
to the climatal and other conditions of the locality. In a
state of nature, every recurring severe winter or otherwise
unfavourable season weeds out those individuals of tender
constitution or imperfect structure which may have got on
very well during favourable years, and it is thus that the
adaptation of the species to the climate in which it has to
exist is kept up. Under domestication the same thing occurs
by what C. Darwin has termed ``unconscious selection.''
Each cultivator seeks out the kinds of plants best suited
to his soil and climate and rejects those which are tender
or otherwise unsuitable. The farmer breeds from such of
his stock as he finds to thrive best with him, and gets
rid of those which suffer from cold, damp or disease. A
more or less close adaptation to local conditions is thus
brought about, and breeds or races are produced which are
sometimes liable to deterioration on removal even to a short
distance in the same country, as in numerous cases quoted
by C. Darwin (Animals and Plants under Domestication).
The Method of Acclimatization.--Taking into consideration
the foregoing facts and illustrations, it may be considered
as proved---1st, That habit has little (though it appears
to have some) definite effect in adapting the constitution of
animals to a new climate; but that it has a decided, though
still slight, influence in plants when, by the process of
propagation by buds, shoots or grafts, the individual can be
kept under its influence for long periods; 2nd, That great
and sudden changes of climate often check reproduction even
when the health of the individuals does not appear to suffer.
In order, therefore, to have the best chance of acclimatizing
any animal or plant in a climate very dissimilar from that of
its native country, and in which it has been proved that the
species in question cannot live and maintain itself without
acclimatization, we must adopt some such plan as the following:--
1. We must transport as large a number as possible of
adult healthy individuals to some intermediate station, and
increase them as much as possible for some years. Favourable
variations of constitution will soon show themselves, and
these should be carefully selected to breed from, the
tender and unhealthy individuals being rigidly eliminated.
2. As soon as the stock has been kept a sufficient time to
pass through all the ordinary extremes of climate, a number
of the hardiest may be removed to the more remote station,
and the same process gone through, giving protection if
necessary while the stock is being increased, but as soon
as a large number of healthy individuals are produced,
subjecting them to ail the vicissitudes of the Climate.
It can hardly be doubted that in most cases this plan would
succeed. It has been recommended by C. Darwin, and at
one of the early meetings of the Societe Zoologique d'
Acclimatation, at Paris, Isodore Geoffroy St Hillaire insisted
that it was the only method by which acclimatization was
possible. But in looking through the long series of volumes
of Reports published by this society, there is no sign that
any systematic attempt at acclimatization has even once been
made. A number of foreign animals have been introduced, and
more or less domesticated, and some useful exotics have been
cultivated for the purpose of testing their applicability to
French agriculture or horticulture; but neither in the case of
animals nor of plants has there been any systematic effort to
modify the constitution of the species, by breeding largely
and selecting the favourable variations that appeared.
Take the case of the Eucalyptus globulus as an example.
This is a Tasmanian gum-tree of very rapid growth and
great beauty, which will thrive in the extreme south of
France. In the Bulletin of the society a large number
of attempts to introduce this tree into general cultivation
in other parts of France are recorded in detail, with the
failure of almost all of them. But no precautions such as
those above indicated appear to have been taken in any of
these experiments; and we have no intimation that either the
society or any of its members are making systematic efforts
to acclimatize the tree. The first step would be, to obtain
seed from healthy trees growing in the coldest climate and at
the greatest altitude in its native country, sowing these very
largely, and in a variety of soils and situations, in a part
of France where the climate is somewhat but not much more
extreme. It is almost a certainty that a number of trees
would be found to be quite hardy. As soon as these produced
seed, it should be sown in the same district and farther north
in a climate a little more severe. After an exceptionally cold
season, seed should be collected from the trees that suffered
least, and should be sown in various districts all over
France. By such a process there can be hardly any doubt
that the tree would be thoroughly acclimatized in any part of
France, and in many other countries of central Europe; and
more good would be effected by one well-directed effort of
this kind than by hundreds of experiments with individual
animals and plants, which only serve to show us which are
the species that do not require to be acclimatized.
Acclimatization of Man.---On this subject we have,
unfortunately, very little direct or accurate information.
The general laws of heredity and variation have been proved
to apply to man as well as to animals and plants; and numerous
facts in the distribution of races show that man must, in
remote ages at least, have been capable of constitutional
adaptation to climate. If the human race constitutes a single
species, then the mere fact that man now inhabits every
region, and is in each case constitutionally adapted to the
climate, proves that acclimatization has occurred. But we have
the same phenomenon in single varieties of man, such as the
American, which inhabits alike the frozen wastes of Hudson's
Bay and Tierra del Fuego, and the hottest regions of the
tropics,---the low equatorial valleys and the lofty plateaux
of the Andes. No doubt a sudden transference to an extreme
climate is often prejudicial to man, as it is to most animals
and plants; but there is every reason to believe that, if
the migration occurs step by step, man can be acclimatized to
almost any part of the earth's surface in comparatively few
generations. Some eminent writers have denied this. Sir Ranald
Martin, from a consideration of the effects of the climate
of India on Europeans and their offspring, believed that there
is no such thing as acclimatization. Dr Hunt, in a report
to the British Association in 1861, argued that ``time is no
agent,'' and--``if there is no sign of acclimatization in one
generation, there is no such process.'' But he entirely ignored
the effect of favourable variations, as well as the direct
influence of climate acting on the organization from infancy.
Professor Theodor Waitz, in his Introduction to Anthropology,
adduced many examples of the comparatively rapid constitutional
adaptation of man to new climatic conditions. Negroes,
for example,who have been for three or four generations
acclimatized in North America, on returning to Africa become
subject to the same local diseases as other unacclimatized
individuals. He well remarked that the debility and
sickening of Europeans in many tropical countries are wrongly
ascribed to the climate, but are rather the consequences of
indolence, sensual gratification and an irregular mode of
life. Thus the English, who cannot give up animal food and
spirituous liquors, are less able to sustain the heat of
the tropics than the more sober Spaniards and Portuguese.
The excessive mortality of European troops in India, and
the delicacy of the children of European parents, do not
affect the real question of acclimatization under proper
conditions. They only show that acclimatization is in
most cases necessary, not that it cannot take place. The
best examples of partial or complete acclimatization are
to be found where European races have permanently settled
in the tropics, and have maintained themselves for several
generations. There are, however, two sources of inaccuracy
to be guarded against, and these are made the most of by
the writers above referred to, and are supposed altogether
to invalidate results which are otherwise opposed to their
views. In the first place, we have the possibility of a
mixture of native blood having occurred; in the second,
there have almost always been a succession of immigrants
from the parent country, who continually intermingle with
the families of the early settlers. It is maintained that
one or other of these mixtures is absolutely necessary to
enable Europeans to continue long to flourish in the tropics.
There are, however, certain cases in which the sources
of error above mentioned are reduced to a minimum,
and cannot seriously affect the results; such as those
of the Jews, the Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope and
in the Moluccas, and the Spaniards in South America.
The Jews are a good example of acclimatization, because they
have been established for many centuries in climates very
different from that of their native land; they keep themselves
almost wholly free from intermixture with the people around
them; and they are often so populous in a country that the
intermixture with Jewish immigrants from other lands cannot
seriously affect the local purity of the race. They have, for
instance, attained a population of millions in such severe
climates as Poland and Russia; in the towns of Algeria they
have succeeded so conspicuously as to bring about an outburst
of anti-semitism; and in Cochin-China and Aden they succeed
in rearing children and forming permanent communities.
In some of the hottest parts of South America Europeans are
perfectly acclimatized, and where the race is kept pure it
seems to be even improved. Some very valuable notes on this
subject were furnished to the present writer by the well-known
botanist, Richard Spruce, who resided many years in South
America, but who was prevented by ill health from publishing
his researches (see A. R. Wallace, Notes of a Botannist,
1908). As a careful, judicious and accurate observer,
both of man and nature, he had few superiors. He says:
The white inhabitants of Guayaquil (lat. 2 deg. 13' S.) are kept
pure by careful selection. The slightest tincture of red
or black blood bars entry into any of the old families who
are descendants of Spaniards ftom the Provincias Vascongadas
or those bordering the Bay of Biscay, where the morals are
perhaps the purest (as regards the intercourse of the sexes)
of any in Europe, and where for a girl, even of the poorest
class, to have a child before marriage is the rarest thing
possible. The consequence of this careful breeding is,
that the women of Guavaquil are considered (and justly)
the finest along the whole Pacific coast. They are often
tall, sometimes very handsome, decidedly healthy, although
pale, and assuredly prolific enough. Their sons are big,
stout men, but when they lead inactive lives are apt to
become fat and sluggish. Those of them, however, who have
farms in the savannahs and are accustomed to take long
rides in all weathers, and those whose trade obliges them
to take frequent journeys in the mountainous interior, or
even to Europe and North America, are often as active and as
little burdened with superfluous flesh as a Scotch farmer.
The oldest Christian town in Peru is Piura (lat. 5 deg. S.),
which was founded by Pizarro himself. The climate is very
hot, especially in the three or four months following
the southern solstice. In March 1843 the temperature
only once fell as low as 83 deg. during the whole month, the
usual lowest night temperature being 85 deg. . Yet people of
all colours find it very healthy, and the whites are very
prolific. I resided in the town itself nine months, and
in the neighbourhood seven months more. The population (in
1863-1864) was about 10,000, of which not only a considerable
proportion was white, but was mostly descended from the
first emigrants after the conquest. Purity of descent was
not, however, quite so strictly maintained as at Guayaquil.
The military adventurers, who have often risen to high or
even supreme rank in Peru, have not seldom been of mixed
race, and fear or favour has often availed to procure them
an alliance with the oldest and purest-blooded families.
These instances, so well stated by Spruce, seem to demonstrate
the complete acclimatization of Spaniards in some of the hottest
parts of South America. Although we have here nothiog to do
with mixed races, yet the want of fertility in these has been
often taken to be a fact inherent in the mongrel race, and has
been also sometimes held to prove that neither the European
nor his half-bred offspring can maintain themselves in the
tropics. The following observation is therefore of interest:--
At Guayaquil for a lady of good family---married or unmarried--to
be of loose morals is so uncommon, that when it does happen
it is felt as a calamity by the whole community. But here,
and perhaps in most other towns in South America, a poor girl
of mixed race-especially if good-looking--rarely thinks of
marrying one of her own class until she has--as the Brazilians
say--``approveitada de sua mocidade'' (made the most of
her youth) in receiving presents from gentlemen. If she
thus bring a good dowry to her husband, he does not care to
inquire, or is not sensitive, about the mode in which it was
acquired. The consequence of this indiscriminate sexual
intercourse, especially if much prolonged, is to diminish,
in some cases to paralyse, the fertility of the female. And
as among people of mixed race it is almost universal, the
population of these must fall off both in numbers and quality.
The following example of divergent acclimatization of the
same race to hot and cold zones is very interesting, and
will conclude our extracts from Spruce's valuable notes:--
One of the most singular cases connected with this subject
that have fallen under my own observation, is the difficulty,
or apparent impossibility, of acclimatizing the Red Indian
in a certain zone of the Andes. Any person who has compared
the physical characters of the native races of South America
must be convinced that these have all originated in a common
stirps. Many local differences exist, but none capable of
invalidating this conclusion. The warmth yet shade-loving
Indian of the Amazon; the Indian of the hot, dry and treeless
coasts of Peru and Guayaquil, who exposes his bare head to
the sun with as much zest as an African negro; the Indian
of the Andes, for whom no cold seems too great, who goes
constantly barelegged and often bare-headed, through whose
rude straw hut the piercing wind of the paramos sweeps
and chills the white man to the very bones;--all these,
in the colour and texture cf the skin, the hair and other
important features, are plainly of one and the same race.
Now there is a zone of the equatorial Andes, ranging between
about 4000 and 6000 feet altitude, where the very best
flavoured coffee is grown, where cane is less luxuriant but
more saccharine than in the plains, and which is therefore
very desirable to cultivate, but where the red man sickens and
dies. Indians taken down from the sierra get ague and
dysentery. Those of the plains find the temperature chilly,
and are stricken down with influenza and pains in the
limbs. I have seen the difficulty experienced in getting
farms cultivated in this zone, on both sides of the
Cordillera. The permanent residents are generally limited
to the major-domo and his family; and in the dry season
labourers are hired, of any colour that can be obtained--some
from the low country, others from the highlands--for three,
four, or five months, who gather in and grind the cane, and
plant for the harvest of the following year; but the staff of
resident Indian labourers, such as exists in the farms of the
sierra, cannot be kept up in the Fungas, as these half-warm
valleys are called. White men, who take proper precautions,
and are not chronically soaked with cane-spirit, stand the
climate perfectly, but the creole whites are still too much
caballeros to devote themselves to agricultural work.
In what is now the republic of Ecuador, the only peopled
portions are the central valley, between the two ridges of
the Andes--height 7000 to 12,000 feet--and the hot plain at
their western base; nor do the wooded slopes appear to have
been inhabited, except by scattered savage hordes, even in
the time of the Incas. The Indians of the highlands are
the descendants of others who have inhabited that region
exclusively for untold ages; and a similar affirmation may
be made of the Indians of the plain. Now, there is little
doubt that the progenitors of both these sections came from
a temperate region (in North America); so that here we have
one moiety acclimatized to endure extreme heat, and the
other extreme cold; and at this day exposure of either to the
opposite extreme (or even, as we have seen, to the climate
of an intermediate zone) is always pernicious and often
fatal. But if this great difference has been brought about
in the red man, might not the same have happened to the white
man? Plainly it might, time being given; for one cannot doubt
that the inherent adaptability is the same in both, or (if
not) that the white man possesses it in a higher degree.
The observations of Spruce are of themselves almost conclusive
as to the possibility of Europeans becoming acclimatized in
the tropics; and if it is objected that this evidence applies
only to the dark-haired southern races, we are fortunately
able to point to facts, almost equally well authenticated
and conclusive, in the case of one of the typical Germanic
races. In South Africa the Dutch have been settled and
nearly isolated for over 200 years, and have kept themselves
almost or quite free from native intermixture. They are
still preponderatingly fair in complexion, while physically
they are tall and strong. They marry young and have large
families. The population, according to a census taken in 1798,
was under 22,000. In 1865 it was near 182,000, the majority
being of ``Dutch, German or French origin, mostly descendants
of original settlers.'' In more recent times, the conditions
have been so greatly changed by immigration, that the later
statistics cease to have a definite meaning with regard to
acclimatization. We have here a population which doubled
itself every twenty-two years; and the greater part of this
rapid increase must certainly be due to the old European
immigrants. In the Moluccas, where the Dutch have had
settlements for 250 years, some of the inhabitants trace
their descent to early immigrants; and these, as well as
most of the people of Dutch descent in the east, are quite
as fair as their European ancestors, enjoy excellent health,
and are very prolific. But the Dutch accommodate themselves
admirably to a tropical climate, doing much of their work
early in the morning, dressing very lightly, and living a
quiet, temperate and cheerful life. They also pay great
attention to drainage and general cleanliness. In addition
to these examples, it is obvious that the rapid increase
of English-speaking populations in the United States and in
Australia is far greater than can be explained by immigration,
and shows two conspicuous examples of acclimatization.
On the whole, we seem justified in concluding that, under
favourable conditions, and with a proper adaptation of means
to the end in view, man may become acclimatized with at
least as much certainty and rapidity (counting by generations
rather than by years) as any of the lower animals. The
greatest difficulty in his way is not temperature, but the
presence of parasitic diseases to resist which his body has
not been prepared, and modern knowledge is rapidly defining
these dangers and the modes of avoiding them. (A. R. W.)
APPENDIX The task of collecting information as to animals
which have become permanently naturalized away from their native
haunts is anything but easy, as few regular records have been
kept by acclimatizers. Moreover, recorders of local fauna
have been almost unanimous in ignoring the introduced forms,
except when they have had occasion to comment on the effects,
real or supposed, of these immigrants on aboriginal faunas.
Mammals.---It is unnecessary here to dwell upon the world-wide
distribution of the two rats Mus rattus and M. decumanus,
and of the house-mouse M. musculus; their introduction has
always been involuntary. Similarly nearly all our domestic
mammals except the sheep have become feral somewhere or other,
whether by intentional liberation or by escape; but the smaller
ones more than the larger, such as pigs, goats, dogs and
cats. This has been especially the case in Hawaii and New
Zealand; in America, Australia and Hawaii, horses and cattle
are also feral. Feral pigs are numerous in New Zealand.
The domestic Indian buffalo (Bos bubalus) exists as
a wild animal in North Australia; it is very liable to
revert to a wild state, being little altered from its
still-existing wild ancestor. A more curious case is that
of the one-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius), a beast
only known in domestication, and that in arid countties;
yet a number of these have become feral in the Spanish
marshes, where they wade about like quadrupedal flamingoes.
The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is now widely distributed as
a wild animal over New Zealand, where also the fallow-deer
(C. dama) and the Indian sambar (C. aristotelis or
unicolor) have been introduced locally. The sambar, or one
or other of its subspecies, has also been naturalized in
Mauritius, and in the Marianne Islands in the open Pacific.
The wide introduction of the rabbit, as a wild animal, is well
known. Amounting to a serious pest in Australasian colonies, it
is also established in the Falklands and Kerguelen; its presence
in much of Europe is attributed to early acclimatization, as it
seems anciently to have been confined to the Iberian peninsula.
The hare has been established in New Zealand and Barbadoes.
Few other rodents have been designedly naturalized, but
the North American grey squirrel (Sciurus einereus)
appears to be established as a wild animal in Woburn Park,
Bedfordshire, England, and may probably spread thence.
To check the increase of the rabbit, stoats, weasels and
polecats (the last in the form of the domesticated ferret)
were introduced into New Zealand on a very large scale in the
last quarter of the 19th century. They have spread widely,
and have not confined their depredations to the rabbits, so
that the indigenous flightless birds have suffered largely.
Another carnivore of very similar habits, the Indian mongoose
(Herpestus griseus or H. mungo), has been naturalized
in Jamaica, whence it has been carried to other West Indian
Islands, and in the Hawaiian group. It has also been tried,
but unsuccessfully, in Australia. The first introduction
into Jamaica took place in 1872, and ten years later the
animal was credited with saving many thousands of pounds
annually by its destruction of rats. But before an equal
space of time had further elapsed, it had itself become
a pest; the most recent information, however, is to the
effect that its numbers are now on the decline, and that
the disturbed faunal equilibrium is being readjusted.
The civets, being celebrated for their odoriferous secretion,
are likely animals to have been naturalized. W. T. Blanford
(Fauna of British India, ``Mammals'') thinks that the presence
of the Indian form, Viverricula malaccensis, in Socotra, the
Comoro Islands and Madagascar is due to the assistance of man.
The common fox of Europe has been introduced into Australia,
where it is destructive to the native fauna and to lambs.
Among primates, a Ceylonese monkey (Macacus pileatus)
has been naturalized in Mauritius for centuries,
the circumstances of introduction being unknown.
The Common Australian ``opossum'' or phalanger (Trichosurus
vulpecula) has been naturalized in New Zealand, although very
destructive to fruit trees; the value of its fur being probably the
motive. It is said that the pelage of the New Zealand specimens
is superior, as might be expected from the colder climate.
Birds.---The introduction of mammals has been largely
influenced by economic conditions, when, indeed, it was
not absolutely accidental and unavoidable; but in the case
of birds it has been more gratuitous, so to speak, in many
cases, and hence is looked upon with especial dislike by
naturalists. The domestic birds have comparatively seldom
become feral, doubtless, as C. Darvdn points out, from the
reduction of their powers of flight in many cases. The
guinea-fowl, however, has long been in this condition in Jamaica
and St Helena, and the fowl in Hawaii and other Polynesian
islands. The pheasant has been naturalized in the United
States, New Zealand, Hawaii and St Helena. Its naturalization
in western Europe is very ancient, but the race supposed to
have been introduced by the Romans (Phasianus colchicus)
has been much modified within the last century or two by the
introduction of the ring-necked Chinese form (P. torquatus),
which produces fertile hybrids with the old breed. Thus
those acclimatized were usually, no doubt, of mixed blood,
and further introductions of pure Chinese stock have tended to
make the latter the dominant form, at any rate in the United
States (where it is erroneously called Mongolian1) and in New
Zealand. In Hawaii and St Helena the ring-neck appears to
have been the only pheasant introduced pure, but in the former
the Japanese race (P. versicolor) is also naturalized.
1 The true Mongolian pheasant (P. mongolicus), a very
different bird, has recently been introduced into England.
The golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pietus) is locally
established in the United States, as appear to be other pheasants
of less common species. The Reeves' pheasant (P. reevesi)
is at large on some English estates. Of the partridges,
the continental red-leg (Caccabis rnfo) is established in
England, and its ally, the Asiatic chukore (C. chukar), in St
Helena, as is the Californian quail (Lophortyx californica )
in New Zealand and Hawaii. The latter, however, though thriving
as an aviary bird, has failed at large in England, as did the
bob-white (Ortyx virginianus) both there and in New Zealand.
The desirable character of the grouse as game-birds has led to
many attempts at their acclimatization, but usually these have been
unsuccessful; the red grouse (Lagopus scoticus), however, the
only endemic British bird, is naturalized in some parts of Europe.
Of waterfowl, the Canada goose (Brantd eanadensis)
is naturalized to a small extent in Britain, and also,
to a less degree, the Egyptian goose (Chenalopex
aegyptiacus); the latter bird also occurs wild in New
Zealand. The modern presence of the black swan of Australia
(Chenopis atrata) in New Zealand appears to be due to
a natural irruption of the species about half a century
ago as much as to acclimatization by man, if not more so.
Birds of prey are, unjustly enough, regarded with so little
favour that few attempts have been made to naturalize
them; the continental little owl (Athene noctua),
however, has for some time been well established in
England, where it has hardly, if ever, appeared naturally.
Pigeons have been very little naturalized; the tame bird has
become feral locally in various countries, and the Chinese
turtledove (Turtur chinensis) is established in Hawaii, as is
the small East Indian zebra dove (Geopelia striata) in the
Seychelles, and the allied Australian (G. tranquilla) in St
Helena. There has also been very little naturalization of
parrots, but the rosella parrakeet of Australia (Platycercus
eximius) is being propagated by escaped captives in the
north island of New Zealand, and its ally the mealy rosella
(P. pallidiceps) is locally wild in Hawaii, the stock in
this case having descended from a single pair intentionally
liberated. Attempts to naturalize that well-known Australian
grass-parrakeet the budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus) in
England have so far proved abortive, and none of the species
experimented with in Norfolk and Bedfordshire effected a
settlement. The greyheaded love-bird (Agapornis cana)
of Madagascar is established in the Seychelles. Some of
the passerine birds have been the most widely distributed,
especially the house-sparrow (Passer domesticus), which is
now an integral, and very troublesome, part of the fauna in
the Australasian States and in North America. It is, in fact,
as notorious an example of over-successful acclimatization as
the rabbit, but in Hutton and Drummond's recent work on the
New Zealand animals (London, 1905) it is not regarded in this
light, considering that some very common exotic birds were needed
to keep down the insects, which it certainly did. Even in the
United States also, it has been found a useful destroyer of
weed-seeds. The house-sparrow is also feral in Argentina,
some of the West Indian islands, Hawaii and the Andamans.
The allied tree-sparrow (P. montanus) has been
locally naturalized in the United States; it is a more
desirable bird, being less prolific and pugnacious,
but it is expelled from towns by the house-sparrow.
The so-called Java sparrow (Munia orysivora), although
a destructive bird to rice, has been widely distributed
by accident or design, and is now found in several East
Indian islands besides Java, in south China, St Helena,
India, Zanzibar and the east African coast. An allied but
much smaller weaver-finch, a form of the spice-bird (Munia
nisoria punctata), is introduced and well distributed over
the Hawaiian islands. The little rooibek of South Africa
(Estrilda astrild) has been so long and well established
in St Helena that it is known in the bird trade as the St
Helena waxbill, and the brilliant scarlet weaver of Madagascar
(Fondia madagascariensis) inhabits as an imported bird
Mauritius, the Seychelles and even the remote Chagos Islands.
Returning to the true finches, the only one which can compete
with the house-sparrow in the extent of its distribution by
man is the goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis), now established
all over New Zealand, as well as in Australia, the United
States and Jamaica. It bears a good character, and is one
of the marked successes of naturalization. The redpoll
(Acanthis linaria), chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
and greenfinch (Chloris chloris) are established in New
Zealand, the last named being a pest there, as is also
the cirl-bunting (Emberiza cirlus)---the yellow-hammer
(E. citrinella) being perhaps confused with this also.
Among starlings, the Indian mynah (generally the house mynah,
Acridotheros tristis, but some other species seem to have been
confused with this) has been naturalized in the Andamans, Seychelles,
Reunion, Australia, Hawaii and parts of New Zealand. Its alleged
destructiveness to the Hawaiian avifauna seems open to doubt.
The European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is naturalized in New
Zealand, Australia and to some extent in the United States.
Thrushes have not been widely introduced, but the song-thrush
and blackbird (Turdus musicus and Merula merula) are
common in New Zealand; attempts were made, but unsuccessfully,
to establish the latter in the United States. The so-called
hedge-sparrow (Accentor modularis), really a member of
this group, is one of the successful introductions into New
Zealand. The robin (Erithacus rubecula) failed there.
Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) and the Australian ``magpie''
or piping crow (Gymnorhina) are to be found in New
Zealand, but only locally, especially the former.
Reptiles and Amphibians.---Very little naturalization
has been effected, or indeed apparently attempted, in
regard to these groups, but the occurrence of the edible
frog of the continent of Europe (Rana esculenta) as an
introduced animal in certain British localities is well
known. An Australian tree-frog (Hyla peronii) is
naturalized in many parts of the north island of New Zealand.
Fish.--The instances of naturalization in this class are
few, but important. The common carp (Cyprinus carpio),
originally a Chinese fish, has for centuries been acclimatized
in Europe, where indeed it is in places a true domestic
creature, with definite variations. It is, however, quite
feral also, and has been introduced into North America.
The Prussian carp (Carassius vulgaris) is established in
New Zealand, and the nearly-allied goldfish, a domestic
form (C. auratus) of Chinese origin, has been widely
distributed as a pet, and is feral in some places.
The gourami (Osphromenus olfax) of the East Indies has been
established in Mauritius and Cayenne, being a valuable foodfish.
The most important case of naturalization of fish is, however,
the establishment of some Salmonidae in Tasmania and New
Zealand. These are the common trout and sea-trout (Salmo
fario and S. trutta); they attain a great size. So far,
attempts to establish the true salmon in alien localities
have been unsuccessful, but the American rainbow trout (S.
irideus) has thriven in New Zealand, and the brook char
of the same continent (S. fontinalis) inhabits at least
one stream there to the exclusion of the common trout.
Invertebrates.---Many insects and other invertebrates, mostly
noxious, have been accidentally naturalized, and some have
been deliberately introduced, like the honey-bee, now feral in
Australasia and North America, and the humble-bee, imported
into New Zealand to effect the fertilization of red clover.
The spread of the European house-fly has been deliberately
encouraged in New Zealand, as wherever it penetrates the
native flesh-fly, a more objectionable pest, disappears.
The wide distribution of three common cockroaches (Feriplaneta
americana, Blatta orientalis and Ectobia germanica)
is well known, but these are chiefly house-insects.
The common small white butterfly of Europe (Pontia or Pieris
rapae) is now established in North America; and the march of the
jigger, or foot-infesting flea (Sarcopsylla penetrans) of tropical
America, across Africa, has taken place in quite recent years.
The Romans are credited with having purposely introduced the
edible snail (Helix pomatia) into England, and the common
garden snail and slugs (Helix aspersa, Limax agrestis and
Arion hortensis) have been unwittingly established in New
Zealand. In that country, also, the earthworms of Europe
are noticed to replace native forms as the ground is broken.
General Remarks.--A great deal has been said about the
upsetting of the balance of nature by naturalization,
and as to the ill-doing of exotic forms. But certain
considerations should be borne in mind in this connexion.
In the first place, naturalization experiments fail at least
as often as they succeed, and often quite inexplicably.
Thus, the linnet and partridge have failed to establish
themselves in New Zealand. This may ultimately throw
some light on the disappearance of native forms; for
these have at times declined without any assignable cause.
Secondly, native forms often disappear with the clearing
off of the original forest or other vegetation, in which
case their recession is to a certain extent unavoidable,
and the fauna which has established itself in the
presence of cultivation is needed to replace them.
Thirdly, the ill effect of introduced forms on existing
ones may often be due rather to the spread of disease and
parasites than to actual attack; thus, in Hawaii the native
birds have been found suffering from a disease which attacks
poultry. And the recession of the New Zealand earthworms
and flies before exotic forms probably falls under this
category. As man cannot easily avoid introducing parasites,
and must keep domestic animals and till the land, a certain
disturbance in aboriginal faunas is absolutely unavoidable.
Under certain circumstances, however, the native animals may
recover, for in some cases they even profit by man's advent,
and at times themselves become pests, like the Kea parrot
(Nestor notabilis), which attacks sheep in New Zealand, and
the bobolink or rice-bird (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) in North
America. Finally, it should never be forgotten that the worst
enemies of declining forms have been collectors who have not
given these species the chance of recovering themselves. (F. FN.)
ACCOLADE (from Ital. accolata, derived from Lat. collum,
the neck), a ceremony anciently used in conferring knighthood;
but whether it was an actual embrace (according to the use
of the modern French word accolade), or a slight blow on
the neck or cheek, is not agreed. Both these customs appear
to be of great antiquity. Gregory of Tours writes that the
early kings of France, in conferring the gilt shoulder-belt,
kissed the knights on the left cheek; and William the
Conqueror is said to have made use of the blow in conferring
the honour of knighthood on his son Henry. At first it was
given with the naked fist, a veritable box on the ear, but
for this was substituted a gentle stroke with the flat of
the sword on the side of the neck, or on either shoulder as
well. In Great Britain the sovereign, in conferring
knighthood, still employs this latter form of accolade.
``Accolade'' is also a technical term in music-printing for
a sort of brace joining separate staves; and in architecture
it denotes a form of decoration on doors and windows.
ACCOLTI, BENEDETTO (1415-1466), Italian jurist and
historian, was born at Arezzo, in Tuscany, of a noble family,
several members of which were distinguished like himself for
their attainments in law. He was for some time professor of
jurisprudence in the university of Florence, and on the death
of the celebrated Poggio, in 1459, became chancellor of the
Florentine republic. He died at Florence. In conjunction with
his brother Leonardo, he wrote in Latin a history of the first
crusade, entitled De Fello a Christianis contra Barbaros
gesto pro Ghristi Sepulehro et Iudaea recuperandis libri
tres (Venice, 1432, translated into Italian, 1543, and into
French, 1620), which, though itself of little interest, is
said to have furnished Tasso with the historic basis for
his Jerusalem Delivered. Another work of Accolti's-De
Praestantia Virorum sui Aevi--was published at Parma in
1689. His brother Francesco (1418-1483) was also a distinguished
jurist, and was the author of Conrilia seu responsa (Pisa,
1481); Commentaria super lib. ii. decretalium (Bologna, 1481);
Gommentaria (Pavia, 1493); de Balneis Puleolanis (1475).
ACCOLTI, BERNARDO (1465--1536), Italian poet, born at
Arezzo, was the son of Benedetto Accolti. Known in his
own day as l'Unico Aretino, he acquired great fame as a
reciter of impromptu verse. He was listened to by large
crowds, composed of the most learned men and the most
distinguished prelates of the age. Among others, Cardinal
Bombo has left on record a testimony to his extraordinary
talent. His high reputation with his contemporaries seems
scarcely justified by the poems he published, though they
give evidence of brilliant fancy. It is probable that he
succeeded better in his extemporary productions than in
those which were the fruit of deliberation. His works,
under the title Virginia, Comedia, Capitoli e Strambotti
di Messer Bernardo Accolti Aretino, were published at
Florence in 1513, and have been several times reprinted.
ACCOLTI, PIETRO (1455--1532), brother of the preceding,
known as the cardinal of Ancona, was born in Florence on the
15th of March 1455, and died at Rome on the 12th of December
1532 (Ciaconi, Vitae Pontificum, 1677, iii. 295). He was
made bishop of Ancona, in 1505, and cardinal on the 17th of
March 1511, by Julius II. He was abbreviator under Leo X.,
and in that capacity drew up in 1520 the bull against Luther
(L. Cardella, Memorie Storiche de' Cardinali, 1793, iii.
450). He held successively the suburban sees of Albano and
Sabina, also the sees of Cadiz, Maillezais, Arras and Cremona,
and was made archbishop of Ravenna, 1524, by Clement VII.
F. Cristofori (Storia dei Cardinali, 1888) and others have
confused him with his nephew BENEDETTO (1497-1549), son
of Michaele; who followed him in several of his preferments,
was made cardinal, 1527, by Clement VII., and is known as
a writer in behalf of papal claims and as a Latin poet.
ACCOMMODATION (Lat. accommodare, to make fit, from ad, to,
cum, with, and modus, measure), the process of fitting, adapting,
adjusting or supplying with what is needed (e.g. housing).
In theology the term ``accommodation'' is used rather loosely
to describe the employment of a word, phrase, sentence or
idea, in a context other than that in which it originally
occurred; the actual wording of the quotation may be modified
to a greater or lesser extent. Such accommodation, though
sometimes purely literary or stylistic, generally has the
definite purpose of instruction, and is frequently used both
in the New Testament and in pulpit utterances in all periods
as a means of producing a reasonably accurate impression
of a complicated idea in the minds of those who are for
various reasons unlikely to comprehend it otherwise. There
are roughly three main kinds. (1) A later Biblical passage
quotes from an earlier, partly as a literary device, but
also with a view to demonstration. Sometimes it is plain
that the writer deliberately ``accommodates'' a quotation
(cf. John xviii. 8, 9 with xvii. 12). But New Testament
quotations of Old Testament predictions are often for us
accommodations---striking or forced as the case may be --while
the New Testament writer, ``following the exegetical methods
current among the Jews of his time, Matthew ii. 15, 18, xxvi.
31, xxvii. 9'' (S. R. Driver in Zechariah in Century
Bible, pp. 259, 271), puts them forward as arguments. To
say that he is merely ``describing a New Testament fact in
Old Testament phraseology'' may be true of the result rather
than of his design. (2) Much beeides in the Bible--parable,
metaphor, &c.--has been called an ``accommodation,'' or
divine condescension to human weakness. (3) German 18th-century
rationalism (see APOLOGETICS) held that the Biblical writers
made great use of conscious accommodation--intending moral
commonplaces when they seemed to be enunciating Christian
dogmas. Another expression for this, used, e.g., by J. S.
Semler, is ``economy,'' which also occurs in the kindred
sense of ``reserve'' (or of Disciplina Arcani--a modern term
for the supposed early Catholic habit of reserving esoteric
truths). Isaac Williams on Reserve in Religious Teaching,
No. 80 of Tracts for the Times, made a great sensation; see
R. W. Church's comments in The Oxford Movement. Strictly,
accommodation (2) or (3) modifies, in form or in substance,
the content of religious belief; reserve, from prudence or
cunning, withholds part. ``Economy'' is used in both senses.
ACCOMMODATION BILL. An accommodation bill, as its name implies,
is a bill of exchange accepted and sometimes endorsed without
any receipt of value in order to afford temporary pecuniary
aid to the person accommodated. (See BILL OF EXCHANGE.)
ACCOMPANIMENT (i.e. that which ``accompanies''), a
musical term for that part of a vocal or instrumental
composition added to support and heighten the principal vocal
or instrumental part; either by means of other vocal parts,
single instruments or the orchestra. The accompaniment
may be obbligato or ad libitum, according as it forms
an essential part of the composition or not. The term
obbligato or obbligato accompaniment is also used
for an independent instrumental solo accompanying a vocal
piece. Owing to the early custom of only writing the
accompaniment in outline, by means of a ``figured bass,''
to be filled in by the performer, and to the changes in the
number, quality and types of the instruments of the orchestra,
``additional'' accompaniments have been written for the
works of the older masters; such are Mozart's ``additional''
accompaniments to Handel's Messiah or those to many of the
elder Bach's works by Robert Franz. In common parlance any
support given, e.g. by the piano, to a voice or instrument
is loosely called an accompaniment, which may be merely
``vamped'' by the introduction of a few chords, or may rise
to the dignity of an artistic composition. In the history
of song the evolution of the art side of an accompaniment is
important, and in the higher forms the vocal and instrumental
parts practically constitute a duet, in which the instrumental
part may be at least as important as that of the voice.
ACCOMPLICE (from Fr. complice, conspirator, Lat. complex,
a sharer, associate, complicare, to fold together; the
ac- is possibly due to confusion with ``accomplish,'' to
complete, Lat. complere, to fill up), in law, one who is
associated with another or others in the commission of a
crime, whether as principal or accessory. The term is
chiefly important where one of those charged with a crime
turns king's evidence in the expectation of obtaining a
pardon for himself. Accordingly, as his evidence is tainted
with self-interest, it is a rule of practice to direct
a jury to acquit, where the evidence of an accomplice is
not corroborated by independent evidence both as to the
circumstances of the offence and the participation of the
accused in it. An accomplice who has turned king's evidence
usually receives a pardon, but has no legal right to
exemption from punishment till he has actually received it.
ACCORAMBONI, VITTORIA (1557--1585), an Italian lady famous
for her great beauty and accomplishments and for her tragic
history. She was born in Rome of a family belonging to the
minor noblesse of Gubbio, which migrated to Rome with a
view to bettering their fortunes. After refusing several
offers of marriage for Vittoria, her father betrothed her to
Francesco Peretti (1573), a man of no position, but a nephew
of Cardinal Montalto, who was regarded as likely to become
pope. Vittoria was admired and worshipped by all the
cleverest and most brilliant men in Rome, and being luxurious
and extravagant although poor, she and her husband were soon
plunged in debt. Among her most fervent admirers was P. G.
Orsini, duke of Bracciano, one of the most powerful men in
Rome, and her brother Marcello, wishing to see her the
duke's wife, had Peretti murdered (1581). The duke himself
was suspected of complicity, inasmuch as he was believed
to have murdered his first wife, Isabella de' Medici. Now
that Vittoria was free he made her an offer of marriage,
which she willingly accepted, and they were married shortly
after. But her good fortune aroused much jealousy, and attempts
were made to annul the marriage; she was even imprisoned,
and only liberated through the interference of Cardinal Carlo
Borromeo. On the death of Gregory XIII., Cardinal Montalto,
her first husband's uncle, was elected in his place as Sixtus
V. (1585); he vowed vengeance on the duke of Bracciano and
Vittoria, who, warned in time, fled first to Venice and
thence to Salo in Venetian territory. Here the duke died
in November 1585, bequeathing all his personal property (the
duchy of Bracciano he left to his son by his first wife) to his
widow. Vittoria, overwhelmed with grief, went to live in
retirement at Padua, where she was followed by Lodovico
Orsini, a relation of her late husband and a servant of the
Venetian republic, to arrange amicably for the division of the
property. But a quarrel having arisen in this connexion Lodovico
hired a band of bravos and had Vittoria assassinated (22nd of
December 1585). He himself and nearly all his accomplices
were afterwards put to death by order of the republic.
About Vittoria Accoramboni much has been written, and she
has been greatly maligned by some biographers. Her story
formed the basis of Webster's drama, The Tragedy of Paolo
Giordano Ursini (1612), and of Ludwig Tieck's novel,
Vittoria Accoramboni (1840); it is told more accurately in
D. Gnoli's volume, Vittoria Accoramboni (Florence, 1870),
and an excellent sketch of her life is given in Countess E.
Martinengo-Cesaresco's Lombard Studies (London, 1902). (L. V.*)
ACCORD (from Fr. accorder, to agree), in law, an agreement
between two parties, one of whom has a right of action against the
other, to give and accept in substitution for such Iight any good
legal consideration. Such an agreement when executed discharges
the cause of action and is called Accord and Satisfaction.
ACCORDION (Fr. aeeordeoni Ger. Handharmonica,
Ziehharmonica), a small portable reed wind instrument
with keyboard, the smallest representative of the
organ family, invented in 1829 by Damian, in Vienna.
The accordion consists of a bellows of many folds, to which
is attached a keyboard with from 5 to 50 keys. The keys on
being depressed, while the bellows are being worked, open
valves admitting the wind to free reeds, consisting of narrow
tongues of metal riveted some to the upper, some to the
lower board of the bellows, having their free ends bent, some
inwards, some outwards. Each key produces two notes, one
from the inwardly bent reed when the bellows are compressed,
the other from the outwardly bent reed by suction (as in
the American organ; see HARMONIUM) when the bellows are
expanded. The pitch of the note is determined by the length
and thickness of the reeds, reduction of the length tending
to sharpen the note, while reduction of the thickness lowers
it. The right hand plays the melody on the keyboard, while
the left works the bellows and manipulates the two or three
bass harmony keys, which sound the simple chords of the tonic
and dominant. The archetype of the accordion is the cheng
(q.v.), or Chinese organ, between which and the harmonium
it forms a connecting link structurally, although not invented
for some thirty years after the harmonium. The timbre of the
accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands
of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely
without artistic merit. Improvements in the construction of
the accordion produced the concertina (q.v.), melodion and
melophone. las Accordion in kurzer Zeit richtig spielen zu
erlernen (Wien, 1834). See also FREE REED VIBRATOR. (K. S.)
ACCORSO (ACCURSIUS), MARIANOELO (c. 1490-1544),
Italian critic, was born at Aquila, in the kingdom of
Naples. He was a great favourite with Charles V., at whose
court he resided for thirty-three years, and by whom he was
employed on various foreign missions. To a perfect knowledge
of Greek and Latin he added an intimate acquaintance with
several modern languages. In discovering and collating ancient
manuscripts, for which his travels abroad gave him special
opportunities, he displayed uncommon diligence. His work
entitled Diatribae in Ausonium, Solinum et Ovidium (1524)
is a monument of erudition and critical skill. He was the
first editor of the Letters of Gassiodorus, with his
Treatise on the Soul (1538); and his edition of Ammianus
Marcellinus (1533) contains five books more than any former
one. The affected use of antiquated terms, introduced by
some of the Latin writers of that age, is humorously ridiculed
by him, in a dialogue in which an Oscan, a Volscian and a
Roman are introduced as interlocutors (1531). Accorso was
accused of plagiarism in his notes on Ausonius, a charge
which he most solemnly and energetically repudiated.
ACCOUNT (through O. Fr. acont, Late Lat. comptum,
computare, to calculate), counting, reckoning, especially of
moneys paid and received, hence a statement made as to the
receipt and payment of moneys; also any statement as to acts or
conduct, or quite simply any narrative report of events, &c.
A further sense-development is that of esteem, consideration.
As a stock-exchange term ``account'' is used in several
senses. (1) The periodical settlements occurring, in London,
monthly for British government and a few other first-class
securities, and fortnightly for all others. The settlement
extends over four days in mining shares and three days in other
securities. The first day is the carry-over, ``contango,'' or
making-up, day, on which speculative commitments are carried
over, or continued: that is, the bulls, who have bought
stock for the rise, arrange the rate of interest that they
have to give on their stock to a moneylender, or bear, who
will pay for it or take it in for them; and the bears, who
have sold for the fall, arrange the rate that they receive
from the bulls or, if the stock is scarce and oversold, the
backwardation or rate that they have to pay to holders of the
stock who will lend it them to enable them to complete their
bargains. On the second day, called ticket-day or name
day, a ticket giving the name and address of the ultimate
buyer and the firm which will pay for the stock is passed
through the various intermediaries to the ultimate seller,
so that the actual transfer of the stock can be made
directly. In the mining market the passing of names takes two
days. On the last day, account day, pay day or settling
day, cheques are paid to meet speculative differences, or
against the delivering of stock. (2) The period between two
settlements. A nineteen-day account is one in which nineteen
days elapse between one pay-day and another. (3) The volume or
condition of commitments. A speculator is said to have a large
account open when he has dealt heavily either for the rise or
fall. A bull account exists in a stock or group of stocks
when it or they have been bought for the rise by a Iarge
number of operators; in the contrary case, when there have
been heavy sales for the fall, a bear account is developed.
ACCOUNTANT-GENERAL, formerly an officer in the English
Court of Chancery, who received all moneys lodged in court,
and by whom they were deposited in bank and disbursed. The
office was abolished by the Chancery Funds Act 1872, and
the duties transferred to the paymaster-general (q.v.).
ACCOUNTANTS. The term ``accountant'' is one to which, of
late years, its original meaning has been more generally
attributed---that of an expert in the science of book-keeping.
It is sometimes adopted by book-keepers, but this is an
erroneous application of the term; it properly describes those
competent to design and control the systems of accounts required
for the record of the multifarious and rapid transactions
of trade and finance. It assumes the possession of a wide
knowledge of the principles upon which accountancy is based,
which may be shortly described as constituting a science by
means of which all mercantile and financial transactions,
whether in money or in money's worth, including operations
completed and engagements undertaken to be fulfilled at once
or in a future, however remote, may be recorded; and this
science comprises a knowledge of the methods of preparing
statistics, whether relating to finance or to any transactions
or circumstances which can be stated by numeration, and of
ascertaining or estimating on correct bases the cost of any
operation whether in money, in commodities, in time, in life
or in any wasting property. Generally, accountancy may be
described as being the science by means of which all operations,
as far as they are capable of being shown in figures, are
accurately recorded and their results ascertained and stated.
History.
The origin of the profession of accountancy in Great Britain
is difficult to trace; auditors of accounts were naturally
of very early existence, being mentioned as officers of
importance in the statutes of Westminster in the reign of
Edward I. The art of accountancy on a scientific principle
must certainly have been understood in Italy before 1495,
when Friar Luca dal Borgo published at Venice his treatise
on book-keeping; but the first known English book on the
science was published in London by John Gouge or Gough in
1543. It is described as A Profitable Treatyce called
the Instrument or Boke to learn to knowe the good order
of the kepyng of the famouse reconynge, called in Latin,
Dare and Habere, and, in Englyshe, Debitor and Creditor.
A short book of instruction was also published in 1588 by
John Mellis of Southwark, in which he says, ``I am but the
renuer and reviver of an auncient old copie printed here
in London the 14 of August 1543: collected, published,
made, and set forth by one Hugh Oldcastle, Scholemaster,
who, as appeareth by his treatise, then taught Arithmetike,
and this booke in Saint Ollaves parish in Marko Lane.'' John
Melfis refers to the fact that the principle of accounts
he explains (which is a simple system of double entry) is
``after the forme of Venice.'' The very interesting and able
book described as The Merchants Mirrour, or directions for
the perfect ordering and keeping af his accounts formed by
way of Debitor and Creditor, after the (so termed) Italian
manner, by Richard Dafforne, accountant, published in 1635,
contains many references to early books on the science of
accountancy. In a chapter in this book, headed ``Opinion
of Book-keeping's Antiquity,'' the author states, on the
authority of another writer, that the form of book-keeping
referred to had then been in use in Italy about two hundred
years, ``but that the same, or one in many parts very like
this, was used in the time of Julius Caesar, and in Rome long
before.'' He gives quotations of Latin book-keeping terms in
use in ancient times, and refers to ``ex Oratione Ciceronis
pro Roscio Comaedo''; and he adds: ``That the one side of
their booke was used for Debitor, the other for Creditor,
is manifest in a certaine place, Naturalis Historiae Plinii,
lib. 2, cap. 7, where hee, speaking of Fortune, saith thus:
Huic Omnia Expensa.
Huic Omnia Feruntur accepta et in tota Ratione mortalium sola
Utramque Paginam facit.''
An early Dutch writer appears to have suggested that double-entry
book-keeping was even in existence among the Greeks, pointing
to scientific accountancy having been invented in remote times.
There were several editions of Richard Dafforne's book
printed---the second edition having been published in
1636, the third in 1656, and another was issued in
1684. The book is a very complete treatise on scientific
accountancy, it was beautifully prepared and contains
elaborate explanations; the numerous editions tend to
prove that the science was highly appreciated in the 17th
century. From this time there has been a continuous supply
of literature on the subject, many of the authors styling
themselves accountants and teachers of the art, and thus
proving that the professional accountant was then known and
employed. Very early in the 18th century the services of an
accountant practising in the city of London were made use of
in the course of an investigation into the transactions of
a director of the South Sea Company, who had been dealing in
the company's stock. During this investigation the accountant
appears to have examined the books of at least two firms of
merchants. His report is described Observations made upon
examining the books of Sawbridge and Company, by Charles
Snell, Writing Master and Accountant in Foster Lane, London.
In 1799, when Holden's Triennial Directory of London,
Westminster and Southwark was first published, 11
individuals and firms were therein described as accountants;
in the same directory, for the period 1809-1811, the
number had risen to 24; and in that for 1822--1824,
there were 73 firms of practising accountants recorded.
Modern development.
The earliest English books dealing with scientific book-keeping
were written at a time when the English and Dutch were very
actively engaged in foreign trade, in succession to the
Italian merchants of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries;
but it was not until the beginning of the 19th century
that, in consequence of the adoption of improved methods
of manufacture and transit, resulting from the application
of water and steam power to manufactures and methods of
conveyance which largely increased the trade of Great Britain,
the profession of an accountant became one which men of
scientific knowledge and capacity adopted for their business
career. Corporations and companies were formed to carry
out large operations previously either left to the state
or not undertaken, and for the development of trades and
manufactures which were becoming less profitable when carried
on by hand labour and with limited capital; and, for these,
the services of public accountants were necessarily required
to devise systems of accounts and methods of control, and
to enable the results of the various transactions carried on
to be ascertained with the least waste of power or chance of
loss by negligence or fraud. The large number of companies
formed in 1843 and 1844, when a great amount of capital was
invested in railways and extensive speculation resulted,
also added to the demand for the services of professional
accountants. The Companies' Clauses Consolidation Act 1845
made provision for the audit of the accounts of companies
regulated by act of parliament, and gave some extensive
powers to the auditors, who are now, to a very large extent,
selected from among professional accountants. The Companies
Act of 1862 led to a large extension of the business of
accountants, both as auditors and liquidators of companies;
and the acts relating to bankruptcy passed between the years
1831 and 1883 added to the work devolving on professional
accountants. The Companies Act 1879, which affected banking
companies, made provision for the audit of their accounts,
and it has been found desirable, in most cases, to appoint
professional accountants to this duty. The experience
and professional knowledge of trained accountants have, in
fact, been utilized by their appointment as auditors in the
majority of joint-stock companies, whether manufacturing,
banking, trading or created for any other purpose. Until
the Companies Act 1900 was passed there was no general
obligation upon limited companies to have auditors; this
act not only requires that auditors shall be appointed
in all cases, but provides for their remuneration, and
to a limited extent defines their rights and duties. The
legislature evidently did not find it easy to formulate at
all clearly the duties of auditors, and it seems reasonable
to suppose that any general definition will prove an
impossibility, as the work which auditors undertake must
vary very widely, and depends largely upon the scope of
the operations the accounts of which are to be examined.
Duties.
The duties of practising accountants cover a very wide area:
they act as trustees, liquidators, receivers and managers of
businesses, the owners of which are in default or their
affairs in liquidation, both under the direction of the courts
and by appointment of creditors and others; they are largely
engaged as arbitrators, umpires and referees in differences
relating to matters of account or finance; they prepare
the accounts of executors and trustees, and the necessary
statements of affairs in cases of bankruptcy, both of firms
and companies; they prepare accounts for prosecutions in cases
of fraud and misconduct; and they are constantly called upon
to unravel and properly state the accounts of complicated
transactions. Their services are commonly required to certify
the profits of businesses intended to be sold, either privately
or to companies by means of a published prospectus; and,
in cases of compulsory purchases of businesses by railway
companies and public bodies, the statements of the profits
of the businesses to be acquired are generally made by
them. In a very large number of financial operations they
are called upon to give advice and prepare accounts, and
in few business matters requiring arithmetical calculations
or involving the investigation of figures, and particularly
where a considerable acquaintanceship with the principles
of law is needed, are their services not utilized.
Auditors.
One of the most important duties undertaken by accountants
is the audit of accounts, and this duty has, of late years,
been widely extended. Originally, auditors were appointed
to examine and vouch statements of receipts and payments;
but the provisions made in acts of parliament in relation to
audit, and the requirements of most articles of association
of limited companies, put much graver responsibilities on
auditors, who are now generally required to certify to the
accuracy of balance sheets and of revenue and other accounts,
the performance of which duties involves far more knowledge
of accounts than was once required. The efficiency, in
most cases, of audits conducted by skilled accountants has
led the public to attach exceptional value to their audit
certificates, and to demand extensive knowledge and ability
in the conduct of the audit of the accounts of public
companies. One other requirement which is generally regarded
as indispensable, is that the work of audit should be very
expeditiously performed; for it is easy to understand that,
were the presentation of the accounts of a company and the
distribution of dividends materially delayed in consequence
of the audit, much inconvenience would result, while the value
of the criticism of the accounts of business operations would
be much deteriorated if it could not be made very shortly
after the accounts were closed. In these circumstances,
in the cases of large concerns with wide ramifications and
numerous transactions, it is necessary that auditors should
have the help of trained assistants, and thus the personal
examination of details by the auditor himself is, to a large
extent, rendered unnecessary and the cost of audit materially
reduced. This delegation of duty by auditors is generally
well understood, and is in accordance with the requirements
of those concerned; but there has been a tendency of late
years to enlarge the responsibilities of auditors to an
extent which, if persisted in, might render it dangerous
for men of reputation and means to accept the duties.
Organization.
While the number of practising accountants has of late years
been steadily increasing and their services are correspondingly
appreciated, the necessity for controlling those exercising
the profession and for improving its status has naturally
become apparent. The first important steps in this direction
were taken by the accountants in Scotland--the Society of
Accountants in Edinburgh being incorporated by royal charter
in 1854; similar societies in Glasgow and Aberdeen being also
incorporated by charter in 1855 and 1867. The Institute of
Accountants was formed in London in 1870, but did not receive
a royal charter until the 11th May 1880, when all the then
existing accountants' societies and institutes in England
were incorporated as the Institute of Chartered Accountants
in England and Wales, and means were provided by which all
the then practising accountants in these countries could
claim membership thereof. In the year 1885 the Society of
Accountants and Auditors was incorporated, but has obtained
no charter; this body, while numbering among its members a
considerable number of practising accountants in the United
Kingdom, also includes treasurers and accountants to cities and
boroughs in England, as well as clerks to chartered and other
accountants. A large proportion of its members also consists
of accountants practising abroad. In 1888 an Institute of
Chartered Accountants was formed in Ireland, and a great
many institutes and societies have been formed in the British
colonies and in the United States, some of which have local
charters. It is curious to note, however, that, outside the
United Kingdom, it was only in the British colonies that
associations of practising accountants existed, until, in
1895, an Institute of Accountants (Nederlands Instituut van
Accountants) was founded in Utrecht for Dutch accountants;
when, although the principles of accountancy have been well
understood and practised in Holland since the 16th century,
and probably earlier, it was found necessary to borrow the
words ``accountant'' and ``accountancy'' from the English
language to convey to the Dutch an idea of the meaning of the
terms. Three others have since been formed, the Nederlandsche
Academie van Accountants (1902); the Nationale Organisatie van
Accountants (1903); and the Nederlandsche Bond van Accountants
(1902). Sweden has a society, Svenska Revisorsamfundet,
formed in 1899; Belgium, the Chambre Syndicate des Experts
Comptables, founded in 1903. In South America, accountants
have acquired a certain status in Argentina, Uruguay and Peru.
In the United States the organization of professional
accountants is of quite recent growth. The first society
formed in America was ``The New York State Society of Certified
Public Accountants,'' and shortly afterwards (in 1896) the
New York state legislature passed an act authorizing the
State university to confer the degree of certified public
accountant (C.P.A.) on the members of the society, while
requiring all subsequent entrants to pass an examination.
This degree, however, can be obtained, like other university
degrees, without being a member of the society. Other
states, notably Pennsylvania, Maryland, California, Illinois,
Washington and New Jersey, have followed the example of New
York. In 1903 the various state societies formed themselves
into a federation. There is also an independent society of
practising accountants, the American Association of Public
Accountants, with objects similar to those of the federation,
but steps have been taken to bring about an amalgamation between
the two in order to form one central society to look after
their common interests, without, however, interfering with
the individual organization of the various state societies.
See R. Brown, History of Accounting and Accountants
(Edinburgh), 1905, the most comprehensive book upon the
subject; also G. W. Haskins, Accountancy, its Past and
Present (U.S.A., 1900); S. S. Dawson, Accountant's
Compendium; G. Lisle, Accounting in Theory and Practice
(1899); F. W. Pixley, Auditors and their Liabilities
(1901). The professional periodicals, The Accountant (vol.
i., 1877); Accountant's Journal (vol. i., 1883-1884);
The Accountants' Magazine (vol. i., 1897); Incorporated
Accountants' Journal (vol. i., 1889-1890); Accountics
(U.S.A., vol. i., 1897) may also be consulted, and also the
Year-books of the Society of Accountants and Auditors, and
of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. (J. G. GR.)
ACCOUTREMENT (a French word, probably derived from a and
coustre or coutre, an old word meaning one who has
charge of the vestments in a church), clothing, apparel;
a term used especially, in the plural, of the military
equipment of a soldier other than his arms and clothing.
ACCRA, a port on the Gulf of Guinea in 5 deg. 31' N., 0 deg.
12' W., since 1876 capital of the British Gold Coast
colony. Population about 20,000, including some 150
Europeans. Accra is about 80 m. E. of Cape Coast (q.v.),
the former capital of the colony. The name is derived from
the Fanti word Nkran (an ant), by which designation the
tribe inhabiting the surrounding district was formerly
known. The town grew up around three forts established in
close proximity--St James (British), Crevecoeur (Dutch)
and Christiansborg (Danish). The last named was ceded to
Britain in 1850, Crevecoeur not till 1871. Fort St James
is now used as a signal station, lighthouse and prison.
Accra preserves the distinctions of James Town, Ussher
Town and Christiansborg, indicative of its tripartite
origin. Ussher Town represents Crevecoeur, the fort being
renamed after H. T. Ussher, administrator of the Gold Coast
(1867-1872). The sea frontage extends about three miles;
there is, however, no harbour, and steamers have to lie
about a mile out, goods and passengers being landed in surf
boats. The streets formerly consisted largely of mud
hovels, but since a great fire in 1894, which destroyed
large parts of James Town and Ussher Town, more substantial
buildings have been erected. Christiansborg, the finest of
the three forts, is the official residence of the governor
of the colony. Westwards of the landing-place, where is
the customs house, lies James Town. Beyond the fort are
various public buildings leading to Otoo Street, the main
thoroughfare, which runs two miles in a straight line to
Christiansborg. This street contains a fine stone church
built in 1895 for the use of the Anglican community, a
branch of the Bank of British West Africa, telegraph offices
and the establishments of the principal trading firms. In
Victoriaborg, a suburb of Ussher Town, are the residences
of the principal officials, and here a racecourse has been
laid out. (Accra is almost the only point along the Gold
Coast where horses thrive.) Behind the town is rolling grass
land, which gives place to the highlands of Aquapim and
Akim. At Aburi in the Aquapim hills, 26 m. N. by E. of
Accra, are the government sanatorium and botanical gardens.
Accra, the first town in the Gold Coast colony to be
raised (July 1, 1896) to the rank of a municipality, is
governed by a town council with power to raise and spend
money. The council consists in equal proportions of
nominated and elected members, no racial distinctions being
made. Accra is connected by cable with Europe and South
Africa, and is the sea terminus of a railway serving the
districts N.E., where are flourishing cocoa plantations.
ACCRETION (from Lat. ad, to, and crescere, to grow),
an addition to that which already exists; increase in any
substance by the addition of particles from the outside. In
law, the term is used for the increase of property caused by
gradual natural additions, as on a river bank or seashore.
ACCRINGTON, a market town and municipal borough in the
Accrington parliamentary division of Lancashire, England,
208 m. N.W. by N. from London, and 23 m. N. by W. from
Manchester, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop.
(1891) 38,603; (1901) 43,122. It lies in a deep valley on
the Hindburn, a feeder of the Calder. Cotton spinning and
printing works, cotton-mill machinery works, dye-works and
chemical manufactures, and neighbouring collieries maintain
the industrial population. The church of St James dates
from 1763, and the other numerous places of worship and
public buildings are all modern. The borough is under a
mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Area 3427 acres.
Accrington (Akerenton, Alkerington, Akerington) was granted by
Henry de Lacy to Hugh son of Leofwine in Henry II.'s reign, but
came again into the hands of the Lacys, and was given by them
about 1200 to the monks of Kirkstall, who converted it into a
grange. It again returned, however, to the Lacys in 1287,
was granted in parcels, and like their other lands became
merged in the duchy of Lancaster. In 1553 the commissioners
of chantries sold the chapel to the inhabitants to be
continued as a place of divine service. In 1836 Old and New
Accrington were merely straggling villages with about 5000
inhabitants. By 1861 the population had grown to 17,688,
chiefly owing to its position as an important railway
junction. A charter of incorporation was granted in
1878. The date of the original chapel is unknown, but it
was probably an oratory which was an offshoot of Kirkstall
Abbey. Ecclesiastically the place was dependent on
Altham till after the middle of the 19th century.
ACCUMULATION (from Lat. accumulare, to heap up), strictly
a piling-up of anything; technically, in law, the continuous
adding of the interest of a fund to the principal, for the
benefit of some person or persons in the future. Previous
to 1800, this accumulation of property was not forbidden
by English law, provided the period during which it was to
accumulate did not exceed that forbidden by the law against
perpetuities, viz. the period of a life or lives in being,
and twenty-one years afterwards. In 1800, however, the law
was amended in consequence of the eccentric will of Peter
Thellusson (1737--1797), an English merchant, who directed
the income of his property, consisting of real estate of the
annual value of about L. 5000 and personal estate amounting
to over L. 600,000, to be accumulated during the lives of his
children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, living at the
time of his death, and the survivor of them. The property so
accumulated, which, it is estimated, would have amounted to
over L. 14,000,000, was to be divided among such descendants
as might be alive on the death of the survivor of those lives
during which the accumulation was to continue. The bequest
was held valid (Thellusson v. Woodford, 1798, 4 Vesey,
237). In 1856 there was a protracted lawsuit as to who were
the actual heirs. It was decided by the House of Lords (June
9, 1859) in favour of Lord Rendlesham and Charles Sabine Augustus
Thellusson. Owing, however, to the heavy expenses, the amount
inherited was not much larger than that originally bequeathed.
To prevent such a disposition of property in the future, the
Accumulations Act 1800 (known also as the ``Thellusson Act'')
was passed, by which it was enacted that no property should
be accumulated for any longer term than either (1) the life
of the settlor; or (2) the term of twenty-one years from
his death; or (3) during the minority of any person living
or en ventre sa mere at the time of the death of the
grantor; or (4) during the minority of any person who, if
of full age, would be entitled to the income directed to be
accumulated. The act, however, did not extend to any provision
for payment of the debts of the grantor or of any other
person, nor to any provision for raising portions for the
children of the settlor, or any person interested under the
settlement, nor to any direction touching the produce of timber
or wood upon any lands or tenements. The act was extended
to heritable property in Scotland by the Entail Amendment Act
1848, but does not apply to property in Ireland. The act
was further amended by the Accumulations Act 1892, which
forbids accumulations for the purpose of the purchase of
land for any longer period than during the minority of any
person or persons who, if of full age, would be entitled to
receive the income. (See also TRUST and PERPETUITY.)
ACCUMULATOR, the term applied to a number of devices whose
function is to store energy in one form or another, as, for
example, the hydraulic accumulator of Lord Armstrong (see
HYDRAULICS, sec. 179). In the present article the term is
restricted to its use in electro-technology, in which it
describes a special type of battery. The ordinary voltaic
cell is made by bringing together certain chemicals, whose
reaction maintains the electric currents taken from the
cell. When exhausted, such cells can be restored by replacing
the spent materials, by a fresh ``charge'' of the original
substances. But in some cases it is not necessary to get rid
of the spent materials, because they can be brought back to
their original state by forcing a reverse current through the
cell. The reverse current reverses the chemical action and
re-establishes the original conditions, thus enabling the
cell to repeat its electrical work. Cells which can thus be
``re-charged'' by the action of a reverse current are called
accumulators because they ``accumulate'' the chemical work
of an electric current. An accumulator is also known as a
``reversible battery,'' ``storage battery'' or ``secondary
battery.'' The last name dates from the early days of
electrolysis. When a liquid like sulphuric acid was electrolysed
for a moment with the aid of platinum electrodes, it was
found that the electrodes could themselves produce a current
when detached from the primary battery. Such a current was
attributed to an ``electric polarization'' of the electrodes,
and was regarded as having a secondary nature, the implication
being that the phenomenon was almost equivalent to a storage
of electricity. It is now known that the platinum electrodes
stored, not electricity, but the products of electro-chemical
decomposition. Hence if the two names, secondary and storage
cells, are used, they are liable to be misunderstood
unless the interpretation now put on them be kept in mind.
``Reversible battery'' is an excellent name for accumulators.
Sir W. R. Grove first used ``polarization'' effects in his gas
battery, but R. L. G. Plante (1834-1889) laid the foundation
of modern methods. That he was clear as to the function
of an accumulator is obvious from his declaration that the
lead-sulphuric acid cell could retain its charge for a long
time, and had the power d'emmagasiner ainsi le travail chimique
de la pile voltaique: a phrase whose accuracy could not be
excelled. Plante began his work on electrolytic polarization
in 1859, his object being to investigate the conditions under
which its maximum effects can be produced. He found that the
greatest storage and the most useful electric effects were
obtained by using lead plates in dilute sulphuric acid. After
some ``forming'' operations described below, he obtained a
cell having a high electromotive force, a low resistance, a
large capacity and almost perfect freedom from polarization.
The practical value of the lead-peroxide-sulphuric-acid
cell arises largely from the fact that not only are the
active materials (lead and lead peroxide, PbO2) insoluble
in the dilute acid, but that the sulphate of lead formed
from them in the course of discharge is also insoluble.
Consequently, it remains fixed in the place where it is
formed; and on the passage of the charging current, the
original PbO2 and lead are reproduced in the places they
originally occupied. Thus there is no material change in
the distribution of masses of active material. Lastly,
the active materials are in a porous, spongy condition,
so that the acid is within reach of all parts of them.
Plante's cell.
Plante carefully studied the changes which occur in the
formation, charge and discharge of the cell. In forming,
he placed two sheets of lead in sulphuric acid, separating
them by narrow strips of caoutchouc (fig. 1). When a charging
current is sent through the cell, the hydrogen liberated
at one plate escapes, a small quantity possibly being spent
in reducing the surface film of oxide generally found on
lead. Some of the oxygen is always fixed on the other
(positive) plate, forming a surface film of peroxide. After
a few minutes the current is reversed so that the first
plate is peroxidized, and the peroxide previously formed
on the second plate is reduced to metallic lead in a spongy
state. By repeated reversals, the surface of each plate
is alternately peroxidized and reduced to metallic lead.
In successive oxidations, the action penetrates farther
into the plate, furnishing each time a larger quantity
of spongy PbO2 on one plate and of spongy lead on the
other. It follows that the duration of the successive
charging currents also increases. At the beginning. a
few minutes suffice; at the end, many hours are required.
Fig. 1
After the first six or eight cycles, Plante allowed a
period of repose before reversing. He claimed that the
PbO2 formed by reversal after repose was more strongly
adherent, and also more crystalline than if no repose were
allowed. The following figures show the relative amounts of
oxygen absorbed by a given plate in successive charges (between
one charge and the next the plate stood in repose for the
time stated, then was reduced, and again charged as anode):-
Separate periods of Charge. Relative amount of
Repose. Peroxide formed.
. . First 1.0
18 hours Second 1.57
2 days Third 1.71
4 days Fourth 2.14
2 days Fifth 2.43
and so on for many days (Gladstone and Tribe, Chemistry
of Secondary Batteries). Seeing that each plate is in turn
oxidized and then reduced, it is evident that the spongy
lead will increase at the same rate on the other plate of the
cell. The process of ``forming'' thus briefly described
was not continued indefinitely, but only till a fair
proportion of the thickness of the plates was converted
into the spongy material, PbO2 and Pb respectively. After
this, reversal was not permitted, the cell being put into
use and always charged in a given direction. If the process
of forming by reversal be continued, the positive plate is
ultimately all converted into PbO, and falls to pieces.
Plante made excellent cells by this method, yet three
objections were urged against them. They required too much
time to ``form''; the spongy masses (PbO2 more especially)
fell off for want of mechanical supoort, and the separating
strips of caoutchouc were not likely to have a long life.
The first advance was made by C. A. Faure (1881), who greatly
shortened the time required for ``forming'' by giving the
plates a preliminary coating of red lead, whereby the slow
precess of biting into the metal was avoided. At the first
charging, the red lead on the + electrode is changed to
PbO2, while that on the - etectrode is reduced to spongy
lead. Thus one continuous operation, lasting perhaps
sixty hours, takes the place of many reversals, which,
with periods of repose, last as much as three months.
Fig. 2 Tudor positive plate.
Faure used felt as a separating membrane, but its use
was soon abolished by methods of construction due to E.
Volckmar, J. S. Sellon, J. W. Swan and others. These
inventors put the paste not on to plates of lead, but into
the holes of a grid, which, when carefully designed, affords
good mechanical support to the spongy masses, and does away
with the necessity for felt, &c. They are more satisfactory,
however, as supporters or spongy lead than of the peroxide,
since at the point of contact in the latter case the acid
gives rise to a local action, which slowly destroys the
grid. Disintegration follows sooner or later, though the
best makers are able to defer the failure for a fairly long
time. Efforts have been made by A. Tribe, D. G. Fitzgerald
and others to dispense whin a supporting grid for the positive
plate, but these attempts have not yet been successful
enough to enable them to compete with the other forms.
For many years the battle between the ``Plante'' type and the
Faure or ``pasted'' type has been one in which the issue was
doubtful, but the general tendency is towards a mixed type
at the present time. There are many good cells, the value of
all resting on the care exercised during the manufacture and
also in the choice of pure materials. Increasing emphasis is
laid on the purity of the water used to replace that lost by
evaporation, distilled water generally being specified. The
following descriptions will give a good idea of modern practice.
Chloride cell.
The ``chloride cell'' has a Plante positive with a pasted
negative. For the positive a lead casting is made, about 0.4
inch thick pierced by a number of circular holes about half
an inch in diameter. Into each of these holes is thrust a
roll or rosette of lead ribbon, which has been cut to the
right breadth (equal to the thickness of the plate), then
ribbed or gimped, and finally coiled into a rosette. The
rosettes have sufficient spring to fix themselves in the
holes of the lead plate, but are keyed in position by a
hydraulic press. The plates are then ``formed'' by passing
a current for a long time. In a later pattern a kind of
discontinuous longitudinal rib is put in the ribbon, and
increases the capacity and life by strengthening the mass
Fig. 3.--Tudor negative plate.
without interfering with the diffusion of acid. The
negative plate was formerly obtained by reducing pastilles
of lead chloride, but by a later mode of construction
it is made by casting a grid with thin vertical ribs,
connected horizontally by small bars of triangular
section. The bars on the two faces are ``staggered,''
that is, those on one face are not opposite those on the
other. The grid is pasted with a lead oxide paste and
afterwards reduced; this is known as the ``exide'' negative.
The larger sizes of negative plate are of a ``box'' type, formed
by riveting together two grids and filling the intervening space
Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6
with paste. A feature of the ``chloride'' cells is the use
of separators made of thin sheets of specially prepared
wood, These prevent short circuits arising from scales of
active material or from the formation of ``trees'' of lead
which sometimes grow across in certain forms of battery.
Tudor cell.
The Tudor cell has positives formed of lead plates cast in one
piece with a large surface of thin vertical ribs, intersected
at intervals by horizontal ribs to give the plates strength to
withstand buckling in both directions (fig. 2). The thickness
of the plates is about 0.4 inch, and the developed surface is
about eight times that of a smooth plate of the same size.
A thoroughly adherent and homogeneous coating of peroxide of
lead is formed on this large surface by an improved Plante
process. The negative plate (fig. 3) is composed of two grids
riveted together to form a shallow box; the outer surfaces are
smooth sheets pierced with many small holes. The space between
them is intersected by ribs and pasted (before riveting).
E.P.S. cell.
Many of the E.P.S. ceils, made by the Electrical Power
Storage Company, are of the Faure or pasted type, but the
Plante formation is used for the positives of two kinds of
cell. The paste for the positive plates is a mixture of
red lead with sulphuric acid; for the negative plates,
litharge is substituted for red lead. Figs. 4 and
FIG. 7.
5 roughly represent the grids employed for the negative and
positive plates respectively of a type used for lighting. Fig. 6
is the cross section of the casting used for the Plante positive
of the larger cells for rapid discharge. Finer indentations on
the side expose a large surface. Fig. 7 shows a complete cell.
Hart cell.
The Hart cell, as used for lighting, is a combination of the
Plante and Faure (pasted) types. The plates hang by side
lugs on glass slats, and are separated by three rows of glass
tubes 3/8 inch diameter (fig. 8). The tubes rest in grooved
teak wood blocks placed at the bottom of the glass boxes.
The blocks also serve as base for a skeleton framework of the
same material which surrounds and supports the section. Of
course the wood has to be specially treated to withstand the
acid. A special non-corrosive terminal is used. A coned bolt
draws the lug ends of adjacent cells together, fitting in a
corresponding tapered hole in the lugs, and thus increasing
the contact area. The positive and negative tapers being
different, a cell cannot be connected up in the wrong way.
FIG. 8.--Hart Accumulator.
Gould cell.
In America, in addition to some of the cells already
described, there are types which are not found in England.
Two may be described. The Gould cell is of the Plante
type. A special effort is made to reduce local and other
deleterious action by starting with perfectly homogeneous
plates. They are formed from sheet lead blanks by suitable
machines, which gradually raise the surface into a series
of ribs and grooves. The sides and middle of the blank
are left untouched and amply suffice to distribute the
current over the surface of the plate. The grooves are
very fine, and when the active material is formed in them
by electro-chemical action, they hold it very securely.
Hatch cell.
The Hatch cell has its positive enclosed in an envelope.
A very shallow porous tray (made of kaolin and silica) is
filled with red lead paste, an electrode of rolled sheet lead
is placed on its surface, and over this again is placed a
second porous tray filled with paste. The whole then looks
like a thin earthenware box with the lug of the electrode
projecting from one end. The negatives consist of sheet
lead covered by active material. On assembling the plates,
each negative is held between two positive ``boxes,'' the
outsides of which have protecting vertical ribs. These press
against the active material on the negative plates, and help
to keep it in position. At the same time, the clearance
between the ribs allows room for acid to circulate freely
between the negative plate and the outer face of the positive
envelope. Diffusion of the acid through this envelope is
easy, as it is very porous and not more than 1/32 inch thick.
Traction Cells.---Attempts to run tramcars by accumulators
have practically all failed, but traction cells are employed
for electric broughams and light vehicles for use in
towns. There are no large deviations in manufacture except
those imposed by limited space, weight and vibration. The
plates are generally thinner and placed closer together.
The Plante positive is not used so much as in lighting
types. The acid is generally a little stronger in order
to get a higher electromotive force (E.M.F.). To prevent
the active material from being shaken out of the grids,
corrugated and perforated ebonite separators are placed
between the plates. The ``chloride'' traction cell uses
a special variety of wood separator: the ``exide'' type
of plate is used for both positive and negative. Cells
are now made to run 3000 or more miles before becoming
useless. The specific output can be made as high as 10 or
11 watt-hours per pound of cell, but this involves a chance
of shorter life. The average working requirement for heavy
vehicles is about 50 watt-hours per 1000 lb. per mile.
Ignition Cells for motor cars are made on the same lines
as traction cells, though of smaller capacity. As a
rule two cells are put up in ebonite or celluloid boxes
and joined in series so as to give a 4-volt battery, the
pressure for which sparking coils are generally designed.
The capacity ranges from 20 to 100 ampere-hours, and the
current for a single cylinder engine will average one
to one and a half amperes during the running intervals.
General Features.--The tendency in stationary cells is to
allow plenty of space below the plates, so that any active
material which falls from the plates may collect there without
risk of short-circuit, &c. More space is allowed between
the plates, which means that (a) there is more acid within
reach, and (b) a slight buckling is not so dangerous, and
indeed is not so likely to occur. The plates are now generally
made thicker than formerly, so as to secure greater mechanical
rigidity. At the same time, the manufacturers aim at getting
the active materials in as porous a state as possible.
The figures with regard to specific output are difficult to
classify. It would be most interesting to give the data
in the form of watt-hours per pound of active material,
and then to compare them with the theoretical values,
but such figures are impossible in the nature of the case
except in very special instances. For many purposes, long
life and trustworthiness are more important than specific
output. Except in the case of traction cells, therefore,
the makers have not striven to reduce weight to its lowest
values. Table I. shows roughly the weight of given
types of cells for a given output in ampere hours.
TABLE I.
Capacity in ampere-hours if
Type of cell. discharged in Weight of cell.
9 hrs. 6 hrs. 3 hrs. 1 hr.
Ordinary light-
ing . . . . . 200 182 153 101 100 pounds
'' '' 420 380 300 210 200 pounds
'' '' 1200 1080 880 600 670 pounds
Central station
and High Rate 3500 3100 2500 1700 2000 pounds
'' '' 6000 5400 4400 3000 3200 pounds
Traction . . . 220 185 155 125 40 pounds
'' . . . .. 440 .. .. 90 pounds
Influence of Temperature on Capacity.---These figures are
true only at ordinary temperatures. In winter the capacity
is diminished, in summer it is increased. The differences
are due partly to change of liquid resistance but more
especially to the difference in the rate at which acid
can diffuse into or out of the pores: obviously this is
greater at higher temperatures. The increase in capacity
on warming is appreciable, and may amount to as much as
3% per degree centigrade (Gladstone and Hibbert, Journ.
Inst. Elec. Eng. xxi. 441; Helm, Electrician, NOV.
1901, i. 55; Liagre, L'Eclairage electrique, 1901,xxix.
150). Notwithstanding these results, it is not advisable to
warm accumulators appreciably. At higher temperatures, local
action is greatly increased and deterioration becomes more
rapid. It is well, however, to avoid low winter temperatures.
Working of accumulators.--Whatever the type of cell may
be, it is important to attend to the following working
requirements--(1) The cells must be fully equal to the maximum
demand, both in discharge rate and capacity. (2) All the
cells in one series ought to be equal in discharge rate and
capacity. This involves similarity of treatment. (3) The
cells are erected on strong wooden stands. Where floor space
is too expensive, they can be erected in tiers; but, if
possible, this should be avoided. They ought to lie in rows,
so arranged that it is easy to get to one side (at least)
of every cell, for examination and testing, and if need be
to detach and remove it or its plates. Where a second tier
is plaeed over the first, sufficient clearance space must
be allowed for the plates to be lifted out of the lower
boxes. The cells are insulated by supporting them on glass
or mushroom-shaped oil insulators. If the containing vessels
are made of glass, it it desirable to put them in wooden
trays which distribute the weight between the vessel and
insulators. To prevent acid spray from filling the air of
the room, a glass plate is arranged over each cell. The
positive and negative sections are fixed in position with
insulating forks or tubes, and the positive terminal of one
cell is joined to the negative of the next by burning or
bolting. If the latter method is adopted, the surfaces ought
to be very clean and well pressed home. The joint ought to
be covered by vaseline or varnish. When this has been done,
examination ought to be made of each cell to see that the
plates are evenly spaced, that the separators (glass tubes
or ebonite forks between the plates) are in position and
vertical, and that there are no scales or other adventitious
matter connecting the plates. The floor of the cell ought to
be quite clear; if anything lies there it must be removed. (4)
To mix the solution a gentle stream of sulphuric acid must
be poured into the water (not the other way, lest too great
heating cause an accident). It is necessary to stir the whole
as the mixing proceeds and to arrange that the density is
about 1190, or according to the recommendation of the maker.
About five volumes of water ought to be taken to one volume of
acid. After mixing, allow to cool for two or three hours. The
strong acid ought to be free from arsenic, copper and other
similar impurities. The water ought to be as pure as can
be obtained, distilled water being best; rain water is also
good. If potable water be employed, it will generally be
improved by boiling, which removes some of the lime held in
solution. The impurity in ordinary drinking water is very
slight; but as all cells lose by evaporation and require
additions of water from time to time, there is a tendency
for it to increase. The acid must not be put into the cells
till everything is ready for charging. (5) A shunt-wound
or separately-excited dynamo being ready and running so as
to give at will 2.6 or 2.7 volts per cell, the acid is run
into the cells. As soon as this is done, the dynamo must be
switched on and charging commenced. The positive terminal
of the dynamo must be joined to the positive terminal of the
battery. If necessary, the + end of the machine must be
found by a trial cell made of two plain lead sheets in dilute
acid. It is important also to maintain this first charging
operation for a long time without a break. Twelve hours
is a minimum time, twenty-four not too much. The charging
is not even then complete, though a short interval is not
so injurious as in the earlier stage. The full charge
required varies with the cells, but in all types a full
and practically continuous first charge is imperatively
necessary. During the early part of this charge the density
of the acid may fall; but after a time ought to increase, and
finally reach the value desired for permanent working. Towards
the end of the ``formation'' vigilant observation must be
exercised. It is important to notice whether any cells are
appreciably behind the others in voltage, density or gassing.
Such cells may be faulty, and in any case they must be charged
and tended till their condition is like that of the others.
They ought not to go on the discharge circuit till this is
assured. The examination of the cells before passing them
as ready for discharge includes:---(a) Density of acid as
shown by the hydrometer. (b) Voltage. This may be taken
when charging or when idle. In the first case it ought to
be from 2.4 to 2.6 volts, according to conditions. In the
second ease it ought to be just over 2 volts, provided that
the observation is not taken too soon after switching in the
charging current. For about half an hour after that is done,
the E.M.F. has a transient high value, so that, if it be
desired to get the proper E.M.F. of the cell, the observation
must be taken thirty minutes after the charging ceases.
(c) Eye observations of the plates and the acid between
them. The positive plates ought to show a rich dark brown
colour, the negatives a dull slate-blue, and the space between
ought to be quite clear and free from anything like solid
matter. All the positives ought to be alike, and similarly
all the negatives. If the cells show similarity in these
respects they will probably be in good working order.
As to management, it is important to keep to certain simple
rules, of which these are the chief:--(1) Never discharge below
a potential difference of 1.85 (or in rapid discharge, 1.8)
volt. (2) Never leave the cells discharged, if it be avoidable.
(3) Give the cells a special full charging once a month. (4)
Make a periodic examination of each cell, determining its
E.M.F., density of acid, the condition of its plates and
freedom from growth. Any incipient growth, however small, must
be carefully watched. (5) If any cell shows signs of weakness,
keep it off discharge till it has been brought back to full
condition. See that it is free from any connexion between
the plates which would cause short-circuiting; tne frame or
support which carries the plates sometimes gets covered by
a conducting layer. To restore the cell, two methods can be
adopted. In private installations it may be disconnected
and charged by one or two cells reserved for the purpose;
or, as is preferable, it may be left in circuit, and a cell
in good order put in parallel with it. This acts as a
``milking'' cell, not only preventing the faulty one from
discharging, but keeping it supplied mith a charging current
till its potential difference (P.D.) is normal. Every
battery attendant should be provided with a hydrometer and a
voltmeter. The former enables him to determine from time
to time the density of the acid in the cells; instruments
specially constructed for the purpose are now easily procurable,
and it is desirable that one be provided for every 20 or 25
cells. The voltmeter should read up to about 3 volts and
be fitted with a suitable connector to enable contacts to
be made quickly with any desired cell. A portable glow lamp
should also be available, so that a full light can be thrown
into any cell; a frosted bulb is rather better than a clear
one for this purpose. He must also have some form of wooden
scraper to remove any growth from the plates. The scraping
must be done gently, with as little other disturbance as
possible. By the ordinary operations which go on in the
cell, small portions of the plates become detached. It is
important that these should fall below the plates, lest they
short-circuit the cell, and therefore sufficient space ought to
be left between the bottom of the plates and the floor of the
cell for these ``scalings'' to accumulate without touching the
plates. It is desirable that they be disturbed as little
as possible till their increase seriously encroaches on the
free space. It sometimes happens that brass nuts or bolts,
&c., are dropped into a cell; these should be removed at
once, as their partial solution would greatly endanger
the negative plates. The level of the liquid must be
kept above the top of the plates. Experience shows the
advisability of using distilled water for this purpose. It
may sometimes be necessary to replenish the solution with
some dilute acid, but strong acid must never be added.
The chief faults are buckling, growth, sulphating and
disintegration. Buckling of the plates generally follows
excessive discharge, caused by abnormal load or by accidental
short-circuiting. At such times asymmetry in the cell is apt
to make some part of the plate take much more than its share
of the current. That part then expands unduly, as explained
later, and curvature is produced. The only remedy is to
remove the plate, and press it back into shape as gently as
possible. Growth arises generally from scales from one part
falling on some other--say, on the negative. In the next
charging the scale is reduced to a projecting bit of lead,
which grows still further because other particles rest on
it. The remedy is, gently to scrape off any incipient
growth. Sulphating, the formation of a white hard surface
on the active material, is due to neglect or excessive
discharge. It often yields if a small quantity of sulphate
of soda be added to the liquid in the cell. Disintegration
is due to local action, and there is no ultimate remedy.
The end can be deferred by care in working, and by avoiding
strains and excessive discharge as much as possible.
Accumulators in repose.---Accumulators contain only three
active substances---spongy lead on the negative plate, spongy
lead peroxide on the positive, and dilute sulphuric acid between
TABLE
Substance. Colour. Density. Specific Resistance.
Lead . . . . slate blue 11.3 0.0000195 ohm
Peroxide of lead dark brown 9.28 5.6 to 6.8 ''
Sulphuric acid
after charge clear liquid 1.210 1.37 ''
Sulphuric acid
after discharge '' '' 1.170 1.28 ''
Sulphuric acid below
in pores . . . '' '' 1.03 8.0 ''
Sulphate of lead white 6.3 non-conductor.
them. Sulphate of lead is formed on both plates during
discharge and brought back to lead and lead peroxide
again during charge, and there is a consequent change
in the strength of acid during every cycle. The chief
properties of these substances are shown in Table II.
The curve in fig. 9 shows the relative conductivity (reciprocal
of resistance) of all the strengths of sulphuric acid solutions,
and by its aid and the figures in the preceding table, the
specific resistance of any given strength can be determined.
Fig 9
The lead accumulator is subject to three kinds of local
action. First and chiefly, local action on the positive
plate, because of the contact between lead peroxide and
the lead grid which supports it. In carelessly made or
roughly handled cells this may be a very serious matter.
It would be so, in all circumstances if the lead sulphate
formed on the exposed lead grid did not act as a covering for
it. It explains why Plante found ``repose'' a useful
help in ``forming,'' and also why positive plates slowly
disintegrate; the lead support is gradually eaten through.
Secondly, local action on the negative plate when a more
electro-negative metal settles on the lead. This often
arises when the original paste or acid contains metallic
impurities. Similar impurity is also introduced by scraping
copper wire, &c., near a battery. Thirdly, local action
due to the acid varying in strength in different parts of a
plate. This may arise on either plate and is set up because
two specimens of either the same lead or the same peroxide give
an E.M.F. when placed in acids of different strengths. J.
H. Gladstone and W. Hibbert found that the E.M.F. depends
on the difference of strength. With two head plates, a
maximum of about quarter volt was obtained, the lead in the
weaker acid being positive. With two peroxide plates the
maximum voltage was about 0.64, the plate in stronger acid
being positive to that in weaker. The electromotive force
FIG. 10.
of a cell depends chiefly on the strength of the acid,
as may be seen from fig. 10 taken from Gladstone and
Hibbert's paper (Journ. Inst. Elec. Eng., 1892).The
observations with very strong acid were difficult to obtain,
though even that with 98% acid marked X is believed to be
trustworthy. C. Heim (Elek. Zeit, 1889), F. Streintz
(Ann. Phys. Chem. xlvi. p. 449) and F. Dolezalek (Theory
of Lead Accumulators, p. 55) have also given tables.
It is only necessary to add to these results the facts
illustrated by the following diffusion curves, in order to get
a complete clue to the behaviour of an accumulator in active
work. Fig. 11 shows the rate of diffusion from plates soaked
in 1.175 acid and then placed in distilled water. It is
from a paper by L. Duncan and H. Wiegand (Elec. World,
N.Y., 1889), who were the first to show the importance of
diffusion. About one half the acid diffused out in 30
minutes, a good illustration of the slowness of this process.
The rate of diffusion is much the same for both positive
and negative plates; but slower for discharged plates than
for charged ones. Discharge affects the rate of diffusion
on the lead plate more than on the peroxide plate. This is
in accordance with the density values given in Table I. For
while lead sulphate is formed in the pores of both plates,
the consequent expansions (and obstructions) are different;
100 volumes of lead form 290 volumes of sulphate (a threefold
FIG. 11.
expansion), and 100 volumes of peroxide form 186 volumes of
sulphate (a twofold expansion). The influence of diffusion
on the electromotive force is illustrated by fig. 12. A
cell was prepared with 20% acid. It also held a porous pot
containing stronger acid, and into this the positive plate
was suddenly transferred from the general body of liquid.
The E.M.F. rose by diffusion of stronger acid into the
pores. Curve I. in fig. 12 shows the rate of rise when the
porous pot contained 34% acid; curve II. was obtained with
the stronger (58%) acid (Gladstone and Hibbert, Phil. Mag.,
1890). Of these two curves the first is more useful, because
its conditions are nearer those which occur in practice.
At the end of a discharge it is a common thing for the plates
to be standing in 25% acid, while inside the pores the acid
may not exceed 8% or 10%. If the discharge be stopped, we have
conditions somewhat like fig. 12, and the E.M.F. begins to
rise. In one minute it has gone up by about 0.08 volt, &c.
Fig. 12.
Charge and Discharge.---The most important practical
questions concerning an accumulator are:--its maximum rate
of working; its capacity at various discharge rates; its
efficiency; and its length of life. Apart from mechanical
injury all these depend primarily on the way the cell is
made, and then on the method of charging and discharging.
For each type and size of cell there is a normal maximum
discharging current. Up to this limit any current may
be taken; beyond it, the cell may suffer if discharge be
continued for any appreciable time. The most important
point to attend to is the voltage at which discharge shall
cease. The potential difference at terminals must not fall
below 1.80 volt during discharge at ordinary rates (10
hours) or 1.75 to 1.70 volt for 1 or 2 hour rate. The reason
underlying the figures is simple. These voltages indicate
that the acid in the pores is not being renewed fast enough,
and that if the discharge continue the chemical action will
change: sulphate will not be formed in situ for want of
acid. Any such change in action is fatal to reversibility and
therefore to life and constancy in capacity. To illustrate:
when at slow discharge rates the voltage is 1.80 volt, the
acid in the pores has weakened to a mean value of about
2.5% (see fig. 11), which is quite consistent with some part
of the interior being practically pure water. With high
discharge rates, something like 0.1 volt may be lost in the
cells, by ordinary ohmic fall, so that a voltage reading of
1.73 means an E.M.F. of a little over 1.8 volt, and a very
weak density of the acid inside the pores. Guided by these
figures, an engineer can determine what ought to be the
permissible drop in terminal volts for any given working
conditions. Messrs W. E. Ayrton, C. G. Lamb, E. W. Smith
and M. W. Woods were the first to trace the working of a cell
through varied conditions (Journ. Inst. Elec. Eng., 1890),
and a brief resume of their results is given below.
They began by charging and discharging
between the limits of 2.4 and 1.6 volts.
Fig. 13 shows a typical discharge curve. Noteworthy points are:--(1)
At the beginning and at the end there is a rapid fall in P.D.,
with an intermediate period of fairly uniform value. (2) When the
Fig. 13.
P.D. reaches 1.6 volt the fall is so rapid that there is
no advantage in continuing the action. When the P.D. had
fallen to 1.6 volt the cell was automatically switched into
a charging circuit, and with a current of 9 amperes yielded
the curve in fig. 14. Here again there is a rapid variation in
P.D. (in these cases a rise) at the beginning and end of the
operation. The cells were now carried through the same cycle
several times, giving almost identical values for each cycle.
After some days, however, they became more and more difficult
to charge, and the return on discharge was proportionately
less. It became impossible to charge up to a P.D. of 2.4
volts, and finally the capacity fell away to half its first
value. Examination showed that the plates were badly scaled,
and that some of the scales had partially connected the
plates. These scales were cleared away and the experiments
resumed, limiting the fall of P.D. to 1.8 volt. The
Fig. 14.
difficulties then disappeared, showing that discharge to 1.6
volt caused injury that did not arise at a limit of 1.8. Before
describing the new results it will be useful to examine these
two cases in the light of the theory of E.M.F. already given.
(a) Fall in E.M.F. at beginning of discharge.--At the
moment when previous charging ceases the pores of the positive
plate contain strong acid, brought there by the charging
current. There is consequently a high E.M.F. But the strong
acid begins to diffuse away at once and the E.M.F. falls
rapidly. Even if the cell were not discharged this fall would
occur, and if it were allowed to rest for thirty minutes or
so the discharge would have begun with the dotted line (fig.
13). (b) Final rapid fall.---The pores being clogged by
sulphate the plugs cannot get acid by diffusion, and when
5% is reached the fall in E.M.F. is disproportionately
large (see fig. 10). If discharge be stopped, there is an
almost instantaneous diffusion inwards and a rapid rise
in E.M.F. (c) The rise in E.M.F. at beginning and
end of the charging is due to acid in the pores being
strengthened, partly by diffusion, partly by formation of
sulphuric acid from sulphate, and partly by electrolytic
carrying of strong acid to the positive plate. The injurious
results at 1.6 volt arise because then the pores contain
water. The chemical reaction is altered, oxide or hydrate
is formed, which will partially dissolve, to be changed
to sulphate when the sulphuric acid subsequently diffuses
in. But formed in this way it will not appear mixed with
the active masses in the electrolytic paths, but more or
less alone in the pores. In this position it will more or
less block the passage and isolate some of the peroxide.
Further, when forming in the narrow passage its disruptive
action will tend to force off the outer layers. It is evident
that limitation of P.D. to 1.8 volt ought to prevent these
injuries, because it prevents exhaustion of acid in the plugs.
Fig. 15 shows the results obtained by study of successive
periods of rest, the observations being taken between
the limits of 2.4 and 1.8 volts. Curves A and B show
the state and capacity at the beginning. After a 10
days' rest the capacity was smaller, but repeated cycles
Fig. 15.
of work brought it back to C and D. A second rest (10 days),
followed by many cycles, then gave E and F. After a third
rest (16 days) and many cycles, G and H were obtained.
After a fourth rest (16 days) the first discharge gave I and
the first charge J. Repeated cycles brought the cells back
to K and L. Curves M and N show first cycle after a fifth
rest (16 days); O and P show the final restoration brought
about by repeated cycles of work. The numbers given by the
integration of some of these curves are stated in Table III.
TABLE III.
Capacity and Efficiency under Various
Conditions of Working.
Discharge. Charge. Efficiency.
Experiment. Ampere- Watt Ampere- Watt Quan- Energy.
hours. hours. hours. hours. tity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Normal cycle 102 201.7 104.5 230.7 97.2 87.4
Restoration
after 1st rest 100 179 103.8 228.2 96.8 85.8
Restoration
after 2nd rest 91 176.7 103.8 228.2 96.8 85.8
Restoration
after 3rd rest 82.6 161.3 86.2 190.5 95.8 84.7
Discharge
immediately 56.5 110.5 86.2 190.5 65.5 581
after rest . 56.5 110.5 71.1 158.3 79.6 69.6
Restoration
after 8 cycles 80 156.9 83.8 184.6 95.5 85
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The table shows that the efficiency in a normal cycle may be as
high as 87.4%; that during a rest of sixteen days the charged
1 This discharge is here compared with the charge that
preceded the rest; in the next line the same discharge
is compared with the charge following the rest.
accumulator is so affected that about 30% of its charge is
not available, and in subsequent cycles it shows a diminished
capacity and efficiency; and that by repeated charges and
discharges the capacity may be partially restored and the
efficiency more completely so. These changes might be
due to--(a) leakage or short-circuit, (b) some of the
active material having fallen to the bottom of the cell
or (c) some change in the active materials. (a) is
excluded by the fact that the subsequent charge is smaller,
and (b) by the continued increase of capacity during the
cycles that follow the rest. Hence the third hypothesis
is the one which must be relied upon. The change in the
active materials has already been given. The formation of
FIG. 16.
lead sulphate by local action on the peroxide plate and
by diract action of acid on spongy metal on the lead
plate explains the loss of energy shown in curve M, fig.
15, while the fact that it is probably formed, not in
the path of the regular currents, but on the wall of the
grid (remote from the ordinary action), gives a probable
explanation of the subsequent slow recovery. The action of
the acid on the lead during rest must not be overlooked.
We have seen that capacity diminishes as the discharge rate
increases; that is, the available output increases as the
current diminishes. R. E. B. Crompton's diagram illustrating
this fact is given in fig. 16. At the higher rates the
consumption of acid is too rapid, diffusion cannot maintain
its strength in the pores, and the fall comes so much earlier.
The resistance varies with the condition of the cell, as
shown by the curves in fig. 17. It may be unduly increased
by long or narrow lugs, and especially by dirty joints
between the lugs. It is interesting to note that it
increases at the end of both charge and discharge, and
Fig. 17.
much more for the first than the second. Now the composition
of the active materials near the end of charge is almost
exactly the same as at the beginning of discharge, and at
first sight there seems nothing to account for the great
fall in resistance from 0.0115 to 0.004 ohm; that is, to
about one-third the value. There is, however, one difference
between charging and discharging---namely, that due to the
strong acid near the positive, with a corresponding weaker
acid near the negative electrode. The curve of conductivity
for sulphuric acid shows that both strong and weak acid have
much higher resistances than the liquid usually employed in
accumulators, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that
local variations in strength of acid cause the changes in
resistance. That these are not due to the constitution
of the plugs is shown by the fact that, while the plugs
are almost identical at end of discharge and beginning of
charge, the resistance falls from 0.0055 to 0.0033 ohm.
While a current flows through a cell, heat is produced at
the rate of C2RX0.24 calories (water-gram-degree) per
second. As a consequence the temperature tends to rise.
But the change of temperature actually observed is much
greater during charge, and much less during discharge, than
the foregoing expression would suggest; and it is evident
that, besdies the heat produced according to Joule's law,
there are other actions which warm the cell during charge and
cool it during discharge. Duncan and Wiegand loc. cit.),
who first observed the thermal changes, ascribe the chief
influence to the electrochemical addition of H2SO4 to the
liquid during charge and its removal during discharge. Fig.
18 gives some results obtained by Ayrton, Lamb, &c. This
elevation of temperature (due to electrolytic strengthening
of acid and local action) is a measure of the energy lost
in a cycle, and ought to be minimized as much as possible.
Fig. 18.
Chemistry.---The chemical theory adopted in the foregoing
pages is very simple. It declares that sulphate of
lead is formed on both plates during discharge,
the chemical action being reversed in charging. The
following equations express the experimental results.
Condition before
+ plate Liquid - plate
x. PbO2 + y. H2SO4 + z. Pb
n. H2O
After
+ plate Liquid - plate
(x-p). PbO2 (y-2p). H2SO4 (z-p). Pb
{ }+{ }+{
p. PbSO4 (n+2p). H2O p. PbSO4
During charge, the substances are restored to their
original condition: the equation is therefore reversed.
An equation of this general nature was published by
Gladstone and Tribe in 1882, when Oley first suggested the
``sulphate', theory, which was based on very numerous
analyses. Confirmation was given by E. Frankland in 1883,
E. Reynier 1884, A. P. P. Crova and P. Garbe 1885, C. Heim
and W. F. Kohlrausch 1889, W. E. Ayrton, &c., with G. H.
Robertson 1890, C. H. J. B. Liebenow 1897, F. Dolezalek
1897, and M. Mugdan 1899. Yet there has been, as Dolezalek
says, an incomprehensible unwillingness to accept the
theory, though no suggested alternative could offer good
verifiable experimental foundation. Those who seek a full
discussion will find it in Dolezalek's Theory of the Lead
Accumulator. We shall take it that the sulphate theory is
proved, and apply it to the conditions of charge and discharge.
From the chemical theory it will be obvious that the
acid in the pores of both plates will be stronger
during charge than that outside. During discharge
the reverse will be the case. Fig. 19 shows a curve
Fig. 19.
of potential difference during charge, with others showing
the concurrent changes in the percentage of PbO2 and the
density of acid. These increase almost in proportion to
the duration of the current, and indicate the decomposition
of sulphate and liberation of sulphuric acid. There are
breaks in the P.D. curve at A, B, C, D where the current
was stopped to extract samples for analysis, &c. The
fall in E.M.F. in this short interval is noteworthy;
it arises from the diffusion of stronger acid out of the
pores. The final rise of pressure is due to increase
in resistance and the effect of stronger acid in the
pores, this last arising partly from reduced sulphate and
partly from the electrolytic convection of SO4 (see also
Dolezalek, Theory, p. 113) . Fig. 20 gives the data for
discharge. The percentage of PbO2 and the density here
fall almost in proportion to the duration of the current.
The special feature is the rapid fall of voltage at the end.
Several suggestions have been made about this phenomenon.
The writer holds that it is due to the exhaustion of the
acid in the pores. Plante, and afterwards Gladstone and
Tribe, found a possible cause in the formation of a film
of peroxide on the spongy lead. E. J. Wade has suggested
a sudden readjustment of the spongy mass into a complex
sulphate. To rebut these hypotheses it is only necessary
to say that the fall can be deferred for a long time by
pressing fresh acid into the pores hydrostatically (see
Liebenow, Zeits. fur Elektrochem., 1897, iv. 61),
or by working at a higher temperature. This increases the
diffusion inwards of strong acid, and like the increase due
to hydrostatic pressure maintains the E.M.F. The other
suggested causes of the fall therefore fail. Fig. 20 also
shows that when the discharge current was stopped at points
A, B, C, D to extract samples, the voltage immediately rose,
owing to inward diffusion of stronger acid. The inward
diffusion of fresh acid also accounts for the recuperation
found after a rest which follows either complete discharge or
a partial discharge at a very rapid rate. If the discharge
be complete the recuperation refers only to the electromotive
force; the pressure falls at once on closed circuit. If
discharge has been rapid, a rest will enable the cell to resume
work because it brings fresh acid into the active regions.
Fig. 20.
As to the effect of repose on a charged cell, Gladstone and
Tribe's experiments showed that peroxide of lead lying on
its lead supoort suffers from a local action, which reduces
one molecule of PbO2 to sulphate at the same time that an
atom of the grid below it is also changed to sulphate. There
is thus not only a loss of the available peroxide, but a
corrosion of the grid or plate. It is through this action
that the supports gradually give way. On the negative plate
an action arises between the finely divided lead and the
sulphuric acid, with the result that hydrogen is set free--
Pb + H2SO4 = PbSO4 + H2.
This involves a diminution of available spongy lead, or loss
of capacity, occasionally with serious consequences. The
capacity of the lead plate is reduced absolutely, of course,
but its relative value is more seriously affected. In the
discharge it gets sulphated too much, because the better
positive keeps up the E.M.F. too long. In the succeeding
charge, the positive is fully charged before the negative, and
the differences between them tend to increase in each cycle.
Kelvin and Helmholtz have shown that the E.M.F. of a voltaic
cell oan be calculated from the energy developed by the chemical
action. For a dyad gram equivalent (= 2 grams of hydrogen,
207 grams of lead, &c.), the equation connecting them is
E = H/46000 + T dE/dT,
here E is the E.M.F. in volts, H is the heat developed by a
dyad equivalent of the reacting substances, T is the absolute
temperature, and dE/dT is the temperature coefficient of the
E.M.F. If the E.M.F. does not change with temperature,
the second term is zero. The thermal values for the various
substances formed and decomposed are -For PbO2, 62400; for
PbSO4, 216210; for H2SO4, 192920; and for H2O, 68400
calories. Writing the equation in its simplest form for
strong acid, and ignoring the temperature coefficient term,
PbO2 + 2 H2SO4 + Pb = 2PbSO4 + 2 H2O
-62440 - 385840 + 432420 + 136720
leaving a balance of 120860 calories. Dividing by 46000
gives 2.627 volts. The experimental value in strong acid,
according to Gladstone and Hibbert, is 2.607 volts, a very
close approximation. For other strengths of acid, the energy
will be less by the quantity of heat evolved by dilution
of the acid, because the chemical action must take the
H2SO4 from the diluted liquid. The dotted curve in fig.
10 indicates the calculated E.M.F. at various points when
this is taken into account. The difference between it and
the continuous curve must, if the chemical theory be correct,
depend on the second term in the equation. The figure shows
that the observed E.M.F. is above the theoretical for
all strengths from 100 down to 5%. Below 5 the position is
reversed. The question remains, Can the temperature
coefficient be obtained? This is difficult, because the value
is so small, and it is not easy to secure a good cycle of
observations. Streintz has given the following values:--
E 1.9223 1.9828 2.0031 2.0084 2.0105 2.078 2.2070
dE/dT.106 140 228 335 285 255 130 73
Unpublished experiments by the writer give dE/dT. 106 =
350 for anid of density 1.156. With stronger acid, a true
cycle could not be obtained. Taking Streintz's value, 335
for 25% acid, the second term of the equation is TdE/dT =
290 X .000335 = 0.0971 volt. The first term gives 88800
calories = 1.9304 volt. Adding the second term, 1.9304 +
0.0971 = 2.2075 volts. The observed value is 2.030 volts
(see fig. 10), a remarkably good agreement. This calculation
and the general relation shown in fig. 10 render it highly
probable that, if the temperature coefficient were known
for all strengths of acid, the result would be equally
good. It is worth observing that the reversal of relationship
between the observed and calculated curves, which takes
place at 5% or 6%, suggests that the chemistry must be on
the point of altering as the acid gets weak, a conclusion
which has been already arrived at on purely chemical
grounds. The thermodynamical relations are thus seen to
confirm very strongly the chemical and physical analyses.1
Accumulators in Central Stations.---As the efficiency of
accumulators is not generally higher than 75%, and machines
must be used to charge them, it is not directly economical
to use cells alone for public supply. Yet they play an
important and an increasing part in public work, because they
help to maintain a constant voltage on the mains, and can be
used to distribute the load on the running machinery over a
much greater fraction of the day. Used in parallel with the
dynamo, they quickly yield current when the load increases,
and immediately begin to charge when the load diminishes, thus
largely reducing the fluctuating stress on dynamo and engine
for sudden variations in load. Their use is advantageous if
they can be charged and discharged at a time when the steam
plant would otherwise be working at an uneconomical load.
Fig. 21.
Regulation of the potential difference is managed in various
ways. More cells may be thrown in as the discharge proceeds,
and taken out during charge; but this method often leads to
trouble, as some cells get unduly discharged, and the unity
of the battery is disturbed. Sometimes the number of cells
is kept fixed for supply, but the P.D. they put on the mains
is reduced during charge by employing regulating cells in
opposition. Both these plans have proved unsatisfactory,
and the battery is now preferably joined across the mains
in parallel with the dynamo. The cells take the peaks
of the load and thus relieve the dynamo and engine of
sudden changes, as shown in fig. 21. Here the line current
(shown by the erratic curve) varied spasmodically from 0
to 375 amperes, yet the dynamo current varied from 100 to
150 amperes only (see line A). At the same time the line
voltage (535 volts normal) was kept nearly constant. In
the late evening the cells became exhausted and the dynamo
charged them. Extra voltage was required at the end of a
``charge,' and was provided by a ``booster.'' Originally a
booster was an auxiliary dynamo worked in series with the
chief machine, and driven in any convenient way. It has
1 For the discussion of later electrolytic theories as apolied to
accumulators, see Dolezalek, Theory of the Lead Accumulator.
developed into a machine with two or more exciting coils,
and having its armature in series with the cells (see fig.
22). The exciting coils act in opposition; the one carrying
the main current sets up an E.M.F. in the same direction
as that of the cells, and helps the cells to discharge
as the load rises. When the load is small, the voltage
on the mains is highest and the shunt exciting current
greatest. The booster E.M.F. now acts with the dynamo
and against the cells, and causes them to take a full
charge. Even this arrangement did not suffice to keep the
line voltage as constant as seemed desirable in some cases,
as where lighting and traction work were put on the same
plant. Fig. 23 is a diagram of a complex booster which
gives very good regulation. The booster B has its armature
in series with the accumulators A, and is kept running
in a given direction at a constant speed by means of a
shunt-wound motor (not shown), so that the E.M.F. induced
in the armature depends on the excitation. This is made
Fig. 22.
to vary in value and in direction by means of four
independent enciting coils, C1, C2, C3, C4. The last
is not essential, as it merely compensates for the small
voltage drop in the armature. It is obvious that the
excitation C3 will be proportionate to the difference
in voltage between the battery and the mains, and it is
arranged that battery volts and booster volts shall equal
the volts on the mains. Under this excitation there is no
tendency for the battery to charge or discharge. But any
additional excitation leads to strong currents one way or the
other. Excitation C1 rises with the load on the line,
and gives an E.M.F. helping the battery to discharge most
when the load is greatest. C2 is dependent on the bus-bar
voltage, and is greatest when the generator load is small: it
opposes C1 and therefore excites the booster to charge the
battery. The exact generator load at which the booster
shall reverse its E.M.F. from a charging to a discharging
value is adjusted by the resistance R2 in series with C2.
A similar resistance R6 allows the excitation of C3 to be
adjusted. Very remarkable regulation can be obtained by
reversible boosters of this type. In traction and lighting
stations it is quite possible to keep the variation of bus-bar
pressure within 2% of the normal value, although the load
may momentarily vary from a few amperes up to 200 or 300.
J. B. Entz has introduced an auxiliary device which enables
him to use a much more simple booster. The Entz booster
has no series coil and only one shunt coil, the direction
and value of excitation due to this being controlled by
a carbon regulator, it having two arms, the resistance
of each of which can be varied by pressure due to the
magnet- izing action of a solenoid. The main current
from the generator passes through the solenoid and causes
one or other of the two carbon arms to have the less
FIG. 23.
resistance. This change in resistance determines the direction
of the exciter field current, and therefore the direction of the
boost. A photograph of the switchboard at Greenock where this
booster is in use shows the voltmeter needle as if it had been
held rigid, although the exposure lasted 90 minutes. On the
same photograph the ammeter needle does not appear, its incessant
and large movements preventing any picture from being formed.
Alkaline Accumulators.--Owing to the high electro-chemical
equivalent of lead, a great saving in weight would be secured
by using almost any other metal. Unfortunately no other metal
and its compounds can resist the acid. Hence inventors have
been incited to try alkaline liquids as electrolytes. Many
attempts have been made to construct accumulators in this way,
though with only moderate success. The Lalande-Chaperon,
Desmazures, Waddell-Ent2 and Edison are the chief cells. T.
A. Edison's cell has been most developed, and is intended for
traction work. He made the plates of very thin sheets of
nickel-plated steel, in each of which 24 rectangular holes
were stamped, leaving a mere framework of the metal. Shallow
rectangular pockets of perforated nickel-steel were fitted
in the holes and then burred over the framework by high
pressures. The pockets contained the active material. On the
positive plate this consisted of nickel peroxide mixed with
flake graphite, and on the negative plate of finely divided
iron mixed with graphite. Both kinds of active material
were prepared in a special way. The graphite gives greater
conductivity. The liquid was a 20% solution of caustic
potash. During discharge the iron was oxidized, and the
nickel reduced to a lower state of oxidation. This change was
reversed during charge. Fig. 24 shows the general features.
Fig. 24.--Edison Accumulator.
The chief results obtained by European experts showed
that the E.M.F. was 1.33 volt, with a transient higher
value following charge. A cell weighing 17.8 lb. had a
resistance of 0.0013 ohm, and an output at 60 amperes of 210
watt-hours, or at 120 amperes of 177 watt-hours. Another
and improved cell weighiog 12.7 lb. gave 14.6 watt-hours
per pound of cell at a 20-ampere rate, and 13.5 watt-hours
per pound at a 60 ampere rate. The cell could be charged
and discharged at almost any rate. A full charge could be
given in 1 hour, and it would stand a discharge rate of 200
amperes (Journ. Inst. Elec. Eng., 1904, pp. 1-36).
Subsequently Edison found some degree of falling-off in
capacity, due to an enlargement of the positive pockets
by pressure of gas. Most of the faults have been overcome
by altering the form of the pocket and replacing the
graphite by a metallic conductor in the form of flakes.
REFERENCES.---G. Plante, Recherches sur L'electricite
(Paris, 1879); Gladstone and Tribe, Chemistry of Secondary
Batteries (London, 1884); Reynier, L'Accumulateur voltaique
(Paris, 1888); Heim, Die Akkumulatoren (Berlin, 1889);
Hoppe, Die Akk. fur Elektricitat (Berlin, 1892); Schoop,
Handbuch fur Akk. (Stuttgart, 1898): Sir E. Frankland,
``Chemistry of Storage Batteries,'' Proc. Roy. Soc., 1883;
Reynier, Jour. Soc. Franc. de Phys., 1884; Heim, ``U.
d. Einfluss der Sauredichte auf die Kapazitat der Akk.,''
Elek. Zeits., 1889; Kohlrausch and Heim, ``Ergebnisse von
Versuchen an Akk. fur Stationsbetrieb,'' Elek. Zeits.,
1889; Darrieus, Bull. Soc. Intern. des Elect., 1892; F.
Dolezalek, The Theory of the Lead Accumulator (London, 1906);
Sir D. Salomons, Management of accumulators (London, 1906)
E. J. Wade, Secondary Batteries (London, 1901); L. Jumau,
Les Accumulateurs electriques (Paris, 1904). (W. HT.)
ACCURSIUS Ital. ACCORSO), FRANCISCUS (1182-1260), Italian
jurist, was born at Florence about 1182. A pupil of Azo, he
first practised law in his native city, and was afterwards
appointed professor at Bologna, where he had great success as a
teacher. He undertook the great work of arranging into one
body the almost innumerable comments and remarks upon the
Code, the Institutes and Digests, the confused dispersion
of which among the works of different writers caused much
obscurity and contradiction. This compilation, bearing
the title Glossa ordinaria or magistralis, but usually
known as the Great Gloss, though written in barbarous Latin,
has more method than that of any preceding writer on the
subject. The best edition of it is that of Denis Godefroi
(1549-1621), published at Lyons in 1589, in 6 vols.
folio. When Accursius was employed in this work, it is
said that, hearing of a similar one proposed and begun by
Odoiced, another lawyer of Bologna, he feigned indisposition,
interrupted his public lectures, and shut himself up,
till with the utmost expedition he had accomplished his
design. Accursius was greatly extolled by the lawyers of
his own and the immediately succeeding age, and he was even
called the idol of jurisconsults, but those of later times
formed a much lower estimate of his merits. There can be
no doubt that he disentangled the sense of many laws with
much skill, but it is equally undeniable that his ignorance
of history and antiquities often led him into absurdities,
and was the cause of many defects in his explanations and
commentaries. He died at Bologna in 1260. His eldest son
Franciscus (1225-1293), who also filled the chair of law
at Bologna, was invited to Oxford by King Edward I., and
in 1275 or 1276 read lectures on law in the university.
ACCUSATION (Lat. accusatio, accusare, to challenge to
a causa, a suit or trial at law), a legal term signifying
the charging of another with wrong-doing, criminal or
otherwise. An accusation which is made in a court of justice
during legal proceedings is privileged (see PRIVILEGE),
though, should the accused have been maliciously prosecuted,
he will have a right to bring an action for malicious
prosecution. An accusation made outside a court of justice
would, if the accusation were false, render the accuser
liable to an action for defamation of character, while, if the
accusation be committed to writing, the writer of it is liable
to indictment, whether the accusation be made only to the party
accused or to a third person, A threat or conspiracy to accuse
another of a crime or of misconduct which does not amount to
a crime for the purpose of extortion is in itself indictable.
ACCUSATIVE (Lat. accusativus, sc. casus, a translation
of the Gr. aitiatike ptosis, the case concerned
with cause and effect, from aiti'a, a cause), in
grammar, a case of the noun, denoting primarily the
object of verbal action or the destination of motion.
ACE (derived through the Lat. as, from the Tarentine
form of the Gr. eis) the number one at dice, or the
single point on a die or card; also a point in the score
of racquets, lawn-tennis, tennis and other court games.
ACELDAMA (according to Acts i. 19, ``the field of blood''),
the name given to the field purchased by Judas Iscariot
with the money he received for the betrayal of Jesus
Christ. A different version is given in Matthew xxvii.
8, where Judas is said to have cast down the money in the
Temple, and the priests who had paid it to have recovered the
pieces, with which they bought ``the potter's field, to bury
strangers in.'' The MS. evidence is greatly in favour of
a form Aceldamach. This would seem to mean ``the field of
thy blood,'' which is unsuitable. Since, however, we find
elsewhere one name appearing as both Sirach and Sira (ch
= aleph), Aceldamach may be another form of an original
Aceldama (aleph kamatz mem shvah daleth lamedh tzareh
qoph patach heth), the ``field of blood.'' A. Klostermann,
however, takes the ch to be part of the Aramaic root
demach, ``to sleep,'; the word would then mean ``field
of sleep'' or cemetery (Probleme im Aposteltexte, 1-8,
1883), an explanation which fits in well with the account
in Matthew xxvii. The traditional site (now Hak el-Dum),
S. of Jerusalem on the N.E. slope of the ``Hill of Evil
Counsel'' (Jebel Deir Abu Tor), was used as a burial place
for Christian pilgrims from the 6th century A.D. till as
late, apparently, as 1697, and especially in the time of the
Crusades. Near it there is a very ancient charnelhouse, partly
rock-cut, partly of masonry, said to be the work of Crusaders.
ACENAPHTHENE, C12H10, a hydrocarbon isolated from
the fraction of coal-tar boiling at 260 deg. -270 deg. by M. P.
E. Berthelot, who, in conjunction with Bardy, afterwards
synthesized it from a-ethyl naphthalene (Ann. Chem.
Phys., 1873, Yol. xxix.). It forms white needles (from
alcohol), melts at 95 deg. and boils at 278 deg. . Oxidation
gives naphthalic acid (1.8 naphthalene dicathoxylic acid).
Acenaphthalene, C12 H8, a hydrocarbon crystallizing
in yellow tables and obtained by passing the vapour of
acenaphthene over heated litharge. Sodium amalgam reduces it
to acenaphthone; chromic acid oxidizes it to naphthalic acid.
ACEPHALI (from a'-, privative, and kefale, head), a
term applied to several sects as having no head or leader;
and in particular to a strict monophysite sect that separated
itself, in the end of the 5th century, from the rule of
the patriarch of Alexandria (Peter Mongus), and remained
``without king or bishop'' till they were reconciled by Mark
I. (799-819).1 The term is also used to denote clerici
vagrantes, i.e. clergy without title or benefice, picking
up a living anyhow (cf. Hinschius i. p. 64). Certain persons
in England during the reign of King Henry I. were called
Acephali because they had no lands by virtue of which they
could acknowledge a superior lord. The name is also given to
certain legendary races described by ancient naturalists and
geographers as having no heads, their mouths and eyes being
in their breasts, generally identified with Pliny's Blemmyae.
ACEPHALOUS, headless, whether literally or metaphorically,
leaderless. The word is used literally in biology; and
metaphorically in prosody or grammar for a verse or sentence
with a beginning wanting. In zoology, the mollusca are
divided into cephalous and acephalous (Acephala), according
as they have or have not an organized part of their anatomy
as the seat of the brain and special senses. The Acephala,
or Lamellibranchiata (q.v.), are commonly known as bivalve
shell-fish. In botany the word is used for ovaries not
terminating in a stigma. Acephalocyst is the name given by R.
T. H. Laennec to the hydatid, immature or larval tapeworm.
ACERENZA (anc. Aceruntia), a town of the province of
Potenza, Italy, the seat of an archbishop, 15 1/2 m. N.E. of the
station of Pietragalla, which is 9 m. N.W. of Potenza by rail,
2730 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 4499. Its situation is
one of great strength, and it has only one entrance, on the
south. It was occupied as a colony at latest by the end of
the Republic, and its importance as a fortress was specially
appreciated by the Goths and Lombards in the 6th and 7th
centuries. It has a fine Norman cathedral, upon the gable of
which is one of the best extant busts of Julian the Apostate.
ACEROSE (from Lat. acus, needle, or acer, sharp),
needle-shaped, a term used in botany (since Linnaeus) as
descriptive of the leaves, e.g., of pines. From Lat. aeus,
chaff, comes also the distinct meaning of ``mixed with chaff.''
ACERRA, a town and episcopal see of Campania, Italy,
in the province of Caserta, 9 m. N.E. from Naples by
rail. Pop. (1901) 16,443. The town lies on the right
bank of the Agno, which divides the province of Naples from
that of Caserta, 90 ft. above the sea, in a fertile but
somewhat marshy district, which in the middle ages was very
malarious. The ancient name (Acerrae) was also borne
by a town in Umbria and another in Gallia Transpadana
(the latter now Pizzighettone on the Adda, 13 m. W.N.W. of
Cremona). It became a city with Latin rights in 332 B.C.
and later a municipium. It was destroyed by Hannibal in 216
B.C., but restored in 210; in 90 B.C. it served as the
Roman headquarters in the Social war, and was successfully
held against the insurgents. It received a colony under
Augustus, but appears to have suffered much from floods of
the river Clams. Under the Empire we hear no more of it,
and no traces of antiquity, beyond inscriptions, remain.
ACERRA, in Roman antiquity, a small box or pot for holding
incense, as distinct from the turibulum (thurible) or
censer in which incense was burned. The name was also
given by the Romans to a little altar placed near the
dead, on which incense was offered every day till the
burial. In ecclesiastical Latin the term acerra is still
applied to the incense boats used in the Roman ritual.
ACETABULUM, the Latin word for a vinegar cup, an ancient
Roman vessel, used as a liquid measure (equal to about
half a gill); it is also a word used technically in
zoology, by analogy for certain cup-shaped parts, e.g.
the suckers of a mollusc, the socket of the thigh-bone,
&c.; and in botany for the receptacle of Fungi.
ACETIC ACID (acidum aceticum), CH3.CO2H, one of the most
important organic acids. It occurs naturally in the juice of
1 See Gibbon, ch. xlvii. (vol. v. p. 129 in Pury's ed.).
many plants, and as the esters of n-hexyl and n-octyl
alcohols in the seeds of Heracleum giganteum, and in the
fruit of Heracleum sphondylium, but is generally obtained,
on the large scale, from the oxidation of spoiled wines, or
from the destructive distillation of wood. In the former
process it is obtained in the form of a dilute aqueous
solution, in which also the colouring matters of the wine,
salts, &c., are dissolved; and this impure acetic acid is
what we ordinarily term vinegar (q.v.). Acetic acid (in
the form of vinegar) was known to the ancients, who obtained
it by the oxidation of alcoholic liquors. Wood-vinegar was
discovered in the middle ages. Towards the close of the
18th century, A. L. Lavoisier showed that air was necessary
to the formation of vinegar from alcohol. In 1830 J. B.
A. Dumas converted acetic acid into trichloracetic acid,
and in 1842 L. H. F. Melsens reconverted this derivative
into the original acetic acid by reduction with sodium
amalgam. The synthesis of trichloracetic acid from its
elements was accomplished in 1843 by H. Kolbe; this taken
in conjunction with Melsens's observation provided the first
synthesis of acetic acid. Anhydrous acetic acid--glacial
acetic acid--is a leafy crystalline mass melting at 16.7 deg.
C., and possessing an exceedingly pungent smell. It boils
at 118 deg. , giving a vapour of abnormal specific gravity.
It dissolves in water in all proportions with at first a
contraction and afterwards an increase in volume. It is
detected by heating with ordinary alcohol and sulphuric acid,
which gives rise to acetic ester or ethyl acetate, recognized
by its fragrant odour; or by heating with arsenious oxide,
which forms the pungent and poisonous cacodyl oxide. It is
a monobasic acid, forming one normal and two acid potassium
salts, and basic salts with iron, aluminium, lead and copper.
Ferrous and ferric acetates are used as mordants; normal
lead acetate is known in commerce as sugar of lead (q.v.);
basic copper acetates are known as verdigris (q.v.).
Pharmacology and Therapeutics.---Glacial acetic acid is
occasionally used as a caustic for corns. The dilute acid,
or vinegar, may be used to bathe the skin in fever, acting
as a pleasant refrigerant. Acetic acid has no valuable
properties for internal administration. Vinegar, however,
which contains about 5% acetic acid, is frequently taken
as a cure for obesity, but there is no warrant for this
application. Its continued employment may, indeed, so injure
the mucous membrane of the stomach as to interfere with digestion
and so cause a morbid and dangerous reduction in weight.
The acetates constitute a valuable group of medicinal agents,
the potassium salt being most frequently employed. After
absorption into the blood, the acetates are oxidized to
carbonates, and therefore are remote alkalies, and are
administered whenever it is desired to increase the alkalinity
of the blood or to reduce the acidity of the urine, without
exerting the disturbing influence of alkanes upon the digestive
tract. The citrates act in precisely similar fashion, and may be
substituted. They are somewhat more pleasant but more expensive.
ACETO-ACETIC ESTER, C6H10O3 or CH3.CO.CH2.COOC2H5,
a chemical substance discovered in 1863 by A. Geuther, who
showed that the chief product of the action of sodium on ethyl
acetate was a sodium compound of composition C6H9O3Na,
which on treatment with acids gave a colourless, somewhat
oily liquid of composition C6H10O3. E. Frankland and
B. F. Duppa in 1865 examined the reaction and concluded that
Geuther's sodium salt was a derivative of the ethyl ester
of acetone carboxylic acid and possessed the constitution
CH6CO.CHNa.COOC2H5. This view was not accepted by
Geuther, who looked upon his compound C6H10O3 as being
an acid. J. Wislicenus also investigated the reaction
very thoroughly and accepted the Frankland-Duppa formula
(Annalen, 1877, 186, p. 163; 1877, 190, p. 257).
The substance is best prepared by drying ethyl acetate over
calcium chloride and treating it with sodium wire, which
is best introduced in one operation; the liquid boils and
is then heated on a water bath for some hours, until the
sodium all dissolves. After the reaction is completed,
the liquid is acidified with dilute sulphuric acid (1:5)
and then shaken with salt solution, separated from the salt
solution, washed, dried and fractionated. The portion
boiling betbeen 175 deg. and 185 deg. C. is redistilled. The
yield amounts to about 30% of that required by theory.
A. Ladenburg and J. A. Wanklyn have shown that pure ethyl
acetate free from alcohol will not react with sodium to produce
aceto-acetic ester. L. Claisen, whose views are now accepted,
studied the reactions of sodium ethylate and showed that
if sodium ethylate be used in place of sodium in the above
reaction the same result is obtained. He explains the reactions
/ONa
CH3.C==O + NaOC2H5 = CH3.C-OC2H5,
\ OC2H5 \OC2H5
this reaction being followed by
/ONa H\
CH3.C-OC2H5 + CH.COOC2H5 = 2 C2 H5OH +
\OC2H5 H/ CH3.C(ONa):CH.COOC2H5;
and on acidification this last substance gives aceto-acetic
ester. Aceto-acetic ester is a colourless liquid boiling at
181 deg. C.; it is slightly soluble in water, and when distilled
undergoes some decomposition forming dehydracetic acid
C8H8O4. It undoubtedly contains a keto-group, for it
reacts with hydrocyanic acid, hydroxylamine, phenylhydrazine
and ammonia; sodium bisulphite also combines with it to
form a crystalline compound, hence it contains the grouping
CH 3/0.CO-. J. Wislicenus found that only one hydrogen atom
in the--CH2- group is directly replaceable by sodium, and
that if the sodium be then replaced by an alkyl group, the
second hydrogen atom in the group can be replaced in the same
manner. These alkyl substitution products are important,
for they lead to the synthesis of many organic compounds,
on account of the fact that they can be hydrolysed in
two different ways, barium hydroxide or dilute sodium
hydroxide solution giving the so-called ketone hydrolysis,
whilst concentrated sodium hydroxide gives the acid
Ketone hydrolysis:-
CH3.CO.C(XY).CO2C2H5 -> CH3.CO.CH(XY) +
C2H5OH + CO2;
Acid hydrolysis:-
CH3.CO.C(XY).CO2C2H5 -> CH3.CO2H + C2H5OH +
CH(XY).COOH;
(where X and Y = alkyl groups).
Both reactions occur to some extent simultaneously. Acetoacetic
ester is a most important synthetic reagent, having been
used in the production of pyridines (q.v.), quinolines
(q.v.), pyrazolones, furfurane (q.v.), pyrrols (q.v.),
uric acid (q.v.), and many complex acids and ketones.
For a discussion as to the composition, and whether
it is to be regarded as possessing the ``keto', form
CH3.CO.CH2.COOC2H6 or the ``enol'' form CH3.C(OH):
CH.COOC2H5, see ISOMERISM, and also papers by J. Wislicenus
(Ann., 1877, 186, p. 163; 1877, 190, p. 257), A. Michael
(Journ. Prak. Chem., 1887, [2] 37, p. 473), L. Knorr
(Ann., 1886, 238, p. 147), W. H. Perkin, senr. (Journ. of
Chem. Soc., 1892, 61, p. 800) and J. U. Nef (Ann., 1891,
266, p. 70; 1892, 270, pp. 289, 333; 1893, 276, p. 212).
ACETONE, or DIMETHYL KETONE, CH3.CO.CH3, in chemistry,
the simplest representative of the aliphatic ketones. It
is present in very small quantity in normal urine, in the
blood, and in larger quantities in diabetic patients.
It is found among the products formed in the destructive
distillation of wood, sugar, cellulose, &c., and for this
reason it is always present in crude wood spirit, from which
the greater portion of it may be re-covered by fractional
distillation. On the large scale it is prepared by the dry
distillation of calcium acetate (CH3CO2)2Ca = CaCO3 +
CH3COCH3. E. R. Squibb (Journ. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1895,
17, p. 187) manufactures it by passing the vapour of acetic
acid through a rotating iron cylinder containing a mixture
of pumice and precipitated barium carbonate, and kept at a
temperature of from 500 deg. C. to 600 deg. C. The mixed vapours
of acetone, acetic acid and water are then led through a
condensing apparatus so that the acetic acid and water are
first condensed, and then the acetone is condensed in a second
vessel. The barium carbonate used in the process acts as a
contact substance, since the temperature at which the operation
is carried out is always above the decomposition point of
barium acetate. Crude acetone may be purified by converting
it into the crystalline sodium bisulphite compound, which
is separated by filtration and then distilled with sodium
CH3\ / OH CH3\
2 C + Na2CO3 = 2 CO + 2 Na2SO3 +
CH3/ \ SO3Na CH3/ CO2 + H2O
It is then dehydrated and redistilled.
Acetone is largely used in the manufacture of cordite
(q.v.) For this purpose the crude distillate is
redistilled over sulphuric acid and then fractionated.
Acetone is a colourless mobile liquid of pleasant smell,
boiling at 56.53 deg. C., and has a specific gravity 0.819
(0 deg. /4 deg. C.). It is readily soluble in water, alcohol,
ether, &c. In addition to its application in the cordite
industry it is used in the manufacture of chloroform (q.v.)
and sulphonal, and as a solvent. It forms a hydrazone
with phenyl hydrazine, and an oxime with hydroxylamine.
Reduction by sodium amalgam converts it into isopropyl
alcohol; oxidation by chromic acid gives carbon dioxide
and acetic acid. With ammonia it reacts to form di- and
triacetoneamines. It also unites directly with hydrocyanic
acid to form the nitrile of a-oxyisobutyric acid.
By the action of various reagents such as lime, caustic potash,
hydrochloric acid, &c., acetone is converted into condensation
products, mesityl oxide C6H10O, phorone C9H14O, &c., being
formed. On distillation with sulphuric acid, it is converted
into mesitylene C9H12 (symmetrical trimethyl benzene).
Acetone has also been used in the artificial production of
indigo. In the presence of iodine and an alkali it gives
iodoform. Acetone has been employed medicinally in cases of
dyspnoea. With potassium iodide, glycerin and water,
it forms the preparation spirone, which has been used as
a spray inhalation in paroxysmal sneezing and asthma.
ACETOPHENONE, or PHENYL-METHYL KETONE, C8H8O or
C6H5CO.CH3, in chemistry, the simplest representative of
the class of mixed aliphatic-aromatic ketones. It can be
prepared by distilling a mixture of dry calcium benzoate and
acetate, Ca(O2CC6H5)2 + (CH3CO2)2Ca = 2CaCO3 + 2
C6H5CO.CH3, or by condensing benzene with acetyl chloride
in the presence of anhydrous aluminium chloride (C. Friedel
and J. M. Crafts), C6H6+CH3COCl == HCl + C6H5COCH3.
It crystallizes in colourless plates melting at 20 deg. C. and
bolling at 202 deg. C.; it is insoluble in water, but readily
dissolves in the ordinary organic solvents. It is reduced by
nascent hydrogen to the secondary alcohol C6H5.CH.OH.CH3
phenyl-methyl-carbinol, and on oxidation forms benzoic
acid. On the addition of phenylhydrazine it gives a
phenylhydrazone, and with hydroxylamine furnishes an
C6H5\
C=N.OH
CH3/
melting at 59 deg. C. This oxime undergoes a peculiar rearrangement
when it is dissolved in ether and phosphorus pentachloride is
added to the ethereal solution, the excess of ether distilled
off and water added to the residue being converted into the
isomeric substance acetanilide, C6H5NHCOCH3, a behaviour
shown by many ketoximes and known as the Beckmann change (see
Berichte, 1886, 19, p. 988). With sodium ethylate in ethyl
acetate solution it forms the sodium derivative of benzoyl
acetone, from which benzoyl acetone, C6H5.CO.CH2.CO.CH3,
can be obtained by acidification with acetic acid. When
heated with the halogens, acetophenone is substituted in
the aliphatic portion of the nucleus; thus bromine gives
phenacyl bromide, C6H6CO.CH2Br. Numerous derivatives of
acetophenone have been prepared, one of the most important
being orthoaminoacetophenone, NH2.C6H4.CO.CH3, which
is obtained by boiling orthoaminophenylpropiolic acid with
water. It is a thick yellowish oil bolling between 242 deg.
C. and 250 deg. C. It condenses with acetone in the presence
of caustic soda to a quinoline. Acetonyl-aeeto phenone,
C6H5 . CO . CH2 . CH2. CO . CH3, is produced by
condensing phenacyl bromide with sodium acetoacetate with
subsequent elimination of carbon dioxide, and on dehydration
gives aa-phenyl-methyl-furfurane. Oxazoles (q.v.) are
produced on condensing phenacyl bromide with acid-amides (M.
Lewy, Berichte, 1887, 20, p. 2578). K. L. Paal has also
obtained pyrrol derivatives by condensing acetophenone-aceto-
acetic-ester with substances of the type NH2R.
ACETYLENE, klumene or ethine, a gaseous compound of
carbon and hydrogen, represented by the formula C2H2.
Physical properties.
It is a colourless gas, having a density of 0.92. When prepared
by the action of water upon calcium carbide, it has a very strong
and penetrating odour, but when it is thoroughly purified from
sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen, which are invariably
present with it in minute traces, this extremely pungent odour
disappears, and the pure gas has a not unpleasant ethereal
smell. It can be condensed into the liquid state by cold
or by pressure, and experiments by G. Ansdell show that if
the gas be subjected to a pressure of 21.53 atmospheres at a
temperature of 0 deg. C., it is converted into the liquid state,
the pressure needed increasing with the rise of temperature,
and decreasing with the lowering of the temperature, until
at--82 deg. C. it becomes liquid under ordinary atmospheric
pressure. The critical point of the gas is 37 C., at which
temperature a pressure of 68 atmospheres is required for
liquefaction. The properties of liquid and solid acetylene
have been investigated by D. Mcintosh (Jour Chem. Soc.,
Abs., 1907, i. 458). A great future was expected from
its use in the liquid state, since a cylinder fitted with
the necessary reducing valves would supply the gas to light
a house for a considerable period, the liquid occupying
about 1/400 the volume of the gas, but in the United States
and on the continent of Europe, where liquefied acetylene
was made on the large scale, several fatal accidents
occurred owing to its explosion under not easily explained
conditions. As a result of these accidents M. P. E. Berthelot
and L. J. G. Vieille made a series of valuable researches
upon the explosion of acetylene under various conditions.
They found that if liquid acetylene in a steel bottle be
heated at one point by a platinum wire raised to a red heat,
the whole mass decomposes and gives rise to such tremendous
pressures that no cylinder would be able to withstand them.
These pressures varied from 71,000 to 100,000 lb. per square
inch. They, moreover, tried the effect of shock upon the
liquid, and found that the repeated dropping of the cylinder
from a height of nearly 20 feet upon a large steel anvil gave
no explosion, but that when the cylinder was crushed under
a heavy blow the impact was followed, after a short interval
of time, by an explosion which was manifestly due to the
fracture of the cylinder and the ignition of the escaping
gas, mixed with air, from sparks caused by the breaking of the
metal. A similar explosion will frequently follow the breaking
in the same way of a cylinder charged with hydrogen at a high
pressure. Continuing these experiments, they found that in
acetylene gas under ordinary pressures the decomposition
brought about in one portion of the gas, either by heat or the
firing in it of a small detonator, did not spread far beyond
the point at which the decomposition started, while if the
acetylene was compressed to a pressure of more than 30 lb. on
the square inch, the decomposition travelled throughout the
mass and became in reality detonation. These results showed
clearly that liquefied acetylene was far too dangerous for
general introduction for domestic purposes, since, although
the occasions would be rare in which the requisite temperature
to bring about detonation would be reached, still, if this
point were attained, the results would be of a most disastrous
character. The fact that several accidents had already
happened accentuated the risk, and in Great Britain the
storage and use of liquefied acetylene are prohibited.
When liquefied acetylene is allowed to escape from the cylinder
in which it is contained into ordinary atmospheric pressure,
some of the liquid assumes the gaseous condition with such
rapidity as to cool the remainder below the temperature
of -90 deg. C., and convert it into a solid snow-like mass.
Solubility of acetylene.
Acetylene is readily soluble in water, which at normal
temperature and pressure takes up a little more than its
own volume of the gas, and yields a solution giving a
purple-red precipitate with ammoniacal cuprous chloride and
a white precipitate with silver nitrate, these precipitates
consisting of acetylides of the metals. The solubility of
the gas in various liquids, as given by different observers,
100 Volumes of Volumes of Acetylene.
Brine absorb 5
Water '' 110
Alcohol '' 600
Paraffin '' 150
Carbon disulphide '' 100
Fusel oil '' 100
Benzene '' 400
Chloroform '' 400
Acetic acid '' 600
Acetone '' 2500
It will be seen from this table that where it is desired
to collect and keep acetylene over a liquid, brine, i.e.
water saturated with salt, is the best for the purpose, but
in practice it is found that, unless water is agitated with
acetylene, or the gas bubbled through, the top layer soon gets
saturated, and the gas then dissolves but slowly. The great
solubility of acetylene in acetone was pointed out by G. Claude
and A. Hess, who showed that acetone will absorb twenty-five
times its own volume of acetylene at a temperature of 15 deg. C.
under atmospheric pressure, and that, providing the temperature
is kept constant, the liquid acetone will go on absorbing
acetylene at the rate of twenty-five times its own volume for
every atmosphere of pressure to which the gas is subjected.
At first it seemed as if this discovery would do away with
all the troubles connected with the storage of acetylene
under pressure, but it was soon found that there were
serious difficulties still to be overcome. The chief
trouble was that acetone expands a small percentage of its
own volume while it is absorbing acetylene; therefore it is
impossible to fill a cylinder with acetone and then force
in acetylene, and still more impracticable only partly to
fill the cylinder with acetone, as in that case the space
above the liquid would be filled with acetylene under high
pressure, and would have all the disadvantages of a cylinder
containing compressed acetylene only. This difficulty
was overcome by first filling the cylinder with porous
briquettes and then soaking them with a fixed percentage of
acetone, so that after allowing for the space taken up by
the bricks the quantity of acetone soaked into the brick
will absorb ten times the normal volume of the cylinder in
acetylene for every atmosphere of pressure to which the gas
is subjected, whilst all danger of explosion is eliminated.
This fact having been fully demonstrated, acetylene dissolved
in this way was exempted from the Explosives Act, and
consequently upon this exemption a large business has grown up
in the preparation and use of dissolved acetylene for lighting
motor omnibuses, motor cars, railway carriages, lighthouses,
buoys, yachts, &c., for which it is particularly adapted.
Poisonous properties.
Acetylene was at one time supposed to be a highly poisonous
gas, the researches of A. Bistrow and O. Liebreich having
apoarently shown that it acts upon the blood in the same way
as carbon monoxide to form a stable compound. Very extensive
experiments, however, made by Drs N. Grehant, A. L. Brociner, L.
Crismer, and others, all conclusively show that acetylene is
much less toxic than carbon monoxide, and indeed than coal gas.
Chemical properties.
When acetylene was first introduced on a Commercial scale
grave fears were entertained as to its safety, it being
represented that it had the power of combining with certain
metals, more especially copper and silver, to form acetylides
of a highly explosive character, and-that even with coal
gas, which contains less than 1%, such copper compounds had
been known to be formed in cases where the gas-distributing
mains were composed of copper, and that accidents had
happened from this cause. It was therefore predicted that
the introduction of acetylene on a large scale would be
followed by numerous accidents unless copper and its alloys
were rigidly excluded from contact with the gas. These fears
have, however, fortunately proved to be unfounded, and ordinary
gas fittings can be used with perfect safety with this gas.
Acetylene has the property of inflaming spontaneously when
brought in contact with chlorine. If a few pieces of carbide
be dropped into saturated chlorine water the bubbles of
gas take fire as they reach the surface, and if a jet of
acetylene be passed up into a bottle of chlorine it takes
fire and burns with a heavy red flame, depositing its carbon
in the form of soot. If chlorine be bubbled up into a
jar of acetylene standing over water, a violent explosion,
attended with a flash of intense light and the deposition of
carbon, at once takes place. When the gas is kept in a small
glass holder exposed to direct sunlight, the surface of the
glass soon becomes dimmed, and W. A. Bone has shown that
when exposed for some time to the sun's rays it undergoes
certain polymerization changes which lead to the deposition
of a film of heavy hydrocarbons on the surface of the
tube. It has also been observed by L. Cailletet and later
by P. Villard that when allowed to stand in the presence
of water at a low temperature a solid hydrate is formed.
The polymerization of acetylene.
Acetylene is readily decomposed by heat, polymerizing under
its influence to form an enormous number of organic compounds;
indeed the gas, which can itself be directly prepared from its
constituents, carbon and hydrogen, under the influence of the
electric arc, can be made the starting point for the construction
of an enormous number of different organic compounds of a complex
character. In contact with nascent hydrogen it bunds up
ethylene; ethylene acted upon by sulphuric acid yields ethyl
sulphuric acid; this can again be decomposed in the presence
of water to yield alcohol, and it has also been proposed to
manufacture sugar from this body. Picric acid can also be
obtained from it by first treating acetylene with sulphuric
acid, converting the product into phenol by solution in
potash and then treating the phenol with fuming nitric acid.
Endothermic nature of acetylene.
Acetylene is one of those bodies the formation of which is
attended with the disappearance of heat, and it is for this
reason termed an ``endothermic'' compound, in contradistinction
to those bodies which evolve heat in their formation, and
which are called ``exothermic.'' Such endothermic bodies
are nearly always found to show considerable violence in
their decomposition, as the heat of formation stored up
within them is then liberated as sensible heat, and it is
undoubtedly this property of acetylene gas which leads to its
easy detonation by either heat or a shock from an explosion
of fulminating mercury when in contact with it under
pressure. The observation that acetylene can be resolved
into its constituents by detonation is due to Berthelot,
who started an explosive wave in it by firing a charge of
0.1 gram of mercury fulminate. It has since been shown,
however, that unless the gas is at a pressure of more than
two atmospheres this wave soon dies out, and the decomposition
is only propagated a few inches from the detonator. Heated
in contact with air to a temperature of 480 deg. C., acetylene
ignites and burns with a flame, the appearance of which
varies with the way in which it is brought in contact with the
air. With the gas in excess a heavy lurid flame emitting
dense volumes of smoke results, whilst if it be driven out
in a sufficiently thin sheet, it burns with a flame of
intense brilliancy and ulmost perfect whiteness, by the
light of which colours can be judged as well as they can by
daylight. Having its ignition point below that of ordinary
gas, it can be ignited by any red-hot carbonaceous matter,
such as the brightly glowing end of a cigar. For its
complete combustion a volume of acetylene needs approximately
twelve volumes of air, forming as products of combustion
carbon dioxide and water vapour. When, however, the air is
present in much smaller ratio the combustion is incomplete,
and carbon, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and
water vapour are produced. This is well shown by taking a
cylinder one-half full of acetylene and one-half of air; on
applying a light to the mixture a lurid flame runs down the
cylinder and a cloud of soot is thrown up, the cylinder also
being thickly coated with it, and often containing a ball of
carbon. If now, after a few moments' interval to allow
some air to diffuse into the cylinder, a taper again be
applied, an explosion takes place, due to a mixture of
carbon monoxide and air. It is probable that when a flame
is smoking badly, distinct traces of carbon monoxide are
being produced, but when an acetylene flame burns properly
the products are as harmless as those of coal gas, and,
light for light, less in amount. Mixed with air, like
every other combustible gas, acetylene forms an explosive
mixture. F. Clowes has shown that it has a wider range of
explosive proportions when mixed with air than any of the
other combustible gases, the limiting percentages being as
Acetylene . . . . . . . 3 to 82
Hydrogen . . . . . . . 5 to 72
Carbon monoxide . . . . 13 to 75
Ethylene . . . . . . . 4 to 22
Methane . . . . . . . . 5 to 13
Methods of production.
The methods which can be and have been employed from time to
time for the formation of acetylene in small quantities are
exceedingly numerous. Before the commercial production of
calcium carbide made it one of the most easily obtainable
gases, the processes which were most largely adopted for its
preparation in laboratories were:-first, the decomposition
of ethylene bromide by dropping it slowly into a boiling
solution of alcoholic potash, and purifying the evolved
gas from the volatile bromethylene by washing it through
a second flask containing a boiling solution of alcoholic
potash, or by passing it over moderately heated soda lime;
and, second, the more ordinarily adopted process of passing
the products of incomplete combustion from a Bunsen burner,
the flame of which had struck back, through an ammoniacal
solution of cuprous chloride, when the red copper acetylide
was produced. This on being washed and decomposed with
hydrochloric acid yielded a stream of acetylene gas. This
second method of production has the great drawback that,
unless proper precautions are taken to purify the gas obtained
from the copper acetylide, it is always contaminated with
certain chlorine derivatives of acetylene. Edmund Davy
first made acetylene in 1836 from a compound produced during
the manufacture of potassium from potassium tartrate and
charcoal, which under certain conditions yielded a black
compound decomposed by water with considerable violence and
the evolution of acetylene. This compound was afterwards fully
investigated by J. J. Berzelius, who showed it to be potassium
carbide. He also made the corresponding sodium compound
and showed that it evolved the same gas, whilst in 1862 F.
Wohler first made calcium carbide, and found that water
decomposed it into lime and acetylene. It was not, however,
until 1892 that the almost simultaneous discovery was made
by T. L. Willson in America and H. Moissan in France that if
lime and carbon be fused together at the temperature of the
electric furnace, the lime is reduced to calcium, which unites
with the excess of carbon present to form calcium carbide.
Manufacture of calcium carbide.
The cheap production of this material and the easy liberation
by its aid of acetylene at once gave the gas a position of
commercial importance. In the manufacture of calcium carbide
in the electric furnace, lime and anthracite of the highest
possible degree of purity are employed. A good working mixture
of these materials may be taken as being 100 parts by weight
of lime with 68 parts by weight of carbonaceous material.
About 1.8 lb. of this is used up for each pound of carbide
produced. The two principal processes utilized in making
calcium carbide by electrical power are the ingot process and
the tapping process. In the former, the anthracite and lime
are ground and carefully mixed in the right proportions to
suit the chemical actions involved. The arc is struck in a
crucible into which the mixture is allowed to flow, partially
filling it. An ingot gradually builds up from the bottom
of the crucible, the carbon electrode being raised from time
to time automatically or by hand to suit the diminution of
resistance due to the shortening of the arc by the rising
ingot. The crucible is of metal and considerably larger
than the ingot, the latter being surrounded by a mass of
unreduced material which protects the crucible from the intense
heat. When the ingot has been made and the crucible is
full, the latter is withdrawn and another substituted. The
process is not continuous, but a change of crucibles only
takes two or three minutes under the best conditions, and
only occurs every ten or fifteen hours. The essence of this
process is that the coke and lime are only heated to the
point of combination, and are not ``boiled'' after being
formed. It is found that the ingot of calcium carbide formed
in the furnace, although itself consisting of pure crystalline
calcium carbide, is nearly always surrounded by a crust
which contains a certain proportion of imperfectly converted
constituents, and therefore gives a lower yield of acetylene
than the carbide itself. In breaking up and sending out
the carbide for commercial work, packed in air-tight drums,
the crust is removed by a sand blast. A statement of the
amount made per kilowatt hour may be misleading, since a
certain amount of loss is of necessity entailed during this
process. For instance, in practical working it has been
found that a furnace return of 0.504 lb. per kilowatt hour
is brought down to 0.406 lb. per kilowatt hour when the
material has been broken up, sorted and packed in air-tight
drums. In the tapping process a fixed crucible is used,
lined with carbon, the electrode is nearly as big as the
crucible and a much higher current density is used. The
carbide is heated to complete liquefaction and tapped at short
intervals. There is no unreduced material, and the process
is considerably simplified, while less expensive plant is
required. The run carbide, however, is never so rich as
the ingot carbide, since an excess of lime is nearly always
used in the mixture to act as a flux, and this remaining
in the carbide lowers its gas-yielding power. Many
attempts have been made to produce the substance without
electricity, but have met with no commercial success.
Properties of calcium carbide.
Calcium carbide, as formed in the electric furnace, is a
beautiful crystalline semi-metallic solid, having a density
of 2.22, and showing a fracture which is often shot with
iridescent colours. It can be kept unaltered in dry air,
but the smallest trace of moisture in the atmosphere leads
to the evolution of minute quantities of acetylene and gives
it a distinctive odour. It is infusible at temperatures up
to 2000 deg. C., but can he fused in the electric arc. When
heated to a temperature of 245 deg. C. in a stream of chlorine
gas it becomes incandescent, forming calcium chloride and
liberating carbon, and it can also be made to burn in oxygen
at a dull red heat, leaving behind a residue of calcium
carbonate. Under the same conditions it becomes incandescent
in the vapour of sulphur, yielding calcium sulphide and
carbon disulphide; the vapour of phosphorus will also unite
with it at a red heat. Acted upon by water it is at once
decomposed, yielding acetylene and calcium hydrate. Pure
crystalline calcium carbide yields 5.8 cubic feet of acetylene
per pound at ordinary temperatures, but the carbide as sold
commercially, being a mixture of the pure crystalline material
with the crust which in the electric furnace surrounds the
ingot, yields at the best 5 cubic feet of gas per pound under
proper conditions of generation. The volume of gas obtained;
however, depends very largely upon the form of apparatus
used, and while some will give the full volume, other
apparatus will only yield, with the same carbide, 3 3/4 feet.
Impurities.
The purity of the carbide entirely depends on the purity
of the material used in its manufacture, and before this
fact had been fully grasped by manufacturers, and only the
purest material obtainable employed, it contained notable
quantities of compounds which during its decomposition by
water yielded a somewhat high portion of impurities in the
acetylene generated from it. Although at the present time
a marvellous improvement has taken place all round in the
quality of the carbide produced, the acetylene nearly always
contains minute traces of hydrogen, ammonia, sulphuretted
hydrogen, phosphuretted hydrogen, silicon hydride, nitrogen and
oxygen, and sometimes minute traces of carbon monoxide and
dioxide. The formation of hydrogen is caused by small
traces of metallic calcium occasionally found free in the
carbide, and cases have been known where this was present in
such quantities that the evolved gas contained nearly 20% of
hydrogen. This takes place when in the manufacture of the
carbide the material is kept too long in contact with the
arc, since this overheating causes the dissociation of
some of the calcium carbide and the solution of metallic
calcium in the remainder. The presence of free hydrogen is
nearly always accompanied by silicon hydride formed by the
combination of the nascent hydrogen with the silicon in the
carbide. The ammonia found in the acetylene is probably partly
due to the presence of magnesium nitride in the carbide.
On decomposition by water, ammonia is produced by the action
of steam or of nascent hydrogen on the nitride, the quantity
formed depending very largely upon the temperature at which
the carbide is decomposed. The formation of nitrides and
cyanamides by actions of this kind and their easy conversion
into ammonia is a useful method for fixing the nitrogen
of the atmosphere and rendering it available for manurial
purposes. Sulphuretted hydrogen, which is invariably present
in commercial acetylene, is formed by the decomposition of
aluminium sulphide. A. Mourlot has shown that aluminium
sulphide, zinc sulphide and cadmium sulphide are the only
sulphur compounds which can resist the heat of the electric
furnace without decomposition or volatilization, and of
these aluminium sulphide is the only one which is decomposed
by water with the evolution of sulphuretted hydrogen.
In the early samples of carbide this compound used to be
present in considerable quantity, but now rarely more than
1/10 % is to be found. Phosphuretted hydrogen, one of the
most important impurities, which has been blamed for the
haze formed by the combustion of acetylene under certain
conditions, is produced by the action of water upon traces
of calcium phosphide found in carbide. Although at first it
was no uncommon thing to find 1/2% of phosphuretted hydrogen
present in the acetylene, this has now been so reduced
by the use of pure materials that the quantity is rarely
above 0.15%, and it is often not one-fifth of that amount.
Generation of acetylene from carbide.
In the generation of acetylene from calcium carbide and water,
all that has to be done is to bring these two compounds into
contact, when they mutually react upon each other with the
formation of lime and acetylene, while, if there be sufficient
water present, the lime combines with it to form calcium hydrate.
Calcium carbide. Water. Acetylene. Lime.
CaC2 + H2O = C2H2 + CaO
Lime. Water. Calcium hydrate.
CaO + H2O = Ca(HO)2
The decomposition of the carbide by water may be brought
about either by bringing the water slowly into contact with
an excess of carbide, or by dropping the carbide into an
excess of water, and these two main operations again may
be varied by innumerable ingenious devices by which the
rapidity of the contact may be modified or even eventually
stopped. The result is that although the forms of apparatus
utilized for this purpose are all based on the one fundamental
principle of bringing about the contact of the carbide with
the water which is to enter into double decomposition with
it, they have been multiplied in number to a very large
extent by the methods employed in order to ensure control in
working, and to get away from the dangers and inconveniences
which are inseparable from a too rapid generation.
Generators.
In attempting to classify acetylene generators some authorities
have divided them into as many as six different classes,
but this is hardly necessary, as they may be divided into
two main classes---first, those in which water is brought in
contact with the carbide, the carbide being in excess during
the first portion of the operation; and, second, those in
which the carbide is thrown into water, the amount of water
present being always in excess. The first class may again
be subdivided into generators in which the water rises in
contact with the carbide, in which it drips upon the carbide,
and in which a vessel full of carbide is lowered into water
and again with-drawn as generation becomes excessive. Some
of these generators are constructed to make the gas only
as fast as it is consumed at the burner, with the object
of saving the expense and room which would be involved by a
storage-holder. Generators with devices for regulating and
stopping at will the action going on are generally termed
``automatic.'' Another set merely aims at developing the gas
from the carbide and putting it into a storageholder with as
little loss as possible, and these are termed ``non-automatic.''
The points to be attained in a good generator are:--
1. Low temperature of generation.
2. Complete decomposition of the carbide.
3. Maximum evolution of the gas.
4. Low pressure in every part of the apparatus.
5. Ease in charging and removal of residues.
6. Removal of all air from the apparatus before generation of the gas.
When carbide is acted upon by water considerable heat is
evolved; indeed, the action develops about one-twentieth of
the heat evolved by the combustion of carbon. As, however,
the temperature developed is a function of the time needed
to complete the action, the degree of heat attained varies
with every form of generator, and while the water in one form
may never reach the boiling-point, the carbide in another
may become red-hot and give a temperature of over 800 deg. C.
Heating in a generator is not only a source of danger, but
also lessens the yield of gas and deteriorates its quality.
The best forms of generator are either those in which water
rises slowly in contact with the carbide, or the second main
division in which the carbide falls into excess of water.
Purification
It is clear that acetylene, if it is to be used on a large
scale as a domestic illuminant, must undergo such processes
of purification as will render it harmless and innocuous
to health and property, and the sooner it is recognized as
absolutely essential to purify acetylene before consuming it
the sooner will the gas acquire the popularity it deserves.
The only one of the impurities which offers any difficulty
in removal is the phosphuretted hydrogen. There are three
substances which can be relied on more or less to remove
this compound, and the gas to be purified may be passed
either through acid copper salts, through bleaching powder
or through chromic acid. In experiments with those various
bodies it is found that they are all of them effective in
also ridding the acetylene of the ammonia and sulphuretted
hydrogen, provided only that the surface area presented to
the gas is sufficiently large. The method of washing the gas
with acid solutions of copper has been patented by A. Frank
of Charlottenburg, who finds that a concentrated solution
of cuprous chloride in an acid, the liquid being made into
a paste with kieselguhr, is the most effective. Where the
production of acetylene is going on on a small scale this
method of purification is undoubtedly the most convenient
one, as the acid present absorbs the ammonia, and the copper
salt converts the phosphuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen
into phosphates and sulphides. The vessel, however, which
contains this mixture has to be of earthenware, porcelain
or enamelled iron on account of the free acid present; the
gas must be washed after purification to remove traces of
hydrochloric acid, and care must be taken to prevent the
complete neutralization of the acid by the ammonia present
in the gas. The second process is one patented by Fritz
Ullmann of Geneva, who utilizes chromic acid to oxidize
the phosphuretted and sulphuretted hydrogen and absorb the
ammonia, and this method of purification has proved the most
successful in practice, the chromic acid being absorbed by
kieselguhr and the material sold under the name of ``Heratol.''
The third process owes its inception to G. Lunge, who
recommends the use of bleaching powder. Dr P. Wolff has found
that when this is used on the large scale there is a risk
of the ammonia present in the acetylene forming traces of
chloride of nitrogen in the purifying-boxes, and as this is
a compound which detonates with considerable local force,
it occasionally gives rise to explosions in the purifying
apparatus. If, however, the gas be first passed through
a scrubber so as to wash out the ammonia this danger is
avoided. Dr Wolff employs purifiers in which the gas is
washed with water containing calcium chloride, and then passed
through bleaching-powder solution or other oxidizing material.
When acetylene is burnt from a 000 union jet burner, at all
ordinary pressures a smoky flame is obtained, but on the
pressure being increased to 4 inches a magnificent flame
results, free from smoke, and developing an illuminating
value of 240 candles per 5 cubic feet of gas consumed.
Slightly higher values have been obtained, but 240 may
be taken as the average value under these conditions.
Burners.
When acetylene was first introduced as a commercial illuminant
in England, very small union jet nipples were utilized for
its consumption, but after burning for a short time these
nipples began to carbonize, the flame being distorted, and
then smoking occurred with the formation of a heavy deposit of
soot. While these troubles were being experienced in England,
attempts had been made in America to use acetylene diluted
with a certain proportion of air which permitted it to be
burnt in ordinary flat flame nipples; but the danger of such
admixture being recognized, nipples of the same class as
those used in England were employed, and the same troubles
ensued. In France, single jets made of glass were first
employed, and then P. Resener, H. Luchaire, G. Ragot and
others made burners in which two jets of acetylene, coming
from two tubes placed some little distance apart, impinged
and splayed each other out into a butterfly flame. Soon
afterwards, J. S. Billwiller introduced the idea of sucking
air into the flame at or just below the burner tip, and at
this juncture the Naphey or Dolan burner was introduced in
America, the principle employed being to use two small and
widely separated jets instead of the two openings of the
union jet burner, and to make each a minute bunsen, the
acetylene dragging in from the base of the nipple enough air
to surround and protect it while burning from contact with the
steatite. This class of burner forms a basis on which all
the later constructions of burner have been founded, but had
the drawback that if the flame was turned low, insufficient
air to prevent carbonization of the burner tips was drawn
in, owing to the reduced flow of gas. This fault has
now been reduced by a cage of steatite round the burner
tip, which draws in sufficient air to prevent deposition.
Oxy-acetylene blowpipe. When acetylene was first introduced
on a commercial scale attempts were made to utilize its
great heat of combustion by using it in conjunction with
oxygen in the oxyhydrogen blowpipe. It was found, however,
that when using acetylene under low pressures, the burner
tip became so heated as to cause the decomposition of some
of the gas before combustion, the jet being choked up by
the carbon which deposited in a very dense form; and as the
use of acetylene under pressures greater than one hundred
inches of water was prohibited, no advance was made in this
direction. The introduction of acetylene dissolved under
pressure in acetone contained in cylinders filled with
porous material drew attention again to this use of the
gas, and by using a special construction of blowpipe an
oxy-acetylene flame is produced, which is far hotter than the
oxy-hydrogen flame, and at the same time is so reducing in
its character that it can be used for the direct autogenous
welding of steel and many minor metallurgical processes.
REFERENCES.---F. H. Leeds and W. A. Butterfield, Calcium
Carbide and Acetylene (1903); F. Dommer, L'Acetylene et
ses applications (1896); V. B. Lewes, Acetylene (1900);
F. Liebetanz, Calcium-carbid und Acetylen (1899); G.
Pelissier, L'Eclairage a l'acetylene (1897); C. de
Perrodil, Le carbure de calcium et l'acetylene (1897).
For a complete list of the various papers and memoirs on
Acetylene, see A. Ludwig's Fuhrer durch die gesammte
Calcium carbid-und-Acetylen-Literatur, Berlin. (V. B. L.)
ACHAEA, a district on the northern coast of the Peloponnese,
stretching from the mountain ranges of Erymanthus and
Cyllene on the S. to a narrow strip of fertile land on the
N., bordering the Corinthian Gulf, into which the mountain
Panachaicus projects. Achaea is bounded on the W. by the
territory of Elis, on the E. by that of Sicyon, which,
however, was sometimes included in it. The origin of the
name has given rise to much speculation; the current theory
is that the Achaeans (q.v.) were driven back into this
region by the Dorian invaders of the Peloponnese. Another
Achaea, in the south of Thessaly, called sometimes Achaea
Phthiotis, has been supposed to be the cradle of the
race. In Roman times the name of the province of Achaea was
given to the whole of Greece, except Thessaly, Epirus, and
Acarnania. Herodotus (i. 145) mentions the twelve cities Of
Achaea; three met as a religious confederacy in the temple
of Poseidon Heliconius at Helice; for their later history
see ACHAEAN LEAGUE. During the middle ages, after the
Latin conquest of the Eastern Empire, Achaea was a Latin
principality, the first prince being William de Champlitte (d.
1209). It survived, with various dismemberments, until 1430,
when the last prince, Centurione Zaccaria, ceded the remnant
of it to his son-in-law, Theodorus II., despot of Mistra.
In 1460 it was conquered, with the rest of the Morea, by the
Turks. In modern times the coast of Achaea is mainly given
up to the currant industry; the currants are shipped from
Patras, the second town of Greece, and from Aegion (Vostitza).
ACHAEAN LEAGUE, a confederation of the ancient towns of
Achaea. Standing isolated on their narrow strips of plain,
these towns were always exposed to the raids of pirates
issuing from the recesses of the north coast of the Corinthian
Gulf. It was no doubt as a protection against such dangers
that the earliest league of twelve Achaean cities arose,
though we are nowhere explicitly informed of its functions
other than the common worship of Zeus Amarius at Aegium and
an occasional arbitration between Greek belligerents. Its
importance grew in the 4th century, when we find it fighting
in the Theban wars (368-362 B.C.), against Philip (338) and
Antipater (330). About 288 Antigonus Gonatas dissolved the
league, which had furnished a useful base for pretenders
against Cassander's regency; but by 280 four towns combined
again, and before long the ten surviving cities of Achaea
had renewed their federation. Antigonus' preoccupation
during the Celtic invasions, Sparta's prostration after
the Chremonidean campaigns, the wealth amassed by Achaean
adventurers abroad and the subsidies of Egypt, the standing
foe of Macedonia, all enhanced the league's importance.
Most of all did it profit by the statesmanship of Aratus
(q.v.), who initiated its expansive policy, until in
228 it comprised Arcadia, Argolis, Corinth and Aegina.
Aratus probably also organized the new federal constitution,
the character of which, owing to the scanty and somewhat
perplexing nature of our evidence, we can only approximately
determine. The league embraced an indefinite number of
city-states which maintained their internal independence
practically undiminished, and through their several
magistrates, assemblies and law-courts exercised all
traditional powers of self-government. Only in matters of
foreign politics and war was their competence restricted.
The central government, like that of the constituent
cities, was of a democratic cast. The chief legislative
powers resided in a popular assembly in which every member
of the league over thirty years of age could speak and
vote. This body met for three days in spring and autumn at
Aegium to discuss the league's policy and elect the federal
magistrates. Whatever the number of its attendant burgesses,
each city counted but one on a division. Extraordinary
assemblies could be convoked at any time or place on special
emergencies. A council of 120 unpaid delegates, selected from
the local councils, served partly as a committee for preparing
the assembly's programme, partly as an administrative board
which received embassies, arbitrated between contending cities
and exercised penal jurisdiction over offenders against the
constitution. But perhaps some of these duties concerned
the dicastae and gerousia, whose functions are nowhere
described. The chief magistracy was the strategia (tenable
every second year), which combined with an unrestricted command
in the field a large measure of civil authority. Besides
being authorized to veto motions, the strategus (general) had
practically the sole power of introducing measures before the
assembly. The ten elective demiurgi, who presided over this
body, formed a kind of cabinet, and pethaps acted as departmental
chiefs. We also hear of an under-strategus, a secretary, a
cavalry commander and an admiral. All these higher officers
were unpaid. Philopoemen (q.v.) transferred the seat of
assembly from town to town by rotation, and placed dependent
communities on an equal footing with their former suzerains.
The league prescribed uniform laws, standards and coinage; it summoned
contingents, imposed taxes and fined or coerced refractory members.
The first federal wars were directed against Macedonia; in
266-263 the league fought in the Chremonidean league, in
243-241 against Antigonus Gonatas and Aetolia, between 239
and 229 with Aetolia against Demetrius. A greater danger
arose (227-223) from the attacks of Cleomenes III. (q.v.).
Owing to Aratus's irresolute generalship, the indolence of
the rich burghers and the inadequate provision for levying
troops and paying mercenaries, the league lost several battles
and much of its territory; but rather than compromise with
the Spartan Gracchus the assembly negotiated with Antigonus
Doson, who recovered the lost districts but retained Corinth
for himself (223-221). Similarly the Achaeans could not
check the incursions of Aetolian adventurers in 220-218,
and when Philip V. came to the rescue he made them tributary
and annexed much of the Peloponnese. Under Philopoemen the
league with a reorganized army routed the Aetolians (210)
and Spartans (207, 201). After their benevolent neutrality
during the Macedonian war the Roman general, T. Quinctius
Flamininus, restored all their lost possessions and sanctioned
the incorporation of Sparta and Messene (191), thus bringing
the entire Peloponnese under Achaean control. The league
even sent troops to Pergamum against Antiochus (190).
The annexation of Aetolia and Zacynthus was forbidden by
Rome. Moreover, Sparta and Messene always remained unwilling
members. After Philopoemen's death the aristocrats initiated a
strongly philo-Roman policy, declared war against King Perseus
and denounced all sympathizers with Macedonia. This agitation
induced the Romans to deport 1000 prominent Achaeans, and,
failing proof of treason against Rome, to detain them seventeen
years. These hostages, when restored in 150, swelled the
ranks of the proletariate opposition, whose leaders, to
cover their maladministration at home, precipitated a war
by attacking Sparta in defiance of Rome. The federal troops
were routed in central Greece by Q. Caecilius Metellus
Masedonicus, and again near Corinth by L. Mummius Achaicus
(146). The Romans now dissolved the league (in effect, if not
in name), and took measures to isolate the communities (see
POLYBIUS). Augustus instituted an Achaean synod comprising
the dependent cities of Peloponnese and central Greece; this
body sat at Argos and acted as guardian of Hellenic sentiment.
The chief defect of the league lay in its lack of proper
provision for securing efficient armies and regular
payment of imposts, and for dealing with disaffected
members. Moreover, owing to difficulties of travel, the
assembly and magistracies were practically monopolized
by the rich, who shaped the federal policy in their own
interest. But their rule was mostly judicious, and when at
last they lost control the ensuing mob-rule soon ruined the
country. On the other hand, it is the glory of the Achaean
league to have combined city autonomy with an organized
central administration, and in this way to have postponed
the entire destruction of Greek liberty for over a century.
CHIEF SOURCES.--Polybius (esp. bks. ii., iv., v., xxiii.,
xxviii.),who is followed by Livy (bks. xxxii.-xxxv.,
xxxviii., &c.); Pausanias vii. 9-24; Strabo viii. 384; F.
Freeman, Federal Government, i. (ed. 1893, London), chs.
v.-ix.; M. Dubois, Les lignes Etolienne et Acheenne
(Paris, 1885); A. Holm, Greek History, iv.; G. Hertzberg,
Geschichte Griechenlands unter den Romern, i. (Leipzig,
1866); L. Warren, Greek Federal Coinage (London, 1863); E.
Hicks, Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1892),
169, 187, 198, 201; W.. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionunn
Graecarum (Leipzig, 1898--1901), 236, 282, 316; H. Francotte
in Musee Belge (1906), pp. 4-20. See also art. ROME,
History, ii. ``The Republic,'' sect. B(b). (M. O. B. C.)
ACHAEANS ('Achaioi, Lat. Achivi), one of the four
chief divisions of the ancient greek peoples, descended,
according to legend, from Achaeus, son of Xuthus, son of
Hellen. This Hesiodic genealogy connects the Achaeans closely
with the Ionians, but historically they approach nearer to
the Aeolians. Some even hold that Aeolus is only a form of
Achaeus. In the Homeric poems (1000 B.C.) the Achaeans
are the master race in Greece; they are represented both in
Homer and in all later traditions as having come into Greece
about three generations before the Trojan war (1184 B.C.),
i.e. about 1300 B.C. They found the land occupied by a
people known by the ancients as Pelasgians, who continued
down to classical times the main element in the population
even in the states under Achaean and later under Dorian rule.
In some cases it formed a serf class, e.g. the Penestae in
Thessaly, the Helots in Laconia and the Gymnesii at Argos,
whilst it practically composed the whole population of Arcadia
and Attica, which never came under either Achaean or Dorian
rule. This people had dwelt in the Aegean from the Stone
Age, and, though still in the Bronze Age at the Achaean
conquest, had made great advances in the useful and ornamental
arts. They were of short stature, with dark hair and eyes,
and generally dolichocephalic. Their chief centres were
at Cnossus (Crete), in Argolis, Laconia and Attica, in each
being ruled by ancient lines of kings. In Argolis Proetus
built Tiryns, but later, under Perseus, Mycenae took the
lead until the Achaean conquest. All the ancient dynasties
traced their descent from Poseidon, who at the time of the
Achaean conquest was the chief male divinity of Greece and the
islands. The Pelasgians probably spoke an Indo-European
language adopted by their conquerors with slight modifications.
(See further PELASGIANS for a discussion of other views.)
The Achaeans, on the other hand, were tall, fair-haired and
grey-eyed, and their chiefs traced their descent from Zeus,
Who with the Hyperborean Apollo was their chief male divinity.
They first appear at Dodona, whence they crossed Pindus into
Phthiotis. The leaders of the Achaean invasion were Pelops,
who took possession of Elis, and Aeacus, who became master
of Aegina and was said to have introduced there the worship
of Zeus Panhellenius, whose cult was also set up at Olympia.
They brought with them iron, which they used for their long
swords and for their cutting implements; the costume of both
sexes was distinct from that of the Pelasgians; they used
round shields with a central boss instead of the 8-shaped
or rectaogular shields of the latter; they fastened their
garments with brooches, and burned their dead instead of
burying them as did the Pelasgians. They introduced a special
style of ornament (``geometric'') instead of that of the
Bronze Age, characterized by spirals and marine animals and
plants. The Achaeans, or Hellenes, as they were later
termed, were on this hypothesis one of the fair-haired tribes
of upper Europe known to the ancients as Keltoi (Celts),
who from time to time have pressed down over the Alps into
the southern lands, successively as Achaeans, Gauls, Goths
and Franks, and after the conquest of the indigenous small
dark race in no long time died out under climatic conditions
fatal to their physique and morale. The culture of the
Homeric Achaeans corresponds to a large extent with that
of the early Iron Age of the upper Danube (Hallstatt)
and to the early Iron Age of upper Italy (Villanova).
See W. Ridgeway, The Early Age of Greece (1901), for a
detailed discussion of the evidence; articles by Ridgeway
and J. L. Myres in the Classical Review, vol. xvi. 1902,
pp. 68-93, 135. See also J. B. Bury's History of Greece
(1902) and art. in Journal of Hellenic Studies, xv., 1895,
pp. 217 foll.; G. G. A. Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic
(1907), chap. ii.; Andrew Lang, Homer and his Age (1906);
G. Busolt, Griech. Gesch. ed. 2, vol. i. p. 190 (1893); D.
B. Monro's ed. of the Iliad (1901), pp. 484-488. (W. RI.)
ACHAEMENES (HAKHAMANI), the eponymous ancestor of the royal
house of Persia, the Achaemenidae, ``a clan fretre of the
Pasargadae'' (Herod. i. 125), the leading Persian tribe. According
to Darius in the Behistun inscription and Herod. iii. 75, vii.
11, he was the father of Teispes, the great-grandfather of
Cyrus. Cyrus himself, in his proclamation to the Babylonians
after the conquest of Babylon, does not mention his name.
Whether he really was a historical personage, or merely
the mythical ancestor of the family cannot be decided.
According to Aelian (Hist. anim. xii. 21), he was bred by an
eagle. We learn from Cyrus's proclamation that Teispes and
his successors had become kings of Anshan, i.e. a part of
Elam (Susiana), Where they ruled as vassals of the Median
kings, until Cyrus the Great in 550 B.C. founded the Persian
empire. After the death of Cambyses, the younger line of
the Achaemenidae came to the throne with Darius, the son
of Hystaspes, who was, like Cyrus, the great-grandson of
Teispes. Cyrus, Darius and all the later kings of Persia
call themselves Achaemenides (Hakhamanishiya). With
Darius III. Codomannus the dynasty became extinct and
the Persian empire came to an end (330). The adjective
Achaemenius is used by the Latin poets as the equivalent
of ``Persian'' (Horace, Odes, ii. 12, 21). See PERSIA.
The name Achaemenes is borne by a son of Darius I., brother of
Xerxes. After the first rebellion of Egypt, he became
satrap of Egypt (484 B.C.); he commanded the Persian
fleet at Salamis, and was (460 B.C.) defeated and slain
by Inarus, the leader of the second rebellion of Egypt.
ACHARD, FRANZ CARL (1753--1821), Prussian chemist, was born
at Berlin on the 28th of April 1753, and died at Kunern, in
Silesia, on the 20th of April 1821. He was a pioneer in
turning to practical account A. S. Marggraf's discovery
of the presence of sugar in beetroot, and by the end of
the 18th century he was producing considerable quantities
of beet-sugar, though by a very imperfect process, at
Kunern, on an estate which was granted him about 1800 by
the king of Prussia. There too he carried on a school of
instruction in sugar-manufacture, which had an international
reputation. For a time he was director of the physics
class of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and he published
several volumes of chemical and physical researches,
discovering among other things a method of working platinum.
ACHARIUS, ERIK (1757-1819), Swedish botanist, was born On the
10th of October 1757, and in 1773 entered Upsala University,
where he was a pupil of Linnaeus. He graduated M.D. at Lund in
1782, and in 1801 was appointed professor of botany at Wadstena
Academy. He devoted himself to the study of lichens, and all
his publications were connected with that class of plants, his
Lichenographia Universalis (Gottingen, 1804) being the most
important. He died at Wadstena on the 13th of August 1819.
ACHATES, the companion of Aeneas in Virgil's
Aeneid. The expression ``fidus Achates'' has
become proverbial for a loyal and devoted companion.
ACHELOUS (mod. Aspropotamo, ``white river''), the
largest river in Greece (130 m.). It rises in Mt. Pindus,
and, dividing Aetolla from Acarnania, falls into the Ionian
Sea. In the lower part of its course the river winds through
fertile, marshy plains. Its water is charged with fine
mud, which is deposited along its banks and at its mouth,
where a number of small islands (Echinades) have been
formed. It was formerly called Thoas, from its impetuosity;
and its upper portion was called by some Inachus, the
name Acholous being restricted to the shorter eastern
branch. Acholous is coupled with Ocean by Homer (Il. xxi.
193) as chief of rivers, and the name is given to several
other rivers in Greece. The Dame appears in cult and in
mythology as that of the typical river-god; a familiar
legend is that of his contest with Heracles for Deianira.
ACHENBACH, ANDREAS (1815-- ), German landscape painter,
was born at Cassel in 1815. He began his art education in
1827 in Dusseldorf under W. Schadow and at the academy. In
his early work he followed the pseudo-idealism of the German
romantic school, but on removing to Munich in 1835, the
strooger influence of L. Gurlitt turned his talent into new
channels, and he became the founder of the German realistic
school. Although his landscapes evince too much of his aim at
picture-making and lack personal temperament, he is a master
of technique, and is historically important as a reformer. A
number of his finest works are to be found at the Berlin National
Gallery, the New Pinakothek in Munich, and the galleries at
Dresden, Darmstadt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Leipzig and Hamburg.
His brother, OSWALD ACHENBACH (1827--1905), was born
at Dusseldorf and received his art education from
Andreas. His landscapes generally dwell on the rich and
glowing effects of colour which drew him to the Bay of
Naples and the neighbourhood of Rome. He is represented
at most of the important German galleries of modern art.
ACHENWALL, GOTTFRIED (1719-1772), German statisticiao,
was born at Elbing, in East Prussia, in October 1719. He
studied at Jena, Halle and Leipzig, and took a degree at
the last-named university. He removed to Marburg in 1746,
where for two years he read lectures on history and on
the law of nature and of nations. Here, too, he commenced
those inquiries in statistics by which his name became
known. In 1748 he was given a professorship at Gottingen,
where he resided till his death in 1772. His chief works
were connected with statistics. The Staatsverfassung der
heutigen vornehmsten europaischen Reiche appeared first in
1749, and revised editions were published in 1762 and 1768.
ACHERON, in Greek mythology, the son of Gaea or Demeter. As a
punishment for supplying the Titans with water in their contest
with Zeus, he was turned into a river of Hades, over which
departed souls were ferried by Charon. The name (meaning the
river of ``woe'') was eventually used to designate the whole
of the lower world (Stobaeus, Ecl. Phys. i. 41, sec. sec. 50, 54).
ACHIACHARUS, a name occurring in the book of Tobit (i.
21 f.) as that of a nephew of Tobit and an official at the
court of Esarhaddon at Nineveh. There are references in
Rumanian, Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic and Syriac literature
to a legend, of which the hero is Ahikar (for Armenian,
Arabic and Syriac, see The Story of Ahikar, F. C.
Conybeare, Rondel Harris and Agnes Lewis, Camb. 1898), and
it was pointed out by George Hoffmann in 1880 that this
Ahikar and the Achiacharus of Tobit are identical. It
has been contended that there are traces of the legend even
in the New Testament, and there is a striking similarity
between it and the Life of Aesop by Maximus Planudes (ch.
xxiii.-xxxii.). An eastern sage Achaicarus is mentioned by
Strabo. It would seem, therefore, that the legend was
undoubtedly oriental in origin, though the relationship
of the various versions can scarcely be recovered.
See the Jewish Encyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia Biblica;
also M. R. James in The Guardian, Feb. 2, 1898, p. 163 f.
ACHILL (``Eagle''), the largest island off Ireland, separated
from the Curraun peninsula of the west coast by the narrow
Achill Sound. Pop. (1901) 4929. It is included in the county
Mayo, in the western parliamentary division. Its shape is
triangular, and its extent is 15 m. from E. to W. and 12 from
N. to S. The area is 57 sq. m. The island is mountainous,
the highest points being Slieve Croaghaun (2192 ft.) in the
west, and Shevemore (2204 ft.) in the north; the extreme
western point is the bold and rugged promontory of Achill
Head, and the northwestern and south-western coasts consist
of ranges of magnificent cliffs, reaching a height of 800
ft. in the cliffs of Minaun, near the village of Keel on the
south. The seaward slope of Croaghaun is abrupt and in
parts precipitous, and its jagged flanks, together with
the serrated ridge of the Head and the view over the broken
coast-line and islands of the counties Mayo and Galway,
attract many visitors to the island during summer. Desolate
bogs, incapable of cultivation, alternate with the mountains;
and the inhabitants earn a scanty subsistence by fishing and
tillage, or by seeking employment in England and Scotland
during the harvesting. The Congested Districts Board,
however, have made efforts to improve the Condition of the
people, and a branch of the Midland Great Western railway
to Achill Sound, together with a swivel bridge across the
sound, improved communications and make for prosperity.
Dugort, the principal village, contains several hotels.
Here is a Protestant colony. known as ``the Settlement'' and
founded in 1834. There are antiquarian remains (cromlechs,
stone circles and the like) at Slievemore and elsewhere.
ACHILLES (Gr. 'Achilleus), one of the most famous of the
hegendary heroes of ancient Greece and the central figure
of Homer's Iliad. He was said to have been the son of
Peleus, king of the Myrmidones of Phthia in Thessaly, by
Thetis, one of the Nereids. His grandfather Aeacus was,
according to the legend, the son of Zeus himself. The story
of the childhood of Achilles in Homer differs from that given
by later writers. According to Homer, he was brought up by
his mother at Phthia with his cousin and intimate friend
Patroclus, and learned the arts of war and eloquence from
Phoenix, while the Centaur Chiron taught him music and
medicine. When summoned to the war against Troy, he
set sail at once with his Myrmidones in fifty ships.
Post-Homeric sources add to the legend certain picturesque
details which bear all the evidence of their primitive
origin, and which in some cases belong to the common stock
of Indo-Germanic myths. According to one of these stories
Thetis used to lay the infant Achilles every night under
live coals, anointing him by day with ambrosia, in order
to make him immortal. Peleus, having surprised her in the
act, in alarm snatched the boy from the flames; whereupon
Thetis fled back to the sea in anger (Apollodorus iii. 13;
Apollonius Rhodius iv. 869). According to another story Thetis
dipped the child in the waters of the river Styx, by which
his whole body became invulnerable, except that part of his
heel by which she held him; whence the proverbial ``heel
of Achilles'' (Statius, Achilleis, i. 269). With this
may be compared the similar story told of the northern hero
Sigurd. The boy was afterwards entrusted to the care of Chiron,
who, to give him the strength necessary for war, fed him
with the entrails of lions and the marrow of bears and wild
boars. To prevent his going to the siege of Troy, Thetis
disguised him in female apparel, and hid him among the maidens
at the court of King Lycomedes in Scyros; but Odysseus,
coming to the island in the disguise of a pedlar, spread
his wares, including a spear and shield, before the king's
daughters, among whom was Achilles. Then he caused an alarm
to be sounded; whereupon the girls fled, but Achilles seized
the arms, and so revealed himself, and was easily persuaded
to follow the Greeks (Hyginus, Fab. 96; Statius, Ach.
i.; Apollodorus, l.c.). This story may be compared with
the Celtic legend of the boyhood of Peredur or Perceval.
During the first nine years of the war as described in the
Iliad, Achilles ravaged the country round Troy, and took
twelve cities. In the tenth year occurred the quarrel with
Agamemnon. In order to appease the wrath of Apollo, who had
visited the camp with a pestilence, Agamemnon had restored
Chryseis, his prize of war, to her father, a priest of the
god, but as a compensation deprived Achilles, who had
openly demanded this restoration, of his favourite slave
Briseis. Achilles withdrew in wrath to his tent, where
he consoled himself with music and singing, and refused
to take any further part in the war. During his absence
the Greeks were hard pressed, and at last he so far relaxed
his anger as to allow his friend Patroclus to personate
him, lending him his chariot and armour. The slaying of
Patroclus by the Trojan hero Hector roused Achilles from his
indifference; eager to avenge his beloved comrade, he sallied
forth, equipped with new armour fashioned by Hephaestus,
slew Hector, and, after dragging his body round the walls
of Troy, restored it to the aged King Priam at his earnest
entreaty. The Iliad concludes with the funeral rites of
Hector. It makes no mention of the death of Achilles, but
hints at its taking place ``before the Scaean gates.'' In
the Odyssey (xxiv. 36. 72) his ashes are said to have been
buried in a golden urn, together with those of Patroclus, at
a place on the Hellespont, where a tomb was erected to his
memory; his soul dwells in the lower world, where it is seen by
Odysseus. The contest between Ajax and Odysseus for his arms
is also mentioned. The Aethiopis of Arctinus of Miletus
took up the story of the Iliad. It told how Achilles,
having slain the Amazon Penthesileia and Memnon, king of the
Aethiopians, who had come to the assistance of the Trojans,
was himself slain by Paris (Alexander), whose arrow was
guided by Apollo to his vulnerable heel (Virgil, Aen. vi.
57; Ovid, Met. xii. 600). Again, it is said that Achilles,
enamoured of Polyxena, the daughter of Priam, offered to
join the Trojans on condition that he received her hand in
marriage. This was agreed to; Achilles went unarmed to the
temple of Apollo Thymbraeus, and was slain by Paris (Dietys
iv. 11). According to some, he was slain by Apollo himself
(Quint. Smyrn. iii. 61; Horace, Odes, iv. 6, 3).
Hyginus (Fab. 107) makes Apollo assume the form of Paris.
Later stories say that Thetis snatched his body from the
pyre and conveyed it to the island of Leuke, at the mouth
of the Danube, where he ruled with Iphigeneia as his
wife; or that he was carried to the Elysian fields, where
his wife was Medea or Helen. He was worshipped in many
places: at Leuke, where he was honoured with offerings
and games; in Sparta, Elis, and especially Sigeum on
the Hellespont, where his famous tumulus was erected.
Achilles is a typical Greek hero; handsome, brave, celebrated
for his fleetness of foot, prone to excess of wrath and
grief, at the same time he is compassionate, hospitable,
full of affection for his mother and respect for the gods.
In works of art he is represented, like Ares, as a young man
of splendid physical proportions, with bristling hair like a
horse's mane and a slender neck. Although the figure of the
hero frequently occurs in groups---such as the work of Scopas
showing his removal to the island of Leuke by Poseidon and
Thetis, escorted by Neroids and Tritons, and the combat
over his dead body in the Aeginetan sculptures--no isolated
statue or bust can with certainty be identified with him;
the statue in the Louvre (from the Villa Borghese), which
was thought to have the best claim, is generally taken for
Ares or possibly Alexander. There are many vase and wall
paintings and bas-reliefs illustrative of incidents in his
life. Various etymologies of the name have been suggested:
``without a lip'' (a', cheilos), Achilles being regarded
as a river-god, a stream which overflows its banks, or,
referring to the story that, when Thetis laid him in the
fire, one of his lips, which he had licked, was consumed
(Tzetzes on Lycophron, 178); ``restrainer of the people,'
(eche-laos); ``healer of sorrow'' (ache-loios); ``the
obscure'' (connected with achlus, ``mist''); ``snakeborn''
(echis), the snake being one of the chief forms taken by
Thetis. The most generally received view makes him a
god of light, especially of the sun or of the lightning.
See E. H. Meyer, Indogermanische Mythen, ii., Achilleis,
1887; F. G. Welcker, Der epische Cyclus, 1865--1882;
articles in Pauly-Wissowa, Rcal-Encyclopadie der classischen
Altertumswissenschait, Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire
des Antiquites and Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie;
see also T. W. Allen in Classical Review, May 1906; A. E.
Crawley, J. G. Frazer, A. Lang, Ibid., June, July 1893,
on Achilles in Scyros. In the article GREEK ART, fig. 12
represents the conflict over the dead body of Achilles.
ACHILLES TATIUS, of Alexandria, Greek rhetorician, author
of the erotic romance, the Adventures of Leucippe and
Cleitophon, flourished about A.D. 450, perhaps later.
Suidas, who alone calls him Statius, says that he became a
Christian and eventually a bishop--like Hellodorus, whom he
imitated--but there is no evidence of this. Photius, while
severely criticizing his lapses into indecency, highly praises
the conciseness and clearness of his style, which, however,
is artificial and laboured. Many of the incidents of the
romance are highly improbable, and the characters, except the
heroine, fail to enlist sympathy. The descriptive passages
and digressions, although tedious and introduced without
adequate reasons, are the best part of the work. The large
number of existing MSS. attests its popularity. (Editio
princeps, 1601; first important critical edition by (Jacobs,
1821; litter editions by Hirschig, 1856; Hercher, 1858. There
are translations in many languages; in English by Anthony
Hodges], 1638, and R. Smith, 1855. See also ROMANCE.)
Suidas also ascribes to this author an Etymology, a
Miscellaneous History af Famous Men, and a treatise On
the Sphere. Part of the last is extant under the title
of An Introduction to the Phaenomena of Aratus. But
if the writer is the prudentissimus Achilles referred
to by Firmicus Maternus (about 336) in his Matheseos
libri, iv. 10, 17 (ed. Krolf), he must have lived long
before the author of Leucippe. The fragment was first
published in 1567, then in the Uranologion of Petavius,
with a Latin translation, 1630. Nothing definite is known
as to the authorship of the other works, which are lost.
ACHILLINI, ALESSANDRO (1463-1512), Italian philosopher, born
on the 29th of October 1463 at Bologna, was celebrated as a
lecturer both in medicine and in philosophy at Bologna and
Padua, and was styled the second Aristotle. His philosophical
works were printed in one volume folio, at Venice, in 1508,
and reprinted with considerable additions in 1545, 1551
and 1568. He was also distinguished as an anatomist (see
ANATOMY), among his writhigs being Corporis humani Anatomia
(Venice, 1516-1524), and Anatomicae Annotationes (Bologna,
1520). He died at Bologna on the 2nd of August 1512.
His brother, GIOVANNI FILOTEO ACHILLINI (1466--1533),
was the author of Il Viridario and other writings, verse
and prose, and his grand-nephew, CLAUDIO ACHILLINI
(1574--1640), was a lawyer who achieved some notoriety
as a versifier of the school of the Secentisti.
ACHIMENES (perhaps from the Gr. achaimienis, an Indian
plant used in magic), a genus of plants, natural order
Gesneraceae (to which belong also Gloxinia and Streptocarpus),
natives of tropical America, and well known in cultivation
as stove or warm greenhouse plants. They are herbaceous
perennials, generally with hairy serrated leaves and handsome
flowers. The corolla is tubular with a spreading limb, and
varies widely in colour, being white, yellow, orange, crimson,
scarlet, blue or purple. A large number of hybrids exist in
cultivation. The plants are grown in the stove till the
flowering period, when they may be removed to the greenhouse.
They are propagated by cuttings, or from the leaves, which are
cut off and pricked in well-drained pots of sandy soil, or by
the scales from the underground tubes, which are rubbed off
and sown like seeds, or by the seeds, which are very small.
ACHIN (Dutch Atjeh), a Dutch government forming the
northern extremity of the island of Sumatra, having an
estimated area of 20,544 sq. m. The government is divided
into three assistant-residencien--the east coast, the west
coast and Great Achin. The physical geography (see SUMATRA)
is imperfectly understood. Ranges of mountains, roughly
parallel to the long axis of the island, and characteristic
of the whole of it, appear to occupy the interior, and reach
an extreme height of about 12,000 ft. in the south-west
of the government. The coasts are low and the rivers
insignificant, rising in the coast ranges and flowing through
the coast states (the chief of which are Pedir, Gighen and
Samalanga on the N.; Edi, Perlak and Langsar on the E.;
Kluwah, Rigas and Melabuh on the W.). The chief ports are
Olehleh, the port of Kotaraja or Achin (formerly Kraton,
now the seat of the Dutch government), Segli on the N., Edi
on the E., and Analabu or Melabuh on the W. Kotaraja lies
near the northern extremity of the island, and consists
of detached houses of timber and thatch, clustered ill
enclosed groups called kampongs, and buried in a forest of
fruit-trees. It is situated nearly 3 m. from the sea, in
the valley of the Achin 1iver, which in its upper part, near
Sehmun, is 3 m. broad, the river having a breadth of 99 ft.
and a depth of 1 1/2 ft.; but in its lower course, north of
its junction with the Krung Darn, the valley broadens to 12 1/2
m. The marshy soil is covered by rice-fields, and on
higher ground by kampongs full of trees. The river at
its mouth is 327 ft. broad and 20-33 ft. deep, but before
it lies a sandbank covered at low water by a depth of only 4
ft. The Dutch garrison in Kotaraja occupies the old Achinese
citadel. The town is connected by rail with Olehleh, and
the line also extends up the valley. The construction
of another railway has been undertaken along the east
coast. The following industries are of some importance
--gold-working, weapon-making, silk-weaving, the making of
pottery, fishing and coasting trade. The annual value of the
exports (chiefly pepper) is about L. 58,000; of the imports,
from L. 165,000 to L. 250,000. The population of Achin in
1898 was estimated at 535,432, of whom 328 were Europeans,
3933 Chinese, 30 Arabs, and 372 other foreign Asiatics.
The Achinese, a people of Malayan stock but darker,
somewhat taller and not so pleasant-featured as the true
Malays, regard themselves as distinct from the other
Sumatrans. Their nobles claim Arab descent. They were at
one time Hinduized, as is evident from their traditions,
the many Sanskrit words in their language, and their
general appearance, which suggests Hindu as well as Arab
blood. They are Mahommedans, and although Arab influence has
declined, their nobles still wear the Moslem flowing robe and
turban (though the women go unveiled), and they use Arabic
script. The chief characteristic is their love of fighting;
every man is a soldier and every village has its army. They
are industrious and skilful agriculturists, metal-workers and
weavers. They build excellent ships. Their chief amusements
are gambling and opium-smoking. Their social organization is
communal. They live in kampongs, which combine to form
mukims, districts or hundreds (to use the nearest English
term), which again combine to form sagis, of which there are
three. Achin literature, unlike the language, is entirely
Malay; it includes poetry, a good deal of theology and several
chronicles. Northern Sumatra was visited by several European
travellers in the middle ages, such as Marco Polo, Friar
Odorico and Nicolo Conti. Some of these as well as Asiatic
writers mention Lambri, a state which must have nearly
occupied the position of Achin. But the first voyager to visit
Achin, by that name, was Alvaro Tellez, a captain of Tristan
d'Acunha's fleet, in 1506. It was then a mere dependency of
the adjoining state of Pedir; and the latter, with Pasei,
formed the only states on the coast whose chiefs claimed the
title of sultan. Yet before twenty years had passed Achin
had not only gained independence, but had swallowed up all
other states of northern Sumatra. It attained its climax of
power in the time of Sultan Iskandar Muda (1607--1636), under
whom the subject coast extended from Aru opposite Malacca
round by the north to Benkulen on the west coast, a sea-board
of not less than 1100 miles; and besides this, the king's
supremacy was owned by the large island of Nias, and by the
continental Malay states of Johor, Pahang, Kedah and Perak.
The chief attraction of Achin to traders in the 17th century
must have been gold. No place in the East, unless Japan,
was so abundantly supplied with gold. The great repute
of Achin as a place of trade is shown by the fact that to
this port the first Dutch (1599) and first English (1602)
commercial ventures to the Indies were directed. Sir James
Lancaster, the English commodore, carried letters from Queen
Elizabeth to the king of Achin, and was well received by the
prince then reigning, Alauddin Shah. Another exchange of
letters took place between King James I. and Iskandar Muda in
1613. But native caprice and jealousy of the growing force
of the European nations in these seas, and the rivalries
between those nations themselves, were destructive of sound
trade; and the English factory, though several times set up,
was never long maintained. The French made one great effort
(1621) to establish relations with Achin, but nothing came of
it. Still the foreign trade of Achin, though subject to
interruptions, was important. William Dampier (c. 1688)
and others speak of the number of foreign merchants settled
there--English, Dutch, Danes, Portuguese, Chinese, &c. Dampier
says the anchorage was rarely without ten or fifteen sail of
different nations, bringing vast quantities of rice, as well
as silks, chintzes, muslins and opium. Besides the Chinese
merchants settled at Achin, others used to come annually with
the junks, ten or twelve in number, which arrived in June.
A regular fair was then established, which lasted two months,
and was known as the China camp, a great resort of foreigners.
Hostilities with the Portuguese began from the time of
the first independent king of Achin; and they had little
remission till the power of Portugal fell with the loss of
Malacca (1641). Not less than ten times before that event
were armaments despatched from Achin to reduce Malacca, and
more than once its garrison was hard pressed. One of these
armadas, equipped by Iskandar Muda in 1615, gives an idea of
the king's resources. It consisted of 500 sail, of which 250
were galleys, and among these a hundred were greater than
any then used in Europe. Sixty thousand men were embarked.
On the death of Iskandar's successor in 1641, the widow
was placed on the throne; and as a female reign favoured
the oligarchical tendencies of the Malay chiefs, three
more queens were allowed to reign successively. In
1699 the Arab or fanatical party suppressed female
government, and put a chief of Arab blood on the throne.
The remaining history of Achin was one of rapid decay.
After the restoration of Java to the Netherlands in 1816, a
good deal of weight was attached by the neighbouring British
colonies to the maintenance of influence in Achin; and in
1819 a treaty of friendship was concluded with the Calcutta
government which excluded other European nationalities from
fixed residence in Achin. When the British government, in
1824, made a treaty with the Netherlands, surrendering the
remaining British settlements in Sumatra in exchange for
certain possessions on the continent of Asia, no reference
was made in the articles to the Indian treaty of 1819; but an
understanding was exchanged that it should be modified, while no
proceedings hostile to Achin should be attempted by the Dutch.
This reservation was formally abandoned by the British government
in a convention signed at the Hague on the 2nd of November 1871;
and in March 1873 the government of Batavia declared war upon
Achin. Doubtless there was provocation, for the sultan
of Achin had not kept to the understanding that he was to
guarantee immunity from piracy to foreign traders; but the
necessity for war was greatly doubted, even in Holland. A
Dutch force landed at Achin in April 1873, and attacked the
palace. It was defeated with considerable loss, including
that of the general (Kohler).The approach of the south-west
monsoon precluded the immediate renewal of the attempt; but
hostilities were resumed, and Achin fell in January 1874.
The natives, however, maintained themselves in the interior,
inaccessible to the Dutch troops, and carried on a guerilla
warfare. General van der Hoyden appeared to have subdued
them in 1878-81, but they broke out again in 1896 under
the traitor Taku Umar, who had been in alliance with the
Dutch. He died shortly afterwards, but the trouble was not
ended. General van Hentsz carried on a successful campaign in
1898 seq., but in 1901, the principal Achinese chiefs on the
north coast having surrendered, the pretender-sultan fled to
the Gajoes, a neighbouring inland people. Several expeditions
involving heavy fighting were necessary against these in 1901-4,
and a certain amount of success was achieved, but the pretender
escaped, revolt still smouldered and hostilities were continued.
See P. J. Vein, Atchini en zijne betrekkingen tot Nederland
(Leyden, 1873); J. A. Kruijt, Atjeh en de Atjehers (Leyden,
1877); Kielstra, Beschrijving van dcn Atjeh-oorlog (The
Hague, 1883); Van Langen, Atjeh's Wesskust, Tijdschrift
Aardrjjko, Genotktsch. (Amsterdam, 1888), p. 226;
Renaud, Jaarboek van het Mynwezen (1882); J. Jacobs,
Het famille-en Kampongleven op Groot Atjeh (Leyden,
1894); C. Snouck Hurgronje, De Atjehers (Batavia, 1894).
ACHOLI, a negro people of the upper Nile valley, dwelling on
the east bank of the Bahr-el-Jebel, about a hundred miles north
of Albert Nyanza. They are akin to the Shilluks of the White
Nile. They frequently decorate the temples or cheeks with
wavy or zigzag scars, and also the thighs with scrolls; some
pierce the ears. Their dwelling-places are circular huts
with a high peak, furnished with a mud sleeping-platform,
jars of grain and a sunk fireplace. The interior walls are
daubed with mud and decorated with geometrical or conventional
designs in red, white or grey. The Acholi are good hunters,
using nets and spears, and keep goats, sheep and cattle. In
war they use spears and long, narrow shields of giraffe or ox
hide. Their dialect is closely allied to those of the Alur,
Lango and ja-Luo tribes, all four being practically pure
Nilotic. Their religion is a vague fetishism. By early
explorers the Acholi were called Shuli, a name now obsolete.
ACHROMATISM (Gr. a-, privative, chroma, colour),
in optics, the property of transmitting white light,
without decomposing it into the colours of the spectrum;
``achromatic lenses'' are lenses which possess this
property. (See LENS, ABERRATION and PHOTOGRAPHY.)
ACID (from the Lat. root ac-, sharp; acere, to be
sour), the name loosely applied to any sour substance;
in chemistry it has a more precise meaning, denoting a
substance containing hydrogen which may be replaced by
metals with the formation of salts. An acid may therefore be
regarded as a salt of hydrogen. Of the general characters
of acids we may here notice that they dissolve alkaline
substances, certain metals, &c., neutralize alkalies and
redden many blue and violet vegetable colouring matters.
The ancients probably possessed little knowledge indeed of
acids. Vinegar (or impure acetic acid), which is produced
when wine is allowed to stand, was known to both the
Greeks and Romans, who considered it to be typical of acid
substances; this is philologically illustrated by the words
oxus, acidus, sour, and oxos, acetus, vinegar.
Other acids became known during the alchemistic period;
and the first attempt at a generalized conception of these
substances was made by Paracelsus, who supposed them to contain
a principle which conferred the properties of sourness and
solubility. Somewhat similar views were promoted by Becher,
who named the principle acidum primogenium, and held
that it was composed of the Paracelsian elements ``earth''
and ``water.'' At about the same time Boyle investigated
several acids; he established their general reddening of
litmus, their solvent power of metals and basic substances,
and the production of neutral bodies, or salts, with alkalies.
Theoretical conceptions were revived by Stahl, who held that
acids were the fundamentals of all salts, and the erroneous
idea that sulphuric acid was the principle of all acids.
The phlogistic theory of the processes of calcination and
combustion necessitated the view that many acids, such as
those produced by combustion, e.g. sulphurous, phosphoric,
carbonic, &c., should be regarded as elementary substances.
This principle more or less prevailed until it was overthrown
by Lavoisier's doctrine that oxygen was the acid-producing
element; Lavoisier being led to this conclusion by the almost
general observation that acids were produced when non-metallic
elements were burnt. The existence of acids not containing
oxygen was, in itself, sufficient to overthrow this idea,
but, although Berthollet had shown, in 1789, that sulphuretted
hydrogen (or hydrosulphuric acid) contained no oxygen,
Lavoisier's theory held its own until the researches of Davy,
Gay-Lussac and Thenard on hydrochloric acid and chlorine,
and of Gay-Lussac on hydrocyanic acid, established beyond all
cavil that oxygen was not essential to acidic properties.
In the Lavoisierian nomenclature acids were regarded as
binary oxygenated compounds, the associated water being
relegated to the position of a mere solvent. Somewhat
similar views were held by Berzelius, when developing his
dualistic conception of the composition of substances. In
later years Berzelius renounced the ``oxygen acid'' theory,
but not before Davy, and, almost simultaneously, Dulong, had
submitted that hydrogen and not oxygen was the acidifying
principle. Opposition to the ``hydrogen-acid'' theory centred
mainly about the hypothetical radicals which it postulated;
moreover, the electrochemical theory of Berzelius exerted
a stultifying influence on the correct views of Davy and
Dulong. In Berzelius' system potassium sulphate is to be
regarded as K2O+.SO3-; electrolysis should simply effect
the disruption of the positive and negative components, potash
passing with the current, and sulphuric acid against the
current. Experiment showed, however, that instead of only
potash appearing at the negative electrode, hydrogen is also
liberated; this is inexplicable by Berzelius's theory, but
readily explained by the ``hydrogen-acid'' theory. By this
theory potassium is liberated at the negative electrode and
combines immediately with water to form potash and hydrogen.
Further and stronger support was given when J. Liebig promoted
his doctrine of polybasic acids. Dalton's idea that elements
preferentially combined in equiatomic proportions had as an
immediate inference that metallic oxides contained one atom
of the metal to one atom of oxygen, and a simple expansion
of this conception was that one atom of oxide combined with
one atom of acid to form one atom of a neutral salt. This
view, which was specially supported by Gay-Lussac and Leopold
Gmelin and accepted by Berzelius, necessitated that all
acids were monobasic. The untenability of this theory was
proved by Thomas Graham's investigation of the phosphoric
acids; for he then showed that the ortho- (ordinary), pyro-
and metaphosphoric acids contained respectively 3, 2 and
1 molecules of ``basic water'' (which were replaceable by
metallic oxides) and one molecule of phosphoric oxide, P2
O5. Graham's work was developed by Liebig, who called into
service many organic acids---citric, tartaric, cyanuric,
comenic and meconic---and showed that these resembled
phosphoric acid; and he established as the criterion of
polybasicity the existence of compound salts with different
metallic oxides. In formulating these facts Liebig at
first retained the dualistic conception of the structure of
acids; but he shortly afterwards perceived that this view
lacked generality since the halogen acids, which contained
no oxygen but yet formed salts exactly similar in properties
to those containing oxygen, could not be so regarded. This
and other reasons led to his rejection of the dualistic
hypothesis and the adoption, on the ground of probability,
and much more from convenience, of the tenet that ``acids
are particular compounds of hydrogen, in which the latter
can be replaced by metals''; while, on the constitution of
salts, he held that ``neutral salts are those compounds
of the same class in which the hydrogen is replaced by its
equivalent in metal. The substances which we at present
term anhydrous acids (acid oxides) only become, for the
most part, capable of forming salts with metallic oxides
after the addition of water, or they are compounds which
decompose these oxides at somewhat high temperatures.''
The hydrogen theory and the doctrine of polybasicity as
enunciated by Liebig is the fundamental characteristic of
the modern theory. A polybasic acid contains more than one
atom of hydrogen which is replaceable by metals; moreover, in
such an acid the replacement may be entire with the formation
of normal salts, partial with the formation of acid salts,
or by two or more different metals with the formation of
compound salts (see SALTS). These facts may be illustrated
with the aid of orthophosphoric acid, which is tribasic:--
Acid. Normal salt. Acid salts.
H3PO4 Ag3PO4 Na2HPO4; NaH2PO4
Phosphoric Silver phosphate. Acid sodium
acid. phosphates.
Compound salts.
Mg(NH4)PO4; Na(NH4)HPO4.
Magnesium ammonium Microcosmic
phosphate; salt.
Reference should be made to the articles CHEMICAL
ACTION, THERMOCHEMISTRY and SOLUTIONS, for
the theory of the strength or avidity of acids.
Organic Acids.---Organic acids are characterized by the
presence of the monovalent group--CO.OH, termed the carboxyl
group, in which the hydrogen atom is replaceable by metals
with the formation of salts, and by alkyl radicals with the
formation of esters. The basicity of an organic acid, as
above defined, is determined by the number of carboxyl groups
present. Oxy-acids are carboxyllc acids which also contain
a hydroxyl group; similarly we may have aldehyde-acids,
ketone-acids, &c. Since the more important acids are treated
under their own headings, or under substances closely allied to
them, we shall here confine ourselves to general relations.
Classification.--It is convenient to distinguish between
aliphatic and aromatic acids; the first named being derived from
open-chain hydrocarbons, the second from ringed hydrocarbon
nuclei. Aliphatic monobasic acids are further divided
according to the nature of the parent hydrocarbon. Methane
and its homologues give origin to the ``paraffin'' or ``fatty
series'' of the general formula Cn H2n+1COOH, ethylene
gives origin to the acrylic acid series, CnH2n-1COOH, and
soon. Dibasic acids of the paraffin series of hydrocarbons
have the general formula CnH2(COOH)2n; malonic and succinic
acids are important members. The isomerism which occurs as
soon as the molecule contains a few carbon atoms renders any
classification based on empirical molecular formulae somewhat
ineffective; on the other hand, a scheme based on molecular
structure would involve more detail than it is here possible to
give. For further information, the reader is referred to
any standard work on organic chemistry. A list of the acids
present in fats and oils is given in the article OILS.
Syntheses of Organic Acids.---The simplest syntheses are
undoubtedly those in which a carboxyl group is obtained
directly from the oxides of carbon, carbon dioxide and carbon
monoxide. The simplest of all include: (1) the synthesis
of sodium oxalate by passing carbon dioxide over metallic
sodium heated to 350 deg. -360 deg. ; (2) the synthesis of potassium
formate from moist carbon dioxide and potassium, potassium
carbonate being obtained simultaneously; (3) the synthesis
of potassium acetate and propionate from carbon dioxide
and sodium methide and sodium ethide; (4) the synthesis of
aromatic acids by the interaction of carbon dioxide, sodium
and a bromine substitution derivative; and (5) the synthesis
of aromatic oxy-acids by the interaction of carbon dioxide
and sodium phenolates (see SALICYLIC ACID). (Carbon monoxide
takes part in the syntheses of sodium formate from sodium
hydrate, or soda lime (at 200 deg. -220 deg. ), and of sodium acetate
and propionate from sodium methylate and sodium ethylate at
160 deg. --200 deg. . Other reactions which introduce carboxyl groups
into aromatic groups ave: the action of carbonyl chloride on
aromatic hydrocarbons in the presence of aluminium chloride,
acid-chlorides being formed which are readily decomposed
by water to give the acid; the action of urea chloride
Cl.CO.NH2, cyanuric acid (CONH)3, nascent cyanic acid,
or carbanile on hydrocarbons in the presence of aluminium
chloride, acid-amides being obtained which are readily
decomposed to give the acid. An important nucleus-synthetic
reaction is the saponification of nitriles, which may
be obtained by the interaction of potassium cyanide with
a halogen substitution derivative or a sulphonic acid.
Acids frequently result as oxidation products, being almost
invariably formed in all cases of energetic oxidation. There
are certain reactions, however, in which oxidation can be
successfully applied to the synthesis of acids. Thus primary
alcohols and aldehydes, both of the aliphatic and aromatic
series, readily yield on oxidation acids containing the same
number of carbon atoms. These reactions may be shown thus:-
R.CH2OH -> R.CHO -> R.CO.OH.
In the case of aromatic aldehydes, acids are also obtained
by means of ``Cannizzaro's reaction'' (see BENZALDEHYDE).
An important oxidation synthesis of aromatic acids is
from hydrocarbons with aliphatic side chains; thus toluene,
or methylbenzene, yields benzoic acid, the xylenes, or
dimethyl-benzene, yield methyl-benzoic acids and phthalic
acids. Ketones, secondary alcohols and tertiary alcohols
yield a mixture of acids on oxidation. We may also notice
the disruption of unsaturated acids at the double linkage
into a mixture of two acids, when fused with potash.
In the preceding instances the carboxyl group has been
synthesized or introduced into a molecule; we have now to
consider syntheses from substances already containing carboxyl
groups. Of foremost importance are the reactions termed the
malonic acid and the aceto-acetic ester syntheses; these are
discussed under their own headings. The electrosyntheses
call for mention here. It is apparent that metallic salts
of organic acids would, in aqueous solution, be ionized,
the positive ion being the metal, and the negative ion the
acid residue. Esters, however, are not ionized. It is
therefore apparent that a mixed salt and ester, for example
KO2C.CH2.CH2.CO2C2H5, would give only two ions, viz.
potassium and the rest of the molecule. If a solution of
potassium acetate be electrolysed the products are ethane,
carbon dioxide, potash and hydrogen; in a similar manner,
normal potassium succinate gives ethylene, carbon dioxide,
potash and hydrogen; these reactions may be represented:-
CH3.CO2 K CH3 CO2 K* CH2.CO K CH2 CO2 K.
| -> | + + | | ->|| + +
CH3.CO2 K CH3 CO2 K* CH2.CO K CH2 CO2 K.
By electrolysing a solution of potassium ethyl succinate,
KO2C.(CH2)2CO2C2H5, the KO2C. groups are split
off and the two residues .(CH2)2CO2C2H5 combine to
form the ester (CH2)4(CO2C2H5)2. In the same way,
by electrolysing a mixture of a metallic salt and an ester,
other nuclei may be condensed; thus potassium acetate and
potassium ethyl succinate yield CH3.CH2.CH2.CO2C2H5.
Reactions.--Organic acids yield metallic salts with bases,
and ethereal salts or esters (q.v.), R.CO.OR', with alcohols.
Phosphorus chlorides give acid chlorides, R.CO.Cl, the hydroxyl
group being replaced by chlorine, and acid anhydrides, (R.CO)2O,
a molecule of water being split off between two carboxyl
groups. The ammonium salts when heated lose one mobecule
of water and are converted into acid-amides, R.CO.NH2,
which by further dehydration yield nitriles, R.CN. The
calcium salts distilled with calcium formate yield aldehydes
(q.v.); distilled with soda-lime, ketones (q.v.) result.
ACIDALIUS, VALENS (1567-1595), German scholar and critic,
was born at Wittstock in Brandenburg. After studying at
Rostock, Grelfswald and Helmstedt, and residing about
three years in Italy, he settled at Breslau, where he is
said to have embraced the Roman Catholic religion. Early
in 1595 he accepted an invitation to Neisse, about fifty
miles from Breslau, where he died of brain fever on the
25th of May, at the age of twenty-eight. His excessive
application to study, and the attacks made upon him in
connexion with a pamphlet of which he was reputed the
author, doubtless hastened his premature end. Acidalius wrote
notes on Velleius Paterculus (1590), Curtius (1594), the
panegyrists, Tacitus and Plautus, published after his death.
See Leuschner, Commeutatio de A. V. Vita, Moribus,
et Scriptis (1757); F. Adam, ``Der Neisser Rektor,''
in Bericht der Philomathic in Neisse (1872).
ACID-AMIDES, chemical compounds which may be considered
as derived from ammonia by replacement of its hydrogen with
acidyl residues, the substances produced being known as
primary, secondary or tertiary amides, according to the
number of hydrogen atoms replaced. Of these compounds,
the primary amides of the type R.CO.NH2 are the most
important. They may be prepared by the dry distillation of
the ammonium salts of the acids (A. W. Hofmann, Ber., 1882,
15, p. 977), by the partial hydrolysis of the nitriles, by
the action of ammonia or ammonium carbonate on acid chlorides
or anhydrides, or by heating the esters (q.v.) with
ammonia. They are solid crystalline compounds (formamide
excepted) which are at first soluble in water, the solubility,
however, decreasing as the carbon content of the molecule
increases. They are easily hydrolysed, breaking up into
their components when boiled with acids or alkanes. They
form compounds with hydrochloric acid when this gas is
passed into their ethereal solution; these compounds,
however, are very unstable, being readily decomposed by
water. On the other hand, they show faintly acid properties
since the hydrogen of the amide group can be replaced
by metals to give such compounds as mercury acetamide
(CH3CONH)2Hg. Nitrous acid decomposes them, with elimination
of nitrogen and the formation of the corresponding acid,
RCO.NH2 + ONOH = R.COOH + N2 + H2O.
When distilled with phosphoric anhydride they yield
nitriles. By the action of bromine and alcoholic potash on
the amides, they are converted into amines containing one
carbon atom less than the original amide, a reaction which
possesses great theoretical importance (A. W. Hofmann),
R.CONH2 -> R.CONHBr -> R.NH2 + K2CO3 + KBr + H2O.
Formamide, H.CONH2, is a liquid readily soluble in water,
boillng at about 195 deg. C. with partial decomposition.
Acetamide, CH3.CONH2, is a white deliquescent crystalline
solid, which melts at 82-83 deg. C. and boils at 222 deg. C. It
is usually prepared by distilling ammonium acetate. It
is readily soluble in water and alcohol, but insoluble in
ether. Benzamide, C6H5.CONH2, crystallizes in leaflets
which melt at 130 deg. C. It is prepared by the action of
ammonium carbonate on benzoyl chloride. It yields a silver
salt which with ethyl iodide forms benzimidoethyl ether,
C6H5C: (NH).OC2H5, a behaviour which points to the
silver salt as being derived from the tautomeric imidobenzoic
acid, C6H5C: (NH).OH (J. Tafel, Ber., 1890, 23, p.
104). On the preparation of the substituted amides from
the corresponding sodamides see A. W. Titherley (Journ.
Chem. Soc., 1901, 59, p. 391). The secondary and tertiary
amides of the types (RCO)2NH and (RCO)3N may be prepared
by heating the primary amides or the nitriles with acids or
acid anhydrides to 200 deg. C. Thiamides of the type R.CSNH2
are known, and result by the addition of sulphuretted
hydrogen to the nitriles, or by the action of phosphorus
pentasulphide on the acid-amides. They readily decompose on
heating, and are easily hydrolysed by alkanes; they possess
a somewhat more acid character than the acid-amides.
ACINACES (from the Greek), an ancient Persian sword, short
and straight, and worn, contrary to the Roman fashion, on
the right side, or sometimes in front of the body, as shown
in the bas-reliefs found at Persepolis. Among the Persian
nobility it was frequently made of gold, being worn as a
badge of distinction. The acinaces was an object of religious
worship with the Scythians and others (Herod. iv. 62).
ACINETA (so named by C. G. Ehrenberg), a genus of suctorial
Infusoria characterized by the possession of a stalk and
cup-shaped sheath or theca for the body, and endogenous budding.
O. Butschli has separated off the genus Metacineta (for
A. mystacina), which reproduces by direct bud-fission.
ACINUS (Lat. for a berry), a term in botany applied to such
fruits as the blackberry or raspberry, composed of small
seedlike berries, and also to those berries themselves, or to
grapestones. By analogy, acinus is applied in anatomy
to similar granules or glands, or lobules of a gland.
ACIREALE, a town and episcopal see of the province of
Catania, Sicily; from the town of the same name it is distant 9
m. N. by E. Pop. (1901) 35,418. It has some importance as
a thermal station, and the springs were used by the Romans.
It takes its name from the river Acis, into which, according
to the legend, Acis, the lover of Galatea, was changed after
he had been slain by Polyphemus. The rocks which Polyphemus
hurled at Ulysses are identified with the seven Scogli de'
Ciclopi, or Faraglioni, a little to the south of Acireale.
ACIS, in Greek mythology, the son of Pan (Faunus) and the
nymph Syntaethis, a beautiful shepherd of Sicily, was the lover
of the Nereid Galatea. His rival the Cyclops Polyphemus
surprised them together, and crushed him to pieces with a rock.
His blood, gushing forth from beneath, was metamorphosed by
Galatea into the river bearing his name (now Fiume di Jaci),
which was celebrated for the coldness of its waters (Ovid,
Met. xiii. 750; Silius Italicus, Punica, xiv. 221).
ACKERMAN, FRANCIS (c. 1335--1387), Flemish soldier and
diplomatist, was born at Ghent, and about 1380 became prominent
during the struggle between the burghers of that town and
Louis II. (de Male), count of Flanders. He was partly
responsible for inducing Philip van Artevelde to become first
captain of the city of Ghent in 1382, and at the head of
some troops scoured the surrounding country for provisions
and thus saved Ghent from being starved into submission.
By his diplomatic abilities he secured the assistance of
the citizens of Brussels, Louvain and Liege, and, having
been made admiral of the Flemish fleet, visited England
and obtained a promise of help from King Richard II. After
Artevelde's death in November 1382, he acted as leader of the
Flemings, gained several victories and increased his fame by
skilfully conducting a retreat from Damme to Ghent in August
1385. He took part in the conclusion of the treaty of peace
between Ghent and Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, the
successor of Count Louis, in December 1385. Trusting in
Philip, and ignoring the warnings of his friends, Ackerman
remained in Flanders, and was murdered at Ghent on the 22nd
of July 1387, leaving a memory of chivalry and generosity.
See Jean Froissart, Chroniques, edited by S. Luce
and G. Raynaud (Paris, 1869-1897); Johannes Brandon,
Chronodromon, edited hy K. de Lettenhove in the
Chroniques rotatives a L'histoire de La Belgique sous
la domination des ducs de Bourgogne (Brussels, 1870).
ACKERMANN, JOHANN CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB (1756-1801), German
physician, was born at Zeillenroda, in Upper Saxony, on the
17th of February 1756, and died at Altdorf on the 9th of March
1801. At the age of fifteen he became a student of medicine
at Jena under E. G. Baldinger, whom he followed to Gottingen
in 1773, and afterwards he studied for two years at Halle.
A few years' practice at Stendal (1778-1799), where there
were numerous factories, enabled him to add many valuable
original observations to his translation (1780-1783) of
Bernardino Ramazzini's (1633-1714) treatise on diseases of
artificers. In 1786 he became professor of medicine at
the university of Altdorf, in Franconia, occupying first
the chair of chemistry, and then, from 1794 till his death
in 1801, that of pathology and therapeutics. He wrote
Institutiones Historiae Medicinae (Nuremberg, 1792) and
Institutiones Therapiae Generalls (Nuremberg and Altdorf,
1784-1795), besides various handbooks and translations.
ACKERMANN, LOUISE VICTORINE CHOQUET (1813-1890), French poet,
was born in Paris on the 30th of November 1813. Educated by
her father in the philosophy of the Encyclopaedists, Victorine
Choquet went to Berlin in 1838 to study German, and there
married in 1843 Paul Ackermann, an Alsatian philologist. After
little more than two years of happy married life her husband
died, and Madame Ackermann went to live at Nice with a favourite
sister. In 1855 she published Contes en vers, and in 1862
Contes et poesies. Very different from these simple and
charming contes is the work on which Madame Ackermann's
real reputation rests. She published in 1874 Poesies,
premieres poesies, poesies philosophiques, a volume of
sombre and powerful verse, expressing her revolt against human
suffering. The volume was enthusiastically reviewed in the
Revue des deux mondes for May 1871 by E. Caro, who, though
he deprecated the impiete desesperee of the verses,
did full justice to their vigour and the excellence of their
form. Soon after the publication of this volume Madame Ackermann
removed to Paris,where she gathered round her a circle of
friends, but published nothing further except a prose volume, the
Pensees d'un solitaire (1883), to which she prefixed a short
autobiography. She died at Nice on the 2nd of August 1890.
See also Anatole France, La vie litteraire, 4th series (1892);
the comte d'Haussonville, Mme. Ackermann (1882); M. Citoleux,
La poesie philosophique au XIXe. siecle (vol. i., Mme.
Ackermann d'apres de nombreux documents inedits, Paris, 1906).
ACKERMANN, RUDOLPH (1764-1834), Anglo-German inventor and
publisher, was born on the 20th of April 1764 at Schneeberg, in
Saxony. He had been a saddler and coachbuilder in different
German cities, Paris and London for ten years before, in
1795, he established a print-shop and drawing-school in the
Strand. Ackermann set up a lithographic press, and applied
it in 1817 to the illustration of his Repository of Arts,
Literature, Fashions,; &c. (monthly until 1828 when forty
volumes had appeared). Rowlandson and other distinguished
artists were regular contributors. He also introduced the
fashion of the once popular English Annuals, beginning in
1825 with Forget-me-not; and he published many illustrated
volumes of topography and travel, The Microcosm of London
(3 vols., 1808-1811), Westminster Abbey (2 vols., 1812),
Pine Rhine (1820), The World in Miniature (43 vols.,
1821--1826), &c. Ackermann was an enterprising man; he
patented (1801) a method for rendering paper and cloth
waterproof, erected a factory at Chelsea for the purpose
and was one of the first to illuminate his own premises with
gas. Indeed the introduction of lighting by gas owed much to
him. After the battle of Leipzig Ackermann collected nearly
a quarter of a million sterling for the German sufferers.
He died at Finchley, near London, on the 30th of March 1834.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT (from the old acknow, a compound of on-
and know, to know by the senses, which passed through the
forms oknow, aknow and acknow; acknowledge is formed on
analogy of ``knowledge''), an admission that something has been
given or done, a term used in law in various connexions. The
acknowledgment of a debt, if in writing signed by the debtor
or his agent, is sufficient to take it out of the Statutes of
Limitations. The signature to a will by a testator, if not
made in the presence of two witnesses, may be afterwards
acknowledged in their presence. The acknowledgment by a
woman married before 1882 of deeds for the conveyance of real
property not her separate property, requires to be made by
her before a judge of the High Court or of a county court or
before a perpetual or special commissioner. Before such an
acknowledgment can be received, the judge or commissioner is
required to examine her apart from her husband, touching her
knowledge of the deed, and to ascertain whether she freely and
voluntarily consents to it. An acknowledgment to the right
of the production of deeds of conveyance is an obligation
on the vendor, when he retains any portion of the property
to which the deeds relate, and is entitled to retain the
deeds, to produce them from time to time at the request of
the person to whom the acknowledgment is given, to allow
copies to be made, and to undertake for their safe custody
(Conveyancing Act 1881, s. 9). The term ``acknowledgment''
is, in the United States, applied to the certificate of a
public officer that an instrument was acknowledged before
him to be the deed or act of the person who executed it. .
``Acknowledgment money'' is the sum paid in some parts of England
by copyhold tenants on the death of the lord of the manor.
ACLAND, CHRISTIAN HENRIETTA CAROLINE (1750-1815), usually
called Lady Harriet Acland, was born on the 3rd of January
1750, the daughter of the first earl of Ilchester. In 1770
she married John Dyke Acland, who as a member of parliament
became a vigorous supporter of Lord North's policy towards
the American colonies, and, entering the British army in
1774, served with Burgoyne's expedition as major in the 20th
regiment of foot. Lady Hurriet accompanied her husband,
and, when he was wounded at Ticonderoga, nursed him in
his tent at the front. In the second battle of Saratoga
Major Acland was again badly wounded and subsequently taken
prisoner. Lady Harriet was determined to be with him, and
underwent great hardship to accomplish her object, proving
herself a courageous and devoted wife. A story has been
told that being provided with a letter from General Burgoyne
to the American general Gates, she went up the Hudson river
in an open boat to the enemy's lines, arriving late in the
evening. The American outposts threatened to fire into the
boat if its occupants stirred, and Lady Hnrriet had to wait
eight ``dark and cold hours,'' until the sun rose, when she
at last received permission to join her husband. Major Acland
died in 1778, and Lady Harriet on the 21st of July 1815.
ACLAND, SIR HENRY WENTWORTH, BART. (1815-1900), English
physician and man of learning, was born near Exeter on the
23rd of August 1815, and was the fourth son of Sir Thomas
Dyke Acland (1787-1871). Educated at Harrow and at Christ
Church, Oxford, he was elected fellow of All Souls in 1840, and
then studied medicine in London and Edinburgh. Returning to
Oxford, he was appointed Lee's reader in anatomy at Christ
Church in 1845, and in 1851 Radcliffe librarian and physician
to the Radcliffe infirmary. Seven years later he became
regius professor of medicine, a post which he retained till
1894. He was also a curator of the university galleries
and of the Bodleian Library, and from 1858 to 1887 he
represented his university on the General Medical Council,
of which he served as president from 1874 to 1887. Hn
was created a baronet in 1890, and ten years later, on the
16th of October 1900, he died at his house in Broad Street,
Oxford. Acland took a leading part in the revival of the
Oxford medical school and in introducing the study of natural
science into the university. As Lee's reader he began to
form a collection of anatomical and physiological preparations
on the plan of John Hunter, and the establishment of the
Oxford University museum, opened in 1861, as a centre for
the encouragement of the study of science, especially in
relation to medicine, was largely due to his efforts. ``To
Henry Acland,'' said his lifelong friend, John Ruskin,
``physiology was an entrusted gospel of which he was the
solitary preacher to the heathen,'' but on the other hand his
thorough classical training preserved science at Oxford from
too abrupt a severance from the humanities. In conjunction
with Dean Liddell, he revolutionized the study of art and
archaeology, so that the cultivation of these subjects, for
which, as Ruskin declared, no one at Oxford cared before that
time, began to flourish in the university. Acland was also
interested in questions of public health. He served on the
royal commission on sanitary laws in England and Wales in
1869, and published a study of the outbreak of cholera at
Oxford in 1854, together with various pamphlets on sanitary
matters. His memoir on the topography of the Troad, with
panoramic plan (1839), was among the fruits of a cruise which
he made in the Mediterranean for the sake of his health.
ACME (Gr. akme, point), the highest point
attainable; first used as an English word by Ben Jonson.
ACMITE, or AEGIRITE, a mineral of the pyroxene (q.v.)
group, which may be described as a soda-pyroxene, being
essentially a sodium and ferric metasilicate, NAFe(SiO3)2.
In its crystallographic characters it is close to ordinary
pyroxene (augite and diopside), being monoclinic and having
nearly the same angle between the prismatic cleavages. There
are, however, important differences in the optical characters:
the birefringence of acmite is negative, the pleochroism is
strong and the extinction angle on the plane of symmetry measured
to the vertical axis is small (3 deg. -5 deg. ). (The hardness is
6-6 1/2, and the specific gravity 3.55. Crystals are elongated
in the direction of the vertical axis, and are blackish
green (aegirite) or dark brown (acmite) in colour. Being
isomorphous with augite, crystals intermediate in composition
between augite or diopside and aegirite are not uncommon,
and these are known as aegirine-augite or aegirine-diopside.
Acmite is a characteristic constituent of igneous rocks
rich in soda, such as nepheline-syenites, phonolites, &c.
It was first discovered as slender crystals, sometimes
a foot in length, in the pegmatite veins of the granite
of Rundemyr, near Kongsbeig in Rorway, and was named by
F. Stromeyer in 1821 from the Gr. akme, a point, in
allusion to the pointed terminations of the crystals.
Aegirite (named from Aegir, the Scandinavian sea-god) was
described in 1835 from the elaeolite-syenite of southern
Norway. Although exhibiting certain varietal differences,
the essential identity of acmite and aegirite has long been
established, but the latter and more recent name is pethaps
in more general use, especially among petrologists.
ACNE, a skin eruption produced by inflammation of the sebaceous
glands and hair follicles, the essential point in the disease
being the plugging of the mouths of the sebaceous follicles
by a ``comedo,'' familiarly known as ``blackhead.'' It is
now generally acknowledged that the cause of this disease is
the organism known as bacillus acnes. It shows itself in the
form of red pimples or papules, which may become pustular and
be attended with considerable surrounding irritation of the
skin. This affection is likewise most common in early adult
life, and occurs on the chest and back as well as on the
face, where it may, when of much extent, produce considerable
disfigurement. It is apt to persist for months or even years,
but usually in time disappears entirely, although slight
traces may remain in the form of scars or stains upon the
skin. Eruptions of this kind are sometimes produced by the
continued internal use of certain drugs, such as the iodide
or bromide of potassium. In treating this condition the
face should first of all be held over steaming water for
several minutes, and then thoroughly bathed. The blackheads
should next be removed, not with the finger-nail, but with
an inexpensive little instrument known as the ``comedo
expressor.'' When the more noticeable of the blackheads
have been expressed, the face should be firmly rubbed for
three or four minutes with a lather made from a special
soap composed of sulphur, camphor and balsam of Peru. Any
lather remaining on the face at the end of this time should
be wiped off with a soft handkerchief. As this treatment
might give rise to some irritation of the skin, it should be
replaced every fourth night by a simple application of cold
cream. Of drugs used internally sulphate of calcium, in pill,
1/6 grain three times a day, is a very useful adjunct to the
preceding. The patient should take plenty of exercise in
the fresh air, a very simple but nourishing diet, and, if
present, constipation and anaemia must be suitably treated.
Rosacea, popularly known as acne rosacea, is a more
severe and troublesome disorder, a true dermatitis with
no relation to the foregoing, and in most cases secondary
to seborrhea of the scalp. It is characterized by great
redness of the nose and cheeks, accompanied by pustular
enlargements on the surface of the skin, which produce marked
disfigurement. Although often seen in persons who live too
freely, it is by no means confined to such, but may arise in
connexion with disturbances of the general health, especially
of the function of digestion, and in females with menstrual
disorders. It is apt to be exceedingly intractable to treatment,
which is here too, as in the preceding form, partly local
and partly constitutional. Of internal remedies preparations
of iodine and of arsenic are sometimes found of service.
ACOEMETI (Gr. akoimetos, sleepless), an order of Eastern
monks who celebrated the divine service without intermission
day or night. This was done by dividing the communities into
choirs, which relieved each other by turn in the church.
Their first monastery was established on the Euphrates, in
the beginning of the 5th century, and soon afterwards one
was founded in Constantinople. Here also, c. 460, was
founded by the consular Studius the famous monastery of the
Studium, which was put in the hands of the Acoemeti and
became their chief house, so that they were sometimes called
Studites. At Agaunum (St Maurice in the Valais) a monastery
was founded by the Burgundian king Sigismund, in 515, in
which the perpetual office was kept up; but it is doubtful
whether this had any connexion with the Eastern Acoemeti.
The Constantinopolitan Acoemeti took a prominent part
in the Christological controversies of the 5th and 6th
centuries, at first strenuously opposing Acacius, patriarch
of Constantinople, in his attempted compromise with the
monophysites; but afterwards, in Justinian's reign, falling
under ecclesiastical censure for Nestorian tendencies.
See the article in Dictionary of Christian Antiquities; Wetzer und
Welte, Kirchenlexicon (2nd ed.); and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie
(3rd ed.); also the general histories of the time. (E. C. B.)
ACOLYTE (Gr.akolouthos, follower), the last of the four
minor orders in the Roman Church. As an office it appears
to be of local origin, and is entirely unknown in the Eastern
Church, with the exception of the Armenians who borrowed
it from the West. Before the council of Nicaea (325) it was
only to be found at Rome and Carthage. When in 251 Pope
Cornelius, in a letter to Fabius of Antioch, mentions among
the Roman clergy forty-two acolytes, placing them after
the subdeacons and before the other minor officials (see
Eusebius, Hist. Ecc. lib. v. cap. 43), he gives no
hint that the office was a new one, but speaks of them as
holding an already established position. Their institution
has therefore to be sought for at an earlier date than his
pontificate. It is possible that the Liber Pontificalis
refers to the office under the Latin synonym, when it says
of Pope Victor (186--197) that he made sequentes cleros,
a term---sequens---which Pope Gaius (283--293) uses in the
sense of acolyte. While the office was well known in Rome,
there is nothing to prove that it was also an order through
which, as to-day, every candidate to the priesthood must
pass. The contrary is a fact proved by many monumental
inscriptions and authentic statements. Though the office
is found at Carthage, and St Cyprian (200?-258) makes many
references to acolytes, whom he used to carry his letters,
this seems to be the only place in Africa where they were
known. Tertullian, while speaking of readers and exorcists,
says nothing about acolytes; neither does St Augustine. The
Irish Church did not know them; and in Spain the council of
Toledo (400) makes no mention either of the office or of the
order. The Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua (falsely called the
Canons of the Fourth Council of Carthage in 397), a Gallican
collection, originating in the province of Arles at the
beginning of the 6th century, mentions the acolyte, but does
not give, as in the case of the other orders, any form for
the ordination. The Roman books are silent, and there is
no mention of it in the collection known as the Leonine
Sacramentary; while in the so-called Gelasian Massbook,
which as we have it, is full of Gallican additions made to
St Gregory's reform, there is the same silence, though in
one MS. of the 10th century given by Muratori we find a form
for the ordination of an acolyte. While there is frequent
mention of the acolyte's office in the Ordines Romani, it
is only in the Ordo VIII. (which is not earlier than the
7th century) that we find the very simple form for admitting
an acolyte to his office. At the end of the mass the
cleric, clad in chasuble and stole and bearing a linen bag
on one arm, comes before the pope or bishop and receives a
blessing. There is no collation of power or order but a
simple admission to an office. The evidence available,
therefore, points to the fact that the acolyte was only a
local office and was not a necessary step or order for every
candidate. In England, though the ecclesiastical organization
came from Rome and was directed by Romans, we find no trace
of such an office or order until the time of Ecgbert of York
(767), the friand of Alcuin and therefore subject to Gallican
influence. The Pontifical known as Ecgbert's shows that it
was then in use both as an office and as an order, and Aelfric
(1006) in both his pastoral epistle and canons mentions the
acolyte. The conclusion, then, which seems warranted by
the evidence, is that the acolyte was an office only at
Rome, and, becoming an order in the Gallican Church,
found its way as such into the Roman books at some period
before the fusion of the two rites under Charlemagne.
The duties of the acolyte, as given in the Roman Pontifical,
are identical with those mentioned in the Statuta Ecclesiae
Antiqua of Arles: ``It is the duty of acolytes to carry
the candlesticks, to light the lamps of the church, to
administer wine and water for the Eucharist.'' It might
seem, from the number forty-two mentioned by Pope Cornelius,
that at Rome the acolytes were divided among the seven
ecclesiastical regions of the city; but we have no proof
that, at that date, there were six acolytes attached to each
region. From the ancient division of the Roman acolytes
into Dalatini, or those in attendance on the pope at the
Lateran palace, Stationarii, or those who served at the
churches where there was a ``station,'' and Regionarii,
or those attached directly to the regiona, it would seem
that the number forty-two was only the actual number then
existing and not an official number. We get a glimpse of
their duties from the Ordines Romani. When the pope
rode in procession to the station an acolyte, on foot,
preceded him, bearing the holy chrism; and at the church
seven regionary acolytes with candles went before him in the
procession to the altar, while two others, bearing the vessel
that contained a pre-consecrated Host, presented it for his
adoration. During the mass an acolyte bore the thurible
(Ordo VI.) and three assisted at the washing of the
hands. At the moment of communion the acolytes received in
linen bags the consecrated Hosts to carry to the assisting
priests. This office of bearing the sacrament is an ancient
one, and is mentioned in the legend of Tarcisius, the Roman
acolyte, who was martyred on the Appian Way while carrying the
Hosts from the catacombs. The official dress of the acolyte,
according to Ordo V., was a close-fitting linen garment
(camisia) girt about him, a napkin hanging from the left side,
a white tunic, a stole (orarium) and a chasuble (planeta)
which he took off when he sang on the steps of the ambone.
At the present day, despite the earnest wish of the council
of Trent (Sess. xxiii. cap. 17 d.r.), the acolyte, while
remaining an order, has ceased to be essentially a clerical
office, since the duties are now performed, almost everywhere, by
laymen. The office has been revived, though unofficially, in
the Church of England, as a result of the Tractarian movement.
See Morin, Commentarius in sacris Ecclesiae ordinationibus
(Antwerp, 1685), ii. p. 209, iii. p. 152; Martene, De Antiquis
Ecclesiae ritibus (Antwerp, 1739), ii. pp. 47 and 86; Mabillon,
Musaeum Italicum II. for the Ordines Romani; Muratori,
Liturgia Romana Vetus; Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archeologie
chretisnne et de liturgie, vol. i. col. 348-536.-. (E. TN.)
ACOMINATUS (AKOMINATOS), MICHAEL (c. 1140-1220),
Byzantine writer and ecclesiastic, was born at Chonae
(the ancient Colossae). At an early age he studied at
Constantinople, and about 1175 was appointed archbishop of
Athens. After the capture of Constantinople by the Franks
and the establishment of the Latin empire (1204), he retired
to the island of Coos, where he died. He was a versatile
writer, and composed homilies, speeches and poems, which,
with his correspondence, throw considerable light upon the
miserable condition of Attica and Athens at the time. His
memorial to Alexis III. Angelus on the abuses of Byzantine
administration, the poetical lament over the degeneracy of
Athens and the monodes on his brother Nicetas and Eustathius,
archbishop of Thessalonica, deserve special mention.
Edition of his works by S. Lambros (1879--1880); Migne, Patrologia
Graeca, cxl.; see also A. Ellissen, Michael Akominatos
(1886), containing several pieces with German translation; F.
Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter, i.
(1889); G. Finlay, History of Greece, iv. pp. 133-134 (1877).
His younger brother NICETAS (Niketas), sometimes called
CHONIATES, who accompanied him to Constantinople, took up
politics as a career. He held several appointments
under the Angelus emperors (amongst them that of ``great
logothete'' or chancellor) and was governor of the ``theme''
of Philippopolis at a critical period. After the fall of
Constantinople he fled to Nicaea, where he settled at the
court of the emperor Theodorus Lascaris, and devoted himself to
literature. He died between 1210 and 1220. His chief work
is his History, in 21 books, of the period from 1180 to
1206. In spite of its florid and bombastic style, it is of
considerable value as a record (on the whole impartial) of
events of which he was either an eye-witness or had heard at
first hand. Its most interesting portion is the description
of the capture of Constantinople, which should be read
with Villehardouin's and Paolo Rannusio's works on the same
subject. The little treatise On the Statues destroyed by thc
Latins (perhaps, as we have it, altered by a later writer) is
of special interest to the archaeologist. His dogmatic work(
Thesauros 'Orthodoxias, Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei),
although it is extant in a complete form in MS., has only
been published in part. It is one of the chief authorities
for the heresies and heretical writers of the 12th century.
Editions: History, editio princeps, H. Wolf (1557); and in
the Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byz., 1st ed.,Bekker (1835);
Rhetorical Pieces in C. Sathas, Mesaionike Bibliotheke, i.
(1872); Thesaurus in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxxxix., cxl.;
see also C. A. Sainte-Beuve, ``Geoffroy de Villehardouin'' in
Causeries du Lundi, ix.; S. Reinach, ``La fin de l'empire grec''
in Esquisses Archeologiques (1888); C. Neumann, Griechische
Geschichtsschreiber im 12. Jahrhundert (1888); Gibbon, Decline
and Fall, ch. lx.; and (for both Michael and Nicetas) C.
Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).
ACONCAGUA, a small northern province of central Chile,
bounded N. by Coquimbo, E. by Argentina, S. by Santiago and
Valparaiso and W. by the Pacific. Its area is officially
computed at 5487 sq. m. Pop. (1895) 113,165; (1902, official
estimate based on civil registry returns) 131,255. The province
is very mountainous, and is traversed from east to west by
the broad valley of the Aconcagua river. The climate is hot
and dry, the rainfall being too small to influence climatic
conditions. The valleys are highly fertile, and where irrigation
is employed large crops are easily raised. Beyond the limits
of irrigation the country is semi-barren. Alfalfa and grapes
are the principal products, and considerable attention is given
to the cultivation of other fruits, such as figs, peaches and
melons. The ``Vale of Quillota,'' through which the railway
passes between Valparaiso and Santiago, is celebrated for its
gardens. The Aconcagua river rises on the southern slope of
the volcano Aconcagua, flows eastward through a broad valley,
or bay in the mountains, and enters the Pacific 12 m. north of
Valparaiso. The river has a course of about 200 m., and
its waters irrigate the best and most populous part of the
province. Two other rivers--the Ligua and Choapa--traverse
the province, the latter forming the northern boundary
line. The capital is San Felipe, on the Aconcagua river;
it had a population of 11,313 in 1895, and an estimated
population of 11,660 in 1902. The other chief town is
Santa Rosa de los Andes (est. pop. 6854), which is a
principal station on the Transandine branch of the state
railway. The only port in the province is Los Vilos, in
lat. 32 deg. S., from which a railway 40 m. long runs north-east
to the valley of the Choapa. Another short line connects
Cabildo, in the valley of the Ligua, with the state railway.
ACONCIO, GIACOMO (1492-1566?), pioneer of religious toleration,
was born at Trent, it is said, on the 7th of September 1492.
He was one of the Italians like Peter Martyr and Bernardino
Ochino who repudiated papal doctrine and ultimately found
refuge in England. Like them, his revolt against Romanism
took an extremer form than Lutheranism, and after a temporary
residence in Switzerland and at Strassburg, he arrived in
England soon after Elizabeth's accession. He had studied
law and theology, but his profession was that of an engineer,
and in this capacity he found employment with the English
government. He was granted an annuity of L. 60 on the 27th of
February 1560, and letters of naturalization on the 8th of October
1561 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser., Addenda, 1547--1566, p.
495), and was for some time occupied with draining Plumstead
marshes, for which object various acts of parliament were
passed at this time (Lords' Journals, vol. i., and Commons'
Journals, vol. i., passim). In 1564 he was sent to report
on the fortifications of Berwick (Cal. St. Pap. For Ser.
1564-1565, passim; Acts P.C., 1558-1570, p. 146); his report
is now in thc Record Office (C.S.P. For., 1564-1565, No. 512).
But his real importance depends upon his contribution to the
history of religious toleration. Before reaching England he
had published a treatise on the methods of investigation, De
Methodo, hoc est, de recte investigandarum tradendarumque
Scientiarum ratione (Basel, 1558, 8vo); and his critical
spirit placed him outside all the recognized religious societies
of his time. On his arrival in London he had joined the Dutch
Reformed Church in Austin Friars, but he was ``infected with
Anabaptistical and Arian opinions'' and was excluded from the
sacrament by Grindal, bishop of London. The real nature of his
heterodoxy is revealed in his Stratagemata Satanae, published
in 1565 and translated into various languages. The ``stratagems
of Satan'' are the dogmatic creeds which rent the Christian
church. Aconcio sought to find the common denominator of
the various creeds; this was essential doctrine, the rest was
immaterial. To arrive at this common basis, he had to
reduce dogma to a low level, and his result was generally
repudiated. Even Selden applied to Aconcio the remark ubi bene,
nil melius; ubi male, nemo pejus. The dedication of such a
work to Queen Elizabeth illustrates the tolerance or religious
laxity during the early years of her reign. Aconcio found
another patron in the earl of Leicester, and died about 1566.
AUTHORITIES.--Gough's Index to Parker Soc. Publ.;
Strype's Grindal, pp. 62, 66; Bayle's Dictionnaire; G.
Tiraboschi, Storia della lett. italiana (Florence,
1805--1813); Osterreichisches Biogr. Lexikon;
Nouvelle biogr. generale; Dict. Nat. Biogr. (A. F. P.)
ACONITE (Aconitum), a genus of plants belonging to the
natural order Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family, commonly
known as aconite, monkshood or wolfsbane, and embracing
about 60 species, chiefly natives of the mountainous parts
of the northern hemisphere. They are distinguished by
having one of the five blue or yellow coloured sepals (the
posterior one) in the form of a helmet; hence the English name
monkshood. Two of the petals placed under the hood of
the calyx are supported on long stalks, and have a hollow
spur at their apex, containing honey. They are handsome
plants, the tall stem being crowned by racemes of showy
flowers. Aconitum Napellus, common monkshood, is a doubtful
native of Britain, and is of therapeutic and toxicological
importance. Its roots have occasionally been mistaken for
horse-radish. The aconite has a short underground stem, from
which dark-coloured tapering roots descend. The crown or upper
portion of the root gives rise to new plants. When put to
the lip, the juice of the aconite root produces a feeling of
numbness and tingling. The horse-radish root, which belongs
to the natural order Cruciferae, is much longer than that of
the aconite, and it is not tapering; its colour is yellowish,
and the top of the root has the remains of the leaves on it.
Many species of aconite are cultivated in gardens, some
having blue and others yellow flowers. Aconitum lycoctonum,
wolfsbane, is a yellow-flowered species common on the Alps of
Switzerland. The roots of Aconitum ferox supply the famous
Indian (Nepal) poison called bikh, bish or nabee. It contains
considerable quantities of the alkaloid pseudaconitine, which
is the most deadly poison known. Aconitum palmatum yields
another of the celebrated bikh poisons. The root of Aconitum
luridum, of the Himalayas, is said to be as virulent as that
of A. ferox or A. Napellus. As garden plants the aconites
are very ornamental, hardy perennials. They thrive well in
any ordinary garden soil, and will grow beneath the shade of
trees. They are easily propagated by divisions of the root
or by seeds; great care should be taken not to leave pieces
of the root about owing to its very poisonous character.
Chemistry.---The active principle of Aconitum Napellus
is the alkaloid aconitine, first examined by P. L. Geiger and
Hesse (Ann., 1834, 7, p. 267), Alder Wright and A. B, Luff
obtained apoaconitine, aconine and benzoic acid by hydrolysis;
while, in 1802, C. Ehrenberg and A. Purfurst (Journ.
Prat. Chem., 1892, 45, p. 604) observed acetic acid as a
hydrolytic product. This, and allied alkaloids, have formed
the subject of many investigations by Wyndham Dunstan and
his pupils in England, and by Martin Freund and Paul Beck in
Berlin. But their constitution is not yet solved, there
even being some divergence of opinion as to their empirical
formulae, Aconitine (C33H45NO13, according to Dunstan;
C34H47NO11, according to Freund) is a crystalline base,
soluble in alcohol, but very sparingly in water; its alcoholic
solution is dextrorotatory, but its salts are laevorotatory.
When heated it loses water and forms pyraconitine. Hydrolysis
gives acetic acid and benzaconine, the chief constituent of the
alkaloids picraconitine and napelline; further hydrolysis gives
aconine. Pseudaconitine, obtained from Aconitum ferox,
gives on hydrolysis acetic acid and veratrylpseudaconine, the
latter of which suffers further hydrolysis to veratric acid and
pseudaconine. Japaconitine, obtained from the Japanese
aconites, known locally as ``kuza-uzu,'' hydrolyses to
japbenzaconine, which further breaks down to benzoic acid and
japaconine. Other related alkaloids are lycaconitine and
myoctonine which occur in wolfsbane, Aconitum lycoctonum.
The usual test for solutions of aconitine consists in slight
acidulation with acetic acid and addition of potassium
permanganate, which causes the formation of a red crystalline
precipitate. In 1905, Dunstan and his collaborators discovered
two new aconite alkaloids, indaconitine in ``mohri'' (Aconitum
chasmanthum, Stapf), and bikhaconitine in ``bikh'' (Aconitum
spicatum); he also proposes to classify these alkaloids
according to whether they yield benzoic or veratric acid on
hydrolysis (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1905, 87, pp. 1620, 1650).
From the root of Aconitum Napellus are prepared a liniment
and a tincture. The dose of the latter (Brit. Pharmacop.)
is of importance as being exceptionally small, for it is
not advisable to give more than at most five drops at a
time. The official preparation is an ointment which contains
one part of the alkaloid in fifty. It must be used with
extreme care, and in small quantities, and it must not be
used at all where cuts or cracks are present in the skin.
Pharmacology of Aconite and Aconitine.---Aconite first
stimulates and later paralyses the nerves of pain, touch and
temperature, if applied to the skin, broken or unbroken, or
to a mucous membrane; the initial tingling therefore gives
place to a long-continued anaesthetic action. Taken internally
aconite acts very notably on the circulation, the respiration
and the nervous system. The pulse is slowed, the number of
beats per minute being actually reduced, under considerable
doses, to forty, or even thirty, per minute. The blood-pressure
synchronously falls, and the heart is arrested in diastole.
Immediately before arrest the heart may beat much faster than
normally, though with extreme irregularity, and in the lower
animals the auricles may be observed occasionally to miss
a beat, as in poisoning by veratrine and colchicum. The
action of aconitine on the circulation is due to an initial
stimulation of the cardio-inhibitory centre in the medulla
oblongata (at the root of the vagus nerves), and later to a
directly toxic influence on the nerve-ganglia and muscular
fibres of the heart itself. The fall in blood-pressure is not
due to any direct influence on the vessels. The respiration
becomes slower owing to a paralytic action on the respiratory
centre and, in warm-blooded animals, death is due to this
action, the respiration being arrested before the action
of the heart. Aconite further depresses the activity of
all nerve-terminals, the sensory being affected before the
motor. In small doses it therefore tends to relieve pain, if
this be present. The activity of the spinal cord is similarly
depressed. The pupil is at first contracted, and afterwards
dilated. The cerebrum is totally unaffected by aconite,
consciousness and the intelligence remaining normal to the
last. The antipyretic action which considerable doses of aconite
display is not specific, but is the result of its influence on the
circulation and respiration and of its slight diaphoretic action.
Therapeutics.---The indications for its employment are
limited, but definite. It is of undoubted value as a local
anodyne in sciatica and neuralgia, especially in ordinary
facial or trigeminal neuralgia. The best method of application
is by rubbing in a small quantity of the aconitine ointment
until numbness is felt, but the costliness of this preparation
causes the use of the aconite liniment to be commonly resorted
to. This should be painted on the affected part with a
camel's hair brush dipped in chloroform, which facilitates the
absorption of the alkaloid. Aconite is indicated for internal
administration whenever it is desirable to depress the action
of the heart in the course of a fever. Formerly used in every
fever, and even in the septic states that constantly followed
surgical operations in the pre-Listerian epoch, aconite is
now employed only in the earliest stage of the less serious
fevers, such as acute tonsilitis, bronchitis and, notably,
laryngitis. The extreme pain and rapid swelling of the
vocal cords---with threatened obstruction to the respiration
that characterize acute laryngitis may often be relieved
by the sedative action of this drug upon the circulation.
In order to reduce the pulse to its normal rate in these
cases, without at the same time lessening the power of the
heart, the drug must be given in doses of about two minims
of the tincture every half-hour and then every hour until the
pulse falls to the normal rate. Thereafter the drug must be
discontinued. It is probably never right to give aconite in
doses much larger than that named. There is one condition
of the heart itself in which aconite is sometimes useful.
Whilst absolutely contra-indicated in all cases of valvular
disease, it is of value in cases of cardiac hypertrophy with
over-action. But the practitioner must be assured that neither
valvular lesion nor degeneration of the myocardium is present.
Toxicology.---In a few minutes after the introduction of
a poisonous dose of aconite, marked symptoms supervene. The
initial signs of poisoning are referable to the alimentary
canal. There is a sensation of burning, tingling and numbness
in the mouth, and of burning in the abdomen. Death usually
supervenes before a numbing effect on the intestine can be
observed. After about an hour there is severe vomiting. Much
motor weakness and cutaneous sensations similar to those above
described soon follow. The pulse and respiration steadily
fail, death occurring from asphyxia. As in strychnine
poisoning, the patient is conscious and clear-minded to the
last. The only post-mortem signs are those of asphyxia. The
treatment is to empty the stomach by tube or by a non-depressant
emetic. The physiological antidotes are atropine and digitalin or
strophanthin, which should be injected subcutaneously in maximal
doses. Alcohol, strychnine and warmth must also be employed.
ACONTIUS (Gr. Akontios), in Greek legend, a beautiful
youth of the island of Ceos, the hero of a love-story told
by Callimachus in a poem now lost, which forms the subject of
two of Ovid's Heroides (xx., xxi.). During the festival of
Artemis at Deles, Acontius saw Cydippe, a well-born Athenian
maiden of whom he was enamoured, sitting in the temple of the
goddess. He wrote on an apple the words, ``I swear by the sacred
shrine of the goddess that I will marry you,'' and threw it at
her feet. She picked it up, and mechanically read the words
aloud, which amounted to a solemn undertaking to carry them
out. Unaware of this, she treated Acontius with contempt;
but, although she was betrothed more than once, she always fell
ill before the wedding took place. The Delphic oracle at last
declared the cause of her illnesses to be the wrath of the offended
goddess; whereupon her father consented to her marriage with
Acontius (Aristaenetus, Epistolae, i. 10; Antoninus Liberalis,
Metamorphoses, i., tells the story with different names).
ACORN, the fruit of the oak-tree; a word also used, by
analogy with the shape, in nautical language, for a piece of
wood keeping the vane on the mast-head. The etymology of the
word (earlier akerne, and acharn) is well discussed in the
New English Dictionary. It is derived from a word (Goth.
akran) which meant ``fruit,'' originally ``of the unenclosed
land,'' and so of the most important forest produce, thc
oak. Chaucer speaks of ``achornes of okes.'' By degrees,
popular etymology connected the word both with ``corn''
and ``oak-horn,'' and the spelling changed accordingly.
ACORUS CALAMUS, sweet-sedge or sweet-flag, a plant of the
natural order Araceae, which shares with the Cuckoo Pint
(Arum) the representation in Britain of that order of
Monocotyledons. The name is derived from acorus, Gr.
akoros, the classical name for the plant. It was the
Calamus aromaticus of the medieval druggists and perhaps of
the ancients, though the latter has been referred by some to
the Citron grass, Andropogon Nardus. The spice ``Calamus''
or ``Sweet-cane'' of the Scriptures, one of the ingredients
of the holy anointing oil of the Jews, was perhaps one of the
fragrant species of Andropogon. The plant is a herbaceous
perennial with a long, branched root-stock creeping through
the mud, about 3/4 inch thick, with short joints and large
brownish leaf-scars. At the ends of the branches are tufts
of flat, sword-like, sweet-scented leaves 3 or 4 ft. long
and about an inch wide, closely arranged in two rows as in
the true Flag (Iris); the tall, flowering stems (scapes),
which very much resemble the leaves, bear an apparently
lateral, blunt, tapering spike of densely packed, very small
flowers. A long leaf (spathe) borne immediately below the
spike forms an apparent continuation of the scape, though
really a lateral outgrowth from it, the spike of flowers being
terminal. The plant has a wide distribution, growing in wet
situations in the Himalayas, North America, Siberia and various
parts of Europe, including England, and has been naturalized
in Scotland and Ireland. Though regarded as a native in most
counties of England at the present day, where it is now found
thoroughly wild on sides of ditches, ponds and rivers, and very
abundantly in some districts, it is probably not indigenous.
It seems to have been spread in western and central Europe
from about the end of the 16th century by means of botanic
gardens. The botanist Clusius (Charles de l'Escluse or
Lecluse, 1526-1609) first cultivated it at Vienna from a
root received from Asia Minor in 1574, and distributed it
to other botanists in central and western Europe, and it was
probably introduced into England about 1596 by the herbalist
Gerard. It is very readily propagated by means of its branching
root-stock. It has an agreeable odour, and has been used
medicinally. The starchy matter contained in its rhizome is
associated with a fragrant oil, and it is used as hair-powder.
Sir J. E. Smith (Eng. Flora, ii. 158, 2nd ed., 1828) mentions
it as a popular remedy in Norfolk for ague. In India it
is used as an insectifuge, and is administered in infantile
diarrhoea. It is an ingredient in pot-pourri, is employed
for flavouring beer and is chewed to clear the voice; and its
volatile oil is employed by makers of snuff and aromatic vinegar.
The rhizome of Acorus Calamus is sometimes adulterated with
that of Iris Pseudacorus, which, however, is distinguishable
by its lack of odour, a stringent taste and dark colour.
ACOSTA, JOSE DE (1539?--1600), Spanish author, was born at
Medina del Campo about the year 1539. He joined the Jesuits
in 1551, and in 1571 was sent as a missionary to Peru; he
acted as provincial of his order from 1576 to 1581, was
appointed theological adviser to the council of Lima in 1582,
and in 1583 published a catechism in Quichua and Aymara--the
first book printed in Peru. Returning to Spain in 1587, and
placing himself at the head of the opposition to Acquaviva,
Acosta was imprisoned in 1592--1593; on his submission in
1594 he became superior of the Jesuits at Valladolid, and
in 1598 rector of the Jesuit college at Salamanca, where
he died on the 15th of February 1600. His treatise De
natura novi orbis libri duo (Salamanca, 1588-1589) may be
regarded as the preliminary draft of his celebrated Historia
natural y moral de las Indias (Seville, 1590) which was
speedily translated into Italian (1596), French (1597), Dutch
(1598), German (1601), Latin (1602) and English (1604) The
Historia is in three sections: books I. and II. deal with
generalities; books III. and IV. with the physical geography
and natural history of Mexico and Peru; books V., VI. and
VII. with the religious and political institutions of the
aborigines. Apart from his sophistical defence of Spanish
colonial policy, Acosta deserves high praise as an acute and
diligent observer whose numerous new and valuable data are
set forth in a vivid style. Among his other publications
are De procuranda salute Indorum libri sex (Salamanca,
1588), De Christo revelato libri novem (Rome, 1590), De
temporibus novissimis libri quatuor (Rome, 1590), and three
volumes of sermons issued respectively in 1596, 1597 and 1599.
AUTHORITIES.---Jose R. Carricido, El P. Jose de Acosta
y su importancia en La literatura cientifica espanola
(Madrid, 1899); C. Sommervogel, Bibliotheque de La Compagnie
de Jesus, Premiere Partie (Brussels and Paris, 1890),
vol. i., col. 31-42; and Edward Grimston's translation of
the Historia reprinted (1880) for the Hakluyt Society with
introduction and notes by Sir Clements R. Markham. (J. F.-K.)
ACOSTA, URIEL (d. 1647), a Portuguese Jew of noble family,
was born at Oporto towards the close of the 16th century. His
father being a convert to Christianity, Uriel was brought up
in the Roman Catholic faith, and strictly observed the rites
of the church till the course of his inquiries led him, after
much painful doubt, to abandon the religion of his youth for
Judaism. Passing over to Amsterdam, he was received into the
synagogue, having his name changed from Gabriel to Uriel.
His wayward disposition found, however, no satisfaction in
the Jewish fold. He came into conflict with the authorities
of the synagogue and was excommunicated. Unlike Spinoza (who
was about fifteen at the time of Acosta's death), Acosta was
not strong enough to stand alone. Wearied by his melancholy
isolation, he was driven to seek a return to the Jewish
communion. Having recanted his heresies, he was readmitted
after an excommunication of fifteen years, but was soon
excommunicated a second time. After seven years of exclusion,
he once more sought admission, and, on passing through a
humiliating penance, was again received. His vacillating
autobiography, Exemplar Humanae Vitae, was published
with a ``refutation'' by Limborch in 1687, and republished in
1847. In this brief work Acosta declares his opposition both
to Christianity and Judaism, though he speaks with the more
bitterness of the latter religion. The only authority which
he admits is the lex naturae. Acosta was not an original
thinker, but he stands in the direct line of the rational
Deists. His history forms the subject of a tale and of
a tragedy by Gutzkow. Acosta committed suicide in 1647.
The significance of his career has been much exaggerated.
ACOTYLEDONES, the name given by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu
in 1789 to the lowest class in his Natural System of Botany,
embracing flowerless plants, such as ferns, lycopods,
horse-tails, mosses, liverworts, sea-weeds, lichens and
fungi. The name is derived from the absence of a seed-leaf or
cotyledon. Flowering plants bear a seed containing an embryo,
with usually one or two cotyledons, or seed-leaves; while
in flowerless plants there is no seed and therefore no true
cotyledon. The term is synonymous with Cryptogams, by
which it was replaced in later systems of classification.
ACOUSTICS (from the Gr. akouein to hear), a title
frequently given to the science of sound, that is, to the
description and theory of the phenomena which give rise to
the sensation of sound (q.v.). The term ``acoustics''
might, however, with advantage be reserved for the aspect of
the subject more immediately connected with hearing. Thus we
may speak appropriately of the acoustic quality of a room or
hall, describing it as good or bad acoustically, according
as speaking is heard in it easily or with difficulty. When
a room has bad acoustic quality we can almost always assign
the fault to large smooth surfaces on the walls, floor or
ceiling, which reflect or echo the voice of the speaker so that
the direct waves sent out by him at any instant are received
by a hearer with the waves sent out previously and reflected
at these smooth surfaces. The syllables overlap, and the
hearing is confused. The acoustic quality of a room may be
improved by breaking up the smooth surfaces by curtains or
by arrangement of furniture. The echo is then broken up into
small waves, none of which may be sufficiently distinct to
interfere with the direct voice. Sometimes a sounding-board
over the head of a speaker improves the hearing probably by
preventing echo from a smooth wall behind him. A large bare
floor is undoubtedly bad for acoustics, for when a room is
filled by an audience the hearing is much improved Wires are
frequently stretched across a room overhead, probably with
the idea that they will prevent the voice from reaching the
roof and being reflected there, but there is no reason to
suppose that they are efficient. The only cure appears to
consist in breaking up the reflecting surfaces so that the
reflexion shall be much less regular and distinct. Probably
drapery assists by absorbing the sound to some extent, and
thus it lessens the echo besides breaking it up. (J. H. P.)
ACQUI, a city and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, in the
province of Alessandria; from the town of that name it is 21
m. S.S.W. by rail. Pop. (1901) 13,786. Its warm sulphur
springs are still resorted to; under the name of Aquae
Statiellae they were famous in Roman times, and Paulus Diaconus
and Liutprand speak of the ancient bath establishment. In
the neighbourhood of the town are remains of the aqueduct
which supplied it. The place was connected by road with Alba
Pompeia and Augusta Taurinorum. The tribe of the Statielli, to
whom the district belonged, had joined the Romans at an early
period, but was attacked in 173 and in part transferred to the
north of the Po. The town possesses a fine Gothic cathedral.
ACRE, or AQUIRY, a river of Brazil and principal tributary
of the Purus, rising on the Bolivian frontier and flowing
easterly and northerly to a junction with the Purus at 8 deg.
45' S. lat. The name is also applied to a district situated
on the same river and on the former (1867) boundary line
between Bolivia and Brazil. The region, which abounds in
valuable rubber forests, was settled by Bolivians between
1870 and 1878, but was invaded by Brazilian rubber collectors
during the next decade and became tributary to the rubber
markets of Manaos and Para. In 1899 the Bolivian government
established a custom-house at Puerto Alonso, on the Acre
river, for the collection of export duties on rubber, which
precipitated a conflict with the Brazilian settlers and finally
brought about a boundary dispute between the two republics.
In July 1899 the Acreanos declared their independence and
set up a republic of their own, but in the following March
they were reduced to submission by Brazil. Various disorders
followed until Brazil decided to occupy Puerto Alonso with a
military force. The boundary dispute was finally settled at
Petropolis on the 17th of November 1903 through the purchase
by Brazil of the rubber-producing territory south to about
the 11th parallel, estimated at more than 60,000 sq. m.
ACRE, Akka, or ST JEAN D'ACRE, the chief town of a
governmental district of Palestine which includes Haifa,
Nazareth and Tiberias. It stands on a low promontory at the
northern extremity of the Bay of Acre, 80 m. N. N.W. from
Jerusalem, and 25 m. S. of Tyre. The population is about
11,000; 8000 being Moslems, the remainder Christians, Jews,
&c. It was long regarded as the ``Key of Palestine,'' on
account of its commanding position on the shore of the broad
plain that joins the inland plain of Esdraelon, and so affords
the easiest entrance to the interior of the country. But
trade is now passing over to Haifa, at the south side of the
bay, as its harbour offers a safer roadstead, and is a regular
calling.place for steamers. Business, rapidly declining, is
still carried on in wheat, maize, oil, sesame, &c., in the town
market. There are few buildings of interest, owing to the
frequent destructions the town has undergone. The wall,
which is now ruinous and has but one gate, dates from the
crusaders: the mosque was built by Jezzar Pasha (d. 1804)
from materials taken from Caesarea Palaestina: his tomb is
within. Acre is the seat of the head of the Babist religion.
History.--Few towns have had a more chequered or calamitous
history. Of great antiquity, it is probably to be identified
with the Aak of the tribute-lists of Tethmosis (Thothmes)
III (c. 1500 B.C.), and it is certainly the Akka
of the Tell el-Amarna correspondence. To the Hebrews it
was known as Acco (Revised Version spelling), but it is
mentioned only once in the Old Testament, namely Judges i.
31, as one of the places from which the Israelites did not
drive out the Canaanite inhabitants. Theoretically it was
in the territory of the tribe of Asher, and Josephus assigns
it by name to the district of one of Solomon's provincial
governors. Throughout the period of Hebrew domination, however,
its political connexions were always with Syria rather than
with Palestine proper: thus, about 725 B.C. it joined Sidon
and Tyre in a revolt against Shalmaneser IV. It had a stormy
experience during the three centuries preceding the Christian
era. The Greek historians name it Ake (Josephus calls
it also Akre); but the name was changed to Ptolemais,
probably by Ptolemy Soter, after the partition of the kingdom of
Alexander. Strabo refers to the city as once a rendezvous for
the Persians in their expeditions against Egypt. About 165
B.C. Simon Maccabaeus defeated the Syrians in many battles
in Galilee, and drove them into Ptolemais. About 153 B.C.
Alexander Balas, son of Antiochus Epiphanes, contesting the
Syrian crown with Demetrius, seized the city, which opened its
gates to him. Demetrius offered many bribes to the Maccabees
to obtain Jewish support against his rival, including the
revenues of Ptolemais for the benefit of the Temple, but in
vain. Jonathan threw in his lot with Alexander, and in
150 B.C. he was received by him with great honour in
Ptolemais. Some years later, however, Tryphon, an officer
of the Syrians, who had grown suspicious of the Maccabees,
enticed Jonathan into Ptolemais and there treacherously took him
prisoner. The city was also assaulted and captured by Alexander
Jannaeus, by Cleopatra and by Tigranes. Here Herod built a
gymnasium, and here the Jews met Petronius, sent to set up
statues of the emperor in the Temple, and persuaded him to turn
back. St Paul spent a day in Ptolemais. The Arabs captured
the city in A.D. 638, and lost it to the crusaders in
1110. The latter made the town their chief port in
Palestine. It was re-taken by Saladin in 1187, besieged
by Guy de Lusignan in 1189 (see below), and again captured
by Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191. In 1229 it was placed
under the control of the knights of St John (whence one of
its alternative names), but finally lost by the Franks in
1291. The Turks under Sultan Selim I. captured the city
in 1517, after which it fell into almost total decay.
Maundrell in 1697 found it a complete ruin, save for a khan
occupied by some French merchants, a mosque and a few poor
cottages. Towards the end of the 18th century it seems to
have revived under the comparatively beneficent rule of Dhahar
el-Amir, the local sheikh: his successor, Jezzar Pasha,
governor of Damascus, improved and fortified it, but by heavy
imposts secured for himself all the benefits derived from his
improvements. About 1780 Jezzar peremptorily banished the
French trading colony, in spite of protests from the French
government, and refused to receive a consul. In 1799 Napoleon,
in pursuance of his scheme for raising a Syrian rebellion
against Turkish domination, appeared before Acre, but after
a siege of two months (March--May) was repulsed by the
Turks, aided by Sir W. Sidney Smith and a force of British
sailors. Jezzar was succeeded on his death by his son Suleiman,
under whose milder rule the town advanced in prosperity till
1831, when Ibrahim Pasha besieged and reduced the town and
destroyed its buildings. On the 4th of November 1840 it
was bombarded by the allied British, Austrian and French
squadrons, and in the following year restored to Turkish rule.
Battle of Acre.---The battle of 1189, fought on the ground
to the east of Acre, affords a good example of battles of the
Crusades. The crusading army under Guy of Lusignan, king
of Jerusalem, which was besieging Acre, gave battle on the
4th of October 1189 to the relieving army which Saladin had
collected. The Christian army consisted of the feudatories
of the kingdom of Jerusalem, numerous small contingents of
European crusaders and the military orders, and contingents
from Egypt, Turkestan, Syria and Mesopotamia fought under
Saladin. The Saracens lay in a semicircle east of the town
facing inwards towards Acre. The Christians opposed them
with crossbowmen in first line and the heavy cavalry in
second. At Arsuf the Christians fought coherently; here
the battle began with a disjointed combat between the
Templars and Saladin's right wing. The crusaders were so far
successful that the enemy had to send up reinforcements from
other parts of the field. Thus the steady advance of the
Christian centre against Saladin's own corps, in which the
crossbows prepared the way for the charge of the men-at-arms,
met with no great resistance. But the victors scattered to
plunder. Sajadin rallied his men, and, when the Christians
began to retire with their booty, let loose his light horse
upon them. No connected resistance was offered, and the
Turks slaughtered the fugitives until checked by the fresh
troops of the Christian right wing. Into this fight Guy's
reserve, charged with holding back the Saracens in Acre, was
also drawn, and, thus freed, 5000 men sallied out from the
town to the northward; uniting with the Saracen right wing,
they fell upon the Templars, who suffered severely in their
retreat. In the end the crusaders repulsed the relieving
army, but only at the cost of 7000 men. (R. A. S. M.)
ACRE, a land measure used by English-speaking races. Derived
from the Old Eng. acer and cognate with the Lat. ager, Gr.
agros, Sans. ajras, it has retained its original meaning
``open country,'' in such phrases as ``God's acre,'' or a
churchyard, ``broad acres,'' &c. As a measure of land, it was
first defined as the amount a yoke of oxen could plough in a
day; statutory values were enacted in England by acts of Edward
I., Edward III., Henry VIII. and George IV., and the Weights
and Measures Act 1878 now defines it as containing 4840 sq.
yds. In addition to this ``statute'' or ``imperial acre,''
other ``acres'' are still, though rarely, used in Scotland,
Ireland, Wales and certain English counties. The Scottish
acre contains 6150.4 sq. yds.; the Irish acre 7840 sq. yds.; in
Wales, the land measures erw (4320 sq. yds.), stang (3240
sq. yds.) and paladr are called ``acres''; the Leicestershire
acre (2308 3/4 sq. yds.), Westmoreland acre (6760 sq. yds.) and
Cheshire acre (10,240 sq. yds) are examples of local values.
ACRIDINE, C13H9N, in chemistry, a heterocyclic ring
compound found in crude coal-tar anthracene. It may be
separated by shaking out with dilute sulphuric acid, and
then precipitating the sulphuric acid solution with potassium
bichromate, the resulting acridine bichromate being decomposed
by ammonia. It was first isolated in 1890 by C. Graebe
and H. Caro (Ann., 1871, 158, p. 265). Many synthetic
processes are known for the production of acridine and its
derivatives. A. Bernthsen (Ann., 1884, 224, p. 1) condensed
diphenylamine with fatty acids, in the presence of zinc
chloride. Formic acid yields acridine, and the higher homologues
give derivatives substituted at the meso carbon atom,
FIG.
Acridine may also be obtained by passing the vapour of
phenylortho-toluidine through a red-hot tube (C. Graebe, Ber.,
1884, 17, p. 1370); by condensing diphenylamine with chloroform,
in presence of aluminium chloride (O. Fischer, Ber., 1884,
17, p. 102); by passing the vapours of orthoaminodiphenylmethane
over heated litharge (O. Fischer); by heating salicylic
aldehyde with aniline and zinc chloride to 260 deg. C. (R.
Mohlau, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 2452); and by distilling acridone
over zinc dust (C. Graebe, Ber., 1892, 25, p. 1735).
Acridine and its homologues are very stable compounds of feebly
basic character. They combine readily with the alkyl iodides
to form alkyl acridinium iodides, which are readily transformed
by the action of alkaline potassium ferricyanide to N-alkyl
acridones. Acridine crystallizes in needles which melt at
110 deg. C. It is characterized by its irritating action on
the skin, and by the blue fluorescence shown by solutions
of its salts. On oxidation with potassium permanganate it
yields acridinic acid (quinoline -a-b-dicarboxylic acid)
C9H5N(COOH)2. Numerous derivatives of acridine are known
and may be prepared by methods analogous to those used for
the formation of the parent base. For the preparation of
the naphthacridines, see F.Ullmann, German patents 117472,
118439, 127586, 128754, and also Ber., 1902, 35, pp. 316,
2670. Phenyl-acridine is the parent base of chrysaniline,
which is the chief constituent of the dyestuff phosphine (a
bye-product in the manufacture of rosaniline). Chrysaniline
(diamino-phenylacridine) forms red-coloured salts, which dye
silk and wool a fine yellow; and the solutions of the salts
are characterized by their fine yellowish-green fluorescence.
It was synthesized by O. Fischer and G. Koerner (Ber.,
1884, 17, p. 203) by condensing ortho-nitrobenzaldehyde with
aniline, the resulting ortho-nitro-para-diamino-triphenylmethane
being reduced to the corresponding orthoamino compound, which
on oxidation yields chrysaniline. Benzoflavin, an isomer of
chrysaniline, is also a dye-stuff, and has been prepared by
K. Oehler (English Patent9614) from meta-phenylenediamine
and benzaldehyde. These substances condense to form
tetra-aminotriphenylmethane, which, on heating with acids, loses
ammonia and yields diaminodihydrophenylacridine, from which
benzoflavin is obtained by oxidation. It is a yellow powder,
soluble in hot water. The formulae of these substances are:--
FIG.
ACRO (or ACRON), HELENIUS, Roman grammarian and
commentator, probably flourished at the end of the 2nd century
A.D. He wrote commentaries on Terence and perhaps Persius.
A collection of scholia on Horace, originally anonymous in
the earlier MSS., and on the whole not of great value, was
wrongly attributed to him at a much later date, probably
during the 15th century. It has been published by Pauly (1861)
and Hauthal (1866), together with the other Horace scholia.
See Pseudoacronis Scholia in Horatium
Vetustiora, ed. O. Keller (1902-1904).
ACROBAT (Gr. akrobatein, to walk on tiptoe), originally a
rope-dancer; the word is now used generally to cover professional
performers on the trapeze, &c., contortionists, balancers and
tumblers. Evidence exists that there were very skilful
performers on the tight-rope (funambuli) among the ancient
Romans. Modern rope-walkers (e.g. Blondin) or wire-dancers
generally use a pole, loaded at the ends, or some such
assistance in balancing, and by shifting this are enabled
to maintain, or readily to recover, their equilibrium.
ACROGENAE (``growing at the apex''), an obsolete botanical
term, originally applied to the higher Cryptogams (mosses and
ferns), which were erroneously distinguished from the lower
(Algae and Fungi) by apical growth of the stem. The lower
Cryptogams were contrasted as Amphigenae (``growing all
over''), a misnomer, as apical growth is common among them.
ACROLITHS (Gr. akrolithoi, i.e. ending in stone), statues
of a transition period in the history of plastic art, in which
the trunk of the figure was of wood, and the head, hands and
feet of marble. The wood was concealed either by gilding
or, more commonly, by drapery, and the marble parts alone were
exposed. Acroliths are frequently mentioned by Pausanias, the
best known specimen being the Athene Areia of the Plataeans.
ACROMEGALY, the name given to a disease characterized by
a true hypertrophy (an overgrowth involving both bony and
soft parts) of the terminal parts of the body, especially of
the face and extremities (Gr. akron, point, and megas,
large). It is more frequent in the female sex, between the
ages of 25 and 40. Its causation is generally associated
with disturbances in the pituitary gland, and an extract
of this body has been tried in the treatment, as one of
the recent developments in organotherapeutics; thyroid
extract has also been used, but without marked success,
On the apparent analogy of acromegaly with myxoedema.
ACRON, a Greek physician, born at Agrigentum in Sicily, was
contemporary with Empedocles, and must therefore have lived
in the 5th century before Christ. The successful measure of
lighting large fires, and purifying the air with perfumes,
to put a stop to the plague in Athens (430 B.C.), is said
to have originated with him; but this has been questioned
on chronological grounds. Suidas gives the titles of
several medical works written by him in the Doric dialect.
ACROPOLIS (Gr. akros, top, polis, city), literally
the upper part of a town. For purposes of defence early
settlers naturally chose elevated ground, frequently a hill
with precipitous sides, and these early citadels became in many
parts of the world the nuclei of large cities which grew up
on the surrounding lower ground. The word Acropolis, though
Greek in origin and associated primarily with Greek towns
(Athens, Argos, Thebes, Corinth), may be applied generically
to all such citadels (Rome, Jerusalem, many in Asia Minor,
or even Castle Hill at Edinburgh). The most famous is that
of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations
and the famous buildings erected upon it, is generally known
without qualification as the Acropolis (see ATHENS).
ACROPOLITA (AKROPOLITES), GEORGE (1217-1282),
Byzantine historian and statesman, was born at Constantinople.
At an early age he was sent by his father to the court of
John Ducas Batatzes (Vatatzes), emperor of Nicaea, by whom
and by his successors (Theodorus II. Lascaris and Michael
VIII. Palaeologus) he was entrusted with important state
missions. The office of ``great logothete'' or chancellor
was bestowed upon him in 1244. As commander in the field
in 1257 against Michael Angelus, despot of Epirus, he showed
little military capacity. He was captured and kept for
two years in prison, from which he was released by Michael
Palaeologus. Acropolita's most important political task
was that of effecting a reconciliation between the Greek and
Latin Churches, to which he had been formerly opposed. In
1273 he was sent to Pope Gregory X., and in the following
year, at the council of Lyons, in the emperor's name he
recognized the spiritual supremacy of Rome. In 1282 he was
sent on an embassy to John II, emperor of Trebizond, and
died in the same year soon after his return. His historical
work (Xronike Supsgrafe, Annales) embraces the period
from the capture of Constantinople by the Latins (1204) to
its recovery by Michael Palaeologus (1261), thus forming a
continuation of the work of Nicetas Acominatus. It is valuable
as written by a contemporary, whose official position as great
logothete, military commander and confidential ambassador
afforded him frequent opportunities of observing the course of
events. Acropolita is considered a trustworthy authority as
far as the statement of facts is concerned, and he is easy to
understand, although he exhibits special carelessness in the
construction of his sentences. He was also the author of
several shorter works, amongst them being a funeral oration on
John Batatzes, an epitaph on his wife Eirene and a panegyric
of Theodorus II. Lascaris of Nicaea. While a prisoner
at Epirus he wrote two treatises on the procession of the
Holy Ghost ('Ekporeusis, Processio Spiritus Sancti).
Editio princeps by Leo Allatius (1651), with the editor's
famous teatise De Georgiis eorumque Scriptis; editions in
the Bonn Corpus Scriptoruin Hist. Byz., by I. Bekker
(1836), and Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxl.; in the
Teubner series by A. Heisenberg (1903), the second volume of
which contains a full life, with bibliography; see also C.
Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897).
ACROSTIC (Gr. akros, at the end, and stichos, line
or verse), a short verse composition, so constructed that
the initial letters of the lines, taken consecutively, form
words. The fancy for writing acrostics is of great antiquity,
having been common among the Greeks of the Alexandrine
period, as well as with the Latin writers since Ennius and
Plautus, many of the arguments of whose plays were written
with acrostics on their respective titles. One of the most
remarkable acrostics was contained in the verses cited by
Lactantius and Eusebius in the 4th century, and attributed to
the Erythraean sibyl, the initial letters of which form the
words 'Insous Arist.os Theou uios sozer: ``Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, the Saviour.'' The initials of the shorter
form of this again make up the word ichthbs (fish), to which
a mystical meaning has been attached (Augustine, De Civitale
Dei, 18, 23), thus constituting another kind of acrostic.
The monks of the middle ages, who wrote in Latin, were fond
of acrostics, as well as the poets of the Middle High German
period, notably Gottfried of Strassburg and Rudolph of
Ems. The great poets of the Italian renaissance, among them
Boccaccio, indulged in them, as did also the early Slavic
writers. Sir John Davies (1569-1626) wrote twenty-six
elegant Hymns to Astraea, each an acrostic on ``Elisabetha
Regina''; and Mistress Mary Fage, in Fame's Roule,
1637, commemorated 420 celebrities of her time in acrostic
verses. The same trick of composition is often to be met
with in the writings of more recent versifiers. Sometimes
the lines are so combined that the final letters as well as
the initials are significant. Edgar Allan Poe worked two
names---one of them that of Frances Sargent Osgood--into
verses in such a way that the letters of the names corresponded
to the first letter of the first line, the second letter
of the second, the third letter of the third, and so on.
Acrostic verse has always been held in slight estimation
from a literary standpoint. Dr Samuel Butler says, in his
``Character of a Small Poet,'' ``He uses to lay the outsides
of his verses even, like a bricklayer, by a line of rhyme
and acrostic, and fill the middle with rubbish.'' Addison
(Spectator, No. 60) found it impossible to decide whether
the inventor of the anagram or the acrostic were the greater
blockhead; and, in describing the latter, says, ``I have seen
some of them where the verses have not only been edged by a
name at each extremity, but have had the same name running
down like a seam through the middle of the poem.'' And Dryden,
in Mac Flecknoe, scornfully assigned Shadwell the rule
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
The name acrostic is also applied to alphabetical or ``abecedarian''
verses. Of these we have instances in the Hebrew psalms
(e.g. Ps. xxv. and xxxiv.), where successive verses begin
with the letters of the alphabet in their order. The structure
of Ps. cxix. is still more elaborate, each of the verses of
each of the twenty-two parts commencing with the letter which
stands at the head of the part in our English translation.
At one period much religious verse was written in a form
imitative of this alphabetical method, possibly as an aid to the
memory. The term acrostic is also applied to the formation
of words from the initial letters of other words. 'Ichthbs,
referred to above, is an illustration of this. So also is
the word ``Cabal,'' which, though it was in use before, with
a similar meaning, has, from the time of Charles II., been
associated with a particular ministry, from the accident of its
being composed of Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington and
Lauderdale. Akin to this are the names by which the Jews
designated their Rabbis; thus Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (better
known as Maimonides) was styled ``Rambam,'' from the initials
R.M.B.M.; Rabbi David Kimchi (R.D.K.), ``Radak,'' &c.
Double acrostics are such as are so constructed, that not
only initial letters of the lines, but also the middle or last
letters, form words. For example:---1. By Apollo was my
first made. 2. A shoemaker's tool. 3. An Italian patriot. 4. A
tropical fruit. The initials and finals, read downwards, give
the name of a writer and his nom de plume. Answer: Lamb,
1. L yr E
2. A w L
3. M azzin I
4. B anan A
ACROTERIUM (Gr. akroterion the summit or vertex), in
architecture, a statue or ornament of any kind placed on
the apex of a pediment. The term is often restricted to the
plinth, which forms the podium merely for the acroterium.
ACT (Lat. actus, actum), something done, primarily a voluntary
deed or performance, though any accomplished fact is often
included. The signification of the word varies according to
the sense in which it is employed. It is often synonymous with
``statute'' (see ACT OF PARLIAMENT). It may also refer to the
result of the vote or deliberation of any legislature, the decision
of a court of justice or magistrate, in which sense records,
decrees, sentences, reports, certificates, &c., are called acts.
In law it means any instrument in writing, for declaring or
justifying the truth of a bargain or transaction, as: ``I
deliver this as my act and deed.'' The origin of the legal use
of the word ``act'' is in the acta of the Roman magistrates
or people, of their courts of law, or of the senate, meaning
(1) what was done before the magistrates, the people or
the senate; (2) the records of such public proceedings.
In connexion with other words ``act'' is employed in many
phrases, e.g. act of God, any event, such as the sudden,
violent or overwhelming occurrence of natural forces, which
cannot be foreseen or provided against. This is a good
defence to a suit for non-performance of a contract. Act of
honour denotes the acceptance by a third party of a protested
bill of exchange for the honour of any party thereto. Act
of grace denotes the granting of some special privilege.
In universities, the presenting and publicly maintaining a
thesis by a candidate for a degree, to show his proficiency,
is an act. ``The Act'' at Oxford, up to 1856 when it was
abolished, was the ceremony held early in July for this purpose,
and the expressions ``Act Sunday,'' ``Act Term'' still survive.
In dramatic literature, act signifies one of those parts
into which a play is divided to mark the change of time
or place, and to give a respite to the actors and to the
audience. In Greek plays there are no separate acts, the
unities being strictly observed, and the action being continuous
from beginning to end. If the principal actors left the
stage the chorus took up the argument, and contributed an
integral part of the play, though chiefly in the form of
comment upon the action. When necessary, another droma,
which is etymologically the same as an act, carried on the
history to a later time or in a different place, and thus we
have the Greek trilogies or groups of three dramas, in which
the same characters reappear. The Roman poets first adopted
the division into acts, and suspended the stage business in
the intervals between them. Their number was usually five,
and the rule was at last laid down by Horace in the Ars
Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu
Fabula, quae posci vult, et spectata reponi.
``If you would have your play deserve success,
Give it five acts complete, nor more nor less.'' (Francis.)
On the revival of letters this rule was almost universally
observed by dramatists, and that there is an inherent convenience
and fitness in the number five is evident from the fact that
Shakespeare, who refused to be trammelled by merely arbitrary
rules, adopts it in all his plays. Some critics have laid down
rules as to the part each act should sustain in the development
of the plot, but these are not essential, and are by no means
universally recognized. In comedy the rule as to the number
of acts has not been so strictly adhered to as in tragedy, a
division into two acts or three acts being quite usual since
the time of Moliere, who first introduced it. It may be well
to mention here Milton's Samson Agonistes as a specimen in
English literature of a dramatic work founded on a purely Greek
model, in which, consequently, there is no division into acts.
For ``acting,'' as the art and theory of dramatic representation (or
histrionics, from Lat. histrio, an actor), see the article DRAMA.
ACTA DIURNA (Lat. acta, public acts or records; diurnius,
daily, from dies), called also Acta Fopuli, Acta Publica
and simply Acta or Diurna, in ancient Rome a sort of
daily gazette, containing an officially authorized narrative
of noteworthy eventsat Rome. Its contents were partly
official (court news, decrees of the emperor, senate and
magistrates), partly private (notices of births, marriages and
deaths). Thus to some extent it filled the place of the
modern newspaper (q.v.). The origin of the Acta is
attributed to Julius Caesar, who first ordered the keeping
and publishing of the acts of the people by public officers
(59 B.C.; Suetonius, Caesar, 20). The Acta were drawn up
from day to day, and exposed in a public place on a whitened
board (see ALBUM). After remaining there for a reasonable
time they were taken down and preserved with other public
documents, so that they might be available for purposes of
research. The Acta differed from the Annals (which were
discontinued in 133 B.C.) in that only the greater and
more important matters were given in the latter, while in the
former things of less note were recorded. Their publication
continued till the transference of the seat of the empire to
Constantinople. There are no genuine fragments extant.
Leclerc, Des Journaux chez les Romains (1838); Renssen, De
Diurnis aliisque Romanorum Actis (1857); Hubner, De Senatus
Populique Romani Actis (1860); Gaston Boissier, Tacitus and other
Roman Studies (Eng. trans., W. G. Hutchison, 1906), pp. 197-229.
ACTAEON, son of Aristaeus and Autonoe, a famous Theban hero
and hunter, trained by the centaur Cheiron. According to the
story told by Ovid (Metam. iii. 131; see also Apollod iii.
4), having accidentally seen Artemis (Diana) on Mount Cithaeron
while she was bathing, he was changed by her into a stag, and
pursued and killed by his fifty hounds. His statue was often
set up on rocks and mountains as a protection against excessive
heat. The myth itself probably represents the destruction
of vegetation during the fifty dog-days. Aeschylus and other
tragic poets made use of the story, which was a favourite
subject in ancient works of art. There is a well-known small
marble group in the British Museum illustrative of the story.
ACTA SENATUS, or COMMENTARII SENATUS, minutes of the
discussions and decisions of the Roman senate. Before the
first consulship of Julius Caesar (59 B.C.), minutes of
the proceedings of the senate were written and occasionally
published, but unofficially; Caesar, desiring to tear away the
veil of mystery which gave an unreal importance to the senate's
deliberations, first ordered them to be recorded and issued
authoritatively. The keeping of them was continued by
Augustus, but their publication was forbidden (Suetonius,
Augustus, 36). A young senator (ab actis senatus) was
chosen to draw up these Acta, which were kept in the imperial
archives and public libraries (Tacitus, Ann. v. 4).
Special permission from the city praefect was necessary in
order to examine them. For authorities see ACTA DIURNA.
ACTINOMETER (Gr. aktis, ray, metron, measure), an
instrument for measuring the heating and chemical effects of
light. The name was first given by Sir John Herschel to an
apparatus for measuring the heating effect of solar rays (Edin.
Journ. Science, 1825); Herschel's instrument has since been
discarded in favour of the pyrheliometer (Gr. tur, fire,
elios, sun). (See RADIATION.) The word actinometer is now
usually applied to instruments for measuring the actinic or
chemical effect of luminous rays; their action generally depends
upon photochemical changes (see PHOTO-CHEMISTRY). Certain
practical forms are described in the article PHOTOGRAPHY.
ACTINOMYCOSIS (STREPTOTRICHOSIS), a chronic infective
disease occurring in both cattle and man. In both these groups
it presents the same clinical course, being characterized
by chronic inflammation with the formation of granulomatous
tumours, which tend to undergo suppuration, fibrosis or
calcification. It used to be believed that this disease was
caused by a single vegetable parasite, the Ray-Fungus, but
there is now an overwhelming mass of observations to show that
the clinical features may be produced by a number of different
species of parasites, for which the generic name Streptothrix
has been generally adopted. In 1899 the committee of the
Pathological Society of London recommended that the term
Streptotrichosis should be used as the appropriate clinical
epithet of the large class of Streptothrix infections.
And since that year the name Actinomycosis has been falling
into disuse, and in any case is only used synonymously with
Streitotrichosis. For a further account of these parasites
see the articles on BACTERIOLOGY and on PARASITIC DISEASES.
Pathological Anatomy.---The naked-eye appearance of the
different organs affected by Streptothrix infection varies
according to the duration and acuteness of the disease. In
some tissues the appearance is that of simple inflammation,
whereas in others it may be characteristic. The liver when
affected shows scattered foci of suppuration, which may become
aggregated into spheroidal masses, surrounded by a zone of
inflammation. In the lungs the changes may be any that are
produced by the following conditions. (1) An acute bronchitis.
(2) A phthisical lung, grey nodules being scattered here and
there almost exactly simulating tuberculous nodules. (3) An acute
broncho-pneumonia with some interstitial fibrosis and a tendency
to abscess formation. The most characteristic lesions are in the
skin. These appear as nodules, sarcomatous-looking, soft and
pulpy. Their colour is mottled, yellow and purplish red. The
skin over them is thinned out, and broken down in places to
form one or two crateriform ulcers from which a clear sticky
fluid exudes. The size varies from that of a pea to a small
orange. The pus is characteristic, varying in consistency
though usually viscid, and containing numerous minute specks.
The disease is more common in males than in females, aod
more prevalent in Germany and Russia than in England. The
infection is probably spread by grain (corn or barley), on
which the fungus may often be found. In a great number of
recorded cases the patient has been following agricultural
pursuits. The disease can only be transmitted from one
individual to another with considerable difficulty, and no case
of direct transmission from animal to man has yet been noted.
Clinical History.---The course of actinomycosis is usually a
chronic one, but occasionally the fungus gets into the blood,
when the course is that of an acute infective disease or even
pyaemia. The symptoms are entirely dependent on the organ
attacked, and are in no way specially characteristic. During
life a diagnosis of phthisis is continually made, and only a
microscopic examination after death renders the true nature
of the disease apparent. The nature of the skin lesion is
the most evident, and here the parasite can be detected early
in the illness. The only drug which appears to have any
beneficial influence on the course of the disease is potassium
iodide, and this has occasionally been used with great
benefit. Surgical interference is usually needed, either
excision of the part affected, or, where possible, a thorough
scraping of the lesion and free application of antiseptics.
ACTINOZOA, a term in systematic zoology, first used by
H. M. D. de Blainville about 1834, to designate animals the
organs of which were disposed radially about a centre. De
Blainville included in his group many unicellular forms such as
Noctiluca (see PROTOZOA), sea-anemones, corals, jelly-fish
and hydroid polyps, echinoderms, polyzoa and rotifera. T.
H. Huxley afterwards restricted the term. He showed that in
de Blainville's group there were associated with a number of
heterogeneous forms a group of animals characterized by being
composed of two layers of cells comparable with the first two
layers in the development of vertebrate animals. Such forms
he distinguished as Coelentera, and showed that they had no
special affinity with echinoderms, polyzoa, &c. He divided
the Coelentera into a group Hydrozoa, in which the sexually
produced embryos were usually set free from the surface of the
body, and a group Actinozoa, in which the embryos are detached
from the interior of the body and escape generally by the oral
aperture. Huxley's Actinozoa comprised the sea-anemones,
corals and sea-pens, on the one hand, and the Ctenophora on the
other. Later investigations, whilst confirming the general
validity of Huxley's conclusions, have slightly altered
the limits and definitions of his groups. (See ANTHOZOA,
COELENTERA, CTENOPHORA and HYDROZOA.) (P. C. M.)
ACTION, in law, a term used by jurists in three different
senses: (1) a right to institute proceedings in a court of
justice to obtain redress for a wrong (actio nihil aliud
est quam jus prosequendi in judieio quod alicui debetur,
Bracton, de Legibus Angliae, bk. iii. ch. i., f. 98 b);
(2) the proceeding itself (actionn n'est auter chose que
loyall demande de son droit, Co. Litt. 285 (a)); (3) the
particular form of the proceeding. The term is derived from
the Roman law (actio), in which it is used in all three
senses. In the history of Roman law, actions passed through three
stages. The first period (terminated about 170 B.C. by the
Lex Aebutia) is known as the system of legis actiones, and
was based on the precepts of the XII. tables and used before
the praetor urbanus. These actiones were five in number
--sacramenti, per judicis postulationem, per condictionem,
per manus injectionem, per pignoris captionem. The first
was the primitive and characteristic action of the Roman
law, and the others were little more than modes of applying
it to cases not contemplated in the original form, or of
carrying the result of it into execution when the action had
been decided. The legis actiones were superseded by the
formulae, originated by the praetor peregrinus for the
determination of controversies between foreigners, but found
more flexible than the earlier system and made available for
citizens by the Lex Aebutia. Under both these systems
the praetor referred the matter in dispute to an arbiter
(judex), but in the later he settled the formula (i.e.
the issues to be referred and the appropriate form of relief)
before making the order of reference. In the third stage,
the formulary stage fell into disuse, and after A.D. 342 the
magistrate himself or his deputy decided the controversy after
the defending party had been duly summoned by a libellus.
The classifications of actiones in Roman law were very
numerous. The division which is still most universally
recognized is that of actions in rem and actions in
personam (Sohm, Roman Law, tr. by Ledlie, 2nd ed.
277). An action in rem asserts a right to a particular
thing against all the world. An action in personam asserts
a right only against a particular person. Perhaps the best
modern example of the distinction is that made in maritime
cases between an action against a ship after a collision
at sea, and an action against the owners of the ship.
In English law the term ``action'' at a very early date
became associated with civil proceedings in the Court of
Common Pleas, which were distinguished from pleas of the
crown, such as indictments or informations and for suits in
the Court of Chancery or in the Admiralty or ecclesiastical
courts. The English action was a proceeding commenced by writ
original at the common law. The remedy was of right and not of
grace. The history of actions is the history of civil procedure
in the courts of common law. As a result of the reform of
civil procedure by the Judicature Acts the term ``action'' in
English law now means at the High Court of Justice ``a civil
proceeding commenced by writ of summons or in such other manner
as may be prescribed by rules of court'' (e.g. by originating
summons). The proceeding thus commenced ends by judgment and
execution. This definition includes proceedings under the
Chancery, Admiralty and Probate jurisdiction of the High
Court, but excludes proceedings commenced by petition, such
as divorce suits and bankruptcy and winding-up matters, as
well as criminal proceedings in the High Court or applications
for the issue of the writs of mandamus, prohibition,
habeas corpus or certiorari. The Judicature Acts and
Rules have had the effect of abolishing all the forms of
``action'' used at the common law and of creating one common
form of legal proceeding for all ordinary controversies
between subjects in whatever division of the High Court.
The stages in an English action are the writ, by which the
persons against whom relief is claimed are summoned before
the court; the pleadings and interlocutory steps, by which
the issues between the parties are adjusted; the trial, at
which the issues of fact and law involved are brought before
the tribunal; the judgment, by which the relief sought
is granted or refused; and execution, by which the law
gives to the successful party the fruits of the judgment.
The procedure varies according as the action is in the High
Court, a county court or one of the other local courts of record
which still survive; but there is no substantial difference in
the incidents of trial, judgment and execution in any of these
courts. The initial difference between actions in the High
Court and the county court is that the latter are commenced
by plaint lodged in the court, on which a summons is prepared
by the court and served by its bailiff, whereas in the High
Court the party prepares the writ and lodges it in court for
sealing, and when it is sealed, himself effects the service.
An action is said to ``lie'' when the law provides a remedy for
some particular act or omission by a subject which infringes
the legal rights of another subject. An act of such a
character is said to give a ``cause of action.'' In the action
the person who alleges himself aggrieved claims a judgment
of the court in his favour giving an adequate and appropriate
remedy for the injury or damage which he has sustained by
the infraction of his rights. As to the time within which an
action must be brought, see LIMITATION, STATUTES OF. When
the rights of a subject are infringed by the illegal action
of the state, an action lies in England against the officers
who have done the wrong, unless the claim be one arising out
of breach of a contract with the state, or out of an ``Act
of State.'' For a breach by the state of a contract made
between the state and a subject the remedy of the subject
is, as a general rule, not by action against the agents of
the state who acted for the state with reference to the making
or breach of the contract, but against the Crown itself by
the proceeding called Petition of Right (see PETITION).
While as a generic term ``action'' in its proper legal sense
includes suits by the Crown and ``criminal actions'' (see Co.
Litt. 284b; Bracton, de Legibus Angliae, bk. iii. ch. v.
f. 1046; Bradlaugh v. Clarke, 1883, 8 App. Cas. 354, 361,
374), in popular language it is taken to mean a proceeding
by a subject and is now rarely applied in England even by
lawyers to criminal proceedings. What are now known as ``penal
actions,'' i.e. proceedings in which an individual who has
not suffered personally by a breach of the law sues as a common
informer for the statutory penalty either on his own benefit
or on behalf also of the Crown (qui tam pro rege quam pro se
ipso), bear some analogy to the actio popularis of Roman
law, from which they are derived (see the statute 4 Hen.
VII. 1488); but they are now treated for most purposes as
civil and not as criminal proceedings. The law of Scotland
follows the lines of the civil law, and the expression
``criminal action'' is in use to distinguish proceedings
to punish offences against the public as distinguished
from civil action, brought to enforce a private right.
In the United States, and the British colonies in which English
law runs by settlement, charter, proclamation or statute,
the nature of an action is substantially the same as in
England. The differences between one state of the Union and
another, and one colony and another, depend mainly on the
extent to which the old procedure of the common law has been
abolished, simplified or reformed by local legislation.
AUTHORITIES.--Roman Law: Sohm, Institutes of Roman Law,
W. G. Ledlie (2nd ed., 1901). English Law: Pollock and
Maitland, English Law; Holmes, The Common Law; Bullen
and Leake, Prec. Pleadings (3rd ed.: 6th ed. 1905).
ACTIUM (mod. Punta), the ancient name of a promontory
in the north of Acarnania (Greece) at the mouth of the
Sinus Ambracius (Gulf of Arta) opposite Nicopolis, built
by Augustus on the north side of the strait. On the
promontory was an ancient temple of Apollo Actius, which
was enlarged by Augustus, who also, in memory of the battle,
instituted or renewed the quinquennial games called Actia
or Ludi Actiaci. Actiaca Aera was a computation of time
from the battle of Actium. There was on the promontory
a small town, or rather village, also called Actium.
History.-Actium belonged originally to the Corinthian
colonists of Anactorium, who probably founded the worship of
Apollo Actius and the Actia games; in the 3rd century it
fell to the Acarnanians, who subsequently held their synods
there. Actium is chiefly famous as the site of Octavian's
decisive victory over Mark Antony (2nd of September 31 B.C.).
This battle ended a long series of ineffectual operations.
The final conflict was provoked by Antony, who is said to have
been persuaded by Cleopatra to retire to Egypt and give battle
to mask his retreat; but lack of provisions and the growing
demoralization of his army would sufficiently account for his
decision. The fleets met outside the gulf, each over 200
strong (the totals given by ancient authorities are very
conflicting). Antony's heavy battleships endeavoured to
close and crush the enemy with their artillery; Octavian's
light and mobile craft made skilful use of skirmishing
tactics. During the engagement Cleopatra suddenly withdrew
her squadron and Antony slipped away behind her. His
flight escaped notice, and the conflict remained undecided,
until Antony's fleet was set on fire and thus annihilated.
AUTHORITIES-- Dio Cassi us, 50.12-51.3; Plutarch, Antonius,
62-68; Velleius Paterculus, ii. 84-85. C. Merivale, History
of the Romans under the Empire, iii. pp. 313-325 (London,
1851); V. Gardthausen, Augustus und seine Zeit, i. pp.
369-386, ii. pp. 189-201 (Leipzig, 1891 ): G. Ferrero
in the Revue de Paris, Mar. 15, 1906, pp. 225-243; b.
Kromayer, in Hermes, xxxiv. (1899), pp. 1-54. (M. O. B. C.)
ACT OF PARLIAMENT. An act of parliament may be regarded
as a declaration of the legislature, enforcing certain
rules of conduct, or defining rights and conferring them
upon or withholding them from certain persons or classes of
persons. The collective body of such declarations constitutes
the statutes of the realm or written law of the British
nation, in the widest sense, from Anglo-Saxon times to the
present day. It is not, however, till the earlier half
of the 13th century that, in a more limited constitutional
sense, the statute-book is generally held to open, and the
parliamentary records only begin to assume distinct outlines
late in the reign of Edward I. It gradually became a fixed
constitutional principle that an act of parliament, to be
valid, must express concurrently the will of the entire
legislature. It was not, however, till the reign of Henry
VI. that it became customary, as now, to introduce bills into
parliament in the form of finished acts; and the enacting
clause, regarded by constitutionalists as the first perfect
assertion, in words, of popular right, came into general
use as late as the reign of Charles II. It is thus expressed
in the case of all acts other than those granting money to
the crown:---``Be it enacted by the King's most excellent
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament
assembled, and by the authority of the same.'' Where the
act is a money grant the enacting clause is prefaced by the
words, ``Most gracious Sovereign, we, Your Majesty's most
dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, towards
making good the supply1 which we have cheerfully granted
to Your Majesty in this session of Parliament, have resolved
to grant unto Your Majesty the sums hereinafter mentioned;
and do therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty that it
may be enacted, &c.'' The use of the preamble with which
acts are usually prefaced is thus quaintly set forth by Lord
Coke: ``The rehearsal or preamble of the statute is a good
meane to find out the meaning of the statute, and, as it
were, a key to open the understanding thereof'' (Co. Litt.
79a). Originally the collective acts of each session formed
but one statute, to which a general title was attached,
and for this reason an act of parliament was up to 1892
generally cited as the chapter of a particular statute, e.g.
24 and 25 Vict. c. 101. Titles were, however, prefixed to
individual acts as early as 1488. Now, by the Short Titles
Act 1892, it is optional to cite most important acts up
to that date by their short titles, either individually or
collectively. Most modern acts have borne short titles
independently of the act of 1892. (See PARLIAMENT; STATUTE.)
1 Where the grant is not of supply, the preamble varies a
little, e.g. in the Prince of Wales's Children Act 1889.
ACTON (JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG ACTON), IST BARON
(1834-1902), English historian, only son of Sir Richard Acton,
7th baronet, and grandson of the Neapolitan admiral, Sir J.
F. E. Acton, 6th baronet (q.v.), was born at Naples on the
10th of January 1834. His grandfather, who had succeeded
in 1791 to the baronetcy and family estates in Shropshire,
previously held by the English branch of the Acton family,
represented a younger branch which had transferred itself
first to France and then to Italy, but by the extinction of the
elder branch the admiral became head of the family; his eldest
son, Richard, had married Marie Louise Pelline, the daughter
and heiress of Emerich Joseph, duc de Dalberg (q.v.), a
naturalized French noble of ancient German lineage who had
entered thc French service under Napoleon and represented
Louis XVIII. at the congress of Vienna in 1814, and after
Sir Richard Acton's death in 1837 she became (1840) the
wife of the 2nd Earl Granville. Coming of a Roman Catholic
family, young Acton was educated at Oscott till 1848 under
Dr (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, and then at Edinburgh,
and at Munich under Dollinger, whose lifelong friend he
became. He had wished to go to Cambridge, but for a Roman
Catholic this was then impossible. By Dollinger he was
inspired with a deep love of historical research and a profound
conception of its functions as a critical instrument. He was
a master of the chief foreign languages, and began at an early
age to collect a magnificent historical library, with the
object, never in fact realized, of writing a great History of
Liberty. In politics he was always an ardent Liberal. Without
being a notable traveller, he spent much time in the chief
intellectual centres of Europe, and in the United States,
and numbered among his friends such men as Montalembert, De
Tocqueville. Fustel de Coulanges, Bluntschli, von Sybel and
Ranke. He was attached to Lord Granville's mission to Moscow,
as British representative at the coronation of Alexander II. in
1856. In 1859 Sir John Acton settled in England, at his country
house, Aldenham, in Shropshire. He was returned to the House
of Commons in that year for the Irish borough of Carlow, and
became a devoted admirer and adherent of Mr Gladstone; but he
was practically a silent member, and his parliamentary career
came to an end after the general election of 1865, when,
having headed the poll for Bridgnorth, he was unseated on a
scrutiny; he contested Bridgnorth again in 1868, but without
success. Meanwhile he had become editor of the Roman Catholic
monthly paper, the Rambler, in 1859, on J. H. Newman's
retirement from the editorship; and in 1862 he merged this
periodical in the Home and Foreign Review. His contributions
at once gave evidence of his remarkable wealth of historical
knowledge. But though a sincere Roman Catholic, his whole
spirit as a historian was hostile to ultramontane pretensions,
and his independence of thought and liberalism of view
speedily brought him into conflict with the Roman Catholic
hierarchy. As early as August 1862, Cardinal Wiseman publicly
censured the Review; and when in 1864, after Dollinger's
appeal at the Munich Congress for a less hostile attitude
towards historical criticism, the pope issued a declaration
that the opinions of Catholic writers were subject to the
authority of the Roman congregations, Acton felt that there
was only one way of reconciling his literary conscience with
his ecclesiastical loyalty, and he stopped the publication of
his monthly periodical. He continued, however, to contribute
articles to the North British Review, which, previously
a Scottish Free Church organ, had been acquired by friends
in sympathy with him, and which for some years (until 1872,
when it ceased to appear) actively promoted the interests of
a high-class Liberalism in both temporal and ecclesiastical
matters; he also did a good deal of lecturing on historical
subjects. In 1865 he married the Countess Marie, daughter
of the Bavarian Count Arco-Valley, by whom he had one son
and three daughters. In 1869 he was raised to the peerage
by Gladstone as Baron Acton; he was an intimate friend and
constant correspondent of the Liberal leader, and the two
men had the very highest regard for one another. Matthew
Arnold used to say that ``Gladstone influences all round
him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone.''
In 1870 came the great crisis in the Roman Catholic world
over the promulgation by Pius IX. of the dogma of papal
infallibility. Lord Acton, who was in complete sympathy on
this subject with Dollinger (q.v.), went to Rome in order
to throw all his influence against it, but the step he so much
dreaded was not to be averted. The Old Catholic separation
followed, but Acton did not personally join the seceders,
and the authorities prudently refrained from forcing the
hands of so competent and influential an English layman. In
1874, when Gladstone published his pamphlet on The Vatican
Decrees, Lord Acton wrote during November and December a
series of remarkable letters to The Times, illustrating
Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal
inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough
to the ultramontane party, but demurring nevertheless to
Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself
was better than its premisses implied. Acton's letters led
to another storm in the English Roman Catholic world, but once
more it was considered prudent by the Vatican to leave him
alone. In spite of his reservations, he regarded ``communion
with Rome as dearer than life.'' Thenceforth he steered clear
of theological polemics. He devoted himself to persistent
reading and study, combined with congenial society. With
all his capacity for study he was a man of the world, and a
man of affairs, not a bookworm. Little indeed came from his
pen, his only notable publications being a masterly essay
in the Quarterly Review of January 1878 on ``Democracy in
Europe''; two lectures delivered at Bridgnorth in 1877 on ``The
History of Freedom in Antiquity'' and ``The History of Freedom
in Christianity''--these last the only tangible portions put
together by him of his long-projected ``History of Liberty'';
and an essay on modern German historians in the first number
of the English Historical Review, which he helped to found
(1886). After 1879 he divided his time between London, Cannes
and Tegernsee in Bavaria, enjoying and reciprocating the
society of his friends. In 1872 he had been given the honorary
degree of doctor of philosophy by Munich University; in 1888
Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of LL.D., and in 1889
Oxford the D.C.L.; and in 1890 he was made a fellow of All
Souls. His reputation for learning had gradually been
spread abroad, largely through Gladstone's influence. The
latter found him a valuable political adviser, and in 1892,
when the Liberal government came in, Lord Acton was made a
lord-in-waiting. Finally, in 1895, on the death of Sir John
Seeley, Lord Rosebery appointed him to the Regius Professorship
of Modern History at Cambridge. The choice was an excellent
one. His inaugural lecture on ``The Study of History,''
afterwards published with notes displaying a vast erudition,
made a great impression in the university, and the new
professor's influence on historical study was felt in many
important directions. He delivered two valuable courses of
lectures, on the French Revolution and on Modern History,
but it was in private that the effects of his teaching
were most marked. The great Cambridge Modern History,
though he did not live to see it, was planned under his
editorship, and all who came in contact with him testified
to his stimulating powers and his extraordinary range of
knowledge. He was taken ill, however, in 1901, and died on
the 19th of June 1902, being succeeded in the title by his
son. Richard Maximllian Dalberg Acton, 2nd Baron Acton
(b.1870). Lord Acton has left too little completed original
work to rank among the great historians; his very learning
seems to have stood in his way; he knew too much and his
literary conscience was too acute for him to write easily,
and his copiousness of information overloads his literary
style. But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his
time, and he will certainly be remembered for his influence on
others. His extensive library, formed for use and not for
display, and composed largely of books full of his own
annotations, was bought immediately after his death by Mr
Andrew Carnegie, and presented to Mr John Morley, by whom
it was forthwith given to the university of Cambridge.
See Mr Herbert Paul's excellent Introductory Memoir to the
interesting volume of Lord Acton's Letters to Mrs Drew
(1904), and the authorities cited there; also Dom Gasquet's
Lord Acton and his Circle (1906). A Bibliography of
the works of Lord Acton, by W. A. Shaw, was published by
the Royal Historical Society in 1903. The Edinburgh Review
of April 1903 contains a luminous essay; and Mr Bryce has a
chapter on Acton in his Studies of Contemporary Biography
(1903). Lord Acton's Lectures on Modern History, edited
by J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence, appeared in 1906; and
his History of Freedom and other Essays and Historical
Essay's and Studies (by the same editors) in 1907. (H. CH.)
ACTON, SIR JOHN FRANCIS EDWARD, BART. (1736--1811). prime
minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV., was the son of Edward
Acton, a physician at Besancon, and was born there in 1736,
succeeding to the title and estates in 1791, on the death of
his cousin in the third degree, Sir Richard Acton of Aldenham
Hall, Shropshire. He served in the navy of Tuscany, and in
1775 commanded a frigate in the joint expedition of Spain and
Tuscany against Algiers, in which he displayed such courage and
resource that he was promoted to high command. In 1779 Queen
Maria Carolina of Naples persuaded her brother the Grand-Duke
Leopold of Tuscany to allow Acton, who had been recommended
to her by Prince Caramenico, to undertake the reorganization
of the Neapolitan navy. The ability displayed by him in this
led to his rapid advancement. He became commander-in-chief
of both services, minister of finance, and finally prime
minister. His policy was devised in concert with the English
ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and aimed at substituting the
influence of Austria and Great Britain for that or Spain, at
Naples, and consequently involved open opposition to France and
the French party in Italy. The financial and administrative
measures which were the outcome of a policy which necessitated
a great increase of armament made him intensely unpopular,
and in December 1798 he shared the flight of the king and
queen. For the reign of terror which followed the downfall
of the Parthenopean Republic, five months later, Acton has
been held responsible. In 1804 he was for a short time
deprived of the reins of government at the demand of France;
but he was speedily restored to his former position, which
he held till, in February 1806, on the entry of the French
into Naples, he had to flee with the royal family into
Sicily. He died at Palermo on the 12th of August 1811.
He had married, by papal dispensation, the eldest daughter
of his brother, General Joseph Edward Acton (b. 1737), who
was in the Neapolitan service, and left three children, the
elder son, Sir Richard, being the father of the first Lord
Acton. The second son, Charles Januarius Edward (1803-1847),
after being educated in England and taking his degree at
Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1823, entered the Academia
Ecclesiastica at Rome. He left this with the rank of prolate,
in 1828 was secretary to the nuncio at Paris and was made
vice-legate of Bologna shortly afterwards. He became secretary
of the congregation of the Disciplina Regolare, and auditor
of the Apostolic Chamber under Gregory XVI., by whom he was
made a cardinal in 1842. Cardinal Acton was protector of the
English College at Rome, and had been mainly instrumental in
the increase, in 1840, of the English vicariates-general to
eight, which paved the way for the restoration of the hierarchy
by Pius IX. in 1850. He died on the 23rd of June 1847.
ACTON, an urban district in the Ealing parliamentary
division of Middlesex, England, suburban to London, 9 m. W.
of St. Paul's Cathedral. Pop. (1861) 3151; (1901) 37,744.
Its appearance is now wholly that of a modern residential
suburb. The derivation offered for its name is from Oak-town,
in reference to the extensive forest which formerly covered the
locality. The land belonged from early times to the see of
London, a grant being recorded in 1220. Henry III. had a
residence here. At the time of the Commonwealth Acton was
a centre of Puritanism. Philip Nye (d. 1672) was rector;
Richard Baxter, Sir Matthew Hale (Lord Chief-Justice), Henry
Fielding the novelist and John Lindley the botanist (d. 1865)
are famous names among residents here. Acton Wells, of saline
waters, had considerable reputation in the 18th century.
ACT ON PETITION, the term for a part of the procedure in the
Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, now of infrequent
occurrence. It was more freely used in the old Admiralty and
Divorce courts before the Judicature Acts. (See PLEADING.)
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. This book of the Bible, which now
stands fifth in the New Testament, was read at first as the
companion and sequel of the Gospel of Luke. Its separation
was due to growing consciousness of the Gospels as a unit
of sacred records, to which Acts stood as a sort of
appendix. Historically it is of unique interest and
value: it has no fellow within the New Testament or without
it. The so-called Apocryphal Acts of certain apostles, while
witnessing to the impression produced by our Acts as a type
of edifying literature, only emphasize this fact. It is the
one really primitive Church history, primitive in spirit as in
substance; apart from it a connected picture of the Apostolic
Age would be impossible. With it, the Pauline Epistles are
of priceless historical value; without it, they would remain
bafflingly fragmentary and incomplete, often even misleading.
1. Plan and Aim.---All agree that the Acts of the Apostles
is the work of an author of no mean skill, and that he has
exercised careful selection in the use of his materials, in
keeping with a definite purpose and plan. It is of moment,
then, to discover from his emphasis, whether by iteration
or by fulness of scale, what objects he had in mind in
writing. Here it is not needful to go farther back than F.
C. Baur and the Tubingen school, with its theory of sharp
antitheses between Judaic and Gentile Christianity, of which
they took the original apostles and Paul respectively as
typical. Gradually their statement of this position underwent
serious modifications, as it became realized that neither
Jewish nor Gentile Christianity was a uniform genus, but
included several species, and that the apostolic leaders from
the first stood for mutual understanding and unity. Hence
the Tubingen school did its chief work in putting the needful
question, not in returning the correct answer. Their answer
could not be correct, because, as Ritschl showed (in his
Altkath. Kirche, 2nd ed., 1857 ), their premisses were
inadequate. Still the attitude created by the Tubingen
theory largely persists as a biassing element in much that
is written about Acts. On the whole, however, there is a
disposition to look at the book more objectively and to follow
up the hints as to its aim given by the author in his opening
verses. Thus (1) his second narrative is the natural sequel
to his first. As the earlier one set forth in orderly sequence
(kathexes) the providential stages by which Jesus was led,
``in the power of the Spirit,'' to begin the establishment
of the consummated Kingdom of God, so the later work aims at
setting forth on similar principles its extension by means
of His chosen representatives or apostles. This involves
emphasis on the identity of the power, Divine and not merely
human, expressed in the great series of facts from first to
last. Thus (2) the Holy Spirit appears as directing and
energizing throughout the whole struggle with the powers
of evil to be overcome in either ministry, of Master or
disciples. But (3) the continuity is more than similarity of
activity resting on the same Divine energy. The working of
the energy in the disciples is conditioned by the continued
life and volition of their Master at His Father's right
hand in heaven. The Holy Spirit, ``the Spirit of Jesus,''
is the living link between Master and disciples. Hence
the pains taken to exhibit (i. 2, 4 f. 8, ii. I ff.,
cf. Luke xxiv. 49) the fact of such spiritual solidarity,
whereby their activity means His continued action in the
world. And (4) the scope of this action is nothing less than
humanity (ii. 5 ff.), especially within the Roman empire.
It was foreordained that Messiah's witnesses should be borne
by Divine power through all obstacles and to ever-widening
circles, until they reached and occupied Rome itself for the God
of Israel--now manifest (as foretold by Israel's own prophets)
as the one God of the one race of mankind. (5) Finally, as
we gather from the parallel account in Luke xxiv.46-48, the
divinely appointed method of victory is through suffering
(Acts xiv. 22). This explains the large space devoted to the
tribulations of the witnesses, and their constancy amid them,
after the type of their Lord Himself. It forms one side of the
virtual apologia for the absence of that earthly prosperity
in which the pagan mind was apt to see the token of Divine
approval. Another side is the recurring exhibition of the
fact that these witnesses were persecuted only by those whose
action should create no bias against the persecuted. Their
foes were chiefly Jews, whose opposition was due partly to
a stiff-necked disinclination to bow to the wider reading
of their own religion --to which the Holy Spirit had from of
old been pointing (cf. the prominence given to this idea in
Stephen's long speech)--and partly to jealousy of those who,
by preaching the wider Messianic Evangel, were winning over the
Gentiles, and particularly proselytes, in such great numbers.
Such, then, seem to be the author's main motifs. They make
up an account fairly adequate to the manifoldness of the
book; yet they may be summed up in three ideas, together
constituting the moral which this history of the expansion
of Christianity aims at bringing home to its readers. These
are the universality of the Gospel, the jealousy of
national Judaism, and the Divine initiative manifest
in the gradual stages by which men of Jewish birth were
led to recognize the Divine will in the setting aside of
national restrictions, alien to the universal destiny of the
Church. The practical moral is the Divine character of the
Christian religion, as evinced by the manner of its extension
in the empire, no less than by its original embodiment
in the Founder's life and death. Thus both parts of the
author's work alike tend to produce assured conviction of
Christianity as of Divine origin (Luke i. 1, 4; Acts i. 1 f.).
This view has the merit of giving the book a practical religious
aim--a sine qua non to any theory of an early Christian
writing. though meant for men of pagan birth in the first
instance, it is to them as inquirers or even converts, such
as ``Theophilus,'' that the argument is addressed. In spite
of all difficulties, this religion is worthy of personal
belief, even though it mean opposition and suffering. Among
the features of the occasion which suggested the need of such
an appeal was doubtless the existence of persecution by the
Roman authorites, perhaps largely at the instigation of local
Judaism. To meet this special perplexity, the author holds
up the picture of early days, when the great protagonist of
the Gospel constantly enjoyed protection at the hands of Roman
justice. It is implied that the present distress is but a
passing phase, resting on some misunderstanding; meantime,
the example of apostolic constancy should yield strong
reassurance. The Acts of the Apostles is in fact an Apology
for the Church as distinct from Judaism, the breach with
which is accordingly traced with great fulness and care.
From this standpoint Acts no longer seems to end
abruptly. Whether as exhibiting the Divine leading and
aid, or as recording the impartial and even kindly attitude
of the Roman State towards the Christians, the writer has
reached a climax. ``He wished,'' as Harnack well remarks,
``to point out the might of the Holy Spirit in the apostles,
Christ's witnesses; and to show how this might carried the
Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and gained for it entrance
into the pagan world, whilst the Jews in growing degree
incurred rejection. In keeping with this, verses 26-28
of chapter xxviii. are the solemn closing verses of the
work. But verses 30, 31 are an appended observation.''
Yet the writer is, in fact, ending up most fitly on one
of his keynotes, in that he leaves Paul preaching in Rome
itself, ``unmolested.'' ``Paulus Romae, apex Evangelii.''
The full force of this is missed by those who, while rejecting
the idea that the author had in reserve enough Pauline history
to furnish another work, yet hold that Paul was freed from the
imprisonment amid which Acts leaves him (see PAUL). But for
those, on the other hand, who see in the writer's own words in
xx. 38, uncontradicted by anything in the sequel, a broad hint
that Paul never saw his Ephesian friends again, the natural
view is open that the sequel to the two years' preaching was
too well known to call for explicit record. Nor would such
silence touching Paul's speedy martyrdom be disingenuous, any
more than on the theory that martyrdom overtook him several years
later. The writer views Paul's death (like the horrors of
Nero's Vatican Gardens in 64) as a mere exception to the rule
of Roman policy heretofore illustrated. Not even by the Roman
authorities were some of Nero's acts regarded as precedents.
2. Authorship.--External evidence, which is relatively
early and widespread (e.g. Muratorian Canon, Irenaeus,
Tertullian,Clement and Origen), all points to Luke, the
companion and fellow-worker of Paul (Philem. 24), who probably
accompanied him as physician also (Col. iv. 14). It must be
noted too that evidence for his authorship of the third Gospel
counts also for Acts. This carries us back at least to the
second quarter of the 2nd century (Justin, Dial. 103, and
most probably Marcion), when Loukan no doubt stood at the
head of the Gospel, especially where it was used side by side
with the others. We have every reason to trust the Church's
tradition at this time, particularly as Luke was not prominent
enough as an associate of Paul to suggest the theory as a
guess. Nor does Eusebius, who knew the ante-Nicene literature
intimately, seem to know of any other view ever having been
held. If, then, the traditional Lucan authorship is to be
doubted, it must be on internal evidence only. The form of
the book, however, in all respects favours Luke, who was of
non-Jewish birth (see Col. iv. 12-14 compared with 10 f.), and
as a physician presumably a man of culture. The medical cast
of much of its language, which is often of a highly technical
nature, points strongly the same way;1 while the early tradition
that Luke was born in the Syrian Antioch admirably suits the
fulness with which the origin of the Antiochene Church and
its place in the further extension of the Gospel are described
(see LUKE). Again, the attitude of Acts towards the Roman
Empire is just what would be expected from a close comrade of
Paul (cf. Sir W. M. Ramsay, St Paul the Traveller and Roman
Citizen, 1895), but was hardly likely to be shared by one of
the next generation, reared in an atmosphere of resentment,
first at Nero's conduct and then at the persecuting policy
of the Flavian Caesars (see REVELATION). Finally, the
book itself seems to claim to be written by a companion of
Paul. In chap. xvi. 10 the writer, without any previous
warning, passes from the third person to the first. Paul
had reached Troas. There he saw a vision inviting him to
go to Macedonia. ``But when he saw the vision, straightway
we sought to go forth into Macedonia.'' Thenceforth ``we''
re-emerges at certain points in the narrative until Rome is
reached. Irenaeus (iii. 14. 1) quotes these passages as proof
that Luke, the author, was a companion of the apostle. The
minute character of the narrative, the accurate description
of the various journeyings, the unimportance of some of the
details, especially some of the incidents of the shipwreck,
are strong reasons for believing that the narrative is that
of an eyewitness. If so, we can scarcely help coming to the
conclusion that this eye-witness was the author of the work;
for the style of this eye-witness is exactly the style of the
writer who composed the previous portions (see Harnack, op.
cit., reinforcing the argument as already worked out by B.
Weiss, 1893, and especially by Sir J. C. Hawkins in Horae
Synopticae, 1899, pp. 143-147). Most scholars admit that
the ``we'' narrative is that of a personal companion of
Paul, who was probably none other than Luke, in view of his
traditional authorship of Acts. But many suppose that the
tradition arose from confused remembrance of the use by a
later author of Luke's ``we'' document or travel-diary. This
supposition would compel us to believe either that the skilful
writer of Acts was so careless as to incorporate a document
without altering its form, or that ``we'' is introduced
intentionally. In the latter case we must suppose either that
the writer was an eye-witness, or that he wished to be thought an
eye-witness. E. Zeller, a follower of Baur, adopted this latter
alternative, and P. W. Schmiedel adheres to it. Indeed it
is hard to see how it can be avoided on the theory that the
author of Acts used a travel-document by another hand (see
below, Sources). On the whole, then, the most tenable theory
is that the writer of the ``we'' sections was also the author
of Acts; and that he was Luke, Paul's companion during most
of his later ministry, and also his ``counterpart,'' ``as a
Hellene, who yet had personal sympathy with Jewish primitive
Christianity'' (Harnack, op. cit. p. 103; see also LUKE).
3. Sources.--So far from the recognition of a plan in Acts
being inimical to a quest after the materials used in its
composition, one may say that it points the way thereto, while
it keeps the literary analysis within scientific limits.
The more one realizes the standpoint of the mind pervading
the book as a whole, the more one feels that the speeches in
the first part of Acts (e.g. that of Stephen)---and indeed
elsewhere, too--are not ``free compositions'' of our author,
the mere outcome of dramatic idealization such as ancient
historians like Thucydides or Polybius allowed themselves.
The Christology, for instance of the early Petrine speeches
is such as a Gentile Christian writing c. 80 A.D. simply
could not have imagined. Thus we are forced to assume the
use of a certain amount of early Judaeo-Christian material,
akin to that implied also in the special parts of the Third
Gospel. Paul Feine (Eine vorkanonische Ueberlieferung des
Lukas, 1891) suggested that a single document explains this
material in both works, as far as Acts xii. Others maintain
that at any rate two sources underlie Acts i.-xii., or even
i.-xv. (see A. Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte, p. 131
ff.). In particular we can recognize a source embodying the
traditions of the largely Hellenistic Church of Antioch, a
secondary gloss from which may survive in the Bezan addition
to xi. 27, ``when we were assembled.'' Further, if our
author was a careful inquirer (Luke i. 3), especially if
he was in the habit of taking down in writing what he heard
from different witnesses, this may explain some of the
phenomena. Such a man as Luke would have rare faculties
for collecting Palestinian materials, varying no doubt in
accuracy, but all relatively primitive, whether in Antioch or
in Caesarea, where he probably resided for some two years in
contact with men like Philip the Evangelist (xxi. 8). There
and elsewhere he might also learn a good deal from John Mark,
Peter's friend (1 Pet. v. 13; Acts xii. 12). In any case the
study of sources (Quellenkritik) is a comparatively new
one, and the resources of analysis, linguistic in particular,
are by no means exhausted. One important analogy exists
for the way in which our author would handle any written
sources he may have had by him, namely, the manner in
which he uses Mark's Gospel narrative in compiling his own
Gospel. Guided by this objective criterion, and safeguarded
by growing insight into the author's plastic aim, we need
not despair of reaching large agreement as to the nature
of the sources lying behind the first half of Acts.
In the second or strictly Pauline half we are confronted by
the so-called ``we'' passages. Of these two main theories
are possible: (1) that which sees in them traces of an
earlier document--whether entries in a travel-diary, or a
more or less consecutive narrative written later; and (2)
that which would regard the ``we'' as due to the author's
breaking instinctively into the first person plural at certain
points where he felt himself specially identified with the
history. On the former hypothesis, it is still in debate
whether the ``we'' document does or does not lie behind more
of the narrative than is definitely indicated by the formula
in question (e.g. cc. xiii.-xv., xxi. 19-xxvi.). On the
latter, it may well be questioned whether the presence or
absence of ``we'' be not due to psychological causes, rather
than to the writer's mere presence or absence.2 That is,
he may be writing sometimes as a member of Paul's mission at
the critical stages of onward advance, sometimes rather as
a witness absorbed in his hero's words and deeds (so ``we''
ceases between xx. 15 and xxi. 1). Naturally he would fall
into the former attitude mostly when recording the definitive
transition of Paul and his party from one sphere of work
to another (xvi. 10 ff., xx. 5 ff., xxvii. 1 ff.). At such
times the whole ``mission'' was as one man in its movements.
4. Historical Value.---The question of authorship is
largely bound up with that as to the quality of the contents
as history. Acts is divided into two distinct parts. The
first (i.-xii.) deals with the church in Jerusalem and Judaea,
and with Peter as central figure---at any rate in cc. i.-v.
``Yet in cc. vi.-xii.,'' as Harnack3 observes, ``the author
pursues several lines at once. (1) He has still in view the
history of the Jerusalem community and the original apostles
(especially of Peter and his missionary labours); (2) he
inserts in vi. 1 ff. a history of the Hellenistic Christians
in Jerusalem and of the Seven Men, which from the first tends
towards the Gentile Mission and the founding of the Antiochene
community; (3) he pursues the activity of Philip in Samaria
and on the coast . . .; (4) lastly, he relates the history of
Paul up to his entrance on the service of the young Antiochene
church. In the small space of seven chapters he pursues all
these lines and tries also to connect them together, at the
same time preparing and sketching the great transition of
the Gospel from Judaism to the Greek world. As historian,
he has here set himself the greatest task.'' No doubt gaps
abound in these seven chapters. ``But the inquiry as to
whether what is narrated does not even in these parts still
contain the main facts, and is not substantially trustworthy,
is not yet concluded.'' The difficulty is that we have but
few external means of testing this portion of the narrative
(see below, Date). Some of it may well have suffered
partial transformation in oral tradition belore reaching
our author; e.g. the nature of the Tongues at Pentecost
does not accord with what we know of the gift of ``tongues''
generally. The second part pursues the history of the
apostle Paul; and here we can compare the statements made
in the Acts with the Epistles. The result is a general
harmony, without any trace of direct use of these letters; and
there are many minute coincidences. But attention has been
drawn to two remarkable exceptions. These are, the account
given by Paul of his visits to Jerusalem in Galatians as
compared with Acts; and the character and mission of the
apostle Paul, as they appear in his letters and in Acts.
In regard to the first point, the differences as to Paul's
movements until he returns to his native province of
Syria-Cilicia (see PAUL) do not really amount to more than can
be explained by the different interests of Paul and our author
respectively. But it is otherwise as regards the visits of
Gal. ii. 1-10 and Acts xv. If they are meant to refer to
the same occasion, as is usually assumed,4 it is hard to
see why Paul should omit reference to the public occasion
of the visit, as also to the public vindication of his
policy. But in fact the issues of the two visits, as given
in Gal. ii. 9 f. and Acts xv. 20 f., are not at all the
same.5 Nay more, if Gal. ii. 1-10=Acts xv., the historicity
of the ``Relief visit'' of Acts xi. 30, xii. 25, seems
definitely excluded by Paul's narrative of events before the
visit of Gal. ii. 1 ff. Accordingly, Sir W. M. Ramsay and
others argue that the latter visit itself coincided with the
Relief visit, and even see in Gal. ii. 10 witness thereto.
But why, then, does not Paul refer to the public charitable
object of his visit? It seems easier therefore to admit that
the visit of Gal. ii. 1 ff. is one altogether unrecorded
in Acts, owing to its private nature as preparing the
way for public developments---with which Acts is mainly
concerned. In that case it would fall shortly before the Relief
visit, to which there may be tacit explanatory allusion, in
Gal. ii. 10 (see further PAUL); and it will be shown below
that such a conference of leaders in Gal. ii. 1 ff. leads up
excellently both to the First Mission Journey and to Acts xv.
We pass next to the Paul of Acts. Paul insists that he
was appointed the apostle to the Gentiles, as Peter was to
the Circumcision; and that circumcision and the observance
of the Jewish law were of no importance to the Christian as
such. His words on these points in all his letters are
strong and decided. But in Acts it is Peter who first
opens up the way for the Gentiles. It is Peter who uses
the strongest language in regard to the intolerable burden
of the Law as a means of salvation(xv. 10 f., cf. 1). Not a
word is said of any difference of opinion between Peter and
Paul at Antioch (Gal. ii. 11 ff.). The brethren in Antioch
send Paul and Barnabas up to Jerusalem to ask the opinion
of the apostles and elders: they state their case, and carry
back the decision to Antioch. Throughout the whole of Acts
Paul never stands forth as the unbending champion of the
Gentiles. He seems continually anxious to reconcile the
Jewish Christians to himself by personally observing the law of
Moses. He circumcises the semi-Jew, Timothy; and he performs
his vows in the temple. He is particularly careful in his
speeches to show how deep is his respect for the law of
Moses. In all this the letters of Paul are very different
from Acts. In Galatians he claims perfect freedom in
principle, for himself as for the Gentiles, from the
obligatory observance of the law; and neither in it nor in
Corinthians does he take any notice of a decision to which
the apostles had come in their meeting at Jerusalem. The
narrative of Acts, too, itself implies something other than
what it sets in relief; for why should the Jews hate Paul so
much, if he was not in some sense disloyal to their Law?
There is, nevertheless, no essential contradiction here, only
such a difference of emphasis as belongs to the standpoints
and aims of the two writers amid their respective historical
conditions. Peter's function in relation to the Gentiles belongs
to the early Palestinian conditions, before Paul's distinctive
mission had taken shape. Once Paul's apostolate---a personal
one, parallel with the more collective apostolate of ``the
Twelve''--has proved itself by tokens of Divine approval,
Peter and his colleagues frankly recognize the distinction of
the two missions, and are anxious only to arrange that the two
shall not fall apart by religiously and morally incompatible
usages (Acts xv.). Paul, on his side, clearly implies that
Peter felt with him that the Law could not justify (Gal. ii.
15 ff.), and argues that it could not now be made obligatory
in principle (cf. ``a yoke,'' Acts xv. 10); yet for Jews
it might continue for the time (pending the Parousia) to be
seemly and expedient, especially for the sake of non-believing
Judaism. To this he conformed his own conduct as a Jew, so
far as his Gentile apostolate was not involved (1 Cor. ix. 19
ff.). There is no reason to doubt that Peter largely agreed
with him, since he acted in this spirit in Gal. ii. 11 f., until
coerced by Jerusalem sentiment to draw back for expediency's
sake. This incident it simply did not fall within the scope of
Acts (see below) to narrate, since it had no abiding effect
on the Church's extension. As to Paul's submission of the
issue in Acts xv. to the Jerusalem conference, Acts does not
imply that Paul would have accepted a decision in favour of the
Judaizers, though he saw the value of getting a decision for
his own policy in the quarter to which they were most likely to
defer. If the view that he already had an understanding with
the ``Pillar'' Apostles, as recorded in Gal. ii. 1-10 (see
further PAUL), be correct, it gives the best of reasons
why he was ready to enter the later public Conference of Acts
xv. Paul's own ``free'' attitude to the Law, when on Gentile
soil, is just what is implied by the hostile rumours as to his
conduct in Acts xxi. 21, which he would be glad to disprove
as at least exaggerated (ib. 24 and 26). What is clear is
that such lack of formal accord as here exists between Acts
and the Epistles, tells against its author's dependence on the
latter, and so favours his having been a comrade of Paul himself.
Speeches.
The speeches in Acts deserve special notice. Did its author
follow the plan adopted by all historians of his age, or
is he an exception? Ancient historians (like many of modern
times) used the liberty of working up in their own language
the speeches recorded by them. They did not dream of verbal
fidelity; even when they had more exact reports before them, they
preferred to mould a speaker's thoughts to their own methods of
presentation. Besides this, some did not hesitate to give
to the characters of their history speeches which were never
uttered. The method of direct speech, so useful in producing
a vivid idea of what is supposed to have passed through the
mind of the speaker, was used to give force to the narrative.
Now how far has the author of Acts followed the practice
of his contemporaries? Some of his speeches are evidently
but summaries of thoughts which occurred to individuals or
multitudes. Others claim to be reports of speeches really
delivered. But all these speeches have to a large extent the
same style, the style also of the narrative. They have been
passed though one editorial mind, and some mutual assimilation
in phraseology and idea may well have resulted. They are,
moreover, all of them, the merest abstracts. The speech of
Paul at Athens, as given by Luke, would not occupy more than
a minute or two in delivery. But these circumstances, while
inconsistent with verbal accuracy, do not destroy authenticity;
and in most of the speeches (e.g. xiv. 15-17 ) there is a
varied appropriateness as well as an allusiveness, pointing to
good information (see under Sources). There is no evidence
that any speech in Acts is the free composition of its author,
without either written or oral basis; and in general he seems
more conscientious than most ancient historians touching the
essentials of historical accuracy, even as now understood.
Miracles. Objections to the trustworthiness of Acts on the
ground of its miracles require to be stated more discriminately
than has sometimes been the case. Particularly is this so
as regards the question of authorship. As Harnack observes
(Lukas der Arzt, p. 24), the ``miraculous'' or supernormal
element is hardly, if at all, less marked in the ``we''
sections, which are substantially the witness of a companion
of Paul (and where efforts to dissect out the miracles are
fruitless), than in the rest of the work. The scientific
method, then, is to consider each ``miracle'' on its own merits,
according as we find reason to suppose that it has reached our
author more or less directly. But the record of miracle as
such cannot prejudice the question of authorship. Even the
form in which the gift of Tongues at Pentecost is conceived
does not tell against a companion of Paul, since it may have
stood in his source, and the first outpouring of the Messianic
Spirit may soon have come to be thought of as unique in some
respects, parallel in fact to the Rabbinic tradition as to
the inauguration of the Old Covenant at Sinai (cf. Philo, De
decem oraculis, 9, 11, and the Midrash on Ps. lxviii. 11).
Finally as to such historical difficulties in Acts as still
perplex the student of the Apostolic age, one must remember
the possibilities of mistake intervening between the facts
and the accounts reaching its author, at second or even third
hand. Yet it must be strongly emphasized, that recent historical
research at the hands of experts in classical antiquity has
tended steadily to verify such parts of the narrative as it can
test, especially those connected with Paul's missions in the Roman
Empire. That is no new result; but it has come to light in
greater degree of recent years, notably through Sir W. M. Ramsay's
researches. The proofs of trustworthiness extend also to the
theological sphere. What was said above of the Christology
of the Petrine speeches applies to the whole conception of
Messianic salvation, the eschatology, the idea of Jesus as
equipped by the Holy Spirit for His Messianic work, found in
these speeches, as also to titles like ``Jesus the Nazarene''
and ``the Righteous One'' both in and beyond the Petrine
speeches. These and other cases in which we are led to
discern very primitive witness behind Acts, do not indeed
give to such witness the value of shorthand notes or even of
abstracts based thereon. But they do support the theory that
our author meant to give an unvarnished account of such words
and deeds as had come to his knowledge. The perspective of
the whole is no doubt his own; and as his witnesses probably
furnished but few hints for a continuous narrative, this
perspective, especially in things chronological, may sometimes be
faulty. Yet when one remembers that by 70-80 A.D. it must
have been a matter of small interest by what tentative stages
the Messianic salvation first extended to the Gentiles, it
is surely surprising that Acts enters into such detail
on the subject, and is not content with a summary account
of the matter such as the mere logic of the subject would
naturally suggest. In any case, the very difference of the
perspective of Acts and of Galatians, in recording the
same epochs in Paul's history, argues such an independence
in the former as is compatible only with an early date.
Quellenkritik, then, a distinctive feature of recent
research upon Acts, solves many difficulties in the way
of treating it as an honest narrative by a companion of
Paul. In addition, we may also count among recent gains
a juster method of judging such a book. For among the
results of the Tubingen criticism was what Dr W. Sanday
calls ``an unreal and artificial standard, the standard of
the 19th century rather than the 1st, of Germany rather than
Palestine, of the lamp and the study rather than of active
life.'' This has a bearing, for instance, on the differences
between the three accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts.
In the recovery of a more real standard, we owe much to
men like Mommsen, Ramsay, Blass and Harnack, trained amid
other methods and traditions than those which had brought
the constructive study of Acts almost to a deadlock.
5. Date.--External evidence now points to the existence
of Acts at least as early as the opening years of the 2nd
century. As evidence for the Third Gospel holds equally
for Acts, its existence in Marcion's day (120-140) is now
assured. Further, the traces of it in Polycarp 6 and Ignatius
7 when taken together, are highly probable; and it is even
widely admitted that the resemblance of Acts xiii. 22, and 1
Cicm. xviii. 1, in features not found in the Psalm (lxxxix.
20) quoted by each, can hardly be accidental. That is, Acts
was probably current in Antioch and Smyrna not later than c.
A.D. 115, and perhaps in Rome as early as c. A.D. 96.
With this view internal evidence agrees. In spite of some
advocacy of a date prior to A.D. 70, the bulk of critical
opinion is decidedly against it. The prologue to Luke's Gospel
itself implies the dying out of the generation of eye-witnesses
as a class. A strong consensus of opinion supports a date
about A.D. 80; some prefer 75 to 80; while a date between
70 and 75 seems no less possible. Of the reasons for a
date in one of the earlier decades of the 2nd century, as
argued by the Tubingen school and its heirs, several are now
untenable. Among these are the supposed traces of 2nd-century
Gnosticism and ``hierarchical'' ideas of organization; but
especially the argument from the relation of the Roman state
to the Christians, which Ramsay has reversed and turned
into proof of an origin prior to Pliny's correspondence with
Trajan on the subject. Another fact, now generally admitted,
renders a 2nd-century date yet more incredible; and that
is the failure of a writer devoted to Paul's memory to make
palpable use of his Epistles. Instead of this he writes in
a fashion that seems to traverse certain things recorded in
them. If, indeed, it were proved that Acts uses the
later works of Josephus, we should have to place the book
about A.D. 100. But this is far from being the case.
Three points of contact with Josephus in particular are cited.
(1) The circumstances attending the death of Herod Agrippa
I. in A.D. 44. Here Acts xii. 21-23 is largely parallel to
Jos. Antt. xix. 8. 2; but the latter adds an omen of coming
doom, while Acts alone gives a circumstantial account of the
occasion of Herod's public appearance. Hence the parallel,
when analysed, tells against dependence on Josephus. So
also with (2) the cause of the Egyptian pseudo-prophet in
Acts xxi. 37, f., Jos. Jewish War, ii. 13. 5, Antt. xx.
8. 6; for the numbers of his followers do not agree with
either of Josephus's rather divergent accounts, while Acts
alone calls them Sicarii. With these instances in mind, it
is natural to regard (3) the curious resemblance as to the
(non-historical) order in which Theudas and Judas of Galilee
are referred to in both as accidental, the more so that again
there is difference as to numbers. Further, to make out
a case for dependence at all, one must assume the mistaken
order (as it may be) in Gamaliel's speech as due to gross
carelessness in the author of Acts--an hypothesis unlikely in
itself. Such a mistake was far more likely to arise in oral
transmission of the speech, before it reached Luke at all.
6 Place.---The place of composition is still an open
question. For some time Rome and Antioch have been in favour;
and Blass combined both views in his theory of two editions
(see below, Text). But internal evidence points strongly to
the Roman province of Asia, particularly the neighbourhood of
Ephesus. Note the confident local allusion in xix. 9 to ``the
school of Tyrannus''---not ``a certain Tyrannus,'' as in the
inferior text--and in xix. 33 to ``Alexander''; also the very
minute topography in xx. 13-15. At any rate affairs in that
region, including the future of the church of Ephesus (xx.
28-30), are treated as though they would specially interest
``Theophilus'' and his circle; also an early tradition makes
Luke die in the adjacent Bithynia. Finally it was in this
region that there arose certain early glosses e.g. on
xix. 9, xx. 15), probably the earliest of those referred to
below. How fully in correspondeoce with such an environment
the work would be, as apologia for the Church against
the Synagogue's attempts to influence Roman policy to its
harm, must be clear to all familiar with the strength of
Judaism in ``Asia'' (cf. Rev. ii. 9, iii. 9, and see Sir W.
M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches, ch. xii.).
7. Text.---The apparatus criticus of Acts has grown
considerably of recent years; yet mainly in one direction,
that of the so-called ``Western text.'' This term, which our
growing knowledge, especially of the Syriac and other Eastern
versions, is rendering more and more unsatisfactory, stands
for a text which used to be connected almost exclusively with
the ``eccentric'' Codex Bezae, and is comparable to a
Targum on an Old Testament book. But it is now recognized
to have been very widespread, in both east and west, for
some 200 years or more from as early as the middle of the 2nd
century. The process, however, of sitting out the readings of
all our present witnesses--(Aleph MSS.), versions, Fathers
--has not yet gone far enough to yield any sure or final result
as to the history of this text, so as to show what in its extant
forms is primary, secondary, and so on. Beginnings have been
made towards grouping our authorities; but the work must go
on much further before a solid basis for the reconstruction
of its primitive form can be said to exist. The attempts
made at such a reconstruction, as by Blass (1895, 1897) and
Hilgenfeld (1899), are quite arbitrary. The like must be said
even of the contribution to the problem made by August Pott,8
though he has helped to define one condition of success---the
classification of the strata in ``Western'' texts---and has
taken some steps in the right direction, in connexion with
the complex phenomena of one witness, the Harklean Syriac.
Assuming, however, that the original form of the ``Western''
text had been reached, the question of its historical value,
i.e. its relation to the original text of Acts, would yet
remain. On this point the highest claims have been made by
Blass. Ever since 1894 he held that both the ``Western''
text of Acts (which he styles the b text) and its rival,
the text of the great uncials (which he styles the a text),
are due to the author's own hand. Further, that the former
(Roman) is the more original of the two, being related to the
latter (Antiochene) as fuller first draft to severely pruned
copy. But even in its later form, that ``b stands nearer
the Grundschrift than a, but yet is, like a, a copy
from it,'' the theory is really untenable. In sober contrast
of Blass's sweeping theory stand the views of Sir W. M.
Ramsay. Already in The Church in the Roman Empire ( 1893
) he held that the Codex Bezae rested on a recension made
in Asia Minor (somewhere between Ephesus and S. Galatia),
not later than about the middle of the 2nd century. Though
``some at least of the alterations in Codex Bezae arose
through a gradual process, and not through the action of
an individual reviser,'' the revision in question was the
work of a single reviser, who in his changes and additions
expressed the local interpretation put upon Acts in his own
time. His aim, in suiting the text to the views of his day,
was partly to make it more intelligible to the public, and
partly to make it more complete. To this end he ``added some
touches where surviving tradition seemed to contain trustworthy
additional particulars,'' such as the statement that Paul
taught in the lecture-room of Tyrannus ``from the fifth to
the tenth hour.'' In his later work, on St Paul the Traveller
and the Roman Citizen (1895), Ramsay's views gain both in
precision and in breadth. The gain lies chiefly in seeing
beyond the Bezan text to the ``Western'' text as a whole.
Generally speaking, then, the text of Acts as printed
by Westcott and Hort, on the basis of the earliest MSS.
(alephB), seems as near the autograph as that of any
other part of the New Testament; whereas the ``Western''
text, even in its earliest traceable forms, is secondary.
This does not mean that it has no historical value of its
own. It may well contain some true supplements to the original
text, derived from local tradition or happy inference---a
few perhaps from a written source used by Luke. Certain of
these may even date from the end of the 1st century, and the
larger part of them are probably not later than the middle
of the 2nd. But its value lies mainly in the light cast on
ecclesiastical thought in certain quarters during the epoch in
question. The nature of the readings themselves, and the
distribution of the witness for them, alike point to a process
involving several stages and several originating centres of
diffusion. The classification of groups of ``Western''
witnesses has already begun. When completed, it will cast
light, not only on the origin and growth of this type of text,
but also on the exact value of the remaining witnesses to the
original text of Acts---and further on the early handling of
New Testament writings generally. Acts, from its very scope,
was least likely to be viewed as sacrosanct as regards its
text. Indeed there are signs that its undogmatic nature
caused it to be comparatively neglected at certain times
and places, as, e.g., Chrysostom explicitly witnesses.
LITERATURE.--An account of the extensive and varied literature
that has gathered round Acts may be found in two representative
commentaries, viz., H. H. Wendt's edition of Meyer (1899), and
that by R. J. Knowling in The Expositor's Greek Testament,
vol. ii. (1900), supplemented by his Testimony of St Paul
to Christ (1905). See also J. Moffatt, The Historical
New Testament (1901). 412 ff., 655 ff.: C. Clemen, Die
Apostelgesch. im Lichte der neueren Forschungen (Giessen,
1905); and A. Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte (1908). (J. V. B.)
1 This argument, first worked out by Dr W. K. Hobart,
The Medical Language of St Luke (Dublin, 1882), but
hitherto neglected by many Continental scholars, has been
urged afresh by Harnack, Lukas der Arzt (Leipzig, 1906;
Eng. trans., London, 1907), to which reference may be made
for all matters connected with Lucan authorship; comp.
also R. J. Knowling in The Expositor's Greek Testament.
2 This view has received Harnack's support, op. cit. 89 f.
3 Apostelgeschichte (1908), p46. Harnack finds that our sense
of the trustworthiness of the book ``is enhanced by a thorough
study of the chronological procedure of its author, both where
he speaks and where he keeps silence.'' In this aspect the
book ``as a whole is according to the aims of the author and
in reality a historical work'' (p. 41; cf. pp. 1-20, 222 ff.).
4 Though this view had the support of J. B. Lightfoot, it should
be remembered that this was before the ``South Galatian'' theory
as to the date of Paul's work among the Galatians came to prevail.
5 Harnack, indeed, argues (op. cit. pp. 188 ff.) that the
Abstinences defined for Gentiles were in the original text
of Acts xv. 20 purely moral, and had no reference to Jewish
scruples as to eating blood. He regards ``what is strangled''
(pnikton) as originally a mistaken gloss, which crept into the
text. External evidence is against this, nor does it seem
demanded by the context; in fact xv. 21 rather goes against it.
6 Polyc. ad Philipp. i. 2, Acts ii. 24; ii. 1,
Acts x. 42; ii. 3, Acts xx. 35; vi. 3, Acts vii. 52.
7 Ign. ad Magn. v. 1, Acts i 25; ad Smyrn. iii. 3, Acts x. 41.
8 Der abendlandische Text der Apostelgeschichte
u. die Wir-quelle (Leipzig, 1900). See a review
in the Journal of Theol. Studies, ii. 439 ff.
ACTUARY. The name of actuarius, sc. scriba, in ancient
Rome, was given to the clerks who recorded the Acta Publica
of the senate, and also to the officers who kept the military
accounts and enforced the due fulfilment of contracts for military
supplies. In its English form the word has undergone a gradual
limitation of meaning. At first it seems to have denoted
any clerk or registrar; then more particularly the secretary
and adviser of any joint-stock company, but especially of
an insurance company; and it is now applied specifically to
one who makes those calculations as to the probabilities of
human life, on which the practice of life assurance and the
valuation of reversionary interests, deferred annuities, &c.,
are based. The first mention of the word in law is in the
Friendly Societies Act of 1819, where it is used in the vague
sense, ``actuaries, or persons skilled in calculation,'' but
it has received still further recognition in the Friendly
Societies Act of 1875 and the Life Assurance Companies Act of
1870. The word has been used with precision since the
establishment of the ``Institute of Actuaries of Great
Britain and Ireland'' in 1848. The Quarterly Journal,
Charter of Incorporation, and by-laws of this society may
be usefully consulted for particulars as to the requirements
for membership (see also ANNUITY). The registrar in the
Lower House of Convocation is also called the actuary.
ACUMINATE (from Lat. acumen, point), sharpened or pointed,
a word used principally in botany and ornithology, to denote the
narrowing or lance-shaping of a leaf or of a bird's feather into
a point, generally at the tip, though sometimes (with regard to
a leaf) at the base. The poet William Cowper used the word to
denote sharp and keen despair, but other authors, Sir T. Browne,
Bacon, Bulwer, &c., use it to explain a material pointed shape.
ACUNA, CHRISTOVAL DE (1597--c.1676), Spanish missionary
and explorer, was born at Burgos in 1597. He was admitted
a Jesuit in 1612, and afterwards sent on mission work to
Chile and Peru, where he became rector of the college of
Cuenca. In 1639 he accompanied Pedro Texiera in his second
exploration of the Amazon, in order to take scientific
observations, and dtaw up a report for the Spanish government.
The journey lasted ten months; and on the explorer's arrival in
Peru, Acuna prepared his narrative, while awaiting a ship for
Europe. The king of Spain, Philip IV., received the author
coldly, and it is said even tried to suppress his book,
fearing that the Portuguese, who had just revolted from Spain
(1640), would profit by its information. After occupying
the positions of procurator of the Jesuits at Rome and censor
(calificador) of the Inquisition at Madrid, Acuna returned
to South America, where he died, probably soon after 1675.
His Nuevo Descubrimiento del Gran Rio de las Amazonas was
published at Madrid in 1641; French and English translations
(the latter from the French, appeared in 1682 and 1698.
ACUPRESSURE (from Lat. acus, a needle, and premere, to
press), the name given to a method of restraining haemorrhage,
introduced by Sir J. Y. Simpson, the direct pressure of
a metallic needle, either alone or assisted by a loop of
wire, being used to close the vessel near the bleeding point.
ACUPUNCTURE (from Lat. acus, a needle, and pungere,
to prick), a form of surgical operation, performed
by pricking the part affected with a needle. It has
long been used by the Chinese in cases of headaches,
lethargies, convulsions, colics, &c. (See SURGERY.)
ADABAZAR, an important commercial town in the Khoja Ili
sanjak of Asia Minor, situated on the old military road from
Constantinople to the east and connected by a branch line
with the Anatolian railway. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 10,000;
Christians, 8000). It was founded in 1540 and enlarged in
1608 by the settlement in it of an Armenian colony. There
are silk and linen industries, and an export of tobacco,
walnut-wood, cocoons and vegetables for the Constantinople
market. Imports are valued at L. 80,000 and exports at
See V. Cuinet, Turquie d'Asie (Paris, 1890--1900).
ADAD, the name of the storm-god in the Babylonian-Assyrian
pantheon, who is also known as Ramman (``the thunderer''). The
problem involved in this double name has not yet been definitely
solved. Evidence seems to favour the view that Ramman was
the name current in Babylonia, whereas Adad was more common in
Assyria. To judge from analogous instances of a double
nomenclature, the two names revert to two different centres
for the cult of a storm-god, though it must be confessed
that up to the present it has been impossible to determine
where these centres were. A god Hadad who was a prominent
deity in ancient Syria is identical with Adad, and in view
of this it is plausible to assume---for which there is also
other evidence --that the name Adad represents an importation
into Assyria from Aramaic districts. Whether the same is
the case with Ramman, identical with Rimmon, known to us
from the Old Testament as the chief deity of Damascus, is
not certain though probable. On the other hand the cult
of a specific storm-god in ancient Babylonia is vouched
for by the occurrence of the sign Im--the ``Sumerian'' or
ideographic writing for Adad-Ramman --as an element in proper
names of the old Babylonian period. However this name may
have originally been pronounced, so much is certain,---that
through Aramaic influences in Babylonia and Assyria he was
identified with the storm-god of the western Semites, and
a trace of this influence is to be seen in the designation
Amurru, also given to this god in the religious literature of
Babylonia, which as an early name for Palestine and Syria
describes the god as belonging to the Amorite district.
The Babylonian storm-god presents two aspects in the hymns,
incantations and votive inscriptions. On the one hand he
is the god who, through bringing on the rain in due season,
causes the land to become fertile, and, on the other hand, the
storms that he sends out bring havoc and destruction. He is
pictured on monuments and seal cylinders with the lightning
and the thunderbolt, and in the hymns the sombre aspects of
the god on the whole predominate. His association with the
sun-god, Shamash, due to the natural combination of the two
deities who alternate in the control of nature, leads to
imbuing him with some of the traits belonging to a solar
deity. In Syria Hadad is hardly to be distinguished from
a solar deity. The process of assimilation did not proceed
so far in Babylonia and Assyria, but Shamash and Adad became
in combination the gods of oracles and of divination in
general. Whether the will of the gods is determined through
the inspection of the liver of the sacrificial animal, through
observing the action of oil bubbles in a basin of water or
through the observation of the movements of the heavenly
bodies, it is Shamash and Adad who, in the ritual connected
with divination, are invariably invoked. Similarly in the
annals and votive inscriptions of the kings, when oracles are
referred to, Shamash and Adad are always named as the gods
addressed, and their ordinary designation in such instances
is bele biri, ``lords of divination.'' The consort of
Adad-Ramman is Shala, while as Amurru his consort is called
Aschratum. (See BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION.) (M. JA.)
ADAGIO (Ital. ad agio, at ease), a term in music to indicate
slow time; also a slow movement in a symphony, sonata, &c., or an
independent piece, such as Mozart's pianoforte ``Adagio in B minor.''
ADAIR, JOHN (d. 1722), Scottish surveyor and map-maker
of the 17th century. Nothing is known of his parentage,
birthplace or early life. His name first came before the
public in 1683, when a prospectus was published in Edinburgh
entitled An Account of the Scottish Atlas, stating
that ``the Privy Council of Scotland has appointed John
Adair, mathematician and skilfull mechanick, to survey the
shires.'' In 1686 an act of tonnage was passed in Adair's
favour. He was then employed on a survey of the Scottish
coast and two years later was made a fellow of the Royal
Society. Two other acts of tonnage were passed for Adair,
one in 1695 and the other in 1705. In 1703 he published the
first part of his Description of the Sea Coasts and Islands
of Scotland, for the use of seamen. The second part never
appeared. He is thought to have died in London about the end of
1722. He must have lost a considerable amount of money in
the execution of his work, and in 1723 some remuneration
was made to his widow by the government. Some of his
work is preserved in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh
and in the King's Library of the British Museum, London.
ADALBERON, or ASCELIN (d. 1030 or 1031), French bishop and
poet, studied at Reims and became bishop of Laon in 977. When
Laon was taken by Charles, duke of Lorraine, in 988, he was
put into prison, whence he escaped and sought the protection
of Hugh Capet, king of France. Winning the confidence of
Charles of Lorraine and of Arnulf, archbishop of Reims, he
was restored to his see; but he soon took the opportunity
to betray Laon, together with Charles and Arnulf, into the
hands of Hugh Capet. Subsequently he took an active part in
ecclesiastical affairs, and died on the 19th of July 1030 or
1031. Adalberon wrote a satirical poem in the form of a
dialogue dedicated to Robert, king of France, in which he
showed his dislike of Odilo, abbot of Cluny, and his followers,
and his objection to persons of humble birth being made
bishops. The poem was first published by H. Valois in the
Carmen panegyricum in laudem Berengarii (Paris, 1663), and
in modern times by J. P. Migne in the Patrologia Latina, tome
cxli. (Paris, 1844). Adalberon must not be confounded with
his namesake, Adalberon, archbishop of Reims (d. 988 or 989).
See Richer, Historiarum Libri III. et IV., which appears in
the Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores. Band iii.
(Hanover and Berlin, 1826--1892); A. Olleris, OEuvres de Gerbert
pape sous le nom de Sylvestre II. (Paris, 1867); Histoire
litteraire de la France, tome vii. (Paris, 1865-1869).
ADALBERT, or ADELBERT (c. 1000-1072), German archbishop,
the most famous ecclesiastic of the 11th century, was the
son of Frederick, count of Goseck, a member of a noble Saxon
family. He was educated for the church, and began his clerical
career at Halberstadt, where he attained to the dignity of
provost. Having attracted the notice of the German king, Henry
III., Adalbert probably served as chancellor of the kingdom of
Italy, and in 1045 was appointed archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen,
his province including the Scandinavian countries, as well as a
larger part of North Germany. In 1046 he accompanied Henry to
Rome, where he is said to have refused the papal chair; and in
1052 he was made legate by Pope Leo IX., and given the right
to nominate bishops in his province. He sought to increase the
influence of his archbishopric, sent missionaries to Finland,
Greenland and the Orkney Islands, and aimed at making Bremen
a patriarchal see for northern Europe, with twelve suffragan
bishoprics. He consolidated and increased the estates of the
church, exercised the powers of a count, denounced simony and
initiated financial reforms. The presence of this powerful
and active personality, who was moreover a close friend
of the emperor, was greatly resented by the Saxon duke,
Bernard II., who regarded him as a spy sent by Henry into
Saxony. Adalbert, who wished to free his lands entirely
from the authority of the duke, aroused further hostility
by an attack on the privileges of the great abbeys, and
after the emperor's death in 1056 his lands were ravaged by
Bernard. He took a leading part in the government of
Germany during the minority of King Henry IV., and was styled
patronus of the young king, over whom he appears to have
exercised considerable influence. Having accompanied Henry
on a campaign into Hungary in 1063, he received large gifts
of crown estates, and obtained the office of count palatine in
Saxony. His power aroused so much opposition that in 1066 the
king was compelled to assent to his removal from court. In
1069 he was recalled by Henry, when he made a further attempt
to establish a northern patriarchate, which failed owing to
the hostility of the papacy and the condition of affairs in
the Scandinavian kingdoms. He died at Goslar on the 16th
or 17th of March 1072, and was buried in the cathedral which
he had built at Bremen. Adalbert was a man of proud and
haughty bearing, with large ideas and a strong, energetic
character. He made Bremen a city of importance, and it was
called by his biographer, Adam of Bremen, the New Rome.
See Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammenburgensis ecclesiae pontificum,
edited by J. M. Lappenberg, in the Monumenta Germaniae
historica. Scriptores. Band vii. (Hanover and Berlin,
1826-1892); C. Grunhagen, Adalbert Erzbischof von Hamburg
und die Idee eines Nordischen Patriarchats (Leipzig, 1854).
ADALBERT (originally VOYTECH), (c. 950-997), known as
the apostle of the Prussians, the son of a Bohemian prince,
was born at Libice (Lobnik, Lubik), the ancestral seat near
the junction of the Cidlina and the Elbe. He was educated at
the monastery of Magdeburg; and in 983 was chosen bishop of
Prague. The extreme severity of his rule repelled the
Bohemians, whom he vainly strove to wean from their national
customs and pagan rites. Discouraged by the ill-success of his
ministry, he withdrew to Rome until 993, when, in obedience
to the command 0f the pope, he returned to his own people.
Finding little amendment, however, in their course of living,
he soon afterwards went again to Rome, and obtained permission
from the pope to devote himself to missionary labours, which he
carried on chiefly in North Germany and Poland. While preaching
in Pomerania (997) he was assassinated by a heathen priest.
See U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources historiques du moyen
age, Bio.-Bibl. (1905); Bolland, Acta Sanctorum, April 23; H. G.
Voigt, Adalbert von Prag (1898), a thoroughly exhaustive monograph.
ADALIA (med. Antaliyah; the crusaders' Satalia), the
ancient Attalia (q.v.), the largest seaport on the south
coast of Asia Minor, though in point of trade it is now
second to Mersina. The unsuitability of the harbour for
modern steamers, the bad anchorage outside and the extension
of railways from Smyrna have greatly lessened its former
importance as an emporium for west central Anatolia. It is
not connected by a chaussee with any point outside its
immediate province, but it has considerable importance as the
administrative capital of a rich and isolated sanjak. Adalia
played a considerable part in the medieval history of the
Levant. Kilij Arslan had a palace there. The army of Louis
VII. sailed thence for Syria in 1148, and the fleet of Richard
of England rallied there before the conquest of Cyprus.
Conquered by the Seljuks of Konia, and made the capital of the
province of Tekke, it passed after their fall through many
hands, including those of the Venetians and Genoese, before
its final occupation by the Ottoman Turks under Murad II.
(1432). In the 18th century, in common with most of Anatolia,
its actual lord was a Dere Bey. The family of Tekke Oglu,
domiciled near Perga, though reduced to submission in 1812
by Mahmud II., continued to be a rival power to the Ottoman
governor till within the present generation, surviving by
many years the fall of the other great Beys of Anatolia. The
records of the Levant (Turkey) Company, which maintained an
important agency here till 1825, contain curious information
as to the local Dere Beys. The present population of Adalia,
which includes many Christians and Jews, still living, as in
the middle ages, in separate quarters, the former round the
walled mina or port, is about 25,000. The port is served
by coasting steamers of the local companies only. Adalia
is an extremely picturesque, but ill-built and backward
place. The chief thing to see is the city wall, outside which
runs a good and clean promenade. The government offices and
the houses of the better class are all outside the walls.
See C. Lanckoronski, Villes de la Pamphylie
et de La Pisidie, i. (1890). (D.G.H.)
ADAM, the conventional name of the first created man according to the Bible.
1. The Name.---The use of ``Adam'' (mem kamatz daleth kamatz
aleph) as a proper name is an early error. Properly the
word adam designated man as a species; with the article
prefixed (Gen. ii. 7, 8, 16, iv. 1; and doubtless il. 20, iii.
17) it means the first man. Only in Gen. iv. 25 and v. 3-5
is adam a quasi-proper name, though LXX. and Vulgate use
``Adam'' (Adam) in this way freely. Gen. ii. 7 suggests
a popular Hebrew derivation from adamah, ``the ground.''
Into the question whether the original story did not give
a proper name which was afterwards modified into ``Adam''
---important as this question is---we cannot here enter.
2. Creation of Adam.--For convenience, we shall take
``Adam'' as a symbol for ``the first man,'' and inquire
first, what does tradition say of his creation? In Gen. ii.
4b-8 we read thus: -``At the time when Yahweh-Elohim1
made earth and heaven,--earth was as yet without bushes, no
herbage was as yet sprouting, because Yahweh-Elohim had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and no men were there to
till the ground, but a stream2 used to go up from the earth,
and water all the face of the ground,---then Yahweh-Elohim
formed the man of dust of the ground,3 and blew into his
nostrils breath of life,4 and the man became a living
being. And Yahweh-Elohim planted a garden5 in Eden, eastward;
and there he put the man whom he had formed.'' (See Eve.)
How greatly this simple and fragmentary tale of Creation differs
from that in Gen. i. 1-ii. 4a (see COSMOGONY) need hardly be
mentioned. Certainly the priestly writer who produced the
latter could not have said that God modelled the first man out
of moistened clay, or have adopted the singular account of the
formation of Eve in ii. 21-23. The latter story in particular
(see Eve) shows us how childlike was the mind of the early
men, whose God is not ``wonderful in counsel'' (Isa. xxviii.
29), and fails in his first attempt to relieve the loneliness
of his favourite. For no beast however mighty, no bird however
graceful, was a fit companion for God's masterpiece, and, apart
from the serpent, the animals had no faculty of speech. All
therefore that Adam could do, as they passed before him, was
to name them, as a lord names his vassals. But here arises a
difficulty. How came Adam by the requisite insight and power
of observation? For as yet he had not snatched the perilous
boon of wisdom. Clearly the Paradise story is not homogeneous.
3. How the Animals were named.---Some moderns, e.g. von
Bohlen, Ewald, Driver (in Genesis, p. 55, but cp. p. 42),
have found in ii. 19, 20 an early explanation of the origin of
language. This is hardly right. The narrator assumes that
Adam and Eve had an innate faculty of speech.6 They spoke just
as the birds sing, and their language was that of the race or
people which descended from them. Most probably the object of
the story is, not to answer any curious question (such as, how
did human speech arise, or how came the animals by their names?),
but to dehort its readers or hearers from the abominable vice
referred to in Lev. xviii. 23.7 There may have been stories
in circulation like that of Ea-bani (sec. 8), and even such as
those of the Skidi Pawnee, in which ``people'' marry animals,
or become animals. Against these it is said (ver. 20b)
that ``for Adam he found no helper (qualified) to match him.''
4. Three Riddles.---Manifold are the problems suggested
by the Eden-story (see EDEN; PARADISE). For instance, did
the original story mention two trees, or only one, of which
the fruit was taboo? bn iii. 3(cp. vv. 6, 11) only ``the
tree in the midst of the garden'' is spoken of, but in ii.
9 and iii. 22 two trees are referred to, the fruit of both
of which would appear to be taboo. To this we must add that
in ii. 17 ``the tree of the knowledge of good and evil''
appears to have the qualities of a ``tree of life,'' except
indeed to Adam. This passage seems to give us the key to the
mystery. There was only one tree whose fruit was forbidden;
it might be called either ``the tree of life'' or ``the tree
of knowledge,'' but certainly not ``the tree of knowledge
of good and evil.'' 8 The words ``life'' and ``knowledge''
(= ``wisdom'') are practically equivalent; perfect knowledge
(so primitive man believed) would enable any being to
escape death (an idea spiritualized in Prov. iii. 18).
Next, which of the trees is the ``tree of life''? Various sacred
trees were known to the Semitic peoples, such as the fig-tree
(cp. iii. 7), which sometimes appears, conventionalized, as
a sacred tree.9 But clearly the tree referred to was more
than a ``sacred tree''; it was a tree from whose fruit or
juice, as culture advanced, some intoxicating drink was
produced. The Gaokerena of the Iranians 10 is exactly
parallel. At the resurrection, those who drink of the life-giving
juice of this plant will obtain ``perfect welfare,'' including
deathlessness. It is not, however, either from Iran or
from India that the Hebrew tree of life is derived, but from
Arabia and Babylonia, where date-wine (cp. Enoch xxiv. 4)
is the earliest intoxicant. Of this drink it may well have
been said in primitive times (cp. Rig Veda, ix. 90. 5, of
Soma) that it ``cheers the heart of gods'' (in the speech
of the vine, Judg. ix. 13). Later writers spoke of a ``tree
of mercy,'' distilling the ``oil of life,'' 11 i.e. the
oil that heals, but 4 Esdr. ii. 12 (cp. viii. 53) speaks
of the ``tree of life,'' and Rev. xxii. 2 (virtually) of
``trees of life,'' whose leaves have a healing virtue (cp.
Ezek. xlvii. 12). The oil-tree should doubtless be grouped
with the river of oil in later writings (see PARADISE).
Originally it was enough that there should be one tree
of life, i.e. that heightened and preserved vitality.
A third enigma---why no ``fountain of life''? The references
to such a fountain in Proverbs (xiii. 14, &c.) prove that the
idea was familiar,12 and in Rev. xxii. 1 we are told that
the river of Paradise was a ``river of water of life'' (see
PARADISE). The serpent, too, in mythology is a regular symbol of
water. Possibly the narrator, or redactor, desired to tone
down the traces of mythology. Just as the Gathas (the ancient
Zoroastrian hymns) omit Gaokerena, and the Hebrew prophets
on the whole avoid mythological phrases, so this old Hebrew
thinker prunes the primitive exuberance of the traditional myth.
5. The Serpent.---The keen-witted, fluently speaking serpent
gives rise to fresh riddles. How comes it that Adam's ruin
is effected by one of those very ``beasts of the field''
which he had but lately named (ii. 19), that in speech he is
Adam's equal and in wisdom his superior? Is he a pale form
of the Babylonian chaos-dragon, or of the serpent of Iranian
mythology who sprang from heaven to earth to blight the ``good
creation''? It is true that the serpent of Eden has mythological
affinities. In iii. 14, 15, indeed, he is degraded into a
mere typical snake, but iii. 1-5 shows that he was not so
originally. He is perhaps best regarded, in the light of
Arabian folk-lore, as the manifestation of a demon residing in
the tree with the magic fruit.13 He may have been a prince
among the demons, as the magic tree was a prince among the
plants. Hence perhaps his strange boldness. For some unknown
reason he was ill disposed towards Yahweh Elohim (See iii.
3b), which has suggested to some that he may be akin to the
great enemy of Creation. To Adam and Eve, however, he is not
unkind. He bids them raise themselves in the scale of being
by eating the forbidden fruit, which he declares to be not
fatal to life but an opener of the eyes, and capable of
equalizing men with gods (iii. 4, 5). To the phrase ``ye shall
be as gods'' a later writer may have added ``knowing good
and evil,'' but ``to be as gods'' originally meant ``to live
the life of gods--wise, powerful, happy.'' The serpent was
in the main right, but there is one point which he did not
mention, viz. that for any being to retain this intensified
vitality the eating of the fruit would have to be constantly
renewed. Only thus could even the gods escape death.14
6. The Divine Command broken.---The serpent has gone the
right way to work; he comprehends woman's nature better than
Adam comprehends that of the serpent. By her curiosity Eve is
undone. She looks at the fruit; then she takes and eats;
her husband does the same (iii. 6). The consequence (ver. 7)
may seem to us rather slight: ``they knew (became sensible)
that they were naked, and sewed fig-leaves together, and
made themselves girdles (aprons).'' But the real meaning is
not slight; the sexual distinction has been discovered, and
a new sense of shame sends the human pair into the thickest
shades, when Yahweh-Elohim walks abroad. The God of these
primitive men is surprised: ``Where art thou?'' By degrees,
he obtains a full confession---not from the serpent, whose
speech might not have been edifying, but from Adam and Eve.
The sentences which he passes are decisive, not only for
the human pair and the serpent, but for their respective
races. Painful toil shall be the lot of man; subjection
and pangs that of woman.15 The serpent too (whose unique
form preoccupied the early men) shall be humiliated, as a
perpetual warning to man--who is henceforth his enemy---of
the danger of reasoning on and disobeying the will of God.
7. Versions of the Adam-story.--Theologians in all ages have
allegorized this strange narrative.16 The serpent becomes the
inner voice of temptation, and the saying in iii. 15 becomes
an anticipation of the final victory of good over evil--a view
which probably arose in Jewish circles directly or indirectly
affected by the Zoroastrian eschatology. But allegory was
far from the thoughts of the original narrators. Another
version of the Adam-story is given by Ezekiel (xxviii. 11-19),
for underneath the king of Tyre (or perhaps Missor)17
we can trace the majestic figure of the first man. This
Adam, indeed, is not like the first man of Gen. ii.-iii., but
more iike the ``bright angel'' who is the first man in the
Christian Book of Adam (i. 10; Malan, p. 12). He dwells on
a glorious forest-mountain (cp. Ezekiel xxxi. 8, 18), and is
led away by pride to equalize himself with Elohim (cp. xxviii.
2, 2 Thess. ii. 4), and punished. And with this passage let
us group Job xv. 7, 8, where Job is ironically described as
vying with the first man, who was ``brought forth before the
hills'' (cp. Prov. viii. 25) and ``drew wisdom to himself''
by ``hearkening in the council of Elohim.'' No reference is
made in Job to this hero's fall. The omission, however, is
repaired, not only in Ezek. xxviii. 16, but also in Isa. xiv.
12-15, where the king, whose name is given in the English
Bible as ``Lucifer'' (or margin, ``day-star''), ``son of
the morning,'' and who, like the other king in Ezekiel,
is threatened with death, is a copy of the mythical Adam.
The two conceptions Of the first man are widely different.
The passages last referred to harmonize with the account
given in Gen. i. 26, for ``in our image'' certainly suggests
a being equal in brightness and in capacities to the
angels---a view which, as we know, became the favourite one
in apocryphal and Haggadic descriptions of the Adam before the
Fall. And though the priestly writer, to whom the first
Creation-story in its present form is due, says nothing about
a sacred mountain as the dwelling-place of the first-created
man, yet this mountain belongs to the type of tradition
which the passage, Gen. i. 26-28, imperfectly but truly
represents. The glorious first man of Ezekiel, and the
god-like first men of the cosmogony (cp. Ps. viii. 5) who held
the regency of the earth,18 require a dwelling-place as far
above the common level of the earth as they are themselves
above the childlike Adam of the second creation-narrative
(Gen. ii.). On this sacred mountain, see COSMOGONY.
8. Origin of the Adam-story---That the Hebrew story of the
first man in both its forms is no mere recast of a Babylonian
myth, is generally admitted. The holy mountain is no doubt
Babylonian, and the plantations of sacred trees, one of
which at least has magic virtue, can be paralleled from the
monuments (see EDEN). But there is no complete parallel
to the description of Paradise in Gen. ii., or to the story
of the rib, or to that of the serpent. The first part of
the latter has definite Arabian affinities; the second is
as definitely Hebrew. We may now add that the insertion
of iii. 7 (from ``were opened'') to 19---a passage which
has probably supplanted a more archaic and definitely
mythological passage---may well have been the consequence
of the change in the conception of the first man referred to
above. Still there are four Babylonian stories which may
serve as partial illustrations of the Hebrew Adam-story.
The first is contained in a fragment of a cosmogony in
Berossus, now confirmed in the main by the sixth tablet of the
Creation-epic. It represents the creation of man as due
to one of the inferior gods who (at Bel's command) mingled
with clay the blood which flowed from the severed head of
Bel (see COSMOGONY). The three others are the myths of
Adapa,19 Ea-bani and Etana. As to Adapa, it may be mentioned
here that Fossey has shown reason for holding that the true
reading of the name is Adamu. It thus becomes plausible to
hold that ``Adam'' in Gen. ii.-iii. was originally a proper
name, and that it was derived from Babylonia. More probably,
however, this is but an accidental coincidence; both adam
and adamu may come from the same Semitic root meaning ``to
make.'' Certainly Adamu (if it is not more convenient to
write ``Adapa'') was not regarded as the progenitor of the
human race, like the Hebrew Adam. He was, however, certainly
a man--one of those men who were not, of course, rival
first-men, but were specially created and endowed. Adamu or
Adapa, we are told, received from his divine father the gift
of wisdom,20 but not that of everlasting life. He had a
chance, however, of obtaining the gift, or at least of eating
the food and drinking the water which makes the gods ageless and
immortal. But through a deceit practised upon him by his divine
father Ea, he supposed the food and drink offered to him on a
certain occasion by the gods to be ``food of death,'' ``water
of death,'' just as Adam and Eve at first believed that the
fruit of the magic tree would produce death (Gen. iii. 4, 5).
The second story is that of Ea-bani,21 who was formed by the
goddess Arusu (=the mother-goddess Ishtar) of a lump of clay (cp.
Gen. ii. 7). This human creature, long-haired and sensual, was
drawn away from a savage mode of life by a harlot, and Jastrow,
followed by G. A. Barton, Worcester and Tennant, considers this
to be parallel to the story which may underlie the account of
the failure of the beasts, and the success of the woman Eve,
as a ``help-meet'' for Adam. This, however, is most uncertain.
The third is that of Etana.22 Here the main points are
that Etana is induced by an eagle to mount up to heaven,
that he may win a boon from the kindly goddess Ishtar.
Borne by the eagle, he soared high up into the ether, but
became afraid. Downward the eagle and his burden fell,
and in the epic of Gilgamesh we find Etana in the nether
world. According to Jastrow, this attempted ascension was an
offence against the gods, and his fall was his punishment.
We are not told, however, that Etana had the impious desire
of Ezekiel's first man, and if he fell, it was through his
own timidity (contrast Ezek. xxviii. 16). But certainly the
myth does help us to imagine a story in which, for some sin
against the gods, some favoured hero was hurled down from the
divine abode, and such a story may some day be discovered.
To these illustrations it is unsafe to add the scene on a
cylinder preserved in the British Museum, representing two
figures, a man (with horns) and perhaps a woman, both clothed,
on either side of a fruit-tree, towards which they stretch
out their hands.23 For the meaning of this is extremely
problematical. Some better monumental illustration may some day be
found, for it is clear that the Babylonian sacred literature had
much to tell of offences against the gods in the primeval age.
The student may naturally ask, Whence did the Israelites (a
comparatively young people) obtain the original myth? It is most
probable that they obtained it through the mediation either of
the Canaanites or of the North Arabians. Babylonian influence,
as is now well known, was strongly felt for many centuries
in Canaan, and even the cuneiform script was in common use
among the high officials of the country. When the Israelites
entered Canaan, they would learn myths partly of Babylonian
origin. North Arabian influence must also have been strong
among the Israelites, at least while they sojourned in North
Arabia. From the Kenites, at any rate, they may have received,
not only a strong religious impulse, but a store of tales of
the primitive age, and these stoties too may have been partly
influenced by Babylonian traditions. We must allow for stages
of development both among the Israelites and among their tutors.
9. Biblical References to the Adam-story.---It is remarkable
how little influence the Adam-story has had on the earlier
parts of the Old Testament. The garden of Eden is referred
to in Isa. li. 3, Ezek. xxxvi, 35. Joel ii. 5; cp. Ezek.
xxviii. 13, xxxi. 8, 9, 16, 18, all of which are later. And
it is mostly in the ``humanistic'' book of Proverbs that we
find allusions to the ``tree of life'' (Prov. iii. 18, xi.
30, xiii. 12, xv. 4), and to the ``fountain of life''--perhaps
(see sec. 4) an omitted portion of the old Paradise story
(Prov. x. 11, xiii. 14, xiv. 27, xvi. 22),--the only other
Biblical reference (apart from Rev. xxi. 6) being in that
exquisite passage, Ps. xxxvi. 9. One can hardly be surprised at
this. The Adam-story is plainly of foreign origin, and
could not please the greater pre-exilic prophets. In late
post-exilic times, however, foreign tales, even if of mythical
origin, naturally came into favour, especially as religious
symbols. If even now philosophers and theologians cannot
resist the temptation to allegorize, how inevitable was it
that this course should be pursued by early Jewish theologians!
10. Incipient Reflexion on the Story.--Let us give some
instances of this. In Enoch lxix. 6 we find the story of
Eve's temptation read in the light of that of the fallen angels
(Gen. vi. 1, 2, 4) who conveyed an evil knowledge to men,
and so subjected mankind to mortality. Evidently the writer
fears culture. Elsewhere eating the fruit of the ``tree of
wisdom'' is given as the cause of the expulsion of the human
pair. In the Wisdom of Solomon (x. 1, 2) we find another
view. Here, as in Ezekiel, the first man is pre-eminently wise
and strong; though he transgressed, wisdom rescued him, i.e.
taught him repentance (cp. Life of Adam and Eve, sec. sec. 1-8).
Elsewhere (ii. 24; cp. Jos. Ant. i. 1, 4) death is traced
to the envy of the devil, still implying an exalted view of
Adam. It is held that, but for his sin, Adam would have been
immortal. Clearly the Jewish mind is exposed to some fresh
foreign influences. As in the Talmud and the Jerusalem
Targum, the serpent has even become the devil, i.e.
Satan. The period of syncretism has fully come, and
Zoroastrianism in particular, more indirectly than directly,
is exercising an attractive power upon the Jews. For all
that, the theological thinking is characteristically Jewish,
and such guidance as Jewish thinkers required was mainly given
by Greek culture. On this subject see further EVE, sec. 5.
11. Growth of a Theology.---Let us now turn to the Apocalypses
of Baruch and of Ezra (both about 70 A.D.). Different views
are here expressed. According to one (xvii. 3, xix. 8, xxiii.
4) the sin of Adam was the cause of physical death; according
to another (liv. 15, lvi. 6), only of premature physical
death, while according to a third (xlviii. 42, 43) it is
spiritual death which is to be laid to his account. Of these
three views, it is only the second which harmonizes with Gen.
ii.-iii. In one of the two passages which express it we are
also told that each member of thc human race is ``the Adam
of his own soul.'' Adam, like Satan in Ecclus. xxi; 27, has
become a psychological symbol. Truly, a worthy development
of the seed-thoughts of the original narrator, and (must we
not add?) entirely opposed to any doctrine of Original Sin.
In 4 Ezra, too, we find no real endorsement of such a
doctrine. It is true, not only physical death (iii. 7), but
spiritual, is traced to the act of Adam (iii. 21, 22, iv.
30, 31, vii. 118-121). But two modifying facts should be
noticed. One is that Adam is said to have had from the first
a wicked heart, owing to which he fell, and his posterity
likewise, into sin and guilt. All men have the same seed of
evil in them that Adam had; they sin and die, like him. The
other is that, according to iii. 7-12, there are at least two
ages of the world. The first ended with the Flood, so that any
consequences of Adam's sin were, strictly speaking, of limited
duration. The second began with righteous Noah and his
household, ``of whom came all righteous men.'' It was the
descendants of these who ``began again to do ungodliness
more than the former ones.'' Doubtless the problem of evil
is most imperfectly treated, even from the writer's point of
view. But it would be cruel to pick holes in a writer whose
thinking, like that of St Paul, is coloured by emotion.
At this point we might well make more than a passing reference to
St Paul (Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45, 47), whose doctrine of sin
is evidently of mixed origin. But we cannot find space for this
here. In compensation let it be mentioned that in Rev. xii.
9 (cp. xx. 2) the ``great dragon,'' who persecuted the woman
``clothed with the sun,'' is identified with ``the old serpent,
that is called the Devil and Satan.'' The identification is
incorrect. But it may be noticed here that the phrase ``the
old serpent'' sheds some light on the Pauline phrases ``the
first man Adam'' and ``the last Adam'' (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47).
The underlying idea is that the new age (that of the new
heaven and earth) will be opened by events parallel to those
which opened the first age. As the old serpent deceived
man of old, so shall it be again. And as at the head of the
first age stands the first Adam, whose doings affected all
his descendants to their harm, so at the head of the second
shall stand the second Adam, whose actions shall be potent for
good. There is reason to suspect that the expression ``the
second Adam'' is the coinage either of St Paul or of some one
closely connected with him (as Prof. G. F. Moore has shown),
for there is no proof that such terms as ``the last,'' or
``the second Adam,'' were generally current among the Jews.
12. Jewish Legends.---The parallelism between the first and
second Adam in 1 Cor. xv. 45 is a parallelism of contrast.
Jewish legends, however, suggest another sort of parallelism.
The Haggadah gives the most extravagant descriptions of the
glory of Adam before his fall. The most prominent idea is that
being in the image of God--the God whose essence is light--he
must have had a luminous body (like the angels). ``I made
thee of the light,'' says God in the Book of Adam and Eve
(Malan, p. 16), ``and I willed to bring children of light from
thee.'' Similarly in Baba batra, 58a, we read, ``he was of
extraordinary beauty and sun-like brightness.'' So glorious
was he that even the angels were commanded through Michael
to pay homage to Adam. Satan, disobeying, was cast out of
heaven; hence his ill-will towards Adam (Life of Adam and
Eve, sec. sec. 13-17; cp. Koran, xvii. 63, xx. 115, xxxviii. 74).
It only remains to give due honour to one of the most
beautiful of legends, that of the deliverance of Adam's
spirit from the nether world by the Christ, the earliest
form of which is a Christian interpolation in Apoc.
Moses, sec. 42 (cp. Malan, Adam and Eve, iv. 15,
end). We may compare a partly parallel passage in sec. 37,
where the agent is Michael, and notice that such legendary
developments were equally popular among Jews and Christians.
AUTHORITIES-- On the apocryphal Books of Adam, see Hort,
Dict. of Chr. Biography, i. 37 ff. In English we have Malan's
translation of the Ethiopic Book of Adam (1882), and Issaverden's
translation of another Book of Adam from the Armenian (Venice,
1901). In German, see Fuchs's translations in Kautzsch's Die
Apokryphen, ii. 506 ff. For full bibliography see Schurer,
Gesch. des jud. Folkes, ed. 3, iii. 288 f. On Jewish
and Mahommedan legends, see Jewish Cyclopaedia, ``Adam.''
On the belief in the Fall, see Tennant, The Sources of the
Doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin (1903). (T. K. C.)
1 The English Bible gives ``the LORD GOD.'' This,
however, does not adequately represent the Hebrew.
2 See commentaries of Gunkel and Cheyne. As in
v.10, the oceanstream is meant. (See EDEN.)
3 A widely spread mythic representation. (Cp. COSMOGONY.)
4 See an illustration from Naville's Book of the
Dead (Egyptian) in Jewish Cyclopaedia, i. 174a.
5 Or park. (See PARADISE.)
6 The later Jews, however, supposed that before the Fall
the animals could speak, and that they had all one language
(Jubilees, iii. 28; Jos. Antiquities, i. I, 4).
7 Cheyne, Genesis and Exodus, referring to
Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee, pp. 280 ff.
8 ``Good and evil'' may be a late marginal gloss. See
further Ency. Bib. col. 3578, and the commentaries
(Driver leaves the phrase); also Jastrow, Relig. of.
Bab. and Ass. p. 553; Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 242.
9 See illustration in Toy's Ezekiel (Sacred
Books of the Old Testament), p. 182.
10 Gaokerena is the mythic white haoma plant (Zendavesta,
Vendidad, xx. 4; Bundahish, xxvii. 4). It is an idealization
of the yellow haoma of the mountains which was used in sacrifices
(Yasna, x. 6-10). It corresponds to the soma plant Asclepias
acida of the ancient Aryans of India. On the illustrative value
of Gaokerena see Cheyne, Origin of the Psalter, pp. 400-439.
11 See Life of Adam and Eve (apocryphal), sec. sec. 36,
40; Apocal. Mos. sec. 9; Secrets of Enoch, viii.
7, xxii. 8, 9. ``Oil of life,'' in a Bab. hymn, Die
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, ed. 3, p. 526.
12 Cp. the Bab. myths of Adapa and of the Descent of Ishtar.
13 W. R. Smith, Relig. of Semites, pp.
133, 442; Ency. Bib., ``Serpent,''
14 Note the food and drink of the gods
in the Babylonian Adapa (or Adamu?) myth.
15 The mortality of man forms no part of
the curse (cp. iii. 19, ``dust thou art'').
16 See H. Schultz, Alttest. Theologie, ed.
4, pp. 679 ff., 720; Driver, Genesis, p. a4.
17 See Cheyne, Genesis and Exodus.
18 The ``fair shepherd'' Yima of the Avesta (Vend.
ii.), the first man and the founder of civilization
to the Iranians,though not like the Yama of the Vedas.
19 See Jastrow, Rel. of Bab. and Ass. pp. 548-554; R. J. Harper, in
Academy, May 30, 1891; Jensen, Keilinschr. Bibliothek, vi. 93 ff.
20 The wisdom was probably to qualify him as a
ruler. It is too much to say with Hommel that
``Adapa is the archetype of the Johannine Logos.''
21 Jastrow, op. cit. p. 474 ff.; Jensen, Keil. Bibl. vi. 120 ff.
22 Jastrow, p. 522 f.; Jensen, vi. 112 ff.
23 See Smith and Sayce, Chaldaean Genesis, p. 88;
Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? p. 90; Babel and Bible,
Eng. trans., p. 56, with note on pp. 114-118; Zimmern,
Die Keilinschr. und das A.T., ed. 3, p. 529; Jeremias,
Das Alte Test. im Lichte d. Alten Orient. pp. 104-106.
ADAM OF BREMEN, historian and geographer, was probably born
in Upper Saxony (at Meissen, according to one tradition) before
1045. He came to Bremen about 1067-1068, most likely on
the invitation of Archbishop Adalbert, and in the 24th year
of the latter's episcopate (1043?-1072); in 1069 he appears
as a canon of this cathedral and master of the cathedral
school. Not long after this he visited the king of Denmark,
Sweyn Estrithson, in Zealand; on the death of Adalbert, in
1072, he began the Historia Hammaburgenisis Ecclesiae, which
he finished about 1075. He died on the 12th of October of a
year unknown, perhaps 1076. Adam's Historia---known also
as Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum, Bremensium
praesulum Historia, and Historia ecclesiastica--is
a primary authority, not only for the great diocese of
Hamburg-and-Bremen, but for all North German and Baltic lands
(down to 1072), and for the Scandinavian colonies as far as
America. Here occurs the earliest mention of Vinland, and here
are also references of great interest to Russia and Kiev, to
the heathen Prussians, the Wends and other Slav races of the
South Baltic coast, and to Finland, Thule or Iceland, Greenland
and the Polar seas which Harald Hardrada and the nobles of
Frisia had attempted to explore in Adam's own day (before
1066). Adam's account of North European trade at this time,
and especially of the great markets of Jumne at the mouth of
the Oder, of Birka in Sweden and of Ostrogard (Old Novgorod?)
in Russia, is also of much value. His work, which places
him among the first and best of German annalists, consists
of four books or parts, and is compiled partly from written
records and partly from oral information, the latter mainly
gathered from experience or at the courts of Adalbert and Sweyn
Estrithson. Of his minor informants he names several, such as
Adelward, dean of Bremen, and William the Englishman, ``bishop
of Zealand,'' formerly chancellor of Canute the Great, and
an intimate of Sweyn Estrithson. The fourth (perhaps the
most important) book of Adam's History, Variously entitled
Libellus de Situ Daniae et reliquarum quae trans Daniam
sunt regionum, Descriptio Insularum Aquilonis, &c., has
often been considered, but wrongly, as a separate work.
Ten MSS. exist, of which the chief are (1-2) Copenhagen,
Royal Library, Old Royal Collection, No. 2296, of 12th to
13th cents.; No. 718, of 15th cent.; (3) Leyden University,
Voss. Lat. 123, of 11th cent.; (4) Rome, Vatican Library,
2010; (5) Vienna, Hofu. Staatsbibliothek, 413, of 13th cent.;
(6) Wolfenbuttel, Ducal Library, Gud. 83, of 15th cent.
There are 15 editions of the Historia, in whole or part; the
first published at Copenhagen, 1579 (the first of the Libellus
or Descriptio Ins. Aquil. appeared at Stockholm in 1615),
the best at Hanover, 1846 (by Lappenberg, in Scriptores Rerum
Germanicarum; reissued by L. Weiland, 1876), and at Paris,
1884 (in Migne's Patrologia Latina, cxlvi.). There are
also three German versions, and one Danish; the best is by J.
C. M. Laurent (and W. Wattenbach) in Geschichtsschreiber d.
deutsch. Vorzeit, part vii. (1850 and 1888) . See also J.
Asmussen, De fontibus Adami Bremensis, 1834; Lappenberg in
Pertz, Archiv, vi, 770; Aug. Bernard, De Adamo Bremensi (Paris,
1895); Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, ii. 514-548 (1901).
ADAM (or ADAN) DE LE HALE (died c. 1288), French
trouvere, was born at Arras. His patronymic is generally
modernized to La Halle, and he was commonly known to his
contemporaries as Adam d'Arras or Adam le Bossu, sometimes
simply as Le Bossu d'Arras. His father, Henri de le Hale,
was a well-known Citizen of Arras, and Adam studied grammar,
theology and music at the Cistercian abbey of Vaucelles, near
Cambrai. Father and son had their share in the civil
discords in Arras, and for a short time took refuge in
Douai. Adam had been destined for the church, but renounced
this intention, and married a certain Marie, who figures
in many of his songs, rondeaux, motets and jeux-partis.
Afterwards he joined the household of Robert II., count of
Artois; and then was attached to Charles of Anjou, brother
of Charles IX., whose fortunes he followed in Egypt, Syria,
Palestine and Italy. At the court of Charles, after he
became king of Naples, he wrote his Jeu de Robin et Marion,
the most famous of his works. He died between 1285 and
1288. Adam's shorter pieces are accompanied by music, of which
a transcript in modern notation, with the original score, is
given in Coussemaker's edition. His Jeu de Robin et Marion
is cited as the earliest French play with music on a secular
subject. The pastoral, which tells how Marion resisted the
knight, and remained faithful to Robert the shepherd, is based
on an old chanson, Robin m'aime, Robin m'a. It consists
of dialogue varied by refrains already current in popular
song. The melodies to which these are set have the character
of folk-music, and are more spontaneous and melodious than
the more elaborate music of his songs and motets. A modern
adaptation, by Julien Tiersot, was played at Arras by a
company from the Paris Opera Comique on the occasion of a
festival in 1896 in honour of Adam de le Hale. His other
play, Le jeu Adan or Le jeu de la Feuillee (c. 1262),
is a satirical drama in which he introduces himself, his father
and the citizens of Arras with their peculiarities. His works
include a Conge, or satirical farewell to the city of Arras,
and an unfinished chanson de geste in honour of Charles
of Anjou, Le roi de Sicile, begun in 1282; another short
piece, Le jeu du pelerin, is sometimes attributed to him.
The only MS. which contains the whole of Adam's work is
the La Valliere MS. (No. 25,566) in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris, dating from the latter half of the 13th
century. Many of his pieces are also contained in Douce MS.
308, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. His OEuvres completes
(1872) were edited by E. de Coussemaker. See also an article
by Paulin Paris in the Histoire litteraire de La France
(vol. xx. pp. 638-675); G. Raynaud, Recueil des motets
francais des XIIe et XIIIe siecles (1882); Canchons
et Partures des . . . Adan delle Hale (Halle, 1900),
a critical edition by Rudolf Berger; an edition of Adam's
two jeux in Monmerque and Michel's Theatre francais
au moyen age (1842); E. Langlois, Le jeu de Robin et
Marion (1896), with a translation in modern French; A.
Guesnon, La Satire a Arras au XIIIe, siecle (1900); and
a full bibliography of works on the subject in No. 6 of the
Bibliotheque de bibliographies critiques, by Henri Guy.
ADAM, ALEXANDER (1741-1809), Scottish writer on Roman
antiquities, was born on the 24th of June 1741, near Forres, in
Morayshire. From his earliest years he showed uncommon diligence
and perseverance in classical studies, notwithstanding many
difficulties and privations. In 1757 he went to Edinburgh,
where he studied at the university. His reputation as a
classical scholar secured him a post as assistant at Watson's
Hospital and the headmastership in 1761. In 1764 he became
private tutor to Mr Kincaid, afterwards Lord Provost of
Edinburgh, by whose influence he was appointed (in 1768) to the
rectorship of the High School on the retirement of Mr Matheson,
whose substitute he had been for some time before. From this
period he devoted himself entirely to the duties of his office
and to the preparation of his numerous works on classical
literature. His popularity and success as a teacher are
strikingly illustrated by the great increase in the number
of his pupils, many of whom subsequently became distinguished
men, among them being Sir Walter Scott, Lord Brougham and
Jeffrey. He succeeded in introducing the study of Greek into
the curriculum of the school, notwithstanding the opposition
of the university headed by Principal Robertson. In 1780 the
university of Edinburgh conferred upon him the honorary degree
of Doctor of Laws. He died on the 18th of December 1809,
after an illness of five days, during which he occasionally
imagined himself still at work, his last words being, ``It
grows dark, boys, you may go.'' Dr Adam's first publication
was his Principles of Latin and English Grammar (1772),
which, being written in English instead of Latin, brought down
a storm of abuse upon him. This was followed by his Roman
Antiquities (1791), A Summary of Geography and History
(1794) and a Compendious Dictionary of the Latin Tongue
(1805). The MS. of a projected larger Latin dictionary,
which he did not live to complete, lies in the library of
the High School. His best work was his Roman Antiquities,
which has passed through a large number of editions and
received the unusual compliment of a German translation.
See An Account of the Life and Character of A. A., by A. Henderson (1810).
ADAM, SIR FREDERICK (1781--1853), British general, was the
son of the Rt. Hon. W. Adam of Blair-Adam, lord-lieutenant of
Kinross-shire. He was gazetted an ensign at the age of
fourteen and was subsequently educated at Woolwich. He became
captain in 1799, and served with the Coldstream Guards in Egypt
(1801). In 1805, having purchased the intermediate steps of
promotion, he obtained command of the 21st Foot, with which
regiment he served in the Mediterranean from 1805 to 1813, taking
part in the battle of Maida in 1806. In 1813 he accompanied
the British corps sent to Catalonia, in which he commanded a
brigade. He fought a gallant action at Biar (April 12,
1813), and on the following day won further distinction at
Castalla. In the action of Ordal, on the 12th of September,
Adam received two severe wounds. He returned to England
to recover, and was made a major-general in 1814. At
Waterloo, Adam's brigade, of which the 52nd under Colborne
(see SEATON, LORD) formed part, shared with the Guards
the honour of repulsing the Old Guard. For his services he
was made a K.C.B., and received also Austrian and Russian
orders. During the long peace which followed, Sir Frederick
Adam was successively employed at Malta, in the Ionian
Islands as lord high commissioner (1824-1831) and from 1832
to 1837 as governor of Madras. He became K.C.M.G. in 1820,
G.C.M.G. four years later, lieutenant-general in 1830, a
privy councillor in 1831, G.C.B. in 1840, and full general
in 1846. He died suddenly on the 17th of August 1853.
ADAM, JULIETTE (1836-- ), Freneh writer, known also by her
maiden name of Juliette Lamber, was born at Verberie (Oise)
on the 4th of October 1836. She has given an account of
her childhood, rendered unhappy by the dissensions of her
parents, in Le roman de mon enfance et de ma jeunesse (Eng.
trans., London and New York, 1902). In 1852 she married a
doctor named La Messine, and published in 1858 her Idees
antiproudhoniennes sur l'amour, la femme et le mariage,
in defence of Daniel Stern (Mme. d'Agoult) and George
Sand. On her husband's death she married in 1868 Antoine
Edmond Adam (1816--1877), prefect of police in 1870, and
subsequently life-senator; and she established a salon which
was frequented by Gambetta and the other republican leaders
against the conservative reaction of the 'seventies. In the
same interest she founded in 1879 the Nouvelle Revue, which
she edited for the first eight years, and in the administration
of which she retained a preponderating influence until
1899. She wrote the notes on foreign politics, and was
unremitting in her attacks on Bismarck and in her advocacy
of a policy of revanche. Mme. Adam was also generally
credited with the authorship of papers on various European
capitals signed ``Paul Vasili,'' which were in reality the
work of various writers. The most famous of her numerous
novels is Paienne (1883). Her reminiscences, Mes
premieres armes litteraires et politiques (1904) and Mes
sentiments et nos idees avant 1870 (1905), contain much
interesting gossip about her distinguished contemporaries.
ADAM, LAMBERT SIGISBERT (1700-1759), French sculptor, known
as Adam l'aine, was born in Nancy, son of Jacob Sigisbert
Adam, a sculptor of little repute. Adam was thirty-seven
when, on his election to the Academy, he exhibited at the Salon
the model of the group of ``Neptune and Amphitrite'' for the
centre of the fountain at Versailles, and thereafter found
much employment in the decoration of the royal residences.
Among his more important works are ``Nymphs and Tritons,''
``The Triumph of Neptune stilling the Waves,'' ``Hunter with
Lion in his Net,'' a relief for the chapel of St Adelaide,
``The Seine and the Marne'' in stone for St Cloud, ``Hunting''
and ``Fishing,'' marble groups for Berlin, ``Mars embraced
by Love'' and ``The enthusiasm of Poetry.'' Adam restored
with much ability the twelve statues (Lycomedes) found in the
so-called Villa of Marius at Rome, and was elected a member
of the Academy of St Luke. Several of his most important
works were executed for Frederick the Great in Prussia.
His brother, also a sculptor, NICOLAS SEBASTIEN ADAM
(1705-1778), known as Adam le jeune, born in Nancy, worked
under equal encouragement. His first work of importance was
his ``Prometheus chained, devoured by a Vulture,', executed in
plaster in 1738, and carved in marble in 1763 as his ``reception
piece'' when he was elected into the Academy. He produced
the reliefs of the ``Birth'' and ``Agony of Christ'' for the
Oratory in Paris, but his chief works are the ``Mausoleum of
Cardinal de Fleury'' and, in particular, the tomb of Catherine
Opalinska, queen of Poland (wife of King Stanislaus), at Nancy.
A third brother, FRANCOIS GASPARD BALTHASAR ADAM (1710-1761),
born in Nancy, became the first sculptor of Frederick the Great
and the head of the atelier of sculpture founded by that monarch,
and passed the greater part of his life in Berlin. His chief
works adorn the gardens and palaces of Sans Souci and Potsdam.
The work of the brothers Adam was too ornate in style to win
the approval of the school that immediately followed them,
and found its principal opponents in Bouchardon and Pigalle.
See Dussieux, Artistes francais a l'etranger (Paris, 1855,
8vo); Archives de l'art francais, documents, vol. i. pp.
117-180, chiefly for; works executed for the king of Prussia;
Mariette, Abecedario; Emile de la Chavignerie and Auvray,
Dictionnaire general des artistes de l'ecole francaise
(Paris, 1882), mainly for works executed; Lady Dilke, French
Architects and Sculptors of the 18th century (London, 4to, 1900).
ADAM, MELCHIOR (d. 1622), German divine and biographer, was
born at Grotkau in Silesia after 1550, and educated in the
college of Brieg, where he became a Protestant. In 1598 he went
to Heidelberg, where he held various scholastic appointments.
He wrote the biographies of a number of German scholars of
the 16th century, mostly theologians, which were published in
Heidelberg and Frankfort (5 vols., 1615--1620). He dealt with
only twenty divines of other countries. All his divines are
Protestants. His industry as a biographer is commended by P.
Bayle, who acknowledges his obligations to Adam's labours; and
his biographies, though they have faults, are still useful.
ADAM, PAUL (1862- ), French novelist, was born in Paris on
the 7th of December 1862. He was prosecuted for his first
novel, Chair molle (1885), but was acquitted. He collaborated
with Jean Moreas in Le the chez Miranda (1886), and with
Moreas and Gustave Kahn he founded the Symboliste, coming
forward as one of the earliest defenders of symbolism. Among
his numerous novels should be noted Le mystere des foules
(2 vols., 1895), a study in Boulangism, Lettres de Malaisie
(1897), a fantastic romance of imaginary future politics.
In 1899 he began a novel-sequence, giving the history of the
Napoleonic campaigns, the restoration and the government of Louis
Philippe, comprising La force (1899), L'enfant d'Austerlitz
(1901), La ruse (1902), and Au soleil de Juillet (1903).
In 1900 he wrote a Byzantine romance, Basile et Sophia.
ADAM, ROBERT (1728--1792), British architect, the second
son of William Adam of Maryburgh, in Fife, and the most
celebrated of four brothers, John, Robert, James and William
Adam, was born at Kirkcaldy in 1728. For few famous men
have we so little biographical material, and contemporary
references to him are sparse. He certainly studied at the
university of Edinburgh, and probably received his first
instruction in architecture from his father, who gave proofs of
his own skill and taste in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (now
demolished). His mother was the aunt of Dr W. Robertson,
the first English historian of Charles V., and in 1750 we
find Robert Adam living with her in Edinburgh, and making one
of the brilliant literary coterie which adorned it at that
period. Somewhere between 1750 and 1754 he visited Italy,
where he spent three years studying the remains of Roman
architecture. There he was struck with the circumstance
that practically nothing bad survived of the Greek and Roman
masterpieces except public buildings, and; that the private
palaces, which Vitruvius and Pliny esteemed so highly, had
practically vanished. One example of such work. however,
was extant in the ruins of Diocletian's palace at Spalato in
Dalmatia, and this he visited in July 1757, taking with him
the famous French architect and antiquary, C. L. Clerisseau,
and two experienced draughtsmen, with whose assistance,
after being arrested as a spy, he managed in five weeks to
accumulate a sufficient number of measurements and careful
plans and surveys to produce a restoration of the entire
building in a fine work which he published in 1764, The
Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian, &c. Considering the
shortness of the time occupied and the obstacles placed in
his way by the Venetian governor and the population of the
place, the result was amazing. The influence of these studies
was apparent directly and indirectly in much of his subsequent
work, which, indeed, was in great measure founded upon them.
After his return to England he seems to have come rapidly to
the front, and in 1762 he was appointed sole architect to the
king and the Board of Works. Six years later he resigned this
office, in which he was succeeded by his brother James,---who
however, held the office jointly with another,---and entered
parliament as member for the county of Kinross. In 1768 he
and his three brothers leased the ground fronting the Thames,
upon which the Adelphi now stands, for L. 1200 on a ninety-nine
years' lease, and having obtained, with the assistance of
Lord Bute, the needful act of parliament, proceeded, in the
teeth of public opposition, to erect the ambitious block of
buildings which is imperishably associated with their name,
indicating its joint origin by the title Adelphi, from the
Greek adelfoi, the Brothers. The site presented attractive
possibilities. A steep hill led down Buckingham Street to
the river-side, and the plan was to raise against it, upon
a terrace formed of massive arches and vaults and facing
the river, a dignified quarter of fine streets and stately
buildings, suggestive of the Spalato ruins. In spite of many
difficulties, pecuniary and otherwise (the undertaking was
completed from the proceeds of a lottery), money was raised
and the work pushed on; in five years the Adelphi terrace stood
complete, and the fine houses were eagerly sought after by
artists and men of letters. Splendid, however, as the terrace
and its houses are, both in conception and execution, the
underground work which upholds them is perhaps more remarkable
still. The vast series of arched vaults has been described
by a modern writer as a very town, which, during the years
that they were open, formed subterranean streets leading to
the river and its wharves. In many places the arches stand
in double tiers. In time these ``streets'' obtained a bad
name as the haunt of suspicious characters, and they have
long been enclosed and let as cellars. Between 1773 and 1778
the brothers issued a fine series of folio engravings and
descriptions of the designs for many of their most important
works, which included several great public buildings and
numberless large private houses; a fine volume was published in
1822. For the remaining years of Robert's life the practice
of the firm was the most extensive in the country; his position
was unquestioned, and when he died in 1792 he was laid to
rest in Westminster Abbey almost as a matter of course.
The art of Robert Adam was extraordinarily many-sided and
prolific, and it is difficult to give a condensed appreciation of
it. As an architect he was strongly under Roman and Italian
influences, and his style and aims were exotic rather than
native. But this does not detract from their merit, nor
need it diminish our estimate of his genius. It was,
indeed, the most signal triumph of that genius that he was
able so to mould and adapt classical models as to create
a new manner of the highest charm and distinction. Out of
simple curvilinear forms, of which he principally preferred
the oval, he evolved combinations of extraordinary grace
and variety, and these entered into every detail of his
work. In his view the architect was intimately concerned
with the furniture and the decorations of a building, as well
as with its form and construction, and this view he carried
rigorously into practice, and with astonishing success.
Nothing was too small and unimportant for him--summer-houses
and dog-kennels came as readily to him as the vast facades
of a terrace in town or a great country house. But he never
permitted minute details to obscure the main lines of a noble
design. Whatever care he might have expended upon the flowing
curves of a moulding or a decoration, it was strictly kept in
its place; it contributed its share and no more to the total
effect. He made a distinct step forward in giving shape to
the idea of imparting the unity of a single imposing structure
to a number of private houses grouped in a block which is
so characteristic a feature of modern town building, and
though at times he failed in the breadth of grasp needful
to carry out such an idea on a large scale, he has left
us some fine examples of what can be accomplished in this
direction. A delightful but theoretically undesirable
characteristic of his work is the use of stucco. Upon it he
moulded delicate forms in subtle and beautiful proportions.
His ``compo'' was used so successfully that the patent was
infringed: many of his moulds still exist and are in constant
use. That most difficult feature, the column, he handled
with enthusiasm and perfect mastery; he studied and wrote of
it with minute pains, while his practice showed his graslp of
the subject by all avoidance of bare imitation of the classic
masters who first brought it to perfection. His work might
be classic in form, but it was independently developed by
himself. It would be impossible here to give a list of the
innumerable works which he executed. In London, of course,
the Adelphi stands pre-eminent; the screen and gate of the
Admiralty and part of Fitzroy Square are by him, Portland
Place, and much of the older portion of Finsbury Circus,
besides whole streets of houses in the west end. There are the
famous country houses of Lord Mansfield at Caen Wood, Highgate
and Luton Hoo, and decorations and additions to many more.
Robert Adam--with, there is reason to suspect, some help
from his brother James--has left as deep and enduring a mark
upon English furniture as upon English architecture. Down
to his time carving was the dominant characteristic of the
mobiliary art, but thenceforward the wood-worker declined in
importance. French influence disposed Robert Adam to the
development of painted furniture with inlays of beautiful exotic
woods, and many of his designs, especially for sideboards,
are extremely attractive, mainly by reason of their austere
simplicity. Robert Adam was no doubt at first led to turn
his thoughts towards furniture by his desire to see his
light, delicate, graceful interiors, with their large sense
of atmosphere and their refined and finished detail, filled
with plenishings which fitted naturally into his scheme.
His own taste developed as he went on, but he was usually
extremely successful, and cabinetmakers are still reproducing
his most effective designs. In his furniture he made lavish
use of his favourite decorative motives---wreaths and paterae,
the honeysuckle, and that fan ornament which he used so
constantly. Thus an Adam house is a unique product of English
art. From facade to fire-irons, from the chimneys to the
carpets, everything originated in the same order of ideas,
and to this day an Adam drawing-room is to English what
a Louis Seize room is to French art. In nothing were the
Adams more successful than in mantelpieces and doors. The
former, by reason of their simplicity and the readiness with
which the ``compo'' ornaments can be applied and painted,
are still made in cheap forms in great number. The latter
were most commonly executed in a rich mahogany and are now
greatly sought after. The extent to which the brothers
worked together is by no means clear--indeed, there is an
astonishing dearth of information regarding this remarkable
family, and it is a reproach to English art literature that
no biography of Robert Adam has ever been published. John
Adam succeeded to his father's practice as an architect in
Edinburgh. James Adam studied in Rome, and eventually
was closely associated with Robert; William is variously
said to have been a banker and an architect. (J. P.-B.)
ADAM, WILLIAM (1751--1839), British lawyer and politician,
eldest son of John Adam of Blair-Adam, Kinross-shire, and
nephew of the architect noticed above, was born on the 2nd
of August 1751, studied at the universities of Edinburgh
and Glasgow, and passed at the Scottish bar in 1773. Soon
afterwards he removed to England, where he entered parliament
in 1774, and in 1782 was called to the common law bar. He
withdrew from parliament in 1795, entered it again in 1806
as representative of the united counties of Clackmannan and
Kinross, and continued a member, with some interruptions, till
1811. He was a Whig and a supporter of the policy of Fox. At
the English bar he obtained a very considerable practice. He
was successively attorney and solicitor-general to the prince
of Wales, one of the managers of the impeachment of Warren
Hastings, and one of the counsel who defended the first Lord
Melville when impeached. During his party's brief tenure of
office in 1806 he was chancellor of the duchy of Cornwall,
and was afterwards a privy councillor and lord-lieutenant of
Kinrossshire. In 1814 he became a baron of Exchequer
in Scotland, and was chief commissioner of the newly
established jury-court for the trial of civil causes, from
1815 to 1830, when it was merged in the permanent supreme
tribunal. He died at Edinburgh on the 17th of February 1839.
ADAMANT (from Gr. adamas, untameable), the modern diamond
(q.v.), but also a name given to any very hard substance. The
Greek word is used by Homer as a personal epithet, and by Hesiod
for the hard metal in armour, while Theophrastus applies it
to the hardest crystal. By an etymological confusion with the
Lat. adamare, to have an attraction for, it also came to be
associated with the loadstone; but since the term was displaced
by ``diamond'' it has had only a figurative and poetical use.
ADAMAWA, a country of West Africa, which lies roughly
between 6 deg. and 11 deg. N., and 11 deg. and 15 deg. E., about midway
between the Bight of Biafra and Lake Chad. It is now divided
between the British protectorate of Nigeria (which includes
the chief town Yola, q.v.) and the German colony of
Cameroon. This region is watered by the Benue, the chief
affluent of the Niger, and its tributary the Faro. Another
stream, the Yedseram, flows north-east to Lake Chad. The
most fertile parts of the country are the plains near the
Benue, about 800 ft. above the sea. South and east of the
river the land rises to an elevation of 1600 ft., and is
diversified by numerous hills and groups of mountains.
These ranges contain remarkable rock formations, towers,
battlements and pinnacles crowning the hills. Chief of these
formations is a gigantic pillar some 450 ft. high and 150 ft.
thick at the base. It stands on the summit of a high conical
hill. Mount Alantika, about 25 miles south-south-east of
Yola, rises from the plain, an isolated granite mass, to
the height of 6000 ft. The country, which is very fertile
and is covered with luxuriant herbage, has many villages
and a considerable population. Durra, ground-nuts, yams and
cotton are the principal products, and the palm and banana
abound. Elephants are numerous and ivory is exported. In
the eastern part of the country the rhinoceros is met with,
and the rivers swarm with crocodiles and with a curious
mammal called the ayu, bearing some resemblance to the seal.
Adamawa is named after a Fula Emir Adama, who in the early
years of the 19th century conquered the country. To the
Hausa and Bornuese it was previously known as Fumbina (or
South-land). The inhabitants are mainly pure negroes such
as the Durra, Batta and Dekka, speaking different languages,
and all fetish-worshippers. They are often of a very low
type, and some of the tribes are cannibals. Slave-trading
was still active among them in the early years of the 20th
century. The Fula (q.v.), who first came into the country
about the 15th century as nomad herdsmen, are found chiefly
in the valleys, the pagan tribes holding the mountainous
districts. There are also in the country numbers of Hausa,
who are chiefly traders, as well as Arabs and Kanuri from
Bornu. The emir of Yola, in the period of Fula lordship, claimed
rights of suzerainty over the whole of Adamawa, but the country,
since the subjection of the Fula (e. 1900), has consisted of
a number of small states under the control of the British and
Germans. Garua on the upper Benne, 65 m. east of Yola, is
the headquarters of the German administration for the region
and the chief trade centre in the north of Adamawa. Yoko is
one of the principal towns in the south of the country, and in
the centre is the important town of Ngaundere. After Heinrich
Barth, who explored the country in 1851, the first traveller
to penetrate Adamawa was the German, E. R. Flegel (1882). It
has since been traversed by many expeditions, notably that of
Baron von Uechtritz and Dr Siegfried Passarge (1893--1894).
An interesting account of Adamawa, its peoples and history, is
given by Heinrich Barth in his Travels in North and Central
Africa (new edition, London, 1890), and later information is
contained in S. Passarge's Adamawa (Berlin, 1895). (See also
CAMEROON and NIGERIA, and the bibliographies there given.)
ADAMITES, or ADAMIANS, a sect of heretics that flourished
in North Africa in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Basing itself
probably on a union of certain gnostic and ascetic doctrines,
this sect pretended that its members were re-established
in Adam's state of original innocency. They accordingly
rejected the form of marriage, which, they said, would never
have existed but for sin, and lived in absolute lawlessness,
holding that, whatever they did, their actions could be neither
good nor bad. During the middle ages the doctrines of this
obscure sect, which did not itself exist long, were revived
in Europe by the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit.
ADAMNAN, or ADOMNAN (c. 624-704), Irish saint and
historian, was born at Raphoe, Donegal, Ireland, about the
year 624. In 679 he was elected abbot of Hy or Iona, being
ninth in succession from the founder, St Columba. While on
a mission to the court of King Aldfrith of Northumberland in
686, he was led to adopt the Roman rules with regard to the
time for celebrating Easter and the tonsure, and on his return
to Iona he tried without success to enforce the change upon the
monks. He died on the 23rd of September 704. Adamnan wrote
a Life of St Columba, which, though abounding in fabulous
matter, is of great interest and value. The best editions
are those published by W. Reeves (1857, new edit. Edinburgh,
1874) and by J. T. Fowler (Oxford, 1894). Adamnan's other
well-known work, De Locis Sanctis (edited by P. Geyer,
Itinera Hierosolymitana saeculi, iii.-viii., &c., 1898;
vol. 39 of Bienna Corpus Script. Ecc. Latin) was based,
according to Bede, on information received from Arculf, a French
bishop, who, on his return from the Holy Land, was wrecked on
the west coast of Britain, and was entertained for a time at
Iona. This was first published at Ingolstadt in 1619 by J.
Gretser, who also defended Baronius' acceptance of Arculf's
narrative against Casaubon. An English translation by G.
J. R. Macpherson, Arculfus' Pilgrimage in the Holy Land.
was published by the Pilgrim's Text Society (London, 1889).
For full bibliography see U. Chevalier, Repert
de sources Historiques (1903), p. 40.
ADAMS, ANDREW LEITH (1827-1882), Scottish naturalist and
palaeontologist, the second son of Francis Adams of Banchory,
Aberdeen, was born on the 21st of March 1827, and was educated
to the medical profession. As surgeon in the Army Medical
Department from 1848 to 1873, he utilized his opportunities
for the study of natural history in India and Kashmir, in
Egypt, Malta, Gibraltar and Canada. His observations on the
fossil vertebrata of the Maltese Islands led him eventually
to give special study to fossil elephants, on which he became
an acknowledged authority. In 1872 he was elected F.R.S. In
1873 he was chosen professor of zoology in the Royal College of
Science, Dublin, and in 1878 professor of natural history in
Queen's College, Cork, a post which he held until the close
of his life. He died at Queenstown on the 29th of July 1882.
PUBLICATIONS.--Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta
(London, 1870); other works of travel; Monograph on the British
Fossil Elephants (Palaeontographical Soc.), (London, 1877-1881).
ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS (1807-1886), American diplomatist,
son of John Quincy Adams, and grandson of John Adams, was
born in Boston on the 18th of August 1807. His father, having
been appointed minister to Russia, took him in 1809 to St
Petersburg, where he acquired a perfect familiarity with
French, learning it as his native tongue. After eight years
spent in Russia and England, he attended the Boston Latin
School for four years, and in 1825 graduated at Harvard. He
lived two years in the executive mansion, Washington, during
his father's presidential term, studying law and moving in
a society where he met Webster, Clay, Jackson and Randolph.
Returning to Boston, he devoted ten years to business and
study, and wrote for the North American Review. He also
undertook the management of his father's pecuniary affairs,
and actively supported him in his contest in the House of
Representatives for the right of petition and the anti-slavery
cause. In 1835 he wrote an effective and widely read political
pamphlet, entitled, after Edmund Burke's more famous work, An
Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. He was a member of
the Massachusetts general court from 1840 to 1845, sitting for
three years in the House of Representatives and for two years
in the Senate; and in 1846-1848 he edited a party Journal,
the Boston Whig. In 1848 he was prominent in politics as
a ``Conscience Whig,'' presiding over the Buffalo Convention
which formed the Free Soil party and nominated Martin van
Buren for president and himself for vice-president. He was a
Republican member of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, which assembled
on the 5th of December 1859, and during the second session,
from the 3rd of December 1860 to the 4th of March 1861, he
represented Massachusetts in the Congressional Committee of
Thirty-three at the time of the secession of seven of the Southern
states. His selection by the chairman of this committee, Thomas
Corwin, to present to the full committee certain propositions
agreed upon by two-thirds of the Republican members, and
his calm and able speech of the 31st of January 1861 in the
House, served to make him conspicuous before congress and the
country. Together with William H. Seward, he stood for the
Republican policy of concession; and, while he was criticized
severely and charged with inconsistency in view of his record
as a ``Conscience Whig,'' he was of the same mind as President
Lincoln, willing to concede non-essentials, but holding rigidly
to the principle, properly understood, that there must be no
extension of slavery. He believed that as the Republicans
were the victors they ought to show a spirit of conciliation,
and that the policy of righteousness was likewise one of
expediency, since it would have for its result the holding of
the border slave states with the North until the 4th of March,
when the Republicans could take possession of the government at
Washington. With the incoming of the new administration Secretary
Seward secured for Adams the appointment of minister to Great
Britain. So much sympathy was shown in England for the South
that his path was beset with difficulties; but his mission
was to prevent the interference of Great Britain in the
struggle; and while the work of Lincoln, Seward and Sumner,
and the cause of emancipation, tended to this end, the American
minister was insistent and unyielding, and knew how to present
his case forcibly and with dignity. He laboured with energy
and discretion to prevent the sailing of the ``Alabama'';
and, when unsuccessful in this, he persistently urged upon
the British government its responsibility for the destruction
of American merchant vessels by the privateer. In his own
diary he shows that underneath his calm exterior were serious
trouble and keen anxiety; and, in fact, the strain which
he underwent during the Civil War made itself felt in later
years. Adams was instrumental in getting Lord John Russell to
stop the ``Alexandra,'' and it was his industry and pertinacity
in argument and remonstrance that induced Russell to order
the detention in September 1863 of the two ironclad rams
intended for the Confederate States. Adams remained in England
until May 1868. His last important work was as a member, in
1871--1872, of the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva which
disposed of the ``Alabama'' claims. His knowledge of the
subject and his fairness of mind enabled him to render his
country and the cause of international arbitration valuable
service. He died at Boston on the 21st of November 1886.
He edited the works of John Adams (10 vols.. 1850-1856), and
the Memoirs of John Quincy Adams (12 vols., 1874-1877). See the
excellent biography (Boston, 1900), in the ``American Statesmen
Series,'' by his son, Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (J. F. R.)
ADAMS, HENRY (1838-- ), American historian, son of Charles
Francis Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, was born
in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 16th of February 1838.
He graduated at Harvard in 1858, and from 1861 to 1868 was
private secretary to his father. From 1870 to 1877 he was
assistant professor of history at Harvard and from 1870 to 1876
was editor of the North American Review. He is considered
to have been the first (in 1874-1876) to conduct historical
seminary work in the United States. His great work is his
History of the United States (1801 to 1817) (9 vols.,
1889--1891), which is incomparably the best work yet published
dealing with the administrations of Presidents Jefferson and
Madison. It is particularly notable for its account of the
diplomatic relations of the United States during this period,
and for its essential impartiality. Adams also published:
Life of Albert Gallatin (1879), John Randolph (1882)
in the ``American Statesmen Series,'' and Historical Essays
(1891); besides editing Documents Relating to New England
Federalism (1877), and the Writings of Albert Gallatin
(3 volumes, 1879). In collaboration with his elder brother
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., he published Chapters of Erie
and Other Essays (1871), and, with H. C. Lodge, Ernest
Young and J. L. Laughlin, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law (1876).
His elder brother, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1833-1894), a graduate
of Harvard (1853), practised law, and was a Democratic
member for several terms of the Massachusetts general
court. In 1872 he was nominated for vice-president by the
Democratic faction that refused to support Horace Greeley.
Another brother, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Jr. (1835- ), born
in Boston on the 27th of May 1835, graduated at Harvard in
1856, and served on the Union side in the Civil War, receiving
in 1865 the brevet of brigadier-general in the regular
army. He was president of the Union Pacific railroad from
1884 to 1890, having previously become widely known as an
authority on the management of railways. In 1900-1901 he
was president of the American Historical Association. Among
his writings are: Railroads, Their Origin and Problems
(1878); Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (1892);
a biography of his father, Charles Francis Adams (1900);
Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers (1902); Theodore
Lyman and Robert Charles Winthrop, Jr., Two Memoirs
(1906); and Three Phi Beta Kappa Addresses (1907).
Another brother, BROOKS ADAMS (1848-- ), born in Quincy,
Massachusetts, on the 24th of June 1848, graduated at
Harvard in 1870, and until 1881 practised law. His writings
include: The Emancipation of Massachusetts (1887);
The Law of Civilization and Decay (1895); America's
Economic Supremacy (1900); and The New Empire (1902).
ADAMS, HENRY CARTER (1852-- ), American economist,
was born at Davenport, Iowa, on the 31st of December
1852. He was educated at Iowa College and Johns Hopkins
University, of which latter he was fellow and lecturer
(1880--1882). He was afterwards a lecturer in Cornell
University, and in 1887 became professor of political economy
and finance in the university of Michigan. He also became
statistician to the Interstate Commerce Committee and was
in charge of the transportation department in the 1900
census. His principal works are The State in Relation to
Industrial Action (1887); Taxation in the United States,
1787 to 1816 (1884); Public Debts (1887); The Science
of Finance (1888); Economics and Jurisprudence (1897).
ADAMS, HERBERT (1858- ), American sculptor, was born at West
Concord, Vermont, on the 28th of January 1858. He was educated
at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Institute of Technology,
and at the Massachusetts Normal Art School, and in 1885-1890
he was a pupil of Antonin Mercie in Paris. In 1890-1898
he was an instructor in the art school of Pratt Institute,
Brooklyn, New York. In 1906 he was elected vice-president
of the National Academy of Design, New York. He experimented
successfully with some polychrome busts and tinted marbles,
notably in the ``Rabbi's Daughter'' and a portrait of Miss
Julia Marlowe, the actress; and he is at his best in his
portrait busts of women, the best example being the study,
completed in 1887, of Miss A. V. Pond, whom he afterwards
married. Among his other productions are a fountain for
Fitchburg, Massachusetts (1888); a number of works for the
Congressional Library, Washington, including the bronze doors
(``Writing'') begun by Olin Warner, and the statue of Professor
Joseph Henry; memorial tablets for the Boston State House; a
memorial to Jonathan Edwards, at Northampton, Mass.; statues
of Richard Smith, the type-founder, in Philadelphia, and of
William Ellery Channing, in Boston (1902); and the Vanderbilt
memorial bronze doors for St Bartholomew's Church, New York.
ADAMS, HERBERT BAXTER (1850-1901), American historian and
educationalist, was born at Shutesbury (near Amherst),
Massachusetts, on the 16th of April 1850. He graduated at
Amherst, at the head of his class, in 1872; and between 1873
and 1876 he studied political science, history and economics
at Gottingen, Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany, receiving
the degree of Ph.D.at Heidelberg in 1876, with the highest
honours (summa cum lande). From 1876 almost until his
death he was connected with the Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, Maryland, being in turn a fellow, an associate
in history (1878--1883), an associate professor (1883--1891)
and after 1891 professor of American and institutional
history, In addition he was lecturer on history in Smith
College, Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1878-1881, and for
many years took an active part in Chautauqua work. In 1884,
also, he was one of the founders of the American Historical
Association, of which he was secretary until 1900. In 1882 he
founded the ``Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical
and Political Science,'' and at the time of his death some
forty volumes had been issued under his editorship. After
1887 he also edited for the United States Bureau of Education
the series of monographs entitled ``Contributions to American
Educational History,'' he himself preparing the College
of William and Mary (1887), and Thomas Jefferson and
the University of Virginia (1888). It was as a teacher,
however, that Adams rendered his most valuable services,
and many American historical scholars owe their training
and to a considerable extent their enthusiasm to him. He
died at Amherst, Massachusetts, on the 30th of July 1901.
In addition to the monographs mentioned above, he
published: Maryland's Influence in Founding a National
Commonwealth (1877); Methods of Historical Study
(1884); Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the
United States (1885); and the Life and Writings of Jared
Sparks (2 vols., Boston, 1893), his most important work.
See Herbert B. Adams: Tributes of Friends (Baltimore, 1902), extra
volume (xxiii.) of ``Studies in Historical and Political Science.''
ADAMS, JOHN (1735-1826), second president of the United
States of America, was born on the 30th of October 1735 in
what is now the town of Quincy, Massachusetts. His father, a
farmer, also named John, was of the fourth generation in descent
from Henry Adams, who emigrated from Devonshire, England,
to Massachusetts about 1636; his mother was Susanna Boylston
Adams. Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755,
and for a time taught school at Worcester and studied law in
the office of Rufus Putnam. In 1758 he was admitted to the
bar. From an early age he developed the habit of writing
descriptions of events and impressions of men. The earliest
of these is his report of the argument of James Otis in the
superior court of Massachusetts as to the constitutionality
of writs of assistance. This was in 1761, and the argument
inspired him with zeal for the cause of the American
colonies. Years afterwards, when an old man, Adams undertook
to write out at length his recollections of this scene; it is
instructive to compare the two accounts. John Adams had none
of the qualities of popular leadership which were so marked a
characteristic of his second cousin, Samuel Adams; it was rather
as a constitutional lawyer that he influenced the course of
events. He was impetuous, intense and often vehement,
unflinchingly courageous, devoted with his whole soul to the
cause he had espoused; but his vanity, his pride of opinion
and his inborn contentiousness were serious handicaps to him
in his political career. These qualities were particularly
manifested at a later period---as, for example, during his
term as president. He first made his influence widely felt
and became conspicuous as a leader of the Massachusetts Whigs
during the discussions with regard to the Stamp Act of 1765.
In that year he drafted the instructions which were sent by the
town of Braintree to its representatives in the Massachusetts
legislature, and which served as a model for other towns in
drawing up instructions to their representatives; in August
1765 he contributed anonymously four notable articles to the
Boston Gazette (republished separately in London in 1768
as A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law), in which he
argued that the opposition of the colonies to the Stamp Act
was a part of the never-ending struggle between individualism
and corporate authority; and in December 1765 he delivered a
speech before the governor and council in which he pronounced
the Stamp Act invalid on the ground that Massachusetts being
without representation in parliament, had not assented to
it. In 1768 fee removed to Boston, Two years later, with that
degree of moral courage which was one of his distinguishing
characteristics, as it has been of his descendants, he,
aided by Josiah Quincy, Jr., defended the British soldiers
who were arrested after the ``Boston Massacre,'' charged
with causing the death of four persons, inhabitants of the
colony. The trial resulted in an acquittal of the officer
who commanded the detachment, and most of the soldiers;
but two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. These
claimed benefit of clergy and were branded in the hand and
released. Adams's upright and patriotic conduct in taking
the unpopular side in this case met with its just reward
in the following year, in the shape of his election to the
Massachusetts House of Representatives by a vote of 418 to 118.
John Adams was a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to
1778. In June 1775, with a view to promoting the union of
the colonies, he seconded the nomination of Washington as
commander-in-chief of the army. His influence in congress was
great, and almost from the beginning he was impatient for a
separation of the colonies from Great Britain. On the 7th
of June 1776 he seconded the famous resolution introduced by
Richard Henry Lee (q.v.) that ``these colonies are, and of
a right ought to be, free and independent states,'' and no
man championed these resolutions (adopted on the 2nd of July)
so eloquently and effectively before the congress. On the
8th of June he was appointed on a committee with Jefferson,
Franklin, Livingston and Sherman to draft a Declaration of
Independence; and although that document was by the request
of the committee written by Thomas Jefferson, it was John
Adams who occupied the foremost place in the debate on its
adoption. Before this question had been disposed of, Adams
was placed at the head of the Board of War and Ordnance,
and he also served on many other important committees.
In 1778 John Adams sailed for France to supersede Silas Deane
in the American commission there. But just as he embarked that
commission concluded the desired treaty of alliance, and soon
after his arrival he advised that the number of commissioners
be reduced to one. His advice was followed and he returned home
in time to be elected a member of the convention which framed
the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, still the organic law
of that commonwealth. With James Bowdoin and Samuel Adams, he
formed a sub-committee which drew up the first draft of that
instrument, and most of it probably came from John Adams's
pen. Before this work had been completed he was again sent to
Europe, having been chosen on the 27th of September 1779 as
minister plenipotentiary for negotiating a treaty of peace
and a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. Conditions were
not then favourable for peace, however; the French government,
moreover, did not approve of the choice, inasmuch as Adams
was not sufficiently pliant and tractable and was from the
first suspicious of Vergennes; and subsequently Benjamin
Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay and Henry Laurens were
appointed to co-operate with Adams. Jefferson, however, did
not cross the Atlantic, and Laurens took little part in the
negotiations. This left the management of the business to the other
three. Jay and Adams distrusted thc good faith of the French
government. Outvoting Franklin, they decided to break their
instructions, which required them to ``make the most candid
confidential communications on all subjects to the ministers
of our generous ally, the king of France; to undertake
nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without their
knowledge or concurrence; and ultimately to govern yourself
by their advice and opinion''; and, instead, they dealt
directly with the British commissioners, without consulting
the French ministers. Throughout the negotiations Adams was
especially determined that the right of the United States
to the fisheries along the British-American coast should be
recognized. Political conditions in Great Britain, at the
moment, made the conclusion of peace almost a necessity
with the British ministry, and eventually the American
negotiators were able to secure a peculiarly favourable
treaty. This preliminary treaty was signed on the 30th of
November 1782. Before these negotiations began, Adams had
spent some time in the Netherlands. In July 1780 he had been
authorized to execute the duties previously assigned to Henry
Laurens, and at the Hague was eminently successful, securing
there recognition of the United States as an independent
government (April 19, 1782), and negotiating both a loan
and, in October 1782, a treaty of amity and commerce,
the first of such treaties between the United States and
foreign powers after that of February 1778 with France.
In 1785 John Adams was appointed the first of a long line of
able and distinguished American ministers to the court of St
James's. When he was presented to his former sovereign,
George III. intimated that he was aware of Mr Adams's lack
of confidence in the French government. Replying, Mr Adams
admitted it, closing with the outspoken sentiment: ``I must
avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to my own
country''--a phrase which must have jarred upon the monarch's
sensibilities. While in London Adams published a work
entitled A Defence of the Constitution of Government of
the United States (1787). In this work he ably combated
the views of Turgot and other European writers as to the
viciousness of the frame-work of the state governments.
Unfortunately, in so doing, he used phrases savouring of
aristocracy which offended many of his countrymen,---as in the
sentence in which he suggested that ``the rich, the well-born
and the able'' should be set apart from other men in a
senate. Partly for this reason, while Washington had the vote
of every elector in the first presidential election of 1789,
Adams received only thirty-four out of sixty-nine. As this
was the second largest number he was declared vice-president,
but he began his eight years in that office (1789-- 1797) with
a sense of grievance and of suspicion of many of the leading
men. Differences of opinion with regard to the policies to be
pursued by the new government gradually led to the formation
of two well-defined political groups---the Federalists and the
Democratic-Republicans--and Adams became recognized as one of
the leaders, second only to Alexander Hamilton, of the former.
In 1796, on the refusal of Washington to accept another
election, Adams was chosen president, defeating Thomas Jefferson;
though Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists had asked that
an equal vote should be cast for Adams and Thomas Pinckney,
the other Federalist in the contest, partly in order that
Jefferson, who was elected vice-president, might be excluded
altogether, and partly, it seems, in the hope that Pinckney
should in fact receive more votes than Adams, and thus, in
accordance with the system then obtaining, be elected president,
though he was intended for the second place on the Federalist
ticket. Adams's four years as chief magistrate (1797--1801)
were marked by a succession of intrigues which embittered
all his later life; they were marked, also, by events, such
as the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which brought
discredit on the Federalist party. Moreover, factional strife
broke out within the party itself; Adams and Hamilton became
alienated, and members of Adams's own cabinet virtually looked
to Hamilton rather than to the president as their political
chief. The United States was, at this time, drawn into the
vortex of European complications, and Adams, instead of taking
advantage of the militant spirit which was aroused, patriotically
devoted himself to securing peace with France, much against
the wishes of Hamilton and of Hamilton's adherents in the
cabinet. In 1800, Adams was again the Federalist candidate
for the presidency, but the distrust of him in his own
party, the popular disapproval of the Alien and Sedition
Acts and the popularity of his opponent, Thomas Jefferson,
combined to cause his defeat. He then retired into private
life. On the 4th of July 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary
of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, he died at
Quincy. Jefferson died on the same day. In 1764 Adams had married
Miss Abigail Smith (1744-1818), the daughter of a Congregational
minister at Weymouth, Massachusetts. She was a woman of much
ability, and her letters, written in an excellent English
style, are of great value to students of the period in which she
lived. President John Quincy Adams was their eldest son.
AUTHORITIES.--C. F. Adams, The Works of John Aadms, with
Life (10 vols., Boston, 1850-1856); John and Abigail Adams,
Familiar Letters during thc Revolution (Boston, 1875);
J. T. Morse, John Adams (Boston, 1885: later edition,
1899), in the ``American Statesmen Series''; and Mellen
Chamberlain, John Adams, the Statesman of the Revolution;
with other Essays and Addresses (Boston, 1898). (E. CH.)
ADAMS, JOHN COUCH (1819--1892), British astronomer, was born
at Lidcot farmhouse, Laneast, Cornwall, on the 5th of June
1819. His father, Thomas Adams, was a tenant farmer; his
mother, Tabitha Knill Grylls, inherited a small estate at
Badharlick. From the village school at Laneast he went, at
the age of twelve, to Devonport, where his mother's cousin,
the Rev. John Couch Grylls, kept a private school. His
promise as a mathematician induced his parents to send him to
the university of Cambridge, and in October 1839 he entered
as a sizar at St John's College. He graduated B.A. in 1843
as the senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman of his
year. While still an undergraduate he happened to read
of certain unexplained irregularities in the motion of
the planet Uranus, and determined to investigate them as
soon as possible, with a view to ascertaining whether they
might not be due to the action of a remote undiscovered
planet. Elected fellow of his college in 1843, he at once
proceeded to attack the novel problem. It was this: from
the observed perturbations of a known planet to deduce by
calculation, assuming only Newton's law of gravitation, the
mass and orbit of an unknown disturbing body. By September
1845 he obtained his first solution, and handed to Professor
Challis, the director of the Cambridge Observatory, a paper
giving the elements of what he described as ``the new planet.''
On the 21st of October 1845 he left at Greenwich Observatory,
for the information of Sir George Airy, the astronomer-royal, a
similar document, still preserved among the archives. A fortnight
afterwards Airy wrote asking for information about a point in the
solution. Adams, who thought the query unessential, did not
reply, and Airy for some months took no steps to verify by
telescopic search the results of the young mathematician's
investiation. Meanwhile, Leverrier, on the 10th of November
1845, presented to the French Academy a memoir on Uranus,
showing that the existing theory failed to account for its
motion. Unaware of Adams's work, he attempted a like inquiry,
and on the 1st of June 1846, in a second memoir, gave the
position, but not the mass or orbit, of the disturbing body
whose existence was presumed. The longitude he assigned
differed by only 1 deg. from that predicted by Adams in the
document which Airy possessed. The latter was struck by the
coincidence, and mentioned it to the Board of Visitors of
the Observatory, James Challis and Sir John Herschel being
present. Herschel, at the ensuing meeting of the British
Association early in September, ventured accordingly to
predict that a new planet would shortly be discovered.
Meanwhile Airy had in July suggested to Challis that the
planet should be sought for with the Cambridge equatorial.
The search was begun by a laborious method at the end of the
month. On the 8th and 12th of August, as afterwards
appeared, the planet was actually observed; but owing to
the want of a proper star-map it was not then recognized as
planetary. Leverrier, still ignorant of these occurrences,
presented on the 31st of August 1846 a third memoir, giving
for the first time the mass and orbit of the new body. He
communicated his results by letter to Dr Gane, of the Berlin
Observatory, who at once examined the suggested region of the
heavens. On the 23rd of September he detected near the
predicted place a small star unrecorded in the map, and next
evening found that it had a proper motion. No doubt remained
that ``Leverrier's planet'' had been discovered. On the
announcement of the fact, Herschel and Challis made known
that Adams had already calculated the planet's elements and
position. Airy then at length published an account of the
circumstances, and Adams's memoir was printed as an appendix
to the Nautical Almanac. A keen controversy arose in France
and England as to the merits of the two astronomers. In the
latter country much surprise was expressed at the apathy of
Airy; in France the claims made for an unknown Englishman
were resented as detracting from the credit due to Leverrier's
achievement. As the indisputable facts became known, the
world recognized that the two astronomers had independently
solved the problem of Uranus, and ascribed to each equal
glory. The new planet, at first called Leverrier by F.
Arago, received by general consent the neutral name of
Neptune. Its mathematical prediction was not only an
unsurpassed intellectual feat; it showed also that Newton's
law of gravitation, which Airy had almost called in question,
prevailed even to the utmost bounds of the solar system.
The honour of knighthood was offered to Adams when Queen
Victoria visited Cambridge in 1847; but then, as on a
subsequent occasion, his modesty led him to decline it.
The Royal Society awarded him its Copley medal in 1848. In
the same year the members of St John's College commemorated
his success by founding in the university an Adams prize, to
be given biennially for the best treatise on a mathematical
subject. In 1851 he became president of the Royal Astronomical
Society. His lay fellowship at St John's College came to
an end in 1852, and the existing statutes did not permit
of his re-election. But Pembroke College, which possessed
greater freedom, elected him in the following year to a lay
fellowship, and this he held for the rest of his life. In
1858 he became professor of mathematics at St Andrews, but
lectured only for a session, when he vacated the chair for
the Lowndean professorship of astronomy and geometry at
Cambridge. Two years later he succeeded Challis as director
of the Observatory, where he resided until his death.
Although Adams's researches on Neptune were those which attracted
widest notice, the work he subsequently performed in relation to
gravitational astronomy and terrestrial magnetism was not less
remarkable. Several of his most striking contributions to
knowledge originated in the discovery of errors or fallacies
in the work of his great predecessors in astronomy. Thus
in 1852 he published new and accurate tables of the moon's
parallax, which superseded J. K. Burckhardt's, and supplied
corrections to the theories of M. C. T. Damoiseau, G. A. A.
Plana and P. G. D. de Pontecoulant. In the following year his
memoir on the secular acceleration of the moon's mean motion
partially invalidated Laplace's famous explanation, which
had held its place unchallenged for sixty years. At first,
Leverrier, Plana and other foreign astronomersi controverted
Adams's result; but its soundness was ultimately established,
and its fundamental importance to this branch of celestial theory
has only developed further with time. For these researches
the Royal Astronomical Society awarded him its gold medal in
1866. The great meteor shower of 1866 turned his attention
to the Leonids, whose probable path and period had already
been discussed by Professor H. A. Newton. Using a powerful
and elaborate analysis, Adams ascertained that this cluster
of meteors, which belongs to the solar system, traverses an
elongated ellipse in 33 1/4 years, and is subject to definite
perturbations from the larger planets, Jupiter, Saturn and
Uranus. These results were published in 1867. Ten years
later, when Mr. G. W. Hill of Washington expounded a new and
beautiful method for dealing with the problem of the lunar
motions, Adams briefly announced his own unpublished work
in the same field, which, following a parallel course had
confirmed and supplemented Hill's. In 1874-1876 he was
president of the Royal Astronomical Society for the second time,
when it fell to him to present the gold medal of the year to
Leverrier. The determination of the constants in Gauss's
theory of terrestrial magnetism occupied him at intervals for
over forty years. The calculations involved great labour,
and were not published during his lifetime. They were edited
by his brother, Professor W. Grylls Adams, and appear in the
second volume of the collected Scientific Papers. Numerical
computation of this kind might almost be described as his
pastime. The value of the constant known as Euler's, and
the Bernoullian numbers up to the 62nd, he worked out to an
unimagined degree of accuracy. For Newton and his writings he
had a boundless admiration; many of his papers, indeed, bear
the cast of Newton's thought. He laboured for many years at
the task of arranging and cataloguing the great collection
of Newton's unpublished mathematical writings, presented
in 1872 to the university by Lord Portsmouth, and wrote the
account of them issued in a volume by the University Press in
1888. The post of astronomer-royal was offered him in 1881,
but he preferred to pursue his peaceful course of teaching
and research in Cambridge. He was British delegate to the
International Prime Meridian Conference at Washington in
1884, when he also attended the meetings of the British
Association at Montreal and of the American Association at
Philadelphia. Five years later his health gave way, and
after a long illness he died at the Cambridge Observatory
on the 21st of January 1892, and was buried in St Giles's
cemetery, near his home. He married in 1863 Miss Eliza Bruce,
of Dublin, who survived him. An international committee was
formed for the purpose of erecting a monument to his memory
in Westminster Abbey; and there, in May 1895, a portrait
medallion, by Albert Bruce Joy, was placed near the grave
of Newton, and adjoining the memorials of Darwin and of
Joule. His bust, by the same sculptor, stands opposite
that of Sir John Herschel in the hall of St John's College,
Cambridge. Herkomer's portrait is in Pembroke College; and
Mogford's, painted in 1851, is in the combination room of St
John's. Another bust, taken in his youth, belongs to
the Royal Astronomical Society. A memorial tablet, with
an inscription by Archbishop Benson, is placed in the
Cathedral at Truro; and Mr Passmore Edwards erected a public
institute in his honour at Launceston, near his birthplace.
The Scientific Papers of John Couch Adams, 4to, vol. i.
(1896), and vol. ii. (1900), edited by William Grylls
Adams and Ralph Allen Sampson, with a memoir by Dr J. W. L.
Glaisher, were published by the Cambridge University Press.
The first volume contains his previously published writings;
the second those left in manuscript, including the substance
of his lectures on the Lunar Theory. A collection, virtually
complete, of Adams's papers regarding the discovery of
Neptune was presented by Mrs Adams to the library of St John's
College. A description of them by Professor Sampson was
inserted in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society
(vol. liv. p. 143). Consult: Month. Notices Roy. Astr.
Soc., liii. 184; Observatory, xv. 174; Nature, xxxiv.
565, xlv. 301; Astr. Journal, No. 254; R. Grant, Hist. of
Physical Astronomy, p. 168; Edinburgh Review, No. 381, p. 72.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY (1767-1848), eldest son of President
John Adams, sixth president of the United States, was born
on the 11th of July 1767, in that part of Braintree that is
now Quincy, Massachusetts, and was named after John Quincy
(1689--1767), his mother's grandfather, who was for many
years a prominent member of the Massachusetts legislature.
In 1778, and again in 1780, young Adams accompanied his
father to Europe; studying in Paris in 1778-1779 and at the
university of Leiden in 1780. In 1780, also, he began to
keep that diary which forms so conspicuous a record of the
doings of himself and his contemporaries. In 1781, at the
age of fourteen, he accompanied Francis Dana (1743-1811),
American envoy to Russia, as his private secretary; but Dana
was not received by the Russian government, and in 1782 Adams
joined his father at Paris, where he acted as ``additional
secretary'' to the American commissioners in the negotiation
of the treaty of peace which concluded the War of American
Independence. Instead of accompanying his father to London,
he, of his own choice, returned to Massachusetts, graduated
at Harvard College in 1787, three years later was admitted
to practise at the bar and at once opened an office in
Boston. A series of papers written by him in which he
controverted some of Thomas Paine's doctrines in the Rights
of Man, and later another series in which he ably supported
the neutral policy of the administration toward France and
England, led to his appointment by Wnshington as minister to
the Netherlands in May 1794. There was little for him to do
at the Hague, but in the absence of a minister at London, he
transacted certain public business with the English foreign
secretary. In 1796 Washington appointed him minister to
Portugal, but before his departure thither his father John
Adams became president and changed his destination to Berlin
(1797). While there, he negotiated (1799) a treaty of amity
and commerce with Prussia. On Thomas Jefferson's election
to the presidency in 1800, the elder Adams recalled his
son, who returned home in 1801. The next year, he was
elected to the Massachusetts senate, and in 1803 was sent to
Washington as a member of the Senate of the United States.
Up to this time, John Quincy Adams was regarded as belonging
to the Federalist party, but he now found its general policy
displeasing to him, was frowned upon, as the son of his
father, by the followers of Alexander Hamilton, and found
himself nearly powerless as an unpopular member of an unpopular
minority. He was not now, and indeed never was, a strict party
man. On the first important question that came before him
in the Senate, the acquisition of Louisiana, he voted with
the Republicans, regardless of the opposition of his own
section. In December 1807 he warmly seconded Jefferson's
suggestion of an embargo and vigorously urged instant action,
saying: ``The president has recommended the measure on his high
responsibility. I would not consider, I would not deliberate;
I would act!'' Within five hours the Senate had passed the
Embargo Bill and sent it to the House. The support of a
measure so unpopular in New England caused him to be hated by
the Federalists there and cost him his seat in the Senate; his
successor was chosen on the 3rd of June 1808, several months
before the usual time of filling the vacancy, and five days later
Adams resigned. In the same year he attended the Republican
congressional caucus which nominated Madison for the presidency,
and thus definitely joined the Republicans. From 1806 to
1809 Adams was professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard.
In 1809 President Madison sent Adams to Russia to represent the
United States. He arrived at St Petersburg at the psychological
moment when the tsar had made up his mind to break with
Napoleon. Adams therefore met with a favourable reception and
a disposition to further the interests of American commerce
in every possible way. On the outbreak of the war between
the United States and England in 1812, he was still at St
Petersburg. In September of that year, the Russian government
suggested that the tsar was willing to act as mediator between
the two belligerents. Madison precipitately accepted this
proposition and sent Albert Gallatin and James Bayard to act
as commissioners with Mr Adams; but England would have nothing
to do with it. In August 1814, however, these gentlemen,
with Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell, began negotiations
with English commissioners which resulted in the signature
of the treaty of Ghent on the 24th of December of that
year. After this Adams visited Paris, where he witnessed the
return of Napoleon from Elba, and then went to London, where,
with Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin, he negotiated (1815)
a ``Convention to Regulate Commerce and Navigation.'' Soon
afterwards he became U.S. minister to Great Britain, as his
father had been before him, and as his son, Charles Francis
Adams, was after him. After accomplishing little in London,
he returned to the United States in the summer of 1817 to
become secretary of state in the cabinet of President Monroe.
As secretary of state, Adams played the leading part in
two most important episodes--the acquisition of Florida
and the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine. Ever since
the acquisition of Louisiana successive administrations
had sought to include a part at least of Florida in that
purchase. In 1819, after long negotiations, Adams succeeded
in bringing the Spanish minister to the point of signing
a treaty in which the Spaniards abandoned all claims to
territory east of the Mississippi, and the United States
relinquished all claim to what is now known as Texas. Before
the Spanish government ratified the treaty in 1820, Mexico,
including Texas, had thrown off allegiance to the mother
country, and the United States had occupied Florida by force of
arms. The Monroe Doctrine (q.v.) rightly bears the name of
the president who in 1823 assumed the responsibility for its
promulgation; but it was primarily the work of John Quincy
Adams. The eight years of Monroe's presidency (1817-1825)
are known as the ``Era of Good Feeling.'' As his second term
drew to a close, there was a great lack of good feeling among
his official advisers, three of whom--Adams, secretary of
state, Calhoun, secretary of war, and Crawford, secretary of
the treasury--aspired to succeed him in his high office. In
addition, Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson were also candidates.
Calhoun was nominated for the Vice-presidency. Of the other
four, Jackson received 99 electoral votes, Adams 84, Crawford
41, and Clay 37; as no one had a majority, the decision was
made by the House of Representatives, which was confined
in its choice to the three candidates who had received the
largest number of votes. Clay, who was speaker of the House
of Representatives, and had for years assumed a censorious
attitude toward Jackson, cast his influence for Adams and
thereby secured his election on the first ballot. A few days
later Adams offered Clay the secretaryship of state, which was
accepted. The wholly unjust and baseless charge of ``bargain and
corruption'' followed, and the feud thus created between Adams
and Jackson greatly influenced the history of the United States.
Up to this point Adams's career had been almost uniformly
successful, but his presidency (1825--1829) was in most
respects a failure, owing to the virulent opposition of
the Jacksonians; in 1828 Jackson was elected president over
Adams. It was during his administration that irreconcilable
differences developed between the followers of Adams and the
followers of Jackson, the former becoming known as the National
Republicans, who with the Anti-Masons were the precursors
of the Whigs. In 1829 Adams retired to private life in the
town of Quincy; but only for a brief period, for in 1830,
largely by Anti-Masonic votes, he was elected a member of the
national House of Representatives. On its being suggested
to him that his acceptance of this position would degrade an
ex-president, Adams replied that no person could be degraded
by serving the people as a representative in congress or, he
added, as a selectman of his town. His service in congress
from 1831 until his death is, in some respects, the most
noteworthy part of his career. Throughout he was conspicuous
as an opponent of the extension of slavery, though he was
never technically an abolitionist, and in particular he was
the champion in the House of Representatives of the right
of petition at a time when, through the influence of the
Southern members, this right was, in practice, denied by that
body. His prolonged fight for the repeal of the so-called
``Gag Laws'' is one of the most dramatic contests in the
history of congress. The agitation for the abolition of
slavery, which really began in earnest with the establishment
of the Liberator by William Lloyd Garrison in 1831, soon led
to the sending of innumerable petitions to congress for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, over which
the Federal government had jurisdiction, and for other action
by congress with respect to that institution. These petitions
were generally sent to Adams for presentation. They aroused
the anger of the proslavery members of congress, who, in
1836, brought about the passage of the first ``Gag Rule,'' the
Pinckney Resolution, presented by Henry L. Pinckney, of South
Carolina. It provided that all petitions relating to slavery
should be laid on the table without being referred to committee
or printed; and, in substance, this resolution was re-adopted
at the beginning of each of the immediately succeeding
sessions of congress, the Patton Resolution being adopted in
1837, the Atherton Resolution, or ``Atherton Gag,'' in 1838,
and the Twenty-first Rule in 1840 and subsequently until
repealed. Adams contended that these ``Gag Rules'' were
a direct violation of the First Amendment to the Federal
Constitution, and refused to be silenced on the question,
fighting for repeal with indomitable courage, in spite of the
bitter denunciation of his opponents. Each year the number of
anti-slavery petitions received and presented by him increased;
perhaps the climax was in 1837, when Adams presented a petition
from twenty-two slaves, and, when threatened by his opponents
with censure, defended himself with remarkable keenness and
ability. At each session, also, the majority against him
decreased until in 1844 his motion to repeal the Twenty-first
Rule was carried by a vote of 108 to 80 and his battle was
won. On the 21st of February 1848, after having suffered
a previous stroke of apoplexy, he fell insensible on the
floor of the Representatives' chamber, and two days later
died. Few men in American public life have possessed more
intrinsic worth, more independence, more public spirit and
more ability than Adams, but throughout his political career
he was handicapped by a certain reserve, a certain austerity
and coolness of manner, and by his consequent inability to
appeal to the imaginations and affections of the people as a
whole. He had, indeed, few intimate political or personal
friends, and few men in American history have, during
their lifetime, been regarded with so much hostility and
attacked with so much rancour hy their political opponents.
AUTHORITIES.--J. T. Morse, John Quincy Adams (Boston, 1883;
new edition, 1899); Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the Life of, John
Quincy Adams (Boston, 1858); C. F. Adams (ed.), Memoirs of
John Quincy Adams, comprising portions of his diary from
1795 to 1848 (12 vols., Philadelphia. 1874-1877). (E. CH.)
ADAMS, SAMUEL (1722--1803), American statesman, was
born at Boston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of September
1722. He was a second cousin to the elder John Adams.
His father, whose Christian name was also Samuel, was a
wealthy and prominent citizen of Boston, who took an active
part in the politics of the town, and was a member of the
Caucus (or Caulker's) Club, with which the political term
``caucus'' is said to have originated; his mother was Mary
Fifield. Young Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1740,
and three years later, on attaining the degree of A.M., chose
for his thesis, ``Whether it be Lawful to resist the Supreme
Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved.''
Which side he took, and how the argument proceeded, is not
known, but the subject was one which well forecasted his
career. He began the study of law in response to his father's
advice; he discontinued it in response to his mother's
disapproval. He repeatedly failed in business, notably as
manager of a malt-house, largely because of his incessant
attention to politics; but in the Boston town-meeting he
became a conspicuous example of the efficiency of that
institution for training in statecraft. He has, indeed, been
called the ``Man of the Town Meeting.'' About 1748 he began
to take an important part in the affairs of the town, and
became a leader in the debates of a political club which he
was largely instrumental in organizing, and to whose weekly
publication, the Public Advertiser, he contributed numerous
articles. From 1756 to 1764 he was one of the town's
tax-collectors, but in this office he was unsuccessful,
his easy business methods resulting in heavy arrears.
Samuel Adams first came into wider prominence at the beginning
of the Stamp Act episode, in 1764, when as author of Boston's
instructions to its representatives in the general court of
Massachusetts he urged strenuous opposition to taxation by act of
parliament. The next year he was for the first time elected to
the lower house of the general court, in which he served until
1774, after 1766 as clerk. As James Otis's vigour and influence
declined, Adams took a more and more prominent place in the
revolutionary councils; and, contrary to the opinion of Otis
and Benjamin Franklin, he declared that colonial representation
in parliament was out of the question and advised against any
form of compromise. Many of the Massachusetts revolutionary
documents, including the famous ``Massachusetts Resolves''
and the circular letter to the legislatures of the other
colonies, are from his pen; but owing to the fact that he
usually acted as clerk to the House of Representatives and to
the several committees of which he was a member, documents were
written by him which expressed the ideas of the committee as a
whole. There can be no question, however, that Samuel Adams
was one of the first, if not the first, of American political
leaders to deny the legislative power of parliament and
to desire and advocate separation from the mother country.
To promote the ends he had in view he suggested non-importation,
instituted the Boston committees ofcorrespondence, urged that
a Continental Congress be called, sought out and introduced
into public service such allies as John Hancock, Joseph Warren
and Josiah Quincy, and wrote a vast number of articles for the
newspapers, especially the Boston Gazette, over a multitude of
signatures. He was, in fact, one of the most voluminous and
influential political writers of his time. His style is clear,
vigorous and epigrammatic; his arguments are characterized by
strength of logic, and, like those of other patriots, are, as
the dispute advances, based less on precedent and documentary
authorities and more on ``natural right.'' Although he lacked
oratorical fluency, his short speeches, like his writings,
were forceful; his plain dress and unassuming ways helped to
make him extremely popular with the common people, in whom he
had much greater faith than his cousin John had; and, above
all, he was an eminently successful manager of men. Shrewd,
wily, adroit, unfailingly tactful, an adept in all the arts
of the politician, he is considered to have done more than any
other one man, in the years immediately preceding the War of
Independence, to mould and direct public opinion in his community.
The intense excitement which followed the ``Boston Massacre''
Adams skilfully used to secure the removal of the soldiers
from the town to a fort in the harbour. He it was, also,
who managed the proceedings of the ``Boston Tea Party,'' and
later he was moderator of the convention of Massachusetts
towns called to protest against the Boston Port Bill. One
of the objects of the expedition sent by Governor Thomas
Gage to Lexington (q.v.) and Concord on April 18-19,
1775, was the capture of Adams and John Hancock, temporarily
staying in Lexington, and when Gage issued his proclamation
of pardon on June 12 he excepted these two, whose offences,
he said, were ``of too flagitious a Nature to admit of
any other Consideration than that of condign Punishment.''
As a delegate to the Continental Congress, from 1774 to 1781,
Samuel Adams continued vigorously to oppose any concession to
the British government; strove for harmony among the several
colonies in the common cause; served on numerous committees,
among them that to prepare a plan of confederation; and
signed the Declaration of Independence. But he was rather
a destructive than a constructive statesman, and his most
important service was in organizing the forces of revolution
before 1775. In 1779 he was a member of the convention which
framed the constitution of Massachusetts that was adopted in
1780, and is still, with some amendments, the organic law of
the commonwealth and one of the oldest fundamental laws in
existence. He was one of the three members of the sub-committee
which actually drafted that instrument; and although John Adams
is generally credited with having performed the principal part
of that task, Samuel Adams was probably the author of most of
the bill of rights. In 1788, Samuel Adams was a member of the
Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution of the United
States. When he first read that instrument he was very much
opposed to the consolidated government which it provided, but
was induced to befriend it by resolutions which were passed
at a mass meeting of Boston mechanics or ``tradesmen''---his
own firmest supporters---and by the suggestion that its
ratification should be accompanied by a recommendation of
amendments designed chiefly to supply the omission of a bill of
rights. Without his aid it is probable that the constitution
would not have been ratified by Massachusetts. From 1789 to
1794 Adams was lieutenant-governor of his state, and from 1794
to 1797 was governor. After the formation of parties he became
allied with the Democratic-Republicans rather than with the
Federalists. He died on the 2nd of October 1803, at Boston.
AUTHORITIES.--Life, and Public Services of Samuel Adams (3
vols., Boston, 1863), by W. V. Wells, Adams's great-grandson--a
valuable biography, containing a mass of information, but
noticeably biassed: J. K. Hosmer's Samuel Adams (Boston, 1885),
an excellent short biography in the ``American Statesmen Series'':
M. C. Tyler's Literary History of the American Revolution (2
vols.,New Vork, 1897): and H. A. Cushing (ed.), The Writings
of Samuel Adams (4 vols., New York, 1904-1908). (E. CH.)
ADAMS, THOMAS (d. c. 1655), English divine, was, in 1612,
``a preacher of the gospel at Willington,'' in Bedfordshire,
where he is found until 1614, and whence issued his Heaven
and Earth Reconciled, The Devil's Banquet and other
works. In 1614-1615 he was at Wingrave, in Buckinghamshire,
probably as vicar, and published a number of works in
quick succession; in 1618 he held the preachership at St
Gregory's, under St Paul's Cathedral, and was ``observant
chaplain'' to Sir Henry Montague, the lord chief justice of
England. These bare facts we gather from epistles-dedicatory
and epistles to the reader, and title-pages. These epistles
show him to have been on the most friendly terms with some
of the foremost men in state and church, though his ardent
protestantism offended Laud and hindered his preferment.
his ``occasionally'' printed sermons, when collected in
1629, placed him beyond all comparison in the van of the
preachers of England, and had something to do with shaping John
Bunyan. He equals Jeremy Taylor in brilliance of fancies,
and Thomas Fuller in wit. Robert Southey calls him ``the
prose Shakespeare of Puritan theologians.'' His numerous works
display great learning, classical and patristic, and are unique
in their abundance of stories, anecdotes, aphorisms and puns.
His worns were edited in J. P. Nichol's Puritan
Divines, by J. Angus and T. Smith (3 vols. 8vo, 1862).
ADAMS, WILLIAM (d. 1620), English navigator, was born
at Gillingham, near Chatham, England. When twelve years
old he was apprenticed to the seafaring life, afterwards
entering the British navy, and later serving the Company
of Barbary merchants for a number of years as master and
pilot. Attracted by the Dutch trade with India, he shipped
as pilot major with a little fleet of five ships despatched
from the Texel in 1598 by a company of Rotterdam merchants.
The vessels, boats ranging from 75 to 250 tons and crowded
with men, were driven to the coast of Guinea, where the
adventurers attacked the island of Annabon for supplies,
and finally reached the straits of Magellan. Scattered
by stress of weather the following spring the ``Charity,''
with Adams on board, and the ``Hope,'' met at length off
the coast of Chile, where the captains of both vessels lost
their lives in an encounter with the Indians. In fear of the
Spaniards, the remaining crews determined to sail across the
Pacific. On this voyage the ``Hope'' was lost, but in April
1600 the ``Charity,'' with a crew of sick and dying men, was
brought to anchor off the island of Kiushiu, Japan. Adams was
summoned to Osaka and there examined by Iyeyasu, the guardian
of the young son of Taiko Sama, the ruler, who had just
died. His knowledge of ships and shipbuilding, and his nautical
smattering of mathematics, raised him in the estimation of the
shogun, and he was subsequently presented with an estate at
Hemi near Yokosuka; but was refused permission to return to
England. In 1611 news came to him of an English settlement
in Bantam, and he wrote asking for help. In 1613 Captain
John Saris arrived at Hirado in the ship ``Clove'' with the
object of establishing a trading factory for the East India
Company, and after obtaining the necessary concessions from
the shogun, Adams postponed his voyage home (permission for
which had now been given him) in order to take a leading part,
under Richard Cocks, in the organization of this new English
settlement. He had already married a Japanese woman, by
whom he had a family, and the latter part of his life was
spent in the service of the English trading company, for
whom he undertook a number of voyages to Siam in 1616, and
Cochin China in 1617 and 1618. He died on the 16th of May
1620, some three years before the dissolution of the English
factory. His Japanese title was Anjin Sama, and his memory was
preserved in the naming of a street in Yedo, Anjin Cho (Pilot
Street), and by an annual celebration on June 15 in his honour.
See England's Earliest Intercourse with Japan, by C. W.
Hillary (1905; Letters written by the English Residents in
Japan, ed. by N. Murakami (1900, containing Adams's Letters
reprinted from Memorials of the Empire of Japan, ed. by T.
Rundall, Hakluyt Society, 1850); Diary of Richard Cocks,
with preface by N. Murakami (1899, reprinted from the Hakluyt
Society ed. 1883); R. Hildreth's Japan (1835); J. Harris's
Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca (1764), i.
856; Voyage of John Saris, ed. by Sir E. M. Satow (Hakluyt
Society, 1900); Asiatic Society of Japan Transactions, xxvi.
(sec. 1898) pp. 1 and 194, where four more hitherto unpublished
letters of Adams are given; Collection of State Papers; East
Indies, China and Japan. The MS. of his logs written during his
voyages to Siam and China is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
ADAMS, a township in the extreme N. of Berkshire county,
N.W. Massachusetts, U.S.A., having an area of 23 sq. m. Pop.
(1880) 5591; (1890) 9213; (1900) 11,134, of whom 4376 were
foreign-born; (1910, census) 13,026. It includes a portion
of the valley of the Hoosac river, extending to the Hoosac
Range on the E., and on the W. to Mt. Williams (3040 ft.),
and Grey'lock Mountain (3535 ft ), partly in Williamstown,
and the highest point in the state. The valley portion is
level and contains several settlement centres, the largest
of which, a busy industrial village (manufactures of cotton
and paper), bears the same name as the township, and is on
a branch of the Boston and Albany railroad. The village
is the nearest station to Greylock, which can be easily
ascended, and affords fine views of the Hoosac and Housatonic
valleys, the Berkshire Hills and the Green Mountains;
the mountain has been a state timber reservation since
1898. The township's principal industry is the manufacture
of cotton goods, the value of which in 1905 ($4,621,261) was
84.1% of the value of the township's total factory products;
in 1905 no other place in the United States showed so high
a degree of specialization in this industry. The township
(originally ``East Hoosuck'') was surveyed and defined in
1749. Fort Massachusetts, at one time within its bounds,
was destroyed in 1746 by the French. An old Indian trail
between the Hudson and Connecticut valley ran through the
township, and was once a leading outlet of the Berkshire
country. Adams was incorporated in 1778, and was named in
honour of Samuel Adams, the revolutionary leader. Part of
Adams was included in the new township of Cheshire in 1793,
and North Adams was set off as a separate township in 1878.
ADAM'S APPLE, the movable projection, more prominent in
males than females, formed in the front part of the throat by
the thyroid cartilage of the larynx. The name was given from
a legend that a piece of the forbidden fruit lodged in Adam's
throat. The ``Adam's apple'' is one of the particular points of
attack in the Japanese system of self-defence known as jiu-jitsu.
ADAM'S BRIDGE, or RAMA'S BRIDGE, a chain of sandbanks
extending from the island of Manaar, near the N.W. coast of
Ceylon to the island of Rameswaram, off the Indian coast,
and lying between the Gulf of Manaar on the S.W. and Palk
Strait on the N.E. It is more than 30 m. long and offers
a serious impediment to navigation. Some of the sandbanks
are dry; and no part of the shoal has a greater depth than 3
or 4 ft. at high water, except three tortuous and intricate
channels which have recently been dredged to a sufficient
depth to admit the passage of vessels, so as to obviate the
long journey round the island of Ceylon which was previously
necessary. Geological evidence shows that this gap was
once bridged by a continuous isthmus which according to
the temple records was breached by a violent storm in
1480. Operations for removing the obstacles in the channel
and for deepening and widening it were begun as long ago as
1838. A service of the British India Steam Navigation
Company's steamers has been established between Negapatam
and Colombo through Palk Strait and this narrow passage.
ADAM SCOTUS (d. 1180), theological writer, sometimes called
Adam Anglicus or Anglo-Scotus, was born in the south of
Scotland in the first half of the 12th century. About 1150 he
was a Premonstratensian canon at St Andrews, and some twenty
years later abbot and bishop of Candida Casa (Whithorn) in
Galloway. He gained a European reputation for his writings,
which are of mystico-ascetic type, and include an account
of the Premonstratensian order, a collection of festival
sermons, and a Soliloquia de instructione discipuli,
formerly attributed to his contemporary, Adam of St Victor.
ADAMSON, PATRICK (1537--1592), Scottish divine, archbishop
of St Andrews, was born at Perth. He studied philosophy, and
took the degree of M.A. at St Andrews. After being minister
of Ceres in Fife for three years, in 1566 he set out for
Paris as tutor to the eldest son of Sir James Macgill, the
clerk-general. In June of the same year he wrote a Latin poem
on the birth of the young prince James, whom he described as
serenissimus princeps of France and England. The French
court was offended, and he was confined for six months. He
was released only through the intercession of Queen Mary of
Scotland and some of the principal nobility, and retired with
his pupil to Bourges. He was in this city at the time of
the massacre of St Bartholomew at Paris, and lived concealed
for seven months in a public-house, the aged master of which,
in reward for his charity to a heretic, was thrown from the
roof. While in this ``Sepulchre,', he wrote his Latin
poetical version of the book of Job, and his tragedy of
Herod in the same language. In 1572 or 1573 he returned to
Scotland, and became minister of Paisley. In 1575 he was
appointed by the General Assembly one of the commissioners
to settle the jurisdiction and policy of the church; and the
following year he was named, with David Lindsay, to report
their proceedings to the earl of Morton, then regent. In
1576 his appointment as archbishop of St Andrews gave rise
to a protracted conflict with the Presbyterian party in the
Assembly. He had previously published a catechism in Latin
verse dedicated to the king, a work highly approved even by
his opponents, and also a Latin translation of the Scottish
Confession of Faith. In 1578 he submitted himself to the
General Assembly, which procured him peace for a little time,
but next year fresh accusations were brought against him. He
took refuge in St Andrews Castle, where ``a wise woman,'' Alison
Pearson, who was ultimately burned for witchcraft, cured him
of a serious illness. In 1583 he went as James's ambassador
to the court of Elizabeth, and is said to have behaved rather
badly. On his return he took strong parliamentary measures
against Presbyterians, and consequently, at a provincial
synod held at St Andrews in April 1586, he was accused of
heresy and excommunicated, but at the next General Assembly
the sentence was remitted as illegal. In 1587 and 1588,
however, fresh accusations were brought against him, and he
was again excommunicated, though afterwards on the inducement
of his old opponent, Andrew Melville, the sentence was again
remitted. Meanwhile he had published the Lamentations of
Jeremiah, and the book of Revelation in Latin verse, which
he dedicated to the king, complaining of his hard usage.
But James was unmoved by his application, and granted the
revenue of his see to the duke of Lennox. For the rest
of his life Adamson was supported by charity; he died in
1592. His recantation of Episcopacy (1590) is probably
spurious. Adamson was a man of many gifts, learned and
eloquent, but with grave defects of character. His collected
works, prefaced by a fulsome panegyric, in the course of which
it is said that ``he was a miracle of nature, and rather seemed
to be the immediate production of God Almighty than born of a
woman,'' were produced by his son-in-law, Thomas Wilson, in 1619.
ADAMSON, ROBERT (1852-1902), Scottish philosopher, was born
in Edinburgh on the 19th of January 1852. His father was a
solicitor, and his mother was the daughter of Matthew Buist,
factor to Lord Haddington. In 1855 Mrs Adamson was left a
widow with small means, and devoted herself entirely to the
education of her six children. Of these, Robert was successful
from the first. At the end of his school career he entered
the university of Edinburgh at the age of fourteen, and four
years later graduated with first-class honours in mental
philosophy, with prizes in every department of the faculty of
Arts. He completed his university successes by winning the
Tyndall-Bruce scholarship, the Hamilton fellowship (1872),
the Ferguson scholarship (1872) and the Shaw fellowship
(1873). After a short residence at Heidelberg (1871), where
he began his study of German philosophy, he returned to
Edinburgh as assistant first to Henry Calderwood and later to
A. Campbell Fraser; he joined the staff of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica (9th ed.) (1874) and studied widely in the Advocates'
Library. In 1876 he came to England as successor to W. S.
Jevons in the chair of logic and philosophy, at Owens College,
Manchester. In 1883 he received the honorary degree of
LL.D. In 1893 he went to Aberdeen, and finally in 1895
to the chair of logic at Glasgow, which he held till his
death on the 5th of February 1902. His wife, Margaret
Duncan, the daughter of a Manchester merchant, was a woman
of kindred tastes, and their union was entirely happy.
It is matter for regret to the student that Adamson's active
labours in the lecture room precluded him from systematic
production. His writings consisted of short articles, of which
many appeared in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.) and
in Mind, a volume on Kant and another on Fichte. At the
time of his death he was writing a History of Psychology,
and had promised a work on Kant and the Modern Naturalists.
Both in his life and in his writings he was remarkable for
impartiality. It was his peculiar virtue that he could quote
his opponents without warping their meaning. From this point
of view he would have been perhaps the first historian of
philosophy of his time, had his professional labours been less
exacting. Except during the first few years at Manchester,
he delivered his lectures without manuscripts. In 1903,
under the title The Development of Modern Philosophy and
Other Essays, his more important lectures were published
with a short biographical introduction by Prof. W. R.
Sorley of Cambridge University (see Mind, xiii. 1904, p. 73
foll.). Most of the matter is taken verbatim from the
note-book of one of his students. Under the same editorship
there appeared, three years later, his Development of Greek
Philosophy. In addition to his professional work, he did much
administrative work for Victoria University and the university of
Glasgow. In the organization of Victoria University he took
a foremost part, and, as chairman of the Board of Studies
at Owens College, he presided over the general academical
board of the Victoria University. At Glasgow he was soon
elected one of the representatives on the court, and to him
were due in large measure the extension of the academical
session and the improved equipment of the university.
Throughout his lectures, Adamson pursued the critical and
historical method without formulating a constructive theory of his
own. He felt that any philosophical advance must be based on
the Kantian methods. It was his habit to make straight for
the ultimate issue, disregarding half-truths and declining
compromise. He left a hypothesis to be worked out by
others; this done, he would criticize with all the rigour of
logic, and with a profound distrust of imagination, metaphor
and the attitude known as the will-to-believe. As he grew
older his metaphysical optimism waned. He felt that the
increase of knowledge must come in the domains of physical
science. But this empirical tendency as regards science
never modified his metaphysical outlook. He has been called
Kantian and Neo-Kantian, Realist and Idealist (by himself,
for he held that appearance and reality are co-extensive and
coincident). At the same time, in his criticism of other views
he was almost typical of Hegelian idealism. All processes
of reasoning or judgment (i.e. all units of thought) are
(1) analysable only by abstraction, and (2) are compound of
deduction and induction, i.e. rational and empirical. An
illustration of his empirical tendency is found in his attitude
to the Absolute and the Self. The ``Absolute'' doctrines he
regarded as a mere disguise of failure, a dishonest attempt
to clothe ignorance in the pretentious garb of mystery. The
Self as a primary, determining entity, he would not therefore
admit. He represented an empiricism which, so far from
refuting, was actually based on, idealism, and yet was alert to
expose the fallacies of a particular idealist construction (see
his essay in Ethical Democracy, edited by Dr Stanton Coit).
ADAM'S PEAK, a mountain in Ceylon, about 45 miles E. from
Colombo, in N. lat. 6 deg. 55', E. long. 80 deg. 30'. It rises
steeply to a height of 7352 feet, and commands a magnificent
prospect. Its conical summit terminates in an oblong platform,
74 ft. by 24, on which there is a hollow, resembling the form
of a human foot, 5 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 6 in.; and this has been
consecrated as the footprint of Buddha. The margin of this
supposed footprint is ornamented with gems, and a wooden canopy
protects it from the weather. It is held in high veneration
by the Sinhalese, and numerous pilgrims ascend to the sacred
spot, where a priest resides to receive their offerings and
bless them on their departure. By the Mahommedans the impression
is regarded as that of the foot of Adam, who here, according
to their tradition, fulfilled a penance of one thousand
years; while the Hindus claim it as that of their god Siva.
ADANA. (1) A vilayet in the S.E. of Asia Minor, which
includes the ancient Cilicia. The mountain districts are rich
in unexploited mineral wealth, and the fertile coast-plain,
which produces cotton, rice, cereals, sugar and much fruit,
and affords abundant pasturage, is well watered by the rivers
that descend from the Taurus range. Imports and exports pass
through Mersina (q.v.). (2) The chief town of the vilayet,
situated in the alluvial plain about 30 m. from the sea in
N. lat. 37 deg. 1', E. long. 35 deg. 18', on the right bank of
the Seihan (Sihun, anc. Sarus), which is navigable by small
craft as far as the town. Adana is connected with Tersus and
Mersina by a railway built in 1887, and has a magnificent stone
bridge, which carries the road to Missis and the east, and
dates in parts from the time of Justinian, but was restored
first in 743 A.D. and called Jisr al-Walid after the
Omayyad caliph of that name, and again in 840 hy the Caliph
Mutasim. There are, also, a ruined castle founded by Harun
al-Rashid in 782, fine fountains, good buildings, river-side
quays, cotton mills and an American mission with church and
schools. Adana, which retains its ancient name, rose to
importance as a station on the Roman military road to the East,
and was at one time a rival of Tarsus. The town was largely
rebuilt by Mansur in 758, and during subsequent centuries
it often changed hands and suffered many vicissitudes. Its
position, commanding the passage of the mountains to the north
of Syria, rendered it important as a military station in the
contest between the Egyptians and the Turks in 1832. After the
defeat of the Turkish army at Konia it was granted to Ibrahim
Pasha, and though the firman announcing his appointment named
him only muhassil, or collector of the crown revenue, it
continued to be held by the Egyptians till the treaty of July
1840 restored it to the Porte. The chief productions of the
province are cotton, corn, sesame and wool, which are largely
exported. The population of the town is greatly mixed, and,
having a large element of nomads in it, varies much from time to
time. At its maximum it reaches nearly 50,000. (D. G. H.)
ADANSON, MICHEL (1727-1806), French naturalist, of Scottish
descent, was born on the 7th of April 1727, at Aix, in
Provence. After leaving the College Sainte Barbe in
Paris, he was employed in the cabinets of R. A. F. Reaumur
and Bernard de Jussieu, as well as in the Jardin des
Plantes. At the end of 1748 he left France on an exploring
expedition to Senegal, which from the unhealthiness of its
climate was a terra incognita to naturalists. His ardour
remained unabated during the five years of his residence in
Africa. He collected and described, in greater or less detail,
an immense number of animals and plants; collected specimens
of every object of commerce; delineated maps of the country;
made systematic meteorological and astronomical observations;
and prepared grammars and dictionaries of the languages spoken
on the banks of the Senegal. After his return to Paris in
1754 he made use of a small portion of the materials he had
collected in his Histoire naturelle du Senegal (Paris,
1757). This work has a special interest from the essay on
shells, printed at the end of it, where Adanson proposed his
universal method, a system of classification distinct from
those of Buffon and Linnaeus. He founded his classification
of all organized beings on the consideration of each individual
organ. As each organ gave birth to new relations, so he
established a corresponding number of arbitrary arrangements.
Those beings possessing the greatest number of similar organs
were referred to one great division, and the relationship was
considered more remote in proportion to the dissimilarity of
organs. In 1763 he published his Familles naturelles des
plantes. In this work he developed the principle of arrangement
above mentioned, which, in its adherence to natural botanical
relations, was based on the system of J. P. Tournefort, and
had been anticipated to some extent nearly a century before
by John Ray. The success of this work was hindered by its
innovations in the use of terms, which were ridiculed by
the defenders of the popular sexual system of Linnaeus; but
it did much to open the way for the establishment, by means
principally of A. L. de Jussieu's Genera Plantarum (1789),
of the natural method of the classification of plants. In
1774 Adanson submitted to the consideration of the Academy of
Sciences an immense work, extending to all known beings and
substances. It consisted of 27 large volumes of manuscript,
employed in displaying the general relations of all these
matters, and their distribution; 150 volumes more, occupied
with the alphabetical arrangement of 40,000 species; a
vocabulary, containing 200,000 words, with their explanations;
and a number of detached memoirs, 40,000 figures and 30,000
specimens of the three kingdoms of nature. The committee
to which the inspection of this enormous mass was entrusted
strongly recommended Adanson to separate and publish all
that was peculiarly his own, leaving out what was merely
compilation. He obstinately rejected this advice; and
the huge work, at which he continued to labour, was never
published. He had been elected a member of the Academy
of Sciences in 1759, and he latterly subsisted on a small
pension it had conferred on him. Of this he was deprived in
the dissolution of the Academy by the Constituent Assembly,
and was consequently reduced to such a depth of poverty as
to be unable to appear before the French Institute when it
invited him to take his place among its members. Afterwards
he was granted a pension sufficient to relieve his simple
wants. He died at Paris after months of severe suffering, on
the 3rd of August 1806, requesting, as the only decoration of
his grave, a garland of flowers gathered from the fifty-eight
families he had differentiated--``a touching though transitory
image,'' says Cuvier, ``of the more durable monument which
he has erected to himself in his works.'' Besides the books
already mentioned he published papers on the ship-worm, the
baobab tree, the Adansonia digitata of Linnaeus, the origin
of the varieties of cultivated plants, and gum-producing trees.
ADAPTATION (from Lat. adaptare, to fit to), a process of
fitting, or modifying, a thing to other uses, and so altering
its form or original purpose. In literature there may be,
e.g., an adaptation of a novel for a drama, or in music an
arrangement of a piece for two hands into one for four, &c. In
biology, according to the doctrine of evolution, adaptation
plays a prominent part as the process by which an organism or
species of organisms becomes modified to suit the conditions
of its life. Every change in a living organism involves
adaptation; for in all cases life consists in a continuous
adjustment of internal to external relations. Every living
organism reacts to its environment; if the reaction is
unfavourable, disability leading to ultimate extinction is the
result. If the reaction is favourable, its result is called an
adaptation. How far such adaptations are produced afresh in
each generation, whether or no their effects are transmitted
to descendants and so directly modify the stock, to what extent
adaptations characteristic of a species or variety have come
about by selection of individuals capable, in each generation,
of responding favourably, or how far by the selection of
individuals fortuitously suitable to the environment, or, how
far, possibly by the inheritance of the responses to the
environment, are problems of biology not yet definitely solved.
ADDA (anc. Addua), a river of North Italy. Its true
source is in some small lakes near the head of the Fraele
glen, but its volume is increased by the union with several
smaller streams, near the town of Bormio, at the Raetian
Alps. Thence it flows first S.W., then due W., through
the fertile Valtellina (q.v.), passing Tirano, where the
Poschiavino falls in on the right, and Sondrio, where is
the junction with the Malero, right. It falls into the
Lake of Como, at its northern end, and mainly forms that
fake. On issuing from its south-eastern or Lecco arm, it
crosses the plain of Lombardy, and finally, after a course
of about 150 m., joins the Po, 8 m. above Cremona. The lower
course of the Adda was formerly the boundary between the
territories of Venice and of Milan; and on its banks several
important battles have been fought, notably that of Lodi,
where Napoleon defeated the Austrians in 1796. (W. A. B. C.)
ADDAMS, JANE (1860- ), American sociologist, was born at
Cedarville, Illinois, on the 6th of September 1860. After
graduating at Rockford (Illinois) Female Seminary (now
Rockford College) in 1881, she spent several years in the
study of economic and sociological questions in both Europe and
America, and in 1889 with Miss Ellen Gates Starr established
in Chicago, Illinois, the social settlement known as Hull
House, of which she became the head-worker. The success of
this settlement, which became a great factor for good in the
city, was principally due to Miss Addams's rare executive
skill and practical common-sense methods. Her personal
participation in the life of the community is exemplified
in her acceptance of the office of inspector of streets and
alleys under the municipal government. She became widely
known as a lecturer and writer on social problems and published
Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace
(1907), and The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909).
ADDAX, a genus of antelopes, with one species (A.
nasomaculatus) from North Africa and Arabia. It is a little
over 3 ft. high, yellowish white in colour, with a brown mane
and a fringe of the same hue on the throat. Both sexes carry
horns, which are ringed and form an open spiral. The addax
is a desert antelope, and in habits probably resembles the
gemsbuck. It is hunted by the Arabs for its flesh and to test
the speed of their horses and greyhounds; it is during these
hunting parties that the young are captured for menagerie purposes.
ADDER, a name for the common viper ( Vipera cevus), ranging
from Wales to Saghalien island, and from Caithness to the north
of Spain. The puff-adder (Bitis s. Echidna arietans) of
nearly the whole of Africa, and the death-adder (Acanthophis
antarcticus) from Australia to the Moluccas, are both very
poisonous (see VIPER). The word was in Old Eng. noedre,
later nadder or naddre; in the 14th century ``a nadder''
was, like ``a napron,'' wrongly divided into ``an adder.'' It
appears with the generic meaning of ``serpent'' in the older
forms of many Teutonic languages, cf. Old High Ger. natra;
Goth. nadrs. It is thus used in the Old Eng. version of
the Scriptures for the devil, the ``serpent'' of Genesis.
ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672-1719), English essayist, poet and
man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison, later dean of
Lichfield, was born at his father's rectory of Milston in
Wiltshire, on the 1st of May 1672. After having passed through
several schools, the last of which was the Charterhouse, he
went to Oxford when he was about fifteen years old. He was
first entered a commoner of Queen's College, but after two
years was elected to a demyship of Magdalen College, having
been recommended by his skill in Latin versification. He
took his master's degree in 1693, and subsequently obtained
a fellowship which he held until 1711. His first literary
efforts were poetical, and, after the fashion of his day, in
Latin. Many of these are preserved in the Musae Anglicanae
(1691-1699), and obtained academic commendation from academic
sources. But it was a poem in the third volume of Dryden's
Miscellanies, followed in the next series by a translation
of the fourth Georgic, which brought about his introduction
to Tonson the bookseller, and (probably through Tonson) to Lord
Somers and Charles Montagu. To both of these distinguished
persons he contrived to commend himself by An Account of the
Greatest English Poets (1694), An Address to King William
(1695), after Namur, and a Latin poem entitled Pax Gulielmi
(1697), on the peace of Ryswick, with the result that in 1699
he obtained a pension of L. 300 a year, to enable him (as he
afterwards said in a memorial addressed to the crown) ``to
travel and qualify himself to serve his Majesty.'' In the
summer of 1699 he crossed into France, where, chiefly for
the purpose of learning the language, he remained till the
end of 1700; and after this he spent a year in Italy. In
Switzerland, on his way home, he was stopped by receiving
notice that he was to attend the army under Prince Eugene,
then engaged in the war in Italy, as secretary from the
king. But his Whig friends were already tottering in their
places; and in March 1702 the death of King William at once drove
them from power and put an end to the pension. Indeed Addison
asserted that he never received but one year's payment of it,
and that all the other expenses of his travels were defrayed by
himself. He was able, however, to visit a great part of
Germany, and did not reach Holland till the spring of 1703. His
prospects were now sufficiently gloomy: he entered into treaty,
oftener than once, for an engagement as a travelling tutor;
and the correspondence in one of these negotiations has been
preserved. Tonson had recommended him as the best person
to attend in this character Lord Hertford, the son of the
duke of Somerset, commonly called ``The Proud.'' The duke, a
profuse man in matters of pomp, was economical in questions of
education. He wished Addison to name the salary he expected;
this being declined, he announced, with great dignity, that
in addition to travelling expenses he would give a hundred
guineas a year; Addison accepted the munificent offer, saying,
however, that he could not find his account in it otherwise
than by relying on his Grace's future patronage; and his Grace
immediately intimated that he would look out for some one
else. In the autumn of 1703 Addison returned to England.
The works which belong to his residence on the continent were the
earliest that showed hm to have attained maturity of skill and
genius. There is good reason for believing that his tragedy of
Cato, whatever changes it may afterwards have suffered, was
in great part written while he lived in France, that is, when
he was about twenty-eight years of age. In the winter of 1701,
amidst the stoppages and discomforts of a journey across Mt.
Cenis, he composed, wholly or partly, his rhymed Letter from
Italy to Charles Montagu. This contains some fine touches
of description, and is animated by a noble tone of classical
enthusiasm. While in Germany he wrote his Dialogues on
Medals, which, however, were not published till after his
death. These have much liveliness of style and something of
the gay humour which the author was afterwards to exhibit more
strongly; but they show little either of antiquarian learning
or of critical ingenuity. In tracing out parallels between
passages of the Roman poets and figures or scenes which appear
in ancient sculptures, Addison opened the easy course of
inquiry which was afterwards prosecuted by Spence; and this,
with the apparatus of spirited metrical translations from the
classics, gave the work a likeness to his account of his
travels. This account, entitled Remarks on Several Parts of
Italy, &c. (1705), he sent home for publication before his own
return. It wants altogether the interest of personal narrative:
the author hardly ever appears. The task in which he chiefly
busies himsell is that of exhibiting the illustrations which the
writings of the Latin poets, and the antiquities and scenery of
Italy, mutually give and receive. Christian antiquities and
the monuments of later Italian history had no interest for him.
With the year 1704 begins a second era in Addison's life, which
extends to the summer of 1710, when his age was thirty-eight.
This was the first term of his official career; and though very
barren of literary performance, it not only raised him from
indigence, but settled definitely his position as a public
man. His correspondence shows that, while on the continent,
he had been admitted to confidential intimacy by diplomatists
and men of rank; immediately on his return he was enrolled
in the Kit-Cat Club, and brought thus and otherwise into
communication with the gentry of the Whig party. Although
all accounts agree in representing him as a shy man, he was
at least saved from all risk of making himself disagreeable
in society, by his unassuming manners, his extreme caution
and that sedulous desire to oblige, which his satirist Pope
exaggerated into a positive fault. His knowledge and ability
were esteemed so highly as to confirm the expectations formerly
entertained of his usefulness in public business; and the
literary fame he had already acquired soon furnished an occasion
for recommending him to public employment. Though the Whigs
were out of office, the administration which succeeded them
was, in all its earlier changes, of a complexion so mixed and
uncertain that the influence of their leaders was not entirely
lost. Not long after Marlborough's great victory at Blenheim,
it is said that Godolphin, the lord treasurer, expressed to
Lord Halifax a desire to have the great duke's fame extended
by a poetical tribute. Halifax seized the opportunity
of recommending Addison as the fittest man for the duty;
stipulating, we are told, that the service should not be
unrewarded, and doubtless satisfying the minister that his
protege possessed other qualifications for office besides
dexterity in framing heroic verse. The Campaign (December
1704), the poem thus written to order, was received with
extraordinary applause; and it is probably as good as any
that ever was prompted by no more worthy inspiration. It
has, indeed, neither the fiery spirit which Dryden threw into
occasional pieces of the sort, nor the exquisite polish that
would have been given by Pope, if he had stooped to make such
uses of his genius; but many of the details are pleasing;
and in the famous passage of the Angel, as well as in several
others, there is even something of force and imagination.
The consideration covenanted for by the poet's friends was
faithfully paid. A vacancy occurred by the death of another
celebrated man, John Locke; and Addison was appointed one
of the five commissioners of appeal in Excise. The duties
of the place must have been as light for him as they had
been for his predecessor, for he continued to hold it with
all the appointments he subsequently received from the same
ministry. But there is no reason for believing that he
was more careless than other public servants in his time;
and the charge of incompetency as a man of business, which
has been brought so positively against him, cannot easily
be true as to this first period of his official career.
Indeed, the specific allegations refer exclusively to the last
years of his life; and, if he had not really shown practical
ability in the period now in question, it is not easy to
see how he, a man destitute alike of wealth, of social or
fashionable liveliness and of family interest, could have been
promoted, for several years, from office to office, as he
was, till the fall of the administration to which he was
attached. In 1706 he became one of the under-secretaries of
state, serving first under Sir Charles Hedges, who belonged to
the Tory section of the government, and afterwards under Lord
Sunderland, Marlborough's son-in-law, and a zealous follower
of Addison's early patron, Somers. The work of this office,
however, like that of the commissionership, must often have
admitted of performance by deputy; for in 1707, the Whigs
having become stronger, Lord Halifax was sent on a mission
to the elector of Hanover; and, besides taking Vanbrugh the
dramatist with him as king-at-arms, he selected Addison as his
secretary. In 1708 Addison entered parliament, sitting at
first for Lostwithiel, but afterwards for Malmesbury, which
he represented from 1710 till his death. Here unquestionably
he did fail. What part he may have taken in the details
of business we are not informed; but he was always a silent
member, unless it be true that he once attempted to speak
and sat down in confusion. In 1708 Lord Wharton, the father
of the notorious duke, having been named lord-lieutenant of
Ireland, Addison became his secretary, receiving also an
appointment as keeper of records. This event happened only
about a year and a half before the dismissal of the ministry.
But there are letters showing that Addison made himself
acceptable to some of the best and most distinguished persons
in Dublin; and he escaped without having any quarrel with
Swift, his acquaintance with whom had begun some time before.
In his literary history those years of official service are
almost a blank, till we approach their close. Besides furnishing
a prologue to Steele's comedy of The Tender Husband (1705),
he admittedly gave him some assistance in its composition;
he defended the government in an anonymous pamphlet on The
Present State of the War (1707); he united compliments
to the all-powerful Marlborough with indifferent attempts
at lyrical poetry in his opera of Rosamond; and during
the last few months of his tenure of office he contributed
largely to the Tatler. His entrance on this new field
nearly coincides with the beginning of a new period in his
life. Even the coalition-ministry of Godolphin was too
Whiggish for the taste of Queen Anne; and the Tories, the
favourites of the court, gained, both in parliamentary power
and in popularity out of doors, by a combination of lucky
accidents, dexterous management and divisions and double-dealing
among their adversaries. The real failure of the prosecution
of Addison's old friend Sacheverell completed the ruin of
the Whigs; and in August 1710 an entire revolution in the
ministry had been completed. The Tory administration which
succeeded kept its place till the queen's death in 1714,
and Addison was thus left to devote four of the best years
of his life, from his thirty-ninth year to his forty-third,
to occupations less lucrative than those in which his time
had recently been frittered away, but much more conducive to
the extension of his own fame and to the benefit of English
literature. Although our information as to his pecuniary
affairs is very scanty, we are entitled to believe that he
was now independent of literary labour. He speaks, in an
extant paper, of having had (but lost) property in the West
Indies; and he is understood to have inherited something
from a younger brother, who had been governor of Madras. In
1711 he purchased, for L. 10,000, the estate of Bilton, near
Rugby--the place which afterwards became the residence of Mr
Apperley, better known by his assumed name of ``Nimrod.''
During those four years he produced a few political
writings. Soon after the fall of the ministry, he started
the Whig Examiner in opposition to the Tory Examiner, then
conducted by Prior, and afterwards the vehicle of Swift's most
vehement invectives against the party he had once belonged
to. These are certainly the most ill-natured of Addison's
writings, but they are neither lively nor vigorous, and
the paper died after five numbers (14th September to 12th
October 1710). There is more spirit in his allegorical
pamphlet, The Trial and Conviction of Count Tariff.
But from the autumn of 1710 till the end of 1714 his principal
employment was the composition of his celebrated periodical
essays. The honour of inventing the plan of such compositions,
as well as that of first carrying the idea into execution,
belongs to Richard Steele, who had been a schoolfellow of
Addison at the Charterhouse, continued to be on intimate
terms with him afterwards and attached himself with his
characteristic ardour to the same political party. When,
in April 1709, Steele published the first number of the
Tatler, Addison was in Dublin, and knew nothing of the
design. He is said to have detected his friend's authorship
only by recognizing, in the sixth number, a critical remark
which he remembered having himself communicated to Steele.
Shortly afterwards he began to furnish hints and suggestions,
assisted occasionally and finally wrote regularly. According
to Mr Aitken (Life of Steele, i. 248), he contributed 42
out of the total of 271 numbers, and was part-author of 36
more. The Tatler exhibited, in more ways than one, symptoms
of being an experiment. For some time the projector, imitating
the news-sheets in form, thought it prudent to give, in
each number, news in addition to the essay; and there was a
want, both of unity and of correct finishing, in the putting
together of the literary materials. Addison's contributions,
in particular, are in many places as lively as anything he
ever wrote; and his style, in its more familiar moods at
least, had been fully formed before he returned from the
continent. But, as compared with his later pieces, these
are only what the painter's loose studies and sketches are
to the landscapes which he afterwards constructs out of
them. In his invention of incidents and characters, one
thought after another is hastily used and hastily dismissed,
as if he were putting his own powers to the test or trying the
effect of various kinds of objects on his readers; his most
ambitious flights, in the shape of allegories and the like,
are stiff and inanimate; and his favourite field of literary
criticism is touched so slightly, as to show that he still
wanted confidence in the taste and knowledge of the Public.
The Tatler was dropped in January 1711, but only to be
followed by the Spectator, which was begun on the 1st day of
March, and appeared every week-day till the 6th day of December
1712. It had then completed the 555 numbers usually collected
in its first seven volumes, and of these Addison wrote 274
to Steele's 236. He co-operated with Steele constantly from
the very opening of the series; and they devoted their whole
space to the essays. They relied, with a confidence which
the extraordinary popularity of the work fully justified,
on their power of exciting the interest of a wide audience
by pictures and reflexions drawn from a field which embraced
the whole compass of ordinary life and ordinary knowledge,
no kind of practical themes being positively excluded except
such as were political, and all literary topics being held
admissible, for which it seemed possible to command attention
from persons of average taste and information. A seeming
unity was given to the undertaking, and curiosity and interest
awakened on behalf of the conductors, by the happy invention
of the Spectator's Club, for which Steele made the first
sketch. The figure of Sir Roger de Coverley, however, the best
even in the opening group, is the only one that was afterwards
elaborately depicted; and Addison was the author of most of the
papers in which his oddities and amiabilities are so admirably
delineated. Six essays are by Steele, who gives Sir Roger's
love-story, and one paper by Budgell describes a hunting party.
To Addison the Spectator owed the most natural and elegant,
if not the most original, of its humorous sketches of human
character and social eccentricities, its good-humoured satires
on ridiculous features in manners and on corrupt symptoms in
public taste; these topics, however, making up a department
in which Steele was fairly on a level with his more famous
co-adjutor. But Steele had neither learning, nor taste, nor
critical acuteness sufficient to qualify him for enriching
the series with such literary disquisitions as those which
Addison insinuated so often into the lighter matter of his
essays, and of which he gave an elaborate specimen in his
criticism on Paradise Lost. Still farther beyond the powers
of Steele were those speculations on the theory of literature
and of the processes of thought analogous to it, which, in
the essays ``On the Pleasures of the Imagination,'' Addison
prosecuted, not, indeed, with much of philosophical depth,
but with a sagacity and comprehensiveness which we shall
undervalue much unless we remember how little of philosophy
was to be found in any critical views previously propounded in
England. To Addison, further, belong those essays which (most
frequently introduced in regular alternation in the papers
of Saturday) rise into the region of moral and religious
meditation, and tread the elevated ground with a step so graceful
as to allure the reader irresistibly to follow; sometimes, as
in the ``Walk through Westminster Abbey,', enlivening solemn
thought by gentle sportiveness; sometimes flowing on with an
uninterrupted sedateness of didactic eloquence, and sometimes
shrouding sacred truths in the veil of ingenious allegory, as
in the ``Vision of Mirza.'' While, in short, the Spectator,
if Addison had not taken part in it, would probably have
been as lively and humorous as it was, and not less popular
in its own day, it would have wanted some of its strongest
claims on the respect of posterity, by being at once lower
in its moral tone, far less abundant in literary knowledge
and much less vigorous and expanded in thinking. In point of
style, again, the two friends resemble each other so closely
as to be hardly distinguishable, when both are dealing with
familiar objects, and writing in a key not rising above that
of conversation. But in the higher tones of thought and
composition Addison showed a mastery of language raising him
very decisively, not above Steele only, but above all his
contemporaries. Indeed, it may safely be said, that no one,
in any age of English literature, has united, so strikingly
as he did, the colloquial grace and ease which mark the
style of an accomplished gentleman, with the power of soaring
into a strain of expression nobly and eloquently dignified.
On the cessation of the Spectator, Steele set on foot the
Guardian, which, started in March 1713, came to an end in
October, with its 175th number. To this series Addison gave 53
papers, being a very frequent writer during the latter half
of its progress. None of his essays here aim so high as the
best of those in the Spectator; but he often exhibits both
his cheerful and well-balanced humour and his earnest desire
to inculcate sound principles of literary judgment. In the
last six months of the year 1714, the Spectator received its
eighth and last volume; for which Steele appears not to have
written at all, and Addison to have contributed 24 of the 80
papers. Most of these form, in the unbroken seriousness both
of their topics and of their manner, a contrast to the majority
of his essays in the earlier volumes; but several of them, both
in this vein and in one less lofty, are among the best known,
if not the finest, of all his essays. Such are the ``Mountain
of Miseries''; the antediluvian novel of ``Shalum and Hilpa'';
the ``Reflections by Moonlight on the Divine Perfections.''
In April 1713 Addison brought on the stage, very reluctantly,
as we are assured, and can easily believe, his tragedy of
Cato. Its success was dazzling; but this issue was mainly
owing to the concern which the politicians took in the
exhibition. The Whigs hailed it as a brilliant manifesto
in favour of constitutional freedom. The Tories echoed
the applause, to show themselves enemies of despotism,
and professed to find in Julius Caesar a parallel to the
formidable Marlborough. Even with such extrinsic aids,
and the advantage derived from the established fame of the
author, Cato could never have been esteemed a good dramatic
work, unless in an age in which dramatic power and insight
were almost extinct. It is poor even in its poetical
elements, and is redeemed only by the finely solemn tone of
its moral reflexions and the singular refinement and equable
smoothness of its diction. That it obtained the applause
of Voltaire must be ascribed to the fact that it was written
in accordance with the rules of French classical drama.
The literary career of Addison might almost be held as closed
soon after the death of Queen Anne, which occurred in August
1714, when he had lately completed his 42nd year. His own life
extended only five years longer; and in this closing portion of
it we are reminded of his more vigorous days by nothing but a
few happy inventions interspersed in political pamphlets, and the
gay fancy of a trifling poem on Kneller's portrait of George I.
The lord justices who, previously chosen secretly by the elector
of Hanover, assumed the government on the queen's demise,
were, as a matter of course, the leading Whigs. They appointed
Addison to act as their secretary. He next held, for a very
short time, his former office under the Irish lord-lieutenant;
and, late in 1716, he was made one of the lords of trade.
In the course of the previous year had occurred the first of
the only two quarrels with friends, into which the prudent,
good-tempered and modest Addison is said to have ever been
betrayed. His adversary on this occasion was Pope, who, a
few years before, had received, with an appearance of humble
thankfulness, Addison's friendly remarks on his Essay
on Criticism (Spectator, No. 253); but who, though still
very young, was already very famous, and beginning to show
incessantly his literary jealousies and his personal and party
hatreds. Several little misunderstandings had paved the way
for a breach, when, at the same time with the first volume of
Pope's Iliad, there appeared a translation of the first book
of the poem bearing the name of Thomas Tickell. Tickell, in
his preface, disclaimed all rivalry with Pope, and declared
that he wished only to bespeak favourable attention for his
contemplated version of the Odyssey. But the simultaneous
publication was awkward; and Tickell, though not so good a
versifier as Pope, was a dangerous rival, as being a good
Greek scholar. Further, he was Addison's under-secretary
and confidential friend; and Addison, cautious though he
was, does appear to have said (quite truly) that Tickell's
translation was more faithful than the other. Pope's anger
could not be restrained. He wrote those famous lines in
which he describes Addison under the name of Atticus, and
although it seems doubtful whether he really sent a copy
to Addison himself, he afterwards went so far as to profess
a belief that the rival translation was really Addison's
own. Addison, it is pleasant to observe, was at the pains,
in his Freeholder, to express hearty approbation of the
Iliad of Pope, who, on the contrary, after Addison's
death, deliberately printed his matchlessly malignant verses
in the ``Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot.'' In 1716 there was acted,
with little success, Addison's comedy of The Drummer, or
the Haunted House. It contributes very little to his
fame. From September 1715 to June 1716 he defended the
Hanoverian succession, and the proceedings of the government
in regard to the rebellion, in a paper called the Freeholder,
which he wrote entirely himself, dropping it with the 55th
number. It is much better tempered, not less spirited and
much more able in thinking than his Examiner. The finical
man of taste does indeed show himself to be sometimes weary of
discussing constitutional questions; but he aims many enlivening
thrusts at weak points of social life and manners; and the
character of the Fox-hunting Squire, who is introduced as the
representative of the Jacobites, is drawn with so much humour
and force that we regret not being allowed to see more of him.
In August 1716, when he had completed his 44th year, Addison
married Charlotte, countess-dowager of Warwick, a widow of
fifteen years' standing. She seems to have forfeited her
jointure by the marriage, and to have brought her husband
nothing but the occupancy of Holland House at Kensington.
The assertion that the courtship was a long one is probably
as erroneous as the contemporary rumour that the marriage was
unhappy. Such positive evidence as exists tends rather to the
contrary. What seems clear is, that, from obscure causes,--among
which it is alleged a growing habit of intemperance was
one---Addison's health was shattered before he took the last, and
certainly the most unwise, step in his ascent to political power.
For a considerable time dissensions had existed in the
ministry; and these came to a crisis in April 1717, when those
who had been the real chiefs passed into the ranks of the
opposition. Townshend was dismissed, and Walpole anticipated
dismissal by resignation. There was now formed, under
the leadership of General Stanhope and Lord Sunderland, an
administration which, as resting on court-influence, was
nicknamed the ``German ministry.'' Sunderland, Addison's
former superior, became one of the two principal secretaries
of state; and Addison himself was appointed as the other.
His elevation to such a post had been contemplated on the
accession of George I., and prevented, we are told, by his
own refusal; and it is asserted, on the authority of Pope,
that his acceptance now was owing only to the influence of his
wife. Even if there is no ground, as there probably is
not, for the allegation of Addison's inefficiency in the
details of business, his unfitness for such an office in such
circumstances was undeniable and glaring. It was impossible
that a government, whose secretary of state could not open his
lips in debate, should long face an opposition headed by Robert
Walpole. The decay of Addison's health, too, was going on
rapidly, being, we may readily conjecture, precipitated by
anxiety, if no worse causes were at work. Ill-health was the
reason assigned for retirement, in the letter of resignation
which he laid before the king in March 1718, eleven months
after his appointment. He received a pension of L. 1500 a year.
Not long afterwards the divisions in the Whig party alienated
him from his oldest friend. The Peerage Bill, introduced
in February 1719, was attacked, on behalf of the opposition,
in a weekly paper called the Plebeian, written by
Steele. Addison answered the attack in the Old VVhig,
and this belum plusquam civile--as Johnson calls it--was
continued, with increased acrimony, through two or three
numbers. How Addison, who was dying, felt after this painful
controversy we are not told directly; but the Old Whig
was excluded from that posthumous collection of his works
(1721-1726) for which his executor Tickell had received from
him authority and directions. It is said that the quarrel
in politics rested on an estrangement which had been growing
for some years. According to a rather nebulous story, for
which Johnson is the popular authority, Addison, or Addison's
lawyer, put an execution for L. 100 in Steele's house by
way of reading his friend a lesson on his extravagance.
This well-meant interference seems to have been pardoned by
Steele, but his letters show that he resented the favour
shown to Tickell by Addison and his own neglect by the Whigs.
The disease under which Addison laboured appears to have been
asthma. It became more violent after his retirement from
office, and was now accompanied by dropsy. His deathbed was
placid and resigned, and comforted by those religious hopes
which he had so often suggested to others, and the value of
which he is said, in an anecdote of doubtful authority, to
have now inculcated in a parting interview with his step-son.
He died at Holland House on the 17th of June 1719, six weeks
after having completed his 47th year. His body, after lying in
state, was interred in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.
Addison's life was written in 1843 by Lucy Aikin. This
was reviewed by Macaulay in July of the same year. A more
modern study is that m the ``Men of Letters'' series by W. J.
Courthope (1884). There is a convenient one-volume edition
of the Spectator, by Henry Morley (Routledge, 1868), and
another in 8 vols. (1897-1898) by G. Gregory Smith. Of
the Tatler there is an edition by G. A. Aitken in 8 vols.
(1898). A complete edition of Addison's works (based upon
Hurd) is included in Bohn's British Classics. (W. S.; A. D.)
ADDISON'S DISEASE, a constitutional affection manifesting
itself in an exaggeration of the normal pigment of the skin,
asthenia, irritability of the gastro-intestinal tract, and
weakness and irregularity of the heart's action: these symptoms
being due to loss of function of the suprarenal glands. It
is important to note, however, that Addison's Disease may
occur without pigmentation, and pigmentation without Addison's
Disease. The condition was first recognized by Dr Thomas
Addison of Guy's Hospital, who in 1855 published an important
work on The Constitutional and Local Effects of Diseases of
the Suprarenal Capsules. Sir Samuel Wilks worked zealously
in obtaining recognition for these observations in England,
and Brown-Sequard in France was stimulated by this paper to
investigate the physiology of these glands. Dr Trousseau,
many years later, first called the condition by Addison's
name. Dr Headlam Greenhow worked at the subject for many
years and embodied his observations in the Croonian Lectures of
1875. But from this time on no further work was undertaken
until the discovery of the treatment of myxoedema by thyroid
extract, and the consequent researches into the physiology of
the ductless glands. This stimulated renewed interest in the
subject, and work was carried on in many countries. But it
remained for Schafer and Oliver of University College, London,
to demonstrate the internal secretion of the suprarenals,
and its importance in normal metabolism, thereby confirming
Addison's original view that the disease was due to loss of
function of these glands. They demonstrated that these glands
contain a very powerful extract which produces toxic effects
when administered to animals, and that an active principle
``adrenalin'' can be separated, which excites contraction
of the small blood vessels and thus raises blood pressure.
The latest views of this disease thus stand: (1) that it is
entirely dependent on suprarenal disease, being the result of
a diminution or absence of their internal secretion, or else of
a perversion of their secretion; or (2) that it is of nervous
origin, being the result of changes in or irritation of the large
sympathetic plexuses in the abdomen; or else (3) that it is a
combination of glandular inadequacy and sympathetic irritation.
The morbid anatomy shows (1) that in over 80% of the cases
the changes in the suprarenals are those due to tuberculosis,
usually beginning in the medulla and resulting in more or
less caseation; and that this lesion is bilateral and usually
secondary to tuberculous disease elsewhere, especially of
the spinal column. In the remaining cases (2) simple atrophy
has been noted, or (3) chronic interstitial inflammation
which would lead to atrophy; and finally (4) an apparently
normal condition of the glands, but the neighbouring
sympathetic ganglia diseased or involved in a mass of fibrous
tissue. Other morbid conditions of the suprarenals
do not give rise to the symptoms of Addison's Disease.
The onset of the disease is extremely insidious, a slow but
increasing condition of weakness being complained of by the
patient. There is a feeble and irregular action of the heart
resulting in attacks of syncope which may prove fatal. Blood
pressure is extremely low. From time to time there may be
severe attacks of nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea. The best
known symptom, but one which only occurs after the disease
has made considerable progress, is a gradually increasing
pigmentation of the skin, ranging from a bronzy yellow to
brown or even occasionally black. This pigmentation shows
itself (1) over exposed parts, as face and hands; (2) wherever
pigment appears normally, as in the axillae and round the
nipples; (3) wherever pressure is applied, as round the waist;
and (4) occasionally on mucous membranes, as in the mouth.
The patient's temperature is uqually somewhat subnormal. The
disease is found in males far more commonly than in females, and
among the lower classes more than the upper. But this latter fact
is probably due to poor nourishment and bad hygienic conditions
rendering the poorer classes more susceptible to tuberculosis.
The diagnosis, certainly in the early stages of the disease,
and often in the later, is by no means easy. Pigmentation of
the skin occurs in many conditions---as in normal pregnancy,
uterine fibroids, abdominal growths, certain cases of heart
disease, exophthalmic goitre, &c., and after the prolonged use
of certain drugs---as arsenic and silver. But the presence
of a low blood pressure with weakness and irritability of the
heart and some of the preceding symptoms render the diagnosis
fairly certain. The latest researches on the subject tend
to indicate a more certain diagnosis in the effect on the
blood pressure of administering suprarenal extract, the blood
pressure of the normal subject being unaffected thereby,
that of the man suffering from suprarenal inadequacy being
markedly raised. The disease is treated by promoting the
general health in every possible way; by diet; by tonics,
especially arsenic and strychnine; by attention to the
hygienic conditions; and always by the administration of one
of the many preparations of the suprarenal gland extract.
``ADDRESS, THE'', an English parliamentary term for the
reply of the Houses of Parliament (and particularly of the
House of Commons) to the speech of the sovereign at the
opening of a new parliament or session. There are certain
formalities which distinguish this stage of parliamentary
proceedings. The ``king's speech'' itself is divided into three
sections: the first, addressed to ``My Lords and Gentlemen,''
touches on foreign affairs; the second, to the ``Gentlemen of
the House of Commons,'' has reference to the estimates; the
third, to ``My Lords and Gentlemen,'' outlines the proposed
legislation for the session. Should the sovereign in person
open parliament, he does so in the House of Lords in full
state, and the speaker and members of the House of Commons
are summoned there into the royal presence. The sovereign
then reads his speech. If the sovereign is not present in
person, the speech is read by commission. The Commons then
return to their House, and an address in answer is moved in
both Houses. The government of the day selects two of its
supporters in each House to move and second the address, and
when carrying out this honourable task they appear in levee
dress. Previous to the session of 1890-1891, the royal speech
was answered paragraph by paragraph, but ``the address'' is
now moved in the form of a single resolution, thanking the
sovereign for his most gracious speech. The debate on the
address is used as a means of ranging over the whole government
policy, amendments being introduced by the opposition. A
defeat on an amendment to the address is generally regarded
by the government as a vote of no-confidence. After the
address is agreed to it is ordered to be presented to the
sovereign. The thanks of the sovereign for the address are
then conveyed to the Lords by the lord steward of the household
and to the Commons by the comptroller of the household.
ADELAER, or ADELER (Norwegian for ``eagle''), the
surname of honour given on his ennoblement to Kurt Sivertsen
(1622-1675), the famous Norwegian-Danish naval commander.
He was born at Brevig in Norway, and at the age of fifteen
became a cadet in the Dutch fleet under van Tromp, after a
few years entering the service of the Venetian Republic, which
was engaged at the time in a war with Turkey. In 1645 he had
risen to the rank of captain; and after sharing in various
victories as commander of a squadron, he achieved his most
brilliant success at the Dardanelles, on the 13th of May 1654,
when, with his own vessel alone, he broke through the line
of Turkish galleys, sank fifteen of them, and burned others,
causing a loss to the enemy of 5000 men. The following day he
entered Tenedos, and compelled the complete surrender of the
Turks. On returning to Venice he was crowned with honours,
and became admiral-lieutenant in 1660. Numerous tempting
offers were made to him by other naval powers, and in 1661
he left Venice to return to the Netherlands. Next year he
was induced, by the offer of a title and an enormous salary,
to accept the command of the Danish fleet from Frederick
III. Under Christian V. he took the command of the combined
Danish fleets against Sweden, but died suddenly on the 5th of
November 1675 at Copenhagen, before the expedition set out.
When in the Venetian service, Adelaer was known by the name of
Curzio Suffrido Adelborst (i.e. Dutch for ``naval cadet'').
ADELAIDE (Ger. Adelheid) (931--999), queen of Italy and
empress, was the daughter of Rudolph II. of Burgundy and of
Bertha, daughter of Duke Burchard of Swabia. On the death
of Rudolph in 937, his widow married Hugh, king of Italy, to
whose son Lothair Adelaide was at the same time betrothed.
She was married to him in 947; but after an unhappy union
of three years Lothair died (November 22, 950). The young
widow, remarkable for her character and beauty, was seized
by Lothair's successor, Berengar II., margrave of Ivrea,
who, angered probably at her refusal to marry his son Adalbert
and thus secure his title to the Italian kingdom, kept her
in close confinement at Como. After four months (August
951), she escaped, and took refuge at Canossa with Atto, count
of Modena-Reggio (d. 981). Meanwhile Otto I., the German
king, whose English wife Edgitha had died in 946, had formed
the design of marrying her and claiming the Italian kingdom
in her right, as a step towards the revival of the empire of
Charlemagne. In September 951, accordingly, he appeared in
Italy, Adelaide willingly accepted his invitation to meet him
at Pavia and at the close of the year the fateful union was
celebrated. From the first her part in German affairs was
important. To her are ascribed the influences which led in 953
to the revolt of Ludolf, Otto's son by his first marriage, the
crushing of which in the following year established Adelaide's
power. On the 2nd of February 962 she was crowned empress
at Rome by Pope John XII. immediately after her husband,
and she accompanied Otto in 966 on his third expedition to
Italy, where she remained with him for six years. After
Otto I.'s death (May 7, 973), Adelaide exercised for some
years a controlling influence over her son, the new emperor,
Otto II. The causes of their subsequent estrangement are
obscure, but it was possibly due to the empress's lavish
expenditure in charity and church building, which endeared
her to ecclesiastics but was a serious drain on the imperial
finances. In 978 she left the court and lived partly in
Italy, partly with her brother Conrad, king of Burgundy,
by whose mediation she was ultimately reconciled to her
son. In 983, shortly before his death, she was appointed
his viceroy in Italy; and was successful, in concert with the
empress Theophano, widow of Otto II., and Archbishop Willigis
of Mainz, in defending the right of her infant grandson,
Otto III., to the German crown against the pretensions of
Henry the Quarrelsome, duke of Bavaria. In June 984 the
infant king was handed over by Henry to the care of the two
empresses; but the masterful will of Theophano soon obtained
the upper hand, and until the death of the Greek empress,
on the 15th of June 991, Adelaide had no voice in German
affairs. She now assumed the regency, in concert with Bishop
Willigis and a council of princes of the Empire, and held
it until in 995 Otto was declared of age. In 996 the young
king went to Italy to receive the imperial crown; and from
this date Adelaide ceased to concern herself with worldly
affairs, but devoted herself to pious exercises, to intimate
correspondence with the abbots Majolus and Odilo of Cluny,
and the foundation of churches and religious houses. She died
on the 17th of December 999, and was buried in the convent
of SS. Peter and Paul, her favourite foundation, at Salz in
Alsace. She was proclaimed a saint by the grateful German
clergy; but her name has never found a place in the Roman
calendar. Like her daughter-in-law Theophano and other
exalted ladies of this period, Adelaide possessed considerable
literary attainments (literatissima erat), and her
knowledge of Latin was of use to Otto I., who only learned the
language late in life and remained to the end a poor scholar.
By the emperor Otto I. she had four children: Otto II. (d.
983), Mathilda, abbess of Quedlinburg (d. 999), Adelheid
(Adelaide), abbess of Essen (d. 974), and Liutgard, who
married Conrad II., duke of Franconia, and died in 955.
Adelaide's life (Vita or Epitaphium Adalheidae imperatricis)
was written by St Odilo of Cluny. It is valuable only for
the latter years of the empress, after she had retired from
any active share in the world's affairs. The rest of her life
is merely outlined, though her adventures in escaping from
Berengar are treated in more detail. The best edition is in
Duchesne, Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, pp. 353. 362., see
Giov. Batt. Semeria, Vita politico-religiosa di s.
Adeleida, &c. (Turin, 1842); Jul. Bentzinger, Das Leben
der Kaiserin Adelheid ...weahrend der Regierung Ottos III.,
Inaug. Dissertation (Breslau, 1883); J. J. Dey, Hist. de
s. Adelaide, &c. (Geneva, 1862); F. P. Wimmer, Kaiserin
Adelheid, Gemahlin Ottos I. des Grossen (Regensb. 1889);
Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen (Stuttgart
and Berlin, 1904). Further references in Chevalier,
Repertoire des sources historiques (Paris, 1903).
ADELAIDE, the capital of South Australia. It is situated in
the county to which it gives name, on the banks of the river
Torrens, 7 m. from its mouth. Its site is a level plain, near
the foot of the Mount Lofty range, in which Mount Lofty itself
reaches 2334 ft. The broad streets of the city intersect at right
angles. It is divided into North Adelaide, the residential,
and South Adelaide, the business quarter. A broad strip of
park lands lies between them, through which runs the river
Torrens, crossed by five bridges and greatly improved by a
dam on the west of the city. The banks are beautifully laid
out. Broad belts of park lands surround both North and South
Adelaide, and as the greater portion of these lands is planted
with fine shady trees, this feature renders Adelaide one of
the most attractive cities in Australasia. South Adelaide is
bounded by four broad terraces facing north, south, east and
west. The main thoroughfare, King William Street, runs north
and south, passing through Victoria Square, a small park
in the centre of the city. Handsome public buildings are
numerous. Government House stands in grounds on the north
side of North Terrace, with several other official buildings
in the vicinity; but the majority are in King William Street.
Here are the town hall, with the lofty Albert Tower, and the
general post office, with the Victoria Tower--which, with the
old and new Government offices, the Roman Catholic cathedral
of St Francis Xavier and the court houses, surround Victoria
Square. On North Terrace are the houses of parliament, and
the institute, containing a public library and museum. Here
is also Adelaide University, established by an act of 1874,
and opened in 1876. The existing buildings were opened in
1882. Munificent gifts have from time to time assisted in the
extension of its scope, as for example that of Sir Thomas Elder
(d. 1897), who took a leading part in the foundation of the
university. This gift, among other provisions, enabled the
Elder Conservatorium of Music to be established, the building
for which was opened in 1900. In 1903 a building for the
schools of engineering and science was opened. The total
number of students in the university approaches 1000. To the
east of the university is the building in which the exhibition
was held in commemoration of the jubilee of the colony in
1887. This building is occupied by the Royal Agricultural
and Horticultural Society, a technical museum, &c. The
school of mines and industries (1903) stands east of this
again. The buildings of the numerous important commercial,
social and charitable institutions add to the dignity of the
city. The Anglican cathedral of St Peter (1878) is in North
Adelaide. The Botanical Park, which has an area of 84 acres,
lies on the south bank of the Torrens, on the east of the
city. It includes the Zoological Garden, is beautifully
laid out and forms one of the most attractive features of
Adelaide. The city has a number of good statues, chief among
which are copies of the Farnese Hercules (Victoria Square)
and of Canova's Venus (North Terrace), statues of Queen
Victoria and Robert Burns, Sir Thomas Elder's statue at the
university, and a memorial (1905) over the grave of Colonel
Light, founder of the colony, in Light Square. Adelaide is
governed by a mayor and six aldermen elected by the whole
body of the ratepayers, and is the only Australian city in
which the mayor is so elected. The chief industries are the
manufacture of woollen, earthenware and iron goods, brewing,
starch-making, flour-milling and soap-boiling. Adelaide
is also the central share market of Australia, for West
Australian goldmines, for the silver-mines at Broken Hill,
and for the coppermines at Wallaroo, Burra Burra and Moonta;
while Port Adelaide, on the neighbouring shore of St Vincent
Gulf, ranks as the third in the Commonwealth. Adelaide is
the terminus of an extensive railway system, the main line
of which runs through Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to
Rockhampton. In summer the climate is often oppressively hot
under the influence of winds blowing from the interior, but the
proximity of the sea on the one side and of the mountains on
the other allows the inhabitants to avoid the excessive heat;
at other seasons, however, the climate is mild and pleasant;
with a mean annual rainfall of 20.4 ins. The vice-regal
summer residence is at Marble Hill, on the Mount Lofty
range. Adelaide was founded in 1836 and incorporated in
1843. It received its name at the desire of King William
IV., in honour of Queen Adelaide. Round the city are many
pleasant suburbs, connected with it by rail and tramways;
the chief of these are Burnside, Beaumont, Unley, Mitcham,
Goodwood, Plymton, Hindmarsh, Prospect, St Peters, Norwood
and Kensington. Glenelg is a favourite watering-place.
The population of the city proper was 39,240 in 1901; of
the city and suburbs within a 10-miles radius, 162,261.
ADELARD (or AETHELARD) of Bath (12th century), English
scholastic philosopher, and one of the greatest savants of
medieval England. He studied in France at Laon and Tours, and
travelled, it is said, through Spain, Italy, North Africa and
Asia Minor, during a period of seven years. At a time when
Western Europe was rich in men of wide knowledge and intellectual
eminence, he gained so high a reputation that he was described
by Vincent de Beauvais as Philosophus Anglorum. He lived
for a time in the Norman kingdom of Sicily and returned to
England in the reign of Henry I. From the Pipe Roll (31 Henry
I. 1130) it appears that he was awarded an annual grant of
money from the revenues of Wiltshire. The great interest of
Adelard in the history of philosophy lies in the fact that
he made a special study of Arabian philosophy during his
travels, and, on his return to England, brought his knowledge
to bear on the current scholasticism of the time. He has been
credited with a knowledge of Greek, and it is said that his
translation of Euclid's Elements was made from the original
Greek. It is probable, however, from the nature of the text,
that his authority was an Arabic version. This important
work was published first at Venice in 1482 under the name
of Campanus of Novara, but the work is always attributed to
Adelard. Campanus may be responsible for some of the notes.
It became at once the text-book of the chief mathematical
schools of Europe, though its critical notes were of little
value. His Arabic studies he collected under the title
Perdifficiles Quaestiones Naturales, printed after
1472. It is in the form of a dialogue between himself and
his favourite nephew, and was dedicated to Richard, bishop
of Bayeux from 1113 to 1133. He wrote also treatises on
the astrolabe (a copy of this is in the British Museum), on
the abacus (three copies exist in the Vatican library, the
library of Leiden University and the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris), translations of the Kharismian tables and an
Arabic Introduction to Astronomy. His great contribution to
philosophy proper was the De Eodem et Diverso (On Identity
and Difference), which is in the form of letters addressed
to his nephew. In this work philosophy and the world are
personified as Philosophia and Philocosmia in conflict for
the soul of man. Philosophia is accompanied by the liberal
arts, represented as Seven Wise Virgins; the world by Power,
Pleasure, Dignity, Fame and Fortune. The work deals with
the current difficulties between nominalism and realism, the
relation between the individual and the genus or species.
Adelard regarded the individual as the really existent, and
yet, from different points of view, as being himself the genus
and the species. He was either the founder or the formulator
of the doctrine of indifference, according to which genus
and species retain their identity in the individual apart
altogether from particular idiosyncrasies. For the relative
importance of this doctrine see article SCHOLASTICISM.
See Jourdain, Recherches sur Les traductions d'Aristote
(2nd ed., 1843); Haureau, Philosophie Scholastique (2nd
ed., 1872), and works appended to art. SCHOLASTICISM.
ADELSBERG (Slovene Postojina), a market-town in Carniola,
Austria, 30 m. S.S.W. of Laibach by rail, Pop. (1900) 3636,
mostly Slovene. About a mile from the town is the entrance
to the famous stalactite cavern of Adelsberg, the largest and
most magnificent in Europe. The cavern is divided into four
grottoes, with two lateral ramifications which reach to the
distance of about a mile and a half from the entrance. The
river Poik enters the cavern 60 ft. below its mouth, and is
heard murmuring in its recesses. In the Kaiser-Ferdinand
grotto, the third of the chain, a great ball is annually held
on Whit-Monday, when the chamber is brilliantly illuminated.
The Franz-Joseph-Elisabeth grotto, the largest of the four, and
the farthest from the entrance, is 665 ft. in length, 640 ft.
in breadth and more than 100 ft. high. Besides the imposing
proportions of its chambers, the cavern is remarkable for the
variegated beauty of its stalactite formations, some resembling
transparent drapery, others waterfalls, trees, animals or human
beings, the more grotesque being called by various fanciful
appellations. These subterranean wonders were known as far
back as 1213, but the cavern remained undiscovered in modern
times until 1816, and it is only in still more recent times
that its vast extent has been fully ascertained and explored.
The total length of the passages is now estimated at over 5 1/2
m. The connexion with the Ottokar grotto was established in
1890. The Magdalene grotto, about an hour's walk to the
north, is celebrated for the extraordinary subterranean
amphibian, the proteus anguinus, first discovered
there. It is about a foot in length, lives on snails
and worms and is provided with both lungs and gills.
ADELUNG, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1732-1806), German grammarian and
philologist, was born at Spantekow, in Pomerania, on the 8th of
August 1732, and educated at the public schools of Anklam and
Klosterbergen, and the university of Halle. In 1759 he was
appointed professor at the gymnasium of Erfurt, but relinquished
this situation two years later and went to reside in a private
capacity at Leipzig, where he devoted himself to philological
researches. In 1787 he received the appointment of principal
librarian to the elector of Saxony at Dresden, where he continued
to reside until his death on the 10th of September 1806.
The writings of Adelung are very voluminous, and there
is not one of them, perhaps, which does not exhibit
some proofs of the genius, industry and erudition of the
author. By means of his excellent grammars, dictionary and
various works on German style, he contributed greatly towards
rectifying the orthography, refining the idiom and fixing
the standard of his native tongue. His German dictionary--
Grammatisch-kritisches Worterbuch der hochdeutschen
Mundart (1774-1786)--bears witness to the patient spirit
of investigation which Adelung possessed in so remarkable a
degree, and to his intimate knowledge of the history of the
different dialects on which modern German is based. No man
before Jakob Grimm (q.v.) did so much for the language of
Germany. Shortly before his death he issued Mithridates,
oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde (1806). The hint of this work
appears to have been taken from a publication, with a similar
title, published by Konrad von Gesner (1516-1565) in 1555;
but the plan of Adelung is much more extensive. Unfortunately
he did not live to finish what he had undertaken. The first
volume, which contains the Asiatic languages, was published
immediately after his death; the other two were issued under
the superintendence of Johann Severin Vater (1771-1826).
Of the very numerous works by Adelung the following may be
noted: Directorium diplomaticum (Meissen, 1802); Deutsche
Sprachlehre fur Schulen (Berlin, 1781), and the periodical,
Magazin fur die deutsche Sprache (Leipzig, 1782-1784).
ADEMPTION (Lat. ademptio, from adimere, a taking away),
in law, a revocation of a grant or bequest (see LEGACY.)
ADEN, a seaport and territory in Arabia, politically
part of British India, under the governor of Bombay. The
seaport is situated in 12 deg. 45' N. lat., and 45 deg. 4' E.
long., on a peninsula near the entrance to the Red Sea, 100
m. E. of the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. The peninsula of Aden
consists chiefly of a mass of barren and desolate volcanic
rocks, extending five miles from east to west, and three
from its northern shore to Ras Sanailah or Cape Aden, its
most southerly point; it is connected with the mainland by
a neck of flat sandy ground only a few feet high; and its
greatest elevation is Jebel Shamshan, 1776 ft. above the
level of the sea. The town is built on the eastern coast,
in what is probably the crater of an extinct volcano, and is
surrounded by precipitous rocks that form an admirable natural
defence. There are two harbours, an outer, facing the
town, protected by the island of Sirah, but now partially
choked with mud; and an inner, called Aden Back-bay, or,
by the Arabs, Bandar Tawayih, on the western side of the
peninsula, which at all periods of the year admits vessels
drawing less than 20 ft. On the whole, Aden is a healthy
place, although it suffers considerably from the want of good
water, and the heat is often very intense. From time to time
additional land on the mainland has been acquired by cession
or purchase, and the adjoining island of Perim, lying in
the actual mouth of the strait, was permanently occupied in
1857. Farther inland, and along the coast, most of the
Arab chiefs are under the political control of the British
government, which pays them regular allowances. The area of
the peninsula is only 15 sq. m., but the total area of British
territory is returned at 80 sq. m., including Perim (5 sq.
m.), and that of the Aden Protectorate is about 9000 sq.
m. The seaport of Aden is strongly fortified. Modern science
has converted ``Steamer Point'' into a seemingly impregnable
position, the peninsula which the ``Point'' forms to the
whole crater being cut off by a fortified line which runs
from north to south, just to the east of the coal wharfs.
The administration is conducted by a political resident,
who is also the military commandant. All food requires to
be imported, and the water-supply is largely derived from
condensation. A little water is obtained from wells, and some
from an aqueduct 7 m. long, constructed in 1867 at a cost of
L. 30,000, besides an irregular supply from the old reservoirs.
From its admirable commercial and military position, Aden early
became the chief entrepot of the trade between Europe and
Asia. It is the 'Arabia eudaimon of the Periplus.
It was known to the Romans as Arabia Felix and Attanae,
and was captured by them, probably in the year 24 B.C.
In 1513 it was unsuccessfully attacked by the Portuguese
under Albuquerque, but subsequently it fell into the hands
of the Turks in 1538. In the following century the Turks
themselves relinquished their conquests in Yemen, and the
sultan of Sana established a supremacy over Aden, which was
maintained until the year 1735, when the sheikh of Lahej,
throwing off his allegiance, founded a line of independent
sultans. In 1837 a ship under British colours was wrecked near
Aden, and the crew and passengers grievously maltreated by the
Arabs. An explanation of the outrage being demanded by the
Bombay government, the sultan undertook to make compensation
for the plunder of the vessel, and also agreed to sell his
town and port to the English. Captain Haines of the Indian
navy was sent to complete these arrangements, but the sultan's
son refused to fulfil the promises that his father had
made. A combined naval and miltary force was thereupon
despatched, and the place was captured and annexed to
British India on the 16th of January 1839. The withdrawal
of the trade between Europe and the East, caused by the
discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, and
the misgovernment of the native rulers, had gradually reduced
Aden to a state of comparative insignificance; but about the
time of its capture by the British the Red Sea route to India
was reopened, and commerce soon began to flow in its former
channel. Aden was made a free port, and was chosen as one of
the coaling stations of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship
Company. Its importance as a port of call for steamers and a
coaling station has grown immensely since the opening of the Suez
Canal. It also conducts a considerable trade with the interior of
Arabia, and with the Somali coast of Africa on the opposite side
of the Red Sea. The submarine cables of the Eastern Telegraph
Company here diverge--on the one hand to India, the Far East
and Australia, and on the other hand to Zanzibar and the Cape.
In 1839 the population was less than 1000, but in 1901 it
had grown to 43,974. The gross revenue (1901-1902) was Rs.
37,25,915. There are three printing-presses, of which one
is in the gaol and the other two belong to a European and
a Parsee firm of merchants. The port is visited yearly by
some 1300 steamers with a tonnage of 2 1/2 million tons. The
principal articles of import are coffee, Cotton-piece goods,
&c., grain, hides, coal, opium, cotton- twist and yarn. The
exports are, in the main, a repetition of the imports. Of
the total imports nearly one-third come from the east coast of
Africa, and another third from Arabia. Of the total exports,
nearly one-third again go to the east coast of Africa. The
Aden brigade belongs to the western army corps of India.
ADENES (ADENEZ or ADANS), surnamed LE ROI, French
trouvere, was born in Brabant about 1240. He owed his
education to the kindness of Henry III., duke of Brabant,
and he remained in favour at court for some time after the
death (1261) of his patron. In 1269 he entered the service
of Guy de Dampierre, afterwards count of Flanders, probably
as roi des menestrels, and followed him in the next year
on the abortive crusade in Tunis in which Louis IX. lost his
life. The expedition returned by way of Sicily and Italy,
and Adenes has left in his poems some very exact descriptions
of the places through which he passed. The purity of his
French and the absence of provincialisms point to a long
residence in France, and it has been suggested that Adenes
may have followed Mary of Brabant thither on her marriage
with Philip the Bold. He seems, however, to have remained
in the service of Count Guy, although he made frequent visits
to Paris to consult the annals preserved in the abbey of St
Denis. The poems written by Adenes are four: the Enfances
Ogier, an enfeebled version of the Chevalerie Ogier de
Danemarche written by Raimbert de Paris at the beginning
of the century; Berte aus granspies, the history of the
mother of Charlemagne, founded on well-known traditions which
are also preserved in the anonymous Chronique de France,
and in the Chronique rimee of Philippe Mousket; Bueves de
Comarchis, belonging to the cycle of romance gathered round the
history of Aimeri de Narbonne; and a long roman d'aventures,
Cleomades, borrowed from Spanish and Moorish traditions
brought into France by Blanche, daughter of Louis IX., who
after the death of her Spanish husband returned to the French
court. Adenes probably died before the end of the 13th century.
The romances of Adenes were edited for the Academie
Imperiale et Royale of Brussels by A. Scheler and A. van
Hasseh in 1874; Berte was rendered into modern French by
G. Hecq (1897) and by R. Perie(1900); Cleomades, by
Le Chevalier de Chatelain (1859). See also the edition of
Berte by Paulin Paris (1832); an article by the same writer
in the Hist. litt. de la France, vol. xx. pp. 679-718;
Leon Gautier, Les epopees francaises, vol. iii., &c.
ADENINE, or 6-AMINO-PURIN, C5H5N5, in chemistry, a
basic substance which has been obtained as a decomposition
product of nuclein, and also from the pancreatic glands of
oxen. It has been synthesized by E. Fischer (Berichte,
1897, 30, p. 2238) by heating 2.6.8-trichlorpurin with 10
times its weight of ammonia for six hours at 100 deg. C.; by
this means 6-amino-2.8-dichlorpurin is obtained, which on
reduction by means of hydriodic acid and phosphonium iodide
is converted into adenine. In 1898 E. Fischer also obtained
it from 8-oxy-2.6-dichlorpurin Berichte, 1898, 31, p. 104).
It crystallizes in long needles; forms salts C5H5N5.2HI and
(C5H5N5)2.H2SO4.2H2O, and is converted by nitrous acid
into hypoxanthine or 6-oxypurin. On heating with hydrochloric
acid at 180-200 deg. C. it is decomposed; the products of the
reaction being glycocoll, ammonia, formic acid and carbon
dioxide. Various methyl derivatives of adenine have been
described by E. Fischer (Berichte, 1898, 31, on 104) and
by M. Kruger (Zeit. fur physiol. Chemie, 1894, 18, p.
434). For the constitution of adenine see PURIN.
ADENOIDS, or ADENOID GROWTHS (from Gr. adenoeides, glandular),
masses of soft, spongy tissue between the back of the nose
and throat, occurring mostly in young children; blocking the
air-way, they prevent the due inflation of the lungs and the
proper development of the chest. The growths are apt to keep
up a constant catarrh near the orifice of the ventilating
tubes which pass from the throat to the ear, and so render
the child dull of hearing or even deaf. They also give
rise to asthma, and like enlarged tonsils--with which they
are often associated-- they impart to the child a vacant,
stupid expression, and hinder his physical and intellectual
development. They cause his voice to be ``stuffy,'' thick, and
unmusical. Though, except in the case of a cleft palate,
they cannot be seen with the naked eye, they are often
accompanied by a visible and suggestive granular condition
of the wall at the back of the throat. Their presence may
easily be determined by the medical attendant gently hooking
the end of the index-finger round the back of the soft
palate. If the tonsils are enlarged it is kinder to postpone
this digital examination of the throat until the child is
under the influence of an anaesthetic for operation upon the
tonsils, and if adenoids are present they can be removed at
the same time that the tonsils are dealt with. Though the
disease is a comparatively recent discovery, the pioneer
in its treatment being Meyer of Copenhagen, it has probably
existed as long as tuberculosis itself, with which affection
it is somewhat distantly connected. In the unenlightened
days many children must have got well of adenoids without
operation, and even at the present time it by no means follows
that because a child has these postnasal vegetations he must
forthwith be operated on. The condition is very similar
to that of enlarged tonsils, where with time, patience and
attention to general measures, operation is often rendered
unnecessary. But if the child continues to breathe with
his mouth open and to snore at night, if he remains deaf and
dull, and is troubled with a chronic ``cold in his head,''
the question of thorough exploration of the naso-pharynx
and of a surgical operation should most certainly be
considered. In recent years the comparatively simple operation
for their removal has been very frequently performed, and,
as a rule, with marked benefit, but this treatment should
always be followed by a course of instruction in respiratory
exercises; the child must be taught regularly to fill his
lungs and make the tidal air pass through the nostrils. These
respiratory exercises may be resorted to before operation is
proposed, and in some cases they may render operative treatment
unnecessary. Operations should not be performed in cold
weather or in piercing east winds, and it is advisable to
keep the child indoors for a day or two subsequent to its
performance. To expose a child just after operating on his
throat to the risks of a journey by train or omnibus is highly
inadvisable. Although the operation is not a very painful one, it
ought not to be performed upon a child except under the influence
of chloroform or some other general anaesthetic. (F. O.*)
ADEPT (if used as a substantive pronounced adept, if
as an adjective adept; from Lat. adeptus, one who has
attained), completely and fully acquainted with one's
subject, an expert. The word implies more than acquired
proficiency, a natural inborn aptitude. In olden times
an adept was one who was versed in magic, an alchemist,
one who had attained the great secrets of the unknown.
ADERNO, a town of the province of Catania, Sicily, 22
m. N.W. of the town of that name. Pop. (1901) 25,859. It
occupies the site of the ancient Adranon, which took its name
from Adranos, a god probably of Phoenician origin, in Roman
times identified with Vulcan, whose chief temple was situated
here, and was guarded by a thousand huge gods; there are perhaps
some substructures of this building still extant outside the
town. The latter was founded about 400 B.C. by Dionysius
I.; very fine remains of its walls are preserved. For a time
it was the headquarters of Timoleon, and it was the first town
taken by the Romans in the First Punic War (263 B.C..) In
the centre of the modern town rises the castle, built by Roger
I.; in the chapel are frescoes representing his granddaughter,
Adelasia, who founded the convent of St Lucia in 1157, taking the
veil. The columns in the principal church are of black lava.
See P. Russo, Illustrazione storica di Aderno (Adorno, 1897).
ADEVISM, a term introduced by Max Muller to imply the
denial of gods (Sans. deva), on the analogy of Atheism,
the denial of God. Max Muller used it particularly in
connexion with the Vedanta philosophy for the correlative
of ignorance or nescience (Gifford lectures, 1892, c. ix.).
ADHEMAR DE CHABANNES (c. 988-c. 1030), medieval
historian, was born about 988 at Chabannes, a village in
the French department of Haute-Vienne. Educated at the
monastery of St Martial at Limoges, he passed his life as a
monk, either at this place or at the monastery of St Cybard at
Angouleme. He died about 1030, most probably at Jerusalem,
whither he had gone on a pilgrimage. Adinemar's life
was mainly spent in writing and transcribing chronicles,
and his principal work is a history entitled Chronicon
Aquitanicum et Francicum or Historia Francorum. This
is in three books and deals with Frankish history from the
fabulous reign of Pharamond, king of the Franks, to A.D.
1028. The two earlier books are scarcely more than a copy of
the Gesta regum Francorum, but the third book, which deals
with the period from 814 to 1028, is of considerable historical
importance. This is published in the Monumenta Germaniac
historica. Scriptores. Band iv. (Hanover and Berlin,
1826-1892). He also wrote Commemoratio abbatum Lemovicensium
basilicae S. Martialis apostoli (848-1029) and Epistola
ad Jordanum Lemovicensem episcopum et alios de apostolatu
S. Martialis, both of which are published by J. P. Migne
in the Patrologia Latinia, tome cxli. (Paris, 1844-1855).
See F. Arbellot, Etude historique et litteraire sur Ademar de
Chabannes (Limoges, 1873); J. F. E. Castaigne, Dissertation sur
le lieu de naissance et sur la famille du chroniqueur Ademar,
moine de l'abbaye de St Cybard d'Angouleme (Angouleine, 1850).
ADHEMAR (ADEMAR, AIMAR, AELARZ) DE MONTEIL (d. 1098),
one of the principal personages of the first crusade, was bishop
of Puy en Velay from before 1087. At the council of Clermont in
1095 he showed great zeal for the crusade, and having been named
apostolic legate by the pope, he accompanied Raymond IV., count
of Toulouse, to the east. He negotiated with Alexis Comnenus
at Constantinople, re-established at Nicaea some discipline
among the crusaders, caused the siege of Antioch to be raised
and died in that city of the plague on the 1st of August 1098.
See the article by C. Kohler in La Grande
Encyclopedie; Bibliographie du Velay (1902), 640-650.
ADHESION (from Lat. adhaerere, to adhere), the process
of adhering or clinging to anything. In a figurative sense,
adhesion (like ``adherent'') is used of any attachment to a
party or movement; but the word is also employed technically
in psychology, pathology and botany. In psychology Bain
and others use it of association of ideas and action; in
pathology an adhesion is an abnormal union of surfaces;
and in botany ``adhesion'' is used of dissimilar parts,
e.g. in floral whorls, in opposition to ``cohesion,''
which applies to similar parts, e.g. of the same whorl.
ADIAPHORISTS (Gr. adiaforos, indifferent). The Adiaphorist
controversy among Lutherans was an issue of the provisional
scheme of compromise between religious parties, pending a
general council, drawn up by Charles V., sanctioned at the
diet of Augsburg, 15th of May 1548, and known as the Augsburg
Interim. It satisfied neither Catholics nor Protestants.
As head of the Protestant party the young elector Maurice of
Saxony negotiated with Melanchthon and others, and at Leipzig,
on the 22nd of December 1548, secured their acceptance of the
Interim as regards adiaphora (things indifferent), points
neither enjoined nor forbidden in Scripture. This sanctioned
jurisdiction of Catholic bishops, and observance of certain
rites, while all were to accept justification by faith
(relegating sola to the adiaphora.) This modification was
known as the Leipzig Interim; its advocates were stigmatized as
Adiaphorists. Passionate opposition was led by Melanchthon's
colleague, Matth. Flacius, on the grounds that the imperial
power was not the judge of adiaphora, and that the measure
was a trick to bring back popery. From Wittenberg he fled,
April 1549, to Magdeburg, making it the headquarters of rigid
Lutheranism. Practically the controversy was concluded by the
religious peace ratified at Augsburg (Sept. 25, 1555), which
left princes a free choice between the rival confessions,
with the right to impose either on their subjects; but much
bitter internal strife was kept up by Protestants on the
theoretical question of adiaphora; to appease this was one
object of the Formula Concordiae, 1577. Another Adiaphorist
controversy between Pietists and their opponents, respecting
the lawfulness of amusements, arose in 1681, when Anton
Reiser (1628-1686) denounced the opera as antichristian.
See arts. by J. Gottschick in A. Hauck's Realencyklopadie
(1896); by Fritz in I. Goschler's Dict. Encyclop. de la
Theol. Cath. (1858); other authorities in J. C. L. Gieseler,
Ch. Hist. (N. York ed., 1868, vol. iv.); monograph by
Erh. Schmid, Adiaphora, wissenschaftlich und historisch
untersucht (1809), from the rigorist point of view.
ADIGE (Ger. Etsch, anc. Athesis), a considerable river
in North Italy. The true source of the Adige is in some
small lakes on the summit of the Reschen Scheideck Pass (4902
ft.), and it is swollen by several other streams, near Glurns,
where the roads over the Ofen and the Stelvio Passes fall
in. It thence flows east to Meran, and then south-east to
Botzen, where it receives the Eisak (6 ft.), and becomes
navigable. It then turns south-west, and, after receiving the
Noce (right) and the Avisio (left), leaves Tirol, and enters
Lombardy, 13 m. south of Rovereto. After traversing North
Italy, in a direction first southerly and then easterly, it
falls into the Adriatic at Porto Fossone, a few miles north
of the mouth of the Po. The most considerable towns on its
banks (south of Botzen) are Trent and Rovereto, in Tirol,
and Verona and Legnago, in Italy. It is a very rapid river,
and subject to sudden swellings and overflowings, which cause
great damage to the surrounding country. It is navigable from
the heart of Tirol to the sea. In Lombardy it has a breadth
of 200 yds., and a depth of 10 to 16 ft., but the strength
of the current renders its navigation very difficult, and
lessens its value as a means of transit between Germany and
Italy. The Adige has a course of about 220 m., and, after the
Po, is the most important river in Italy. In Roman times
it flowed, in its lower course, much farther north than at
present, along the base of the Euganean hills, and entered
the sea at Brondolo. In A.D. 587 the river broke its
banks, and the main stream took its present course, but
new streams opened repeatedly to the south, until now the
Adige and the Po form conjointly one delta. (W. A. B. C.)
ADIPOCERE (from the Lat. adeps, fat, and cera, wax), a
substance into which animal matter is sometimes converted, and
so named by A. F. Fourcroy, from its resemblance to both fat and
wax. When the Cimetiere des Innocens at Paris was removed in
1786-1787, great masses of this substance were found where the
coffins containing the dead bodies had been placed very closely
together. The whole body had been converted into this fatty
matter, except the bones, which remained, but were extremely
brittle. Chemically, adipocere consists principally of a
mixture of fatty acids, glycerine being absent. Saponification
with potash liberates a little ammonia (about 1%), and gives
a mixture of the potassium salts of palmitic, margaric and
oxymargaric acids. The insoluble residue consists of lime,
&c., derived from the tissues. The artificial formation
of adipocere has been studied; it appears that it is not
formed from albuminous matter, but from the various fats in
the body collecting together and undergoing decomposition.
ADIRONDACKS, a group of mountains in north-eastern New York,
U.S.A., in Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties,
often included by geographers in the Appalachian system,
but pertaining geologically to the Laurentian highlands of
Canada. They are bordered on the E. by Lake Champlain,
which separates them from tho Green Mountains. Unlike the
Appalachians, the Adirondacks do not form a connected
range, but consist of many summits, isolated or in groups,
arranged with little appearance of system. There are about
one hundred peaks, ranging from 1200 to 5000 ft. in height;
the highest peak, Mt. Marcy (called by the Indians Tahawus or
``cloud-splitter''), is near the eastern part of the group
and attains an elevation of 5344 ft. Other noted peaks are
M`Intyre (5210 ft,), Haystack (4918), Dix (4916) and Whiteface
(4871). These mountains, consisting of various sorts of
gneiss, intrusive granite and gabbro, have been formed partly
by faulting but mainly by erosion, the lines of which have
been determined by the presence of faults or the presence of
relatively soft rocks. Lower Palaeozoic strata lap up on to
the crystalline rocks on all sides of the mountain group. The
region is rich in magnetic iron ores, which though mined for
many years are not yet fully developed. Other mineral products
are graphite, garnet used as an abrasive, pyrite and zinc
ore. The mountains form the water-parting between the Hudson
and the St Lawrence rivers. On the south and south-west
the waters flow either directly into the Hudson, which rises
in the centre of the group, or else reach it through the
Mohawk. On the north and east the waters reach the St Lawrence
by way of Lakes George and Champlain, and on the west they
flow directly into that stream or reach it through Lake
Ontario. The most important streams within the area are the
Hudson, Black, Oswegatchie, Grass, Raquette, Saranac and Ausable
rivers. The region was once covered, with the exception of
the higher summits, by the Laurentian glacier, whose erosion,
while perhaps having little effect on the larger features of the
country, has greatly modified it in detail, producing lakes and
ponds, whose number is said to exceed 1300, and causing many
falls and rapids in the streams. Among the larger lakes are
the Upper and Lower Saranac, Big and Little Tupper, Schroon,
Placid, Long, Raquette and Blue Mountain. The region known as
the Adirondack Wilderness, or the Great North Woods, embraces
between 5000 and 6000 sq. m. of mountain, lake, plateau and
forest, which for scenic grandeur is almost unequalled in
any other part of the United States. The mountain peaks are
usually rounded and easily scaled, and as roads have been
constructed over their slopes and in every direction through
the forests, all points of interest may be easily reached by
stage. Railways penetrate the heart of the region, and small
steamboats ply upon the larger lakes. The surface of most
of the lakes lies at an elevation of over 1500 ft. above
the sea; their shores are usually rocky and irregular, and
the wild scenery within their vicinity has made them very
attractive to the tourist. The mountains are easily reached
from Plattsburgh, Port Kent, Herkimer, Malone and Saratoga
Springs. Every year thousands spend the summer months in the
wilderness, where cabins, hunting lodges, villas and hotels are
numerous. The resorts most frequented are in the vicinity
of the Saranac and St Regis lakes and Lake Placid. In the
Adirondacks are some of the best hunting and fishing grounds
in the eastern United States. Owing to the restricted period
allowed for hunting, deer and small game are abundant, and the
brooks, rivers, ponds and lakes are well stocked with trout
and black bass. At the head of Lake Placid stands Whiteface
Mountain, from whose summit one of the finest views of the
Adirondacks may be obtained. Two miles south-east of this
lake, at North Elba, is the old farm of the abolitionist John
Brown, which contains his grave and is much frequented by
visitors. Lake Placid is the principal source of the Ausable
river, which for a part of its course flows through a
rocky chasm from 100 to 175 ft. deep and rarely over 30 ft.
wide. At the head of the Ausable Chasm are the Rainbow Falls,
where the stream makes a vertical leap of 70 ft. Another
impressive feature of the Adirondacks is Indian Pass, a gorge
about eleven miles long, between Mt. M`Intyre and Wallface
Mountain. The latter is a majestic cliff rising vertically
from the pass to a height of 1300 ft. Keene Valley, in
the centre of Essex county, is another picturesque region,
presenting a pleasing combination of peaceful valley and
rugged hills. Though the climate during the winter months
is very severe--the temperature sometimes falling as low
as -42 deg. F.--it is beneficial to persons suffering from
pulmonary troubles, and a number of sanitariums have been
established. The region is heavily forested with spruce,
pine and broad-leaved trees. Lumbering is an important
industry, but it has been much restricted by the creation of
a state forest preserve, containing in 1907, 1,401,482 acres,
and by the purchase of large tracts for game preserves and
recreation grounds by private clubs. The so-called Adirondack
Park, containing over 3,000,000 acres, includes most of the
state preserve and large areas held in private ownership.
For a description of the Adirondacks, see S. R. Stoddard,
The Adirondacks Illustrated (24th ed., Glen Falls,
1894); and E. R. Wallace, Descriptive Guide to the
Adirondacks (Syracuse, 1894). For geology and mineral
resources consult the Reports of the New York State
Geologist and the Bulletins of the New York State Museum.
ADIS ABABA (``the new flower''), the capital of Abyssinia
and of the kingdom of Shoa, in 9 deg. 1' N., 38 deg. 56' E., 220
m. W. by S. of Harrar, and about 450 m. S.W. of Jibuti on
the Gulf of Aden. Adis Ababa stands on the southern slopes
of the Entotto range, at an altitude of over 8000 ft., on
bare, grassy undulations, watered by small streams flowing
S.S.E. to the Hawash. It is a large straggling encampment
rather than a town, with few buildings of any architectural
merit. The Gobi or royal enclosure completely covers a small
hill overlooking the whole neighbourhood, while around it
are the enclosures of the abuna and principal nobles, and the
residences of the foreign ministers. The principal traders
are Armenians and Hindus. About a mile north-east of the
palace is the military camp. On the hills some five miles to
the north, 1500 ft. above the camp, are the ruins of an old
fortress, and the churches of St Raguel and St Mariam. The
town is in telegraphic communication with Massawa, Harrar and
Jibuti. It was founded by Menelek II. in 1892 as the
capital of his kingdom in succession to Entotto, a deserted
settlement some ten or twelve miles north of Adis Ababa.
ADJECTIVE (from the Lat. adjectivus, added), a word used
chiefly in its grammatical sense of limiting or defining the
noun to which it refers. Formerly grammarians used not to
separate a noun from its adjective, or attribute, but spoke of
them together as a noun-adjective. In the art of dyeing, certain
colours are known as adjective colours, as they require mixing
with some basis to render them permanent. ``Adjective law''
is that which relates to the forms of procedure, as opposed to
``substantive law,'' the rules of right administered by a court.
ADJOURNMENT (through the French from the Late Lat.
adjurnare, to put off until or summon for another day),
the act of postponing a meeting of any private or public
body, particularly of parliament, or any business, until
another time, or indefinitely (in which case it is an
adjournment sine die.) The word applies also to the period
during which the meeting or business stands adjourned.
ADJUDICATION (Lat. adjudicatio; adjudicare, to award),
generally, a trying or determining of a case by the exercise
of judicial power; a judgment. In a more technical sense,
in English and American law, an adjudication is an order of
the bankruptcy courts by which a debtor is adjudged bankrupt
and his property vested in a trustee. It usually proceeds
from a resolution of the creditors or where no composition
or scheme of arrangement has been proposed by the debtor. It
may be said to consummate bankruptcy, for not till then does
a debtor's property actually vest in a trustee for division
among the creditors, though from the first act of bankruptcy
till adjudication it is protected by a receiving order.
As to the effect which adjudication has on the bankrupt, see
under BANKRUPTCY. The same process in Scots law is called
sequestration. In Scots law the term ``adjudication'' has quite
a different meaning, being the name of that action by which a
creditor attaches the heritable, i.e. the real, estate of his
debtor, or his debtor's heir, in order to appropriate it to
himself either in payment or security of his debt. The term
is also applied to a proceeding of the same nature by which
the holder of a heritable right, labouring under any defect in
point of form, gets that defect supplied by decree of a court.
ADJUNCT (from Lat. ad, to, and jungere, to join), that which
is joined on to another, not an essential part, and inferior to it
in mind or function, but which nevertheless amplifies or modifies
it. Adverbs and adjectives are adjuncts to the words they
qualify. Learning, says Shakespeare, is an ``adjunct to ourself''
(Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 314). Twelve members of the
Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris are called ``adjuncts.''
ADJUSTMENT (from late Lat. ad-juxtare, derived from
juxta. near, but early confounded with a supposed derivation
from justus, right), regulating, adapting or settling; in
commercial law, the settlement of a loss incurred at sea on
insured goods. The calculation of the amounts to be made
good to and paid by the several interests is a complicated
matter. It involves much detail and arithmetic, and requires
a full and accurate knowledge of the principles of the
subject. Such adjustments are made by men called adjusters,
who make the subject their profession. In Great Britain
they are for the most part members of the Average Adjusters'
Association (1870), a body which has done much careful
work with a view to making and keeping the practice uniform
and in accord with right principles. This association
has gradually formulated, at their annual meetings, a body
of practical rules which the individual members undertake
to observe. (See AVERAGE and INSURANCE, Marine.)
ADJUTAGE (from Fr. ajutage, from ajouter, to join
on; an older English form was ``adjustage''), a mouthpiece
or nozzle, so formed as to facilitate the outflow of
liquids from a vessel or pipe. (See HYDRAULICS.)
ADJUTANT (from Lat. adjutare, to aid), a helper or junior in
command, one who assists his superior, especially an officer
who acts as an assistant to the officer commanding a corps of
troops. In the British army the appointment of adjutant is held
by a captain or lieutenant. The adjutant acts as staff officer
to the commanding officer, issues his orders, superintends the
work of the orderly room and the general administration of the
corps, and is responsible for musketry duties and the training of
recruits. Regular officers are appointed as adjutants to all
units of the auxiliary forces. On the European continent the
word is not restricted to the lower units of organization; for
example, in Germany the Adjutantur includes all ``routine''
as distinct from ``general'' staff officers in the higher
units, and the aides-decamp of royal persons and of the higher
commanders are also styled adjutant-generals, flugel-adj
utanten, &c . For the so-called adjutant bird see JABIRU.
ADJUTANT-GENERAL, an army official, originally (as indicated
by the word) the chief assistant (Lat. adjuvare) staff-officer
to a general in command, but now a distinct high functionary
at the head of a special office in the British and American war
departments. In England the second military member of the
Army Council is styled adjutant-general to the forces. He
is a general officer and at the head of his department of
the War Office, which is charged with all duties relative to
personnel. The adjutant-general of the United States army is
one of the principal officers in the war department, the head
of the bureau for army correspondence, with the charge of the
records, recruiting, issue of commissions, &c. Individual
American states also have their own adjutant-general, with
cognate duties regarding the state militia. In many countries,
such as Germany and Russia, the term has retained its original
meaning of an officer on the personal staff, and is the
designation of personal aides-de-camp to the sovereign.
By a looseness of translation, the superintendents of
provinces, in the order of Jesuits, who act as officials
under the superintendence of and auxiliary to the
general, are sometimes called adjutants-general.
ADLER, FELIX (1851- ), American educationalist, was born
at Alzey, Germany, on the 13th of August 1851. His father,
a Jewish rabbi, emigrated to the United States in 1857,
and the son graduated at Columbia College in 1870. After
completing his studies at Berlin and Heidelberg, he became, in
1874, professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature at Cornell
University. In 1876 he established in New York City the
Society for Ethical Culture, to the development and extension
of which he devoted a great deal of time and energy, and
before which he delivered a regular Sunday lecture. In 1902
he became professor of political and social ethics at Columbia
University. He also acted as one of the editors of the
International Journal of Ethics. Under his direction the
Society for Ethical Culture became an important factor in
educational reform in New York City, exercising through its
technical training school and kindergarten (established in
January 1878) a wide influence. Dr Adler also took a prominent
part in philanthropic and social reform movements, such as the
establishment of a system of district nursing, the erection
of model tenement houses, and tenement house reform. He
published Creed and Deed (1877), The Moral Instruction
of Children (1892), Life and Destiny (1903), Marriage
and Divorce (1905), and The Religion of Duty (1905).
ADMETUS, in Greek legend, son of Pheres, king of Pherae in
Thessaly. By the aid of Apollo, who served him as a slave--
either as a punishment for having slain the Cyclopes, or out of
affection for his mortal master--he won the hand of Alcestis,
the most beautiful of the daughters of Pelias, king of Iolcus.
When Admetus was attacked by an illness that threatened to lead
to his premature death, Apollo persuaded the Moerae (Fates) to
prolong his life, provided any one could be found to die in his
place. His parents refused, but Alcestis consented. She is
said to have been rescued from the hands of Death by Heracles,
who arrived upon the scene at an opportune moment; a later story
represents her as cured of a dangerous illness by his skill.
Homer, Iliad, ii. 715; Apollodorus, i. 9; Euripides,
Alcestis; Plutarch, Amatorius, 17; Dissel, Der Mythus
von Admetos und Alkestis, progr. Brandenburg, 1882.
ADMINISTRATION (Lat. administrare, to serve), the performance
or management of affairs, a term specifically used in law for
the administration or disposal of the estate of a deceased person
(see WILL OR TESTAMENT.) It is also used generally for
``government,'' and specifically for ``the government'' or the executive
ministry, and in such connexions as the administration (administering
or tendering) of the sacraments, justice, oaths, medicines, &c.
Letters of administration.--Upon the death of a person
intestate or leaving a will to which no executors are appointed,
or when the executors appointed by the will cannot or will
not act, the Probate Division of the High Court is obliged
to appoint an administrator who performs the duties of an
executor. This is done by the court granting letters of
administration to the person entitled. Grants of administration
may be either general or limited. A general grant is made
where the deceased has died intestate. The order in which
general grants of letters will be made by the court is as
follows: (1) The husband, or widow, as the case may be;
(2) the next of kin; (3) the crown; (4) a creditor; (5) a
stranger. Since the Land Transfer Act 1897, the administrator
is the real as well as the personal representative of the
deceased, and consequently when the estate to be administered
consists wholly or mainly of reality the court will grant
administration to the heir to the exclusion of the next of
kin. In the absence of any heir or next of kin the crown
is entitled to the personality as bona vacantia, and to
the reality by escheat. If a creditor claims and obtains
a grant he is compelled by the court to enter into a bond
with two sureties that he will not prefer his own debt to
those of other creditors. The more important cases of grants
of special letters of administration are the following:--
Administration cum testamento annexo, where the deceased
has left a will but has appointed no executor to it, or the
executor appointed has died or refuses to act. In this case the
court will make the grant to the person (usually the residuary
legatee) with the largest beneficial interest in the estate.
Administration de bonis non administratis: this occurs
in two cases--(a) where the executor dies intestate
after probate without having completely administered the
estate; (b) where an administrator dies. In the first
case the principle of administration cum testamento is
followed, in the second that of general grants in the
selection of the person to whom letters are granted.
Administration durante minore aetate, when the executor
or the person entitled to the general grant is under age.
Administration durante absentia, when the executor or
administrator is out of the jurisdiction for more than a year.
Administration pendente lite, where there is a dispute as to
the person entitled to probate or a general grant of letters the
court appoints an administrator till the question has been decided.
ADMINISTRATOR, in English law, the person to whom the
Probate Division of the High Court of Justice (formerly the
ordinary or judge of the ecclesiastical court) acting in the
sovereign's name, commits the administration (q.v.) of the
goods of a person deceased, in default of an executor. The
origin of administrators is derived from the civil law. Their
establishment in England is owing to a statute made in the 31st
year of Edward I. (1303). Till then no office of this kind
was known besides that of executor; in default of whom, the
ordinary had the disposal of goods of persons intestate, &c.
(See also EXECUTORS, and, for intestate estates, INTESTACY.)
ADMINISTRATOR, in Scots law, is a person legally
empowered to act for another whom the law presumes incapable
of acting for himself, as a father for a pupil child.
ADMIRAL, the title of the general officer who commands a
fleet, or subdivision of a fleet. The origin of the word is
undoubtedly Arabic. In the 12th century the Mediterranean
states which had close relations with the Moslem powers
on the shores or in the islands of that sea, found the
title amir or emir in combination with other words used
to describe men in authority; the amir-al-mumenin--prince
of the faithful--or al-bahr--commander of the sea. They
took the substantive ``amir'' and the article ``al'' to
form one word, ``amiral'' or ``ammiral'' or ``almirante.''
The Spaniards made miramamolin, out of amiral-mumenin, in
the same way. ``Amiral,'' as the name of an eastern ruler,
became familiar to the northern nations during the crusades.
Layamon, writing in the early years of the 13th century,
speaks of the ``ammiral of Babilon,'' and the word was for
long employed in this sense. As a naval title it was first
taken by the French from the Genoese during the crusade of
1249. By the end of the 13th century it had come to be used
in England as the name of the officer who commanded the Cinque
Port ships. The English form ``admiral'' arose from popular
confusion with the Latin admirabilis. Such errors were
naturally produced by the fantastic etymology of the middle
ages. In Spain, Alphonso the Wise of Castile, in his code of
laws, the Siete Partidas (Seven Divisions), accounts for
the Spanish form ``almirante'' by its supposed derivation
from the Latin admirari, since the admiral is ``to be
admired'' for the difficulties and dangers he overcomes, and
because he is the chief of those who see the wonders of the
Lord in the deep--mirabilia ejus (sc. Domini) in profundo.
Both in Spanish and in Elizabethan English the word has
been applied to the flagship of an officer commanding a
fleet or part of one. The Spanish almiranta is the ship
of the second in command, and the capitana of the first.
In this sense it is not uncommonly found in the narratives
of Elizabethan voyages or campaigns, and it is so used by
Milton in Paradise Lost--``the mast of some tall ammiral.''
As the title of an office it was borne by the great military,
judicial and administrative officer known in France as grand
amiral; in England as lord high admiral; in Spain as almirante
mayor. His functions, which were wide, have been generally
absorbed by the crown, or the state, and have been divided among
judicial and administrative officials (see NAVY, History;
ADMIRALTY ADMINISTRATION; and ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION.)
The title of admiral is still borne as an hereditary honour
by the descendants of Columbus, the dukes of Veraqua, in
Spain. It is a purely honorific distinction representing the
admiralship of the islands and Ocean Sea, conferred on the
discoverer by the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella.
In the staff of a modern navy the admirals correspond to
the general officers in the army. Where, as in Russia, the
grand admiralship is annexed to the crown, the highest rank
is that of lieutenant admiral general. In Great Britain
there is the rank of admiral of the fleet, corresponding to
field-marshal. It is, however, little more than an honorary
distinction. The three active ranks are those of admiral,
vice-admiral and rear-admiral, corresponding to general,
lieutenant-general and major-general in the army. They are
found in all navies under very slightly varied forms. The
only difference which is not one of mere spelling is in the
equivalent for rear-admiral, which is contre amiral in
French, and in other navies of the continent of Europe
involves some slight variation of the word ``contre'' (first
used at the time of the French Revolution). The vice- and
rear-admiral of Great Britain are again honorary titles,
without the active functions, conferred in compliment on
senior naval officers. ``Admiral'' is also the name given to
the chief of fishery fleets. On the banks of Newfoundland
it was given to officials who had powers conferred by the
state. In the case of an ordinary fishing-fleet in European
waters, it is of private origin, and is of merely customary use.
AUTHORITIES.--Sir N. Harris Nicolas, History of the Royal
Navy; La Ronciere, Histoire de la marine francarse;
Youge, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewezen; C.
Fernandez Duro, Historia de la Armada de Castilea. (D. H.)
ADMIRALTY ADMINISTRATION. 1. The Administrative System.--
British Empire.
That the navy (q.v.) is the only real defence of the
British islands has been recognized by English people ever
since the days of King Offa, who died in 796, leaving to his
successors the admirable lesson that ``he who would be secure
on land must be supreme at sea.'' The truth of the lesson
thus learnt is sanctioned by all the experience of English
history, and parliament has repeatedly enforced the fact. The
navy is the only force that can safeguard the British islands
from hostile descents; it is the only force that can protect
their vast sea-borne commerce and food supplies; by giving
safety to the home country it sets British troops free for
operations abroad, and makes their passage secure; and thus,
as also by giving command of the sea, the fleet is the means
by which the empire is guarded and has become a true imperial
bond. It is natural for British admiralty administration
to be taken here as the type of an efficient system.
The Board of Admiralty.
British naval administration is conducted by the Board of
Admiralty, and the function of that board is the maintenance
and expansion of the fleet in accordance with the policy of
the government, and the supplying of it with trained officers
and men; its distribution throughout the world; and its
preservation in readiness and efficiency in all material and
personal respects. The character of the Admiralty Board is
peculiar to the British constitution, and it possesses certain
features which distinguish it from other departments of the
state. The business it conducts is very great and complex,
and the machinery by which its work is done has grown with
the expansion of that business. The whole system of naval
administration has been developed historically, and is
not the product of the organizing skill of one or a few
individuals, but an organic growth possessing marked and special
characteristics. The Admiralty Board derives its character
from the fact that it represents the lord high admiral, and
that its powers and operation depend much more upon usage
than upon those instruments which actually give it authority,
and which, it may be remarked, are not in harmony among
themselves. The executive operations are conducted by a
series of civil departments which have undergone many changes
before reaching their present constitution and relation
to the Board. The salient characteristic of the admiralty
is a certain flexibility and elasticity with which it
works. Its members are not, in a rigid sense, heads of
departments. Subject to the necessary and constitutional
supremacy of tho cabinet minister at their head, they are
jointly and co-equally ``commissioners for executing the
office of high admiral of the United Kingdom, and of the
territories thereunto belonging, and of high admiral of the
colonies and other dominions.'' The members of the Board are
in direct and constant communication with the first lord and
with one another, as also with the civil departments which
work under their control. It was enjoined by James I. that
the principal officers and commissioners of the navy should
be in constant communication among themselves, consulting and
advising ``by common council and argument of most voices,''
and should live as near together as could conveniently
be, and should meet at the navy office at least twice a
week. This system of intercommunication still exists in a
manner which no system of minutes could give; and it may be
remarked, as illustrative of the flexibility of the system,
that a Board may be formed on any emergency by two lords and a
secretary, and a decision arrived at then and there. Such
an emergency board was actually constituted some years ago
on board the admiralty yacht in order to deal on the instant
with an event which had just occurred in the fleet. At the
same time it must be remarked that, in practice, the first
lord being personally responsible under the orders in council,
the operations of the Board are dependent upon his direction.
History.
The present system of administering the navy dates from the
time of Henry VIII. The naval business of the country had
so greatly expanded in his reign that we find the Admiralty
and Navy Board reorganized or established; and it is worthy
of remark that there existed at the time an ordnance branch,
the navy not yet being dependent in that matter upon the
War Department.1 The Navy Board administered the civil
departments under the admiralty, the directive and executive
duties of the lord high admiral remaining with the admiralty
office. A little later the civil administration was vested
in a board of principal officers subordinate to the lord
high admiral, and we can henceforth trace the work of civil
administration being conducted under the navy and victualling
boards apart from, but yet subject to, the admiralty itself.
This was a system which continued during the time of all the
great wars, and was not abolished until 1832, when Sir James
Graham, by his reforms, put an end to what appeared a divided
control. Whatever may have been the demerits of that system,
it sufficed to maintain the navy in the time of its greatest
achievements, and through all the wars which were waged with the
Spaniards, the Dutch and the French. The original authority
for the present constitution of the Admiralty Board is found
in a declaratory act (Admiralty Act 1690), in which it is
enacted that ``all and singular authorities, jurisdictions
and powers which, by act of parliament or otherwise, had been
lawfully vested'' in the lord high admiral of England had always
appertained, and did and should appertain, to the commissioners
for executing the office for the time being ``to all intents
and purposes as if the said commissioners were lord high
admiral of England.'' The admiralty commission was dissolved
in 1701, and reconstituted on the death of Prince George of
Denmark, lord high admiral in 1709. From that time forward,
save for a short period in 1827-1828, when the duke of Clarence
was lord high admiral, the office has remained in commission.
A number of changes have been made since the amalgamation of
the admiralty and the Navy Board by Sir James Graham in 1832
(see NAVY, History), but the general principle remains the
same, and the constitution of the Admiralty Board and civil
departments is described below. The Board consists of the
first lord and four naval lords with a civil lord, who in
theory are jointly responsible, and are accustomed to meet
sometimes daily, but at all times frequently; and the system
developed provides for the subdivision of labour, and yet for
the co-ordinated exertion of effort. The system has worked
well in practice, and has certainly won the approval and the
admiration of many statesmen. Lord George Hamilton said,
before the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1887,
that ``It has this advantage, that you have all departments
represented round a table, and that if it is necessary to take
quick action, you can do in a few minutes that which it would
take hours under another system to do''; and the report of the
Royal Commission of 1889 remarked that ``The constitution of
the Board of Admiralty appears to us well designed, and to be
placed under present regulations on a satisfactory footing.''
Powers.
The special characteristics of the Admiralty Board which have
been described are accompanied by a very peculiar and noteworthy
feature, which is not without relation to the untrammelled and
undefined operations of the admiralty. This feature arises from
the discrepancy between the admiralty patent and the orders in
council, for the admiralty is not administered according to
the terms of the patent which invests it with authority, and
its operations raise a singular point in constitutional law.
The legal origin of the powers exercised by the first lord
and the Board itself is indeed curiously obscure. Under
the patent the full power and authority are conferred upon
``any two or more'' of the commissioners, though, in the
patent of Queen Anne, the grant was to ``any three or more
of you.'' It was under the Admiralty Act 1832 that two lords
received the necessary authority to legalize any action of
the Board; but already, under an act of 1822, two lords had
been empowered to sign so long as the Board consisted of six
members. We therefore find that the legal authority of
the Board under the patent is vested in the Board; but in
the order in council of the 14th of January 1869 the sole
responsibility of the first lord was officially laid down, and
in the order in council of the 19th of March 1872 the first
lord was made ``responsible to your Majesty and to parliament
for all the business of the admiralty.'' As a matter of
fact, the authority of the first lord, independent of his
colleagues, had existed in an undefined manner from ancient
times. Before a select committee of the House of Commons
in 1861 the duke of Somerset stated that he considered the
first lord responsible, that he had always ``acted under that
impression,'' and that he believed ``all former first lords
were of this opinion''; while Sir James Graham said that ``the
Board of Admiralty could never work, whatever the patent might
be, unless the first lord were supreme, and did exercise
constantly supreme and controlling authority.'' It is not,
therefore, surprising to find that there has been undoubtedly
direct government without a Board. Thus, in the operations
conducted against the French channel ports in 1803-1804, Lord
Melville, then first lord, took steps of great importance
without the knowledge of his colleagues, though he afterwards
bowed to their views, which did not coincide with his own.
Again, when Lord Gambier was sent to Copenhagen in 1807, he
was instructed to obey all orders from the king, through the
principal secretary of state for war, and in this way received
orders to attack Copenhagen, which were unknown to all but the
first lord. In a similar way the secretary of the admiralty
was despatched to Paris in 1815 with instructions to issue
orders as if from the Board of Admiralty when directed to do
so by the foreign secretary who accompanied him, and these
orders resulted in Napoleon's capture. These instances were
cited, except the first of them, by Sir James Graham before
the select committee of the House of Commons in 1861, in
order to illustrate the elastic powers under the patent which
enabled the first lord to take immediate action in matters
that concerned the public safety. It is not surprising that
this peculiar feature of admiralty administration should
have attracted adverse criticism, and have led some minds
to regard the Board as ``a fiction not worth keeping up.''
Between 1860 and 1870 the sittings of the Board ceased
to have the effective character they had once possessed.
During the administration of Mr Childers,2 first lord
from 1868 to 1871 in Mr Gladstone's cabinet, a new system
was introduced by which the free intercommunication of the
members of the Board was hampered, and its sittings were quite
discontinued. The case of the ``Captain'' led, however, to
a return to the older practice. The ``Captain'' was a low
freeboard masted turret ship, designed by Captain Cowper Phipps
Coles, R.N. Competent critics believed that she would be
unsafe, and said so before she was built; but the admiralty
of Lord Derby's cabinet of 1866 gave their consent to her
construction. She was commissioned early in 1870, and
capsized in the Bay of Biscay on the 7th of September of that
year. Mr Childers, who was nominally responsible for
allowing her to be commissioned, distributed blame right and
left, largely upon men who had not approved of the ship at
all, and had been exonerated from all share of responsibility
for allowing her to be built. The disaster was justly held
to show that a civilian first lord cannot dispense with the
advantage of constant communication with his professional
advisers. When Mr Childers retired from the admiralty in
March 1871, his successor, Mr Goschen (Viscount Goschen),
reverted to the original system. It cannot be said,
however, that the question of ultimate responsibility is well
defined. The duke of Somerset, Sir James Graham and Sir
Charles Wood, afterwards Lord Halifax, held the view that
the first lord was singly and personally responsible for the
sufficiency of the fleet. Sir Arthur Hood expressed before
the House of Commons committee in 1888 the view that the Board
collectively were responsible; whilst Sir Anthony Hoskins
assigned the responsibility to the first lord alone with
certain qualifications, which is a just and reasonable view.
2. Admiralty Organization.--Under the organization which now
exists, the Board of Admiralty consists of the first lord, the
first and second naval lords, the additional naval lord and
controller, the junior naval lord and the civil lord, who are
commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral,
and with them are the parliamentary and financial secretary
and the permanent secretary. As has been explained, the first
lord is responsible under the orders in council to the crown
and to parliament for all admiralty business. In the hands
of the other lords and secretaries rest duties very carefully
defined, and they direct the civil departments which are the
machinery of naval administration. The first naval lord, the
second naval lord and the junior naval lord are responsible
to the first lord in relation to so much of the business
concerning the personnel of the navy and the movements and
condition of the fleet as is confided to them, and the additional
naval lord or controller is responsible in the same way for
the material of the navy; while the parliamentary secretary
has charge of finance and some other business, and the civil
lord of all shore works--i.e. docks, buildings, &c.--and
the permanent secretary of special duties. The first lord of
the admiralty is the cabinet minister through whom the navy
receives its political direction in accordance with imperial
policy. He is the representative of the navy in parliament,
which looks to him for everything concerned with naval
affairs. The members of the Board are his advisers; but if their
advice is not accepted, they have no remedy except protest or
resignation. It cannot be denied that the responsibility
of the members of the Board, if their advice should be
disregarded, must cease, and it is sufficiently obvious that the
remedy of resignation will not always commend itself to those
whose position and advancement depend upon the favour of the
government. Something will be said a little later concerning
the working of the system and the relation of the first lord
to the Board in regard to the navy estimates. In addition
to general direction and supervision, the first lord has
special charge of promotions and removals from the service,
and of matters relating to honours and rewards, as well as
the appointments of flag officers, captains and other officers
of the higher ranks. With him rests also the nomination for
the major part to naval cadetships and assistant clerkships.
Apart from the first lord, the first naval lord is the most
important officer of the Board of Admiralty. It seems to be
unquestionable that Sir James Graham was right in describing
the senior naval lord as his ``first naval adviser.''
Theoretically, the first naval lord is responsible for the
personnel of the fleet; but in practice he is necessarily
concerned with the material also as soon as it is put into
commission, and with the actual commissioning of it. It
is correct to say that he is chiefly concerned with the
employment of the fleet, though his advice has weight in
regard to its character and sufficiency, and is always sought
in relation to the shipbuilding programme. Broadly speaking,
the first naval lord's duties and authority cover the fighting
efficiency and employment of the fleet, and upon him and
upon the controller the naval business of the country largely
falls. He directs the operations of the admiral superintendent
of naval reserves in regard to ships, the hydrographer, the
director of naval ordnance, so far as the gunnery and torpedo
training establishments are concerned, and the naval intelligence
department, and he has charge of all matters relating to
discipline. The mobilization of the fleet, both in regard
to personnel and material, also falls to him, and among
a mass of other business in his department are necessary
preparations for the protection of trade and the fisheries.
It will thus be seen that the first naval lord is the chief
officer of the Board of Admiralty, and that the operations of
the other members of the Board all have relation to his work,
which is no other than preparation for war. It may here be
remarked that it appears most necessary to change the naval
lords frequently, so that there may always be in the Board
some one who possesses recent touch with the service afloat.
The second naval lord may be regarded as the coadjutor of
the first naval lord, with whose operations his duties are
very closely related, though, like every other member of the
Board, he is subordinate only to the first lord. The duties of
the second naval lord are wholly concerned with the personnel
of the fleet, the manning of the navy and mobilization. In
his hands rests the direction of naval education, training
and the affairs of the royal marine forces. The training
establishments and colleges are in his hands. He appoints
navigating officers and lieutenants to ships (unless they be
to command), sub-lieutenants, midshipmen and cadets, engineer
officers, gunners and boatswains, and supervises the management
of the reserve. In his province is the mobilization of the
personnel, including the coastguard and the royal naval
reserve. Necessarily, the first and second naval lords
work together, and upon occasion can replace each other.3
Most important are the duties that fall to the additional
naval lord and controller. He has charge of everything that
concerns the material of the fleet, and his operations are the
complement of the work of the first naval lord. A great number
of civil departments are directed by the controller, and his
survey and supervision extend to the dockyards and building
establishments of the fleet. He submits plans to the Board
for new ships, and is responsible for carrying into effect
its decisions in regard to all matters of construction and
equipment. The building operations both in the dockyards and
in private yards are therefore under his supervision. In regard
to all these matters the director of naval construction and
the engineer-in-chief are the heads of the civil departments
that carry on the work. Again, the controller is responsible
in regard to armament--both gunnery and torpedo--and it
is the work of his department to see to all gunnery and
torpedo fittings, and to magazines, shell-rooms and electric
apparatus. The officer in immediate charge of this branch of
the controller's work, under his direction, is the director of
naval ordnance. In regard to work at the dockyards (q.v.)
the controller is aided by the director of dockyards. He
supervises this officer in preparing the programme of work done
in the dockyards, the provision of the material required and
its appropriation to particular work in accordance with the
programme. Other officers who conduct great operations under
the authority and responsibility of the controller are the
director of stores, who maintains all necessary supplies of
coal and stores at home and abroad, and examines the store
accounts of ships, and the inspector of dockyard expense
accounts, who has charge of the accounts of dockyard expenditure
and seeing that outlay is charged as directed. In regard to
the navy estimates, the controller, through his subordinates,
is responsible for the preparation and administration of the
votes for shipbuilding and naval armaments, except in regard
to some sub-headings of the former, and thus in recent years
for the expenditure of something like L. 15,000,000 or over.
The junior naval lord has in his hands the very important
duties that are concerned with the transport, medical and
victualling services, as well as the regulation of hospitals,
the charge of coaling arrangements for the fleet and other
duties that conduce to the practical efficiency of the
navy. He also appoints chaplains, naval instructors,
medical officers (except in special cases) and officers
of the accountant branch. A vast business in regard to
the internal economy of ships greatly occupies the junior
lord. He has charge, for example, of uniforms, prize-money,
bounties, naval savings banks, and pensions to seamen and
marines and the widows of naval and marine officers. The
work of the junior naval lord places under his direction the
director of transports, the director-general of the medical
department, the director of victualling, and, in regard to
particular matters, the director of stores, the accountant-
general, the chaplain of the fleet, and the Intelligence
Department, so far as the junior lord's department is concerned.
The civil lord supervises, through the director of works,
the Department of Works, dealing with admiralty buildings and
works, construction and labour, contracts and purchases of
building stores and land. He is also responsible for the
civil staff of the naval establishments, except in regard to
certain officials, and for duties connected with Greenwich
Hospital, compassionate allowances, charitable funds,
and business of like character. The accountant-general,
in regard to these matters, is directed by him, and the
director of Greenwich Hospital is under his authority.
The parliamentary and financial secretary is responsible
for the finance of the department, the navy estimates and
matters of expenditure generally, and is consulted in regard
to all matters involving reference to the treasury. His
position in regard to estimates and expenditure is very
important, and the accountant- general is his officer, while
he has financial control over the director of contracts. The
financial secretary also examines proposals for new expenditure.
A most important official of the Board is the permanent secretary,
whose office has been described as the ``nerve-centre'' of the
admiralty, since it is the channel through which papers for
the lords of the admiralty pass for the intercommunication
of departments and for the correspondence of the Board.
The tradition of admiralty procedure largely rests with the
permanent secretary, and it is most important that he should
be chosen from one of the branches, and should have served in
as many of them at possible, in order that he may possess a
thorough knowledge of the theory and practice of the admiralty
system. In addition to the secretarial duties of the
permanent secretary's department, the permanent secretary
has charge of the military, naval and legal branches, each
under a principal clerk, the civil branch and the record
office. The various branches deal with matters concerning the
commissioning of ships and the distribution of the fleet, and
the manning and discipline of the navy, with other associated
matters, being the channels for the operations of the naval
lords. It is a highly important function of the department
of the permanent secretary to preserve the inter-related
working of the various departments, and to keep unbroken the
thread of administration when a new Board is constituted.
3. Business and Responsibility.--The manner in which the
Admiralty Board conducts the great operations under its
charge has been indicated. It would be impossible here to
describe it in detail, though something concerning the civil
departments, which are the machinery of naval administration,
will be found below. It will, however, indicate the character
of admiralty administration if we explain to some extent the
conditions which surround the preparation of the estimates and
the shipbuilding programme, the more so because this matter
has been the battle-ground of critics and supporters of the
admiralty. It has already been pointed out that the naval
lords, if they dissent from the estimates that are presented,
have no remedy but that of protest or resignation. Into the
controversies that have arisen as to the responsibility of the
several lords it is unnecessary to enter here. The Admiralty
Board possesses, in fact, the character of a council, and its
members can only be held responsible for their advice. It
has even been contended that, in the circumstances, it should
not be incumbent upon them to sign the navy estimates, and
there have been instances in which the estimates have been
presented to parliament without the signature of certain naval
lords. It is in any case obvious, as has been explained
above, that the ultimate responsibility must always rest
with the first lord and the cabinet, by whom the policy
of the country is shaped and directed. In the report of
the Hartington Commission in 1890 (the chairman of which
became 8th duke of Devonshire) to inquire into the civil
and professional administration of the Naval and Military
Departments, and the relation of these departments to each
other and to the treasury, the following recommendation occurs:
``On the first lord alone should rest the responsibility
of deciding on the provision to be made for the naval
requirements of the empire, and the existence of a council
should be held in no degree to diminish that responsibility.''
Two conditions primarily rule the determination as to the
strength of the navy. They are, the foreign policy of the
Cabinet, and, on the ground of practical expediency, the
amount of money available. ``The estimates and strength
of the navy,'' said Rear-Admiral Hotham before the select
committee on the navy estimates, 1888, ``are matters for
the cabinet to determine.'' ``Expense,'' said Sir Anthony
Hoskins, ``governs everything.'' The needs of the empire and
financial considerations, as it is scarcely necessary to remark,
may prove to be antithetical conditions governing the same
problem, and in practice it follows that the Admiralty Board
directs its operations in accordance with the views of the
government, but limited by the public funds which are known
to be available. Such considerations suggest a practical
limitation of responsibility, so far as the several lords
of the admiralty are concerned, but it may be presumed to
be their duty individually or collectively to place their
views before the first lord; and Lord George Hamilton told
the select committee of 1888 that, if his colleagues should
represent to him that a certain expenditure was indispensable
for the efficiency of the service, he would recognize
that all financial considerations should be put on one
side. The commissioners reported that this was the only
common-sense view of the matter, and that it was difficult
to see on what other footing the control of navy expenditure,
consistently with responsibility to parliament, could be placed.
Two practical considerations are bound up with the shipbuilding
programme--the carrying forward of the work in hand and the
new construction to be begun, since it is absolutely necessary
that proper provision should be made for the employment and
distribution of labour in the dockyards, and for the purchase
of necessary materials. Through the director of naval
construction and the director of dockyards, the controller
is kept informed as to the progress of work and the amount of
labour required, as also in regard to the building facilities
of the yards. These matters, in a general way, must form a
subject of discussion between the first naval lord and the
controller, who will report on the subject to the first
lord. The accountant-general, as the financial officer of the
Board, will be called upon to place the proposed estimates
upon a financial basis, and when the views of the cabinet
are known as to the amount of money available, the several
departments charged with the duty of preparing the various
votes will proceed with that work. The financial basis alluded
to is, of course, found in the estimates of the previous
year, modified by the new conditions that arise. There has
been in past times a haphazard character in our shipbuilding
programmes, but with the introduction of the Naval Defence
Act of 1889, which looked ahead and was not content with
hand-to-mouth provision, a better state of things has grown
up, and with a larger sense of responsibility, a policy
characterized by something of continuity has been developed.
Certainly the largest factor in the better state of things has
been the growth of a strong body of public opinion as to the
supreme value of the navy for national and imperial welfare.
Another important and related matter that comes before
the Board of Admiralty is the character and design of
ships. The naval members of the Board indicate the classes
and qualities desired, and it is the practice that the
sketch-design, presented in accordance with the instructions,
is fully discussed by the first naval lord and the controller,
and afterwards by the Board. The design then takes further
shape, and when it has received the final sanction of the
Board it cannot be altered without the sanction of the same
authority. A similar procedure is found in the other business
of the Admiralty Board, such as shore-works, docks and the
preparation of offensive and defensive plans of warfare--the
last being a very important matter that falls into the
operations of the Naval Intelligence Department, which has been
described, though not with perfect accuracy, and certainly
in no large sense, as ``the brain of the navy.'' That
department is under the direction of the first naval lord.
The shipbuilding programme may be described as the cornerstone
of the executive business of the admiralty, because upon it
depends very largely the preparation of all the other votes
relating to numbers, stores, victualling, clothing, &c. But
if the Admiralty Board is responsible through the first lord
for the preparation of the estimates, it is also charged
with the business of supervising expenditure. In this matter
the financial secretary plays a large part, and is directed
to assist the spending department of the admiralty in their
duty of watching the progress of their liabilities and
disbursements. Some notes on admiralty finance will be
found below (section 4). The shipbuilding votes set the
larger machinery of the admiralty in motion. The executive
departments, except in regard to the hulls and machinery of
ships and the special requirements of the director of works,
do not make purchases of stores, that work resting with the
director of navy contracts. Most of the important executive
and spending branches are in the department of the controller,
and it will be well, while we are dealing with the material
side of the navy, to describe briefly their character and
duties. The civil branches of the navy tributary to the
controller are those of the director of naval construction,
the engineer-in-chief, the directors of naval ordnance, of
dockyards and of stores, and the inspector of dockyard expense
accounts. The first duty of the controller is, as has been
explained, in relation to the design and construction of ships
and their machinery, and the executive officials who have
charge of that work are the director of naval construction
and the engineer-in-chief, whose operations are closely
interrelated. A vast administrative stride has been made in
this particular branch of the admiralty. The work of design
and construction now go forward together, and the admiralty
designers are in close touch with the work in hand at the
dockyards. This has been largely brought about by the
institution, in 1883, of the royal corps of naval constructors,
whose members interchange their duties between the designing
of ships at the admiralty and practical work at the
dockyards. It is through the director of naval construction
that many of the spending departments are set in motion, since
he is responsible both for the design of ships and for their
construction. It deserves to be noticed, however, that a
certain obscurity exists in regard to the relative duties of
the director of naval construction and the director of dockyards
touching constructive works in the yards. The former officer
has also charge of all the work given out to contract, though
it is the business of the dockyard officials to certify that
the conditions of the contract have been fulfilled. In all
this work the director of naval construction collaborates with
the engineer-in-chief, who is an independent officer and not a
subordinate, and whose procedure in regard to machinery closely
resembles that adopted in the matter of contract-built ships.
The director of naval ordnance is another officer of the
Controller's Department whose operations are very closely
related to the duties of the director of naval construction,
and the relation is both intimate and sustained, for in
the Ordnance Department everything that relates to guns,
gun-mountings, magazines, torpedo apparatus, electrical
fittings for guns, and other electrical fittings is centred.
A singular feature of this branch of administration is that
the navy long since lost direct control of ordnance matters,
through the duties connected with naval gunnery, formerly in
the hands of the master-general of the ordnance, and those of
the Board of Ordnance--a department common to the sea and land
services--being vested in 1855 in the secretary of state for
war. A more satisfactory state of things has grown up through
the appointment of the director of naval ordnance, taking the
place of the naval officer who formerly advised the director
of artillery at the War Office. Expenditure on ordnance has
also been transferred from the army to the navy estimates, and
a Naval Ordnance Store Department has been created. It cannot
be said that the condition is yet satisfactory, nor can it be
until the navy has control of and responsibility for its own
ordnance. The assistant-director of torpedoes is an officer
instituted at the admiralty within recent years, and his duty is
to assist the director of naval ordnance in all torpedo matters.
The director of dockyards replaced the surveyor of dockyards in
1885, at about which time the inspector of dockyard expense
accounts was instituted. It is upon the director of dockyards
(q.v.) that the responsibility of the controller devolves in
regard to the management of dockyards and naval establishments
at home and abroad, and to the performance of work in these
establishments, ship and boat building, maintenance, repairs and
refits. In this department the programme for work in the dockyards
is prepared, as well as certain sections of the navy estimates.
We now come to the Stores Department, with the director of
stores as its chief. This officer, about the year 1869,
took over the storekeeping duties previously vested in the
storekeeper- general. The Naval Store Department is charged
with the custody and issue of naval, as distinguished from
victualling and ordnance stores, to be used in naval dockyards
and establishments for the building, fitting and repairing of
warships. It has, however, no concern with stores that
belong to the Department of Works. The business of the
director of stores is also to receive and issue the stores
for ships of all classes in commission and reserve, and he
deals with a vast array of objects and materials necessary
for the fleet, and with coals and coaling. He frames the
estimates for his department, but his purchases are made
through the director of navy contracts. In practice the
main business of the Stores Department is to see to the
provision of stores for the navy, and to the proper supply
of these at all the establishments, and for this purpose its
officials direct the movements of storeships, and arrange
for the despatch of colliers, the director being charged to
be ``careful to provide for His Majesty's ships on foreign
stations, and for the necessary supplies to foreign yards.''
Another important business of the director of stores is the
examination of the store accounts of ships as well as some other
accounts. Although the director of stores is really in the
department of the controller, he is supervised in regard
to the coaling of the fleet by the junior naval lord. The
inspector of dockyard expense accounts has been alluded
to. He is the officer charged with keeping a record of
expenditure at the dockyards and of supervising expense accounts.
Expenditure.
It may be useful to add a note concerning the spending of the
money. Within the controller's department, as has been
explained, are centred the more important spending branches of the
admiralty. While the work of designing ships and preparing
plans is in progress, the director of stores, the director
of dockyards and other officials of that department concerned
are making preparation for the work. The necessary stores,
comprising almost every imaginable class of materials, are
brought together, and the director of stores is specially charged
to obtain accurate information in regard to requirements.
He is not, however, a purchasing officer, that work being
undertaken by the director of navy contracts, who is concerned
with the whole business of supply, except in regard to hulls
and machinery of ships built by contract, and the special
requirements of the director of works. At the same time,
the civil departments of the admiralty being held responsible
for the administration of the votes they compile, it is their
duty to watch the outlay of money, and to see that it is well
expended, the accountant-general being directed to assist
them in this work. The system is closely jointed and well
administered, but it possesses a very centralized character,
which interferes to some extent with flexible working, and
with the progress of necessary repairs, especially in foreign
yards. In so far as ships given out to contract are concerned
(and the same is the case in regard to propelling machinery
built by contract), the director of navy contracts plays no
part, the professional business being conducted through the
controller of the navy, who is advised thereon by the director
of naval construction and the engineer-in-chief. The work
conducted in private establishments is closely watched by the
admiralty officials, and is thoroughly tested, but, mutatis
mutandis, the system in regard to contract-built ships is
practically the same as that which prevails in the dockyards.
4. Naval Finance: The Accountant-General's Department.-- The
subject of naval finance is one of great complexity and of vast
importance. The large sums of money with which the admiralty
deals in the way of both estimates and expenditure, amounting
recently to about L. 30,000,000 annually, implies the existence
of the great organization which is found in the department of
the accountant-general of the navy. Under the authority of
the first lord, the parliamentary and financial secretary is
responsible for the finance of the admiralty in general, and
for the estimates and the expenditure, the accounts and the
purchases, and for all matters which concern the relations
of the admiralty to the treasury and to other departments
of the government; and in all the practical and advisory
work the accountant-general is his officer, acting as his
assistant, with the director of naval contracts who, under
the several lords, is concerned with the business of purchase.
The organization of the accountant-general's department has
undergone many changes, and the resulting condition is the
outcome of various modifications which have had for their
purpose to give to this officer a measure of financial
control. There have been various views as to what the
duties of the accountant- general should be. After the
reorganization of the admiralty by Sir James Graham in
1832, the accountant-general was regarded as a recording
and accounting officer, wholly concerned with receipt and
expenditure. His duties were limited to the auditing of
accounts, payments and expenditure generally. Owing to changes
effected in 1869, which made the parliamentary secretary,
assisted by the civil lord, responsible for finance at the
admiralty, bringing the naval and victualling store departments
into his charge. the accountant-general was invested with
the power of criticizing these accounts financially, though
he did not as yet possess any financial control, and the
position was little changed by fresh rules made in 1876. It
was not until 1880 that the powers of the accountant-general
were enlarged in this direction. It was then ordered that he
should be consulted before any expenditure which the estimates
had not provided for was incurred, and before any money voted
was applied to other purposes than those for which it was
provided. The effect of this order was not happy, for the
accountant-general could not undertake these duties without
setting up friction with the departments whose accounts he
criticized. It was contemplated by the admiralty in 1885 to
make the accountant-general the assistant of the financial
secretary, and to raise him to the position of a permanent
officer of finance instead of being an officer of account
invested with imperfect authority in the direction of
control. A select committee of the House of Commons reported
that the accountant-general possessed no financial control
over the departments, and that there was an urgent need for
establishing such a control. At the time the position of
that officer did not enable him to exercise any sufficient
general supervision over expenditure, and there was no
permanent high official expressly charged with finance.
Accordingly, after being submitted to a departmental committee,
a fresh arrangement was made in November 1885, whereby the
accountant-general, under the authority of the financial
secretary, was given a direct share in the preparation of the
estimates. His written concurrence was required before the
final approval of the votes, and each vote was referred to
him for his approval or observations, and he was to exercise
a financial review of expenditure and to see that it was
properly accounted for. He became, in fact, ``the officer
to be consulted on all matters involving an expenditure of
naval funds.'' It was believed that economical administration
would result; but much opposition was raised to the principle
that was involved of submitting the proposals of responsible
departments to the inexpert criticism of a financial
authority. Mr Main, assistant accountant-general, stated
before the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1887,
that the effect had been to develop a tendency to withhold
information or to afford only partial information, as well
as to cause friction when questions were raised affecting
expenditure, accompanied by protests, even in those cases
in which these questions were manifestly of a legitimate
character. The result was discouraging, and in the opinion
of Mr Main had done much to weaken financial control and to
defeat the purpose of the order. It is unnecessary to detail
the various changes that have been made by the institution of
dockyard expense accounts in the department of the controller,
and by various other alterations introduced. The treasury
instituted an independent audit of store accounts which greatly
affected the position of the accountant-general, and the Royal
Commission on Civil Establishments reported that the Board
of Admiralty were of opinion that they could dispense with
the accountant- general's review altogether. The commission
was, however, of opinion that the accountant-general should be
the permanent assistant and adviser, on all matters involving
the outlay of public money, of the financial secretary.
The operations of the accountant-general are now conducted
in accordance with the order in council of the 18th of
November 1885, and of an office memorandum issued shortly
afterwards. He thus acts as deputy and assistant of the
parliamentary and financial secretary, and works with a
finance committee within the admiralty, of which the financial
secretary is president and the accountant-general himself
vice-president. The duties of the department are precisely
defined as consisting in the criticism of the annual estimates
as to their sufficiency before they are passed, and in advising
the financial and parliamentary secretary as to their satisfying
the ordinary conditions of economy. The accountant-general
also reviews the progress of liabilities and expenditure, and
in relation to dockyard expenditure he considers the proposed
programme of construction as it affects labour, material and
machinery. He further reviews current expenditure, or the
employment of labour and material, as distinguished from cash
payments of the yard, as well as proposals for the spending of
money on new work or repairs of any kind for which estimates
are currently proposed. The accountant-general's department
has three principal divisions: the estimates division, the
navy pay division, and the invoices and claims division. In
the first of these is the ledger branch, occupied with the
work of accounts under the several votes and sub-heads of
votes, and with preparing the navy appropriation account,
as well as the estimates and liabilities branch, in which
the navy estimates are largely prepared after having been
proposed and worked out in the executive departments of the
admiralty. There are also ships' establishments and salaries
branches. The navy pay division includes the full and half-pay
branch and a registry section. There is also the seamen's pay
branch, which audits ships' ledgers and wages, and has charge
of all matters concerning the wages of seamen. The victualling
audit is also in this branch, and is concerned with payments
for savings in lieu of victualling and some other matters.
Further, the navy pay division examines ships' ledgers, and
is concerned with the service, characters, ages, &c., of men
as well as with allotments and pensions The third division of
the accountant-general's department, known as that of invoices
and claims, conducts a vast amount of clerical work through
many branches, and is concerned with the management of naval
savings banks and matters touching prize-money and bounties.
The importance of this great department of the admiralty
cannot be overrated. It is, in the first place, of supreme
importance that the navy estimates should be placed upon a
sound financial basis; and in practice the Board requires
the concurrence of the accountant-general to the votes before
they are approved, and thus in greater or less degree this
officer is concerned in the preparation of every one of the
votes. He does not concern himself with matters of larger
policy outside the domain of finance, and it must be
confessed that there appears to be something anomalous in
his ``review'' of naval expenditure. It is, however, a mark
of the flexibility or elasticity of the admiralty system
that in practice the operations of the accountant- general's
department work easily, and that admiralty finance is
recognized as having been placed upon a sound and efficient
basis. There are important financial officers outside the
accountant-general's department concerned with assisting the
controller. The inspector of dockyard expense accounts,
who is entirely in the controller's department, enables
him to exercise careful supervision over expenditure and
the distribution of funds to special purposes. This work,
however, though highly important, is merely one part of the
system of financial control. Within recent years the bonds
have been considerably tightened, and the work is untainted by
corruption. It is true that in exercising rigid supervision
over expenditure the work has become more centralized than is
desirable, and it is a mark of change within recent years
that local officers have been in larger measure deprived of
independent powers. This, indeed, is a necessary condition
of financial control, or at least a condition which it
is not easy to change where rigid control is necessary.
5. Mobilization of the Fleet.--By the mobilization of the
fleet is meant the placing of naval resources upon a war footing,
in readiness in all material and personal respects for hostile
operations. A complete mobilization for purposes of practice
in peace time would dislocate seafaring life in a manner which
would be justifiable only by actual war. Thus no country in
peace manoeuvres calls out all its naval reserves, or makes
use of the auxiliary cruisers--merchant ships for which a
subvention is paid, and which are constructed with a view to
use in warfare. Experience has shown that when vessels are
commissioned they are liable to numerous small breakdowns
of their machinery if they are manned by crews who have
no familiarity with them. Many accidents of this kind had
occurred in the British navy at manoeuvres, though it could
not be shown that the vessel was defective, or that the crew
was either untrained or negligent. These experiments led the
admiralty to adopt a new system in 1904, designed to obviate
the risk that vessels would be crippled at a critical moment
by want of acquaintance on the part of the crew with their
machinery. Under this system all vessels which are considered
to be available for war are divided into two classes:--first,
those in full commission which constitute the different
squadrons maintained at all times; and secondly, those which
form the reserve and are kept in partial commission--or rather
partially manned though in commission. These are kept at
the home ports--Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth--in reserve
squadrons under a flag-officer who will command them in
war. Each vessel has a captain, a second in command, and a
proportion of other officers including engineer, navigating
and torpedo officers. Two-fifths of her full complement of
crew are always on board, and they include the most skilled
men needed for the proper management of the machinery
of all kinds--more especially that of the torpedoes and
guns. These vessels go to sea for periodical practice. When
therefore line fleet must be mobilized for war it will only
be necessary to fill up the number of trained men by the less
skilled hands from the naval barracks occupied by the sailors
not belonging to any particular ship, or from the naval
reserve. All ranks of the navy are placed on a roster by
which they successively serve in ships in full commission, are
quartered in the naval barracks and drafted from them to the
ships of the reserve, from which they return to the sea-going
ships. It is calculated that there are always men enough in
the barracks to complete the crews of a small squadron for
emergency service without disturbing the regular routine of
the peace establishment. The British admiralty may claim
that though the machinery at its command in the past was not
perfect it has commonly been able to send a squadron to sea
more rapidly than any other power in Europe. Much depends on
the arrangement of the stores as well as the disposition of the
men. The introduction at the end of the 18th century of the
businesslike practice of keeping the fittings of each ship
together by themselves, did much to facilitate the rapid
mobilization of a portion of the British fleet in 1790 which
impressed all Europe. The prompt manning of a special service
squadron in 1895 in consequence of the troubles then arising
in connexion with the former South African Republic, showed
that even before its plans for mobilization were completed
the admiralty had its resources well in hand. (R. V. H.)
Other countries.
As regards the navies of countries other than Great Britain,
their government is in the hands of ministers or departments
variously constituted. The Russian admiralty is a highly
organized bureau, divided into departments, and under the supreme
control of a high admiral, usually a grand duke of the Imperial
House. The German admiralty was, till 1872, a branch of the War
Office, though governed by a vice-admiral under a naval prince
of the reigning family. In 1872 it was severed from the War
Office, though remaining an appanage thereof, and a general
of the army was placed at its head. The French minister of
marine, assisted by a permanent staff, controls the navy
of France on a highly centralized system of administration;
but the departments are well organized, and work well. The
Italian fleet is governed on principles analogous to the
French, but with a large admixture of the English representative
element. The American system is worth describing in more detail.
United States Navy Department.
The president of the United States is commander-in-chief
of the navy--a constitutional prerogative which he seldom
asserts. The Navy Department is administered by a civilian
secretary of the navy--a cabinet officer appointed by the
president--who exercises general supervision. Next in
authority is the assistant-secretary, also a civilian nominee,
who acts as an assistant, and has, besides, certain specific
duties, including general supervision of the marine corps,
naval militia and naval stations beyond the continental
limits of the United States. The details of administration
are supervised by the chiefs of bureaus, of which there are
eight. They are appointed by the president from the navy
list for a period of four years, and have the rank of
rear-admiral while serving in this capacity. They have
direct control of the business and correspondence pertaining
to their respective bureaus; and orders emanating from
them have the same force as though issued by the secretary.
The bureau of navigation is the executive, or military, bureau,
and as such promulgates and enforces the orders and regulations
prescribed by the secretary; it has general direction of the
procurement, education, assignment and discipline of the
personnel. It also controls the movements of ships, including
the authorization of manoeuvres and drills, such as target
practice. The bureau of equipment has charge of all electrical
appliances, compasses, charts and fuel, and generally all
that relates to the equipment of vessels, exclusive of those
articles that come naturally under the cognizance of other
bureaus. It has charge of the naval observatory, where the
Ephemeris is prepared annually, and of the hydrographic
office, where charts, sailing directions, notices to mariners,
&c., are issued. The bureau of ordnance has charge of the gun
factory, proving ground, and torpedo station, and all naval
magazines; all the details that pertain to the manufacture,
tests, installation or storage of all offensive and defensive
apparatus, including armour, ammunition hoists, ammunition rooms,
&c., though much of the actual installation is performed by the
bureau of construction after consultation with the bureau of
ordnance. The bureau of construction and repair has charge
of the designing, building and repairing of hulls of ships,
including turrets, spars and many other accessories. It builds
all boats, has charge of the docking of vessels and the care of
ships in reserve. The chief of this bureau is usually a naval
constructor. The bureau of steam engineering has charge of all
that relates to the designing, building and repairing of steam
machinery, and of all the steam connexions on board ship.
The bureau of supplies and accounts procures and distributes
provisions, clothing and supplies of the pay department afloat,
and acts as the purchasing agent for all materials used at
naval stations, except for the medical department and marine
corps. It also has charge of the disbursement of money
and keeping of accounts. The chief of this bureau is a pay
officer. The bureau of medicine and surgery has charge
of all naval hospitals, dispensaries and laboratories,
and of all that pertains to the care of sick afloat and
ashore. The chief of this bureau is a medical officer.
The bureau of yards and docks has charge of construction
and maintenance of wet and dry docks, buildings, railways,
cranes, and generally all permanent constructions at naval
stations. The chief of this bureau is often a civil engineer.
Under the cognizance of the secretary's office is the office
of the judge-advocate-general, an officer selected by the
president from the navy list for a term of four years, with the
rank of captain while so serving. He is legal adviser to the
department, and reviews the records of all courts and statutory
boards. Under the cognizance of the assistant-secretary's
office is the office of naval intelligence, which collates
information on naval matters obtainable at home and
abroad. The staff is composed of naval officers on shore
duty, the senior in charge being usually a captain, and known
as chief intelligence officer. Several boards are employed
under the various bureaus, or directly as advisers to the
secretary. Some are permanent in character, while others
are composed of officers employed on other duty, and are
convoked periodically or when required. The naval policy
board is composed of officers of high rank, and meets once
a month; its duties conform to those of the general staff in
armies. The board of construction consists of the chiefs of
bureaus of ordnance, equipment, construction and repair, steam
engineering, and the chief intelligence officer. Its duty
is to advise the secretary in all matters relating to the
construction policy in detail. The general construction policy
is suggested by the naval policy board. The board of inspection
and survey is composed of representatives of all bureaus, who
inspect vessels soon after commission and on return from a
cruise, and report on the condition of the ship and efficiency
of its personnel; it also conducts the official trials of new
vessels. The boards for the examination of officers for
promotion are composed of officers of the corps to which the
candidate belongs and of medical officers. Every officer
is examined professionally, morally and physically at each
promotion. The Navy Department is located at Washington,
D.C., and occupies a building together with the State and War
Departments (the latter being charged solely with army affairs).
The personnel (see also under NAVY) is limited in number by
law. The engineer corps was abolished in 1899, the then
engineer-officers becoming line officers in their respective
relative grades. Line officers are the military and executive
branch, and are required besides to perform engineer duties.
They are graduates of the Naval Academy. Vacancies occurring
in the construction corps are filled from the graduates of
the Naval Academy having the highest standing in scholarship,
who are given a two years' graduate course, generally abroad,
on being graduated from the Academy, and are then appointed
assistant naval constructors. All other staff officers are
appointed directly from civil life by the president, from
candidates passing prescribed examinations. Each representative
and delegate in Congress has authority to nominate a candidate
for naval cadet whenever his congressional district has no
representative in the Naval Academy. The candidate must be
a resident of the district which the congressman represents,
between fifteen and twenty years old, and must pass prescribed
mental and physical examinations. The president is allowed
ten representatives at the Academy at all times, appointed
``at large,'' and one appointed from the District of Columbia.
The course of instruction at the Academy is four years,
each comprising eight months' study, three months' practice
cruise, and one month's furlough. At the expiration of four
years, cadets are sent to cruising ships for two years'
further instruction, and are then commissioned ensigns.
After three years' further sea service, ensigns are promoted
to lieutenants (junior grade). After this, promotion is
dependent upon seniority alone, the senior officer in any
grade being promoted to the lowest number in the next higher
grade when a vacancy occurs in the higher grade, and not
before. All officers are retired on three-fourths sea pay at
the age of sixty-two, or whenever a board of medical officers
certifies that an officer is not physically qualified to
perform all duties of his grade. A few officers are allowed
to retire voluntarily in certain circumstances, to stimulate
promotion. Any officer on the retired list may be ordered by
the secretary to such duty as he may be able to perform: this
is a legal provision to provide for emergencies. Promotion in
the staff corps is dependent upon seniority, though relative
rank in the lower grades in some corps somewhat depends upon
promotion of line officers of the same length of service,
and accounts for the existence of staff officers in the same
grade having different ranks. All sea-going officers, after
commission, are required to spend three years at sea, and are
then usually employed on shore-duty for a time, according to
the needs of the service--short terms of shore-duty thereafter
alternating with three-year cruises. This rule is adhered
to as strictly as circumstances will permit. Shore-duty
includes executive or distinctly professional duties in the
Navy Department, under its bureaus, and at navy yards and
stations; inspection of ordnance, machinery, dynamos, &c., under
construction by private firms; duty on numerous temporary or
permanent boards; instructors at the Naval Academy; recruiting
duty; charge of branch hydrographic offices; inspection duty
in the lighthouse establishment; at state nautical schools;
as attaches with United States legations; and many others.
Naval constructors (usually), civil engineers and professors of
mathematics are continuously employed on shore-duty connected
with their professions, the Naval Observatory, Nautical
Almanac and the Naval Academy employing most of the last.
Warrant officers (boatswains, gunners, carpenters, sailmakers,
warrant machinists and pharmacists) are appointed by the
secretary, preference being given to enlisted men in the navy
who have shown marked ability for the positions. They must be
between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age, and pass an
examination. After serving satisfactorily for one year under
an acting appointment, they receive warrants that secure the
permanency of their office. Ten years after appointment,
boatswains, gunners, carpenters and sailmakers are eligible
for examination for a commission as chief-boatswain,
&c., and as such they rank with, but next after, ensigns.
Mates are rated by the secretary from seamen or ordinary
seamen. They have no relative rank, but take precedence
of all petty officers. Their duties approximate to those
of boatswains, though they seldom serve on large cruising
vessels. Clerks to pay officers are appointed by the
secretary on the nominations of the pay officers. They have
no rank and are not promoted or retired. Their appointments
are revoked when their services are no longer needed.
Boys between fifteen and seventeen years old of good character,
who can read and write and pass the physical examination, may
enlist for the term of their minority. They enlist as third-
class apprentices, and are given six months' instruction at a
training station, and thence go to sea in apprentice training
vessels. When proficient they are transferred to regular
cruising vessels as second class, and when further qualified
are rated first class. All other enlistments are for four
years. Recruits must speak English. Landsmen are usually
sent to sea on special training-ships until proficient,
and are then sent into general service. Raw recruits may
enlist as landsmen, or coal-passers or mess attendants.
Ordinary seamen must have served two years, and seamen four
years before the mast, prior to first enlistment as such;
and before enlistment in any other rating allowed on first
enlistment, applicants must prove their ability to hold such
rating. Landsmen, coal-passers, &c., as soon as they become
proficient, are advanced to higher grades, and, if American
citizens, may eventually become petty officers (ranking with
army non-commissioned officers), with acting appointments.
In twelve months, or as soon thereafter as proficiency is
established, the acting appointment is made permanent, and an
acting appointment for the next higher grade is issued, &c.
Permanent appointments are not revokable except by sentence of
court-martial, and a man re-enlists in that rating for which
he held a permanent appointment in his previous enlistment.
All persons re-enlisting within four months after expiration
of previous enlistment are entitled to a bounty equal to four
months' pay, and in addition receive a ``continuous service
certificate,'' which entitles them to higher pay and to other
special considerations. The same is true for each re-enlistment.
When an enlisted man completes thirty years' service and is
over fifty years of age he may retire on three-fourths pay.
The Marine corps (see MARINES) is a wholly separate military
body, but it is under the control of the Navy Department.
United States naval vessels are, as a rule, built at
private yards under contracts awarded after competition.
The government is not committed to any fixed policy or
building programme. Each year the secretary recommends
certain new construction. The final action rests with
Congress, which must appropriate money for the new ships
before the construction can be commenced. Repairing and
reconstruction are usually done at government navy yards.
Ships in commission are distributed among five stations: (1)
the North Atlantic, i.e. the Atlantic coast of the United
States, Central America, and South America as far as the
Amazon, also the West Indies; (2) the South Atlantic, i.e.
the remainder of the Atlantic coast of South America and both
coasts of South Africa; (3) the European, comprising the coast
of Europe, including the inland seas, and the North Atlantic
coast of Africa; (4) the Asiatic station, comprising the
coast of Asia, including the islands north of the equator,
also the east coast of North Africa; (5) the Pacific station,
comprising the Pacific coast of North and South America,
and Australia and the adjacent islands lying south of the
equator. Each station is commanded by a flag officer, and
the number of ships under the command varies according to
circumstances. Ships in commission on special service,
such as training, gunnery, surveying ships, &c., are not
attached to stations. The shore stations of the navy
are enumerated in the article on DOCKYARDS. (W. T. S.)
ADMIRALTY, HIGH COURT OF. The High Court of Admiralty of
England was the court of the deputy or lieutenant of the
admiral. It is supposed in the Black Book of the Admiralty
to have been founded in the reign of Edward I.; but it would
appear, from the learned discussion of R. G. Marsden, that
it was established as a civil court by Edward III. in the
year 1360; the power of the admiral to determine matters of
discipline in the fleet, and possibly questions of piracy and
prize, being somewhat earlier. Even then the court as such
took no formal shape; but the various admirals began to receive
in their patents express grants of jurisdiction with powers to
appoint lieutenants or deputies. At first there were separate
admirals or rear-admirals of the north, south and west, each
with deputies and courts. A list of them was collected by Sir H.
Spelman. These were merged in or absorbed by one high court
early in the 15th century. Sir Thomas Beaufort, afterwards
earl of Dorset and duke of Exeter (appointed admiral of the
fleet 1407, and admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine 1412,
which latter office he held till his death in 1426), certainly
had a court, with a marshal and other officers, and forms of
legal process--mandates, warrants, citations, compulsories,
proxies, &c. Complaints of encroachment of jurisdiction by the
Admiralty Courts led to the restraining acts, 13 Ric. II. c. 5
(1389), 15 Ric. II. c. 3 (1391) and 2 Hen. IV. c. 11 (1400).
Jurisdiction.
The original object of the institution of the courts or court
seems to have been to prevent or punish piracy and other
crimes upon the narrow seas and to deal with questions of
prize; but civil jurisdiction soon followed. The jurisdiction
in criminal matters was transferred by the Offences at Sea
Act 1536 to the admiral or his deputy and three or four
other substantial persons appointed by the lord chancellor,
who were to proceed according to the course of the common
law. By the Central Criminal Court Act 1834, cognizance of
crimes committed within the jurisdiction of the admiralty
was given to the central criminal court. By an act of
1844 it has been also given to the justices of assize;
and crimes done within the jurisdiction of the admiralty
are now tried as crimes committed within the body of a
county. See also the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts of 1861.
From the time of Henry IV. the only legislation affecting
the civil jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty till
the time of Queen Victoria is to be found in an act of 1540,
enabling the admiral or his lieutenant to decide on certain
complaints of freighters against shipmasters for delay in
sailing, and one of 1562, giving the lord high admiral of
England, the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, their lieutenants
and judges, co-ordinate power with other judges to enforce
forfeitures under that act--a very curious and miscellaneous
statute called ``An Act for the Maintenance of the Navy.''
In an act of 1534, with regard to ecclesiastical appeals from
the courts of the archbishops to the crown, it is provided
that the appeal shall be to the king in Chancery, ``and
that upon every such appeal a commission shall be directed
under the great seal to such persons as shall be named by
the king's highness, his heirs or successors, like as in
cases of appeal from the Admiralty Court.'' The appeal to
these ``persons,'' called delegates, continued until it was
transferred first to the privy council and then to the judicial
committee of the privy council by acts of 1832 and 1833.
The early jurisdiction of the court appears to have been
exercised very much under the same procedure as that
used by the courts of common law. Juries are mentioned,
sometimes of the county and sometimes of the county and
merchants. But the connexion with foreign parts led to the
gradual introduction of a procedure resembling that coming
into use on the continent and based on the Roman civil
law. The Offences at Sea Act 1536 states the objection to
this application of the civil law to the trial of criminal
cases with much force: ``After the course of the civil laws,
the nature whereof is that before any judgment of death can be
given against the offenders, either they must plainly confess
their offences (which they will never do without torture or
pain), or else their offences be so plainly and directly
proved by witness indifferent such as saw their offences
committed, which cannot be gotten but by chance at few times.''
Restraining Acts.
The material enactments of the restraining statutes were as
follows:--An act of 1389 (13 Ric. II. c. 5) provided that ``the
admirals and their deputies shall not meddle from henceforth
of anything done within the realm, but only of a thing done
upon the sea, as it hath been used in the time of the noble
prince king Edward, grandfather of our lord the king that now
is.'' The act of 1391 (15 Ric. II. c. 3) provided that ``of
all manner of contracts, pleas and quarrels, and other things
rising within the bodies of the counties as well by land as by
water, and also of wreck of the sea, the admiral's court shall
have no manner of cognizance, power, nor jurisdiction; but all
such manner of contracts, pleas and quarrels, and all other
things rising within the bodies of counties, as well by land
as by water, as afore, and also wreck of the sea, shall be
tried, determined, discussed and remedied by the laws of the
land, and not before nor by the admiral, nor his lieutenant in
anywise. Nevertheless, of the death of a man, and of a
maihem done in great ships, being and hovering in the main
stream of great rivers, only beneath the [bridges] of the
same rivers [nigh] to the sea, and in none other places of
the same rivers, the admiral shall have cognizance, and also
to arrest ships in the great flotes for the great voyages
of the king and of the realm; saving always to the king all
manner of forfeitures and profits thereof coming; and he shall
have also jurisdiction upon the said flotes, during the said
voyages only; saving always to the lords, cities, and boroughs,
their liberties and franchises.'' The act of 1400 (2 Hen.
IV. c. 11) adds nothing by way of definition or restriction,
but merely gives additional remedies against encroachments,
providing heavy fines for those who improperly sue in the
court, and those officials of the court who improperly assert
jurisdiction. It was repealed by the Admiralty Court Act
1861. The statutes of Richard, except the enabling part of the
second, were repealed by the Civil Procedure Acts Repeal Act 1879.
The formation of a High Court of Justice rendered them obsolete.
In the reign of James I. the chronic controversies between
the courts of common law and the Admiralty Court as to the
limits of their respective jurisdictions reached an acute
stage. We find the records of it in the second volume of
Marsden's Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty, and in
Lord Coke's writings: Reports, part xiii. 51; Institutes,
part iv. chap. 22. In this latter passage Lord Coke records
how, notwithstanding an agreement asserted to have been made
in 1575 between the justices of the King's Bench and the
judge of the admiralty, the judges of the common law courts
successfully maintained their right to prohibit suits in
admiralty upon contracts made on shore, or within havens, or
creeks, or tidal rivers, if the waters were within the body
of any county, wheresoever such contracts were broken, for
torts committed within the body of a county, whether on land
or water, and for contracts made in parts beyond the seas.
It is due to the memory of the judges of Lord Coke's time to
say that, at any rate as regards contracts made in partibus
transmarinis, the same rule appears to have been applied at
least as early as 1544, the judges then holding that ``for
actions transitory abroad action may lie at common law.''
Judge's patent.
All the while, however, the patents of the admiralty
judge purported to confer on him a far ampler jurisdiction
than the jealousy of the other courts would concede to
him. The patent of the last judge of the court, Sir Robert
Joseph Phillimore, dated the 23rd of August 1867, styles him
``Lieut. Off. Princ. and Commissary Gen. and Special in
our High Court of Admiralty of Eng. and President and Judge
of the same,'' and gives to him power to take cognizance
of ``all causes, civil and maritime, also all contracts,
complaints, offences or suspected offences, crimes, pleas,
debts, exchanges, accounts, policies of assurance, loading of
ships, and all other matters and contracts which relate to
freight due for the use of ships, transportation, money or
bottomry; also all suits civil and maritime between merchants
or between proprietors of ships and other vessels for matters
in, upon, or by the sea, or public streams, or fresh-water
ports, rivers, nooks and places overflown whatsoever within
the ebbing and flowing of the sea and high-water mark, or
upon any of the shores or banks adjacent from any of the
first bridges towards the sea through England and Ireland
and the dominions thereof, or elsewhere beyond the seas.''
Power is also given to hear appeals from vice-admirals; also
``to arrest . . . according to the civil laws and ancient
customs of our high court . . . all ships, persons, things,
goods, wares and merchandise''; also ``to enquire by the
oaths of honest and lawful men . . . of all . . . things
which . . . ought to be enquired after, and to mulct, arrest,
punish, chastise and reform''; also ``to preserve the public
streams of our admiralty as well for the preservation of our
royal navy, and of the fleets and vessels of our kingdom .
. . as of whatsoever fishes increasing in the rivers''; also
``to reform nets too straight and other unlawful engines and
instruments whatsoever for the catching of fishes''; also to
take cognizance ``of the wreck of the sea . . . and of the
death, drowning and view of dead bodies,'' and the conservation
of the statutes concerning wreck of the sea and the office
of coroner [1276], and concerning pillages [1353], and ``the
cognizance of mayhem'' within the ebb and flow of the tide;
all in as ample manner and form as they were enjoyed by Dr
David Lewis [judge from 1558 to 1584], Sir Julius Caesar,
and the other judges in order (22 in all) before Sir Robert
Phillimore. This form of patent differs in but few respects
from the earlier Latin patents --tempore Henry VIII.--except
that they have a clause non obstantibus statutis.
Modern progress.
As has been said, however, the contention of the common
law judges prevailed, and the Admiralty Court (except for
a temporary revival under Cromwell) sank into comparative
insignificance during the 17th century. The great maritime
wars of the 18th century gave scope to the exercise of its
prize jurisdiction; and its international importance as a
prize court in the latter half of the 18th and the first
part of the 19th centuries is a matter of common historical
knowledge. There were upwards of 1000 prize causes each
year between 1803 and 1811, in some years upwards of 2000.
There were other great judges; but Sir William Scott, afterwards
Lord Stowell, is the most famous. Before his time there were
no reports of admiralty cases, except Hay and Marriott's prize
decisions. But from his time onwards there has been a continuous
stream of admiralty reports, and we begin to find important
cases decided on the instance as well as on the prize side.
In the reign of Queen Victoria, two enabling statutes, 1840 and
1861, were passed and greatly enlarged the jurisdiction of the
court. The manner in which these statutes were administered
by Dr Stephen Lushington and Sir R. J. Phillimore, whose
tenure of office covered the whole period of the queen's reign
till the creation of the High Court of Justice, the valuable
assistance rendered by the nautical assessors from the Trinity
House, the great increase of shipping, especially of steam
shipping, and the number and gravity of cases of collision,
salvage and damage to cargo, restored the activity of the
court and made it one of the most important tribunals of the
country. In 1875, by the operation of the Judicature Acts
of 1873 and 1875, the High Court of Admiralty was with the
other great courts of England formed into the High Court of
Justice. The principal officers of the court in subordination
to the judge were the registrar (an office which always points
to a connexion with canon or civil law), and the marshal, who
acted as the maritime sheriff, having for his baton of office
a silver oar. The assistance of the Trinity Masters, which
has been already mentioned, was provided for in the charter of
incorporation of the Trinity House. These officers and their
assistance have been preserved in the High Court of Justice.
Practitioners in the court.
Till the year 1859 the practitioners in the High Court
of Admiralty were the same as those in the ecclesiastical
courts and distinct from those who practised in the ordinary
courts. Advocates took the place of barristers, and proctors of
solicitors. The place of the attorney-general was taken
by the king's or queen's advocate-general, and that of the
treasury solicitor by the king's or queen's procurator or
proctor. There were also an admiralty advocate and an admiralty
proctor. The king's advocate also represented the crown in
the ecclesiastical courts, and was its standing adviser in
matters of international and foreign law. The king's advocate
led the bar of his courts, and before the privy council took
precedence of the attorney-general. The admiralty advocate
or advocate to his majesty in his office of admiralty
represented specially the lords of the admiralty. In the
Admiralty Court he ranked next after the king's advocate.
In an act of 1859 the practice was thrown open
to barristers and to attorneys and solicitors.
Upon the next vacancy after the courts were thrown open, the
crown altered the precedence and placed the queen's advocate
after the attorney- and solicitor-general. There were two
holders of the office under these conditions, Sir R. J.
Phillimore and Sir Travers Twiss. The office was not filled
up after the resignation of the latter. The admiralty had,
when the courts were thrown open, a standing counsel for the
ordinary courts and a solicitor. Questions soon arose as to
the respective claims of the admiralty advocate and the counsel
to the admiralty, and their acuteness was increased when the
courts were fused into one High Court of Justice. Upon the
resignation of Sir James Parker Deane the office of admiralty
advocate was not filled up. In like manner the proctor to the
admiralty has disappeared. The office of king's or queen's
proctor has been kept alive but amalgamated with that of the
solicitor for the treasury. That officer uses the title of
king's proctor when he appears in certain matrimonial causes.
The last holder of the office of standing counsel to the
admiralty was Alexander Staveley Hill, K.C.,M.P. Since his
death the office, like those of the king's or queen's advocate
and the admiralty advocate, has not been filled up; and the
ordinary law officers of the crown with the assistance of a
junior counsel to the admiralty (a barrister appointed by the
attorney-general) perform the duties of all these offices.
Judge advocate of the Fleet.
The judge advocate of the fleet is a practising barrister
whose function it is to advise the admiralty on all matters
connected with courts-martial. Though section 61 of the
Naval Discipline Act 1866 recognizes the possibility of his
presence at a court-martial, he does not nowadays attend,
but is represented by his deputy or by an officiating deputy
judge advocate appointed ad hoc by the admiralty, the
commander-in-chief of the fleet or squadron who convenes
the court-martial, or, if no such appointment is made,
by the president of the court-martial. But though the
judge advocate of the fleet does not actually attend the
courts-martial very responsible duties are imposed upon
him. By a minute of the Board passed in 1884 (which is still
in force) all proceedings of courts-martial on officers and
men of the royal navy, excepting those where the prisoner
pleads guilty and no evidence is taken, are to be referred to
him, with a view to the consideration of (a) the charge,
(b) the evidence on which the finding is based, and (c)
the legality of the sentence, and he writes a minute on each
case for the information of the lords commissioners of the
admiralty with regard to these points. He has no power to
modify a sentence, a power which is reserved to the admiralty
by sec. 53 (1) of the Naval Discipline Act 1866, except in the
case of a death sentence, which can only be remitted by the
crown. All cases where the prisoner has pleaded guilty are
examined in the admiralty, and if in any case there is any
reason to think that there has been any informality or that
the prisoner has not understood the effect of his plea, such
case is submitted to the judge advocate of the fleet for his
opinion. The judge advocate of the fleet receives no
fees but is remunerated by a salary of L. 500 per annum.
The existence of a deputy judge of the fleet appointed by
the admiralty has been recognized by the king's regulations,
but no such officer had been appointed up to 1908.
In accordance with the provisions of sec. 61 of the Naval Discipline
Act 1866, in the absence of the judge advocate of the fleet and
his deputy, an officiating judge advocate is appointed for each
court-martial. His duties are described in detail by the king's
regulations, but may be summed up as consisting of seeing that
the charges are in order, pointing out any informalities or
defects in the charges or in the constitution of the court,
seeing that any witness required by prosecutor or prisoner is
summoned, keeping the minutes of the proceedings, advising
on matters of law which arise at any time after the warrant
for the court-martial is issued, drawing up the findings and
sentence, and forwarding the minutes when completed to the
admiralty. The officiating judge advocate is usually the
secretary of the flag-officer convening the court-martial or
some other officer of the accountancy branch. He is remunerated
for his services by a fixed fee for each day the court sits.
Ireland. --The High Court of Admiralty of Ireland, being
formed on the same pattern as the High Court in England, sat in
the Four Courts, Dublin, having a judge, a registrar, a marshal
and a king's or queen's advocate. In peace time and war time
alike it exercised only an instance jurisdiction, though in
1793 it claimed to exercise prize jurisdiction (see ADMIRALTY
JURISDICTION.) No prize commission ever issued to it. By the
Irish Judicature Act of 1877 it was directed that it should
be amalgamated with the Irish High Court of Justice upon the
next vacancy in the office of judge, and this subsequently took
place. There was no separate lord high admiral for Ireland.
Scotland.--At the Union, while the national functions of
the lord high admiral were merged in the English office it was
provided by the Act of Union that the Court of Admiralty in
Scotland should be continued ``for determination of all maritime
cases relating to private rights in Scotland competent to the
jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court.'' This court continued till
1831, when its civil jurisdiction was given to the Court of
Session and the Sheriffs' Courts (see ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION),
See Sir Travers Twiss, Black Book of the Admiralty,
Rolls series; R. G. Marsden, Select Pleas in the Court of
Admiralty, published by the Selden Society; Godolphin,
View of the Admiral Jurisdiction. (W. G. F. P.)
1 The Board of Ordnance was originally instituted for the
navy, but eventually fell into military hands, to the detriment
of the navy --the only navy of any nation that has not full
authority over its own ordnance. In 1653, according to
Oppenheim, it was, owing to its inefficiency, placed under the
admiralty. In 1632 it appears to have been independent,
but ``still retained that evil pre-eminence in sloth and
incapacity it had already earned and has never since lost.''
2 Admiral Sir Cooper Key, when director of naval ordnance
during Mr Childers' administration, observed to the writer
that no first lord of the admiralty knew so little of
the working of the admiralty as Mr Childers, because,
owing to the discontinuance of board meetings, he lost
the great advantage of hearing the discussion. (R. V. H.)
3 The drawback is, that a naval lord can only go on leave by
throwing all his work on a colleague already overweighted with work.
ADMIRALTY ISLANDS, a group of about forty islands lying north
of New Guinea, between 1 deg. and 3 deg. S., and 146 deg. and 148 deg.
E., within the Bismarck Archipelago, belonging to Germany.
The largest, Manus, is about 60 m. in length, and its highest
point is about 3000 ft. above the sea; the others are very
small, and rise little above sea-level. Most are of coral
formation, but the hills of Manus are believed to be extinct
volcanoes. The islands were discovered by the Dutch in 1616,
and visited in 1767 by Philip Carteret; but no landing seems
to have been effected, owing to the surrounding reefs, until
the arrival of the ``Challenger'' in 1875. The natives are
of the Papuan type, but show signs of mixed origin. They
are cannibals, and many murders of whites have taken place.
ADMIRALTY JURISDICTION. The courts by which, as far as we
know, admiralty jurisdiction in civil matters was first
exercised were the following. In and throughout England the
courts of the several admirals soon combined into one High
Court of Admiralty (see ADMIRALTY, HIGH COURT OF.) Within
the territories of the Cinque Ports the Court of Admiralty
of the Cinque Ports exercised a co-ordinate jurisdiction.
In certain towns and places there were local courts of
vice-admiralty. In Scotland there existed the Scottish
High Court of Admiralty, in Ireland the Irish High Court of
Admiralty. Of these courts that of the Cinque Ports alone
remains untouched. The Scottish court was abolished, and
its civil jurisdiction given to the Court of Session and
to the courts of the sheriffs by the Court of Session Act
1830--not, however, till a decision given by it and the appeal
therefrom to the House of Lords had established a remarkable
rule of admiralty law in cases of collision (Hay v. le
Neve, 1824, 2 Shaw, Sc. App. Cas. 395). The act states
that the Court of Justiciary held cumulative jurisdiction
with the Court of Admiralty in criminal matters. The local
vice-admiralty courts in England had ceased to do much work
when they were abolished by the Municipal Corporations Act
1835; the High Court became, with the other superior courts,
a component part of the High Court of Justice by virtue of
the Judicature Acts 1873 and 1875. And the Irish court has
in like manner become a part of the High Court of Justice
in Ireland by virtue of the Judicature Act passed in 1877.
Vice-Admiralty Courts.
As England first, and Great Britain afterwards, acquired
colonies and possessions beyond seas, vice-admiralty courts
were established. The earliest known was that in Jamaica,
established in the year 1662. Some vice- admiralty courts
which were created for prize purposes in the last century were
suffered to expire after 1815. In the year 1863, when the
act regulating the vice-admiralty courts was passed, there
were vice-admiralty courts at Antigua, Bahamas, Barbadoes,
Bermuda, British Columbia, British Guiana, British Honduras,
Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Dominica, Falkland Islands,
Gambia River, Gibraltar, Gold Coast, Grenada, Hong Kong,
Jamaica, Labuan, Lagos, Lower Canada (otherwise Quebec),
Malta, Mauritius, Montserrat, Natal, Nevis, New Brunswick,
Newfoundland, New South Wales, New Zealand, Nova Scotia
(otherwise Halifax), Prince Edward Island, Queensland, St
Christopher, St Helena, St Lucia, St Vincent, Sierra Leone,
South Australia, Tasmania, Tobago, Trinidad, Vancouver's
Island, Victoria, Virgin Islands (otherwise Tortola), and
Western Australia, and (for matters of the slave trade only)
Aden. By the act of 1867 one for the Straits Settlements was
added. These courts have been regulated from time to time
by the following statutes: 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 51, 26 and
27 Vict. c. 24 (Vice-Admiralty Courts Act 1863), already
cited, and 30 and 31 Vict. c. 45 (Vice-Admiralty Courts
Act Amendment Act 1867); and by the slave trade acts, of
which the last and consolidating act was that of 1873.
In 1890 the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act provided that,
except in the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, St
Helena and British Honduras, vice-admiralty courts should be
abolished, and a substitution made of colonial courts of
admiralty. There is power, however, reserved to the crown
to erect through the admiralty in any British possession any
vice-admiralty court, except in India or any British possession
having a representative legislature. No vice-admiralty
court so established can exercise any jurisdiction except
for some purpose relating to prize, the royal navy, the slave
trade, foreign enlistment, Pacific Islanders' protection, and
questions relating to treaties or conventions on international
law. Vice-admiralty courts exercised all usual admiralty
jurisdiction, and in addition a certain revenue jurisdiction,
and jurisdiction over matters of slave trade and prize and
under the Pacific Islanders' Protection Act. The appeal from
vice-admiralty courts used to lie to the High Court of Admiralty
of England, but has been transferred to the king in council.
Colonial Courts of Admiralty.
By the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act 1890, already
referred to, every court of law in a British possession
which is declared by its legislature to be such, or if
there be no such declaration, which has original unlimited
civil jurisdiction, shall be a court of admiralty.
India.
There used at one time to be vice-admiralty courts for Calcutta,
Madras and Bombay; but by the India High Courts Act 1861, sec. 9, the
admiralty jurisdiction is given to the High Courts of these places.
Consular Courts.
Consular courts established in Turkey, China and Japan have
had admiralty jurisdiction given to them, and by sec. 12 of
the Colonial Admiralty Courts Act any court established by
H.M. for the exercise of jurisdiction in any place outside
H.M.'s dominion may have admiralty jurisdiction granted to it.
Australia.
By the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900
a federal supreme court, to be called the High Court of
Australia, is created, and the parliament of the Commonwealth
may make laws conferring original jurisdiction on the High
Court in matters of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,
The Isle of Man.
There is a court of admiralty in the Isle of Man of which
the water-bailiff is judae. He is also styled admiral.
It is said to have jurisdiction in salvage and over other
maritime matters occurring within 3 leagues from the shore.
County Local Courts.
Modern statutes have given admiralty jurisdiction to the City
of London Court, the Court of Passage and to the county courts
in the following matters: Salvage, where the value of the
salved property does not exceed L. 1000, or the claim for reward
L. 300; towage, necessaries and wages, where the claim does
not exceed L. 150; claims for damage to cargo, or by collision,
up to L. 300 (and for sums above these prescribed limits by
agreement between the parties); and claims arising out of
breaches of charter parties and other contracts for carriage
of goods in foreign ships, or torts in respect thereof, up to
L. 300. This jurisdiction is restricted to subjects over which
jurisdiction was possessed by the High Court of Admiralty at
the time when the first of these acts was passed, except as
regards the last branch of it (the ``Aline,'' 1880, 5 Ex.
Div. 227; R. v. Judge of City of London Court, 1892, 1 Q.B.
272). In analogy with the county court admiralty jurisdiction
created in England, a limited admiralty jurisdiction has
been given in Ireland to the recorders of certain boroughs
and the chairmen of certain quarter sessions; and in salvage
cases, where a county court in England would have jurisdiction,
magistrates, recorders and chairmen of quarter sessions may
have jurisdiction as official arbitrators (Merchant Shipping
Act 1894, sec. 547). In Scotland, admiralty suits in cases
not exceeding the value of L. 25 are exclusively tried in the
sheriff's court; while over that limit the sheriff's court
and the Court of Session have concurrent jurisdiction. The
sheriff has also criminal admiralty jurisdiction, but only
as to crimes which he would be competent to try if committed
on land (The Court of Session Act 1830, sec. sec. 21 and 22).
By an act of 1821 an arbitral jurisdiction in cases of salvage
was given to certain commissioners of the Cinque Ports.
Appeals.
The appeal from county courts and commissioners is to the
High Court of Justice, and is exercised by a divisional court
of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. In cases
arising within the Cinque Ports there is an optional appeal
to the Admiralty Court of the Cinque Ports. The appeal from
the High Court of Justice is in ordinary admiralty matters,
as in others, to the Court of Appeal, and from thence to
the House of Lords. But it is specially provided by the
Judicature Act 1891, as it was by the Prize Act 1864, that the
appeal in prize cases shall be to the sovereign in council.
The unfortunate provisions of the legislature, giving to
the jurisdiction of county courts different money limits in
admiralty equity and common law cases, make the distinction
between cases coming under the admiralty jurisdiction and other
civil cases of practical moment in those courts. Arguments
full of learning and research have been addressed to the
courts, and weighty decisions have been given, upon questions
which would never have arisen if the county courts had not a
larger money area of jurisdiction in admiralty cases than they
have in in other matters (R. v. Judge of City of London
Court, 1892, 1 Q.B. 273; the ``Zeta,'' 1893, App. Cas.
468). But as regards the high courts, whether in England,
Scotland or Ireland, it is not now necessary to distinguish
their civil admiralty jurisdiction from their ordinary civil
jurisdiction, except for the purpose of seeing whether there
can or cannot be process in rem. Not that every admiralty
action can of right be brought in rem, but that no process
in rem lies at the suit of a subject unless it be for a matter
of admiralty jurisdiction--one, for instance, that could in
England have been tried in the High Court of Admiralty. Now
these matters of admiralty jurisdiction with process in rem
range themselves under four primary and four supplementary
heads. The four primary are damage, salvage, bottomry,
wages; and the four supplementary are extensions due to one
or other of the statutes of 1840 (Admiralty Court) and 1861
(Admiralty Court Act). They are damage to cargo carried in a
ship, necessaries supplied to a ship, mortgage of ship, and
master's claim for wages and disbursements on account of a
ship. In all these cases, primary and secondary, the process
of which a plaintiff can avail himself for redress, may be
either in personam as in other civil suits, or by arrest
of the ship, and, in cases of salvage and bottomry, the
cargo. Whenever, also, the ship can be arrested, any freight
due can also be attached, by arrest of the cargo to the extent
only of the freight which it has to pay. For the purpose of
ascertaining whether or not process in rem would lie, there
have been distinctions as nice, and the line of admiralty
jurisdiction has been drawn as carefully, as in the cases of the
admiralty jurisdiction of the county courts (the ``Theta,''
1894, Prob. 280; the ``Gas Float Whitton,'' 1897, App. Cas.
337). There have been similar questions raised in the United
States, from De Lovio v. Boit (1815, 2 Gallison, 398),
and Ramsay v. Allegre (1827, 12 Wheaton, 611), down to
the quite modern cases which will be found quoted in the
arguments and judgments in the ``Gas Float Whitton.''
Disciplinary.
The disciplinary jurisdiction at one time exercised by
the Admiralty Court, over both the royal navy and merchant
vessels, may be said to be obsolete in time of peace, the
last remnant of it being suits against merchantmen for
flying flags appropriate to men-of-war (the ``Minerva,''
1800, 3 C. Rob. 34), a matter now more effectively provided
against by the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. In time of war,
however, it was exercised in some instances as long as the
Admiralty Court lasted, and is now in consequence exercisable
by the High Court of Justice (see Prize below). It
was, perhaps, in consequence of its ancient disciplinary
jurisdiction that the Admiralty Court was made the court to
enforce certain portions of the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.
Finally, appeals from decisions of courts of inquiry, under the
Merchant Shipping Act, cancelling or suspending the certificates
of officers in the merchant service, may be made to the Probate,
Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice.
Criminal cases.
The admiralty jurisdiction in criminal matters extends over
all crimes committed on board British ships at sea or in
tidal waters, even though such tidal waters be well within
foreign territory (R. v. Anderson, 1868, L.R. 1 C.C.R.
161), but not over crimes committed on board foreign vessels
upon the high seas (R. v. Serva, 1845, 1 Denison C.C.
104). Whether it extended over crimes committed on foreign
ships within territorial waters of the United Kingdom, and
whether a zone of three miles round the shores of the United
Kingdom was for such purpose territorial water, were the
great questions raised in R. v. Keyn (the ``Franconia,''
L.R. 2 Ex. Div. 126), and decided in the negative by the
majority of the judges, rightly, as the writer of this
article respectfully thinks. Since then, however, the
legislature has brought these waters within the jurisdiction
of the admiralty by the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act
1878. Section 2 runs as follows: ``An offence committed
by a person, whether he is or is not a British subject,
on the open sea within the territorial waters of British
dominions, is an offence within the jurisdiction of the
admiral, although it may have been committed on board or by
means of a foreign ship, and the person who committed such
offence may be arrested, tried and punished accordingly.''
By sec. 7 the ``jurisdiction of the admiral'' is defined as
``including the jurisdiction of the admiralty of England or
Ireland, or either of such jurisdictions as used in any act
of parliament; and for the purpose or arresting any person
charged with an offence declared by this act to be within the
jurisdiction of the admiral, the territorial waters adjacent
to the United Kingdom, or any other part of her majesty's
dominions, shall be deemed to be within the jurisdiction of any
judge, magistrate or officer.'' And ``territorial waters of
her majesty's dominions'' are defined as ``in reference to the
sea, meaning such part of the sea adjacent to the coast of
the United Kingdom, or the coast of some other part of her
majesty's dominions, as is deemed by international law to be
within the territorial sovereignty of her majesty; and for
the purpose of any offence declared by this act to be within
the jurisdiction of the admiral, any part of the open sea
within one marine league of the coast, measured from low-water
mark, shall be deemed to be open sea within the territorial
waters of her majesty's dominions.'' As to those portions of
the sea and tidal waters which, by reason of their partially
land-locked positions, are deemed to be in the body of a
county, there is not admiralty jurisdiction, but crimes are
tried as if they were committed on land within the same county.
Pirates, whatever flag they pretended to fly, were, from
1360 onwards, wherever their crimes were committed, subject
to the admiralty jurisdiction. The criminal jurisdiction
of the admiralty was first exercised by the High Court of
Admiralty; and then, by virtue of the Offences at Sea Act 1536,
transferred to commissioners appointed under the great seal,
among whom were to be the admiral or admirals, his or their
deputies. Admiralty sessions were held for this purpose till
1834. Admiralty criminal jurisdiction is now, by virtue
of the series of statutes, the Offences at Sea Act 1799,
the Central Criminal Court Act 1834, Offences at Sea Act
1844, and the criminal law consolidation acts passed in
1861, exercised by the Central Criminal Court and by the
ordinary courts of assize. Special provision for trial
in the colonies of offences committed at sea has been made
by an act of William III. (1698-1699), the Offences at Sea
Act 1806, and the Admiralty Offences (Colonial) Act 1849.
Prize.
The Admiralty Court had jurisdiction in matters of prize from
very early times; and although since the middle of the 17th
century the instance, or ordinary civil jurisdiction of the
court, has been kept distinct from the prize jurisdiction,
they were originally both administered and regarded as
being within the ordinary jurisdiction of the lord high
admiral. The early records of the admiralty show that the
origin of the prize jurisdiction is to be traced to the power
given to the court of the admiral to try cases of piracy
and ``spoil,'' i.e. captures of foreign ships by English
ships. The earliest recorded case of spoil tried before the
admiral is in 1357, when the goods of a Portuguese subject,
taken at sea by Englishmen from a French ship which had
previously spoiled a Portuguese, were awarded by the admiral as
good prize to the English captors; and Edward III. in a letter
to the king of Portugal answering a complaint on the subject
gives the admiral's decision as a reason for refusing their
restoration. During the 16th century a very large part of
the business of the Admiralty Court related to spoil and
piracy, and the privy council often directed the judge of the
court how to deal with the spoil cases, with regard to which
foreigners who had suffered from attacks by English ships
made petition for redress to the admiral or the council.
The spoil suit at this time (causa spolii) was a civil
proceeding resulting in a decree absolutoria, dismissing
the defendant, or condemnatoria, ordering restoration
to be made by him. In 1585 the patent of Howard, the lord
high admiral, authorized him to issue letters of reprisal
against Spain; and an order in council regulating the conduct
of those to whom such letters were issued provided by an
additional article (1859) that all prizes were to be brought
in without breaking of bulk for adjudication by the Admiralty
Court. The court was also resorted to at this time by
captors, sailing under commissions granted by the allies of
England, such as the king of France and the Dutch. About
the middle of the 17th century separate sittings of the court
for instance and prize business began, perhaps because of
the conflicting claims to droits of Charles II. and the
duke of York as lord high admiral; and privateering under
royal commission took the place of the former irregular
``spoiling.'' The account which Lord Mansfield gave of the
records of the Admiralty Court, that there were no prize
act books earlier than 1641, or prize sentences earlier than
1648, and that before 1690 the records were in confusion, must
be qualified by the correction that there are in existence
prize sentences (on paper, not parchment) as early as 1589.
Although the courts of common law hardly ever seem to have
interfered with or disputed the admiralty prize jurisdiction,
its exclusive nature was not finally admitted till 1782; but
long previously royal ordinances (1512, 1602) and statutes
(1661, giving an alternative of commissioners, 1670, 1706) had
given the Admiralty Court the only express jurisdiction over
prize. The same statute of Anne and acts of 1739 and 1744 give
prize jurisdiction to any court of admiralty, and the courts
of admiralty for the colonies and plantations in North America.
It has been a disputed question whether the prize jurisdiction
of the court was inherent, i.e. coming within the powers
given by the general patent of the judge, in which no express
mention of it is made, or whether it required a special
commission. Upon this subject the judgment of Lord Mansfield
in Lindo v. Rodney (1782, Dougl. 612), the judgment
of Mr Justice Story in De Lovio v. Boit (1815, 2
Gallison, 398), and Marsden's Select Pleas of the Court
of Admiralty (introduction), may be consulted. But the
settled practice now and for a long time past has been
for a special commission and warrant to be issued for this
purpose. In connexion with this it is observable that in
1793 the Admiralty Court of Ireland claimed to exercise
prize jurisdiction under its general patent; and it is said
to have been the opinion of Sir W. Wynne that the Admiralty
Court of Scotland had a similar right (Brown, Civil Law of
Admiralty, vol. ii. 211, 212). Any jurisdiction of the
Scottish court over prize of war was transferred to the
English court by the Court of Session Act 1825, sec. 57. As
to the Irish court, by the Act of Union it was provided that
there should remain in Ireland an instance court of admiralty
for the determination of causes civil and maritime only.
In 1864 the constitution and procedure of prize courts,
which had until then been prescribed by occasional acts
passed for each war as it arose, were for the first time made
permanent by the Naval Prize Act, by which the High Court
of Admiralty and every admiralty or vice-admiralty court, or
any other court exercising admiralty jurisdiction in British
dominions, if for the time being authorized to exercise prize
jurisdiction, were made prize courts. The High Court of
Admiralty was given jurisdiction throughout British dominions
as a prize court, and, as such, power to enforce any order
of a vice-admiralty prize court and the judicial committee
of the privy council in prize appeals-- this power mutatis
mutandis being also given to vice-admiralty prize courts.
An appeal was given from any prize court to the sovereign in
council. Prize courts were given jurisdiction in cases of
captures made in a land expedition or an expedition made
conjointly with allied forces, and power to give prize salvage
on recaptured ships and prize bounty; and a form of procedure
was prescribed. The High Court was also given exclusive
jurisdiction as a prize court over questions of ransom
and petitions of right in prize cases, and power to punish
masters of ships under convoy disobeying orders or deserting
convoy. By the Naval Discipline Act 1866, power to award
damages to convoyed ships exposed to danger by the fault of
the officer in charge of the convoy was also given to the High
Court. Under other statutes it had power to try questions
of booty of war when referred to it by the crown, in the
same way as prize causes, and claims of king's ships for
salvage on recaptures from pirates, which could be condemned
as droits of admiralty, subject to the owner's right to
receive them on paying one-eighth of the value, and also
power to seize and restore prizes captured by belligerents
in violation of British neutrality, or by a ship equipped in
British ports contrary to British obligations of neutrality.
All jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty has since
passed to the High Court of Justice, which is made a prize
court under the Naval Prize Act, with all the powers of the
Admiralty Court in that respect; and all prize causes and
matters within the jurisdiction of that court as a prize
court are assigned to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty
Division; and an appeal from it as a prize court lies only
to the king in council (Judicature Acts 1873 and 1891).
By an act of 1894 further provision is made for the constitution
of prize courts in British possessions. A commission, warrant
or instruction from the crown or the admiralty may be issued
at any time, even in peace; and upon such issue, subject to
instructions from the crown, the vice-admiral of the possessions
on being satisfied by information from a secretary of state
that war has broken out between Great Britain and a foreign
state, may make proclamation to that effect, and the commission
or warrant comes into effect. The commission or warrant
may authorize a vice-admiralty court or colonial court of
admiralty to act as a prize court, or establish a vice-admiralty
court for that purpose, and may be revoked or altered at any
time. The court is authorized to act as a prize court during
the war, and shall after its conclusion continue to act as
such, and finally dispose of all matters and things arising
during the war, including all penalties and forfeitures incurred
therein. Rules of court may also be made by order in council
for regulating, subject to the Naval Prize Act, the procedure
and practice of prize courts under that act, the duties and
conduct of their officers and practitioners, and the fees
and costs therein (Prize Courts Act 1894, sec. sec. 2, 3). This
latter power has been exercised; and prize rules for the
High Court of Justice and the vice- admiralty prize courts
were framed in 1898 (Statutory Rules and Orders, 1898).
AUTHORITIES.--Marsden, Select Pleas of the Court of
Admiralty, Selden Society, London, 1892 and 1897; Zouch,
Jurisdiction of the Admiralty of England asserted; Robinson,
Collectanea Maritima; Brown, Admiralty; Edwardes, Admiralty;
Phillimore, International Law, vol. i., vol. iii. part xi.;
Pritchard, Admiralty Digest, tit. Jurisdiction. (W. G. F. P.)
UNITED STATES The source of admiralty jurisdiction in
the United States is Article 3, sec. 2 of the United States
Constitution:--``The judicial power shall extend to all
cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.'' The United
States Supreme Court has declared that by virtue of these
words the admiralty jurisdiction extends not only to the
high seas but to the great lakes and the rivers connecting
them, and to all public navigable waters in the United
States (the ``Genesee Chief'' v. Fitz Hugh, 12 Howards
U.S. Rep. 443), including even interstate canals (Ex.
p. Boyer, 109 U.S. Rep. 629, the ``Robert W. Parsons,''
[1903] 191 U.S. 17), and is not confined to tide waters. The
American colonies had vice-admiralty courts with an admiralty
jurisdiction equal to the largest claimed by the English
admiralty courts even under Edward III. When they became
states they delegated to the federal government their several
``admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,'' using these words
in the sense understood in every country in Europe, England
excepted, and in the sense in which they had then been used
in the colonies for a long time, and without reference to
the very narrow jurisdiction of the English admiralty courts
then existing (Waring v. Clark, 5 Howards U.S. Rep. 441).
It is settled as to the United States admiralty jurisdiction
not that it is ``co-equal with that of the original English,
or that of continental European admiralty, but is rather that
defined by the statutes of Richard II., under the construction
given to them by contemporary or immediately subsequent courts
of admiralty'' (2 Parsons Adm. 176), and that it embraced all
maritime contracts, torts, injuries or offences (De Lovio v.
Boit, 2 Gallisons Rep. 398; Waring v. Clark, 5 Howards
U.S. Rep. 441), and that it has never been restricted by the
action of the common law courts as in England under Lord Coke (2
Parsons Adm. 166 n.; Waring v. Clark; De Lovio v. Bolt.)
Original admiralty jurisdiction was by the Judiciary Act of 1789
(U.S. Rev. Stats. sec. 563) granted to the United States district
courts exclusively, except that concurrent original jurisdiction
was given to United States circuit courts over seizures for
slave trading, and condemnations of property used by persons
in insurrection (sec. 629; sec. 5309), and in the coolie trade
(sec. 2159), and by the act of the 3rd of March 1901; the supreme
court of the District of Columbia is given the same jurisdiction
as the district and circuit courts. The Supreme Court of
the United States has no original jurisdiction in admiralty.
All suits are brought in the first instance in the district
court. Appeals lie, both on the law and on the facts, from
a final decree of that court to the circuit court of appeals
only, except in cases involving the jurisdiction of the court,
the constitutionality of a law of any state or of the United
States, or the validity or construction of any treaty of the
United States, and except cases of prize and capital or infamous
crime, in which cases of appeal lies directly to the supreme
court. In cases of gravity and importance the Supreme Court
may by certiorari review the judgment of the circuit court
of appeals, but such cases are rare (re Lau Ow Bew, 141
U.S. Rep 587; Benedict's The American Admiralty, sec. 607).
Formerly the Judiciary Act authorized an appeal from the
district court to the circuit court, and thence to the Supreme
Court. But the act of the 3rd of March 1891 (Ch. 517)
abolished this and created the circuit court of appeals, making
it the final appellate court in admiralty, except as above
stated. In any case where the district judge is unable to
perform his duties or is disqualified by reason of interest
or of relationship, or has acted as counsel for one of the
parties to the action, it may be removed to the circuit
court in that district (U.S. Rev. Stats. sec. sec. 587, 589 and
601). These are now the only cases in which admiralty suits
can come before the circuit court (Benedict's Adm. sec. 321).
The subject matter in cases of contract determines the
jurisdiction (the ``General Smith,'' 4 Wheaton U.S. Rep.
438), and not the presence or absence of tide, salt water,
current, nor that the water be an inland basin or land-locked,
or a river, nor by its being a harbour, or a port within
the body of the county, nor that a remedy exists at common
law. The admiralty courts have jurisdiction over all
matters that concern owners and proprietors of ships as
such; possessory actions and petitory actions to try title
of a ship; cases of mariners' wages, wharfage, dockage,
lighterage, stevedores, contracts of affreightment, charter
parties, rights of passengers as such (the ``Moses Taylor,''
71 U.S. Rep. 411), pilotage, towage, maritime liens and
loans, bottomry, respondentia and hypothecation of ship and
cargo, marine insurance, average, jettison, demurrage,
collisions, consortship, bounties, survey and sale of vessel,
salvage; seizures under the laws of impost navigation or
trade, cases of prize, ransom, condemnation, restitution
and damages; assaults, batteries, damages and trespasses on
the high seas and navigable waters of the United States; but
not suits in rem for duties (Benedict's Adm. sec. 303a).
The U.S. Supreme Court has held in Peoples Ferry Co. v. Beers,
20 Howards U.S. Rep. 393, and in a series of subsequent cases
that a contract to build a vessel is not a maritime contract (the
``Robert W. Parsons''). Contracts to furnish cargo for ships
and to furnish ships to carry the cargoes are maritime contracts
(Graham v. Oregon R. & N. Co., [1905] 135 Fed. Rep. 608).
Whenever there is a maritime lien, even though created by
state statute as to a ship in her home port, it may be enforced
by suit in rem in admiralty in the federal courts (the ``
General . Smith''; the ``Lottawanna,'' 21 Wallace Rep.
558, Benedict's Adm. sec. 270). In all suits by material men
for supplies and repairs or other necessaries for a foreign
ship, the libellant may proceed against the ship and freight
in rem or against the master or owner in personam (12th
Admiralty Rule; Benedict's Adm. sec. 268; the ``General
Smith''). Actions in rem and in personam may be joined
in the same libel (Newell v. Norton, 3 Wallace 257; the
``Normandie,'' 40 Fed. Rep. 590). But a contract to furnish
fishermen with clothing, tobacco and other personal effects
for use on a voyage is not a maritime contract, and a court
of admiralty has no jurisdiction to enforce it in rem (the
``May F. Chisholm,'' 1904; 129 Fed. Rep. 814). The state
courts have no jurisdiction in rem over any maritime contract
or tort (the ``Lottawanna,'' the ``Belfast,'' 7 Wallace Rep.
624). Admiralty jurisdiction in tort depends on locality;
it must have occurred on the high seas or other navigable
waters within admiralty cognizance (2 Farsons Adm. 347; the
``Plymouth,'' 3 Wallace Rep. 20; the ``Genesee Chief'' v.
Fitz-Hugh, the ``Blackheath,'' [1903] 122 Fed. Rep. 112).
The U.S. Supreme Court in the ``Harrisburg'' (119 U.S. 199)
and the ``Alaska'' (130 U.S. 207), after some conflict of
opinion, held that the admiralty courts have no jurisdiction
under the general admiralty law to try an action for damages
for negligence on the high seas, causing death of a human
being, while there was no act of Congress and no statute
of the state to which the vessel belonged giving such
right of action (Benedict's Adm. sec. sec. 275-309a), nor
where such statute is that of a foreign country (Rundell
v. Compagnie Generale, [1899] 94 Fed. Rep. 366).
Admiralty has jurisdiction in cases of spoliation and
piracy, collision and proceedings by owners to limit
their liability under U.S. Rev. Stats. sec. sec. 4281-9.
The United States admiralty courts have always had jurisdiction
in matters of prize (The Prize Cases, 2 Black U.S. Rep.
635). The district courts have exclusive original jurisdiction
(except that circuit courts also have jurisdiction when prize
is taken from persons in insurrection), and the supreme court
of the District of Columbia now has concurrent jurisdiction
(U.S. v. Sampson, 1902, 187 U.S. 436) and appeals are direct
to the Supreme Court. Special commissioners are appointed
on the breaking out of hostilities to act under the orders of
the district courts (U.S. Rev. Stats. sec. 4621, Prize Rule 9;
Benedict's Adm. sec. 509; 680 Pieces Merchandise, 2 Sprague
233). These commissioners take the depositions of witnesses
and report to the court the evidence upon which it adjudicates.
Proceedings in prize cases must be in conformity with admiralty
proceedings, where the seizure is on land (Union Insurance Co.
v. U.S., 6 Wallace 759; 2 Parsons Adm. 174). The district
courts have all the powers of a court of admiralty whether
as instance or prize courts (Glass v. sloop ``Betsy,''
3 Dallas 6). To adjudicate in matters of prize is one of the
ordinary functions of that court (Benedict's Adm. sec. 509).
The admiralty courts have jurisdiction over crimes and offences
committed upon vessels belonging to citizens of the United States
on the high seas or any arm of the sea or any waters within
the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States
(U.S. Rev. Stats. sec. 5339). High seas include the great
lakes ( U.S. v. Rogers, 150 U.S. 249). (J. A. BA.)
OTHER COUNTRIES
France, and countries following France.
In France, and in Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece
--countries which have adopted codes based on the Code
Napoleon--the civil, or, as it would have been formerly called
in England, the ``instance,'' jurisdiction of the admiralty
is exercised by the ordinary tribunals, and there are no
separate courts of admiralty for this purpose. France and
some other countries have special commercial tribunals, which
deal with shipping matters, but also with ordinary commercial
cases. France has also tribunaux maritimes commerciaux
(Code disciplinaire et penal de la marine marchande du 24
mars 1852, loi du 11 mars 1891) to deal with maritime
offences. Austria adopts the French law in commercial
matters. Italy had tribunals of commerce, but has given them
up. She has, however, by Art. 14 of her Merchant Shipping Code,
given jurisdiction to captains of ports to decide collision
cases when the sum in dispute does not exceed 200 lire.
Germany.
In Germany there are no special tribunals for admiralty matters.
Kammern fur Handelssachen, commercial courts, have been
established in Berlin and some of the principal seaports. These
deal with shipping matters, but also with all other commercial suits.
Scandinavian nations.
In Denmark, Sweden and Norway there is a maritime code which
came into force in Sweden in 1891, in Denmark in 1892, and
in Norway in 1893. This was intended to be one code for the
three countries; but each country as it finally adopted the
code made some modifications of its own. Under this code
there are in Norway permanent maritime courts for each town
presided over by the judge of the inferior local civil court
(civile underdommer), or if there be more than one such
judge then by the president, with two assessors chosen out of a
list. Temporary local courts, consisting of the same judge
with two other members of nautical skill and knowledge, can
be constituted in districts where there are no permanent
courts. Appeals lie to the supreme court (Hoiesterei.)
In Denmark maritime cases are brought before the local
courts constituted for maritime and commercial causes
(So-og-Handelsret.) In Sweden maritime cases are brought
before local courts of first instance consisting of a
judge and assessors. There is an intermediate appeal to
courts of second instance, and then to the supreme court,
which finally decides upon all causes civil and commercial.
Maritime cases in Holland are tried by the ordinary
civil tribunals, with the same right of appeal.
Prize jurisdiction.
``By the maritime law of nations universally and immemorially
received there is an established method of determination
whether the capture be or be not lawful prize. Before the
ship or goods can be disposed of by the captor there must
be a regular judicial proceeding wherein both parties may
be heard and condemnation thereupon as prize in a court of
admiralty judging by the law of nations and treaties. . . .
If the sentence of the court of admiralty is thought to be
erroneous, there is in every maritime country a superior court
of review. . . .'' (duke of Newcastle's letter to M. Michell,
secretary to the embassy of the king of Prussia, 1753). ``So
far as belligerent states do not make a practice of giving
up the taking of booty at sea . . . they are required by
international law to establish prize tribunals and thus give to
their proceedings in the matter of prize a judicial character''
(v . Holtzendorff, Rechtslexikon, tit. ``Prisengerichte'').
In France till the death of the duke of Montmorency in 1632
prize matters were adjudicated upon by the admiral. The duke
had sold the office of admiral some years before his death to
Cardinal Richelieu; but about the period of the duke's death
the office of admiral appears to have been abolished, and one
of grand master of navigation established in lieu. This new
office was first held by Cardinal Richelieu and continued till
1695. The grand master took the admiral's place in matters
of prize; but in 1659 a commission of councillors of state
and masters of requests was appointed to assist the grand
master and form a Conseil des Prises. From this conseil
there was an appeal to the Conseil d'Etat. When the office
of admiral was restored in 1695 he exercised his jurisdiction
in prize matters with the assistance of the Conseil des
Prises. The appeal was then given to the Conseil Royal des
Finances. The Ordonnance sur la marine of August 1681
regulated the procedure. This system continued till the
Revolution. The last Conseil des Prises was appointed in
1778. A law of the 14th of February 1793 abolished the
Conseil des Prises and gave cognizance of prize matters
``provisionally'' to the tribunals of commerce. On the 8th
of November 1793 (18 Brumaire, an II.) this jurisdiction
was taken from the tribunals of commerce and given to the
Conseil Executif. Later it was given to the Comite de
Salut Public. On the 25th of October 1795 (3 Brumaire,
an IV.) the jurisdiction was restored to the tribunals of
commerce. This was again altered on the 27th of March 1800 (6
Germinal, an VIII.), when a Conseil des Prises was established,
consisting of nine councillors of state, a commissary of the
government and a secretary, all nominated by the First Consul.
On the 11th of June 1806 an appeal was given to the Conseil
d'Etat. It was disputed among French jurists whether the
Conseil des Prises was to be considered as a body actuated
only by political considerations or one exercising what
the French term an ``administrative jurisdiction''; which
is, as nearly as a parallel to it can be found in England,
administration of justice between individuals and the state.
As most of the cases arising out of the great wars had
been dealt with, an ordinance of the 9th of January 1815
suppressed the Conseil des Prises and directed the Comite
du contentieux of the Conseil d'Etat to prepare the
remaining prize matters for decision by the Conseil d'Etat.
Such prize matters (probably including captures for trading
in slaves) as required to be dealt with till 1854, appear
to have been dealt with by this body; an ordinance of the
9th of September 1831 directing that the proceedings before
the Conseil d'Etat should be private, was held to show
that the jurisdiction was not political but administrative.
An Imperial decree, however, of the 18th of July 1854 restored
the Conseil des Prises, with appeal to the Conseil d'Etat.
This was for the war with Russia. A similar decree was published
on the 9th of May 1859 for the war with Austria in Italy.
On the 28th of November 1861 a further decree ordered that
the Conseil instituted in 1859 should so long as it was
kept in being decide all prize matters; and this Conseil
has decided on prizes taken in the wars with Mexico and
Germany and in Cochin China. It consists of seven judges and
a commissary of the government. An appeal to the government
in the Conseil d'Etat can be brought within three months.
It is then decided by l'Assemblee du Conseil d'Etat.
Under the First Empire there were commissions des ports,
commissions colonials and commissions consulaires,
established mainly to collect materials for the Conseil des
Prises, but sometimes, when the ship and cargo were clearly
those of the enemy, proceeding to actual condemnation.
In Prussia Regulations of the 20th of June 1864 established a
prize council consisting of a president and six associates with
a law officer. An appeal was given to an upper prize council
(v. Holtzendorff, Rechtslexikon, tit. ``Prisengerichte'').
By a law of the German empire of the 3rd of May 1884 the
legality of prizes made during war has to be decided by prize
courts, and the imperial government is authorized to determine
the particulars as to the seat of such courts, their members and
their proceedings (Reichsgesetzblatt of 1884, p. 49). Prize
courts were established under this law on the occasion of the East
African blockade in 1889 (Reichsgesetzblatt of 1889, pp. 5 sqq.).
In Italy Art. 14 of the Merchant Shipping Code provides
that prize matters shall be tried by a special commission
established by royal decree. On the occasion of the war with
Austria such a special commission was established by royal
decree of the 20th of June 1866. For the war with Abyssinia
a fresh commission was established by royal decree of the 16th
of August 1896. The composition of this commission, which
was slightly different in character from that established in
1866, was as follows: (a) a first president of a court of
appeal or a retired one, or a president of a section of the
council of state or of cassation; (b) two general officers
of the navy; (c) a member of the ``contentious part'' of
the diplomatic service; (d) two councillors of a court of
appeal; (e) a captain of a port, with a commissary of the
government and a secretary; five to be a quorum. There was no
appeal; but the ordinary right to have recourse to the Court
of Cassation at Rome, if the prize commission proceeded without
jurisdiction or in excess of jurisdiction, was preserved.
By an ordinance of the 27th of March 1895 regulating the whole
matter of prize in Russia, two sorts of prize tribunals of
first instance were contemplated--port tribunals and fleet
tribunals. The latter are for captures made by ships of the
fleet, and are to be composed of some of the principal officers
of the fleet. The former are to have presidents named by the
emperor from among those ``qui font partie de l'administration
maritime judiciaire''; the other members are to be appointed
by the ministers of the navy, justice and foreign affairs.
The court of appeal is formed by the council of the admiralty
with the addition of two members of the senate and a nominee
of the minister of foreign affairs (Clunet, 1904, p. 271).
On the occasion of the Russo-Japanese war, port tribunals were
established under the authority of this ordinance by the lord
high admiral, the Grand Duke Alexis, on the 13th of March 1904,
at Sebastopol--Port Alexander III., Port Arthur and Vladivostock
(Clunet, 1904, p. 479; London Gazette, 22nd March 1904).
Many cases were heard before these tribunals and on appeal.
The procedure in prize cases under the old law of Spain
is described in Abreu (Felix Joseph de Abreu y Bertodano),
Tratado juridico Politico sobre Presas de Mar (Cadiz,
1746). On the occasion of the war with the United States
the Spanish government published a proclamation stating
the circumstances in which captures were to be made
and prizes taken; but information is lacking as to the
particular constitution of the prize court or courts.
In Greece prize questions are apparently left to be tried
by the ordinary tribunals. See decision of Civil Tribunal
of Athens, 1898, No. 3385 (reported Clunet, 1900, p. 826).
Turkey during her war of 1877 with Russia established a prize
court and a court of appeal. The ordinance establishing these
courts is set out in the London Gazette of the 6th of July 1877.
Japan established, in the war (1904-5) with Russia, prize
courts at Sasebo and Yokosco with a court of appeal at Tokyo.
Advocates were heard before these courts, and the procedure
seems generally to have been modelled upon European patterns.
AUTHORITIES.--Clunet, Journal du droit international prive,
cited shortly as Clunet; v. Holzendorff, Rechtslexikon,
Leipzig, 1881; De Pistoye et Duverdy, Traite des prises
maritimes, Paris, 1855, vol. ii., tit. viii.; Phillimore,
International Law, vol. i., vol. iii. part xi.; Autran,
Code international de l'abordage, de l'assistance, et du
sauvetage maritimes, Paris, 1902; Raikes, The Maritime
Codes of Spain and Portugal (1896), of Holland and
Belgium (1898), of Italy (1900), London. (W. G. F. P.)
ADMISSION, in law, a statement made out of the witness-box
by a party to legal proceedings, whether civil or criminal,
or by some person whose statements are binding on that
party against the interest of that party. (See EVIDENCE.)
ADO (d. 874), archbishop of Vienne in Lotharingia, belonged
to a famous Frankish house, and spent much of his middle life in
Italy. He held his archiepiscopal see from 850 till his
death on the 16th of December 874. Several of his letters
are extant and reveal their writer as an energetic man of
wide sympathies and considerable influence. Ado's principal
works are a Martyrologium (printed inter al. in Migne,
Patrolog. lat. cxxiii. pp. 181-420; append. pp. 419-436),
and chronicle, Chronicon sive Breviarium chronicorum de sex
mundi aetalibus de Adamo usque ad ann. 869 (in Migne, cxxiii.
pp. 20-138, and Pertzn Monumenta Germ. ii. pp. 315-323,
&c.). Ado's chronicle is based on that of Bede, with which he
combines extracts from the ordinary sources, forming the whole
into a consecutive narrative founded on the conception of the
unity of the Roman empire, which he traces in the succession of
the emperors, Charlemagne and his heirs following immediately
after Constantine and Irene. ``It is,'' says Wattenbach,
``history from the point of view of authority and preconceived
opinion, which exclude any independent judgment of events.''
Ado wrote also a book on the miracles (Miracula) of St
Bernard, archbishop of Vienne (9th century), published in
the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum; a life or Martyrium of St
Desiderius, bishop of Vienne (d. 608), written about 870 and
published in Migne, cxxiii. pp. 435-442; and a life of St
Theudericus, abbot of Vienne (563), published in Mabillon,
Acta Sanct. i. pp. 678-681, Migne, cxxiii. pp. 443-450, and
revised in Bollandist Acta Sanct. 29th Oct. xii. pp. 840-843.
See W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen,
vol. i. (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1904).
ADOBE (pronounced a-do-be; also corrupted to dobie;
from the Span. adobar, to plaster, traceable through
Arabic to an Egyptian hieroglyph meaning ``brick''), a
Spanish-American word for the sun-dried clay used by the
Indians for building in some of the south-western states of
the American Union, this method having been imported in the
16th century by Spaniards from Mexico, Peru, &c. A distinction
is made between the smaller ``adobes,'' which are about the
size of ordinary baked bricks, and the larger ``adobines,''
some of which are as much as from one to two yards long.
ADOLESCENCE (Lat. adolescentia, from adolescere, to
grow up, past part. adultus, grown up, Eng. ``adult''), the
term now commonly adopted for the period between childhood
and maturity, during which the characteristics--mental,
physical and moral--that are to make or mar the individual
disclose themselves, and then mature, in some cases by
leaps and bounds, in others by more gradual evolution.
The annual rate of growth, in height, weight and strength,
increases to a marked extent and may even be doubled. The
development in the man takes place in the direction of a
greater strength, in the woman towards a fitter form for
maternity. The sex sense develops, the love of nature and
religion, and an overmastering curiosity both individual and
general. This period of life, so fraught with its power for
good and ill, is accordingly the most important and by far
the most difficult for parents and educationists to deal with
efficiently. The chief points for attention may be briefly
indicated. Health depends mainly on two factors, heredity,
or the sum total of physical and mental leanings of the
individual, and environment. In an ideal system of
training these two factors will be so fitted in and adapted
to one another, that what is weak or unprovided for in
the first will be amply compensated for in the second.
In an ideal condition children should be brought up in the
country as much as possible rather than in the town. Though
adults may live where they like within very wide limits and
take no harm, children, even of healthy stock, living in towns,
are continually subject to many minor ills, such as chronic
catarrh, tonsillitis, bronchitis,and even the far graver
pneumonia. Removed to healthier conditions in the country their
ailments tend to disappear, and normal physical development
supervenes. The residence should be on a well-drained soil,
preferably near the sea in the case of a delicate child, on
higher ground for those of more robust constitution. The
child should be lightly clad in woollen garments all the year
round, their thickness being slightly greater in winter than in
summer. An abundance of simple well-cooked food in sufficient
variety, ample time at table, where an atmosphere of light
gaiety should be cultivated, and a period free from restraint
both before and after meals, should be considered fundamental
essentials. As regards the most suitable kinds of food--milk
and fruit should be given in abundance, fresh meat once a
day, and fish or eggs once a day. Bread had better be three
days old, and baked in the form of small rolls to increase
the ratio of crust to crumb. Both butter and sugar are good
foods, and should be freely allowed in many forms. The
exercise of the body must be duly attended to. Nowadays this
is provided for in the shape of games, some being optional,
others prescribed, and such sports as boating, swimming,
fencing, &c. But severe exercise should only be allowed
under adequate medical control, and should be increased very
gradually. In the case of girls, let them run, leap and
climb with their brothers for the first twelve years or so of
life. But as puberty approaches, with all the change, stress
and strain dependent thereon, their lives should be appropriately
modified. Rest should be enforced during the menstrual
periods of these earlier years, and milder, more graduated
exercise taken at other times. In the same way all mental
strain should be diminished. Instead of pressure being put
on a girl's intellectual education at about this time, as
is too often the case, the time devoted to school and books
should be diminished. Education should be on broader, more
fundamental lines, and much time should be passed in the open
air. With regard to the mental training of both sexes two
points must be borne in mind. First, that an ample number
of hours should be set on one side for sleep, up to ten
years of age not less than eleven, and up to twenty years
not less than nine. Secondly, that the time devoted to
``bookwork'' should be broken up into a number of short
periods, very carefully graduated to the individual child.
In every case where there is a family tendency towards any
certain disease or weakness, that tendency must determine
the whole circumstances of the child's life. That diathesis
which is most serious and usually least regarded, the nervous
excitable one, is by far the most important and the most
difficult to deal with. Every effort should be made to
avoid the conditions in which the hereditary predisposition
would be aroused into mischievous action, and to encourage
development on simple unexciting lines. The child should be
confined to the schoolroom but little and receive most of his
training in wood and field. Other diatheses--the tuberculous,
rheumatic, &c.---must be dealt with in appropriate ways.
The adolescent is prone to special weaknesses and moral
perversions. The emotions are extremely unstable, and any
stress put on them may lead to undesirable results. Warm
climates, tight-fitting clothes, corsets, rich foods, soft
mattresses, or indulgences of any kind, and also mental
over-stimulation, are especially to be guarded against.
The day should be filled with interests of an objective--in
contradistinction to subjective--kind, and the child should
retire to bed at night healthily fatigued in mind and body.
Let there be confidence between mother and daughter, father
and son, and, as the years bring the bodily changes, those
in whom the children trust can choose the fitting moments
for explaining their meaning and effect, and warning against
abuses of the natural functions. For bibliography see CHILD.
ADOLPH OF NASSAU (c. 1255-.1298), German king, son of
Walram, count of Nassau. He appears to have received a good
education, and inherited his father's lands around Wiesbaden in
1276. He won considerable fame as a mercenary in many of the
feuds of the time, and on the 5th of May 1292 was chosen German
king, in succession to Rudolph I., an election due rather
to the political conditions of the time than to his personal
abilities. He made large promises to his supporters, and
was crowned on the 1st of July at Aix-la-Chapelle. Princes
and towns did homage to him, but his position was unstable,
and the allegiance of many of the princes, among them Albert
I., duke of Austria, son of the late king Rudolph, was merely
nominal. Seeking at once to strengthen the royal position,
he claimed Meissen as a vacant fief of the Empire, and in
1294 allied himself with Edward I., king of England, against
France. Edward granted him a subsidy, but owing to a
variety of reasons Adolph did not take the field against
France, but turned his arms against Thuringia, which he
had purchased from the landgrave Albert II. This bargain
was resisted by the sons of Albert, and from 1294 to 1296
Adolph was campaigning in Meissen and Thuringia. Meissen was
conquered, but he was not equally successful in Thuringia,
and his relations with Albert of Austria were becoming more
strained. He had been unable to fulfil the promises made at his
election, and the princes began to look with suspicion upon his
designs. Wenceslaus II., king of Bohemia, fell away from his
allegiance, and his deposition was decided on, and was carried
out at Mainz, on the 23rd of May 1298, when Albert of Austria
was elected his successor. The forces of the rival kings
met at Gollheim on the 2nd of July 1298, where Adolph was
killed, it is said by the hand of Albert. He was buried at
Rosenthal, and in 1309 his remains were removed to Spires.
See F. W. E. Roth, Geschichte des Romischen Konigs Adolf I.
von Nassau (Wiesbaden, 1879); V. Domeier, Die Absetzung Adolf
von Nassau (Berlin, 1889); L. Ennen, Die Wahl des Konigs
Adolf von Nassau (Cologne, 1866); L. Schmid, Die Wahl des
Grossen Adolf von Nassau zum Romischen Konig; B. Gebhardt,
Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, Band i. (Berlin, 1901).
ADOLPHUS, JOHN LEYCESTER (1795-1862), English lawyer and
author, was the son of John Adolphus (1768--1845), a well-known
London barrister who wrote a History of England to 1783
(1802), a History of France from 1790 (1803) and other
works. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at
St. John's College, Oxford. In 1821 he published Letters to
Richard Heber, Esq., in which he discussed the authorship of
the then anonymous Waverley novels, and fixed it upon Sir Walter
Scott. This conclusion was based on the resemblance of the
novels in general style and method to the poems acknowledged
by Scott. Scott thought at first that the letters were
written by Reginald Heber, afterwards bishop of Calcutta,
and the discovery of J. L. Adolphus's identity led to a warm
friendship. Adolphus was called to the bar in 1822, and his
Circuiteers, an Eclogue, is a parody of the style of two of
his colleagues on the northern circuit. He became judge of the
Marylebone County Court in 1852, and was a bencher of the Inner
Temple. He was the author of Letters from Spain in 1816
and 1817 (1858), and was completing his father's History of
England at the time of his death on the 24th of December 1862.
ADOLPHUS FREDERICK (1710-1771), king of Sweden, was born
at Gottorp on the 14th of May 1710. His father was Christian
Augustus (1673--1726), duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp,
bishop of Lubeck, and administrator, during the war of
1700--1721, of the duchies of Holstein-Gottorp for his nephew
Charles Frederick; his mother was Albertina Frederica of
Baden-Durlach. From 1727 to 1750 he was bishop of Lubeck,
and administrator of Holstein-Kiel during the minority of Duke
Charles Peter Ulrich, afterwards Peter III. of Russia. In
1743 he was elected heir to the throne of Sweden by the ``Hat''
faction in order that they might obtain better conditions of
peace from the empress Elizabeth, whose fondness for the house
of Holstein was notorious (see SWEDEN, History). During
his whole reign (1751-1771) Adolphus Frederick was little more
than a state decoration, the real power being lodged in the
hands of an omnipotent riksdag, distracted by fierce party
strife. Twice he endeavoured to free himself from the
intolerable tutelage of the estates. The first occasion
was in 1755 when, stimulated by his imperious consort Louisa
Ulrica, sister of Frederick the Great, he tried to regain
a portion of the attenuated prerogative, and nearly lost
his throne in consequence. On the second occasion, under
the guidance of his eldest son, the crown prince Gustavus,
afterwards Gustavus III., he succeeded in overthrowing the
tyrannous ``Cap'' senate, but was unable to make any use of
his victory. He died of surfeit at Stockholm on the 12th
of February 1771. See R. Nisbet Bain, Gustavus III. and
his Contemporaries, vol. i. (London, 1895). (R. N. B.)
ADONI, a town of British India, in the Bellary district of
Madras, 307 m. from Madras by rail. It has manufactures of
carpets, silk and cotton goods, and several factories for ginning
and pressing cotton. The hill-fort above, now in ruins, was an
important seat of government in Mahommedan times and is frequently
mentioned in the wars of the 18th century. Pop. (1901) 30,416.
ADONIJAH (Heb. Adoniyyah or Adoniyyahu, ``Yah is
Lord''), a name borne by several persons in the Old
Testament, the most noteworthy of whom was the fourth son of
David. He was born to Haggith at Hebron (2 Sam. iii. 4; 1
Ch. iii. 2). The natural heir to the throne, on the death of
Absalom, he sought with the help of Joab and Abiathar to seize
his birthright, and made arrangements for his coronation (1
Kings i. 5 ff.). Hearing, however, that Solomon, with the
help of Nathan the prophet and Bathsheba, and apparently
with the consent of David, had ascended the throne, he fled
for safety to the horns of the altar. Solomon spared him
on this occasion (1 Kings i. 50 ff.), but later commanded
Benaiah to slay him (ii. 13 ff.), because with the approval
of Bathsheba he wished to marry Abishag, formerly David's
concubine, and thus seemed to have designs on the throne.
ADONIS, in classical mythology, a youth of remarkable
beauty, the favourite of Aphrodite. According to the story
in Apollodorus (iii. 14. 4), he was the son of the Syrian king
Theias by his daughter Smyrna (Myrrha), who had been inspired
by Aphrodite with unnatural love. When Theias discovered the
truth he would have slain his daughter, but the gods in pity
changed her into a tree of the same name. After ten months the
tree burst asunder and from it came forth Adonis. Aphrodite,
charmed by his beauty, hid the infant in a box and handed
him over to the care of Persephone, who afterwards refused to
give him up. On an appeal being made to Zeus, he decided that
Adonis should spend a third of the year with Persephone and
a third with Aphrodite, the remaining third being at his own
disposal. Adonis was afterwards killed by a boar sent by
Artemis. There are many variations in the later forms of the
story (notably in Ovid, Metam. x. 298). The name is generally
supposed to be of Phoenician origin (from adon--``lord''),
Adonis himself being identified with Tammuz (but see F.
Dummler in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyklopadie, who does not
admit a Semitic origin for either name or cult). The name
Abobas, by which he was known at Perga in Pamphyha, certainly
seems connected with abub (a Semitic word for ``flute''; cf.
``ambubaiarum collegia'' in Horace, Satires, i. 2. 1). (See
also ATTIS.) Annual festivals, called Adonia, were held in
his honour at Byblus, Alexandria, Athens and other places.
Although there were variations in the ceremony itself and in
its date, the central idea was the death and resurrection of
Adonis. A vivid description of the festival at Alexandria
(for which Bion probably wrote his Dirge cf. Adonis) is
given by Theocritus in his fifteenth idyll, the Adoniazusae.
On the first day, which celebrated the union of Adonis and
Aphrodite, their images were placed side by side on a silver
couch, around them all the fruits of the season, ``Adonis
gardens'' in silver baskets, golden boxes of myrrh, cakes of
meal, honey and oil, made in the likeness of things that
creep and things that fly. On the day following the image
of Adonis was carried down to the shore and cast into the
sea by women with dishevelled hair and bared breasts. At
the same time a song was sung, in which the god was entreated
to be propitious in the coming year. This festival, like
that at Athens, was held late in summer; at Byblus, where
the mourning . ceremony preceded, it took place in spring.
It is now generally agreed that Adonis is a vegetation spirit,
whose death and return to life represent the decay of nature
in winter and its revival in spring. He is born from the
myrrh-tree, the oil of which is used at his festival; he is
connected with Aphrodite in her character of vegetation-goddess.
A special feature of the Athenian festival was the ``Adonis
gardens,'' small pots of flowers forced to grow artificially,
which rapidly faded (hence the expression was used to denote
any transitory pleasure). The dispute between Aphrodite
and Persephone for the possession of Adonis, settled by the
agreement that he is to spend a third (or half) of the year
in the lower-world (the seed at first underground and then
reappearing above it), finds a parallel in the story of Tammuz
and Ishtar (see APHRODITE) The ceremony of the Adonia was
intended as a charm to promote the growth of vegetation,
the throwing of the gardens and images into the water being
supposed to procure a supply of rain (for European parallels see
Mannhardt). It is suggested (Frazer) that Adonis is not a
god of vegetation generally, but specially a corn-spirit,
and that the lamentation is not for the decay of vegetation
in winter, but for the cruel treatment of the corn by the
reaper and miller (cf. Robert Burns's John Barleycorn.)
All important element in the story is the connexion of
Adonis with the boar, which (according to one version) brings
him into the world by splitting with his tusk the bark of
the tree into which Smyrna was changed, and finally kills
him. It is probable that Adonis himself was looked upon
as incarnate in the swine, so that the sacrifice to him by
way of expiation on special occasions of an animal which
otherwise was specially sacred, and its consumption by its
worshippers, was a sacramental act. Other instances of a
god being sacrificed to himself as his own enemy are the
sacrifice of the goat and bull to Dionysus and of the bear to
Artemis. The swine would be sacrificed as having caused the
death of Adonis, which explains the dislike of Aphrodite for that
animal. It has been observed that whenever swine sacrifices
occur in the ritual of Aphrodite there is reference to Adonis.
In any vase, the conception of Adonis as a swine-god does not
contradict the idea of him as a vegetation or corn spirit, which
in many parts of Europe appears in the form of a boar or sow.
AUTHORITIES.--H. Brugsch, Die Adonisklage und das
Linoslied (Berlin, 1852); Grove, De Adonide (Leipzig,
1877); W. H. Engel, Kypros, ii. (1841), still valuable;
W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feldkulte, ii. (1905); M. P.
Nilsson, Griechische Feste (Leipzig, 1906); articles in
Roscher's Lexikon and Pauly-Wissowa's Encyklopadie J.
G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, ii. (2nd ed.), p. 113, and
Adonis, Attis and Osiris (1906); L. R. Farnell, Cults of
the Greek States, ii. p. 646; W. Robertson Smith (Religion
of the Semites, new ed., 1894, pp. 191, 290, 411), who,
regarding Adonis as the swine-god, characterizes the Adonia
as an annual piacular sacrifice (of swine), ``in which the
sacrifice has come to be overshadowed by its popular and
dramatic accompaniments, to which the Greek celebration,
not forming part of the state religion, was limited.''
ADONIS, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order
Ranunculaceae, known commonly by the nomes of pheasant's
eye and Flos Adonis. They are annual or perennial
herbs with much divided leaves and yellow or red flowers.
Adonis autumnalis has become naturalized in some parts
of England; the petals are scarlet with a dark spot at the
base. An early flowering species, Adonis vernalis, with
large bright yellow flowers, is well worthy of cultivation.
It prefers a deep light soil. The name is also given to the
butterfly, Mazarine or Clifton Blue (Polyomreatus Adonis).
ADOPTIANISM. As the theological doctrine of the Logos which
bulks so largely in the writings of the apologists of the
2nd century came to the front, the trinitarian problem became
acute. The necessity of a constant protest against polytheism
led to a tenacious insistence on the divine unity, and the
task was to reconcile this unity with the deity of Jesus
Christ. Some thinkers fell back on the ``modalistic'' solution
which regards ``Father'' and ``Son'' as two aspects of the
same subject, but a simpler and more popular method was the
``adoptionist'' or humanitarian. Basing their views on the
synoptic Gospels, and tracing descent from the obscure sect
of the Alogi, the Adoptianists under Theodotus of Byzantium
tried to found a school at Rome c. 185, asserting that
Jesus was a man, filled with the Holy Spirit's inspiration
from his baptism; and sa attaining such a perfection of
holiness that he was adopted by God and exalted to divine
dignity. Theodotus was excommunicated by the bishop of
Rome, Victor, c. 195, but his followers lived on under a
younger teacher of the same name and under Artemon. while
in the Fast similar views were expounded by Beryllus of
Bostra and Paul of Samosata, who undoubtedly influenced
Lucian of Antioch and his school, including Arius and, later,
Nestorius. There is thus a traceable historical connexion
between the early adoptian controversy and the struggle
in Spain at the end of the 8th century, to which that name
is usually given. It was indeed only a renewal, under new
conditions, of the conflict between two types of thought, the
rational and the mystical, the school of Antioch and that of
Alexandria. The writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia had
become well known in the West, especially since the strife
over the ``three chapters'' (544-553), and the opposition
of Islam also partly determined the form of men's views on
the doctrine of Christ's person. We must further remember
the dyophysitism which had been sanctioned at the council of
Chalcedon. About 780 Ehpandus (b. 718), archbishop of
Toledo, revived and vehemently defended the expression
Christus Filius Dei adoptivus, and was aided by his much
more gifted friend Felix, bishop of Urgella. They held that
the duality of natutes implied a distinction between two
modes of sonship in Christ---the natural or proper, and the
adoptive. In support of their views they appealed to scripture
and to the Western Fathers, who had used the term ``adoption''
as synonymous with ``assumption'' in the orthodox sense; and
especially to Christ's fraternal relation to Christians--the
brother of God's adopted sons. Christ, the firstborn among
many brethren, had a natural birth at Bethlehem and also a
spiritual birth begun at his baptism and consummated at his
resurrection. Thus they did not teach a dual personality,
nor the old Antiochene view that Christ's divine exaltation was
due to his sinless virtue; they were less concerned with old
disputes than with the problem as the Chalcedon decision had left
it--the relation of Christ's one personality to his two natures.
Felix introduced adoptian views into that part of Spain which
belonged to the Franks, and Charlemagne thought it necessary
to assemble a synod at Regensburg (Ratisbon), in 792, before
which the bishop was summoned to explain and justify the new
doctrine. Instead of this he renounced it, and confirmed
his renunciation by a solemn oath to Pope Adrian, to whom
the synod sent him. The recantation was probably insincere,
for on returning to his diocese he taught adoptianism as
before. Another synod was held at Frankfort in 794,
by which the new doctrine was again formally condemned,
though neither Felix nor any of his followers appeared.
In this synod Alcuin of York took part. A friendly letter from
Alcuin, and a controversial pamphlet, to which Felix replied,
were followed by the sending of several commissions of clergy
to Spain to endeavour to put down the heresy. Archbishop
Leidrad (d. 816) of Lyons, being on one of these commissions,
persuaded Felix to appear before a synod at Aix-la-Chapelle
in 799. There, after six days' disputing with Alcuin, he again
recanted his heresy. The rest of his life was spent under the
supervision of the archbishop at Lyons, where he died in 816.
Elipapdus, secure in his see at Toledo, never swerved from
the adoptian views, which, however, were almost universally
abandoned after the two leaders died. In the scholastic
discussions of the 12th century the question came to the front
again, for the doctrine as framed by Alcuin was not universally
accepted. Thus both Abelard and Peter Lombard, in the interest
of the immutability of the divine substance (holding that God
could not ``become', anything), gravitated towards a Nestorian
position. The great opponent of their Christology, which
was known as Nihilianism, was the German scholar Gerhoch,
who, for his bold assertion of the perfect interpenetration
of deity and humanity in Christ, was accused of Eutychianism.
The proposition Deus non factus est aliquid secundum quod
est homo was condemned by a synod of Tours in 1163 and again
by the Lateran synod of 1179, but Adoptianism continued all
through the middle ages to be a source of theological dispute.
See A. Harnack, Hist. of Dogma, esp. vol. v. pp.
279-292; R. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation,
vol. i. p. 228 ff, vol. ii. pp. 151-161; Herzog-Hauck,
Realenclyk., art. ``Adoptianismus.'' (A. J. G.)
ADOPTION (Lat. adoptio, for adoptatio, from adoptare,
to choose for oneself), the act by which the relations of
paternity and filiation are recognized as legally existing
between persons not so related by nature. Cases of adoption
were very frequent among the Greeks and Romans, and the custom
was accordingly very strictly regulated in their laws. In
Athens the power of adoption was allowed to all citizens who
were of sound mind, and who possessed no male offspring of their
own, and it could be exercised either during lifetime or by
testament. The person adopted, who required to be himself
a citizen, was enrolled in the family and demus of the
adoptive father, whose name, however, he did not necessarily
assume. In the interest of the next of kin, whose rights
were affected by a case of adoption, it was provided that the
registration should be attended with certain formalities, and
that it should take place at a fixed time--the festival of the
Thargelia. The rights and duties of adopted children were
almost identical with those of natural offspring, and could
not be renounced except in the case of one who had begotten
children to take his place in the family of his adoptive
father. Adopted into another family, children ceased to
have any claim of kindred or inheritance through their
natural father, though any rights they might have through
their mother were not similarly affected. Among the Romans
the existence of the patria potestas gave a peculiar
significance to the custom of adoption. The motive to the
act was not so generally childlessness, or the gratification
of affection, as the desire to acquire those civil and
agnate rights which were founded on the patria potestas.
It was necessary, however, that the adopter should have no
children of his own, and that he should be of such an age
as to preclude reasonable expectation of any being born to
him. Another limitation as to age was imposed by the maxim
adoptio imitatur naturam, which required the adoptive
father to be at least eighteen years older than the adopted
children. According to the same maxim eunuchs were not
permitted to adopt, as being impotent to beget children for
themselves. Adoption was of two kinds according to the state
of the person adopted, who might be either still under the
patria potestas (alieni juris), or his own master (sui
juris). In the former case the act was one of adoption
proper, in the latter case it was styled adrogation,
though the term adoption was also used in a general sense to
describe both species. In adoption proper the natural father
publicly sold his child to the adoptive father, and the sale
being thrice repeated, the maxim of the Twelve Tables took
effect, Si pater filium ter venunduit, filius a patre liber
esto. The process was ratified and completed by a fictitious
action of recovery brought by the adoptive father against the
natural parent, which the latter did not defend, and which was
therefore known as the cessio in jure. Adrogation could
be accomplished originally only by the authority of the people
assembled in the Comitia, but from the time of Diocletian
it was effected by an imperial rescript. Females could not be
adrogated, and, as they did not possess the patria potestas,
they could not exercise the right of adoption in either
kind. The whole Roman law on the subject of adoption will
be found in Justinian's Institutes, lib. i. tit. II.
In Hindu law, as in nearly every ancient system, wills
were formerly unknown, and adoptions took their place. (See
INDIAN LAW.) Adoption is not recognized in the laws of
England, Scotland or the Netherlands, though there are legal
means by which one may be enabled to assume the name and
arms and to inherit the property of a stranger. (See NAME.)
In France and Germany, countries which may he said to have
embodied the Roman law in their jurisprudence, adoption is
regulated according to the principles of Justinian, though
with several more or less important modifications, rendered
necessary by the usages of these countries respectively. Under
French law the rights of adoption can be exercised only by
those who are over fifty years of age, and who, at the time of
adoption, have neither children nor legitimate descendants.
They must also be fifteen years older than the person adopted.
In German law the person adopting must either be fifty years of
age, or at least eighteen years older than the adopted, unless
a special dispensation is obtained. If the person adopted
is a legitimate child, the consent of his parents must be
obtained; if illegitimate, the consent of the mother. Both in
Germany and France the adopted child remains a member of his
original family, and acquires no rights in the family of the
adopter other than that of succession to the person adopting.
In the United States adoption is regulated by the statutes
of the several states. Adoption of minors is permitted by
statute in many of the states. These statutes generally require
some public notice to be given of the intention to adopt,
and an order of approval after a hearing before some public
authority. The consequence commonly is that the person adopted
becomes, in the eyes of the law, the child of the person
adopting, for all purposes. Such an adoption, if consummated
according to the law of the domicile, is equally effectual
in any other state into which the parties may remove. The
relative status thus newly acquired is ubiquitous. (See Whitmore,
Laws of Adoption; Ross v. Ross, 129 Massachusetts Reports,
243.) The part played by the legal fiction of adoption in the
constitution of primitive society and the civilization of the
race is so important, that Sir Henry S. Maine, in his Ancient
Law, expresses the opinion that, had it never existed, the
primitive groups of mankind could not have coalesced except
on terms of absolute superiority on the one side and absolute
subjection on the other. With the institution of adoption,
however, one people might feign itself as descended from the
same stock as the people to whose sacra gentilicia it was
admitted; and amicable relations were thus established between
stocks which, but for this expedient, must have submitted
to the arbitrament of the sword with all its consequences.
ADORATION (Lat. ad, to, and os, mouth; i.e. ``carrying
to one's mouth''), primarily an act of homage or worship,
which, among the Romans, was performed by raising the hand
to the mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction
of the adored object. The devotee had his head covered,
and after the act turned himself round from left to right.
Sometimes he kissed the feet or knees of the images of the gods
themselves, and Saturn and Hercules were adored with the head
bare. By a natural transition the homage, at first paid to
divine beings alone, came to be paid to monarchs. Thus the
Greek and Roman emperors were adored by bowing or kneeling,
laying hold of the imperial robe, and presently withdrawing
the hand and pressing it to the lips, or by putting the royal
robe itself to the lips. In Eastern countries adoration has
ever been performed in an attitude still more lowly. The
Persian method, introduced by Cyrus, was to bend the knee
and fall on the face at the prince's feet, striking the earth
with the forehead and kissing the ground. This striking of
the earth with the forehead, usually a fixed number of times,
is the form of adoration usually paid to Eastern potentates
to-day. The Jews kissed in homage. Thus in 1 Kings xix.
18, God is made to say, ``Yet I have left me seven thousand
in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal,
and every mouth which hath not kissed him.'' And in Psalms
ii. 12, ``Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish
from the way.'' (See also Hosea xiii. 2.) In England the
ceremony of kissing the sovereign's hand, and some other acts
which are performed kneeling, may be described as forms of
adoration. Adoration is applied in the Roman Church to the
ceremony of kissing the pope's foot, a custom which is said
to have been introduced by the popes following the example
of the emperor Diocletian. The toe of the famous statue of
the apostle in St Peter's, Rome, shows marked wear caused by
the kisses of pilgrims. In the Roman Church a distinction
is made between Latria, a worship due to God alone, and
Dulia or Hyperdulia, the adoration paid to the Virgin,
saints, martyrs, crucifixes, &c. (See further HOMAGE.)
ADORF, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 3 m. from
the Bohemian frontier, at an elevation of 1400 ft. above the
sea, on the Plauen-Eger and Aue-Adorf lines of railway. Pop.
5000. It has lace, dyeing and tanning industries, and
manufactures of toys and musical instruments; and there is
a convalescent home for the poor of the city of Leipzig.
ADOUR (anc. Aturrus or Adurus, from Celtic dour,
water), a river of south-west France, rising in the department
of Hautes Pyrenees, and flowing in a wide curve to the Bay of
Biscay. It is formed of several streams having their origin
in the massif of the Pic d'Arbizon and the Pic du Midi de
Bigorre, but during the first half of its course remains an
inconsiderable river. In traversing the beautiful valley of
Campan it is artificially augmented in summer by the waters
of the Lac Bleu, which are drawn off by means of a siphon, and
flow down the valley of I esponne. After passing Bagneres
de Bigorre the Adour enters the plain of Tarbes, and for the
remainder of its course in the department of Hautes Pyrenees
is of much less importance as a waterway than as a means
of feeding the numerous irrigation canals which cover the
plains on each side. Of these the oldest and most important
is the Canal d'Alaric, which follows the right bank for 36
m. Entering the department of Gers, the Adour receives the
Arros on the right bank and begins to describe the large westward
curve which takes it through the department of Landes to the
sea. In the last-named department it soon becomes navigable,
namely, at St Sever, after passing which it is joined on the
left by the Larcis, Gabas, Louts and Luy, and on the right
by the Midouze, which is formed by the union of the Douze
and the Midour, and is navigable for 27 m.; now taking a
south-westerly course it receives on the left the Gave de
Pau, which is a more voluminous river than the Adour itself,
and flowing past Bayonne enters the sea through a dangerous
estuary, in which sandbars are formed, after a total course
of 208 m., of which 82 are navigable. The mouth of the
Adout has repeatedly shifted. its old bed being represented
by the series of etangs and lagoons extending northward
as far as the village of Vieux Boucau, 22 1/2 m. north of
Bayonne, where it found a new entrance into the sea at the
end of the 14th century. Its previous mouth had been 10 m.
south of Vieux Boucau. The present channel was constructed
by the engineer Louis de Foix in 1579. There is a depth
over the bar at the entrance of 10 1/2 to 16 ft. at high
tide. The area of the basin of the Adour is 6565 sq. m.
ADOWA (properly ADUA), the capital of Tigre, northern
Abyssinia, 145 m. N.E. of Gondar and 17 m. E. by N. of Axum,
the ancient capital of Abyssinia. Adowa is built on the slope
of a hill at an elevation of 6500 ft., in the midst of a rich
agricultural district. Being on the high road from Massawa
to central Abyssinia, it is a meeting-place of merchants from
Arabia and the Sudan for the exchange of foreign merchandise
with the products of the country. During the wars between
the Italians and Abyssinia (1887-96) Adowa was on three or
four occasions looted and burnt; but the churches escaped
destruction. The church of the Holy Trinity, one of the
largest in Abyssinia, contains numerous wall-paintings of
native art. On a hill about 2 1/2 m. north-west of Adowa are
the ruins of Fremona, the headquarters of the Portuguese
Jesuits who lived in Abyssinia during the 16th and 17th
centuries. On the 1st of March 1896, in the hills north
of the town, was fought the battle of Adowa, in which the
Abyssinians inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italian
forces (see ITALY, History, and ABYSSINIA, History).
ADRA (anc. Abdera), a seaport of southern Spain, in the
province of Almeria; at the mouth of the Rio Grande de Adra, and
on the Mediterranean Sea. Pop. (1900) 11,188. Adra is the port
of shipment for the lead obtained near Berja, 10 m. north-east;
but its commercial development is retarded by the lack of a
railway. Besides lead, the exports include grapes, sugar and
esparto. Fuel is imported, chieffly from the United Kingdom.
ADRAR (Berber for ``uplands''), the name of various
districts of the Saharan desert, Northern Africa. Adrar
Suttuf is a hilly region forming the southern part of the
Spanish protectorate of the Rio de Oro (q.v.). Adrar or
Adrar el Jebli, otherwise Adghagh, is a plateau north-east of
Timbuktu. It is the headquarters of the Awellimiden
Tuareg (see TUAREG and SAHARA). Adrar n'Ahnet and Adrar
Adhafar are smaller regions in the Ahnet country south of
Insalah. Adrar Temur, the country usually referred to when
Adrar is spoken of, is in the western Sahara, 300 m. north
of the Senegal and separated on the north-west from Adrar
Suttuf by wide valleys and sand dunes. Adrar is within the
French sphere of influence. In general barren, the country
contains several oases, with a total population of about
10,000. In 1900 the oasis of Atar, on the western borders
of the territory, was reached by Paul Blanchet, previously
known for his researches on ancient Berber remains in Algeria.
(Blanchet died in Senegal on the 6th of October 1900, a
few days after his return from Adrar.) Atar is inhabited
by Yrab and Berber tribes, and is described as a wretched
spot. The other centres of population are Shingeti, Wadan and
Ujeft, Shingeti being the chief commercial centre, whence
caravans take to St Louis gold-dust, ostrich feathers and
dates. A considerable trade is also done in salt from the
sebkha of Ijil, in the north-west. Adrar occupies the most
elevated part of a plateau which ends westwards in a steep
escarpment and falls to the east in a succession of steps.
Adrar or Adgar is also the name sometimes given to the chief
settlement in the oasis of Tuat in the Algerian Sahara.
ADRASTUS, in Greek legend, was the son of Talaus, king of
Argos, and Lysianassa, daughter of Polybus, king of Sicyon.
Having been driven from Argos by Amphiaraus, Adrastus fled to
Sicyon, where he became king on the death of Polybus. After
a time he became reconciled to Amphiaraus, gave him his sister
Eriphyle in marriage, and returned to Argos and occupied the
throne. In consequence of an oracle which had commanded him
to marry his daughters to a lion and a boar, he wedded them
to Polyneices and Tydeus, two fugitives, clad in the skins of
these animals or carrying shields with their figures on them,
who claimed his hospitality. He was the instigator of the
famous war against Thebes for the restoration of his son-in-law
Polyneices, who had been deprived of his rights by his brother
Eteocles. Adrastus, followed by Polyneices and Tydeus, his two
sons-inlaw, Amphiaraus, his brother-in-law, Capaneus, Hippomedon
and Parthenopaeus, marched against the city of Thebes, and
on his way is said to have founded the Nemean games. This
is the expedition of the ``Seven against Thebes,'' which the
poets have made nearly as famous as the siege of Troy. As
Amphiaraus had foretold, they all lost their lives in this war
except Adrastus, who was saved by the speed of his horse Arion
(Iliad, xxiii. 346). Ten years later, at the instigation of
Adrastus, the war was renewed by the sons of the chiefs who had
fallen. This expedition was called the war of the ``Epigoni''
or descendants, and ended in the taking and destruction of
Thebes. None of the followers of Adrastus perished except his
son Aegialeus, and this affected him so greatly that he died
of grief at Megara, as he was leading back his victorious army.
Apollodorus iii. 6, 7; Aeschylus, Septem contra Thebes; Euripides,
Phoenissae, Supplices; Statius, Thebais; Herodotus v. 67.
ADRIA (anc. Atria; the form Adria or Hadria is less
correct: Hatria was a town in Picenum, the modern Atri), a
town and episcopal see of Venetia, Italy, in the province of
Rovigo, 15 m. F. by rail from the town of Rovigo. It is
situated between the mouths of the Adige and the Po, about
13 1/2 m. from the sea and but 13ft. above it. Pop. (1901)
15,678. The town occupies the site of the ancient Atria,
which gave its name to the Adriatic. Its origin is variously
ascribed by ancient writers, but it was probably a Venetian,
i.e. Illyrian, not an Etruscan, foundation--still less a
foundation of Dionysius I. of Syracuse. Imported vases of
the second half of the 5th century B.C. prove the existence
of trade with Greece at that period; and the town was famous
in Aristotle's day for a special breed of fowls. Even at
that period, however, the silt brought down by the rivers
rendered access to the harbour difficult, and the historian
Philistus excavated a canal to give free access to the
sea. This was still open in the imperial period, and the
town, which was a municipium, possessed its own gild
of sailors; but its importance gradually decreased. Its
remains lie from 10 to 20 ft. below the modern level. The
Museo Civico and the Bocchi collection contain antiquities.
See R. Schone, Le antichita del Museo
Bocchi di Adria (Rome, 1878). (T. As.)
ADRIAN, or HADRIAN (Lat. Hadrianus), the name of six
popes. ADRIAN I., pope from 772 to 705, was the son of
Theodore, a Roman nobleman. Soon after his accession the
territory that had been bestowed on the popes by Pippin was
invaded by Desiderius, king of the Lombards, and Adrian found
it necessary to invoke the aid of Charlemagne, who entered
Italy with a large army, besieged Desiderius in his capital of
Pavia, took that town, banished the Lombard king to Corbie in
France and united the Lombard kingdom with the other Frankish
possessions. The pope, whose expectations had been aroused,
had to content himself with some additions to the duchy of
Rome, and to the Exarchate, and the Pentapolis. In his
contest with the Greek empire and the Lombard princes of
Benevento, Adrian remained faithful to the Frankish alliance,
and the friendly relations between pope and emperor were
not disturbed by the difference which arose between them on
the question of the worship of images, to which Charlemagne
and the Gallican Church were strongly opposed, while Adrian
favoured the views of the Eastern Church, and approved the
decree of the council of Nicaea (787), confirming the practice
and excommunicating the iconoclasts. It was in connexion with
this controversy that Charlemagne wrote the so-called Libri
Carolini, to which Adrian replied by letter, anathematizing
all who refused to worship the images of Christ, or the
Virgin, or saints. Notwithstanding this, a synod, held
at Frankfort in 794, anew condemned the practice, and the
dispute remained unsettled at Adrian's death. An epitaph
written by Charlemagne in verse, in which he styles Adrian
``father,'' is still to be seen at the door of the Vatican
basilica. Adrian restored the ancient aqueducts of Rome,
and governed his little state with a firm and skilful hand.
ADRIAN II., pope from 867 to 872, was a member of a
noble Roman family, and became pope in 867, at an advanced
age. He maintained, but with less energy, the attitude of his
predecessor. Rid of the affair of Lothair, king of Lorraine,
by the death of that prince (869), he endeavoured in vain to
mediate between the Frankish princes with a view to assuring
to the emperor, Louis II., the heritage of the king of
Lorraine. Photius, shortly after the council in which he
had pronounced sentence of deposition against Pope Nicholas,
was driven from the patriarchate by a new emperor, Basil the
Macedonian, who favoured his rival Ignatius. An oecumenical
council (called by the Latins the 8th) was convoked at
Constantinople to decide this matter. At this council Adrian
was represented by legates, who presided at the condemnation
of Photius, but did not succeed in coming to an understanding
with Ignatius on the subject of the jurisdiction over the
Bulgarian converts. Like his predecessor Nicholas, Adrian
II. was forced to submit, at least in temporal affairs, to
the tutelage of the emperor, Louis II., who placed him under
the surveillance of Arsenius, bishop of Orta, his confidential
adviser, and Arsenius's son Anastasius, the librarian.
Adrian had married in his youth, and his wife and daughter
were still living. They were carried off and assassinated
by Anastasius's brother, Eleutherius, whose reputation,
however, suffered but a momentary eclipse. Adrian died in 872.
ADRIAN III., pope, was born at Rome. He succeeded Martin
II. in 884, and died in 885, on a journey to Worms. (L. D.*)
ADRIAN IV. (Nicholas Breakspear), pope from 1154 to
1159, the only Englishman who has occupied the papal chair,
was born before A.D. 1100 at Langley near St Albans in
Hertfordshire, His father was Robert, a priest of the diocese
of Bath, who entered a monastery and left the boy to his own
resources. Nicholas went to Paris and finally became a monk
of the cloister of St Rufus near Arles. He rose to be prior
and in 1137 was unanimously elected abbot. His reforming
zeal led to the lodging of complaints against him at Rome;
but these merely attracted to him the favourable attention
of Eugenius III., who created him cardinal bishop of Albano.
From 1152 to 1154 Nlicholas was in Scandinavia as legate,
organizing the affairs of the new Norwegian archbishopric of
Trondhjem, and making arrangements which resulted in the
recognition of Upsala as seat of the Swedish metropolitan in
1164. As a compensation for territory thus withdrawn the
Danish archbishop of Lund was made legate and perpetual
vicar and given the title of primate of Denmark and Sweden.
On his return Nicholas was received with great honour by
Anastasius IV., and on the death of the latter was elected
pope on the 4th of December 1154. He at once endeavoured
to compass the overthrow of Arnold of Brescia, the leader
of anti-papal sentiment in Rome. Disorders ending with the
murder of a cardinal led Adrian shortly before Palm Sunday
1155 to take the previously-unheard-of step of putting
Rome under the interdict. The senate thereupon exiled
Arnold, and the pope, with the impolitic co-operation of
Frederick I. Barbarossa, was instrumental in procuring his
execution. Adrian crowned the emperor at St Peter's on the
18th of June 1155, a ceremony which so incensed the Romans
that the pope had to leave the city promptly, not returning
till November 1156. With the aid of dissatisfied barons,
Adrian brought William I. of Sicily into dire straits; but
a change in the fortunes of war led to a settlement (June
1156) not advantageous to the papacy and displeasing to the
emperor. At the diet of Besancon in October 1157, the
legates presented to Barbarossa a letter from Adrian which
alluded to the beneficia conferred upon the emperor, and the
German chancellor translated this beneficia in the feudal
sense. In the storm which ensued the legates were glad to
escape with their lives, and the incident at length closed
with a letter from the pope, declaring that by beneficium
he meant merely bonum factum. The breach subsequently
became wider, and Adrian was about to excommunicate the
emperor when he died at Anagnia on the 1st of September
1159. A controversy exists concerning an embassy sent by
Henry II. of England to Adrian in 1155. According to the
elaborate investigation of Thatcher, the facts seem to be as
follows. Henry asked for permission to invade and subjugate
Ireland, in order to gain absolute ownership of that isle.
Unwilling to grant a request counter to the papal claim
(based on the forged Donation of Constantine) to dominion
over the islands of the sea, Adrian made Henry a conciliatory
proposal, namely, that the king should become hereditary
feudal possessor of Ireland while recognizing the pope as
overlord. This compromise did not satisfy Henry, so the matter
dropped; Henry's subsequent title to Ireland rested on conquest,
not on papal concession, and was therefore absolute. The
much-discussed bull Laudabiliter is, however, not genuine.
See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, 3rd ed. (excellent
bibliography), and Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, 2nd
ed., under ``Hadrian IV.''; also Oliver J. Thatcher, Studies
concerning Adriani IV`. (The University of Chicago: Decennial
Publications, 1st series, vol. iv., Chicago, 1903); R. Raby,
Pope Adrian IV.: An Historical Sketch (London, 1849); and
A. H.Tarleton, Life of Nicholas Breakspear (London, 1896)
ADRIAN V. (Ottobuono de' Fieschi), pope in 1276, was a Genoese
who was created cardinal deacon by his uncle Innocent IV.
In 1264 he was sent to England to mediate between Henry III.
and his barons. He was elected pope to succeed Innocent V.
on the 11th of July 1276, but died at Viterbo on the 18th of
August, without having been ordained even to the priesthood.
ADRIAN VI. (Adrian Dedel, not Boyens, probably not Rodenburgh,
1459-1523), pope from 1522 to 1523, was born at Utrecht in
March 1459, and studied under the Brethren of the Common
Life either at Zwolle or Deventer. At Louvain he pursued
philosophy, theology and canon law, becoming a doctor of
theology (1491), dean of St Peter's and vice-chancellor of the
university. In 1507 he was appointed tutor to the seven-year
old Charles V. He was sent to Spain in 1515 on a very important
diplomatic errand; Charles secured his succession to the see
of Tortosa, and on the 14th of November 1516 commissioned him
inquisitor-general of Aragon. During the minority of Charles,
Adrian was associated with Cardinal Jimenes in governing
Spain. After the death of the latter Adrian was appointed, on
the 14th of March 1518, general of the reunited inquisitions
of Castile and Aragon, in which capacity he acted till his
departure from Tarragona for Rome on the 4th of August 1522: he
was, however, too weak and confiding to cope with abuses which
Jimenes had been able in some degree to check. When Charles
left for the Netherlands in 1520 he made Adrian regent of Spain:
as such he had to cope with a very serious revolt. In 1517
Leo X. had created him cardinal priest SS. Ioannis et Pauli;
on the 9th of January 1522 he was almost unanimously elected
pope. Crowned in St Peter's on the 31st of August at the
age of sixty-three, he entered upon the lonely path of the
reformer. His programme was to attack notorious abuses one
by one; but in his attempt to improve the system of granting
indulgences he was hampered by his cardinals; and reducing
the number of matrimonial dispensations was impossible, for
the income had been farmed out for years in advance by Leo X.
The Italians saw in him a pedantic foreign professor, blind
to the beauty of classical antiquity, penuriously docking the
stipends of great artists. As a peacemaker among Christian
princes, whom he hoped to unite in a protective war against
the Turk, he was a failure: in August 1523 he was forced
openly to ally himself with the Empire, England, Venice,
&c., against France; meanwhile in 1522 the sultan Suleiman
I. had conquered Rhodes. In dealing with the early stages
of the Protestant revolt in Germany Adrian did not fully
recognize the gravity of the situation. At the diet which
opened in December 1522 at Nuremberg he was represented by
Chieregati, whose instructions contain the frank admission
that the whole disorder of the church had perchance proceeded
from the Curia itself, and that there the reform should
begin. However, the former professor and inquisitor-general
was stoutly opposed to doctrinal changes, and demanded that
Luther be punished for heresy. The statement in one of his
works that the pope could err in matters of faith (``haeresim
per suam determinationem aut Decretalem assurondo'') has
attracted attention; but as it is a private opinion, not
an ex cathedra pronouncement, it is held not to prejudice
the dogma of papal infallibility. On the 14th of September
1523 he died, after a pontificate too short to be effective.
Most of Adrian VI's official papers disappeared soon after his
death. He published Quaestiones in quartum sententiarum
praesertim circa sacrementa (Paris, 1512, 1516, 1518,
1537; Rome, 1522), and Quaestiones quodlibeticae XII. (1st
ed., Louvain, 1515). See L. Pastor, in Geschichte der
Papste, vol. iv. pt. ii.; Adrian VI und Klemens VII.
(Freiburg, 1907); also Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon,
2nd ed., and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, 3rd ed.,
under ``Hadrian VI.''; H. Hurter, Nomenclator literarius
recentioris theologiae catholicae, tom. iv. (Innsbruck.
1899), 1027; The Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii.
(1904), 19-21; H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of
Spain, vol. i. (1906); Janus, The Pope and the Council,
2nd ed. (London, 1869), 376. Biographies--A. Lepitre,
Adrien VI. (Paris, 1880); C. A. C. von Hofler, Papst
Adrian VI. (Vienna, 1880); L. Casartelli, ``The Dutch
Pope,'' in Miscellaneous Essays (London, 1906). (W. W. R.*)
ADRIAN, SAINT, one of the praetorian guards of the emperor
Galerius Maximian, who, becoming a convert to Christianity, was
martyred at Nicomedia on the 4th of March 303. It is said that
while presiding over the torture of a band of Christians he
was so amazed at their courage that he publicly confessed his
faith. He was imprisoned, and the next day his limbs were
struck off on an anvil, and he was then beheaded, dying in
his wife's, St Natalia's, arms. St Adrian's festival, with
that of his wife, is kept on the 8th of September. He is
specially a patron of soldiers, and is much reverenced in
Flanders, Germany and the north of France. He is usually
represented armed, with an anvil in his hands or at his feet.
ADRIAN, a city and the county-seat of Lenawee county,
Michigan, U.S.A., on the S. branch of Raisin river, near the
S.E. corner of the state. Pop.(1890) 8736; (1900) 9654, of
whom 1186 were foreign-born: (1910 census) 10,763. It is
served by five branches of the Lake Shore railway system, and
by the Wabash, the Toledo and Western, and the Toledo, Detroit
and Ironton railways. Adrian is the seat of Adrian College
(1859; co-educational), controlled by the Wesleyan Methodist
Church in 1859-1867 and since 1867 by the Methodist Protestant
Church, and having departments of literature, theology, music,
fine arts, commerce and pedagogy, and a preparatory school;
and of St Joseph's Academy (Roman Catholic) for girls; and 1
m. north of the city is the State Industrial Home for Girls
(1879), for the reformation of juvenile offenders between the
ages of ten and seventeen. Adrian has a public library. The
city is situated in a rich farming region; is an important
shipping point for livestock, grain and other farm products;
and is especially known as a centre for the manufacture of
wire-fences. Among the other manufactories are flouring
and grist mills, planing mills, foundries, and factories for
making agricultural implements, United States mail boxes,
furniture, pianos, organs, automobiles, toys and electrical
supplies. The value of the city's factory products increased
from $2,124,923 in 1900 to $4,897,426 in 1904, or 130.5%;
of the total value in 1904, $2,849,648 was the value of
wire-work. The place was laid out as a town in 1828, and
according to tradition was named in honour of the Roman emperor
Hadrian. It was incorporated as a village in 1836, was made
the county-seat in 1838 and was chartered as a city in 1853.
ADRIANI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1513-1579), Italian historian,
was born of a patrician family of Florence, and was secretary
to the republic of Florence. He was among the defenders of
the city during the siege of 1530, but subsequently joined the
Medici party and was appointed professor of rhetoric at the
university. At the instance of Cosimo I. he wrote a history
of his own times, from 1536 to 1574, in Italian, which is
generally, but according to Brunet erroneously, considered a
continuation of Guicciardini. De Thou acknowledges himself
greatly indebted to this history, praising it especially for its
accuracy. Adriani composed funeral orations in Latin on the
emperor Charles V. and other noble personages, and was the
author of a long letter on ancient painters and sculptors
prefixed to the third volume of Vasari. His Istoria dei
suoi tempi was published in Florence in 1583; a new edition
appeared also in Florence in 1872. See G. M. Mazzucchelli,
Gli Scrittori d' Italia, i. p. 151 (Brescia, 1753).
ADRIANOPLE, a vilayet of European Turkey, corresponding with
part of the ancient Thrace, and bounded on the N. by Bulgaria
(Eastern Rumeha), E. by the Black Sea and the vilayet of
Constantinople, S. by the Sea of Marmora and the Aegean Sea and
W. by Macedonia. Pop. (1905) about 1,000,000; area, 15,000 sq.
m. The surface of the vilayet is generally mountainous,
except in the central valley of the Maritza, and along the
banks of its tributaries, the Tunja, Arda, Ergene, &c. On the
west, the great Rhodope range and its outlying ridges extend
as far as the Maritza, and attain an altitude of more than 7000
ft. in the summits of the Kushlar Dagh, Karluk Dagh and the
Balkan. Towards the Black Sea, the less elevated Istranja
Dagh stretches from north-west to south-east; and the entire
south coast, which includes the promontory of Gallipoli and
the western shore of the Dardanelles, is everywhere hilly or
mountainous, except near the estuaries of the Maritza, and
of the Mesta, a western frontier stream. The climate is
mild and the soil fertile; but political disturbances and
the conservative character of the people tend to thwart the
progress of agriculture and other industries. The vilayet
suffered severely during the Russian occupation of 1878,
when, apart from the natural dislocation of commerce, many
of the Moslem cultivators emigrated to Asia Minor, to be
free from their alien rulers. Through the resultant scarcity
of labour, much land fell out of cultivation. This was
partially remedied after the Bulgarian annexation of Eastern
Rumella, in 1885, had driven the Moslems of that country to
emigrate in like manner to Adrianople; but the advantage was
counterbalanced by the establishment of hostile Bulgarian
tariffs. The important silk industry, however, began to
revive about 1890, and dairy farming is prosperous; but the
condition of the vilayet is far less unsettled than that of
Macedonia, owing partly to the preponderance of Moslems among
the peasantry, and partly to the nearness of Constantinople,
with its Western influences. The main railway from Belgrade
to Constantinople skirts the Maritza and Ergene valleys, and
there is an important branch line down the Maritza valley to
Dedeagatch, and thence coastwise to Salonica. After the city
of Adrianople (pop. 1905, about 80,000), which is the capital,
the principal towns are Rodosto (35,000), Gallipoli (25,000),
Kirk-Kilisseh (16,000), Xanthi (14,000), Chorlu (11,500), Demotica
(10,000), Enos (8000), Gumuljina (8000) and Dedeagatch (3000).
ADRIANOPLE (anc. Hadrianopolis; Turk. Edirne, or
Edreneh; Slav. Odrin), the capital of the vilayet of
Adrianople, Turkey in Europe; 137 m. by rail W.N.W. of
Constantinople. Pop. (1905) about 80,000, of whom half are
Turks, and half Jews, Greeks, Bulgars, Armenians, &c. Adrianople
ranks, after Constantinople and Salonica, third in size and
importance among the cities of European Turkey. It is the see
of a Greek archbishop, and of one Armenian and two Bulgarian
bishops. It is the chief fortress near the Bulgarian frontier,
being defended by a ring of powerful modern forts. It occupies
both banks of the river Tunja, at its confluence with the
Maritza, which is navigable to this point in spring and
winter. The nearest seaport by rail is Dedeagatch, west
of the Maritza; Enos, at the river-mouth, is the nearest by
water. Adrianople is on the railway from Belgrade and
Sofia to Constantinople and Salonica. In appearance it is
thoroughly Oriental--a mass of mean, irregular wooden buildings,
threaded by narrow tortuous streets, . with a few better
buildings. Of these the most important are the Idadieh
school, the school of arts and crafts, the Jewish communal
school; the Greek college, Zappeion; the Imperial Ottoman
Bank and Tobacco Regie; a fire-tower; a theatre; palaces
for the prefect of the city, the administrative staff of
the second army corps and the defence works commission; a
handsome row of barracks; a military hospital; and a French
hospital. Of earlier buildings, the most distinguished are
the Eski Serai, an ancient and half-ruined palace of the
sultans; the bazaar of Ali Pasha; and the 16th-century mosque
of the sultan Selim II., a magnificent specimen of Turkish
architecture. Adrianople has five suburbs, of which
Kiretchhane and Yilderim are on the left bank of the Maritza,
and Kirjikstands on a hill overlooking the city. The two
last named are exclusively Greek, but a large proportion
of the inhabitants of Kiretchhane are Bulgarian. These
three suburbs---as well as the little hamlet of Demirtash,
containing about 300 houses all occupied by Bulgars---are all
built in the native fashion; but the fifth suburb, Karagatch,
which is on the right bank of the Maritza, and occupies the
region between the railway station and the city, is Western
in its design, consisting of detached residences in gardens,
many of them handsome villas, and all of modern European
type. In all the communities schools have multiplied, but
the new seminaries are of the old non-progressive type. The
only exception is the Hamidieh school for boys---a government
institution which takes both boarders and day-scholars.
Like the Lyceum of Galata Serai in Constantinople, it has
two sets of professors, Turkish and French, and a full course
of education in each language, the pupils following both
courses. The several communities have each their own
charitable institutions, the Jews being socially well endowed
in this respect, The Greeks have a literary society, and
there is a well-organized club to which members of all the
native communities, as well as many foreigners, belong.
The economic condition of Adrianople was much impaired by
the war of 1877-78, and was just showing signs of recovery
when, in 1885, the severance from it of Eastern Rumelia by
a Customs cordon rendered the situation more than ever.
Adrianople had previously been the commercial headquarters
of all Thrace, and of a large portion of the region between
the Balkans and the Danube, now Bulgaria. But the separation
of Eastern Rumeha isolated Adrianople, and transferred to
Philippopolis at least two-thirds of its foreign trade which,
as regards sea-borne merchandise, is carried on through the
port of Burgas (q.v.). The city manufactures silk, leather,
tapestry, woollens, linen and cotton, and has an active general
trade. Besides fruits and agricultural produce, its exports
include raw silk, cotton, opium, rose-water, attar of
roses, wax and the dye known as Turkey red. The surrounding
country is extremely fertile, and its wines are the best
produced in Turkey. The city is supplied with fresh water
by means of an aqueduct carried by arches over an extensive
valley. There is also a fine stone bridge over the Tunja.
Adrianople was originally known as Uskadama, Uskudama or
Uskodama, but was renamed and enlarged by the Roman emperor
Hadrian (117-138). In 378 the Romans were here defeated
by the Goths. Adrianople was the residence of the Turkish
sultans from 1361, when it was captured by Murad I., until
1453, when Constantinople fell. It was occupied by the
Russians in 1829 and 1878 (see RUSSO-TURKISH WARS).
ADRIATIC SEA (ancient Adria or Hadria), an arm of the
Mediterranean Sea separating Italy from the Austro-Hungarian,
Montenegrin and Albanian littorals, and the system of the
Apennine mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent
ranges. The name, derived from the town of Adria, belonged
originally only to the upper portion of the sea (Herodotus
vi. 127, vii. 20, ix. 92; Euripides, Hippolytus, 736), but
was gradually extended as the Syracusan colonies gained in
importance. But even then the Adriatic in the narrower sense
only extended as far as the Mons Garganus, the outer portion
being called the Ionian Sea: the name was sometimes, however,
inaccurately used to include the Gulf of Tarentum, the Sea of
Sicily, the Gulf of Corinth and even the sea between Crete
and Malta (Acts xxvii. 27). The Adriatic extends N.W. from
40 deg. to 45 deg. 45' N., with an extreme length of nearly 500
m., and a mean breadth of about 110 m., but the Strait of
Otranto, through which it connects at the south with the
Ionian Sea, is only 45 m. wide. Moreover, the chain of
islands which fringes the northern part of the eastern shore
reduces the extreme breadth of open sea in this part to 90
m. The Italian shore is generally low, merging, in the
north-west, into the marshes and lagoons on either hand
of the protruding delta of the river Po, the sediment of
which has pushed forward the coast-line for several miles
within historic times. On islands within one of the lagoons
opening from the Gulf of Venice, the city of that name has
its unique situation. The east coast is generally bold and
rocky. South of the Istrian peninsula, which separates the
Gulfs of Venice and Trieste from the Strait of Quarnero,
the island-fringe of the east coast extends as far south as
Ragusa. The islands, which are long and narrow (the long axis
lying parallel with the coast of the mainland), rise rather
abruptly to elevations of a few hundred feet, while on the
mainland, notably in the magnificent inlet of the Bocche di
Cattaro, lofty mountains often fall directly to the sea. This
coast, though beautiful, is somewhat sombre, the prevalent
colour of the rocks, a light, dead grey, contrasting harshly
with the dark vegetation, which on some of the islands is
luxuriant. The north part of the sea is very shallow, and
between the southern promontory of Istria and Rimini the depth
rarely exceeds 25 fathoms. Between Sebenico and Ortona a
well-marked depression occurs, a considerable area of which
exceeds 100 fathoms in depth. From a point between Curzola
and the north shore of the spur of Monte Gargano there is
a ridge giving shallower water, and a broken chain of a few
islets extends across the sea. The deepest part of the sea
lies east of Monte Gargano, south of Ragusa, and west of
Durazzo, where a large basin gives depths of 500 fathoms and
upwards, and a small area in the south of this basin falls
below 800. The mean depth of the sea is estimated at 133
fathoms. The bora (north-east wind), and the prevalence
of sudden squalls from this quarter or the south-east, are
dangers to navigation in winter. Tidal movement is slight.
(See also MEDITERRANEAN.) For the ``Marriage of the
Adriatic,'' or more properly ``of the sea,'' a ceremony formerly
performed by the doges of Venice, see the article BUCENTAUR.
ADSCRIPT (from Lat. ad, on or to, and scribere, to write),
something written ajier, as opposed to ``subscript,'' which
means written under. A labourer was called an ``adscript
of the soil'' (adscriptus glebae) when he could be sold or
transferred with it, as in feudal days, and as in Russia until
1861. Carlyle speaks of the Java blacks as a kind of adscripts.
ADULLAM, a Canaanitish town in the territory of the tribe
of Judah, perhaps the modern Aid-el-Ma, 7 m. N.E. of
Beit-Jibrin. It was in the stronghold (``cave'' is a scribal
error) of this town that David took refuge on two occasions
(1 Sam. xxii. 1; 2 Sam. v. 17). The tradition that Adullam
is in the great cave of Rhareitun (St Chariton) is probably
due to the crusaders. From the description of Adullam as the
resort of ``every one that was in distress,'' or ``in debt,''
or ``discontented,'' it has often been humorously alluded
to, notably by Sir Walter Scott, who puts the expression into
the mouth of the Baron of Bradwardine in Waverley, chap.
lvii., and also of Balfour of Burley in Old Mortality. In
modern political history the expression ``cave of Adullam''
(hence ``Adullamites'') came into common use (being first
employed in a speech by John Bright on the 13th of March
1866) with regard to the independent attitude of Robert
Howe (Lord Sherbrooke), Edward Horsman and their Liberal
supporters in opposition to the Reform Bill of 1866. But
others had previously used it in a similar connexion, e.g.
President Lincoln in his second electoral campaign (1864),
and the Tories in allusion to the Whig remnant who joined
C. J. Fox in his temporary secession. From the same usage
is derived the shorter political term ``cave'' for any body
of men who secede from their party on some special subject.
ADULTERATION (from Lat. adulterare, to defile or falsify),
the act of debasing a commercial commodity with the object
of passing it off as or under the name of a pure or genuine
commodity for illegitimate profit, or the substitution of an
inferior article for a superior one, to the detriment of the
purchaser. Although the term is mainly used in connexion
with the falsification of articles of food, drink or
drugs, and is so dealt with in this article, the practice
of adulteration extends to almost all manufactured products
and even to unmanufactured natural substances, and (as was
once suggested by (John Bright) is an almost inseparable
--though none the less reprehensible---phase of keen trade
competition. In its crudest forms as old as commerce
itself, it has progressed with the growth of knowledge and
of science, and is, in its most modern developments, almost
a branch--and that not the least vigorous one---of applied
science. From the mere concealment of a piece of metal or a
stone in a loaf of bread or in a lump of butter, a bullet in
a musk baa or in a piece of opium, it has developed into the
use of aniline dyes, of antiseptic chemicals, of synthetic
sweetening agents in foods, the manufacture of butter from
cocoa-nuts, of lard from cotton-seed and of pepper from olive
stones. Its growth and development has necessitated the
employment of multitudes of scientific officers charged with its
detection and the passing of numerous laws for its repression and
punishment. While for all common forms of fraud the common
law is in most cases considered strong enough, special laws
against the adulteration of food have been found necessary
in all civilized countries. A vigorous branch of chemical
literature deals with it; there exist scientific societies
specially devoted to its study; laboratories are maintained
by governments with staffs of highly trained chemists for
its detection; and yet it not only develops and flourishes,
but becomes more general, if less virulent and dangerous to
health. There are numerous references to adulteration in the
classics. The detection of the base metal by Archimedes in
Hiero's crown, by the light specific gravity of the latter, is
a well-known instance. Vitruvius speaks of the adulteration
of minium with lime, Dioscorides of that of opium with other
plant juices and with gum, Pliny of that of flour with white
clay. Both in Rome and in Athens wine was often adulterated
with colours and flavouring agents, and inspectors were
charged with looking after it. In England, so far hack as the
reign of John (1203), a proclamation was made throughout the
kingdom, enforcing the legal obligations of assize as regards
bread; and in the following reign the statute (51 Hen. III.
Stat. 6) entitled ``the pillory and tumbrel'' was framed
for the express purpose of protecting the public from the
dishonest dealings of bakers, vintners, brewers, butchers and
others. This statute is the first in which the adulteration
of human food is specially noticed and prohibited; it seems
to have been enforced with more or less rigour until the
time of Anne, when it was repealed (1709). According to the
hiber Albus it was strictly observed in the days of Edward
I., for it states that: ``If any default shall be found in
the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him
be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house
through the great street where there be most people assembled,
and through the great streets which are most dirty, with
the faulty loaf hanging from his neck; if a second time he
shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn
from the Guildhall through the great street of Cheepe in the
manner aforesaid to the pillory, and let him be put upon the
pillory, and remain there at least one hour in the day; and
the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be
drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made
to foreswear the trade in the city for ever.'' The assize
of 1634 provides that ``if there be any manner of person or
persons, which shall by any false wayes or meanes, sell
any meale under the kinge's subjects, either by mixing it
deceitfully or sell any musty or corrupted meal, which may
be to the hurte and infection of man's body, or use any false
weight, or any deceitful wayes or meanes, and so deceive the
subject, for the first offence he shall be grievously punished,
the second he shall loose his meale, for the third offence he
shall suffer the judgment of the pillory and the fourth time
he shall foreswore the town wherein he dwelleth.'' Vintners,
spicers, grocers, butchers, regrators and others were subject
to the like punishment for dishonesty in their commercial
dealings--it being thought that the pillory, by appealing to
the sense of shame, was far more deterrent of such crimes than
fine or imprisonment. In the reign of Edward the Confessor
a knavish brewer of the city of Chester was taken round the
town in the cart in which the refuse of the privies had been
collected. Ale-tasters had to look after the ale and test it
by spilling some on to a wooden seat, sitting on the wet place
in their leathern breeches, the stickiness of the ``residue
obtained by evaporation'' affording the evidence of purity or
otherwise. If sugar had been added the taster adhered to
the bench; pure malt beer was not considered to yield an
adhesive extract. In 1553, the lord mayor of London ordered
a jury of five or six vintners to rack and draw off the
suspected wine of another vintner, and to ascertain what
drugs or ingredients they found in the said wine or cask
to sophisticate the same. At another time eight pipes of
wine were ordered to be destroyed because, on racking off,
bundles of weeds, pieces of sulphur match, and ``a kind
of gravel mixture sticking to the casks'' had been found.
Similar records have come down from the continental European
countries. In 1390 an Augsburg wine-seller was sentenced
to be led out of the city with his hands bound and a rope
round his neck; in 1400 two others were branded and otherwise
severely punished; in 1435 ``were the taverner Christian
Corper and his wife put in a cask in which he sold false
wine, and then exposed in the pillory. The punishment was
adjudged because they had roasted pears and put them into
new sour wine, in order to sweeten the wine. Some pears
were hung round their necks like unto a Paternoster.''
In Biebrich on the Rhine, in 1482, a wine-falsifier was
condemned to drink six quarts of his own wine; from this he
died. In Frankfurt, casks in which false wine had been
found were placed with a red flag on the knacker's cart,
``the jailer marched before, the rabble after; and when they
came to the river they broke the casks and tumbled the stuff
into the stream.'' In France successive ordonnances from
1330 to 1672 forbade the mixing of two wines together under
the penalty of a fine and the confiscation of the wine.
Modern British Legislation.--In modern times the English
parliament has dealt frequently with the subject of food
adulteration. In 1725 it was provided that ``no dealer in
tea or manufacturer or dyer thereof, or pretending so to
be, shall counterfeit or adulterate tea, or cause or procure
the same to be counterfeited or adulterated, or shall alter,
fabricate or manufacture tea with terra-japonica, or with any
drug or drugs whatsoever; nor shall mix or cause or procure
to be mixed with tea any leaves other than the leaves of
tea or other ingredients whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting
and losing the tea so counterfeited, adulterated, altered,
fabricated, manufactured or mixed, and any other thing or
things whatsoever added thereto, or mixed or used therewith,
and also the sum of L. 100.'' Six years afterwards, in
1730-173i, a further act was passed prescribing a penalty for
``sophisticating'' tea; it recites that several iii-disposed
persons do frequently dye, fabricate or manufacture very great
quantities of sloe leaves, liquorice leaves, and the leaves
of tea that have been before used, or the leaves of other
trees, shrubs or plants in imitation of tea, and do likewise
mix, colour, stain and dye such leaves and likewise tea with
terra-japonica, sugar, molasses, clay, logwood, and with other
ingredients, and do sell and vend the same as true and real
tea, to the prejudice of the health of his majesty's subjects,
the diminution of the revenue and to the ruin of the fair
trader. This act provides that for every pound of adulterated
tea found in possession of any person, a sum of L. 10 shall be
forfeited. It was followed by one passed in 1768-1767, which
increased the penalty to imprisonment for not less than six
nor more than twelve months. As regards coffee, an act of
1718 recited that ``divers evil-disposed persons have at the
time or soon after the roasting of coffee made use of water,
grease, butter or such-like materials, whereby the same is
rendered unwholesome and greatly increased in weight,'' and
a penalty of L. 20 is enacted. In 1803 an act refers to the
addition of burnt, scorched or roasted peas, beans or other
grains or vegetable substances prepared in imitation of coffee
or cocoa, to coffee or cocoa, and fixes the penalty for the
offence at L. 100, but subsequently permission was given to
coffee or cocoa dealers also to deal in scorched or roasted
corn, peas, beans or parsnips whole and not ground, crushed or
powdered, under certain excise restrictions. An act passed
in 1816 relating to beer and porter provides that no brewer
of or dealer in or retailer of beer ``shall receive or have
in his possession, or make or mix with any worts or beer,
any liquor, extract or other preparation for the purpose
of darkening the colour of worts or beer, other than brown
malt, ground or unground, or shall have in his possession
or use, or mix with any worts or beer any molasses, honey,
liquorice, vitriol, quassia, coculus-indiae, grains of
paradise, guinea-pepper or opium, or any extracts of these, or
any articles or preparation whatsoever for or as a substitute
for malt or hops.'' Any person contravening was liable to a
penalty of L. 200, and any druggist selling to any brewer or
retail dealer any colouring or malt substitute was to be fined
L. 500. It was only in 1847 that brewers were allowed to
make for their own use, from sugar, a liquor for darkening
the colour of worts or beer and to use it in brewing.
All the laws hitherto referred to were mainly passed in the
interest of the inland revenue, and their execution was left
entirely in the hands of the revenue officers. It was but
natural that they should look primarily after the dutiable
articles and not after those that brought no revenue to the
state. About the middle of the 19th century many articles,
however, paid import duty; butter, for instance, paid 5s.
per hundredweight; cheese from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d.; flour
or meal of all kinds, 4 1/2d.; ginger, 10s.; isinglass, 5s.;
and so on. Sensational and doubtless largely exaggerated
statements were from time to time published concerning the
food supply of the nation. F. C. Accum (1769-1838) by his
Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons
(1820), and particularly an anonymous writer of a book
entitled Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning unmasked,
or Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle, in which
the blood empoisoning and life-destroying adulterations of
wines, spirits, beer, bread, flour, tea, sugar, spices,
cheesemongery, pastry, confectionery, medicines, etc.,
etc., are laid open to the public (1830), roused the public
attention. In 1850 a physician, Dr. Arthur H. Hassall,
had the happy idea of looking at ground coffee through the
microscope. Eminent chemists had previously found great
difficulty in establishing any satisfactory chemical distinction
between coffee, chicory and other adulterants of coffee;
the microscope immediately showed the structural difference
of the particles, however small. The results of Hassall's
examinations were embodied in a paper which was read before the
Botanical Society of London and was reported in The Times,
1850. A paper on the microscopic examination of sugar,
showing the presence in that article of innumerable living
mites, followed and attracted much attention. Hassall was
in consequence commissioned by Thomas Wakley (1795--1862),
the owner of the Lancet, to extend his examination to other
articles of food, and for a period of nearly four years reports
of the Lancet Analytical Sanitary Commission were regularly
published, the names and addresses of hundreds of manufacturers
and tradesmen selling adulterated articles being fearlessly
given. The responsibility incurred was immense, but the
assertions of the journal were so well founded upon fact that
they were universally accepted as accurately representing
the appalling state of the food supply. As instances may be
cited, that of thirty-four samples of coffee only three were
pure, chicory being present in thirty-one, roasted corn in
twelve, beans and potato flour each in one; of thirty-four
samples of chicory, fourteen were adulterated with corn,
beans or acorns; of forty-nine samples of bread, every one
contained alum; of fifty-six samples of cocoa, only eight
were pure; of twenty-six milks, fourteen were adulterated; of
twenty-eight cayenne peppers, only four were genuine, thirteen
containing red-lead and one vermilion; of upwards of one
hundred samples of coloured sugar-confectionery, fifty-nine
contained chromate of lead, eleven gamboge, twelve red-lead,
six vermilion, nine arsenite of copper and four white-lead.
Act of 1860.
In consequence of the Lancet's disclosures a parliamentary
committee was appointed in 1855, the labours of which resulted
in 1860 in the Adulteration of Food and Drink Act, the first
act that dealt generally with the adulteration of food. The
first section of this enacted ``that every person who shall
sell any article of food or drink with which, to the knowledge
of such person, any ingredient or material injurious to the
health of persons eating or drinking such article has been
mixed, and every person who shall sell as pure or unadulterated
any article of food or drink which is adulterated and not
pure, shall for every such offence, on summary conviction,
pay a penalty not exceeding L. 5 with costs.'' In the case of
a second offence the name, place of abode and offence might
be published in the newspapers at the offender's expense.
1872.
As the act, however, left it optional to the district authorities
to appoint analysts or not, and did not provide for the
appointment of any officer upon whom should rest the duty of
obtaining samples or of prosecuting offenders, it virtually
remained a dead letter till 1872, when the Adulteration of
Food and Drugs Act came into force, prescribing a penalty
not exceeding L. 50 for the sale of injurious food and, for a
second offence, imprisonment for six months with hard labour.
Inspectors were empowered to make purchases of samples to be
submitted for analysis, but appointment of analysts was still left
optional. The definition of an adulterated article given in
that act was essentially that still accepted at the present
time, namely, ``any article of food or drink or any drug mixed
with any other substances, with intent fraudulently to increase
its weight or bulk, without declaration of such admixture
to any purchaser thereof before delivering the same.'' The
adoption of the act was sporadic, and, outside London and a
few large towns, the number of proceedings against offenders
remained exceedingly small. Nevertheless complaints soon
arose that it inflicted considerable injury and imposed heavy
and undeserved penalties upon some respectable tradesmen,
mainly owing to the ``want of a clear understanding of what
does and does not constitute adulteration,'' and in some cases
to conflicting decisions and the inexperience of analysts.
Again a parliamentary committee was appointed which took a
mass of evidence, the outcome of its inquiries being the Sale
Of Food and Drugs Act 1875, which is in force at the present
day, subject to amendments and additions made at later
dates. This act avoided the term ``adulteration'' altogether
and endeavoured to give a clearer description of punishable
offences:--Section 6. ``No person shall sell to the purchaser
any article of food or any drug which is not of the nature,
substance and quality of the article demanded by the purchaser
under a penalty not exceeding L. 20; provided that an offence
shall not be deemed to be committed under this section in
the following cases: (1) where any matter or ingredient not
injurious to health has been added to the food or drug because
the same is required for the production or preparation thereof
as an article of commerce, in a state fit for carriage or
consumption, and not fraudulently to increase the bulk, weight
or measure of the food or drug, or conceal the inferior quality
thereof; (2) where the food or drug is a proprietary medicine,
or is the subject of a patent in force and is supplied in
the state required by the specification of the patent; (3)
where the food or drug is compounded as in the act mentioned;
(4) where the food or drug is unavoidably mixed with some
extraneous matter in the process of collection or preparation.''
Section 8. ``No person shall be guilty of any such offence
as aforesaid in respect to the sale of an article of food
or a drug mixed with any matter or ingredient not injurious
to health, and not intended fraudulently to increase its
bulk, weight or measure, or conceal its inferior quality,
if at the time of delivering such article or drug he shall
supply to the person receiving the same a notice, by a label
distinctly and legibly written or printed on or with the
article or drug, to the effect that the same is mixed.''
The act made the appointment of analysts compulsory upon
the city of London, the vestries, county quarter sessions
and town councils or boroughs having a separate police
establishment. For the protection of the vendor, samples that
had been purchased by the inspectors for analysis were to be
offered to be divided into three parts, one to be submitted
to the analyst, the second to be given to the vendor to be
dealt with by him as he might deem fit, and the third to
be retained by the inspector: and, at the discretion of the
magistrate hearing any summons, to be submitted, in case of
dispute, to the commissioners of inland revenue for analysis
by the chemical laboratory at Somerset House. The public
analyst had to give a certificate, couched in a prescribed
form, to the person submitting any sample for analysis, which
certificate was to be taken as evidence of the facts therein
stated, in order to render the proceedings as inexpensive as
practicable. If the defendant in any prosecution could prove
to the satisfaction of the court that he had purchased the
article under a warranty of genuineness, and that he sold it in
the same state as when he purchased it, he was to be discharged
from the prosecution, but no provision was made that in that
event the giver of the warranty should be proceeded against.
1879.
Section 6, quoted above, gave rise to an immense amount of
litigation, and already in 1879 it was found necessary to
pass an amending act, making it clear that if a purchase was
effected by an inspector with the intent to get the' purchased
article analysed, he was as much ``prejudiced'' if obtaining
a sophisticated article as a private purchaser who purchased
for his own use and consumption. The amending act also dealt
in some small measure with a difficulty which immediately
after passing the act was found to arise in ascertaining
whether any article was ``of the nature, substance and quality
demanded by the purchaser''---``in determining whether an
offence has been committed under section 6 by selling spirits
not adulterated otherwise than by the admixture of water,
it shall be a good defence to prove that such admixture has
not reduced the spirit more than twenty-five degrees under
proof for brandy, whisky or rum, or thirty-five under proof
for gin.'' Almost insuperable difficulties as to the meaning
of ``nature, substance and quality'' subsequently arose as
regards every conceivable food material. its it was obviously
impossible for parliament to define every article, to lay down
limits of composition within which it might vary, to specify
the substances or ingredients that might enter into it, to
limit the proportions of the unavoidable impurities that might
be contained in it, the duty to do all this was left to the
individual analysts. An enormous number of substances had
to be analysed until sufficient evidence had been accumulated
for the giving of correct opinions or certificates. Endless
disputes unavoidably arose, friction with manufacturers and
traders, unfortunately also with the referees at the inland
revenue, who for many years were altogether out of touch with the
analysts. Conflicting decisions come to by various benches
of magistrates upon similar cases, allowing of the legal
sale of an article in one district which in another had been
declared illegal, rendered the position of merchants often
unsatisfactory. It was not recognized by parliament until almost
a quarter of a century had elapsed that it was not enough to
compel local authorities to get samples analysed, but that it
was also the duty of parliament to lay down specific and clear
instructions that might enable the officers to do their work.
This has only been very partially done even at the present time.
Difficulties of administration.
A curious condition of things arose out of the definition
of ``food'' given in the act of 1875: ``The term food shall
include every article used for food or drink by man, other
than drugs or water.'' It had been the practice of bakers to
add alum to the flour from which bread was manufactured, in
order to whiten the bread, and to permit the use of damaged
and discoloured flour. This practice had been strongly
condemned by chemists and physicians, because it rendered the
bread indigestible and injurious to health. Shortly after
the passing of the Food Act this objectionable practice was
stamped out by numerous prosecutions, and alumed bread now
no longer occurs. A large trade, however, continued to be
carried on in baking powders consisting of alum and sodium
bicarbonate. It was naturally thought that, as baking powder
is sold with the obvious intention that it may enter into
food, the vendors could also be proceeded against. The high
court, however, held that, baking powder in itself not being
an article of food, its sale could not be an offence under
the Food Act. This anomaly was removed by a later act. Under
section 6 of the act of 1875 a defendant could be convicted,
even if he had no guilty knowledge of the fact that the article
he had sold was adulterated. In the repealed Adulteration
Act of 1872 the words ``to the knowledge of'' were inserted,
and they were found fatal to obtaining convictions. The
general rule of the law is that the master is not criminally
responsible for the acts of his servants if they are done
without his knowledge or authority, but under the Food Act it
was held (Brown v. Foot, 1892, 66 L.T. 649) that a master
was liable for the watering of milk by one of his servants,
although he had published a warning to them that they would
be dismissed if found doing so. Milk might be adulterated
during transit on the railway without the knowledge of the
owner or receiver, and yet the vendor was liable to conviction.
When it is brought to the knowledge of a purchaser that
the article sold to him is not of the nature, substance or
quality he demanded, the sale is not to the prejudice of the
purchaser. The notice may be given verbally or by a label
supplied with the article. A common law notice may also be
given. In Sandys v. Small, 1878, 3 Q.B.D. 449, a publican
had displayed a placard within the inn to the effect that
the spirits sold in his establishment were watered. This
was held, as it were, to contract him out of the Food Act.
Similarly, in the case of butters that had been adulterated
with milk, the vendors, by giving a general notice in the
shop, evaded punishment under the act. A notice, is,
however, of no avail if given under section 8 of the act,
if the admixture has been made for fraudulent purposes. In
Liddiart v. Reece, 44 J.P. 233, 1880, an inspector asked
for coffee and received a packet with a label describing it as
a mixture of coffee and chicory. It was sold at the price of
coffee. It turned out to be a mixture containing 40% of
chicory. The high court held that this was an excessive
quantity, and was added for the purpose of fraudulently
increasing the bulk or weight. In another case, however
(Otter v. Edgley, 1893, 57 J.P. 457), where an inspector
had asked for French coffee and had been supplied with a mixture
containing 60% of chicory, the article being labelled as a
mixture, the high court held that there was no evidence of
fraud, and, in the case of cocoa, a mixture containing as
little as 30% of cocoa and 70% of starch and sugar, the label
stating it to be a mixture, was held to have been legally
sold (Jones v. Jones, 1894, 58 J.P. 653). In this case
the label notifying the admixture was hidden by a sheet of
opaque white paper, nor had the purchaser's attention been
called to it, but the price of the article was much lower
than that of pure cocoa. It is seen from these few instances,
taken at random out of scores, that this clause of the act
was far from clear and was very variously interpreted at the
courts. The warranty clause (clause 25) also gave rise to
an immense amount of litigation. In the earlier high court
decisions a very narrow interpretation was given to the
term ``written warranty,'' but in later years a wider view
prevailed. A general contract to supply a pure article
is not a sufficient warranty unless with every delivery
there is something to identify the delivery as part of the
contract. An invoice containing merely a description of an
article as ``lard'' or ``pepper'' is not a warranty; but if
there be added the words ``guaranteed pure'' it is a sufficient
warranty. A label upon an article is not in itself a warranty,
but a label bearing the words ``pure'' or ``unadulterated,''
coupled with an invoice which could be identified with the
label, together were held to form an effective warranty.
As many thousands of samples were annually submitted by
inspectors under the act to the analysts who had been
appointed in 237 boroughs and districts, a very large number
of cases led to disputes of law or fact, about seventy
high court cases being decided within eighteen years of
the passing of the act. While these cases related to a
variety of different articles and conditions, dairy produce,
namely milk and butter, led to the greatest amount of
litigation. It may seem to be a simple matter to ascertain
whether a vendor of milk supplies his customer with milk of
the ``nature, substance and quality demanded,'' but milk is
subject to great variations in composition owing to a large
number of circumstances which will be considered below.
Margerine Act.
Not many years after the passing of the Food Act of 1875 the
sale of butter substitutes assumed very large proportions, and
so seriously prejudiced dairy-farmers that, as regards these,
an act was passed which was not exactly an amendment of the
Sale of Food and Drugs Act, although it embodied a good many
provisions of that act. It was called the Margarine Act 1887.
It provided that every package of articles made in imitation of
butter should be labelled ``margarine'' in letters 1 1/2 inches
square. The vendor, however, was protected if he could show
a warranty or invoice, whereas in the Sale of Food and Drugs
Act he was not protected by invoice merely. Inspectors might
take samples of ``any butter or substitute purporting to be
butter'' without going through the form of purchase. The
maximum penalty was raised from L. 20 as provided by the Food
Act, to L. 50 in the case of a first and to L. 100 in the case
of repeated conviction. The Margarine Act is the first statute
that makes reference to and sanctions the use of preservatives,
concerning which a good deal will have to be said farther on.
Select committee, 1894.
In the course of twenty years of administration of the Food
Acts so many difficulties had arisen in reference to the
various points referred to, that in 1894 a select committee
was appointed to inquire into the working of the various acts
and to report whether any, and if so what, amendments were
desirable. During three sessions the committee sat and
took voluminous evidence. They reported that where the acts
had been well administered they had been most beneficial in
diminishing adulteration offences. Forms of adulteration
which were common prior to the passing of the 1875 act, such
as the introouction of alum into bread and the colouring of
confectionery with poisonous material, had almost entirely
disappeared. A close connexion had been shown to exist
between the extent of adulteration and the number of articles
submitted for analysis under the acts, the proportion of
adulterated samples being found to diminish as the number of
samples taken relatively to the population increased. Thus, in
1890, in Somersetshire one sample had been analysed for every
379 persons, the percentage of adulterated samples in those
taken for analysis being as low as 3.6; in Gloucestershire
one to 770 persons with 6.2 of adulteration; in Bedfordshire
one to 821 with 7.1; in Derbyshire one to 3164 with 17.1%,
and in Oxford one sample to 14,963 inhabitants with no less
than 41.7% of adulterated samples. The number of samples
of articles annually submitted to analysis, according
to the returns obtained by the Local Government Board,
steadily increased from the commencement onward. Whereas
in 1877, 14,706 samples, and in 1883, 19,648 samples were
analysed, in 1904-1905 the number was no less than 84,678,
or an average of one sample to 384 inhabitants for the whole
country. In the five years 1877--1881 the proportion found
adulterated was 16.2%; in the following five years ending with
1886, the percentage was 13.9; in the five years ending 1891,
the percentage was 11.7; and in the year 1904 the percentage
was only 8.5. The select committee found that wide local
differences in the administration of the acts existed, and
that in many parts of the country the local authorities had
failed to exercise their powers. In one metropolitan district,
eight members of the local authority had been convicted of
offences under the acts, upon evidence obtained by their own
inspector. The result was that the duties of the inspector
of the acts were afterwards controlled by a committee of that
local authority, who decided the cases in which prosecutions
should be.undertaken, and the administration of the acts was
``little better than a farce.'' No power existed to compel
local authorities to carry out the acts. The committee came
to the conclusion that in many cases the responsibility for the
adulteration of articles of food did not rest with the retailer
but with the wholesale dealer or manufacturer; that the law
punished petty offences and left great ones untouched; that
it fined a small retailer and left the wholesale offender scot
free. As regards warranty, they thought that the precedent
created by the Margarine Act should be followed generally, and
that invoices and equivalent documents should have the force of
warranties. They found that a considerable proportion of the
food imports were adulterated, out of 890 samples of butter
taken by the customs in 1895 no less than 106 being impure,
and they recommended that in addition to tea, which by section
30 of the act of 1875 was to be systematically analysed by
the customs, prior to being passed for distribution, samples
of all food imports should be taken and examined by the
customs. The committee further found that the penalties
imposed under the acts had for the most part been trifling and
quite insufficient to serve as deterrents, the profits derived
from the sale of adulterated articles being out of proportion
great to the insignificant fines imposed, and they recommended
that for the second offence the penalty of L. 5 should be
the minimum one, and that in respect to third or subsequent
offences imprisonment without the option of a fine might be
inflicted. The important question of food standards was
considered at great length. The absence of legal standards
or definitions of articles of food had occasioned great
difficulty in numerous cases, but as no authority was provided
by the existing acts that might fix such standards, they
recommended the formation of a scientific authority or court
of reference composed of representatives of the laboratory of
the Inland Revenue, of the Local Government Board, the Board
of Agriculture, the General Medical Council, the Institute of
Chemistry, the Pharmaceutical Society, of other scientific
men and of the trading and manufacturing community, who
should have the duty of fixing standards of quality and
purity of food to be confirmed by a secretary of state.
The committee's deliberations and recommendations resulted
in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1899. This unfortunately
was not a comprehensive act superseding the previous acts,
but was an additional and amending one, so that at the
present time four food acts run parallel and are together in
force, rendering the subject from a legal point of view one
of extreme complexity. In this act the growing influence
of the Board of Agriculture and the desire to assist farmers
and dairymen more decisively than previously are clearly
apparent. Section 1 empowers the customs to take samples of
consignments of imported articles of food and enjoins them
to communicate to the Board of Agriculture the names of the
importers of adulterated goods, any article of food to be
considered adulterated or impoverished if it has been mixed
with any other substance (other than preservative or colouring
matter, of such a nature and such a quantity as not to render
the article injurious to health), or if any part of it has been
abstracted to the detriment of the article. Margarine or cheese
containing margarine has to be conspicuously marked as such;
condensed, separated or skim milk has to be clearly labelled
``machine-skimmed milk'' or ``skimmed milk,'' as the case may
be. The next sections give to the Local Government Board
and the Board of Agriculture a roving commission to see that
the acts are properly enforced throughout the kingdom so as
to apply the acts more equally throughout the country than
heretofore, and in default of local authorities carrying out
their duties empower the government departments mentioned
to execute and enforce the acts at the expense of the local
authorities. The importance of a regular and conscientious
control of the public food supply by the local authorities
was thus for the first time, after forty years of experimental
legislation, fully acknowledged. In recognition of the great
difficulties experienced for many years by analysts in their
endeavour to fix minimum percentages for the fat and other milk
constituents, and their inability to do so without statutory
powers, the Board of Agriculture is authorized by section 4
to make regulations ``for determining what deficiency in any
of the normal constituents of genuine milk, cream, butter or
cheese, or what addition of extraneous matter or proportion of
water'' in any of these materials shall raise a presumption,
until the contrary is proved, that these articles are not
genuine. In pursuance of these powers the Board of Agriculture
did in 1901 issue their milk regulations, adopting officially
the minima agreed upon by public analysts, and in 1902 the
sale of butter regulations, which fixed 16% as the maximum
of water that might be contained in butter. It is important
to note that the fact of a sample of milk falling short of
the standard is not conclusive evidence of adulteration,
but it justifies the institution of proceedings and casts
the onus of proving that the sample is genuine upon the
defendant. The Margarine Act of 1887 was extended to margarine
cheese, the obligatory labelling of margarine packages was
more precisely regulated, margarine manufacturers and dealers
in that article were compelled to keep a register open to
inspection by the Board of Agriculture, showing the quantity
and designation of each consignment, and power was given
to officers of the board to enter at all reasonable times
manufactories of margarine and margarine cheese. The amount
of butter-fat that might be present in margarine was limited
to 10%, while under the Margarine Act of 1887 an unlimited
admixture might have been made, provided that the mixture,
no matter how large the percentage of butter, was sold as
margarine. As is further explained below, the difficulty
of distinguishing without chemical aid between pure butter
and margarine containing a considerable percentage of butter
is very great, and fraudulent sales continued to be common
after the passing of the Margarine Act. The labelling section
of the Food Act 1875 (sec. 8), which had been systematically
circumvented, was modified, a label being no longer recognized
as distinctly and legibly written or printed, unless it is
so written or printed that the notice of mixture given by the
label is not obscured by other matter on the label, though
labels that had been continuously in use for at least seven
years before the commencement of the act were not interfered
with. In consequence of the admitted unfairness of asking
for a portion of the contents of a properly labelled tin
or package and then instituting proceedings because no
declaration of admixture had been made, it was enacted that
no person shall be required to sell any article exposed for
sale in an unopened tin or packet, except in the unopened
tin or packet in which it is contained. This removed a
grievance which had long been felt both by retailers and
manufacturers, and is a provision of growing importance
with the continually increasing sale of articles put up in
factories. The warranty provisions, which, as before stated,
had given rise to much litigation, were more clearly defined.
A notice that a defendant would rely for his defence upon a
warranty had to be given within seven days of the service of
the summons or the defence would not be available, and the
warrantor was empowered to appear at the hearing and to give
evidence so that no man's name could, as sometimes previously
happened, be dragged into a case without due notice to
him. A warranty or invoice given by a person resident outside
the United Kingdom was no longer recognized as a defence,
unless the defendant could prove that he had taken reasonable
steps to ascertain and did in fact believe in the accuracy
of the statement contained in the warranty. This prevented
collusion between a foreign shipper and an importer; and,
lastly, the definition of ``food'' was widened (in view of
the baking-powder decision) so that the term food ``shall
include every article used for food or drink by man, other
than drugs or water, and any article which ordinarily enters
into or is used in the composition or preparation of human
food, and shall also include flavoring matters and condiments.''
The act of 1899 embodies, with one exception, the most
important recommendations of the Food Products Committee,
the exception being the omission of instituting a board of
reference that might deal with difficulties as they arose,
guide analysts and public authorities in fixing limits for
articles other than milk and butter, and take up the important
questions of preservatives and colouring matters and such
like. An occurrence which almost immediately followed
the passing of the act showed in the strongest manner the
necessity of such guiding board--namely, the outbreak of
arsenical poisoning in the Midlands in the latter part of 1900.
Arsenic in foods.
In the month of June 1900 there occurred, mainly in the
Midlands but also in other parts of England and Wales, an
outbreak of an illness variously described as ``alcoholism,''
``peripheral neuritis'' or ``multiple neuritis.'' This
affected about 6000 persons and resulted in about 70
deaths. It was soon ascertained that the sufferers were all
beer drinkers, and several of them were employees of a local
brewery, the majority of whom had suffered for some months
past. Although suspicion fell early upon beer, some
considerable time elapsed before Dr E. S. Reynolds of
Manchester discovered arsenic in dangerous proportions in the
beer. Steps were immediately taken by brewers and sanitary
authorities to ensure that this arsenical beer was withdrawn
from sale, and, as a result, the epidemic came speedily to an
end. In all instances where this epidemic of sickness had been
traced to particular breweries, the latter had been users of
brewing sugars-glucose and invert sugar--supplied by a single
firm. The quantity of arsenic detected in specimens of
these brewing sugars was in some cases very large, amounting
to upward of four grains per pound. The implicated brewing
sugars were found to have become contaminated by arsenic
in course of their manufacture through the use of sulphuric
acid, some specimens of which contained as much as 2.6% of
arsenic. The acid had been made from highly arsenical iron
pyrites, and as the manufacturers of the glucose had not
specifically contracted with the acid makers for pure acid,
the latter, not knowing for what purpose the acid was to be
used, had felt themselves justified in supplying impure
acid. A royal commission was appointed in February 1901,
with Lord Kelvin as chairman, to inquire into the matter,
and an enormous amount of attention was naturally given
to it by chemists and medical men. It was soon found that
arsenic was very widely disseminated in two classes of food
materials, namely, such as had been dried or roasted in gases
resulting from the combustion of coal, and such as had been
more or less chemically manufactured. All coal contains iron
pyrites, and this mineral again is contaminated with arsenic.
When the coal is burned the fumes are arsenical and part of
the arsenic condenses and deposits. Malt dried in English malt
kilns was found to be almost invariably arsenical, and there
cannot be a doubt that English beers had for many years past
been thus contaminated. At the present time coal virtually
free from arsenic is selected for malting, or Newlands'
process, consisting of the admixture with coal of lime which
renders the arsenic non-volatile, is adopted, and malt free
from all but the merest traces of arsenic is manufactured.
Part of the arsenic remains in the coalashes and wherever
these deposit arsenic can be traced. Sir Edward Frankland
had, many years previously, detected arsenic in the London
atmosphere. Chicory roasted with coal, steaks and chops
grilled over an open fire, thus obtain a minute arsenical
dosing. In sugar refineries carbonic acid gas is, at one stage
of the process, passed through the liquor for the purpose of
precipitating lime or strontia. When this carbonic acid is
derived from coal the sugar often shows traces of arsenic.
When arsenical malt or sugar infusion is fermented, as in
brewing, the yeast precipitates upon itself a considerable
proportion of the impurity, thus partly cleaning the beer,
but all preparations made from yeast-extracts resemble to some
extent meat extracts, with which they are sometimes fraudulently
mixed---are thus exposed to arsenical contamination. On the
continent of Europe malt is not dried in kilns with direct
access of combustion gases but on floors heated from beneath,
and continental beers therefore have not been found arsenical.
The second class of causes of contamination consists of
chemicals. The most important chemical product is sulphuric
acid. This used to be made from brimstone or native volcanic
sulphur, which is virtually free from arsenic. But since
about 1860 sulphuric acid has been more largely made from
iron or copper pyrites. Pyrites-acid is always arsenical,
but can, by suitable treatment, be easily freed from that
impurity. For many purposes acid that has not been purified is
employed. In the Leblanc process of manufacture the first step
is the conversion of salt into sodium sulphate by sulphuric
acid. The hydrochloric acid which is formed carries with
it most of the arsenic of the sulphuric acid. Wherever such
hydrochloric acid is used it introduces arsenic; thus, in
the separation of glycerin from soap lyes, the alkali of the
latter is neutralized with hydrochloric acid and glycerin
is in consequence frequently highly arsenical. So is the
soda produced in the Leblanc process, and every one of the
numerous soda salts made from soda is liable to receive its
share. All acids liberated from their salts by sulphuric
acid, such as phosphoric, tartaric, citric, boracic, may be,
and sometimes are, thus contaminated. All superphosphates,
made by the action of crude sulphuric acid upon bones or
other phosphatic materials, and sulphate of ammonia, made
from gas-liquor and acid, that is to say, two of the most
important manurial materials, are arsenical, and the poison
is thus spread far and wide over meadows and fields, and can
be traced in the soil wherever artificial manures have been
applied. The crops sometimes take up arsenic to a slight
extent, but happily the plant is more selective than man,
and no serious amount of poison absorption appears to be
possible. The risk of contamination is, of course, much
greater with substances which, like glucose, are not further
purified by crystallization, but retain whatever impurity
is introduced into them. Glucose is not only used in beer,
in which by legal enactments it is permitted to be used, but
is also substituted for sugar in a number of food products,
and is liable to carry into them its contamination. Sugar
confectionery, jams and marmalade, honey, and such like, are
often admixed with glucose. It is difficult to say in the
present state of the law whether such admixture amounts to
adulteration. It was clearly made originally for fraudulent
purposes, but usage and high court decisions have gradually
given the practice an air of respectability. Vinegar of sorts
is also made from a glucose liquor produced by the action
of sulphuric acid upon maize or other starchy material, and
is, in its turn, exposed to arsenic contamination. There is
hardly a chemical substance which has directly or indirectly
come into contact with sulphuric acid that is not at times
arsenical. Thus, while artificial colours, now so much used
for the dyeing of food products, are no longer prepared---as
was rosaniline (the parent substance of so many aniline dyes)
at an early stage of its manufacture--with arsenic acid, yet
they are often contaminated indirectly from sulphuric acid.
Furthermore, hardly any metal that results from the smelting
of any ore with coal is free from arsenic, iron in particular,
as employed for pots and pans and implements, being highly
arsenical. From the iron the many chemical preparations
which contain or are made with the aid of iron salts may be
arsenicated. The general presence of arsenic from some of
these causes has been known for many years; outbreaks of
arsenical poisoning have been due to it at various times, but
neglect, forgetfulness and human shortsightedness let the
matter go into oblivion, and it is safe to predict, in spite
of all attention which has been given to the subject, of the
panic which was created by the beer-poisoning outbreak, of
the shock and injury caused to manufacturers of many kinds,
and of the watchfulness aroused in officers of health and
analysts, that as long as the production of food materials
or substances that go into food materials is not left to the
care of nature, and as long as man adds the products of his
ingenuity to our food and drink, so long will ``accidents,''
like the Manchester poisoning, from time to time recur.
We now search for arsenic; some other time it is lead, or
antimony, or selenium, that will do the mischief. Man does
what he can according to his light, but he sees but a little
patch of the sky of knowledge, while the plant or the animal
building up its body from the plant has learned by inheritance
to avoid the assimilation of matters noxious to it. Strictly
speaking, arsenical poisoning does not belong to the subject of
adulteration. It is not due to wilfulness but to stupidity,
but it affords a lesson which cannot be taken too much to
heart, that mankind, by relying too much upon ``science''
in feeding, is on a path that is fraught with considerable
danger. To safeguard consumers, as far as practicable, the
royal commission made important recommendations concerning
amendments of the Food Acts; these, as at present interpreted
and administered, were reported to be unsatisfactory for
the purpose of protecting the consumer against arsenic and
other deleterious substances in food. ``As a rule public
analysts receive samples in order that they may pronounce
upon their genuineness or otherwise, knowing nothing of the
local circumstances which led to their being taken, of their
origin or the reasons for sending them. The term `genuine'
in this sense means that the analyst has not detected such
objectionable substances as he has considered it necessary
to look for in the sample submitted to him. Obviously, the
value of the statement that the sample is `genuine' depends
upon the extent to which the analyst has means of knowing
what are the objectionable substances which it is liable to
contain. In present circumstances he has not sufficient
information on this point.'' It was also pointed out that the
application of the Food Acts to prevention of contamination
of foods by deleterious substances was materially hindered
by want of an official authority with the duty of dealing
with the various medical, chemical and technical questions
involved, and that the absence of official standards militated
against the efficiency of the existing acts. The commission
advised that a special officer be appointed by the Local
Government Board to obtain by inquiries from various sources,
such information as would enable the board to direct the work
of local authorities in securing greater purity of food; and
they further recommended that the board or court of reference,
which had been advised by the Committee on Food Products
Adulteration, should be established. Pending the establishment
of official standards in respect of arsenic under the Food
Acts, they were of opinion that penalties should be imposed
upon any vendor of beer or any other liquid food, or of any
liquor entering into the composition of food, if that liquid
be shown by adequate test to contain one-hundredth of a grain
or more of arsenic in the gallon, and with regard to solid
food, no matter whether it be consumed habitually in large or
small quantities, or whether it be taken by itself (like golden
syrup), or mixed with water or other substances (like chicory
or yeast extract)--if the substance contain one-hundredth of a
grain of arsenic or more to the pound. The board of reference,
most urgently needed for the protection of the public and
for the guidance of manufacturers and officers, has yet to be
created. While from time immemorial certain articles of food
have been preserved by salting, smoking, drying, or by the
addition of sugar and in some cases of saltpetre, during the
last quarter of the 10th century the use of chemicals acting
more powerfully as antiseptics or preservatives extended
enormously, particularly in England. A very large fraction
of the British food supply being obtained from abroad, a
proportionately great difficulty exists in obtaining the
food in an entirely fresh and untainted condition. While
refrigeration and cold-storage has been the chief factor in
enabling the meat and other highly perishable foods to be
imported, other steps, ensuring preservation of goods that
are collected from farmers and brought together at shipping
ports, are necessary to prevent decomposition prior to such
goods coming into cold store. Thus it is well-nigh impossible
to collect butter from farms in Australia or New Zealand far
distant from the coast without the addition of some chemical
preservative. Heavily salted goods no longer appeal to the
modern palate, and, with the progress of specialized labour,
the inhabitants, especially of great towns, have become
accustomed to resort to manufactured provisions instead of
the home-made and home-cooked food. Manufacturers of many
articles of preserved food gradually adopted the use of
chemical preservatives, and at the present time the practice
has become so general that it may be said that practically
every person in the United Kingdom who has passed the suckling
stage consumes daily more or less food containing chemical
preservatives. The Food Act allows of the addition of any
ingredient, not injurious to health, if it be required for
the production or preparation of the food, or as an article
of commerce, in a state fit for carriage. The legality or
otherwise of the use of chemical preservatives, therefore,
hinges upon their innocuousness. Upon theoretical considerations
it is clear that a substance which is capable of acting as
an antiseptic mnst act injuriously upon bacteria, fungi or
yeasts, and as the human body is, generally speaking, less
resistant to poisons than the low organisms in question, it
would seem to follow that antiseptics are bound to affect it
injuriously. It is, of course, a question of dose and
proportion. It has further been said that all antiseptics
possess some sort of medicinal action, and however valuable
they may be in disease when administered under the control
of a competent physician, they have no business to be given
indiscriminately to sick and healthy alike by purveyors of
food. The result of a general desire on the part of importers
and manufacturers of food materials, of the officers under
the Food Act, of the medical profession and of the public,
resulted after many years of agitation and complaint and
after numerous conflicting magisterial decisions, in the
appointment in 1899, by the president of the Local Government
Board, of a departmental committee to inquire into the use
of preservatives and colouring matters in food, with the
reference to report: first, whether the use of such materials
or any of them, in certain quantities, is injurious to
health, and, if so, in what proportion does their use become
injurious, and, second, to what extent and in what amounts
are they used at the present time. After the examination
of a great number of witnesses a report was issued in
1901. Perhaps the most important conclusion was that the
instances of actual harm which were alleged to have occurred
from the consumption of articles of food and drink chemically
preserved were few in number, and were not at all supported
by conclusive evidence. During the period which has elapsed
since chemically preserved food has been used, the mortality
as a whole has . declined, and while this naturally cannot
be put to the credit of the preservatives but is largely
due to better feeding in consequence of the introduction of
cheaper foods, which are rendered possible to some extent
by the use of preservatives, it conclusively establishes the
fact that no obvious harm has been done to the health of the
community. The committee made certain recommendations which
are the most authoritative pronouncements upon the subject.
They are as follows:--That the use of formaldehyde or formalin,
or preparations thereof, in food or drinks, be absolutely
prohibited, and that salicylic acid be not used in a greater
proportion than one grain per pint in liquid food and one
grain per pound in solid food, its presence in all cases to be
declared. That the use of any preservatives or colouring
matter whatever in milk offered for sale in the United Kingdom
be constituted an offence under the Sale of Food and Drugs
Act. That the only preservative which it shall be lawful to
use in cream be boric acid, or mixtures of boric acid and
borax, and in amount not exceeding 0.25% expressed as boric
acid, the amount of such preservative to be notified by a
label upon the vessel. That the only preservative permitted
to be used in butter and margarine be boric acid, or mixtures
of boric acid and borax, to be used in proportions not
exceeding 0.5% expressed as boric acid. That in the case of
all dietetic preparations intended for the use of invalids or
infants, chemical preservatives of all kinds be prohibited.
Borax.
As the most commonly used chemical preservative is boric acid,
free or in the form of borax, which is extensively employed
in butter, cream, ham, sausages, potted meats, cured butter,
cream, ham, sausages, potted meats, cured fish, and sometimes
in jams and preserved fruit, the arguments for and against
its employment deserve more detailed attention. It cannot be
looked upon in the light of common adulteration because, in any
case, the quantity used is but an inconsiderable fraction,
and the cost of it is generally greater than that of the food
itself. It is not used to hide any traces of decomposition that
may have taken place or to efface its effects. On the other
hand, it cannot be said to be ``required for the production
or preparation'' of the articles with which it is mixed,
since a fraction at least of similar articles are made without
preservative. It enables food to be kept from decomposition,
but it also lessens the need for cleanliness and encourages
neglect and slovenliness in factories. It has no taste, or
only a very slight one, hence does not manifest itself to
the consumer in the same way as does common salt, and cannot
therefore be avoided by him should he desire to do so. Its
preservative action, that is, its potency, is very slight
in comparison with most other preservatives; its potential
injuriousness to man must be proportionately small. It is
practically without interference upon salivary, peptic or tryptic
digestion, unless given in large quantities. Experiments made
by F. W. Tunnicliffe and R. Rosenheim upon children showed
that neither boric acid nor borax, administered in doses of
from 15 to 23 grains per diem, exerted any influence upon
proteid metabolism or upon the assimilation of phosphatized
materials. The fat assimilation was, if anything, improved,
and the body weight increased, and the general health and
well-being was in no way affected. On the other hand, evidence
was adduced that in some cases digestive disturbances, after
continuous administration of from 15 to 40 grains, were
observable, nausea and vomiting in some, and skin irritation,
in one case resulting in complete baldness, in others.
Although it is in most cases very difficult to trace any gastric
disturbance to any particular article of food or one of its
ingredients, so as to exclude all other possible causes of
disturbance, a fairly good case has been made out by a number
of medical practitioners against boracic acid, taken in an
ordinary diet and not for experimental purposes. The most
exhaustive investigation which has as yet been made was carried
out by Dr H. W. Wiley, chief chemist to the United States
department of agriculture. A large number of young men who
had offered themselves as subjects for the investigations,
were boarded as a special ``hygienic table,'' but otherwise
continued their usual vocations during the whole period of the
experiment. They were placed upon their honour to observe
the rules and regulations prepared by the department and to
use no other food or drink than that provided, water excepted,
and any water consumed away from the hygienic table was to be
measured and reported. They were to continue their regular
habits and not to indulge in any excessive amount of labour or
exercise. Weight, temperature and pulse rate were continuously
recorded. The periods during which the subjects of the
experiment were kept under observation varied from thirty
to seventy days, periods of rest being given during which
they were permitted to eat moderately at tables other than
the experimental one. There was a good and ample diet.
The observations were divided into three periods: the fore
period, the preservative period and the after period, during
the whole of which time the rations of each member were weighed
or measured and the excreta collected. Before the ``fore''
period was commenced a note was made of the quantities of
food voluntarily consumed by each of the candidates, and from
these the proper amount necessary in each case to maintain
a comparatively constant body weight was calculated. When
a suitable result was thus arrived at, the same quantity of
food was given daily during the ``preservative'' and ``after''
periods. The preservative was given in the forms of borax and
of boric acid, at first mixed with butter, but subsequently
in gelatine capsules. This was found to be necessary from
the fact that when the preservative was mixed with the
food and concealed in it some of the members of the table
evinced dislike of the food with which it was supposed to
be incorporated; those who thought that the preservative was
in the butter were disposed to find the butter unpalatable,
and the same was true with those who thought it might be in
the milk or coffee, while, when the preservative was given
openly, much less disturbance was created. The preservative
was given at first in small doses such as might be consumed in
commercial food that had been preserved with borax; gradually
the quantities were increased in order to reach the limit
of toleration for each individual. All food was weighed,
measured and analysed, the same being the case with the
excreta. The blood was examined periodically as regards
colouring matter and number of corpuscles. Everything was
done to keep up the general health of the members and to
do away with all unfavourable mental influences due to the
circumstances. During the time of the experiment analyses were
made of 2550 food samples and 1175 samples each of urine and
faeces. The general results were as follows: there was no
tendency to excite diarrhoea, and the nitrogen-metabolism
was but very little influenced, if anything being slightly
decreased. As regards phosphorus the combined results of
all observations indicated that the preservative increased
the excretion of phosphorus to a small extent, from 97.3%
in the ``fore'' period, to 103.1 in the ``preservative''
period. The metabolism of fat was uninfluenced; there was
an increase of the solid matters in the faeces and a decrease
of those in the urine, from which Dr Wiley concluded that the
preservatives interfered with the process of digestion and
absorption. No influence was exerted on the corpuscles
and the haemoglobin of the blood. The effect of boracic
acid and borax on the general health Varied with the amount
administered, quantities not exceeding half a gramme (7 1/2
grains) of boracic acid, or its equivalent of borax, producing
no immediate effects, but the long-continued administration
of such small doses seemed to produce the same results as
the use of large doses over a shorter period. There was a
tendency to diminish the appetite and to produce a fooling
of fulness and uneasiness in the stomach and sometimes actual
nausea, also one of fulness in the head manifested as a
dull headache which disappeared when the preservative was
dropped. The continued administration of large doses, 60
to 75 grains per day, resulted in most cases in loss of
appetite, inability to perform work of any kind and general
unfitness. In most cases 45 grains per day could be taken
for some time, but gradually injurious effects were observed.
In some cases 30 and even 15 grains per day appeared to cause
illness, but it is acknowledged that these persons may have
been suffering from influenza. The administration of 7.5
grains was declared by Dr Wiley to be too much for the normal
man to receive regularly, although for a limited period
there might be no danger to health. Dr Wiley concludes his
report: ``It appears, therefore, that both boric acid and
borax, when continuously administered in small doses for a long
period or when given in large quantities for a short period,
create disturbance of appetite, of digestion and of health.''
Dr Wiley's conclusions were adversely criticized by Dr O.
Liebreich, who carefully studied on the spot all the conditions of
the experiment and the documents relating to the investigation.
He pointed out that the results were so indefinite and the
number of persons under control so small that ``one case
of self-deception or of forgetfulness only would throw into
absolute uncertainty the solution of the whole question''; that
no lasting injury to health was found in spite of transient
disturbances attributed by Dr Liebreich to other causes, and
that all persons declared themselves to be in better physical
condition after seven months than they had been before. On
the whole the balance of evidence seems to be that while no
acute injury is likely to result from boron compounds in food,
they are liable to produce slighter digestive interferences.
Formaldehyde.
Other chemical substances that are in use for the purpose
of preserving food materials may be treated more shortly.
Formaldehyde, coming into commerce in the form of a 40% solution
under the name of formalin, was for a time largely used in
milk. It certainly has very great antiseptic properties,
as little as 1 part in 50,000 parts checking the growth of
organisms in milk for some hours, but as the substance combines
with albuminous matters and hardens them to an extraordinary
degree, rendering, for instance, gelatine perfectly insoluble
in water, it exerts an inhibitory effect on the digestive
ferments. It injures salivary, peptic and pancreatic
digestion. A set of five kittens fed with milk containing 1
part in 50,000 of formaldehyde for seven weeks were strongly
retarded in growth, three ultimately dying, while four control
kittens fed on pure milk flourished. In even moderate doses
formalin produces severe pains in the abdomen and has caused
death. It is now generally recognized as a substance
that is admirably adapted for disinfecting a sick-room,
but quite improper and unsuitable for food preservation.
Salicylic acid.
Salicylic acid or orthohydroxybenzoic acid is either obtained
from oil of winter-green or is made synthetically by Kolbe's
process from phenol and carbonic acid. Artificial salicylic
acid generally contains impurities (creasotic acids) which act
very injuriously upon health. When pure, salicylic acid employed
as a food preservative has never produced decided injurious
effects, although administered by itself in fairly strong
solution it acts as an irritant to the stomach and kidneys,
and sometimes causes skin eruptions. It is a powerful drug in
larger doses and requires careful administration, especially
as about 60% of the persons to whom it is administered show
symptoms known as ``salicylism,'' namely, deafness, headache,
delirium, vomiting, sometimes haemorrhage or heart-failure.
It is doubtful whether pure salicyiic acid produces these
symptoms. When present in proportion of 1 to 1000 it inhibits
the growth of moulds and yeasts. In jams 2 grains per pound
and in beverages 7 grains to a gallon are considered by
manufacturers to be sufficient for preservative purposes.
It is used mainly in articles of food or drink containing
sugar, that is to say, in jams and preserved fruit, lime
and lemon juices, syrups, cider, British wines and imported
lager. Its use in butter, potted meat, milk or cream, in
which it was not infrequently met with formerly, is now quite
exceptional. It has already been stated that the preservative
committee recommended its permissive use in small proportions.
To some extent benzoic acid and benzoates have taken the place
of salicylic acid and salicylates, partly because salicylic
acid can readily be detected analytically, while benzoic acid
is not quite easily discoverable. Its antiseptic potency is
about equal to that of salicylic acid, and the arguments for
or against its use are similar to those relating to the latter.
For the preservation of meat and beer, lime juice and dried
fruit, sulphur dioxide (sulphurous acid) and some of the
sulphites have long been employed. Sulphuring of hops and
disinfection of barrels by burning brimstone matches is an
exceedingly old practice. Burning sulphur is well known as
a gaseous disinfectant of rooms, bacteria being killed in air
containing 1% of the gas. As the taste and smell of sulphurous
acid and of sulphites are very pronounced it follows that but
small quantities can be added to food or drink. About 1 part
in 4000 or 5000 of beer is the usual amount. While, in larger
quantities, the sulphites have decided physiological activity
and are apt to produce nephritis, there is not any evidence
that they have ever caused injurious effects in alcoholic
liquors. The excise authorities have tacitly sanctioned
their employment in breweries, although the Customs and Inland
Revenue Act 1885 declares that a brewer of beer shall not add
any matter or thing thereto except finings or other matter
or thing sanctioned by the commissioners of Inland Revenue,
and although sulphites are used in all breweries, the Board
of Inland Revenue do neither sanction nor interfere. An
antiseptic with a pronounced taste is obviously a safer one in
the hands of a nonmedical person than one virtually devoid of
taste, like boric, salicylic or benzoic acids or their salts.
Other preservatives.
Sodium fluoride, a salt possessing powerfully antiseptic
properties, but also at the same time clearly injurious to health
and interfering with salivary and peptic digestion, has been
found in butter, imported mainly from Brittany, in quantities
quite inadmissible in food under any circumstances. A few
other chemical preservatives are occasionally used. Hydrogen
peroxide has been found effective in milk sterilization, and
if the substance is pure, no serious objection can be raised
against it. Saccharine, and other artificial sweetening
agents, having antiseptic properties, are taking the place
of sugar in beverages like ginger-beer and lemonade, but the
substitution of a trace of a substance that provides sweetness
without at the same time giving the substance and food value
of sugar is strongly to be deprecated. The employment of
chemical preservative matters in articles intended for human
consumption threatens to become a grave danger to health or
well-being. Each dealer in food contributes but a little;
each one claims that his particular article of food cannot be
brought into commerce without preservative, and each condemns
the use of these substances by others. There is doubtless
something to be said for the practice, but infinitely more
against it. It cheapens food by allowing its collection
in districts far away, but the chief gainer is not the
public as a whole but the manufacturer and the wholesale
merchant. Our body has by inheritance acquired habits and
needs that are quite foreign to chemical interference.
Some day, artificially prepared foods, containing liberal
quantities of matters that are not now food ingredients, may
conceivably compare with natural food products, but that day
is not yet, and meantime it ought to be clearly the duty of
the state to see that the evil is checked. The intention
which has introduced this form of adulteration may be more
or less beneficent, but in practice it is almost wholly evil.
Colouring matter in food.
A similar criticism applies to the continually extending
use of colouring matter in food. Civilized man requires his
food not only to be healthy and tasty. but also attractive in
appearance. It is the art of the cook to prepare dishes that
please the eye. This is a difficult art, for the various
colouring matters which are naturally present in meat and
fish, in fruit, legumes and green vegetables are of a delicate
and changeable nature and easily affected or destroyed by
cooking. Many years ago some artful, if stupid, cook found that
green vegetables like peas or spinach, when cooked in a copper
pan, by preference a dirty one, showed a far more brilliant
colour than the same vegetables cooked in earthenware or
iron. The manufacturer who puts up substances like peas
in pots or tins for sale produces the same effect which the
cook in her ignorance innocently obtained, by the wilful
addition of a substance known to be injurious to health,
namely, sulphate of copper. The copper combines with the
chlorophyll, forming copper phyllocyanate, which, by reason
of its insolubility in the gastric juice, is comparatively
innocuous. Preserved peas and beans have been for so many
years ``coppered'' in this manner that it is difficult to
induce the public to accept the vegetables when possessed of
their natural colour only. Several countries endeavoured to
abolish the objectionable practice, but the public pressure
has been too great, and to-day the practice is almost
universal. In England the amount of copper corresponds to
from one to two grains per pound of the vegetable calculated as
crystallized copper sulphate. The opinion of the departmental
committee was clearly expressed that the practice should be
prohibited. No effect has been given to the recommendation.
Milk is naturally almost white with a tint of cream colour.
When adulterated with water this tint changes to a bluish
one. To hide this tell-tale of a fraud, a yellow colouring
matter used to be added by London milkmen. Very gradually
this practice, which had its origin in fraud, has extended
to all milk sold in London. The consumer, mis-educated into
believing milk to be yellow, now requires it to be so. Large
dairy companies have endeavoured to wean the public of its
error, without success. From milk the practice extended to
butter; natural butter is sometimes yellowish, mostly a faint
fawn, and sometimes almost white. In agricultural districts
this is well known and taken as a matter of course. In big
towns, where the connexion of butter and the cow is not well
known, the consumer requires butter to be of that colour
which he imagines to be butter-colour. Anatto, turmeric,
carrot-juice used formerly to be employed for colouring
milk, butter and cheese, but of late certain aniline dyes,
mostly quite as harmless physiologically as the vegetable
dyes just mentioned, are largely being used. The same aniline
dyes are also employed in the manufacture of an imitation
Demerara sugar from white beet sugar crystals. Aniline
dyes are very frequently used by jam-makers; the natural
colour of the fruit is apt to suffer in the boiling-pan, and
unripe, discoloured or unsound fruit can be made brilliant
and enticing by dye. The brilliant colours of cheap sugar
confectionery are almost invariably produced by artificial
tar-colours. Most members of this class of colouring matters
are quite harmless, especially in the small quantities that
are required for colouring, but there are a few exceptions,
picric acid, dinitrocresol, Martius-yellow, Bismarck brown
and one of the tropaeolins being distinctly poisonous. On
the whole, the employment of powerful aniline dyes is an
advance as compared with the use of the vicious and often
highly poisonous mineral colours which Hassall met with
so frequently in the middle of the 19th century. Mineral
colours, with very few exceptions, are no longer used in
food. Oxide of iron or ochre is still very often found in potted
meats, fish sauces and chocolates; dioxide of manganese is
admixed with cheap chocolates. All lump sugar of commerce is
dyed. Naturally it has a yellow tint. Ultramarine is added
to it and counteracts the yellowness. In the same way our
linen is naturally yellow and only made to look white by the
use of the blue-bag. The same idea underlies both practices,
and indeed the use of all colouring matters in manufactured
articles, namely, to make them look better than they would
otherwise. Within bounds, this is a reasonable and laudable
desire, but it also covers many sins--poor materials, bad
workmanship, faulty manufacturing and often fraud. Like
sugar, flour and rice are sometimes blued to make them look
white. All vinegar, most beers, all stout, are artificially
coloured with burnt sugar or caramel. The line dividing the
legitimate and laudable from the fraudulent and punishable
is so thin and difficult to draw that neither the law nor
its officers have ventured to draw it, and yet it is a
matter which urgently requires regulation at the hands of the
state. Practices which, when new, admit of regulation are
almost ineradicable when they have become old and possessed
of ``vested rights.'' Recognizing this, the departmental
committee, like the royal commission on arsenical poisons,
recommended that ``means be provided, either by the
establishment of a separate court of reference, or by the
imposition of more direct obligation on the Local Government
Board, to exercise supervision over the use of preservatives
and colouring matters in foods and to prepare schedules of
such as may be considered inimical to the public health.''
In close connexion with this subject is the occasional
occurrence of injurious metallic impurities in food-materials.
Tin chloride is used in the West Indies to produce the yellow
colour of Demerara sugar. The old processes of sugar-boiling
left some of the brown syrup attached to the crystals, giving
them both their colour and their delicious aroma; with the
introduction of modern processes affording a much greater
yield of highly refined sugar, white sugar only was the
result. The consumer, accustomed to yellow sugar had the
colour artificially supplied by the action of the tin compound
upon the sugar. At the present time all Demerara sugar,
with the exception of that portion that is dyed with aniline
dye, has had its colour artificially given it and consequently
contains strong traces of tin. Soda-water, lemonade and
other artificial aerated liquors are liable to tin or lead
contamination, the former proceeding from the tin pipes and
vessels, the latter from citric and tartaric acids and cream
of tartar used as ingredients, these being crystallized by
their manufacturers in leaden pans. Almost all ``canned''
goods contain more or less tin as a contamination from the
tin-plate. While animal foods do not attack the tin to any
great extent, their acidity being small, almost all vegetable
materials, especially fruits and tomatoes, powerfully corrode
the tin covering of the plate, dissolving it and becoming
impregnated with tin compounds. It is quite easy to obtain
tin-reactions in abundance from every grain of tinned
peaches, apples or tomatoes. These tin compounds are by no
means innocuous; yet poisoning from tinned vegetable foods
is of rare occurrence. On the whole, tin-plate is a very
unsuitable material for the storage and preservation of acid
goods. Certain enamels, used for glazing earthenware or for
coating metal cooking pots, contain lead, which they yield
to the food prepared in them. Food materials that have been
in contact with galvanized vessels sometimes are contaminated
with zinc. Zinc is also not infrequently present in wines.
Results of English Food Acts.
The effect of the application of the food laws has been entirely
beneficial. Not only has the percentage proportion of samples found
adulterated largely declined, but the gross forms of adulteration
which prevailed in the middle of the 19th century have almost
vanished. Plenty of fraud still prevails, but poisoning by
reckless admixture is of exceedingly rare occurrence. Whilst
formerly milk was not infrequently adulterated with an equal
bulk of water, few fraudulent milkmen now venture to exceed
an addition of 10 or 15%. A bird's-eye view over the effect is
obtained from the following figures for England and Wales:--
Number of Samples
Year Examined Adulterated Percentage of Adulteration
1877 14706 2826 19.2
1879 17049 2535 14.8
1884 22951 3311 14.4
1889 26956 3096 11.5
1894 39516 4060 10.3
1899 53056 4970 9.4
1904 84678 7173 8.5
The details of the working of the Food Acts in 1904 in
England and Wales are set out in the table on the next page.
United States.---Each separate state has food laws of its
own. From the Ist of January 1907 the ``American National
Pure Food Law,'' applicable to the United States generally,
came into force, without superseding the State food laws,
the only effect of the National Law being the legalization
of shipments of any food which complies with the provisions
of the National Law into any state from another state, even
though the food is adulterated within the meaning of the state
law. The law applies to every person in the United States
who receives food from another state and offers it for sale
in the original unbroken packages in which he receives it,
and if it is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of
the National Law he can be punished for having received it
and offering it for sale in the original unbroken package to
the same extent as the person who shipped it to him can be
punished. The mere fact that he is a citizen of a state soiling
food within that state will not excuse him; and he will be
subject to prosecution to the same extent as he would be if
he uttered counterfeit money. Retailers, however, can protect
themselves from prosecution when they sell goods in original
unbroken packages by procuring a written guarantee, signed by
the person from whom they received the goods, such guarantee
stating that the goods are not adulterated within the meaning
of the National Law. The guarantee must also contain the name
and address of the wholesale vendor, but unless the parties
signing the guarantee are residents of the United States
the guarantee is void. The law affects all foods shipped
from one state or district into another and also all foods
intended for export to a foreign country. It also affects
all food products manufactured or offered for sale in any
Table showing working of British Food Acts, 1904.
Samples Found Percentage
Examined Adulterated Adulterated
Milk . . . . . 36,413 4,031 11.1
Butter . . . . 15,124 867 5.7
Cheese . . . . 2,176 20 0.9
Margarine . . . 1,169 83 7.1
Lard . . . . . 2,489 4 0.2
Bread . . . . 473 1 0.2
Flour . . . . 476 3 0.6
Tea . . . . . 486 . . .
Coffee . . . . 2,550 161 6.3
Cocoa . . . . 477 42 8.8
Sugar . . . . 901 49 5.4
Mustard . . . . 812 39 4.8
Confectionery and Jam 1,303 72 5.5
Pepper . . . . 2,393 43 1.8
Wine . . . . . 308 54 17.5
Beer . . . . . 1,065 75 7.0
Spirits . . . . 6,938 832 12.0
Drugs:--
Camphorated Oil . 395 24 6.1
Sweet Spirit of Nitre 243 66 27.2
Sulphur . . . 131 7 5.3
Cream of Tartar 441 88 20.0
Glycerine . . . 192 21 10.9
Rhubarb preparations 96 5 5.2
Seidlitz Powders . 81 3 3.7
Linseed . . . 70 1 1.4
Magnesia . . . 48 9 18.8
Cod Liver Oil . . 245 7 2.9
Iron Pills . . . 16 .. ..
Compound Liquorice
Powder . . . 111 2 1.8
Tincture of Iodine . 23 4 17.4
Other Drugs . 1,124 124 11.0
Total Drugs . . . 3,214 365 11.3
Other Articles:--
Ginger . . . . 704 .. ..
Syrup and Treacle . 183 8 4.4
Baking Powder . . 281 11 3.9
Vinegar . . . 773 57 7.4
Arrowroot . . . 467 3 0.6
Oatmeal . . . 359 .. ..
Sago . . . . 227 14 6.2
Olive Oil . . . 306 9 2.9
Dripping and Fat . 85 1 1.2
Sundries . . 2,496 329 13.2
Total other Articles 5,881 432 7.3
All Articles . . . 84,678 7,173 8.5
territory or the District of Columbia, wherever such foods
may have been produced. The law does not affect foods
manufactured and sold wholly within one state, nor such as
have been shipped from another state but not in the original
package. While thus the National Food Law is mainly intended
to regulate the food traffic between the different states,
and leaves to the states freedom to regulate their internal
traffic, it must gradually tend to unify the present complicated
state food legislation, and it is therefore here more
usefully considered than would be the separate state laws.
The definition of adulteration as set forth in sec. 7 is as
follows:---``For the purpose of this act an article shall be
deemed to be adulterated: In the case of drugs: (1) If, when
a drug is sold under or by a name recognized in the United
States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs from the
standard of strength, quality or purity, as determined by the
test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National
Formulary official at the time of investigation; provided
that no drug defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia or
National Formulary shall be deemed to be adulterated under
this provision if the standard of strength, quality or purity
be plainly stated upon the bottle, box or other container
thereof although the standard may differ from that determined
by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or
National Formulary. (2) If its strength or purity fall below
the professed standard or quality under which it is sold.
In the case of confectionery: If it contains terra alba,
barytes, talc, chrome yellow or other mineral substance or
poisonous colour or flavour, or other ingredient deleterious
or detrimental to health, or any vinous, malt or spirituous
liquor or compound or narcotic drug. In the case of food:
(1) If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so
as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or
strength. (2) If any substance has been substituted wholly or
in part for the article. (3) If any valuable constituent of
the article has been wholly or in part abstracted. (4) If it
be mixed, coloured, powdered, coated or stained in a manner
whereby damage or inferiority is concealed. (5) If it contain
any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient
which may render such article injurious to health: provided
that when in the preparation of food products for shipment
they are preserved by any external application applied in
such manner that the preservation is necessarily removed
mechanically, or by maceration in water, or otherwise, and
directions for removal of said preservations shall be printed
on the covering of the package, the provisions of the act
shall be construed as applying only when said products are
ready for consumption. (6) If it consists in whole or in
part of a filthy, decomposed or putrid animal or vegetable
substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether
manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a diseased
animal or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter. . . .''
Whatever vagueness attaches to these definitions is intended
to be removed by secs. 3 and 4, which provide that the
secretaries of the Treasury, of Agriculture, and of Commerce
and Labour ``shall make uniform rules and regulations
for carrying out the provisions of the act, including the
collection and examination of specimens of food and drugs,''
which examination ``shall be made in the bureau of chemistry
of the department of agriculture, or under the direction and
supervision of such bureau, for the purpose of determining
from such examinations whether such articles are adulterated
or misbranded within the meaning of the act.'' Contravention
of the act is punishable for the first offence by a fine not
exceeding 500 dollars or 1 year's imprisonment or both, and for
each subsequent offence by a fine not less than 1000 dollars
or 1 year's imprisonment or both. Under an act of congress,
approved March 1903, the bureau of agriculture established
standards of purity for food products, ``to determine what
are regarded as adulterations therein for the guidance of the
officials of the various states and of the courts of justice.''
The elaborate set of food definitions and standards worked
out under the guidance of the chief of the bureau, Dr H. W.
Wiley, have also received legal sanction and form a corollary
to the National Food Law. For each of the more important
articles of food an official definition of its nature and
composition has thus been established, of the utmost value
to food officers, manufacturers and merchants not only in
the United States but throughout the world. A few of these
definitions may here find a place:-``Lard is the rendered
fresh fat from slaughtered healthy hogs. Leaf-lard is the
lard rendered at moderately high temperatures from the internal
fat of the abdomen of the hog, excluding that adherent to the
intestines. Standard lard and standard leaflard are lard
and leaf-lard respectively, free from rancidity, containing
not more than 1% of substances other than fatty acids, not
fat, necessarily incorporated therewith in the process of
rendering, and standard leaf-lard has an iodine number not
greater than 60. Milk is the lacteal secretion obtained by
the complete milking of one or more healthy cows, properly
fed and kept, excluding that obtained within 10 days before
and 5 days after calving. Standard milk is milk containing
not less than 12% of total solids and not less than 8 1/2% of
solids not fat, nor less than 3 1/4% of milk-fat. Standard
skim-milk is skim-milk containing not less than 9 1/4% of
milk-solids. Standard condensed milk and standard sweetened
condensed milk are condensed milk and sweetened condensed milk
respectively, containing no less than 28% of milk-solids,
of which not less than one-fourth is milk-fat. Standard
milk-fat or butter-fat has a Reichert-Meissl number not less
than 24 and a specific gravity at 40 C. not less than 0.905.
Standard butter is butter containing not less than 82.5% of
butter-fat. Standard whole-milk cheese is cheese containing
in the water-free substance not less than 50% of butter-fat.
Standard sugar contains at least 99.5% of sucrose. Standard
chocolate is chocolate containing not more than 3% of ash
insoluble in water, 3.5% of crude fibre, and 9% of starch, nor
less than 45% of cocoa-fat.'' Numerous other standards with
details too technical for reproduction here have also been fixed.
German Empire.--The law of the 14th of May 1879, largely
based upon the English Food and Drugs Act 1875, regulates
the trade in food. Each town or district appoints a public
analyst, and there is a state laboratory in Berlin directly
under the control of the ministry of the interior with advisory
functions. The ministry, under the advice of this department,
issues from time to time regulations concerning the sale of
or details specifying the mode of analysis of various products
of food or drink. Both in the United States and in Germany,
therefore, the executive officers (public analysts) have some
authoritative official department for guidance and information.
PARTICULAR ARTICLES ADULTERATED
We now proceed to consider adulteration as practised
during recent years in the more important articles of food.
Milk.---Milk adulteration means in modern times either
addition of water, abstraction of cream, or both, or addition
of chemical preservative. The old stories of the use of chalk
or of sheep's brains are fables. Owing to the wide variation
to which milk is naturally subjected in composition, it is
exceedingly difficult to establish beyond doubt whether any
given sample is in the state in which it came from the cow or
has been impoverished. The composition of cow's milk varies
with many conditions. (1) The race of the animal: the large
cows of the plains yielding a great quantity of poor milk,
the smaller cows from hilly districts less amount of rich
milk. Hence, milk from Dutch cows compares very unfavourably
with that of Jerseys or short-horns. Watery and acid foods
like mangolds and brewers' grains produce a more aqueous
milk than do albuminous and fatty foods like oil-cakes. (2)
Sudden change of food, of weather and of temperature. (3)
Nervous disturbances to which even a cow is subject, as, for
instance, at shows, may greatly influence the composition
of the milk. The portion obtained at the beginning of
a milking is poorer in fat than that yielded towards the
end. Morning milk is as a rule poorer in fat than evening
milk. Soon after calving the animal gives a richer product
than at later periods, both the quantity and the composition
declining towards the end of the lactation. The variations due
to these different circumstances may be very great, as is seen
from the following analyses, fairly representing the maximum,
minimum and mean composition of the milk of single cows:--
Minimum Maximum Mean
Specific Gravity 1.0264 1.0370 1.0316
Fat 1.67% 6.47% 3.59%
Casein 1.79% 6.29% 3.02%
Albumen 0.25% 1.44% 0.50%
Milk Sugar (lactose) 2.11% 6.12% 4.78%
Salts 0.35% 1.21% 0.71%
Water 80.32% 90.69% 87.40%
In market milk such wide variations are not so liable to
occur, as the milk from one animal tends to average that
from another, but even in the milk from herds of cows the
variations may be considerable. The average composition of
genuine milk supplied by one of the largest dairy companies in
London, as established by the analysis of 120,000 separate
samples recorded by Dr P. Vieth, is fat 4.1%, other milk
solids (``solids not fat'' or ``nonfatty solids'') 8.8%, total
dissolved matters (total solids) 12.9%, the variations being
from 3.6 to 4.6% in the fat and 8.6 to 9.1% in the solids not
fat. It is clear that the 4.6% of fat could be reduced, by
skimming, to 3.0%, and the 9.1% of solids not fat to 8.5% by
addition of water, without bringing the composition of the
milk thus adulterated outside that of genuine milk. In reality
even wider limits of variation must be reckoned with, because
small farmers self the milk of single cows, and this, as shown
above, may fluctuate enormously. The Board of Agriculture,
in pursuance of the powers conferred upon it by the Food Act
1899, issued in 1901 ``The Sale of Milk Regulations,'' which
provide that where a sample of milk (not being milk sold as
skimmed or separated or condensed milk) contains less than 3% of
milk-fat, or less than 8.5% of non-fatty solids, it shall be
presumed, until the contrary is proved, that the milk is not
genuine. But even in these cases it is open to the vendor
to show, if he can, that the deficiency was due to natural
causes or to unavoidable circumstances. The courts have
held that when deviations are the result of negligence or
ignorance the vendor is nevertheless liable to punishment.
Thus, when a vendor omits to stir up the contents of a pan
so as to prevent the cream from rising to the top, he may be
punished, if by such omission the milk becomes altered in
composition so as no longer to comply with the regulations;
or, when a farmer allows an undue interval between the milkings
whereby the composition of the milk may be affected, he may
be liable for the consequences. As the limits embodied in
the milk regulations were necessarily fixed at figures lower
than those which are usually afforded by genuine milk, and
as it is a comparatively simple matter to ascertain the
percentage of fatty and non-fatty solids, a strong tendency
exists to bring down commercial milk to the low limits
of the regulations without coming into collision with the
law. The fat of milk is its most valuable and most important
constituent. The exact determination of the percentage of
fat is therefore the chief problem of the milk-analyst.
All analyses made prior to the year 1885 are more or less
inexact, because a complete separation of the fat from the
other milk constituents had not been obtained. In that
year M. A. Adams, by the simple and ingenious expedient of
spreading a known volume of the milk to be analysed upon a
strip of blotting-paper and extracting the paper, together
with the dried milk, by a fat solvent, such as ether or
benzene, succeeded in completely removing the fat from the
other constituents. Since that time simpler and more rapid
means have been based upon centrifugal separation of the
fat. When a measured quantity of milk is mixed with strong
sulphuric acid, which dissolves the casein and other nitrogenous
constituents of the milk, but leaves the fat-globules quite
untouched, the latter can easily be separated in a centrifugal,
in the form of an oil the volume of which can be ascertained
in a suitably constructed and graduated glass vessel, and thus
the percentage ascertained very rapidly and accurately; such
centrifugal contrivances constructed by H. Leffman, N. Gerber
and others are now in general use in dairies, and cheese and
butter factories. The amount of ``total solids'' contained in
milk, that is to say, of all constituents other than water, is
speedily ascertained by evaporating the water from a measured
or weighed portion of milk and drying the residue obtained
in a water-oven to constant weight. By subtracting from the
percentage of total solids that of the fat the amount of ``solids
not fat'' results, and by cautiously burning off the organic
substances, the salts or mineral matters are left. When the
percentage of ``solids not fat'' is less than 8.5 a simple
proportion sum suffices to show what percentage of water must
be present to reduce the ``solids not fat'' to the amount
found. As the added water also reduces proportionately the
percentage of mineral matter natural to normal milk (about
0.71 to 0.73%), the determination of the ash affords valuable
assistance to the analyst. When the amount of ash is higher
than normal, tests must be made for borax, soda or other
mineral matters that are often added as preservatives or acid
neutralizers. Borax is easily tested for by dissolving the milk
ash in a drop or two of dilute hydrochloric acid, moistening
a strip of yellow turmeric paper with the solution and drying
it, when, in the presence of even very minute quantities of
borax, the yellow colouring matter of the turmeric paper will
be changed into a brilliant red-brown. Formaldehyde (which
in 40% water solution forms the formalin of commerce) in milk
affords a bright purple colour when the milk containing it is
mixed with sulphuric acid containing a trace of an iron salt.
Condensed milk is milk that has been evaporated under
reduced pressure with or without the addition of sugar.
Generally one part of condensed milk corresponds to three
parts of the original milk. There is no case on record of
adulteration of unsweetened condensed milk, but sweetened
milk has in the past been frequently prepared either
from machine-skimmed or partly skimmed milk and sold as
whole-milk. As sweetened condensed milk is largely used by
the poorer part of the population for the feeding of infants,
and as the fat of milk is, as stated before, its most valuable
constituent, this class of fraud was a particularly mischievous
one, and led to the inclusion in the Food Act of 1899 of a
special proviso that every tin or other receptacle containing
condensed, separated or skimmed milk must bear a conspicuous
label showing the nature of the contents. As the bulk of
condensed milk consumed in England is imported from abroad,
the customs authorities now exercise a strict supervision over
the imports, and object to the importation of such condensed
milk as contains less than 9% of milk-fat. The average
composition of sweetened condensed milk may be taken, with slight
variations, to be: water 24.6%, fat 11.4%, casein and albumen
10%, milk-sugar 11.7%, cane-sugar 40.3%, mineral matters 2.0%.
Cream.--There are not any regulations nor official standards
relating to this article, the value of which depends upon its
contents in fat. Good stiff cream obtained by centrifugal
skimming may contain as much as 60% of milk-fat, but generally
dairymen's cream has only about 40%. On the other hand, milk
that is abnormally rich in fat is in some places sold as
cream. Attempts to compel dairymen to work up to any stated
minimum of fat have failed, the English courts holding that
cream is not an article that has any standard of quality, but
varies with the character of the cows from which the milk is
obtained and the food on which they are fed. Therefore, as
regards the most important portion of cream, the amount of
fat, adulteration does not exist unless there is a substitution
for the milk-fat by an emulsified foreign fat, but cases of
this description are exceedingly rare. On the other hand,
such additions of foreign materials, like starch paste or
gelatine, which have for object the giving of an appearance
of richness to a naturally poor and dilute article, are not
uncommon. While formerly the sale of cream was entirely in
the hands of milkmen, there has been of late a tendency to
regard cream as an article coming within the range of grocery
goods. To enable this perishable article to be kept in a
grocery store it has to receive an addition of preservative, as
a rule boric preservative, in excessive amount. The purchaser
may take it that all cream sold by others than milkmen, and
much of that even, is thus preserved and should be shunned.
The limit of boric preservative that might be permitted,
but which is nearly always exceeded, is one-quarter of 1%.
Butter.---Of all articles of food butter has most fully
received the attention of the sophisticator, because it
is the most costly of the ordinary articles of diet, and
because its composition is so intricate and variable that its
analysis presents extraordinary difficulties and its nature
exceptional and various opportunities for admixture with foreign
substances. It is the intention of the producer of butter
to separate the fatty portion of the milk as completely
as is practicable from the other constituents of the milk
without destroying the fat-globules. This can only be done
by churning. by which operation the milk-globules are caused
more or less to adhere to each other without losing their
individual existence. Owing to this subdivision of the
fat, and perhaps to the composition of the fat itself, butter
is a more digestible fatty article of food than lard or
oil. It is not possible by mechanical means to remove the
whole of the water and curd of the milk from the butter;
indeed ``overworking'' the butter with the object of removing
the water as completely as possible ruins the structure
to such an extent as to make the product unmerchantable.
In well-made butter there are contained about 85% of pure
milk-fat, from 12 to 13% of water, and 2 or 3% of curd and
albumen, milk-sugar or its product of transformation--lactic
acid,--and phosphates and other milk-salts. In some kinds of
butter, Russian for instance, the percentage of water is rather
less. Generally, by churning at a low temperature, a drier,
at higher temperatures a wetter, butter is obtained. The
curd must be got rid of as completely as practicable if
the product is to have reasonable keeping properties. To
prevent rapid decomposition salt in various quantities is
added. Considering that 100 lb. (10 gallons) of milk yield
only from 3 1/2 to 4 lb. of properly made butter, it is obvious
that a great inducement exists to increase the yield either
by leaving an undue proportion of water or curd, or by adding
an excessive quantity of salt. In some parts of Ireland the
butter is worked up with warm brine into so-called pickle
butter, whereby it becomes both watered and salted in one
operation. Until lately, when the English Board of Agriculture
fixed a limit of 16 for the percentage of water that may
legitimately be present in butter, this kind of debasement could
not easily be dealt with, but even now, where a legal water-limit
exists, the addition of water either as such, or in the shape
of milk or of condensed milk, is very commonly practised,
more or less care being taken not to exceed the legalized
limit. It is obvious that there is an ample margin of profit
for the mixer who starts with Russian butter containing 10%
of water and works it up with milk, fresh or condensed, to
16%, all the other milk-constituents, namely, sugar, curd and
salt, thus introduced counting as ``butter'' in the eyes of the
law. A very considerable number of butter-factors in London
and in other parts of England thus dilute dry butter and
consider this a legitimate operation so long as they keep
within the legal water-limit. Nay, they may even exceed this,
if only they give to their adulterated article a euphonious
name, which, while legally notifying the admixture, raises
in the mind of the ignorant purchaser the belief that he
is purchasing something particularly choice and excellent.
``Milk-blended butter,'' with as much as 24 or more per cent
of water and as little as 68% of fat, is still largely sold
to purchasers who think that they are obtaining extra value
for their money; several attempts to deal with the scandal by
legislature having led to no result. The introduction of water
into butter is also practised on a large scale in the United
States, where a branch of trade in ``renovated'' butter has
sprung up. In the States a considerable quantity of butter
is produced by small farmers, and by the time the product
comes into the market the addition of chemical preservatives
to prevent decomposition not being permitted--the butter has
so much deteriorated in quality that it fetches a very low
price. It is bought up by factors, the fat melted out and
washed, then again worked up with water and salt, care
being generally taken to leave about 16% of water in the
product, which finds a ready sale in England. It may here
be pointed out that England imports an enormous quantity of
butter from the continent of Europe, the colonies, Siberia
and America, the imports, less exports, averaging during
1903-1906 no less than 203,300 tons annually, and the total
consumption (home produce plus imports) 566,441 tons, the
consumption per head of population being 19.2 lb. per annum. In
butter, as in most other articles of food, adulteration with
water is the most common, most profitable, and least risky
form of fraud. Great fortunes are thus made out of water.
There is an altogether different class of butter adulteration
which concerns itself with the substitution of other fatty
matters for the whole or part of the really valuable portion
of the butter- fat. Margarine is the legalized and therefore
legitimate butter surrogate, prepared by churning any
suitable fat with milk into a cream, solidifying the latter
by injection into cold water and working the lumps together,
precisely as is done in the case of the churned cream of
milk. The substitution of margarine for butter is frequent,
in spite of all legal enactments directed against this fraud,
the semblance between butter and margarine being so great
that a trained palate is necessary to distinguish the two
articles. Much more frequent and much more difficult to deal
with is the sale of mixtures of butter and of margarine.
In order to show the difficulties inherent to this subject,
it will be necessary to consider the chemical nature of
butter-fat, and to compare it with other fats that may enter
into the composition of margarine. Butter-fat is butter freed
from water, curd and salt and extraneous matter. Like the
greater number of natural fats it consists of a mixture of
triglycerides, that is, combinations of glycerin with substances
of the nature of acids. These acids, in the case of fats
other than butter-fat, are mainly oleic, palmitic and stearic
acids. Butter-fat, in addition to these, contains other
acids which sharply distinguish it from the vast majority
of other fats and, with the exception of cocoa-nut oil, from
those substances which are or may be used to mix with butter,
by the circumstance that a considerable proportion of its
acids, when separated by chemical means from the glycerin, are
readily soluble in water, or may be easily volatilized either
alone or in a current of steam, whereas the acids separated
from the foreign fats are practically both insoluble and
non-volatile. This fundamental principle serves at once to
distinguish, for example, between butter and margarine, and
has been made use of by analysts not only for this purpose
but also with a view to determine the relative amounts of
butter and margarine in a mixture of these substances. Thus
butter-fat contains about 88%, more or less, of ``insoluble
fatty acids,'' while margarine contains about 95.5%; 5
grammes of butter-fat when chemically decomposed yield an
amount of volatile fatty acids which requires about 26 cubic
centimetres (more or less) of deci-normal alkali solution for
neutralization, while margarine requires mostly less than 1
cubic centimetre (Wollny or Reichert-Meissl method). There
are other differences between the two kinds of fat: the
specific gravity of butter-fat is higher than that of most
other fats; its power of refracting a ray of light is less;
the ``iodine absorption'' of butter-fat is smaller than that
of many other fatty matters, and so on. But the composition
of perfectly genuine butter-fat varies within somewhat wide
limits. The milk from a cow fed on good and ample food in
warm weather yields a fat that is rich in characteristic
butter-constituents, while a poorly fed animal, kept in the
open till late in the autumn, when the nights are cold, gives
milk exceptionally poor in fat, the differences expressed as
``insoluble fatty acids'' lying between 86 and 91%, and in
volatile acids, expressed as ``Wollny'' numbers, between 18
and 36. Generally, therefore, summer butter is rich and autumn
butter poor in volatile acids, or, geographically, Australian
butter is more frequently high, Siberian often exceedingly low
in these acids. The food of the animal also may, under certain
conditions, yield a notable proportion of its fatty matter
to the butter; cows that have, for instance, been fed upon
large quantities of cotton-seed cake yield butter in which the
cotton-seed oil may be traced, and the same holds good with
other fatty foods. All these, and other circumstances, combine
to render the detection of small quantities of foreign fats
that have been fraudulently added to butter almost a matter of
impossibility. This is perfectly well known to unscrupulous
butter dealers, and an enormous amount of adulteration is known
to be practised. Even small amounts of adulteration could,
nevertheless, often be discovered while margarine manufacturers
employed considerable proportions of vegetable oils in their
products, some of these oils furnishing characteristic chemical
reactions allowing of their discovery. Here some firms of
margarine manufacturers came to the aid of the butter-mixer
and produced margarine containing nothing but animal fat,
so-called ``neutral'' margarine being freely offered for
fraudulent purposes. There is one fat besides butter which
contains ``volatile fatty acids,'' namely, cocoa-nut oil.
Since means have been found to deprive this fat of its strong
cocoa-nut odour and taste, it has largely been used in the
adulteration of butter, and margarine containing Cocoa-nut
oil and other fatty substances has freely been manufactured
and sold specially for butter adulteration. The seat of this
class of fraud is mainly in Holland. Analysts happily found
means to detect this oil when present above 10%, and numerous
prosecutions made mixers more careful. Abundant evidence,
however, exists showing that the simultaneous addition of
water or milk so as to keep the water limit below 16% and
that of margarine entirely composed of animal fats below 10%
leaves a large margin of profit with a very small chance of
detection. For the moment at least analysis has had the worst
of it in the battle between honesty and ``business methods.''
Margarine itself is a legitimate article of commerce (when
sold with due notice to the purchaser), but is frequently
adulterated. As regards the fats used in its manufacture
there does not exist any legal restriction, and as long
as the fat is in a state fit for human consumption the
manufacturer can make whatever mixture he pleases. In general
there is no reason to think that any bad or disgusting fats
are finding their way into the factories, which in most
countries are under proper supervision; the old stories about
recovered grease from all sorts of offal are quite without
foundation. But a considerable percentage of solid paraffin
has been met with as an admixture of the fatty part of
margarine. As the fatty portion of the article is the
only one of value, some manufacturers make great efforts
to produce margarine with as small a percentage of fatty
matter as possible, either by incorporating excessive amounts
of water or of milk--margarines with over 30% of water
being met with--or by introducing sugar, glucose, starch,
gelatinous matter, in fact anything that is cheaper than
fat. The English law imposes a limitation upon the percentage
of butter-fat that may be contained in margarine, but at
present at least the tendency of manufacturers is all for
having as little butter or other valuable fat in margarine
as is practicable, and not to err on the other side. For the
purpose of facilitating the discovery of margarine when it has
been fraudulently added to butter, some countries (Germany,
Belgium, Sweden) insist upon the use of from 5 to 10% of
sesame oil (from the seed of Sesamum orientale or indicum,
belonging to the family of Bignoniaceae) in the manufacture
of such margarine as is to be consumed within the countries in
question. This oil yields a characteristic red colour when
it, or any mixture containing it, is shaken with an hydrochloric
solution of either sugar or furfurol, and is intended to serve
as an ``ear-marking'' substance. The addition of a little
starch or arrowroot, easily discoverable chemically or by the
microscope, is also required by Belgium, but in the absence
of any international agreement these ear-marking additions
are of little practical use. It is, however, interesting to
point out that, while complying with the regulations of the
governments, margarine manufacturers of the countries named
have found an easy way of rendering the regulations quite
nugatory: they add methyl-orange, a colouring matter which
itself produces a red colour with acid and quite obscures
the real colour obtained by the official test for sesame oil.
Cheese may be legitimately made from full-milk, milk that
has been enriched by addition of cream, or from milk that
has been more or less skimmed. It varies consequently very
widely in composition, so-called cream cheese containing
not less than 60% of fat; Stilton upwards of 40%; Cheddar
about 30%; Dutch, Parmesan and some Swiss and Danish less
than 20%. The amount of water varies with the kind and age
of the cheese and may be as low as 20 and as high as 60%.
Under these circumstances it is impracticable to lay down
any hard-and-fast rules as to the composition of cheese.
When, however, cheese is made from skimmed milk and the
fat is replaced by margarine, as is the case in so-called
``filled'' or margarine cheeses, the sale of these amounts to an
adulteration, unless the presence of the foreign substance is
declared. It may at first sight appear strange that the person
who robs milk of its most valuable portion, the cream, may
prepare a legitimate article of food from the remainder, while
he who to that remainder adds something to replace the fat does
an illegitimate act, but it must be taken into consideration
that the replacement is frequently made with fraudulent
intent and that the ordinary purchaser cannot by taste or
smell distinguish the adulterated from the genuine article,
while there is no difficulty in recognizing skim-milk cheese.
Lard.--Between the years 1880 and 1890 a gigantic fraudulent
trade in adulterated lard was carried on from the United
States. A great proportion of the American lard imported into
England was found to consist of a mixture of more or less real
lard with cotton-seed oil and beef-stearine. Cotton-seed oil
is one of the cheapest vegetable oils fit for human consumption,
beef-stearine the hard residue obtained in the manufacture
of oleo-margarine after the more fluid fat has been pressed
from the beef fat. These mixtures were made so skilfully by
large Chicago manufacturers that for some years they escaped
detection. A bill introduced in 1888 into the American
Senate to stop this imposture directed general attention to
the subject, and energetic measures, taken both in America
and in England, quickly put an end to it. From the memorial
presented in the United States Senate in support of the
bill, it appeared that in about 1887 the annual production
of lard in the States was estimated at 600 million pounds,
of which more than 35% was adulterated. Compounds were made
containing only a small quantity of lard or none at all, yet
were sold as ``choice refined lard'' or under other eulogistic
names. Many lard substitutes, chiefly made from cotton-seed
oil, are still met with, but are mostly sold in a legitimate
manner. From the germ of maize--which must be separated
from the starchy portion of the seed before the latter can be
manufactured into glucose--the oil (maize-oil) is expressed,
and this now is used as a lard adulterant, its detection
being far more difficult than that of cotton-seed oil.
Oils.--For very many years all oils were considered to
be composed of olein, that is to say, the triglyceride of
oleic acid, with small quantities of impurities; chemists,
therefore, to distinguish oils of various origin, confined
themselves to tests for these impurities, employing so-called
colour reactions based upon the change of colour of the oil
by various reagents such as sulphuric, nitric or phosphoric
acids. These reactions were exceedingly indefinite and
unsatisfactory and oil adulteration was prevalent and almost
undiscoverable. It has been found, however, that the old
ideas concerning the believed uniformity in the nature and
constitution of oils were erroneous. Some oils, indeed, do
consist of olein, almond oil being a type, others contain a
glyceride of an acid which is distinguished from oleic acid
by containing one molecule less hydrogen, called linoleic
acid. To this class belong cotton-seed and sesame oils.
Others again include a glyceride of an acid containing still
less hydrogen, linolenic acid (linseed and similar drying
oils), and lastly the liver oils are still poorer in hydrogen.
These various acids or the oils contained in them combine with
various percentages of iodine, oleic acid absorbing the smallest
proportion (about 80%); For each oil the iodine absorption
is a fairly constant quantity; this number, together with
the determination of the amount of caustic alkali needed for
complete saponification, the thermal rise with strong sulphuric
acid or with bromine, the refraction of light and the specific
gravity, now enable the analyst to form a fair idea of the
nature of any sample under examination, and, in consequence
of this advance in knowledge, adulteration of oils has much
declined. The most common adulterant of the more valuable
oils, like olive oil, is cotton-seed oil. The oils expressed
from the sesame seed or the earth-nut (arachis oil) are also
frequently admixed with olive oil. Almond oil is adulterated
with the closely allied oils from the peach-kernel or the
pine-seed. Deodorized paraffin hydrocarbons also enter
sometimes as adulterants into edible oils. There is,
however, a marked improvement in the purity of oils generally.
Flour and bread as sold in England are almost invariably
genuine. The old forms of adulteration, such as the use of
alum for the production of a white but indigestible loaf from
bad flour, have disappeared. The only admixture which has
been met with during recent years is maize-meal in American
produce. This is of inferior food value to wheat-meal.
Sugar in its various forms can hardly be said to be subject
to adulteration by the addition of inferior substitutes. One
single case of such substitution analogous to the proverbial
but probably mythical sanding of sugar occurred between
1880 and 1905 in England, some crushed marble having been
found in a consignment of German sugar in a large British
establishment. There have, however, been numerous prosecutions
for a fraud of another class, namely, the substitution
of dyed beetroot sugar for Demerara sugar. Formerly the
sugar produced by the old imperfect and wasteful methods of
manufacture was more or less yellow or brown from adhering
molasses. Sugar, as now obtained, be it from cane or beet, is
white; yet the public is so wedded to its customs that white
sugar except as lump or castor sugar does not,find a ready
sale. The manufacturer is obliged to colour his product yellow
by artificial means, that is to say, either by the addition of
a little aniline dye, harmless in itself, or, as in the West
Indies, mostly by the use of a small quantity of chloride
of tin, so-called ``bloomer.'' European refined beet-sugar
coloured with aniline dye to distinguish it from Demerara cane
sugar is sold under the name of ``yellow crystals.'' These,
although richer in real sugar than Demerara, are without the
delicious aroma of cane syrup which belongs to the latter, and
are not infrequently fraudulently substituted for Demerara.
Marmalade and Jams.---In the preparation of marmalade
and jams, which articles were for a long time mado from
fruit and sugar only, a part of the sugar, from 10 to 15%,
is often now replaced by starch glucose. This material,
consisting mainly of a mixture of dextrose and dextrin, is
of much less sweetening power than ordinary sugar and mostly
cheaper. It is said to prevent the crystallization which
frequently used to occur in some jams. The use of glucose
has been declared by the High Court (Smith v. Wisden,
1901) to be legitimate, the court holding that as there was
no recognized standard for the composition of marmalade the
addition of saccharine material not injurious to health could
not constitute an offence. Artificial colouring matters and
chemical preservatives are almost constant ingredients of
jams. To such fruits which, when boiled with sugar, do
not readily yield a jelly (strawberries, raspberries)
an addition of apple juice is frequently made in the
manufacture of jam, without much objection; the pulp of the
apple, however, is sometimes bodily added as an adulterant.
Tea.---In consequence of the proviso contained in the Food
Act of 1875 that tea was to be examined by the Customs on
importation, such tea as was found to be admixed with other
substance or exhausted tea being refused entry into England,
the adulteration of tea has been virtually suppressed. Great
numbers of samples are annually examined by the Customs,
and a not inconsiderable proportion of these are condemned
because they are either damaged or dirty, their use for
the manufacture of theine being permitted, only sound and
genuine tea coming to the British public. The practice, very
common a generation ago, of artificially colouring tea green
with, a mixture of Prussian blue and turmeric, has quite
vanished with the decline of the consumption of green tea.
Coffee.---A few cases of artificially manufactured coffee
berries, made from flour and chicory, have been observed, but
it would not be fair to speak of a practice of adulteration
regarding coffee berries. Not infrequently coffee is roasted
with the addition of some fatty matter or paraffin or sugar,
to give to the roasted coffee a glossy appearance. These
additions as a rule are small in amount. Ground coffee is
often sold adulterated with chicory, sugar or caramel. Other
adulterations, reference to which is found in literature relating
to the second half of the 19th century, do not seem now to occur.
Cocoa and chocolate are liable to a number of fraudulent
or questionable additions. In the cheaper qualities of
cocoa-powder sugar and starch--the latter in the form
of sago flour or arrowroot--are admixed in very large
proportions, and, in order to give to such mixtures something
like the appearance of genuine cocoa, red oxide of iron is
added. This almost invariably is more or less arsenical.
Cocoa-shell, a perfectly valueless material, is mixed in a
very finely ground state with cocoa of the commoner kind.
Owing to the enormous increase in the consumption of so-called
chocolate-creams, which are masses of sugar confectionery
coated with a cocoa-paste containing a large proportion of
the fat of cocoa (cocoa-butter), the quantity of cocoa-butter
that is obtained in the manufacture of cocoa-powders is
no longer sufficient to cover the demand. Substitutes of
cocoa-butter prepared from cocoa-nut oil are manufactured
on a large scale, and all enter without acknowledgment
into chocolates or chocolate creams. As there are not any
regulations touching the composition of chocolate, sugar
or starch or both are used in chocolate manufacture, and
especially in that of chocolate powders in often excessive
quantities. In the Dutch mode of manufacture of cocoa-powders
an addition of from 3% to 4% of an alkaline salt is made
for the purpose of rendering the cocoa ``soluble,'' or, more
strictly, for putting it into such a physical condition that
it does not settle in the cup. This addition does not, as
is often alleged, render the cocoa alkaline, and is not made
with any fraudulent object; several countries, however, have
passed regulations fixing the maximum of the addition which
may thus legitimately be made. Most of the cocoa powders sold
in England are prepared in accordance with the Dutch method.
Wine.--If under this term a beverage is understood which
consists of nothing but fermented grape juice, a great
proportion of the wine consumed in England is not genuine
wine. All port and sherry comes into commerce after
having received an addition of spirit, generally made from
potatoes; port and sherry would not be what they are and
as they have been for generations unless they were thus
fortified. The practice can now hardly be classed among
adulterations. A well-fermented wine made from the juice
of properly matured grapes does not require any added
alcohol in order that it should keep; imperfectly made wine
is liable to turn sour; the addition of alcohol prevents
this. French wines, both red and white, are hardly subject to
adulteration. In wine-growing countries like France wine is so
cheap and plentiful that it would be difficult to manufacture
an imitation beverage cheaper than genuine wine. In Germany
the conditions are different, the districts from which those
wines that are exported are nominally derived being small and
insufficient to cover the world's demands. The addition of
sugar solution or of starch sugar is allowed within limits
by German law, which not even requires that notification to
the purchaser be made of the addition, and it is notorious
that a very large proportion of the wine sold under the name
of ``hock'' and some of that coming from the Moselle are
thus diluted, sugared and lengthened, or, in plain terms,
adulterated. Wines from the Palatinate which under their own
names would not sell out of Germany are often passed off as
hocks. As there is but little German red wine the law
also permits this to be lengthened by the addition of white
wine. For the removal of part of the acid from sour wine
produced in bad vintages the addition of precipitated chalk
is also permitted. Attention has been drawn in England to
the very serious fact that German wines sometimes contain
salts of zinc in small quantities. These are introduced by
a fining agent protected by a German patent, consisting of
solutions of sulphate of zinc and potassium ferrocyanide,
which, when added together in ``suitable proportions,''
produce a precipitate of zinc-ferrocyanide which carries down
all turbidity in the wine and is supposed to leave neither
zinc nor ferrocyanide behind in solution. As a matter of
fact, one or other of these highly objectionable substances
is almost invariably left behind. The use of artificial
colouring matters in wines does not appear now to occur.
Beer cannot be said to be adulterated, although it is well
known that materials often very different from these which the
general public believe to be the proper raw materials for the
manufacture of beer, namely, water, malt and hops, are largely
used. By the Customs and Inland Revenue Act 1885, sec. 4,
beer is defined as any liquor ``which is made or sold as a
description of beer, or as a substitute for beer, and which
on analysis of a sample thereof shall be found to contain more
than 2% of proof spirit.'' That is to say, beer is legally
anything that is sold as beer provided that it has 2% of proof
spirit. There is not any restriction upon the materials
that are employed provided that they are not positively
poisonous. For Inland Revenue purposes, however, a prohibition
has been made against the admixture of anything to beer
after it has been manufactured, and excise prosecutions of
publicans for watering beer are not infrequent. Formerly
there was a restriction on the amount of salt that might be
present in beer; this no longer exists. On the other hand it
cannot be said that any injurious materials are being used by
brewers, the brewing industry being, broadly speaking, most
efficiently supervised and controlled by scientifically trained
men. The addition to beer of bisulphate of lime, which is
almost universally practised in England, is not an adulteration
in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The thin beer which
has taken the place of the strong ales of the past generation
contains an insufficiency of alcohol to ensure keeping qualities,
and it is difficult to see how modern English beers could
be sold without the addition of some sort of preservative.
Non-Alcoholic Drinks.---The same remark applies to a good
many of so-called temperance beverages. Of these again it is
hardly proper to speak as liable to adulteration. So-called
sodawater is very often devoid of soda and is only carbonated
water, but the term ``soda-water'' is a survival from the times
when this was a medicinal beverage and when soda was prescribed
to be present in definite amount by the pharmacopoeia. Potash
and especially lithia waters very frequently contain only
mere traces of the substances from which they derive their
names. The sweetness of ginger-beer and often of lemonade is no
longer due to sugar, as used to be the case, but to saccharine
(the toluol derivative), which is possessed of sweetness but
not of nourishment; and since, as an antiseptic, it may affect
the digestion, its use in these beverages is to be deprecated.
Vinegar ought to be the product obtained by the successive
alcoholic and acetous fermentation of a sugary liquor. When
this is obtained from malt or from malt admixed with other grain
the vinegar is called a malt vinegar. Often, however, acid
liquors pass under that name which have been made by the action
of a mineral acid upon any starchy material such as maize or
tapioca, with or without the addition of neat sugar. Dilute
acetic acid, obtained from wood, is very frequently used as
an adulterant of vinegar. When properly purified such acid
is unobjectionable physiologically, but it is improper to sell
it as vinegar. Adulteration of vinegar by sulphuric or other
acids, formerly a common practice, is now exceedingly rare.
Spirits.---By the Sale of Food and Drugs Act Amendment Act,
whisky, brandy and rum must not be sold of a less alcoholic
strength than 25 under proof (corresponding to 43% of alcohol
by volume), and gin 35 under proof (37% alcohol). For many
years the only form of adulteration recorded by public analysts
related to the alcoholic strength, the undue dilution of
spirits with water being, of course, a profitable form of
fraud. No addition of any injurious matters to commercial
spirits has been observed. It was, however, well known that
a very considerable proportion of so-called brandies was not
the product of the grape, but that spirits of other origin
were frequently admixed with grape brandy. A report which
appeared in 1902 in the Lancet on ``Brandy, its production
at Cognac and the supply of genuine brandy to this country,''
served as a stimulus to public analysts to analyse commercial
brandies, and convictions of retailers for selling so-called
brandy followed. It was shown that genuine brandy made
in the orthodox style from wine in pot-stills contained a
considerable proportion of substances other than alcohol to
which the flavour and character of brandy is due; among these
flavouring materials combinations of a variety of organic
acids with alcohols (chemically described as ``esters'')
predominate. For the present a brandy is not considered
genuine unless it contains in 100,000 parts (calculated free
from water) at least 60 parts of ``esters.', As a consequence
a trade has sprung up in artificially produced esters, sold
for the purpose of adding them to any spirit to fraudulently
convert it into a liquor passing as ``brandy.'' The inquiries
into the nature of brandy led to investigations into
whisky. Formerly whisky was made from grain only and obtained
by pot-still distillation, that form of ``still'' yielding
a product containing a comparatively large proportion of
volatile matters other than alcohol. For many years past,
however, improved stills--so-called patent stills--have been
adopted, enabling manufacturers to obtain a purer and far
stronger product, saving carriage and storage. Attempts were
made in England in 1905-1907 to restrict the term ``whisky''
solely to the pot-still product. But the question was referred
in 1908 to a Royal Commission which reported against such a
restriction. A common form of adulteration of whisky is the
addition to it of spirit made on the Continent mainly from
potatoes. This spirit is almost pure alcohol and is quite devoid
of the injurious properties which are popularly but falsely
attributed to it. The substitution of this--a very cheap and
quite flavourless material---for one which owes its value more to
its flavour than to its alcoholic contents, is clearly fraudulent.
Drugs.---To the adulteration of drugs but very brief reference
can here be made. It is satisfactory to record that but very
few of the great number of drugs included in the pharmacopoeias
are liable to serious adulteration, and there are very few
cases on record during recent years where real fraudulent
adulteration was involved. The numerous preparations used
by druggists are mostly prepared in factories under competent
and careful supervision, and the standards laid down in the
British Pharmacopoeia are, broadly speaking, carefully adhered
to. The occurrence of unlooked-for impurities, such as that
of arsenic in sodium-phosphate or in various iron preparations,
can hardly be included in the list of adulterations. In the
making up of prescriptions, however, a good deal of laxity
is displayed; thus, the Local Government Board report of the
years 1904-1905 refers to an instance of a quinine mixture
containing 23 grains of quinine-sulphate instead of 240
grains. A certain latitude in the making up of physicians'
prescriptions must necessarily be allowed, but much too frequently
the reasonable limit of a 10% error over or under the amount
of drug prescribed is exceeded. Certain perishable drugs,
such as sweet spirits of nitre, or others liable to contain
from their mode of manufacture metallic impurities, form the
subjects of frequent prosecutions. The element of intentional
fraud which characterizes many forms of food adulteration
is happily generally absent in the case of drugs. (O. H.*)
ADULTERY (from Lat. adultorium), the sexual intercourse of
a married person with another than the offender's husband or
wife. Among the Greeks, and in the earlier period of Roman
law, it was not adultery unless a married woman was the
offender. The foundation of the later Roman law with regard
to adultery was the lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis
passed by Augustus about 17 B.C. (See Dig. 48. 5; Paul.
Rec. Sent. ii. 26; Brisson, dit Leg. Jul. de Adult.)
In Great Britain it was reckoned a spiritual offence, that
is, cognizable by the spiritual courts only. The common
law took no further notice of it than to allow the party
aggrieved an action of damages. In England, however, the
action for ``criminal conversation,'' as it was called, was
nominally abolished by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857; but
by the 33rd section of the same act, the husband may claim
damages from one who has committed adultery with his wife in
a petition for dissolution of the marriage, or for judicial
separation. In Ireland the action for criminal conversation is
still retained. In Scotland damages may be recovered against
an adulterer in an ordinary action of damages in the civil
court, and the latter may be found liable for the expenses
of an action of divorce if joined with the guilty spouse as a
co-defender. Adultery on the part of the wife is, by the
law of England, a ground for divorce, but on the part of the
husband must be either incestuous or bigamous, or coupled with
cruelty or desertion for two or more years. In the United
States adultery is everywhere ground of divorce, and there
is commonly no prohibition against marrying the paramour or
other re-marriage by the guilty party. Even if there be such a
prohibition, it would be unavailing out of the state.in which
the divorce was granted; marriage being a contract which, if
valid where executed, is generally treated as valid everywhere.
Adultery gives a cause of action for damages to the wronged
husband. It is in some states a criminal offence on the
part of each party to the act, for which imprisonment in the
penitentiary or state prison for a term of years may be awarded.
In England, a complete divorce or dissolution of the
marriage could, until the creation of the Court of Probate
and Divorce, be obtained only by an act of parliament.
This procedure is still pursued in the case of Irish
divorces. In Scotland a complete divorce may be effected by
proceedings in the Court of Session, as succeeding to the old
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the commissioners. A person
divorced for adultery is, by the law of Scotland, prohibited
from intermarrying with the paramour. In France, Germany,
Austria and other countries in Europe, as well as in some
of the states of the United States, adultery is a criminal
offence, punishable by imprisonment or fine. (See DIVORCE.)
AD VALOREM (Lat. for ``according to value''), the term
given in commerce to a duty which is levied by customs
authorities on goods or commodities in proportion to their
value. An ad valorem duty is the opposite of a specific
duty, which is chargeable on the measure or weight of
goods. The United States is the one important country which
has adopted in its tariff an extensive system of ad valorem
duties, though it has not altogether disregarded specific
duties; in some cases, indeed, the two are combined. Ad
valorem duties, in the United States, are levied according
to the saleable value of the goods in the country of their
origin, and it is usual to require at the port of entry the
production of an invoice with full particulars as to the
place where, time when, and person from whom the goods were
purchased, and the actual cost of the goods and the charges on
them. Such an invoice is countersigned by the consul of
the country for which the goods are intended. On arrival
at the port of consignment the invoice is sworn to by the
importer. The goods are then valued by an appraiser, and
if the valuation of the appraiser exceeds that which appears
on the invoice, double duty is levied, subject to appeal
to a general appraiser and to boards of general appraisers.
It has been argued that, theoretically, an ad valorem duty is
preferable to a specific duty, inasmuch as it falls in proper
proportion alike on the high-priced and low-priced grades of a
commodity, and, no matter how the value of any article fluctuates,
the rate of taxation automatically adjusts itself to the new
value. In practice, however, ad valorem duties lead to great
inequalities, and are very difficult to levy; while the relative
value of two commodities may remain apparently unchanged under
an ad valorem duty, yet owing to the difference in the cost of
production, or through the different proportions of fixed and
circulating capital employed in their manufacture, an ad valorem
tax will be felt much more severely by one commodity than by
another. Again, there is always a difficulty in obtaining a
true valuation on the exported goods, for values from their
very nature are variable; while specific duties remain steady,
and the buyer can always ascertain exactly what he will have to
pay. The opening to fraud is also very great, for where, as
in the United States, the object of the duty is to keep out
foreign goods, every valuation at the port of shipment will be
looked upon with the utmost suspicion, while it will always be
a temptation to the foreign seller to undervalue, a temptation
in many cases encouraged by the importer, for it lessens his
tax, while the seller's market is increased. The staff of
appraisers which must necessarily be kept at each port of entry
considerably raises the expense, to say nothing of the annoyance
and delay caused both to importers and foreign shippers.
The term ``ad valorem'' is used also of stamp duties. By the
Stamp Act 1891 certain classes of instruments, e.g. awards,
bills of exchange, conveyances or transfers, leases, &c., must
be stamped in England with the proper ad valorem duty, that is,
the duty chargeable according to the value of the subject matter
of the particular instruments or writings. (See STAMP DUTIES.)
ADVANCEMENT, a term technically used in English law for a
sum of money or other benefit, given by a father during his
lifetime to his child, which must be brought into account by
the child on a distribution of the father's estate upon an
intestacy on pain of his being excluded from participating
in such distribution. The principle is of ancient origin;
as regards goods and chattels it was part of the ancient
customs of London and the province of York, and as regards
land descending in coparcenary it has always been part
of the common law of England under the name of hotch-pot
(q.v.). The general rule was established by the Statutes of
Distribution. The conditions under which cases of advancement
arise are as follows: There must be a complete intestacy;
the intestate estate must be that of the father; and the
advancement must have been made in the lifetime of the
father. Land which belongs or would belong to a child as
heir at law or customary heir need not be brought in to
the common fund, even though such land was given during the
father's life. The widow can gain no advantage from any
advancement. No child can be forced to account for his or
her advancement, but in default thereof he will be excluded
from a share in the intestate's estate. As to what is an
advancement there has been much conflict of judicial opinion.
According to one view, nothing is an advancement unless it be
given ``on marriage or to establish the child in life.'' The
other and probably the correct view is that any considerable
sum of money paid to a child at that child's request is an
advancement; thus payment of a son's debts of honour has been
held to be an advancement. On the other hand, trivial gifts
and presents to a child are undoubtedly not advancements.
ADVANTAGE, that which gives gain or helps forward in any
way. The Fr. avant (before) shows the origin and meaning of
this word, the d having subsequently crept in and corrupted
the spelling. It is often contracted to ``vantage.'' In
some games (e.g. lawn tennis) the term ``vantage'' is used
technically in scoring (``deuce'' and ``vantage''; ``vantage
sets''). A position which gives a better chance of success
than its surroundings is called a ``vantage ground.''
In an unfavourable sense the word ``advantage'' is used
to express a mean use made of some favourable condition
(e.g. to take advantage of another man's misfortunes).
ADVENT (Lat. Adventus, sc. Redemptoris, ``the coming
of the Saviour''), a holy season of the Christian church, the
period of preparation for the celebration of the nativity or
Christmas. In the Eastern church it lasts from St Martin's
Day (11th of November), and in other churches from the
Sunday nearest to St Andrew's Day (30th of November) till
Christmas. It is uncertain at what date the season began to be
observed. A canon of a council at Saragossa in 380, forbidding
the faithful to be absent from church during the three weeks
from the 17th of December to the Epiphany, is thought to be an
early reference to Advent. The first authoritative mention of
it is in the Synod of Lerida (524), and since the 6th century
it has been recognized as the beginning of the ecclesiastical
year. With the view of directing the thoughts of Christians
to the first coming of Christ as Saviour, and to his second
coming as Judge, special lessons are prescribed for the four
Sundays in Advent. From the 6th century the season was kept
as a period of fasting as strict as that of Lent; but in the
Anglican and Lutheran churches the rule is now relaxed. In
the Roman Catholic church Advent is still kept as a season of
penitence. Dancing and festivities are forbidden, fasting
enjoined and purple vestments are worn in the church services.
In many countries Advent was long marked by diverse popular
observances, some of which even still survive. Thus in England,
especially the northern counties, there was a custom (now
extinct) for poor women to carry round the ``Advent images,'' two
dolls dressed one to represent Christ and the other the Virgin
Mary. A halfpenny was expected from every one to whom these were
exhibited, and bad luck was thought to menace the household not
visited by the doll-bearers before Christmas Eve at the latest.
In Normandy the farmers still employ children under twelve to
run through the fields and orchards armed with torches, setting
fire to bundles of straw, and thus it is believed driving out
such vermin as are likely to damage the crops. III Italy among
other Advent celebrations is the entry into Rome in the last
days of Advent of the Calabrian pifferari or bagpipe players,
who play before the shrines of the Holy Mother. The Italian
tradition is that the shepherds played on these pipes when they
came to the manger at Bethlehem to do homage to the Saviour.
ADVENTISTS, SECOND, members of religious bodies whose
distinctive feature is a belief in the imminent physical
return of Jesus Christ. The first to bear the name were the
followers of William Miller, and adherents have always been
more numerous in America than in Europe. There is a body of
Seventh Day Adventists who observe the old Sabbath (Saturday)
rather than the Christian Sunday. They counsel abstemious
habits, but set no time for the coming of Christ, and so are
spared the perpetual disappointments that overtake the ordinary
adventist. They have some 400 ministers and 60,000 members.
ADVENTITIOUS (from Lat. adventicius, coming from
abroad), a quality from outside, in no sense part of the
substance or circumstance: a man's clothes, or condition
of life, his wealth or his poverty, are called by Carlyle
``adventitious wrappages,'' as being extrinsic, superadded
and not a natural part of him. In botany the word means
that which is not normal to the plant, which appears
irregularly and accidentally, e.g. buds or roots out of
place, or strange spots and streaks not native to the flower.
ADVENTURE (from Lat. res adventura, a thing about to
happen), chance, and especially chance of danger; so a hazardous
enterprise or remarkable incident. Thus an ``adventurer,''
from meaning one who takes part in some speculative course
of action, came to mean one who lived by his wits and a
person of no character. The word is also used in certain
restricted legal connexions. Joint adventure, for instance,
may be distinguished from partnership (q.v.). A bill
of adventure in maritime law (now apparently obsolete)
is a writing signed by the shipmaster declaring that goods
shipped in his name really belong to another, to whom he is
responsible. The bill of gross adventure in French maritime
law is an instrument making a loan on maritime security.
ADVERTISEMENT, or ADVERTISING (Fr. avertissement,
warning, or notice), the process of obtaining and particularly
of purchasing publicity. The business of advertising is of
very recent origin if it be regarded as a serious adjunct
to other phases of commercial activity. In some rudimentary
form the seller's appeal to the buyer must, however, have
accompanied the earliest development of trade. Under
conditions of primitive barter, communities were so small that
every producer was in immediate personal contact with every
consumer. As the primeval man's wolfish antipathy to the
stranger of another pack gradually diminished, and as intercourse
spread the infection of larger desires, the trapper could
no longer satisfy his more complicated wants by the mere
exchange of his pelts for his lowland neighbour's corn and
oil. A began to accept from B the commodity which he could
in turn deliver to C, while C in exchange for B's product
gave to A what D had produced and bartered to C. The mere
statement of such a transaction sufficiently presents its
clumsiness, and the use of primitive forms of coin soon
simplified the original process of bare barter. It is
reasonable to suppose that as soon as the introduction of
currency marked the abandonment of direct relations between
purchaser and consumer an informal system of advertisement
in turn rose to meet the need of publicity. At first the
offer of the producer must have been brought to the trader's
attention, and the trader's offer to the notice of the
consumer, by casual personal contact, supplemented by local
rumour. The gradual growth of markets and their development
into periodical fairs, to which merchants from distant places
resorted, afforded, until printing was invented, the only
means of extended advertisement. In England, during the 3rd
century, Stourbridge Fair attracted traders from abroad as
well as from all parts of England, and it may be conjectured
that the crying of wares before the booths on the banks of
the Stour was the first form of advertisement which had any
marked effect upon English commerce. As the fairs of the
middle ages, with the tedious and hazardous journeys they
involved, gradually gave place to a more convenient system of
trade, the 15th century brought the invention of printing,
and led the Way to the modern development of advertising. The
Americans, to whom the elaboration of newspaper advertising is
primarily due, had but just founded the first English-speaking
community in the western hemisphere when the first newspaper
was published in England. But although the first periodical
publication containing news appeared in the month of May
1622, the first newspaper advertisement does not seem to
have been published until April 1647. It formed a part of
No. 13 of Perfect Occurrences of Every Daie journall in
Parliament, and other Moderate Intelligence, and it read as
follows:-A Book applauded by the Clergy of England, called
The Divine Right of church Government, Collected by
sundry eminent Ministers in the Citie of London; Corrected
and augmented in many places, with a briefe Reply to certain
Queries against the Ministery of England; Is printed and
published for Joseph Hunscot and George Calvert, and
are to be sold at the Stationers' Hall, and at the Golden
Fleece in the Old Change. Among the Mercuries, as the
weekly newspapers of the day were called, was the Mercurius
Elencticus, and in its 45th number, published on the 4th of
October 1648, there appeared the following advertisement:--
The Reader is desired to peruse a Sermon,
Entituled A Looking-Glasse for Levellers,
Preached at St. Peters, Paules Wharf, on Sunday, Sept. 24th 1648,
by Paul Knell, Mr. of Arts. Another Tract called A Reflex
upon our Reformers, with a prayer for the Parliament
In an issue of the Mercurius Politicus, published by Marchmont
Nedham, who is described as ``perhaps both the ablest and the
readiest man that had yet tried his hand at a newspaper,'' there
appeared in January 1652 an advertisement, which has often
been erroneously cited as the first among newspaper
advertisements. It read as
follows:--
Irenodia Gratulatoria, a heroic poem, being a congratulatory
panegyrick for my Lord General's return, summing up his
successes in an exquisite manner. To be sold by John Holden,
in the New Exchange, London, Printed by Thomas Newcourt,
1652. The article ``On the Advertising System,'' published
in the Edinburgh Review for February 1843, contains the
fullest account of early English advertising that has ever been
given, and it has been very freely drawn upon by all writers
who have since discussed the subject. But it describes this
advertisement in the Mercurius Politicus as ``the very first,''
and the discovery of the two earlier instances above quoted was
due to the researches of a contributor to Notes and Queries.
In The Crosby Records, the commonplace-books of William
Blundell, there is an interesting comment, dated 1659, on
the lack of advertising facilities at that period--It would
be very expedient if each parish or village might have some
place, as the church or smithy, wherein to publish (by papers
posted up) the wants either of the buyer or the seller, as
such a field to be let, such a servant, or such a service,
to be had, &c. There was a book published in London weekly
about the year 1657 which was called (as I remember) The
Publick Advice. At gave information in very many of these
particulars. A year later the same diarist says--There is an
office near the Old Exchange in London called the office of Publick
Advice. From thence both printed and private information of
this useful nature are always to be had. But what they print
is no more than a leaf or less in a diurnal. I was in this
office. The diurnal consisted of sixteen pages quarto in
1689. In No. 62 of the London Gazette, published in June
1666, the first advertisement supplement was announced--An
Advertisement--Being daily prest to the Publication of Books,
Medicines, and other things not properly the business of a Paper
of Intelligence, This is to notifie, once for all, that we will
not charge the Gazette with Advertisements, unless they be
matter of State: but that a Paper of Advertisements will be
forthwith printed apart, & recommended to the Publick by another
hand. In No. 94 of the same journal, published in October
1666, there appeared a suggestion that sufferers from the Great
Fire should avail themselves of this means of publicity--Such
as have settled in new habitations since the late Fire, and
desire for the convenience of their correspondence to publish
the place of their present abode, or to give notice of Goods
lost or found may repair to the corner House in Bloomsbury
on the East Side of the Great Square, before the House of
the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer, where there is care
taken for the Receipt and Publication of such Advertisements.
The earlier advertisements, with the exception of formal
notices, seem to have been concerned exclusively with either
books or quack remedies. The first trade advertisement,
which does not fall within either of these categories,
was curiously enough the first advertisement of a new
commodity, tea. The following advertisement appeared in
the Mercurius Politicus, No. 435, for September 1658--
That excellent and by all Physitians approved China Drink,
called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay,
alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head, a cophee-house
in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.
The history of slavery, of privateering and of many other
curious incidents and episodes of English history during the
17th and 18th centuries might be traced by examination of the
antiquated advertisements which writers upon such subjects
have already collected. In order that space may be found
for some consideration of the practical aspects of modern
advertising, the discussion of its gradual development must be
curtailed. Nor is it necessary to preface this consideration by
any laboured statement of the importance which advertising has
assumed. It is a matter of common knowledge that several
business houses are to be found in Great Britain, and a
larger number in the United States, who spend not less than
L. 50,000 a year in advertising, while one patent medicine
company, operating both in England and the United States, has
probably spent not less than L. 200,000 in Great Britain in one
year, and an English cocoa manufacturer is supposed to have
spent L. 150,000 in Great Britain. Some of the best works
of artists as distinguished as Sir John Millais, Sir H. von
Herkomer and Mr Stacy Marks have been scattered broadcast by
advertisers. The purchase of Sir John Millais' picture
``Bubbles'' for L. 2200 by the proprietors of a well-known
brand of soap is probably the most remarkable instance of the
expenditure in this direction which an advertiser may find
profitable. There are in London alone more than 350 advertising
agents, of whom upwards of a hundred are known as men in
a considerable way of business. The statements which from
time to time find currency in the newspapers with regard to
the total amount of money annually spent upon advertising
in Great Britain and in the United States are necessarily
no better than conjectures, but no detailed statistics are
required in order to demonstrate what every reader can plainly
see for himself, that advertising has definitely assumed
its position as a serious field of commercial enterprise.
Advertising, as practised at the beginning of the 20th century,
may be divided into three general classes:--1. Advertising in
periodical publications. 2. Advertising by posters, signboards
(other than those placed upon premises where the advertised
business is conducted), transparencies and similar devices.
3. Circulars, sent in quantities to specific classes of
persons to whom the advertiser specially desired to address
himself. It may be noted at the outset that advertising in
periodical publications exercises a reflex influence upon these
publications. The dally, weekly and monthly publications of
the day are accustomed to look to advertisements for so large
a part of their revenue that the purchaser of a periodical
publication receives much greater value for his money than he
could reasonably expect from the publisher if the aggregate
advertising receipts did not constitute a perpetual subsidy
to the publisher. It is not to be supposed, however, that
the receipts from the sale of a paper cover all its expenses
and that the advertising revenue is all clear profit. The
average newspaper reader would be amazed if he knew at how
great a cost the day's news is laid before him. A dignified
journal displays no inclination to cry from the housetops
the vastness of its expenditure, but from time to time an
accident enables the public to obtain information in this
connexion. The evidence taken by a recent Copyright Commission
disclosed that the expenditure of the leading English journal
upon foreign news alone amounted to more than L. 50,000 in the
course of one year, and that a year not characterized by any
great war to swell the ordinary volume of cable despatches.
In the case of daily papers sold at the minimum price, it is
not less obvious that the costliness of news service renders
advertising revenue indispensable, for although these less
important journals spend less money, the price at which they
are supplied to the news agents is very small in proportion
to the cost of their production. If, however, this thought
be pursued to its logical conclusion, the advertiser must
admit that he in turn receives, from those among newspaper
readers who purchase his wares, prices sufficiently high
to cover the cost of his advertising. So that the reader
is in the curious position of directly paying a certain
price for his newspaper, receiving a newspaper fairly worth
more than that price, while this price is supplemented by
the indirect incidence of a sort of tax upon many of the
commodities he consumes. On the other hand, a great part
of the advertisements in a daily newspaper have themselves
an interest and utility not less than that possessed by the
news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the
classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after
day, and servants and employers find one another by the same
means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part
of the news that even if a journal were not paid for their
insertion they could not be altogether omitted without
inconvenience to the reader. In the main, however, it is
the advertiser who seeks the reader, not the reader who seeks
the advertiser, and the care with which advertisements are
prepared, and the certainty with which the success or failure
of a trader may be traced to his skill or want of skill as an
advertiser, show that the proper use of advertising is one
of the most indispensable branches of commercial training.
Poster and sign advertisements.
Before discussing in detail the methods of advertising
in periodical publications it may be well to complete,
for the use of the general reader, a brief survey of
the whole subject by examining the two other classes of
advertisement. The most enthusiastic partisan of advertising
will admit that posters and similar devices are very
generally regarded by the public as sources of annoyance.
A bold headline or a conspicuous illustration in a newspaper
advertisement may for a moment force itself upon the reader's
attention. In the French, and in some English newspapers,
where an advertisement is often given the form of an item of
news, the reader is distressed by the constant fear of being
hoodwinked. He begins to read an account of a street accident,
and finds at the end of the paragraph a puff of a panacea for
bruises. The best English and American journals have refused
to lend themselves to this sort of trickery, and in no one
of the best journals printed in the English language will
there be found an advertisement which is not so plainly
differentiated from news matter that the reader may avoid
it if he sees fit to do so. On the whole, then, newspaper
advertisements ask, but do not compel attention. The whole
theory of poster advertising is, on the other hand, one of
tyranny. The advertiser who pays for space upon a hoarding or
wall, although he may encourage a form of art, deliberately
violates the wayfarer's mind. A trade-mark or a catch-word
presents itself when eye and thought are occupied with other
subjects. Those who object to this class of advertisement
assert, with some show of reason, that an advertisement has
no more right to assault the eye in this fashion than to
storm the ear by an inordinate din; and a man who came up
behind another man in the street, placed his mouth close to
the other's ear, and bawled a recommendation of some brand
of soap or tobacco, would be regarded as an intolerable
disturber of public peace and comfort. Yet if the owner of
a house sees fit to paint advertisements upon his walls, his
exercise of the jealously guarded rights of private property
may not lightly be disturbed. For the most part, both law and
public opinion content themselves with restraining the worst
excesses of the advertiser, leaving many sensitive persons to
suffer. The National Society for Checking the Abuses of Public
Advertising (known as SCARA), founded in 1803 in London,
was organized for purposes which it describes as follows:--
The society aims at protecting the picturesque simplicity
of rural and river scenery, and promoting a regard for
dignity and propriety of aspect in towns---with especial
reference to the abuses of spectacular advertising.
It seeks to procure legislation whereby local representative
bodies would be enabled to exercise control, by means of
by-laws framed with a view to enabling them, at any rate,
to grant relief in cases of flagrant and acknowledged abuse.
It is believed that, when regulation is applied in cases where
local conditions are peculiarly favourable, the advantage will
be so apparent that, by force of imitation and competition,
the enforcement of a reasonable standard will gradually become
common. The degree of restraint will, of course, depend upon
the varying requirements of different places and positions.
No hard-and-fast rule is suggested; no particular class of
advertisement is proscribed; certainly no general prohibition
of posters on temporary hoardings is contemplated. Within
the metropolitan area sky signs have already been prohibited,
and it is hoped that some corresponding check will be placed
on the multiplication of the field boards which so materially
diminish the pleasure or comfort of railway journeys.
The society regards with favour the imposition of a moderate
tax or duty for imperial or local purposes on exposed
advertisements not coming within certain categories of
obviously necessary notices. The difficulty of inducing a
chancellor of the exchequer to move in a matter where revenue
is not the primary consideration is not overlooked. But it
is thought that an impost would materially reduce the volume
of exposed advertisements, and would at once extinguish
the most offensive and the most annoying class, i.e.
the quack advertisements by the road sides and the bills
stuck by unauthorized persons on trees, walls and palings.
Members are recommended to make it known that there exists
an active repugnance to the present practice of advertising
disfigurement, by giving preference, in private transactions,
to makers and dealers who do not employ objectionable
methods, and by avoiding, as far as possible, the purchase
of wares which, in their individual opinion, are offensively
puffed. Action on these lines is advised rather for its
educational than for its immediately deterrent effect;
although, in the case of many of the more expensive
commodities, makers would undoubtedly be much influenced by
the knowledge that they would lose, rather than gain, custom.
The foregoing proposals are based on the following estimate
of the conditions of the problem. It is believed that the
present licence causes discomfort or loss of enjoyment to
many, and that, in the absence of authoritative restriction,
it must grow far beyond its present limits; that beauty or
propriety of aspect in town and country forms as real a part
of the national wealth as any material product, and that to
save these from impairment is a national interest; that the
recent developments of vexatiously obtrusive advertising have
not grown out of any necessities of honourable business, but
are partly the result of a mere instinct of imitation, and
partly are a morbid phase of competition by which both the
consumers and the trade as a whole lose; that restriction
as regards the size and positions of advertising notices
would not be a hardship to those who want publicity--since
all competitors would be treated alike, each would have the
same relative prominence; that, as large sums of public money
are expended on institutions intended to develop the finer
taste, and on edifices of elaborate design, it must be held
inconsistent with established public policy to permit the
sensibilities thus imparted to be wounded, and architectural
effect to be destroyed at the discretion of a limited
class. The influence of this society is to be seen in many
of the restrictions which have been imposed upon advertisers
since its work began. About a year after its foundation
the London County Council abolished (under statutory powers
obtained from Parliament) advertisements coming within
the definition of sky-signs in the London Building Act of
1894. These specifications are as follows--``Sky sign', means
any word, letter, model, sign, device, or representation in
the nature of an advertisement, announcement, or direction
supported on or attached to any post, pole, standard,
framework, or other support, wholly or in part upon, over,
or above any building or structure, which, or any part of
which, sky sign shall be visible against the sky from any
point in any street or public way, and includes all and every
part of any such post, pole, standard, framework, or other
support. The expression ``sky sign'' shall also include any
balloon, parachute, or similar device employed wholly or in
part for the purposes of any advertisements or announcement
on, over, or above any building, structure, or erection
of any kind, or on or over any street or public way.
The act proceeds to exclude from its restrictions flagstaffs, weathercocks
and any solid signs not rising more than 3 feet above the roof.
Another by-law of the London County Council, in great measure
due to the observations made at coroners' inquests, protects the
public against the annoyances and the perils to traffic occasioned
by flashlight and searchlight advertisements. This by-law reads
as follows:--No person shall exhibit any flashlight so as to
be visible from any street and to cause danger to the traffic
therein, nor shall any owner or occupier of premises permit
or suffer any flashlight to be so exhibited on such premises.
The expression ``flashlight'' means and includes any light used
for the purpose of illuminating, lighting, or exhibiting any
word, letter, model, sign, device, or representation in the
nature of an advertisement, announcement, or direction which
alters suddenly either in intensity, colour, or direction.
No person shall exhibit any searchlight so as to be visible
from any street, and to cause danger to the traffic therein,
nor shall any owner or occupier of premises permit or
suffer any searchlight to be so exhibited on such premises.
The expression ``searchlight'' means and includes any
light exceeding 500-candle power, whether in one lamp
or lantern, or in a series of lamps or lanterns used
together and projected as one concentrated light, and
which alters either in intensity, colour, or direction.
Advertising vans were so troublesome in London as to be
prohibited in 1853; the ``sandwich-man'' has in the City of
London and many towns been ousted from the pavement to the
gutter, from the more crowded to the less crowded streets,
and as the traffic problem in the great centres of population
becomes more urgent, he will probably be altogether suppressed.
Hoardings are now so restricted by the London Building Acts
that new hoardings cannot, except under special conditions, be
erected exceeding 12 feet in height, and no existing hoardings
can be increased in height so as to exceed that limit. The
huge signs which some advertisers, both in England and the
United States, have placed in such positions as to mar the
landscape, have so far aroused public antagonism that there is
reason to hope that this form of nuisance will not increase.
In 1899 Edinburgh obtained effective powers of control over
ail sorts of advertising in public places, and this achievement
has been followed by no little agitation in favour of a
Parliamentary enactment which should once for all do away with
the defacing of the landscape in any part of the United Kingdom.
In 1907 an act was passed (Advertisements Regulation Act) of a
permissive character purely, under which a local authority is
enabled to make by-laws, subject to the confirmation of the Home
Secretary, regulating (1) the erection of hoardings, &c., exceeding
12 feet in height, and (2) the exhibition of advertisements which
might affect the ``amenities'' of a public place or landscape.
The English law with regard to posters has undergone very little
change. The Metropolitan Police Act 1839 (2 and 3 Vict.
cap. 47) first put a stop to unauthorized posting, and the
Indecent Advertisements Act of 1889 (sec. 3) penalized the public
exposure of any picture or printed or written matter of an
indecent or obscene nature. But in general practice there
is hardly any limitation to the size or character of poster
advertisements, other than good taste and public opinion.
On the other hand, public opinion is a somewhat vague entity,
and there have been cases in which a conflict has arisen as
to what public opinion really was, when its legally authorized
exponent was in a position to insist on its own arbitrary
definition. Such an instance occurred some few years ago
in the case of a large poster issued by a well-known London
music-hail. The Progressive majority on the London County
Council, led by Mr (afterwards Sir) J. M`Dougall, a well-known
``purity'' advocate, took exception to this poster, which
represented a female gymnast in ``tights'' posed in what was
doubtless intended for an alluring and attractive attitude; and,
in spite of any argument, the fact remained that the decision
as to renewing the licence of this music-hall rested solely
with the Council. In showing that it would have no hesitation
in provoking even a charge of meddling prudery, the Council
probably gave a salutary warning to people who were inclined
to sail rather too near the wind. But in Great Britain and
America, at all events (though a doubt may perhaps exist as to
some Continental countries), the advertiser and the artist are
restrained, not only by their own sense of propriety, but by
fear of offending the sense of propriety in their customers.
Posters and placards in railway stations and upon public
vehicles still embarrass the traveller who desires to find
the name of a station or the destination of a vehicle. In
respect of all these abuses it is a regrettable fact that
unpopularity cannot be expected to deter the advertiser. If a
name has once been fixed in the memory, it remains there long
after the method of its impression has been forgotten, and
the purpose of advertisements of the class under discussion
is really no more than the fixing of a trade name in the
mind. The average man or woman who goes into a shop to buy
soap is more or less affected by a vague sense of antagonism
towards the seller. There is a rudimentary feeling that even
the most ordinary transaction of purchase brings into contact
two minds actuated by diametrically opposed interests. The
purchaser, who is not asking for a soap he has used before,
has some hazy suspicion that the shopkeeper will try to
sell, not the article best worth the price, but the article
which leaves the largest margin of profit; and the purchaser
imagines that he in some measure secures himself against a
bad bargain when he exercises his authority by asking for
some specific brand or make of the commodity he seeks. If
he has seen any one soap so persistently advertised that his
memory retains its name, he will ask for it, not because he
has any reason to believe it to be better or cheaper than
others, but simply because he baffles the shopkeeper, and
assumes an authoritative attitude by exerting his own freedom
of choice. This curious and obscure principle of action
probably lies at the root of all poster advertising, for the
poster does not set forth an argument as does the newspaper
advertisement. It hardly attempts to reason with the
reader, but merely impresses a name upon his memory. It
is possible, by lavish advertising, to go so far in this
direction that the trade-mark of a certain manufacturer
becomes synonymous with the name of a commodity, so that when
the consumer thinks of soap or asks for soap, his concept
inevitably couples the maker's name with the word ``soap''
itself. In order that the poster may leave any impression
upon his mind, it must of course first attract his attention.
The assistance which the advertiser receives from the artist
in this connexion is discussed in the article POSTER.
The fact that the verb ``to circularize'' was first used in
1848; sufficiently indicates the very recent origin of the
practice of plying possible purchasers with printed letters and
pamphlets. The penny postage was not established in England until
1840; the halfpenny post for circulars was not introduced until
1855. In the United States a uniform rate of postage at two
cents was not established until 1883. In both countries cheap
postage and cheap printing have so greatly encouraged the
use of circulars that the sort of people whom the advertiser
desires to reach--those who have the most money to spend,
and whose addresses, published in directories, indicate
their prosperous condition--are overwhelmed by tradesmen's
price-lists, appeals from charitable institutions, and other
suggestions for the spending of money. The addressing of
envelopes and enclosing of circulars is now a recognized industry
in many large towns both in Great Britain and in the United
States. It seems, however, to be the opinion of expert
advertisers that what is called ``general circularizing'' is
unprofitable, and that circulars should only be sent to persons
who have peculiar reason to be interested by their specific
subject-matter. It may be noted, as an instance of the
assiduity with which specialized circularizing is pursued,
that the announcement of a birth, marriage or death in the
newspapers serves to calf forth a grotesque variety of circulars
supposed to be adapted to the momentary needs of the recipient.
In concluding this review of methods of advertising, other
than advertisements in periodical publications, we may add
that the most extraordinary attempt at advertisement which is
known to exist is to be found at the churchyard at Godalming,
Surrey, where the following epitaph was placed upon a
Sacred
To the memory of
Nathaniel Godbold Esq,
inventor & Proprietor
of that excellent medicine
The Vegetable Balsam
For the Cure of Consumptions & Asthmas.
He departed this Life
The 17th. day of Decr. 1799
Aged 69 years.
Hic Cineres, ubique Fama.
The preparation of advertisements for the periodical press has
within the last twenty years or so become so important a task
that a great number of writers and artists--many of the latter
possessing considerable abilities--gain a livelihood from this
pursuit. The ingenuity displayed in modern newspaper advertising
is unquestionably due to American initiative. The English
newspaper advertisement of twenty years ago consisted for the
most part of the mere reiteration of a name. An advertiser
who took a column's space supplied enough matter to fill an
inch, and ingenuously repeated his statement throughout the
column. Such departures from this childlike method as
were made were for the most part eccentric to the point of
incoherence. It may, however, be said in defence of English
advertisers, that newspaper publishers for a long time
sternly discountenanced any attempt to render advertisements
attractive. So long as an advertiser was rigidly confined
to the ordinary single-column measure, and so long as he was
forbidden to use anything but the smallest sort of type, there
was very little opportunity for him to attract the reader's
attention. The newspaper publisher must always remember
that the public buy a newspaper for the sake of the news,
not for the sake of the advertisements, and that if the
advertisements are relegated to a position and a scope, in
respect of display, so inferior that they may be overlooked,
the advertiser cannot afford to bear his share of the cost of
publication. Of late The Times, followed by almost all
newspapers in the United Kingdom, has given the advertiser
as great a degree of liberty as he really needs, and many
experienced advertisers in America incline to the belief
that the larger licence accorded to American advertisers
defeats its own ends. The truth would seem to be that the
advertiser will always demand, and may fairly expect, the
right to make his space as fantastic in appearance as that
allotted to the editor. When some American editors see fit
to print a headline in letters as large as a man's hand,
and to begin half-a-dozen different articles on the first
page of a newspaper, continuing one on page 2, another on
page 4, and another on page 6, to the bewilderment of the
reader, it can hardly be expected that the American advertiser
should submit to any very strict code of decorum. The
subject of the relation between a newspaper proprietor and
his advertisers cannot be dismissed without reference to the
notable independence of advertisers' influence, which English
and American newspaper proprietors authorize their editors to
display. Whenever an insurance company or a bank goes wrong,
the cry is raised that all the editors in Christendom had
known for years that the directors were imbeciles and rogues,
but had conspired to keep mute for the sake of an occasional
advertisement. When the British public persisted, not long
ago, in paying premium prices for the shares of over-capitalized
companies, the crash had no sooner come than the newspapers
were accused of having puffed promotions for the sake of the
money received for publishing prospectuses. As a matter of
fact, in the case of the best dailies in England and America,
the editor does not stand at all in awe of the advertiser, and
time after time the Money Article has truthlessly attacked a
promotion of which the prospectus appeared in the very same
issue. It is indeed to the interest of the advertiser, as
well as to the interest of the reader, that this independence
should be preserved, for the worth of any journal as an
advertising medium depends upon its possessing a bona fide
circulation among persons who believe it to be a serious and
honestly conducted newspaper. All advertisers know that the
minor weeklies, which contain nothing but trade puffs, and
are scattered broadcast among people who pay nothing for their
copies, are absolutely worthless from the advertiser's point of
view. The most striking difference between the periodical
press of Great Britain and that of America is, that in the
former country the magazines and reviews play but a secondary
role, while in the United States the three or four monthlies
possessing the largest circulation are of the very first
importance as advertising mediums. One reason for this is
that the advertisements in an American magazine are printed
on as good paper, and printed with as great care, as any
other part of the contents. There are probably very few among
American magazine readers who do not habitually look through
the advertising pages, with the certainty that they will be
entertained by the beauty of the advertiser's illustrations
and the quaint curtness of his phrases. Another reason is
that the American monthly magazine goes to all parts of the
United States, while, owing to the time required for long
journeys on even the swiftest trains, no American daily paper
can have so general a circulation as The Times in the United
Kingdom. In comparison with points on the Pacific coast,
Chicago does not seem far from New York, yet, with the exception
of one frenzied and altogether unsuccessful attempt, no
New York daily has ever attempted to force a circulation in
Chicago. The American advertiser would, therefore, have to
spend money on a great number of daily papers in order to reach
as widespread a public as one successful magazine offers him.
There is reason to believe that the English magazine publishers
have erred gravely in taking what are known in the trade as
``insets,'' consisting of separate cards or sheets printed
at the advertiser's cost, and accepted by the publisher at
a specific charge for every thousand copies. This system
of insetting has the grave inconvenience that the advertiser
finds himself compelled to print as many insets as the
publisher asserts that he can use. The publisher, on the other
hand, is somewhat at the mercy of too enthusiastic agents
and employes, who estimate over-confidently the edition of
the periodical which will probably be printed for a certain
month, and advertisers have had reason to fear that many of
their insets were wasted. The added weight and bulk of the
insets cause inconvenience and expense to the newsdealer,
as two or three insets printed upon cardboard are equivalent
to at least sixteen additional pages. Some newsdealers have
further complicated the inset question by threaten. ing to
remove insets unless special tribute be paid to them; and
with all these difficulties to be considered, many magazine
publishers have seriously considered the advisability of
altogether discontinuing the practice of taking insets, and of
confining their advertisements to the sheets they themselves
print. In connexion with this subject, it may be added that
many readers habitually shake loose hills out of a magazine
before they begin to turn the pages, and that railway stations,
railway carriages and even public streets are thus littered
with trampled and muddy advertisements. The old practice
of distributing handbills in the streets is dying a natural
death, more or less hastened by local by-laws, and when the
loose bills in magazines and cheap novels have ceased to exist
no one will be the loser. Advertisements in the weekly press
are on the whole more successful in England than in America.
A few American weeklies cope successfully with the increasing
competition of the huge Sunday editions of American daily
papers. But even the most successful among them--a paper
for boys--has hardly attained the prosperity of some among
its English contemporaries in the field of weekly journalism.
The merchant who turns to these pages for practical suggestions
concerning the advertising of his own business, can be given
no better advice than to betake himself to an established
advertising agent of good repute, and be guided by his
counsels. The chief part that he can himself play with
advantage is to note from day to day whether the agent is
obtaining advantageous positions for his announcements.
Every advertiser will naturally prefer a right-hand page to
a left-hand page, and the right side of the page to the left
side of the page; while the advertiser who most indefatigably
urges his claims upon the agent will, in the long run,
obtain the largest share of the favours to be distributed.
To the merchant who inclines to consider advertising in
connexion with the broader aspects of his calling, it may be
suggested that a new channel of trade demands very serious
attention. What is called in England ``postal trade,''
and in America ``mail order business,'' is growing very
rapidly. Small dealers in both countries have complained
very bitterly of the competition they suffer from the general
dealers and from stores made up of departments which, under
one roof, offer to the consumer every imaginable sort of
merchandise. This general trading, which, on the one hand,
seriously threatens the small trader, and on the other hand
offers greater possibilities of profit to the proportionately
small number of persons who can undertake business on so
large a scale, becomes infinitely more formidable when the
general dealer endeavours not only to attract the trade of a
town, but to make his place of business a centre from which
he distributes by post his goods to remote parts of the
country. In America, where the weight of parcels carried by
post is limited to 4 lb., and where the private carrying companies
are forced to charge a very much higher rate for carriage
from New York to California than for shorter distances, the
centralization of trade is necessarily limited; but it is no
secret that, at the present moment, persons residing in those
parts of the United Kingdom most remote from London habitually
avail themselves of the English parcel post, which carries
packages up to 11 lb. in order to procure a great part of their
household supplies direct from general dealers in London.
A trading company, which conducts its operations upon such a
scale as this, can afford to spend an almost unlimited sum in
advertising throughout the United Kingdom, and even the trader
who offers only one specific class of merchandise is beginning
to recognize the possibility of appealing to the whole country.
Legal regulation.
The following is a brief summary of the laws and regulations
dealing with advertisements in public places in certain
of the countries of Continental Europe and in the United
States of America, the chief authority for which is an
official return issued by the British Home Office in 1903.
France.--The permission of the owner is alone required
for the placing of advertisements on private buildings; but
buildings, walls, &c., belonging to the government or local
authorities are reserved exclusively for official notices,
&c.; these alone can be printed on white paper, all others
must be on coloured paper. Municipal authorities control the
size, construction, &c., of hoardings used for advertising
purposes, and the police have full powers over the exhibition
of indecent or other objectionable advertisements. The
Societe pour la protection des paysages, founded in 1901,
has for one of its objects the prevention of advertisements
which disfigure the scenery or are otherwise objectionable.
Germany.--By sec. 43 of the Imperial Commercial Ordinance
permission to post any trade advertisement in a public
street, square, &c., must be first obtained from the local
police. The police also control (by sec. 55 of the Imperial
Press Law 1874) advertisements which are not of a trade
character, but this regulation does not affect the right of
the federal legislatures to make regulations in regard to them
(sec. 30). It would be impossible to give in any detail the
police regulations as to advertisements which exist, e.g. in
Prussia, but the following rules in force in Berlin may be
given:--Public advertisements in public streets and places
may be posted only on the appliances, such as pillar posts,
&c., provided for the purpose. Owners of property may post
advertisements on their own property but only such as concern
their own interests. Advertisements on public conveyances are
forbidden. In 1902 a Prussian law was passed authorizing
the police to forbid all advertisement hoardings, &c., which
would disfigure particularly beautiful landscapes in rural
districts. The Hesse-Darmstadt Act of 1902 prohibits the
placing of any advertisements, posters, &c., on a monument
officially protected under the act, if it would be likely to
injure the appearance of the monument. As instances of the
numerous local provisions against the abuse of advertising may
be cited provisions against the abuse of advertising may be cited
those of Augsburg and Lubeck, by Which any advertisement that
would injure the Stadtbild or appearance of the town may
be prohibited and removed by the local authority (see G.
Baldwin Brown, The Care of Ancient Monuments, 1905).
Full powers exist under the Imperial Criminal Code for the
suppression of indecent or objectionable advertisements.
Austria.---Permission of the police is required for the
exhibition of printed notices in public places other than
such as are of purely local or industrial interest, such
as notices of entertainment, leases, sales, &c., or theatre
programmes, and these can only be shown in places approved
by the local authorities (Press Law 1862). The press-police
act as advertisement censors and determine whether an
advertisement can be allowed or not. In Hungary there
are no general laws or regulations, but the municipalities
have power to issue ordinances dealing with the question.
Italy.--All control rests with the municipal and communal
authorities, who may decide on the places where advertisements
may or may not be posted, and can prevent hoardings being
placed on or near ancient monuments or public buildings.
Switzerland.---The Federal Government has no authority to deal
with this question; certain of the cantons have regulations,
e.g. Lucerne prohibits the public advertising of inferior goods
by means of a false description, Basel-Stadt gives the police
the power of censoring all advertisements. Many of the communal
authorities throughout Switzerland have special restrictions and
regulations. In Zurich the police choose the advertising
stations, in Berne the municipality possesses a monopoly of
the right of erecting advertisements. The Society known as
the Ligue pour la conservation de la Suisse pittoresque or
Schweitzerischer Heimatschutz has for one of its objects
the preservation of scenery from disfiguring advertisements.
United States.---There is no federal legislation on the
subject, the matter being one for regulation by the states,
which in most cases have left it to the various municipalities
and other local authorities. With regard to indecent
and objectionable advertisements some states have special
legislation on the matter, others are content with the ordinary
criminal laws or police powers or with the law of nuisance
or of trespass. Thus control can be exercised over such
advertisements as are dangerous to public safety, health or
morals. The state of New York prohibits advertisements of
lotteries. It would be impossible to give in detail the
different laws and regulations passed in the various states or by
municipalities. The following are some of the more striking
measures adopted in certain of the states. In Massachusetts
no advertising signs or devices are allowed on the public
highways. Power has been granted to city and town authorities
to regulate advertisements in, near or visible from public
parks. In the District of Columbia no advertisement is
allowed which obstructs a highway, and all distribution of
handbills, circulars, &c., in public streets, parks, &c., is
prohibited. This prohibition against what are generally
known as ``dodgers'' is very general in the local regulations
throughout the states. In Illinois, city councils are empowered
on the incorporation of the city to regulate and prevent
the use of streets, sidewalks and public grounds for signs,
handbills and advertisements, &c., and also the exhibition
of banners, placards, in the streets or sidewalks. Chicago
has a body of most stringent rules, but they apparently
have been found impossible to enforce; thus no advertisement
board more than 12 ft. square within 400 ft. of a public
park or boulevard, no advertisements other than small ones
relating to the business carried on in the premises where
the advertisement is posted, or of sales, &c., are allowed in
streets where three-quarters of the houses are ``residences''
only. Prohibition is also extended to the advertisements
of those professing to cure diseases or giving notice of
the sale of medicines. In Boston there are regulations
prohibiting projecting or overhanging signs in the streets,
and special rules as to the height at which street signs and
advertisements must be placed. The distribution of ``dodgers''
in the streets is prohibited. Advertisements for places
of amusement must be approved by the committee on licences.
Taxation.
France, Belgium, Italy and certain of the cantons in
Switzerland impose a tax on advertisements, as do certain of
the United States of America, where the form is usually that
of a licence duty on billposters or advertising agencies.
In many cases in the United States this is imposed by the
municipalities. In every case both in Europe and America
advertisements in newspapers are not subject to any tax.
With regard to the literature of advertising, in addition
to the historical article in the Edinburgh Review for
February 1843, already mentioned, and that in the Quarterly
Review for June 1855, the Society for Checking the Abuses
of Public Advertising issue a journal, A Beautiful World.
The Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation (N.S.
xvi. 1906) contains an article by W.J.B. Byles on Foreign
Law and the Control of Advertisements in Public Places. The
advertisers' handbooks, issued by the leading advertising
agents, will also be found to contain practical information
of great use to the advertiser. (H. R. H.*; C. WE.)
ADVICE (Fr. avis, from Lat. ad, to, and visum,
viewed), counsel given after consideration, or information
from a distance giving particulars of something prospective
( e.g. ``advice'' of an imminent battle, or of a cargo
due). In commerce it is a common word for a formal notice
from one person concerned in a transaction to another.
ADVOCATE (Lat. advocatus, from advocare, to summon,
especially in law to call in the aid of a counsel or witness,
and so generally to summon to one's assistance), a lawyer
authorized to plead the causes of litigants in courts of
law. The word is used technically in Scotland (see ADVOCATES,
FACULTY OF) in a sense virtually equivalent to the English
term barrister, and a derivative from the same Latin source
is so used in most of the countries of Europe where the civil
law is in force. The word advocatus is not often used among
the earlier jurists, and appears not to have had a strict
meaning. It is not always associated with legal proceedings,
and might apparently be applied to a supporter or coadjutor
in the pursuit of any desired object. When it came to be
applied with a more specific limitation to legal services,
the position of the advocatus was still uncertain. It
was different from, and evidently inferior to, that of the
juris-consultus, who gave his opinion and advice in questions
of law, and may be identified with the consulting counsel
of the present day. Nor is the merely professional advocate
to be confounded with the more distinguished orator, or
patronus, who came forward in the guise of the disinterested
vindicator of justice. This distinction, however, appears
to have arisen in later times, when the profession became
mercenary. By the lex Cineia, passed about two centuries
B.C., and subsequently renewed, the acceptance of
remuneration for professional assistance in lawsuits was
prohibited. This law, like all others of the kind, was
evaded. The skilful debater was propitiated with a present;
and though he could not sue for the value of his services, it
was ruled that any honorarium so given could not be demanded
back, even though he died before the anticipated service was
performed. The traces of this evasion of a law may be
found in the existing practice of rewarding counsel by fees
in anticipation of services. The term advocatus came
eventually to be the word employed when the bar had become a
profession, and the qualifications, admission, numbers and
fees of counsel had become a matter of state regulation, to
designate the pleaders as a class of professional men, each
individual advocate, however, being still spoken of as patron
in reference to the litigant with whose interest he was
entrusted. The advocatus fisci, or fiscal advocate, was
an officer whose function, like that of a solicitor of taxes
at the present day, was connected with the collection of the
revenue. The lawyers who practised in the English courts of
common law were never officially known as advocates, the word
being reserved for those who practised in the courts of the
civil and canon law (see DOCTORS' COMMONS). There was formerly
an important official termed his majesty's advocate-general,
or more shortly, the king's advocate, who was the principal law
officer of the crown in the College of Advocates or Doctors'
Commons, and in the admiralty and ecclesiastical courts. He
discharged for these courts the duties which correspond to
those of the solicitor of the treasury (see SOLICITOR).
His opinion was taken by the foreign office on international
matters, and on high ecclesiastical matters he was also
consulted; all orders in council were submitted to him for
approval. The office may now be said to be obsolete, for
after the resignation of Sir Travers Twiss, the last holder,
in 1872, it was not filled up. There was also a second law
officer of the crown in the admiralty court called the admiralty
advocate. This office has long been vacant. Advocate is
also the title still in use in some of the British colonies to
denote the chief law officer of the crown there. For instance,
in Sierra Leone (until 1896), Lagos and Cyprus he is called
the king's advocate; in Malta, crown advocate; in Mauritius,
procureur and advocate-general, and in the provinces of India
advocate-general. In France, the avocats, as a body, were
reorganized under the empire by a decree of the 15th of December
1830. There is, however, a distinction between avocats
and avoues. The latter, whose number is limited, act as
procurators or agents, representing the parties before the
tribunals, draft and prepare for them all formal acts and
writings, and prepare their lawsuits for the oral debates.
The office of the avocat, on the other hand, consists
in giving advice as to the law, and conducting the causes
of his clients by written and oral pleadings. The number
of avocats is not limited; every licentiate of law being
entitled to apply to the corporation of avocats attached to
each court, and after presentation to the court, taking the
oath of office and passing three years in attendance on some
older advocate, to have himself recognised as an advocate.
In Germany the advocat no longer forms a distinct class of
lawyer. Since 1879, when a sweeping judicature act (Deutsche
Justizgesetzgebung) reconstituted the judicial system,
the advocat in his character of adviser, as distinguished
from the procurator, who formerly represented the client
in the courts, has become merged in the Rechtsanwalt,
who has the dual character of counsellor and pleader.
The advocates ecclesiae.
In the middle ages the word advocatus (Fr. avoue, Ger.
Vogt) was used on the continent as the title of the lay
lord charged with the protection and representation in secular
matters of an abbey. The office is traceable as early as
the beginning of the 5th century in the Roman empire, the
churches being allowed to choose defensores from the body
of advocates to represent them in the courts. In the Frankish
kingdom, under the Merovingians, these lay representatives of
the churches appear as agentes, defensores and advocati;
and under the Carolingians it was made obligatory on
bishops, abbots and abbesses to appoint such officials in
every county where they held property. The office was not
hereditary, the advocatus being chosen, either by the abbot
alone, or by the abbot and bishop concurrently with the
count. The same causes that led to the development of the
feudal system also affected the advocatus. In times of
confusion churches and abbeys needed not so much a legal
representative as an armed protector, while as feudal
immunities were conceded to the ecclesiastical foundations,
these required a representative to defend their rights and to
fulfil their secular obligations to the state, e.g. to lead
the ecclesiastical levies to war. A new class of advocatus
thus arose, whose office, commonly rewarded by a grant of
land, crystallized into a fief, which, like other fiefs,
had by the beginning of the 11th century become hereditary.
The French avoue.
In France the advocati (avoues) were of two classes.--(1)
great barons, who held the advocateship of an abbey or
abbeys rather as an office than a fief, though they were
indemnified for the protection they afforded by a domain and
revenues granted by the abbey: thus the duke of Normandy was
adpoeatus of nearly all the abbeys in the duchy; (2) petty
seigneurs, who held their avoueries as hereditary fiefs and
often as their sole means of subsistence. The avoue of an
abbey, of this class, corresponded to the vidame (q.v.) of a
bishop. Their function was generally to represent the abbot
in his capacity as feudal lord; to act as his representative in
the courts of his superior lord; to exercise secular justice in
the abbot's name in the abbatial court; to lead the retainers.
Of the abbey to battle under the banner of the patron saint.
In England.
In England the word advocatus was never used to denote
an hereditary representative of an abbot; but in some of
the larger abbeys there were hereditary stewards whose
functions and privileges were not dissimilar to those of
the continental advocati. The word advocatus, however,
was in constant use in England to denote the patron of an
ecclesiastical benefice, whose sole right of any importance
was an hereditary one of presenting a parson to the bishop for
institution. In this way the hereditary right of presentation
to a benefice came to be called in English an ``advowson''
(advocatio). The advocatus played a more important part in
the feudal polity of the Empire and of the Low Countries than
in France, where his functions, confined to the protection of
the interests of religious houses, were superseded from the
13th century onwards by the growth of the central power and
the increasing efficiency of the royal administration. They
had, indeed, long ceased to be effective for their original
purpose; and from the time when their office became a fief
they had taken advantage of their position to pillage and
suppress those whom it was their function to defend. The
medieval records, not in France only, are full of complaints
by abbots of their usurpations, exactions and acts of violence.
The German Vogt.
In Germany the title of advocatus ( Vogt) was given not only
to the advocati of churches and abbeys, but to the officials
appointed, from early in the middle ages, by the emperor to
administer their immediate domains, in contradistinction to
the counts, who had become hereditary princes of the Empire.
The territory so administered was known as Vogtland (terra
advocatorum), a name still sometimes employed to designate
the strip of country which embraces the principalities of
Reuss and adjacent portions of Saxony, Prussia and Bavaria.
These imperial advocati tended in their turn to become
hereditary. Sometimes the emperor himself assumed the title of
Vogt of some particular part of his immediate domain. In the
Netherlands as well as in Germany advocati were often appointed
in the cities, by the overlord or by the emperor, sometimes
to take the place of the bailiff (Ger. Schultheiss, Dutch
schout, Lat. scultetus), sometimes alongside this official.
See Du Cange, Glossarium (ed. 1883, Niort), s. ``Advocati'';
A. Luchaire, Manuel des institutions francaises (Paris,
1892); Herzog Hauck, Realencyklopadie (ed. Leipzig, 1896), s.
``Advocatus ecclesiae,'' where further references will be found.
ADVOCATES, FACULTY OF, the collective term by which what
in England are called barristers are known in Scotland. They
professionally attend the supreme courts in Edinburgh; but
they are privileged to plead in any cause before the inferior
courts, where counsel are not excluded by statute. They may
act in cases of appeal before the House of Lords; and in some
of the British colonies, where the civil law is in force, it
is customary for those who practise as barristers to pass as
advocates in Scotland. This body has existed by immemorial
custom. Its privileges are constitutional, and are founded
on no statute or charter of incorporation. The body formed
itself gradually, from time to time, on the model of the
French corporations of avocats, appointing like them by
a general vote, a dean or doyen, who is their principal
officer. It also differs from the English and Irish societies
in that there is no governing body similar to the benchers,
nor is there any resemblance to the quasi-collegiate discipline
and the usages and customs prevailing in an inn of court.
No curriculum of study, residence or professional training
was, until 1856, required on entering this profession; but the
faculty have always had the power, believed to be liable to
control by the Court of Session, of rejecting any candidate for
admission. The candidate undergoes two private examinations
--the one in general scholarship, in lieu of which, however,
he may produce evidence of his having graduated as master
of arts in a Scottish university, or obtained an equivalent
degree in an English or foreign university; and the other,
at the interval of a year, in Roman, private international
and Scots law, He must, before the latter examination,
produce evidence of attendance at classes of Scots law and
conveyancing in a Scottish university, and at classes of
civil law, public or international law, constitutional law
and medical jurisprudence in a Scottish or other approved
university. He has then to undergo the old academic form
of the public impugnment of a thesis on some title of the
pandects; but this ceremony, called the public examination,
has degenerated into a mere form. A large proportion of the
candidate's entrance fees (amounting to L. 339) is devoted
to the magnificent library belonging to the faculty, which
literary investigators in Edinburgh find so eminently useful.
ADVOCATUS DIABOLI, devil's advocate, the name popularly
given to the promoter of the Faith (promotor fidei), and
officer of the Sacred Congregation of Rites at Rome, whose
duty is to prepare all possible arguments against the admission
of any one to the posthumous honours of beatification and
canonization. This functionary is first formally mentioned
under Leo X.(1513- 1521) in the proceedings in connexion
with the canonization of St Lorenzo Giustiniani. In 1631
Urban VIII. made his presence, either in person or by
deputy, necessary for the validity of any act connected
with the process of beatification or canonization (see
CANONISATION). The phrase, ``devil's advocate,'' has by
an easy transference come to be used of any one who puts
himself up, or is put up, for the sake of promoting debate,
to argue a case in which he does not necessarily believe.
ADVOWSON, or @ADVOWZEN (through O. Fr. advouson, from
Lat. advocatio, a summons to), the right of presentation
to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice, so called because
the patron defends or advocates the claims of the person
whom he presents. At what period the right of advowson
arose is uncertain; it was probably the result of gradual
growth. The earliest trace of the practice is found in the
decree of the council of Orange, A.D. 441, which allowed a
bishop, who had built a church in the diocese of another
bishop, to nominate the clerk, but not to consecrate the
church. The 123rd Novel of Justinian, promulgated about
the end of the 5th century, decreed ``that if any man should
erect an oratory, and desire to present a clerk thereto by
himself or his heirs, if they furnish a competency for his
livelihood, and nominate to the bishop such as are worthy,
they may be ordained.'' The 57th Novel empowered the bishop
to examine them and judge of their qualifications, and, where
those were sufficient, obliged him to admit the clerk. In
England, for quite two centuries after its conversion, the
clergy administered only pro tempore in the parochial
churches, receiving their maintenance from the cathedral
church, all the appointments within the diocese lying with the
bishop. But in order to promote the building and endowment
of parochial churches those who had contributed to their
erection either by a grant of land, by building or by endowment,
became entitled to present a clerk of their own choice to the
bishop, who was invested with the revenues derived from such
contribution. After the Norman Conquest, when the boundaries
between church and state were more clearly marked, it became
usual for patrons to appoint to livings not only without
the consent, but even against the will, of the bishops.
Advowsons are divided into two kinds, appendant and in
gross. Originally the right of nominating1 or presenting
was annexed to the person who built or endowed the church,
but the right gradually became annexed to the manor in
which it was built, for the endowment was considered parcel
of the manor, the church being built for the use of the
inhabitants, and the tithes of the manor being attached to the
church. Consequently where the right of patronage (the
right of the patron to present to the bishop the person whom
he has nominated to become rector or vicar of the parish
to the benefice of which he claims the right of advowson)
remains attached to the manor, it is called an advowson
appendant, and passes with the estate by inheritance or
sale without any special conveyance. But where, as is often
the case, the right of presentation has been sold by itself,
and so separated from the manor, it is called an advowson
in gross. An advowson may also be partly appendant, and
partly in gross, e.g. if an owner granted to another
every second presentment, the advowson would be appendant
for the grantor's turn and in gross for the grantee's.
Advowsons are further distinguished into presentative
and collative. In a presentative advowson, the patron
presents a clergyman to the bishop, with the petition
that he be instituted into the vacant living. The bishop
is bound to induct if he find the clergyman canonically
qualified, and a refusal on his part is subject to an
appeal to an ecclesiastical court either by patron or by
presentee. In a collative advowson the bishop is himself the
patron, either in his own right or in the right of the proper
patron, which has lapsed to him through not being exercised
within the statutory period of six months after the vacancy
occurred. No petition is necessary in this case, and the
bishop is said to collate to the benefice. Before 1898
there were also donative advowsons, but the Benefices Act
1898 made all donations with cure of souls presentative.
In a donative advowson, the sovereign, or any subject by
special licence from the sovereign, conferred a benefice by
a simple letter of gift, without any reference to the bishop,
and without presentation and institution. The incumbent of
such a living was to a great extent free from the jurisdiction
of the bishop, who could only reach him through the action
of an ecclesiastical court. The Benefices Act of 1898 did
not make any substantial change in the legal character of
advowsons, which remain practically the same as before the
act. Briefly, it prevents the dealing with the right of
presentation as a thing apart from the advowson itself;
increases the power of the bishops to refuse the presentation
of unfit persons, and removes several abuses which had arisen
in the transfer of patronage. Under the previously existing
law, simony, or ``the corrupt presentation of any person
to an ecclesiastical benefice for gift, money or reward,''
renders the presentation void, and subjects the persons
privy or party to it to penalties; a presentation to a vacant
benefice cannot be sold, and no clerk in holy orders can
purchase for himself a next presentation. An advowson may,
however, be sold during a vacancy, though that will not give
the right to present to that vacancy; and a clerk may buy
an advowson even though it be only an estate for life, and
present himself on the next vacancy. Under the Benefices
Act, advowsons may not be sold by public auction except in
conjunction with landed property adjacent to the benefice;
transfers of patronage must be registered in the registry
of the diocese, and no such transfers can be made within
twelve months after the last admission or institution to the
benefice. Restrictions had also been imposed on the transfer
of patronage of churches built under the Church Building Acts
and New Parishes Acts, and on that of benefices in the gift
of the lord chancellor, and sold by him in order to augment
others; but agreements may be made as to the patronage of
such churches in favour of persons who have contributed to
their building or enlargement without being void for simony.
The right of presentation may be exercised by its owner
whether he be an infant, executors, trustees, coparceners
(who, if they cannot agree, present in turn in order of
age) or mortgagee (who must present the nominee of the
mortgagor), or a bankrupt (who, although the advowson
belongs to his creditors, yet has the right to present to a
vacancy). Certain owners of advowsons are temporarily or
permanently disabled from exercising the right which devolves
upon other persons; and the crown as patron paramount of all
benefices can fill all churches not regularly filled by other
patrons. It thus presents to all vacancies caused by simoniacal
presentations, or by the incumbent having been presented to
a bishopric or in benefices belonging to a bishopric when
the see is vacant by the bishop's death, translation or
deprivation. Where a presentation belongs to a lunatic,
the lord chancellor presents for him. Where it belongs to
a Roman Catholic the right is exercised in his behalf by the
University of Oxford if the benefice be situate south of the
river Trent, and by that of Cambridge if it be north of that
river. Besides the qualifications required of a presentee
by canon law, such as being of the canonical age, and in
priest's orders before admission, sufficient learning and
proper orthodoxy or morals, the Benefices Act requires that
a year shall have elapsed since a transfer of the right of
patronage, unless it can be shown that such transfer was not
made in view of a probable vacancy; that the presentee has
been a deacon for three years; and that he is not unfit for
the discharge of his duties by reason of physical or mental
infirmity or incapacity, grave pecuniary embarrassment, grave
misconduct or neglect of duty in an ecclesiastical office,
evil life, or conduct causing grave scandal concerning his
moral character since his ordination, or being party to
an illegal agreement with regard to the presentation; that
notice of the presentation has been given to the parish of the
benefice. Except by leave of the bishop or sequestrator, the
incumbent of a sequestered benefice cannot be presented. The
act also gives to both patron and presentee an alternative
mode of appeal against a bishop's refusal to institute or
admit, except on a ground of doctrine or ritual, to a court
composed of an archbishop of the province and a judge of the
High Court nominated for that purpose by the lord chancellor,
a course which, however, bars resort being had to the ordinary
suits of duplex querela or action of quare impedit. In
case of refusal of one presentee, a lay patron may present
another, and a clerical patron may do so after an unsuccessful
appeal against the refusal. Upon institution the church is
full against everybody except the crown, and after six months'
peaceable possession the clerk is secured in possession of the
benefice, even though he may have been presented by a person
who is not the proper patron. The true patron can, however,
exercise his right to present at the next vacancy, and can
reserve the advowson from an usurper at any time within three
successive incumbencies so created adversely to his right, or
within sixty years. Collation, which otherwise corresponds to
institution, does not make the church full, and the true patron
can dispossess the clerk at any time, unless he is a patron who
collates. Possession of the benefice is completed by induction,
which makes the church full against any one, including the
crown. If the proper patron fails to exercise his right within
six calendar months from the vacancy, the right devolves or
lapses to the next superior patron, e.g. from an ordinary
patron to the bishop, and if he makes similar default to
the archbishop, and from him on similar default to the
crown. If a bishopric becomes vacant after a lapse has
accrued to it, it goes to the metropolitan; but in case of a
vacancy of a benefice during the vacancy of the see the crown
presents. Until the right of presentation so accruing to
a bishop or archbishop is exercised, the patron can still
effectually present but not if lapse has gone to the crown.
(See also BBNEFICE; GLEBE; INCUMBENT; VICAR.)
AUTHORITIES.---Burn, Ecclesiastical Law; Bingham's Origines
Ecclesiasticae, or, the Antiquities of the English Church;
Mirehouse, On Advowson; Phillimore, Ecclesiastical Law.
1 The distinction between nomination to a living and
presentation is to be noted. Nomination is the power,
by virtue of a manor or otherwise, to appoint a clerk to
the patron of a benefice, to be by him presented to the
ordinary. Presentation is the act of a patron in offering
his clerk to the bishop, to be instituted in a benefice of
his gift. Nomination and presentation, though generally
used in law lor the same thing must be so distinguishnd,
for it is possible that the rights of nomination may be
in one person, and the rights of presentation in another.
ADYE, SIR JOHN MILLER (1819-1900), British general, son of
Major James P. Adye, was born at Sevenoaks, Kent, on the 1st
of November 1819. He entered the Royal Artillery in 1836, was
promoted captain in 1846, and served throughout the Crimean War
as brigade-major and assistant adjutant-general of artillery
(C.B., brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel). In the
Indian Mutiny he served on the staff in a similar capacity.
Promoted brevet-colonel in 1860, he was specially employed in
1863 in the N.W. frontier of India campaign, and was deputy
adjutant-general, Bengal, from 1863 to 1866, when he returned
home. From 1870 to 1875 Adye was director of artillery and
stores at the War Office. He was made a K.C.B. in 1873,
and was promoted to be major-general and appointed governor
of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1875, and survey
or general of the ordnance in 1880. In 1882 he was chief
of staff and second in command of the expedition to Egypt,
and served throughout the campaign (G.C.B. and thanks of
parliament). He held the government of Gibraltar from 1883 to
1886. Promoted lieutenant-general in 1879, general and
colonel commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1884, he
retired in 1886. He unsuccessfully contested Bath in the
Liberal interest in 1892. He died on the 26th of August
1900. He was author of A Review of The Crimean War; The
Defense of Cawnpore; A Frontier Campaign in Afghanistan;
Recollections of a Military Life; and Indian Frontier Policy.
ADYTUM, the Latinized form of aduton (not to be entered),
the innermost sanctuary in ancient temples, access to which
was forbidden to all but the officiating priests. The most
famous adytum in Greece was in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
ADZE (from the Old Eng. adesa, of which the origin is
unknown), a tool used for cutting and planing. It is somewhat
like an axe reversed, the edge or the blade curving inward
and placed at right angles to the handle. This shape is
most suitable for planing uneven timber, as inequalities
are ``hooked off'' by the curved blade. (See TOOLS.)
AEACUS, in Greek legend, ancestor of the Aeacidae, was the
son of Zeus and Aegina, daughter of the river-god Asopus.
His mother was carried off by Zeus to the island of Oenone,
which was afterwards called by her name. The island having
been depopulated by a pestilence, Zeus changed the ants upon
it into human beings (Ovid, Met. vii. 520), who were called
Myrmidones (murmekes = ants) . Aeacus ruled over his people
with such justice and impartiality that after his death he
was made judge of the lower world together with Minos and
Rhadamanthus. By his wife Endeis he was the father of Telamon
and Peleus. His successful prayer to Zeus for rain at a time
of drought (Isocrates, Evagoras, 14) was commemorated by
a temple at Aegina (Pausanias ii. 29). He himself erected a
temple to Zeus Panhellenios and helped Poseidon and Apollo
to build the walls of Troy. See Hutchinson, Aeacus, 1901.
AECLANUM, an ancient town of Samnium, Italy, 15 m.
E.S.E. of Beneventum, on the Via Appia (near the modern
Mirabella). It became the chief town of the Hirpini after
Beneventum had become a Roman colony. Sulla captured it
in 89 B.C. by setting on fire the wooden breastwork by
which it was defended, and new fortifications were erected.
Hadrian, who repaired the Via Appia from Beneventum to this
point, made it a colony; it has ruins of the city walls, of an
aqueduct, baths and an amphitheatre; nearly 400 inscriptions
have also been discovered. Two different routes to Apulia
diverged at this point, one (Via Aurelia Aeclanensis) leading
through the modern Ariano to Herdoniae, the other (the Via
Appia of the Empire) passing the Lacus Ampsanctus and going
on to Aquilonia and Venusia; while the road from Aeclanum
to Abellinum (mod. Avellini) may also follow an ancient
line. H. Nissen (Italische Landes kunde, Berlin, 1902,
ii. 819) speaks of another road, which he believes to have
been that followed by Horace, from Aeclanum to Trevicum and
thence to Ausculum; but Th. Monimsen (Corpus Inscrip. Lat.,
Berlin, 1883, ix. 602) is more likely to be right in supposing
that the road taken by Horace ran directly from Beneventum to
Trevicum and thence to Aquilonia (though the course of this
road is not yet determined in detail), and that the easier,
though somewhat longer, road by Aeclanum was of later date.
AEDESIUS (d. A.D. 355), Neoplatonist philosopher, was
born of a noble Cappadocian family. He migrated to Syria,
attracted by the lectures of Iamblichus, whose follower he
became. According to Eunapius, he differed from Iamblichus on
certain points connected with magic. He taught at Pergamum,
his chief disciples being Eusebius and Maximus. He seems
to have modified his doctrines through fear of Constantine.
See Ritter and Preller, 552; Ritter's Geschichte der
Philosophie; T. Whittaker, The Neoplatonists (Cambridge, 1901).
AEDICULA (diminutive of Lat. aedis or aedes, a temple
or house), a small house or temple,--a household shrine
holding small altars or the statues of the Lares and Penates.
AEDILE (Lat. aedilis), in Roman antiquities, the name of
certain Roman magistrates, probably derived from aedis (a
temple), because they had the care of the temple of Ceres,
where the plebeian archives were kept. They were originally
two in number, called ``plebeian'' aediles. They were created
in the same year as the tribunes of the people (494 B.C.),
their persons were sacrosanct or inviolable, and (at least
after until they were elected at the Comitia Tributa out of
the plebeians alone. Originally intended as assistants to
the tribunes, they exercised certain police functions, were
empowered to inflict fines and managed the plebeian and Roman
games. According to Livy (vi. 42), after the passing of
the Licinian rogations, an extra day was added to the Roman
games; the aediles refused to bear the additional expense,
whereupon the patricians offered to undertake it, on condition
that they were admitted to the aedileship. The plebeians
accepted the offer, and accordingly two ``curule'' aediles
were appointed--at first from the patricians alone, then from
patricians and plebeians in turn, lastly, from either--at the
Comitia Tributa under the presidency of the consul. Although
not sacrosanct, they had the right of sitting in a curule
chair and wore the distinctive toga praetexta. They took over
the management of the Roman and Megalesian games, the care
of the patrician temples and had the right of issuing edicts
as superintendents of the markets. But although the curule
aediles always ranked higher than the plebeian, their functions
gradually approximated and became practically identical.
Cicero (Legg. iii. 3, 7) divides these functions under three
heads:--(1) Care of the city: the repair and preservation of
temples, sewers and aqueducts; street cleansing and paving;
regulations regarding traffic, dangerous animals and dilapidated
buildings; precautions against fire; superintendence of baths and
taverns; enforcement of sumptuary laws; punishment of gamblers
and usurers; the care of public morals generally, including the
prevention of foreign superstitions. They also punished those
who had too large a share of the ager publicus, or kept too
many cattle on the state pastures. (2) Care of provisions:
investigation of the quality of the articles supplied and the
correctness of weights and measures; the purchase of corn for
disposal at a low price in case of necessity. (3) Care of
line games: superintendence and organization of the public
games, as well as of those given by themselves and private
individuals (e.g. at funerals) at their own expense.
Ambitious persons often spent enormous sums in this manner to
win the popula1 favour with a view to official advancement.
In 44 Caesar added two patrician aediles, called Cereales,
whose special duty was the care of the corn-supply.
Under Augustus the office lost much of its importance,
its juridical functions and the care of the games being
transferred to the praetor, while its city responsibilities
were limited by the appointment of a praefectus urbi.
In the 3rd century A.D. it disappeared altogether.
AUTHORITIES.--Schubert, De Romanorum Aedilibus (1828);
Hoffmann, De Aedilibus Romanis (1842); Goll, De Aedilibus
sub Caesarum Imperio (1860); Labatut, Les Ediles et les
moeurs (1868); Marquardt Mommsen, Handbuch der romanischen
Altertumer, ii. (1888); Soltau, Die ursprungliche
Bedeutung und Competenz der Aediles Plebis (Bonn, 1882).
AEDUI, HAEDUI or HEDUI (Gr. Aidouoi), a Gallic people
of Gallia Lugdunensis, who inhabited the country between the
Arar (Saone) and Liger (Loire). The statement in Strabo (ii.
3. 192) that they dwelt between the Arar and Dubis (Doubs) is
incorrect. Their territory thus included the greater part
of the modern departments of Saone-et-Loire, Cote d'Or and
Nievre. According to Livy (v. 34), they took part in
the expedition of Bellovesus into Italy in the 6th century
B.C. Before Caesar's time they had attached themselves
to the Romans, and were honoured with the title of brothers
and kinsmen of the Roman people. When the Sequani, their
neighbours on the other side of the Arar, with whom they
were continually quarrelling, invaded their country and
subjugated them with the assistance of a German chieftain
named Ariovistus, the Aedui sent Divitiacus, the druid, to
Rome to appeal to the senate for help, but his mission was
unsuccessful. On his arrival in Gaul (58 B.C.), Caesar
restored their independence. In spite of this, the Aedui
joined the Gallic coalition against Caesar (B.G. vii. 42),
but after the surrender of Vercingetorix at Alesia were glad
to return to their allegiance. Augustus dismantled their
native capital Bibracte on Mont Beuvray, and substituted a
new town with a half-Roman, half-Gaulish name, Augustodunum
(mod. Autun). During the reign of Tiberias (A.D. 21),
they revolted under Julius Sacrovir, and seized Augustudunum,
but were soon put down by Gaius Silius (Tacitus Ann. iii.
43-46). The Aedui were the first of the Gauls to receive
from the emperor Claudius the distinction of juo hanorum.
The oration of Eumenius (q.v.), in which he pleaded for the
restoration of the schools of his native place Augustodunum,
shows that the district was neglected. The chief magistrate
of the Aedui in Caesar's time was called Vergobretus
(according to Mommsen, ``judgment-worker''), who was elected
annually, possessed powers of life and death, but was
forbidden to go beyond the frontier. Certain clientes,
or small communities, were also dependent upon the Aedui.
See A. E. Desjardins, Geographie de la Gaide, ii.
(1876-1893); T. R. Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of Gaul (1899).
AEGADIAN ISUANDS (Ital. Isole Egati; anc. Aegales Insulae),
a group of small mountainous islands off the western coast of
Sicily, chiefly remarkable as the scene of the defeat of the
Carthaginian fleet by C. Lutatius Catulus in 241 B.C., which
ended the First Punic War. Favignana (Aegusa), the largest, pop.
(1901) 6414, lies 10 m. S.W. of Trapani; Levanzo (Phorbantia) 8
m. W.; while Maritimo, the ancient iera nesos, 15
m. W. of Trapani, is now reckoned as a part of the group.
They belonged to the Pallavicini family of Genoa until
1874, when they were bought by Signor Florio of Palermo.
AEGEAN CIVILIZATION, the general term for the prehistoric
civilization, previously called ``Mycenaean'' because its existence
was first brought to popular notice by Heinrich Schliemann's
excavations at Mycenae in 1876. Subsequent discoveries, however,
have made it clear that Mycenae was not its chief centre in its
earlier stages, or, perhaps, at any period; and, accordingly,
it is more usual now to adopt a wider geographical title.
I. History of Discovery and Distribution of Remains.--Mycenae
and Tiryns are the two principal sites on which evidence of a
prehistoric civilization was remarked long ago by the classical
Greeks. The curtain-wall and towers of the Mycenaean citadel,
its gate with heraldic lions, and the great ``Treasury of
Atreus'' had borne silent witness for ages before Schliemann's
time; but they were supposed only to speak to the Homeric,
or at farthest a rude Heroic beginning of purely Hellenic,
civilization. It was not till Schliemann exposed the
contents of the graves which lay just inside the gate (see
MYCENAE), that scholars recognized the advanced stage of
art to which prehistoric dwellers in the Mycenaean citadel
had attained. There had been, however, a good deal of
other evidence available before 1876, which, had it been
collated and seriously studied, might have discounted the
sensation that the discovery of the citadel graves eventually
made. Although it was recognized that certain tributaries,
represented e.g. in the XVIIIth Dynasty tomb of Rekhmara
at Egyptian Thebes as bearing vases of peculiar forms, were
of some Mediterranean race, neither their precise habitat nor
the degree of their civilization could be determined while so
few actual prehistoric remains were known in the Mediterranean
lands. Nor did the Aegean objects which were lying obscurely
in museums in 1870, or thereabouts, provide a sufficient
test of the real basis underlying the Hellenic myths of the
Argolid, the Troad and Crete, to cause these to he taken
seriously. Both at Sevres and Neuchatel Aegean vases have
been exhibited since about 1840, the provenience being in
the one case Phylakope in Melos, in the other Cephalonia.
Ludwig Ross, by his explorations in the Greek islands from
1835 onwards, called attention to certain early intaglios,
since known as Inselsteine; but it was not till 1878 that
C. T. Newton demonstrated these to be no strayed Phoenician
products. In 1866 primitive structures were discovered in the
island of Therasia by quarrymen extracting pozzolana for the
Suez Canal works; and when this discovery was followed up in
1870, on the neighbouring Santorin (Thera), by representatives
of the French School at Athens, much pottery of a class now
known immediately to precede the typical late Aegean ware,
and many stone and metal objects, were found and dated by
the geologist Fouque, somewhat arbitrarily, to 2000 B.C.,
by consideration of the superincumbent eruptive stratum.
Meanwhile, in 1868, tombs at Ialysus in Rhodes had yielded
to M. A. Biliotti many fine painted vases of styles which
were called later the third and fourth ``Mycenaean''; but
these, bought by John Ruskin, and presented to the British
Museum, excited less attention than they deserved, being
supposed to be of some local Asiatic fabric of uncertain
date. Nor was a connexion immediately detected between them
and the objects found four years later in a tomb at Menidi in
Attica and a rock-cut ``bee-hive'' grave near the Argive Heraeum.
Even Schliemann's first excavations at Hissarlik in the Troad
(q.v.) did not excite surprise. But the ``Burnt City'' of
his second stratum, revealed in 1873, with its fortifications
and vases, and a hoard of gold, silver and bronze objects,
which the discoverer connected with it, began to arouse a
curiosity which was destined presently to spread far outside
the narrow circle of scholars. As soon as Schliemann came on
the Mycenae graves three years later, light poured from all
sides on the prehistotic period of Greece. It was recognized
that the character of both the fabric and the decoration
of the Mycenaean objects was not that of any well-known
art. A wide range in space was proved by the identification
of the Inselsteine and the Ialysus vases with the new style,
and a wide range in time by collation of the earlier Theraean
and Hissarlik discoveries. A relation between objects of art
described by Homer and the Mycenaean treasure was generally
allowed, and a correct opinion prevailed that, while certainly
posterior, the civilization of the Iliad was reminiscent of the
Mycenaean. Schliemann got to work again at Hissarlik in 1878,
and greatly increased our knowledge of the lower strata, but
did not recognize the Aegean remains in his ``Lydian'' city
of the sixth stratum, which were not to be fully revealed
till Dr W. Dorpfeld resumed the work at Hissarlik in 1892
after the first explorer's death (see TROAD). But by
laying bare in 1884 the upper stratum of remains on the rock
of Tiryns (q.v.), Schliemann made a contribution to our
knowledge of prehistoric domestic life which was amplified
two years later by Chr. Tsountas's discovery of the Mycenae
palace. Schliemann's work at Tiryns was not resumed till
1905, when it was proved, as had long been suspected, that
an earlier palace underlies the one he had exposed. From
1886 dates the finding of Mycenaean sepulchres outside the
Argolid, from which, and from the continuation of Tsountas's
exploration of the buildings and lesser graves at Mycenae,
a large treasure, independent of Schliemann's princely gift,
has been gathered into the National Museum at Athens. In
that year were excavated dome-tombs, most already rifled but
retaining some of their furniture, at Arkina and Eleusis in
Attica, at Dimini near Volo in Thessaly, at Kampos on the
west of Mount Taygetus, and at Maskarata in Cephalonia.
The richest grave of all was explored at Vaphio in Laconia
in 1889, and yielded, besides many gems and miscellaneous
goldsmiths' work, two golden goblets chased with scenes of
bull-hunting, and certain broken vases painted in a large
bold style which remained an enigma till the excavation of
Cnossus. In 1890 and 1893 Staes cleared out certain less
rich dome-tombs at Thoricus in Attica; and other graves,
either rock-cut ``bee-hives'' or chambers, were found at Spata
and Aphidna in Attica, in Aegina and Salamis, at the Heraeum
(see ARGOS) and Nauplia in the Argolid, near Thebes and
Delphi, and not far from the Thessalian Larissa. During the
excavations on the Acropolis at Athens, terminated in 1888,
many potsherds of the Mycenaean style were found; but Olympia
had yielded either none, or such as had not been recognized
before being thrown away, and the temple site at Delphi produced
nothing distinctively Aegean. The American explorations of
the Argive Heraeum, concluded in 1895, also failed to prove
that site to have been important in the prehistoric time,
though, as was to be expected from its neighbourhood to Mycenae
itself, there were traces of occupation in the later Aegean
periods. Prehistoric research had now begun to extend
beyond the Greek mainland. Certain central Aegean islands,
Antiparos, Ios, Amorgos, Syros and Siphnos, were all found
to be singularly rich in evidence of the middle-Aegean
period. The series of Syran built graves, containing
crouching corpses, is the best and most representative that
is known in the Legean. Melos, long marked as a source of
early objects, but not systematically excavated until taken
in hand by the British School at Athens in 1896, yielded
at Phylakope remains of all the Aegean periods, except the
Neolithic. A map of Cyprus in the later Bronze Age (such
as is given by J. L. Myres and M. O. Richter in Catalogue
of the Cyprus Museum) shows more than five-and-twenty
settlements in and about the Mesaorea district alone, of which
one, that at Enkomi, near the site of Salamis, has yielded
the richest Aegean treasure in precious metal found outside
Mycenae. E. Chantre in 1894 picked up lustreless ware,
like that of Hissariik, in central Phtygia and at Pteria
(q.v.), and the English archaeological expeditions, sent
subsequently into north-western Anatolia, have never falled
to bring back ceramic specimens of Aegean appearance from
the valleys of the Rhyndncus, Sangarius and Halys. In Egypt
in 1887 W. M. F. Petrie found painted sherds of Cretan style
at Kahun in the Fayum, and farther up the Nile, at Tell
el-Amarna, chanced on bits of no fewer than 800 Aegean vases in
1889. There have now been recognized in the collections at
Cairo, Florence, London, Paris and Bologna several Egyptian
imitations of the Aegean style which can be set off against
the many debts which the centres of Aegean culture owed to
Egypt. Two Aegean vases were found at Sidon in 1885, and
many fragments of Aegean and especially Cypriote pottery have
been turned up during recent excavations of sites in Philistia
by the Palestine Fund. South-eastern Sicily, ever since P.
Orsi excavated the Sicel cemetery near Lentini in 1877, has
proved a mine of early remains, among which appear in regular
succession Aegean fabrics and motives of decoration from
the period of the second stratum at Hissarlik. Sardinia has
Aegean sites, e.g. at Abini near Teti; and Spain has yielded
objects recognized as Aegean from tombs near Cadiz and from
Saragossa. One land, however, has eclipsed all others in the
Aegean by the wealth of its remains of all the prehistoric
ages, viz. Crete, so much so that, for the present, we
must regard it as the fountain-head of Aegean civilization,
and probably for long its political and social centre. The
island first attracted the notice of archaeologists by the
remarkable archaic Greek bronzes found in a cave on Mount
Ida in 1885, as well as by epigraphic monuments such as the
famous law of Gortyna; but the first undoubted Aegean remains
reported from it were a few objects extracted from Cnossus by
Minos Kalokhairinos of Candia in 1878. These were followed
by certain discoveries made in the S. plain Messara by F.
Halbherr. W. J. Stillman and H. Schliemann both made
unsuccessful attempts at Cnossus, and A. J. Evans, coming on
the scene in 1893, travelled in succeeding years about the
island picking up trifles of unconsidered evidence, which
gradually convinced him that greater things would eventually be
found. He obtained enough to enable him to forecast the
discovery of written characters, till then not suspected in
Aegean civilization. The revolution of 1897-98 opened the
door to wider knowledge, and much exploration has ensued,
for which see CRETE. Thus the ``Aegean Area'' has now come
to mean the Archipelago with Crete and Cyprus, the Hellenic
peninsula with the Ionian isles, and Western Anatolic.
Evidence is still wanting for the Macedonian and Thracian
coasts. Offshoots are found in the W. Mediterranean, in
Sicily, Italy, Sardinia and Spain, and in the E. in Syria and
Egypt. About the Cyrenaica we are still insufficiently informed.
II. General Nature of the Evidence.---For details of
monumental evidence the articles on CRETE, MYCENAE,
TIRYNS, TROAD, CYPRUS, &c., must be consulted. The
most representative site explored up to now is Cnossus (see
CRETE, sect. Archaeology), which has yielded not only
the most various but the most continuous evidence from the
Neolithic age to the twilight of classical civilization.
Next in importance come Hissarlik, Mycenae, Phaestus,
Hagia, Triada, Tiryns, Phylakope, Palaikastro and Gournia.
A. The internal evidence at present available comprises--
Structures.---Ruins of palaces, palatial villas, houses,
built dome- or cist-graves and fortifications (Aegean isles,
Greek mainland and N.W. Anatolia), but not distinct temples;
small shrines, however, and temene (religious enclosures,
remains or one of which were probably found at Petsofa
near Palaikastro by J. L. Myres in 1904) are represented
on intaglios and frescoes. From the sources and from
inlay-work we have also representations of palaces and houses.
(2) Structural Decoration.--Architectural features, such as
columns, friezes and various mouldings; mural decoration,
such as fresco-paintings, coloured reliefs and mosaic inlay.
(3) Furniture.--(a) Domestic, such as vessels of all
sorts and in many materials, from huge store-jars down to tiny
unguent-pots; culinary and other implements; thrones, seats,
tables, &c., these all in stone or plastered terra-cotta. (b)
Sacred, such as models or actual examples of ritual objects;
of these we have also numerous pictorial representations.
(c) Funerary, e.g. coffins in painted terra-cotta.
(4) Artistic fabrics, e.g. plastic objects, carved in
stone or ivory, cast or beaten in metals (gold, silver,
copper and bronze), or modelled in clay, faience, paste,
&c. Very little trace has yet been found of large free
sculpture, but many examples exist of sculptors' smaller
work. Vases of all kinds, carved in marble or other stones,
cast or beaten in metals or fashioned in clay, the latter in
enormous number and variety, richly ornamented with coloured
schemes, and sometimes bearing moulded decoration. Examples
of painting on stone, opaque and transparent. Engraved
objects in great numberr e.g. ring-bezels and gems; and
an immense quantity of clay impressions, taken from these.
(5) Weapons, tools and implements, in stone, clay and
bronze, and at the last iron, sometimes richly ornamented or
inlaid. Numerous representations also of the same. No actual
body-armour, except such as was ceremonial and buried with the
dead, like the gold breastplates in the circle-graves at Mycenae.
(6) Articles of personal use, e.g. brooches efbulae), pins,
razors, tweezers, &c., often found as dedications to a deity,
e.g. in the Dictaean Cavern of Crete. No textiles have survived.
(7) Written documents, e.g. clay tablets and discs (so far in
Crete only), but nothing of more perishable nature, such as skin,
papyrus, &c.; engraved gems and gem impressions; legends written
with pigment on pottery (rare); characters incised on stone or
pottery. These show two main systems of script (see CRETE).
(8) Excavated tombs, of either the pit or the grotto
kind, in which the dead were laid, together with
various objects of use and luxury, without cremation,
and in either coffins or loculi or simple wrappings.
(9) Public works, such as paved and stepped
roadways, bridges, systems of drainage, &c.
B. There is also a certain amount of external evidence
to be gathered from--(1) Monuments and records of other
contemporary civilizations, e.g. representations of alien
peoples in Egyptian frescoes; imitation of Aegean fabrics
and style in non-Aegean lands; allusions to Mediterranean
peoples in Egyptian, Semitic or Babylonian records.
(2) Literary traditions of subsequent civilizations, especially
the Hellenic; such as, e.g., those embodied in the Homeric poems,
the legenda concerning Crete, Mycenae, &c.; statements as to the
origin of gods, cults and so forth, transmitted to us by Hellenic
antiquarians such as Strabo, Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, &c.
(3) Traces of customs, creeds, rituals, &c., in the
Aegean area at a later time, discordant with the
civilization in which they were practised and indicating
survival from earlier systems. There are also possible
linguistic and even physical survivals to be considered.
III General Features of Aegean Civalization.--The
leading features of Aegean civilization, as deduced
from the evidence, must be stated very briefly.
(1) Political Organisation.--The great Cretan palaces and
the fortified citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns and Hissarlik, each
containing little more than one great residence, and dominating
lower towns of meaner houses, point to monarchy at all
periods. Independent local developments of art before the
middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. suggest the early existence
of independent units in various parts, of which the strongest
was the Cnossian. After that date the evidence goes strongly
to show that one political dominion was spread for a brief
period, or for two brief periods, over almost all the area (see
later). The great number of tribute-tallies found at Cnossus
perhaps indicates that the Centre of power was always there.
(2) Religion.--The fact that shrines have so far been found
within palaces and not certainly anywhere else indicates that
the kings kept religious power in their own hands; perhaps they
were themselves high-priests. Religion in the area seems to
have been essentially the same everywhere from the earliest
period, viz. the cult of a Divine Principle, resident in
dominant features of nature (sun, stars, mountains, trees,
&c.) and controlling fertility. This cult passed through
an aniconic stage, from which fetishes survived to the
last, these being rocks or pillars, trees, weapons (e.g.
bipennis, or double war-axe, shield), etc. When the iconic
stage was reached, about 2000 B.C., we find the Divine Spirit
represented as a goddess with a subordinate young god, as
in many other E. Mediterranean lands. The god was probably
son and mate of the goddess, and the divine pair represented
the genius of Reproductive Fertility in its relations with
humanity. The goddess sometimes appears with doves, as
uranic, at others with snakes, as chthonic. In the ritual
fetishes, often of miniature form, played a great part:
all sorts of plants and animals were sacred: sacrifice (not
burnt, and human very doubtful), dedication of all sorts of
offerings and simulacra, invocation, &c., were practised.
The dead, who returned to the Great Mother, were objects
of a sort of hero-worship. This early nature-cult explains
many anomalous features of Hellenic religion, especially
in the cults of Artemis and Aphrodite. (See CRETE.)
(3) Social Organization.---There is a possibility that
features of a primeval matriarchate long survived; but
there is no certain evidence. Of the organization of the
people under the monarch we are ignorant. There are so few
representations of armed men that it seems doubtful if there
can have been any professional military Class. Theatral
structures found at Cnossus and Phaestus, within the precincts
of the palaces, were perhaps used for shows or for sittings
of a royal assize, rather than for popular assemblies. The
Cnossian remains contain evidence of an elaborate system of
registration, account-keeping and other secretarial work, which
perhaps indicates a considerable body of law. The line of
the ruling class was comfortable and even luxurious from early
times. Fine stone palaces, richly decorated, with separate
sleeping apartments, large halls, ingenious devices for admitting
light and air, sanitary conveniences and marvellously modern
arrangements for supply of water and for drainage, attest this
fact. Even the smaller houses, after the Neolithic period,
seem also to have been of stone, plastered within. After
1600 B.C. the palaces in Crete had more than one story, fine
stairways, bath-chambers, windows, folding and sliding doors,
&c. In this later period, the distinction of blocks of apartments
in some palaces has been held to indicate the seclusion of
women in harems, at least among the ruling caste. Cnossian
frescoes show women grouped apart, and they appear alone on
gems. Flesh and fish and many kinds of vegetables were evidently
eaten, and wine and beer were drunk. Vessels for culinary,
table, and luxurious uses show an infinite variety of form and
purpose. Artificers' implements of many kinds were in
use, bronze succeeding obsidian and other hard stones as the
material. Seats are found carefully shaped to the human
person. There was evidently olive- and vine-culture on a
large scale in Crete at any rate. Chariots were in use in the
later period, as is proved by the pictures of them on Cretan
tablets, and therefore, probably, the horse also was known.
Indeed a horse appears on a gem impression. Main ways were
paved. Sports, probably more or less religious, are often
represented, e.g. bullfighting, dancing, boxing, armed combats.
(4) Commerce was practised to some extent in very early
times, as is proved by the distribution of Melian obsidian
over all the Aegean area and by the Nilotic influence on early
Minoan art. We find Cretan vessels exported to Melos, Egypt
and the Greek mainland. Melian vases came in their turn to
Crete. After 1600 B.C. there is very close intercourse with
Egypt, and Aegean things hnd their way to all coasts of the
Mediterranean (see below). No traces of currency have come
to light, unless certain axeheads, too slight for practical
use, had that character; but standard weights have been
found, and representations of ingots. The Aegean written
documents have not yet proved (by being found outside the area)
epistolary correspondence with other lands. Representations
of ships are not common, but several have been observed
on Aegean gems, gem-sealings and vases. They are vessels
of low free-board, with masts. Familiarity with the sea
is proved by the free use of marine motives in decoration.
(5) Treatment or the Dead.--The dead in the earlier
period wore laid (so far as we know at present) within cists
constructed of upright stones. These were sometimes inside
caves. After the burial the cist was covered in with earth.
A little later, in Crete, bone-pits seem to have come into
use, containing the remains of many burials. Possibly the
flesh was boiled off the bones at once (``scarification''), or
left to rot in separate cists awhile; afterwards the skeletons
were collected and the cists re-used. The coffins are of small
size, contain corpses with the knees drawn up to the chin and
are found in excavated chambers or pits. In the later period
a peculiar ``bee-hive'' tomb became common, sometimes wholly
or partly excavated, sometimes (as in the magnificent Mycenaean
``Treasuries'') constructed domewise. The shaft-graves
in the Mycenae circle are also a late type, paralleled in
the later Cnossian cemetery. The latest type of tomb is a
flatly vaulted chamber approached by a horizontal or slightly
inclined way, whose sides converge above. At no period do the
Aegean dead seem to have been burned. Weapons, food, water,
unguents and various trinkets were laid with the corpse at all
periods. In the Mycenae circle an altar seems to have been
erected over the graves, and perhaps slaves were killed to
bear the dead chiefs company. A painted sarcophagus, found
at Hagia Triada, also possibly shows a hero-cult of the dead.
(6) Artistic Production.--Ceramic art reached a specially
high standard in fabric, form and decoration by the middle
of the 3rd millennium B.C. in Crete. The products of
that period compare favourably with any potters' work in the
world. The same may be said of fresco-painting, and probably
of metal work. Modelling in terra-cotta, sculpture in stone
and ivory, engraving on gems, were following it closely by
the beginning of the 2nd millennium. After 2000 B.C. all
these arts revived, and sculpture, as evidenced by relief
work, both on a large and on a small scale, carved stone
vessels, metallurgy in gold, silver and bronze, advanced
farther. This art and those of fresco- and vase-painting and
of gem-engraving stood higher about the 15th century B.C.
than at any subsequent period before the 6th century. The
manufacture, modelling and painting of faience objects, and
the making of inlays in many materials were also familiar to
Aegean craftsmen, who show in all their best work a strong
sense of natural form and an appreciation of ideal balance and
decorative effect, such as are seen in the best products of
later Hellenic art. Architectural ornament was also highly
developed. The richness of the Aegean capitals and columns
may be judged by those from the ``Treasury of Atreus'' now
set up in the British Museum; and of the friezes we have
examples in Mycenaean and Cnossian fragments, and Cnossian
paintings. The magnificent gold work of the later period,
preserved to us at Mycenae and Vaphio, needs only to be
mentioned. It should be compared with stone work in Crete,
especially the steatite vases with reliefs found at Hagia
Triada. On the whole, Aegean art, at its two great
periods, in the middle of the 3rd and 2nd millennia
respectively, will bear comparison with any contemporary arts.
IV. Origin, Nature and History of Aegean Civilization.---The
evidence, summarized above, though very various and
voluminous, is not yet sufficient to answer all the
questions which may be asked as to the origin, nature
and history of this civilization, or to answer any but a
few questions with absolute certainty. We shall try to
indicate the extent to which it can legitimately be applied.
A. Distinctive Features.---The fact that Aegean civilization
is distinguished from all others, prior or contemporary,
not only by its geographical area, but by leading organic
characteristics, has never been in doubt, since its remains
came to be studied seriously and impartially. The truth
was indeed obscured for a time by persistent prejudices in
favour of certain alien Mediterranean races long known to
have been in relation with the Aegean area in prehistoric
times, e.g. the Egyptians and especially the Phoenicians.
But their claims to be the principal authors of the Aegean
remains grew fainter with every fresh Aegean discovery, and
every new light thrown on their own proper products; with the
Cretan revelations they ceased altogether to be considered
except by a few Homeric enthusiasts. Briefly, we now know
that the Aegean civilization developed these distinctive
features. (i) An indigenous script expressed in characters
of which only a very small percentage are identical, or even
obviously connected, with those of any other script. This is
equally true both of the pictographic and the linear Aegean
systems. Its nearest affinities are with the ``Asianic''
scripts, preserved to us by Hittite, Cypriote and south-west
Anatolian (Pamphyhan, Lycian and Carian) inscriptions. But
neither are these affinities close enough to be of any practical
aid in deciphering Aegean characters, nor is it by any means
certain that there is parentage. The Aegean script may be,
and probably is, prior in origin to the ``Asianic''; and it
may equally well be owed to a remote common ancestor, or (the
small number of common characters being considered) be an
entirely independent evolution from representations of natural
objects (see CRETE). (2) An Art, whose products cannot
be confounded with those of any other known art by a trained
eye. Its obligations to other contemporary arts are many and
obvious, especially in its later stages; but every borrowed
form and motive undergoes an essential modification at the
hands of the Aegean craftsman, and the product is stamped
with a new character. The secret of this character lles
evidently in a constant attempt to express an ideal in forms
more and more closely approaching to realities. We detect
the dawn of that spirit which afterwards animated Hellenic
art. The fresco-paintings, ceramic motives, reliefs, free
sculpture and toreutic handiwork of Crete have supplied the
clearest proof of it, confirming the impression already created
by the goldsmiths' and painters' work of the Greek mainland
(Mycenae, Vaphio, Tiryns). (3) Architectural plans and
decoration. The arrangement of Aegean palaces is of two main
types. First (and perhaps earliest in time), the chambers
are grouped round a central court, being engaged one with the
other in a labyrinthine complexity, and the greater oblongs
are entered from a long side and divided longitudinally by
pillars. Second, the main chamber is of what is known as the
megaron type, i.e. it stands free, isolated from the rest
of the plan by corridors, is entered from a vestibule on a
short side, and has a central hearth, surrounded by pillars
and perhaps hypaethral; there is no central court, and other
apartments form distinct blocks. For possible geographical
reasons for this duality of type see CRETE. In spite of many
comparisons made with Egyptian, Babylonian and ``Hittite''
plans, both these arrangements remain incongruous with any
remains of prior or contemporary structures elsewhere. Whether
either plan suits the ``Homeric palace'' does not affect the
present question. (4) A type of tomb, the dome or ``bee-hive,''
of which the grandest examples known are at Mycenae. The
Cretan ``larnax'' coffins, also, have no parallels outside the
Aegean. There are other infinite singularities of detail;
but the above are more than sufficient to establish the point.
B. Origin and Continuity.--With the immense expansion of the
evidence, due to the Cretan excavations, a question has arisen
how far the Aegean civilization, whose total duration covers
at least three thousand years, can be regarded as one and
continuous. Thanks to the exploration of Cnossus, we now
know that Aegean civilization had its roots in a primitive
Neolithic period, of uncertain but very long duration,
represented by a stratum which (on that site in particular) is
in places nearly 20 ft. thick, and contains stone implements
and sherds of handmade and hand-polished vessels, showing
a progressive development in technique from bottom to
top. This Cnossian stratum seems to be throughout earlier
than the lowest layer at Hissarlik. It closes with the
introduction of incised, white-filled decoration on pottery,
whose motives are presently found reproduced in monochrome
pigment. We are now in the beginning of the Bronze Age,
and the first of Evans's ``Minoan'' periods (see CRETE).
Thereafter, by exact observation of stratification, eight more
periods have been distinguished by the explorer of Cnossus,
each marked by some important development in the universal and
necessary products of the potter's art, the least destructible
and therefore most generally used archaeological criterion.
These periods fill the whole Bronze Age, with whose close, by
the introduction of the superior metal, iron, the Aegean Age
is conventionally held to end. Iron came into general Aegean
use about 1000 B.C., and possibly was the means by which a
body of northern invaders established their power on the ruins
of the earlier dominion. The important point is this, that
throughout the nine Cnossian periods, following the Neolithic
Age (named by Evans, ``Minoan I. 1, 2, 3; II. 1, 2, 3; III.
1, 2, 3''; see CRETE), there is evidence of a perfectly
orderly and continuous evolution in, at any rate, ceramic
art. From one stage to another, fabrics, forms and motives
of decoration develop gradually; so that, at the close of
a span of more than two thousand years, at the least, the
influences of the beginning can still be clearly seen and no
trace of violent artistic intrusion can be detected. This
fact, by itself, would go far to prove that the civilization
continued fundamentally and essentially the same throughout.
It is, moreover, supported by less abundant remains of other
arts. That of painting in fresco, for instance, shows the
same orderly development from at any rate Period II. 2 to the
end. About institutions we have less certain knowledge, there
being but little evidence for the earlier periods; but in
the documents relating to religion, the most significant of
all, it can at least be said that there is no trace of sharp
change. We see evidence of a uniform Nature Worship passing
through all the normal stages down to the anthropism in
the latest period. There is no appearance of intrusive
deities or cult-ideas. We may take it then (and the fact
is not disputed even by those who, like Dorpfeld, believe
in one thorough racial change, at least, during the Bronze
Age) that the Aegean civilization was indigenous, firmly
rooted and strong enough to persist essentially unchanged
and dominant in its own geographical area throughout the
Neolithic and Bronze Ages. This conclusion can hardly entail
less than a belief that, at any rate, the mass of those who
possessed this civilization continued racially the same.
There are, however, in certain respects at certain periods,
evidences of such changes as might be due to the intrusion of
small conquering castes, which adopted the superior civilization
of the conquered people and became assimilated to the
latter. The earliest palace at Cnossus was built probably in
Period II. 1 or 2. It was of the type mentioned first in the
description of palace-plans above. Before Period III. 1 it
was largely rebuilt, and arguments have been brought forward
by Dorpfeld to show that features of the second type were then
introduced. A similar rebuilding took place at the same epoch
at Phaestus, and possibly at Hagia Triada. Now the second
type, the ``megaron'' arrangement, characterizes peculiarly
the palaces discovered in the north of the Aegean area, at
Mycenae, Tiryns and Hissarllk, where up to the present no
signs of the first type, so characteristic of Crete, have been
observed. These northern ``megara'' are all of late date,
none being prior to Minoan III. 1. At Phylakope, a ``megaron''
appears only in the uppermost Aegean stratum, the underlying
structures being more in conformity with the earlier Cretan.
At the same epoch a notable change took place in the Aegean
script. The pictographic characters, found on seals and discs
of Period II. in Crete, had given way entirely to a linear
system by Period III. That system thenceforward prevailed
exclusively, suffering a slight modification again in III.
2 and 3. These and other less well marked changes, say some
critics, are signs of a racial convulsion not long after
2000 B.C. An old race was conquered by a new, even if, in
matters of civilization, the former capta victorem cepit.
For these races respectively Dorpfeld suggests the names
``Lycian'' and ``Carian,'' the latter coming in from the
north Aegean, where Greek tradition remembered its former
dominance. These names do not greatly help us. If we are
to accept and profit by Dorpfeld's nomenclature, we must be
satisfied that, in their later historic habitats, both Lycians
and Carians showed unmistakable signs of having formerly
possessed the civilizations attributed to them in prehistoric
times--signs which research has hitherto wholly failed to
find. The most that can be said to be capable of proof is
the infiltration of some northern influence into Crete at the
end of Minoan Period II.; but it probably brought about no
change of dynasty and certainly no change in the prevailing
race. A good deal of anthropometric investigation has been
devoted to human remains of the Aegean epoch, especially to
skulls and bones found in Crete in tombs of Period II. The
result of this, however, has not so far established more than
the fact that the Aegean races, as a whole, belonged to the
dark, long-headed Homo Mediterraneus, whose probable origin
lay in mid-eastern Africa---a fact only valuable in the present
connexion in so far as it tends to discredit an Asiatic source
for Aegean civilization. Not enough evidence has been collected
to affect the question of racial change during the Aegean
period. From the skullforms studied, it would appear, as we
should expect, that the Aegean race was by no means pure even
in the earlier Minoan periods. It only remains to be added
that there is some ground for supposing that the language
spoken in Crete before the later Doric was non-Hellenic, but
Indo-European. This inference rests on three inscriptions
in Greek characters but non-Greek language found in E.
Crete. The language has some apparent affinities with
Phrygian. The inscriptions are post-Aegean by many centuries,
but they occur in the part of the island known to Homer
as that inhabited by the Eteo-Cretans, or aborigines.
Their language may prove to be that of the Linear tablets.
C. History of Aegean Civilization.---History of an
inferential and summary sort only can be derived from
monuments in the absence of written records. The latter do,
indeed, exist in the Case of the Cretan civilization and in
great numbers; but they are undeciphered and likely to remain
so, except in the improbable event of the discovery of a long
bi-lingual text, partly couched in some familiar script and
language. Even in that event, the information which would be
derived from the Cnossian tablets would probably make but a
small addition to history, since in very large part they are
evidently mere inventories of tribute and stores. The engraved
gems probably record divine or human names. (See CRETE.)
(1) Chronology.--The earliest chronological datum that we
possess is inferred from a close similarity between certain
Cretao hand-made and polished vases of Minoan Period I. 1 and
others discovered by Petrie at Abydos in Egypt and referred
by him to the Ist Dynasty. He goes so far as to pronounce
the latter to be Cretan importations, their fabric and forms
being unlike anything Nilotic. If that be so, the period
at which stone implements were beginning to be superseded by
bronze in Crete must be dated before 4000 B.C. But it will
be remembered that below all Evans's ``Minoan'' strata hes
the immensely thick Neolithic deposit. To date the beginning
of this earliest record of human production is impossible at
present. The Neolithic stratum varies very much in depth,
ranging from nearly 20 ft. to 3 ft., but is deepest on the
highest part of the hillock. Its variations may be due
equally to natural denudation of a stratum once of uniform
depth, or to the artificial heaping up of a mound by later
builders. Even were certainty as to these alternatives
attained, we could only guess at the average rate of
accumulation, which experience shows to proceeb very differently
on different sites and under different social and climatic
conditions. In later periods at Cnossus accumulation seems
to have proceeded at a rate of, roughly, 3 ft. per thousand
years. Reckoning by that standard we might push the
earliest Neolithic remains back behind 10,000 B.C.;
but the calculation would be worthy of little credence.
Passing by certain fragments of stone vessels, found at Cnossus,
and coincident with forms characteristic of the IVth Pharaonic
Dynasty, we reach another fairly certain date in the synchronism
of remains belonging to the XIIth Dynasty (c. 2500 B.C.
according to Petrie, but later according to the Berlin School)
with products of Minoan Period II. 2. Characteristic Cretan
pottery of this period was found by Petrie in the Fayum in
conjunction with XIIth Dynasty remains, and various Cretan
products of the period show striking coincidences with XIIth
Dynasty styles, especially in their adoption of spiraliform
ornament. The spiral, however, it must be confessed, occurs
so often in natural objects (e.g. horns, climbing plants,
shavings of wood or metal) that too much stress must not
be laid on the mutual parentage of spiraliform ornament in
different civilizations. A diorite statuette, referable by
its style and inscription to Dynasty XIII., was discovered
in deposit of Period II. 3 in the Central Court, and a
cartouche of the ``Shepherd King,'' Khyan, was also found at
Cnossus. He is usually dated about 1900 B.C. This brings
us to the next and most certain synchronism, that of Minoan
Periods III. 1, 2, with Dynasty XVIII. (c. 1600-1400 B.C.).
This coincidence has been observed not only at Cnossus, but
previously, in connexion with discoveries of scarabs and other
Egyptian objects made at Mycenae, Ialysus, Vaphio, &c. In Egypt
itself. Refti tributaries, bearing Vases of Aegean form,
and themselves similar in fashion of dress and arrangement of
hair to figures on Cretan frescoes and gems of Period III.,
are depicted under this and the succeeding Dynasties (e.g.
Rekhmara tomb at Thebes). Actual vases of late Minoan style
have been found with remains of Dynasty XVIII., especially in
the town of Amenophis IV. Akhenaton at Tell el-Amarna; while
in the Aegean area itself we have abundant evidence of a great
wave of Egyptian influence beginning with this same Dynasty.
To this wave were owed in all probability the Nilotic scenes
depicted on the Mycenae daggers, on frescoes of Hagia Triada and
Cnossus, on pottery of Zakro, on the shell-relief of Phaestus,
&c.; and also many forrus and fabrics, e.g. certain Cretan
coffins, and the faience industry of Cnossus. These serve to
date, beyond all reasonable question, Periods III. 1-2 in
Crete, the shaft-graves in the Mycenae circle, the Vaphio tomb,
&c., to the 16th and 15th centuries B.C., and Period III.
3 with the lower town at Mycenae, the majority of the sixth
stratum at Hissarlik, the Ialysus burials, the upper stratum
at Phylakope, &c., to the century immediately succeeding.
The terminus ad quem is less certain---iron does not begin to
be used for weapons in the Aegean till after Period III. 3, and
then not exclusively. If we fix its introduction to about 1000
B C. and make it coincident with the incursion of northern
tribes, remembered by the classical Greeks as the Dorian Invasion,
we must allow that this incursion did not altogether stamp
out Aegean civilization, at least in the southern part of its
area. But it finally destroyed the Cnossian palace and initiated
the ``Geometric'' Age, with which, for convenience at any
rate, we may close the history of Aegean civilization proper.
(2) Annals.--From these and other data the outlines of
primitive history in the Aegean may be sketched thus. A
people, agreeing in its prevailing skull-forms with the
Mediterranean race of N. Africa, was settled in the Aegean
area from a remote Neolithic antiquity, but, except in
Crete, where insular security was combined with great natural
fertility, remained in a savage and unproductive condition
until far into the 4th millennium B.C. In Crete, however,
it had long been developing a certain civilization, and at a
period more or less contemporary with Dynasties XI. and XII.
(2500 B.C.?) the scattered communities of the centre of the
island coalesced into a strong monarchical state, whose capital
was at Cnossus. There the king, probably also high priest
of the prevailing nature-cult, built a great stone palace,
and received the tribute of feudatories, of whom, probably,
the prince of Phaestus, who commanded the Messara plain, was
chief. The Cnossian monarch had maritime relations with Egypt,
and presently sent his wares all over the S. Aegean (e.g.
to Melos in the earlier Second City Period of Phylakope) and
to Cyprus, receiving in return such commodities as Melian
obsidian knives. A system of pictographic writing came into
use early in this Palace period, but only a few documents,
made of durable material, have survived. Pictorial art of a
purely indigenous character, whether on ceramic material or
phster, made great strides, and from ceramic forms we may
legitimately infer also a high skill in metallurgy. The
absence of fortifications both at Cnossus and Phaestus suggest
that at this time Crete was internally peaceful and externally
secure. Small settlements, in very close relation with the
capital, were founded in the east of the island to command
fertile districts and assist maritime commerce. Gournia and
Palaikastro fulfilled both these ends: Zakro must have had mainly
a commercial purpose, as the starting-point for the African
coast. The acme of this dominion was reached about the end
of the 3rd millennium B.C., and thereafter there ensued a
certain, though not very serious, decline. Meanwhile, at
other favourable spots in the Aegean, but chiefly, it appears,
on sites in easy relation to maritime commerce, e.g. Tiryns
and Hissarlik, other communities of the early race began to
arrive at civilization, but were naturally influenced by the
more advanced culture of Crete, in proportion to their nearness
of vicinity. Early Hissarlik shows less Cretan influence
and more external (i.e. Asiatic) than early Melos. The
inner Greek mainland remained still in a backward state.
Five hundred years later--about 1600 B.C.----we observe
that certain striking changes have taken place. The Aegean
remains have become astonishingly uniform over the whole
area; the local ceramic developments have almost ceased and
been replaced by ware of one general type both of fabric
and decoration. The Cretans have stayed their previous
decadence, and are once more possessors of a progressive
civilization. They have developed a more convenient and
expressive written character by stages of which one is best
represented by the tablets of Hagia Triada. The art of all
the area gives evidence of one spirit and common models; in
religious representations it shows the same anthropomorphic
personification and the same ritual furniture. Objects produced
in one locality are found in others. The area of Aegean
intercourse has widened and become more busy. Commerce with
Egypt, for example, has increased in a marked degree, and
Aegean objects or imitations of them are found to have begun
to penetrate into Syria, inland Asia Minor, and the central
and western Mediterranean lands, e.g. Sicily, Sardinia and
Spain. There can be little doubt that a strong power was
now fixed in one Aegean centre, and that all the area had
come under its political, social and artistic influence.
How was this brought about, and what was the imperial centre?
Some change seems to have come from the north; and there are
those who go so far as to say that the centre henceforward
was the Argolid, and especially ``golden'' Mycenae, whose
lords imposed a new type of palace and a modification of
Aegean art on all other Aegean lands. Others again cite the
old established power and productivity of Crete; the immense
advantage it derived from insularity, natural fertility and
geographical relation to the wider area of east Mediterranean
civilizations; and the absence of evidence elsewhere for the
gradual growth of a culture powerful enough to dominate the
Aegean, They point to the fact that, even in the new period,
the palm for wealth and variety of civilized production still
remained with Crete. There alone we have proof that the art
of writing was commonly practised, and there tribute-tallies
suggest an imperial organization; there the arts of painting
and sculpture in stone were most highly developed; there the
royal residences, which had never been violently destroyed,
though remodelled, continued unfortified; whereas on the
Greek mainland they required strong protective works. The
golden treasure of the Mycenae graves, these critics urge, is
not more splendid than would have been found at Cnossus had
royal burials been spared by plunderers, or been happened upon
intact by modern explorers. It is not impossible to combine
these views, and place the seat of power still in Crete,
but ascribe the renascence there to an influx of new blood
from the north, large enough to instil fresh vigour, but too
small to change the civilization in its essential character.
If this dominance was Cretan, it was short-lived. The
security of the island was apparently violated not long after
1500 B.C., the Cnossian palace was sacked and burned, and
Cretan art suffered an irreparable blow. As the comparatively
lifeless character which it possesses in the succeeding period
(III. 3) is coincident with a similar decadence all over the
Aegean area, we can hardly escape from the conclusion that
it was due to the invasion of all the Aegean lands (or at
least the Greek mainland and isles) by some less civilized
conquerors, who remained politically dominant, but, like
their forerunners, having no culture of their own, adopted,
while they spoiled, that which they found. Who these were
we cannot say; but the probability is that they too came from
the north, and were precursors of the later ``Hellenes.''
Under their rule peace was re-established, and art production
became again abundant among the subject population, though
of inferior quality. The Cnossian palace was re-occupied in
its northern part by chieftains WHO have left numerous rich
graves; and general commercial intercourse must have been
resumed, for the uniformity of the decadent Aegean products
and their wide distribution become more marked than ever.
About 1000 B.C. there happened a final catastrophe. The
palace at Cnossus was once more destroyed, and never rebuilt or
re-inhabited. Iron took the place of Bronze, and Aegean
art, as a living thing, ceased on the Greek mainland and
in the Aegean isles including Crete, together with Aegean
writing. In Cyprus, and perhaps on the south-west Anatolian
coasts, there is some reason to think that the cataclysm was
less complete, and Aegean art continued to languish, cut off
from its fountain-head. Such artistic faculty as survived
elsewhere issued in the lifeless geometric style which is
reminiscent of the later Aegean, but wholly unworthy of
it. Cremation took the place of burial of the dead. This
great disaster, which cleared the ground for a new growth
of local art, was probably due to yet another incursion of
northern tribes, more barbarous than their predecessors, but
possessed of superior iron weapons---those tribes which later
Greek tradition and Homer knew as the Dorians. They crushed
a civilization already hard hit; and it took two or three
centuries for the artistic spirit, instinct in the Aegean area,
and probably preserved in suspended animation by the survival
of Aegean racial elements, to blossom anew. On this conquest
seems to have ensued a long period of unrest and popular
movements, known to Greek tradition as the Ionian Migration
and the Aeolic and Dorian ``colonizations''; and when once more
we see the Aegean area clearly, it is dominated by Hellenes,
though it has not lost all memory of its earlier culture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Much of the evidence is contained in
archaeological periodicals, especially Annual of the British
School at Athens (1900--); Monumenti Antichi and Rendiconti
d. R. Ac. d. Lincei (1901--); Ephemeris Archaiologike
(1885- ); Journal of Hellenic Studies, Athenische
Mittheilungen, Bulletin de correspondance hellenique,
American Journal of Archaeology, &c. (all since about 1885).
SPECIAL WORKS: H. Schliemann's books (see SCHLIEMANN),
summarized by C. Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations
(1891); Chr. Tsountas, Mukenai (1893); Chr. Tsountas and
J. I. Manatt, the Mycenaean Age (1897); G. Perrot and Ch.
Chipiez, Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite, vol. vi.
(1895); W. Dorpfeld, Troja (1893) and Troja und Ilios
(1904); A. Furtwangler and G. Loschke, Mykenische
Vasen (1886); A. S. Murray, Excavations in Cyprus
(1900); W. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece (1901 foll.);
H. R. Hall, The Oldest Civilization of Greece (1901);
A. J. Evans, ``Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult'' in Journ.
Hell. Studies (1901) and ``Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos,' in
Archaeologia (1905) F. Noack, Homerische Palaste (1903);
Excavations at Phylakopi, by members of the British School
at Athens (1904); Harriet A. Boyd (Mrs Hawes), Excavations
at Gournia (1901) . D. G. Hogarth, ``Aegean Religion'' in
Hastings' Dict. of Religions (1906) For a recent view of
the place of Aegean civilization in the history of Hellenic
culture see Die Hellenische Kultur by F. Baumgarten, &c.
(1905). Various summaries, controversial articles, &c., formerly
quoted, are now superseded by recent discoveries. See also
CRETE, MYCENAE, TROAD, CERAMICS, PLATE, &c. (D. G. H.)
AEGEAN SEA, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, being the
archipelago between Greece on the west and Asia Minor on the east,
bounded N. by European Turkey, and connected by the Dardanelles
with the Sea of Marmora, and so with the Black Sea. The name
Archipelago (q.v.) was formerly applied specifically to this
sea. The origin of the namo Aegean is uncertain. Various
derivations are given by the ancient grammarians--one from
the town of Aegae; another from Aegea, a queen of the Amazons
who perished in this sea; and a third from Aegeus, the father
of Theseus, who, supposing his son dead, drowned himself in
it. The following are the chief islands: Thasos, in the
extreme north, off the Macedonian coast; Samothrace, fronting
the Gulf of Saros; Imbros and Lemnos, in prolongation of the
peninsula of Gallipoli ( Thracian Chersonese); Euboea, the
largest of all, lying close along the east coast of Greece;
the Northern Sporades, including Sciathos, Scopelos and
Halonesos, running out from the southern extremity of the
Thessalian coast, and Scyros, with its satellites, north-east
of Euboea; Lesbos and Chios; Samos and Nikaria; Cos, with
Calymnos to the north; all off Asia Minor, with the many
other islands of the Sporades; and, finally, the great group
of the Cyclades, of which the largest are Andros and Tenos,
Naxos and Paros. Many of the Aegean islands, or chains of
islands, are actually prolongations of promontories of the
mainland. Two main chains extend right across the sea---the
one through Scyros and Psara (between which shallow banks
intervene) to Chios and the hammer-shaped promontory east of
it; and the other running from the southeastern promontory
of Euboea and continuing the axis of that island, in a
southward curve through Andros, Tenos, Myconos, Nikaria and
Samos. A third curve, from the south easternmost promontory
of the Peloponnese through Cerigo, Ctete, Carpathos and
Rhodes, marks off the outer deeps of the open Mediterranean
from the shallow seas of the archipelago, but the Cretan
Sea, in which depths occur over 1000 fathoms, intervenes,
north of the line, between it and the Aegean proper. The
Aegotu itself is naturally divided by the island-chains and
the ridges from which they rise into a series of basins or
troughs, the 8leepest of which is that in the north, extending
from the coast of Thessaly fo the Gulf of Saros, and demarcated
southward by the Northern Sporades, Lemnos, Imbros and the
peninsula of Gallipoli. The greater part of ths trough is
over 600 fathoms deep. The profusion of islands and their
usually bold elevation give beauty and picturesqueness to
the sea, but its navigation is difficult and dangerous,
notwithstanding the large number of safe and commodious gulfs and
bays. Many of the islands are of volcanic formation; and
a well-defined volcanic chain bounds the Cretan Sea on the
north, including Milo and foimolos, Santorin (Thera) and
Therasia, and extends to Nisyros. Others, such as Paros, are
mainly composed of marble, and iron ore occurs in some. The
larger islands have some fertile and well-watered valleys and
plains. The chief productions are wheat, wine, oil, mastic,
figs, raisins, honey, wax, cotton and silk. The people are
employed in fishing for coral and sponges, as well as for
bream, mullet and other fish. The men are hardy, well built
and handsome; and the women are noted for their beauty, the
ancient Greek type being well preserved. The Cyclades and
Northern Sporades, with Euboea and small islands under the
Greek shore, belong to Greece; the other islands to Turkey.
AEGEUS, in Greek legend, son of Pandion and grandson of Cecrops,
was king of Athens and the father of Theseus. He was deposed
by his nephews, but Theseus defeated them and reinstated his
father. When Theseus set out for Crete to deliver Athens from
the tribute to the Minotaur he promised Aegeus that, if he were
successful, he would change the black sail carried by his ship
for a white one. But, on his return, he forgot to hoist the
white sail, and his father, supposing that his son had lost his
life, threw himself from a high rock on which he was, keeping
watch into the sea, which was afterwards called the Aegean.
The Athenians honoured him with a statue and a shrine, and one
of the Attic demes was named after him. Plutarch, Theseus;
Pausanias i. 22; Hyginus, Fab. 43; Catullus lxiv. 207.
AEGINA (EGINA or ENGIA), an island of Greece in the Saronic
Gulf, 20 m. from the Peiraeus Tradition derives the name from
Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the
island. In Shape Aegina is triangular, 8 m. long from
N.W. to S.E., and 6 m. broad, with an area of about 41 sq.
m. The western side consists of stony but fertile plains,
which are well cultivated and produce luxuriant crops of
grain, with some cotton, vines, almonds and figs. The rest
of the island is rugged and mountainous. The southern end
rises in the conical Mount Oros, and the Panhellenian ridge
stretches northward with narrow fertile valleys on either
side. From the absence of marshes the climate is the most
healthy in Greece. The island forms part of the modern
Uomos of Attica and Boeotia, of which it forms an eparchy.
The sponge fisheries are of considerable importance. The
chief town is Aegina, situated at the north-west end of the
island, the summer residence of many Athenian merchants. Capo
d'Istria, to whom there is a statue in the principal square,
erected there a large building, intended for a barracks,
which was subsequently used as a museum, a library and a
school. The museum was the first institution of its kind in
Greece, but the collection was transferred to Athens in 1834.
Antiquities.--The archaeological interest of Aegina is
centred in the well-known temlple on the ridge near the northern
corner of the island. Excavations were made on its site in
1811 by Baron Haller von Hallerstein and the English architect
C. R. Cockerell, who discovered a considerable amount of
sculpture from the pediments, which was bought in 1812 by the
crown prince Louis of Bavaria; the groups were set up in the
Glyptothek at Munich after the figures had been restored by B.
Thorvaldsen. Their restoration was somewhat drastic, the ancient
parts being cut away to allow of additions in marble, and the
new parts treated in imitation of the ancient weathering.
Various conjectures were made as to the arrangement of the
figures. That according to which they were set up at Munich
was in the main suggested by Cockerell; in the middle of each
pediment was a figure of Athena, set well back, and a fallen
warrior at her feet; on each side were standing spearmen, kneel
ing spearmen and bowmen, all facing towards the centre of the
composition; the corners were filled with fallen warriors. In
1901 Professor Furtwangler began a more systematic excavation
of the site, and the new discoveries he then made, together
with a fresh and complete study of the figures and fragments
in Munich, have led to a rearrangement of the whole, which,
if not certain in all details, may be regarded as approaching
finality. According to this the figures of combatants do not
all face towards the centre, but are broken up, as in other
early compositions, into a series of groups of two or three
figures each. A figure of Athena still occupies the centre
of each pediment, but is set farther forward than in the old
reconstruction. On each side of this, in the western pediment,
is a group of two combatants over a fallen warrior; in the
eastern pediment, a warrior whose opponent is falling into the
arms of a supporting figure; other figures also--the bowmen
especially---face towards the angles, and so give more variety
to the composition. The western pediment, which is more
conservative in type, represents the earlier expedition of
Heracles and Telamon against Troy; the eastern, which is bolder
and more advanced, probably refers to episodes in the Trojan
war. There are also remains of a third pediment, which may
have been produced in competition, but never placed on the
temple. For the character of the sculptures see GREEK ART. The
plan of the temple is chiefly remarkable for the unsymmetrically
placed door leading from the back of the cella into the
opisthodomus. This opisthodomus was completely fenced in
with bronze gratings; and the excavators believe it to have
been adapted for use as an adytum (shrine). It was disputed
in earlier times whether the temple was dedicated to Zeus or
Athena. Inscriptions found by the recent excavations seem to
prove that it must be identified as the shrine of the local goddess
Aphaea, identified by Pausanias with Britomartis and Dictynna.
The excavations have laid bare several other buildings,
including an altar, early propylaea, houses for the
priests and remains of an earlier temple. The present
temple probably dates from the time of the Persian wars.
In the town of Aegina itself are the remains of another
temple, dedicated to Aphrodite; one column of this still
remains standing, and its foundations are fairly preserved.
AUTHORITIES.--Antiquities of Ionia (London, 1797), ii. pl.
ii.-vii.; C. R. Cockerell, The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at
Aegina, &c. (London, 186O); Ch. Gareier, Le Temple de Jupiter
Panhellenien a Egine (Paris, 1884); Ad. Furtwangler and
others, Aegina, Heiligtum der App Munich, 1906), where
earlier authorities are collected and discussed. (E. GR.)
History.--(1) Ancient. Aegina, according to Herodotus (v.
83), was a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally
subject. The discovery in the island of a number of gold
ornaments belonging to the latest period of Mycenaean art
suggests the inference that the Mycenaean culture held its own
in Aegina for some generations after the Dorian conquest of
Argos and Lacedaemon (see A. J. Evans, in Journal of Hellenic
Studies, vol. xiii. p. 195). It is probable that the island
was not dorized before the 9th century B.C. One of the
earliest facts known to us in its history is its membership
in the League of Cabauria, which included, besides Aegina,
Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenos, Troezen, Hermione,
Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization of states
which were still Mycenaean, for the oppression of the piracy
which had sprung up in the Aegean as a result of the decay
of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes. It follows,
therefore, that the maritime importance of the island dates back
to pre-Dorian times. It is usually stated on the authority of
Ephorus, that Pheidon (q.v.) of Argos established a mint in
Aegina. Though this statement is probably to be rejected,
it may be regarded as certain that Aegina was the first state
of European Greece to coin money. Thus it was the Aeginetans
who, within thirty or forty years of the invention of coinage
by the Lydians (c. 700 B.C.), introduced to the western
world a system of such incalculable value to trade. The fact
that the Aeginetan scale of coins, weights and measures was
one of the two scales in general use in the Greek world is
sufficient evidence of the early commercial importance of the
island. It appears to have belonged to the Eretrian league;
hence, perhaps, we may explain the war with Samos, a leading
member of the rival Chalcidian league in the reign of King
Amphicrates (Herod. iii. 59), i.e. not later than the
earlier half of the 7th century B.C. In the next century
Aegina is one of the three principal states trading at the
emporium of Naucratis (q.v.), and it is the only state of
European Greece that has a share in this factory (Herod. ii.
178). At the beginning of the 5th century it seems to have
been an entrepot of the Pontic grain trade, at a later date
an Athenian monopoly (Herod. vii. 147). Unlike the other
commercial states of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., e.g.
Corinth, Chalcis, Eretria and Miletus, Aegina founded no
colonies. The settlements to which Strabo refers (viii. 376)
cannot be regarded as any real exceptions to this statement.
The history of Aegina, as it has come down to us, is almost
exclusively a history of its relations with the neighbouring
state of Athens. The history of these relations, as recorded
by Herodotus (v. 79-89; vi. 49-51, 73, 85-94), involve
critical problems of some difficulty and interest. He
traces back the hostility of the two states to a dispute
about the images of the goddesses Damia and Auxesia, which
the Aeginetans had carried off from Epidaurus, their parent
state. The Epidaurians had been accustomed to make annual
offerings to the Athenian deities Athena and Erechtheus in
payment for the Athenian olive-wood of which the statues were
made. Upon the refusal of the Aeginetans to continue these
offerings, the Athenians endeavoured to carry away the images.
Their design was miraculously frustrated---according to the
Aeginetan version, the statues fell upon their knees---and only
a single survivor returned to Athens, there to fall a victim
to the fury of his comrades' widows, who pierced him with their
brooch-pins. No date is assigned by Herodotus for this ``old
feud''; recent writers, e.g. J. B. Bury and R. W. Macan,
suggest the period between Solon and Peisistratus, c. 570
B.C.. It may be questioned, however, whether the whole
episode is not mythical. A critical analysis of the narrative
seems to reveal little else than a series of aetiological
traditions (explanatory of cults and customs, e.g. of the
kneeling posture of the images of Damia and Auxesia, of the
use of native ware instead of Athenian in their worship, and
of the change in women's dress at Athens from the Dorian to
the Ionian style. Thc account which Herodotus gives of the
hostilities between the two states in the early years of the
5th century B.C. is to the following effect. Thebes, after
the defeat by Athens about 507 B.C., appealed to Aegina for
assistance. The Aeginetans at first contented themselves
with sending the images of the Aeacidae, the tutelary heroes
of their island. Subsequently, however, they entered into an
alliance, and ravaged the sea-board of Attica. The Athenians
were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of
the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking
Aegina for thirty years, and content themselves meanwhile
with dedicating a precinct to Aeacus, when their projects were
interrupted by the Spartan intrigues for the restoration of
Hippias. In 401 B.C. Aegina was one of the states which gave
the symbols of submission (``earth and water'') to Persia.
Athens at once appealed to Sparta to punish this act of medism,
and Cleomenes I. (q.v.), one of the Spartan kings, crossed
over to the island, to arrest those who were responsible for
it. His attempt was at first unsuccessful; but, after the
deposition of Demaratus, he visited the island a second
time, accompanied by his new colleague Leotychides, seized
ten of the leading citizens and deposited them at Athens as
hostages. After the death of Cleomenes and the refusal of
the Athenians to restore the hostages to Leotychides, the
Aeginetans retaliated by seizing a number of Athenians at a
festival at Sunium. Thereupon the Athenians concerted a plot
with Nicodromus, the leader of the democratic party in the
island, for the betrayal of Aegina. He was to seize the old
city, and they were to come to his aid on the same day with
seventy vessels. The plot failed owing to the late arrival
of the Athenian force, when Nicodromus had already fled the
island. An engagement followed in which the Aeginetans were
defeated. Subsequently, however, they succeeded in winning
a victory over the Athenian fleet. Alf the incidents
subsequent to the appeal of Athens to Sparta are expressly
referred by Herodotus to the interval between the sending
of the heralds in 491 B.C. and the invasion of Datis and
Artaphernes in 490 B.C. (cf. Herod. vi. 49 with 94). There
are difficulties in this story, of which the following are
the principal:--(i.) Herodotus nowhere states or implies that
peace was concluded between the two states before 481 B.C.,
nor does he distinguish between different wars during this
period. Hence it would follow that the war lasted from
shortly after 507 B.C. down to the congress at the Isthmus
of Corinth in 481 B.C. (ii.) It is only for two years
(490 and 491) out of the twenty-five that any details are
given. It is the more remarkable that no incidents are
recorded in the period between Marathon and Sabamis, seeing
that at the time of the Isthmian Congress the war is described
as the most important one then being waged in Greece (Herod.
vii. 145). (iii.) It is improbable that Athens would have
sent twenty vessels to the aid of the Ionians in 498 B.C.
if at the time she was at war with Aegina. (iv.) There is
an incidental indication of time, which points to the period
after Marathon as the true date for the events which are
referred by Herodotus to the year before Marathon, viz. the
thirty years that were to elapse between the dedication of
the precinct to Aeacus and the final victory of Athens (Herod.
v. 89). As the final victory of Athens over Aegina was in 458
B.C., the thirty years of the oracle would carry us back
to the year 488 B.C. as the date of the dedication of the
precinct and the outbreak of hostilities. This inference
is supported by the date of the building of the 200 triremes
``for the war against Aegina'' on the advice of Themistocles,
which is given in the Constitutiom of Athens as 483-482
B.C. (Herod. vii. 144; Ath. Pol. r2. 7). It is probable,
therefore, that Herodotus is in error both in tracing back
the beginning of hostilities to an alliance between Thebes and
Aegina (c. 507) and in putting the episode of Nicodromus before
Marathon. Overtures were unquestionably made by Thebes for
an alliance with Aegina c. 507 B.C., but they came to
nothing. The refusal of Aegina was veiled under the diplomatic
form of ``sending the Aeacidae.'' The real occasion of the
outbreak of the war was the refusal of Athens to restore the
hostages some twenty years later. There was but one war, and
it lasted from 488 to 481. That Athens had the worst of it in
this war is certain. Herodotus had no Athenian victories to
record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles
was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of
the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply
that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme
effort was necessary. It may be noted, in confirmation of
this view, that the naval supremacy of Aegina is assigned by
the ancient writers on chronology to precisely this period,
i.e. the years 490-480 (Eusebius, Chron. Can. p. 337).
In the repulse of Xerxes it is possible that the Aeginetans
played a larger part than is conceded to them by Herodotus.
The Athenian tradition, which he follows in the main, would
naturally seek to obscure their services. It was to Aegina
rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was
awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to
have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of
the Athenian (Herod. viii. 91). There are other indications,
too, of the importance of the Aeginetan fleet in the Greek
scheme of defence. In view of these considerations it becomes
difficult to credit the number of the vessels that is assigned
to them by Herodotus (30 as against 180 Athenian vessels,
cf. GREEK HISTORY, sect. Authorities). During the
next twenty years the Philo-laconian policy of Cimon (q.v.)
secured Aegina, as a member of the Spartan league, from
attack. The change in Athenian foreign policy, which was
consequent upon the ostracism of Cimon in 461, led to what
is sometimes called the First Peloponnesian War, in which
the brunt of the fighting fell upon Corinth and Aegina.
The latter state was forced to surrender to Athens after a
siege, and to accept the position of a subject-ally (c. 456
B.C.). The tribute was fixed at 30 talents. By the terms
of the Thirty Years' Truce (445 B.C.) Athens covenanted to
restore to Aegina her autonomy, but the clause remained a dead
letter. In the first winter of the Peloponnesian War (431
B.C.) Athens expelled the Aeginetans, and established a
cleruchy in their island. The exiles were settled by Sparta in
Thyreatis, on the frontiers of Laconia and Argolis. Even in
their new home they were not safe from Athenian rancour.1 A
force landed under Nicias in 424, and put most of them to the
sword. At the end of the Peloponnesian War Lysander restored
the scattered remnants of the old inhabitants to the island,
which was used by the Spartans as a base for operations against
Athens in the Corinthian War. Its greatness, however, was at an
end. The part which it plays henceforward is insignificant.
It would be a mistake to attribute the fall of Aegina solely
to the development of the Athenian navy. It is probable that
the powor of Aegina had steadily declined during the twenty
years after Sabamis, and that it had declined absolutely,
as well as relatively, to that of Athens. Commerce was the
source of Aegina's greatness, and her trade, which appears
to have been principally with the Levant, must have suffered
seriously from the war with Persia. Her medism in 491 is
to be explained by her commercial relations with the Persian
Empire. She was forced into patriotism in spite of herself,
and the glory won by Salamis was paid for by the loss of
her trade and the decay of her marine. The completeness
of the ruin of so powerful a state--we should look in
vain for an analogous case in the history of the modern
world--finds an explanation in the economic conditions of
the island, the prosperity of which rested upon a basis of
slave-labour. It is impossible, indeed, to accept
Aristotle's (cf. Athenaeus vi. 272) estimate of 470,000 as the
1Pericles called Aegina the ``eye-sore'' (leme) of the Peiraeus.
number of the slave-population; it is clear, however, that
the number must have been out of all proportion to that of
the free inhabitants. In this respect the history of Aegina
does but anticipate the history of Greece as a whole. The
constitutional history of Aegina is unusually simple. So long
as the island retained its independence the government was an
oligarchy. There is no trace of the heroic monarchy and no
tradition of a tyrannis. The story of Nicodromus, while
it proves the existence of a democratic party, suggests,
at the same time, that it could count upon little support.
(2) Modern.---Aegina passed with the rest of Greece under
the successive dominations of Macedon, the Aetolians, Attalus
of Pergamum and Rome. In 1537 the island, then a prosperous
Venetian colony, was overrun and ruined by the pirate Barbarossa
(Khair-ed-Din). One of the last Venetian strongholds in the
Levant, it was ceded by the treaty of Passarowitz (1718)
to the Turks. In 1826-1828 the town became for a time
the capital of Greece and the centre of a large commercial
population (about 10,000), which has dwindled to about 4300.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.---Herodotus loc. cit.; Thucydides i. 105,
108, ii. 27, iv. 56, 57. For the criticism of Herodotus's
account of the relations of Athens and Aegina, Wilamowitz,
Aristoteles und Athen, ii. 280-288, is indispensable. See
also Macan, Herodotus iv.-vi., ii. 102-120. (E. M. W.)
AEGINETA, PAULUS, a celebrated surgeon of the island of
Aegina, whence he derived his name. According to Le Clerc's
calculation, he lived in the 4th century of the Christian era;
but Abulfaragius (Barhebraeus) places him with more probability
in the 7th. The title of his most important work, as given by
Suidas, is Epitomes 'Iatrikes Biblia 'Epta (Synopsis
of Medicine in Seven Books), the 6th book of which, treating
of operative surgery, is of special interest for surgical
history. The whole work in the original Greek was published at
Venice in 1528, and another edition appeared at Basel in 1538.
Several Latin translations have been published, and an excellent
English version, with commentary, by Dr F. Adams (1844-1848).
AEGIS (Gr. Aigis), in Homer, the shield or buckler of
Zeus, fashioned for him by Hephaestus, furnished with tassels
and bearing the Gorgon's head in the centre. Originally
symbolical of the storm-cloud, it is probably derived from
aisso, signifying rapid, violent motion. When the god
shakes it, Mount Ida is wrapped in clouds, the thunder rolls
and men are smitten with fear. He sometimes lends it to
Athene and (rarely) to Apollo. In the later story (Hyginus,
Poet. Astronom. ii. 13) Zeus is said to have used the
skin of the goat Amaltheia (aigis=goat-skin) which suckled
him in Crete, as a buckler when he went forth to do battle
against the giants. Another legend represents the aegis as a
fire-breathing monster like the Chimaera, which was slain by
Athene, who afterwards wore its skin as a cuirass (Diodorus
Siculus iii. 70) It appears to have been really the goat's
skin used as a belt to support the shield. When so used it
would generally be fastened on the right shoulder, and would
partially envelop the chest as it passed obliquely round in
front and behind to be attached to the shield under the left
arm. Hence, by transference, it would be employed to denote
at times the shield which it supported, and at other times a
cuirass, the purpose of which it in part served. In accordance
with this double meaning the aegis appears in works of art
sometimes as an animal's skin thrown over the shoulders and arms,
sometimes as a cuirass, with a border of snakes corresponding
to the tassels of Homer, usually with the Gorgon's head in the
centre. It is often represented on the statues of Roman
emperors, heroes and warriors, and on cameos and vases.
See F. G. Welcker, Griechische Gotterlehre (1857); L. Freller,
Griechische Mythologie, i. (1887); articles in Pauly-Wissowa's
Real Encyclopadie, Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie
Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des Antiquites, and Smith's
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 1890).
AEGISTHUS, in Greek legend, was the son of Thyestes by his Own
daughter Pelopia. Having been exposed by his mother to conceal her
shame, he was found by shepherds and suckled by a goat-whence his
name. His uncle Atreus, who had married Pelopia, took him to
Mycenae, and brought him up as his own son. When he grew up
Aegisthus slew Atreus, and ruled jointly with his father over
Mycenae, until they were deposed by Agamemnon on his return
from exile. After the departure of Agamemnon to the Trojan
war, Aegisthus seduced his wife Clytaemnestra (more correctly
Clytaemestra) and with her assistance slew him on his return.
Eight years later his murder was avenged by his son Orestes.
Homer, Od. iii. 263, iv. 517; Hyginus, Fab. 87.
AEGOSPOTAMI (i.e. ``Goat Streams''), a small creek issuing
into the Hellespont, N.E. of Sestos, the scene of the decisive
battle in 405 B.C. by which Lysander destroyed the last
Athenian armament in the Peloponnesian War (q.v.). The
township of that name, whose existence is attested by coins of
the 5th and 4th centuries, must have been quite insignificant.
AEFRIC, called the ``Grammarian'' (c. 955-1020?), English
abbot and author, was born about 955. He was educated in the
Benedictine monastery at Winchester under AEthelwold, who
was bishop there from 963 to 984. AEthelwold had Carried
on the tradition of Dunstan in his government of the abbey
of Abingdon, and at Winchester he continued his strenuous
efforts. He seems to have actually taken part in the work
of teaching. AElfric no doubt gained some reputation as a
scholar at Winchester, for when, in 987, the abbey of Cernel
(Cerne Abbas, Dorsetshire) was finished, he was sent by Bishop
AElfheah (Alphege), AEthelwold's successor, at the request of
the chief benefactor of the abbey, the ealdorman AEthelmaer, to
teach the Benedictine monks there. He was then in priest's
orders. AEthelmaer and his father AEthelweard were both
enlightened patrons of learning, and became AElfric's faithful
friends. It was at Cernel, and partly at the desire, it
appears, of AEthelweard, that he planned the two series
of his English homilies (ed. Benjamin Thorpe, 1844--1846,
for the AElfric Society), come piled from the Christian
fathers, and dedicated to Sigeric, archbishop of Canterbury
(990-994). The Latin preface to the first series enumerates
some of AElfric's authorities, the chief of whom was Gregory the
Great, but the short hst there given by no means exhausts the
authors whom he consulted. In the preface to the first volume
he regrets that except for Alfred's translations Englishmen had
no means of learning the true doctrine as expounded by the Latin
fathers. Professor Earle (A.S. Literature, 1884) thinks
he aimed at correcting the apocryphal, and to modern ideas
superstitious, teaching of the earlier Blickling Homilies.
The first series of forty homilies is devoted to plain and
direct exposition of the chief events of the Christian year;
the second deals more fully with church doctrine and history,
AElfric denied the immaculate birth of the Virgin (Homilies,
ed. Thorpe, ii. 466), and his teaching on the Eucharist in the
Canons and in the Sermo de sacrificio in die pascae (ibid.
ii. 262 seq.) was appealed to by the Reformation writers as
a proof that the early English church did not hold the Roman
doctrine of transubstantiation.1 His Latin Grammar and
Glossary 2 were written for his pupils after the two books of
homilies. A third series of homilies, the Lives of the
Saints, dates from 906 to 997. Some of the sermons in the second
series had been written in a kind of rhythmical, alliterative
prose, and in the Lives of the Saints (ed. W. W. Skeat,
1881-1900, for the Early English Text Society) the practice is
so regular that most of them are arranged as verse by Professor
Skeat. By the wish of AEthelweard he also began a paraphrase
3 of parts of the Old Testament, but under protest, for the
stories related in it were not, he thought, suitable for simple
minds. There is no certain proof that he remained at Cernel.
It has been suggested that this part of his life was chiefly
spent at Winchester; but his writings for the patrons of
Cernel, and the fact that he wrote in 998 his Canons 4 as
a pastoral letter for Wulfsige, the bishop of Sherborne, the
diocese in which the abbey was situated, afford presumption
of continued residence there. He became in 1005 the first
abbot of Eynsham or Ensham, near Oxford, another foundation of
AEthelmaer's. After his elevation he wrote an abridgment
for his monks of AEthelwold's De consuetudine monachorum5,
adapted to their rudimentary ideas of monastic life; a letter
to Wulfgeat of Ylmandun6; an introduction to the study of the
Old and New Testaments (about 1008, edited by William L'Isle
in 1623); a Latin life of his master AEthelwold7; a pastoral
letter for Wulfstan, archbishop of York and bishop of Worcester,
in Latin and English; and an English version of Bede's De
Temporibus8. The Colloquium9, a Latin dialogue designed
to serve his scholars as a manual of Latin conversation, may
date from his life at Cernel. It is safe to assume that the
original draft of this, afterwards enlarged by his pupil,
AElfric Bata, was by AElfric, and represents what his own
scholar days were like. The last mention of AElfric Abbot,
probably the grammarian, is in a will dating from about 1020.
There have been three suppositions about AElfric. (1) He
was identified with AElfric (995--1005), archbishop of
Canterbury. This view was upheld by John Bale (III. Maj.
Bril. Scriptorum 2nd ed., Basel, 1557-1559; vol. i. p.
149, s.v, Alfric); by Humphrey Wanley (Catalogus librorum
septentrionalium, &c., Oxford, 1705, forming vol. ii. of
George Hickes's Antiquae literaturae septemtrionalis); by
Elizabeth Elstob, The English Saxon Homily on the Birthday
of St Gregory (1709; new edition, 1839); and by Edward Rowe
Mores, AElfrico, Dorobernensi, archiepiscopo, Commentarius
(ed. G. J. Thorkelin, 1789), in which the conclusions of earlier
writers on AElfric are reviewed. Mores made him abbot of St
Augustine's at Dover, and finally archbishop of Canterbury.
(2) Sir Henry Spelman, in his Concina . . .(1639, vol. i.
p. 583), printed the Canones ad Wulsinum episcopum, and
suggested AElfric Putta or Putto, archbishop of York, as the
author, adding some note of others bearing the name. The
identity of AElfric the grammarian with AElfric archbishop of
York was also discussed by Henry Wharton, in Anglia Sacra
(1691, vol. i. pp. 125-134), in a dissertation reprinted in
J. P. Migne's Patrologia (vol. 139, pp. 1459-70, Paris,
1853). (3) William of Malmesbuty (De gestis pontificum
Anglorum, ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, p.
406) suggested that he was abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of
Crediton. The main facts of his career were finally
elucidated by Eduard Dietrich in a series of articles
contributed to C. W. Niedner's Zeitschrift fur historische
Theologie (vols. for 1855 and 1856, Gotha), which have
formed the basis of all subsequent writings on the subject.
Sketches of AElfric's career are in B. Ten Brink's Early
English Literature (to Wiclif) (trans. H. M. Kennedy,
New York, 1883, pp. 105-112), and by J. S. Westlake in The
Cambridge History of English Literature (vol. i., 1907, pp.
116-129). An excellent bibliography and account of the
critical apparatus is given in Dr R. Wulker's Grundriss
zur Geschichte der angelsachsischen Litteratur (Leipzig,
1885; pp. 452-480). See also the account by Professor Skeat
in Pt. iv. pp. 8-61 of his edition of the Lives of the
Saints, already cited, which gives a full account of the
MSS., and a discussion of AElfric's sources, with further
bibliographical references; and AElfric, a New Study of his
Life and Writings, by Miss C. L. White (Boston, New York and
London, 1898) in the ``Yale Studies in English.'' Alcuini
Interrogationes Sigewulfi Presebyteri in Genesin (ed. G.
E. McLean, Halle, 1883) is attributed to AElfric by its
editor. There are other isolated sermons and treatises by
AElfric, printed in vol. iii. of Grein's Bibl. v. A.S. Prosa.
1 See A Testimonie of Antiquitie, shewing the auncient
fayth in the Church of England touching the sacrament of
the body and bloude of the Lord here publikely preached,
printed by John Day (1567). It was quoted in John Foxe's
Actes and Monuments (ed. 1610)) 2 Ed. J. Zupitza in
Sammlung englischer Denkmaler (vol. i., Berlin, 1880).
3 Edited by Edward Thwaites as Heptateuchus (Oxford 1698);
modern edition in Grein's Bibliothek der A. S. Prosa (vol.
i. Cassel and Gottingen, 1872). See also B. Assmann, Abt
AElfric's . . . Esther (Halle, 1885), and Abt AElfric's Judith
(in Anglia, vol. x.). 4 Printed by Benjamin Thorpe in
Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (1840), with the
later pastoral for Wulfstan. 5 See E. Breck, A Fragment
of AElfric; translation of AEthelwold's De Consuetudine
Monachorum and its relation to other MSS. (Leipzig 1887).
6 Ilmington, on the borders of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire.
7 Included by J. Stevenson in the Chron. Monast. de Abingon
(vol. ii. pp. 253-266, Rolls Series, 1858). 8 See Oswald
Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft (vol. iii.,
1866, pp. xiv.-xix. and pp. 233 et. seq.) in the Rolls
Series. 9 See an article by J. Zupitza in the Zeitschrift
fur deutsches Altertum (vol. xix., new series, 1887).
AELIA CAPITOLINA, the city built by the emperor Hadrian,
A.D. 131, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of
Jerusalem (q.v.), which was in ruins when he visited his
Syrian dominions. Aelia is derived from the emperor's family
name, and Capilolina from that of Jupiter Capitolinus, to
whom a temple was built on the site of the Jewish temple.
AELIAN (AELIANUS TACTICUS), Greek military writer of
the 2nd century A.D., resident at Rome. He is sometimes
confused with Claudius Aelianus, the Roman writer referred to
below. Aelian's military treatise, Taktike Theoria, is
dedicated to Hadrian, though this is probably a mistake for
Trajan, and the date A.D. 106 has been assigned to it. It
is a handbook of Greek, i.e. Macedonian, drill and tactics
as practised by the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the
Great. The author claims to have consulted all the best
authorities, the chief of which was a lost treatise on the
subject by Polybius. Perhaps the chief value of Aelian's work
lies in his critical account of preceding works on the art of
war, and in the fulness of his technical details in matters of
drill. Critics of the 18th century---Guichard Folard and the
prince de Ligne--were unanimous in thinking Aelian greatly
inferior to Arrian, but both on his immediate successors, the
Byzantines, and on the Arabs, who translated the text for their
own use, Aelian exercised a great influence. The emperor Leo
VI. incorporated much of Aelian's text in his own work on the
military art. The Arabic version of Aelian was made about
1350. In spite of its academic nature, the copious details
to be found in the treatise rendered it of the highest value
to the army organizers of the 16th century, who were engaged
in fashioning a regular military system out of the semi-feudal
systems of previous generations. The Macedonian phalanx of
Aelian had many points of resemblance to the solid masses
of pikemen and the ``squadrons'' of cavalry of the Spanish
and Dutch systems, and the translations made in the 16th
century formed the groundwork of numerous books on drill and
tactics. Moreover, his works, with those of Xenophon,
Polybius, Aeneas and Arrian, were minutely studied by
every soldier of the 16th and 17th centuries who wished to
be master of his profession. It has been suggested that
Aellan was the real author of most of Arrian's Tactica,
and that the Taktike Theoria is a later revision of
this original, but the theory is not generally accepted.
The first edition of the Greek text is that of Robortelli
(Venice, 1552); the Elzevir text (Leiden, 1613) has
notes. The text in W. Rustow and H. Kochly's Gricchische
Kriegsschriftsteller (1855) is accompanied by a translation,
notes and reproductions of the original illustrations.
A Latin translation by Theodore Gaza of Thessalonica was
included in the famous collection Veteres de re mililari
scriptores (Rome and Venice, 1487, Cologne, 1528,
&c.). The French translation of Machault, included in his
Milices des Grecs et Romains (Paris, 1615) and entitled
De la Sergenterie des Grecs, a German translation from
Theodore Gaza (Cologne, 1524), and the English version of
Jo. B(ingham), which includes a drill-manual of the English
troops in the Dutch service, Tacticks of Aelian (London,
1616) are of importance in the military literature of the
period. A later French translation by Bouchard de Bussy.
La Milice des Grecs on Tactique d'Elien (Paris 1737 and
1757); Baumgartner's German translation in his incomplete
Sammlung aller Kriegsschriftsteller der Griechen (Mannheim and
Frankenthal, 1779), reproduced in 1786 as Von Schlachtordnungen,
and Viscount Dillon's English version (London, 1814) may
also be mentioned. See also R. Forster, Studien zu den
griechischen Taktikern (Hermes, xii., 1877, pp. 444-449);
F. Wustenfeld, Das Heerwesen der Muhammedaner und die
arabische Uebersetzung der Taktik des Aelianus (Gottingen,
1880); M. Jahns, Gesch. der Kriegswissenscharen, i. 95-97
(Munich, 1889); Rustow and Kochly, Gesch. des griechischen
Kriegswesens (1852). A. de Lort-Serignan, La Phalange
(1880); P. Serre, Etudes sur L'histoire militaire et
maritime des Grecs et des Romains (1887); K. K. Muller,
in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie (Stuttgart, 1894).
AELIAN (CLAUDIUS AELIANUS), Roman author and teacher of
rhetoric, born at Praeneste, flourished under Septimius Severus
and probably outlived Elagabalus (d. 222). He spoke Greek so
perfectly that he was called ``honey-tongued'' (meliglossos);
Although a Roman he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in Greek
himself. His chief works are: On the Nature of Animals,
curious and interesting stories of animal life, frequently
used to convey moral lessons (ed. Schneider, 1784; Jacobs,
1832); Various History-for the most part preserved only in
an abridged form--consisting mainly of anecdotes of men and
customs (ed. Lunemann, 1811). Both works are valuable for the
numerous excerpts from older writers. Considerable fragments
of two other works On Providence and Divine Manifestations
are preserved in Suidas; twenty Peasants' Letters, after the
manner of Alciphron but inferior, are also attributed to him.
Editio princeps of complete works by Gesner, 1556; Hercher,
1864-1866. English translation of the Various History only by Fleming,
1576, and Stanley, 1665; of the Letters by Quillard (French), 1895.
AELRED, AILRED, ETHELRED (1100-1166), English theologian,
historical writer and abbot of Rievaulx, was born at Hexham
about the year 1109. In his youth he was at the court of
Scotland as an attendant of Henry, son of David I. He was in
high favour with that sovereign, but renounced the prospect
of a bishopric to enter the Cistercian house of Rievaulx in
Yorkshire, which was founded in 1131 by Walter Espec. Here
AElred remained for some time as master of the novices, but
between the years 1142 and 1146 was elected abbot of Revesby in
Lincolnshire and migrated thither. In 1146 he became abbot of
Rievaulx. He led a life of the severest asceticism, and was
credited with the power of working miracles; owing to his
reputation the numbers of Rievaulx were greatly increased.
In 1164 he went as a missionary to the Picts of Galloway. He
found their religion at a low ebb, the regular clergy apathetic
and sensual, the bishop little obeyed, the laity divided by
tho family feuds of their rulers, unchaste and ignorant. He
induced a Galwegian chief to take the habit of religion, and
restored the peace of the country. Two years later he died
of a decline, at Rievaulx, in the fifty-seventh year of his
age. In the year 1191 he was canonized. His writings are
voluminous and have never been completely published. Amongst
them are homilies ``on the burden of Babylon in Isaiah'';
three books ``on spiritual friendship''; a life of Edward the
Confessor; an account of miracles wrought at Hexham, and the
tract called Relatio de Standardo. This last is an account
of the Battle of the Standard (1138), better blown than the
similar account by Richard of Hexham, but less trustworthy,
and in places obscured by a peculiarly turgid rhetoric.
See the Vita Alredi in John of Tynemouth's Nova Legenda
Anglie (ed. C. Horstmann, 1901, vol. i. p. 4i), whence it
was taken by Capgrave. From Capgrave the work passed into
the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (Jan. ii p. 30). This life is
anonymous, but of an early date. The most complete printed
collection of AElred's works is in Migne's Patrologia
Latina, vol. cxcv.; but this does not include the Miracula
Hagulstatdensis Ecclesiae which are printed in J. Raine's
Priory of Hexham, vol. i. (Surtees Society, 1864).--A
complete list of works attributed to AElred is given in
T. Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica (1748), pp.
247,248. The Relatio de Standardo has been critically edited
by R. Howlett in Chronicles, &c., of Stephen, Henry II. and
Richard I., vol. iii. (Rolls Series, 1886). . (H. W. C. D.)
AEMILIA VIA, or AEMILIAN WAY. (1) A highroad of Italy,
constructed in 187 B.C. by the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus,
from whom it taves its name; it ran from Ariminum to Placentia,
a distance of 176 m. almost straight N.W., with the plain
of the Po (Padus) and its tributaries on the right, and the
Apennines on the left. The 79th milestone from Ariminum found
in the bed of the Phenus at Bononia records the restoration
of the road by Augustus from Ariminum to the river Trebia in
2 B.C. (Notiz. Scav., 1902, 539). The bridge by which
it crossed the Sillaro was restored by Trajan in A.D. 100
(Notizie degli Scavi, 1888, 621). The modern highroad
follows the ancient line, and some of the original bridges
still exist. After Augustus, the road gave its name to the
district which formed the eighth region of Italy (previously
known as Gallia or Provincia Ariminum), at first in popular
usage (as in Martial), but in official language as early
as the 2nd century; it is still in use (see EMILIA).
The district was bounded on the N. by the Padus, E. by the
Adriatic, S. by the river Crustumium (mod. Conca), and W.
by the Apennines and the Ira (mod. Staffora) at Iria (mod.
Voghera), and corresponds approximately with the modern district.
(2) A road constructed in 109 B.C. by the censor M.
Aemillus Scaurus from Vada Volaterrana and Luna to Vada Sabatia
and thence over the Apennines to Ilertona (Tortona), where
it joined the Via Postumia from Genua to Cremona. We must,
however (as Mommsen points out in C.I.L. v. p. 885), suppose
that the portion of the coast road from Vada Volaterrana to
Genua at least must have existed before the construction of
the Via Postumia in 148 B.C. Indeed Polybius (iii. 39. 8)
tells us (and this must refer to the time of the Gracchi if not
earlier) that the Romans had in his time built the coast road
from the Rhone to Carthago Nova; and it is incredible that the
coast road in Italy itself should not have been constructed
previously. It is, however, a very different thing to open
a road for traffic, and so to construct it that it takes
its name from that construction in perpetuity. (, As.)
AEMILIUS, PAULUS (PAOLO EMILIO ) (d. 1529), Italian
historian, was born at Verona. He obtained such reputation
in his own country that he was invited to France in the reign
of Charles VIII., in order to write in Latin the history
of the kings of France, and was presented to a canonry
in Notre Dame. He enjoyed the patronage and support of
Louis XII. He died at Paris on the 5th of May 1529. His
De Rebus gestis Francorum was translated into French in
1581, and has also been translated into Italian and German.
AENEAS, the famous Trojan hero, son of Anchises and Aphrodite,
one of the most important figures in Greek and Roman legendary
history. In Homer, he is represented as the chief bulwark
of the Trojans next to Hector, and the favourite of the gods,
who frequently interpose to save him from danger (Iliad, v.
311). The legend that he remained in the country after the
fall of Troy, and founded a new kingdom (Iliad, xx. 308;
Hymn to Aphrodite, 196) is now generally considered to be
of comparatively late origin. The story of his emigration is
post-Homeric, and set forth in its fullest development by
Virgil in the Aeneid. Carrying his aged father and household
gods on his back and leading his little son Ascanius by the
hand, he makes his way to the coast, his wife Creusa being
lost during the confusion of the flight. After a perilous
voyage to Thrace, Delos, Crete and Sicily (where his father
dies), he is cast up by a storm, sent by Juno, on the African
coast. Refusing to remain with Dido, queen of Carthage,
who in despair puts an end to her life, he sets sail from
Africa, and after seven years' wandering lands at the
mouth of the Tiber. He is hospitably received by Latinus,
king of Latium, is betrothed to his daughter Lavinia, and
founds a city called after her, Lavinium. Turnus, king of
Rutuli, a rejected suitor, takes up arms against him and
Latinus, but is defeated and slain by Aeneas on the river
Numicius. The story of the Aeneid ends with the death of
Turnus. According to (i. 1. 2), Aeneas, after reigning a few
years over Latium, is slain by the Rutuli; after the battle, his
body cannot be found, and he is supposed to have been carried
up to heaven. He receives divine honours, and is worshipped
under the name of Jupiter Indiges (Dionysius Halle. i. 64).
See J. A. Hild, La Legende d'Enee avant Vergile (1883);
F. Cauer, De Fabuls Graecis ad Romam conditum pertinentibus
(1884) and Die Romische Aeneassage, von Naevius bis
Vergilius (1886); G. Boissier, ``La Legende d'Enee'' in
Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept. 1883; A. Forstemann, Zur
Geschichte des Aeneasmythus (1894); articles in Pauly-Wissowa's
Realencyclopadie (new ed., 1894); Roscher's Lexicon
der Mythologie; Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire des
antiquites; Preller's Griechische und romische Mythologie;
and especially Schwegler, Romische Geschichte (1867).
Romances.---The story of Aeneas, as a sequel to the legend of
Troy, formed the subject of several epic romances in the middle
ages. The Roman d'Eneas (c. 1160, or later), of uncertain
authorship (attributed by some to Benoit de Sainte-More),
the first French poem directly imitated from the Aeneid,
is a fairly close adaptation of the oriinal. The trouvere,
however, omits the greater part of the wanderings of Aeneas,
and adorns his narrative with gorgeous descriptions, with
accounts of the marvellous properties of beasts and stones,
and of single combats among the knights who figure in the
story. He also elaborates the episodes most attractive to
his audience, notably those of Dido and Aeneas and Lavinia,
the last of whom plays a far more important part than in the
Aeneid. Where possible, he substitutes human for divine
intervention, and ignores the idea of the glorification
of Rome and Augustus, which dominates the Virgilian epic.
On this work were founded the Eneide or Eneit (between
1180 and 1190) of Heinrich von Veldeke, written in Flemish
and now only extant in a version in the Thuringian dialect,
and the Eneydos, written by William Caxton in 1490. See
Eneas, ed. J. Salverdo de Grave (Halle, 1891); see also
A. Litteraire de la France, xix.; Veldeke's Encide, ed.
Ettmuller (Leipzig, 1852) and O. Behaghel (Heilbronn, 1882);
Eneydos, ed. F. J. Furnivall (1890). For Italian versions
see E. G. Parodi in Studi di filologia romanza (v. 1887).
AENEAS TACTICUS (4th century B.C.), one of the earliest
Greek writers on the art of war. According to Aelianus
Tacticus and Polybius, he wrote a number of treatises
(Upomnemata) on the subject; the only one extant deals with
the best methods of defending a fortified city. An epitome
of the whole was made by Cineas, minister of Pyrrhus, king of
Epirus. The work is chiefly valuable as containing a large
number of historical illustrations. Aeneas was considered by
Casaubon to have been a contemporary of Xenophon and identical
with the Arcadian general Aeneas of Stymphalus, whom Xenophon
(Hellenica, vii. 3) mentions as fighting at the battle
of Mantinea (362 B.C.). Editions in I. Casaubon's (1619),
Gronovius' (1670) and Ernesti's (1763) editions of Polybius;
also.separately, with notes, by J. C. Orelli (Leipzig,
1818). Other texts are those of W. Rustow and H. Kochly
(Griechische Kriegsschriftsteller, vol. i. Leipzig, 183S)
and A. Hug, Prolegomena Critica ad Aeneae editionem (Zurich
University, 1874). See also Count Beausobre, Commentaires
sur la defense des places d'Aeneas (Amsterdam, 1757); A.
Hug, Aeneas von Stymphalos (Zurich, 1877); C. C. Lange,
De Aeneae commentario poliorcetico (Berlin, 1879); M. H.
Meyer, Observationes in Aeneam Tacticum (Halle, 1835) ;
Haase, in Jahns Jahrbuch, 1835, xiv. 1 ; Max Jahns, Gesch.
der Kriegswissenschaften, i. pp. 26-28 (Munich, 1889) ; Ad.
Bauer, in Zeitschrift fur allg. Geschichte, &c., 1886, i.;
T. H. Williams in American Journal of Philology, xxv. 4; E.
Schwartz in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie (Stuttgart, 1894).
AENESIDEMUS, Greek philosopher, was born at Cnossus in Crete
and taught at Alexandria, probably during the first century
B.C. He was the leader of what is sometimes known as the third
sceptical school and revived to a great extent the doctrine
of Pyrrho and Timon. His chief work was the Pyrrhonian
Principles addressed to Lucius Tubero. His philosophy
consisted of four main parts, the reasons for scepticism and
doubt, the attack on causality and truth, a physical theory
and a theory of morality. Of these the two former are
important. The reasons for doubt are given in the form of
the ten ``tropes'': (1) different animals manifest different
modes of perception; (2) similar differences are seen among
individual men; (3) even for the same man, sense-given data are
self-contradictory, (4) vary from time to time with physical
changes, and (5) accord- ing to local relations; (6) and (7)
objects are known only in- directly through the medium of air,
moisture, &c., and are in a condition of perpetual change in
colour, temperature, size and motion; (8) all perceptions are
relative and interact one upon another; (9) Our impressions
become less deep by repetition and custom; and (10) all
men are brought up with different beliefs, under different
laws and social conditions. Truth varies infinitely under
circumstances whose relative weight cannot be accurately
gauged. There is, therefore, no absolute knowledge, for
every man has different perceptions, and, further, arranges
and groups his data in methods peculiar to himself; so
that the sum total is a quantity with a purely subjective
validity. The second part of his work consists in the attack
upon the theory of causality, in which he adduces almost
entirely those considerations which are the basis of modern
scepticism. Cause has no existence apart from the mind which
perceives; its validity is ideal, or, as Kant would have
said, subjective. The relation between cause and effect is
unthinkable. If the two things are different, they are
either simultaneous or in succession. If simultaneous, cause
is effect and effect cause. If not, since effect cannot
precede cause, cause must precede effect, and there must
be an instant when cause is not effective, that is, is not
itself. By these and similar arguments he arrives at
the fundamental principle of Scepticism, the radical and
universal opposition tion of causes; panti logo logos
antikeitai. Having reached this conclusion, he was able to
assimilate the physical theory of Heraclitus, as is explained
in the Hypotyposes of Sextus Empiricus. For admitting that
contraries co-exist for the perceiving subject, he was able
to assert the co-existence of contrary qualities in the same
object. Having thus disposed of the ideas of truth and
causality, he proceeds to undermine the ethical criterion,
and denies that any man can aim at Good, Pleasure or Happiness
as an absolute, concrete ideal. All actions are product
of pleasure and pain, good and evil. The end of ethical
endeavour is the conclusion that all endeavour is vain and
illogical. The main tendency of this destructive scepticism
is essentially the same from its first crystallization by
Aenesidemus down to the most advanced sceptics of to-day (ree
SCEPTICISM). For the immediate successors of Aenesidemus
see AGRIPPA, SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. See also CARNEADES and
ARCESILAUS. Of the Porroneioi logoi nothing remains; we
have, however, an analysis in the Myriobiblion of Photius.
See Zeller's History of Greek Philosophy; F. Saisset,
AEnesideme, Pascal, Kant; Ritter and Preller, sec. sec. 364-87O.
AEOLIAN HARP (Fr. harpe eolienne; Ger. Aolsharfe, Windharfe;
Ital. arpa d'Eolo), a stringed musical instrument, whose
name is derived from Aeolus, god of the wind. The aeolian
harp consists of a sound-box about 3 ft long, 5 in. wide,
and 3 in. deep, made of thin deal, or preferably of pine, and
having beech ends to hold the tuning-pins and hitch-pins.
A dozen or less catgut strings of different thickness, but
tuned in exact unison, and left rather slack, are attached
to the pins, and stretched over two narrow bridges of hard
wood, one at each end of the sound-board, which is generally
provided with two rose sound-holes. To ensure a proper
passage for the wind, another pine board is placed over the
strings, resting on pegs at the ends of the sound-board, or
on a continuation of the ends raised from 1 to 3 in. above the
strings. Kaufmann of Dresden and Heinrich Christoph Koch,
who improved the aeolian harp, introduced this contrivance,
which was called by them Windfang and Windflugel; the
upper board was prolonged beyond the sound-box in the shape
of a funnel, in order to direct the current of air on to the
strings. The aeolian harp is placed across a window so that
the wind blows obliquely across the strings, causing them to
vibrate in aliquot parts, i.e. (the fundamental note not
being heard) the half or octave, the third or interval of the
twelfth, the second Octave, and the third above it, in fact
the upper partials of the strings in regular succession. With
the increased pressure of the wind, the dissonances of the
11th and 13th overtones are heard in shrill discords, only
to give place to beautiful harmonies as the force of the wind
abates. The principle of the natural vibration of strings
by the pressure of the wind was recognized in ancient times;
King David, we hear from the Rabbinic records, used to
hang his kinnor (kithara) over his bed at night, when it
sounded in the midnight breeze. The same is related of St
Dunstan of Canterbury, who was in consequence charged with
sorcery. The Chinese at the present day fly kites of various
sizes, having strings stretched across apertures in the
paper, which produces the effect of an aerial chorus.
See Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis, where the aeolian
harp is first described (1602-1608), p. 148; Mathew Young, Bishop
of Clonfert, Enquiry into the Principal Phenomena of Sounds and
Musical Strings pp. 170-182 (London, 1784); Gottingen Pocket
Calendar (1792); Mendel's Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon,
article ``Aeolsharfe.', An illustration is given in Rees'
Encyclopedia, plates, vol. ii. Misc. pl. xxv (K. S.)
AEOLIS (AEOLIA), an ancient district of Asia Minor,
colonized at a very early date by Aeolian Greeks. The name was
applied to the coast from the river Hermus to the promontory
of Lecture, i.o. between Ionia to S. and Troas to N. The
Aeolians founded twelve cities on the mainland, including
Cyme, and numerous towns in Mytilene: they were said also
to have settled in the Troad and even within the Hellespont.
AEOLUS, in Greek mythology, according to Homer the son of
Hippotes, god and father of the winds, and ruler of the island of
Aeolia. In the Odyssey (x. I) he entertains Odysseus,
gives him a favourable wind to help him on his journey, and
a bag in which the unfavourable winds have been confined.
Out of curiosity. or with the idea that it contains valuable
treasures, Odysseus' companions open the bag; the winds escape
and drive them back to the island, whence Aeolus dismisses them
with bitter reproaches. According to Virgil, Aeolus dwells on
one of the Aeolian islands to the north of Sicily, Lipara or
Strongyle (Stromboll), where he keeps the winds imprisoned in
a vast cavern (Virgil, Aen. i. 52). Another genealogy makes
him the son of Poseidon and Arne, granddaughter of Hippotes,
and a descendant of Aeolus, king of Magnesia in Thessaly, the
mythical ancestor of the tribe of the Aeolians (Diodorus iv. 67).
AEON, a term often used in Greek (aion) to denote
an indefinite or infinite duration of time; and hence, by
metonymy, a being that exists for ever. In the latter sense
it was chiefly used by the Gnostic sects to denote those
eternal beings or manifestations which emanated from the
one incomprehensible and ineffable God. (See GNOSTICISM.)
AEPINUS, FRANZ ULRICH THEODOR (1724-1802), German natural
philosopher, was born at Rostock in Saxony on the 13th of December
1724. He was descended from John Aepinus (1499-1553), the
first to adopt the Greek form (aipernos) of the family name
Hugk or Huck, and a leading theologian and controversialist
at the time of the Reformation. After studying medicine for
a time, Franz Aepinus devoted himself to the physical and
mathematical sciences, in which he soon gained such distinction
that he was admitted a member of the Berlin academy of
sciences. In 1757 he settled in St Petersburg as member of
the imperial academy of sciences and professor of physics, and
remained there till his retirement in 1798. The rest of his
life was spent at Dorpat, where he died on the 10th of August
1802. He enjoyed the special favour of the empress Catherine
II., who appointed him tutor to her son Paul, and endeavoured,
without success, to establish normal schools throughout the
empire under his direction. Aepinus is best known by his
researches, theoretical and experimental, in electricity
and magnetism, and his principal work, Tentamen Theoriae
Electricitatis et Magnetismi, published at St Petersburg in
1759, was the first systematic and successful attempt to apply
mathematical reasoning to these subjects. He also published a
treatise, in 176I, De distributione caloris per tellurem,
and he was the author of memoirs on different subjects in
astronomy, mechanics, optics and pure mathematics, contained
in the journals of the learned societies of St Petersburg and
Berlin. His discussion of the effects of parallax in
the transit of a planet over the sun's disc excited great
interest, having appeared (in 1764) between the dates of the
two transits of Venus that took place in the 18th century.
AEQUI, an ancient people of Italy, whose name occurs
constantly in Livy,s first decade as hostile to Rome in the
first three Centuries of the city's existence. They occupied
the upper reaches of the valleys of the Anio, Tolenus and
Himella; the last two being mountain streams runing northward
to join the Nar. Their chief centre is said to have been
taken by the Romans about 484 B.C. (Diodorus xi. 40) and
again about ninety years later (id. xiv. 106), but they
were not finally subdued Until the end of the second Samnite
war (Livy ix. 45,; x. 1; Diod. xx. 101), when they seem to
have received a limited form of franchise (Cic. Off. i.
II, 35). All we know of their subsequent political condition
is that after the Social war the folk of Cliternia and Nersae
appear united in a res Publica Aequiculorum, which was a
municipium of the ordinary type (C.I.L. ix. p. 388). The
Latin colonies of Alba Fucens (304 B.C.) and Carsioll (298
B.C.) must have spread the use of Latin (or what passed as
such) all over the district; through it by the chief (and for
some time the only) route (Pia Valeria) to Luceria and the
south. Of the language spoken by the Aequi before the Roman
conquest we have no record; but since the Marsi (q.v.), who
lived farther east, spoke in the 3rd century B.C. a dialect
closely akin to Latin, and since the Hernici (q.v.), their
neighbours to the south-west, did the same, we have no ground
for separating any of these tribes from the Latian group
(see LATINI). If we could be certain of the origin of the
a in their name and of the relation between its shorter
and its longer form (note that the i in Aequicidus is
long--Virgil, Aen. vii. 74----which seems to connect it
with the locative of aequum ``a plain,'' so that it would
mean ``dwellers in the plain''; but in the historical period
they certainly lived mainly in the hills), we should know
whether they were to be grouped with the q or the p
dialects, that is to say, with Latin on the one hand, which
preserved an original q, or with the dialect of Velitrae,
commonly called Volscian (and the Volsci were the constant
allies of the Aequi), on the other hand, in which, as in the
Iguvine and Samnite dialects, an original q is changed into
p. There is no decisive evidence to show whether the q
in Latin aequus represents an Indo-European q as in Latin
quis, Umbro-Volsc. pis, or an Indo-European k+u as in
equus, Umb. ekvo-. The derivative adjective Aequicus
might be taken to range them with the Volsci rather than the
Sabini, but it is not clear that this adjective was ever used
as a real ethnicon; the name of the tribe is always Aeqai,
or Aequicoli. At the end of the Republican period the Aequi
appear, under the name Aequiculi or Aequicoh, organized as a
municipium, the territory of which seems to have comprised
the upper part of the valley of the Salto, still known as
Cicolano. It is probable, however, that they continued to
live in their villages as before. Of these Nersae (mod.
Nesce) was the most considerable. The polygonal terrace
walls, which exist in considerable numbers in the district,
are shortly described in Romische Mitteilungen (1903), 147
seq., but require further study. See further the articles
MARSI, VOLSCI, LATINI, and the references there given; the
place-names and other scanty records of the dialect are collected
by R. S. Conway. The Italic Dialects, pp. 300 ff. (R. S. C.)
AERARII (from Lat. aes, in its subsidiary sense of
``polltax''), originally a class of Roman citizens not included
in the thirty tribes of Servius Tullius, and subject to a
poll-tax arbitrarily fixed by the censor. They were (1)
the inhabitants of conquered towns which had been deprived
of local self-government, who possessed the jus eonubii
and ius commercii, but no political rights; Caere is said
to have been the first example of this (353 B.C.); hence
the expression ``in tabulas Caeritum referre'' came to mean
``to degrade to the status of an aerarius'': (2) full
citizens subjected to civil degradation (infamia) as the
result of following certain professions (e.g. acting),
of dishonourable acts in private life (e.g. bigamy) or of
conviction for certain crimes; (3) persons branded by the
censor. Those who were thus excluded from the tribes and
centuries had no vote, were incapable of filling Roman
magistracies and could not serve in the army. According to
Mommsen, the aerarii were originally the non-assidui
(non-holders of land), excluded from the tribes, the comitia
and the army. By a reform of the censor Appius Claudius
in 312 B.C. these non-assidui were admitted into the
tribes, and the aerarii as such disappeared. But in 304,
Fabius Rullianus limited them to the four city tribes, and
from that time the term meant a man degraded from a higher
(country) to a lower (city) tribe, but not deprived of the
right of voting or of serving in the army. The expressions
``tribu movere'' and ``aerarium facere,': regarded by Mommsen
as identical in meaning (``to degrade from a higher tribe
to a lower,'), are explained by A. H. J. Greenidge---the
first as relegation from a higher to a lower tribe or total
exclusion from the tribes, the second as exclusion from the
centuries. Other views of the original aerarii are that they
were--artisans and freedmen (Niebuhr); inhabitants of towns
united with Rome by a hospitium publicum, who had become
domiciled on Roman territory (Lange); only a class of degraded
citizens, including neither the cives sine suffragio nor
the artisans (Madvig); identical with the capite censi of
the Servian constitution (Belot, Greenidge). See A. H. J.
Greenidge, Infamia in Roman Law (1894), where Mommsen's theory
is criticized; E. Belot, Histoire des chevaliers romains,
i. p. 200 (Paris, 1866); L. Pardon, De Aerariis (Berlin,
1853); P. Willems, Le Droit public romain (1883); A. S.
Wilkins in Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities
(3rd ed., 189I); and the usual handbooks of antiquities.
AERARIUM (from Lat. aes, in its derived sense of ``money'')
the name (in full, aerarium stabulum, treasure-house) given
in ancient Rome to the public treasury, and in a secondary
sense to the public finances. The treasury contained the
moneys and accounts of the state, and also the standards of
the legions; the public laws engraved on brass, the decrees
of the senate and other papers and registers of importance.
These public treasures were deposited in the temple of
Saturn, on the eastern slope of the Capitoline hill, and,
during the republic, were in charge of the urban quaeators
(see QUAESTOR), under the superintendence and control of the
senate. This arrangement continued (except for the year 45
B.C., when no quaestors were chosen) until 28 B.C., when
Augustus transferred the aerarium to two praojecti aerarii,
chosen annually by the senate from ex-praetors; in 23 these
were replaced by two praetors (praetores aerarii or ad
aerarium), selected by lot during their term of office;
Claudius in A.D. 44 restored the quaestors, but nominated by
the emperor for three years, for whom Nero in 56 substituted
two ex-praetors, under the same conditions. In addition
to the common treasury, supported by the general taxes and
charged with the ordinary expenditure, there was a special
reserve fund, also in the temple of Saturn, the aerarium
sanctum (or sanctius), probably originally consisting of
the spoils of war, afterwards maintained chiefly by a 5% tax
on the value of all manumitted slaves, this source of revenue
being established by a lex Manlia in 357. This fund was not
to be touched except in cases of extreme necessity (Livy vii.
16, xxvii. 10). Under the emperors the senate continued to
have at least the nominal management of the aerarium, while
the emperor had a separate exchequer, called fiseus. But
after a time, as the power of the emperors increased and
their jurisdiction extended till the senate existed only in
form and name, this distinction virtually ceased. Besides
creating the fiscus, Augustus also established in A.D.
6 a military treasury (aerarium militare), containing all
moneys raised for and appropriated to the maintenance of the
army, including a pension fund for disabled soldiers. It.was
largely endowed by the emperor himself (see Monumentum
Ancyranum, iii. 35) and supported by the proceeds of the tax
on public sales and the succession duty. Its administration
was in the hands of three praefecti aerarii militaris, at
first appointed by lot, but afterwards by the emperor, from
senators of praetorian rank, for three years. The later
emperors had a separate aerarium privatum, containing
the moneys allotted for their own use, distinct from the
fiscus, which they administered in the interests of the empire.
The tribuni aerarii have been the subject of much
discussion. They are supposed by some to be identical with
the curatores tribuum, and to have been the officials
who, under the Servian organization, levied the war-tax
(tributum) in the tribes and the poil-tax on the aerarii
(q.v.). They also acted as paymasters of the equites and of
the soldiers on service in each tribe. By the lex Aurella
(70 B.C.) the list of judices was composed, in addition
to senators and equites, of tribuni aerarii. Whether these
were the successors of the above, or a new order closely
connected with the equites, or even the same as the latter, is
uncertain. According to Mommsen, they were persons who
possessed the equestrian census, but no public horse. They
were removed from the list of judices by Caesar, but replaced by
Augustus. According to Madvig, the original tribuni aerarii
were not officials at all, but private individuals of considerable
means, quite distinct from the curatores tribuuin, who
undertook certain financial work connected with their own
tribes. Then, as in the case of the equites, the term was
subsequently extended to include all those who possessed the
property qualification that would have entitled them to serve
as tribuni aerarii. See Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 29, with
Furneaux's notes; O. Hirschfeld, ``Das Aerarium militare in
der romischen Kaiserzeit,'' in Fleckeisen's Jahrbuch, vol.
xcvii. (1868); S. Herrlich, De Aerario et Fisco Romanorum
(Berlin, 1872); and the usual handbooks and dictionaries of
antiquities. On the tribuni aerarii see E. Belot, Hist.
des chevaliers romains, ii. p. 276; J. N. Madvig, Opuscula
Academica, ii. p. 242; J. B. Mispoulet, Les Institutions
politiques des Romains (1883), ii. p. 208; Mommsen,
Romisches Staatsrecht, iii. p. 189; A. S. Wilkins in Smith's
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 1890).
AERATED WATERS. Waters charged with a larger proportion of
carbon dioxide than they will dissolve at ordinary atmospheric
pressure occur in springs in various parts of the world (see
MINERAL WATERS). Such waters, which also generally hold in
solution a considerable percentage of saline constituents,
early acquired a reputation as medicinal agents, and when
carbon dioxide (``fixed air'') became familiar to chemists the
possibility was recognized, as by Joseph Priestley (Directions
for impregnating water with fixed air . . . to communicate
the peculiar Spirit and Virtues of Pyrmont water, 1772),
of imitating them artificially. Many of the ordinary aerated
waters of commerce, however, do not pretend to reproduce any
known natural water; they are merely beverages owing their
popularity to their effervescing properties and the flavour
imparted by a small quantity of some salt such as sodium
bicarbonate or a little fruit syrup. Their manufacture on a
considerable scale was begun at Geneva so far back as 1790 by
Nicholas Paul, and the excellence of the soda water prepared
in London by J. Schweppe, who had been a partner of Paul's, is
referred to by Tiberius Cavallo in his Essay on the Medicinal
Properties of Factitious Airs, published in 1798. Many forms
of apparatus are employed for charging the water with the
gas. A simple machine for domestic use, called a gasogene or
seltzogene, consists of two strong glass globes connected
one above the other by a wide glass tube which rises nearly
to the top of the upper and smaller globe. Surmounting the
small globe there is a spring valve, fitted to a narrow tube
that passes through the wide tube to the bottom of the large
globe. To use the machine, the lower vessel is filled with
water, and in the upper one, round the base of the wide tube,
is placed a mixture, commonly of sodium bicarbonate and tartaric
acid, which with water yields carbon dioxide. The valve head
is then fastened on, and by tilting the apparatus some water is
made to flow through the wide tube from the lower to the upper
vessel. The water in the lower globe takes up the gas thus
produced, and when required for use is withdrawn by the
valve, being forced up the narrow tube by the pressure of the
gas. In another arrangement the gas is supplied compressed in
little steel capsules, and is liberated into a bottle containing
the water which has to be aerated. On a large scale, use is
made of continuously acting machinery which is essentially of
the type devised by Joseph Bramah. The gas is prepared in a
separate generator by the action of sulphuric acid on sodium
bicarbonate or whiting, and after being washed is collected
in a gas-holder, whence it is forced with water under pressure
into a receiver or saturator in which an agitator is kept
moving. Some manufacturers buy their gas compressed in steel
cylinders. The water thus aerated or carbonated passes
from the receiver, in which the pressure may be 100-200 lb. on
the square inch, to bottling machines which fill and close
the bottles; if beverages like lemonade are being made the
requisite quantity of fruit syrup is also injected into the
bottles, though sometimes the fruit syrup mixture is aerated in
bulk. For soda water sodium bicarbonate should be added to
the water before aeration, in varying proportions up to about
15 grains per pint, but the simple carbonated water often
does duty instead. Potash water, lithia water and many others
are similarly prepared, the various salts being used in such
amounts as are dictated by the experience and taste of the
manufacturer. Aerated waters are sent out from the factories
either in siphons (q.v.) or in bottles; the latter may be
closed by corks, or by screw-stoppers or by internal stoppers
consisting of a valve, such as a glass ball, held up against an
indiarubber ring in the neck by the pressure of the gas. For use
in ``soda-fountains'' the waters are sent out in large cylinders.
See W. Kirkby, Evolution of artificial Mineral Waters (Manchester, 1902).
AERONAUTICS, the art of ``navigating'' the ``air.'' It is
divisible into two main branches--aerostation, dealing properly
with machines which like balloons are lighter than the air,
and aviation, dealing with the problem of artificial flight
by means of flying machines which, like birds, are heavier
than the air, and also with attempts to fly made by human
beings by the aid of artificial wings fitted to their limbs.
Historically, aviation is the older of the two, and in the
legends of gods or myths of men or animals which are supposed
to have travelled through the air, such as Pegasus, Medea's
dragons and Daedalus, as well as in Egyptian bas-reliefs,
wings appear as the means by which aerial locomotion is
effected. In later times there are many stories of men who have
attempted to fly in the same way. John Wilkins (1614-1672),
one of the founders of the Royal Society and bishop of Chester,
who in 1640 discussed the possibility of reaching the moon by
volitation, says in his Mathematical Magick (1648) that
it was related that ``a certain English monk called Elmerus,
about the Confessor's time,'' flew from a town in Spain for
a distance of more than a furlong; and that other persons
had flown from St Mark's, Venice, and at Nuremberg. Giovanni
Battista Dante, of Perugia, is said to have flown several
times across Lake Trasimene. At the beginning of the 16th
century an Italian alchemist who was collated to the abbacy
of Tungland, in Galloway, Scotland, by James IV., undertook
to fly from the walls of Stirling Castle through the air to
France. He actually attempted the feat, but soon came to
the ground and broke his thigh-bone in the fall--an accident
which he explained by asserting that the wings he employed
contained some fowls' feathers, which had an ``affinity''
for the dung-hill, whereas if they had been composed solely
of eagles' feathers they would have been attracted to the
air. This anecdote furnished Dunbar, the Scottish poet, with
the subject of one of his rude satires. Leonardo da Vinci
about the same time approached the problem in a more scientific
spirit, and his notebooks contain several sketches of wings
to be fitted to the arms and legs. In the following century
a lecture on flying delivered in 1617 by Fleyder, rector of
the grammar school at Tubingen, and published eleven years
later, incited a poor monk to attempt to put the theory into
practice, but his machinery broke down and he was killed.
In Francis Bacon's Natural History there are two
passages which refer to flying, though they scarcely
bear out the assertion made by some writers that he
first published the true principles of aeronautics.
The first is styled Experiment Solitary, touching Flying
in the Air --``Certainly many birds of good wing (as kites
and the like) would bear up a good weight as they fly; and
spreading leathers thin and close, and in great breadth, will
likewise bear up a great weight, being even laid, without
tilting up on the sides. The further extension of this
experiment might be thought upon.'' The second passage is
more diffuse, but less intelligible; it is styled Experiment
Solitary, touching unequal weight (as of wool and lead or
bone and lead); if you throw it from you with the light end
forward, it will turn, and the weightier end will recover to
be forwards, unless the body be over long. The cause is, for
that the more dense body hath a more violent pressure of the
parts from the first impulsion, which is the cause (though
heretofore not found out, as hath been often said) of all
violent motions; and when the hinder part moveth swifter (for
that it less endureth pressure of parts) that the forward
part can make way for it, it must needs be that the body
turn over; for (turned) it can more easily draw forward the
lighter part.'' The fact here alluded to is the resistance
that bodies experience in moving through the air, which,
depending on the quantity of surface merely. must exert a
proportionally greater effect on rare substances. The passage
itself, however, after making every allowance for the period
in which it was written, must be deemed confused, obscure and
unphilosophical. In his posthumous work, De Motu Animalium,
published at Rome in 1680-1681, G.A.Borelli gave calculations
of the enormous strength of the pectoral muscles in birds;
and his proposition cciv. (vol. i. pp. 322-326), entitled Est
impossibile ut homines pro priis viribus artificiose volare
possint, points out the impossibility of man being able by his
muscular strength to give motion to wings of sufficient extent
to keep him suspended in the air. But during his lifetime two
Frenchmen, Allard in 1660 and Besnier about 1678, are said to
have succeeded in making short flights. An account of some
of the modern attempts to construct flying machines will be
found in the article FLIGHT AND FLYING; here we append a
brief consideration of the mechanical aspects of the problem.
The very first essential for success is safety, which will
probably only be attained with automatic stability. The
underlying principle is that the centre of gravity shall
at all times be on the same vertical line as the centre of
pressure. The latter varies with the angle of incidence. For
square planes it moves approximately as expressed by Joessel's
formula, C + (0.2 + 0.3 sin a) L, in which C is the distance
from the front edge, L the length fore and aft, and a the
angle of incidence. The movement is different on concave
surfaces. The term aeroplane is understood to apply to
flat sustaining surfaces, but experiment indicates that
arched surfaces are more efficient. S. P. Langley proposed
the word aerodrome, which seems the preferable term for
apparatus with wing-line surfaces. This is the type to which
results point as the proper one for further experiments. With
this it seems probable that, with well-designed apparatus,
40 to 50 lb. can be sustained per indicated h.p., or about
twice that quantity per resistance or ``thrust'' h.p., and
that some 30 or 40 k of the weight can be devoted to the
machinery, thus requiring motors, with their propellers,
shafting, supplies, &c., weighing less than 20 lb. per
h.p. It is evident that the apparatus must be designed to
be as light as possible, and also to reduce to a minimum
all resistances to propulsion. This being kept in view,
the strength and consequent section required for each member
may be calculated by the methods employed in proportioning
bridges, with the difference that the support (from air
pressure) will be considered as uniformly distributed, and the
load as concentrated at one or more points. Smaller factors
of safety may also have to be used. Knowing the sections
required and unit weights of the materials to be employed,
the weight of each part can be computed. If a model has been
made to absolutely exact scale, the weight of the full-sized
apparatus may approximately be ascertained by the formula
$$W' = W\sqrt{\left({S'\over S}\right)}^3,$$
in which W is the weight of the model, S its surface, and
W' and S' the weight and surface of the intended apparatus.
Thus if the model has been made one-quarter size in its
homologous dimensions, the supporting surfaces will be sixteen
times, and the total weight sixty-four times those of the
model. The weight and the surface being determined, the three
most important things to know are the angle of incidence, the
``lift,'' and the required speed. The fundamental formula for
rectangular air pressure is well known: P=KV2S, in which P is
the rectangular normal pressure, in pounds or kilograms, K a
coefficient (0.0049 for British, and 0.11 for metric measures),
V the velocity in miles per hour or in metres per second, and
S the surface in square feet or in square metres. The normal
on oblique surfaces, at various angles of incidence, is given
by the formula P = KV2Se, which latter factor is given both
for planes and for arched surfaces in the subjoined table:--.
PERCENTAGES OE AIR PRESSURE AT VARIOUS ANGLES OF INCIDENCE
PLANES (DUCHEMIN FORMULA,
VERIFIED BY LANGLEY). WINGS (LILIENTHAL).
N = P(2sina/(1+sin2a)). Concavity 1 in 12
Angle. Normal. Lift. Drift. Normal. Lift. Drift. Tangential
a e ecosa esina e ecosa esina force a
-9 deg. 0.0 0.0 0.0 +0.070
-8 deg. 0.040 0.0396 -0.0055 +0.067
-7 deg. 0.080 0.0741 -0.0097 +0.064
-6 deg. 0.120 0.1193 -0.0125 +0.060
-5 deg. 0.160 0.1594 -0.0139 +0.055
-4 deg. 0.200 0.1995 -0.0139 +0.049
-3 deg. 0.242 0.2416 -0.0126 +0.043
-2 deg. 0.286 0.2858 -0.0100 +0.037
-1 deg. 0.332 0.3318 -0.0058 +0.031
0 deg. 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.381 0.3810 -0.0 +0.024
+1 deg. 0.035 0.035 0.000611 0.434 0.434 +0.0075 +0.016
+2 deg. 0.070 0.070 0.00244 0.489 0.489 +0.0170 +0.008
+3 deg. 0.104 0.104 0.00543 0.546 0.545 +0.0285 0.0
+4 deg. 0.139 0.139 0.0097 0.600 0.597 +0.0418 -0.007
+5 deg. 0.174 0.173 0.0152 0.650 0.647 +0.0566 -0.014
+6 deg. 0.207 0.206 0.0217 0.696 0.692 +0.0727 -0.021
+7 deg. 0.240 0.238 0.0293 0.737 0.731 +0.0898 -0.028
+8 deg. 0.273 0.270 0.0381 0.771 0.763 +0.1072 -0.035
+9 deg. 0.305 0.300 0.0477 0.800 0.790 +0.1251 -0.042
10 deg. 0.337 0.332 0.0585 0.825 0.812 +0.1432 -0.050
11 deg. 0.369 0.362 0.0702 0.846 0.830 +0.1614 -0.058
12 deg. 0.398 0.390 0.0828 0.864 0.845 +0.1803 -0.064
13 deg. 0.431 0.419 0.0971 0.879 0.856 +0.1976 -0.070
14 deg. 0.457 0.443 0.1155 0.891 0.864 +0.2156 -0.074
15 deg. 0.486 0.468 0.1240 0.901 0.870 +0.2332 -0.076
The sustaining power, or ``lift'' which in horizontal flight
must be equal to the weight, can be calculated by the formula
L=KV2Secosa, or the factor may be taken direct from the
table, in which the ``lift'' and the ``drift'' have been obtained
by multiplying the normal e by the cosine and sine of the
angle. The last column shows the tangential pressure on concave
surfaces which O. Lilienthal found to possess a propelling
component between 3 deg. and 32 deg. and therefore to be negative
to the relative wind. Former modes of computation indicated
angles of 10 to 15 as necessary for support with planes. These
mere prohibitory in consequence of the great ``drift''; but
the present data indicate that, with concave surfaces, angles
of 2 deg. to 5 will produce adequate ``lift.'' To compute the
latter the angle at which the wings are to be set must first be
assumed, and that of @ will generally be found preferable.
Then the required velocity is next to be computed by the formula
$$V = \sqrt{L\over KS\eta\cos\alpha};$$
or for concave wings at +3 deg. :
$$V = \sqrt{W\over 0.545KS}.$$
Having thus determined the weight, the surface, the angle of
incidence and the required seed for horizontal support, the
next step is to calculate the power required. This is best
accomplished by first obtaining the total resistances, which
consist of the ``drift'' and of the head resistances due to
the hull and framing. The latter are arrived at preferably
by making a tabular statement showing all the spars and parts
offering head resistance, and applying to each, the coefficient
appropriate to its ``master section,'' as ascertained by
experiment. Thus is obtained an ``equivalent area'' of resistance,
which is to be multiplied by the wind pressure due to the
speed. Care must be taken to resolve all the resistances at
their proper angle of application, and to subtract or add the
tangential force, which consists in the surface S, multiplied
by the wind pressure, and by the factor in the table, which
is, however, 0 for 3 and 32, but positive or negative at other
angles. When the aggregate resistances are known, the ``thrust
h.p.'' required is obtained by multiplying the resistance by the
speed, and then allowing for mechanical losses in the motor and
propeller, which losses will generally be 50% of indicated
h.p. Close approximations are obtained by the above method
when applied to full sized apparatus. The following example
will make the process clearer. The weight to he carried
by an apparatus was 189 lb. on concave wings of 143.5 sq.
ft. area, set at a positive angle of 3 deg. There were in
addition rear wings of 29.5 sq. ft., set at a negative angle
of 3 deg. ; hence, L= 189=.o.oo5XV2X143.5X0.545. Whence
$$V = \sqrt{189\over 0.005\times 143.5\times 0.545
= 22\hbox{ miles per hour},$$
at which the air pressure would be 2.42 lb. per sq. ft. The area
of spars and man was 17.86 sq. ft., reduced by various coefficients
to an ``equivalent surface'' of 11.70 sq. ft., so that the
resistances were:-- Drift front wings, 143.5X0.0285X2.42 . . .
.= 9.90 lb. Drift rear wings, 29.5X(o.o43-0.242X0.05235)X2.42
= 2.17 lb. Tangential force at 3 deg. . . . . . . . . =
0.00 lb. Head resistance, 11.70X2.43 . . . . . = 28.31
Total resistance . . . . . . . .= 40.38
Speed 22 miles per hour. Power = (40.38X22)/375 = 2.36 h.p. for
the ``thrust'' or 4.72 h.p. for the motor. The weight being 189
lb., and the resistance 40.38 lb., the gliding angle of descent was
40.38/189 = tangent of 12 deg. , which was verified by many experiments.
The following expressions will be found useful in computing
such projects, with the aid of the table above given:
1. Wind force, F = KV2. 8. Drift, D = KSV2esina
2. Pressure, P = KV2S. 9. Head area E, get an equivalent
3. Velocity, V = sqrt. (W/(KSecosa))
10. Head resistance, H = EF.
4. Surface S varies as 1/V2. 11. Tangential force, T = Pa
5. Normal, N = KSV2e. 12. Resistance, R = D + H (+ or -) T.
6. Lift, L = KSV2ecsoa. 13. Ft. lb., M = RV.
7. Weight, W = L = Ncosa. 14. Thrust, h.p., = RV/factor.
AEROSTATION.---Possibly the flying dove of Archytas of Tarentum
is the earliest suggestion of true aerostation. According to
Aulus Genius (Noctes Atticae) it was a ``model of a dove or
pigeon formed in wood and so contrived as by a certain mechanical
art and power to fly: so nicely was it balanced by weights
and put in motion by hidden and enclosed air.'' This ``hidden
and enclosed air'' may conceivably represent an anticipation
of the hot-air balloon, but it is at least as probable that
the apparent flight of the dove was a mere mechanical trick
depending on the use of fine wires or strings invisible to the
spectators. In the middle ages vague ideas appear of some
ethereal substance so light that vessels containing it
would remain suspended in the air. Roger Bacon (1214-1294)
conceived of a large hollow globe made of very thin metal and
filled with ethereal air or liquid fire, which would float on
the atmosphere like a ship on water. Albert of Saxony, who
was bishop of Halberstadt from 1366 to 1390, had a similar
notion, and considered that a small portion of the principle
of fire enclosed in a light sphere would raise it and keep it
suspended. The same speculation was advanced by Francis
Mendoza, a Portuguese Jesuit, who died in 1626 at the age of
forty-six, and by Gaspar Schott (1608-1666), also a Jesuit
and professor of mathematics at Wurzburg, though for fire
he substituted the thin ethereal fluid which he believed to
float above the atmosphere. So late as 1755 Joseph Galien
(1699-1782), a Dominican friar and professor of philosophy
and theology in the papal university of Avignon, proposed to
collect the diffuse air of the upper regions and to enclose
it in a huge vessel extending more than a mile every way, and
intended to carry fifty-four times as much weight as did Noah's
ark. A somewhat different but equally fantastic method of
making heavy bodies rise is quoted by Schott from Lauretus
Laurus, according to whom swans' eggs or leather balls filled
with nitre, sulphur or mercury ascend when exposed to the
sun. Laurus also stated that hens' eggs filled with dew will
ascend in the same circumstances, because dew is shed by the
stars and drawn up again to heaven by the sun's heat during the
day. The same notion is utilized by Cyrano de Bergerac
(1619-1655) in his romances describing journeys to the moon
and sun, for his French traveller fastens round his body a
multitude of very thin flasks filled with the morning's dew,
whereby through the attractive power of the sun's heat on the
dew he is raised to the middle regions of the atmosphere, to
sink again, however, on the breaking of some of the flasks.
A distinct advance on Schott is marked by the scheme for aerial
navigation proposed by the Jesuit, Francis Lana (1631-1687),
in his book, published at Brescia in 1670, Prodromo ovvero
Saggio di alcune invenzioni nuove promesso all' Arte Maestra.
His idea, though useless and unpractical in so far that it
could never be carried out, is yet deserving of notice, as
the principles involved are sound; and this can be said of
no earlier attempt. His project was to procure four copper
balls of very large dimensions (fig. 1), yet so extremely
thin that after the air was exhausted from them they would
be lighter than the air they displaced and so would rise;
and to those four balls he proposed to attach a boat, with
sails, &c., which would carry up a man. He submitted the
whole matter to calculation, and proposed that the globes
should be about 25 ft. in diameter and 1/225th of an inch
in thickness; this would give from all four balls a total
ascensional force of about 1200 lb., which would be quite enough
to raise the boat, sails, passengers, &c. But the obvious
objection to the whole scheme is, that it would be quite
impossible to construct a globe of so large a size and of
such small thickness which would even support its own weight
without collapsing if placed on the ground, much less bear
the external atmospheric pressure when the internal air was
removed. Lana himself noticed this objection, but he
thought that the spherical form of the copper shell would,
notwithstanding its extreme thinness, enable it, after the
exhaustion was effected, to sustain the enormous pressure,
which, acting equally on every point of the surface, would tend
to consolidate rather than to break the metal. His proposal
to exhaust the air from the globes by attaching to each a
tube 36 ft. long, fitted with a stopcock, and so producing
a Torricellian vacuum, suggests that he was ignorant of the
invention of the air-pump by Otto von Guericke about 1650.
We now come to the invention of the balloon, which was
due to Joseph Michel Montgolfier (1740-1810) and Jacques
Etienne Montgolfier (1745-1799), sons of Pierre Montgolfier,
a large and celebrated papermaker at Annonay, a town about
40 m. from Lyons. The brothers had observed the suspension
of clouds in the atmosphere, and it occurred to them that
if they could enclose any vapour of the nature of a cloud in
a large and very light bag, it might rise and carry the bag
with it into the air. Towards the end of 1782 they inflated
bags with smoke from a fire placed underneath, and found
that either the smoke or some vapour emitted from the fire
did ascend and carry the bag with it. Being thus assured
of the correctness of their views, they determined to have a
public ascent of a balloon on a large scale. They accordingly
invited the States of Vivarais, then assembled at Annonay,
to witness their aerostatic experiment; and on the 5th of
June 1783, in the presence of a considerable concourse of
spectators, a linen globe of 105 ft. in circumference was
inflated over a fire fed with small bundles of chopped straw.
When released it rapidly rose to a great height, and descended,
at the expiration of ten minutes, at the distance of about
1 1/2m. This was the discovery of the balloon. The brothers
Montgolfier imagined that the bag rose because of the levity
of the smoke or other vapour given forth by the burning straw;
and it was not till some time later that it was recognized that
the ascending power was due merely to the lightness of heated
air compared to an equal volume of air at a lower temperature.
In this balloon, no source of heat was taken up, so that the
air inside rapidly Cooled, and the balloon soon descended.
The news of the experiment at Annonay attracted so much
attention at Paris that Barthelemi Faujas de Saint-Fond
(1741-1819), afterwards professor of geology at the Musee
d'Histoire Naturelle, set on foot a subscription for paying
the expense of repeating the experiment. The balloon was
constructed by two brothers of the name of Robert, under
the superintendence of the physicist, J. A. C. Charles. The
first suggestion was to copy the process of Montgolfier, but
Charles proposed the application of hydrogen gas, which was
adopted. The filling of the balloon, which was made of
thin silk varnished with a solution of elastic gum, and was
about 13 ft. in diameter, was begun on the 23rd of August
1783, in the Place des Victoires. The hydrogen gas was
obtained by the action of dilute sulphuric acid upon iron
filings, and was introduced through leaden pipes; but as the
gas was not passed through cold water, great difficulty. was
experienced in filling the balloon completely; and altogether
about 300 lb. of sulphuric acid and twice that amount of iron
filings were used (fig. 2). Bulletins were issued daily of
the progress of the inflation; and the crowd was so great
that on the 26th the balloon was moved secretly by night
to the Champ de Mars, a distance of 2 m. On the next day
an immense concourse of people covered the Champ de Mars,
and every spot from which a view could be ob obtained was
crowded. About five o'clock a cannon was discharged as the
signal for the ascent, and the balloon when liberated rose to
the height of about 3000 ft. with great rapidity. A shower
of rain which began to fall directly after it had left the
earth in no way checked its progress; and the excitement was so
great, that thousands of well-dressed spectators, many of them
ladies, stood exposed, watching it intently the whole time
it was in sight and were drenched to the skin, The balloon,
after remaining in the air for about three-quarters of an
hour, fell in a field near Gonesse, about 15 m. off, and
terrified the peasantry so much that it was torn into shreds by
them. Hydrogen gas was at this time known by the name of
inflammable air; and balloons inflated with gas have ever
since been called by the people air-balloons, the kind invented
by the Montgolfiers being designated fire-balloons. French
Writers have also very frequently styled them after their
inventors, Charlieres and Montgolfieres. On the 19th
of September 1783 Joseph Montgolfier repeated the Annonay
experiment at Versailles, in the presence of the king, the
queen, the court and an immense number of spectators. The
inflation was begun at one o'clock, and completed in eleven
minutes, when the balloon rose to the height of about 1500
ft., and descended after eight minutes, at a distance of
about 2 m., in the wood of Vaucresson. Suspended below the
balloon: in a cage, had been placed a sheep, a cock and a duck,
which were thus the first aerial travellers. They were quite
uninjured, except the cock, which had its right wing hurt in
consequence of a kick it had received from the sheep; but this
took place before the ascent. The balloon, which was painted
with ornaments in oil colours, had a very showy appearance
(fig. 3). Francois Pilatre de Rozier (1756-1785), a native
of Metz, who was appointed superintendent of the natural
history collections of Louis XVIII. On the 15th of October
1783, and following days, he made several ascents (generally
alone, but once with a companion, Girond de Villette) in a
captive balloon (i.e. one attached by ropes to the ground),
and demonstrated that there was no difficulty in taking up
fuel and feeding the fire, which was kindled in a brazier
suspended under the balloon, when in the air. The way being
thus prepared for aerial navigation, on the 21st of November
1783, Pilatre de Rozier and the marquis d'Arlandes first
trusted themselves to a free fire-balloon. The experiment was
made from the Jardin du Chateau de la Muette, in the Bois de
Boulogne. A large fire-balloon was inflated at about two
o'clock, rose to a height of about 500 ft., and passing over
the Invalides and the Ecole Mililaire, descended beyond
the Boulevards, about 9000 yds. from the place of ascent,
having been between twenty and twenty-five minutes in the
air. Only ten days later, viz. on the 1st of December 1783,
Charles ascended from Paris in a balloon inflated with hydrogen
gas. The balloon, as in the case of the small one of the
same kind previously launched from the Champ de Mars, was
constructed by the brothers Robert, one of whom took part in the
ascent. It was 27 ft. in diameter, and the car was suspended
from a hoop surrounding the middle of the balloon, and fastened
to a net, which covered the upper hemisphere. The balloon
ascended very gently from the Tuileries at a quarter to two
o'clock, and after remaining for some time at an elevation
of about 2000 ft., it descended in about two hours at Nesle,
a small town about 27 m. from Paris, when Robert left the
car, and Charles made a, second ascent by himself. He had
intended to have replaced the weight of his companion by a
nearly equivalent quantity of ballast; but not having any
suitable means of obtaining such at the place of descent, and
it being just upon sunset, he gave the word to let go, and
the balloon being thus so greatly lightened, ascended very
rapidly to a height of about 2 m. After staying in the air
about half an hour, he descended 3 m. from the place of ascent,
although he believed the distance traversed, owing to different
currents, to have been about 9 m. In this second journey he
experienced a violent pain in his right ear and jaw, no doubt
produced by the rapidity of the ascent. He also witnessed
the phenomenon of a double sunset on the same day; for when he
ascended, the sun had set in the valleys, and as he mounted
he saw it rise again, and set a second time as he descended.
All the features of the modern balloon as now used are
more or less due to Charles, who invented the valve at
the top, suspended the car from a hoop, which was itself
attached to the balloon by netting, &c. With regard to his
use of hydrogen gas, there are anticipations that must be
noticed. As early as 1766 Henry Cavendish showed that this
gas was at least seven times lighter than ordinary air, and
it immediately occurred to Dr Joseph Black, of Edinburgh,
that a thin bag filled with hydrogen gas would rise to the
ceiling of a room. He provided, accordingly, the allantois
of a calf, with the view of showing at a public lecture such
a curious experiment; but for some reason it seems to have
failed, and Black did not repeat it, thus allowing a great
discovery, almost within his reach, to escape him. Several
years afterwards a similar idea occurred to Tiberius Cavallo,
who found that bladders, even when carefully scraped,
are too heavy, and that China paper is permeable to the
gas. But in 1782, the year before the invention of the
Montgolfiers, he succeeded in elevating soap-bubbles by
inflating them with hydrogen gas. Researches on the use of
gas for inflating balloons seem to have been carried on at
Philadelphia nearly simultaneously with the experiments of
the Montgolfiers; and when the news of the latter reached
America, D. Rittenhouse and F. Hopkinson, members of the
Philosophical Society at Philadelphia; constructed a machine
consisting of forty-seven small hydrogen gas-balloons attached
to a car or cage. After several preliminary experiments, in
which animals were let up to a certain height by a rope, a
carpenter, one James Wilcox, was induced to enter the car for
a small sum of money; the ropes were cut, and he remained in
the air about ten minutes, and only then effected his descent
by making incisions in a number of the balloons, through
fear of falling into the river, which he was approaching.
First Ascents in Great Britain.
Although the news of the Annonay and subsequent experiments
in France rapidly spread all over Europe, and formed a topic
of general discussion, still it was not till five months
after the Montgolfiers had first publicly sent a balloon
into the air that any aerostatic experiment was made in
England. In November 1783 Count Francesco Zambeccari
(1756-1812), an Italian who happened to be in London, made
a balloon of oil-silk, 10 ft. in diameter, and weighing 11
lb. It was publicly shown for several days, and on the 25th
it was three-quarters filled with hydrogen gas and launched
from the Artillery ground at one o'clock. It descended after
two hours and a half near Petworth, in Sussex, 48 m. from
London. This was the first balloon that ascended from English
ground. On the 22nd of February 1784 a hydrogen gas
balloon, 5 ft. in diameter, was let up from Sandwich, in
Kent, and descended at Warneton, in French Flanders, 75 m.
distant. This was the first balloon that crossed the
Channel. The first person who rose into the air from British
ground appears to have been J. Tytler1, who ascended from the
Comely Gardens, Edinburgh, on the 27th of August 1784, in a
fire-balloon of his own construction. He descended on the road
to Restalrig, about half a mile from the place where he rose.
But it was Vincent Lunardi who practically introduced
aerostation into Great Britain. Although Tytler had the
precedence by a few days still his attempts and partial
success were all but unknown; whereas Lunardi's experiments
excited an enormous amount of enthusiasm in London. He was
secretary to Prince Caramanico, the Neapolitan ambassador,
and his published letters to his guardian, the chevalier
Compagni, written while he was carrying out his project,
and detailing all the difficulties, &c., he met with as they
occurred, give an interesting and vivid account of the whole
matter. His balloon was 33 ft. in circumference (fig.4),
and was exposed to the public view at the Lyceum in the
Strand, where it was visited by upwards of 20,000 people. He
originally intended to ascend from Chelsea Hospital, but the
conduct of a crowd at a garden at Chelsea, which destroyed
the fire-balloon of a Frenchman named de Moret, who announced
an ascent on the 11th of August, but was unable to keep his
word, led to the withdrawal of the leave that had been
granted. Ultimately he was permitted to ascend from the Artillery
ground, and on the 15th of September 1784 the inflation with
hydrogen gas took place. It was intended that an English
gentleman named Biggin should accompany Lunardi; but the crowd
becoming impatient, the latter judged it prudent to ascend
with the balloon only partially full rather than risk a longer
delay, and accordingly Mr Biggin was obliged to leave the
car. Lunardi therefore ascended alone, in presence of the
prince of Wales and an enormous crowd of spectators. He
took up with him a pigeon, a dog and a cat, and the balloon
was provided with oars, by means of which he hoped to raise
or lower it at pleasure. Shortly after starting the pigeon
escaped, and one of the oars became broken and fell to the
ground. In about an hour and a half he descended at South
Mimms, in Hertfordshire, and landed the cat, which had suffered
from the cold: he then ascended again, and descended, after
the lapse of about three-quarters of an hour, at Standon, near
Ware, where he had great difficulty in inducing the peasants
to come to his assistance; but at length a young woman, taking
hold of one of the cords, urged the men to follow her example,
which they then did. The excitement caused by this ascent was
immense, and Lunardi at once became the star of the hour. He
was presented to the king, and was courted and flattered on all
sides. To show the enthusiasm displayed by the people during
his ascent, he tells himself, in his sixth letter, how a lady,
mistaking the oar which fell for himself, was so affected by
his supposed destruction that she died in a few days; but, on
the other hand, he says he was told by the judges ``that he had
certainly saved the life of a young man who might possibly be
reformed, and be to the public a compensation for the death
of the lady''; for the jury were deliberating on the fate of
a criminal, whom they must ultimately have condemned, when
the balloon appeared, and to save time they gave a verdict
of acquittal, and the whole court came out to view the
balloon. The king also was in conference with his ministers;
but on hearing that the balloon was passing, he broke up
the discussion, and with them watched the balloon through
telescopes. The balloon was afterwards exhibited in the
Pantheon. In the latter part of the following year (1785)
Lunardi made several successful ascents from Kelso, Edinburgh
and Glasgow (in one of which he traversed a distance of 110
m.); these he described in a second series of letters. The
first ascent from Ireland was made on the 19th of January 1785
by a Mr Crosbie, who on the following 19th of July attempted
to cross St George's Channel to England but fell into the
sea. The second person who ascended from Ireland was Richard
Maguire. Mr Crosbie had inflated his balloon on the 12th
of May 1785, but it was unable to take him up. Maguire in
these circumstances offered himself as a substitute, and
his offer being accepted he made the ascent. For this he
was knighted by the Lord-Lieutenant. Another attempt to
cross St George's Channel was made by James Sadler on the
1st of October 1812, and he had nearly succeeded when in
consequence of a change of wind he was forced to descend
into the sea off Liverpool, whence he was rescued by a
fishing-boat. But on the 22nd of July 1817 his second son,
Windham Sadler, succeeded in crossing from Dublin to Holyhead.
The first balloon voyage across the English Channel was
accomplished by Jean Pierre Blanchard (1753-1809) and Dr.
J. Jeffries, an American physician, on the 7th of January
1785. In the preceding year, on the 2nd of March, Blanchard,
who was one of the most celebrated of the earlier aeronauts,
made his first voyage from Paris in a balloon 27 ft. in
diameter (fig. 5), and descended at Billancourt near Sevres.
Just as the balloon was about to start, a young man jumped
into the car and drawing his sword declared his determination
to ascend with Blanchard. He was ultimately removed by
force. It has sometimes been incorrectly stated that he was
Napoleon Bonaparte; his name in reality was Dupont de Chambon.
In their Channel crossing Blanchard and his companion, who
started from Dover, when about one-third across found themselves
descending, and threw out every available thing from the boat or
car. When about three- quarters across they were descending
again, and had to throw out not only the anchor and cords, but
also to strip and throw away their clothing, which they found
they were rising, and their last resource, viz. to cut away the
car, was rendered unnecessary. As they approached the shore
the balloon rose, describing a magnificent arch high over the
land. They descended in the forest of Guinnes. On the 15th
of June 1785, Pilatre de Rozier made an attempt to repeat the
exploit of Blanchard and Jeffries in the reverse direction,
and cross from Boulogne to England. For this purpose he
contrived a double balloon, which he expected would combine the
advantages of both kinds---a fire-balloon, 10 ft. in diameter,
being placed underneath a gas-balloon of 37 ft. in diameter,
so that by increasing or diminishing the fire in the former
it might be possible to ascend or descend without waste of
gas. Rozier was accompanied by P. A. Romain, and for rather
less than half an hour after the aerostat ascended all seemed
to be going on well, when suddenly the whole apparatus was
seen in flames, and the unfortunate adventurers came to the
ground from the supposed height of more than 3000 ft. Rozier
was killed on the spot, and Romain only survived about ten
minutes. A monument was erected on the place where they fell,
which was near the sea-shore, about 4 m. from the starting-point.
Early large balloons.
The largest balloon on record (if the contemporary accounts
are correct) ascended from Lyons on the 19th of January
1784. It was more than 100 ft. in diameter, about 130 ft. in
height, and when distended had a capacity, it is said, of over
half a million cubic feet. It was called the ``Flesselles''
(from the name of its proprietor, we believe), and after having
been inflated from a straw fire in seventeen minutes, it rose
with seven persons in the car to the height of about 3000
ft., but descended again after the lapse of about a quarter
of an hour from the time of starting, in consequence of a
rent in the upper part. Another large fire-balloon, 68 ft. in
diameter, was constructed by the chevalier Paul Andreani of
Milan, and on the 25th of February he ascended in it from
Milan, remaining in the air for about twenty minutes. This
is usually regarded as the first ascent in Italy (but see
Monck Mason's Aeronautica, p. 247). On the 7th of November
1836, at half-past one o'clock, a large balloon containing
about 85,000 cub. ft. of gas ascended from Vauxhall Gardens,
London, carrying Robert Hollond, M.P., Monck Mason and Charles
Green, and descended about two leagues from Weilburg, in the
duchy of Nassau, at half-past seven the next morning, having
thus traversed a distance of about 500 m. in 18 hours; Liege
was passed in the course of the night, and Coblentz in the early
morning. In consequence of this journey the balloon became
famous as the ``Nassau Balloon'' (fig. 6). Charles Green
(1785-1870), who constructed it and subsequently became its
owner, was the most celebrated of English aeronauts, and made
an extraordinary number of ascents. His first, made from the
Green Park, London, on the 19th of July 1821 at the coronation
of George IV., was distinguished for the fact that for the first
time coal-gas was used instead of hydrogen for inflating the
balloon. In 1828 he made an equestrian ascent from the
Eagle Tavern, City Road, London, seated on his favourite
pony. Such ascents have since been repeated; in 1852 Madame
Poitevin made one from Cremorne Gardens, but was prevented
from giving a second performance by police interference, the
exhibition outraging public opinion. It was in descending
from the ``Nassau Balloon'' in a parachute that Robert
Cocking was killed in 1837 (see PARACHUTE) . Green was the
inventor of the guide-rope, which consists of a long rope
trailing below the car. Its function is to reduce the waste
of gas and ballast required to keep the balloon at a proper
altitude. When a balloon sinks so low that a good deal of
the guide-rope rests on the ground, it is relieved of so
much weight and therefore tends to rise; if on the other
hand it rises so that most of the rope is lifted off the
ground, it has to bear a greater weight and tends to sink.
In 1863 A. Nadar, a Paris photographer, constructed ``Le
Geant,'' which was the largest gas-balloon made up to that
time and contained over 200,000 cub. ft. of gas. Underneath
it was placed a smaller balloon, called a compensator,
the object of which was to prevent loss of gas during the
voyage. The car had two stories, and was, in fact, a model
of a cottage in wicker-work, 8 ft. in height by 13 ft. in
length, containing a small printing-office, a photographic
department, a refreshment-room, a lavatory, &c. The first
ascent took place at five o'clock on Sunday the 4th of
October 1863, from the Champ de Mars. There were thirteen
persons in the car, including one lady, the princess de
la Tour d'Auvergne, and the two aeronauts Louis and Jules
Godard. In spite of the elaborate preparations that had been
made and the stores of provisions that were taken up, the
balloon descended at nine o'clock, at Meaux, the early descent
being rendered necessary, it was said, by an accident to the
valve-line. At a second ascent, made a fortnight later,
there were nine passengers, including Madame Nadar. The
balloon descended at the expiration of seventeen hours, near
Nienburg in Hanover, a distance of about 400 m. A strong wind
was blowing, and it was dragged over the ground for 7 or 8
m. All the passengers were bruised, and some seriously
hurt. The balloon and car were then brought to England,
and exhibited at the Crystal Palace at the end of 1863 and
beginning of 1864. The two ascents of Nadar's balloon excited
an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm and interest, vastly
out of proportion to what they were entitled to. Nadar's
idea was to obtain sufficient money, by the exhibition of his
balloon, to carry out a plan of aerial locomotion he had
conceived possible by means of the principle of the screw; in
fact, he spoke of ``Le Geant'' as ``the last balloon.'' He
also started L'Aeronaute, a newspaper devoted to aerostation,
and published a small book, which was translated into English
under the title The Right to Fly. Directly after Nadar's two
ascents, Eugene Godard constructed a fire-balloon of nearly
half a million cubic feet capacity--more than double that of
Nadar's and only slightly less than that attributed to the
``Flesselles'' of 1783. The air was heated by an 18-ft. stove,
weighing, with the chimney, 980 lb. This furnace was fed
by straw; and the ``car'' consisted of a gallery surrounding
it. Two ascents of this balloon, the first fire-balloon seen
in London, were made from Cremorne Gardens in July 1864.
After the first journey the balloon descended at Greenwich,
and after the second at Walthamstow, where it was injured
by being blown against a tree. Notwithstanding its enormous
size, Godard asserted that it could be inflated in half an
hour, and the inflation at Cremorne did not occupy more than an
hour. In spite of the rapidity with which the inflation was
effected, few who saw the ascent could fail to receive an
impression unfavourable to the fire-balloon in the matter
of safety, as a rough descent, with a heated furnace as it
were in the car, could not be other than most dangerous.
Long balloon voyages.
In the summer of 1873 the proprietors of the New York
Daily Graphic, reviving a project discussed by Green in
1840, determined to construct a very large balloon, and
enable the American aeronaut, John Wise, to realize his
favourite scheme of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, by
taking advantage of the current from west to east which was
believed by many to exist constantly at heights above 10,000
ft. The project came to nothing owing to the quality of
the material of which the balloon was made. When it was
being inflated in September 1873 a rent was observed after
325,000 cub. ft. of gas had been put in, and the whole rapidly
collapsed. The size was said to be such as to contain 400,000
cub. ft., so that it would lift a weight of 14,000 lb. No
balloon voyage has yet been made of a length comparable to the
breadth of the Atlantic. In fact only two voyages exceeding
1000 m. are on record--that of John Wise from St Louis to
Henderson, N.Y., 1120 m., in 1859, and that of Count Henry
de la Vaulx from Paris to Korosticheff in Russia, 1193 m., in
1900. On the 11th of July 1897 Salomon Andree, with two
companions, Strendberg and Frankel, ascended from Spitzbergen
in a daring attempt to reach the North Pole, about 600 m.
distant. One carrier pigeon, apparently liberated 48 hours
after the start, was shot, and two floating buoys with messages
were found, but nothing more was heard of the explorers.
Scientific Ascents.
At an early date the balloon was applied to scientific
purposes. as far back as 1784, Dr Jeffries made an ascent from
London in which he carried out barometric, thermometric and
hygrometric observations, also collecting samples of the air
at different heights. In 1803 the St Petersburg Academy of
Sciences, entertaining the opinion that the experiments made
on mountain-sides by J. A. Deluc, H. B. de Saussure, A. von
Humboldt and others must give results different from those
made in free air at the same heights, resolved to arrange a
balloon ascent. Accordingly, on the 30th of January 1808,
.Sacharof, a member of the academy, ascended in a gas balloon,
in company with a French aeronaut, E. G. Robertson, who at
one time gave conjuring entertainments in Paris. The ascent
was made at a quarter past seven, and the descent effected
at a quarter to eleven. The height reached was less than 1 1/2
m. The experiments were not very systematically made, and
the chief results were the filling and bringing down of
several flasks of air collected at different elevations,
and the supposed observation that the magnetic dip was
altered. A telescope fixed in the bottom of the car and
pointing vertically downwards enabled the travellers to
ascertain exactly the spot over which they were floating at any
moment. Sacharof found that, on shouting downwards through
his speaking-trumpet, the echo from the earth was quite
distinct, and at his height was audible after an interval
of about ten seconds (Phil. Mag., 1805, 21, p. 193).
Some of the results reported by Robertson appearing doubtful,
Laplace proposed to the members of the French Academy of
Sciences that the funds placed by the government at their
disposal for the prosecution of useful experiments should be
utilized in sending up balloons to test their accuracy. The
proposition was supported by J. A. C. Chaptal, the chemist,
who was then minister of the interior, and accordingly the
necessary arrangements were speedily effected, the charge
of the experiments being given to L. J. Gay-Lussac and J. B.
Biot. The principal object of this ascent was to determine
whether the magnetic force experienced any appreciable diminution
at heights above the earth's surface. On the 24th of August
1804, Gay-Lussac and Biot ascended from the Conservatoire des
Arts at ten o'clock in the morning. Their magnetic experiments
were incommoded by the rotation of the balloon, but they found
that, up to the height of 13,000 ft., the time of vibration
of a magnet was appreciably the same as on the earth's
surface. They found also that the air became drier as they
ascended. The height reached was about 13,000 ft., and the
temperature declined from 63 deg. to 51 deg. F. The descent was
effected about half-past one, at Meriville, 18 leagues from Paris.
In a second experiment, which was made on the 16th of September
1804, Gay-Lussac ascended alone. The balloon left the
Conservatoire des Arts at 9.40 A.M., and descended at 3.45
P.M. between Rouen and Dieppe. The chief result obtained was
that the magnetic force, like gravitation, did not experience
any sensible variation at heights from the earth's surface
which we can attain to. Gay-Lussac also brought down air
collected at the height of nearly 23,000 ft., and on analysis
it appeared that its composition was the same as that of air
collected at the earth's surface. At the time of leaving the
earth the thermometer stood at 82 deg. F., and at the highest
point reached (23,000 ft.) it was 14.9 deg. F. Gay-Lussac remarked
that at his highest point there were still clouds above him.
From 1804 to 1850 there is no record of any scientific ascents
in balloons having been undertaken. In the latter year
J. A. Bixio (1808-1865) and A. Barral (1819-1884) made two
ascents of this kind. In the first they ascended from the
Paris observatory on the 29th of June 1850, at 10.27 A.M.,
the balloon being inflated with hydrogen gas. The day was
a rough one, and the ascent took place without any previous
attempt having been made to test the ascensional force of the
balloon. When liberated, it rose with great rapidity, and
becoming fully inflated it pressed upon the network, bulging
out at the top and bottom. The ropes by which the car was
suspended being too short, the balloon soon covered the
travellers like an immense hood. In endeavouring to secure
the valve-rope, they made a rent in the balloon, and the
gas escaped so close to their faces as almost to suffocate
them. Finding that they were descending then too rapidly,
they threw overboard everything available, including their
coats and only excepting the instruments. The ground was
reached at 10h. 45m., near Lagny. Of course no observations
were made. Their second ascent was made on the 27th of
July, and was remarkable on account of the extreme cold met
with. At about 20,000 ft. the temperature was 15 deg. F., the
balloon being enveloped in cloud; but on emerging from the
cloud, at 23,000 ft., the temperature sank to --38 deg. F.,
no less than 53 deg. F. below that experienced by Gay-Lussac
at the same elevation. The existence of these very cold
clouds served to explain certain meteorological phenomena
that were observed on the earth both the day before and the
day after the ascent. Some pigeons were taken up in this,
as in most other high ascents; when liberated, they showed a
reluctance to leave the car, and then fell heavily downwards.
In July 1852 the committee of the Kew Observatory resolved
to institute a series of balloon ascents, with the view of
investigating such meteorological and physical phenomena as
require the presence of an observer at a great height in the
atmosphere. John Welsh (1824-1859) of the Kew Observatory was
the observer, and the great ``Nassau Balloon'' was employed,
with Green himself as the aeronaut. Four ascents were made
in 1852, viz. on the 17th and 26th of August, the 31st of
October and the 10th of November. The heights attained
were 19,510, 19,100, 12,680 and 22,930 ft., and the lowest
temperatures met with in the four ascents were 8.7 deg. F. (19,380
ft.), 12.4 deg. F. (18,370 ft.), 16.4 deg. F. (12,640 ft.) and
10.5 deg. F. (22,370 ft.). The decline of temperature was very
regular. A siphon barometer, dry and wet bulb thermometers,
aspirated and free, and a Regnault hygrometer were taken
up. Some air collected at a considerable height was found
on analysis not to differ appreciably in its composition
from air collected near the ground. For the original
observations see Phil. Trans., 1853, pp. 311-346.
Glaisher's ascents.
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science held at Aberdeen in 1859, a committee was appointed
for the purpose of making observations in the higher strata
of the atmosphere by means of the balloon. For two years
nothing was effected, owing to the want both of an observer
and of a suitable balloon. After its reappointment at
the Manchester meeting of 1861, the committee communicated
with Henry Tracey Coxwell (1819-1900), an aeronaut who had
made a good many ascents, and he agreed to construct a new
balloon, of 90,000 cub. ft. capacity, on the condition that
the committee would undertake to use it, and pay L. 25 for
each high ascent made especially on its behalf, defraying
also the cost of gas, &c., so that the expense of each high
ascent amounted to nearly L. 50. An observer being still
wanted, James Glaisher, a member of the committee, offered
himself to take the observations, and accordingly the first
ascent was made on the 17th of July 1862, from the gas-works
at Wolverhamiton, this town being chosen on account of its
central position in the country. Altogether, Glaisher made
twenty-eight ascents, the last being on the 26th of May
1866. Of these only seven were specially high ascents,
although six others were undertaken for the objects of the
committee alone. . On the ether occasions he availed himself
of public ascents from the Crystal Palace and other places
of entertainment, merely taking his place like the other
passengers. In the last six ascents another aeronaut and a
smaller balloon were employed. The dates, places of ascent
and greatest heights (in feet) attained in the twenty-eight
ascents were--1862: July 17, Wolverhampton, 26,177; July 30,
Crystal Palace, 6937; August 18, Wolverhampton, 23,377; August
20, Crystal Palace, 5900; August 21, Hendon, 14,355; September
1, Crystal Palace, 4190; September 5, Wolverhampton, 37,000;
September 8, Crystal Palace, 5428. 1863: March 31, Crystal
Palace, 22,884; April 18, Crystal Palace, 24,163; June 26,
Wolverton, 23,200; July 11, Crystal Palace, 6623; July 21,
Crystal Palace, 3298; August 31, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 8033;
September 29, Wolverhampton, 16,590; October 9, Crystal Palace,
7310. 1864: January 12, Woolwich, 11,897; April 6, Woolwich,
11,075; June 13, Crystal Palace, 3543; June 20, Derby, 4280;
June 27, Crystal Palace, 4898; August 29, Crystal Palace,
14,581; December 1, Woolwich, 5431; December 30, Woolwich,
3735. 1865: February 27, Woolwich, 4865; October 2, Woolwich,
1949; December 2, Woolwich, 4628. 1866: May 26, Windsor, 6325.
The primary object of the ascents was to determine the temperature
of the air, and its hygrometrical state at different elevations
to as great a height as could be reached; and the secondary
objects were-(1) to determine the temperature of the dew-point
by Daniell's and Regnault's hygrometers, as well as by the
dry and wet bulb thermometers, and to compare the results;
(2) to compare the readings of an aneroid barometer with those
of a mercurial barometer up to the height of 5 m.; (3) to
determine the electrical state of the air, (4) the oxygenic
condition of the atmosphere, and (5) the time of vibration
of a magnet; (6) to collect air at different elevations;
(7) to note the height and kind of clouds, their density and
thickness; (8) to determine the rate and direction of different
currents in the atmosphere; and (9) to make observations on
sound. The instruments used were mercurial and aneroid
barometers, dry and wet bulb thermometers, Daniell's dew-point
hygrometer, Regnault's condensing hygrometer, maximum and
minimum thermometers, a magnet for horizontal vibration,
hermetically sealed glass tubes exhausted of air, and an
electrometer. In one or two of the ascents a camera was taken up.
The complete observations, both as made and after reduction,
are printed in the British Association Reports, 1862-1866;
here only a general account of the results can he given.
It appeared that the rate of the decline of temperature with
elevation near the earth was very different according as
the sky was clear or cloudy; and the equality of temperature
at sunset and increase with height after sunset were very
remarkable facts which were not anticipated. Even at the
height of 5 m., cirrus clouds were seen high in the air,
apparently as far above as they seem when viewed from the
earth. The results of the observations differed very much,
and no doubt the atmospheric conditions depended not only
on the time of day, but also on the season of the year, and
were such that a vast number of ascents would be requisite
to determine the true laws with anything approaching to
certainty and completeness. It was also clear that England is
a most unfit country for the pursuit of such investigations,
as, from whatever place the balloon started, it was never
safe to be more than an hour above the clouds for fear of
reaching the sea. It appeared from the observations that an
aneroid barometer could be trusted to read as accurately as
a mercurial barometer to the heights reached. The time of
vibration of a horizontal magnet was taken in very many of the
ascents, and the results of ten different sets of observations
indicated that the time of vibration was longer than on the
earth. In almost all the ascents the balloon was under the
influence of currents of air in different directions which
varied greatly in thickness. The direction of the wind on the
earth was sometimes that of the whole mass of air up to 20,000
ft., whilst at other times the direction changed within 500
ft. of the earth. Sometimes directly opposite currents were
met with at different heights in the same . ascent, and three
or four streams of air were encountered moving in different
directions. The direct distances between the places of ascent
and descent, apart from the movements of the balloon under
the influence of these various currents, were always very much
greater than the horizontal movement of the air as measured by
anemometers. For example, on the 12th of January 1862, the
balloon left Woolwich at 2h. 8m. P.M., and descended at
Lakenheath, 70 m. distant from the place of ascent, at 4h.
19m. P.M. At the Greenwich Observatory, by a Robinson
anemometer, during this time the motion of the air was 6 m.
only. With regard to physiological observations, Glaisher
found that the frequency of his pulse increased with elevation,
as also did the number of inspirations. The number of his
pulsations was generally 76 per minute before starting,
about 90 at 10,000 ft., 100 at 20,000 ft., and 110 at higher
elevations. But a good deal depended on the temperament of the
individual. This was also the case in respect to colour; at
10,000 ft. the faces of some would be a glowing purple, whilst
others would be scarcely affected; at 4 m. high Glaisher
found the pulsations of his heart distinctly audible, and
his breathing was very much affected, so that panting was
produced by the slightest exertion; at 29,000 ft. he became
insensible. In reference to the propagation of sound, it
was at all times found that sounds from the earth were more
or less audible according to the amount of moisture in the
air. When in clouds at 4 m. high, a railway train was heard;
but when clouds were far below, no sound ever reached the ear
at this elevation. The discharge of a gun was heard at 10,000
ft. The barking of a dog was heard at the height of 2 m.,
while the shouting of a multitude of people was not audible
at heights exceeding 4000 ft. In his ascent of the 5th of
September 1862, Glaisher considered that he reached a height
of 37,000 ft. But that figure was based, not on actual
record, but on the circumstances that at 29,000 ft., when he
became insensible, the balloon was rising 1000 ft. a minute,
and that when he recovered consciousness thirteen minutes
later it was falling 2000 ft. a minute, and the accuracy of
his conclusions has been questioned. Few scientific men have
imitated Glaisher in making high ascents for meteorological
observations. In 1867 and 1868 Camille Flammarion made eight
or nine ascents from Paris for scientific purposes. The
heights attained were not great, but the general result was
to confirm the observations of Glaisher; for an account see
Voyages aeriens, Paris, 1870, or Travels in the Air,
London, 1871, in which also some ascents by W. de Fonvielle are
noticed. On the 15th of April 1875, H. T. Sivel, J. E.
Croce-Spinelli and Gaston Tissandier ascended from Paris in
the balloon ``Zenith,'' and reached a height of 27,950 ft.;
but only Tissandier came down alive, his two companions being
asphyxiated. This put an end to such attempts for a time.
But Dr A. Berson and Lieut. Gross attained 25,840 ft. on
the 11th of May 1894; Berson, ascending alone from Strassfurt
on the 4th of December 1894, attained about 31,500 ft. and
recorded a temperature of --54 deg. F.; and Berson and Stanley
Spencer are stated by the latter to have attained 27,500 ft.
on the 15th of September 1898 when they ascended in a hydrogen
balloon from the Crystal Palace, the thermometer registering
--29 deg. F. On the 31st of July 1901, Berson and R. J. Suring,
ascending at Berlin, actually noted a barometric reading
corresponding to a height of 34,500 ft., and possibly rose
1000 or 1500 ft. higher, though in spite of oxygen inhalations
they were unconscious during the highest portion of the ascent.
The personal danger attending his ascents led Gustave Hermite
and Besancon in November 1892 to inaugurate the sending up of
unmanned balloons (ballons sondes) equipped with automatic
recording instruments, and kites (q.v.) have also been employed
for similar meteorological purposes. (See also METEOROLOOY.)
Military balloons.
The balloon had not been discovered very long before it
received a military status, and soon after the beginning of
the French revolutionary war an aeronautic school was founded
at Meudon, in charge of Guyton de Morveau, the chemist, and
Colonel J. M. J. Coutelle (1748-1835). Four balloons were
constructed for the armies of the north, of the Sambre and
Meuse, of the Rhine and Moselle, and of Egypt. In June 1794
Coutelle ascended with the adjutant and general to reconnoitre
the hostile army just before the battle of Fleurus, and two
reconnaissances were made, each occupying four hours. It is
generally stated that it was to the information so gained that
the French victory was due. The balloon corps was in constant
requisition during the campaign, but it does not appear that,
with the exception of the reconnaissances just mentioned,
any great advantages resulted, except in a moral point of
view. But even this was of importance, as the enemy were much
disconcerted at having their movements so completely watched,
while the French were correspondingly elated at the superior
information it was believed they were gaining. An attempt
was made to revive the use of balloons in the African campaign
of 1830, but no opportunity occurred in which they could be
employed. It is said that in 1849 a reconnoitring balloon
was sent up from before Venice, as also were small balloons
loaded with bombs to be exploded by time-fuses. In the French
campaign against Italy in 1859 the French had recourse to the
use of balloons, but this time there was not any aerostatic
corps, and their management was entrusted to the brothers
Godard. Several reconnaissances were made, and one of
especial interest the day before the battle of Solferino. No
information of much importance seems, however, to have been
gained thereby. In the American Civil War (1861) balloons
were a good deal used by the Federals. There was a regular
balloon staff attached to Mcclellan's army, with a captain, an
assistant-captain and about 50 non-commissioned officers and
privates. The apparatus consisted of two generators, drawn
by four horses each; two balloons, drawn by four horses each,
and an acid-cart, drawn by two horses. The two balloons used
contained about 13,000 and 26,000 ft. of gas, and the inflation
usually occupied about three hours. (See Royal Engineers'
Papers, vol. xii.) By their aid useful information was
gained about the enemy round Richmond and in other places,
but eventually difficulties of transport and the topography
of the theatre of war made ballooning impracticable; and
little was heard of it after the first two years of the war.
The balloon proved itself very valuable during the siege of
Paris (1870-71). It was by it alone that communication was
kept up between the besieged city and the external world,
as the balloons carried away from Paris the pigeons which
afterwards brought back to it the news of the provinces. The
total number of balloons that ascended from Paris during the
siege, conveying persons and despatches, was sixty-four--the
first having started on the 23rd of September 1870, and the
last on the 28th of January 1871. Gambetta effected his
escape from Paris, on the 7th of October, in the balloon
``Armand-Barbes,', an event which doubtless led to the
prolongation of the war. Of the sixty-four balloons only two
were never heard of; they were blown out to sea. One of the
most remarkable voyages was that of the ``Ville d'Orleans,''
which, leaving Paris at eleven o'clock on the 21st of November,
descended fifteen hours afterwards near Christiania, having
crossed the North Sea. Several of the balloons on their
descent were taken by the Prussians, and a good many were
fired at while in the air. The average size of the balloons
was from 2000 to 2050 metres, or from 70,000 to 72,000 cub.
ft. The above facts are extracted from Les Ballons du
siege de Paris, a sheet published by Buila and Sons,
Paris, and compiled by the brothers Tissandier, well-known
French aeronauts, which gives the name, size and times of
ascent and descent of every balloon that left Paris, with the
Da.mes of the aeronaut and generally also of the passengers, the
weight of despatches, the number of pigeons, &c. Only those
balloons, however, are noticed in which some person ascended.
The balloons were manufactured and despatched (generally from
(the platforms of the Orleans or the Northern railway) under
the direction of the Post Office. The aeronauts employed were
mostly sailors, who did their work very well. No use whatever
was made in the war of balloons for purposes of reconnaissance.
Ballooning, however, as a recognized military science, only
dates back to about the year 1883 or 1884, when most of the
powers organized regular balloon establishments. In 1884-85
the French found balloons very useful during their campaign
in Tongking; and the British government also despatched
balloons with the Bechuanaland expedition, and also with that
to Suakin in those years. During the latter campaign several
ascents were made in the presence of the enemy, on whom it was
said that a great moral effect was produced. The employment
of balloons has been common in nearly all modern wars.
We may briefly describe the apparatus used in military
operations. The French in the campaigns of the 19th century
used varnished silk balloons of about 10,000 cub. ft.
capacity. The Americans in the Civil War used much
larger ones. those of 26,000 cub. ft. being found the most
suitable. These were also of varnished silk. In the present
day most nations use balloons of about 20,000 cub. ft., made
of varnished cambric; but the British war balloons, made of
goldbeater skin, are usually of comparatively small size,
the normal capacity being 10,000 cub. ft., though others of
7000 and 4500 cub. ft. have also been used, as at Suakin.
The usual shape is spherical; but since 1896 the Germans,
and now other nations, have adopted a long cylindrical-shaped
balloon, so affixed to its cable as to present an inclined
surface to the wind and thus act partly on the principle of a
kite. Though coal-gas and even hot air may occasionally be used
for inflation, hydrogen gas is on account of its lightness fat
preferable. In the early days of ballooning this had to
be manufactured in the field, but nowadays it is almost
universally carried compressed in steel tubes. About 100 such
tubes, each weighing 75lb., are required to fill a 10,000-ft.
balloon. Tubes of greater capacity have also been tried.
The balloon is almost always used captive. If allowed
to go free it will usually be rapidly carried away by the
wind and the results of the observations cannot easily be
transmitted back. Occasions may occur when such ascents
will be of value, but the usual method is to send up a
captive balloon to a height of somewhere about 1000 ft.
With the standard British balloon two officers are sent up,
one of whom has now particularly to attend to the management
of the balloon, while the other makes the observations.
With regard to observations from captive balloons much depends on
circumstances. In a thickly wooded country, such as that in
which the balloons were used in the American Civil War, and in
the war in Cuba (in which the balloon merely served to expose
the troops to severe fire), no very valuable information is, as a
rule, to be obtained; but in fairly open country all important
movements of troops should be discernible by an experienced
observer at any point within about four or five miles of the
balloon. The circumstances, it may be mentioned, are such
as would usually preclude one unaccustomed to ballooning
from affording valuable reports. Not only is he liable to
be disturbed by the novel and apparently hazardous situation,
but troops and features of the ground often have so peculiar
an appearance from that point of view, that a novice will
often have a difficulty in deciding whether an object be a
column of troops or a ploughed field. Then again, much will
depend on atmospheric conditions. Thus, in misty weather
a balloon is well-nigh useless; and in strong winds, with a
velocity of anything over 20 m. an hour, efficient observation
becomes a matter of difficulty. When some special point has
to be reported on, such as whether there is any large body
of troops behind a certain hill or wood, a rapid ascent may
still be mace in winds up to 30 m. an hour, but the balloon
would then be so unsteady that no careful scouting could be
made. It is.usually estimated that a successful captive
ascent can only be made in England on half the days of the
year. As a general rule balloon ascents would be made for
one of the following objects-- to examine the country for an
enemy; to reconnoitre the enemy's position; to ascertain the
strength of his force, number of guns and exact situation of
the various arms; also to note the plan of his earthworks or
fortifications. During an action the aerial observer would
be on the look-out for any movements of the enemy and give
warning of flank attacks or surprises. Such an observer
could also keep the general informed as to the progress of
various detached parties of his own force, as to the advance of
reinforcements, or to the conduct of any fighting going on at a
distance. Balloon observations are also of especial use
to artillery in correcting their aim. The vulnerability
of a captive balloon to the enemy's fire has been tested
by many experiments with variable results. One established
fact is that the range of a balloon in mid-air is extremely
difficult to judge, and, as its altitude can he very rapidly
altered, it becomes a very difficult mark for artillery to
hit. A few bullet-holes in the fabric of a balloon make but
little difference, since the size of the perforation is very
minute as compared with the great surface of material, but
on the other hand, a shrapnel bursting just in front of may
cause a rapid fall. It is therefore considered prudent to
keep the balloon well away from an enemy, and two miles are
laid down as the nearest approach it should make habitually.
Besides being of use on land for war purposes, balloons have
been tried in connexion with the naval service. In France
especially regular trials have been made of inflating balloons
on board ships, and sending them aloft as a look-out; but it
is now generally contended that the difficulties of storing
the gas and of manoeuvring the balloon are so great on
board ship as to be hardly worth the results to be gained.
A very important development of military ballooning is the navigable
balloon. If only a balloon could be sent up and driven in any
required direction, and brought back to its starting-point, it
is obvious that it would be of the very greatest use in war.
Dirigible balloons.
From the very first invention of balloons the problem has
been how to navigate them by propulsion. General J. B. M.
C. Meusnier (1754-1793) proposed an elongated balloon in
1784. It was experimented on by the brothers Robert, who
made two ascensions and claimed to have obtained a deviation
of 22 deg. from the direction of a light wind by means of aerial
oars worked by hand. The relative speed was probably about
3 m. an hour, and it was so evident that a very much more
energetic light motor than any then known was required to
stem ordinary winds that nothing more was attempted till
1832, when Henri Giffard (1825-1882) as ascended with a
steam-engine of then unprecedented lightness. The subjoined
table exhibits some of the results subsequently obtained :---
Year. Inventor. Length. Dia- Con- Lifting Weight Weight H.P. Speed
meter. tents. Capa- of of per
city. Ballon. Motor. hour.
Ft. Ft. Cub.ft. lb. lb. lb. Miles
1852 Giffard 144 39 88,300 3,978 2,794 462 3.0 6.71
1872 Dupuy de
Lome 118 49 120,088 8,358 4,728 2000 0.8 6.26
1884 Tissandier 92 30 37,439 2,728 933 616 1.5 7.82
1885 Renard and
Krebs 165 27 65,836 4,402 2,449 1174 9.0 14.00
1897 Schwarz 157 {46 39} 130.500 8,133 6,800 800? 16.0 17.00
1900 Zeppelin I 420 39 400,000 25,000 19,000 1500 32.0 18.00
1901 Santos
Dumont VI. 108 20 22,200 .. .. .. 16.20 19.00
1908 ``Repub-
lique'' 195 35 130,000 3,100 .. .. 80 30
1908 Zeppelin IV 446 42 1/2 450,000 .. .. .. 220 ..
Giffard, the future inventor of the injector, devised a
steam-engine weighing, with fuel and water for one hour,
154 lb. per horse-power, and was bold enough to employ it in
proximity to a balloon inflated with coal gas. He was not
able to stem a medium wind, but attained some deviation.
He repeated the experiment in 1855 with a more elongated
spindle, which proved unstable and dangerous. During the
siege of Paris the French Government decided to build a
navigable balloon, and entrusted the work to the chief naval
constructor, Dupuy de Lome. He went into the subject very
carefully, made estimates of all the strains, resistances and
speeds, and tested the balloon in 1872. Deviations of 12 deg.
were obtained from the course of a wind blowing 27 to 37 m. per
hour. The screw propeller was driven by eight labourers, a
steam-engine being deemed too dangerous; but it was estimated
that had one been used, weighing as much as the men, the
speed would have been doubled. Tissandier and his brother
applied an electric motor, lighter than any previously built,
to a spindle-shaped balloon, and went up twice in 1883 and
1884. On the latter occasion he stemmed a wind of 7 m. per
hour. The brothers abandoned these experiments, which
had been carried on at their own expense, when the French
War Department took up the problem. Renard and Krebs, the
Officers in charge of the War Aeronautical Department at
Heudon, built and experimented with in 1884 and 1885 the
fusiform balloon `` La France,'' in which the `` master''
or maximum section was about one-quarter of the distance
from the stem. The propelling screw was at the front of
the car and driven by an electric motor of unprecedented
lightness. Seven ascents were made on very calm days, a
maximum speed of 14 m. an hour was obtained, and the balloon
returned to its starting-point on five of the seven occasions.
Subsequently another balloon was constructed, said to be
capable of a speed of 22 to 28 m. per hour, with a different
motor. After many years of experi- ment Dr Wolfert built and
experimented with in Berlin, in 1897, a cigar-shaped balloon
driven by a gasoline motor. An explosion took place in the
air, the balloon fell and Dr Wolfert and his assistant were
killed. It was also in 1897 that an aluminium balloon was
built from the designs of D. Schwarz and tested in Bedin.
It was driven by a Daimler benzine motor, and attained a
greater speed than ``La France''; but a driving belt slipped,
and in coming down the balloon was injured beyond repair.
From 1897 onwards Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, of the German
army, was engaged in constructing an immense balloon, truly an
airship, of most careful and most intelligent design, to carry
five men. It consisted of an aluminium framework containing
sixteen gas bags with a total capacity of nearly 400,000
cub. ft., and it had two cars, each containing a 16 h.p.
motor. It was first tested in June 1900, when it attained
a speed of 18 m. an hour and travelled a distance of 3 1/2
m. before an accident to the steering gear necessitated the
discontinuance of the experiment. In 1905 Zeppelin built
a second airship which had a slightly smaller capacity
but much greater power, its two motors each developing 85
h.p. This, after making some successful trips, was wrecked
in a violent gale, and was succeeded by a third airship,
which, at its trial in October 1906, travelled round Lake
Constance and showed itself able to execute numerous curves and
traverses. At a second series of trials in September 1907,
after some alterations had been effected, it attained a
speed of 36 m. an hour, remaining in the air for many hours
and carrying nine or eleven passengers. A fourth vessel of
similar design, but with more powerful motors, was tried in
1908, and succeeded in travelling 250 m. in 11 hours, but
owing to a storm it was wrecked when on land and burnt at
Echterdingen on the 5th of August. Subscriptions, headed by
the emperor, were at once raised to enable Zeppelin to build
another. Meanwhile in 1901 Alberto Santos Dumont had begun
experiments with dirigible balloons in Paris, and on the 19th
of October won the Deutsch prize by steering a balloon from
St Cloud round the Eiffel tower and back in half an hour,
encountering on his return journey a wind of nearly 5 metres a
second. An airship constructed by Pierre and Paul Lebaudy in
1904 also made a number of successful trials in the vicinity
of Paris; with a motor of 40 h.p., its speed was about 25 m. an
hour, and it regularly carried three passengers. In October
1907 the ``Nulli Secundus,'' an airship constructed for the
British War Office, sailed from Farnborough round St Paul's
Cathedral, London, to the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, a distance
of about 50 m., in 3 hours 35 minutes. The weight carried,
including two occupants, was 3400 lb., and the maximum speed
was 24 m. an hour, with a following wind of 8 m. an hour.
Thus the principles which govern the design of the dirigible
balloon may be said to have been evolved. As the lifting
power crows as the cube of the dimensions, and the resistance
approximately as the square, the advantage lies with the
larger sizes of balloons, as of ocean steamers, up to the
limits within which they may be found practicable. Count
Zeppelin gained an advantage by attaching his propellers
to the balloon, instead of to the car as heretofore; but
this requires a rigid framework and a great increase of
weight. Le Compagnon endeavoured, in 1892, to substitute
flapping wings for rotary propellers, as the former can
be suspended near the centre of resistance. C. Danilewsky
followed him in 1898 and 1899, but without remarkable
results. Dupuy de Lome was the first to estimate in detail
the resistances to balloon propulsion, but experiment showed
that in the aggregate they were greater than he calculated.
Renard and Krebs also found that their computed resistances
were largely exceeded, and after revising the results they
gave the formula R=0.01685 D2V2, R being the resistance in
kilograms, D the diameter in metres and V the velocity in
metres per second. Reduced to British measures, in pounds,
feet and miles per hour, R=0.0006876 D2V2, which is somewhat
in excess of the formula computed by Dr William Pole from
Dupuy de Lome's experiments. The above coefficient applies
only to the shape and rigging of the balloon ``La France,''
and combines all resistances into one equivalent, which is
equal to that of a flat plane 18% of the ``master section.''
This coefficient may perhaps hereafter be reduced by one-half
through a better form of hull and car, more like a fish than a
spindle, by diminished sections of suspension lines and net,
and by placing the propeller at the centre of resistance.
To compute the results to be expected from new projects, it
will be preferable to estimate the resistances in detail. The
following table shows how this was done by Dupuy de Lome, and
the probable corrections which should have been made by him:--
RESISTANCES--DUPUY DE LOME'S BALLOON
Computed by Dupuy de Lome. More Probable Values.
V = 2.22 m. per sec. V = 2.82 m. per sec.
Area Coeffici- Air Resist- Coeffici- Air Resist-
Part. Sq. ent. Pres- ance, ent. Pres- ance,
Metres sure. Kg. sure Kg.
Hull,
without net 172.96 1/30 0.665 3.830 1/15 0.875 10.091
Car 3.25 1/5 ,, 0.432 1/5 ,, 0.569
Men's bodies 3.00 1/5 ,, 0.400 1/5 ,, 1.312
Gas tubes 6.40 1/5 ,, 0.850 1/2 ,, 2.750
Small cords 10.00 1/2 ,, 3.325 1/2 ,, 4.375
Large cords 9.90 1/3 ,, 2.194 1/3 ,, 2.887
11.031 21.984
When the resistances have been reduced to the lowest minimum
by careful design, the attainable speed must depend upon the
efficiency of the propeller and the relative lightness of the
motor. The commercial uses of dirigible balloons, however,
will be small, as they must remain housed when the wind aloft is
brisk. The sizes will be great and costly, the loads small,
and the craft frail and short-lived, yet dirigible balloons
constitute the obvious type for governments to evolve,
until they are superseded by efficient flying machines. (See
further, as to the latter, the article FLIGHT AND FLYING.)
Practice of aerostation.
The chief danger attending ballooning lles in the descent; for
if a strong wind be blowing, the grapnel will sometimes trail
for miles over the ground at the rate of ten or twenty miles
an hour, catching now and then in hedges, ditches, roots of
trees, &c.; and, after giving the balloon a terrible jerk,
breaking loose again, till at length some obstruction, such
as the wooded bank of a stream, affords a firm hold. This
danger, however, has been much reduced by the use of the
``ripping-cord,'' which enables a panel to be ripped open and
the balloon to be completely deflated in a few seconds, just
as it is reaching the earth. But even a very rough descent
is usually not productive of any very serious consequences;
as, although the occupants of the car generally receive many
bruises and are perhaps cut by the ropes, it rarely happens
that anything worse occurs. On a day when the wind is light
(supposing that there is no want of ballast) nothing can be
easier than the descent, and the aeronaut can decide several
miles off on the field in which he will alight. It is very
important to have a good supply of ballast, so as to be able
to check the rapidity of the descent, as in passing downwards
through a wet cloud the weight of the balloon is enormously
increased by the water deposited on it; and if there is no ballast
to throw out in compensation, the velocity is sometimes very
great. It is also convenient, if the district upon which
the balloon is descending appear unsuitable for landing, to
be able to rise again. The ballast consists of fine baked
sand, which becomes so scattered as to be inappreciable
before it has fallen far below the balloon. It is taken
up in bags containing about 1/2 cwt. each. The balloon at
starting is liberated by a spring catch which the aeronaut
releases, and the ballast should be so adjusted that there
is nearly equilibrium before leaving, else the rapidity of
ascent is too great, and has to be checked by parting with
gas. It is almost impossible to liberate the balloon in such
a way as to avoid giving it a rotary motion about a vertical
axis, which continues during the whole time it is in the
air. This rotation makes it difficult for those in the car to
discover in what direction they are moving; and it is only by
looking down along the rope to which the grapnel is suspended
that the motion of the balloon over the country below can be
traced. The upward and downward motion at any instant is at once
known by merely dropping over the side of the car a small piece
of paper: if the paper ascends or remains on the same level or
stationary, the balloon is descending; while, if it descends,
the balloon is ascending. This test is exceedingly delicate.
REPERENCES.--Tiberius Cavallo, Treatise on the Nature
and Properties of Air and other permanently Elastic Fluids
(London, 1781); Idem, History and Practice of Aerostation
(London, 1785); Vincent Lunardi, Account of the First Aerial,
Voyage in England, in a Series of letters to his Guardian
(London, 1785); T. Forster, Annals of some Remarkable aerial
and alpine Voyages (London, 1832); Monck Mason, Aeronautica
(London, 1908; John Wise, A System of Aeronautics,
comprehending its Earliest Investigations (Philadelphia,
1850); Hatton Tumor, Astra Castra, Experiments and Adventures
in the Atmosphere (London, 1863); J. Glaisher, C. Flammarion,
W. de Fonvielle and G. Tissandier, Voyages aeriens (Paris,
1870) (translated and edited by James Glaisher under the title
Travels in the Air (London, 1871); O. Chanute, Progress
in Flying Machines (New York, 1894); W. de Fonvielle, Les
Ballons sondes (Paris, 1899); Idem, Histoire de la navigation
aerienne (Paris, 1907); F. Walker, Aerial Navigation
(London, 1902); J. Lecornu, La Navigation aerienne (Paris,
1903); M. L. Marchis, Lecons sur la navigation aerienne
(Paris, 1904), containing many references to books and
periodicals on pp. 701-704; Navigating the Air (papers
collected by the Aero Club of America) (New York, 1907); A.
Hildebrandt, Airships past and present (London, 1908).
1 Mr Tytler contributed largely to, and, indeed,
appears to have been virtually editor of, the second
edition (1778-1783) of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
AEROTHERAPEUTICS, the treatment of disease by atmospheric
air: a term which of late has come to be used somewhat more
loosely to include also pneumotherapeutics, or the treatment
of disease by artificially prepared atmospheres. The physical
and chemical properties of atmospheric air, under ordinary
pressure or under modified pressure, may be therapeutically
utilized either on the external surface of the body, on the
respiratory surface, or on both surfaces together. Also
modifications may be induced in the ventilation of the lungs by
general gymnastics or respiratory gymnastics. The beneficial
effects of air under ordinary pressure are now utilized in
line open-air treatment of phthisical patients, and the main
indications of benefit resulting therefrom are reduction
of the fever, improvement of appetite and the induction of
sleep. The air, however, may be modified in composition or in
temperature. Inhalation is the most common and successful
method of applying it--when modified in composition--to the human
body. The methods in use are as follows: (1) Inhalation
of gases, as oxygen and nitrous oxide. The dyspnoea and
cyanosis of pneumonia, capillary bronchitis, heart failure,
&c., are much relieved by the inhalation of oxygen; and
nitrous oxide is largely used as an anaesthetic in minor
operations; (2) Certain liquids are used as anaesthetics,
which volatilize at low temperatures, as chloroform and
ether. (3) Mercury and sulphur, both of which require heat for
volatilization, are very largely used. In a mercurial or
sulphur bath, the patient, enveloped in a sheet, sits on a
chair beneath which a spirit lamp is placed to vaporize the
drug, the best resuits being obtained when the atmosphere is
surcharged with steam at the same time. The vapour envelops
the patient and is absorbed by the skin. This method is
extensively used in the treatment of syphilis, and also for
scabies and other parasitic affections of the skin. (4) Moist
inhalations are rather losing repute in the light of modern
investigations, which tend to show that nothing lower
than the larger bronchial tubes is affected. Complicated
apparatus has been devised for the application, although
a wide-mouthed jug filled with boiling water, into
which the drug is thrown, is almost equally efficacious.
Artificial atmospheres may be made for invalids by
respirators which cover the mouth and nose, the air being
drawn through tow or sponge, on which is sprinkled the
disinfectant to be used. This is most valuable in the
intensely offensive breath of some cases of bronchiectasis.
The air may be modified as to temperature. Cold air at
32--33 deg. F. has been used in chronic catarrhal conditions of
the lungs, with the result that cough diminishes, the pulse
becomes fuller and slower and the general condition improves.
The more recent observations of Pasquale di Tullio go far to
show that this may be immensely valuable in the treatment of
haemoptysis. The inspiration of superheated dry air has been the
subject of much investigation, but with very doubtful results.
Hot air applied to the skin is more noteworthy in its
therapeutic effects. If a current of hot air is directed
upon healthy skin, the latter becomes pale and contracts
in consequence of vaso-constriction. But if it is directed
on a patch of diseased skin, as in lupus, an inflammatory
reaction is set up and the diseased part begins to undergo
necrosis. This fact has been used with good results in lupus,
otorrhoea, rhinitis and other nasal and laryngeal troubles.
Lastly the air may be either compressed or rarefied. The
physiological effects of compressed air were first studied in
diving-bells, and more recently in caissons. Caisson workers
at first enjoy increased strength, vigour and appetite; later,
however, the opposite effect is produced and intenbe debility
supervenes. In addition, caisson workers suffer from a series
of troubles which are known as accidents of decompression. (See
CAISSON DISEASE.) But, therapeutically, compressed air has
been utilized by means of pneumatic chambers large enough to
hold one or more adults at the time, in which the pressure of
the atmosphere can be exactly regulated. This form of treatment
has been found of much value in the treatment of emphysema, early
pulmonary tuberculosis (not in the presence of persistent high
temperature, haemorrhage, softening or suppuration), delayed
absorption of pleural effusions, heart disease, anaemia and
chlorosis. But compressed air is contra-indicated in advanced
tubercle, fever, and in diseases of kidneys, liver or intestines.
Rarefied air was used as long ago as 1835, by V. T. Junod,
who utilized it for local application by inventing the Junod
Boot. By means of this the blood could be drawn into any
part to which it was applied, the vessels of which became
gorged with blood at the expense of internal organs. More
recently this method of treatment has undergone far-reaching
developments and is known as the passive hyperaemic treatment.
There are also various forms of apparatus by means of which
air at greater or lesser pressures may be drawn into the
lungs, and for the performance of lung gymnastics of various
kinds. Mr Ketchum of the United States has invented one which
is much used. A committee of the Brompton Hospital, London,
investigating its capabilities, decided that its use brought
about (1) an increase of chest circumference, and (2) in cases
of consolidation of the lung a diminution in the area of dulness.
AERTSZEN (or AARTSEN), PIETER (1507-1573), called
``Long Peter'' on account of his height, Dutch historical
painter, was born and died at Amsterdam. When a youth he
distinguished himself by painting homely scenes, in which he
reproduced articles of furniture, cooking utensils, &c., with
marvellous fidelity, but he afterwards cultivated historical
painting. Several of his best works---altar-pieces in
various churches---were destroyed in the religious wars of the
Netherlands. An excellent specimen of his style on a small
scale, a picture of the crucifixion, may be seen in the Antwerp
Museum. Aertszen was a member of the Academy of St Luke,
in whose books he is entered as Langhe Peter, schilder.
Three of his sons attained to some note as painters.
AESCHINES (389-314 B.C.), Greek statesman and orator, was
born at Athens. The statements as to his parentage and early
life are conflicting; but it seems probable that his parents,
though poor, were respectable. After assisting his father
in his school, he tried his hand at acting with indifferent
success, served with distinction in the army, and held
several clerkships, amongst them the office of clerk to the
Boule. The fall of Olynthus (348) brought Aeschines into the
political arena, and he was sent on an embassy to rouse the
Peloponnesus against Philip. In 347 he was a member of the
peace embassy to Philip of Macedon, who seems to have won him
over entirely to his side. His dilatoriness during the second
embassy (346) sent to ratify the terms of peace led to his
accusation by Demosthenes and Timarchus on a charge of high
treason, but he was acquitted as the result of a powerful
speech, in which he showed that his accuser Timarchus had, by
his immoral conduct, forfeited the right to speak before the
people. In 343 the attack was renewed by Demosthenes in his
speech On the False Embassy; Aeschines replied in a speech
with the same title and was again acquitted. In 339, as one
of the Athenian deputies (pylagorae) in the Amphictyonic
Council, he made a speech which brought about the Sacred
War. By way of revenge, Aeschines endeavoured to fix the
blame for these disasters upon Demosthenes. In 336, when
Ctesiphon proposed that his friend Demosthenes should be
rewarded with a golden crown for his distinguished services
to the state, he was accused by Aeschines of having violated
the law in bringing forward the motion. The matter remained
in abeyance till 330, when the two rivals delivered their
speeches Against Ctesiphon and on the crown. The result
was a complete victory for Demosthenes. Aeschines went
into voluntary exile at Rhodes, where he opened a school of
rhetoric. He afterwards removed to Samos, where he died in
the seventy-fifth year of his age. His three speeches, called
by the ancients ``the Three Graces,'' rank next to those of
Demosthenes. Photius knew of nine letters by him which
he called the Nine Muses; the twelve published under his
name (Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci) are not genuine.
ANCIENT AUTHORITIES.---Demosthenes, De Corona and De
Falsa Legatione; Aeschines, De Falsa Legatione and
In Ctesiphontem; Lives by Plutarch, Philostratus and
Libanius; the Exegesis of Apollonius. EDITIONS.--Benseler
(1855-1860) (trans. and notes), Weidner (1872), Blass (1896);
Against Ctesiphon, Weidner (1872, 1878), G.A.and W.H.
Simcox (1866), Drake (1872), Richardson(1889), Gwatkin and
Shuckburgh (1890). ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS.--Leland (1771).
Biddle (1881), and others. See also Stechow, Aeschinis
Oratoris vita (1841); Marchand, Charakteristik des Redners
Aschines (1876): Castets, Eschine, l'Orateur (1875);
for the political problems see histories of Greece, esp. A.
Holm, vol. iii. (Eng. trans., 1896); A. Schofer, Demosth.
und seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1856-1858); also DEMOSTHENES.
AESCHINES (5th century B.C.), an Athenian philosopher.
According to some accounts he was the son of a sausage-maker,
but others say that his father was Lysanias (Diog. Laert. ii.
60; Suidas, q.v..) He was an intimate friend of Socrates,
who is reported to have said that the sausage-maker's son
alone knew how to honour him. Diogenes Laertius preserves
a tradition that it was he, not Crito, who offered to help
Socrates to escape from prison. He was always a poor man, and
Socrates advised him ``to borrow from himself, by diminishing
his expenditure.'' He started a perfumery shop in Athens on
borrowed capital, became bankrupt and retired to the Syracusan
court, where he was well received by Aristippus. According to
Diog. Laert. (ii. 61), Plato, then at Syracuse, pointedly
ignored Aeschines, but this does not agree with Plutarch, De
adulatore et amico (c. 26). On the expulsion of the younger
Dionysius, he returned to Athens, and, finding it impossible
to profess philosophy publicly owing to the contempt of Plato
and Aristoue, was Compelled to teach privately. He wrote also
forensic speeches; Phrynichus, in Photius, ranks him amongst
the best orators, and mentions his orations as the standard
of the pure Attic style. Hermogenes also spoke highly of him
(Peri ideon.) He wrote several philosophical dialogues:
(1) Concerning virtue, whether it can be taught; (2)
Eryxias, or Erasistratust concerning riches, whether they
are good; (3) Axiochus: concerning death, whether it is
to be feared,--but those extant on the several subjects
are not genuine remains. J. le Clerc has given a Latin
translation of them, with notes and several dissertations,
entitled Silvae Philologicae, and they have been edited
by S. N. Fischer (Leipzig, 1786), and K. F. Hermann, De
Aeschin. Socrat. relig. (Gott. 1850). The genuine dialogues
appear to have been marked by the Socratic irony; an amusing
passage is quoted by Cicero in the De inventione (i. 31).
See Hirzel, Der Dialog. i. 129-140; T. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers,
vol. iii. p. 342 (Eng. trans. G. G. Berry, London, 1905).
AESCHYLUS (525-456 B.C.), Greek poet, the first of the
only three Attic Tragedians of whose work entire plays survive,
and in a very real sense (as we shall see) the founder of
the Greek drama, was born at Eleusis in the year 525 B.C.
Life.
His father, Euphorion, belonged to the ``Eupatridae'' or old
nobility of Athens, as we know on the authority of the short
Life of the poet given in the Medicean Manuscript (see
note on ``authorities'' at the end). According to the same
tradition he took part as a soldier in the great struggle
of Greece against Persia; and was present at the battles of
Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis and Plataea, in the years
490-479. At least one of his brothers, Cynaegirus, fought with
him at Marathon, and was killed in attempting a conspicuous act
of bravery; and the brothers' portraits found a place in the
national picture of the battle which the Athenians set up as a
memorial in the Stoa Poecile (or ``Pictured Porch'') at Athens.
The vigour and loftiness of tone which mark Aeschylus'
poetic work was not only due, we may be sure, to his native
genius and gifts, powerful as they were, but were partly
inspired by the personal share he took in the great actions
of a heroic national uprising. In the same way, the poet's
brooding thoughtfulness on deep questions---the power of the
gods, their dealings with man, the dark mysteries of fate,
the future life in Hades--though largely due to his turn of
mind and temperament, was doubtless connected with the place
where his childhood was passed. Eleusis was the centre of
the most famous worship of Demeter, with its processions, its
ceremonies, its mysteries, its impressive spectacles and
nocturnal rites; and these were intimately connected with
the Greek beliefs about the human soul, and the underworld.
His dramatic career began early, and was continued for more
than forty years. In 499, his 26th year, he first exhibited
at Athens; and his last work, acted during his lifetime at
Athens, was the trilogy of the Oresteia, exhibited in 458.
The total number of his plays is stated by Suidas to have
been ninety; and the seven extant plays, with the dramas named
or nameable which survive only in fragments, amount to over
eighty, so that Suidas' figure is probably based on reliable
tradition. It is well known that in the 5th century each
exhibitor at the tragic contests produced four plays; and
Aeschylus must therefore have competed (between 499 and 458)
more than twenty times, or once in two years. His first
victory is recorded in 484, fifteen years after his earliest
appearance on the stage; but in the remaining twenty-six
years of his dramatic activity at Athens he was successful
at least twelve times. This clearly shows that he was the
most commanding figure among the tragedians of 500-458; and
for more than half that time was usually the victor in the
contests. Perhaps the most striking evidence of his exceptional
position among his contemporaries is the well-known decree
passed shortly after his death that whosoever desired to
exhibit a play of Aeschylus should ``receive a chorus,''
i.e. be officially allowed to produce the drama at the
Dionysia. The existence of this decree, mentioned in the
Life, is strongly confirmed by two passages in Aristophanes:
first in the prologue of the Acharnians (which was acted
in 425, thirty-one years after the poet's death), where the
citizen, grumbling about his griefs and troubles, relates his
great disappointment, when he took his seat in the theatre
``expecting Aeschylus,'' to find that when the play came
on it was Theognis; and secondly in a scene of the Frogs
(acted 405 B.C.), where the throne of poetry is contested
in Hades between Aeschylus and Euripides, the former complains
(Fr. 860) that ``the battle is not fair, because my own
poetry has not died with me, while Euripides' has died, and
therefore he will have it with him to recite''-a clear
reference, as the scholiast points out, to the continued
production at Athens of Aeschylus' plays after his death.
Apart from fables, guesses and blunders, of which a word is
said below, the only other incidents recorded of the poet's
life that deserve mention are connected with his Sicilian
visits, and the charge preferred against him of revealing
the ``secrets of Demeter.'' This tale is briefly mentioned
by Aristotle (Eth. iii. 2), and a late commentator
(Eustratius, 12th century) quotes from one Heraclides
Pontius the version which may be briefly given as follows:--
The poet was acting a part in one of his own plays, where there
was a reference to Demeter. The audience suspected him of
revealing the inviolable secrets, and rose in fury; the poet
fled to the altar of Dionysus in the orchestra and so saved
his life for the moment; for even an angry Athenian crowd
respected the inviolable sanctuary. He was afterwards charged
with the crime before the Areopagus; and his plea ``that he
did not know that what he said was secret'' was accepted by
the court and secured his acquittal. The commentator adds
that the prowess of the poet (and his brother) at Marathon was
the real cause of the leniency of his judges. The story was
afterwards developed, and embellished by additions; but in the
above shape it dates back to the 4th century; and as the main
fact seems accepted by Aristotle, it is probably authentic.
As to his foreign travel, the suggestion has been made that
certain descriptions in the Persae, and the known facts
that he wrote a trilogy on the story of the Thracian king
Lycurgus, persecutor of Dionysus, seem to point to his
having a special knowledge of Thrace, which makes it likely
that he had visited it. This, however, remains at best a
conjecture. For his repeated visits to Sicily, on the other
hand, there is conclusive ancient evidence. Hiero the First,
tyrant of Syracuse, who reigned about twelve years (478-467),
and amongst other efforts after magnificence invited to his
court famous poets and men of letters, had founded a new town,
Aetna, on the site of Catana which he captured, expelling the
inhabitants. Among his guests were Aeschylus, Pindar,
Bacchylides and Simonides. About 476 Aeschylus was entertained
by him, and at his request wrote and exhibited a play called
The Women of Aetna in honour of the new town. He paid a
second visit about 472, the year in which he had produced the
Persae at Athens; and the play is said to have been repeated
at Syracuse at his patron's request. Hiero died in 467, the
year of the Seven against Thebes; but after 458, when the
Oresteia was exhibited at Athens, we find the poet again
in Sicily for the last time. In 456 he died, and was buried
at Gela; and on his tomb was placed an epitaph in two elegiac
couplets saying: ``Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of
Euphorion, the Athenian, who perished in the wheat-bearing
land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can
speak, or the long-haired Persian who knows it well.'' The
authorship of this epitaph is uncertain, as the Life says
it was inscribed on his grave by the people of Gela, while
Athenaeus and Pausanias attribute it to Aeschylus. Probably
most people would agree that only the poet himself could
have praised the soldier and kept silence about the poetry.
Of the marvellous traditions which gathered round his name
little need be said. Pausanias' tale, how Dionysus appeared
to the poet when a boy, asleep in his father's vineyard, and
bade him write a tragedy---or the account in the Life, how
he was killed by an eagle letting fall on his head a tortoise
whose shell the bird was unable to crack---clearly belong to
the same class of legends as the story that Plato was son of
Apollo, and that a swarm of bees settled upon his infant
lips as he lay in his mother's arms. Less supernatural,
but hardly more historical, is the statement in the Life
that the poet left Athens for Sicily in consequence of his
defeat in the dramatic contest of 468 by Sophocles; or the
alternative story of the same authority that the cause of
his chagrin was that Simonides' elegy on the heroes slain at
Marathon was preferred to his own. Apart from the inherent
improbability of such pettiness in such a man, neither story
fits the facts; for in 467, the next year after Sophocles'
success, we know that Aeschylus won the prize of tragedy with
the Septem; and the Marathon elegy must have been written
in 490, fourteen years before his first visit to Sicily.
Work.
In passing from Aeschylus' life to his work, we have obviously
far more trustworthy data, in the seven extant plays (with
the fragments of more than seventy others), and particularly
in the invaluable help of Aristotle's Poetics. The real
importance of our poet in the development of the drama (see
DRAMA: Greek) as compared with any of his three or four
known predecessors--who are at best hardly more than names to
us--is shown by the fact that Aristotle, in his brief review
of the rise of tragedy (Poet. iv. 13), names no one before
Aeschylus. He recognizes, it is true, a long process of
growth, with several stages, from the dithyramb to the
drama; and it is not difficult to see what these stages
were. The first step was the addition to the old choric song
of an interlude spoken, and in early days improvised, by
the leader of the chorus (Poet. iv. 12). The next was the
introduction of an actor (upokrites or ``answerer''),
to reply to the leader; and thus we get dialogue added to
recitation. The ``answerer'' was at first the poet himself
(Ar. Rhet. iii. 1). This change is traditionally attributed
to Thespis (536 B.C.), who is, however, not mentioned by
Aristotle. The mask, to enable the actor to assume different
parts, by whomsoever invented, was in regular use before Aeschylus'
day. The third change was the enlarged range of subjects.
The lyric dithyramb-tales were necessarily about Dionysus, and
the interludes had, of course, to follow suit. Nothing in the
world so tenaciously resists innovation as religious ceremony;
and it is interesting to learn that the Athenian populace (then,
as ever, eager for ``some new thing'') nevertheless opposed
at first the introduction of other tales. But the innovators
won; or other-wise there would have been no Attic drama.
In this way, then, to the original lyric song and dances in honour
of Dionysus was added a spoken (but still metrical) interlude by
the chorus-leader, and later a dialogue with one actor (at first
the poet), whom the mask enabled to appear in more than one part.
But everything points to the fact that in the development of
the drama Aeschylus was the decisive innovator. The two things
that were important, when the 5th century began, if tragedy
was to realize its possibilities, were (1) the disentanglement
of the dialogue from its position as an interlude in an
artistic and religious pageant that was primarily lyric; and
(2) its general elevation of tone. Aeschylus, as we know on
the express authority of Aristotle (Poet. iv. 13), achieved
the first by the introduction of the second actor; and though
he did not begin the second, he gave it the decisive impulse
and consummation by the overwhelming effect of his serious
thought, the stately splendour of his style, his high dramatic
purpose, and the artistic grandeur and impressiveness
of the construction and presentment of his tragedies.
As to the importance of the second actor no argument is
needed. The essence of a play is dialogue; and a colloquy
between the coryphaeus and a messenger (or, by aid of the
mask, a series of messengers), as must have been the case when
Aeschylus began, is in reality not dialogue in the dramatic
sense at all, but rather narrative. The discussion, the
persuasion, the instruction, the pleading, the contention---in
short, the interacting personal influences of different
characters on each other--are indispensable to anything
that can be called a play, as we understand the word; and,
without two ``personae dramatis'' at the least, the drama
in the strict sense is clearly impossible. The number of
actors was afterwards increased; but to Aeschylus are due
the perception and the adoption of the essential step;
and therefore, as was said above, he deserves in a very
real sense to be called the founder of Athenian tragedy.
Of the seven extant plays, Supplices, Persae, Septem contra
Thebas, Prometheus, Agamemnon, Choephoroe and Eumenides,
five can fortunately be dated with certainty, as the archon's
name is preserved in the Arguments; and the other two
approximately. The dates rest, in the last resort, on the
didaskaliai, or the official records of the contests, of
which we know that Aristotle (and others) compiled catalogues;
and some actual fragments have been recovered. The order
of the plays is probably that given above; and certainly
the Persae was acted in 472, Septem in 467, and the last
three, the trilogy, in 458. The Supplices is generally,
though not unanimously, regarded as the oldest; and the best
authorities tend to place it not far from 490. The early
date is strongly confirmed by three things: the extreme
simplicity of the plot, the choric (instead of dramatic)
opening, and the fact that the percentage of lyric passages is
54, or the highest of all the seven plays. The chief doubt
is in regard to Prometheus, which is variously placed by
good authorities; but the very low percentage of lyrics (only
27, or roughly a quarter of the whole), and still more the
strong characterization, a marked advance on anything in the
first three plays, point to its being later than any except
the trilogy, and suggest a date somewhere about 460, or
perhaps a little earlier. A few comments on the extant plays
will help to indicate the main points of Aeschylus' work.
Supplices.---The exceptional interest of the Supplices
is due to its date. Being nearly twenty years earlier than
any other extant play, it furnishes evidence of a stage in
the evolution of Attic drama which would otherwise have been
unrepresented. Genius, as Patin says, is a ``puissance
libre,'' and none more so than that of Aeschylus; but with
all allowance for the ``uncontrolled power'' of this poet, we
may feel confident that we have in the Supplices something
resembling in general structure the lost works of Choerilus,
Phrynichus, Pratinas and the 6th century pioneers of drama.
The plot is briefly as follows: the fifty daughters of Danaus
(who are the chorus), betrothed by the fiat of Aegyptus (their
father's brother) to his fifty sons, flee with Danaus to
Argos, to escape the marriage which they abhor. They claim
the protection of the Argive king, Pelasgus, who is kind but
timid; and he (by a pleasing anachronism) refers the matter to
the people, who agree to protect the fugitives. The pursuing
fleet of suitors is seen approaching; the herald arrives (with
a company of followers), blusters, threatens, orders off the
cowering Danaids to the ships and finally attempts to drag them
away. Pelasgus interposes with a force, drives off the
Egyptians and saves the suppliants. Danaus urges them to
prayer, thanksgiving and maidenly modesty, and the grateful
chorus pass away to the shelter offered by their protectors.
It is clear that we have here the drama in its nascent
stage, just developing out of the lyric pageant from which it
sprang. The interest still centres round the chorus, who
are in fact the ``protagonists'' of the play. Character and
plot---the two essentials of drama, in the view of all critics
from Aristotle downwards--are both here rudimentary. There
are some fluctuations of hope and fear; but the play is a
single situation, The stages are: the appeal; the hesitation
of the king, the resolve of the people; the defeat of insolent
violence; and the rescue. It should not be forgotten,
indeed, that the play is one of a trilogy---an act, therefore,
rather than a complete drama. But we have only to compare it
with those later plays of which the same is true, to see the
difference. Even in a trilogy, each play is a complete
whole in itself, though also a portion of a larger whole.
Persae.---The next play that has survived is the Persae,
which has again a special interest, viz. that it is the
only extant Greek historical drama. We know that Aeschylus'
predecessor, Phrynichus, had already twice tried this
experiment, with the Capture of Miletus and the Phoenician
Women; that the latter play dealt with the same subject
as the Persae, and the handling of its opening scene was
imitated by the younger poet. The plot of the Persae is
still severely simple, though more developed than that of
the Suppliants. The opening is still lyric, and the first
quarter of the play brings out, by song and speech, the
anxiety of the people and queen as to the fate of Xerxes' huge
army. Then comes the messenger with the news of Salamis,
including a description of the sea-fight itself which can
only be called magnificent. We realize what it must have been
for the vast audience---30,000, according to Plato (Symp.
175 E)-- to hear, eight years only after the event, from
the supreme poet of Athens, who was himself a distinguished
actor in the war, this thrilling narrative of the great
battle. But this reflexion at once suggests another; it
is not a tragedy in the true Greek sense, according to the
practice of the 5th-century poets. It may be called in one
point of view a tragedy, since the scene is laid in Persia,
and the drama forcibly depicts the downfall of the Persian
pride. But its real aim is not the ``pity and terror'' of
the developed drama; it is the triumphant glorification of
Athens, the exultation of the whole nation gathered in one
place, over the ruin of their foe. This is best shown
by the praise of Aeschylus' great admirer and defender
Aristophanes, who (Frogs, 1026-1027) puts into the poet's
mouth the boast that in the Persae he had ``glorified a noble
exploit, and taught men to be eager to conquer their foe.''
Thus, both as an historic drama and in its real effect,
the Persae was an experiment; and, as far as we know,
the experiment was not repeated either by the author or his
successors. One further point may be noted. Aeschylus
always has a taste for the unseen and the supernatural; and
one effective incident here is the raising of Darius's ghost,
and his prophecy of the disastrous battle of Plataea. But
in the ghost's revelations there is a mixture of audacity and
naivete, characteristic at once of the poet and the early
youth of the drama. The dead Darius prophesies Plataea, but
has not heard of Salamis; he gives a brief (and inaccurate)
list of the Persian kings, which the queen and chorus,
whom he addresses, presumably know; and his only practical
suggestion, that the Persians should not again invade Greece,
seems attainable without the aid of superhuman foresight.
Septem contra Thebas.---Five years later came the Theban
Tragedy. It is not only, as Aristophanes says (Frogs,
1024), ``a play full of the martial spirit,'' but is (like the
Supplices) one of a connected series, dealing with the evil
fate of the Theban House. But instead of being three acts of
a single story like the Supplices, these three plays trace
the fate through three generations, Laius, Oedipus and the two
sons who die by each other's hands in the fight for the Theban
sovereignty. This family fate, where one evil deed leads to
another after many years, is a larger conception, strikingly
suited to Aeschylus' genius, and constitutes a notable stage
in the development of the Aeschylean drama. And just as
here we have the tragedy of the Theban house, so in the last
extant work, the Oresteia, the poet traces the tragedy of
the Pelopid family, from Agamemnon's first sin to Orestes'
vengeance and purification. And the names of several lost
plays point to similar handling of the tragic trilogy.
The Seven against Thebes is the last play of its series; and
again the plot is severely simple, not only in outline, but in
detail. Father and grandfather have both perished miserably;
and the two princes have quarrelled, both claiming the
kingdom. Eteocles has driven out Polynices, who fled to
Argos, gathered a host under seven leaders (himself being
one), and when the play opens has begun the siege of his own
city. The king appears, warns the people, chides the clamour of
women, appoints seven Thebans, including himself, to defend the
seven gates, departs to his post, meets his brother in battle
and both are killed. The other six chieftains are all slain,
and the enemy beaten off. The two dead princes are buried
by their two sisters, who alone are left of the royal house.
Various signs of the early drama are here manifest. Half the
play is lyric; there is no complication of plot; the whole
action is recited by messengers; and the fatality whereby the
predicted mutual slaughter of the princes is brought about
is no accidental stroke of destiny, but the choice of the
king Eteocles himself. On the other hand, the opening is no
longer lyric (like the two earlier plays) but dramatic; the
main scene, where the messenger reports at length the names
of the seven assailants, and the king appoints the seven
defenders, each man going off in silence to his post, must
have been an impressive spectacle. One novelty should not be
overlooked. There is here the first passage of dianoia
or general reflexion of life, which later became a regular
feature of tragedy. Eteocles muses on the fate which involves
an innocent man in the company of the wicked so that he shares
unjustly their deserved fate. The passage (Theb. 597-608)
is interesting; and the whole part of Eteocles shows a new
effort of the poet to draw character, which may have something
to do with the rise of Sophocles, who in the year before
(468) won with his first play, now lost, the prize of tragedy.
There remain only the Prometheus and the Oresteia, which
show such marked advance that (it may almost be said) when
we think of Aeschylus it is these four plays we have in mind.
Prometheus.---The Prometheus-trilogy consisted of three plays:
Prometheus the Fire-bringer, Prometheus Bound, Prometheus
Unbound. The two last necessarily came in that order; the
Fire-bringer is probably the first, though recently it has
been held by some scholars to be the last, of the trilogy.
That Prometheus sinned against Zeus, by stealing fire from
heaven; that he was punished by fearful tortures for ages;
that he finally was reconciled to Zeus and set free,--all
this was the ancient tale indisoutably. Those who hold the
Fire-bringer (Purforos) to be the final play, conjecture
that it dealt with the establishment of the worship of
Prometheus under that title, which is known to have. existed at
Athens. But the other order is on all grounds more probable; it
keeps the natural sequence---crime, punishment, reconciliation,
which is also the sequence in the Oresteia. And if the
reconciliation was achieved in the second play, no scheme of
action sufficing for the third drama seems even plausible.1
However that may be, the play that survives is a poem of
unsurpassed force and impressiveness. Nevertheless, from the
point of view of the development of drama, there seems at first
sight little scope in the story for the normal human interest
of a tragedy, since the actors are all divine, except Io, who
is a distracted wanderer, victim of Zeus' cruelty; and between
the opening where Prometheus is nailed to the Scythian rock,
and the close where the earthquake engulfs the rock, the hero
and the chorus, action in the ordinary sense is ipso facto
impossible. This is just the opportunity for the poet's bold
inventiveness and fine imagination. The tortured sufferer
is visited by the Oceanic Nymphs, who float in, borne by an
(imaginary) winged car, to console; Oceanus (riding a griffin,
doubtless also imaginary) follows, kind but timid, to advise
submission; then appears Io, victim of Zeus' love and Hera's
jealousy, to whom Prometheus prophesies her future wanderings
and his own fate; lastly Hermes, insolent messenger of the
gods, who tries in vain to extort Prometheus' secret knowledge
of the future. Oceanus, the well-meaning palavering old
mentor, and Hermes, the blustering and futile jack-in-office,
gods though they be, are vigorous, audacious and very human
character-sketches; the soft entrance of the consoling nymphs
is unspeakably beautiful; and the prophecy of Io's wanderings
is a striking example of that new keen interest in the world
outside which was felt by the Greeks of the 5th century,
as it was felt by the Elizabethan English in a very similar
epoch of national spirit and enterprise two thousand years
later. Thus, though dramatic action is by the nature of the
case impossible for the hero, the visitors provide real drama.
Another important point in the development of tragedy
is what we may call the ``balanced issue.'' The question
in Suppliants is the protection of the threatened
fugitives; in Persae the humiliation of overweening
pride. So far the sympathy of the audience is not doubtful or
divided. In the Septein there is an approach to conflict
of feeling; the banished brother has a personal grievance,
though guilty of the impious crime of attacking his own
country. The sympathy must be for the defender Eteocles;
but it is at least somewhat qualified by his injustice to his
brother. In Prometheus the issue is more nearly balanced.
The hero is both a victim and a rebel. He is punished for his
benefits to man; but though Zeus is tyrannous and ungrateful,
the hero's reckless defiance is shocking to Greek feeling.
As the play goes on, this is subtly and delicately indicated
by the attitude of the chorus. They enter overflowing with
pity. They are slowly chilled and alienated by the hero's
violence and impiety; but they nobly decline, at the last
crisis, the mean advice of Hermes to desert Prometheus and
save themselves; and in the final crash they share his fate.
Oresteia.---The last and greatest work of Aeschylus is the
Oresteia, which also has the interest of being the only complete
trilogy preserved to us. It is a three-act drama of family
fate, like the Oedipus-trilogy; and the acts are the sin, the
revenge, the reconciliation, as in the Prometheus-trilogy.
Again, as in Prometheus, the plot, at first sight, is such
that the conditions of drama seem to exclude much development in
character-drawing. The gods are everywhere at the root of the
action. The inspired prophet, Calchas, has demanded the sacrifice
of the king's daughter Iphigenia, to appease the offended
Artemis. The inspired Cassandra, brought in as a spear-won
slave from conquered Troy, reveals the murderous past of the
Pelopid house, and the imminent slaughter of the king by his
wife. Apollo orders the son, Orestes, to avenge his father by
killing the murderess, and protects him when after the deed he
takes sanctuary at Delphi. The Erinnyes (``Furies'') pursue
him over land and sea; and at last Athena gives him shelter at
Athens, summons an Athenian council to judge his guilt, and
when the court is equally divided gives her casting vote for
mercy. The last act ends with the reconciliation of Athena
and the Furies; and the latter receive a shrine and worship
at Athens, and promise favour and prosperity to the great
city. The scope for human drama seems deliberately restricted,
if not closed, by such a story so handled. Nevertheless,
as a fact, the growth of characterization is, in spite of
all, not only visible but remarkable. Clytemnestra is one
of the most powerfully presented characters of the Greek
drama. Her manly courage, her vindictive and unshaken purpose,
her hardly hidden contempt for her tool and accomplice,
Aegisthus, her cold scorn for the feebly vacillating elders, and
her unflinching acceptance (in the second play) of inevitable
fate, when she faces at last the avowed avenger, are all
portrayed with matchless force--her very craft being scornfully
assumed, as needful to her purpose, and contemptuously dropped
when the purpose is served. And there is one other noticeable
point. In this trilogy Aeschylus, for the first time, has
attempted some touches of character in two of the humbler
parts, the Watchman in Agameninoni, and the Nurse in the
Choephoroe. The Watchman opens the play, and the vivid and
almost humorous sententiousness of his language, his dark
hints, his pregnant metaphors drawn from common speech, at
once give a striking touch of realism, and form a pointed
contrast to the terrible drama that impends. A very similar
effect is produced at the crisis of the Choephoroe by the
speech of the Nurse, who coming on a message to Aegisthus pours
out to the chorus her sorrow at the reported death of Orestes
and her fond memories of his babyhood---with the most homely
details; and the most striking realistic touch is perhaps
the broken structure and almost inconsequent utterance of the
old faithful slave's speech. These two are veritable figures
drawn from contemporary life; and though both appear only
once, and are quite unimportant in the drama, the innovation
is most significant, and especially as adopted by Aeschylus.
It remains to say a word on two more points, the religious ideas
of Aeschylus and some of the main characteristics of his poetry.
The religious aspect of the drama in one sense was prominent
from the first, owing to its evolution from the choral
celebration of the god Dionysus. But the new spirit imported
by the genius of Aeschylus into the early drama was religious
in a profounder meaning of the term. The sadness of human lot,
the power and mysterious dealings of the gods, their terrible
and inscrutable wrath and jealousy (aga and pthonos),
their certain vengeance upon sinners, all the more fearful
it delayed.---Such are the poet's constant themes, delivered
with strange solemnity and impressiveness in the the songs,
especially in the Oresteia. And at times, particularly in
the Trilogy, in his reference to the divine power of Zeus,
he almost approaches a stern and sombre monotheism. ``One God
above all, who directs all, who is the cause of all'' (Ag.
163, 1485); the watchfulness of this Power over human action
(363-367), especially over the punishment of their sins; and
the mysterious law whereby sin always begets new sin (Ag.
758-760):---these are ideas on which Aeschylus dwells in the
Agamemnon with peculiar force, in a strain at once lofty and
sombre. One specially noteworthy point in that play is his
explicit repudiation of the common Hellenic view that prosperity
brings ruin. In other places he seems to share the feeling;
but here (Ag. 730) he goes deeper, and declares that it is
not olbos but always wickedness that brings about men's
fall. All through there is a recurring note of fear in his
view of man's destiny, expressed in vivid images---the ``death
that lurks behind the wall'' (Ag. 1004), the ``hidden reef
which wrecks the bark, unable to weather the headland'' (Eum.
561-565). In one remarkable passage of the Eumenides
(517-525) this fear is extolled as a moral power which ought
to be enthroned in men's hearts, to deter them from impious or
violent acts, or from the pride that impels them, to such sins.
Of the poetic qualities of Aeschylus' drama and diction,
both in the lyrics and the dialogue, no adequate account
can be attempted; the briefest word must here suffice.
He is everywhere distinguished by grandeur and power of
conception, presentation and expression, and most of all in
the latest works, the Prometheus and the Trilogy. He
is pre-eminent in depicting the slow approach of fear, as in
the Persae; the imminent horror of impending fate, as in
the broken cries and visions of Cassandra in the Agamemnon
(1072-1177), the long lament and prayers to the nether powers
in the Choephoroe (313-478), and the gradual rousing of the
slumbering Furies in the Eumenides (117-139). The fatal
end in these tragedies is foreseen; but the effect is due to
its measured advance, to the slowly darkening suspense which
no poet has more powerfully rendered. Again, he is a master
of contrasts, especially of the Beautiful with the Tragic:
as when the floating vision of consoling nymphs appears to
the tortured Prometheus (115-135); or the unmatched lyrics
which tell (in the Agamemnon, 228-247) of the death of
Iphigenia; or the vision of his lost love that the night
brings to Menelaus (410-426). And not least noticeable is
the extraordinary range, force and imaginativeness of his
diction. One example of his lyrics may be given which will
illustrate more than one of these points. It is taken from
the long lament in the Septem, sung by the chorus and the two
sisters, while following the funeral procession of the two
princes. These laments may at times be wearisome to the modern
reader, who does not see, and imperfectly imagines, the stately
and pathetic spectacle; but to the ancient feeling they were as
solemn and impressive as they were ceremonially indispensable.
The solemnity is here heightened by the following lines sung
by one of the chorus of Theban women (Sept. 854-860):--
Nay, with the wafting gale of your sighs, my sisters,
Beat on your heads with your hands the stroke as of oars,
The stroke that passes ever across Acheron,
Speeding on its way the black-robed sacred bark,--
The bark Apollo comes not near,
The bark that is hidden from the sunlight--
To the shore of darkness that welcomes all!
AUTHORITIES.---The chief authority for the text is a single
MS. at Florence, of the early 11th century, known as the
Medicean or M., written by a professional scribe and revised
by a contemporary scholar, who corrected the copyist's
mistakes, added the scholia, the arguments and the dramatis
personae of three plays (Theb., Agam, Eum.), and at
the end the Life of Aeschylus and the Catalogue of his
dramas. The MS. has also been further corrected by later
hands. In 1896 the Italian Ministry of Public Instruction
published the MS. in photographic facsimile, with an instructive
preface by Signor Rostagno. Besides M. there are some eight
later MSS. (13th to 15th century), and numerous copies of the
three select plays (Sept., Pers., Prom.) which were most
read in the later Byzantine period, when Greek literature
was reduced to gradually diminishing excerpts. These later
MSS. are of little value or authority. The editions, from
the beginning of the 15th century to the present are very
numerous, and the text has been further continuously improved
by isolated suggestions from a host of scholars. The three
first printed copies (Aldine, 1518; Turnebus and Robortello,
1552) give only those parts of Agamemnon found in M., from
which MS. some leaves were lost; in 1557 the full text was
restored by Vettori (Victorius) from later MSS. After these
four, the chief editions of He seven plays were those of
Schutz, Porson, Burler, Wellauer, Dindorf, Bothe, Ahrens,
Paley, Hermann, Hartung, Weil, Merkel, Kirchhoff and
Wecklein. Besides these, over a hundred scholars have
thrown light on the corruptions or obscurities of the text,
by editions of separate plays, by emendations, by special
studies of the poet's work, or in other ways. Among recent
writers who have made such contributions may be mentioned
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Enger, Conington, Blaydes, Cobet,
Meineke, Madvig, Ellis, W. Headlam, Davies, Tucker, Verrall and
Haigh. The Fragments have been edited by Nauck and also by
Wecklein. The Aeschylean staging is discussed in Albert
Muller's Lehrbuch der griechischen Buhnenalterhumer; in
``Die Buhne des Aeschylos,'' by Wilamowitz (Hermes, xxi.);
in Smith's Dict. of Antiquities, art. ``Theatrum'' (R. C.
Jebb); in Dorpfeld and Reisch (Das griechische Theater),
Haigh's Attic Theatre, and Gardner and Jevons' Manual of Greek
Antiquities. English Verse Translations: Agamemnon, Milman
and R. Browning; Oresteia, Suppliants, Persae, Seven against
Thebes, Prometheus Vinctus, by E. D. A. Morshead; Prometheus,
E. B. Browning; the whole seven plays, Lewis Campbell. (A. SI.)
1 The Eumenides is quoted as a parallel, because there the
establishment of this worship at Athens concludes the whole
trilogy; but it is forgotten that in Eumenides there is much
besides--the pursuit of Orestes, the refuge at Athens, the trial,
the acquittal, the conciliation by Athena of the Furies; while
here the story would be finished before the last play began.
AESCULAPIUS (Gr. `Asklepios), the legendary Greek god of
medicine, the son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis. Tricca in
Thessaly and Epidaurus in Argolis disputed the honour of his
birthplace, but an oracle declared in favour of Epidaurus.
He was educated by the centaur Cheiron, who taught him the
art of healing and hunting. His skill in curing disease and
restoring the dead to life aroused the anger of Zeus, who,
being afraid that he might render all men immortal, slew him
with a thunderbolt (Apollodorus iii. 10; Pindar, Phthia, 3;
Diod. Sic. iv. 71). Homer mentions him as a skilful physician,
whose sons, Machaon and Podalirius, are the physicians in the
Greek camp before Troy (Iliad, ii. 731). Temples were erected
to Aesculapius in many parts of Greece, near healing springs
or on high mountains. The practice of sleeping (incubatio)
in these sanctuaries was very common, it being supposed that
the god effected cures or prescribed remedies to the sick in
dreams. All who were healed offered sacrifice---especially a
cock---and hung up votive tablets, on which were recorded their
names, their diseases and the manner in which they had been
cured. Many of these votive tablets have been discovered
in the course of excavations at Epidaurus. Here was the
god's most famous shrine, and games were celebrated in his
honour every five years, accompanied by solemn processions.
Herodas (Mimes, 4) gives a description of one of his
temples, and of the offerings made to him. His worship was
introduced into Rome by order of the Sibylline books (293
B.C.), to avert a pestilence. The god was fetched from
Epidaurus in the form of a snake and a temple assigned him
on the island in the Tiber (Livy x. 47; Ovid, Metam. xv.
622). Aesculapius was a favourite subject of ancient
artists. He is commonly represented standing, dressed in a long
cloak, with bare breast; his usual attribute is a club-like
staff with a serpent (the symbol of renovation) coiled round
it. He is often accompanied by Telesphorus, the boy
genius of healing, and his daughter Hygieia, the goddess of
health. Votive reliefs representing such groups have been
found near the temple of Aesculapius at Athens. The British
Museum possesses a beautiful head of Aesculapius (or possibly
Zeus) from Melos, and the Louvre a magnificent statue.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--L. Dyer, The Gods in Greece (1891); Jane E.
Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903);
R. Caton, Examples and Ritual of A. at Epidaurus and Athens
(1900); articles in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopadie,
Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie; T. Panofka, Asklepios und
die Asklepiaden (1846); Alice Welton, ``The Cult of Asklepios,''
in Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, iii. (New York,
1894); W. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings (1902).
AESERNIA (mod. Isernia), a Samnite town on the road from
Beneventum to Corfinium, 58 m. to the north-east of the former,
at the junction of a road going past Venafrum to the Via
Latina. These routes are all followed by modern railways---the
lines to Campobasso, Sulmona and Caianello. A Roman colony was
established there in 263 B.C. It became the headquarters of
the Italian revolt after the loss of Corfinium, and was only
recovered by Sulla at the end of the war, in 80 B.C. Remains
of its fortifications are still preserved---massive cyclopean
walls, which serve as foundation to the walls of the modern
town and of a Roman bridge, and the subterranean channel of
an aqueduct, cut in the rock, and dating from Roman times.
AESOP (Gr. Aisopos), famous for his Fables, is supposed
to have lived from about 620 to 560 B.C. The place of
his birth is uncertain---Thrace, Phrygia, Aethiopia, Samos,
Athens and Sardis all claiming the honour. We possess little
trustworthy information concerning his life, except that he
was the slave of Iadmon of Samos and met with a violent death
at the hands of the inhabitants of Delphi. A pestilence that
ensued being attributed to this crime, the Delphians declared
their willingness to make compensation, which, in default of
a nearer connexion, was claimed and received by Iadmon, the
grandson of his old master. Herodotus, who is our authority
for this (ii. 134), does not state the cause of his death;
various reasons are assigned by later writers--his insulting
sarcasms, the embezzlement of money entrusted to him by
Croesus for distribution at Delphi, the theft of a silver cup.
Aesop must have received his freedom from Iadmon, or he could
not have conducted the public defence of a certain Samian
demagogue (Aristotle, Rhetoric, ii. 20). According to the
story, he subsequently lived at the court of Croesus, where
he met Solon, and dined in the company of the Seven Sages
of Greece with Periander at Corinth. During the reign of
Peisistratus he is said to have visited Athens, on which
occasion he related the fable of The Frogs asking for a
King, to dissuade the citizens from attempting to exchange
Peisistratus for another ruler. The popular stories current
regarding him are derived from a life, or rather romance,
prefixed to a book of fables, purporting to be his, collected
by Maximus Planudes, a monk of the 14th century. In this he
is described as a monster of ugliness and deformity, as he is
also represented in a well-known marble figure in the Villa
Albani at Rome. That this life, however, was in existence a
century before Planudes, appears from a 13th-century MS. of
it found at Florence. In Plutarch's Symposium of the Seven
Sages, at which Aesop is a guest, there are many jests on
his original servile condition, but nothing derogatory is
said about his personal appearance. We are further told
that the Athenians erected in his honour a noble statue
by the famous sculptor Lysippus, which furnishes a strong
argument against the fiction of his deformity. Lastly,
the obscurity in which the history of Aesop is involved
has induced some scholars to deny his existence altogether.
It is probable that Aesop did not commit his fables to
writing; Aristophanes (Wasps, 1259) represents Philocleon as
having learnt the ``absurdities'' of Aesop from conversation
at banquets) and Socrates whiles away his time in prison by
turning some of Aesop's fables ``which he knew'' into verse
(Plato, Phaedo, 61 b). Demetrius of Phalerum (345-283
B.C.) made a collection in ten books, probably in prose
(Lopson Aisopeion sunagogai) for the use of orators,
which has been lost. Next appeared an edition in elegiac
verse, often cited by Suidas, but the author's name is
unknown. Babrius, according to Crusius, a Roman and tutor
to the son of Alexander Severus, turned the fables into
choliambics in the earlier part of the 3rd century A.D.
The most celebrated of the Latin adapters is Phaedrus, a
freedman of Augustus. Avianus (of uncertain date, perhaps
the 4th century) translated 42 of the fables into Latin
elegiacs. The collections which we possess under the name
of Aesop's Fables are late renderings of Babrius's Version
or Progumnasmata, rhetorical exercises of varying age and
merit. Syntipas translated Babrius into Syriac, and Andreopulos
put the Syriac back again into Greek. Ignatius Diaconus, in
the 9th century, made a version of 55 fables in choliambic
tetrameters. Stories from Oriental sources were added, and from
these collections Maximus Planudes made and edited the collection
which has come down to us under the name of Aesop, and from
which the popular fables of modern Europe have been derived.
For further information see the article FABLE; Bentley,
Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop; Du Meril, Poesies
inedites du moyen age (1854); J. Jacobs, The Fables
of Aesop (1889): i. The history of the Aesopic fable;
ii. The Fables of Aesop, as first printed by William Caxton,
1484, from his French translation; Hervieux, Les Fabulistes
Latins (1893-1899). Before any Greek text appeared, a
Latin translation of 100 Fabulae Aesopicae by an Italian
scholar named Ranuzio (Renutius) was published at Rome,
1476. About 1480 the collection of Planudes was brought out
at Milan by Buono Accorso (Accursius), together with Ranuzio's
translation. This edition, which contained 144 fables, was
frequently reprinted and additions made from time to time
from various MSS.--the Heidelberg (Palatine), Florentine,
Vatican and Augsburg---by Stephanus (1547), Nevelet (1610),
Hudson (1718), Hauptmann (1741), Furia (1810), Coray (1810),
Schneider (1812) and others. A critical edition of all the
previously known fables, prepared by Carl von Halm from the
collections of Furia, Coray and Schneider, was published in
the Teubner series of Greek and Latin texts. A Fabularum
Aesopicarum sylloge (233 in number) from a Paris MS., with
critical notes by Sternbach, appeared in a Cracow University
publication, Rozprawy akademii umiejetinosci (1894).
AESOPUS, a Greek historian who wrote a history of
Alexander the Great, a Latin translation of which,
by Julius Valerius, was discovered by Mai in 1816.
AESOPUS, CLODIUS, the most eminent Roman tragedian,
flourished during the time of Cicero, but the dates of his
birth and death are not known. The name seems to show that
he was a freedman of some member of the Clodian gens. Cicero
was on friendly terms with both him and Roscius, the equally
distinguished comedian, and did not disdain to profit by their
instruction. Plutarch (Cicero, 5) mentions it as reported of
Aesopus, that, while representing Atreus deliberating how he
should revenge himself on Thyestes, the actor forgot himself
so far in the heat of action that with his truncheon he struck
and killed one of the servants crossing the stage. Aesopus
made a last appearance in 55 B.C.---when Cicero tells us
that he was advanced in years--on the occasion of the splendid
games given by Pompey at the dedication of his theatre. In
spite of his somewhat extravagant living, he left an ample
fortune to his spendthrift son, who did his best to squander
it as soon as possible. Horace (Sat. iii. 3. 239) mentions
his taking a pearl from the ear-drop of Caecilia Metella and
dissolving it in vinegar, that he might have the satisfaction
of swallowing eight thousand pounds' worth at a draught.
Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 37; pro Sestio, 56, 58;
Quint., Instit. xi. 3, iii; Macrobius, Sat. iii. 14.
AESTHETICS, a branch of study variously defined as the philosophy
or science of the beautiful, of taste or of the fine arts.
Preliminary definition.
The name is something of an accident. In its original Greek form
(aisthetikos) it means what has to do with sense-perception
as a source of knowledge; and this is still its meaning
in Kant's philosophy (``Transcendental Aesthetic''). Its
limitation to that function of sensuous perception which we
know as the contemplative enjoyment of beauty is due to A. G.
Baumgarten. Although the subject does not readily lend
itself to precise definition at the outset, we may indicate
itsscope and aim, as undeibtood by recent writers, by saying
that it deals successively with one great department of
human experience, viz. the pleasurable activities of pure
contemplation. By pure contemplation is here understood that
manner of regarding objects of sense-perception, and more
particularly sights and sounds, which is entirely motived by
the pleasure of the act itself. The term ``object'' means
whatever can be perceived through one of the senses, e.g.
a flower, a landscape, the flight of a bird, a sequence of
tones. The contemplation may be immediate when (as mostly
happens) the object is present to sense; or it may be mediate,
when as in reading poetry we dwell on images of objects of
sense. Whenever we become interested in an object merely
as presented for our contemplation our whole state of
mind may be described as an aesthetic attitude, and our
experience as an aesthetic experience. Other expressions
such as the pleasure of taste, the enjoyment and appreciation
of beauty (in the larger sense of this term), will serve
less precisely to mark off this department of experience.
Differentiation of aesthetic experience. Its characteristics as feeling.
Aesthetic experience is differentiated from other kinds
of experience by a number of characteristics. We commonly
speak of it as enjoyment, as an exercise and cultivation of
feeling. The appreciation of beauty is pervaded and sustained
by pleasurable feeling. In aesthetic enjoyment our capacities
of feeling attain their fullest and most perfect development.
Yet, as its dependence on a quiet attitude of contemplation
might tell us, aesthetic experience is characterized by a
certain degree of calmness and moderation of feeling. Even
when we are moved by a tragedy our feeling is comparatively
restrained. A rare exhibition of beauty may thrill the soul
for a moment, yet in general the enjoyment of it is far removed
from the excitement of passion. On the other hand, aesthetic
pleasure is pure enjoyment. Even when a disagreeable element
is present, as in a musical dissonance or in the suffering
of a tragic hero, it contributes to a higher measure of
enjoyment. It is, moreover, free from the painful elements
of craving, fatigue, conflict, anxiety and disappointment,
which are apt to accompany other kinds of enjoyment; such as
the satisfaction of the appetites and other needs. To this
purity of aesthetic pleasure must be added its refinement,
which implies not merely a certain remoteness from the bodily
needs, but the effect of a union of sense and mind in giving
amplitude as well as delicacy to our enjoyment of beauty.
Marked off from practical activity,
As the region of most pure and refined feeling, aesthetic
experience is clearly marked off from practical life,
with its urgent desires and the rest. In aesthetic
contemplation desire and will as a whole are almost dormant.
also from intellectual activity.
This detachment from the daily life of practical needs
and aims is brought out in Kant's postulate that aesthetic
enjoyment must be disinterested (``ohne Interesse''), that
when we regard an object aesthetically we are not in the
least concerned with its practical significance and value: one
cannot, for example, at the same moment aesthetically enjoy
looking at a painting and desire to be its possessor. In like
manner, even if less aoparently, aesthetic contemplation is
marked off from the arduous mental work which enters into
the pursuit of knowledge. In contemplating an aesthetic
object we are mentally occupied with the concrete, whereas
all the more serious intellectual work of science involves
the difficulties of the abstract. The contemplation is,
moreover, free from those restraints which are imposed
on our mental activity by the desire to obtain knowledge.
Uniformity of aestetic experience.
While as the highest phase of feeling aesthetic experience
appears to belong to our subjective life, the hidden region of
the soul, it is connected just as clearly, through the act of
sense-perception, with the world of objects which is our common
possession. Being thus dependent on a contemplation of
things in this common world it raises the question whether,
like the perception of these objects, it is a uniform
experience, the same for others as for myself. We touch
here on the last characteristic of aesthetic experience
which needs to he noted at this stage, its uniformity or
subjection to law. It is a common idea that men's judgments
about matters of taste disagree to so large an extent
that each individual is left very much to his subjective
impressions. With regard to many of the subtler matters of
aesthetic appreciation, at any rate, there is undoubtedly
on a first view the appearance of a want of agreement.
The aesthetic judgment.
Contrasted with logical judgments or even with ethical
ones, aesthetic judgments may no doubt look uncertain and
``subjective.'' The proposition ``this tree is a birch'' seems
to lend itself much better to critical discussion and to general
acceptance or rejection than the proposition ``this tree is
beautiful.'' This circumstance, as Kant shrewdly suggests,
helps to explain why we have come to employ the word ``taste''
in dealing with aesthetic matters; for the pronouncements of
the sense of taste are recognized as among the most uncertain
and ``subjective'' of our senseimpressions. Yet viewed as a
species of pleasurable feelings, aesthetic experiences will
be found to exhibit a large amount of uniformity, of objective
agreement as between different experiences of the same person
and experiences of different persons. This general agreement
appears to be clearly implied in the ordinary form of our
aesthetic judgments. To say ``this rose is beautiful''
means more than to say ``the sight of this rose affects me
agreeably.'' It means that the rose has a general power of
so affecting me (at different times) and others as well.
Logical judgment and judgment of value.
The judgment is not the same as a logical one. It does not say
simply that as a matter of fact it always does please---even
if we add the limitation those who for, as we know, our varying
mood and state of receptivity make a profound difference in
the fulness of the aesthetic enjoyment. It is a ``judgment of
value'' which claims for the rose aesthetic rank as an object
properly qualified to please contemplative subjects. This
value, it is plain, is relative to conscious subjects; yet since
it is relative to all competent ones, it may be regarded as
``objective''---that is to say, as belonging to the object.1
Late development of the science.
This slight preliminary inspection of the subject will prepare
one for the circumstance that the scientific treatment of
it has begun late, and is even now far from being complete.
This slowness of development is in part explained by the
detachment of aesthetic experience from the urgent needs of
life. In a comparatively early stage of human progress some
thought had to be bestowed on such pressing problems as to
how to cope with the forces of nature and to turn them to
useful account; how to secure in human communities obedience
to custom and law. But the problem of throwing light on our
aesthetic pleasures had no such urgency.2 To this it must
be added that aesthetic experience (in all but its simpler
and cruder forms) has been, and still is confined to a small
number of persons; so that the subject does not appeal to a
wide popular interest; while, on the other hand, the subjects
of this experience not infrequently have a strong sentimental
dislike to the idea of introducing into the region of refined
feeling the cold light of scientific investigation. Lastly,
there are special difficulties inherent in the subject. One
serious obstacle to a scientific theory of aesthetic experience
is the illusive character of many of its finer elements---for
example, the subtle differences of feeling-tone produced by
the several colours as well as by their several tones and
shades, by the several musical intervals, and so forth.
Finally, there is the circumstance just touched on that much
of this region of experience, instead of at once disclosing
uniformity, seems to be rather the abode of caprice and
uncertainty. The variations in taste at different levels of
culture, among different races and nations and among the
individual members of the same community are numerous and
striking, and might at first seem to bar the way to a scientific
treatment of the subject. These considerations suggest
that an adequate theory of aesthetic experience could only
be attempted after the requisite scientific skill had been
developed in other and more pressing departments of inquiry.
Inadequate theories of subject.
If we glance at the modes of treating the subject up to a
quite recent date we find that little of serious effort to
apply to it a strictly scientific method of investigation.
The whole extent of concrete experience has not been adequately
recognized, still less adequately examined. For the greater
part thinkers have been in haste to reach some simple
formula of beauty which might seem to cover the more obvious
facts. This has commonly been derived deductively from some
more comprehensive idea of experience or human life as a
whole. Thus in German treatises on aesthetics which have
been largely thought out under the influence of philosophic
idealism the beautiful is subsumed under the idea, of which
it is regarded as one special manifestation, and its place in
human experience has been determined by defining its logical
relations to the other great co-ordinate concepts, the good
and the true. These attempts to reach a general conception
of beauty have often led to one-sidedness of view. And this
one-sidedness has sometimes characterized the theories of those
who, like Alison, have made a wider survey of aesthetic facts.
Aesthetics as a normative science.
Aesthetics, like Ethics, is a Normative Science, that is to
say, concerned with determining the nature of a species of the
desirable or the good (in the large sense). It seeks one or
more regulative principles which may help us to distinguish a
real from an apparent aesthetic value, and to set the higher and
more perfect illustrations of beauty above the lower and less
perfect. As a science it will seek to realize its normative
function by the aid of a patient, methodical investigation
of facts, and by processes of observation, analysis and
induction similar to those carried out in the natural sciences.
Aestetics not a practical science.
In speaking of aesthetics as a normative science we do not
mean that it is a practical one in the sense that it supplies
practical rules which may serve as definite guidance for the
artist and the lover of beauty, in their particular problems
of selecting and arranging elements of aesthetic value. It
is no more a practical science than logic. The supposition
that it is so is probably favoured by the idea that aesthetic
theory has art for its special subject. But this is to confuse
a general aesthetic theory--what the Germans call ``General
Aesthetics''---with a theory of art (Kunstwissenschaft). The
former, with which we are here concerned, has to examine
aesthetic experience as a whole; which, as we shall presently
see, includes more than the enjoyment and appreciation of art.
Problems of the science.
We may now indicate with more fulness the main problems of our
science, seeking to give them as precise a form as possible.
Is beauty a single quality in objects?
At the outset we are confronted with an old and almost
baffling question: ``Is beauty a single quality inherent in
objects of perception like form or colour?'' Common language
certainly suggests that it is. Aesthetics, too, began its
inquiry at the same point of view, and its history shows how
much pains men have taken in trying to determine the nature
of this attribute, as well as that of the faculty of the soul
by which it is perceived. Yet a little examination of the
facts suffices to show that the theory is beset with serious
difficulties. Whatever beauty may be it is certainly not a
quality of an object in the same way in which the colour or
the form of it is a quality. These are physical qualities,
known to us by soecific modifications of our sensations.
Beauty not a physical quality.
The beauty of a rose or of a peach is clearly not a physical
quality. Nor do we in attributing beauty to some particular
quality in an object, say colour, conceive of it as a
phase of this quality, like depth or brilliance of colour,
which, again, is known by a special modification of the
sensations of colour. Hence we must say that beauty, though
undoubtedly referred to a physical object, is extraneous
to the group of qualities which makes it a physical object.
Beauty attributed to different qualities in objects.
Beauty is frequently attributed to a concrete object as
a whole---to a flower or shell, for example, as a visible
whole. Our everydav aesthetic judgments are wont to leave the
attributes thus vaguely referred to the concrete object. Yet
it is equally certain that we not infrequently speak of the
beauty of some definable aspect to, or quality of an object, as
when we pronounce the contour of a mountain or of a vase to be
beautiful. And it may be asked whether, in thus localizing
beauty, so to speak, in one of the constituent qualities of
an object, we always place it in the same quality. A mere
glance at the facts will suffice to convince us that we do
not. We call the facade of a Greek temple beautiful with
special reference to its admirable form; whereas in predicating
beauty of the ruin of a Norman castle we refer rather to what the
ruin means---to the effect of an imagination of its past proud
strength and slow vanquishment by the unrelenting strokes of time.
Formalists and expressionalists.
This fact that beauty appertains now more to one quality,
now more to another, helps us to understand why certain
theorists, known as formalists, regarded beauty as formal
or residing in form, whereas others, the idealists or
expressionalists, view it as residing in ideal content or
expression. These theories. however, like other attempts to
find an adequate single principle of beauty, are unsatisfactory.
Form and ideal content are each a great source of aesthetic
enjoyment, and either can be found in a degree of supremacy
which practically renders the co-operation of the other
unimportant. The two buildings cited above, two human faces,
two musical compositions, may exhibit in an impressive and
engrossing way the beauty of form and of expression respectively.
Three ultimate modes of beauty.
Nor is this all. Beauty refuses to be confined even to these
two. There are the various beauties of colour, for example,
as exhibited in such familiar phenomena of nature as sea
and sky, autumn moors and woods. A slight analysis of
the constituents of objects to which we attribute beauty
shows that there are at least three distinct modes of this
attribute, namely (1) sensuous beauty, (2) beauty of form
and (3) beauty of meaning or expression, nor do these
appear to be reducible to any higher or more comprehensive
principle. It requires a certain boldness to attempt to effect
a rapprochement between the formal and the expressional
factor.3 An apparent unification of the three seems at
present only possible by substituting for beauty another
concept at least equally vague, such as perfection,4 which
seems to imply the idea of purposiveness, and to apply clearly
only to certain domains of beauty, e.g. organic form.
Beauty and allied conceptions.
We may now take another step and say that beauty appears to be
a quality in objects which is not sharply differentiated from
other and allied qualities. If we look at the usages of speech
we shall find that beauty has its kindred conceptions, such as
gracefulness, prettiness and others. Writers on aesthetics have
spent much time on these ``Modifications of the Beautiful.'' The
point emphasized here is the difficulty of drawing the line between
them. Even an expert may hesitate long before saying whether
a human face, a flower or a cameo should be called beautiful or
pretty. Must we postulate as many allied qualities as there
are names for these pleasing aspects of objects? Or must we
do violence to usage and so stretch the word ``Beauty'' as
to make it cover all qualities or aspects of objects which
have aesthetic value, including those ``modifications of the
beautiful'' which we know as the sublime, the comic and the
rest? But the wider we try in this way to make the denotation
of the term the vaguer grows the connotation. We are thus
left equally incapable of saying what the quality is, and
in which aspect or attribute of the object it inheres.5
Assumption of objective qualityt of beauty dispensed with.
It seems to follow that in constructing a scientific theory we do
well to dispense with the assumption of an objective quality of
beauty. Aesthetics will return to Kant and confine itself to
the examination of objects called beautiful in their relation
to, and in their manner of affecting our minds.6 The aesthetic
value of such an object will be viewed as consisting in the
possession of certain assignable characteristics by means of
which it is fitted to affect us in a certain desirable way,
to draw us into the enjoyable mood of aesthetic contemplation.
Aesthetic qualities.
These characteristics may conveniently be called aesthetic
qualities.7 Objects which are found to possess one or more
of these qualities in the required degree of fulness claim a
certain aesthetic value, even though they fall short of being
``beautiful,'' in the more exacting use of this word. They
are in the direction---``im Sinne,'' as Fechner says----of
beauty, conceived as something fuller and richer, answering
to a higher standard of aesthetic enjoyment and a severer
demand on our part. The word ``beauty'' may still be used
occasionally, where no ambiguity arises, as a convenient
expression for aesthetic value in all its degrees. Yet
it is better to keep the term applicable to the objects
commonly denoted by it by making it represent the fuller
aesthetic satisfactions which flow from a rare and commanding
exhibition of one or more of these qualities, from what may be
described as an appreciable excellence of aesthetic quality.
By thus dispensing with the concept of beauty as some
occult undefinable quality, we get rid of much of the
contradiction which appears to inhere in our aesthetic
experience. For example, a bit of brilliant colour in a
bonnet which pleases the wearer but offends her superior in
aesthetic matters takes its place as something which per
se has a certain degree of aesthetic value even though the
particular relations into which it has now thrust itself,
palpable to the trained eye, may practically rob it of its
value. In thus substituting the relative idea of aesthetic
value for the absolute idea of beauty we may no doubt seem
to be destroying the reality of the object of aesthetic
perception. This point may more conveniently be taken up later
when we consider the whole question of aesthetic illusion.
Problem of aesthetic effect.
This new way of envisaging aesthetic objects requires us
to make the study of their effect a prominent part of our
investigation. In all the valuable recent work on the
subject, attention has been largely concentrated on this
effect. More particularly we have to investigate and illumine
scientifically the pleasurable side of the experience.
Aesthetics and laws of pleasure.
In doing this we shall make use of all the light we can
obtain from a study of known laws of Pleasure. Thus
we shall avail ourselves not only of the theory of the
pleasure-tones of sensation but of that of the conditions
of an agreeable exercise of the attention upon objects more
particularly of the characteristics of objects which adequately
stimulate the attention without confusing or burdening it.
Problem of aesthetic enjoyment a special one.
Yet this does not require that we should treat the aesthetic
problem as a part of the more general science of pleasure, as
has been attempted by some, e.g. Grant Allen (Physiological
Aesthetics) and Rutgers Marshall (Pain, Pleasure and
Aesthetics, and Aesthetic Principles.) To do so would be
to run the risk of considering only the more general aspects
and conditions of aesthetic enjoyment, whereas what we need is
a theory of it as a specific kind of pleasurable experience.
The attitude of aesthetic contemplation.
What is required at the present stage of development of the
science is a deeper investigation of the aesthetic attitude
of mind as a whole, of what we may call the aesthetic
psychosis. We need to probe the act of contemplation itself,
the mode of activity of attention involved in this calm,
half-dreamlike gazing on the mere look of things unconcerned
with their ordinary and weightier imports. We need further
to determine the effect of this contemplative attitude upon
the several mental processes involved, the act of perception
itself, with its grasp of manifold relations, the flow of
ideas, the partial resurgence and transformation of emotion.
In examining these effects we must keep in view the double side
of the contemplative attitude, the wide range of free movement
which perception and imagination claim and enjoy, and the willing
subjection of the contemplative mind to the spell of the object.
Intellectual and aesthetic activity further differentiated.
A deeper inspection of the contemplative mood may be expected
to render clearer the difference between the mental activity
employed in aesthetic perception and imagination and intellectual
activity proper; between. say, the differencing of allied
tints involved in the finer aesthetic enjoyment of colour
and the sharper, clearer discrimination of tints required in
scientific observation, and between such a grasp of relations
as is required for a just appreciation of beautiful form
and that severe analysis and measurement of formal elements
and their relations which is insisted upon by science. As
a result of a finer distinction here we may probably be in a
better position to determine the point---touched on more than
once in recent works on aesthetics---how far intellectual
pleasure proper, e.g. that of recognizing and classifying
objects, enters as a subordinate element into aesthetic
enjoyment. Is aesthetic enjoyment essentially social?
One point in the characterization of aesthetic experience
has been reserved, namely, the question whether it is
essentially a form of social enjoyment. No one doubts
that a man often enjoys beauty, e.g. that of a landscape,
when alone; yet at such a moment he not only recognizes that
his pleasure is a possible one for others, but is probably
aware of a sub-conscious wish that others were present to
share his enjoyment. Kant went so far as to say that on
a desert island a man would adorn neither his hut nor his
person. However this be, it seems certain that as a rule
we tend to indulge our aesthetic tastes in company with
others. This habit of making aesthetic enjoyment a social
experience would in itself tend to develop the sympathies and
the sympathetic intelligence and thus to promote exchanges
of aesthetic experience. The content, too, of our aesthetic
experiences would be favourable to such conjoint acts of
aesthetic contemplation, and to the mutual sharing of aesthetic
experiences; for, as disinterested and universal modes of
enjoyment detached from personal interests, they are clearly
free from the egoistic exclusiveness which characterizes our
private enjoyments which at best can only be participated
in by one or two closely attached friends. Our aesthetic
enjoyments are thus eminently fitted to be social ones; and as
such they become greatly amplified by sympathetic resonance.
The aesthetic senses.
We are now in a position to consider a point much discussed of
late, namely, the special connexion of aesthetic enjoyment
with the two senses, sight and hearing. Two questions
arise here: (1) Do the other and ``lower'' senses take any
part in aesthetic experience? (2) What are the ``higher''
ones? With regard to the first it is coming to be recognized
that aesthetic pleasure is not strictly confined to the
two senses in question. Common language suggests that we
find in certain odours and even in certain flavours a value
analogous to that implied in calling an object beautiful.
Aesthetic claims of touch.
Hegel excluded the other senses--even touch----on the ground
that aesthetics had to do only with art, in which there was
no place for perceptions of touch. A closer examination has
shown that this important sense plays a considerable part in
art-effects. And even if this were not so, Hegel's exclusion
of touch from the rank of aesthetic senses would be a striking
illustration of the narrowing effect on scientific theory of
the identification of aesthetic objects with productions of
art. To say that the experience of exploring with the fingers
a velvety petal or the smooth surface of a sea-rounded pebble
has no aesthetic element savours of a perverse arbitrariness.
Touch is no doubt wanting in a prerogative of hearing and
sight which we shall presently see to be important, namely,
that being acted on by objects at a distance they admit of
a simultaneous perception by a number of persons--as indeed
even the sense of smell does in a measure. This is probably
the chief reason why, according to certain testimony, the
blind receive but little aesthetic enjoyment from tactual
experience.8 Yet this drawback is compensated to some
extent by the fact that agreeable tactual experience may be
taken up as suggested meaning into our visual perceptions.
Prerogatives of sight and hearing.
The two privileged senses, sight and hearing, owe their
superiority to a number of considerations. They are the
farthest removed from the necessary life functions, with
the pressing needs and disturbing cravings which belong to
these. Even touch, though imoortant as a source of knowledge,
has for its primary function to examine the things which
approach our organisms in their relation to this as injurious or
harmless. The two higher senses present to us material objects
in their least aggressive and menacing manner: visible forms and
colours, tones and their combinations, appear when compared
with objects felt to be in contact with our body, to be rather
semblances or distant signs of material realities than these
realities themselves; and this circumstance fits these senses
to be in a special way the organs of aesthetic perception with
its calm, dreamlike detachment and its enjoyable freedom of
movement. They are, moreover, the two senses by the use of
which a number of persons may join most perfectly in a common
act of aesthetic contemplation. This distinction strengthens
their claims to be in a special manner the aesthetic senses,
and this for a double reason. (1) It makes them sense-avenues
by which each of us obtains the most immediate and most
impressive conviction that aesthetic experience is a common
possession of the many, and is largely similar in the case of
different individuals. (2) It marks them off as the senses by
the exercise of which perceptual enjoyment may most readily
and certainly be increased through the resonant effects of
sympathy. The experiences of the theatre and of the
concert-hall sufficiently illustrate these distinguishing
functions of the two senses. Other distinguishing prerogatives
of sight and hearing flow from the characteristics of their
sensations and perceptions, a point to be touched on later.9
Aesthetic activity and play. (a) Points of affinity between them.
Our determination of the characteristics of the aesthetic
attitude has now been carried far enough to enable us to
consider another point much discussed in recent aesthetic
literature, viz. the relation of this attitude to that of
play. The affinities of the two are striking and are disclosed
in everyday language, as when we speak of the ``play'' of
imagination or of ``playing'' on a musical instrument.
Both play and aesthetic contemplation are activities which
are controlled by no extraneous end, which run on freely
directed only by the intrinsic delight of the activity. Hence
they both contrast with the serious work imposed on us and
controlled by what we mark off as the necessities of life,
such as providing for bodily wants, or rearing a family. They
each add a sort of luxurious fringe to life. In aesthetic
enjoyment our senses, our intelligence and our emotions are
alike released from the constraint of these necessary ends,
and may be said to refresh themselves in a kind of play.
Finally, they are both characterized by a strong infusion of
make-believe, a disposition to substitute productions of the
imagination for everyday realities. In this respect, again,
they form a contrast to that serious concern with fact and
practical truth which the necessary aims of life impose on
us. Little wonder, then, that Plato recognized in the contrast
between the representative and the useful arts an analogy
between play and earnest,10 and that since the time of Schiller
so much use has been made of the analogy in aesthetic works.
(b) Points of difference.
Yet though similar. the two kinds of activity are distinguishable
in important respects. For one thing, aesthetic contemplation
pure and simple is a comparatively tranquil and passive
attitude, whereas play means doing something and commonly
involves some amount of strenuous exertion, either of body or of
mind. A closer analogy might be drawn between play and artistic
production. Yet even when the parallel is thus narrowed, pretty
obvious differences disclose themselves. It is only in their
more primitive phases that the two attitudes exhibit a close
similarity. As they develop, striking divergences begin to
appear. The play mood, instead of approaching the calm
contemplative mood of the lover of beauty, involves feelings
and impulses which lie at the roots of our practical interests,
viz. ambition, rivalry and struggle. It has, moreover, in
all its stages a palpable utility---even though this is not
realized by the player---serving for the exercise and development
of body, intelligence and character. Beauty and art rise
high above play in purity of the disinterested attitude, in
placid detachment from the serviceable and the necessary,
and, still more, in range and variety of refined interest,
comprehended in ``the love of beauty.'' Finally, aesthetic
activities are directed by ideal conceptions and standards
to which hardly anything corresponds in play save where games
of skill take on something of the dignity of a fine art.11
Methods of research in aesthetics.
So far as to the preliminary delimiting work in aesthetic
science. Only a bare indication can be made as to the methods
of research by which its advance can be furthered, and as
to the several directions of inquiry which it will have to
follow. With regard to the former the method of investigation
will consist in a careful inquiry into two orders of fact: (1)
Objects which common testimony or the history of art show to be
widely recognized objects of aesthetic value; (2) records of the
aesthetic experience of individuals, whether artists or amateurs.
Examination of aesthetic objects.
Since aesthetic experience is brought about and its modes
determined by objects possessing certain qualities, it seems
evident that scientific aesthetics must make an examination and
comparison of these a fundamental part of its problem. These
objects will, as already hinted, include both natural ones in the
inorganic and organic worlds, and works of art which can be shown
to be objects of general or widely recognized aesthetic value.
Nature as supplying aesthetic objects.
Without attempting here to discuss adequately the relation
of natural beauty to that of art we may note one or two
points. Some contemplation and appreciation of the beautiful
aspects of nature is not only prior in time to art, but is
a condition of its genesis. The enjoyment of the pleasing
aspects of land and sea, of mountain and dale, of the
innumerable organic forms, has steadily grown with the
development of culture; and this growth, though undoubtedly
aided by that of the feeling for art---especially painting
and poetry---is to a large extent independent of it.12
Some of the finest insight into the secrets of beauty has
been gained by those who had only a limited acquaintance with
art. What is still more important in the present connexion
is that the aesthetic experience gained by the direct
contemplation of nature includes varieties which art cannot
reproduce. It is enough to recall what Helmholtz and others
have told us about the limitations of the powers of pictorial
art to represent the more brilliant degrees of light; the
admissions of painters themselves as to the limits of their
art when it seeks to render the finer gradations of light and
colour in such common objects as a tree-trunk or a bit of old
wall. Nature, moreover, in spreading out her spaces of
earth, sea and sky, and in exhibiting the action of her
forces, does so on a scale which seems to make sublimity her
prerogative in which art vainly endeavours to participate.
Use of works of art by the theorist.
On the other hand, it is coming to be seen that the construction
of a theory of aesthetic values must be assisted by a much more
precise examination than aestheticists are commonly content to
make, of works of art. The importance of including these is
that they are well-defined objective expressions of what the
aesthetic consciousness approves and prefers. In inquiring,
for example, into the pleasing relations of colour we might
have to wait long for a theory if we were dependent on what
even so gifted a writer as Ruskin can tell us about nature's
juxtapositions: whereas if it can be shown that throughout the
history of chromatic art or during its better period there has
been a tendency to prefer certain combinations, this fact becomes
a piece of convincing evidence as to their aesthetic value.
Difficulties in using works of art as material.
Even here, however, there are sources of uncertainty. It
is not true to say that a work of art is a pure outcome of
the aesthetic feeling of the artist. even if we take this
in a comprehensive sense. It is subject to the influence
of all the temporary feelings and tendencies of the time
which produced it. The aesthetic motive which is supposed
to originate it is apt to be complicated and disguised
by other motives, e.g. utility in architecture,13 an
impulse to instruct if not to reform in modern fiction.
Effects of custom on artistic preference.
Again, if it is said that a certain degree of permanence
assures us of the aesthetic value of a feature of art, we
are met by the difficulty that custom plays an important
part in art, the result of convention fixed by tradition
often simulating the aspect of a deep-seated aesthetic
preference. In this connexion it is to be remarked that even
so permanent an element as symmetry may owe its quasiaesthetic
value to custom, by which is understood its wide and impressive
display in the organic and even the inorganic world.14
Yet the influence of custom taken in this larger sense need
not greatly disturb us. In aesthetics, as in ethics, the
question of validity has to be kept distinct from that of
origin. If symmetry (in general) is appreciated as
aesthetically pleasing, the question of its genesis becomes
immaterial. Another difficulty, not peculiar to aesthetic
investigation, is that of reconstructing the modes of
aesthetic consciousness represented by forms of art which
differ widely from those of our own age and type of culture.
Value of primitive art for aesthetics.
In utilizing art material for aesthetic theory the theorist
will need to note the work recently done by English and German
writers on primitive art. And this not merely because of the
value of the early forms of art for a theory of the evolution
of the aesthetic consciousness; but because the embryonic stages
of art are likely to have a peculiar interest as illustrating
in a comparatively isolated form some of the simpler modes of
aesthetic appreciation, e.g. in the grouping of colours, in
the mode of covering a surface with linear ornament. Yet it
is not necessary to give primitive art a considerable place
in a general aesthetics. As a normative science, it is to be
remembered, this is much more immediately concerned with the
higher stages of aesthetic culture. In seeking to establish
norms or regulative principles, we must, it is evident, make
a special study of objects of art which belong to our own
level of culture. For these reasons it would appear necessary
to include in a general aesthetic theory some reference to
the evolution of art and of the aesthetic consciousness.
Evolution as criterion of aesthetic height.
A further reason for including it is that the evolution
of art supplies a most valuable auxiliary criterion of
degree or height of aesthetic value. Provided that we
distinguish what is a real process of evolution from one
of mere change of fashion in taste, and that we confine
ourselves to the larger features of the process, we may make
the principle of evolution a serviceable one by regarding
those forms and features of art as higher in respect of
aesthetic value which grow distinct and relatively fixed
in the later and better stages of the evolution of art.15
Exact measurement of characteristics of art-work.
This part of aesthetic investigation should be made as exact as
possible.Thus in dealing with the triads of colour said to be
most frequently employed in the best period of Italian painting
the observer should note and record as far as this is possible
not only the precise tints, but also the precise degrees of
their several luminosities. With regard to elements of form in
art, the judicious use of photography and careful measurement
would probably help us to understand the practices of art in
its better periods. This examination of art material by the
aesthetic theorist should be supplemented by a study of what
artists have written about their methods, of the rules laid
down for students of art, and lastly of the generalizations
reached by the more scientific kind of writer upon art.16
Aesthetic inductions.
A proper methodical inquiry into aesthetic objects aided by
a knowledge of the practices of art would lead to inductions
of such characteristics are aesthetically valuable.''17
Germs of aesthetic preference in children, etc.
This preliminary work of aesthetic science in collecting
and analysing facts may be extended in two directions: by
an examination (a) of the earlier and simpler forms of
aesthetic experience, and (b) of the fuller and more complex
experiences of those specially trained in the perception and
enjoyment of beauty. (a) The former would be illustrated by
a more methodical investigation into the rudimentary aesthetic
likings of children and of the lower races. Such inquiries
may be expected to add to our knowledge of the simpler and
more universal forms of aesthetic enjoyment. Some attention
has been paid by Darwin and others to germs of taste in birds
and other animals. Yet this line of inquiry, though of some
value for a theory of the evolution of taste, seems to throw
but little light on aesthetic preferences as found in man.18
Aesthetic experiment.
An important feature in this new investigation into simpler
modes of aesthetic preference is that it proceeds by way of
experiment, that is to say, a methodical testing of the aesthetic
preferences of a number of individuals. Fechner introduced the
method of experiment into aesthetics in his researches on the
preferability (according to Zeising) of the proportion known as
the ``golden section.''19 Since his time other experimental
inquiries have been made, both as to what forms (e.g. what
variety of rectangle) and what combinations of colours are most
pleasing. The results of these experiments are distinctly
promising, though they have not yet been carried far enough to
be made the basis of perfectly trustworthy generalizations.20
Experience and judgments of experts.
A valuable portion of the data for a science of aesthetics
lies in the recorded experiences of artists, art critics,
and others who have specially developed their tastes; This
source of information has certainly never been made use of
in a complete and methodical manner by theorists, a quotation
now and again from writers like Goethe and Ruskin having been
deemed sufficient. Yet it is safe to say that an adequate
understanding of the finer effects of beauty, both in nature and
in art, presupposes the assimilation of what is best in these
records. And this not only because they commonly supply us with
new and valuable varieties of experience of the more refined
kind, but because the aesthetic judgments on nature and art of
men in whom the feeling of beauty has been specially cultivated
have a greater value than those of others.21 It may be added
that these records are wont to contain reflexions which, though
wanting in scientific precision, can be utilized by science.
Psychological analysis of material.
We now come to the work of scientific construction proper.
The finer analysis of the objects which please aesthetically
as well as of the agreeable type of consciousness to which
they minister belongs to the psychologist, and it is noteworthy
that the best recent contributions to the science have been
made by men who were either known as psychologists or at least
had trained themselves in psychological analysis. A word or
two must suffice to indicate the more important directions
of the theoretic interpretation. We may in illustrating this
set out from the convenient triple division of the factors in
aesthetic experience: (A) the sensuous, (B) the perceptual or
formal, (C) the imaginative, including all that is suggested
by the aesthetic presentation, its meaning and expressiveness.
The sensuous factor. Physiological aesthetics.
(A) In dealing with the sensuous factor the psychologist is
materially aided by the physiologist. It is sufficient to
point to the contribution made to the analysis of musical
sensations by the classical researches of Helmholtz (see
below). Yet the application of a knowledge of physiological
conditions seems as yet to be of little service when we
come to the finer aspects of this sensuous experience,
to the subtle effects of colour combination, for example,
and to the nuances of feeling-tone attaching to different
tints. In the finer analysis of the sensuous material of
aesthetic enjoyment it is the psychologist who counts.22
Psychological problems.
Among the valuable contributions recently made in this domain
one may instance the careful determination of the aesthetically
important characteristics of the sensations of sight and hearing,
such as the finely graduated variety of their qualities (colour
and tone), their capability of entering into combinations
in which they preserve their individuality, including the
important combinations of time and space form. With these
are to be included the distinguishing characteristics of the
concomitant feeling-tones, e.g. their comparative calmness
and their clear separation from the sensations which they
accompany. These characteristics help us to understand
the greater refinement of these senses and also the more
prolonged as well as varying enjoyment which they contribute,
as well as the extension of this enjoyment by imaginative
reproduction.23 Next to this determination of important
aesthetic characteristics of the two senses may be named a
finer probing of the nuances of pleasurable tone exhibited by
the several colours and tones. A point still needing special
investigation is extent of the sensuous factor in aesthetic
enjoyment. There has been a tendency in aesthetic theory
to over-intellectualize aesthetic experience and to find
the value even of the sensuous factor in some intellectual
principle, as when it is said (by Plato and Hegel among
others) that a smooth or level tone and a uniform mass of
colour owe their value to the principle of unity. But such
prolongation (within obvious limits) in time or space is a
condition of the full enjoyment of the distinctive quality
of an individual tone or colour, and as such has a sensuous
value. Aesthetics has to prove the sensuous value, the
pleasure which is due not only to the feeling-tones of the
several sensations but to those of their variods combinations.
Spite of a tendency of late to disparage the co-operation of
the ``motor sensations'' connected with movements of the eye
in the aesthetic appreciation of linear form, e.g. curves,
evidence suggests that certain curves, like fine gradations
of colour, may owe a considerable part of their value to
a mode of varying the sensuous experience which is in a
peculiar manner agreeable. On the other hand, this theoretic
investigation of sense-material will need to determine with
care the added value due to the action of experience in giving
something of meaning to particular colours and tones and
their combinations, e.g. warmth of colour, height of tone.
The perceptual factor.
(B) Under the scientific treatment of the perceptual or
formal factor in aesthetic experience we have many special
problems, of which only a few can be touched on here. Taking
this factor to include all combinations of elements in which
there is a more or less distinct perception of pleasing
relations, we meet here with such work as that of C. Stumpf
(Ton-psychologie) in determining the way in which tones
combine and tend to fuse. Later experiments have added to our
knowledge of the obscure subject of colour harmony, enabhng
us to distinguish pleasing contrasts of colour from the more
restful combinations of nearly allied tints. Our knowledge
of pleasing form in the narrower sense, that is to say,
space and time form, has been advanced by a number of recent
inquiries. The value of symmetry, the meaning of proportion
and the aesthetic value to be set on certain proportions,
the forms of these are some of the points dealt with in more
central and in special works24. In the case of forms,
still more than in that of sensuous elements, it is needful to
determine the extent to which the value of the formal aspect
is modified by experience and the acquisition of meaning.
This is pretty certainly the source of the aesthetic value
claimed for certain proportions, whether in the human figure
or other organic forms or in the freer constructions of form
in art.25 Another problem is to determine the influence of
the feeling-tones of the combining elements on the pleasing
character of the whole. It is probable that a particular
combination of colours owes something of its pleasure value
to a harmony of the feeling-tones of the elements. This
is pretty certainly the case where the feeling-tones of the
elements are closely akin, as in the case of a number of low
tones of colours, or of architectural or other forms where
one formal element--say, a vertical line, a rectangle of a
certain proportion or a particular variety of arch--repeats
itself and becomes a dominating feature of the whole.
The imaginative factor.
(C) The imaginative factor---which corresponds with what
Fechner calls the ``indirect''---includes all that imaginative
activity adds to our enjoyment when we contemplate an aesthetic
object. It may consist first of all in recalling concrete
experiences firmly associated with the object, as when the
sight of wild-flowers in a London street calls up an image
of fields and lanes. In order that these images may add to
the aesthetic value of the object they must correspond to
our common associations, as distinguished from accidental
individual ones. A large increase of aesthetic enjoyment
comes to us through such suggested images. Although in
general it is images of concrete objects which are called
up, ideas of a more abstract character may take part though
they tend in this case to assume a concrete aspect. This is
illustrated in the appreciation of ``typical beauty'' in which
a concrete form represents in an exceptional way the common
form of a species, and in that of symbolic representation.
An important part of this work of association is to render
objects expressive of mental states, as when we read off the
particular shade of feeling expressed by a natural scene.26
Freer play of imagination.
In the poetic contemplation of nature, her forces, her gladness
and other moods, this imaginative activity, though still deriving
leading to an investment of natural objects with a new and more
fanciful meaning, as when we ``apperceive'' a willow drooping
over a pond or the front of an old cottage under a quasi-human
form, endowing it with something akin to our own feelings and
memories. What, it may be asked, is the whole range of this
freer play of a life-giving fancy in our aesthetic enjoyment?
Some recent theorists have attempted to answer this question
by saying that it constitutes a vital element in all aesthetic
contemplation. Th. Lipps and others who follow him seek to
show that this vitalizing activity of the fancy, which produces
a new and illusory object, is the essential ingredient in
the aesthetic enjoyment of the forms of material objects.
According to this theory, when in the aesthetic mood I enjoy
the form of a tree, of a church steeple or of the front of
a Greek temple, I am not only ascribing life and feeling to
it, but am projecting myself in fancy into the object thus
constructed, feeling for the moment that I am the tree or the
steeple. The process of vivification is carried out as
follows. Lines represent certain movements, and in the
aesthetic mood we translate all lines and so all forms back
into the corresponding movements, which may be merely imagined
(as Lipps himself thinks, or may be realized in part by
sensuous elements, viz. motor sensations; which again may
be regarded either as concomitants of eye movements, or as
arising from an organically connected impulse to move the hand
along the lines followed by the eye.27 Thus the columns of
a temple represent upward movement, and are apperceived as
striving upwards so as to resist the downward pressure of the
entablature. Since movements are the great means of expression
in man, this imaginative reading of movement into motionless
and even massive and stable forms enables us to endow them
with quasi-human feelings. In looking, for example, at
the weighty masses of a building we enter sympathetically
into the successful strivings of the supporting structures
to resist the downward thrust of gravity in the supported
masses. The theory here briefly indicated28 is interesting
as illustrating an attempt from the psychological side to find a
scientific support for philosophic idealism or expressionalism.
It is already beginning to be recognized in Germany as an
exaggeration. It may be enough to say that as applied to forms
generally, including those of sculpture and architecture, the
theory is opposed by our ordinary way of speaking, which implies
quite another point of view in the aesthetic contemplation
of form, namely, that of a spectator external to the object
contemplated. When our eye glides over the beauties of a
statue, our imaginative activity so far from transporting us
within the object carries us as tactual feelers outside the
surface. Similarly, when we delight in the divided spaces
of a Gothic roof, so far from being imaginatively engaged in
taking part in the efforts and strains of pillar, arch and
the rest, we move in fancy along the pathways defined by the
designer, tactually feeling and appreciating each dimension,
each detail of form. The attempt to force a theory fitted
for poetry on sculpture and architecture would rob these of
their distinctive aesthetic values; in the one case, of the
plastic beauty of finely moulded marble surfaces as realized
by imaginative excursions of the hand; and in the other
case, of the perfect stillness and stability which give
to great structures their solemn and quieting aspect.29
Aesthetic Illusion.
The theory of a vitalizing play of imagination (Einfuhlung)
running through all modes of aesthetic contemplation is an
exaggeration of the element of illusion which certainly characterizes
this contemplation. As suggested above, by blotting out for
the moment the perception of all save that which pleases it
substitutes a new for the more solid reality of our practical
mood. Moreover, as a state of perceptual absorption in which
one loses consciousness of the ordinary self and its world, it
has a certain resemblance to the state of ecstasy and of the
hypnotic trance.30 It is favourable to the play-like indulgence
in a fanciful transformation of what is seen or heard, which
may be described as a ``willing self-deception,'' more or less
complete. Yet as we have seen, something of the real everyday
world survives even in our freer aesthetic contemplation of
form. Hence there is much to be said for the idea that
we have in aesthetic illusion to do with a kind of double
consciousness, a tendency to an illusory acceptance of the
product of our fancy as the reality, restrained by a subconscious
recognition of the everyday tangible reality behind.31
Variations of imaginative activity.
It is evident that both in the more confined and in the
freer form the element of imaginative activity in aesthetic
experience will vary greatly among individuals and among
peoples. Differences in past experience leading to diverse
habits of association, as well as in those natural dispositions
which prompt one person to prefer motor images, another visual,
another audile, will modify the process in this enjoyable
enlargement and transformation of what is presented to
sense. It is for aesthetics at once to recognize these
variations of imaginative activity and to determine the
more common and universal directions which it follows.
Form and expression not absolutely distinct.
The recent inquiry into our way of contemplating form
is, in spite of exaggeration, valuable as showing that our
distinctions of form and expression are not absolute. Just
as there is the rudiment of ideal significance in colour, not
so form, even in its more abstract and elementary aspects,
is not wholly expressionless, but may be be endowed with
something of life by the imagination. The recognition of
this truth does not, however, affect the validity of our
treating form and expression as two broadly distinguishable
factors of aesthetic pleasure. A line may be pleasing to
sense-perception, and in addition illustrate expressional value
by suggested ease of movement or pose. Similarly, a concrete
form, e.g. that of a sculptured human figure in repose, or
of a graceful birch or fern, owes its aesthetic value to a
happy combination of pleasing lines and of interesting ideas.
Aesthetic emotion.
In close connexion with the determination of the imaginative
factor in aesthetic contemplation, the psychologist is
called on to define the soecial characteristics of aesthetic
emotion. That our attitude when we watch a beautiful object,
say the curl of a breaker as it falls, or some choice piece
of sculpture, is an emotional one is certain, and ingenious
attempts have been made by Home (Lord Kames) and others to
equip the emotion with a full accompaniment of corporeal
activity, such as heightened respiratory activity.32 Yet
aesthetic emotion is to be contrasted with the more violent
and passionate state of love and other emotions, and this
difference calls for further investigation. A closer inquiry
into the features of that calm yet intense emotion which a
rapt state of aesthetic contemplation induces is a necessary
preliminary to a scientific demarcation of the sphere of
beauty in the narrow or more exclusive sense, from that
of the sublime, the tragic and the comic. Each of these
departments of aesthetic experience has well-marked emotional
characteristics; and the definition of these ``modifications
of the beautiful'' has in the main been reached through an
analysis of the emotional states involved. This chapter in
the psychological treatment of aesthetic experience has to
consider two points which have occupied a prominent place
in aesthetic theory. The first is the nature of ``revived''
or ``ideal'' emotion, such as is illustrated in the feeling
excited sympathetically when we witness or hear of another's
sorrow or joy. The second point is the nature of those
mixed emotional states which are illustrated in our aesthetic
enjoyment of the sublime and the other ``modifications,''
in all of which we can recognize a kind of double emotional
consciousness in which painful elements accompany and modify
pleasurable ones, in such a manner that in the end the
latter appear to be rather strengthened than weakened.33
Limits of analysis in aesthetics.
The psychological treatment of aesthetic data here sketched
out cannot stop at an analysis of the aesthetic state or
attitude into a number of recoenizable elements each of which
contributes its own quantum of pleasurableness. Our enjoyment
in contemplating, say, a green alp set above dark crags, is an
indivisible whole. And it is a consciousness of this fact which
makes men disposed to resent the dissection of their aesthetic
enjoyment into a number of constituent pleasures. Nor is this
all. Every aesthetic object is something unique, differing in
individual characteristics from all others; and as the object,
so the mood of the contemplator. One may almost say that
there are as many modes of musical delight as there are worthy
compositions. It would seem either that this feeling of a
unique indivisible whole must be dismissed as an illusion, or
that we have to admit an unexplained residue in our aesthetic
experience, which may some day be explained by help of a
larger and more exact conception of aesthetic harmony, of the
laws of interaction and of fusion of psychical elements.34
Construction of aesthetic norms.
We may now glance at the ideal purpose of this scientific
analysis and interpretation, namely, the construction of
norms or regulative principles corresponding to the severally
essential elements of aesthetic value ascertained. The
later psychological treatment of the subject has led up to
the formulation of certain ideal requirements in beautiful
objects. The work of Fechner in this direction (Vorschule
der Asthetik) was a noteworthy contribution to this kind of
construction, at once scientific and directed to the construction
of ideal demands, and is still a model for workers in the same
field. He has taught us how the attempt to formulate one
all-comprehensive principle--e.g. unity in variety, has
led to a barren abstractedness, and that we need in its
place a number of more concrete principles. In formulating
these principles care must be taken to determine their
respective scopes and their mutual relations---to decide, for
example, whether expression, to which our modern feeling
undoubtedly ascribes a high value, is a universal demand in
the same sense as unity or harmony of parts is admitted to
be. A system of norms must further supply some comprehensive
criterion by help of which degrees of aesthetic value may be
determined, as determined by the degrees of completeness of
the several pleasurable activities, --sensuous, perceptual
and imaginative,--and justify the form of judgment ``this
object is more beautiful (or of a higher kind of beauty) than
that.'' Such regulative principles and standards of comparison
will, it is clear, fail us just at the point where analysis
stops. Edmund Gurney urges that an aesthetic principle such
as unity in variety is complied with equally well by musical
compositions which are commonplace and leave us cold and by
those which evoke the full thrill of aesthetic delight, and
he concludes that the special beauty of form in the latter
instance is appreciated by a kind of intuition which cannot
be analysed (see The Power of sound, ix.). The argument
is hard to combat. It would seem that after all our efforts
to define aesthetic qualities and enumerate corresponding
ideal requirements we are left with an unexplained remainder.
This can only be tentatively defined as the concrete object
itself in its wholeness, which is not only a perfectly
harmonized combination of sensuous, formal and expressional
values, but impresses us as something which has a fresh
individuality and the distinction of aesthetic excellence.
Connexion between aesthetic and other
experience: (a) with intellectual interests.
Aesthetics is wont to treat of a certain kind of experience
as if it were a closed compartment. Yet there is in reality
no such perfect seclusion. Our enjoyment of beauty, though
to be distinguished from our intellectual and our practical
interests, touches and interacts with these. With regard
to intellectual interests it is clear that much of the
mental activity which enters into our aesthetic enjoyment
is intellectual--e.g. in the perception of the relations
of form. even though it stood short of the abstract analysis
of scientific observation. Again, in appreciating beauty
of type which involves according to Taine a recognition of
the most important characters of the species, we are, it is
evident, close to the scientific point of view. Similarly,
when scientific knowledge enables us in the mood of aesthetic
contemplation to retrace imaginatively the mode of formation
of a cloud or a mountain form, or the mode in which a
climbing plant finds its way upwards. It is for aesthetics to
recognize the fact, and to discriminate a legitimate aesthetic
function of scientific ideas when they enlarge the scope of
a pleasurable play of the imagination, and are freed from
the control of a serious purpose of explaining what is seen.
(b) with practical interests.
A similar remark applies to the contacts of our aesthetic with
our practical interests. While as dominant factors the latter
influence our feeling for beauty in an indirect and subordinate
way. This is recognized by those (e.g. Home) who insist
on a particular kind of aesthetic value under the name of
relative beauty, or the pleasing aspect of fitness for a
purpose. If a drinking-vessel please in part because of
its perfect adaptation to its purpose, the aesthetic value
ascribed to it seems to derive something from a feeling of
respect for utility itself. In another way beauty reasserts
in modern aesthetics that kinship with utility on which it
insisted in the days of Socrates. The idea that typical
beauty coincides with what is vigorous and conducive to
the conservation of the species is as old as Hobbes.35
Biological treatment of beauty.
Darwin and his followers have developed the biological
conception that sexual selection tends to develop aesthetic
preferences along lines which correspond to what subserves
the maintenance of the species or tribe. Recent writers have
shown how the rude germs of aesthetic activity in primitive
types of community would subserve necessary tribal ends--e.g.
musical rhythm by exercising members of the tribe in concerted
war-like action.36 Yet these interesting speculations have
to do rather with the earlier stages of the evolution of the
aesthetic faculty than with its functions in the higher stages.
Aesthetics and ethics.
An idea of a social utility in aesthetic experience which does
demand the attention of the theorist is that the culture of
beauty and art has a socializing influence, helping to give
to our emotional experience new forms of expression whereby
our sympathies are deepened and enlarged.37 The further
elucidation of this element of humanizing influence in aesthetic
enjoyment may be expected to throw new light on the question,
much discussed throughout the history of aesthetics, of the
relation of the science to ethics, by showing that they have a
common root in our sympathetic nature and interest in humanity.
Aesthetic theory and problems of art.
In order to complete the outline of aesthetic theory we need
to glance at the relation of general aesthetics to the special
problems of Fine Art. It is evident that the definition of the
aims and methods of art, both as a whole and in its several
forms, involving as it does special technical knowledge, may
with advantage be treated apart from a general theory. (See
FINE ARTS.) At the same time the study of art raises larger
problems which require to be dealt with to some extent by this
theory. We may instance the group of problems which have
to do with the relation of art to ``beauty'' in its narrower
sense, such as the function of the painful and of the ugly in
art, the meaning of artistic imitation and truth to nature,
of idealization, and the nature of artistic illusion; also
the question of the didactic and of the moral function of
art. Even more special problems of art, such as the effect
of the tragic, the nature of musical expression, can only be
adequately treated in the light of a general aesthetic theory.
In conclusion, it may be pointed out that the psychological
theorist has of late been busy in an outlying region of
art-lore, inquiring into the nature of the artistic impulse and
temperament, and into the processes of imaginative creation.
These inquiries have been carried out to some extent in connexion
with studies of the origin of art, and of the relation of art
to the social environment. Their importance for aesthetics
lies in the circumstance that they are fitted to throw light
upon the aesthetic consciousness as it is developed in those
who are not only in a special sense cultivators of it, but
represent in a peculiar manner the ideas and the aims of art.38
HISTORY OF THEORIES In the following summary of the most
important contributions to aesthetic doctrine, only such
writings will be recognized as contribute to a general conception
of aesthetic objects or experience. These include the more
systematic treatment of the subject in philosophic works as
well as the more thoughtful kind of discussion of principles
to be met with in writings on art by critics and others.
Greek Speculations.---Ancient Greece supolies us with
the first important contributions to aesthetic theory,
though these are scarcely, in quality or in quantity, what
one might nave expected from a people which had so high an
appreciation of beauty and so strong a bent for philosophic
speculation. The first Greek thinker of whose views on the
subject we really know something is Socrates. We learn from
Xenophon's account of him that he regarded the beautiful as
coincident with the good, and both of them are resolvable
into the useful. Every beautiful object is so called because
it serves came rational end, whether the security or the
gratification of man. Socrates appears to have attached
little importance to the immediate gratification which a
beauriful object affords to perception and contemplation,
but to have emphasized rather its power of furthering the
more necessary ends of life. The really valuable point in
his doctrine is the relativity of beauty. Unlike Plato,
he recognized no self-beauty (auto to kalon) existing
absolutely and out of all relation to a percipient mind.
Plato.
Of the views of Plato on the subject, it is hardly less difficult
to gain a clear conception from the Dialogues, than it is in
the case of ethical good. In some of these, various definitions
of the beautiful are rejected as inadequate by the Platonic
Socrates. At the same time we may conclude that Plato's mind
leaned decidedly to the conception of an absolute beauty,
which took its place in his scheme of ideas or self-exisiing
forms. This true beauty is nothing discoverable as an
attribute in another thing, for these nre only beautiful things,
not the beautiful itself. Love (Eros) produces aspiration
towards this pure idea. Elsewhere the soul's intuition of the
self-beautiful is said to be a reminiscence of its prenatal
existence. As to the precise forms in which the idea of beauty
reveals itself, Plato is not very decided. His theory of an
absolute beauty does not easily adjust itself to the notion
of its contributing merely a variety of sensuous pleasure,
to which he appears to lean in some dialogues. He tends
to identify the self-beautiful with the conceptions of the
true and the good, and thus there arose the Platonic formula
kalokagathia. So far as his writings embody the notion of
any common element in beautiful objects, it is proportion,
harmony or unity among their parts. He emphasizes unity in
its simplest aspect as seen in evenness of line and purity of
colour. He recognizes in places the beauty of the mind, and
seems to think that the highest beauty of proportion is to
be found in the union of a beautiful mind with a beautiful
body. He had but a poor opinion of art, regarding it as a
trick of imitation (mimesis) which takes us another step
farther from the luminous sphere of rational intuition into
the shadowy region of the semblances of sense. Accordingly,
in his scheme for an ideal republic, he provided for the most
inexorable censorship of poets, &c., so as to make art as far
as possible an instrument of moral and political training.
Aristotle.
Aristotle proceeded to a more serious investigation of the
aesthetic phenomena so as to develop by scientific analysis
certain principles of beauty and art. In his treatises on
poetry and rhetoric he gives us, along with a theory of these
arts, certain general principles of beauty; and scattered among
his other writings we find many valuable suggestions on the same
subject. He seeks (in the Metaphysics) to distinguish the
good and the beautiful by saying that the former is always in
action (`en praxei) whereas the latter may exist in motionless
things as well (`en akinetois.) At the same time he had
as a Greek to allow that though essentially different things
the good might under certain conditions be called beautiful.
He further distinguished the beautiful from the fit, and in
a passage of the Politics set beauty above the useful and
necessary. He helped to determine another characteristic
of the beautiful, the absence of all lust or desire in the
pleasure it bestows. The universal elements of beauty,
again, Aristotle finds (in the Metaphysics) to be order
(taxis), symmetry and definiteness or determinateness (to
orismenon). In the Poetics he adds another essential,
namely, a certain magnitude; it being desirable for a
synoptic view of the whole that the object should not be too
large, while clearness of perception requires that it should
not be too small. Aristotle's views on art are an immense
advance on those of Plato. He distinctly recognized (in the
Politics and elsewhere) that its aim is immediate pleasure,
as distinct from utility, which is the end of the mechanical
arts. He took a higher view of artistic imitation than Plato,
holding that so far from being an unworthy trick, it implied
knowledge and discovery, that its objects not only comprised
particular things which happen to most, but contemplated
what is probable and what necessarily exists. The celebrated
passage in the Poetics, where he declares poetry to be
more philosophical and serious a matter (spoudaiteron)
than philosophy, brings out the advance of Aristotle on his
predecessor. He gives us no complete classification of the fine
arts, and it is doubtful how far his principles, e.g. his
celebrated idea of a purification of the passions by tragedy,
are to be taken as applicable to other than the poetic art.
Plotinus.
Of the later Greek and Roman writers the Neo-Platonist Plotinus
deserves to be mentioned. According to him, objective reason
(nous) as self-moving, becomes the formative influence which
reduces dead matter to form. Matter when thus formed becomes
a notion (logos), and its form is beauty. Objects are
ugly so far as they are unacted upon by reason, and therefore
formless. The creative reason is absolute beauty, and is
called the more than beautiful. There are three degrees
or stages of manifested beauty: that of human reason, which
is the highest; of the human soul, which is less perfect
through its connexion with a material body; and of real
objects, which is the lowest manifestation of all. As to
the precise forms of beauty, he supposed, in opposition to
Aristotle, that a single thing not divisible into parts might
be beautiful through its unity and simplicity. He gives a
high place to the beauty of colours in which material darkness
is overpowered by light and warmth. In reference to artistic
beauty he said that when the artist has notions as models for
his creations, these may become more beautiful than natural
objects. This is clearly a step away from Plato's doctrine
towards our modern conception of artistic idealization.
German writers. (a) Systematic treatises; Baumgarten.
2. German Writers.---We may pass by the few thoughts on the
subject to be found among medieval writers and turn to modern
theories, beginning with those of German writers as the most
numerous and most elaborately set forth. The best of the
Germans who attempted to develop an aesthetic theory as part
of a system of philosophy was Baumgarten (Aesthetica) .
Adopting the Leibnitz-Wolffian theory of knowledge, he sought
to complete it by setting over against the clear scientific
or ``logical'' knowledge of the understanding, the confused
knowledge of the senses, to which (as we have seen) he gave the
name ``aesthetic.'' Beauty with him thus corresponds with perfect
sense-knowledge. Baumgarten is clearly an intellectualist in
aesthetics, reducing taste to an intellectual act and ignoring
the element of feeling. The details of his aesthetics are mostly
unimportant. Arguing from Leibnitz's theory of the world
as the best possible, Baumgarten concluded that nature is
the highest embodiment of beauty, and that art must seek its
supreme function in the strictest possible imitation of nature.
Kant.
The next important treatment of aesthetics by a philosopher
is that of Kant. He deals with the ``Judgment of Taste''
in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (J. H. Bernard's
translation 1892), which treatise supplements the two
better-known critiques (vide KANT), and by investigating
the conditions of the validity of feeling mediates between
then respective subjects, cognition and desire (volition).
He takes an imoortant step in denying objective existence to
beauty. Aesthetic value for him is fitness to please as
object of pure contemplation. This aesthetic satisfaction is
more than mere agreeableness, since it must be disinterested
and free--that is to say, from all concern about the
real existence of the object, and about our dependence on
it. He appears to concede a certain formal objectivity to
beauty in his doctrine of an appearance of purposiveness
(Zweckmassigkeit) in the beautiful object, this being
defined as its harmony with the cognative faculties involved
in an aesthetic judgment (imagination and understanding); a
harmony the consciousness of which underlies our aesthetic
pleasure. Yet this part of his doctrine is very imperfectly
developed. While beauty thus ceases with Kant to have
objective validity and remains valid only for the contemplator,
he claims for it universal subjective validity, since the
object we pronounce to be beautiful is fitted to please all
men. We know that this must be so from reflecting on the
disinterestedness of our pleasure, on its entire independence
of personal inclination. Kant insists that the aesthetic
judgment is always, in logical phrase, an ``individual'' i.e.
a singular one, of the form ``This object (e.g. rose) is
beautiful.'' He denies that we can reach a valid universal
aesthetic judgment of the form ``All objects possessine such
and such qualities are beautiful.'' (A judgment of this form
would, he considers, be logical, not aesthetic.) in dealing
with beauty Kant is thinking of nature, ranking this as a
source of aesthetic pleasure high above art, for which he
shows something of contempt. He seems to retreat from his
doctrine of pure subiectivity when he says that the highest
significance of beauty is to symbolize moral good; going
further than Ruskin when he attaches ideals of modesty,
frankness, courage, &c., to the seven primary colours of
Newton's system. He has made a solid contribution to the
theory of the sublime, and has put forth a suggestive and
a rather inadequate view of the ludicrous. But his main
service to aesthetics consists in the preliminary critical
determination of its aim and its fundamental problems.
Schelling.
Schelling is the first thinker to attempt a Philosophy of
Art. He develops this as the third part of his system of
transcendental idealism following theoretic and practical
philosophy. (See SCHELLING;--also Schelling's Werke, Bd.
v., and J. Watson, Schelling's Transcendental Idealism, ch.
vii., Chicago, 1882.) According to Schelling a new philosophical
significance is given to art by the doctrine that the identity
of subject and object--which is half disguised in ordinary
perception and volition--is only clearly seen in artistic
perception. The perfect perception of its real self by
intelligence in the work of art is accompanied by a feeling
of infinite satisfaction. Art in thus effecting a revelation
of the absolute seems to attain a dignity not merely above
that of nature but above that of philosophy itself. Schelling
throws but little light on the concrete forms of beauty. His
classification of the arts, based on his antithesis of object
and subject, is a curiosity in intricate arrangement. He
applies his conception in a suggestive way to classical tragedy.
Hegel.
In Hegel's system of philosophy art is viewed as the first
stage of the absolute spirit. (See HEGEL; also Werke, Bd.
x., and Bosanquet's Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine
Art.) In this stage the absolute is immediately present to
sense-perception, an idea which shows the writer's complete
rupture with Kant's doctrine of the ``subjectivity'' of beauty.
The beautiful is defined as the ideal showing itself to sense
or through a sensuous medium. It is said to have its life in
show or semblance (Schein) and so differs from the true, which
is not really sensuous, but the universal idea contained in
sense for thought. The form of the beautiful is unity of the
manifold. The notion (Begriff gives necessity in mutual
dependence of parts (unity), while the reality demands the
semblance (Schein) of liberty in the parts. He discusses
very fully the beauty of nature as immediate unity of notion
and reality, and lays great emphasis on the beauty of organic
life. But it is in art that, like Schelling, Hegel finds the
highest revelation of the beautiful. Art makes up for the
deficiencies of natural beauty by bringing the idea into clearer
light, by showing the external world in its life and spiritual
animation. The several species of art in the ancient and
modern worlds depend on the various combinations of matter
and form. He classifies the individual arts according to
this same principle of the relative supremacy of form and
matter, the lowest being architecture, the highest, poetry.
Dialectic of the Hegelians.
Curious developments of the Hegelian conception are to be
found in the dialectical treatment of beauty in its relation
to the ugly, the sublime, &c., by Hegel's disciples, e.g.
C. H. Weisse and J. K. F. Rosenkranz. The most important
product of the Hegelian School is the elaborate system
of aesthetics published by F. T. Vischer (Esthetik, 3
Theile, 1846--1834). It illustrates the difficulties
of the Hegelian thought and terminology; yet in dealing
with art it is full of knowledge and highly suggestive.
Schopenhauer.
The aesthetic prbolem is also treated by two other philosophers
whose thought set out from certain tendencies in Kant's
system, viz. Schopenhauer and Herbart. Schopenhauer (see
SCHOPENHAUER, also The World as Will and Idea, translated
by R. B. Haldane, esp. vol. i. pp. 219-346), abandoning
also Kant's doctrine of the subjectivity of beauty, found
in aesthetic contemplation the perfect emancipation of
intellect from will. In this contemplation the mind is
filled with pure intellectual forms, the ``Platonic Ideas''
as he calls them, which are objectifications of the will
at a certain grade of completeness of representation. He
exalts the state of artistic contemplation as the one in
which, as pure intellect set free from will, the misery of
existence is surmounted and something of blissful ecstasy
attained. He holds that all things are in some degree beautiful,
ugliness being viewed as merely imoerfect manifestation or
objectification of will. In this way the beauty of nature,
somewhat slighted by Schelling and Hegel, is rehabilitated.
Herbart.
J. F. Herbart (q.v.) struck out another way of escaping
from Kant's idea of a purely subjective beauty (Kerbach's
edition of Werke, Bd. ii. pp. 339 et seq.; Bd. iv. pp.
105 et seq., and Bd. ix. pp. 92 et seq..) He did, indeed,
adopt Kant's view of the aesthetic Judgment as singular
(``individual''); though he secures a certain degree of
logical universality for it by emphasizing the point that the
predicate (beauty) is permanently true of the same aesthetic
object. At the same time, by referring the beauty of concrete
objects to certain aesthetic relations, he virtually accepted
the possibility of universal aesthetic judgments (cf. supra.)
Since he thus reduces beauty to abstract relations he is known
as a formalist, and the founder of the formalistic school in
aesthetics. He sets out with the idea that only relations
please--in the Kantian sense of producing pleasure devoid of
desire; and his aim is to determine the ``aesthetic elementary
relations'', or the simplest relations which produce this
pleasure. These include those of will, so that, as he aomits,
ethical judgments are in a manner brought under an aesthetic
form. His typical example of aesthetic relations of objects
of sense-perception is that of harmony between tones. The
science of thorough-bass has, he thinks, done for music
what should be done also for other departments of aesthetic
experience. This doctrine of elementary relations is brought
into connexion with the author's psychological doctrine of
presentarions with their tendencies to mutual inhibition and
to fusion, and of the varying feeling-tones to which these
processes give rise. This mode of treating the problem of
beauty and aesthetic perception has been greatly developed
and worked up into a comrlete system of aesthetics by one of
Herbart's disciples, Robert Zimmermann (Asthetik, 1838).
Lessing.
Lessing, in his Laocoon and elsewhere, sought to deduce
the special function of an art from a consideration of
the means at its disposal. He took pains to define the
boundaries of poetry and upon the ends and appliances of
art. Among these his distinction between arts which
employ the coexistent in space and those which employ the
successive (as poetry and music) is of lasting value. In
his dramatic criticisms he similarly endeavoured to develop
clear general principles on such points as poetic truth,
improving upon Aristotle, on whose teachina he mainly relies.
Goethe. Schiller.
Goethe wrote several tracts on aesthetic topics, as well as many
aphorisms. He attempted to mediate between the claims of
ideal beauty, as taught by J. J. Winckelmann, and the aims of
dualization. Schiller (q.v.) discusses, in a number of
disconnected essays and letters some of the main questions
in the philosophy of art. He looks at art from the side
of culture and the forces of human nature, and finds in an
aesthetically cultivated soul the reconciliation of the sensual
and rational. His letters on aesthetic education (Uber die
asthetische Erzichung des Menschen, trans. by J. Weiss,
Boston, 1845) are valuable, bringing out among other points
the connexion between aesthetic activity and the universal
impulse to play (Spieltrieb.) Schiller's thoughts on aesthetic
subjects are pervaded with the spirit of Kant's philosophy.
Jean Paul.
Another example of this kind of reflective discussion of
art by literary men is afforded us in the Vorschule der
Asthetik of Jean Paul Richter. This is a rather ambitious
discussion of the sublime and ludicrous, which, however,
contains much valuable matter on the nature of humour in
romantic poetry. Among other writers who reflect more or less
philosophically on the problems to which modern poetry gives
rise are Wilhelm von Humboldt, the two Schlegels and Gervinus.
Contributions by German savants.
A word may be said in conclusion on the attempts of German
savants to apply a knowledge of physiological conditions
to the investigation of the sensuous elements of aesthetic
effect, as well as to introduce into the study of the simpler
aesthetic forms the methods of natural science. The classic
work of Helmholtz on ``Sensations of Tone'' is a highly musical
composition on physics and physiology. The endeavour to
determine with a like degree of precision the physiological
conditions of the pleasurable effects of colours and their
combinations by E. W. Brucke, Ewald Hering and more recent
investigators, has so far failed to realize the desideratum
laid down by Herbart, that there should be a theory of
colour-relations equal in completeness and exactness to that
of tone-relations. The experimental inquiry into simple
aesthetically pleasing forms was begun by G. T. Fechner in
seeking to test the soundness of Adolf Zeising's hypothesis
that the most pleasing proportion in dividing a line, say the
vertical part of a cross, is the ``golden section,'' where the
smaller division is to the larger as the latter to the sum.
He describes in his work on ``Experimental Aesthetics'' (Auf
experimentalen Asthetik) a series of experiments carried out
on a large number of persons, bearing on this point, the results
of which he considers to be in favour of Zeising's hypothesis.
Discussions of more concrete problems.
3. French Writers.--In France aesthetic speculation grew
out of the discussion by poets and critics on the relation of
modern art, and Boileau in the 17th century, the development
of the the dispute between the ``ancients'' and the `moderns''
at the end of the 17th century by B. le Bouvier de Fontenelle
and Charles Perrault, and the continuation of the discussion
as to the aims of poetry and of art generally in the 18th
century by Voltaire, Bayle, Diderot and others, not only
offer to the modern theorists valuable material in the shape
of a record by experts of their aesthetic experience, but
disclose glimpses of important aesthetic principles. A more
systematic examination of the several arts (corresponding
to that of Lessing) is to be found in the Cours de belles
lettres of Charles Batteux (1765), in which the meaning
and value of the imitation of nature by art are further
elucidated, and the arts are classified (as by Lessing)
according as they employ the forms of space or those of time.
Theories of organic beauty. Buffier.
The beginning of a more scientific investigation of beauty in
general is connected with the name of Pere Buffier (see First
Truths), form, and illustrates his theory by the human face. A
A beautiful face is at once the most common and most rare among
members of the species. This seems to be a clumsy way of saying
that it is a clear expression of the typical form of the species.
Taine.
This idea of typical beauty (which was adopted by Reynolds)
has been worked out more recently by H. Taine. In his
work, The Ideal in Art (trans. by i. Durand), he
proceeds in the manner of a botanist to determine a scale
of characters in the physical and moral man. The degree of
the universality or importance of a character, and of its
beneficence or adaptation to the ends of life, determine the
measure of its aesthetic value, and render the work of art,
which seeks to represent it in its purity, an ideal work.
French systems of aesthetics: The spiritualistes.
The only elaborated systems of aesthetics in French literature
are those constructed by the spiritualistes, the philosoohic
writers who under the influence of German thinkers effected a
reaction against the crude sensationalism of the 18th century
they aim at elucidating the higher and spiritual element in
aesthetic impressions, appearing to ignore any capability
in the sensuous material of affording a true aesthetic
delight. J. Cousin and Jean Charles Leveque are the principal
writers of this school. The latter developed an elaborate
system of the subject (La Science du beau.) All beauty is
regarded as spiritual in its nature. The several beautiful
characters of an organic body--of which the principal are
magnitude, unity and variety of parts, intensity of colour,
grace or flexibility, and correspondence to environment--may
be brought under the conception of the ideal grandeur and
order of the species. These are perceived by reason to be
the manifestations of an invisible vinal force. Similarly
the beauties of inorganic nature are to be viewed as
the grand and orderly displays of an immaterial ohvsical
force. Thus all beauty is in its objective essence either
spirit or unconscious force acting with fulness and in order.
4. English Writers.--There is nothing answering to the German
conception of a system of aesthetics in English literature.
The inquiries of English thinkers have been directed for
the most part to such modest problems as the psychological
process by which we perceive the beautiful--discussions which
are apt to be regarded by German historians as devoid of
real philosophical value. The writers may be conveniently
arranged in two divisions, answering to the two opposed
directions of English thought: (i) the Intuitionalists, those
who recognize the existence of an objective beauty which is
a simple unanalysable attribute or principle of things: and
(2) the Analytical theorists, those who follow the analytical
and psychological method, concerning themselves with the
sentiment of beauty as a complex growth out of simpler elements.
The Intuitionists. Shaftesbury.
Shaftesbury is the first of the intuitional writers on
beauty. In his Characteristics the beautiful and the good
are combined in one ideal conception, much as with Plato.
Matter in itself is ugly. The order of the world, wherein all
beauty really resides, is a spiritual principle, all motion
and life being the product of spirit. The principle of beauty
is perceived not with the outer sense, but with an internal or
moral sense which apprehends the good as well. This perception
yields the only true delight, namely, spiritual enjoyment.
Hutcheson.
Francis Hutchinson, in his System of Moral Philosophy, though
he adopts many of Shaftesbury's ideas, distinctly disclaims any
independent self-existing beauty in objects. ``All beauty,''
he says, ``is relative to the sense of some mind perceiving
it.'' One cause of beauty is to be found not in a simple
sensation such as colour or tone, but in a certain order among
the parts, or ``uniformity amidst variety.'' The faculty by
which this principle indiscerned is an internal sense which is
defined as ``a passive power of receiving ideas of beauty from
all objects in which there is uniformity in variety.'' This
inner sense resembles the external senses in the immediateness
of the pleasure which its activity brings: and further in
the necessity of its impressions: a beautiful thing being
always, whether we will or no, beautiful. He distinguishes
two kinds of beauty, absolute or original, and relative or
comparative. The latter is discerned in an object which is
regarded as an imitation or semblance of another. He distinctly
states that ``an exact imitation may still be beautiful though
the original were entirely devoid of it.'' He seeks to prove
the universality of this sense of beauty, by showing that all
men, in proportion to the enlargement of their intellectual
capacity, are more delighted with uniformity than the opposite.
Reid.
In his Essays on the Intellectual Powers (viii. ``Of
Taste'') Thomas Reid applies his principle of common sense
to the problem of beauty saying that objects of beauty agree
not only in producing a certain agreeable emotion, but in
the excitation along with this emotion of a belief that they
possess some perfection or excellence, that beauty exists
in the objects independently our minds. His theory of
beauty is severely spiritual. All beauty resides primarily
in the faculties of the mind, intellectual and moral. The
beauty which is spread over the face of visible nature is an
emanation from this spiritual beauty, and is beauty because
it symbolizes and expresses the latter. Thus the beauty
of a plant resides in its perfect adapration to its end, a
perfection which is an expression of the wisdom of its Creator.
Hamilton.
In his Lectures on Metaphysics Sir W. Hamilton gives a
short account of the sentiments of taste, which (with a
superficial resemblance to Kant) he regards as subserving
both the subsidiary and the elaborative faculties in
cognition, that is, the imagination and the understanding.
The activity of the former corresponds to the element of
variety in a beautiful object, that of the latter with its
unity. He explicitly excludes all other kinds of pleasure,
such as the sensuous, from the proper gratification of beauty.
He denies that the attribute of beauty belongs to fitness.
Ruskin.
John Ruskin's well-known speculations on the nature of
beauty in Modern Painters (``Of ideas of beauty''), though
sadly wanting in scientific precision, have a certain value
in the history of divine attributes. Its true nature is
appreciated by the theoretic faculty which is concerned in
the moral conception and appreciation of ideas of beauty,
and must be distinguished from the imaginative or artistic
faculty, which is employed in regarding in a certain way
and combining the ideas received from external nature. He
distinguishes between typical and vital beauty. The former
is the external quality of bodies which typifies some divine
attribute. The latter consists in ``the appearance of
felicitous fulfilment of function in living things.'' The
forms of typical beauty are:--(1) infinity, the type of
the divine incomprehensibility; (2) unity, the type of the
divine comprehensiveness; (3) repose, the type of the divine
permanence; (4) symmetry, the type of the divine justice; (5)
purity, the type of the divine energy; and (6) moderation, the
type of government by law. Vital beauty, again, is regarded
as relative when the degree of exaltation of the function
is estimated, or generic if only the degree of conformity
of an individual to the appointed functions of the species
is taken into account. Ruskin's writings illustrate the
extreme tendency to identify aesthetic with moral perception.
The analytical theorists. Addison.
Addison's ``Essays on the Imagination''' contributed to
the Spectator, though they belong to popular literature,
contain the germ of scientific analysis in the statement
that the pleasures of imagination (which arise originally
from sight) fall into two classes--(1) primary pleasures,
which entirely proceed from objects before our eyes; and
(2) secondary pleasures, flowing frm the ideas of visible
objects. The latter are greatly extended by the addition of
the proper enjoyment of resemblance, which is at the basis of
all mimicry and wit. Addison recognizes, too, to some extent,
the influence of association upon our aesthetic preferences.
Home.
In the Elements of Criticism of Home (Lord Kames) another
attempt is made to resolve the pleasure of beauty into its
elements. Beauty and ugliness are simply the pleasant and
unappears to admit no general characreristic of beautiful
objects beyond this power of yielding pleasure. Like
Hutcheson, he divides beauty into intrinsic and relative,
but understands by the latter the appearance of fitness and
utility, which is excluded from the beautiful by Hutcheson.
Hogarth.
Passing by the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose theory of
beauty closely resembles that of Pere Buffier, we come to the
articulations of another artist and painter, William Hogarth.
He discusses, in his Analysis of Beauty, all the elements of
visual beauty. He finds in this the following elements:---(1)
fitness of the parts to some design; (2) variety in as many
ways as possible; (3) uniformity, regularity or symmetry, which
is only beautiful when it helps to preserve the character of
fitness; (4) simplicity or distinctness, which gives pleasure
not in itself, but through its enabling the eye to enjoy
variety with ease; (5) intricacy, which provides employment
for our active energies, leading the eye ``a wanton kind of
chase''; (6) quantity or magnitude, which draws our attention
and produces admiration and awe. The beauty of proportion
he resolves into the needs of fitness. Hogarth applies these
principles to the determination of the degrees of beauty in
lines, figures and groups of forms. Among lines he singles
out for special honour the serpentine (formed by drawing a line
once round from the base to the apex of a long slender cone).
Burke.
Burke's speculations, in his Inquiry into the Origin of our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, illustrate the tendency
of English writers to treat the problem as a psychological
one and to introduce physiological considerations. He finds
the elements of beauty to be:-- (1) smallness; (2) smoothness;
(3) gradual variation of direction in gentle curves; (4)
delicacy, or the appearance of fragility; (5) brightness,
purity and softness of colour. The sublime is rather crudely
resolved into astonishment, which he thinks always retains
an element of terror. Thus ``infinity has a tendency to
fill the mind with a delightful horror.'' Burke seeks what
he calls ``efficient causes'' for these aesthetic impressions
in certain affections of the the nerves of sight analogous
to those of other senses, namely, the soothing effect of a
relaxation of the nerve fibres. The arbitrariness and narrowness
of this theory cannot well escape the reader's attention.
Alison.
Alison, in his well-knwon Essays on the Nature and Principles
of Taste, proceeds by a method exactly the opposite to that
of Hogarth and Burke. He seeks to analyse the mental process
when finds that this consists in a peculiar operation of the
imagination, namely, the flow of a train of ideas through the
mind, which ideas always correspond to some simple affection
or emotion (e.g. cheerfulness, sadness, awe) awakened by the
object. He thus makes association the sole source of aesthetic
delight, and denies the existence of a primary source in sensations
themselves. He illustrates the working of the principle of
association at great length, and with much skill; yet his
attempt to make it the unique source of aesthetic pleasure fails
completely. Francis Jeffrey's Essays on Beauty (in the Edinburgh
Review, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th edition) are little
more than a modification of Alison's theory. Philosophical
Essays consists in pointing out the unwarranted assumption
lurking in the doctrine of a single quality running through
all varieties of beautiful object. He seeks to show how the
successive changes in the meaning of the term ``beautiful'' have
arisen. He suggests that it originally connoted the pleasure of
colour. The value of his discussion resides more in the
criticism of his predecessors than in the contribution of new
ideas. His conception of the sublime, suggested by the etymology
of the word, emphasizes the element of height in objects.
Of the assoication psychologists James Mill did little
more towards the analysis of the sentiments of beauty
than re-state Alison's doctrine. Alexander Bain, in his
treatise, The Emotions and the Will (``Aesthetic
Emotions''), carries this examination considerably further.
He seeks to differentiate aesthetic from other varieties
of pleasurable emotion by three characteristics:--(1) their
freedom from life-serving uses, being gratifications sought
for their own sakes; (2) their purity from all disagreeable
concomitants; (3) their eminently sympathetic or shareable
nature. He takes a comprehensive view of the constituents of
aesthetic enjoyment, including the pleasures of sensation and
of its revived or its ``ideal'' form; of revived emotional
states; and lastly the satisfaction of those wide-ranging
susceptibilities which we call the love of novelty, of contrast
and of harmony. The effect of sublimity is connected with
the manifestation of superior power in its highest degrees,
which manifestation excites a sympathetic elation in the
beholder. The ludicrous, again, is defined by Bain, improving on
Aristotle and Hobbes, as the degradation of something possessing
dignity in circumstances that excite no other strong emotion.
Herbert Spencer, in his First Principles, Principles of
Psychology and Essays, has given an interesting turn to the
psychology of aesthetics by the application of his doctrine of
evolution. Adopting Schiller's idea of a connexion between
aesthetic activity and play, he seeks to make it the starting-point
in tracing the evolution of aesthetic activity. Play is
defined as the outcome of the superfluous energies of the
organism: as the activity of organs and faculties which, owing
to a prolonged period of inactivity, have become specially
ready to discharge their function, and as a consequence vent
themselves in simulated actions. Aesthetic activities
supply a similar mode of self-relieving discharge to the
higher organs of perception and emotion; and they further agree
with play in not directly subserving any processes conducive
to life; in being gratifications sought for their own sake
only. Spencer seeks to construct a hierarchy of aesthetic
pleasures according to the degree of complexity of the
faculty exercised: from those of sensation up to the revived
emotional experiences which constitute the aesthetic sentiment
proper. Among the more vaguely revived emotions Spencer
includes more permanent feelings of the race transmitted
by heredity; as when he refers the deep and indefinable
emotion excited by music to associations with vocal tones
expressive of feeling built up during the past history of our
species. This biological treatment of aesthetic activity has
had a wide influence, some e.g. Grant Allen) being content
to develop his evolutional method. Yet, as suggested above,
his theory is now recognized as taking us only a little way
towards an adequate understanding of our aesthetic experience.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.39--.a) Works on General Aesthetics. which
deal with the whole subject. The following will be found
helpful: Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, pt.
viii. c. 9, ``Aesthetic Sentiments,'' and the papers on ``Use
and Beauty,'' ``Origin and Function of Music'' and others
in the Essays; A. Bain, Emotions and Will, ``Aesthetic
Emotions''; J Sully, Human Mind, ii. ``Aesthetic
Sentiment'': (Grant Allen, ``Physiological Aesthetics'' (Meth.,
Pl., Senses, Play); Rutgers Marshall, Pain, Pleasure and
Aesthetics, and Aesthetic Principles (Meth., Pl., Play).
French and Italian Works.--M. Guyau, Les problemes
de l'esthetique contemporaine (1884) (Pl., Play); E.
Veron, L'Esthetique (1890) (slight Pl.); L. Bray,
Du Beau (1902). (Pl., Play); P. Saurian, La Beaute
rationnelle (1904) (Meth., Pl., Senses, Einf.); M. Pilo,
Estetica (Pl., Senses): A. Rolla, Storia delle idee
estetiche in Italia (1905) (full account of ideas of Dante
and other medieval writers, as well as of modern systems).
German Works.---K. Kostlin, Prolegomena zur
Asthetik (1889) (good introduction to subject); K. Groos,
Der asthetische Genuss (1902) (Meth., Judg., Play, Senses,
Einf. and Ill.); J. Volkelt, System der Asthetik (1905)
(very full and clear) (Meth., Norm., Evol., Senses, Einf.); J.
Cohn, Allgemeine Asthetik (1901) (Val., Play, Einf.); K.
Lange, Das Wesen der Kunst (1901) (Meth., Einf., Ill., Play).
(b) Works on History on. Schasler, Kritische Geschichte
der Asthetik in Deutschland; M. Schasler, Kritische
Geschichte der Asthetik (full and elaborate, dealing with
ancient and modern theories); E. von Hartmann, Die deutsche
asthetik seit Kant (Ausgewahlte Werke, iii.); K. H. von
Stein, Die Entstehung der neueren Asthetik (theories
of French critics, &c.); F. Brunetiere, L'Evolution des
genres (History of critical discussions in the 17th and 18th
centuries); B. Bosanquet, History of Aesthetics (very full,
especially on ancient theories and German systems); W. Knight,
Philosophy of the Beautiful, pt. i. ``History'' (Univ.
Extension Manuals, a popular resume with quotations). (J. S.)
1 See below for Kant's view of the aesthetic judgment,
as having subjective universal validity. On the meaning
of judgments of value see J. Cohn, Allgem. Asthetik,
Einleitung, pp. 7 ff., and Teil i., Kap. 2 and 3.
2 Cf. Larid, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 330, 361.
3 For example, that hinted at by Bosanquet in his
definition of the beautiful, History of aesthetic, p. 5.
4 Beauty is defined as perfection by P. Souriau,
La Beaute rationnelle, 2eme partie.
5 K. Groos argues well against this violent stretching of
the word beautiful, Einleitung in die Asthetik, pp. 46 seq.
6 Kant, in developing his idea of beauty as subjective,
was probably influenced by Hume, who wrote: ``Beauty
is no quality in things themselves; it exists merely in
the mind which contemplates them'' (Essays, xxii.).
7 On the nature of these qualities see S.
Witasek, Grundzuge der Allgem. Asthetik, p. 11.
8 See J. Cohn; Allgem. Esthetik, P. 96
9 Originally, as pointed out by Home and others, sight was
regarded as the sense by which we received impressions of
beauty. The recognition of the claims of hearing date back
to Plato. (See Bosanquet, Hist. of Aesth. pp. 51-52). For
recent discussions of the claims of sight and hearing see
article by J. Volkelt, ``Der Aesth. Werth der niederen Sinne,''
in Zeitschrift fur Psych. u. Phys. der Sinnesorgane,
vol. xxix. pp. 402 ff.; see also below, Bibliography.
10 Laws, 880 (see Bosanquet, op. cit. p. 54).
11 Plato had a glimpse of the resemblance of art to play
(see Bosanquet, op. cit. p. 54). Among modern writers the
idea is specially connected with the names of Schiller and
Herbert Spencer. In recent works the subject is touched
on by S. Wittasek, Grundzuge der allgem. Asthetik,
pp. 223 fl.; Bray, Du Beau, pp. 62 ff., and by Rutgers
Marshall and others referred to below in Bibliography.
12 Hence to say, as Bosanquet says (op. cit. pp. 3-4),
that art is to nature as the scientific conception of the
world to that of the ordinary observer, seems wide of the mark.
13 K. Lange goes very far in attributing a practical
motive to features of architecture commonly supposed to
have aesthetic value, e.g. a regular series of similar
forms (Das Wesen der Kunst, Bd. i. pp. 277 ff.).
14 K. Lange thinks that even symmetry probably
has a technical origin (op. cit. pp. 283-284).
15 The question of the place of the historical development
of art in aesthetic theory is carefully considered by J.
Volkelt, System der Asthetik, Bd. i. 5es Kap.
16 See, for example, a little work, The
Genesis of Art-From, by G. L. Raymond.
17 Kant, stopping short of an analysis of the beauty of a
concrete object, said there were no aesthetic judgments of this
universal form see below). On the importance of these inductions
see K. H. von Stein, Vorlesungen uber Asthetik (Einleitung).
18 Curiously enough Thomas Reid recognized a germ
of aesthetic taste in animals. Essays, Of Taste, ch.
v. The aesthetic importance of the observations made on
animals is dealt with by L. Bray, Du Beau, pp. 233 ff.
19 See below, and Bosanquet, op. cit. pp. 382 ff.
20 The chief lines of experimental aesthetics are
indicated by W. Wundt in his Physiol. Psychologie
(5e Auflage), Bd. iii. pp. 142 ff. and 147 ff.
21 On the value of the judgments of experts
see K. Groos, Der asth. Genuss, p. 149.
22 Examples of a forcina of the physiological method in
aesthetics may be found in the Physiological Aesthetics of Grant
Allen, and the Aufgabe der Kunstphysialogie, by Georg Hirsch.
23 These aesthetic prerogatives of the sensations
of hearing and sight have been well brought out
in the article by J. Volkelt, already referred to.
24 On the later investigations into musical consonance and
harmony, harmony of colours, rhythmic and pleasing spatial
forms, see Wundt, op..cit. Bd. ii. pp. 419 ff., and iii.
135 g., 140 ff., 147 ff. and 154 ff. Time-form in music is
specially discussed by E. Gurney, The Power of Sound, v.
25 K. Lange, who recognizes the influence of nature
and custom here denies that proportion is an aesthetic
principle (Das Wesen der Kunst, 11es Kap.).
26 Alison and other English Associationists have emphasized
the aesthetic importance of the principle of association.
Among more recent advocates of it is G. T. Fechner. Vorschule
der Asthetik, and O. Kulpe, ``Uber den associativ
Factor des asthet. Eindrucks'', Fierteljahrsschrift
fur wissensch. Philosophie, xxiii. pp. 145 ff.
27 This idea of imitative hand-movement in contemplating
form is supported by K. Groos, Der asth. Genuss, pp. 49 ff.
28 It is commonly spoken of as ``feeling oneself into''
Einfuhlen), or as``sympathetic feeling'' (Mitempfinden.)
29 Lipps theory is developed in a number of works, the
chief of which is Asthetik: Psychologie des Schonen und
der Kunst, see esp. 1er Theil, 1er to 3er Abschnitt;
cf. Paul Stern, Einfuhlung und Association, in which
is to be found an historical sketch of the theory, and A.
Hildebrand, Form in der bildenden Kunst. The play of
imagination in the contemplation of form is discussed also
by P. Souriau, L'Esthetique du mouvement, 3eme part.,
and La Suggestion dans l'art, pp. 300 ff. Cf. works of
Karl Groos and K. Lange named below (Bibliography.) .
30 See P. Souriau, La Suggestion dans l'art (1ere partie).
31 Cf. K. Lange, op. cit. lfh. i. p. 208.
32 See a curious passage in Home's Elements of Criticism, chap
iv., in which the emotions excited by great and elevated objects
are said to express themselves externally by a special inflating
inspiration, and by stretching upward and standing ``a-tiptoe''
respectively; also an article on ``Recent Aesthetics', by
Vernon Lee in the Quarterly Review, 1904, part i. pp. 420-443.
33 See Hume, Essays, ``Essay of Tragedy,'' and the
important discussions on the meaning of Aristotle's
doctrine of the emotions of tragedy and of emotional
purification or ``alleviating discharge', (kathansis)
touched on by Bosanquet, op. cit. pp. 64 ff. and 234 ff.
34 That beauty implies a peculiar blending of formal
and spiritual (geistige) factors is recognized
by H. Riegel, Die bildende Kunste; pp. 16 ff.
35 Human Nature (first part of Tripos), ch. viii.
sec. 5 (Molesworth's edition of Works, vol. iv. p. 38).
36 See among others R. Wallascheck, Primitve Music, pp.
270 ff., and Y. Hirn, The Origin of Art, pp. 9 ff.; cf. W.
Jerusalem, Einleitung in die Philosophie, pp. 116, 117.
37 The idea of this social utility in aesthetic enjoyment
is touched on by Kant, Criticue of Judgment (Bernard's
trans.), p. 174; and is more fully worked out by Guyau,
L'Art au point de vue sociologique, ch. ii. and iii.;
cf. Rutgers Marshall, Aesthetic Principles, pp. 81-82.
38 On the nature of the primitive art-culture, see Rutgers
Marshall, Aesthetic Principles, ch. iii.; M. Baldwin,
Social and Ethical Interpretations, pp. 151 ff: Y.
Hirn, The Origin of Art, ch. ii. On artistic genius
and its creative process, see H. Taine, The Philosophy of
Art, Part ii.; P. Souriau, L'Imagination de l'artiste;
G. Seailles, Essai sur la genie dans l'art; E. Grosse,
Kunstwissenschaftliche Studien iii.; Arreat, Psychologie
du peintre; L. Dauriac, Essai sur l'esprit musical.
39 Only recent works are included. Important points
in each are indicated by abbreviations, namely:--
Einf., Einfuhlung (expressional element in form).
Evol., for bearings of evolution.
Ill., for aesthetic illusion.
Judg., for aesthetic judgment.
Meth., for method of aesthetics.
Norm., for the normative function of aesthetics
Pl., for theory of pleasure
Play, for Play and aesthetic enjoyment
Senses, for aesthetic value of higher senses.
Val., for aesthetic value.
AESTIVATION (from Lat. aestivare, to spend the aestas, or
summer; the word is sometimes spelled ``estivation''), literally
``summer residence,'' a term used in zoology for the condition
of torpor into which certain animals pass during the hottest
season in hot and dry countries, contrasted with the similar
winter condition known as hibernation (q.v..) In botany the
word is used of the praefloration or folded arrangement of the
petals in a flower before expansion in the summer, contrasted
with ``vernation'' of leaves which unfold in the spring.
AETHELBALD, king of Mercia, succeeded Ceolred A.D. 716.
According to Felix, Life of St Guthlac, he visited the saint at
Crowland, when exiled by Ceolred and pursued by his emissaries
before his accession, and was cheered by predictions of his
future greatness. According to Bede, the whole of Britain as
far north as the Humber was included within the sphere of his
authority. His energy in preserving his influence is shown
by several entries in the Chronicle. He made an expedition
against Wessex in 733, in which year he took the royal vill of
Somerton. In 740 he took advantage of the absence of Eadberht
of Northumbria in a campaign against the Picts to invade his
kingdom. In 743 he fought with Cuthred, king of Wessex,
against the Welsh, but the alliance did not last long, as in
752 Cuthred took up arms against him. In 757 AEthelbald was
slain by his guards at Seckington (Warwickshire) and buried at
Repton. He seems to have been the most powerful and energetic
king of Mercia between Penda and Offa. A letter of St Boniface
is preserved, in which he rebukes this king for his immoralities
and encroachments on church property, while recognizing his
merits as a monarch. By a charter of 749 he freed ecclesiastical
lands from all obligations except the trinoda necessitas.
See Bede, Hist. Ecc. (ed. Plummer), v. 23 and Continuatio
s.a. 740, 750, 757; Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer),
s.a. 716, 733, 737, 740, 741, 743, 755; Mabillon,
Acta Sanctorum, ii. pp. 264, 273, 276, 4-9, W. de G.
Birch, Cartul. Saxon. 178 (1885-1893). (F. G. M. B.)
AETHELBALD, king of Wessex, was the son of AEthelwulf, with
whom he led the West Saxons to victory against the Danes
at Aclea, 851. According to Asser he rebelled against his
father on the latter's return from Rome in 856, and deprived
him of Wessex, which he ruled until his death in 860. On
his father's death in 818 he married his widow, Judith.
See Asser, Life of Alfred (W. H. Stevenson,
1904), 12; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 851, 855, 860.
AETHELBERHT, king of Kent, son of Eormenric, probably came
to the throne in A.D. 560. The first recorded event of his
reign was a serious reverse at the hands of Ceawlin of Wessex
in the year 568 (Chronicle) at a place called Wibbandune.
AEthelberht married Berhta, daughter of Charihert, king of
Paris, who brought over Bishop Liudhard as her private
confessor. According to Bede, AEthelberht's supremacy in
597 stretched over all the English kingdoms as far as the
Humber. The nature of this supremacy has been much disputed,
but it was at any rate sufficient to guarantee the safety
of Augustine in his conference with the British bishops.
AEthelberht exercised a stricter sway over Essex, where his
nephew Saberht was king. In 597 the mission of Augustine
landed in Thanet and was received at first with some
hesitation by the king. He seems to have acted with prudence
and moderation during the conversion of his kingdom and did
not countenance compulsory proselytism. AEthelberht gave
Augustine a dwelling-place in Canterbury, and Christ Church
was consecrated in 603. He also made grants to found the see
of Rochester, of which Justus became first bishop in 604,
and his influence established Mellitus at London in the same
year. A code of laws issued by him which is still extant
is probably the oldest document in the English language, and
contains a list of money fines for various crimes. Towards
the close of his reign his pre-eminence as Bretwalda was
disturbed by the increasing power of Raedwald of East Anglia.
He died probably in 616, and was succeeded by his son Eadbald.
See Bede, Hist. Ecc. (Plummer) i. 25, 26, ii. 3, 5; Saxon
Chronicle Earle and Plummer), s.a. 568. (F. G. M. B.)
AETHELBERHT, king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the sub-kingdom
of Kent during the lifetime of his father AEthelwulf, and
retained it until the death of his elder brother AEthelbald in
860, when he became sole king of Wessex and Kent, the younger
brothers AEthelred and Alfred renouncing their claim. He ruled
these kingdoms for five years and died in 865. His reign was
marked by two serious attacks on the part of the Danes, who
destroyed Winchester in 860, in spite of the resistance of the
ealdormen Osric and AEthelwulf with the levies of Hampshire
and Berkshire, while in 865 they treacherously ravaged Kent.
Alfred's Will; W. de G. Birch, Cartul. Saxon. 553.
AETHELFLAED (ETHELFLEDA), the ``Lady of the Mercians,''
the eldest child of Alfred the Great, was educated with
her brother Edward at her father's court. As soon as she
was of marriageable age (probably about A.D. 886), she
was married to AEthelred, earl of Mercia to whom Alfred
entrusted the control of Mercia. On the accession of her
brother Edward, AEthelflaed and her husband continued to hold
Mercia. In 907 they fortified Chester, and in 909 and 910
either AEthelflaed or her husband must have led the Mercian
host at the battles of Tettenhall and Wednesfield (or
Tettenhall-Wednesfield, if these battles are one and the
same). It was probably about this time that AEthelred fell
ill, and the Norwegians and Danes from Ireland unsuccessfully
besieged Chester. AEthelflaed won the support of the Danes
against the Norwegians, and seems also to have entered into
an alliance with the Scots and the Welsh against the pagans.
In 911 AEthelred died and Edward took over Middlesex and
Oxfordshire. Except for this AEthelflaed's authority remained
unimpaired. In 912 she fortified ``Scergeat'' and Bridgenorth,
Tamworth and Stafford in 913, Eddisbury and Warwick in 914,
Cherbury, ``Weardbyrig'' and Runcorn in 915. In 916 she sent
an expedition against the Welsh, which advanced as far as
Brecknock. In 917 Derby was captured from the Danes,
and in the next year Leicester and York both submitted to
her. She died in the same year at Tamworth (June 12), and was
buried in St Peter's church at Gloucester. This noble queen,
whose career was as distinguished as that of her father and
brother, left one daughter, AElfwyn. For some eighteen months
AElfwyn seems to have wielded her mother's authority, and
then, just before the Christmas of 919, Edward took Mercia
into his own hands, and AElfwyn was ``led away'' into Wessex.
AEthelflaed and her husband wielded almost kingly authority, and
the royal title is often given them by the chroniclers. See The
Saxon Chronicle, sub ann. (especially the Mercian register in
MSS. B, C and D); Florence of Worcester: Fragments of Irish
Annals (ed. O'Conor), pp. 227-237; D.N.B., s.v. (A. Mw.)
AETHELFRITH, king of Northumbria, is said to have come to
the throne in A.D. 593, being the son of AEthelric (probably
reigned 568-572). He married Acha, daughter of Ella
(AElle), king of Deira, whom he succeeded probably in 605,
expelling his son Edwin. In 603 he repelled the attack of
Aidan, king of the Dalriad Scots, at Daegsastan, defeating
him with great loss. The appearance of Hering, son of
Hussa, AEthelfrith's predecessor, On the side of the invaders
seems to indicate family quarrels in the royal house of
Bernicia. Later in his reign, probably in 614, he defeated the
Welsh in a great battle at Chester and massacred the monks of
Bangor who were assembled to aid them by their prayers. This
war may have been due partly to AEthelfrith's persecution of
Edwin, but it had a strategic importance in the separation
of the North Welsh from the Strathclyde Britons. In 617
AEthelfrith was defeated and slain at the river Idle by Raedwald
of East Anglia, whom Edwin had persuaded to take up his cause.
See Bede, Chronica Mojora, sec. 531; Hist. Ecc. (Plummer) i.
34, ii. 2; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 593, 603, 605, 616; Hist.
Brittonum, sec. sec. 57, 63 Annales Cambriae, s.a. 613. (F. D. M. B.)
AETHELING, an Anglo-Saxon word compounded of aethele, or
ethel, meaning noble, and ing, belonging to, and akin
to the modern German words Adel, nobility, and adelig,
noble. During the earliest years of the Anglo-Saxon rule in
England the word was probably used to denote any person of noble
birth. Its use was, however, soon restricted to members of
a royal family, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is used
almost exclusively for members of the royal house of Wessex.
It was occasionally used after the Norman Conquest to designate
members of the royal family. The earlier part of the word
formed part of the name of several Anglo-Saxon kings, e.g.
AEthelbert, AEthelwulf, AEthelred, and was used obviously to
indicate their noble birth. According to a document which probably
dates from the 10th century, the wergild of an aetheling was
fixed at 15,000 thrymsas, or 11,250 shillings. This wergild is
equal to that of an archbishop and one-half of that of a king.
AETHELNOTH (d. 1038), archbishop of Canterbury, known
also as EGELNODUS or EDNODUS, was a son of the ealdorman
AEthelmaer, and a member of the royal family of Wessex. He
became a monk at Glastonbury, then dean of the monastery of
Christ Church, Canterbury, and chaplain to King Canute, and
on the 13th of November 1020 was consecrated archbishop of
Canterbury. In 1022 he went to Rome to obtain the pallium,
and was received with great respect by Pope Benedict VIII.
Returning from Rome he purchased at Pavia a relic said to
be an arm of St Augustine of Hippo, for a hundred talents
of silver and one of gold, and presented it to the abbey of
Coventry. He appears to have exercised considerable influence
over Canute, largely by whose aid he restored his cathedral at
Canterbury. A story of doubtful authenticity tells how he
refused to crown King Harold I., as he had promised Canute
to crown none but a son of the king by his wife, Emma.
AEthelnoth, who was called the ``Good,'' died on the 29th of
October 1038, and his name appears in the lists of saints.
AETHELRED, king of Mercia, succeeded his brother Wulfhere
in A.D. 675. In 676 he ravaged Kent with fire and sword,
destroying the monasteries and churches and taking Rochester.
AEthelred married Osthryth, the sister of Ecgfrith, king of
Northumbria, but in spite of this connexion a quarrel arose
between the two kings, presumably over the possession of the
province of Lindsey, which Ecgfrith had won back at the close of
the reign of Wulfhere. In a battle on the banks of the Trent in
679, the king of Mercia was victorious and regained the province.
AElfwine, the brother of Ecgfrith, was slain on this occasion,
but at the intervention of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury,
AEthelred agreed to pay a wergild for the Northumbrian prince
and so prevented further hostilities. Osthryth was murdered
in 697 and AEthelred abdicated in 704, choosing Coenred as his
successor. He then became abbot of Bardney, and, according
to Eddius, recommended Wilfrid to Coenred on his return from
Rome. AEthelred died at Bardney in 716. (See WILFRID.)
SOURCES.--Eddius, Vita Wilfridi (Raine), 23, 40, 43, 45-48,
57; Bede, Hist. Ecc. (ed. Plummer), iii. 11, iv. 12, 21;
Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 676, 679, 704, 716. (F. G. M. B.)
AETHELRED I., king of Wessex and Kent (866-871), was the
fourth son of AEthelwulf of Wessex, and should, by his father's
will, have succeeded to Wessex on the death of his eldest brother
AEthelbald. He seems, however, to have stood aside in favour of
his brother AEthelberht, king of Kent, to whose joint kingdoms
he succeeded in 866. AEthelred's reign was one long struggle
against the Danes. In the year of his succession a large Danish
force landed in East Anglia, and in the year 868 AEthelred and
his brother Alfred went to help Burgred, or Burhred, of Mercia,
against this host, but the Mercians soon made peace with their
foes. In 871 the Danes encamped at Reading, where they
defeated AEthelred and his brother, but later in the year
the English won a great victory at ``AEscesdun.'' A fortnight
later they were defeated at Basing, but partially retrieved
their fortune by a victory at ``Maeretun'' (perhaps Marden in
Wiltshire), though the Danes held the field. In the Easter
of this year AEthelred died, perhaps of wounds received in
the wars against the Danes, and was buried at Wimborne. He
left a son, AEthelwold, who gave some trouble to his cousin
Edward the Elder, when the latter succeeded to the kingdom.
AEthelweard the historian was also a descendant of this king.
AUTHORITIES.--The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.; Birch,
Cartul. Saxon. vol. ii. Nos. 516-526; D.N.B.,
s.v.; Eng. Hist. Review, i. 218-234. (A. Mw.)
AETHELRED II. (or ETHELRED) (c. 968--1016), king of
the English (surnamed THE UNREADY, i.e. without rede or
counsel), son of King Edgar by his second wife AElfthryth, was
born in 968 or 969 and succeeded to the throne on the murder
of his step-brother Edward (the Martyr) in 979. His reign was
disastrous from the beginning. The year after his accession
the Danish invasions, long unintermitted under Edgar the
Peaceful, recommenced; though as yet their object was plunder
only, not conquest, and the attacks were repeated in 981,
982 and 988. In 991 the Danes burned Ipswich, and defeated
and slew the East Saxon ealdorman Brihtnoth at Maldon. After
this, peace was purchased by a payment of L. 10,000-a disastrous
expedient. The Danes were to desist from their ravages, but
were allowed to stay in England. Next year AEthelred himself
broke the peace by an attack on the Danish ships. Despite
the treachery of AElfric, the English were victorious; and the
Danes sailed off to ravage Lindsey and Northumbria. In 994
Olaf Tryggvason, king of Norway, and Sweyn, king of Denmark,
united in a great invasion and attacked London. Foiled by the
valour of the citizens, they sailed away and harried the coast
from Essex to Hampshire. AEthelred now resorted to the old
experiment and bought them off for L. 16,000 and a promise of
supplies. Olaf also visited AEthelred at the latter's request
and, receiving a most honourable welcome, was induced to promise
that he would never again come to England with hostile intent,
an engagement which he faithfully kept. The Danish attacks
were repeated in 997, 998, 999, and in 1000 AEthelred availed
himself of the temporary absence of the Danes in Normandy to
invade Cumberland, at that time a Viking stronghold. Next
year, however, the Northmen returned and inflicted worse evil
than ever. The national defence seemed to have broken down
altogether. In despair AEthelred again offered them money,
which they again accepted, the sum paid on this occasion
being L. 24,000. But soon afterwards the king, suspecting
treachery, resolved to get rid of his enemies once and for
all. Orders were issued commanding the slaughter on St
Brice's day (December 2) of ``all the Danish men who were
in England.'' Such a decree could obviously not be carried
out literally; but we cannot doubt that the slaughter was
great. This violence, however, only made matters worse. Next
year Sweyn returned, his hostility fanned by the desire for
revenge. For two years he ravaged and slew; in 1003 Exeter
was destroyed; Norwich and Thetford in 1004. No effectual
resistance was offered, despite a gallant effort here and there;
the disorganization of the country was complete. In 1005 the
Danes were absent in Denmark, but came back next year, and
emboldened by the utter lack of resistance, they ranged far
inland. In 1007 AEthelred bought them off for a larger sum
than ever (L. 36,000), and for two years the land enjoyed
peace. In 1009, however, in accordance with a resolution
made by the witan in the preceding year, AEthelred collected
such a fleet ``as never before had been in England in any
king's day''; but owing to a miserable court quarrel the
effort came to nothing. The king then summoned a general
levy of the nation, with no better result. Just as he
was about to attack, the traitor Edric prevented him from
doing so, and the opportunity was lost. In 1010 the Danes
returned, to find the kingdom more utterly disorganized than
ever. ``There was not a chief man in the kingdom who could
gather a force, but each fled as he best might; nor even at
last would any there resist another.'' Incapable of offering
resistance, the king again offered money, this time no less than
L. 48,000. While it was being collected, the Danes sacked
Canterbury and barbarously slew the archbishop Alphege. The
tribute was paid soon afterwards; and about the same time the
Danish leader Thurkill entered the English service. From 1013
an important change is discernible in the character of the
Danish attacks, which now became definitely political in their
aim. In this year Sweyn sailed up the Trent and received the
submission of northern England, and then marching south, he
attacked London. Failing to take it, he hastened west and
at Bath received the submission of Wessex. Then he returned
northwards, and after that ``all the nation considered him as
full king.'' London soon acknowledged him, and AEthelred, after
taking refuge for a while with Thurkill's fleet, escaped to
Normandy. Sweyn died in February 1014, and AEthelred was
recalled by the witan, on giving a promise to reign better in
future. At once he hastened north against Canute, Sweyn's son,
who claimed to succeed his father, but Canute sailed away, only
to return next year, when the traitor Edric joined him and Wessex
submitted. Together Canute and Edric harried Mercia, and
were preparing to reduce London, when AEthelred died there on
the 23rd of April 1016. Weak, self-indulgent, improvident,
he had pursued a policy of opportunism to a fatal conclusion.
AEthelred's wife was Emma, or AElfgifu, daughter of Richard
I. the Fearless, duke of the Nurmans, whom he married in
1002. After the king's death Emma became the wife of Canute
the Great, and after his death in 1035 she struggled hard to
secure England for her son, Hardicanute. In 1037, however,
when Harold Harefoot became sole king, she was banished; she
went to Flanders, returning to England with Hardicanute in
1040. In 1043, after Edward the Confessor had become king
he seized the greater part of Emma's great wealth, and the
queen lived in retirement at Winchester until her death
on the 6th of March 1052. By AEthelred Emma had two sons,
Edward the Confessor and the aetheling AElfred (d. 1036),
and by Canute she was the mother of Hardicanute. Emma's
marriage with AEthelred was an important step in the history
of the relations between England and Normandy, and J. R.
Green says ``it suddenly opened for its rulers a distinct
policy, a distinct course of action, which led to the Norman
conquest of England. From the moment of Emma's marriage
Normandy became a chief factor in English politics.''
AUTHORITIES.---The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (edition by C.
Plummer, 2 vols. Oxford, 1892-1899); Florence of Worcester
(ed. B. Thorpe, London, 1848-1849); Encomium Emmae (ed. by
G. H. Pertz in the Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, Band xix.,
Hanover, 1866) for the latter part of the reign. See also J. M.
Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus acti Saxonici (London, 1839--1848);
and B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws (London, 1840). (C. S. P.*)
AETHELSTAN (c. 894-940), Saxon king, was the son (probably
illegitimate) of Edward the elder. He had been the favourite
of his grandfather Alfred, and was brought up in the household
of his aunt AEthelflaed, the ``Lady of the Mercians.'' On the
death of his father in 924, at some date after the 12th of
November, AEthelstan succeeded him and was crowned at Kingston
shortly after. The succession did not, however, take place
without opposition. One AElfred, probably a descendant of
AEthelred I., formed a plot to seize the king at Winchester;
the plot was discovered and AElfred was sent to Rome to defend
himself, but died shortly after. The king's own legitimate
brother Edwin made no attempt on the throne, but in 933 he
was drowned at sea under somewhat mysterious circumstances;
the later chroniclers ascribe his death to foul play on
the part of the king, but this seems more than doubtful.
One of AEthelstan's first public acts was to hold a conference
at Tamworth with Sihtric, the Scandinavian king of Northumbria,
and as a result Sihtric received AEthelstan's sister in
marriage. In the next year Sihtric died and AEthelstan took
over the Northumbrian kingdom. He now received, at Dacre in
Cumberland, the submission of all the kings of the island,
viz. Howel Dda, king of West Wales, Owen, king of Cumbria,
Constantine, king of the Scots, and Ealdred of Bamburgh, and
henceforth he calls himself ``rex totius Britanniae.'' About
this time (the exact chronology is uncertain) AEthelstan expelled
Sihtric's brother Guthfrith, destroyed the Danish fortress at
York, received the submission of the Welsh at Hereford, fixing
their boundary along the line of the Wye, and drove the Cornishmen
west of the Tamar, fortifying Exeter as an English city.
In 934 he invaded Scotland by land and sea, perhaps owing to
an alliance between Constantine and Anlaf Sihtricsson. The
army advanced as far north as Dunottar, in Kincardineshire,
while the navy sailed to Caithness. Simeon of Durham
speaks of a submission of Scotland as a result; if it
ever took place it was a mere form, for three years later
we find a great confederacy formed in Scotland against
AEthelstan. This confederacy of 937 was joined by Constantine,
king of Scotland, the Welsh of Strathclyde, and the
Norwegian chieftains Anlaf Sihtricsson and Anlaf Godfredsson,
who, though they came from Ireland, had powerful English
connexions. A great battle was fought at Brunanburh (perhaps
Brunswark or Birrenswark hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire), in
which AEthelstan and his brother Edmund were completely
victorious. England had been freed from its greatest danger
since the days of the struggle of Alfred against Cuthrum.
AEthelstan was the first Saxon king who could claim in any
real sense to be lord paramount of Britain. In his charters
he is continually called ``rex totius Britanniae,'' and he
adopts for the first time the Greek title basileus. This
was not merely an idle flourish, for some of his charters
are signed by Welsh and Scottish kings as subreguli.
Further, AEthelstan was the first king to bring England into
close touch with continental Europe. By the marriage of his
half-sisters he was brought into connexion with the chief
royal and princely houses of France and Germany. His sister
Eadgifu married Charles the Simple, Eadhild became the wife
of Hugh the Great, duke of France, Eadgyth was married to
the emperor Otto the Great, and her sister AElfgifu to a
petty German prince. Embassies passed between AEthelstan and
Harold Fairhair, first king of Norway, with the result
that Harold's son Haakon was brought up in England and is
known in Scandinavian history as Haakon Adalsteinsfostri.
AEthelstan died at Gloucester in 940, and was buried at Malmesbury,
an abbey which he had munificently endowed during his lifetime.
Apparently he was never married, and he certainly had no issue.
A considerable body of law has come down to us in
AEthelstan's name. The chief collections are those issued
at Grately in Hampshire, at Exeter, at Thunresfeld, and the
Judicia civitatis Lundonie. In the last-named one personal
touch is found when the king tells the archbishop how grievous
it is to put to death persons of twelve winters for stealing.
The king secured the raising of the age limit to fifteen.
AUTHORITIES.---Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.;
William of Malmesbury, Gestal Regum, i. 141-157, Rolls
Series, containing valuable original information (v. Stubbs'
Introduction, II. lxvii.); Birch, Cartul. Saxon. vol.
ii. Nos. 641-747; A.S. Laws. (ed. Liebermann), i. 146-183;
AEthelweard, Florence of Worcester. Secondary: Saxon
Chronicle (ed. Plummer), vol. ii. pp. 132-142 D.N.B., s.v.
AETHELWEARD (ETHELWARD.) Anglo-Saxon historian, was
the great-grandson of AEthelred, the brother of Alfred and
ealdorman or earl of the western provinces (i.e. probably
of the whole of Wessex). He first signs as dux or ealdorman
in 973, and continues to sign until 998, about which time
his death must have taken place. In the year 991 he was
associated with archbishop Sigeric in the conclusion of a
peace with the victorious Danes from Maldon, and in 994 he
was sent with Bishop AElfheah (Alphege) of Winchester to make
peace with Olaf at Andover. AEthelweard was the author of
a Latin Chronicle extending to the year 975. Up to the year
892 he is largely dependent on the Saxon Chronicle, with
a few details of his own; later he is largely independent of
it. AEthelweard gave himself the bombastic title ``Patricius
Consul Quaestor Ethelwerdus,'' and unfortunately this title
is only too characteristic of the man. His narrative is
highly rhetorical, and as he at the same time attempts more
than Tacitean brevity his narrative is often very obscure.
AEthelweard was the friend and patron of AElfric the grammarian.
AUTHORITIES.---Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, 994 E; Birch,
Cartularium Saxonicum; A.S. Laws (ed. Liebermann), pp. 220-224;
Tabii Ethelwerdi Chron., Mon. Hist. Brit. 449-454. Secondary:
Plummer, Saxon Chronicle, vol. ii. p. ci.; Napier and Stevenson,
Crawford Charters, pp. 118-120; D.N.B., s.v. (A. law.)
AETHELWULF, king of the West Saxons, succeeded his father
Ecgberht in A.D. 839. It is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle
for 825 that he was sent with Eahlstan, bishop of Sherborne,
and the ealdorman Wulfheard to drive out Baldred, king of
Kent, which was successfully accomplished. On the accession of
AEthelwulf, AEthelstan, his son or brother, was made sub-king
of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. AEthelwulf's reign was
chiefly occupied with struggles against the Danes. After the
king's defeat 843-844, the Somerset and Dorset levies won a
victory at the mouth of the Parret, c. 850. In 851 Ceorl,
with the men of Devon, defeated the Danes at Wigganburg, and
AEthelstan of Kent was victorious at Sandwich, in spite of
which they wintered in England that year for the first time.
In 851 also AEthelwulf and AEthelbald won their great victory at
Aclea, probably the modern Ockley. In 853 AEthelwulf subdued
the North Welsh, in answer to the appeal of Burgred of Mercia,
and gave him his daughter AEthelswith in marriage. 855 is the
year of the Donation of AEthelwulf and of his journey to Rome
with Alfred. On his way home he married Judith, daughter
of Charles the Bald. According to Asser he was compelled
to give up Wessex to his son AEthelbald on his return, and
content himself with the eastern sub-kingdom. He died in 858.
Chronicle, s.a. 823, 836, 840, 851, 853, 855. (F. G. M. B.)
AETHER, or ETHER (Gr. aither, probably from aitho,
burn, though Plato in his Cratylus (41O B) derives the
name from its perpetual motion-- oti aei thei peri ton
aera reon, aeitheer dikaios an kaloito), a material
substance of a more subtle kind than visible bodies, supposed
to exist in those parts of space which are apparently empty.
``The hypothesis of an aether has been maintained by different
speculators for very different reasons. To those who maintained
the existence of a plenum as a philosophical principle, nature's
abhorrence of a vacuum was a sufficient reason for imagining
an all-surrounding aether, even though every other argument
should be against it. To Descartes, who made extension the
sole essential property of matter, and matter a necessary
condition of extension, the bare existence of bodies apparently
at a distance was a proof of the existence of a continuous
medium between them. But besides these high metaphysical
necessities for a medium, there were more mundane uses to be
fulfilled by aethers. Aethers were invented for the planets
to swim in, to constitute electric atmospheres and magnetic
effluvia, to convey sensations from one part of our bodies to
another, and so on, till all space had been filled three or
four times over with aethers. It is only when we remember
the extensive and mischievous influence on science which
hypotheses about aethers used formerly to exercise, that
we can appreciate the horror of aethers which sober-minded
men had during the 18th century, and which, probably as a
sort of hereditary prejudice, descended even to John Stuart
Mill. The disciples of Newton maintained that in the fact
of the mutual gravitation of the heavenly bodies, according
to Newton's law, they had a complete quantitative account of
their motions; and they endeavoured to follow out the path
which Newton had opened up by investigating and measuring
the attractions and repulsions of electrified and magnetic
bodies, and the cohesive forces in the interior of bodies,
without attempting tdraccount for these forces. Newton himself,
however, endeavoured to account for gravitation by differences
of pressure in an aether; but he did not publish his theory,
`because he was not able from experiment and observation to
give a satisfactory account of this medium, and the manner of
its operation in producing the chief phenomena of nature.' On
the other hand, those who imagined aethers in order to explain
phenomena could not specify the nature of the motion of these
media, and could not prove that the media, as imagined by
them, would produce the effects they were meant to explain.
The only aether which has survived is that which was invented
by Huygens to explain the propagation of light. The evidence
for the existence of the luminiferous aether has accumulated
as additional phenomena of light and other radiations have
been discovered; and the properties of this medium, as deduced
from the phenomena of light, have been found to be precisely
those required to explain electromagnetic phenomena.''
This description, quoted from James Clerk Maxwell's article in
the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, represents
the historical position of the subject up till about 1860, when
Maxwell began those constructive speculations in electrical
theory, based on the influence of the physical views of Faraday
and Lord Kelvin, which have in their subsequent development largely
transformed theoretical physics into the science of the aether.
In the remainder of the article referred to, Maxwell reviews
the evidence for the necessity of an aether, from the fact
that light takes time to travel, while it cannot travel as a
substance, for if so two interfering lights could not mask
each other in the dark fringes (see INTERFERENCE OF LIGHT.)
Light is therefore an influence propagated as wave-motion, and
moreover by transverse undulations, for the reasons brought
out by Thomas Young and Augustin Fresnel; so that the aether
is a medium which possesses elasticity of a type analogous to
rigidity. It must be very different from ordinary matter as we
know it, for waves travelling in matter constitute sound, which
is propagated hundreds of thousands of times slower than light.
If we suppose that the aether differs from ordinary matter in
degree but not in kind, we can obtain some idea of its quality
from a knowledge of the velocity of radiation and of its
possible intensity near the sun, in a manner applied long ago
by Lord Kelvin (Trans. R. S. Edin. xxi. 1854). According
to modern measurements the solar radiation imparts almost 3
gramme-calories of energy per minute per square centimetre
at the distance of the earth, which is about 1.3X106 ergs
per sec. per cm.2 The energy in sunlight per cubic cm. just
outside the earth's atmosphere is therefore about 4X10-5
ergs; applying the law of inverse squares the value near the
sun's surface would be 1.8 ergs. Let E be the effective
elasticity of the aether; then E=rc2, where r is its
density, and c the velocity of light which is 3X1010
cm./sec. If x=A cosn (t-x/c) is the linear vibration,
the stress is E dx/dx; and the total energy, which is
twice the kinetic energy 1/2r(dx/dt)2dx, is 1/2rn2
A2 per cm., which is thus equal to 1.8 ergs as above. law
l=2pc/n, so that if A/l=k, we have 1/2r(2pck)2=
1.8, giving r=10-22k-2 and E=10-1k-2. Lord Kelvin
assumed as a superior limit of k, the ratio of amplitude
to wave-length, the value 10-2, which is a very safe
limit. It follows that the density of the aether must exceed
10-18, and its elastic modulus must exceed 103, which
is only about 10-8 of the modulus of rigidity of glass.
It thus appears that if the amplitude of vibration could be
as much as 10-2 of the wave-length, the aether would be an
excessively rare medium with very slight elasticity; and yet
it would be capable of transmitting the supply of solar energy
on which all terrestrial activity depends. But on the modern
theory, which includes the play of electrical phenomena as a
function of the aether, there are other considerations which
show that this number 10-2 is really an enormous overestimate;
and it is not impossible that the co-efficient of ultimate
inertia of the aether is greater than the co-efficient of
inertia (of different kind) of any existing material substance.
The question of whether the aether is carried along by the
earth's motion has been considered from the early days of
the undulatory theory of light. In reviving that theory at
the beginning of the 19th century, Thomas Young stated his
conviction that material media offered an open structure
to the substance called aether, which passed through
them without hindrance ``like the wind through a grove of
trees.'' Any convection of that medium could be tested by
the change of effective velocity of light, which would be
revealed by a prism as was suggested by F. J. D. Arago.
Before 1868 Maxwell conducted the experiment by sending light
from the illuminated cross-wires of an observing telescope
forward through the object-glass, and through a train of
prisms, and then reflecting it back along the same path;
any influence of convection would conspire in altering both
refractions, but yet no displacement of the image depending
on the earth's motion was detected. As will be seen later,
modern experiments have confirmed the entire absence of any
effect, such as convection would produce, to very high
precision. It has further been verified by Sir Oliver Lodge
that even in very narrow spaces the aether is not entrained
by its surroundings when they are put into rapid motion.
A train of ideas which strongly impressed itself on Clerk
Maxwell's mind, in the early stages of his theoretical views, was
put forward by Lord Kelvin in 1858; he showed that the special
characteristics of the rotation of the plane of polarization,
discovered by Faraday in light propagated along a magnetic
field, viz. that it is doubled instead of being undone when
the light retraces its path, requires the operation of some
directed agency of a rotational kind, which must be related
to the magnetic field. Lord Kelvin was thereby induced to
identify magnetic force with rotation, involving, therefore,
angular momentum in the aether. Modern theory accepts the
deduction, but ascribes the momentum to the revolving ions
in the molecules of matter traversed by the light; for the
magneto-optic effect is present only in material media.
Long previously Lord Kelvin himself came nearer this view, in
offering the opinion that magnetism consisted, in some way,
in the angular momentum of the material molecules, of which
the energy of irregular translations constitutes heat; but the
essential idea of moving electric ions of both kinds, positive
and negative, in the molecules had still to be introduced.
The question of the transparency of the celestial spaces presents
itself in the presebt connexion. Light from stars at unfathomable
distances reaches us in such quantity as to suggest that space
itself is absolutely transparent, leaving open the question
as to whether there is enough matter scattered through it to
absorb a sensible part of the light in its journey of years
from the luminous body. If the aether were itself constituted
of discrete molecules, on the model of material bodies, such
transparency would not be conceivable. We must be content
to treat the aether as a plenum, which places it in a class
by itself; and we can thus recognize that it may behave very
differently from matter, though in some manner consistent with
itself---a remark which is fundamental in the modern theory.
Action across a Distance contrasted with Transmitted Action.--In
the mechanical processes which we can experimentally modify at
will, and which therefore we learn to apprehend with greatest
fulness, whenever an effect on a body, B, is in causal connexion
with a process instituted in another body, A, it is usually
possible to discover a mechanical connexion between the two
bodies which allows the influence of A to be traced all the
way across the intervening region. The question thus arises
whether, in electric attractions across apparently empty space
and in gravitational attraction across the celestial regions,
we are invited or required to make search for some similar
method of continuous transmission of the physical effect,
or whether we should rest content with an exact knowledge
of the laws according to which one body affects mechanically
another body at a distance. The view that our knowledge in
such cases may be completely represented by means of laws of
action at a distance, expressible in terms of the positions
(and possibly motions) of the interacting bodies without
taking any heed of the intervening space, belongs to modern
times. It could hardly have been thought of before Sir Isaac
Newton's discovery of the actual facts regarding universal
gravitation. Although, however, gravitation has formed the
most perfect instance of an influence completely expressible,
up to the most extreme refinement of accuracy, in terms of
laws of direct action across space, yet, as is well known,
the author of this ideally simple and perfect theory held the
view that it is not possible to conceive of direct mechanical
action independent of means of transmission. In this belief
he differed from his pupil, Roger Cotes, and from most of
the great mathematical astronomers of the 18th century,
who worked out in detail the task sketched by the genius of
Newton. They were content with a knowledge of the truth of
the principle of gravitation; instead of essaying to explain
it further by the properties of a transmitting medium, they
in fact modelled the whole of their natural philosophy on that
principle, and tried to express all kinds of material interaction
in terms of laws of direct mechanical attraction across
space. If material systems are constituted of discrete atoms,
separated from each other by many times the diameter of any of
them, this simple plan of exhibiting their interactions in terms
of direct forces between them would indeed be exact enough to
apply to a wide range of questions, provided we could be certain
that the laws of the forces depended only on the positions
and not also on the motions of the atoms. The most important
example of its successful application has been the theory of
capillary action elaborated by P. S. Laplace; though even here
it appeared, in the hands of Young, and in complete fulness
afterwards in those of C. F. Gauss, that the definite results
attainable by the hypothesis of mutual atomic attractions really
reposed on much wider and less special principles---those,
namely, connected with the modern doctrine of energy.
Idea of an Aether.---The wider view, according to which
the hypothesis of direct transmission of physical influences
expresses only part of the facts, is that all space is
filled with physical activity, and that while an influence
is passing across from a body, A, to another body, B, there
is some dynamical process in action in the intervening
region, though it appears to the senses to be mere empty
space. The problem is whether we can represent the facts more
simply by supposing the intervening space to be occupied by
a medium which transmits physical actions, after the manner
that a continuous material medium, solid or liquid, transmits
mechanical disturbance. Various analogies of this sort are
open to us to follow up: for example, the way in which a
fluid medium transmits pressure from one immersed solid to
another--or from one vortex ring belonging to the fluid to
another, which is a much wider and more suggestive case;
or the way in which an elastic fluid like the atmosphere
transmits sound; or the way in which an elastic solid transmits
waves of transverse as well as longitudinal displacement.
It is on our familiarity with modes of transmission such as
these, and with the exact analyses of them which the science
of mathematical physics has been able to make, that our
predilection for filling space with an aethereal transmitting
medium, constituting a universal connexion between material
bodies, largely depends; perhaps ultimately it depends most
of all, like all our physical conceptions, on the intimate
knowledge that we can ourselves exert mechanical effect on
outside bodies only through the agencies of our limbs and
sinews. The problem thus arises: Can we form a consistent
notion of such a connecting medium? It must be a medium which
can be effective for transmitting all the types of physical
action known to us; it would be worse than no solution to
have one medium to transmit gravitation, another to transmit
electric effects, another to transmit light, and so on. Thus
the attempt to find out a constitution for the aether will
involve a synthesis of intimate correlation of the various
types of physical agencies, which appear so different to us
mainly because we perceive them through different senses.
The evidence for this view, that all these agencies are at
bottom connected together and parts of the same scheme, was
enormously strengthened during the latter half of the 19th
century by the development of a relation of simple quantitative
equivalence between them; it has been found that we can define
quantities relating to them, under the names of mechanical
energy, electric energy, thermal energy, and so on, so that
when one of them disappears, it is replaced by the others to
exactly equal amount. This single principle of energy has
transformed physical science by making possible the construction
of a network of ramifying connexions between its various
departments; it thus stimulates the belief that these constitute
a single whole, and encourages the search for the complete
scheme of interconnexion of which the principle of energy
and the links which it suggests form only a single feature.
In carrying out this scientific procedure false steps will
from time to time be made, which will have to be retraced, or
rather amended; but the combination of experimental science with
theory has elevated our presumption of the rationality of all
natural processes, so far as we can apprehend them at all, into
practical certainty; so that, though the mode of presentation of
the results may vary from age to age, it is hardly conceivable
that the essentials of the method are not of permanent validity.
Atomic Structure of Matter.---The greatest obstacle to such a
search for the fundamental medium is the illimitable complexity
of matter, as contrasted with the theoretical simplicity and
uniformity of the physical agencies which connect together its
different parts. It has been maintained since the times of
the early Greek philosophers, and possibly even more remote
ages, that matter is constituted of independent indestructible
units, which cannot ever become divided by means of any
mutual actions they can exert. Since the period, a century
ago, when Dalton and his contemporaries constructed from this
idea a scientific basis for chemistry, the progress of that
subject has been wonderful beyond any conception that could
previously have been entertained; and the atomic theory in
some form appears to be an indispensable part of the framework
of physical science. Now this doctrine of material atoms is
an almost necessary corollary to the doctrine of a universal
aether. For if we held that matter is continuous, one of two
alternatives would be open. We might consider that matter and
aether can coexist in the same space; this would involve the
co-existence and interaction of a double set of properties,
introducing great complication, which would place any coherent
scheme of physical action probably beyond the powers of human
analysis. Or we might consider that aether exists only
where matter is not, thus making it a very rare and subtle
and elastic kind of matter; then we should have to assign
these very properties to the matter itself where it replaces
aether, in addition to its more familiar properties, and the
complication would remain. The other course is to consider
matter as formed of ultimate atoms, each the nucleus or core
of an intrinsic modification impressed on the siurounding
region of the aether; this might conceivably be of the
nature of vortical motion of a liquid round a ring-core,
thus giving a vortex atom, or of an intrinsic strain of some
sort radiating from a core, which would give an electric
atom. We recognize an atom only through its physical
activities, as manifested in its interactions with other atoms
at a distance from it; this field of physical activity would
be identical with the surrounding field of aethereal motion
or strain that is inseparably associated with the nucleus,
and is carried on along with it as it moves. Here then we
have the basis of a view in which there are not two media
to be considered, but one medium, homogeneous in essence and
differentiated as regards its parts only by the presence of
nuclei of intrinsic strain or motion---in which the physical
activities of matter are identified with those arising from
the atmospheres of modified aether which thus belong to its
atoms. As regards laws of general physical interactions,
the atom is fully represented by the constitution of this
atmosphere, and its nucleus may be left out of our discussions;
but in the problems of biology great tracts of invariable
correlations have to be dealt with, which seem hopelessly
more complex than any known or humanly possible physical
scheme. To make room for these we have to remember that the
atomic nucleus has remained entirely undefined and beyond
our problem; so that what may occur, say when two molecules
come into close relations, is outside physical science---not,
however, altogether outside, for we know that when the vital
nexus in any portion of matter is dissolved, the atoms
will remain, in their number, and their atmospheres, and all
inorganic relations, as they were before vitality supervened.
Nature of Properties of Material Bodies.---It thus appears
that the doctrine of atomic material constitution and the
doctrine of a universal aether stand to each other in a
relation of mutual support; if the scheme of physical laws
is to be as precise as observation and measurement appear to
make it, both doctrines are required in our efforts towards
synthesis. Our direct knowledge of matter can, however,
never be more than a rough knowledge of the general average
behaviour of its molecules; for the smallest material speck
that is sensible to our coarse perceptions contains myriads of
atoms. The properties of the most minute portion of matter
which we can examine are thus of the nature of averages.
We may gradually invent means of tracing more and more
closely the average drifts of translation or orientation,
or of changes of arrangement, of the atoms; but there will
always remain an unaveraged residue devoid of any recognized
regularity, which we can only estimate by its total amount.
Thus, if we are treating of energy, we can separate out
mechanical and electric and other constituents in it; and
there will be a residue of which we know nothing except its
quantity, and which we call thermal. This merely thermal
energy--which is gradually but very slowly being restricted
in amount as new subsidiary organized types become recognized
in it--though transmutable in equivalent quantities with the
other kinds, yet is so only to a limited extent; the tracing
out of the laws of this limitation belongs to the science of
thermodynamics. It is the business of that science to find
out what is the greatest amount of thermal energy that can
possibly be recoverable into organized kinds under given
circumstances. The discovery of definite laws in this
region might at first sight seem hopeless; but the argument
rests on an implied postulate of stability and continuity of
constitution of material substances, so that after a cycle
of transformations we expect to recover them again as they
were originally---on the postulate, in fact, that we do
not expect them to melt out of organized existence in our
hands. The laws of thermodynamics, including the fundamental
principle that a physical property, called temperature, can be
defined, which tends towards uniformity, are thus relations
between the properties of types of material bodies that
can exist permanently in presence of each other; why they
so maintain themselves remains unknown, but the fact gives
the point d'appui. The fundamental character of energy
in material systems here comes into view; if there were any
other independent scalar entity, besides mass and energy,
that pervaded them with relations of equivalence, we should
expect the existence of yet another set of pualities analogous
to those connected with temperature. (See ENERGETICS.)
Returning now to the aether, on our present point of view
no such complications there arise; it must be regarded as a
continuous uniform medium free from any complexities of atomic
aggregation, whose function is confined to the transmission of
the various types of physical effect between the portions of
matter. The problem of its constitution is thus one which
can be attacked and continually approximated to, and which
may possibly be definitely resolved. It has to be competent
to transmit the transverse waves of light and electricity,
and the other known radiant and electric actions; the way
in which this is done is now in the main known, though
there are still questions as to the mode of expression and
formulation of our knowledge, and also as regards points of
detail. This great advance, which is the result of the gradual
focussing of a century's work in the minute exploration of
the exact laws of optical and electric phenomena, clearly
carries with it deeper insight into the physical nature
of matter itself and its modes of inanimate interaction.
If we rest on the synthesis here described, the energy of the
matter, even the thermal part, appears largely as potential
energy of strain in the aether which interacts with the kinetic
energy associated with disturbances involving finite velocity of
matter. It may, however, be maintained that an ultimate
analysis would go deeper, and resolve all phenomena of elastic
resilience into consequences of the kinetic stability of steady
motional states, so that only motions, but not strains, would
remain. On such a view the aether might conceivably be a
perfect fluid, its fundamental property of elastic reaction
arising (as at one time suggested by Kelvin and G. F.
Fitzgerald) from a structure of tangled or interlaced vortex
filaments pervading its substance, which might conceivably
arrange themselves into a stable configuration and so resist
deformation. This raises the further question as to whether
the transmission of gravitation can be definitely recognized
among the properties of an ultimate medium; if so, we know
that it must be associated with some feature, perhaps very
deep-seated, or on the other hand perhaps depending simply on
incompressibility, which is not sensibly implicated in the
electric and optical activities. With reference to all such
further refinements of theory, it is to be borne in mind that
the perfect fluid of hydrodynamic analysis is not a merely
passive inert plenum; it is also a continuum with the
property that no finite internal slip or discontinuity of
motion can ever arise in it through any kind of disturbance;
and this property must be postulated, as it cannot be explained.
Motion of Material Atoms through the Aether.--An important
question arises whether, when a material body is moved through
the aether, the nucleus of each atom carries some of the
surrounding aether along with it; or whether it practically
only carries on its strain-form or physical atmosphere, which
is transferred from one portion of aether to another after
the manner of a shadow, or rather like a loose knot which can
slip along a rope without the rope being required to go with
it. We can obtain a pertinent illustration from the motion
of a vortex ring in a fluid; if the circular core of the ring
is thin compared with its diameter, and the vorticity is not
very great, it is the vortical state of motion that travels
across the fluid without transporting the latter bodily with
it except to a slight extent very close to the core. We might
thus examine a structure formed of an aggregation of very
thin vortex rings, which would move across the fluid without
sensibly disturbing it; on the other hand, if formed of stronger
vortices, it may transport the portion of the fluid that is
within, or adjacent to, its own structure along with it as
if it were a solid mass, and therefore also push aside the
surrounding fluid as it passes. The motion of the well-known
steady spherical vortex is an example of the latter case.
Convection of Optical Waves.--The nature of the motion,
if any, that is produced in the surrounding regions of
the aether by the translation of matter through it can be
investigated by optical experiment. The obvious body to take
in the first instance is the earth itself, which on account
of its annual orbital motion is travelling through space at
the rate of about 18 miles per second. If the surrounding
aether is thereby disturbed, the waves of light arriving
from the stars will partake of its movement; the ascertained
phenomena of the astronomical aberration of light show that
the rays travel to the observer, across this disturbed aether
near the earth, in straight lines. Again, we may split a
narrow beam of light by partial reflexion from a transparent
plate, and recombine the constituent beams after they have
traversed different circuits of nearly equivalent lengths,
so as to obtain interference fringes. The position of these
fringes will depend on the total retardation in time of the
one beam with respect to the other; and thus it might be
expected to vary with the direction of the earth's motion
relative to the apparatus. But it is found not to vary at
all, even up to the second order of the ratio of the earth's
velocity to that of light. It has in fact been found, with
the very great precision of which optical experiment is
capable, that all terrestrial optical phenomena--reflexion,
refraction, polarization linear and circular, diffraction
--are entirely unaffected by the direction of the earth's
motion, while the same result has recently been extended to
electrostatic forces; and this is our main experimental clue.
We pass on now to the theory. We shall make the natural
supposition that motion of the aether, say with velocity
(u,v,w) at the point (x,y,z), is simply superposed on the
velocity V of the optical undulations through that medium,
the latter not being intrinsically altered. Now the direction
and phase of the light are those of the ray which reaches the
eye; and by Fermat's principle, established by Huygens for
undulatory motion, the path of a ray is that track along which
the disturbance travels in least time, in the restricted sense
that any alteration of any short reach of the path will
increase the time. Thus the path of the ray when the aether is
at rest is the curve which makes Integralds/V least; but when it is
in motion it is the curve which makes Integralds/(V+lu+my+nw) least,
where (l,m,n) is the direction vector of ds.
The latter integral becomes, on expanding in a series,
Integralds/V - Integral(udx + vdy + wdz)/V2 + Integral(udx + vdy + wdz)2/V3 + ...,
since lds=dx. If the path is to be unaltered by the motion
of the aether, as the law of astronomical aberration suggests,
this must differ from Integralds/V by terms not depending on the
path--that is, by terms involving only the beginning and end of
it. In the case of the free aether V is constant; thus, if
we neglect squares like (u/V)2, the condition is that udx
+ vdy + wdz be the exact differential of some function f.
If this relation is true along all paths, the velocity of the
aether must be of irrotational type, like that of frictionless
fluid. Moreover, this is precisely the condition for the
absence of interference between the component of a split
beam; because, the time of passage being to the first order
Integralds/V - Integral(udx + vdy + wdz)/V2
the second term will then be independent of the path (f
being a single valued function) and therefore the same for the
paths of both the interfering beams. If therefore the aether
can be pnt into motion, we conclude (with Stokes) that such
motion, in free space, must be of strictly irrotational type.
But our experimental data are not confined to free space. if
c is the velocity of radiation in free space and m the
refractis'e index of a transparent body, V=C/m; thus it
is the expression c-2Integralm2(u'dx + v'dy + w'dz) that
is to be integrable explicitly, where now (u',v',w') is
what is added to V owing to the velocity (u,v,w) of the
medium. As, however, our terrestrial optical apparatus is
now all in motion along with the matter, we must deal with
the rays relative to the moving system, and to these also
Fermat's principle clearly applies; thus V + (lu' + mv' +
nw') is here the velocity of radiation in the direction of
the ray, but relative to the moving material system. Now the
expression above given cannot be integrable exactly, under
all circumstances and whatever be the axes of co-ordinates,
unless (m2u',m2v',m2w') is the gradient of a continuous
function. In the simplest case, that of uniform translation,
these components of the gradient will each be constant
throughout the region; at a distant place in free aether where
there is no motion, they must thus be equal to -u,-v,
-w, as they refer to axes moving with the matter. Hence
the paths and times of passage of all rays relative to the
material system will not be altered by a uniform motion of the
system, provided the velocity of radiation relative to the
system, in material of index m, is diminished by m-2
times the velocity of the system in the direction of the
radiation, that is, provided the absolute velocity of radiation
is increased by 1 - m-2 times the velocity of the material
system; this involves that the free aether for which m is
unity shall remain at rest. This statement constitutes the
famous hypothesis of Fresnel, which thus ensures that all
phenomena of ray-path and refraction, and all those depending
on phase, shall be unaffected by uniform convection of the
material medium, in accordance with the results of experiment.
Is the Aether Stationary or mobile?---This theory secures
that the times of passage of the rays shall be independent of
the motion of the system, only up to the first order of the
ratio of its velocity to that of radiation. But a classical
experiment of A. A. Michelson, in which the ray-path was
wholly in air, showed that the independence extends to higher
orders. This result is inconsistent with the aether remaining at
rest, unless we assume that the dimensions of the moving system
depend, though to an extent so small as to be not otherwise
detectable, on its orientation with regard to the aether that
is streaming through it. It is, however, in complete accordance
with a view that would make the aether near the earth fully
partake in its orbital motion---a view which the null effect of
convection on all terrestrial optical and electrical phenomena
also strongly suggests. But the aether at a great distance
must in any case be at rest; while the facts of astronomical
aberration require that the motion of that medium must be
irrotational. These conditions cannot be consistent with
sensible convection of the aether near the earth without
involving discontinuity in its motion at some intermediate
distance, so that we are thrown back on the previous theory.
Another powerful reason for taking the aether to be
stationary is afforded by the character of the equations of
electrodynamics; they are all of linear type, and superposition
of effects is possible. Now the kinetics of a medium in
which the parts can have finite relative motions will lead
to equations which are not linear---as, for example, those of
hydrodynamics---and the phenomena will be far more complexly
involved. It is true that the theory of vortex rings in
hydrodynamics is of a simpler type; but electric currents
cannot be likened to permanent vortex rings, because their
circuits can be broken and the element of cyclic steadiness
on which the simplicity depends is thereby destroyed.
Dynamical Theories of the Aether.---The analytical equations
which represent the propagation of light in free aether,
and also in aether modified by the presence of matter, were
originally developed on the analogy of the equations of
propagation of elastic effects in solid media. Various types
of elastic solid medium have thus been invented to represent
the aether, without complete success in any case. In T.
Maccullagh's hands the correct equations were derived from a
single energy formula by the principle of least action; and
while the validity of this dynamical method was maintained,
it was frankly admitted that no mechanical analogy was
forthcoming. When Clerk Maxwell pointed out the way to the
common origin of optical and electrical phenomena, these
equations naturally came to repose on an electric basis, the
connexion having been first definitely exhibited by Fitzgerald
in 1878; and according as the independent variable was one or
other of the vectors which represent electric force, magnetic
force or electric polarity, they took the form appropriate
to one or other of the elastic theories above mentioned.
In this place it must suffice to indicate the gist of the
more recent developments of the electro-optical theory, which
involve the dynamical verification of Fresnel's hypothesis
regarding optical convection and the other relations above
described. The aether is taken to be at rest; and the
strain-forms belonging to the atoms are the electric fields
of the intrinsic charges, or electrones, involved in their
constitution. When the atoms are in motion these strain-forms
produce straining and unstraining in the aether as they pass
across it, which in its motional or kinetic aspect constitutes
the resulting magnetic field; as the strains are slight
the coefficient of ultimate inertia here involved must be
great. True electric current arises solely from convection
of the atomic charges or electrons; this current is therefore
not restricted as to form in any way. But when the rate of
change of aethereal strain----that is, of (f,g,h) specified
as Maxwell's electric displacement in free aether---is
added to it, an analytically convenient vector (u,v,w)
is obtained which possesses the characteristic property of
being circuital like the flow of an incompressible fluid,
and has therefore been made fundamental in the theory
by Maxwell under the name of the total electric current.
As already mentioned, all efforts to assimilate optical
propagation to transmission of waves in an ordinary solid
medium have failed; and though the idea of regions of
intrinsic strain, as for example in unannealed glass,
is familiar in physics, yet on account of the absence of
mobility of the strain no attempt had been made to employ
them to illustrate the electric fields of atomic charges.
The idea of Maccullagh's aether, and its property of purely
rotational elasticity which had been expounded objectively
by W. J. M. Rankine, was therefore much vivified by Lord
Kelvin's specification (Comptes Rendus, 1889) of a material
gyrostatically constituted medium which would possess this
character. More recently a way has been pointed out in which
a mobile permanent field of electric force could exist in such
a medium so as to travel freely in company with its nucleus or
intrinsic charge---the nature of the mobility of the latter,
as well as its intimate constitution, remaining unknown.
A dielectric substance is electrically polarized by a field
of electric force, the atomic poles being made up of the
displaced positive and negative intrinsic charges in the
atom: the polarization per unit volume (f',g',h') may be
defined on the analogy of magnetism, and d/dt(f', g', h')
thus constitutes truo electric current of polarization,
i.e. of electric separation in the molecules, specified
per unit volume. The convection of a medium thus polarized
involves electric disturbance, and therefore must contribute
to the true electric current; the determination of this
constituent of the current is the most delicate point in the
investigation. The usual definition of the component current
in any direction, as the net amount of electrons which crosses,
towards the positive side, an element of surface fixed in
space at right angles to that direction, per unit area per
unit time, here gives no definite result. The establishment
and convection of a single polar atom constitutes in fact a
quasi-magnetization, in addition to the polarization current
as above defined, the negative poles completing the current
circuits of the positive ones. But in the transition from
molecular theory to the electrodynamics of extended media,
all magnetism has to be replaced by a distribution of current;
the latter being now specified by volume as well as by flow
so that (u,v,w) dt is the current in the element of volume
dt. In the present case the total dielectric contribution
to this current works out to be the change per unit time in
the electric separation in the molecules of the element of
volume, as it moves uniformly with the matter, all other
effects being compensated molecularly without affecting the
propagation.1 On subtracting from this total the current of
establishment of polarization d/dt/(f,g',h') as formulated
above, there remains vd/dx(f',g',h') as the current of
convection of polarization when the convection is taken
for simplicity to be in the direction of the axis of x
with velocity v. The polarization itself is determined
from the electric force (P,Q,R) by the usual statical
formula of linear type which becomes tor an isotropic medium
(f',g',h') = ((K-1)/4pc2)(P,Q,R),
because any change of the dielectric constant K arising
from the convection of the material through the aether
must be independent of the sign of v and therefore be of
the second order. Now the electric force (P,Q,R) is the
force acting on the electrons of the medium moving with
velocity v; consequently by Faraday's electrodynamic law
(P,Q,R) = (P',Q' - vc, R'- vb)
where (P', Q', R') is the force that would act on electrons
at rest, and (a,b,c) is the magnetic induction. The
latter force is, by Maxwell's hypothesis or by the dynamical
theory of an aether pervaded by electrons, the same as
that which strains the aether, and may be called the
aethereal force; it thereby produces an aethereal electric
displacement, say (y,g,h), according to the relation
(f,g,h) = (4pc2) - (P', Q', R'),
in which c is a constant belonging to the aether, which turns
out to be the velocity of light. The current of aethereal
displacement d/dt(f,g,h) is what adds on to the true electric
current to produce the total circuital current of Maxwell.
We have now to substitute these data in the universally
valid circuital relations---namely, (i) line integral of
magnetic force round a circuit is equal to 4p times the
current through its aperture, which may be regarded as a
definition of the constitution of the aether and its relation
to the electrons involved in it; and (ii) line integral
of the electric force belonging to any material circuit
(i.e. acting on the electrons situated on it which move
with the velocity of the matter) is equal to minus the
time-rate of change of the magnetic induction through that
circuit as it moves with the matter, this being a dynamical
consequence of the aethereal constitution assigned in (i).
We may now, as is somewhat the more natural course in the
terrestrial application, take axes (x,y,z) which move with the
matter; but the current must be invariably defined by the flux
across surfaces fixed in space, so that we may say that relation
(i) refers to a circuit fixed in space, while (ii) refers to
one moving with the matter. These circuital relations, when
expressed analytically, are then for a dielectric medium of types
dg/dy - db/dz = 4pu,...,..., where
(u,v,w) = (d/dt + v(d/dx))(f',g',h') + (d/dt)(f,g,h)
and
dR/dy - dQ/dz = -da/dt',...,...,.
where, when magnetic quality is inoperative, the magnetic
induction (a,b,c) is identical with the magnetic force (a,b,g.)
These equations determine all the phenomena. They take this simple
form, however, only when the movement of the matter is one of
translation. If v varies with respect to locality, or if there
is a velocity of convection (p,q,r) variable with respect to
direction and position, and analytical expression of the relation
(ii) assumes a more complex form; we thus derive the most general
equations of electrodynamic propagation for matter treated
as continuous, anyhow distributed and moving in any manner.
For the simplest case of polarized waves travelling parallel
to the axis of x, with the magnetic oscillation g along z
and the electric oscillation Q along y, all the quantities
are functions of x and t alone; the total current is
along y and given with respect to our moving axes by
v = (d/dt - v(d/dx))(Q+vg)/4pc2 + (d/dt)((K-1)/4pc2)Th;
also the circuital relations here reduce to
-dg/dx = 4pv, dQ/dx = -dg/dt;
thus
d2Q/dx2 = 4pdv/dt
giving, on substitution for v,
(c2-v2)d2Q/dx2 = Kd2Q/dt2 - 2vd2Q/dxdt.
For a simple wave-train, Q varies as sin m(x-Vt), leading
on substitution to the velocity of propagation V relative
to the moving material, by means of the equation KV2 + 2
vV = c2-v2; this gives, to the first order of v/c,
V = c/sqrt. K - v/K, which is in accordance with Fresnel's
law. Trains of waves nearly but not quite homogeneous as
regards wave-length will as usual be propagated as wave-groups
travelling with the slightly different velocity d(Vl-1)/
dl-1, the value of K occurring in V being a function of
l determined by the law of optical dispersion of the medium.
For purposes of theoretical discussions relating to moving radiators
and reflectors, it is important to remember that the dynamics
of all this theory of electrons involves the neglect of terms of
the order (v/c)2, not merely in the value of K but throughout.
Recent Experimental Developments.---The modification of
the spectrum of a radiating gas by a magnetic field, such
as would result from the hypothesis that the radiators are
the system of revolving or oscillating electrons in the
molecule, was detected by P. Zeeman in 1896, and worked
up, in conjunction with H. A. Lorentz, on the general lines
suggested by the electron-theory of molecular constitution.
While it cannot be said that the full significance of this
very definite phenomenon, consisting of the splitting of
the spectral line into a number of polarized components, has
yet been made out, a wide field of correlation with optical
theory, especially in the neighbourhood of absorption bands,
has been developed by Zeeman himself, by A. H. Becquerel,
by D. Macaluso and O. M. Corbino, and by other workers.
The most fundamental experimental confirmation that the theory
of the aether has received on the optical side in recent
years has been the verification of Maxwell's proposition that
radiation exerts mechanical force on a material system, on
which it falls, which may be represented in all cases as the
resultant of pressures operating along the rays, and of intensity
equal at each point of free space to the density of radiant
energy. A high vacuum is needed for the detection of the
minute forces here concerned; but just in that case the indirect
radiometer-effect of the heating of the residual gas masks the
effect. P. N. Lebedew in 1900 succeeded, by operating on
metallic vanes so thin that the exposed and averted faces
were practically at the same temperature, in satisfactorily
verifying the relation for metals; and very soon after, E.
F. Nichols and G. F. Hull published accounts of an exact
and extensive research, in which the principle had been
fully and precisely confirmed as regards both transparent
and opaque bodies. The experiment of J. H. Poynting may
also be mentioned, in which the tangential component of
the thrust of obliquely incident radiation is separately
put in evidence, by the torsion produced in an arrangement
which is not sensitive to the normal component or to the
radiometer-pressure of the residual gas. (See RADIOMETER.)
Next to these researches on the pressure of radiation, which,
by forming the mechanical link between radiation and matter,
are fundamental for the thermodynamics of radiant energy,
the most striking recent result has been the discovery of H.
Rubens and E. Hagen that for dark heat rays of only about ten
times the wave-length of luminous radiation, the properties
of metals are determined by their electric resistance alone,
which then masks all resonance due to periods of free vibration
of the molecules; and, moreover, that the resistance for such
alternations is practically the same as the ohmic resistance
for ordinary steady currents. They found that the absorbing
powers of the metals, and therefore, by the principle of
exchanges, their radiating powers also, are proportional to
the square roots of their electric conductivities. Maxwell had
himself, at an early stage of his theory, tested the absorbing
power of gold-leaf for light, and found that the effective
conductivity for luminous vibrations must be very much greater
than its steady ohmic value; it is, in fact, there a case of
incipient conductivity, which is continually being undone on
account of the rapid alternation of force before it is fully
established. That, however, complete conduction should
arrive with alternations only ten times slower than light
was an unexpected and remarkable fact, which verifies the
presumption that the process of conduction is one in which
the dynamic activities of the molecules do not come into
play. The corollary, that the electric resistance of a
metal can be determined in absolute units by experiments on
the reflexion of heat-rays from its surface, is a striking
illustration of the unification of the various branches
of physical science, which has come in the train of the
development of the theory of the aether. (See RADIATION.)
Finally, reference should be made to the phenomena of
radioactivity, whether excited by the electric discharge
in vacuum tubes, foreshadowed in part by Sir Wm. Crookes
and G. G. Stokes, and later by A. Schuster and others, but
first fully developed with astonishing results including
the experimental discovery of the free electron by J. J.
Thomson, or the correlated phenomena occurring spontaneously
in radio-active bodies as discovered by H. Becquerel and
by M. and Mme Curie, and investigated by them and by E.
Rutherford and others. These results constitute a far-reaching
development of the modern or electrodynamic theory of the
aether, of which the issue can hardly yet be foreseen.
REFERENCES.--Maxwell, Collected Papers H. A. Lorentz,
Archives Neerlandaises, xxi. 1887, and xxv. 1892, and a
tract, Versuch einer Theorie der electrischen und optischen
Erscheinungen in bewegten Korpern (Leyden, 1895); also
recent articles ``Elektrodynamik'' and ``Elektronentheorie''
in the Encyk. der Math. Wissenschaften, Band v. 13, 14;
O. Lodge, ``On Aberration Problems,'' Phil. Trans. 1893
and 1897; J. Larmor, Phil. Trans. 1894--95--97, and a
treatise, Aether and Motter (1900), where full references are
given. Of recent years most treatises on physical optics,
e.g. those of P. K. L. Drude, A. Schuster, R. W. Wood, have
been written largely on the basis of the general physics of
the aether; while the Collected Papers of Lord Rayleigh
should be accessible to all who desire a first-hand knowledge
of the development of the optical side of the subject. See
also MOLECULE, ELECTRICITY, LIGHT and RADIATION. (J. L.*)
1 See H. A. Lorentz, loc. cit. infra.; J.
Larmor, Aether and Matter, p. 262 and passim.
AETHICUS (=ETHICUS) ISTER, ``the philosopher of
Istria,'' the supposed but unknown author of a description
of the world written in Greek. An abridgment, under the
title of Cosmographia Ethici, written in barbarous Latin,
and wrongly described as the work of St Jerome, probably
belongs to the 7th century. After a discussion of the
creation of the world and a description of the earth, an
account of the wonderful journeys of Aethicus is given, with
digressions on various subjects, such as Alexander the Great
and the kings of Rome, full of obscure and fabulous details.
The name Aethicus is also attached to another geographical
treatise probably dating from the 6th century, a reproduction,
with some unimportant additions, of the cosmography--little
else than a dry list of names--of Julius Honorius.
Editions.--D'Avezac (1852); Pertz (1853); Wuttke
(1854); Riese's Lexicographi Latini Minores (1878);
see also Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography.
AETIOLOGY, or ETIOLOGY (from Gr. aitia. cause, and
logia, discourse), strictly, the science or philosophy of
causation, but generally used to denote the part of any special
science (and especially of that of medicine and disease)
which investigates the causes and origin of its phenomena.
An aetiological myth is one which is regarded as having
been invented ex post facto to explain some fact, name or
coincidence, the true account or origin of which has been
forgotten. Such myths were often based on grotesque philological
analogies, according to which an existing connexion between
two personalities (cities, &c.) was traced back to a common
mythical origin. For a good example of the evolution of
such myths, see the argument under AEGINA, History.
AETION, or EETION, a Greek painter, mentioned by Cicero,
Pliny and Lucian. His most noted work, described in detail by
Lucian (Herodotus or Eetion, 5), was a picture representing
the marriage of Alexander and Roxana. He is said to have
exhibited it at the Olympic games, and by it so to have won
the favour of the president that he gave him his daughter in
marriage. Through a misunderstanding of the words of Lucian,
Aetion has been supposed to belong to the age of the Antonines;
but there can be little doubt that he was a contemporary of
Alexander and of Apelles (Brunn, Geschichte der griechischen
Kunstler, ii. p. 243). Pliny gives his date as 350 B.C.
AETIUS (fl. 350), surnamed ``the Atheist,'' founder of an
extreme sect of Arians, was a native of Cocle-Syria. After
working as a vine-dresser and then as a goldsmith he became a
travelling doctor, and displayed great skill in disputations
on medical subjects; but his controversial power soon found
a wider field for its exercise in the great theological
question of the time. He studied successively under the
Arians, Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, Athanasius, bishop of
Anazarbus, and the presbyter Antonius of Tarsus. In 350 he
was ordained a deacon by Leontius of Antioch, but was shortly
afterwards forced by the orthodox party to leave that town.
At the first synod of Sirmium he won a dialectic victory over
the homoiousian bishops, hasilius and Eustathius, who sought
in consequence to stir up against him the enmity of Caesar
Gallus. In 356 he went to Alexandria with Eunomius (q.v.)
in order to advocate Arianism, but he was banished by
Constantius. Julian recalled him from exile, bestowed upon
him an estate in Lesbos, and retained him for a time at his
court in Constantinople. Being consecrated a bishop, he used
his office in the interests of Arianism by creating other
bishops of that party. At the accession of Valens (364)
he retired to his estate at Lesbos, but soon returned to
Constantinople, where he died in 367. The Anomoean sect of
the Arians, of whom he was the leader, are sometimes called
after him Aetians. His work De Fide has been preserved
in connexion with a refutation written by Epiphanius (Haer.
lxxvi. 10). Its main thought is that the Homousia, i.e.
the doctrine that the Son (therefore the Begotten) is
essentially God, is self-contradictory, since the idea of
unbegottenness is just that which constitutes the nature of God.
See A. Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. iv. passim.
AETIUS, a Greek physician, born at Amida in Mesopotamia,
flourished at the beginning of the 6th century A.D. He studied
at Alexandria, and became court physician at Byzantium and
comes obsequii, one of the chief officers of the imperial
household. He wrote a large medical work in sixteen books,
founded on Oribasius and compiled from various sources,
especially Galen [Galenos]. Superstition and mysticism
play a great part in his remedies. Eight books of the
Greek original were printed at Venice, 1534, and a complete
Latin translation by Cornarius appeared at Basel, 1542.
See Weigel, Aetianarum exercitationum specimen (1791);
Danelius, Beitrag zur Augenheilkunde des Aetius (1889); Zernos,
Aetii sermo sextidecimus et ultimus, editio princeps (1901).
AETIUS (d. 454), a Roman general of the closing period of
the Western empire, born at Dorostolus in Moesia, late in
the 4th century. He was the son of Gaudentius, who, although
possibly of barbarian family, rose in the service of the
Western empire to be master of the horse, and later count of
Africa. Aetius passed some years as hostage, first with Alaric
and the Goths, and later in the camp of Rhuas, king of the
Huns, acquiring in this way the knowledge which enabled him
afterwards to defeat them. In 424 he led into Italy an army
of 60,000 barbarians, mostly Huns, which he employed first to
support the primicerius Joannes, who had proclaimed himself
emperor, and, on the defeat of the latter, to enforce his claim
to the supreme command of the army in Gaul upon Placidia, the
empress-mother and regent for Valentinian III. His calumnies
against his rival, Count Boniface, which were at first believed
by the emperor, led Boniface to revolt and call the Vandals to
Africa. Upon the discovery of the truth, Boniface, although
defeated in Africa, was received into favour by Valentinian;
but Aetius came down against Boniface from his Gallic wars,
like another Julius Caesar, and in the battle which followed
wounded Boniface fatally with his own javelin. From 433
to 450 Aetius was the dominating personality in the Western
empire. In Gaul he won his military reputation, upholding
for nearly twenty years, by combined policy and daring, the
falling fortunes of the empire. His greatest victory was that
of Chalons-sur-Marne (September 20, 451), in which he led
the Gallic forces against Attila and the Huns. This was the
last triumph of the empire. Three years later (454) Aetius
presented himself at court to claim the emperor's daughter in
marriage for his son Gaudentius; but Valentinian, suspecting
him of designs upon the crown, slew him with his own hand.
See T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vols. i. and ii. (1880).
AETOLIA, a district of northern Greece, bounded on the S.
by the Corinthian Gulf, on the W. by the river Achelous, on
the N. and E. by the western spurs of Parnassus and Oeta. The
land naturally falls into two divisions. The basins of the
lower Achelous (mod. Aspropotamo) and Euenus (Phidharis)
form a series of alluvial valleys intersected by detached
ridges which mostly run parallel to the coast. This district
of ``Old Aetolia'' lacks a suitable sea-board, but the inland,
and especially the plain of central Aetolia lying to the north
of Lakes Hyria and Trichonis and Mount Aracynthus, forms a
rich agricultural country. The northern and eastern regions
are broken by an extensive complex of chains and peaks, whose
rugged limestone flanks are clad at most with stunted shrubs
and barely leave room for a few precarious mule-tracks. These
heights often rise in the frontierranges of Tymphrestus, Oxia
and Corax to more than 7000 ft.; the snow-capped pinnacle
of Krona attains to 8240 ft. A few defiles pass through
this barrier to the other side of the north Greek watershed.
In early legend Old Aetolia, with its cities of Pleuron and
Calydon, figures prominently. During the great migrations
(see DORIANS) the population was largely displaced, and the
old inhabitants long remainedin a backward condition. In the
5th century some tribes were still living in open villages
under petty kings, addicted to plunder and piracy, and hardly
recogniged as Hellenes at all. Yet their military strength
was not to be despised: in 426 their archers and slingers
easily repelled an Athenian invasion under Demosthenes. In
the 4th century the Aetolians began to take a greater part
in Greek politics, and, in return for helping Epaminondas
(367) and Philip of Macedon (338), recovered control of their
sea-board, to which they annexed the Acarnanian coast and the
Oeniadae. Aetolia's prosperity dates from the period of
Macedonian supremacy. It may be ascribed partly to the wealth
and influence acquired by Aetolian mercenaries in Hellenistic
courts, but chiefly to the formation of a national Aetolian
league, the first effective institution of this kind in
Greece. Created originally to meet the peril of an invasion
by the Macedonian regents Antipater and Craterus, who had
undertaken a punitive expedition against Aetolia after the
Lamian War (322), and by Cassander (314-311), the confederacy
grew rapidly during the subsequent period of Macedonian
weakness. Since 290 it had extended its power over all the
uplands of central Greece, where its command over Heracleia
(280) provided it with an important defensive position against
northern invaders, its control of Delphi and the Amphictyonic
council with a useful political instrument. The valour of the
Aetolians was conspicuously displayed in 279, when they broke the
strength of the Celtic irruption by slaughtering great hordes of
marauders. The commemorative festival of the Soteria, which
the league established at Delphi, obtained recognition from
many leading Greek states. After annexing Boeotia (by 245)
the Aetolians controlled all central Greece. Endeavouring
next to expand into Peloponnesus, they allied themselves with
Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia against the Achaean league
(q.v.), and besides becoming protectors of Elis and Messenia
won several Arcadian cities. Their naval power extended to
Cephalonia, to the Aegaean islands and even to the Hellespont.
The league at its zenith had thus a truly imperial status.
Later in the century its power began to he sapped by Macedonia.
To check King Demetrius (239-229) the Aetolians joined arms
with the Achaeans. In 224 they held Heracleia Trachis against
Antigonus Doson, but lost control of Boeotia and Phocis.
Since 228 their Arcadian possessions had been abandoned to
Sparta. At the same time a new enemy arose in the Illyrian
pirate fleets, which outdid them in unscrupulousness and
violence. The raids of two Aetolian chiefs in Achaean
territory (220) led to a coalition between Achaea and Philip
V. of Macedon, who assailed the invaders with great energy,
driving them out of Peloponnesus and marching into Aetolia
itself, where he surprised and sacked the federal capital
Thermon. After buying peace by the cession of Acarnania
(217) the league concluded a compact with Rome, in which
both states agreed to plunder ruthlessly their common enemies
(211). In the great war of their Roman allies against Philip
the federal troops took a prominent part, their cavalry being
largely responsible for the victory of Cynoscephalae (197). The
Romans in return restored central Greece to the league, but by
withholding its former Thessalian possessions excited its deep
resentment. The Aetolians now invited Antiochus III. of
Syria to European Greece, and so precipitated a conflict with
Rome. But in the war they threw away their chances. In 192
they wasted themselves in an unsuccessful attempt to secure
Sparta. In 191 they supported Antiochus badly, and by their
slackness in the defence of Thermopylae made his position
in Greece untenable. Having thus isolated themselves the
Aetolians stood at bay behind their walls against the Romans,
who refused all compromises, and, after the general surrender
in 189, restricted the league to Aetolia proper and assumed
control over its foreign relations. In 167 the country suffered
severely from the intrigues of a philo-Roman party, which
caused a series of judicial murders and the deportation of
many patriots to Italy. By the time of Sulla, when the league
is mentioned for the last time, its functions were purely
nominal. The federal constitution closely resembled that of
the Achaean league (q.v.), for which it doubtless served as a
model. The general assembly, convoked every autumn at Thermon
to elect officials, and at other places in special emergencies,
shaped the league's general policy; it was nominally open
to all freemen, though no doubt the Aetolian chieftains
really controlled it. The council of deputies from the
confederate cities undertook the routine of administration and
jurisdiction. The strategus (general), aided by 30 apocleti
(ministers), had complete control in the field and presided
over the assembly, though with restricted advisory powers. The
Aetolians also used the Amphictyonic synod for passing solemn
enactments. The league's relation to outlying dependencies
is obscure; many of these were probably mere protectorates or
``allied states'' and secured no representation. The federal
executive was certainly much more efficient than that of the
Achaeans, and its councils suffered less from disunion; but
its generals and admirals, official or otherwise, enjoyed undue
licence; hence the league deservedly gained an evil name for
the numerous acts of lawlessness or violence which its troops
committed. But as a champion of republican Greece against
foreign enemies no other power of the age rendered equal
services. After the first overthrow of the Byzantine
empire Aetolia passed to a branch of the old imperial house
(1205). In the 15th century it was held by Scanderbeg
(q.v.) and by the Venetians, but Mahommed II. brought it
definitely under Turkish rule. In the War of Independence
the Aetolians by their stubborn defence, culminating in the
sieges of Missolonghi (q.v.), formed the backbone of the
rebellion. Northern Aetolia remains a desolate region,
inhabited mainly by Vlach shepherds. The south-western plain,
though rendered unhealthy by lagoons, and central Aetolia
yield good crops of currants, vine, maize and tobacco, which
are conveyed by railway from Agrinion and Anatolikon to the
coast. The country, which forms part of the modern department
of Acarnania and Aetolia, contains numerous fragments of ancient
fortifications. It has contributed a notable Droportion of
distinguished men to modern Greece. Diodorus xviii. 24. 5;
Pausanias x. 20 sq.; Polybius and Livy passim; W. J. Woodhouse,
Aetolia (Oxford, 1897); M. Dubois, Les Lieues acheenne et
etolienne (Paris, 1885); E. A. Freeman, Federal Government
(ed. 1893, London), ch. vi.; B. V. Head, Historia Numorum
(Oxford, 1887), pp. 283-284; M. Holleaux in Bulletin de
Correspondance Hellenique (1905, pp. 362-372l; G. Sotiriades
in `Efemeris `Arxaiologike, (1900) pp. 163-212, (1903)
pp. 73-94, and in Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique
(1907), pp. 139-184: C. Salvetti in Studi di Storia
Antica, vol. ii. (Rome, 1893), pp. 270-320. (M. O. B. C.)
AFARS (DANAHIL), a tribe of African ``Arabs'' of Hamitic
stock. They occupy the arid coast-lands between Abyssinia
and the sea. They claim to be Arabs, but are more akin to
the Galla and Somali. The tribe is roughly divisible into
a pastoral and a coast-dwelling group. Their religion is
chiefly fetish and tree-worship; many, nominally, profess
Mahommedanism. They are distinguished by narrow straight
noses, thin lips and small pointed chins; their cheekbones
are not prominent. They are more scantily clothed than
the Abyssinians or Galla, wearing, generally, nothing but a
waist-cloth. Their women, when quite young, are pretty and
graceful. Their huts are often tastefully decorated, the floors
being spread with yellow mats, embroidered with red and violet
designs. The Afars are divided into many sub-tribes, each
having an hereditary sultan, whose power is, however, limited.
They are desperate fighters and in 1875 successfully resisted
an attempt to bring them under Egyptian rule. In 1883-1888,
however, their most important sultan concluded treaties placing
his country under Italian protection. The Afar region is now
partly under Abyssinian and partly under Italian authority.
The Afars are also found in considerable numbers in French
Somaliland. They have a saying ``Guns are only useful to
frighten cowards.'' They were formerly redoubtable pirates,
but the descendants of these corsairs are now fishermen,
and are the only sailors in the Red Sea who hunt the dugong.
P. Paulitschke, Ethnographic Nordost-Afrikas (2 vols.,
Berlin, 1893-1896); and Die geographische Erforschung der
A dal-Lander und Harars in Ost-Afrika (Leipzig, 1884).
AFER, DOMITIUS, a Roman orator and advocate, born at
Nemausus (Nimes) in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished in
the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. His
pupil Quintilian calls him the greatest orator he had ever
known; but he disgraced his talents by acting as public
informer against some of the most distinguished personages in
Rome. He gained the favour of Tiberius by accusing Claudia
Pulcra, the widow of Germanicus, of adultery and the use of
magic arts against the emperor. Judicious flattery secured
him the consulship under Caligula (39); and under Nero he
was superintendent of the water supply. He died A.D. 60,
according to Jerome, of over-eating. Quintilian quotes some
of his witty sayings (dicta), collections of which were
published, and mentions two books by him On Witnesses.
Quintilian, Instit. vi. 3. 42, viii. 5. 16, x. 1. 118, &c.; Tac.
Ann iv. 52; Dio Cassius lix. 19, lx. 33; Pliny, Epp. viii. 18.
AFFECTION (Lat. ad, and facere, to do something to,
sc. a person), literally, a mental state resulting generally
from an external influence. It is popularly used of a
relation between persons amounting to more than goodwill or
friendship. By ethical writers the word has been used generally
of distinct states of feeling, both lasting and spasmodic;
some contrast it with ``passion'' as being free from the
distinctively sensual element. More specifically the word has
been restricted to emotional states which are in relation to
persons. In the former sense, it is the Gr. pathos, and as
such it appears in Descartes and most of the early British ethical
writers. On various grounds, however---e.g. that it does
not involve anxiety or excitement, that it is comparatively
inert and compatible with the entire absence of the sensuous
element--At is generally and usefully distingmshed from
passion. In this narrower sense the word has played a great part
in ethical systems, which have spoken of the social or parental
``affections'' as in some sense a part of moral obligation.
For a consideration of these and similar problems, which depend
ultimately on the degree in which the affections are regarded as
voluntary, see H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 345-349.
In psychology the terms ``affection'' and ``affective'' are
of great importance. As all intellectual phenomena have by
experimentalists been reduced to sensation, so all emotion
has been and is regarded as reducible to simple mental
affection, the element of which all emotional manifestations
are ultimately composed. The nature of this element is a
problem which has been provisionally, but not conclusively,
solved by many psychologists; the method is necessarily
experimental, and all experiments on feeling are peculiarly
difficult. The solutions proposed are two. In the first,
all affection phenomena are primarily divisible into those
which are pleasurable and those which are the reverse. The
main objections to this are that it does not explain the
infinite variety of phenomena, and that it disregards the
distinction which most philosophers admit between higher
and lower pleasures. The second solution is that every
sensation has its specific affective quality, though by
reason of the poverty of language many of these have no
name. W. Wundt, Outlines of Psychology (trans. C. H.
Judd, Leipzig, 1897), maintains that we may group under three
main affective directions, each with its negative, all the
infinite varieties in question; these are (a) pleasure,
or rather pleasantness, and the reverse, (b) tension and
relaxation, (c) excitement and depression. These two
views are antithetic and no solution has been discovered.
Two obvious methods of experiment have been tried. The first,
introduced by A. Mosso, the Italian psychologist, consists in
recording the physical phenomena which are observed to accompany
modifications of the affective consciousness. Thus it is found
that the action of the heart is accelerated by pleasant, and
retarded by unpleasant, stimuli; again, changes of weight and
volume are found to accompany modifications of affection--and so
on. Apart altogether from the facts that this investigation
is still in its infancy and that the conditions of experiment
are insufficiently understood, its ultimate success is rendered
highly problematical by the essential fact that real scientific
results can be achieved only by data recorded in connexion with
a perfectly normal subject; a conscious or interested subject
introduces variable factors which are probably incalculable.
The second is Fechner's method; it consists of recording the
changes in feeling-tone produced in a subject by bringing him in
contact with a series of conditions, objects or stimuli graduated
according to a scientific plan and presented singly in pairs or in
groups. The result is a comparative table of likes and dislikes.
Mention should also be made of a third method which has
hardly yet been tried, namely, that of endeavouring to
isolate one of the three ``directions'' by the method
of suggestion or even hypnotic trance observations.
For the subject of emotion in general see modern text-books of
psychology, e.g. those of J. Sully, W. James, G. T. Fechner, O.
Kulpe; Angelo Mosso, La Paura (Milan, 1884, 1900; Eng. trans.
E. Lough and F. Kiesow, Lond. 1896); E. B. Titchener, Experimental
Psychology (1905); art. PSYCHOLOGY and works there quoted.
AFFIDAVIT (Med. Lat. for ``he has declared upon oath,''
from affidare, fides, faith), a written statement sworn
or affirmed to before some person who has authority to
administer an oath or affirmation. Evidence is chiefly
taken by means of affidavits in the Chancery Division of the
High Court of Justice in England on a petition, summons or
motion. Interlocutory proceedings before trial are conducted
by affidavits, e.g. for discovery of documents, hence
called affidavit of documents. Affidavits are sometimes
necessary as certificates that certain formalities have been
duly and legally performed (such as service of proceedings,
&c.). They are extensively used in bankruptcy practice, in the
administration of the revenue and in the inferior and county
courts. In testamentary causes, all documents of any kind,
such as wills, codicils, drafts or instructions of same must
be filed in the form of affidavits (termed affidavits of
scripts.) In Scotland the testimony of witnesses by affidavit
is almost unknown, except in a few non-contentious cases as
prima facie evidence. In the rules of the Supreme Court
(R.S.C. Ord. XXXVIII.) certain formal requirements are laid
down for all affidavits and affirmations in causes or matters
depending in the High Court. An affidavit must consist of
title, body or statement and jurat. It must be written or
printed on foolscap, bookwise, in the first person; give
correctly the names of the parties to the action; and the
description and true place of abode of the deponent. An
affidavit is confined, except on interlocutory motions, to
such facts as the witness is able of his own knowledge to
prove. The signature of the deponent must be written opposite
to the jurat, which must contain the place, date and time of
swearing, and this signed by the officer or magistrate before
whom the affidavit is sworn. An affidavit sworn on a Sunday
is not invalid. Quakers, Moravians and Separatists were first
privileged to make a solemn declaration or affirmation, and
by the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 and other statutes all
persons prevented by religious belief from taking an oath
were allowed to affirm; and, finally, by the Oaths Act 1888,
every person who objects to be sworn is allowed to affirm in
all places and for all purposes where an oath is required by
law. By an act of 1835 justices are permitted to take
affidavits in any matter by declaration, and a person making
a false affidavit in this way is liable to punishment. The
same act prohibited justices of peace from administering oaths
in any matter in which they had not jurisdiction as judges,
except when an oath was specially authorized by statute,
as in the bankruptcy law, and excepting criminal inquiries,
parliamentary proceedings and instances where oaths are required
to give validity to documents abroad. Scottish justices can
act in England and vice versa. The Oaths Act 1888 and
the Commissioner of Oaths Act 1889 consolidated all previous
enactments relating to oaths and gave the lord chancellor power
to appoint commissioners for oaths to take affidavits for all
purposes (see OATH.) Under the Debtors Act 1869 a plaintiff
may file an affidavit for the arrest of a debtor (affidavit
to hold to bail) when the debt amounts to L. 50 or upwards,
where it can be shown that the debtor's absence from the kingdom
would materially prejudice the prosecution of the action.
Affidavits may be made abroad before any British
ambassador, envoy, minister, charge d'affaires,
secretary of embassy or legation, consul or consular agent.
In the United States affidavit has the same meaning as in
England and its general uses are the same, but it is not
substituted for oral evidence in court to anything like
the extent to which that is done in the English courts of
chancery. The statutes of each state designate the persons
before whom affidavits may be made outside the state, and
special commissioners are appointed for that purpose by each
state. Affidavits made abroad must be made before such
commissioners or persons so designated, who are usually
diplomatic and consular officials, justices, notaries public
or mayors. ``Affidavit of documents'' is not generally
used in the United States; discovery is procured by motion.
AFFILIATION (from Lat. ad-filiare, to adopt as a son), in
law, the procedure by which the paternity of a bastard child
is determined, and the obligation of contributing to its
support enforced. In England a number of statutes on the
subject hnve been passed, the chief being the Bastardy Act
of 1845, and the Bastardy Laws Amendment Acts of 1872 and
1873. The mother of a bastard may summon the putative father
to petty sessions within twelve months of the birth (or at
any later time if he is proved to have contributed to the
child's support within twelve months after the birth), and
the justices, after hearing evidence on both sides, may,
if the mother's evidence be corroborated in some material
particular, adjudge the man to be the putative father of
the child, and order him to pay a sum not exceeding five
shillings a week for its maintenance, together with a sum for
expenses incidental to the birth, or the funeral expenses,
if it has died before the date of order, and the costs of the
proceedings. An order ceases to be valid after the child
reaches the age of thirteen, but the justices may in the
order direct the payments to be continued until the child
is sixteen years of age. An appeal to quarter sessions is
open to the defendant, and a further appeal on questions
of law to the King's Bench by rule nisi or certiorari.
Should the child afterwards become chargeable to the parish,
the sum due by the father may be received by the parish
officer. When a bastard child, whose mother has not obtained
an order, becomes chargeable to the parish, the guardians
may proceed against the putative father for a contribution.
Any woman who is single, a widow, or a married woman living
apart from her husband, may make an application for a
summons, and it is immaterial where the child is begotten,
provided it is born in England. An application for a summons
may be made before the birth of the child, but in this case
the statement of the mother must be in the form of a sworn
deposition. The defendant must be over fourteen years of
age. No agreement on the part of the woman to take a sum
down in discharge of the liability of the father is a bar to
the making of an affiliation order. In the case of twins it
is usual to make separate applications and obtain separate
summonses. The Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879 makes due
provision for the enforcement of an order of affiliation. In
the case of soldiers an affiliation order cannot be enforced
in the usual way, but by the Army Act 1881, if an order has
been made against a soldier of the regular forces, and a copy
of such order be sent to the secretary of state, he may order a
portion of the soldier's pay to be retained. There is no such
special legislation with regard to sailors in the royal navy.
In the British colonies, and in the states of the United
States (with the exception of California, Idaho, Missouri,
Oregon, Texas and Utah), there is some procedure (usually
termed filiation) akin to that described above, by means
of which a mother can obtain a contribution to the support
of her illegitimate child from the putative father. The
amount ordered to be paid may subsequently be increased or
diminished (1905; 94 N.Y. Supplt. 372). On the continent of
Europe, however, the legislation of the various countries
differs rather widely. France, Belgium, Holland, Italy,
Russia, Servia and the canton of Geneva provide no means
of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and
consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother;
on the other hand, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark
and the majority of the Swiss cantons provide for an inquiry
into the paternity of illegitimate children, and the law
casts a certain amount of responsibility upon the father.
Affiliation, in France, is a term applied to a species of
adoption by which the person adopted succeeds equally with
other heirs to the acquired, but not to the inherited, property
of the deceased. (See ADOPTION. Also BASTARD; POOR LAWS.)
AUTHORITIES.---Saunders, Law and Practice of Orders
of Affiliation; Lushington, Law of Affiliation
and Bastardy; Little, Poor Law Statutes. (T. A. I.)
AFFINITY (Lat. affinitas, relationship by marriage, from
affinis, bordering on, related to; finis, border, boundary),
in law, as distinguished from consanguinity (q.v.), the
term applied to the relation which each party to a marriage,
the husband and wife, bears to the kindred of the other.
Affinity is usually described as of three kinds. (1) Direct:
that relationship which subsists between the husband and his
wife's relations by blood or between the wife and the husband's
relations by blood. The marriage having made them one person,
the blood relations of each are held as related by affinity in
the same degree to the one spouse as by consanguinity to the
other. But the relation is only with the married parties
themselves, and does not bring those in affinity with them in
affinity with each other; so a wife's sister has no affinity
to her husband's brother. This is (2) Secondary affinity.
(3) Collateral affinity is the relationship subsisting
between the husband and the relations of his wife's relations.
The subject is chiefly important from the matrimonial prohibitions
by which the canon law has restricted relations by affinity.
Taking the table of degrees within which marriage is prohibited
on account of consanguinity, the rule has been thus extended to
affinity, so that wherever relationship to a man himself would
be a bar to marriage, relationship to his deceased wife will
be the same bar, and vice versa on the husband's decease.
Briefly, direct affinity is a bar to marriage. This rule
has been founded chiefly on interpretations of the eighteenth
chapter of Leviticus. Formerly by law in England, marriages
within the degrees of affinity were not absolutely null, but
they were liable to be annulled by ecclesiastical process during
the lives of both parties; in other words, the incapacity was
only a canonical, not a civil, disability. By the Marriage
Act 1835 all marriages of this kind not disputed before the
passing of the act were declared absolutely valid, while all
subsequent to it were declared null. This rendered null in
England, and not merely voidable, a marriage with a deceased
wife's sister or niece. (See CONSANGUINITY; MARRIAGE.)
AFFINITY, CHEMICAL, the property or relation in virtue of which
dissimilar substances are capable of entering into chemical combination
with each other. (See CHEMISTRY; CHEMICAL ACTION; VALENCY.)
AFFIRMATION (from Lat. affirmare, to assert), the declaration
that something is true; in logic, a positive judgment,
the union of the subject and predicate of a proposition;
particularly, in law, the solemn declaration allowed to those
who conscientiously object to taking an oath. (See OATH.)
AFFRAY, in law, the fighting of two or more persons
in a public place to the terror (a l' effroi ) of the
lieges. The offence is a misdemeanour at English common
law, punishable by fine and imprisonment. A fight in private
is an assault and battery, not an affray. As those engaged
in an affray render themselves also liable to prosecution
for Assault (q.v.), Unlawful Assembly (see ASSEMBLY,
UNLAWFUL), or Riot (q.v.), it is for one of these offences
that they are usually charged. Any private person may, and
constables and justices must, interfere to put a stop to an
affray. In the United States the English common law as to
affray applies, subject to certain modifications by the statutes
of particular states (Bishop, Amer. Crim. Law, 8th ed.,
1892, vol. i. sec. 535). The Indian Penal Code (sect. 159)
adopts the English definition of affray, with the substitution
of ``actual disturbance of the peace'' for ``causing terror to
the lieges.'' The Queensland Criminal Code of 1899 (sect. 72)
defines affray as taking part in a fight in a public highway
or taking part in a fight of such a nature as to alarm the
public in any other place to which the public have access. This
definition is taken from that in the English Criminal Code Bill
of 1880, cl. 96. Under the Roman Dutch law in force in South
Africa affray falls within the definition of vis publica.
AFFRE, DENIS AUGUSTE (1793--1848), archbishop of Paris,
was born at St Rome, in the department of Tarn, on the 27th
of September 1793. He was educated for the priesthood at
St Sulpice, where in 1818 he became professor of dogmatic
theology. After filling a number of ecclesiastical offices,
he was elevated to the archbishopric of Paris in 1840. Though
opposed to the government of Louis Philippe, he took no part
in politics, but devoted himself to his pastoral work. His
episcopate, however, is chiefly remembered owing to its tragic
close. During the insurrection of June 1848 the archbishop
was led to believe that by his personal interference peace
might be restored between the soldiery and the insurgents.
Accordingly, in spite of the warning of General Cavaignac,
he mounted the barricade at the entrance to the Faubourg St
Antoine, bearing a green branch as sign of peace. He had spoken
only a few words, however, when the insurgents, hearing some
shots, and fancying they were betrayed, opened fire upon the
national guard, and the archbishop fell, struck by a stray
bullet. He was removed to his palace, where he died on the
27th of June 1848. Next day the National Assembly issued a
decree expressing their great sorrow on account of his death;
and the public funeral on the 7th of July was one of the most
striking spectacles of its kind. The archbishop wrote several
treatises of considerable value, including an Essai sur les
hieroglyphes egyptiens (Paris, 1834), in which he showed that
Champollion's system was insufficient to explain the hieroglyphics.
See Ricard, Les grands eveques de l'eglise de
France au XIXe siecle (Lille, 1893); L. Alazard,
Denis-Auguste Affre, archeveque de Paris (Paris, 1905).
AFFREIGHTMENT (from ``freight,'' q.v.). Contract of
Affreightment is the expression usually employed to describe
the contract between a shipowner and some other person called
the freighter, by which the shipowner agrees to carry goods
of the freighter in his ship, or to give to the freighter the
use of the whole or part of the cargo-carrying space of the
ship for the carriage of his goods on a specified voyage or
voyages or for a specified time; the freighter on his part
agreeing to pay a specified price, called ``freight,'' for
the carriage of the goods or the use of the ship. A ship may
be let like a house to some person who takes possession and
control of it for a specified term. The person who hires a
ship in this way occupies during the currency of his term the
position of shipowner. The contract by which a ship is so
let may be called a charter-party; but it is not, properly
speaking, a contract of affreightment, and is mentioned here
only because it is necessary to remember the distinction
between a charter-party of this kind, which is sometimes
called a demise of the ship, and a charter-party which is a
form of contract of affreightment, as will hereinafter appear.
Rules of law.
The law with regard to the contract of affreightment is,
of course, a branch of the general law of contract. The
rights and obligations of the shipowner and the freighter
depend, as in the case of all parties to contracts, upon the
terms of the agreement entered into between them. The law,
however, interferes to some extent in regulating the effect
to be given to contracts. Certain contracts are forbidden
by the law, and being illegal are, therefore, incapable of
enforcement. The most important example of illegality in
the case of contracts of affreightment is when the contract
involves trading with an enemy. The law interferes again with
regard to the interpretation of the contract. The meaning
to be given to the words of the contract, or, in other words,
its construction, when a dispute arises about it, must be
determined by the judge or court. The result is, that certain
more or less common clauses in contracts of affreightment have
come before the courts for construction, and the decisions in
these cases are treated practically, though not perhaps quite
logically, as rules of law determining the sense to be put
upon certain forms of expression in common use in shipping
contracts. A third way in which the law interferes is
by laying down certain rules by which the rights of the
parties are to be regulated in the absence of any express
stipulation with regard to the matter dealt with by such
rules. This is done either by statutory enactment, as by
that part (Part VIII.) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1804 which
deals with the liability of shipowners; or by established
rules of the unwritten law, the ``common law'' as it is
called, as, for instance, the rule that the common carrier
is absolutely responsible for the safe delivery of the goods
carried, unless it is prevented by the act of God or the king's
enemies. These rules of law, whether common law or statute
law, regulating the obligations of carriers of goods by
sea, are of most importance in cases which are uncommon
though not unknown at the present day, in which there is an
affreightment without any written agreement of any kind. It
will, therefore, be convenient to consider first cases of this
kind where there is no express agreement, oral or written,
except as to the freight and destination of the goods, and
where, consequently, the rights and obligations of the parties
as to all other terms of carriage depend wholly upon the
rules of law, remembering always that these same rules apply
when there is a written contract, except in so far as they
are qualified or negatived by the terms of such contract.
In defaults of express contract.
The rules of the common or ancient customary law of England
with regard to the carriage of goods were no doubt first
considered by the courts and established with regard to the
carriage of goods by common carriers on land. These rules were
applied to common carriers by water, and it may now be taken
to be the general rule that shipowners who carry goods by sea
are by the English law subject to the liabilities of common
carriers. (See, as to the grounds and precise extent of this
doctrine, the judgments in Liver Alkali Company v. Johnson
(1874), L.R., 9 Ex. 338, and Nugent v. Smith (1876) 1
C.P.D. 423.) In practice goods are not often shipped without
a written contract or acknowledgment of the terms upon which
they are to be carried. For each separate consignment or
parcel of goods shipped a bill of lading is almost invariably
given, and when a whole cargo is agreed to be carried the
terms are set out in a document called a charter-party,
signed by or on behalf of the shipowner on the one part,
and the shipper, who is called the charterer, on the other
part. But at present we are considering the relations of
shipowner and shipper independently of any express contract,
as in a case when goods are shipped and received to be
carried to the place to which the ship is bound for a certain
freight, but without any further agreement as to the terms of
carriage. In such a case the rights of the parties depend
on the rules of law, or, which is much the same thing,
upon the warranties or promises which though not expressed
must, as the courts have held, be implied as arising from
the relation between the parties as shipper and carrier.
The obligations on the one side and the other may be defined
shortly to be as follows:--The shipper must not ship goods
of a nature or in a condition which he knows, or ought,
if he used reasonable care, to know to be dangerous to the
ship, or to other goods, unless the shipowner has notice
of or has sufficient opportunity to observe their dangerous
character. The shipper must be prepared, without notice from
the shipowner, to take delivery of his goods with reasonable
despatch on the arrival of the ship at the place of destination,
being ready there to discharge in some usual discharging
place. The shipper must pay the agreed freight, and will
not be entitled to claim delivery until the freight has been
paid. In other words, the shipowner has a lien on the
goods carried for the freight payable in respect of the
carriage. On the other hand, the obligation upon the shipowner
is first and foremost to deliver safely at their destination
the goods shipped, and this obligation is, by the common
law, subject to this exception only that the shipowner is
not liable for loss or damage caused by the act of God or
the king's enemies; but by statute (Merchant Shipping Act
1894, Part VIII.) it is further qualified to this extent
that the shipowner is not liable for loss, happening without
his actual fault or privity, by fire on board the ship, or
by the robbery or embezzlement of or making away with gold
or silver or jewellery, the true nature and value of which
have not been declared in writing at the time of shipment;
and, further, the shipowner is not laable for damage to or
loss of goods or merchandise beyond an aggregate amount, not
exceeding eight pounds per ton for each ton of the ship's
tonnage. The shipowner is bound by an implied undertaking,
or, in other words, is made responsible by the law as if
he had entered into an express undertaking: (1) that the
ship is seaworthy; (2) that she shall proceed upon the
voyage with reasonable despatch, and shall not deviate
without necessity from the usual course of the voyage.
It is not our purpose in this article to discuss minute or
doubtful questions; but in their general outline the obligations
of shipper and shipowner, where no terms of carriage have
been agreed, except as to the freight and destination of the
goods, are such as have been described above. The importance
of appreciating clearly this view of the relations of shipper
and shipowner arises from the fact that these fundamental rules
apply to all contracts of affreightment, whether by bill of
lading, charter-party or otherwise, except in so far as they
are modified or negatived by the express terms of the contract.
Bills of Lading. The document signed by the master or agent
for the shipowner, by which are acknowledged the shipment of a
parcel of goods and the terms upon which it is to be carried,
is called a Bill of Lading. Very many different forms of
bills of lading are used. For the purpose of illustration the
following form (from Mr Scrutton's book on Charter-parties
and Bills of Lading) has been selected as a sample:--
Shipped, in apparent good order and condition by in
and upon the good Vessel called the now lying in the port of
and bound for , with liberty to call at any ports in
any order, to sail without Pilots, and to tow and assist Vessels in
distress, and to deviate for the purpose of saving life or property;
and to be delivered in the like good order and condition at the
aforesaid port of unto or to his or their assigns, freight
and all other conditions as per Charter Party. The act of God, perils
of the sea, fire, barratry of the Master and Crew, enemies, pirates,
and thieves, arrests, and restraints of princes, rulers, and people,
collisions, stranding, and other accidents of navigation excepted,
even when occasioned by negligence, default, or error in judgment
of the Pilot, Master, Mariners, or other servanis of the Shipowners.
Ship not answerable for losses through explosion, bursting of
boilers, breakage of shafts, or any latent defect in the machinery or
hull, not resulting from want of due diligence by the Owners of the
Ship, or any of them, or by the Ship's Husband or Manager.
General Average payable according to York-Antwerp Rules.
In Witness whereof, the Master or Agent of the said Ship hath
affirmed to three Bills of Lading, all of this tenor and date, drawn
as first, second and third, one of which Bills being accomplished, the
others to stand void.
Dated in this day of 188 .
The bill of lading is an acknowledgment of the shipment of
goods in a named vessel for carriage to a specified destination
on terms set forth in the document. It is usually signed
by the master of the vessel, but very commonly by the agents
of the shipowner or sometimes of the charterers of the
vessel. A vessel may be employed by its owners to earn
freight in various ways: (1) It may be placed, as it is said,
on the berth as a general ship, to receive cargo from any
shippers who may desire to send goods to the port, or one of
the ports, to which the vessel is bound. The mate or chief
officer usually superintends the loading, and, as goods are
shipped, a mate's receipt is given as an acknowledgment of the
shipment. The mate's receipt is afterwards exchanged for
the bill of lading. In the case of a shipment by a general
ship the bill of lading is the evidence and memorandum of the
contract between the shipowner and the shipper. (2) A shipper
may, however, require the whole cargo space of the vessel to
carry, for example, a full cargo of grain. In such a case the
vessel will be chartered by the shipowner to the shipper. and
the contract will be the charter-party. Even in such a case
a bill or bills of lading will usually be given to enable the
shipper to deal more conveniently with the goods by way of sale or
otherwise. By the ancient custom of merchants recognized and
incorporated in the law, the bill of lading is a document of
title, representing the goods themselves, by the transfer of
which symbolical delivery of the goods may be made. But when
a cargo is shipped under a charter party, although bills of
lading may be given to the charterer, it is the charter-party,
and not the bills of lading, which constitutes the record
of the contract between the parties---of charter-parties
we shall treat below. (3) There is a third class of case
which is a combination of the two with which we have dealt
above. A vessel is very commonly chartered by her owner to
a charterer who has no intention to ship and does not ship
any cargo on his own account, but places the vessel on the
berth to receive cargo from shippers who ship under bills of
lading. The charterer receives the bill of lading freight
and pays the charter-party freight, his object being of
course to obtain a total bill of lading freight in excess
of the chartered freight, and so make a profit. The master,
although he usually remains the servant of the shipowner during
the term of the charter-party, acts nevertheless under the
directions and on behalf of the charterer in signing bills of
lading. The legal effect of this situation is that shippers
who ship goods under bills of lading without knowledge of
the terms of the charter-party are entitled to look to the
shipowner as the person responsible to them for the safe
carriage of their goods. This right depends essentially
on the fact that the master who signs the bills of lading,
although in doing so he is acting for the charterer, remains
nevertheless the servant of the shipowner, who is not
allowed to deny as against third persons, who do not know the
relations between the charterer and the shipowner, that his
servant, the master of the ship, has the ordinary authority
of a master to bind his owner by signing bills of lading.
The forms of bills of lading vary very much, and their clauses have
been the subject of judicial consideration and decision in a vast
number of reported cases. The essential particulars, or at all
events those common to all bihs of lading, may be stated as follows:
1. The name of the shipper.
2. The name of the ship.
3. The place of loading and destination of the ship.
4. A description of the goods shipped.
5. The place of delivery.
6. The persons to whom delivery is to be made.
7. The freight to be paid.'
8. The excepted perils.
9. The shipowner's lien.
The description of (1) the shipper and (2) the ship calls for no
remark. The (3) description of the voyage is important,
because there is, as we have already explained, an implied
undertaking by the shipowner in every contract of carriage
not unnecessarily to deviate from the ordinary route of the
voyage upon which the goods are received to be carried.
The consequences of a deviation are serious, inasmuch as
the shipowner is liable, not only for any loss or damage
which the shipper suffers in consequence of the deviation,
but for any loss of goods which occurs after the deviation,
even though such loss is caused by one of the excepted
perils. The only exception to this rule is that a deviation
may be made to save life, but not to save property. It is,
however, very usual to qualify the strictness of this implied
undertaking by introducing in the bill of lading certain
``liberties'' to deviate, as, for example, in the form given
above, ``liberty to call at any ports in any order, to tow and
assist vessels in distress, and to deviate for the purpose of
saving life and property.'' The nature and extent of the liberty
will depend on the words of the contract. The inclination
of English courts has been to construe clauses giving a
liberty to deviate somewhat strictly against the shipowner.
The (4) importance of the description of the goods shipped
and their condition is obvious, as the contract is to deliver
them as described and in the like good condition, subject, of
course, to the exceptions. It must, moreover, be noted that,
as against the master or person who has himself signed the
bill of lading, the statement therein of the goods shipped
is absolutely conclusive. But as against the shipowner,
unless he has himself signed the bill of lading, the statement
of the goods shipped is not conclusive. It is evidence as
against him that the goods described were shipped, but he is
allowed to rebut this evidence by proving, if he can, that the
goods mentioned, or some of them, were not in fact shipped.
As to (5) the place of delivery, very serious questions
frequently arise. Primarily, of course, the shipowner is
bound to deliver at the place named. Should he be prevented
by some obstacle or difficulty which is of a temporary nature,
the vessel must wait, and delivery must be made as soon as
possible. Where, however, the obstacle is permanent, or
at all events such as must cause unreasonable delay, having
regard to the nature of the adventure, the shipowner is
excused from delivery at the place named in the bill of
lading, provided the difficulty arises from an excepted
peril, or in consequence of delivery at the place named being
forbidden by the law of England, as may happen, for example,
in the case of a declaration of war between Great Britain and
the state in which the port named in the bill of lading is
situate. A party to a contract cannot be held liable for
breaking his contract if its performance has become illegal.
There may be other cases in which, from the circumstances of
the voyage and adventure, it must be inferred that the parties
intended the performance of the contract to be conditional on
the existence at the time of performance of a certain state of
things, the non-existence of which would render performance
impossible. For instance, if the port named in the bill of
lading became permanently closed and inaccessible to shipping
in consequence of an earthquake, it would probably be held that
the continued existence of the place named as a port was an
implied condition of the contract, and that the shipowner was
excused. Where, however, the performance of the contract
remains lawful, and is not excused by the express terms of
the contract, or by some implied condition, the shipowner
is liable for any loss or damage suffered by the shipper by
reason of his goods not being delivered at the named place,
even though such delivery has become impossible. There is
another reason why the precise description of the place of
delivery often becomes important. It is only on the arrival of
the ship at the place described as the place of delivery that
the obligation of the consignee of the goods to take delivery
commences. Delay involves considerable loss and expense to the
shipowner. The shipper or consignee is not responsible
for any delay which occurs before the ship has arrived
at the place of delivery described in the bill of lading.
(6) The goods may be deliverable by the terms of the bill
of lading to a named consignee, and to him only, but more
usually they are made deliverable to the ``order or assigns''
of the named consignee or of the shipper. If the goods are
made deliverable to order or assigns the bill of lading is a
negotiable instrument, or, in other words, the right to the
goods, and the rights and liabilities under the contract
contained in the bill of lading, may be transferred by indorsement
and delivery of the document. When an indorsement has once
been made by the shipper or consignee writing his name and
nothing more on the back of the bill of lading, the rights
in and under it may be transferred from hand to hand by mere
delivery. A bill of lading so indorsed is said to be indorsed
``in blank.'' But the shipper or consignee may restrict the
negotiability of the bill of lading by indorsing it not ``in
blank,'' but with a direction requiring delivery to be made
to a particular person or indorsee, or to his order. This
is called an indorsement ``in full.'' When an indorsement
has been made ``in full'' to a named indorsee or order, such
indorsee must again indorse ``in blank'' or ``in full'' to
effect a new transfer of the rights in the bill of lading.
(7) The amount or rate of freight payable is stated in the
bill of lading, either expressly, or, not uncommonly when
the freight under the bill of lading is the same as under the
charter-party, by reference to the charter-party. A common
form of such reference is ``freight and other conditions, as
per charter-party.'' It may here be mentioned that this form
of words does not incorporate in the contract under the bill
of lading all the terms and conditions of the charter-party,
but only those which apply to the person who is to take
delivery, and relate to matters ejusdem generis, or similar
to the payment of freight, such as demurrage and the like.
The conditions of the charter-party thus incorporated do not
include, for instance, the exceptions in the charter-party
so as to add them to the exceptions in the bill of
lading. Freight, unless it is otherwise provided by the
contract, is payable only on delivery of the goods at their
destination. If the voyage is interrupted and its completion
becomes impossible, the shipowner cannot claim payment
of freight even pro rata itineris. He loses his freight
altogether. This is so even when the completion of the
voyage is prevented by causes for which the shipowner is not
responsible, such as the act of God or the king's enemies, or
perils which are within the express exceptions in the bill of
lading. When the voyage is interrupted by accident, and indeed
in any case, the goods may, by agreement between the shipowner
and the consignee, be delivered at some place short of their
destination upon payment of a freight pro rata; that is to
say, proportional to the length of voyage accomplished, and
such an agreement may be implied in certain circumstances from
the conduct of the consignee in taking delivery before they
arrive at their destination. In all such cases it will be
a question of fact whether the goods were in fact delivered
upon the terms, express or implied, that freight pro rata
should be paid. As a rule such an agreement would not be
implied where the shipowner is unable or unwilling to forward
the goods to their destination, and the owner of the goods,
therefore, has no option but to take delivery where offered.
When the ship is disabled and cannot proceed, or she is
prevented by some obstacle from proceeding to the place of
delivery named in the bill of lading, and the shipowner is
unwilling or unable to forward the goods by another ship,
even though he may be excused for his failure to carry the
goods to their destination, he is not entitled to be paid
any part of the freight; and the consignee is entitled to
have the goods delivered to him either at the place where
the vessel has taken refuge in her disabled condition, or, if
the obstacle arises without disablement of the vessel, at the
place which is nearest and most reasonably convenient at the
time and in the circumstances when the further prosecution of
the voyage has to be abandoned. On the other hand, after the
goods have been shipped, so long as the shipowner is ready
and willing to carry the goods to their destination, or, if
the ship is disabled, to forward them to their destination by
some other ship without unreasonable delay, the owner of the
goods cannot require the goods to be delivered to him at any
place short of their destination without payment of the full
freight. Sometimes the freight, either wholly or in part,
is made payable in advance. If freight payable in advance
has become due, even though the ship is lost before it is
paid, it must, in the absence of some special provision to the
contrary, still be paid, and freight already paid in advance
does not become repayable because the goods do not reach their
destination. If, however, goods upon which freight has been
paid in advance are lost, and the shipowner is liable for their
loss, the amount of freight paid in advance must be taken into
account in assessing the damage recoverable from the shipowner.
(8) There is no part of the bill of lading which is of
greater practical importance or which demands more careful
consideration by shipowner and shipper alike than that which
sets forth the excepted perils: those perils, or in other words
causes of loss, for which the shipowner is to be exempt from
liability. By the common law, as we have seen, the exemption
of the carrier, apart from express contract, extended only to
loss by the act of God or the king's enemies. The expression
``act of God'' requires a word of explanation. It will be
sufficient to say that it is not synonymous with force majeure;
but it includes every loss by force majeure in which human
agency, by act or negligence, has had no part. The list of
excepted perils varies much in different forms of bills of
lading. In the older forms it usually included perils of the
seas, robbers and pirates, restraint of princes and rulers,
fire and barratry (that is, wilful wrongdoing) of the master and
crew. The list, however, has grown in modern times, and is
still growing; the tendency being to exempt the shipowner
from liability for all loss which does not arise from his own
personal default, or from the negligence of his managers or
agents in failing to provide a vessel seaworthy and fit for
the voyage at its commencement. It is important to point
out in this connexion that there are two duties which the
shipowner is always presumed to undertake, and which are
assumed to be unaffected and unqualified by the exceptions,
unless a contrary intention is very clearly expressed by the
terms of the contract. In the first place, he undertakes
absolutely that the ship in which the goods are shipped is
fit at the commencement of the voyage for the service to be
performed. If during the voyage loss arises even from dangers
of the seas or other excepted peril which would not have
occurred if the vessel had been seaworthy and fit for the
voyage at its commencement, the shipowner is not protected
by the exceptions, and is liable for the loss. In the second
place, there is an implied undertaking by the shipowner that
all reasonable care will be taken by himself, his servants and
agents, safely to carry and deliver at their destination the
goods received by him for carriage. Should loss or damage
occur during the voyage, though the direct cause of such loss
or damage be perils of the seas or other excepted peril, still
the shipowner cannot claim exemption under the exceptions,
if the shipper can prove that the loss or damage would not
have occurred but for the negligence of the master or crew,
or other servants of the shipowner. The shipowner, in other
words, is bound, with his servants, to use all reasonable care
to prevent loss by excepted perils and by any other cause.
Express stipulations.
It must not be supposed that even these primary obligations,
which are introduced into every contract of affreightment not
by express terms of the contract. It has now become common
form to stipulate that the shipowner shall not be liable for
any loss arising from the negligence of his servants, or that
he shall not be liable for loss by the excepted perils even
when brought about by the negligence of his servants. And with
regard to seaworthiness, it is not uncommon for the shipowner
to stipulate that he shall not be responsible for loss arising
even from the unseaworthiness of the ship on sailing, provided
that due care has Been taken by the owner and his agents and
servants to make the ship seaworthy at the commencement of the
voyage. There is indeed no rule of English law which prevents
a shipowner from exempting himself by the terms of the bill
of lading from liability for damage and loss of every kind,
whether arising from unseaworthiness or any other cause
whatsoever. In such a case the goods are carried at their
owner's risk, and if he desires protection he must obtain it by
insurance. In this respect the law of England permits greater
freedom of contract than is allowed by the law of some other
states. The owners, agents and masters of vessels loading
in the United States of America are forbidden by an act of
Congress, commonly called the Harter Act, passed in the
year 1893, to insert in their contracts of affreightment
any clause exempting the shipowner from liability for the
negligence of his servants; but it is at the rame time
enacted that, provided all reasonable skill and care has
been exercised by the shipowner to make the vessel seaworthy
and fit for the voyage at its commencement, the shipowner
shall not be liable for any loss caused by the negligence
of ihe master or crew in the navigation of the vessel, or by
perils of the sea or certain other causes set forth in the
act. It is now very usual to insert in the bills of lading
of British vessels loading in the United States a reference
to the Harter Act, incorporating its provisions so as
to make them terms and conditions of the bill of lading.
The difficulty of construing the terms of bills of lading
with regard to the excepted perils, often expressed in
obscure and inexact language, has given rise to much
litigation, the results of which are recorded in the law
reports. Where such difficulties arise the question must
be, What is the true and natural meaning of the language used
by the parties? This question is not governed by the general
rules which we have endeavouted to explain: but the words of
the contract must always be considered with reference to these
rules, which are founded upon the well-established customs
of merchants recognized and formulated by the courts of law.
(9) The bill of lading sometimes contains a clause as to
the shipowner's lien. Without any express provision for it
the shipowner has by the common law a lien for freight. If
it is desired to give the shipowner a lien for demurrage
(see below) or other charges, it must be expressly provided
for. The lien is the right of the shipowner to retain
the goods carried until payment has been made of the freight
or the demurrage, or other charge for which a lien has been
given. The lien may be waived, and is lost by delivery of the
goods, or by any dealing with the consignee which is inconsistent
with a right of the shipowner to retain possession of the
goods until payment has been made. The shipowner may preserve
his lien by landing the goods and retaining them in his own
warehouse, or by storing them in a public warehouse, subject
to the conditions required by the Merchant Shipping Act 1894.
Charter-parties.
Charter-parties are, as we have already explained, either
for a voyage or for a period of time. (1) A charter-party
for a voyage is a formal agreement made between the owner
of the vessel and the charterers by which it is agreed that
the vessel ``being tight, staunch and strong, and every way
fitted for the voyage,'' shall load at a certain named place
a full cargo either of goods of a specified description or
of general merchandise, and being so loaded shall proceed
with all possible despatch either to a specified place or
to a place to be named at a specified port of call, and
there deliver the cargo to the charterers or their assigns.
There are clauses which provide for the amount of freight
to be paid and the manner and time of payment; for the time,
usually described as lay days, to be allowed for loading
and discharging, and for the demurrage to be paid if the
vessel is detained beyond the lay days; usually also a clause
requiring ``the cargo to be brought to and taken from alongside
at merchant's risk and expense''; a clause that the master
shall sign bills of lading for the cargo shipped either at the
same rate of freight as is payable under the charter-party or
very commonly at any rate of freight (but in this case with
a stipulation that, if the total bill of lading freight is
less than the total freight payable under the charter-party,
the difference is to be paid by the charterers to the master
before the sailing of the vessel); and there is usually
vhat is called the cesser clause, by which the charterer's
liability under the charter-party is to cease on shipment
of the cargo, the shipowner taking a lien on the cargo for
freight, dead freight and demurrage. The charter-party is
made subject to exceptions similar to those which are found
in bills of lading. There are also usually clauses providing
for the commissions to be paid to the brokers on signing the
charter-party, the ``address'' commission to be paid to the
agents for the Vessel at the port of discharge, and other
matters of detail. The clauses in charter-parties vary, of
course, indefinitely, but the above is probably a sufficient
outline of the ordinary form of a charter-party for a voyage.
What has been said with regard to bills of lading as to the
voyage, the place of delivery, the exceptions and excepted
perils, and the liability of the shioowner and his lien applies
equally to charter-parties. lt may be desirable to add a few
words on demurrage, dead Freight, and on the cesser clause.
Demurrage is, properly speaking, a fixed sum per day or
per hour agreed to be paid by the charterer for any time
during which the vessel is detained in loading or discharging
over and above the time allowed, which is, as we have said,
usually described as the lay days. Sometimes the number of
days during which the vessel may be kept on demurrage at the
agreed rate is fixed by the charter-party. If no demurrage
is provided for by the charter-party, and the vessel is not
loading or discharging beyond the lay days, the shipowner
is entitled to claim damages in respect of the loss which
he has suffered by the detention of his ship; or, if the
vessel is detained beyond the fixed number of demurrage
days, damages for detention will be recoverable. Sometimes
there is no time fixed by the charter-party for loading or
discharging. The obligation in such cases is to load or
discharge with all despatch that is possible and reasonable
in the circumstances; and if the loading or discharging is
not done with such reasonable despatch, the shipowner will
be entitled to claim damages for detention of his ship. The
rate of demurrage (if any) will generally be accepted as the
measure of the damages for detention, but is not necessarily
the true measure. When the claim is for detention and
not demurrage the actual loss is recoverable, which may be
more or may be less than the agreed rate of demurrage. The
contract usually provides that Sundays and holidays shall
be excepted in counting the lay days, but unless expressly
stipulated this exception does not apply to the computation
of the period of detention after the lay days have expired.
Dead freight is the name gaven to the amount of freight
lost, and therefore recoverable by the shipowner from the
charterer as damages if a full and complete cargo is not
loaded in accordance with the terms of the charter-party.
The cesser clause has come into common use because very
frequently the charterers are not personally interested in
the cargo shipped. They may be agents merely, or they may
have chartered the vessel as a speculation to make a profit
upon the bill of lading freight. The effect of the clause is
that when the charterers have shipped a full cargo they have
fulfilled all their obligations, the shipowner discharging them
from all further liability and taking instead a lien on the
cargo for payment of all freight, demurrage or dead freight
that may be payable to him. It has become an established
rule for the construction of the cesser clause that, if
the language used will permit it, the cesser of liability is
assumed to be co-extensive only with the lien given to the
shipowner; or, in other words, the charterers are released
from those liabilities only for which a lien is given to the
shipowner. The shipowner is further secured by the stipulation
already referred to, that if the total freight payable under
the bills of lading is less than the full chartered freight
the difference shall be paid to the shipowner before the vessel
sails. A difficulty which sometimes arises, notwithstanding
these precautions, is that although an ample lien is given
by the charter-party, the terms of the bills of lading may be
insufficient to preserve the same extensive lien as against
the holder of the bills of lading. The shippers under the
bills of lading, if they are not the charterers, are not
liable for the chartered freight, but only for the bill
of lading freight; and unless the bill of lading expressly
reserves it, they are not subject to a lien for the chartered
freight. The master may guard against this difficulty by
refusing to sign bills of lading which do not preserve the
shipowner's lien for his full chartered freight. But he is
often put into a difficulty by a somewhat improvident clause
in the charter-party requiring him to sign bills of lading
as presented. See Kruger v. Moel Tryvan, 1907 A. C. 272.
(2) A time charter-party is a contract between the shipowner
and charterers, by which the shipowner agrees to let and
the charterers to hire the vessel for a specified term for
employment, either generally in any lawful trade or upon
voyages within certain limits. A place is usually named
at which the vessel is to be re-delivered to the owners at
the end of the term, and the freight is payable until such
re-delivery; the owner almost always pays the wages of the
master and crew, and the charterers provide coals and pay
port charges; the freight is usually fixed at a certain rate
per gross register ton per month, and made payable monthly
in advance, and provision is made for suspension of hire in
certain cases if the vessel is disabled; the master, though he
usually is and remains the servant of the owner, is required
to obey the orders of the charterers as regards the employment
of the vessel, they agreeing to indemnify the owners from all
liability to which they may be exposed by the master signing
bills of lading or otherwise complying with the orders of the
charterers; and the contract is made subject to exceptions
similar to those in bills of lading and voyage charter-parties.
This is the general outline of the ordinary form of a time
charter-party, but the forms and their clauses vary, of
course, very much, according to the circumstances of each case.
It is apparent that under a time charter-party the shipowner
to a large extent parts with the control of his ship, which
is employed within certain limits according to the wish and
directions, and for the purposes and profit of, the charterers.
But, as we have already explained at the beginning of this
article, the shipowner continues in possession of his vessel
by his servant the master, who remains responsible to his
owner for the safety and proper navigation of the ship. The
result of this, as has been already pointed out, is that the
holder of a bill of lading signed by the master, if he has
taken the bill of lading without knowledge of the terms of
the time charter-party, may hold the owner responsible for
the due performance of the contract signed by the master in
the ordinary course of his duties, and within his ostensible
authority as servant of the shipowner, although in fact in
signing the bill of lading the master was acting as agent
for and at the direction of the time charterer, and not the
shipowner. In the language of the ordinary time charter-party
the ship is let to the charterers; but there is no true
demise, because, as we have pointed out, the vessel remains
in the possession of the shipowner, the charterer enjoying
the advantages and control of its employment. Where the
possession of a ship is given up to a hirer, who appoints
his own master and crew, different considerations apply; but
though the instrument by which the ship is let may be called a
charter-party, it is not truly a contract of affreightment.
Customary rights.
There are certain rights and obligations arising out of the
relationship of shipowner and cargo-owner in circumstances
of extraordinary peril or urgency in the course of a voyage,
which, though not strictly contractual, are well established
by the customs of merchants and recognized by the law. It is
obvious that, when a ship carrying a cargo is in the course
of a voyage, the master to some extent represents the owners
of both ship and cargo. In cases of emergency it may be
necessary that the master should, without waiting for authority
or instructions, incur expense or make sacrifices as agent
not only of his employer, the shipowner, but also of the
cargo-owner. Ship and cargo may be in peril, and it may
be necessary for the safety of both to put into a port of
refuge. There it may be necessary to repair the ship, and to
land and warehouse, and afterwards re-ship the cargo. For these
purposes the master will be obliged to incur expense, of which
some part, such as the cost of repairing the ship, will be for
the benefit of the shipowner; part, such as the warehousing
expenses, will be for the benefit of the cargo-owner; and part,
such as the port charges incurred in order to enter the port
of refuge, are for the common benefit and safety of ship and
cargo. Again, in a storm at sea, it may be necessary for the
safety of ship and cargo to cut away a mast or to jettison,
that is to say, throw overboard part of the cargo. In such
a case the master, acting for the shipowner or cargo-owner,
as the case may be, makes a sacrifice of part of the ship or
part of the cargo, in either case for the purpose of saving
ship and cargo from a danger common to both. Voluntary
sacrifices so made and extraordinary expenses incurred for
the common safety are called general average (see AVERAGE)
sacrifices and expenses, and are made good to the person who
has made the sacrifice or incurred the expense by a general
average contribution, which is recoverable from the owners of
the property saved in proportion to its value, or, in other
words, each contributes rateably according to the benefit
received. The law regulating the rights of the parties with
regard to such contribution is called the law of General
Average. It must, however, be remembered that the owner of the
cargo is entitled under the contract of affreightment to the
ordinary service of the ship and crew for the safe carriage of
the cargo to its destination, and the shipowner is bound to pay
all ordinary expenses incurred for the purpose of the voyage.
He must also bear all losses arising from damage to the ship by
accidents. But when extraordinary expense has been incurred by
the shipowner for the safety of the cargo, he can recover such
expense from the owner of the cargo as a special charge on
cargo; or when an extraordinary expense has been incurred or a
voluntary sacrifice made by the shipowner to save the ship and
cargo from a peril common to both, he may require the owner of
cargo to contribute in general average to make good the loss.
See Carver, Carriage by Sea (London, 1905); Scrutton,
Charter-parties and Bills of Lading (London, 1904). (W.)
AFGHANISTAN, a country of Central Asia. Estimated area
245,000 sq. m. (including Badakshan and Kafiristan). Pop. about
5,000,000. It is bounded on the N. by Russian Turkestan,
on the W. by Persia, and on the E. and S. by Kashmir and the
independent tribes of the North-West Frontier of India and
Baluchistan. The chief importance of Afghanistan in modern
days is due to its position as a ``buffer state'' intervening
between the two great empires of Asiatic Russia and British
India. During the last quarter of the 19th century our
knowledge of the country was greatly increased, and its
boundaries on the N., E. and S. were strictly delimited.
The second Afghan war of 1878-80 afforded an opportunity for
the extension of wide geographical surveys on a scientific
basis. The Russian-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-1886
resulted in the delimitation and mapping of the northern
frontier. The Durand agreement of 1893 led to the partition of
the Pathan tribes on the southern and eastern frontiers. The Pamir
Commission of 1895 settled its north-eastern border. Finally the
Perso-Baluch Commission of 1904-1905 defined its western face.
Beginning with the Persian border at Zulfikar on the Hari Rud
river, the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia follows
a line roughly parallel to the course of the Paropamisus,
and about 35 m. to the north of it, till it strikes the
Kushk river in Jamshidi territory at a point which was
once known as Chahil Dukteran, but is now the Russian post
Kushkinski, and the terminus of a branch railway from Merv.
Kushkinski is about 20 m. below the old Jamshidi settlement
of Kushk, which is the capital of Badghis. The settlement
and the post originally called Kushk must not be confused
together. From Kushkinski the boundary runs north-east,
crossing the Murghab river near Maruchak (which is an Afghan
fortress), and thence passes north-east through the hills of
the Chul, and the undulating deserts of the Aleli Turkmans,
to the Oxus, leaving the valleys of Charshamba and of Andkhui
(to which it runs approximately parallel) within Afghan
limits. These valleys denote the limits of cultivation in
this direction. Throughout all this region the boundary is
generally of an artificial character, marked by pillars, but
it is here and there indicated by natural features forming
local lines of water-parting or water-course. The boundary
meets the Oxus at Khamiab at the western extremity of the
cultivated district of Khwaja Salar, and from that point to
the eastern end of Lake Victoria in the Pamirs the main channel
of the Oxus river forms the northern limits of Afghanistan.
(See OXUS.) Eastwards from Lake Victoria the frontier
line was determined by the Pamir Boundary Commission of
1895. A part of the little Pamir is included in Afghan
territory, but the boundary crosses this Pamir before the great
bend northwards of the Aksu takes place, and, passing over a
series of crags and untraversable mountain ridges, is lost on
the Chinese frontier in the snowfields of Sarikol. Bending
back westwards upon itself, the line of Afghan frontier now
follows the water-parting of the Hindu Kush; and as the Hindu
Kush absolutely overhangs the Oxus nearly opposite Ishkashim,
it follows that, at this point, Afghanistan is about 10 m.
wide. Thus a small and highly elevated portion of the state
extends eastwards from its extreme north-eastern corner, and
is attached to the great Afghan quadrilateral by the thin
link of the Panja valley. These narrow limits (called Wakhan)
include the lofty spurs of the northern flank of the Hindu
Kush, an impassable barrier at this point, where the glacial
passes reach 19,000 ft. in altitude, and the enclosing peaks
24,000 ft. The backbone or main water-divide of the Hindu
Kush continues to form the boundary between Afghanistan and
those semi-independent native states which fringe Kashmir
in this mountain region, until it reaches Kafiristan. From
near the Dorah pass (14,800 ft.), which connects Chitral with
the Panja (or Oxus) river, a long, straight, snow-clad spur
reaches southwards, which divides the Kafiristan valley of
Bashgol from that of Chitral, and this continues to denote
the eastern limits of Afghanistan till it nearly touches the
Chitral river opposite the village of Arnawai, 45 m. south of
Chitral. Here the Bashgol and Chitral valleys unite and the
boundary passes to the water-divide east of the Chitral river,
after crossing it by a spur which leaves the insignificant
Arnawai valley to the north; along this water-divide it extends
to a point nearly opposite the quaint old town of Pashat in
the Kunar valley (the Chitral river has become the Kunar in
its course southwards), and then stretches away in an uneven
and undefined line, dividing certain sections of the Mohmands
from each other by hypothetical landmarks, till it strikes
the Kabul river near Palosi. Thence following a course nearly
due south, it reaches Landi Kotal. From the abutment of
the Hindu Kush on the Sarikol in the Pamir regions to Landi
Kotal, and throughout its eastern and southern limits, the
boundary of Alghanistan touches districts which were brought
under British political control with the formation of the
North-West Frontier Provinces of India in 1901. From the
neighbourhood of Laudi Kotal the boundary is carried to the
Safed Roh overlooking the Afridi Tirah, and then, rounding
off the cultivated portidins of the Kurram valley below the
Peiwar, it crosses the Kaitu and passes to the upper reaches
of the Tochi. Crossing these again, it is continued on
the west of Waziristan, finally striking the Gomal river at
Domandi. South of the Gomal it separates the interests of
Afghanistan from those of Baluchistan, which here adjoins the
North-West Frontier Province. From Domandi (the junction of
the Kundar river with the Gomal) the Afghan boundary marches
with that of Baluchistan. (See BALUCHISTAN.) It is carried
to the south-west on a line which is largely defined by the
channels of the Kundar and the Kadanai to a point beyond
the Sind-Peshin terminal station of New Chaman, west of
the Khojak range, and then drops southward to Shorawak and
Nushki. From Nushki it crosses the Helmund desert, touching
the crest of a well-defined mountain watershed for a great
part of the way, and, leaving Chagai to Baluchistan, it
strikes nearly west to the Persian frontier, and joins it on
the Koh-i-Malik Siah mountain, south of Seistan. Two points
of this part of the Afghan boundary are notable. It leaves
some of the most fanatical of the Durani Afghan people on the
Baluch side of the frontier in the Toba district, north of
the Quetta-Chaman line of railway; and it passes 50 m. south
of the Helmund riven enclosing within Afghanistan the only
approach to Seistan from India which is available during the
seasons of Helmund overflow. Between Afghanistan and Persia
the boundary was defined by Sir F. Goldsmid's Commission
in 1872 from the Mahk-Siah-Koh to the Helmund Lagoons, and
rectified by the Commission under Sir Henry Macmahon in
1903-1905. Beyond these lagoons to Hashtadan it is still
indefinite. The eastern limits of Hashtadan had been previously
fixed as far north as the Hari Rud river at Toman Agha. From
this point to Zulfikar the Hari Rud is itself the boundary.
Afghan provinces.
Within the limits of this boundary Afghanistan comprises
four main provinces, Northern Afghanistan or Kabul, Southern
Afghanistan or Kandahar, Herat and Afghan Turkestan, together
with the minor dependencies of the Ghilzai and Hazara
Highlands, Ghazni, Jalalabad and Kafiristan. All these are
described in separate articles. The kingdom of Kabul is the
historic Afghanistan; the link which unites it to Kandahar,
Herat and the other outlying provinces having been frequently
broken and again restored by amirs of sufficient strength and
capability. The Herat province is largely Persian, while
Afghan Turkestan is chiefly Usbeg; and in neither is
the sentiment of loyalty to the central government very
strong. The bond is geographical and political rather than
racial. The geographical divisions of the country are created
by the basins of its chief rivers, the Kabul, the Helmund,
the Hari Rud and the Oxus. The Kabul river drains Northern
Afghanistan, the Hari Rud the province of Herat, and the Oxus
that of Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan is largely a country
of mountains and deserts; but there are wide tracts of highly
irrigated and most productive country where fruit is grown in
such abundance as to become an important item in the export
trade. The Afghans are expert agriculturists and make profitable
use of all the natural sources of water-supply. As practical
irrigation engineers they are only rivalled by the Chinese.
Mountain systems.
The dominant mountain system of Afghanistan is the Hindu
Kush, and that extension westwards of its water-divide which
reindicated by the Koh-i-Baba to the north-west of Kabul,
and by the Firozkhoi plateau (Karjistan), which merges still
farther to the west by gentle gradients into the Paropamisus,
and which may be traced across the Hari Rud to Mashad.
The culminating peaks of the Koh-i-Baba overlooking the sources
of the Hari Rud, the Helmund, the Kunduz and the Kabul very
nearly reach 17,000 ft. in height (Shah Fuladi, the highest,
is 16,870), and from them to the south-west long spurs divide
the upper tributaries of the Helmund, and separate its basin
from that of the Farah Rud. These spurs retain a considerable
altitude, for they are marked by peaks exceeding 11,000
ft. They sweep in a broad band of roughly parallel ranges to
the south-west, preserving their general direction till they
abut on the Great Registan desert to the west of Kandahar,
where they terminate in a series of detached and broken
anticlinals whose sides are swept by a sea of encroaching
sand. The long, straight, level-backed ridges which divide
the Argandab, the Tarnak and Arghastan valleys, and flank the
route from Kandaharto Ghazni. determining the direction of
that route, are outliers of this system, which geographically
includes the Khojak, or Kwaja Amran, range in Baluchistan.
North of the main water-parting of Afghanistan the broad synclinal
plateau into which the Hindu Kush is merged is traversed by
the gorges of the Saighan, Bamian and Kamard tributaries of the
Kunduz, and farther to the west by the Band-i-Amir or Balkh
river. Between the debouchment of the Upper Murghab from
the Firozkhoi uplands into the comparatively low level of
the valley above Bala Murghab, extending eastwards in a
nearly straight line to the upper sources of the Shibarghan
stream, the Band-i-Turkestan range forms the northern ridge
between the plateau and the sand formations of the Chul. lt
is a level, straight-backed line of sombre mountain ridge,
from the crest of which, as from a wall, the extraordinary
configuration of that immense loess deposit called the Chul
can be seen stretching away northwards to the Oxus--ridge
upon ridge, wave upon wave, like a vast yellow-grey sea of
storm-twisted billows. The Band-i-Turkestan anticlinal may
be traced eastwards of the Balkh-ab (the Band-i-Amir) within
the folds of the Kara Koh to the Kunduz, and beyond; but
the Kara Koh does not mark the northern wall of the great
plateau nor overlook the sands of the Oxus plain, as does the
Band-i-Turkestan. Here there intervenes a second wide synclinal
plateau, of which the northern edge is defined n1y the
fiat outlines of the Elburz to the south of Mazar-itsharif,
and immediately at the foot of this range lie the alluvial
plains of Mazar and Tashkurghan. Opposite Tashkurghan the
Oxus plain narrows to a short 25 m. On the south this great
band of roughly undulatine central plateau is bounded by the
Koh-i-Baba, to the west of Kabul, and by the Hindu Kush to
the north and north-east of that city. Thus the main routes
from Kabul to Afghan Turkestan must cross either one or
other of these ranges, and must traverse one or other of the
terrific defiles which have been carved out of them by the
upoer tributaries of the rivers running northwards towards the
Oxus. Probably in no country in the world are there gathered
together within comparatively narrow limits so many clean-cut
waterways, measuring thousands of feet in depth, affording
such a stupendous system of narrow roadways through the hills.
After the Hindu Kush and the Turkestan mountains, that range
which divides Ningrahar (or the valley of ialalabad) from
Kurram and the Afridi Tirah, and is called Safed Koh (also
the name of the range south of the Hari Rud), is the most
important, as it is the most impressive, in Afghanistan.
The highest peak of the Safed Koh, Sikaram, is 15,600 ft. above
sea-level. From this central dominating peak it falls gently
towards the west, and gradually subsides in long spurs,
reaching to within a few miles of Kabul and barring the road
from Kabul to Ghazni. At a point which is not far east of
the Kabul meridian an offshoot is directed southwards, which
becomes the water-parting between the Kurram and the Logar at
Shutargardan, and can be traced to a connexion with the great
watershed of the frontier dividing the Indus basin from that
of the Helmund. This main watershed retains its high altitude
far to the south. There are peaks measuring over 12,000
ft. on the divide between the Tochi and the Ghazni plains.
So far as we know at present the geological history of Afghanistan
differs widely from that of India. When, somewhere at the
commencement of the Cretaceous period, the peninsula of India
was connected by land with Madagascar and Southern Africa, all
Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Persia formed part of an area
which was not continuously below sea-level, but exhibited
alternations of land and sea. The end of the Cretaceous
period saw the beginning of a series of great earth movements
ushered in by volcanic eruptions on a scale such as the earth
has never since witnessed, which resulted in the upheaval
of the Himalayas by a process of crushing and folding of the
sedimentary rocks till marine fossils were forced to an altitude
of 20,000 ft. above the sea. It was not till the Tertiary
age, and even late in that age, that much of the land area of
Afghanistan was raised above the sea-level. Then the ocean
gradually retired into the great Central Asian depressions.
Everywhere there have been great and constant changes of
level since that period, and the process of flexure and the
formation of anticlinals traversing the northern districts of
Afghanistan is a process which is still in action. So rapid
has been the land elevation of Central Afghanistan that the
erosive action of rivers has not been nble to keep pace with
that of upheaval; and the result all through Afghanistan (but
specially marked in the great central highlands between Kabul
and Herat) is the formation of those immensely deep gorges
and defiles which are locally known as daras. One of these,
in the Astarab, to the south-east of Maimana, is but 30 yds.
wide, and is enclosed between perpendicular limestone cliffs
1500 ft. high. C. L. Griesbach considers that the general
outline of the land configuration has remained much the same
since Pliocene times, and that the force which brought about
the wrinkling of the older deposits still continues to add
fold on fold. The highlands which shut off the Turkestan
provinces from Southern Afghanistan have afforded the best
opportunities for geological investigation, and as might
be expected from their geographical position, the general
result of the examination of exposed sections leads to
the identification of geoloeical affinity with Himalayan,
Indian and Persian regions. The general configuration
of the Turkestan highlands has been already indicated.
Against the last great fold which terminates this mountain
area northwards are ranged the Tertiaries and recent
deposits. North of Maimana they form low undulating loess
hills, in which most of the Band-i-Turkestan drainage is
lost. This wide-spreading loess area, formed partly of
wind-blown sand and partly of detritus from the mountains, is
known as Chul, and merges into the great plains south of the
Oxus river, a great part of which is covered with modern aerial
deposits. Beneath this Chul formation the older beds of
the outer and Turkestan ranges dip and pass to an irregular
outcrop near the banks of the Oxus. Between the Oxus and the
hills there has already been formed a rise or flexure in the
ground, which extends more or less parallel to the northern
edge of the hills, and, shuttinr in the cultivated area of the
plains, arrests all tributaries seeking to effect a junction
with the Oxus from the south, and leads to the formation
of marshes and swamps. This appears to be the beginning of
a new anticlinal which has altered the levels of the Balkh
plain, and is indicative of those elevating processes which
may have been effective within historic times in changing
the climate and the agricultural prospects of this part
of Central Asia. The Oxus itself is steadily encroaching
on its right banks and depositing detritus on the left.
No fresh discoveries of minerals likely to be of hich
economic value to Afghanistan have been made of late
years. Such as are known and worked at present have been
worked from very ancient times, and their capacity is not
likely to develop greatly under the Kabul government. The
most important feature in this connexion which was noted
by the geologist of the Russo-Afghan Commission is the
existence of vast coal beds in northern Afghanistan. In 1903
some coal mines were discovered in the Jagdalak districts.
There are no glaciers now to be found in Afghan Turkestan; but
evidences of their recent existence are abundant. The great
boulder bed terraces in some of the valleys of the northern
slopes of the Ferozkhoi plateau are probably of glacial
origin. In the mountains west of Kabul glaciers have
retired, leaving the moraines perfectly undisturbed. They
are probably contemporary with the older alluvia. (T. H. H.*)
Rocks.
The oldest rocks which have yet been identified 1 in Afghanistan
occur along the axis of the main watershed, and have been
referred to the Carboniferous. At Robat-i-Pai near Herat, for
example, there is a dark Productus limestone which seems
to be identical with the Productus limestone of the Central
Himalayas. These beds are conformably succeeded, along the
Central Asian watershed, by a continuous series of strata
which apparently represent the Permian, Trias and Jurassic of
Europe. They consist of marine beds alternating with
freshwater and littoral deposits, together with plant beds
and coal-scarns of considerable thickness. The lowest beds
of this series, which from their position may belong either
to the Permian or to the upper part of the Carboniferous,
have yielded no recognizable fossils; but they include a
conglomerate which closely resembles the boulder bed near the
base of the Talchir series in India. The Upper Trias has been
definitely identified by the occurrence of Halobia and other
fossils; while in the higher beds of the series marine forms
belonging to the middle and upper Jurassic have been found.
The plant beds occur at several horizons, and among the
remains which have been found in them are several forms
which occur also in the Gondwana beds of India. There can
be no doubt that the series as a whole is the equivalent
of the Gondwana system, and when the country has been
more closely examined the association of marine fossils
with Gondwana plants will be of the greatest value in
determining the precise homotaxis of the Indian deposits.
The Jurassic beds are followed, generally with perfect
conformity, by the Cretaceous, which covers a large part of
Afghan Turkestan and probably forms the greater part of the
ranges which run south and south-west from the principal
watershed. The lowest beds consist of red grits which contain
Neocomian fossils, while the middle and upper Cretaceous
consist chiefly of limestone and chalk. The entire system
may be represented in the west, but in the Herat province
and in Afghan Turkestan the middle Cretaceous seems to be
absent, and it is probable that, as in other regions, the
upper Cretaceous covers a much wider area than the lower
beds. Tertiary and recent deposits are widely spread, filling
most of the valleys and covering the plains of the Helmund.
Eocene beds have not yet been proved to exist; but this is
probably owing to the imperfect knowledge of the country, for
the formation is known in Persia, Baluchistan and the Suliman
Hills. The lower part of the Miocene is marine in Herat
and Afghan Turkestan; but the upper Miocene is usually of
freshwater or estuarine origin. in Afghanistan, as in other
regions near the great Eurasian system of folds, the Miocene
includes extensive deposits of gypsum and salt. It was during
this period that the forces which finally raised the country
above the level of the sea began to take effect. The Pliocene
consists entirely of freshwater and terrestrial deposits, which
were probably laid down at the foot of the rising hills and
on the floors of the intervening valleys. As the elevation
continued, they were sometimes involved in the folding to
which the mountains owe their origin. During this period the
gradual desiccation of the country continued, and wind-blown
deposits, such as the loess, began to make their appearance.
Although volcanic cones are known both in Persia and in
Baluchistan, none have yet been described in Afghanistan
itself. There is, however, ample evidence that at several
distinct geological periods the region has been the seat
of great volcanic activity. According to C. L. Griesbach,
basic volcanic rocks are interbedded with the lowest part of
the plant-bearing series, and enormous outbursts took place
during the Neocomian period. But the most important igneous
masses are the great intrusions of syenitic granite and of
basic rock which penetrate the Cretaceous beds. These are
probably of Eocene or of late Cretaceous age. (P. LA.)
Omitting the group of northern routes to India from Central
Asia, which pass between Kashmir and Afghanistan through
the defiles of Chitral and of the Indus (see HINDU KUSH),
the highways of Afghanistan may be classed under two heads:
(1) Foreign trade routes, and (2) Internal communications.
The most important commercially are those which connect the Oxus
regions and the Central Asian khanates with Kabul, and those
which lead from Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar to the plains of India.
Kabul is linked with Afghan Turkestan and Badakshan by three
main lines of communication across the Koh-i-Baba and the Hindu
Kush. One of these routes follows the Balkh river to its
head from Tahshkurghan, and then, preserving a high general
level of 8600 to 9000 ft., it passes over the water-divides
separating the upper tributaries of the Kunduz river,
and drops into the valley formed by another tributary at
Bamian. From Bamian it passes over the central mountain chain
to Kabul either by the well-known Dasses of Irak (marking
the water-divide of the Koh-i-Baba) and of Unai (marking the
summit of the Sanglakh, a branch of the Hindu Kush), or else,
turning eastwards, it crosses into the Ghorband valley by the
Shibar, a pass which is considerably lower than the Irak and
is very seldom snowbound. From the foot of the Unai pass it
follows the Kabul river, and from the foot of the Shibar it
follows the circuitous route which is offered by the drainage
of the Ghorband valley to Charikar, and thence southwards to
Kabul. The main points on this route are Haibak, Bajgah and
Bamian. It is full of awkward grades and minor passes, but
it does not maintain a high level generally, no pass (if the
Shibar route be adopted) much exceeding 10,000 ft. That this
has for centuries been regarded as the main route northward
from Kabul, the Buddhist relics of Bamian and Haibak bear
silent witness; but it may be doubted whether Abdur Rahman's
talent for roadmaking has not opened out better alternative
lines. One of his roads connects Haibak with the Ghorband
valley by the Chahardar pass across the Hindu Kush. The pass
is high (nearly 14,000 ft.), but the road is excellently well
laid out, and the route, which, south of Haibak, traverses a
corner of the Ghori and Baghlan districts of Badakshan, is more
direct. A third route also passes through Badakshan, and
connects Kunduz with Charikar by the Khawak pass and Panjshir
river. The latter joins the Ghorband close to Charikar. The
Khawak (11,600 ft.) is not a high pass; the grades are easy
and the snowfall usually light. This high road is stated (on
Afghan authority) to be kept open for khafila traffic all the
year round by the employment of forced labour for clearing
snow. It is a recently developed route and one of great
imoortance to Kabul, both strategically and commercially.
Routes that pass between the mountain barriers of the frontier
between Peshawar and the Gomal occur at intervals along the
western border, and in the northern section of the Indian
frontier they are all well marked. The Khyber, Kurram and
Tochi are the best known, inasmuch as all these lines of
advance into Afghanistan are held by British troops or Indian
levies. But the Bara valley route into the heart of the Afridi
Tirah is not to be altogether overlooked, although it is not
a trade route of any importance. Between Kabul and Jalalabad
there are two roads, one by the Uataband pass, and the other
and more difficult by the Khurd-Kabul and Iagdalak passes, the
latter being the scene of the massacre of a British brigade in
1842. Between Jalalabad and Peshawar is the Khyber pass
(q.v..) The Khyber was not in ancient times the main route
of advance from Kabul to Peshawar. From Kabul the old route
followed the Kabul river through the valley of Laghman (or
Lamghan, as the Afghans call it) over a gentle water-parting
into the Kunar valley, leaving Ningrahar and Jalalabad to the
south. From the Kunar it crossed into Bajour by one of
several open and comparatively easy passes, and from Bajour
descended into India either by the Malakand or some other
contiguous frontier gateway to the plains of Peshawar. 8600
and 10,800 ft. respectively) across the southern extensions of
the Safed Koh range, and has never been a great trade route,
however suitable as an alternative military line of advance.
Trade does not extend largely between Afghanistan and India
by the Tochi route, being locally confined to the valley
and the districts at its head, yet this is the shortest and
most direct route between Ghazni and the frontier, and in
the palmy days of Ghazni miding was the road by which the
great robber Mahmud occasionally descended on to the Indus
plains. Traces of his raiding and roadmakina are still
visible, but it is certain that he made use of the more direct
route to Peshawar far more frequently than he did of the
Tochi. The exact nature of the connexion between the head
of the Tochi and the Ghazni plain is still unknown to us.
The Gomal is the great central trade route between Afvhanistan
and India; and the position, which is held by a tribal post at
Wana, will do much to ensure its continued popularity. The
Gomal involves no passes of any great difficulty, although
it is impossible to follow the actual course of the river
on account of the narrow defiles which have been cut through
the recent conglomerate beds which flank the plains of the
Indus. It has been carefully surveyed for a possible railway
alignment; and an excellent road now connects Tank (at
its foot) with the Zhob line of communications to Quetta,
and with Wana on the southern flank of Waziristan. The
Gomal route is of immense importance, both as a commercial
and strategic line, and in both particulars is of far
greater significance than either the Kurram or the Tochi.
(2) Of the interior lines of communication, those which
connect the great cities of Afghanistan, Herat, Kabul and
Kandahar, are obviously the most important. Between Kabul
and Herat there is no ``royal'' road, the existing route
passing over the frequently snow-bound wastes that lie below
the southern flank of the great Koh-i-Baba into the upper
valleys of the Hari Rud tributaries. lt is a waste, elevated,
desolate region that the route traverses, and the road itself
is only open at certain seasons of the year. Between Kabul
and Kandahar exists the well-known and oft-traversed route by
Ghazni and Kalat-i-Ghilzai. There is but one insignificant
water-parting--or kotal--a little to the north of Ghazni;
and the road, although unmade, may be considered equal to any
road of its length in Europe for military purposes. Berween
Kandahar and Herat there is the recognized trade route which
crosses the Helmund at Girishk and passes through Farahand
Sabzawar. It includes about 360 miles of easy road, with
spaces where water is scarce. There is not a pass of any
great importance, nor a river of any great difficulty, to be
encountered from end to end, but the route is flanked on the
north between Kandahar and Girishk by the Zamindawar hills,
containing the most truculent and fanatical clans of all the
Southern Afghan tribes. Little need be said of the 65 m. of
route between Kandahar and the Baluchistan frontier at New
Chaman. It is on the whole a route across open plains and
hard, stony ``dasht''---a route which would offer no great
difficulties to that railway extension from1 Olhaman which
has so long been contemplated. A very considerable trade
now passes along this route to India, in spite of almost
prohibitive imposts; but the trade does not follow the railway
from New Chaman to the eastern foot of the Khojak. Long
strings of camels may still be seen from the train windows
patiently treading their slow way over the Khoiak pass
to Kila Abdullah, whilst the train alongside them rapidly
twists through the mountain tunnel into the Peshin valley.
Climate.
The variety of climate is immense, as might be expected.
Taking the highlands of the country as a whole, there is no
great difference between the mean temperature of Afghanistan
and that of the lower Himalayas. Each may be placed at a point
between 50 deg. and 60 deg. F. But the remarkable feature of Afghan
climate (as also of that of Baluchistan) is its extreme range
of temperature within limited periods. The least daily range
in the north is during the cold weather, the greatest in the
hot. For seven months of the year (from May to November)
this range exceeds 30 deg. F. daily. Waves of intense cold
occur, lasting for several days, and one may have to endure
a cold of 12 deg. below zero, rising to a maximum of 17 deg. below
freezing-point. On the other hand the summer temperature is
exceedingly high, especially in the Oxus regions, where a shade
maximum of 110 deg. to 120 deg. is not uncommon. At Kabul, and over
all the northern part of the country to the descent at Gandamak,
winter is rigorous, but especially so on the high Arachosian
plateau. In Kabul the snow lies for two or three months;
the people seldom leave their houses, and sleep close to
stoves. At Ghazni the snow has been known to lie long beyond
the vernal equinox; the thermometer sinks to 10 deg. and 15 deg.
below zero (Fahr.); and tradition relates the entire destruction
of the population of Ghazni by snowstorms more than once.
At Jalalabad the winter and the climate generally assume an
Indian character. The summer heat is great everywhere in
Afghanistan, but most of all in the districts bordering on the
Indus, especially Sewi, on the lower Helmund and in Seistan.
All over Kandahar province the summer heat is intense, and
the simoon is not unknown. The hot season throughout this
part of the country is rendered more trying by frequent dust
storms and fiery winds; whilst the bare rocky ridges that
traverse the country, absorbing heat by day and radiating it
by night, render the summer nights most oppressive. At Kabul
the summer sun has great power, though the heat is tempered
occasionally by cool breezes from the Hindu Kush, and the
nights are usually cool. At Kandahar snow seldom falls on
the plains or lower hills; when it does, it melts at once.
At Herat, though 800 ft. lower than Kandahar, the summer climate
is more temperate; and, in fact, the climate altogether is
far from disagreeable. From May to September the wind blows
from the N.W. with great violence, and this extends across
the country to Kandahar. The winter is tolerably mild; snow
melts as it falls, and even on the mountains does not lie
long. Three years out of four at Herat it does not freeze
hard enough for the people to store ice; yet it was not very
far from Herat, and could not have been at a greatly higher
level (at Rafir Kala, near Kassan) that, in 1750, Ahmad Shah's
army, retreating from Persia, is said to have lost 18,000
men from cold in a single night. In the northern Herat
districts, too, records of the coldest month (February) show
the mean minimum as 17 deg. F., and the maximum 38 deg. . The eastern
reaches of the Hari Rud river are frozen hard in the winter,
rapids and all, and the people travel on it as on a road.
The summer rains that accompany the S.W. monsoon in India,
beating along the southern slopes of the Himalaya, travel
up the Kabul valley as far as Laghman, though they are more
clearly felt in Bajour and Panjkora, under the high spurs
of the Hindu Kush, and in the eastern branches of Safed
Koh. Rain also falls at this season at the head of Kurram
valley. South of this the Suliman mountains may be taken as
the western limit of the monsoon's action. It is quite unfelt
in the rest of Afghanistan, in which, as in all the west of
Asia, the winter rains are the most considerable. The spring
rain, though less copious, is more important to agriculture than
the winter rain, unless where the latter falls in the form of
snow. In the absence of monsoon influences there are steadier
weather indications than in India. The north-west blizzards
which occur in winter and spring are the most noticeable
feature, and their influence is clearly felt on the Indian
frontier. The cold is then intense and the force of the wind
cyclonic. Speaking generally, the Afghanistan climate is a dry
one. The sun shines with splendour for three-fourths of the
year, and the nights are even more clear than the days. Marked
characteristics are the great differences of summer and winter
temperature and of day and night temperature, as well as the extent
to which change of climate can be attained by slight change of
place. As the emperor Baber said of Kabul, at one day's journey
from it you may find a place where snow never falls, and at
two hours' journey a place where snow almost never melts!
The Afghans vaunt the salubrity and charm of some local
climates, as of the Toba hills above the Kakar country,
and of some of the high valleys of the Safed Koh.
The people have by no means that immunity from disease
which the bright, dry character of the climate and the fine
physical aspect of a large proportion of them might lead
us to expect. Intermittent and remittent fevers are very
prevalent; bowel complaints are common, and often fatal in the
autumn. The universal custom of sleeping on the house-top
in summer promotes rheumatic and neuralgic affections;
and in the Koh Daman of Dabul, which the natives regard
as having the finest of climates, the mortality from fever
and bowel complaint, between July and October, is great,
the immoderate use of fruit predisposing to such ailments.
Population.
The term Afghan really applies to one section only of the
mixed conglomeration of nationalities which forms the people
of Afghanistan, but this is the dominant section known as the
Durani. The Ghilzai (who is almost as powerful as the Durani)
claims to be of Turkish origin; the Hazaras, the Chahar-Aimak,
Tajiks, Uzbegs, Kafirs and others are more or less subject
races. Popularly any inhabitant of Afghanistan is known
as Afghan on the Indian frontier without distinction of
origin or language; but the language division between the
Parsiwan (or Persian-speaking Afghan) and the Pathan is
a very distinct one. The predominance of the Afghan in
Afghanistan dates from the middle of the 18th century,
when Ahmad Shah carved out Afghanistan from the previous
conquests of Nadir Shah and called it the Durani empire.
The Durani Afghans claim to be Ben-i-Israel, and insist
on their descent from the tribes who were carried away
captive from Palestine to Media by Nebuchadrezzar. Yet
they also claim to be Pukhtun (or Pathan) in common with all
other Pushtu-speaking tribes, whom they do not admit to be
Afghan. The bond of affinity between the various peoples who
compose the Pathan community is simply the bond of a common
language. All of them recognize a common code or unwritten
law called Pukhtunwali, which appears to be similar in general
character to the old Hebraic law, though modified by Mahommedan
ordinances, and strangely similar in certain particulars to
Rajput custom. Besides their division into clans and tribes,
the whole Afghan people may be divided into dwellers in tents
and dwellers in houses; and this division is apparently not
coincident with tribal divisions, for of several of the great
clans at least a part is nomad and a part settled. Such,
e.g., is the (use with the Durani and with the Ghilzai.
The settled Afghans form the village communities, and in
part the population of the few towns. Their chief occupation
is with the soil. They form the core of the nation and the
main part of the army. Nearly all own the land on which
they live, and which they cultivate with their own hands
or by hired labour. Roundly speaking, agriculture and
soldiering are their sole occupations. No Afghan will pursue
a handicraft or keep a shop, though the Ghilzai Povindahs
engage largely in travelling trade and transport of goods.
As a race the Afghans are very handsome and athletic, often
with fair complexion and flowing beard, generally black or
brown, sometimes, though rarely, red; the features highly
aquiline. The hair is shaved off from the forehead to the
top of the head, the remainder at the sides being allowed
to fall in large curls over the shoulders. Their step is
full of resolution; their bearing proud and apt to be rough.
The women have handsome features of Jewish cast (the
last trait often true also of the men); fair complexions,
sometimes rosy, though usually a pale sallow; hair braided
and plaited behind in two long tresses terminating in silken
tassels. They are rigidly secluded, but intrigue is frequent.
The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar
with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged
by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or
discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially
when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest
brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in
perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in
vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their
own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime
committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general
impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is
atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome,
intriguing and distrustful; estrangements and affrays are of
constant occurrence; the traveller conceals and misrepresents
the time and direction of his journey. The Afghan is by breed
and nature a bird of prey. If from habit and tradition he
respects a stranger within his threshold, he yet considers it
legitimate to warn a neighbour of the prey that is afoot, or
even to overtake and plunder his guest after he has quitted his
roof. The repression of crime and the demand of taxation
he regards alike as tyranny. The Afghans are eternally
boasting of their lineage, their independence and their
prowess. They look on the Afghans as the first of nations,
and each man looks on himself as the equal of any Afghan.
They are capable of enduring great privation, and make
excellent soldiers under British discipline, though there
are but few in the Indian army. Sobriety and hardiness
characterize the bulk of the people, though the higher classes
are too often stained with deep and degrading debauchery.
The first impression made by the Afghan is favourable. The
European, especially if he come from India, is charmed by
their apparently frank, open-hearted, hospitable and manly
manners; but the charm is not of long duration, and he finds
that the Afghan is as cruel and crafty as he is independent.
No trustworthy statistics exist showing either present numbers
or fluctuations in the population of Afghanistan. Within the
amir's dominions there are probably from four to five millions
of people, and of these the vast majority are agriculturists.
The cultivators, including landowners, tenants, hired labourers
and slaves, represent the working population of the country,
and as industrious and successful agriculturists they are
unsurpassed in Asia. They have carried the art of irrigation
to great perfection, and they utilize every acre of profitable
soil. Certain Ghilzai clans are specially famous for their skill
in the construction of the karez or underground water-channel.
Religion.
The religion of the country throughout is Mahommedan. Next to
Turkey, Afghanistan is the most powerful Mahommedan kingdom in
existence. The vast majority of Afghans are of the Sunni sect;
but there are, in their midst, such powerful communities of
Shiahs as the Hazaras of the central districts, the Kizilbashes
of Kabul and the Turis of the Kurram border, nor is there
between them that bitterness of sectarian animosity which is
so marked a feature in India. The Kafirs of the mountainous
region of Kafiristan alone are non-Mahommedan. They are sunk
in a paganism which seems to embrace some faint reflexion
of Greek mythology, Zoroastrian principles and the tenets of
Buddhism, originally gathered, no doubt, from the varied
elements of their mixed extraction. Those contiguous Afghan
tribes, who have not so long ago been converted to the faith of
Islam, are naturally the most fanatical and the most virulent
upholders of the faith around them. In and about the centre of
civilization at Kabul, instances of Ghazism are comparatively
rare. In the western provinces about Kandahar (amongst the
Durani Afghans---the people who claim to be Beni-Israel),
and especially in Zamindawar, the spirit of fanaticism runs
high, and every other Afghan is a possible Ghazi---a man
who has devoted his life to the extinction of other creeds.
Language and literature.
Persian is the vernacular of a large part of the non-Afghan
population, and is familiar to all educated Afghans; it
is the language of the court and of literature. Pushtu,
however, is the prevailing language, though it does not seem
to be spoken in Herat, or, roughly speaking, west of the
Helmund. Turki is spoken in Afghan Turkestan. There is a
respectable amount of Afghan literature. The oldest work in
Pushtu is a history of the conquest of Swat by Shaikh Mali,
a chief of the Yusafzais, and leader in the conquest (A.D.
1413-24). In 1494 Kaju Khan became chief of the same
clan; during his rule Buner and Panjkora were completely
conquered, and he wrote a history of the events. In the
reign of Akbar, Bayazid Ansari, called Pir-i-Roshan, ``the
Saint of Light,'' the founder of an heretical sect, wrote
in Pushtu; as did his chief antagonist, a famous Afghan
saint called Akhund Darweza. The literature is richest in
poetry. Abdur Rahman (17th century) is the best known poet.
Another very popular poet is Khushal Khan, the warlike chief
of the Khattaks in the time of Aurangzeb. Many other members
of his family were poets also. Ahmad Shah, the founder of
the monarchy, likewise wrote poetry. Ballads are numerous.
Education.
Education is confined to most elementary principles in
Afghanistan. Of schools or colleges for the purposes of a
higher education befitted to the sons of noblemen and the
more wealthy merchants there are absolutely none; but the
village school is an ever-present and very open spectacle
to the passer-by. Here the younger boys are collected and
instructed in the rudiments of reading, writing and religious
creed by the village mullah, or priest, who thereby acquires
an early influence over the Afghan mind. The method of
teaching is confined to that wearisome system of loud-voiced
repetition which is so annoying a feature in Indian schools;
and the Koran is, of course, the text-book in all forms of
education. Every Afghan gentleman can read and speak
Persian, but beyond this acquirement education seems to
be limited to the physical development of the youth by
instruction in horsemanship and feats of skill. Such
advanced education as exists in Afghanistan is centred in the
priests and physicians; but the ignorance of both is extreme.
Constitution and laws.
The government of Afghanistan is an absolute monarchy under the
amir, and succession to the throne is hereditary. There are
five chief political divisions in the country---namely, Kabul,
Turkestan, Herat, Kandahar and Badakshan, each of which is ruled
by a ``naib'' or governor, whom is directly responsible to the
amir. Under the governors of provinces the nobles and kazis
(or district judges) dispense justice much in the feudal
fashion. There are three classes of chiefs who form the council
or durbar of the king. These are the sirdars, the khans and the
mullahs. The sirdars are hereditary nobles, the khans are
representatives of the people, and the mullahs of Mahommedan
religion. The khan is elected by the clan or tribe. The
clannish attachment of the Afghans is rather to the community
than to the chief. These three classes of representatives
are divided into two assemblies, the Durbar Shahi or royal
assembly, and the Kharwanin Mulkhi or commons. The mullahs
take their place in one or the other according to their
individual rank. The executive officials of the amir have
a selected body, called the Khilwat, which acts as a cabinet
council, but no member can give advice to the crown without
being asked to do so, or beyond the jurisdiction of his own
department. The amir, in addition to being chief executive
officer, is chief judge and supreme court of appeal. Any one
has the right to appeal to the amir for trial, and the great
amirs, Dost Mahommed and Abdurrahman,were accessible at all
times to the petitions of their subjects. Next to the amir
comes the court of the kazi, the chief centre of justice,
and beneath the kazi comes the kotwal, who performs, as in
India, the ordinary functions of a magistrate. In large
provincial towns there is a punchait, or council, for the trial
of commercial cases. There are government departments for
the administration of revenue, customs, post-office, military
affairs, &c. The general law administered in all the courts
of Afghanistan is that of Islam and of the customs of the
country, with developments introduced by the Amir Abdur Rahman.
Defence.
The Afghan army probably numbers 50,000 regulars distributed
between the military centres of Herat, Kandahar, Kabul,
Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Asmar, with detachments at
frontier outposts on the side of India. Abdur Rahman claimed
that he could put 100,000 men into the field within a week
for the defence of Herat. In 1896 he introduced a system of
semi-enforced service whereby one man in every eight between
the ages of sixteen and seventy takes his turn at military
training. In this way he calculated that he could have raised
1,000,000 men armed with modern weapons, but his chief difficulty
would be money and transport. The pay of the army is apt to be
irregular. The amir's factories at Kabul for arms and ammunition
are said to turn out about 20,000 cartridges and 15 rifles
daily, with 2 guns per week; but the arms thus produced are
very heterogeneous, and the different varieties of cartridge
used would cause endless complications. The two chief
fastnesses of Northern Afghanistan are Herat and Dehdadi near
Balkh. The latter fort took twelve years to build, and
commands all the roads leading from the Oxus into Afghan
Turkestan. It is armed with naval quick-firing guns, Krupp,
Hotchkiss, Nordenfeld and Maxim. The chief cantonment for
the same district is at Mazar-i-Sharif, 12 m. from Balkh.
Finance.
Financially, Afghanistan has never, since it first became a
kingdom, been able to pay for its own government, public
works and army. There appears to be no inherent reason why
this should be so. Whilst it can never (in the absence of
any great mineral wealth) develop into a wealthy country,
it can at least support its own population; and it would,
but for the short-sighted trade policy of Abdur Rahman,
certainly have risen to a position of respectable solvency.
Its revenues (about which no trustworthy information is
available) are subject to great fluctuations, and probably
never exceed the value of one million sterling per annum.
They fell in Shere Ali's time to L. 700,000. The original
subsidy to the amir from the Indian government was fixed
at 12 lakhs of rupees (L. 80,000) per annum, but in 1893, in
connexion with the boundary settlement, it was increased to
Minerals.
Few minerals are wrought in Afghanistan, though Abdur Rahman
claims in his autobiography that the country is rich in
mines. Some small quantity of gold is taken from the streams in
Laghman and the adjoining districts. Famous silver mines were
formerly worked near the head of the Panjshir valley in Hindu
Kush. Kabul is chiefly supplied with iron from the Permuli
(or Farmuli) district, between the Upper Kurram and Gomal,
where it is said to be abundant. Iron ore is most abundant
near the passes leading to Bamian, and in other parts of Hindu
Kush. Copper ore from various parts of Afghanistan has been
seen, but it is nowhere worked. Lead is found in Upper
Bangash (Kurram district), and in the Shinwari country (also
among the branches of Safed Koh), and in the Kakar country.
There are reported to be rich lead mines near Herat scarcely
worked. Lead, with antimony, is found near the Arghand-ab, 32
m. north-west of Ghazni, and in the Ghorband valley, north of
Kabul. Most of the lead used, however, comes from the Hazara
country, where the ore is described as being gathered on the
surface. An ancient mine of great extent and elaborate
character exists at Feringal, in the Ghorband valley. Antimony
is obtained in considerable quantities at Shah-Maksud, about
30 m. north of Kandahar. Sulphur is said to be found at
Herat, dug from the soil in small fragments, but the chief
supply comes from the Hazara country and from Pirkisri,
on the confines of Seistan, where there would seem to be a
crater, or fumarole. Sal-ammoniac is brought from the same
place. Gypsum is found in large quantities in the plain of
Kandahar, being dug out in fragile coralline masses from near the
surface. Coal (perhaps lignite) is said to be found in Zurmat
(between the Upper Kurram and the Gomal) and near Ghazni. Nitre
abounds in the soil over all the south-west of Afghanistan, and
often affects the water of the karez or subterranean canals.
Vegetation.
The characteristic distribution of vegetation on the mountains
of Afghanistan is worthy of attention. The great mass of it
is confined to the main ranges and their immediate off-shoots,
whilst on the more distant and terminal prolongations it is
almost entirely absent; in fact, these are naked rock and stone.
Take, for example, the Safed Koh. On the alpine range itself
and its immediate branches, at a height of 6000 to 10,000
ft., we have abundant growth of large forest trees, among
which conifers are the most noble and prominent, such as
Cedrus Deodara, Abies excelsa, Pinus longifolia, P.
Pinaster, P. Pinea (the edible pine) and the larch. We
have also the yew, the hazel, juniper, walnut, wild peach and
almond. Growing under the shade of these are several
varieties of rose, honeysuckle, currant, gooseberry, hawthorn,
rhododendron and a luxuriant herbage, among which the
ranunculus family is important for frequency and number of
genera. The lemon and wild vine are also here met with,
but are more common on the northern mountains. The walnut
and oak (evergreen, holly-leaved and kermes) descend to the
secondary heights, where they become mixed with alder, ash,
khinjak, Arbor-vitae, juniper, with species of Astragalus,
&c. Here also are Indigoferae rind dwarf laburnum.
Lower again, and down to 3000 ft. we have wild olive, species
of rock-rose, wild privet, acacias and mimosas, barberry and
Zizyphus; and in the eastern ramifications of the chain,
Chamaerops humilis (which is applied to a variety of useful
purposes), Bignonia or trumpet flower, sissu, Salvadora
persica, verbena, acanthus, varieties of Gesnerae.
The lowest terminal ridges, especially towards the west, are,
as has been said, naked in aspect. Their scanty vegetation is
almost wholly herbal; shrubs are only occasional; trees almost
non-existent. Labiate, composite and umbelliferous plants are most
common. Ferns and mosses are almost confined to the higher ranges.
In the low brushwood scattered over portions of the dreary
plains of the Kandahar table-lands, we find leguminous
thorny plants of the papilionaceous sub-order, such as
camel-thorn (Hedysarum Alhagi), Astragalus in several
varieties, spiny rest-harrow (Ononis spinosa), the
fibrous roots of which often serve as a tooth-brush; plants
of the sub-order Mimosae, as the sensitive mimosa; a
plant of the rue family, called by the natives lipad the
common wormwood; also certain orchids, and several species
of Salsola. The rue and wormwood are in general use as
domestic medicines---the former for rheumatism and neuralgia;
the latter in fever, debility and dyspepsia, as well as for a
vermifuge. The lipad, owing to its heavy nauseous odour,
is believed to keep off evil soirits. In some places,
occupying the sides and hollows of ravines, are found the
rose bay (Nerium Oleander), called in Persian khar-zarah,
or ass-bane, the wild laburnum and various Indigoferae.
In cultivated districts the chief trees seen are mulberry, willow, poplar,
ash, and occasionally the plane; but these are due to man's planting.
Uncultivated products of value.
One of the most important of these is the gum-resin of Narthex
asafetida, which grows abundantly in the high and dry
plains of eastern Afghanistan, especially between Kandahar and
Herat. The depot for it is Kandahar, whence it finds its way to
India, where it is much used as a condiment. It is not so used
in Afghanistan, but the Seistan people eat the green stalks of
the plant preserved in brine. The collection of the gum-resin
is almost entirely in the hands of the Kakar clan of Afghans.
In the highlands of Kabul edible rhubarb is an important local
luxury. The plants grow wild in the mountains. The bleached
rhubarb, which has a very delicate flavour, is altered by covering
the young leaves, as they sprout from the soil, with loose
stones or an empty jar. The leaf-stalks are gathered by the
neighbouring hill people, and carried down for sale. Bleached and
unbleached rhubarb are both largely consumed, both raw and cooked.
The walnut and edible pine-nut are both wild growths, which are exported.
The sanjit (Elaeaguns orientalis), common on the banks of
water-courses, furnishes an edible fruit. An orchis found in
the mountain yields the dried tuber which affords the nutritious
mucilage called salep: a good deal of this goes to India.
Pistacia khinjak affords a mastic. The fruit, mixed with
its resin, is used for food by the Achakzais in Southern
Afghanistan.The true pistachio is found only on the northern
frontier; the nuts are imported from Badakshan and Kunduz by the
Hindus of the towns, to whom they supply a substitute for meat.
Manna, of at least two kinds, is sold in the bazaars.
One, called turanjbin, apoears to exude, in small round
tears, from the camelthorn, and also from the dwarf tamarisk;
the other, sir-kasht, in large grains and irregular
masses or cakes with bits of twig imbedded, is obtained
from a tree which the natives call sian chob (black
wood), thought by Bellow to be a Fraxinus or Ornus.
Agriculture.
In most parts of the country there are two harvests, as generally
in India. One of these, called by the Afghans baharak, or
the sprine crop. is sown in the end of autumn and reaped in
summer. It consists of wheat, barley and a variety of
lentils. The other, called paizah or tirmai, the
autumnal, is sown in the end of spring, and reaped in
autumn. It consists of rice, varieties of millet and
sorghum, of maize, Phaseolus Mungo, tobacco, beet,
turnips, &c. The loftier regions have but one harvest.
Wheat is the staple food over the greater part of the
country. Rice is not largely distributed. In much of the
eastern mountainous country bajra (Holcus spicatus) is
the chief grain. Most English and Indian garden-stuffs are
cultivated; turnips in some places very largely, as cattle food.
The growth of melons, water-melons and other cucurbitaceous
plants is reckoned very important, especially near
towns; and this crop counts for a distinct harvest.
Sugar-cane is grown only in the rich plains; and though cotton is
grown in the warmer tracts, most of the cotton cloth is imported.
Madder is an important item of the spring crop in Ghazni
and Kandahar districts, and generally over the west, and
supplies the Indian demand. It is said to be very profitable,
though it takes three years to mature. Saffron is grown and
exported. The castor-oil plant is everywhere common, and
furnishes most of the oil of the country. Tobacco is grown
very generally; that of Kandahar has much repute, and is
exported to India and Bokhara. Two crops of leaves are taken.
Lucerne and a trefoil called shaftal form important fodder
crops in the western parts of the country, and, when irrigated.
are said to afford ten or twelve cuttings in the season. The
komal (Prangos pabularia) is abundant in the hill country of
Ghazni, and is said to extend through the Hazara country to
Herat. It is stored for winter use, and forms an excellent
fodder. Others are derived from the Holcus sorghum, and
from two kinds of panick. It is common to cut down the green
wheat and barley before the ear forms, for fodder, and the
repetition of this, with barley at least, is said not to injure
the grain crop. Bellow gives the following statement of the
manner in which the soil is sometimes worked in the Kandahar
district:---Barley is sown in November; in March and April
it is twice cut for fodder; in June the grain is reaped, the
ground is ploughed and manured and sown with tobacco, which
yields two cuttings. The ground is then prepared for carrots
and turnips, which are gathered in November or December.
Of great moment are the fruit crops. All European fruits are
produced profusely, in many varieties and of excellent quality.
Fresh or preserved, they form a principal food of a large class of
the people, and the dry fruit is largely exported. In the valleys
of Kabul mulberries are dried, and packed in skins for winter
use. This mulberry cake is often reduced to flour, and used
as such, forming in some valleys the main food of the people.
Grapes are grown very extensively, and the varieties are very
numerous. The vines are sometimes trained on trellises,
but most frequently over ridges of earth 8 or 10 ft.
high. The principal part of the garden lands in villages
round Kandahar is vineyard, and the produce must be enormous.
Open canals are usual in the Kabul valley, and in eastern
Afghanistan generally; but over all the western parts of the
country much use is made of the karez, which is a subterranean
aqueduct uniting the waters of several springs, and conducting
their combined volume to the surface at a lower level.
Fauna.
As regards vertebrate zoology, Afghanistan lies on the
frontier of three regions, viz. the Eurasian, the
Ethiopian (to which region Baluchistan seems to belong)
and the Indo-Halayan. Hence it naturally partakes somewhat
of the forms of each, but is in the main Eurasian.
Felidae.--F. catus, F. chaus (both Eurasian); F. caracal
(Eur., Ind., Eth.), about Kandahar; a small leopard, stated
to be found almost all over the country, perhaps rather the
cheetah F. jubatus, Ind, and Eth.); F. pardus, the common
leopard (Eth. and Ind.). The tiger exists in Afghan Turkestan.
Canidae.--The jackal (C. aureus, Eur., Ind., Eth.) abounds
on the Helmund and Argand-ab, and probably elsewhere. Wolves
(C. Bengalensis) are formidable in the wilder tracts,
and assemble in troops on the snow, destroying cattle and
sometimes attacking single horsemen. The hyena (H. striata,
Africa to India) is common. These do not hunt in packs, but
will sometimes singly attack a bullock; they and the wolves
make havoc among sheep. A favourite feat of the boldest of
the young men of southern Afghanistan is to enter the hyena's
den, single-handed, muffle and tie him. There are wild dogs,
according to Elphinstone and Conolly. The small Indian fox
(Vulpes Bengalensis) is found; also V. flavescens, common
to India and Persia, the skin of which is much used as a fur.
Mustelidae.--Species of the Mungoose (Herpestes),
species of otter, Mustela erminea, and two ferrets, one
of them with tortoise-shell marks, tamed by the Afghans
to keep down vermin; a marten (M. flavigula, Indian).
Bears are two: a black one, probably Ursus torquatus;
and one of a dirty yellow, U. Isabellinus, both Himalayan
species. Ruminants.--Capra aegagrus and C. megaceros;
a wild sheep Ovis cycloceros or Vignei); Gazella
subgutturosa--these are often netted in batches when
they descend to drink at a stream; G. dorcas perhaps;
Cervus Wallichii, the Indian barasingha, and probably
some other Indian deer, in the north-eastern mountains.
The wild hog (Sus scrofa) is found on the lower
Helmund. The wild ass, Gorkhar of Persia (Equus
onager), is frequent on the sandy tracts in the south-west.
The Himalayan varieties of the markhor and ibex are abundant in Kafiristan.
Talpidae.--A mole, probably Talpa Europaea; Sorex Indicus;
Erinaceus collaris (Indian), and Er. auritus (Eurasian).
Bats believed to be Phyllorhinus cineraceus (Punjab
species), Scotophilus Bellii (W. India), Vesp. auritus
and V. barbastellus, both found from England to India.
Rodentia.--A squirrel (Sciurus Syriacus?); Mus Indicus
and M. Gerbellinus; a jerboa (Dipus telum?); Alactaga
Bactriana; Gerbillus Indicus, and G. erythrinus (Persian
and Indian); Lagomys Nepalensis, a Central Asian species.
A hare, probably L. ruacaudatus. by Captain Hutton in
the J. As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xvi. pp. 775 seq.; but it is
confessedly far from complete. (Of 124 species in that list,
95 are pronounced to be Eurasian, 17 Indian, 10 both Eurasian
and Indian, 1 (Turtur risorius) Eur., Ind. and Eth.; and 1
only, Carpodacus (Bucanetes) crassirostris, peculiar to the
country. Afghanistan appears to be, during the breeding season,
the retreat of a variety of Indian and some African (desert) forms,
whilst in winter the avifauna becomes overwhelmingly Eurasian.
REPTILES.--The following particulars are from Gray:--Lizards
Pseudopus gracilis (Eur.), Argyrophis Horipeldii, Salea
Horsfieldii, Calotes Moria, C. versicolor, C. minor, C.
Emma, Phrynocephalus Idchelii--all Indian forms. A tortoise
(Testudo Horsfieldii) appears to be peculiar to Kabul.
There are apparently no salamanders or tailed Amphibia. The
frogs are partly Eurasian, partly Indian; and the same may be
said of the fish, but they are as yet most imperfectly known.
The camel is of a more robust and compact breed than the
tall beabt used in India, and is more carefully tended.
The two-humped Bactrian camel is commonly used in the Oxus
regions, but is seldom seen near the Indian frontier.
Horses form a staple export to India. The best of these,
however, are reserved for the Afghan cavalry. Those exported
to India are usually bred in Maimana and other places in Afghan
Turkestan. The indigenous horse is the yabu, a stout,
heavy-shouldered animal, of about 14 hands high, used chiefly
for burden, but also for riding. It gets over incredible
distances at an ambling shuffle, but is unfit for fast work
and cannot stand excessive heat. The breed of horses was much
improved under the amir Abdur Rahman, who took much interest
in it. Generally, colts are sold and worked too young.
The cows of Kandahar and Seistan give very large quantities of
milk. They seem to be of the humped variety, but with
the hump evanescent. Dairy produce is important in Afghan
diet, especially the pressed and dried curd called krut
(an article and name perhaps introduced by the Mongols).
There are two varieties of sheep, both having the fat
tail. One bears a white fleece, the other a russet or black
one. Much of the white wool is exported to Persia, and now
largely to Europe by Bombay. Flocks of sheep are the main
wealth of the nomad population, and mutton is the chief
animal food of the nation. In autumn large numbers are
slaughtered, their carcases cut up, rubbed with salt and dried
in the sun. The same is done with beef and camel's flesh.
The goats, generally black or parti-coloured,
seem to be a degenerate variety of the shawlgoat.
The climate is found to be favourable to dog-breeding. Pointers
are bred in the Kohistan of Kabul and above Jalalabad--large,
heavy, slow-hunting, but fine-nosed and staunch; very like
the old double-nosed Spanish pointer. There are greyhounds
also, but inferior in speed to second-rate English dogs.
Trade and commerce.
The manufactures of the country have not developed much
during recent years. Poshtins (sheepskin clothing) and the
many varieties of camel and goat's hair-cloth which, under
the name of ``barak,'' ``karak,'' &c., are manufactured in
the northern districts, are still the chief local products
of that part of Afghanistan. Herat and Kandahar are
famous for their silks, although a large proportion of the
manufactured silk found on the Herat market, as well as many
of the felts, carpets and embroideries, are brought from
the Central Asian khanates. The district of Herat produces
many of the smaller sorts of carpets (``galichas'' or
prayer-carpets), of excellent design and colour, the little
town of Adraskand being especially famous for this industry;
but they are not to be compared with the best products of
eastern Persia or of the Turkman districts about Panjdeh.
The nomadic Afghan tribes of the west are chiefly
pastoral, and the wool of the southern Herat and Kandahar
provinces is famous for its quality. In this direction,
the late boundary settlements have undoubtedly led to
a considerable development of local resources. A large
quantity of wool, together with silk, dried fruit, madder and
asafetida, finds its way to India by the Kandahar route.
It is impossible to give accurate trade statistics, there
being no trustworthy system of registration. The value of
the imports from Kabul to India in 1892-1893 was estimated
at 221,000 Rx (or tens of rupees). In 1809 it was little
over 217,000 Rx, the period of lowest intermediate depression
being in 1897. These imports include horses, cattle, fruits,
grain, wool, silk, hides, tobacco, drugs and provisions (ghi,
&c.). All this trade emanates from Kabul, there being no
transit trade with Bokhara owing to the heavy dues levied by the
amir. The value of the exports from India to Kabul also shows
great fluctuation. In the year 1892-1893 it was registered at
nearly 611,000 Rx. In 1894-1895 it had sunk to 274,000 Rx, and
in 1899 it figured at 294,600 Rx. The chief items are cotton
goods, sugar and tea. In 1898-1899 the imports irom Kandahar
to India were valued at 330,000 Rx, and the exports from India
to Kandahar at about 264,000 Rx. Three-fourths of the exports
consist of cotton goods, and three-eighths of the imports were raw
wool. The balance of the imports was chiefly made up of dried
fruits. Comparison with trade statistics of previous years on
this side Afghanistan is difficult, owing to the inclusion of
a large section of Baluchistan and Persia within the official
``Kandahar'' returns; but it does not appear that the value
of the western Afghanistan trade is much on the increase. The
opening up of the route between Quetta and Seistan has doubtless
affected a trade which was already seriously hampered by
restrictions. In the year after the mission of Sir Louis Dane
to Kabul in 1905 it was authoritatively stated that the trade
between Afghanistan and India had nearly doubled in value.
Antiquities.
The basin of the Kabul river especially abounds in remains
of the period when Buddhism flourished. Bamian is famous
for its wall-cut firures, and at Haibak (on the route between
Tashkurghan and Kabul) there are some most interesting Buddhist
remains. In the Koh-Daman, north of Kabul, are the sites of
several ancient cities, the greatest of which, called Beghram,
has furnished coins in scores of thousands, and has been supposed
to represent Alexander's Nicaea. Nearer Kabul, and especially on
the hills some miles south of the city, are numerous topes. In
the valley of Jalalabad are many remains of the same character.
In the valley of the Tarnak are the ruins of a great city
(Ulan Robat) supposed to be the ancient Arachosia. About
Girishk, on the Helmund, are extensive mounds and other traces
of buildings; and the remains of several great cities exist in
the plain of Seistan, as at Pulki, Peshawaran and Lakh, relics
of ancient Drangiana. An ancient stone vessel preserved in
a mosque at Kandahar is almost certainly the same that was
treasured at Peshawar in the 5th century as the begging pot of
Sakya-Muni. In architectural relics of a later date than the
Graeco-Buddhist period Afghanistan is remarkably deficient. Of
the city of Ghazni, the vast capital of Mahmud and his race, no
substantial relics survive, except the tomb of Mahmud and two
remarkable brick minarets. A vast and fruitful harvest of coins
has been gathered in Afghanistan and the adjoining regions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.---Rawlinson, England and Russia in the
East (1873); H. M. Durand, The First Afghan War (1879);
Wyllie's Essays on the External Policy of India (1875);
Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Kabul (1809);
Parliamentary Papers, ``Afghanistan''; Curzon, Problems in
the Far East; Holdich, Indian Borderland (1901); India
(1903); Indian Survey Reports; Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission
(1886); Pamir Boundary Commission (1896). (T. H. H.*)
HISTORY The Afghan chroniclers call their people Beni-Israil
(Arab. for Children of Israel), and claim descent from King
Saul (whom they call by the Mahommedan corruption Talut)
through a son whom they ascribe to him, called Jeremiah,
who again had a son called Afghana. The numerous stock
of Afghana were removed by Nebuchadrezzar, and found their
way to the mountains of Ghor and Feroza (east and north of
Herat). Only nine years after Mahommed's announcement of his
mission they heard of the new prophet, and sent to Medina a
deputation headed by a wise and holy man called Kais, to make
inquiry. The deputation became zealous converts, and on
their return converted their countrymen. From Kais and his
three sons the whole of the genuine Afghans claim descent.
This story is repeated in great and varying detail in sundry
books by Afghans, the oldest of which appears to be of the
16th century; nor do we know that any trace of the legend
is found of older date. In the version given by Major
Raverty (Introd. to Afghan Grammar), Afghanah is settled
by King Solomon himself in the Sulimani mountains; there
is nothing about Nebuchadrezzar or Ghor. The historian
Ferishta says he had read that the Afghans were descended
from Copts of the race of Pharaoh. And one of the Afghan
histories, quoted by Mr Bellow, relates ``a current tradition''
that, previous to the time of Kais, Bilo the father of the
Biluchis, Uzbak (evidently the father of the Usbegs) and
Afghana were considered as brethren. As Mahommed Usbeg
Khan, the eponymus of the medley of Tatar tribes called
Usbegs, reigned in the 14th century A.D., this gives some
possible light on the value of these so-called traditions.
We have analogous stories in the literature of almost all
nations that derive their religion or their civilization from
a foreign source. To say nothing of the Book of Mormon, a
considerable number of persons have been found to propagate
the doctrine that the English people are descended from the
tribes of Israel. But the Hebrew ancestry of the Afghans
is more worthy at least of consideration, for a respectable
number of intelligent officers, well acquainted with the
Afghans, have been strong in their belief of it; and though
the customs alleged in proof will not bear the stress laid on
them, undoubtedly a prevailing type of the Afghan physiognomy
has a character strongly Jewish. This characteristic is
certainly a remarkable one; but it is shared, to a considerable
extent, by the Kashmiris (a circumstance which led Bernier
to speculate on the Kashmiris representing the lost tribes of
Israel), and, we believe, by the Tajik people of Badakshan.
Relations with the Greeks.---In the time of Darius Hystaspes
(500 B.C.) we find the region now called Afghanistan
embraced in the Achaemenian satrapies, and various parts
of it occupied by Sarangians (in Seistan), Arians (in
Herat), Sattagydians (supposed in highlands of upper
Helmund and the plateau of Ghazni), Dadicae (suggested
to be Tajiks), Aparytae (mountaineers, perhaps of Safed
Koh, where lay the Paryetae of Ptolemy), Gandarii (in
Lower Kabul basin) and Paktyes, on or near the Indus.
In the last name it has been plausibly suggested that we
have the Pukhtun, as the eastern Afghans pronounce their
name. Indeed, Pusht, Pasht or Pakht would seem to be the
oldest name of the country of the Afghans in their traditions.
The Ariania of Strabo corresponds generally with the existing
dominions of Kabul, but overpasses their limits on the west and south.
About 310 B.C. Seleucus is said by Strabo to have given to
the Indian Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), in consequence of a
marriage-contract, some part of the country west of the Indus
occupied by an Indian population, and no doubt embracing a
part of the Kabul basin. Some sixty years later occurred
the establishment of an independent Greek dynasty in Bactria.
(See BACTRIA, MEDIA, EUCRATIDES, MENANDER of India,
EUTHYDEMUS, and PERSIA, Ancient History.) Of the details
of their history and extent of their dominion in different
reigns we know almost nothing, and conjecture is often
dependent on such vague data as are afforded by the collation
of the localities in which the coins of independent princes
have been found. But their power extended certainly over
the Kabul basin, and probably, at times, over the whole of
Afghanistan. The ancient architecture of Kashmir, the tope
of Manikyala in the Punjab, and many sculptures found in the
Peshawar valley, show unmistakable Greek influence. Demetrius
(c. 190 B.C.) is supposed to have reigned in Arachosia
after being expelled from Bactria, much as, at a later date,
Baber reigned in Kabul after his expulsion from Samarkand.
Eucratides (181 B.C.) is alleged by Justin to have warred in
India. With his coins, found abundantly in the Kabul basin,
commences the use of an Arianian inscription, in addition to the
Greek, sulnosed to imply the transfer of rule to the south of
the mountains, over a people whom the Greek dynasty sought to
conciliate. Under Heliocles (147 B.C.?), the Parthians, who
had already encroached on Ariana, pressed their conquests into
India. Menander (126 B.C.) invaded India at least to the
Jumna, and perhaps also to the Indus delta. Tbe coinage of
a succeeding king, Hermaeus, indicates a barbaric irruption.
There is a general correspondence between classical and Chinese
accounts of the time when Bactria was overrun by Scythian
invaders. The chief nation among these, called by the
Chinese Yue-Chi, about 126 B.C. established themselves
in Sogdiana and on the Oxus in five hordes. Near the
Christian era the chief of one of these, which was called
Kushan, subdued the rest, and extended his conquests over the
countries south of the Hindu Kush, including Sind as well as
Afghanistan, thus establishing a great dominion, of which
we hear from Greek writers as Indo-Scythia. (See YUE-CHI.)
Buddhism had already acquired influence over the people of the
Kabul basin, and some of the barbaric invaders adopted that
system. Its traces are extensive, especially in the plains
of Jalalabad and Peshawar, but also in the vicinity of Kabul.
Various barbaric dynasties succeeded each other. A notable
monarch was Kanishka (see INDIA, History) or Kanerkes,
whose date is variously fixed at from 58 B.C. to A.D.
125, and whose power extended over the upper Oxus basin,
Kabul, Peshawar, Kashmir and probably far into India. His
name and legends still filled the land, or at least the
Buddhist portion of it, 600 years later, when tho Chinese
pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang, travelled in India; they had even
reached the great Mahommedan philosopher, traveller and
geographer, Abu-r-Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni (see
BIRUNI), in the 11th century; and they are still celebrated
in the Mongol versions of Buddhist ecclesiastical story.
Turkoman Dynasties.---In the time of Hsuan Tsang (A.D.
630-645) there were both Indian and Turk princes in the Kabul
valley, and in the succeeding centuries both these races seem
to have predominated in succession. The first Mahommedan
attempts at the conquest of Kabul were unsuccessful, though
Seistan and Arachosia were permanently held from an early
date. It was not till the end of the 10th century that a Hindu
prince ceased to reign in Kabul, and it fell into the hands
of the Turk Sabuktagin, who had established his capital at
Ghazni. There, too, reigned his famous son Mahmud, and a
series of descendants, till the middle of the 12th century,
rendering the city one of the most splendid in Asia. We
then have a powerful dynasty, commonly believed to have been
of Afghan race; and if so, the first. But the historians
give them a legendary descent from Zohak, which is no Afghan
genealogy. The founder of the dynasty was Alauddin,
chief of Ghor, whose vengeance for the cruel death of his
brother at the hands of Bahram the Ghaznevide was wreaked
in devastating the great city. His nephew, Shahabuddin
Mahommed, repeatedly invaded India, conquering as far as
Benares. His empire in India indeed--ruled by his freedmen
who after his death became independent --may be regarded as
the origin of that great Mahommedan monarchy which endured
nominally till 1857. For abrief period the Afghan countries
were subject to the king of Khwarizm, and it was here
chiefly that occurred the gallant attempts of Jalaluddin
of Khwarizm to withstand the progress of Jenghiz Khan.
A passage in Ferishta seems to imply that the Afghans in the
Sulimani mountains were already known by that name in the first
century of the Hegira, but it is uncertain how far this may
be built on. The name Afghans is very distinctly mentioned
in `Utbi's History of Sultan Mahmud, written about A.D.
1030, coupled with that of the Khifjis. It also appears
frequently in connexion with the history of India in the
13th and 14th centuries. The successive dynasties of Delhi
are generally called Pathan, but were really so only in
part. Of the Khifjis (1288-1321) we have already spoken.
The Tughlaks (1321-1421) were originally Tatars of the Karauna
tribe. The Lodis (1450-1526) were pure Pathans. For a
century and more after the Mongol invasion the whole of the
Afghan countries were under Mongol rule; but in the middle
of the 14th century a native dynasty sprang up in western
Afghanistan, that of the Kurts, which extended its rule
over Ghor, Herat and Kandahar. The history of the Afghan
countries under the Mongols is obscure; but that regime
must have left its mark upon the country, if we judge from
the occurrence of frequent Mongol names of places, and
even of Mongol expressions adopted into familiar language.
The Mogul Dyniasty.---All these countries were included
in Timur's conquests, and Kabul at least had remained in
the possession of one of his descendants till 1501, only
three years before it fell into the hands of another and
more illustrious one, Sultan Baber. It was not till 1522
that Baber succeeded in permanently wresting Kandahar from
the Arghuns, a family of Mongol descent, who had long held
it. From the time of his conquest of Hindustan (victory at
Panipat, April 21, 1526), Kabul and Kandahar may be regarded
as part of the empire of Delhi under the (so-called) Mogul
dynasty which Baber founded. Kabul so continued till the
invasion of Nadir Shah (1738). Kandahar often changed hands
between the Moguls and the rising Safavis (or Sufis) of
Persia. Under the latter it had remained from 1642 till 1708,
when in the reign of Husain, the last of them, the Ghilzais,
provoked by the oppressive Persian governor Shahnawaz Khan
(a Georgian prince of the Bagratid house), revolted under Mir
Wais, and expelled the Persians. Mir Wais was acknowledged
sovereign of Kandahar, and eventually defeated the Persian
armies sent against him. but did not long survive (d. 1715).
Mahmud, the son of Mir Wais, a man of great courage and
energy, carried out a project of his father's, the conquest
of Persia itself. After a long siege, Shah Husain came
forth from Ispahan with all his court, and surrendered
the sword and diadem of the Sufis into the hands of the
Ghilzai (October 1722). Two years later Mahmud died mad,
and a few years saw the end of Ghilzai rule in Persia.
The Durani Dynasty.---In 1737-38 Nadir Shah both recovered
Kandahar and took Kabul. But he gained the goodwill of the
Afghans, and enrolled many in his army. Among these was a
noble young soldier, Ahmad Khan, of the Saddozai family of
the Abdali clan, who after the assassination of Nadir (1747)
was chosen by the Afghan chiefs at Kandahar to be their
leader, and assumed kingly authority over the eastern part
of Nadir's empire, with the style of Dur-i-Duran, ``Pearl
of the Age,'' bestowing that of Durani upon his clan, the
Abdalis. With Ahmad Shah, Afghanistan, as such, first took
a place among the kingdoms of the earth, and the Durani
dynasty, which he founded, still occupies its throne. During
the twenty-six years of his reign he carried his warlike
expeditions far and wide. Westward they extended nearly to
the shores of the Caspian; eastward he repeatedly entered
India as a conqueror. At his great battle of Panipat (January
6, 1761), with vastly inferior numbers, he inflicted on the
Mahrattas, then at the zenith of their power, a tremendous
defeat, almost annihilating their vast army; but the success
had for him no important result. Having long suffered from a
terrible disease, he died in 1773, bequeathing to his son Timur
a dominion which embraced not only Afghanistan to its utmost
limits, but the Punjab, Kashmir and Turkestan to the Oxus,
with Sind, Baluchistan and Khorasan as tributary governments.
Timur transferred his residence from Kandahar to Kabul, and
continued during a reign of twenty years to stave off the
anarchy which followed close on his death. He left twenty-three
sons, of whom the fifth, Zaman Mirza, by help of Payindah
Khan, head of the Barakzai family of the Abdalis, succeeded in
grasping the royal power. For many years barbarous wars raged
between the brothers, during which Zaman Shah, Shuja-ul-Mulk
and Mahmud successively held the throne. The last owed
success to Payindah's son, Fatteh Khan (known as the ``Afghan
Warwick''), a man of masterly ability in war and politics, the
eldest of twenty-one brothers, a family of notable intelligence
and force of character, and many of these he placed over the
provinces. Fatteh Khan, however, excited the king's jealously
by his powerful position, and provoked the malignity of the
king's son, Kamran, by a gross outrage on the Saddozai family.
He was accordingly seized, blinded and afterwards murdered with
prolonged torture, the brutal Kamran striking the first blow.
The Barakzai brothers united to avenge Fatteh Khan. The
Saddozais were driven from Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar, and
with difficulty reached Herat (1818). Herat remained thus
till Kamran's death (1842), and after that was held by his
able and wicked minister Yar Mahommed. The rest of the
country was divided among the Barakzais---Dost Mahommed, the
ablest, getting Kabul. Peshawar and the right bank of the
Indus fell to the Sikhs after their victory at Nowshera in
1823. The last Afghan hold of the Punjab had been lost
long before.--Kashmir in 1819; Sind had cast off all
allegiance since 1808; the Turkestan provinces had been
practically independent since the death of Timur Shah.
The First Afghan War, 1838-42.---In 1809, in consequence
of the intrigues Of Napoleon in Persia, the Hon. Mountstuart
Elphinstone had been sent as envoy to Shah Shuja, then in
power, and had been well received by him at Peshawar. This
was the first time the Afghans made any acquaintance with
Englishmen. Lieut. Alex. Burnes (afterwards Sir Alex.
Burnes) visited Kabul on his way to Bokhara in 1832. In 1837
the Persian siege of Herat and the proceedings of Russia created
uneasiness, and Burnes was sent by the governor-general as
resident to the amir's court at Kabul. But the terms which
the Dost sought were not conceded by the government, and
the rash resolution was taken of re-establishing Shah Shuja,
long a refugee in British territory. Ranjit Singh, king
of the Punjab, bound himself to co-operate, but eventually
declined to let the expedition cross his territories.
The war began in March 1838, when the ``Army of the Indus,''
amounting to 21,000 men, assembled in Upper Sind and advanced
through the Bolan Pass under the command of Sir John Keane.
There was hardship, but scarcely any opposition. Kohandil
Khan of Kandahar fled to Persia. That city was occupied in
April 1839, and Shah Shuja was crowned in his grandfather's
mosque. Ghazni was reached 21st July; a gate of the city was
blown open by the engineers (the match was fired by Lieut.,
afterwards Sir Henry, Durand), and the place was taken by
storm. Dost Mahommed, finding his troops deserting, passed
the Hindu Kush, and Shah Shuja entered the capital (August
7). The war was thought at an end, and Sir John Keane (made a
peer) returned to India with a considerable part of the force,
leaving behind 8000 men, besides the Shah's force, with Sir
W. Macnaghten as envoy, and Sir A. Burnes as his colleague.
During the two following years Shah Shuja and his allies remained
in possession of Kabul and Kandahar. The British outposts
extended to Saighan, in the Oxus basin, and to Mullah Khan,
in the plain of Seistan. Dost Mahommed surrendered (November
5, 1840) and was sent to India, where he was honourably
treated. From the beginning, insurrection against the new
government had been rife. The political authorities were
overconfident, and neglected warnings. On the 2nd of November
1841 the revolt broke out violently at Kabul, with the massacre
of Burnes and other officers. The position of the British
camp, its communications with the citadel and the location
of the stores were the worst possible; and the general
(Elphinstone) was shattered in constitution. Disaster after
disaster occurred, not without misconduct. At a conference
(December 23) with the Dost's son, Akbar Khan, who had taken
the lead of the Afghans, Sir W. Macnaghten was murdered by
that chief's own hand. On the 6th of January 1842, after a
convention to evacuate the country had been signed, the British
garrison, still numbering 4500 soldiers (of whom 690 were
Europeans), with some 12,000 followers, marched out of the
camp. The winter was severe, the troops demoralised, the march
a mass of confusion and massacre, and the force was finally
overwhelmed in the Jagdalak pass between Kabul and Jalalabad.
On the 13th the last survivors mustered at Gandamak only twenty
muskets. Of those who left Kabul, only Dr Brydon reached
Jalalabad, wounded and half dead. Ninety-five prisoners
were afterwards recovered. The garrison of Ghazni had
already been forced to surrender (December 10). But General
Nott held Kandahar with a stern hand, and General Sale,
who had reached Jalalabad from Kabul at the beginning of
the outbreak, maintained that important point gallantly.
To avenge these disasters and recover the prisoners
preparations were made in India on a fitting scale; but
it was the 16th of April 1842 before General Pollock could
relieve Jalalabad, after forcing the Khyber Pass. After a
long halt there he advanced (August 20), and gaining rapid
successes, occupied Kabul (September 15), where Nott,
after retaking and dismantling Ghazni, joined him two days
later. The prisoners were happily recovered from Bamian.
The citadel and central bazaar of Kabul were destroyed,
and the army finally evacuated Afghanistan, December 1842.
This ill-planned and hazardous enterprise was fraught with the
elements of inevitable failute. A ruler imposed upon a free
people by foreign arms is always unpopular; he is unable to
stand alone; and his foreign auxiliaries soon find themselves
obliged to choose between remaining to uphold his power, or
retiring with the probability that it will fall after their
departure. The leading chiefs of Afghanistan perceived that the
maintenance of Shah Shuja's rule by British troops would soon
be fatal to their own power and position in the country, and
probably to their national independence. They were insatiable
in their demands for office and emolument, and when they
discovered that the shah, acting by the advice of the British
envoy, was levying from among their tribesmen regiments to be
directly under his control, they took care that the plan should
fail. Without a regular revenue no effective administration
could be organized; but the attempt to raise taxes showed that
it might raise the people, so that for both men and money the
shah's government was still obliged to rely principally upon
British aid. All these circumstances combined to render the
new regime weak and unpopular, since there was no force at
the ruler's command except foreign troops to put down disorder
or to protect those who submitted, while the discontented
nobles fomented disaffection and the inbred hatred of strangers
in race and religion among the general Afghan population.
British and Russian Relalions.--It has been said that
the declared object of this policy had been to maintain
the independence and integrity of Afghanistan, to secure
the friendly alliance of its ruler, and thus to interpose a
great barrier of mountainous country between the expanding
power of Russia in Central Asia and the British dominion in
India. After 1849, when the annexation of the Punjab had
carried the Indian northwestern frontier up to the skirts
of the Afghan highlands, the corresponding advance of
the Russians south-eastward along the Oxus river became
of closer interest to the British, particularly when, in
1856, the Persians again attempted to take possession of
Herat. Dost Mahommed now became the British ally, but on his
death in 1863 the kingdom fell back into civil war, until his
son, Shere Ali, had won his way to undisputed rulership in
1868. In the same year Bokhara became a dependency of Russia.
To the British government an attitude of non-intervention
in Afghan affairs appeared in this situation to be no longer
possible. The meeting between the amir Shere Ali and the
viceroy of India (Lord Mayo) at Umballa in 1869 drew nearer the
relations between the two governments; the amir consolidated
and began to centralize his power; and the establishment of a
strong, friendly and united Afghanistan became again the keynote
of British policy beyond the north-western frontier of India.
When, therefore, the conquest of Khiva in 1873 by the Russians,
and their gradual approach towards the amir's northern border,
had seriously alarmed Shere Ali, he applied for support to
the British; and his disappointment at his failure to obtain
distinct pledges of material assistance, and at Great Britain's
refusal to endorse all his claims in a dispute with Persia
over Seistan, so far estranged him from the British connexion
that he began to entertain amicable overtures from the Russian
authorities at Tashkend. In 1869 the Russian government
had assured Lord Clarendon that they regarded Afghanistan as
completely outside the sphere of their influence; and in 1872 the
boundary line of Afghanistan on the north-west had been settled
between England and Russia so far eastward as Lake Victoria.
Nevertheless the correspondence between Kabul and Tashkend
continued, and as the Russians were now extending their dominion
over all the region beyond Afghanistan on the north-west, the
British government determined, in 1876, once more to undertake
active measures for securing their political ascendancy in that
country. But the amir, whose feelings of resentment had by no
means abated, was now leaning toward Russia, though he mainly
desired to hold the balance between two equally formidable
rivals. The result of overtures made to him from India was
that in 1877, when Lord Lytton, acting under direct instructions
from Her Majesty's ministry, proposed to Shere Ali a treaty of
alliance, Shere Ali showed himself very little disposed to
welcome the offer; and upon his refusal to admit a British
agent into Afghanistan the negotiations finally broke down.
Second Afghan War, 1878-80.--In the course of the following
year (1878) the Russian government, to counteract the
interference of England with their advance upon Constantinople,
sent an envoy to Kabul empowered to make a treaty with the
amir. It was immediately notified to him from India that a
British mission would be deputed to his capital, but he demurred
to receiving it; and when the British envoy was turned back
on the Afchan frontier hostilities were proclaimed by the
viceroy in November 1878, and the second Afghan War began.
Sir Donald Stewart's force, marching up through Baluchistan by
the Bolan Pass, entered Kandahar with little or no resistance;
while another army passed through the Khyber Pass and took up
positions at Jalalabad and other places on the direct road to
Kabul. Another force under Sir Frederick Roberts marched up
to the high passes leading out of Kurram into the interior of
Afghanistan, defeated the amir's troops at the Peiwar Kotal,
and seized the Shutargardan Pass which commands a direct route
to Kabul through the Logar valley. The amir Shere Ali fled
from his capital into the northern province, where he died at
Mazar-i-Sharif in February 1879. In the course of the next
six months there was much desultory skirmishing between the
tribes and the British troops, who defeated various attempts
to dislodge them from the positions that had been taken up; but
the sphere of British military operations was not materially
extended. It was seen that the farther they advanced the
more difficult would become their eventual retirement;
and the problem was to find a successor to Shere Ali who
could and would make terms with the British government.
In the meantime Yakub Khan, one of Shere Ali's sons, had announced
to Major Cavagnari, the political agent at the headquarters
of the British army, that he had succeeded his father at
Kabul. The negotiations that followed ended in the conclusion
of the treaty of Gandamak in May 1879, by which Takub Khan
was recognized as amir; certain outlying tracts of Afghanistan
were transferred to the British government; the amir placed
in its hands the entire control of his foreign relations,
receiving in return a guarantee against foreign aggression;
and the establishment of a British envoy at Kabul was at last
conceded. By this convention the complete success of the
British political and military operations seemed to have been
attained; for whereas Shere Ali had made a treaty of alliance
with, and had received an embassy from Russia, his son had now
made an exclusive treaty with the British government, and had
agreed that a British envoy should reside permanently at his
court. Yet it was just this final concession, the chief and
original object of British policy, that proved speedily fatal
to the whole settlement. For in September the envoy, Sir
Louis Cavagnari, with his staff and escort, was massacred at
Kabul, and the entire fabric of a friendly alliance went to
pieces. A fresh expedition was instantly despatched across
the Shutargardan Pass under Sir Frederick Roberts, who defeated
the Afghans at Charasia near Kabul, and entered the city in
October. Yakub Khan, who had surrendered, was sent to India;
and the British army remained in military occupation of the
district round Kabul until in December (1879) its communications
with India were interrupted, and its position at the capital
placed in serious jeopardy, by a general rising of the
tribes. After they had been repulsed and put down, not without
some hard fighting, Sir Donald Stewart, who had not quitted
Kandahar, brought a force up by Ghazni to Kabul, overcoming
some resistance on his way, and assumed the supreme command.
Nevertheless the political situation was still embarrassing,
for as the whole country beyond the range of British effective
military control was masterless, it was undesirable to withdraw
the troops before a government could be reconstructed which
could stand without foreign support, and with which diplomatic
relations of some kind might be arranged. The general
position and prospect of political affairs in Afghanistan
bore, indeed, an instructive resemblance to the situation just
forty years earlier, in 1840, with the important differences
that the Punjab and Sind had since become British, and that
communications between Kabul and India were this time secure.
Reign of Abdur Rahman.---Abdur Rahman, the son of the late
amir Shere Ali's elder drother, had fought against Shere Ali
in the war for succession to Dost Mahommed, had been driven
beyond the Oxus, and had lived for ten years in exile with the
Russians. In March 1880 he came back across the river,
and began to establish himself in the northern province of
Afghanistan. The viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, on hearing
of his reappearance, instructed the political authorities
at Kabul to communicate with him. By skilful negotiations
a meeting was arranged, and after pressing in vain for
a treaty he was induced to assume charge of the country
upon his necognition by the British as amir, with the
understanding that he should have no relations with other
foreign powers, and with a formal assurance from the viceroy
of protection from foreign aggression, so long as he should
unreservedly follow the advice of the British government in
regard to his external affairs. The province of Kandahar
was severed from the Kabul dominion; and the sirdar Shere
Ali Khan, a member of the Barakzai family, was installed
by the British representative as its independent ruler.
For the second time in the course of this war a conclusive
settlement of Afghan affairs seemed now to have been attained;
and again, as in 1879, it was immediately dissolved. In July
1880, a few days after the proclamation of Abdur Rahman as amir
at Kabul, came news that Ayub Khan, Shere Ali's younger son, who
had been holding Herat since his father's death, had marched upon
Kandahar, had utterly defeated at Maiwand a British force that
went out from Kandahar to oppose him, and was besieging that
city. Sir Frederick Roberts at once set out from Kabul with
10,000 men to its relief, reached Kandahar after a rapid march
of 313 miles, attacked and routed Ayub Khan's army on the
1st of September, and restored British authority in southern
Afghanistan. As the British ministry had resolved to evacuate
Kandahar, the sirdar Shere Ali Khan, who saw that he could
not stand alone, resigned and withdrew to India, and the
amir Abdur Rahman was invited to take possession of the
province. But when Ayub Khan, who had meanwhile retreated to
Herat, heard that the British forces had retired, early in
1881, to India, he mustered a fresh army and again approached
Kandahar. In June the fort of Girishk, on the Helmund, was
seized by his adherents; the amir's troops were defeated some
days later in an engagement, and Ayub Khan took possession
of Kandahar at the end of July. The amir Abdur Rahman, whose
movements had hitherto been slow and uncertain, now acted
with vigour and decision. He marched rapidly from Kabul
at the head of a force, with which he encountered Ayub Khan
under the walls of Kandahar, and routed his army on 22nd
September, taking all his guns and equipage. Ayub Khan fled
toward Herat, but as the place had meanwhile been occupied
by one of the amir's generals he took refuge in Persia.
By this victory Abdur Rahman's rulership was established.
In 1884 it was determined to resume the demarcation, by a
joint commission of British and Russian officers, of the
northern boundary of Afghanistan. The work went on with
much difficulty and contention, until in March 1885, when
the amir was at Rawalpindi for a conference with the viceroy
of India, Lord Dufferin, the news came that at Panjdeh,
a disputed place on the boundary held by the Afghans, the
Russians had attacked and driven out with some loss the amir's
troops. For the moment the consequences seemed likely to
be serious; but the affair was arranged diplomatically, and
the demarcation proceeded up to a point near the Oxus river,
beyond which the commission were unable to settle an agreement.
During the ten years following his accession in 1880 Abdur
Rahman employed himself in extending and consolidating his
dominion over the whole country. Some local revolts among the
tribes were rigorously suppressed; and two attempts to upset
his rulership--the first by Ayub Khan, who entered Afghanistan
from Persia, the second and more dangerous one by Ishak
Khan, the amir's cousin, who rebelled against him in Afghan
Turkestan---were defeated. By 1891 the amir had enforced his
supreme authority throughout Afghanistan more completely than
any of his predecessors, In 1895 the amir's troops entered
Kafiristan, a wild mountainous tract on the north-east,
inhabited by a peculiar race that had hitherto defied all
efforts to subjugate them, but were now gradually reduced to
submission. Meanwhile the delimitation of the northern
frontier, up to the point where it meets Chinese territory
on the east, was completed and fixed by arrangements between
the governments of Russia and Great Britain; and the eastern
border of the Afghan territory, towards India, was also mapped
out and partially laid down, in accordance with a convention
between the two governments. The amir not only received a
large annual subsidy of money from the British government, but
he also obtained considerable supplies of war material; and he,
moreover, availed himself very freely of facilities that were
given him for the importation at his own cost of arms through
India. With these resources, and with the advantage of an
assurance from the British government that he would be aided
against foreign aggression, he was able to establish an
absolute military despotism inside his kingdom, by breaking
down the power of the warlike tribes which held in check, up
to his time, the personal autocracy of the Kabul rulers, and
by organizing a regular army well furnished with European
rifies and artillery. Taxation of all kinds was heavily
increased, and systematically collected. The result was
that whereas in former times the forces of an Afghan ruler
consisted mainly of a militia, furnished by the chiefs of
tribes who held land on condition of military service, and
who stoutly resisted any attempt to commute this service for
money payment, the amir had at his command a large standing
army, and disposed of a substantial revenue paid direct to his
treasury. Abdur Rahman executed or exiled all those whose
political influence he saw reason to fear, or of whose
disaffection he had the slightest suspicion; his administration
was severe and his punishments were cruel; but undoubtedly he
put down disorder, stopped the petty tyranny of local chiefs
and brought violent crime under some effective control in the
districts. Travelling by the high roads during his reign was
comparatively safe; although it must be added that the excessive
exactions of dues and customs very seriously damaged the external
trade. In short, Abdur Rahman's reign produced an important
political revolution, or reformation, in Afghanistan, which
rose from the condition of a country distracted by chronic
civil wars, under rulers whose authority depended upon their
power to hold down or conciliate fierce and semi-independent
tribes in the outlying parts of the dominion, to the rank
of a formidable military state governed autocratically. He
established, for the first time in the history of the Afghan
kingdom, a powerfully centralized administration strong enough
to maintain order and to enforce obedience over all the country
which he had united under his dominion, supported by a force
sufficiently armed and disciplined to put down attempts at
resistance or revolt. His policy, consistently maintained,
was to permit no kind of foreign interference, on any pretext,
with the interior concerns or the economical conditions of his
country. From the British government he accepted supplies of
arms and subsidies of money; but he would make no concessions
in return, and all projects of a strategical or commercial
nature, such as railways and telegraphs, proposed either
for the defence or the development of his possessions, seem
to have been regarded by the amir with extreme distrust,
as methods of what has been called pacific penetration --so
that on these points he was immovable. It was probably due
to the strength and solidity of the executive administration
organized, during his lifetime, by Abdur Rahman that, for
the first time in the records of the dynasty founded by Ahmad
Shah in the latter part of the 18th century, his death was
not followed by disputes over the succession or by civil war.
Succession of Habibullah.--The amir Abdur Rahman died
on the 1st of October 1901; and two days later his eldest
son, Habibullah, formally announced his accession to the
rulership. He was recognized with acclamation by the army,
by the religious bodies, by the principal tribal chiefs and
by all classes of the people as their lawful sovereign; while
a deputation of Indian Mahommedans was despatched to Kabul
from India to convey the condolences and congratulations
of the viceroy. The amir's first measures were designed
to enhance his popularity and to improve his internal
administration, particularly with regard to the relations of
his government with the tribes, and to the system introduced
by the late amir of compulsory military service, whereby
each tribe was required to supply a proportionate number of
recruits. With this object a council of state for tribal
affairs was established; and it was arranged that a
representative of each tribe should be associated with the
provincial governors for the adjudication of tribal cases.
In the important matter of foreign relations Habibullah showed
a determination to adopt the policy of his father, to whom
the British government had given an assurance of aid to repel
foreign aggression, on the condition that the amir should
follow the advice of that government in regard to external
affairs. This condition was loyally observed by the new
amir, who referred to India all communications of an official
kind received from the Russian authorities in the provinces
bordering on Afghanistan. But toward the various questions
left pending between the governments of India and Afghanistan
the new amir maintained also his fatber's attitude. He gave
no indications of a disposition to continue the discussion of
them, or to entertain proposals for extending or altering
his relations with the Indian government. An invitation
from the viceroy to meet him in India, with the hope that
these points might be settled in conference, was put aside
by dilatory excuses, until at last the project was abandoned,
and finally the amir agreed to receive at Kabul a diplomatic
mission. The mission, whose chief was Sir Louis Dane, foreign
secretary to the Indian government, reached Kabul early in
December 1904, and remained there four months in negotiation
with the amir personally and with his representatives. It
was found impossible, after many interviews, to obtain from
Habibullah his consent to any addition to or variation of
the terms of the assurance given by the British government in
1880, with which he professed himself entirely satisfied, so
that the treaty finally settled in March 1905 went no further
than a formal confirmation of all engagements previously
concluded with the amir's predecessor. It was felt in British
circles at the time that a very considerable concession to
Habibullah's independence of attitude was displayed in the fact
that he was styled in the treaty ``His Majesty''; but, in the
circumstances, it seems to have been thought diplomatic to
accede to the amir's determination to insist on this matter of
style. But the rebuff showed that it was desirable in the
interests both of the British government and of Afghanistan
that an opportunity should be made for enabling the amir
to have personal acquaintance with the highest Indian
authorities. A further step, calculated to strengthen the
relations of amity between the two governments, was taken
when it was arranged that the amir should pay a visit to
the viceroy, Lord Minto, in India, in January 1907; and
this visit took place with great cordiality and success.
The Anglo-Russian Convention, signed on the 31st of August 1907,
contained the following important declarations with regard to
Afghanistan. Great Britain disclaimed any intention of altering
the political status or (subject to the observance of the treaty
of 1905) of interfering in the administration or annexing any
territory of Afghanistan, and engaged to use her influence
there in no manner threatening to Russia. Russia, on her part,
recognized Afghanistan as outside her sphere of influence.
AUTHORITIES. ---MacGregor, Gazetteer or Afghanistan
(1871); Elphinstone, Account of the Kingdom of Kabul
(1809); Ferrier, History of the Afghanis (1858); Bellow,
Afghanistan and the Afghans (1879); Baber's Memoirs
(1844); Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan (1878);
Malleson, History of Afghanistan (1879); Heusman, The
Afghan War (1881); Sir H. M. Durand, The First Afghan War
(1879); Forbes, The Afghan Wars (1892); Rawlinson, England
and Russia in the East (1875); Wyllie, Essays on the
External Policy of India (1875). A. C. Yate, Northern
Afghanistan (1888); Curzon, Problems of the Far East (1894);
Robertson, The Kafir of the Hindu Kush (1896); Holdich,
Indian Borderland (1901); Thorburn, Asiatic Neighbours
(1895); Lord Roberts, Forty-one Years in India (1898); Lady
Betty Balfour, Lord Litton's Indian Administration (1899);
Hanna, Second Afghani War (1899); Gray, At the Court of
the Amir (1895); Sultan Mohammad Khan, Constitution and
Laws of Afghanistan (1900): Life of Abdur Rahinani (1900);
Angus Hamilton, Afghanistan (1906). (H. Y.; A. C. L.)
1 We owe our knowledge of the geology of Afghanistan almost
entirely to the observations of C. U. Grierbach, and a summary
of his researches will be found in Records of the Geological
Survey of India, vol. xx. (1887), pp. 93-103, with map.
AFGHAN TURKESTAN, the most northern province of Afghanistan.
It is bounded on the E. by Badakshan, on the N. by the
Oxus river, on the N.W. and W. by Russia and the Hari Rud
river, and on the S. by the Hindu Lush, the Koh-i-Baba and
the northern watershed of the Hari Rud basin. Its northern
frontier was decided by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873;
and delimited by the Russo-Afghan boundary commission of
1883, which gave rise to the Panjdeh incident. The whole
territory, from the junction of the Kokcha river with the
Oxus on the north-east to the province of Herat on the
south-west, is some 500 m. in length, with an average width
from the Russian frontier to the Hindu Kush of 114 m. It thus
comprises about 57,000 sq. m. or roughly' two-ninths of the
kingdom of Afghanistan. Except in the river valleys it is a
poor territory, rough and mountainous towards the south, but
subsiding into undulating wastes and pasture-lands towards
the Turkman desert, and the Oxus riverain which is highly
cultivated. The population, which is mostly agricultural,
settled in and around its towns and villages, is estimated at
750,000. The province includes the khanates of Kunduz, Tashkurgan,
Balkh with Akcha; the western khanates of Saripul, Shibarghan,
Andkhui and Maimana, sometimes classed together as the Chahar
Vidayet, or ``Four Domains''; and such parts of the Hazara
tribes as lie north of the Hindu Kush and its prolongation.
The principal town is Mazar-i-Sharif, which in modern times
has supplanted the ancient city of Balkh; and Takhtapul, near
Mazar, is the chief Afghan cantonment north of the Hindu Kush.
Ethnically and historically Afghan Turkestan is more
connected with Bokhara than with Kabul, of which government
it has been a dependency only since the time of Dost
Mahommed. The bulk of the people of the cities are of
Persian and Uzbeg stock, but interspersed with them are
Mongol Hazaras and Hindus with Turkoman tribes in the Oxus
plains. Over these races the Afghans rule as conquerors and
there is no bond of racial unity between them. Ancient Balkh
or Bactriana was a province of the Achaemenian empire, and
probably was occupied in great measure by a race of Iranian
blood. About 250 B.C. Diodotus (Theodotus), governor of
Bactria under the Seleucidae, declared his independence, and
commenced the history of the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, which
succumbed to Parthian and nomadic movements about 126 B.C.
After this came a Buddhist era which has left its traces in
the gigantic sculptures at Bamian and the rock-cut topes of
Haibak. The district was devastated by Jenghiz Khan, and
has never since fully recovered its prosperity. For about
a century it belonged to the Delhi empire, and then fell
into Uzbeg hands. In the 18th century it formed part of the
dominion of Ahmad Khan Durani, and so remained under his son
Timur. But under the fratricidal wars of Timur's sons the
separate khanates fell back under the independent rule of
various Uzbeg chiefs. At the beginning of the 19th century
they belonged to Bokhara; but under the great amir Dost
Mahommed the Afghans recovered Balkh and Tashkurgan in 1850,
Akcha and the four western khanates in 1855, and Kunduz in
1859. The sovereignty over Andkhui, Shibarghan, Saripul and
Maimana was in dispute between Bokhara and Kabul until settled
by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873 in favour of the Afghan
claim. Under the strong rule of Abdur Rahman these outlying
territories were closely welded to Kabul; but after the
accession of Habibullah the bonds once more relaxed. (T. H. Ut.v)
AFIUM-KARA-HISSAR (afium, opium), the popular name of
Kara-hissar Sahib, a city of Asiatic Turkey, in the vilayet
of Brusa, nearly 200 m. E. of Smyrna, and 50 m. S.S.E. of
Kutaiah. Pop. 18,000 (Moslems, 13,000; Christians, 5000).
Called Nicopolis by Leo III. after his victory over the
Arabs in 740, its name was changed by the Seljuk Turks to
Kara-hissar. It stands partly on level ground, partly on a
declivity, and above it rises a precipitous trachytic rock
(400 ft.) on the summit of which are the ruins of an ancient
castle. From its situation on the route of the caravans
between Smyrna and western Asia on the one hand, and Armenia,
Georgia, &c., on the other, the city became a place of
extensive trade, and its bazaars are well stocked with the
merchandise of both Europe and the East. Opium in large
quantities is produced in its vicinity and forms the staple
article of its commerce; and there are, besides, manufactures
of black felts, carpets, arms and saddlery. Afium contains
several mosques (one of them a very handsome building), and
is the seat of an Armenian bishop. The town is connected
by railway with Smyrna, Konia, Angora and Constantinople.
See V. Cuinet, Turquie d'Asie (Paris, 1894), vol. iv.
A FORTIORI (Lat. ``from a stronger [reason]''), a term
used of an argument which justifies a statement not itself
specifically demonstrated by reference to a proved conclusion
which includes it; thus, if A is proved less than B, and
is known to be greater than C, it follows a fortiori that
C is less than B without further proof. The argument is
frequently based merely on a comparison of probabilities (cf.
Matt. vi. 30), when it constitutes an appeal to common sense.
AFRANIUS, LUCIUS, Roman general, lived in the times of
the Sertorian (79-72), third Mithradatic (74-61) and Civil
Wars. Of humble origin (Cic. ad Att. i. 16. 20), from
his early years he was a devoted adherent of Pompey. In 60,
chiefly by Pompey's support, he was raised to the consulship,
but in performing the duties of that office he showed an
utter incapacity to manage civil affairs. In the following
year, while governor of Cisalpine Gaul, he obtained the honour
of a triumph, and on the allotment of Spain to Pompey (55),
Afranius and Marcus Petreius were sent to take charge of the
government. On the rupture between Caesar and Pompey they were
compelled, after a short campaign in which they were at first
successful, to surrender to Caesar at Ilerda (49), and were
dismissed on promising not to serve again in the war. Afranius,
regardless of his promise, joined Pompey at Dyrrhachium,
and at the battle of Pharsalus (48) had charge of Pompey's
camp. On the defeat of Pompey, Afranius, despairing of pardon
from Caesar, went to Africa, and was present at the disastrous
battle of Thapsus (46). Escaping from the field with a strong
body of cavalry, he was afterwards taken prisoner, along with
Faustus Sulla, by the troops of Sittius, and handed over to
Caesar, whose veterans rose in tumult and put them to death.
See Hirtius, Bell. Afric. 95; Plutarch, Pompey; Dio Cassius
xxxvii., xli.-xliii.; Caesar, B.C i. 57-87; Appian, B.C ii.;
for the history of the period, articles on CAESAR and POMPEY.
AFRANIUS, LUCIUS, Roman comic poet, flourished about 94
B.C. His comedies chiefly dealt with everyday subjects
from Roman middle-class life, and he himself tells us that
he borrowed freely from Menander and others. His style was
vigorous and correct; his moral tone that of the period.
Horace, Epp. ii. 1. 57; Cicero, Brutus, 45, de Fin.
i. 3; Quitilian x 1. 100; fragments, about 400 lines, in
Ribbeck, Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta, ii. (1898).
AFRICA, the name of a continent representing the largest of
the three great southward projections from the main mass of
the earth's surface. It includes within its remarkably regular
outline an area, according to the most recent computations,
of 11,262,000 sq. m., excluding the islands.1 Separated from
Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its
N.E. extremity by the Isthmus of Suez, 80 m. wide. From the
most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka, a little west of Cape
Blanc, in 37 deg. 21' N., to the most southerly point, Cape
Agulhas, 34 deg. 51' 15'' S., is a distance approximately of
5000 m.; from Cape Verde, 17 deg. 33' 22'' W., the westernmost
point, to Ras Hafun, 51 deg. 27' 52'' E., the most easterly
projection, is a distance (also approximately) of 4600 m.
The length of coast-line is 16,100 m. and the absence of deep
indentations of the shore is shown by the fact that Europe,
which covers only 3,760,000 sq. m., has a coast-line of 19,800 m.
I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY
The main structural lines of the continent show both the
east-to-west direction characteristic, at least in the eastern
hemisphere, of the more northern parts of the world, and the
north-to-south direction seen in the southern peninsulas. Africa
is thus composed of two segments at right angles, the northern
running from east to west, the southern from north to south, the
subordinate lines corresponding in the main to these two directions.
Main Geographical Features.--The mean elevation of the
continent approximates closely to 2000 ft., which is roughly
the elevation of both North and South America, but is
considerably less than that of Asia (3117 ft.). In contrast
with the other continents it is marked by the comparatively
small area both of very high and of very low ground, lands
under 600 ft. occupying an unusually small part of the surface;
while not only are the highest elevations inferior to those
of Asia and South America, but the area of land over 10,000
ft. is also quite insignificant, being represented almost
entirely by individual peaks and mountain ranges. Moderately
elevated tablelands are thus the characteristic feature of the
continent, though the surface of these is broken by higher
peaks and ridges. (So prevalent are these isolated peaks and
ridges that a special term [Inselberg-landschaft] has been
adopted in Germany to describe this kind of country, which
is thought to be in great part the result of wind action.)
As a general rule, the higher tablelands lie to the east and
south, while a progressive diminution in altitude towards the
west and north is observable. Apart from the lowlands and
the Atlas range, the continent may be divided into two regions
of higher and lower plateaus, the dividing line (somewhat
concave to the north-west) running from the middle of the
Red Sea to about 6 deg. S. on the west coast. We thus obtain
the following four main divisions of the continent:---(1) The
coast plains---often fringed seawards by mangrove swamps--never
stretching far from the coast, except on the lower courses of
streams. Recent alluvial flats are found chiefly in the delta
of the more important rivers. Elsewhere the coast lowlands
merely form the lowest steps of the system of terraces which
constitutes the ascent to the inner plateaus. (2) The Atlas
range, which, orographically, is distinct from the rest of
the continent, being unconnected with any other area of high
ground, and separated from the rest of the continent on the south
by a depressed and desert area (the Sahara), in places below
sea-level. (3) The high southern and eastern plateaus, rarely
falling below 2000 ft., and having a mean elevation of about
3500 ft. (4) The north and west African plains, bordered and
traversed by bands of higher ground, but generally below 2000
ft. This division includes the great desert of the Sahara.
The third and fourth divisions may be again subdivided.
Thus the high plateaus include:--(a) The South African
plateau as far as about 12 deg. S., bounded east, west and
south by bands of high ground which fall steeply to the
coasts. On this account South Africa has a general resemblance
to an inverted saucer. Due south the plateau rim is formed
by three parallel steps with level ground between them. The
largest of these level areas, the Great Karroo, is a dry,
barren region, and a large tract of the plateau proper is
of a still more arid character and is known as the Kalahari
Desert. The South African plateau is connected towards the
north-east with (b) the East African plateau, with probably a
slightly greater average elevation, and marked by some distinct
features. It is formed by a widening out of the eastern
axis of high ground, which becomes subdivided into a number
of zones running north and south and consisting in turn of
ranges, tablelands and depressions. The most striking feature
is the existence of two great lines of depression, due largely
to the subsidence of whole segments of the earth's crust, the
lowest parts of which are occupied by vast lakes. Towards
the south the two lines converge and give place to one great
valley (occupied by Lake Nyasa), the southern part of which
is less distinctly due to rifting and subsidence than the
rest of the system. Farther north the western depression,
sometimes known as the Central African trough or Albertine
rift-valley, is occupied for more than half its length by
water, forming the four lakes of Tanganyika, Kivu, Albert
Edward and Albert, the first-named over 400 m. long and the
longest freshwater lake in the world. Associated with these
great valleys are a number of volcanic peaks, the greatest
of which occur on a meridional line east of the eastern
trough. The eastern depression, known as the East African
trough or rift-valley, contains much smaller lakes, many of
them brackish and without outlet, the only one comparable
to those of the western trough being Lake Rudolf or Basso
Norok. At no great distance east of this rift-valley are
Kilimanjaro--with its two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi, the former
19,321 ft., and the culminating point of the whole continent--and
Kenya (17,007 ft.). Hardly less important is the Ruwenzori
range (over 16,600 ft.), which lies east of the western
trough. Other volcanic peaks rise from the floor of the
valleys, some of the Kirunga (Mfumbiro) group, north of Lake
Kivu, being still partially active. (c) The third division
of the higher region of Africa is formed by the Abyssinian
highlands, a rugged mass of mountains forming the largest
continuous area of its altitude in the whole continent, little
of its surface falling below 5000 ft., while the summits
reach heights of 15,000 to 16,000 ft. This block of country
lies just west of the line of the great East African trough,
the northern continuation of which passes along its eastern
escarpment as it runs up to join the Red Sea. There is,
however, in the centre a circular basin occupied by Lake Tsana.
Both in the east and west of the continent the bordering
highlands are continued as strips of plateau parallel to the
coast, the Abyssinian mountains being continued northwards
along the Red Sea coast by a series of ridges reaching in
places a height of 7000 ft. In the west the zone of high
land is broader but somewhat lower. The most mountainous
districts lie inland from the head of the Gulf of Guinea
(Adamawa, &c.), where heights of 6000 to 8000 ft. are
reached. Exactly at the head of the gulf the great peak
of the Cameroon, on a line of Volcanic action continued
by the islands to the south-west, has a height of 13,370
ft., while Clarence Peak, in Fernando Po, the first of the
line of islands, rises to over 9000. Towards the extreme
west the Futa Jallon highlands form an important diverging
point of rivers, but beyond this, as far as the Atlas
chain, the elevated rim of the continent is almost wanting.
The area between the east and west coast highlands, which north
of 17 deg. N. is mainly desert, is divided into separate basins by
other bands of high ground, one of which runs nearly centrally
through North Africa in a line corresponding roughly with the
curved axis of the continent as a whole. The best marked of
the basins so formed (the Congo basin) occupies a circular area
bisected by the equator, once probably the site of an inland
sea. The arid region, the Sahara--the largest desert in the
world, covering 3,500,000 sq. m.--extends from the Atlantic to
the Red Sea. Though generally of slight elevation it contains
mountain ranges with peaks rising to 8000 ft. Bordered N.W.
by the Atlas range, to the N.E. a rocky plateau separates it
from the Mediterranean; this plateau gives place at the extreme
east to the delta of the Nile. That river (see below) pierces
the desert without modifying its character. The Atlas range,
the north-westerly part of the continent, between its seaward
and landward heights encloses elevated steppes in places 100 m.
broad. From the inner slopes of the plateau numerous wadis
take a direction towards the Sahara. The greater part of that
now desert region is, indeed, furrowed by old water-channels.
The following table gives the approximate altitudes
of the chief mountains and lakes of the continent:--
Mountains. Ft. Lakes. Ft.
Rungwe (Nyasa) . 10,400 Chad . . . . 8502
Drakensberg . . 10,7002 Leopold II . . 1100
Lereko or Sattima . 13,2143 Rudolf . . . 1250
(Aberdare Range) Nyasa . . . 16453
Cameroon . . 13,370 Albert Nyanza . 20282
Elgon . . . 14,1523 Tanganyika . . 26243
Karissimbi . . Ngami . . . . 2950
(Mfumbiro) . 14,6833 Mweru . . . . 3000
Meru . . . 14,9553 Albert Edward . 30043
Taggharat (Atlas) . 15,0002 Bangweulu. . . 3700
Simen Mountains, . 15,1602 Victoria Nyanza. 37203
Abyssinia Abai . . . . 4200
Ruwenzori . . 16,6193 Kivu . . . . 48293
Kenya . . . 17,0073 Tsana . . . . 5690
Kilimanjaro . . 19,3213 Naivasha . . . 61353
The Hydrographic Systems.---From the outer margin of the
African plateaus a large number of streams run to the sea
with comparatively short courses, while the larger rivers flow
for long distances on the interior highlands before breaking
through the outer ranges. The main drainage of the continent
is to the north and west, or towards the basin of the Atlantic
Ocean. The high lake plateau of East Africa contains the
head-waters of the Nile and Congo: the former the longest,
the latter the largest river of the continent. The upper
Nile receives its chief supplies from the mountainous region
adjoining the Central African trough in the neighbourhood
of the equator. Thence streams pour east to the Victoria
Nyanza, the largest African lake (covering over 26,000 sq.
m.), and west and north to the Albert Edward and Albert
Nyanzas, to the latter of which the effluents of the other
two lakes add their waters. Issuing from it the Nile flows
north, and between 7 deg. and 10 deg. N. traverses a vast marshy
level during which its course is liable to blocking by floating
vegetation. After receiving the Bahr-el-Ghazal from the
west and the Sobat, Blue Nile and Atbara from the Abyssinian
highlands (the chief gathering ground of the flood-water),
it crosses the great desert and enters the Mediterranean by
a vast delta. The most remote head-stream of the Congo is
the Chambezi, which flows south-west into the marshy Lake
Bangweulu. From this lake issues the Congo, known in its
upper course by various names. Flowing first south, it
afterwards turns north through Lake Mweru and descends to the
forest-clad basin of west equatorial Africa. Traversing this
in a majestic northward curve and receiving vast supplies of
water from many great tributaries, it finally turns south-west
and cuts a way to the Atlantic Ocean through the western
highlands. North of the Congo basin and separated from it
by a broad undulation of the surface is the basin of Lake
Chad---a flat-shored, shallow lake filled principally by the
Shad coming from the south-east. West of this is the basin
of the Niger, the third river of Africa, which, though flowing
to the Atlantic, has its principal source in the far west,
and reverses the direction of flow exhibited by the Nile and
Congo. An important branch, however--the Benue--comes from the
south-east. These four river-basins occupy the greater part
of the lower plateaus of North and West Africa, the remainder
consisting of arid regions watered only by intermittent streams
which do not reach the sea. Of the remaining rivers of the
Atlantic basin the Orange, in the extreme south, brings the
drainage from the Drakensberg on the opposite side of the
continent, while the Kunene, Kwanza, Ogowe and Sanaga drain
the west corst highlands of the southern limb; the Volta,
Komoe, Bandama, Gambia and Senegal the highlands of the western
limb. North of the Senegal for over 1000 m. of coast the
arid region reaches to the Atlantic. Farther north are the
streams, with comparatively short courses, which reach
the Atlantic and Mediterranean from the Atlas mountains.
Of the rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean the only one draining
any large part of the interior plateaus is the Zambezi,
whose western branches rise in the west coast highlands.
The main stream has its rise in 11 deg. 21' 3'' S. 24 deg. 22' E.
at an elevation of 5000 ft. It flows west and south for a
considerable distance before turning to the east. All the
largest tributaries, including the Shire, the outflow of Lake
Nyasa, flow down the southern slopes of the band of high ground
which stretches across the conbnent in 10 deg. to 12 deg. S. In
the south-west the Zambezi system interlaces with that of the
Taukhe (or Tioghe), from which it at times receives surplus
water. The rest of the water of the Taukhe, known in its
middle course as the Okavango, is lost in a system of swamps
and saltpans which formerly centred in Lake Ngami, now dried
up. Farther south the Limpopo drains a portion of the
interior plateau but breaks through the bounding highlands
on the side of the continent nearest its source. The Rovuma,
Rufiji, Tana, Juba and Webi Shebeli principally drain the
outer slopes of the East African highlands, the last named
losing itself in the sands in close proximity to the sea.
Another large stream, the Hawash, rising in the Abyssinian
mountains, is lost in a saline depression near the Gulf of
Aden. Lastly, between the basins of the Atlantic and Indian
Oceans there is an area of inland drainage along the centre
of the East African plateau, directed chiefly into the lakes
in the great rift-valley. The largest river is the Omo,
which, fed by the rains of the Abyssinian highlands, carries
down a large body of water into Lake Rudolf. The rivers
of Africa are generally obstructed either by bars at their
mouths or by cataracts at no great distance up-stream.
But when these obstacles have been overcome the rivers and
lakes afford a network of navigable waters of vast extent.
The calculation of the areas of African drainage systems,
made by Dr A. Bludau (Petermanns Mitteilungen, 43,
1897, pp. 184-186) gives the following general results:--
Basin of the Atlantic . . . . . 4,070,000 sq. m.
'' '' Mediterranean . . . 1,680,000 ''
'' '' Indian Ocean . . . . 2,086,000 ''
Inland drainage area . . . . . 3,452,000 ''
The areas of individual river-basins are:--
Congo (length over 3000 m.) . . 1,425,000 sq. m.
Nile ( '' fully 4000 m.) . . 1,082,0004 ''
Niger ( '' about 2600 m.) . . 808,0005 ''
Zambezi ( '' '' 2000 m.) . . 513,500 ''
Lake Chad . . . . . . . . . 394,000 ''
Orange (length about 1300 m.) . . 370,505 ''
'' (actual drainage area) . . 172,500 ''
The area of the Congo basin is greater than that of any
other river except the Amazon, while the African inland
drainage area is greater than that of any continent but
Asia, in which the corresponding area is 4,000,000 sq. m.
The principal African lakes have been mentioned in the description
of the East African plateau, but some of the phenomena connected
with them may be spoken of more particularly here. As a rule
the lakes which occupy portions of the great rift-valleys have
steep sides and are very deep. This is the case with the two
largest of the type, Tanganyika and Nyasa, the latter of which
has depths of 430 fathoms. Others, however, are shallow,
and hardly, reach the steep sides of the valleys in the dry
season. Such are Lake Rukwa, in a subsidiary depression north
of Nyasa, and Eiassi and Manyara in the system of the eastern
rift-valley. Lakes of the broad type are of moderate depth,
the deepest sounding in Victoria Nyanza being under 50
fathoms. Apart from the seasonal variations of level, most
of the lakes show periodic fluctuations, while a progressive
desiccation of the whole region is said to be traceable,
tending to the ultimate disappearance of the lakes. Such a
drying up has been in progress during long geologic ages, but
doubt exists as to its practical importance at the present
time. The periodic fluctuations in the level of Lake Tanganyika
are such that its outllow is intermittent. Besides the East
African lakes the principal are:---Lake Chad, in the northern
area of inland drainage; Bangweulu and Mweru, traversed by the
head-stream of the Congo; and Leopold II. and Ntomba (Mantumba),
within the great bend of that river. All, exceot possibly
Mweru, are more or less shallow, and Chad appears to by drying
up. The altitudes of the African lakes have already been stated.
Divergent opinions have been beld as to the mode of origin
of the East African lakes, especially Tanganyika, which some
geologists have considered to represent an old arm of the
sea, dating from a time when the whole central Congo basin
was under water; others holding that the lake water has
accumulated in a depression caused by subsidence. The former
view is based on the existence in the lake of organisms
of a decidedly marine type. They include a jelly-fish,
molluscs, prawns, crabs, &c., and were at first considered
to form an isolated group found in no other of the African
lakes; but this supposition has been proved to be erroneous.
Islands.--With one exception---Madagascar--the African islands
are small. Madagascar, with an area of 229,820 sq. m., is,
after New Guinea and Borneo, the largest island of the world.
It lies off the S.E. coast of the continent, from which
it is separated by the deep Mozambique channel, 250 m.
wide at its narrowest point. Madagascar in its general
structure, as in flora and fauna, forms a connecting link
between Africa and southern Asia. East of Madagascar are
the small islands of Mauritius and Reunion. Sokotra lies
E.N.E. of Cape Guardafui. Off the north-west coast are
the Canary and Cape Verde archipelagoes. which, like some
small islands in the Gulf of Guinea, are of volcanic origin.
Climate and Health.---Lying almost entirely within the
tropics, and equally to north and south of the equator,
Africa does not show excessive variations of temperature.
Great heat is experienced in the lower plains and desert
regions of North Africa, removed by the great width of the
continent from the influence of the ocean, and here, too,
the contrast between day and night, and between summer and
winter, is greatest. (The rarity of the air and the great
radiation during the night cause the temperature in the Sahara
to fall occasionally to freezing point.) Farther south, the
heat is to some extent modified by the moisture brought from
the ocean, and by the greater elevation of a large part of
the surface, especially in East Africa, where the range of
temperature is wider than in the Congo basin or on the Guinea
coast. In the extreme north and south the climate is a warm
temperate one, the northern countries being on the whole
hotter and drier than those in the southern zone; the south
of the continent being narrower than the north, the influence
of the surrounding ocean is more felt. The most important
climatic differences are due to variations in the amount of
rainfall. The wide heated plains of the Sahara, and in a
lesser degree the corresponding zone of the Kalahari in the
south, have an exceedingly scanty rainfall, the winds which
blow over them from the ocean losing part of their moisture
as they pass over the outer highlands, and becoming constantly
drier owing to the heating effects of the burning soil of the
interior; while the scarcity of mountain ranges in the more
central parts likewise tends to prevent condensation. In
the inter-tropical zone of summer precipitation, the rainfall
is greatest when the sun is vertical or soon after. It is
therefore greatest of all near the equator, where the sun is
twice vertical, and less in the direction of both tropics.
The rainfall zones are, however, somewhat deflected from a
due west-to-east direction, the drier northern conditions
extending southwards along the east coast, and those of the
south northwards along the west. Within the equatorial zone
certain areas, especially on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea
and in the upper Nile basin, have an intensified rainfall,
but this rarely approaches that of the rainiest regions of the
world. The rainiest district in all Africa is a strip of
coastland west of Mount Cameroon, where there is a mean
annual rainfall of about 390 in. as compared with a mean of
458 in. at Cherrapunji, in Assam. The two distinct rainy
seasons of the equatorial zone, where the sun is vertical at
half-yearly intervals, become gradually merged into one in
the direction of the tropics, where the sun is overhead but
once. Snow falls on all the higher mountain ranges, and on
the highest the climate is thoroughly Alpine. The countries
bordering the Sahara are much exposed to a very dry wind, full
of fine particles of sand, blowing from the desert towards the
sea. Known in Egypt as the khamsin, on the Mediterranean as the
sirocco, it is called on the Guinea coast the harmattan. This
wind is not invariably hot; its great dryness causes so much
evaporation that cold is not infrequently the result. Similar
dry winds blow from the Kalahari in the south. On the eastern
coast the monsoons of the Indian Ocean are regularly felt,
and on the south-east hurricanes are occasionally experienced.
While the climate of the north and south, especially the south,
is eminently healthy, and even the intensely heated Sahara is
salubrious by reason of its dryness, the tropical zone as a
whole is, for European races, the most unhealthy portion of the
world. This is especially the case in the lower and moister
regions, such as the west coast, where malarial fever is
very prevalent and deadly; the most unfavourable factors
being humidity with absence of climatic variation (daily or
seasonal). The higher plateaus, where not only is the average
temperature lower, but such variations are more extensive,
are more healthy; and in certain localities (e.g. Abyssinia
and parts of British East Africa) Europeans find the climate
suitable for permanent residence. On tablelands over 6500
ft. above the sea, frost is not uncommon at night, even in
places directly under the equator. The acclimatization of
white men in tropical Africa generally is dependent largely
on the successful treatment of tropical diseases. Districts
which had been notoriously deadly to Europeans were rendered
comparatively healthy after the discovery, in 1899, of the species
of mosquito which propagates malarial fever, and the measures
thereafter taken for its destruction and the filling up of
swamps. The rate of mortality among the natives from tropical
diseases is also high, one of the most fatal being that known
as sleeping sickness. (The ravages of this disease, which
also attacks Europeans, reached alarming proportions between
1893 and 1907, and in the last-named year an international
conference was held in London to consider measures to
combat it.) When removed to colder regions natives of the
equatorial districts suffer greatly from chest complaints.
Smallpox also makes great ravages among the negro population.
Flora.--The vegetation of Africa follows very closely
the distribution of heat and moisture. The northern and
southern temperate zones have a flora distinct from that
of the continent generally, which is tropical. In the
countries bordering the Mediterranean are groves of oranges
and olive trees, evergreen oaks, cork trees and pines,
intermixed with cypresses, myrtles, arbutus and fragrant
tree-heaths. South of the Atlas range the conditions
alter. The zones of minimum rainfall have a very scanty
flora, consisting of plants adapted to resist the great
dryness. Characteristic of the Sahara is the date-palm,
which flourishes where other vegetation can scarcely maintain
existence, while in the semidesert regions the acacia (whence
is obtained gum-arabic) is abundant. The more humid regions
have a richer vegetation --dense forest where the rainfall
is greatest and variations of temperature least, conditions
found chiefly on the tropical coasts, and in the west African
equatorial basin with its extension towards the upper Nile;
and savanna interspersed with trees on the greater part of the
plateaus, passing as the desert regions are approached into a
scrub vegetation consisting of thorny acacias, &c. Forests also
occur on the humid slopes of mountain ranges up to a certain
elevation. In the coast regions the typical tree is the
mangrove, which flourishes wherever the soil is of a swamp
character. The dense forests of West Africa contain, in
addition to a great variety of dicotyledonous trees, two
palms, the Elaeis guincensis (oil-palm) and Raphia
vinifera (bamboo-palm), not found, generally speaking, in
the savanna regions. The bombax or silk-cotton tree attains
gigantic proportions in the forests, which are the home of
the indiarubber-producing plants and of many valuable kinds
of timber trees, such as odum (Chlorophora excelsa),
ebony, mahogany (Khaya senegalensis), African teak or
oak (Oldfieldia africana) and camwood (Baphia nitida.)
The climbing plants in the tropical forests are exceedingly
luxuriant and the undergrowth or ``bush'' is extremely
dense. In the savannas the most characteristic trees are
the monkey bread tree or baobab (Adanisonia digitata), doom
palm (Hyphaene) and euphorbias. The coffee plant grows
wild in such widely separated places as Liberia and southern
Abyssinia. The higher mountains have a special flora
showing close agreement over wide intervals of space, as
well as affinities with the mountain flora of the eastern
Mediterranean, the Himalayas and Indo-China (cf. A. Engler,
Uber die Hochgebirgsflora des tropischen Afrika, 1892).
In the swamp regions of north-east Africa the papyrus and
associated plants, including the soft-wooded ambach, flourish
in immense quantities---and little else is found in the way of
vegetation. South Africa is largely destitute of forest
save in the lower valleys and coast regions. Tropical flora
disappears, and in the semi-desert plains the fleshy, leafless,
contorted species of kapsias, mesembryanthemums, aloes and
other succulent plants make their appearance. There are, too,
valuable timber trees, such as the yellow pine (Podocarpus
elongatus), stinkwood (Ocotea), sneezewood or Cape ebony
(Pteroxylon utile) and ironwood. Extensive miniature woods
of heaths are found in almost endless variety and covered
throughout the greater part of the year with innumerable
blossoms in which red is very prevalent. Of the grasses of
Africa alfa is very abundant in the plateaus of the Atlas range.
Fauna.--The fauna again shows the effect of the characteristics
of the vegetation. The open savannas are the home of large
ungulates, especially antelopes, the giraffe (peculiar to
Africa), zebra, buffalo, wild ass and four species of
rhinoceros; and of carnivores, such as the lion, leopard,
hyaena, &c. The okapi (a genus restricted to Africa) is
found only in the dense forests of the Congo basin. Bears
are confined to the Atlas region, wolves and foxes to North
Africa. The elephant (though its range has become restricted
through the attacks of hunters) is found both in the savannas
and forest regions, the latter being otherwise poor in large
game, though the special habitat of the chimpanzee and gorilla.
Baboons and mandrills, with few exceptions, are peculiar to
Africa. The single-humped camel--as a domestic animal--is
especially characteristic of the northern deserts and steppes.
The rivers in the tropical zone abound with hippopotami and
crocodiles, the former entirely confined to Africa. The vast
herds of game, formerly so characteristic of many parts of Africa,
have much diminished with the increase of intercourse with the
interior. Game reserves have, however, been established in South
Africa, British Central Africa, British East Africa, Somahland,
&c., while measures for the protection of wild animals were
laid down in an international convention signed in May 1900.
The ornithology of northern Affica presents a close resemblance
to that of southern Europe, scarcely a species being found
which does not also occur in the other countries bordering the
Mediterranean. Among the birds most characteristic of Africa
are the ostrich and the secretary-bird. The ostrich is widely
dispersed, but is found chiefly in the desert and steppe
regions. The secretary-bird is common in the south. The weaver
birds and their allies, including the long-tailed whydahs,
are abundant, as are, among game-birds, the francolin and
guinea-fowl. Nany of the smaller birds, such as the sun-birds,
bee-eaters, the parrots and halcyons, as well as the larger
plantain-eaters, are noted for the brilliance of their
plumage. Of reptiles the lizard and chameleon are common, and
there are a number of venomous serpents, though these are not
so numerous as in other tropical countries. The scorpion is
abundant. Of insects Africa has many thousand different
kinds; of these the locust is the proverbial scourge of the
continent, and the ravages of the termites or white ants
are almost incredible. The spread of malaria by means of
mosquitoes has already been mentioned. The tsetse fly,
whose bite is fatal to all domestic animals, is common
in many districts of South and East Africa. Fortunately
it is found nowhere outside Africa. (E. HE.; F. R. C.)
1 With the islands, 11,498,000 sq. m.
2 Estimated.
3 See the calculations of Capt. T. T.
Behrens, Geog. Journal, vol. xxix. (1907).
4 The estimate of Capt. H. G. Lyons in 1905 was 1,107,227 sq. mi.
5 including waterless tracts naturally belonging to the river-basin.
II. GEOLOGY
In shape and general geological structure Africa bears
a close resemblance to India. Both possess a meridional
extension with a broad east and west folded region in the
north. In both a successive series of continental deposits,
ranging from the Carboniferous to the Rhaetic, rests on an
older base of crystalline rocks. In the words of Professor
Suess, ``India and Africa are true plateau countries.''
Of the primitive axes of Africa few traces remain. Both on
the east and west a broad zone of crystalline rochs extends
parallel with the coast-line to form the margin of the elevated
plateau of the interior. Occasionally the crystalline belt
comes to the coast, but it is usually reached by two steps known
as the coastal belt and foot-plateau. On the flanks of the
primitive western axis certain ancient sedimentary strata are
thrown into folds which were completed before the commencement
of the mesozoic period. In the south, the later palaeozoic
rocks are also thrown into acute folds by a movement acting
from the south, and which ceased towards the close of the
mesozoic period. In northern Africa the folded region of the
Atlas belongs to the comparatively recent date of the Alpine
system. None of these earth movements affected the interior,
for here the continental mesozoic deposits rest, undisturbed by
folding, on the primary sedimentary and crystalline rocks. The
crystalline massif, therefore, presents a solid block which
has remained elevated since early palaeozoic times, and against
which earth waves of several geological periods have broken.
The formations older than the mesozoic are remarkably
unfossiliferous, so that the determination of their age is
frequently a matter of speculation, and in the following table
the European equivalents of the pre-Karroo formations in many
regions must be regarded as subject to considerable revision.
Rocks of Archean age cover wide areas in the interior, in
West and East Africa and across the Sahara. Along the coastal
margins they underlie the newer formations and appear in the
deep valleys and kloofs wherever denudation has laid them
bare. The prevailing types are granites, gneisses and
schists. In the central regions the predominant strike of the
fohae is north and south. The rocks, for convenience classed as
pre-Cambrian, occur as several unconformable groups, chiefly
developed in the south where alone their stratigraphy has been
determined. They are unfossiliferous, and in the absence of
undoubted Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian strata in Africa
they may be regarded as of older date than any of these
formations. The general occurrence of jasper-bearing rocks
is of interest, as these are always present in the ancient
pressure-altered sedimentary formations of America and
Europe. Some unfossiliferous conglomerates, sandstones
and dolomites in South Africa and on the west coast are
considered to belong to the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian
formations, but merely from their occurrence beneath strata
yielding Devonian fossils. In Cape Colony the Silurian age
of the Table Mountain Sandstone is based on such evidence.
The Devonian and Carboniferous formations are well
represented in the north and south and in northern Angola.
Up to the close of the palaeozoic period the relative positions
of the ancient land masses and oceans remain unsolved; but the
absence of marine strata of early palaeozoic age from Central
Africa points to there being land in this direction. In late
Carboniferous times Africa and India were undoubtedly united to
form a large continent, called by Suess Gondwana Land. In each
country the same succession of the rocks is met with; over both
the same specialized orders of reptiles roamed and were entombed.
The interior of the African portion of Gondwana Land
was occupied by several large lakes in which an immense
thickness--amounting to over 18,000 ft. in South Africa---of
sandstones and marls, forming the Karroo system, was laid
down. This is par excellence the African formation,
and covers immense areas in South Africa and the Congo
basin, with detached portions in East Africa. During the
whole of the time---Carboniferous to Rhaetic--that this
great accumulation of freshwater beds was taking place,
the interior of the continent must have been undergoing
depression. The commencement of the period was marked by one
of the most wonderful episodes in the geological history of
Africa. Preserved in the formation known as the Dwyka
Conglomerate, are evidences that at this time the greater
portion of South Africa was undergoing extreme glaciation,
while the same conditions appear to have prevailed in India
TABLE OF FORMATIONS
Sedimentary. Igneous.
Recent Alluvium; travertine;
coral; sand dunes; continental } Some volcanic islands;
dunes. Generally distributed } rift-valley volcanoes.
Pleistocene. Ancient alluviums and }
gravels; travertine. }
Generally distributed. } A long-continued
Pliocene. N. Africa; Madagascar. } succession in the
} central and northern
Miocene. N. Africa. } regions and among
} the island groups.
Oligocene. N. Africa. } Doubtfully represented
} south of the Zambezi.
Eocene. N. Africa, along east and }
west coasts; Madagascar. }
Cretaceous Extensively developed in } Diamond pipes of S.
N. Africa; along coast } Africa; Kaptian
and foot-plateaus in east } fissure eruptions;
and west; Madagascar. } Ashangi traps of
} Abyssinia
{Jurassic N. Africa; E. Africa;
K{ Madagascar; Stormberg } Chief volcanic period
a{ period (Rhaeric) in S. } in S. Africa
r{ Africa }
r{Trias. Beaufort Series in S. }
o{ Africa; Congo basin; }
o{ Central Africa; Algeria; }
{ Tunis. }
{Permian. Ecca Series in S. Africa. } Feebly, if anywhere
} developed.
Carboniferous. N. Africa; Sabaki Shales }
in E. Africa; Dwyka }
and Wittebery Series in }
South Africa }
Devonian. N. Africa; Angola; Bokkeveld } Not recorded.
Series in S. Africa }
Silurian. {Table Mountain Sandstone }
{ in S. Africa, Silurian(?). }
Ordovician. { Doubtfully represented } Klipriversberg and
{ in N. Africa, French } and Ventersdorp Series
Cambrian { Congo, Angola. and by } of the Transvaal (?).
{ Vaal River and Waterberg }
{ Series in S. Africa }
Pre-Cambrian. Quartzites, conglomerates }
phyllites, jasper-bearing } S. Africa and generally.
rocks and schists. }
Generally distributed. }
Archeaan. Gneisses and schists of the } Igneous complex of
continental platform. } sheared igneous
} rocks;granites.
and Australia. At the close of the Karroo period there
was a remarkable manifestation of volcanic activity which
again has its parallel in the Deccan traps of India.
How far the Karroo formation extended beyond its present
confines has not been determined. To the east it reached
India. In the south all that can be said is that it extended
to the south of Worcester in Cape Colony. The Crystal
Mountains of Angola may represent its western boundary; while
the absence of mesozoic strata beneath the Cretaceous rocks
of the mid-Sahara indicates that the system of Karroo lakeland
had here reached its most northerly extension. Towards the
close of the Karroo period, possibly about the middle, the
southern rim of the great central depression became ridged
up to form the folded regions of the Zwaarteberg, Cedarberg
and Langeberg mountains in Cape Colony. This folded belt
gives Africa its abrupt southern termination, and may be
regarded as an embryonic indication of its present outline.
The exact date of the maximum development of this folding is
unknown, but it had done its work and some 10,000 ft. of strata
had been removed before the commencement of the Cretaceous
period. It appears to approximate in time to the similar earth
movement and denudation at the close of the palaeozoic period in
Europe. It was doubtless connected with the disruption of
Gondwana Land, since it is known that this great alteration
of geographical outline commenced in Jurassic times.
The breaking up of Gondwana Land is usually considered to have
been caused by a series of blocks of country being let down by
faulting with the consequent formation of the Indian Ocean. Other
blocks, termed horsts, remained unmoved, the island of Madagascar
affording a striking example. In the African portion Ruwenzori
is regarded by some geologists to be a block mountain or horst.
In Jurassic times 1he sea gained access to East Africa
north of Mozambique, but does not appear to have
reached far beyond the foot-plateau except in Abyssinia.
The Cretaceous seas appear to have extended into the central
Saharan regions, for fossils of this age have been discovered
in the interior. On the west coast Cretaceous rocks extend
continuously from Mogador to Cape Blanco. From here they are
absent up to the Gabun river, where they commence to form a
narrow fringe as far as the Kunene river, though often overlain
by recent deposits. They are again absent up to the Sunday
river in Cape Colony, where Lower Cretaceous rocks (for long
considered to be of Oolitic age) of an inshore character are met
with. Strata of Upper Cretaceous age occur in Pondoland and
Natal, and are of exceptional interest since the fossils show an
intermingling of Pacific types with other forms having European
affinities. In Mozambique and in German East Africa, Cretaceous
rocks extend from the coast to a distance inland of over 100 m.
Except in northern Africa, the Tertiary formations only
occur in a few isolated patches on the east and west
coasts. In northern Africa they are well developed and of much
interest. They contain the well-known nummulitic limestone
of Eocene age, which has been traced from Egypt across Asia to
China. The Upper Eocene rocks of Egypt have also yielded
primeval types of the Proboscidea and other mammalia.
Evidences for the greater extension of the Eocene seas than
was formerly considered to be the case have been discovered
around Sokoto. During Miocene times Passarge considers that
the region of the Zambezi underwent extreme desiccation.
The effect of the Glacial epoch in Europe is shown in northern
Africa by the moraines of the higher Atlas, and the wider
extension of the glaciers on Kilimanjaro, Kenya and Ruwenzori,
and by the extensive accumulations of gravel over the Sahara.
The earliest signs of igneous activity in Africa are to be found
in the granites, intrusive into the older rocks of the Cape
peninsula, into those of the Transvaal, and into the gneisses
and schists of Central Africa. The Ventersdorp boulder beds
of the Transvaal may be of early palaeozoic age; but as a
whole the palaeozoic period in Africa was remarkably free from
volcanic and igneous disturbances. The close of the Stormberg
period (Rhaetic) was one of great volcanic activity in South
Africa. Whilst the later Secondary and Tertiary formations
were being laid down in North Africa and around the margins
of the rest of the continent, Africa received its last great
accumulation of strata and at the same time underwent a
consecutive series of earth-movements. The additional strata
consist of the immense quantities of volcanic material on
the plateau of East Africa, the basalt flows of West Africa
and possibly those of the Zambezi basin. The exact period
of the commencement of volcanic activity is unknown. In
Abyssinia the Ashangi traps are certainly post-Oolitic. In
East Africa the fissure eruptions are considered to belong
to the Cretaceous. These early eruptions were followed by
those of Kenya, Mawenzi, Elgon, Chibcharagnani, and these
by the eruptions of Kibo, Longonot, Suswa and the Kyulu
Mountains. The last phase of vulcanicity took place along
the great meridional rifts of East Africa, and though feebly
manifested has not entirely passed away. In northern Africa
a continuous sequence of volcanic events has taken place from
Eocene times to latest Tertiary; but in South Africa it is
doubtful if there have been any intrusions later then Cretaceous.
During this long continuance of vulcanicity, earth-movements
were in progress. In the north the chief movements gave
rise to the system of latitudinal folding and faulting of the
Moroccan and Algerian Atlas, the last stages being represented
by the formation of the Algerian and Moroccan coast-outline
and the sundering of Europe from Africa at the Straits of
Gibraltar. Whilst northern Africa was being folded, the East
African plateau was broken up by a series of longitudinal
rifts extending from Nyasaland to Egypt. The depressed areas
contain the long, narrow, precipitously walled lakes of East
Africa. The Red Sea also occupies a meridional trough.
Lastly there are the recent elevations of the northern coastal
regions, the Barbary coast and along the east coast. (W. G.*)
III. ETHNOLOGY In attempting a review of the races and
tribes which inhabit Africa, their distribution, movements
and culture, it is advisable that three points be borne in
mind. The first of these is the comparative absence of natural
barriers in the interior, owing to which intercommunication
between tribes, the dissemination of culture and tribal
migration have been considerably facilitated. Hence the
student must be prepared to find that, for the most part,
there are no sharp divisions to mark the extent of the
various races composing the population, but that the number
of what may be termed ``transitional'' peoples is unusually
large. The second point is that Africa, with the exception
of the lower Nile valley and what is known as Roman Africa
(see AFRICA, ROMAN), is, so far as its native inhabitants
are concerned, a continent practically without a history,
and possessing no records from which such a history might be
reconstructed. The early movements of tribes, the routes by
which they reached their present abodes, and the origin of such
forms of culture as may be distinguished in the general mass of
customs, beliefs, &c., are largely matters of conjecture. The
negro is essentially the child of the moment; and his memory,
both tribal and individual, is very short. The third point
is that many theories which have been formulated with respect
to such matters are unsatisfactory owing to the small amount
of information concerning many of the tribes in the interior.
The chief African races.
Excluding the Europeans who have found a home in various
parts of Africa, and the Asiatics, Chinese and natives of
India introduced by them (see section History below), the
population of Africa consists of the following elements:
--the Bushman, the Negro, the Eastern Hamite, the Libyan
and the Semite, from the intermingling of which in various
proportions a vast number of ``transitional'' tribes has
arisen. The Bushmen (q.v.), a race of short yellowish-brown
nomad hunters, inhabited, in the earliest times of which
there is historic knowledge, the land adjoining the southern
and eastern borders of the Kalahari desert, into which
they were gradually being forced by the encroachment of
the Hottentots and Bantu tribes. But signs of their former
presence are not wanting as far north as Lake Tanganyika, and
even, it is rumoured, still farther north. With them may be
classed provisionally the Hottentots, a pastoral people of
medium stature and yellowish-brown complexion. who in early
times shared with the Bushmen the whole of what is now Cape
Colony. Though the racial affinities of the Hottentots have
been disputed, the most satisfactory view on the whole is
that they represent a blend of Bushman, Negroid and Hamitic
elements. Practically the rest of Africa, from the southern
fringe of the Sahara and the upper valley of the Nile to
the Cape, with the exception of Abyssinia and Galla and
Somali-lands, is peopled by Negroes and the ``transitional''
tribes to which their admixture with Libyans on the north,
and Semites (Arabs) and Hamites on the north-east and east,
has given rise. A slight qualification of the last statement
is necessary, in so far as, among the Fula in the western
Sudan, and the Ba-Hima, &c., of the Victoria Nyanza, Libyan
and Hamitic elements are respectively stronger than the
Negroid. Of the tracts excepted, Abyssinia is inhabited mainly
by Semito-Hamites (though a fairly strong negroid element can
be found), and Somali and Galla-lands by Hamites. North of
the Sahara in Algeria and Morocco are the Libyans (Berbers,
q.v.), a distinctively white people, who have in certain
respects (e.g. religion) fallen under Arab influence. In
the north-east the brown-skinned Hamite and the Semite mingle
in varied proportions. The Negroid peoples, which inhabit the
vast tracts of forest and savanna between the areas held by
Bushmen to the south and the Hamites, Semites and Libyans to
the north, fall into two groups divided by a line running from
the Cameroon (Rio del Rey) crossing the Ubangi river below the
bend and passing between the Ituri and the Semliki rivers, to
Lake Albert and thence with a slight southerly trend to the
coast. North of this line are the Negroes proper, south are the
Bantu. The division is primarily philological. Among the
true Negroes the greatest linguistic confusion prevails; for
instance, in certain parts of Nigeria it is possible to
find half-a-dozen villages within a comparatively small area
speaking, not different dialects, but different languages,
a fact which adds greatly to the difficulty of political
administration. To the south of the line the condition of
affairs is entirely different; here the entire population
speaks one or another dialect of the Bantu Languages (q.v..)
As said before, the division is primarily linguistic and,
especially upon the border line, does not always correspond
with the variations of physical type. At the same time it
is extremely convenient and to a certain extent justifiable
on physical and psychological grounds; and it may be said
roughly that while the linguistic uniformity of the Bantu is
accompanied by great variation of physical type, the converse
is in the main true of the Negro proper, especially where least
affected by Libyan and Hamitic admixture, e.g. on the Guinea
coast. The variation of type among the Bantu is due probably
to a varying admixture of alien blood, which is more apparent
as the east coast is approached. This foreign element cannot
be identified with certainty, but since the Bantu seem to
approach the Hamites in those points where they differ from
the Negro proper, and since the physical characteristics
of Hamites and Semites are very similar, it seems probable
that the last two races have entered into the composition
of the Bantu, though it is highly improbable that Semitic
influence should have permeated any distance from the east
coast. An extremely interesting section of the population
not hitherto mentioned is constituted by the Pygmy tribes
inhabiting the densely forested regions along the equator
from Uganda to the Gabun and living the life of nomadic
hunters. The affinities of this little people are undecided,
owing to the small amount of knowledge concerning them. The
theories which connected them with the Bushmen do not seem to be
correct. It is more probable that they are to be classed among
the Negroids, with whom they appear to have intermingled to
a certain extent in the upper basin of the Ituri, and perhaps
elsewhere. As far as is known they speak no language peculiar
to themselves but adopt that of the nearest agricultural
tribe. They are of a dark brown complexion, with very broad
noses, lips but slightly everted, and small but usually
sturdy physique, though often considerably emaciated owing
to insufficiency of food. Another peculiar tribe, also
of short stature, are the Vaalpens of the steppe region
of the north Transvaal. Practically nothing is known of
them except that they are said to be very dark in colour
and live in holes in the ground, and under rock shelters.
Principal ethnological zones.
Having indicated the chief races of which in various degrees of
purity and intermixture the population of Africa is formed, it
remains to consider them in greater detail, particularly from
the cultural standpoint. This is hardly possible without drawing
attention to the main physical characters of the continent,
as far as they affect the inhabitants. For ethnological
purposes three principal zones may be distinguished; the first
two are respectively a large region of steppes and desert in
the north, and a smaller region of steppes and desert in the
south. These two zones are connected by a vertical strip of
grassy highland lying mainly to the east of the chain of great
lakes. The third zone is a vast region of forest and rivers
in the west centre, comprising the greater part of the basin
of the Congo and the Guinea coast. The rainfall, which also
has an important bearing upon the culture of peoples, will
be found on the whole to be greatest in the third zone and
also in the eastern highlands, and of course least in the
desert, the steppes and savannas standing midway between the
two. As might be expected these variations are accompanied by
certain variations in culture. In the best-watered districts
agriculture is naturally of the greatest importance, except
where the density of the forest renders the work of clearing
too arduous. The main portion therefore of the inhabitants
of the forest zone are agriculturists, save only the nomad
Pygmies, who live in the inmost recesses of the forest and
support themselves by hunting the game with which it abounds.
Agriculture, too, flourishes in the eastern highlands, and
throughout the greater part of the steppe and savanna region
of the northern and southern zones, especially the latter. In
fact the only Bantu tribes who are not agriculturists are the
Ova-Herero of German South-West Africa, whose purely pastoral
habits are the natural outcome of the barren country they
inhabit. But the wide open plains and slopes surrounding
the forest area are eminently suited to cattle-breeding,
and there are few tribes who do not take advantage of the
fact. At the same time a natural check is imposed upon the
desire for cattle, which is so characteristic of the Bantu
peoples. This is constituted by the tsetse fly, which renders
a pastoral life absolutely impossible throughout large tracts
in central and southern Africa. In the northern zone this
check is absent, and the number of more essentially pastoral
peoples, such as the eastern Hamites, Masai, Dinka, Fula,
&c., correspondingly greater. The desert regions yield
support only to nomadic peoples, such as the Tuareg, Tibbu,
Bedouins and Bushmen, though the presence of numerous oases
in the north renders the condition of life easier for the
inhabitants. Upon geographical conditions likewise depend to
a large extent the political conditions prevailing among the
various tribes. Thus among the wandering tribes of the desert
and of the heart of the forests, where large communities are
impossible, a patriarchal system prevails with the family as the
unit. Where the forest is less dense and small agricultural
communities begin to make their appearance, the unit expands
to the village with its headman. Where the forest thins to
the savanna and steppe, and communication is easier, are found
the larger kingdoms and ``empires'' such as, in the north those
established by the Songhai, Hausa, Fula, Bagirmi, Ba-Hima, &c.,
and in the south the states of Lunda, Kazembe, the Ba-Rotse, &c.
But if ease of communication is favourable to the rise of
large states and the cultural progress that usually accompanies
it, it is, nevertheless, often fatal to the very culture
which, at first, it fostered, in so far as the absence of
natural boundaries renders invasion easy. A good example
of this is furnished by the history of the western Sudan
and particularly of East and South-East Africa. From its
geographical position Africa looks naturally to the east,
and it is on this side that it has been most affected by
external culture both by land (across the Sinaitic peninsula)
and by sea. Though a certain amount of Indonesian and
even aboriginal Indian influence has been traced in African
ethnography, the people who have produced the most serious
ethnic disturbances (apart from modern Europeans) are the
Arabs. This is particularly the case in East Africa, where
the systematic slave raids organized by them and carried
out with the assistance of various warlike tribes reduced
vast regions to a state of desolation. In the north and
west of Africa, however, the Arab has had a less destructive
but more extensive and permanent influence in spreading
the Mahommedan religion throughout the whole of the Sudan.
The characteristic African culture.
The fact that the physical geography of Africa affords fewer
natural obstacles to racial movements on the side most exposed
to foreign influence, renders it obvious that the culture
most characteristically African must be sought on the other
side. It is therefore in the forests of the Congo, and among
the lagoons and estuaries of the Guinea coast, that this
earlier culture will most probably be found. That there is a
culture distinctive of this area, irrespective of the linguistic
line dividing the Bantu from the Negro proper, has now been
recognized. Its main features may be summed as follows:---a
purely agricultural life, with the plantain, yam and manioc (the
last two of American origin) as the staple food; cannibalism
common; rectangular houses with ridged roofs; scar-tattooing;
clothing of bark-cloth or palm-fibre; occasional chipping
or extraction of upper incisors; bows with strings of cane,
as the, principal weapons, shields of wood or wickerwork;
religion, a primitive form of fetishism with the belief
that death is due to witchcraft; ordeals, secret societies,
the use of masks and anthropomorphic figures, and wooden
gongs. With this may be contrasted the culture of the Bantu
peoples to the south and east, also agriculturists, but in
addition, where possible, great cattle-breeders, whose
staple food is millet and milk. These are distinguished
by circular huts with domed or conical roofs; clothing of
skin or leather; occasional chipping or extraction of lower
incisors; spears as the principal weapons, bows, where found,
with a sinew cord, shields of hide or leather; religion,
ancestor-worship with belief in the power of the magicians as
rain-makers. Though this difference in culture may well
be explained on the supposition that the first is the older
and more representative of Africa, this theory must not be
pushed too far. Many of the distinguishing characteristics
of the two regions are doubtless due simply to environment,
even the difference in religion. Ancestor-worship occurs
most naturally among a people where tribal organization
has reached a fairly advanced stage, and is the natural
outcome of patriotic reverence for a successful chief and his
councillors. Rain-making, too, is of little importance in
a well-watered region, but a matter of vital interest to an
agricultural people where the rainfall is slight and irregular.
Within the eastern and southern Bantu area certain cultural
variations occur; beehive huts are found among the Zulu-Xosa
and Herero, giving place among the Bechuana to the cylindrical
variety with conical roof, a type which, with few exceptions,
extends north to Abyssinia. The tanged spearhead characteristic
of the south is replaced by the socketed variety towards the
north. Circumcision, characteristic of the Zulu-Xosa and
Bechuana, is not practised by many tribes farther north;
tooth-mutilation, on the contrary, is absent among the
more southern tribes. The lip-plug is found in the eastern
area, especially among the Nyasa tribes, but not in the
south. The head-rest common in the south-east and the
southern fringe of the forest area is not found far
north of Tanganyika until the Horn of Africa is reached.
In the regions outside the western area occupied by the Negro
proper, exclusive of the upper Nile, the similarities of
culture outweigh the differences. Here the cylindrical type
of hut prevails; clothing is of skin or leather but is very
scanty; iron ornaments are worn in profusion; arrows are not
feathered; shields of hide, spears with leather sheaths are
found and also fighting bracelets. Certain small differences
appear between the eastern and western portions, the dividing
line being formed by the boundary between Bornu and Hausaland.
Characteristic of the east are the harp and the throwing-club
and throwing-knife, the last of which has penetrated into
the forest area. Typical of the west are the bow and the
dagger with the ring hilt. The tribes of the upper Nile
are somewhat specialized, though here, too, are found the
cylindrical hut, iron ornaments, fighting bracelets, &c.,
characteristic of the Sudanese tribes. Here the removal of
the lower incisors is common, and circumcision entirely absent.
Throughout the rest of the Sudan is found Semitic culture
introduced by the Arabized Libyan. Circumcision, as is usual
among Mahommedan tribes, is universal, and tooth-mutilation
absent; of other characteristics, the use of the sword has
penetrated to the northern portion of the forest area. The
culture prevailing in the Horn of Africa is, naturally, mainly
Hamito-Semitic; here are found both cyhnddcal and bee-hive
huts, the sword (which has been adopted by the Masai to the
south), the lyre (which has found its way to some of the Nilotic
tribes) and the head-rest. Circumcision is practically universal.
As has been said earlier, the history of Africa reaches back
but a short distance, except, of course, as far as the lower
Nile valley and Roman Africa is concerned; elsewhere no records
exist, save tribal traditions, and these only relate to very
recent events. Even archaeology, which can often sketch
the main outlines of a people's history, is here practically
powerless, owing to the insufficiency of data. It is true
that stone imple. ments of palaeolithic and neolithic types
are found sporadically in the Nile valley, Somaliland, on the
Zambezi, in Cape Colony and the northern portions of the
Congo Free State, as well as in Algeria and Tunisia; but the
localities are far too few and too widely separated to warrant
the inference that they are to be in any way connected.
Moreover, where stone implements are found they are, as a rule,
very near, even actually on, the surface of the earth; nothing
occurs resembling the regular stratification of Europe, and
consequently no argument based on geological grounds is possible.
The lower Nile valley, however, forms an exception; flint
implements of a palaeolithic type have been found near Thebes.
not only on the surface of the ground, which for several
thousand years has been desert owing to the contraction of
the river-bed, but also in stratified gravel of an older
date. References to a number of papers bearing on the
discussion to which then discovery has given rise may be
found in an article by Mr H. R. Hall in Man, 1905, No. 19.
The Egyptian and also the Somali land finds appear to be true
palaeoliths in type and remarkably similar to those found in
Europe. But evidence bearing on the Stone age in Africa,
if the latter existed apart from the localities mentioned,
is so slight that little can be said save that from the
available evidence the palaeoliths of the Nile valley alone
can with any degree of certainty be assigned to a remote
period of antiquity, and that the chips scattered over
Mashonaland and the regions occupied within historic times
by Bushmen are the most recent; since it has been shown
that the stone flakes were used by the medieval Makalanga to
engrave their hard pottery and the Bushmen were still using
stone implements in the 19th century. Other early remains,
but of equally uncertain date, are the stone circles of
Algeria, the Cross river and the Gambia. The large system of
ruined forts and ``cities'' in Mashonaland, at Zimbabwe and
elsewhere, concerning which so many ingenious theories have
been woven, have been proved to date from medieval times.
Origin and spread of the racial stocks.
Thus while in Europe there is a Stone age. divided into
periods according to various types of implement disposed
in geological strata, and followed in orderly succession by
the ages of Bronze and Iron, in Africa can be found no true
Stone age and practically no Bronze at all. The reason is
not far to seek; Africa is a country of iron, which is found
distributed widely throughout the continent in ores so rich
that the metal can be extracted with very little trouble
and by the simplest methods. Iron has been worked from
time immemorial by the Negroid peoples, and whole tribes are
found whose chief industry is the smelting and forging of the
metal. Under such conditions, questions relating to the
origin and spread of the racial stocks which form the
population of Africa cannot be answered with any certainty;
at best only a certain amount of probability can be attained.
Five of these racial stocks have been mentioned: Bushman,
Negro, Hamite, Semite, Libyan, the last three probably related
through some common ancestor. Of these the honour of being
considered the most truly African belongs to the two first.
It is true that people of Negroid type are found elsewhere,
principally in Melanesia, but as yet their possible connexion
with the African Negro is little more than theoretical,
and for the present purposes it need not be considered.
The origin of the Bushman is lost in obscurity, but he may be
conceived as the original inhabitant of the southern portion
of the continent. The original home of the Negro, at first an
agriculturist, is most probably to be found in the neighbourhood
of the great lakes, whence he penetrated along the fringe
of the Sahara to the west and across the eastern highlands
southward. Northerly expansion was prevented by the early
occupation of the Nile valley, the only easy route to the
Mediterranean, but there seems no doubt that the population
of ancient Egypt contained a distinct Negroid element. The
question as to the ethnic affinities of the pre-dynastic Egyptians
is still unsolved; but they may be regarded as, in the main,
Hamitic, though it is a question how far it is just to apply
a name which implies a definite specialization in what may
be comparatively modern times to a people of such antiquity.
The Horn of Africa appears to have been the centre from
which the Hamites spread, and the pressure they seem to have
applied to the Negro tribes, themselves also in process of
expansion, sent forth larger waves of emigrants from the
latter. These emigrants, already affected by the Hamitic
pastoral culture, and with a strain of Hamitic blood in
their veins, passed rapidly down the open tract in the
east, doubtless exterminating their predecessors, except
such few as took refuge in the mountains and swamps. The
advance-guard of this wave of pastoral Negroids, in fact
primitive Bantu, mingled with the Bushmen and produced the
Hottentots. The penetration of the forest area must certainly
have taken longer and was probably accomplished as much from
the south-east, up the Zambezi valley, as from any other
quarter. It was a more peaceful process, since natural
obstacles are unfavourable to rapid movements of large bodies
of immigrants, though not so serious as to prevent the spread
of language and culture. A modern parallel to the spread
of Bantu speech is found in the rise of the Hausa language,
which is gradually enlarging its sphere of influence in the
western and central Sudan. Thus those qualities, physical and
otherwise, in which the Bantu approach the Hamites gradually
fade as we proceed westward through the Congo basin, while
in the east, among the tribes to the west of Tanganyika and
on the upper Zambezi, ``transitional'' forms of culture are
found. In later times this gradual pressure from the
south-east became greater, and resulted, at a comparatively
recent date, in the irruption of the Fang into the Gabun.
The earlier stages of the southern movement must have
been accompanied by a similar movement westward between
the Sahara and the forest; and, probably, at the same
time, or even earlier, the Libyans crossing the desert had
begun to press upon the primitive Negroes from the north.
In this way were produced the Fula, who mingled further
with the Negro to give birth to the Mandingo, Wolof and
Tukulor. It would appear that either Libyan (Fula) or, less
probably, Hamitic, blood enters into the composition of the
Zandeh peoples on the Nile-Congo watershed. These Libyans or
Berbers, included by G. Sergi in his ``Mediterranean Race,''
were active on the north coast of Africa in very early times,
and had relations with the Egyptians from a prehistoric
period. For long these movements continued, always in the
same direction, from north to south and from east to west;
though, of course, more rapid changes took place in the open
country, especially in the great eastern highway from north to
south, than in the forest area. Large states arose in the
western Sudan; Ghana flourished in the 7th century A.D.,
Melle in the 11th, Songhai in the 14th, and Bornu in the 16th.
Meanwhile in the east began the southerly movement of the
Bechuana, which was probably,spread over a considerable
period. Later than they, hut proceeding faster, came the
Zulu-Xosa (``Kaffir'') peoples, who followed a line nearer
the coast and outflanked them, surrounding them on the
south. Then followed a time of great ethnical confusion
in South Africa, during which tribes flourished, split up
and disappeared; but ere this the culture represented by
the ruins in Rhodesia had waxed and waned. It is uncertain
who were the builders of the forts and ``cities,'' but it
is not improbable that they may be found to have been early
Bechuana. The Zulu-Xosa, Bechuana and Herero together form
a group which may conveniently be termed ``Southern Bantu.',
Finally began a movement hitherto unparalleled in the
history of African migration; certain peoples of Zulu
blood began to press north, spreading destruction in their
wake. Of these the principal were the Matabele and
Angoni. The movement continued as far as the Victoria
Nyanza. Here, on the border-line of Negro, Bantu and
Hamite, important changes had taken place. Certain of the
Negro tribes had retired to the swamps of the Nile, and had
become somewhat specialized, both physically and culturally
(Shilluk, Dinka, Alur, Acholi, &c.). These had blended with
the Hamites to produce such races as the Masai and kindred
tribes. The old Kitwara empire, which comprised the plateau
land between the Ruwenzori range and Kavirondo, had broken
up into small states, usually governed by a Hamitic (Ba-Hima)
aristocracy. The more extensive Zang (Zenj) empire, of which.
the name Zanzibar (Zanguebar) is a lasting memorial, extending
along the sea-board from Somaliland to the Zambezi, was also
extinct. The Arabs had established themselves firmly on the
coast, and thence made continual slave-raids into the interior,
penetrating later to the Congo. The Swahili, inhabiting the
coast-line from the equator to about 16 deg. S., are a somewhat
heterogeneous mixture of Bantu with a tinge of Arab blood.
In the neighbourhood of Victoria Nyanza, where Hamite, Bantu,
Nilotic Negro and Pygmy are found in close contact, the ethnic
relations of tribes are often puzzling, but the Bantu not under
a Hamitic domination have been divided by F. Stuhlmann into
the Older Bantu (Wanyamwezi, Wasukuma, Wasambara, Waseguha,
Wasagara, Wasaramo, &c.) and the Bantu of Later Immigration
(Wakikuyu, Wakamba, Wapokomo, Wataita, Wachaga, &c.), who are
more strongly Hamitized and in many cases have adopted Masai
customs. These peoples, from the Victoria Nyanza to the
Zambezi, may conveniently be termed the ``Eastern Bantu.''
Turning to the Congo basin in the south, the great Luba
and Lunda peoples are found stretching nearly across the
continent, the latter, from at any rate the end of the 16th
century until the close of the 19th century, more or less
united under a single ruler, styled Muata Yanvo. These seem
to have been the most recent immigrants from the south-east,
and to exhibit certain affinities with the Barotse on the
upper Zambezi. Among the western Baluba, or Bashilange,
a remarkable politico-religious revolution took place at
a comparatively recent date, initiated by a secret society
termed Bena Riamba or ``Sons of Hemp,'' and resulted in
the subordination of the old fetishism to a cult of hemp, in
accordance with which all hemp-smokers consider themselves
brothers, and the duty of mutual hospitality, &c., is
acknowledged. North of these, in the great bend of the Congo,
are the Balolo, &c., the Balolo a nation of iron-workers;
and westward, on the Kasai, the Bakuba, and a large number
of tribes as yet imperfectly known. Farther west are the
tribes of Angola, many of whom were included within the
old ``Congo empire,'' of which the kingdom of Loango was an
offshoot. North of the latter lies the Gabun, with a large
number of small tribes dominated by the Fang who are recent
arrivals from the Congo. Farther to the north are the Bali
and other tribes of the Cameroon, among whom many primitive
Negroid elements begin to appear. Eastward are the Zandeh
peoples of the Welle district (primitive Negroids with a
Hamitic or, more probably, Libyan strain), with whom the
Dor trine of Nilotes on their eastern border show certain
affinities; while to the west along the coast are the Guinea
Negroes of primitive type. Here, amidst great linguistic
confusion, may be distinguished the tribes of Yoruba speech
in the Niger delta and the east portion of the Slave Coast;
those of Ewe speech, in the western portion of the latter;
and those of Ga and Tshi speech, on the Gold Coast. Among the
last two groups respectively may be mentioned the Dahomi and
Ashanti. Similar tribes are found along the coast to the
Bissagos Islands, though the introduction in Sierra Leone and
Liberia of settlements of repatriated slaves from the American
plantations has in those places modified the original ethnic
distribution. Leaving the forest zone and entering the more
open country there are, on the north from the Niger to the
Nile, a number of Negroids strongly tinged with Libyan blood and
professing the Mahommedan religion. Such are the Mandingo, the
Songhai, the Fula, Hausa, Kanuri, Bagirmi, Kanembu, and the
peoples of Wadai and Darfur; the few aborigines who persist, on
the southern fringe of the Chad basin, are imperfectly known.
Peculiar conditions in Madagascar.
The island of Madagascar, belonging to the African continent,
still remains for discussion. Here the ethnological conditions
are people were the Hova, a Malayo-Indonesian people who
must have come from the Malay Peninsula or the adjacent
islands. The date of their immigration has been line subject
of a good deal of dispute, but it may be argued that their
arrival must have taken place in early times, since Malagasy
speech, which is the language of the island, is principally
Malayo-Polynesian in origin, and contains no traces of
Sanskrit. Such traces, introduced with Hinduism, are
present in all the cultivated languages of Malaysia at
the present day.The Hova occupy the table-land of Imerina
and form the first of the three main groups into which the
population of Madagascar may be divided. They are short, of
an olive-yellow complexion and have straight or faintly wavy
hair. On the east coast are the Malagasy, who in physical
characteristics stand halfway between the Hova and the
Sakalava, the last occupying the remaining portion of the
island and displaying almost pure Negroid characteristics.
Though the Hova belong to a race naturally addicted to
seafaring, the contrary is the case respecting the Negroid
population, and the presence of the latter in the island has
been explained by the supposition that they were imported
by the Hova. Other authorities assign less antiquity
to the Hova immigration and believe that they found
the Negroid tribes already in occupation of the island.
As might be expected, the culture found in Madagascar
contains two elements, Negroid and Malayo-Indonesian.
The first of these two shows certain affinities with the
culture characteristic of the western area of Africa, such as
rectangular huts, clothing of bark and palm-fibre, fetishism,
&c., but cattle-breeding is found as well as agriculture.
However, the Negroid tribes are more and more adopting the
customs and mode of life of the Hova, among whom are found
pile-houses, the sarong, yadi or tabu applied to food, a
non-African form of bellows, &c., all characteristic of their
original home. The Hova, during the 19th century, embraced
Christianity, but retain, nevertheless, many of their old
animistic beliefs; their original social organization in
three classes, andriana or nobles, hova or freemen, and
andevo or slaves, has been modified by the French, who have
abolished kingship and slavery. An Arab infusion is also to be
noticed, especially on the north-east and south-east coasts.
It is impossible to give a complete list of the tribes inhabiting
Africa, owing to the fact that the country is not fully explored.
Even where the names of the tribes are known their ethnic
relations are still a matter of uncertainty in many localities.
The following list, therefore, must be regarded as purely tentative,
and liable to correction in the light of fuller information:-
AFRICAN TRIBAL DISTRIBUTION
LIBYANS
(North Africa, excluding Egypt)
Berbers, including--
Kabyles
Mzab
Shawia
Tuareg
LIBYO-NEGROID TRANSITIONAL
Fula (West Sudan)
Tibbu (Central Sudan)
HAMITES
(East Sudan and Horn of Africa)
Beja, including--
Ababda
Hadendoa
Bisharin
Beni-Amer
Hamran
Galla
Somali
Danakil (Afar)
Ba-Hima, including--
Wa-Tussi
Wa-Hha
Wa-Rundi
Wa-Ruanda
HAMITO-SEMITES
Fellahin (Egypt)
Abyssinians (with Negroid admixture)
HAMITO-NEGROID TRANSITIONAL
Masai
Wa-Kuafi
NEGROID TRIBES
West Sudan Central Sudan Eastern
Tukulor Songhai Fur Kargo
Wolof Hausa Dago Kulfan
Serer Bagirmi Kunjara Kolaji
Leybu Kanembu Tegele Tumali
Mandingo, including-- Kanuri Nuba
Kassonke Tama
Yallonke Maba Zandeh Tribes
Soninke Birkit (Akin to Nilotics, but
Bambara Massalit probably with Fula
Vei Korunga element)
Susu Kabbaga Azandeh (Niam Niam)
Solima &c. Makaraka
Malinke Mundu
Mangbettu
Probably also-- Ababwa
Mossi Mege
Borgu Abisanga
Tombo } Mabode{ probably
Gurma } Momfu { with Pygmy
Gurunga } { element
Dagomba } Probably with Mandingan element Allied are--
Mampursi } Banziri Languassi
Gonja } Ndris Wia-Wia
&c. } Togbo Awaka
&c.
NEGROES
West African Tribes
Tribes of Tshi and Ga Tribes of Yeruba
speech, including--- speech, including--
Khabunke
Balanta Ashanti Yoruba
Bagnori Safwi Ibadan
Bagnum Denkera Ketu
Felup, including-- Bekwai Egba
Ayamat Nkoranza Jebu
Jola Adansi Remo
Jigush Assin Ode
Vaca Wassaw Illorin
Joat Ahanta Ijesa
Karon Fanti Ondo
Banyum Angona Mahin
Banjar Akwapim Bini
Fulum Akim Kakanda
Bayot Akwamu Wari
&c. Kwao Ibo
Bujagos Ga Efik
Biafare Andoni
Landuman Tribes of Ewe speech, Kwa
Nalu including-- Ibibio
Baga Ekoi
Sape Dahomi Inokun
Bulam Eweawo Akunakuim
Mendi Agotine Munshi
Limba Krepi Ikwe
Gallina Avenor
Timni Awuna
Pessi Agbosomi
Gola Aflao
Kondo Ataklu
Bassa Krikor
Kru Geng
Grebo Attaldoami
Awekwom Aja
Agni Ewemi
Oshiu Appa
Central Negroes Eastern Negroes
Bolo Pure Nilotics
Yako Shilluk
Tangala Nuer
Kali Dinka
Mishi Jur (Diur)
Doma Mittu
Mosgu, including-- Jibbeh
Mandara Madi
Margi Lendu
Logon Alur (Lur)
Gamergu Acholi
Keribina Abaka
Kuri Golo
&c.
Nilotics with affinity
Nilotics with Affinity with Masai
with Zandeh tribes Latuka
Dor (Bongo) Bari
NEGRO-BANTU NILOTIC-BANTU
TRANSITIONAL TRANSITIONAL
Bali Ba-Kwiri Ja-Luo
Ba-Kossi Abo
Ba-Ngwa Dualla
Ba-Nyang Bassa PYGMY TRIBES
Ngolo Ba-Noko Central Arica
Ba-Fo Ba-Puko Akka
Ba-Kundu Ba-Koko Ja-Mbute
Isubu Ba-Bongo
Ashango
&c.
BANTU NEGROIDS
Western Central Eastern
Ogowe Luba-Lunda Group Lacustrians
Ashira Ba-Luba, including-- Ba-Nyoro
Ishogo Ba-Songe Ba-Toro
Ashango Wa-Rua Wa-Siba
Bakalai Wa-Guha Wa-Sinja
Nkomi Katanga Wa-Kerewe
Orungu Ba-Shilange (with Wa-Shashi
Mpongwe Ba-Kete element) Wa-Rundi
Oshekiani Ba-Iro
Benga Ba-Lunda Ba-Ganda
Ininga Probably connected Ba-Soga
Galao are-- Ba-Kavirondo,
Apingi Manyema including--
Okanda Ba-Kumu Awaware
Osaka Wa-Regga Awarimi
Aduma Ba-Rotse, including-- Awakisii
Mbamba Ma-Mbunda &c.
Umbete Ma-Supia
Bule Ma-Shukulumbwe
Bane Ba-Tonga Bantu of Recent
Yaunde and probably Immigration
Maka Va-Lovale
Bomone Wa-Kikuyu
Kunabembe Tribes of the Congo Wa-Kamba
Fang (recent immigrants bend Wa-Pokomo
from the Congo group) Ba-Kessu Wa-Duruma
Ba-Tetela Wa-Digo
Ba-Songo Mino Wa-Giriama
Ba-Kuba Wa-Taita
Ba-Kongo, Ba-Lolo Wa-Nyatura
including-- Ba-Kuti Wa-Iramba
Mushi-Kongo Ba-Mbala Wa-Mbugwe
Mussorongo Ba-Huana Wa-Kaguru
Kabinda Ba-Yaka Wa-Gogo { possible
Ka-Kongo Ba-Pindi Wa-Chaga { Masai
Ba-Vili Ba-Kwese { element
Ma-Yumbe &c.
Ba-Lumbo Older Bantu
Ba-Sundi Tribes of the Congo Wa-Nyamwezi,
Ba-Bwende bank including--
Ba-Lali Wa-Genia Wa-Sukuma }Trans-
Ba-Kunya Ba-Soko Wa-Sumbwa }itional
Ba-Poto Wa-Nyanyembe }to
Mobali Wa-Jui }Bantu
Mogwandi Wa-Kimbu }of
Na-Ngala{ Connected Wa-Kanongo }recent
Ba-Bangi{ with Zandeh Wa-Wende }immi-
{ group }gration
Wa-Buma
Ba-Nunu Wa-Gunda
Ba-Loi Wa-Guru
Ba-Teke Wa-Galla
Wa-Pfuru Wa-Sambara
Wa-Mbundu Wa-Seguha
Wa-Mfumu Wa-Nguru
Ba-Nsinik Wa-Sagara
Ma-Wumba Wa-Doe
Ma-Yakalia Wa-Khutu
&c Wa-Sarmo
Wa-Hehe
TRANSITIONAL Wa-Bena
FROM CENTRAL Wa-Sanga
TO SOUTHERN Wa-Swahili (with Arab
BANTU elements)
Amoela Connected are--
Ganguela Wa-Kisi
Kioko Wa-Mpoto }
Minungo Ba-Tonga }
Imbangala Ba-Tumbuka }
Ba-Achinji Wa-Nyika }
Golo Wa-Nyamwanga } Akin to
Hollo A-Mambwe } Luba-
&c. Wa-Fipa } Lunda
Mbunda peoples, Wa-Rungu } group
including-- A-Wemba }
Bihe A-Chewa }
Dembo A-Maravi }
Mbaka Ba-Senga }
Ngola Ba-Bisa }
Bondo A-Jawa (Yaos)
Ba-Ngala Wa-Mwera
Songo Wa-Gindo
Haku Ma-Konde
Lubolo Ma-Wia
Kisama Ma-Nganja
&c. Ma-Kua
SOUTHERN BANTU
(South and South-East Africa)
Ba-Nyai } Ama-Zulu, including--
Ma-Kalanga, } Affinity Ama-Swazi
including } with Ama-Tonga
Mashona } Bechuana Matabele
Ba-Ronga } Angoni
Ba-Chuana, Ma-Gwangwara
including-- Ma-Huhu
Ba-Tlapin Ma-Viti
Ba-Rolong Ma-Situ
Ba-Ratlou Ma-Henge
Ba-Taung &c.
Ba-Rapulana Ama-Xosa, including--
Ba-Seleka Ama-Gcaleka
Ba-Hurutsi Ama-Hahebe
Ba-Tlaru Ama-Ngqika
Ba-Mangwato Ama-Tembu
Ba-Tauana Ama-Pondo
Ba-Ngwaketse &c.
Ba-Kuena Ova-Herero
&c. Ova-Mpo
HAMITO-BANTU BUSHMEN
BUSHMEN
TRANSITIONAL
Hottentots, }
including-- } S. W.
Namaqua } Africa
Koranna }
TRIBES IN MADAGASCAR
MALAYO-INDONESIANS BANTU-NEGROIDS
Hova Sakalava, including--
Betsileo (slight Bantu admixture) Menabe
Milaka
HOVA-BANTU Ronandra
TRANSITIONAL Mahafali
&c.
Malagasy, including--
Bestimisaraka Antanosi
Antambahoaka Antsihanaka
Antaimoro Antanala
Antaifasina Antaisara
Antaisaka &c.
IV. HISTORY
The origin and meaning of the name of the continent are
discussed elsewhere (see AFRICA, ROMAN.) The word Africa
was applied originally to the country in the immediate
neighbourhood of Carthage, that part of the continent
first known to the Romans, and it was subsequently extended
with their increasing knowledge, till it came at last to
include all that they knew of the continent. The Arabs
still confine the name Ifrikia to the territory of Tunisia.
Phoenician and Greek colonization.
The valley of the lower Nile was the home in remotest
antiquity of a civilized race. Egyptian culture had,
however, remarkably little direct influence on the rest of
the continent, a result due in large measure to the fact
that Egypt is shut off landwards by immense deserts. If
ancient Egypt and Ethiopia (q.v.) be excluded, the story
of Africa is largely a record of the doings of its Asiatic
and European conquerors and colonizers, Abyssinia being the
only state which throughout historic times has maintained its
independence. The countries bordering the Mediterranean
were first exploited by the Phoenicians, whose earliest
settlements were made before 1000 B.C. Carthage, founded
about 800 B.C., speedily grew into a city without rival in
the Mediterranean, and the Phoenicians, subduing the Berber
tribes, who then as now formed the bulk of the population,
became masters of all the habitable region of North Africa
west of the Great Syrtis, and found in commerce a source of
immense prosperity. Both Egyptians and Carthaginians made
attempts to reach the unknown parts of the continent by
sea. Herodotus relates that an expedition under Phoenician
navigators, employed by Necho, king of Egypt, c. 600
B.C., circumnavigated Africa from the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean, a voyage stated to have been accomplished in
three years. Apart from the reported circumnavigation of the
continent, the west coast was well known to the Phoenicians
as far as Cape Nun, and c. 520 B.C. Hanno, a Carthaginian,
explored the coast as far, perhaps, as the Bight of Benin,
certainly as far as Sierra Leone. A vague knowledge of
the Niger regions was also possessed by the Phoenicians.
Meantime the first European colonists had planted themselves in
Africa. At the point where the continent approaches nearest
the Greek islands, Greeks founded the city of Cyrene (c. 631
B.C..) Cyrenaica became a flourishing colony, though being
hemmed in on all sides by absolute desert it had little or
no influence on inner Africa. The Greeks, however, exerted
a powerful influence in Egypt. To Alexander the Great the
city of Alexandria owes its foundation (332 B.C.), and
under the Hellenistic dynasty of the Ptolemies attempts were
made to penetrate southward, and in this way was obtained
some knowledge of Abyssinia. Neither Cyrenaica nor Egypt was
a serious rival to the Carthaginians, but all three powers
were eventually supplanted by the Romans. After centuries of
rivalry for supremacy1 the struggle was ended by the fall of
Carthage in 146 B.C. Within little more than a century from
that date Egypt and Cyrene had become incorporated in the Roman
empire. Under Rome the settled portions of the country were
very prosperous, and a Latin strain was introduced into the
land. Though Fezzan was occupied by them, the Romans
elsewhere found the Sahara an impassable barrier. Nubia
and Abyssinia were reached, but an expedition sent by the
emperor Nero to discover the source of the Nile ended in
failure. The utmost extent of geographical knowledge of the
continent is shown in the writings of Ptolemy (2nd century
A.D.), who knew of or guessed the existence of the great
lake reservoirs of the Nile and had heard of the river
Niger. Still Africa for the civilized world remained simply
the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The continual
struggle between Rome and the Berber tribes; the introduction
of Christianity and the glories and sufferings of the
Egyptian and African Churches; the invasion and conquest of
the African provinces by the Vandals in the 5th century; the
passing of the supreme power in the following century to the
Byzantine empire--all these events are told fully elsewhere.
In the 7th century of the Christian era occurred an event
destined to have a permanent influence on the whole continent.
North Africa conquered by the Arabs.
Invading first Egypt, an Arab host, fanatical believers in
the new faith of Mahomet, conquered the whole country from the
Red Sea to the Atlantic and carried the Crescent into Spain.
Throughout North Africa Christianity well-nigh disappeared,
save in Egypt (where the Coptic Church was suffered to exist),
and Upper Nubia and Abyssinia, which were not subdued by the
Moslems. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries the Arabs in
Africa were numerically weak; they held the countries they had
conquered by the sword only, but in the 11th century there was
a great Arab immigration, resulting in a large absorption of
Berber blood. Even before this the Berbers had very generally
adopted the speech and religion of their conquerors. Arab
influence and the Mahommedan religion thus became indelibly
stamped on northern Africa. Together they spread southward
across the Sahara. They also became firmly established along
the eastern sea-board, where Arabs, Persians and Indians
planted flourishing colonies, such as Mombasa, Malindi and
Sofala, playing a role, maritime and commercial, analogous
to that filled in earlier centuries by the Carthaginians on
the northern sea-board. Of these eastern cities and states
both Europe and the Arabs of North Africa were long ignorant.
The first Arab invaders had recognized the authority of the
caliphs of Bagdad, and the Aghlabite dynasty--founded by Aghlab,
one of Haroun al Raschid's generals, at the close of the 8th
century--ruled as vassals of the caliphate. However, early in
the 10th century the Fatimite dynasty established itself in Egypt,
where Cairo had been founded A.D. 968, and from there ruled
as far west as the Atlantic. Later still arose other dynasties
Appearance of the Turks.
such as the Almoravides and Almohades. Eventually the
Turks, who had conquered Constantinople in 1453, and had
seized Egypt in 1517, established the regencies of Algeria,
Tunisia and Tripoli (between 1519 and 1551), Morocco remaining
an independent Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan
dynasty, which had its beginnings at the end of the 13th
century. Under the earlier dynasties Arabian or Moorish culture
had attained a high degree of excellence, while the spirit
of adventure and the proselytizing zeal of the followers of
Islam led to a considerable extension of the knowledge of the
continent. This was rendered more easy by their use of the
camel (first introduced into Africa by the Persian conquerors
of Egypt), which enabled the Arabs to traverse the desert.
In this way Senegambia and the middle Niger regions fell under
the influence of the Arabs and Berbers, but it was not until
1591 that Timbuktu--a city founded in the 11th century--became
Moslem. That city had been reached in 1352 by the great
Arab traveller Ibn Batuta, to whose journey to Mombasa and
Quiloa (Kilwa) was due the first accurate knowledge of those
flourishing Moslem cities on the east African sea-boards.
Except along this sea-board, which was colonized directly
from Asia, Arab progress southward was stopped by the broad
belt of dense forest which, stretching almost across the
continent somewhat south of 10 deg. N., barred their advance
as effectually as had the Sahara that of their predecessors,
and cut them off from knowledge of the Guinea coast and of
all Africa beyond. One of the regions which came latest
under Arab control was that of Nubia, where a Christian
civilization and state existed up to the 14th century.
For a time the Moslem conquests in South Europe had virtually
made of the Mediterranean an Arab lake, but the expulsion
in the 11th century of the Saracens from Sicily and southern
Italy by the Normans was followed by descents of the conquerors
on Tunisia and Tripoli. Somewhat later a busy trade with
the African coast-lands, and especially with Egypt, was
developed by Venice, Pisa, Genoa and other cities of North
Italy. By the end of the 15th century Spain had completely
thrown off the Moslem yoke, but even while the Moors were still
in Granada, Portugal was strong enough to carry the war into
Africa. In 1415 a Portuguese force captured the citadel of Ceuta
on the Moorish coast. From that time onward Portugal repeatedly
Spain and Portugal invade the Barbary States.
interfered in the affairs of Morocco, while Spain acquired many
ports in Algeria and Tunisia. Portugal, however, suffered a
crushing defeat in 1578 at al Kasr al Kebir, the Moors being
led by Abd el Malek I. of the then recently established Sharifan
dynasty. By that time the Spaniards had lost almost all their
African possessions. The Barbary states, primarily from the
example of the Moors expelled from Spain, degenerated into mere
communities of pirates, and under Turkish influence civilization
and commerce declined. The story of these states from the
beginning of the 16th century to the third decade of the 19th
century is largely made up of piratical exploits on the one
hand and of ineffectual reprisals on the other. In Algiers,
Tunis and other cities were thousands of Christian slaves.
But with the battle of Ceuta Africa had ceased to belong solely
to the Mediterranean world. Among those who fought there was
Discovery of the Guinea coast--Rise of the slave trade.
one. Prince Henry ``the Navigator,'' son of King John
I., who was fired with the ambition to acquire for Portugal
the unknown parts of Africa. Under his inspiration and
direction was begun that series of voyages of exploration
which resulted in the circumnavigation of Africa and the
establishment of Portuguese sovereignty over large areas
of the coast-lands. Cape Bojador was doubled in 1434,
Cape Verde in 1445, and by 1480 the whole Guinea coast was
known. In 1482 Diogo Cam or Cao discovered the mouth of the
Congo, the Cape of Good Hope was doubled by Bartholomew Diaz
in 1488, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama, after having rounded
the Cape, sailed up the east coast, touched at Sofala and
Malindi, and went thence to India. Over all the countries
discovered by their navigators Portugal claimed sovereign
rights, but these were not exercised in the extreme south of the
continent. The Guinea coast, as the first discovered and the
nearest to Europe, was first exploited. Numerous forts and
trading stations were established, the earliest being Sao
Jorge da Mina (Elmina), begun in 1482. The chief commodities
dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The discovery
of America (1492) was followed by a great development of
the slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been
an overland trade almost exclusively confined to Mahommedan
Africa. The lucrative nature of this trade and the large
quantities of alluvial gold obtained by the Portuguese drew
other nations to the Guinea coast. English mariners went
thither as early as 1553, and they were followed by Spaniards,
Dutch, French, Danish and other adventurers. Much of Senegambia
was made known as a result of quests during the 16th century
for the ``hills of gold'' in Bambuk and the fabled wealth of
Timbuktu, but the middle Niger was not reached. The supremacy
along the coast passed in the 17th century from Portugal to
Holland and from Holland in the 18th and 19th centuries to
France and England. The whole coast from Senegal to Lagos
was dotted with forts and ``factories'' of rival powers,
and this international patchwork persists though all the
hinterland has become either French or British territory.
Southward from the mouth of the Congo2 to the inhospitable
region of Damaraland, the Portuguese, from 1491 onward, acquired
influence over the Bantu-Negro inhabitants, and in the early
part of the 16th century through their efforts Christianity was
largely adopted in the native kingtom of Congo. An irruption
of cannibals from the interior later in the same century
broke the power of this semi-Christian state, and Portuguese
activity was transferred to a great extent farther south, Sao
Paulo de Loanda being founded in 1576. The sovereignty of
Portugal over this coast region, except for the mouth of the
Congo, has been once only challenged by a European power,
and that was in 1640-1648, when the Dutch held the seaports.
Neglecting the comparatively poor and thinly inhabited regions
of South Africa, the Portuguese no sooner discovered than
they coveted the flourishing cities held by Arabized peoples
between Sofala and Cape Guardafui. By 1520 all these Moslem
The Portuguese in East Africa and Abyssinia.
sultanates had been seized by Portugal, Mozambique being
chosen as the chief city of her East African possessions.
Nor was Portuguese activity confined to the coast-lands. The
lower and middle Zambezi valley was explored (16th and 17th
centuries), and here the Portuguese found semi-civilized
Bantu-Negro tribes, who had been for many years in contact
with the coast Arabs. Strenuous efforts were made to obtain
possession of the country (modern Rhodesia) known to them
as the kingdom or empire of Monomotapa, where gold had been
worked by the natives from about the 12th century A.D.,
and whence the Arabs, whom the Portuguese dispossessed,
were still obtaining supplies in the 16th century. Several
expeditions were despatched inland from 1569 onward and
considerable quantities of gold were obtained. Portugal's
hold on the interior, never very effective, weakened during
the 17th century, and in the middle of the 18th century ceased
with the abandonment of the forts in the Manica district.
At the period of her greatest power Portugal exercised a strong
influence in Abyssinia also. In the ruler of Abyssinia (to
whose dominions a Portuguese traveller had penetrated before
Vasco da Gama's memorable voyage) the Portuguese imagined they
had found the legendary Christian king, Prester John, and when
the complete overthrow of the native dynasty and the Christian
religion was imminent by the victories of Mahommedan invaders,
the exploits of a band of 400 Portuguese under Christopher da
Gama during 1541-1543 turned the scale in favour of Abyssinia
and had thus an enduring result on the future of North-East
Africa. After da Gama's time Portuguese Jesuits resorted to
Abyssinia. While they failed in their efforts to convert the
Abyssinians to Roman Catholicism they acquired an extensive
knowledge of the country. Pedro Paez in 1615, and, ten years
later, Jeronimo Lobo, both visited the sources of the Blue
Nile. In 1663 the Portuguese, who had outstayed their welcome,
were expelled from the Abyssinian dominions. At this time
Portuguese influence on the Zanzibar coast was waning before
the power of the Arabs of Muscat, and by 1730 no point on
the east coast north of Cape Delgado was held by Portugal.
It has been seen that Portugal took no steps to acquire the
southern part of the continent. To the Portuguese the Cape of
English and Dutch at Table Bay--Cape Colony founded.
Good Hope was simply a landmark on the road to India, and mariners
of other nations who followed in their wake used Table Bay only
as a convenient spot wherein to refit on their voyage to the
East. By the beginning of the 17th century the bay was much
resorted to for this purpose, chiefly by English and Dutch
vessels. In 1620, with the object of forestalling the
Dutch, two officers of the East India Company, on their own
initiative, took possession of Table Bay in the name of King
James, fearing otherwise that English ships would be ``frustrated
of watering but by license.'' Their action was not approved
in London and the proclamation they issued remained without
effect. The Netherlands profited by the apathy of the
English. On the advice of sailors who had been shipwrecked
in Table Bay the Netherlands East India Company, in 1651,
sent out a fleet of three small vessels under Jan van Riebeek
which reached Table Bay on the 6th of April 1652, when,
164 years after its discovery, the first permanent white
settlement was made in South Africa. The Portuguese, whose
power in Africa was already waning, were not in a position
to interfere with the Dutch plans, and England was content
to seize the island of St Helena as her half-way house to the
East3. In its inception the settlement at the Cape was not
intended to become an African colony, but was regarded as the
most westerly outpost of the Dutch East Indies. Nevertheless,
despite the paucity of ports and the absence of navigable
rivers, the Dutch colonists, freed from any apprehension of
European trouble by the friendship between Great Britain and
Holland, and leavened by Huguenot blood, gradually spread
northward, stamping their language, law and religion indelibly
upon South Africa. This process, however, was exceedingly slow.
During the 18th century there is little to record in the history of
Africa. The nations of Europe, engaged in the later half of the
Waning and revival of interest in Africa.
century in almost constant warfare, and struggling for
supremacy in America and the East, to a large extent lost
their interest in the continent. Only on the west coast
was there keen rivalry, and here the motive was securance
of trade rather than territorial acquisitions. In this
century the slave trade reached its highest development,
the trade in gold, ivory, gum and spices being small in
comparison. In the interior of the continent--Portugal's
energy being expended--no interest was shown, the nations with
establishments on the coast ``taking no further notice of the
inhabitants or their land than to obtain at the easiest rate
what they procure with as little trouble as possible, or to
carry them off for slaves to their plantations in America''
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 3rd ed., 1797). Even the scanty
knowledge acquired by the ancients and the Arabs was in the
main forgotten or disbelieved. It was the period when--
Geographers, in Afric maps, With savage pictures filled their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs Placed elephants for want of towns.
(Poetry, a Rhapsody. By Jonathan Swift.)
The prevailing ignorance may be gauged by the statement in
the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica that ``the
Gambia and Senegal rivers are only branches of the Niger.''
But the closing years of the 18th century, which witnessed
the partial awakening of the public conscience of Europe
to the iniquities of the slave trade, were also notable for
the revival of interest in inner Africa. A society, the
African Association,4 was formed in London in 1788 for the
exploration of the interior of the continent. The era of
great discoveries had begun a little earlier in the famous
journey (1770-1772) of James Bruce through Abyssinia and
Sennar, during which he determined the course of the Blue
Nile. But it was through the agents of the African Association
that knowledge was gained of the Niger regions. The Niger
itself was first reached by Mungo Park, who travelled by way
of the Gambia, in 1795. Park, on a second journey in 1805,
passed Timbuktu and descended the Niger to Bussa, where he
lost his life, having just failed to solve the question as to
where the river reached the ocean. (This problem was ultimately
solved by Richard Lander and his brother in 1830.) The first
scientific explorer of South-East Africa, Dr Francisco de
Lacerda, a Portuguese, also lost his life in that country.
Lacerda travelled up the Zambezi to Tete, going thence towards
Lake Mweru, near which he died in 1798. The first recorded
crossing of Africa was accomplished between the years 1802
and 1811 by two half-caste Portuguese traders, Pedro Baptista
and A. Jose, who passed from Angola eastward to the Zambezi.
Although the Napoleonic wars distracted the attention of
Europe from exploratory work in Africa, those wars nevertheless
Effects of the Napoleonic wars--Britain seizes the Cape.
exercised great influence on the future of the continent, both
in Egypt and South Africa. The occupation of Egypt (1798-1803)
first by France and then by Great Britain resulted in an
effort by Turkey to regain direct control over that country,5
followed in 1811 by the establishment under Mehemet Ali of
an almost independent state, and the extension of Egyptian
rule over the eastern Sudan (from 1820 onward). In South
Africa the struggle with Napoleon caused Great Britain to take
possession of the Dutch settlements at the Cape, and in 1814
Cape Colony, which had been continuously occupied by British
troops since 1806, was formally ceded to the British crown.
The close of the European conflicts with the battle of
Waterloo was followed by vigorous efforts on the part of
the British government to become better acquainted with
Africa, and to substitute colonization and legitimate trade
for the slave traffic, declared illegal for British subjects
in 1807 and abolished by all other European powers by
1836. To West Africa Britain devoted much attention. The
slave trade abolitionists had already, in 1788, formed a
settlement at Sierra Leone, on the Guinea coast, for freed
slaves, and from this establishment grew the colony of Sierra
Leone, long notorious, by reason of its deadly climate, as
``The White Man's Grave.''6 Farther east the establishments
on the Gold Coast began to take a part in the politics
of the interior, and the first British mission to Kumasi,
despatched in 1817, led to the assumption of a protectorate
over the maritime tribes heretofore governed by the Ashanti.
An expedition sent in 1816 to explore the Congo from its
mouth did not succeed in getting beyond the rapids which bar
the way to the interior, but in the central Sudan much better
results were obtained. In 1823 three English travellers,
Walter Oudney, Dixon Denham and Hugh Clapperton, reached
Lake Chad from Tripoli--the first white men to reach that
lake. The partial exploration of Bornu and the Hausa states
by Clapperton, which followed, revealed the existence of
large and flourishing cities and a semi-civilized people
in a region hitherto unknown. The discovery in 1830 of the
mouth of the Niger by Clapperton's servant Lander, already
mentioned, had been preceded by the journeys of Major A.
G. Laing (1826) and Rene Caillie (1827) to Timbuktu, and
was followed (1832-1833) by the partial ascent of the Benue
affluent of the Niger by Macgregor Laird. In 1841 a disastrous
attempt was made to plant a white colony on the lower Niger,
an expedition (largely philanthropic and antislavery in its
inception) which ended in utter failure. Nevertheless from
that time British traders remained on the lower Niger, their
continued presence leading ultimately to the acquisition of
political rights over the delta and the Hausa states by Great
Britain.7 Another endeavour by the British government to open
up commercial relations with the Niger countries resulted in
the addition of a vast amount of information concerning the
countries between Timbuktu and Lake Chad, owing to the labours
of Heinrich Barth (1850-1855), originally a subordinate,
but the only surviving member of the expedition sent out.
Meantime considerable changes had been made in other parts
of the continent, the most notable being--the occupation of
Algiers by France in 1830, an end being thereby put to the
piratical proceedings of the Barbary states; the continued
expansion southward of Egyptian authority with the consequent
additions to the knowledge of the Nile; and the establishment
of independent states ((Orange Free State and the Transvaal)
by Dutch farmers (Boers) dissatisfied with British rule in Cape
Colony. Natal, so named by Vasco da Gama, had been made a
British colony (1843), the attempt of the Boers to acquire
it being frustrated. The city of Zanzibar, on the island
of that name, founded in 1832 by Seyyid Said of Muscat,
rapidly attained importance, and Arabs began to penetrate
to the great lakes of East Africa,8 concerning which little
more was known (and less believed) than in the time of
Ptolemy. Accounts of a vast inland sea, and the discovery
in 1848-1840, by the missionaries Ludwig Krapf and J.
Rebmann, of the snow-clad mountains of Kilimanjaro and
Kenya, stimulated in Europe the desire for further knowledge.
At this period, the middle of the 19th century, Protestant
missions were carrying on active propaganda on the Guinea
The era of great explorers.
coast, in South Africa and in the Zanzibar dominions. Their
work, largely beneficent, was being conducted in regions
and among peoples little known, and in many instances
missionaries turned explorers and became pioneers of trade and
empire. One of the first to attempt to fill up the remaining
blank spaces in the map was David Livings tone, who had
been engaged since 1840 in missionary work north of the
Orange. In 1849 Livingstone crossed the Kalahari Desert
from south to north and reached Lake Ngami, and between
1851 and 1856 he traversed the continent from west to east,
making known the great waterways of the upper Zambezi.
During these journeyings Livingstone discovered, November
1855, the famous Victoria Falls, so named after the queen of
England. In 1858-1864 the lower Zambezi, the Shire and Lake
Nyasa were explored by Livingstone, Nyasa having been first
reached by the confidential slave of Antonio da Silva Porto, a
Portuguese trader established at Bihe in Angola, who crossed
Africa during 1853-1856 from Benguella to the mouth of the
Rovuma. While Livingstone circumnavigated Nyasa, the more
northerly lake, Tanganyika, had been visited (1858) by Richard
Burton and J. H. Speke, and the last named had sighted Victoria
Nyanza. Returning to East Africa with J. A. Grant, Speke
reached, in 1862, the river which flowed from Victoria
Nyanza, and following it (in the main) down to Egypt, had the
distinction of being the first man to read the riddle of the
Nile. In 1864 another Nile explorer, Samuel Baker, discovered
the Albert Nyanza, the chief western reservoir of the
river. In 1866 Livingstone began his last great journey, in
which he made known Lakes Mweru and Bangweulu and discovered
the Lualaba (the upper part of the Congo), but died (1873)
before he had been able to demonstrate its ultimate course,
believing indeed that the Lualaba belonged to the Nile
system. Livingstone's lonely death in the heart of Africa
evoked a keener desire than ever to complete the work he left
undone. H. M. Stanley, who had in 1871 succeeded in finding
and succouring Livingstone, started again for Zanzibar in
1874, and in the most memorable of all exploring expeditions
in Africa circumnavigated Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika, and,
striking farther inland to the Lualaba, followed that river
down to the Atlantic Ocean--reached in August 1877--and proved
it to be the Congo. Stanley had been preceded, in 1874, at
Nyangwe, Livingstone's farthest point on the Lualaba, by Lovett
Cameron, who was, however, unable farther to explore its course,
making his way to the west coast by a route south of the Congo.
While the great mystery of Central Africa was being solved
explorers were also active in other parts of the continent.
Southern Morocco, the Sahara and the Sudan were traversed
in many directions between 1860 and 1875 by Gerhard Rohlfs,
Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal. These travellers
not only added considerably to geographical knowledge,
but obtained invaluable information concerning the people,
languages and natural history of the countries in which they
sojourned.9 Among the discoveries of Schweinfurth was one
that confirmed the Greek legends of the existence beyond
Egypt of a pygmy race. But the first discoverer of the
dwarf races of Central Africa was Paul du Chaillu, who found
them in the Ogowe district of the west coast in 1865, five
years before Schweinfurth's first meeting with the Pygmies;
du Chaillu having previously, as the result of journeys in
the Gabun country between 1855 and 1859, made popular in
Europe the knowledge of the existence of the gorilla, perhaps
the gigantic ape seen by Hanno the Carthaginian, and whose
existence, up to the middle of the 19th century, was thought
to be as legendary as that of the Pygmies of Aristotle.
In South Africa the filling up of the map also proceeded
apace. The finding, in 1869, of rich diamond fields in
the valley of the Vaal river, near its confluence with the
Orange, caused a rush of emigrants to that district, and
led to conflicts between the Dutch and British authorities
and the extension of British authority northward. In
1871 the ruins of the great Zimbabwe in Mashonaland, the
chief fortress and distributing centre of the race which
in medieval times worked the goldfields of South-East
Africa, were explored by Karl Mauch. In the following year
F. C. Selous began his journeys over South Central Africa,
which continued for more than twenty years and extended
over every part of Mashonaland and Matabeleland. (F. R. C.)
V. PARTITION AMONG EUROPEAN POWERS
In the last quarter of the 19th century the map of Africa was
transformed. After the discovery of the Congo the story
of exploration takes second place; the continent becomes
the theatre of European expansion. Lines of partition,
drawn often through trackless wildernesses, marked out the
possessions of Germany, France, Great Britain and other
powers. Railways penetrated the interior, vast areas were
opened up to civilized occupation, and from ancient Egypt
to the Zambezi the continent was startled into new life.
Before 1875 the only powers with any considerable interest
in Africa were Britain, Portugal and France. Between 1815
and 1850, as has been shown above, the British government
devoted much energy, not always informed by knowledge,
to western and southern Africa. In both directions Great
Britain had met with much discouragement; on the west coast,
disease, death, decaying trade and useless conflicts with
savage foes had been the normal experience; in the south
recalcitrant Boers and hostile Kaffirs caused almost endless
trouble. The visions once entertained of vigorous negro
communities at once civilized and Christian faded away;
to the hot fit of philanthropy succeeded the cold fit of
indifference and a disinclination to bear the burden of
empire. The low-water mark of British interest in South
Africa was reached in 1854 when independence was forced
on the Orange River Boers, while in 1865 the mind of the
nation was fairly reflected by the unanimous resolution of
a representative House of Commons committee:10 ``that all
further extension of territory or assumption of government,
or new treaty offering any protection to native tribes, would
be inexpedient.'' For nearly twenty years the spirit of that
resolution paralysed British action in Africa, although many
circumstances--the absence of any serious European rival, the
inevitable border disputes with uncivilized races, and the
activity of missionary and trader--conspired to make British
influence dominant in large areas of the continent over
which the government exercised no definite authority. The
freedom with which blood and treasure were spent to enforce
respect for the British flag or to succour British subjects in
distress, as in the Abyssinian campaign of 1867-68 and the
Ashanti war of 1873, tended further to enhance the reputation
of Great Britain among African races, while, as an inevitable
result of the possession of India, British officials exercised
considerable power at the court of Zanzibar, which indeed
owed its separate existence to a decision of Lord Canning, the
governor-general of India, in 1861 recognizing the division
of the Arabian and African dominions of the imam of Muscat.
It has been said that Great Britain was without serious rival.
On the Gold Coast she had bought the Danish forts in 1850 and
acquired the Dutch, 1871-1872, in exchange for establishments in
Sumatra. But Portugal still held, both in the east and west of
Africa, considerable stretches of the tropical coast-lands, and
it was in 1875 that she obtained, as a result of the arbitration
of Marshal MacMahon, possession of the whole of Delagoa
Bay, to the southern part of which England also laid claim by
virtue of a treaty of cession concluded with native chiefs in
1823. The only other European power which at the period
under consideration had considerable possessions in Africa was
France. Besides Algeria, France had settlements on the
Senegal, where in 1854 the appointment of General Faidherbe
as governor marked the beginning of a policy of expansion; she
had also various posts on the upper Guinea coast, had taken
the estuary of the Gabun as a station for her navy, and had
acquired (1862) Obok at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
In North Africa the Turks had (in 1835) assumed direct control of
Tripoli, while Morocco had fallen into a state of decay though
retaining its independence. The most remarkable change was
in Egypt, where the Khedive Ismail had introduced a somewhat
fantastic imitation of European civilization. In addition
Ismail had conquered Darfur, annexed Harrar and the Somali
ports on the Gulf of Aden, was extending his power southward
to the equatorial lakes, and even contemplated reaching the
Indian Ocean. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, had a great
influence on the future of Africa, as it again made Egypt
the highway to the East, to the detriment of the Cape route.
Any estimate of the area of African territory held by European
nations in 1875 is necessarily but approximate, and varies chiefly
The division of the continent in 1875.
as the compiler of statistics rejects or accepts the vague claims
of Portugal to sovereignty over the hinterland of her coast
possessions. At that period other European nations--with
the occasional exception of Great Britain--were indifferent
to Portugal's pretensions, and her estimate of her African
empire as covering over 700,000 sq. m. was not challenged.11
But the area under effective control of Portugal at that time
did not exceed 40,000 sq. m. Great Britain then held some
250,000 sq. m., France about 170,000 sq. m. and Spain 1000 sq.
m. The area of the independent Dutch republics (the Transvaal
and Orange Free State) was some 150,000 sq. m., so that the
total area of Africa ruled by Europeans did not exceed 1,271,000
sq. m.; roughly one-tenth of the continent. This estimate,
as it admits the full extent of Portuguese claims and does not
include Madagascar, in reality considerably overstates the case.
Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan, Tunisia and Tripoli were
subject in differing ways to the overlordship of the sultan
of Turkey, and with these may be ranked, in the scale of
organized governments, the three principal independent states,
Morocco, Abyssinia and Zanzibar, as also the negro republic of
Liberia. There remained, apart from the Sahara, roughly one
half of Africa, lying mostly within the tropics, inhabited
by a multitude of tribes and peoples living under various
forms of government and subject to frequent changes in respect
of political organization. In this region were the negro
states of Ashanti, Dahomey and Benin on the west coast, the
Mahommedan sultanates of the central Sudan, and a number
of negro kingdoms in the east central and south central
regions. Of these Uganda on the north-west shores of
Victoria Nyanza, Cazembe and Muata Hianvo (or Yanvo) may be
mentioned. The two last-named kingdoms occupied respectively
the south-eastern and south-western parts of the Congo
basin. In all this vast region the Negro and Negro-Bantu races
predominated, for the most part untouched by Mahommedanism
or Christian influences. They lacked political cohesion,
and possessed neither the means nor the inclination to extend
their influence beyond their own borders. The exploitation
of Africa continued to be entirely the work of alien races.
The causes which led to the partition of Africa may now be
considered. They are to be found in the economic and political
Causes which led to partition.
state of western Europe at the time. Germany, strong and
united as the result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870,
was seeking new outlets for her energies --new markets for
her growing industries, and with the markets, colonies.
Yet the idea of colonial expansion was of slow growth in
Germany, and when Prince Bismarck at length acted Africa was
the only field left to exploit, South America being protected
from interference by the known determination of the United
States to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, while Great Britain,
France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain already held
most of the other regions of the world where colonization was
possible. For different reasons the war of 1870 was also the
starting-point for France in the building up of a new colonial
empire. In her endeavour to regain the position lost in
that war France had to look beyond Europe. To the two causes
mentioned must be added others. Great Britain and Portugal,
when they found their interests threatened, bestirred themselves,
while Italy also conceived it necessary to become an African
power. Great Britain awoke to the need for action too late to
secure predominance in all the regions where formerly hers was
the only European influence. She had to contend not only with
the economic forces which urged her rivals to action, but had
also to combat the jealous opposition of almost every European
nation to the further growth of British power. Italy alone
acted throughout in cordial co-operation with Great Britain.
It was not, however, the action of any of the great powers
of Europe which precipitated the struggle. This was brought
about by the ambitious projects of Leopold II, king of the
Belgians. The discoveries of Livingstone, Stanley and others
had aroused especial interest among two classes of men in western
Europe, one the manufacturing and trading class, which saw in
Central Africa possibilities of commercial development, the
other the philanthropic and missionary class, which beheld in the
newly discovered lands millions of savages to Christianize and
civilize. The possibility of utilizing both these classes in
the creation of a vast state, of which he should be the chief,
formed itself in the mind of Leopold II. even before Stanley
had navigated the Congo. The king's action was immediate; it
proved successful; but no sooner was the nature of his project
understood in Europe than it provoked the rivalry of France
and Germany, and thus the international struggle was begun.
Conflicting ambitions of the European powers.
At this point it is expedient, in the light of subsequent
events, to set forth the designs then entertained by the
European powers that participated in the struggle for
Africa. Portugal was striving to retain as large a share
as possible of her shadowy empire, and particularly to
establish her claims to the Zambezi region, so as to
secure a belt of territory across Africa from Mozambique to
Angola. Great Britain, once aroused to the imminence of
danger, put forth vigorous efforts in East Africa and on the
Niger, but her most ambitious dream was the establishment of an
unbroken line of British possessions and spheres of influence
from south to north of the continent, from Cape Colony to
Egypt. Germany's ambition can be easily described. It was
to secure as much as possible, so as to make up for lost
opportunities. Italy coveted Tripoli, but that province
could not be seized without risking war. For the rest
Italy's territorial ambitions were confined to North-East
Africa, where she hoped to acquire a dominating, influence
over Abyssinia. French ambitions, apart from Madagascar,
were confined to the northern and central portions of the
continent. To extend her possessions on the Mediterranean
littoral, and to connect them with her colonies in West Africa,
the western Sudan, and on the Congo, by establishing her
influence over the vast intermediate regions, was France's first
ambition. But the defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia and
the impending downfall of the khalifa's power in the valley
of the upper Nile suggested a still more daring project to
the French government--none other than the establishment of
French influence over a broad belt of territory stretching
across the continent from west to east, from Senegal on the
Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Aden. The fact that France
possessed a small part of the Red Sea coast gave point to this
design. But these conflicting ambitions could not all be
realized and Germany succeeded in preventing Great Britain
obtaining a continuous band of British territory from south
to north,while Great Britain, by excluding France from
the upper Nile valley, dispelled the French dream of an
empire from west to east. King Leopold's ambitions have
already been indicated. The part of the continent to which
from the first he directed his energies was the equatorial
region. In September 1876 he took what may be described
as the first definite step in the modern partition of the
continent. He summoned to a conference at Brussels
representatives of Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia, to deliberate on the best
methods to be adopted for the exploration and civilization of
Africa, and the opening up of the interior of the continent
to commerce and industry. The conference was entirely
unofficial. The delegates who attended neither represented
nor pledged their respective governments. Their deliberations
lasted three days and resulted in the foundation of ``The
International African Association,'' with its headquarters at
Brussels. It was further resolved to establish national
committees in the various countries represented, which should
collect funds and appoint delegates to the International
Association. The central idea appears to have been to put the
exploration and development of Africa upon an international
footing. But it quickly became apparent that this was an
unattainable ideal. The national committees were soon working
independently of the International Association, and the
Association itself passed through a succession of stages until
it became purely Belgian in character, and at last developed
into the Congo Free State, under the personal sovereignty
of King Leopold. At first the Association devoted itself
to sending expeditions to the great central lakes from the
east coast; but failure, more or less complete attended its
efforts in this direction, and it was not until the return of
Stanley, in January 1878, from his great journey down the
Congo, that its ruling spirit, King Leopold, definitely
turned his thoughts towards the Congo. In June of that year,
Stanley visited the king at Brussels, and in the following
November a private conference was held, and a committee
was appointed for the investigation of the upper Congo.
Stanley's remarkable discovery had stirred ambition in other
capitals than Brussels. France had always taken a keen interest
The struggle for the Congo.
in West Africa, and in the years 1875 to 1878 Savorgnan
de Brazza had carried out a successful exploration of the
Ogowe river to the south of the Gabun. De Brazza determined
that the Ogowe did not offer that great waterway into the
interior of which he was in search, and he returned to Europe
without having heard of the discoveries of Stanley farther
south. Naturally, however, Stanley's discoveries were keenly
followed in France. In Portugal, too, the discovery of the
Congo, with its magnificent unbroken waterway of more than a
thousand miles into the heart of the continent served to revive
the languid energies of the Portuguese, who promptly began
to furbish up claims whose age was in inverse ratio to their
validity. Claims, annexations and occupations were in the
air, and when in January 1879 Stanley left Europe as the
accredited agent of King Leopold and the Congo committee,
the strictest secrecy was observed as to his real aims and
intentions. The expedition was, it was alleged, proceeding
up the Congo to assist the Belgian expedition which had
entered from the east coast, and Stanley himself went first to
Zanzibar. But in August 1879 Stanley found himself again at
Banana Point, at the mouth of the Congo, with, as he himself has
written, ``the novel mission of sowing along its banks civilized
settlements to peacefully conquer and subdue it, to remould
it in harmony with modern ideas into national states, within
whose limits the European merchant shall go hand in hand with
the dark African trader, and justice and law and order shall
prevail, and murder and lawlessness and the cruel barter of
slaves shall be overcome.'' The irony of human aspirations was
never perhaps more plainly demonstrated than in the contrast
between the ideal thus set before themselves by those who
employed Stanley, and the actual results of their intervention in
Africa. Stanley founded his first station at Vivi, between
the mouth of the Congo and the rapids that obstruct its course
where it breaks over the western edge of the central continental
plateau. Above the rapids he established a station on Stanley
Pool and named it Leopoldville, founding other stations on the
main stream in the direction of the falls that bear his name.
Meanwhile de Brazza was far from idle. He had returned to
Africa at the beginning of 1880, and while the agents of King
Leopold were making treaties and founding stations along the
southern bank of the river, de Brazza and other French agents
were equally busy on the northern bank. De Brazza was sent
out to Africa by the French committee of the International
African Association, which provided him with the funds for the
expedition. His avowed object was to explore the region
between the Gabun and Lake Chad. But his real object was to
anticipate Stanley on the Congo. The international character
of the association founded by King Leopold was never more
than a polite fiction, and the rivalry between the French and
the Belgians on the Congo was soon open, if not avowed. In
October 1880 de Brazza made a solemn treaty with a chief on
the north bank of the Congo, who claimed that his authority
extended over a large area, including territory on the southern
bank of the river. As soon as this chief had accepted French
protection, de Brazza crossed over to the south of the
river, and founded a station close to the present site of
Leopoldville. The discovery by Stanley of the French station
annoyed King Leopold's agent, and he promptly challenged
the rights of the chief who purported to have placed the
country under French protection, and himself founded a Belgian
station close to the site selected by de Brazza. In the
result, the French station was withdrawn to the northern
side of Stanley Pool, where it is now known as Brazzaville.
The activity of French and Belgian agents on the Congo had
not passed unnoticed in Lisbon, and the Portuguese government
saw that no time was to be lost if the claims it had never
ceased to put forward on the west coast were not to go by
default. At varying periods during the 19th century
Portugal had put forward claims to the whole of the West
African coast, between 5 deg. 12' and 8 deg. south. North of
the Congo mouth she claimed the territories of Kabinda and
Molemba, alleging that they had been in her possession since
1484. Great Britain had never, however, admitted this
claim, and south of the Congo had declined to recognize
Portuguese possessions as extending north of Ambriz. In
1856 orders were given to British cruisers to prevent by
force any attempt to extend Portuguese dominion north of that
place. But the Portuguese had been persistent in urging their
claims, and in 1882 negotiations were again opened with the
British government for recognition of Portuguese rights over
both banks of the Congo on the coast, and for some distance
inland. Into the details of the negotiations, which were
conducted for Great Britain by the 2nd Earl Granville, who was
then secretary for foreign affairs, it is unnecessary to enter;
they resulted in the signing on the 26th of February 1884 of a
treaty, by which Great Britain recognized the sovereignty of
the king of Portugal ``over that part of the west coast of
Africa, situated between 8 deg. and 5 deg. 12' south latitude,'' and
inland as far as Noki, on the south bank of the Congo, below
Vivi. The navigation of the Congo was to be controlled by
an Anglo-Portuguese commission. The publication of this
treaty evoked immediate protests, not only on the continent
but in Great Britain. In face of the disapproval aroused
by the treaty, Lord Granville found himself unable to ratify
it. The protests had not been confined to France and
the king of the Belgians. Germany had not yet acquired
formal footing in Africa, but she was crouching for the
spring prior to taking her part in the scramble, and Prince
Bismarck had expressed, in vigorous language, the objections
entertained by Germany to the Anglo-Portuguese treaty.
For some time before 1884 there had been growing up a
general conviction that it would be desirable for the powers
who were interesting themselves in Africa to come to some
agreement as to ``the rules of the game,'' and to define
their respective interests so far as that was practicable.
Lord Granville's ill-fated treaty brought this sentiment
to a head, and it was agreed to hold an international
conference on African affairs. But before discussing the
Berlin conference of 1884-1885, it will be well to see what
was the position, on the eve of the conference, in other
parts of the African continent. In the southern section of
Africa, south of the Zambezi, important events had been
happening. In 1876 Great Britain had concluded an agreement
British influence consolidated in South Africa.
with the Orange Free State for an adjustment of frontiers, the
result of which was to leave the Kimberley diamond fields in
British territory, in exchange for a payment of L. 90,000 to the
Orange Free State. On the 12th of April 1877 Sir Theophilus
Shepstone had issued a proclamation declaring the Transvaal--
the South African Republic, as it was officially designated--to
be British territory (see TRANSVAAL.) In December 1880 war
broke out and lasted until March 1881, when a treaty of peace was
signed. This treaty of peace was followed by a convention,
signed in August of the same year, under which complete
self-government was guaranteed to the inhabitants of the
Transvaal, subject to the suzerainty of Great Britain, upon
certain terms and conditions and subject to certain reservations
and limitations. No sooner was the convention signed than
it became the object of the Boers to obtain a modification of
the conditions and limitations imposed, and in February 1884
a fresh convention was signed, amending the convention of
1881. Article IV. of the new convention provided that ``The
South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement
with any state or nation other than the Orange Free State,
nor with any native tribe to the eastward or westward of the
Republic, until the same has been approved by Her Majesty the
Queen.'' The precise effect of the two conventions has been
the occasion for interminable discussions, but as the subject
is now one of merely academic interest, it is sufficient to
say that when the Berlin conference held its first meeting
in 1884 the Transvaal was practically independent, so far
as its internal administration was concerned, while its
foreign relations were subject to the control just quoted.
But although the Transvaal had thus, between the years 1875
and 1884, become and ceased to be British territory, British
influence in other parts of Africa south of the Zambezi
had been steadily extended. To the west of the Orange Free
State, Griqualand West was annexed to the Cape in 1880,
while to the east the territories beyond the Kei river were
included in Cape Colony between 1877 and 1884, so that in the
latter year, with the exception of Pondoland, the whole of
South-East Africa was in one form or another under British
control. North of Natal, Zululand was not actually annexed
until 1887, although since 1879, when the military power of
the Zulus was broken up, British influence had been admittedly
supreme. In December 1884 St Lucia Bay--upon which Germany was
casting covetous eyes--had been taken possession of in virtue
of its cession to Great Britain by the Zulu king in 1843, and
three years later an agreement of non-cession to foreign powers
made by Great Britain with the regent and paramount chief of
Tongaland completed the chain of British possessions on the
coast of South Africa, from the mouth of the Orange river
on the west to Kosi Bay and the Portuguese frontier on the
east. In the interior of South Africa the year 1884 witnessed
the beginning of that final stage of the British advance
towards the north which was to extend British influence from the
Cape to the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika. The activity
of the Germans on the west, and of the Boer republic on the
east, had brought home to both the imperial and colonial
authorities the impossibility of relying on vague traditional
claims. In May 1884 treaties were made with native chiefs
by which the whole of the country north of Cape Colony,
west of the Transvaal, south of 22 deg. S. and east of 20 deg. E.,
was placed under British protection, though a protectorate
was not formally declared until the following January.
Meanwhile some very interesting events had been taking place
or: the west coast, north of the Orange river and south of the
Portuguese province of Mossamaede. It must be sufficient here
to touch very briefly on the events that preceded the foundation
of the colony of German South-West Africa. For many years
before 1884 German missionaries had settled among the Damaras
(Herero) and Namaquas, often combining small trading operations
with their missionary work. From time to time trouble arose
between the missionaries and the native chiefs, and appeals
Germany enters the field.
were made to the German government for protection. The
German government in its turn begged the British government
to say whether it assumed responsibility for the protection of
Europeans in Damaraland and Namaqualand. The position of the
British government was intelligible, if not very intelligent.
It did not desire to see any other European power in these
countries, and it did not want to assume the responsibility
and incur the expense of protecting the few Europeans settled
there. Sir Bartle Frere, when governor of the Cape (1877-1880),
had foreseen that this attitude portended trouble, and had
urged that the whole of the unoccupied coastline, up to
the Portuguese frontier, should be declared under British
protection. But he preached to deaf ears, and it was as something
of a concession to him that in March 1878 the British flag was
hoisted at Walfish Bay, and a small part of the adjacent land
declared to be British. The fact appears to be that British
statesmen failed to understand the change that had come over
Germany. They believed that Prince Bismarck would never give
his sanction to the creation of a colonial empire, and, to
the German inquiries as to what rights Great Britain claimed
in Damaraland and Namaqualand, procrastinating replies were
sent. Meanwhile the various colonial societies established
in Germany had effected a revolution in public opinion,
and, more important still, they had convinced the great
chancellor. Accordingly when, in November 1882, F. A. E.
Luderitz, a Bremen merchant, informed the German government
of his intention to establish a factory on the coast between
the Orange river and the Little Fish river, and asked if he
might rely on the protection of his government in case of
need, he met with no discouragement from Prince Bismarck.
In February 1883 the German ambassador in London informed
Lord Granville of Luderitz's design, and asked ``whether
Her Majesty's government exercise any authority in that
locality.'' It was intimated that if Her Majesty's government
did not, the German government would extend to Luderitz's
factory ``the same measure of protection which they give
to their subjects in remote parts of the world, but without
having the least design to establish any footing in South
Africa.'' An inconclusive reply was sent, and on the 9th of
April Luderitz's agent landed at Angra Pequena, and after a
short delay concluded a treaty with the local chief, by which
some 215 square miles around Angra Pequena were ceded to
Luderitz. In England and at the Cape irritation at the news
was mingled with incredulity, and it was fully anticipated
that Luderitz would be disavowed by his government. But
for this belief it can scarcely be doubted that the rest of
the unoccupied coast-line would have been promptly declared
under British protection. Still Prince Bismarck was slow to
act. In November the German ambassador again inquired if Great
Britain made any claim over this coast, and Lord Granville
replied that Her Majesty exercised sovereignty only over
certain parts of the coast, as at Walfish Bay, and suggested
that arrangements might be made by which Germany might assist
in the settlement of Angra Pequena. By this time Luderitz
had extended his acquisitions southwards to the Orange river,
which had been declared by the British government to be the
northern frontier of Cape Colony. Both at the Cape and in
England it was now realized that Germany had broken away from
her former purely continental policy, and, when too late, the
Cape parliament showed great eagerness to acquire the territory
which had lain so long at its very doors, to be had for the
taking. It is not necessary to follow the course-of the
subsequent negotiations. On the 15th of August 1884 an
official note was addressed by the German consul at Capetown
to the high commissioner, intimating that the German emperor
had by proclamation taken ``the territory belonging to Mr
A. Luderitz on the west coast of Africa under the direct
protection of His Majesty.'' This proclamation covered the
coast-line from the north bank of the Orange river to 26 deg. S.
latitude, and 20 geographical miles inland, including ``the
islands belonging thereto by the law of nations.'' On the
8th of September 1884 the German government intimated to Her
Majesty's government ``that the west coast of Africa from
26 deg. S. latitude to Cape Frio, excepting Walfish Bay, had
been placed under the protection of the German emperor.''
Thus, before the end of the year 1884, the foundations of
Germany's colonial empire had been laid in South-West Africa.
In April of that year Prince Bismarck intimated to the British
government, through the German charge d'affaires in London,
Nachtigal's mission to West Africa.
that ``the imperial consul-general, Dr Nachtigal, has been
commissioned by my government to visit the west coast of
Africa in the course of the next few months, in order to
complete the information now in the possession of the Foreign
Office at Berlin, on the state of German commerce on that
coast. With this object Dr Nachtigal will shortly embark at
Lisbon, on board the gunboat `Mowe.' He will put himself into
communication with the authorities in the British possessions
on the said coast, and is authorized to conduct, on behalf of
the imperial government, negotiations connected with certain
questions. I venture,'' the official communication proceeds,
``in accordance with my instructions, to beg your excellency
to be so good as to cause the authorities in the British
possessions in West Africa to be furnished with suitable
recommendations.'' Although at the date of this communication
it must have been apparent, from what was happening in South
Africa, that Germany was prepared to enter on a policy of
colonial expansion, and although the wording of the letter was
studiously vague, it does not seem to have occurred to the British
government that the real object of Gustav Nachtigal's journey
was to make other annexations on the west coast. Yet such was
indeed his mission. German traders and missionaries had been
particularly active of late years on the coast of the Gulf of
Guinea. German factories were dotted all along the coast in
districts under British protection, under French protection
and under the definite protection of no European power at
all. It was to these latter places that Nachtigal turned his
attention. The net result of his operations was that on
the 5th of July 1884 a treaty was signed with the king of
Togo, placing his country under German protection, and that
just one week later a German protectorate was proclaimed
over the Cameroon district. Before either of these events
had occurred Great Britain had become alive to the fact that
she could no longer dally with the subject, if she desired
to consolidate her possessions in West Africa. The British
government had again and again refused to accord native
chiefs the protection they demanded. The Cameroon chiefs
had several times asked for British protection, and always in
vain. But at last it became apparent, even to the official
mind, that rapid changes were being effected in Africa,
and on the 16th of May Edward Hyde Hewett, British consul,
received instructions to return to the west coast and to make
arrangements for extending British protection over certain
regions. He arrived too late to save either Togoland or
Cameroon, in the latter case arriving five days after King
Bell and the other chiefs on the river had signed treaties with
Nachtigal. But the British consul was in time to secure the
delta of the river Niger and the Oil Rivers District, extending
from Rio del Rey to the Lagos frontier, where for a long
period British traders had held almost a monopoly of the trade.
Meanwhile France, too, had been busy treaty-making. While
the British government still remained under the spell of the
French and British rivalry in West Africa.
fatal resolution of 1865, the French government was strenuously
endeavouring to extend France's influence in West Africa, in
the countries lying behind the coastline. During the year
1884 no fewer than forty-two treaties were concluded with
native chiefs, an even larger number having been concluded
in the previous twelve months. In this fashion France was
pushing on towards Timbuktu, in steady pursuance of the
policy which resulted in surrounding all the old British
possessions in West Africa with a continuous band of French
territory. There was, however, one region on the west coast
where, notwithstanding the lethargy of the British government,
British interests were being vigorously pushed, protected and
consolidated. This was on the lower Niger, and the leading
spirit in the enterprise was Mr Goldie Taubman (afterwards
Sir George Taubman Goldie). In 1877 Sir George Goldie visited
the Niger and conceived the idea of establishing a settled
government in that region. Through his efforts the various
trading firms on the lower Niger formed themselves in 1879
into the ``United African Company,'' and the foundations
were laid of something like settled administration. An
application was made to the British government for a charter in
1881, and the capital of the company increased to a million
sterling. Henceforth the company was known as the ``National
African Company,'' and it was acknowledged that its object
was not only to develop the trade of the lower Niger,
but to extend its operations to the middle reaches of the
river, and to open up direct relations with the great Fula
empire of Sokoto and the smaller states associated with
Sokoto under a somewhat loosely defined suzerainty. The
great development of trade which followed the combination
of British interests carried out under Goldie's skilful
guidance did not pass unnoticed in France, and, encouraged by
Gambetta, French traders made a bold bid for a position on the
river. Two French companies, with ample capital, were
formed, and various stations were established on the lower
Niger. Goldie realized at once the seriousness of the
situation, and lost no time in declaring commercial war on the
newcomers. His bold tactics were entirely successful, and a
few days before the meeting of the Berlin conference he had
the satisfaction of announcing that he had bought out the
whole of the French interests on the river, and that Great
Britain alone possessed any interests on the lower Niger.
To complete the survey of the political situation in Africa at
the time the plenipotentiaries met at Berlin, it is necessary to
The position in Tunisia and Egypt.
refer briefly to the course of events in North and East
Africa since 1875. In 1881 a French army entered Tunisia,
and compelled the bey to sign a treaty placing that country
under French protection. The sultan of Turkey formally
protested against this invasion of Ottoman rights, but the
great powers took no action, and France was left in undisturbed
possession of her newly acquired territory. In Egypt the
extravagance of Ismail Pasha had led to the establishment in
1879, in the interests of European bondholders, of a Dual
Control exercised by France and Great Britain. France had,
however, in 1882 refused to take part in the suppression
of a revolt under Arabi Pasha, which England accomplished
unaided. As a consequence the Dual Control had been abolished
in January 1883, since when Great Britain, with an army
quartered in the country, had assumed a predominant position
in Egyptian affairs (see EGYPT.) In East Africa, north of
the Portuguese possessions, where the sultan of Zanzibar was
the most considerable native potentate, Germany was secretly
preparing the foundations of her present colony of German East
Africa. But no overt act had warned Europe of what was
impending. The story of the foundation of German East Africa
is one of the romances of the continent. Early in 1884 the
Society for German Colonization was founded, with the avowed
object of furthering the newly awakened colonial aspirations
of the German people.12 It was a society inspired and
controlled by young men, and on the 4th of November 1884,
eleven days before the conference assembled at Berlin, three
young Germans arrived as deck passengers at Zanzibar. They
were disguised as mechanics, but were in fact Dr Karl Peters,
the president of the Colonization Society, Joachim Count
Pfeil, and Dr Juhlke, and their stock-in-trade consisted of
a number of German flags and a supply of blank treaty forms.
They proposed to land on the mainland opposite Zanzibar, and
The German flag raised in East Africa.
to conclude treaties in the back country with native chiefs
placing their territories under German protection. The
enterprise was frowned upon by the German government;
but, encouraged by German residents at Zanzibar, the three
young pioneers crossed to the mainland, and on the 19th of
November, while the diplomatists assembled at Berlin were
solemnly discussing the rules which were to govern the game of
partition, the first ``treaty'' was signed at Mbuzini, and
the German flag raised for the first time in East Africa.
Italy had also obtained a footing on the African continent
before the meeting of the Berlin conference. The Rubattino
Steamship Company as far back as 1870 had bought the port of
Assab as a coaling station, but it was not until 1882 that
it was declared an Italian colony. This was followed by the
conclusion of a treaty with the sultan of Assab, chief of the
Danakil, signed on the 15th of March 1883, and subsequently
approved by the king of Shoa, whereby Italy obtained the
cession of part of Ablis (Aussa) on the Red Sea, Italy
undertaking to protect with her fleet the Danakil littoral.
One other event must be recorded as happening before the
meeting of the Berlin conference. The king of the Belgians had
Recognition of the International Association.
been driven to the conclusion that, if his African enterprise
was to obtain any measure of permanent success, its international
status must be recognized. To this end negotiations were
opened with various governments. The first government to
``recognize the flag of the International Association of the
Congo as the flag of a friendly government'' was that of the
United States, its declaration to that effect bearing date
the 22nd of April 1884. There were, however, difficulties
in the way of obtaining the recognition of the European
powers, and in order to obtain that of France, King Leopold,
on the 23rd of April 1884, while labouring under the feelings
of annoyance which had been aroused by the Anglo-Portuguese
treaty concluded by Lord Granville in February, authorized
Colonel Strauch, president of the International Association,
to engage to give France ``the right of preference if, through
unforeseen circumstances, the Association were compelled
to sell its possessions.'' France's formal recognition of
the Association as a government was, however, delayed by
the discussion of boundary questions until the following
February, and in the meantime Germany, Great Britain,
Italy, Austria-Hungary, Holland and Spain had all recognized
the Association; though Germany alone had done so--on the
8th of November--before the assembling of the conference.
The conference assembled at Berlin on the 15th of November
1884, and after protracted deliberations the ``General Act of
The Berlin Conference of 1884-85.
the Berlin Conference'' was signed by the representatives of
all the powers attending the conference, on the 26th of February
1885. The powers represented were Germany, Austria-Hungary,
Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the United States, France, Great
Britain, Italy, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and
Norway, and Turkey, to name them in the alphabetical order
adopted in the preamble to the French text of the General
Act. Ratifications were deposited by all the signatory powers
with the exception of the United States. It is unnecessary
to examine in detail the results of the labours of the
conference. The General Act dealt with six specific subjects:
(1) freedom of trade in the basin of the Congo, (2) the slave
trade, (3) neutrality of territories in the basin of the Congo,
(4) navigation of the Congo, (5) navigation of the Niger,
(6) rules for future occupation on the coasts of the African
continent. It will be seen that the act dealt with other
matters than the political partition of Africa; but, so far as
they concern the present purpose, the results effected by the
Berlin Act may be summed up as follows. The signatory powers
undertook that any fresh act of taking possession on any portion
of the African coast must be notified by the power taking
possession, or assuming a protectorate, to the other signatory
powers. It was further provided that any such occupation to be
valid must be effective. It is also noteworthy that the first
reference in an international act to the obligations attaching
to ``spheres of influence'' is contained in the Berlin Act.
It will be remembered that when the conference assembled,
the International Association of the Congo had only been
Constitution of the Congo State.
recognized as a sovereign state by the United States and
Germany. But King Leopold and his agents had taken full
advantage of the opportunity which the conference afforded,
and before the General Act was signed the Association had
been recognized by all the signatory powers, with the not
very important exception of Turkey, and the fact communicated
to the conference by Colonel Strauch. It was not, however,
until two months later, in April 1885, that King Leopold,
with the sanction of the Belgian legislature, formally assumed
the headship of the new state; and on the 1st of August
in the same year His Majesty notified the powers that from
that date the ``Independent State of the Congo'' declared
that ``it shall be perpetually neutral'' in conformity
with the provisions of the Berlin Act. Thus was finally
constituted the Congo Free State, under the sovereignty of
King Leopold, though the boundaries claimed for it at that
time were considerably modified by subsequent agreements.
From 1885 the scramble among the powers went on with renewed
vigour, and in the fifteen years that remained of the
The chief partition treaties.
century the work of partition, so far as international
agreements were concerned, was practically completed. To
attempt to follow the process of acquisition year by year
would involve a constant shifting of attention from one part
of the continent to another, inasmuch as the scramble was
proceeding simultaneously all over Africa. It will therefore
be the most convenient plan to deal with the continent in
sections. Before doing so, however, the international
agreements which determined in the main the limits of the
possessions of the various powers may be set forth. They
are:-- I. The agreement of the 1st of July 1890 between Great
Britain and Germany defining their spheres of influence in
East, West and South-West Africa. This agreement was the
most comprehensive of all the ``deals'' in African territory,
and included in return for the recognition of a British
protectorate over Zanzibar the cession of Heligoland to Germany.
II. The Anglo-French declaration of the 5th of August 1890, which
recognized a French protectorate over Madagascar, French influence
in the Sahara, and British influence between the Niger and Lake Chad.
III. The Anglo-Portuguese treaty of the 11th of June
1891, whereby the Portuguese possessions on the west
and east coasts were separated by a broad belt of
British territory, extending north to Lake Tanganyika.
IV. The Franco-German convention of the 15th of March 1894, by
which the Central Sudan was left to France (this region by an
Anglo-German agreement of the 15th of November 1893 having been
recognized as in the German sphere). By this convention France
was able to effect a territorial )unction of her possessions
in North and West Africa with those in the Congo region.
V. Protocols of the 24th of March and the 15th of April 1891,
for the demarcation of the Anglo-Italian spheres in East Africa.
VI. The Anglo-French convention of the 14th of June 1898,
for the delimitation of the possessions of the two countries
west of Lake Chad, with the supplementary declaration
of the 21st of March 1899 whereby France recognized the
upper Nile valley as in the British sphere of influence.
Coming now to a more detailed consideration of the operations
of the powers, the growth of the Congo Free State, which
The growth of the Congo State.
occupied, geographically, a central position, may serve as the
starting-point for the story of the partition after the Berlin
conference. In the notification to the powers of the 1st of
August 1885, the boundaries of the Free State were set out in
considerable detail. The limits thus determined resulted partly
from agreements made with France, Germany and Portugal, and
partly from treaties with native chiefs. The state acquired
the north bank of the Congo from its mouth to a point in the
unnavigable reaches, and in the interior the major part of
the Congo basin. In the north-east the northern limit was 4 deg.
N. up to 30 deg. E., which formed the eastern boundary of, the
state. The south-eastern frontier claimed by King Leopold
extended to Lakes Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweulu, but it
was not until some years later that it was recognized and
defined by the agreement of May 1894 with Great Britain.
The international character of King Leopold's enterprise had
not long been maintained, and his recognition as sovereign
of the Free State confirmed the distinctive character
which the Association had assumed, even before that event.
In April 1887 France was informed that the right of pre-emption
accorded to her in 1884 had not been intended by King Leopold
to prejudice Belgium's right to acquire the Congo State,
and in reply the French minister at Brussels took note of
the explanation, ``in so far as this interpretation is not
contrary to pre-existing international engagements.'' By his
will, dated the 2nd of August 1889, King Leopold made Belgium
formally heir to the sovereign rights of the Congo Free
State. In 1895 an annexation bill was introduced into the
Belgian parliament, but at that time Belgium had no desire to
assume responsibility for the Congo State, and the bill was
withdrawn. In 1901, by the terms of a loan granted in
1890, Belgium had again an opportunity of annexing the Congo
State, but a bill in favour of annexation was opposed by the
government and was withdrawn after King Leopold had declared
that the time was not ripe for the transfer. Concessionaire
companies and a Domaine de la Couronne had been created
in the state, from which the sovereign derived considerable
revenues--facts which helped to explain the altered attitude
of Leopold II. The agitation in Great Britain and America
against the Congo system of government, and the admissions of an
official commission of inquiry concerning its maladministration,
strengthened, however, the movement in favour of transfer.
Nevertheless in June 1906 the king again declared himself
opposed to immediate annexation. But under pressure of public
opinion the Congo government concluded, 28th of November
1907, a new annexation treaty. As it stipulated for the
continued existence of the crown domain the treaty provoked
vehement opposition. Leopold II. was forced to yield, and
an additional act was signed, 5th of March 1908, providing
for the suppression of the domain in return for financial
subsidies. The treaty, as amended, was approved by the
Belgian parliament in the session of 1908. Thus the Congo
state, after an existence of 24 years as an independent
power, became a Belgian colony. (See CONGO FREE STATE.)
The area of the Free State, vast as it was, did not suffice to
satisfy the ambition of its sovereign. King Leopold maintained
that the Free State enjoyed equally with any other state the
right to extend its frontiers. His ambition involved the
state in the struggle between Great Britain and France for
the upper Nile. To understand the situation it is necessary
to remember the condition of the Egyptian Sudan at that
time. The mahdi, Mahommed Ahmed, had preached a holy war
against the Egyptians, and, after the capture of Khartum and
the death of General C. G. Gordon, the Sudan was abandoned
to the dervishes. The Egyptian frontier was withdrawn to
Wadi Haifa, and the vast provinces of Kordofan, Darfur and
the Bahr-el-Ghazal were given over to dervish tyranny and
misrule. It was obvious that Egypt would sooner or later
seek to recover her position in the Sudan, as the command of
the upper Nile was recognized as essential to her continued
prosperity. But the international position of the abandoned
provinces was by no means clear. The British government,
by the Anglo-German agreement of July 1890, had secured the
assent of Germany to the statement that the British sphere
of influence in East Africa was bounded on the west by the
Congo Free State and by ``the western watershed of the basin
of the upper Nile''; but this claim was not recognized either
by France or by the Congo Free State. From her base on the
Congo, France was busily engaged pushing forward along the
northern tributaries of the great river. On the 27th of April
1887 an agreement was signed with the Congo Free State by
which the right bank of the Ubangi river was secured to French
influence, and the left bank to the Congo Free State. The
desire of France to secure a footing in the upper Nile valley
was partly due, as has been seen, to her anxiety to extend
a French zone across Africa, but it was also and to a large
The contest for the upper Nile.
extent attributable to the belief, widely entertained in
France, that by establishing herself on the upper Nile France
could regain the position in Egyptian affairs which she had
sacrificed in 1882. With these strong inducements France set
steadily to work to consolidate her position on the tributary
streams of the upper Congo basin, preparatory to crossing into
the valley of the upper Nile. Meanwhile a similar advance
was being made from the Congo Free State northwards and
eastwards. King Leopold had two objects in view---to obtain
control of the rich province of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and to
secure an outlet on the Nile. Stations were established on
the Welle river, and in February 1891 Captain van Kerckhoven
left Leopoldville for the upper Welle with the most powerful
expedition which had, up to that time, been organized by the
Free State. After some heavy fighting the expedition reached
the Nile in September 1892, and opened up communications
with the remains of the old Egyptian garrison at Wadelai.
Other expeditions under Belgian officers penetrated into
the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and it was apparent that King Leopold
proposed to rely on effective occupation as an answer to any
claims which might be advanced by either Great Britain or
France. The news of what was happening in this remote region
Of Africa filtered through to Europe very slowly, but King
Leopold was warned on several occasions that Great Britain
would not recognize any claims by the Congo Free State on the
Bahr-el-Ghazal. The difficulty was, however, that neither from
Egypt, whence the road was barred by the khalifa (the successor
of the mahdi), nor from Uganda, which was far too remote from
the coast to serve as the base of a large expedition, could
a British force be despatched to take effective occupation
of the upper Nile valley. There was, therefore, danger
lest the French should succeed in establishing themselves
on the upper Nile before the preparations which were being
made in Egypt for ``smashing'' the khalifa were completed.
In these circumstances Lord Rosebery, who was then British
foreign minister, began, and his successor, the 1st earl of
The Anglo-Congolese agreement of 1894.
Kimberley, completed, negotiations with King Leopold which
resulted in the conclusion of the Anglo-Congolese agreement of
12th May 1894. By this agreement King Leopold recognized the
British sphere of influence as laid down in the Anglo-German
agreement of July 1890, and Great Britain granted a lease
to King Leopold of certain territories in the western basin
of the upper Nile, extending on the Nile from a point on
Lake Albert to Fashoda, and westwards to the Congo-Nile
watershed. The practical effect of this agreement was to
give the Congo Free State a lease, during its sovereign's
lifetime, of the old Bahr-el-Ghazal province, and to secure
after His Majesty's death as much of that territory as lay
west of the 30th meridian, together with access to a port on
Lake Albert, to his successor. At the same time the Congo
Free State leased to Great Britain a strip of territory,
15 1/2 m. in breadth, between the north end of Lake Tanganyika
and the south end of Lake Albert Edward. This agreement
was hailed as a notable triumph for British diplomacy. But
the triumph was short-lived. By the agreement of July 1890
with Germany, Great Britain had been reluctantly compelled
to abandon her hopes of through communication between the
British spheres in the northern and southern parts of the
continent, and to Consent to the boundary of German East
Africa marching with the eastern frontier of the Congo Free
State. Germany frankly avowed that she did not wish to have a
powerful neighbour interposed between herself and the Congo Free
State. It was obvious that the new agreement would effect
precisely what Germany had declined to agree to in 1890.
Accordingly Germany protested in such vigorous terms that, on
the 22nd of June 1894, the offending article was withdrawn by
an exchange of notes between Great Britain and the Congo Free
State. Opinion in France was equally excited by the new
agreement. It was obvious that the lease to the Congo Free
State was intended to exclude France from the Nile by placing
the Congo Free State as a barrier across her path. Pressure
was brought to bear on King Leopold, from Paris, to renounce the
rights acquired under the agreement, and on the 14th of August
1894 King Leopold signed an agreement with France by which, in
exchange for France's acknowledgment of the Mbomu river as his
northern frontier, His Majesty renounced all occupation and all
exercise of political influence west of 30 deg. E., and north of
a line drawn from that meridian to the Nile along 5 deg. 30' N.
This left the way still open for France to the Nile,
and in June 1896 Captain J. Marchand left France with
secret instructions to lead an expedition into the Nile
valley. On the 1st of March in the following year he left
Brazzaville, and began a journey which all but plunged Great
Britain and France into war. The difficulties which Captain
Marchand had to overcome were mainly those connected with
transport. In October 1897 the expedition reached the banks
of the Sue, the waters of which eventually flow into the
Nile. Here a post was established and the ``Faidherbe,'' a
steamer which had been carried across the Congo-Nile watershed
in sections, was put together and launched. On the 1st of
May 1898 Marchand started on the final stage of his journey,
and reached Fashoda on the 10th of July, having established
a chain of posts en route. At Fashoda the French flag
was at once raised, and a ``treaty'' made with the local
chief. Meanwhile other expeditions had been concentrating on
The French at Fashoda.
Fashoda--a mud-flat situated in a swamp, round which for many
months raged the angry passions of two great peoples. French
expeditions, with a certain amount of assistance from the
emperor Menelek of Abyssinia, had been striving to reach the
Nile from the east, so as to join hands with Marchand and
complete the line of posts into the Abyssinian frontier. In
this, however, they were unsuccessful. No better success
attended the expedition under Colonel (afterwards Sir) Ronald
Macdonald, R.E., sent by the British government from Uganda
to anticipate the French in the occupation of the upper Nile.
It was from the north that claimants arrived to dispute with
the French their right to Fashoda, and all that the occupation
of that dismal post implied. In 1896 an Anglo-Egyptian
army, under the direction of Sir Herbert (afterwards Lord)
Kitchener, had begun to advance southwards for the reconquest
of the Egyptian Sudan. On the 2nd of September 1898 Khartum
was captured, and the khalifa's army dispersed. It was then
that news reached the Anglo-Egyptian commander, from native
sources, that there were white men flying a strange flag at
Fashoda. The sirdar at once proceeded in a steamer up the
Nile, and courteously but firmly requested Captain Marchand
to remove the French flag. On his refusal the Egyptian flag
was raised close to the French flag, and the dispute was
referred to Europe for adjustment between the British and
French governments. A critical situation ensued. Neither
government was inclined to give way, and for a time war seemed
imminent. Happily Lord Salisbury was able to announce, on
the 4th of November, that France was willing to recognize
the British claims, and the incident was finally closed on
the 21st of March 1899, when an Anglo-French declaration was
signed, by the terms of which France withdrew from the Nile
valley and accepted a boundary line which satisfied her
earlier ambition by uniting the whole of her territories in
North, West and Central Africa into a homogeneous whole,
while effectually preventing the realization of her dream
of a transcontinental empire from west to east. By this
declaration it was agreed that the dividing line between
the British and French spheres, north of the Congo Free
State, should follow the Congo-Nile water-parting up to its
intersection with the 11th parallel of north latitude, from
which point it was to be ``drawn as far as the 15th parallel
in such a manner as to separate in principle the kingdom of
Wadai from what constituted in 1882 the province of Darfur,''
but in no case was it to be drawn west of the 21st degree of
east longitude, or east of the 23rd degree. From the 15th
parallel the line was continued north and north-west to the
intersection of the Tropic of Cancer with 16 deg. E. French
influence was to prevail west of this line, British influence
to the east. Wadai was thus definitely assigned to France.
When, by the declaration of the 21st of March 1899, France
renounced all territorial ambitions in the upper Nile basin, King
Fate of the Bar-el-Ghazal.
Leopold revived his claims to the Bahr-el-Ghazal province
under the terms of the lease granted by Article 2 of the
Anglo-Congolese agreement of 1894. This step he was encouraged
to take by the assertion of Lord Salisbury, in his capacity as
secretary of state for foreign affairs during the negotiations
with France concerning Fashoda, that the lease to King Leopold
was still in full force. But the assertion was made simply
as a declaration of British right to dispose of the territory,
and the sovereign of the Congo State found that there was no
disposition in Great Britain to allow the Bahr-el-Ghazal to fall
into his hands. Long and fruitless negotiations ensued. The
king at length (1904) sought to force a settlement by sending
armed forces into the province. Diplomatic representations
having failed to secure the withdrawal of these forces, the
Sudan government issued a proclamation which had the effect
of cutting off the Congo stations from communication with the
Nile, and finally King Leopold consented to an agreement,
signed in London on the 9th of May 1906, whereby the 1894
lease was formally annulled. The Bahr-el-Ghazal thenceforth
became undisputedly an integral part of the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan. King Leopold had, however, by virtue of the 1894
agreement administered the comparatively small portion of
the leased area in which his presence was not resented by
France. This territory, including part of the west bank of
the Nile and known as the Lado Enclave, the 1906 agreement
allowed King Leopold to ``continue during his reign to occupy.''
Provision was made that within six months of the termination
of His Majesty's reign the enclave should be handed over to
the Sudan government (see CONGO FREE STATE.) In this manner
ended the long struggle for supremacy on the upper Nile,
Great Britain securing the withdrawal of all European rivals.
The course of events in the southern half of the continent
may now be traced. By the convention of the 14th of February
Portugal's trans-African schemes.
1885, in which Portugal recognized the sovereignty of the
Congo Free State, and by a further convention concluded with
France in 1886, Portugal secured recognition of her claim to
the territory known as the Kabinda enclave, lying north of the
Congo, but not to the northern bank of the river. By the same
convention of 1885 Portugal's claim to the southern bank of
the river as far as Noki (the limit of navigation from the
sea) had been admitted. Thus Portuguese possessions on the
west coast extended from the Congo to the mouth of the Kunene
river. In the interior the boundary with the Free State
was settled as far as the Kwango river, but disputes arose
as to the right to the country of Lunda, otherwise known as
the territory of the Muato Yanvo. On the 25th of May 1891
a treaty was signed at Lisbon, by which this large territory
was divided between Portugal and the Free State. The interior
limits of the Portuguese possessions in Africa south of the
equator gave rise, however, to much more serious discussions
than were involved in the dispute as to the Muato Yanvo's
kingdom. Portugal, as has been stated, claimed all the
territories between Angola and Mozambique, and she succeeded
in inducing both France and Germany, in 1886, to recognize
the king of Portugal's ``right to exercise his sovereign
and civilizing influence in the territories which separate
the Portuguese possessions or Angola and Mozambique.'' The
publication of the treaties containing this declaration,
together with a map showing Portuguese claims extending over
the whole of the Zambezi valley, and over Matabeleland to
the south and the greater part of Lake Nyasa to the north,
immediately provoked a formal protest from the British
government. On the 13th of August 1887 the British charge
d'affaires at Lisbon transmitted to the Portuguese minister
for foreign affairs a memorandum from Lord Salisbury, in
which the latter formally protested ``against any claims not
founded on occupation,'' and contended that the doctrine of
effective occupation had been admitted in principle by all the
parties to the Act of Berlin. Lord Salisbury further stated
that ``Her Majesty's government cannot recognize Portuguese
sovereignty in territory not occupied by her in sufficient
strength to enable her to maintain order, protect foreigners
and control the natives.'' To this Portugal replied that the
doctrine of effective occupation was expressly confined by
the Berlin Act to the African coast, but at the same time
expeditions were hastily despatched up the Zambezi and some
of its tributaries to discover traces of former Portuguese
occupation. Matabeleland and the districts of Lake Nyasa were
specially mentioned in the British protest as countries in which
Her Majesty's government took a special interest. As a matter
of fact the extension of British influence northwards to the
Zambezi had engaged the attention of the British authorities
ever since the appearance of Germany in South-West Africa and
the declaration of a British protectorate over Bechuanaland.
There were rumours of German activity in Matabeleland, and
Rhodesia secured for Great Britain.
of a Boer trek north of the Limpopo. Hunters and explorers
had reported in eulogistic terms on the rich goldfields and
healthy plateau lands of Matabeleland and Mashonaland, over
both of which countries a powerful chief, Lobengula, claimed
authority. There were many suitors for Lobengula's favours;
but on the 11th of February 1888 he signed a treaty with J.
S. Moffat, the assistant commissioner in Bechuanaland, the
effect of which was to place all his territory under British
protection. Both the Portuguese and the Transvaal Boers were
chagrined at this extension of British influence. A number of Boers
attempted unsuccessfully to trek into the country, and Portugal
opposed her ancient claims to the new treaty. She contended
that Lobengula's authority did not extend over Mashonaland,
which she claimed as part of the Portuguese province of Sofala.
Meanwhile preparations were being actively made by British
capitalists for the exploitation of the mineral and other
resources of Lobengula's territories. Two rival syndicates
obtained, or claimed to have obtained, concessions from
Lobengula; but in the summer of 1889 Cecil Rhodes succeeded
in amalgamating the conflicting interests, and on the 29th of
October of that year the British government granted a charter
to the British South Africa Company (see RHODESIA.) The
first article of the charter declared that ``the principal
field of the operations'' of the company ``shall be the region
of South Africa lying immediately to the north of British
Bechuanaland, and to the north and west of the South African
Republic, and to the west of the Portuguese dominions.''
No time was lost in making preparations for effective
occupation. On the advice of F. C. Selous it was determined
to despatch an expedition to eastern Mashonaland by a new
route, which would avoid the Matabele country. This plan was
carried out in the summer of 1890, and, thanks to the rapidity
with which the column moved and Selous's intimate knowledge of
the country, the British flag was, on the 11th of September,
hoisted at a spot on the Makubusi river, where the town of
Salisbury now stands, and the country taken possession of
in the name of Queen Victoria. Disputes with the Portuguese
ensued, and there were several frontier incidents which for
a time embittered the relations between the two countries.
Meanwhile, north of the Zambezi, the Portuguese were
making desperate but futile attempts to repair the neglect
Anglo-Portuguese disputes in Central Africa.
of centuries by hastily organized expeditions and the hoisting of
flags. In 1888 an attempt to close the Zambezi to British
vessels was frustrated by the firmness of Lord Salisbury.
In a despatch to the British minister at Lisbon, dated the
25th of June 1888, Lord Salisbury, after brushing aside
the Portuguese claims founded on doubtful discoveries three
centuries old, stated the British case in a few sentences:--
It is (he wrote) an undisputed point that the recent discoveries
of the English traveller, Livingstone, were followed by organized
attempts on the part of English religious and commercial
bodies to open up and civilize the districts surrounding
and adjoining the lake. Many British settlements have been
established, the access to which from the sea is by the
rivers Zambezi and Shire. Her Majesty's government and the
British public are much interested in the welfare of these
settlements. Portugal does not occupy, and has never occupied,
any portion of the lake, nor of the Shire; she has neither
authority nor influence beyond the confluence of the Shire
and Zambezi, where her interior custom-house, now withdrawn,
was placed by the terms of the Mozambique Tariff of 1877.
In 1889 it became known to the British government that a
considerable Portuguese expedition was being organized under
the command of Major Serpa Pinto, for operating in the Zambezi
region. In answer to inquiries addressed to the Portuguese
government, the foreign minister stated that the object of
the expedition was to visit the Portuguese settlements on the
upper Zambezi. The British government was, even so late as
1889, averse from declaring a formal protectorate over the
Nyasa region; but early in that year H. H. (afterwards Sir
Harry) Johnston was sent out to Mozambique as British consul,
with instructions to travel in the interior and report on
the troubles that had arisen with the Arabs on Lake Nyasa
and with the Portuguese. The discovery by D. J. Rankin in
1889 of a navigable mouth of the Zambezi--the Chinde--and
the offer by Cecil Rhodes of a subsidy of L. 10,000 a year
from the British South Africa Company, removed some of the
objections to a protectorate entertained by the British
government; but Johnston's instructions were not to proclaim
a protectorate unless circumstances compelled him to take that
course. To his surprise Johnston learnt on his arrival at
the Zambezi that Major Serpa Pinto's expedition had been
suddenly deflected to the north. Hurrying forward, Johnston
overtook the Portuguese expedition and warned its leader that
any attempt to establish political influence north of the
Ruo river would compel him to take steps to protect British
interests. On arrival at the Ruo, Major Serpa Pinto returned
to Mozambique for instructions, and in his absence Lieutenant
Coutinho crossed the river, attacked the Makololo chiefs
and sought to obtain possession of the Shire highlands by a
coup de main. John Buchanan, the British vice-consul, lost
no time in declaring the country under British protection,
and his action was subsequently confirmed by Johnston on his
return from a treaty-making expedition on Lake Nyasa. On the
news of these events reaching Europe the British government
addressed an ultimatum to Portugal, as the result of which
Lieutenant Coutinho's action was disavowed, and he was ordered
to withdraw the Portuguese forces south of the Ruo. After
prolonged negotiations, a convention was signed between Great
Britain and Portugal on the 20th of August 1890, by which
Great Britain obtained a broad belt of territory north of the
Zambezi, stretching from Lake Nyasa on the east, the southern
end of Tanganyika on the north, and the Kabompo tributary of
the Zambezi on the west; while south of the Zambezi Portugal
retained the right bank of the river from a point ten miles above
Zumbo, and the western boundary of her territory south of the
river was made to coincide roughly with the 33rd degree of east
longitude. The publication of the convention aroused deep
resentment in Portugal, and the government, unable to obtain
its ratification by the chamber of deputies, resigned. In
October the abandonment of the convention was accepted by
the new Portuguese ministry as a fait accompli; but on
the 14th of November the two governments signed an agreement
for a modus vivendi, by which they engaged to recognize
the territorial limits indicated in the convention of 20th
August ``in so far that from the date of the present agreement
British and Portuguese spheres defined.
to the termination thereof neither Power will make treaties,
accept protectorates, nor exercise any act of sovereignty
within the spheres of influence assigned to the other party
by the said convention.'' The breathing-space thus gained
enabled feeling in Portugal to cool down, and on the 11th of
June 1891 another treaty was signed, the ratifications being
exchanged on the 3rd of July, As already stated, this is the
main treaty defining the British and Portuguese spheres both
south and north of the Zambezi. It contained many other
provisions relating to trade and navigation, providing, inter
alia, a maximum transit duty of 3% on imports and exports
crossing Portuguese territories on the east coast to the British
sphere, freedom of navigation of the Zambezi and Shire for
the ships of all nations, and stipulations as to the making of
railways, roads and telegraphs. The territorial readjustment
effected was slightly more favourable to Portugal than that
agreed upon by the 1890 convention. Portugal was given both
banks of the Zambezi to a point ten miles west of Zumbo--the
farthest settlement of the Portuguese on the river. South of
the Zambezi the frontier takes a south and then an east course
till it reaches the edge of the continental plateau, thence
running, roughly, along the line of 33 deg. E. southward to the
north-eastern frontier of the Transvaal. Thus by this treaty
Portugal was left in the possession of the coast-lands, while
Great Britain maintained her right to Matabele and Mashona
lands. The boundary between the Portuguese sphere of influence
on the west coast and the British sphere of influence north
of the Zambezi was only vaguely indicated; but it was to be
drawn in such a manner as to leave the Barotse country within
the British sphere, Lewanika, the paramount chief of the
Marotse, claiming that his territory extended much farther
to the west than was admitted by the Portuguese. In August
1903 the question what were the limits of the Barotse kingdom
was referred to the arbitration of the king of Italy. By
his award, delivered in June 1905, the western limit of the
British sphere runs from the northern frontier of German
South-West Africa up the Kwando river to 22 deg. E., follows
that meridian north to 13 deg. S., then runs due east to 24 deg.
E., and then north again to the frontier of the Congo State.
Before the conclusion of the treaty of June 1891 with Portugal,
the British government had made certain arrangements for
the administration of the large area north of the Zambezi
reserved to British influence. On the 1st of February
Sir Harry Johnston was appointed imperial commissioner in
Nyasaland, and a fortnight later the British South Africa
Company intimated a desire to extend its operations north of the
Zambezi. Negotiations followed, and the field of operations
of the Chartered Company was, on the 2nd of April 1891,
extended so as to cover (with the exception of Nyasaland)
the whole of the British sphere of influence north of the
Zambezi (now known as Northern Rhodesia). On the 14th of May
a formal protectorate was declared over Nyasaland, including
the Shire highlands and a belt of territory extending along
the whole of the western shore of Lake Nyasa. The name
was changed in 1893 to that of the British Central Africa
Protectorate, for which designation was substituted in
1907 the more appropriate title of Nyasaland Protectorate.
At the date of the assembling of the Berlin conference the
German government had notified that the coast-line on the
Germany's share of South Africa.
south-west of the continent, from the Orange river to Cape
Frio, had been placed under German protection. On the 13th of
April 1885 the German South-West Africa Company was constituted
under an order of the imperial cabinet with the rights of state
sovereignty, including mining royalties and rights, and a
railway and telegraph monopoly. In that and the following years
the Germans vigorously pursued the business of treaty-making
with the native chiefs in the interior; and when, in July
1890, the British and German governments came to an agreement
as to the limits of their respective spheres of influence in
various parts of Africa, the boundaries of German South-West
Africa were fixed in their present position. By Article
III. of this agreement the north bank of the Orange river up
to the point of its intersection by the 20th degree of east
longitude was made the southern boundary of the German sphere of
influence. The eastern boundary followed the 20th degree
of east longitude to its intersection by the 22nd parallel
of south latitude, then ran eastwards along that parallel
to the point of its intersection by the 21st degree of east
longitude. From that point it ran northwards along the
last-named meridian to the point of its intersection by the
18th parallel of south latitude, thence eastwards along that
parallel to the river Chobe or Kwando, and along the main
channel of that river to its junction with the Zambezi, where it
terminated. The northern frontier marched with the southern
boundary of Portuguese West Africa. The object of deflecting
the eastern boundary near its northern termination was to give
Germany access by her own territory to the upper waters of the
Zambezi, and it was declared that this strip of territory
was at no part to be less than 20 English miles in width.
To complete the survey of the political partition of Africa south
of the Zambezi, it is necessary briefly to refer to the events
Fate of the Dutch Republics.
connected with the South African Republic and the Orange Free
State. In October 1885 the British government made an
agreement with the New Republic, a small community of Boer
farmers who had in 1884-85 seized part of Zululand and set up a
government of their own, defining the frontier between the New
Republic and Zululand; but in July 1888 the New Republic was
incorporated in the South African Republic. In a convention
of July-August 1890 the British government and the government
of the South African Republic confirmed the independence of
Swaziland, and on the 8th of November 1893 another convention
was signed with the same object; but on the 19th of December
1894 the British government agreed to the South African
Republic exercising ``all rights and powers of protection,
legislation, jurisdiction and administration over Swaziland and
the inhabitants thereof,'' subject to certain conditions and
provisions, and to the non-incorporation of Swaziland in the
Republic. In the previous September Pondoland had been
annexed to Cape Colony; on the 23rd of April 1895 Tongaland
was declared by proclamation to be added to the dominions of
Queen Victoria, and in December 1897 Zululand and Tongaland,
or Amatongaland, were incorporated with the colony of
Natal. The history of the events that led up to the Boer
War of 1899-1902 cannot be recounted here (see TRANSVAAL,
History), but in October 1899 the South African Republic and
the Orange Free State addressed an ultimatum to Great Britain
and invaded Natal and Cape Colony. As a result of the military
operations that followed, the Orange Free State was, on the
28th of May 1900, proclaimed by Lord Roberts a British colony
under the name ``Orange River Colony,'' and the South African
Republic was on the 25th of October 1900 incorporated in the
British empire as the ``Transvaal Colony.'' In January 1903
the districts of Vryheid (formerly the New Republic), Utrecht
and part of the Wakkerstroom district, a tract of territory
comprising in all about 7000 sq. m., were transferred from
the Transvaal colony to Natal. In 1907 both the Transvaal
and Orange River Colony were granted responsible government.
On the east coast the two great rivals were Germany and Great
Britain. Germany on the 30th of December 1886, and Great
Anglo-German rivalry in East Africa.
Britain on the 11th of June 1891, formally recognized the
Rovuma river as the northern boundary of the Portuguese sphere
of influence on that coast; but it was to the north of that
river, over the vast area of East or East Central Africa in
which the sultan of Zanzibar claimed to exercise suzerainty,
that the struggle between the two rival powers was most
acute. The independence of the sultans of Zanzibar had
been recognized by the governments of Great Britain and
France in 1862, and the sultan's authority extended almost
uninterruptedly along the coast of the mainland, from Cape
Delgado in the south to Warsheik on the north--a stretch of
coast more than a thousand miles long--though to the north
the sultan's authority was confined to certain ports. In
Zanzibar itself, where Sir John Kirk, Livingstone's companion
in his second expedition, was British consul-general, British
influence was, when the Berlin conference met, practically
supreme, though German traders had established themselves on
the island and created considerable commercial interests.
Away from the coasts the limits and extent of the sultan's
authority were far from being clearly defined. The sultan
himself claimed that it extended as far as Lake Tanganyika, but
the claim did not rest on any very solid ground of effective
occupation. The little-known region of the Great Lakes had
for some time attracted the attention of the men who were
directing the colonial movement in Germany; and, as has been
stated, a small band of pioneers actually landed on the
mainland opposite Zanzibar in November 1884, and made their
first ``treaty'' with the chief of Mbuzini on the 19th of
that month Pushing up the Wami river the three adventurers
reached the Usagara country, and concluded more ``treaties,''
the net result being that when, in the middle of December,
Karl Peters returned to the coast he brought back with him
documents which were claimed to concede some 60,000 sq.
m. of country to the German Colonization Society. Peters
hurried back to Berlin, and on the 17th of February 1885 the
German emperor issued a ``Charter of Protection'' by which
His Majesty accepted the suzerainty of the newly-acquired
territory, and ``placed under our Imperial protection the
territories in question.'' The conclusion of these treaties
was, on the 6th of March, notified to the British government
and to the sultan of Zanzibar. Immediately on receipt of
the notification the sultan telegraphed an energetic protest
to Berlin, alleging that the places placed under German
protection had belonged to the sultanate of Zanzibar from
the time of his fathers. The German consul-general refused
to admit the sultan's claims, and meanwhile agents of the
German society were energetically pursuing the task of
treaty-making. The sultan (Seyyid Bargash) despatched a
small force to the disputed territory, which was subsequently
withdrawn, and in May sent a more imposing expedition under
the command of General Lloyd Mathews, the commander-in-chief
of the Zanzibar army, to the Kilimanjaro district, in
order to anticipate the action of German agents. Meanwhile
Lord Granville, then at the British Foreign Office, had
Lord Granville's complaisance towards Germany.
taken up an extremely friendly attitude towards the German
claims. Before these events the sultan of Zanzibar had, on
more than one occasion, practically invited Great Britain
to assume a protectorate over his dominions. But the
invitations had been declined. Egyptian affairs were, in
the year 1885, causing considerable anxiety to the British
government, and the fact was not without influence on the
attitude of the British foreign secretary. On the 25th
of May 1885, in a despatch to the British ambassador at
Berlin, Lord Granville instructed Sir E. Malet to communicate
the views of the British cabinet to Prince Bismarck:--
I have to request your Excellency to state that the supposition
that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of opposing
the German scheme of colonization in the neighbourhood of
Zanzibar is absolutely correct. Her Majesty's Government, on
the contrary, view with favour these schemes, the realization
of which will entail the civilization of large tracts over
which hitherto no European influence has been exercised, the
co-operation of Germany with Great Britain in the work of
the suppression of the slave gangs, and the encouragement of
the efforts of the Sultan both in the extinction of the slave
trade and in the commercial development of his dominions.
In the same despatch Lord Granville instructed Sir E. Malet
to intimate to the German government that some prominent
capitalists had originated a plan for a British settlement
in the country between the coast and the lakes, which are
the sources of the White Nile, ``and for its connexion with
the coast by a railway.'' But Her Majesty's government would
not accord to these prominent capitalists the support they
had called for, ``unless they were fully satisfied that
every precaution was taken to ensure that it should in no
way conflict with the interests of the territory that has
been taken under German protectorate,'' and Prince Bismarck
was practically invited to say whether British capitalists
were or were not to receive the protection of the British
government. The reference in Lord Granville's despatch was
to a proposal made by a number of British merchants and others
who had long been interested in Zanzibar, and who saw in the
rapid advance of Germany a menace to the interests which had
hitherto been regarded as paramount in the sultanate. In
1884 H. H. Johnston had concluded treaties with the chief
of Taveta in the Kilimanjaro district, and had transferred
these treaties to John Hutton of Manchester. Hutton, with Mr
(afterwards Sir William) Mackinnon, was one of the founders
of what subsequently became the Imperial British East Africa
Company. But in the early stages the champions of British
interests in East Africa received no support from their own
government, while Germany was pushing her advantage with the
energy of a recent convert to colonial expansion, and had
even, on the coast, opened negotiations with the sultan of
Witu, a small territory situated north of the Tana river, whose
ruler claimed to be independent of Zanzibar. On the 5th of May
1885 the sultan of Witu executed a deed of sale and cession to
a German subject of certain tracts of land on the coast, and
later in the same year other treaties or sales of territory
were effected, by which German subjects acquired rights on
the coast-line claimed by the sultan. Inland, treaties had
been concluded on behalf of Germany with the chiefs of the
Kilimanjaro region, and an intimation to that effect made to
the British government. But before this occurred the German
government had succeeded in extracting an acknowledgment
of the validity of the earlier treaties from the sultan of
Zanzibar. Early in August a powerful German squadron appeared
off Zanzibar, and on the 14th of that month the sultan yielded
to the inevitable, acknowledged the German protectorate over
Usagara and Witu, and undertook to withdraw his soldiers.
Meanwhile negotiations had been opened for the appointment of
an international commission, ``for the purpose of inquiring
Partition of the sultanate of Zanzibar.
into the claims of the sultans of Zanzibar to sovereignty
over certain territories on the east coast of Africa, and
of ascertaining their precise limits.'' The governments to
be represented were Great Britain, France and Germany, and
towards the end of 1885 commissioners were appointed. The
commissioners reported on the 9th of June 1886, and assigned
to the sultan the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu, Mafia
and a number of other small islands. On the mainland they
recognized as belonging to the sultan a continuous strip of
territory, 10 sea-miles in depth, from the south bank of
the Minengani river, a stream a short distance south of the
Rovuma, to Kipini, at the mouth of the Tana river, some 600
m. in length. North of Kipini the commissioners recognized
as belonging to the sultan the stations of Kismayu, Brava,
Marka and Mukdishu, with radii landwards of 10 sea-miles,
and of Warsheik with a radius of 5 sea-miles. By an exchange
of notes in October--November 1886 the governments of Great
Britain and Germany accepted the reports of the delimitation
commissioners, to which the sultan adhered on the 4th of the
following December. But the British and German governments
did more than determine what territories were to be assigned
to the sultanate of Zanzibar. They agreed to a delimitation
of their respective spheres of influence in East Africa.
The territory to be affected by this arrangement was to be
bounded on the south by the Rovuma river, ``and on the north
by a line which, starting from the mouth of the Tana river,
follows the course of that river or its affluents to the point
of intersection of the equator and the 38th degree of east
longitude, thence strikes direct to the point of intersection
of the 1st degree of north latitude with the 37th degree
of east longitude, where the line terminates.'' The line of
demarcation between the British and the German spheres of
influence was to start from the mouth of the river Wanga or
Umba (which enters the ocean opposite Pemba Island to the
north of Zanzibar), and running north-west was to skirt the
northern base of the Kilimanjaro range, and thence to be
drawn direct to the point on the eastern side of Victoria
Nyanza intersected by the 1st degree of south latitude.
South of this line German influence was to prevail; north
of the line was the British sphere. The sultan's dominions
having been thus truncated, Germany associated herself with
the recognition of the ``independence'' of Zanzibar in which
France and Great Britain had joined in 1862. The effect
of this agreement was to define the spheres of influence of
the two countries as far as Victoria Nyanza, but it provided
no limit westwards, and left the country north of the Tana
river, in which Germany had already acquired some interests
near the coast, open for fresh annexations. The conclusion
of the agreement immediately stimulated the enterprise
both of the German East African Company, to which Peters's
earlier treaties had been transferred, and of the British
capitalists to whom reference had been made in Lord Granville's
despatch. The German East African Company was incorporated
by imperial charter in March 1887, and the British capitalists
formed themselves into the British East Africa Association,
and on the 24th of May 1887 obtained, through the good offices
of Sir William Mackinnon, a concession of the 10-miles strip
of coast from the Umba river in the south to Kipini in the
north. The British association further sought to extend
its rights in the sphere reserved to British influence by
making treaties with the native chiefs behind the coast
strip, and for this purpose various expeditions were sent
into the interior. When they had obtained concessions
over the country for some 200 m. inland the associated
Formation of British East Africa.
capitalists applied to the British government for a charter, which
was granted on the 3rd of September 1888, and the association became
the Imperial British East Africa Company (see BRITISH EAST AFRICA).
The example set by the British company in obtaining a lease
of the coast strip between the British sphere of influence
and the sea was quickly followed by the German association,
which, on the 28th of April 1888, concluded an agreement
with the sultan Khalifa, who had succeeded his brother
Bargash, by which the association leased the strip of Zanzibar
territory between the German sphere and the sea. It was not,
however, until August that the German officials took over the
administration, and their want of tact and ignorance of native
administration almost immediately provoked a rebellion of
so serious a character that it was not suppressed until the
imperial authorities had taken the matter in hand. Shortly
after its suppression the administration was entrusted to an
imperial officer, and the sultan's rights on the mainland strip
were bought outright by Germany for four millions of marks
Events of great importance had been happening, meanwhile, in
the country to the west and north of the British sphere of
influence. The British company had sent caravans into the
interior to survey the country, to make treaties with the
native chiefs and to report on the commercial and agricultural
possibilities. One of these had gone up the Tana river.
But another and a rival expedition was proceeding along
the northern bank of this same river. Karl Peters, whose
energy cannot be denied, whatever may be thought of his
methods, set out with an armed caravan up the Tana on the
pretext of leading an expedition to the relief of Emin Pasha,
the governor of the equatorial province of the Egyptian
Sudan, then reported to be hemmed in by the dervishes at
Wadelai. His expedition was not sanctioned by the German
government, and the British naval commander had orders to
prevent his landing. But Peters succeeded in evading the
British vessels and proceeded up the river, planting German
flags and fighting the natives who opposed his progress.
Early in 1890 he reached Kavirondo, and there found letters
from Mwanga, king of Uganda, addressed to F. J. Jackson, the
leader of an expedition sent out by the British East Africa
Uganda secured by Great Britain.
Company, imploring the company's representative to come
to his assistance and offering to accept the British
flag. To previous letters, less plainly couched. from the
king, Jackson had returned the answer that his instructions
were not to enter Uganda, but that he would do so in case of
need. The letters that fell into Peters's hands were in
reply to those from Jackson. Peters did not hesitate to
open the letters, and on reading them he at once proceeded
to Uganda, where, with the assistance of the French Roman
Catholic priests, he succeeded in inducing Mwanga to sign
a loosely worded treaty intended to place him under German
protection. On hearing of this Jackson at once set out for
Uganda, but Peters did not wait for his arrival, leaving
for the south of Victoria Nyanza some days before Jackson
arrived at Mengo, Mwanga's capital. As Mwanga would not
agree to Jackson's proposals, Jackson returned to the coast,
leaving a representative at Mengo to protect the company's
interests. Captain (afterwards Sir) F. D. Lugard, who had
recently entered the company's employment, was at once ordered
to proceed to Uganda. But in the meantime an event of great
importance had taken place, the conclusion of the agreement
between Great Britain and Germany with reference to their
different spheres of influence in various parts of Africa.
The Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 has already
been referred to and its importance insisted upon. Here
we have to deal with the provisions in reference to East
Africa. In return for the cession of Heligoland, Lord
Salisbury obtained from Germany the recognition of a British
protectorate over the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar,
including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, but excluding
the strip leased to Germany, which was subsequently ceded
absolutely to Germany. Germany further agreed to withdraw
the protectorate declared over Witu and the adjoining coast
up to Kismayu in favour of Great Britain, and to recognize as
within the British sphere of influence the vast area bounded,
on the south by the frontier line laid down in the agreement
of 1886, which was to be extended along the first parallel
of south latitude across Victoria Nyanza to the frontiers of
the Congo Free State, on the west by the Congo Free State and
the western watershed of the Nile, and on the north by a line
commencing on the coast at the north bank of the mouth of the
river Juba, then ascending that bank of the river until it
reached the territory at that time regarded as reserved to
the influence of Italy13 in Gallaland and Abyssinia, when it
followed the frontier of the Italian sphere to the confines of
Egypt. To the south-west of the German sphere in East Africa
the boundary was formed by the eastern and northern shore of
Lake Nyasa, and round the western shore to the mouth of the
Songwe river, from which point it crossed the Nyasa-Tanganyika
plateau to the southern end of the last-named lake,
Limits of German East Africa defined.
leaving the Stevenson Road on the British side of the boundary.
The effect of this treaty was to remove all serious causes of
dispute about territory between Germany and Great Britain in East
Africa. It rendered quite valueless Peters's treaty with
Mwanga and his promenade along the Tana; it freed Great Britain
from any fear of German competition to the northwards, and
recognized that her influence extended to the western limits of
the Nile valley. But, on the other hand, Great Britain had to
relinquish the ambition of connecting her sphere of influence
in the Nile valley with her possessions in Central and South
Africa. On this point Germany was quite obdurate; and, as
already stated, an attempt subsequently made (May 1894) to
secure this object by the lease of a strip of territory from
the Congo Free State was frustrated by German opposition.
Uganda having thus been assigned to the British sphere of
influence by the only European power in a position to contest
its possession with her, the subsequent history of that
region, and of the country between the Victoria Nyanza and the
coast, must be traced in the articles on BRITISH EAST AFRICA
and UGANDA, but it may be well briefly to record here the
following facts:--The Imperial British East Africa Company,
finding the burden of administration too heavy for its financial
resources, and not receiving the assistance it felt itself
entitled to receive from the imperial authorities, intimated
that it would be compelled to withdraw at the end of the year
1892. Funds were raised to enable the company to continue
its administration until the end of March 1893, and a strong
public protest against evacuation compelled the government
to determine in favour of the retention of the country. In
January 1893 Sir Gerald Portal left the coast as a special
commissioner to inquire into the ``best means of dealing with
the country, whether through Zanzibar or otherwise.'' On the
31st of March the union jack was raised, and on the 29th of
May a fresh treaty was concluded with King Mwanga placing his
country under British protection. A formal protectorate was
declared over Uganda proper on the 19th of June 1894, which was
subsequently extended so as to include the countries westwards
towards the Congo Free State, eastwards to the British East
Africa protectorate and Abyssinia, and northwards to the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The British East Africa protectorate
was constituted in June 1895, when the Imperial British East
Africa Company relinquished all its rights in exchange for
a money payment, and the administration was assumed by the
imperial authorities. On the 1st of April 1902 the eastern
province of the Uganda protectorate was transferred to the
British East Africa protectorate, which thus secured control
of the whole length of the so-called Uganda railway, and
at the same time obtained access to the Victoria Nyanza.
Early in the 'eighties, as already seen, Italy had obtained her
first formal footing on the African coast at the Bay of Assab
Italy in East Africa.
(Aussa) on the Red Sea. In 1885 the troubles in which Egypt
found herself involved compelled the khedive and his advisers to
loosen their hold on the Red Sea littoral, and, with the tacit
approval of Great Britain, Italy took possession of Massawa and
other ports on that coast. By 1888 Italian influence had been
extended from Ras Kasar on the north to the northern frontier of
the French colony of Obok on the south, a distance of some 650
m. The interior limits of Italian influence were but ill
defined, and the negus Johannes (King John) of Abyssinia viewed
with anything but a favourable eye the approach of the Italians
towards the Abyssinian highlands. In January 1887 an Italian
force was almost annihilated at Dogali, but the check only
served to spur on the Italian government to fresh efforts.
The Italians occupied Keren and Asmara in the highlands, and
eventually, in May 1889, concluded a treaty of peace and
friendship with the negus Menelek, who had seized the throne
on the death of Johannes, killed in battle with the dervishes
in March of the same year. This agreement, known as the
treaty of Uccialli, settled the frontiers between Abyssinia
and the Italian sphere, and contained the following article:--
XVII. His Majesty the King of Kings of Ethiopia consents to
avail himself of the Italian government for any negotiations
which he may enter into with the other powers or governments.
In Italy and by other European governments this article was
generally regarded as establishing an Italian protectorate
over Abyssinia; but this interpretation was never accepted
by the emperor Menelek, and at no time did Italy succeed
in establishing any very effective control over Abyssinian
affairs. North of the Italian coast sphere the Red Sea littoral
was still under Egyptian rule, while immediately to the south
a small stretch of coast on the Gulf of Tajura constituted
the sole French possession on the East African mainland (see
SOMALILAND.) Moreover, when Egyptian claims to the Somali
coast were withdrawn, Great Britain took the opportunity to
establish her influence on the northern Somali coast, opposite
Aden. Between the 1st of May 1884 and the 15th of March 1886
ten treaties were concluded, placing under British influence
the northern Somali coast from Ras Jibuti on the west to Bandar
Ziada on the east. In the meantime Italy, not content with
her acquisitions on the Red Sea, had been concluding treaties
with the Somali chiefs on the east coast. The first treaty
was made with the sultan of Obbia on the 8th of February
1889. Later in the same year the British East Africa Company
transferred to Italy--the transference being subsequently
approved by the sultan of Zanzibar--the ports of Brava, Marka,
Mukdishu and Warsheik, leased from Zanzibar. On the 24th
of March 1891 an agreement between Italy and Great Britain
fixed the northern bank of the Juba up to latitude 6 deg. N. as
the southern boundary of Italian influence in Somaliland, the
boundary being provisionally prolonged along lines of latitude
and longitude to the intersection of the Blue Nile with 35 deg. E.
longitude. On the 15th of April 1891 a further agreement
fixed the northern limit of the Italian sphere from Ras Kasar
on the Red Sea to the point on the Blue Nile just mentioned.
By this agreement Italy was to have the right temporarily to
occupy Kassala, which was left in the Anglo-Egyptian sphere,
in trust for Egypt--a right of which she availed herself in
1894. To complete the work of delimitation the British and
Italian governments, on the 5th of May 1894, fixed the boundary
of the British sphere of influence in Somaliland from the
Anglo-French boundary, which had been settled in February 1888.
But while Great Britain was thus lending her sanction to
Italy's ambitious schemes, the Abyssinian emperor was becoming
more and more incensed at Italy's pretensions to exercise a
protectorate over Ethiopia. In 1893 Menelek denounced the
treaty of Uccialli, and eventually, in a great battle, fought at
Adowa on the 1st of March 1896, the Italians were disastrously
defeated. By the subsequent treaty of Adis Ababa, concluded
on the 26th of October 1896, the whole of the country to the
The independence of Abyssinia recognized.
south of the Mareb, Belesa and Muna rivers was restored to
Abyssinia, and Italy acknowledged the absolute independence of
Abyssinia. The effect of this was practically to destroy
the value of the Anglo-Italian agreement as to the boundaries
to the south and west of Abyssinia; and negotiations were
afterwards set on foot between the emperor Menelek and his
European neighbours with the object of determining the Abyssinian
frontiers. Italian Somaliland, bordering on the south-eastern
frontier of Abyssinia, became limited to a belt of territory
with a depth inland from the Indian Ocean of from 180 to 250
m. The negotiations concerning the frontier lasted until
1908, being protracted over the question as to the possession
of Lugh, a town on the Juba, which eventually fell to Italy.
After the battle of Adowa the Italian government handed over
the administration of the southern part of the country to the
Benadir Company, but in January 1905 the government resumed
control and at the same time transformed the leasehold rights
it held from the sultan of Zanzibar into sovereign rights by
the payment to the sultan of L. 144,000. To facilitate her
communications with the interior, Italy also secured from the
British government the lease of a small area of land immediately
to the north of Kismayu. In British Somaliland the frontier
fixed by agreement with Italy in 1894 was modified, in so
far as it marched with Abyssinian territory, by an agreement
which Sir Rennell Rodd concluded with the emperor Menelek in
1897. The effect of this agreement was to reduce the area
of British Somaliland from 75,000 to 68,000 sq. m. In the
same year France concluded an agreement with the emperor,
which is known to have fixed the frontier of the French Somali
Coast protectorate at a distance of 90 kilometres (56 m.)
from the coast. The determination of the northern, western
and southern limits of Abyssinia proved a more difficult
matter. A treaty of July 1900 followed by an agreement
of November 1901 defined the boundaries of Eritrea on the
side of Abyssinia and the Sudan respectively. In certain
details the boundaries thus laid down were modified by an
Anglo-Italian-Abyssinian treaty signed at Adis Ababa on the
15th of May 1902. On the same day another treaty was signed
at the Abyssinian capital by Sir John Harrington, the British
minister plenipotentiary, and the emperor Menelek, whereby the
western, or Sudan-Abyssinian, frontier was defined as far south
as the intersection of 6 deg. N. and 35 deg. E. Within the British
sphere were left the Atbara up to Gallabat, the Blue Nile up
to Famaka and the Sobat up to the junction of the Baro and
Pibor. While not satisfying Abyssinian claims to their full
extent, the frontier laid down was on the whole more favourable
to Abyssinia than was the line fixed in the Anglo-Italian
agreement of 1891. On the other hand, Menelek gave important
economic guarantees and concessions to the Sudan government.
In Egypt the result of the abolition of the Dual Control
was to make British influence virtually predominant, though
theoretically Turkey remained the suzerain power; and after
the reconquest of the Sudan by the Anglo-Egyptian army a
convention between the British and Egyptian governments was
signed at Cairo on the 19th of January 1899, which, inter
alia, provided for the joint use of the British and Egyptian
flags in the territories south of the 22nd parallel of north
latitude. From the international point of view the British
position in Egypt was strengthened by the Anglo-French declaration
of the 8th of April 1904. For some time previously there had been
The Anglo-French agreements of April 1904.
a movement on both sides of the Channel in favour of the
settlement of a number of important questions in which
British and French interests were involved. The movement
was no doubt strengthened by the desire to reduce to their
least dimensions the possible causes of trouble between the
two countries at a time when the outbreak of hostilities
between Russia (the ally of France) and Japan (the ally of
Great Britain) rendered the European situation peculiarly
delicate. On the 8th of April 1904 there was signed in
London by the British foreign secretary, the marquess of
Lansdowne, and the French ambassador, M. Paul Cambon, a series
of agreements relating to several parts of the globe. Here we
are concerned only with the joint declaration respecting Egypt
and Morocco and a convention relating, in part, to British
and French frontiers in West Africa. The latter we shall
have occasion to refer to later. The former, notwithstanding
the declarations embodied in it that there was ``no intention
of altering the political status'' either of Egypt or of
Morocco, cannot be ignored in any account of the partition in
Africa. With regard to Egypt the French government declared
``that they will not obstruct the action of Great Britain
in that country by asking that a limit of time be fixed for
the British occupation or in any other manner.'' France also
assented--as did subsequently the other powers interested--to
a khedivial decree simplifying the international control
exercised by the Caisse de la Dette over the finances of Egypt.
In order to appreciate aright that portion of the declaration
relating to Morocco it is necessary to say a few words about
the course of French policy in North-West Africa. In Tunisia
the work of strengthening the protectorate established in
1881 had gone steadily forward; but it was in Algeria that
the extension of French influence had been most marked.
The movement of expansion southwards was inevitable. With
the progress of exploration it became increasingly evident
that the Sahara constituted no insurmountable barrier
between the French possessions in North and West Central
Africa. But France had not only the hope of placing Algeria
in touch with the Sudan to spur her forward. To consolidate
her position in North-West Africa she desired to make
French influence supreme in Morocco. The relations between
the two countries did not favour the realization of that
ambition. The advance southwards of the French forces of
occupation evoked loud protests from the Moorish government,
particularly with regard to the occupation in 1900-1901 of
the Tuat Oases. Under the Franco-Moorish treaty of 1845 the
frontier between Algeria and Morocco was defined from the
Mediterranean coast as far south as the pass of Teniet el
Sassi, in about 34 deg. N.; beyond that came a zone in which
no frontier was defined, but in which the tribes and desert
villages (ksurs) belonging to the respective spheres of
influence were named; while south of the desert villages the
treaty stated that in view of the character of the country
``the delimitation of it would be superfluous.'' Though
the frontier was thus left undefined, the sultan maintained
that in her advance southwards France had trespassed on
territories that unmistakably belonged to Morocco. After
some negotiation, however, a protocol was signed in Paris on
France's privileged position in Morocco.
the 20th of July 1901, and commissioners appointed to devise
measures for the co-operation of the French and Moorish
authorities in the maintenance of peaceful conditions in
the frontier region. It was reported that in April 1902
the commissioners signed an agreement whereby the Sharifan
government undertook to consolidate its authority on the
Moorish side of the frontier as far south as Figig. The
agreement continued: ``Le Gouvernement francais, en
raison de son voisinage, lui pretera son appui, en cas de
besoin. Le Gouvernement francais etablira son autorite
et la paix dans les regions du Sahara, et le Gouvernement
marocain, son voisin, lui aidera de tout son pouvoir.''
Meanwhile in the northern districts of Morocco the conditions
of unrest under the rule of the young sultan, Abd el Aziz IV.,
were attracting an increasing amount of attention in Europe
and were calling forth demands for their suppression. It was
in these circumstances that in the Anglo-French declaration
of April 1904 the British government recognized ``that it
appertains to France, more particularly as a power whose
dominions are conterminous for a great distance with those of
Morocco, to preserve order in that country, and to provide
assistance for the purpose of all administrative, economic,
financial and military reforms which it may require.'' Both
parties to the declaration, ``inspired by their feeling of
sincere friendship for Spain, take into special consideration
the interests which that country derives from her geographical
position and from her territorial possessions on the Moorish
coast of the Mediterranean. In regard to these interests
the French government will come to an understanding with the
Spanish government.'' The understanding thus foreshadowed
was reached later in the same year, Spain securing a sphere
of interest on the Mediterranean coast. In pursuance of
the policy marked out in the Anglo-French declaration,
France was seeking to strengthen her influence in Morocco
when in 1905 the attitude of Germany seriously affected her
position. On the 8th of July France secured from the German
government formal ``recognition of the situation created
for France in Morocco by the contiguity of a vast extent
of territory of Algeria and the Sharifan empire, and by the
special relations resulting therefrom between the two adjacent
countries, as well as by the special interest for France,
due to this fact, that order should reign in the Sharifan
Empire.'' Finally, in January-April 1906, a conference of the
powers was held at Algeciras to devise, by invitation of the
sultan, a scheme of reforms to be introduced into Morocco
(q.v..) French capital was allotted a larger share than
that of any other power in the Moorish state bank which it
was decided to institute, and French and Spanish officers
were entrusted with the organization of a police force for
the maintenance of order in the principal coast towns. The
new regime had not been fully inaugurated, however, when a
series of outrages led, in 1907, to the military occupation
by France of Udja, a town near the Algerian frontier, and
of the port of Casablanca on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.
It only remains to be noted, in connexion with the story
of French activity in North-West Africa, that with such
energy was the penetration of the Sahara pursued that in
April 1904 flying columns from Insalah and Timbuktu met
by arrangement in mid-desert, and in the following year it
was deemed advisable to indicate on the maps the boundary
between the Algerian and French West African territories.
Brief reference must be made to the position of Tripoli.
While Egypt was brought under British control and Tunisia
became a French protectorate, Tripoli remained a province
of the Turkish empire with undefined frontiers in the
hinterland, a state of affairs which more than once threatened
to lead to trouble with France during the expansion of the
latter's influence in the Sahara. As already stated, Italy
early gave evidence that it was her ambition to succeed
to the province, and, not only by the sultan of Turkey but
in Italy also, the Anglo-French declaration of March 1899,
respecting the limits of the British and French spheres
of influence in north Central Africa, was viewed with some
concern. By means of a series of public utterances on the
part of French and Italian statesmen in the winter 1901-1902 it
Italy's interest in Tripoli.
was made known that the two powers had come to an understanding
with regard to their interests in North Africa, and in May 1902
Signor Prinetti, then Italian minister for foreign affairs,
speaking in parliament in reply to an interpellation on the
subject of Tripoli, declared that if ``the status quo in
the Mediterranean were ever disturbed, Italy would be sure of
finding no one to bar the way to her legitimate aspirations.''
At the opening of the Berlin conference Spain had established no
formal claim to any part of the coast to the south of Morocco;
but while the conference was sitting, on the 9th of January 1885,
the Spanish government intimated that in view of the importance
of the Spanish settlements on the Rio de Oro, at Angra de Cintra,
Spanish colonies.
and at Western Bay (Cape Blanco), and of the documents
signed with the independent tribes on that coast, the king
of Spain had taken under his protection ``the territories
of the western coast of Africa comprised between the
fore-mentioned Western Bay and Cape Bojador.'' The interior
limits of the Spanish sphere were defined by an agreement
concluded in 1900 with France. By this document some 70,000
sq. m. of the western Sahara were recognized as Spanish.
The same agreement settled a long-standing dispute between
Spain and France as to the ownership of the district around
the Muni river to be south of Cameroon, Spain securing a block
of territory with a coast-line from the Campo river on the
north to the Muni river on the south. The northern frontier
is formed by the German Cameroon colony, the eastern by
11 deg. 20' E., and the southern by the first parallel of north
latitude to its point of intersection with the Muni river.
Apart from this small block of Spanish territory south of
Cameroon, the stretch of coast between Cape Blanco and the
Division of the Guinea coast.
mouth of the Congo is partitioned among four European powers--Great
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal --and the negro republic of
Liberia. Following the coast southwards from Cape Blanco is
first the French colony of Senegal, which is indented, along
the Gambia river, by the small British colony of that name, and
then the comparatively small territory of Portuguese Guinea,
all that remains on this Coast to represent Portugal's share in
the scramble in a region where she once played so conspicuous a
part. To the south of Portuguese Guinea is the French Guinea
colony, and still going south and east are the British
colony of Sierra Leone, the republic of Liberia, the French
colony of the Ivory coast, the British Gold Coast, German
Togoland, French Dahomey, the British colony (formerly known
as the Lagos colony) and protectorate of Southern Nigeria,
the German colony of Cameroon, the Spanish settlements on the
Muni river, the French Congo colony, and the small Portuguese
enclave north of the Congo to which reference has already been
made, which is administratively part of the Angola colony.
When the General Act of the Berlin conference was signed the
whole of this coast-line had not been formally claimed; but
no time was lost by the powers interested in notifying claims
to the unappropriated sections, and the conflicting claims
put forward necessitated frequent adjustments by international
agreements. By a Franco-Portuguese agreement of the 12th of
May 1886 the limits of Portuguese Guinea--surrounded landwards
by French territory--were defined, and by agreements with
Great Britain in 1885 and France in 1892 and 1907 the Liberian
republic was Confined to an area of about 43,000 sq. m.
The real struggle in West Africa was between France and Great
Britain, and France played the dominant part, the exhaustion
of Portugal, the apathy of the British government and the
late appearance of Germany in the field being all elements
that favoured the success of French policy. Before tracing
the steps in the historic contest between France and Great
Britain it is necessary, however, to deal briefly with the
part played by Germany. She naturally could not be disposed
of by the chief rivals as easily as were Portugal and
Liberia. It will be remembered that Dr Nachtigal, while the
proposals for the Berlin conference were under discussion,
had planted the German flag on the coast of Togo and in
Cameroon in the month of July 1884. In Cameroon Germany
found herself with Great Britain for a neighbour to the
north, and with France as her southern neighbour on the Gabun
river. The utmost activity was displayed in making treaties
with native chiefs, and in securing as wide a range of coast for
German enterprise as was possible. After various provisional
agreements had been concluded between Great Britain and
Germany, a ``provisional line of demarcation'' was adopted in
the famous agreement of the 1st of July 1890, starting from
the head of the Rio del Rey creek and going to the point,
about 9 deg. 8' E., marked ``rapids'' on the British Admiralty
chart. By a further agreement of the 14th of April 1893,
the right bank of the Rio del Rey was made the boundary
between the Oil Rivers Protectorate (now Southern Nigeria) and
Cameroon. In the following November (1893) the boundary was
continued from the ``rapids'' before mentioned, on the Calabar
or Cross river, in a straight line towards the centre of the
town of Yola, on the Benue river. Yola itself, with a radius
Germany in west Central Africa.
of some 3 m., was left in the British sphere, and the German
boundary followed the circle eastwards from the point of
intersection as it neared Yola until it met the Benue river.
From that point it crossed the river to the intersection of
the 13th degree of longitude with the 10th degree of north
latitude, and then made direct for a point on the southern
shore of Lake Chad ``situated 35 minutes east of the meridian
of Kuka.'' By this agreement the British government withdrew
from a considerable section of the upper waters of the
Benue with which the Royal Niger Company had entered into
relations. The limit of Germany's possible extension
eastwards was fixed at the basin of the river Shari, and
Darfur, Kordofan and the Bahr-el-Ghazal were to be excluded
from her sphere of influence. The object of Great Britain
in making the sacrifice she did was two-fold. By satisfying
Germany's desire for a part of Lake Chad a check was put on
French designs on the Benue region, while by recognizing the
central Sudan (Wadai, &c.) in the German sphere, a barrier
was interposed to the advance of France from the Congo to the
Nile. This last object was not attained, inasmuch as Germany
in coming to terms with France as to the southern and eastern
limits of Cameroon abandoned her claims to the central
Sudan. She had already, on the 24th of December 1885, signed
a protocol with France fixing her southern frontier, where it
was coterminous with the French Congo colony. But to the east
German explorers were crossing the track of French explorers
from the northern bank of the Ubangi, and the need for an
agreement was obvious. Accordingly, on the 4th of February
1894, a protocol--which, some weeks later, was confirmed by
a convention-- was signed at Berlin, by which France accepted
the presence of Germany on Lake Chad as a fait accompli and
effected the best bargain she could by making the left bank
of the Shari river, from its outlet into Lake Chad to the
10th parallel of north latitude, the eastern limit of German
extension. From this point the boundary line went due west
some 230 m., then turned south, and with various indentations
joined the south-eastern frontier, which had been slightly
extended so as to give Germany access to the Sanga river--
a tributary of the Congo. Thus, early in 1894, the German
Cameroon colony had reached fairly definite limits. In 1908
another convention, modifying the frontier, gave Germany
a larger share of the Sanga, while France, among other
advantages, gained the left bank of the Shari to 10 deg. 40' N.
The German Togoland settlements occupy a narrow strip of
the Guinea coast, some 35 m. only in length, wedged in
between the British Gold Coast and French Dahomey. At first
France was inclined to dispute Germany's claims to Little
Popo and Porto Seguro; but in December 1885 the French
government acknowledged the German protectorate over these
Exclusion of Germany from the Niger.
places, and the boundary between French and German territory,
which runs north from the coast to the 11th decree of
latitude, was laid down by the Franco-German convention
of the 12th of July 1897. The fixing of the 11th parallel
as the northern boundary of German expansion towards the
interior was not accomplished without some sacrifice of German
ambitions. Having secured an opening on Lake Chad for her
Cameroon colony, Germany was anxious to obtain a footing on
the middle Niger for Togoland. German expeditions reached
Gando, one of the tributary states of the Sokoto empire on
the middle Niger, and, notwithstanding the existence of prior
treaties with Great Britain, sought to conclude agreements
with the sultan of that country. But this German ambition
conflicted both with the British and the French designs in
West Africa, and eventually Germany had to be content with
the 11th parallel as her northern frontier. On the west
the Togoland frontier on the coast was fixed in July 1886
by British and German commissioners at 1 deg. 10' E. longitude,
and its extension towards the interior laid down for a short
distance. A curious feature in the history of its prolongation
was the establishment in 1888 of a neutral zone wherein neither
power was to seek to acquire protectorates nor exclusive
influence. It was not until November 1899 that, as part of
the Samoa settlement, this neutral zone was partitioned between
the two powers and the frontier extended to the 11th parallel.
The story of the struggle between France and Great Britain
in West Africa may roughly be divided into two sections, the
Anglo-French rivalry in West Africa.
first dealing with the Coast colonies, the second dealing with
the struggle for the middle Niger and Lake Chad. As regards
the Coast colonies, France was wholly successful in her design
of isolating all Great Britain's separate possessions in that
region, and of securing for herself undisputed possession of
the upper Niger and of the countries lying within the great
bend of that river. When the British government awoke to
the consciousness of what was at stake France had obtained
too great a start. French governors of the Senegal had
succeeded, before the Berlin Conference, in establishing forts
on the upper Niger, and the advantage thus gained was steadily
pursued. Every winter season French posts were pushed farther
and farther along the river, or in the vast regions watered
by the southern tributaries of the Senegal and Niger rivers.
This ceaseless activity met with its reward. Great Britain
found herself compelled to acknowledge accomplished facts and
to conclude agreements with France, which left her colonies
mere coast patches, with a very limited extension towards the
interior. On the 10th of August 1889 an agreement was signed
by which the Gambia colony and protectorate was confined to
a narrow strip of territory on both banks of the river for
about 200 m. from the sea. In June 1882 and in August 1889
provisional agreements were made with France fixing the western
and northern limits of Sierra Leone, and commissioners were
appointed to trace the line of demarcation agreed upon by the two
governments. But the commissioners failed to agree, and on the
21st of January 1895 a fresh agreement was made, the boundary
being subsequently traced by a mixed commission. Sierra Leone,
as now definitely constituted, has a coast-line of about 180
m. and a maximum extension towards the interior of some 200 m.
At the date of the Berlin conference the present colonies
of Southern Nigeria and the Gold Coast constituted a single
colony under the title of the Gold Coast colony, but on the
13th of January 1886 the territory comprised under that title
was erected into two separate colonies--Lagos and the Gold
Coast (the name of the former being changed in February 1906
to the colony of Southern Nigeria). The coast limits of the
new Gold Coast colony were declared to extend from 5 deg. W.
to 2 deg. E., but these limits were subsequently curtailed by
agreements with France and Germany. The arrangements that
fixed the eastern frontier of the Gold Coast colony and its
hinterland have already been stated in connexion with German
Togoland. On the western frontier it marches with the French
colony of the Ivory Coast, and in July 1893, after an unsuccessful
attempt to achieve the same end by an agreement concluded in
1889, the frontier was defined from the neighbourhood of the
Tano lagoon and river of the same name, to the 9th degree of
north latitude. In August 1896, following the destruction of
the Ashanti power and the deportation of King Prempeh, as a
result of the second Ashanti campaign, a British protectorate
was declared over the whole of the Ashanti territories and
a resident was installed at Kumasi. But no northern limit
had been fixed by the 1893 agreement beyond the 9th parallel,
and the countries to the north--Gurunsi (Grusi), Mossi and
Gurma---were entered from all sides by rival British, French
and German expeditions. The conflicting claims established
by these rival expeditions may, however, best be considered in
connexion with the struggle for supremacy on the middle Niger
and in the Chad region, to which it is now necessary to turn.
A few days before the meeting of the Berlin conference Sir
George Goldie had succeeded in buying up all the French
interests on the lower Niger. The British company's influence
had at that date been extended by treaties with the native
chiefs up the main Niger stream to its junction with the
Benue, and some distance along this latter river But the
great Fula states of the central Sudan were still outside
European influence, and this fact did not escape attention in
Germany. German merchants had been settled for some years
on the coast, and one of them, E. R. Flegel, had displayed
great interest in, and activity on, the river. He recognized
that in the densely populated states of the middle Niger,
Sokoto and Gando, and in Bornu to the west of Lake Chad, there
was a magnificent field for Germany's new-born colonizing
zeal. The German African Company14 and the German Colonial
Society listened eagerly to Flegel's proposals, and in April
1885 he left Berlin on a mission to the Fula states of Sokoto and
Gando. But it was impossible to keep his intentions entirely
secret, and the (British) National African Company had no
desire to see the French rivals, whom they had with so much
difficulty dislodged from the river, replaced by the even
more troublesome German. Accordingly Joseph Thomson, the
young Scottish explorer, was sent out to the Niger, and had
the satisfaction of concluding on the 1st of June 1885 a
treaty with ``Umoru, King of the Mussulmans of the Sudan and
Sultan of Sokoto,'' which practically secured the whole of
the trading rights and the control of the sultan's foreign
relations to the British company. Thomson concluded a similar
treaty with the sultan of Gando, so as to provide against the
possibility of its being alleged that Gando was an independent
state and not subject to the suzerainty of the sultan of
Sokoto. As Thomson descended the river with his treaties, he
met Flegel going up the river, with bundles of German flags
and presents for the chiefs. The German government continued
its efforts to secure a footing on the lower Niger until
the fall of Prince Bismarck from power in March 1890, when
opposition ceased, and on the failure of the half-hearted
attempt made later to establish relations with Gando from
Togoland, Germany dropped out of the competition for the
The Niger Company granted a charter.
western Sudan and left the field to France and Great Britain.
After its first great success the National African Company
renewed its efforts to obtain a charter from the British
government, and on the 10th of July 1886 the charter was
granted, and the company became ``The Royal Niger Company,
chartered and limited.'' In June of the previous year a British
protectorate had been proclaimed Over the whole of the coast
from the Rio del Rey to the Lagos frontier, and as already
stated, on the 13th of January 1886 the Lagos settlements had
been separated from the Gold Coast and erected into a separate
colony. It may be convenient to state here that the western
boundary of Lagos with French territory (Dahomey) was determined
in the Anglo-French agreement of the 10th of August 1889, ``as
far as the 9th degree of north latitude, where it shall stop.''
Thus both in the Gold Coast hinterland and in the Lagos hinterland
a door was left wide open to the north of the 9th parallel.
Notwithstanding her strenuous efforts, France, in her advance
down the Niger from Senegal, did not succeed in reaching Sego
on the upper Niger, a considerable distance above Timbuktu,
until the winter of 1890-1891, and the rapid advance of British
influence up the river raised serious fears lest the Royal Niger
Company should reach Timbuktu before France could forestall
her. It was, no doubt, this consideration that induced the
French government to consent to the insertion in the agreement
of the 5th of August 1890, by which Great Britain recognized
France's protectorate over Madagascar, of the following article:
The Government of Her Britannic Majesty recognizes the sphere of
influence of France to the south of her Mediterranean possessions
up to a line from Say on the Niger to Barrua on Lake Chad, drawn
m such a manner as to comprise in the sphere of action of the
Niger Company all that fairly belongs to the kingdom of Sokoto;
the line to be determined by the commissioners to be appointed.
The commissioners never were in fact appointed, and the
proper meaning to be attached to this article subsequently
became a subject of bitter controversy between the two
countries. An examination of the map of West Africa will
show what possibilities of trouble were left open at the
end of 1890 by the various agreements concluded up to that
date. From Say on the Niger to where the Lagos frontier came
to an abrupt stop in 9 deg. N. there was no boundary line between
the French and British spheres of influence. To the north
of the Gold Coast and of the French Ivory Coast colony the
way was equally open to Great Britain and to France, while
the vagueness of the Say-Barrua line left an opening of which
France was quick to avail herself. Captain P. L. Monteil,
who was despatched by the French government to West Africa in
1890, immediately after the conclusion of the August agreement,
did not hesitate to pass well to the south of the Say-Barrua
line, and to attempt to conclude treaties with chiefs who
were, beyond all question, within the British sphere. Still
farther south, on the Benue river, the two expeditions of
Lieutenant Mizon--in 1890 and 1892--failed to do any real
harm to British interests. In 1892 an event happened which
had an important bearing on the future course of the dispute.
French advance Timbuktu.
After a troublesome war with Behanzin king of to the native
state of Dahomey, France annexed some portion of Dahomeyan
territory on the coast, and declared a protectorate over
the rest of the kingdom. Thus was removed the barrier which
had up to that time prevented France from pushing her way
Nigerwards from her possessions on the Slave Coast, as well
as from the upper Niger and the Ivory Coast. Henceforth
her progress from all these directions was rapid, and in
particular Timbuktu was occupied in the last days of 1893.
In 1894 it appears to have been suddenly realized in France
that, for the development of the vast regions which she was
placing under her protection in West Africa, it was extremely
desirable that she should obtain free access to the navigable
portions of the Niger, if not on the left bank, from which she
was excluded by the Say-Barrua agreement, then on the right
bank, where the frontier had still to be fixed by international
agreement. In the neighbourhood of Bussa there is a long
stretch of the river so impeded by rapids that navigation is
practically impossible, except in small boats and at considerable
risk. Below these rapids France had no foothold on the river,
both banks from Bussa to the sea being within the British
sphere. In 1890 the Royal Niger Company had concluded a treaty
with the emir and chiefs of Bussa (or Borgu); but the French
declared that the real paramount chief of Borgu was not the
king of Bussa, but the king of Nikki, and three expeditions
were despatched in hot haste to Nikki to take the king under
French protection. Sir George Goldie, however, was not to be
baffled. While maintaining the validity of the earlier treaty
with Bussa, he despatched Captain (afterwards General Sir) F.
D. Lugard to Nikki, and Lugard was successful in distancing
all his French competitors by several days, reaching Nikki
on the 5th of November 1894 and concluding a treaty with the
king and chiefs. The French expeditions, which were in great
strength, did not hesitate on their arrival to compel the
king to execute fresh treaties with France, and with these in
their possession they returned to Dahomey. Shortly afterwards
a fresh act of aggression was committed. On the 13th of
February 1895 a French officer, Commandant Toutee, arrived
on the right bank of the Niger opposite Bajibo and built a
fort. His presence there was notified to the Royal Niger
Company, who protested to the British government against
this invasion of their territory. Lord Rosebery, who was
then foreign minister, at once made inquiries in Paris, and
received the assurance that Commandant Toutee was ``a private
traveller.'' Eventually Commandant Toutee was ordered to
withdraw, and the fort was occupied by the Royal Niger Company's
troops. Commandant Toutee subsequently published the official
instructions from the French government under which he had
acted. It was thought that the recognition of the British
claims, involved in the withdrawal of Commandant Toutee,
had marked the final abandonment by France of the attempt
to establish herself on the navigable portions of the Niger
below Bussa, but in 1897 the attempt was renewed in the most
determined manner. In February of that year a French force
suddenly occupied Bussa, and this act was quickly followed
by the occupation of Gomba and Illo higher up the river. In
November 1897 Nikki was occupied. The situation on the Niger
had so obviously been outgrowing the capacity of a chartered
company that for some time before these occurrences the
assumption of responsibility for the whole of the Niger region
The Franco-British settlement of 1898.
by the imperial authorities had been practically decided on;
and early in 1898 Lugard was sent out to the Niger with a number
of imperial officers to raise a local force in preparation for
the contemplated change. The advance of the French forces from
the south and west was the signal for an advance of British
troops from the Niger, from Lagos and from the Gold Coast
protectorate. The situation thus created was extremely
serious. The British and French flags were flying in close
proximity, in some cases in the same village. Meanwhile the
diplomatists were busy in London and in Paris, and in the latter
capital a commission sat for many months to adjust the conflicting
claims. Fortunately, by the tact and forbearance of the officers
on both sides, no local incident occurred to precipitate a
collision, and on the 14th of June 1898 a convention was signed
by Sir Edmund Monson and M. G. Hanotaux which practically
completed the partition of this part of the continent.
The settlement effected was in the nature of a compromise.
France withdrew from Bussa, Gomba and Illo, the frontier
line west of the Niger being drawn from the 9th parallel to
a point ten miles, as the crow flies, above Giri, the port of
Illo. France was thus shut out from the navigable portion of
the middle and lower Niger; but for purely commercial purposes
Great Britain agreed to lease to France two small plots of land
on the river-the one on the right bank between Leaba and the
mouth of the Moshi river, the other at one of the mouths of the
Niger. By accepting this line Great Britain abandoned Nikki
and a great part of Borgu as well as some part of Gando to
France. East of the Niger the Say-Barrua line was modified
in favour of France, which gained parts of both Sokoto and
Bornu where they meet the southern edge of the Sahara. In the
Gold Coast hinterland the French withdrew from Wa, and Great
Britain abandoned all claim to Mossi, though the capital of
the latter country, together with a further extensive area
in the territory assigned to both powers, was declared to be
equally free, so far as trade and navigation were concerned,
to the subjects and protected persons of both nationalities.
The western boundary of the Gold Coast was prolonged along
the Black Volta as far as latitude 11 deg. N., and this parallel
was followed with slight deflexions to the Togoland frontier.
In consequence of the acute crisis which shortly afterwards
occurred between France and Great Britain on the upper Nile,
the ratification of this agreement was delayed until after
the conclusion of the Fashoda agreement of March 1899 already
referred to. In 1900 the two patches on the Niger leased to
France were selected by commissioners representing the two
countries, and in the same year the Anglo-French frontier
from Lagos to the west bank of the Niger was delimited.
East of the Niger the frontier, even as modified in 1898,
failed to satisfy the French need for a practicable route to
Lake Chad, and in the convention of the 8th of April 1904, to
which reference has been made under Egypt and Morocco, it was
Further concessions to France.
agreed, as part of the settlement of the French shore question
in Newfoundland, to deflect the frontier line more to the
south. The new boundary was described at some length, but
provision was made for its modification in points of detail
on the return of the commissioners engaged in surveying the
frontier region. In 1906 an agreement was reached on all
points, and the frontier at last definitely settled, sixteen
years after the Say-Barrua line had been fixed. This revision
of the Niger-Chad frontier did not, however, represent the
only territorial compensation received by France in West
Africa in connexion with the settlement of the Newfoundland
question. By the same convention of April 1904 the British
government consented to modify the frontier between Senegal
and the Gambia colony ``so as to give to France Yarbutenda
and the lands and landing-places belonging to that locality,''
and further agreed to cede to France the tiny group of islands
off the coast of French Guinea known as the Los Islands.
Meantime the conclusion of the 1898 convention had left both
the British and the French governments free to devote increased
attention to the subdivision and control of their West African
possessions. On the 1st of January 1900 the imperial authorities
assumed direct responsibility for the whole of the territories
of the Royal Niger Company, which became henceforth a purely
commercial undertaking. The Lagos protectorate was extended
northwards; the Niger Coast protectorate, likewise with extended
frontiers, became Southern Nigeria; while the greater part
of the territories formerly administered by the company were
constituted into the protectorate of Northern Nigeria--all
three administrations being directly under the Colonial
Office In February 1906 the administration of the Southern
Nigerian protectorate was placed under that of Lagos at the
same time as the name of the latter was changed to the Colony
of Southern Nigeria, this being a step towards the eventual
Organization of the British and French protectorates.
amalgamation of all three dependencies under one governor or
governor-general. In French West Africa changes in the
internal frontiers have been numerous and important. The
coast colonies have all been increased in size at the expense
of the French Sudan, which has vanished from the maps as
an administrative entity. There are carved out of the
territories comprised in what is officially known as French
West Africa five colonies--Senegal, French Guinea, the Ivory
Coast, Dahomey and the Upper Senegal and Niger, this last
being entirely cut off from the sea--and the civil territory of
Mauritania. To the colony of the Upper Senegal and Niger
is attached the military territory of the Niger, embracing
the French Sahara up to the limit of the Algerian sphere of
influence. Not only are all these divisions of French West
Africa connected territorially, but administratively they
are united under a governor-general. Similarly the French
Congo territories have been divided into three colonies--the
Gabun, the Middle Congo and the Ubangi-Shari-Chad--all
united administratively under a commissioner-general.
There are, around the coast, numerous islands or groups of
islands, which are regarded by geographers as outliers of the
Ownership of the African Islands.
African mainland. The majority of these African islands were
occupied by one or other of the European powers long before
the period of continental partition. The Madeira Islands
to the west of Morocco, the Bissagos Islands, off the Guinea
coast, and Prince's Island and St Thomas' Island, in the
Gulf of Guinea, are Portuguese possessions of old standing;
while in the Canary Islands and Fernando Po Spain possesses
remnants of her ancient colonial empire which are a more
valuable asset than any she has acquired in recent times on the
mainland. St Helena in the Atlantic, Mauritius and some
small groups north of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, are
British possessions acquired long before the opening of the
last quarter of the 19th century. Zanzibar, Pemba and some
smaller islands which the sultan was allowed to retain were,
as has already been stated, placed under British protection in
1890, and the island of Sokotra was placed under the ``gracious
favour and protection'' of Great Britain on the 23rd of April
1886. France's ownership of Reunion dates back to the 17th
century, but the Comoro archipelago was not placed under French
protection until April 1886. None of these islands, with the
exception of the Zanzibar group, have, however, materially
affected the partition of the continent, and they need not
be enumerated in the table which follows. But the important
island of Madagascar stands in a different category, both on
account of its size and because it was during the period under
review that it passed through the various stages which led to
its becoming a French colony. The first step was the placing
of the foreign relations of the island under French control,
which was effected by the treaty of the 17th of December
1885, after the Franco-Malagasy war that had broken out in
1883. In 1890 Great Britain and Germany recognized a French
protectorate over the island, but the Hova government declined
to acquiesce in this view, and in May 1895 France sent an
expedition to enforce her claims. The capital was occupied on
the 30th of September in the same year, and on the day following
Queen Ranavalona signed a convention recognizing the French
protectorate. In January 1896 the island was declared a
French possession, and on the 6th of August was declared to
be a French colony. In February 1897 the last vestige of
ancient rule was swept away by the deportation of the queen.
Thus in its broad outlines the partition of Africa was begun
and ended in the short space of a quarter of a century.
There are still many finishing touches to be put to the
structure. The southern frontiers of Morocco and Tripoli remain
undefined, while the mathematical lines by which the spheres
of influence of the powers were separated one from the other
are being variously modified on the do ut des principle as
they come to be surveyed and as the effective occupation of
the continent progresses. Much labour is necessary before the
actual area of Africa and its subdivisions can be accurately
determined, but in the following table the figures are at least
approximately correct. Large areas of the spheres assigned
to different European powers have still to be brought under
European control; but this work is advancing by rapid strides.
BRITISH-- Sq. m.
Cape Colony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276,995
Natal and Zululand . . . . . . . . . . . 35,371
Basutoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,293
Bechuanaland Protectorate . . . . . . . 225,000
Transvaal and Swaziland . . . . . . . . 117,732
Orange River Colony . . . . . . . . . . 50,392
Rhodesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450,000
Nyasaland Protectorate . . . . . . . . . 43,608
British East Africa Protectorate . . . . 240,000
Uganda Protectorate . . . . . . . . . . 125,000
Zanzibar Protectorate . . . . . . . . . 1,020
Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68,000
Northern Nigeria . . . . . . . . . . . 258,000
Southern Nigeria (colony and protectorate) 80,000
Gold Coast and hinterland . . . . . 82,000
Sierre Leone (colony and protectorate) . 34,000
Gambia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000
Total British Africa . . . . . . . 2,101,411
Egypt and Libyan Desert . . . . . . . . 650,000
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . . . . . . . . . . 950,000
1,600,000
FRENCH--
Algeria and Algerian Sahara . . . . . . 945,000
Tunisia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51,000
French West Africa--
Senegal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74,000
French Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . 107,000
Ivory Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129,000
Dahomey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40,000
Upper Senegal and Niger, and
Mauritania (including French West
African Sahara) . . . . 1,581,000 1,931,000
French Congo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700,000
French Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . 12,000
Madagascar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227,950
Total French Africa . . . . . . . 3,866,950
GERMAN--
East Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364,000
South.West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . 322,450
Cameroon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190,000
Togoland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33,700
Total German Africa . . . . . . . . 910,150
ITALIAN--
Eritrea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60,000
Somaliland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140,000
Total Italian Africa . . . . . . . . 200,000
PORTUGUESE--
Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,000
West Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480,000
East Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293,500
Total Portuguese Africa . . . . . . 787,500
SPANISH--
Rio de Oro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70,000
Muni River Settlements . . . . . . . . . . 9,800
Total Spanish Africa . . . . . . . . 79,800
BELGIAN--
Congo State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000
TURKISH--
Tripoli and Benghazi . . . . . . . . . . 400,000
SEPARATE STATES--
Liberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43,000
Morocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220,000
Abyssinia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350,000
Total Independent Africa . . . . . . 613,000
Thus, collecting the totals, the result of the ``scramble''
has been to divide Africa among the powers as follows:--
Sq. m.
British Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,101,411
Egyptian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,600,000
French Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,866,950
German Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 910,150
Italian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200,000
Portuguese Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . 787,500
Spanish Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79,800
Belgian Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900,000
Turkish Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400,000
Independent Africa . . . . . . . . . . . 613,000
11,458,811
(J. S. K.)
1 Commercial treaties between Carthage and Rome were
made in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.. The first
armed conflict between the rival powers, begun in 264
B.C., was a contest for the possession of Sicily.
2 This river was called by the Portuguese the Zaire.
They appear to have made no attempt to trace its course
beyond the rapids which stop navigation from the sea.
3 France acquired, as stations for her ships on the
voyage to and from India, settlements in Madagascar and the
neighbouring islands. The first settlement was made in 1642.
4 The Association, in 1831, was merged in the Royal Geographical Society.
5 The Mamelukes, whom the Turks had overthrown in the
16th century, had regained practically independent power.
6 In imitation of the British example, an American society
founded in 1822 the negro colony (now republic) of Liberia.
7 The first territorial acquisition made by Great Britain
in this region was in 1851, when Lagos Island was annexed.
8 As early as 1848 an Arab from Zanzibar journeying
across the continent had arrived at Benguella.
9 Another great traveller of this stamp was Wilhelm Junker, who spent
the greater part of the period 1875-1886 in the east central Sudan.
10 Specially appointed to consider West African affairs.
11 See the tables in Behm and Wagner's
Bevolkerung der Erde (Gotha, 1872).
12 in 1887 this society united with the German Colonial
Society, an organization founded in 1882. The united
society took the title of the German Colonial Company.
13 At this period negotiations between Great
Britain and Italy had begun but were not concluded.
14 This association, formed in 1878 by a union of associations
primarily intended for the exploration of Africa, ceased to exist in 1891.
VI. EXPLORATION AND SURVEY SINCE 1875
In giving the history of the partition of the continent,
the later work of exploration, except where, as in the
case of de Brazza's expeditions, it had direct political
consequences, has of necessity not been told. The results
achieved during and after the period of partition may now be
indicated. Stanley's great journey down the Congo in
1875-1876 initiated a new era in African exploration. The
numbers of travellers soon became so great that the once
marvellous feat of crossing the continent from sea to sea
became common. With increased knowledge and much ampler
means of communication trans-African travel now presents few
difficulties. While d'Anville and other cartographers of
the 18th century, by omitting all that was uncertain, had
left a great blank on the map, the work accomplished since
1875 has filled it with authentic topographical details.
Moreover surveys of high accuracy have been made at several
points. As the work of exploration and survey progressed
journeys of startling novelty became impossible--save in
the eastern Sahara, where the absence of water and boundless
wastes of sand render exploration more difficult, perhaps,
than in any other region of the globe. Within their
respective spheres of influence each power undertook detailed
surveys, and the most solid of the latest accessions to
knowledge have resulted from the labours of hard-working
colonial officials toiling individually in obscurity. Their
work it is impossible here to recognize adequately; the
following lines record only the more obvious achievements.
The relation of the Congo basin to the neighbouring river
systems was brought out by the journeys of many travellers.
In 1877 an important expedition was sent out by the Portuguese
government under Serpa Pinto, Brito Capello and Roberto
Work in the Congo.
Ivens for the exploration of the interior of Angola. The
first named made his way by the head-streams of the Kubango
to the upper Zambezi, which he descended to the Victoria
Falls, proceeding thence to Pretoria and Durban. Capello
and Ivens confined their attention to the south-west Congo
basin, where they disproved the existence of Lake Aquilunda,
which had figured on the maps of that region since the 16th
century. In a later journey (1884- 1885) Capello and Ivens
crossed the continent from Mossamedes to the mouth of the
Zambezi, adding considerably to the knowledge of the borderlands
between the upper Congo and the upper Zambezi. More important
results were obtained by the German travellers Paul Pogge and
Hermann von Wissmann, who (1880-1882) passed through previously
unknown regions beyond Muata Yanvo's kingdom, and reached the
upper Congo at Nyangwe, whence Wissmann made his way to the east
coast. In 1884-1885 a German expedition under Wissmann solved
the most important geographical problem relating to the southern
Congo basin by descending the Kasai, the largest southern
tributary, which, contrary to expectation, proved to unite
with the Kwango and other streams before joining the main
river. Further additions to the knowledge of the Congo
tributaries were made at the same time by the Rev. George
Grenfell, a Baptist missionary, who (accompanied in 1885 by K.
von Francois) made several voyages in the steamer ``Peace,''
especially up the great Ubangi, ultimately proved to be the
lower course of the Welle, discovered in 1870 by Schweinfurth.
In East as in West Africa operations were started by agents of
the Belgian committee, but with less success than on the Congo.
Opening up East Africa.
The first new journey of importance on this side was made
(1878-1880) on behalf of the British African Exploration
Committee by Joseph Thomson, who after the death of his
leader, Keith Johnston, made his way from the coast to the
north end of Nyasa, thence to Tanganyika, on both sides
of which he broke new ground, sighting the north end of
Lake Rukwa on the east. In 1882-1884 the French naval
lieutenant Victor Giraud proceeded by the north of Nyasa to
Lake Bangweulu, of which he made the first fairly correct
map. North of the Zanzibar-Tanganyika route a large area
of new ground was opened in 1883-1884 by Joseph Thomson,
who traversed the whole length of the Masai country to Lake
Baringo and Victoria Nyanza, shedding the first clear light
on the great East African rift-valley and neighbouring
highlands, including Mounts Kenya and Elgon. A great advance
in the region between Victoria Nyanza and Abyssinia was
made in 1887-1889 by the Austrians, Count Samuel Teleki and
Lieut. Ludwig von Hohnel, who discovered the large Basso
Norok, now known as Lake Rudolf, till then only vaguely
indicated on the map as Samburu. At this time Somaliland was
being opened up by English and Italian travellers. In 1883
the brothers F. L. and W. D. James penetrated from Berbera
to the Webi Shebeli; in 1892 Vittorio Bottego (afterwards
murdered in the Abyssinian highlands) started from Berbera
and reached the upper Juba, which he explored to its
source. The first person, however, to cross from the Gulf
of Aden to the Indian Ocean was an American, A. Donaldson
Smith, who in 1894-1895 explored the headstreams of the Webi
Shebeli and also explored the Omo, the feeder of Lake Rudolf.
In the region north-west of Victoria Nyanza the greatest
additions to geographical knowledge were made by H. M. Stanley
in his last expedition, undertaken for the relief of Emin
Pasha. The expedition set out in 1887 by way of the Congo to
carry supplies to the governor of the old Egyptian Equatorial
province. The route lay up the Aruwimi, the principal
tributary of the Congo from the north-east, by which the
expedition made its way, encountering immense difficulties,
through the great equatorial forest, the character and extent
of which were thus for the first time brought to light.
The return was made to the east coast, and resulted in the
discovery of the great snowy range of Ruwenzori or Runsoro,
and the confirmation of the existence of a third Nile lake
discharging its waters into the Albert Nyanza by the Semliki
river. A further discovery was that of a large bay, hitherto
unsuspected, forming the south-west corner of the Victoria Nyanza.
Great activity was also displayed in completing the work of
earlier explorers in North and West Africa. Morocco was in
Expeditions in North and West Africa.
1883-1884 the scene of important explorations by de Foucauld,
a Frenchman who, disguised as a Jew, crossed and re-crossed
the Atlas and supplied the first trustworthy information as
to the orography of many parts of the chain. In 1887-1889
Louis Gustave Binger, a French officer, made a great journey
through the countries enclosed in the Niger bend, and in
1890-1892 Col. P. F. Monteil went from St Louis to Say, on the
Niger, thence through Sokoto to Bornu and Lake Chad, whence
he crossed the Sahara to Tripoli. Meantime explorers had
been busy in the region between Lake Chad, the Gulf of Guinea
and the Congo. The Sanga, one of the principal northern
tributaries of the Congo, was reached from the north by
Lieut. Louis Mizon, a French naval officer, who drew the
first line of communication between the Benue and the Congo
(1890-1892). In 1890 Paul Crampel, who in the previous
year had explored north of the Ogowe, undertook a great
expedition from the Ubangi to the Shari, but was attacked and
killed, with several of his companions, on the borders of the
Bagirmi. Several other expeditions followed, and in 1806
Emile Gentil reached the Shari, launched a steamer on its
waters and pushed on to Lake Chad. Early in 1900 Lake
Chad was also reached by F. Foureau, a French traveller,
who had already devoted twelve years to the exploration of
the Sahara and who on this occasion had crossed the desert
from Algeria and had reached the lake via Air and Zinder.
The last ten years of the 19th century also witnessed many
interesting expeditions in east Central Africa. In 1891 Emin
Lakes and mountains of Equatorial Africa.
Pasha, accompanied by Dr F. Stuhlmann, made his way south
of Victoria Nyanza to the western Nile lakes, visiting for
the first time the southern and western shores of Albert
Edward. Stuhlmann also ascended the Ruwenzori range to a
height of over 13,000 ft. In the same year Dr O. Baumann,
who had already done good work in Usambara, near the coast,
started on a more extended journey through the region of steppes
between Kilimanjaro and Victoria Nyanza, afterwards exploring
the headstreams of the Kagera, the ultimate sources of the
Nile. In the steppe region referred to he discovered two new
lakes, Manyara and Eiassi, occupying parts of the East African
valley system. This region was again traversed in 1893-1894
by Count von Gotzen, who continued his route westwards to Lake
Kivu, north of Tanganyika, which, though heard of by Speke
over thirty years before, had never yet been visited. He also
reached for the first time the line of volcanic peaks north of
Kivu, one of which he ascended, afterwards crossing the great
equatorial forest by a new route to the Congo and the west
coast. Valuable scientific work was done in 1893 by Dr J.
W. Gregory, who ascended Mount Kenya to a height of 16,000
ft. In 1893-1894 Scott Elliot reached Ruwenzori by way of
Uganda, returning by Tanganyika and Nyasa, and in 1896 C. W.
Hobley made the circuit of the great mountain Elgon, north-east
of Victoria Nyanza. In 1899 Mount Kenya was ascended to its
summit by a party under H. J. Mackinder. The exploration
of Mount Kilimanjaro has been the special work of Dr Hans
Meyer, who first directed his attention to it in 1887.
The region south of Abyssinia proper and north of Lake Rudolf,
being largely the basin of the Sobat tributary of the Nile,
was traversed by several explorers, among whom may be mentioned
Capt. M. S. Wellby, who in 1898-1899 explored the chain of
small lakes in south-east Abyssinia, pushed on to Lake Rudolf,
and thence traversed hitherto unknown country to the lower
Sobat. Donaldson Smith crossed from Berbera to the Nile by
Lake Rudolf in 1899-1900, and Major H. H. Austin commanded
two survey parties between the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Lake
Rudolf during 1899-1901. Meantime in south Central Africa the
Barotse country had been partly made known by the missionary
F. Coillard, who settled there in 1884, while the middle and
upper Zambezi basin were scientifically explored and mapped
by Major A. St H. Gibbons and his assistants in 1895-1896 and
1898-1900. In the same period the Congo-Zambezi watershed
was traced by a Belgian officer, Capt. C. Lemaire, who
had ascended one of the upper tributaries of the Kasai.
In the early years of the 19th century the first recorded
crossing of Africa took place. That crossing and all subsequent
crossings had been made either from west to east or east to
west. The first journey through the whole length of the
continent was accomplished in the two last years of the
century when a young Englishman, E. S. Grogan, starting from
Cape Town reached the Mediterranean by way of the Zambezi,
the central line of lakes and the Nile. Other travellers
followed in Grogan's footsteps, among the first, Major Gibbons.
Additions to topographical knowledge were made from about
1890 onwards by the international commissions which traced
Work of international commissions and surveying parties.
the frontiers of the protectorates of the European powers.
On several occasions the labours of the commissions disclosed
errors of importance in the maps upon which international
agreements had been based. Among those which yielded
valuable results were the Anglo-French commission which in
1903 traced the Nigerian frontier from the Niger to Lake
Chad, and the Anglo-German commission which in 1903-1904 fixed
the Cameroon boundary between Yola, on the Benue, and Lake
Chad. These expeditions and French surveys in the same region
during 1902-1903 resulted in the discovery that Lake Chad
had greatly decreased in area since the middle of the 19th
century. In 1903 a French officer, Capt. E. Lenfant, succeeded
in establishing the fact of a connexion between the Niger and Chad
basins. Subsequently Lenfant explored the western basin of the
Shari, determining (1907) the true upper branch of that river.
In East Africa a German-Congolese commission surveyed (1901-1902)
Lake Kivu and the volcanic region north of the lake, R. Kandt
making a special study of Kivu and the Kagera sources, while
the Anglo-German boundary commission of 1902-1904 surveyed
the valley of the lower Kagera, and fixed the exact position
of Albert Edward Nyanza. Much new information concerning
the border-lands of British East Africa and Abyssinia between
Lake Rudolf and the lower Juba was obtained by the survey
executed in 1902-1903 by a British officer, Captain P. Maud.
While political requirements led to the exact determination
of frontiers, administrative needs forced the governments
concerned to take in hand the survey of the countries under their
protection. Before the close of the first decade of the 20th
century tolerably accurate maps had been made of the German
colonies, of a considerable part of West Africa, the Algerian
Sahara and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, mainly by military
officers. A British naval officer, Commander B. Whitehouse,
mapped the entire coastdine of Victoria Nyanza. Government
and railway surveys apart, the chief points of interest for
explorers during 1904-1906 were the Ruwenzori range and the
connexion of the basin of Lake Chad with the Niger and Congo
systems. Lieut. Boyd Alexander was the leader of a party which
during the years named surveyed Lake Chad and a considerable
part of eastern Nigeria, returning to England via the Shari,
the Ubangi and the Nile. Two members of the party, Capt.
Claud Alexander and Capt. G. B. Gosling, died during the
expedition. The Ruwenzori Mountains proved a great source of
attraction. Sir H. H. Johnston had in 1900 ascended beyond
the snow-line to 14,800 ft.; in 1903 Dr J. J. David had reached
from the west to a height he believed to exceed 16,000 ft.;
and in the same year Capt. T. T. Behrens, of the Anglo-German
Uganda boundary commission, fixed the highest summit at 16,619
ft. During 1904-1906 some half-dozen expeditions were at work
in the region. That of the duke of the Abruzzi was the most
successful. In the summer of 1906 the duke or members of his
party climbed all the highest peaks, none of which reaches 17,000
ft., and determined the main lines of the watershed. Major
Powell-Cotton, a British officer who had previously done good
work in Abyssinia and British East Africa, spent 1905-1906 in a
detailed examination of the Lado enclave and the country west of
Ruwenzori and Albert and Albert Edward lakes. This expedition
was specially fruitful in additions to zoological knowledge.
Archaeological research, stimulated by the reports of Thomas
Shaw, British consular chaplain at Algiers in 1719- 1731,
by James Bruce's exploration, 1765-1767, of the ruins in
Barbary, and by the French conquest of Egypt in 1798,
has been systematically carried out in North Africa since
the middle of the 19th century (see EGYPT and AFRICA,
ROMAN.) In South Africa the first thorough examination of
the ruins in Rhodesia was made in 1905, when Randall-MacIver
demonstrated that the great Zimbabwe and similar buildings
were of medieval or post-medieval origin. (F. R. C.)
VII. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
The eagerness with which the nations of western Europe
partitioned Africa between them was due, as has been seen,
more to the necessities of commerce than to mere land
hunger. Yet, except in the north and south temperate
regions, the commercial intercourse of the continent with
the rest of the world had been until the closing years of the
19th century of insignificant proportions. In addition to
slaves, furnished by the continent from the earliest times,
a certain amount of gold and ivory was exported from the
tropical regions, but no other product supplied the material
for a flourishing trade with those parts. To their Asiatic
and European invaders the Africans indeed owed many creature
comforts--the introduction of maize, rice, the sugar cane,
the orange, the lemon and the lime, cloves, tobacco and many
other vegetable products, the camel, the horse and other
animals--but invaluable to Africa as were these gifts they led
to little development of commerce. The continent continued
in virtual isolation from the great trade movements of the
Causes of isolation.
world, an isolation due not so much to its poverty in natural
resources, as to the special circumstances which likewise
caused so large a part of the continent to remain so long a
terra incognita. The principal drawbacks may be summarized
as: (1) the absence of means of communication with the
interior; (2) the unhealthiness of the coast-lands; (3) the
small productive activity of the natives; (4) the effects of
the slave trade in discouraging legitimate commerce. None
of these causes is necessarily permanent, that most difficult
to remove being the third; the negro races finding the means
of existence easy have little incentive to toil. The first
drawback has almost disappeared, and the building of railways
and the placing of steamers on the rivers and lakes--a work
continually progressing --renders it year by year easier for
producer and consumer to come together. As to the second
drawback, while the coast-lands in the tropics will always
remain comparatively unhealthy, improved sanitation and the
destruction of the malarial mosquito have rendered tolerable to
Europeans regions formerly notorious for their deadly climate.
At various periods since the partition of the continent began,
united action has been taken by the powers of Europe in the
interests of African trade. The Berlin conference of 1884-1885
decreed freedom of navigation and trade on the Congo and the
Niger, and the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 1891 secured like
privileges for the Zambezi. The Berlin conference likewise
enacted that over a wide area of Central Africa--the conventional
basin of the Congo--there should be complete freedom of trade,
a freedom which later on was held to be infringed in the Congo
State and French Congo by the granting to various companies
proprietary rights in the disposal of the product of the
soil. More important in their effect on the economic condition
of the continent than the steps taken to ensure freedom
of trade were the measures concerted by the powers for the
suppression of the slave trade. The British government had
for long borne the greater part of the burden of combating
the slave trade on the east coast of Africa and in the Indian
Ocean, but the changed conditions which resulted from the
appearance of other European powers in Africa induced Lord
Salisbury, then foreign secretary, to address, in the autumn of
1888, an invitation to the king of the Belgians to take the
initiative in inviting a conference of the powers at Brussels
to concert measures for ``the gradual suppression of the
Suppression of the slave trade.
slave trade on the continent of Africa, and the immediate
closing of all the external markets which it still supplies.''
The conference assembled in November 1889, and on the 2nd of
July 1890 a general act was signed subject to the ratification
of the various governments represented, ratification taking
place subsequently at different dates, and in the case of
France with certain reservations. The general act began with
a declaration of the means which the powers were of opinion
might be most effectually adopted for ``putting an end to the
crimes and devastations engendered by the traffic in African
slaves, protecting effectively the aboriginal populations of
Africa, and ensuring for that vast continent the benefits of
peace and civilization.'' It proceeded to lay down certain
rules and regulations of a practical character on the lines
suggested. The act covers a wide field, and includes no
fewer than a hundred separate articles. It established
a zone ``between the 20th parallel of north latitude, and
the 22nd parallel of south latitude, and extending westward
to the Atlantic and eastward to the Indian Ocean and its
dependencies, comprising the islands adjacent to the coast as
far as 100 nautical miles from the shore,'' within which the
importation of firearms and ammunition was forbidden except
in certain specified cases, and within which also the powers
undertook either to prohibit altogether the importation and
manufacture of spirituous liquors, or to impose duties not
below an agreed-on minimum.1 An elaborate series of rules
was framed for the prevention of the transit of slaves by
sea, the conditions on which European powers were to grant
to natives the right to fly the flag of the protecting power,
and regulating the procedure connected with the right of
search on vessels flying a foreign flag. The Brussels Act
was in effect a joint declaration by the signatory powers of
their joint and several responsibility towards the African
native, and notwithstanding the fact that many of its articles
have proved difficult, if not impossible, of enforcement,
the solemn engagement taken by Europe in the face of the
world has undoubtedly exercised a material influence on the
action of several of the powers. Moreover, with the increase
of means of communication and the extension of effective
European control, slave-raiding in the interior was largely
checked and inter-tribal wars prevented, the natives being
thus given security in the pursuit of trade and agriculture.
Other important factors in the economic as well as the social
conditions of Africa are the advance in civilization made
by the natives in several regions and the increase of the
areas found suitable for white colonization. The advance in
civilization among the natives, exemplified by the granting to
them of political rights in such countries as Algeria and Cape
Colony, leads directly to increased commercial activity; and
commerce increases in a much greater degree when new countries--
e.g. Rhodesia and British East Africa--become the homes of
Europeans. Finally, in reviewing the chief factors which govern
the commercial development of the continent, note must be taken
of the sparsity of the population over the greater part of
Africa, and the efforts made to supplement the insufficient and
often ineffective native labour by the introduction of Asiatic
labourers in various districts--of Indian coolies in Natal and
elsewhere, and of Chinese for the gold mines of the Transvaal.
The resources of Africa may be considered under the head
of: (1) jungle products; (2) cultivated products; (3) animal
Chief economic resources.
products; (4) minerals. Of the first named the most important
are india-rubber and palm-oil. which in tropical Africa supply by
far the largest items in the export list. The rubber-producing
plants are found throughout the whole tropical belt, and the
most important are creepers of the order Apocynaceae, especially
various species of Landolphia (with which genus Vahea is now
united). In East Africa Landolphia kirkii (Dyer) supplies
the largest amount, though various other species are known.
Forms of apparently wider distribution are L. hendelotii,
which is found in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, and extends right
across the continent to Senegambia; and L. (formerly Vahea)
comorensis, which, including its variety L. florida, has
the widest distribution of all the species, occurring in Upper
and Lower Guinea, the whole of Central Africa, the east coast,
the Comoro Islands and Madagascar. In parts of East Africa
Clitandra orienitalis is a valuable rubber vine. In Lagos
and elsewhere rubber is produced by the apocynaceous tree,
Funtumia elastica, and in West Africa generally by various
species of Ficus, some species of which are also found in East
Africa. The rubber produced is somewhat inferior to that of
South America, but this is largely due to careless methods of
preparation. The great destruction of vines brought about
by native methods of collection much reduced the supply in
some districts, and rendered it necessary to take steps to
preserve and cultivate the rubber-yielding plants. This
has been done in many districts with usually encouraging
results. Experiments have been made in the introduction of
South American rubber plants, but opinions differ as to the
prospects of success, as the plants in question seem to demand
very definite conditions of soil and climate. The second
product, palm-oil, is derived from a much more limited area
than rubber, for although the oil palm is found throughout the
greater part of West Africa, from 10 deg. N. to 10 deg. S., the great
bulk of the export comes from the coast districts at the head
of the Gulf of Guinea. A larger supply, equal to any market
demand, could easily be obtained. A third valuable product
is the timber supplied by the forest regions, principally in
West Africa. It includes African teak or oak (Oldfieldia
africana), excellent for shipbuilding; the durable odum
of the Gold Coast (Chlorophora excelsa); African mahogany
(Khaya senegalensis); ebony (Diospyros ebenum); camwood
(Baphia nitida); and many other ornamental and dye woods.
The timber industry on the west coast was long neglected, but
since 1898 there have been large exports to Europe. In parts
of East Africa the Podocarpus milanjianus, a conifer, is
economically important. Valuable timber grows too in South
Africa, including the yellow wood (Podocarpus), stinkwood
(Ocotea), sneezewood or Cape ebony (Euclea) and ironwood.
Other vegetable products of importance are: Gum arabic, obtained
from various species of acacia (especially A. senegal),
the chief supplies of which are obtained from Senegambia
and the steppe regions of North Africa (Kordofan, &c.); gum
copal, a valuable resin produced by trees of the leguminous
order, the best, known as Zanzibar or Mozambique copal, coming
from the East African Trachylobium hornemannianum, and also
found in a fossil state under the soil; kola nuts, produced
chiefly in the coast-lands of Upper Guinea by a tree of the
order Sterculiaceae (Kola acuminata); archil or orchilla,
a dye-yielding lichen (Rocella tinctoria and triciformis)
growing on trees and rocks in East Africa, the Congo basin,
&c.; cork, the bark of the cork oak, which flourishes
in Algeria; and alfa, a grass used in paper manufacture
(Machrochloa tenacissima), growing in great abundance on
the dry steppes of Algeria, Tripoli, &c. A product to which
attention has been paid in Angola is the Almeidina gum or
resin, derived from the juice of Euphorbia tirucalli.
The cultivated products include those of the tropical and warm
temperate zones. Of the former, coffee is perhaps the most
valuable indigenous plant. It grows wild in many parts, the
home of one species being in Kaffa and other Galla countries
south of Abyssinia, and of another in Liberia. The Abyssinian
coffee is equal to the best produced in any other part of the
world. Cultivation is, however, necessary to ensure the best
results, and attention has been given to this in various European
colonies. Plantations have been established in Angola,
Nyasaland, German East Africa, Cameroon, the Congo Free State, &c.
Copra, the produce of the cocoa-nut palm, is supplied
chiefly by Zanzibar and neighbouring parts of the east
coast. Groundnuts, produced by the leguminous plant, Arachis
hypogaea, are grown chiefly in West Africa, and the largest
export is from Senegal and the Gambia; while Bambarra
ground-nuts (Voandzeia subterranea) are very generally
cultivated from Guinea to Natal. Cloves are extensively
grown on Zanzibar and Pemba islands, Pemba being the chief
source of the world's supply of cloves. The chief drawbacks
to the industry are the fluctuations of the yield of the
trees, and the risk of over-production in good seasons.
Cotton grows wild in many parts of tropical Africa, and is
exported in small quantities in the raw state; but the main
export is from Egypt, which comes third among the world's
sources of supply of the article. It is also cultivated in
West Africa--the industry in the Guinea coast colonies having
been developed since the beginning of the 20th century--and
in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, whence came the plants from
which Egyptian cotton is grown. Sugar, which is the staple
crop of Mauritius, and in a lesser degree of Reunion, is
also produced in Natal, Egypt, and, to a certain extent, in
Mozambique. Dates are grown in Tunisia and the Saharan
oases, especially Tafilet; maize in Egypt, South Africa and
parts of the tropical zone; wheat in Egypt, Algeria and the
higher regions of Abyssinia; rice in Madagascar. Wine is
largely exported from Algeria, and in a much smaller quantity
from Cape Colony; fruit and vegetables from Algeria. Tobacco
is widely grown on a small scale, but, except perhaps from
Algeria, has not become an important article of export,
though plantations have been established in various tropical
colonies. The cultivation of cocoa has proved successful in
the Gold Coast, Cameroon and other colonies, and in various
districts the tea plant is cultivated. Indigo, though not
originally an African product, has become naturalized and grows
wild in many parts, while it is also cultivated on a small
scale. The main difficulty in the way of tropical cultivation
is the labour question, which has already been referred to.
Of animal products one of the most important is ivory, the
largest export of which is from the Congo Free State. The
diminution in the number of elephants with the opening up
of the remoter districts must in time cause a falling-off
in this export. Beeswax is obtained from various parts
of the interior of West Africa, and from Madagascar. Raw
hides are exported in large quantities from South Africa,
as are also the wool and hair of the merino sheep and Angora
goat. Both hides and wool are also exported from Algeria and
Morocco, and hides from Abyssinia and Somaliland. Ostrich
feathers are produced chiefly by the ostrich farms of Cape
Colony, but some are also obtained from the steppes to
the north of the Central Sudan. Live stock, principally
sheep, is exported from Algeria and cattle from Morocco.
The exploited minerals of Africa are confined to a few districts,
the resources of the continent in this respect being largely
Mineral Wealth.
undeveloped. Since the discovery of gold in the Transvaal,
particularly in the district known as the Rand (1885), the
output has grown enormously, so that in 1898 the output of gold
from South Africa was greater than from any other gold-field
in the world. The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 lost the Rand
the leading position, but by 1905 the output--in that year
over L. 20,800,000--was greater than it had ever been. The
supply of gold from South Africa is roughly 25% of the world's
output. The gold-yielding formations extend northwards through
Rhodesia. The Gold Coast is so named from the quantity
of gold obtained there, and since the close of the 19th
century the industry has developed largely in the hands of
Europeans. In the Galla countries gold has long been an
article of native commerce. It is also found in various parts
of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and along the western shore of the
Red Sea. Diamonds are found in large quantities in a series
of beds known as the Kimberley shales, the principal mines
being at Kimberley, Cape Colony. Diamonds are also found in
Orange River Colony, while one of the richest diamond mines
in the world--the Premier--is situated in the Transvaal near
Pretoria. Some 80% of the world's production of diamonds
comes from South Africa. Copper is found in the west of Cape
Colony, in German South-West Africa, and in the Katanga country
in the southern Congo basin, where vast beds of copper ore
exist. There are also extensive deposits of copper in the
Broken Hill district of Northern Rhodesia. It also occurs in
Morocco, Algeria, the Bahr-el-Ghazal, &c. Rich tin deposits
have been found in the southern Congo basin and in Northern
Rhodesia. Iron is found in Morocco, Algeria (whence there
is an export trade), and is widely diffused, and worked by
the natives, in the tropical zone. But the deposits are
generally not rich. Coal is worked, principally for home
consumption, in Cape Colony, Natal, the Transvaal, Orange
River Colony, and in Rhodesia in the neighbourhood of the
Zambezi. Coal deposits also exist in the German territory
north of Lake Nyasa. Phosphates are exported from Algeria and
Tunisia. Of other minerals which occur, but are little
worked, zinc, lead and antimony are found in Algeria, lead
and manganese in Cape Colony, plumbago in Sierra Leone.
The imports from foreign countries into Africa consist chiefly
of manufactured goods, varying in character according to the
development of the different countries in civilization. In
Egypt, Algeria and South Africa they include most of the
necessaries and luxuries of civilized life, manufactured
cotton and woollen goods, especially the former, taking the
first place, but various food stuffs, metal goods, coal and
miscellaneous articles being also included. In tropical
Africa, and generally where few Europeans have settled,
the great bulk of the imports consists as a rule of cotton
goods, articles for which there is a constant native demand.
No continent has in the past been so lacking in means of
communication as Africa, and it was only in the last decade
Development of means of communication.
of the 19th century that decided steps were taken to remedy these
defects. The African rivers, with the exception of the middle
Congo and its affluents, and the middle course of the three
other chief rivers, are generally unfavourable to navigation,
and throughout the tropical region almost the sole routes have
been native footpaths, admitting the passage of a single file
of porters, on whose heads all goods have been carried from
place to place. Certain of these native trade routes are,
however, much frequented, and lead for hundreds of miles from
the coast to the interior. In the desert regions of the north
transport is by caravans of camels, and in the south ox-wagons,
before the advent of railways, supplied the general means of
locomotion. The native trade routes led generally from the
centres of greatest population or production to the seaports
by the nearest route, but to this rule there was a striking
exception. The dense forests of Upper Guinea and the upper
Congo proved a barrier which kept the peoples of the Sudan
from direct access to the sea, and from Timbuktu to Darfur
the great trade routes were either west to east or south
to north across the Sahara. The principal caravan routes
across the desert lead from different points in Morocco and
Algeria to Timbuktu; from Tripoli to Timbuktu, Kano and other
great marts of the western and central Sudan; from Bengazi
to Wadai; and from Assiut on the Nile through the Great Oasis
and the Libyan desert to Darfur. South of the equator the
principal long-established routes are those from Loanda to the
Lunda and Baluba countries; from Benguella via Bihe to Urua
and the upper Zambezi; from Mossamedes across the Kunene to
the upper Zambezi; and from Bagamoyo, opposite Zanzibar, to
Tanganyika. Many of the native routes have been superseded
by the improved communications introduced by Europeans in the
utilization of waterways and the construction of roads and
railways. Steamers have been conveyed overland in sections and
launched on the interior waterways above the obstructions to
navigation. On the upper Nile and Albert Nyanza their
introduction was due to Sir S. Baker and General C. G. Gordon
(1871-1876); on the middle Congo and its affluents to Sir H.
M. Stanley and the officials of the Congo Free State, as well
as to the Baptist missionaries on the river; and on Lake Nyasa
to the supporters of the Scottish mission. A small vessel
was launched on Victoria Nyanza 1896 by a British mercantile
firm, and a British government steamer made its first trip
in November 1900. On the other great lakes and on most of
the navigable rivers steamers were plying regularly before
the close of the 19th century. However, the shallowness of
the water in the Niger and Zambezi renders their navigation
possible only to light-draught steamers. Roads suitable for
wheeled traffic are few. The first attempt at road-making
in Central Africa on a large scale was that of Sir T. Fowell
Buxton and Mr (afterwards Sir W.) Mackinnon, who completed
the first section of a track leading into the interior from
Dar-es-Salaam (1879). A still more important undertaking
was the ``Stevenson road,'' begun in 1881 from the head of
Lake Nyasa to the south end of Tanganyika, and constructed
mainly at the expense of Mr James Stevenson, a director of the
African Lakes Company--a company which helped materially in
the opening up of Nyasaland. The Stevenson road forms a link
in the ``Lakes route'' into the heart of the continent. In
British East Africa a road connecting Mombasa with Victoria
Nyanza was completed in 1897, but has since been in great
measure superseded by the railway. Good roads have also been
made in German East Africa and Cameroon and in Madagascar.
Railways, the chief means of affording easy access to the
interior of the continent, were for many years after their
first introduction to Africa almost entirely confined to
the extreme north and south (Egypt, Algeria, Cape Colony and
Natal). Apart from short lines in Senegal, Angola and at
Lourenco Marques, the rest of the continent was in 1890
without a railway system. In Egypt the Alexandria and
Cairo railway dates from 1855, while in 1877 the lines open
reached about 1100 miles, and in 1890, in addition to the
lines traversing the delta, the Nile had been ascended to
Assiut. In Algeria the construction of an inter-provincial
railway was decreed in 1857, but was still incomplete twenty
years later, when the total length of the lines open hardly
exceeded 300 miles. Before 1890 an extension to Tunis had
been opened, while the plateau had been crossed by the lines
to Ain Sefra in the west and Biskra in the east. In Senegal
the railway from Dakar to St Louis had been commenced and
completed during the 'eighties, while the first section of the
Senegal-Niger railway, that from Kayes to Bafulabe, was also
constructed during the same decade. In Cape Colony, where
in about 1880 the railways were limited to the neighbourhood
of Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London, the next
decade saw the completion of the trunk-line from Cape Town
to Kimberley, with a junction at De Aar with that from Port
Elizabeth. The northern frontier had, however, nowhere been
crossed. In Natal, also, the main line had not advanced beyond
Ladysmith. The settlement, c. 1890, of the main lines of
the partition of the continent was followed by many projects
for the opening up of the possessions and spheres of influence
of the various powers by the building of railways; several of
these schemes being carried through in a comparatively short
time. The building of railways was undertaken by the governments
concerned, nearly all the African lines being state-owned. In
the Congo Free State a railway, which took some ten years to
build, connecting the navigable waters of the lower and middle
Congo, was completed in 1898, while in 1906 the middle and
upper courses of the river were linked by the opening of a
line past Stanley Falls. Thus the vast basin of the Congo
was rendered easily accessible to commercial enterprise. In
North Africa the Algerian and Tunisian railways were largely
extended, and proposals were made for a great trunk-line
from Tangier to Alexandria. The railway from Ain Sefra was
continued southward towards Tuat, the project of a trans-Saharan
line having occupied the attention of French engineers since
1880. In French West Africa railway communication between
the upper Senegal and the upper Niger was completed in 1904;
from the Guinea coast at Konakry another line runs north-east
to the upper Niger, while from Dahomey a third line goes to
the Niger at Garu. In the British colonies on the same coast
the building of railways was begun in 1896. A line to Kumasi
was completed in 1903, and the line from Lagos to the lower
Niger had reached Illorin in 1908. Thence the railway was
continued to the Niger at Jebba. From Baro, a port on the
lower Niger which can be reached by steamers all the year
round, another railway, begun in 1907, goes via Bida, Zungeru
and Zaria to Kano, a total distance of 400 miles. A line from
Jebba to Zungeru affords connexion with the Lagos railway.
But the greatest development of the railway systems was in
the south and east of the continent. In British East Africa
a survey for a railway from Mombasa to Victoria Nyanza was
made in 1892. The first rails were laid in 1896 and the line
reached the lake in December 1901. Meanwhile, there had been
a great extension of railways in South Africa. Lines from
Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban and Delagoa
Bay all converged on the newly risen city of Johannesburg,
the centre of the Rand gold mines. A more ambitious project
was that identified with the name of Cecil Rhodes, namely,
the extension northward of the railway from Kimberley with
the object of effecting a continuous railway connexion from
Cape Town to Cairo. The line from Kimberley reached Bulawayo
in 1897. (Bulawayo is also reached from Beira on the east
coast by another line, completed in 1902, which goes through
Portuguese territory and Mashonaland.) The extension of the
line northward from Bulawayo was begun in 1899, the Zambezi
being bridged, immediately below the Victoria Falls, in
1905. From this point the railway goes north to the Katanga
district of the Congo State. In the north of the continent
a step towards the completion of the Cape to Cairo route was
taken in the opening in 1899 of the railway from Wadi Haifa to
Khartum. A line of greater economic importance than the last
named is the railway (completed in 1905) from Port Sudan on the
Red Sea to the Nile a little south of Berber, thus placing the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan within easy reach of the markets of the
world. A west to east connexion across the continent by rail
and steamer, from the mouth of the Congo to Port Sudan, was
arranged in 1906 when an agreement was entered into by the Congo
and Sudan governments for the building of a railway from Lado,
on the Nile, to the Congo frontier, there to meet a railway
starting from the river Congo near Stanley Falls. A railway of
considerable importance is that from Jibuti in the Gulf of Aden
to Harrar, giving access to the markets of southern Abyssinia.
Besides the railways mentioned there are several others of
less importance. Lines run from Loanda and other ports of
Angola towards the Congo State frontier, and from Tanga and
Dar-es-Salaam on the coast of German East Africa towards the
great lakes. In British Central Africa a railway connects
Lake Nyasa with the navigable waters of the Shire, and
various lines have been built by the French in Madagascar.
All the main railways in South Africa, the lines in British
West Africa, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and in Egypt
south of Luxor are of 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. The main lines
in Lower Egypt and in Algeria and Tunisia are of 4 ft.
8 1/2 in. gauge. Elsewhere as in French West and British
East Africa the lines are of metre (3.28 ft.) gauge.
The telegraphic system of Africa is on the whole older than
that of the railways, the newer European possessions having
in most cases been provided with telegraph lines before
railway projects had been set on foot. In Algeria, Egypt
and Cape Colony the systems date back to the middle of the
19th century, before the end of which the lines had in each
country reached some thousands of miles. In tropical Africa
the systems of French West Africa, where the line from Dakar
to St Louis was begun in 1862, were the first to be fully
developed, lines having been carried from different points
on the coast of Senegal and Guinea towards the Niger, the
main line being prolonged north-west to Timbuktu, and west
and south to the coast of Dahomey. The route for a telegraph
line to connect Timbuktu with Algeria was surveyed in
1905. The Congo region is furnished with several telegraphic
systems, the longest going from the mouth of the river to Lake
Tanganyika. From Ujiji on the east coast of that lake there
is telegraphic communication via Tabora with Dar-es-Salaam and
via Nyasa and Rhodesia with Cape Town. The last-named line is
the longest link in the trans-continental line first suggested
in 1876 by Sir (then Mr) Edwin Arnold and afterwards taken
up by Cecil Rhodes. The northern link from Egypt to Khartum
has been continued southward to Uganda, while another line
connects Uganda with Mombasa. At the principal seaports the
inland systems are connected with submarine cables which place
Africa in telegraphic communication with the rest of the world.
Numerous steamship lines run from Great Britain, Germany,
France and other countries to the African seaports,
the journey from any place in western Europe to any
port on the African coast occupying, by the shortest
route, not more than three weeks. (E. HE., F. R. C.)
1 Further conferences respecting the liquor traffic
in Africa were held in Brussels in 1899 and 1906. In
both instances conventions were signed by the powers,
raising the minimum duty on imported spirituous liquors.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Authoritative works dealing with Africa
as a whole in any of its aspects are comparatively
rare. Besides such volumes the following list includes
therefore books containing valuable information
concerning large or typical sections of the continent:--
sec. I. General Descriptions.--(a) Ancient and Medieval.
Herodotus, ed. G. Rawlinson, 4 vols.1 (1880); Ptolemy's
Geographia, ed. C. Muller, vol. i. (Paris, 1883-1901); Ibn
Haukal, ``Description de l'Afrique (transl. McG. de Slane),
Nouv. Journal asiatique, 1842; Edrisi, ``Geographie''
(transl. Jaubert), Rec. de voyages . . . Soc. de
Geogr. vol. v. (Paris, 1836); Abulfeda, Geographie
(transl. Reinaud and Guyard, Paris, 1848-1883); M. A. P.
d'Avezac, Description de l'Afrique ancienne (Paris, 1845);
L. de Marmol, Description general de Africa (Granada,
1573); L. Sanuto, Geografia dell' Africa (Venice, 1588); F.
Pigafetta, A Report of the Kingdom of Congo, &c. (1597);
Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa
(transl. J. Pory, ed. R. Brown), 3 vols. (1896); O. Dapper,
Naukeurige beschrijvinge der afrikaensche gewesten, &c.
(Amsterdam, 1668) (also English version by Ogilvy, 1670, and
French version, Amsterdam, 1686); B. Tellez, ``Travels of
the Jesuits in Ethiopia,'' A New Collection of Voyages,
vol. vii. (1710); G. A. Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, Istorica
Descrittione de tre Regni Congo, Matamba, et Angola (Milan,
1690) (account of the labours of the Capuchin missionaries
and their observations on the country and people); J. Barbot,
``Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea and of
Ethiopia Inferior,', Churchill's Voyages, vol. v. (1707); W.
Bosman, A New . . . Description of the Coasts of North and
South Guinea, &c., 2nd ed. (1721); J. B. Labat, Nouvelle
relation de l'Afrique occidentale, 5 vols. (Paris, 1728);
Idem, Relation historique de l'Ethiopie occidentale, 5
vols. (Paris, 1732). (b) Modern. B. d'Anville, Memoire
conc. les rivieres de l'interieur de l'Afrique (Paris,
n.d.); M. Vollkommer, Die Quellen B. d'Anville's fur seine
kritische Karte von Afrika Munich, 1904); C. Ritter, Die
Erdkunde, i. Theil, 1. Buch, ``Afrika'' (Berlin, 1822);
l. M`Queen, Geographical and Commercial View of Northern and
Central Africa (Edinburgh, 1821 ); Idem, Geographical Survey
of Africa ( 1840); W. D. Cooley, Inner Africa laid open
(1852); E. Reclus, Nouvelle geographie universelle, vols.
x.-xiii. (1885-1888); A. H. Keane, Africa (in Stanford's
Compendium), 2 vols., 2nd ed. (1904-1907); F. Hahn and W.
Sievers, Afrika, 2. Aufl. (Leipzig, 1901); M. Fallex and A.
Mairey, L'Afrique au debut du XXe siecle (Paris, 1906);
Sir C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies,
vols. iii. and iv. (Oxford, 1894, 1904); F. D. and A. J.
Herbertson, Descriptive Geographies from Original Sources:
Africa (1902); British Africa (The British Empire Series,
vol. ii., 1899); Journal of the African Society; Comite
de l'Afrique francaise, Bulletin, Paris; Mutteilungen der
afrikan. Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Berlin, 1879-1889);
Mitteilungen . . . aus den deutschen Schutzegebieten
(Berlin); H. Schirmer, Le Sahara (Paris, 1893); Mary H.
Kingsley, West African Studies, 2nd ed. (1901); J. Bryce,
Impressions of South Africa (1897); Sir Harry Johnston, The
Uganda Protectorate, 2 vols. (1902) (vol ii. is devoted to
anthropology); E. D. Morel, Affairs of West Africa (1902).
sec. II. Geography (Physical), Geology, Climate, Flora and
Fauna. -- (For Descriptive Geogr. see sec. I.)--G. Gurich,
``Uberblick uber den geolog. Bau des afr. Kontinents,''
Peterm. Mitt., 1887; A. Knox, Notes on the Geology of the
Continent of Africa (1906) (includes a bibliography); L. von
Hohnel, A. Rosiwal, F. Toula and E. Suess, B eitrage zur
geologischen Kenntniss des omstlichcn Afrika (Vienna, 1891);
E. Stromer, Die Geologie der deutschen Schutzgebieten
in Afrika (Munich, 1896); J. Chavanne, Afrika im Lichte
uniserer Tage: Bodengestalt, &c. (Vienna, 1881); F.
Heidrich, ``Die mittlere Hohe Afrikas,'' Peterm. Mitt.,
1888; J. W. Gregory, The Great Rift-Valley (1896); H. G.
Lyons, The Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin
(Cairo, 1906); S. Passarage, Die Kalahari: Versuch einer
physischgeogr. Darstellung . . . des sudafr. Beckens (Berlin,
1904); Idem, ``Inselberglandschaften im tropischen Afrika,''
Naturw. Wochenschrift, 1904. 654-665; J. E. S. Moore, The
Tanganyika, Problem (1903); W. H. Hudleston, ``On the Origin
of the Marine (Halolimnic) Fauna of Lake Tanganyika,'' Journ. of
Trans. Victoria Inst., 1904, 300-351 (discusses the whole
question of the geological history of equatorial Africa); E.
Stromer, ``Ist der Tanganyika ein Rellikten-See?'' Peterm.
Mitt., 1901, 275-278; E. Kohlschutter, ``Die . . . Arbeiten
der Pendelexpedition . . . in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika,'' Verh.
Deuts. Geographentages Breslau, 1901, 133-153; J. Cornet,
``La geologie du bassin du Congo,'' Bull. Soc. Beige
geol., 1898; E. G. Ravenstein, ``The Climatology of Africa''
(ten reports), Reports Brit. Association, 1892-1901; Idem,
``Climatological Observations . . . I. Tropical Africa''
(1904); H. G. Lyons, ``On the Relations between Variations of
Atmospheric Pressure . . . and the Nile Flood,'' Proc. Roy.
Soc., Ser. A, vol. lxxvi., 1905; P. Reichard, ``Zur Frage
der Austrocknung Afrikas,'' Geogr. Zeitschrift, 1895; J.
Hoffmann, ``Die tiefsten Temperaturen auf den Hochlandern,''
&c., Peterm. Mitt., 1905; G. Fraunberger, ``Studien uber die
jahrlichen Niederschlagsmengen des afrik. Kontinents,''
Peterm. Mitt., 1906; D. Oliver and Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer,
Flora of) Tropical Africa, 10 vols. (1888-1906); K.
Oschatz, Anordnung der Vegetation in Afrika (Erlangen,
1900); A. Engler, Hochgebirgs-flora des tropischen Afrika
(Berlin, 1892); Idem, Die Pflanzenwelt Ostaftikras und der
Nachbargebiete, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1895); Idem, Beitrage zur
Flora von Afrika (Engler's Botan. Jahrbucher, 14 vols.
&c.); W. P. Hiern, Catalogue of the African Plants Collected by
Dr Friedrich Welwitsch in 1853-1861, 2 vols. (1896-1901); R.
Schlechter, Westafrikanische Kautschuk-Expedition (Berlin,
1903); H. Baum, Kunene-Sambesi-Expedition (Berlin, 1903)
(largely concerned with botany); W. L. Sclater, ``Geography of
Mammals, No. iv. The Ethiopian Region,'' Geog. Journal,
March 1896; H. A. Bryden and others, Great and Small Game
of Africa (1899); F. C. Selous, African Nature Notes and
Reminiscences (1908); E. N. Buxton, Two African Trips:
with Notes and Suggestions on Big-Game Preservation in
Africa (1902) (contains photographs of living animals); G.
Schillings, With Flash-light and Rifle in Equatorial East
Africa (1906); Idem, In Wildest Africa (1907) (striking
collection of photographs of living wild animals); Exploration
scientifique de l'Algerie: Histoire naturelle, 14 vols.
and 4 atlases, Paris (1846-1850); Annales du Musee du
Congo: Botanique, Zoologie (Brussels, 1898, &c.). The
latest results of geographical research and a bibliography
of current literature are given in the Geographical
Journal, published monthly by the Royal Geographical Society.
sec. III. Ethnology.--H. Hartmann, Die Volker Afrikas
(Leipzig, 1879); B. Ankermann, ``Kulturkreise in Afrika,'' Zeit.
f. Eth. vol. xxxvii. p. 34; Idem, ``Uber den gegenwartigen
Stand der Ethnographie der Sudhalfte Afrikas,'' Arch.
f. Anth. n.f. iv. p. 24;G.Sergi, Antropologia della
stirpe camitica (Turin, 1897); J. Deniker, ``Distribution
geogr. et caracteres physiques des Pygmees africains,''
La Geographie, Paris, vol. viii. pp. 213-220; G. W.
Stow and G. M. Theal, The Native Races of South Africa
(1905); K. Barthel, Volkerbewegungen auf der Sudhalfte des
afrik. Kontinents (Leipzig, 1893); A. B. Ellis, The
Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast (1887); Idem, The
Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (1890); Idem, The
Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast (1894); H. Ling
Roth, Great Benin, its Customs, &c. (Halifax, 1903); H.
Frobenius, Die Heiden-Neger des agyptischen Sudan
(Berlin, 1893); Herbert Spencer and D. Duncan, Descriptive
Sociology, vol. iv. African Races (1875); A. de Preville,
Les Societes africaines (Paris, 1894); D. Macdonald,
Africana or, the Heart of Heathen Africa, 2 vols. (1882);
L. Frobenius, Der Ursprung der afrikanischen Kulturen
(Der Ursprung der Kultur, Band i.) (Berlin, 1898); Idem,
``Die Masken und Geheimbunde Afrikas,'' Abhandl. Kaiserl.
Leopoldin.-Carolin. Deuts. Akad. Naturforscher, 1899,
1-278; G. Schweinfurth, Artes africanae Illustrations and
Descriptions of . . . industrial Arts, &c. (in German and
English) (Leipzig, 1875); F. Ratzel, Die afsikanischen Bogen
. . . eine anthrop. geographische Studie (Leipzig, 1891); K.
Weule, . Der afrikanische Pfeil (Leipzig, 1899); H. Frobenius,
Afrikanische Bautypen (Dauchau bei Munchen, 1894); H.
Schurtz, Die afrikan. Gewerbe (Leipzig, 1900); E. W.
Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race (1887);
James Stewart, Dawn in the Dark Continent, or Africa and
its Missions (Edinburgh and London, 1903); W. H. J. Bleek,
Comparative Grammar of South African Languages, 2 parts
(1862-1869); Idem, Vocabularies of the Districts of Lourenzo
Marques, &c., &c. (1900); R. N. Cust, Sketch of the
Modern Languages of Africa, 2 vols. (1993): F. W. Kolbe, A
Language Study based on Bantu (1888); J. T. Last, Polyglotta
Africana orientalis (1885); J. Torrend, Comparative Grammar
of the South African Bantu Languages (1891); S. W. Koelle,
Polyglotta Africana (1854); C. Velten, Schilderungen
der Suaheli von Expeditionen v. Wissmanns, &c., &c. (1900)
(narratives taken down from the mouths of natives); A. Vierkandt,
Volksgedichte im westlichen Central-Afrika (Leipzig, 1895).
For latest information the following periodicals should be
consulted:-- Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland; Man (same publishers); Zeitschrift
f. Ethnologie; Archiv f. Anthropologie; L'Anthropologie.
sec. IV. Archaeology and Art.-- Publications of the Egyptian
Exploration Fund; A. Mariette-Bey, The Monuments of Upper
Egypt (1890); H. Brugsch, Die Agyptologie (Leipzig, 1891);
G. Maspero, L' Archeologie egyptienne (Paris, 1890?);
R. Lepsius, Denkmaler aus Agypten und Athiopien . .
., 6 vols. (Berlin, 1849-1859); G. A. Hoskins, Travels in
Ethiopia . . . illustrating the Antiquities of the Ancient
Kingdom of Meroe (1835); Records of the Past: being English
Translations of . . . Egyptian Monuments, vols. 2, 4, 6, 8,
10, 12 (1873-1881); Ditto, new series, 6 vols. (1890-1892);
D. Randall-MacIver and A. Wilkin, Libyan Notes (1901)
(archaeology and ethnology of North Africa); G. Boissier,
L'Afrique romaine Promenades archeologiques en Algerie
et en Tunisie, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1901); H. Randall-MacIver,
Mediaeval Rhodesia (1906); Prisse d'Avennes, Histoire de
l'art egyptien d'apres les monuments, &c. with atlas (Paris,
1879; G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient
Egypt, 2 vols. (1993); H. Wallis, Egyptian Ceramic Art
(1900); C. H. Read and O. M. Dalton, Antiquities from the
City of Benin and from other parts of West Africa (1899).
sec. V. Travel and Exploration.--Dean W. Vincent, The Commerce
and Navigation of the Ancients, vol. 2, The Periplus ofthe
Erythraean Sea (1807); G. E. de Azurara, Chronicle of the
Discovery and Conquest of Guinea (Eng. trans., 2 vols.,
1896, 1899); R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry the Navigator
(1868); E. G. Ravenstein, ``The Voyages of Diogo Cao and
Barth. Diaz,'' Geogr. Journ., Dec. 1900; O. Hartig,
``Altere Entdeckungsgeschichte und Kartographie Afrikas,''
Mitt. Geogr. Gesells. Wien, 1905; J. Leyden and H.
Murray, Historical Account of Discoveries, &c., 2 vols.,
2nd ed. (1818); T. E. Bowditch, Account of the Discoveries
of the Portuguese in the Interior of Angola and Mozambique
(1824); P. Paulitschke, Die geogr. Forschung des afrikan.
Continents (Vienna, 1880); A. Supan, ``Ein Jahrhundert der
Afrika-Forschung,'' Peterm. Mitt., 1888; R. Brown, The
Story of Africa and its Explorers, 4 vols. (1892-1895);
Sir Harry Johnston, The Nile Quest (1903); James Bruce,
Travels to discover the Source of the Nile in 1768-1773, 5
vols., Edinburgh (1790); Proceedings of the Association
for . . . Discovery of!the Interior Parts of Africa,
1790-1810; Mungo Park, Travels into the Interior Districts
of Africa (1799); Idem, Journal of a Mission, &c. (1815);
Capt. J. K. Tuckey, Narrative of an Expedition to explore
the River Zaire or Congo in 1816 (1818): D. Denham and H.
Clapperton, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in N. and
Cent. Africa (1826); R. Caillie, Journal d'un voyage
a Temboctu et a Jenne, 3 vols., Paris (1830); D. Livingstone,
Missionary Travels . . . in South Africa (1857); The Last
Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, ed. H.
Waller (1874); H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North
and Central Africa, 5 vols. (1857); J. L. Krapf, Travels,
Researches, &c., in Eastern Africa (1860); Sir R. F. Burton,
The Lake Regions of Central Africa, 2 vols. (1860); J. H.
Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
(1863).: Sir S. W. Baker, The Albert Nyanza, 2 vols. (1866);
G. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, 2 vols. (1873); V. L.
Cameron, Across Africa, 2 vols. (1877); T. Baines, The
Gold Regions of South-Eastern Africa (1877); Sir H. M.
Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, 2 vols. (1878);
Idem, In Darkest Africa, 2 vols. (1890); G. Nachtigal,
Sahara und Sudan, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1879-1889); P. S. de
Brazza, Les Voyages de . . . (1875-1882), Paris, 1884;
i. Thomson, Through Masai Land (1885); H. von Wissmann,
Unter Deutscher Flagge quer durch Afrika, &c. (Berlin,
1889); Idem, My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa
(1891); W. Junker, Travels in Africa 1875-1886, 3 vols.
(1890-1892); L. G. Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de Guinee, &c.
(Paris, 1892); O. Baumann, Durch Masailand zur Nilquelle
(Berlin, 1894); R. Kandt, Caput Nili (Berlin, 1904); C. A. von
Gotzen, Durch Afrika von Ost nach West (Berlin, 1896); L.
Vanutelli and C. Citerni, Seconda spedizione Bottego: L'Omo
(Milan, 1899); P. Foureau, D'Alger au Congo par le Tchad
(Paris, 1902); C. Lemaire, Mission scientifique du Ka-Tanga:
Journal de route, 1 vol., Resultats des observations,
16 parts (Brussels, 1902); A. St. H. Gibbons, Africa from
South to North through Marotseland, 2 vols. (1904); E.
Lenfant, La Grande Route du Tchad (Paris, 1905); Boyd
Alexander, From the Niger to the Nile, 2 vols. (1907).
sec. VI. Historical and Political.--H.Schurtz, Africa
(World's History, vol. 3, part 3) (1903); Sir H. H. Johnston,
History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races
(Cambridge, 1899) (reprint with additional chapter ``Latest
Developments,'' 1905); A. H. L. Heeren, Reflections on the
Politics, Intercourse and Trade of the Ancient Nations of
Africa, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1832); G. Rawlinson, History of
Ancient Egypt (1881); A. Graham, Roman Africa (1902); J. de
Barros, Asia: Ira Decada, Lisbon (1552 and 1777-1778); J.
Strandes, Die Portugiesenzeit von . . . Ostafrika (Berlin,
1899); R. Schuck, Brandenburg- Preussens Kolonial-Politik
. . . 1641-1721, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1889): G. M`Call Theal,
History and Ethnography of Africa south of the Zambesi
. . . to 1795, 3 vols. (1907-1910), and History of South
Africa since September 1795 (to 1872) 5 vols. (1908); Idem,
Records of South-Eastern Africa, 9 vols., 1898-1903; Lady
Lugard, A Tropical Dependency: Outline of the History of
the Western Sudan, &c.; (1905); Sir F. Hertslet, The Map
of Africa by Treaty, 3 vols. (3rd ed., 1909); J . S. Keltie,
The Partition of Africa, 2nd ed. (1895); F. Van Ortroy,
Conventions internationales definissant les limites . . .
en Afrique (Brussels, 1898); General Act of the Conference
of Berlin, 1885: The Surveys and Explorations of British
Africa (Colonial Reports, No. 500) (1906), and annual reports
thereafter; Sir F. D. Lugard, The Rise or our East African
Empire, 2 vols. (1893); E. Petit, Les colonies francaises,
2 vols. (Paris, 1902-1904); E. Rouard de Card, Les Traites
de protectorat conclus par la France en Afrique, 1870-1895
(Paris, 1897); A. J. de Araujo, Colonies portuguaises d'Afrique
Lisbon, 1900); B.Trognitz, ``Neue Arealbestimmung des Continents
Afrika,'' Petermanns Mitt., 1893, 220-221; A. Supan, ``Die
Bevolkerung der Erde,'' xii., Peterm. Mitt. Erganzungsh.
146 (Gotha, 1904) (deals with areas as well as population).
sec. VII. Commerce and Economics.--A. Silva White, The
Development of Africa, 2nd ed. (1892): K. Dove, ``Grundzuge
einer Wirtschaftsgeographie Afrikas,'' Geographische
Zeitschrift, 1905, i-18; E. Hahn, ``Die Stellung Afrikas in
der Geschichte des Welthandels,'' Verhandl. 11. Deutsch.
Geographentags zu Bremen (Berlin, 1896); L. de Launay,
Les Richesses minerales de l'Afrique (Paris, 1903); K.
Futterer, Afrika in seiner Bedeutung fur die Goldproduktion
(Berlin, 1894); P. Reichard, ``Das afrikan. Elfenbein und
sein Handel,'' Deutsche geogr. Blatter (Bremen, 1889); Sir
A. Moloney, Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa (1887);
Dewevre, ``Les Caoutchoucs africains,'' Ann. Soc. Sci.
Bruxelles, 1895; Sir T. F. Buxton, The African Slave Trade
and its Remedy (1840); C. M. A. Lavigerie, L'Esclavage
africain (Paris, 1888); E. de Renty, Les chemins de fer
coloniaux en Afrique, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903-1905); H. Meyer,
Die Eisenbahnen im tropischen Afrika (Leipzig, 1902); G.
Grenfell, ``The Upper Congo as a Waterway,'' Geogr. Journ.,
Nov. 1902; A. St. H. Gibbons, ``The Nile and Zambezi Systems
as Waterways,'' Journ. R. Colon. Inst., 1901; K. Lent,
``Verkehrsmittel in Ostafrika,'' Deutsches Kolonialblatt,
1894; ``Trade of the United Kingdom with the African Continent
in 1898-1902,'' Board of T. Journ., 1903; Diplomatic and
Consular Peports, Annual Series; Colonial Reports; T. H.
Parke, Guide to Health in Africa (1893); R. W. Felkin,
Geographical Distribution of Tropical Diseases in Africa (1895)
The following bibliographies may also be consulted: J. Gay,
Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs a l'Afrique, &c. (San Remo,
1875); P. Paulitschke, Die Afrika-Literatur von 1500 bis 1750
(Vienne, 1882); Catalogue of the Colonial Office Library, vol.
3, Africa (specially for government publications). (E. HE.)
1 Where no place of publication is given, London is to be understood.
AFRICA, ROMAN. The Romans gave the name of Africa to
that part of the world which the Greeks called Libya
(Aibbe.) It comprised the whole of the portion of the
African continent known to the ancients, except Egypt and
Ethiopia. But besides this general sense, which occurs in
Pliny (iii. 3), Pomponius Mela (i. 8) and other authors, the
official and administrative language used the word Africa
in a narrower sense, which is noticed below. The term was
certainly borrowed by the Romans from the language of the
natives. In Latin literature it was employed for the
first time by the poet Ennius, who wrote in the interval
between the First and Second Punic Wars (Ann. vi.; Sat.
iii.). By him the term was confined to the territory of
Carthage and the regions composing the eastern group of the
Atlas. Among the numerous conjectures which have been made
as to the etymology of the term Africa ('Afrike) may be
quoted that which derives it from the Semitic radical resh
daleth pe (``separate''), Africa being considered, in this
connexion, as a Phoenician settlement ``separated'' from the
mother country, Asiatic Phoenicia. It has also been held that
the word Africa comes from friqi, farikia (the country of
fruit). The best hypothesis in the writer's opinion is that
maintained by Charles Tissot, who sees in the word ``Africa''
the name of the great Berber tribe, the Aourigha (whose name
would have been pronounced Afarika), the modern Aouraghen,
now driven back into the Sahara, but in ancient times the
principal indigenous element of the African empire of Carthage
(Tissot, Geogr. comp. i. 389). Thus Africa was originally,
in the eyes of the Romans and Carthaginians alike, the country
inhabited by the great tribe of Berbers or Numidians called
Afarik. Cyrenaica, on the east, attached to Egypt, was then
excluded from it, and, similarly, Mauretania, on the west.
At the time of the Third Punic War the Africa of the Carthaginians
was but a fragment of their ancient native empire. It comprised
the territory bounded by a vague line running from the mouth
of the Tusca (Wad el Kebir), opposite the island of Tabraca
(Tabarca), as far as the town of Thenae (Tina), at the mouth
of the Gulf of Gabes. The rest of Africa had passed into the
hands of the kings of Numidia, who were allies of the Romans.
After the capture of Carthage by Scipio (146 B.C.) this
territory was erected into a Roman province, and a trench,
the fossa regia, was dug to mark the boundary of the
Roman province of Africa and the dominions of the Numidian
princes. There have been discovered (1907) the remains of
this ditch protected by a low wall or a stone dyke; some of
the boundary stones which marked its course, and inscriptions
mentioning it, have also been found. From Testur on the
Mejerda the fossa regia can be followed by these indications
for several miles along the Jebel esh-Sheid. The ditch ran
northward to Tabarca and southward to Tina. The importance
of the discoveries lies in the fact that the ditch which
in later times divided the provinces of Africa vetus and
Africa nova was at the time of the Third Punic War the
boundary of Carthaginian territory (R. Cagnat, ``Le fosse
des frontieres romaines'' in Melanges Boissier, 1905, p.
227; L. Poinssot in Comptes rendus de l'Acad. des Inscript.
et Belles Lettres, 1907, p. 466; Classical Review, 1907,
December, p. 255). The government of the Roman province thus
delimited was entrusted to a praetor or propraetor, of
whom several are now known, e.g. P. Sextilius, propraetor
Africae, according to coins of Hadrumetum of the year 94
B.C. The towns which had fought on the side of the Romans
during the Third Punic War were declared civitates liberae,
and became exceedingly prosperous. They were Utica (Bu
Shatir), Hadrumetum (Susa), Thapsus (Dimas), Leptis Minor
(Lemta), Achulla (Badria), Uzalis (about 11 m. from Utica)
and Theudalis. Those towns, however, which had remained
faithful to Carthage were destroyed, like Carthage itself.
After the Jugurthine war in 106, the whole of the regio
Tripolitana, comprising Leptis Magna (Lebda), Oea (Tripoli),
Sabrata, and the other towns on the littoral of the two Syrtes,
appears to have been annexed to the Roman province in a more
or less regular manner (Tissot ii. 21). The battle of Thapsus
in 46 made the Romans definitely masters of Numidia, and the
spheres of administration were clearly marked out. Numidia was
converted into a new province called ``Africa Nova,'' and of
this province the historian Sallust was appointed proconsul and
invested with the imperium. From that time the old province
of Africa was known as ``Africa Vetus'' or ``Africa Propria.''
This state of affairs, however, lasted but a short time. In
31 B.C. Octavius gave up Numidia, or Africa Nova, to King
Juba II. Five years later Augustus gave Mauretania and some
Gaetulian districts to Juba, and received in exchange Numidia,
which thus reverted to direct Roman control. Numidia, however,
no longer formed a distinct government, but was attached to the
old province of Africa. From 25 B.C. the Roman province of
Africa comprised the whole of the region between the mouth of
the Ampsaga (Wad Rummel, Wad el Kebir) on the west, and the two
tumuli called the altars of the Philaeni, the immutable boundary
between Tripolitana and Cyrenaica, on the east (Tissot ii.
261). In the partition of the government of the provinces of
the Roman empire between the senate and the emperor, Africa
fell to the senate, and was henceforth administered by a
proconsul. Subordinate to him were the legati pro consule,
who were placed at the head of districts called dioceses.
At first there were only three dioceses: Carthaginiensis,
Hipponiensis (headquarters Hippo Diarrhytus, now Bizerta),
and Numidica (headquarters Cirta, now Constantine). At
a later date the diocesis Hadrumetina was formed, and
perhaps at some date unknown the diocesis Tripolitana.
The province of Africa was the only senatorial province
whose governor had originally been invested with military
powers. The proconsul of Africa, in fact, had command of
the legio III. Augusta and the auxiliary corps. But in
A.D. 37 Caligula deprived the proconsul of his military
powers and gave them to the imperial legate (legatus Augusti
pro praetore provinciae Africae), who was nominated directly
by the emperor, and whose special duty it was to guard the
frontier zone (Tacitus, Mist. iv. 48; Dio Cass. lix. 20). The
headquarters of the imperial legate were originally at Cirta
and afterwards at Lambaesa (Lambessa). The military posts were
drawn up in echelon along the frontier of the desert, especially
along the southern slopes of the Aures, as far as Ad Majores
(Besseriani), and on the Tripolitan frontier as far as Cydamus
(Ghadames), forming an immense arc extending from Cyrenaica to
Mauretania. A network of military routes, constructed and
kept in repair by the soldiers, led from Lambaesa in all
directions, and stretched along the frontier as far as
Leptis Magna, passing Theveste (Tebessa), Thenae and Tacape
(Gabes). The powers of the proconsul, however, extended
scarcely beyond the ancient Africa Vetus and the towns on the
littoral. Towards 194 Septimius Severus completed the reform
of Caligula by detaching from the province of Africa the greater
part of Numidia to constitute a special province governed by a
procurator, subordinate to the imperial legate and resident
at Cirta (Tissot ii. 34). This province was called Numidia
Cirtensis, as opposed to Numidia Inferior or proconsular Numidia.
In Diocletian's great reform of the administrative system of
the empire, the whole of Roman Africa, with the exception of
Mauretania Tingitana (which was attached to the province of
Spain), constituted a single diocese subdivided into six
provinces: Zeugitana (Carthage), Byzacium (Hadrumetum, now
Susa), Numidia Cirtensis (Cirta, Constantine), Tripolitana
(Tripolis), Mauretania Sitifensis (Sitifis, Setif), and
Mauretania Caesariensis (Caesarea, now Cherchel). These
provinces were administered, according to circumstances, by
a praeses of senatorial rank, a legatus pro praetore, or
a vir clarissimus consularis. Some changes were eventually
necessitated by the wars with the Moors and the Vandals.
By a treaty concluded in 476, the emperor Zeno recognized
Genseric as master of all Africa. Reconquered by Belisarius in
534, Africa formed, under the name of praefectura Africae,
one of the great administrative districts of the Byzantine
empire. It was subdivided into six provinces, which were
placed under the authority of the praetorian prefect of
Africa. These provinces were Zeugitana (the former
Proconsularis), Carthage, Byzacium, Tripolitana, Numidia and
Mauretania. The civil government was carried on by consulares
or praesides, while the military government was in the
hands of four duces militum, who made strenuous efforts to
drive out the barbarians. The country was studded thickly
with burgi (small forts) and clausurae (long walls), the
ruins of which still subsist. In 647 the Arabs penetrated
into Ifrikia, which was destined to fall for ever out
of the grasp of the Romans. In 697 Carthage was taken.
The bulk of the population of Roman Africa was invariably
composed of three chief elements: the indigenous Berber tribes,
the ancient Carthaginians of Phoenician origin and the Roman
colonists. The Berber tribes, whose racial unity is attested by
their common spoken language and by the comparatively numerous
Berber inscriptions that have come down to us, bore in ancient
times the generic names of Numidians, Gaetulians and Moors or
Maurusiani. Herodotus mentions a great number of these
tribes. During the Roman period, according to Pliny, there
were settlements of 26 indigenous tribes extending from the
Ampsaga as far as Cyrenaica. The much more detailed list of
Ptolemy enumerates 39 indigenous tribes in the province of
Africa and 25 in Mauretania Caesariensis. Ammianus Marcellinus,
Procopius and Flavius Cresconius Corippus give still further
names. Besides the Afri (Aourigha) of the territory of
Carthage, the principal tribes that took part in the wars
against the Romans were the Lotophagi, the Garamantes, the
Maces, the Nasamones in the regions of the S.E., the Misulani
or Musulamii (whence the name Mussulman), the Massyli
and the Massaesyli in the E., who were neighbours of the
Moors. The non-nomads of these Libyan tribes dwelt in huts
made of stakes supporting plaited mats of rush or asphodel.
These dwellings, which were called mapalia, are the modern
gourbis. African epigraphy has revealed the names of some
of their deities: deus invictus Aulisva; the god Motmanius,
associated with Mercury; the god Lilleus; Baldir Augustus;
Kautus pater; the goddess Gilva, identified with Tellus, and
Ifru Augustus (Tissot i. 486). The Johannis of Corippus
mentions three native divinities: Sinifere, Mastiman and
Gurzil. There were also local divinities in all the principal
districts. The rock bas-reliefs and other monuments showing
native divinities are rare, and give only very summary
representations. Dolmens, however, occur in great numbers
in Tunisia and the province of Constantine. Tumuli, too,
are found throughout northern Africa, the most celebrated
being that near Cherchel, the Kubr-er-Rumia (``tomb of
the Christian lady''), which was regarded by Pomponius
Mela as the royal burying-place of the kings of Numidia.
During the Roman period the ancient Carthaginians of Phoenician
origin and the bastard population termed by ancient authors
Libyo-Phoenicians, like the modern Maltese, invariably formed
the predominant population of the towns on the littoral,
and retained the Punic language until the 6th century of the
Christian era. The municipal magistrates took the title of
suffetes in place of that of duumvirs, and in certain
towns the Christian bishops were obliged to know the lingua
Punica, since it was the only language that the people
understood. Nevertheless, the Roman functionaries, the
army and the colonists from Italy soon brought the Latin
element into Africa, where it flourished with such vigour
that, in the 3rd century, Carthage became the centre of a
Romano-African civilization of extraordinary literary brilliancy,
which numbered among its leaders such men as Apuleius,
Tertullian, Arnobius, Cyprian, Augustine and many others.
Carthage regained its rank of capital of Africa under
Augustus, when thousands of Roman colonists flocked to the
town. Utica became a Roman colony under Hadrian, and the
civitates liberae, municipia, castella, pagi and turres
were peopled with Latins. The towns of the ancient province
of Africa which received coloniae were very numerous:
Abitensis (civitas Avittensis Bibba), Bisica Lucana
(Tastour), Byzacium, Capsa (Gafsa), Carthage, Cuina, Curubis
(Kurba), Hadrumetum (Susa), Hippo Diarrhytus or Zarytus
(Bizerta), Leptis Magna (Lebda), Maxula (Ghades, Rades or
Gades), Neapolis (Nabel, Nebeul), Oea (Tripoli), Sabrata
(Zoara), colonia Scillitana (Ghasrin), Sufes (Sbiba), Tacape
(Gabes), Thaenae or Thenae (Tina), Thelepte (Medinet Kedima),
Thugga (Dugga), Thuburbo maius (Kasbat), Thysdrus (El Jem),
Uthina (Wadna) and Vallis (Median). Of the municipia may
be mentioned Gigthis or Gigthi (Bu Grara), Thibussicensium
Bure (Tebursuk), Zita and the turris Tamalleni (Telmin).
The province of Numidia was at first colonized principally by
the military settlements of the Romans. Cirta (Constantine)
and Bulla Regia(Hammam Darraj), its chief towns, received
coloniae of soldiers and veterans, as well as Theveste
(Tebessa) and Thamugas (Timgad). The fine ruins which have
been discovered at the last-mentioned place have earned
for it the surname of the African Pompeii (see below).
Archaeology.--Roman Africa has been the subject of innumerable
historical and archaeological researches, especially since
the conquest of Algeria and Tunisia by the French. The
country is covered with Roman and Byzantine remains. Each
of these ruins has been visited by archaeologists who have
copied inscriptions, described the temples, triumphal arches,
porticos, mausoleums and the other monuments which are still
standing, collected statues or other antiquities; and in many
cases they have actually excavated. The results of all these
labours have been published, from about 1850 onwards, annually,
and, indeed, almost from day to day, in various scientific
periodicals. Among the principal of these are:--Memoires
de la Societe archeologique de Constantine, Bulletin
de la Societe geographique et archeologique d'Oran,
Revue africaine of Algiers, to which we should add the
Revue archeologique of Paris, the Archives des missions
scientifiques and the Bulletin archeologique du Comite
des travaux historiques and the Melanges of the French
School at Rome. In all the towns of Algeria and Tunisia
museums have been founded for storing the antiquities of
the region; the most important of these are the museums of
St Louis, Carthage and the palace of Bardo (musee Alaoui)
near Tunis, those of Susa, Constantine, Lambessa, Timgad,
Tebessa, Philippeville, Cherchel and Oran. Under the title
of Musees et collections archeologiques de l'Algerie
et de la Tunisie, the Ministry of Public Instruction
publishes from time to time illustrated descriptions of all
these archaeological treasures. In this collection have
already appeared descriptions of the museums of Algiers by
G. Doublet; of Constantine by G. Doublet and P. Gauckler;
of Oran by R. de La Blanchere; of Cherchel by P. Gauckler;
of Lambessa by R. Cagnat; of Philippeville by S. Gsell and
Bertrand; of the Bardo by R. de La Blanchere and P. Gauckler;
of Carthage by R. P. Delattre; of Tebessa by S. Gsell; of
Susa by P. Gauckler; of Timgad by R. Cagnat and A. Ballu.
The archaeological exploration of Algeria has kept pace with
the expansion of French dominion. From 1846 to 1854 Delamarre
published his Exploration archeologique de l'Algerie, in
collaboration with the French officers. In 1850 Leon Renier
was officially instructed to collect all the inscriptions in
Algeria which should be found by the military expeditionary
columns. This scholar examined first the ruins of Lambessa,
an account of which he published in 1854 in his Melanges
d'epigraphie; subsequently he made his important collection
of Inscriptions romaines de l'Algerie (1855-1858)
which formed the groundwork of the volume of the Corpus
Inscr. Lat. of the Academy of Berlin, devoted to Roman
Africa. A little later General Faidherbe published his
Collection complete des inscriptions numidiques
(1870). Apart from the province of Constantine, Algeria
is less rich in Roman remains than Tunisia; mention must,
however, be made of the excavations of Victor Waille at
Cherchel, where were found fine statues in the Greek style
of the time of King Juba II.; of P. Gavault at Tigzirt
(Rusuccuru), and finally of those of Stephane Gsell at Tipasa
(basilica of St Salsa) and throughout the district of Setif
and at Khamissa (Thuburticum Numidarum). In the department
of Constantine, which is peculiarly rich in Roman remains,
Tebessa has been most carefully explored by M. Heron de
Villefosse, who has laid bare a beautiful temple of Jupiter,
a triumphal arch of Caracalla, a Byzantine basilica and the
gate of the Byzantine general Solomon. But all these ruins
fade into insignificance in comparison with the majestic
grandeur of those of Timgad which are almost entirely laid
bare; they are described in Timgad, une cite africaine sous
l'empire romain, by R. Cagnat, G. Boeswillwald and A. Ballu.
In Tunisia, Carthage early became the object of archaeological
investigation. Major Humbert was sent there by Napoleon
in 1808 and his notes are still preserved in the museum of
Leiden. Chateaubriand visited and described the ruins; the Dane
Falbe, the Englishman Nathan Davis, Beule, P. de Sainte-Marie
and others also have carried out researches; for more than
twenty years Pere Delattre has explored the ruins of Carthage
(q.v.) with extraordinary success. For the rest of Tunisia,
the first explorer interested in archaeology was Victor
Guerin in 1860; his results are contained in his remarkable
Voyage archeologique dans la Regence de Tunis (1862, 2
vols.). A. Daux, in the years preceding 1869, explored the
sites of the ancient harbours of Utica, Hadrumetum, Thapsus
(Dimas). But it was the occupation of Tunisia by the French
in 1881 which really gave the impetus to modern investigations
in this district of ruined cities. They were put on a solid
foundation by the publication of the Geographie comparee
of Charles Tissot (1884). Trained scholars were sent there
annually by the French government: Cagnat, Saladin, Poinssot,
La Blanchere, S. Reinach, E. Babelon, Carton, Audollent,
Steph. Gsell, J. Toutain, Esperandieu, Gauckler, Merlin,
Homo and many others, to say nothing of German scholars, such
as Willmans and Schulten, and especially of a great number
of enthusiastic officers of the army of occupation, who
explored all the ancient sites, and in many cases excavated
with great success (for their results see the works quoted
above). It would be impossible to enumerate here all the
monographs describing, for example, the ruins of Carthage, those
of the temple of the waters at Mount Zaghuan, the amphitheatre
of El Jem (Thysdrus), the temple of Saturn, the royal tomb
and the theatre of Dugga (Thugga), the bridge of Chemtu
(Simitthu), the ruins and cemeteries of Tebursuk and Medeina
(Althiburus), the rich villa of the Laberii at Wadna (Uthina),
the sanctuary of Saturn Balcaranensis on the hill called
Bu-Kornain, the ruins of the district of Enfida (Aphrodisium,
Uppenna, Segermes), those of Leptis minor (Lemta), of Thenae
(near Sfax), those of the island of Meninx (Jerba), of the
peninsula of Zarzis, of Mactar, Sbeitla (Sufetula), Gigthis
(Bu-Grara), Gafsa (Capsa), Kef (Sicca Veneria), Bulla Regia, &c.
From this accumulation of results most valuable evidence as to
the history and more especially the internal administration of
Africa under the Romans has been derived. In particular we know
how rural life was there developed, and with what care the water
necessary for the growing of cereals was everywhere provided.
Sculpture throughout the district is very provincial and of
minor importance; the only exceptions are certain statues found
at Carthage and Cherchel, the capital of the Mauretanian kings.
AUTHORITIES.--Among general works on the subject may be
mentioned: Morcelli, Africa christiana (1816); Gustave
Boissiere, L'Algerie romaine (2nd ed., 1883); E. Mercier,
Histoire de l'Afrique septentrionale (1888); Charles Tissot,
Geographie comparee de la province romaine d'Afrique
(1884-1888), with atlas; Vivien de Saint-Martin, Le Nord
de l'Afrique dans l'antiquite grecque et romaine (1883);
Gaston Boissier, L'Afrique romaine (1895); Cl. Pallu de
Lessert, Fastes des provinces africaines (Proconsulaire,
Numidie, Mauretainie) sous la domination romaine
(1896-1901); R. Cagnat, L'Armee romaine d'Afrique
(1892); A. Daux, Les Emporia pheniciens dans le Zeugis
et le Byzacium (1869); Ludwig Muller, Numismatique de
l'ancienne Afrique (1860-1862; Supplement, 1874); Ch. Diehl,
L'Afrique byzantine (1896); Stephane Gsell, Recherches
archeologiques en Afrique (1893); Paul Monceaux, Histoire
litteraire de l'Afrique chretienne (1901-1905); J.
Toutain, Les Cites romaines de la Tunisie (1895); Atlas
archeologique de la Tunisie, published by the Ministry of
Public Instruction (1895 foll.); Atlas archeologique de
l'Algerie, published by Stephane Gsell (1900 foll.);
Toulotte, Geographie de l'Afrique chretienne (1892-1894);
Corpus inscriptionum latiniarum, vol. viii. and Supplement
(1881). Cf. also articles CARTHAGE, NUMIDIA, &c.,
JUGURTHA, and articles relating to Roman History. (E. B.n)
AFRICAN LILY (Agapanthus umbellatus), a member of
the natural order Liliaceae, a native of the Cape of Good
Hope, whence it was introduced at the close of the 17th
century. It is a handsome greenhouse plant, which is hardy
in the south of England and Ireland if protected from severe
frosts. It has a short stem bearing a tuft of long, narrow,
arching leaves, 1/2 to 2 ft. long, and a central flower-stalk, 2
to 3 ft. high, ending in an umbel of bright blue, funnel-shaped
flowers. The plants are easy to cultivate, and are generally
grown in large pots or tubs which can be protected from frost in
winter. During the summer they require plenty of water,
and are very effective on the margins of lakes or running
streams, where they thrive admirably. They increase by
offsets, or may be propagated by dividing the root-stock
in early spring or autumn. A number of forms are known in
cultivation; such are albidus, with white flowers, aureus,
with leaves striped with yellow, and variegatus, with leaves
almost entirely white with a few green bands. There are
also double-flowered and larger and smaller flowered forms.
AFRICANUS, SEXTUS JULIUS, a Christian traveller and historian
of the 3rd century, was probably born in Libya, and may have
served under Septimius Severus against the Osrhoenians in
A.D. 195. Little is known of his personal history, except
that he lived at Emmaus, and that he went on an embassy to
the emperor Heliogabalus1 to ask for the restoration of the
town, which had fallen into ruins. His mission succeeded,
and Emmaus was henceforward known as Nicopolis. Dionysius
bar-Salibi makes him a bishop, but probably he was not even a
presbyter. He wrote a history of the world(Chronografiai,
in five books) from the creation to the year A.D. 221, a
period, according to his computation, of 5723 years. He
calculated the period between the creation and the birth of
Christ as 5499 years, and ante-dated the latter event by three
years. This method of reckoning became known as the Alexandrian
era, and was adopted by almost all the eastern churches. The
history, which had an apologetic aim, is no longer extant, but
copious extracts from it are to be found in the Chronicon of
Eusebius, who used it extensively in compiling the early episcopal
lists. There are also fragments in Syncellus, Cedrenus and
the Paschale Chronicon. Eusebius (Hist. Ecc. i. 7, cf.
vi. 31) gives some extracts from his letter to one Aristides,
reconciling the apparent discrepancy between Matthew and
Luke in the genealogy of Christ by a reference to the Jewish
law, which compelled a man to marry the widow of his deceased
brother, if the latter died without issue. His terse and
pertinent letter to Origen, impugning the authority of the
apocryphal book of Susanna, and Origen's wordy and uncritical
answer, are both extant. The ascription to Africanus of an
encyclopaedic work entitled Kestoi (embroidered girdles),
treating of agriculture, natural history, military science,
&c., has been needlessly disputed on account of its secular
and often credulous character. Neander suggests that it
was written by Africanus before he had devoted himself
to religious subjects. For a new fragment of this work
see Oxyrhynchus Papyri (Grenfell and Hunt), iii. 36 ff.
AUTHORITIES.--Edition in M. J. Routh, Rel. Sac. ii. 219-509;
translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers (S. D. F. Salmond) vi.
125-140. See H. Gelzer, Sex. Jul. Africanus und die
byzant. Chronographie, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1880-1885);
G. Kruger, Early Christian Literature, 248-253; A.
Harnack, Altchristl. Litt. Gesch. i. 507, ii. 70.
1 So Eusebius. Syncellus says Alexander Severus.
AFRIDI, a Pathan tribe inhabiting the mountains on the
Peshawar border of the North-West Frontier province of
India. The Afridis are the most powerful and independent
tribe on the border, and the largest with the exception of the
Waziris. Their special country is the lower and easternmost
spurs of the Safed Koh range, to the west and south of the
Peshawar district, including the Bazar and Bara valleys.
On their east they are bounded by British districts, on the
north by the Mohmands, on the west by the Shinwaris and on
the south by the Orakzai and Bangash tribes. Their origin
is obscure, but they are said to have Israelitish blood
in their veins, and they have a decidedly Semitic cast of
features. They are possibly the Aparytai of Herodotus,
the names and positions being identical. If this theory is
correct, they were then a powerful people, and held a large
tract of country, but have been gradually driven back by the
encroachments of other tribes. The tribe is divided into
the following eight clans:--Kuki Khel, Malikdin Khel, Kambar
Khel, Kamar Khel, Zakka Khel (the most numerous and the most
turbulent), Sipah, Aka Khel and Adam Khel. The first seven
clans live in the vicinity of the Khyber Pass, and migrate
to Tirah in the summer months. The Adam Khel (5900 fighting
men) live round the Kohat Pass, and are more settled and less
migratory in their habits. In appearance the Afridi is a
fine, tall, athletic highlander with a long, gaunt face,
high nose and cheek-bones, and a fair complexion. On his own
hillside he is one of the finest skirmishers in the world,
and in the Indian army makes a first-rate soldier, but he is
apt to be home-sick when removed from the air of his native
mountains. In character the Afridi has obtained an evil name
for ferocity, craft and treachery, but Colonel Sir Robert
Warburton, who lived eighteen years in charge of the Khyber
Pass and knew the Afridi better than any other Englishman,
says:--``The Afridi lad from his earliest childhood is taught
by the circumstances of his existence and life to distrust
all mankind, and very often his near relations, heirs to his
small plot of land by right of inheritance, are his deadliest
enemies. Distrust of all mankind, and readiness to strike
the first blow for the safety of his own life, have therefore
become the maxims of the Afridi. If you can overcome this
mistrust, and be kind in words to him, he will repay you by
a great devotion, and he will put up with any treatment you
like to give him except abuse.'' In short the Afridi has the
vices and virtues of all Pathans in an enhanced degree. The
fighting strength of the Afridis is said to be 27,000, but this
estimate is excessive, judged by the number and size of their
villages. They derive their importance from their geographical
position, which gives them command of the Khyber and Kohat
roads, and the history of the British connexion with them
has been almost entirely with reference to these two passes.
There have been several British expeditions against the separate clans:--
(1) Expedition against the Kohat Pass Afridis under Sir Colin
Campbell in 1850. The British connexion with the Adam Khel
Afridis commenced immediately after the annexation of the Peshawar
and Kohat districts. Following the example of all previous
rulers of the country, the British agreed to pay the tribe a
subsidy to protect the pass. But in 1850 a thousand Afridis
attacked a body of sappers engaged in making the road, killing
twelve and wounding six. It was supposed that they disliked
the making of a road which would lay open their fastnesses
to regular troops. An expedition of 3200 British troops was
despatched, which traversed the country and punished them.
(2) Expedition against the Jowaki Afridis of the Bori villages in
1853. When the Afridis of the Kohat Pass misbehaved in 1850, the
Jowaki Afridis offered the use of their route instead; but they
turned out worse than the others, and in 1853 a force of 1700
British traversed their country and destroyed their stronghold at
Bori. The Jowaki Afridis are a clan of the Adam Khel, who inhabit
the country lying between the Kohat Pass and the river Indus.
(3) Expedition against the Aka Khel Afridis under Colonel
Craigie in 1855. In 1854 the Aka Khels, not finding
themselves admitted to a share of the allowances of the
Kohat Pass, commenced a series of raids on the Peshawar
border and attacked a British camp. An expedition of 1500
troops entered the country and inflicted severe punishment
on the tribe, who made their submission and paid a fine.
(4) Expedition against the Jowaki Afridis under Colonel Mocatta in
1877. In that year the government proposed to reduce the Jowaki
allowance for guarding the Kohat Pass, and the tribesmen resented
this by cutting the telegraph wire and raiding into British
territory. A force of 1500 troops penetrated their country in
three columns, and did considerable damage by way of punishment.
(5) Expedition against the Jowaki Afridis under Brigadier-General
Keyes in 1877-78. The punishment inflicted by the previous
expedition did not prove sufficiently severe, the attitude of
the Jowakis continued the same and their raids into British
territory went on. A much stronger force, therefore, of
7400 British troops, divided into three columns, destroyed
their principal villages and occupied their country for some
time, until the tribe submitted and accepted government
terms. The Kohat Pass was afterwards practically undisturbed.
(6) Expedition against the Zakka Khel Afridis of the Bazar
Valley under Brigadier-General Tytler in 1878. At the time of
the British advance into Afghanistan, during the second Afghan
War, the Zakka Khel opposed the British advance and attacked
their outposts. A force of 2500 British troops traversed
their country, and the tribesmen made their submission.
(7) Expedition against the Zakka Khel Afridis of the Bazar
Valley under Lieutenant-General Maude in 1879. After the
previous expedition the Afridis of the Khyber Pass continued
to give trouble during the progress of the second Afghan
War, so another force of 3750 British troops traversed their
country, and after suffering some loss the tribesmen made
their submission. After this both the Khyber and Kohat
Passes were put on a stable footing, and no further trouble
of any consequence occurred in either down to the time of
the frontier risings of 1897, when the Afridis attacked
the Khyber Pass, which was defended by Afridi levies.
(8) For the Tirah Campaign of 1897 see TIRAH CAMPAIGN.
(9) In the February of 1908 the restlessness of the Zakka Khel
again made a British expedition necessary, under Sir James
Willcocks; but the campaign was speedily ended, though in the
following April he had again to proceed against the Mohmands,
the situation being complicated by an incursion from Afghanistan.
See also Paget and Mason's Frontier Expeditions (1884);
Warburton's Eighteen Years in the Khyber (1900). (C. L.)
AFTERGLOW, a broad high arch of whitish or rosy light appearing
occasionally in the sky above the highest clouds in the hour
of deepening twilight, or reflected from the high snowfields
in mountain regions long after sunset. The phenomenon is due
to very fine particles of dust suspended in the high regions
of the atmosphere that produce a scattering effect upon the
component parts of white light. After the eruption of Krakatoa in
1883, a remarkable series of red sunsets appeared all over the
world. These were due to an enormous amount of exceedingly
fine dust blown to a great height by that terrific explosion,
and then universally diffused by the high atmospheric currents.
AFZELIUS, ADAM (1750-1837), Swedish botanist, was born at
Larf, Vestergotland, in 1750. He was appointed teacher
of oriental languages at Upsala in 1777, and in 1785
demonstrator of botany. From 1792 he spent some years on
the west coast of Africa, and in 1797-1798 acted as secretary
of the Swedish embassy in London. Returning to Sweden, he
founded the Linnaean institute at Upsala in 1802, and in
1812 became professor of materia medica at the university.
He died at Upsala in 1837. In addition to various botanical
writings, he published the autobiography of Linnaeus in 1823.
His brother, JOHAN AFZELIUS (1753-1837),known as ARVIDSON,
was professor of chemistry at Upsala; and another brother, PER
AF (1760-1843), who became professor of medicine at Upsala in
1801, was distinguished as a medical teacher and practitioner.
AFZELIUS, ARVID AUGUST (1785-1871), Swedish pastor, poet,
historian and mythologist, was born on the 8th of October
1785. From 1828 till his death on the 25th of September 1871
he was parish priest of Enkoping. He is mainly known as a
collaborator with the learned historian, Erik Gustaf Geijer, in
the great collection of Swedish folk-songs, Svenske folkirsor
fran forntiden, 3 vols. (Stockholm, 1814-1816). He published
also translations of the Samunder Edda and Herwara-Saga,
and a history of Sweden to Charles XII. (of which a German
translation was published in 1842), as well as original poems.
AGA, or AGHA, a word, said to be of Tatar origin, signifying
a dignitary or lord. Among the Turks it is applied to the
chief of the janissaries, to the commanders of the artillery,
cavalry and infantry, and to the eunuchs in charge of the
seraglio. It is also employed generally as a term of
respect in addressing wealthy men of leisure, landowners, &c.
AGAIAMBO, or AGAUMBU, a race of dwarf marsh-dwellers
in British New Guinea, now almost extinct. In his annual
report for 1904 the acting administrator of British New
Guinea stated that on a visit he paid to their district
he saw six males and four females. The Agaiambo live in
huts erected on piles in the lakes and marshes. Dwarfish
in stature but broadly built, they are remarkable for the
shortness of their legs. They live almost entirely in their
``dug-outs'' or canoes, or actually wading in the water.
Their food consists of sago, the roots of the water-lily and
fish. The Agaiambo are believed to have been formerly
numerous, but within the last few years have suffered from the
raids of their cannibalistic Papuan neighbours. In features,
colour and hair they closely resemble the true Papuans.
AGA KHAN I., HIS HIGHNESS THE (1800-1881), the title
accorded by general consent to HASAN ALI SHAH (born in Persia,
1800), when, in early life, he first settled in Bombay under
the protection of the British government. He was believed to
have descended in direct line from Ali by his wife Fatima, the
daughter of the Prophet Mahomet. Ali's son, Hosain, having
married a daughter of one of the rulers of Persia before the
time of Mahomet, the Aga Khan traced his descent from the
royal house of Persia from the most remote, almost prehistoric,
times. His ancestors had also ruled in Egypt as caliphs
of the Beni-Fatimites for a number of years, at a period
coeval with the Crusades. Before the Aga Khan emigrated from
Persia, he was appointed by the emperor Fateh Ali Shah to be
governor-general of the extensive and important province of
Kerman. His rule was noted for firmness, moderation and
high political sagacity, and he succeeded for a long time
in retaining the friendship and confidence of his master the
shah, although his career was beset with political intrigues
and jealousy on the part of rival and court favourites,
and with internal turbulence. At last, however, the fate
usual to statesmen in oriental countries overtook him, and
he incurred the mortal displeasure of Fateh Ali Shah. He
fled from Persia and sought protection in British territory,
preferring to settle down eventually in India, making Bombay his
headquarters. At that period the first Afghan War was at its
height, and in crossing over from Persia through Afghanistan
the Aga Khan found opportunities of rendering valuable services
to the British army, and thus cast in his lot for ever with the
British. A few years later he rendered similar conspicuous
services in the course of the Sind campaign, when his help
was utilized by Napier in the process of subduing the frontier
tribes, a large number of whom acknowledged the Aga's authority
as their spiritual head. Napier held his Moslem ally in great
esteem, and entertained a very high opinion of his political
acumen and chivalry as a leader and soldier. The Aga Khan
reciprocated the British commander's confidence and friendship
by giving repeated proofs of his devotion and attachment to
the British government, and when he finally settled down in
India, his position as the leader of the large Ismailiah
section of Mahommedan British subjects was recognized by the
government, and the title of His Highness was conferred on
him, with a large pension. From that time until his death
in 1881 the Aga Khan, while leading the life of a peaceful
and peacemaking citizen, under the protection of British
rule, continued to discharge his sacerdotal functions,
not only among his followers in India, but towards the
more numerous communities which acknowledged his religious
sway in distant countries, such as Afghanistan, Khorasan,
Persia, Arabia, Central Asia, and even distant Syria and
Morocco. He remained throughout unflinchingly loyal to the
British Raj, and by his vast and unquestioned influence
among the frontier tribes on the northern borders of India
he exercised a control over their unruly passions in times of
trouble, which proved of invaluable service in the several
expeditions led by British arms on the north-west frontier of
India. He was also the means of checking the fanaticism
of the more turbulent Mahommedans in British India,
which in times of internal troubles and misunderstandings
finds vent in the shape of religious or political riots.
He was succeeded by his eldest son, AGA KHAN II. This prince
continued the traditions and work of his father in a manner
that won the approbation of the local government, and earned
for him the distinction of a knighthood of the Order of the
Indian Empire and a seat in the legislative council of Bombay.
AGA KHAN III. (Sultan Mahommed Shah), only son of the
foregoing, succeeded him on his death in 1885, and became
the head of the family and its devotees. He was born in
1877, and, under the care of his mother, a daughter of the
ruling house of Persia, was given not only that religious and
oriental education which his position as the religious leader
of the Ismailians made indispensable, but a sound European
training, a boon denied to his father and grandfather. This
blending of the two systems of education produced the happy
result of fitting this Moslem chief in an eminent degree both
for the sacerdotal functions which appertain to his spiritual
position, and for those social duties of a great and enlightened
leader which he was called upon to discharge by virtue of that
position. He travelled in distant parts of the world to
receive the homage of his followers, and with the object
either of settling differences or of advancing their welfare
by pecuniary help and personal advice and guidance. The
distinction of a knight commander of the Indian Empire was
conferred upon him by Queen Victoria in 1897, and he received
like recognition for his public services from the German emperor,
the sultan of Turkey, the shah of Persia and other potentates.
See Naoroji M. Dumasia, A Brief History of the Aga Khan (1903) (M. M. BH.)
AGALMATOLITE (from Gr. agalma, statue, and
lithos, stone), a soft species of mineral, also called
pagodite, used by the Chinese for carving, especially
into grotesque figures (whence called ``figure-stone'').
AGAMEDES, in Greek legend, son of Erginus, king of Orchomenus in
Boeotia. He is always associated with his brother Trophonius
as a wonderful architect, the constructor of underground
shrines and grottos for the reception of hidden treasure. When
building a treasure-house for Hyrieus, the brothers fixed one
of the stones in the wall so that they could remove it whenever
they pleased, and from time to time carried off some of the
treasure. Hyrieus thereupon set a trap in which Agamedes
was caught; Trophonius, to prevent discovery, cut off his
brother's head and fled with it. He was pursued by Hyrieus,
and swallowed up by the earth in the grove of Lebadeia. On
this spot was the oracle of Trophonius in an underground cave;
those who wished to consult it first offered the sacrifice of
a ram and called upon the name of Agamedes. A similar story
is told of Rhampsinitus by Herodotus (ii. 121). According
to Pindar (apud Plutarch), the brothers built the temple
of Apollo at Delphi; when they asked for a reward, the god
promised them one in seven days; on the seventh day they died.
Pausanias ix. 37; Plutarch, Consolatio ad
Apollonium, 14; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 47.
AGAMEMNON, one of the most distinguished of the Greek
heroes, was the son of Atreus (king of Mycenae) and Aerope,
grandson of Pelops, great-grandson of Tantalus and brother of
Menelaus. Another account makes him the son of Pleisthenes
(the son or father of Atreus), who is said to have been
Aerope's first husband. Atreus was murdered by Aegisthus
(q.v.), who took possession of the throne of Mycenae and
ruled jointly with his father Thyestes. During this period
Agamemnon and Menelaus took refuge with Tyndareus, king
of Sparta, whose daughters Clytaemnestra (more correctly
Clytaemestra) and Helen they respectively married. By
Clytaemnestra, Agamemnon had three daughters, Iphigeneia
(Iphianassa), Electra (Laodice), Chrysothemis, and a son,
Orestes. Menelaus succeeded Tyndareus, and Agamemnon,
with his brother's assistance, drove out Aegisthus and
Thyestes, and recovered his father's kingdom. He extended his
dominion by conquest and became the most powerful prince in
Greece. When Paris (Alexander), son of Priam, had carried
off his brother's wife, he went round to the princes of the
country and called upon them to unite in a war of revenge
against the Trojans. He himself furnished 100 ships, and
was chosen commander-in-chief of the combined forces. The
fleet, numbering 1200 ships, assembled at the port of Aulis in
Boeotia. But Agamemnon had offended the goddess Artemis by
slaying a hind sacred to her, and boasting himself a better
hunter. The army was visited by a plague, and the fleet was
prevented from sailing by the total absence of wind. Calchas
announced that the wrath of the goddess could only be appeased
by the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (q.v..) The fleet then set
sail. Little is heard of Agamemnon until his quarrel with Achilles
(q.v..) After the capture of Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of
Priam, fell to his lot in the distribution of the prizes of
war. On his return, after a stormy voyage, he landed in
Argolis. His kinsman, Aegisthus, who in the interval had
seduced his wife Clytaemnestra, invited him to a banquet at
which he was treacherously slain, Cassandra also being put
to death by Clytaemnestra. According to the account given
by Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon was slain by his
wife alone in a bath, a piece of cloth or a net having first
been thrown over him to prevent resistance. Her wrath at the
sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and her jealousy of Cassandra, are
said to have been the motives of her crime. The murder of
Agamemnon was avenged by his son Orestes (q.v..) Although
not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon is a dignified
representative of kingly authority. As commander-in-chief,
he summons the princes to the council and leads the army in
battle. He takes the field himself, and performs many heroic
deeds until he is wounded and forced to withdraw to his
tent. His chief fault is his overweening haughtiness, due to
an over-exalted opinion of his position, which leads him to
insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster
upon the Greeks. But his family had been marked out for
misfortune from the outset. His kingly office had come to
him from Pelops through the blood-stained hands of Atreus and
Thyestes, and had brought with it a certain fatality which.
explained the hostile destiny which pursued him. The fortunes
of Agamemnon have formed the subject of numerous tragedies,
ancient and modern, the most famous being the Oresteia of
Aeschylus. In the legends of Peloponnesus, Agamemnon was
regarded as the highest type of a powerful monarch, and in
Sparta he was worshipped under the title of Zeus Agamemnon. His
tomb was pointed out among the ruins of Mycenae and at Amyclae.
In works of art there is considerable resemblance between
the representations of Zeus, king of the gods, and
Agamemnon, king of men. He is generally characterized
by the sceptre and diadem, the usual attributes of kings.
See articles in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie
and Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie.
AGAPE (Gr. agape, ``Love''), the early Christian
lovefeast. The word seems to be used in this sense in the
epistle of Jude 12: ``These are they who are hidden rocks in
your lovefeasts when they banquet with you.'' But this is not
certain, for in 2 Pet. ii. 13 the verse is cited, but reading
apatais (``deceits'') for agapais, and the oldest MSS.
hesitate. The history of the agape coincides, until the
end of the 2nd century, with that of the eucharist (q.v.),
and it is doubtful whether the following detailed account of
the agape given in Tertullian's Apology (c. 39) is to
be regarded as exclusive of an accompanying eucharist: ``It
is the banquet (triclinium) alone of the Christians that is
criticised. Our supper (coena) shows its character by its
name. It is called by a word which in Greek signifies love
(i.e. agape.) Whatever it costs, it is anyhow a clear
gain that it is incurred on the score of piety, seeing that
we succour the poorest by such entertainments (refrigerio.)
We do not lie down at table until prayer has been offered to
God, as it were a first taste. We eat only to appease our
hunger, we drink only so much as it is good for temperate
persons to do. If we satisfy our appetites, we do so without
forgetting that throughout the night we must say our prayers
to God. If we converse, it is with the knowledge that the
Lord is listening. After washing our hands and lighting the
lamps, each is invited to sing a hymn before all to God,
either taken from holy writ or of his own composition. So
we prove him, and see how well he has drunk. Prayer ends,
as it began, the banquet; and we break up not in bands of
brigands, nor in groups of vagabonds, nor do we burst out
into debauchery. . . . This meeting of Christians we admit
deserves to be made illicit, if it resembles illicit acts; it
deserves to be condemned, if any complain of it on the same
score on which complaints are levelled at factious meetings.
But to do harm to whom do we ever thus come together?''
The evidence of Tertullian is good for Africa. But in Egypt
about the same time (180-210), Clement of Alexandria in his
Pedagogus (ii. 1) condemns the ``little suppers which were
called, not without presumption, agape.'' This word, he
complains, should denote the heavenly food, the reasonable
feast alone, and the Lord never used it of mere junketings.
Clement wished the name to be reserved for the eucharist.
because the love-feasts of the church had degenerated, as
Tertullian too discovered, as soon as he turned Montanist.
For in his tract on fasting (ch. xvii.) he complains that the
young men misbehaved with the sisters after the agapee.
Among the spurious works of Athanasius is printed a tract
entitled About Virginity, ch. xiii. of which directs how
the sisters after the synaxis of the ninth hour (3 P.M.)
are to dine: ``When you sit down at a table and come to break
bread, seal it thrice with the sign of the cross and thus give
thanks: `We thank thee, our Father, for thy holy resurrection;
for through Jesus thy servant thou hast shewn it unto us.
And as this bread on this table was scattered, but has been
brought together and become one, so may thy church be brought
together into thy kingdom. For thine is the power and the
glory, for ever and ever, Amen.' This prayer as you break the
bread, and are about to eat, you must say. And when you lay
it on the table and desire to eat it, repeat the `Our Father'
entire. But after dinner (or breakfast), and when we rise
from table, we use the prayer given above, viz. `Blessed be
God, who hath pity and nourisheth us from our infancy, who
giveth food to all flesh. Fill our hearts with joy and
gladness, that ever having of all things a sufficiency, we
may superabound in all good works, in Christ Jesus our Lord,
&c.''' The writer then enjoins that, ``if two or three other
virgins are present, they also shall give thanks over the
bread set out, and join in the prayers. But if a catechumen
be found at the table, she shall not be suffered to join with
the full believers in their prayers, nor shall the latter sit
with her to eat the morsel'' (fiomon, used specially of
the sanctified bread). ``Nor shall they sit with frivolous
and joking women, if they can help it, for they are sanctified
to God, and their food and drink have been hallowed by the
prayers and holy words used over them. . . . If a rich woman
sits down with them at table, and they see a poor woman,
they shall invite her also to eat with them, and not put
her to shame because of the rich one.'' The last words echo
1 Cor. x., and the prayer is nearly the same as that which
the teaching of the Apostles assigns for the eucharistic
rite. Here, then, we have pictured as late as the 4th century
a Lord's supper, which like the one described in 1 Cor. x.
is agape and eucharist in one, and it is held in a private
house and not in church, and the celebrants are holy women!
The historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl. v. 22) testifies to the
survival in Egypt of such Lord's suppers as were love-feasts
and eucharists in one. Around Alexandria and in the Thebaid,
he says, they hold services on the sabbath, and unlike other
Christians partake of the mysteries (i.e. sacrament). For
after holding good cheer and filling themselves with meats of
all kinds, they at eventide make the offering (prosfora)
and partake of it. So Basil of Cappadocia (Epistle 93), about
the year 350, records that in Egypt the laity, as a rule,
celebrated the communion in their own houses, and partook of
the sacrament by themselves whenever they chose. In the old
Egyptian church order, known as the Canons of Hippolytus,
there are numerous directions for the service of the agape,
held on Sundays, saints' days or at commemorations of the
dead. The 74th canon of the council of Trullo (A.D. 692)
forbade the holding of symposia known as agapes in church.
In his 54th homily (tom. v. p. 365) Chrysostom describes how
after the eucharistic synaxis was over, the faithful remained
in church, while the rich brought out meats and drink from
their houses, and invited the poor, and furnished ``common
tables, common banquets, common symposia in the church
itself.'' The council of Gangra (A.D. 355) anathematized
the over-ascetic people who despised ``the agapes based
on faith.'' Only a few years later, however, the council of
Laodicea forbade the holding of agapes in churches. The
42nd canon of the council of Carthage under Aurelius likewise
forbade them, but these were only local councils. In the
age of Chrysostom and Augustine the agape was frequent.
In the east Syrian, the Armenian and the Georgian churches,
respectively Nestorian, Monophysite and Greek Orthodox in their
tenets, the agape was from the first a survival, under
Christian and Jewish forms, of the old sacrificial systems of
a pre-Christian age. Sheep, rams, bullocks, fowls are given
sacrificial salt to lick, and then sacrificed by the priest and
deacon, who has the levitical portions of the victim as his
perquisite. In Armenia the Greek word agape has been
used ever since the 4th century to indicate these sacrificial
meals, which either began or ended with a eucharistic
celebration. The earlier usage of the Armenians is expressed
in the two following rules recorded against them by a renegade
Armenian prelate named Isaac, who in the 8th century went over
to the Byzantine church: ``Christ did not hand down to us the
teaching to celebrate the mystery of the offering of the bread
in church, but in an ordinary house, and sitting at a common
table. So then let them not sacrifice the offering of bread in
churches. It was after supper, when his disciples were
thoroughly sated, that Christ gave them of his own body to
eat. Therefore let them first eat meats and be sated, and
then let them partake of the mysteries.'' These old canons are
adduced by way of ridiculing the Armenians, yet they reflect old
usage. They are given in the Historia Monothelitarum of
Combefisius, col. 317. Older MSS. of the Greek Euchologion
contain numerous prayers to be offered over animals sacrificed;
and in the form of agape such sacrifices were common
in Italy and Gaul on the natalis dies of a saint, and
Paulinus of Nola, the friend of Augustine, in his Latin
poems, describes them (c. 400) in detail. Gregory the
Great sent to Mellitus, bishop of London, a written rite of
sacrificing bulls for use in the English church of the early 7th
century. In Augustine's work against Faustus the Manichean
(xx. 4), the latter taxes the Catholics with having turned
the sacrifices of the heathen into agapes, their idols into
martyrs, whom they worship with similar rites. ``You appease,''
he says, ``the shades of the dead with wines and banquets, you
celebrate the feast-days of the heathen along with them . . .
in their way of living you have certainly changed nothing.''
This was true enough, but there is truth also in the remark of
Prof. Sanday (``Eucharist'' in Hastings' Dictionary of
the Bible) that Providence even in its revolutions is
conservative. The world could only be christianized on
condition that old holy days and customs were continued.
The early Christian agape admitted of adaptation to the
older funeral and sacrificial feasts, and was so adapted. The
association in the synoptics of the earliest eucharist with
the paschal sacrifice provided a model, and long after the
eucharist was separated with the agape on other days of the
year, we still find celebrated on the evening of Maundy Thursday
the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, immediately followed by an
eucharist. The 41st canon of the council of Carthage enacted
that the sacraments of the altar should be received fasting,
except on the anniversary of the Lord's supper. It is clear
that at an earlier date the agape preceded the eucharist.
Pagan Analogues.--In ancient states common meals called
sussitia (sussitia) were instituted, particularly in
the Doric states, e.g. in Lacaedemon and in Crete. Plato
advocated them, and perhaps the later Jews imitated the
Spartan community. Trade and other gilds in antiquity held
subscription suppers or iranoi, similar to those of the early
Corinthian church, usually to support the needs of the poorer
members. These hetairiae or clubs were forbidden (except in
cities formally allied to Rome) by Trajan and other emperors,
as being likely to be centres of disaffection; and on this
ground Pliny forbade the agape of the Bithynian churches,
Christianity not being a lawful religion licensed for such
gatherings. The custom which most resembles the eucharist
and agape was that known as charistia described by
Valerius Maximus ii. 1. 8. It was a solemn feast attended
only by members of one clan, at which those who had quarrelled
were at the sacrament of the table (apud sacra mensae)
reconciled. It was held on the 20th of February. Ovid in
his Fasti, ii. 617, alludes to it-- Proxima cognati dixere
charistia cari, Et venit ad socios turba propinqua deos.
AUTHORITIES.--``The Canons of Hippolytus,'' in Duchesne's
Origines du culte chretien (Paris, 1898).; A. Allen,
Christian Institutions (London, 1898); P. Batiffol,
Etudes d'histoire (Paris, 1902 and 1905); F. X. Funk,
``L'Agape,'' in the Revue de l'histoire ecclesiastique
(Louvain, Jan. 1903); Ad. Harnack, ``Brod und Wasser'' (Texte
und Untersuch. vii. 2, Leipzig, 1891); J. F. Keating,
The Agape and the Eucharist (London, 1901): F. X. Kraus,
arts. ``Agapes'' and ``Mahle'' in the Realencycklop. d.
christl. Altertumer; P. Ladeuze, ``L'Eucharistie et les
repas communs'' in the Revue de l'orient chretien, No.
3, 1902; Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire
(London, 1894); A. Spitta, Zur Geschichte und Litteratur
(Gottingen, 1893); E. von der Goltz, Das Gebet in
altesten Christianheit (Leipzig, 1901); F. E. Warren; The
Liturgy and Ritual of the Antenicene Church (London, 1897);
T. Zahn, art. ``Agapen'' in Hauck's Realencyklop.; F.. C.
Conybeare, Rituale Armenorum (Oxford, 1905; it contains the
oldest Latin and Greek forms), The Key of Truth (Oxford,
1898), and art. on ``The Survival of Animal Sacrifices'' in
the American Journal of Theology (Chicago, Jan. 1903); F. X.
Funk, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn,
1906); V. Ermoni, L'Agape (Paris, 1904); G. Horner, The
Statutes of the Apostles, translated from Ethiopic and
Arabic MSS. (London, 1904); Thefr. Drescher, Diss. de
vet. Christianorum Agapis (Giesse, 1824); L. A. Muratori,
Anecdota Graeca, ``De agapis sublatis'' (Patavii, 1709); I.
A. Fabricius, Bibliogr. Ant. p. 587; Muenter, Primord.
Eccl. Afr. p. 111; Walafrid Strabo, De Rebus Eccles.
capita 18,19; Gregory of Tours, De miraculis S. Juliani,
xxxi.; Pualini Nolani Carmen xii. in S. Felicem. (F. C. C.)
AGAPEMONITES, or COMMUNITY OF THE SON OF MAN. This sect,
based upon the theories of various German religious mystics,
and having for its primary object the spiritualization of the
matrimonial state, was founded in 1846 by the Rev. Henry James
Prince, a clergyman of the Church of England (1811-1899).
He studied medicine, obtained his qualifications in 1832
and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in
Bath, his native city. Compelled by ill-health to abandon
his profession, he entered himself in 1837 as a student at
St. David's Theological College, Lampeter, where he gathered
about him a band of earnest religious enthusiasts, known as
the Lampeter Brethren, and was eventually ordained to the
curacy of Charlinch in Somerset, where he had sole charge
in the illness and absence of the rector, the Rev. Samuel
Starkey. By that time he had contracted his first ``spiritual
marriage,'' and had persuaded himself that he had been absorbed
into the personality of God and had become a visible embodiment
of the Holy Spirit. During his illness Mr. Starkey read one
of his curate's sermons and was not only ``cured'' forthwith,
but embraced his strange doctrines, and together they procured
many conversions in the countryside and the neighbouring
towns. In the end the rector was deprived of his living and
Prince's licence withdrawn, and together with a few disciples
they started the Charlinch Free Church, which had a very brief
existence. Prince shortly afterwards became curate of Stoke in
Suffolk, where, however, the character of his revivalist zeal
caused his departure at the end of twelve months. It was now
decided that Prince, Starkey (whose sister Prince had married
as his second wife) and the Rev. Lewis Prince should leave the
Church of England and preach their own gospel; Prince opened
Adullam Chapel, Brighton, and Starkey established himself at
Weymouth. The chief success lay in the latter town, and
thither Prince soon migrated. A number of followers,
estimated by Prince at 500, but by his critics at one-fifth
of the number, were got together, and it was given out by
``Beloved'' or ``The Lamb''--the names by which the Agapemonites
designated their leader--that his disciples must divest
themselves of their possessions and throw them into the common
stock. This was done, even by the poor or ill-furnished,
all of whom looked forward to the speedy end of the present
dispensation, and were content, for the short remainder of this
world, to live in common, and, while not repudiating earthly
ties, to treat them as purely spiritual. With the money
thus obtained the house at Spaxton, which was to become the
``Abode of Love,'' was enlarged and furnished luxuriously, and
three sisters, who contributed L. 6000 each, were immediately
married to three of Prince's nearest disciples. Despite the
purely spiritual ideas which underlay the Agapemonite view
of marriage, a son was born to one of these couples, and
when the father endeavoured to carry it away an action was
brought which resulted in the affirmation of the mother's
right to its custody. The circumstance in which a fourth
sister who joined the community was abducted by her brothers
led to an inquiry in lunacy and to her final settlement at
Spaxton. A few years after the establishment of the ``Abode
of Love,'' a peculiarly gross scandal, in which Prince and one
of his female followers were involved, led to the secession
of some of his most faithful friends, who were unable any
longer to endure what they regarded as the amazing mixture
of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance.
The most prominent of those who remained received such titles
as the ``Anointed Ones,'' the ``Angel of the Last Trumpet,''
the ``Seven Witnesses'' and so forth. In 1862 ``Brother
Prince'' sent ``to the kings and people of the earth'' letters
``making known to all men that flesh is saved from death.''
At that period the Agapemonites counted their adherents at
600, and it was no doubt a grievous shock to them when their
deathless founder died on the 8th of March 1899, four years
after he had opened a branch church at Clapton, London, which
is said to have cost L. 20.000. This church, decorated with
elaborate symbolism,'was styled the ``Ark of the Covenant,''
and in it the elect were to await the coming of the Lord.
On the death of ``Brother'' Prince, the Rev. T. H. Smyth-Pigott,
pastor of the ``Ark,'' became the acknowledged head of the
sect. He was born in 1852, of an old Somersetshire county
family, and, after a varied career as university man, sailor
before the mast, soldier, coffee-planter, curate in the Church
of England and evangelist in the Salvation Army, was converted
about 1897 to the views of Prince. For five years after
this he was not heard of outside his own sect. On the 7th of
September 1902, however, the congregation, assembled at the
Ark of the Covenant for service, found the communion table
replaced by a chair. In this Pigott presently seated himself
and proclaimed himself as the Messiah with the words, ``God is
no longer there,'' pointing upwards, ``but here,'' pointing to
himself. This astonishing announcement was followed by an
excellent sermon on Christian love. Pigott's claim was at
once admitted by the members of his sect, including even
his own wife, as the fulfilment of the promise of Christ to
appear in due time in the ``Ark.'' By the outside world the
affair was greeted with mingled ridicule and indignation,
and the new Messiah had to be protected by the police from
the violence of an angry mob. After providing ``copy'' for
the newspapers for a few days, however, the whole thing was
forgotten. Pigott retired to the headquarters of the sect,
the ``Abode of Love'' in Somerset, and all efforts to interview
him or to obtain details of the life of the community were
abortive. At last, in August 1905, the long and mysterious
silence was broken by the announcement that a son had been
born to Pigott by his ``spiritual wife,'' Miss Ruth Preece, an
inmate of the Agapemone. This event by no means disconcerted
the believers, who saw in it only another manifestation
of Pigott's divinity, and proclaimed it as ``an earnest of
the total redemption of man.'' The child was registered as
``Glory,'' and, at the christening service in the chapel
of the Abode, hymns were sung in its honour as it lay in
a jewelled cradle in the chancel. Another child by Miss
Preece, christened ``Power,'' was born on the 20th of August
1908. The publicity given to this event renewed the
scandal, and in November an attempt to ``tar and feather''
Mr Pigott resulted in two men being sent to prison. Later
in the month proceedings were instituted against him by the
bishop of Bath and Wells under the Clergy Discipline Act.
One outcome of the disclosures connected with the Agapemone
deserves passing mention, as throwing some light on the
origin of the wealth of the community. Mr Charles Stokes
Read, a resident at the Agapemone and director of the V.
V. Bread Company, was requested by his fellow-directors to
resign, on the ground that his connexion with the sect
was damaging the business of the company. He denied this
to be the case and refused to resign, pleading religious
liberty and the large interests of Agapemonites in the
concern. On the 13th of September 1905, a meeting of the
shareholders of the company was held, and Read ``asked them
to believe that it was not in the interests of the company,
but because he knew that the Lord Jesus Christ had come
again and was now dwelling at the Agapemone, that he was
thus cast out by his colleagues.'' The motion calling on
him to resign was carried on a poll being taken by 46,770
votes to 2953. (See The Times, 14th of September 1905.)
AGAPETAE, a class of ``virgins'' who, in the church of
the early middle ages, lived with professedly celibate monks
to whom they were said to be united by spiritual love.
The practice was suppressed by the Lateran Council of 1139.
AGAPETUS, the name of two popes:--
AGAPETUS I., pope from 535 to 536. He was an enlightened
pontiff and collaborated with Cassiodorus in founding at
Rome a library of ecclesiastical authors. King Theodahad
sent him on an embassy to Constantinople, where he
died, after having deposed Anthimus, the monophysite
bishop of that town, and ordained Menas his successor.
AGAPETUS II., pope from 946 to 955, at the time when Alberic,
son of Marozia, was governing the independent republic of
Rome under the title of ``prince and senator of the Romans.''
Agapetus, a man of some force of character, did his best
to put a stop to the degradation into which the papacy had
fallen, the so-called ``Pornocracy,'' which lasted from
the accession of Sergius III. in 904 to the deposition of
John XII. in 963. His appeal to Otto the Great to intervene
in Rome remained without immediate effect, since Alberic's
position was too strong to be attacked, but it bore fruit
after his death. Agapetus died on the 8th of November 955.
AGAPETUS, a deacon of the church of St Sophia at
Constantinople. He presented to the emperor Justinian, on his
accession in 527, a work entitled Scheda regia sive de officio
regis, which contained advice on the duties of a Christian
prince. The work was often reprinted and is included in Dom
Anselme Banduri's Imperium Orientale (Paris, 1711). There
is an English translation by Thomas Paynell (1550) and a French
translation, executed in 1612 from a Latin version by Louis
XIII., with the assistance of his tutor, David Rivault.
AGARDE, ARTHUR (1540-1615), English antiquary, was born at
Foston, Derbyshire, in 1540. He was trained as a lawyer,
but entered the exchequer as a clerk. On the authority of
Anthony a Wood it has been stated that he was appointed
by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton to be deputy-chamberlain in
1570, and that he held this office for forty-five years. His
patent of appointment, however, preserved in the Rolls Office,
proves that he succeeded one Thomas Reve in the post on the
11th of July 1603. With his friends, Sir Robert Cotton and
Camden, he was one of the original members of the Society of
Antiquaries. He spent much labour in cataloguing the records
and state papers, and made a special study of the Domesday
Book, preparing an explanation of its more obscure terms.
Thomas Hearne, in his Collection of Curious Discourses
written by Eminent Antiquaries (Oxford, 1720), includes
six by Agarde on such subjects as the origin of parliament,
the antiquity of shires, the authority and privileges of
heralds, &c. Agarde died on the 22nd of August 1615 and was
buried in the cloister of Westminster Abbey, on his tomb
being inscribed ``Recordorum regiorum hic prope depositorum
diligens scrutator.'' He bequeathed to the exchequer all
his papers relating to that court, and to his friend Sir
Robert Cotton his other manuscripts, amounting to twenty
volumes, most of which are now in the British Museum.
AGAS, RADULPH, or RALPH (c. 1540-1621), English land
surveyor, was born at Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, about
1540, and entered upon the practice of his profession in
1566. Letters which he wrote to Lord Burghley, describing the
methods of surveying, are extant, and a kind of advertising
prospectus of his abilities, in which he describes himself as
clever at arithmetic and ``skilled in writing smaule, after
the skantelinge & proportion of copiynge the Oulde & New
Testamentes seven tymes in one skinne of partchmente without
anie woorde abreviate or contracted, which maie also serve
for drawinge discriptions of contries into volumes portable in
verie little cases.'' He is best known for his maps of Oxford
(1578), Cambridge (1592) and London. Copies of the first two
are preserved in the Bodleian Library. Of the map of London
and Westminster, which was probably prepared about 1591, two
copies have been preserved, one by the Corporation of London
and the other in the Pepysian collection at Magdalene College,
Cambridge. The map is over six feet long, printed from
wooden blocks, and gives a valuable picture of the London of
Elizabeth's time. Agas died on the 26th of November 1621.
AGASIAS. There were two Greek sculptors of this name.
Agasias, son of Dositheus, has signed the remarkable statue
called the Borghese Warrior, in the Louvre. Agasias, son
of Menophilus, is the author of another striking figure
of a warrior in the museum of Athens. Both belonged to
the school of Ephesus and flourished about 100 B.C.
See E. A. Gardner, Handbook Greek Sculpture, ii. p. 475.
AGASSIZ, ALEXANDER EMANUEL (1835-1910), American man of
science, son of J. L. R. Agassiz, was born in Neuchatel,
Switzerland, on the 17th of December 1835. He came to the
United States with his father in 1846; graduated at Harvard
in 1855, subsequently studying engineering and chemistry,
and taking the degree of bachelor of science at the Lawrence
scientific school of the same institution in 1857; and in
1859 became an assistant in the United States Coast Survey.
Thenceforward he became a specialist in marine ichthyology,
but devoted much time to the investigation, superintendence
and exploitation of mines, being superintendent of the Calumet
and Hecla copper mines, Lake Superior, from 1866 to 1869, and
afterwards, as a stockholder, acquiring a fortune, out of
which he gave to Harvard, for the museum of comparative zoology
and other purposes, some $500,000. In 1875 he surveyed Lake
Titicaca, Peru, examined the copper mines of Peru and Chile,
and made a collection of Peruvian antiquities for that museum,
of which he was curator from 1874 to 1885. He assisted Sir
Wyville Thomson in the examination and classification of the
collections of the ``Challenger'' exploring expedition, and
wrote the Review of the Echini (2 vols., 1872-1874) in the
reports. Between 1877 and 1880 he took part in the three
dredging expeditions of the steamer ``Blake,'' of the United
States Coast Survey, and presented a full account of them
in two volumes (1888). Of his other writings on marine
zoology, most are contained in the bulletins and memoirs of
the museum of comparative zoology; but he published in 1865
(with Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, his step-mother) Seaside Studies
in Natural History, a work at once exact and stimulating,
and in 1871 Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay.
AGASSIZ, JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE (1807-1873), Swiss naturalist
and geologist, was the son of the Protestant pastor of the
parish of Motier, on the north-eastern shore of the Lake of
Morat (Murten See), and not far from the eastern extremity
of the Lake of Neuchatel. Agassiz was born at this retired
place on the 28th of May 1807. Educated first at home, then
spending four years at the gymnasium of Bienne, he completed
his elementary studies at the academy of Lausanne. Having
adopted medicine as his profession, he studied successively
at the universities of Zurich, Heidelberg and Munich; and
he availed himself of the advantages afforded by these
universities for extending his knowledge of natural history,
especially of botany. After completing his academical
course, he took in 1829 his degree of doctor of philosophy at
Erlangen, and in 1830 that of doctor of medicine at Munich.
Up to this time he had paid no special attention to the study of
ichthyology, which soon afterwards became the great occupation
of his life. Agassiz always declared that he was led into
ichthyological pursuits through the following circumstances:--
In 1819-1820, J. B. Spix and C. F. P. von Martius were engaged
in their celebrated Brazilian tour, and on their return to
Europe, amongst other collections of natural objects they
brought home an important set of the freshwater fishes of
Brazil, and especially of the Amazon river. Spix, who died
in 1826, did not live long enough to work out the history
of these fishes; and Agassiz though little more than a youth
just liberated from his academic studies, was selected by
Prof. Martius for this purpose. He at once threw himself into
the work with that earnestness of spirit which characterized
him to the end of his busy life, and the task of describing and
figuring the Brazilian fishes was completed and published in
1829. This was followed by an elaborate research into the
history of the fishes found in the Lake of Neuchatel.
Enlarging his plans, he issued in 1830 a prospectus of a
History of the Freshwater Fishes of Central Europe. It was
only in 1839, however, that the first part of this publication
appeared, and it was completed in 1842. In 1832 he was
appointed professor of natural history in the university of
Neuchatel. Having become a professed ichthyologist, it was
impossible that the fossil fishes should fail to attract his
attention. The rich stores furnished by the slates of Glarus
and the limestones of Monte Bolca were already well known;
but very little had been accomplished in the way of scientific
study of them. Agassiz, as early as 1829, with his wonted
enthusiasm, planned the publication of the work which, more
than any other, laid the foundation of his world-wide fame.
Five volumes of his Recherches sur les poissons fossiles
appeared at intervals from 1833 to 1843 [1844]. They were
magnificently illustrated, chiefly through the labours of Joseph
Dinkel, an artist of remarkable power in delineating natural
objects. In gathering materials for this great work Agassiz
visited the principal museums in Europe, and meeting Cuvier in
Paris, he received much encouragement and assistance from him.
Agassiz found that his palaeontological labours rendered
necessary a new basis of ichthyological classification. The
fossils rarely exhibited any traces of the soft tissues of
fishes. They consisted chiefly of the teeth, scales and fins,
even the bones being perfectly preserved in comparatively few
instances. He therefore adopted his well-known classification,
which divided fishes into four groups--viz. Ganoids,
Placoids, Cycloids and Ctenoids, based on the nature of
the scales and other dermal appendages. While Agassiz
did much to place the subject on a scientific basis, his
classification has not been found to meet the requirements
of modern research. As remarked by Dr A. Smith Woodward,
he sought to interpret the past structures by too rigorous
a comparison with those of living forms. (See Catalogue
of Fossil Fishes in the British Natural History Museum.)
As the important descriptive work of Agassiz proceeded, it
became obvious that it would over-tax his resources, unless
assistance could be afforded. The British Association came
to his aid, and the earl of Ellesmere--then Lord Francis
Egerton--gave him yet more efficient help. The original
drawings made for the work, chiefly by Dinkel, amounted
to 1290 in number. These were purchased by the Earl, and
presented by him to the Geological Society of London.
In 1836 the Wollaston medal was awarded by the council of
that society to Agassiz for his work on fossil ichthyology;
and in 1838 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal
Society. Meanwhile the invertebrate animals engaged his
attention. In 1837 he issued the ``Prodrome'' of a monograph
on the recent and fossil Echinodermata, the first part of which
appeared in 1838; in 1839-1840 he published two quarto volumes
on the fossil Echinoderms of Switzerland; and in 1840-1845 he
issued his Etudes critiques sur les mollusques fossiles.
Subsequently to his first visit to England in 1834, the labours
of Hugh Miller and other geologists brought to light the
remarkable fishes of the Old Red Sandstone of the north-east of
Scotland. The strange forms of the Pterichthys, the
Coccosteus and other genera were then made known to geologists
for the first time. They naturally were of intense interest
to Agassiz, and formed the subject of a special monograph
by him published in 1844-1845: Monographie des poissons
fossiles du Vieux Gres Rouge, ou Systeme Devonien
(Old Red Sandstone) des Iles Britanniques et de Russie.
The year 1836 witnessed the inauguration of a new investigation,
which proved to be of the utmost importance to geological
science. Previously to this date de Saussure, Venetz,
Charpentier and others had made the glaciers of the Alps
the subjects of special study, and Charpentier had even
arrived at the conclusion that the erratic blocks of alpine
rocks scattered over the slopes and summits of the Jura
mountains had been conveyed thither by glaciers. The question
having attracted the attention of Agassiz, he not only made
successive journeys to the alpine regions in company with
Charpentier, but he had a hut constructed upon one of the Aar
glaciers, which for a time he made his home, in order to
investigate thoroughly the structure and movements of the
ice. These labours resulted in the publication of his grand
work in two volumes entitled Etudes sur les glaciers,
1840. Therein he discussed the movements of the glaciers,
their moraines, their influence in grooving and rounding
the rocks over which they travelled, and in producing the
striations and roches moutonnees with which we are now so
familiar. He not only accepted Charpentier's idea that some
of the alpine glaciers had extended across the wide plains and
valleys drained by the Aar and the Rhone, and thus landed parts
of their remains upon the uplands of the Jura, but he went still
farther. He concluded that, at a period geologically recent,
Switzerland had been another Greenland; that instead of a few
glaciers stretching across the areas referred to, one vast
sheet of ice, originating in the higher Alps, had extended
over the entire valley of north-western Switzerland until
it reached the southern slopes of the Jura, which, though
they checked and deflected its further extension, did not
prevent the ice from reaching in many places the summit of the
range. The publication of this work gave a fresh impetus
to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world.
Thus familiarized with the phenomena attendant on the
movements of recent glaciers, Agassiz was prepared for a
discovery which he made in 1840, in conjunction with William
Buckland. These two savants visited the mountains of Scotland
together, and found in different localities clear evidence of
ancient glacial action. The discovery was announced to the
Geological Society of London in successive communications from
the two distinguished observers. The mountainous districts
of England and Wales and Ireland were also considered to
constitute centres for the dispersion of glacial debris; and
Agassiz remarked ``that great sheets of ice, resembling those
now existing in Greenland, once covered all the countries
in which unstratified gravel (boulder drift) is found;
that this gravel was in general produced by the trituration
of the sheets of ice upon the subjacent surface, &c.''
In 1842-1846 he issued his Nomenclator Zoologicus, a
classified list, with references, of all names employed in
zoology for genera and groups--a work of great labour and
research. With the aid of a grant of money from the king of
Prussia, Agassiz, in the autumn of 1846, crossed the Atlantic,
with the twofold design of investigating the natural history
and geology of the United States and delivering a course of
lectures on zoology, by invitation from J. A. Lowell, at the
Lowell Institute at Boston; the tempting advantages, pecuniary
and scientific, presented to him in the New World induced
him to settle in the United States, where he remained to the
end of his life. He was appointed professor of zoology and
geology in Harvard University, Cambridge, U.S., in 1847.
In 1852 he accepted a medical professorship of comparative
anatomy at Charlestown, but this he resigned in two years.
The transfer to a new field and the association with
fresh objects of interest gave his energies an increased
stimulus. Volume after volume now proceeded from his pen:
some of his writings were popular, but most of them dealt
with the higher departments of scientific research. His work
on Lake Superior, and his four volumes of Contributions to
the Natural History of the United States, 1857-1862, were
of this latter character. We must not overlook the valuable
service he rendered to science by the formation, for his own
use, of a catalogue of scientific memoirs--an extraordinary
work for a man whose hands were already so full. This
catalogue, edited and materially enlarged by the late Hugh
E. Strickland, was published by the Ray Society under the
title of Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, in 4 vols.,
1848-1854. Nor must we forget that he was building up another
magnificent monument of his industry in the Museum of Natural
History, which rose under his fostering care, at Cambridge.
But at length the great strain on his physical powers began to
tell. His early labours among the fishes of Brazil had often
caused him to cast a longing glance towards that country,
and he now resolved to combine the pursuit of health with the
gratification of his long cherished desires. In April 1865
he started for Brazil, with his wife and class of qualified
assistants. An interesting account of this expedition,
entitled A Journey in Brazil (1868), was published by Mrs
Agassiz and himself after they returned home in August 1866.
In 1871 he made a second excursion, visiting the southern shores
of the North American continent, both on its Atlantic and its
Pacific sea-boards. He had for many years yearned after the
establishment of a permanent school where zoological science
could be pursued amidst the haunts of the living subjects of
study. The last, and possibly the most influential, of
the labours of his life was the establishment of such an
institution, which he was enabled to effect through the
liberality of Mr John Anderson, a citizen of New York. That
gentleman, in 1873, not only handed over to Agassiz the island
of Penikese, in Buzzard's Bay, on the east coast, but also
presented him with $50,000 wherewith permanently to endow it
as a practical school of natural science, especially devoted
to the study of marine zoology. Unfortunately he did not
long survive the establishment of this institution. The
disease with which he had struggled for some years proved
fatal on the 14th of December 1873. He was buried at Mount
Auburn. His monument is a boulder selected from the moraine
of the glacier of the Aar near the site of the old Hotel des
Neuchatelois, not far from the spot where his hut once stood;
and the pine-trees which shelter his grave were sent from his
old home in Switzerland. His extensive knowledge of natural
history makes it somewhat remarkable to find that from first
to last he steadily rejected the doctrine of evolution, and
affirmed his belief in independent creations. When studying
the superficial deposits of the Brazilian plains in 1865,
his vivid imagination covered even that wide tropical area,
as it had covered Switzerland before, with one vast glacier,
extending from the Andes to the sea. This view, however,
has not been generally accepted. His daring conceptions were
only equalled by the unwearied industry and genuine enthusiasm
with which he worked them out; and if in details his labours
were somewhat defective, it was only because he had ventured
to attempt what was too much for any one man to accomplish.
It may be interesting to mention that the charming verses
written by Longfellow on ``The fiftieth birthday of
Agassiz'' were read by the author at a dinner given to
Agassiz by the Saturday Club in Cambridge, Mass., in 1857.
Louis Agassiz was twice married, and by his first wife he had
an only son, Alexander Agassiz (q.v.), born in 1835; in 1850,
after her death, he married his second wife, Elizabeth Cabot
Cary of Boston, Mass., afterwards well known as a writer and
as an active promoter of educational work in connexion with
Radcliffe College (see an article on Radcliffe College, by
Helen Leah Reed in the New England Magazine for January 1895).
AUTHORITIES--L. Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence, 2 vols.,
by E. C (Mrs) Agassiz (London, 1885); Louis Agassiz, His Life and
Work, by C. F. Holder (New York and London, 1893). (H. B. Wo.)
AGATE, a term applied not to a distinct mineral species,
but to an aggregate of various forms of silica, chiefly
Chalcedony (q.v..) According to Theophrastus the agate
(achates) was named from the river Achates, now the Drillo,
in Sicily, where the stone was originally found. Most agates
occur as nodules in eruptive rocks, or ancient lavas, where
they represent cavities originally produced by the disengagement
of vapour in the molten mass, and since filled, wholly or
partially, by siliceous matter deposited in regular layers
upon the walls. Such agates, when cut transversely, exhibit
a succession of parallel lines, often of extreme tenuity,
giving a banded appearance to the section, whence such stones
are known as banded agate, riband agate and striped agate.
Certain agates also occur, to a limited extent, in veins, of
which a notable example is the beautiful brecciated agate of
Schlottwitz, near Wesenstein in Saxony--a stone mostly composed
of angular fragments of agate cemented with amethystine quartz.
In the formation of an ordinary agate, it is probable that
waters containing silica in solution--derived, perhaps,
from the decomposition of some of the silicates in the lava
itself--percolated through the rock, and deposited a siliceous
coating on the interior of the vapour-vesicles. Variations in
the character of the solution, or in the conditions of deposit,
may have caused corresponding variation in the successive
layers, so that bands . of chalcedony often alternate with
layers of crystalline quartz, and occasionally of opaline
silica. By movement of the lava, when originally viscous,
the vesicles were in many cases drawn out and compressed,
whence the mineral matter with which they became filled
assumed an elongated form, having the longer axis in the
direction in which the magma flowed. From the fact that
these kernels are more or less almond-shaped they are called
amygdales, whilst the rock which encloses them is known as an
amygdaloid. Several vapour-vesicles may unite while the
rock is viscous, and thus form a large cavity which may
become the home of an agate of exceptional size; thus a
Brazilian geode, lined with amethyst, of the weight of 35
tons, was exhibited at the Dusseldorf Exhibition of 1902.
The first deposit on the wall of a cavity, forming the
``skin'' of the agate, is generally a dark greenish mineral
substance, like celadonite, delessite or ``green earth,''
which are hydrous silicates rich in iron, derived probably
from the decomposition of the augite in the mother-rock.,
This green silicate may give rise by alteration to a brown
oxide of iron (limonite), producing a rusty appearance on
the outside of the agate-nodule. The outer surface of an
agate, freed from its matrix, is often pitted and rough,
apparently in consequence of the removal of the original
coating. The first layer spread over the wall of the cavity
has been called the ``priming,'' and upon this basis zeolitic
minerals may be deposited, as was pointed out by Dr M. F.
Heddle. Chalcedony is generally one of the earlier deposits
and crystallized quartz one of later formation. Tubular
channels, usually choked with siliceous deposits, are often
visible in sections of agate, and were formerly regarded,
especially by L. von Buch and J. Noggerath, as inlets of
infiltration, by which the siliceous solutions gained access
to the interior of the amygdaloidal cavity. It seems likely,
however, that the solution transuded through the walls
generally, penetrating the chalcedonic layers, as Heddle
maintained, by osmotic action. Much of the chalcedony in an
agate is known, from the method of artificially staining the
stone, to be readily permeable. It was argued by E. Reusch
that the cavities were alternately filled and emptied by means
of intermittent hot springs carrying silica; while G. Lange, of
Idar, suggested that the tension of the confined steam might
pierce an outlet through some weak point in the coating of
gelatinous silica, deposited on the walls, so that the tubes
would be channels of egress rather than of ingress--a view
supported by Heddle, who described them as ``tubes of escape.''
It sometimes happens that horizontal deposits, or strata usually
opaline in character, are formed on the floor of a cavity
after the walls have been lined with successive layers of
chalcedony. Many agates are hollow, since deposition has
not proceeded far enough to fill the cavity, and in such
cases the last deposit commonly consists of quartz, often
amethystine, having the apices of the crystals directed towards
the free space, so as to form a crystal-lined cavity or geode.
When the deposits in an agate have been formed on a crop of
crystals, or on a rugose base, the cross-section presents a
zigzag pattern, rather like the plan of a fortress with salient
and retiring angles, whence the stone is termed fortification
agate. If the section shows concentric circles, due either to
stalactitic growth or to deposition in the form of bosses and
beads on the floor, the stone is known as ring agate or eye
agate. A Mexican agate, showing only a single eye, has
received the name of ``cyclops.'' Included matter of a green
colour, like fragments of ``green earth,'' embedded in
the chalcedony and disposed in filaments and other forms
suggestive of vegetable growth, gives rise to moss agate.
These inorganic enclosures in the agate have been sometimes
described, even after microscopic examination, as true vegetable
structures. Dendritic markings of black or brown colour, due
to infiltration of oxides of manganese and iron, produce the
variety of agate known as Mocha stone. Agates of exceptional
beauty often pass in trade under the name of Oriental agate.
Certain stones, when examined in thin sections by transmitted
light, show a diffraction spectrum, due to the extreme delicacy
of the successive bands, whence they are termed rainbow agates.
On the disintegration of the matrix in which the agates are
embedded, they are set free, and, being by their siliceous
nature extremely resistant to the action of air and water,
remain as nodules in the soil and gravel, or become rolled as
pebbles in the streams. Such is the origin of the ``Scotch
pebbles,'' used as ornamental stones. They are agates derived
from the andesitic lavas of Old Red Sandstone age, chiefly
in the Ochils and the Sidlaws. In like manner, the South
American agates, so largely cut and polished at the present
time, are found mostly as boulders in the beds of rivers.
An enormous trade in agate-working is carried on in a small
district in Germany, around Oberstein on the Nahe, a tributary
of the Rhine at Bingen. Here the industry was located many
centuries ago, in consequence of the abundant occurrence
of agates in the amygdaloidal melaphyre of the district,
notably in the Galgenberg, or Steinkaulenberg, overlooking
the village of Idar, on the Idar Bach, about two miles from
Oberstein. The abundant water-power in the neighbourhood
had also a share in the determination of the industrial
site. At the present time, however, steam power and even
electricity are employed in the mills of the Oberstein
district. Although the agateindustry is still carried on
there, especially at Idar, the stones operated on are
not of indigenous origin, but are imported mostly from
Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul) and from Uruguay, where they
were discovered in 1827. Agate-working is also carried
on to a limited extent at Waldkirch in the Black Forest.
Most commercial agate is artificially stained, so that stones
naturally unattractive by their dull grey tints come to be
valuable for ornamental purposes. The art of staining the
stone is believed to be very ancient. Possibly referred to
by Pliny (bk. xxxvii. cap. 75), it was certainly practised
at an early date by the Italian cameo-workers, and from
Italy a knowledge of the art--long kept secret and practised
traditionally--passed in the early part of the 19th century to
the agate-workers in Germany, by whom it has since been greatly
developed. The colouring matter is absorbed by the porosity
of the stone, but different stones and even different layers
in the same stone exhibit great variation in absorptive
power. The Brazilian agates lend themselves readily to
coloration, while the German agates are much less receptive.
To produce a dark brown or black colour, the stone is kept perhaps
for two or three weeks in a saccharine solution, or in olive
oil, at a moderate temperature. After removal from this medium,
the agate is well washed and then digested for a short time in
sulphuric acid, which entering the pores chars or carbonizes
the absorbed sugar or oil. Certain layers of chalcedony are
practically impermeable, and these consequently remain uncoloured,
so that an alternation of dark and white bands is obtained,
thus giving rise to an onyx. If stained too dark, the colour
may be ``drawn,'' or lightened, by the action of nitric acid.
Agate is stained red, so as to form carnelian and sardonyx,
by means of ferric oxide. This may be derived from any iron
compound naturally present in the stone, especially from limonite
by dehydration on baking. Some stones are ``burnt'' by mere
exposure to the heat of the sun, whereby the brown colour passes to
red. Usually, however, an iron-salt, like ferrous sulphate,
is artificially introduced in solution and then decomposed
by heat, so as to form in the pores a rich red pigment.
A blue colour, supposed to render the agate rather like lapis
lazuli, is produced by using first an iron salt and then
a solution of ferrocyanide or ferricyanide of potassium;
a green colour, like that of chrysoprase, is obtained
by means of salts of nickel or of chromium; and a yellow
tint is developed by the action of hydrochloric acid.
Among the uses to which agate is applied may be mentioned the
formation of knife-edges of delicate balances, small mortars
and pestles for chemical work, burnishers and writing styles,
umbrella-handles, paper-knives, seals, brooches and other trivial
ornaments. Most of these are cut and polished in the Oberstein
district, at a very cheap rate, from South American stones.
Numerous localities in the United States and Canada yield
agates, as described by Dr G. F. Kunz. They are abundant in
the trap rocks of the Lake Superior region, some of the finest
coming from Michipicoten Island, Ontario. A locality on the
shore of the lake is called Agate Bay. Wood agate, or agatized
wood, is not infrequently found in Colorado, California and
elsewhere in the West, the most notable locality being the
famous ``silicified forest'' known as Chalcedony Park, in Apache
county, Arizona. Here there are vast numbers of water-rolled
logs of silicified wood, in rocks of Triassic age, but only
a small quantity of the wood is fine enough for ornamental
purposes. The cellular tissue of the vegetable matter is
filled, or even replaced, by various siliceous minerals like
chalcedony, jasper, crystalline quartz and semi-opal, the silica
having probably been introduced by thermal waters. Some of the
agate shows the microscopic structure of araucarian wood. The
agatized wood is sometimes known by the Indian name of shinarump.
In India agates occur abundantly in the amygdaloidal varieties of
the Deccan and Rajmahal traps, and as pebbles in the detritus
derived from these rocks. Some of the finest are found in the
agate-gravels near Ratanpur, in Rajpipla. The trade in agates
has been carried on from early times at Cambay, where the stones
are cut and polished. Agates are also worked at Jubbulpore.
In many parts of New South Wales, agates, resulting from the
disintegration of trap rocks, are common in the river-beds and old
drifts. They occur also in Queensland, as at Agate Creek, running
into the Gilbert river. South Africa likewise yields numerous
agates, especially in the gravels of the Orange and Vaal rivers.
It should be noted that in England agates are found not
only in old lavas, like the andesites of the Cheviots, but
also to a limited extent in the Dolomitic Conglomerate,
an old beachdeposit of Triassic age in the Mendips and
the neighbourhood of Bristol. They are also found as
weathered pebbles in the drift of Lichfield in Staffordshire.
For Scottish agates see M. F. Heddle, ``On the Structure of
Agates,'' Trans. Geolog. Soc. Glasgow, vol. xi. part ii.,
1900, p. 153; and Mineralogy of Scotland (1901), vol. i.
p. 58; J. G. Goodchild, Proc. Phys. Soc. Edinburgh, vol.
xiv., 1899, p. 191. For the agate-industry see G. Lange, Die
Halbedelsteine (Kreuznach, 1868). For American agates, G. F.
Kunz, Gems and Precious Stones of North America (1890), p.
128. For agates in general see Max Bauer's Precious Stones,
translated by L. J. Spencer (London, 1904). (F. W. R.n)
AGATHA, SAINT, the patron saint of Catania, Sicily, where
her festival is celebrated on the 5th of February. The legend
is that she was a native of Sicily (probably of Catania,
though Palermo also claims her), of noble birth and great
beauty. She repelled the advances of the Roman prefect sent
by the emperor Decius to govern Sicily, and was by his orders
brutally tortured and finally sent to the stake. As soon as
the fire was lighted, an earthquake occurred, and the people
insisted on her release. She died in prison on the 5th
of February 251. The rescue of Catania from fire during an
eruption of Mount Etna was later attributed to St Agatha's veil.
AGATHANGELUS, AGATHANGE or AKATHANKELOS, Armenian
historian, lived during the 4th century, and wrote a History
of the Reign of Dertad, or Tiridates, and of the Preaching
of St Gregory the Illuminator. The text of this history
has been considerably altered, but it has always been in
high favour with the Armenians. It has been translated
into several languages, and Greek and Latin translations
are found in the Acta Sanctorum Bollandistarum, tome
viii. As known to us the history consists of three parts,
a history of St Gregory and his companions, the doctrine of
Gregory, and the conversion of Armenia to Christianity.
See V. Langlois, Collection des historiens
anciens et modernes de l'Armenie (Paris, 1868).
AGATHARCHIDES, or AGATHARCHUS, of Cnidus, Greek historian
and geographer, lived in the time of Ptolemy Philometor
(181-146 B.C.) and his successors. Amongst other works,
he wrote treatises on Asia, Europe and The Red Sea.
Interesting extracts from the last, of some length, are
preserved in Photius (cod. 213), who praises the style
of the author, which was modelled on that of Thucydides.
See H. Leopoldi, De Agatharchide Cnidio Dissertatio
(1892); C. W. Muller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum,
iii., and Geographi Graeci Minores, i.; E. H.
Bunbury, Hist. of Ancient Geography, ii. (1879).
AGATHARCHUS, an Athenian painter of the 5th century B.C.
He is said by Vitruvius to have been the first to paint a scene
for the acting of tragedies. Hence some writers, such as Karl
Woermann, have supposed that he introduced perspective and
illusion into painting. This is a mistaken view, for ancient
writers know nothing of canvas scenes; the background painted
by Agatharchus was the wooden front of the stage building,
and it was painted, not with reference to any particular
play, but as a permanent decorative background, representing
no doubt a palace or temple. Agatharchus is said to have
been seized by Alcibiades and compelled by him to paint the
interior of his house, which shows that at the time (about
435 B.C.) decorative painting of rooms was the fashion.
AGATHIAS (c. A.D. 536-582), of Myrina in Aeolis,
Greek poet and historian. He studied law at Alexandria,
completed his training at Constantinople and practised as
an advocate (scholasticus) in the courts. Literature,
however, was his favourite pursuit. He wrote a number of
short love-poems in epic metre, called Daphniaca. He next
put together a kind of anthology, containing epigrams by
earlier and contemporary poets and himself, under the title
of a Cycle of new Epigrams. About a hundred epigrams by
Agathias have been preserved in the Greek Anthology and
show considerable taste and elegance. After the death of
Justinian (565), some of Agathias's friends persuaded him
to write the history of his own times. This work, in five
books, begins where Procopius ends, and is the chief authority
for the period 552-558. It deals chiefly with the struggles
of the Byzantine army, under the command of the eunuch
Narses, against the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Persians. The
author prides himself on his honesty and impartiality, but
he is lacking in judgment and knowledge of facts; the work,
however, is valuable from the importance of the events of
which it treats. Gibbon contrasts Agathias as ``a poet and
rhetorician'' with Procopius ``a statesman and soldier.''
AUTHORITIES.--Editio princeps, by B. Vulcanius (1594); in
the Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Byz. Hist., by B. G. Niebuhr
(1828); in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, lxxxviii.; L. Dindorf,
Historici Graeci Minores (1871); W. S. Teuffel, ``Agathias
von Myrine,'' in Philolegus (i. 1846); C. Krumbacher,
Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (2nd ed. 1897).
AGATHO, pope from 678 to 681, was born in Sicily. He is
noteworthy as the pope who ordered St Wilfrid to be restored
to his bishopric at York in 679, and as the first to cease
payment of the tribute hitherto paid on election to the
emperor at Constantinople. It was during his pontificate
that the 6th oecumenical council was held at Constantinople,
to which he sent his legates and those from a Roman council
held in 679. Agatho died on the 10th of January 681.
AGATHOCLES (361-289 B.C.), tyrant of Syracuse, was
born at Thermae Himeraeae (mod. Termini Imerese) in
Sicily. The son of a potter who had removed to Syracuse,
he learned his father's trade, but afterwards entered the
army. In 333 he married the widow of his patron Damas, a
distinguished and wealthy citizen. He was twice banished for
attempting to overthrow the oligarchical party in Syracuse
(q.v.); in 317 he returned with an army of mercenaries under
a solemn oath to observe the democratic constitution which
was then set up. Having banished or murdered some 10,000
citizens, and thus made himself master of Syracuse, he created
a strong army and fleet and subdued the greater part of
Sicily. War with Carthage followed. In 310 Agathocles,
defeated and besieged in Syracuse, took the desperate resolve
of breaking through the blockade and attacking the enemy in
Africa. After several victories he was at last completely
defeated (306) and fled secretly to Sicily. After concluding
peace with Carthage, Agathocles styled himself king of
Sicily, and established his rule over the Greek cities of
the island more firmly than ever. Even in his old age he
displayed the same restless energy, and is said to have been
meditating a fresh attack on Carthage at the time of his
death. His last years were harassed by ill-health and the
turbulence of his grandson Archagathus, at whose instigation
he is said to have been poisoned; according to others, he
died a natural death. He was a born leader of mercenaries,
and, although he did not shrink from cruelty to gain his ends,
he afterwards showed himself a mild and popular ``tyrant.''
See Justin xxii., xxiii.; Diodorus Siculus xix., xxi., xxii.
(follows generally Timaeus who had a special grudge against
Agathocles); Polybius ix. 23; Schubert, Geschichte des
Agathokles (1887); Grote, History of Greece, ch. 97; also
SICILY, History. AGATHODAEMON; in Greek mythology, the
``good spirit'' of cornfields and vineyards. It was the custom
of the Greeks to drink a cup of pure wine in his honour at
the end of each meal (Aristophanes, Equites, 106). He was
also regarded as the protecting spirit of the state and of
individuals. He was often accompanied by 'Agathe Tuche
(good fortune), and in this aspect may be compared with
the Roman Bonus Eventus (Pliny, Nat Hist. xxxvi. 23), and
Genius. He is represented in works of art in the form of a
serpent, or of a young man with a cornucopia and a bowl
in one hand, and a poppy and ears of corn in the other.
See Gerhard, Uber Agathodamon und Bona Dea (Berlin, 1849).
AGATHODAEMON, of Alexandria, map designer, probably lived
in the 2nd century A.D. Some MSS. of the Geography of
Ptolemy contain twenty-seven maps, which are stated to have
been drawn by Agathodaemon of Alexandria, who ``delineated
the whole world according to the eight books of Ptolemy's
geography.'' As Ptolemy speaks of IIinakes to accompany his
treatise, these maps were probably the work of a contemporary
acting under his instructions. About 1470 Nicolaus Doris,
a Benedictine monk, brought out a revised edition of
them, the names being inserted in Latin instead of Greek.
See Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, ii.
AGATHON (c. 448-400 B.C.), Athenian tragic poet, friend of
Euripides and Plato, best known from his mention by Aristophanes
(Thesmophoriazusae) and in Plato's Symposium, which describes
the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for a tragedy
(416). He probably died at the court of Archelaus, king of
Macedonia. He introduced certain innovations, and Aristotle
(Poetica, 9) tells us that the plot of his 0Antho1 was
original, not, as usually, borrowed from mythological subjects.
See Aristophanes, Thesmoph. 59, 106, Eccles. 100; Plato, Symp.
198 c; Plutarch, Symp. 3; Aelian, Var. Hist. xiv. 13; Ritsch,
Opuscula, i.; fragments in Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.
AGATHYRSI, a people of Thracian origin, who in the earliest
historical times occupied the plain of the Maris (Maros), in
the region now known as Transylvania. Thyrsi is supposed to
be a Scythian form of Trausoi (Trausi), a Thracian tribe
mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium. They are described
by Herodotus (iv. 104) as of luxurious habits, wearing gold
ornaments (the district is still auriferous) and having wives in
common. They tattooed their bodies (picti, Aeneid iv. 136),
degrees of rank being indicated by the manner in which this
was done, and coloured their hair dark blue. Like the Gallic
Druids, they recited their laws in a kind of sing-song to
prevent their being forgotten, a practice still in existence
in the days of Aristotle (Problemata, xix. 28). Valerius
Flaccus (Argonautica, vi. 135) calls them Thyrsagetae,
probably in reference to their celebration of orgiastic rites
in honour of some divinity akin to the Thracian Dionysus.
In later times the Agathyrsi were driven farther north, and
their name was unknown to the Romans in their original home.
[26]. 88; Pomponius Mela ii. 1. 10: W. Tomaschek, ``Die alten
Thraker,'' in Sitzungsber. der philosophisch-historischen
Klasse der kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss. cxxviii. (Vienna, 1893).
AGAVE, a large botanical genus of the natural order Amaryllidaceae,
chiefly Mexican, but occurring also in the southern and western
United States and in central and tropical South America. The
plants have a large rosette of thick fleshy leaves generally
ending in a sharp point and with a spiny margin; the stout
stem is usually short, the leaves apparently springing from the
root. They grow slowly and flower but once after a number of
years, when a tall stem or ``mast'' grows from the centre of
the leaf rosette and bears a large number of shortly tubular
flowers. After development of fruit the plant dies down,
but suckers are frequently produced from the base of the
stem which become new plants. The most familiar species is
Agave americana (see fig.), a native of tropical America,
the so-called century plant or American aloe (the maguey of
Mexico). The number of years before flowering occurs depends
on the vigour of the individual, the richness of the soil
and the climate; during these years the plant is storing in
its fleshy leaves the nourishment required for the effort of
flowering. During the development of the inflorescence there
is a rush of sap to the base of the young flowerstalk. In
the case of A. americana and other species this is used by
the Mexicans to make their national beverage, pulque; the
flower shoot is cut out and the sap collected and subsequently
fermented. By distillation a spirit called mescal is
prepared. The leaves of several species yield fibre, as for
instance, A. rigida var. sisalana, sisal hemp (q.v.),
A. decipiens, false sisal hemp; A. americana is the
source of pita fibre, and is used as a fibre plant in
Mexico, the West Indies and southern Europe. The flowering
stem of the last named, dried and cut in slices, forms
Agave americana, Century plant or American aloe. About
1/40 nat. size. 1, Flower; 2, same flower split open above the
ovary; 3, ovary cut across; 1, 2, and 3, about 1/2 nat. size.
From the Botanical Magazine, by permission of Lovell Reeve and Co.
natural razor strops, and the expressed juice of the leaves
will lather in water like soap. In the Madras Presidency
the plant is extensively used for hedges along railroads.
Agave americana, century plant, was introduced into Europe
about the middle of the 16th century and is now widely
cultivated for its handsome appearance; in the variegated
forms the leaf has a white or yellow marginal or central
stripe from base to apex. As the leaves unfold from the
centre of the rosette the impression of the marginal spines
is very conspicuous on the still erect younger leaves. The
plants are usually grown in tubs and put out in the summer
months, but in the winter require to be protected from
frost. They mature very slowly and die after flowering, but
are easily propagated by the offsets from the base of the stem.
AGDE, a town of southern France, in the department of Herault,
on the left bank of the river of that name, 2 1/2 m. from the
Mediterranean Sea and 32 m. S.W. of Montpellier on the Southern
railway. Pop. (1906) 7146. The town lies at the foot of
an extinct volcano, the Montagne St Loup, and is built of
black volcanic basalt, which gives it a gloomy appearance.
Overlooking the river is the church of St Andre, which dates
partly from the 12th century, and, till the Revolution, was a
cathedral. It is a plain and massive structure with crenelated
walls, and has the aspect of a fortress rather than of a
church. The exterior is diversified by arched recesses forming
machicolations, and the same architectural feature is reproduced
in the square tower which rises like a donjon above the
building. The Canal du Midi, or Languedoc canal, uniting the
Garonne with the Mediterranean, passes under the walls of the
town, and the mouth of the Herault forms a harbour which is
protected by a fort. The maritime commerce of the town has
declined, owing partly to the neighbourhood of Cette, partly
to the shallowness of the Herault. The fishing industry
is, however, still active. The chief public institutions
are the tribunal of commerce and the communal college.
Agde is a place of great antiquity and is said to have
been founded under the name of agathe polis (Good
City) by the Phocaeans. The bishopric was established
about the year 400 and was suppressed in 1790.
SYNOD OF AGDE (Concilium Agathense.)--With the permission
of the West Goth Alaric II. thirty-five bishops of southern
Gaul assembled in person or sent deputies to Agde on the 11th
of September 506. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, presided. The
forty seven genuine canons of the synod deal with discipline,
church life, the alienation of ecclesiastical property and
the treatment of Jews. While favouring sacerdotal celibacy
the council laid rather rigid restrictions on monasticism. It
commanded that the laity communicate at Christmas, Easter and
Whitsuntide. The canons of Agde are based in part on earlier
Gallic, African and Spanish legislation; and some of them
were re-enacted by later councils, and found their way into
collections such as the Hispana, Pseudo-Isidore and Gratian.
See Mansi viii. 319 ff.; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte,
2nd edition, ii. 649 ff. (English translation, iv.
76 ff.); Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, i. 242.
AGE (Fr. age, through late Lat. aetaticum, from
aetas), a term used (1) of the divisions into which it
is suggested that human history may be divided, whether
regarded from the geological, cultural or moral aspects,
e.g. the palaeolithic age, the bronze age, the dark ages;
(2) of an historic epoch or generation; (3) of any period
or stage in the physical life of a person, animal or thing;
(4) of that time of life at which the law attributes full
responsibility for his or her acts to the individual.
(1) From the earliest times there would appear to have been
the belief that the history of the earth and of mankind
falls naturally into periods or ages. Classical mythology
popularized the idea. Hesiod, for example, in his poem Works
and Days, describes minutely five successive ages, during
each of which the earth was peopled by an entirely distinct
race. The first or golden race lived in perfect happiness
on the fruits of the untilled earth, suffered from no bodily
infirmity, passed away in a gentle sleep, and became after
death guardian daemons of this world. The second or silver
race was degenerate, and refusing to worship the immortal
gods, was buried by Jove in the earth. The third or brazen
race, still more degraded, was warlike and cruel, and perished
at last by internal violence. The fourth or heroic race
was a marked advance upon the preceding, its members being
the heroes or demi-gods who fought at Troy and Thebes, and who
were rewarded after death by being permitted to reap thrice
a year the free produce of the earth. The fifth or iron
race, to which the poet supposes himself to belong, is the
most degenerate of all, sunk so low in every vice that any new
change must be for the better. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses,
follows Hesiod exactly as to nomenclature and very closely as to
substance. He makes the degeneracy continuous, however,
by omitting the heroic race or age, which, as Grote points
out, was probably introduced by Hesiod, not as part of his
didactic plan, but from a desire to conciliate popular feeling
by including in his poem the chief myths that were already
current among the Greeks. Varro recognized three ages: (1)
from the beginning of mankind to the Deluge, a quite indefinite
period; (2) from the Deluge to the First Olympiad, called the
Mythical Period; (3) from the First Olympiad to his own time,
called the Historic Period. Lucretius divided man's history
into three cultural periods: (1) the Age of Stone; (2) the
Age of Bronze; (3) the Age of Iron. He thus anticipated the
conclusions of some of the greatest of modern archaeologists.
(2) A definite period in history, distinguished by some
special characteristic, such as great literary activity, is
generally styled, with some appropriate epithet, an age. It
is usual, for example, to speak of the Age of Pericles, the
Augustan, the Elizabethan or the Victorian Ages; of the Age
of the Crusades, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Age of
Steam. Such isolated periods, with no continuity or necessary
connexion of any kind, are obviously quite distinct from the
ages or organically related periods into which philosophers have
divided the whole course of human history. Auguste Comte, for
instance, distinguishes three ages according to the state of
knowledge in each, and he supposes that we are now entering
upon the third of these. In the first age of his scheme
knowledge is supernatural or fictitious; in the second it is
metaphysical or abstract; in the third it is positive or
scientific. Schemes somewhat similar have been proposed by other
philosophers, chiefly of France and Germany, and seem to be
regarded by them as essential to any complete science of history.
(3) The subject of the duration of human and animal life
does not fall within the scope of this article, and the
reader is referred to LONGEVITY. But the word ``age''
has been used by physiologists to express certain natural
divisions in human development and decay. These are usually
regarded as numbering five, viz. infancy, lasting to the
seventh year; childhood to the fourteenth; youth to
the twenty-first; adult life till fifty; and old age.
(4) The division of human life into periods for legal purposes
is naturally more sharp and definite than in physiology. It
would be unscientific in the physiologist to name any precise
year for the transition from one of his stages to another,
inasmuch as that differs very considerably among different
nations, and even to some extent among different individuals
of the same nation. But the law must necessarily be fixed and
uniform, and even where it professes to proceed according to
nature, must be more precise than nature. The Roman law divided
human life for its purposes into four chief periods, which
had their subdivisions--(1) infantia, lasting till the close
of the seventh year; (2) the period between infantia and
pubertas, males becoming puberes at fourteen and females
at twelve; (3) adolescentia, the period between puberty
and majority; and (4) the period after the twenty-fifth year,
when males became majores. The first period was one of total
legal incapacity; in the second period a person could lawfully
do certain specified acts, but only with the sanction of his
tutor or guardian; in the third the restrictions were fewer,
males being permitted to manage their own property, contract
marriage and make a will; but majority was not reached until
the age of twenty-five. By English law there are two great
periods into which life is divided--infancy, which lasts
in both sexes until the twenty-first year, and manhood or
womanhood. The period of infancy, again, is divided into several
stages, marked by the growing development both of rights and
obligations. Thus at twelve years of age a male may take
the oath of allegiance; at fourteen both sexes are held
to have arrived at years of discretion, and may therefore
choose guardians, give evidence and consent or disagree to a
marriage. A female has the last privilege from the twelfth
year, but the marriage cannot be celebrated until the majority
of the parties without the consent of parents or guardians. At
fourteen, too, both sexes are fully responsible to the criminal
law. Between seven and fourteen there is responsibility only
if the accused be proved doli capax, capable of discerning
between right and wrong, the principle in that case being that
malitia supplet aetatem. At twenty-one both males and females
obtain their full legal rights, and become liable to all legal
obligations. A seat in the British parliament may be taken at
twenty-one. Certain professions, however, demand as a
qualification in entrants a more advanced age than that of
legal man. hood. In the Church of England a candidate for
deacon's orders must be twenty-three (in the Roman Catholic
Church, twenty-two) and for priest's orders twenty-four years
of age; and no clergyman is eligible for a bishopric under
thirty. In Scotland infancy is not a legal term. The time
previous to majority, which, as in England, is reached by both
sexes at twenty-one, is divided into two stages: pupilage
lasts until the attainment of puberty, which the law fixes
at fourteen in males and twelve in females; minority lasts
from these ages respectively until twenty-one. Minority
obviously corresponds in some degree to the English years of
discretion, but a Scottish minor has more personal rights
than an English infant in the last stage of his infancy, e.g
he may dispose by will of movable property, make contracts,
carry on trade, and, as a necessary consequence, is liable
to be declared a bankrupt. In France the year of majority
is twenty-one, and the nubile age eighteen for males and
fifteen for females, with a restriction as to the consent of
guardians. Age qualification for the chamber of deputies
is twenty-five and for the senate forty years. In Germany,
majority is reached at twenty-one, the nubile age is twenty
for males and sixteen for females, subject to the consent of
parents. Without the consent of parents, the age is
twenty-five for males and twenty-four for females. The
age qualification for the Reichstag is twenty-five. In
Austria the age of majority is twenty-four, and the nubile
age fourteen for either sex, subject to the consent of the
parents. In Denmark, qualified majority is reached at eighteen
and full majority at twenty-five. The nubile age is twenty
for males and sixteen for females. In Spain, majority is
reached at twenty-three; the nubile age is eighteen for males
and sixteen for females. In Greece the age of majority is
twenty-one, and the nubile age sixteen for males and fourteen
for females. In Holland the age of majority is twenty-one,
and the nubile age eighteen for males and sixteen for
females. In Italy, majority is reached at twenty-one; the
nubile age is eighteen for males and fifteen for females. In
Switzerland the age of majority is twenty, and the nubile age
is eighteen for males and sixteen for females. In the United
States the age qualification for a president is thirty-five,
for a senator thirty and for a representative twenty-five.
AGELADAS, or (as the name is spelt in an inscription)
HAGELAIDAS, a great Argive sculptor, who flourished in the
latter part of the 6th and the early part of the 5th century
B.C. He was specially noted for his statues of Olympic victors
(of 520, 516, 508 B.C.); also for a statue at Messene of
Zeus, copied on the coins of that city. Ageladas was said to
have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias and Polyclitus; this
tradition is a testimony to his wide fame, though historically
doubtful. We have no work of Ageladas surviving; but we have
an inscription which contains the name of his son Argeiadas.
AGEN, a city of south-western France, capital of the
department of Lot-et-Garonne, 84 m. S.E. of Bordeaux by the
Southern railway between Bordeaux and Toulouse. Pop. (1906)
18,640. It is skirted on the west by the Garonne itself, and
on the north by its lateral canal. The river is crossed by
a stone bridge, by a suspension bridge for foot-passengers,
and by a fine canal bridge, carrying the lateral canal.
Pleasant promenades stretch for some distance along the right
bank. The town is a medley of old narrow streets contrasting
with the wide modern boulevards which cross it at intervals.
The chief building in Agen is the cathedral of St Caprais,
the most interesting portion of which is the apse of the
12th century with its three apse-chapels; the transept dates
from the 12th and 13th centuries, the nave from the 14th to
the 16th centuries; the tower flanking the south facade is
modern. The interior is decorated with modern paintings and
frescoes. There are several other churches, among them the
church of the Jacobins, a brick building of the 13th century,
and the church of St Hilaire of the 16th century, which has
a modern tower. In the prefecture, a building of the 18th
century, once the bishop's palace, is a collection of historical
portraits. The hotel de ville occupies the former Hotel du
Presidial, an obsolete tribunal, and contains the municipal
library. Two houses of the 16th century, the Hotel d'Estrades
and the Hotel de Vaurs, are used as the museum, which has
a rich collection of fossils, prehistoric and Roman remains,
and other antiquities and curiosities. The poet Jacques
Jasmin was a native of the town, which has erected a statue to
him. Through its excellent water communication it affords
an outlet for the agricultural produce of the district,
and forms an entrepot of trade between Bordeaux and
Toulouse. Agen is the seat of a bishop. It is the seat of
a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and has tribunals
of first instance and of commerce and a chamber of commerce.
There are also ecclesiastical seminaries, lycees for boys and
girls, training-colleges, a school of commerce and industry,
and a branch of the Bank of France. Agen is the market for
a rich agricultural region. The chief articles of commerce
are fattened poultry, prunes (pruneaux d'Agen) and other
fruit, cork, wine, vegetables and cattle. Manufactures
include flour, dried plums, pate de foie gras and other
delicacies, hardware, manures, brooms, drugs, woven goods tiles.
Agen (Aginnum) was the capital Of the Celtic tribe of the
Nitiobroges, and the discovery of extensive ruins attests
its importance under the Romans. In later times it was the
capital of the Agenais. Its bishopric was founded in the 4th
century. Agen changed hands more than once in the course of the
Albigensian wars, and at their close a tribunal of inquisition
was established in the town and inflicted cruel persecution on the
heretics. During the religious wars of the 16th century Agen took
the part of the Catholics and openly joined the League in 1589.
See Labenazie, Histoire de la ville d'Agen et pays
d'Agenois, ed. by A.-G. de Dampierre (1888); A. Ducom, La
Commune d'Agen: essai sur son histoire et son organisation
depuis son origine jusqu'au traite de Bretigny (1892).
AGENAIS, or AGENOIS, a former province of France. In
ancient Gaul it was the country of the Nitiobroges with Aginnum
for its capital, and in the 4th century it was the Civitas
Agennensium which was a part of Aquitania Secunda and
which formed the diocese of Agen. Having in general shared the
fortunes of Aquitaine during the Merovingian and Carolingian
periods, Agenais next became an hereditary countship in the part
of the country now called Gascony (Vasconia.) In 1038 this
countship was purchased by the dukes of Aquitaine and counts of
Poitiers. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry
Plantagenet in 1152 brought it under the sway of England; but
when Richard Coeur-de-Lion married his sister Joan to Raymund
VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Agenais formed part of the
princess's dowry; and with the other estates of the last
independent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in
1271. This, however, was not for long; the king of France
had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to
the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in
1279. During the wars between the English and the French
in the 14th and 15th centuries, Agenais was frequently taken
and retaken, the final retreat of the English in 1453 at
last leaving the king of France in peaceable possession.
Thenceforth Agenais was no more than an administrative
term. At the end of the ancien regime it formed part
of the ``Gouvernement'' of Guienne, and at the Revolution
it was incorporated in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, of
which it constitutes nearly the whole. The title of count
of Agenais, which the kings of England had allowed to fall
into desuetude, was revived by the kings of France, and
in 1789 was held by the family of the dukes of Richelieu.
There is no good history of Agenais; that published by Jules
Andrieu in 1893 (Histoire de l'Agenais, 2 vols.) being quite
inadequate. The Bibliographie generale de l'Agenais, by the
same author (1886-1891, 3 vols.), may be found useful. (C. B.n)
AGENT (from Lat. agere, to act), a name applied generally
to, any person who acts for another. It has probably been
adopted from France, as its function in modern civil law was
otherwise expressed in Roman jurisprudence. Ducange (s.v.
Agentes) tells us that in the later Roman empire the officers
who collected the grain in the provinces for the troops and
the household, and afterwards extended their functions so
as to include those of government postmasters or spies, came
to be called agentes in rebus, their earlier name having
been frumentarii. In law an agent is a person authorized,
expressedly or impliedly, to act for another, who is thence
called the principal, and who is, in consequence of, and to
the extent of, the authority delegated by him, bound by the
acts of his agent. (See PRINCIPAL AND AGENT; FACTOR, &c.)
In Scotland the procurators or solicitors who act in the preparation of
cases in the various law-courts are called agents. (See SOLICITOR.)
In France the agents de change were formerly the class
generally licensed for conducting all negotiations, as
they were termed, whether in commerce or the money market.
The term has, however, become practically limited to those
who conduct transactions in public stock. The laws and
regulations as to courtiers, or those whose functions were
more distinctly confined to transactions in merchandise, have
been mixed up with those applicable to agents de change.
Down to the year 1572 both functions were free; but at that
period, partly for financial reasons, a system of licensing
was adopted at the suggestion of the chancellor, l'Hopital.
Among the other revolutionary measures of the year 1791, the
professions of agent and courtier were again opened to the
public. Many of the financial convulsions of the ensuing years,
which were due to more serious causes, were attributed to this
indiscriminate removal of restrictions, and they were reimposed in
1801. From that period regulations have been made from time
to time as to the qualifications of agents, the security to be
found by them and the like. They are now regarded as public
officers, appointed, with certain privileges and duties,
by the government to act as intermediaries in negotiating
transfers of public funds and commercial stocks and for dealing
in metallic currency. (See STOCK EXCHANGE: France.)
In diplomacy the term ``agent'' was originally applied to all
``diplomatic agents,'' including ambassadors. With the evolution
of the diplomatic hierarchy, however, the term gradually sank
until it was technically applied only to the lowest class of
``diplomatic agents,'' without a representative character and
of a status and character so dubious that, by the regulation
of the congress of Vienna, they were wholly excluded from
the immunities of the diplomatic service. (See DIPLOMACY.)
AGENT-GENERAL, the term given to a representative in England
of one of the self-governing British colonies. Agents-general
may be said to hold a position mid-way between agents of
provinces and ambassadors of foreign countries. They are
appointed, and their expenses and salaries provided, by the
governments of the colonies they represent, viz. Cape of
Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, New South Wales, Queensland,
South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, New
Zealand and Canada (whose representatives are termed high
commissioners). Their duties are to look after the political
and economic interests of their colonies in London, to
assist in all financial and commercial matters in which their
colonies may be concerned, such as shipping arrangements and
rates of freight, cable communications and rates, tenders for
public works, &c., and to make known the products of their
colonies. Those colonies which are not under responsible
government are represented in London by crown agents.
AGESANDER, a Rhodian sculptor, whose title to fame is
that he is mentioned by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 37) as
author (with Polydorus and Athenodorus) of the group of the
Laocoon. Inscriptions recently found at Lindus in Rhodes
date Agesander and Athenodorus to the period 42-21 B.C. The
date of the Laocoon seems thus finally settled, after long
controversy. It represents the culmination of a sentimental
or pathetic tendency in art, which is prominent in the
somewhat earlier sculpture of Pergamum. (See GREEK ART.)
AGESILAUS II., king of Sparta, of the Eurypontid family,
was the son of Archidamus II. and Eupolia, and younger
step-brother of Agis II., whom he succeeded about 401 B.C.
Agis had, indeed, a son Leotychides, but he was set aside as
illegitimate, current rumour representing him as the son of
Alcibiades. Agesilaus' success was largely due to Lysander,
who hoped to find in him a willing tool for the furtherance
of his political designs; in this hope, however, Lysander war
disappointed, and the increasing power of Agesilaus soon
led to his downfall. In 396 Agesilaus was sent to Asia
with a force of 2000 Neodamodes (enfranchized Helots) and
6000 allies to secure the Greek cities against a Persian
attack. On the eve of sailing from Aulis he attempted to
offer a sacrifice, as Agamemnon had done before the Trojan
expedition, but the Thebans intervened to prevent it, an
insult for which he never forgave them. On his arrival at
Ephesus a three months' truce was concluded with Tissaphernes,
the satrap of Lydia and Caria, but negotiations conducted
during that time proved fruitless, and on its termination
Agesilaus raided Phrygia, where he easily won immense booty
since Tissaphernes had concentrated his troops in Carla.
After spending the winter in organizing a cavalry force, he
made a successful incursion into Lydia in the spring of 395.
Tithraustes was thereupon sent to replace Tissaphernes, who
paid with his life for his continued failure. An armistice
was concluded between Tithraustes and Agesilaus, who left the
southern satrapy and again invaded Phrygia, which he ravaged
until the following spring. He then came to an agreement
with the satrap Pharnabazus and once more turned southward.
It was said that he was planning a campaign in the interior,
or even an attack on Artaxerxes himself, when he was recalled
to Greece owing to the war between Sparta and the combined
forces of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Argos and several minor
states. A rapid march through Thrace and Macedonia brought
him to Thessaly, where he repulsed the Thessalian cavalry who
tried to impede him. Reinforced by Phocian and Orchomenian
troops and a Spartan army, he met the confederate forces
at Coronea in Boeotia, and in a hotly contested battle was
technically victorious, but the success was a barren one
and he had to retire by way of Delphi to the Peloponnese.
Shortly before this battle the Spartan navy, of which he had
received the supreme command, was totally defeated off Cnidus
by a powerful Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus.
Subsequently Agesilaus took a prominent part in the Corinthian
war, making several successful expeditions into Corinthian
territory and capturing Lechaeum and Piraeum. The loss,
however, of a mora, which was destroyed by Iphicrates,
neutralized these successes, and Agesilaus returned to
Sparta. In 389 he conducted a campaign in Acarnania, but
two years later the Peace of Antalcidas, which was warmly
supported by Agesilaus, put an end to hostilities. When war
broke out afresh with Thebes the king twice invaded Boeotia
(378, 377), and it was on his advice that Cleombrotus was
ordered to march against Thebes in 371. Cleombrotus was
defeated at Leuctra and the Spartan supremacy overthrown.
In 370 Agesilaus tried to restore Spartan prestige by an
invasion of Mantinean territory, and his prudence and heroism
saved Sparta when her enemies, led by Epaminondas, penetrated
Laconia that same year, and again in 362 when they all but
succeeded in seizing the city by a rapid and unexpected
march. The battle of Mantinea (362), in which Agesilaus took
no part, was followed by a general peace: Sparta, however,
stood aloof, hoping even yet to recover her supremacy.
In order to gain money for prosecuting the war Agesilaus
had supported the revolted satraps, and in 361 he went to
Egypt at the head of a mercenary force to aid Tachos against
Persia. He soon transferred his services to Tachos's cousin
and rival Nectanabis, who, in return for his help, gave
him a sum of over 200 talents. On his way home Agesilaus
died at the age of 84, after a reign of some 41 years.
A man of small stature and unimpressive appearance, he was
somewhat lame from birth, a fact which was used as an argument
against his succession, an oracle having warned Sparta against
a ``lame reign.'' He was a successful leader in guerilla
warfare, alert and quick, yet cautious--a man, moreover, whose
personal bravery was unquestioned. As a statesman he won
himself both enthusiastic adherents and bitter enemies, but
of his patriotism there can be no doubt. He lived in the most
frugal style alike at home and in the field, and though his
campaigns were undertaken largely to secure booty, he was content
to enrich the state and his friends and to return as poor as
he had set forth. . The worst trait in his character is his
implacable hatred of Thebes, which led directly to the battle
of Leuctra and Sparta's fall from her position of supremacy.
See lives of Agesilaus by Xenophon (the panegyric of a friend),
Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch; Xenophon's Hellenica and Diodorus
xiv., xv. Among modern authorities, besides the general
histories of Greece, J. C. F. Manso, Sparta, iii. 39 ff.; G. F.
Hertzberg, Das Leben des Konigs Agesilaos II. von Sparta
(1856); Buttmann, Agesilaus Sohn des Archidamus (1872); C.
Haupt, Agesilaus in Asien (1874); E. von Stern, Geschichte der
spartanischen und thebanischen Hegemonie (1884). (M. N. T.)
AGGLOMERATE (from the Lat. agglomerare, to form into a ball,
glomus, glomeris), a term used in botany, meaning crowded
in a close cluster or head, and, in geology, applied to the
accumulations of coarse volcanic ejectamenta such as frequently
occur near extinct or active volcanoes. Agglomerates in the
geological sense, with which this article is concerned, consist
typically of blocks of various igneous rocks, mixed often
with more or less material of rudimentary origin and embedded
in a finer-grained matrix, similar in nature to the coarser
fragments. As distinguished from ordinary ash beds or tuffs,
they are essentially coarser, less frequently well-bedded;
they are less persistent and tend to occur locally, but
may attain a very great thickness. Showers of fine ash may
be distributed over a wide area of country and will form
thin layers of great extent. Coarser accumulations gather
only near the actual foci of eruption (craters, fissures,
&c.). When the activity of a volcanic vent comes to an
end, the orifice is often choked by masses of debris, which
will in time become compacted into firm agglomerates. Hence
rocks of this type very commonly mark the sites of necks, the
remains of once-active volcanic craters. In this connexion
they are of especial interest to geologists, as it is always
important to be able to locate the exact points at which
volcanic products, such as lavas and ash-beds, were emitted.
The blocks in agglomerates vary greatly in size. Some
are thirty or forty feet in diameter, and weigh many tons;
these are usually pieces of the strata through which the
volcano has forced an outlet. They are never far from the
crater; most of them, in fact, lie within its boundaries,
and cases are known in which enormous masses of this kind
(half an acre in area) have been found in such situations.
They are masses which have been dislodged, by fissures and
landslides, from the crater's walls and have tumbled into the
cavity. Pieces of sandstone, limestone and shale occur in
the agglomerates mixed with volcanic materials, and very
often have been baked and partly recrystallized by contact
with the hot igneous rocks and the gases discharged by the
volcano. At Vesuvius such blocks of altered limestone
are rich in new minerals and are well known to collectors.
Agglomerates also are usually full of volcanic bombs. These
are spongy globular masses of lava which have been shot from
the crater at a time when liquid molten lava was exposed in
it, and was frequently shattered by the sudden outbursts of
steam. These bombs were more or less viscous at the moment of
ejection and by rotation in the air acquired their spheroidal
form. They are commonly one or two feet in diameter,
but specimens as large as nine or twelve feet have been
observed. There is less variety in their composition at any
volcanic centre than in the case of the foreign blocks above
described. They correspond in nature to the lava which at
the time fills the crater of the volcano, and as this varies
only very slowly the bombs belong mostly to only a few kinds
of rock and are similar in composition to the lava flows.
Crystalline masses of a different kind occur in some
numbers in certain agglomerates. They consist of volcanic
minerals very much the same as those formed in the lavas,
but exhibiting certain peculiarities which indicate that
they have formed slowly under pressure at considerable
depths. Hence they bear a resemblance to plutonic igneous
rocks, but are more correctly to be regarded as agglomerations
of crystals formed within the liquid lava as it slowly rose
towards the surface, and at a subsequent period cast out
by violent steam explosions. The sanidinites of the Eifel
belong to this group. At Vesuvius, Ascension, St Vincent
and many other volcanoes, they form a not inconsiderable
part of the coarser ash-beds. Their commonest minerals are
olivine, anorthite, hornblende, augite, biotite and leucite.
Agglomerates occur wherever volcanoes are known. In many
parts of Britain they attain a great development either in
beds alternating with lavas or as the material occupying
necks. In the latter case they are often penetrated by
dikes. They also show a steep, angular, funnel-shaped
dip (e.g. Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh), and may contain
thin layers of clay or ashy sand-stone, which gathered
in the crater during intervals of repose. (J. S. F.)
AGGLUTINATION (Lat. ad, and gluten, glutinare, literally
to fasten together with glue), a term used technically in
philology for the method of word-formation by which two
significant words or roots are joined together in a single
word to express a combination of the two meanings each of
which retains its force. This juxtaposition or conjoining
of roots is characteristic of languages such as the Turkish
and Japanese, which are therefore known as agglutinative,
as opposed to others, known generically as inflexional,
in which differences of termination or combinations in
which all separate identity disappears are predominant.
The term was also formerly used by associationist
philosophers for those mental associations which were
regarded as peculiarly close. Combination in its
simplest form has been called Agglutination by W. Wundt.
AGGRAVATION (from Lat. ad, increasing, and gravis,
heavy), the making anything graver or more serious, especially
of offences; also used as synonymous with ``irritation.'' In the
canon law ``aggravation'' was a form of ecclesiastical censure,
threatening excommunication after three disregarded admonitions.
AGGREGATION (from the Lat. ad, to, gregare, to collect
together), in physics, a collective term for the forms or
states in which matter exists. Three primary ``states of
aggregation'' are recognized--gaseous, liquid and solid.
Generally, if a solid be heated to a certain temperature, it
melts or fuses, assuming the liquid condition (see FUSION);
if the heating be continued the liquid boils and becomes
a vapour (see VAPORIZATION.) On the other hand, if a gas
be sufficiently cooled and compressed, it liquefies; this
transition is treated theoretically in the article CONDENSATION
OF GASES, and experimentally in the article LIQUID GASES.
AGGTELEK, a village of Hungary, in the county of Gomor,
situated to the south of Rozsnyo, on the road from Budapest to
Dobsina. Pop. (1900) 557. In the neighbourhood is the
celebrated Aggtelek or Baradla cavern, one of the largest
and most remarkable stalactite grottos in Europe. It has a
length, together with its ramifications, of over 5 miles, and
is formed of two caverns--one known for several centuries,
and another discovered by the naturalist Adolf Schmidl in
1856. Two entrances give access to the grotto, an old one
extremely narrow, and a new one, made in 1890, through which
the exploration of the cavern can be made in about 8 hours,
half the time it took before. The cavern is composed of
a labyrinth of passages and large and small halls, and is
traversed by a stream. In these caverns there are numerous
stalactite structures, which, from their curious and fantastic
shapes, have received such names as the Image of the Virgin,
the Mosaic Altar, &c. The principal parts are the Paradies
with the finest stalactites, the Astronomical Tower and the
Beinhaus. Rats, frogs and bats form actually the only
animal life in the caves, but a great number of antediluvian
animal bones have been found here, as well as human bones
and numerous remains of prehistoric human settlements.
AGINCOURT (AZINCOURT), a village of northern France in
the department of Pas de Calais, 14 m. N.W. of St Pol by
road, famous on account of the victory, on the 25th of October
1415, of Henry V. of England over the French. The battle
was fought in the defile formed by the wood of Agincourt and
that of Tramecourt, at the northern exit of which the army
under d'Albret, constable of France, had placed itself so
as to bar the way to Calais against the English forces which
had been campaigning on the Somme. The night of the 24th
of October was spent by the two armies on the ground, and
the English had but little shelter from the heavy rain which
fell. Early on the 25th, St Crispin's day, Henry arrayed
his little army (about 1000 men-at-arms, 6000 archers, and a
few thousands of other foot). It is probable that the usual
three ``battles'' were drawn up in line, each with its archers
on the flanks and the dismounted men-at-arms in the centre;
the archers being thrown forward in wedge-shaped salients,
almost exactly as at Crecy (q.v..) The French, on the other
hand, were drawn up in three lines, each line formed in deep
masses. They were at least four times more numerous than the
English, but restricted by the nature of the ground to the
same extent of front, they were unable to use their full
weight (cf. Bannockburn); further, the deep mud prevented
their artillery from taking part, and the crossbowmen were as
usual relegated to the rear of the knights and men-at-arms.
All were dismounted save a few knights and men-at-arms on
the flanks, who were intended to charge the archers of the
enemy. For three hours after sunrise there was no fighting;
then Henry, finding that the French would not advance,
moved his army farther into the defile. The archers fixed
the pointed stakes, which they carried to ward off cavalry
charges, and opened the engagement with flights of arrows.
The chivalry of France, undisciplined and careless of the
lesson of Crecy and Poitiers, was quickly stung into action,
and the French mounted men charged, only to be driven back in
confusion. The constable himself headed the leading line
of dismounted men-at-arms; weighted with their armour, and
sinking deep into the mud with every step, they yet reached and
engaged the English men-at-arms; for a time the fighting was
severe. The thin line of the defenders was borne back and
King Henry was almost beaten to the ground. But at this
moment the archers, taking their hatchets, swords or other
weapons, penetrated the gaps in the now disordered French,
who could not move to cope with their unarmoured assailants,
and were slaughtered or taken prisoners to a man. The
second line of the French came on, only to be engulfed in the
melee; its leaders, like those of the first line, were
killed or taken, and the commanders of the third sought and
found their death in the battle, while their men rode off to
safety. The closing scene of the battle was a half-hearted
attack made by a body of fugitives, which led merely to the
slaughter of the French prisoners, which was ordered by Henry
because he had not enough men both to guard them and to meet
the attack. The slaughter ceased when the assailants drew
off. The total loss of the English is stated at thirteen
men-at-arms (including the duke of York, grandson of Edward
III.) and about 100 of the foot. The French lost 5000 of
noble birth killed, including the constable, 3 dukes, 5 counts
and 90 barons; 1000 more were taken prisoners, amongst them
the duke of Orleans (the Charles d'Orleans of literature).
See Sir Harris Nicolas, Battle of Agincourt;
Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. i.;
and H. B. George, Battles of English History.
AGIO (Ital. aggio, exchange, discount, premium), a term
used in commerce in three slightly different connexions.
(a) The variations from fixed pars or rates of exchange
in the currencies of different countries. For example, in
most of the gold-standard countries, the standard coin is
kept up to a uniform point of fineness, so that an English
sovereign fresh from the mini will bear the following
constant relation to coins of other countries in a similar
condition:--L. 1 =frcs. 25.221 =mks. 2O.429=$4.867, &c. This
is what is known as the mint par of exchange. But the mint
par of exchange, say, between France and England is not
necessarily the market value of French currency in England,
or English currency in France. The balance of trade between
the various countries is the factor determining the rate of
exchange. Should the balance of trade (q.v.) be against
England, money must be remitted to France in payment of the
indebtedness, but owing to the cost for,the transmission
of specie there will be a demand for bills drawn on Paris
as a cheaper and more expeditious method of sending money,
and it therefore will be necessary, in order to procure the
one of the higher current value, to pay a premium for it,
called the agio. (b) The term is also used to denote the
difference in exchange between two currencies in the same
country; where silver coinage is the legal tender, agio is
sometimes allowed for payment in the more convenient form of
gold, or where the paper currency of a country is reduced
below the bullion which it professes to represent, an agio
is payable on the appreciated currency. (c) Lastly, in
some states the coinage is so debased, owing to the wear of
circulation, that the real is greatly reduced below the nominal
value. Supposing that this reduction amounts to 5%, then if
100 sovereigns were offered as payment of a debt in England
while such sovereigns were current there at their nominal
value, they would be received as just payment; but if they
were offered as payment of the same amount of debt in a foreign
state, they would be received only at their intrinsic value of
L. 95, the additional L. 5 constituting the agio. Where the state
keeps its coinage up to a standard value no agio is required.
AGIRA (formerly SAN FILIPPO D'ARGIRO), a town of the
province of Catania, Sicily, with a railway station 4 1/2 m.
to the south of the town, 35 m. W. of Catania. Pop. (1901)
17,738. It occupies the site of Agyrion, an ancient Sicel
city which was ruled by tyrants, one of whom, Agyris, was
the most powerful ruler in the centre of Sicily. He was
a contemporary of Dionysius I., and with him successfully
resisted the Carthaginians when they invaded the territory of
Agyrium in 392 B.C. Agira was not colonized by the Greeks
until Timoleon drove out the last tyrant in 339 B.C. and
erected various splendid buildings of which no traces remain.
Agyrion was the birthplace of the historian Diodorus Siculus.
AGIS, the name of four Spartan kings:--
(1) Son of Eurysthenes, founder of the royal house of the
Agiadae (Pausanias iii. 2.1). His genealogy was traced
through Aristodemus, Aristomachus, Cleodaeus and Hyllus
to Heracles (Herodotus vii. 204), and he belongs rather
to mythology than to history. Tradition ascribed to him
the capture of the maritime town of Helos, which resisted
his attempt to curtail its guaranteed rights, and the
institution of the class of serfs called Helots (q.v..)
Ephorus ap. Strabo, viii. p. 365.
(2) Son of Archidamus II., Eurypontid, commonly called Agis
I. He succeeded his father, probably in 427 B.C., and from
his first invasion of Attica in 425 down to the close of
the Peloponnesian war was the chief leader of the Spartan
operations on land. After the conclusion of the peace of
Nicias (421 B.C.) he marched against the Argives in defence of
Epidaurus, and after skilful manoeuvring surrounded the Argive
army, and seemed to have victory within his grasp when he
unaccountably concluded a four months' truce and withdrew his
forces. The Spartans were indignant, and when the Argives and
their allies, in flagrant disregard of the truce, took Arcadian
Orchomenus and prepared to march on Tegea, their fury knew no
bounds, and Agis escaped having his house razed and a fine
of 100,000 drachmae imposed only by promising to atone for
his error by a signal victory. This promise he brilliantly
fulfilled by routing the forces of the Argive confederacy
at the battle of Mantinea (418), the moral effect of which
was out of all proportion to the losses inflicted on the
enemy. In the winter 417-416 a further expedition to Argos
resulted in the destruction of the half-finished Long Walls
and the capture of Hysiae. In 413, on the suggestion of
Alcibiades, he fortified Decelea in Attica, where he remained
directing operations until, after the battle of Aegospotami
(405), he took the leading part in the blockade of Athens,
which was ended in spring 404 by the surrender of the city.
Subsequently he invaded and ravaged Elis, forcing the Eleans
to acknowledge the freedom of their perioeci and to allow
Spartans to take part in the Olympic games and sacrifices.
He fell ill on his return from Delphi, where he had gone to
dedicate a tithe of the spoils, and, probably in 401, died at
Sparta, where he was buried with unparalleled solemnity and pomp.
Thuc. iii. 89, iv. 2. 6, v., vii. 19. 27, viii.; Xenophon,
Hellenica, i 1. ii. 2. 3, iii. 2. 3; Diodorus xii. 35, xiii.
72, 73, 107; Pausanias iii. 8. 3-8; Plutarch, Lysander
ix. 14. 22, Alcibiades 23-25, Lycurgus 12, Agesilaus
i. 3, de Tranquill. Anim. 6. (See PELOPONNESIAN WAR.)
(3) Son of Archidamus III., of the Eurypontid line, commonly
called Agis II. He succeeded his father in 338 B.C., on
the very day of the battle of Chaeronea. During Alexander's
Asiatic campaign he revolted against Macedonia (333 B.C.)
and, with the aid of Persian money and ships and a force
of 8000 Greek mercenaries, gained considerable successes in
Crete. In the Peloponnese he routed a force under Corragus
and, although Athens held aloof, he was joined by Elis, Achaea
(except Pellene) and Arcadia, with the exception of Megalopolis,
which the allies besieged. Antipater marched rapidly to its
relief at the head of a large army, and the allied force was
defeated after a desperate struggle (331) and Agis was slain.
Pausanias iii. 10. 5; Diodorus xvii. 48, 62, 63; Justin xii. 1;
Quintus Curtius iv. 1, 39, vi. 1; Arrian, Anabasis, ii. 13.
(4) Son of Eudamidas II., of the Eurypontid family, commonly
called Agis III. He succeeded his father probably in 245
B.C., in his twentieth year. At this time the state had
been brought to the brink of ruin by the growth of avarice and
luxury; there was a glaring inequality in the distribution of
land and wealth, and the number of full citizens had sunk to
700, of whom about 100 practically monopolized the land.
Though reared in the height of luxury he at once determined to
restore the traditional institutions of Lycurgus, with the aid
of Lysander, a descendant of the victor of Aegospotami, and
Mandrocleidas, a man of noted prudence and courage; even his
mother, the wealthy Agesistrata, threw herself heartily into
the cause. A powerful but not disinterested ally was found
in the king's uncle, Agesilaus, who hoped to rid himself
of his debts without losing his vast estates. Lysander as
ephor proposed on behalf of Agis that all debts should be
cancelled and that Laconia should be divided into 19,500
lots, of which 4500 should be given to Spartiates, whose
number was to be recruited from the best of the perioeci and
foreigners, and the remaining 15,000 to perioeci who could
bear arms. The Agiad king Leonidas having prevailed on the
council to reject this measure, though by a majority of only
one, was deposed in favour of his son-in-law Cleombrotus,
who assisted Agis in bearing down opposition by the threat of
force. The abolition of debts was carried into effect, but
the land distribution was put off by Agesilaus on various
pretexts. At this point Aratus appealed to Sparta to help the
Achaeans in repelling an expected Aetolian attack, and Agis
was sent to the Isthmus at the head of an army. In his absence
the open violence and extortion of Agesilaus, combined with the
popular disappointment at the failure of the agrarian scheme,
brought about the restoration of Leonidas and the deposition
of Cleombrotus, who took refuge at the temple of Apollo at
Taenarum and escaped death only at the entreaty of his wife,
Leonidas's daughter Chilonis. On his return Agis fled to the
temple of Athene Chalcioecus at Sparta, but soon afterwards
he was treacherously induced to leave his asylum and, after
a mockery of a trial, was strangled in prison, his mother and
grandmother sharing the same fate (241). Though too weak and
good-natured to cope with the problem which confronted him,
Agis was characterized by a sincerity of purpose and a blend of
youthful modesty with royal dignity, which render him perhaps
the most attractive figure in the whole of Spartan history.
See Plutarch's biography. Pausanias' accounts (ii. 8. 5, vii.
7. 3, viii. 10. 5-8, 27. 13) of his attack on Megalopolis,
his seizure of Pellene and his death at Mantinea fighting
against the Arcadians, Achaeans and Sicyonians are without
foundation (J. C. F. Manso, Sparta, iii. 2. 123-127). See also
Manso, op. cit. iii. 1. 276-302; B. Niese, Geschichte der
griechischen und makedonischcn Staaten, ii. 299-303. (M. N. T.)
AGISTMENT. To ``agist'' (from O. Fr. agister, derived
from gesir--Lat. jacere--to lie) is, in law, to take
cattle to graze, for a renumeration. ``Agistment,'' in the
first instance, referred more particularly to the proceeds of
pasturage in the king's forests, but now means either (a)
the contract for taking in and feeding horses or other cattle
on pasture land, for the consideration of a weekly payment
of money, or (b) the profit derived from such pasturing.
Agistment is a contract of bailment, and the bailer is bound
to take reasonable care of the animals entrusted to him;
he is responsible for damages and injury which result from
ordinary casualties, if it be proved that such might have been
prevented by the exercise of great care. There is no lien on
the cattle for the price of the agistment, unless by express
agreement. Under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1883, agisted
cattle cannot be distrained on for rent if there be other
sufficient distress to be found, and if such other distress
be not found, and the cattle be distrained, the owner may
redeem them on paying the price of their agistment. The tithe
of agistment or ``tithe of cattle and other produce of grass
lands,'' was formally abolished by the act of union in 1707,
on a motion submitted with a view to defeat that measure.
AGITATORS, or ADJUTATORS, the name given to representatives
elected in 1647 by the different regiments of the English
Parliamentary army. The word really means an agent, but it
was confused with ``adjutant,'' often called ``agitant,'' a
title familiar to the soldiers, and thus the form ``adjutator''
came into use. Early in 1647 the Long Parliament wished
either to disband many of the regiments or to send them to
Ireland. The soldiers, whose pay was largely in arrear,
refused to accept either alternative, and eight of the cavalry
regiments elected agitators, called at first commissioners,
who laid their grievances before the three generals, and whose
letter was read in the House of Commons on the 30th of April
1647. The other regiments followed the example of the
cavalry, and the agitators, who belonged to the lower ranks
of the army, were supported by many of the officers, who
showed their sympathy by signing the Declaration of the
army. Cromwell and other generals succeeded to some extent
in pacifying the troops by promising the payment of arrears
for eight weeks at once; but before the return of the generals
to London parliament had again decided to disband the army,
and soon afterwards fixed the 1st of June as the date on
which this process was to begin. Again alarmed, the agitators
decided to resist; a mutiny occurred in one regiment and the
attempt at disbandment failed. Then followed the seizure
of the king by Cornet Joyce, Cromwell's definite adherence
to the policy of the army, the signing of the manifestoes,
a Humble Representation and a Solemn Engagement, and the
establishment of the army council composed of officers and
agitators. Having, at an assembly on Thriplow Heath, near
Royston, virtually refused the offers made by parliament, the
agitators demanded a march towards London and the ``purging''
of the House of Commons. Subsequent events are part of the
general history of England. Gradually the agitators ceased to
exist, but many of their ideas were adopted by the Levellers
(q.v.), who may perhaps be regarded as their successors.
Gardiner says of them, ``Little as it was intended at the
time, nothing was more calculated than the existence of this
elected body of agitators to give to the army that distinctive
political and religious character which it ultimately bore.''
See S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great
Civil War, vols. iii. and iv. (London, 1905).
AGLIARDI, ANTONIO (1832- ), papal diplomatist, was born at
Cologno (Bergamo), Italy, on the 4th of September 1832. He
studied theology and canon law, and, after acting as parish
priest in his native diocese for twelve years, was sent by
the pope to Canada as a bishop's chaplain. On his return he
was appointed secretary to the Propaganda. In 1884 he was
created by Leo XIII. archbishop of Caesarea in partibus and
sent to India to report on the establishment of the hierarchy
there. In 1887 he again visited India, to carry out the terms
of the concordat arranged with Portugal. The same year he
was appointed secretary to the Congregation super negotiis
ecclesiae extraordinariis, in 1889 became papal nuncio at
Munich and in 1892 at Vienna. Allowing himself to be involved
in the ecclesiastical disputes by which Hungary was divided
in 1895, he was made the subject of formal complaint by the
Hungarian government and in 1896 was recalled. His services
were rewarded by a Cardinalate and the archbishopric of
Ferrara. In 1903 he was named vice-chancellor of the Roman Church.
AGNANO, LAGO DI, a circular lake, 5 m. W. of Naples,
Italy. It was apparently not formed until the middle ages,
as it is not mentioned by ancient writers; it was drained in
1870. It occupied the crater of an extinct volcano, 4 m. in
circumference. On the south bank are the Stufe di S. Germano,
natural sulphureous vapour baths, and close by is the Grotta
del Cane, from the floor of which warm carbonic acid gas
constantly rises to a height of 18 in., the fumes of which
render a dog insensible in a few seconds. It is mentioned
by Pliny (Nat. Hist. ii. 93). Remains of an extensive Roman
building and some statues have been discovered close by.
AGNATES (Agnati), in Roman law, persons related through
males only, as opposed to cognates. Agnation was founded on
the idea of the family held together by the patria potestas;
cognatio involves simply the modern idea of kindred.
AGNES, SAINT, a virgin martyr of the Catholic Church. The
legend of St Agnes is that she was a Roman maid, by birth a
Christian, who suffered martyrdom when but thirteen during
the reign of the emperor Diocletian, on the 21st of January
304. The prefect Sempronius wished her to marry his son,
and on her refusal condemned her to be outraged before her
execution, but her honour was miraculously preserved. When
led out to die she was tied to a stake, but the faggots would
not burn, whereupon the officer in charge of the troops drew
his sword and struck off her head. St Agnes is the patron
saint of young girls, who, in rural districts, formerly
indulged in all sorts of quaint country magic on St Agnes' Eve
(20th-21st January) with a view to discovering their future
husbands. This superstition has been immortalized in Keats's
poem, ``The Eve of St Agnes.'' St Agnes's bones are supposed
to rest in the church of her name at Rome, originally built
by Constantine and repaired by Pope Honorius in the 7th
century. Here on her festival (21st of January) two lambs
are specially blessed after pontifical high mass, and
their wool is later woven into pallia (see PALLIUM.)
AGNES OF MERAN (d. 1201), queen of France, was the daughter
of Bertold IV., duke of Meran in Tirol. She is called Marie
by some of the chroniclers. In June 1196 she married Philip
II., king of France, who had repudiated Ingeborg of Denmark in
1193. The pope espoused the cause of Ingeborg; but Philip
did not submit until 1200, when, interdict having been
added to excommunication, he consented to a separation from
Agnes. She died in July of the next year, at the castle of
Poissy, and was buried in the church of St Corentin, near
Nantes. Her two children by Philip II., Philip, count of
Clermont (d. 1234), and Mary, who married Philip, count of
Namur, were legitimized by Innocent III. in 1201 on the
demand of the king. Little is known of the personality
of Agnes, beyond the remarkable influence which she
exercised over Philip II. She has been made the heroine
of a tragedy by Francois Ponsard, Agnes de Meranie.
See the notes of Robert Davidsohn in Philipp II. August
von Frankreich und Ingeborg (Stuttgart, 1888). A
genealogical notice is furnished by the Chronicon of
the monk Alberic (Aubry) of Fontaines, (Albericus Trium
Fontium) in Pertz, Scriptores, vol. xxiii. pp. 872
f., and by the Genealogia Wettinensis, ibid. p. 229.
AGNESI, MARIA GAETANA (1718-1799), Italian mathematician,
linguist and philosopher, was born at Milan on the 16th of May
1718, her father being professor of mathematics in the university
of Bologna. When only nine years old she had such command of
Latin as to be able to publish an elaborate address in that
language, maintaining that the pursuit of liberal studies
was not improper for her sex. By her thirteenth year she
had acquired Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German and other
languages. Two years later her father began to assemble in
his house at stated intervals a circle of the most learned
men in Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a series
of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions.
Records of these meetings are given in de Brosse's Lettres
sur l'Italie and in the Propositiones Philosophicae, which
her father caused to be published in 1738. These displays,
being probably not altogether congenial to Maria, who was of a
retiring disposition, ceased in her twentieth year, and it is
even said that she had at that age a strong desire to enter a
convent. Though the wish was not gratified, she lived from that
time in a retirement almost conventual, avoiding all society
and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics.
The most valuable result of her labours was the Instituzioni
analitiche ad uso della gioventu italiana, a work of great
merit, which was published at Milan in 1748. The first volume
treats of the analysis of finite quantities. and the second of
the analysis of infinitesimals. A French translation of the
second volume by P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by Charles
Bossut (1730-1814), appeared at Paris in 1775; and an English
translation of the whole work by John Colson (1680-1760),
the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was
published in 1801 at the expense of Baron Maseres. Madame
Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the Traite analytique des
sections coniques of the marquis de l'Hopital, which, though
highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never
published. She invented and discussed the curve known as
the ``witch of Agnesi'' (q.v.) or versiera. In 1750, on
the illness of her father, she was appointed by Pope Benedict
XIV. to the chair of mathematics and natural Philosophy at
Bologna. After the death of her father in 1752 she carried
out a long-cherished purpose by giving herself to the study of
theology, and especially of the Fathers. After holding for
some years the office of directress of the Hospice Trivulzio for
Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in
this austere order ended her days on the 9th of January 1799.
Her sister, MARIA TERESA AGNESI (1724-1780), a well-known
Italian pianist and composer, was born at Milan in
1724. She composed several cantatas, two pianoforte
concertos and five operas, Sofenisbe, Ciro in Armenia,
Nitocri, Il Re Pastore and Insubria consolata.
See Antonio Francesco Frisi, Eloge historique de
Mademoiselle Agnesi, translated by Boulard (Paris, 1807);
Milesi-Mojon, Vita di M. G. Agnesi (Milan, 1836); J.
Boyer, ``La Mathematicienne Agnesi'' in the Revue Catholique
des revues francaises et etrangeres (Paris, 1897).
AGNEW, DAVID HAYES (1818-1892), American surgeon, was born
in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of November
1818. He graduated from the medical department of the
university of Pennsylvania in 1838, and a few years later set
up in practice at Philadelphia and became a lecturer at the
Philadelphia School of Anatomy. He was appointed surgeon at
the Philadelphia Hospital in 1854 and was the founder of its
pathological museum. For twenty-six years (1863-1889) he
was connected with the medical faculty of the university of
Pennsylvania, being elected professor of operative surgery
in 1870 and professor of the principles and practice of
surgery in the following year. From 1865 to 1884--except
for a brief interval --he was a surgeon at the Pennsylvania
Hospital. During the American Civil War he was consulting
surgeon in the Mower Army Hospital, near Philadelphia, and
acquired considerable reputation for his operations in cases
of gun-shot wounds. He attended as operating surgeon when
President Garfield was fatally wounded by the bullet of an
assassin in 1881. He was the author of several works, the
most important being The Principles and Practice of Surgery
(1878-1883). He died at Philadelphia on the 22nd of March 1892.
AGNI, the Hindu God of Fire, second only to Indra in the
power and importance attributed to him in Vedic mythology.
His name is the first word of the first hymn of the Rig-veda:
``Agni, I entreat, divine appointed priest of sacrifice.''
The sacrifices made to Agni pass to the gods, for Agni is a
messenger from and to the gods; but, at the same time, he is
more than a mere messenger, he is an immortal, for another
hymn runs: ``No god indeed, no mortal is beyond the might of
thee, the mighty One. . . .'' He is a god who lives among men,
miraculously reborn each day by the fire-drill, by the friction
of the two sticks which are regarded as his parents; he is
the supreme director of religious ceremonies and duties,and
even has the power of influencing the lot of man in the future
world. He is worshipped under a threefold form, fire on earth,
lightning and the sun. His cult survived the metamorphosis
of the ancient Vedic nature-worship into modern Hinduism,
and there still are in India fire-priests (agnihotri) whose
duty is to superintend his worship. The sacred fire-drill for
procuring the temple-fire by friction--symbolic of Agni's daily
miraculous birth--is still used. In pictorial art Agni is
always represented as red, two-faced, suggesting his destructive
and beneficent qualities, and with three legs and seven arms.
See W. J. Wilkins, Hindu Mythology (London, 1900);
A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897).
AGNOETAE (Gr. agnoeo, to be ignorant of), a monophysite
sect who maintained that Christ's human nature was like other
men's in all respects, including limited knowledge. Its
founder was Themistius, a deacon in Alexandria in the 6th
century. The sect was anathematized by Gregory the Great.
AGNOIOLOGY (from Gr. agnoi-a, ignorance), the science or
study of ignorance, which determines its quality and conditions.
AGNOSTICISM. The term ``agnostic'' was invented by Huxley
in 1869 to describe the philosophical and religious attitude
of those who hold that we can have scientific or real
knowledge of phenomena only, and that so far as what may lie
behind phenomena is concerned--God, immortality, &c.--there
is no evidence which entitles us either to deny or aflirm
anything. The attitude itself is as old as Scepticism
(q.v.); but the expressions ``agnostic'' and ``agnosticism''
were applied by Huxley to sum up his deductions from those
contemporary developments of metaphysics with which the
names of Hamilton (``the Unconditioned'') and Herbert Spencer
(``the Unknowable'') were associated; and it is important,
therefore, to fix precisely his own intellectual standpoint
in the matter. Though Huxley only began to use the term
``agnostic'' in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time
before that date. In a letter to Charles Kingsley (September
23, 1860) he wrote very fully concerning his beliefs:--
``I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I
see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand,
I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori
objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily
and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori
difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify
me in believing in anything else, and I will believe
that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the
conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter. . . .
``It is no use to talk to me of analogies and
probabilities. I know what I mean when I say I believe
in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest
my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions. . . .
``That my personality is the surest thing I know may be true.
But the attempt to conceive what it is leads me into mere verbal
subtleties. I have champed up all that chaff about the ego
and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it,
too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these
questions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth.''
And again, to the same correspondent, the 5th of May 1863:--
``I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons
against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the
greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel
school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself,
exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can
see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel. l cannot
see one shadow or tittle of evidence that the great unknown
underlying the phenomenon of the universe stands to us in the
relation of a Father--loves us and cares for us as Christianity
asserts. So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas,
immortality of soul and future state of rewards and punishments,
what possible objection can I--who am compelled perforce to
believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force,
and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and
punishments for our deeds--have to these doctrines? Give me
a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them.''
Of the origin of the name ``agnostic'' to cover this attitude,
Huxley gave (Coll. Ess. v. pp. 237-239) the following account:--
``When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask
myself whether I was an atheist, a theist or a pantheist, a
materialist or an idealist, a Christian or a freethinker, I
found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready
was the answer. The one thing on which most of these good
people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from
them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain
`gnosis'--had more or less successfully solved the problem
of existence; while I was quite sure that I had not, and had
a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.
This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a
place among the members of that remarkable confraternity of
antagonists, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of
philosophical and theological opinion was represented there;
most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and
I, the man without a rag of a belief to cover himself with, could
not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have
beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which
his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated
companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived
to be the appropriate title of `agnostic.' It came into my head
as suggestively antithetic to the `gnostic' of Church history,
who professed to know so much about the very things of which
I was ignorant. To my great satisfaction the term took.''
This account is confirmed by R. H. Hutton, who in 1881 wrote
that the word ``was suggested by Huxley at a meeting held
previous to the formation of the now defunct Metaphysical
Society at Mr Knowles's house on Clapham Common in 1869, in my
hearing. He took it from St Paul's mention of the altar
to the Unknown God.'' Hutton here gives a variant etymology
for the word, which may be therefore taken as partly derived
from agnostos (the ``unknown'' God), and partly from an
antithesis to ``gnostic''; but the meaning remains the same
in either case. The name, as Huxley said, ``took''; it was
constantly used by Hutton in the Spectator and became a
fashionable label for contemporary unbelief in Christian
dogma. Hutton himself frequently misrepresented the doctrine
by describing it as ``belief in an unknown and unknowable
God''; but agnosticism as defined by Huxley meant not belief,
but absence of belief, as much distinct from belief on the
one hand as from disbelief on the other; it was the half-way
house between the two, where all questions were ``open.'' All
that Huxley asked for was evidence, either for or against;
but this he believed it impossible to get. Occasionally
he too mis-stated the meaning of the word he had invented,
and described agnosticism as meaning ``that a man shall not
say he knows or believes what he has no scientific ground
for professing to know or believe.'' But as the late Rev.
A. W. Momerie remarked, this would merely be ``a definition
of honesty; in that sense we ought all to be agnostics.''
Agnosticism really rests on the doctrine of the Unknowable,
the assertion that concerning certain objects--among them
the Deity--we never can have any ``scientific'' ground for
belief. This way of solving, or passing over, the ultimate
problems of thought has had many followers in cultured circles
imbued with the new physical science of the day, and with
disgust for the dogmatic creeds of contemporary orthodoxy; and
its outspoken and even aggressive vindication by physicists
of the eminence of Huxley had a potent influence upon the
attitude taken towards metaphysics, and upon the form which
subsequent Christian apologetics adopted. As a nickname
the term ``agnostic'' was soon misused to cover any and
every variation of scepticism, and just as popular preachers
confused it with atheism (q.v.) in their denunciations,
so the callow freethinker--following Tennyson's path of
``honest doubt''--classed himself with the agnostics, even
while he combined an instinctively Christian theism with a
facile rejection of the historical evidences for Christianity.
The term is now less fashionable, though the state of mind
persists. Huxley's agnosticism was a natural consequence of
the intellectual and philosophical conditions of the 'sixties,
when clerical intolerance was trying to excommunicate scientific
discovery because it appeared to clash with the book of
Genesis. But as the theory of evolution was accepted, a new
spirit was gradually introduced into Christian theology, which
has turned the controversies between religion and science
into other channels and removed the temptation to flaunt a
disagreement. A similar effect has been produced by the
philosophical reaction against Herbert Spencer, and by
the perception that the canons of evidence required in
physical science must not be exalted into universal rules of
thought. It does not follow that justification by faith
must be eliminated in spiritual matters where sight cannot
follow, because the physicist's duty and success lie in
pinning belief solely on verification by physical phenomena,
when they alone are in question; and for mankind generally,
though possibly not for an exceptional man like Huxley, an
impotent suspension of judgment on such issues as a future
life or the Being of God is both unsatisfying and demoralizing.
It is impossible here to do more than indicate the path out
of the difficulties raised by Huxley in the letter to Kingsley
quoted above. They involve an elaborate discussion, not
only of Christian evidences, but of the entire subject-matter
alike of Ethics and Metaphysics, of Philosophy as a whole,
and of the philosophies of individual writers who have dealt
in their different ways with the problems of existence and
epistemology. It is, however, permissible to point out that,
as has been exhaustively argued by Professor J. Ward in his
Gifford lectures for 1896-1898 (Naturalism and Agnosticism,
1899), Huxley's challenge ( ``I know what I mean when I
say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will
not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions'') is
one which a spiritualistic philosophy need not shrink from
accepting at the hands of naturalistic agnosticism. If, as
Huxley admits, even putting it with unnecessary force against
himself,``the immortality of man is not half so wonderful
as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of
matter,'' the question then is, how far a critical analysis
of our belief in the last-named doctrines will leave us in
a position to regard them as the last stage in systematic
thinking. It is the pitfall of physical science, immersed as
its students are apt to be in problems dealing with tangible
facts in the world of experience, that there is a tendency
among them to claim a superior status of objective reality
and finality for the laws to which their data are found to
conform. But these generalizations are not ultimate truths,
when we have to consider the nature of experience itself.
``Because reference to the Deity will not serve for a
physical explanation in physics, or a chemical explanation
in chemistry, it does not therefore follow,'' as Professor
Ward says (op. cit. vol. i. p. 24), ``that the sum total
of scientific knowledge is equally intelligible whether
we accept the theistic hypothesis or not. It is true that
every item of scientific knowledge is concerned with some
definite relation of definite phenomena, and with nothing
else; but, for all that, the systematic organization of
such items may quite well yield further knowledge, which
transcends the special relations of definite phenomena.''
At the opening of the era of modern scientific discovery,
with all its fruitful new generalizations, the still more
highly generalized laws of epistemology and of the spiritual
constitution of man might well baffle the physicist and lead
his intellect to ``flounder.'' It is fundamentally necessary,
in order to avoid such floundering, that the ``knowledge'' of
things sensible should be kept distinct from the ``knowledge''
of things spiritual; yet in practice they are constantly
confused. When the physicist limits the term ``knowledge',
to the conclusions from physical apprehensions, his refusal
to extend it to conclusions from moral and spiritual
apprehensions is merely the consequence of an illegitimate
definition. He relies on the validity of his perceptions of
physical facts; but the saint and the theologian are no less
entitled to rely on the validity of their moral and spiritual
experiences. In each case the data rest on an ultimate basis,
undemonstrable, indeed to any one who denies them (even if he
be called mad for doing so), except by the continuous process
of working out their own proofs, and showing their consistency
with, or necessity in, the scheme of things terrestrial on
the one hand, or the mind and happiness of man on the other.
The tests in each case differ; and it is as irrelevant for the
theologian to dispute the ``knowledge'' of the physicist, by
arguments from faith and religion, as it is for the physicist
to deny the ``knowledge'' of the theologian from the point
of view of one who ignores the possibility of spiritual
apprehension altogether. On the ground of secular history and
secular evidence both might reasonably meet, as regards the
facts, though not perhaps as to their interpretation; but the
reason why they ultimately differ is to be found simply in
the difference of their mental attitude towards the nature of
``knowledge,'-itself a difference of opinion as to the nature of man.
In addition to the literature cited above, see L. Stephen, An
Agnostic's Apology (1893); R. Flint, Agnosticism (1903); T.
Bailey Saunders, The Quest of Faith, chap. ii. (1899); A. W. Benn,
English Rationalism in the XIXth Century (London, 1906). (H. CH.)
AGNUS DEI, the figure of a lamb bearing a cross, symbolical
of the Saviour as the ``Lamb of God.'' The device is common
in ecclesiastical art, but the name is especially given in
the Church of Rome to a small cake made of the wax of the
Easter candles and impressed with this figure. Since the 9th
century it has been customary for the popes to bless these
cakes, and distribute them on the Sunday after Easter among
the faithful, by whom they are highly prized as having the
power to avert evil. In modern times the distribution has
been limited to persons of distinction, and is made by the
pope on his accession and every seven years thereafter.
Agnus Dei is also the popular name for the anthem beginning
with these words, which is said to have been introduced
into the missal by Pope Sergius I. (687-701). Based upon
John i. 29, the Latin form is Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata
mundi, miserere nobis. In the celebration of the mass it
is repeated three times before the communion, and it is also
appended to many of the litanies. By the judgment in the
case of ``Read and others v. The Bishop of Lincoln'' it was
decided in 1890 that the singing of the Agnus Dei in English
by the choir during the administration of the Holy Communion,
provided that the reception of the elements be not delayed
till its conclusion, is not illegal in the Church of England.
For the various ceremonies in the blessing of the Agnus
Dei see A. Vacant, Dict. de theologie (cols. 605-613).
AGOBARD (c. 779-840), Carolingian prelate and reformer,
became coadjutor to Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons, in 813, and
on the death of the latter succeeded him in the see (816). We
know nothing of his early life nor of his descent. He pursued
the same vigorous policy as his predecessor, who had been one
of Charlemagne's most active agents in the reformation of the
Church. He was strongly opposed to the schemes of the
empress Judith for a redivision of the empire in favour of
her son Charles the Bald, Which he regarded as the cause of
all the subsequent evils, and supported Lothair and Pippin
against their father the emperor Louis I. Deposed in 835 by
the council of Thionville, he made his peace with the emperor
and was reinstated in 837. Agobard occupies an important
place in the Carolingian renaissance. He wrote extensively
not only theological works but also political pamphlets and
dissertations directed against popular superstitions. These
last works are unique in the literature of the time. He
denounced the trial by ordeal of fire and water, the belief
in witchcraft, and the ascription of tempests to magic,
maintained the Carolingian opposition to image-worship, but
carried his logic farther and opposed the adoration of the
saints. The basis for this crusade was theological, not
scientific; but it reveals a clear intellect and independent
judgment In his purely theological works Agobard was strictly
orthodox, except that he denied the verbal inspiration of the
Scriptures. Agobard was reverenced as a saint in Lyons,
and although his canonization is disputed his life is
given by the Bollandists, Acta Sanctorum, Jun. ii. 748.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Agobard's works were lost until 1605, when a
manuscript was discovered in Lyons and published by Papirius
Masson, again by Baluze in 1666. For later editions see Potthast,
Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi. The life of Agobard in
Ebert's Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters (1880), Band
ii., is still one the best to consult. For further indications
see A. Molinier, Sources de l'histoire de France, i. p. 235.
AGONALIA, in ancient Rome, festivals celebrated on the
9th of January, 17th of March, 21st of May, and 11th of
December in each year in honour of various divinities (Ovid,
Fasti, i. 319-332). The word is derived either from
agonia, ``a victim,'' or from agonium, ``a festival.''
AGONIC LINES (from Gr. a-, privative, and gonia, an
angle), the term given to the imaginary lines on the earth's
surface connecting points at which the magnetic needle points to
the geographical north and south. (See MAGNETISM, TERRESTRIAL.)
AGONOTHETES, in ancient Greece, the president or superintendent
of the sacred games. At first the person who instituted the
games and defrayed the expenses was the Agonothetes; but in
the great public games, such as the Olympic and Pythian, these
presidents were the representatives of different states, or
were chosen from the people in whose country the games were
celebrated; thus at the Panathenaic festival at Athens ten
athlothetae were elected for four years to superintend the
various contests. They were variously called aisumnetai,
brabeutai, agonarchai, agonodikai, athlothetai (at Athens),
eabdouchoi or eabdonomoi (from the rod or sceptre emblematic
of their authority), but their functions were generally the same.
AGORA, originally, in primitive times, the assembly of the
Greek people, convoked by the king or one of his nobles. The
right of speech and vote was restricted to the nobles, the
people being permitted to express their opinion only by signs
of applause or disapproval. The word then came to be used
for the place where assemblies were held, and thus from its
convenience as a meeting-place the agora became in most of the
cities of Greece the general resort for public and especially
commercial intercourse, corresponding in general with the Roman
forum. At Athens, with the increase of commerce and political
interest, it was found advisable to call public meetings
at the Pnyx or the temple of Dionysus; but the important
assemblies, such as meetings for ostracism, were held in the
agora. In the best days of Greece the agora was the place
where nearly all public traffic was conducted. It was most
frequented in the forenoon, and then only by men. Slaves
did the greater part of the purchasing, though even the
noblest citizens of Athens did not scruple to buy and sell
there. Citizens were allowed a free market; foreigners
and metics had to pay a toll. Public festivals also were
celebrated in the open area of the agora. At Athens the
agora of classical times was adorned with trees planted by
Cimon; around it numerous public buildings were erected,
such as the council chamber and the law courts (for its
topography, see ATHENS.) Pausanias (especially vi. 24) is
the great architectural authority on the agorae of various
Greek cities, and details are also given by Vitruvius (v. 1).
AGORACRITUS, a Parian and Athenian sculptor of the age of
Phidias, and said to have been his favourite pupil. His
most noted work was the statue at Rhamnus of Nemesis, by some
attributed to Phidias himself. Of this statue part of the
head is in the British Museum; some fragments of the reliefs
which adorned the pedestal are in the museum at Athens.
AGORANOMI, magistrates in the republics of Greece, whose
position and duties were in many respects similar to those
of the aediles of Rome. In Athens there were ten, chosen
annually by lot, five of whom took charge of the city and
five of the Peiraeus. They maintained order in the markets,
settled disputes, examined the quality of the articles
exposed for sale, tested weights and measures, collected
the harbour dues and enforced the shipping regulations.
AGORDAT, a town of Eritrea, N.E. Africa, on the route between
Massawa and Kassala. At Agordat on the 21st of December 1893
the Italian troops under Colonel Arimondi inflicted a severe
defeat on the followers of the khalifa. Agordat is protected
by a strong fort. (See ERITREA and SUDAN, History.)
AGOSTINI, LEONARDO, Italian antiquary of the 17th century, was
born at Siena. After being employed for some time to collect
works of art for the Barberini palace, he was appointed by
Pope Alexander VII. superintendent of antiquities in the Roman
states. He issued a new edition of Paruta's Sicilian
Medals, with engravings of 400 additional specimens; and
in conjunction with Giovanni Bellori (1615-1696) he also
published a work on antique sculptured gems, which was
translated into Latin by Jakob Gronovius (Amsterdam, 1685).
AGOSTINO, or AGOSTINI [AUGUSTINUS], PAOLO (1593-1629),
Italian musician, was born at Valerano, and studied under G. B.
Nanini, as we learn from the dedication in the third and fourth
books of his masses, subsequently becoming the son-in-law of his
master. He succeeded Ugolini as conductor of the pope's orchestra
in St. Peter's. His musical compositions are numerous and of great
merit, an Agnus Dei for eight voices being specially admired.
AGOSTINO and AGNOLO (or ANGELO) DA SIENA, Italian
architects and sculptors in the first half of the 14th
century. Della Valle and other commentators deny that they were
brothers. They certainly studied together under Giovanni
Pisano, and in 1317 were jointly appointed architects
of their native town, for which they designed the Porto
Romana, the church and convent of St Francis, and other
buildings. On the recommendation of the celebrated Giotto,
who styled them the best sculptors of the time, they executed
in 1330 the tomb of Bishop Guido Tarlati in the cathedral of
Arezzo, which Giotto had designed. It was esteemed one of the
finest artistic works of the 14th century, but unfortunately
was destroyed by the French under the duke of Anjou.
AGOULT, MARIE CATHERINE SOPHIE DE FLAVIGNY, COMTESSE D'
(1805-1876), French author, whose nom de plume was ``Daniel
Stern,'' was born at Frankfort-on-Main on the 31st of December
1805. Her father was a French officer who had served in
the army of the emigrant princes, and her mother was the
daughter of a Frankfort banker. She was married in 1827
to the comte Charles d'Agoult. In Paris she gathered
round her a brilliant society which included Alfred de
Vigny, Sainte-Beuve, Ingres, Chopin, Meyerbeer, Heine and
others. She was separated from her husband, and became the
mistress of Franz Liszt. During her frequent travels in
Switzerland, France and Italy she made the acquaintance of
George Sand, and figures in the Lettres d'un voyageur
as'`Arabella.'' By Liszt she had three children--a son who
died young; Blandine, who married M. Emile Ollivier; and
Cosima, who married first Hans von Bulow and later Richard
Wagner. The story of her breach with Liszt is told under a
very slight disguise in her novel Nelida (1845). On her
return to Paris in 1841 she began to write art criticisms for
the Presse, and in 1844 she contributed to the Revue des
deux Mondes articles on Bettina von Arnim and on Heinrich
Heine, but her views were not acceptable to the editor, and
Daniel Stern withdrew to become a contributor to the Revue
independante. Mme. d'Agoult was an ardent apostle of the
ideas of' 48, and from this date her salon, which had
been literary and artistic, took on a more political tone;
revolutionists of various nationalities were welcomed by her,
and she had an especial friendship and sympathy for Daniele
Manin. In 1857 she produced a national drama, Jeanne
Darc, which was translated into Italian and presented with
brilliant success at Turin. The most important section of
Daniel Stern's work is her political and historical essays:
Lettres republicaines (1848), Esquisses morales et
politiques (1849), Histoire de la Revolution de 1848
(3 vols., 1850-1853), Histoire des commencements de la
Republique aux Pays-Bas (1872). Mme. d'Agoult died in Paris
on the 5th of March 1876. Her daughter Claire Christine (b.
1830), who married Guy de Charnace, is known as a writer.
See Mme. d'Agoult, Mes Souvenirs (1806-1833), 1877; A.
Cuvillier Fleury, Portraits revolutionnaires, vol. i.
(1889); J. Mazzini, Lettres de Joseph Mazzini a Daniel
Stern (1872): A. Pommier, Madame la comtesse d'Agoult
(Daniel Stern), 1876; A. Ungherini, ``Daniel Stern'' in the
Revista repubblicana (1880, No. 9); S. Rocheblave, Une
Amitie romanesque, George Sand et Madame d'Agoult (1895).
AGOUTI, or AGUTI, the West Indian name of Dasyprocta
aguti, a terrestrial rodent of the size of a rabbit, common
to Trinidad and Guiana, and classed in the family Caviidae.
Under the same term may be included the other species of
Dasyprocta, of which there are about half a score in tropical
America. Agoutis are slender-limbed rodents, with five front
and three hind toes (the first front toe very minute), and very
short tails. The hair, especially on the hind-quarters, is
coarse and somewhat rough; the colour being generally rufous
brown. The molar teeth have cylindrical crowns, with several
islands and a single lateral fold of enamel when worn. In
habits agoutis are nocturnal, dwelling in forests, where
they conceal themselves during the day in hollow tree-trunks,
or in burrows among roots. Active and graceful in their
movements, their pace is either a kind of trot or a series
of springs following one another so rapidly as to look like a
gallop. They take readily to water, in which they swim well.
Their food comprises leaves, roots, nuts and other fruits.
They do much harm to plantations of sugar-cane and bananas. In
captivity the females produce only one or two young at a birth.
AGRA, an ancient city of India, which gives its name to
a district and division in the United Provinces. It is
famous for containing the most perfect specimens of Mogul
architecture. Agra, like Delhi, owes much of its importance
in both historical and modern times to the Commercial and
strategical advantages of its position. The river Jumna,
which washes the walls of its fort, was the natural highway
for the traffic of the rich delta of Bengal to the heart of
India, and it formed, moreover, from very ancient times, the
frontier defence of the Aryan stock settled in the plain between
the Ganges and the Jumna against their western neighbours,
hereditary freebooters who occupied the highlands of Central
India. No place was better fitted for both an emporium and
a frontier fortress. The river formed an unfordable barrier
and also a useful means of communication. Jehangir tells us
in his autobiography that before his father Akbar built the
present fort, the town was defended by a citadel of great
antiquity. For three hundred years the Afghans and other
tribes came down from the north and founded kingdoms; and
their power radiated from Delhi and Agra. It was Sikandar,
of the house of Lodi (A.D. 1500), the last of the Afghan
dynasties, who realized the strategic importance of Agra as
a point for keeping in check his rebellious vassals to the
south. He removed his court there, and Agra from being ``a mere
village of old standing,'' says a Persian chronicler, became
the capital of a kingdom. In 1526 the city was captured by the
emperor Baber, the famous Koh-i-noor diamond being part of the
loot; and it was here that Baber announced that his invasion
was to be a permanent conquest, and not a mere temporary
inroad. It was Baber's grandson Akbar that built the present
fort, whose strong and lofty walls of red sandstone are a mile
and a,half in circumference. The building was completed in
1665, when Charles II. was on the throne of England and the
plague was devastating London. Another building of much the
same date is the red stone palace generally attributed to Akbar,
but probably of an earlier time, which is the finest example
of pure Hindu architecture; while the Moti Masjid, or Pearl
Mosque, is an equally perfect example of the Mahommedan style.
But the glory of Agra, the most splendidly poetic building in the
world, is the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum built (A.D. 1632) by
Taj Mahal.
the emperor Shah Jahan for the remains of his favourite wife,
Mumtaz Manal, in which he himself also also lies buried. The
building is of white marble throughout, crowned with a great
white dome in the centre, and with a smaller dome at each of
its four corners. From the marble terrace which surrounds
it rise four tall minarets of the same material, one at each
corner. The Taj has been modelled and painted more frequently
than any other building in the world, and the word pictures of
it are numberless. But it can only be described as a dream in
marble. It amply justifies the saying that the Moguls
designed like Titans and finished like jewellers. In regard
to colour and design the Taj ranks first in the world for
purely decorative workmanship; while the perfect symmetry of
its exterior once seen can never be forgotten, nor the aerial
grace of its domes, rising like marble bubbles into the azure
sky. In his History of Architecture, Fergusson says of it:--
``This building is an early example of that system of inlaying
with precious stones which became the great characteristic
of the style of the Moghals aftrer the death of Akbar. All
the spandrils of the Taj, all the angles and more important
architectural details, are heightened by being inlaid with
precious stones such as agates, bloodstones, jaspers and the
like. These are combined in wreaths, scrolls and frets,
as exquisite in design as they are beautiful in colour, and
relieved by the pure white marble in which they are inlaid,
they form the most beautiful and precious style of ornament
ever adopted in architecture. 1t is lavishly bestowed on
the tombs themselves and the screens which surround them,
but more sparingly introduced on the mosque that forms
one wing of the Taj, and on the fountains and surrounding
buildings. The judgment, indeed, with which this style of
ornament is apportioned to the various parts, is almost as
remarkable as the ornament itself, and conveys a high idea
of the taste and skill of the architects of this age.''
Of the Taj as a whole Lord Roberts says in his Forty-one Years in India:--
``Neither words nor pencil could give to the most imaginative reader
the slightest idea of the all-satisfying beauty and purity of this
glorious conception. To those who have not already seen it I would
say, `Go to India. The Taj alone is well worth the journey.'''
The Taj was designed by Ustad Isa, variously described as a
Byzantine Turk and a native of Shiraz in Persia. The pietra
dura work belongs to the Persian school and the common
belief that it was designed by Austin de Bordeaux, a French
architect in the service of Shah Jahan, is probably incorrect.
Agra was formerly the capital of the North-West Provinces,
but after the Mutiny the seat of government was removed to
Allahabad. Situated 841 m. from Calcutta it is now an important
railway centre, whence two main lines diverge southwards towards
Bombay. In 1901 the population was 188,022, showing an increase
of 12% during the decade. The city contains cotton mills,
factories for ginning and pressing cotton, a tannery and boot
factory and flour mill. There are also two missionary colleges.
The DISTRICT OF AGRA has an area of 1856 sq. m. Its general
appearance is that common to the Doab, a level plain intersected
by watercourses and ravines. Its general elevation is estimated
at from 650 to 700 ft. above the level of the sea. The district
is intersected by the Jumna, and is also watered by the Agra
canal. The principal crops are millets, pulses, barley,
wheat, cotton and a little indigo. The population in 1901
was 1,060,528, showing an increase of 6% during the decade.
The DIVISION OF AGRA has an area of 10,154 sq. m. In
1901 the population was 5,249,542, showing an increase
of 10% during the decade, attributed to the extension of
irrigation from canals. It comprises the six districts
of Muttra, Agra, Farukhabad, Mainpuri, Etawah and Etah.
For an account of the architecture of Agra see Fergusson's
History of Architecture; Cities of India (1903) by G. W. Forest;
Enchanted India (1899), by Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch;
and E. B. Havelln, Handbook to Agra and the Taj (1904).
AGRA CANAL, an important Indian irrigation work, available
also for navigation, in Delhi, Gurgaon, Muttra and Agra
districts, and Bharatpur state. The canal receives its
water from the Jumna river at Okia, about 10 m. below
Delhi. The weir across the Jumna was the first attempted
in Upper India upon a foundation of fine sand; it is about
800 yds. long, and rises 7 ft. above the summer level of the
river. From Okla the canal follows the high land between
the Khari-nadi and the Jumna, and finally joins the Banganga
river about 20 m. below Agra. Navigable branches connect
the canal with Muttra and Agra. It was opened in 1874.
AGRAM (Hungarian Zagrab, Croatian Zagreb), the capital of
Croatia-Slavonia, and a royal free town of Hungary; pleasantly
situated between the north bank of the Save and the mountains
which culminate in Sljeme (3396 ft.); 187 m. by rail S. of
Vienna. Pop. (1890) 38,742; (1900) 57,930, or with garrison
61,002. Agram is the seat of the ban, or viceroy, of
Croatia-Slavonia, of the Banal and Septemviral courts, the
highest in the land, and of a chamber of commerce. It is also
the meeting-place of the parliament; but local affairs are
conducted by a municipal council. The city is divided into three
districts. The Kapitel-Stadt, sometimes called the Bishop's
Town, with the palace of the Roman Catholic archbishop, and
his late Gothic cathedral, dating from the 15th century, lies
eastward of the Medvescak, a brook which flows into the
Save. The Upper Town, on high ground west of the
Medvescak, contains the palace of the ban and the natural
history museum. On the south, the Lower Town is separated
from the other districts by the Inca, a long street traversed
by a cable tramway. In it are the business and industrial
quarters; the palace of justice; the academy of science, with
picture-galleries, a library and a collection of antiquities;
the theatre; the Franz Josef University, founded in 1874 to
teach theology, law and philosophy; the synagogue; and the
only Protestant church existing in the country at the beginning
of the 20th century. Roman Catholic churches and schools are
numerous. Besides the large Maximir park and botanical
gardens, many of the squares are planted with trees and adorned
with statues; while the whole city is surrounded by vineyards
and country houses. Tobacco, leather, linen, carpets and
war-material are manufactured in Agram, which also contains
the works of the Hungarian state railways, and has a brisk
trade in grain, wine, potash, honey, silk and porcelain.
In 1094 Agram was founded by Ladislaus I. of Hungary, as the
seat of a bishop; and on the expulsion of its Mongol colony,
in 1242, it was raised to the rank of a royal free city.
For centuries a bitter feud raged between the Kapitel-Stadt
and the Upper Town, until these rivals were forced to join
hands against the Turks. Agram, already the political
centre of Croatia-Slavonia, was selected as the capital in
1867. It suffered severely from earthquake in 1880 and 1901.
AGRAPHA (i.e. ``unwritten''), the name given to certain
utterances ascribed, with some degree of certainty, to
Jesus, which have been preserved in documents other than
the Gospels, e.g. Acts xx. 35; 1 Tim. v. 18; 1 Cor. vii.
10-12, and the Logia (q.v.) discovered in 1897 and 1903 at
Oxyrhyncus. Two interesting examples of such sayings may
be quoted: (1) ``That which is weak shall be saved by that
which is strong''; (2) ``Jesus, on whom be peace, has said:
`The world is merely a bridge; ye are to pass over it,
and not to build your dwellings upon it.''' The first of
these is from the Apostolic Canons (c. A.D. 300), the
second was found by the missionary Alexander Duff inscribed
in Arabic on the gateway of the mosque at Fatehpur Sikri.
The earliest modern collection of such sayings was by
Cotelerius, Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta (1677-1688), followed
by J. E. Grabe, Spicelegium (1698 and 1700), and J. B.
Fabricius, Codex Apocryph. N. T. (2nd ed., 1719). See
also A. Resch, Agrapha (Leipzig, 1889); J. H. Ropes, Die
Spruche Jesu (Leipzig, 1896); and the article ``Sayings''
in J. Hastings' Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.
AGRARIAN LAWS (Lat. ager, land). Under this heading we deal
with the disposal of the public land (ager publicus) of ancient
Rome. It was a principle of the Republican constitution
that no gratuitous disposition of state property should be
made without the consent of the people. Hence many of the
ordinances affecting the public land were laws (leges)
in the strictest sense of that word. It is, however, both
justifiable and convenient to consider in this article all
the regulations that were made for the administration of
the public land by the executive authorities, as well as by
the people during the Republic, and by the commands of the
emperor, which had the force of law during the Principate.
The existence of public land, first in Italy, and then
in the Mediterranean world, was the outcome of two ideas
which are very familiar to students of antiquity. This
land was the prize of conquest and was one of the means of
defraying the current expenses of state-administration.
For the latter purpose land is often leased or allowed to
be occupied on the condition of the payment of dues. But it
may be made to fulfil another purpose as well--this purpose
being the satisfaction of the individual needs of poorer
citizens. To meet this object the land is usually assigned,
and on assignment generally ceases to be the property of the
state. But it often happens that the state is not wholly
disinterested in undertaking such acts of assignment. It
gains security and territorial control by planting garrisons
in conquered country, and it relieves itself of the necessity
of providing for its poorer classes whether by state-aid
or by a hazardous tampering with the rights of private
property. In this use to which public land could be turned
we see at once the connexion between agrarian legislation
and colonization--a connexion which was so close that
when a Roman spoke of an agrarian law he seems generally
to have understood by it a law establishing a colony--and
also the two aspects of colonization, the military and the
social. These two objects were indissolubly connected
throughout the whole of the earlier period of Roman agrarian
assignation. They only became separated in the period subsequent
to the Gracchi in so far as social motives still continued
to be operative when military precautions had ceased to be
necessary. It is probable that one of the chief motives
which prompted infant Rome to war with her neighbours was
the land-hunger of her citizens. This hunger she satisfied
after conquest by annexing a portion of the enemy's
territory. The amount thus confiscated varied from time to
time. It was usually a third, but sometimes a half or even
two-thirds, and after the fall of Capua in the Second Punic
War the whole territory of the state was annexed. It is
possible that by the close of the 2nd century B.C. one-half
of the land of Italy belonged to Rome whether in private
ownership or as the property of the state. Annexation was
carried on in the provinces on a relatively smaller scale:
but Rome retained as domain-land much of the territory of
communities which had been destroyed, such as Carthage and
Corinth, and the estates of former kings, such as the lands
of the Attalids in the Chersonese. Other domains in Sicily
and Greece, such as the territory of Leontini in the former,
or Oropus in the latter case, are also found. This peculiar
property of the Roman state in the provinces must be carefully
distinguished from the general overlordship which Rome was
supposed to hold over all provincial soil, expressed in the
statement that provincials had only possession or usufruct
of their land (Gaius ii. 7; Gromatici, p. 36, Lachmann).
This overlordship was probably merely a legal fiction by which
the juristic mind assigned a reason for the fact that the
provincials paid a land tax from which Italians were exempt.
Such portions of the territories of conquered cities as were
not claimed by Rome were as a matter of course left in the
undisturbed possession of these cities. If the city was
a federate state (civitas foederata), his possession was
guaranteed by a treaty; if it was a free city, the guarantee
was made by charter; if it was neither federate nor free, the
abandonment of the territory by Rome must have been taken as a
sufficient guarantee of the city's right to possess, although
statements relative to the surrender may have been contained
in the charter of the province (lex provinciae) to which
the city belonged. But, whether the states were federate,
free or stipendiary, there was only one case in which it was
important to specify precisely that land had been restored
(redditus) to its former occupants. This was the case where
Rome had marked out a territory for assignment to her own
citizens, but where in or near the limits of the assignment
some of the land had been left in the hands or its former
proprietors. Such land was noted in the state registers as
redditus veteri possessori. Sometimes it was found that such
an ancient possessor owned pieces of land separated from one
another. In such cases an exchange might be effected between
him and some other possessor, so that his possessions might be
continuous. The fact of such an exchange was symbolized in the
registers by the entry of land redditus et commutatus pro suo.
When the claims of earlier owners had been satisfied, the
state proceeded to deal with such land as it retained. It
dealt with it in two ways. It either alienated it, whether
in exchange for a price or gratuitously; or it kept it as a
source of revenue, whether on a system of lease or on some
system of remunerative occupation. We may first consider
the cases in which the state decided to alienate. The land
might be sold for the benefit of the treasury. Typical
instances of this treatment are furnished by the sale of
some Campanian land during the Second Punic War (Livy xxviii.
46, xxxii. 7). The censors may have directed the sale, but
it was executed by the quaestors as the regular officials
of the treasury. Hence such land was described as ager
quaestorius. The land was sold in definitely marked out
plots, and we must suppose that, as a rule, when this sale
had been effected, the lots fell under the absolute ownership
of their purchasers. Yet there was some period of Roman
history when this ownership was (at least in certain cases)
conditioned. The Roman writers on agriculture speak of
conditions and their neglect (Gromatici, p. 115). The
conditions were probably those of military service or frontier
defence. The epoch of history at which this conditioned
ownership was recognized cannot be determined. It is a form
of tenure that would be equally appropriate to the needs of the
earliest period of Roman history and to those of imperial times.
The second mode of alienation was that by assignation. Lands
thus assigned were known as agri dati assignati. The gift
on the part of the state was gratuitous, and ownership passed
wholly to the assignee. The land so given was definitely
surveyed, marked out and registered. Such an assignment
might take one of two possible forms. It might be the
means of establishing a new ``plantation'' (colonia), with
some independent political organization of its own, however
slight--a settlement, therefore, which could be thought of as
an entity separate from the city of Rome and from any other
municipality. Or it might be the means of providing allotments
for individuals who remained domiciled at Rome or continued
to be members of some already existing municipality. It has
been frequently held in modern times that this latter method of
assignment is the one which our ancient authorities describe as
assignment to individuals (viritim), and that the antithesis
lies between the ``colonial'' and the ``viritane'' method of
distribution. It is true that the passages which speak of
the latter mode of assignation need not, and perhaps cannot,
be interpreted as presenting the antithesis (Varro, de Re
Rustica, i. 2. 7, i. 10. 2; Livy iv. 48, v. 24; Festus, p.
373; Gromatici, pp. 154, 160); yet it is not improbable
that the antithesis is latent in this specific use of the
term. It seems clear that the idea of assignation to, and,
therefore, of ownership by, individuals must originally have
been developed in contrast to the idea of ownership by some
larger group (see ROMAN LAW). When the stage of individual
ownership was reached, all assignation was ``viritane,'' but
only some assignation was ``colonial.'' ``Viritane'' was,
therefore, the wider term which would cover, and may sometimes
have been used specially to denote, the system of non-colonial
assignment. The amount granted to individuals in assignments
of both types varied from time to time. It was reckoned in
terms of the jugerum, which was approximately 5/8 of an English
acre. The earliest and smallest assignment was 2 jugera--an
amount so small that it seems to presuppose on the part of
the recipient some share in common or gentile property or
some additional private property of his own. Other quotas
were 3, 3 7/12, 7, 10 + 14 jugera. The last was the maximum
amount granted before the time of Ti. Gracchus (133 B.C.),
and it was held by representatives of the old school that
7 jugera were as much as any frugal Roman should want
(Pliny, Historia Naturalis, xviii. 18). The division was
carried out by commissions of 3, 5 or 10 men appointed by
the people (Cicero, de Lege Agraria ii. 7. 17). The land
which the state retained as ager publicus was always placed
in the hands of individuals, who occupied it in some manner
remunerative to the state. These individuals (possessores)
were never regarded as owners of the land thus occupied.
It remained the property of the state, was held without a
contract (precario) and could be resumed by the state at
will. But though the possessors had no claim against the
state, their ownership could be defended against all other
individual claimants; and it seems probable that from an
early date the praetor's possessory interdict was used
to protect all occupiers, provided their tenure had been
acquired neither by force (vi) nor by seizure of land in
its occupiers, absence (clam), nor by mere permission of
the previous holder to occupy (precario alter ab altero.)
Moreover, Appian says that possessors of this type could
transfer their land by inheritance, and that the land was
accepted as security by creditors. This kind of occupation,
therefore, though clearly distinguished from ownership
(dominium), was yet regarded as a perfectly secure form of
tenure. All occupiers of public land paid dues to the state
through a state contractor (publicanus.) These dues varied
in amount, and in the method of their collection. We learn
from Appian that the ordinary dues paid by occupiers of
arable land in Italy were 1/10 of seed crops and 1/5 of plant
produce. Owners who turned cattle or sheep on pasture
land belonging to the state also paid fixed dues to the
treasury. The occupiers of the Roman public land in Campania
paid a large rent (Cic. de leg. Agr. i. 7. 21). Appian's
account of the public land (Bell. Civ. i. 7) would lead
us to suppose that the amount of tax paid by the occupier,
and the method adopted by the state for the collection of the
revenues, depended upon the nature of the land at the time
when it first passed to a possessor. He says that some of
the public land which was in a good state of cultivation was
let on lease; but that with regard to the poor or devastated
land proclamation was made that anyone might squat on it and
till it in return for the small payment in kind mentioned
above. It has been questioned whether the land described by
Appian and by Cicero as let on lease, of which the Campanian
land and some lands in Sicily are typical, represents a legally
distinct class. It seems probable that the distinction is
one of practice rather than of law, and that the difference
lay not in the relation between the state and the possessor
(as would be the case if the leased land were really let to
individuals by the censor, while the occupied land was held
by mere permission of the state without any contract) but
in the details of the contract between the censor and the
publicanus with regard to the collection of the dues. The
conditions of the tenure of the Roman public land in Africa
are known to us from the Lex Agraria of 111 B.C. (Bruns,
Fontes, i. 3. 11, vv. 85 foll.). Here the publicanus
is the middleman between the state and the possessor, and
purchases from the censor the right of collecting dues. The
law places no restriction on bargaining between the censor and
the publicanus, but enacts that no possessor or pastor
shall ever be required by the publicanus to pay more than the
amount prescribed by the censors of 115 B.C. These conditions
may be regarded as typical for the occupation of public
lands. And when Cicero speaks of public land as let on lease
(locatus) by the censor, he no doubt refers to the farming
of the taxes to a publicanus for a fixed period, and not
to the letting of the land. This seems clear from a passage
(in Verr. iii. 6. 12) where he speaks of land in Sicily
which had been restored by Rome to former owners as being
leased. The land itself could not be leased by Rome if it
belonged not to Rome but to the Sicilian inhabitants; but the
collection of the revenues due to Rome could be so leased to
Publicani (q.v..) And the same explanation would apply to
Cicero's statements that the Campanian land was let on lease
by the censors (cf. Festus, s.v. venditiones.) The view
that there was a distinct class of the public land which was
let out for a fixed term of years to tenants on a definite
lease, unlike the ordinary public land which was always held
in occupation merely at will (precario), has been maintained
by W. A. Becker, and seems to be supported, with the help
of conjecture, by a few passages in Cicero and by Hyginus
(Gromatici, p. 116). But the passage of Hyginus is barely
intelligible even on this supposition; and Cicero's repeated
statement that the Campanian land was expressly exempted from
the legislation of the Gracchi (cf. Lex Agraria, Bruns, loc.
cit. v. 6) shows that there was not sufficient distinction
between the Campanian tenure and that of other public land in
Italy to make this definite exception by name superfluous.
The Sempronian law could obviously not touch land which the
state had leased to occupiers on the basis of a definite
contract. Moreover, we have absolutely no evidence for such a
contract, even in Cicero's speeches against Rullus, when he
might be expected to mention it as an objection to Rullus's
bill. That there were some distinctive characteristics
about the tenure of certain lands, of which the Campanian
land is typical, seems proved by the repeated association
of these lands with certain special lands in the provinces,
especially at Leontini in Sicily, and by some passages in the
Gromatici where agri vectigales are spoken of as a distinct
class. But what these characteristics were cannot be clearly
determined. It seems certain that in every case the
possessor occupied precario, and that only in the bargain
between the censor and the middleman was there room for
contract. Thus the state was justified in the claim to
resume public land which it made in many of the Agrarian laws.
The earliest agrarian measures of which we have any record are
the distributions of land conquered in war to poor citizens,
which later authorities attribute to Numa and Servius Tullius.
Such assignments, however, are not the result of legislative
acts, but of a voluntary surrender on the king's part of his
own portion of the spoils. It is probable that the agrarian
law which resulted from the proposals of Spurius Cassius
(consul 486 B.C.) was the first attempt made by the Roman
people to exercise its control over the occupation of state
territory. According to the traditional account, Cassius
proposed that such portion of lands lately conquered from
the Hernici as fell to the Roman state should be divided
in equal shares between the Roman plebs and the Latins;
and further that poor citizens should receive allotments of
land previously conquered, and occupied without any legal
right by the Patricians. The inclusion of the Latins in
the distribution was afterwards dropped; but the law in its
final form certainly asserted the right of the Plebeians
to take their share in the public land. The accounts given
of it by Livy and Dionysius are no doubt coloured by their
knowledge of later agrarian legislation, and it seems hardly
likely that the proposal to resume and redistribute public
land already occupied was made at this early stage; but it
probably challenged the exclusive claim of Patricians to
occupy. We hear of another agrarian law proposed by the
tribune Lucius Icilius in 456 B.C. (Lex Icilia de Aventino
publicando) which regulated in some way the tenure of public
land on the Aventine. In 376 B.C. the tribunes Licinius
and Sextius introduced into their laws, for the promotion
of the privileges of the plebs, a clause enacting that no
more than 500 jugera of land should be occupied by a single
cultivator. It seems almost certain from Livy's account
that this measure referred only to the occupation of ager
publicus, though some modern authorities have upheld the
view that it dealt with land held on any kind of tenure,
others again that it dealtonlywith private property in
land. According to Appian, the law also enacted that only 100
cattle and 500 sheep might be turned by one owner on the public
pastures. But it failed of its object because it did not
provide any adequate machinery for the resumption by the
state of land held in excess of the prescribed amount, and
was therefore easily evaded. The next agrarian law we hear
of was a more special measure dealing with lands conquered
from the Senones and Picentines. In 232 B.C. C. Flaminius,
then tribune of the plebs, proposed to resume these lands
for the state, although they were already occupied by large
landholders, and to distribute them in allotments to poor
citizens. The measure met with much opposition from the
richer classes, and did not gain the sanction of the senate;
but C. Flaminius ignored constitutional usage and brought it
direct before the council of the plebs, by which it was made
law. In 133 B.C. the tribune Tiberius Gracchus (q.v.)
re-enacted the earlier measure of Licinius and Sextius, with
the additional provisions that each owner might occupy 250
jugera for each son, in addition to the original 500, and that
a commission of three (iii. viri agris dandis adsignandis)
should be appointed to carry out the terms of the law. He
also enacted that the land occupied in excess of the prescribed
amount, and on that account resumed for the state by the land
commission, should be distributed in inalienable lots to poor
citizens. Subsequent modifications of those provisions
which dealt with the powers of the land commission led to
a re-enactment of the whole by C. Gracchus, the brother of
Tiberius, tribune in 123 B.C. But within 15 years from
the tribunate of C. Gracchus the whole of his law had been
rendered null by three further enactments. The first of these
permitted the sale of land allotted under the law, which thus
tended to return into the hands of its former occupiers as
private property, which the state had no longer any right to
resume. The second abolished the commission appointed to
carry out the terms of the law, thus putting a stop to further
resumption and distribution, and also transformed existing
occupiers into owners of the land they occupied, paying
only a small due to the treasury. The third (probably the
surviving Lex Agraria, Bruns, loc. cit.) abolished the
payment. This law belongs to the year 111 B.C. The dates
of the two former laws are uncertain, but it is probable that
the first was passed in 121, the second in 119 or 118. From
this time forward a change comes over land legislation. The
ordinary public land in Italy, in the hands of occupiers,
which had given rise to all the agrarian legislation between
376 and 111, had practically ceased to exist. The Campanian
land still remained, but the same reasons which led to its
exemption from the Gracchan legislation seem to have continued
to protect its holders until 63 B.C. In the meantime several
agrarian laws were passed which provided for the distribution
of land placed in some other way at the disposal of the
state. In 100 B.C. Appuleius Saturninus (q.v.), tribune
of the plebs, proposed the allotment of lands recently taken
from the Cimbri in Gaul. This law was passed, but eventually
declared null by the senate, with the rest of Saturninus's
laws. A more dangerous precedent was set by Sulla in his
dictatorship (82-81 B.C..) He was the first to confiscate
the lands of his political foes, and of communities which had
resisted him, and treating them as ager publicus, assign
them to his veterans as a prize. This example was followed
by Octavian (Augustus) and Antony (M. Antonius) after their
proscriptions in 43 B.C. A third method of providing land
for distribution was that adopted by Servilius Rullus (q.v.)
in 63 B.C. His bill enacted that land should be purchased
in Italy with money gained by the sale of Roman territories
abroad, and allotted to citizens. A commission of ten (x.
viri agris dandis adsignandis), annually elected by 9
out of the 35 tribes, was to carry out the terms of the
law. Rullus also ventured to propose the distribution of the
Campanian land, which had hitherto been respected by all agrarian
reformers. It was chiefly on this ground that Cicero in
his three speeches on the Agrarian law succeeded in exciting
such a general feeling against it that it was eventually
withdrawn. In 60 B.C. the tribune L. Flavius brought
forward a bill for the distribution of lands to Pompey's
veterans. The Campanian land was certainly to be included in
the distribution, and it is clear from Cicero that the bill in
some way dealt violently with the rights of private owners. It
also, however, enacted that land should be purchased by the
state with the wealth which Pompey's conquests had brought
into the treasury. The last proposal was supported by Cicero,
but the bill seems to have been dropped, only to reappear in
more moderate form in the following year. A consular bill,
the lex Julia Campana, was passed by Julius Caesar in 59
B.C., which provided for the settlement of Pompey's veterans
on the Campanian land, and other lands purchased by the state
from private owners in Italy with the full consent of the
latter. In its original form, the bill omitted all reference
to the Campanian land, which seems to have been included
by Caesar in the distribution only when the continued and
unreasoning opposition of the senate had goaded him to extreme
measures. A commission of twenty was to be appointed to
carry out the law, from which Caesar himself was expressly
excluded. This measure finally settled the question of
the Campanian land, which now passed out of the category of
ager publicus. The last agrarian law of the republic was
that passed in 44 B.C. on the proposal of the consul M.
Antonius, or of his brother L. Antonius. We have no detailed
account of the measure, but it seems to have provided grants
of land for veterans, and was to be administered by seven
commissioners. The law was afterwards cancelled by decree of
the senate, probably on the ground of some technical flaw.
The emperor Vespasian attempted to reclaim for the state small
oddments of land (subseciva) which were held by neighbouring
owners to whom they had never been definitely assigned. The
attempt met with violent opposition, and though resumed by
Titus, was finally crushed by Domitian, who issued an edict
recognizing all oddments of land thus held to be private property.
AUTHORITIES.--Niebuhr, History of Rome (English
translation), ii. p. 129 foll. (Cambridge, 1832); Becker,
Handbuch der romischen Alterthumer, iii. 2, p. 142
(Leipzig, 1843); Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung,
i. p. 96 foll. (Leipzig, 1881); Madvig, Verfassung und
Verwaltung des romischen Staates, ii. p. 364 foll. (Leipzig,
1882), (See also ROME, History.) (A. H. J. G; A. M. CL.)
AGREDA, MARIA FERNANDEZ CORONEL, ABBESS OF, known in
religion as Sor (Sister) Maria de Jesus (1602-1665), was the
daughter of Don Francisco Coronel and of his wife Catalina de
Arana. She was born at Agreda, on the borders of Navarre
and Aragon, on the 2nd of April 1602. All her family were
powerfully influenced by the ecstatic piety of Spain in that
age. Her biographer, Samaniego, records that even as an
infant in arms she was filled with divine knowledge. Her
stupidity as a child is piously accounted for by extreme
humility. From childhood she was favoured by ecstasies and
visions. When she was fifteen the whole family entered
religion. The father, now an old man, and the two sons
entered the Franciscan house of San Antonio de Nalda. Maria,
her mother and sister established a Franciscan nunnery in the
family house at Agreda, which, when Maria's reputation had
extended, was replaced by the existing building. She began
it with one hundred reals (one pound sterling) lent her by a
devotee, and it was completed in fourteen years by voluntary
gifts. Much against her own wish, we are told, she was
appointed abbess at the age of twenty-five. In 1668, four
years after her death, the Franciscans published a story that
at the age of twenty-two she had been miraculously conveyed to
Mexico, to convert a native people, and had made five hundred
journeys through the air for that purpose in one year.
Though the rule required the abbess to be changed every three
years, Maria remained the effective ruler of Agreda till her
death. The Virgin was declared abbess, and Maria acted as
her locus tenens. In her later years she inclined to the
``internal prayer,'' and neglect of the outward offices
of the church, which was usual with the ``alumbrados'' or
Quietists. The Inquisition took notice of her, but she was
not proceeded against with severity. Maria's importance in
religion and Spanish history is based on two grounds. In the
earlier part of her life, while the Franciscan, Francisco Andres
de la Torre, was her confessor, she wrote an Introduction to
the History of the Most Blessed Virgin. It was destroyed by
the direction of another confessor. Later on, by the order
of her superiors, and under the guidance of her Franciscan
confessor, Andres de Fuen Mayor, she wrote The Mystic City
of God. It is an extraordinary book, full of apocryphal
history, visions and scholasticism, which professes to have
been written by divine inspiration, and is devoted to praise
of the Virgin. In 1642 she sent to Philip IV. an account of
a vision she had had, of a council of the infernal powers for
the destruction of Catholicism and Spain. The king visited
her when on his way to Aragon to suppress the rebellion of
Catalonia. A long correspondence, which lasted till her death
on the 29th of March 1665, was begun. The king folded a sheet
of paper down the middle and wrote on the one side of the
division. The answers were to be written on the other and
the sheet returned. By a pious fraud copies were kept at
Agreda. How far Maria was only the mouthpiece of the Franciscans
must of course be a matter of doubt. Her correspondence was
apparently suspended whenever her confessor was absent. She
must, however, have co-operated at least, and it is certain
that the Franciscans, who were very unfortunate in some of
their pious women, owed not a little to her. The letters are
in excellent Spanish, are curious reading, and are invaluable
as illustrations for the second part of the reign of Philip IV.
The correspondence of Sor Maria with the king has been
published in full by Don F. Siluela, Cartas de la Venerable
Madre Sor Maria de Agreda y del Senor Rey Don Filipe IV.
(Madrid, 1885). The Mystic City of God is one of the most
characteristic monuments of Mariolatry, and has continued to be
much in favour with supporters of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception. It appeared in Madrid in 1668, with a biographical
introduction by Samaniego, has been often reprinted, and was
translated into French and Italian. It was for a time reserved
by the Index, both Spanish and Papal, but was taken off by the
influence of the Franciscans and of Spain, the chief supporters
of the immaculate Conception. An account of Maria de Agreda
will be found in the Tracts of Michael Geddes (London,
1706),vol. iii., written by a competent critic and Anglican
divine of the 18th century who detested ``enthusiasm.'' (D. H.)
AGRICOLA, CHRISTOPH LUDWIG (1667-1719), German landscape
painter, was born and died at Regensburg (Ratisbon). He
spent a great part of his life in travel, visiting England,
Holland and France, and residing for a considerable period at
Naples. His numerous landscapes, chiefly cabinet pictures,
are remarkable for fidelity to nature, and especially for
their skilful representation of varied phases of climate. In
composition his style shows the influence of Caspar Poussin,
while in light and colour he imitates Claude Lorraine.
His pictures are to be found in Dresden, Brunswick, Vienna,
Florence, Naples and many other towns of both Germany and Italy.
AGRICOLA (the Latinized form of the name BAUER), GEORG
(1490-1555), German scholar and man of science, known as ``the
father of mineralogy,'' was born at Glauchau in Saxony on the
24th of March 1490. Gifted with a precocious intellect, he
early threw himself into the pursuit of the ``new learning,''
with such effect that at the age of twenty he was appointed
Rector extraordinarius of Greek at the so-called Great
School of Zwickau, and made his appearance as a writer on
philology. After two years he gave up his appointment in
order to pursue his studies at Leipzig, where, as rector, he
received the powerful support of the professor of classics,
Peter Mosellanus (1493-1524), a celebrated humanist of the
time, with whom he had already been in correspondence. Here
he also devoted himself to the study of medicine, physics and
chemistry. After the death of Mosellanus he went for a short
time to Italy, where he took his doctor's degree. On his
return he settled as practising physician in the Joachimstal,
a centre of mining and smelting works, his object being partly
``to fill in the gaps in the art of healing,'' partly to test
what had been written about mineralogy by careful observation
of ores and the methods of their treatment. His thorough
grounding in philology and philosophy had accustomed him to
systematic thinking, and this enabled him to construct out of
his studies and observations of minerals a logical system which
he began to publish in 1528. Bermannus, sive de re metallica
dialogus, the first attempt to reduce to scientific order
the knowledge won by practical work, brought Agricola into
notice. In 1530 Prince Maurice of Saxony appointed him
historiographer with an annual allowance, and he migrated to
Chemnitz, the centre of the mining industry, in order to widen
the range of his observations. The citizens showed their
appreciation of his learning by appointing him town physician
and electing him burgomaster. His popularity was, however,
short-lived. Chemnitz was a violent centre of the Protestant
movement, while Agricola never wavered in his allegiance
to the old religion; and he was forced to resign his
office. He now lived apart from the contentious movements
of the time, devoting himself wholly to learning. His chief
interest was still in mineralogy; but he occupied himself
also with medical, mathematical, theological and historical
subjects, his chief historical work being the Dominatores
Saxonici a prima origine ad hanc aetatem, published at
Freiberg. In 1544 he published the De ortu et causis
subterraneorum, in which he laid the first foundations
of a physical geology, and criticized the theories of the
ancients. In 1545 followed the De natura eorum quae effluunt
e terra; in 1546 the De veteribus et novis metallis, a
comprehensive account of the discovery and occurrence of
minerals; in 1548 the De animantibus subterraneis; and
in the two following years a number of smaller works on the
metals. His most famous work, the De re metallica, libri
xii., was published in 1556, though apparently finished
several years before, since the dedication to the elector and
his brother is dated 1550. It is a complete and systematic
treatise on mining and metallurgy, illustrated with many fine
and interesting woodcuts and containing, in an appendix, the
German equivalents for the technical terms used in the Latin
text. It long remained a standard work, and marks its
author as one of the most accomplished chemists of his
time. Believing the black rock of the Schlossberg at Stolpen
to be the same as Pliny's basalt, he applied this name to
it, and thus originated a petrological term which has been
permanently incorporated in the vocabulary of science.
In spite of the early proof that Agricola had given of the
tolerance of his own religious attitude, he was not suffered
to end his days in peace. He remained to the end a staunch
Catholic, though all Chemnitz had gone over to the Lutheran
creed; and it is said that his life was ended by a fit of
apoplexy brought on by a heated discussion with a Protestant
divine. He died at Chemnitz on the 21st of November 1555,
and so violent was the theological feeling against him, that
he was not suffered to rest in the town to which he had added
lustre. Amidst hostile demonstrations he was carried
to Zeitz, seven miles from Chemnitz, and there buried.
See article by Gumbel in Allgem. Deutsche Biog.
(1875); F. L. Becher, Georg Agricola und Werner
(Freiberg, 1819); F. A. Schmidt, Georg Agricola's
Bermannus mit Einleitung (Freiberg, 1806); Poggendorff,
Biographisches Handworterbuch; Agricola's works passim.
AGRICOLA, GNAEUS JULIUS (A.D. 37-93), Roman statesman and
general, father-in-law of the historian Tacitus, was born on
the 13th of June A.D. 37 (according to others, 39) at Forum
Julii (Frejus) in Gallia Narbonensis. His father, Julius
Graecinus, having been put to death by Caligula, Agricola
was brought up by his mother Julia Procilla. After studying
philosophy at Massilia, he entered the army and served (59)
under Suetonius Paulinus in Britain. In 61 he returned to
Rome, where he married Domitia Decidiana, a Roman lady of
distinction. In 63 he was quaestor in Asia, in 65 tribune,
in 68 praetor, and when Vespasian was proclaimed emperor,
he immediately declared himself his supporter. In 70 he was
appointed to the command of the 20th legion in Britain, then
stationed at Deva (Chester). On his return to Rome at the
end of three years he was made censor, raised to the rank of
patrician, and appointed governor of Aquitania (74-78).
Appointed consul suffectus in the following year, he was
admitted into the college of pontiffs and made governor of
Britain. In the same year he betrothed his daughter to
Tacitus. Although the legation of Britain lasted as a rule
only three years, Agricola held the post for at least seven
and succeeded in reconciling the inhabitants to Roman rule
and inducing them to adopt the customs and civilization of
their conquerors. His military achievements were equally
brilliant. After conquering the Ordovices in North Wales and
the island of Mona (Anglesey), during the next two years he
carried his victorious arms to the Taus (Tay; others read
Tanaus, perhaps the north Tyne), and in his fourth campaign
fortified the country between Clota and Bodotria (the firths
of Clyde and Forth) as a protection against the attacks of the
Caledonians. Having explored the coasts of Fife and Forfar, he
gained a decisive victory over the Caledonians under Galgacus
at the Graupian hill (see BRITAIN, Roman.) His successes,
however, had aroused the envy and suspicion of Domitian.
He was recalled to Rome, where he lived a life of studied
retirement, to avoid the possibility of giving offence to the
tyrant. He died in 93, poisoned, it was rumoured, by the
emperor's orders. The Life of Agricola by his son-in-law
Tacitus is practically a panegyric or funeral oration.
See Urlichs, De Vita et Honoribus Agricolae (1868);
Dio Cassius xxxix. 50, lxvi. 20: Mommsen, Provinces of
the Roman Empire (Eng. trans., 1886), i. 183-184, 194.
AGRICOLA, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1720-1774), German musician, was
born at Dobitschen in Saxe-Altenburg, on the 4th of January
1720. While a student of law at Leipzig he studied music
under Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1741 he went to Berlin,
where he studied musical composition. He was soon generally
recognized as one of the most skilful organists of his time;
and in 1751, as the result of a comic opera, Il Filosofo
convinto in amore, performed at Potsdam, he was made court
composer to Frederick the Great. He died in Berlin on the
1st of December 1774. In 1759, on the death of Karl Heinrich
Graun, he was appointed conductor of the royal orchestra.
Besides several operas of merit, he composed instrumental
pieces and church music. His reputation chiefly rests,
however, on his theoretical and critical writings on musical
subjects. He wrote under the pseudonym of Flavio Anicio Olibrio.
AGRICOLA (originally SCHNEIDER, then SCHNITTER), JOHANNES
(1494-1566), German Protestant reformer, was born on the 20th of
April 1494, at Eisleben, whence he is sometimes called Magister
Islebius. He studied at Wittenberg, where he soon gained the
friendship of Luther. In 1519 he accompanied Luther to the great
assembly of German divines at Leipzig, and acted as recording
secretary. After teaching for some time in Wittenberg, he
went to Frankfort in 1525 to establish the reformed mode of
worship. He had resided there only a month when he was called
to Eisleben, where he remained till 1526 as teacher in the
school of St Andrew, and preacher in the Nicolai church. In
1536 he was recalled to teach in Wittenberg, and was welcomed by
Luther. Almost immediately, however, a controversy, which
had been begun ten years before and been temporarily silenced,
broke out more violently than ever. Agricola was the first
to teach the views which Luther was the first to stigmatize
by the now well-known name Antinomian (q.v.), maintaining
that while the unregenerate were still under the Mosaic
law, Christians were entirely free from it, being under
the gospel alone. In consequence of the bitter controversy
with Luther that resulted, Agricola in 1540 left Wittenberg
secretly for Berlin, where he published a letter addressed
to the elector of Saxony, which was generally interpreted
as a recantation of his obnoxious views. Luther, however,
seems not to have so accepted it, and Agricola remained at
Berlin. The elector Joachim II. of Brandenburg, having taken
him into his favour, appointed him court preacher and general
superintendent. He held both offices until his death in 1566,
and his career in Brandenburg was one of great activity and
influence. Along with Julius von Pflug, bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz,
and Michael Helding, titular bishop of Sidon. he prepared
the Augsburg Interim of 1548. He endeavoured in vain to
appease the Adiaphoristic controversy (see ADIAPHORISTS.)
He died during an epidemic of plague on the 22nd of September
1566. Agricola wrote a number of theological works which
are now of little interest. He was the first to make a
collection of German proverbs which he illustrated with a
commentary. The most complete edition, which contains
seven hundred and fifty proverbs, is that published at
Wittenberg in 1592; a modern one is that of Latendorf, 1862.
See Cordes, Joh. Agricola's Schriften moglichst
verzeichnet (Altona, 1817); Life by G. Kawerau (1881),
who also wrote the notice in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyk.
fur prot. Theol., where other literature is cited.
AGRICOLA, MARTIN (c. 1500-1556), German musician, was
born about 1500 in Lower Silesia. His German name was Sohr or
Sore. From 1524 till his death he lived at Magdeburg, where
he occupied the post of teacher or cantor in the Protestant
school. The senator and music-printer Rhau, of Wittenberg, was
a close friend of Agricola, whose theoretical works, providing
valuable material concerning the change from the old to the new
system of notation, he published. Agricola was also the first
to harmonize in four parts Luther's chorale, Ein' feste Burg.
Four other Agricolas1 are known as composers between
the end of the 15th century and the middle of the 17th.
In the 18th century we find Burney, in the course of his tour in
Germany (1772), much impressed by JOHANN FRIEDRICH AGRICOLA
(1720-1774), court composer and director of the royal chapel to
Frederick the Great. This Agricola was a pupil of Bach, and a
fine organist and clever writer on music, especially on operatic
style, the problems of which were beginning to be raised by
French writers-and composers in preparation for the work of Gluck.
AGRICOLA, RODOLPHUS (properly ROELOF HUYSMANN) (1443-1485),
Dutch scholar, was born at Baflo, near Groningen, in 1443.
He was educated at Louvain, where he graduated as master of
arts. After residing for some time in Paris, he went in
1476 to Ferrara in Italy, and attended the lectures of the
celebrated Theodorus Gaza (1400-1478) on the Greek language.
Having visited Pavia and Rome, he returned to his native
country about 1479, and was soon afterwards appointed syndic of
Groningen. In 1482, on the invitation of Johann von Dalberg,
bishop of Worms (1445-1503), whose friendship he had gained
in Italy, he accepted a professorship at Heidelberg, and
for three years delivered lectures there and at Worms on the
literature of Greece and Rome. By his personal influence
much more than by his writings he did much for the promotion
of learning in Germany; and Erasmus and other critics of the
generation immediately succeeding his own are full of his
praises. In his opposition to the scholastic philosophy he
in some degree anticipated the great intellectual revolution
in which many of his pupils were conspicuous actors. He died
at Heidelberg on the 28th of October 1485. His principal
work is De inventione dialectica, libri iii., in which
he attempts to change the scholastic philosophy of the day.
See T. F. Tresling, Vita et Merita Rudolphi Agricolae (Groningen,
1830); v. Bezold, R. Agricola (Munchen, 1884): and Ihm, Der
Humanist R. Agricola, sein Leben und seine Schriften (Paderb., 1893).
AGRICULTURAL GANGS, groups of women, girls and boys organized
by an independent gang-master, under whose supervision they
execute agricultural piece-work for farmers in certain parts of
England. They are sometimes called ``public gangs'' to
distinguish them from ``private gangs'' consisting of workers
engaged by the farmer himself, and undertaking work solely for
him, under his own supervision or under that of one of his
men. The system was for long prevalent in the counties of
Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire,
Norfolk and Suffolk, and is still to be found in a much
modified form in the fen district. The practice dates
from the latter years of the reign of George III., when the
low-lying, marshy lands surrounding the basin of the Wash
were being rapidly drained and converted into rich alluvial
districts. The unreformed condition of the poor-law, under
which the support of the poor fell upon each individual parish,
instead of a union of parishes, made landlords reluctant to
erect cottages on the reclaimed land for the benefit of their
tenants. Labour had to be obtained for the cultivation of
these new lands, and that of women, girls and boys, being
cheaper than the labour of men, was consequently very largely
employed. The tendency to moral and physical ruin which resulted
from this nomadic life was so great that an inquiry into the
condition of agricultural child-labour was included in the
reference to the commission on child-labour appointed in 1862,
and the results were so startling that the Agricultural Gangs
Act was passed in 1867, forbidding the employment of any child
under eight years old, and of any female under a male gangmaster
unless a female licensed to act as gang-mistress were also
1 Alexander, died 1506; Johann, flor. 1600; Wolfgang Christoph,
flor. 1630; and George Ludwig, 1643-1676. present. Gang-masters
must be licensed by two justices, and may not hold a liquor
license. The distance to be traversed on foot is fixed by
the justices, and the licenses must be renewed every six
months. Later legislation made more stringent the regulations
under which children are employed in agricultural gangs. By
the Elementary Education Act 1876, repealing and re-enacting
the principal provisions of the Agricultural (Children) Act
1873, no child shall be employed under the age of eleven years,
and none between eleven years and thirteen years before the
child has obtained a certificate of having reached the standard
of education fixed by a by-law in force in the district.
AGRICULTURE (from Lat. ager, field, and colere, to
cultivate), the science, art and industry of utilizing the soil
so as to produce the means of human subsistence, embracing in its
widest sense the rearing of live-stock as well as the raising of
crops. The history of agriculture is the history of man in
his most primitive, and most permanent aspect. Hence the
nations of antiquity ascribed to it a divine origin; Brahma
in Hindustan, Isis in Egypt, Demeter in Greece, and Ceres in
Italy, were its founders. The simplest form of agriculture is
that in which crops are raised from one patch of ground till it
is exhausted, when it is allowed to go wild and abandoned for
another. This ``extensive'' husbandry is found in combination
with a nomadic or semi-nomadic and pastoral organization, such
as that of the German tribes described by Caesar and Tacitus
(see especially Germania, 26). The discovery of the uses
of the bare fallow and of manure, by making it possible to
raise crops from the same area for an indefinite period, marks
a stage of progress. This ``intensive'' culture in a more
or less developed form was practised by the great nations of
antiquity, and little decided advance was made till after the
middle ages. The introduction of new plants, which made it
possible to dispense with the bare fallow, and still later the
application to husbandry of scientific discoveries as to soils,
plant constituents and manures, brought about a revolution in
farming. But the progress of husbandry, evidenced by the
production of larger and better crops with more certainty, is
due to that rationalizing of agricultural practices which is
the work of modern times. What before was done in the light
of experience is nowadays done in the light of knowledge.
Even the earliest forms of intensive cultivation demand the
practice of the fundamental processes of husbandry--ploughing,
manuring, sowing, weeding, reaping. It is the improvements
in methods, implements and materials, brought about by the
application of science, that distinguish the husbandry of
the 20th century from that of medieval and ancient times.
Ancient Husbandry.--The monumental records of Egypt are
the source of the earliest information on farming. The Egypt
Egypt.
of the Pharaohs was a country of great estates farmed either
by tenants or by slaves or labourers under the superintendence
of stewards. It owed its fertility to the Nile, which,
inundating the land near its banks, was distributed by means
of canals over more distant portions of its valley. The
autumnal subsidence of the river was followed by shallow
ploughing performed by oxen yoked to clumsy wooden ploughs,
the clods being afterwards levelled with wooden hoes by
hand. Next came the sowing, the seed being pressed into
the soil by the feet of sheep which were driven over the
fields. At harvest the corn was cut high on the stalk with
short sickles and put up in sheaves, after which it was carried
to the threshing-floor and there trodden out by the hoofs of
oxen. Winnowing was done by women, who tossed the grain into the
air with small wooden boards, the chaff being blown away by the
winds. Wheat and barley were the chief crops, and another
plant, perhaps identical with the durra, i.e. millet, of
modern Egypt, was also cultivated. The latter, when ripe, was
pulled up by the roots, and the grain was separated by means
of an implement resembling a comb. To these crops may be added
peas, beans and many herbs and esculent roots. Oxen were much
prized, and breeding was carried on with a careful eye to
selection. Immense numbers of ducks and geese were reared.
Diodorus Siculus, writing of later times, says that cattle
were sent during a portion of each year to the marshy pastures
of the delta, where they roamed under the care of herdsmen.
They were fed with hay during the annual inundation, and at
other times tethered in meadows of green clover. The flocks
were shorn twice annually (a practice common to several Asiatic
countries), and the ewes yeaned twice a year. (See also EGYPT.)
The agriculture of the region bordering the Tigris and Euphrates,
like that of Egypt, depended largely on irrigation, and traces
of ancient canals are still to be seen in Babylonia. But
beyond the fact that both Babylonia and Assyria were large
producers of cereals, little is known of their husbandry.
The nomads of the patriarchal ages, whilst mainly dependent
upon their flocks and herds, practised also agriculture proper.
Biblical accounts among the Israelites.
The tracts over which they roamed were in ordinary circumstances
common to all shepherds alike. During the summer they frequented
the mountainous districts, and retired to the valleys to
winter. Vast flocks of sheep and of goat constituted their
wealth, although they also possessed oxen. When the last
were abundant, it seems to be an indication that tillage was
practised. Job, besides immense possessions in flocks
and herds, had 500 yoke of oxen, which he employed in
ploughing, and a ``very great husbandry.'' Isaac, too,
conjoined tillage with pastoral husbandry, and that with
success, for ``he sowed in the land Gerar, and reaped an
hundred-fold''--a return which, it would appear, in some
favoured regions, occasionally rewarded the labour of the
husbandman. In the parable of the sower, Jesus Christ
mentions an increase of thirty, sixty and an hundred fold.
Along with the Babylonians, Egyptians and Romans, the Israelites
are classed as one of the great agricultural nations of
antiquity. The Mosaic Institute contained an agrarian law,
based upon an equal division of the soil amongst the adult
males, a census of whom was taken just before their entrance
into Canaan. Provision was thus made for 600,000 yeomen,
assigning (according to different calculations) from sixteen
to twenty-five acres of land to each. This land, held in
direct tenure from Jehovah, their sovereign, was in theory
inalienable. The accumulation of debt upon it was prevented
by the prohibition of interest, the release of debts every
seventh year, and the reversion of the land to the proprietor,
or his heirs, at each return of the year of jubilee. The
owners of these small farms cultivated them with much care,
and rendered them highly productive. They were favoured
with a soil extremely fertile, and one which their skill and
diligence kept in good condition. The stones were carefully
cleared from the fields, which were also watered from canals
and conduits, communicating with the brooks and streams
with which the country ``was well watered everywhere,'' and
enriched by the application of manures. The seventh year's
fallow prevented the exhaustion of the soil, which was further
enriched by the burning of the weeds and spontaneous growth
of the Sabbatical year. The crops chiefly cultivated were
wheat, millet, barley, beans and lentils; to which it is
supposed, on grounds not improbable, may be added rice and
cotton. The chief implements were a wooden plough of
simple and light construction, a hoe or mattock, and a light
harrow. The ox and the ass were used for labour. The word
``oxen,'' which occurs in our version of the Scriptures, as
well as in the Septuagint and Vulgate, denotes the species,
rather than the sex. As the Hebrews did not mutilate any of
their animals, bulls were in common use. The quantity of land
ploughed by a yoke of oxen in one day was called a yoke or
acre. Towards the end of October, with which month the rainy
season begins, seedtime commenced, and of course does so
still. The seedtime, begun in October, extends, for wheat
and some other white crops, through November and December;
and barley continues to be sown until about the middle of
February. The seed appears to have been sometimes ploughed
in, and at other times to have been covered by harrowing.
The cold winds which prevail in January and February
frequently injured the crops in the more exposed and higher
districts. The rainy season extends from October to April,
during which time refreshing showers fall, chiefly during the
night, and generally at intervals of a few days. The harvest
was earlier or later as the rains towards the end of the season
were more or less copious. It, however, generally began in
April, and continued through May for the different crops in
succession. In the south, and in the plains, the harvest, as
might be expected, commenced some weeks earlier than in the
northern and mountainous districts. The slopes of the hills
were carefully terraced and irrigated wherever practicable,
and on these slopes the vine and olive were cultivated with
great success. At the same time the hill districts and
neighbouring deserts afforded pasturage for numerous flocks
and herds, and thus admitted of the benefits of a mixed
husbandry. Not by a figure of speech but literally,
every Israelite sat under the shadow of his own vine and
fig-tree; whilst the country as a whole is described (2
Kings xviii. 32) as ``a land of corn and wine, a land of
bread and vineyards, a land Of oil olive and of honey.''
The earliest known forms of intensive husbandry were based
chiefly upon the proximity of rivers and irrigation. The
Greece.
agriculture of classical ages was slightly more developed in
so far as the husbandman of Greece and Rome was less likely to
leave to nature the fertilization of the soil. Greece being
a mountainous land was favourable to the culture of the vine
rather than to that of cereals. Scanty information on its
agriculture is to be derived from the Works and Days of Hesiod
(about the 8th century B.C.), the Oeconomicus of Xenophon
(4th century B.C.), the History o/ Plants and the Origin
o/. Plants of Theophrastus (4th century B.C..)The latter is
the first writer on botany, and his works also contain interesting
remarks on manures, the mixing of soils and other agricultural
topics (see also GEOPONICI.) Greek husbandry had no salient
characteristics. The summer fallow with repeated ploughing
was its basis. The young crop was hoed, reaping was performed
with a sickle, and a high stubble left on the ground as
manure. The methods of threshing and winnowing were the same
as those in use in ancient Egypt. Wheat, barley and spelt
were the leading crops. Meadows were pastured rather than
mown. Attica was famous for its olives and figs, but general
agriculture excelled in Peloponnesus, where, by means of
irrigation and drainage, all the available land was utilized.
In the early days of the Roman republic land in Italy was held
largely by small proprietors, and agriculture was highly esteemed
Rome.
and classed with war as an occupation becoming a free
man. The story of Cincinnatus, twice summoned from the
plough to the highest offices in the state, illustrates
the status of the Roman husbandman. The later tendency
was towards the absorption of smaller holdings into large
estates. As wealth increased the peasant-farmer gave way
before the large landowner, who cultivated his property by
means of slave-labour, superintended by slave-bailiffs. The
low price of grain, which was imported in huge quantities
from Sicily and other Roman provinces, operated to crush
the small holder, at the same time as it made arable farming
unremunerative. Sheep-raising, involving larger holdings,
less supervision and less labour, was preferred by the
capitalist land-holder to the cultivation of the wheat,
spelt, vines or olives which were the chief crops of the
country. Lupine, beans, peas and vetches were grown for
fodder, and meadows, often artificially watered, supplied
hay. Swine and poultry were used for food to a greater
extent than oxen, which were bred chiefly for ploughing.
The following epitome of Virgil's advice to the husbandman
in the first book of the Georgics suggests the outline
of Roman husbandry: ``First learn the peculiarities of your
soil and climate. Plough the fallow in early spring, and
plough frequently--twice in winter, twice in summer unless
your land is poor, when a light ploughing in September will
do. Either let the land lie fallow every other year or else
let spelt follow pulse, vetches or lupine. Repetition of one
crop exhausts the ground; rotation will lighten the strain,
only the exhausted soil must be copiously dressed with manure
or ashes. It often does good to burn the stubble on the
ground. Harrow down the clods, level the ridges by cross
ploughing, work the land thoroughly. Irrigation benefits a
sandy soil, draining a marshy soil. It is well to feed down
a luxuriant crop when the plants are level with the ridge
tops. Geese and cranes, chicory, mildew, thistles, cleavers,
caltrops, darnel and shade are farmer's enemies. Scare off
the birds, harrow up the weeds, cut down all that shades the
crop. Ploughs, waggons, threshing-sledges, harrows, baskets,
hurdles, winnowing-fans are the farmer's implements.
The plough consists of several parts made of seasoned
wood. The threshing-floor must be smooth and rammed hard
to leave no crevices for weeds and small animals to get
through. Some steep seed in soda and oil lees to get a larger
produce. Careful annual selection by hand of the best
seed is the only way to prevent degeneration. It is best
to mow stubble and hay at night when they are moist.''
In addition to the use of several kinds of animal and other
manures, green crops were sometimes ploughed in by the
Romans. The shrewdness which, more than inventiveness,
characterized their husbandry comes out well in the following
quotation from the 18th book of the Natural History
of Pliny:--``Cato would have this point especially to be
considered, that the soil of a farm be good and fertile; also,
that near it there be plenty of labourers and that it be not
far from a large town; moreover, that it have sufficient means
for transporting its produce, either by water or land. Also
that the house be well built, and the land about it as well
managed. They are in error who hold the opinion that the
negligence and bad husbandry of the former owner is good for his
successor. Now, I say there is nothing more dangerous and
disadvantageous to the buyer than land so left waste and out
of heart; and therefore Cato counsels well to purchase land
of one who has managed it well, and not rashly to despise
and make light of the skill and knowledge of another.''
Roman writers on agriculture (see GEOPONICI) are more
numerous than those of Greece. The earliest important
treatises are the De re Rustica of Cato (234-149 B.C.)
and the Rerum Rusticarum Libri of Varro. More famous
than either are the Georgics of Virgil, published
about 30 B.C., and treating of tillage, horticulture,
cattle-breeding and bee-keeping. The works of Columella (1st
century A.D.) and of Palladius (4th century A.D.) are
exhaustive treatises, and the Natural History of the elder
Pliny (A.D. 23-70) contains considerable information on
husbandry. Under the later empire agriculture sank into a
condition of neglect, in which it remained throughout the Dark
Ages. In Spain its revival was due to the Saracens, and by
them, and their successors the Moors, agriculture was carried
to a high pitch of excellence. The work on agriculture1 of
Ibn-al-Awame, who lived in the 12th century A.D., treats
of the varieties of soils, manuring, irrigation, ploughing,
sowing, harvesting, stock, horticulture, arboriculture and plant
diseases, and is a lasting record of their skill and industry.
The subsequent history of agriculture is treated in the
following pages primarily from the British standpoint. Doubtless
Flanders may claim to be the pioneer of ``high farming'' in
medieval times, other countries following her lead in many
respects. It is not, however, necessary to deal with the
agricultural evolution of continental Europe, the gradual
progress of agriculture as a whole being well enough typified
in the story of its development in England, which indeed has
led the way in modern times. After sections on the history
and chief modern features of British agriculture, a separate
account is given of the general features of American agriculture.
HISTORY OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE
The ``combined'' or ``common-field'' system of husbandry
practised by the village community or township (see VILLAGE
COMMUNITIES) may be taken as the starting-point of English
agriculture, in which, till the end of the 18th century, it
is a dominant influence. The territory of the ``township''
consisted of arable land, meadow, pasture and waste. The
arable land was divided into two or, more usually, three
fields, which were cut up into strips bounded by balks and
allotted to the villagers in such a way that one holding might
include several disconnected strips in each field--a measure
designed to prevent the whole of the best land falling to one
man. The fields were fenced in from seed-time to harvest,
after which the fences were taken down and the cattle turned
in to feed on the stubble. According to early methods of
cropping, which were destined to prevail for centuries, wheat,
the chief article of food, was sown in one autumn, reaped
the next August; the following spring, oats or barley were
sown, and the year following the harvest was a period of
fallow. This procedure was followed on each of the three
fields so that in every year one of them was fallow. In
addition to the cereals, beans, peas and vetches were grown
to some extent. The meadow-land was also divided into
strips from which the various holders drew their supply of
hay. The pasture-land was common to all, though the number
of beasts which one man might turn into it was sometimes
limited. Rough grazing could also be had on the outlying waste
lands. In the absence of artificial grasses and roots, hay was
very valuable; it constituted almost the only winter food for
live stock, which were consequently in poor condition in spring.
Under the manorial system, the rise of which preceded the Norman
Conquest, communal methods of husbandry remained, but the
position of the cultivator was radically altered. ``Villeins,''
instead of free-holders, formed the most numerous class of the
population. They were bound to the soil and occupied holdings
of scattered strips (amounting usually to a virgate or 30
acres) in return for a payment partly in labour and partly in
kind. A portion of the manor, generally about a third,
constituted the lord's demesne, which, though sometimes
separate, usually consisted of strips intermingled with
those of his villeins. It thus formed part of the common
farm and was cultivated by the villeins and their oxen under
the superintendence of a bailiff. Below the villeins in the
social scale came the cottiers possessing smaller holdings,
sometimes only a garden, and no oxen. Free tenants and, after
the Norman Conquest, slaves formed small proportions of the
population. During the middle ages cattle and sheep were the
chief farm animals, but the intermixture of stock consequent
on the common-field system was a barrier to improvement in
the breed and conduced to the propagation of disease. Oxen,
usually yoked in teams of eight, were used for ploughing.
Sheep were small and their fleeces light, nevertheless, owing
to the meagreness of the yields of cereals2 and the demand for
wool for export, sheep-farming was looked to, as early as the
12th century, as the chief source of profit. Pigs and poultry
were universally kept. The treatise on husbandry of Walter of
Henley, dating from the early 13th century, is very valuable
as describing the management of the demesne under the two-
or three-field system. The following are typical passages:--
``April is a good season for fallowing, if the earth breaks
up behind the plough: for second fallowing after St John's
Day when the dust rises behind the plough; for seed-ploughing
when the earth is well settled and not too cracked; however,
the busy man cannot be always waiting on the seasons.''
``At sowing do not plough large furrows, but little and
well laid together, that the seed may fall evenly.''
``Know that an acre sown with wheat takes three ploughings,
except lands that are sown each year, and that each
ploughing costs 6d. more or less and the harrowing 1d.
It is well to sow at least two bushels to the acre.''
``Change your seed every year at Michaelmas, for the seed grown
on other land will bring you more than that grown on your own.''
``Neither sell your stubble nor move it from the ground unless you need
it for thatching. Have manure put up in heaps and mixed with earth.''
``Ridge marshy ground so as to let the water run off.''
During the 13th century there arose a tendency to commute
labour-rents for money payments. This change led to the
gradual disappearance of tenants in villeinage--the villeins
and cottiers--and the rise on the one hand of the small
independent farmer, on the other of the hired labourer. The
plague of 1348 marks an epoch in English agriculture. The
diminution of the population by one-half led to a scarcity of
labour and an increase of wages which deprived the landowner
of his narrow margin of profit. To meet this situation, the
Statute of Labourers (1351) enacted that no man should refuse
to work at the same rate of wages as prevailed before the
plague. In addition the landowners attempted to revive the
disappearing system of labour-rents. The bitter feelings
engendered between employer and employed culminated in
the peasants' revolt of 1381. Meanwhile large numbers of
landowners were forced to adopt one of two alternatives.
In some cases they ceased to farm their own land and let it
out on lease often together with the stock upon it; or else
they abandoned arable culture, laid down their demesnes to
pasture, enclosed the waste lands and devoted themselves to
sheep-farming. In the latter course they were encouraged
by the high prices of wool during the 14th century, and by
Edward III.'s policy of fostering both the export of wool
and the home manufacture of woollen goods. The 15th century,
barren of progress in methods of husbandry, was in its
early years moderately prosperous. Later on the increasing
abandonment of arable husbandry for sheep-farming brought
about a less demand for labour, and rural depopulation was
accelerated as the peasant was deprived of his grazing-ground
by the enclosure of more and more of the waste land.3
From the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. to the end
of Elizabeth's, a number of statutes were made for the
Agriculture under the Tudors and Stuarts.
encouragement of tillage, though probably to little purpose.
``Where in some towns,'' says the statute 4th Henry VII.
(1488), ``two hundred persons were occupied and lived of
their lawful labours. now there are occupied two or three
herdsmen, and the residue fall into idleness''; therefore it
is ordained that houses which within three years have been
let for farms, with twenty acres of land lying in tillage or
husbandry, shall be upheld, under the penalty of half the
profits, to be forfeited to the king or the lord of the
fee. Almost half a century afterwards the practice had become
still more alarming; and in 1534 a new act was tried, apparently
with as little success. ``Some have 24,000 sheep, some 20,000
sheep, some 10,000, some 6000, some 4000, and some more and
some less''; and yet it is alleged the price of wool had nearly
doubled, ``sheep being come to a few persons' hands.'' A
penalty was therefore imposed on all who kept above 2000 sheep;
and no person was to take in farm more than two tenements of
husbandry. By the 39th Elizabeth (1597) arable land made
pasture since the 1st Elizabeth shall be again converted into
tillage, and what is arable shall not be converted into pasture.
The literature of agriculture, in abeyance since the treatise
of Walter of Henley, makes another beginning in the 16th
century. The best of the early works is the Book of
Husbandry (1st ed. 1523), commonly ascribed to Sir Anthony
Fitzherbert, a judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of
Henry VIII., but more probably written by his elder brother
John. This was followed by the Book of Surveying and
Improvements (1523), by the same author. In the former
treatise we have a clear and minute description of the rural
practices of that period, and from the latter may be learned a
good deal of the economy of the feudal system in its decline.
The Book of Husbandry begins with a description of the
plough and other implements, after which about a third part
of it is occupied with the several operations as they succeed
one another throughout the year. Among other passages
in this part of the work, the following deserve notice:--
``Somme (ploughs) wyll tourn the sheld bredith at every
landsende, and plowe all one way''; the same kind of
plough that is now found so useful on hilly grounds. Of
wheel-ploughs he observes, that ``they be good on even
grounde that lyeth lyghte''; and on such lands they are
still most commonly employed. Cart-wheels were sometimes
bound with iron; of which he greatly approves. On the much
agitated question about the employment of horses or oxen in
labour, the most important arguments are distinctly stated.
``In some places,'' he says, ``a horse plough is better,'' and
in others an oxen plough, to which, upon the whole, he gives the
preference. Beans and peas seem to have been common crops. He
mentions the different kinds of wheat, barley and oats; and after
describing the method of harrowing ``all maner of cornnes,'' we
find the roller employed. ``They used to role their barley grounde
after a showr of rayne, to make the grounde even to mowe.''
Under the article ``To falowe,'' he observes, ``the greater
clottes (clods) the better wheate, for the clottes kepe the
wheat warme all wynter; and at March they will melte and
breake and fal in manye small peces, the whiche is a new
dongynge and refreshynge of the corne.'' This is agreeable to
the present practice, founded on the very same reasons. ``In
May, the shepe folde is to be set out''; but Fitzherbert does
not much approve of folding, and points out its disadvantages
in a very judicious manner. ``In the latter end of May and
the begynnynge of June, is tyme to wede the corne''; and then
we have an accurate description of the different weeds, and
the instruments and mode of weeding. Next comes a second
ploughing of the fallow; and afterwards, in the latter end of
June, the mowing of the meadows begins. Of this operation,
and of the forks and rakes and the haymaking there is a very
good account. The corn harvest naturally follows: rye and
wheat were usually shorn, and barley and oats cut with the
scythe. The writer does not approve of the common practice
of cutting wheat high and then mowing the stubbles. ``In
Somersetshire,'' he says, ``they do shere theyr wheat very
lowe; and the wheate strawe that they purpose to make thacke
of, they do not threshe it, but cut off the ears, and bynd
it in sheves, and call it rede, and therewith they thacke
theyr houses.'' He recommends the practice of setting up corn
in shocks, with two sheaves to cover eight, instead of ten
sheaves as at present--probably owing to the straw being then
shorter. The corn was commonly housed; but if there be
a want of room, he advises that the ricks be built on a
scaffold and not upon the ground. The fallow received a
third ploughing in September, and was sown about Michaelmas.
``Wheat is moost commonlye sowne under the forowe, that is to
say, cast it uppon the falowe, and then plowe it under'';
and this branch of his subject is concluded with directions
about threshing, winnowing and other kinds of barn-work.
Fitzherbert next proceeds to live stock. ``An housbande,'' he
says, ``can not well thryue by his corne without he have other
cattell, nor by his cattell without corne. And bycause that
shepe, in myne opynyon, is the mooste profytablest cattell
that any man can haue, therefore I pourpose to speake fyrst of
shepe.'' His remarks on this subject are so accurate that one
might imagine they came from a storemaster of the present day.
In some places at present ``they neuer seuer their lambes
from their dammes''; ``and the poore of the peeke (high)
countreye, and such other places, where, as they vse to
mylke theyr ewes, they vse to wayne theyr lambes at 12 weekes
olde, and to mylke their ewes fiue or syxe weekes''; but
that, he observes, ``is greate hurte to the ewes, and wyll
cause them that they wyll not take the ramme at the tvme of
the yere for pouertye, but goo barreyne.'' ``In June is tyme
to shere shepe; and ere they be shorne, they must be verye
well washen, the which shall be to the owner greate profyte
in the sale of his wool, and also to the clothe-maker.''
His remarks on horses, cattle, &c., are not less
interesting; and there is a very good account of the
diseases of each species, and some just observations
on the advantage of mixing different kinds on the same
pasture. Swine and bees conclude this branch of the work.
The author then points out the great advantages of enclosure;
recommends ``quycksettynge, dychynge and hedgeyng''; and
gives particular directions about settes, and the method
of training a hedge, as well as concerning the planting
and management of trees. Fitzherbert throws some light on
the position of women in the agriculture of his day. ``It
is a wyues occupation,'' he says, ``to wynowe all maner of
cornes, to make malte, to washe and wrynge, to make heye,
shere corne, and, in time of nede, to helpe her husbande
to fyll the mucke wayne or dounge carte, dryue the ploughe,
to loode heye, corne and suche other; and to go or ride
to the market to sel butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekyns,
capons, hennes, pygges, gese, and all maner of cornes.''
The Book of Surveying adds considerably to our knowledge of
the rural economy of that age. ``Four maner of commens'' are
described; several kinds of mills for corn and other purposes,
and also ``quernes that goo with hand''; different orders of
tenants, down to the ``boundmen,'' who ``in some places contynue
as yet''; ``and many tymes, by colour thereof, there be many
freemen taken as boundmen, and their lands and goods is taken
from them.'' Lime and marl are mentioned as common manures,
and the former was sometimes spread on the surface to destroy
heath. Both draining and irrigation are noticed, though
the latter but slightly. And the work concludes with an
inquiry ``how to make a township that is worth XX. marke a
yere, worth XX.li. a year,'' advocating the transition from
communal or open field to individual or enclosure farming.
``It is undoubted, that to every townshyppe that standeth
in tyllage in the playne countrey, there be errable landes
to plowe and sowe, and leyse to tye or tedder theyr horses
and mares upon, and common pasture to kepe and pasture their
catell, beestes and shepe upon; and also they have medowe
grounde to get their hey upon. Than to let it be known how
many acres of errable lande euery man hath in tyllage, and of
the same acres in euery felde to chaunge with his neyghbours,
and to leve them toguyther, and to make hym one seuerall
close in euery felde for his errable lands; and his leyse in
euery felde to leve them togyther in one felde, and to make
one seuerall close for them all. And also another seuerall
close for his portion of his common pasture, and also his
porcion of his medowe in a seuerall close by itselfe, and al
kept in seureall both in wynter and somer; and euery cottage
shall haue his portion assigned hym accordynge to his rent,
and than shall nat the ryche man ouerpresse the poore man
with his cattell; and euery man may eate his oun close at his
pleasure. And vndoubted, that hay and strawe that will find
one beest in the house wyll finde two beestes in the close,
and better they shall lyke. For those beestis in the house
have short heare and thynne, and towards March they will pylle
and be bare; and therefore they may nat abyde in the fylde
before the heerdmen in wintertyme for colde. And those that
lye in a close under a hedge haue longe heare and thyck, and
they will neuer pylle nor be bare: and by this reason the
husbande maye keoe twyse so many catell as he did before.
``This is the cause of this approwment. Nowe euery husbande
hath sixe seuerall closes, whereof iii. be for corne, the
fourthe for his leyse, the fyfte for his commen pastures,
and the sixte for his haye; and in wynter time there is but
one occupied with corne, and than hath the husbande other
fyue to occupiy tyll lente come, and that he hath his falowe
felde, his ley felde, and his pasture felde al sommer.
And when he hath mowen his medowe, then he hath his medowe
grounde, soo that if he hath any weyke catell that wold be
amended, or dyvers maner of catell, he may put them in any
close he wyll, the which is a great advantage; and if all
shulde lye commen, than wolde the edyche of the corne feldes
and the aftermath of all the medowes be eaten in X. or XII.
dayes. And the rych men that hath moche catell wold have the
advantage, and the poore man can have no help nor relefe in
wynter when he hath moste nede; and if an acre of lande be
worthe sixe pens, or it be enclosed, it will be worth VIII.
pens, when it is enclosed by reason of the compostying and
dongyng of the catell that shall go and lye upon it both day
and nighte; and if any of his thre closes that he hath for
his corne be worne or ware bare, than he may breke and plowe
up his close that he hadde for his layse, or the close that
he hadde for his commen pasture, or bothe, and sowe them with
corne, and let the other lye for a time, and so shall he have
always reist grounde, the which will bear moche corne with
lytel donge; and also he shall have a great profyte of the wod
in the hedges whan it is growen; and not only these profytes
and advantages beforesaid, but he shall save moche more than
al these, for by reason of these closes he shall save meate,
drinke and wages of a shepherde, the wages of the heerdmen, and
the wages of the swine herde, the which may fortune to be as
chargeable as all his holle rente; and also his corne shall be
better saved from eatinge or destroyeng with catel. For dout
ye nat but heerdemen with their catell, shepeherdes with their
shepe, and tieng of horses and mares, destroyeth moch corne,
the which the hedges wold save. Paraduenture some men would
say that this shuld be against the common weale, bicause the
shepeherdes, heerdmen and swyne-herdes shuld than be put out of
wages. To that it may be answered. though these occupations
be not used, there be as many newe occupations that were not
used before; as getting of quicke settes. diching, hedging
and plashing, the which the same men may use and occupye.''
The next author who writes professedly on agriculture is
Thomas Tusser, whose Five Hundred Points of Husbandry,
published in 1562, enjoyed such lasting repute that in 1723
Lord Molesworth recommended that it should be taught in
schools. In it the book of husbandry consists of 118 pages,
and then follows the Point of Housewifrie, occupying 42
pages more. It is written in verse. Amidst much that is
valueless there are some useful notices concerning the state
of agriculture at the time in different parts of England.
Hops, which had been introduced in the early part of the 16th
century, and on the culture of which a treatise was published
in 1574 by Reginald Scott, are mentioned as a well-known
crop. Buckwheat was sown after barley. Hemp and flax
are mentioned as common crops. Enclosures must have been
numerous in some counties; and there is a very good comparison
between ``champion (open fields) country and several,''
which Blith afterwards transcribed into his Improver
Improved. Carrots, cabbages, turnips and rape, not yet
cultivated in the fields, are mentioned among the herbs
and roots for the kitchen. There is nothing to be found in
Tusser about serfs or bondmen, as in Fitzherbert's works.
In 1577 appeared the Foure Bookes of Husbandry, translated, with
augmentation, from the work of Conrad Heresbach. Much stress
is laid on the value of manure, and mention is made of clover.
Fitzherbert, in deploring the gradual discontinuance of the
practice of marling land, had alluded to the grievance familiar
in modern times of tenants ``who, if they should marl and
make their holdings much better, fear lest they should be
put out, or make a great fine or else pay more rent.'' This
subject is treated at length in Sir John Norden's Surveyor's
Dialogue (1st ed. 1607), the next agricultural work demanding
notice. The author, writing from the landowner's point of
view, ascribes the rise in rents and the rise in the price
of corn4 to the ``emulation'' of tenants in competing for
holdings, a practice implying that the agriculture of the
period was prosperous. Norden's work contains many judicious
observations on the ``different natures of grounds, how
they may be employed, how they may be bettered, reformed and
amended.'' The famous meadows near Salisbury are mentioned,
where, when cattle have fed their fill, hogs, it is said,
``are made fat with the remnant--namely, with the knots and
sappe of the grasse.'' ``Clouer grasse, or the grasse honey
suckle'' (white clover), is directed to be sown with other
hay seeds. ``Carrot rootes'' were then raised in several
parts of England, and sometimes by farmers. London street
and stable dung was carried to a distance by water, and
appears from later writers to have been got for the trouble of
removing. Leases of 21 years are recommended for persons
of small capital as better than employing it in purchasing
land. The works of Gervase Markham, Leonard Mascall, Gabriel
Plattes and other authors of the first half of the 17th
century may be passed over, the best part of them being
preserved by Blith and Hartlib, who are referred to below.
Sir Richard Weston's Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant
and Flanders was published by Hartlib in 1645, and its
title indicates the source to which England owed much of its
subsequent agricultural advancement. Weston was ambassador
from England to the elector palatine in 1619, and had the
merit of being the first who introduced the Great Clover,
as it was then called, into English agriculture, about
1652, and probably turnips also. Clover thrives best, he
says, when you sow it on the barrenest ground, such as the
worst heath ground in England. The ground is to be pared and
burnt, and unslacked lime must be added to the ashes. It
is next to be well ploughed and harrowed; and about 10 lb. of
clover seed must be sown on an acre in April or the end of
March. If you intend to preserve seed, then the second crop
must be let stand till it come to a full and dead ripeness, and
you shall have at the least five bushels per acre. Being once
sown, it will last five years; the land, when ploughed, will
yield, three or four years together, rich crops of wheat, and
after that a crop of oats, with which clover seed is to be sown
again. It is in itself an excellent manure, Sir Richard
adds; and so it should be, to enable land to bear this
treatment. Before 1655 the culture of clover, exactly
according to the present method, seems to have been well
known in England, and it had also made its way to Ireland.
A great many works on agriculture appeared during the time
of the Commonwealth, of which Walter Blith's Improver
Improved and Samuel Hartlib's Legacie are the most
valuable. The first edition of the former was published
in 1649, and of the latter in 1651; and both of them were
enlarged in subsequent editions. In the first edition of
the Improver Improved no mention is made of clover, nor in
the second of turnips, but in the third, clover is treated of
at some length, and turnips are recommended as an excellent
cattle crop, the culture of which should be extended from
the kitchen garden to the field. Sir Richard Weston must
have cultivated turnips before this; for Blith says that
Sir Richard affirmed to himself that he fed his swine with
them. They were first given boiled, but afterwards the swine
came to eat them raw, and would run after the carts, and
pull them forth as they gathered them--an expression which
conveys an idea of their being cultivated in the fields.
Blith's book is the first systematic work in which there
are some traces of alternate husbandry or the practice of
interposing clover and turnip between culmiferous crops.
He is a great enemy to commons and common fields, and to
retaining land in old pasture, unless it be of the best
quality. His description of the different kinds of ploughs is
interesting; and he justly recommends such as were drawn by two
horses (some even by one horse) in preference to the weighty
and clumsy machines which required four or more horses or
oxen. The following passage indicates the contemporary
theory of manuring:---``In thy tillage are these special
opportunities to improve it, either by liming, marling,
sanding, earthing, mudding, snayl-codding, mucking, chalking,
pidgeons-dung, hens-dung, hogs-dung or by any other means
as some by rags, some by coarse wool, by pitch marks, and
tarry stuff, any oyly stuff, salt and many things more, yea
indeed any thing almost that hath any liquidness, foulness,
saltness or good moysture in it, is very naturall inrichment
to almost any sort of land.'' Blith speaks of an instrument
which ploughed, sowed and harrowed at the same time; and the
setting of corn was then a subject of much discussion. Blith
was a zealous advocate of drainage and holds that drains to
be efficient must be laid 3 or 4 ft. deep. The drainage of
the Great Level of the Fens was prosecuted during the 17th
century, but lack of engineering skill and the opposition of
the fen-men hindered the reclamation of a now fertile region.
Hartlib's Legacie contains, among some very judicious directions,
a great deal of rash speculation. Several of the deficiencies
which the writer complains of in English agriculture must be
placed to the account of climate, and never have been or can be
supplied. Some of his recommendations are quite unsuitable to
the state of the country, and display more of general knowledge
and good intention than of either the theory or practice of
agriculture. Among the subjects deserving notice may be
mentioned the practice of steeping and liming seed corn as
a preventive of smut; changing every year the Species of
grain, and bringing seed corn from a distance; ploughing down
green crops as manure; and feeding horses with broken oats and
chaff. This writer seems to differ a good deal from Blith about
the advantage of interchanging tillage and pasture. ``It were
no losse to this island,'' he says, ``if that we should not
plough at all, if so be that we could certainly have corn at
a reasonable rate, and likewise vent for all our manufactures
of wool''; and one reason for this is, that pasture employs
more hands than tillage, instead of depopulating the country,
as was commonly imagined. The Grout, which he mentions
as ``coming over to us in Holland ships,'' about which he
desires information, was probably the same as shelled barley;
and mills for manufacturing it were introduced into Scotland
from Holland towards the beginning of the 18th century.
Among the other writers previous to the Revolution mention must
be made of John Ray the botanist and of John Evelyn, both men of
great talent and research, whose works are still in high estimation.
The first half of the 17th century was a period of agricultural
activity, partly due, no doubt, to the increase of enclosed
farms. Marling and liming are again practised, new
agricultural implements and manures introduced, and the
new crops more widely used. But the Civil War and the
subsequent politicaldisturbances intervened to prevent the
continuance of this progress, and the agriculture of the
end of the century seems to have relapsed into stagnation.
Scottish agriculture of the 17th century.
Of the state of agriculture in Scotland in the 16th and the
greater part of the 17th century very little is known; no
professed treatise on the subject appeared till after the
Revolution. The south-eastern counties were the earliest
improved, and yet in 1660 their condition seems to have been very
wretched. Ray, who made a tour along the eastern coast in
that year, says, ``We observed little or no fallow ground in
Scotland; some ley ground we saw, which they manured with sea
wreck. The men seemed to be very lazy, and may be frequently
observed to plough in their cloaks. It is the fashion of them
to wear cloaks when they go abroad, but especially on Sundays.
They have neither good bread, cheese nor drink. They cannot make
them, nor will they learn. Their butter is very indifferent,
and one would wonder how they could contrive to make it so
bad. They use much pottage made of coal-wort, which they call
kail, sometimes broth of decorticated barley. The ordinary
country-houses are pitiful cots, built of stone and covered with
turfs, having in them but one room, many of them no chimneys,
the windows very small holes and not glazed. The ground in
the valleys and plains bear very good corn, but especially
bears barley or bigge, and oats, but rarely wheat and rye.''
It is probable that no great change had taken place in Scotland
from the end of the 15th century, except that tenants gradually
became possessed of a little stock of their own, instead of
having their farm stocked by the landlord. ``The minority of
James V., the reign of Mary Stuart, the infancy of her son, and
the civil wars of her grandson Charles I., were all periods of
lasting waste. The very laws which were made during successive
reigns for protecting the tillers of the soil from spoil are
the best proofs of the deplorable state of the husbandman.''5
In the 17th century those laws were made which paved the
way for an improved system of agriculture in Scotland. By a
statute of 1633 landholders were enabled to have their tithes
valued, and to buy them either at nine or six years' purchase,
according to the nature of the property. The statute of 1685,
conferring on landlords a power to entail their estates, was
indeed of a very different tendency in regard to its effects on
agriculture. But the two Acts in 1695, for the division of commons
and separation of intermixed properties, facilitated improvements.
Progress of agriculture from 1688 to 1760.
From the Revolution to the accession of George III. the
progress of agriculture was by no means so considerable as
might be imagined from the great exportation of corn. It is
probable that very little improvement had taken place, either
in the cultivation of the soil or in the management of live
stock, from the Restoration down to the middle of the 18th
century. Clover and turnips were confined to a few districts,
and at the latter period were scarcely cultivated at all by
common farmers in the northern part of the island. Of the writers
of this period, therefore, it is necessary to notice only such
as describe some improvement in the modes of culture, or some
extension of the practices that were formerly little known.
In John Houghton's Collections on Husbandry and Trade, a
periodical work begun in 1681, there is one of the earliest
notices of turnips being eaten by sheep:----``Some in Essex have
their fallow after turnips, which feed their sheep in winter,
by which means the turnips are scooped, and so made capable
to hold dews and rain water, which, by corrupting, imbibes the
nitre of the air, and when the shell breaks it runs about and
fertilizes. By feeding the sheep, the land is dunged as if
it had been folded; and those turnips, though few or none be
carried off for human use, are a very excellent improvement,
nay, some reckon it so, though they only plough the turnips
in without feeding.'' This was written in February 1694. Ten
years before, John Worlidge, one of his correspondents, and
the author of the Systema Agriculturae (1669), observes,
``Sheep fatten very well on turnips, which prove an excellent
nourishment for them in hard winters when fodder is scarce; for
they will not only eat the greens, but feed on the roots in the
ground, and scoop them hollow even to the very skin. Ten acres
(he adds) sown with clover, turnips, &c., will feed as many
sheep as one hundred acres thereof would before have done.''
The next writer of note is John Mortimer, whose Whole Art of Husbandry,
a regular, systematic work of considerable merit, was published in 1707.
From the third edition of Hartlib's Legacie we learn that
clover was cut green and given to cattle; and it appears that
this practice of soiling, as it is now called, had become very
common about the beginning of the 18th century, wherever clover was
cultivated. Rye-grass was now sown along with it. Turnips were
hand-hoed and extensively employed in feeding sheep and cattle.
The first considerable improvement in the practice of
that period was introduced by Jethro Tull, a gentleman of
Berkshire, who about the year 1701 invented the drill, and
whose Horse-hoeing Husbandry, published in 1731, exhibits
the first decided step in advance upon the principles and
practices of his predecessors. Not contented with a careful
attention to details, Tull set himself, with admirable skill
and perseverance, to investigate the growth of plants, and
thus to arrive at a knowledge of the principles by which
the cultivation of field-crops should be regulated. Having
arrived at the conclusion that the food of plants consists
of minute particles of earth taken up by their rootlets, it
followed that the more thoroughly the soil in which they grew
was disintegrated, the more abundant would be the ``pasture''
(as he called it) to which their fibres would have access.
He was thus led to adopt that system of sowing his crops in
rows or drills, so wide apart as to admit of tillage of the
intervals, both by ploughing and hoeing, being continued until
they had well-nigh arrived at maturity. Such reliance did he
place in the pulverization of the soil that he grew as many
as thirteen crops of wheat on the same field without manure.
As the distance between his rows appeared much greater than
was necessary for the range of the roots of the plants, he
begins by showing that these roots extend much farther than
is commonly believed, and then proceeds to inquire into the
nature of their food. After examining several hypotheses,
he decides this to be fine particles of earth. The chief
and almost the only use of dung, he thinks, is to divide the
earth, to dissolve ``this terrestrial matter, which affords
nutriment to the mouths of vegetable roots''; and this can be
done more completely by tillage. It is therefore necessary not
only to pulverize the soil by repeated ploughings before it be
seeded, but, as it becomes gradually more and more compressed
afterwards, recourse must be had to tillage while the plants
are growing; and this is hoeing, which also destroys the
weeds that would deprive the plants of their nourishment.
The leading features of Tull's husbandry are his practice
of laying the land into narrow ridges of 5 or 6 ft.,
and upon the middle of these drilling one, two, or three
rows, distant from one another about 7 in. when there were
three, and 10 in. when only two. The distance of the plants
on one ridge from those on the contiguous one he called
an interval; the distance between the rows on the same
ridge, a space or partition; the former was stirred
repeatedly by the horse-hoe, the latter by the hand-hoe.
``Hoeing,'' he says, ``may be divided into deep, which is our
horse-hoeing; and shallow, which is the English hand-hoeing;
and also the shallow horse-hoeing used in some places betwixt
rows, where the intervals are very narrow, as 16 or 18
inches. This is but an imitation of the hand-hoe, or a
succenadeum to it, and can neither supply the use of dung nor
fallow, and may be properly called scratch-hoeing.'' But in
his mode of forming ridges his practice seems to have been
original; his implements, especially his drill, display much
ingenuity; and his claim to the title of founder of the present
horse-hoeing husbandry of Great Britain seems indisputable.
Contemporary with Tull was Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend,
a typical representative of the large landowners to whom
the strides made by agriculture in the 18th century were
due. The class to which he belonged was the only one which
could afford to initiate improvements. The bulk of the land
was still farmed by small tenants on the old common-field
system, which made it impossible for the individual to adopt
a new crop rotation and hindered innovation of every kind.
On the other hand, the small farmers who occupied separated
holdings were deterred from improving by the fear of a rise in
rent. Townshend's belief in the growing of turnips gained
him the nickname of ``Turnip Townshend.'' In their cultivation
he adopted Tull's practice of drilling and horse-hoeing,
and he was also the founder of the Norfolk or four-course
system, the first of those rotations which dispense with
the necessity of a summer-fallow and provide winter-keep for
live-stock (see below, Rotation of Crops). The spread of
these principles in Norfolk made it, according to Arthur Young
(writing in 1770), one of the best cultivated counties in
England. In the latter half of the century another Norfolk
farmer, Thomas William Coke of Holkham, earl of Leicester,
(1752-1842), figures as a pioneer of high-farming. He was one
of the first to use oil-cake and bone-manure, to distinguish
the feeding values of grasses, to appreciate to the full the
beneficial effects of stock on light lands and to realize
the value of long leases as an incentive to good farming.
Agriculture in Scotland in the 18th century.
Of the progress of the art in Scotland, till towards the
end of the 17th century, we are almost entirely ignorant.
The first work, written by James Donaldson, was printed in
1697, under the title of Husbandry Anatomized; or, Inquiry
into the Present Manner of Tilling and Manuring the Ground in
Scotland. It appears from this treatise that the state of
the art was not more advanced at that time in North Britain
than it had been in England in the time of Fitzherbert. Farms
were divided into infield and outfield; corn crops followed
one another without the intervention of fallow, cultivated
herbage or turnips, though something is said about fallowing
the outfield; enclosures were very rare; the tenantry had not
begun to emerge from a state of great poverty and depression;
and the wages of labour, compared with the price of corn,
were much lower than at present, though that price, at least
in ordinary years, must appear extremely moderate in our
times. Leases for a term of years, however, were not
uncommon; but the want of capital rendered it impossible
for the tenantry to attempt any spirited improvements.
The next work on the husbandry of Scotland is The Countryman's
Rudiments, or Advice to the Farmers in East Lothian, how to
labour and improve their Grounds, said to have been written
by John Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven about the time of the
Union, and reprinted in 1723. The author bespeaks the favour of
those to whom he addresses himself in the following significant
terms:---``Neither shall I affright you with hedging, ditching,
marling, chalking, paring and burning, draining, watering and
such like, which are all very good improvements indeed, and
very agreeable with the soil and situation of East Lothian,
but I know ye cannot bear as yet a crowd of improvements, this
being only intended to initiate you in the true method and
principles of husbandry.'' The farm-rooms in East Lothian, as
in other districts, were divided into infield and outfield.
``The infield (where wheat is sown) is generally divided by
the tenant into four divisions or breaks, as they call them,
viz. one of wheat, one of barley, one of pease and one of
oats, so that the wheat is sowd after the pease, the barley
after the wheat and the oats after the barley. The outfield
land is ordinarily made use of promiscuously for feeding of
their cows, horse, sheep and oxen; 'tis also dunged by their
sheep who lay in earthen folds; and sometimes, when they
have much of it, they fauch or fallow a part of it yearly.''
Under this management the produce seems to have been three
times the seed; and yet, says the writer, ``if in East Lothian
they did not leave a higher stubble than in other places of the
kingdom, their grounds would be in a much worse condition than
at present they are, though bad enough.'' ``A good crop of corn
makes a good stubble, and a good stubble is the equalest mucking
that is.'' Among the advantages of enclosures, he observes,
``you will gain much more labour from your servants, a great
part of whose time was taken up in gathering thistles and other
garbage for their horses to feed upon in their stables; and
thereby the great trampling and pulling up and other destruction
of the corns while they are yet tender will be prevented.''
Potatoes and turnips are recommended to be sown in the yard
(kitchen-garden). Clover does not seem to have been in
use. Rents were paid in corn; and for the largest farm, which
he thinks should employ no more than two ploughs, the rent was
about six chalders of victual ``when the ground is very good,
and four in that which is not so good. But I am most fully
convinced they should take long leases or tacks, that they
may not be straitened with time in the improvement of their
rooms; and this is profitable both for master and tenant.''
Such was the state of the husbandry of Scotland in the early
part of the 18th century. The first attempts at improvement
cannot be traced farther back than 1723, when a number of
landholders formed themselves into a society, under the title
of the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture
in Scotland. John, 2nd earl of Stair, one of their most
active members, is said to have been the first who cultivated
turnips in that country. The Select Transactions of this
society were collected and published in 1743 by Robert Maxwell,
who took a large part in its proceedings. It is evident from
this book that the society had exerted itself with success
in introducing cultivated herbage and turnips, as well as
in improving the former methods of culture. But there is
reason to believe that the influence of the example of its
numerous members did not extend to the common tenantry, who
not unnaturally were reluctant to adopt the practices of those
by whom farming was perhaps regarded as primarily a source
of pleasure rather than of profit. Though this society,
the earliest probably in the United Kingdom, soon counted
upwards of 300 members, it existed little more than 20 years.
In the introductory paper in Maxwell's collection we are told that--
``The practice of draining, enclosing, summer fallowing, sowing
flax, hemp, rape, turnip and grass seeds, planting cabbages
after, and potatoes with, the plough, in fields of great extent,
is introduced; and that, according to the general opinion,
more corn grows now yearly where it was never known to grow
before, these twenty years last past, than perhaps a sixth of
all that the kingdom was in use to produce at any time before.''
In 1757 Maxwell issued another work entitled The Practical
Husbandman; being a collection of miscellaneous papers
on Husbandry, &c. In it the greater part of the Select
Transactions is republished, with a number of new papers,
among which an Essay on the Husbandry of Scotland,
with a proposal for the improvement of it, is the most
valuable. In this he lays it down as a rule that it is
bad husbandry to take two crops of grain successively,
which marks a considerable progress in the knowledge of
modern husbandry; though he adds that in Scotland the best
husbandmen after a fallow take a crop of wheat; after the
wheat, peas; then barley, and then oats; and after that they
fallow again. The want of enclosures was still a matter of
complaint. The ground continued to be cropped so long
as it produced two seeds; the best farmers were contented
with four seeds, which was more than the general produce.
1760 to 1815.
The gradual advance in the price of farm produce soon after
the year 1760, occasioned by the increase of population and of
wealth derived from manufactures and commerce, gave a powerful
stimulus to rural industry, augmented agricultural capital and
called forth a more skilful and enterprising race of farmers.
A more rational system of cropping now began to take the
place of the thriftless and barbarous practice of sowing
successive crops of corn until the land was utterly exhausted,
and then leaving it foul with weeds to recover its pover
by an indefinite period of rest. Green crops, such as
turnips, clover and rye. grass, began to be alternated
with grain crops, whence the name alternate husbandry.
The writings of Arthur Young (q.v.), secretary to the Board of
Agriculture, describe the transition from the old to the new
agriculture. In many places turnips and clover were still
unknown or ignored. Large districts still clung to the old
common-field system, to the old habits of ploughing with teams
of four or eight, and to slovenly methods of cultivation.
Young's condemnation of these survivals was as pronounced as
his support of the methods of the large farmers to whom he
ascribed the excellence of the husbandry of Kent, Norfolk and
Essex. He realized that with the enclosure of the waste
lands and the absorption of small into large holdings, the
common-field farmer must migrate to the town or become a
hired labourer; but he also realized that to feed a rapidly
growing industrial population, the land must be improved by
draining, marling, manuring and the use of better implements,
in short by the investment of the capital which the yeoman
farmer, content to feed himself and his own family, did not
possess. The enlargement of farms, and in Scotland the
letting of them under leases for a considerable term of
years, continued to be a marked feature in the agricultural
progress of the country until the end of the century, and
is to be regarded both as a cause and a consequence of that
progress. The passing of some 3500 enclosure bills,
affecting between 5 and 5 1/2 million acres, during the
reign of George III., before which the whole number was
between 200 and 250, shows how rapidly the break-up of the
common-field husbandry and the cultivation of new land now
proceeded. The disastrous American War for a time interfered
with the national prosperity; but with the return of peace
in 1783 the cultivation of the country made more rapid
progress. The quarter of a century immediately following
1760 is memorable for the introduction of various important
improvements. It was during this period that the genius of
Robert Bakewell produced an extraordinary change in the character
of our more important breeds of live stock, more especially
by the perfecting of a new race of sheep--the well-known
Leicesters. Bakewell's fame as a breeder was for a time
enhanced by the improvement which he effected on the Long-horned
cattle, then the prevailing breed of the midland counties of
England. These, however, were ere long rivalled and afterwards
superseded by the Shorthorn or Durham breed, which the
brothers Charles and Robert Colling obtained from the useful
race of cattle that had long existed in the valley of the
Tees, by applying to them the principle of breeding which
Bakewell had already established. To this period also belong
George and Matthew Culley--the former a pupil of Bakewell--
who left their paternal property on the bank of the Tees and
settled on the Northumbrian side of the Tweed, bringing with
them the valuable breeds of live stock and improved husbandry
of their native district. The improvements introduced by
these energetic and skilful farmers spread rapidly, and
exerted a most beneficial influence upon the border counties.
From 1784 to 1795 improvements advanced with steady steps.
This period was distinguished for the adoption and working out
of ascertained improvements. Small's swing plough and Andrew
Meikle's threshing-machine, although invented some years before
this, were now perfected and brought into general use, to the
great furtherance of agriculture. Two important additions
were about this time made to the field crops, viz. the Swedish
turnip and potato oat. The latter was accidentally discovered
in 1788, and both soon came into general cultivation. In the
same year Merino sheep were introduced by George III., who
was a zealous farmer. For a time this breed attracted much
attention, and sanguine expectations were entertained that
it would prove of national importance. Its unfitness for the
production of mutton, and increasing supplies of fine clothing
wool from other countries, soon led to its total rejection.
In Scotland the opening up of the country by the construction
of practicable roads, and the enclosing and subdividing
of farms by hedge and ditch, was now in active progress.
The former admitted of the general use of wheel-carriages,
of the ready conveyance of produce to markets, and in
particular of the extended use of lime, the application
of which was immediately followed by a great increase of
produce. The latter, besides its more obvious advantages,
speedily freed large tracts of country from stagnant water
and their inhabitants from ague, and prepared the way
for the underground draining which soon after began to be
practised. Dawson of Frogden in Roxburghshire is believed to
have been the first who grew turnips as a field crop to any
extent. It is on record that as early as 1764 he had 100 acres
of drilled turnips on his farm in one year. An Act passed in
1770, which relaxed the rigour of strict entails and afforded
power to landlords to grant leases and otherwise improve their
estates, had a beneficial effect on Scottish agriculture.
The husbandry of the country was thus steadily improving, when
suddenly the whole of Europe became involved in the wars of
the French Revolution. In 1795, under the joint operation
of a deficient harvest and the diminution in foreign supplies
of grain owing to outbreak of war, the price of wheat,
which, for the twenty preceding years, had been under 50s. a
quarter, suddenly rose to 81s. 6d., and in the following year
reached 96s. In 1797 the fear of foreign invasion led to a
panic and run upon the banks, in which emergency the Bank
Restriction Act, suspending cash payment, was passed, and
ushered in a system of unlimited credit transactions. Under
the unnatural stimulus of these extra-ordinary events, every
branch of industry extended with unexampled rapidity. But
in nothing was this so apparent as in agriculture; the high
prices of produce holding out a great inducement to improve
lands then arable, to reclaim others that had previously lain
waste, and to bring much pasture-land under the plough. Nor
did this increased tillage interfere with the increase of
live stock, as the green crops of the alternate husbandry
more than compensated for the diminished pasturage. This
extraordinary state of matters lasted from 1795 to 1814, the
prices of produce even increasing towards the close of that
period. The average price of wheat for the whole period
was 89s. 7d. per quarter; but for the last five years it was
107s., and in 1812 it reached 126s. 6d. The agriculture
of Great Britain, as a whole, advanced with rapid strides
during this period; but nowhere was the change so great as in
Scotland. Indeed, its progress there, during these twenty
years, is probably without parallel in the history of any
other country. This is accounted for by a concurrence of
circumstances. Previous to this period the husbandry of
Scotland was still in a backward state as compared with the
best districts of England, where many practices, only of
recent introduction in the north, had been in general use for
generations. This disparity made the subsequent contrast the
more striking. The land in Scotland was now, with trifling
exceptions, let on leases for terms varying from twenty to
thirty years, and in farms of sufficient size to employ at
the least two or three ploughs. The unlimited issues of
government paper and the security afforded by these leases
induced the Scottish banks to afford every facility to landlords
and tenants to embark capital in the improvement of the
land. The substantial education supplied by the parish
schools, of which nearly the whole population could then avail
themselves, had diffused through all ranks such a measure of
intelligence as enabled them promptly to dhscern and skilfully
and energetically to take advantage of this spring-tide of
prosperity, and to profit by the agricultural information now
plentifully furnished by means of the Bath and West of England
Society, established in 1777; the Highland Society, instituted
in 1784; and the National Board of Agriculture, in 1793.
1815 to 1875.
The restoration of peace to Europe, and the re-enactment of
the Corn Laws in 1815, mark the beginning of another era in
the history of agriculture. The sudden return to peace-prices
was followed by a time of severe depression, low wages,
diminished rents and bad farming. The fall in prices was
aggravated, first by the unpropitious weather and deficient
harvest of the years 1816, 1817, and still more by the passing
in 1819 of the bill restoring cash payments, which, coming
into operation in 1821, caused serious embarrassment to all
persons who had entered into engagements at a depreciated
currency, which had now to be met with the lower prices of
an enhanced one. The frequency of select-committees and
commissions, which sat in 1814, 1821 and 1822, 1833 and 1836,
testifies to the gravity of the crisis. The years 1830-1833
are especially memorable for a disastrous outbreak of sheep-rot
and for agrarian outrages, caused partly by the dislike of
the labourers to the introduction of agricultural machines.
During this period of depression, which lasted till the 'forties,
want of confidence prevented any general improvement in agricultural
methods. At the same time, certain developments destined
to exercise considerable influence in later times are to be
noted. Before the close of the 18th century, and during the
first quarter of the 19th, a good deal had been done in the
way of draining the land, either by open ditches or by James
Elkington's system of deep covered drains. In 1834 James Smith
of Deanston promulgated his system of thorough draining and
deep ploughing, the adoption of which immeasurably improved
the clay lands of the country. The early years of the reign
of Queen Victoria witnessed the strengthening of the union
between agriculture and chemistry. The Board of Agriculture
in 1803 had commissioned Sir Humphry Davy to deliver a course
of lectures on the connexion of chemistry with vegetable
physiology. In 1840 the appearance of Chemistry in its
Application to Agriculture and Physiology by Justus von
Liebig set on foot a movement in favour of scientific husbandry,
the most notable outcome of which was the establishment by
Sir John Bennet Lawes in 1843 of the experimental station of
Rothamsted. Since Blith's time bone was the one new fertilizer
that had come into use. Nitrate of soda, Peruvian guano
and superphosphate of lime in the form of bones dissolved
by sulphuric acid were now added to the list of manures, and
the practice of analysing soils became more general. Manual
labour in farming operations began to be superseded by the
use of drills, hay-makers and horse-rakes, chaff-cutters and
root-pulpers. The reaping-machine, invented in 1812 by John
Common, improved upon by the Rev. Patrick Bell in England
and by Cyrus H. McCormick and others in America, and finally
perfected about 1879 by the addition of an efficient self-binding
apparatus, is the most striking example of the application
of mechanics to agriculture. Improvements in the plough,
harrow and roller were introduced, adapting those implements
to different soils and purposes. The steam-engine first took
the place of horses as a threshing power in 1803, but it was
not until after 1850 that it was applied to the plough and
cultivator. The employment of agricultural machines
received considerable impetus from the Great Exhibition of
1851. The much-debated Corn Laws, after undergoing various
modifications, and proving the fruitful source of business
uncertainty, social discontent and angry partisanship, were
finally abolished in 1846, although the act was not consummated
until three years later. Several other acts of the legislature
passed during this period exerted a beneficial influence on
agriculture. Of these, the first in date and importance
is the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836. Improvement was also
stimulated by the Public Money Drainage Acts 1846-1856, under
which government was empowered to advance money on certain
conditions for the improvement of estates. Additional
facilities were granted by the act passed in 1848 for
disentailing estates, and for burdening such as are entailed
with the share of the cost of certain specified improvements.
Meanwhile much had been done in the organization of agricultural
knowledge. Mention has already been made of the institution
of the Highland Society and the National Board of Agriculture.
These institutions were the means of collecting a vast amount of
statistical and general information connected with agriculture,
and by their publications and premiums made known the practices
of the best-farmed districts and encouraged their adoption
elsewhere. These associations were soon aided in their important
labours by numerous local societies which sprang up in all
parts of the kingdom. After a highly useful career, under
the presidency till 1813 of Sir John Sinclair, the Board of
Agriculture was dissolved in 1819, but left in its statistical
account, county surveys and other documents much interesting
and valuable information regarding the agriculture of the
period. In 1800 the original Farmer's Magazine came into
existence under the editorship of Robert Brown of Markle,
the author of the well-known treatise on Rural Affairs.
The Highland Society having early extended its operations
to the whole of Scotland, by and by made a corresponding
addition to its title, and as the Highland and Agricultural
Society of Scotland gradually extended its operations. In
1828, shortly after the discontinuance of the Farmers'
Magazine, its Prize Essays and Transactions began to be
issued statedly in connexion with the Quarterly Journal of
Agriculture. This society early began to hold a great show
of live stock, implements, &c. In 1842 certain Midlothian
tenant-farmers had the merit of originating an Agricultural
Chemistry Association (the first of its kind), by which funds
were raised for the purpose of conducting such investigations
as the title of the society implies. After a successful trial
of a few years this association was dissolved, transferring
its functions to the Highland and Agricultural Society.
In England the Agricultural Society was founded in 1838, with
the motto ``Practice with Science,'' and shortly afterwards
incorporated by royal charter. In 1845 the Royal Agricultural
College at Cirencester was incorporated. This era of revival
was not, however, without its calamities. The foot-and-mouth
disease first appeared about 1840, having been introduced,
as is supposed, by foreign cattle. It spread rapidly over
the country, affecting all domesticated animals except
horses, and although seldom attended by fatal results, caused
everywhere great alarm and loss. It was soon followed by the
more terrible lung-disease, or pleuro-pneumonia. In 1865 the
rinderpest, or steppe murrain, originating amongst the vast
herds of the Russian steppes, had spread westward over Europe,
until it was brought to London by foreign cattle. Several
weeks elapsed before the true character of the disease was
known, and in this brief space it had already been carried
by animals purchased in Smithfield market to all parts of the
country. After causing the most frightful losses, it
was at last stamped out by the resolute slaughter of all
affected animals and of all that had been in contact with
them. Severe as were the losses in flocks and herds from
these imported diseases, they were eclipsed by the ravages
of the mysterious potato blight, which, first appearing
in 1845, pervaded the whole of Europe, and in Ireland
especially proved the precursor of famine and pestilence.
A short period of low prices followed the repeal of the Corn
Laws, wheat averaging only 38s. 6d. a quarter in 1851, but
the years from 1852 to 1875 were the most prosperous of the
century. The letters written by Sir James Caird to The
Times during 1850, and republished in 1852 under the title
English Agriculture in 1850-1851, give a general review of
English agriculture at the time. The scientific and mechanical
improvements of the first half of the century were widely
adopted, while the prices of the protectionist period showed
little decline. Amelioration in all breeds of domesticated
animals was manifested, not so much in the production of
individual specimens of high merit as in the diffusion of
these and other good breeds over the country, and in the
improved quality of live stock as a whole. The fattening of
animals was conducted on more scientific principles. Increased
attention was successfully bestowed on the improvement of field
crops. Improved varieties, obtained by cross-impregnation
either naturally or artificially brought about, were carefully
propagated and generally adopted, and increased attention was
bestowed on the cultivation of the natural grasses. The most
important additions to the list of field crops were Italian
rye-grass, winter beans, white Belgian carrot and alsike clover.
Agriculture since 1875.
The last quarter of the 19th century proved, however, a
fateful period for British agriculture. The great future
that seemed to await the application of steam power to the
tillage of the soil proved illusory. The clay soils of
England, the latent fertility of which was to be brought into
play in a fashion that should mightily augment the home-grown
supplies of food, remained intractable, and the extent of
land devoted to the cultivation of corn crops, instead of
expanding, diminished in a marked degree. British farmers of
long experience look back to 1874 as the last of the really
good years, and consider that the palmy days of British
agriculture began to dwindle at about that time. The shadow
of the approaching depression had already fallen upon the
land before the year 1875 had run its course, and the outlook
became ominous as the decade of the 'seventies neared its
close. One memorable feature was associated with 1877 in
that this was the last year in which the dreaded cattle plague
(rinderpest) made its appearance in England. The same year,
1877, was the last also in which the annual average price of
English wheat (then 56s. 9d.) exceeded 50s. a quarter. With
declining prices for farm produce came that year of unhappy
memory, 1879, when persistent rains and an almost sunless
summer ruined the crops and reduced many farmers to a state of
destitution. Much of the grain was never harvested, whilst
owing mainly to the excessive floods there commenced an
outbreak of liver-rot in sheep, due to the ravages of the
fluke parasite. This continued for several years, and the
mortality was so great that its adverse effects upon the ovine
population of the country were still perceptible ten years
afterwards. A fall in rents was the necessary sequel of
the agricultural distress, to inquire into which a royal
commission was appointed in 1879, under the chairmanship
of the duke of Richmond and Gordon. Its report, published
in 1882, testified to ``the great extent and intensity
of the distress which has fallen upon the agricultural
community. Owners and occupiers have alike suffered from
it. No description of estate or tenure has been exempted.
The owner in fee and life tenant, the occupier, whether of
large or of small holding, whether under lease, or custom, or
agreement, or the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings
Act--all without distinction have been involved in a general
calamity.'' The two most prominent causes assigned for the
depression were bad seasons and foreign competition, aggravated
by the increased cost of production and the heavy losses of live
stock. Abundant evidence was forthcoming as to the extent
to which agriculture had been injuriously affected ``by an
unprecedented succession of bad seasons.'' As regards the
pressure of foreign competition, it was stated to be greatly
in excess of the anticipations of the supporters, and of the
apprehensions of the opponents of the repeal of the Corn Laws.
Whereas formerly the farmer was to some extent compensated by
a higher price for a smaller yield, in recent years he had had
to compete with an unusually large supply at greatly reduced
prices. On the other hand, he had enjoyed the advantage of an
extended supply of feeding-stuffs---such as maize, linseedcake
and cotton-cake---and of artificial manures imported from
abroad. The low price of agricultural produce, beneficial
though it might be to the general community, had lessened the
ability of the land to bear the proportion of taxation which
had heretofore been imposed upon it. The legislative outcome
of the findings of this royal commission was the Agricultural
Holdings Act 1883, a measure which continued in force in
its entirety till 1901, when a new act came into operation.
The apparently hopeless outlook for corn-growing compelled
farmers to cast about for some other means of subsistence, and to
rely more than they had hitherto done upon the possibilities of
stock-breeding. It was in particular the misfortunes of the
later 'seventies that gave the needed fillip to that branch of
stock-farming concerned with the production of milk, butter and
cheese, and from this period may be said to date the revival of
the dairying industry, which received a powerful impetus through
the introduction of the centrifugal cream separator, and was
fostered by the British Dairy Farmers' Association (formed in
1875). The generally wet character of the seasons in 1879
and the two or three years following was mainly responsible
for the high prices of meat, so that the supplies of fresh
beef and mutton from Australia which now began to arrive found
a ready market, and the trade in imported fresh meat which
was thus commenced has practically continued to expand ever
since. The great losses arising from spoilt hay crops served
to stimulate experimental inquiry into the method of preserving
green fodder known as ensilage, with the result that the
system eventually became successfully incorporated in the
ordinary routine of agricultural practice. A contemporaneous
effort in the direction of drying hay by artificial means
led to nothing of practical importance. By 1882 the cry as
to land going out of cultivation became loud and general,
and the migration of the rural population into the towns in
search of work continued unchecked (see below, Agricultural
Population) . In 1883 foot-and-mouth disease was terribly
rampant amongst the herds and flocks of Great Britain, and
was far more prevalent than it has ever been since. It was
about this time that the first experiments were made (in
Germany) with basic slag, a material which had hitherto been
regarded as a worthless by-product of steel manufacture. A
year or two later field trials were begun in England, with
the final result that basic slag has become recognized as a
valuable source of phosphorus for growing crops, and is now in
constant demand for application to the soil as a fertilizer.
In 1883 the veterinary department of the Privy Council--which
had been constituted in 1865 when the country was ravaged by
cattle plague---was abolished by order in council, and the
``Agricultural Department'' was substituted, but no alteration was
effected in the work of the department, so far as it related to
animals. In 1889 the Board of Agriculture (for Great Britain)
was formed under an act of parliament of that year (see
AGRICULTURE, BOARD OF). The election took place in the same
year (1889) of the first county councils, and the allotment to
them of various sums of money under the Local Taxation (Customs
and Excise) Act 1890 enabled local provision to be made for
the promotion of technical instruction in agriculture (see
below, Agricultural Education.) It was about this time that
the value of a mixture of lime and sulphate of copper (bouillie
bordelaise), sprayed in solution upon the growing plants, came
to be recognized as a check upon the ravages of potato disease.
The general experience of the decade of the 'eighties
was that of disappointing summers, harsh winters, falling
prices, declining rents and the shrinkage of land values.
It is true that one season of the series, that of 1887, was
hot and droughty, but the following summer was exceedingly
wet. Nevertheless, the decade closed more hopefully than it
opened, and found farmers taking a keener interest in grass
land, in live stock and in dairying. Cattle-breeders did
well in 1889, but sheep-breeders fared better; on the other
hand, owing to receding prices, corn growers were more
disheartened than ever. With the incoming of the last decade
of the century there seemed to be some justifiable hopes of
the dawn of better times, but they were speedily doomed to
disappointment. In 1891 excessively heavy autumn rains washed
the arable soils to such an extent that the next season's
corn crops were below average. Wheat in particular was a
poor crop in 1892, and the low yield was associated with
falling prices due to large imports. The hay crop was very
inferior, and in some cases it was practically ruined. This
gave a stimulus to the trade in imported hay, which rose
from 61,237 tons in 1892 to 263,050 tons in 1893, and despite
some large home-grown crops in certain subsequent years (1897
and 1898) this expansion has never since been wholly lost.
The misfortunes of 1892 proved to be merely a preparation for the
disasters of 1893, in which year occurred the most destructive
drought within living memory. Its worst effects were seen
upon the light land farms of England, and so deplorable was
the position that a royal commission on agricultural depression
was appointed in September of that year under the chairmanship
of Mr Shaw Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley). Thus, within
the last quarter of the 19th century--and, as a matter of
fact, only fourteen years apart--two royal commissions on
agriculture were appointed, the one in a year of memorable
flood, 1879, and the other in a year of disastrous drought,
1893. The report of the commission of 1893 was issued in March
1896. Amongst its chief recommendations were those relating
to amendments in the Agricultural Holdings Acts, and to
tithe rent-charge, railway rates, damage by game, sale of
adulterated products, and sale of imported goods (meat,
for example) as home produce. Two legislative enactments
arose out of the work of this commission. In the majority
report it was stated ``that, in order to place agricultural
lands in their right position as compared with other ratable
properties, it is essential that they should be assessed
to all local rates in a reduced proportion of their ratable
value.'' The Agricultural Rates Act 1896 gave effect to this
recommendation. Its objects were to relieve agricultural
land from half the local rates, and to provide the means of
making good out of imperial funds the deficiency in local
taxation caused thereby. It was provided that the act should
continue in force only till the 31st of March 1902, but a
further act in 1901 extended the period by four years, and
in 1905 its operation was extended to the 31st of March
1910. The other measure arising out of the report of the
royal commission of 1893 was the Agricultural Holdings Act
1900. This was an amending act and not a consolidating act;
consequently it had to be read as if incorporated into the
already existing acts. As affecting agricultural practice there
were three noteworthy improvements in respect of the making
of which, without the consent of or notice to his landlord,
a tenant might claim compensation---(1) the consumption on
the holding ``by horses, other than those regularly employed
on the holding,'' of corn, cake or other feeding-stuff
not produced on the holding; (2) the ``consumption on the
holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, or by horses other than
those regularly employed on the holding, of corn proved by
satisfactory evidence to have been produced and consumed on
the holding''; (3) ``laying down temporary pasture with clover,
grass, lucerne, sainfoin or other seeds sown more than two
years prior to the determination of the tenancy.'' A further
act was passed in 1906 (the Agricultural Holdings Act 1906)
which improved the tenant's position in respect of freedom of
cropping, disposal of produce and compensation for disturbance.
After 1894, in which year the brilliant prospects of a bountiful
harvest were ultimately extinguished by untimely and heavy
rains, all the remaining seasons of the closing decade of
the 19th century were dominated by drought. A fact that was
amply illustrated, moreover, is that the period of incidence
of a drought is not less important than its duration, and
the same is true of abnormal rainfall. A spring drought, a
summer drought, an autumn drought, each has its distinctive
characteristics in so far as the effect upon the crops is
concerned. The hot drought of 1893 extended over the spring
and summer months, but there was an abundant rainfall in the
autumn; correspondingly there was an unprecedentedly bad yield
of corn and hay crops, but a moderately fair yield of the main
root crops (turnips and swedes). In 1899 the drought became
most intense in the autumn after the corn crops had been
harvested, but during the chief period, of growth of the root
crops; correspondingly the corn crops of that year rank very
well amongst the crops of the decade, but the yield of turnips
and swedes was the worst on record. It is quite possible
for a hot dry season to be associated with a large yield of
corn, provided the drought is confined to a suitable period,
as was the case in 1896 and still more so in 1898; the English
wheat crops in those years were probably the biggest in yield
per acre that had been harvested since 1868, which is always
looked back upon as a remarkable year for wheat. The drought
of 1898 was interrupted by copious rains in June, and these
falling on a warm soil led to a rapid growth of grass and, as
measured by yield per acre, an exceedingly heavy crop of hay.
With the exceptions of 1891 and 1894, every year in the period
1891-1900 was stricken by drought. The two meteorological
events of the decade which will probably live longest in the
recollection were, however, the terrible drought of 1893,
resulting in a fodder famine in the succeeding winter, and
the severe frost of ten weeks' duration at the beginning of
1895. Between these two occurrences came the disastrous
decline in the value of grain in the autumn of 1894, when
the weekly average price of English wheat fell to the record
minimum of 17s. 6d. per imperial quarter. As a consequence,
the extent of land devoted to wheat in the British Isles
receded in 1895 to less than 1 1/2 million acres. The year
1903 was memorable for a very heavy rainfall, comparable
though not equal in its disastrous effects to that of 1879.
Successful trials of sulphate of copper solution as a means
of destroying charlock in corn crops took place in the years
1898-1900. Charlock is a most persistent cruciferous weed,
but if sprayed when young with the solution named it is
killed, the corn plants being uninjured. In 1901 the formation
of the Agricultural Organization Society marked the first
systematic attempt to organize co-operation among the farmers
of Great Britain. In the subsequent years the principle,
which had already made great progress in Ireland, began to
obtain a hold in England and Wales, where, in 1906, there
were 145 local co-operative societies with a turn-over of
Amongst legislative measures of importance to agriculturists
mention should be made, in addition to those that have been
referred to, of the Tithe Rent-charge Recovery Act 1891,
which transfers the liability for payment of tithe from
the occupier to the owner. In the same year was passed the
Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Act. The object of
the Small Holdings Act 1892 was to facilitate the acquisition
of small agricultural holdings. It provided that a county
council might acquire any suitable land, with the object of
allotting from one to fifty acres, or, if more than fifty
acres, of an annual value not exceeding L. 50, to persons who
desired to buy, and would themselves cultivate, the holdings.
If, owing to proximity to a town or otherwise, the prospective
value were too high, the council might hire such land for the
purpose of letting it. (See ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS
for this and other acts.) The Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs
Act 1893 compelled sellers of fertilizers (i.e. manures),
manufactured or imported, to state the percentage of the
nitrogen, of the soluble and insoluble phosphates, and of
the potash in each article sold, and this statement was to
have the effect of a warranty. Similar stringent conditions
applied as regards the sale of feeding-stuffs for live
stock. The Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act 1906, amending
and re-enacting the act of 1893, provided for the compulsory
appointment by county councils of official samplers. It
also provides penalties for breaches of duty by the seller,
but grants him protection in cases where he is not morally
responsible. The Finance Act of 1894, with its great changes
in the death duties, overshadowed all other acts of that
year both in its immediate effects and in its far-reaching
consequences. The Copyhold Consolidation Act 1894 supersedes
six previous copyhold statutes, but does not effect any
alteration in the law concerning enfranchisement. The
Diseases of Animals Act 1896 provided for the compulsory
slaughter of imported live stock at the place of landing.
The Light Railways Act and the Locomotives on Highways Act
were added to the statute book in 1896, and various clauses
in the Finance Act effected reforms in respect of the death
duties, the land-tax, farmers' income-tax and the beer
duty. The Chaff-cutting Machines (Accidents) Act 1897 is
a measure very similar in its intention to the Threshing
Machines Act 1878, and provides for the automatic prevention
of accidents to persons in charge of chaff-cutting machines.
The Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1899 has special reference
in its earlier sections to the trade in dairy produce and
margarine. In 1899 was also passed the act establishing the
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland.
The year 1900 saw the passing of a Workmen's Compensation Act, which
extended the benefits of the act of 1807 to agricultural labourers.
Acreage and Yields of British Crops.
The most notable feature in connexion with the cropping of
the land of the United Kingdom between 1875 and 1905 was
the lessened cultivation of the cereal crops associated with
an expansion in the area of grass land. At the beginning
of the period the aggregate area under wheat, barley and
oats was nearly 10 1/2 million acres; at the close it did
not amount to 8 million acres. There was thus a withdrawal
during the period of over 2 1/2 million acres from cereal
cultivation. From Table I., showing the acreages at intervals
of five years, it will be learnt that the loss fell chiefly
upon the wheat crop, which at the close of the period
TABLE 1.--Areas of Cereal Crops in the United Kingdom
-- Acres
YEAR. WHEAT. BARLEY. OATS. TOTAL.
1875 3,514,088 2,751,362 4,176,177 10,441,627
1880 3,065,895 2,695,000 4,191,716 9,952,611
1885 2,553,092 2,447,169 4,282,594 9,282,855
1890 2,483,595 2,300,994 4,137,790 8,922,379
1895 1,456,042 2,346,367 4,527,899 8,330,308
1900 1,901,014 2,172,140 4,145,633 8,218,787
1905 1,836,598 1,872,305 4,137,406 7,846,309
occupied barely more than half the area assigned to it at the
beginning. If the land taken from wheat had been cropped with
one or both of the other cereals, the aggregate area would
have remained about the same. This, however, was not the
case, for a fairly uniform decrease in the barley area was
accompanied by somewhat irregular fluctuations in the acreage of
oats. To the decline in prices of home-grown cereals the
decrease in area is largely attributable. The extent of this
decline is seen in Table II., wherein are given the annual
average prices from 1875 to 1905, calculated upon returns from
the 190 statutory markets of England and Wales (Corn Returns Act
1882). These prices are per imperial quarter,---that is, 480
lb. of wheat, 400 lb. of barley and 312 lb. of oats, representing
60 lb, 50 lb. and 39 lb. per bushel respectively. After 1883
the annual average price of English wheat was never so high as
40s. per quarter, and only twice after 1892 did it exceed 30s.
In one of these exceptional years, 1898, the average rose to
34s., but this was due entirely to a couple of months of inflated
prices in the early half of the year, when the outbreak of
war between Spain and the United States of America coincided
with a huge speculative deal in the latter country. The
TABLE II.--Gazette Annual Average Prices per Imperial Quarter
of British Cereals in England and Wales, 1875-1905.
Year. Wheat. Barley. Oats.
s. d. s. d. s. d.
1875 45 2 38 5 28 8
1876 46 2 35 2 26 3
1877 56 9 39 8 25 []
1878 46 5 40 2 24 4
1879 43 10 34 0 21 9
1880 44 4 33 1 23 1
1881 45 4 31 11 21 9
1882 45 1 31 2 21 10
1883 41 7 31 10 21 5
1884 35 8 30 8 20 3
1885 32 10 30 1 20 7
1886 31 0 26 7 19 0
1887 32 6 25 4 16 3
1888 31 10 27 10 16 9
1889 29 9 25 10 17 9
1890 31 11 28 8 18 7
1891 37 0 28 2 20 0
1892 30 3 26 2 19 10
1893 26 4 25 7 18 9
1894 22 10 24 6 17 1
1895 23 1 21 11 14 6
1896 26 2 22 11 14 9
1897 30 2 23 6 16 11
1898 34 0 27 2 18 5
1899 25 8 25 7 17 0
1900 26 11 24 11 17 7
1901 26 9 25 2 18 5
1902 28 1 25 8 20 2
1903 26 9 22 8 17 2
1904 28 4 22 4 16 4
1905 29 8 24 4 17 4
weekly average prices of English wheat in 1898 fluctuated
between 48s. 1d. and 25s. 5d. per quarter, the former being
the highest weekly average since 1882. The minimum annual
average was 22s. 10d. in 1894, in the autumn of which year
the weekly average sank to 17s. 6d. per quarter, the lowest on
record. Wheat was so great a glut in the market that various
methods were devised for feeding it to stock, a purpose
for which it is not specially suited; in thus utilizing the
grain, however, a smaller loss was often incurred than in
sending it to market. In 1894 the monthly average price for
October, the chief month for wheat-sowing in England, was
only 17s. 8d. per quarter, and farmers naturally shrank from
seeding the land freely with a crop which could not be grown
except at a heavy loss. The result was that in the following
year the wheat crop of the United Kingdom was harvested
upon the smallest area on record--less than 1 1/2 million
acres. In only one year, 1878, did the annual average price
of English barley touch 40s. per quarter; it never reached
30s. after 1885, whilst in 1895 it fell to so low a level
as 21s. 11d. The same story of declining prices applies to
oats. An average of 20s. per quarter was touched in 1891 and
1902, but with those exceptions this useful feeding grain
did not reach that figure after 1885. In 1895 the average
price of 480 lb. of wheat, at 23s. 1d., was identical with that
of 312 lb. of oats in 1880, and it was less in the preceding
year. The declining prices that have operated against the
growers of wheat should be studied in conjunction with Table
III., which shows, at intervals of five years, the imports of
TABLE III.--Imports into the United Kingdom of Wheat Grain,
and of Wheat Meal and Flour--Cwt.
Year. Wheat Grain. Meal and Flour. Total.
1875 51,876,517 6,136,083 58,012,600
1880 55,261,924 10,558,312 65,820,236
1885 61,498,864 15,832,843 77,331,707
1890 60,474,180 15,773,336 76,247,516
1895 81,749,955 18,368,410 100,118,365
1900 68,669,490 21,548,131 90,217,621
1905 97,622,752 11,954,763 109,577,515
wheat grain and of wheat meal and flour into the United
Kingdom. The import of the manufactured product from 1875 to
1900 increased at a much greater ratio than that of the raw
grain, for whilst in 1875 the former represented less than
one-ninth of the total, by 1900 the proportion had risen to
nearly one-fourth. The offal, which is quite as valuable as
the flour itself, was thus retained abroad instead of being
utilized for stock-feeding purposes in the United Kingdom.
In the five subsequent years the proportion was fundamentally
altered, so that with a greatly increased importation of
grain, that of meal and flour was in the proportion of about
one-ninth. The highest and lowest areas of wheat, barley and
oats in the United Kingdom during the period 1875-1905 were the
Wheat . 3,514,088 acres in 1875; 1,407,618 acres in 1904.
Barley . 2,931,809 acres in 1879; 1,872,305 acres in 1905.
Oats . 4,527,899 acres in 1895; 3,998,200 acres in 1879.
These show differences amounting to 2,106,470 acres for
wheat, 1,059,504 acres for barley, and 529,699 acres for
oats. The acreage of wheat, therefore, fluctuated the
most, and that of oats the least. Going back to 1869,
it is found that the extent of wheat in that year was
3,981,989 acres or very little short of four million acres.
The acreage of rye grown in the United Kingdom as a grain crop is
small, the respective maximum and minimum areas during the period
1875-1905 having been 102,676 acres in 1894 and 47,937 acres in
1880. Rye is perhaps more largely grown as a green crop to be
fed off by sheep, or cut green for soiling, in the spring months.
Of corn crops other than cereals, beans and peas are both
less cultivated than formerly. In the period 1875-1905
the area of beans in the United Kingdom fluctuated between
574,414 acres in 1875 and 230,429 acres in 1897, and that
of peas between 318,410 acres in 1875 and 155,668 acres in
1901. The area of peas (175,624 acres in 1905) shrank
by nearly one-half, and that of beans (256,583 acres in
1905) by more than one-half. Taking cereals and pulse
corn together, the aggregate areas of wheat, barley, oats,
rye, beans and peas in the United Kingdom varied as follows
over the six quinquennial intervals embraced in the period
Year. Acres. | Year. Acres.
1875 . . 11,399,030 | 1890 . . 9,574,249
1880 . . 10,672,086 | 1895 . . 8,865,338
1885 . . 10,014,625 | 1900 . . 8,707,602
| 1905 . . 8,333,770
Disregarding minor fluctuations, there was thus a loss of
corn land over the 30 years of 3,065,260 acres, or 27%.
The area withdrawn from corn-growing is not to be found under the
head of what are termed ``green crops.'' In 1905 the total area
of these crops in the United Kingdom was 4,144,374 acres, made up
Crop. Acres.
Potatoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,236,768
Turnips and swedes . . . . . . . . . 1,879,384
Mangel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477,540
Cabbage, kohl-rabi and rape . . . . 225,315
Vetches or tares . . . . . . . . . . 139,285
Other green crops . . . . . . . . . 186,082
The extreme aggregate areas of these crops during the
thirty years were 5,057,029 acres in 1875 and 4,109,394
acres in 1904. At five-year intervals the areas
Year. Acres. | Year. Acres.
1875 . . 5,057,029 | 1890 . . 4,534,145
1880 . . 4,746,293 | 1895 . . 4,399,949
1885 . . 4,765,195 | 1900 . . 4,301,774
| 1905 . . 4,144,374
These crops, therefore, which, except potatoes, are
used mainly for stock-feeding, have like the corn
crops been grown on gradually diminishing areas.
The land that has been lost to the plough is found to be
still further augmented when an inquiry is instituted into
the area devoted to clover, sainfoin and grasses under
rotation. The areas of five-year intervals are given in
Table IV. Under the old Norfolk or four-course rotation
(roots, barley, clover, wheat) land thus seeded with clover
or grass seeds was intended to be ploughed up at the end of a
year. Labour difficulties, low prices of produce, bad seasons
and similar causes provided inducements for leaving the land
in grass for two years, or over three years or more, before
breaking it up for wheat. In many cases it would be decided
to let such land remain under grass indefinitely, and thus
it would no longer be enumerated in the Agricultural Returns
as temporary grass land, but would pass into the category of
permanent grass land, or what is often spoken of as ``permanent
pasture.'' Whilst much grass land has been laid down with
the intention from the outset that it should be permanent,
at the same time some considerable areas have through stress
of circumstances been allowed to drift from the temporary
or rotation grass area to the permanent list, and have thus
still further diminished the area formerly under the dominion
of the plough. The column relating to permanent grass in
Table IV. shows clearly enough how the British Isles became
TABLE IV.--Areas of Grass Land (excluding Heath and Mountain
Land) in the United Kingdom--Acres.
Permanent
Year. Temporary (i.e. (i.e. not broken up Total.
under rotation). in rotation).
1875 6,337,953 23,772,602 30,110,555
1880 6,389,232 24,717,092 31,106,324
1885 6,738,206 25,616,071 32,354,277
1890 6,097,210 27,115,425 33,212,635
1895 6,061,139 27,831,117 33,892,256
1900 6,025,025 28,266,712 34,291,737
1905 5,779,323 28,865,373 34,644,696
more pastoral, while the figures already given demonstrate
the extent to which they became less arable. In the
period 1875-1905 the extreme areas returned as ``permanent
pasture''--a term which, it should be clearly understood,
does not include heath or mountain land, of which there
are in Great Britain alone about 13 million acres used for
grazing---were 23,772,602 acres in 1875, and 28,865,373 acres in
1905. Comparing 1905 with 1875 the increase in permanent
grass land amounted to over five million acres, or about 21%.
On account of the greater humidity and mildness of its climate,
Ireland is more essentially a pastoral country than Great Britain.
The distribution between the two islands of such important crops
of arable land as cereals and potatoes is indicated in Table V.
The figures are those for 1905, but, though the absolute acreages
TABLE V.--Areas of Cereal and Potato Crops in Great Britain
and Ireland in 1905.
Wheat. Barley.
Acres. Acres.
Great Britain . 1,796,993 1,713,664
Ireland . . . . 37,860 154,645
Total . . . . . 1,834,853 1,868,309
Oats. Potatoes.
Great Britain . 3,051,376 608,473
Ireland . . . . 1,066,806 616,755
Total . . . . . 4,118,182 1,225,228
vary somewhat from year to year, there is not much variation
in the proportions. The comparative insignificance of Ireland
in the case of the wheat and barley crops, represented by 2
and 8% respectively, receives some compensation when oats and
potatoes are considered, about one-fourth of the area of the
former and more than half that of the latter being claimed by
Ireland. It is noteworthy, however, that Ireland year by
year places less reliance upon the potato crop. In 1888
the area of potatoes in Ireland was 804,566 acres, but it
continuously contracted each year, until in 1905 it was only
616,755 acres, or 187,811 acres less than 17 years previously.
A similar comparison for the several sections of Great
Britain, as set forth in Table VI., shows that to England
belong about 95% of the wheat area, over 80% of the barley
area, over 60% of the oats area, and over 70% of the potato
area, and these proportions do not vary much from year to
year. The figures for cereals are important, as they
indicate that it is the farmers of England who are the
chief sufferers through the diminishing prices of corn; and
particularly is this true of East Anglia, where corn-growing
is more largely pursued than in any other part of the
TABLE VI.--Areas of Cereal and Potato Crops in England, Wales
and Scotland, and in Great Britain, in 1905.
Wheat. Barley.
Acres. Acres.
England . . . . 1,704,281 1,410,287
Wales . . . . . 44,073 91,243
Scotland . . . 48,641 212,134
Great Britain . 1,796,995 1,713,664
Oats. Potatoes.
England . . . . 1,880,475 434,773
Wales . . . . . 207,929 29,435
Scotland . . . 962,972 144,265
Great Britain . 3,051,376 608,473
country. Scotland possesses nearly one-third of the area
of oats and nearly one-fourth of that of potatoes. Beans
are almost entirely confined to England, and this is even
more the case with peas. The mangel crop also is mainly
English, the summer in most parts of Scotland being neither
long enough nor warm enough to bring it to maturity.
The Produce of British Crops.
Whilst the returns relating to the acreage of crops and the
number of live stock in Great Britain have been officially
collected in each year since 1866, the annual official estimates
of the produce of the crops in the several sections of the
kingdom do not extend back beyond 1885. The practice is for
the Board of Agriculture to appoint local estimators, who report
in the autumn as to the total production of the crops in the
localities respectively assigned to them. By dividing the
total production, say of wheat, in each county by the number
of acres of wheat as returned by the occupiers on June 4, the
estimated average yield per acre is obtained. It is important
to notice that the figures relating to total production and
yield per acre are only estimates, and it is not claimed
for them that they are anything more. The fact that much of
the wheat to which the figures apply is still in the stack
after the publication of the figures shows that the latter
are essentially estimates. The total produce of any crop in
a given year must depend mainly upon the acreage grown, whilst
the average yield per acre will be determined chiefly by the
character of the season. In Table VII. are shown, in thousands
TABLE VII.--Estimated Annual Total Produce of Corn Crops in
the United Kingdom, 1890-1905 --Thousands of Bushels.
Year. Wheat. Barley. Oats. Beans. Peas.
1890 75,994 80,794 171,295 11,860 6313
1891 74,743 79,555 166,472 10,694 5777
1892 60,775 76,939 168,181 7,054 5028
1893 50,913 65,746 168,588 4,863 4756
1894 60,704 78,601 190,863 7,198 6229
1895 38,285 75,028 174,476 5,626 4732
1896 58,247 77,825 162,860 6,491 4979
1897 56,296 72,613 163,556 6,650 5250
1898 74,885 74,731 172,578 7,267 4858
1899 67,261 74,532 166,140 7,566 4431
1900 54,322 68,546 165,137 7,469 4072
1901 53,928 67,643 161,175 6,154 4017
1902 58,278 74,439 184,184 7,704 5106
1903 48,819 65,310 172,941 7,535 4812
1904 37,920 62,453 176,755 5,901 4446
1905 60,333 65,004 166,286 8,262 4446
of bushels, the estimated produce of the corn crops of the
United Kingdom in the years 1890-1905. The largest area
of wheat in the period was that of 1890, and the smallest
was that of 1904; the same two years are seen to have been
respectively those of highest and lowest total produce. It
is noteworthy that in 1895 the country produced about half
as much wheat as in any one of the years 1890, 1891 and
1898. The produce of barley, like that of oats, is less
irregular than that of wheat, the extremes for barley
being 80,794,000 bushels (1890) and 62,453,000 bushels
(1904), and those for oats 190,863,000 bushels (1894) and
161,175,000 bushels (1901). Similar details for potatoes,
roots and hay, brought together in Table VIII., show that the
TABLE VIII.--Estimated Annual Total Produce of Potatoes, Roots
and Hay in the United Kingdom, 1890-1905--Thousands of
Tons.
Year. Potatoes. Turnips. Mangels. Hay.
1890 4622 32,002 6709 14,466
1891 6090 29,742 7558 12,671
1892 5634 31,419 7428 11,567
1893 6541 31,110 5225 9,082
1894 4662 30,678 7310 15,699
1895 7065 29,221 6376 12,238
1896 6263 28,037 5875 11,416
1897 4107 29,785 7379 14,043
1898 6225 26,499 7228 15,916
1899 5837 20,370 7604 12,898
1900 4577 28,387 9650 13,742
1901 7043 25,298 9224 11,358
1902 5920 29,116 10,809 15,246
1903 5277 23,523 8212 14,955
1904 6230 28,033 8813 14,860
1905 7186 26,563 9493 13,554
production of potatoes varies much from year to year. The
imports of potatoes into the United Kingdom vary, to some
extend inversely; thus, the low production in 1897 was
accompanied by an increase of import from 3,921,205 cwt.
in 1897 to 6,751,728 cwt. in 1898. No very great reliance
can be placed upon the figures relating to turnips (which
include swedes), as these are mostly fed to sheep on the
ground, so that the estimates as to yield are necessarily
vague. Mangels are probably more closely estimated, as these
valuable roots are carted and stored for subsequent use for
feeding stock. Under hay are included the produce of closer,
sainfoin and rotation grasses, and also that of permanent
meadow. The extent to which the annual production of the
leading fodder crop may vary is shown in the table by the
two consecutive years 1893 and 1894; from only nine million
tons in the former year the production rose to upwards of
fifteen million tons in the latter, an increase of over 70%.
Turning to the average yields per acre, as ascertained by dividing
the number of acres into the total produce, the results of a
decade are collected in Table IX. The effects of a prolonged
TABLE IX.--Estimated Annual Average Yield per Acre of Crops
in United Kingdom, 1895-1904.
Year. Wheat. Barley. Oats. Beans. Peas. Potatoes.
Bush. Bush. Bush. Bush. Bush. Tons.
1895 26.33 32.09 38.67 22.98 22.62 5.64
1896 33.63 34.16 37.97 25.69 25.34 4.93
1897 29.07 32.91 38.84 28.91 27.55 3.47
1898 34.75 36.24 42.27 31.13 27.60 5.23
1899 32.76 34.64 40.57 30.19 27.22 4.82
1900 28.61 31.67 39.97 28.18 25.89 3.77
1901 30.93 31.70 39.35 24.29 25.97 5.81
1902 32.91 35.83 44.50 31.49 28.51 4.92
1903 30.15 32.38 40.81 31.27 26.56 4.45
1904 26.97 31.25 40.80 23.23 25.75 5.24
Mean,
10 Years 30.85 33.28 20.35 27.68 26.24 4.84
1905 32.88 34.79 40.38 32.33 25.71 5.86
Turnips
and Hay, Hay,
Year. Swedes. Mangels. Rotation. Permanent.
Tons. Tons. Cwt. Cwt.
1895 13.11 16.44 29.08 25.21
1896 12.79 14.99 27.95 24.14
1897 13.90 18.03 32.53 30.71
1898 12.74 17.71 36.49 34.27
1899 9.97 17.41 31.04 29.11
1900 14.29 19.97 32.42 30.98
1901 12.95 19.37 28.98 23.85
1902 15.35 20.85 35.29 32.57
1903 12.44 17.19 33.07 31.27
1904 14.83 18.57 33.43 31.04
Mean,
10 Years 13.21 18.18 32.06 29.32
1905 14.19 19.91 32.24 28.37
spring and summer drought, like that of 1893, are exemplified
in the circumstance that four corn crops and the two hay crops
all registered very low average yields that year, viz. wheat
26.08 bushels, barley 29.30 bushels, oats 38.14 bushels, beans
19.61 bushels, rotation hay 23.55 cwt., permanent hay 20.41
cwt. On the other hand, the season of 1898 was exceptionally
favourable to cereals and to hay. The effects of a prolonged
autumn drought, as distinguished from spring and summer
drought, are shown in the very low yield of turnips in
1899. Mangels are sown earlier and have a longer period of
growth than turnips; if they become well established in the
summer they are less susceptible to autumn drought. The hay
made from closer, sainfoin and grasses under rotation generally
gives a bigger average yield than that from permanent grass
land. The mean values at the foot of the table--they are
not, strictly speaking, exact averages--indicate the
average yields per acre in the United Kingdom to be about
31 bushels of wheat, 33 bushels of barley, 40 bushels of
oats, 28 bushels of neams, 26 bushels of peas, 4 3/4 tons of
potatoes, 13 1/4 tons of turnips and swedes, 18 1/4 tons of
mangels, 32 cwt. of hay from temporary grass, and 29 cwt. of
hay from permanenet grass. Although enormous single crops of
TABLE X. Decennial Average Yields in Great Britain of Wheat,
Barley and Oats--Bushels per Acre.
10-Year
Periods. Wheat. Barley. Oats.
1885-1894 29.32 33.02 38.21
1886-1895 28.81 32.68 38.23
1887-1896 29.49 32.82 38.13
1888-1897 29.19 32.97 38.51
1889-1898 29.86 33.26 38.86
1890-1899 30.15 33.50 38.81
1891-1900 29.92 33.13 38.46
1892-1901 29.83 32.80 38.26
1893-1902 30.53 32.83 38.64
1894-1903 30.95 33.16 39.05
1895-1904 30.56 32.82 38.81
1896-1905 31.21 33.04 38.92
mangels are sometimes grown, amounting occasionally to 100
tons per acre, the general average yield of 18 1/4 tons is
about 5 tons more than that of turnips and swedes. Again,
although from the richest old permanent meadow-lands very
heavy crops of hay are taken season after season, the general
average yield of permanent grass is about 3 cwt. of hay per
acre less than that from clover, sainfoin and grasses under
rotation. The general average yields of the corn crops are
not fairly comparable one with the other, because they are
given by measure and not by weight, whereas the weight per
bushel varies considerably. For purposes of comparison it
would be much better if the yields of corn crops were estimated
in cwt. per acre. This, indeed, is the practice in Ireland,
and in order to incorporate the Irish figures with those for
Great Britain so as to obtain average values for the United
Kingdom, the Irish yields are calculated into bushels at
the rate of 60lb to the bushel of wheat, of beans and peas,
50lb to the bushel of barley and 39lb to the bushel of oats.
The figure denoting the general average yield per acre of
any class of crop need re-adjustment after every successive
harvest. If a decennial period be taken, then--for the
purpose of the new calculation--the earliest year is omitted
and the latest year added, the number of years continuing at
ten. Adopting this course in the case of the cereal crops
of Great Britain the decennial averages recorded in Table
X. are obtained, the period 1885-1894 being the earliest
decade for which the official figures are available.
It thus appears that the average yield of wheat in Great
Britain, as calculated upon the crops harvested during the
ten years (1896-1905), exceeded 31 bushels to the acre,
whereas, for the ten years ended 1895, it fell below 29
bushels. A large expansion in the acreage of the wheat crop
would probably be attended by a decline in the average yield
per acre, for when a crop is shrinking in area the tendency
is to withdraw from it first the land least suited to its
growth. The general average for the United Kingdom might then
recede to rather less than 28 bushels of 60 lb. per bushel,
which was for a long time the accepted average--unless, of
course, improved methods of cultivating and manuring the
soil were to increase its general wheat-yielding capacity.6
Crops and Cropping.
The greater freedom of cropping and the less close adherence
to the formal system of rotation of crops, which characterize
the early years of the 20th century, rest upon a scientific
basis. Experimental inquiry has done much to enlighten the
farmer as to the requirements of plant-life, and to enable
him to see how best to meet these requirements in the case
of field crops. He cannot afford to ignore the results
that have been gradually accumulated--the truths that have
been slowly established--at the agricultural experiment
stations in various parts of the world. Of these stations
the greatest, and the oldest now existing, is that at
Rothamsted, Harpenden, Herts, England, which was founded in
1843 by Sir John Bennet Lawes (q.v.). The results of more
than half a century of sustained experimental inquiry were
communicated to the world by Lawes and his collaborator,
Sir J. H. Gilbert, in about 130 separate papers or reports,
many of which were published, from 1847 onwards, in the
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.7
In the case of plants the method of procedure was to grow
some of the most important crops of rotation, each separately
year after year, for many years in succession on the same
land, (a) without manure, (b) with farmyard manure and
(c) with a great variety of chemical manures; the same
description of manure being, as a rule, applied year after
year on the same plot. Experiments on an actual course of
rotation, without manure, and with different manures, have
also been made. Wheat, barley, oats, beans, clover and other
leguminous plants, turnips, sugar beet, mangels, potatoes and
grass crops have thus been experimented upon. Incidentally
there have been extensive sampling and analysing of soils,
investigations into rainfall and the composition of drainage
waters, inquiries into the amount of water transpired by
plants, and experiments on the assimilation of free nitrogen.
Cereals--Amongst the field experiments there is, perhaps,
not one of more universal interest than that in which wheat
was grown for fifty-seven years in succession, (a) without
manure, (b) with farmyard manure and (c) with various
artificial manures. The results show that, unlike leguminous
crops such as beans or clover, wheat may be successfully
grown for many years in succession on ordinary arable land,
provided suitable manures be applied and the land be kept
clean. Even without manure the average produce over forty-six
years, 1852-1897, was nearly thirteen bushels per acre, or
about the average yield per acre of the wheat lands of the whole
world. Mineral manures alone give very little increase,
nitrogenous manures alone considerably more than mineral
manures alone, but the mixture of the two considerably more
than either separately. In one case, indeed, the average
produce by mixed minerals and nitrogenous manure was more
than that by the annual application of farmyard manure; and
in seven out of the ten cases in which such mixtures were
used the average yield per acre was from over two to over
eight bushels more than the average yield of the United
Kingdom (assuming this to be about twenty-eight bushels of
60 lb. per bushel) under ordinary rotation. It is estimated
that the reduction in yield of the unmanured plot over the
forty years, 1852-1891, after the growth of the crops without
manure during the eight preceding years, was, provided it had
been uniform throughout, equivalent to a decline of one-sixth
of a bushel from year to year due to exhaustion--that is,
irrespectively of fluctuations due to season. It is related
that a visitor from the United States, talking to Sir John
Lawes, said, ``Americans have learnt more from this field
than from any other agricultural experiment in the world.''
Experiments upon the growth of barley for fifty years in
succession on rather heavy ordinary arable soil resulted in
showing that the produce by mineral manures alone is larger
than that without manure; that nitrogenous manures alone give
more produce than mineral manures alone; and that mixtures
of mineral and nitrogenous manure give much more than either
used alone--generally twice, or more than twice, as much as
mineral manures alone. Of mineral constituents, whether used
alone or in mixture with nitrogenous manures, phosphates are
much more effective than mixtures of salts of potash, soda and
magnesia. The average results show that, under all conditions
of manuring--excepting with farmyard manure--the produce
was less over the later than over the earlier periods of the
experiments, an effect partly due to the seasons. But the
average produce over forty years of continuous growth of
barley was, in all cases where nitrogenous and mineral manures
(containing phosphates) were used together, much higher than
the average produce of the crop grown in ordinary rotation
in the United Kingdom, and very much higher than the average
in most other countries when so grown. The requirements of
barley within the soil, and its susceptibility to the external
influences of season, are very similar to those of its near ally,
wheat. Nevertheless there are distinctions of result dependent
on differences in the habits of the two plants, and in the
conditions of their cultivation accordingly. In the British
Isles wheat is, as a rule, sown in the autumn on a heavier
soil, and has four or five months in which to distribute its
roots, and so it gets possession of a wide range of soil and
subsoil before barley is sown in the spring. Barley, on the
other hand, is sown in a lighter surface soil, and, with its
short period for root-development, relies in a much greater
degree on the stores of plant-food within the surface soil.
Accordingly it is more susceptible to exhaustion of surface
soil as to its nitrogenous, and especially as to its mineral
supplies; and in the common practice of agriculture it is found
to be more benefited by direct mineral manures, especially
phosphatic manures, than is wheat when sown under equal soil
conditions. The exhaustion of the soil induced by both barley
and wheat is, however, characteristically that of available
nitrogen; and when, under the ordinary conditions of manuring
and cropping, artificial manure is still required, nitrogenous
manures are, as a rule, necessary for both crops, and, for
the spring-sown barley, superphosphate also. Although barley
is appropriately grown on lighter soils than wheat, good
crops, of fair quality, may be grown on the heavier soils
after another grain crop by the aid of artificial manures,
provided that the land is sufficiently clean. Experiments
similar to the foregoing were carried on for many years in
succession at Rothamsted upon oats, and gave results which were
in general accordance with those on the other cereal crops.
Additional significance to the value of the above experiments
on wheat and barley is afforded by the fact that the same
series, with but slight modifications, has also been carried
out since 1876 at the Woburn (Bedfordshire) experimental
farm of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, the soil
here being of light sandy character, and thus very different
from the heavy soil of Rothamsted. The results for the
thirty years, 1877-1906, are in their general features
entirely confirmatory of those obtained at Rothamsted.
Root-Crops.--Experiments upon root-crops--chiefly white
turnips, Swedish turnips (swedes) and mangels--have resulted
in the establishment of the following conclusions. Both the
quantity and the quality of the produce, and consequently
its feeding value, must depend greatly upon the selection
of the best description of roots to be grown, and on the
character and the amount of the manures, and especially on
the amount of nitrogenous manure employed. At the same time,
no hard-and-fast rules can be laid down concerning these
points. Independently of the necessary consideration of the
general economy of the farm, the choice must be influenced
partly by the character of the soil, but very much more
by that of the climate. Judgment founded on knowledge and
aided by careful observation, both in the field and in the
feeding-shed, must be relied upon as the guide of the practical
farmer. Over and above the great advantage arising from the
opportunity which the growth of root-crops affords for the
cleaning of the land, the benefits of growing the root-crop
in rotation are due (1) to the large amount of manure applied
for its growth, (2) to the large residue of the manure left
in the soil for future crops, (3) to the large amount of
matter at once returned as manure again in the leaves, (4)
to the large amount of food produced, and (5) to the small
proportion of the most important manurial constituents of
the roots which is retained by store or fattening animals
consuming them, the rest returning as manure again; though,
when the roots are consumed for the production of milk, a much
larger proportion of the constituents is lost to the manure.
Leguminous Crops and the Acquisition of Nitrogen.--The fact
that the growth of a leguminous crop, such as red clover, leaves
the soil in a higher condition for the subsequent growth of
a grain crop--that, indeed, the growth of such a leguminous
crop is to a great extent equivalent to the application of a
nitrogenous manure for the cereal crop--was in effect known ages
ago. Nevertheless it was not till near the approach of the
closing decade of the 19th century that the explanation of
this long-established point of agricultural practice was
forthcoming. It was in the year 1886 that Hellriegel and
Wilfarth first published in Germany the results of investigations
in which they demonstrated that, through the agency of
micro-organisms dwelling in nodular outgrowths on the roots
of ordinary leguminous plants, the latter are enabled to
assimilate the free nitrogen of the air. The existence of
the root nodules had long been recognized, but hitherto no
adequate explanation had been afforded as to their function.
Since Hellriegel's striking discovery farm crops have
been conveniently classified as nitrogen-accumulating and
nitrogen-consuming. To the former belong the ordinary leguminous
crops--the clovers, beans, peas, vetches or tares, sainfoin,
lucerne, for example--which obtain their nitrogen from the air,
and are independent of the application of nitrogenous manures,
whilst in their roots they accumulate a store of nitrogen which
will ultimately become available for future crops of other
kinds. It is, in fact, fully established that these leguminous
crops acquire a considerable amount of nitrogen by the fixation
of the free nitrogen of the atmosphere under the influence of
the symbiotic growth of their root-nodule-microbes and the higher
plant. The cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats, rye, maize);
the cruciferous crops (turnips, cabbage, kale, rape, mustard);
the solanaceous crops (potatoes); the chenopodiaceous crops
(mangels, sugar-beets), and other non-leguminous crops have,
so far as is known, no such power, and are therefore more
or less benefited by the direct application of nitrogenous
manures. The field experiments on leguminous plants at
Rothamsted have shown that land which is, so to speak,
exhausted so far as the growth of one leguminous crop is
concerned, may still grow very luxuriant crops of another
plant of the same natural order, but of different habits of
growth, and especially of different character and range of
roots. This result is doubtless largely dependent on the
existence, the distribution and the condition of the appropriate
microbes for the due infection of the different descriptions of
plant, for the micro-organism that dwells symbiotically with one
species is not identical with that which similarly dwells with
another. It seems certain that success in any system involving
a more extended growth of leguminous crops in rotations must
be dependent on a considerable variation in the description
grown. Other essential conditions of success will commonly
include the liberal application of potash and phosphatic
manures, and sometimes chalking or liming for the leguminous
crop. As to how long the leguminous crop should occupy the
land, the extent to which it should be consumed on the
land, or the manure from its consumption be returned, and
under what conditions the whole or part of it should be
ploughed in--these are points which must be decided as
they arise in practice. It seems obvious that the lighter
and poorer soils would benefit more than the heavier or
richer soils by the extended growth of leguminous crops.
Remarkable as Hellriegel's discovery was, it merely furnished
the explanation of a fact which had been empirically
established by the husbandman long before, and had received
most intelligent application when the old four-course (or
Norfolk) rotation was devised. But it gave some impetus to
the practice of green manuring with leguminous crops, which
are equally capable with such a crop as mustard of enriching
the soil in humus, whilst in addition they bring into the
soil from the atmosphere a quantity of nitrogen available
for the use of subsequent crops of any kind. In Canada and
the United States this rational employment of a leguminous
crop for ploughing in green is largely resorted to for the
amelioration of worn-out wheat lands and other soils, the
condition of which has been lowered to an unremunerative
level by the repeated growth year after year of a cereal
crop. The well-known paper of Lawes, Gilbert and Pugh (1861),
``On the Sources of the Nitrogen of Vegetation with special
reference to the Question whether Plants assimilate free or
uncombined Nitrogen,'' answered the question referred to in the
negative. The attitude taken up later on with regard to this
problem is set forth in the following words, which are quoted
from the Memoranda of the Rothamsted Experiments, 1900 (p. 7):--
``Experiments were commenced in 1857, and conducted for several
years in succession, to determine whether plants assimilate
free or uncombined nitrogen, and also various collateral
points. Plants of the gramincous, the leguminous and of
other families were operated upon. The late Dr Pugh took a
prominent part in this inquiry. The conclusion arrived at
was that our agricultural plants do not themselves directly
assimilate the free nitrogen of the air by their leaves.
``In recent years, however, the question has assumed quite
a new aspect. It now is--whether the free nitrogen of the
atmosphere is brought into combination under the influence of
micro-organisms, or other low forms, either within the soil or
in symbiosis with a higher plant, thus serving indirectly as
a source of nitrogen to plants of a higher order. Considering
that the results of Hellriegel and Wilfarth on this point were,
if confirmed, of great significance and importance, it was
decided to make experimenis at Rothamsted on somewhat similar
lines. Accordingly, a preliminary series was undertaken in
1888; more extended series were conducted in 1889 and in 1890;
and the investigation was continued up to the commencement
of the year 1893. Further experiments relating to certain
aspects of the subject were begun in 1898. The resuits have
shown that, when a soil growing leguminous plants is infected
with appropriate organisms, there is a development of the
so-called leguminous nodules on the roots of the plants,
and, coincidenrly, increased growth and gain of nitrogen.''
The conclusions of Hellriegel and Wilfarth have thus been
confirmed by the later experiences of Rothamsted, and since that
time efforts have been directed energetically to the practical
application of the discovery. This has taken the form of
inoculating the soil with the particular organism required by the
particular kind of leguminous crop. To this end the endeavour
has been made to produce preparations which shall contain in
portable form the organisms required by the several plants, and
though, as yet, it can hardly be claimed that they have been
generally successful, the work done justifies hopes that the
problem will eventually be solved in a practical direction.
Grass.--Another field experiment of singular interest
is that relating to the mixed herbage of permanent meadow,
for which seven acres of old grass land were set apart in
Rothamsted Park in 1856. Of the twenty plots into which
this land is divided, two were left without manure from the
outset, two received ordinary farmyard manure for a series
of years, whilst the remainder each received a different
description of artificial or chemical manure, the same being,
except in special cases, applied year after year on the same
plot. During the growing season the field affords striking
evidence of the influence of different manurial dressings.
So much, indeed, does the character of the herbage vary
from plot to plot that the effect may fairly be described as
kaleidoscopic. Repeated analyses have shown how greatly both
the botanical constitution and the chemical composition of
the mixed herbage vary according to the description of manure
applied. They have further shown how dominant is the influence of
season. Such, moreover, is the effect of different manures
that the gross produce of the mixed herbage is totally different
on the respective plots according to the manure employed,
both as to the proportion of the various species composing
it and as to their condition of development and maturity.
The Rotation of Crops.
The growth, year after year, on the same soil of one kind of
plant unfits it for bearing further crops of the kind which has
exhausted it, and renders them less vigorous and more liable to
disease. The farmer therefore arranges his cropping in such a
way that roots, or leguminous crops, succeed the cereal crops.
It is not only the conditions of growth, but the uses to
which the different crops are put, that have to be considered
in the case of rotation. Thus the cereal crops, when grown
in rotation, yield more produce for sale in the season of
growth than when grown continuously. Moreover, the crops
alternated with the cereals accumulate very much more of
mineral constituents and of nitrogen in their produce than do
the cereals themselves. By far the greater proportion of those
constituents remains in circulation in the manure of the farm,
whilst the remainder yields highly valuable products for sale
in the forms of meat and milk. For this reason these crops
are known as ``restorative,'' cereals the produce of which
is sold off the farm being classed as ``exhaustive.'' With
a variety of crops, again, the mechanical operations of the
farm, involving horse and hand labour, are better distributed
over the year, and are therefore more economically performed.
The opportunities which rotation cropping affords for the
cleaning of the land from weeds is another distinct element of
advantage. Although many different rotations of crops are
practised, they may for the most part be considered as little
more than local adaptations of the system of alternating
root-crops and leguminous crops with cereal crops, as exemplified
in the old four-course rotation--roots, barley, clover, wheat.
Under this system the clover is ploughed up in the autumn, the
nitrogen stored up in its roots being left in the soil for the
nourishment of the cereal crop. The following summer the wheat
crop is harvested, and an opportunity is afforded for extirpating
weeds which in the three previous years have received little
check. Or, where the climate is warm and the soil light,
a ``catch-crop,'' i.e. rye, vetches, winter-oats or some
other rapidly-growing crop may be sown in autumn and fed off
or otherwise disposed of prior to the root-sowing. On heavy
soils, however, the farmer cannot afford to curtail the time
necessary for thorough cultivation of the land. The cleaning
process is carried on through.the next summer by means of
successive hoeings of the spring-sown root-crop. As turnips or
swedes may occupy the ground till after Christmas little time
is left for the preparation of a seed-bed for barley, but as
the latter is a shallow-rooted crop only surface-stirring is
required. Clover is sown at the same time or shortly
after the cereal and thus occupies the land for two years.
The rotations extending to five, six, seven or more years are,
in most cases, only adaptations of the principle to variations
of soil, altitude, aspect, climate, markets and other local
conditions. They are effected chiefly by some alteration in the
description of the root-crop, and perhaps by the introduction
of the potato crop; by growing a different cereal, or it may
be more than one cereal consecutively; by the growth of some
other leguminous crop than clover, since ``clover-sickness''
may result if that crop is grown at too short intervals, or
the intermixture of grass seeds with the clover, and perhaps
by the extension by one or more years of the period allotted
to this member of the rotation. Whatever the specific
rotation, there may in practice be deviations from the plan of
retaining on the farm the whole of the root-crops, the straw
of the grain crops and the leguminous fodder crops (clover,
vetches, sainfoin, &c;) for the production of meat or milk,
and, coincidently, for that of manure to be returned to the
land. It is equally true that, when under the influence
of special local or other demand--proximity to towns, easy
railway or other communication, for example--the products
which would otherwise be retained on the farm are exported
from it, the import of town or other manures is generally
an essential condition of such practice. This system of
free sale, indeed, frequently involves full compensation by
purchased manures of some kind. Such deviations from the
practice of merely selling grain and meat off the farm have
much extended in recent years, and will probably continue to
do so under the altered conditions of British agriculture,
determined by very large imports of grain, increasing imports
of meat and of other products of stock-feeding, and very
large imports of cattle-food and other agricultural produce.
More attention is thus being devoted to dairy produce, not
only on grass farms, but on those that are mainly arable.
The benefits that accrue from the practice of rotation are well
illustrated in the results obtained from the investigations at
Rothamsted into the simple four-course system, which may fairly
be regarded as a self-supporting system. Reference may first
be made to the important mineral constituents of different
crops of the four-course rotation. Of phosphoric acid, the
cereal crops take up as much as, or more than, any other crops
of the rotation, excepting clover; and the greater portion
thus taken up is lost to the farm in the saleable product--the
grain. The remainder, that in the straw, as well as that in
the roots and the leguminous crops, is supposed to be retained
on the farm, excepting the small amount exported in meat and
milk. Of potash, each of the rotation crops takes up very
much more than of phosphoric acid. But much less potash than
phosphoric acid is exported in the cereal grains, much more
being retained in the straw, whilst the other products of
the rotation--the root and leguminous crops--which are also
supposed to be retained on the farm, contain very much more
potash than the cereals, and comparatively little of it is
exported in meat and milk. Thus the whole of the crops of
rotation take up very much more of potash than of phosphoric
acid, whilst probably even less of it is ultimately lost to the
land. Of lime, very little is taken up by the cereal
crops, and by the root-crops much less than of potash; more
by the leguminous than by the other crops, and, by the clover
especially, sometimes much more than by all the other crops
of the rotation put together. Very little of the lime of
the crops, however, goes off in the saleable products of
the farm in the case of the self-supporting rotation under
consideration. Although, therefore, different, and sometimes
very large, amounts of these typical mineral constituents
are taken up by the various crops of rotation, there is no
material export of any in the saleable products, excepting
of phosphoric acid and of potash; and, so far at least
as phosphoric acid is concerned, experience has shown that
it may be advantageously supplied in purchased manures.
Of nitrogen, the cereal crops take up and retain much less
than any of the crops alternated with them, notwithstanding
the circumstance that the cereals are very characteristically
benefited by nitrogenous manures. The root-crops, indeed, may
contain two or more times as much nitrogen as either of the
cereals, and the leguminous crops, especially the clover, much
more than the root-crops. The greater part of the nitrogen
of the cereals is, however, sold off the farm; but perhaps
not more than 10 or 15% of the of either the root-crop of
the clover (or other forage leguminous crop) is sold off in
the animal increase of in milk. Most of the nitrogen is the
straw of the cereals, and a very large proportion of that of
the much more highly nitrogen-yielding crops, returns to the
land as manure, for the benefit of future cereals and other
crops. As to the source of the nitrogren of the root-crops--the
so-called ``restorative crops''--these are as dependent as any
crop that is grown on available nitrogen within the soil, which
is generally supplied by the direct application of nitrogenous
manures, natural or artificial. Under such conditions of
supply, however, the root-crops, gross feeders as they are,
and distributing a very large extent of fibrous feeding root
within the soil, avail themselves of a much larger quantity of
the nitrogen supplied than the cereal crops would do in similar
circumstances. This result is partly due to their period
of accumulation of nitrates in it is the greatest. When a
full supply of both mineral constituents and nitrogen is at
command, these root-crops assimilate a very large amount of
TABLE XI.--The Weight and Average Composition of Ordinary Crops,
in lb. per Acre.
Weight of
Crop. Total Nitro Sul-
Crop. At Pure -gen. phur. Potash.
Harvest. Dry. Ash.
Wheat, grain, 30 bushels 1,800 1530 30 34 2.7 9.3
Wheat, straw 3,158 2653 142 16 5.1 19.5
Total crop 4,958 4183 172 50 7.8 28.8
Barley, grain, 40 bushels 2,080 1747 46 35 2.9 9.8
Barley, straw 2,447 2080 111 14 3.2 25.9
Total crop 4,527 3827 157 49 6.1 35.7
Oats, grain, 45 bushels 1,890 1625 51 34 3.2 9.1
Oats, straw 2,835 2353 140 18 4.8 37.0
Total crop 4,725 3978 191 52 8.0 46.1
Maize, grain, 30 bushels 1,680 1500 22 28 1.8 6.5
Maize, stalks, &c. 2,208 1877 99 15 .. 29.8
Total crop 3,888 3377 121 43 .. 36.3
Meadow hay, 1 1/2 ton 3,360 2822 203 49 5.7 50.9
Red Clover hay, 2 tons 4,480 3763 258 98 9.4 83.4
Beans, grain, 30 bushels 1,920 1613 58 78 4.4 24.3
Beans, straw 2,240 1848 99 29 4.9 42.8
Total crop 4,160 3461 157 107 9.3 67.1
Turnip, root, 17 tons 38,080 3126 218 61 15.2 108.6
Turnip, leaf 11,424 1531 146 49 5.7 40.2
Total crop 49,504 4657 346 110 20.9 148.8
Swedes, root, 14 tons 31,360 3349 163 70 14.6 63.3
Swedes, leaf 4,704 706 75 28 3.2 16.4
Total crop 36,064 4055 238 98 17.8(*) 79.7
Mangels, root, 22 tons 49,280 5914 426 98 4.9 222.8
Mangels, leaf 18,233 1654 254 51 9.1 77.9
Total crop 67,513 7568 680 149 14.0 300.7
Potatoes, tubers, 6 tons 13,440 3360 127 46 2.7 76.5
Mag- Phosph- Chlor-
Crop. Soda. Lime. nesia. ric Acid. ine. Silica.
Wheat, grain, 30 bushels 0.6 1.0 3.6 14.2 0.1 0.6
Wheat, straw 2.0 8.2 3.5 6.9 2.4 96.3
Total crop 2.6 9.2 7.1 21.1 2.5 96.9
Barley, grain, 40 bushels 1.1 1.2 4.0 16.0 0.5 11.8
Barley, straw 3.9 8.0 2.9 4.7 3.6 56.8
Total crop 5.0 9.2 6.9 20.7 4.1 68.6
Oats, grain, 45 bushels 0.8 1.8 3.6 13.0 0.5 19.9
Oats, straw 4.6 9.8 5.1 6.4 6.1 65.4
Total crop 5.4 11.6 8.7 19.4 6.6 85.3
Maize, grain, 30 bushels 0.2 0.5 3.4 10.0 0.2 0.5
Maize, stalks, &c. .. .. .. 8.0 .. ..
Total crop .. .. .. 18.0 .. ..
Meadow hay, 1 1/2 ton 9.2 32.1 14.4 12.3 14.6 56.9
Red Clover hay, 2 tons 5.1 90.1 28.2 22.9 9.8 7.0
Beans, grain, 30 bushels 0.6 2.9 4.2 22.8 1.1 0.4
Beans, straw 1.7 26.3 5.7 6.3 4.3 6.9
Total crop 2.3 29.2 9.9 29.1 5.4 7.3
Turnip, root, 17 tons 17.0 25.5 5.7 22.4 10.9 2.6
Turnip, leaf 7.5 48.5 3.8 10.7 11.2 5.1
Total crop 24.5 74.0 9.5 33.1 22.1 7.7
Swedes, root, 14 tons 22.8 19.7 6.8 16.9 6.8 3.1
Swedes, leaf 9.2 22.7 2.4 4.8 8.3 3.6
Total crop 32.0 42.4 9.2 21.7 15.1 6.7
Mangels, root, 22 tons 69.4 15.9 18.3 36.4 42.5 8.7
Mangels, leaf 49.3 27.0 24.2 16.5 40.6 9.2
Total crop 118.7 42.9 42.5 52.9 83.1 17.9
Potatoes, tubers, 6 tons 3.8 3.4 6.3 21.5 4.4 2.6
(*) Calculated from a single analysis only.
carbon from the atmosphere, and produce, besides nitrogenous
food materials, a very large amount of the carbohydrate sugar,
as respiratory and fat-forming food for the live stock of the
farm. The still more highly nitrogenous leguminous crops,
although not characteristically benefited by nitrogenous
manures, nevertheless contribute much more nitrogen to the
total produce of the rotation than any of the other crops
comprised in it. It is the leguminous fodder crops--especially
clover, which has a much more extended period of growth,
and much wider range of collection within the soil and
subsoil, than any of the other crops of the rotation--that
yield in their produce the largest amount of nitrogen per
acre. Much of this is, doubtless taken up as nitrate, yet the
direct application of nitrate of soda has comparatively little
beneficial influence on their growth. The nitric acid is most
likely taken up chiefly as nitrate of lime, but probably as
nitrate of potash also, and it is significant that the high
nitrogen-yielding clover takes up, or at least retains, very
little soda. Table XI., from Warington's Chemistry of the
Farm, 19th edition (Vinton and Co.), will serve to illustrate
the subjects that have been discussed in this section.
For further information on the routine and details of
farming, reference may be made to the articles under
the headings of the various crops and implements.
British Live Stock.
The numbers of live stock in the United Kingdom are shown at
five-yearly intervals in Table XII. Under horses are embraced only
unbroken horses and horses used solely for agriculture (including
mares kept for breeding). The highest and lowest annual totals for
the United Kingdom in the period 1875-1905 were the following:--
Highest. Lowest. Difference
Horses 2,116,800 in 1905 1,819,687 in 1875 295,113
Cattle 11,674,019 in 1905 9,731,537 in 1877 1,942,482
Sheep 33,642,808 in 1892 27,448,220 in 1882 6,194,588
Pigs 4,362,040 in 1890 2,863,488 in 1880 1,498,552
After 1892 cattle, which in that year numbered 11,119,417,
and sheep declined continuously for three years to the
totals of 1895, the diminution being mainly the result
of the memorable drought of 1803. Sheep, which numbered
32,571,018 in 1878, declined continuously to 27,448,220 in
1882--a loss of over five million head in five years. This
was chiefly attributable to the ravages of the liver fluke
which began in the disastrously wet season of 1879. Pigs,
being prolific breeders, fluctuate more widely in numbers
than cattle or sheep, for the difference of 1,498,552 in their
case represents one-third of the highest total, whereas the
difference is less than one-seventh for horses. less than
one-sixth for cattle, and less than one-fifth for sheep. The
TABLE XII.--Numbers of Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Pigs in the
United Kingdom.
Year. Horses. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs.
1875 1,819,687 10,162,787 33,491,948 3,495,167
1880 1,929,680 9,871,533 30,239,620 2,865,488
1885 1,909,200 10,868,760 30,086,200 3,686,628
1890 1,964,911 10,789,858 31,667,195 4,362,040
1895 2,112,207 10,753,314 29,774,853 4,238,870
1900 2,000,402 11,454,902 31,054,547 3,663,669
1905 2,116,800 11,674,019 29,076,777 3,601,659
relative proportions--as distinguished from the actual numbers
--in which stock are distributed over the several sections
of the United Kingdom do not vary greatly from year to
year. Table XIII., in which the totals for the United
Kingdom include those for the Channel Islands and Isle of
Man, illustrates the preponderance of the sheep-breeding
industry in the drier climate of Great Britain, and of the
cattle-breeding industry in the more humid atmosphere of
Ireland. In Great Britain in 1905, for every head of
cattle there were about four head of sheep, whereas in
Ireland the cattle outnumbered the sheep. Again. whilst
Great Britain possessed only half as many cattle more than
TABLE XIII.--Numbers of Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Pigs in the
United Kingdom in 1905.
1905. Horses. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs.
England 1,204,124 5,020,936 14,698,018 2,083,226
Wales 161,923 738,789 3,534,967 211,479
Scotland 206,386 1,227,295 7,024,211 130,214
Great Britain 1,572,433 6,987,020 25,257,196 2,424,919
Ireland 534,875 4,645,215 3,749,352 1,164,316
United
Kingdom8 2,116,800 11,674,019 29,076,777 3,601,659
Ireland, she possessed six times as many sheep. The cattle
population of England alone slightly exceeded that of
Ireland. but cattle are more at home on the broad plains of
England than amongst the hills and mountains of Wales and
Scotland. which are suitable for sheep. Hence, whilst in
England sheep were not three times as numerous as cattle,
in Wales they were nearly five times, and in Scotland nearly
six times as many. Great Britain had twice as many pigs as
Ireland, but the swine industry is mainly English and Irish,
and England possessed more than six times as many pigs as
Wales and Scotland together. the number in the last-named
country being particularly small. One English county alone,
Suffolk, maintained more pigs than the whole of Scotland.
British Imports of Live Animals and Meat.
The stock-breeders and graziers of the United Kinudom have, equally
with the corn-growers, to face the brunt of foreign competition.
Up tp 1896 store cattle were admitted into the United
Kingdom for the purpose of being fattened, but under the
Diseases of Animals Act of that year animals imported
since then have to be slaughtered at the place of landing.
The dimensions of this trade are shown in Table XIV.
TABLE XIV.--Numbers of Cattle, Sheep and Pigs Imported into the
United Kingdom, 1891-1905.
Year. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs.
1891 507,407 344,504 542
1892 502,237 79,048 3826
1993 340,045 62,682 138
1894 475,440 484,597 8
1895 415,565 1,065,470 321
1896 562,553 769,592 4
1897 618,321 611,504 ..
1898 569,066 663,747 450
1899 503,504 607,755 ..
1900 495,645 382,833 ..
1901 495,635 383,594 ..
1902 419,488 293,203 ..
1903 522,546 354,241 ..
1904 549,532 382,240 ..
1905 565,139 183,084 150
The animals come mainly from the United States of America, Canada
and Argentina, and the traffic in cattle is more uniform than that
in sheep, whilst that in pigs seems practically to have reached
extinction. The quantities of dead meat imported increased
with great rapidity from 1891 to 1905, a circumstance largely
due to the rise of the trade in chilled and frozen meat. Fresh
beef in this form is imported chiefly from the United States
and Australasia, fresh mutton from Australasia and Argentina.
Table XV. shows how rapidly this trade expanded during the decade
of the 'nineties. The column headed bacon and hams indicates
clearly enough that the imports of fresh meat did not displace
those of preserved pig meat, for the latter expanded from
4,715,000 cwt. to 7,784,000 cwt. during the decade. The column
for all dead meat includes not only the items tabulated, but also
TABLE XV.--Quantities of Dead Meat Imported into the United
Kingdom, 1891-1905--Thousands of Cwt.
Year. Fresh Fresh Fresh Bacon All
Beef. Mutton. Pork. and Hams. Dead Meat.
1891 1921 1663 128 4715 9,790
1892 2080 1700 132 5135 10,300
1893 1808 1971 182 4187 9,305
1894 2104 2295 180 4819 10,610
1895 2191 2611 288 5353 11,977
1896 2660 2895 299 6009 13,347
1897 3010 3193 348 6731 14,729
1898 3101 3314 558 7684 16,445
1899 3803 3446 669 7784 17,658
1900 4128 3393 695 7444 17,912
1901 4509 3608 792 7633 18,764
1902 3707 3660 655 6572 16,971
1903 4160 4017 706 6298 17,498
1904 4350 3495 610 6696 17,517
1905 5038 3811 506 6817 18,680
the following, the quantities stated being those for 1905:--Beef,
salted, 142,806 cwt.; beef, otherwise preserved, 598,030 cwt.;
preserved mutton, 30,111 cwt.; salted pork, 205,965 cwt.;
dead rabbits, 656,078 cwt.; meat, unenumerated, 875,032 cwt.
The quantities of these are relatively small, and, excepting
rabbits from Australia, they show no general tendency to
increase. The extent to which these growing imports were
associated with a decline in value is shown in Table XVI.
The trend of the import trade in meat, live and dead (exclusive
of rabbits), may be gathered from Table XVII., in which are
given the annual average imports from the eight quinquennial
periods embraced between 1866 and 1905. An increase in live
cattle accompanied a decrease in live sheep and pigs, but the
imports of dead meat expanded fifteen-fold over the period,
The rate at which the trade in imported frozen mutton
increased as compared with the industry in home-grown mutton
is illustrated in the figures published annually by Messrs
W. Weddel and Company, from which those for 1885 and 1890 and
for each year from 1895 to 1906 are given in Table XVIII. The
home-grown is the estimated dead weight of sheep and lambs
slaughtered, which is taken at 40% of the total number of sheep
and lambs returned each year in the United Kingdom. In the
TABLE XVI.--Average Values of Fresh Meat, Bacon and Hams
Imported into the United Kingdom, 1891-1905--per Cwt.
Year. Fresh Fresh Fresh Bacon. Hams.
Beef. Mutton. Pork.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
1891 42 1 39 6 47 6 37 11 46 4
1892 42 5 40 6 46 11 40 10 47 4
1893 42 4 39 3 50 0 53 0 58 5
1894 40 0 37 10 48 5 43 10 49 1
1895 39 0 35 2 46 1 39 0 44 11
1896 37 10 32 7 45 11 34 6 43 0
1897 38 5 30 3 44 0 35 5 42 8
1898 38 2 29 7 41 10 36 2 39 6
1899 38 8 31 7 41 11 35 10 41 5
1900 39 7 34 5 43 0 41 9 46 10
1901 39 6 36 7 43 4 47 1 48 8
1902 42 8 37 9 44 2 52 9 52 1
1903 40 3 39 0 44 1 52 10 55 1
1904 37 1 39 3 45 2 47 1 49 11
1905 35 6 38 6 46 0 46 6 47 4
imported column is given the weight of fresh (frozen) mutton
and lamb imported, plus the estimated dead weight of the
sheep imported on the hoof for slaughter. The quantity imported
in 1899 was double that in 1890, and quadruple that in 1885.
Moreover, in 1885 the imported product was only about one-seventh
TABLE XVII.--Average Annual Imports of Cattle, Sheep and Pigs,
and of Dead Meat, into the United Kingdom over eight 5-yearly
periods.
Period. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs. Dead Meat.
No. No. No. Cwt.
1866-1870 194,947 610,300 64,827 1,155,867
1871-1875 215,990 864,516 74,040 3,134,175
1876-1880 272,745 938,704 44,613 5,841,913
1881-1885 387,282 974,316 24,355 6,012,495
1886-1890 438,098 800,599 19,437 7,681,729
1891-1895 448,139 407,260 967 10,436,549
1896-1900 549,818 607,086 91 15,785,354
1901-1905 510,468 319,272 30 17,384,366
as much as the home-grown. whereas in 1890 it was more than
one-fourth, and in 1906 close on two-thirds. This large import
trade in fresh meat, which sprang up entirely within the last
quarter of the 19th century, has placed an abundance of cheap
and wholesome food well within the reach of the great industrial
TABLE XVIII.--Home Product and Imports of Sheep and Mutton
into the United Kingdom--Thousands of Tons.
Year. Home- Imported. Year. Home- Imported.
grown. grown.
1885 322 47 1900 332 179
1890 339 92 1901 330 191
1895 319 157 1902 322 191
1896 329 164 1903 318 2109
1897 327 175 1904 311 185
1898 333 182 1905 312 195
1899 339 187 1906 313 207
populations of the United Kingdom. At the same time it
cannot. be gainsaid that it has opened the way to fraud.
Butchers have palmed off upon their customers imported
fresh meat as home-grown, and secured a dishonest profit
by charging for it the prices of the latter, which are
considerably in excess of those of the imported product.
Sale of Cattle by Live Weight
In connexion with the internal live stock trade of Great
Britain attention must be directed to the Markets and Fairs
(Weighing of Cattle) Act 1891. The object of this measure
is to replace the old-fashioned system of guessing at the
weight of an animal by the sounder method of obtaining the
exact weight by means of the weighbridge. The grazier buys
and sells cattle much less frequently than the butcher buys
them, so that the latter is naturally more skilled in estimating
the weight of a beast through the use of the eye and the
hand. The resort to the weighbridge should put both on an
equality, and its use tends to increase. Under the act,
as supplemented by an order of the Board of Agriculture
in 1905, there were in that year 26 scheduled places in
England and 10 in Scotland, or 36 altogether, from which
returns were obtained. The numbers of cattle (both fat
and store) weighed at scheduled places in 1893 and 190510
were respectively 7.59 and 18% of those entering those
markets. The numbers for Scotland are greater throughout
than those for England, 72% of the fat cattle entering the
scheduled markets in Scotland in 1905 (2) having been weighed,
while in England the proportion was only 20%. Little use is
made of the weighbridge in selling store-cattle, sheep or
swine. As the main object of the act is to obtain records of
prices, it follows that only in so far as statements of the
prices realized, together with the description of the animals
involved, are obtained, is the full advantage of the statute
secured. In 1905 the average price per cwt. for fat cattle in
Great Britain was 32s. 11d. as compared with 35s. 2d. in 1900.
Food Values and Early Maturity.
In the feeding experiments which have been carried on at
Rothamsted it has been shown that the amount consumed both
for a given live weight of animal within a given time, and for
the production of a given amount of increase, is, as current
food stuffs go, measurable more by the amounts they contain
of digestible and available non-nitrogenous constituents than
by the amounts of the digestible and available nitrogenous
constituents they supply. The non-nitrogenous substance
(the fat) in the increase in live weight of an animal is,
at any rate in great part, if not entirely, derived from the
non-nitrogenous constituents of the food. Of the nitrogenous
compounds in food, on the other hand, only a small proportion
of the whole consumed is finally stored up in the increase of
the animal--in other words, a very large amount of nitrogen
passes through the body beyond that which is finally retained
in the increase, and so remains for manure. Hence it is
that the amount of food consumed to produce a given amount
of increase in live weight, as well as that required for
the sustentation of a given live weight for a given time,
should--provided the food be not abnormally deficient in
nitrogenous substance--be characteristically dependent on
its supplies of digestible and available non-nitrogenous
constituents. It has further been shown that, in the exercise
of force by animals, there is a greatly increased expenditure
of the non-nitrogenous constituents of food, but little, if
any, Of the nitrogenous. Thus, then, alike for maintenance, for
increase, and for the exercise of force, the exigencies of the
system are characterized more by the demand for the digestible
non-nitrogenous or more specially respiratory and fat-forming
constituents than by that for the nitrogenous or more specially
flesh-forming ones. Hence, as current fattening food-stuffs
go--assuming, of course, that they are not abnormally low
in the nitrogenous constituents--they are, as foods, more
valuable in proportion to their richness in digestible and
available non-nitrogenous than to that of their nitrogenous
constituents. As, however, the manure of the animals of the
farm is valuable largely in proportion to the nitrogen it
contains, there is, so far, an advantage in giving a food
somewhat rich in nitrogen, provided it is in other respects
a good one, and, weight for weight, not much more costly.
The quantity of digestible nutritive matter in 1000 lb. of ordinary
feeding-stuffs when supplied to sheep or oxen is shown in Table
XIX. This table is taken from Warington's Chemistry of the
Farm, 10th edition (Vinton and Co.), to which reference may
be made for a detailed discussion of the feeding of animals.
In the fattening of animals for the butcher the principle of
early maturity has received full recognition. If the sole
purpose for which an animal is reared is to prepare it for
the block--and this is the case with steers amongst cattle
and with wethers amongst sheep--the sooner it is ready for
slaughter the less should be the outlay involved. During the
whole time the animal is living the feeder has to pay what
has been termed the ``life tax''--that is, so much of the
food has to go to the maintenance of the animal as a living
organism into what will subsequenctly be available in the
form of beef or mutton. If a bullock can be rendered fit
for the butcher at the age of two or three years, will the
animal repay another year's feeding? It has been proved at
the Christmas fat stock shows that the older a bullock gets
the less will he gain in weight per day as a result of the
feeding. With regard to this point the work of the Smithfield
Club deserves recognition. This body was instituted in 1798
as the Smithfield Cattle and Sheep Society, the title being
TABLE XIX.--Digestible Matter in 1000 lb. of Various Foods.
Total Nitrogeneaous Soluble
Organic Substances. Fat. Carbo- Fibre
Matter. Alba- Amides, hydrates
minoids. etc.
Cotton cake
(decorticated) 691 374 18 128 158 13
(undecorticated) 422 150 13 50 177 32
Linseed cake 655 230 11 103 266 45
Peas 747 175 25 12 499 36
Beans 733 196 28 12 446 51
Wheat11 786 92 13 15 656 10
Oats 600 81 7 45 441 26
Barley 715 70 4 19 607 15
Maize 786 73 6 44 651 12
Rice meal 612 67 10 102 411 22
Wheat bran 585 90 20 27 426 22
Malt sprouts 681 114 71 11 379 106
Brewers' grains 137 34 2 14 67 20
'' (dried) 529 136 8 57 266 62
Pasture grass 156 19 11 6 84 36
Clover (bloom beginning) 123 17 8 5 63 30
Clover hay (medium) 440 47 25 13 242 113
Meadow hay (best) 511 60 18 13 269 151
(medium) 485 40 12 12 269 152
(poor) 460 29 5 10 242 174
Maize silage 124 1 7 7 75 34
\ /
Bean straw 412 40 6 211 155
Oat straw 381 7 5 7 163 199
Barley straw 426 4 3 6 211 202
\ /
Wheat straw 351 4 4 150 193
Potatoes 213 5 9 1 195 3
Mangels (large) 89 1 8 1/2 74 6
(small) 109 2 6 1/2 96 5
Swedes 87 2 7 1/2 71 6
Turnips 68 1 5 1/2 56 5
changed to that of the Smithfield Club in 1802. The original
object--the supply of the cattle markets of Smithfield and
other places with the cheapest and best meat--is still kept
strictly in view. The judges, in making their awards at the
show held annually in December, at Islington, North London
(since 1862), are instructed to decide according to quality of
flesh, lightness of offal, age and early maturity, with no
restrictions as to feeding, and thus to promote the primary
aim of the club in encouraging the selection and breeding of
the best and most useful animals for the production of meat,
and testing their capabilities in respect of early maturity.
At the first show, held at Smithfield in 1799, two classes
were provided for cattle and two for sheep, the prizes offered
amounting to L. 52 : 10s. In 1839 the classes comprised seven
for cattle, six for sheep, and one for pigs, with prizes to
the amount of L. 300. By 1862 the classes had risen to 29 for
cattle, 17 for sheep and 4 for pigs, and the prize money to
L. 2072. At the centenary show in 1898 provision was made for
40 classes for cattle, 29 for sheep, 18 for pigs, and 7 for
animals to be slaughtered, whilst to mark the importance of the
occasion the prizes offered amounted to close upon L. 5000 in
value. In 1907 there were 38 classes for cattle, 29 for sheep,
20 or pigs and 12 for carcase competitors, and the value of
the prizes was L. 4113. The sections provided for cattle are
properly restricted to what may be termed the beef brands;
in the catalogue order they are Devon, South Devon, Hereford,
Shorthorn, Sussex, Red Polled, Aberdeen-Angus, Galloway, Welsh,
Highland, Cross-bred, Kerry and Dexter, and Small Cross-bred.
It will be noticed that such characteristically milking
breeds as the Ayrshire, Jersey and Guernsey have no place
here. Provision is made, however, for all the well-known
breeds of sheep and swine. In the cattle classes, aged beasts
of huge size and of considerably over a ton in weight used
to be common, but in recent years the tendency has been to
reduce the upper limit of age, and thus to bring out animals
ripe for the butcher in a shorted time than was formerly the
case. An important step in this direction was taken in 1896,
when the senior class for steers, viz. animals three to four
years old, was abolished, the maximum age at which steers
were allowed to compete for prizes being reduced to three
years. The cow classes were abolished in 1897, and in the
schedule of the 1905 exhibition the classes for each breed
of cattle were (1) for steers not exceeding two years old,
(2) for steers above two years and not exceeding three years
old, and (3) for heifers not exceeding three years old. The
single exception is provided by the slowly-maturing Highland
breed of cattle, for which classes were allotted to (1) steers
not exceeding three years old, (2) steers or oxen above three
years old (with no maximum limit), and (3) heifers not
exceeding four years old. As illustrating heavy weights,
there were in the 1893 show, out of 310 entries of cattle,
four beasts which weighed over a ton. They were all steers of
three to four years old, one being a Hereford weighing 20 cwt.
2 qr. 4 lb, and the others Shorthorns weighing respectively
20 cwt. 2 qr., 20 cwt. 3 qr. 21 lb, and 22 cwt. 2 qr. 18
lb. In the 1895 show, out of 356 entries of cattle, there
were seven beasts of more than a ton in weight. They were
all three to four years old, and comprised four Shorthorns
(top weight 21 cwt. 1 qr. 18 lb), one Sussex (22 cwt. 3
qr. 7 lb), and two cross-breds (top weight 20 cwt. 3 qr. 24
lb). In the 1899 show, with 311 entries of cattle, and the
age limited to three years, no beast reached the weight of a
ton, the heaviest animal being a crossbred (Aberdeen-Angus
and Shorthorn) which, at three years old, turned the scale
at 19 cwt. 1 qr. 5 lb. Out of 301 entries in 1905 the top
weight was 19 cwt. 1 qr. 25 lb in the case of a Shorthorn
steer. Useful figures for purposes of comparison are obtained
by dividing the weight of a fat beast by the number of days
in its age, the weight at birth being thrown in. The average
daily gain in live weight is thus arrived at, and as the animal
increases in age this average gradually diminishes, until the
daily gain reaches a stage at which it does not afford any
profitable return upon the food consumed. At the centenary
show of the Smithfield Club in 1898 the highest average daily
gains in weight amongst prize-winning cattle were providrd
by a Shorthorn-Aberdeen cross-bred steer (age, one year seven
months; daily gain 2.47 lb); a Shorthorn steer (age, one year
seven months; daily gain, 2.44 lb); and an Aberdeen-Shorthorn
cross-bred steer (age, one year ten months; daily gain, 2.33
lb). These beasts, it will be observed, were all under two years
old. Amongst prize steers of two and a half to three years
old, on the same occasion, the three highest daily average
gains in live weight were 2.07 lb. for an Aberdeen-Angus,
1.99 lb. for a Shorthorn-Aberdeen cross-bred and 1.97 lb. for a
Sussex. In the sheep section of the Smithfield show the
classes for ewes were finally abolished in 1898, and the
classes restricted to wethers and wether lambs, whose function
is exclusively the production of meat. At the 1905 show,
sheep of each breed, and also cross-breds, competed as (1)
wether lambs under twelve months old, and (2) wether sheep
above twelve and under twenty-four months old. The only
exception was in the case of the slowly-maturing Cheviot and
mountain breeds, for which the second class was for wether
sheep of any age above twelve months. Of prize sheep at the
centenary show the largest average daily gain was 0.77 lb. per
head given by Oxford-Hampshire cross-bred wether lambs, aged
nine months two weeks. In the case of wether sheep, twelve
to twenty-four months old, the highest daily increase was
0.56 lb per head as yielded by Lincolns, aged twenty-one
months. Within the last quarter of the 19th century the
stock-feeding practices of the country were much modified
in accordance with these ideas of early maturity. The
three-year-old wethers and older oxen that used to be common
in the fat stock markets are now rarely seen, excepting
perhaps in the case of mountain breeds of sheep and Highland
cattle. It was in 1875 that the Smithfield Club first provided
the competitive classes for lambs, and in 1883 the champion
plate offered for the best pen of sheep of any age in the
show was for the first time won by lambs, a pen of Hampshire
Downs. The young classes for bullocks were established in
1880. The time-honoured notion that an animal must have
completed its growth before it could be profitably fattened is
no longer held, and the improved breeds which now exist rival
one another as regards the early period at which they may be
made ready for the butcher by appropriate feeding and management.
In 1895 the Smithfield Club instituted a carcase competition
in association with its annual show of fat stock, and it
has been continued each year since. The cattle and sheep
entered for this competition are shown alive on the first
day, at the close of which they are slaughtered and the
carcases hung up for exhibition, with details of live and dead
weights. The competition thus constitutes what is termed
a ``block test,'' and it is instructive in affording the
opportunity of seeing the quality of the carcases furnished by
the several animals, and in particular the relative proportion
and distribution of fat and lean meat. The live animals are
judged and subsequently the carcases, and, though the results
sometimes agree, more often they do not. Tables are constructed
showing the fasted live weight, the carcase weight, and the
weight of the various parts that are separated from and not
included with the carcase. An abundance of lean meat and a
moderate amount of fat well distributed constitutes a better
carcase, and a more economical one for the consumer, than a
carcase in which gross accumulations of fat are prominent.
To add to the educational value of the display, information
as to the methods of feeding would be desirable, as it would
then be possible to correlate the quality of the meat with the
mode of its manufacture. A point of high practical interest
is the ratio of carcase weight to fasted live weight, and
in the case of prize-winning carcases these ratios usually
fluctuate within very narrow limits. At the 1890 show, for
example, the highest proportion of the carcase weight to
live weight was 68% in the case of an Aberdeen-Angus steer
and of a Cheviot wether, whilst the lowest was 61%, afforded
alike by a Shorthorn-Sussex cross-bred heifer and a mountain
lamb. A familiar practical method of estimating carcase
weight from live weight is to reckon one Smithfield stone
(8 lb) of carcase for each imperial stone (14 lb) of live
weight. This gives carcase weight as equal to 57% of live
weight, a ratio much inferior to the best results obtained
at the carcase competition promoted by the Smithfield Club.
Breed societies.
A noteworthy feature of the closing decades of the 19th
century was the formation of voluntary associations of
stockbreeders, with the object of promoting the interests of
the respective breeds of live stock. As a typical example of
these organizations the Shire Horse Society may be mentioned.
It was incorporated in 1878 to improve and promote the breeding
of the Shire or old English race of cart-horses, and to effect
the distribution of sound and healthy sires throughout the
country. The society holds annual shows, publishes annually
the Shire Horse Stud Book and offers gold and silver medals
for competition amongst Shire horses at agricultural shows
in different parts of the country, The society has carried
on a work of high national importance, and has effected a
marked improvement in the character and quality of the Shire
horse. What has thus voluntarily been done in England
would in most other countries be left to the state, or would
not be attempted at all. It is hardly necessary to say
that the Shire Horse Society has never received a penny of
public money, nor has any other of the voluntary breeders'
societies. The Hackney Horse Society and the Hunters'
Improvement Society are conducted on much the same lines as
the Shire Horse Society, and, like it, they each hold a show
in London in the spring of the year and publish an annual
volume. Other horsebreeders' associations, all doing useful
work in the interests of their respective breeds, are the
Suffolk Horse Society, the Clydesdale Horse Society, the
Yorkshire Coach Horse Society, the Cleveland Bay Horse
Society, the Polo Pony Society, the Shetland Pony Stud Book
Society, the Welsh Pony and Cob Society and the New Forest Pony
Association. Thoroughbred race-horses are registered in the
General Stud Book. The Royal Commission on Horse Breeding,
which dates from 1887, is, as its name implies, not a voluntary
organization. Through the commission the money previously
spent upon Queen's Plates is offered in the form of ``King's
Premiums'' (to the number of twenty-eight in 1907) of L. 150 each
for thoroughbred stallions, on condition that each stallion
winning a premium shall serve not less than fifty half-bred
mares, if required. The winning stallions are distributed
in districts throughout Great Britain, and the use of these
selected sires has resulted in a decided improvement in the
quality of half-bred horses. The annual show of the Royal
Commission on Horse Breeding is held in London jointly. and
concurrently with that of the Hunters' Improvement Society.
Of organizations of cattle-breeders the English Jersey Cattle
Society, established in 1878, may be taken as a type. It
offers prizes in butter-test competitions and milking trials
at various agricultural shows, and publishes the English Herd
Book and Register of Pure-Bred Jersey Cattle. This volume
records the births in the herds of members of the society,
and gives the pedigrees of cows and bulls, besides furnishing
lists of prize-winners at the principal shows and butter-test
awards, and reports of sales by auction of Jersey cattle.
Other cattle societies, all well caring for the interest of
their respective breeds, are the Shorthorn Society of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Lincolnshire Red Shorthorn Association,
the Hereford Herd Book Society, the Devon Cattle Breeders'
Society, the South Devon Herd Book Society, the Sussex Herd
Book Society, the Long-horned Cattle Society, the Red Polled
Society, the English Guernsey Cattle Society, the English Kerry
and Dexter Cattle Society, the Welsh Black Cattle Society,
the Polled Cattle Society (for the Aberdeen-Angus breed), the
English Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Association, the Galloway Cattle
Society, the Ayrshire Cattle Herd Book Society, the Highland
Cattle Society of Scotland and the Dairy Shorthorn Association.
In the case of sheep the National Sheep Breeders' Association
looks after the interests of flockmasters in general, whilst
most of the pure breeds are represented also by separate
organizations. The Hampshire Down Sheep Breeders' Association
may be taken as a type of the latter, its principal object being
to encourage the breeding of Hampshire Down sheep at home and
abroad, and to maintain the purity of the breed. It publishes
an annual Flock Book, the first volume of which appeared in
1890. In this book are named the recognized and pure-bred
sires which have been used, and ewes which have been bred
from, whilst there are also registered the pedigrees of such
sheep as are proved to be eligible for entry. Prizes are
offered by the society at various agricultural shows where
Hampshire Down sheep are exhibited. Other sheep societies
include the Leicester Sheep Breeders' Association, the
Cotswold Sheep Society, the Lincoln Longwool Sheep Breeders'
Association, the Oxford Down Sheep Breeders' Association,
the Shropshire Sheep Breeders' Association and Flock Book
Society, the Southdown Sheep Society, the Suffolk Sheep
Society, the Border Leicester Sheep Breeders' Society, the
Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Breeders' Association and Flock
Book Society, the Incorporated Wensleydale Blue-faced Sheep
Breeders' Association and Flock Book Society, the Kent Sheep
Breeders' Association, the Devon Longwool Sheep Breeders'
Society, the Dorset Horn Sheep Breeders' Association, the Cheviot
Sheep Society and the Roscommon Sheep Breeders' Association.
The interests of pig-breeders are the care of the
National Pig Breeders' Association, in addition to which
there exist the British Berkshire, the Large Black Pig,
and the Lincoln Curly-Coated White Pig Societies, and
the Incorporated Tamworth Pig Breeders' Association.
The addresses of the secretaries of the various
live-stock societies in the United Kingdom are
published annually in the Live Stock Journal Almanac.
The Maintenance of the Health of Live Stock.
It was not till the closing decade of the 19th century that
the stock-breeders of the United Kingdom found themselves in
a position to prosecute their industry free from the fear of
the introduction of contagious disease through the medium of
store animals imported from abroad for fattening on the native
pastures. By the Diseases of Animals Act 1896 (59 & 60 Vict.
c. 15) it was provided that cattle, sheep and pigs imported
into the United Kingdom should be slaughtered at the place of
landing. The effect was to reduce to a minimum the risk
of the introduction of disease amongst the herds and flocks
of the country, and at the same time to confine the trade in
store stock exclusively to the breeders of Great Britain and
Ireland. This arrangement makes no difference to the food-supply
of the people, for dead meat continues to arrive at British
ports in ever-increasing quantity. Moreover, live animals are
admitted freely from certain countries, provided such animals are
slaughtered at the place of landing. At Deptford, for example,
large numbers of cattle and sheep which thus arrive--mainly
from Argentina, Canada and the United States--are at once
slaughtered, and so furnish a steady supply of fresh-killed
beef and mutton. The animals which are shipped in this way
are necessarily of the best quality, because the freight
on a superior beast is no more costly than on an inferior
one, and the proportion of freight to sale price is therefore
less. With this superior description of butchers' stock all
classes of home-grown stock--good, bad and indifferent--have,
of course, to compete. The Board of Agriculture has the power
to close the ports of the United Kingdom against live animals
from any country in which contagious disease is known to
exist. This accounts for the circumstance that so few
countries--none of them in Europe--enjoy the privilege of
sending live animals to British ports. In 1900 the discovery
early in the year of the existence of foot-and-mouth disease
amongst cattle and sheep shipped from Argentina to the United
Kingdom led to the issue of an order by which all British
ports were closed against live animals from the country
named. This order came into force on the 30th of April, and
the result was a marked decline in the shipments of live cattle
and sheep from the River Plate, but a decided increase in the
quantity of frozen meat sent thence to the United Kingdom.
The last quarter of the 19th century witnessed an important
change in the attitude of public opinion towards legislative
control over the contagious diseases of animals. When, after
the introduction of cattle plague or rinderpest in 1865, the
proposal was made to resort to the extreme remedy of slaughter
in order to check the ravages of a disease which was pursuing
its course with ruinous results, the idea was received with
public indignation and denounced as barbarous. Views have
undergone profound modification since then, and the most
drastic remedy has come to be regarded as the most effective,
and in the long run the least costly. The Cattle Diseases
Prevention Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 2) made compulsory the
slaughter of diseased cattle, and permitted the slaughter
of cattle which had been exposed to infection, compensation
being provided out of the rates. The Act 30 & 31 Vict. c.
125, 1867, is of historical interest, in that it contains
the first mention of pleuro-pneumonia, and the exposure in
any market of cattle suffering from that disease was made an
offence. The Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act 1869 (32 & 33
Vict. c. 70) revoked all former acts, and defined disease to
mean cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia, foot-and-mouth disease,
sheep-pox, sheep-scab and glanders, together with any disease
which the Privy Council might by order specify. The principle
of this act in regard to foreign animals was that of free
importation, with power for the Privy Council to prohibit or
subject to quarantine and slaughter, as circumstances seemed to
require. The act of 1869 was at that time the most complete
measure that had ever been passed for dealing with diseases of
animals. The re-introduction of cattle plague into England
in 1877 led to the passing of the Act 41 & 42 Vict. c. 74,
1878, which repealed the act of 1869, and affirmed as a
principle the landing of foreign animals for slaughter only,
though free importation or quarantine on the one hand and
prohibition on the other were provided for in exceptional
circumstances. By an order of council which came into
operation in December 1878, swine fever was declared to be
a disease for the purposes of the act of that year. It was
not, however, till October 1886 that anthrax and rabies were
officially declared to be contagious diseases for the purposes
of certain sections of the act of 1878. In 1884 the Act 47
& 48 Vict. c. 13 empowered the Privy Council to prohibit the
landing of animals from any country in respect of which the
circumstances were not such as to afford reasonable security
against the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease. After one
or two other measures of minor importance came the Act 53 &
54 Vict. c. 14, known as the Pleuro-pneumonia Act 1890, which
transferred the powers of local authorities to slaughter and
pay compensation in cases of pleuro-pneumonia to the Board of
Agriculture, and provided further for the payment of such
compensation out of money specifically voted by parliament.
This measure was regarded at the time as a marked step in
advance, and was only carried after a vigorous campaign in its
favour. In 1892 by the Act 55 & 56 Vict. c. 47 power was given
to the Board of Agriculture to use the sums voted on account
of pleuro-pneumonia for paying the costs involved in dealing
with foot-and-mouth disease; under this act the board could
order the slaughter of diseased animals and of animals in
contact with these, and could pay compensation for animals so
slaughtered. Under the provisions of the Contagious Diseases
(Animals) Act 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 43) swine fever in
Great Britain was, from the 1st of November in that year,
dealt with by the Board of Agriculture in the same way as
pleuro-pneumonia, the slaughter of infected swine being
carried out under directions from the central authority, and
compensation allowed from the imperial exchequer. In 1894 was
passed the Diseases of Animals Act (57 & 58 Vict. c. 57), the
word ``contagious'' being omitted from the title. This was a
measure to consolidate the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts
1878-1893. In it ``the expression `disease' means cattle
plague (that is to say, rinderpest, or the disease commonly
called cattle plague), contagious pleuro-pneumonia of
cattle (in this act called pleuro-pneumonia), foot-and-mouth
disease, sheep-pox, sheep-scab, or swine fever (that is to
say, the disease known as typhoid fever of swine, soldier
purples, red disease, hog cholera or swine plague).'' The
Diseases of Animals Act 1896 (59 & 60 Vict. c. 15) rendered
compulsory the slaughter of imported live stock at the place
of landing, a boon for which British stock-breeders had
striven for many years. The ports in Great Britain at which
foreign animals may be landed are Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow,
Hull, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Animals from the Channel Islands may be landed at Southampton.
The Diseases of Animals.
Under the Diseases of Animals Acts 1894 and 1896 weekly
returns are issued by the Board of Agriculture of outbreaks of
anthrax, foot-and-mouth disease, glanders (including farcy),
pleuro-pneumonia, rabies and swine fever in the counties of
Great Britain; also monthly returns of outbreaks of sheep-scab.
Cattle plague, or rinderpest, has not been recorded in Great
Britain since 1877. In that year there were 47 outbreaks
distributed over five counties and involving 263 head of cattle.
The course of foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain between
1877 and 1905 inclusive is told in Table XX., from which the
TABLE XX.--Outbreaks of Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Great Britain,
1877-1905.
Animals attacked.
Out Other
Year. Counties. Breaks. Cattle. Sheep. Swine. Animals.
1877 55 858 5,640 7,405 2,099
1878 45 235 912 8,609 245
1879 29 137 261 15,681 5
1880 38 1,461 20,918 9,572 1,886 2
1881 49 4,833 59,484 117,152 6,330 80
1882 49 1,970 23,973 11,412 2,564 1
1883 75 18,732 219,289 217,492 24,332 32
1884 55 949 12,186 14,174 1,860 1
1885 10 30 354 34 30
1886 1 1 10
1892 15 95 1,248 3,412 107
1893 2 2 30
1894 3 3 7 261
1900 9 21 214 50 2
1901 3 12 43 626
1902 1 1 2 118
years 1887 to 1891, 1895 to 1899 and 1903 to 1905 inclusive are
omitted, because there was no outbreak during those periods. The
disease is seen to have attained its maximum virulence in 1883.
Sheep-scab is a loathsome skin disease due to an acarian
parasite. Table XXI. shows the number of outbreaks and the
number of counties over which they were distributed from 1877 to
1905. The recorded outbreaks were more numerous in the
decade of the 'nineties than in that of the 'eighties, though
possibly this may have been due to greater official activity
in the later period. The largest number of sheep attacked was
TABLE XXI.--Outbreaks of Sheep-Scab in Great Britain,
1877-1905.
Year. Counties. Outbreaks. Year. Counties. Outbreaks.
1877 77 3214 1890 75 1506
1880 70 1556 1895 88 3092
1885 69 1512 1900 78 1939
1905 73 918
68,715 (in 1877). It is compulsory on owners to notify
the authorities as to the existence of scab amongst their
sheep. By the Diseases of Animals Act(1903) powers to
prescribe the dipping of sheep, irrespective of the presence
or otherwise of sheep scab, were conferred upon the Board of
Agriculture. An inspector of the board or of the local
authority was by the same act authorized to enter premises
and examine sheep. Each year the disorder runs a similar
course, the outbreaks dwindling to a minimum in the summer
months, June to August, and attaining a maximum in the winter
months, December to February. It is chiefly in the ``flying''
flocks and not in the breeding flocks that the disease is
rife, and it is so easily communicable that a drove of
scab-infested sheep passing along a road may leave behind
them traces sufficient to set up the disorder in a drove of
healthy sheep that may follow. For its size and in relation
to its sheep population Wales harbours the disease to a far
greater extent than the other divisions of Great Britain.
The fatal disease known as anthrax did not form the
subject of official returns previous to the passing of
the Anthrax Order of 1886. Isolated outbreaks are of
common occurrence, and from the totals for Great Britain
given in Table XXII. it would appear that there is little
prospect of the eradication of this bacterial disorder.
Glanders (including farcy) was the subject during the twenty-four
years 1877-1900 of outbreaks in Great Britain ranging between
a minimum of 518 in 1877 and a maximum of 1657 in 1892; in
the former year 758 horses were attacked, and in the latter
3001. A recrudescence of the disease marked the closing years
of the 19th century, the outbreaks having been 748 in 1898,
853 in 1899 and 1119 in 1900. The counties of Great Britain
over which the annual outbreaks have been distributed have
ranged between 24 in 1890 and 52 in 1879. As a matter of fact,
TABLE XXII.--Outbreaks of Anthrax in Great Britain,
1895-1905.
Animals Attacked.
Year. Counties. Outbreaks. Cattle. Sheep. Swine. Horses.
1895 66 434 604 158 140 32
1896 64 488 632 34 200 38
1897 67 433 521 39 284 38
1898 73 556 634 22 161 39
1899 67 534 634 69 253 30
1900 74 571 668 40 204 44
1901 63 651 708 76 152 35
1902 71 678 746 50 192 44
1903 78 767 809 48 234 51
1904 77 1049 1115 62 365 47
1905 84 970 1001 53 210 53
however, the disease is strongly centred upon the
metropolitan area, more than half of the outbreaks
being reported from the county of London alone.
The rabies order was passed in 1886, and the number of counties
in Great Britain in which cases of rabies in dogs were reported
in each subsequent year is shown in Table XXIII. In addition
there have been some cases of rabies in animals other than
dogs. The disease was very rife in 1895, but the extensive
application of the muzzling restrictions of the Board of
Agriculture was accompanied by so steady a diminution in the
TABLE XXIII.--Cases of Rabies in Dogs in Great Britain,
1887-1902.
Year. Counties. Cases. Year. Counties. Cases.
1887 28 217 1895 29 672
1888 19 160 1896 41 438
1889 20 312 1897 30 151
1890 20 129 1898 10 17
1891 17 79 1899 4 9
1892 12 38 1900 2 6
1893 18 93 1901 1 1
1894 17 248 1902 4 13
prevalence of the disease, that it was thought the latter had
been extirpated. The entire revocation of the muzzling order,
which accordingly followed, proved, however, to be premature,
and it became necessary to reimpose it in the districts where
it had last been operative, namely, certain parts of South
Wales. No cases were reported in 1903, 1904 or 1905.
Pleuro-pneumonia in Great Britain was dealt with by the
local authorities up to the year 1890. Between 1870 and
1889 the annual outbreaks had ranged between a minimum
of 312 in 1884 and a maximum of 3262 in 1874, the largest
number of cattle attacked in any one year being 7983 in
1872. The largest number of counties over which thin outbreaks
were distributed was 72 in 1873. On the 1st of September
1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed powers with respect to
pleuro-pneumonia under the Diseases of Animals Act of that
year. Their administration was attended by success, for
from 192 outbreaks in Great Britain in 1891 the total fell
to 35 in 1892 and to 9 in 1893. In the four subsequent
years, 1894-1897, the outbreaks numbered 2, 1, 2, and 7
respectively. In January 1898 an outbreak was discovered
in a London cow-shed. This proved to be the last case in
the 19th century of what at one time had been a veritable
scourge to cattle-owners and a source of heavy financial loss.
Between 1879 and 1892 inclusive, administration with regard to
swine-fever was entrusted to local authorities. The largest
number of outbreaks neported in any one of those years was 7926
in 1885, and the smallest 1717 in 1881. In 1893 the Board of
Agriculture took over the management, and Table XXIV. shows
the number of counties in which swine-fever existed, the number
of outbreaks confirmed and the number of swine slaughtered
by order of the board in each year since. The trouble with
this disease has been mainly in England, the outbreaks in
Wales and Scotland being comparatively few. What are termed
``swine-fever infected areas'' are scheduled by the board
when and where circumstances seem to require, and the movement
TABLE XXIV.--Outbreaks of Swine Fever in Great Britain,
1894-1905.
Swine slaughtered as
Outbreaks diseased, or as having been
Year. Counties. confirmed. exposed to infection.
1894 73 5682 56,296
1895 73 6305 69,931
1896 77 5166 79,586
1897 74 2155 40,432
1898 72 2514 43,756
1899 71 2322 30,797
1900 62 1940 17,933
1901 71 3140 15,237
1902 67 1688 8,263
1903 63 1478 7,933
1904 64 1196 5,603
1905 58 817 3,876
of swine within such areas is prohibited, much inconvenience
to trade resulting from restrictions of this kind. Frequently,
moreover, the exhibition of pigs at agricultural shows has to
be abandoned in consequence of these swine-fever regulations.
The Trade in Live Stock Between Ireland and Great Britain.
The compulsory slaughter at the place of landing does not
extend to animals shipped from Ireland into Great Britain,
and this is a matter of the highest importance to Irish
stock-breeders, who find their best market close at hand
on the east of St George's Channel. Table XXV. shows the
number of cattle, sheep and pigs shipped from Ireland into
Great Britain in each of the fifteen years 1891-1905, the
numbers of horses similarly shipped being also indicated.
On the average rather more than half the total of cattle
is made up of store animals for fattening or breeding
purposes, the fattening of Irish stores being a business of
considerable magnitude in Norfolk and other counties. Calves
constitute about one-twelfth of the total number of cattle.
TABLE XXV.--Imports of Live Stock from Ireland into Great
Britain, 1891-1905.
Year. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs. Horses.
1891 630,802 893,175 503,584 33,396
1892 624,457 1,080,202 500,951 32,481
1893 688,669 1,107,960 456,571 30,390
1894 826,954 957,101 584,967 33,589
1895 791,607 652,578 547,220 34,560
1896 681,560 737,306 610,589 39,856
1897 746,012 804,515 695,307 38,422
1898 803,362 833,458 588,785 38,804
1899 772,272 871,953 688,553 42,087
1900 745,519 862,263 715,202 35,606
1901 642,638 843,325 596,129 25,607
1902 959,241 1,055,802 637,972 25,260
1903 897,645 825,679 569,920 27,719
1904 772,363 739,266 505,080 27,500
1905 749,131 700,626 363,823 30,723
Most of the pigs sent from Ireland into Great Britain are fat,
the store pigs accounting for less than one-tenth of the total
number. The returns from Ireland under the Diseases of Animals
Acts 1894 and 1896 are less significant than those of Great
Britain. Thus, in the year ending June 1905, they included
4 outbreaks of anthrax, 219 of swine-fever and 343 of
sheep-scab, while there were no cases of rabies. Compared
with the export trade in live stock from Ireland to Great
Britain the reciprocal trade from Great Britain to Ireland
is small, and is largely restricted to animals for breeding
purposes. Owing to the reappearance of foot-and-mouth
disease in Great Britain early in 1900 the importation of
cattle, sheep, goats and swine therefrom into Ireland was
temporarily suspended by the authorities in the latter country.
Exports of Animals from the United Kingdom.
The general export trade of the United Kingdom in living animals
represented an aggregate average annual value over the five
years 1896-1900 of L. 1,017,000 as against L. 935,801 over the
five years 1901-1905. To these sums the value of horses alone
contributed about three-fourths, Belgium taking more than half
the number of exported horses. The export trade in cattle,
sheep and pigs is practically restricted to pedigree animals
required for breeding purposes, and though its aggregate value
TABLE XXVI.--Quantities and Value of Home-bred Live Stock
Exported from the United Kingdom, 1900-1905.
Other
Year. Horses. Cattle. Sheep. Pigs. Animals.
1900 30,038 2,742 4,934 435 75,642
1901 27,612 1,648 2,761 378 68,012
1902 30,032 2,428 3,596 515 60,941
1903 34,798 2,736 5,579 776 52,095
1904 32,955 3,311 8,142 732 50,873
1905 47,708 3,938 8,378 931 50,307
pounds pounds pounds pounds pounds
1900 681,927 118,337 53,306 3032 45,241
1901 605,699 61,812 25,727 3437 45,476
1902 635,661 96,153 29,069 5053 56,691
1903 734,598 140,244 67,758 7053 48,335
1904 581,339 146,210 88,421 7850 43,868
1905 875,647 190,406 133,413 8024 41,061
is not large it is of considerable importance to stock-breeders,
as it is a frequent occurrence for buyers for export--to
Argentina, Australasia, Canada, the United States and
elsewhere--to bid freely at the sale rings, and often to pay
the highest prices, thus stimulating the sales and encouraging
the breeding of the best types of native stock. Details
for the six years 1900-1905 are summarized in Table XXVI.
Implements and Machinery.
It is the custom of the Royal Agricultural Society of England
to invite competitions at its annual shows in specified
classes of implements, and an enumeration of these will
indicate the character of the appliances which were thus
brought into prominence in the latter years of the 19th and
the early years of the 20th century. These trials taking
place, with few intermissions, year after year serve to direct
the public mind to the development, which is continually
in progress, of the mechanical aids to agriculture. The
awards here summarized are quite distinct from those of
silver medals which are given by the society in the case
of articles possessing sufficient merit, which are entered
as ``new implements for agricultural or estate purposes.''
In 1875, at Taunton, special prizes were awarded for
one-horse and two-horse mowing-machines, hay-making machines,
horse-rakes (self-acting and not self-acting), guards to
the drums of threshing-machines, and combined guards and
feeders to the drums of threshing-machines. In 1876, at
Birmingham, the competitions were of self-delivery reapers,
one-horse reapers and combined mowers and reapers without
self-delivery. In 1878, at Bristol, the special awards were
all for dairy appliances --milk-can for conveying milk long
distances, churn for milk, churn for cream, butter-worker for
large dairies, butterworker for small dairies, cheese-tub,
curd knife, curd mill, cheese-turning apparatus, automatic
means of preventing rising of cream, milk-cooler and cooling
vat. A gold medal was awarded for a harvester and self-binder
(McCormick's). In 1879, at Kilburn, the competition was of
railway waggons to convey perishable goods long distances
at low temperatures. In 1880 at Carlisle, and in 1881 at
Derby, the special awards were for broadside steam-diggers
and string sheaf-binders respectively. In 1882, at Reading,
a gold medal was given for a cream separator for horse
power, whilst a prize of 100 guineas offered for the most
efficient and most economical method of drying hay or corn
crops artificially, either before or after being stacked,
was not awarded. In 1883, at York, a prize of L. 50 was
given for a butter dairy suitable for not more than twenty
cows. In 1884, at Shrewsbury, a prize of L. 100 was awarded
for a sheaf-binding reaper, and one of L. 50 for a similar
machine. In 1885, at Preston, the competitions were concerned
with two-horse, three-horse and four-horse whipple-trees,
and packages for conveying fresh butter by rail. In 1886,
at Norwich, a prize of L. 25 was awarded for a thatch-making
machine. In 1887, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, a prize of L. 200 went
to a compound portable agricultural engine, one of L. 100 to
a simple portable agricultural engine, and lesser prizes to
a weighing-machine for horses and cattle, a weighing-machine
for sheep and pigs, potato-raisers and one-man-power cream
separators. In 1888, at Nottingham, hay and straw presses for
steam-power, horse-power and hand-power were the subjects of
competition. In 1889, at Windsor, prizes were awarded
for a fruit and vegetable evaporator, a paring and coring
machine, a dairy thermometer, parcel post butter-boxes to
carry different weights. and a vessel to contain preserved
butter. In 1890, at Plymouth, competitions took place
of light portable engines (a) using solid fuel, (b)
using liquid or gaseous fuel, grist mills for use on a
farm, disintegrators, and cider-making plant for use on a
farm. In 1891, at Doncaster, special prizes were given
for combined portable threshing and finishing machines, and
cream separators (hand and power). In 1892, at Warwick,
the competitions related to ploughs--single furrow (a) for
light land, (b) for strong land, (c) for press drill and
broad-cast sowing; two-furrow; three-furrow; digging (a)
for light land, (b) for heavy land; and one-way ploughs. In
1893, at Chester, self-binding harvesters and sheep-shearing
machines (power) were the appliances respectively in
competition. In 1894, at Cambridge, the awards were for fixed
and portable oil engines, potato-spraying and tree-spraying
machines, sheep-dipping apparatus and churns. In 1895, at
Darlington, the competitions were confined to hay-making
machines and clover-making machines. In 1896, at Leicester,
prizes were awarded after trial to potato-planting machines,
potato-raising machines and butter-drying machines. In 1897,
at Manchester, special awards were made for fruit baskets and
milk-testers. In 1898, at Birmingham, a prize of L. 100 was
given for a self-moving vehicle for light loads, L. 100 and
L. 50 for self-moving vehicles for heavy loads, and L. 10 for
safety feeder to chaff-cutter, in accordance with the
Chaff-cutting Machines (Accidents) Act 1897. In 1899, at
Maidstone, special prizes were offered for machines for washing
hops with liquid insecticides, cream separators (power and
hand), machines for the evaporation of fruit and vegetables,
and packages for the carriage of (a) soft fruit, (b) hard
fruit. In 1900, at York, the competitions were concerned
with horse-power cultivators, self-moving steam diggers,
milking machines and sheep-shearing machines (power and
hand). In 1901, at Cardiff, competition was invited in portable
oil engines, agricultural locomotive oil engines and small
ice-making plant suitable for a dairy. In the years 1903 and
1904 petrol motors adapted for ploughing and other agricultural
operations formed a prominent feature of the exhibits.
The progress of steam cultivation has not justified the hopes
that were once entertained in the United Kingdom concerning
this method of working implements in the field. It was about
the year 1870 that its advantages first came into prominent
notice. At that time, owing to labour disputes, the supply of
hands was short and horses were dear. The wet seasons that set
in at the end of the 'seventies led to so much hindrance in the
work on the land that the aid of steam was further called for,
and it seemed probable that there would be a lessened demand
for horse power. It was found, however, that the steam work
was done with less care than had been bestowed upon the horse
tillage, and the result was that steam came to be regarded as
an auxiliary to horse labour rather than as a substitute for
it. In this capacity it is capable of rendering most valuable
assistance, for it can be utilized in moving extensive areas
of land in a very short time. Accordingly, when a few days
occur early in the season favourable to the working of the
land, much of it can be got into a forward condition, whilst
horses are set free for the lighter operations. The crops
can then be sown in due time, which in wet years, and with
the usual teams of horses kept on a farm, is not always
practicable. Much advantage arises from the steam working of
bastard fallows in summer, and after harvest a considerable
amount of autumn cultivation can be done by steam power,
thus materially lightening the work in the succeeding
spring. On farms of moderate size it is usual to hire steam
tackle as required, the outlay involved in the purchase of
a set being justifiable only in the case of estates or of
very big farms where, when not engaged in ploughing, or in
cultivating, or in other work upon the land, the steam-engine
may be employed in threshing, chaff-cutting, sawing and many
similar operations which require power. The labour question
again became acute in the early years of the 20th century,
when, owing to the scarcity of hands and the high rate of
wages, self-binding harvesters were resorted to in England
for the in-gathering of the corn crops to a greater extent
than ever before. For the same reason potato-planting and
potato-lifting machines were also in greater requisition.
Agricultural Population and Wages.
The last half of the 19th century witnessed a remarkable
diminution of the British rural population. The decrease
has assumed serious proportions since 1871, as before that
date the supply of rural labour exceeded the demand. A
large number of agricultural labourers were thus only in
partial employment, and their withdrawal from the land
was of minor importance as compared with the shrinkage in
the number of those permanently employed. The following
tables indicate the extent of rural depopulation:--
Number of ``Persons Engaged in Agriculture'' in the United
Kingdom, 1851-1901.
1851. 1861. 1871. 1881. 1891. 1901.
3,453,500 3,080,500 2,744,000 2,573,900 2,394,500 2,262,600
The number of ``agricultural labourers and shepherds, which affords
a more precise index, declined in a still more marked degree.
1851. 1861. 1871. 1881. 1891. 1901.
1,110,311 1,098,261 923,332 830,452 756,557 609,105
The decrease in the demand for labour is attributable
chiefly to the reduction of the cultivated area and the
laying down to pasture of land once under the plough, and
to the increasing use of agricultural machinery. It may
however, be noticed that the period was marked by a steady
increase of the cash wages of the farm labourer, as indicated
by the following table from the Report on the Earnings of
Agricultural labourers issued by the Board of Trade in 1905.
Average Weekly Cash Wages of Ordinary Agricultural
Labourers Employed on Certain Farms in England and Wales.
England and Wales, Eastern counties,
Year. 69 Farms. 12 Farms.
s. d. s. d.
1850 9 3 1/2 8 8
1855 10 11 1/2 11 5
1860 10 11 10 8
1865 11 3 10 5
1870 11 10 1/2 11 1 1/2
1875 13 7 12 11 1/2
1880 13 2 1/2 12 1
1885 13 1 11 5
1890 13 0 1/2 11 0 1/2
1895 13 2 1/2 11 0
1900 14 5 1/2 13 1 1/2
1903 14 7 13 2 1/2
(See also ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS.)
Agricultural Education.
In Great Britain agricultural education as a whole lacks
the scope and co-ordination which it has in some continental
countries. Centres at which higher agricultural education
is given are, however, numerous. The chief are:--
The Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester
Aspatria Agricultural College, Carlisle.
Tamworth Agricultural College.
*Agricultural and Horticultural College, Uckfield, Sussex.
*Agricultural and Horticultural College, Holme Chapel, Cheshire.
*Midland Agricultural and Dairy College, Kingston, Derby.
*Harper-Adams Agricultural College, Newport, Salop.
*Lancashire County School, Harris Institute, Preston.
*University College of North Wales, Bangor.
*University of Leeds.
*Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
*Cambridge University.
*University College, Reading.
*South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye.
*University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.
*Agricultural Institute, Ridgmont (Bedfordshire County Council).
*Essex County Technical Laboratories, Chelmsford.
In the year 1904-1905 L. 10,600 was devoted by the Board of
Agriculture to agricultural instruction and experiments. Of
this sum the greater part was divided amongst the institutions
marked with an asterisk in the above list. The first three
named are private establishments. The county councils also
expend sums varying at their own discretion on instruction in
dairy-work, poultry-keeping, farriery and veterinary science,
horticulture, agricultural experiments, agricultural lectures
at various centres, scholarships at, and grants to, agricintural
colleges and schools; the whole amount in 1904-1905 reaching
L. 87,472.12 The sum spent by individual counties varies
considerably. In 1904-1905 Lancashire (L. 8510), Kent (L. 5922) and
Cheshire (L. 4310) spent most in this direction. In some
instances colleges are supported entirely by one county, as
is the Holmes Chapel College, Cheshire; in others a college
is supported by several affiliated counties, as in the case
of the agricultural department of the University College,
Reading, which acts in connexion with the counties of Berks,
Oxon, Hants and Buckingham. The organization and supply of
county agricultural instruction is often carried out through the
medium of the institution to which the county is affiliated.
In Scotland higher agricultural instruction is given at:-
Edinburgh and East of Scotland Agricultural College.
Edinburgh University, Agriculture Department.
West of Scotland Agricultural College, Glasgow.
Aberdeen and North of Scotland Agricultural College.
University of St. Andrews.
A typical course at one of the higher colleges lasts for two
years and includes instruction under the heads of soils and
manure, crops and pasture, live stock, foods and feeding,
dairy work, farm and estate management and farm bookkeeping,
surveying, agricultural buildings and machinery, agricultural
chemistry, agricultural botany, veterinary science and agricultural
entomology. Experimental farms are attached to the colleges.
The facilities for intermediate are far inferior to those for
higher agricultural education. Schools for farmers' sons and
daughters, and others, answering to the ecoles pratiques
d'agriculture (see FRANCE), are few, the principal being
the Dauntsey Agricultural School, Wiltshire, the Hampshire
Farm School, Basing, and the Farm School at Newton Rigg,
Penrith, Cumberland, maintained by the county councils of
Cumberland and Westmorland. Occasionally grammar schools
have agricultural sides, and in evening continuation schools
agricultural classes are sometimes held. Both elementary
day schools and continuation schools are in many cases
provided with gardens in which horticultmal teaching is given.
In Ireland agricultural education is under the supervision of
the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for
Ireland, founded in 1899. Higher education is given at the
Royal College of Science, Dublin; the Albert Agricultural
College, Glasnevin; and the Munster Institute, Cork, for female
students, where dairying and poultry-keeping are prominent
subjects. Winter classes for boys over sixteen years of
age are held at centres in some counties, and there are
winter schools of agriculture at Downpatrick, Monaghan
and Mount Bellew (Co. Galway); while lectures are given at
farmers' meetings by itinerant instructors. The Department
carries on agricultural experiment-stations at Athenry
(Co. Galway), Ballyhaise (Co. Cavan) and Clonakilty (Co.
Cork), where farm apprentices are received and instructed.
Agriculture in the United States
Agriculture has been the chief and most characteristic work
of the American people, that in which they have achieved the
greatest results in proportion to the resources at command, that
in which their economic superiority has been most strikingly
manifest. In ten years from 1790, the mean population of the
period being 4,500,000, 65,000 sq. m. were for the first time
brought within the limits of settlement, crossed with roads and
bridges, covered with dwellings, both public and private, much
of it also cleared of primeval forest; and this in addition
to keeping up and improving the whole extent of previous
settlements, and building towns and cities, at a score of favoured
points. In the next decade, the mean number of inhabitants
being about 6,500,000, population extended itself over 98,000
sq. m. of absolutely new territory, an area eight times as
large as Holland. Between 1810 and 1820, besides increasing
the density of population on almost every league of the older
territory, besides increasing their manufacturing capital
twofold, in spite of a three years' war, the people of the
United States advanced their frontier to occupy 101,000 sq.
m., the mean population being 8,250,000. Between 1820 and
1830, 124,000 sq. m. were brought within the frontier and made
the seat of habitation and cultivation; between 1830 and 1840,
175,000 sq. m.; between 1840 and 1850, 215,000 sq. m. The Civil
War, indeed, checked the westward flow of population, though
it caused no refluence, but after 1870 great progress was
made in the creation of new farms and the development of old.
That which has allowed this great work to be done so rapidly
and fortunately has been, first, the popular tenure of the soil,
and, secondly, the character of the agricultural class. At
no time have the cultivators of the soil north of the Potomac
and Ohio constituted a peasantry in the ordinary sense of that
term. They have been the same kind of men, out of precisely
the same homes, generally with the same early training, as
those who filled the learned professions or who were engaged
in manufacturing or commercial pursuits. Switzerland and
Scotland have, in a degree, approached the United States in
this particular; but there is no other considerable country
where as much mental activity and alertness has been applied
to the cultivation of the soil as to trade and manufactures.
But even the causes which have been adduced would have failed
to produce such effects but for the exceptional inventive
ingenuity of the American. The mechanical genius which
has entered into manufacturing in the United States, the
engineering skill which has guided the construction of the
greatest works of the continent, have been far exceeded
in the hurried ``improvements'' of the pioneer farm; in
the housing of women, children and live stock and gathered
crops against the storms of the first few winters; in
the rough-and-ready reconnaissances which determined the
``lay of the land'' and the capabilities of the soil; in
the preparation for the thousand exigencies of primitive
agriculture. It is no exaggeration to say that the chief
manufacture of the United States, prior to 1900, was the
manufacture of 5,740,000 farms, comprising 841,200,000 acres.
The people of the United States, finding themselves on a
continent containing an almost limitless extent of land
of fair average fertility, having at the start but little
accumulated capital and urgent occasions for the economy of
labour, have elected to regard the land in the earliest
stages of occupation as practically of no value, and to regard
labour as of high value. In pursuance of this view they
have freely sacrificed the land, so far as was necessary, in
order to save labour, systematically cropping the fields on
the principle of obtaining the largest results with the least
expenditure, limiting improvements to what was demanded for
immediate uses, and caring little about returning to the
soil an equivalent for the properties taken from it in the
harvests of successive years. But, so far as the northern
states are concerned, the enormous profits of this alleged
wasteful cultivation have in the main been applied, not to
personal consumption, but to permanent improvements,--not
indeed to improvements of the land, but to what were still
more needed in the situation, namely, improvements upon the
land. The first-fruits of a virgin soil have been expended in
forms which have vastly enhanced the productive power of the
country. The land, doubtless, as one factor of that productive
power, became temporarily less efficient than it would have
been under a conservative European treatment; but the joint
product of the three factors--land, labour and capital--was
for the time enormously increased. Under this regimen
the fertility of the land, of course, in time necessarily
declined, sooner or later, according to the nature of the
crops grown and to the degree of original strength in the
soil. Resort was then had to new fields farther west. The
granary of the continent moved first to western New York,
thence into the Ohio valley, and then, again, to the banks
of the Mississippi. The north and south line dividing the
wheat product of the United States into two equal parts was
in 1850 drawn along the 82nd meridian (81 deg. 58 minutes 49
seconds). In 1860 that line was drawn along the 86th
(86 deg. 1 minute 38 seconds), in 1870 along the 89th (88 deg.
48 minutes 40 seconds), in 1880 along the 90th (90 deg. 30
minutes 46 seconds), in 1890 along the 93rd (93 deg. 9 minutes
18 seconds), and in 1900 along the 95th (94 deg. 59 minutes 23
seconds). Meanwhile one portion of the inhabitants of the
earlier settlements joined in the movement across the face
of the continent. As the grain centre passed on to the west
they followed it, too restless by character and habit to
find pleasure in the work of stable communities. A second
portion of the inhabitants became engaged in raising, upon
limited areas, small crops, garden vegetables and orchard
fruits, and in producing butter, milk, poultry and eggs, for
the suoply of the cities and manufacturing towns which had
been built up out of the abundant profits of the primitive
agriculture. Still another portion of the agricultural
population gradually became occupied in the more careful and
intense culture of the cereal crops upon the better lands, the
less eligible fields being allowed to spring up in brush and
wood. Deep ploughing and thorough drainage were resorted to;
fertilizers were employed to bring up and to keep up the soil;
and thus began the serious systematic agriculture of the older
states. Something continued to be done in wheat, but not
much. New York raised 13 million bushels in 1850; thirty
years later she raised 11 1/2 million bushels; and fifty years
later 10 1/2 million bushels. Pennsylvania raised 15 1/2 million
bushels in 1850; in 1880 she raised 19 1/2 million bushels; and
in 1900 20 1/2 million bushels. More is done in Indian corn
(maize), that most prolific cereal, the backbone of American
agriculture; still more is done relatively in buckwheat,
barley and rye. Pennsylvania, though the eleventh state in
wheat production in 1905, stood first in rye and second in
buckwheat (ninth in oats) New York was only twenty-first in
wheat, but first in buckwheat (tenth in barley), fourth in
rye. We do not, however, reach the full significance of
the situation until we account for the fourth portion of the
former agricultural population, in noting how naturally and
fortunately commercial and manufacturing cities spring up
in the sites which have been prepared for them by the lavish
expenditure of the enormous profits of a primitive agriculture
upon permanently useful improvements of a constructive
character. These towns are the gifts of agriculture.
Besides the extension of cultivated area, very little was
accomplished in the way of agricultural improvement before
1850. With some few exceptions the methods of cultivation were
substantially the same as those of colonial days, and were marked
by crudeness, waste and a general adherence to rule-of-thumb
principles. The year 1850 roughly marks the beginning of a
period of improvement and development. The Irish famine of
1846 and the German political troubles of 1848 were followed
by an unprecedented emigration to America of highly desirable
European labourers, for whom there were cheap and abundant
lands. The period from 1850 to 1870 was marked by a steady
growth, which, in the western states, was highly stimulated by
the Civil War. While this conflict withdrew a certain amount
of productive energy from agricultural pursuits, it tended
at the same time to increase the value of farm labour and of
farm products and to extend the use of machinery in order to
offset the deficient labour supply. Agricultural machinery
had been employed before the war, but only to a very small
extent. In 1864, 70,000 reapers and mowers were manufactured,
twice as many as in 1862, and manufacturers were unable to
supply the demand. Moreover, in the years 1860, 1861 and 1862
the wheat crops of Great Britain and the European continent
were failures, while those of the United States, far removed
from the theatre of military operations, were unusually
large. The wheat exports to Great Britain in 1861 were three
times as great as those of any previous year, and the strong
demand from abroad was an additional stimulus to higher
prices. In 1864 agricultural prices were from 100 to
200% higher than in 1861, while transportation charges had
only slightly advanced and in some instances had actually
decreased. In the middle of the war the farmers' profits
were normal; toward the end they had increased enormously.
This marvellous agricultural prosperity of a nation engaged
in one of the world's most formidable wars has no counterpart
in modern history. In the decade from 1860 to 1870 there
was a steady increase in cultivated area, in agricultural
products and in population. The value of the farm lands in
the northern states in 1870 exceeded that of 1860 by five
dollars an acre. On the other hand, the farm lands of the
southern states had declined in value to an almost equal
amount; but after 1870 these states also made substantial
progress, and in 1880 they produced more cotton than in 1860,
when the greatest crop under the slave system was grown.
Since 1870 the most important factors in this development have
been the employment of more scientific methods of production
and the more extensive use of machinery. The study of soils
with a view of adapting to them the most suitable crops and
fertilizers; the increased attention given to diversified
farming and crop rotation; the introduction and successful
growth of new plants (e.g. the date palm in Arizona and
California, and tea in South Carolina); tile drainage; the
ensilage of forage; more careful selection in breeding;
the use of inoculation to prevent Texas fever in cattle and
cholera in swine, of tuberculin to discover the presence
of tuberculosis in cows, of organic ferments to hasten
the progress of butter-making, of the ``Babcock test'' for
ascertaining the amount of fat in milk, of fungicides and
insecticides to destroy fruit and vegetable pests,--such are
but a few manifestations of the spread of scientific knowledge
among the farming population of the United States. Nearly
every county has some sort of agricultural society; in 1899
there were about 1500 of these organizations, some of which,
especially those holding annual fairs, received state aid.
With the improvement in technical processes of production
came the conquest of the arid regions of the western states.
Irrigation was first employed in the west by the Mormons in
1847; but as late as 1870 only about 20,000 acres had been
irrigated. In 1880 the irrigated area was approximately
1,000,000 acres, and in the decade from 1889 to 1899 it
increased from 3,631,381 to 7,539,545 acres, a gain of
107.6%. By 1902 there had been a still further increase to
9,478,852 acres, a gain of 25.7% in three years. As many
of the streams available for irrigation purposes lie within
more than one state, the control of water supply is a proper
matter for federal jurisdiction, and in June 1902 Congress
provided for an extensive system of irrigation works in
thirteen states and three territories. The cost of the work
is defrayed from the proceeds of the sales of government
lands within the states and territories affected by the
act. The measure is not paternalistic; the settlers on the
lands, which are divided into farms of not less than 40 nor
more than 160 acres, are required to make annual payments to
the government in proportion to the water service they have
received, until the original cost of the works has been
met. The first of these works, the so-called Truckee-Carson
project, of Nevada, was completed in June 1905, and at the
end of that year eight projects, in as many different states,
were under construction; bids had been received for three
more, and the seven others had received the approval of the
secretary of the interior. With these initial undertakings
it was estimated that 1,000,859 acres could be reclaimed.
In addition to supplying the soils with water, means have
been found of ridding them of their alkali, or of rendering
it harmless; and this is an element of reclamation hardly
less important than irrigation itself. A third step in the
reclamation of desert lands is arid farming--that is, the
adapting to the soils of crops that require a minimum amount of
moisture, and the utilization, to the fullest possible extent,
of the meagre amount of rainfall in the region. Experiments
conducted in this direction in Utah produced promising results.
The development of farming machinery has kept pace with the
general progress in scientific agriculture. Although numerous
patents were issued for such machinery before 1850, its use, with
the exception of the cotton gin, was very restricted before that
date. Even iron ploughs were not in general use until 1842,
and a really scientific plough was practically unknown before
1870. Thirty years later the large farms of the Pacific
states were ploughed, harrowed and sowed with wheat in a
single operation by fifty-horse-power traction engines drawing
ploughs, harrows and press drills. Since 1850 there has
been a transition from the sickle and the scythe to a machine
that in one operation mows, threshes, cleans and sacks the
wheat, and in five minutes after touching the standing grain
has it ready for the market. Hay-stackers, potato planters
and diggers, feed choppers and grinders, manure-spreaders,
check-row corn planters and ditch-digging machines are some
of the common labour-saving devices. By the 28th of August
1907 the United States Patent Office had issued patents for
13,212 harvesting machines, 6352 threshers, 6680 harrows and
diggers, 9649 seeders and planters, and 13,171 ploughs. In the
manufacture of agricultural machinery the United States leads the
world. The total value of the implements and machinery used
by farmers of the United States in 1880 was $406,520,055; in
1890 $494,247,467; in 1900 $761,261,550, a gain in this last
decade of 54%. The total value of the implements and machinery
manufactured in 1850 was $6,842,611; in 1880 $68,640,486; in
1890 $81,271,651; in 1900 $101,207,428.These figures, however,
are a very poor indication of the actual use of machinery,
on account of the rapid decrease in prices following its
manufacture on a more extensive scale and by improved methods.
The effects of the new agriculture are apparent from the
following figures: By the methods of 1830 it required
64 hours and 15 minutes of man-labour and cost $3.71 to
produce an acre of wheat; by the methods employed in 1896
it required 2 hours and 58 minutes of man-labour and cost 72
cents. To produce an acre of barley in 1830 required 63 hours
of man-labour and cost $3.59; in 1896 it required 2 hours
and 43 minutes and cost 60 cents. An acre of oats produced
by the methods of 1830 required 66 hours and 15 minutes of
man-labour and cost $3.73; the methods of 1893 required only
7 hours and 6 minutes and cost $1.07. With the same unit of
labour the average quantity of all leading crops produced by
modern methods is about five times as great as that produced
by the methods employed in 1850, and the cost of production
is reduced by one half. From 1880 to 1900 the average number
of acres of leading crops per male worker increased from
23.3 to 31.0, or 34%; the number of horses per worker from
1.7 to 2.3, or 35%; and the value of agricultural product
per person employed from $286.82 to $454.37, or 58.4%.
There are numerous other factors that have operated to the
benefit of the agriculturist. Increased transportation
facilities and lower freight charges have widened his market.
The processes of canning, packing, preserving and refrigerating
have produced a similar effect, and have also provided a means
for the disposal of surplus perishable products that otherwise
would be lost. The utilization of by-products, as, for
example, the conversion of cotton seed into oil, fertilizers
and food for live stock, has become another source of profit.
Great economic and social changes have resulted from this
progress. There has been a great division of labour in
agriculture. Makers of agricultural implements, of butter
and cheese, cotton ginners, grist and wheat millers, are now
classed in the United States census reports as manufacturers,
but all their work was once done on the farm. The farmer
is now more of a specialist and more dependent on other
industries than formerly. He has changed from a producer for
home consumption or a local market to a producer for a world
market. Unfortunately, his knowledge of economic laws has
lagged behind his progress in scientific agriculture. The
farming class at times have experienced periods of great
depression, largely on account of their inability to adjust
their crops to changing conditions in the world's markets,
and in such cases have been prone to seek a remedy in radical
legislation. Periods of agricultural discontent at different times
have been marked by the political activity of the ``Grangers''
and of the ``Farmers' Alliance.'' and even by the formation
of new political parties such as the Greenback party in 1874
and the Populist or People's party in 1892--whose strength
lay mainly in the agricultural states. The new industrial
conditions that produced combinations among manufacturers
were much slower in their effect upon the farming element, but
gradually led to increasing co-operation and to the organization
of the growers of various commodities for marketing their
crops. The fruit growers of California and the tobacco
growers of Kentucky have furnished interesting examples of such
organizations. Under the improved conditions there is less
drudgery on the farm; the farmer does more work, produces
more, and yet has more leisure than formerly. Better roads,
rural free mail delivery, telephone and electric lines are
removing the isolation of country life, and to some extent are
diminishing the attractions of the cities for the rural population.
Covering as it does the breadth of the North American continent,
with 3,000,000 sq. m. of land surface, not including Alaska
and the islands, of which over 800,000,000 acres are in farms
and over 400,000,000 in actual cultivation, representing every
variety of soil and all the climatic life zones of the world,
except the extreme boreal and the hottest tropical, the United
States affords an important subject of study in respect of
agriculture. Its cotton, wheat and meat are large factors
in all markets,and its many other agricultural products are
distributed throughout the civilized world. To the student the
equipment and methods of agriculture in the United States form
as interesting a subject of examination as do its resources and
production. In quantity, distribution and inter-relation of heat
and moisture --the chief factors in agricultural production--the
United States is greatly blessed. We find in this vast
territory all the agricultural belts mapped by the biologist,
producing all varieties of cereals, fruits and breeds of live
stock, whilst all kinds of soils, adapted to different crops,
are spread out at all altitudes from 8000 ft. down to sea-level.
The story of the vast and varied agriculture of the United States
can be outlined by extracts from the figures published by the
Census, the Agricultural and other government departments.
Farms.
As a result of the great supply of available land the
number of farms in the United States increased between 1850
and 1900 from 1,449,073 to 5,739,657; their total acreage
increased from 293,560,614 to 841,201,546 acres; their
improved acreage increased from 113,032,614 to 414,793,191
acres; and their unimproved13 acreage from 180,528,000
to 426,408,355 acres. Table XXVII. exhibits the increases
of number of farms, total and improved acreage by decades.
The largest percentage of increase of improved land was 50.7,
from 1870 to 1880; the lowest was in the decade 1860 to 1870,
the period of the Civil War, and was 15.8. The chief cause
of this wonderful development of agriculture is the large area
of cheap public lands which has been available for immigrants
and natives alike. Up to 1906, under the Homestead Act of
the 20th of May 1862, the number of entries, both final and
pending, covered 185,385,000 acres. Between 1875 and 1905
the public and Indian lands sold for cash and under homestead
and timber culture laws, as well as those allotted by scrip,
granted to the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts and
other institutions, and by military bounty land warrants, and
selected by states and railroad corporations, covered about
430,000,000 acres. In addition to this, the states and railroad
corporations sold a large amount of land to farmers of which
we have no accurate record. This vast territory, greater
TABLE XXVII.--Percentage of Increase of Number and Acreage of
Farms by Census Decades.
Number of Acreage.
The United States. Farms. Total. Improved.
1850 to 1860 41.1 38.7 44.3
1860 to 1870 30.1 0.1 15.8
1870 to 1880 50.7 31.5 50.7
1880 to 1890 13.9 16.2 25.6
1890 to 1900 25.7 35.0 16.0
1850 to 1900 296.0 186.5 267.1
in extent than Germany and France combined, was added to
the farms of the country in thirty years. In many cases
railroad building has made the settlement of the public
lands possible for the first time, and the building of branch
lines, by providing means for transporting products to
market, has greatly facilitated the acquisition of other
lands. The mileage of railways increased 310.7% between
1870 and 1905. The interesting fact is that this increase
corresponds geographically to the increase in farms.
The agricultural statistics do not include any farm of less
than three acres unless it produced at least $500 worth of
products in the preceding year. The census of 1900 showed
that the average size of farms was 146 acres, or nine acres
more than in 1890 and 57 acres less than in 1850. This
fact, however, does not indicate a general tendency toward
the consolidation of holdings. The increase in the average
size of farms for the whole country is due to the extension
of grazing lands in the Rocky Mountain region and in Texas,
and to the enlargement of the wheat fields in the Mississippi
valley. On the other hand, in the southern states there
has been a steady breaking up of holdings and decrease in
the average size of farms since the close of the Civil War.
In the New England states, where dairying has become the
leading agricultural industry, there was an increase of 2
acres in the size of farms during the decade 1890-1900.
This increase was more than offset by the decrease in the
Atlantic states from New York to Maryland inclusive (2.8
acres), where there has been a subdivision of farms following
the increased attention given to the growing of fruits and
vegetables for cities. The same tendency is noted in the
states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. As will be seen from
Table XXVIII., the average farm, which steadily diminished
in size from 1850 to 1880, increased between 1880 and 1900.
TABLE XXVIII.--Average Acreage of Farms and Proportion of
Improved Land Therein.
Proportion of
Whole Farm. Improved Land.
1850 202.6 38.5
1860 199.2 40.1
1870 153.3 46.3
1880 133.7 53.1
1890 136.5 57.4
1900 146.6 49.3
The acreage of North Atlantic farms decreased from 112.6
in 1850 to 95.3 in 1890, and increased in 1890-1900 to 96.5
acres. In the north Atlantic states the average was 376.4 acres
in 1850, and there has been steady decrease, so that in 1900
it was 108.4, or one-third less than the average for the entire
country. In the north central states the averages of 1850
and 1900 were nearly the same (143.3 and 144.5 respectively),
with the minimum (121.9 acres) in 1880. The south central
states averaged 291 acres in 1850, 321.3 in 1860, 144 in
1890, and 155.4 in 1900. The maximum decade for the western
states was that ending in 1850 (694.9 acres), and the minimum
1880 (312.9); and the average in 1900 was 386.1 acres.
Table XXIX. gives the number of farms, together with their distribution,
under different forms of tenure in the years 1880, 1890 and 1900.
The steady drift towards farm tenancy of late is believed
to be injurious to production; but it is impossible to prove
this, so great has been the aggregate increase in products.
The number of persons engaged in agriculture as a business
in 1900 was 10,381,765, or 36% of all persons in gainful
occupations. It is interesting to note that 977,336 of
these were women. This is an increase of 2,667,890 persons
over 1880. Thus, if the farm family is the same size as
that of the remainder of the population--it is probably
slightly larger--the agricultural population would be
36% of the whole. Statisticians usually put it at 40%,
and this is probably more nrealy correct (Table XXX.).
The wages paid farm labourers, as ascertainted by the Department
of Agriculture, are rather low compared with the average wages
of labour, but not lower than the wages of other unskilled
labour. The average monthly wage of the agricultural labourer,
without board, was $19.50 in 1870, $16.42 in 1880, $18.33 in
1890, $17.70 in 1895, and $20.23 in 1899, when the maximum
for any state was $45.10 in Nevada, the minimum $10.06 in
South Carolina. the wages of the American farm labourer were
at this last date named (1899) higher than for any other farm
labourer save in Canada and the British colonies of Australasia;
though lower than wages paid in American cities, they have
greater purchasing power. J.R. Dodge, in ``Farm Labour in the
United States'' (vol. xi., Report of Industrial Commission on
Agriculture, &c., 1901), says: ``In addition to wages the
married labourer has a house free of rent, a garden, firewood,
pasturage and other perquisites. The enterprising labourer
usually becomes a tenant and afterwards a farm-owner.''
Value of farms and products.
The figures for farm capital and the value of agricultural
products are so vast that it is extremely difficult to
put them in an intelligible form. The farm capital of
the United States reported by the census of 1900 reached
$20,514,002,000, a sum more than four times the capital
invested in manufactures, the main classes being, in round
numbers:--Land, fences and buildings, $16,674,690,000; machines
TABLE XXIX.--Number of Farms of Specified Tenure.
Number of farms operated by
Number of Cash Share
Year. Farms. Owners. 14 Tenants. Tenants. 15
1880 4,008,907 2,984,306 322,357 702,244
1890 4,564,641 3,269,728 454,659 880,254
1900 5,737,372 3,712,408 751,665 1,273,299
Percentage of farms
Cash Share
Year. Owners. Tenants. Tenants.
1880 74.5 8.0 17.5
1890 71.6 10.0 18.4
1900 64.7 13.1 22.2
and implements, $761,262,000; live stock $3,078,050,000. The
products of the farms in the census year 1899 were valued at
$4,739,119,000. Between 1850 and 1900 the aggregate farm capital
increased 416%. The greatest increase of farm capital was between
1850 and 1860, 101%; the next was the decade 1880-1890, when the
increase was 32%. Between 1890 and 1900 the increase was 28%.
TABLE XXX.--Number of Persons of Ten Years of Age and over in
the different Agricultural Pursuits in 1900.
Occupation. Total Persons.
Dairymen and women 10,875
Farmers and farm superintendents 5,674,875
Farm labourers 4,410,877
Gardeners, nurserymen and viticulturists 61,788
Lumbermen and raftsmen 72,020
Stock-raisers, herders, &c 84,988
Turpentine-farmers and labourers 24,737
Wood-choppers 36,075
Other pursuits 5,530
Total 10,381,765
The growth of farm are and of capital invested in agriculture was
followed by a proportionate increase in the chief crops (Table XXXI.).
The distinguishing feature of the period 1870-1880 was
the rate of increase of barley, Indian corn, wheat and
oats. Since 1870 the production of nearly all of the farm
crops increased more rapidly than the population, the most
absolute proof of the substantial prosperity of the people.
The increase in population for the fifty years from 1840 to
1890 was 267%; from 1870 to 1880, 30%; from 1880 to 1890,
25%; from 1890 to 1900, 21%; but the food and other supplies
far exceeded the demands of even this great population.
TABLE XXXI.--Production of Certain Farm Crops from 1870 to 1905
--Millions of Bushels.
Indian Corn. Wheat. Oats. Barley.
1870 1094 235 247 26
1880 1717 498 418 45
1890 1489 399 523 67
1900 2105 522 809 58
1905 2707 693 953 136
Table XXXII. gives important facts with regard to the cereal
production of the United States between 1870 and 1905.
The average farm price of wheat declined, as is shown in that
table, from $1.05 per bushel for the decade 1870-1880 to
65.3 cents for the period 1890-1899. The farm prices of the
other cereals declined less during the thirty years. Corn
declined from an average farm price of 42.6 cents per bushel
for 1870-1880 to 34.4. cents in 1890-1899. The average
production per acre shows nothing conclusice with regard to
the fertility of the soil of the country. The expansion of the
crop area usually causes a lowering of the average yield per
acre by distributing the culture, fertilizers, &c., over more
surface. Likewise the contraction of crop area will usually
increase the average yield per acre of the entire country.
TABLE XXXII.--Average Yield and Value of Cereal Crops in the United
States, by Periods of Years, 1870-1905.
Average Average Average Average
Farm Price Yield Per Farm Price Yield Per
Period. per Bushel. Acre. per Bushel. Acre.
Dollars. Bushels. Dollars. Bushels.
Indian Corn. Wheat.
1870 to 1880 0.426 27.1 1.05 12.4
1880 to 1889 .393 24.1 .827 12.1
1890 to 1899 .344 24.1 .653 13.1
1900 to 1905 .440 24.9 .706 13.6
Barley. Rye.
1870 to 1880 0.738 22.1 0.701 14.1
1880 to 1889 .589 21.7 .622 11.9
1890 to 1899 .433 23.3 .522 14.0
1900 to 1905 .433 25.9 .570 15.7
Oats.
1870 to 1880 0.353 28.4 0.715 17.7
1880 to 1889 .309 26.6 .642 12.8
1890 to 1899 .277 26.2 .507 16.8
1900 to 1905 .318 30.7 .588 17.9
The average yield of wheat per acre was 12.4 bushels in the
decade 1870-1880, and 13.1 in the period 1890-1899; of Indian
corn, 27.1 in 1870-1880, and 24.1 in 1880-1899 continuously.
Oats fell off from 28.4 in 1870-1880 to 26.2 bushels per acre
in 1890- 1899. The averages for the years 1900-1905 show an
increase over the previous decade both in yields and (with the
exception of the price of barley) in prices of all the cereals.
The agricultural returns for 1890-1905 may be taken as
an illustration of the cereal production of the United
States. The figures for wheat, oats and Indian corn
are presented in Tables XXXIII., XXXIV. and XXXV.
TABLE XXXIII.--Acreage, Production, Value, Price and Exports of
Wheat in the United States in 1890-1905.
Average
Average Farm Price
Yield per per Bushel, Farm Value,
Year. Acreage. Acre. Production. 1st Dec. 1st Dec.
Acres. Bushels. Bushels. Cents. Dollars.
1890 36,087,154 11.1 399,262,000 83.8 334,773,678
1891 39,916,897 15.3 611,780,000 83.9 513,472,711
1892 38,554,430 13.4 515,949,000 62.4 322,111,881
1893 34,629,418 11.4 396,131,725 53.8 213,171,381
1894 34,882,436 13.2 460,267,416 49.1 225,902,025
1895 34,047,332 13.7 467,102,947 50.9 237,938,998
1896 34,618,646 12.4 427,684,346 72.6 310,602,539
1897 39,465,066 13.4 530,149,168 80.8 428,547,121
1898 44,055,278 15.3 675,148,705 58.2 392,770,320
1899 44,592,516 12.3 547,303,846 58.4 319,545,259
1900 42,495,385 12.3 522,229,505 61.9 323,515,177
1901 49,895,514 15.0 748,460,218 62.4 467,350,156
1902 46,202,424 14.5 670,063,008 63.0 422,224,117
1903 49,464,967 12.9 637,821,835 69.5 443,024,826
1904 44,074,875 12.5 552,399,517 92.4 510,489,874
1905 47,854,079 14.5 692,979,489 74.8 518,372,727
Domestic Exports,
including Flour,
Fiscal Years
Year. beginning 1st July.
Bushels.
1890 106,181,316
1891 225,665,812
1892 191,912,635
1893 164,283,129
1894 144,812,718
1895 126,443,968
1896 145,124,972
1897 217,306,005
1898 222,694,920
1899 186,096,762
1900 215,990,073
1901 234,772,516
1902 202,905,598
1903 120,727,613
1904 44,112,910
1905 ..
The acreage and production of wheat have steadily
increased. The acreage in Indian corn, the great American
crop, reached its highest in 1902, 94,043,613 acres, and its
production its highest figure in 1905, 2,707,993,540 bushels.
TABLE XXXIV.--Acreage, Production, Value, Prices, Exports and Imports
of Oats in the United States in 1890-1905.
Average
Average Farm Price
Yield per per Bushel, Farm Value
Year. Acreage. Acre. Production. 1st Dec. 1st Dec.
Acres. Bushels. Bushels. Cents. Dollars.
1890 26,431,369 19.8 523,621,000 42.4 222,048,486
1891 25,581,861 28.9 738,394,000 31.5 232,312,267
1892 27,063,835 24.4 661,035,000 31.7 209,253,611
1893 27,273,033 23.4 638,854,850 29.4 187,576,092
1894 27,023,553 24.5 662,036,928 32.4 214,816,920
1895 27,878,406 29.6 824,443,537 19.9 163,655,068
1896 27,565,985 25.7 707,346,404 18.7 132,485,033
1897 25,730,375 27.2 698,767,809 21.2 147,974,719
1898 25,777,110 28.4 720,906,643 25.5 186,405,364
1899 26,341,380 30.2 796,177,713 24.9 198,167,975
1900 27,364,795 29.6 809,125,989 25.8 208,669,233
1901 28,541,476 25.8 736,808,724 39.9 293,658,777
1902 28,653,144 34.5 987,842,712 30.7 303,584,852
1903 27,638,126 28.4 784,094,199 34.1 267,661,665
1904 27,842,669 32.1 894,395,552 31.3 279,900,013
1905 28,046,746 34.0 953,216,197 29.1 277,047,537
Domestic Exports,
including Oatmeal, Imports during
Fiscal Years Fiscal Years
Year. beginning 1st July. beginning 1st July.
Bushels. Bushels.
1890 1,382,836 41,848
1891 10,586,644 47,782
1892 2,700,793 49,433
1893 6,290,229 31,759
1894 1,708,824 330,317
1895 15,156,618 66,602
1896 37,725,083 893,908
1897 73,880,307 25,093
1898 33,534,264 28,098
1899 45,048,857 54,576
1900 42,268,931 32,107
1901 13,277,612 38,978
1902 8,381,805 150,065
1903 1,960,740 183,983
1904 8,394,692 55,699
1905 .. ..
Producing as the United States does so much more
than its people can consume, its exports form a large
percentage of some of the crops, as Table XXXVI. shows.
Large portions of some of these crops, like Indian corn and
oats, are exported in the form of animals and animal products
(meats, lard, hides, &c.). The hay crop is almost entirely
used in this way, and the tendency is to convert more and
more of these crops into these higher-priced products. Still,
the time is far distant when domestic consumption will come
anywhere near overtaking domestic production, especially of
wheat and the other cereals. The certain extension of acreage
with the growth of demand and price, the increased use of
agricultural implements, and the improvement of methods will
be sure to keep up a large surplus for export for many years to
come. The Department of Agriculture has found that for
home use there were required per head 5.5 bushels of wheat,
28.6 bushels of Indian corn, and 10.7 bushels of oats, the
computations being made from the figures for population,
production and exports for 1888-1892; in 1905, 6.15 bushels
of wheat and wheat-flour, 28.59 bushels of Indian corn and
corn-meal. The following number of acres in these crops
was required, therefore, to supply the home demand for
1888-1892:--0.43 of an acre in wheat, 1.1.5 acre in corn, and
0.43 acre in oats per head of the population. Taking the year
TABLE XXXV.--Acreage, Production, Value, Prices and Exports of Indian
Corn in the United States in 1890-1905.
Average
Average Farm Price
Yield per per Bushel,
Year. Acreage. Acre. Production. 1st Dec.
Acres. Bushels. Bushels. Cents.
1890 71,970,763 20.7 1,489,970,000 50.6
1891 76,204,515 27.0 2,060,154,000 40.6
1892 70,626,658 23.1 1,628,464,000 39.4
1893 72,036,465 22.5 1,619,496,131 36.5
1894 62,582,269 19.4 1,212,770,052 45.7
1895 82,075,830 26.2 2,151,138,580 25.3
1896 81,027,156 28.2 2,283,875,165 21.5
1897 80,095,051 23.8 1,902,967,933 26.3
1898 77,721,781 24.8 1,924,184,660 28.7
1899 82,108,587 25.3 2,078,143,933 30.3
1900 83,320,872 25.3 2,105,102,516 35.7
1901 91,349,928 16.7 1,522,519,891 60.5
1902 94,043,613 26.8 2,523,648,312 40.3
1903 88,091,993 25.5 2,244,176,925 42.5
1904 92,231,581 26.8 2,467,480,934 44.1
1905 94,011,369 28.8 2,707,993,540 41.2
Domestic Exports,
including Corn-
Farm Value Meal, Fiscal Years
Year. 1st Dec. beginning 1st July.
Dollars. Bushels.
1890 754,433,451 32,041,529
1891 836,439,228 76,602,285
1892 642,146,630 47,121,894
1893 591,625,627 66,489,529
1894 554,719,162 28,585,405
1895 544,985,534 101,100,375
1896 491,006,967 178,817,417
1897 501,072,952 212,055,543
1898 552,023,428 117,255,046
1899 629,210,110 213,123,412
1900 751,220,324 181,405,473
1901 921,555,768 28,028,688
1902 1,017,017,349 76,639,261
1903 952,868,801 58,222,061
1904 1,087,461,440 90,293,483
1905 1,116,696,738 ..
1890 as an illustration, this gave a surplus area in wheat of 11,264,478
acres, of 2,648,404 acres in Indian corn, and of 238,162 acres in oats.
TABLE XXXVI.--Percentage of Crops Exported. Averages for Period
1878-1905.
Annual Average.
Crop. 1878-1882. 1888-1892. 1894-1896. 1896-1904. 1905.
Wheat 27.84 17.68 15.96 29.9 7.99
Indian Corn 4.82 3.49 5.39 6.4 3.66
Rye 10.30 .. 12.21 19.5 ..
Oats .37 .80 2.22 3.7 ..
Barley 1.55 .. 12.96 12.15 ..
Potatoes .37 .. .30 0.31 ..
Cotton 72.80 66.79 73.60 66.31 61.55
Tables XXXVII. and XXXVIII. give the number, total value and
average price of farm animals in 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1906.
TABLE XXXVII.--Number and Value of Farm Animals in the United States,
1880-1906.
January 1 Horses. Mules.
Number. Value. Number. Value.
1880 11,201,800 $613,296,611 1,729,500 $105,948,319
1890 14,213,837 978,516,562 2,331,027 182,394,099
1900 13,537,524 603,696,422 2,086,027 111,717,092
1906 18,718,578 1,510,889,906 3,404,061 334,680,520
Milch Cows. Other Cattle.
January 1 Number. Value. Number. Value.
1880 12,027,000 $279,899,420 21,231,000 $341,761,154
1890 15,952,883 352,152,133 36,849,024 560,625,137
1900 16,292,360 514,812,106 27,610,054 689,486,260
1906 19,793,866 582,788,592 47,067,656 746,171,709
Sheep. Swine.
January 1 Number. Value. Number. Value.
1880 40,765,900 $90,230,537 34,034,100 $145,781,515
1890 44,336,072 100,659,761 51,602,780 243,418,336
1900 41,883,065 122,665,913 37,079,356 185,472,321
1906 50,631,619 179,056,144 52,102,847 321,802,571
Total Value of
January 1 Farm Animals.
1880 $1,576,917,556
1890 2,418,766,028
1900 2,228,123,134
1906 3,675,389,442
TABLE XXXVIII.--Average Value of Farm Animals in the
United States on 1st January, 1880-1906.
Milch Other
Year. Horses. Mules. Cows. Cattle. Sheep. Swine.
1880 $54.76 $61.26 $23.27 $16.10 $2.21 $4.28
1890 68.84 78.25 22.14 15.21 2.27 4.72
1900 44.61 53.56 31.60 24.97 2.93 5.00
1906 80.72 98.31 29.44 15.85 3.54 6.18
After the Civil War the number of horses increased and prices
declined. In 1893 the number of horses reached 16,206,802 (an
increase of over 5,005,002 or 44.6% over the number in 1880),
and in 1906, 18,718,578. The average farm price of horses
increased from $54.75 in 1880 to $74 in 1884, after which there
was a decrease to $31.51 in 1896, followed by rise to $80.72 in
1906. The extension of street-car lines, and the substitution
of cable and electric power for that of horses, the use of
bicycles and, later, of automobiles, and the improvement of
farm-machinery, in which horses are less and less used as
power-producers and steam is more common, have been factors
in decreasing the demand for these animals. The fluctuation
in prices of mules has been parallel to that for horses.
The returns for milch cows show an increase throughout
the period 1880-1899 in every year, with the exception of
1895-1899, after which there was a steady rise in numbers.
For the first ten years the numbers increase 32.6%, and from
1890 to 1899, 2%. The total value of milch cows increased each
year until 1884, then decreased until 1891, with a gradual
increase until the end of the period. The farm price of milch
cows rose from $23.27 in 1880 to $31.37 in 1884, then fell
to $21.40 in 1892, after which there was a steady increase
to $31.60 in 1899, and afterwards a slight fall, $29.44
being the average farm value on the 1st of January 1906.
No marked changes in the numbers of sheep have taken place.
During the period 1880-1890 there was an increase in numbers
amounting to about 8.8%. After 1893 there was a rather steady
decrease, with fluctuations amounting to a marked depression
after 1894. This industry is very susceptible to adverse
influences, and felt keenly a depression in the price of
wool. The increase began again in 1898, and in 1903 the
figure of 63,964,876 was reached; in 1906 it was 50,631,619,
The numbers and values of swine constantly fluctuate with the
movement and value of the Indian corn crops. The returns for
1890 (51,602,780) showed a numerical increase of 51.6% over
those of 1880; then followed a steady decrease in numbers
down to 1900 (57,079,156), since which time there has been
considerable increase, so that in 1906 there were 52,102,847--the
maximum excepting 1901, when there were 56,982,142 swine on
farms. The movement in values was similar to that in
numbers. From $4.28 in 1880, the average farm price of hogs
increased steadily to $6.73 in 1885. The lowest figure,
$4.15, was reached in 1891, and after numerous fluctuations it
became $4.40 in 1899 and $7.78 in 1903; in 1906 it was $6.18.
The total value of farm animals showed a steady increase from
1880 to 1890, with slight variations in 1885 and 1886. Following
1890 there was a steady decrease with the exception of slight
increases in 1892 and 1893. In 1880 the total value of farm
animals in the United States was $1,576,917,556. In 1890 it
had increased to $2,418,766,028, or 53.4%. In 1896 the value
had dimished to $1,727,926,084--a decrease of 28.6% from the
1890 values, and an increase of 9.6% over those of 1880. The
value in 1906 showed an increase of 133% over that of 1880.
The exports of live stock and its products have increased
enormously in recent years, both in quantity and value.
This is a especially true of the exportation of beef, cattle
and meat products. The exports of cattle increased from
182,750 in 1880 to 331,720 in 1895, or 81 1/2%, and to 567,806
in 1905 or 210% over 1880, and values from $13,340,000 in
1880 to $30,600,000 in 1895, an increase of 129%, and to
$40,590,000 in 1905 or 204%. The average value of cattle
exported increase from $19 in 1870 to $73 in 1880 and $92
in 1895, decreasing to $71.50 in 1905. Only the best and
heaviest cattle are exported, these, of course, commanding
a much higher price than the average of the country.
The total value of farm animals exported from the United
States has flucuated greatly. On the whole, however, the
value increased from $16,000,000 in round numbers in 1880 to
$46,500,000 in 1905, or 190%. Table XXXIX. shows the number
and value of live animals exported between 1880 and 1905.
TABLE XXXIX.--Number and Value of Farm Animals Exported from the
United States, 1880-1905.
Year
ending
30th Horses. Mules.
June. Number. Value. Number. Value.
1880 3,060 $675,139 5,198 $532,362
1885 1,947 377,692 1,028 127,580
1890 3,501 680,410 3,544 447,108
1894 5,246 1,108,995 2,063 240,961
1895 13,984 2,209,298 2,515 186,452
1900 16 64,722 7,612,616 43,369 3,919,478
1901 16 82,250 8,873,845 34,405 3,210,267
1902 16 103,020 10,048,046 27,586 2,692,298
1903 34,007 3,152,159 4,294 521,725
1904 42,001 3,189,100 3,658 412,971
1905 34,822 3,175,259 5,826 645,464
Year
ending
30th Cattle. Sheep.
June. Number. Value. Number. Value.
1880 182,756 $13,344,195 209,137 $892,647
1885 135,890 12,906,690 234,509 512,563
1890 394,836 31,261,131 67,521 243,077
1894 359,278 33,461,922 132,370 852,763
1895 331,722 30,603,796 405,748 2,630,686
1900 16 397,286 30,635,153 125,772 733,477
1901 16 459,218 37,566,980 297,925 1,933,000
1902 16 392,884 29,902,212 358,720 1,940,060
1903 402,178 29,848,936 176,961 1,067,860
1904 593,409 42,256,291 301,313 1,954,604
1905 567,806 40,598,048 268,365 1,687,321
Year
ending
30th Swine.
June. Number. Value. Total Value.
1880 83,434 $421,089 $15,865,432
1885 55,025 579,183 14,503,713
1890 91,148 909,042 33,540,768
1894 1,553 14,753 35,659,394
1895 7,130 72,424 35,702,656
1900 16 51,180 394,813 43,295,537
1901 16 22,318 238,465 51,822,557
1902 16 8,368 88,330 44,670,946
1903 4,031 40,923 34,631,603
1904 6,345 53,780 47,866,746
1905 44,495 414,692 46,520,784
Since 1890 there has been a great development in the production
of fruit and vegatables. Local market gardens are numerous
in the vicinity of all cities, and highly specialized ``truck
gardening,'' that is, the growing of early fruits and vegatables
for transportation to distant markets where the seasons
are later, has made rapid progress in the South Atlantic
states. The census reports of 1900 use the potato acreage in
these states as an index of the rate of development of truck
gardening; the southern potato being largely a truck garden
crop. In seven counties of Virginia the increase in acreage
from 1889 to 1899 was 100%; in eleven counties of North
Carolina, 314%; in five counties of South Carolina, 134%; in
nine counties of Georgia, 111%; in six counties of Florida, 309%;
in five counties of Alabama, 277%. Irish and sweet potatoes
are the most important vegatables raised; the North Central
state leading in the production of the former and the South
Atlantic states in the production of the latter. The growth
of the Irish potato industry is shown by the following table:--
Year. Acreage. Yield (bushels).
1870 1,325,119 114,775,000
1880 1,842,510 167,659,570
1890 2,651,579 148,289,696
1900 2,611,054 210,926,897
1905 2,996,757 260,741,294
The production of sweet potatoes, as
reported in census years, was as follows:--
Year. Acreage. Yield (bushels).
1869 .. 21,709,824
1879 444,817 33,378,693
1889 524,588 43,950,261
1899 537,447 42,526,606
The total acreage in vegetables reported in 1899 was
5,758,191 or 2% of the acreage in all crops; the value of
the yield was $242,170,148 or 8.3% of the value of all crops.
The value of the fruit crop of 1899 was $131,423,517;
the value of orchard fruits was $83,751,840; of grapes,
$14,000,937; of small fruits, $25,030,877; of sub-tropical
fruits, $8,549,863. The development of fruit-growing during
the decade 1889-1899 appears from the following table:-
Yield (bushels).
Crop. 1889. 1899.
Apples 143,105,689 175,397,626
Apricots 1,001,482 2,642,128
Cherries 1,476,719 2,873,499
Peaches 36,367,747 15,433,62317
Pears 3,064,375 6,625,417
Plums and Prunes 2,554,392 8,764,032
In 1899 California contributed 21.5% of the fruit crop; New
York, 12.1%; Pennsylvania, 7.5%; Ohio, 6.8%; and Michigan 4.5%
Agricultural Education.
The agricultural schools of the United States owe their
origin to the movement against the old classical school and
in favour of technical education which began in most civilized
nations about the middle of the 19th century. A rapidly
growing country with great natural resources needed men
educated in the sciences and arts of life, and this want was
first manifested in the United States by a popular agitation
on behalf of agricultural schools. A number of so-called
agricultural schools were started between 1850 and 1860 in the
eastern and middle states, where the movement made itself most
felt, but without trained teachers and suitable methods they
accomplished very little. They were only ordinary schools
with farms attached. The second constitution of the state
of Michigan, adopted in 1850, provided for an agricultural
school, and this was the first one established in the United
States. The General Assembly of the state of Pennsylvania
incorporated the Farmers' High School, now the State College, in
1854. Maryland incorporated her agricultural college in 1856,
and Massachusetts chartered a school of agriculture in the same
year. The agitation, which finally reached Congress, led
to the establishment of the so-called ``land-grant'' or
agricultural colleges. The establishment of these colleges
was due chiefly to the wisdom and foresight of Justin S.
Morrill, who introduced the first bill for their endowment
in the House of Representatives on the 14th of December 1857,
saw the latest one approved by the president on the 30th of
August 1890, and is justly known, therefore, as the father
of the American agricultural colleges. The first act for
the benefit of these colleges, passed in 1862, was entitled
``An Act donating public lands to the several states and
territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of
agriculture and the mechanic arts,'' and granted to each state
an amount of land equal to 30,000 acres for each senator and
representative in Congress to which the state was entitled
at that time. The object of the grant was stated to be ``the
endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college''
(in each state), ``where the leading object shall be, without
excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including
military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are
related to agriculture and the mechanic arts . . . in order to
promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial
classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.''
The total number of acres of land granted to the states under
this act was 10,320,843, of which by far the greater part is
sold. This grant has produced an endowment fund amounting to
$12,045,629. The land still unsold in 1905 amounted to 844,164
acres, valued at $4,168,746. The invested land-grant funds
yielded these colleges a total annual income of $855,083 in
1905. Including the United States appropriation under a
supplementary act of 1890, commonly known as the Second
Morrill Act, which now gives each college $25,000 a year,
the interest on the land-grant and all other invested funds,
all state appropriations and other sources of revenue, these
colleges had in 1904-1905 a total income of $11,659,955.
Sixty-six institutions had been organized under this act up to
1905, of which sixty-three maintain courses in agriculture;
twenty-one are departments of agriculture and engineering
in state universities; twenty-seven are separate colleges of
agriculture and mechanic arts; and the remainder are organized
in various other ways. Separate schools for persons of African
descent had been established under this act in sixteen southern
states. These colleges take students prepared in the common
schools and give them a course of from two to four years in
the sciences pertaining to agriculture. Many of them offer
short courses, varying from four to twelve weeks in length, in
agriculture, horticulture, forestry and dairying, which are largely
attended. Agricultural experiment stations are connected
with all the colleges, and many of them conduct farmers'
institutes, farmers' reading clubs and correspondence classes.
The agricultural experiment stations of the United States grew
up in connexion with the agricultural colleges. Several of the
colleges early attempted to establish separate departments for
research and practical experiments, on the plan of the German
stations. The act establishing the Agricultural College of
Maryland required it to conduct ``a series of experiments
upon the cultivation of cereals and other plants adapted
to the latitude and climate of the state of Maryland.''
This was the first suggestion of an experiment station in
America, but resulted in little. The first experiment station
was established at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1875, partly
under state aid, partly through a gift from Orange Judd,
partly in connexion with the Sheffield Scientific School,
which from 1863 to 1892 was the College of Agriculture and
Mechanic Arts for the state of Connecticut, and partly under
control of Wesleyan University, which contributed the use
of its chemical laboratory; in 1877 it was removed to New
Haven. The state of Connecticut made in 1875 an appropriation
of $2800 (and in 1877 $5000 per annum) for this school--the
first state appropriation of the kind. The state of
North Carolina established, on the 12th of March 1877, an
agricultural experiment and fertilizer control station in
connexion with its state university. The Cornell University
experiment station was organized by that institution in
1879. The New Jersey station was organized in 1880 and the
station of the University of Tennessee in 1882. From these
beginnings the experiment stations multiplied until, when
Congress passed the National (or Hatch) Experiment Station
Act in 1887, there were seventeen already in existence. The
Hatch Experiment Station Act, so called from the fact that
its leading advocate was William Henry Hatch (1833-1896) of
Missouri, appropriated $15,000 a year to each agricultural
college for the purpose of conducting an agricultural experiment
station. The object of the stations was declared to be,
``to conduct original researches or verify experiments on the
physiology of plants and animals; the diseases to which they
are severally subject, with the remedies for the same; the
chemical composition of useful plants at their different stages
of growth; the comparative advantages of rotative cropping as
pursued under a varying series of crops; the capacity of new
plants or trees for acclimation; the analysis of soils and water;
the chemical composition of manures, natural or artificial,
with experiments designed to test their comparative effects on
crops of different kinds; the adaptation and value of grasses
and forage plants; the composition and digestibility of the
different kinds of food for domestic animals; the scientific
and economic questions involved in the production of butter
and cheese; and such other re-searches or experiments bearing
directly on the agricultural industry of the United States
as may in each case be deemed advisable, having due regard to
the varying conditions and needs of the respective states or
territories.'' The stations were authorized to publish annual
reports and also bulletins of progress for free distribution
to farmers. The franking privilege was given to these
publications. The office of experiment stations, in the
Department of Agriculture, was established in 1888 to be the
head office and clearing-house of these stations. Agricultural
experiment stations are now in operation in all the states and
territories, including Alaska, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the
Philippines. Alabama, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey and
New York each maintain separate stations, supported wholly
or in part by state funds; Louisiana has a station for sugar,
and Missouri for fruit experiments. Excluding all branch
stations, the total number of experiment stations in the United
States is sixty, and of these fifty-five receive the national
appropriation. The total income of the stations during 1904 was
$1,508,820, of which $720,000 was received from the national
government and the remainder was derived from societies,
fees for analyses of fertilizers, sale of products, &c. The
stations employed 795 persons in the work of administration
and re-search; the chief classes being--directors, 71;
chemists, 163; agriculturists, 47; agronomists, 41; besides
numerous horticulturists, botanists, entomologists, physicists,
bacteriologists, dairymen, weather observers and irrigation
experts. The stations publish annual reports and bulletins,
besides a large number of ``press'' bulletins, which are
reproduced in the agricultural and county papers. They act
as bureaus of information on all farm questions, and carry
on an extensive correspondence covering all conceivable
questions. Their mailing lists aggregate half a million
names. In addition to the experiment stations there is in
nearly every state an officer or a special board whose duty is
to look after its agricultural interests. Eighteen states, one
territory, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands have a single
official, usually called the Commissioner of Agriculture.
Twenty-six states, one territory and Hawaii, have Boards of
Agriculture. Information concerning the Agricultural Department
of the United States will be found under AGRICULTURE, BOARD OF.
See the articles on the various sorts of crops; also CATTLE,
HORSE, PIG, SHEEP, &c.; DAIRY AND DAIRY-FARMING,
HORTICULTURE, FRUIT AND FLOWER-FARMING, POULTRY AND
POULTRY FARMING; SOIL, GRASS AND GRASSLAND, MANURE,
DRAINAGE OF LAND, IRRIGATION, SOWING, REAPING,
HAY AND HAY MAKING, PLOUGH, HARROW, THRESHING.
LITERATURE.---Besides the contemporary works cited in the
text, see the article ``Agricultural'' in Smith's Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), and the article
``Agriculture'' in J. A. Parral's Dictionnaire d'Agriculture
(1885-1892); R. E. Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English
Farming (1888); sections on agriculture by W.J. Corbett,
R. E. Prothero and W. E. Bear in Traill's Social England
(1901-1904); J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and
Prices in England from 1259 to 1793 (7 vols., 1866-1902);
W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce
During The Early and Middle Ages (2 vols., 1905 and
1907); D. M`Donald, Agricultural Writers from Sir Walter of
Henley to Arthur Young, 1200-1800 (London, 1908); H. Rider
Haggard, Rural England, 2 vols. (1902); Encyclopedia of
Agriculture, ed. by C. E. Green and D. Young (Edinburgh,
1907-1908); Cyclopaedia of American Agriculture, ed.
by L. H. Bailey (New Yorkand London, 1907-1908); W. S.
Harwood, The New Earth (New York, 1906); T. B. Collins,
The New Agriculture (New York, 1906); Journals of the
Royal Agricultural Society of England and other agricultural
societies. Amongst general works on practical agriculture the
following may be mentioned:--Stephens's Book of the Farm, 5
vols., revised by J. Macdonald (Edinburgh, 1908).; William
Fream, Elements of Agriculture (London, 1905); Rural Science
Series, ed. by L. H. Bailey (New York and London, 1895,
&c.); Morton's Handbooks of the Farm (London); R. Wallace,
Farm Livestock of Great Britain (Edinburgh, 1907); Youatt's
Complete Grazier, rewritten by W. Fream (London, 1900); E.
V. Wilcox, Farm Animals (New York, 1907). (W. Fr.; R. Tr.)
1 Translation by Clement-Mullet (Paris, 1864).
2 Walter of Henley mentions six bushels per acre as a satisfactory crop.
3 This process of enclosure must be distinguished from that of enclosing
the arable common fields which, though advocated by Fitzherbert in
a passage quoted below, proceeded slowly until the 18th century.
4 During the 16th century wheat had risen in price,
and between 1606 and 1618 never fell below 30s. a
quarter. At the same time wages remained low.
5 Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 732.
6 The higher yield of wheat in the later years of the 19th
century appears to be largely attributable to better grain-growing
seasons. The yields in the experimental wheat-field at
Rothamsted--where there is no change either of land or of
treatment--indicate this. The following figures show the
average yields per acre of the selected plots at Rothamsted
over six 8-yearly periods from 1852 to 1899, and afford evidence
that the higher yield of later years is due to the seasons:--
Bushels (of 60lb)
Averages of--- per acre.
8 years 1852-1859 . . . . . . . . 28 3/8
8 years 1860-1867 . . . . . . . . 28 7/8
8 years 1868-1875 . . . . . . . . 27 1/8
8 years 1876-1883 . . . . . . . . 25 1/4
8 years 1884-1891 . . . . . . . . 29 7/8
8 years 1892-1899 . . . . . . . . 30
------------------ --------
32 years 1852-1883 . . . . . . . . 27 3/8
16 years 1884-1899 . . . . . . . . 30
------------------ --------
48 years 1852-1899 . . . . . . . . 28 1/4
The average of the first thirty-two years was thus
27 3/8 bushels per acre, of the last sixteen years 30
bushels, and of the whole forty-eight years 28 1/4 bushels.
7 See J.B. Lawes and J.H. Gilbert, Rothamsted Memoirs on
Agricultural Chemistry and Physiology, 7 vols. (1893-1899);
A. D. Hall, Books of the Rothamsted Experiments (1905).
8 including Channel islands and Isle of Man.
9 In 1903 two of the principal sources of supply of mutton shipped
in excess of their exportable surplus, for which they suffered
severely in 1904--hence the somewhat irregular movements after 1903.
10 Returns for only ten months were available for this year.
11 In the absence of experiments it is assumed that
wheat is digested like other foods of the same class.
12 This sum was furnished out of a total of L. 693,851, forming
the residue grant allocated for the purposes of education
to the various county councils of England and Wales
under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act 1890.
13 ``Unimproved'' land includes land which has never
been ploughed, mown or cropped and also land once
cultivated but now overgrown with trees or shrubs.
14Includes farms operated by owners, part-owners and tenants, and managers.
15Tenants of farms rented for a share of the products.
16 The demand for horses for the British
troops in South Africa affected these years.
17 Decrease due to a severe frost in the winter of
1898-1899, which destroyed the peach crop in most of the states
AGRICULTURE, BOARD OF. The Board of Agriculture andFisheries,
in England, owes its foundation to the establishment of a
veterinary department of the privy council in 1865, when the
Country was ravaged by cattle plague. An order in council
abolished the name ``veterinary department'' in 1883 and
substituted that of ``agricultural department,'' but no
alteration was effected in the work of the department, so far
as it related to animals. In 1889 the Board of Agriculture
(for Great Britain) was formed under an act of parliament
of that year, and the immediate control of the agricultural
department was transferred from the clerk of the privy council
to the secretary of the Board of Agriculture, where it remains.
A minister of agriculture had for years been asked for in the
interests of the agricultural community, and the functions
of this Office are discharged by the president of the
Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, whose appointment is a
political one, and may or may not carry with it a seat in the
cabinet. The board consists of the lord president of the
council, the five principal secretaries of state, the first
lord of the treasury, the chancellor of the exchequer, the
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and the secretary for
Scotland. The establishment consists of a president, secretary,
assistant secretaries, &c. The salary of the president is
L. 2000 a year, and that of the secretary L. 1500 a year.
The Board of Agriculture on its establishment took over from the
privy council the responsibilities of the Contagious Diseases
(Animals) Acts, besides the comprehensive duties of the Land
Commission. The board, through its intelligence division,
collects and prepares statistics relating to agriculture and
forestry, and in 1904 appointed a number of honorary agricultural
correspondents throughout the country for the purpose of bringing
to the notice of the board any special circumstances affecting
the practice of agriculture, horticulture and forestry, or
the transport of farm, garden and forrest produce in their
districts. The land division of the board prepares the annual
agricultural and produce returns, and the three divisions, the
animals, intelligence and land, take proceedings under the
following acts:--the Diseases of Animals Acts, the Markets
and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Acts, the Sale of Food and
Drugs Acts 1875 to 1800, the Merchandise Marks Acts 1887 to
1905, the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act 1893, the Tithe
Acts 1836 to 1891, the Copyhold Act 1894, the Inclosure Acts
1845 to 1899, the Agricultural Holdings Acts 1883 to 1900,
the Drainage and Improvement of Land Acts, the Universities
and College Estates Acts 1858 to 1898, the Glebe Lands Act
1888, &c. The board also has charge of the inspection of
schools (not being public elementary schools) in which
technical instruction is given in agriculture or forestry,
and institutes such experimental investigations as may be
deemed conducive to the progress of agriculture and forestry.
The Ordnance Survey of the United Kingdom is under the
control of the board, as well as the arrangements for the
advertisement and sale of the publications of the Geological
Survey. In 1903 the powers and duties formerly vested in the
commissioners of the Office of Works, relating to the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew, were transferred to the board. The
various departments of the board are (1) chief clerk's branch
and indoor branch of animals division; (2) outdoor branch of
the animals division; (3) veterinary department; (4) fisheries
branch; (5) intelligence department; (6) educational branch;
(7) accounts branch; (8) inclosure and common branch; (9)
copyhold and tithe branch; (10) statistical branch; (11) law
branch; (12) survey, land improvement and land drainage branch.
In 1903, in pursuance of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries
Act 1903, the powers and duties of the Board of Trade under the
Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Acts, the Sea Fisheries Regulation
Acts and other acts relating to the industry of fishing, were
transferred from that department to the Board of Agriculture,
and its name was changed to its present form. The Department
of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland covers
much the same ground. The Annual report of the proceedings
of the Board of Agriculture under the Tithe and other Acts
for 1902 contains a full account of its powers and duties.
In the British colonies the interests of agriculture are
looked after in New South Wales, by an under-secretary
for mines and agriculture; in Victoria, by a member of
the executive council who holds the portfolio of lands
and agriculture; in Queensland, by an under-secretary for
agriculture; in New Zealand, by a minister for lands and
agriculture; in Canada (see, for more detail, the article
Canada, Canadian Agriculture), by a minister for agriculture
(the various provinces have also departments of agriculture).
The government of India has a secretary of revenue and
agriculture. Cape Colony has a secretary for agriculture, a
member of the cabinet; in the Transvaal Colony the director
of agriculture is a departmental secretary; in Natal, the
minister for agriculture is a member of the executive council,
and the establishment consists, in addition, of a secretary, a
director of agriculture, an entomologist, a dairy expert and a
conservator of forests. Cyprus has a director of agriculture.
United States--The Department of Agriculture dates its rank as
an executive department from 1889. It was first established as
a department in 1862, ranking as a bureau, with a commissioner in
charge. In addition to the commissioner there were appointed
a statistician, chemist, entomologist and superintendent
of a propagatory and experimental farm. Its scope was then
somewhat limited, but its work was gradually enlarged by the
appointment of a botanist in 1868, a microscopist in 1871,
the creation of a forestry department in 1877, a bureau of
animal industry in 1884 and the establishment of agricultural
experiment stations throughout the country in 1887. In 1889
the department became an executive department, the principal
official being designated Secretary of Agriculture, with
a seat in the president's cabinet. His salary is $8000 a
year. The secretary is now charged with the supervision
of all business relating to the agricultural and productive
industries. The fisheries have a separate bureau, and
the public lands and mining interests are cared for in the
Department of the Interior; but with these exceptions, all
the productive interests are looked after by the Department of
Agriculture. The department now comprises (1) the weather
bureau, which has charge of the forecasting of weather; the
issue of storm warnings; the display of weather and flood signals
for the benefit of agriculture, commerce and navigation; the
gauging and reporting of rivers; the reporting of temperature
and rainfall conditions for the cotton, rice, sugar and
other interests; the display of frost and cold waves signals;
and the distribution of meteorological information in the
interest of agriculture and commerce; (2) the bureau of animal
industry, which makes investigations as to the existence of
contagious pleuro-pneumonia and other dangerous and communicable
diseases of live stock, superintends the measures for their
extirpation, makes original investigations as to the nature
and prevention of such diseases, and reports on the conditions
and means of improving the animal industries of the country;
(3) the bureau of plant industry, which studies plant life
in all its relations to agriculture. Its work is classified
under the general subjects of pathological investigations,
physiological investigations, taxonomic investigations,
agronomic investigations, horticultural investigations and
seed and plant introduction investigations; (4) the forest
service, which is occupied with experiments, investigations
and reports dealing with the subject of forestry, and with
the dissemination of information upon forestry matters; (5)
the bureau of chemistry, which investigates methods proposed
for the analysis of plants, fertilizers and agricultural
products, and makes such analyses as pertain in general to
the interests of agriculture; (6) the bureau of soils, which
is entrusted with the investigation, survey and mapping of
soils; the investigation of the cause and prevention of the
rise of alkali in the soil and the drainage of soils; and the
investigation of the methods of growing, curing and fermentation
of tobacco in the different tobacco districts; (7) the bureau
of entomology, which obtains and disseminates information
regarding insects injurious to vegetation; (8) the bureau of
biological survey, which studies the geographic distribution
of animals and plants, and maps the natural life zones of the
country; it also investigates the economic relations of birds
and mammals, and recommends measures for the preservation of
beneficial, and the destruction of injurious, species; (9) the
division of accounts and disbursements; (10) the division of
publications; (11) the bureau of statistics, which collects
information as to the condition, prospects and harvests of
the principal crops, and of the number and status of farm
animals. It records, tabulates and co-ordinates statistics
of agricultural production, distribution and consumption, and
issues monthly and annual crop reports for the information
of producers and consumers. The section of foreign markets
makes investigations and disseminates information concerning
the feasibility of extending the demands of foreign markets
for the agricultural products of the United States; the bureau
also makes investigations of land tenures, cost of producing
farm products, country life education, transportation and
other lines of rural economies; (12) the library; (13) the
office of experiment stations which represents the department
in its relations to the experiment stations which are now in
operation in all the states; it collects and disseminates general
information regarding agricultural schools, colleges, stations,
and publishes accounts of agricultural investigations at home
and abroad; it also indicates lines of inquiry for the stations,
aids in the conduct of co-operative experiments, reports upon
their expenditures and work, and in general furnishes them with
such advice and assistance as will best promote the purposes
for which they were established; it conducts investigations
relative to irrigation and drainage; (14) the office of public
roads, which collects information concerning systems of road
management, conducts investigations regarding the best method
of road-making, and prepares publications on this subject.
In the following countries there are state departments of
agriculture:---Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, (industry, agriculture
and public works), Bulgaria (commerce and agriculture), Denmark,
France, Norway (agriculture and public accounts), Italy, Japan
(agriculture and commerce), Prussia (agriculture, woods and
forests), Russia (agriculture and crown domains), Sweden.
AGRIGENTUM (Gr. `Akragas mod. Girgenti (q.v.)),
an ancient city on the south coastof Sicily, 2 1/2m. from the
sea. It was founded (perhaps on the site of an early Sicanian
settlement) by colonists from Gela about 582 B.C., and,
though the lastest city of importance founded by the Greeks in
Sicily, soon acquired a position second to that of Syracuse
alone, owing to its favourable situation for trade with Carthage
and to the fertility of its territory. Pindar (Pyth. xii.
2) calls it kallista brotean polion. The buildings for
which it is famous all belong to the first two centuries of its
existence. Phalaris, who is said to have roasted his enemies
to death in a brazen bull (Pindar, Pyth.. i. 184), ruled as
tyrant from 570 to 554. What form of government was established
after his fall is uncertain; we know only that, after a
long interval, Theron became tyrant (488-473); but his son
Thrasydaeus was expelled after an unsuccessful war with Hiero
in 472 and a democracy established. In the struggle between
Syracuse and Athens (415-413) the city remained absolutely
neutral. Its prosperity continued to increase (its population
is given at over 200,000) until in 405 B.C., despite the
help of the Siceliot cities, it was captured and plundered
by the Carthaginians, a blow from which it never entirely
re-covered. It was colonized by Timoleon in 338 B.C. with
settlers from Veha in Lucania, and in the time of the tyrant
Phintias (289-279) it had regained some of its power. In the
First Punic War, however, it was sacked by the Romans (261) and
the Carthaginians (255), and finally in the Second Punic War
by the Romans (210). But it still retained its importance as
a trading and agricultural centre, even in the Roman period,
exporting not only agricultural products but textile fabrics and
sulphur. In the local museum are tiles used for stamping
cakes of sulphur, which show that the mines, at any rate from
the 3rd century, were imperial property leased to contractors.
The site is one of great natural strength and remarkable
beauty, though quite unlike that of other Greek cities in
Sicily. The northern portion of it consists of a lofty ridge
with two summits, the westernmost of which is occupied by
the modern town (985 ft.), while the easternmost, which is
slightly higher, bears the name of Rock of Athena, owing to its
identification in modern days with the acropolis of Acragas as
described by Polybius, who places upon it the temple of Zeus
Atabyrius (the erection of which was attributed to the half
mythical Phalaris) and that of Athena.1 It must be confessed
that the available space (about 70 X 20 yds.) on the eastern
summit (where there are some remains of ancient buildings) is
so small that there would be only room for a single temple,
which must have been occupied by the two deities jointly,
if the new theory is correct (see Notizie degli scavi,
1902, 387 and reff.). In the modern town, on the other hand,
the remains of one temple are to be seen in the church of S.
Maria dei Greci, while the other is generally supposed to have
occupied the site of the cathedral, though no traces of it are
visible. But whichever of these two summits was the acropolis
proper2 it is certain that both were included in the circuit
of the city walls. On the north both summits are defended
by cliffs; on the south the ground slopes away somewhat
abruptly from the eastern summit towards the plateau on which
the town stood, while the western summit is separated from
this plateau by a valley traversed by a branch of the Hypsas
[mod. drago], the deep ravine of which forms the western
boundary and defence of the city. On the east of the city is
the valley of the Acragas [Fiume S. Biagio], from which the
city took its name and which, though shallower than that of
the Hypsas, still affords a sufficient obstacle to attack,
and the two unite a little way to the south of the town; at
the mouth was the ancient harbour, small and now abandoned.
The most famous remains of the ancient city are the temples,
the most important of which form a row along the low cliffs
at the south end of the city. All are built in the Doric
style, of the local porous stone, which is of a warm red
brown colour, full of fossil shells and easily corroded
when exposed to the air. It should be noted that their
traditional names, with the exception of that of Zeus and
that of Asclepius, have no foundation in fact, while the
attribution of the temple in antis, into the cella of
which the church of S. Biagio has been built, is uncertain.3
They are described in R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, Die
griechishen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien (Berlin, 1890),
138-184. Of all these temples the oldest is probably that
of Heracles, while the best preserved are those of Hera and
Concordia, which are very similar in dimensions; the latter,
indeed, lacks nothing but its roof, owing its preservation
to its conversion into the cathedral in 597 by Gregory II.,
bishop of Girgenti. Both temples belong to the best period
of the Doric style and are among the finest in existence.
In front of the former, as in front of those of Heracles and
Zeus, stood a huge altar for burnt offerings, as long as the
facade of the temple itself. The cella of the temple of
Heracles underwent considerable modifications in Roman times,
and the discovery in it of a statue of Asclepius seems to
show that the cult of this deity superseded the original one.
In the colossal temple of Zeus the huge Atlantes (figures
of Atlas), 25 ft. in height, are noticeable. They seem to
have stood in the intercolumniations half-way up the outside
wall and to have supported the epistyle. The collapse both
of this temple and of that of Heracles must be attributed
to an earthquake; many fallen blocks of the former were
removed in 1756 for the construction of the harbour of Porto
Empedocle. The four columns erected on the site of the temple
of Castor and Pollux are a modern (and incorrect) restoration
in which portions of two buildings have been used. Of that of
Hephaestus only two columns remain, while of that of Asclepius,
a mile to the south of the town, an anta and two pillars are
preserved. It was in the latter temple that the statue of
the god by Myron stood; it had probably been carried off to
Carthage, was given to the temple by P. Scipio Africanus from
the spoils of that city and aroused the cupidity of Verres.
The other remains within the city walls are of surprisingly
small importance; near the picturesque church of S. Nicolo
is the so-called Oratory of Phalaris, a shrine of the 2nd
century B.C., 27 1/4 ft. long (including the porch) by 23 1/3
ft. wide; and not far off on the east is a large private house
with white tesselated pavements, probably pre-Roman in origin
but slightly altered in the Roman period (R. P. Jones and
E. A. Gardner in JOURNAL OF HELLENIC STUDIES, xxvi., 1906,
207). Foundations of other buildings are to be seen in other
parts of the site, but of little interest. The huge fishpond,
spoken of by Diodorus as being 7 stadia in circumference (xi.
25), is to be seen at the south-west corner of the city; it is
an enormous excavation in the rock with drains in its sides, at
the bottom of which there is now a flourishing orange garden.
Demeter Hera Con-
(Acragas?) Lacinia. cordia. Heracles. Zeus.
Length excluding
steps4 90? 125 129 1/4 220 361
Breadth 40 1/2 55 1/2 55 1/2 83 173 1/2
Length of cella .. 93 96 1/4 156 332
Breadth of cella .. 32 1/2 31 1/2 45 3/4 144 1/4
Height of columns
with capital .. 21 22 33 62 1/2?
Diameter of
columns at
bottom .. 4 1/2 4 1/2 6 1/2 14
Original number
of columns .. 34 34 38 38
Class In antis. Perip- Perip- Perip- Pseudo
teros teros teros Peripteros
hexa- hexa- hexa- hexa-
stylos. stylos. stylos. stylos.
Approximate date 450 B.C. 480-440 440-420 500 B.C. 450 B.C.
B.C. B.C.
Unnamed
Castor near Castor
and and Hephae-
Pollux. Pollux. scus. Asclepius. Athena.
Length excluding
steps (1) .. .. .. .. ..
Breadth .. 67 1/4 57 1/2 30 1/2 45
Length of cella 91 .. .. .. ..
Breadth of cella 33 .. .. .. ..
Height of columns
with capital 19 1/2 .. .. .. ..
Diameter of
columns at
bottom 4 .. 5 3 1/3 4 2/3
Original number
of columns 34 .. .. .. ..
Class Perip- .. Perip- Prostylos Perip-
teros teros pseudo teros
hexa- hexa- perip-
stylos. stylos. teros.
Approximate date 338-210. .. after 338 before 210 488-472
B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C.
The line of the city walls can be distinctly traced for
most of the circuit, but the actual remains of them are
inconsiderable. On the east and west the ravines already
mentioned afforded, in the main, a sufficient protection,
so that a massive wall was unnecessary, while near the
south-eastern angle a breastwork was formed by the excavation
of the natural rock,5 which in later times was honeycombed with
tombs. E. A. Freeman attributes the southern portion of the
walls to Theron (Hist. of Sic. ii. 224), but the question
depends upon the date of the temple of Heracles; and if
Koldewey and Puchstein are right in dating it so early as 500
B.C., it is probable that the wall was in existence by that
time. Close to this temple on the west is the site of the
gate known in later times as the porta aurea, through
which the modern road passes, so that no traces now remain.
Tombs of the Greek period have mainly been found on the west of
the town, outside the probable line of the walls, between the
Hypsas and a small tributary, the latter having been spanned by
a bridge, now called Ponite dei Morti, of which one massive
pier, 45 ft. in width, still exists. Just outside the south
wall is a Roman necropolis, with massive tombs in masonry, and
a Christian catacomb, and a little farther south a tomb in two
stories, a mixture of Doric and Ionic architecture, belonging
probably to the 2nd century B.C., though groundlessly called
the Tomb of Theron. A village of the Byzantine period has
been explored at Balatizzo, immediately to the south of the
modern town (Notizie degli scavi, 1900, 511-520). The walls
of the dwellings are entirely cut out of the natural rock.
See J. Schubring, Historische Topographie von Akragas
(Leipzig, 1570); R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, op. cit.; C.
Hulsen in Pauly-Wissowa, Encyclopadie, i. 1187. (T. As.)
1 E. A. Freeman, History of Sicily (Oxford, 1891), i. 438,
accepts the name ``Rock of Athena'' and yet puts the acropolis on
the site of the modern town, arguing further that the cathedral
hill was an acropolis within an acropolis (II. and XVII.).
2 Some writers place Kamikos, the city of the mythical Sican
Kokalos, on the site of Acragas or its acropolis; but it appears
to have lain to the north-west, possibly at Caltabellotta, 10m.
north-east of Sciacca. We hear of it even in the Punic Wars as a
fortified post of Acragas (E. A. Freeman, Hist. of Sic. i. 495).
3 The attribution to Demeter is supported by the discovery
of votive terra-cottas, representing Demeter and Kore
in the neighbourhood, while the conjecture that it was
dedicated to the river-god Acragas rests on its position
above the river, in the valley of which, indeed, a
statue which may represent the deity has been discovered.
4 Dimensions in English feet.
5 Polybius ix. 27 keitai to teixos epi petras akrotomon kai
perirrogos e men autofnous e de xeiropoieton.
AGRIMONY (from the Lat. agrimonia, a transformation of
argemone, a word of unknown etymology), a slender perennial
herb (botanical name, agrimonia eupatoria, natural order
Rosaceae), 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high, growing in hedge-banks, copses and
borders of fields. The leafy stem ends in spikes of small yellow
flowers. The flower-stalk becomes recurved in the fruiting
stage, and the fruit bears a number of hooks which enable it
to cling to rough objects, such as the coat of an animal, thus
ensuring distribution of the seed. The plant is common in
Britain and widely spread through the north temperate region.
The underground woody stem is astringent and yields a yellow dye.
The name has been unsystematically given to several
other plants; for instance: bastard, Dutch, hemp or
water agrimony (eupatorium cannabinum); noble or
three-leaved agrimony (anemone hellalica); water agrimony
(bideus); and wild agrimony (potentilla anserina.)
AGRIONIA, an ancient Greek festival, which was celebrated
annually at Orchomenus in Boeotia and elsewhere, in honour
of Dionysus Agrionius, by women and priests at night. The
women, after playfully pretending for some time to search for
the god, desisted, saying that he had hidden himself among the
Muses. The tradition is that the daughters of Minyas, king of
Orchomenus, having despised the rites of the god, were seized
with frenzy and ate the flesh of one of their children. At this
festival it was originally the custom for the priest of the god
to pursue a woman of the Minyan family with a drawn sword and
kill her. (Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 102, Quaest. Graecae 38.)
AGRIPPA, a sceptical philosopher, whose date cannot
be accurately determined. He must have lived later than
Aenesidemus, who is generally said to have been a contemporary of
Cicero. To him are ascribed the five tropes pente tropoi
which, according to Sextus Empiricus, summarize the attitude
of the later ancient sceptics. The first trope emphasizes
the disagreement of philosophers on all fundamental points;
knowledge comes either from the senses or from reason. Some
thinkers hold that nothing is known but the things of sense;
others that the things of reason alone are known; and so
on. It follows that the only wise course is to be content
with an attitude of indifference, neither to affirm nor to
deny. The second trope deals with the validity of proof;
the proof of one so-called fact depends on another fact which
itself needs demonstration, and so on ad infinitum. The
third points out that the data of sense are relative to the
sentient being, those of reason to the intelligent mind; that in
different conditions things themselves are seen or thought to be
different. Where, then, is the absolute criterion? Fourthly,
if we examine things fairly, we see that in point of fact all
knowledge depends on certain hypotheses, or facts taken for
granted. Such knowledge is fundamentally hypothetical,
and might well be accepted as such without the labour of a
demonstration which is logically invalid. The fifth trope
points out the impossibility of proving the sensible by
the intelligible inasmuch as it remains to establish the
intelligible in its turn by the sensible. Such a process is
a vicious circle and has no logical validity. A comparison
of these tropes with the ten tropes enumerated in the article
AENESIDEMUS shows that scepticism has made an advance into
the more abtruse questions of metaphysics. The first and the
third include all the ideas expressed in the ten tropes, and
the other three systematize the more profound difficulties
which new thinkers had developed. Aenesidemus was content
to attack the validity of sense-given knowledge; Agrippa goes
further and impugns the possibility of all truth whatever.
His reasons are those of modern scepticism, the reasons
which by their very nature are not susceptible of disproof.
See Diogenes Laertius x. 88, and Zeller's Greek
Philosophy. Also the articles SCEPTICISM; AENESIDEMUS.
AGRIPPA, HEROD, I. (c. 10 B.C.-A.D. 44), king of Judea,
the son of Aristobulus and Berenice, and grandson of Herod the
Great, was born about 10 B.C. His original name was Marcus
Julius Agrippa. Josephus informs us that, after the murder
of his father, Herod the Great sent him to Rome to the court
of Tiberius, who conceived a great affection for him, and
placed him near his son Drusus, whose favour he very soon
won. On the death of Drusus, Agrippa, who had been recklessly
extravagant, was obliged to leave Rome, overwhelmed with
debt. After a brief seclusion, Herod the Tetrarch, his uncle,
who had married Herodias, his sister, made him Agoranomos
(Overseer of Markets) of Tiberias, and presented him with
a large sum of money; but his uncle being unwilling to
continue his support, Agrippa left Judea for Antioch and soon
after returned to Rome, where he was welcomed by Tiberius
and became the constant campanion of the emperor Gaius
(Caligula), then a popular favourite. Agrippa being one
day overheard by Eutyches, a slave whom he had made free,
to express a wish for Tiberius' death and the advancement of
Gaius, was betrayed to the emperor and cast into prison.
In A.D. 37 Caligula, having ascended the throne, heaped
wealth and favours upon Agrippa, set a royal diadem upon his
head and gave him the tetrarchy of Batanaea and Trachonitis,
which Philip, the son of Herod the Great, had formerly
possessed. To this he added that held by Lysanias; and Agrippa
returned very soon into Judea to take possession of his new
kingdom. In A.D. 39 he returned to Rome and brought
about the banishment of Herod Antipas, to whose tetrarchy he
succeeded. On the assassination of Caligula (A.D. 41)
Agrippa contributed much by his advice to maintain Claudius
in possession of the imperial dignity, while he made a show
of being in the interest of the senate. The emperor, in
acknowledgment, gave him the government of Judea, while the
kingdom of Chalcis in Lebanon was at his request given to
his brother Herod. Thus Agrippa became one of the greatest
princes of the east, the territory he possessed equalling in
extent that held by Herod the Great. He returned to Judea
and governed it to the great satisfaction of the Jews. His
zeal, private and public, for Judaism is celebrated by
Josephus and the rabbis; and the narrative of Acts xii. gives
a typical example of it. About the feast of the Passover
A.D. 44, James the elder, the son of Zebedee and brother
of John the evangelist, was seized by his order and put to
death. He proceeded also to lay hands on Peter and imprisoned
him. After the Passover he went to Caesarea, where he had
games performed in honour of Claudius, and the inhabitants of
Tyre and Sidon waited on him to sue for peace.. According to
the story in Acts xii., Agrippa, gorgeously arrayed, received
them in the theatre, and addressed them from a throne, while
the audience cried out that his was the voice of a god. But
``the angel of the Lord smote him,'' and shortly afterwards
he died ``eaten of worms.'' The story in Acts differs slightly
from that in Josephus, who describes how in the midst of
his elation he saw an owl perched over his head. During his
confinement by Tiberius a like omen had been interpreted as
portending his speedy release, with the warning that should
he behold the same sight again he would die within' five
days. He was immediately smitten with violent pains, and
after a few days died. Josephus says nothing of his being
``eaten of worms,'' but the discrepancies between the two
stories are of slight moment. A third account omits all the
apocryphal elements in the story and says that Agrippa was
assassinated by the Romans, who objected to his growing power.
See articles in Ency, Bibl. (W. J. Woodhouse),
Jewish Ency. (M. Brann), with further relerences; N.
S. Libowitz, Herod and Agrippa (New York, 2nd ed.,
1898); Gratz, Geschchte d. Juden, iii. 318-361.
AGRIPPA, HEROD, II. (27-100), son of the preceding, and
like him originally Marcus Julius Agrippa, was born about
A.D. 27, and received the tetrarchy of Chalcis and the
oversight of the Temple on the death of his uncle Herod,
A.D. 48. In A.D. 53 he was deprived of that kingdom by
Claudius, who gave him other provinces instead of it. In
the war which Vespasian carried on against the Jews Herod
sent him 2000 men, by which it appears that, though a Jew in
religion, he was yet entirely devoted to the Romans, whose
assistance indeed he required to secure the peace of his own
kingdom. He died at Rome in the third year of . Trajan,
A.D. 100. He was the seventh and last king of the family of
Herod the Great. It was before him and his sister Berenice
(q.v., B.2) that St Paul pleaded his cause at Caesarea (Acts
xxvi.). He supplied Josephus with information for his history.
AGRIPPA, MARCUS VIPSANIUS (63-12 P.C.), Roman statesman and
general, son-in-law and minister of the emperor Augustus,
was of humble origin. He was of the same age as Octavian
(as the emperor was then called), and was studying with him
at Apollonia when news of Julius Caesar's assassination (44)
arrived. By his advice Octavian at once set out for Rome.
Agrippa played a conspicuous part in the war against Lucius, .
brother of Mark Antony, which ended in the capture of Perusia
(40). Two years later he put down a rising of the Aquitallians
in Gaul, and crossed the Rhine to punish the aggressions of the
Germans. On his return he refused a triumph but accepted
the consulship (37). At this time Sextus Pompeius, with whom
war was imminent, had command of the sea on the coasts of
Italy. Agrippa's first care was to provide a safe harbour
for his ships, which he accomplished by cutting through the
strips of land which separated the Lacus Lucrinus from the
sea, thus forming an outer harbour; an inner one was also
made by joining the lake Avernus to the Lucrinus (Dio Cassius
xlviii. 49; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 24). About this time
Agrippa married Pomponia, daughter of Cicero's friend Pomponius
Atticus. Having been appointed naval commander-in-chief he
put his crews through a course of training, until he felt
in a position to meet the fleet of Pompeius. In 36 he was
victorious at Mylae and Naulochus, and received the honour
of a naval crown for his services. In 33 he was chosen
aedile and signalized his tenure of office by effecting great
improvements in the city of Rome, restoring and building
aqueducts, enlarging and cleansing the sewers, and constructing
baths and porticos, and laying out gardens. He also first
gave a stimulus to the public exhibition of works of art.
The emperor's boast that he had found the city of brick but
left it of marble (``marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam
accepisset,'' Suet. Aug. 29) might with greater propriety
have been uttered by Agrippa. He was again called away to
take command of the fleet when the war with Antony broke
out. The victory at Actium (31), which gave the mastery of
Rome and the empire of the world to Octavian, was mainly due to
Agrippa. As a token of signal regard Octavian bestowed upon
him the hand of his niece Marcella (28). We must suppose
that his wife Pomponia was either dead or divorced. In 27
Agrippa was consul for the third time, and in the following
year the senate bestowed upon Octavian the emperial title of
Augustus. Probably in commemoration of the battle of Actium,
Agrippa built and dedicated the Pantheum still in existence as La
Rotonda. The inscription on the portico states that it was
erected by him during his third consulship. His friendship
with Augustus seems to have been clouded by the jealousy of
his father-in-law Marcellus, which was probably fomented by
the intrigues of Livia, the second wife of Augustus, who feared
his influence with her husband. The result was that Agrippa
left Rome, ostensibly to take over the governorship of Syria
--a sort of honourable exile; but as a matter of fact he only
sent his legate to the East, while he himself remained at
Lesbos. On the death of Marcellus, which took place within a
year, he was recalled to Rome by Augustus, who found he could
not dispense with his services. It is said that by the advice
of Maecenas he resolved to attach Agrippa still more closely
to him by making him his son-in-law. He accordingly induced
him to divorce Marcella and marry his daughter Julia (21),
the widow of Marcellus, equally celebrated for her beauty
and abilities and her shameless profligacy. In 19 Agrippa
was employed in putting down a rising of the Cantabrians in
Spain. He was appointed governor of Syria a second time
(17), where his just and prudent administration won him the
respect and good-will of the provincials, especially the Hebrew
population. His last public service was the bloodless
suppression of an insurrection in Pannonia (13). He died
at Campania in March of the year following his fifty-first
year. Augustus honoured his memory by a magnificent funeral.
Agrippa was also known as a writer, especially on
geography. Under his supervision Julius Caesar's design
of having a complete survey of the empire made was carried
out. From the materials at hand he constructed a circular
chart, which was engraved on marble by Augustus and afterwards
placed in the colonnade built by his sister Polla. Amongst
his writings an autobiography, now lost, is referred
to. Agrippa left several children; by Pomponia, a daughter
Vipsania, who became the wife of the emperor Tiberius; by Julia
three sons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar and Agrippa Postumus, and
two daughters, Agrippina the elder, afterwards the wife of
Germanicus, and Julia, who married Lucius Aemihus Pauilus.
See Dio Cassius xlix.-liv.; Suetonius, Augustus; Velleius
Paternulus ii.; Josephus, Antiq. Jud. xv. 10, xvi. 2;
Turnbull, Three Dissertations, one of the characters of
Horace, Augustus and Agrippa (1740); Frandsen, Marcus
Vipsanius Agrippa (1836); Motte, Etude sur Marcus
Agrippa (1872); Nispi-Landi, Marcus Agrippa e suoi
tempi (1901); D. Detlefsen, Ursprung, Einrichtung und
Bedeutung der Erdkarte Agrippas (1906); V. Gardthausen,
Augustus und seine Zeit, vol. i. 762 foll., ii. 432 foll.
AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, HENRY CORNELIUS (1486-1535) German
writer, soldier, physician, and by common reputation a magician,
belonged to a family many members of which had been in the
service of the house of Habsburg, and was born at Cologne on
the 14th of September 1486. The details of his early life are
somewhat obscure, but he appears to have obtained a knowledge
of eight languages, to have studied at the university of
Cologne and to have passed some time in France. When quite
young he entered the service of the German king, Maximilian
I., and in 1508 was engaged in an adventurous enterprise in
Catalonia. He probably served Maximilian both as soldier
and as secretary, but his wonderful and varied genius was not
satisfied with these occupations, and he soon began to take
a lively interest in theosophy and magic. In 1509 he went to
the university of Dole, where he lectured on John Reuchlin's
De Verbo Mirifico, but his teaching soon caused charges
of heresy to be brought against him, and he was denounced
by a monk named John Catilinet in lectures delivered at
Ghent. As a result Agrippa was compelled to leave Dole;
proceeding to the Netherlands he took service again with
Maximilian. In 1510 the king sent him on a diplomatic mission
to England, where he was the guest of Colet, dean of St Paul's,
and where he replied to the accusations brought against him by
Catilinet. Returning to Cologne he followed Maximilian to
Italy in 1511, and as a theologian attended the council of
Pisa, which was called by some cardinals in opposition to a
council called by Pope Julius II. He remained in Italy for
seven years, partly in the service of William VI., marquis of
Monferrato, and partly in that of Charles III., duke of Savoy,
probably occupied in teaching theology and practising medicine.
In 1515 he lectured at the university of Pavia on the Pimander
of Hermes Trismegistus, but these lectures were abruptly
terminated owing to the victories of Francis I., king of
France. In 1518 the efforts of one or other of his patrons
secured for Agrippa the position of town advocate and orator,
or syndic, at Metz. Here, as at Dole, his opinions soon
brought him into collision with the monks, and his defence
of a woman accused of witchcraft involved him in a dispute
with the inquisitor, Nicholas Savin. The consequence of
this was that in 1520 he resigned his office and returned to
Cologne, where he stayed about two years. He then practised
for a short time as a physician at Geneva and Freiburg,
but in 1524 went to Lyons on being appointed physician to
Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I. In 1528 he gave up this
position, and about this time was invited to take part in
the dispute over the legality of the divorce of Catherine
of Aragon by Henry VIII.; but he preferred an offer made by
Margaret, duchess of Savoy and regent of the Netherlands, and
became archivist and historiographer to the emperor Charles
V. Margaret's death in 1530 weakened his position, and the
publication of some of his writings about the same time aroused
anew the hatred of his enemies; but after suffering a short
imprisonment for debt at Brussels he lived at Cologne and
Bonn, under the protection of Hermann of Wied, archbishop of
Cologne. By publishing his works he brought himself into
antagonism with the Inquisition, which sought to stop
the printing of De occulta philosophia. He then went to
France, where he was arrested by order of Francis I. for
some disparaging words about the queen-mother; but he was
soon released, and on the 18th of February 1535 died at
Grenoble. He was married three times and had a large
family. Agrippa was a man of great ability and undoubted
courage, but he lacked perseverance and was himself responsible
for many of his misfortunes. In spite of his inquiring
nature and his delight in novelty, he remained a Catholic, and
had scant sympathy with the teaching of the reformers. His
memory was nevertheless long defamed in the writings of the
monks, who placed a malignant inscription over his grave.
Agrippa's work, De occulta philosophia, was written about
1510, partly under the influence of the author's friend, John
Trithemius, abbot of Wurzburg, but its publication was delayed
until 1531, when it appeared at Antwerp. It is a defence
of magic, by means of which men may come to a knowledge of
nature and of God, and contains Agrippa's idea of the universe
with its three worlds or spheres. His other principal work,
De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium Atque
Excellentia Verbi Dei Declamatio, was written about 1527
and published at Antwerp in 1531. This is a sarcastic attack
on the existing sciences and on the pretensions of learned
men. In it Agrippa denounces the accretions which had grown
up around the simple doctrines of Christianity, and wishes
for a return to the primitive belief of the early Christian
church. He also wrote De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Deminei
Sexus, dedicated to Margaret of Burgundy, De Matrimonii
Sacramento and other smaller works. An edition of his
works was published at Leiden in 1550 and they have been
republished several times. See H. Morley, Life of H. C.
Agrippa (London, 1856); A. Prost, Les Sciences at les arts
occultes au xvi. Siecle: Corneille Agrippa sa vie et ses
oeuvres (Paris, 1881); A. Daguet, Cornelius Agrippa (Paris, 1856).
AGRIPPINA, the ``elder,'' daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
by his third wife Julia, was the grand-daughter of Augustus
and the wife of Germanicus. She accompanied her husband to
Germany, when the legions on the Rhine revolted after the
death of Augustus (A.D. 14). Three years later she was in
the East with Germanicus (q.v.), who died at Antioch in
19, poisoned, it was said, by order of Cn. Calpurnius Piso,
governor of Syria. Eager to avenge his death, she returned
to Rome and boldly accused Piso of the murder of Germanicus.
To avoid public infamy Piso committed suicide. Tiberius and
his favourite Sejanus feared that her ambition might lead
her to attempt to secure the throne for her children, and
she was banished to the island of Pandataria off the coast of
Campania, where she died on the 18th of October 33, starved
to death by herself, or, according to some, by order of
Tiberius. Two of her sons, Nero and Drusus, had already
fallen victims to the machinations cf Sejanus. Agrippina
had a large family by Germanicus, several of whom died young,
while only two are of importance-- Agrippina the ``younger''
and Gaius Caesar, who succeeded Tiberius under the name of
Caligula. It is remarkable that, although Tiberius had
ordored the execution of his elder brothers, by his will he
left Caligula one of the heirs of the empire. Agrippina was
a woman of the highest character and exemplary morality.
There is a portrait of her in the Capitoline Museum at Rome,
and a bronze medal in the British Museum representing the
bringing back of her ashes to Rome by order of Caligula.
See Tac. Ann. i.-vi.; Suetonius, Tiberius, 53; Dio Cassius
lvii. 6, lviii. 22, lix. 3; Elizabeth Hamilton, Memoirs
of the Life of Agrippina (1804): Burkhard, Agrippina, des
Agrippa Tochter (1846); Stahr, Romische Kaiserfrauen (1880).
AGRIPPINA, the ``younger'' (A.D. 16-59), daughter of
Germanicus and Agrippina the elder, sister of Caligula and
mother of Nero, was born at Oppidum Ubiorum on the Rhine,
afterwards named in her honour Colonia Agrippinae (mod.
Cologne). Her life was notorious for intrigue and perfidy.
By her first husband, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, she was the
mother of the emperor Nero; her second husband was Passienus
Crispus, whom she was accused of poisoning. Assisted by
the influential freedman Tallas, she induced her uncle the
emperor Claudius to marry her after the death of Messalina,
and adopt the future Nero as heir to the throne in place of
Britannicus. Soon afterwards she poisoned Claudius and secured
the throne for her son, with the intention of practically
ruling on his behalf. Being alarmed at the influence of
the freedwoman Acte over Nero, sbe threatened to support
the claims of the rightful heir Britannicus. Nero thereupon
murdered the young prince and decided to get rid of his
mother. Pretending a reconciliation, he invited her to
Baiae, where an attempt was made to drown her on a vessel
especially constructed to founder. As this proved a failure,
he had her put to death at her country house. Agrippina
wrote memoirs of her times, referred to by Tacitus (Ann.
iv. 53). Her character is set forth in Racine's Britannicus.
See Tac.Ann. xii., xiii., xiv.; Dio Cassius lix.-lxi.; Suetonius,
NERO, 34; Stahr, Agrippina. die Mutter Neros (1880); Raffay, Die
Memoiren der Kaiserin Agrippina (1884); B. W. Henderson, The Life
and Principate of the Emperor Nero (1903); also article NERO.
AGROTERAS THUSIA, an annual festival held at Agrae near
Athens, in honour of Artemis Agrotera, in fulfilment of
a vow made by the city, before the battle of Marathon,
to offer in sacrifice a number of goats equal to that
of the Persians slain in the conflict. The number being
so great, it was decided to offer 100 goats yearly.
See Plutarch, De Malignitate Herodoti, 26; Xenophon, Anab. iii. 2.
12; Aelian, Var. Hist. ii. 25; Schol. on Aristophanes, Equites, 660.
AGUADILLA, a town and port near the northern extremity
of the W. coast of Porto Rico. Pop. (1899) 6425. It has
a fairly good and safe anchorage, and is the commercial
outlet for a very fertile agricultural district. The town
is attractively situated and well built, and is connected
by railway with Mayaguez, 20 m. distant, and also with
Ponce and San Juan. The neighbouring district produces
sugar-cane, tobacco, cattle, cocoanuts, oranges and lemons.
The bay is supposed to have been first visited by Columbus
(November 1493), though the town was not founded until 1775.
AGUADO, ALEXANDRE MARIE, marquis de Las Marismas del
Guadalquivir, viscount de Monte Ricco (1784-1842), Spanish
banker, was born of Jewish parentage at Seville, on the 29th
of June 1784. He began life as a soldier, fighting with
distinction in the Spanish war of independence on the side
of Joseph Bonaparte. After the battle of Baylen (1808) he
entered the French army, in which he rose to be colonel and
aide-de-camp to Marshal Soult. He was exiled in 1815, and
immediately started business as a commission-agent in Paris,
where, chiefly through his family connexions in Havana and
Mexico, he acquired in a few years enough wealth to enable
him to undertake banking. The Spanish government gave him
full powers to negotiate the loans of 1823, 1828, 1830 and
1831; and Ferdinand VII. rewarded him with the title of
marquis, the decorations of several orders and valuable mining
concessions in Spain. Aguado also negotiated the Greek loan of
1834. In 1828, having become possessed of large estates in
France, including the chateau Margaux, famous for its wine,
he was naturalized as a French citizen. He died at Gijon in
Spain on the 14th of April 1842, leaving a fortune computed
at 60,000,000 francs, and a splendid collection of pictures
which at his death was bought by the French government.
AGUASCALIENTES, an inland state of Mexico, bounded N., E.
and W. by the state of Zacatecas, and S. by Jalisco. Pop.
(est. 1900) 102,416, a gradual decrease since the census
years of 1895 and 1879; area, 2970 sq. m. The state occupies
an elevated plateau, extending from two spurs of the Sierra
Madre, called the Sierra Fria and Sierra de Laurel, eastward
to the rolling fertile plains of its eastern and south-eastern
districts. It is well watered by numerous small streams and
one larger river, the Aguascalientes or Rio Grande, and has
a mild healthy climate with a moderate rainfall. The fertile
valleys of the north and west are devoted to agriculture
and the plains to stockraising. Indian corn, flour, cattle,
horses, mules and hides are exported to the neighbouring
states. Mining industries are still undeveloped, but considerable
progress has been made in manufactures, especially of textile
fabrics. The state has good railway communications and a
prosperous trade. The capital, Aguascalientes, named from
the medicinal hot springs near it, is a flourishing commercial
and manufacturing city. Pop. (est. 1900) 35,052. It has
cotton factories, smelting works, potteries. tanneries,
distilleries, and wagon and tobacco factories. It is a station
on the Mexican Central railway, 364 m. by rail north-west of
the city of Mexico, and is connected by rail with Tampico on
the Gulf of Mexico. The city is well built, has many fine
churches and good public buildings, street cars and electric
lights. The surrounding district is well cultivated and
produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables. Other prominent
towns of the state are Rincon de Romos (or Victoria de
Calpulalpam), Asientos de Ibarra and Calvillo, the first
having more and the others less than 5000 inhabitants.
AGUE (from Lat. acuta, sharp; sc. febris, fever), the
common name given to a form or stage of malarial disease;
the ague fit is the cold, shivering stage, and hence the
word is also loosely used for any such paroxysm. Simple
ague is of much the same type whether in temperate or
tropical climates, and may take various forms (quotidian,
tertian, quartan), passing into ``remittent fever.'' The
symptoms are discussed, together with causation, &c., in
the article MALARIA. For ``brow-ague'' see NEURALGIA.
AGUESSEAU, HENRI FRANCOIS D' (1668-1751), chancellor of
France, illustrious for his virtues, learning and talents,
was born at Limoges, of a family of the magistrature. His
father, Henri d' Aguesseau, a hereditary councillor of the
parlement of Metz, was a man of singular ability and breadth
of view who, after holding successively the posts of intendant
of Limousin, Guyenne and Languedoc, was in 1685 called to
Paris as councillor of state, appointed director-general of
commerce and manufactures in 1695, president of the council of
commerce in 1700 and a member of the council of the regency for
finance. By him Francois d'Aguesseau was early initiated into
affairs and brought up in religious principles deeply tinged with
Jansenism. He studied law under Jean Domat, whose influence is
apparent in both the legal writings and legislative work of the
chancellor. When little more than twenty-one years of age he
was, through his father's influence with the king, appointed
one of the three advocates-general to the parlement of Paris;
and the eloquence and learning which he displayed in his first
speech gained him a very high reputation. D'Aguesseau was in
fact the first great master of forensic eloquence in France.
In 1700 he was appointed procurator-general; and in this
office, which he filled for seventeen years, he gained
the greatest popularity by his defence of the rights of
the Gallican Church in the Quietist troubles and in those
connected with the bull Unigenitus (see JANSENISM.) In
February 1717 he was made chancellor by the regent Orleans;
but was deprived of the seals in January of the following
year and exiled to his estate of Fresnos in Brie, on account
of his steady opposition to the projects of the famous John
Law, which had been adopted by the regent and his ministers.
In June 1720 he was recalled to satisfy public opinion; and
he contributed not a little by the firmness and sagacity of
his counsels to calm the public disturbance and repair the
mischief which had been done. Law himself had acted as the
messenger of his recall; and it is said that d'Aguesseau's
consent to accept the seals from his hand greatly diminished his
popularity. The parlement continuing its opposition to the
registering of the bull UNIGENITUS, d'Aguesseau, fearing
a schism and a religious war in France, assisted Guillaume
Dubois, the favourite of the regent, in his endeavour to force
the parlement to register the bull, acquiesced in the exile
of the magistrates and allowed the Great Council to assume the
power of registration, which legally belonged to the parlement
alone. The people unjustly attributed his conduct to a base
compliance with the favourite. He certainly opposed Dubois
in other matters; and when Dubois became chief minister
d'Aguesseau was deprived of his office (March 1, 1722).
He retired to his estate, where he passed five years of which
he always spoke with delight. The Scriptures, which he read
and compared in various languages, and the jurisprudence
of his own and other countries, formed the subjects of his
more serious studies; the rest of his time was devoted to
philosophy, literature and gardening. From these occupations
he was recalled to court by the advice of Cardinal Fleury in
1727, and on the 15th of August was named chancellor for the
third time, but the seals were not restored to him till ten
years later. During these years he endeavoured to mediate
in the disputes between the court and the parlement. When
he was at last reinstated in office, he completely withdrew
from all political affairs, and devoted himself entirely
to his duties as chancellor and to the achievement of those
reforms which had long occupied his thoughts. He aimed,
as others had tried before him, to draw up in a single code
all the laws of France, but was unable to accomplish his
task. Besides some important enactments regarding donations,
testaments and successions, he introduced various regulations
for improving the forms of procedure, for ascertaining
the limits of jurisdictions and for effecting a greater
uniformity in the execution of the laws throughout the several
provinces. These reforms constitute an epoch in the
history of French jurisprudence, and have placed the name
of d'Aguesseau in the same rank with those of L'Hopital and
Lamoignon. As a magistrate also he was so conscientious
that the duc de Saint-Simon in his Memoirs complained that
he spent too much time over the cases that came before him.
In 1750, when upwards of eighty-two years of age, d'Aguesseau
retired from the duties without giving up the rank of
chancellor. He died on the 9th of February of the following year.
His grandson, HENRI CARDIN JEAN BAPTISTE, MARQUIS D'AGUESSEAU
(1746-1826), was advocate-general in the parlement of Paris
and deputy in the Estates-General. Under the Consulate he
became president of the court of appeal and later minister at
Copenhaaen. He was elected to the French Academy in 1787.
Of d'Aguesseau's works the most complete edition is that
of the eminent lawyer Jean Marie Pardessus, published in 16
vols. (1818-1820); his letters were edited separately by Rives
(1823); a selection of his works, OEuvres Choisies, was
issued, with a biographical notice, by E. Falconnet in 2 vols.
(Paris, 1865). The far greater part of his works relate to
matters connected with his profession, hut they also contain
an elaborate treatise on money; several theological essays;
a life of his father, which is interesting from the account
which it gives of his own early education; and Metaphysical
Meditations, written to prove that, independently of
all revelation and all positive law, there is that in the
constitution of the human mind which renders man a law to himself.
See Boullee, Histoire de la vie et les ouvrages de
chancelier d'Aguesseau (Paris, 1835); Fr. Monnier, Le
Chancelier d'Aguesseau (Paris, 1860; 2nd ed., 1863); Charles
Butler, Mem. of Life of H. F. d'Aguesseau, &c. (1830).
AGUILAR, GRACE (1816-1847), English writer, the daughter of
a Jewish merchant in London, was born in June 1816. Her works
consist chiefly of religious fiction, such as The Vale of
Cedars (1850) and Home Influence (1847). She also wrote,
in defence of her faith and its professors, The Spirit of
Judaism (1842) and other works. Her services were acknowledged
gratefully by the ``women of Israel'' in a testimonial which
they presented shortly before her death, which took place
at Frankfort-on-the-Main on the 16th of September 1847.
AGUILAR, or AGUILAR DE LA FRONTERA, a town of southern
Spain, in the province of Cordova; near the small river
Cabra, and on the Cordova-Malaga railway. Pop. (1900)
13,236. Aguilar ``of the Frontier'' was so named in the
middle ages from its position on the border of the Moorish
territories, which were defended by the castle of Anzur, now
a ruin; but the spacious squares and modern houses of the
existing town retain few vestiges of Moorish dominion. The
olives and white wine of Aguilar are celebrated in Spain,
although the wine, which somewhat resembles sherry, is known
as Montilla, from the adjacent town of that name. Salt
springs exist in the neighbourhood, and to the south there
are two small lakes, Zonar and Rincon, which abound in fish.
AGUILAS, a seaport of south-eastern Spain, in the province of
Murcia, on the Mediterranean Sea, at the terminus of a railway from
Huercal-Overa. Pop. (1900) 15,868. Aguilas is built on the
landward side of a small peninsula, between two bays--the Puerto
Ponente, a good harbour, on the south-west, and the Puerto
Levanto, which is somewhat dangerous to shipping in rough
weather, on the north-east. It is the chief outlet for the
Spanish trade in esparto grass, and for the iron ore and other
mineral products of the neighbourhood. It has also some trade
in fruit and grain. The imports consist chiefly of coal. In
1904, 296 vessels, of 238,274 tons, cleared at this port.
AGUILERA, VENTURA RUIZ (1820-1881), Spanish poet, was born in
1820 at Salamanca, where he graduated in medicine. He removed
to Madrid in 1844, engaged in journalism and won considerable
popularity with a collection of poems entitled Ecos Nacionales
(1849). His Elegias y armonias (1863) was no less
successful, but his Satiras (1874) and Estaciones del ano
(1879) showed that his powers were declining. He wrote under
the obvious influence of Lamartine, preaching the gospel of
liberalism and Christianity in verses which, though deficient in
force, leave the impression of a sincere devotion and a charming
personality. He became director of the national archaeological
museum at Madrid, where he died on the 1st of July 1881.
AGUILLON (AGUILONIUS), FRANCOIS D, (1566-1617), Flemish
mathematician. Having entered the Society of Jesus in
1586, he was successively professor of philosophy at Douai
and rector of the Jesuit College at Antwerp. He wrote a
treatise on optics in six books (Antwerp, 1613), notable
for containing the principles of stereographic projection.
AHAB (in Heb. ``father's brother''), king of Israel, the son
and successor of Omri, ascended the throne about 875 B.C.
(1 Kings xvi. 29-34). He married Jezebel, the daughter of
the king of Sidon, and the alliance was doubtless the means
of procuring him great riches, which brought pomp and luxury
in their train. We read of his building an ivory palace and
founding new cities, the effect perhaps of a share in the
flourishing commerce of Phoenicia.1 The material prosperity
of his reign, which is comparable with that of Solomon a
century before, was overshadowed by the religious changes
which his marriage involved. Although he was a worshipper of
Yahweh, as the names of his children prove (cp. also xxii. 5
seq.), his wife was firmly attached to the worship of the
Tyrian Baal, Melkart, and led by her he gave a great impulse
to this cult by building a temple in honour of Baal in
Samaria. This roused the indignation of those prophets
whose aim it was to purify the worship of Yahweh (see
ELIJAH.) During Ahab's reign Moab, which had been conquered
by his father, remained tributary; Judah, with whose king,
Jehoshaphat, he was allied by marriage, was probably his
vassal; only with Damascus is he said to have had strained
relations. The one event mentioned by external sources is the
battle at Karkar (perhaps Apamea), where Shalmaneser II. of
Assyria fought a great confederation of princes from Cilicia,
N. Syria, Israel, Ammon and the tribes of the Syrian desert
(854 B.C..) Here Ahabbu Sir'lai (Ahab the Israelite) with
Baasha, son of Ruhub (Rehob) of Ammon and nine others are
allied with Bir-'idri (Ben-hadad), Ahab's contribution being
reckoned at 2000 chariots and 10,000 men. The numbers are
comparatively large and possibly include forces from Tyre,
Judah, Edom and Moab. The Assyrian king claimed a victory,
but his immediate return and subsequent expeditions in 849
and 846 against a similar but unspecified coalition seem to
show that he met with no lasting success. According to the
Old Testament narratives, however, Ahab with 7000 troops had
previously overthrown Ben-hadad and his thirty-two kings, who
had come to lay siege to Samaria, and in the following year
obtained a remarkable victory over him at Aphek, probably in
the plain of Sharon (1 Kings xx.) . A treaty was made whereby
Ben-hadad restored the cities which his father had taken from
Ahab's father (i.e. Omri, but see xv. 20, 2 Kings xiii.
25), and trading facilities between Damascus and Samaria were
granted. A late popular story (xx. 35-42, akin in tone to xii.
33-xiii. 34) condemned Ahab for his leniency and foretold the
destruction of the king and his land. Three years later, war
broke out on the east of Jordan, and Ahab with Jehoshaphat of
Judah went to recover Ramoth-Gilead and was mortally wounded
(xxii.). He was succeeded by his sons (Ahaziah and Jehoram).
It is very difficult to obtain any clear idea of the order
of these events (LXX. places 1 Kings xxi. immediately after
xix.). How the hostile kings of Israel and Syria came to
fight a common enemy, and how to correlate the Assyrian and
Biblical records, are questions which have perplexed all recent
writers. The reality of the difficulties will be apparent from
the fact that it has been suggested that the Assyrian scribe
wrote ``Ahab'' for his son ``Jehoram'' (Kamphausen, Chronol. d.
hebr. Kon., Kittel), and that the very identification of
the name with Ahab of Israel has been questioned (Horner,
Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 1898, p. 244).2 Whilst the above
passages in 1 Kings view Ahab not unfavourably, there are
others which give a less friendly picture. The tragic murder
of Naboth (see JEZEBEL), an act of royal encroachment,
stirred up popular resentment just as the new cult aroused
the opposition of certain of the prophets. The latter found
their champion in Elijah, whose history reflects the prophetic
teaching of more than one age. (See KINGS.) His denunciation
of the royal dynasty, and his emphatic insistence on the
worship of Yahweh and Yahweh alone, form the keynote to a
period which culminated in the accession of Jehu, an event in
which Elijah's chosen disciple Elisha was the leading figure.
The allusions to the statutes and works of Omri and Ahab
in Mic. vi. 16 may point to legislative measures of these
kings, and the reference to the incidents at the building
of Jericho (1 Kings xvi. 34) may be taken to show that
foundation sacrifices, familiar in nearly all parts of the
world, were not unknown in Israel at this period.3 This
has in fact been confirmed by excavation in Palestine.
Another Ahab is known only as an impious prophet in the
time of the Babylonian exile (Jer. xxix. 21). (S. A. C.)
1 Ahab's ivory palace found its imitators (1 Kings xxii. 39;
Am. iii. 15). The ivory was probably brought by the Phoenicians
from Cyprus or from one of the works on the coast of Asia Minor.
2 See the discussions by Cheyne, Ency. Bib.
col. 91 seq., and by Whitehouse, Dict Bib. i. 53.
3 See Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, pp. 46 sqq.;
Haddon, Study of Man, pp. 347 sqq.; P. Sartori,
Zeitschr. fur Ethnologie, 1898, pp. 1 seq.
'AHAI, of Sabha, an 8th-century Talmudist of high renown.
He was author of Quaestiones (Sheiltoth), a collection
of homilies (at once learned and popular) on Jewish law and
ethics. This is recorded to have been the first work written
by a Jewish scholar after the completion of the Talmud.
AHASUERUS (the Latinized form of the Hebrew shin vav resh
tsareh vav shvah shin patach heth patach aleph; in LXX.
`Assoueros, once in Tobit `Asueros)), a royal Persian or
Median name occurring in three of the books of the Old Testament
and in one of the books of the Apocrypha. In every case the
identification of the person named is a matter of controversy.
In Dan. ix. 1 Ahasuerus is the father of Darius the Mede,
who ``was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans'' after
the conquest of Babylon and death of Belshazzar. Who this
Darius was is one of the most difficult questions in ancient
history. Nabonidos (Nabunaid, Nabu-nahid) was immediately
succeeded by Cyrus, who ruled the whole Persian empire.
Darius may possibly have acted under Cyrus as governor of
Babylon, but this view is not favoured by Dan. vi. 1, vi.
25, for Darius (v. 31) is said to have been sixty-two
years old at the time (638 B.C.) . This would make him
contemporary with Nebuchadrezzar, which agrees with Tob. xiv.
15, where we read ``of the destruction of Nineveh, which
Nebuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus took captive.'' As a matter of
fact, however, Cyaxares and Nabopolassar were the conquerors
of Nineveh, and the latter was the father of Nebuchadrezzar.
Cyrus did, on ascending the throne of Babylon, appoint a
governor of the province, but his name was Gobryas, the son of
Mardonius. The truth is, no doubt, as Prof. Sayce points
out, that the book of Daniel was not meant to be strictly
historical. As Prof. Driver says, ``tradition, it can
hardly be doubted, has here confused persons and events in
reality distinct'' (Literature of the Old Test. (6) p. 500).
In Ezra iv. 6 Ahasuerus is mentioned as a king of Persia, to
whom the enemies of the Jews sent representations opposing
the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem. Here the sequence
of the reigns in the Biblical writer and in the profane
historians-- in the one, Cyrus, Ahasuerus, Artaxerxes, Darius;
in the other, Cyrus, Cambyses, Smerdis, Darius--led in the past
(Ewald, &c.) to the identification of Ahasuerus with Cambyses
(529--522 B.C.), son of Cyrus. The name Khshayarsha,
however, has been found in Persian inscriptions, and has been
thought to be equivalent to the Xerxes (485-465 B.C.) of the
Greeks. On Babylonian tablets both the forms Khishiarshu
and Akkashiarshi occur amongst others. Modern scholars,
therefore, identify the Ahasuerus of Ezra with Xerxes.
In the book of Esther the king of Persia is called Ahasuerus
(rendered in LXX. ``Artaxerxes'' throughout). The identification
of Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I. Longimanus, the son and successor
of Xerxes, though countenanced by Josephus, deserves little
consideration. Most students are agreed that he must be a
monarch of the Achaemenian dynasty, earlier than Artaxerxes
I.; and opinion is divided between Darius Hystaspes and
Xerxes. In support of the former view it is alleged, among
other things, that Darius was the first Persian king of whom
it could be said, as in Esther i. 1, that he ``reigned from
India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty
provinces''; and that it was also the distinction of Darius
that (Esther x. 1) he laid ``a tribute upon the land and upon
the isles of the sea'' (cf. Herod. iii. 89). In support of
the identification with Xerxes it is alleged (1) that the
Hebrew Ahashverosh is the natural equivalent of the old
Persian Khshayarsha, the true name of Xerxes; (2) that
there is a striking similarity of character between the Xerxes
of Herodotus and the Ahasuerus of Esther; (3) that certain
coincidences in dates and events corroborate this identity,
as, e.g., the feast in the king's third year (cf. Esther
i. 3 with Herod. vii. 8), the return of Xerxes to Susa in
the seventh year of his reign and the marriage of Ahasuerus
at Shushan in the same year of his. To this it may be added
that the interval of four years between the divorce of Vashti
and the marriage of Esther is well accounted for by the
intervention of an important series of events fully occupying
the monarch's thoughts, such as the invasion of Greece.
See articles ``Ahasuerus'' in the Encyclopaedia Biblica,
Hastings' Dictionary, the Jewish Encyclopaedis; S.
R. Driver, Introd. to the Lit. of the Old Test.;
Friedrich Delitzsch in the Calwer Bibellexikon (1893).
AHAZ (Heb. for ``[Yahweh] holds''), son of Jotham, grandson
of Uzziah or Azariah and king of Judah. After the death of
Menahem, Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin (rather Rasun), king of
Syria, allied against Assyria, invaded Judah, and laid siege to
Jerusalem in the hope of setting up one of their puppets upon the
throne. At the same time the Edomites recovered Elath on the
Gulf of Akabah (so read in 2 Kings xvi. 6; cp. also 2 Chron.
xxviii. 16 sqq.) and Judah was isolated. Notwithstanding
the counsel of Isaiah (Is. vii. 1-17), Ahaz lost heart and
used the temple funds to call in the aid of Tiglath-pileser
IV., who after attacking the Philistines destroyed the power
of Syria, taking care to exact heavy tribute from Judah,
which led to further despoliation of the temple. It was as
a vassal that Ahaz presented himself to the Assyrian king at
Damascus, and he brought back religious innovations (2 Kings
xvi. 10 sqq.; for the priest Urijah see Is. viii. 2) and new
ideas to which he proceeded to give effect. His buildings
are referred to in 2 Kings xx. 11, xxiii. 12; cf. perhaps
Jer. xxii. 15: ``art thou a true king because thou viest with
Ahaz'' (see the LXX.). Ahaz was succeeded by his son Hezekiah.
On the ritual changes which he introduced see W. R. Smith,
Relig. of Semites (2), pp. 485 sqq.; and on his reign, idem,
Prophets of Israel (2), pp. 415 sqq. On 2 Kings xvi. 3 (cf.
2 Chron. xxviii. 3) see Moloch. See further Isaiah and Jews.
AHAZIAH (``he whom Yahweh sustains''), the name of two
kings in the Bible, one of Israel, the other of Judah. (1)
Ahaziah, 8th king of Israel, was the son and successor of
Ahab, and reigned for less than two years. On his accession
the Moabites refused any longer to pay tribute. Ahaziah lost
his life through a fall from the lattice of an upper room in
his palace, and it is stated that in his illness he sent to
consult the oracle of Baal-zebub at Ekron; his messengers,
however, were met by Elijah, who bade them return and tell the
king he must die (e Kings i. 2-17; cf. Luke ix. 54-56). (2)
Ahaziah, 6th king of Judah, was the son cf Jehoram and Ahab's
daughter Athaliah, and reigned one year. He is described as
a wicked and idolatrous king, and was slain by Jehu, son of
Nimshi. He is variously called Jehoahaz and Azariah.
AHENOBARBUS (``brazen-bearded''), the name cf a plebeian
Roman family of the gens Domitia. The name was derived
from the red beard and hair by which many of the family were
distinguished. Amongst its members the following may be mentioned:--
GNAEUS DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, tribune of the people 104 B.C.,
brought forward a law (lex Domitia de Sacerdotiis) by which
the priests of the superior colleges were to be elected by
the people in the comitia tributa (seventeen of the tribes
voting) instead of by co-optation; the law was repealed by
Sulla, revived by Julius Caesar and (perhaps) again repealed
by Marcus Antonius, the triumvir (Cicero, De Lege Agraria,
ii. 7; Suetonius, Nero, 2). Ahenobarbus was elected pontifex
maximus in 103, consul in 96 and censor in 92 with Lucius
Licinius Crassus the orator, with whom he was frequently at
variance. They took joint action, however, in suppressing
the recently established Latin rhetorical schools, which they
regarded as injurious to public morality (Aulus Gellius xv. 11).
LUCIUS DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, son of the above, husband of
Porcia the sister of Cato Uticensis, friend of Cicero and
enemy of Caesar, and a strong supporter of the aristocratical
party. At first strongly opposed to Pompey, he afterwards sided
with him against Caesar. He was consul in 54 B.C., and in 49
he was appointed by the senate to succeed Caesar as governor of
Gaul. After the outbreak of the civil war he commanded the
Pompeian troops at Corfinium, but was obliged to surrender.
Although treated with great generosity by Caesar, he stirred
up Massilia (Marseilles) to an unsuccessful resistance against
him. After its surrender, he joined Pompey in Greece and was
slain in the flight after the battle of Pharsalus, in which he
commanded the right wing against Antony (Caesar, Bellum Civile,
i., ii., iii.; Dio Cassius xxxix., xli.; Appian, B.C. ii. 82).
GNAEUS DOMITIUS AHENOBARBUS, son of the above, accompanied his
father at Corfinium and Pharsalus, and, having been pardoned by
Caesar, returned to Rome in 46. After Caesar's assassination
he attached himself to Brutus and Cassius, and in 43 was
condemned by the lex Pedia as having been implicated in the
plot. He obtained considerable naval successes in the
Ionian Sea against the triumvirate, but finally, through the
mediation of Asinius Pollio, became reconciled to Antony,
who made him governor of Bithynia. He took part in Antony's
Parthian campaigns, and was consul in 32. When war broke out
between Antony and Octavian, he at first supported Antony,
but, disgusted with his intrigue with Cleopatra, went over
to Octavian shortly before the battle of Actium (31). He
died soon afterwards (Dio Cassius xlviii.-l; Appian, Bell.
Civ. iv., v.). His son was married to Antonia, daughter
of Antony, and became the grandfather of the emperor Nero.
See Drumann, Geschichte Rom., 2nd ed. by Groebe,vol. iii. pp.14 ff.
AHITHOPHEL (Heb. for ``brother of foolishness,'' i.e.
foolish!), a man of Judah whose son was a member of David's
bodyguard. He was possibly the grandfather of Bathsheiba (see
2 Sam. xi. 3, xxiii. 34), a view which has been thought to
have some bearing on his policy. He was one of David's most
trusted advisers, and his counsel was ``as though one inquired
of the word of God.'' He took a leading part in Absalom's
revolt, and his defection was a severe blow to the king, who
prayed that God would bring his counsel to ``foolishness.''
The subsequent events are rather obscure. At Ahithophel's
advice Absalom first took the precaution of asserting his
claim to the throne by seizing his father's concubines (cf.
ABNER.) The immediate pursuit of David was then suggested;
the advice was accepted, and the sequence of events shows
that the king, being warned of this, fled across the Jordan
(2 Sam. xvi. 20-23, xvii. 1-4, 22). Inconsistent with
this is the account of the intervention of Hushai, whose
counsel of delay (in order to gather all Israel ``from Dan
to Beersheba''), in spite of popular approbation, was not
adopted, and with this episode is connected the tradition
that the sagacious counsellor returned to his home and,
having disposed of his estate, hanged himself. Instances of
suicide are rare in the Old Testament (cf. SAUL), and it
is noteworthy that in this case, at least, a burial was not
refused. (See further ABSALOM; DAVID; SAMUEL, BOOKS OF.)
AHMAD IBN HANBAL (780-855), the founder, involuntarily and
after his death, of the Hanbalite school of canon law, was
born at Bagdad in A.H. 164 (A.D. 780) of parents from Merv
but of Arab stock. He studied the Koran and its traditions
(hadith, sunna) there and on a student journey through
Mesopotamia, Arabia and Syria. After his return to Bagdad he
studied under ash-Shafi'i between 195 and 198, and became,
for his life, a devoted Shafi-'ite. But his position in both
theology and law was more narrowly traditional than that of
ash-Shafi'i; he rejected all reasoning, whether orthodox
or heretical in its conclusions, and stood for acceptance on
tradition (naql) only from the Fathers. (See further on this,
MAHOMMEDAN RELIGION and MAHOMMEDAN LAW.) In consequence,
when al-Ma'mun and, after him, al-Mo'tasim and al-Wathio
tried to force upon the people the rationalistic Mo'tazihte
doctrine that the Koran was created, Ibn Hanbal, the most
prominent and popular theologian who stood for the old view,
suffered with others grievous imprisonment and scourging.
In 234, under al-Motawakkil, the Koran was finally decreed
uncreated, and Ibn Hanbal, who had come through this trial
better than any of the other theologians, enjoyed an immense
popularity with the mass of the people as a saint, confessor and
ascetic. He died at Bagdad in 241 (A.D. 855) and was buried
there. There was much popular excitement at his funeral, and his
tomb was known and visited until at least the 14th century A.D.
On his great work, the Musnad, a collection of some thirty
thousand selected traditions, see Goldzther in ZDMG, l. 463
ff. For his life and works generally see W. M. Patten, Ahmed
ibn Hanbal and the Mihna; C. Browkelmann, Geschichte der
Arab. Lit. i. 181 ff.; F Wustenfeld, Schfai'iten, 55 ff.;
M`G. de Slane's transl. of Ibn Khallikan, i. 44 ff.; Macdonald,
Development of Muslim Theology, 110, 157, index. (D. B. MA.)
AHMAD SHAH (1724-1773), founder of the Durani dynasty in
Afghanistan, was the son of Sammaun-Khan, hereditary chief of
the Abdali tribe. While still a boy Ahmad fell into the hands
of the hostile tribe of Ghilzais, by whom he was kept prisoner at
Kandahar. In March 1738 he was rescued by Nadir Shah, who
soon afterwards gave him the command of a body of cavalry
composed chiefly of Abdalis. On the assassination of Nadir in
1747, Ahmad, having failed in an attempt to seize the Persian
treasures, retreated to Afghanistan, where he easily persuaded
the native tribes to assert their independence and accept him
as their sovereign. He was crowned at Kandahar in October 1747,
and about the same time he changed the name of his tribe to
Durani. Two things may be said to have contributed greatly
to the consolidation of his power. He interfered as little
as possible with the independence of the different tribes,
demanding from each only its due proportion of tribute and
military service; and he kept his army constantly engaged
in brilliant schemes of foreign conquest. Being possessed
of the Koh-i-noor diamond, and being fortunate enough to
intercept a consignment of treasure on its way to the shah
of Persia, he had all the advantages which great wealth can
give. He first crossed the Indus in 1748, when he took
Lahore; and in 1751, after a feeble resistance on the part
of the Mahommedan viceroy, he became master of the entire
Punjab. In 1750 he took Nishapur, and in 1752 subdued
Kashmir. His great expedition to Delhi was undertaken in
1756 in order to avenge himself on the Great Mogul for the
recapture of Lahore. Ahmad entered Delhi with his army in
triumph, and for more than a month the city was given over to
pillage. The shah himself added to his wives a princess of
the imperial family, and bestowed another upon his son Timur
Shah, whom he made governor of the Punjab and Sirhind. As his
viceroy in Delhi he left a Rohilla chief in whom he had all
confidence, but scarcely had he crossed the Indus when the
Mahommedan wazir drove the chief from the city, killed the
Great Mogul and set another prince of the family, a tool of his
own, upon the throne. The Mahratta chiefs availed themselves
of these circumstances to endeavour to possess themselves of the
whole country, and Ahmad was compelled more than once to cross
the Indus in order to protect his territory from them and the
Sikhs, who were constantly attacking his garrisons. In 1758
the Mahrattas obtained possession of the Punjab, but on the
6th of January 1761 they were totally routed by Ahmad in the
great battle of Panipat. In a later expedition he inflicted
a severe defeat upon the Sikhs, but had to hasten westward
immediately afterwards in order to quell an insurrection in
Afghanistan. Meanwhile the Sikhs again rose, and Ahmad
was now forced to abandon all hope of retaining the command
of the Punjab. After lengthened suffering from a terrible
disease, said to have been cancer in the face, he died in
1773, leaving to his son Timur the kingdom he had founded.
AHMED I. (1589-1617), sultan of Turkey, was the son of
Mahommed III., whom he succeeded in 1603, being the first
Ottoman sultan who reached the throne before attaining his
majority. He was of kindly and humane disposition, as he
showed by refusing to put to death his brother Mustafa, who
eventually succeeded him. In the earlier part of his reign
he gave proofs of decision and vigour, which were belied by
his subsequent conduct. The wars which attended his accession
both in Hungary and in Persia terminated unfavourably for
Turkey, and her prestige received its first check in the
peace of Sitvatorok, signed in 1606, whereby the annual
tribute paid by Austria was abolished. Ahmed gave himself
up to pleasure during the remainder of his reign, which
ended in 1617, and demoralization and corruption became
as general throughout the public service as indiscipline
in the ranks of the army. The use of tobacco is said to
have been introduced into Turkey during Ahmed I.'s reign.
AHMED II. (1643-1695), sultan of Turkey, son of Sultan
Ibrahim, succeeded his brother Suleiman II. in 1691.
His chief merit was to confirm Mustafa Kuprili as grand
vizier. But a few weeks after his accession Turkey sustained
a crushing defeat at Slankamen from the Austrians under
Prince Louis of Baden and was driven from Hungary; during
the four years of his reign disaster followed on disaster,
and in 1695 Ahmed died, worn out by disease and sorrow.
AHMED III. (1637-1736), sultan of Turkey, son of Mahommed
IV., succeeded to the throne in 1703 on the abdication of
his brother Mustafa II. He cultivated good relations with
England, in view doubtless of Russia's menacing attitude.
He afforded a refuge in Turkey to Charles XII. of Sweden,
after his defeat at Poltava (1709). Forced against his
will into war with Russia, he came nearer than any Turkish
sovereign before or since to breaking the power of his northern
rival, whom his Grand Vizier Baltaji Mahommed Pasha succeeded
in completely surrounding near the Pruth (1711). In the
treaty which Russia was compelled to sign Turkey obtained
the restitution of Azov, the destruction of the forts built
by Russia and the undertaking that the tsar should abstain
from future interference in the affairs of the Poles or the
Cossacks. Discontent at the leniency of these terms was
so strong at Constantinople that it nearly brought on a
renewal of the war. In 1715 the Morea was taken from the
Venetians. This led to hostilities with Austria, in which
Turkey was unsuccessful, and Belgrade fell into the hands
of Austria (1717). Through the mediation of England and
Holland the peace of Passarowitz was concluded (1718), by
which Turkey retained her conquests from the Venetians, but
lost Hungary. A war with Persia terminated in disaster,
leading to a revolt of the janissaries, who deposed Ahmed
in September 1730. He died in captivity some years later.
AHMEDABAD, or AHMADABAD, a city and district of British
India in the northern division of Bombay. The city was once
the handsomest and most flourishing in western India, and it
still ranks next to Agra and Delhi for the beauty and extent
of its architectural remains. It was founded by Ahmad Shah
in A.D. 1411 on the site of several Hindu towns, which had
preceded it, and was embellished by him with fine buildings of
marble, brought from a distance. The Portuguese traveller
Barbosa, who visited Gujarat in A.D. 1511 and 1514, described
Ahmedabad as ``very rich and well embellished with good streets
and squares supplied with houses of stone and cement.'' In Sir
Thomas Roe's time, A.D. 1615, ``it was a goodly city as large
as London.'' During the course of its history it has passed
through two periods of greatness, two of decay and one of
revival. From 1411 to 1511 it grew in size and wealth; from 1512
to 1572 it declined with the decay of the dynasty of Gujarat;
from 1572 to 1709 it renewed its greatness under the Mogul
emperors; from 1709 to 1809 it dwindled with their decline; and
from 1818 onwards it has again increased under British rule.
The consequence of all these changes of dynasty was that
Ahmedabad became the meeting-place of Hindu, Mahommedan and Jain
architecture. Ahmad Shah pulled down Hindu temples in order
to build his mosques with the material. The Jama Masjid
itself, which he built in A.D. 1424, with its three hundred
pillars fantastically carved, is a Hindu temple converted
into a mosque (see INDIAN ARCHITECTURE, Plate III., fig.
15). One of the finest buildings is the modern Jain temple of
Hathi Singh outside the Delhi gate, which was built only in
1848, and is a standing monument to the endurance of Jain
architectural art The external porch, between two circular
towers, is of great magnificence, most elaborately ornamented,
and leads to an outer court, with sixteen cells on either
side. In the centre of this court is a domed porch of the
usual form with twenty pillars. The court leads to an inner
porch of twenty-two pillars, two stories in height. This
inner porch conducts to a triple sanctuary. James Fergusson
wrote of this temple that ``each part increases in dignity
to the sanctuary; and whether looked at from its courts or
from outside, it possesses variety without confusion, and an
appropriateness of every part to the purpose for which it was
intended.'' But perhaps the most unique sight in Ahmedabad
is the two windows in Sidi Said's mosque of filigree marble
work. The design is an imitation of twining and interlaced
branches, a marvel of delicacy and grace, and finer
than anything of the kind to be found in Agra or Delhi.
The modern city of Ahmedabad is situated on the left bank
of the river Sabarmati, and is still surrounded by walls
enclosing an area of about 2 sq. m. Its population in 1901 was
185,889. It has a station on the Bombay and Baroda railway,
309 m. from Bombay, whence branch lines diverge into Kathiawar
and Mahi Kantha, and is a great centre for both trade and
manufacture. Its native bankers, shopkeepers and workers are all
strongly organized in gilds. It has cotton mills for spinning
and weaving, besides many handlooms, and factories for ginning
and pressing cotton. Other industries include the manufacture
of gold and silver thread, silk brocades, pottery, paper and
shoes. The prosperity of Ahmedabad, says a native proverb,
hangs on three threads--silk, gold and cotton; and though
its manufactures are on a smaller scale than formerly, they
are still moderately flourishing. The military cantonment,
3 m. north of the native town, is the headquarters of the
northern division of the Bombay command, with an arsenal.
The DISTRICT OF AHMEDABAD lies at the head of the Gulf of
Cambay, between Baroda and Kathiawar. Area 3816 sq. m. The
river Sabarmati and its tributaries, flowing from north-east
to south-west into the Gulf of Cambay, are the principal
streams that water the district. The north-eastern portion is
slightly elevated, and dotted with low hills, which gradually
sink into a vast plain, subject to inundation on its western
extremity. With the exception of this latter portion, the
soil is very fertile, and some parts of the district are
beautifully wooded. The population in 1901 was 795,967,
showing a decrease of 14% in the decade, due to the effects of
famine. The principal crops are millets, cotton, wheat and
pulse. The district is traversed by the Bombay and Baroda
railway, and has two seaports, Dholera and Gogo, the former of
which has given its name to a mark of raw cotton in the Liverpool
market. It suffered severely in the famine of 1899-1900.
AHMEDNAGAR, or AHMADNAGAR, a city and district of British
India in the Central division of Bombay on the left bank of
the river Sina. The town is of considerable antiquity, having
been founded in 1494 by Ahmad Nizam Shah, on the site of a
more ancient city, Bhingar. This Ahmad established a new
monarchy, which lasted till its overthrow by Shah Jahan in
1636. In 1759 the Peshwa obtained possession of the
place by bribing the Mahommedan commander, and in 1797 it
was ceded by the Peshwa to the Mahratta chief Daulat Rao
Sindhia. During the war with the Mahrattas in 1803 Ahmednagar
was invested by a British force under General Wellesley and
captured. It was afterwards restored to the Mahrattas,
but again came into the possession of the British in 1817,
according to the terms of the treaty of Poona. The town has
rapidly advanced in prosperity under British rule. Several
mosques and tombs have been converted to the use of British
administration. The old industries of carpet-weaving and
paper-making have died out; but there is a large trade in
cotton and silk goods, and in copper and brass pots, and there
are factories for ginning and pressing cotton. Ahmednagar
is a station on the loop line of the Great Indian Peninsula
railway, 218 m. from Bombay, and a military cantonment,
being the headquarters of a brigade in the 6th division of
the western army corps. The population in 1901 was 43,032.
The DISTRICT OF AHMEDNACAR is a comparatively barren tract
with a small rainfall. The area is 6586 sq. m. The population
in 1901 was 837,695, showing a decrease of 6% in the decade,
due to the results of famine. The bulk of the population
consists of Mahrattas and Kunbis, the latter being the
agriculturists. On the north the district is watered by the
Godavari and its tributaries the Prawara and the Mula; on the
north-east by the Dor, another tributary of the Godavari; on
the east by the Sephani, which flows through the valley below
the Balaghat range; and in the extreme south by the Bhima and
its tributary the Gor. The Sina river, another tributary of the
Bhima, flows through the Nagar and Karjat talukas. The principal
crops are millet, pulse, oil-seeds and wheat. The district
suffered from drought in 1896-1897, and again in 1899-1900.
AHMED TEWFIK, PASHA (1845- ), Turkish diplomatist,
was the son of Ismail Hakki Pasha. He was at first in the
army, but left the service in 1862; four years later he
entered the diplomatic service, being employed at various
European capitals. He became minister at Athens in
1883 and ambassador in Berlin in 1884. He was appointed
minister for foreign affairs (Kharijie Naziri) in 1896.
AHMED VEFIK, PASHA (1819-1891), Turkish statesman and
man of letters, was born in Stambul in 1819. He was the
son of Rouheddin Effendi, at one time charge d'affaires in
Paris, an accomplished French scholar, who was, therefore,
attached, in the capacity of secretary-interpreter, to Reshid
Pasha's diplomatic mission to Paris in 1834. Reshid took Ahmed
with him and placed him at school, where he remained about
five years and completed his studies. He then returned to
Constantinople, and was appointed to a post in the bureau
de traduction of the ministry for foreign affairs. While
thus employed he devoted his leisure to the translation
of Moliere's plays into Turkish and to the compilation of
educational books--dictionaries, historical and geographical
manuals, &c.--for use in Turkish schools, with the object of
promoting cultivation of the French language among the rising
generation. In 1847 he brought out the first edition of
the Salnameh, the official annual of the Ottoman empire.
Two years later he was appointed imperial commissioner in
the Danubian principalities, and held that office till early
in 1851 when he was sent to Persia as ambassador--a post
which suited his temperament, and in which he rendered good
service to his goverment for more than four years. Recalled
in 1855, he was sent on a mission to inspect the eastern
frontiers, and on his return was appointed member of the
Grand Council of Justice, and was entrusted with the revision
of the penal code and the code of procedure. This work
occupied him until the beginning of 1860, when he was sent
as ambassador to Paris, for the special purpose of averting
the much-dreaded intervention of France in the affairs of
Syria. But Ahmed Vefik's abrupt frankness, irascibility
and abhorrence of compromise unfitted him for European
diplomacy. He offended the French government; his mission
failed, and he was recalled in January, 1861. None the less
his integrity of purpose was fully understood and appreciated
in Paris. On his return he was appointed minister of the
evkaj, but he only retained his seat in the cabinet for
a few months. He was then for a brief period president
of the Board of Audit, and subsequently inspector of the
Anatolian provinces, where he was engaged for more than three
years. His next appointment was that of director-general of
customs, whence he was removed to the office of musteshar
of the grand vizierate, and in the following year entered the
cabinet of Midhat Pasha as minister of public instruction,
but very soon retired to his seat in the Council of State
and remained out of office until 1875, when he represented
Turkey at the International Telegraphic Conference in St
Petersburg. He was president of the short-lived Turkish
parliament during its first session--March 19 to June 28,
1877--and at its close was appointed vali of Adrianople, where
he rendered invaluable aid to the Red Cross Society. On his
recall, at the beginning of 1878, he accepted the ministry of
public instruction in the cabinet of Ahmed Hamdi Pasha, and
on the abolition of the grand vizierate (February 5, 1878) he
became prime minister and held office till about the middle
of April, when he resigned. Early in the following year he
was appointed vali of Brusa, where he remained nearly four
years, and rendered admirable services to the province. The
drainage of the pestilent marshes, the water-supply from the
mountains, the numerous roads, the suppression of brigandage,
the multiplication of schools, the vast development of the silk
industry through the substitution of mulberry plantations for
rice-fields, the opening out of the mineral springs of Chitli,
the introduction of rose-trees and the production of attar
of roses--all these were Ahmed Vefik's work; and he became
so popular that when in 1882 he was recalled, it was thought
advisable that he should be taken away secretly by night from
the konak in Brusa and brought to his private residence
on the Bosporus. A few days after his return he was again
appointed prime minister (December 1, 1882), but Ahmed Vefik
demanded, as the condition of his acceptance of office, that
he should choose the other members of the cabinet, and that
a number of persons in the sultan's entourage should be
dismissed. Upon this, the sultan, on the 3rd of December,
revoked the irade of the 1st of December, and appointed
Said Pasha prime minister. For the rest of his life Ahmed
Vefik, by the sultan's orders, was practically a prisoner in
his own house; and eventually he died, on the 1st of April
1891, of a renal complaint from which he had long been a
sufferer. Ahmed Vefik was a great linguist. He spoke and
wrote French perfectly, and thoroughly understood English,
German, Italian, Greek, Arabic and Persian. From all these
languages he translated many books into Turkish, but wrote
no original work. His splendid library of 15,000 volumes
contained priceless manuscripts in many languages. In his
lifetime he appreciably aided the progress of education;
but, as he had no following, the effects of his labour and
influence in a great measure faded away after his death.
In all his social and family relations Ahmed Vefik was most
exemplary. His charity knew no bounds. He was devoted to his
aged mother and to his one wife and children. To his friends
and acquaintances he was hospitable, courteous and obliging;
his conversation was intellectual and refined, and in every
act of his private life he manifested the spirit of a true
gentleman. At home his habits, attire and mode of life
were quite Turkish, but he was perfectly at his ease in
European society; he had strong English proclivities, and
numbered many English men and women amongst his intimate
friends. In public life his gifts were almost sterilized
by peculiarities of temperament and incompatibility with
official surroundings; and his mission as ambassador to
Persia and his administration of Brusa were his only thorough
successes. But his intellectual powers, literary erudition
and noble character made him for the last forty years of
his life a conspicuous figure in eastern Europe. (E. W.*)
AHOM, or AHAM, a tribe of Shan descent inhabiting the
Assam Valley, and, prior to the invasion of the Burmese at the
commencement of the 19th century, the dominant race in that
country. The Ahoms, together with the Shans of Burma and
Eastern China and the Siamese, were members of the Tai
race. The name is believed to be a corruption of the word
``A-sam,'' the latter part of which is identical with
``Shan'' (properly ``Sham'') and with ``Siam.'' Under their
king Su-ka-pha they invaded Assam (q.v.) from the East in
the year A.D. 1228, giving their name to the country. For
a century and a half from 1228 the successors of Su-ka-pha
appear to have ruled undisturbed over a small territory in
Lakkimpur and Sibsagar districts. The extension of their
power westward down the valley of the Brahmaputra was very
gradual, and its success was by no means uniform. In the
time of Aurangzeb the Ahom kings held sway over the entire
Brahmaputra valley from Sadiya to near Goalpara, and from the
skirts of the southern hills to the Bhutia frontier on the
north. The dynasty attained the height of its power under Rudra
Singh, who is said to have ascended the throne in 1695. In
the following century the power of the Ahoms began to decay,
alike from internal dissensions and the pressure of outside
invaders. The Burmese were called in to the assistance of one
of the contending factions in 1810. Having once obtained a
foothold in the country, they established their power over the
entire valley and ruled with merciless barbarity, until they
were expelled by the British in 1824-1825. In the census of
1901 the total Ahom population in Assam was returned at 178,049.
The Ahoms retained the form of government in Assam peculiar
to the Shan tribes, which may he briefly described as an
organized system of personal service in lieu of taxation.
Their religion was pagan, being quite distinct from Buddhism;
but in Assam they gradually became Hinduized, and their
kings finally adopted Hindu names and titles. They believed
that there were in the beginning no heavenly bodies, air or
earth, only water everywhere, over which at first hovered a
formless Supreme Being called Pha. He took corporeal shape
as a huge crab that lay floating, face upwards, upon the
waters. In turn other animals took shape, the last being
two golden spiders from whose excrement the earth gradually
rose above the surrounding ocean. Pha then formed a female
counterpart of himself, who laid four eggs, from which were
hatched four sons. One of these was appointed to rule the
earth, but died and became a spirit. His son also died
and became the national household deity of the Ahoms. The
origin of mankind is connected with a flood legend. The
only survivors of the flood, and of the conflagration that
followed it, were an old man and a pumpkin-seed. From the
latter there grew a gigantic gourd. This was split open by
a thunderbolt, the old man sacrificing himself to save the
lives of those who were inside, and from it there issued the
progenitors of the present races of men, beasts, birds, fishes
and plants. The kings claimed independent divine origin.
The religion and language have both died out, being only
preserved by a few priests of the old cult; but even among them
the tradition of the pronunciation of the language has been
lost. The Ahoms had a considerable literature, much of
which is still in existence. Their historic sense was very
fully developed, and many priests and nobles maintained
bu-ran-jis (i.e. ``stores of instruction for the
ignorant''), or chronicles, which were carefully written up
from time to time. A few of these have been translated, but
as yet no European scholar possesses knowledge sufficient to
enable him to study these valuable documents at first hand.
The Ahom language is the oldest member of the Tai branch of
the Siamese-Chinese linguistic family of which we have any
record. It bears much the same relationship to Siamese
and Shan that Latin does to Italian. It is more nearly
related to modern Siamese than to modern ahan, but possesses
many groups of consonants which have become simplified in
both. It is a language of the isolating class, in which every
word is a monosyllable, and may be employed either as a noun
or as a verb according to its context and its position in a
sentence. In the order of words, the genitive follows the
norm it governs, and, as usual in such cases, the relations
of time and place are indicated by prefixes, not by suffixes.
The meanings of the monosyllables were differentiated, as
in the other Tai languages and in Chinese, by a system of
tones, but these were rarely indicated in writing, and the
tradition regarding them is lost. The language had an alphabet
of its own, which was clearly related to that of Burmese.
See E. A. Gait, A History of Assam (Calcutta, 1906).
For the language see The Linguistis Survey of India, vol.
ii. (Calcutta, 1906) (contains grammar and vocabulary);
G. A. Grierson, ``Notes on Ahom,'' in the Zeitschrift
der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellshaft, vol. lvi.,
1902, pp. 1 ff. (contains grammar and vocabulary, with
specimens), and ``An Ahom Cosmogony, with a translation and
a vocabulary of the Ahom language,'' in the Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society for 1904, pp. 181 ff. (G. A. GR.)
AHR, a river of Germany. It is a left-bank tributary of the
Rhine, into which it falls at Sinzig, rising in the Eifel
mountains, and having a total length of 55 m. It flows at first
through rather monotonous country, but the latter portion of its
course, from the village of Altenahr, over which tower rhe ruins
of the castle of Ahr, or Are (10th century), is full of romantic
beauty. It is well stocked with trout, and the steep declivities
of the lower valley furnish red wines of excellent quality.
AHRENS, FRANZ HEINRICH LUDOLF (1809-1881), German
philologist, was born at Helmstedt on the 6th of June
1809. After studying at Gottingen (1826-1829) under K. O.
Muller and Ludolf Dissen, and holding several educational
appointments, in 1849 he succeeded G. F. Grotefend as director
of the Lyceum at Hanover, a post which he filled with great
success for thirty years. He died on the 25th of September
1881. His most important work is De Graecae Linguae
Dialectis (1839-1843, new ed. by Meister, 1882-1889),
which, although unfortunately incomplete, dealing only with
Aeolic and Doric, and in some respects superseded by modern
research, will always remain a standard treatise on the
subject. He also published Bucolicorum Graecorum Reliquiae
(1855-1859); studies on the dialects of Homer and the Greek
lyrists; on Aeschylus; and some excellent school-books. A
volume of his minor works (ed. Haberlin) was published in
1891, which also contains a complete list of his writings.
AHRIMAN (Gr. 'Areimanios in Aristotle, or in Agathias; in
the Avesta, Angro Mainyush--``the Destructive Spirit''),
the name of the principle of evil in the dualistic doctrine of
Zoroaster. The name does not occur in the Old Persian
inscriptions. In the Avesta he is called the twin-brother
of the Holy Spirits, and contrasted either with the Holy Spirit
of Ormazd or with Ormazd himself. He is the all destroying
Satan, the source of all evil in the world and, like Ormazd,
exists since the beginning of the world. Eventually, in the
great world catastrophe, he will be defeated by Ormazd and
disappear. The later sect of the Zervanites held that
both were visible manifestations of the primeval principle
Zruvan akarana (Infinite Time). (See ZOROASTER.)
AHRWEILER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province,
on the river Ahr and the Remagen-Adenau line of railway. Pop.
5000. It is a town of medieval aspect and is surrounded
by ancient walls, with battlements and four gates in good
repair. There is a Gothic church (dating from 1245). A
convent school of the Ursuline nuns is a prominent feature On
a hill to the south. The trade is almost exclusively confined
to the manufacture and export of the wines of the district.
AHT, a confederacy of twenty-two tribes of North American
Indians of the Wakashan stock. They are settled on the west
Coast of Vancouver, British Columbia. The chief tribes included
are the Nitinaht, Tlaasaht or Makah, Tlaokiwaht or Clahoquaht,
Ahansaht and Ehatishaht. The confederacy numbers some 3500.
AHTENA (``ice people''), the name of an Athapascan tribe of
North American Indians, in the basin of Copper River, Alaska.
See Handbook of American Indians, ed. F. W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).
AHVAZ, a town of Persia, in the province of Arabistan, on
the left bank of the river Karun, 48 m. S. of Shushter, in
31 deg. 18' N., 49 deg. E. It has been identified with the Aginis of
Nearchus, 500 stadia from Susa, and occupies the site of what
was once an extensive and important city. Of this ancient
city vast remains are left, extending several miles along the
bank of the river. Among the most remarkable are the ruins of
a bridge and a citadel, or palace, besides vestiges of canals
and watermills, which tell of former commercial activity.
There are also the ruins of a band, or stone dam of great
strength, which was thrown across the river for the purposes of
irrigation. The band was 1150 yds. in length and had a diameter
of 24 ft. at its base. Remains of massive structure are still
visible, and many single blocks in it measure from 8 to 10 ft. in
thickness. Ahvaz reached the height of its prosperity in the
12th and 13th centuries and is now a collection of wretched
hovels, with a small rectangular fort in a state of ruin,
and an Arab population of about 400. Since the opening of the
Karun to foreign commerce in October 1888, another settlement
called Benderi Nassiri, in compliment to the Shah Nassir
ed din (d. 1896), has been established on a slight elevation
overlooking the river at the point below the rapids where
steamers come to anchor, about one mile below Ahvaz. It has
post and telegraph offices; and agencies of some mercantile
firms, a British vice-consul (since 1904) and a Russian
consular agent (since 1902) are established there. The new
caravan road to Isfahan, opened for traffic in 1900, promised,
if successful, to give Ahvaz greater commercial importance.
AI [Sept. 'Aggai, 'Aggai Gai, Vulg. Hai], a small royal
city of the Canaanites, E. of Bethel. The meaning of the name
may be ``the stone heap''; but it is not necessarily a Hebrew
word. Abraham pitched his tent between Ai and Bethel (Gen.
xii. 8, xiii. 3); but it is chiefly noted for its capture
and destruction by Joshua (vii. 2-4. viii. 1-20). who made
it ``a heap for ever, even a desolation.'' It is mentioned
by Isaiah (x. 28), and also after the captivity (Ezra ii.
28; Neh. vii. 32), but then probably was not more than a
village. In the later Hebrew writings the name sometimes
has a feminine form, Aiath (Is. x. 28), Aija (Neh. xi. 31).
The definite article is usually prefixed to the name in
Hebrew. The site was known, and some scanty ruins still
existed, in the time of Eusebius and Jerome (Onomast., s.v.
'Aggai.) Dr E. Robinson was unable to discover any certain
traces of either name or ruins. He remarks, however (Bib.
Researches, ed. 1856, i. p. 443), that it must have been close
to Bethel on account of Biblical narrative (Josh. viii. 17)
. A little to the south of a village called Deir Diwan, and
one hour's journey south-east from Bethel, is the site of an
ancient place called Khirbet Haiyan indicated by reservoirs
hewn in the rock, excavated tombs and foundations of hewn
stone. This may possibly be the site of Ai; it agrees with
all the intimations as to its position. It has also been
identified with a mound now called Et-Tell (``the heap''),
but though the name of a neighbouring village, Turmus Aya, is
suggestive, it is in the wrong direction from Bethel. In this
view recent authorities, such as G. A. Smith, generally coincide.
See Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, 1869, p. 123;
1874, p. 62; 1878, pp. 10, 132, 194, 1881, p. 254. (R. A. S. M.)
AIBONITO, an inland town of the electoral district of
Guayama, Porto Rico, on the highway between San Juan and
Ponce, 25 m. E.N.E. of the latter. It is the capital of
a municipal district of the same name. Pop. (1899) of the
town, 2085; of the district, 8596. The town is about 2200
ft. above sea level, and owing to its cool climate and
freedom from malaria it has been chosen as an acclimatizing
station and sanatorium for foreigners. It is surrounded
by coffee plantations, and tobacco of excellent quality
is raised in the vicinity. The town was considerably
damaged by the great hurricane of the 8th of August 1899.
AICARD, JEAN FRANCOIS VICTOR (1848- ), French poet and
dramatist, was born at Toulon on the 4th of February 1848. His
father, Jean Aicard, was a journalist of some distinction, and
the son early began his career in 1867 with Les Rebellions
et les apaistments (1871); Poemes de Provence (1874), and
La Chanson de l'Enfant (1876), both of which were crowned
by the Academy; Miette et Nore (1880), a Provencal idyll;
Le Livre d'heures de l'amour (1887); Jesus (1896),
&c. Of his plays the most successful was Le Pere Lebonnard
(1890), which was originally produced at the Theatre Libre.
Among his other works are the novels, Le Roi de Camargue
(1890), L'Ame d'un enfant (1898) and Talas (1901),
Benjamine (1906) and La Venus de Milo (1874), an account
of the discovery of the statue from unpublished documents.
AICHINGER, GREGOR (c. 1565-1628), one of the greatest German
composers of the Golden Age. He was organist to the Fugger family
of Augsburg in 1584. In 1599 he went for a two years' visit to
Rome. This was for musical and not for ecclesiastical reasons,
though he had taken orders before his appointment under Fugger.
Proske, in the preface to vol. ii. of his Musica Divina,
calls him a priest of Regensburg, and is inclined to give him
the palm for the devout and ingenuous mastery of his style.
Certainly this impression is fully borne out by the beautiful
and somewhat quaint works included in that great anthology.
AICKIN, FRANCIS (d. 1805), Irish actor, first appeared in
London in 1765 as Dick Amlet in Vanbrugh's The Confederacy
at Drury Lane. He acted there, and at Covent Garden, until
1792. His repertory consisted of over eighty characters,
and among his best parts were the Ghost in Hamlet and
Jaques in As You Like It. His success in impassioned
declamatory roles obtained for him the nickname of ``Tyrant.''
His younger brother James AICHIN (d. 1803) was playing leading
parts in both comedy and tragedy at the Edinburgh theatre,
when he gave offence to his public by his protest against the
discharge of a fellow-actor. He therefore went to London,
and from 1767 to 1800 was a member of the Drury Lane Company
and for some years a deputy manager. He quarrelled with John
Philip Kemble, with whom, in 1792, he fought a bloodless duel.
AIDAN (d. 606), king of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada,
was the son of Gabran, king of Dalriada, and became king after
the death of his kinsman King Conall, when he was crowned at
Iona by St Columba. He refused to allow his kingdom to remain
in dependence on the Irish Dairiada, but coming into collision
with his southern neighbours he led a large force against
AEthelfrith, king of the Northumbrians, and was defeated
at a place called Daegsanstane, probablv in Liddesdale.
See Bede, Historiae Ecclesiasticae gentis Anglorum,
edited by O'. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); Adamnan, Vita
S. Columbae, edited by J. T. Fowler (Oxford, 1894).
AIDAN, or AEDAN, first bishop of Lindisfarne, a monk
of Hii (Iona), was sent by the abbot Senegi to Northumbria,
at the request of King Oswald, A.D. 634-635. He restored
Christianity, and in accordance with the traditions of Irish
episcopacy chose the island of Lindisfarne, close to the royal
city of Bamborough, as his see. Although he retained the Irish
Easter, his character and energy in missionary work won him
the respect of Honorius and Felix. He survived Oswald, and
died shortly after the murder of his friend Oswine of Deira,
on the 31st of August 651, in the 17th year of his episcopate.
See Bede, Hist. Eccl. (ed. Plummer), iii. 3, 5, 17, 25.
AIDE-DE-CAMP (Fr. for camp-assistant or, perhaps,
field-assistant), an officer of the personal staff of a general,
who acts as his confidential secretary in routine matters. In
Great Britain the office of aide-de-camp to the king is given
as a reward or an honorary distinction. In many foreign armies
the word adjutant is used for an aide-de-camp, and adjutant
general for a royal aide-de-camp. The common abbreviation
for aide-de-camp in the British service is ``A.D.C.,'' and
in the United States ``aid.'' Civil governors, such as the
lord lieutenant of Ireland, have also, as a rule, officers on
their staffs with the title and functions of aides-de-camp.
AIDIN. (1) A vilayet in the S.W. of Asia Minor including
the ancient Lydia, Ionia, Carla and western Lycia. It derives
its name from the Seljuk emir who took Tralles, and is the
richest and most productive province of Asiatic Turkey. The
seat of government is Smyrna. (2) The principal town of the
valley of the Menderes or Maeander, about 70 m. E.S.E. of
Smyrna. It is called also Guzel Hissar from the beauty of
its situation on the lower slopes of Mons Messogis and along
the course of the ancient Eudon. It is the capital of a
sanjak. It was taken by the Seljuks, Aidin and Mentesh,
late in the 13th century, and about 1390, when ruled by Isa
Bey, a descendant of the first-named, acknowledged Ottoman
suzerainty. In the Seljuk period it was a secondary city under
the provincial capital, Tireh (q.v.) In the 17th century it
came under the power of the Karasmans of Manisa and remained
so till about 1820. Aidin is on the Smyrna-Dineir railway, has
large tanneries and sweetmeat manufactories, and exports figs,
cotton and raisins. It was greatly damaged by an earthquake in
1899. On a neighbouring height are to be seen the ruins
of the ancient Tralles (q.v.), the site to which the
name Guzel Hissar was particularly given by the Seljuks.
Aidin is the seat of a British consular agent. As there are
considerable numbers of Greeks, Armenians and Jews among the
inhabitants, there are a Greek cathedral, several churches and
synagogues in addition to the fine Turkish mosques. (D. G. H.)
AIDONE, a town of Sicily, in the province of Caltanisetta.
From the town of Caltanisetta it is 22 m. E.S.E. direct (18
m. S.S.W. of the railway station of Raddusa, which is 41
m. W. of Catania). Pop. (1901) 8548. There are some
interesting churches of the 14th century (see E. Mauceri in
L'Arte, 1906, 17). On the Serra Orlando, a mountain not
far off, are the extensive remains of an unknown city, the
finest in eastern Sicily, but rapidly suffering destruction
from the spread of cultivation and unauthorized excavations.
See P. Orsi in Atti del Congresso di
Scienze Storiche, vol. v 178 Rome, 1904).
AIDS, a term of medieval finance, were part of the
service due to a lord from his men, and appear to have been
based upon the principle that they ought to assist him in
special emergency or need. The occasions for demanding
them and the amount to be demanded would thus be matters of
dispute, while the loose use of the term to denote many
different payments increases the difficulty of the subject.
Both in Normandy and in England, in the 12th century, the
two recognized occasions on which, by custom, the lord could
demand ``aid,'' were (1) the knighting of his eldest son, (2)
the marriage of his eldest daughter; but while in England the
third occasion was, according to Glanvill, as in Normandy, his
payment of ``relief'' on his succession, it was, according to
the Great Charter (1215), the lord's ransom from captivity.
By its provisions, the king covenanted to exact an ``aid''
from his barons on these three occasions alone--and then only
a ``reasonable'' one--except by ``the common counsel'' of his
realm. Enormous importance has been attached to this provision,
as establishing the principle of taxation by consent, but its
scope was limited to the barons (and the city of London), and
the word ``aids'' was omitted from subsequent issues of the
charter. The barons, on their part, covenanted to claim from
their feudal tenants only the above three customary aids. The
last levy by the crown was that of James I. on the knighting of
his eldest son (1609) and the marriage of his daughter (1613).
From at least the days of Henry I. the term ``aid'' was also
applied (1) to the special contributions of boroughs to the
king's revenue, (2) to a payment in lieu of the military
service due from the crown's knights. Both these occur
on the pipe roll of 1130, the latter as auxilium militum
(and possibly as auxilium comitatus.) The borough ``aids''
were alternatively known as ``gifts'' (dona), resembling
in this the ``benevolences'' of later days. When first met
with, under Henry I., they are fixed round sums, but under
Henry II. (as the Dialogue of the Exchequer explains) they
were either assessed on a population basis by crown officers
or were sums offered by the towns and accepted by them as
sufficient. In the latter case the townsfolk were collectively
responsible for the amount. The Great Charter, as stated
above, extended specially to London the limitation on baronial
``aids,'' but left untouched its liability to tallage, a lower
and more arbitrary form of taxation, which the towns shared
with the crown's demesne manors, and which London . resisted in
vain. The two exactions, although distinct, have to be studied
together, and when in 1296-1297 Edward I. was forced to his
great surrender, he was formerly supposed by historians to
have pledged himself, under De tallagio non concedendo,
to levy no tallage or aid except by common consent of his
people. It is now held, however, that he limited this
concession to ``aides, mises,'' and ``prises,'' retaining
the right to tallage. Eventually, by a statute of 1340, it
was provided that the nation should not be called upon ``to
make any common aid or sustain charge'' except by consent of
parliament. The aids spoken of at this period are of yet
another character, namely, the grant of a certain proportion
of all ``movables'' (i.e. personal property), a form of
taxation introduced about 1188 and now rapidly increasing in
importance. These subsidies were conveniently classed under
the vague term ``aids,'' as were also the grants made by
the clergy in convocation, the term covering both feudal and
non-feudal levies from the higher clergy and proportions not
only of ``movables'' but of ecclesiastical revenues as well.
The ``knight's aid'' of 1130 spoken of above is probably
identical with auxilium exercitus spoken of in the oldest
custumals of Normandy, where the phrase appears to represent
what was known in England as ``scutage.'' Even in England
the phrase ``quando Rex accipit auxilium de militibus''
occurs in 1166 and appears to be loosely used for scutage.
The same loose use enabled the early barons to demand
``aid'' from their tenants on various grounds, such as their
indebtedness to the Jews, as is well seen in the Norfolk
fragments of returns to the Inquest of Sheriffs (1170).
Sheriff's aid was a local payment of a fixed nature paid
in early days to the sheriff for his service. It was the
subject of a hot dispute between Henry II. and Becket in 1163.
AUTHORITIES.--Stubbs' Constitutional History and
Select Charters; M'Kechnie's Magna Carta; Pollock and
Maitland's History of English Law; Maitland's Domesday
Book and Beyond; Dialogus de Scaccario (Oxford, 1892);
Madox's History of the Exchequer; Round's Feudal
England and The Commune of London; The Pipe Rolls
(Record Commission and Pipe Roll Society). (J. H. R.)
AIGRETTE (from the Fr. for egret, or lesser white heron),
the tufted crest, or head-plumes of the egret, used for
adorning a woman's head-dress, the term being also given
to any similar ornament, in gems, &c. An aigrette is also
worn by certain ranks of officers in the French army. By
analogy the word is used in various sciences for feathery
excrescences of like appearance, as for the tufts on the heads
of insects, the feathery down of the dandelion, the luminous
rays at the end of electrified bodies, or the luminous rays
seen in solar eclipses, diverging from the moon's edge.
AIGUES-MORTES, a town of south-eastern France, in the
department of Gard 25 m. S.S.W. of Nimes, on a branch
line of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway. Pop. (1906)
3577. Aigues-Mortes occupies an isolated position in the
marshy plain at the western extremity of the Rhone delta,
2 1/2 m. from the Golfe du Lion. It owes its celebrity to the
medieval fortifications of remarkable completeness with which
it is surrounded. They form a parallelogram 596 yds. long
by 149 yds. broad, and consist of crenellated walls from 25
to 36 ft. in height, dominated at intervals by towers. Of
these, the Tour de Constance, built by Louis IX., is the
most interesting; it commands the northwestern angle of the
ramparts, and contains two circular, Vaulted chambers, used as
prisons for Protestants after the revocation of the edict of
Nantes. The remainder of the fortifications were built in
the reign of Philip III. Aigues-Mortes is the meeting-place
of several canals connecting it with Beaucaire, with Cette,
with the Lesser Rhone and with the Mediterranean, on which
it has a small port. Fishing and the manufacture of soda are
the chief industries with which the town is connected. It
has trade in coal, oranges and other fruits, and in wine. In
the surrounding country there are important vineyards, which
are preserved from disease by periodical submersion. There
is a statue in the town in memory of Louis IX. who embarked
from Aigues-Mortes in 1248 and 1270 for the seventh and eighth
crusades. To further the prosperity of the town a most liberal
charter was granted to it, and in addition the trade of the port
was artificially fostered by a decree requiring that every vessel
navigating within sight of its lights should put in there.
This ordinance remained in force till the reign of Louis XIV.
AIGUILLE (Fr. for needle), the sharp jagged points above
the snow-line, standing upon the massif of a mountain split
by frost action along joints or planes of cleavage with
sides too steep for snow to rest upon them. Aiguilles are
thus the forms remaining from the splitting up of the high
ridges with houseroof structure into detached pinnacles.
AIGUILLETTE (Fr. diminutive of AIGUILLE, a needle; the
obsolete English form is ``aglet''), originally a tag of
metal, often made of precious metals and richly chased,
attached to the end of a lace or ribbon, and pointed, so
as to pass more easily through eyelet holes. The term
was, in time, applied to any bright ornament or pendant
for the dress made of metal, and is now specially used of
ornamental cords and tags of gold and silver lace, worn on
naval and military uniforms. The aiguillette is fastened
to the shoulder, the various cords hanging down therefrom
being fastened at their other end on the front of the coat.
AIGUILLON, EMMANUEL ARMAND DE WIGNEROD DU PLESSIS DE
RICHELIEU, DUC D' (1720-1782), French statesman, nephew
of the marechal de Richelieu, was born on the 31st of July
1720. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and
at the age of nineteen was made colonel of the regiment of
Brie. He served in the campaigns in Italy during the War of
the Austrian Succession, was seriously wounded at the siege
of Chateau-Dauphin (1744), was taken prisoner (1746) and
was made marechal de camp in 1748. His marriage in 1740
with Louise Felicite de Brehan, daughter of the comte de
Plelo, coupled with his connexion with the Richelieu family,
gave, him an important place at court. He was a member of
the so-called parti devot, the faction opposed to Madame de
Pompadour, to the Jansenists and to the parlement, and his
hostility to the new ideas drew upon him the anger of the
pamphleteers. In 1753 he was appointed commandant (governor)
of Brittany and soon became unpopular in that province, which
had retained a large number of privileges called ``liberties.''
He first came into collision with the provincial estates on the
question of the royal imposts (1758), but was then blamed for
his inertia in the preparation of a squadron against England
(1759), and finally alienated the parlement of Brittany by
violating the privileges of the province (1762). In June 1764
the king, at the instance of d'Aiguillon, quashed a decree of
the parlement forbidding the levying of new imposts without the
consent of the estates, and refused to receive the remonstrances
of the parlement against the duke. On the 11th of November
1765 La Chalotais, the procureur of the parlement, was
arrested, but whether at the instigation of d'Aiguillon is not
certain. The conflict between d'Aiguillon and the Bretons
lasted two years. In the place of the parlement, which had
resigned, d'Aiguillon organized a tribunal of more or less
competent judges, who were ridiculed by the pamphleteers
and ironically termed the bailliage d'Aiguillon. In 1768
the duke was forced to suppress this tribunal, and returned
to court, where he resumed his intrigue with the parti
devot and finally obtained the dismissal of the minister
Choiseul (December 24, 1770). When Louis XV., acting on
the advice of Madame Dubarry, reorganized the government
with a view to suppressing the resistance of the parlements,
d'Aiguillon was made minister of foreign affairs, Maupeou
and the Abbe Terray (1715-1778) also obtaining places in the
ministry. The new ministry, albeit one of reform, was very
unpopular, and was styled the ``triumvirate.'' All the failures
of the government were attributed to the mistakes of the
ministers. Thus d'Aiguillon was blamed for having provoked
the coup d'etat of Gustavus III., king of Sweden, in 1772,
although the instructions of the comte de Vergennes, the
French ambassador in Sweden, had been written by the minister,
the duc de la Vrilliere. D'Aiguillon, however, could do
nothing to rehabilitate French diplomacy; he acquiesced in
the first division of Poland, renewed the Family Compact,
and, although a supporter of the Jesuits, sanctioned the
suppression of the society. After the death of Louis XV.
he quarrelled with Maupeou and with the young queen, Marie
Antoinette, who demanded his dismissal from the ministry
(1774). He died, forgotten, in 1782. In no circumstances
had he shown any special ability. He was more fitted for
intrigue than for government, and his attempts to restore
the status of French diplomacy met with scant success.
See Memoires du ministere du duc d'Aiguillon (3rd ed.,
Paris and Lyons, 1792), probably written by J. L. Soulavie.
On d'Aiguillon's governorship of Brittany see Carre, La
Chalotais et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1893); Marion, La
Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon (Paris, 1898); and Barthelemy
Pocquet, Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais (Paris,
1901--1902). The three last have full biblioaraphies. See also
Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements (Paris,
1883); Frederic Masson, Le Cardinal de Bernis (Paris, 1884).
AIGUILLON, MARIE MADELEINE DE WIGNEROD DU PONT DE COURLAY,
DUCHESSE D' (1604-1675), daughter of Cardinal Richelieu's
sister. In 1620 she married a nephew of the constable de
Luynes, Antoine de Beauvoir du Roure, sieur de Combalet, who
died in 1622. In 1625, through her influence, she was made
a lady-in-waiting (dame d'atour) to Ihe queen-mother, and
in 1638 was created duchess of Aiguihon. She did not marry
a second time, although Richelieu wished to marry her to
a prince--either to the comte de Soissons or to the king's
brother. After the death of the cardinal (1642) she retained
her honours and titles, but withdrew from the court, and
devoted herself entirely to works of charity. She entered into
relations with Saint Vincent de Paul and helped him to establish
the hospital for foundlings. She also took part in organizing
the General Hospital and several others in the provinces.
She died on the 17th of April 1675. She was the patroness of
Corneille, who in 1636 dedicated to her his tragedy of The Cid.
See E. Flechier, Oraison funebre de Mme. Marie de
Wignerod, duchesse d'Aiguillon; Bonneau-Avenant,
La duchesse d'Aiguillon (1879); M.emoires de
Saint-Simon, ed. by A. de Boislisle (1879 et seq..)
AIGUN, or AIHUN (also Sakhalyan-ula-khoto), a town of
China, province Hei-lung-kiang, in northern Manchuria, situated
on the right bank of the Amur, in a fertile and populous
region, 20 m. below Blagovyeshchensk, where it occupies
nearly 2 m. on the bank of the river. There is a palisaded
fort in the middle of the town, inside of which is the house
of the fu-tu (governor). Its merchants carry on an active
local trade in grain, mustard, oil and tobacco, and some of
its firms supply the Russian administration with grain and
flour. During the ``Boxer'' rising of 1900 it was, for a few
weeks, the centre of military action directed against the
Russians. The population, of some 20,000, includes a few hundred
Mussulmans. The town was founded first on the left bank of
the Amur, below the mouth of the Zeya, but was abandoned, and
the present town was founded in 1684. It was here that Count
Muraviev concluded, in May 1857, the Aihun treaty, according
to which the left bank of the Amur was conceded to Russia.
AIKEN, a city and the county-seat of Aiken county, South
Carolina, U.S.A., 17 m. E.N.E. of Augusta, Georgia. Pop.
(1890) 2362; (1900) 3414 (2131 of negro descent); (1910)
3911. It is served by the Southern railway, and by an electric
line connecting with Augusta. Aiken is a fashionable winter
resort, chiefly frequented by Northerners, and is pleasantly
situated about 500 ft. above sea level in the heart of the
famous sand-hill and pine-forest region of the state. The dry
and unusually equable temperature (mean for winter 50 deg. F.,
for spring 57 deg. F., and for autumn 64 deg. F.) and the balmy air
laden with the fragrance of the pine forests have combined to
make Aiken a health and pleasure resort; its climate is said
to be especially beneficial for those afflicted with pulmonary
diseases. There are fine hotels, club houses and cottages,
and the Palmetto Golf Links near the city are probably the
finest in the southern states; fox-hunting, polo, tennis
and shooting are among the popular sports. There are some
excellent drives in the vicinity. The city is the seat of
the Aiken Institute (for whites) and the Schofield Normal
and Industrial School (for negroes). There are lumber mills,
cotton mills and cotton-gins; and cotton, farm products
and artificial stone are exported. Considerable quantities
of aluminium are obtained from the kaolin deposits in the
vicinity. The city's water supply is obtained from artesian
wells. Aiken was settled in the early part of the 19th century,
but was not incorporated until 1835, when it was named in
honour of William Aiken (1806-1887), governor of the state in
1844--1847, and a representative in Congress in 1851-1857.
AIKIN, ARTHUR (1773-1854), English chemist and mineralogist,
was born on the 19th of May 1773, at Warrington in Lancashire.
He studied chemistry under Priestley and gave attention to
the practical applications of the science. To mineralogy
he was likewise attracted, and he was one of the founders
of the Geological Society of London, 1807, and honorary
secretary, 1812-1817. To the transactions of that society
he contributed papers on the Wrekin and the Shropshire
coalfield, &c. Later he became secretary of the Society of
Arts, and in 1841 treasurer of the Chemical Society. In
early life he had been for a short time a Unitarian minister.
He was highly esteemed as a man of sound judgment and wide
knowledge. He died in London on the 15th of April 1854.
PUBLICATIONS.--Journal of a Tour through North Wales and part
of Shropshire with observations in Mineralogy and other branches
of Natural History (London, 1797); A Manual of Mineralogy
(1814; ed. 2, 1815); A Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy
(with his brother C. R. Aikin), 2 vols. (London, 1807, 1814).
AIKIN, JOHN (1747-1822), English doctor and writer, was
born at Kibworth-Harcourt, and received his elementary
education at the Noncomformist academy at Warrington, where
his father was tutor. He studied medicine in the university
of Edinburgh, and in London under Dr Wilham Hunter. He
practised as a surgeon at Chester and Warrington. Finally,
he went to Leyden, took the degree of M.D. (1780), and in
1784 established himself as a doctor in Yarmouth. In 1792
he removed to London, where he practised as a consulting
physician. But he concerned himself more with the advocacy
of liberty of conscience than with his professional duties,
and he began at an early period to devote himself to literary
pursuits. In conjunction with his sister, Mrs Barbauld
(q.v.), he published a popular series of volumes entitled
Evenings at Home (6 vols., 1792-1795), excellently adapted
for elementary family reading, which were translated into
almost every European language. In 1798 Dr Aikin retired
from professional life and devoted himself with great industry
to various literary undertakings, among which his General
Biography (10 vols., 1799-1815) holds a conspicuous place.
Besides these, he published Biog. Memoirs of Medicine
(1780); Lives of John Selden and Archbishop Usher (1812)
and other works. He edited the Monthly Magazine from 1796
to 1807, and conducted a paper called the Athenaeum from
1807 to 1809, when it was discontinued. Aikin died in 1822.
His daughter, LUCY AIKIN (1781-1864), born at Warrington
on the 6th of November 1781, had some repute as a historical
writer. After producing various books for the young, and a
novel, Lorimer (1814), she published in 1818 her Memoirs of
the Court of Queen Elizabeth, which passed through several
editions. This was followed by Memoirs of the Court of James
I. (1822), Memoirs of the Court of Charles I. (1833) and a
Life of Addison (1843). Miss Aikin died at Hampstead, where
she had lived for forty years, on the 29th of January 1864.
See a Memoir of John Aikin, with selections of his miscellaneous
pieces (1823), by his daughter; and the Memoirs, Miscellanies
and Letters of William Ellery Channing, edited by P. H. Le Breton.
AIKMAN, WILLIAM (1682-1731), British portrait-painter, was
born at Cairney, Forfarshire. He was intended by his father
for the bar, but followed his natural bent by becoming a
pupil under Sir John Medina, the leading painter of the day in
Scotland. In 1707 he went to Italy, resided in Rome for three
years, afterwards travelled to Constantinople and Smyrna, and
in 1712 returned home. In Edinburgh, where he practised as
a portrait-painter for some years, he enjoyed the patronage
of the duke of Argyll; and on his removal to London in 1723
he soon obtained many important commissions. Perhaps his
most successful work was the portrait of the poet Gay. He
also painted portraits of himself, Fletcher of Saltoun,
William Carstares and Thomson the poet. The likenesses were
generally truthful and the style was modelled very closely
upon that of Sir Godfrey Kneller. Aikman held a good position
in literary society and counted among his personal friends
Swift, Pope, Thomson, Allan Ramsay, Somervile and Mallet.
AILANTHUS (more correctly ailantus, from ailanto, an
Amboyna word probably meaning ``Tree of the Gods,'' or ``Tree
of Heaven''), a genus of trees belonging to the natural order
Simarubaceae. The best known species, A. glandulosa, Chinese
sumach or tree of heaven, is a handsome, quick-growing tree
with spreading branches and large compound leaves, resembling
those of the ash, and bearing numerous pairs of long pointed
leaflets. The small greenish flowers are borne on branched
panicles; and the male ones are characterized by having a
disgusting odour. The fruits are free in clusters, and each
is drawn out into a long wing with the seed in the middle.
The wood is fine grained and satiny. The tree, which is a
native of China and Japan, was introduced into England in
1751 and is a favourite in parks and gardens. A silk spinning
moth, the ailanthus moth (Bombyx or Philosamia cynthia),
lives on its leaves, and yields a silk more durable and
cheaper than mulberry silk, but inferior to it in fineness and
gloss. This moth is common near many towns in the eastern United
States; it is about 5 in. across, with angulated wings, and
in colour olive brown, with white markings. Other species of
ailanthus are: A. imberbifiora and A. punctata, important
Australian timber-trees; and A. excelsa, common in India.
AILLY, PIERRE D, (1350-1420), French theologian, was
born at Compiegne in 1350 of a bourgeois family, and
studied in Paris at the celebrated college of Navarre.
He became a licentiate of arts in 1367, procurator of
the French ``nation'' in 1372, bachelor of theology in
1372, and licentiate and doctor in that faculty in 1381.
Since 1378 Western Christendom, in consequence of the election
of the two popes Urban VI. and Clement VII., had been divided
into two obediences. In the spring of 1379 Pierre d'Ailly,
in anticipation even of the decision of the university of
Paris, had carried to the pope of Avignon the ``role'' of
the French nation, but notwithstanding this prompt adhesion
he was firm in his desire to put an end to the schism, and
when, on the 20th of May 1381, the university decreed that
the best means to this end was to try to gather together a
general council, Pierre d'Ailly supported this motion before
the king's council in the presence of the duke of Anjou.
The dissatisfaction displayed shortly after by the government
obliged the university to give up this scheme, and was probably
the cause of Pierre d'Ailly's temporary retirement to Noyon,
where he held a canonry. There he continued the struggle for
his side in a humorous work, in which the partisans of the
council are amusingly taken to task by the demon Leviathan.
After his return to Paris, where from 1384 onwards he
filled the position of master of the college of Navarre, and
took part in a violent campaign against the chancellor of
Notre-Dame, he was twice entrusted with a mission to Clement
VII. in 1388 to defend the doctrines of the university, and
especially those concerning the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin, against the preaching friar Jean de Montson, and in
1389 to petition in the name of the king for the canonization
of the young cardinal Peter of Luxemburg. The success which
attended his efforts on these two occasions, and the eloquence
which he displayed, perhaps contributed to his choice as the
king,s almoner and confessor. At the same time, by means
of an exchange, he obtained to the highest dignity in the
university, becoming chancellor of Notre-Dame de Paris.
When in 1394 Benedict XIII. succeeded Clement VII. at Avignon,
Pierre d'Ailly was entrusted by the king with a mission of
congratulation to the new pontiff. His obsequious language
on this occasion, and the favours with which it was rewarded,
formed a too violent contrast to the determined attitude of
the university of Paris, which, tired of the schism, was even
then demanding the resignation of the two pontiffs. Pierre
d'Ailly himself had not long before taken part in the drawing
up of a letter to the king in which the advantages of this
double abdication were set forth, but since then his zeal
had seemed to cool a little. None the less, on his return
from Avignon, he again in the presence of the king enlarged
upon the advantages offered by the way which the university
commended. But the suspicions aroused by his conduct found
further confirmation when he caused himself--or allowed
himself--to be nominated bishop of Le Puy by Benedict XIII.
(April 2, 1395 ). The great number of benefices which he
held left room for some doubt as to his disinterestedness.
Henceforward he was under suspicion at the university, and was
excluded from the assemblies where the union was discussed.
Some time afterwards Pierre d'Ailly became bishop of Cambrai
(March 19, 1397) by the favour of the pope, who had yielded no
whit, and, by virtue of this position, became also a prince
of the empire. In order to take possession of his new see,
he had to brave the wrath of the duke of Burgundy, override
the resistance of the clergy and bourgeoisie, and even
withstand an armed attack on the part of several lords; but his
protector, the duke of Orleans, had his investiture performed by
Wenceslaus, king of the Romans. The latter, though a partisan
of the pope of Rome, took the opportunity of enjoining on
Pierre d'Ailly to go in his name and argue with the pope of
Avignon, a move which had as its object to persuade Benedict
XIII. to an abdication, the necessity of which was becoming
more and more evident. However, the language of the bishop
of Cambrai seems on this occasion to have been lacking in
decision; however that may be, it led to no felicitous result.
France next tried to bring violent pressure to bear to
conquer the obstinacy of Benedict XIII. by threatening a
formal withdrawal from his obedience. Pierre d'Ailly, who,
in spite of his attachment to the pope, had been carried away
by the example of the kingdom, was among the first who, in
1403, after experience of what had happened, counselled and
celebrated the restoration of obedience. He was sent by
Charles VI. on an embassy to Benedict XIII. and seized this
opportunity of lavishing on the pontiff friendly congratulations
mingled with useful advice. Two years later, before the same
pontiff, he preached in the city of Genoa a sermon which
led to the general institution, in the countries of the
obedience of Avignon, of the festival of the Holy Trinity.
At the ecclesiastical council which took place at Paris
in 1406 Pierre d'Ailly made every effort to avert a new
withdrawal from the obedience and, by order of the king,
took the part of defender of Benedict XIII., a course
which yet again exposed him to attacks from the university
party. The following year he and his disciple Gerson formed
part of the great embassy sent by the princes to the two
pontiffs, and while in Italy he was occupied in praiseworthy
but vain efforts to induce the pope of Rome to remove himself
to a town on the Italian coast, in the neighbourhood of his
rival, where it was hoped that the double abdication would
take place. Discouraged by his failure to effect this,
he returned to his diocese of Cambrai at the beginning of
1408. At this time he was still faithful to Benedict
XIII., and the disinclination he felt to joining the members
of the French clergy who were on the point of ratifying
the royal declaration of neutrality excited the anger of
Charles VI.'s government, and a mandate, which was however
not executed, ordered the arrest of the bishop of Cambrai.
It was not till after the cardinals of the two colleges had
led to the convocation of the general council of Uisa that
Tierre d'Aiily renounced the support of Benedict XIII., and,
for want of a better policy, again allied himself with the
cause which he had championed in his youth. In the council lay
now, to judge from his words, the only chance of salvation;
and, in view of the requirements of the case, he began to argue
that, in case of schism, a council could be convoked by any one
of the faithful, and would have the right to judge and even to
depose the rival pontiffs. This was, in fact, the procedure of
the council of Pisa, in which Pierre d'Ailly took part. After
the declaration of the deposition of Gregory XII. and Benedict
XIII. it went on to the election of Alexander V. (June 26th,
1409), This pope reigned only ten months; his successor, John
XXIII., raised Pierre d'Ailly to the rank of cardinal (June
6, 1411), and furtuer, to indemnify him for the loss of the
bishopric of Cambrai, conferred upon him the administration
of that of Limoges (November 3, 1412), which was shortly after
exchanged for the bishopric of Orange. He also nominated
Pierre d'Ailly as his legate in Germany (March 18, 1413).
Forgetting these benefits, the cardinal of Cambrai was one of
the most formidable adversaries of John XXIII. at the council of
Constance. Convinced as he was of the necessity for union and
reform, he contributed more than any one to the adoption of
the principle that, since the schism had survived the council
of Pisa, it was necessary again to take up the work for a
fundamental union, without considering the rights of John
XXIII. any more than they had those of Gregory XII. and Benedict
XIII. From this point of view Pierre d'Ailly, together with
his compatriot Cardinal Fillastre, took the preponderating part
during the first few months. Afterwards, seeing the trend of
events, he showed some uneasiness and hesitation. He refused,
however, to undertake the defence of John XXIII., and only
appeared in the trial of this pope to make depositions against
him, which were sometimes of an overwhelming character.
Among the important matters which claimed his attention at
Constance may be mentioned also the condemnation of the errors
of Wycliffe and the trial of John Huss. The reading in public
of his two treatises De Potestate ecclesiastica and De
Reformalione Ecclesiae revealed, besides ideas very peculiar
to himself on the reform and constitution of the church, his
design of reducing the power of the English in the council by
denying them the right of forming a separate nation (October
1-November 1, 1416). By this campaign, which exposed him
to the worst retaliation of the English, he inaugurated his
role of ``procurator and defender of the king of France.''
When at last the question arose of giving the Christian world
a new pope, this time sole and uncontested, Pierre d'Ailly
defended the right of the cardinals, if not to keep the election
entirely in their own hands, at any rate to share in the election,
and he brought forward an ingenious system for reconciling
the pretensions of the council with the rights of the Sacred
College. In this way was elected Pope Martin V. (November 11,
1417), and the task of Pierre d'Ailly was at last finished.
The predominance of the Anglo-Burgundians in France having
made it impossible for him to stay there, he went to
Avignon to end his days in melancholy calculations arising
from the calamities of which he had been the witness, and
the astrological reckonings, in which he found pleasure,
of the chances for and against the world coming to an end
in the near future. He died on the 9th of August 1420.
Pierre d'Ailly's written works are numerous. A great part of
them was published with the works of Gerson (by Elhes du Pin,
Antwerp, 1706); another part appeared in the 15th century,
probably at Brussels, and there are many treatises and sermons
still unpublished. In philosophy he was a nominalist. Many
questions in science and astrology, such as the reform of the
calendar, attracted his attention. His other works consisted
of theological essays, ascetic or exegetic, questions of
ecclesiastical discipline and reform, and of various polemical
writings called forth for the most part by the schism.
Whatever reservations may be made as to a certain
interested or ambitious side of his character, Pierre
d'Ailly, whose devotion to the cause of union and reform
is incontestable, remains one of the leading spirits of
the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--P. Tschackert, Peter van Ailli (Gotha, 1877);
L. Salembier, Petrus de Alliaco (Lille, 1886); H. Denifle
et Em. Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, t.
iii. (Paris, 1894); N. Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme
d'Occident (Paris, 4 vols., 1896-1902); and Bibliotheque de
l'ecole des chartes, vol. lxv., 1904, pp. 557-574. (N. V.)
AILSA CRAIG, an island rock at the mouth of the Firth of
Clyde, 10 m. W. of Girvan, Ayrshire, Scotland. It is of
conoidal form, with an irregular elliptic base, and rises
abruptly to a height of 1114 ft. The only side from which the
rock can be ascended is the east; the other sides being for
the most part perpendicular, and generally presenting lofty
columnar forms, though not so regular as those of Staffa. This
island is composed of micro-granite with riebeckite, of great
interest on account of the rare occurrence of this type in
Britain. It is comparatively fine-grained and of a greyish
colour. Its essential constituents are felspar, quartz and
riebeckite--a soda amphibole. The last of these minerals
occurs in small irregular patches between the idiomorphic
felspars which Dr J. J. H. Tean has found to be a soda
orthoclase. The rock is allied to paisanite described by
C. A. Osann and has been termed ailsite by Professor M. F.
Heddle. It forms part of an intrusive mass which, on the
south and west cliffs of the island, has a columnar arrangement
and is traversed by dykes of dolerite, most of which run in
a north-west direction. The age of this mass is uncertain,
as its relations to other rocks are not visible in the
island. As riebeckite-granophyre has been found in Skye it
may be of Tertiary age. The rock is a favourite material for
curling-stones, about three-fourths (according to estimate)
of those in use in the countries where the game obtains being
made of it. On this account curling-stones are popularly
known as ``Ailsas'' or ``Ailsa Craigs.'' A columnar cave
exists towards the northern side of the island, and on the
eastern are the remains of a tower, with several vaulted
rooms. Two springs occur and some scanty grass affords
subsistence to rabbits, and, on the higher levels, to
goats. The precipitous parts are frequented by large
flocks of solan geese and other sea birds. The lighthouse
on the southern side shows a flashing light visible for 13
m. In 1831 the twelfth earl of Cassillis became first marquis
of Ailsa, taking the title from the Craig, which was his
property. When John Keats was in Girvan during his Scottish
tour in 1818 he apostrophized the rock in a fine sonnet.
AIMAK, or EIMAK (Mongolian for ``clan,'' or section of a
tribe), the name given to certain nomadic or semi-nomadic
tribes of Mongolian stock inhabiting the north and north-west
Afghan highlands immediately to the north of Herat. They
were originally known as ``chahar (the four) Eimaks,''
because there were four principal tribes: the Taimani
(the predominating element in the population of Ghur), the
Ferozkhoi, the Jamshidi and, according to some authorities, the
Hazara. The Aimak peoples number upwards of a quarter of a
million, and speak a dialect said to be closely related to
the Kalmuck. They are Sunnite Mahommedans in distinction
from the Hazara who are Shiites. They are predominantly
of Iranian or quasi-Iranian blood, while the Hazara are
Turanian. They are a bold, wild people and renowned fighters.
AIMARD, GUSTAVE, the pen-name of OLIVIER GLOUX (1818-1883),
French novelist, who was born in Paris on the 13th of September
1818. He made use of the materials collected in a roving
and adventurous youth and early manhood in numerous romances
in the style of J. Fenimore Cooper. Among the best of
them are: Les Trappeurs de l'Arkansas (1858); La Grande
flibuste (1860); Nuits mexicaines (1863); La Foret
vierge (1870). He died in Paris on the 20th of June
1883. Many of his novels have been translated into English.
AIMOIN (c. 960-c. 1010), French chronicler, was born
at Villefranche de Longchapt about 960, and in early life
entered the monastery of Fleury, where he became a monk and
passed the greater part of his life. His chief work is a
Historia Francorum, or Libri v. de Gestis Francorum,
which deals with the history of the Franks from the earliest
times to 653, and was continued by other writers until the
middle of the 12th century. It was much in vogue during
the middle ages, but its historical value is now regarded as
slight. It has been edited by G. Waitz and published in
the Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores, Band xxvi.
(Hanover and Berlin, 1826-1892). He also wrote a Vita
Abbonis, abbatis Floriacensis, the last of a series of lives
of the abbots of Fleury, all of which, except the life of
Abbo, have been lost. This has been published by J. Mabillon
in the Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti Benedicti (Paris,
1668-1701). Aimoin's third work was the composition of books
ii. and iii. of the Miracula sancti Benedicti, the first
book of which was written by another monk of Fleury named
Adrevald. This also appears in the Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti
Benedicti. Aimoin, who died about 1010, must be distinguished
from Aimoin, a monk of St Germain-des-Pres, who wrote De
mircalis sancti Germani, and a fragment De Normanorum
gestis circa Parisiacam urbem et de divine in eos ultione
tempore Caroli calvi. Both of these are published in the
Historiae Francorum Scriptores, Tome ii. (Paris, 1639-1649).
See Histoire litteraire de la France, tome vii. (Paris, 1865-1869).
AIN, a department on the eastern frontier of France, formed
in 1790 from Bresse, the Pays de Gex, Bugey, Dombes and
Valromey, districts of Burgundy. It is bounded N. by the
departments of Jura and Saone-et-Loire, W. by Saone-et-Loire
and Rhone, S. by Isere, and E. by the departments of
Savoie and Haute-Savoie and the Swiss cantons Geneva and
Vaud. Pop. (1906) 345,856. Area 2248 sq. m. The department
takes its name from the river Ain, which traverses its centre
in a southerly direction and separates it roughly into two
well-marked physical divisions--a region of mountains to
the east. and of plains to the west. The mountainous region
is occupied by the southern portion of the Jura, which is
divided into parallel chains running north and south and
decreasing in height from east to west. The most easterly
of these chains, that forming the Pays de Gex in the extreme
north-east of the department, contains the Cret de la Neige
(6653 ft.) and other of the highest summits in the whole
range. The district of Bugey occupies the triangle formed
by the Rhone in the south-east of the depart- . ment. West
of the Ain, with the exception of the district covered by the
Revermont, the westernmost chain of the Jura, the country is
flat, consisting in the north of the south portion of the
Bresse, in the south of the marshy Dombes. The chief rivers of
the eastern region are the Valserine and the Seran, right-hand
tributaries of the Rhone, which forms the eastern and southern
boundary of the department; and the Albarine and Oignin,
left-hand aflluents of the Ain. The Bresse is watered by the
Veyle and the Reyssouze, both flowing into the Saone, which
washes the western limit of the department. The climate is
cold in the eastern and central districts of Ain, but it is on
the whole healthy, except in the Dombes. The average rainfall
is about 38 in. The soil in the valleys and plains of the
department, especially in the Bresse, is fertile, producing
large quantities of wheat, as well as oats, buckwheat and
maize. East of the Ain, forests of fir and oak abound on the
mountains, the lower slopes of which give excellent pasture for
sheep and cattle, and much cheese is produced. Horse-raising
is carried on in the Dombes. The pigs and fowls of the
Bresse and the geese and turkeys of the Dombes are largely
exported. The vineyards of Bugey and Revermont yield good
wines. The chief mineral product is the asphalt of the mines
of Seyssel on the eastern frontier, besides which potter's
clay, building stone, hydraulic lime and cement are produced
in the department. There are many corn and saw mills and
the wood-working industry is important. Silk fabrics, coarse
woollen cloth, paper and clocks are manufactured. Live-stock
and agricultural products are exported; the chief imports
are wood and raw silk. The department is within the judicial
circumscription of the appeal court of Lyons and the educational
circumscription (academie) of Lyons. It forms part of the
archiepiscopal province of Besancon. The Rhone and the Saone
are navigable for considerable distances in the department;
the chief railway is that of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee
Company, whose line from Macon to Culoz traverses the
department. Ain is divided into five arrondissements--those
of Bourg and Trevoux in the west, and those of Gex, Nantua
and Belley in the east; containing in all 36 cantons and 455
communes. Bourg is the capital and Belley is the seat of a
bishop. Jujurieux, in the arrondissement of Nantua, has the most
important silk factory in the department, occupying over 1000
workpeople. Bellegarde on the eastern frontier is an industrial
centre; it has a manufactory of wood-pulp, and saw and flour
mills, power for which is obtained from the waters of the
Rhone, Oyonnax and its environs, north of Nantua, are noted
for the production of articles in wood and horn, especially
combs. St Rambert, in the arrondissement of Belley, besides
being of industrial importance for its manufactures of silk and
paper, possesses the remains of a Benedictine abbey, powerful
in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. The Gothic church
of Ambronay in the arrondissement of Belley, the church of
St Paul de Varax (about 9 m. S.W. of Bourg), a building in
the Romanesque style of Burgundy, and that of Nantua (12th
century), are of architectural interest. Ferney, 4 m. S.W. of
Gex, is famous as the residence of Voltaire from 1758-1778.
AINGER, ALFRED (1837-1904), English divine and man of letters,
was born in London on the 9th of February 1837, the son of an
architect. He was educated at King's College, London, and
at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was ordained in 1860 to a
curacy at Alrewas, near Rugeley. There he remained until 1864,
when he became an assistant master at the Sheffield Collegiate
School. His connexion with the Temple church, in London,
began in 1866, when he was appointed reader; and in 1894 he
succeeded Dr Vaughan as master. In 1887 he was presented to a
canonry in Bristol cathedral, and he was chaplain-in-ordinary
to Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. He died on the 8th
of February 1904. Canon Ainger's gentle wit and humour, his
generosity and lovable disposition, endeared him to a wide
circle. In literature his name is chiefly associated with
his sympathetic appreciation of Charles Lamb and Thomas
flood. His works include: Charles Lamb (1882) and Crabbe
(1903) in the ``English Men of Letters'' series; editions
of Lamb's Essays of Elia (1883) and of his Letters
(1888; 2nd ed., 1904), of the Poems (1897) of Thomas Hood,
with a biographical introduction; The Life and Works of
Charles Lamb (12 vols., 1899-1900), articles on Tennyson
and Du Maurier in the Dictionary of National Biography;
The Gospel and Human Life (1904), sermons; Lectures and
Essays (2 vols., 1905), edited by the Rev. H. C. Beeching.
See also Edith Sichel, The Life and Letters of Canon Ainger (1906).
AINMULLER, MAXIMILIAN EMMANUEL (1807-1870), German artist
and glass-painter, was born at Munich on the 14th of February
1807. By the advice of Gartner, director of the royal
porcelain manufactory, he devoted himself to the study of
glass-painting, both as a mechanical process and as an art,
and in 1828 he was appointed director of the newly-founded
royal painted-glass manufactory at Munich. The method
which he gradually perfected there was a development of the
enamel process adopted in the Renaissance, and consisted
in actually painting the design upon the glass, which was
subjected, as each colour was laid on, to carefully-adjusted
heating. The earliest specimens of Ainmuller's work are
to be found in the cathedral of Regensburg. With a few
exceptions, all the windows in Glasgow cathedral are from his
hand. Specimens may also be seen in St Paul's cathedral, and
Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Cologne cathedral contains some
of his finest productions. Ainmuller had considerable skill
as an oil-painter, especially in interiors, his pictures
of the Chapel Royal at Windsor and of Westminster Abbey
being much admired. He died on the 9th of December 1870.
AINSWORTH, HENRY (1571-1622), English Nonconformist divine
and scholar, was born of yeoman stock in 1570/1 at Swanton
Morley, Norfolk. He was for four years from December 1587 a
scholar of Caius College, Cambridge, and, after associating
with the Puritan party in the Church, eventually joined the
Separatists. Driven abroad about the year 1593, he found a
home in ``a blind lane at Amsterdam.'' He acted as ``porter''
to a scholarly bookseller in that city, who, on discovering
his skill in the Hebrew language, made him known to his
countrymen. When part of the London church, of which
Francis Johnson (then in prison) was pastor, reassembled in
Amsterdam, Ainsworth was chosen as their doctor or teacher.
In 1596 he took the lead in drawing up a confession of their
faith, which he reissued in Latin in 1598 and dedicated to
the various universities of Europe (including St Andrews,
Scotland). Johnson joined his flock in 1597, and in 1604 he
and Ainsworth composed An Apology or Defence of such true
Christians as are commonly but unjustly called Brownists. The
task of organizing the church was not easy and dissension was
rife. Of Ainsworth it may be said that, though often embroiled
in controversy, he never put himself forward; yet he was
the most steadfast and cultured champion of the principles
represented by the early Congregationalists. Amid all the
strife of controversy, he steadily pursued his rabbinical
studies. The combination was so unique that many, like the
encyclopaedists L. Moreri and J. H. Zedler, have made two
Henry Ainsworths--one Dr Henry Ainsworth, a learned biblical
commentator; the other H. Ainsworth, an arch-heretic and ``the
ringleader of the Separatists at Amsterdam.'' Some confusion
has also been occasioned through his not unfriendly controversy
with one John Ainsworth, who abjured the Anglican for the Roman
church. In 1608 Ainsworth answered Richard Bernard's The
Separatist Schisme. But his ablest and most arduous minor
work in controversy was his reply to John Smyth (commonly
called ``the Se-Baptist''), entitled a Defence of Holy
Scripture, Worship and Ministry used in the Christian Churches
separated from Antichrist, against the Challenges, Cavils
and Contradictions of Mr Smyth (1609). In 1610 he was
forced reluctantly to withdraw, with a large part of their
church, from F. Johnson and those who adhered to him. For
some time a difference of principle, as to the church's right
to revise its officers' decisions, had been growing between
them, Ainsworth taking the more Congregational view. (See
CONGREGATIONALISM.) But in spirit he remained a man of
peace. His memory abides through his rabbinical learning. The
ripe fruit of many years' labour appeared in his Annotations--on
Genesis (1616); Exodus (1617); Leviticus (1618); Numbers
(1619); Deuteronomy (1619); Psalms (including a metrical
version, 1612); Song of Solomon (1623). These were collected
in folio in 1627, and again in 1639, and later in various
forms. From the outset the Annotations took a commanding
place, especially among continental scholars, and he
established for English nonconformity a tradition of culture and
scholarship. There is no probability about the narrative
given by Neal in his History of the Puritans (ii. 47) that
he was poisoned by certain Jews. He died in 1622, or early
in 1623, for in that year was published his Seasonable
Discourse, or a Censure upon a Dialogue of the Anabaptists,
in which the editor speaks of him as a departed worthy.
LITERATURE.--John Worthington's Diary (Chetham
Society), by Crossley, i. 263-266; works of John Robinson
(1851); H. M. Dexter, Congregationalism of the Last
Three Hundred Years (1880); W. E. A. Axon, H. Ainsworth,
the Puritan Commentator (1889); F. J. Powicke, Henry
Barrow and the Exiled Church of Amsterdam (1900), J. H.
Shakespeare, Baptist and Congregational Pioneers (1906).
AINSWORTH, ROBERT (1660-1743), English schoolmaster and
author, was born at Eccles, near Manchester, in September
1660. After teaching for some time at Lever's Grammar
School in Bolton, he removed to London, where he conducted a
boarding-school, first at Bethnal Green and then at Hackney.
He soon made a moderate fortune which gave him leisure to
pursue his classical studies. Ainsworth's name is associated
with his Latin-English Dictionary, begun in 1714, and published
in 1736 as Thesaurus linguae Latinae compendiarius. It was
long extensively used in schools, and often reprinted, the
later editions being revised and enlarged by other hands,
but it is now superseded. Ainsworth was also the author of
some useful works on classical antiquities, and a sensible
treatise on education, entitled The most Natural and Easy
Way of Institution (1698), in which he advocates the teaching
of Latin by conversational methods and deprecates punishment
of any sort. He died in London on the 4th of April 1743.
AINSWORTH, WILLIAM HARRISON (1805-1882), English novelist,
son of Thomas Ainsworth, solicitor, was born at Manchester
on the 4th of February 1805. He was educated at Manchester
Grammar School and articled to the firm of which his father
was a member, proceeding to London in 1824 to complete his
legal training at the Inner Temple. At the age of twenty-one
he married a daughter of John Ebers the publisher, and started
in his father-in-law's line of business. This, however,
soon proved unprofitable and he decided to attempt literary
work. A novel called Sir John Chiverton, in which he appears
to have had a share, had attracted the praise of Sir Walter
Scott, and this encouragement decided him to take up fiction
as a career. In 1834 he published Rookwood, which had an
immediate success, and thenceforth he was always occupied
with the compilation of ``historical'' novels. He published
about forty such stories, of which the best-known are
Jack Sheppard (1839), The Tower Oglondon (1840), Guy
Fawkes (1841), Old St Paul's (1841) and Windsor Castle
(1843). He edited Bentley's Miscellany, in which Jack
Sheppard was published as a serial, and in 1842 he became
proprietor of Ainsworth's Magazine. In 1853 it ceased to
appear, and Ainsworth bought the New Monthly Magazine. He
continued his literary activity until his death, but his later
stories were less striking than the earlier ones. He died at
Reigate on the 3rd of January 1882 and was buried at Kensal
Green. Ainsworth had a lively talent for plot, and his books
have many attractive qualities. The glorification of Dick
Turpin in Rookwood, and of Jack Sheppard in the novel that
bears his name, caused considerable outcry among straitlaced
elders. In his later novels Ainsworth confined himself to
heroes less open to criticism. His style was not without
archaic affectation and awkwardness, but when his energies were
aroused by a striking situation he could be brisk, vigorous
and impressive. He did a great deal to interest the less
educated classes in the historical romances of their country,
and his tales were invariably instructive, clean and manly.
AINTAB (anc. Doliche), a town in the vilayet of Aleppo
and ancient Cyrrhestica district of N. Syria. Pop. 45,000,
two-thirds Moslem. The site of Doliche, famous for its
worship of Baal (Zeus Dolichenus), adopted by the Seleucids
and eventually spread all over the Roman empire, lies at
Duluk, two hours N.W.; but nothing is to be seen there except a
mound. The place was probably of Hittite origin and does not
appear to have been settled by Greeks. The bazaars of Aintab
are a great centre for ``Hittite'' antiquities, found at
various sites from Sakchegozu on the west to Jerablus on the
east. The modern town lies in the open treeless valley of
the Sajur, a tributary of the Euphrates, and on the right
bank, 65 m. north-east of Aleppo, with which it is connected
by a chaussee, passing through Kulis. This road proceeds
east to the great crossing of Euphrates at Birejik, and thus
Aintab lies on the highway between N. Syria and Urfa-Mosul
and has much transit trade and numerous khans. In the middle
ages its strong castle (Hamtab) was an important strategic
point, taken by Saladin about A.D. 1183; and it supplied the
last base from which Ibrahim Pasha marched in 1839 to win his
decisive victory over the Turksat Nezib, about 25 m. distant
north-east. Lying high (3500 ft.) and swept by purifying
winds, Aintab is a comparatively clean and healthy spot,
though not free from ophthalmia and the ``Aleppo button,''
and it has been selected by the American Mission Board as its
centre for N. Syria ``Central Turkey College,'' educational
and medical, lies on high ground west. It was burnt down in
1891, but rebuilt; it has a dependency for girls within the
town. Thanks to its presence the Armenian protestants are a
large and rich community, which suffered less in the massacre
of 1895 than the Gregorians. There is a small Episcopalian
body, which has a large unfinished church, and a schismatic
``catholicos,'' who has vainly tried to gain acceptance into
the Anglican communion. There is also a flourishing Franciscan
mission. Striped cloths and pekmez, a sweet paste made
from grapes, are the principal manufactures; and tobacco
and cereals the principal cultures. The town is unusually
well and solidly built, good stone being obtained near at
hand. The Moslem inhabitants are mainly of Turkoman origin,
and used to owe fealty to chieftains of the family of Chapan
Oglu, whose headquarters were at Yuzgat in Cappadocia. (D. G. H.)
AINU (``man''), a race inhabiting the northernmost islands
of Japan. Little definite is known about their earliest
history, but it is improbable that they are, as has been
urged, the aborigines of Japan. The most accurate researches
go to prove that they were immigrants, who reached Yezo
from the Kuriles, and subsequently crossing Tsugaru
strait, colonized a great part of the main island of Japan,
exterminating a race of pit-dwellers to whom they gave the
name of koro-pok-guru (men with sunken places). These
koro-pok-guru were of such small stature as to be considered
dwarfs. They wore skins of animals for clothing, and that
they understood the potter's art and used flint arrow-heads
is clearly proved by excavations at the sites of their
pits. The Ainu, on the contrary, never had any knowledge of
pottery. Ultimately the Ainu, coming into contact with the
Japanese, who had immigrated from the south and west, were
driven northward into the island of Yezo, where, as well as
in the Kuriles and in the southern part of Sakhalin, they are
still found in some numbers. When, at the close of the 18th
and the beginning of the 19th century, Russian enterprises
drew the attention of the Japanese government to the northern
districts of the empire, the Tokugawa shoguns adopted towards
the Ainu a policy of liberality and leniency consistent with
the best principles of modern colonization. But the doom
of unfitness appears to have begun to overtake the race long
ago. History indicates that in ancient times they were
fierce fighters, able to offer a stout resistance to the
incomparably better armed and more civilized Japanese.
To-day they are drunken, dirty, spiritless folk, whom it is
difficult to suppose capable of the warlike role they once
played. Their number, between 16,000 and 17,000, is virtually
stationary. The Ainu are somewhat taller than the Japanese,
stoutly built, well proportioned, with dark-brown eyes, high
cheek-bones, short broad noses and faces lacking length.
The hairiness of the Ainu has been much exaggerated. They
are not more hairy than many Europeans. Never shaving after
a certain age, the men have full beards and moustaches, but
the stories of Ainu covered with hair like a bear are quite
unjustified by facts. Men and women alike cut their hair
level with the shoulders at the sides of the head, but trim
it semicircularly behind. The women tattoo their mouths,
arms, and sometimes their foreheads, using for colour the
smut deposited on a pot hung over a fire of birch bark.
Their original dress is a robe spun from the bark of the elm
tree. It has long sleeves, reaches nearly to the feet, is
folded round the body and tied with a girdle of the same
material. Females wear also an undergarment of Japanese
cloth. In winter the skins of animals are worn, with leggings
of deerskin and boots made from the skin of dogs or salmon.
Both sexes are fond of ear-rings, which are said to have been
made of grape-vine in former times, but are now purchased from
the Japanese, as also are bead necklaces, which the women prize
highly. Their food is meat, whenever they can procure
it--the flesh of the bear, the fox, the wolf, the badger, the
ox or the horse--fish, fowl, millet, vegetables, herbs and
roots. They never eat raw fish or flesh, but always either
boil or roast it. Their habitations are reed-thatched huts,
the largest 20 ft. square, without partitions and having a
fireplace in the centre. There is no chimney, but only a
hole at the angle of the roof; there is one window on the
eastern side and there are two doors. Public buildings do
not exist, whether in the shape of inn, meeting-place or
temple. The furniture of their dwellings is exceedingly
scanty. They have no chairs, stools or tables, but sit on
the floor, which is covered with two layers of mats, one of
rush, the other of flag; and for beds they spread planks,
hanging mats around them on poles, and employing skins for
coverlets. The men use chop-sticks and moustache-lifters
when eating; the women have wooden spoons. Uncleanliness is
characteristic of the Ainu, and all their intercourse with the
Japanese has not improved them in that respect. The Rev. John
Batchelor, in his Notes on the Ainu, says that he lived in
one Ainu habitation for six weeks on one occasion, and for
two months on another, and that he never once saw personal
ablutions performed, or cooking or eating utensils washed.
Not having been at any period acquainted with the art of
writing, they have no literature and are profoundly ignorant.
But at schools established for them by the Japanese in recent
times, they have shown that their intellectual capacity is not
deficient. No distinct conception of a universe enters
into their cosmology. They picture to themselves many
floating worlds, yet they deduce the idea of rotundity from
the course of the sun, and they imagine that the ``Ainu
world'' rests on the back of a fish whose movements cause
earthquakes. It is scarcely possible to doubt that this fancy
is derived from the Japanese, who used to hold an identical
theory. The Ainu believe in a supreme Creator, but also in a
sun-god, a moon-god, a water-god and a mountain-god, deities
whose river is the Milky Way, whose voices are heard in
the thunder and whose glory is reflected in the lightning.
Their chief object of actual worship appears to be the bear.
Miss Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop) writes: ``The peculiarity
which distinguishes their rude mythology is the worship
of the bear, the Yezo bear being one of the finest of his
species. But it is impossible to understand the feelings
by which this cult is prompted, for although they worship
the animal after their fashion and set up its head in their
villages, yet they trap it, kill it, eat it and sell its
skin. There is no doubt that this wild beast inspires more
of the feeling which prompts worship than the inanimate
forces of nature, and the Ainos may be distinguished as
bear-worshippers, and their greatest religious festival or
saturnalia as the Festival of the Bear.... Some of their rude
chants are in praise of the bear, and their highest eulogy on
a man is to compare him to a bear.'' They have no priests by
profession. The village chief performs whatever religious
ceremonies are necessary; ceremonies confined to making libations
of wine, uttering short prayers and offering willow sticks
with wooden shavings attached to them, much as the Japanese
set up the well-known gohei (sacred offerings) at certain
spots. The Ainu gives thanks to the gods before eating, and
prays to the deity of fire in time of sickness. He thinks
that his spirit is immortal, and that it will be rewarded
hereafter in heaven or punished in hell, both of which places
are beneath the earth, hell being the land of volcanoes;
but he has no theory as to a resurrection of the body or
metempsychosis. He preserves a tradition about a flood
which seems to be the counterpart of the Biblical deluge, and
about an earthquake which lasted a hundred days, produced the
three volcanoes of Yezo and created the island by bridging
the waters that had previously separated it into two parts.
The Ainu are now governed by Japanese laws and judged by
Japanese tribunals, but in former times their affairs were
administered by hereditary chiefs, three in each village,
and for administrative purposes the country was divided into
three districts, Saru, Usu and Ishikari, which were under the
ultimate control of Saru, though the relations between their
respective inhabitants were not close and intermarriages were
avoided. The functions of judge were not entrusted to these
chiefs; an indefinite number of a community's members sat
in judgment upon its criminals. Capital punishment did not
exist, nor was imprisonment resorted to, beating being
considered a sufficient and final penalty, except in the
case of murder, when the nose and ears of the assassin were
cut off or the tendons of his feet severed. Little as the
Japanese and the Ainu have in common, intermarriages are
not infrequent, and at Sambutsu especially, on the eastern
coast, many children of such marriages may be seen.
Doenitz, Hilgendorf and Dr B. Scheube, arguing from a minute
investigation of the physical traits of the Ainu, have concluded
that they are Mongolians; according to Professor A. H. Keane
the Ainu ``are quite distinct from the surrounding Mongolic
peoples, and present several remarkable physical characters
which seem to point to a remote connexion with the Caucasic
races. Such are a very full beard, shaggy or wavy black or
dark-brown hair, sometimes covering the back and chest; a
somewhat fair or even white complexion, large nose, straight
eyes and regular features, often quite handsome and of European
type. They seem to be a last remnant of the Neolithic
peoples, who ranged in prehistoric times across the northern
hemisphere from the British Isles to Manchuria and Japan.
They are bear-worshippers, and have other customs in common
with the Manchurian aborigines, but the language is entirely
different, and they have traditions of a time when they were
the dominant people in the surrounding lands.'' It should be
noted finally that the Ainu are altogether free from ferocity or
exclusiveness, and that they treat strangers with gentle kindness.
See Rev. John Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folk-lore
(London, 1901); Romyn Hitchcock, The Ainos of Japan
(Washington, 1892); H. von Siebold, Uber die Aino
(Berlin, 1881); Isabella Bird (Mrs Bishop), Korea and her
Neighbours (1898); Basil Hall Chamberlain, Language,
Mythology and Geographical Nomenclature of Japan viewed in
the Light of Aino Studies and Aino Fairy-tales (1895).
AIR, or ASBEN, a country of West Africa, lying between
15 deg. and 19 deg. N. and 6 deg. and 10 deg. E. It is within the
Sahara, of which it forms one of the most fertile regions.
The northern portion of the country is mountainous, some
of the peaks rising to a height of 5000 ft. Richly wooded
hollows and extensive plains are interspersed between the
hills. The mimosa, the dum palm and the date are abundant.
Some of the plains afford good pasturage for camels, asses,
goats and cattle; others are desert tablelands. In the less
frequented districts wild animals abound, notably the lion
and the gazelle. The country generally is of sandstone or
granite formation, with occasional trachyte and basaltic
ranges. There are no permanent rivers; but during the rainy
season, from August to October, heavy floods convert the
water-courses in the hollows of the mountains into broad and
rapid streams. Numerous wells supply the wants of the people
and their cattle. To the south of this variegated region
lies a desert plateau, 2000 ft. above sea-level, destitute of
water, and tenanted only by the wild ox, the ostrich and the
giraffe. Still farther south is the fairly fertile district of
Damerghu, of which Zinder is the chief town. Little of the
soil is under cultivation except in the neighbourhood of the
villages. Millet, dates, indigo and senna are the principal
productions. The great bulk of the food supplies is brought from
Damerghu, and the materials for clothing are also imported. A
great caravan annually passes through Air, consisting of several
thousand camels, carrying salt from Bilma to the Hausa states.
Air was called Asben by the native tribes until they were
conquered by the Berbers. The present inhabitants are for
the most part of a mixed race, combining the finer traits
of the berbers with negro characteristics. The sultan of
Air is to a great extent dependent on the chiefs of the
Tuareg tribes inhabiting a vast tract of the Sahara to the
north-west. A large part of his revenue is derived from
tribute exacted from the salt caravans. Since 1890 Air has
been included in the French sphere of influence in West Africa.
Agades, the capital of the country, which has a circuit of 3 1/2
m., is built on the edge of a plateau 2500 ft. high, and is
supposed to have been founded by the Berbers to serve as a
secure magazine for their extensive trade with the Songhoi
empire. The language of the people is a dialect of Songhoi.
In former times Agades was a place of great traffic, and had
a population of about 50,000. Since the beginning of the 16th
century the prosperity of the town has, however, gradually
declined. F. Foureau, who visited Agades in 1899, stated that
more than half the total area was deserted and ruinous. The
houses, which are built of clay, are low and flat-roofed;
and the only buildings of importance are the chief mosque,
which is surmounted by a tower 95 ft. high, and the sultan's
residence, a massive two-storied structure pierced with small
windows. The chief trade is grain. The great salt caravans
pass through it, as well as pilgrims on their way to Mecca.
AIR (from an Indo-European root meaning ``breathe,'' ``blow''),
the atmosphere that surrounds the earth; aer, the lower thick
air, being distinguished from aither, With the development
of analytical and especially of pneumatic chemistry, the air
was recognized not to be one homogeneous substance, as was
long supposed, and different ``airs,'' or gases, came to be
distinguished. Thus oxygen gas, at the end of the 18th
century, was known as dephlogisticated air, nitrogen or
azote as phlogisticated air, hydrogen as inflammable air,
carbonic acid gas as fixed air. The name is now ordinarily
restricted to what is more accurately called atmospheric
air--the air we breathe--the invisible elastic fluid which
surrounds the earth (see ATMOSPHERE.) Probably the sense
of atmosphere or environment led (though this is disputed
by etymologists) to the further use of the word ``air'' to
mean ``manner'' or ``appearance''; and so to its employment
(cf. Lat. modus) in music for ``melody.'' (See ARIA.)
AIRAY, HENRY (1560?-1616), English Puritan divine, was
born at Kentmere, Westmorland, but no record remains of the
date of either birth or baptism. He was the son of William
Airay, the favourite servant of Bernard Gilpin, ``the apostle
of the North,'' whose bounty showed itself in sending Henry
and his brother Evan (or Ewan) to his own endowed school,
where they were educated ``in grammatical learning,'' and
were in attendance at Oxford when Gilpin died. From Wood's
Athenae we glean the details of Airay's college attendance.
``He was sent to St Edmund's hall in 1579, aged nineteen or
thereabouts. Soon after he was translated to Queen's
College, where he became pauper puer serviens; that is, a
poor serving child that waits on the fellows in the common
hall at meals, and in their chambers, and does other servile
work about the college.'' His transference to Queen's is
perhaps explained by its having been Gilpin's college, and
by his Westmorland origin giving him a claim on Eaglesfield's
foundation. He graduated B.A. on the 19th of June 1583,
M.A. on the 15th of June 1586, B.D. in 1504 and D.D. on
the 17th of June 1600--all in Queen's College. ``About the
time he was master'' (1586) ``he entered holy orders, and
became a frequent and zealous preacher in the university.''
His Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (1618,
reprinted 1864) is a specimen of his preaching before his
college, and of his fiery denunciation of popery and his
fearless enunciation of that Calvinism which Oxford in common
with all England then prized. In 1598 he was chosen provost
of his college, and in 1606 was vice-chancellor of the
university. In the discharge of his vice-chancellor's duties
he came into conflict with Laud, who even thus early was
manifesting his antagonism to the prevailing Puritanism.
He was also rector of Otmore (or Otmoor), near Oxford, a living
which involved him in a trying but successful litigation,
whereof later incumbents reaped the benefit. He died on
the 6th of October 1610. His character as a man, preacher,
divine, and as an important ruler in the university, will be
found portrayed in the Epistle by John Potter, prefixed to
the Commentary. He must have been a fine specimen of the
more cultured Puritans --possessed of a robust common-sense
in admirable contrast with some of his contemporaries.
AIRD, THOMAS (1802-1876), Scottish poet, was born at Bowden,
Roxburghshire, on the 28th of August 1802. He was educated at
Edinburgh University, where he made the acquaintance of Carlyle
and James Hogg, and he decided to devote himself to literary
work. He published Martzoufie, a Tragedy, with other Poems
(1826), a volume of essays, and a long narrative poem in
several cantos, The Captive of Fez (1830). For a year he
edited the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, and for twenty-eight
years the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Herald. In 1848 he
published a collected edition of his poems, which met with much
favour. Carlyle said that he found in them ``a healthy breath
as of mountain breezes.'' Among Aird's other friends were De
Quincey, Lockhart, Stanley (afterwards dean of Westminster) and
Motherwell. He died at Dumfries on the 25th of April 1876.
AIRDRIE, a municipal and police burgh of Lanarkshire,
Scotland. Pop. (1901) 22,228. It is situated 11 m. E. of
Glasgow by the North British railway, and also communicates with
Glasgow by the Monkland Canal (which passes within 1 m. of the
town), as well as by the Caledonian railway via Coatbridge and
Whiffiet. The canal was constructed between 1761 and 1790,
and connects with the Forth and Clyde Canal near Maryhill.
Airdrie was a market town in 1695, but owes its prosperity to
the great coal and iron beds in its vicinity. Other industries
include iron and brass foundries, engineering, manufactures
of woollens and calicoes, silk-weaving, paper-making, oil and
fireclay. The public buildings comprise the town hall, county
buildings, mechanics' institute, academy, two fever hospitals
and free library, the burgh having been the first town in
Scotland to adopt the Free Library Act. Airdrie unites with
Falkirk. Hamilton, Lanark and Linlithgow in sending one member to
parliament. The parish of New Monkland, in which Airdrie
lies, was formed (with Old Monkland)in 1640 out of the ancient
barony of Monkland, so named from the fact that it was part
of the lands granted by Malcolm IV. to the monks of Newbattle.
AIRE, a town of south-western France, in the department
of Landes, on the left bank of the Adour, 22 m. S.E. of
Mont-de-Marsan on the Southern railway between Morcenx and
Tarbes. Pop. (1906) 2283. It is the seat of a bishopric, and
has a cathedral of the 12th century and an episcopal palace of
the 11th, 17th and 18th centuries. Both have undergone frequent
restoration. They are surpassed in interest by the church
of St Quitterie in Mas d'Aire, the suburb south-west of the
town. The latter is a brick building of the 13th and 14th
centuries, with a choir in the Romanesque style, and a fine
western portal which has been much disfigured. The crypt
contains several Gallo-Roman tombs and the sarcophagus (5th
century) of St Quitterie. Aire has two ecclesiastical seminaries.
Aire (Atura, Vicus Julii) was the residence of the kings of
the Visigoths, One of whom, Alaric II. (q.v.), there drew
up his famous code. The bishopric dates from the 5th century.
AIRE, a town of northern France, on the river Lys, in the
department of Pas-de-Calais, 12 m. S.S.E. of St Omer by
rail. Pop. (1906) 4258. The town lies in a low and
marshy situation at the junction of three canals. The
chief buildings are the church of St Pierre (15th and 16th
centuries), which has an imposing tower and rich interior
decoration; a hotel de ville of the 18th century; and the
Bailliage (16th century), a small building in the Renaissance
style. Aire has flour-mills, leather and oil works, and
nail manufactories, and trade in agricultural produce.
In the middle ages Aire belonged to the counts of Flanders,
from whom in 1188 it received a charter, which is still
extant. It was given to France by the peace of Utrecht 1713.
AIR-ENGINE, the name given to heat-engines which use air for
their working substance, that is to say for the substance which
is caused alternately to expand and contract by application
and removal of heat, this process enabling a portion of the
applied heat to be transformed into mechanical work. Just
as the working substance which alternately takes in and gives
out heat in the steam-engine is water (converted during a
part of the action into steam), so in the air-engine it is
air. The practical drawbacks to employing air as the working
substance of a heat-engine are so great that its use has been very
limited. Such attempts as have been made to design air-engines
on a large scale have been practical failures, and are now
interesting only as.steps in the historical development of
applied thermodynamics. In the form of motors for producing
very small amounts of power air-engines have been found
convenient, and within a restricted field they are still met
with. But even in this field the competition of the
oil-engine and the gas-engine is too formidable to leave to
the air-engine more than a very narrow chance of employment.
One of the chief practical objections to air-engines is the
great bulk of the working substance in relation to the amount
of heat that is utilized in the working of the engine. To
some extent this objection may be reduced by using the air
in a state of compression, and therefore of greater density,
throughout its operation. Even then, however, the amount of
operative heat is very small in comparison with that which
passes through the steam-engine, per cubic foot swept through
by the piston, for the change of state which water undergoes
in its transformation into steam involves the taking in of
much more heat than can be communicated to air in changing its
temperature within such a range as is practicable. Another
and not less serious objection is the practical difficulty
of getting heat into the working air through the walls of the
containing vessel. The air receives heat from an external
furnace just as water does in the boiler of a steam-engine,
by contact with a heated metallic surface, but it takes up
heat from such a surface with much less readiness than does
water. The waste of heat in the chimney gases is accordingly
greater; and further, the metallic shell is liable to be
quickly burned away as a result of its contact at a high
temperature with free oxygen. The temperature of the shell
is much higher than that of a steam boiler, for in order to
secure that the working air will take up a fair amount of
heat, the upper limit to which its temperature is raised
greatly exceeds that of even high-pressure steam. This
objection to the air-engine arises from the fact that the
heat comes to it from external combustion; it disappears
when internal combustion is resorted to; that is to say,
when the heat is generated within the envelope containing
the working air, by the combustion there of gaseous or other
fuel. Gas-engines and oil-engines and other types of engine
employing internal combustion may be regarded as closely
related to the air-engine. They differ from it, however, in
the fact that their working substance is not air, but a mixture
of gases--a necessary consequence of internal combustion. It
is to internal combustion that they owe their success, for it
enables them to get all the heat of combustion into the working
substance, to use a relatively very high temperature at the
top of the range, and at the same time to escape entirely
the drawbacks that arise in the air-engine proper through the
need of conveying heat to the air through a metallic shell.
A form of air-engine which was invented in 1816 by the
Rev. R. Stirling is of special interest as embodying the
earliest application of what is known as the ``regenerative''
principle, the principle namely that heat may be deposited
by a substance at one stage of its action and taken up again
at another stage with but little loss, and with a great
resulting change in the substance's temperature at each of the
two stages in the operation. The principle has since found
wide application in metallurgical and other operations. In
any heat-engine it is essential that the working substance
should be at a high temperature while it is taking in heat,
and at a relatively low temperature when it is rejecting
heat. The highest thermodynamic efficiency will be reached
when the working substance is at the top of its temperature
range while any heat is being received and at the bottom while
any heat is being rejected--as is the case in the cycle of
operations of the theoretically imagined engine of Carnot.
(See THERMODYNAMICS and STEAM-ENGINE.) In Carnot's cycle
the substance takes in heat at its highest temperature, then
passes by adiabatic expansion from the top to the bottom of
its temperature range, then rejects heat at the bottom of the
range, and is finally brought back by adiabatic compression
to the highest temperature at which it again takes in heat,
and so on. An air-engine working on this cycle would be
intolerably bulky and mechanically inefficient. Stirling
substituted for the two stages of adiabatic expansion and
compression the passage of the air to and fro through a
``regenerator,'' in which the air was alternately cooled
by storing its heat in the material of the regenerator and
reheated by picking the stored heat up again on the return
journey. The essential parts of one form of Stirling's engine
are shown in fig. 1. There A is the externally fired heating
vessel, the lower part of which contains hot air which is
taking in heat from the furnace beneath. A pipe from the
top of A leads to the working cylinder (B). At the top of
A is a cooler (C) consisting of pipes through which cold
water is made to circulate. In A there is a displacer (D)
which is connected (by parts not shown) with the piston in
such a manner that it moves down when the piston has moved
up. The air-pressure is practically the same above and
below D, for these spaces are in free communication with
one another through the regenerator (E), which is an annular
space stacked loosely with wire-gauze. When D moves down,
the hot air is driven up through the regenerator to the upper
part of the containing vessel. It deposits its heat in the
wire-gauze, becoming lowered in temperature and consequently
reduced in pressure. The piston (B) descends, and the air,
now in contact with the cooling pipes (C), gives up heat to
them. Then the displacer (D) is raised. The air passes down
through its regenerator, picking up the heat deposited there,
and thereby having its temperature restored and its pressure
raised. It then takes in heat from the furnace, expanding in
volume and forcing the piston (B) to rise, which completes the
cycle. The engine was double-acting, another heating vessel
like A being connected with the upper end of the working cylinder
at F. The stages at which heat is taken from the furnace and
rejected to the cooler (C) are approximately isothermal at the
upper and lower limits of temperature respectively, and the cycle
accordingly is approximately ``perfect'' in the thermodynamic
sense. The theoretical indicator diagram is made up of two
isothermal lines for the taking in and rejection of heat, and
two lines of constant volume for the two passages through the
regenerator. This engine was the subject of two patents
(by R. and S. Stirling) in 1827 and 1840. A double-acting
Stirling engine of 50 horse-power, using air which was
maintained by a pump at a fairly high pressure throughout the
operations, was used for some years in the Dundee Foundry,
where it is oredited with having consumed only 1.7 lb. of coal
per hour per indicated horse-power. The coal consumption per
brake-horse-power was no doubt much greater. It was finally
abandoned on account of the failure of the heating vessels.
The type survives in some small domestic motors, an example of
which, manufactured under the patent of H. Robinson, is shown
in fig. 2. In this there is no compressing pump, and the main
pressure of the working air is simply that of the atmosphere.
The whole range of pressure is so slight that no packing is
required. Here A is the vessel in which the air is heated
and within which the displacer works. It is heated by a small
cokefire or by a gas flame in C. It communicates through a
passage (D) with the working cylinder (B) . The displacer (E)
which takes its motion through a rod (I) from a rocking lever
(F) connected by a short link to the crank-pin, is itself the
regenerator, its construction being such that the air passes
up and down through it as in one of the original Stirling
forms. The cooler is a water vessel (G) through which water
circulates from a tank (H). Ylessrs. Hayward and Tyler's
``Rider'' engine may be mentioned as another small hot-air
motor which follows nearly the Stirling cycle of operations.
An attempt to develop a powerful air-engine was made in
America about 1833 by John Ericsson, who applied it to marine
propulsion in the ship ``Caloric,'' but without permanent
success. Like Stirling, Ericsson used a regenerator, but with
this difference that the pressure instead of the volume of the air
remained constant while it passed in each direction through the
regenerator. Cold air was compressed by a. pump into a receiver,
where it was kept cool during compression and from which it
passed through a regenerator into the working cylinder. In
so passing it took up heat and expanded. It was then allowed
to expand further, taking in heat from a furnace under the
cylinder and falling in pressure. This expansion was continued
till the pressure of the working air fell nearly to that of the
atmosphere. It was then discharged through the regenerator,
depositing heat for the next charge of air in turn to take
up. The indicator diagram approximated to a form made up
of two isothermal lines and two lines of constant pressure.
In the transmission of power by compressed air (see POWER
TRANSMISSION) the air-driven motors are for the most part
machines resembling steam-engines in the general features of
their pistons, cylinders, valves and so forth. Such machines
are not properly described as air-engines since their function
is not the conversion of heat into work. Incidentally,
however, they do in some cases partially discharge that
function, namely, when what is called a ``preheater'' is used
to warm up the compressed air before it enters in the motor
cylinder. The object of this device is not, primarily, to
produce work from heat, but to escape the inconveniences
that would otherwise arise through extreme cooling of the
air during its expansion. Without preheating the expanding
air becomes so cold as to be liable to deposit snow from
the moisture held in suspension, and thereby to clog the
valves. With preheating this is avoided, and the amount
of work done by a given quantity of air is increased by the
conversion into work of a part of the supplementary energy
which the preheater supplies in the form of heat. (J. A. E.)
AIREY, RICHARD AIREY, BARON (1803-1881), British general,
was the son of Lieutenant-General Sir George Airey (1761-1833)
and was born in 1803. He entered the army in 1821, became
captain in 1825, and served on the staff of Sir Frederick
Adam in the Ionian Islands (1827-1830) and on that of Lord
Aylmer in North America (1830-1832). In 1838 Airey, then a
lieutenant-colonel, went to the Horse Guards, where in 1852
he became military secretary to the commander-in-chief, Lord
Hardinge. In 1854 he was given a brigade command in the
army sent out to the East; from which, however, he was
immediately transferred to the onerous and difficult post
of quartermaster-general to Lord Raglan, in which capacity
he served through the campaign in the Crimea. He was made
a major-general in December 1854, and it was universally
recognized in the army that he was the best soldier on Lord
Raglan's staff. He was made a K.C.B., and was reported upon
most favourably by his superiors, Lord Raglan and Sir J.
Simpson. Airey was a quartermaster-general in the older
sense of the word, i.e. a chief of the general staff, but a
different view of the duties of the office was then becoming
recognized. Public opinion held him and his department
responsible for the failures and mismanagement of the
commissariat. Airey demanded an inquiry on his return to
England and cleared himself completely, but he never recovered
from the effects of the unjust persecution of which he
had been made the victim, though the popular view was not
shared by his military superiors. He gave up his post at
the front to become quartermaster-general to the forces at
home. In 1862 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and
from 1865 to 1870 he was governor of Gibraltar, receiving
the G.C.B. in 1867. In 1870 he became adjutant-general
at headquarters, and in 1871 attained the full rank of
general. In 1876, on his retirement, he was created a
peer, and in 1879-1880 he presided over the celebrated Airey
commission on army reform. He died at the house of Lord
Wolseley, at Leatherhead, on the 14th of September 1881.
AIR-GUN, a gun in which the force employed to propel the
bullet is the elasticity of compressed atmospheric air.
It has attached to it, or constructed in it, a reservoir of
compressed air, a portion of which, liberated into the space
behind the bullet when the trigger is pulled, propels the
bullet from the barrel by its expansion. The common forms of
air-gun, which are merely toys, are charged by compressing a
spiral spring, one end of which forms a piston working in a
cylinder; when released by a pull on the trigger, this spring
expands, and the air forced out in front of it propels the
bullet. Air-guns of this kind are sometimes made to
resemble walking-sticks and are then known as air-canes.
AIRY, SIR GEORGE BIDDELL (1801-1892), British Astronomer
Royal, was born at Alnwick on the 27th of July 1801.
He came of a long line of Airys who traced their descent
back to a family of the same name residing at Eentmere, in
Westmorland, in the 14th century; but the branch to which
he belonged, having suffered in the Civil wars, removed to
Lincolnshire, where for several generations they lived as
farmers. George Airy was educated first at elementary
schools in Hereford, and afterwards at Colchester Grammar
School. In 1819 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a
sizar. Here he had a brilliant career, and seems to have
been almost immediately recognized as the leading man of his
year. In 1822 he was elected scholar of Trinity, and in the
following year he graduated as senior wrangler and obtained
first Smith's prize. On the 1st of October 1824 he was
elected fellow of Trinity, and in December 1826 was appointed
Lucasian professor of mathematics in succession to Thomas
Turton. This chair he held for little more than a year, being
elected in February 1828 Plumian professor of astronomy and
director of the new Cambridge observatory. Some idea of his
activity as a writer on mathematical and physical subjects
during these early years may be gathered from the fact that
previous to this appointment he had contributed no less than
three important memoirs to the Philisophical Transactions of
the Royal Society, and eight to the Cambridge Philosophical
Society. At the Cambridge observatory Airy soon gave evidence
of his remarkable power of organization. The only telescope
erected in the establishment when he took it in charge was
the transit instrument, and to this he vigorously devoted
himself. By the adoption of a regular system of work,
and a careful plan of reduction, he was able to keep his
observations reduced practically up to date, and published
them annually with a degree of punctuality which astonished his
contemporaries. Before long a mural circle was installed,
and regular observations were instituted with it in 1833.
In the same year the duke of Northumberland presented the
Cambridge observatory with a fine object-glass of 12 in.
aperture, which was mounted according to Airy's designs
and under his superintendence, although the erection was
not completed until after his removal to Greenwich in
1835. Airy's writings during this time are divided between
mathematical physics and astronomy. The former are for the
most part concerned with questions relating to the theory of
light, arising out of his professorial lectures, among which
may be specially mentioned his paper ``On the Diffraction of
an Object-Glass with Circular Aperture.'' In 1831 the Copley
medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him for these
researches. Of his astronomical writings during this period
the most important are his investigation of the mass of
Jupiter, his report to the British Association on the progress
of astronomy during the 19th century, and his memoir On an
Inequality of Long Period in the Motions of the Earth and Venus.
One of the sections of his able and instructive report
was devoted to ``A Comparison of the Progress of Astronomy
in England with that in other Countries,'' very much
to the disadvantage of England. This reproach was
subsequently to a great extent removed by his own labours.
Airy's discovery of a new inequality in the motions of
Venus and the earth is in some respects his most remarkable
achievement. In correcting the elements of Delambre's solar
tables he had been led to suspect an inequality overlooked by
their constructor. The cause of this he did not long seek in
vain. Eight times the mean motion of Venus is so nearly equal
to thirteen times that of the earth that the difference amounts
to only the 1/240th of the earth's mean motion, and from the
fact that the term depending on this difference, although very
small in itself, receives in the integration of the differential
equations a multiplier of about 2,200,000, Airy was led to
infer the existence of a sensible inequality extending over
240 years (Phil. Trans. cxxii. 67). The investigation that
brought about this result was probably the most laborious
that had been made up to Airy's time in planetary theory, and
represented the first specific improvement in the solar tables
effected in England since the establishment of the theory of
gravitation. In recognition of this work the medal of
the Royal Astronomical Society was awarded to him in 1833.
In June 1835 Airy was appointed Astronomer Royal in succession
to John Pond, and thus commenced that long career of wisely
directed and vigorously sustained industry at the national
observatory which, even more perhaps than his investigations
in abstract science or theoretical astronomy, constitutes
his chief title to fame. The condition of the observatory
at the time of his appointment was such that Lord Auckland,
the first lord of the Admiralty, considered that ``it ought
to be cleared out,'' while Airy admitted that ``it was in
a queer state.'' With his usual energy he set to work at
once to reorganize the whole management. He remodelled the
volumes of observations, put the library on a proper footing,
mounted the new (Sheepshanks) equatorial and organized a new
magnetic observatory. In 1847 an altazimuth was erected,
designed by Airy to enable observations of the moon to be
made not only on the meridian, but whenever she might be
visible. In 1848 Airy invented the reflex zenith tube to
replace the zenith sector previously employed. At the end
of 1850 the great transit circle of 8 in. aperture and 11 ft.
6 in. focal length was erected, and is still the principal
instrument of its class at the observatory. The mounting in
1859 of an equatorial of 13 in. aperture evoked the comment
in his journal for that year, ``There is not now a single
person employed or instrument used in the observatory which
was there in Mr Pond's time''; and the transformation was
completed by the inauguration of spectroscopic work in 1868
and of the photographic registration of sun-spots in 1873.
The formidable undertaking of reducing the accumulated planetary
observations made at Greenwich from 1750 to 1830 was already
in progress under Airy's supervision when he became Astronomer
Royal. Shortly afterwards he undertook the further laborious
task of reducing the enormous mass of observations of the moon
made at Greenwich during the same period under the direction,
successively, of J. Bradley, N. Bliss, N. Maskelyne and John
Pond, to defray the expense of which a large sum of money was
allotted by the Treasury. As the result, no less than 8000
lunar observations were rescued from oblivion, and were, in
1846, placed at the disposal of astronomers in such a form
that they could be used directly for comparison with the
theory and for the improvement of the tables of the moon's
motion. For this work Airy received in 1848 a testimonial
from the Royal Astronomical Society, and it at once led to
the discovery by P. A. Hansen of two new inequalities in the
moon's motion. After completing these reductions, Airy made
inquiries, before engaging in any theoretical investigation
in connexion with them, whether any other mathematician was
pursuing the subject, and learning that Hansen had taken
it in hand under the patronage of the king of Denmark, but
that, owing to the death of the king and the consequent lack
of funds, there was danger of his being compelled to abandon
it, he applied to the admiralty on Hansen's behalf for the
necessary sum. His request was immediately granted, and
thus it came about that Hansen's famous Tables de la Lune
were dedicated to La Haute Amiraute de sa Majeste la
Reine de la Grande Bretagne et d'Irlande. One of the most
remarkable of Airy's researches was his determination of the
mean density of the earth. In 1826 the idea occurred to him
of attacking this problem by means of pendulum experiments at
the top and bottom of a deep mine. His first attempt, made
in the same year at the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall, failed in
consequence of an accident to one of the pendulums; a second
attempt in 1828 was defeated by a flooding of the mine,
and many years elapsed before another opportunity presented
itself. The experiments eventually took place at the Harton
pit near South Shields in 1854. Their immediate result was
to show that gravity at the bottom of the mine exceeded that
at the top by 1/19286th of its amount, the depth being 1256
ft. From this he was led to the final value of 6.566 for
the mean density of the earth as compared with that of water
(Phil. Trans. cxlvi. 342). This value, although considerably
in excess of that previously found by different methods, was
held by Airy, from the care and completeness with which the
observations were carried out and discussed, to be ``entitled
to compete with the others on, at least, equal terms.''
In 1872 Airy conceived the idea of treating the lunar theory
in a new way, and at the age of seventy-one he embarked on
the prodigious toil which this scheme entailed. A general
description of his method will be found in the Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxiv. No.
3. It consisted essentially in the adoption of Delauny's final
numerical expressions for longitude, latitude and parallax,
with a symbolic term attached to each number, the value of
which was to be determined by substitution in the equations of
motion. In this mode of treating the question the order of the
terms is numerical, and though the amount of labour is such as
might well have deterred a younger man, yet the details were
easy, and a great part of it might be entrusted to a mere
computer. The work was published in 1886, when its author was
eighty-five years of age. For some little time previously he
had been harassed by a suspicion that certain errors had crept
into the computations, and accordingly he addressed himself
to the task of revision. But his powers were no longer what
they had been, and he was never able to examine sufficiently
into the matter. In 1890 he tells us how a grievous error
had been committed in one of the first steps, and pathetically
adds, ``My spirit in the work was broken, and I have never
heartily proceeded with it since.'' In 1881 Sir George Airy
resigned the office of Astronomer Royal and resided at the
White House, Greenwich, not far from the Royal Observatory,
until his death, which took place on the 2nd of January 1892.
A complete list of Airy's printed papers, numbering no less
than 518, will be found in his Autobiography, edited in
1890 by his son, Wilfrid Airy, B. A., M. Inst. C.E. Amongst
the most important of his works not already mentioned may be
named the following:--Mathematical Tracts (1826) on the Lunar
Theory, Figure of the Earth, Precession and Nutation, and
Calculus of Variations, to which, in the second edition
of 1828, were added tracts on the Planetary Theory and
the Undulatory Theory of Light; Experiments on Iron-built
Ships. instituted for the purpose of discovering a correction
for the deviation of the compass produced by the Iron of
the Ships (1839); On the Theoretical Explanation of an
apparent new Polarity in Light (1840); Tides And Waves
(1842). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in
1836, its president in 1871, and received both the Cooley
and Royal medals. He was five times president of the
Royal Astronomical Society, was correspondent of the French
Academy and belonged to many other foreign and American
societies. He was D.C.L. of Oxford and LL.D. of Cambridge and
Edinburgh. In 1872 he was made K.C.B. In the same year
he was nominated a Grand Cross in the Imperial Order of the
Rose of Brazil; he also held the Prussian Order ``Pour le
Merite,'' and belonged to the Legion of Honour of France
and to the Order of the North Star of Sweden and Norway.
See also Proc. Roy. Society, li. 1 (E. J. Routh); Month. Notices
Roy. Astr. Society, lii. 212; Observatory, xv. 74 (E. Dunkin);
Nature, 31st of Oct. 1878 (A. Winnecke), 7th of Jan. 1892; The
Times, 5th of Jan. 1892; R. Grant's Hist. of Phys. Astronomy;
R. P. Graves's life of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton. (A. A. R.*)
AISLABIR, JOHN (1670-1742), English politician, was born at
Goodramgate, York, on the 7th of December 1670. He was the
fourth son of George Aislabie, principal registrar of the
archiepiscopal court of York. In 1695 he was elected member
of parliament for Ripon. In 1712 he was appointed one of the
commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral,
and in 1714 became treasurer of the navy, being sworn in two
years later as a member of the privy council. In March 1718
he became chancellor of the exchequer. The proposal of the
South Sea Company to pay off the national debt was strenuously
supported by Aislabie, and finally accepted in an amended form
by the House of Commons. After the collapse of that company a
secret committee of inquiry was appointed by the Commons, and
Aislabie, who had in the meantime resigned the seals of his
office, was declared guilty of having encouraged and promoted
the South Sea scheme with a view to his own exorbitant profit,
and was expelled the House. Though committed to the Tower he
was soon released, and was allowed to retain the property he
possessed before 1718, including his country estate, to which
he retired to pass the rest of his days. He died in 1742.
AISLE (from Lat. ALA, a wing), a term which in its primary
sense means the wing of a house, but is generally applied in
architecture to the lateral divisions of a church or large
building. The earliest example is that found in the basilica
of Trajan, which had double aisles on either side of the
central area; the same number existed in the original church
of St Peter's at Rome, in the basilica at Bethlehem, and
according to Eusebius in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem. The aisles are divided from the nave or central area
by colonnades or arcades, and may flank also the transept or
choir, being distinguished as nave-aisles, transept-aisles or
choir-aisles. If the choir is semi-circular, and the
aisles, carried round, give access to a series of chapels,
the whole arrangement is known as the chevet. As a rule
in Great Britain there is only one aisle on each side of
the nave, the only exceptions being Chichester and Elgin
cathedrals, where there are two. Many European cathedrals
have two aisles on each side, as those of Paris, Bourges,
Amiens, Troyes, St Sernin, Toulouse, Cologne, Milan, Seville,
Toledo; and in those of Paris, Chartres, Amiens and Bourges,
Seville and Toledo, double aisles flank the choir on each
side. The cathedral at Antwerp has three aisles on each
side. In some of the churches in Germany the aisles are of
the same height as the nave. These churches are known as
HALLENKIRCHEN, the principal examples being St Stephen's,
Vienna, the Weissekirche at Soest. St Martin's, Landshut,
Munich cathedral, and the Marienkirche at Danzig. (R. P. S.)
AISNE, a frontier department in the north-east of France,
formed in 1790 from portions of the old provinces of
Ile-de-France and Picardy. Area 2866 sq. m. Pop. (1906)
534,495. It is bounded N. by the department of Nord and
the kingdom of Belgium, E. by the department of Ardennes,
S.E. by that of Marne, S. by that of Seine-et-Marne, and W.
by those of Oise and Somme. The surface of the department
consists of undulating and well-wooded plains, intersected
by numerous valleys, and diversified in the north-east by
hilly ground which forms a part of the mountain system of the
Ardennes. Its general slope is from north-east, where the
culminating point (930 ft.) is found, to south-west, though
altitudes exceeding 750 ft. are also found in the south.
The chief rivers are the Somme, the Escaut and the Sambre,
which have their sources in the north of the department; the
Oise, traversing the north-west, with its tributaries the
Serre and the Aisne, the latter of which joins it beyond the
limits of the department; and the Marne and the Ourcq in the
south. The climate is in general cold and humid, especially
in the north-east. Agriculture is highly developed;
cereals, principally wheat and oats, and beetroot are the
chief crops; potatoes, flax, hemp, rape and hops are also
grown. Pasturage is good, particularly in the north-east,
where dairy-farming flourishes. Wine of medium quality is
grown on the banks of the Marne and the Aisne. Bee-farming
is of some importance. Large tracts of the department are
under wood; the chief forests are those of Nouvion and St
Michel in the north, Coucy and St Gobain in the centre, and
Villers-Cotterets in the south. The osiers grown in the
vicinity of St Quentin supply an active basket-making industry.
Though destitute of metals Aisne furnishes abundance of
freestone, gypsum and clay. There are numerous tile and
brick works in the department. Its most important industrial
establishments are the mirror manufactory of St Gobain and the
chemical works at Chauny, and the workshops and foundries of
Guise, the property of an association of workpeople organized
on socialistic lines and producing iron goods of various
kinds. The manufacture of sugar is very important; brewing,
distilling, flour-milling, iron-founding, the weaving and
spinning of cotton, wool and silk, and the manufacture of iron
goods, especially agricultural implements, are actively carried
on. Aisne imports coal, iron, cotton and other raw material
and machinery; it exports cereals, live-stock and agricultural
products generally, and manufactured goods. The department
is served chiefly by the lines of the Northern railway; in
addition, the main line of the Eastern railway to Strassburg
traverses the extreme south. The Oise, Aisne and Marne are
navigable, and canals furnish 170 m. of waterway. Aisne is
divided into five arrondissements--St Quentin and Vervins in the
north, Laon in the centre, and Soissons and Chateau-Thierry
in the south-and contains 37 cantons and 841 communes.
It forms part of the educational division (academie)
of Douai and of the region of the second army corps, its
military centre being at Amiens, where also is its court of
appeal. Laon is the capital, and Soissons the seat of a
bishopric of the province of Reims. Other important places
are Chateau-Thierry, St Quentin and Coucy-le-Chateau. La
Forte-Milon has remains of an imposing chateau of the 14th
and 15th centuries with interesting fortifications. The
ruined church at Longpont (13th century) is the relic of an
important Cistercian abbey; Urcel and Mont-Notre-Dame have
fine churches, the first entirely in the Romanesque style,
the second dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, to which
period the church at Braisne also belongs. At Premontre
the buildings of the abbey, which was the cradle of the
Premonstratensian order, are occupied by a lunatic asylum.
AISSE [a corruption of HAIDEE], MADEMOISELLE (c.
1694-1733), French letter-writer, was the daughter of a
Circassian chief, and was born about 1694. Her father's palace
was pillaged by the Turks, and as a child of four years old
she was sold to the comte de Ferriol, the French ambassador at
Constantinople. She was brought up in Paris by Ferriol's
sister-in-law with her own sons, MM. d'Argental and Pont de
Veyle. Her great beauty and romantic history made her the
fashion, and she attracted the notice of the regent, Philip,
duke of Orleans, whose offers she had the strength of mind to
refuse. She formed a deep and lasting attachment to the
Chevalier d'Aydie, by whom she had a daughter. She died in
Paris on the 13th of March 1733. Her letters to her friend
Madame Calandrini contain much interesting information with
regard to contemporary celebrities, especially on Mme. du
Deffand and Mme. de Tencin, but they are above all of interest
in the picture they afford of the writer's own tenderness and
fidelity. Her Lettres were edited by Voltaire (1787),
by J. Ravenel, with a notice by Sainte-Beuve (1846)
and by Eugene Asse (1873). Mlle. Aisse has been the
subject of three plays: by A. de Lavergne and P. Woucher
(1854), by Louis Bouilhet (1872) and by Dejoux (1898).
See also Courteault, Une Idylle au XVIIIe siecle, Mlle.
Aisse et le Chevalier d'Aydie (Macon, 1900); and notices
prefixed to the editions of 1846 and 1873. There is an
interesting essay by E. Gosse in his French Profiles (1905).
AITON, WILLIAM (1731-1793), Scottish botanist, was born
near Hamilton in 1731. Having been regularly trained to the
profession of a gardener, he travelled to London in 1754,
and became assistant to Philip Miller, then superintendent
of the Physic Garden at Chelsea. In 1759 he was appointed
director of the newly established botanical garden at Kew,
where he remained until his death on the 2nd of February
1793. He effected many improvements at the gardens, and in 1789
he published Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of the plants there
cultivated. A second and enlarged edition of the Hortus was
brought out in 1810-1813 by his eldest son, WILLIAM TOWNSEND
AITON (1766-1849), who succeeded him at Kew and was commissioned
by George IV. to lay out the gardens at the Pavilion, Brighton.
AITZEMA, LIEUWE (LEO) VAN (1600-1669), Dutch historian
and statesman, was born at Doccum, in Friesland, on the 19th
of November 1600. In 1617 he published a volume of Latin
poems under the title of Poemata Juvenilia, of which a
copy is preserved in the British Museum. He made a special
study of politics and political science and was for thirty
years resident for the towns of the Hanseatic League at the
Hague, where he died on the 23rd of February 1669. His most
important work was the Saken van Staet in Oorlogh in ende
omtrent de Vereenigte Nederlanden (14 Vols. 4to, 1655-1671),
embracing the period from 1621 to 1668. It contains a large
number of state documents, and is an invaluable authority
on one of the most eventful periods of Dutch history.
Four continuations of the history, by the poet and
historian Lambert van den Bos, were published successively
at Amsterdam in 1683, 1688, 1698 and 1699. The Derde
Vervolg Zinde het vierde Stuck van het vervolgh op
de historie, &c., brings the history down to 1697.
AIVALI (Gr. Kydonia), a prosperous town on the W.
coast of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Mitylene. Pop.
21,000. It stands near the site of the Aeolian Heraclea, on
rising ground at the end of a bay which is separated from the
Gulf of Adramyttium, and protected from the prevailing winds
by the Moschonisi Islands (Hecatonnesoi.) In 1821 it was
burned to the ground during a fight between the Turks and the
Greeks, and a large number of its Greek population killed or
enslaved. It is one of the most thriving towns in the
Levant, with a purely Greek population distinguished for its
commercial, industrial and maritime enterprise. The exports
are olive oil, grain and wood, and a fleet of fishing-boats
supplies Constantinople and Smyrna with fish; the exports
in 1902 were valued at L. 987,070, and the imports at
AIWAN, the reception-hall or throne-room of a Parthian or Sassanian palace.
AIX, a city of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement
in the department of Bouches-du-Rhone, 18 m. N. of Marseilles
by rail. Pop. (1906) 19,433. It is situated in a plain
overlooking the Arc, about a mile from the right bank of the
river. The Cours Mirabeau, a wide thoroughfare, planted
with double rows of plane-trees, bordered by fine houses
and decorated by three fountains, divides the town into two
portions. The new town extends to the south, the old town
with its wide but irregular streets and its old mansions
dating from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries lies to the
north. Aix is an important educational centre, being the
seat of the faculties of law and letters of the university of
Aix-Marseille, and the north and east quarter of the town,
where the schools and university buildings are situated, is
comparable to the Latin Quarter of Paris. The cathedral of St
Sauveur, which dates from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries,
is situated in this portion of Aix. It is preceded by a rich
portal in the Gothic style with elaborately carved doors, and
is flanked on the north by an uncompleted tower. The interior
contains tapestry of the 16th century and other works of
art. The archbishop's palace and a Romanesque cloister adjoin
the cathedral on its south side. The church of St Jean de
Malto, dating from the 13th century, contains some valuable
pictures. The hotel de ville, a building in the classical style
of the middle of the 17th century, looks on to a picturesque
square. It contains some fine wood-work and a large library
which includes many valuable MSS. At its side rises a handsome
clock-tower erected in 1505. Aix possesses many beautiful
fountains, one of which in the Cours Mirabeau is surmounted
by a statue of Rene, count of Provence, who held a brilliant
court at Aix in the 15th century. Aix has thermal springs,
remarkable for their heat and containing lime and carbonic
acid. The bathing establishment was built in 1705 near the
site of the ancient baths of Sextius, of which vestiges still
remain. The town, which is the seat of an archbishop and
court of appeal, and the centre of an academie (educational
circumscription), numbers among its public institutions
a Court of assizes, tribunals of first instance and of
commerce, and a chamber of arts and manufactures. It also has
training-colleges, a lycee, a school of art and technics,
museums of antiquities, natural history and painting,
and several learned societies. The industries include
flour-milling, the manufacture of confectionery, iron-ware
and hats, and the distillation of olive-oil. Trade is in
olive-oil, almonds and stone from the neighbouring quarries.
Aix (Aquae Sextiae) was founded in 123 B.C. by the
Roman consul Sextius Calvinus, who gave his name to its
springs. In 102 B.C. its neighbourhood was the scene of
the defeat inflicted on the Cimbri and Teutones by Marius.
In the 4th century it became the metropolis of Narbonensis
Secunda. It was occupied by the Visigoths in 477, in the
succeeding century was repeatedly plundered by the Franks
and Lombards, and was occupied by the Saracens in 731. Aix,
which during the middle ages was the capital of the county
of Provence, did not reach its zenith until after the 12th
century, when, under the houses of Aragon and Anjou, it became
an artistic centre and seat of learning. With the rest of
Provence, it passed to the crown of France in 1487, and in
1501 Louis XII. established there the parlement of Provence
which existed till 1789. In the 17th and 18th centuries
the town was the seat of the intendance of Provence.
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (Ger. Aachen, Dutch Aken), a city and
spa of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, situated in a
pleasant valley, 44 m. W. of Cologne and contiguous to the
Belgian and Dutch frontiers, to which its municipal boundaries
extend. Pop. (1885) 95,725; (1905) including Burtscheid,
143,906. Its position, at the centre of direct railway
communications with Cologne and Dusseldorf respectively on
the E. and Liege-Brussels and Maestricht-Antwerp on the W.,
has favoured its rise to one of the most prosperous commerical
towns of Germany. The city consists of the old inner town, the
former ramparts of which have been converted into promenades,
and the newer outer town and suburbs. Of the ancient gates
but two remain, the Ponttor on the N.W. and the Marschiertor
on the S. Its general appearance is that rather of a spacious
modern, than of a medieval city full of historical associations.
Of the cluster of buildings in the centre, which are conspicuous
from afar, the town hall (Rathaus) and the cathedral are
specially noteworthy. The former, standing on the south
side of the market square, is a Gothic structure, erected in
1353-1370 on the ruins of Charlemagne's palace. It contains
the magnificent coronation hall of the emperors (143 ft.
by 61 ft.), in which thirty-five German kings and eleven
queens have banqueted after the coronation ceremony in the
cathedral. The two ancient towers, the Granusturm to the
W. and the Glockenturm to the E., both of which to a large
extent had formed part of the Carolingian palace, were all
but destroyed in the fire by which the Rathaus was seriously
damaged in 1883. Their restoration was completed in
1902. Behind the Rathaus is the Grashaus, in which Richard
of Cornwall, king of the Romans, is said to have held his
court. It was restored in 1889 to accommodate the municipal
archives. The cathedral is of great historic and architectural
interest. Apart from the spire, which was rebuilt in 1884, it
consists of two parts of different styles and date. The older
portion, the capella in palatio, an octagonal building
surmounted by a dome, was designed on the model of San Vitale
at Ravenna by Udo of Metz, was begun under Charlemagne's
auspices in 796 and consecrated by Pope Leo III. in 805.
After being almost entirely wrecked by Norman raiders it was
rebuilt, on the original lines, in 983, by the emperor Otto
III. It is surrounded on the first story by a sixteen-sided
gallery (the Hochmunster) adorned by antique marble and
granite columns, of various sizes, brought by Charlemagne's
orders from Rome, Ravenna and Trier. These were removed by
Napoleon to Paris, but restored to their original positions
after the peace of 1815. The mosaic representing Christ
surrounded by ``the four-and-twenty elders,'' which originally
lined the cupola, had almost entirely perished by the 19th
century, but was re-stored in 1882 from a copy made in the 17th
century. Interesting too are the magnificent west doors,
cast in bronze by native workmen in 804. Underneath the dome,
according to tradition, was the tomb of Charlemagne, which, on
being opened by Otto III. in 1000, disclosed the body of the
emperor, vested in white coronation robes and seated on a marble
chair. This chair, now placed in the gallery referred to,
was used for centuries in the imperial coronation ceremonies.
The site of the tomb is marked by a stone slab, with the
inscription Carlo Magno; and above it hangs the famous bronze
chandelier presented by the emperor Frederick I. (Barbarossa) in
1168. Charlemagne's bones are preserved in an ornate shrine in
the Hungarian Chapel, lying to the north of the octagon. The
casket was opened in 1906, at the instance of the emperor William
II., and the draperies enclosing the body were temporarily
removed to Berlin, with a view to the reproduction of similar
cloth. The Gothic choir, forming the more modern portion
of the cathedral, was added during the latter half of the
14th and the beginning of the 15th century, and contains the
tomb of the emperor Otto III. The cathedral possesses many
relics, the more sacred of which are exhibited only once every
seven years, when they attract large crowds of worshippers.
Of the other thirty-three churches in the city those of St
Foillan (founded in the 12th century, but twice rebuilt,
in the 15th and 17th centuries, and restored in 1883) and
St Paul, with its beautiful stained-glass windows, are
remarkable. In addition to those already mentioned,
Aix-la-Chapelle possesses several fine secular buildings:
the Suermondt museum, containing besides other miscellaneous
exhibits the fine collection of pictures by early German, Dutch
and Flemish masters, presented to the town by Bartholomaus
Suermondt (d. 1887); the public library; the theatre; the
post-office; and the fine new central railway station.
Among the schools may be mentioned the magnificently equipped
Rhenish-Westphalian Polytechnic School (built 1865-1870)
and the school of mining and electricity, founded in 1897.
There are many fine streets and squares and some handsome
public monuments, notably among the last the fountain on
the market square surmounted by a statue of Charlemagne, the
bronze equestrian statue of the emperor William I. facing the
theatre, the Kriegerdenkmal (a memorial to those who fell in
the war of 1870) and the Kongress-Denkmal, a marble hall in
antique style erected in 1844 on the Adalberts-Steinweg to
commemorate the famous congress of 1818 (see below). Of the
squares, the principal is the Friedrich-Wilhelmplatz, on
which lies the Elisenbrunnen with its colonnade and garden,
the chief resort of visitors taking the baths and waters.
The hot sulphur springs of Aix-la-Chapelle were known to the
Romans and have been celebrated for centuries as specific
in the cure of rheumatism, gout and scrofulous disorders.
There are six in all, of which the Kaiserquelle, with a
temperature of 136 deg. F., is the chief. In the neighbouring
Burtscheid (incorporated in 1897 with Aix-la-Chapelle) are
also springs of far higher temperature, and this suburb, which
has also a Kurgarten, is largely frequented during the season.
In respect of trade and industry Aixda-Chapelle occupies a
high place. Its cloth and silk manufactures are important,
and owing to the opening up of extensive coalfields in the
district almost every branch of iron industry is carried
on. It has some large breweries and manufactories of
chemicals, and does a considerable trade in cereals,
leather, timber and wine. It is also an important banking
centre and has several insurance societies of reputation.
The country immediately surrounding Aix-la-Chapelle presents
many attractive features. From the Lousberg and the Salvatorberg
to the north, the latter crowned by a chapel, magnificent views
of the city are obtained; while covering the hills 2 m. west
stretches the Stadtwald, a forest with charming walks and drives.
History.---Aix-la-Chapelle is the Aquisgranum of the Romans,
named after Apollo Granus, who was worshipped in connexion
with hot springs. As early as A.D. 765 King Pippin had a
``palace'' here, in which it is probable that Charlemagne was
born. The greatness of Aix was due to the latter, who between
777 and 786 built a magnificent palace on the site of that of
his father, raised the place to the rank of the second city
of the empire, and made it for a while the centre of Western
culture and learning. From the coronation of Louis the Pious
in 813 until that of Ferdinand I. in 1531 the sacring of the
German kings took place at Aix, and as many as thirty-two
emperors and kings were here crowned. In 851, and again in
882, the place was ravaged by the Northmen in their raids up the
Rhine. It was not, however, till late in the 12th century
(1172-1176) that the city was surrounded with walls by order of
the emperor Frederick I., to whom (in 1166) and to his grandson
Frederick II. (in 1215) it owed its first important civic
rights. These were still further extended in 1250 by the
anti-Caesar William of Holland, who had made himself master of
the place and of the imperial regalia, after a long siege, in
1248. The liberties of the burghers were, however, still
restrained by the presence of a royal advocatus (Vogt) and
bailiff. In 1300 the outer ring of walls was completed,
the earlier circumvallation being marked by the limit of the
Altstadt (old city). In the 14th century Aix, now a free city
of the Holy Roman Empire, played a conspicuous part, especially
in the league which, between 1351 and 1387, kept the peace
between the Meuse and the Rhine. In 1450 an insurrection
led to the admission of the gilds to a share in the municipal
government. In the 16th century Aix began to decline in
importance and prosperity. It lay too near the French frontier
to be safe. and too remote from the centre of Germany to
be convenient, as a capital; and in 1562 the election and
coronation of Maximilian II. took place at Frankfort-on-Main,
a precedent followed till the extinction of the Empire. The
Reformation, too, brought its troubles. In 1580 Protestantism
got the upper hand; the ban of the empire followed and was
executed by Ernest of Bavaria, archbishop-elector of Cologne in
1598. A relapse of the city led to a new ban of the emperor
Matthias in 1613, and in the following year Spinola's Spanish
troops brought back the recalcitrant city to the Catholic
fold. In 1656 a great fire completed the ruin wrought by the
religious wars. By the treaty of Luneville (1801) Aix was
incorporated with France as chief town of the department of the
Roer. By the congress of Vienna it was given to Prussia. The
contrast between the new regime and the ancient tradition of
the city was curiously illustrated in 1818 by a scene described
in Metternich's Memoirs, when, before the opening of the
congress, Francis I., emperor of Austria, regarded by all Germany
as the successor of the Holy Roman emperors, knelt at the tomb
of Charlemagne amid a worshipping crowd, while the Protestant
Frederick William III. of Prussia, the new sovereign of the
place, stood in the midst, ``looking very uncomfortable.''
See Quix, Geschichte der Stadt Aachen (1841): Pick, Aus Aachens
Vergangenheit (Aachen, 1895); Bock, Karls des grossen Pfalzkapelle
(Cologne, 1867); and Beissel, Aachen als Kurort (1889).
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, CONGRESSES OF. Three congresses have been held at
Aix-la-Chapelle: the first in 1668, the second in 1748, the third in 1818.
1. The treaty of the 2nd of May 1668, which put an end to
the War of Devolution, was the outcome of that of St Germain
signed on the 15th of April by France and the representatives
of the powers of the Triple Alliance. The treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle left to France all the conquests made in
Flanders during the campaign of 1667, with all their ``
appartenances, dependances et annexes.'' a vague provision
of which, after the peace of Nijmwegen (1680), Louis XIV. took
advantage to occupy a number of villages and towns adjudged
to him by his Chambres de reunion as dependencies of the
cities and territories acquired in 1668. On the other hand,
France restored to Spain the cities of Cambrai, Aire and
Saint-Omer, as well as the province of Franche Comte. The
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was placed under the guarantee of
Great Britain, Sweden and Holland, by a convention signed
at the Hague on the 7th of May 1669, to which Spain acceded.
See Jean du Mont, baron de Carlscroon, Corps
universel diplomatique (Amst., 1726-1731).
2. On the 24th of April 1748 a congress assembled at
Aix-la-Chapelle for the purpose of bringing to a conclusion
the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession. Between
the 30th of April and the 21st of May the preliminaries were
agreed to between Great Britain, France and Holland, and to
these Maria Theresa, queen of Bohemia and Hungary, the kings
of Sardinia and Spain, the duke of Modena, and the republic
of Genoa successively gave their adhesion. The definitive
treaty was signed on the 18th of October, Sardinia alone
refusing to accede, because the treaty of Worms was not
guaranteed. Of the provisions of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
the most important were those stipulating for (1) a general
restitution of conquests, including Cape Breton to France,
Madras to England and the barrier towns to the Dutch; (2) the
assignment to Don Philip of the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and
Guastalla; (3) the restoration of the duke of Modena and the
republic of Genoa to their former positions; (4) the renewal
in favour of Great Britain of the Asiento contract of the 16th
of March 1713, and of the right to send an annual vessel to
the Spanish colonies; (5) the renewal of the article of the
treaty of 1718 recognizing the Protestant succession in the
English throne; (6) the recognition of the emperor Francis and
the confirmation of the pragmatic sanction, i.e. of the right
of Maria Theresa to the Habsburg succession; (7) the guarantee
to Prussia of the duchy of Silesia and the county of Glatz.
Spain having raised objections to the Asiento clauses, the
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was supplemented by that of Madrid
(5th of October 1750), by which Great Britain surrendered
her claims under those clauses in return for a sum of
L. 100,000. II.See A. J. H. de Clercq, Recueil des traites
de la France; F. A. Wenk, Corpus juris gentium recentissimi,
1735-1772, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1786), p. 337; Comte G. de
Garden, Hist. des traites de paix, 1848-1887, iii p. 373.
3. The congress or conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in the
autumn of 1818, was primarily a meeting of the four allied
powers--Great Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia--to decide
the question of the withdrawal of the army of occupation from
France and the nature of the modifications to be introduced
in consequence into the relations of the four powers towards
each other, and collectively towards France. The congress,
of which the first session was held on the 1st of October,
was attended by the emperor Alexander I. of Russia, the
emperor Francis I. of Austria, and Frederick William III. of
Prussia, in person. Great Britain was represented by Lord
Castlereagh and the duke of Wellington, Austria by Prince
Metternich, Russia by Counts Capo d'Istria and Nesselrode,
Prussia by Prince Hardenberg and Count Bernstorff. The duc de
Richelieu, by favour of the allies, was present on behalf of
France. The evacuation of France was agreed to in principle
at the first session, the consequent treaty being signed on
the 9th of October. The immediate object of the conference
being thus readily disposed of, the time of the congress was
mainly occupied in discussing the form to be taken by the
European alliance, and the ``military measures,'' if any, to
be adopted as a precaution against a fresh outburst on the
part of France. The proposal of the emperor Alexander I.
to establish a ``universal union of guarantee'' on the broad
basis of the Holy Alliance, after much debate, broke down on
the uncompromising opposition of Great Britain; and the main
outcome of the congress was the signature, on the 15th of
November, of two instruments: (1) a secret protocol confirming
and renewing the quadruple alliance established by the treaties
of Chaumont and Paris (of the 20th of November 1815) against
France; (2) a public ``declaration'' of the intention of the
powers to maintain their intimate union. ``strengthened by the
ties of Christian brotherhood,'' of which the object was the
preservation of peace on the basis of respect for treaties.
The secret protocol was communicated in confidence to Richelieu;
to the declaration France was invited publicly to adhere.
Besides these questions of general policy, the congress concerned
itself with a number of subjects left unsettled in the hurried
winding up of the congress of Vienna, or which had arisen
since. Of these the most important were the questions as to
the methods to be adopted for the suppression of the slave
trade and the Barbary pirates. In neither case was any
decision arrived at, owing (1) to the refusal of the other
powers to agree with the British proposal for a reciprocal
right of search on the high seas; (2) to the objection of
Creat Britain to international action which would have involved
the presence of a Russian squadron in the Mediterranean. In
matters of less importance the congress was more unanimous.
Thus, on the urgent appeal of the king of Denmark, the king of
Sweden (Bernadotte) received a peremptory summons to carry out
the terms of the treaty of Kiel; the petition of the elector
of Hesse to be recognized as king was unanimously rejected;
and measures were taken to redress the grievances of the
German mediatized princes. The more important outstanding
questions in Germany, e.g. the Baden succession, were after
consideration reserved for a further conference to be called at
Frankfort. In addition to these a great variety of questions
were considered, from that of the treatment of Napoleon at St
Helena, to the grievances of the people of Monaco against
their prince and the position of the Jews in Austria and
Prussia. An attempt made to introduce the subject of the
Spanish colonies was defeated by the opposition of Great
Britain. Lastly, certain vexatious questions of diplomatic
etiquette were settled once for all (see DIPLOMACY.) The
congress, which broke up at the end of November, is of
historical importance mainly as marking the highest point
reached in the attempt to govern Europe by an international
committee of the powers. The detailed study of its proceedings
is highly instructive in revealing the almost insurmountable
obstacles to any really effective international system.
AUTHORITIES.--- F.O. Records (the volumes marked Continent,
Aix-la-Chapelle, To and from Viscount Castlereagh): State
Papers: (3) F.. de Martens, Nouveau recueil de traites,
&c. (Gottingen, 1817-1842); F. de Martens, Recueil des
traites conclus par la Russie, &c. 1874 in progr.); F. von
Gentz, Deleches inedites, &c., ed. Baron Prokesch-Osten,
3 vols. (1876-1877); Metternich, Memoirs; Wellington,
Suppl. Despatches; Castlereagh, Correspondence, &c.
AIX-LES-BAINS, a town of France, in the department of Savoie,
near the Lac du Bourget, and 9 m. by rail N. of Chambery. Pop.
(1901) 4741. It is 846 ft. above the level of the sea. It was a
celebrated bathing-place, under the name of Aquae Gratianae,
in the time of the Romans, and possesses numerous ancient
remains. The hot springs, which are of sulphureous quality,
and have a temperature of from 109 deg. to 113 deg. F., are still much
frequented, attracting annually many thousands of visitors.
They are used for drinking as well as for bathing purposes.
AIYAR, SIR SHESHADRI (1845-1901), native statesman of Mysore,
India, was the son of a Brahman of Palghat in the district of
Malabar. He was educated at the provincial school at Calicut
and the presidency college in Madras, and entered the government
service as a translator. In 1868 he was transferred to Mysore
under Runga Charlu, and for thirteen years filled various
offices in that state; but when Mysore was restored to native
rule in 1881, he became personal assistant to Runga Charlu, whom
he succeeded as diwan in 1885 . For the next seventeen years
he laboured assiduously to promote the economic and industrial
development of the state, and proved an able assistant to the
Maharaja Chamarajendra. By means of railway, irrigation and
mining works, he added greatly to the wealth of the state, and
put it on a sound financial footing. He retired in 1900, was
made K.C.S.I. in 1893 and died on the 13th of September 1901.
AIYAR, SIR TIRUVARUR MUTUSWAMY (1832-1895), native Indian
judge of the high court of Madras, was born of poor parents in
the village of Vuchuwadi, near Tanjore, on the 28th of January
1832. His widowed mother was forced by poverty to remove with
Mutuswamy and his brother to Tiruvarar, where the former learnt
Tamil, and soon set to work under the village accountant at a
monthly salary of one rupee. About this time he lost his mother,
whose memory he cherished with reverence and affection to the
last. His duty took him to the court-house of the tehsildar, Mr
Naiken, who soon remarked his extraordinary intelligence and
industry. There was an English school at Tiruvarar, where
Mutuswamy managed to pick up an elementary knowledge of the English
language. Mr Naiken then sent him to Sir Henry Montgomery's
school at Madras, as a companion to his nephew, and there he
won prizes and scholarships year after year. In 1854 he won
a prize of 500 rupees offered to the students of the Madras
presidency by the council of education for the best English
essay. This success brought him to the notice of Sir
Alexander Arbuthnot and Mr Justice Holloway. He was offered
help to proceed to England and compete for the civil service,
but being a Brahman and married, he declined to cross the
ocean. Instead he entered the subordinate government service,
and was employed in such various posts as school-teacher,
record-keeper in Tanjore, and in 1856 deputy-inspector of
schools. At this time the Madras authorities instituted the
examination for the office of pleaders, and Mutuswamy came out
first in the first examination, even beating Sir T. Madhavarao,
his senior by many years. Mutuswamy was then appointed in
succession district munsiff at Tranquebar, deputy-collector
in Tanjore in 1859, sub-judge of south Kanara in 1865, and
a magistrate of police at Madras in 1868. While serving in
the last post he passed the examination for the degree of
bachelor of laws of the local university. He was next employed
as a judge of the Madras small causes court, until in 1878
he was raised to the bench of the high court, which office
he occupied with ability and distinction for over fifteen
years, sometimes acting as the chief justice. He attended by
invitation of the viceroy the imperial assemblage at Delhi in
1877. In 1878 he received the honour of C.I.E. and in 1893
the K.C.I.E. was conferred on him. But he did not live long
to enjoy this dignity, dying suddenly in 1895. Mutuswamy was
too devoted to his official work to give much time to other
pursuits. Still he took his full share in the affairs of
the Madras university, of which he was nominated a fellow
in 1872 and a syndic in 1877, and was well acquainted with
English law, literature and philosophy. He was through
life a staunch Brahman, devout and amiable in character,
with a taste for the ancient music of India and the study
of the Vedas and other departments of Sanskrit literature.
AJACCIO, the capital of Corsica, on the west coast of the
island, 210 m. S.E. of Marseilles. Pop. (1906) 19,021.
Ajaccio occupies a sheltered position at the foot of wooded
hills on the northern shore of the Gulf of Ajaccio. The
harbour, lying to the east of the town, is protected on the
south by a peninsula which carries the citadel and terminates
in the Citadel jetty; to the south-west of this peninsula
lies the Place Bonaparte, a quarter frequented chiefly
by winter visitors attracted by the mild climate of the
town. Apart from one or two fine thoroughfares converging to
the Place Bonaparte, the streets are mean and narrow and the
town has a deserted appearance. The house in which Napoleon
I, was born in 1769 is preserved, and his associations
with the town are everywhere emphasized by street-names and
statues. The other buildings, including the cathedral of the
16th century, are of little interest. The town is the seat
of a bishopric dating at least from the 7th century and of a
prefect. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce,
training colleges, a communal college, a museum and a library;
the three latter are established in the Palais Fesch. founded
by Cardinal Fesch, who was born at Ajaccio in 1763. Ajaccio
has small manufactures of cigars and macaroni and similar
products, and carries on shipbuilding, sardine-fishing and
coral-fishing. Its exports include timber, citrons, skins,
chestnuts and gallic acid. The port is accessible by the largest
ships, but its accommodation is indifferent. In 1904 there
entered 603 vessels with a tonnage of 202,980, and cleared
608 vessels with a tonnage of 202,502. The present town of
Ajaccio lies about two miles to the south of its original
site, from which it was transferred by the Genoese in 1492.
Occupied from 1553 to 1559 by the French, it again fell to the
Genoese after the treaty of Cateau Cambresis in the latter
year. The town finally passed to the French in 1768. Since
1810 it has been capital of the . department of Corsica.
AJAIGARH, or ADJYGURH, a native state of India, in
Bundelkhand, under the Central India agency. It has an
area of 771 sq. m., and a population in 1901 of 78,236.
The chief. who is a Bundela Rajput, bears the title of sawai
maharaja. He has an estimated revenue of about L. 15,000, and
pays a tribute of L. 460. He resides at the town of Naushahr,
at the foot of the hill-fortress of Ajaigarh, from which the
state takes its name. This fort is situated on a very steep
hill, more than 800 ft. above the town of the same name;
and contains the ruins of temples adorned with elaborately
carved sculptures. It was captured by the British in
1809. The town is subject to malaria. The state suffered
severely from famine in 1868-1869, and again in 1896-1897.
AJANTA (more properly AJUJNTHI), a village in the
dominions of the Nizam of Hyderabad in India (N. lat. 20 deg. 32'
by E. long. 75 deg. 48'), celebrated for its cave hermitages and
halls. The caves are in a wooded and rugged ravine about 3 1/2
m. from the village. Along the bottom of the ravine runs the
river Wagura, a mountain stream, which forces its way into
the valley over a bluff on the east, and forms in its descent
a beautiful waterfall, or rather series of waterfalls, 200 ft.
high, the sound of which must have been constantly audible to
the dwellers in the caves. These are about thirty in number,
excavated in the south side of the precipitous bank of the ravine,
and vary from 35 to 110 ft. in elevation above the bed of the
torrent. The caves are of two kinds---dwelling-halls and
meeting-halls. The former, as one enters from the pathway
along the sides of the cliff, have a broad verandah, its roof
supported by pillars, and giving towards the interior on to
a hall averaging in size about 35 ft. by 20 ft. To left and
right, and at the back, dormitories are excavated opening
on to this hall, and in the centre of the back, facing the
entrance, an image of the Buddha usually stands in a niche.
The number of dormitories varies according to the size of the
hall, and in the larger ones pillars support the roof on all
three sides, forming a sort of cloister running round the
hall. The meeting-halls go back into the rock about twice as far
as the dwelling-halls; the largest of them being 94 1/2 ft. from
the verandah to the back, and 41 1/4 ft. across, including the .
cloister. They were used as chapter-houses for the meetings
of the Buddhist Order. The caves are in three groups, the
oldest group being of various dates from 200 B.C. to A.D.
200, the second group belonging, approximately, to the
6th, and the third group to the 7th century A.D. Most of
the interior walls of the caves were covered with fresco
paintings, of a considerable degree of merit, and somewhat
in the style of the early Italian painters. When first
discovered, in 1817, these frescoes were in a fair state of
preservation, but they have since been allowed to go hopelessly to
ruin. Fortunately, the school of art in Bombay, especially
under the supervision of J. Griffiths, had copied in colours
a number of them before the last vestiges had disappeared,
and other copies of certain of the paintings have also been
made. These copies are invaluable as being the only evidence
we now have of pictorial art in India before the rise of
Hinduism. The expression ``Cave Temples'' used by Anglo-Indians
of such halls is inaccurate. Ajanta was a kind of college
monastery. Hsuan Tsang informs us that Dinnaga, the
celebrated Buddhist philosopher and controversialist, author
of well-known books on logic, resided there. In its prime
the settlement must have afforded accommodation for several
hundreds, teachers and pupils combined. Very few of the
frescoes have been identified, but two are illustrations
of stones in Arya Sura's Jataka Mala, as appears
from verses in Buddhist Sanskrit painted beneath them.
See J. Burgess and Bhagwanlal lndraji, Inscriptions from
the Cave Temples of Western India (Bombay, 1881); J.
Fergusson and L. Burgess, Cave Temples of India (London,
1880); J. Griffiths, Paintings in the Buddhist Cave Temples
of Ajanta (London, 2 vols., 1896--1897). (T. W. R. D.)
AJAX (Gr. Aias), a Greek hero, son of Oileus, king of
Locris, called the ``lesser'' or Locrian Ajax, to distinguish
him from Ajax, son of Telamon. In spite of his small stature,
he held his own amongst the other heroes before Troy; he was
brave, next to Achilles in swiftness of foot and famous
for throwing the spear. But he was boastful, arrogant and
quarrelsome; like the Telamonian Ajax, he was the enemy of
Odysseus, and in the end the victim of the vengeance of Athene,
who wrecked his ship on his homeward voyage (Odyssey, iv.
499). A later story gives a more definite account of the offence
of which he was guilty. It is said that, after the fall of
Troy, he dragged Cassandra away by force from the statue of
the goddess at which she had taken refuge as a suppliant, and
even violated her (Lycophron, 360, Quintus Smyrnaeus xiii.
422). For this, his ship was wrecked in a storm on the coast
of Euboea, and he himself was struck by lightning (Virgil,
Aen. i. 40). He was said to have lived after his death in the
island of Leuke. He was worshipped as a national hero by the
Opuntian Locrians (on whose coins he appears), who always left
a vacant place for him in the ranks of their army when drawn
up in battle array. He was the subject of a lost tragedy by
Sophocles. The rape of Cassandra by Ajax was frequently
represented in Greek works of art, for instance on the chest
of Cypselus described by Pausanias (v. 17) and in extant works.
AJAX, son Of Telamon, king of Cyprus, a legendary hero of
ancient Greece. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oileus,
he was called the ``great'' or Telamonian Ajax. In Homer's
Iliad he is described as of great stature and colossal
frame, second only to Achilles in strength and bravery, and
the ``bulwark of the Achaeans.', He engaged Hector in single
combat and, with the aid of Athene, rescued the body of Achilles
from the hands of the Trojans. In the competition between
him and Odysseus for the armour of Achilles, Agamemnon, at
the instigation of Athene, awarded the prize to Odysseus.
This so enraged AJax that it caused his death (Odyssey, xi.
541). According to a later and more definite story, his
disappointment drove him mad; he rushed out of his tent and
fell upon the flocks of sheep in the camp under the impression
that they were the enemy on coming to his senses, he slew
himself with the sword which he had received as a present from
Hector. This is the account of his death given in the Ajax
of Sophocles (Pindar, Nemea, 7; Ovid, Met. xiii. 1). From
his blood sprang a red flower, as at the death of Hyacinthus,
which bore on its leaves the initial letters of his name
AI, also expressive of lament (Pausanias i. 35. 4). His ashes
were deposited in a golden urn on the Rhoetean promontory
at the entrance of the Hellespont. Like Achilles; he is
represented as living after his death in the island of Leuke
at the mouth of the Danube (Pausanias iii. 19. 11). Ajax,
who in the post-Homeric legend is described as the grandson of
Aeacus and the great-grandson of Zeus, was the tutelary hero
of the island of.Salamis, where he had a temple and an image,
and where a festival called Aianteia was celebrated in his
honour (Pausanias i. 35). At this festival a couch was set up,
On which the panoply of the hero was placed, a practice which
recalls the Roman lectisternium. The identification of Ajax
with the family of Aeacus was chiefly a matter which concerned
the Athenians, after Salamis had come into their possession,
on which occasion Solon is said to have inserted a line in
the Iliad (ii. 557 or 558), for the purpose of supporting
the Athenian claim to the island. Ajax then became an Attic
hero; he was worshipped at Athens, where he had a statue in the
market-place, and the tribe Aiantis was called after his name.
Many illustrious Athenians---Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades,
the historian Thucydides---traced their descent from Ajax.
See D. Bassi, La Leggenda di Aiace Telamonio (1890); P.
Girard, ``Ajax, fils de Telamon,'' 1905, in Revue des
etudes grecques, tome 18; J. Vurtheim, De Ajacie Origine,
Cultu, Patria (Leiden, 1907), accord. ing to whom he and Ajax
Oileus, as depicted in epos, were originally one, a Locrian
daemon somewhat resembling the giants. When this spirit put on
human form and became known at the Saronic Gulf, he developed
into the ``greater'' Ajax, while among the Locrians he remained
the ``lesser.'' In the article GREEK ART fig. 13 (from a
black-figured Corinthian vase) represents the suicide of Ajax.
AJMERE, or AJMER, a city of British India in Ra)putana.
which gives its name to a district and also,to a petty
province called Ajmere-Meirwara. It is situated in 26 deg.
27, N. lat. and 74 deg. 44, E. long., on the lower slopes
of Taragarh hill, in the Aravalli mountains. To the
north of the city is a large artificial lake called the
Anasagar, whence the water supply of the place is derived.
The chief object of interest is the darga, or tomb of a
famous Mahommedan saint named Mayud-uddin. It is situated at
the foot of the Taragarh mountain, and consists of a block of
white marble buildings without much pretension to architectural
beauty. To this place the emperor Akbar, with his empress,
performed a pilgrimage on foot from Agra in accordance
with the terms of a vow he had made when praying for a
son. The large pillars erected at intervals of two miles the
whole way, to mark the daily halting-place of the imperial
pilgrim, are still extant. An ancient Jain temple, now
converted into a Mahommedan mosque, is situated on the lower
slope of the Taragarh hill. With the exception of that part
used as a mosque, nearly the whole of the ancient temple
has fallen into ruins, but the relics are not excelled in
beauty of architecture and sculpture by any remains of Hindu
art. Forty columns support the r00f, but no two are alike,
and great fertility of invention is manifested in the
execution Of the ornaments. The summit of Taragarh hill,
overhanging Ajmere, is crowned by a foot, the lofty thick
battlements of which run along its brow and enclose the
table-land. The walls are 2 m. in circumference, and the
fort can only be approached by steep and very roughly paved
planes, commanded by the fort and the outworks, and by the
hill to the west. On coming into the hands of the English,
the fort Was dismantled by order of Lord William Bentinck,
and is now converted into a sanatorium for the troops at
Xasirabad. Ajmere was founded about the year 145 A.p. by
AJi, a Chauhan, who established the dynasty which continued
to rule the country (with many vicissitudes of fortune) while
the repeated waves of Mahommedan invasion swept over India,
until it eventually became an appanage of the crown Of Delhi in
1193. Its internal government, however, was handed over to
its ancient rulers upon the payment of a heavy tribute to the
conquerors. It then remained feudatory to Delhi till 1365,
when it was captured by the ruler of Mewar. In 1509 the place
became a source of Contention between the chiefs of Mewar and
Marwar, and was ultimately Conquered in 1532 by the latter
prince, who in his turn in 1559 had to give way before the emperor
Akbar. It continued in the hands of the Moguls, with occasional
revolts, till 1770, when it was ceded to the Mahrattas, from
which time up to 1818 the unhappy district was the scene of
a continual struggle, being seized at different times by the
Mewar and Marwar rajas, from whom it was as often retaken by
the Mahrattas. In 1818 the latter ceded it to the British
in return for a payment of 50,000 rupees. Since then the
country has enjoyed unbroken peace and a stable government.
The modern city is an important station on the Rajputana
railway, 615 m. from BOmbay and 275 m. from Delhi, with a
branch running due south to the Great Indian Peninsula main
line. The city is well laid out with wide streets and handsome
houses. The city trade chiefly consists of salt and opium.
The former is inlported in large quantities from the Sambar
lake and Ramsur. Oil-making is also a profitable branch of
trade. Cotton cloths are manufactured to some extent, for
the dyeing Of which the city has attained a high reputation2
The educational institutions include the Majo Rajkumar
college, opened in 1875, for training the sons of the nobles of
Rajputana, on the lines of an English public school. Population
(1901) 73,839, showing an increase of 10% in the decade.
The DISTRICT OF AJMERE, which forms the largest part of
the province of Ajmere-Merwara, has an area of 2069 sq.
m. The eastern portion of the district is generally flat,
broken only by gentle undulations, but the western parts, from
north-west to south-west, are intersected by the great Aravalli
range. Many of the valleys in this region are mere sandy
deserts, with an occasional oasis of cultivation, but there
are also some very fertile tracts; among these is the plain
on which lies the town of Ajmere. This valley, however, is
not only fortunate in possessing a noble artificial lake, but
is protected by the massive walls of the Nagpathar range or
Serpent rock, which forms a harrier against the sand. The
only hills in the district are the Aravalli range and its
offshoots. Ajmere is almost totally devoid of rivers, the Banas
being the only stream which can be dignified with that name,
and it only touches the south-eastern boundary of the district
so as to irrigate the pargana of Samur. Four small streams
---the Sagarmati, Saraswati, Khari and Dai-also intersect the
district. In the dry weather they are little more than brooks.
The population in 1901 was 7453, showing a decrease of 13% in the
decade. Besides the city of Ajmere, the district contains the
military station of Nasirabad, with a population of 22,494.
AJMERE-MERWARA, a division or petty province of British
India, in Rajputana, consisting of the two districts of
Ajmere and Merwara, separated from each other and isolated
amid native states. The administration is in the hands of a
commissioner, subordinate to the governor-general's agent for
Rajputana. The capital is Ajmere city. The area is 2710 sq.
m. The plateau, on whose centre stands the town of Ajmere,
may be considered as the highest point in the plains of
Hindustan; from the circle of hills which hem it in, the
country slopes away on every side---towards river valleys on
the east, south, west and towards the desert region on the
north. The Aravalli range is the distinguishing feature of the
district. The range of hills which runs between Ajmere and
Nasirabad marks the watershed of the continent of India.
The rain which falls on one side drains into the Chambal,
and so into the Bay of Bengal; that which falls on the other
side into the Luni, which discharges itself into the Runn of
Cutch. The province is on the border of what may be called
the arid ``zone''; it is the debatable land between the
north-eastern and south-western monsoons, and beyond the
influence of either. The south-west monsoon sweeps up the
Nerbudda valley from Bombay and crossing the tableland at
Neemuch gives copious supplies to Malwa, Jhalawar and Kotah
and the countries which lie in the course of the Chambal
river. The clouds which strike Kathiawar and Cutch are
deprived of a great deal of their moisture by the hills in those
countries, and the greater part of the remainder is deposited
on Mount Abu and the higher slopes of the Aravalli mountains,
leaving but little for Merwara, where the hills are lower,
and still less for Ajmere. It is only when the monsoon is in
considerable force that Merwara gets a plentiful supply from
it. The north-eastern monsoon sweeps up the valley of the
Ganges from the Bay of Bengal and waters the northern part of
Rajputana, but hardly penetrates farther west than the longitude
of Ajmere. On the varying strength of these two monsoons
the rainfall of the district depends. The agriculturist
in Ajmere-Merwara can never rely upon two good harvests in
succession. A province subject to such conditions can hardly
be free from famine or scarcity for any length of time;
accordingly it was visited by two famines, one of unprecedented
severity, and one scarcity, in the decade 1891-1901. In
June 1900 the number of persons in receipt of relief was
143,000, being more than one fourth of the total population.
In 1901 the population was 476,912, showing a decrease of 12%
in the decade, due to the results of famine. Among Hindus,
the Rajputs are land-holders, and the Jats and Gujars are
cultivators. The Jains are traders and money-lenders.
The aboriginal tribe of Mers are divided between Hindus and
Mahommedans. The chief crops are millet, wheat, cotton and
oil-seeds. There are several factories for spinning and pressing
cotton, the chief trading centres being Beawar and Kekri.
AJODHYA, an ancient city of India, the prehistoric capital of
Oudh, in the Fyzabad district of the United Provinces. It is
situated on the right bank of the Gogra. In the present day
the old city has almost entirely disappeared, and its site
is marked only by a heap of ruins; but in remote antiquity
Ajodhya was one of the largest and most magnificent of Indian
cities. It is said to have covered an area of 96 m., and
was the capital of the kingdom of Kosala, the court of the
great king Dasaratha, the fifty-sixth monarch of the Solar
line in descent from Raja Manu. The opening chapters of the
Ramayana recount the magnificence of the city, the glories
of the monarch and the virtues, wealth and loyalty of his
people. Dasaratha was the father of Rama Chandra, the hero
of the epic. A period of Buddhist supremacy followed the
death of the last king of the Solar dynasty. On the revival
of Brahmanism Ajodhya was restored by King Vikramaditya
(c. 57 B.C..) Kosala is also famous as the early home
of Buddhism, and of the kindred religion of Jainism, and
claims to be the birthplace of the founders of both these
faiths. The Chinese traveller, Hsuan Tsang, in the 7th
century, found 20 Buddhist temples with 3000 monks at
Ajodhya among a large Brahmanical population. The modern
town of Ajodhya contains 96 Hindu temples and 36 Mussulman
mosques. Little local trade is carried on, but the great fair
of Ramnami held every year is attended by about 500,000 people.
AKABA, GULF OF, the Sinus Aelaniticus of antiquity,
the eastern of the two divisions into which the Red Sea
bifurcates near its northern extremity. It penetrates into
Arabia Petraea in a N.N.E. direction, from 28 deg. to 29 deg. 32'
N., a distance of 100 m., and its breadth varies from 12 to 17
m. The entrance is contracted by Tiran and other islands,
so that the passage is rendered somewhat difficult; and its
navigation is dangerous on account of the numerous coral
reefs, and the sudden squalls which sweep down from the
adjacent mountains, many of which rise perpendicularly to a
height of 2000 ft. The gulf is a continuation southward of
the Jordan-'Araba depression. Raised beaches on the coast
show that there has been a considerable elevation of the
sea-bed. The only well-sheltered harbour is that of Dahab
(the Golden Port) on its western shore, about 33 m. from
the entrance and 29 m. E. of Mount Sinai. Near the head of
the gulf is Jeziret Faraun (medieval Graye), a rocky islet
with the ruins of a castle built by Baldwin I. (c. 1115).
About 2 1/2 m. from the head of the gulf and on its eastern
side is the TOMN OF AKABA, with a picturesque medieval
castle, built for the protection of pilgrims on there way
from Egypt to Mecca. In the neighbourhood are extensive
groves of date palms, and there is an ample supply of good
water. Akaba is of considerable historical interest and of
great antiquity, being the Elath or Eloth of the Bible, and
one of the ports whence Solomon's fleet sailed to Ophir.
By the Romans, who made it a military post, it was called
Aelana. It continued to be the seat of great commercial
activity under the early Moslem caliphs, who corrupted
the name to Haila or Ailat. In the 10th century an Arab
geographer described it as the great port of Palestine and
the emporium of the Hejaz. In the 12th century the town
suffered at the hands of Saladin and thereafter fell into
decay. In 1841 the town was recognized by Turkey, together
with the Sinai peninsula, as part of Egypt. At that time
Egyptian pilgrims frequented Akaba in large numbers. In 1892,
on the accession of the khedive Abbas II., Turkey resumed
possession of Akaba, the Egyptian pilgrims having deserted
the land route to Mecca in favour of a sea passage. In 1906
the construction was begun of a branch line joining Akaba to
the Mecca railway and thus giving through communication with
Beirut. Early in the same year the Turks occupied Taba, a
village at the mouth of a small stream g m. by land W. by
S. of Akaba, near which is the site, not identified, of the
Ezion-Geber of Scripture, another of the ports whence the
argosies of the Israelites saileffi. Taba being on the Egyptian
side of the frontier, Great Britain intervened on behalf of
Egypt, and in May 1906 secured the withdrawal of the Turks.
AKA HILLS, a tract of country on the north-east frontier of
India, occupied by an independent tribe called the Akas.
It lies north of the Darrang district of Eastern Bengal and
Assam, and is bounded on the east by the Daphla Hills and on
the west by independent Bhutia tribes. The Aka country is very
difficult of access, the direct road from the plains leading
along the precipitous channel of the Bhareli river, which
divides the Aka from the Daphla country. The Akas are a brave
people, and the men are strong and well-made. Their reputation
as raiders is sufficiently shown in the division of the tribe
into two clans, the Hazari-khoas or ``eaters of a thousand
hearths,'' and the Kapah-chors or ``thieves that lurk in the
cotton fields.'' In the early years of British occupation,
about 1820, they gave much trouble; and in 1883 they broke out
once more into their old habits. They raided into the British
district of Darrang and carried off several native forest
officers as hostages. An expedition was sent against them
under General Sale Hill with 860 troops, which was completely
successful. All its objects were satisfactorily accomplished,
namely, the recovery of the captives, the surrender of all
firearms, the payment of the fine inflicted by government, the
complete submission of the tribe and the survey of the country.
AKALKOT, a native state of India, in the Deccan division
of Bombay, ranking as one of the Satara Jagirs, situated
between the British district of Sholapur and the nizam's
dominions. It forms part of the Deccan table-land, and has
a cool and agreeable climate. Area 498 sq. m.; pop. (1901)
82,047, showing an increase of 8% in the decade. Estimated
revenue, L. 26,586; the tribute is L. 1000. The chief, who
is a Mahratta of the Bhonsla family, resides at Poona on
a pension, while the state is under British management.
The town of Akalkot is situated near the Great Indian
Peninsula railway, which traverses the state. Pop. 8348.
AKBAR, AKHBAR or AKBER, JELLALADIN MAHOMMED (1542-1605),
one of the greatest and wisest of the Mogul emperors. ' He
was born at Umarkot in Sind on the 14th of October 1542, his
father, Humayun, having been driven from the throne a short time
before by the usurper Sher Khan. After more than twelve years'
exile, Humayun regained his sovereignty, which, however, he
had held only for a few months when he died. Akbar succeeded
his father in 1556 under the regency of Baira n Khan, a
Turkoman noble, whose energy in repelling pretenders to the
throne, and severity in maintaining the discipline of the army,
tended greatly to the consolidation of the newly recovered
empire. Bairam, however, was naturally despotic and cruel;
and when order was somewhat restored, Akbar found it necessary
to take the reins of government into his own hands, which he
did by a proclamation issued in March 1560. The discarded
regent lived for some time in rebellion, endeavouring to
establish an independent principality in Malwa, but at last
he was forced to cast himself on Akbar's mercy. The emperor
not only freely pardoned him, but magnanimously offered him
the choice of a high place in the army or a suitable escort
for a pilgrimage to Mecca, and Bairam preferred the latter
alternative. When Akbar ascended the throne, only a small
portion of what had formerly been comprised within the Mogul
empire owned his authority, and he devoted himself with great
determination and success to the recovery of the revolted
provinces. Over each of these, as it was restored, he placed a
governor, whom he superintended with vigilance and wisdom.
He tried by every means to develop and encourage commerce; he
had the land accurately measured for the purpose of rightly
adjusting taxation; he gave the strictest instructions to
prevent extortion on the part of the taxgatherers, and in
many other respects displayed an enlightened and equitable
policy. Thus it happened that, in the fortieth year of Akbar's
reign, the empire had more than regained all that it had lost,
the recovered provinces being reduced, not to subjection only as
before, but to a great degree of peace, order and contentment.
Akbar's method of dealing with what must always be the chief
difficulty of one who has to rule widely diverse races, affords
perhaps the crowning evidence of his wisdom and moderation
In religion he was at first a Mussulman, but the intolerant
exclusiveness of that creed was quite foreign to his
character. Scepticism as to the divine origin of the
Koran led him to seek the true religion in an eclectic
system. He accordingly set himself to obtain information
about other religions, sent to Goa, requesting that the
Portuguese missionaries there should visit him, and listened
to them with intelligent attention when they came. As the
result of these inquiries, he adopted the creed of pure
deism and a ritual based upon the system of Zoroaster. The
religion thus founded, however, having no vital force, never
spread beyond the limits of the court, and died with Akbar
himself. But though his eclectic system failed, the spirit
of toleration which originated it produced in other ways many
important results, and, indeed, may be said to have done more
to establish Akbar's power on a secure basis than all his
economic and social reforms. He conciliated the Hindus by
giving them freedom of worship; while a- the same time he
strictly prohibited certain barbarous Brahmanical practices,
such as trial by ordeal and the burning of widows against their
will. He also abolished all taxes upon pilgrims as an
interference with the liberty of worship, and the capitation
tax upon Hindus, probably upon similar grounds. Measures
like these gained for him during his lifetime the title of
``Guardian of Mankind,'' and caused him to be held up as a
model to Indian princes of later times, who in the matter of
religious toleration have only too seldom followed his example.
Akbar was a munificent patron of literature. He established
schools throughout his empire for the education of both
Hindus and Moslems, and he gathered round him many men of
literary talent, among whom may be mentioned the brothers
Feizi and Abul Fazl. The former was commissioned by Akbar
to translate a number of Sanskrit scientific works into
Persian; and the latter (see ABUL FAzl) has left, in the
Akbar-Nameh, an enduring record of the emperor's reign.
It is also said that Akbar employed Jerome Xavier, a Jesuit
missionary, to translate the four Gospels into Persian.
The closing years of Akbar's reign were rendered very
unhappy by the misconduct of his sons. Two of them died in
youth, the victims of intemperance; and the third, Salim,
afterwards the emperor Jahangir, was frequently in rebellion
against his father. These calamities were keenly felt by
Akbar, and may even have tended to hasten his death, which
occurred at Agra on the 15th of October 1605. His body was
deposited in a magnificent mausoleum at Sikandra, near Agra.
See G. B. Malleson, Akbar (``Rulers of India'' series), 1890.
AKCHA, a town and khanate of Afghan Turkestan. The town lies
42 m. westward of Balkh on the road to Andkhui. It is protected
by a mud wall and a citadel. Estimated population d000, chiefly
Uzbegs. The khanate is small, but well watered and populous.
The rivers rising in the southern mountains, which no longer
reach the Oxus, terminate in vast swamps near Akcha, and into
these the debris of such vegetation as yearly springs up on the
slopes of the southern hills is washed down in time of flood.
AKEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the
Elbe, 25 m. E. S. E. of Magdeburg, with a branch line to
Cothen (8 m.). Pop. (1900) 7358. It has manufactures of
cloth, leather, chemicals and optical instruments; large
quantities of beetroot sugar are produced in the neighbourhood;
and there is a considerable transit trade on the Elbe.
AKENSIDE, MARK (1721-1770), English poet and physician.
was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne on the 9th of November 1721.
He was the son of a butcher, and was slightly lame all his
life from a wound he received as a child from his father's
cleaver. All his relations were dissenters, and, after attending
the free school of Newcastle, and a dissenting academy in the
town. he was sent (1739) to Edinburgh to study theology with
a view to becoming a minister, his expenses being paid from
a special fund set aside by the dissenting community for the
education of their pastors. He had already contributed ``The
Virtuoso, in imitation of Spenser's style and stanza'' (1737)
to the Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1738 ``A British
Phillipic, occasioned by the Insults of the Spaniards, and the
present Preparations for War'' (also published separately).
After he had spent one winter as a student of theology, he
entered his name as a student of medicine. He repaid the
money that had been advanced for his theological studies, and
with this change of mind he seems to have drifted to a mild
deism. His politics, says Dr Johnson, were characterized by
an ``impetuous eagerness to subvert and confound, with very
little care what shall be established,'' and he is caricatured
in the republican doctor of Smollett's Peregrine Pickle. He
was elected a member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh in
1740. His ambitions already lay outside his profession,
and his gifts as a speaker made him hope one day to enter
parliament. In 1740 he printed his ``Ode on the Winter
Solstice'' in a small volume of poems. In 1741 he left
Edinburgh for Newcastle and began to call himself surgeon,
though it is doubtful whether he practised, and from the
next year dates his life-long friendship with Jeremiah Dyson
(1722-1776). During a visit to Morpeth in 1738 he had
conceived the idea of his didactic poem, ``The Pleasures of
the Imagination.'' He had already acquired a considerable
literary reputation when he came to London about the end of
1743, and offered the work to Dodsley for L. 120. Dodsley
thought the price exorbitant, and only accepted the terms
after submitting the Ms. to Pope, who assured him that this
was ``no everyday writer.'' The three books of this poem
appeared in January 1744. His aim, Akenside tells us in the
preface, was ``not so much to give formal precepts, or enter
into the way of direct argumentation, as, by exhibiting the
most engaging prospects of nature, to enlarge and harmonize
the imagination, and by that means insensibly dispose the
minds of men to a similar taste and habit of thinking in
religion, morals and civil life.'' Akenside's powers
fell short of this lofty design; his imagination was not
brilliant enough to surmount the difficulties inherent in a
poem dealing so largely with abstractions; but the work was
well received by the general public. His success was not
unchallenged. Gray wrote to Thomas Wharton that it was
``above the middling,'' but ``often obscure and unintelligible
and too much infected with the Hutchinson1 jargon.''
Into a note added by Akenside to the passage in the third
book dealing with ridicule, William Warburton chose to read
a reflexion on himself. Accordingly he attacked the author
of the Pleasures of the Imagination---which was published
anonymously--in a scathing preface to his Remarks on Several
Occasional Reflections, in answer to Dr Middleton (1744).
This was answered, nominally by Dyson, in An Epistle to the
Rev. Mr Brarburton, in which Akenside no doubt had a hand.
It was in the press when he left England in 1744 to secure a
medical degree at Leiden. In little more than a month he had
completed the necessary dissertation, De ortu et incremento
foetus humani, and received his diploma. Returning to
England he attempted without success to establish a practice in
Northampton. In 1744 he published his Epistle to Curio,
attacking William Pulteney (afterwards earl of Bath) for having
abandoned his liberal principles to become a supporter of the
government, and in the next year he produced a small volume
of Odes on Several Subjects, in the preface to which he
lays claim to correctness and a careful study of the best
models. His friend Dyson had meanwhile left the bar, and had
become, by purchase, clerk to the House of Commons. Akenside
had come to London and was trying to make a practice at
Hampstead. Dyson took a house there, and did all he could
to further his friend's interest in the neighbourhood. But
Akenside's arrogance and pedantry frustrated these efforts,
and Dyson then took a house for him in Bloomsbury Square,
making him independent of his profession by an allowance
stated to have been L. 300 a year, but probably greater,
for it is asserted that this income enabled him to ``keep a
chariot,'' and to live ``incomparably well.'' In 1746 he wrote
his much-praised ``Hymn to the Naiads,'' and he also became a
contributor to Dodsley's Museum, or Literary and Historical
Register. He was now twenty-five years old, and began to devote
1 The reference is to Francis Hutcheson (1604-1746), author of an
inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725).
himself almost exclusively to his profession. He was an acute
and learned physician. He was admitted M.D. at Cambridge in
1753, fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1754, and
fourth censor in 1755. In June 1755 he read the Gulstonian
lectures before the College, in September 1756 the Croonian
lectures, and in 1759 the Harveian oration. In January
1759 he was appointed assistant physician, and two months
later principal physician to Christ's Hospital, but he was
charged with harsh treatment of the poorer patients, and his
unsympathetic character prevented the success to which his
undeniable learning and ability entitled him. At the accession
of George III. both Dyson and Akenside changed their political
opinions, and Akenside's conversion to Tory principles was
rewarded by the appointment of physician to the queen.
Dyson became societary to the treasury, lord of the treasury,
and in 1774 privy Councillor and cofferer to the household.
Akenside died on the 23rd of June 1770, at his house in
Burlington Street, where the last ten years of his life had
been spent. His friendship with Dyson puts his character in
the most amiable light. Writing to his friend so early as
1744, Akenside said that the intimacy had ``the force of an
additional conscience, of a new principle of religion,'' and
there seems to have been no break in their affection. He
left all his effects and his literary remains to Dyson, who
issued an edition of his poems in 1772. This included the
revised version of the Pleasures of Imagination, on which
the author was engaged at his death. The first book of this
work defines the powers of imagination and discusses the
various kinds of pleasure to be derived from the perception
of beauty; the second distinguishes works of imagination from
philosophy; the third describes the pleasure to be found in the
study of man, the sources of ridicule, the operations of the
mind, in producing works of imagination, and the influence
of imagination on morals. The ideas were largely borrowed
from Addison's essays on the imagination and from Lord
Shaftesbury. Professor Dowden complains that ``his tone is
too high-pitched; his ideas are too much in the air; they do
not nourish themselves in the common heart, the common life
of man.'' Dr Johnson praised the blank verse of the poems, but
found fault with the long and complicated periods. Akenside's
verse was better when it was subjected to severer metrical
rules. His odes are very few of them lyrical in the strict
sense, but they are dignified and often musical, while the few
``inscriptions'' he has left are felicitous in the extreme.
The best edition of Akenside's Poetical Works is that prepared
(1834) by Alexander Dyce for the Aldine Edition of the British
Poets, and reprinted with small additions in subsequent issues
of the series. See Dyce's Life of Akenside prefixed to his
edition, also Johnson's Lives of the Poets, and the Life,
Writings and Genius of Akenside (1832) by Charles Bucke.
AKERMAN, JOHN YONGE (1806-1873), English antiquarian,
distinguished chiefly in the department of numismatics, was
born in Wiltshire. He became early known in connexion with his
favourite study, having initiated the Numismatic Journal in
1836. In the following year he became the secretary of the
newly established Numismatic Society. In 1848 he was elected
secretary to the Society of Antiquaries, an office which
he was compelled to resign in 1860 on account of failing
health. Akerman published a considerable number of works on
his special subject, the more important being a Catalogue
of Roman Coins (1839); a Numismatic Manual (1840); Roman
Coins relating to Britain (1844); Ancient Coins--Hispania,
Gallia, Britannia (1846); and Numismatic Illustrations of
the New Testament (1846). He wrote also a Glossary of Words
used in Wiltshire (1842); Wiltshire Tales, illustrative of
the Dialect (1853); and Remains of Pagan Saxondom (1855).
AKHALTSIKH (Georgian Akhaltsikhe, ``new fortress''),
a fortified town of Russian Transcaucasia, government of
Tiths, 68 m. E. of Batum, in 41 deg. 40' N. lat., 43 deg. 1' E.
long., on a tributary of the Kura, at an altitude of 3375
ft. The new town is on the right bank of the river,
while the old town and the fortress are on the opposite
bank. There is trade in silk, honey and wax, and brown coal
is found in the neighbourhood. The silver filigree work is
famous. Pop. (1897) 15,387, of whom many were Armenians, as
against 15,977 in 1867. From 1579 to 1828 Akhaltsikh was the
capital of Turkish Armenia. In the last-mentioned year it
was captured by the Russians. The Turks invested it in 1853.
AK-HISSAR (anc. Thyateira, the ``town of Thya''), a town
situated in a fertile plain on the Gurduk Chai (Lycus), in
the Aidin vilayet, 58 m. N.E. of Smyrna. Pop. about 20,000,
Mussulmans forming two-thirds. Thyateira was an ancient town
re-peopled with Macedonians by Seleucus about 290 B.C. It
became an important station on the Roman road from Pergamum to
Laodicea, and one of the ``Seven Churches'' of Asia (Rev. ii.
18), but was never a metropolis or honoured with a neocorate,
though made the centre of a conventus by Caracalla. The
modern town is connected with Smyrna by railway, and exports
cotton, wool, opium, cocoons and cereals. The inhabitants are
Greeks, Armenians and Turks. The Greeks are of an especially
fine type, physical and moral, and noted all through Anatolia
for energy and stability. W. M. Ramsay believes them to be
direct descendants of the ancient Christian population; but
there is reason to think they are partly sprung from more
recent immigrants who moved in the 18th century from western
Greece into the domain of the Karasmans of Manisa and Bergama,
as recorded by W. M. Leake. Cotton of excellent quality
is grown in the neighbourhood, and the place is celebrated
for its scarlet dyes. Perebus Thyatirenorum (1893).
AKHMIM, or EKHMIM, a town of Upper Egypt, on the right
bank of the Nile, 67 m. by river S. of Assiut, and 4 m. above
Suhag, on the opposite side of the river, whence there is railway
communication with Cairo and Assuan. It is the largest town on
the east side of the Nile in Upper Egypt, having a population
in 1007 of 25,795, of whom about a third were Copts. Akhmim
has several mosques and two Coptic churches, maintains a weekly
market, and manufactures cotton goods, notably the blue shirts
and check shawls with silk fringes worn by the poorer classes of
Egypt. Outside the walls are the scanty ruins of two ancient
temples. In Abulfeda's days (13th century A.D.) a very
imposing temule still stood here. Akhmim was the Egyptian Apu
or Khen-min, in Coptic Shmin, known to the Greeks as Chemmis
or Panopolis, capital of the 9th or Chemmite nome of Upper
Egypt. The ithyphallic Min (Pan) was here worshipped as
``the strong Horus.'' Herodotus mentions the temple dedicated
to ``Perseus'' and asserts that Chemmis was remark-. able
for the celebration of games in honour of that hero, after
the manner of the Greeks, at which prizes were given; as a
matter of fact some representations are known of Nubians and
people of Puoni (Somalic coast) clambering up poles before the
god Min. Min was especially a god of the desert routes on the
east of Egypt, and the trading tribes are likely to have
gathered to his festivals for business and pleasure, at Coptos
(which was really near to Neapolis, Kena) even more than at
Akhmim. Herodotus perhaps confused Coptos with Chemmis.
Strabo mentions linen-weaving as an ancient industry of
Panopohs, and it is not altogether a coincidence that the
cemetery of Akhmim is one of the chief sources of the beautiful
textiles of Roman and Coptic age that are brought from
Egypt. Monasteries abounded in this neighbourhood from a very
early date; Shenout (Sinuthius), the fiery apostle and prophet
of the Coptic national church, was a monk of Atrepe (now
Suhag), and led the populace to the destruction of the pagan
edifices. He died in 451; some years earlier Nestorius, the
ex-patriarch, had succumbed perhaps to his persecution and to old
age, in the neighbourhood of Akhmim. Nonnus, the Greek poet, was
born at Panopolis at the end of the 4th century. (F. LL. G.)
AKHTAL [GHIYYTH IBN HYRITH} (c. 640-710), one of the most
famous Arabian poets of the Omayyad period, belonged to the tribe
of Taghlib in Mesopotamia, and was, like his fellow-tribesmen,
a Christian, enjoying the freedom of his religion, while not
taking its duties very seriously. Of his private life .few
details are known, save that he was married and divorced,
and that he spent part of his time in Damascus, part with his
tribe in Mesopotamia. In the wars of the Taghhbites with the
Qaisites he took part in the field, and by his satires. In the
literary strife between his contemporaries Jarir and Lerazdaq
he was induced to support the latter poet. Akhtal, Jarir and
Ferazdaq form a trio celebrated among the Arabs, but as to
relative superiority there is dispute. In the'Abbasid period
there is no doubt that Akhtal's Christianity told against his
reputation, but Abu'Ubaida placed him highest of the three
on the ground that amongst his poems there were ten flawless
qasidas (elegies), and ten more nearly so, and that this could
not be said of the other two. The chief material of his poems
consists of panegyric of patrons and satire of rivals, the latter
being, however, more restraified than was usual at the time.
The Poetry of al-Akhtal has been published at the Jesuit press
in Beirut, 1891. A full account of the poet and his times
is given in H. Lammens' Le chantre des Omiades (Paris, 1895)
(a reprint from the Journal Asiatique for 1894). (G. W. T.)
AKHTYRKA, a town of Russia, in the government of Kharkov,
near the Vorskla river, connected by a branch (11 m.)
with the railway from Kiev to Kharkov. It has a beautiful
cathedral, built after a plan by Rastrelh in 1753, to which
pilgrims resort to venerate an ikon of the Virgin. There
are manufactures of light woollen stuffs and a trade in
corn, cattle and the produce of domestic industries. The
environs are fertile, the orchards producing excellent
fruit. A fair is held on the 9th of May. The place was founded
by the Poles in 1642. Pop. (1867) 17,411; (1900) 25,965.
AKKA (TIKEI-TIKKI), a race of African pygmies first seen
by the traveller G. A. Schweinfurth in 1870, when he was in the
Mangbettu country, N.W. of Albert Nyanza. The home of the Akka
is the dense forest zone of the Aruwimi district of the Congo
State. They form a branch of the primitive pygmy negroid
race. and appear to be divided into groups, each with its own
chief. Of all African ``dwarfs'' the Akka are believed the
best representatives of the ``little people'' mentioned by
Herodotus. Giovanni Miani, the Italian explorer who followed
Schweinfurth, obtained two young Akka in exchange for a dog and a
calf. These, sent to Italy in 1873, were respectively 4 ft. 4
in. and 4 ft. 8 in. high, while the tallest seen by Schweinfurth
did not reach 5 ft. None of the four Akka brought to Europe
in 1874 and 1876 exceeded 3 ft. 4 in. The average height of
the race would seem to be somewhat under 4 ft., but sufficient
measurements have not been taken to allow of a conclusive
statement. Schweinfurth says the Akka have very large and
almost spherical skulls (this last detail proves to be an
exaggeration). They are of the colour of coffee slightly
roasted, with hair almost the same colour, woolly and tufted;
they have very projecting jaws, flat noses and protruding
lips, which give them an ``ape-like'' appearance. Marked
physical features are an abdominal protuberance which makes
all Akka look like pot-bellied children, and a remarkable
hollowing of the spine into a curve like an d. Investigation
has shown that these are not true racial characteristics, but
tend to disappear, the abdominal enlargement subsiding after
some weeks of regular and wholesome diet. The upper limbs are
long, and the hands, according to Schweinfurth, are singularly
delicate. The lower limbs are short, relatively to the
trunk, and curve in somewhat, the feet being bent in too,
which gives the Akka a top heavy, tottering gait. There is a
tendency to steatopygia among the women. The Akka are nomads,
living in the forests, where they hunt game with poisoned
arrows, with pitfalls and springs set everywhere, and with
traps built like huts, the roofs of which, hung by tendrils
only, fall in on the animal. They collect ivory and honey,
manufacture poison, and bring these to market to exchange
for cereals, tobacco and iron weapons. They are courageous
hunters, and do not hesitate to attack even elephants, both
sexes joining in the chase. They are very agile, and are
said by the neighbouring negroes to leap about in the high
grass like grasshoppers. They are timid as children before
strangers, but are declared to be malevolent and treacherous
fighters. In dress, weapons and utensils they are as the
surrounding negroes. They build round huts of branches
and leaves in the forest clearings. They seem in no way a
degenerate race, but rather a people arrested in development
by the forest environment. Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa
(London, 1873); Dr W. Pleyte, Chapitres supplementaires du
Livre des Morts, traduction et commontaire (Leiden, 1883);
Sir H. H. Johnston, Uganda Protectorate (London, 1902).
AKKAD (Gr. versions aroad and achad), a Hebrew name,
mentioned only once in the Old Testament (Gen. x. 10), for
one of the four chief cities, Akkad, Babel, Erech and Calneh,
which constituted the nucleus of the kingdom of Nimrod in
the land of Shinar or Babylonia. This Biblical city, Akkad,
was most probably identical with the northern Babylonian city
known to us as Agade (not Agane, as formerly read), which
was the principal seat of the early Babylonian king Sargon
I. (Sargani-Sarali), whose date is given by Nabonidus,
the last Semitic king of Babylonia (555-537 B.C.), as
3800 B.C., which is perhaps too old by 700 or 1000 years.i
The probably non-Semitic name Agade occurs in a number of
inscriptions2 and is now well attested as having been the name
of an important ancient capital. The later Assyro-Babylonian
Semitic form Akkadu (``of or belonging to Akkad'') is,
in all likelihood, a Semitic loan form from the non-Semitic
name Agade, and seems to be an additional demonstration of
the identity of Agade and Akkad. The usual signs denoting
Akkadu in the Semitic narrative inscriptions were read in
the non-Semitic idiom uri-ki or ur-ki, ``land of the city,''
which simply meant that Akkadu was the land of the city par
excellence, i.e. of the city of Agade of Sargon I., which
remained for a long period the leading city of Babylonia.3
It is quite probable that the non-Semitic name Agade may mean
``crown (aga) of fire (de)''4 in allusion to Istar,
``the brilliant goddess,'' the tutelar deity of the morning
and evening star and the goddess of war and love, whose cult
was observed in very early times in Agade. This fact is again
attested by Nabonidus, whose record 5 mentions that the Istar
worship of Agade was later superseded by that of the goddess
Anunit, another personification of the Istar idea, whose
shrine was at Sippar. It is significant in this connexion that
there were two cities named Sippar, one under the protection
of Shamash, the sun-god, and one under this Anunit, a fact
which points strongly to the probable proximity of Sippar and
Agade. In fact, it has been thought that Agade-Akkad was
situated opposite Sippar on the left bank of the Euphrates,
and was probably the oldest part of the city of Sippar.
In the Assyro-Babylonian literature the name Akkadu appears
as part of the royal title in connexion with Sumer; viz.
non-Semitic: lugal Kengi (ki) Uru (ki) = sar mat Sumeri u
Akkadi, ``king of Sumer and Akkad,'' which appears to have
meant simply ``king of Babylonia.'' It is not likely, as many
scholars have thought, that Akkad was ever used geographically
as a distinctive appellation for northern Babylonia, or that
the name Sumer (q.v.) denoted the southern part of the land,
because kings who ruled only over Southern Babylonia used
the double title ``king of Sumer and Akkad,'' which was also
employed by northern rulers who never established their sway
farther south than Nippur, notably the great Assyrian conqueror
Tiglathpileser III. (745--727 B.C..) Professor Mccurdy has
very reasonably suggested 6 that the title ``king of Sumer
and Akkad'' indicated merely a claim to the ancient territory
and city of Akkad together with certain additional territory,
but not necessarily all Babylonia, as was formerly believed.
A discussion of the interesting question relating to
the non-Semitic so-called Sumero-Akkadian language
and race will be found in the article SUMER.
1 Prince, Nabonidus, p. v. 2 in the Sargon inscriptions;
Bab. Exped. of the Univ. of Penn. also xi. pl. 49, nr.
119 and in Nebuchadnezzar, col. ii. line 50 (Hilprecht,
Freibrief Neb.); Cun. Texts from Bab. Tablets, pl.
1, nr. 91146, line 3. 3Rogers, History of Babylonia and
Assyria, i. pp. 365, 373-374. 4 prince, ``Materials for
a Sumerian Lexicon,'' pp. 23, 73, Journal of Biblical
Literature, 1906. 5 I. Rawl. 69, col. ii. 48 and iii.
28. 6 History, Prophecy and the Monuments, i. sec. 110.
LITERATURE.---Schmder, Zur Frage n. d. Ursprung d. altbab.
Kultur (1883); Keilinschriften und Geschichteforschung, pp.
533 fr; Fried. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (1881), p.
198; Paul Haupt, Akkadische und Sumerische Keilschrifttexte
(1881), pp. 133 ff.; Die Sumerische Akkadische Sprache,
Verh. 5-ten Orient. Cong. ii. pp. 249-287; Die sumerischen
Familiengesetze (1879); Zimmern, Babylonische Busspsalmen
(1885), pp. 71 f.; Hommel, Gesch. Bab. Assyr. (1885),
pp. 240 ff.; Tiele, Bab. Assyr. Gesch. (1888), p. 68; W.
H. Ward, Hebraica (1886), pp. 79-86; Mccurdy, Presb. and
Ref. Review, Jan. 1891, pp. 58-81; History, Prophecy and
the Monuments (1894), sec. sec. 79-85, 94-110; Hugo Winckler,
Untersuchungen zur altorientallischen Geschichte (1886), pp. 65
ff. In Rabbinical literature, Louis Ginzberg, in Monatschrift,
xliii. 486; and Jewish Encyclopaedia, i. p. 149. (J. D. PR.)
AKKERMAN (in old Slav. Byelgorod, ``white town''), a
town, formerly a fortress, of south-west Russia, in the
government of Bessarabia, situated on the right bank of the
estuary (liman) of the Dniester, 12 m. from the Black Sea.
The town stands on the site of the ancient Milesian colony of
Tyras. Centuries later it was rebuilt by the Genoese, who called
it Mauro Castro. The Turks first acquired possession of it in
1484. It was taken by the Russians in 1770, 1774 and 1806,
but each time returned to the Turks, and not definitely annexed
to Russia until 1881 . A treaty concluded here in 1826 between
Russia and the Porte secured considerable advantages to the
former. It was the non-observance of this treaty that led to
the war of 1S28. The harbour is too shallow to admit vessels
of large size, but the proximity of the town to Odessa secures
for it a thriving business in wine, salt, fish wool and
tallow. The salt is obtained from the saline lakes (limans)
in the neighbourhood. The town, with its suburbs, contains
beautiful gardens and vineyards. It is surrounded by
ramparts, and commanded by a citadel. Pop. (1900) 32,470.
AKMOLINSK, one of the governments belonging to the
governor-generalship of the Steppes in Asiatic Russia, formerly
known as the Kirghiz Steppe; bounded by the government of Turgai
on the W., by that of Tobolsk on the N., of Semi-palatinsk
on the E., and of Syr-darya on the S. Area 229,544 sq. m.,
of which 4535 are lakes. In the north the government is low
and dotted with salt lakes, and is sandy on the banks of the
Irtysh in the north-east. An undulating plateau stretches
through the middle, watered by the Ishim and its tributary the
Nura. The plains gradually rise southwards, where a broad
spur of the Tarbagatai mountains stretches north-westwards,
containing gold, copper and coal. Many lakes, of which the
largest is Teniz, are scattered along the northern slope of these
hills. Farther south, towards Lake Balkash, on the southeastern
frontier, is a wide waterless desert, Bek-pak-dala, or Famine
Steppe. This section of the government is drained by the
Sary-su and Chu, the latter on the southern boundaryline.
The climate is continental and dry, the average temperatures
at the town of Akmolinsk being for the year 35 deg. , January
1.5 deg. , July 70 deg. ; rainfall, only 9 in. The population, which
was 686,863 in 1897 (324,587 women), consists chiefly of
Russians in the northern and middle portions, and of Kirghiz
(about 350,000), who breed cattle, horses and sheep. The
urban population was only 74,069. Agriculture is successfully
carried on in the north, the Siberian railway running between
Petropavlovsk and Omsk through a very fertile, well-populated
region. Steamers ply on the Irtysh. The government is divided
into five districts, the chief towns of which are: Omsk (pop.
53,050 in 1900), formerly capital of West Siberia, now capital
of this government and also of the governor-generalship of
the Steppes; Akmolinsk, or Akmolly (9560 in 1897), on the
Ishim, 260 m. S.S.W. of Omsk, and chief centre for the
caravans coming from Tashkent and Bokhara; Atbasar (3030);
Kokchetav (5000); and Petropavlovsk (21,769 in 1901).
AKOLA, a town and district of India, in Berar, otherwise
known as the Hyderabad Assigned Districts. The town is on
the Murna tributary of the Purna river, 930 ft. above the sea,
Akola proper being on the west bank, and Tajnapeth, containing
the government buildings and European residences, on the east
bank. It is a station on the Nagpur branch of the Great
Indian Peninsula railway and is 383 m. E.N.E. of Bombay. It
had a population (1901) of 29,289. It is walled, and has a
citadel built in the early years of the 19th century. Akola
is one of the chief centres of the cotton trade in Berar,
and has numerous ginning factories and cotton presses. Among
the educational establishments are a government high school,
and an industrial school supported by a Protestant mission.
The DISTRICT OF AKOLA as. reconstituted in 1905 has an
area of 4111 sq. n1.. the popi:lation of this area in 1901
being 754,804. (Before the alteration of the boundaries the
area of the district was 2678 sq. m., and the population
582,540.) The surface of the country is generally flat,
the greater part being situated in the central valley of
Berar. On the north it is bounded by the Melghat
hills. By the addition of Basim and Mangrul laluks in
1005, the district includes the eastern part of the Ajanta
hills, with peaks rising to 2000 ft., and the tableland of
Basim (q.v..) North of the Ajanta hills the country is
drained eastward by the I,urna affluent of the Tapti and its
tributaries. None of the rivers is navigable. The climate
resembles that of Berar generally, but the beat during April
to mid-June, when the rains begin, is very great, the average
temperature at the town of Akola in May for the twenty-five
years ending 1901 being 94.4 deg. F. But even during the hot
season the nights are cool. The annual rainfall averages 34
in. In the Purna valley the soil is everywhere a rich lilack
loam, and nearly the whole of the land is cultivated. Very
little.land is under irrigation. The principal crop is
cotton, and the staple grain millet. Wheat and pulses are also
grown. The history of Akola is not distinguished from that
of the other portions of Berar. In 1317--1318 it was added
to the Delhi empire, became independent under the Bahmani
dynasty in 1348, and in 1596 again fell under the sv'ay of the
Moguls. In 1724 it came, with the rest of Berar, under the
dominion of the nizam, being assigned to the British in 1853.
AKRON, a city and the county-seat of Summit county, Ohio,
U.S.A., on the Little Cuyaboga river, about 35 m. S. by E. of
Cleveland. Pop. (1890) 27,601; (1900) 42,728, of whom 7127
were foreign-born (3227 being German, 1104 English, and
641 Irish); (1910) 69,067. It is served by the Baltimore &
Ohio, the Erie, the Northern fj!:io, and the Cleveland, Akron
& Columbus railways, by inter-urban electric lines and by
the Ohio Canal. The city is situated in a region abounding
in lakes, springs and hills; it is about 1000 ft. above
sea-level, whence its name (from Oir. akron, height);
and attracts many summer visitors. It is the seat of
Buchtel College (co-educational; non-sectarian), which was
founded by the Ohio Universalist Convention in 1870, was
opened in 1872, and was named in honour of its most liberal
benefactor, John R. Buchtel (18221802), a successful business
man who did much to promote the industrial development of
Akron. Buchtel College provides three courses leading to
the degrees of A.B., Ph.B. and S.B.; it has a school of
music, a school of art and an academy; in 1908 there were 267
students. Coal is mined in the neighbourhood. The river
furnishes considerable water-power; and among the city's most
important manufactures are rubber and elastic goods (value,
1905, $13,396,974; 83.9% of the total of this industry in
the state and 21.3% of the total for the United States,
Akron ranking first among the cities of the country in this
industry), printing and publishing product (value, 1905,
$2,834,639), foundry and machine-shop product (value, 1905,
$2,367,764), and pottery, terra-cotta and fire-clay (value,
1905, $1,718,033; nearly twice the value of the output in 1900,
Akron ranking fourth among the cities of the United States in
this industry in 1905). Other important manufactures are food
preparations (especially of oats) and flour and grist mill
products. The value of the total manufactured products
(under the ``factory'' system) in 1905 was $34,004,243, an
increase in five years of 54.5%. Akron was settled about
1825, was incorporated as a village in 1836, was made the
county-seat in 1842, and in 1865 was chartered as a city.
See S. N. Lane, Fifty Years and over of
Akron and Sumnnit County (Akron, 1892).
AK-SHEHR (anc. Philomelioii), a town in Asia Minor, in
the Ronia vilayet, situated at the edge of a fertile plain, on
the north side of the Sultan Dagh. Philomelion was probably a
Pergamenian foundation on the great Graeco-Roman highway from
Ephesus to the east, and to its townsmen the Smyrniotes wrote
the letter that describes the martyrdom of Polycarp.
Cicero, on his way to Cilicia, dated some of his extant
correspondence there; and the place played a considerable
part in the frontier wars between the Byzantine emperors
and the sultanate of Rum. It became an important Seljuk
town, and late in the 14th century passed into Ottoman
hands. There Bayezid Yilderim is said by Ali of Yezd to
have died after his defeat at Angora. The place still enjoys
much repute among Turks, as the burialplace of Nur-ed-din
Khoja. The town has a station on the Anatolian railway,
about 60 m. from Afium-Rara-Hissar and 100 m. from Konia.
AKSU (White Water), a town of the Chinese empire, Eastern
Turkestan, in 41 deg. 7' N. and 79 deg. 7' E. of Uch-Turfan and 270
m. N.E. of Yarkand, near the left bank of the Aksu river,
which takes its origin in the Tien-shan (Tian-shan) mountains
and joins the Tarim. It belongs to the series of oases
(Uch-Turfan, Bai, Koucha, &c.) situated at the southern foot of
the eastern Tien-shan mountains. The tov'n, which is supposed
to have about 6000 houses, is enclosed by a wall. It is an
important centre for caravan routes and has a considerable
trade. There are some cotton manufactures; and the place
is celebrated for its richly ornamented saddlery made from
deerskin. A Chinese garrison is stationed here, and copper and
iron are wrought in the neighbourhood by exiled Chinese criminals.
Extensive cattle-breeding is carried on by the inhabitants.
AKYAR, a city and distact in the Arakan division of
Burma. The city is situated at the confluence of the three
large rivers Myu, Koladaing and Lemyu, and is the most
flourishing city in the Arakan division. Originally it
was a mere fishing village, but when the British government
in 1826 removed the restrictions on trade imposed by the
Burmese, Akyab quickly grew into an important seat of maritime
commerce. After the cession of Arakan by the treaty of Yandaboo
in that year the old capital of Myohaung was abandoned as
the seat of government, and Akyab on the sea-coast selected
instead. During the first forty years of British rule it
increased from a village to a town of 15,536 inhabitants, and
now it is the third port of Burma, with a population in 1901 of
31,687. It contains the usual public buildings and several
large rice mills. The chief exports are rice and oil.
The district lies along the north-eastern shores of the Bay
of . Bengal, with an area of 5136 sq. m. and a population
in 1901 of q81,666. It forms the northernmost district of
Lower Burma, and consists of the level tract lying between
the sea and the Arakan Yoma mountains, and of the broken
country formed by a portion of their western spurs and
valleys. The forests form a most important feature of Akyab
district and contain a valuable supply of timber of many
kinds. The central part of the district consists of three
fertile valleys, watered by the Myu, Koladaing and Lemyu.
These rivers approach each other at their mouths, and form
a vast network of tidal channels, creeks and islands. Their
alluvial valleys yield inexhaustible supplies of rice, which
the abundant water carriage brings down to the port of Akyab
at a very cheap rate. The four chief towns are Khumgchu
in the extreme north-east of the district; Koladaing in the
centre; Arakan, farther down the rivers; and Akyab on the
coast, where their mouths converge. This district passed into
the hands of the British, together with the rest of Arakan
division, at the close of the first Burmese war of 1825--1826.
Akyab was the metropolitan province of the native kingdom of
Arakan, and the history of that country centres in it. In
1871 the frontier or hill tracts of the district were placed
under a special administration, with a view to the better
government of the wild tribes which inhabit them. (J. G. SC.)
ALA (from Lat. ala, a wing), a word used technically
by analogy with its meaning of ``wing.'' In physiology,
it means any wing-like process, such as one of the lateral
cartilages of the nose. In botany, one of the side petals
of a papilionaceous corolla, &c. In architecture, a side
apartment or recess of a Romanhouse (the origin of ``aisle'').
ALABAMA, a southern state of the American Union, situated
between 84 deg. 51' and 88 deg. 31' W. long. and about 30 deg. 13' and
35 deg. N. lat., bounded N. by Tennessee, E. by Georgia, S. by
Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and W. by Mississippi. Its
total area is 51,998 sq. m., of which 719 are water surface.
Physical Features.--The surface of Alabama in the N. and
N.E., embracing about two-fifths of its area, is diversified
and picturesque; the remaining portion is occupied by a gently
undulating plain having a general incline south-westward
toward the Mississippi and the Gulf. Extending entirely
across the state of Alabama for about 20 m. S. of its N.
boundary, and in the middle stretching 60 m. farther S., is
the Cumberland Plateau, or Tennessee Valley region, broken
into broad table-lands by the dissection of rivers. In the
N. part of this plateau, W. of Jackson county, there are about
1000 sq. m. of level highlands from 700 to 800 ft. above the
sea. South of these highlands, occupying a narrow strip on
each side of the Tennessee river, is a delightful country of
gentle rolling lowlands varying in elevation from 500 to 800
ft. To the N.E. of these highlands and lowlands is a rugged
section with steep mountain-sides, deep narrow coves and
valleys, and flat mountain-tops. Its elevations range from
400 to 1800 ft. In the remainder of this region, the S.
portion, the most prominent feature is Little Mountain,
extending about 80 m. from E. to W. between two valleys,
and Asing precipitouslyon the N. side 500 ft. above them
or 1000ft. above the sea. Adjoining the Cumberland Plateau
region on the S.E. is the Appalachian Valley (locally known as
Coosa Valley) region, which is the S. extremity of the great
Appalachian Mountain system, and occupies an area within the
state of about 8000 sq. m. This is a limestone belt with
parallel hard rock ridges left standing by erosion to form
mountains. Although the general direction of the mountains,
ridges and valleys is N.E. and S.W., irregularity is one of
the most prominent characteristics. In the N.E. are several
flat-topped mountains, of which Raccoon and Lookout are the
most prominent, having a maximum elevation near the Georgia
line of little more than 1800 ft. and gradually decreasing in
height toward the S.W., where Sand Mountain is a continuation of
Raccoon. South of these the mountains are marked by steep
N.W. sides, sharp crests and gently sloping S.E. sides.
South-east of the Appalachian Valley region, the Piedmont
Plateau also crosses the Alabama border from the N.E. and
occupies a small triangular-shaped section of which Randolph
and Clay counties, together with the N. part of Tallapoosa and
Chambers, form the principal portion. Its surface is gently
undulating and has an elevation of about 1000 ft. above the
sea. The Piedmont Plateau is a lowland worn down by erosion on
hard crystalline rocks, then uplifted to form a plateau. The
remainder of the state is occupied by the coastal plain. This
is crossed by foot-hills and rolling prairies in the central
part of the state, where it has a mean elevation of about 600
ft., becomes lower and more level toward the S.W., and in
the extreme S. is flat and but slightly elevated above the
sea. The Cumberland Plateau region is drained to the W.N.W.
by the Tennessee river and its tributaries; all other parts
of the state are drained to the S.W. In the Appalachian Valley
region the Coosa is the principal river; and in the Piedmont
Plateau, the Tallapoosa. In the Coastal Plain are the Tombigbee
in the W., the Alabama (formed by the Coosa and Tallapoosa)
in the W. central, and in the E. the Chattahoochee, which
forms almost half of the Georgia boundary. The Tombigbee
and Alabama unite near the S.W. corner of the state, their
waters discharging into Mobile Bay by the Mobile and Tensas
rivers. The Black Warrior is a considerable stream which joins
the Tombigbee from the E. The valleys in the N. and N.E. are
usually deep and narrow, but in the Coastal Plain they are broad
and in most cases rise in three successive terraces above the
stream. The harbour of Mobile was formed by the drowning
of the lower part of the valley of the Alabama and Tombigbee
rivers as a result of the sinking of the land here, such
sinking having occurred on other parts of the Gulf coast.
The fauna and flora of Alabama are similar to those of the
Gulf states in general and have no distinctive characteristics.
Climate and Soil.---The climate of Alabama is temperate and
fairly uniform. The heat of summer is tempered in the S. by the
winds from the Gulf of Mexico, and in the N. by the elevation
above the sea. The average annual temperature is highest in
the S.W. along the coast, and lowest in the N.E. among the
highlands. Thus at Mobile the annual mean is 67 deg. F., the mean
for the summer 81 deg. , and for the winter 52 deg. ; and at Valley
Head, in De Kalb county, the annual mean is 59 deg. , the mean
for the summer 75 deg. , and for the winter 41 deg. . At Montgomery,
in the central region, the average annual temperature is
66 deg. , with a winter average of 49 deg. , and a summer average of
81 deg. . The average winter minimum for the entire state is 35 deg. ,
and there is an average of 35 days in each year in which the
thermometer falls below the freezing-point. At extremely rare
intervals the thermometer has fallen below zero, as was the
case in the remarkable cold wave of the 12th-13th of February
1899, when an absolute minimum of 17 deg. was registered at Valley
Head. The highesl temperature ever recorded was 109 deg. in
Talladega county in 1902. The amount of precipitation is
greatest along the coast (62 in.) and evenly distributed
through the rest of the state (about 52 in.). During each
winter there is usually one fall of snow in the S. and two
in the N.; but the snow quickly disappears, and sometimes,
during' an entire winter, the ground is not covered with
snow. Hail-storms occur in the spring and summer, but are seldom
destructive. Heavy fogs are rare, and are confined chiefly
to the coast. Thunderstorms occur throughout the year, but
are most common in the summer. The prevailing winds are from
the S. As regards its soil, Alabama may be divided into four
regions. Extending from the Gulf northward for one hundred
and fifty miles is the outer belt of the Coastal Plain,
also called the ``Timber Belt,'' whose soil is sandy and
poor, but responds well to fertilization. North of this
is the inner lowland of the Coastal Plain, or the ``Black
Prairie,'' which includes some 13,000 sq. m. and seventeen
counties. It receives its name from its soil (weathered from
the weak underlying limestone), which is black in colour,
almost destitute of sand and loam, and rich in limestone
and marl formations, especially adapted to the production
of cotton; hence the region is also called the ``Cotton
Belt.'' Between the ``Cotton Belt'' and the Tennessee Valley
is the mineral region, the ``Old Land'' area---``a region of
resistant rocks''--whose soils, also derived from weathering
in silu, are of varied fertility, the best coming from the
granites, sandstones and limestones, the poorest from the
gneisses, schists and slates. North of the mineral region
is the ``Cereal Belt,'' embracing the Tennessee Valley and
the counties beyond, whose richest soils are the red clays
and dark loams of the river valley; north of which are less
fertile soils, produced by siliceous and sandstone formations.
Agriculture.---Agriculture is the principal occupation in
Alabama, giving employment to 64.5% of the population. The
farm acreage in 1900 was 20,685,427 acres (62% of the entire
surface of the state), of which 8,654,991 acres (41.8%) were
improved. Under the system of slave labour which existed
before 1860, the average size of the plantations tended to
increase, but since 1860 the reverse has been true, the
average plantation in 1860 being 346 acres, and in 190092.7
acres. The average value per acre of farm land was $11.86
in 1860 and $8,67 in 1900. As to method of cultivation,
36.3 per cent of the farms were in 1900 managed by the
owners, 33.3% by cash renters, 24.4(R by share tenants, and
the remaining 6% by other methods. The chief product is
cotton, cultivated extensively in the ``Black Belt'' and
less extensively in the other portions of the state. Cotton
has always been the principal source of wealth, the amount
of its exports at Mobile increasing from 7000 bales in 1818
to 25,000 bales in 1821, and the total product of the state
in 1840 being double that of 1830. This was accompanied
by an extensive employment of slave labour, and from 1820
until 1860 the rate of increase of the blacks was greater
than that of the whites. The success of the economic system
was such that in 1860 the cotton crop of Alabama was nearly
1,000,o00 bales (989,955 bales), being 18.4% of the entire
cotton product of the United States. The disorganization of
labour resulting from the Civil War and the emancipation of
slaves, was the cause of a temporary decline in the cotton
crop. In 1889 the crop again approximated to 1,000,000 bales
(915,210 bales, being 12.2% of the entire crop of the United
States), and in 1899 it exceeded that amount, Alabama being
fourth among the states of the entire country. The total value
of the farm products of Alabama in 1899 was $91,387,409; in
1889, $66,240,190; and in 1879, $56,872,994. The average
yield per acre has also increased under the system of free
labour. In recent years there has been a tendency to diversify
crops Indian corn, wheat and oats being mised extensively in
the ``Cereal Belt.'' In 1906, according to the Year-Book
of the Department of Agriculture, the following were the
acreages, yields and values of Alabama's more important
crops (excepting cotton):---Indian corn, 2,990,387 acres,
47,849,392 bushels, $30,623,611; wheat, 98,639 acres, 1,085,029
bushels, $1,019,927; oats, 184,179 acres, 3,167,879 bushels,
$1,615,618; hay, 56,350 acres, 109,882 tons, $1,461,431 .
Minerals.--The chief feature of Alabama's industrial life
since 1880 has been the exploitation of her iron and coal
resources. The iron ore (found chiefly in the region of
which Birmingham is the centre) is primarily red haematite
and (much less important) brown haematite; though as regards
the latter Alabama ranked first among the states of the
Union in 1905 (with 781,561 tons). The total production of
all classes of iron ores was 3,782,831 tons in 1905, Alabama
ranking third in the Union in this respect. The production
of bituminous coal has also increased very rapidly. Coal
was first discovered in the state in 1834, and in 1840 the
total production was 946 tons; in 1870 it was 13,200 short
tons. The real development of the mines began in 1881 and
1882, and the product increased from 420,000 tons in 1881
to 1,568,000 in 1883. By 1890 it had increased to 4,090,409
tons, by 1900 to 8,394,275 tons, and by 1905 to 11,866,069
tons, valued at $14,387,721, making Alabama sixth of the
coal-producing states. Nearly 85% of the coal is produced
in three counties (Jefferson, Walker and Bibb), though the
coalbearing formations cover about 40% of the northern half
of the state. Gold, silver, lead, copper, tin and bauxite
have also been discovered, but the greater richness of the
iron and coal deposits has prevented their development.
Manufactures.---The growth of manufactures in Alabama
has been as remarkable as the revelation of mineral
wealth. In 1880 the capital invested in manufactures was
$9,668,008, little more than that ($9,098,181) in 1860;
by 1890 it had increased to $46,122,571, or 377.1%; and
in 1900 it amounted to $70,370,081, or 52.6% more than in
1890. On account of the proximity of coal, iron and
limestone, the manufactures of iron and steel are the most
extensive. In 1895 it was demonstrated that Alabama pig-iron
could be sent to Liverpool and sold cheaper than the English
product, and Birmingham (Alabama) came consequently to rank
next to Middlesborough and Glasgow among the world centres
of the pig-iron trade. The pig-iron produced in the state
in 1860 was valued at $64,590, in 1870 at $210,258, in
1880 at $1,405,356, in 1900 at $13,487,769, and in 1905 at
$16,614,577. In the production of foundry pig-iron Alabama
held first rank both in 1900 and in 1905. The manufacture of
steel, though in its infancy, gave promise of equalling that
of iron, and the coke industry is also Of growing importance,
the product of Alabama during the five years from 1896 to 1901
showing a greater increase, relatively, than that of the other
states. In 1900 the state ranked sixth and in 1905 fifth
among the states of the United States in the manufactures
of iron and steel. In 1905 the value of the product was
2.7% of the value of the total iron and steel product of the
country, and 22.6% of the value of all the state's factory
products. In 1900 and in 1905 Alabama ranked second among
the states of the Union in the production of coke, its product
being more than one-tenth of that for the whole country, and
more than one-twentieth (5.2% in 1000; 5.7% in 1905) of all
the factory products of the state. The demand for coke is
due to the rapidly growing iron and steel industry. Great
possibilities were also shown for the production of lumber and
naval stores. Approximately three-fourths of the total area
of the state is woodland. In the ``Timber Belt'' the forests
of long leaf pine have an estimated stand of 21,192 million
ft.; and in 1905 the product of sawed lumber was valued at
$13,563,815. Of this, yellow pine represented $11,320,909,
oak $886,746, and poplar $627,686. In the decade 1890-1900
the number of turpentine factories increased from 7 to
152, and their product in 1900 and in 1905 ranked Alabama
third among the states in that industry. The value of the
turpentine and rosin products in 1905 was $ 2,434,365 .
The manufacture of cotton goods has also developed rapidly.
As late as 1890 there were only 13 cotton mills in Alabama,
one more than the number in 1850; in 19-0 there were 31,
representing a capital of $11,638,757 and an annual product
valued at $8,153,136, an increase of 272. 2% Over the product
($2,190,771) of 1890; in 1905 there wers 46 establishments,
representing a capital of $24,758,049 (an increase of
112`7% over that of 1900), and having a product (for the
year) of $16,760,332, an increase of 105.6% over that for
1900. To encourage the establishment of cotton mills the
legislature of 1896-1897 exempted from taxation during the
succeeding ten years all capital that should be invested in
the manufacture of cotton, provided that $50,000 or more be
invested in buildings and machinery. Other industries of
less importance are flour, fertilizers and tanned leather.
Communications.---The navigable mileage of the Alabama
rivers is 2000 m., but obstructions often prevent the formation
of a continuous route, notably the ``Muscle Shoals'' of the
Tennessee, extending from a point 10 m. below Decatur to
Florence, a distance of 38 m. To remove or circumvent these
impediments, and to improve the Mobile harbour, the United
States government spent, between 1870 and 1904, approximately
$12,000,000: As the streams in the mineral region are not
navigable, the railways are the carriers of its products.2
Here all the large systems of the southern states find an
entrance, the Mobile & Ohio, the Southern (Queen & Crescent
Route), the Louisville & Nashville, and the Frisco system
affording communication with the Mississippi and the
west, and the Southern, Seaboard Air Line, Atlantic Coast
Line, and the Central of Georgia forming connexions with
northern and Atlantic states. Mobile, the only seaport of
the state, has a channel 30 ft. deep, on which the national
government spends large sums of money; yet an increasing
amount of Alabama cotton is sent to New Orleans for shipment,
and Pensacola, Florida, receives much of the lumber.
Population.---In 1880 the inhabitants of Alabama numbered
1,262,505; in 1890, 1,513,017, an increase of 17%:; in 1900,
1,828,697, a further increase of 20%. This population is
notable for its large proportion of negroes (45.23%), its
insignificant foreign element (.08%), and the small percentage
of urban inhabitants (10%). As regards church membership,
the Baptists are much the most numerous, followed by the
Methodists, the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians. In
1900 there were 201 incorporated cities, towns and villages
in the state, but of these only nine had a population in
excess of 5000, and only three a population in excess of
25,000. These three were Mobile (38,469), Birmingham
(38,415), and Montgomery (30,346), the capital of the
state. Other important cities, with their populations, were
Selma (8713), Anniston (9695), Huntsville (8068), Bessemer
(6358), Tuscaloosa (5094), Talladega (5056), Eufaula (4532)
and Tuskegee (2170). In 1910 the population was 2,138,003.
Government.---Alabama has been governed ui,der five
constitutions, the original constitution of 1819, the revision
of 186b, the constitutions of 1868 and 1875, and the present
constitution. which was framed in 1901. The last has a number
of notable provisions. It lengthened the term of service of
executive and legislative officials from two to four years,
made that of the judiciary six years, provided for quadrennial
sessions of the legislature, and introduced the office of
lieutenant-governor. The passage of local or special bills
by the legislature was prohibited. A provision intended to
prevent lobbying is that no one except legislators and the
representatives of the press may be admitted to the floor of
the House except by unanimous vote. No executive official
can succeed himself in office, and the governor cannot be
elected or appointed to the United States Senate, or to any
state office during his term as governor, or within one year
thereafter. Sheriffs whose prisoners suffer mob violence may be
impeached. The constitution eliminated the negro from politics
by a suffrage clause which went int0 effect in 1903. This
limits the right to vote to those who can read and write any
article of the constitution of the United States, and have
worked or been regularly engaged in some lawful employment,
business or occupation, trade or calling for the greater part
of the twelve months next preceding the time they offer to
register, unless prevented from labour or ability to read and
write by physical disability, or who own property assessed at
$300 upon which the taxes have been paid; but those who have
served in the army or navy of the United States or of the
Confederate States in time of war, their lawful descendants in
every degree, and persons of good character ``who understand
the duties and obligations of citizenship under a republican
form of government,'' are relieved from the operation of this
law provided they registered prior to the 20th of December
1902. The second of these exceptions is known as the
``Grandfather Clause.'' No man may vote in any election who
has not by the 1st of February next preceding that election
paid all poll taxes due from him to the state. In 1902
nine-tenths of the negroes in the state were disqualified from
voting.3 The constitution of 1901 (like that of 1867) and
special statutes require separate schools for white and negro
children. A ``Jim Crow'' law was enacted in 1891. Buying,
selling or offering to buy or sell a vote has for penalty
disfranchisement, and since 1891 the Australian ballot system
has been used. The governor, auditor and attorney-general
are required to prepare and present to each legislature a
general revenue bill, and the secretary of state, with the
last two officers, constitute a board of pardons who make
recommendations to the governor, who, however, is not bound
to follow their advice in the exercise of his pardoning
power. State officials are forbidden to accept railway passes
from railway companies, and individuals are forbidden to
receive freight rebates. The constitution of 1901 exempted
a homestead of 80 acres of farm land, or of a house and lot
not exceeding $2000 in value, from liability for any debt
contracted since the 30th of July 1868 except for a mortage
on it to which the wife consented; personal property to the
value of $1000 is exempted. Under the civil code of 1897
the earnings of a wife are her separate property, and it is
provided that ``no woman, nor any boy under age of twelve
years, shall be employed to work or labour in or about any
mine in this state.'' By acts of 1903 child labour under 12
years is forbidden in any factory unless for suoport of ``a
widowed mother or aged or disabled father,'' or unless the
child is an indigent orphan; ``no child under the age of
ten years shall be so employed under any circumstances.''
Certificates of children's ages are necessary before a child
is employed; false certification is forbidden under penalty of
a fine of from $5 to $100 or hard labour not exceeding three
months. No child under 13 may do night work at all. No
child under 16 may do more than 48 hours a week of light
work. No child of less than 12 is allowed to work more than
66 hours in any one week. An able-bodied parent who does not
work when he has the opportunity, unless ``idle under strike
orders, or lock-outs,'' and who hires out his minor children,
is declared a vagrant and may be fined $500 and imprisoned
or sentenced to hard labour for not more than six months.
All amendments to the constitution must be approvedbya
three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature and
then ratified by the people. The legislature of 1900--1901
established a department of archives and history whose
aim is to preserve documents and historical records.
Education.---Public education for Mobile was authorized
by the legislature of 1826, but it was not provided until
1852. Two years later (1854) a sch00l system for the entire
state was inaugurated. Its support was derived from public
land given by the United States to the state of Alabama for
educational purposes in 1819, and special taxes or tuition
fixed by each township. The Civil War demoralized the
nascent system. An important step in its revival seemed
to be made in the constitution of 1868, which forbade any
private recompense for instruction in the public schools
and appropriated one-fifth of the state's revenue to common
schools. But the attempt to teach whites and blacks in the same
schools, and the corruption in the administration of funds,
made the results unsatisfactory. The constitution of 1875
abolished the one-fifth revenue provision, made the support
of the schools, except that derived from the land grant of
1819, and poll taxes, depend upon the appropriation of the
legislature, and established separate schools for whites and
blacks. Progress has been slow but steady. According to
the constitution of 1901 the legislature is required to levy,
in addition to the poll tax, an annual tax for education at
the rate of 30 to 65 cents on the hundred dollars' worth of
property, and practically every county in the state had made
in 190G an appropriation for its schools of a one mill tax on
$i00. The school fund in 1900 amounted to $1,000,000, an
increase of 37% over the average a1+ual fund of the preceding
decade; for the year ending the 30th of September 1907
the amount certified for apportionment by the state was
$1,150,261.40, and the total annual expenditure was about
$1,600,000; in 1906 the school census showed 697,465 children
of school age. The legislature of 1907 voted an increase
of $300,000 in the appropriation for the common school fund,
and granted state-aid for rural school-houses; but its most
important work probably was the establishment of county high
schools. The rural schools have an annual term of five
to seven months only. The percentage of illiterates
dechnedfrom 50.97% in 1880 to 41% in 1890, and 34% in 1900,
when Alabama ranked third among the states in illiteracy.
There are also a number of institutions for higher education in
Alabama. The most important of these are the university of
Alabama (co-educational---opened in 1831), at Tuscaloosa, the
institution being part of the public school system maintained
by the state; the Alabama Polytechnic Institute at Auburn, a
``state college for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic
arts,'' organized in 1872 according to the United States
land grant act for the promotion of industrial education; the
Southern University (incorporated 1856--Methodist Episcopal,
South), at Greensboro; Howard College (Baptist), at East Lake
(Birmingham); Spring Hill College (1830--Roman Catholic), near
Mobile; Talladega College (for negroes), at Talladega; the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute (for negroes), at Tuskegee;
and state normal schools at Florence, Jacksonville, Troy and
Livingston, and, for negroes, at Montgomery, Tuskegee and Normal.
Public Institutions.---Alabama supports various philanthropic
and penal institutions: a home for Confederate veterans, at
Mountain Creek; an institution for the deaf, an academy for the
blind, and a school for the negro deaf, dumb and blind, all
at Talladega; a hospital for the insane, opened in 1860, at
Tuscaloosa; a penitentiary, established in 1839, at Wetumpka;
and a state industrial school for white boys, at East Lake
(Birmingham); and a state industrial school for white girls at
Montevallo. These institutions are managed by trustees who
are appointed by the governor. In addition to the usual
method of employing convicts in the penitentiary or on state
farms, Alabama, like other southern states, also hires its
convicts to labour for private individuals. Reports of
abuses under this system caused the legislature in 1901 to
order a special investigation, the results of which led in
1903 to a new system of leasing to contractors, whereby the
prisoners are kept under the direct supervision of state
officials. In this same year a system of peonage that
had grown up in the state attracted wide attention, and
a Federal grand jury at a single term of court indicted a
number of men for holding persons as ``peons.'' Many similar
cases were found later in other southern states, but those
in Alabama being the first discovered attracted the most
attention. The system came into existence in isolated
communities through the connivance of justices of the peace
with white farmers. The justices have jurisdiction over petty
offences, of which negroes are usually the guilty parties,
and the fines imposed would sometimes be paid by a white
farmer, who would thus save the accused from imprisonment,
but at the same time would require him to sign a contract
to repay by his labour the sum advanced. By various devices
the labourer would then be kept constantly in debt to his
employer and be held in involuntary servitude for an indefinite
time. The ``peons'' as a rule were negroes, but a few white
ones were found; and in several instances negroes were found
holding members of their own race in peonage. A law forbidding
under severe penalties a labourer from hiring himself to a
second employer without giving notice of a prior contract,
and an employer from hiring a labourer known by him to be
bound by such a contract, had aided in the development of the
system, though it had been enacted for a different purpose.
The Federal authorities, as soon as the existence of peonage
became known, took active measures to stamp it out, and were
supported by the press and by the leading citizens of the
state. Up to 1907 the state licensed the sale of liquor,
and liquor licence fees were partly turned over to the public
school fund; there was a dispensary system in some counties;
and in 1907 one-third of the counties of the state (22 out
of 67) were ``dry.'' Besides, saloons had been forbidden
within 5 m. of certain churches and school-houses, so that
liquor was sold scarcely at all except in incorporated towns,
where in many cases local dispensaries were established.
In the 1907 state legislature a county local option bill was
passed in February, and immediately afterward the Sherrod
anti-shipping bill was enacted forbidding the acceptance
of liquors for shipment, transportation or delivery to
prohibition districts, and penalising the soliciting of orders
for liquor in ``dry'' districts with a punishment of $500
fine and six months' imprisonment with hard labour. In a
special session of the legislature in November 1907 a law was
passed forbidding the sale of liquor within the state, this
prohibition to come into effect on the 1st of January 1909.
Finance.---One-half of the income of the state is derived
from general taxes, the other sources of revenue being
licences, a special school tax, poll tax and the lease of the
convicts. The state debt, for which legislative corruption
in the years 1868-1872 was largely responsible, amounted
on the 1st of October 1906 to $9,057,000. Measures for its
relunding, but not for its extinction, have been taken. The
constitution of 1901 prohibits the increase of the debt for
any other purposes than the suppression of insurrection or
resistance to invasion, and the assumption of corporate debts
by cities and towns is also restricted. All banks, except
national banks, are subject to examination by a public official,
and their charters expire within twenty years of their issue.
History.---The first Europeans to enter the limits of the
present state of Alabama were Spaniards, who claimed this
region as a part of Florida. It is possible that a member of
Panfilo de Narvaez's expedition of 1528 entered what is now
southern Alabama, but the first fully authenticated visit n'as
that of Hernando de Soto, who made an arduous but fruitless
journey along the Coosa, Alabama and Tombigbee rivers in
1539. The English, too, claimed the region north of the
Gulf of Mexico, and the territory of modern Alabama was
included in the province of Carolina, granted by Charles
II. to certain of his favourites by the charters of 1663 and
1665. English traders of Carolina were frequenting the valley
of the Alabama river as early as 1687. Disregarding these
claims, however, the French in 1702 settled on the Mobile
river and there erected Fort Louis, which for the next nine
years was the seat of government of Louisiana. In 1711 Fort
Louis was abandoned to the floods of the river, and on higher
ground was built Fort Conde, the germ of the present city of
Mobile, and the first permanent white settlement in Alabama.
Later, on account of the intrigues of the English traders
with the Indians, the French as a means of defence established
the military posts of Fort Toulouse, near the junction of
the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, and Fort Tombecbe on the
Tombigbee river. The grant of Georgia to Oglethorpe and his
associates in 1732 included a portion of what is now northern
Alabama, and in 1739 Oglethorpe himself visited the Creek
Indians west of the Chattahoochee river and made a treaty with
them. The peace of Paris, in 1763, terminated the French
occupation, and England came into undisouted possession of
the region between the Chattahoochee and the Mississippi. The
portion of Alabama below the 31st parallel then became a part
of West Florida, and the portion north of this line a part
of the Illinois country,'' set apart, by royal proclamation,
for the use of the Indians. In 1767 the province of West
Florida was extended northward to 32 deg. 28' N. lat., and a
few years later, during the War for Independence, this region
fell into the hands of Spain. By the treaty of Versailles,
on the 3rd of September 1783, England ceded West Florida to
Spain; but by the treaty of Paris, signed the same day, she
ceded to the United States all of this province north of 31 deg. ,
and thus laid the foundation for a long controversy. By the
treaty of Madrid, in 1795, Spain ceded to the United States
her claims to the lands east of the Mississippi between 31 deg.
and 32 deg. 28'; and three years later (1798) this district was
organized by Congress as the Mississippi Territory. A strip
of land 12 or 14 m. wide near the present northern boundary
of Alabama and Mississippi was claimed by South Carolina;
but in 1787 that state ceded this claim to the general
government. Georgia likewise claimed all the lands between
the 31st and 35th parallels from its present western boundary
to the Mississippi river, and did not surrender its claim
until 1802; two years later the boundaries of the Mississippi
Territory were extended so as to include all of the Georgia
cession. In 1812 Congress annexed to the Mississippi Territory
the Mobile District of West Florida, claiming that it was
included in the Louisiana Purchase; and in the following year
General James Wilkinson occupied this district with a military
force, the Spanish commandant offering no resistance. The
whole area of the present state of Alabama then for the
first time became subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States. In 1817 the Mississippi Territory was divided; the
western portion became the state of Mississippi, and the
eastern the territory of Alabama, with St Stephens, on the
Tombigbee river, as the temporary seat of government. In
1819 Alabama was regularly admitted to the Union as a state.
One of the first problems of the new commonwealth was that of
finance. Since the amount of money in circulation was not
sufficient to meet the demands of the increasing population,
a system of state banks was instituted. State bonds were
issued and public lands were sold to secure capital, and the
notes of the banks, loaned on security, became a medium of
exchange. Prospects of an income from the banks led the
legislature of 1836 to abolish all taxation for state purposes.
This was hardly done, however, before the panic of 1837 wiped
out a large portion of the banks' assets; next came revelations
of grossly careless and even of corrupt management, and in
1843 the banks were placed in liquidation. After disposing
of all their available assets, the state assumed the remaining
liabilities, for which it had pledged its faith and credit,
and these form a part ($3,445,000) of its present indebtedness.
The Indian problem was important. With the encroachment
of the white settlers upon their hunting-grounds the Creek
Indians began to grow restless, and the great Shawnee chief
Tecumseh, who visited them in 1811, fomented their discontent.
When the outbreak of the second war with Great Britain in
1812 gave the Creeks assurance of British aid they rose in
arms, massacred several hundred settlers who had taken refuge
in Fort Mims, near the junction of the Alabama and Tombigbee
rivers, and in a short time no white family in the Creek
country was safe outside a palisade. The Chickasaw and Choctaw
Indians, however, remained the faithful allies of the whites,
and volunteers from Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee,
and later United States troops, marched to the rescue of the
threatened settlements. In the campaign that followed the most
distinguished services were rendered by General Andrew Jackson,
whose vigorous measures broke for ever the power of the Creek
Confederacy. By the treaty of Fort Jackson (9th of August
1814) the Creeks ceded their claims to about one-half of the
present state; and cessions by the Cherokees, Chickasaws and
Choctaws in 1816 left only about one-fourth of Alabama to the
Indians. In 1832 the national government provided for the
removal of the Creeks; but before the terms of the contract were
effected, the state legislature formed the Indian lands into
counties, and settlers flocked in. This caused a disagreement
between Alabama and the United States authorities; although
it was amicably setrled, it engendered a feeling that the
policy of the national government might not be in harmony with
the interests of the state---a feeling which, intensified by
the slavery agitation, did much to cause secession in 1861.
The political history of Alabama may be divided
into three periods, that prior to 1860, the years
from 1860 to 1876, and the period from 1876 onwards.
The first of these is the only period of altogether healthy
political life. Until 1832 there was only one party in the
state, the Democratic, but the question of nullification caused
a division that year into the (Jackson) Democratic party and
the State's Rights (Calhoun Democratic) party; about the same
time, also, there arose, chiefly in those counties where the
proportion of slaves to freemen was greater and the freemen
were most aristocratic, the Whig party. For some time the
Whigs were nearly as numerous as the Democrats, but they
never secured control of the state government. The State's
Rights men were in a minority; nevertheless under their active
and persistent leader, William L. Yancey (1814-1863), they
pvevailed upon the Democrats in 1848 to adopt their most radical
views. During the agitation over the introduction of slavery
into the territory acquired from Mexico, Yancey induced the
Democratic State Convention of 1848 to adopt what is known
as the ``Alabama Platform,'' which declared in substance
that neither Congress nor the government of a territory
had the right to interfere with slavery in a territory,
that those who held opposite views were not Democrats, and
that the Democrats of Alabama would not support a candidate
for the presidency if he did not agree with them on these
questions. This platform was endorsed by conventions in
Florida and Virginia and by the legislatures of Georgia and
Alabama. Old party lines were broken by the Compromise of
1850. The State's Rights party, joined by many Democrats,
founded the Southern Rights party, which demanded the
repeal of the Compromise, advocated resistance to future
encroachments and prepared for secession, while the Whigs,
joined by the remaining Democrats, formed the party known as
the ``Unionists,'' which unwillingly accepted the Compromise
and denied the ``constitutional'' right of secession. The
``Unionists'' were successful in the elections of 1851 and
1852, but the feeling of uncertainty engendered in the south
by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the course
of the slavery agitation after 1852 led the State Democratic
convention of 1856 to revive the ``Alabama Platform''; and when
the `i Alabama Platform'' failed to secure the formal approval
of the Democratic National convention at Charleston, South
Carolina, in 1860, the Alabama delegates, followed by those
of the other cotton ``states,'' withdrew. Upon the election
of Abraham Lincoln, Governor Andrew B. Moore, according to
previous instructions of the legislature, called a state
convention on the 7th of January 1861 After long debate this
convention adopted on the 11th of January an ordinance of
secession, and Alabama became one of the Confederate states of
America, whose government was organized at Montgomery on the 4th
of February 1861. Yet secession was opposed by many prominent
men, and in North Alabama an attempt was made to organize
a neutral state to be called Nickajack; but with President
Lincoln's call to arms all opposition to secession ended.
In the early part of the Civil War Alabama was not the scene
of military operations, yet the state contributed about
120,000 men to the Confederate service, practically all her
white population capable of bearing arms, and thirty-nine
of these attained the rank of general. In 1863 the Federal
forces secured a foothold in northern Alabama in spite of
the opposition of General Nathan B. Forrest, one of the
ablest Confederate cavalry leaders. In 1864 the defences
of Mobile were taken by a Federal fleet, but the city held
out until April 1865; in the same month Selma also fell.
According to the presidential plan of reorganization, a
provisional governor for Alabama was appointed in June 1865; a
state convention met in September of the same year, and declared
the ordinance of secession null and void and slavery abolished;
a legislature and a governor were elected in November, the
legislature was at once recognized by the National government,
and the inauguration of the governor-elect was permitted after
the legislature had, in December, ratified the thirteenth
amendment. But the passage, by the legislature, of vagrancy
and apprenticeship laws designed to control the negroes who
were flocking from the plantations to the cities, and its
rejection of the fourteenth amendment, so intensified the
congressional hostility to the presidential plan that the
Alabama senators and representatives were denied their seats in
Congress. In 1867 the congressional plan of reconstruction
was completed and Alabama was placed under military
government. The negroes were now enrolled as voters and
large numbers of white citizens were disfranchised.4 A Black
Man's Party, composed of negroes, and political adventurers
known as ``carpet-baggers,'' was formed, which co-operated
with the Republican party. A constitutional convention,
controlled by this element, met in November 1867, and framed
a constitution which conferred suffrage on negroes and
disfranchised a large class of whites. The Reconstruction Acts
of Congress required every new constitution to be ratified by
a majority of the legal voters of the state. The whites of
Alabama therefore stayed away from the polls, and, after five
days of voting, the constitution wanted 13,550 to secure a
majority. Congress then enacted that a majority of the
votes cast should be sufficient, and thus the constitution
went into effect, the state was admitted to the Union in
June 1868, and a new governor and legislature were elected.
The next two years are notable for legislative extravagance and
corruption. The state endorsed railway bonds at the rate of
$12,000 and $16,000 a mile until the state debt had increased
from eight millions to seventeen millions of dollars, and similar
corruption characterized local government. The native white
people united, formed a Conservative party and elected a governor
and a majority of the lower house of the legislature in 1870;
but, as the new administration was largely a failure, in 1872
there was a reaction in favour of the Radicals, a local term
applied to the Republican party, and affairs went from bad to
worse. In 1874, however, the power of the Radicals was
finally broken, the Conservative Democrats electing all state
officials. A commission appointed to examine the state debt
found it to be $25,503,000; by compromise it was reduced to
$15,000,000. A new constitution was adopted in 1875, which
omitted the guaranty of the previous constitution that no one
should be denied suffrage on account of race, colour or previous
condition of servitude, and forbade the state to engage in internal
improvements or to give its credit to any private enterprise.
Since 1874 the Democratic party has had constant control of
the state administration, the Republicans failing to make
nominations for office in 1878 and 1880 and endorsing the ticket
of the Greenback party in 1882. The development of mining and
manufacturing was accompanied by economic distress among the
farming classes, which found expression in the Jeffersonian
Democratic party, organized in 1892. The regular Democratic
ticket was elected and the new party was then merged into
the Populist party. In 1894 the Republicans united with the
Populists, elected three congressional representatives, secured
control of many of the counties, but failed to carry the state,
and continued their opposition with less success in the next
campaigns. Partisanship became intense, and charges of corruption
of the ignorant negro electorate were made. Consequently
after division on the subject among the Democrats themselves,
as well as opposition of Republicans and Populists, a new
constitution with restrictions on suffrage was adopted in 1901.
The following is a list of the territorial and state governors of Alabama:--
Governors of the Territory.
William Wyatt Bibb . . . . 1817-1819
Governors of the State.
William Wyatt Bibb . . . . 1819-1820 Democrat.
Thomas Bibb 5 . . . . . . 1820-1821 "
Israel Pickens . . . . . . 1821-1825 "
John Murphy . . . . . . . 1825-1829 "
Gabriel cloore . . . . . . 1829-1831 "
Samuel B. Moore . . . . . 1831 "
John Gayle . . . . . . . . 1831-1835 "
Clement C. Clay . . . . . 1835-1837 "
Hugh M`Vay 6 . . . . . . . 1837 "
Arthur P. Bagby . . . . . 1837-1841 "
Benjamin Fitzpatrick 7 . . 1841-1845 "
Joshua L. Martin . . . . . 1845-1847 "
Reuben Chapman . . . . . . 1847-1849 "
Henry W. Collier . . . . . 1849-1853 "
John A. Winston . . . . . 1853-1857 "
Adrew B. Moore . . . . . . 1857-1861 "
John Gill Shorter . . . . 1861-1863 "
Thomas H. Watts . . . . . 1863-1865 "
Lewis E. Parsons . . . . . 1865 Provisional.
Robert M. Patton . . . . . 1865-1867 Republican.
Wager Swayne . . . . . . . 1867-1868 Military.
William H. Smith . . . . . 1868-1870 Republican.
Robert B. Lindsay . . . . 1870-1872 Democrat.
David P. Lewis . . . . . . 1872-1874 Republican.
Ceorge S. Houston . . . . 1874-1878 Democrat.
Rufus W. Cobb . . . . . . 1878-1882 "
Edward A. O'Neal . . . . . 1882-1886 "
Thomas Seay . . . . . . . 1886-1890 "
Thomas G. Jones . . . . . 1890-1894 "
William C. Oates . . . . . 1894-1896 "
Joseph F. Johnston . . . . 1896-1900 "
William J. Samford . . . . 1900-1901 "
William D. Jellis . . . . 1901-1907 "
B. B. Comer . . . . . . . 1907 "
BIBLIOGRAPHY.---For an elaborate bibliography of Alabama
(by Thomas M. Owen) see the Annual Report of the American
Historical Association for 1807 (Washington, 1898).
Information regarding the resources, climate, population
and industries of Alabama may be found in the reports of the
United Statescensus,and in the publications of the United
States Department of Agriculture, the United States Geological
Survey, the Bulletins of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment
Station (published at Auburn, from 1888), the Bulletins
and Reports of the Alabama Geological Survey (published at
Tuscaloosa and Montgomery), and in the following works:--B.
F. Riley's Alabama As It Is (Montgomery, 1893), and Saffold
Berney's Handbook of Alabama (2nd ed., Birmingham, 1892)
Information concerning the history of the state may be obtained
in William G. Brown's History of Alabama (New York, 1900);
Newton W. Bates's History and Civil Government of Alabama
(Florence, Ala, 1892); Willis Brewer's Alabama: Her History,
Resources, War Record and Public Men (Montgomery, 1872); A.
Davis Smith's and T. A. Deland's Northern Alabama, Historical
and Biographical (Birmingham, 1888); Albert J. Pickett's
History of Alabama (5th ed., 2 vols., Birmingham, Ala., 1900),
which contains a valuable compilation of the ``Annals of Alabama
from 1819 to 1900,'' by Thomas M. Owen; and Walter L. Fleming's
Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama (New York, 1905). .
In addition, W. G. Clark's History of Education in Alabama
(Washington, 1889); W. E. Martin's Internal Improvements
in Alabama (Baltimore, 1902; Johns Hopkins University
Studies, (Series 20, No. 4); and W. L. Martin's Code of
Alabama (2 vols., Atlanta, Ga., 1897) may be consulted.
Information concerning the aboriginal remains in the state may
be found in two papers by Clarence B. Moore, ``Certain Aboriginal
Remains of the Tombigbee River'' and ``Certain Aboriginal Remains
of the Alabama River,'' published in the Journal of the Academy
of Natural Sciences, series 2, vol. ii. (Philadelphia, 1900).
1 The special census of manufactures taken in 1905 was
confined to manufacturing establishments conducted under
the ``factory system.'' According to this census the capital
invested was $105,382,859, and the value of products was
$109,169,922. The corresponding figures for 1900, if the
same standard be taken for purposes of comparison, would be
$60,165,904 and $72,109,929. During the five years, therefore,
the capital invested in establishments under the factory
system increased 75.2%, and the value of products 51.4%.
2 The railway mileage of the state on
the 31st of December 1906 was 4805.58 m.
3 In Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 474, a negro asked that the
defendant board of registry be required to enrol his name and
the names of other negroes on the registration lists, and that
certain sections of the constitution of Alabama be declared void
as being contrary to the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments
to the federal constitution. The Supreme Court dismissed
the bill on the grounds that equity has no jurisdiction over
political matters; that, assuming the fraudulent character
of the objectionable constitutional provisions, the court
was in effect asked to assist in administering a fraud;
and that relief ``must be given by them [the people of the
state] or By the legislative and political departments of the
government of the United States.'' The case attracted much
attention; and it is often erroneously said that the court
upheld the disfranchising clauses of the Alabama constitution.
4 The enrolment was 104,318 blacks and 61,295 whites.
5 William Wyatt Bibb died in 1820, and Thomas Bibb, then president
of the state senate, filled the unexpired term of one year (1820).
6 In 1837 Governor Clay was elected United States Senator, and Hugh
M`Vay, the president of the state senate, filled the unexpired term.
7 Until 1845 the term of state officials was one year; from then
until 1901 it was two years; since 1901 it has been four years.
``ALABAMA'' ARBITRATION.---This is one of those arbitrations
on pecuniary claims, made by one state, on behalf of its
subjects, against another state, which are referred to in the
article ARBITRATION, INTERNATIONAL. The case is important,
both from a.historical and a juridical point of view, and
affords a conspicuous example of the value of arbitration
as a means of averting war. The facts are as follows:--
In 1861 the Southern States of North America seceded from the
rest on the slavery question and set up a separate government
under President Jefferson Davis. Hostilities began with the
capture of Fort Sumter by the Confederates on the 13th of April
1861. On the 19th of April President Abraham Lincoln declared
a blockade of the southern ports. On the 14th of May the
British government issued a proclamation of neutrality, by
which the Confederates were recognized as belligerents. This
example was followed shortly afterwards by France and other
nations. The blockade of the southern ports was not at
first effective, and blockade-running soon became an active
industry. The Confederates established agencies in England
for the purchase of arms, which they despatched in ordinary
merchant vessels to the Bahamas, whence they were transhipped
into fast steamers especially constructed for the purpose.
In June 1862 the vessel, the ``Alabama,'' originally known as
``No. 290,'' was being built by Messrs. Laird at Birkenhead.
She was then nearly completed and was obviously intended for a
man-of-war. On the 23rd of June Mr C. F. Adams forwarded
to Earl Russell a letter from the United States consul at
Liverpool giving certain particulars as to her character.
This letter was laid before the law officers, who advised
that, if these particulars were correct, the vessel ought to be
detained. On the 21st of July sworn evidence, which was
supplemented on the 23rd of July, was obtained and laid before
the commissioners of customs (who were the proper authorities
to enforce the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act of
1819), but they declined to move. On the 23rd of July the same
evidence was laid before the law officers, who advised that
there was sufficient ground fordetention. By some accident,
which has never been satisfactorily explained, but was probably
connected with the severe illness of Sir John Harding, the
queen's advocate, the papers were not returned till the 29th of
July. Instructions were then issued to seize the vessel, but
she had already sailed on the evening of the 28th. Although
she remained for two days off the coast of Anglesey, there was
no serious attempt at pursuit. She afterwards made her way to
the Azores, where she received her armament, which was brought
from Liverpool in two British ships. Captain Sommes there
took command of her under a commission from the Confederate
government. After a most destructive career she was sunk
off Cherbourg by the ``Kearsarge'' on the 19th of June 1864.
On these facts the United States government alleged against
Great Britain two grievances, or sets of grievances. The first
was the recognition of the Southern States as belligerents
and a general manifestation of unfriendliness in other
ways. The second was in respect of breaches of neutrality
in allowing the ``Alabama,'' the ``Florida'' (originally the
``Oreto'', the ``Shenandoah'' and other Confederate vessels
to be built and equipped on British territory. Correspondence
ensued extending over several years. At length in February
1871 a commission was appointed to sit at Washington in
order, if possible, to arrive at some common understanding
as to the mode in which the questions at issue might be
settled. With resoect to the ``Alabama'' claims the British
commissioners suggested that they should be submitted to
arbitration. The American commissioners refused ``unless
the principles which should govern the arbitrators in the
consideration of the facts could be first agreed upon.'' After
some discussion the British commissioners consented that the
three following rules should apply. A neutral government is
bound---(1) to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out,
arming or equipping within its jurisdiction of any vessel,
which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to
cruise or to carry on war against a power with which it is at
peace, and also to use like diligence to prevent the departure
from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or
carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially
adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to
warlike use; (2) not to permit or suffer either belligerent
to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval
operations against the other, or for the purpose of the
renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms or the
recruitment of men; (3) to exercise due diligence in its own
ports and waters, and as to all persons within its jurisdiction
to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligation and
duties. The arrangements made by the commission were embodied
in the treaty of Washington, which was signed on the 8th
of May 1871, and approved by the Senate on the 24th of May.
Article 1, after expressing the regret felt by Her Majesty's
government for the escape, in whatever circumstances, of the
``Alabama', and other vessels from British ports, and for
the depredations committed by these vessels, provided that
``the claims growing out of the acts of the said vessels, and
generically known as the `Alabama' claims'' should be referred
to a tribunal composed of five arbitrators, one to be named
by each of the contracting parties and the remaining three by
the king of Italy, the president of the Swiss Confederation
and the emperor of Brazil respectively. By Article 2 all
questions submitted were to be decided by a majority of the
arbitrators, and each of the contracting parties was to name
one person to attend as agent. Article 6 provided that the
arbitrators should be governed by the three rules quoted
above, and by such principles of international law not
inconsistent therewith as the arbitrators should determine to
be applicable to the case. By the same article the parties
agreed to observe these rules as between themselves in
future, and to bring them to the knowledge of other maritime
powers. Article 7 provided that the decision should be
made within three months from the close of the argument, and
gave power to the arbitrators to award a sum in gross in the
event of Great Britain being adjudged to be in the wrong.
The treaty was, on the whole, welcomed in England. The United
States appointed Mr C. F. Adams as arbitrator and Mr J. C.
Bancroft Davis as agent. The British government appointed
Sir Alexander Cockburn as arbitrator and Lord Tenterden as
agent. The arbitrators appointed by the three neutral powers
were Count Sclopis (Italy), M. Staempfli (Switzerland), Baron
d'Itajuba (Brazil). The first meetinhof the tribunal took
place on the 15th of December 1871 in the Hotel de Ville,
Geneva. As soon as the cases had been formally presented, the
tribunal adjourned till the following June. There followed
immediately a controversy which threatened the collapse of the
arbitration. It was found that in the American case damages
were claimed not only for the property destroyed by the
Confederate cruisers, but in respect of certain other matters
known as ``indirect losses,'' viz. the transference of the
American marine to the British flag, the enhanced payments of
insurance, the expenses of pursuit and the prolongation of the
war. But this was not all. The American case revived the
charges of ``insincere neutrality'' and ``veiled hostility''
which had figured in the diplomatic correspondence, and had
been repudiated by Great Britain. It dwelt at length upon
such topics as the premature recognition of belligerency,
the unfriendly utterances of British politicians and the
material assistance afforded to the Confederates by British
traders. The inclusion of the indirect losses and the other
matters just referred to caused great excitement in England.
That they were within the treaty was disputed, and it was
argued that, if they were, the treaty should be amended or
denounced. In October 1872 Lord Granville notified to General
Schenck, the United States minister, that the British government
did not consider that the indirect losses were within the
submission, and in April the British counter-case was filed
without prejudice to this contention. On the 15th of June
the tribunal reassembled and the A11erican argument was
filed. The British agent then applied for an adjournment of
eight months, ostensibly in order that the two governments
might conclude a supplemental convention, it having been
meanwhile privately arranged between the arbitrators that
an extra-judicial declaration should be obtained from the
arbitrators on the subject of the direct claims. On the
10th of June Count Sclopis intimated on behalf of all his
colleagues that, without intending to express any opinion
upon the interpretation of the treaty, they had arrived at
the conclusion that ``the indirect claims did not constitute
upon the principles of international law applicable to such
cases a good foundation for . an award or computation of
damages between nations.'' In consequence of this intimation Mr
Bancroft Davis informed the tribunal on the 25th of June that
he was instructed not to press those claims; and accordingly
on the 27th of June Lord Tenterden withdrew his application
for an adjournment, and the arbitration was allowed to
proceed. The discussion turned mainly on the question of
the measure of ``due diligence.'' The United States contended
that it must be a diligence commensurate with the emergency or
with the magnitude of the results of negligence. The British
government maintained that while the measure of care which
a government is bound to use in such cases must be dependent
more or less upon circumstances, it would be unreasonable
to require that it should exceed that which the governments
of civilized states were accustomed to employ in matters
concerning their own security or that of their citizens.
The tribunal adopted the view suggested by the United
States. It found that Great Britain was legally responsible
for all the depredations of the ``Alabama'' and ``Florida''
and for those committed by the ``Shenandoah'' after she left
Melbourne. In . the case of the ``Alabama'' the court was
unanimous; in the case of the ``Florida'' Sir A. Cockburn
alone, in that of the ``Shenandoah'' he and Baron d'Itajuba,
dissented from the majority, In the cases of the other
vessels the judgment was in favour of Great Britain.
The tribunal decided to award a sum in gross, and (Sir A.
Cockburn again dissenting) fixed the damages at $15,500,000 in
gold. On the 14th of September the award was formally
published, and signed by all the arbitrators except Sir A.
Cockburn, who filed a lengthy statement of his reasons.
The stipulation that the three rules should be jointly submitted
by the two powers to foreign nations has never been carried
out. For this the British government has been blamed by some. But
the general view of continental publicists is, that the language
of the rules was not sufficiently precise to admit of their being
generally accepted as a canon of neutral obligations. (M. H. C.)
ALABAMA RIVER, a river of Alabama, U.S.A., formed by the
Tallapoosa and Coosa rivers, which unite about 6 m. above
Montgomery. It flows W. as far as Selma, then S.W. until,
about 45 m. from Mobile, it unites with the Tombigbee to form
the Mobile and Tensas rivers, which discharge into Mobile Bay.
The course of the Alabama is tortuous; its width varies from
200 to 300 yds., its depth from 3 to 7 ft.; its length by the
United States Survey is 312 m., by steamboat measurement, 420
m. The river crosses the richest agricultural and timber
districts of the state, and railways connect it with the
mineral regions of north central Alabama. The principal
tributary of the Alabama is the Canaba (about 200 m. long),
which enters it about 10 m. below Selma. Of the rivers which
form the Alabama, the Coosa crosses the mineral region of
Alabama, and is navigable for light-draft boats from Rome,
Georgia (where it is formed by the junction of the Oostenaula
and Etowah rivers), to about 117 m. above Wetumpka (about
102 m. below Rome and 26 m. below Greensport), and from
Wetumpka to its junction with the Tallapoosa; the channel
of the river has been considerably improved by the Federal
government. The navigation of the Lallapoosa river (which has
its source in Paulding county, Georgia, and is about 250 m.
long) is prevented by shoals and a 60-ft. fall at Tallassee,
a few miles N. of its junction with the Coosa. The Alabama is
navigable throughout the year. In 1878 the Federal government
undertook to make a channel tho length of the Alabama 200
ft. wide and 4 ft. deep; an amendment in 1891 provided for
a 6-ft. channel at low water, and in June 1907 this work was
reported as ``10% completed'' at an expenditure of $303,650.
The Mobile river is navigable for vessels of about 14 ft.
draft. The Alabama is an important carrier of cotton, cotton
seed, fertilizer, cereals, lumber, naval stores, &c.; and in
the fiscal year 1906-1907 the freight tonnage was 417,041 tons.
ALABASTER, or ARBLASTIER, WILLIAM (1567--1640), English
Latin poet and scholar, was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in
1567. He was, so Fuller states, a nephew by marriage of Dr John
Still, bishop of Bath and Wells. His surname, sometimes written
Arblastier, is one of the many variants of arbalester, a
cross-bowman. Alabaster was educated at Westminster school,
and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1583. He became a
fellow, and in 1592 was incorporated of the university of
Oxford. About 1502 he produced at Trinity College his Latin
tragedy of Roxana.1 It is modelled on the tragedies of
Seneca, and is a stiff and spiritless work. Fuller and Anthony
a Wood bestowed exaggerated praise on it, while Samuel Johnson
regarded it as the only Latin verse worthy of notice produced
in England before Milton's elegies. Roxana is founded
on the La Dalida (Venice, 1567) of Luigi Groto, known as
Cieco di Hadria, and Hallam asserts that it is a plagiarism
(Literature of Europe, iii. 54). A surreptitious edition
in 1632 was followed by an authorized version a plagiarii
unguibus vindicata, aucta et agnita ab Aithore, Gulielmo,
Alabastro. One book of an epic poem in Latin hexameters, in
honour of Queen Elizabeth, is preserved in MS. in the library of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This poem, Elisaeis, Apotheosis
poetica, Spenser highly esteemed. ``Who lives that can match
that heroick song?'' he says in Colin Clout's come home
again, and begs ``Cynthia'' to withdraw the poet from his
obscurity. In June 1596 Alabaster sailed with Robert Devereux,
earl of Essex, on the expedition to Cadiz in the capacity
of chaplain, and, while he was in Spain, he became a Roman
Catholic. An account of his change of laith is given in an
obscurely worded sonnet contained in a MS. copy of Divine
Meditations, by Mr Alabaster (see J. P. Collier, Hist. of Eng.
Dram. Poetry, ii. 341). He defended his conversion in a
pamphlet, Seven Motives, of which no copy is extant. The
proof of its publication only remains in two tracts, A Booke
of the Seuen Planets, or Seuen wandring motives of William
Alablaster's (sic) wit . . ., by John Racster (1598), and
An Answer to William Alabaster. his Motives, by Roger Fenton
(1599). From these it appears that Alabaster was imprisoned
for his change of faith in the Tower of London during 1598 and
1599. In 1607 he published at Antwerp Apparatus in Revelationem
Jesu Christi, in which his study of the Kabbalah was turned
to account in a mystical interpretation of scripture which drew
down the censure alike of Protestants and Catholics. The book
was placed on the Index librorum prohibitorum at Rome early in
1610. Alabaster says in the preface to his Ecce sponsus
veni (1633), a treatise on the time of the second advent of
Christ, that he went to Rome and was there imprisoned by the
Inquisition but succeeded in escaping to England and again
embraced the Protestant faith. He received a prebend in
St Paul's cathedral, London, and the living of Therlield,
Hertfordshire. He died in 1640. Alabaster's other cabalistic
writings are Commenitarius de Beslia Apocalyptica (1621) and
Spiraculum tubarum . . . . (1633), a mystical interpretation
of the Pentateuch. It was by these theological writings
that he won the praise of Robert Herrick, who calls him ``the
triumph of the day'' and the ``one only glory of a million''
(``To Doctor Alabaster'' in Hesperides, 1648). He also published
(1637) Lexicon Pentaglottoni, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum,
Syriacum. Talmudico-Rabbinicci et Arabicum.
See T. Fuller, Worthies of England (ii. 343); J. P. Collior,
Bibl. and Crit. Account of the Rarest Books in the English
Language (vol. i. 1865); Pierre Bayle, Dictionary, Historical
and Critical (ed. London, 1834); also the Athenaeum (December
26, 1903), there Sir Bertram Dobell describes a MS. in his
possession containing forty-three sonnets by Alabaster.
1 For an analysis of the play see an article on
the Latin university plays in the Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Shakespeare Gesellschaft (Weimar, 1898)
ALABASTER, a name applied to two distinct mineral substances,
the one a hydrous sulphate of lime and the other a carbonate of
lime. The former is the alabaster of the present day, the
latter is generally the alabaster of the ancients. The two
kinds are readily distinguished from each other by their relative
hardness. The modern alabaster is so soft as to be readily
scratched even by the finger-nail (hardness= 1.5 to 2), whilst
the stone called alabaster by the ancients is too hard to be
scratched in this way (hardness=3), though it yields readily to a
knife. Moreover, the ancient alabaster, being a carbonate,
effervesces on being touched with hydrochloric acid, whereas the
modern alabaster when so treated remains practically unaffected.
Ancient Alabaster.---This substance, the ``alabaster'' of
scripture, is often termed Oriental alabaster, since the early
examples came from the East. The Greek name alabastrites is
said to be derived from the town of Alabastron, in Egypt,
where the stone was quarried, but the locality probably owed
its name to the mineral; the origin of the mineral-name is
obscure, and it has been suggested that it may have had an Arabic
origin. The Oriental alabaster was highly esteemed for making
small perfume-bottles or ointment vases called alabastra;
and this has been conjectured to be a possible source of the
name. Alabaster was also employed in Egypt for Canopic jars
and various other sacred and sepulchral objects. A splendid
sarcophagus, sculptured in a single block of translucent
Oriental alabaster from Alabastron, is in the Soane Museum,
London. This was discovered by Giovanni Beizoni, in 1817, in
the tomb of Seti I., near Thebes, and was purchased by Sir John
Soane, having previously been offered to the British Museum for
Oriental alabaster is either a stalagmitic deposit, from the
floor and walls of limestone-caverns, or a kind of travertine,
deposited from springs of calcareous water. Its deposition
in successive layers gives rise to the banded appearance which
the marble often shows on cross-section, whence it is known as
onyx-marble or alabaster-onyx, or sometimes simply as onyx--a
term which should, however, be restricted to a siliceous
mineral. The Egyptian alabaster has been extensively worked
near Suez and near Assiut; there are many ancient quarries
in the hills overlooking the plain of Tell el Amarna. The
Algerian ony.xmarble has been largely quarried in the province of
Oran. In Mexico there are famous deposits of a delicate green
variety at La Pedrara, in the district of Tecali, near Puebla.
Onyx-marble occurs also in the district of Tehuacan and at several
localities in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Virginia.
Modern Alabaster.--- When the term ``alabaster'' is used
without any qualification it invariably means, at the present
day, a finely granular variety of gypsum (q.v..) This
mineral, or alabaster proper, occurs in England in the
Keuper marls of the Midlands, especially at Chellaston in
Derbyshire, at Fauld in Staffordshire and near Newark in
Nottinghamshire. At all these localities it has been extensively
worked. It is also found, though in subordinate quantity, at
Watchet in Somersetshire, near Penarth in Giamorganshire, and
elsewhere. Iii Cumberland and Westmorland it occurs largely
in the New Red rocks, but at a lower geological horizon.
The alabaster of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is found in
thick nodular beds or ``floors,'' in spheroidal masses known
as ``balls'' or ``bowls.'' and in smaller lenticular masses
termed ``cakes.'' At Chellaston. where the alabaster is known
as ``Patrick,'' it has been worked into ornaments under the name
of ``Derbyshire spar''---a term applied also to fluor-spar. The
finer kinds of alabaster are largely employed as an ornamental
stone, especially for ecclesiastical decoration, and for the
srails of staircases and halls Its softness enables it to be
readily carved into elaborate forms, but its solubility in
water renders it inapplicable to outdoor work. The purest
alabaster is a snow-white material of fine tiniforni grain,
but it is often associated with oxide of iron, which produces
brown clouding and veining in the stone. The coarser varieties
of alabaster are converted by calcination into plaster of
Paris, whence they are sometimes known as ``plaster stone.''
On the continent of Europe the centre of the alabaster trade is
Florence. The Tuscan alabaster occurs in nodular masses,
embedded in limestone, interstratified with marls of Miocene
and Pliocene age. The mineral is largely worked, by means
of underground galleries, in the district of Volterra.
Several varieties are recognized---veined, spotted, clouded,
agatiform, &c. The finest kind, obtained principally from
Castellina, is sent to Florence for figure-sculpture, whilst
the common kinds are carved locally, at a very cheap rate, into
vases, clock-cases and various ornamental objects, in which
a large trade is carried on, especially in Florence, Pisa and
Leghorn. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster
and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the
statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated
nearly to the boiling-point--an operation requiring great
care, for if the temperature be not carefully regulated, the
stone acquires a dead-white chalky appearance. The effect of
heating appears to be a partial dehydration ofthegypsum. If
properly treated, it Very closely resembles true marble, and
is known as mormo di Castellina. It should be noted that
sulphate of lime (gypsum) was used also by the ancients, and was
employed, for instance, in Assyrian sculpture, so that some
of the ancient alabaster is identical with the modern stone.
Alabaster may be stained by digesting it, after heing
heated, in various pigmentary solutions; and in this way a
good imitation of coral has been produced (alabaster coral).
See M. Carmichael, Report on the Volterra Alabaster Industry,
Foreign Office, Miscellaneous Series, No. 352 (London, 1895): A. T.
Metcalfe, ``The Gypsum Deposits of Nottingham and Derbyshire,''
Transactions of the Federated Institution, vol. xii. (1896),
p. i107; J . G. Goodchild, ``The Natural Uistory of Gypsum'''
Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, vol. x. (1888),
p. 425; George P. Merrill, ``The Onyx Marbles,'' Report
of the U. S. National Museum for 1893, p. 539. (F. W. R.*)
ALACOQUE, or AL COQ, MARGUERITE MARIE (1647--1690),
French nun and mystic, was born at Lauthecourt, a village in
the diocese of Autun, on the 22nd of July 1647. She would
seem to have been from the first of a morbid and unhealthy
temperament, and before the age of thirteen was the subject
of a paralytic seizure. Having been cured of this, as she
believed, by the intercession of the Holy Virgin, she
changed her name to Marie and vowed to devote her life to her
service. In May 1671 she entered the Visitation convent at
Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese of Autun, and took the final
vows in November 1672. Though her reading was confined to
the lives of the saints, she taught in the school kept by the
nuns for the girls of the neighbourhood, to whom she endeared
herself by her kindly disposition. The appalling austerities,
however, to which she was allowed to subject herself quickly
affected her mental and bodily health. Hallucinations,
to which she had been always subject, became more and more
frequent. She conceived herself to be specially favoured by
Christ, who appeared to her in the most extravagant forms. At
last, by dint of fasting and lacerating her flesh, she succeeded
in reducing herself to such a state of ecstatic suffering
that she belies'ed herself to be undergoing in her own person
the Passion of the Lord. Her reward was the supreme vision
in which Christ revealed to her His heart burning with divine
love, and even, so she afflrmed, exchanged it with hers, at
the same time bidding her establish, on the Friday following,
the feast of Corpus Christi, a festival in honour of His Sacred
Heart. It was not till ten years later, in 1685, that the
festival was first celebrated at Paray, and not till after
the death of Marguerite, on the 17th of October 1690, that
the cult of the Sacredheart, fostered by the Jesuits and the
subject of violent controversies within the church, spread
throughout France and Christendom. (See SACRED HEART.) .
Marguerite Alacoque was beatified by Pius IX. in
1864. Her short devotional writing, La Devotion au
Sacre-Coeur de Jesus, was published by J. Croiset in
1698, and is now very popular among Roman Catholics.
See Bishop Languet, Vie de la venerable Marguerite-Marie
(Paris, 1724), translated and edited by F. W. Faber (1847):
Mgr. Bougaud, Histoire de la bienheureuse Marguerite-Marie
(Paris, 1874); G. Tckell, S.J., The Life ofblessed
Margaret Mary Alacoque, with some account of the
devotion to the Sacred Heart (London, 18O9); b. B. H.
R. . Capefigue, Marie Marguerite Al-Coq (Paris, 1866).
ALAGOAS, a maritime state of Brazil, bounded N. and W. by the
state of Pernambuco, S. and W. by the state of Sergipe, and E. by
the Atlantic. It hasan area of 22,584 sq. m. A dry, semibarren
plateau, fit for grazing only, extends across the W. part of
the state, breaking down into long fertile valleys and wooded
ridges towards the coast, giving the country a mountainous
character. The coastal plain is filled with lakes (logoas),
in some cases formed by the blocking up of river outlets by beach
sands. The valleys and slopes are highly fertile and produce
sugar, cotton, tobacco, Indian corn, rice, mandioca and
Iruits. Hides and skins, mangabeira rubber, cabinet woods,
castor beans and rum are also exported. Cattle-raising was
formerly a prominent industry, but it has greatly declined.
Manufactures have been developed to a limited extent only,
though protective tariff laws have been adopted for their
encouragement. The climate is hot and humid, and fevers are
prevalent in the hot season. The capital, Maceio, is the
chief commercial city of the state, and its port (Jaragua)
has a large foreign and coastwise trade. The principal towns
are Alagoas, formerly the capital, picturesquely situated
on Lake Manguaba, 15 m. S.W. of Maceio, and Penedo, a small
port on the lower Sao Francisco, 26 m. above the river's
mouth. Before 1817 Alagoas formed part of the capitania of
Pernambuco, but in that year the district was rewarded with
a separate government for refusing to join a revolution,
and in 1823 became a province of the empire. The advent
of the republic in 1889 changed the province into a state.
ALAIN DE LILLE [Alanus de Insulis] (c. 1128-1202),
French theologian and poet, was born, probably at
Lille, some years before 1128. Little is known of his
life. He seems to have taught in the schools of Paris,
and he attended the Lateran Council in 1179. He afterwards
inhabited Montpellier (he is sometimes called Alanus de
Montepessulano), lived for a time outside the walls of any
cloister, and finally retired to Citeaux, where he died in
1202. He had a very widespread reputation during his lifetime
and his knowledge, more varied than profound, caused him to
be called Doctor universalis. Among his very numerous works
two poems entitle him to a distinguished place in the Latin
literature of the middle ages; one of these, the De planctu
naturae, is an ingenious satire on the vices of humanity; the
other, the Anticlaudianus, a treatise on morals, the form
of which recalls the pamphlet of Claudian against Rufinus,
is agreeably versified and relatively pure in its latinity.
As a theologian Alain de Lille shared in the mystic reaction
of the second half of the 12th century against the scholastic
philosophy. His mysticism, however, is far from being as
absolute as that of the Victorines. In the Anticlaudianus
he sums up as follows: Reason, guided by prudence, can
unaided discover most of the truths of the physical order;
for the apprehension of religious truths it must trust to
faith. This rule is completed in his treatise, Ars catholicae
fidei, as follows: Theology itself may be demonstrated by
reason. Alain even ventures an immediate application of this
principle, and tries to prove geometrically the dogmas defined
in the Creed. This bold attempt is entirely factitious and
verbal, and it is only his employment of various terms
not generally used in such a connexion (axiom, theorem,
corollary, etc.) that gives his treatise its apparent
originality. Alain de Lille has often been confounded with
other persons named Alain, in particular with Alain, archbishop
of Auxerre, Alan, abbot of Tewkesbury, Alain de Podio,
etc. Certain facts of their lives have been attributed to
him, as well as some of their works: thus the Life of St
Bernard should be ascribed to Alain of Auxerre and the
Commentary upon Merlin to Alan of Tewkesbury. Neither
is the philosopher of Lille the author of a Memoriale rerum
difficilium, published under his name; and it is exceedingly
doubtful whether the Dicta Alani de lapide philocophico
really issued from his pen. On the other hand, it now seems
practically demonstrated that Alain de Lille was the author of
the Ars catholicae fidei and the treatise Contra haereticos.
The works of Alain de Lille have been published by Migne,
Patrologia latina, vol. ccx. A critical edition of the
Anticlaudianus and of the De planctu naturae is given
by Th. Wright in vol. ii. of the Anglo-Latin Satirical
Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth Century (London,
1872). See Haureau, Memoire sur la vie et quelques
oeuvres d'Alain de Lille (Paris, 1885); M. Baumgartner, Die
Philosophie des Alanus de Insulis (Munster, 1896). (P. A.)
ALAIS, a town of southern France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Gard, 25 m. N.N.W. of
Nimes on the Paris-Lyon railway, on which it is an important
junction. Pop. (1906) 18,987. The town is situated at
the foot of the Cevenues, on the left bank of the Gardon,
which half surrounds it. The streets are wide and its
promenades and fine plane-trees make the town attractive;
but the public buildings, the chief of which are the church
of St Jean, a heavy building of the 18th century, and the
citadel, which serves as barracks and prison, are of small
interest. Pasteur prosecuted his investigations into the
silkworm disease at Alais, and the town has dedicated a bust
to his memory. There is also a statue of the chemist J. B.
Dumas. Alais has tribunals of first instance and of commerce,
a board of trade-arbitrators, a lycee and a school of
mines. The town is one of the most important markets for
raw silk and cocoons in the south of France, and the Gardon
supplies power to numerous silkmills. It is also the centre
of a mineral field. which yields large quantities of coal,
iron, zinc and lead; its blast-furnaces, foundries, glass-works
and engineering works afford employment to many workmen.
In the 16th century Alais was an important Huguenot centre.
In 1629 the town was taken by Louis XIII., and by the peace
of Alais the Huguenots gave up their right to places de
surete (garrison towns) and other privileges. A bishopric
was established there in 1694 but suppressed in 1790.
ALAJUELA, the capital of the province of Alajuela, in Costa
Rica, Central America, on the`transcontinental railway, 15
m. W. of San Jose. Pop. (1904) 4860. Alajuela is built
at the southern base of the volcano of Poas (8895 ft.) and
Overlooks the fertile plateau of San Jose. Its central
square, adorned with a handsome bronze fountain, contains the
municipal buildings, and a large but unattractive cathedral.
The town covers a considerable area; the detached white
houses of its suburbs are surrounded by trees and flowering
shrubs. Alajuela is the centre of the Costa Rican sugar trade,
and an important market for coffee. Its products are exported
from Puntarenas, on the Pacific Ocean, 32 m. W. The province
of Alajuela includes the territory of the Guatusos Indians,
along the northern frontier; the towns of Atenas, Grecia,
Naranjo and San Ramon (all with less than 5000 inhabitants),
and the gold-mines of Aguacate, a little north of Atenas.
ALAMANNI, or ALLEMANNI, a German tribe, first mentioned
by Dio Cassius, under the year 213. They apparently dwelt in
the basin of the Maine, to the south of the Chatti. According
to Asinius Quadratus their name indicates that they were a
conglomeration of various tribes. There can be little doubt,
however, that the ancient Hermunduri formed the preponderating
element in the nation. Among the other elements may be
mentioned the Juthungi, Bucinobantes, Lentienses, and perhaps the
Armalausi. From the 4th century onwards we hear also of the
Suebi or Suabi. The Hermunduri had apparendy belonged to the
Suebi, but it is likely enough that reinforcements from new
Suebic tribes had now moved westward. In later times the
names Alamanni and Suebi seem to be synonymous. The tribe
was continually engaged in conflicts with the Romans, the
most famous encounter being that at Strassburg, in which
they were defeated by Julian, afterwards emperor, in the year
357, when their king Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. Early
in the 5th century the Alamanni appear to have crossed the
Rhine and conquered and settled Alsace and a large part of
Switzerlafid. Their kingdom lasted until the year 405, when
they were conquered by Clovis, from which time they formed part
of the Frankish dominions. The Alamannic and Swabian dialects
are now spoken in German Switzerland, the southern parts of
Baden and Alsace, Wurttemberg and a small portion of Bavaria.
See Dio Cassius lxvii. ff.; Ammianus Marcellinus, passim;
Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, book ii.; C. Zeuss, Die
Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme (Munich, 1837), pp. Ro5 ff.;
O. Bremer in H. Paul, Grundriss der Permanischen Philologie
(2nd ed., Strassburg, 1900), vol. iii. pp. 930 h. (F. G. M. B.)
ALAMANNI, or ALEMANNI, LUIGI (1405-1556), Italian
statesman and poet, was born at Florence. His father was a
devoted adherent of the Medici party, but Luigi, smarting under
a supposed injustice, joined with Others in an unsuccessful
conspiracy against Giulio de' Medici, afterwards POpe Clement
VII. He was obliged in consequence to take refuge in Venice,
and, on the accession of Clement, to flee to France. When
Florence shook off the papal yoke in 1527, Alamanni returned,
and took a prominent part in the management of the affairs of the
republic. On the restoration of the Medici in 1530 he had again
to take refuge in France, where he composed the greater part
of his works. He was a favourite with Francis I., who sent
him as ambassador to Charles V. after the peace of Crepy in
1544. As an instance of his tact in this capacity, it is
related that, when Charles interrupted a complimentary address
by quoting from a satirical poem of Alamanni's the words---
``l' aquila grifagna, Che per piu devorar, duoi rostri porta''
(Two crooked bills the ravenous eagle bears, The better to devour),
the latter at once replied that he spoke them as a poet, who
was permitted to use fictions, but that he spoke now as an
ambassador, who was obliged to tell the truth. The ready
reply pleased Charles, who added some complimentary words.
After the death of Francis, Alamanni enjoyed the confidence
of his successor Henry II., and in 1551 was sent by him as his
ambassador to Genoa. He died at Amboise on the 18th of April
1556. He wrote a large number of poems, distinguished by
the purity and excellence of their style. The best is a
didactic poem, La Coltivazione (Paris, 1546), written
in imitation of Virgil's Georgics. His Opere Toscane
(Lyons, 1532) consists of satirical pieces written in blank
verse. An unfinished poem, Avarchide, in imitation of
the Iliad, was the work of his old age and has little
merit. It has been said by some that Alamanni was the first
to use blank verse in Italian poetry, but the distinction
belongs rather to his contemporary Giangiorgio Trissino. He
also wrote a poetical romance, Girone il Cortese (Paris,
1548); a tragedy, Antigone; a comedy, Flora; and other
poems. His works were published, with a biography by P.
Raffaelli, as Versi e prose di Luigi Alamanni (Florence, 1859).
See G. Naro, Luigi Alamanni e la coltivazione (Syracuse, 1897), and C .
Corso, Un decennio di patriottismo di Luigi Alamanni (Palermo, 1898).
ALAMEAGH, or ALUMBAGH, the name of a large park 01 walled
enclosure, containing a palace, a mosque and other buildings,
as well as a beautiful garden, situated about 4 m. from
Lucknow, near the Cawnpore road, in the United Provinces of
India. It was converted into a fort by the mutineers
in 1857, and after its capture by the British was of
importance in connexion with the military operations around
Lucknow. (See INDIAN MUTINY and OUTRAM, SIR JAMES.)
ALAMEDA, a residential city of Alameda county, California,
U.S.A., on an artificial island about 5 m. long and 1 m.
wide, on the E. side of San Francisco bay, opposite to and
about 6 m. from San Francisco, and directly S. of Oakland,
from which it is separated by a drainage canal, spanned by
bridges. Included within the limits of the city is Bay Farm
island, with an area of about 3 sq. m. Pop. (1870) 15571
(1880) 5708; (1890) 11,165; (1900) 16,464, of whom 4175 were
foreign-born; (1910, census) 23,383. Alameda is served by
the Southern Pacific railway, and is connected by an electric
line with Oakland and Berkeley. Its site is low and level
and its plan fairly regular. Among the city's manufactures
are terra-cotta tiles, pottery, rugs, refrigerators and
salt. The city owns and operates the electriclighting
plant; the water-works system is privately owned, and the
water supply is obtained from deep wells at San Leandro.
A settlement existed here before the end of the Mexican
period. In 1854 it was incorporated as a town and in 1885
was chartered as a city. In 1906 the city adopted a freehold
charter, centralizing power in the mayor and providing
for a referendum. The county was organized in 1853.
ALAMOS DE BARRIENTOS, BALTASAR (1555-1640), Spanish
scholar, was born at Medina del Campo in 1555. His friendship
with Antonio Perez caused him to be arrested in 1590 and
imprisoned for nearly thirteen years. His 7Acito espanol
ilustrado con aforismos (Madrid, 1614) is the only work
which bears his name, but he is probably the author of the
Discurso del gobierno ascribed to Perez. Through the
influence of Lerma (to whom the Tacito is dedicated) and of
Olivares, he subsequently attained high official position.
See L'Art de gouverner, ed. J. M. Guardia (Paris, 1867);
P. J. Pidal, Historia de las alteraciones de Aragon en
el reinado de Felipe II. (Madrid, 1862), vol. iii. pp.
29-30; A. Perez, Relaciones (Geneva, 1654), pp. 86-88.
ALAND ISLANDS, an archipelago at the entrance to the Gulf
of Bothnia, about 25 m. from the coast of Sweden, and 15 from
that of Finland. The group, which forms part of the Finnish
province of Abo-Bjorneborg, consists of nearly three hundred
islands, of which about eighty are inhabited, the remainder
being desolate rocks. These islands form a continuation of
a dangerous granite reef extending along the south coast of
Finland. They formerly belonged to Sweden, and in the
neighbourhood the first victory of the Russian fleet Over
the Swedes was gained by Peter the Great in 1714. They were
ceded to Russia in 1809. They occupy a total area of 1426
sq. km., and their present population is estimated at about
19,000. The majority of these occupy the island of Aland, upon
which is situated the town of Mariehamn with a population of
1171. The inhabitants are mostly of Swedish descent, and
are hardy seamen and fishermen. The surface of the islands
is generally sandy, the soil thin and the climate keen; yet
Scotch fir, spruce and birch are grown; and rye, barley, flax
and vegetables are produced in sufficient quantity for the
wants of the people. Great numbers of cattle are reared;
and cheese, butter and hides, as well as salted meat and
fish, are exported. There are several excellent harbours
(notably that of Ytternas), which were at one time of great
importance to Russia from the fact that they are frozen up
for a much briefer period than those on the coast of Finland.
The Aland Islands occupy a position of the greatest strategic
importance, commanding as they do both the entrance to the
port of Stockholm and the approaches to the Gulf of Bothnia,
through which the greater part of the trade of Sweden is carried
on. When, by the 4th article of the treaty of Fredrikshavn
(Friedrichshamn), 5/17 September 1809, the islands were
ceded to Russia, together with the territories forming the
grand-duchy of Finland on the mainland, the Swedes were
unable to secure a provision that the islands should not be
fortified. The question was, however, a vital one not only
for Sweden but for Great Britain, whose trade in the Baltic was
threatened. In 1854, accordingly, during the Crimean War,
an Anglo-French force attacked and destroyed the fortress
of Bomersund, against the erection of which Palmerston had
protested without effect some twenty years previously. By
the ``Aland Convention,'' concluded between Great Britain,
France and Russia on the 30th of March 1856, it was stipulated
that ``the Aland Islands shall not be fortified, and that
no military or naval establishments shall be maintained or
created on them.'' By the 33rd article of the treaty of Paris
(1856) this convention, annexed to the final act, was given
``the same force and validity as if it formed part thereof,''
Palmerston declaring in the House of Commons (May 6) that
it had ``placed a barrier between Russia and the north of
Europe.,' Some attention was attracted to this arrangement
when in 1906 it was asserted that Russia, under pretext of
stopping the smuggling of arms into Finland, was massing
considerable naval and military forces at the islands. The
question of the Aland Islands created some discussion in 1907
and 1908 in connexion with the new North Sea agreements, and
undoubtedly Russia considered the convention of 1856 as rather
humiliating. But it was plainly shown by other powers that
they did not propose to regard it as modified or open to
question, and the point was not definitely and officially raised.
See the article by Dr Verner Soderberg in the
National Review, No. 392, for April 1908.
ALANI (Gr. 'Alanoi,'Alaunoi; Chinese 'O-lan-na; since
the 9th century A.D. they have been called As, Russ.
Jasy, Georgian Ossi), the easternmost division of the
Sarmatians (see SCYTHIA), Iranian nomads with some Altaic
admixture. First met with north of the Caspian, and later
(c. 1st century A.D.) spreading into the steppes of
Russia, the Alans made incursions into both the Danubian and
the Caucasian provinces of the Roman empire. By the Huns they
were cut into two portions, of which the western joined the
Germanic nations in their invasion of southern Europe, and,
following the fortunes of the Vandals, disappeared in North
Africa. Those of the eastern division, though dispersed about
the steppes until late medieval times, were by fresh invading
hordes forced into the Caucasus, where they remain as the
Ossetes. At one time partially Christianized by Byzantine
missionaries, they had almost relapsed into heathenism, but are
now under Russian influence returning to Christianity. (E. II. M.)
ALANCON, HERNANDO DE, Spanish navigator of the 16th century,
is known only in connexion with the expedition to the coast of
California, of which he was leader. He set sail on the 9th
of May 1540 with orders from the Spanish court to await at
a certain point on the coast the arrival of an expedition by
land under the command of Vasquez de Coronado. The junction
was not effected, though Alarcon reached the appointed place
and left letters, which were afterwards found by Diaz, another
explorer. Alarcon was the first to determine with certainty
that California was a peninsula and not an island, as had
been supposed. He made a careful survey of the coast,
ascended the Rio del Tizon Or Rio de Buena Guia (Colorado)
for 85 Spanish m., and was thus able on his return to New
Spain in 1541 to construct an excellent map of California.
See Herrera, Decade VI. book ix. ch. 15;
vol. vi. fol. 212 of Madrid edition of 1730.
ALARCON, JUAN RUIZ DE (1518?-1639), Spanish dramatist,
was born about 1581 at Tlacho (Mexico), where his father was
superintendent of mines. He came to Europe in 1600, studied
law at Salamanca, and in 1608 went back to Mexico to compete
for a professorial chair. Returning to Spain in 1611, he
entered the household of the marquis de Salinas, became a
successful dramatist, and was nominated a member of the council
of the Indies in 1623. He died at Madrid on the 4th of August
1639. His plays were published in 1628 and 1634; the most
famous of these is La Verdad sospechosa, which was adapted
by Corneille as the Menteur. Alarcon had the misfortune to
be a hunchback, to be embittered by his deformity, and to be
constantly engaged in personal quarrels with his rivals; but
his attitude in these polemics is always dignified, and his
crushing retort to Lope de Vega in Los pechos privilegiados
is an unsurpassable example of cold, scornful invective.
More than any other Spanish dramatist, Alarcon is preoccupied
with ethical aims, and his gift of dramatic presentation is
as brilliant as his dialogue is natural and vivacious. It
has been alleged that his foreign origin is noticeable in his
plays, and there is some foundation for the criticism; but
his workmanship is exceptionally conscientious, and in El
Tejedor de Segovia he had produced a masterpiece of national
art, national sentiment and national expression. (J. F.-K.)
ALARCON, PEDRO ANTONIO DE (1833-1891), Spanish writer, was
born on the 10th of March 1833 at Guadix. He graduated at
the university of Granada, studied law and theology privately,
and made his first appearance as a dramatist before he was of
age. Deciding to follow literature as a profession, he joined
with Torcuato Tarrago y Mateos in editing a Cailiz newspaper
entitled El Eco de Occidente. In 1853 he travelled to Madrid
in the hope of finding a publisher for his continuation of
Espronceda's celebrated poem, El Diablo Mundo. Disappointed
in his object, and finding no opening at the capital, he
settled at Granada, became a radical journalist in that city,
and showed so much ability that in 1854 he was appointed
editor of a republican journal, El Latigo, published at
Madrid. The extreme violence of his polemics led to a duel
between him and the Byronic poet, Jose Heriberto Garcia
Quevedo. The earliest of his novels, El Final de Norma,
was published in 1855, and though its construction is feeble
it brought the writer into notice as a master of elegant
prose. A small anthology, called Mananias de Abril y Mayo
(1856), proves that Alarcon was recognized as a leader
by young men of promise, for among the contributors were
Castelar, Manuel del Palacio and Lopez de Ayala. A dramatic
piece, El Hijo prodigo, was hissed off the stage in
1857, and the failure so stung Alarcon that he enlisted
under O'Donnell's command as a volunteer for the war in
Morocco. His Diario de un testigo de la guerra de Africa
(1859) is a brilliant account of the expedition. The first
edition, amounting to fifty thousand copies, was sold within a
fortnight, and Alarcon's name became famous throughout the
peninsula. The book is not in any sense a formal history; it
is a series of picturesque impressions rendered with remarkable
force. On his return from Africa Alarcon did the Liberal
party much good service as editor of La Politica, but after
his marriage in 1866 to a devout lady, Paulina Contrera y
Reyes, he modified his political views considerably. On
the overthrow of the monarchy in 1868, Alarcon advocated
the claims of the duc de Montpensier, was neutral during the
period of the republic, and declared himself a Conservative
upon the restoration of the dynasty in December 1874. These
political variations alienated Alarcon's old allies and
failed to conciliate the royalists. But though his political
influence was ruined, his success as a writer was greater than
ever. The publication in the Revista Europea (1874) of a short
story, El Sombrero de tres picos, a most ingenious resetting
of an old popular tale, made him almost as well known out of
Spain as in it. This remarkable triumph in the picturesque
vein encouraged him to produce other works of the same kind;
yet though his Cuentos amatorios (1881), his Historietas
nacionales (1881) and his Narracionies inverosimiles (1882)
are pleasing, they have not the delightful gaiety and charm
of their predecessor. In a longer novel, El Escandalo
(1875), Alarcon had appeared as a partisan of the neo-Catholic
reaction, and this change of opinion brought upon him many
attacks, mostly unjust. His usual bad fortune followed
him, for while the Padicals denounced him as an apostate, the
neo-Catholics alleged that El Escandalo was tainted with
Jansenism. Of his later volumes, written in failing health
and spirits, it is only necessary to mention El Capitan
Veneno and the Historia de mis libros, both issued in
1881. Alarcon was elected a member of the Spanish
Academy in 1875. He died at Madrid on the 20th of July
1891. His later novels and tales are disfigured by their
didactic tendency, by feeble drawing of character, and
even by certain gallicisms of style. But, at his best,
Alarcon may be read with great pleasure. The Diario de
un testigo is still unsurpassed as a picture of campaigning
life, while El Sombrero de tres picos is a very perfect
example of malicious wit and minute observation. (J. F.-K.)
ALARD, JEAN DELPHIN (1815-1888), French violinist and teacher,
was born at Bayonne on the 8th of May 1815. From 1827 he was
a pupil of F. A. Habeneck at the Paris Conservatoire, where he
succeeded P. de Sales Baillot as professor in 1843, retaining
the post till 1875. His playing was full of fire and point,
and his compositions had a great success in France, while
his violin school had a wider vogue and considerably greater
value. Mention should also be made of his edition in 40 parts
of a selection of violin compositions by the most eminent
masters of the 18th century, Les Maitres classiques du violon
(Schott). Alard died in Paris on the 22nd of February 1888.
ALARIC (Ala-reiks, ``All-ruler''), (c. 370-410), Gothic
conqueror, the first Teutonic leader who stood as a conqueror
in the city of Rome, was probably born about 370 in an island
named Peuce (the Fir) at the mouth of the Danube. He was of
noble descent, his father being a scion of the family of the
Balthi or Bold-men, next in dignity among Gothic warriors
to the Amals. He was a Goth and belonged to the western
branch of that nation --sometimes called the Visigoths--who
at the time of his birth were quartered in the region now
known as Bulgaria, having taken refuge on the southern shore
of the Danube from the pursuit of their enemies the Huns.
In the year 394 he served as a general of foederati (Gothic
irregulars) under the emperor Theodosius in the campaign in
which he crushed the usurper Eugenius. As the battle which
terminated this campaign, the battle of the Frigidus, was fought
near the passes of the Julian Alps, Alaric probably learnt
at this time the weakness of the natural defences of Italy on
her northeastern frontier. The employment of barbarians as
foederali, which became a common practice with the emperors
in the 4th century, was both a symptom of disease in the
body politic of the empire and a hastener of its impending
ruin. The provincial population, crushed under a load of
unjust taxation, could no longer furnish soldiers in the
numbers required for the defence of the empire; and on the
other hand, the emperors, ever fearful that a brilliantly
successful general of Roman extraction might be proclaimed
Augustus by his followers, preferred that high military command
should be in the hands of a man to whom such an accession
of dignity was as yet impossible. But there was obviously
a danger that one day a barbarian leader of barbarian troops
in the service of the empire might turn his armed force and
the skill in war, which he had acquired in that service,
against his trembling masters, and without caring to assume
the title of Augustus might ravage and ruin the countries
which he had undertaken to defend. This danger became a
reality when in the year 395 the able and valiant Theodosius
died, leaving the empire to be divided between his imbecile
sons Arcadius and Honorius, the former taking the eastern and
the latter the western portion, and each under the control
of a minister who bitterly hated the minister of the other.
In the shifting of offices which took place at the beginning
of the new reigns, Alaric apparently hoped that he would
receive one of the great war ministries of the empire, and
thus instead of being a mere commander of irregulars would
have under his orders a large part of the imperial legions.
This, however, was denied him, and he found that he was doomed
to remain an oflicer of foederati. His disappointed ambition
prompted him to take the step for which his countrymen were
longing, for they too were grumbling at the withdrawal of the
``presents,'' in other words the veiled ransom-money, which
for many years they had been accustomed to receive. They
raised him on a shield and acclaimed him as a king; leader and
followers both resolving (says Jordanes the Gothic historian)
``rather to seek new kingdoms by their own labour, than
to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others.''
Alaric struck first at the eastern empire. He marched to
the neighbourhood of Constantinople, but finding himself
unable to undertake the siege of that superbly strong city,
he retraced his steps westward and then marched southward
through Thessaly and the unguarded pass of Thermopylae into
Greece. The details of his campaign are not very clearly
stated, and the story is further complicated by the plots and
counterplots of Rufinus, chief minister of the eastern, and
Stilicho, the virtual regent of the western empire, and the
murder of the former by his rebellious soldiers. With these
we have no present concern; it is sufficient to say that
Alaric's invasion of Greece lasted two years (395-396), that
he ravaged Attica but spared Athens, which at once capitulated
to the conqueror, that he penetrated into Peloponnesus and
captured its most famous cities, Corinth, Argos and Sparta,
selling many of their inhabitants into slavery. Here,
however, his victorious career ended. Stilicho, who had
come a second time to the assistance of Arcadius and who was
undoubtedly a skilful general, succeeded in shutting up the
Goths in the mountains of Pholoe on the borders of Elis and
Arcadia. From thence Alaric escaped with difficulty, and
not without some suspicion of connivance on the part of
Stilicho. He crossed the Corinthian Gulf and marched with
the plunder of Greece northwards to Epirus. Next came an
astounding transformation. For some mysterious reason,
probably connected with the increasing estrangement between
the two sections of the empire, the ministers of Arcadius
conferred upon Alaric the government of some part--it can
hardly have been the whole--of the important prefecture of
Illyricum. Here, ruling the Danubian provinces, he was on
the confines of the two empires, and, in the words of the poet
Claudian, he ``sold his alternate oaths to either throne,''
and made the imperial arsenals prepare the weapons with which
to aim his Gothic followers for the next campaign. It was
probably in the year 400 (but the dates of these events are
rather uncertain) that Alaric made his first invasion of
Italy, co-operating with another Gothic chieftain named
Radagaisus. Supernatural influences were not wanting to
urge him to this great enterprise. Some lines of the Roman
poet inform us that he heard a voice proceeding from a sacred
grove, ``Break off all delays, Alaric. This very year
thou shalt force the Alpine barrier of Italy; thou shalt
penetrate to the city.'' The prophecy was not at this time
fulfilled. After spreading desolation through North Italy
and striking terror into the citizens of Pome, Alaric was met
by Stilicho at Pollentia (a Roman municipality in what is now
Piedmont), and the battle which then followed on the 6th of
April 402 (Easter-day) was a victory, though a costly one for
Rome, and effectually barred the further progress of the
barbarians. Alaric was an Arian Christian who trusted to
the sanctity of Easter for immunity from attack, and the
enemies of Stilicho reproached him for having gained his
victory by taking an unfair advantage of the great Christian
festival. The wife of Alaric is said to have been taken
prisoner after this battle; and there is some reason to suppose
that he was hampered in his movements by the presence with
his forces of large numbers of women and children, having
given to his invasion of Italy the character of a national
migration. After another defeat before Verona, Alaric quitted
Italy, probably in 403. He had not indeed ``penetrated to
the city,'' but his invasion of Italy had produced important
results; it had caused the imperial residence to be transferred
from Milan to Ravenna, it had necessitated the withdrawal
of the Twentieth Legion from Britain, and it had lirobably
facilitated the great invasion of Vandals, Suevi and Alani
into Gaul, by which that province and Spain were lost to the
empire. We next hear of Alaric as the friend and ally of his
late opponent Stilicho. The estrangement between the eastern
and western courts had in 407 become so bitter as to threaten
civil war, and Stilicho was actually proposing to use the arms
of Alaric in order to enforce the claims of Honorius to the
prefecture of Illyricum. The death of Arcadius in May 408
caused milder counsels to prevail in the western cabinet, but
Alaric, who had actually entered Epirus, demanded in a somewhat
threatening manner that if he were thus suddenly bidden to
desist from war, he should be paid handsomely for what in
modern language would be called the expenses of mobilization.
The sum which he named was a large one, 4000 pounds of gold
(about L. 160,000 sterling), but under strong pressure from
Stilicho the Roman senate consented to promise its payment.
Three months later Stilicho himself and the chief ministers
of his party were treacherously slain in pursuance of an
order extracted from the timid and jealous Honorius; and in
the disturbances which followed the wives and children of the
barbarian foederati throughout Italy were slain. The natural
consequence was that these men to the number of 30,000 flocked to
the camp of Alaric. clamouring to be led against their cowardly
enemies. IIe accordingly crossed the Julian Alps, and in
September 408 stood before the walls of Rome (now with no capable
general like Stihcho to defend her) and began a strict blockade.
No blood was shed this time; hunger was the weapon on which Alaric
relied. When the ambassadors of the senate in treating for peace
tried to terrify him with their hints of what the despairing
citizens might accomplish, he gave with a laugh his celebrated
answer, ``The thicker the hay, the easier mowed!'' After much
bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom
of more than a quarter of a million sterling, besides precious
garments of silk and leather and three thousand pounds of
pepper. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome.
At this time, and indeed throughout his career, the one
dominant idea of Alaric was not to pull down the fabric of
the empire but to Secure for himself, by negotiation with
its rulers, a regular and recognized position within its
borders. His demands were certainly large---the concession
of a block of territory 200 m. long by 150 wide between the
Danube and the Gulf of Venice (to be held probably on some
terms of nominal dependence on the empire), and the title
of commander-in-chief of the imperial army. Yet large as
the terms were, the emperor would probably have been well
advised to grant them; but Honorius was one of those timid
and feeble folk who are equally unable to make war or peace,
and refused to look beyond the question of his own personal
safety, guaranteed as it was by the dikes and marshes of
Ravenna. As all attempts to conduct a satisfactory negotiation
with this emperor failed before his impenetrable stupidity,
Alaric, after instituting a second siege and blockade of
Rome in 409, came to terms with the senate, and with their
consent set up a rival emperor and invested the prefect of the
city, a Creek named Attalus, with the diadem and the purple
robe. He, however, proved quite unfit for his high position;
he rejected the advice of Alaric and lost in consequence the
province of Africa, the granary of Rome, which was defended by
the partisans of Honorius. The weapon of famine, formerly in
the hand of Alaric, was thus turned against him, and loud in
consequence were the murmurs of the Roman populace. Honorius
was also greatly strengthened by the arrival of six legions sent
from Constantinople to his assistance by his nephew Theodosius
II. Alaric therefore cashiered his puppet emperor Attalus
after eleven months of ineffectual rule, and once more tried
to reopen negotiations with Honorius. These negotiatio1(s
would probably have succeeded but for the malign influence of
another Goth, Sarus, the hereditary enemy of Alaric and his
house. When Alaric found himself once more outwitted by the
machinations of such a foe, he marched southward and began in
deadly earnest his third, his ever-memorable siege of Rome.
No defence apparently was possible; there are hints, not well
substantiated, of treachery; there is greater probability of
surprise. However this may be--for our information at this
point of the story is miserably meagre----on the 24th of
August 410 Alaric and his . Goths burst in by the Salarian
gate on the north-east of the city, and she who was of
late the mistress of the world lay at the feet of the
barbarians. The Goths showed themselves not absolutely ruthless
conquerors. The contemporary ecclesiastics recorded with
wonder many instances of their clemency: the Christian churches
saved from ravage; protection granted to vast multitudes both
of pagans and Christians who took refuge therein; vessels
of gold and silver which were found in a private dwelling,
spared because they ``belonged to St. Peter''; at least one
case in which a beautiful Roman matron appealed, not in vain,
to the better feelings of the Cothic soldier who attempted
her dishonour; but even these exceptional instances show that
Rome was not enlirely spared those scenes of horror which
usually accompany the storming of a besieged city. We do
not, however, hear of any damage wrought by fire, save in
the case of Sallust's palace, which was situated close to
the gate by which the Goths had made their entrance; nor
is there any reason to attribute any extensive destruction
of the buildings of the city to Alaric and his followers.
His work being done, his fated task, and Alaric having
penetrated to the city, nothing remained for him but to
die. He marched southwards into Calabria. He desired to
invade Africa, which on account of its corn crops was now
the key of the position; but his ships were dashed to pieces
by a storm in which many of his soldiers perished. He died
soon after, probably of fever, and his body was bulied under
the river-bed of the Busento, the stream being temporarily
turned aside from its course while the grave was dug wherein
the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were
interred. When the work was finished the river was turned
back into its usual channel, and the captives by whose hands
the labour had been accomplished were put to death that
none might learn their secret. He was succeeded in the
command of the Gothic army by his brotherin-law, Ataulphus.,
Our chief authorities for the career of Alaric are the historian
Orosius and the poet Claudian, both strictly contemporary;
Zosimus, a somewhat prejudiced heathen historian, who lived
probably about half a century after the death of Alaric;
and Jordanes, a Goth who wrote the history of his nation
in the year 551, basing his work on the earlier history of
Cassiodorus (now lost), which was written about 520. (T. II.)
ALARIC II. (d. 507), eighth king of the Goths in Spain,
succeeded his father Euric or Evaric in 485. His dominions
not only included the whole of Spain except its north-western
corner, but also Aquitaine and the greater part of Provence.
In religion Alaric was an Arian, but he greatly mitigated
the persecuting policy of his father Euric towards the
Catholics and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of
Agde. He displayed similar wisdom and liberality in
political affairs by appointing a commission to prepare
an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which
should form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects.
This is generally known as the Breviarium Alaricianuni,
or Breviary of Alaric (q.v..) Alaric . was of a peaceful
disposition, and endeavoured strictly to main- tain the treaty
which his father had concluded with the Franks, whose king
Clovis, however, desiring to obtain the Gothic province in
Gaul, found a pretext for war in the Arianism of Alaric.
The intervention of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths and
father-in-law of Alaric, proved unavailing. The two armies
met in 507 at the Campus Vogladensis, near Poitiers, where
the Goths were defeated, and their king, who took to flight,
was overtaken and slain, it is said, by Clovis himself.
ALA-SHEHR (anc. Philadelphia), a town of Asia Minor, in
the Aidin vilayet, situated in the valley of the Kuzu Chai
(Cogamus), at the foot of the Boz Dagh (Mt. Tmolus) 83
m. E. of Smyrna (105 by railway). Pop. 22,000 (Moslems,
17,000; Christians, 5000). Philadelphia was founded by Attalus
II. of Pergamum about 150 B.C., became one of the ``Seven
Churches'' of Asia, and was called ``Little Athens'' on account
of its festivals and temples. It was subject to frequent
earthquakes. Philadelphia was an independent neutral city,
under the influence of the Latin Knights of Rhodes, when taken
in . 1390 by Sultan Bayezid I. and an auxiliary Christian force
under the emperor Manuel II. after a prolonged resistance,
when all the other cities of Asia Minor had surrendered.
Twelve years later it was captured by Timur, who built a
wall with the corpses of his prisoners. A fragment of the
ghastly structure is in the library of Lincoln cathedral.
The town is connected by railway with Afium-Kara-Hissar and
Smyrna. It is dirty and ill-built; but, standing on elevated
ground and commanding the extensive and fertile plain of the
Hermus, presents at a distance an imposing appearance. It is
the seat of an archbishop and has several mosques and Christian
churches. There are small industries and a fair trade. From
one of the mineral springs comes a heavily charged water known
in commerce as ``Eau de Vals,'' and in great request in Smyrna.
See W. M. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Ghurches (Ioo4).
ALASKA, formerly called RUSSIAN AMERICA, a district
of the United States of America, occupying the extreme
northwestern part of North America and the adjacent
islands. The name is a corruption of a native word possibly
meaning ``mainland'' or ``peninsula.'' The district of Alaska
comprises, first, all that part of the continent W. of the
141st meridian of W longitude from Greenwich;secondly,the
eastern Diomede island in Bering Strait, and all islands in
Bering Sea and the Aleutian chain lying E. of a line drawn
from the Diomedes to pass midway between Copper Island, off
Kamchatka, and Attu Island of the Aleutians; thirdly, a
narrow strip of coast and adjacent islands N. of a line drawn
from Cape Muzon, in lat. 54 deg. 40, N., E. and N. up Portland
Canal to its head, and thence, as defined in the treaty of
cession to the United States, quoting a boundary treaty of
1825 between Great Britain and Russia, following ``the summit
of the mountains situated parallel to the coast', to the
141st meridian, provided that when such line runs more than
ten marine leagues from the ocean the limit ``shall
be formed by a line parallel to the windings of the
coast and which shall never exceed the distance of ten
marine leagues therefrom.'' The international disputes
connected with this description are referred to below.
Physical Features.---Alaska is bounded on the N. by the
Arctic Ocean, on the W. by the Arctic Ocean and Bering
Strait, on the S. and S.W. by the Gulf of Alaska and the
Pacific Ocean, and on the E. by Yukon Territory and British
Columbia. It consists of a compact central mass and two
straggling appendages running from its S.W. and S.E. corners,
and sweeping in a vast arc over 16 degrees of latitude and
58 degrees of longitude. These three parts will be referred
to hereafter respectively, as Continental Alaska, Aleutian
Alaska and the ``Panhandle.'' The range of latitude from
Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean to Cape Muzon is almost 17
degrees---as great as from New Orleans to Duluth; the range
of longitude from Attu Island to the head of Portland Canal
is 58 degrees---considerably greater than from New York to San
Francisco. The total area is about 586,400 sq. m. The
general ocean-coast line is about 4750 m., and, including the
islands, bays, inlets and rivers to the head of tide water,
is about 26,000 m. in length (U.S. Coast Survey 1889). The
entire southern coast is very irregular in outline; it is
precipitous, with only very slight stretches of beach or
plain. Its elevation gradually decreases as one travels W.
toward the Aleutians. A great submarine platform extends
throughout a large part of Bering Sea. The western and northern
coasts are regular in outline with long straight beaches; and
shallows are common in the seas that wash them. On the Arctic
there is a broad coastal plain. Of the islands of Alaska
the more important are: at the S.E. extremity and lying close
inland, the Alexander Archipelago, whose principal islands
from N.W. to S.E. are Chicagof, Baranof, Admiralty, Kupreanof,
Kuiu. Prince of Wales (the largest of the archipelago and
of all the islands about Alaska, measuring about 140 m.
in length and 40m.inwidth), Etolin and Revillagigedo; S.W.
of the mainland, two groups--.-(1) Kodiak, whose largest
island, of the same name, is 40 m. by 100 m., and may be
considered a continuation of the Kenai Peninsula, and whose
W. continuation, S. of Alaska Peninsula, consists of the
Semidi, Shumagin and Sannak clusters; (2) the Aleutian Islands
(q.v.) sweeping 1200 m. W.S.W. from the end of Alaska
Peninsula, W. of the mainland, in Bering Sea, the Pribilof
Islands, about 500 m. S. of Cape Prince of Wales, the small
Hall and St Matthew Islands, about 170 m. S.W. of the same
cape, St Lawrence Island (100 m. and 10 to 30 m. wide),
which is about half way between the last mentioned pair of
islets and Cape Prince of Wales and Nunivak Island, near the
mainland and due E. of St Matthew; and in the middle of Bering
Strait the Diomede Islands, which belong in part to Russia.
Very little was known about Alaska previous to 1896, when the
gold discoveries in the Klondike stimulated public interest
regarding it. Since 1895, however, the explorations of the
United States Geological Survey and the Department of War, and
other departments of the government, have fully established the
main features of its physiography. It has mountains, plateaus
and lowlands on a grand scale. ``In a broad way, the larger
features of topography correspond with those of the western
states. There is a Pacific Mountain system, a Central
Plateau region, a Rocky Mountain system, and a Great Plains
region. These four divisions are well marked, and show the
close geographic relation of this area to the southern part
of the Continent.'' The orographic features of the Pacific
Mountain system trend parallel to the coast-line of the Gulf of
Alaska, changing with this at the great bend beyond the N.,
and of the Panhandle from S.E. and N.W. to N.E. and S.W. and
running through the Alaska Peninsula. The Pacific Mountain
system includes four ranges. The Coast Range of the Panhandle
attains a width of 100 m., but has no well-defined crest
line. The range is characterized by the uniformity of
summit levels between 5O00 and 6000 ft. Continuing the Coast
Range, with which it is closely associated---the Chilkat
river lies between them---is the St Elias Range (a term
now used to include not only the mountains between Cross
Sound and Mt. St Elias, but the Chugach, Kenai, Skolai and
Nutzotin mountains); among its peaks are: Mt. Crillon ( 15,900
ft.), Mt. Fairweather ( 15,290 ft.), Mt. Vancouver (15,666
ft.), Mt. Wrangell (17,500 ft., an active volcano) in the
Nutzotin Mountains, Mt. St Elias (18,024 ft.) and, in Canadian
territory, Mt. Logan (19,539 ft.). The Aleutian Range, of
whose crest the Aleutian Islands are remnants, fills out the
system near the coast. The Alaskan Range, connecting with
the Nutzotin and Skolai branches of the St Elias Range, lies
a little farther inland; it is splendidly marked by many snowy
peaks, including Mt. Foraker (17,000 ft.) and Mt. Mckinley.
The latter, which on the W. rises abruptly out of a marshy
country, offers the obstacles of magnificent, inaccessible
granite cliffs and large glaciers to the mountaineer; it is
the loftiest peak in North America (ca. 20,300 ft.). In the
Alaskan Range and the Aleutian Range there are more than a
dozen live volcanoes, several of them remarkable; the latter
range is composed largely of volcanic material. Evidences
of very recent volcanic activity are abundant about Cook
Inlet. The Rocky Mountain system extends from Canada (the
Tukon territory) into N.E. Alaska, which it crosses near
the Arctic Coast in a broad belt composed of several ranges
about 6000 ft. in altitude. There is no well-defined crest
line; the axis of the system is roughly parallel to the
Pacific Mountain system, but runs more nearly E. and W. in
Alaska. Between the Pacific Mountain and the Rocky Mountain
systems lies the vast Central Plateau region, or Yukon
plateau. Finally, between the Rocky Mountains and the
Arctic Ocean is the Arctic Slope region, a sloping plain
corresponding to the interior plains of the United States.
First Physiographic Region.---The Panhandle is remarkably
picturesque. The maze of islands, hundreds in number, of
the Alexander Archipelago (area about 13,000 sq. m.) are
remnants of a submerged mountain system; the islands rise
3000 to 5000 ft. above the sea, with luxuriantly wooded
tops and bald, sheer sides scarred with marks of glacial
action; the beachless coast is only a narrow ledge between
the mountains and the sea, and unlike the coast of Norway,
to which in outline it is not dissimilar, is bold, steep and
craggy. Through the inner channels, sheltered from the
Pacific by the island rampart, runs the ``inland passage,''
the tourist route northward from Seattle, Washington.
The inter-insular straits are carried up into the shore as
fjords heading in rivers and glaciers. Thus the Stikine
river continues Sumner Strait and the Taku continues Cross
Sound. The Stikine, Taku and Alsek rivers all cross the
mountains in deep-cut canyons. Everywhere the evidences
of glacial action abound. Most remarkable are the inlets
known as Portland Canal and Lynn Canal (continuing Chatham
Strait). The first is very deep, with precipitous shores
and bordering mountains 5000 to 6000 ft. high; the second
is a noble fjord 100 m. long and on an average 6 m. wide,
with magnificent Alpine scenery. It is subject in winter
to storms of extraordinary violence, but is never closed by
ice. Both Portland Canal and Lynn Canal are of historical
importance, as the question of the true location of the
first and the commercial importance to Canada or to the
United States of the possession of the second, were the
crucial contentions in the disputes over the Alaska-Canadian
boundary. At the head of Lynn Canal, the only place on the
whole extent of the south-eastern Alaskan coast where a clear-cut
waterparting is exhibited between the sea-board and interior
drainage, the summits of the highest peaks in the Coast Range
are 8000 to 9000 ft. above the sea. White Pass (2888 ft.) and
Chilkoot Pass (3500 ft.), at the head of the Lynn Canal, are
the gateway to the mining country of the Klondike and Upper
Y(ukon. They are the highest points that one meets in travelling
from Skagway along the course of the Yukon to`Bering Sea.
Prior to the opening (in August 1900) of the railway between
Skagway and White Horse, Canada (110 m.), by way of the White
Pass, all transportation to the interior was effected by men
and pack-animals (and for a time by a system of telpherage)
over these passe 1/3 and the Chilkat or Dalton trail; the
building of the railway reduced carriage rates to less than
a tenth of their former value, and the Chilkat and Chilkoot
Passes were no longer used. The coast region above the
Panhandle shows on a smaller and diminishing scale the same
characteristic features, gradually running into those of the
Aleutians. Out of the Alaska and Nutzotin mountains two great
rivers flow southward: the Copper, practically unnavigable
except for small boats, because of its turbulence and the
discharge of glaciers into its waters; and the Susitna, also
practically unnavigable. Both of these rivers have their
sources in lofty mountain masses, and are swift and powerful
streams carrying with them much silt; their passes over the
water-parting N. of the Kenai Peninsula are through gorges from
4000 to 10,000 ft. in depth. The Copper, the Susitna and its
tributary, the Yentna, as well as the Skwentna, a tributary
of the Yentna from the west, all run through picturesque
canyons, and their upper courses are characterized by glacial
and torrential feeders. Their valleys are well timbered.
The glaciers of the Panhandle and throughout the rest of
the Pacific region are most remarkable---extraordinary alike
for their number and their size. They lie mainly between
56 deg. and 61 deg. N. lat., in a belt 1000 m. long, of which the
central part, some 350 or 500 m. long and 80 m. to 100 m.
wide, has been described as one great confluent neve
field. Thousands of Alpine glaciers from one to fifteen miles
long fill the upper valleys and canyons of the mountains.
More than a hundred almost reach the sea, from which they are
separated by detrital lowland or terminal moraines. Other
glaciers are of the Piedmont type. Greatest of these and of
Alaskan glaciers is the Malaspina, a vast elevated plateau of
wasting ice, 1500 sq. m. in area (nearly a tenth the area of
all Switzerland), touching the sea at only one point, though
fronting it for 50 m. behind a fringing foreland of glacial
debris. It is fed by Alpine glaciers, among them one of
the grandest in Alaska, the Seward, which descends from Mt.
Logan. It is more than 50 m. long, and more than 3 m. broad at
its narrowest point, and several times in its course flows over
cascades, falling hundreds of feet. Of tide-water glaciers
the most remarkable is probably the Muir. It has an area
of 350 sq. m.; the main trunk, which is 30 to 40 m. broad,
is fed by 26 tributaries, 20 of which are each greater than
the Mer de Glace, and pushes its bergs into the sea from ice
cliffs almost 2 m. wide, standing IOO to 200 ft. above the
water, and extending probably 700 to 1000 ft. beneath its
surface. It has been calculated that the average daily
discharge of the Muir in summer is 30,000,000 cubic ft. Its
course, which is only about 13 m., has a slope of 100 ft. per
mile, and the main current moves 7 ft. daily. The Character of
the Muir was greatly altered by an earthquake in 1899. There
are some 30 tide-water glaciers---a considerable number of
them very noteworthy. The Valdez is 30 m. long and 5000 ft. in
altitude. Most of the Alaskan glaciers are receding, but
not all of them; and at times there is a general advance.
The Muir receded 1.6 m. from 1879--1890, the Childs about
600 yards in 17 years; others over 4, 7 or 10 m. in 20 years.
The Aleutian Islands (q.v.), like the Alexander Archipelago, are
remnants of a submerged mountain system. Their only remarkable
features are the volcanoes on the easterly islands, already mentioned.
Continental Alaska.---Continental Alaska in the interior
is essentially a vast plateau. ``The traveller between the
main drainage areas of the interior is struck by the uniform
elevation of the interfluminal areas. Rounded hills, level
meads and persistent flat-topped ridges, composed of rocks of
varying structure, rise to about the same level and give the
impression that they are the remnants of a former continuous
surface. Occasional limited areas of rugged mountains rise
above this level, and innumerable stream valleys have been
incised below it; but from the northern base of the St Elias
and Alaskan ranges to the southern foothills of the Rocky
Mountain system, and throughout their length, the remnants of
this ancient level are to be seen. In height it varies from
about 5000 ft. close to the bases of the mountain systems
to less than 3000 ft. in the vicinity of the main lines of
drainage, and slopes gradually towards the north.'' The Seward
Peninsula is particularly rugged. This great plateau drains
westward through broad, gently flowing streams, the network
of whose tributary waters penetrates every corner of the
interior and offers easy means of communication. Both the main
streams and the smaller tributaries often flow through deep
canyons. The Yukon is one of the great drainage systems of the
world. The Yukon itself has a length of more than 2000 m.
and bisects the country from E. to W. Behind the bluffs that
form in large part its immediate border its basin is a rolling
country, at times sinking into great dead levels like the
Yukon flats between Circle City and the Lower Ramparts, some
30,000 sq. m. in area. Of the two great affluents of the
Yukon, the Tanana is for the most part unnavigable, while the
Koyukuk is navigable for more than 450 m. by river steamers,
and for more than 500 m. above its mouth shows no appreciable
diminution in volume. A low water-parting divides the Yukon
valley from the Kuskokwim, the second river of Alaska in
size, navigable by steamers for 600 m. Torrential near
its source, it is already a broad, sluggish stream at its
confluence with the East Kuskokwim. The tides rise 50 ft.
near its mouth and the tide-head is 100 m. above the mouth.
Rocky Mountains. --The Rocky Mountain system in Alaska
is higher and more complex than in Canada. About 100 m.
wide at the international boundary, where the peaks of the
British Mountains on the N. and of the Davidson Mountains
On the S. are 7000 to 8000 ft. high, the system runs W.S.W.
as the Endicott Mountains, two contiguous ranges of about
5000 to 6000 ft., and as these ranges separate, the northern
becomes the De Long, the southern the Baird Mountains, whose
elevation rapidly decreases toward the coast-line. The system
is sharply defined on the north and less so on the south.
Arctic Slope Region.---The Arctic Slope region is
divided into the Anuktuvuk Plateau about 80 m. wide,
with a maximum altitude to the S. of 2500 ft., and
between the plateau and the Arctic Ocean the Coastal
Plain. Very little is known of either part of the region.
Climate.--From the foregoing description of the country it
is evident that the range of climate must be considerable.
That of the coast and that of the Yukon plateau are quite
distinct. The Panhandle, along with the lisiere (foreland),
westward to Cook Inlet might be called temperate Alaska, its
climate being similar to that of the N.W. coast of the United
States; while to the westward and northward the winters become
longer and more severe. d/he cause of the mild climate of the
Panhandle, formerly supposed to be the Japanese current, or
Kuro Shiwo, is now held to be the general eastward drift of the
waters of the North Pacific in the direction of the prevalent
winds. To the warmth and moisture brought by this means the
coastal region owes its high equable temperature, its heavy
rainfall (80-110 in.) and its superb vegetation. The mean
annual temperature is from 54 deg. to 60 deg. F. Winter sets in
about the 1st of December and the snow is gone save in the
mountains by the 1st of May. The thermometer rarely registers
below zero F. or above 75 deg. F.; the difference between
the midwinter and midsummer averages is seldom more than
25 deg. . The summer is relatively dry, the autumn and winter
wet. The vapour-laden sea air blowing landward against the
girdle of snow and glaciers on the mountain barriers a few
miles inland drains its moisture in excessive rain and snow
upon the lisiere, shrouding it in well-nigh unbroken fog
and cloud-bank. Only some 60 to 100 days in the year are
clear. In passing from the Sitkan district westward toward
Kodiak and the Aleutians (q.v.) the climate becomes even
more equable, the temperature a little lower and the rainfall
somewhat less; i the fogs at first less dense, especially
near Cook Inlet, where the climate is extremely local, but
more and more persistent along the Aleutians. The clear
days of a year at Unalaska can be counted on the fingers;
five days in seven it actually rains or snows. Bering Sea
is covered with almost eternal fog. Along the coast N. of
Alaska Peninsula the rainfall diminishes to 10 in. or less
within the Arctic circle; the summer temperature is quite
endurable but the winters are exceedingly rigorous.2 East
of the mountains in south-eastern Alaska the atmosphere is
dry and bracing, the temperature ranging from -14 deg. to 92 deg.
F. In the farther interior, in the valleys of the Yukon, the
Tanana, the Copper and the Sushitna the summers are much the
same in character, the winters much more severe. On the Yukon
at the international boundary the mean of the warmest month
is higher than that of the warmest month at Sitka, 500 m.
southward. At some points in the Upper Yukon valley the range
of extreme temperatures is as great as from --75 deg. to 90 deg.
F.3 The mean heat of summer in the upper valley is about
60 deg. to 70 deg. F., and at some points in the middle and lower
valley even higher.4 By the middle of September snow flurries
have announced the imminence of winter, the sipaller streams
congeal, the earth freezes, the miner perforce abandons
his diggings, and navigation ceases even on the Yukon in
October. All winter snows fall heavily. The air is dry and
quiet, and the cold relatively uniform. In midwinter in the
upper valley the sun rises only a few degrees above the horizon
for from four to six hours a day, though very often quite
obscured. In December, January, February and March the
thermometer often registers lower than -50 deg. F., and the mean
temperature is -20 deg. . In May the rivers open, the cleared land
thaws out, and by June the miner is again at work. Summer is
quickly in full ascendancy. In May and June the sun shines
from eighteen to twenty hours and diffused twilight fills
the rest of the day. The rainfall is light, from 10 to 25
in. according to the year or the locality. Dull weather is
unknown. All nature responds in rich and rapid growth to
the garish light and intense heat of the long, splendid
days. But the Alaska summer is the uncertain season at times
the nights are cold into July, at times snow falls and there
are frosts in mid-August; sometimes rain is heavy, or again
there is a veritable drought. In the great river valleyss.
of the Yukon basin climatic conditions are much less uniform.
Fauna anid Flora.---The fauna of Alaska is very rich and
surprisingly varied. The lists of insects, birds and mammals
are especially noteworthy.5 Of these three classes, and of
other than purely zoological interest, are mosquitoes, which
swarm in summer in the interior in vast numbers; sea fowl,
which are remarkably abundant near the Aleutians; moose,
and especialiv caribou, which in the past were very numerous
in the interior and of extreme economic importance to the
natives. The destruction of the wild caribou has threatened
to expose the Indians to wholesale starvation, hence the
effort which the United States government has made to stock
the country with domestic reindeer from Siberia. This effort
made under the direction of the Bureau of Education has been
eminently successful, and in the future the reindeer seems
certain to contribute very greatly to the food, clothing,
means of shelter and miscellaneous industries of the natives;
and not less to the solution of the problems of communication
and transportation throughout the interior. It is, however,
the fish and the fur-bearing animals of its rivers and
surrounding seas that are economically most distinctive of
and important to Alaska. The fishing grounds extend along
the coast from the extreme south-east past the Aleutians
into Bristol Bay. Herring are abundant, and cod especially
so. There are probably more than 100,000 sq. m. of cod-banks
from 22 to 00 fathoms deep in Bering oea and E. or the Alaska
Peninsula. Salmon are to be found in almost incredible
numbers. Of marine mammals, whales are hunted far to the N.
in Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, but are much less common
than formerly, as are also the walrus, the sea otter and
the fur seal. All these are disappearing before commercial
greed. The walrus is now found mainly far N.; the sea
otter, once fairly common throughout the Aleutian district,
is now rarely found even on the remoter islands; the fur
seal, whose habitat is the Pribilof Islands in Bering
Sea, has been considerably reduced in numbers by pelagic
hunting. There are half-a-dozen species of hair seals and
sea-lions. The number of fur-bearing land animals is equally
large. Sables, ermine, wolverines, minks, land otters,
beavers and musk-rats have always been importantitemsin the fur
trade. There are black, grizzly and polar bears, and also
two exclusively Alaskan species, the Kodiak and the glacier
bear. The grey wolf is common; it is the basal stock of
the Alaskan sledge-dog. The red fox is widely distributed,
and the white or Arctic fox is very common along the
eastern coast of Bering Sea; a blue fox, once wild, is
now domesticated on Kodiak and the Aleutians, and on the
southern continental coast, and a black fox, very rare,
occurs in south-eastern Alaska; the silver fox is very rare.
The Alaskan flora is less varied than the fauna. The
forests of the coastal region eastward from Cook Inlet, and
particularly in south-eastern Alaska, are of fair variety,
and of great richness and value. The balsam fir and in the
south the red cedar occur in scant quantities; more widely
distributed, but growing only under marked local conditions,
is the yellow or Alaska cedar, a very hard and durable wood
of fine grain and pleasant odour. The Oregon alder is fairly
common. Far the most abundant are coast and Alpine hemlocks
and the tide-land or Sitka spruce. The last is not confined
to this part of Alaska, but is the characteristic and universal
tree. It is of primary economic importance to thenatives,who
use it for the most variouspurposcs. On the islands of the
Alexander Archipelago and on Prince William Sound it grows
to gigantic size; even on the Koyukuk and the middle Yukon
it attains in places a diameter of 2 ft. In 1002 a forest
reservation comprising the largest part of the Alexander
Archipelago was created by the United States government. The
separation of the coast and interior floras is almost complete;
only along the mountain passes and river valleys, and rarely
there, is there an exchange of species. Timber, however, is
fairly abundant along the entire course of the Yukon above Anvik
(about 400 m. from the mouth), along the great tributaries of
the Yukon, and, so far as explorations have re vealed, along
every stream in central Alaska; and the woods of the interior
consist almost entirely of spruce. On the Yukon flats it
grows in a vast forest impenetrably dense.6 The timber line,
which in the I,anhandle and along the southern coast of the
continental mass runs from 1800 to 2400 ft., frequently rises
in the interior plateau even to 4000 ft. Next in importance
after spruce, in the interior, is birch, and then balsam
poplar. Thickets of alders and willows in wet places and
new-made land, aspens and large cottonwoods west of the
characteristic spruce area (as on Seward Peninsula), are also
common. Toward the Arctic circle, the timber becomes, of
course, sparse, low, gnarled and distorted. The willows in
the Arctic drainage basin shrink to shrubs scarcely knee-high.
Bushes are common in western Alaska, but undergrowth is very
scanty in the forests. Crasses grow luxuriantly in the river
bottoms and wherever the tundra moss is destroyed to give them
footing. Most distinctive is the ubiquitous carpeting of
mosses, varying in colours from the pure white and cream of
the reindeer moss to the deep green and brown of the peat
moss, all conspicuously spangled in the briefsummer with
bright flowers of the higher orders, heavy blossoms on stunted
stalks. The thick peat moss or tundra of the undrained lowlands
covers probably at least a quarter of Alaska; the reindeer moss
grows both on the lowlands and the hills.7 Sedges available
for forage grow in the tundra. In August berries are fairly
abundant over the interior; one of them, the salmon or cloud
berry, preserved in seal oil for the winter, is an important
food of the natives. The grasses are killed by the frosts in
September. The western timber limit is on Kodiak Island.
The Aleutian Islands (q.v.) are almost destitute of trees,
but are covered with a luxuriant growth of herbage. Climatic
differences cannot account for the treeless condition of
the country W. of this point, and the true explanation lies
probably in the fact that in winter, when the seeds of the
coastal forests ripen and are released, the prevalent winds
W. of Kodiak are damp and blow from the S. and S.W., while
the spread of the seeds requires dry winds blowing from the
N. and N.W. Such favourable conditions occur only rarely.
The Soil of Alaska seems to be in Jtself rich, and quite
capable of agricultural development; the great impediment
to this is in . the briefness of the summer. Contrary,
however, to the once universal belief, the experiments of
the department of agriculture of the United States have
definitely proved that hardy vegetables in great variety
can readily be produced in the coastal region and at various
stations in the Yukon valley; and presumably, therefore, all
over the interior S. of the Arctic circle, save along Bering
Sea; also that there is little doubt of the practicability
of successfully cultivating buckwheat, barley and oats, and
possibly also rye and wheat; that grasses for grazing grow
generally and often in abundance; and in general that the
possibilities of interior Alaska as a live-stock country
are very cons18erable. It is calculated that a twentieth of
south-eastern Alaska is available for agriculture, and that of
the entire country 100,000 sq. m. are pasturable or tillable.
Indiistrl'.---The fur and fish resources of Alaska have until
recently held first place in her industries. Herrings furnish
oil and guano, and the young fish are packed as ``sardines'' at
Juneau. Cod can be taken with comparatively little danger or
hardship. During the Russian occupation a small amount was
shipped to California and the Sandwich Islands. The take
since 1879 has been practically constant. The take of halibut
is increasing steadily. The salmon industry dates from
1878. The total output (in 1901, 100,000,000 lb.; in 1006,
about 72,000,000 lb.), which since 1900 has been more than
half the total salmon product of the United States, is more
than ten' times the product of all other fish.8 On the Karluk
river, Kodiak Island, is the greatest salmon fishery in the
world. More than 3,000,000 salmon have been canned here
in one season. The second salmon stream is the Nushagak,
flowing into Bristol Bay; this bay is the richest fishing
field of Alaska, furnishing in 1901, 35% of the total
production. The recklessly wasteful manner in which these
fisheries are conducted, and the inadequate measures taken by
the United States government for their protection, threaten
the entire industry with destruction. From 1867 to 1902
the value of the total fishery product was estimated at
$60,000,000. The fur-seal industry has been better protected
but still unavailingly. (See SEAL FIsheries and BERINO SEA
ARBITRATION.) The value of the fur seals taken from 1868 to
1902 was estimated at $35,000,000 and that of other furs at
$17,000,000. The walrus, hunted for its ivory tusks, and
the sea otter, rarest and most valuable of Alaskan fur
animals, are near extermination; the blue fox is now bred
for its pelt on the Aleutians and the southern continental
coast; the skins of the black and silver fox are extremely
rare, and in general the whole fur industry is discouragingly
decadent. The whale fishery also has greatly fallen off;
there is no profit on the oil and the whales are sought for
the baleen alone; they are much less numerous too than they
once were, and have to be sought farther and farther north.
Minerals.--The timber resources of Alaska are untouched
and the serious exploitation of her minerals is very recent.
As early as 1861 gold discoveries were made on the Stikine
river; repeated discoveries, culminating in the Cassiar
district ``boom,'' were made in British Columbia from 1857 to
1874; colourings along the Yukon were reported in 1866-1867
and systematic prospecting of the upper river began about
1873. Juneau was founded in 1880; the same year the opposition
of the Indians was withdrawn that had prevented the crossing
of the mountain passes to the interior, and after 1880
repeated and scattered discoveries were made on the Lewes,
Pelly, Stewart and other streams of the Upper Yukon country in
Canada. As early as 1883-1885 there was a considerable mining
excitement due to these discoveries, and a much greater one
in 1887 after the discovery of coarse gold on Forty Mile
Creek in American territory; but these were as nothing to
the picturesque and feverish rush that followed the location
of the first Klondike claim in Canadian territory in August
1896. (SEE KLONDIKE.) The mines in American territory
were temporarily deserted for the new diggings. Other gold
districts are scattered over the whole interior of Alaska.
Nome (q.v.) was the scene of a great gold mining stampede in
1900. The quartz mines near Juneau are among the greatest
stamp mills of the world (SEE JUNEAU.) The product of gold
and silver (of the latter some 1.3% of the total) from 1895
to 1901 was more than $32,000,000 from Alaska proper (not
including that from the Canadian Tukon fields) as against
a production of $5,000,000 in 1880-1896. The gold product
of the Canadian Yukon territory from 1896-1903 was about
$96,000,000, as estimated by the Canadian Geological Survey. In
1905 the product of gold from Alaska was valued at $15,630,000
(mines report); and from 1880 to 19djec the production of
gold, according to the estimate of A. H. Brooks, was more than
$100,000,000. The gravest problem of mining in the interior
country, even graver than that presented by the climate, is
transportation; in 1900 the Tanana fields, for example, were
provisioned from Circle City, about 125 m. distant, at the
rate of a cent per lb. mile (i.e. $2000 for moving a ton 100
m.). Even higher rates prevailed in the copper country in
1902. Various other minerals in addition to gold have been
discovered, and several of them, notably copper and silver
(the latter appearing with the gold deposits), may probably
be profitably exploited. In 1905 the product of copper
was valued at $759,634, that of silver at $80,165 (mines
report). Coal, and in much larger quantities lignite,
have been found in many parts of Alaska. Most important,
because of their location, are deposits along the Alaska
Peninsula and between Circle City and Dawson. The latter
furnishes fuel to the river steamboats, and it is hoped may
eventually supply the surrounding mining region. There are
valuable deposits of gypsum on Chicagof Island, and marble
quarries are being developed on Prince of Wales Island.
As against $7,200,000 paid for Alaska in 1867, the revenues
returned to the United States in the years 1867--1903 totalled
$9,555,909 (namely, rental for the Fox and Pribilof Islands,
$999,200; special revenue tax on seal-skins, $7,597,351;
Alaskan customs, $528,558; public lands, $28,928; other sources
$401,872). It has been estimated that in the same period
the United States drew from Alaska fish, furs and gold
to the value of about $150,000,000; that up to 1903 the
imports from the states aggregated $i00,000,000; and that
$25,000,000 of United States capital was invested in Alaska.
Since 1896 communication with the outer world has been greatly
increased. Alaskan mails leave the states daily, many
post-offices are maintained, mail is regularly delivered
beyond the Arctic circle, all the more important towns have
telegraphic communication with the states,9 there is one
railway in the interior through Canadian territory from
Skagway, and other railways are planned. The total mileage
in 1906 was 136 m. In that year the Alaskan Central Railroad
(from Seward to Fairbanks, 463 m.) was chartered; 45 m. of
this road were in operation in 1905. One long military road
as an ``All American'' route from Valdez has long been built.
Population.---The population in 1867 at the time of the
cession from Russia is estimated at 30,000, of which two-thirds
were Eskimo and other Indians. Population returned in
1880, 33,426; in 1890, 32,052; in 1900, 63,592, of whom
approximately 48% were whites, 46% natives and 6% Japanese and
Chinese; (1910 census) 64,356. The Asiatics are employed in
the salmon canneries. The natives of Alaska fall under four
ethnologic races: the Eskimo or Innuit---of these the Aleuts
are an offshoot; the Haidas or Kaigani, found principally
on Prince of Wales Island and thereabouts; the Thlinkits,
rather widely distributed in the ``Panhandle''; and the
Tinnehs or Athapascans, the stock race of the great interior
country. In 1800 the pure-blooded natives numbered 23,531,
of whom 6000 were Haidas, Thlinkits or other natives of the
coastal region, 1000 Aleuts, 3400 Athapascans and 13,100
Eskimo. The natives have adopted many customs of white
civilization, and on the Aleutians, and in coastal Alaska, and
in scattered regions in the interior acknowledge Christianity
under the forms of the Orthodox Greek or other churches. The
rapid exhaustion in late years of the caribou, seals and other
animals, once the food or stockin-trade of the Aleuts and other
races, threatens more and more the swift depletion of the
natives. They have also felt the fatal influence of the liquor
traffic. From 1893 to 1895 the United States expended $55,000
to support the natives of the Fur Seal Islands. This policy
threatens to become a continued necessity throughout much of
Alaska. There is a small government Indian reservation
on Afognak Island, near Kodiak. The white population is
extremely mobile, and few towns have an assured or definite
future. The prosperity of the mining towns of the interior
is dependent on the fickle fortune of the gold-fields,
for which they are the distributing points. Sitka, Juneau
(the capital) and Douglas, both centres of a rich mining
district, Skagway, shipping point for freight for the Klondike
country (see these titles), and St Michael, the ocean port
for freighting up the Yukon, are the only towns apparently
assured of a prosperous future. Wrangell (formerly Fort
St Dionysius, Fort Stikine and Fort Wrangell), founded in
1833, is a dilapidated and torpid little village, of some
interest in Alaskan history, and of temporary importance from
1874 to 1877 as the gateway to the Cassiar mines in British
Columbia. Its inhabitants are chiefly Thlinkit Indians.
Government.---Alaska, by an act of Congress approved the
7th of May 1906, received the power to elect a delegate to
Congress. Before this act and the elections of August 1906
Alaska was a governmental district of the United States without
a delegate in Congress. Its administration rests in the hands
of the various executive departments, and is partly exercised
by a governor and other resident officials appointed by the
president. It is a military district, a customs district (since
1868), is organized into a land district, and constitutes
three judicial divisions. In 1867-1877 the government was
in the hands of the department of war, although the customs
were from the beginning collected by the department of the
treasury, with which the effective control rested from 1877
until the passage of the so-called Organic Act of 17th May
1884. This act extended over Alaska the laws of the state
of Oregon so far as they should be applicable, created the
judicial district and a land district, put in force the
mining laws of the United States, and in general gave the
administrative system the organization it retained up to the
reforms of 1899-1900. The history of government and political
agitation has centred since then in the demand for general
land legislation and for an adequate civil and criminal law,
in protests against the enforcement of a liquor prohibition
law, and in agitation for an efficiently centralized
administration. As the general land laws of the United States
were not extended to Alaska in 1884, there was no means,
generally speaking, of gaining title to any land other than
a mining claim, and so far as any method did exist its cost
was absolutely prohibitive. After partial and inadequate
legislation in 1891 and 1898, the regular system of land
surveys was made applicable to Alaska in 1899, and a generous
homestead law was provided in 1903. An adequate code of civil
and criminal law and provisions for civil government under
improved conditions were provided by Congress in 1899 and
1900. The agitation over prohibition dates from 1868; the
act of that year organizing a customs district forbade the
importation and sale of firearms, ammunition and distilled
spirits; the Organic Act of 1884 extended this prohibition
to all intoxicating liquors. The coast of Alaska offers
exceptional facilities for smuggling, and liquor bas always
been very plentiful; juries have steadily refused to convict
offenders, and treasury officials have regularly collected
revenue from saloons existing in defiance of law. The
prohibition law is still upon the statute-books. The chief
weaknesses in the colonial administration of the territory,
particularly prior to 1900---but only to a slightly less
extent since---have been decentralization and a lax civil
service. The concomitants of these have been irresponsibility
and inefficiency. The governor has represented the president
without possessing much power; the department of war has had
illdefined duties; the department of justice has, in theory,
had charge of the general law; the department of the interior
has administered the land law; the agents of the bureau of
education have superintended the stocking of Alaska with
reindeer; the United States Fish Commission has investigated
the condition of marine life without having powers to protect
it. The treasury department has charted the coasts, sought
to enforce the prohibition law, controlled and protected
the fur seals and fisheries, and incidentally collected the
customs. Since the creation of the department of commerce
and labour (1903), it has taken over from other departments
some of these scattered functions. All in all, the
government has proved itself without power to protect the
most valuable industries of the district, and for many years
there has been talk of a regular territorial government.
The paucity of permanent residents and the poverty of the
local treasury seem to make such a solution an impossibleone.
History.---The region now known as Alaska was first explored
by the Russian officers Captain Vitus Bering and Chirikov
in I 741 They visited parts of the coast between Dixon
Entrance and Cape St Elias, and returned along the line of the
Aleutians. Their expedition was followed by many private
vessels manned by traders and trappers. Kodiak was discovered
in 1763 and a settlement effected in 1784. Spanish expeditions
in 1774 and 1775 visited the south-eastern coast and laid a
foundation for subsequent territorial claims, one incident of
which were the Nootka Sound seizures of 1789. Captain James
Cook in 1778 made surveys from which the first approximately
accurate chart of the coast was published; but it was reserved
for Vancouver in 1793-1794 to make the first charts in the
modern sense of the intricate south-eastern coast, which only
in recent years have been superseded by new survel's. Owing
to excesses committed by private traders and companies, who
robbed, massacred and hideously abused the native Indians,
the trade and regulation of the Russian possessions were
in 1799 confided to a semi-official corporation called the
Russian-American Company for a term of twenty years, afterwards
twice renewed for similar periods. A monopoly of the American
trade had previously been granted in 1788 to another private
company, the Shohkof. Alexander Baranov (1747--1819); chief
resident director of the American companies (1790-1819), one
of the early administrators of the new company, became famous
through the successes he achieved as governor. He founded
Sitka (q.v.) in 1804 after the massacre by the natives of
the inhabitants of an eadier settlement (1799) at an adjacent
point. The headquarters of the company were at Kodiak until
1805, and thereafter at Sitka. In 1821 Russia attempted by
ukase to exclude navigators from Bering Sea and the Pacific
coast of her possessions, which led to immediate protest from
the United States and Great Britain. This led to a treaty
with the United States in 1824 and one with Great Britain in
1825, by which the excessive demands of Russia were relinquished
and the boundaries of the Russian possessions were permanently
fixed. The last charter of the Russian-American Company expired
on the 31st of December 1861, and Prince Maksutov, an imperial
governor, was appointed to administer the affairs of the
territory. In 1864 authority was granted to an American
company to make explorations for a proposed Russo-American
company's telegraph line overland from the Amur river in
Siberia to Bering Strait, and through Alaska to British
Columbia. Work was begun on this scheme in 1865 and continued
for nearly three years, when the success of the Atlantic
cable rendered the construction of the lme unnecessary and
it was given up, but not until important explorations had been
made. In 1854 a Californian company began importing ice from
Alaska. Very soon thereafter the first Official overtures
by the United States for the purchase of Russian America were
made during the presidency of James Buchanan. In 1867, by a
treaty signed on the 30th of March, the purchase was consummated
for the sum of $7,200,o00, and on the 18th of October 1867
the formal transfer of the territory was made at Sitka.
Since its acquisition by the United States the history of Alaska
has been mainly that of the evolution of its administrative
system described above, and the varying fortunes of its
fisheries and sealing industries. Since the gold discoveries
a wonderful advance has been made in the exploration of the
country. A military reservation has been created with Fort
Michael as a centre. The two events of greatest general interest
have been the Fur Seal Arbitration of 1893 (see BERING SEA
ARBITRATION), and the . Alaska-Canadian boundary dispute,
settled by an international tribunal of British and American
jurists in London in 1903. The boundary dispute involved the
interpretation of the words, quoted above, in the treaties
of 1825 and 1867 defining the boundary of the Russian (later
American) possessions, and also the determining of the location
of Portland Canal, and the question whether the coastal girdle
should cross or pass around the heads of the fjords of the
coast. The tribunal was an ad-)udication board and not an
actual court of arbitration, since its function was not to decide
the boundary but to settle the meaning of the Anglo-Russian
treaty, which provided for an ideal (and not a physical)
boundary. This boundary did not fit in with geographical
facts; hence the adjudication was based upon the motive of
the treaty and not upon the literal interpretation of such
elastic terms as ``ocean,', ``shore'' and ``coast-line.''
The award of the tribunal made in October 1903 was arrived
at by the favourable vote of the three commissioners of
the United States and of Lord Alverstone, whose action
was bitterly resented by the two Canadian commissioners;
it sustained in the main the claims of the United States.
AUTHORITIES.---W. H. Dall and M. Baker, ``List of Charts,
Maps, and Publications relating to Alaska'', in United States
Pacific Coast Pilot, 1879; Monthly Catalogue United
States Public Documents, No. 37 (1898), and Bulletin
227, United States Geological Surve8' (1904), for official
documents; H. H. Bancroft, Alaska 1710--f8&5) pp. 595-609;
and various other bibliographies in titles mentioned below,
especially in Brooke's The Geography and Geology of Alaska.
General.--United States Monthly Summary of Commerce Finance,
July 1903, ``Commercial Alaska, 1867-1903. Area, Popula
tion, Productions, Commerce . . .''; W. H. Dall, Alaska
and its Resources (Boston, 1870); C. Sumner, Speech on
``Cession of Russian-America to the United States,'' in
Works, vol. xi. (Boston, 1875): C. H. Merriam, editor,
Halrriman Alaska Expedition (New York, 1901-1904, 3 vols.).
Physiography and Climate.---United States Department of
War, Explorations in Alaska, 1864-1900 (Washington, 1901);
United States Geological Survey, Annual Reports since
1897---``The Geography and Geology of Alaska: A Summary of
Existing Knowledge,'' by Alfred H. Brooks (Washington, 1905;
Professional Paper, No. 45), with various maps (see National
Geographic Mag., May 1904, lor a map embodying all knowledge
then known); ``Altitudes in Alaska'' (Bulletin 100, by H.
Gannett); ``Geographic Dictionary of Alaksa'' (Bulletin
299, Washington, 1906), by M. Baker; United States Post
Office, ``Map of Alaska'' (1901); United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey, Bulletins and maps; Bulletin American
Geographieal Society, February 1902, F. S. Schrader, ``Work
of the United States Geological Survey in Alaska''; Journal
of Franklin Institute, October and November 1904, W. R.
Abercrombie---``The Copper River Country of Alaska''; I. C.
Russell, Glaciers of North America. . . . Ivan Petroff, Report
Industries.--United States Census, 1880, Ivan Petroff,
Report on the Population, Industries and Resources of
Alaska; United States Census, 1890 and 1900; on reindeer,
Fifteenth Annuat Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer
into Alaska, by Sheldon Jackson (Washington, 1906); on
agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture, Experiment
Stations, Bulletin Nos. 48, 62, 82 . . . (1898-1900); Seal
and Salmon Fisheries and General Industries of Alaska,
1868-1805 (Washington, 1898) (United States Treasury, also
55 Congress, 1 Session, House Document 92, vols. vi.-x.),
4 vols.; D. S. Jordan et al., The Fur Seals and Fur Seal
Islanids (or Peport of ln.: also many special reports on
the seals published by the voln.: also many special reports
on the seals published by the United States Treasury: for
Report of British seal experts, Creat Britain, Foreign Office
Correspondence, United States, No. 3 (1897), No. 1 (1898).
History and Government.--H. H. Bancroft, Alaska, 1730-1885
(San Francisco, 1886); W. H. Dall, ``Alaska as it was and
is, 1863-1893,'' in Bulletin of the Philadelphia Society of
Washington, xiii.; Governor of Alaska, Annual Report to the
Secretary of the Interior; Fur Seal Arbitration, Proceedings
(Washington, 1895, 46 vols.l: also Great Britain, Foreign
Office Correspondence, United States, Nos. 6, 7, 8 (1893), No.
1 (1895); Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, Cases, Counter-cases,
Arguments, Atlases of United States and Great Britain
(Washington, 1903 seq.); and a rich periodical literature.
Population, Natives.--United States National Museum,
Ann. Report (1896); W. Hough, ``Lamp of the Eskimo''
(long, and of general interest): F. Knapp and R. L. Childe,
The Thlinkets of South-Eastern Alaska (Chicago, 1896).
1 At Kodiak, the monthly means range from 28 deg. to 33 deg. with a
total range from -10 deg. to 82 deg. F., as against -5 deg. to 87 deg. F.
at Sitka; the average temperature is 40.6 deg. F., rainfall 59 in.
2 At St Michael the mean annual temperature is about 26 deg. ,
the monthly means run from about -2 deg. to 54 deg. , and the extreme
recorded temperatures from about -55 deg. to 77 deg. F.; at Port
Clarence the annual mean is 22 deg. lmonthly means -7 deg. to 51 deg.
F.; extreme range of temperature, -38 deg. to 77 deg. F.; at Point
Barrow the annual mean is 7.70 F'., monthly means -18.6 deg.
to 38.1 deg. F., extreme range of temperature -55 deg. to 65 deg. F.
3 The mean annual temperature on the Yukon at the international
line is about 21 deg. F., the monthly means run from -17 deg. to 60 deg.
F., the range of extreme temperatures from -80 deg. to 90 deg. F.
4 At Fort Yukon five years' records showed mean seasonal
temperatures of 14 deg. , 60 deg. , 17 deg. , and -23.8 deg. F. for spring,
summer, autumn and winter respectively: at Holy Cross Mission 20 deg. ,
59 deg. , 36 deg. and 0.95 deg. , at Nulato 29 deg. , 60 deg. , 36 deg. and -14 deg. . `
5 The Harriman expedition collected in two months 1000 species of
insects, of which 344 species (and 6 genera) were new to science.
6 The trees here grow as large as 10 in. in diameter and 40 or
50 ft. high; the branches do nor spread, even where there is room,
so ihat the tallest tree has a top only four or five feet broad;
the roots, which cannot penetrate the shaded and frozen soil,
spread over the ice or shallowly into the tundra carpeting, and
often only by their matted neiwork prevent the fall of the trees.
7 280 species of mosses proper, of which 46 were new to science,
and 16 varieties of peat moss (Sphognum) were listed by the
Harriman expedition; and 74 species or varieties of ferns.
8 The value of the total aroduct of Alaska's fish canneries
was in 1905 $7,735,782, or 29.3% of the total for the
United States; in 1900 it was 17.4% of the country's total.
9 Seattle, Sitka and Valdez are connected by cable;
telegraoh lines run from the Panhandle inland to
the Yukon and down its valley to Fort St Michael.
ALASSIO, a town of Liguria, Italy, on the N.W. coast
of the Gulf of Genoa, in the province of Genoa, 57
m. S.W. of the town of the same name by rail. Pop. (1901)
5630. It is mainly noticeable as a health resort in winter
and a bathing-place in summer, and has many hotels. The
anchorage is safe, and the bay full of fish; the harbour
has a certain amount of trade. The old town contains one
or two interesting churches, and commands a fine view.
ALASTOR, in Greek mythology, the spirit of revenge, which
prompts the members of a family to commit fresh crimes to obtain
satisfaction. These crimes necessitate further acts of
vengeance, and the curse is thus transmitted from generation to
generation. The word is also used for a man's evil genius,
which drives him to sin without any provocation; a man so
driven is sometimes called Alastor. The epithet is applied to
Zeus and the Erinyes as the deities of revenge and punishment.
ALA-TAU (``Variegated Mountains''), the name of six
mountain ranges in Asiatic Russia. Three of these are in the
government of Semiryechensk in Central Asia, all belonging to
the Tianshan system:---(1) the Terskei Ala-tau, south of and
parallel to the lake of Issyk-kul; (2) the Kunghei Ala-tau,
and (3) the Trans-Ili Ala-tau, both N. of and parallel to the
same lake; and (4) the Dzungarian Ala-tau, lying N. of the Ili
depression. The first three link together the Tian-shan and
the Alexander Range. Their mean elevation is 6000--7000 ft.;
their culminating point, Talgar, on a transverse ridge between
(2) and (3), reaches 15,000 ft.; the limits of perpetual
snow run at 11,000-11,700 ft. The Dzungarian Ala-tau reach a
maximum altitude of 11,000 ft. and have a mean altitude of 6250
ft. From the middle of the Alexander Range another range
(5) called Ala-tau, or Talastau, strikes west by south. The
name Ala-tau also enters into the designation of (6), a range
between the upper Yenisei and the upper Ob, in the government
of Tomsk, namely, the Kuznetsk Ala-tau, forming an outlier of
the Altai Mountains, and reaching 6000-7000 ft. in altitude.
ALAUNA, ALAUNUS, the Celtic names of two rivers, &c., in Roman
Britain. Hence the modern Allan Water, river Alyn, &c.
ALAVA, DON MIGUEL RICARDO DE (1770-1841), Spanish general
and statesman, was born at Vittoria in 1770. He served first
in the navy, and had risen to be captain of a frigate when he
exchanged intorthe army, receiving corresponding rank. He
was present as a marine at the battle of Trafalgar on board the
flagship of his uncle Admiral Alava. In politics he followed
a very devious course. At the assembly of Bayonne in 1808 he
was one of the most prominent of those who accepted the new
constitution from Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain. After the
national rising against French aggression, and the defeat of
General Dupont at Bailen in 1808, Alava joined the national
independent party, who were fighting in alliance with the
English. The Spanish Cortes appointed him commissary at the
English headquarters, and the duke of Wellington, who regarded
him with great favour, made him one of his aides-decamp.
Before the close of the campaign he had risen to the rank of
brigadier-general. On the restoration of Ferdinand,
Alava was cast into prison, but the influence of his uncle
Ethenard, the inquisitor, and of Wellington secured his speedy
release. He soon contrived to gain the favour of the king,
who appointed him in 1815 ambassador to the Hague. It was
therefore his remarkable forrune to be present at the battle
of Waterloo with Wellington's staff. He is supposed to
have been the only man who was present at both Waterloo and
Trafalgar. Four years later he was recalled owing, it is
said, to the marked kindness he had shown to his banished
fellow-countrymen. On the breaking out of the revolution
of 1820 he was chosen by the province of Alava to represent
it in the Cortes, where he became conspicuous in the party
of the Exallados, and in 1822 was made president. In
the latter year he fought with the militia under Francisco
Ballesteros and Pablo Murillo to maintain the authority of
the Cortes against the rebels. When the French invested
Cadiz, Alava was commissioned by the Cortes to treat with
the duc d'Angouleme, and the negotiations resulted in the
restoration of Ferdinand, who pledged himself to a liberal
policy. No sooner had he regained power, however, than
he ceased to hold himself bound by his promises, and
Alava found it necessary to retire first to Gibraltar and
then to England. On the death of Ferdinand he returned to
Spain, and espousing the cause of Maria Christina against
Don Carlos was appointed ambassador to London in 1834 and
to Paris in 1835. After the insurrection of La Granja he
refused to sign the constitution of 1812, declaring himself
tired of taking new oaths, and was consequently obliged
to retire to France, where he died at Bareges in 1843.
Frequent and honourable mention of Alava is made in Napier's
History of the Peninsular War, and his name is often met borh
in lives of the duke of Wellington and in his correspondence.
ALAVA, one of the Basque Provinces of northern Spain;
bounded on the N. by Biscay and Guipuzcoa, E. by Navarre, S. by
Logrono, and W. by Burgos. Pop. (1900) 96,385; area 1175 sq.
m. The countship of Trevino (190 sq. m.) in the centre of
Alava belongs to the province of Burgos. The surface of
Alava is very mountainous, especially on the north, where
a part of the Pyrenees forms its natural boundary. It is
separated from Logrono by the river Ebro, and its other rivers
are the Zadorra and the Ayuda. The climate is mild in summer,
fitful in autumn and spring, and very cold in winter, as even
the plains are high and shut in on three sides by mountains
snow-clad during several months. The soil in the valleys
is fertile, yielding wheat, barley, maize, flax, hemp and
fruits. Oil and a poor kind of wine called chacoli are also
produced. Many of the mountains are clothed with forests
of oak, chestnuts, beeches and other trees, and contain
iron, copper, lead and marble. Salt is also found in large
quantities; but mining and quarrying are not practised
on a large scale; only lead, lignite and asphalt being
worked. There are mineral waters in many places. Other
local industries of some importance include smelting, and
manufactures of beds, furniture, railway carriages, matches,
paper, sweets and woollen and cotton goods. Bread-stuffs.
colonial products and machinery are largely imported. Few
provinces in Spain are inhabited by so laborious, active and
well-to-do a population. The primary schools are numerously
attended, and there are very good normal schools for teachers
of both sexes, and a model agricultural farm: The public
roads and other works of the province are excellent, and,
like those of the rest of the Basque provinces, entirely kept
up by local initiative and taxes. Railways from Madrid to
the French frontier, and from Saragossa to Bilbao, cross the
province. The capital is Vitoria (pop. 1900, 30,701),
which is the only town with more than 3500 inhabitants.
For a fuller account of the history, people and customs of
Alava, see BASQUES and BASQUE PROVINCE, with the works there
cited. A very elaborate bibliograohy is given in the Catalogo
de las obras referentes a las provincias de Alava y Navarra,
by A. A. Salazar (Madrid, 1887.) The following books by i.
I. Landazuri y Romarate contain much material for a provincial
history:--Historia ecclesiastica, &c. (Pamplona, 1797);
Historia civil, &c. (Vitodes, 1798); Compendios historicos
de la ciudad y villas de . . . Alava, &c. (Pamplona,
1798); Suplemento a' los cuatro libros de la historia de
. . . Alava (Vitoria, 1799); and Los varones illustres
Alavenses Vitoria, 1798). See also M. Risco in vol. 33 of
Hispania Sagiada, by H. Florez, &c. (Madrid, 1754-1879).
ALB (Lat. alba, from albus, white), a liturgical vestment
of the Catholic Church. It is a sack-like tunic of white
linen, with narrow sleeves and a hole for the head to pass
through, and when gathered up round the waist by the girdle
(cingulum) just clears the ground. Albs were originally
quite plain, but about the 10th century the custom arose of
ornamenting the borders and the cuffs of the sleeves with
strips of embroidery, and this became common in the 12th
century. These at first encircled the whole border; but soon
it became customary to substitute for them square patches of
embroidery or precious fabrics. These ``parures'' ``apparels''
or ``orphreys'' (Lat. parun'ae, grammala, aurifeisia,
&c.), were usually four in number, one being sewn on the
back and another on the front of the vestment just above
the lower hem, and one on each cuff. When, as occasionally
happened, a fifth was added, this was placed on the breast
just below the neck opening. These ``apparelled albs''
(albae paratae) continued in general use in the Western
Church till the 16th century, when a tendency to dispense
with the parures began, Rome itself setting the example.
The growth of the lace industry in the 17th century hastened
the process by leading to the substitution of broad bands of
lace as decoration; occasionally, as in a magnificent specimen
preserved at South Kensington, nearly half the vestment is
thus composed of lace. At the present time, so far as the
Roman Catholic Church is concerned, apparelled albs are only
in regular use at Milan (Ambrosian Rite), and, partially, in
certain churches in Spain. The decree of the Congregation
of Rites (May 18, 1819) says nothing about apparels, but
only lays down that the alb must be of white linen or hemp
cloth. There is no definite rule as to the material or
character of the ornamentation, and attempts have been made,
especially in England, to revive the use of the apparelled alb.
In the Roman Church the alb is now reckoned as one of the vestments
proper to the sacrifice of the Mass. It is worn by bishops,
priests, deacons and subdeacons under the other eucharistic
vestments, either at Mass or at functions connected with
it. It is sometimes also worn by clerics in minor orders,
whose proper vestment is, however, the surplice--itself a
modification of the alb (see SURPLICE.) The alb is supposed
to be symbolical of purity, and the priest, when putting it
on, prays: ``Make me white and purify my heart, O Lord,''
&c. In the middle ages the parures, which originally had
no mystic intention whatever, were taken to symbolize the
wounds of Christ; whence probably is derived the custom
surviving at the cathedral of Toledo, of the singers of
the Passion on Good Friday being vested in apparelled albs.
In England at the Reformation the alb went out of use with
the other ``Mass vestments,'' and remained out of use in the
Church of England until the ritual revival of the 19th century.
It is now worn in a considerable number of churches not only
by the clergy but by acolytes and servers at the Communion.
Where the ritual, as in most cases, is a revival of pre-Reformation
uses and not modelled on that of modern Rome, these albs are frequently
apparelled. For the question of its legality see VESTMENTS.
Both the alb and its name are derived ultimately from the
tunica alba, the white tunic, which formed part of the
ordinary dress of Roman citizens under the Empire. As such it
was worn both in and out of church, the few notices remaining
which suggest a special tunic for ministers at the Eucharist
merely implying that it was not fitting to use for so sacred
a function a garment soiled by everyday wear. The date of its
definite adoption as a liturgical vestment is uncertain; at
Rome--- where until the 13th century it was known as the linea
or camisia (cf. the modern Italian camice for alb)---it
seems to have been thus used as early as the 5th century. But
as late as the 9th and 10th centuries the alba is still an
everyday as well as a liturgical garment, and we find bishops
and synods forbidding priests to sing mass in the alba worn
by them in ordinary life (see Braun, p. 62). Throughout the
middle ages, moreover, the word alba was somewhat loosely
used. In the medieval inventories are sometimes found albae,
described as red, blue or black; which has led to the belief
that albs were sometimes not only made of stuffs other than
linen, but were coloured. It is clear, however, from the
descriptions of these vestments that in some cases they were
actually tunicles, the confusion of terms arising from the
similarity of shape (see DALMATIC); in other cases the colour
applied to the parures, not to the albs as a whole. Silk
albs appear in the inventories, but only very exceptionally.
The equivalent of the alb in the ancient Churches of the
East is the sticharion (sticharion) of the Orthodox Church
(Armenian shapik, Syrian Kutina, Coptic stoicharion
or tuniah.) It is worn girdled by bishops and priests
in all rites, by subdeacons in the Greek and Coptic
rites. By deacons and lectors it is worn ungirdled in all
the rites. The colour of the vestment is usually white
for bishops and priests (this is the rule in the Coptic
Church); for the other orders there is no rule, and all
colours, except black, may be used. Its material may be
linen, wool, cotton or silk; but silk only is the rule for
deacons. In the Armenian and Coptic rites the vestment is
often elaborately embroidered; in the other rites the only
ornament is a cross high in the middle of the back, save in
the case of bishops of the Orthodox Church, whose sticharia
are ornamented with two vertical red stripes (potamoi,
``rivers''). In the East as in the West the vestment is
specially associated with the ritual of the Eucharist.
The whole subject is exhaustively treated by Father Joseph
Braun in Die liturgische Gewandung (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1907). See also Bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.
ALBA, a town and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy, on the
river Tanaro, in the province of Cuneo. From the town of
the same name it is 33 m. N.E. direct; it is 42 m. S.S.E.
of Turin by rail. Pop. (1901) 13,900. It contains a fine
cathedral, with a Gothic facade, reconstructed in 1486, and
is an important commercial centre. It occupies the site of
the ancient Alba Pompeia, probably founded by Pompeius Strabo
(consul 89 B.C.) when he constructed the road from Aquae
Statiellae (Acqui) to Augusta Taurinorum (Turin). Probably
this was the road taken by Decimus Brutus when he succeeded,
after the raising of the siege of AIutina in 43 B.C., in
occupying Pollentia just before Mark Antony's cavalry came in
sight. Alba was the birthplace of the emperor Pertinax. It
became an episcopal see dependent on Milan in the 4th century.
A small museum of local antiquities was established in 1897.
See F. Eusebio in Atti del Congresso Internazionale
di Scienze Storiche (Rome, 1904), vol. v. p. 485.
ALBACETE, an inland province of south-eastern Spain, formed
in 1833 out of the northern half of Murcia, and bounded on the
N. by Cuenca, E. by Valencia and Alicante, S. by Murcia, and
W. by Granada and Jaen. Pop. (1900) 237,877; area 5737 sq.
m. The northern part of Albacete belongs to the high plains
of New Castile, the southern is generally mountainous,
traversed by low ranges or isolated groups of hills, which
culminate in the Sierra de Alcaraz on the borders of Granada,
where several summits reach 5000 ft. Besides many smaller
streams, two large rivers water the province, the Segura in
the south-west, and the Jficar in the north-east; both rising
beyond the borders of Albacete, and ultimately flowing into the
Mediterranean. The fertile glens of the Alcaraz district
are richly wooded, and often, from their multitude of fruit
trees, resemble the huertas or gardens of Alicante; but broad
tracts of land are destitute of trees, and suitable only for
pasture. These barren regions are thinly peopled; and for the
whole of Albacete the density of population (41.3 per sq. m. in
1900) is lower than in any other Spanish province, except Soria.
The climate is generally mild and healthy, although, among
the higher mountains, the snow lies for several months. Wheat
and other cereals are cultivated, with fruits of many kinds,
olives, and vines which yield a wine of fair quality; while
saffron is largely produced, and some attention is given to
thekeeping of bees and silkworms. Stock-farming, for which
the wide plains afford excellent opportunities, employs
many of the peasantry; the bulls of Albacete are in demand
for bullfighting, and the horses for mounting the Spanish
cavalry. There is also a good breed of mules. Sulphurous
and other mineral springs, both hot and cold, exist in several
districts, and deposits of silver, iron, copper, sulphur, coal
and other minerals have been discovered; but the exploitation
of these is retarded by lack of communications, and, apart
from building materials, sulphur and salt, the actual output is
insignificant. Manufactures are almost confined to the
spinning of hemp, and the making of coarse cloth, porcelain,
earthenware and cutlery. Brandy distilleries are numerous, and
there is some trade in wood; but no local industry can rival
agriculture and stock-breeding, which furnish the bulk of the
exports. Albacete (pop. 1900, 21,512), the capital, and
the other important towns of Almansa (11,180) and Hellin
(12,558), are described under separate headings. Alcaraz,
which gives its name to the mountain range already mentioned,
is a picturesque old town with the ruins of a Moorish castle,
and a fine Roman aqueduct; pop. (1900) 4501. Caudete (5913),
Chinchilla, or Chinchilla de Monte-Aragon (6680), La Roda
(7066), Tobarra (7787), Villarrobledo (10,125) and Yeste
(6591) are important markets for the sale of agricultural
produce. The railway from Madrid to Albacete passes
south-westward to Chinchilla, where it bifurcates, one line
going to Murcia, and the other to Alicante. A large part of
the province is only accessible by road, and even the main
highways maintained by the state are ill kept. Education
is very backward even in the towns; many of the inhabitants
carry arms; and crimes of violence are not infrequent.
ALBACETE, the capital of the above province, on the MadridAlicante
railway, and at the confluence of the river Balazote with the
canal of Maria Christina, which flows into the river Jficar, 16
m. N. Pop. (1900) 21,512. Albacete comprises the picturesque
old upper town and the new or lower town, with iawCourts,
schools, barracks, hospitals, a councihhall, a bull-ring and
other modern buildings, mostly erected after the city became
a provincial capital in 1833. It is surrounded by a fertile
plain, and has considerable trade in saffron and agricultural
produce. A great market, chiefly for the sale of cattle,
is held annually in September, and extends over several
days. The manufacture of matches is aided by the existence
of sulphur workings in the vicinity; and Albacete formerly
had an extensive trade in cutlery, from which it was named
the Sheffield of Spain. Despite the importation of cutlery
from England and Germany, Albacete is still famous for its
daggers, which arc held in high repute by Spaniards. They
are formidable weapons, of coarse manufacture, but with
richly ornamented handles; and they frequently bear proverbial
inscriptions suitable to their murderous appearance.
ALBA FUCENS (mod. Albe), an ancient Italian town occupying
a lofty situation (3347 ft.) at the foot of the Monte Velino, 4
m. N. Of Avezzano. It was originally a town of the Aequi,
though on the frontier of the Marsi, but was occupied by a
loied by a
Roman colony (304 B.C.I owing to its strategic importance.
It lay on a hill just to the north of the Via Valeria,
which was probably prolonged beyond Tibur at this very
period. In the Second Punic war Alba at first remained
faithful, but afterwards refused to send contingents and was
punished. After this it became a regular place of detention for
important state prisoners, such as Syphax of Numidia, Perseus of
Macedonia, Bituitus, king of the Arverni. It was attacked by
the allies in the Social War, but remained faithful to Rome;
and its strong position rendered it a place of some importance
in the civil wars. Its prosperity, in the imperial period,
can only be inferred from the number of inscriptions found
there. It is chiefly remarkable for its finely preserved
fortifications. The external walls, which have a circuit of
about 2 m., are constructed of polygonal masonry; the blocks
are carefully jointed, and the faces smoothed. With our present
knowledge of such constructions, their date cannot certainly be
determined. They are not preserved to any very considerable
height; but the arrangement of the gates is clearly traceable;
as a rule they come at the end of a long, straight stretch of
wall, and are placed so as to leave the right side of any
attacking force exposed. On the north there is, for a length
of about 150 yds. a triple line of defences of later date
(possibly added by the Roman colonists), inasmuch as both the
city wall proper and the double wall thrown out in front of
it are partly constructed of concrete, and faced with finer
polygonal masonry (in which horizontal joints seem to be purposely
avoided). A mile to the north of the city a huge mound with a
ditch on each side of it (but at a considerable distance from
it) may be traced for a couple of miles. Within the walls
there are hardly any buildings of a later date. Excavations
have only been made casually, though remains of buildings
and of roads can be traced, and also an extensive system of
underground passages perhaps connected with the defences of the
place. The hill at the western extremity was occupied by a
temple of the Tuscan order, into which was built the church of
S. Pietro; this contains ancient columns, and some remarkably
fine specimens of Cosmatesque work. It is the only monastic
church in the Abruzzi in which the nave is separated from
the aisles by ancient columns. The collegiate church of S.
Nicola in the village contains a remarkable staurotheca
of the 11th (?) century, and a wooden triptych in imitation
of the Byzantine style with enamels of the 13th century.
A very good description of the site, with plans, is given by C.
Promis, L'Antichita di Alba Fucense (Rome, 1836). (T. As.)
ALBA LONGA, an ancient city of Latium, situated on the
western edge of the Albanus Lacus, about 12 m. S.E. of
Rome. It was, according to tradition, founded by Ascanius,
and was the oldest of all Latin cities---the mother indeed
of Rome, by which, however, it was destroyed, it is said
under Tullus Hostilius. By this act Rome succeeded to the
hegemony of the Latin league. It has by many topographers
been placed between the Albanus Mons and the Albanus Lacus,
according to the indication given by. Dionysius (i. 66),
at the monastery of Palazzolo; but the position is quite
unsuitable for an ancient city, and does not at all answer to
Livy's description, ab situ porrectae in dorso urbis Alba
longa appellata; and it is much more probable that its site
is to be sought on the western side of the lake, where the
modern Castel Gandolfo stands, immediately to the north of
which the most important part of the archaic necropolis was
situated. Confirmation of this may be found in Cicero's
description (Pro Milone, 85) of the destruction of the
shrines and sacred groves of Alba by the construction of
Clodius's villa, in the local application of the adjective
Albanus, and in the position of Castel Gandolfo itself,
which exactly suits Livy's description. No traces of the
ancient city, except of its necropolis, the tombs of which
are overlaid with a stratum of peperino 3 ft. thick, are
preserved. The view that the modern Albano occupies the
site of Alba Longa was commonly held in the 15th and 16th
centuries, but was disproved by P. Cluver (1624). But it
is certain that no city took the place of Alba Longa until
comparatively late times. The name Albanum, from about 150
B.C. till the time of Constantine, meant a villa in the Alban
territory. The emperors formed a sinrle estate out of a
considerable part of this district, including apparently the
whole of the lake, and Domitian was especially fond of residing
here. The imperial villa occupied the site of the present
Villa Barberini at Castel Gandolfo, and considerable remains
of it still exist. To the south was a camp for the imperial
bodyguard, with baths, an amphitheatre, a large water reservoir,
&c. The first legion known to have been quartered there is
the II. Parlhica, founded by Septimius Severus; but it
was probably constructed earlier. In some of the tombs of
these legionaries coins of Maxentius have been found, while
the Liber Pontifealis records that Constantine gave to the
church of Albano ``omnia scheneca deserta vel domos intra
urbem Albanensem,', which has generally been taken to refer
to the abandoned camp. It was at this period, then, that
the civitas Albanensis arose. The lapis Albanus is a green
grey volcanic stone with black and white grains in it (hence
the modern name. Deperino). much used for building material.
See T. Ashby in Journal ofphilology, xxvii., 1901, 37. (T.
As.) ALBAN, SAINT, usually styled the protomartyr of Britain,
is said to have been born at Verulamium (the modern St Albans
in Hertfordshire) towards the close of the 3rd century, and to
have served for seven years in Rome in the army of the emperor
Diocletian. On his return to Britain he settled at his
native place and was put to death as a Christian during the
persecution of Diocletian (c. 286--303). According to
tradition, when peace was restored, great honours were paid
to his tomb. A church was built on the spot, c. 793, by
King Offa of Mercia. A monastery was subsequently added,
and around it the present town of St Albans gradually grew
up. Pope Adrian IV., who was born in the neighbourhood,
conferred on the abbot of St Alban's the right of precedence
over his fellow abbots, a right hitherto attached to the
abbey of Glastonbury. St Alban is commemorated in the
Roman martyrology on the 22nd of June; but it is impossible
to determine with certainty whether he ever existed, as no
mention of him occurs till the middle of the 6th century.
See U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources historiques (1905), i.
95; D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue (1862), I. i. 3-34, ii. 688.
ALBANI, or ALBANO, FRANCESCO (1578-1660), Italian
painter, was born at Bologna. His father was a silk merchant,
and intended to bring up his son to the same occupation;
but Albani was already, at the age of twelve, filled with so
strong an inclination for painting, that on the death of his
father he devoted himself entirely to art. His first master
was Denis Calvert, with whom Guido Reni was at the same time a
pupil. He was soon left by Calvert entirely to the care
of Guido, and contracted with him a close friendship. He
followed Guido to the school of the Caracci; but after this,
owing to mutual rivalry, their friendship began gradually to
cool. They kept up for a long time a keen competition,
and their mutual emulation called forth some of their best
productions. Notwithstanding this rivalry, they still spoke
of each other with the highest esteem. Albani after having
greatly improved himself in the school of the Caracci, went
to Rome, where he opened an academy and resided for many
years. Here he painted, after the designs of Annibal
Caracci, the whole of the frescoes in the chapel of San
Diego in the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli.
His best frescoes are those on mythological subjects, of
which there is a large number in the Verospi, now Torlonia
Palace. On the death of his wife he returned to Bologna,
where he married a second time and resided till his death.
His wife and children were very beautiful and served him for
models. The learning displayed in the composition of his
pictures, and their minute elaboration and exquisite finish,
gave them great celebrity and entitle them to a distinctive
place among the products of the Bolognese school. A number
of his works are at Bologna, and others at Florence, the
Louvre, Dresden and St Petersburg. Among the best of his
sacred subjects are a ``St Sebastian'' and an ``Assumption
of the Virgin,'' both in the church of St Sebastian at
Rome. He was among the first of the Italian painters to
devote himself to the painting of cabinet pictures. A
rare etching, the ``Death of Uido,'' is attributed to him.
ALBANI, the stage name of MARIE, LOUISE EMMA CECILE
LAJEUNESSE (1847- ), Canadian singer, who was born at
Chambly, in the province of Quebec, on the 27th of September
1847. She made her first public appearance in Montreal,
at the age of seven, and afterwards studied in the United
States, Paris and Italy. In 1870 she made her first
appearanceatmessina, and after two successful seasons appeared
in London in 1872 with the Royal Italian Opera. Later she
abandoned opera for oratorio. and sang at all the principal
festivals. She has made several tours of Canada and of
the United States, and in 1886 sang at the opening of the
Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London the ode written
by Tennyson for the occasion. She frequently sang before
Queen Victoria, the German emperor and others of the crowned
heads of Europe, and received numerous marks of their
esteem. In 1897 she was awarded the gold Beethoven medal by
the London Philharmonic Society, ``as a mark of appreciation
of her exceptional genius and musical attainments, and of
her generous and artistic nature.'' She marriedin 1878 Ernest
Gye, the theatrical manager. Her stage name of Madame
Albani was taken from that of an extinct Italian family.
See Morgan, Canadian Men and Women of the Time (1898).
ALBANIA, the ancient name of a district in the eastern
Caucasus, consisting, according to Strabo (xi. 4. 1-8), of the
valley of the Cyrus (Kur) and the land lying between it and the
Caucasus range from Iberia to the Caspian Sea, i. e. the modern
Shirvan. In reality the Albani inhabited also the mountain
valleys and the land to the north towards Sarmatia, the modern
Daghestan (Pliny vi. 39). Dionysius of JIalicarnassus quotes
a tradition that the name arose from the alleged fact that
the people were the descendants of emigrants from Alba in
Italy, but it would seem that the race was of Lesghian (not
Georgian) descent. Strabo describes them as tall, well made,
and in character simple and honest; he says that payment
was in kind and that the people could not count beyond a
hundred. They worshipped the sun, and more particularly the
moon, the latter being perhaps identical with the great
Nature Goddess of Asia Minor(see GREAT MOTHER OF THE
GODS), and believed in soothsaying and the virtue of human
sacrifice. Old age was held in high honour, but it was
sacrilege to speak, or even to think, of the dead. The race
was nomadic, and lived on the abundant natural fruits of the
land. In Strabo's time they appear to have been ruled by
a single king, though previously there were twenty-six,
each one ruling over a community distinct only in point of
language. The Albani became known to the Romans during Pompey's
pursuit of Mithradates the Great (65 B.C.), against which
they are said to have opposed a force of 60,000 foot and 20,000
cavalry. Pompey exacted from them a nominal submission,
but their independence was not seriously affected by the
Romans. In the reign of Hadrian their territory was invaded
by the Alani (Th. Mommsen, Provinces ofthe Roman Empire,
Eng. trans., 1886), and later they fell under the Sassanid
rule. They were driven finally into Armenia by the Khazars,
and ceased to exist as a separate people. The district
subsequently suffered under the successive invasions of Huns,
Varangians (who captured the chief town Barda in the 10th
century) and Mongols. (See CAUCASIA, History; ARMENIA.)
ALBANIA, a portion of the Turkish empire extending along
the western littoral of the Balkan Peninsula from the
southern frontier of Montenegro to the northern confines of
Greece. Albania is perhaps the least-known region in Europe;
and though more than a hundred years have passed since Gibbon
described it as ``a country within sight of Italy, which
is less known than the interior of America,'' but little
progress has yet been made towards a scientific knowledge
of this interesting land and its inhabitants. The wild and
inaccessible character of the country, the fierce and lawless
disposition of the people, the difficulties presented by
their language and their complex social institutions, and the
inability of the Turkish authorities to afford a safe conduct
in the remoter districts, combine to render Albania almost
unknown to the foreign traveller, and many of its geographical
problems still remain unsolved. A portion of the Mirdite
region, the Mat district, the neighbourhood of Dibra, Jakova
and Ipek and other localities have never been thoroughly
explored. The northern boundary of Albania underwent some
alteration in consequence of the enlargement of Montenegro,
sanctioned by the Berlin Treaty (July 13, 1878); owing to
subsequent arrangements providing for the cession of Dulcigno
to Montenegro (November 25, 1880) in exchange for the districts
of Plava and Gusinye, restored to Turkey, the frontier-line
(finally settled December 1884) now ascends the Boyana from
its mouth to Lake Sass (Shas), thence passes northward. and
crossing Lake Scutari separates the district of Kutch Kraina
on the N. from the territories of the Gruda, Hot and Klement
tribes on the S.; leaving Gusinye and Plava to the S.E., it
turns to the N.W. on reaching the Mokra Planina, and then
follows the course of the Tara river. On the S., Albanian
territory was curtailed owing to the acquisition of the Arta
district by Greece (May 1881), the river Arta now forming the
frontier. On the E. the chains of Shar, Grammos and Pindus
constitute a kind of natural boundary, which does not,
however, coincide with ethnical limits nor with the Turkish
administrative divisions. North-eastern Albania forms part
of the Turkish vilayet of Kossovo; the northern highlands
are included in the vilayet of Shkodra (Scutari), the
eastern portion of central Albania belongs to the vilayet of
Monastir, and the southern districts are comprised in the
vilayet of Iannina. The boundaries of the three last-named
vilayets meet near Elbassan. The name Albania (in the Tosk
dialect Arberia, in the Gheg Arbenia), like Albania
in the Caucasus, Armenia, Albany in Britain, and Auvergne
(Arveniaj in France, is probably connected with the root
alb, alp, and signifies ``the white or snowy uplands.''
Physical Features.--The mountain system is extremely complex,
especially that of the northern region. On the E. the great
Shar range, extending in a south-westerly direction from
the neighbourhood of Prishtina to thatof Dibra, is continued
towards the S. by the ranges of Grammos and Pindus; the entire
chain, a prolongation of the Alpine systems of Bosnia and
Dalmatia, may be described as the backbone of the peninsula;
it forms the watershed between the Aegean and the Adriatic,
and culminates in the lofty peak of Liubotrn, near Kalkandele,
one of the highest summits in south-eastern Europe (8858
ft.). The country to the west of this natural barrier may be
divided geographically into three districts---northern, central
and southern Albania. The river Shkumb separates the northern
from the central district, the Viossa the central from the
southern. The highland region of northern Albania is divided
into two portions by the lower course of the Drin; the
mountains of the northern portion, the Bieska Malziis, extend
in a confused and broken series of ridges from Scutari to the
valleys of the Ibar and White Drin; they comprise the rocky
group of the Prokletia, or Accursed Mountains, with their
numerous ramifications, including Mount Velechik, inhabited
by the Kastiat and Shkrel tribes, Bukovik by the Hot, Golesh
by the Klement, Skulsen (7533 ft.), Baba Vrkh (about 7306
ft.), Maranay near Scutari, and the Bastrik range to the
east. South of the Drin is another complex mountain system,
including the highlands inhabited by the Mirdites and the Mat
tribe; among the principal summits are Deja Mazzukht, Mal-i
Vels, Kraba, Toli and Mnela. Central Albania differs from
the northern and southern regions in the more undulating and
less rugged character of its surface; it contains considerable
lowland tracts, such as the wide and fertile plain of Musseki,
traversed by the river Simen. The principal summit is Tomor
(7916 ft.), overhanging the town of Berat. Southern Albania,
again, is almost wholly mountainous, with the exception of
the plains of Iannina andarta; the most noteworthy feature is
the rugged range of the Tchika, or Khimara mountains, which
skirt the sea-coast from south-west to north-east, terminating
in the lofty promontory of Glossa (ancient Acroceraunia.)
Farther inland the Mishkeli range to the north-east of
Lake Iannina and the Nemertzika mountains run in a parallel
direction. In the extreme south, beyond the basin of the
Kalamas, the mountains of Sull and Olyzika form a separate
group. The rivers, as a rule, flow from east to west; owing
to the rapidity of their descent none are navigable except the
Boyana and Arta in their lower courses. The principal rivers
are the Boyana, issuing from Lake Scutari, and consequently
regarded as a continuation of the Montenegrin Moratcha,
the Drin, formed by the confluence of the White and Black
Drin, which, flowing respectively to the south and north
through a long valley at the foot of the Shar range, take
a westerly direction after their junction, the AIatia, the
Arzen, the Shkumb (ancient G:e:iusos), the Simen (Apsos),
formed by the junction of the Devol and Ergene, the Viossa
(Aous), which owing to the trend of the Khimara range
takes a north-westerly direction, the Ralamas (Thyamis)
and the Arta (Arachthos), flowing south into the Ambraciah
Gulf. A portion of the stream of the Drin has found its
way into the Boyana channel; the result has been a rise in
the level of Lake Scutari and the inundation of the adjacent
lowlands. A proposal to confine the Drin to its former
course by means of a dyke, and to ease the downflow of the
Boyana by a canal opening navigation to Lake Scutari, has
long been considered by the Turliish authorities. The great
lakes of Scutari (135 sq. m.) and Ochrida (107 sq. m.) are
among the most beautiful in Europe; the waters of Ochrida,
which find an outlet in the Black Drin, are of marvellous
clearness. Lake KIahk, south by east of Ochrida, is
drained by the Devol. The waters of the picturesque Lake
Iannina (24 sq. m.) find an issue by katabothra, or
underground channels, into the Ambracian Gulf. The lake of
Butrinto (Buthrotum) is near the sea-coast opposite Corfu.
Climate.---The climate is healthy in the uplands, though
subject to violent changes; in the valleys fever is very
prevalent, especially in the basins of the Boyana, the lower
Drin and the Simen. The winter is short, but exceedingly
cold; snow remains on the Prokletia and other mountains
till August, and sometimes throughout the year. The summer
temperature in the plains is that of southern Italy; in
the mountain districts it is high during the day, but falls
almost to freezing-point at night. The sea-coast is exposed
to the fierce bora, or north wind, during the spring.
Natural Products.--The mountains of Albania are said to be
rich in minerals, but this source of wealth remains practically
unexplored. Iron and coal are probably abundant, and silver-lead,
copper and antimony are believed to exist. Cold mines were
worked in antiquity in the Drin valley, and silver mines in
the Mirdite region were known to the Venetians in the middle
ages. At Selinitza, near Avlona, there is a remarkable
deposit of mineral pitch which was extensively worked in Roman
times; mining operations are still carried on here, but in a
somewhat primitive fashion. The splendid forests, of which
there are 70,000 acres in the vilayet of Scutari alone, are
undergoing a rapid process of destruction, as in other lands
under Turkish rule. The principal trees are the oak, the
valonia oak, the beech. ash, elm, plane, celtis, poplar and
walnut, which give way in the higher regions to the pine and
fir. The oak forests near Dibra, where charcoalmaking is a
considerable industry, and the beech-woods of the Prishtina
district, are especially remarkable. The sumach is largely
grown in the Mirdite district; its leaves are exported to
Trieste for use in tanneries and dyeworks. In 1898 the
export of valonia was estimated at L. 11,200, of sumach at
L. 2400. Of fruit-trees the white mulberry, cherry and wild
pear are plentiful; the chestnut and walnut are sometimes met
with, and the olive is grown in the lowland and maritime
districts. The exportation of olive oil in 1808 was valued at
L. 24,000. The greater part of the country is admirably
suited to viticulture, and wine of tolerable quality is
produced. Tobacco is grown extensively in southern Albania,
especially near Berat and in the upper valley of the
Viossa, but the quantity exported is small. The means of
subsistence are mainly provided by the cultivation of grain and
cattle-rearing. Notwithstanding the primitive condition of
agriculture, the deficiency of communications and the damage
caused by frequent inundations, Albania furnishes almost the
entire corn supplu of the Dalmatian coast and islands. Maize
is the favourite grain for home consumption, but considerable
quantities of this cereal, as well as barley, rye and oats are
exported. The total export of cereals in 1808 was valued at
L. 70,800. Sheep and goats form almost the only wealth of
the mountaineers of northern Albania; large cattle are found
only on the plains. The slopes of Pindus afford excellent
pasture for the flocks of the Vlach shepherds. The export of
raw hides and wool is considerable; in 1898 these commodities
were valued respectively at L. 90,400 and L. 24,000. The lakes
and rivers of Albania abound in fish. The scoranze (Alb.
seraga), a kind of sardine, is taken in great quantities in
Lake Scutari; it is salted and smoked for home consumption and
exportation. Sea-fishing is almost wholly neglected.
There are salines at Avlona and other places on the coast.
Commerce anid Industries.--The exports in 1898 were estimated
at L. 480,000, the imports at L. 1,360,000, the former comprising
agricultural produce, live stock, hides, wool, cheese, eggs,
poultry, olive oil, valonia, sumach leaves, timber, skins of wild
animals, silk, tobacco and salted fish, the latter manufactured
articles, cloth, hardware, furniture, firearms, gunpowder,
sugar, coffee, &c. The monopoly of Albanian commerce formerly
Dossessed by Venice has descended to Austria-Hungary; the
trade with other countries, except Italy, is inconsiderable.
Owing to the poverty of the people, cheap Austrian goods
find a readier sale than the more expensive and solid British
manufactures. The maritime traffic is largely conducted
by the steamers of the subsidized Austrian-Lloyd company,
Trieste being the principal commercial centre; the coasting
trade is carried on by small Greek and Turkish sailing
vessels. The trade of the northern and western districts has
to some extent been diverted to Salonica since the opening of
the railways from that town to Mitrovitza and Monastir. The
development of commerce is retarded by lack of communications;
the country Dossesses no railways and few roads. Several
railway lines have been projected, but there is no great
probability of their construction under existing political
conditions. The Via Egnatia, the great Roman highway to the
east, is still used; it runs from Durazzo (Dyrrhachium) to
Elbassan and Ochrida. Iannina is connected by carriage-roads
with Monastir, Agii Saranta and Preveza. As a rule, however,
bridle-paths supply the only means of communication. The
native industries are inconsiderable, and many of them are
in a languishing condition. The manufacture of highly ornate
firearms, yataghans and other weapons at Scutari, Jakova
and Prizren has declined, owing to the importation of modern
rifies and revolvers. Gold and silk embroidery, filigree
work, morocco and richly-braided jackets are produced for
home use and for sale in Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro.
Population----The population of Albania may be estimated
at between 1,600,000 and 1,500,000, of whom 1,200,000 or
1,100,000 are Albanians. Of the other races the Slavs
(Serbs and Bulgars) are the most numerous, possibly numbering
250,000. Servian settlements exist in various parts of
northern Albania; there is a strong Bulgarian colony in the
neighbourhood of Dibra and Ochrida; farther south, Mount Zygos
and the Pindus range--the ``Great Walachia'' of the middle
ages---are inhabited by Vlachs or Tzintzars, who possibly number
70,000. Some Turkish colonies are also found in the south-eastern
districts. There is a considerable Greek-speaking population
in Epiros (including many Mahommedan Albanians), which must,
however, be distinguished from the genuine Greeks of Iannina,
Preveza and the extreme south; these may be estimated at
100,000. The population of the vilayet of Scutari is given
as 237,000, that of the vilayet of Iannina as 552,000. The
principal towns are Scutari (Albanian Shkoder, with the
definite article Shkodr-a), the capital of the vilayet
of that name, pop. 32,000; Prizren, 30,000; Iannina (often
incorrectly written Ioannina), capital of the southern
vilayet, 22,000; Jakova, 12,000; Dibra, 15,000; Prishtina,
11,000; Ipek (Slav. Petch), 15,000; Berat, 15,000; Ochrida,
11,000; Tirana, 12,000; Argyrokastro, 11,000; Kortcha (Slav.
Goritza), 10,000; Elbassan (perhaps ancient Albanopolis),
8000; Metzovo, 7500; Preveza, 6500; Avlona, 6000; Durazzo,
5000; Parga, 5000; Butrinto, 2000; and Kroia, the ancient
fortress of Scanderbeg, 5000. All these, except Elbassan,
Metzovo and Kroia, are described in separate articles.
The Albanians are apparently the most ancient race in
southeastern Europe. History and legend afford no record
of their arrival in the Balkan Peninsula. They are probably
the descendants of the earliest Aryan immigrants, who were
represented in historical times by the kindred Illyrians,
Macedonians and Epirots; the Macedonians and Epirots are
believed by Hahn to have formed the core of the pre-Hellenic
Tyrrheno-Pelasgian population which inhabited the southern
portion of the peninsula and extended its limits to Thrace and
Italy. The Illyrians were also ``Pelasgian,'' but in a wider
sense. Of these cognate races, which are described by the
Greek writers as barbarous or non-Hellenic, the Illyrians
and Epirots, he thinks, were respectively the progenitors
of the Ghegs, or northern, and the Tosks, or southern,
Albanians. The Via Egnatia, which Strabo (vii. fragment 3)
describes as forming the boundary between the Illyrians and
Epirots, practically corresponds with the course of the
Shkumb, which now separates the Ghegs and the Tosks. The
same geographer (v. 2. 221) states that the Epirots were also
called Pelasgians; the Pelasgian Zeus was worshipped at Dodona
(Homer, Il. xvi. 234), and the neighbourhood of the sanctuary
was called Pelasgia (Herodotus ii. 56). The meaning of the
term ``Pelasgian'' is, however, too obscure to furnish a
basis for ethnographical speculation; in the time of Herodotus
it may have already come to denote a period rather than a
race. The name Tosk is possibly identical with Tuscus,
Etruscus, while the form Tyrrhenus perhaps survives in
Tirana. The large number of Slavonic local names in
Albania, even in districts where no trace of a Slavonic
population exists, bears witness to the extensive Servian
and Bulgarian immigrations in the early middle ages, but
the original inhabitants gradually ousted or assimilated the
invaders. The determination with which this remarkable race
has maintained its mountain stronghold through a long series
of ages has hitherto met with scant appreciation in the outside
world. While the heroism of the Montenegrins has been lauded
by writers of all countries, the Albanians---if we except
Byron's eulogy of the Suloits---still remain unsung. Not
less noticeable is the tenacity with which isolated fragments
of the nation have preserved their peculiar characteristics,
language, customs and traditions. The Albanians in Greece and
Italy, though separated for six centuries from the parent stock,
have not yet been absorbed by the surrounding populations.
The Albanians, both Ghegs and Tosks, call themselves Shkupetar,
and their land Shkupenia or Shkuperia, the former being
the Gheg, the latter the Tosk form of the word. Shkupetar
has been variously interpreted. According to Hahn it is a
participial from shkyipoij, ``I understand,'' signifying
``he who knows'' the native language; others interpret it
with less probability as ``the rock-dweller,'' from shkep,
shkip, N. Alb. shkamp, ``rock.'' The designations Arber
(Gr. 'Arbanites, Turk. Arnaoiit), denoting the people,
and Arbenia or Arberia, the land, are also, though less
frequently, used by the Albanians. A district near Kroia
is locally known as Arbenia; the Tosk form Arberia strictly
applies only to the mountain region near Avlona. The region
inhabited by a more or less homogeneous Albanian population
may be roughly marked out by a line drawn from the Montenegrin
frontier at Berane to Mitrovitza and the Servian frontier
near Vranya; thence to Uskub, Prilep, Monastir, Florina,
Kastoria, Iannina and Parga. These limits, however, are
far from including all the members of a widely scattered
race. The Albanians in Greece, whose settlements extend over
Attica, Boeotia, the district of Corinth and the Argolid
peninsula, as well as southern Euboea and the islands of Hydra,
Spetzae, Poros and Salamis, descend from Tosk immigrants in
the 14th century. They played a brilliant part in the War
of Independence (1821-1829), and to-day supply the Greek
army with its best soldiers. They were estimated by Leake at
200,000. A large number still speak the Albanian langaage;
many of the older men, and a considerable proportion of the
women, even in the neighbourhood of Athens, are ignorant of
Greek. The Albanian settlements in southern Italy and Sicily
were founded in 1444, 1464 and 1468; minor immigrations
followed in the three succeeding centuries. In southern Italy
there are 72 Albanian communes, with 154,674 inhabitants;
in Sicily 7 communes, with 52,141 inhabitants. The Italian
and Sicilian Albanians are of Tosk descent, and many of them
still speak a variation of the Tosk dialect. There are also
several Albanian settlements in European Turkey and Asia
Minor, some founded by military colonists who received grants
of land from successive sultans, others owing their origin
to enforced migrations after insurrections in Albania. The
only genuine division of the Albanian race is that of Ghegs
and Tosks; the Liaps, who inhabit the district between the
Viossa and the sea, and the Tshams or Chams, who occupy the
coast-land south of the Kalamas, are subdivisions of the Tosk
family. The name Gheg (Gege-a) is not adopted by the Ghegs
themselves, being regarded as a nickname; the designation Tosk
(Toske-a) is restricted by the Tosks to the inhabitants
of a small region north of the lower Viossa (Toskeria).
National Characteristics.---While the other primitive
populations of the peninsula were either hellenized or latinized,
or subsequently absorbed by the Slavonic immigration, the
Albanians to a great extent remained unaffected by foreign
influences. Retaining their original language and preserving
the customs and institutions of remote antiquity, they present
a distinct type, and differ in many essential particulars from
the other nations of the peninsula. The Ghegs especially,
notwithstanding their fierce and lawless character, their
superstition, ignorance and predatory propensities, possess
some noteworthy qualities rarely found in eastern Europe:
simple, brave, faithful, and sometimes capable of devoted
attachment, these wild mountaineers make excellent soldiers and
trustworthy retainers; they have long furnished a bodyguard to
the sultan and, like the Tosks, are much employed as kavasses
and attendants at foreign embassies and consulates in the
East. The native disposition of the Tosks has been modified
by intercourse with the Greeks and Vlachs; while the Gheg
devotes his attention exclusively to fighting, robbery and
pastoral pursuits, the Tosk occasionally occupies himself with
commercial, industrial or agricultural employments; the Gheg
is stern, morose and haughty, the Tosk lively, talkative and
affable. The natural antipathy between the two sections of the
race, though less evident than in former times, is far from
extinct. In all parts of Albania the vendetta (gyak, jak)
or blood-feud, the primitive lex talionis, is an established
usage; the duty of revenge is a sacred tradition handed down
to successive generations in the family, the village and the
tribe. A single case of homicide often leads to a series of
similar crimes or to protracted warfare between neighbouring
families and communities; the murderer, as a rule, takes
refuge in the mountains from the avenger of blood, or remains
for years shut up in his house. It is estimated that in
consequence of these feuds scarcely 75% of the population in
certain mountainous districts die a natural death. A truce
(bessa, literally ``faith,'' ``pledge''), either temporary or
permanent, is sometimes arranged by mediation, or among the
Ghegs, by the intervention of the clergy; a general bessa
has occasionally been proclaimed by special irade of the
sultan, the restoration of peace being celebrated with elaborate
ceremonies. So stringent are the obligations of hospitality
that a household is bound to exact reparation for any injury
done to a guest as though he were a member of the family. No
traveller can venture into the mountain districts without the
bessa of one of the inhabitants; once this has been obtained
he will be hospitably welcomed. In some districts there is
a fixed price of blood; at Argyrokastro, for instance, the
compensation paid by the homicide to the relatives of his
victim is 1200 piastres (about L. 10), at Khimara 2000 piastres;
once the debt has been acquitted amicable relations are
restored. Notwithstanding their complete subjection, women
are treated with a certain respect, and are often employed
as intermediaries in the settlement of feuds; a woman may
traverse a hostile district without fear of injury, and her
bessa will protect the traveller or the stranger. Women
accompany their male relatives to the battle-field for the
purpose of tending the wounded and carrying away the dead.
The bride brings no dowry to her husband; she is purchased
at a stipulated price, and earnest-money is paid at the
betrothal, which usually takes place while the contracting
parties are still children. It is customary for young men
who are attached to each other to swear eternal brotherhood
(compare the Slavonic pobratimstvo); the contract is
regarded as sacred, and no instance has been known of its
violation. The costume of the Tosks differs from that of
the Ghegs; its distinctive feature is the white plaited
linen fustanella or petticoat, which has been adopted by the
Greeks; the Ghegs wear trews of white or crimson native cloth
adorned with black braid, and a short, close-fitting jacket,
which in the case of wealthy persons is embellished with gold
lace. The fez is worn by both races, and in the northern
highlands yataghans and firearms are almost invariably carried.
The costume of the Mirdite and Mat tribes is peculiar. It
consists of a white felt cap, a long white tunic bound with
a red girdle, white linen trousers and opinki, or sandals.
Tribal System.---The tribal organization in northern Albania
is an interesting survival of the earliest form of social
combination; it may be compared in many respects with that which
existed in the Scottish highlands in the time of the Stuart
kings. The practical autonomy which the Gheg mountaineers
enjoy has been won by a prolonged and successful resistance
to Turkish domination; as a rule they pay no taxes, they are
exempt from the conscription, they know nothing of the Ottoman
law, and the few Turkish officials established amongst them
possess no real authority. Their only obligation to the
Turkish government is to furnish a contingent in time of
war; the only law they recognize is either traditional custom
(adet) or the unwritten Hanun-i Leks Dukajinit, a civil
and criminal code, so called from its author, Leka Dukajini,
who is supposed to have lived in the 13th or 14th century.
The tribe or mal (``mountain'') is often composed of several
clans (phis-i, pharea) or baryaks (literally ``standards'')
each under a chief or baryaktar (standard-bearer), who is,
strictly speaking, a military leader; there are in each clan
a certain number of elders or voivodes (Albanian kru-y'e,
pl. krenic-te) who form a council and, like the baryaktar,
hold their oflice by hereditary right; they preside over
the assemblies of the tribesmen, which exercise the supreme
legislative power. The clan is generally subdivided into
smaller communities (mahale), each administered by a local
notable or jobar. The jobars superintend the execution of
the laws, collect fines and administer capital punishment;
they are in contact with the buluk-bashi, or resident
representative of the tribe at Scutari, who forms the only
link between the mountaineers and the Turkish government.
He communicates to the tribesmen the orders of the vali,
which must be framed in accordance with their customs and
institutions. The tribes of northern Albania, or Ghegeria,
may be classified in seven groups as follows:----(1) The
Mirdites, who inhabit the alpine region around Orosh to the
south-east of Scutari--the most important of all in respect
of numbers (about 17,000) and political independence. A Roman
Catholic tribe, occupying an inaccessible district, they have
hitherto defeated every effort of the Turks to encroach on their
autonomy. Their hereditary chiefs, or capidans, belong to
the family known as Dera e Jon Markut (the house of John
Marco), which has ruled for 200 years and is supposed to be
descended from Scanderbeg. In 1868 the reigning chief, Bib
Doda, died, and his son and successor Prenk was detained as
a hostage by the Turks. The Mirdites consequently refused
to contribute their customary contingent to the Turkish army,
and eventually Prenk was restored. His ambiguous conduct,
however, led to the despatch of two expeditions against the
Mirdites and the devastation of their territory. In 1880
Prenk was kidnapped by the Turkish authorities and exiled to
Anatolia; another member of the ruling family was appointed
kaimakam, but the Mirdites refused to obey him, and their
district has ever since been in a state of anarchy. No Moslem
is allowed to remain in Mirdite territory. (2) The Mi-shkodrak
(Upper Scutari) group or confederation, also known as the
Malsia-Madhe (Great Highlands), is composed of the Klement,
Grud-a, Hot, Kastrat and Shkrel tribes, which occupy the
mountainous district north-east of Scutari. OWing to the
proximity of the capital this group is comparatively subject
to the Turkish power, and pays a small annual tribute; the
chiefs, who assess and collect the tribute, form a kind of
administrative council; the confederation has also an official
representative council at Scutari, called the Jibal, under
the presidency of a Serkarde or Moslem official. (3) The
Dukajin, whose territory lies between that of the last-named
group and the district of Jakova, include the Pulati, Shalla,
Shoshi and other tribes; they are more independent and more
savage than the Mi-shkodrak, and have never paid tribute from
time immemorial. (4) The Puka group, known as ``the Seven
Baryaks of Puka,'' dwell on the south side of the river Drin;
theyare nominally administered by a Turkish kaimakam, who is
a mere spectator of their proceedings. (5) The Malsia Jakovs,
a group of two Catholic and three Moslem tribes, extend in
the direction of Jakova, where they maintain an official
representative; they are entirely exempt from taxation. (6,7)
The Malsia-Lezhs, who occupy the Alessio highlands, and the
Malsia Krues, who inhabit the region north of Krola, live in a
state of extreme poverty and pay no tribute; the Malsia Krues
are much addicted to brigandage. To these seven groups, which
are included under the general appellation of Malissori,
or ``highlanders,'' may be added the Malsia of IAbra, who
extend to the west and north of that town, and form a large
separate group; they are notorious for their fierce lawless
character, and maintain themselves by plundering the Bulgarian
peasants in their neighbourhood. In general the attitude of the
Albanians in the north-eastern districts towards the Slavonic
peasantry may be compared with that of the Kurds towards the
Armenians. In the region east of Kroia the Mat tribe,
which occupies the upper valley of the Matra, presents an
entirely different organization; their district is governed
by four wealthy families, possessing hereditary rank and
influence. Towards the south the tribal organization becomes
looser and is gradually supplanted by a kind of feudal system;
among the powerful aristocratic houses may be mentioned the
Vliores at Avlona, who are stated to own over 150 sq. m. of
land, and the Toptans at Tirana. The principal landowners,
who reside in fortified houses, are all Moslems; their estates
are cultivated on the metayer system. Since the time
of Ali Pasha, who broke the power of the local chieftains,
southern Albania has been subject to the central Turkish
power; before that period the mountaineers of Suh and Khimara
enjoyed an independence similar to that of the Gheg tribes.
Religions.---The great majority of the Albanians, probably
more than three-fifths, are Moslems. The conversion of the
Christian population to Islam appears to have taken place
during the 16th and 17th centuries. Like the Cretan Moslems
and the Bulgarian Pomaks, the Albanian Mahommedans retain
many Christian traditions and customs; it is said that many
thousands of them secretly adhere to their original faith. In
the vilayet of Scutari they form about 55% of the population;
central Albania is almost entirely Moslem; in southern Albania,
however, there is a considerable Christian population, whose
limits practically coincide with those of the Greek-speaking
districts. Of the Christian population (about 600,000), some
110,000 are Roman Catholic Ghegs, some 90,000 are Orthodox
Tosks, and some 400,000 are Orthodox Slavs, Greeks and
Vlachs. The Roman Catholic Ghegs appear to have abandoned
the Eastern for the Western Church in the middle of the 13th
century. Their bishops and priests, who Wear the moustache
in deference to popular prejudice, are typical specimens
of the church militant. Some of the Gheg tribes, such as
the Puka, Malsia Jakovs and Malsia Krues, are partly Roman
Catholic, partly Moslem; among fellowtribesmen the difference
of religion counts for little. The Mirdites are exclusively
Roman Catholic, the Mat-i exclusively Moslem. At the head of
the Roman Catholic hierarchy are the archbishops of Scutari
(with three suffragans), Prizren and Durazzo; the mitred abbot
of St Alexander is the spiritual chief of the Mirdites. The
Orthodox Church has metropolitans at Prizren, Durazzo, Berat,
Iannina and Kortcha; the Bulgarian exarchate maintains a
bishop at Dibra. Of the Albanians in Sicily the great majority
(44791) remain faithful to the Greek Church; in Italy 116,482
follow the Latin ritual, and 38,192 the Greek. All
the Albanians in Greece belong to the Orthodox Church.
Education.---Education is almost non-existent, and the vast
majority of the populati(m, both Christian and Moslem, are totally
illiterate. Instruction in the Albanian language is prohibited
by the Turkish government for political reasons; a singleexception
has been made in the caseof an American school for girls at
Kortcha. There are Turkish primary and secondary schools in some
of the towns; in the village mosques instruction in the Koran
is given by the imams, but neither reading nor writing is
taught. The aristocratic Moslem families send their sons
to be educated in Constantinople or Vienna. At Scutari a
college and a seminary are maintained by the Jesuits, with the
aid of the Austrian government; the Franciscans have several
primary schools, and three lay schools are supported by the
Italian government; in all these institutions Italian is the
language of instruction. There are two Servian seminaries at
Prizren. In southern Albania there are Greek schools in the
towns and a large Greek gymnasium at Iannina. The priests
of the Greek Church, on whom the rural population depend for
instruction, are often deplorably ignorant. The merchant
families of Iannina are Well educated; the dialect spoken
in that town is the purest specimen of colloquial Greek.
Language.---Albanian is peculiarly interesting as the only
surviving representative of the so-called Thraco-Illyrian
group of languages which formed the primitive speech of the
peninsula. It has afforded an attractive study to philologists,
amongst whom may be mentioned Malte-Brun, Leake, Xylander,
Hahn, Miklosich and G. Meyer. The analysis of the language
presents great difficulties, as, owing to the absence of literary
monuments, no certainty can be arrived at With regard to its
earlier forms and later development. The groundwork, so far
as it can be ascertained, and the grammar are Indo-European,
but a large number of words have been borrowed from the Latin
or Italian and Greek, and it is not always easy to decide
Whether the mutilated and curtailed forms now in use represent
adopted words or belong to the original vocabulary. There
is also a considerable admixture of Turkish and Slavonic
words. Notwithstanding certain points of resemblance in
structure and phonetics, Albanian is entirely distinct from
the neighbouring languages; in its relation to early Latin and
Greek it may bc regarded as a co-ordinate member of the Aryan
stock. It possesses seven vowels; among the consonants are the
aspirated d and t, as in Greek, and many other sounds, such
as b, d, sh, zh (French.j), and hard g, which are wanting in
Greek, but exist in the Slavonic languages. There are three
declensions, each with a definite and indefinite form; the
genitive, dative and ablative are usually represented by a
single termination; the vocative is formed by a final o,
as memmo from memme, ``mother.'' The neuter gender is
absent. There are two conjugations; the passive formation,
now Wanting in most Indo-European languages, has been retained,
as in Greek; thus kerko-iy, ``I seek,'' forms kerko-n-em,
``I am sought.'' The,infinitive is not found; as in Greek,
Rumanian and Bulgarian, it is replaced by the subjunctive with a
particle. The two auxiliary verbs are kam, ``I have,'' and
yam, ``I am.'' An interesting and characteristic feature
of the language is the definite article, which is attached
to the end of the word: e.g. mik (``friend,'' amicus),
mik-u (``the friend''); kien (``dog''), kien-i Shkumb,
Shkumb-i. The suffix-article likewise appears in Rumanian and
Bulgarian, but in no other Latin or Slavobic language; it is
in each case a form of the demonstrative pronoun. Another
remarkable analogy between the Albanian and the neighbouring
languages is found in the formation of the future; the Albanian
do (3rd pers. sing. of dova, ``I will''), like the Greek
tha, is prefixed without change to all persons of the verb: a
similar usage in Servian and Bulgarian, as well as in Rumanian
(especially the Macedonian dialect), is peculiar to these
languages in the Slavonic and Latin groups. These and other
points of similarity, possibly only accidental, have led to
the conjecture that the primitive Illyrian language may have
exerted some kind of influence on the other idioms of the
peninsula. In the absence of literary culture the Albanian
dialects, as might be expected, are widely divergent; the
limits of the two principal dialects correspond with the racial
boundaries of the Ghegs and Tosks, who understand each other
with dilficulty; the Albanians in Greece and Italy have also
separate dialects. In writing Albanian the Latin character
is employed by the Ghegs, the Greek by the Tosks; neither
alphabet sufiices to represent the manifold sounds of the
language, and various supplementary letters or distinguishing
signs are necessary. In the use of these no uniform system
has yet been adopted. An alphabet of fifty-two letters, some
presenting ancient Phoenician and Cretan forms, was found by
Hahn in partial use at Elbassan and Tirana; its antiquity,
however, has not been established. The Tosks generally use
the Greek language for written communications. The native
folklore and poetry of the Albanians can hardly compare
with that of the neighbouring nations in originality and
beauty. The earliest printed works in Albanian are those of
the Catholic missionaries; the first book containing specimens
of the language was the Dictionarium Latino-Epirolicum of
Bianchi, printed in 1635. The literature of the last two
centuries consists mainly of translations and religious works
written by ecclesiastics, some of whom were natives of the
Albanian colonies in Italy. The most noteworthy Albanian
writer was Girolamo di Rada (b. 1815), a poet, philologist
and collector of national folklore. Among his successors
may be mentioned Vincenzo Dorsa and Demetrio Camarda.
Antiquities.---Albania abounds in ancient remains, which
as yet have been little explored. Fragments of ``Cyclopean''
structures were discovered by Hahn at Kretzunista, Arinista,
and other sites in the district of Argyrokastro; the walls,
partly ``Cyclopean,'' of an ancient city (perhaps Bullis)
are Visible at Gradisti on the Viossa. Masonry of this
type, however, occurring in Illyria and Dalmatia (e.g.
at Soalato and on the island of Lesina) has been shown by
modern archaeologists to belong to the Roman period. In
general, the remains of the classical epoch attest the
influence of Roman rather than of Greek civilization. At
Pollina, the ancient Apollonia, are the remnants of a
Doric temple, of which a single column is still standing.
A little north of Preveza are the considerable ruins of
Nikopohs, founded by Octavian to commemorate the victory of
Actium. At Khimara (anc. Chimaera) the remains of an
old Greek city may still be seen; at Santi Quaranta (anc.
Cnchesmos) the walls and towers of a later town are in good
preservation. Few traces remain of the once celebrated
Dyrrhachium. The ruins of Pandosia, Ephyra, Elatea, Phoenike,
Bathrotum, Akrolissos and other towns may be identified. The
most important and interesting remains, however, are those
of Dodona (q.v..) Of the medieval ruins those of Kroia,
the stronghold of Scanderbeg, are the most interesting.
Medieval History.---After the division of the Roman empire,
the lands inhabited by the Albanian race became provinces of
the Byzantine empire; northern Albania from Scutari to Berat
formed the thema or province of Dyrrachium (Durazzo,
Albanian Dourtz), southern Albania and Epirus the thema of
Nikopolis. The country was overrun by the Goths in the 4th
and 5th centuries, but reconquered by Justinian in 535. In 640
northern Albania was invaded by the Serbo-Croats; it continued
with interruptions under Servian rule till 1360. In 861 the
Bulgarians conquered the southern portion of the country and
Epirus as far as Khimara; under their powerful tsar Simeon
(893-927), who defeated the Servians, they established their
rule on the Adriatic littoral, except at Durazzo, which remained
Ilyzantine, and colonized these regions in great numbers. A
new Bulgarian dynasty, that of Shishman, was founded at Ochrida
after the death of Simeon. Shishman's son Samuel (976-1014)
captured Durazzo; he extended his sway over a great part of
the Balkan Peninsula, but was eventually defeated in 1014 by
the emperor Basil II., who put out the eyes of 15,000 Bulgarian
prisoners. Southern Albania and Epirus fell once more
under Byzantine rule, which, however, was shaken by numerous
revolts. In 1081 the Normans under Robert Guiscard possessed
themselves of Durazzo; Guiscard,s son Bohemund defeated the
Greeks in several battles and again (1107) laid siege to
Durazzo, which had been surrendered to them by treachery;
failing to take the city, he retired to Italy in 1109.
Southern Albania and Epirus remained under Byzantine domination
till 1204, when, after the capture of Constantinople by the
crusaders, Michael Comnenus, a member of the imperial family,
withdrew to Epirus and founded an independent sovereignty
known as the Despotate of Epirus at Iannina; his realm
included the whole of southern Albania, Acarnania and
Aetolia. The despotate of Epirus was held by the Comnenus
family till 1318, and by princes of the house of Orsini till
1358. Meanwhile Durazzo, with Berat and Central Albania, had
passed into the hands of the Sicilian kings of the house of
Anjou, who ruled these regions, which they styled the ``Kingdom
of Albania,'' from 1271 to 1368, maintaining a constant warfare
with the Byzantine emperors. The Servians again installed
themselves in Upper Albania about 1180, and the provinces of
Scutari and Prizren were ruled by kings of the house of Nemanya
till 1360; Stefan Dushan (1331-1358), the greatest of these
monarchs, included all Albania in his extensive but short-lived
empire, and took the title of 1mperotor Romaniae Slavoniae
et Albaniae (emperor of the Greeks, Slavs and Albanians).
Period of Native Rule.---After the death of Dushan and the
break-up of the Servian empire, a new epoch began when Albania
fell under the rule of chieftains more or less of native
origin. A portion of Upper Albania was ruled by the Balsha
dynasty (1366-1421), which, though apparently Servian by
descent, assimilated itself with its Albanian subjects
and embraced the faith of Pome. Alessio and a tract of
the interior in the direction of Ipek was governed by the
Dukajin. The northern portion of the ``kingdom of Albania,''
including Durazzo and Kroia, was ruled by the family of
Thopia (1359-1392) and afterwards by that of Lastriota, to
which Scanderbeg belonged; the southern portion with Berat,
by the Musaki (1368--1476). In the middle of the 14th century
a great migration of Albanians from the mountainous districts
of the north took place, under the chiefs Jin Bua Spata and
Peter Liosha; they advanced southwards as far as Acarnania and
Aetolia (1358), occupied the greater portion of the despotate of
Epirus, and took Iannina and Arta. In the latter half of the
century large colonies of Tosks were planted in the Morea by the
despots of Mistra, and in Attica and Boeotia by Luke Nerio of
Athens. As the power of the Balshas declined, the Venetians
towards the close of the 14th century established themselves at
Scutari, Budua, Antivari and elsewhere in northern Albania.
Period of Turkish Rule.---The advance of the Turks into
Albania began with the capture of Iannina in 1431. For once
in the history of the country the Albanian chiefs combined
against the invader under a single leader, the celebrated
Georce Eastriota (see SCANDERBEG), who fought thirteen
campaigns in the period 1444--1466. In 1478 Kroia, which the
Venetians had occupied after Scanderbeg's death, surrendered
to Mahommed II., and in 1479 Scutari, after a memorable defence
by the Venetians and their Montenegrin allies, was reduced by
blockade. Nany of its native Christian defenders emigrated
to Dallratia and Italy; others took refuge in the mountains
with the Loiran Catholic Ghegs. In 1502 the Turks captured
Durazzo, and in 1571 Antivari and Dulcigno, the last Venetian
possessions in Albania. Notwithstanding the abandonment of
Christianity by a large section of the population after the
Turkish conquest, the authority of the sultans was never
effectively established, and succeeding centuries present
a record of interminable conflicts between the tribesmen
and the Turks, between the Christians and the converts to
Islam, or between all combined and the traditional Montenegrin
enemy. The decline of the Ottoman power, which began towards
the end of the 17th century, was marked by increasing anarchy
and lawlessness in the outlying portions of the empire.
About 1760 a Moslem chieftain, Mehemet of Bushat, after
obtaining the pashalik of Scutari from the Porte, succeeded
in establishing an almost independent sovereignty in Upper
Albania, which remained hereditary in his family for some
generations. In southern Albania Ali Pasha of Tepelen (b.
about 1750), an able, cruel and unscrupulous man, subdued
the neighbouring pashas and chiefs, crushed the Suliotes and
Khimarrliotes, and exercised a practically independent sovereignty
from the Adriatic to the Aegean. He introduced comparative
civilization at Iannina, his capital, and maintained direct
relations with foreign powers. Eventually he renounced his
allegiance to the sultan, but was overthrown by a Turkish army in
1822. Shortly afterwards the dynasty of Scutari came to
an end with the surrender of Mustafa Pasha, the last of the
house of Bushat, to the grand vizier Reshid Pasha, in 1831.
The opposition of the Albanians, Christian as well as Moslem,
to the reforms introduced by the sultan Mahmud II. led
to the devastation of the country and the expatriation of
thousands of its inhabitants. During the next half-century
several local revolts occurred, but no movement of a strictly
political character took place till after the Berlin Treaty
(July 13, 1878), when some of the Moslems and Catholics
combined to resist the stipulated transference of Albanian
territory to Austria-Hungary, Servia and Montenegro) and the
Albaniian League Was formed by an assemblage of chiefs at
Prizren. The movement, which was instigated by the Porte
with the object of evading the provisions of the treaty, Was
so far successful that the restoration of Plava and Gusinye
to Albania was sanctioned by the powers, Montenegro receiving
in exchange the town and district of Dulcigno. The Albanian
leaders, however, soon displayed a spirit of independence,
which proved embarrassing to Turkish diplomacyand caused
alarm at Constantinople; their forces came into conflict with
a Turkish army under Dervish Pasha near Dulcigno (November
1880), and eventually the league was suppressed. A similar
agitation on a smaller scale was organized in southern Albania
to 1esist the territorial concessions awarded by the powers to
Greece. In the spring of 1903 serious disturbances took
place in north-western Albania, but the Turks succeeded in
pacifying the revolted tribesmen, partly by force and partly by
concessions. These movements were far from displaying a
genuinely national character. In recent years attempts have
been made by Albanians resident abroad to propagate the national
idea among their compatriots at home; committees have been
formed at Brussels, Bucharest, Athens and elsewhere, and books,
pamphlets and newspapers are surreptitiously sent into the
country. Unity of aim and effort, however, seems foreign
to the Albanians, except in defence of local or tribal
privileges. The growth of a wider patriotic sentiment must
depend on the spread of popular education; certainly up to
1908 no appreciable progress had been made in this direction.
AUTHORITIES.---F. C. H. Pouqueville, Voyage de la Grece
(Paris, 1820); W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece
(London, 1835); J. G. von Hahn, Albanesische Studien (Jena,
1854), Reise durch die Gebiete des Drin und Vardar (Vienna,
1867); F. Bopp, Uber dos Albanesische (Berlin, 1854); J.
P. Fallmerayer, Das albanesische Element in Griechenland
(Munich, 1864); N. Camarda, Saggio di grammatologia comparata
sulla lingua albanese (Leghorn, 1865); Viscountess Strangford,
The Eastern Shores of the Adriatic (London, 1865); H. F.
Tozer, Researches in the Highlands of Turkey (London, 1869);
F. Miklosich, Albanes. Forschungen (Vienna, 1870); C.
Hopf, Chroniques greco-romaines inedites ou peu connues
(Berlin, 1873); H. Hecquard, Histoire et description de la
Haute Albanie ou Guegarie (Paris, undated); S. Gopchevich,
Oberalbanien und seine Liga (Leipzig, 1881); V'. Tajani,
Le Istoria Albanesi (Salerno, 1886); G. Gelchich, La Zedda
e la dinastia dei Balshi (Spalato, 1899); S. Lambros, `E
onomatologia tes 'Attikes kai h eis ten choran
epikesis ton .Albanon in the 'Epeteris tou Parnassou
(Athens, 1896); Theodore Ippen ``Beitrige zur inneren
Geschichte der Turkei im 19. Jahrhundert speciell Albaniens,''
in the Osterreichisch-Ungarische Revue, vol. xxviii.; A.
Philippson, Thessalia und Epirus (Berlin, 1897). See
also Murray's Greece, ed. 1900, pp. 720-731 and 760-814,
and Blue-book Turkey, No. 15, Part ii., 1886. (J. D. B.)
ALBANUS LACUS (mod. Lago di Albano), a lake about 12
m. S.E. of Rome. It is generally considered to have been
formed by a volcanic explosion at the margin of the great
crater of the Albanus Mons; it has the shape of a crater,
the banks cf Which are over 400 ft. in height from the
water-level, while the water is as much as 560 ft. deep
in the S. portion. It is fed by subterraiiean springs.
According to the legend, the emissarium (outlet) which
still drains it was made in 398-397 B.C., the Delphic oracle
having declared that Veri could onlybe taken when the waters
of the lake reached the sea. It is over a mile in length,
hewn in the rock, and about 6 ft. high and 4 ft. broad; it
has vertical shafts at intervals, and a sluice chamber at
its egress from the lake. In the time of Domitian the whole
lake belonged to the imperial domain. (SEEALBALONGA.)
ALBANUS MONS (mod. Monte Cavo, from an early city of
the name of Cabum? 1), the highest point of the volcanic
Alban hills, about 13 m. S.E. of Rome, 3115 ft. above
sea-level. It is upon the line of the rim of the inner crater
of the great volcano, While Tusculum and Algidus Mons mark
the edge of the earlier outer crater, which was about 7 m.
wide. The lakes of Albano and Nemi were probably formed by
volcanic explosions at the margin of the great crater; though a
view has also been expressed that the basins are the result of
subsidence. The name Albanus Mons is also used generally
of the Alban group of hills in which there seem to have been
some remains of volcanic activity in early Roman times, which
covered the early necropolis of Alba Longa, and occasionally
produced showers of stones, e.g. in the time of Tullus
Hostilius (Liv. i. 31), and perhaps much later. In 193 B.C.
it is recorded (ib. xxxv. 9) that such a snower occurred at
Aricia, Lanuvium and on the Aventine. Upon the Mons Albanus
stood the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, where the annual festival
of the Latin League was held. The foundations and some of the
architectural fragments of the temple were still in existence
until 1777, when they were used to build the Passionist
monastery by Cardinal York. The road which ascended to the
temple from the rim of the lake is still well preserved.
1 See Th. Mommsen in Bulletino dell' Istituto (1861),
206; Corpus Inscrip. Lat. (Berlin, 1887), xiv. 2228,
ALBANY, DUKES OF. The territorial designation of Albany was
formerly given to those parts of Scotland to the north of the
firths of Clyde and Forth. The title of duke of Albany was
first bestowed in 1398 by King Robert III. on his brother, Robert
Stewart, ead of Fife (see I. below); but in 1425 it became
extinct. The dukedom was re-created, r. 1458, in favour of
Alexander Stewart, ``lord of Annandale and earl of March',
(see II. below), whose son and successor (see III. below)
left no legitimate heir. The title of duke of Albany was next
bestowed upon Henry Stuart, commonly known as Lord Darnley,
by Mary, queen of Scots, in 1565. From him the title passed
to his son, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England. The
title was by him given, at his birth, to Charles, his second
son, afterwards King Charles I. By Charles II. it was again
bestowed, in 1660, on James, duke ot York, afterwards King
James II. On the 5th of July 1716 Ernest Augustus, bishop of
Osnaburgh [Osnabruck] (1715-1728), youngest brother of King
George I., was created duke of York and Albany, the title
becoming extinct on his death without heirs in 1728. On the
1st of April 1760 Prince Edward Augustus, younger brother of
King George III., was created duke of York and Albany; he died
without heirs on the 17th of September 1767. On the 29th of
November 1784 the title of duke of York and Albany was again
created in favour of Frederick, second son of George III., who
died without heirs on the 5th of January 1827. The title of
duke of Albany was bestowed on the 24th of May 1881 on Prince
Leopold, youngest son of Queen Victoria (see IV. below).
I. ROBERT STEWART, duke of Albany (c. 1345-1420), regent
of Scotland, was a son of King Robert II. by his mistress,
Elizabeth Mure, and was legitimatized when his parents were
married about 1349. In 1361 he married Margaret, countess
of Menteith, and after his widowed sister-in-law, Isabel,
countess of Fife, had recognized him as her heir, he was
known as the earl of Fife and Menteith. Taking an active
part in the government of the kingdom, the earl was made
high chamberlain of Scotland in 1382, and gained military
reputation by leading several plundering expeditions into
England. In 1389 after his elder brother John, earl of
Carrick, had been incapacitated by an accident, and when his
father the king was old and infirm, he was chosen governor
of Scotland by the estates; and he retained the control of
affairs after his brother John became king as Robert III. in
1390. In April 1308 he was created duke of Albany; but
in the following year his nephew David, duke of Rothesay,
the heir to the crown, succeeded him as governor, although
the duke himself was a prominent member of the advising
council. Uncle and nephew soon differed, and in March 1402
the latter died in prison at Falkland. It is not certain
that Albany was responsible for the imprisonment and death
of Rothesay, whom the parliament declared to have died
from natural causes; but the scanty evidence points in the
direction of his guilt. Restored to the office of governor,
the duke was chosen regent of the kingdom after the death
of Robert III. in 1406, as the new king, James I., was a
prisoner in London; and he took vigorous steps to prosecute
the war with England, which had been renewed a few years
before. He was unable, or as some say unwilling, to effect
the release of his royal nephew, and was soon faced by a
formidable revolt led by Donald Macdonald, second lord of the
Isles, who claimed the earldom of Ross and was in alliance with
Henry IV. of England; but the defeat of Donald at Harlaw near
Aberdeen in July 1411 freed him from this danger. Continuing
alternately to fight and to negotiate with England, the duke
died at Stirling Castle in September 1420, and was buried in
Dunfermline Abbey. Albany, who was the ablest prince of his
house, left by his first wife one son, Murdac (or Murdoch)
Stewart, who succeeded him as duke of Albany and regent,
but at whose execution in 1425 the dukedom became extinct.
See Andrew of Wyntoun, The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland,
edited by D. Laing (Edinburgh, 1872-1879); John of Fordun,
Scotichronicon, continued by Walter Bower, edited by T.
Hearne (Oxford, 1722); and P. F. Tytler, History of Scotland
(Edinburgh, 1850). See also Sir W. Scott's Fair Maid of Perth.
II. ALEXANDER STEWART, duke of Albany (c. 1454-1485),
was the second son of James II., king of Scotland, by his
wife, Mary, daughter of Arnold, duke of Gelderland. Created
duke of Albany before 1458, he also received the lordship of
the Isle of Man, and was afterwards captured by an English
ship when journeying to Gelderland in 1468. He was soon
released, and as he grew to manhood began to take part in
the government and defence of Scotland, being appointed in
quick succession high admiral, warden of the marches, governor
of Berwick and lieutenant of the kingdom. Soon, however,
he quarrelled with his brother, King James III. Some of his
actions on the marches aroused suspicion, and in 1479 he
was seized and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle; but he soon
made his escape, and reaching Paris in September 1479 was
welcomed by King Louis XI. Louis, however, would not assist
him to attack his brother the king, and crossing to England
he made a treaty with King Edward IV. at Fotheringhay in June
1482. Like Edward Baliol, he promised to hold Scotland under
English suzerainty in return for Edward's assistance, and
with Richard, duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard
III., he marched at the head of the English forces to
Edinburgh. Meanwhile his supporters in Scotland had seized
James, and professed their readiness to recognize Albany,
declaring at the same time their distrust of Gloucester. A
compromise, however, was arranged, and the restoration of his
lands and offices was promised to Albany, who in turn agreed
to be faithful to James; but about the same time the duke with
remarkable duplicity had sworn he would keep the treaty with
Edward. Again he was appointed lieutenant of the kingdom,
a truce was made with the English, and James, released from
custody, restored his brother and created him earl of Mar and
Garioch. The fraternal peace was soon disturbed. Failing
to obtain possession of the king's person, Albany renewed
negotiations with Edward, and in February 1483 made a new treaty
at Westminster on the lines of that of Fotheringhay. A fresh
reconciliation followed between the brothers, but in July 1483,
during Albany's absence in England, he was sentenced to death for
treason. After making a raid on Lochmaben he went to France,
where in 1485 he was accidentally killed. Albany's first
wife was Catherine, daughter of William, third earl of Orkney
and first earl of Caithness, who bore him three sons and a
daughter. This marriage was dissolved in 1478, and as its
issue was regarded as illegitimate the title of duke of Albany
descended to John (see below), his only son by his second
wife, Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne. daughter of Bertrand II.,
count of Auvergne and of Bouillon, whom he married in 1480.
III. JOHN STEWART, duke of Albany (c. 1481-1536), regent
Of Scotland, was born about 1481. He was brought up in
France, where he owned large estates, and held the office of
admiral of France. In 1515, at the request of the Scottish
parliament, and in spite of Henry VIII.'s efforts to prevent
him, Albany came to Scotland, was inaugurated regent in July,
and proceeded to organize resistance to the influence of England
and of Margaret Tudor, the queen dowager, sister of Henry
VIII. In August he seized the latter and her children at
Stirling, and subsequently was occupied in suppressing the
rebellion of the Homes, Angus (the second husband of Margaret),
and James Hamilton, earl of Arran; Alexander, third Lord
Home, being beheaded in October 1516. Albany was declared
on the 12th of November heir to the throne, and on the 6th
of June 1517 he returned to France. In August he concluded
the treaty of Rouen, by which the alliance between France
and Scotland was renewed and a daughter of Francis I. was
to marry James V., and next year he obtained the relaxation
of certain dues on Scottish imports into France. Meanwhile
Margaret had returned immediately on Albany's departure, and
disorders had broken out owing to the rivalry between Angus and
Arran. Francis I. had secretly engaged himself to Henry
VIII. not to allow Albany's departure from France, but he
returned at the close of 1521 and immediately became the
object of Henry VIII.'s and Wolsey's attacks. He reconciled
himself temporarily with Margaret, supported her divorce from
Angus, and was now accused by the English government, in all
probability unjustly, of having seduced her and of harbouring
schemes of marrying her himself, together with designs against
the life of the young king. These accusations were repudiated
by the Scots, and Henry's demand for the regent's dismissal
refused. War broke out in 1522, and in September Albany
advanced to within four miles of Carlisle with a large
army. The Scots, however, showed unwillingness to fight
outside their own frontiers, and Albany agreed to a truce
and disbanded his troops. On the 25th of October he departed
hastily to France, leaving the borders exposed to the
enemy. On the 25th of September 1523 he once more landed
in Scotland, bringing with him supplies from France and a
considerable body of troops, and on the 3rd of November, after
an unsuccessful attack on Wark, retreated hastily, and quitted
Scotland finally on the 20th of May 1524. On the 30th of July
his regency was terminated by the declaration of James V. as
king. He accompanied Francis I. in his disastrous Italian
campaign of 1525, being detached to make a diversion in
Naples against the Spanish. Between 1530 and 1535 he acted as
French ambassador in Rome, conducted Catherine de' Medici, his
wife's niece, to Paris on her marriage to Henry (afterwards
Henry II.) in 1534, and negotiated the marriage of James V.
The regent Albany was a singularly unfortunate commander in
the field, but a successful ruler and administrator, and the
Scottish court of session owed to him its institution. But he
regarded himself more the subject of the king of France than
of the king of Scotland, subordinated the interests of the
latter state to the former, and disliked his official duties
in Scotland, where the benefits of his administration were
largely diminished by his want of perseverance and frequent
absence. He appears to have been a man of honourable and
straightforward conduct, whose character must be cleared from
the aspersions of Wolsey and the English authorities. He
married his cousin Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne, but left no
legal issue, and all his honours became extinct at his death.
IV. LEOPOLD GEORGE DUNCAN ALBERT, duke of Albany, eighth
child and youngest son of Queen Victoria, was born on the 7th
of April 1853. The delicacy of his health seemed to mark him
out for a life of retirement, and as he grew older he evinced
much of the love of knowledge, the capacity for study and
the interest in philanthropic and ecclesiastical movements
which had characterized his father, the prince consort. He
matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in November 1872, living
with his tutor at Wykeham House, St Giles's, and diligently
pursued his favourite studies of science, art and the modern
languages. In 1876 he left the university with the honorary
degree of D.C.L., and resided at Boyton House, Wiltshire,
and afterwards at Claremont. On coming of age in 1874, he
had been made a privy councillor and granted an annuity of
L. 15,000. He travelled on the continent, and in 1880 visited
the United States and Canada. He was a trustee of the British
Museum, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and continued to take
an active part in the promotion of education and knowledge
generally. Like his father and other members of his family
he was an excellent public speaker. On the 24th of May 1881
he was created duke of Albany, earl of Clarence and Baron
Arklow. On the 27th of April 1882 he married Helene
Frederica Augusta, princess of Waldeck-Pyrmont, and his income
was raised by parliament to L. 25,000. Having gone to the
south of France for his health in the spring of 1884, he was
attacked by a fit, the cause or the consequence of a fall
in a club-house at Cannes, on the 27th of March, and died
very unexpectedly on the following morning. His death was
universally regretted, from the gentleness and graciousness
of his character, and the desire and ability he had shown
to promote intellectual interests of every kind. He left a
daughter, born in February 1883, and a posthumous son, Arthur
Charles Edward, born on the 19th of July 1884, who succeeded
to the dukedom of Albany, and who on the 30th of July
1900 became duke of Saxe-Coburg on the death of his uncle.
ALBANY, LOUISE MAXIMILIENNE CAROLINE, COUNTESS OF
(1752-1824), eldest daughter of Prince Gustavus Adolphus of
Stolberg-Gedern, was born at Mons on the 20th of September
1752. In her youth she was a canoness of Ste. Wandru at Mons,
but in her twentieth year she was affianced, at the instigation
of the duke of Berwick and with the secret connivance of the
French Court, to Prince Charles Edward Stuart, ``the Young
Pretender,'' self-styled count of Albany. She was wedded
to the prince at Macerata, near Ancona, on Good Friday 1774,
and the married pair for over two years resided in the old
Stuart palace at Rome. Pretty, intelligent, charming and
witty, Louise fascinated Roman society, wherein she gained
the nickname of ``Queen of Hearts.'' The union, however, which
was obviously intended to give an heir to the Stuart prince,
proved childless, and Louise's married life became far from
happy. In 1774 the pair moved to Florence, where in December
1780 Louise, terrified at her husband's violence and fearing
for the safety of her life, fled to a neighbouring convent
and threw herself on the protection of her brother-in-law,
Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, who invited her to Rome. Louise
had already in Florence formed the acquaintance of the great
Italian tragic poet, Vittorio Alfieri, who had been captivated
by her engaging manners, her youthful beauty and her literary
powers. The poet now followed her to Rome, but the friendship
between Alfieri and his sister-in-law does not seem to have
aroused any suspicion in the mind of Cardinal York until
1783, when, after a visit to his brother in Florence, he
suddenly requested Pope Pius VI. to banish Alfieri from papal
territory. In 1784, however, a legal separation between the
count and countess of Albany was arranged, and by Charles's
death in 1788 Louise found herself freed from matrimonial
bonds. In company with Alfieri (to whom rumour said she
had been secretly married) she now visited Paris and London,
and was cordially received at the English court, George
III. granting her an annual pension of L. 1600 from the privy
purse. Returning to Italy, Alfieri and the countess settled
at Florence, where the poet died on the 9th of October
1803, and was buried in the church of Santa Croce beneath
Canova's vast monument erected at Louise's expense. The
countess continued to reside in the house on the Lung'
Arno at Florence, patronising men of science and letters
and holding nightly receptions, at which all visitors were
expected to treat their hostess with the etiquette due to
reigning royalty. She died on the 29th of January 1824 and
was buried in Santa Croce, where in the south transept a
marble monument by Giovannozzi and Santarelli commemorates
her. By her will the countess bequeathed all her property,
including many historic objects of art and documents, to the
companion of her old age, the French painter, Francois Xavier
Fabre, who ultimately gave the greater part of his legacy to
the museum of his native town of Montpellier. Two excellent
portraits of the countess of Albany and of Alfieri, painted
by this artist, now hang in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.
See Vernon Lee, The Countess of Albany (1884);
Marchesa Vitelleschi, A Court in Exile. (H. M. V.)
ALBANY, a river of Canada, forming part of the boundary
between the province of Ontario and the district of Keewatin.
It rises in Lake St Joseph in 91 deg. 25, W. and 50 deg. 55' N., and
flows E.N.E. into James Bay, its total length being over 400
m. It is navigable for nearly half its length, to Martin's
Falls. There are four Hudson's Bay Company's posts
on its banks, including Fort Albany at its mouth. The
Ogoki and Kenogami rivers are the principal tributaries.
ALBANY, a city and the county-seat of Dougherty county,
Georgia, U.S.A., at the mouth of the Kinchafoona Creek, and
at the head of navigation on the Flint river, about 100 m.
S.S.W. of Macon, about 200 m. S.W. of Savannah and about 203
m. N.E. of Pensacola. Pop. (1890) 4008; (1900) 4606 (2903
of negro descent); (1910) 8190. It is served by the Central
of Georgia, the Georgia Northern, the Seaboard Air Line, the
Albany & Northern and the Atlantic Coast Line railways, and
by steamboats connecting it with Apalachicola at the mouth
of the Apalachicola river. Its importance is largely due to
these transportation facilities and to the resources of the
surrounding country, which produces timber, lime, cotton,
Indian corn, sugar-cane, wheat, oats, fruit, melons, hay and
vegetables. Albany ships much cotton, and has a cotton
compress, a cotton mill, cotton-seed oil and guano factories,
brick yards, lumber mills and ice factories. It is a summer
and winter resort and is the home of the Georgia Chautauqua.
The city owns and operates the electric-lighting plant and
artesian water-works. It was settled in 1836, was incorporated
in 1838 and received its present city charter in 1907.
ALBANY, a city and the county-seat of Albany county, New
Yrork, U.S.A., and the capital of the state. It is situated
on the W. bank of the Hudson river, just below the mouth of
the Mohawk, 145 m. N. of New York City and 165 m. W. of
Boston. Pop. (1880) 90,758; (1890) 94,923; (1900) 94,151, of
whom 17,718 were foreign-born (6612 being Irish, 5903 German,
1361 English and 740 Russian) and 1178 were negroes; (1910)
100,253. Albany is a terminus of the New York Central & Hudson
River, the Delaware & Hudson and the West Shore railways,
and is also served by the Boston & Maine railway, by the
Erie and Champlain canals (being a terminus of each), by
steamboat lines on the Hudson river and by several inter-urban
electric railways connecting with neighbouring cities.
Albany is attractively situated on a series of hills rising
sharply from the river. The older portions of the city are
reminiscent of Dutch colonial days, and some fine specimens of
the Dutch and later colonial architecture are still standing.
Perhaps the most famous of these is the Schuyler mansion (now
St Francis de Sales Orphan Asylum), built in 1760-1761. The
Van Rensselaer manor-house, built in 1765, was pulled down in
1893 and was reconstructed on the campus of Wilhams College,
Williamstown, Massachusetts, where it is used as a fraternity
club-house. Among the public buildings, the finest is the
new State Capitol, one of the largest and most imposing in
America. It occupies a commanding position in Capitol Square
(7.84 acres), one of the highest points in the city. It is
built of white Maine granite, and cost about $25,000,000. Its
dimensions are 300 X 400 ft. The corner-stone was laid in
1871, and the building was completed, with the exception of
the central tower and dome, in 1904. The legislature first
met in it in 1879. The original designs were by Thomas Fuller,
who also designed the parliamentary buildings at Ottawa; but
the plans underwent many changes, Isaac Gale Perry, Leopold
Eidlitz and H. H. Richardson being associated with the work
before its completion. The beautiful ``western staircase''
of red sandstone (from plans by Perry) and the senate chamber
(designed by Richardson) are oerhaps the most notable parts
of the structure. The building houses the various executive
departments, the legislature and the court of appeals. A
large and handsome building of white granite was begun in 1908
directly opposite the Capitol to accommodate the department
of education and the magnificent state library (about 450,000
volumes). Other important buildings are the old state hall,
a handsome white marble building erected in 1842; the city
hall, a beautiful French Gothic building of pink granite
trimmed with red sandstone, designed by H. H. Richardson;
the Federal Building; the State aIuseum of Natural History;
the galleries of the Albany Institute and Historical and Art
Society, in State Street, opposite the Capitol; Harmanus Bleecker
Hall, a theatre since 1898; and the Ten Eyck and Kenmore
hotels. Among the finest office buildings are the structures
of the Albany City Savings Institution, National Commerical
Bank, Union Trust Company, Albany Trust Company, the National
Savings Bank, First National Bank, the New York State National
Bank (1803, probably the oldest building in the United States
used continuously for banking purposes) and the Albany Savings
Bank. The Fort Orange Club, the Catholic Union, the Albany
Club, the University Club, the City Club of Albany, the
Country Club, the German Hall Association and the Adelphi
Club are the chief social organizations. The principal church
buildings are the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
(Roman Catholic), a fine specimen of Gothic architecture,
built of brownstone, with spires 210 ft. high; the cathedral
of All Saints (Protestant Episcopal), an English Gothic
structure of pink sandstone designed by R. W. Gibson and
begun in 1883; St Peter's Episcopal Church (French Gothic),
of Hudson River bluestone; Emmanuel Baptist Church, of white
granite; the Madison Avenue Reformed Church; and St Joseph's
(Roman Catholic), of bluestone and Caen stone with marble
trimmings. Among the educational institutions are the Albany
Medical College (1839) and the Albany Law School (1851),
both incorporated since 1873 with the Union University, the
Collegiate Department of which is at Schenectady; the Albany
College of Pharmacy (1881), also part of Union University; the
Albany Academy (1813), in which Joseph Henry, while a member
of the faculty, perfected in 1826--1832 the electro-magnet
and began his work on the electric telegraph; the Albany
Academy for Girls, founded in 1814 as the Albany Female
Academy (name changed in 1906); and a State Normal College
(1890), with a Model School. The hospitals and charitable
institutions include St Vincent's Orphan Asylum, the Lathrop
Memorial (for children of working mothers), Albany City
Hospital, the Homeopathic Hospital, St Peter's Hospital,
the Albany City Orphan Asylum and the House of the Good
Shepherd. There are a county penitentiary and a State
armoury. The city has 95 acres of boulevards and avenues
under park supervision and several fine parks (17, with 307
acres in 1907), notably Washington (containing Calverley's
bronze statue of Robert Burns, and Rhind's ``Moses at the Rock
of Horeb''), Beaver and Dudley, in which is the old Dudley
Observatory--the present Observatory building is in Lake
Avenue, south-west of Washington Park, where is also the Albany
Hospital. In the beautiful rural cemetery, north of the city,
are the tombs of President Chester A. Arthur and General Philip
Schuyler. The city owns a fine water-supply and a filtration plant
covering 20 acres, with a capacity of 30,000,000 gallons daily
and storage reservoirs with a capacity of 227,000,000 gallons.
The first newspaper in Albany was the Gazetle, founded in
1771. The Argus, founded in 1813 by Jesse Buel (1778--1839)
and edited from 1824 to 1854 by Edwin Croswell (1797-1871), was
lontthe organ of the coterie of New York politicians known .
as the ``Albany Regency,'' and was one of the most influential
Democratic papers in the United States. Previously to their
holding office, Daniel Manning (1831-1887), secretary of the
treasury in President Cleveland's cabinet, was president of the
Argus company, and Daniel Scott Lamont (1851-1905), secretary
of war during President Cleveland's second administration,
was managing editor of the newspaper. The Evening Journal,
founded in 1830 as an anti-Masonic organ, and for thirty-five
years edited by Thurlow Weed, was equally influential as
an organ of the Whig and later of the Republican party.
Albany is an important railway and commercial centre, particularly
as a distributing point for New England markets, as a lumber
market and--though to a much less extent than formerly-as
a depot for transhipment to the south and west. Among the
city's manufactories are breweries, iron and brass foundries,
stove factories, knitting mills, cotton mills, clothing
factories, slaughtering and meat-packing establishments,
cigar and cigarette factories, and manufactories of adhesive
pastes, court plaster, spring beds, ribbed underwear, aniline
dyes, chemicals, gas meters, fire-brick, and glazed paper and
cardboard. The value of the total factory product in 1905
was $20,208,715, which was 17% greater than that for 1900.
History.---Albany was probably the second place to be
permanently settled within the borders of the original Thirteen
Colonies. It seems likely that French traders ascended
the river as far as the site of the present city in the
first half of the sixteenth century, and according to some
writers a temporary trading post was established here about
1540. Albany's authentic history, however, may be dated from
1614, when Dutch traders built on Castle Island, opposite the
city, a post which they named Fort Nassau. Three years later
the fort was removed to the mainland, and near here in 1618
the Dutch made their first treaty with the Iroquois. In 1624
arrived eighteen families of Dutch Walloons, the first actual
permanent settlers, as distinguished from traders. In that
year, on a hill near the site of the present Capitol, Fort
Orange was built, and around it, as a centre, the new town
grew. At first it was known by the Dutch simply as the
``fuyck'' (hoop), from the curve in the river at this point,
whence was soon derived the name Beverfuvck or Beverwvck. In
1629 the Dutch government granted to Killiaen van Rensselaer,
an Amsttrdam diamond merchant, a tract of land (24 sq. m.)
centring at Fort Orange. Over this tract, the first patroonship
granted in the colony, he had the usual powers and rights of a
patroon. The grant was named Rensselaerwyck in his honour,
became a ``manor'' in 1685, and remained in the family until
1853. The colonists whom he settled upon his grant (1630) were
industrious, and ``Beverwvck'' became increasingly prosperous.
From this time the town, on account of its favourable commercial
and strategic position at the gateway of the Iroquois country
and at the head of navigation on the Hudson river, was for
a century and a half one of the most important places in the
colonies. In 1664. with the transfer of New Netherlands
to English control, the name ``Beverwvck'' was changed to
``Albany''-one of the titles of the duke of York (afterward James
II.). In 1673 the town was acain for a short time under Dutch
control. In 1686 Governor Donaan granted to Albany a city
charter, which provided for an elected council. The first
mayor appointed by the aovernor was Peter Schuyler (1657-1724).
In 1689 was held here the first inter-colonial convention in
America, when delegates from Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth,
Connecticut and New York met to treat with representatives of
the Five Nations and to plan a system of colonial defence.
During the 18th century there was a great influx of English
colonists, and in 1714 the first English church was erected.
During the French and Indian wars Albany was a starting-point
for expeditions against Canada and the Lake Champlain
country. In June 1754, in Dursuance of a recommendation
of the Lords.of Trade, a convention of representatives of
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New
Vork, Pennsylvania and Maryland met here for the purpose of
confirming and establishing a closer league of friendshiq with
the Iroquois and of arranging for a Dermanent union of the
colonies. The Indian affairs having been satisfactorily
adiusted, the convention, after considerable debate. in which
Benjamin Franklin, Stephen Hopkins and Thomas Hutchinson
took a leading part, adopted (July 11) a plan foraunionof the
colonies, which was in great part similar to one submitted
to the convention by Franklin. This plan provided for a
representative governing body to be known as the Grand Council,
to which each colony should elect delegates (not more than
seven or less than two) for a term of three years. This body
was to have control of Indian affairs, impose taxes, nominate
all civil officers, authorize the opening of new lands to
settlement, and in general have charge of colonial defence,
and of the enlistment, equipment and maintenance of an army.
An executive or viceroy, to be known as the president-general,
was to have the veto power over the acts of the Grand Council
and the right of appointment of military officers. Finally,
it was provided that the acts of the Grand Council should
be valid unless vetoed by the crown within a period of three
years. Neither the British government nor the growing party
in the colonies which was clamouring for colonial rights
received the plan with favour--- the former holding that
it gave the colonies too much independence, and the latter
that it gave them too little. 4.he strategic importance of
Albany was fully recognized during the War of Independence,
and it was against Albany that Burgoyne's expedition was
directed. Albany became the permanent state capital in
1797. In 1839 it became the centre of the ``Anti-Rent
War,'' which was precipitated by the death of Stephen
van Rensselaer (1764-1839), the last of the patroons; the
attempt of his heirs to collect overdue rents resulting
in disturbances which necessitated the calling out of the
militia, spread into several counties where there were large
landed estates, and were not entirely settled until 1847.
See William Barnes, The Settlement and Early History of
Albany (Albany, 1864): J. Munsell, The Annals of Albany
(10 vols., Albany, 1859-1859: 2nd ed., 4 vols., 1869-1871);
E. B. O'Callaghan, Documentary History of the State of New
York, vol. iii. (Albany, 1850): A. J. Weise, The History
of the City of Albany (Albany, 1884); G. R. Howell and J.
Tenney, Bi-centennial History of Albany (New York, 1886);
Amasa I. Parker, Landmarks of Albany County (Syracuse,
1897); and Cuyler Reynolds, Albany Chronicles; or Albany
Mayors anid Contemporaneous Chronology (Albany, 1907).
ALBANY, a municipal town in the county of Plantagenet, West
Australia, on Princess Royal Harbour, a branch of King George
Sound, 352 m. by rail and 254 m. directly S.S.E. of Perth. Pop.
(1901) 3650. It is the chief health resort of the state, and
its climate is one of the finest in Australia; it has a mean
annual temperature of 58.6 deg. F., and the summer heat is never
excessive. One of the features of the town is the Marine
Drive, some 5 1/2 m. in circuit around the hills overlooking the
harbour. Albany has several flourishing industries, of
which the chief are brewing, coach-building, printing and
tanning. In addition it has the finest harbour in West
Australia. A pier extends for 1700 ft. into the sea, giving
safe accommodation to the large steamers which call at the
port. The Great Southern railway has a line to the seaward
end of the pier, and affords direct communication with the
interior of the colony. The harbour is protected by forts
and there is a garrison in the town. King George Sound,
of which Albany is the township, was first occupied in 1826
and a penal settlement was established. No attempt was made
to colonize the locality until after this settlement was
given up in 1831. Albany became a municipality in 1871.
ALBATEGNIUS (c. 850--929), an Arab prince and astronomer,
correctly designated Mahommed ben Gebir al Batani, his surname
being derived from his native town, Batan in Mesopotamia. From
his observations at Aracte and Damascus, where he died, he was
able to correct some of Ptolemy's results, previously taken on
trust. He compiled new tables of the sun and moon, long
accepted as authoritative, discovered the movement of the sun's
apogee, and assigned to annual precession the improved value of
55'' Perhaps independently of Aryabhatta (born at Pataliputra
on the Ganges 476 A.D.), he introduced the use of sines in
calculation, and partially that of tangents. His principal
work, De Motu Stellarum, was published at Nuremberg in 1537
by Melanchthon, in a blundering Latin translation by Plato
Tiburtinus (fl. 1116), annotated by Regiomontanus. A reprint
appeared at Bologna in 1645. The original MS. is preserved
at the Vatican; and the Escorial library possesses in MS. a
treatise of some value by him on astronomical chronology.
Albategnius takes the highest rank among Arab astronomers.
See Houzeau, Bibliographie astronomique, i. 467; M. Marie, Histoire
des sciences, ii. 113; R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie,
p. 67; Delambre, Hist. de l'astr. au moyen age, ch. ii.;
Phil. Trans. 1693 (913), where E. Halley supplies corrections
to some of the observations recorded in De Motu Stellarum.
ALBATROSS (from the Port. Alcatraz, a pelican), the name
of a genus of aquatic birds (Diomedea), closely allied to the
petrels, and belonging, like them, to the order Tubinares.
In the name Diomedea, assigned to them by Linnaeus, there
is a reference to the mythical metamorphosis of the companions
of the Greek warrior Diomedes into birds. The beak is large,
strong and sharp-edged, the upper mandible terminating in
a large hook; the wings are narrow and very long; the feet
have no hind toe, and the three anterior toes are completely
webbed. The best known is the common or wandering albatross
(D. exulans), which occurs in all parts of the Southern
Ocean. It is the largest and strongest of all sea-birds.
The length of the body is stated at 4 ft., and the weight at
from 15 to 25 lb. . It sometimes measures as much as 17 ft.
between the tips of the extended, wings, averaging probably
from 10 to 12 ft. Its strength of wing is very great. It
often accompanies a ship for days--not merely following it,
but wheeling in wide circles round it---without ever being
observed to alight on the water. and continues its flight,
apparently untired, in tempestuous as well as in moderate
weather. It has even been said to sleep on the wing, and
Moore alludes to this fanciful ``cloud-rocked slumbering''
in his Fire Worshippers. It feeds on small fish and on the
animal refuse that floats on the sea, eating to such excess
at times that it is unable to fiy and rests helplessly on the
water. The colour of the bird is white, the back being
streaked transversely with black or brown bands, and the wings
dark. Sailors capture the bird for its long wing-bones, which
they manufacture into tobacco-pipe stems. The albatross lays
one egg; it is white, with a few spots, and is about 4 in.
long. In breeding-time the bird resorts to solitary island
groups, like the Crozet Islands and the elevated Tristan
da Cunha, where it has its nest--a natural hollow or a
circle of earth roughly scraped together--on the open
ground. The early explorers of the great Southern Sea cheered
themselves with the companionship of the albatross in its
dreary solitudes; and the evil hap of him who shot with his
cross-bow the bird of good omen is familiar to readers of
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Several species of
albatross are known; for the smaller forms see MALLEMUCK.
ALBAY, a city and the capital of the province of Albay,
Luzon, Philippine Islands, near an inlet on the W. shore
of the Gulf of Albay, 215 m. by wagon-road S.E. of Manila.
Pop. (1903) 14,049; in October 1907 the towns of Daraga (pop.
1903, 18,695) and Legaspi (pop. 1903, 9206) were merged with
Albay, making its total population, on the basis of the 1903
census, 41,950. Albay is one of the most important cities
of the Philippine Islands. It is built on level ground
near the S. base of Mount Mayon, a beautiful volcanic peak,
7916 ft. high, from which it is sheltered by the Linguin
hills. The surrounding country is one of the most important
hemp-producing districts in the Philippines; sinamay is woven
here, and large quantities of hemp are shipped from here to
Manila. Cocoa, copra, sugar and sweet potatoes are other
important products of the district. The language is
Bicol. The old town, called Cagsaua, which stood a short
distance E.N.E. of the new, was completely destroyed by an
eruption of the volcano in 1814 (about 1200 people being
killed), and the new town was almost entirely destroyed by
the insurgents in February 1900, an ancient stone church of
much beauty (in what was formerly Daraga) being left standing
on an elevated site commanding a view of the surrounding
country. The town was rebuilt on a larger scale by Americans.
ALBEDO (from Lat. albus, white), ``whiteness,''
a word used principally in astronomy for the degree
of reflected light; the light of the sun which is
reflected from the moon is called the albedo of the moon.
ALBEMARLE, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The name Albemarle, which
now forms the title of the earldom held by the English
family of Keppel, is an early variant of the French Aumale
(Lat. Alba dlarla), other forms being Aubemarle and
Aumerle, and is described in the patent of nobility granted
in 1696-1697 by William III. to Arnold Joost van Keppel
as ``a town and territory in the dukedom of Normandy.''
The fief of Aumale (q. v.) was granted by the archbishop
of Rouen to Odo of Champagne, brother-in-law of William the
Conqueror, who erected it into a countship. On Odo's death
his son Stephen succeeded not only to the countship of Aumale,
but to the lordships of Holderness, of Bytham in Lincolnshire,
&c., which were subsequently known as the ``Fee and Honor of
Albemarle.'' Stephen, who as a crusader had fought valiantly at
Antioch, died about 1127, leaving by his wife Hawise, daughter
of Ralph de Mortimer, a son---William of Blois, known as
``le Gros.'' William, who distinguished himself at the battle
of the Standard (1138), and shared with King Stephen in the
defeat of Lincoln (1141), married Cicely, daughter of William
FitzDuncan, grandson of Malcolm, king of Scotland, who as ``lady
of Harewood'' brought him vast estates. He founded abbeys
at Meaux in Holderness and at Thornton, and died in 1179.
His elder daughter and heiress Hawise married (1) William de
Mandeville, 3rd earl of Essex (d. 1189), (2) William de Fortibus
(de Fors, de Fortz or des Forts1), (3) Baldwin de Betun or
Bethune, all of whom bore the title of earls of Albemarle.
Soon after the deathpf Baldwin (October 13, 1213), William de
Fortibus, Hawise's son by her second husband, was established
by King John in the territories of the countship of Albemarle,
and in 1215 the whole of his mother's estates were formally
confirmed to him. He is described by Bishop Stubbs as ``a
feudal adventurer of the worst type,'' and for some time was
actively engaged in the struggles of the Norman barons against
John and Henry III. He was one of the twenty-five executors
of the Great Charter; but in the war that followed sided with
John, subsequently changing sides as often as it suited his
policy. His object was to revive the independent power
of the feudal barons, and he co-operated to this end with
Falkes de Breaute (q.v.) and other foreign adventurers
established in the country by John. This brought him into
conflict with the great justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, and in
1219 he was declared a rebel and excommunicated for attending
a forbidden tournament. In 1220 matters were brought to a
crisis by his refusal to surrender the two royal castles of
Rockingham and Sauvey of which he had been made constable in
1216. Henry III. marched against them in person, the garrisons
fled, and they fell without a blow. In the following year,
however, Albemarle, in face of further efforts to reduce his
power, rose in revolt. He was now again excommunicated by
the legate Pandulph at a solemn council held in St Paul's,
and the whole force of the kingdom was set in motion against
him, a special scutage-the ``scutagium de Bihan''---being
voted for this purpose by the Great Council. The capture
of his castle of Bytham broke his power; he sought sanctuary
and, at Pandulph's intercession, was pardoned on condition
of going for six years to the Holy Land. He remained in
England, however, and in 1223 was once more in revolt with
Falkes de Breaute, the earl of Chester and other turbulent
spirits. A reconciliation was once more patched up; but it
was not until the fall of Falkes de Breaute that Albemarle
finally settled down as an English noble. In 1225 he witnessed
Henry's third re-issue of the Great Charter; in 1227 he went
as ambassador to Antwerp; and in 1230 he accompanied Henry on
his expedition to Brittany. In 1241 he set out for the Holy
Land, but died at sea, on his way there, on the 26th of March
1242. By his wife Avelina of Montfichet, William left a
son, also named William, who married (1) Christina (d.
1246), daughter and co-heiress of Alan, lord of Galloway,
(2) in 1248 Isabella de Redvers (1237-1292-3), daughter of
Baldwin de Redvers, earl of Devon and lord of the Isle of
Wight. He played a conspicuous part in the reign of Henry
III., notably in the Mad Parliament of 1258, and died at
Amiens in 1260. His widow, Isabella, on the death of her
brother Baldwin, 8th earl of Devon, in 1261, cailed herself
countess of Devon. She had two children, Thomas, who died
in 1269 unmarried, and Avelina, who married (1269) Edmund
Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster, and died without issue in
1274. The ``Honor of Albemarle'' was claimed, in 1278, by
John de Eston, or Aston, as heir of Amicia, younger daughter
of William le Gros; but he released his right to the earldom of
Albemarle to the crown in exchange for certain lands in Thornton.
The title of Albemarle, thus extinguished, was several times
revived before it became attached to the family of its present
holders. In 1385 Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester,
was summoned to padiament as ``duke of Albemarle,'' but he
seems never subsequently to have used the title. In any
case this creation became extinct with the death of his son
Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, in 1399. In 1411 Thomas
Plantagenet, second son of Henry IV., was created earl of
Albemarle and duke of Clarence, but at his death at the
battle of Beauge (March 22, 1421) these honours became
extinct. That of Albemarle was, however, soon revived (c.
1423) in favour of Richard de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick,
whose title of earl of Aumerle, however, died with him.
In 1660 Charles II. bestowed the title of duke of Albemarle on
General Monk (q.v..) Monk's hereditary claim to this semiroyal
peerage was a very shadowy one, being based--as was also his
subordinate style of Baron Beauchamp---on his descent from the
youngest of the three co-heiresses of Richard, earl of Warwick,
and, with yet more remote applicability, on that from Arthur
Plantagenet, a natural son of Edward IV. The title became extinct
in 1688, on the death of Christopher, 2nd duke of Albemarle.
Finally, as mentioned above, the title of earl of Albemarle was
bestowed by William III., without any shadow of hereditary claim,
on his Dutch favourite Arnold Joost van Keppel (see below), by
whose descendants it is still held. The motive for choosing this
title was probably that, apart from its dignified traditions,
it avoided the difficulty created by the fact that the Keppels
had as yet no territorial possessions in the British Islands.
ARNOLD JOOST VAN KEPPEL, 1st earl of Albemarle, and lord of
Voorst in Gelderland (c. 1670-1718), son of Oswald van Keppel
and his wife Anna Geertruid van Lintello, was born in Holland
about 1670. He became page to William III., accompanied him
to England in 1688, and was made groom of the bed-chamber and
master of the robes in 1695. On the 10th of February 1696f7
he was created earl of Albemarle, Viscount Bury and Baron
Ashford. In 1700 William gave him lands of enormous extent
in Ireland, but parliament obliged the king to cancel this
grant, and William then bestowed on him L. 50,000. The same
year he was made a knight of the Garter. Meanwhile he had
served both with the English and Dutch troops, was major-general
in 1697, colonel of several regiments and governor of
Bois-le-Duc. Of handsome person and engaging disposition,
he rivalled Portland, whose jealousy he aroused in the royal
favour, possessed William's full confidence and accompanied him
everywhere. In February 1702 he was sent by William. then
prostrated with his last illness, to Holland to arrange
the coming campaign, and only returned in time to receive
William's last commissions on his deathbed. After the death
ofthe latter, who bequeathed to him 200,000 guilders and some
lands, he returned to Holland, took his seat as a noble in the
states-general, and was made a general of horse in the Dutch
army. He joined the forces of the allies in 1703, was
present at Ramillies in 1706 and at Oudenarde in 1708, and
distinguished himself at the siege of Lille. He commanded
at the siege of Aire in 1710, led Marlborough's second line
in 1711, and was general of the Dutch forces in 1712, being
defeated at Denain after the withdrawal of Ormonde and the
English forces and taken prisoner. He died on the 30th of
May 1718, aged 48. He married Geertruid, daughter of Adam
van der Denijn, by whom, besides a daughter, he had a son,
William Anne, who succeeded him as 2nd earl of Albemarle.
Of the later earls mention need only be made of the sixth,
GEORGE THOMAS KEPPEL (1799--1891), British general,
second son of the fourth earl, born on the 13th of June
1799. Educated at Westminster School he entered the army as
ensign, 14th Foot, in 1815. He joined his regiment in Belgium
and took part in the Waterloo campaign and the march to Paris,
joined the second battalion in Corfu, and was transferred to
the 22nd Foot, with which he served in Mauritius and at the
Cape, returning home in 1819, when he was appointed equerry
to the duke of Sussex. Promoted to a lieutenancy in the
24th Foot, he was transferred to the 20th Foot, and went to
India, where he was aide-de-camp to the marquess of Hastings
until his resignation in 1823, when Keppel returned to
England, travelling overland through Persia, Moscow and St
Petersburg. He published in 1825 an account of his travels,
entitled Journey from India to England. He was aide-de-camp
to the Marquess Wellesley, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, for
two years, was promoted captain in the 62nd Foot, studied
in the senior department of the Royal Military College at
Sandhurst, and in 1827 obtained a half-pay unattached
majority. He did not again serve on full pay, but rose to be a
general. In 1829 he visited the seat of the Russo-Turkish
war and was with the British fleet in Turkish waters. In 1832
he was returned in the Whig interest to the first reformed
parliament as member for East Norfolk and sat until 1835. He
was private secretary to the premier, Lord John Russell, in
1846, and M.P. for Lymington from 1847 to 1849. He succeeded
to the title on the death of his brother in 1851. He died in
1891 and was buried at Quidenham, Norfolk. He wrote an account
of a Journey across the Balkans, Memoirs of the Marquis of
Rockingham, and an autobigraphy entitled Fifty Years of My Life.
See G. E. C(ockayne), Complete Peerage, 8 vols. (London,
1887). For the two Williams de Fortibus, see s.v.
Prof. T. F. Tout's articles in the Dict. of Nat. Biog.
1 The name was derived from Fors, a commune in the canton of
Prahecq in Poitou. It is spelt Forz in a deed of 1233, and the best
vernacular form is, according to Thomas Stapleton (Preface to the
Liber de Antiquitate, Camden Soc., 1846, p. xxxiv. note), de Fortz.
ALBENGA, a town and episcopal see of Liguria, Italy, on
the N.W. coast of the Gulf of Genoa, in the province of
Genoa, 521 m. S.W. of Genoa by rail. Pop. (1901) 6248.
Albenga is the ancient Album Ingaunum or Albingaunum,
the chief town of the Ingauni, one of the most important
of the Ligurian tribes, whose territory reached as far as
Genoa. Under the empire it was a municpium; an inscription
records the restoration of the walls, forum, harbour, &c.,
by Constantius A.D. 354. A little way outside the town to
the E. is a well-preserved Roman bridge nearly 500 ft. long
and 11 1/2 ft. wide, with IO arches, each with a span of 37
ft. It belonged to the coast road and is now known as Ponte
Lungo. To the S. of the town is a conspicuous monument, 27
ft. high, in the form of a rectangular pillar, resembling
a tomb; but as there is no trace of a door to a sepulchral
chamber it may be a shrine. In the town itself there are
no Roman remains; but there is a good Gothic cathedral in
brick, and an interesting octagonal baptistery, attributed to
the 8th or oth century, the arches being supported by ancient
columns, and the vaulting decorated with mosaics. Some of
the medieval palaces of Albenga have lofty brick towers.
See A. d'Andrade in Relazione dell' Ufficio Regionale per la Conservazione
dei monumenti del Piemonte e della Liguria (Turin, 1899), 114 seq.
ALBERONI, GIULIO (1664-1752), Spanish--Italian cardinal and
statesman, was born near Piacenza, probably at the village
of Fiorenzuola, on the 31st of May 1664. His father was a
gardener, and he himself became first connected with the church
in the humble position of verger in the cathedral of Piacenza.
Having gained the favour of Bishop Barni he took priest's
orders, and afterwards accompanied the son of his patron to
Rome. During the war of the Spanish succession Alberoni laid
the foundation of his political success by the services he
rendered to the duke of Vendome, commander of the French
forces in Italy; and when these forces were recalled in 1706 he
accompanied the duke to Paris, where he was favourably received
by Louis XIV. In 1711 he followed Vendome into Spain as his
secretary. Two years later, the duke having died in the
interval, Alberoni was appointed consular agent for Parma at
the court of Philip V. of Spain, being raised at the same time
to the dignityof count. On his arrival at Madrid he found
the princesse des Ursins all but omnipotent with the king,
and for a time he judged it expedient to use her influence
in carrying out his plans. In concert with her he arranged
the king's marriage with Elizabeth Farnese of Parma. The
influence of the new queen being actively exerted on Alberoni's
behalf, he speedily rose to high position. He was made a
member of the king's council, bishop of Malaga, and in 1715
prime minister, and was raised to the dignity of cardinal in
1717. His internal policy was exceedingly vigorous. The
main purpose he put before.himself was to produce an economic
revival in Spain by abolishing internal custom-houses,
throwing open the trade of the Indies and reorganizing the
finances. With the resources thus gained he undertook to
enable King Philip V. to carry out an ambitious policy both in
Italy and in France. The impatience of the king and his wife
gave the minister no time to mature his plans. By provoking
England, France, Holland and the Empire at once it brought
a flood of disaster on Spain for which Alberoni was held
responsible. On the 5th of December 1719 he was ordered to
leave Spain, Elizabeth herself having taken an active part
in procuring the decree of banishment. He went to Italy, and
there had to take refuge among the Apennines, Pope Clement XI.,
who was his bitter enemy, having given strict orders for his
arrest. On the death of Clement, Alberoni boldly appeared at
the Conclave, and took part in the election of Innocent XIII.
(1721), after which he was for a short time imprisoned by the
pontiff on the demand of Spain. At the next election (1724)
he was himself proposed for the papal chair, and secured ten
votes at the Conclave which elected Benedict XIII. Benedict's
successor, Clement XII. (elected 1730), named him legate of
Ravenna, in which capacity he incurred the pope's displeasure
by the strong and unwarrantable measures he adopted to reduce
the little republic of San Marino to subjection to Rome. He
was consequently replaced by another legate in 1740, and soon
after he retired to Piacenza. Clement XII. appointed him
administrator of the hospital of San Lazzaro at Piacenza in
1730. The hospital was a medieval foundation for the benefit of
lepers. The disease having disappeared from Italy, Alberoni
obtained the consent of the pope to the suppression of the
hospital, which had fallen into great disorder, and replaced
it by a college for the education of seventy poor boys for the
priesthood, under the name of the Collegio Alberoni, which it
still bears. He died on the 16th of June 1752, leaving a sum
of 600,000 ducats to endow the seminary he had founded, and the
residue of the immense wealth he had acquired in Spain to his
nephew. Alberoni left a large quantity of manuscripts;
but the genuineness of the Political Testament, published
in his name at Lausanne in 1753, has been questioned.
An Histoire du Cardinal Alberoni up to 1719 was published by
Jean Rousset de Missy at the Hague in 1719. A laudatory life,
Storia del Cardinale Giulio Alberoni, was published by Stefano
Bersani, a priest educated at his college, at Piacenza, in
1861. Giulio Alberoni e il suo secolo, by Giovanni Bianchi
(1901), is briefer and more critical. See also Lettres
intimes de J. Alberoni, edited by M. E. Bourgeois (1892).
ALBERT (1522-1557), prince of Bayreuth, surnamed THE WARLIKE,
and also ALCIBIADES, was a son of Casimir, prince of Bayreuth,
and a member of the Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern
family. Born at Ansbach on the 28th of March 1522, he lost
his father in 1527 and came under the guardianship of his uncle
George, prince of Ansbach, a strong adherent of the reformed
doctrines. In 1541 he received Bayreuth as his share of
the family lands, and as the chief town of his principality
was Kulmbach he is sometimes referred to as the margrave of
Brandenburg-Kulmbach. His restless and turbulent nature
marked him out for a military career; and having collected
a small band of soldiers, he assisted the emperor Charles
V. in his war with France in 1543. The peace of Crepy in
September 1544 deprived him of this employment, but he had won
a considerable reputation, and when Charles was preparing to
attack the league of Schmalkalden, he took pains to win Albert's
assistance. Sharing in the attack on the Saxon electorate,
Albert was taken prisoner at Rcchlitz in March 1547 by John
Fredeack, elector of Saxony, but was released as a result
of the emperor's victory at Muhlberg in the succeeding
April. He then followed the fortunes of his friend Maurice,
the new elector of Saxony, deserted Charles, and joined the
league which proposed to overthrow the emperor by an alliance
with Henry II. of France. IIe took part in the subsequent
campaign, but when the treaty of Passau was signed in August
1552 he separated himself from his allies and began a crusade
of plunder in Franconia. Having extorted a large sum of
money from the burghers of Nuremberg, he quarrelled with his
supporter, the French king, and offered his services to the
emperor. Charles, anxious to secure such a famous fighter,
gladly assented to Albert's demands and gave the imperial
sanction to his possession of the lands taken from the bishops
of Wurzburg and Bamberg; and his conspicuous bravery was of
great value to the emperor on the retreat from Metz in January
1553. When Charles left Germany a few weeks later, Albert
renewed his depredations in Franconia. These soon became so
serious that a league was formed to crush him, and Maurice
of Saxony led an army against his former comrade. The
rival forces met at Sievershausen on the 9th of July 1553,
and after a combat of unusual ferocity Albert was put to
flight. Henry II., duke of Brunswick, then took command of
the troops of the league, and after Albert had been placed
under the imperial ban in December 1553 he was defeated by Duke
Henry, and compelled to fly to France. He there entered the
service of Henry II., and had undertaken a campaign to regain
his lands when he died at Pforzheim on the 8th of January 1557.
See J. Voigt, Morkgraf Albrecht Alcibiades
von BrandenburgKulmbach (Berlin, 1852).
ALBERT I. (c. 1100-1170), margrave of Brandenburg, surnamed
THE BEAR, was the only son of Otto the Rich, count of
Ballenstedt, and Eilika, daughter of Magnus Billung, duke of
Saxony. He inherited the valuable Saxon estates of his father
in 1123, and on his mother's death, in 1142, succeeded to
one-half of the lands of the Billungs. About 1123 he received
from Lothair, duke of Saxony, the margraviate of Lusatia,
and, after Lothair became German king, accompanied him on the
disastrous expedition to Bohemia in 1126, when he suffered
a short imprisonment. In 1128 his brother7in-law, Henry
II., margrave of the Saxon north mark, died, and Albert,
disappointed at not receiving this fief, attacked Udo, the
succeeding margrave, and was consequently deprived of Lusatia by
Lothair. In spite of this, he went to Italy in 1132 in the
train of the king, and his services there were rewarded,
in 1134, by the investiture of the north mark, which was
again without a ruler. For three years he was occupied in
campaigns against the Wends, and by an arrangement made with
Pribislaus, duke of Brandenburg, Albert secured this district
when the duke died in 1150. Taking the title margrave of
Brandenburg, he pressed the warfare against the Wends, extended
the area of his mark, did much for the spread of Christianity
and civilization therein, and so became the founder of the
margraviate of Brandenburg. In 1137 his cousin, Henry the
Proud, had been deprived by King Conrad III. of his Saxon
duchy, which was given to Albert. After meeting with some
success in his efforts to take possession, he was driven from
Saxony, and also from his mark by Henry, and compelled to
take refuge in South Germany, and when peace was made in 1142
he renounced the Saxon dukedom and received the counties of
Weimar and Orlamunde. It was possibly at this time that
Albert was made arch-chamberlain of the Empire, an office
which afterwards gave the margraves of Brandenburg the
rights of an elector. A feud with Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony,
was followed, in 1158, by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
and in 1162 Albert accompanied the emperor Frederick I.
to Italy, and distinguished himself at the storming of
Milan. In 1164 he joined a league of princes formed against
Henry the Lion, and peace being made in 1169, Albert divided
his territories among his six sons, and died on the 13th
of November 1170, and was buried at Ballenstadt. His
personal qualities won for him the surname of ``the Bear,''
and he is also called by later writers ``the Handsome.''
See L. von Heinemann, Albrecht der Bar (Darmstadt, 1864).
ALBERT III. (1414--1486), elector of Brandenburg, surnamed
ACHILLES because of his knightly qualities, was the third
son of Frederick I. of Hohenzollern, elector of Brandenburg,
and was born at Tangermunde on the 9th of November 1414.
After passing some time at the court of the emperor Sigismund,
he took part in the war against the Hussites, and afterwards
distinguished himself whilst assisting the German king, Albert
II., against the Poles. On the division of territory which
followed his father's death in 1440, Albert received the
principality of Ansbach; and although his resources were
very meagre he soon took a leading place among the German
princes, and was especially prominent in resisting the attempts
of the towns to obtain self-government. In 1443 he formed
a league directed mainly against Nuremberg, over which town
members of his family had formerly exercised the rights of
burgrave. It was not until 1448, however, that he found a
pretext for attack, and the war which lasted until 1453 ended
in a victory for the Nurembergers, and the recognition of their
independence. He supported the emperor Frederick III. in his
struggle with the princes who desired re-forms in Oiermany,
and in return for this loyalty received many marks of favour
from Frederick, including extensive judicial rights which
aroused considerable irritation among neighbouring rulers. In
1457 he arranged a marriage between his eldest son John, and
Margaret, daughter of William III., landgrave of Thuringia,
who inherited the claims upon Hungary and Bohemia of her
mother, a granddaughter of the emperor Sigismund. The attempt
to secure these thrones for the Hohenzollerns through this
marriage failed, and a similar fate befell Albert's efforts
to revive in his own favour the disused. title of duke of
Franconia. The sharp dissensions which existed among the
princes over the question of reform culminated in open warfare
in 1460, when Albert was confronted with a league under the
leadership of the elector palatine, Frederick I., and Louis
IX. (the Rich), duke of Bavaria-Landshut. Worsted in this
struggle, which was concluded in 1462, Albert made an alliance
with his former enemy, George Podebrad, king of Bohemia, a
step which caused Pope Paul II. to place him under the ban.
In 1470 Albert, who had inherited Bayreuth on the death of his
brother John in 1464, became elector of Brandenburg owing to the
abdication of his remaining brother, the elector Frederick II.
He was soon actively engaged in its administration, and by the
treaty of Prenzlau in 1472 he brought Pomerania also under his
supremacy. Having established his right to levy a tonnage on
wines in the mark, he issued in February 1473 the important
dispositio Achillea, which decreed that the mark of Brandenburg
should descend in its entirety to the eldest son, while the
younger sons should receive the Franconian possessions of the
family. After treating in vain for a marriage between one
of his sons and Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the
Bold, duke of Burgundy, Albert handed over the government of
Brandenburg to his eldest son John, and returned to his Franconian
possessions. In 1474 he married his daughter Barbara to Henry
XI., duke of Glogau, who left his possessions on his death in
1476 to his widow with reversion to her family, an arrangement
which was resisted by Henrv's kinsman, John II., duke of
Sagan. Aided by Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, John invaded
Brandenburg, and the Pomeranians seized the opportunity to
revolt. Under these circumstances Albert returned to
Brandenburg in 1478, compelled the Pomeranians to own his
supremacy, and after a stubborn struggle secured a part
of Duke Henry's lands for his daughter in 1482. His main
attention was afterwards claimed by the business of the Empire,
and soon after taking part in the election of Maximilian as
king of the Romans he died at Frankfort on the 11th of March
1486. He left a considerable amount of treasure. His first
wife was Margaret of Baden, by whom he had six children;
and his second was Anne of Saxony, by whom he had thirteen.
Albert was a man of relentless energy and boundless ambition,
who by reason of his physical and intellectual qualities
was one of the most prominent princes of the 15th century.
See Das kaiserliche Buch des Markgrafen Albrecht Achilles,
Ferkurfurstliche Periode, 1440-1470, edited by C. Hofler
(Bayreuth, 1850); Kurfurstliche Periode, edited by J.
von Minutoli (Berlin, 1850); Quellensammlung zur Geschichte
des Hauses Hohenzollern, Band I., edited by C. A. H.
Burkhardt (Jena, 1857); O. Franklin, Albrecht Achilles
und die Nuremberger, 1444-1453 (Berlin, 1866); Politische
Korrespondenz des Kurfursten Albrecht Achilles, 1486,
edited by F. Priebatsch (Leipzig, 1894-1898); J. G. Droysen,
Geschichte der preussischen Politik (Berlin, 1835-1886).
ALBERT (FRANCIS CHARLES AUGUSTUS ALBERT EMMANUEL) (1819-1861),
prince-consort of England, was born at Bosenau on the 26th
of August 1819. He was the second son of the hereditary duke
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (belonging to the Ernestine or elder
branch of the royal family of Saxony) by his first wife, the
princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (d. 1831), from
whom the duke was separated in 1824. His father's sister
married the duke of Kent, and her daughter, afterwards Queen
Victoria of England, Prince Albert's wife, was thus his first
cousin. They were born in the same year. Albert and his
elder brother, Ernest, were close companions in youth, and
were educated under the care of Consistorialrath Florschutz,
subsequently proceeding to the university of Bonn. There
Prince Albert devoted himself especially to natural science,
political economy and philosophy, having for teachers such
men as Fichte, Schlegel and Perthes; he diligently cultivated
music and painting, and excelled in gymnastic exercises,
especially in fencing. The idea of a marriage between him
and his cousin Victoria had always been cherished by their
uncle, King Leopold I. of Belgium, and in May 1836 the duke of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his two sons paid a visit to Kensington
Palace, where Princess Victoria, as she then was, lived, for
the purpose of making acquaintance for the first time. The
visit was by no means to the taste of King William IV., who
disapproved of the match and favoured Prince Alexander of
Orange. But Leopold's plan was known to Princess Victoria,
and William's objections were fruitless. Princess Victoria,
writing to her uncle Leopold (May 23, 1836), said that Albert
was ``extremely handsome''; and (June 7) thanked him for the
``prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give
me in the person of dear Albert. He possesses every quality
that could be desired to render me perfectly happy.', No
formal engagement was entered into, but the situation was
privately understood as one which in time would naturally
develop. After the queen came to the throne, her letters show
her interest in Albert's being educated for the part he would
have to play. In the winter of 1838-1839 the prince travelled
in Italy, accompanied by Baron Stockmar, formerly Leopold's
doctor and private secretary, and now the queen's confidential
adviser. On the 10th of October 1839 he and Ernest went again
to England to visit the queen, with the object of finally
settling the marriage. Mutual inclination and affection at
once brought about the desired result. They became definitely
engaged on the 15th of October, and on the 10th of February 1840
the marriage was celebrated at the chapel-royal, St James's.
The position in which the prince was placed by his marriage,
while it was one of distinguished honour, was also one
of considerable difficulty; and during his lifetime the
tactful way in which he filled it was very inadequately
appreciated. The public life of the prince-consort cannot
be separated from that of the queen, and it is unnecessary
here to repeat such details as are given in the article
on her (see VICTORIA, QUEEN.) The prejudice against
him, on account of what was regarded as undue influence in
politics, was never fully dissipated till after his death.
His co-operation with the queen in dealing with the political
responsibilities which devolved upon the sovereign represented
an amount of conscientious and self-sacrificing labour which
cannot easily be exaggerated; and his wisdom in council
could only be realized, outside a very small circle, when in
later years the materials for the history of that time became
accessible. He was indeed a man of cultured and liberal
ideas, well qualified to take the lead in many reforms which
the England of that day sorely needed. He was specially
interested in endeavours to secure the more perfect application
of science and art to manufacturing industry. The Great
Exhibition of 1851 originated in a suggestion he made at a
meeting of the Society of Arts, and owed the greater part of
its success to his intelligent and unwearied efforts. He had
to work for its realization against an extraordinary outburst
of angry expostulations. Every stage in his project was
combated. In the House of Peers, Lord Brougham denied the
right of the crown to hold the exhibition in Hyde Park; in
the Commons, Colonel Sibthorp prophesied that England would
be overrun with foreign rogues and revolutionists, who would
subvert the morals of the people, filch their trade secrets
from them, and destroy their faith and loyalty towards their
religion and their sovereign. Prince Albert was president of
the exhibition commission, and every post brought him abusive
letters, accusing him, as a foreigner, of being intent upon
the corruption of England. He was not the man to be balked by
talk of this kind, but quietly persevered, looking always to
the probability that the manufacturing power of Great Britain
would be quickened by bringing the best manufactured products
of foreign countries under the eyes of the mechanics and
artisans. A sense of the artistic was at this time almost
wholly wanting among the English people. One day the prince
had a conversation with a great manufacturer of crockery,
and sought to convert him to the idea of issuing something
better than the eternal willow-pattern in white with gold,
red or blue, which formed the staple of middle and lower class
domestic china. The manufacturer held out that new shapes
and designs would not be saleable; but he was induced to
try, and he did so with such a rapid success that a revolution
in the china cupboards of England was accomplished from that
time. The exhibition was opened by the queen on the 1st of May
1851, and was a colossal success; and the realized surplus
of L. 150,000 went to establish and endow the South Kensington
Museum (afterwards renamed ``Victoria and Albert'') and to
purchase land in that neighbourhood. Similar institutions,
On a smaller scale but with a kindred aim, always found in
him warm advocacy and substantial support. It was chiefly at
meetings in connexion with these that he found occasion for
the delivery of addresses characterized by profound thought and
comprehensiveness of view, a collection of which was published in
1857. One of the most favourable specimens of his powers
as a speaker is the inaugural address which he delivered as
president of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science when it met at Aberdeen in 1859. The education of his
family and the management of his domestic affairs furnished
the prince with another very important sphere of action, in
which he employed himself with conscientious devotedness.
The estates of the duchy of Cornwall, the hereditary appanage of
the prince of Wales, were so greatly improved under his father's
management that the rent-roll rose from L. 11,000 to L. 50,000 a
year. Prince Albert, indeed, had a peculiar talent for the
management of landed estates. His model farm at Windsor was in
every way worthy of the name; and the grounds at Balmoral and
Osborne were laid out entirely in conformity with his designs.
A character so pure. and a life so useful and well-directed in
all its aims, could scarcely fail to win respect among those
who were acquainted with the facts. As the prince became better
known, public mistrust began to give way. In 1847, but only
after a significantly keen contest with Earl Powis, he was
elected chancellor of the university of Cambridge; and he was
afterwards appointed master of the Trinity House. In June
1857 the formal title of prince-consort was conferred upon
him by letters patent, in order to settle certain difficulties
as to precedence that had been raised at foreign courts.
But in the full career of his usefulness he was cut off.
During the autumn of 1861 he was busy with the arrangements
for the projected international exhibition, and it was just
after returning from one of the meetings in connexion with
it that he was seized with his last illness. Beginning at
the end of November with what appeared to be influenza, it
proved to be an attack of typhoid fever, and, congestion of
the lungs supervening, he died on the 14th of December. The
grief of the queen was overwhelming and the sympathy of the
whole nation marked a revulsion of feeling about the prince
himself which was not devoid of compunction for earlier want of
appreciation. The magnificent mausoleum at Frogmore, in which
his remains were finally deposited, was erected at the expense
of the queen and the royal family; and many public monuments to
``Albert the Good'' were erected all over the country, the most
notable being the Albert Hall (1867) and the Albert Memorial
(1876) in London. His name was also commemorated in the queen's
institution of the Albert medal ( 1866) in reward for gallantry
in saving life, and of the order of Victoria and Albert (1862).
By the queen's authority, her secretary, General Grey, compiled
The Early Days of the Prince Consort, published in 1867; and
The Life and Letters of the Prince Consort (ist vol., 1874;
2nd, 1880) mas similarly edited by Sir Theodore Martin. A volume
of the Principal Specches and Addresses of Prince Albert,
with an introduction by Sir Arthur Helps, was published in
1862. See also the Letters of Queen Victoria (ioo7). (H. CH.)
ALBERT I. (c. 1250-1308), German king, and duke of Austria,
eldest son of King Rudolph I., the founder of the greatness
of the house of Habsburg, was invested with the duchies of
Austria and Styria, together with his brother Rudolph, in
1282. In 1283 his father entrusted him with their sole
government, and he appears to have ruled them with conspicuous
success. Rudolph was unable to secure the succession to
the German throne for his son, and on his death in 1291, the
princes, fearing Albert's power, chose Adolph of Nassau as
king. A rising among his Swabian dependants compelled Albert
to recognize the sovereignty of his rival, and to confine
himself to the government of the Habsburg territories.
He did not abandon his hopes of the throne, and, in 1298,
was chosen German king by some of the princes, who were
dissatisfied with Adolph. The armies of the rival kings
met at Gollheim near Worms, where Adolph was defeated and
slain, and Albert submitted to a fresh election. Having
secured the support of several influential princes by extensive
promises, he was chosen at Frankfort on the 27th of July
1298, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 24th of August
following. Albert sought to play an important part in European
affairs. He seemed at first inclined to press a quarrel with
France over the Burgundian frontier, but the refusal of Pope
Boniface VIII. to recognize his election led him to change his
policy, and, in 1299, a treaty was made between Albert and
Philip IV., king of France, by which Rudolph, the son of the
German king, was to marry Blanche, a daughter of the French
king. He afterwards became estranged from Philip, and, in
1303, was recognized as German king and future emperor by
Boniface, and, in return, admitted the right of the pope
alone to bestow the imperial crown, and promised that none
of his sons should be elected German king without the papal
consent. Albert had failed in his attempt to seize Holland and
Zealand, as vacant fiefs of the Empire, on the death of Count
John I. in 1299, but in 1306 he secured the crown of Bohemia
for his son Rudolph on the death of King Wenceslaus III. He
also renewed the claim which had been made by his predecessor,
Adolf, on Thuringia, and interfered in a quarrel over the
succession to the Hungarian throne. His attack on Thuringia
ended in his defeat at Lucka in 1307, and, in the same year,
the death of his son Rudolph weakened his position in eastern
Europe. His action in abolishing all tolls established on
the Rhine since 1250, led to the formation of a league against
him by the Rhenish archbishops and the count palatine of the
Rhine; but aided by the towns, he soon crushed the rising.
He was on the way to suppress a revolt in Swabia when he was
murdered on the 1st of May 1308, at Windisch on the Reuss, by
his nephew John, afterwards called ``the Parricide,'' whom he
had deprived of his inheritance. Albert married Elizabeth,
daughter of Meinhard IV., count of Gorz and Tirol, who bore
him six sons and five daughters. Although a hard, stern
man, he had a keen sense of justice when his selfish interests
were not involved, and few of the German kings possessed so
practical an intelligence. He encouraged the cities, and
not content with issuing proclamations against private war,
formed alliances with the princes in order to enforce his
decrees. The serfs, whose wrongs seldom attracted notice
in an age indifferent to the claims of common humanity,
found a friend in this severe monarch, and he protected
even the despised and persecuted Jews. The stories of his
cruelty and oppression in the Swiss cantons first appear
in the 16th century, and are now regarded as legendary.
See G. Droysen, Albrechts I. Bemuhungen um die Nachfolge
im Reich (Leipzig, 1862); J. F. A. Mucke, Albrecht
I. von IIabsburg (Gotha, 1865); A. L. J. Michelsen,
Die Landgrafschaft Thuringen unter den Konigen
Adolf, Albrecht, und Heinrich VII. (Jena, 1860).
ALBERT II. (1397-1439), German king, king of Bohemia and
Hungary, and (as Albert V.) duke of Austria, was born on the
10th of August 1397, the son of Albert IV. of Habsburg, duke of
Austria. He succeeded to the duchy of Austria on his father's
death in 1404. After receiving a good education, he undertook
the government of Austria in 1411, and succeeded, with the
aid of his advisers, in adding the duchy of the evils which
had arisen during his minority. He assisted the German king,
Sigismund, in his campaigns against the Hussites, and in
1422 married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sigismund,
who designated him as his successor. When the German king
died in 1437, Albert was crowned king of Hungary on the
1st of January 1438, and although crowned king of Bohemia
six months later, he was unable to obtain possession of the
country. He was engaged in warfare with the Bohemians and
their Polish allies, when on the 18th of March 1438 he was
chosen German king at Frankfort, an honour which he does
not appear to have sought. Afterwards engaged in defending
Hungary against the attacks of the Turks, he died on the
27th of October 1439 at Langendorf, and was buried at
Stuhlweissenburg. Albert was an energetic and warlike prince,
whose short reign gave great promise of usefulness lor Germany.
ALBERT (1490-1545), elector and archbishop of Mainz, and
archbishop of Magdeburg, was the younger son of John Cicero,
elector of Brandenburg, and was born on the 28th of June
1490. Having studied at the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder,
he entered the ecclesiastical profession, and in 1513 became
archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the diocese of
Halberstadt. In 1514 he obtained the electorate of Mainz,
and in 1518 was made a cardinal. Meanwhile to pay for
the pallium of the see of Mainz and to discharge the other
expenses of his elevation, Albert had borrowed a large sum of
money from the Fuggers, and had obtained permission from Pope
Leo X. to conduct the sale of indulgences in his diocese to
obtain funds to repay this loan. For this work he procured
the services of John Tetzel, and so indirectly exercised a
potent influence on the course of the Reformation. When the
imperial election of 1519 drew near, the elector's vote was
eagerly solicited by the partisans of Charles (afterwards
the emperor Charles V.) and by those of Francis I., king of
France, and he appears to have received a large amount of
money for the vote which he cast eventually for Charles.
Albert's large and liberal ideas, his friendship with Ulrich
von Hutten, and his political ambitions, appear to have raised
hopes that he would be won over to the reformed faith; but
after the Peasants' War of 1525 he ranged himself definitely
among the supporters of Catholicism, and was among the princes
who met to concert measures for its defence at Dessau in July
1525. His hostility towards the reformers, however, was
not so extreme as that of his brother Joachim I., elector of
Brandenburg; and he appears to have exerted himself in the
interests of peace, although he was a member of the league
of Nuremberg, which was formed in 1538 as a counterpoise to
the league of Schmalkalden. The new doctrines nevertheless
made considerable progress in his dominions, and he was
compelled to grant religious liberty to the inhabitants
of Magdeburg in return for 500,000 florins. During his
latter years indeed he showed more intolerance towards the
Protestants, and favoured the teaching of the Jesuits in his
dominions. Albert adorned the Stiftiskirche at Halle and
the cathedral at Mainz in sumptuous fashion, and took as his
motto the words Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae. A generous
patron of ait and learning, he counted Erasmus among his
friends. He died at Aschaffenburg on the 24th of September 1545.
See I. H. Hennes, Albrecht von Brandenburg, Erzbischofvon
Mbinz und Magdeburg (Mai1iz, 1858); i. May, Der
Kuriurst, Kardinal, und Erzbischof Albrecht II. von Mainz
unid Mogdeburg (Munich, 1865--1875ai co. Schum, Kardinal
Albrecht von Mainz und die Erfurter Kirchenreformation
(Halle, 1878); P. Redlich, Kardinal Albrecht von
Brandenburg, und das neue Stift zu Halte (Mainz, 1900).
ALBERT (1490-1568), Grand Master of the Teutonic Order,
and first duke of Prussia, was the third son of Frederick of
Hohenzollern, prince of Ansbach and Bayreuth, and Sophia,
daughter of Casimir IV., king of Poland. Born at Ansbach
on the 16th of May 1490, he was intended for the church, and
passed some time at the court of Hermann, elector of Cologne,
who appointed him to a canonry in his cathedral. Turning
to a more active life, he accompanied the emperor Maximilian
I. to Italy in 1508, and after his return spent some time in
Hungary. In December, Frederick, grand master of the Teutonic
Order, died, and Albert, joining the order, was chosen as his
successor early in 1511 in the hope that his relationship to
Sigismund I., king of Poland, would facilitate a settlement
of the disputes over east Prussia, which had been held by the
order under Polish suzerainty since 1466. The new master,
however, showed no desire to be conciliatory, and as war
appeared inevitable, he made strenuous efforts to secure
allies, and carried on tedious negotiations with the emperor
Maximilian I. The ill-feeling, influenced by the ravages of
members of the order in Poland, culminated in a struggle which
began in December 1519. During the ensuing year Prussia was
devastated, and Albert consented early in 1521 to a truce for four
years. The dispute was referred to the emperor Charles V.
and other princes, but as no settlement was reached the master
continued his efforts to obtain help in view of a renewal of the
war. For this purpose he visited Nuremberg in 1522, where
he made the acquaintance of the reformer, Andreas Osiander,
by whose influence he was won over to the side of the new
faith. He then journeyed to Wittenberg, where he was advised
by Martin Luther to cast aside the senseless rules of his
order, to marry, and to convert Prussia into an hereditary
duchy for himself. This proposal, which commended itself to
Albert, had already been discussed by some of his relatives;
but it was necessary to proceed cautiously, and he assured
Pope Adrian VI. that he was anxious to reform the order
and punish the knights who had adopted Lutheran doctrines.
Luther for his part did not stop at the suggestion, but in
order to facilitate the change made special efforts to spread
his teaching among the Prussians, while Albert's brother,
George, prince of Ansbach, laid the scheme before Sigismund of
Poland. After some delay the king assented to it provided that
Prussia were held as a Polish fief; and after this arrangement
had been confirmed by a treaty made at Cracow, Albert was
invested with the duchy by Sigismund for himself and his heirs
on the 10th of February 1525. The estates of the land then
met at Konigsberg and took the oath of allegiance to the new
duke, who used his full powers to forward the doctrines of
Luther. This transition did not, however, take place without
protest. Summoned before the imperial court of justice, Albert
refused to appear and was placed under the ban; while the order,
having deposed the grand master, made a feeble effort to recover
Prussia. But as the German princes were either too busy or
too indifferent to attack the duke, the agitation against
him soon died away. In imperial politics Albert was fairly
active. Joining the league of Torgau in 1526, he acted inunison
with the Protestants, and was among the princes who banded
themselves together to overthrow Charles V. after the issue
of the Interim in May 1548. Forvarious reasons, however,
poverty and personal inclination among others, he did not take a
prominent part in the military operations of this period. The
early years of Albert's rule in Prussia were faidy prosperous.
Although he had some trouble with the peasantry, the lands
and treasures of the church enabled him to propitiate the
nobles and for a time to provide for the expenses of the
court. He did something for the furtherance of learning by
establishing schools in every town and by giving privileges
to serfs who adopted a scholastic life. In 1544, in spite
of some opposition, he founded a university at Konigsberg,
where he appointed his friend Osiander to a professorship in
1549. This step was the beginning of the troubles which clouded
the closing years of Albert's reign. Osiander's divergence
from Luther's doctrine of justification by faith involved him
in a violent quarrel with XIelanchthon, who had adherents in
Konigsberg, and these theological disputes soon created an
uproar in the town. The duke strenuously supported Osiander,
and the area of the quarrel soon broadened. There were no longer
church lands available with which to conciliate the nobles,
the burden of taxation was heavy, and Albert's rule became
unpopular. After Osiander's death in 1552 he favoured a preacher
named John Funck, who, with an adventurer named Paul Scalich,
exercised great influence over him and obtained considerable
wealth at the public expense. The state of turmoil caused by
these religious and political disputes was increased by the
possibility of Albert's early death and the necessity in that
event for a regency owing to the youth of his only son, Albert
Frederick. The duke was consequently obliged to consent to a
condemnation of the teaching of Osiander, and the climax came
in 1566 when the estates appealed to Sigismund II., king of
Poland, who sent a commission to Konigsberg. Scalich saved
his life by flight, but Funck was executed; the question of
the regency was settled; and a form of Lutheranism was adopted,
and declared binding on all teachers and preachers. Virtually
deprived of power, the duke lived for two years longer, and
died at Tapiau on the 20th of March 1568. In 1526 he had
married Dorothea, daughter of Frederick I., king of Denmark,
and after her death in 1547, Anna Maria, daughter of Eric
I., duke of Brunswick. Albert was a voluminous letterwriter,
and corresponded with many of the leading personages of the
time. In 1891 a statue was erected to his memory at Konigsberg.
See J. Voigt, Briefwechsel der beruhmtested Gelehrten des
Zeitalters der Reformation mit Herzog Albrecht von Preussen
(Konigsberg, 1841); E. Joachim, Die Politik des letzten
Hochmeisters in Preussen, Albrecht von Brandenburg (Leipzig,
1892); K. Lohmeyer, Herzog Albrecht von Preussen (Danzig, 1890).
ALBERT III. ( 1443-1500), duke of Saxony, surnamed ANIMOSUS
or THE COURAGEOUS, younger son of Frederick II., the Mild,
elector and duke of Saxony, was born on the 27th of January
1443, and after escaping from the hands of Kunz von Kaufungen,
who had abducted him together with his brother Ernest, passed
some time at the court of the emperor Frederick III. in
Vienna. In 1464 he married Zedena, or Sidonia, daughter of
George Podebrad, king of Bohemia, but failed to obtain the
Bohemian Crown on the death of George in 1471. After the
death of the elector Frederick in 1464, Albert and Ernest ruled
their lands together, but in 1485 a division was made by the
treaty of Leipzig, and Albert received Meissen, together,with
some adjoining districts, and founded the Albertine branch of
the family of Wettin. Regarded as a capable soldier by the
emperor, Albert, in 1475, took a prominent part in the campaign
against Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and in 1487 led
an expedition against Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary,
which failed owing to lack of support on the part of the
emperor. In 1488 he marched with the imperial forces to free
the Roman king Maximilian from his imprisonment at Bruges, and
when, in 1489, the king returned to Germany, Albert was left
as his representative to prosecute the war against the rebels.
He was successful in restoring the authority of Maximilian
in Holland, Flanders and Brabant, but failed to obtain any
repayment of the large sums of money which he had spent in these
campaigns. His services were rewarded in 1498 when Maximilian
bestowed upon him the title of hereditary governor (potestat)
of Friesland, but he had to make good his claim by force of
arms. He had to a great extent succeeded, and was paying
a visit to Saxony, when he was recalled by news of a fresh
rising. Groningen was captured, but soon afterwards the duke
died at Emden, on the 12th of September 1500. He was buried at
Meissen. Albert, who was a man of great strength and considerable
skill in feats of arms, delighted in tournaments and knightly
exercises. His loyalty to the emperor Frederick, and the expenses
incurred in this connexion, aroused some irritation among his
subjects, but his rule was a period of prosperity in Saxony.
See F. A. von Langenn, Herzog Albrecht der Beherzte,
Stammvater des koniglichen IIauses Sachsen (Leipzig,
1838); O. Sperling, Herzog Albrecht der Beherzte
von Sachsen als Gubernator Frieslands (Leipzig, 1892).
ALBERT, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS, king of Saxony (18281902), was
born on the 23rd of April 1828, being the eldest son of Prince
John, who succeeded to the throne in 1854. His education
was, as is usual with German princes, to a great extent
military, but he attended lectures at the university of
Bonn. His first experience of warfare was in 1849,'when he
served as a captain in the campaign of Schleswig-Holstein
against the Danes. When the war of 1866 broke out, the
crown-prince was placed in command of the Saxon forces
opposing the Prussian army of Prince Frederick Charles. No
attempt was made to defend Saxony; the Saxons fell back into
Bohemia and effected a junction with the Austrians. They
took a prominent part in the battles by which the Prussians
forced the line of the Iser and in the battle of Gitchin. The
crown-prince, however, succeeded in effecting the retreat in
good order, and in the decisive battle of Koniggratz (see
SEVEN WEEKS' WAR) he held the extreme loft of the Austrian
position. The Saxons maintained their post with great
tenacity, but were involved in the disastrous defeat of their
allies. During these operations the crown-prince won the
reputation of a thorough soldier; after peace was made and
Saxony had entered the North German confederation, he was
placed in command of the Saxon army, which had now become
the XII. army corps of the North German army, and in this
position carried out the necessary reorganization. He was a
firm adherent of the Prussian alliance. On the outbreak of
war in 1870 he again commanded the Saxons, who were included
in the 2nd army under Prince Frederick Charles, his old
opponent. At the battle of Gravelotte they formed the extreme
left of the German army, and with the Prussian Guard carried out
the attack on St Privat, the final and decisive action in the
battle. In the reorganization of the army which accompanied
the march towards Paris the crown-prince was given a separate
command over the 4th army (army of the Meuse) consisting of
the Saxons, the Prussian Guard corps and the IV. (Prussian
Saxony) corps. He was succeeded in command of the XII. corps
by his brother Prince George, who had served under him in
Bohemia. He took a leading part in the operations which
preceded the battle of Sedan, the 4th army being the pivot
on which the whole army wheeled round in pursuit of Macmahon;
and the actions of Buzancy and Beaumont on the 29th and
30th of August were fought under his direction; in the
battle of Sedan itself, with the troops under his orders,
he carried out the envelopment of the French on the east and
north. His conduct in these engagements won for him the
complete confidence of the army, and during the siege of Paris
his troops formed the north-east section of the investing
force. After the conclusion of the armistice he was left in
command of the German army of occupation, a position which
he held till the fall of the Commune. On the conclusion
of peace he was made an inspector-general of the army and
field-marshal. On the death of his father on the 29th of October
1873 he succeeded to the throne. His reign was uneventful,
and he took little public part in politics, devoting himself
to military affairs, in which his advice and experielice
were of the greatest value, not only to the Saxon corps but
to the German army in general. In 1897 he was appointed
arbitrator between the claimants for the principality of
Lippe. King Albert married in 1853 Carola, daughter of Prince
Gustavus of Vasa, and granddaughter of the last king of Sweden
of the house of Holstein. He died on the 19th of June 1902.
ALBERT, surnamed THE DEGENERATE (c. 1240-1314),
landgrave of Thuringia, was the eldest son of Henry III.,
the Illustrious, margrave of Meissen. He married Margaret,
daughter of the emperor Frederick II., in 1254, and in 1265
received from his father Thuringia and the Saxon palatinate.
His infatuation for Kunigunde of Eisenberg caused his wife to
leave him, and after her death in 1270 he married Kunigunde,
who had already borne him a son, Apitz or Albert. He wished
to make Apitz his successor in Thuringia, a plan which was
resisted by his two elder sons, and a war broke out which
lasted until 1307, when he abandoned Thuringia, in return for
a yearly payment, but retained the title of landgrave (see
THURINGIA.) Albert, who had married Elizabeth, daughter
of Hermann III., count of Orlamunde, after the death of
his second wife in 1286, died on the 13th of November 1314.
See F. X. Wegele, Friedrich der Friedige, Markgraf von
Meissen, und die Wettiner seiner Zeit (Nordlingen,
1820); F. W. Tittmann, Geschichte Heinirich des
Erlauchten Markgraven zu Meissen (Leipzig, 1863).
ALBERT (FRIEDRICH RUDOLF ALBRECHT), ARCHDUKE (1817-1895),
Austrian field-marshal, was the eldest son of the archduke Charles
(Karl Friedrich), and was born on the 3rd of August 1817 at
Vienna. After being educated under the careful superintendence
of his father, he entered the Austrian (H.K.) army as a colonel
of infantry in 1837, and was transferred to the cavalry arm in
1839, becoming a major-general in 1840. A brief period of
leave in this year he spent at the great n:an0-uvres in Italy,
to learn the art of troop-leading from the first soldier in
Europe, Radetzky. He then took over the command of a brigade
of all arms at Graz. In 1844 he married Trincess Hildegarde of
Bavaria. He had been made a lieutenant field-marshal in the
previous year, and was now placed in command of the forces
in Upper and Lower Austria. In this position he did much to
maintain and improve the efficiency of the troops under his
command, at a time when nearly all armies in Europe, with
the exception of Radetzky's in Italy, had sunk to the lowest
level. The influence of Radetzky over the young archduke
was indeed remarkable. At this time the Austrian generals
and staff officers had committed themselves blindly to the
strategical method of the archduke Charles, the tradition of
whose practical soldiership survived only in Radetzky and a few
others. Albert chose to follow the latter, and was thus saved
from the pseudoscientific pedantry which brought defeat to the
Austrian arms in 1359 and in 1866. His first serious service
came in March 1848, when it became his duty, as district
commander, to maintain order in Vienna by force, and at the
outbreak of revolution in Vienna during the month of March he
was in command of the troops who came into collision with the
rioters. Owing to the collapse of the government it was
impossible to repress the disturbances, and he was relieved
from a post which brought much unpopularity and was not suitable
to be held by a member of the imperial family. He went at
once to the seat of war in Italy, and fought under Radetzky
as a volunteer throughout the campaign of 1848, being present
at the action of bastrengo and the battles of Santa Lucia and
Custozza. In the following campaign he applied for and
obtained the command of a division in the II. corps (FZM.
d'Aspre), though his previous grade had been that of a general
commanding-in-chief. The splendid fighting of the corps at
Novara was decisive of the war, and Radetzky named d'Aspre,
Count Thurn, and the archduke as the general officers
worthy of the greatest rewards. The field-marshal indeed
recommended, and almost insisted, that Albert should receive
the much-prized order of Maria Theresa. In 1850 he became a
general of cavalry, and in 1851 military and civil governor of
Hungary. In this important and difficult position he
remained until 1860, when he was relieved at his own request.
Shortly afterwards he was appointed to succeed Radetzky as
commander-in-chief in Italy, and in 1863 he was promoted
field-marshal. In the following year the archduke lost his
wife, soon after the marriage of their elder daughter to
Duke Philip of Wurttemberg. In 1859 and 1864 he was sent on
important military and diplomatic missions to Berlin. When
war became imminent in 1866, the archduke took command of
the field army in Italy. The story of the campaign of 1866
in Italy will be found under ITALIAN WARS (1848-1870); the
operations of the archduke, who disposed of greatly inferior
forces, were crowned with success in the brilliant victory of
Custozza (June 23), and his reputation as a general-in-chief
was firmly established by only eight days of field
operations, though it is possible that his chief of staff,
Lieut. Field-Marshal von John, contributed not a little to
the success of the Austrian arms. The result of Custozza was
the retreat and complete immobilization of the whole Italian
army, so that Albert was able to despatch the greater part of
his troops to reinforce the Bohemian army, when, after being
defeated by the Prussians, it fell back on Vienna. On the 10th
of July the archduke was summoned to Vienna to take supreme
command of the forces which were being collected to defend the
capital, but peace was made before further hostilities took
place. From this time, under various titles, he acted as
inspector-general of the army. Like his father, and with
better fortune, he was called upon to reorganize the military
system of his country on an entirely new pian, learned, as
before, by defeat. The principle of universal short service,
and the theory of the armed nation, were necessarily the
groundwork of the reforms, and the consequent preparation
of all the national resources for their task in war, by
the superintendence of peace administration, by the skilful
conduct of man0-uvres, was thenceforward the task of his
lifetime. In 1870 he conducted the military negotiatio:1s
preparatory to an alliance with France, which, however, was
not concluded. The tragic death of his daughter, Princess
Mathilde, in 1867, and the death of his brother, Archduke Karl
Ferdinand, in 1874, narrowed still further his family circle,
and impelled him to even greater activity in his military duties,
and to effective participation in the work of many military
charities. IUe retained personal control of the army until his
last illness, which he contracted at the funeral of his nephew
Francis, ex-king of Naples. His only remaining brother, the
archduke Wilhelm, had died a few months before, as the result
of an accident. He himself died on the 18th of February
1895. His only son died in childhood, and his nephew Archduke
Frederick (born 1856) inherited his great possessions, including
the Albertina, a famous collection of books, manuscripts,
engravings and maps, founded by Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen.
Amongst the military works of the Archduke Albert may be
named Uber die Verantworllichkeil im Kriege (a work which
created a great sensation, and was translated into English
and French), Gledanken uber dem Militargeist, Uber die
hohere Heitung im Kriege, and Kritische Betrachtunger
uber den Feldzug 1866 in Italien. He also was the
principal editor of the military works of his father.
See Duncker, F. M. Erzherzog Albrecht (Vienna and Prague,
189; Mathes v. Bilabruck, ``Gedenkrede auf Weiland Sr. K.
u. K. H. Erzh. Albrecht,'' Mil.-Wissenschaftl. Verein, 1895;
Teuber, F. M. Erzh. Albrecht, ein Lebensbild (Vienna, 1895).
ALBERT, MADAME (c. 1805-1846), French actress, whose
maiden name was Theresc Vernet, was born of a family of
players. She first appeared in children's and ingenile
parts, and in comic opera, and it was not until 1827, two
years after her Paris debut, that her great talents
were seen and appreciated. In Caleb Valentine, Henry
V., Madame Dubarry, Catherine II., Leontine,, Un duel sous
le cardinal de Richelieu, and many other plays, her grace,
beauty and distinction of manner made her the idol of Paris,
and her circle of admirers was widened by long tours of the
provinces and abroad. Ill-health compelled her to retire in
1846. She was twice married, about 1825 to Albert Rodrigues,
an actor who played under his Christian name, and in 1846
to Eugene Bignon (1812-1858), the actor and playwright.
ALBERT OF AIX (fl. c. A.D. 1100), historian of the first
crusade, was born during the later part of the 11th century,
and afterwards became canon and custos of the church of
Aix-la-Chapelle. Nothing else is known of his life except
that he was the author of a Historia Hierosolymitanae
expeditionis, or Chronicon Hierosolymitanum de bello
sacro, a work in twelve books, written between 1125 and
1150. This history begins at the time of the council of
Clermont, deals with the fortunes of the first crusade and
the earlier history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, and
ends somewhat abruptly in 1121. It was well known during the
middle ages, and was largely used by William, archbishop of
Tyre, for the first six books of his Belli sacri historia.
In modern times its historical value has been seriously
impugned, but the verdict of the best scholarship seems
to be that in general it forms a true record of the events
of the first crusade, although containing some legendary
matter. Albert never visited the Holy Land, but he appears
to have had a considerable amount of intercourse with
returned crusaders, and to have had access to valuable
correspondence. The first edition of the history was published
at Helmstadt in 1584, and a good edition is in the Recueil
des historiens des croisades, tome iv. (Paris, 1841-1887).
See F. Krebs, Zur Kritik Alberts von Aachen (Munster,
1881); B. Kugler, Albert von Aachen (Stuttgart, 1885);
M. Figeonneau, Le Cycle de la croisade et de la famine
de Bouillon (Paris, 1877); H. von Sybel, Geschichte des
ersten Kreuzzuges (Leipzig, 1881): F. Vercruysse, Essai
critique sur la chronique d'Albert d'Aix (Liege, 1889).
ALBERTA, a province of western Canada, established in
1905. Area 260,000 sq. m. It is bounded S. by the United
States boundary line, 49 deg. N.; E. by 110 deg. W., vhich divides
it from the province of Saskatchewan; N. by 60 deg. N., which
separates it from the North-West Territories; and W. by
the line of peaks of the Rocky Mountains range, vhich runs
northwesterly, and divides it from British Columbia. A
fertile province, in the eastern and southern portions
its surface consists chiefly of plains almost entirely
treeless. As the slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the west
are reached 1rore trees are found, until in the foot-hills of
the mountains bcdies of forest timber occur. Trees become more
numerous also northward in the province, until in the region
north of the North Saskatchewan river forests are again met
with.. From the southern boundary line for two and a half
degrees north the prairie is dry, but of good soil, which
grows excellent crops when irrigated. North of this region
the surface of the province is of itost fertile soil, the
ordinary rainfall sufficing for agriculture. The appearance
of the prairie section of the province is that cf undulating
meadows, with rounded sloping ridges covered with shorter .
grasses, which serve for the support of great herds of cattle and
horses. The.wooded portions of the terrain are dotted with
clumps and belts of trees of moderate size, giving them a
parklike appearance. In winter the snowfall is very light,
and even this is frequently removed by warm winds from the
west. Within a hundred miles of the mountains there is
constanlly in view, in clear weather, the beautiful line
of snowy peaks along the western horizon. This continues
for hundreds of miles north-westward. The Rocky Mountains,
vhich give its charm to Alberta, are ascended by a gradual
approach from the east, but are exceedingly abrupt on their
transalpine slope in British Columbia. The peaks of these
mountains are 1rajestic, many of them reaching a height of
more than two niles above the sea. Among the more notable
of these are Lcbscn peak, 13,700 ft.; Athabasca, 13,700;
Assiniboine, 11,8s0; Fyell, 12,000; Mummery, 12,000;
Temple, 11,658; and Geikie, 11,000. Mt. Brown reaches 9050.
Through these Rocky Mountains the explorers and furtraders, by
ascending the streams running down the eastern declivities of
the mountains, and crossing by short portages to the streams
of the western slope, have succeeded in discovering passes
by which the mountain chain can be crossed, the range rarely
exceeding 60 m. in breadth. The most noted of the Alberta
passes are (1) the Crow's Nest Pass, near the southern boundary
line, through which a branch of the Canadian I,acific'
railway runs; (2) the Kicking Horse Pass, through which the
main line of the Canadian Pacific railway is built; 80 m.
from the eastern end of this pass is the Rocky Mountains
Park, with the famous watering-place of Banff as its centre;
(3) the Yellow Head Pass, running west from the northern
branch of the Saskatchewan river; this pass was discovered by
Capt. Pallise1 (1858), was crossed by Lord Milton and Dr
W. B. Cheadle (1861), and by Sandford Fleming (1871-1872) in
the Ocean to Ocean expedition; (4) Peace River Pass. By this
pass Alexander Mackenzie made his celebrated voyage. There
are other minor passes, and no doubt more to be discovered.
With the exception of the southern section, the province of
Alberta may be said to be well watered. Rising from numerous
valleys on the Alberta declivity of the Rocky Mountains between
the international boundary line and 52 deg. N. are streams which
unite to form the Belly river, and farther north the Bow
river. Running eastward these two rivers unite about 112 deg.
W;, and flow on under the name of the South Saskatchewan
river. North of 52 deg. N. many small streams unite to form
the Red Deer river, which flowing south-eastward joins the
South Saskatchewan near 110 deg. W. Between 52 deg. and 53 deg. N.
rises the great river, the North Saskatchewan. It receives
a southern tributary, the Battle river, which joins it
about 108 deg. W. Pursuing their courses eastward the North
and South Saskatchewan rivers unite in the Saskatchewan
(Cree, rapid-flowing river), which finds its way to Lake
Winnipeg, and thence by way of Nelson river to Hudson
Bay. It is one of the mightiest rivers of the continent.
Between 53 deg. and 54 deg. N. begins the height of land running
north-easterly, north of which all the waters of Alberta flow
toward the Arctic Sea. In northern Alberta, on the northern
slope, gathering its tributaries from rills in the Rocky
Mountains, the river Athabasca runs north and empties into
Lake Athabasca near 58 deg. N. North of 56 deg. N. flows through and
from the Rocky Mountains the Peace river. After descending
north-eastward to within a few miles of Lake Athabasca, it
is met by a stream emerging from that lake. The united river
carrying down the waters of the Athabasca slope is called
the Slave river, which, passing through Great Slave Lake,
emerges as the great Mackenzie river, which falls into the
Arctic Sea. Alberta thus gives rise to the two great rivers
Saskatchewan and Mackenzie. While a number of fresh-water,
or in some cases brackish, lakes each less than 100 sq. m.
in extent are situated in Alberta, two of more considerable
size are found. These are Lake Athabasca, 3085 sq. m. in
extent, of which a part is in the province of Saskatchewan,
and the other Lesser Slave Lake some 600 sq. m. in area.
Climate.--As Alberta extends for 750 m. from north to
south---as great a distance as from Land's End in England
to the north of the Shetland Isles--it is natural that the
climate should vary considerably between parallels of 40 deg.
and 60 deg. N.. and also between 110 deg. and 120 deg. W. It is also
further influenced by the different altitudes above the
sea of the several parts of the province. Dividing the
province into three equal parts of 250 m. each from north to
south, these may be called (A) the south, (B) the centre,
(C) the north. The following data may be considered:--
CLIMATIC TABLE
Climate Places Above the Sea Mean Winter Temp
(A) Moderate and Medicine Hat, 2171 ft. 14.3 deg. F.
changeable lat. 50 deg. N.
Calgary, lat. 51 deg. 3432 " 15.4 deg. "
Banff, lat. 51 1/2 deg. 4515 " 15.9 deg. "
(B) Steady Edmonton, lat. 53 1/2 deg. 2210 " 10.3 deg. "
(C) Severe Fort Chipewyan, lat. 600 " 7.2 deg. "
lat. 59 deg. N.
Climate (A) allows, in what is a great ranching district,
cattle and horses to run at large through the whole
winter. Through the mountain passes come at times dry winds
from the Pacific coast, which lick up the snow in a few
hours. These winds are known as Chinook winds. While
elevating the temperature they bring more moisture into
the air and produce a change not entirely desirable.
Climate (B) is the steady winter climate of Edmonton
district. This while averaging a lower temperature than
(A) is not so subject to change; it retains the snow for
sleighing, which is a boon to the farmer. This climate
is much less influenced by the Pacific winds than (A).
Climate (C), that of Fort Chipewyan, having a mean winter
temperature of 22.6 deg. lower than Calgary, is a decidedly
sub-arctic climate. It is the region in winter of constant
ice and snow, but its lower altitude gives it a summer
climate with a mean temperature of only 1.6 deg. less than
Calgary, and 1.8 deg. less than Edmonton. It will thus be seen
that the agricultural capabilities of the Athabasca and Peace
river districts, not yet fully known, are full of promise.
Fauna.--The three climatic regions of Alberta have naturally
a varying fauna. The south and central region was the land
of the bison, its grasses affording a great pasture ground
for tens of thousands of ``buffaloes.'' They were destroyed
by whites and Indians in 1870-1882 on the approach of the
Canadian Pacific railway. Grizzly, black and cinnamon bears
are, found in the mountains and wooded districts. The
coyote or small wolf, here and there the grey wolf, the fox
and the mountain lion (panther) occur. The moose and red
deer are found in the wooded regions, and the jumping deer
and antelope on the prairies. Wild sheep and goats live
in the Rocky Mountains. The lynx, wolverine, porcupine,
skunk, hare, squirrel and mouse are met. The gopher is a
resident of the dry plains. District (C) is the fur-trader's
paradise. The buffalo is replaced by the mountain buffaloes,
of which a few survive. The musk-ox comes in thousands
every year to the great northern lakes, while the mink,
marten, beaver, otter, ermine and musk-rat are sought by the
fur-trader. Fort Chipewyan was long known in Hudson's Bay
Company history as the great depot of the Mackenzie river
district. Northern Alberta and the region farther north
is the nesting-ground of the migratory birds. Here vast
numbers of ducks, geese, swans and pelicans resort every
year. Cranes, partridges and varieties of singing birds
abound. The eagle, hawk, owl and crow are plentiful. Mosquitoes
and flies are everywhere, and the wasp and wild bee also. In
the rivers and lakes pike, pickerel, white fish and sturgeon
supply food for the natives, and the brook trout is found in
the small mountain streams. The turtle and frog also appear.
Flora.--In central and northern Alberta the opening spring
brings in the prairie anemone, the avens and other early
flowers. The advancing summer introduces many flowers of the
sunflower family, until in August the plains are one blaze of
yellow and purple. The southern part of Alberta is covered
by a short grass, very nutritive, but drying up in the middle
of summer until the whole prairie is brown and unattractive.
The trees in the wooded sections of the province are seen
in clumps and belts on the hill sides. These are largely
deciduous. On the north side of the Saskatchewan river
forests prevail for scores and even hundreds of miles. They
contain the poplar Or aspen (Populus tremuloides), balsam
poplar (Populus balsamifera), and paper or canoe birch
(Fetula papyrifera.) The Coniferae are found northward
and in the mountain valleys. Some of these are: Jack pine
(Pinus Banksiana), Rocky Mountain pine (Pinus flexilis),
black pine (Pinus Murrayana), white spruce (Picea alba),
black spruce (Picea nigra), Engelman's spruce (Picea
Engelmanni), mountain balsam (Abies subalpina), Douglas fir
(Pseudotsuga Douglasii), mountain larch (Larix Lyallis.)
Population.--By the census of 1906 the population
of Alberta was found to be 185,412. It has grown from
73,022 in 1901 (the area of Alberta being then slightly
different). The basis of the population is Canadian, and
the immigration has been chiefly from (1) the British Isles,
(2) United States, (3) continent of Europe (chiefly Austria,
Hungary and Russia). Of the population in 1901, 17,245
had immigrated thither from the three mentioned sources.
The following table shows the percentages of origins:--
1901.
Canadian and native born . . . 54 %
The British Isles . . . . . 6.8%
United States . . . . . . 16.6%
Continent of Europe . . . . 24.4%
Of the Indian and Indian half-breed population there were in
1901, 14,669 of the former and 11,635 of the latter. The Indians
of central Alberta are chiefly plain Crees, a tribe of Algonquin
stock. In southern Alberta are several thousands of Indians on
reserves south and west of Calgary, consisting of the Blackfoots
of Algonquin stock, Sarcees, Piegans and a few Assiniboins.
The chief cities and towns of Alberta are Edmonton (11,167), Calgary
(i1,967), Medicine IIat (3020), Lethbiidge (2948) and Strathcona (2927).
Industries.--- The chief industries of the people are
farming and ranching. Cattle, horses and sheep are largely
reared in the southern prairie region on ranches or smaller
holdings. In this region irrigation is widely used. Red
winter wheat is now produced to a considerable degree. In the
town of Raymond is a large beet sugar manufactory, and in the
vicinity great quantities of beets are grown by irrigation.
In central Alberta coarse grains---oats and barley----and some
wheat are grown, in conjunction with mixed farming. While
washing out the sands of the North Saskatchewan for gold is
still somewhat resorted to, the only real mining in Alberta
is that for coal. Vast beds of coal are found extending for
hundreds of miles, a short distance below the surface of the
plains. The coal belongs to the Cretaceous beds, and while
not so heavy as that of the Coal Measures is of excellent
quality. In the valley of the Bow river, alongside the Canadian
Pacific railway, valuable beds of anthracite coal ale worked, and
the coal is carried by railway as far east as Winnipeg.
The usual coal deposits of Alberta are of bituminous or
semi-bituminous coal. These are largely worked at Lethbridge
in southern Alberta and Edmonton in the centre of the
province. Many other parts of the province have pits for private
use. The Athabasca river region, as well as localities far
north on the Mackenzie river, has decided indications of
petroleum, though it is not yet developed. Natural gas has
been found at several points. The most notable gas discovery
is that at Medicine Hat, which has wells with unlimited
quantities. The gas is excellent, is used for lighting
the town, supplies light and fuel for the people, and a
number of industries are using the gas for manufacturing.
Communications.---For transportation the North Saskatchewan is
to some extent depended on for carrying freight by steamboats,
but railways are widespread in the province. The Canadian
Pacific railway has its main line running from east to west
chiefly between 50 and 51 deg. N. Over this line passesanenormous
trade from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean---the railway
with its ``Empress'' steamers on the Pacific and also on the
Atlantic Ocean claiming to have as its termini Liverpool and
Yokohama. A branch line of the Canadian Pacific railway runs
from Medicine Hat between 49 deg. and 50 deg. N., passing through
the Crow's Nest Pass of the Rocky Mountains and carrying on
trade with British Columbia. Another branch from Calgary runs
southward to Macleod, and to Lethbridge there comes from the
south a branch cf the Great Northern railway of the United
States, connecting with the state of Montana. From Calgary
to Edmontonnorthward runs a line under the control of the
Canadian Pacific railway. From this railway also run, eastward
from Lacombe and Wetaskiwin, branch lines to complete the
system. In 1906 tue new line of the Canadian Northern
railway was opened, connecting Winnipeg, 1000 m. to the
east, along the NUrth Saskatchewan river, with Edmonton.
The Grand Trunk Pacific railway, backed by the Canadian
government, forms a new transcontinental line; the prairie
section from Winnipeg to Edmonton was in 1908 under contract.
Administration, &c.---The local government of Alberta is
carried on by a provincial organization resembling that of
the other Canadian provinces. The capital of the province
is Edmonton, and here reside the lieutenant-governor and
cabinet. The legislature consists of one house---the Legislative
Assembly----of twenty-five members. Responsible government after
the British model is followed, and the revenue is chiefly derived
from grants from the Dominion government. Alberta has a system
of municipal government similar to that of the other provinces.
Education is given by a public-school system, which, while nominally
providing for separate schools for Catholics and Protestants,
makes it practically impossible at most points to carry on such
schools. A normal school is situated at Calgary. There is a
college for secondary education in Calgary and another in Edmonton.
The following are the leading denominations in Alberta:--
1901.
Roman Catholics . . . . 12,957
Presbyterians . . . . 10,655
Methodists . . . . . 9,623
Church of England . . . 8,888
Lutherans . . . . . 5,810
Greek Church . . . . 4,618
Mormons . . . . . . 3,212
Baptists . . . . . 2,722
The Mormons of Alberta are in the most southerly part of the
province, and are a colony from the Mormon settlements in Utah,
U.S. On coming to Canada they were given lands by the Dominion of
Canada. The organization adopted in Utah among the Mormons
is found also in Alberta, but the Canadian Mormons profess
to have received a later revelation condemning polygamy.
History.---The present province of Alberta as far north as the
height of land (53 deg. N.) was from the time of the incorporation
of the Hudson's Bay Company (1670) a part of Rupert's Land.
After the discovery of the north-west by the French in 1731
and succeeding years the prairies of the west were occupied by
them, and Fort La Jonquiere was established near the present
city of Calgary (1752). The North-West Company of Montreal
occupied the northern part of Alberta district before the
Hudson's Bay Company succeeded in coming from Hudson Bay to
take possession of it. The first hold of the Athabasca region
was gained by Peter Pond, who, on behalfofthe North-West
Company of Montreal, built Fort Athabasca on river La Biche in
1778. Roderick Mackenzie, cousin of Sir Alexander Mackenzie,
built Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca in 1788. By way of
the North Saskatchewan river Alexander Mackenzie crossed the
height of land, and proceeding northward discovered the river
which bears his name, and also the Arctic Sea. Afterward
going westward from Lake Athabasca and through the Peace
river, he reached the Pacific Ocean, being the first white
man to cross the North American continent, north of Mexico.
As part of the North-West Territories the'district of
Alberta was organized in 1875. Additional privileges and
a locallegislature were added from time to time. At length
in 1905 the district of Alberta was enlarged and the present
province formed by the Dominion parliament. (G. BR.)
ALBERT EDWARD NYANZA, a lake of Central Africa, the
southern of the two western reservoirs of the Nile. It lies
in the Albertine rift-valley between 0 deg. 8' and 0 deg. 40' S.
and 29 deg. 28' and 29 deg. 52' E., at an elevation of 3004 ft.
above the sea. It is roughly oval in shape and has no deep
indentations. On its N.E. side it is connected by a winding
channel, 25 m. long and from a quarter of a mile to a mile
wide, flowing between high banks, with a smaller sheet of
water, Lake Dweru, which extends north of the equator.
Albert Edward Nyanza has a length of 44 m. and a breadth of
32 m. (maximum measurement) . Dweru is about 20 m. long and
10 across at its widest part. The area of the two lakes is
approximately 820 sq. m., or about the size of Leicestershire,
England. A swampy plain, traversed by the Ruchuru and other
rivers, extends south of the Nyanza and was once covered
by its waters. The plain contains several salt-pans, and
at the S.E. corner are numerous geysers. Along the eastern
shore the low land extends to Kamarangu, a point about
midway between the south and north ends of the lake, a
considerable stretch of ground intervening between the wall
of the rift-valley and the water, two terraces being clearly
defined. The euphorbia trees and other vegetation on the
lower terrace are of small size and apparently of recent
origin. At some distance from the lake runs a belt of
forest. North of Kamarangu the wall of the valley approaches
the water in a series of bluffs some 300 to 350 ft. high.
At the N.E. end the hills again recede and the plain widens
to ioclude Dweru. On the west side of the Nyanza the wall of
the rift-valley runs close to the lake shore and at the N.W.
corner the mountains close in on the water. North of the
lake a high alluvial plain stretches to the southern slopes
of the Ruwenzori mountains. From Ruwenzori a subsidiary
range, known as the Kipura mountains, runs due south to the
lake shore, where it ends in a low rounded hill. In general,
the plain rises above the lake in a series of bold bluffs,
a wide margin of swamp separating them from the water. The
Semliki, the only outlet of the lake, issues from its N.W.
end. Round the north-eastern shore of the lake are numerous
crater lakes, many salt, the most remarkable being that of
Katwe. This lake lies west of the Dweru channel and is separated
from Albert Edward Nyanza by a ridge of land, not more than 160
ft. in breadth. The sides of this ridge run down steeply to
the water on either side. The waters of the Katwe lake have
a beautiful rose colour which becomes crimson in the shadows.
The salt is highly prized and is exported to great distances.
The main feeder of Albert Edward Nyanza, and western head-stream
of the Nile, the Ruchuru, rises on the north side of the
volcanoes north of Lake Kivu (see MEUMBIRO.) On reaching the
level plain 15 m. from the lake its waters become brackish, and
the Vegetation on its banks is scanty. The reedy marshes near
its mouth form a retreat for a primitive race of fishermen.
Lake Dweru, the shores of which are generally high, is fed by
the streams from the eastern slopes of the Ruwenzori range.
One of these, the Mpango, is a larger river than the Ruchuru.
The outlet of the Nyanza, the Semliki, and the part plaved
by the lake in the Nile system are described under ALBERY NYANZA.
A feature of Lake Albert Edward Nyanza is the thick haze which
overhangs the water during the dry season, blotting out from
view the mountains. In the rains, vhen the sky is clear, the
magnificent panorama of hills encircling the lake on the west
and north-west is revealed. The lake water is clear of a light
green colour, and distinctly brackish. Fish abound, as do
waterfowl, crocodiles and, in the southern swamps, hippopotami.
In the rainy season the lake is subject to violent storms.
The entire area of Albert Edward Nyanza was found, by the
work of the Anglo-German Boundary Commission of 1902-1904,
to lie within the limits of the sphere of influence of the
Congo Free State as defined in the agreement of the 12th
of May 1894 between that state and Great Britain. Dweru
was discovered in 1875 by H. M. Stanley, then travelling
westward from Uganda, and by him was named Beatrice Gulf in
the belief that it was part of Albert Nyanza. In 1888-1889
Stanley, approaching the Nile region from the west, traced the
Semliki to its source in Albert Edward Nyanza, which lake he
discovered, naming it after Albert Edward, prince of Wales,
afterwards Edward VII. Stanley also discovered the connecting
channel between the larger lake and Dweru. The accurate
mapping of the lake was mainly the work of British officials
and travellers, such as Scott Elliott, Sir F. D. Lugard, Ewart
Grogan, J. E. Moore and Sir H. Johnston; while Emin Pasha
and Franz Stuhlmann, deputygovernor (1891) of German East
Africa, explored its southern shores. (See ALBERT NYANza and
NIRE, and the authorities there quoted.) (W. E. G.; F. R. C.)
ALBERTI, DOMENICO (c. 1710-1740), Italian musician, is
known in musical history as the writer of dozens of sonatas
in which the melody is supported from beginning to end by
an extremely familiar formula of arpeggio accompaniment,
consequently known as the Alberti bass. He thus shows
how advanced was the decay ofpolyphonic sensibility (as a
negative preparation for the advent of the sonata-style)
already during the lifetime of Bach. His works have no
other special qualities, though it is probable that Mozart's
first violin sonatas, written at the age of seven, were
modelled on Alberti in spite of their superior cleverness.
ALRERTI, LEONE BATTISTA (1404-1472), Italian painter,
poet, philosopher, musician and architect, was born in
Venice on the 18th of February 1404. He was so skilled in
Latin verse that a comedy he wrote in his twentieth year,
entitled Philodoxius, deceived the younger Aldus, who
edited and published it as the genuine work of Lepidus.
In music he was reputed one of the first organists of the
age. He held the appointment of canon in the metropolitan
church of Florence, and thus had leisure to devote himself to
his favourite art. UIe is generally regarded as one of the
restorers of the ancient style of architecture. At Rome he
was employed by Pope Nicholas V. in the restoration of the
papal palace and of the foundation of Acqua Vergine, and in
the ornamentation of the magnificent fountain of Trevi. At
Mantua he designed the church of Sant' Andrea and at Rimini
the celebrated church of San Francesco, which is generally
esteemed his finest work. On a commission from Rucellai he
designed the principal facade of the church of Santa Maria
Novella in Florence, as well as the family palace in the Via
della Scala, now known as the Palazzo Strozzi. Alberti wrote
works on sculpture, Della Statua, and on painting, De .
Pictura, which are highly esteemed; but his most celebrated
treatise is that on architecture, De Re Aedificaloria,
which has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish and
English. Alberti died at Rome in the April of 1472.
See Passerini, Gli Alberti di Firenze (1869, 1870); Mancini, Vrita
de Alberti (Firenze, 1882); V. Hoffmann, Studien zu Leon Battista
Alberti's zehn Buchern: De Re Aedicatoria (Frankenberg, 1883).
ALBERTINEILI, MARIOTTO (1474-1515), Italian painter,
was born in Florence, and was a fellow-pupil and partner
of Fra Bartolommeo, with whom he painted many works. His
chief paintings are in Florence, notably his masterpiece,
the ``Visitation of the Virgin'' (1503) at the Uffizi.
ALRERTITE, a variety of asphalt found in Albert county, New
Brunswick. It is of jet-black colour and brilliant pitch-like
lustre. Its percentage chemical composition is:--
C. H. O. N. S. Ash.
86.04 8.96 1.97 2.93 trace 0.10
It softens slightly in boiling water, but only fuses
imperfectly when further heated, and it is less
soluble than ordinary asphalt in oil of turpentine.
ALBERT LEA, a citynnd the county-seatof Freeborn county,
Minnesota, U.S.A., about 97 m. S. of St Paul. Pop. (1890) 3305;
(1900) 4500; ( 1905, state census) 5657, 1206 being foreign-born
(461 Norwegians, 411 Danes, 98 Swedes); (1910, L. S. census)
6192. It is served by two branches of the Lhicago, Milwaukee
& St Paul, by the main line and one branch of the Chicago,
Rock Island & Pacific, by the Illinois Central, by the Iowa
Central, and by the Minneapolis & St Louis railways. It is
attractively situated between Fountain Lake and Albert Lea
Lake, and is a summer resort. It has a public library and
the Freeborn County Court House, and is the seat of Albert
Lea College (Presbyterian, for women), founded in 1884, and of
Luther Academy ( Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran), founded in
1888. Albert Lea is a railway and manufacturing centre of
considerable importance, has grain elevators and foundries
and machine shops, and manufactures bricks, tiles, carriages,
wagons, flour, corsets, refrigerators and woollen goods. The
city is also the centre of large dairy interests, and there
are many creameries in the county. Sumerous artesian wells
furnish the city with an ample supply of water of unusual
excellence. Albert Lea was settled in 1855 and received a
city charter in 1878. The city and the lake were named in
honour of Lieutenant Albert Miller Lea (1808--1801), a West
Point graduate (1831) who, on behalf of the United States
government, first surveyed the region and described it in
a report published in 1836. He was a lieutenant-colonel
of engineers in the Confederate army during the Civil War.
ALBERT NYANZA, a lake of Central Africa, the northern of
the two western reservoirs of the Nile, lying in the western
(A!bertine) rift-valley, near its north end. The southern
reservoir is Albert Edward Nyanza (q.v..) Lake Albert lies
between 1 deg. 9' and 2 deg. 17' N. and 30 deg. 30' and 31 deg. 35' E.,
at an elevation of about 2000 ft. above the sea. Its greatest
length is about 100 m., its greatest width 22 m., its area
being approximately 1640 sq. m., about the size of Lancashire,
England. South of the lake is a wide plain, traversed by the
Seniliki river, which enters the Nyanza through a swamp of tall
weeds, chiefly ambach and papyrus. Both east and west the
walls of the rift-valley are close to the lake,the waterin
many places washing the base of the cliffs. Elsewhere the
narrowforeshore is thicklywooded. The ascent to the plateaus
is generally by three tiers of hills rising one behind the
other. On the west side the mountains present many pointed
and conical summits; on the east the cliffs rise abruptly
1000 to 2000 ft. On either coast wild gorges and ravines,
densely wooded, break the outline of the mountains. Through
these gorges dash magnificent cascades, others leaping the
escarpments of the plateaus in waterfalls of great volume and
depth. Towards the north the hills recede from the coast and
on both sides flats extend for distances varying from 5 to 15
m. On the eastern side, 92 m. from the southern end of the
Nyanza, the Victoria Nile enters the lake, here not more
than 6 m. across, through a wilderness of woods, the delta
of the Nile extending over 4 m. The mouth of the main stream
is obstructed by a bar of its own formation; the current is
sluggish; there are many side channels, and the appearance
of the lake gives no hint that a great river has joined its
waters. For 5 or 6 m. north of the junction of the Victoria
Nile the lake suffers no material diminution in width. Then,
however, the eastern and western shores approach each other,
and a current is perceptible flowing north. The lake has
become the Bahr-el-Jebel, or Mountain river, as this section
of the Nile is called. Throughout its extent Albert Nyanza
is shallow; at its southern end the water for a considerable
distance is not more than 3 ft. deep. The deepest soundings
give only 50 to 55 ft., the average depth being 30 to 40 ft.
The Alberline Basin of the Nile.---Albert Nyanza receives the
whole of the drainage of Albert Edward Nyanza and the Semliki
river, and with them and its own basin forms the ``Albertine'' Nile
system. Its waters, as stated above, mingle with those of the
Victoria Nile, their united volume flowing north towards the
Mediterranean. A study of the changes going on in the riftvalley
in which the lakes lie leads, however, to the belief that
the Albert Edward and Albert Nyanzas are drying up, a process
which the nature of the drainage areas is helping to bring
about. That the Albert Edward Nyanza once covered a much
larger area than it does at present is certain. At that
time, recent from a geological standpoint, the valley to the
north, through which now flows the Semliki river, was blocked.
The removal of the block led to the shrinkage of the lake and
the formation.of the Semhki, which found its way to the more
northern lake-Albert Nyanza. Gradually the Semliki eroded
its bed, and consequently the level of Albert Edward Nyanza
continued to fall. The process continues but is checked by
the existence of the rock barrier which stretches across the
Semliki. This stream leaves Albert Edward Nyanza at its
N.W. end in 0 deg. 8' 30q S., and after a course of about 160
m. enters Albert Nyanza in 1 deg. 9' N. In its upper and in its
lower course the river flows either through high alluvial
plains, in which it has scored a deep channel, or across swamp
land. In the middle section, which has a length of some 75
m., the river runs in a deep narrow valley -covered with
the densest forest. On the west this valley is bounded by
the Congo mountains, which form the wall of the rift-valley,
on the east by the mighty range of Ruwenzori, whose heights
tower over 16,000 ft. above sea-level. In this length
of 75 m. the river falls in cataracts and rapids over 800
ft. This rocky barrier acts as a regulator for the water
received from Albert Edward Nyanza snd, by checking the
erosion of the river bed, tends to maintain the level of the
lake. When this bar wears away Albert Edward Nyanza will, in
all probability, disappear as a lake and will become a river, a
continuation of its present most southern affiuentj the Ruchuru.
Albert Nyanza, on the other hand, is threatened in the
distant future with destruction from another cause--the
filling of its bed by the alluvium poured into it by the
Semliki, the Victoria Nile and, in a lesser degree, by other
streams. The Semliki receives directly or indirectly the
whole of the drainage of Ruwenzori, and also that of the
eastern face of the Congo mountains as well as the drainage
basin of Albert Edward Nyanza. The amount of alluvial matter
carried is enormous; from Ruwenzori alone the detritus is very
great. Charged with all this matter, the Semhki, as it
emerges from the region of forest and cataracts (in which,
often closely confined by its mountain barriers, the stream
is deep and rapid), becomes sluggish, its slope flattens
out, and its waters, unable to carry their burden, deposit
much of it upon the land. This process, continually going
on, has formed a large plain at the south end of Albert
Nyanza, which has seriously encroached upon the lake. At
the northern end of the lake the sediment brought down by the
Victoria Nile is producing a similar effect. Albert Nyanza
has indeed shrunk in its dimensions during the comparatively
few years it has been known to Europeans. Thus at the S.W.
end, Nyamsasi, which was an island in 1889, has become a
peninsula. Islands which in 1876 were on the east coast
no longer exist; they now form part of the foreshore. On
the other hand, the shrinkage of the lake level caused the
appearance in 1885 of an island where in 1879 there had been
an expanse of shallow water. It seems probable that, in a
period geologically not very remote, the ``Albertine'' system
will consist of one great river, extending from the northern
slopes of the Rivu range, where the Ruchuru has its rise, to
the existing junction of the Victoria Nile with Albert Nyanza.
The combined drainage area, including the water surface of
Albert Edward Nyanza, the Semhki and Albert Nyanza, is some
16,600 sq. m. Throughout this area the rainfall is heavy (40
to 60 in. or more per annum), the volume of water entering
Albert Nyanza by the Semliki when in flood being not less
than 700 cubic metres per second. Of the water received
by Albert Nyanza annually (omitting the Victoria Nile from
the calculation) between 50 and 60% is lost by evaporation,
whilst 24,265,000,000 cubic metres are annually withdrawn
by the Bahr-el-Jebel. The ``Albertine'' system plays a
comparatively insignificant part in the annual llood rise
of the White Nile, but to its waters are due the maintenance
of a constant supply to this river throughout the year.
Discovery and Exploration.---Albert Nyanza was first reached
by Sir Samuel Baker on the 14th of March 1864 near Vacovia,
a small village of fishermen and salt-makers on the east
coast. From a granitic cliff 1500 ft. above the water he
looked out over a boundless horizon on the south and south-west,
and towards the west descried at a distance of 50 or 60 m.
mountains about 7000 ft. high. Albert Nyanza was consequently
entered on his map as a vast lake extending about 380 m. But
the circumnavigation of the lake by Gessi Pasha (1876), and
by Emin Pasha in 1884, showed that Baker had been deceived as
to the size of the lake. By the end of the 19th century the
topography of the lake region was known with fair accuracy.
The lake forms part of the (British) Uganda Protectorate,
but the north-west shores were leased in 1894 to the (iongo
Free State during the sovereignty of king Leopold II. of
Belgium. Of this leased area a strip 15 m. wide, giving
the Congo State a passage way to the lake, was to remain in
its possession after the determination of the lease. - See
Nile; Sir W. Garstin's Report upon the Basin of the Upper
Loile (Egypt, No. 2, 1904); Capt. H. G. Lyons' The
Physiography oj. the River Nelc and its Basin (Cairo, 1906),
and the authorities quoted in those works. (W. E. G.; F. R. C.)
ALBERTUS MAGNUS (ALBERT OF COLOGNE.? 1206-1280), count of
Bollstadt, scholastic philosopher, was born of the noble
family of Bollstadt at Lauingen in Suabia. The date of his
birth, generally given as 1193, is more probably 1206. He was
educated principally at Padua, where he received instruction
in Aristotle's writings. In 1223 (or 1221) he became a member
of the Dominican order, and studied theology under its rules
at Bologna and elsewhere. Selected to fill the position of
lecturer at Cologne, where the order had a house, he taught for
several years there, at Regensburg, Freiburg, Strassburg and
Hildesheim. In 1245 he went to Paris, received his doctorate
and taught for some time, in accordance with the regulations,
with great success. In 1254 he was made provincial of his
order, and fulfilled the arduous duties of the office with
great care and efficiency. During the time he held this office
he publicly defended the Dominicans against the university of
Paris, commented on St John, and answered the errors of the
Arabian philosopher, Averroes. In 1260 the pope made him
bishop of Regensburg, which office he resigned after three
years. The remainder of his life he spent partly in preaching
throughout Bavaria and the adjoining districts, partly in
retirement in the various houses of his order; in 1270 he
preached the eighth Crusade in Austria; almost the last of
his labours was the defence of the orthodoxy of his former
pupil, Thomas Aquinas. He died in 1280, aged seventy-four.
He was beatified in 1622, and he is commemorated on the 16th of
November. Albert's works (published in twenty-one folios by
the Dominican Pierre Jammy in 1651, and reproduced by the Abbe
Borgnet, Paris, 1890, 36 vols.) sufficiently attest his great
activity. He was the most widely read and most learned man
of his time. The whole of Aristotle's works, presented in the
Latin translations and notes of the Arabian commentators, were
by him digested, interpreted and systematized in accordance
with church doctrine. Albert's activity, however, was rather
philosophical than theological (see SCHOLASTICISM.) The
philosophical works, occupying the first six and the last
of the twenty-one volumes, are generally divided according
to the Aristotelian scheme of the sciences, and consist of
interpretations and condensations of Aristotle's relative
works, with supplementary discussions depending on the
questions then agitated, and occasionally divergences from the
opinions of the master. His principal theological works are a
commentary in three volumes on the Books of the Sentences
of Peter Lombard (Magister Sententiarum), and the Summa
Theologiae in two volumes. This last is in substance a
repetition of the first in a more didactic form. Albert's
knowledge of physical science was considerable and for
the age accurate. His industry in every department was
great, and though we find in his system many of those gaps
which are characteristic of scholastic philosophy, yet the
protracted study of Aristotle gave him a great power of
systematic thought and exposition, and the results of that
study, as left to us, by no means warrant the contemptuous
title sometimes given him--the ``Ape of Aristotle.'' They
rather lead us to appreciate the motives which caused his
contemporaries to bestow on him the honourable surnames
``The Great'' and ``Doctor Universahs.'' It must, however,
be admitted that much of his knowledge was ill digested;
it even appears that he regarded Plato and Speusippus as
Stoics. Albertus is frequently mentioned by Dante, who made
his doctrine of free-will the basis of his ethical system.
Dante places him with his pupil Aquinas among the great lovers
of wisdom (Spiriti Sapienti) in the Heaven of the Sun.
See Paget Toynbee, ``Some Obligations of Dante to Albertus
Magnus'' in Romania, xxiv. 400-412, and the Dante
Dictionary by the same author. For Albert's life see J.
Sighart, Albertus Magnus, sein Leben und seine Wissenschaft
(Regensburg, 1857; Eng. trans., Dixon, London, 1876); H. Finke,
Ungedruckte Dominikanerbriefe des 13. Jahrh. (Paderborn,
1891). For his philosophy A. Stockl, Geschichte d.
scholastischen Philosophie; J. E. Erdmann, Grundriss d. Ges.
d. Phil. vol. i. 8. The histories of Haureau, Ritter,
Prantl and Windelband may also be consulted. See also W.
Feiler, Die Moral d. A. M. (Leipzig, 1891); M. Weiss,
Ueber mariologische Schriften des A. M. (Paris, 1898); Jos.
Bach, Des A. M. Verhaltniss zu d. Erkenntnisslehre d.
Griechen, Romer, Araber u. Juden (Vienna, 1881); Herzog-Hauck,
Realencyk. (1897); Vacant, Dict. Theol. Cathol. (s.v.);
Ch. Jourdain in Dict. d. sciences philos. (s.v.); M. Joel,
Das Verhaltniss A. d. G. zu Moses Maimonides (Breslau, 1863).
ALBERUS, ERASMUS (c. 1500-1553), German humanist, reformer
and poet, was a native of the village of Sprendlingen near
Frankfort-on-Main, where he was born about the year 1500.
Although his father was a schoolmaster, his early education
was neglected. Ultimately in 1518 he found his way to the
university of Wittenberg, where he studied theology. He had
here the good fortune to attract the attention of Luther and
Melanchthon, and subsequently became one of Luther's most
active helpers in the Reformation. Not merely did he fight
for the Protestant cause as a preacher and theologian, but
he was almost the only member of Luther's party who was able
to confront the Roman Catholics with the weapon of literary
satire. In 1542 he published a prose satire to which Luther
wrote the preface, Der Barfusser Monche Eulenspiegel und
Alkoran, an adaptation of the Liber confermitatum of the
Franciscan Bartolommeo Albizzi of Pisa (Pisanus, d. 1401
), in which the Franciscan order is held up to ridicule. Of
higher literary value is the didactic and satirical Buch von
der Tugend und Weisheit (1550), a collection of forty-nine
fables in which Alberus embodies his views on the relations of
Church and State. His satire is incisive, but in a scholarly
and humanistic way; it does not appeal to popular passions
with the fierce directness which enabled the master of Catholic
satire, Thomas Murner, to inflict such telling blows. Several
of Alberus's hymns, all of which show the influence of his
master Luther, have been retained in the German Protestant
hymnal. After Luther's death, Alberus was for a time Diakonus
in Wittenberg; he became involved, however, in the political
conflicts of the time, and was in Magdeburg in 1550-1551,
while that town was besieged by Maurice of Saxony. In 1552
he was appointed Generalsuperintendent at Neubrandenburg
in Mecklenburg, where he died on the 5th of May 1553.
Das Buch von der Tugend und Weisheit has been edited by W.
Braune (1892); the sixteen Geistliche Lieder by C. W. Stromberger
(1857). Alberus' prose writings have not been reprinted in recent
times. See F. Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Erasmus Alberus (1894).
ALBERY, JAMES (1838--1889), English dramatist, was born in
London on the 4th of May 1838. On leaving school he entered
an architect's office, and started to write plays. After many
failures he at last succeeded in getting an adaptation--Dr
Davy --Produced at the Lyceum (1866). His most successful
piece, Two Roses, a comedy, was produced at the Vaudeville in
1870, in which Sir Henry Irving made one of his earliest London
successes as Digby Grant. He was the author of a large number
of other plays and adaptations, including Jingle (a version
of Pickwick), produced at the Lyceum in 1878, and Pink
Dominoes, the latter being one of a series of adaptations
from the French which he made for the Criterion theatre. At
that house his wife, the well-known actress, Miss Mary Moore,
played the leading parts. He died on the 15th of August 1889.
ALBI, a city of south-western France, capital of the
department of Tarn, 48 m. N. E. of Toulouse, on a branch
line of the Southern railway. Pop. (1906) 14,956. Albi
occupies a commanding position on the left bank of the
Tarn; it is united to its suburb of La Madeleine on the
right bank by a medieval and a modern bridge. The old town
forms a nucleus of narrow, winding streets surrounded by
boulevards, beyond which lie modern quarters with regular
thoroughfares and public gardens. The cathedral of Sainte
Cecile, a fine fortress-church in the Gothic style, begun
in 1277, finished in 1512, rises high above the rest of the
town. The exterior, flanked at the western end by a lofty
tower and pierced by high, narrow windows, is devoid of
ornament. Its general plainness contrasts with the elaborate
carving of the stone canopy which shelters the southern
portal. In the interior, which is without transepts or aisles,
the roodscreen and the choir-enclosure, which date from about
1500, are masterpieces of delicate sculpture; the vaulting
and the walls are covered with paintings of the 15th and 16th
centuries. The archbishop's palace to the north-east of the
cathedral is a fortified building of the 14th century. St
Salvi, the chief of the other churches of Albi, belongs
to the 13th and 15th centuries. A statue of the sailor La
Perouse (1741-1788) stands in the square named after him.
Albi is the seat of an archbishop, a prefect and a court of
assizes. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce,
a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, a lycee
and training colleges. The industrial establishments of the
town include dye-works, distilleries, tanneries, glass-works
and important flour-mills. It is also a centre for hat-making,
and produces cloth-fabrics, lace, umbrellas, casks, chairs,
wooden shoes, candles and pastries. Trade is in wine and anise.
Albi (Albiga) was, in the Gallo-Roman period, capital of
the Albigenses, and later of the viscounty of Albigeois,
which was a fief of the counts of Toulouse. From the 12th
century onwards, its bishops, the first of whom appears
to have lived about the 3rd century, began to encroach
on the authority of the viscounts; the latter, after the
Albigensian war, lost their estates, which passed to Simon
de Montfort and then to the crown of France. By a convention
concluded in 1264 the chief temporal power in the city was
granted to the bishops. The archbishopric dates from 1678.
ALBIAN (Fr. Albion, from Alba = Aube in France), in
geology the term proposed in 1842 by A. d'Orbigny for that
stage of the Cretaceous System which comes above the Aptian
and below the Cenomanian (Pal. France. Cret. ii.). The
precise limits of this stage are placed somewhat differently
by English and continental geologists. In England it is
usual to regard the Albian stage as equivalent to the Upper
Greensand plus Gault, that is, to the ``Selbornian'' of
Jukes-Browne. But A. de Lapparent would place most of the
UPper Greensand in the Cenomanian. The English practice
is to commence the upper Cretaceous with the Albian; on
the other hand, this stage closes the lower Cretaceous
according to continental usage. It is necessary therefore,
when using the term Albian, to bear these differences in
mind, and to ascertain the exact position of the strata by
reference to the zonal fossils. These are, in descending
order, Pecten asper and Cardiaster fossarius, Schloen
bachia rostrata, Hoplites lautus and H. interruptus,
Douvilleiceras mammillalum. In addition to the formations
mentioned above, the following representatives of the Albian
stage are worthy of notice: the gaize and phosphatic beds of
Argonne and Bray in France; the Flammenmergel of North Germany;
the lignites of Iltrillas in Spain; the Upper Sandstones
of Nubia, and the Fredericksburg beds of North America.
See GAULT, GREENSAND, and CRETACEOUS. (J. A. H.)
ALBIGENSES, the usual designation of the heretics---and
more especially the Catharist heretics--of the south of
France in the 12th and 13th centuries. This name appears to
have been given to them at the end of the 12th century, and
was used in 1181 by the chronicler Geoffroy de Vigeois. The
designation is hardly exact, for the heretical centre was
at Toulouse and in the neighbouring districts rather than at
Albi (the ancient Albiga.) The heresy, which had penetrated
into these regions probably by trade routes, came originally
from eastern Europe. The name of Bulgarians (Bougres)
was often applied to the Albigenses, and they always kept
up intercourse with the Bogomil sectaries of Thrace. Their
dualist doctrines, as described by controversialists, present
numerous resemblances to those of the Bogomils, and still
more to those of the Paulicians, with whom they are sometimes
connected. It is exceedingly difficult, however, to form
any very precise idea of the Albigensian doctrines, as our
knowledge of them is derived from their opponents, and the
very rare texts emanating from the Albigenses which have
come down to us (e.g. the Rituel cathare de Lyon and the
Nouveau Testament en provencal) contain very inadequate
information concerning their metaphysical principles and moral
practice. What is certain is that, above all, they formed
an anti-sacerdotal party in permanent opposition to the Roman
church, and raised a continued protest against the corruption
of the clergy of their time. The Albigensian theologians and
ascetics, the Cathari or perfecti, known in the south of
France as bons hommes or bons chretiens, were few in
number; the mass of believers (credentes) were perhaps not
initiated into the Catharist doctrine; at all events, they were
free from all moral prohibition and all religious obligation,
on condition that they promised by an act called convenenza
to become ``hereticized'' by receiving the consolamentum, the
baptism of the Spirit, before their death or even in extremis.
The first Catharist heretics appeared in Limousin between
1012 and 1020. Several were discovered and put to death
at Toulouse in 1022; and the synod of Charroux (dep. of
Vienne) in 1028, and that of Toulouse in 1056, condemned
the growing sect. The preachers Raoul Ardent in 1101 and
Robert of Arbrissel in 1114 were summoned to the districts
of the Agenais and the Toulousain to combat the heretical
propaganda. But, protected by William IX., duke of Aquitaine,
and soon by a great part of the southern nobility, the
heretics gained ground in the south, and in 1119 the council
of Toulouse in vain ordered the secular powers to assist the
ecclesiastical authority in quelling the heresy. The people
were attached to the bons hommes, whose asceticism imposed
upon the masses, and the anti-sacerdotal preaching of Peter
of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne in Perigord. Languedoc and
Provence, only facilitated the progress of Catharism in those
regions. In 1147 Pope Eugenius III. sent the legate Alberic
of Ostia and St Bernard to the affected district. The few
isolated successes of the abbot of Clairvaux could not obscure
the real results of this mission, and the meeting at Lombers
in 1165 of a synod, where Catholic priests had to submit to
a discussion with Catharist doctors, well shows the power of
the sect in the south of France at that period. Moreover.
two years afterwards a Catharist synod, in which heretics
from Languedoc, Bulgaria and Italy took part, was held at St
Felix de Caraman, near Toulouse, and their deliberations were
undisturbed. The missions of Cardinal Peter (of St Chrysogonus).
formerly bishop of Meaux, to Toulouse and the Toulousain in
1178, and of Henry, cardinal-bishop of Albano (formerly
abbot ol Clairvaux), in 1180-1181, obtained merely momentary
successes. Henry of Albano attempted an armed expedition
against the stronghold of heretics at Lavaur and against
Raymond Roger. viscount of Beziers, their acknowledged
protector. The taking of Lavaur and the submission of Raymond
Roger in no way arrested the progress of the heresy. The
persistent decisions of the councils against the heretics
at this period--in particular, those of the council of Tours
(1163) and of the oecumenical Lateran council (1179)---had
scarcely more effect. But on ascending the papal throne,
Innocent III. resolved to suppress the Albigenses. At first
he tried pacific conversion, and in 1198 and 1199 sent into
the affected regions two Cistercian monks, Regnier and Guy, and
in 1203 two monks of Fontfroide, Peter of Castelnau and Raoul
(Ralph), with whom in 1204 he even associated the Cistercian
abbot, Arnaud (Arnold). They had to contend not only with
the heretics, the nobles who protected them, and the people
who listened to them and venerated them, but also with the
bishops of the district, who rejected the extraordinary
authority which the pope had conferred upon his legates, the
monks. In 1204 Innocent III. suspended the authority of the
bishops of the south of France. Peter of Castelnau retaliated
by excommunicating Raymond VI., count of Toulouse, as an
abettor of heresy (i207), and kindled in the nobles of the
south that animosity of which he was the first victim (1209).
As soon as he heard of the murder of Peter of Castelnau, the
pope ordered the Cistercians to preach the crusade against the
Albigenses. This implacable war, which threw the whole of
the nobility of the north of France against that of the south,
and destroyed the brilliant Provencal civilization, ended,
politically, in the treaty of Paris (1229), by which the king
of France dispossessed the house of Toulouse of the greater
part of its fiefs, and that of Beziers of the whole of its
fiefs. The independence of the princes of the south was at an
end, but, so far as the heresy was concerned, Albigensianism
was not extinguished, in spite of the wholesale massacres of
heretics during the war. Raymond VII. of Toulouse and the
count of Foix gave asylum to the ``faidits'' (proscrtbed),
and the people were averse from handing over the bonis
hommes. The Inquisition, however, operating unremittingly
in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns
during the whole of the 13th century and a great part of the
14th, succeeded in crushing the heresy. There were indeed
some outbursts of rebellion, some fomented by the nobles of
Languedoc (12401242), and others emanating from the people of
the towns, who were embittered by confiscations and religious
persecutions (e.g. at Narbonne in 1234 and Toulouse in
1235), but the repressive measures were terrible. In 1245 the
royal officers assisting the Inquisition seized the heretical
citadel of Montsegur, and 200 Cathari were burned in one
day. Moreover, the church decreed severe chastisement
against all laymen suspected of sympathy with the heretics
(council of Narbonne, 1235; Bull Ad extirpanda, 1252).
Hunted down by the Inquisition and quickly abandoned by the
nobles of the district, the Albigenses became more and more
scattered, hiding in the forests and mountains, and only
meeting surreptitiously. There were some recrudescences of
heresy, such as that produced by the preaching (1298-1509)
of the Catharist minister, Pierre Authier; the people, too,
made some attempts to throw off the yoke of the Inquisition
and the French,i and insurrections broke out under the
leadership of Bernard of Foix, Aimerv of Narbonne, and,
especially, Bernard Delicieux at the beginning of the 14th
century. But at this point vast inquests were set on foot
by the Inquisition, which terrorized the district. Precise
indications of these are found in the registers of the Inquisitors,
Bernard of Caux, Jean de St Pierre, Geoffroy d'Ablis, and
others. The sect, moreover, was exhausted and could find
no more adepts in a district which, by fair means or foul,
had arrived at a state of peace and political and religious
unity. After 1330 the records of the Inquisition contain but
few proceedings against Catharists. (See also under CATHARS.)
AUTHORITIES.---See C. Schmidt's Histoire de la secte des
Cathares ou Albigeois (Paris, 1849), which is still the
most important work on the subject. The following will be
found useful: D. Vaissete, Histoire de Languedoc, vols. iii.
iv. vii. viii. (new edition); Ch. Molinier, L'Inquisition
dans le Midi de la France (Paris, 1880), and the other
works by the same author; L. Tanon, Histoire des tribunaux
de l'Inquisition en France (Paris, 1893). Les Albigeois,
leurs origines (Paris, 1878), by Douais, should be read with
caution. Of the sources, which are very numerous, may be
mentioned: the Liber Sententiarum of the Inquisition of
Carcassonne, published by Ph. van Limborch at the end of his
Historia Inquisitionis (Amsterdam, 1692): other registers of
the inquisition analysed at length by Ch. Molinier, op cit.,
some published in vol. ii. of the Documents pour l'histoire
de l'Inquisition (Paris, 1900), by C. Douais; numerous texts
concerning the last days of Albigensianism, collected by M.
Vidal, ``Les derniers ministres albigeois,' in Rev. de quest.
histor. (1906). See also the Rituel cathare, ed. by Cunitz
(Jena, 1852); the Nouveau Testament en provencal, ed. by
Cledat (Paris, 1887); and the very curious Debat d'Yzarn
et de Sicart de Figueiras, ed. by P. Meyer (1880). On
the ethics of the Catharists, see Jean Guiraud, Questions
d'histoire et d'archeologie chretienne (Paris, 1906); and
P. Alphandery, Les idees morales chez les heterodoxes
latins au debut du XIIIe siecle (Paris, 1903). (P. A.)
1 These they often confounded and a heretic is described aa
saying: ``Clergy and French, they are one and the same thing.''
ALBINO, a biological term (Lat. albus, white), in the usual
acceptation, for a pigmentless individual of a normally pigmented
race. Among some flowering plants, however, the character
has become one of specific rank, .and among animals we have
in the polar bear and the Greenland hare instances where
partial albinism--for in them the eyes are black and other
parts may be pigmented--has also become a specific character.
A true or complete albino is altogether devoid of pigment.
One result of this among the Vertebrata is that the eyeball
is pink in colour, since the cornea, iris and retina being
transparent, the red blood contained in the capillaries is
unmasked by the absence of pigmentary material. In man, and
doubtless also in lower forms, the absence of this pigment
produces the well marked albinotic facies. This is a condition
in which the eyelids are brought into a nearly closed position
accompanied by blinking movements and a general wrinkling of
the skin around the immediate neighbourhood of the eyes. It
is the result of the too great intensity of the light incident
upon the retina, and which in normal eyeballs is adequately
diminished by the absorptive power of the pigmentary material.
In a complete albino not only is all pigment absent in the
skin, but also that which is normally present in deeper
organs, such as the sympathetic nervous system and in the
substanlia nigra of the brain. There is some reason to
believe that a peculiar condition found in the majority of
human albinoes, and knovn as nystagmus, is correlated with
the absence of pigment in the central nervous system. This
condition is one marked by unsteadiness---a sort of flickering
rolling--of the eyeballs, and it becomes more marked as they
endeavour to adjust their accommodation to near objects. It
is thought to depend upon some connexion, not yet anatomically
demonstrated, between the third cranial nerve and its nucleus
in the floor of the iter and the substantia nigra.
In addition to complete albinism, there exist, however, various
albinotic conditions in which more or less pigment may be
present. Familiar instances of this partial albinism is
seen in the domestic breed of Himalayan rabbits. In these
animals the eyeball and the fur of the body are unpigmented,
but the tips of the ear pinnae and extremities of the fore
and hind limbs, together with the tail, are marked by more
or less well defined colour. One remarkable feature of these
animals is that for a few months after birth they are complete
albinoes. Occasionally, however, some are born with a grey
colour and a few may be quite black, but ultimately they
attain their characteristic coat. There is some reason to
believe, as we shall see later, that in spite of the presence
of a little pigment and of occasional wholly pigmented young
ones, Himalayans must be regarded as true albinoes. Other
individual rabbits, but belonging to no particular breed,
are similarly marked, but in addition the eyeballs arc
black. Some domesticated mice are entirely white with the
exception that they have black eyeballs; and individuals
of this type are known in which there is a reduction of
pigment in the eyeballs, and since the colour of the blood
is then partially visible these appear of a reddish-black
colour. Such cases are interesting as representing the last
step in the graded series through which the condition of
complete pigmentation passes into that of complete albinism.
There is evidence, as shown by G. M. Allen, that partial
albinism is a condition in which pigment is reduced around
definite body centres, so that unpigmented areas occur
between the pigment patches or at their borders. In the
mouse, ten such centres may be distinguished, arranged
symmetrically five on either side of the median plane---a
cheek patch, neck patch, shoulder patch, side patch and rump
patch. Various degrees in the reduction of the pigment
patches up to that of complete elimination may be traced.
Some animals are wholly pigmented during the summer and
autumn, but through the winter and spring they are in the
condition of extreme partial albinism and become almost complete
albinoes. Such instances are found in the Scotch blue hare
(Lepus timidus), in the Norway hare, in the North American
hare (H. americanius), in the arctic fox (Canis lagopus),
in the stoat and ermine, and among birds, in the ptarmigan,
and some other species of Lagopus. How the change from the
autumnal to the winter condition takes place appears not to
be definitely settled in all cases, and accurate observations
are much to be desired. In the case of the Norway hare,
it has been stated that a general moult, including all the
hairs and under fur, takes place and new white hairs are
substituted. The process of moulting is said to begin in
the middle of autumn and is completed before the end of
December, by which time the fur is in its winter condition,
and is closer, fuller and longer than in summer (Naturalists'
Library, vol. vii.). On the other hand, it has been stated
that during the whole of the transformation in the fur no
hairs fall from the animal, and it is attributed to an actual
change in the colour of the hair (Edinburgh Philosophical
Journal, vol. xi. p. 191). In the case of the American
hare, however, some very careful observations have been
made by F. H. Welch. In this animal the long hairs (which
form the pile) become white at their extremities, and in
some of them this whiteness extends through their whole
length. At the same time, new hairs begin to develop and
to grow rapidly, and soon outstrip the hairs of the autumn
pile. From their first appearance these new hairs are white
and stiff, and they are confined to the sides and back of the
body. It is not clear from Welch's account what is the cause
of the whiteness of the tips of the hairs of the autumn coat,
but his figures suggest that it is due to the development
of gas in the interspaces between the keratin bridges and
trabeculae of the hairs. There is nothing to show whether
the pigment persists or is absorbed. Probably it persists.
In this event, the whiteness of the tips will be due to the
scattering or irregular reflexion of the incident rays of
light from the surface of the numerous gas bubbles. In the
case of the ptarmigan the evidence is clear that the existing
autumnal feathers do change, more or less completely, to
white. But the evidence is not conclusive as to whether any part
of the winter condition is additionally produced by moulting.
The condition of albinism thus assumed as a seasonal variation
is never complete, for the eyes at least retain their pigmented
state. The reason of this is readily understood when it is
borne in mind how disadvantageous to the function of sight is
the unpigmented condition of an albino's eyeball; a disadvantage
which would be probably much accentuated, in the cases now under
consideration, by the bright glare from the surface of the
snow, which forms the natural environment of these animals
at the particular period of the year when the winter change
occurs. In some cases, as in all the varying hares, in addition
to the eyes retaining their normal pigmentation, areas similar
in extent and situation to those on the Himalayan rabbits also
retain their pigmentation; and in the ptarmigan there is a
black band on each side of the head stretching forwards and
backwards from the eyeball, and the outer tail feathers are black.
Albinism is restricted to no particular class of the animal
kingdom; for partial albinism at least is known to occur in
Coelentera, worms, Crustacea, Myriapoda, Coleoptera,Arachnida and
fishes. The individuals in which this diminished pigmentation
is found are for the most part those living in caves, and
it is probable that their condition is not truly albinotic,
but only temporary and due to the absence of the stimulus of
light. This may be also true of some of those instances
that have occurred among frogs, in Proteus, and with an
axolotl once possessed by the present writer. This latter
animal was quite white, with the exception of the black
eyeballs. At the end of four weeks after it was first
purchased the dorsal or upper surface of its external gills
developed a small amount of dark pigment. Within the next
few weeks this increased in quantity and the dorsal surface
of the head and of the front end of the trunk began to be
pigmented. The animal died at the end of the eighth week, but
it is possible that had it lived it would have become wholly
pigmented. But, apart from these instances, albinism is known,
according to W. E. Castle, who cites it on the authority of Hugh
M. Smith, to occur among a breed of albino trout, which breed
true and are reared in the State fish-hatcheries of America.
With birds and mammals, however, there is no doubt that complete
albino individuals do occur; and among species which, like the
jackdaw, certain deer and rabbits, are normally deeply pigmented.
Albinism occurs in all races of mankind, among mountainous
as well as lowland dwellers. And, with man, as with other
animals, it may be complete or partial. Instances of the
latter condition are very common among the negroes of the United
States and of South America, and in them assumes a piebald
character, irregular white patches being scattered over the
general black surface of the body. Occasionally the piebald
patches tend to be symmetrically arranged, and sometimes the
eyeballs are pigmentless (pink) and sometimes pigmented (black).
According to A. R. Gunn, of Edinburgh Dniversity, who has
recently been investigating the subject of albinism in
man, there is reason to believe that a condition of piebald
albinism occurs also in Europeans (Scotsmen). He has examined
subjects in which the whole of the hair of the body is
white, but the eyeballs are pigmented, often deeply; and,
conversely, he has seen cases in which the eyes are pink
but the hair is pigmented. The hair and the eyes may be
regarded as skin patches, in which sometimes the one and
sometimes the other is pigmentless. He believes that, were
it not for the generally very pale colour of white-skinned
races, this piebald condition would be as manifest in
them as in negroes, over the whole surface of the body.
In complete human albinoes, albinism is correlated, in addition
to nystagmus, with a peculiar roughness of the skin, making it
harsh to the touch. The skin is also milky-white in appearance.
According to C. J. Sehgmann, there exists among the Papuans
an albinotic race whose skin varies in colour from a
pink-white to that of cafe au lait; the eyes are generally
greenish, hazel or brown, and the hair is tow-coloured. The
skin where unexposed is pinker than that of a normal North
European. Like complete albinoes, this race suffers from
photophobia, and is characterized by the albinotic facies.
Before we can inquire into the cause and meaning of albinism it
will be necessary first to consider the nature Of pigmentation.
It has recently been ascertained that the coloration of
certain sponges is due to the interaction of an oxydizing
ferment, tyrosinase, upon certain colourless chromogenic
substances. In 1901, Otto v. Furth and Hugo Schneider showed
that a tyrosinase could be obtained from the blood of certain
insects, and, acting upon a chromogen present in the blood,
converted it into a pigmentary substance of melanin-like
nature. Hans Przibram also extracted a tyrosinase from the
ink-sac of Sepia, and, causing it to act upon a watery
solution of tyrosin, obtained a black pigment. From the blood of
Bombyx mori, fe. von Ducceshi has also obtained a tyrosinase.
Subsequently (1903) L. Cuenot, in order to explain certain
features in the hereditary transmission of coat colour in
mice, postulated the hypothesis that the grey colour of
the wild mouse (which is known to be a compound of black,
chocolate and yellow pigments) may be due either to the
interaction of a single ferment and three chromogens, or vice
versa, to one chromogenic substance and three ferments.
Since then (1904) Miss Florence Durham has shown that if
the skins of young or embryonic mammals (rats, rabbits and
guinea-pigs) be ground up and extracted in water, and the
expressed juice be then incubated with solid tyrosin for
twenty-four hours, with the addition of a very small amount
of ferrous sulphate to act as an activator, a pigmentary
substance is thrown down. The colour of this substance
is that of the pigment in the skin or hairs of the animal
used. Miss Durham interprets her results as indicating that the
skin of these pigmented animals normally secretes one or more
tyrosinases. The same result was obtained from the skins of
some unhatched chickens. The skins of albinoes gave no results.
Not only have such resuits been obtained with sponges,
Insects, cephalopods, birds and mammals, but Em. Bourquelot
and G. Bertrand have shown that certain fungi, the tissues
of which, when exposed to the air by injury, become
immediately coloured, do so owing to the action of tyrosinase
upon one or more chromogenous substances present in the
plant. We may conceive, then, that a pigmented animal
owes its colour to the power that certain tissues of its
body possess to secrete both tyrosinases and chromogenic
substances. And the period at which this process is most
active is at birth, or preceding it or immediately succeeding
it. In spite of the inquiry being only in its initial stages,
there is already good evidence to believe that Cuenot's
theory is correct, and that an albino is an individual whose
skin lacks the power to secrete either the ferment or the
chromogen. It forms one but not both of these substances.
A moment's consideration, however, will show that, while
an albino may be an individual in which one or more of
the complementary bodies of pigmentation are absent, a
pigmented animal is something more than an individual which
carries all the factors necessary for the development of
colour. For it must be borne in mind that animals are not only
coloured but the colour is arranged in a more or less definite
pattern. The wild mouse, rat and rabbit are self-coloured,
but the domesticated forms include various piebald patterns,
such as spotted forms among mice, and the familiar black and
white hooded and dorsal-striped pattern of some tame rats.
Colour, therefore, must be correlated with some determinant
(determining factor) for pattern, and it cannot, therefore,
exist alone in an animal's coat. And we must conceive that
each kind of pattern---the self, the spotted, the striped,
the hooded and all others---has its own special determinant.
Given the presence of all the necessary determinants for
the development of pigment in a mammal's coat, some or all
of the hairs may bear this pigment according to the pattern
determinants, or absence of pattern determinants, which the
cells of the hair papillae carry. And this brings us to
the question as to whether in a piebald animal the pigmented
hairs are in any way different from the pigmentless or white
hairs. No adequate investigation of this subject has yet
been made, but some observations made by the author of this
article, on the piebald black and white rat, show that
differences connected with the microscopic structure exist.
There is thus evidence that colour is correlated with other
factors which determine pattern. And this leads to the
inquiry as to whether albinoes ever exhibit evidence that they
carry the pattern determinants in the absence of those for
pigmentation. For it is to be expected a priori that, since
albinoes were derived from pigmented progenitors and may at
any time appear, side by side with pigmented brothers, in
a litter from pigmented parents, they would be carrying the
pattern determinants of some one or other of their pigmented
ancestors. Now we know, from the numerous experiments in
heredity which have resulted since the rediscovery of Mendel's
principles, that an individual may carry a character in one of two
conditions. It may be carried as a somatic character, when it
will be visible in the body tissues, or it may be carried as a
gametic character, and its presence can only then be detected
in subsequent generations, by adequately devised breeding tests.
With regard to pattern, the evidence is now clear that
albinoes may carry the determinants in both these ways.
So far as they are carried gametically, i.e. by the
sex-cells, it has been shown by Cuenot and G. M. Allen for
mice, by C. C. Hurst for rabbits, and by L. Doncaster and
G. P. Mudge for rats, that in a cross between a coloured
individual of known gametic purity and an albino, the
individuals of the progeny in either the first or second, or
both generations, may differ, and that the difference in some
cases wholly depends upon the aihino used. It has been shown
that the individuals in such an offspring may bear patterns
which never occurred in the ancestry of the coloured parent,
but did in that of the albino; and, moreover, if the same
coloured parent be mated with another individual, either
albino or coloured, that their offspring may never contain
members bearing such patterns. The particular pattern
will only appear when the coloured parent is mated with
the particular albino. And yet the albino itself shows no
somatic pattern or pigment. So clear is the evidence on
this point that any one adequately acquainted at first hand
with the phenomena, by employing an albino of known gametic
structure and mating it with a coloured individual, also
of known gametic constitution, could predict the result.
With respect to albinoes carrying pattern as a visible somatiu
character, i.e. in the body cells, no definite evidence
has as yet been published. But W. Haacke has described a
single albino rat, in which he states that the hairs of the
shoulder and mid-dorsal regions were of a different texture
from those of the rest of the body. And it is possible
that this albino, had it developed colour, would have been
of the piebald pattern. But the author of this article has
quite recently reared some albinoes in which the familiar
shoulder hood and dorsah stripe of the piebald rat is
perfectly obvious, in spite of the absence of the slightest
pigmentation. The hairs which occupy the region which in
the pigmented individual is black, are longer, thinner and
more widely separated than those in the regions which are
white. As a result of this, the pink skin is quite visible
where these hairs occur, but elsewhere it is invisible. Thus
these albinocs exhibit a pattern of pink skin similar in form
with the black pattern of the piebald rat. Moreover, some
of the albinoes possess these particular ``pattern'' hairs
all over the body and obviously such individuals are carrying
the self pattern. There are other details into which we
cannot here enter, but which support the interpretation put
upon these facts, i.e: that these particular albinoes are
carrying in the soma the pattern determinants simultaneously
with the absence of some of the factors for pigmentation.
Not only do albinoes thus carry the determinants for pattern,
but it has been known for some time that they also carry
gametically, but never visible somatically, the determinants
for either the ferment or the chromogen for one or more
colours. L. Cuenot was the first to show this for albino
mice. He was able by appropriate experiments to demonstrate
that when an albino is derived (extracted) from a coloured
ancestry, and is then crossed with a coloured individual, both
the colour of the pigmented parent and of the pigmented ancestry
of the albino may appear among the individuals of the offspring.
Immediately subsequent to Cuenot, G. M. Allen in Ameriia
demonstrated the same Jact upon the same species of rodents.
C. C. Hurst, more recently, has shown that albino rabbits.
whether pure bred for eight generations at least, or extracted
from pigmented parents, may carry the determinants for black
or for black and grey. In this latter case the determinants
for black are carried by separate gametes from those carrying
grey, and the two kinds of sex-cells exist in approximately
equal numbers. This is likewise true of albino mice when
they carry the determinants for more than one colour.
Since Hurst's work, L. Doncaster and G. P. Mudge have both
shown that albino rats also carry in a latent condition
the determinants for black or grey. The experiments of the
latter author show that, if a gametically pure black rat be
crossed with an albino derived from a piebald black and white
ancestry, all the offspring in successive litters will be
black; but if the same black parent be crossed with albinoes
extracted from parents of which One or both are grey, then both
grey and black members will appear in the successive litters.
The proportions in which the various coloured individuals
appear are approximately those demanded by the Mendelian
principle of gametic purity and segregation. Cuenot and Hurst
have also shown that when albinoes of one colour extraction
are crossed with albinoes of another colour extraction the
segregation of the colour determinants in the gametogenesis
of the albinoes takes place in precisely the same way that it
does in the gametogenesis of a pigmented individual; that is,
in Mendelian fashion. Or, to express it otherwise, an albino
extracted from yellow parents, bred with an albino extracted
from black parents, will give an albino offspring whose
gametes in equal numbers are bearers of the black and yellow
determinants. And when one of these albinoes is bred with
a pure coloured individual, a mixed offspring will appear in
the first generation. Some of the individuals will be one
or other of the two colours, the determinants of which were
borne by the albino, and others the colour of the pigmented
parent. But in such albino crosses the colour characters
are latent because albinoes do not carry the whole of the
complements for colour production. They carry only some
determinant or determinants which are capable of developing
colour when they interact with some other determinant or
determinants carried alone by pigmented individuals. Whether
albinoes carry the tyrosinase or other ferment, or whether
they carry the chromogen or chromogens, is not yet settled.
Miss Durham's work suggests that they carry the latter. But
that they never bear both is proved by the fact that, when
albinoes are crossed with each other, none but albinoes ever
result in the offspring. One apparent exception to this rule
only is known, and this almost certainly was due to error.
It is not only among albino animals that colour factors
are carried in a latent condition, but also in white
flowers. W.. Bateson has shown this to be the case for the
sweet-pea (Lathyrus odoratus), var. Emily Henderson,
and for certain white and cream stocks (Matthiola.) When
white Emily Henderson (the race having round pollen grains)
is crossed with a blue-flowered pea, purple offspring
result. Similarly, when white Emily Henderson (long pollen
grains) is crossed with white Emily Henderson (round pollen
grains), the offspring wholly consists of the reversionary
purple type, and sometimes wholly of a red bicolor form known
as ``Painted Lady.'' These two types never appear in the same
family. With the stocks, when a white-flowered and hairless
form is crossed with a cream-flowered and hairless one, all
the offspring are purple and hairy. Bateson considers that
the purple colour is due to the simultaneous existence in
the plant of two colour factors which may be designated by
C and R. If either one of these two is absent the plant is
colourless. Cream-coloured flowers are regarded as white
because cream is due to yellow plastids and not to sap
colour. Thus the cream plant may carry C and the white
one R. When they are crossed the two factors for colour
production are brought together. Obviously, we may regard C
as a tyrosinase and R as a chromogen, or vice versa; and in
the case of the white sweetpea crossed with a blue-flowered
one, and producing purple offspring, we may imagine that
the white flower brought in an additional tyrosinase or a
chromogen not present in the blue flower, which, when combined
or mixed with the chromogen or tyrosinase for blue, gave
purple. A similar explanation may apply to C. Correns's
experiment, in which he crossed white Mirabilis jalapa with
a yellow form, and always obtained red-flowered offspring.
In heredity, complete albinism among animals is always
recessive; and partial albinism (piebald) is always recessive
to complete pigmentation (self-coloured). When an albino
mouse, rat, guinea-pig or rabbit is crossed with either
a pure self or pure pied-coloured form, the offspring are
similar to, though not always exactly like, the coloured
parent; provided, of course, that the albino is pure and
is not carrying some colour or pattern determinant which is
dominant to that of the coloured parent used. No albinoes,
in such a case, will appear among the first generation,
but if the individuals of this (F.1) generation are crossed
inter se or back crossed with the albino parenr, then
albino individuals reappear among the offspring. In the
former case they would form one-quarter of the individuals
of this second (F.2) generation, and in the latter, one-half.
The recessive nature of albinism and its distribution in
Mendelian fashion is almost certainly as true for man as
for lower forms. This has been shown by W. C. Farabee for
negroes in Coanoma county, Mississippi. The facts are as
follows. An albino negro married a normal negress. They had
three children, all males. All three sons married, and two
of them had only normal children, judged of course by somatic
characters. But the third son married twice, and by the
first wife had five normal and one albino children, and by
the second, six normal and three albino children. If we
assume that the two negresses which the third son married
were themselves carrying albinism recessive --an exceedingly
probable condition considering that albino negroes are not
uncommon---the result is accurately in accordance, as W. E.
Castle has shown, with Mendelian expectation. For there is
expected in the offspring of this third son coloured individuals
and albinoes in the proportion of 3:1. There is actually 11:4,
which is the nearest possible approximation with the number 15.
The operation of Mendelian processes in human heredity
is further shown by the close relationship that exists
between the appearance of albinoes and cousin marriages.
An albino is a homozygote; that is, all its gametes are
carrying the character of albinism and none of them bear the
alternative character --the allelomorph---of pigmentation. By
pigmentation is here meant all those factors which go to its
production. Now such a gametic (egg or sperm) constitution
can only result when two individuals, all or some of whose
gametes are pure with regard to the character albinism, meet in
fertilization. Hence it is readily seen that it is among
cousin marriages that the greater probabilities exist that
two individuals bearing identical characters will meet, than
in the population at large. This can be illustrated in the
following scheme. Let A stand for a pure albino and (A)N
for a normal person, who nevertheless carries the character
albinism (A) recessive. Then, in the scheme below, if Ab
and (A)Nb are two brothers who both marry normal wives
N, their children N(A) in the first case will be all normal
in appearance but will be carrying albinism recessive; and
in the second case some will be pure normal individuals
N, and some will be like the children of the first brother,
i.e. N(A). Now, if one of these latter children of the
second brother marries a cousin---a child of the first
brother,---their offspring, if large enough, will consist of
some pure normals N, impure normals N(A), and of albinoes A.
Ab X N (A)Nb X N
| |
N(A) N(A)+N
|
N+2N(A)+A
No other rational explanation of the close relationship
between albinism and cousin marriages is at present
forthcoming. And, when the whole facts are borne in
mind, there can be no reasonable doubt that the Mendelian
principles offer an intelligible solution of the problem.
A popular conception exists that albinoes are less
constitutionally strong than the pigmented individuals of
the same species. In support of this belief there is more or
less scientifically ascertained evidence. Conversely, there
is, however, conclusive evidence that in some instances and
in respect of certain qeialities the opposite belief is true.
To deal with the former belief first, we have the remarkable
case cited by Charles Darwin on the authority of Professor I. J.
Wyman. In Virginia the paint-root plant (Lachnanthes
tinctoria) occurs abundantly, and Professor Wyman noticed
that all the pigs in this district were black. Upon inquiry
of the farmers he found that all the white pigs born in a
litter were destroyed, because they could not be reared to
maturity. The root of this plant, when eaten by white pigs,
caused their bones to turn to a pink colour and their hoofs
to fall off, but the black pigs could eat the same plant with
impunity. Partial albinism in this case was undoubtedly
correlated with some inherent constitutional defect, in
virtue of which the individuals characterized by it were
injuriously affected by the juices of a plant quite innocuous
to their pigmented brethren. Heusinger has shown that
white sheep and pigs are injured by the ingestion of certain
plants, while the pigmented individuals may eat them without
harm. In Devonshire and in parts of Kent the farmers entertain
a marked prejudice against white pigs, because ``the sun
blisters their skin.'' More remarkable is the case of certain
cattle, whose skin is piebald, marked by a general ground
colour over which are scattered patches of unpigmented coat.
In these animals, in certain inflammatory skin eruptions,
caused by the ingestion of harmful plants, the albinotic
areas are alone affected. And with certain cutaneous diseases
accompanied by constitutional disturbances which afflict
cattle, the affection in the skin appears on the patches
bearing white hairs, the other parts remaining apparently
healthy. Such cases suggest that we should be more correct
in regarding, not albinism as correlated with constitutional
defects, but rather pigmentation as correlated with powers
of immunity or increased resistance against certain injurious
processes. In the West Indies ``the only horned cattle
fit for work are those which have a good deal of black in
them; the white are terribly tormented by the insects and
they are weak and sluggish in proportion to the black.''
Coming to man, it is known that some albino negroes are peculiarly
sensitive to the bites of insects; and with Europeans it is a
generally observed fact that the fairer individuals are more
seriously affected by the bites of fleas and bugs than are darker
ones. Dr Twining, in the British Association Reports for
1845, p. 79, cites some instances described by Humboldt, who
says that the copper-coloured natives of the high plain of
Bogoto, and at a lower level on the Magdalena river, were
generally free from goitre. Professor Poffig, also cited
by Dr Twining, states that on the east side of the Andes in
Chile, in some of the races which live there, he did not see
a single case of goitre, and yet in the white inhabitants, who
live exactly as the natives, it prevails in a great degree:
Turning now to instances of the opposite kind, it is known
that silkworms which spin colourless cocoons are more resistant
to the attacks of a certain deadly fungus than are those
which spin the yellow ones. In some parts of North America
it is found that the white peaches are much less liable to
the attack of a disease known as the ``yellows'' than are
the yellow-fleshed ones. In the region of the Mississippi,
Farabee has observed that the albino negroes are taller and
broader than the black-skinned individuals. We may assume
that increased stature and breadth imply some sort of inherent
physical superiority, and if such an assumption is valid we
have in man evidence that albinism is correlated not with
constitutional defectiveness but with greater perfectness.
But the question as to whether albinoes are more or less
constitutionally vigorous than pigmented individuals of the
same species may be tested by exact measurement. In 1893 W. D.
Halliburton and T. G. Brodie, in ascertaining the physiological
pijoperties of nucleo-proteids, found that when they were
intravascularly injected into pigmented rabbits, coagulation
of the blood resulted, but of the eight albinoes which they
used, none clotted. At a subsequent period (1897) Halliburton
and J. W. Pickering showed that the three synthesized colloids
of Grimaux in the same way produced coagulation in pigmented
animals, but failed to do so in albinoes. Pickering, still
later, showed, in the case of four Norway hares, two of
which were injected while in their pigmented or summer
coat, and two while in their albino or winter coat, that
coagulation occurred in the former cases but not in the latter.
Quite recently, however, the author of this article has made
a more detailed examination of the question, operating upon
several hundreds of rabbits. And he found that all albinoes
do not fail to clot when intravascularly injected with
nucleoproteids. Only about 9% of them thus failed absolutely
to manifest any trace of coagulation. But about 7% showed
an exceedingly limited coagulation, in which the clot was
colourless and flocculent, and confined to the heart. The
rest gave a typical and more or less wide-spread coagulation.
Moreover, it was found that all the failures of coagulation
occurred when the nucleo-proteid used was obtained from pigmented
animals. When it was derived from albinoes no failures
occurred. All pigmented animals clotted when the nucleo-proteid
was derived from either source. The Himalayan rabbits reacted
like complete albinoes, and 12% of them failed to clot when
injected with nucleo-proteid extracted from pigmented animals.
The interesting fact was thus ascertained that all albinoes are not
alike. To students of heredity this is precisely what would
have been expected. For, as the facts above described show,
albinoes, though apparently identical externally, are yet the
carriers of different hereditary characters. Among albino
rats, for instance, the author of this article has reason to
believe, upon theoretical grounds resting on an experimental
basis, that probably no less than thirteen types exist.
With rabbits and mice there must be a still larger number.
In the intravascular coagulation experiments above described,
all the rabbits were carefully weighed, and the amount of
nucleoproteid injected until coagulation occurred was measured.
This would give for albinoes and pigmented individuals the
amount per kilogramme of body-weight required to kill in each
case, and would afford a measurement of the relative resistance
of the two races. It was found that the resistance of albinoes
towards the coagulative effects of injected nucleo-proteids
was to that of pigmented individuals as 1.5 to 1.0. In this
case, the greater constitutional vigour of the albino is
thus accurately demonstrated. But it does not necessarily
follow that with other materials and with other constitutional
qualities the state of things would not be reversed.
One other feature remains to be mentioned. Albinism appears,
in the processes of heredity, to be sometimes indissolubly
correlated with certain peculiar traits. It is well known
that the long-haired albino rabbit, called Angora, when at
rest, has the habit of swaying its head sideways in a peculiar
fashion. C. C. Hurst has shown that the long-haired and
albino characters are always accompanied in heredity with the
swaying habit. The Angora character never occurs without it.
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Studies in the Physiology of Heredity,'' Reports to the
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Hurst, Reports to the Evolution Committee of the Royal
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Pigmented Vertebrates,'' Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. lxxiv.;
W. C. Farabee, ``Notes on Negro Albinism,'' Science, N.S.
vol. xvii. (New York); Furth v. Schneider, Beitr. z.
Chem. Phys. u. Path. Bd. 1; W. Haacke, ``Ueber Wesen,
Ursachen und Vererbung von Albinismus und Scheckung, &c.,',
Biol. Centralbl. Bd. 15; Halliburton and Brodie, Journ.
Phys. Camb. and Lond. vols. xiv., xvi., xvii., xviii.;
Halliburton and Pickering, Journ. Phys. vol. xviii.; C. C.
Hurst, ``Experimental Studies on Heredity in Rabbits,'' Journ.
Lin. Soc. Sool. vol. xxix.; Geo. P. Mudge, ``Intravascular
Coagulation and Albinism, Preliminary Note,'' Proc. Phys.
Soc., 1905; Packard, Memoirs of National Academy of Sciences
(1888); Pickering, Journ. Phys. vols. xviii. and xx.; E. B.
Poulton, Colour of Animals (Lond., 1890); Twining, Brit.
Assoc. Reports, 1845; H. M. Vernon, Variation in Animals
and Plants (London, 1903) F. H. Welch, ``Winter Coat in
Lepus americanus,'' Proc. Zool. Soc., 1869. (G. P. M.)
ALBINONI, TOMASSO (c. 1674--c. 1745), Italian musician,
was born at Venice. He was a prolific composer of operas
attracting contemporary attention for their originality,
but is more remarkable as a composer of instrumental music,
which greatly attracted the attention of Bach, who wrote
at least two fugues on Albinoni's themes and constantly
used his basses for harmony exercises for his pupils.
ALBINOVANUS PEDO, Roman poet, flourished during the Augustan
age. He wrote a Theseis, referred to in a letter from his
intimate friend Ovid (Ex Ponto, iv. 10), epigrams which
are commended by Martial (ii. 77, v. 5) and an epic poem on
the exploits of Germanicus. He had the reputation of being
an excellent raconteur, and Quintilian (x. i. 90) awards him
qualified praise as a writer of epics. All that remains of
his works is a beautiful fragment, preserved in the Suasoriae
(i. 15) of the rhetorician Seneca, from a description of the
Voyage of Germanicus (A.D. 16) through the river Ems to the
Northern Ocean, when he was overtaken by the storm described
by Tacitus (Ann. ii. 23). The cavalry commander spoken of
by the historian is probably identical with the poet. Three
elegies were formerly attributed to Pedo by Scaliger; two
on the death of Maecenas (In Obitum Maecenatis and De
Verbis Maecenatis moribundi), and one addressed to Livia to
console her for the death of her son Drusus (Consolatio ad
Liviam de Morte Drusi or Epicedion Drusi, usually printed
with Ovid's works); but it is now generally agreed that they
are not by Pedo. The Consolatio has been put down as late
as the 15th century as the work of an Italian imitator, there
being no MSS. and no trace of the poem before the publication
of the editio princeps of Ovid in 1471. There is an
English verse translation of the elegies by Plumptre (1907).
See Bahrens, Poetae Latini Minores (1879) and Fragmenta
Poetarum Latinorum (1886); Haupt, Opuscula, i. (1875);
Haube, Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Albinovanus Pedo (1880).
ALBINUS (originally WEISS), RERNHARD SIEGFRIED
(1697-1770), German anatomist, was born on the 24th of February
1697, at Frankfort-on-Oder, where his father, Bernhard Albinus
(1653-1721), was professor of the practice of medicine. In 1702
the latter was transferred to the chair of medicine at Leiden,
and it was there that Bernhard Siegfried began his studies,
having for his teachers such men as H. Boerhaave and Nikolaus
Bidloo. Having finished his studies at Leiden, he went to
Paris, where, under the instruction of Sebastien Vaillant
(1669-1722), J. B. Winslow (1669-1760) and others, he devoted
himself especially to anatomy and botany. After a year's
absence he was, on the recommendation of Boerhaave, recalled
in 1719 to Leiden to be a lecturer on anatomy and surgery.
Two years later he succeeded his father in the professorship
of these subjects, and speedily became one of the most famous
teachers of anatomy in Europe, his class-room being resorted
to not only by students but by many practising physicians.
In 1745 Albinus was appointed professor of the practice of
medicine, being succeeded in the anatomical chair by his
brother Frederick Bernhard (1715-1778), who, as well as another
brother, Christian Bernhard (1700-1752), attained considerable
distinction. Bernhard Siegfried, who was twice rector of his
university, died on the 9th of September 1770 at Leiden.
ALBION (in Ptolemy 'Alouion; Lat. Albion, Pliny
4.16[30],102), the most ancient name of the British Islands,
though generally restricted to England. The name is perhaps
of Celtic origin, but the Romans took it as connected
with albus, white, in reference to the chalk-cliffs of
Dover, and A. Holder (Alt-Keltischer Sprachschatz, 1896)
unhesitatingly translates it Weissland, ``whiteland.''
The early writer (6th cent. B.C.) whose periplus is
translated by Avienus (end of 4th cent. A.D.) does not
use the name Britannia; he speaks of nesos 'Iernon kai
'Albionon (``island of the Ierni and the Albiones''). So
Pytheas of Massilia (4th cent. B.C.) speaks of ''Albion
and 'Ierne. From the fact that there was a tribe called
the Albiones on the north coast ot Spain in Asturia, some
scholars have placed Albion in that neighbourhood (see G. F.
Unger, Rhein. Mus. xxxviii., 1883, pp. 156-196). The name
Albion was taken by medieval writers from Pliny and Ptolemy.
ALBION, a city of Calhoun county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the
Kalamazoo river, 21 m. W. of Jackson. Pop. (1890) 3763;
(1900) 4519, of whom 622 were foreign-born; (1904) 4943; (1910)
5833. Albion is served by the Michigan Central and the
Jackson division of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern
railways, and by an inter-urban electric line. The city has
a public park and a public library. The W. part of the city
has most of the factories; the principal manufactures are
flour, agricultural implements, windmills, gasolene engines,
harness and proprietary medicines. On a commanding site in
the E. part of the city is Albion College (Methodist Episcopal;
co-educational), embracing a College of Liberal Arts, a
preparatory department, a conservatory of music, a school of
art, a school of oratory, a normal course, and a commercial
department. The college was incorporated in 1835 as Spring
Arbor Seminary, and in 1839 by an amended charter was located
at Albion, where it was first opened in 1843 under the
name of the Wesleyan Seminary of Albion; in 1849 it became
the Wesleyan Seminary and Female Collegiate Institute,
with power to grant degrees to women only; but in 1861 the
present name was adopted and the college was permitted to
grant degrees to men and women. In 1906 it had a library
of 16,500 volumes, a faculty of 19, and an enrolment of 483
(211 being women). The municipality owns and operates the
water-works, the water-supply being obtained from artesian
wells. Albion was settled in 1831, was incorporated as
a village in 1866 and was chartered as a city in 1885.
ALBION, a village and the county-seat of Orleans county, New
York, U.S.A., about 30 m. W.N.W. of Rochester. Pop. (1890)
4586; (1900) 4477, (984 being foreign-born and 43 negroes);
(1905, state census) 5174; (1910) 5016. The village is
served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway, by the
Buffalo, Lockport & Rochester electric railway, and by the Erie
Canal. In Albion are the Western House of Refuge for Women
(a state institution established in 1890), a public park, the
Swan Library, and the county buildings, including the court
house, the jail and the surrogate's office; and about 2 m.
to the S.E. is the beautiful Mount Albion Cemetery. Albion
is the centre of the Medina sandstone industry, and lies
in the midst of a good farming region, of which it is the
principal shipping point, especially for apples, cabbages and
beans. The village manufactures agricultural implements,
vinegar, evaporated fruit, and canned fruit and vegetables, and
has two large cold-storage houses. Albion was settled in 1812,
was incorporated in 1823 and became the county-seat in 1825.
ALBITE, a mineral of the felspar group, belonging to the
division of the plagioclases (q.v..) It is a sodium and
aluminium silicate, NaAlSi3O8, and crystallizes in the anorthic
system. Like all the felspars it possesses two cleavages,
one perfect and the other less so, which are here inclined at
an angle of 86 deg. 24'. On the more perfect cleavage, which is
parallel to the basal plane (P), is a system of fine striations,
parallel to the second cleavage (M), due to twinning according
to the,``albite law'' (figs. 1 and 2). The hardness is 6,
and the specific gravity 2.63. The colour is usually pure
white, hence the name (from the Lat. albus) for the species.
Albite forms an essential constituent of many acidic igneous and
FIG. 1. FIG. 2.
crystalline rocks; Twinned crystals of Albite. in granites,
diorites, andesites, &c., it occurs as a primary mineral,
whilst in crystalline schists, phyllites and crystalline
limestones it is of secondary (metamorphic) origin. The
beautifully developed crystals so abundant in crystal-lined
crevices of Alpine granites and gneisses have been deposited,
with other minerals, from solution; the crystals lining veins
in the slates of Tintagel in Cornwall have the same origin.
Several varieties of albite are distinguished, of which
the following may be here specially mentioned. Pericline
(from the Gr. periklines, ``sloping'') is the name given
to large opaque white crystals from the chlorite-schists
of the Alps; they are tabular parallel to the direction of
perfect cleavage and are twinned according to the ``pericline
law.'' Peristerite (from the Gr. peristera, a dove) is
characterized by a beautiful bluish sheen, somewhat resembling
that seen on the neck of a pigeon; it is found mainly in
Ontario. Aventurine and moonstone varieties occur, though
these special appearances are more usually displayed by the
oligoclase and orthoclase felspars respectively. (L. J. S.)
'ALBO, JOSEPH, a Spanish Jewish theologian of the 15th
century. He was author of a very popular book on the philosophy
of Judaism, entitled `Iqqarim or Fundamentals. Maimonides
in the 12th century had formulated the principles of Judaism in
thirteen articles; Albo reduced them to three: (i) The Existence
of God, (ii) Revelation and (iii) Divine Retribution. Albo
set the example of minimizing Messianism in the formulation
of Jewish beliefs. Though he fully maintained the Mosaic
authorship of the Law and the binding force of tradition, he
discriminated between the essential and the non-essential in
the practices and beliefs of Judaism. An English translation
of the `Iqqarim appeared in the Hebrew Review, vols. i.-iii.
ALBOIN (d. 572 or 573), king of the Lombards, and conqueror
of Italy, succeeded his father Audoin about 565. The
Lombards were at that time dwelling in Noricum and Pannonia
(archduchy of Austria, Styria and Hungary, west of the
Danube). In alliance with the Avars, and Asiatic people
who had invaded central Europe, Alboin defeated the Gepidae,
a powerful nation on his eastern frontier, slew their king
Cunimund, whose skull he fashioned into a drinking-cup, and
whose daughter Rosamund he carried off and made his wife.
Three years later (in 568), on the alleged invitation of Narses
(q.v.), who was irritated by the treatment he had received
from the emperor Justin II., Alboin invaded Italy, probably
marching over the pass of the Predil. He overran Venetia and
the wide district which we now call Lombardy, meeting with
but feeble resistance till he came to the city of Ticinum
(Pavia), which for three years (569-572) kept the Lombards at
bay. While this siege was in progress Alboin was also engaged
in other parts of Italy, and at its close he was probably
master of Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany, as well as of the
regions which afterwards went by the name of the duchies
of Spoleto and Benevento. In 572 or 573, however, he was
assassinated by his chamberlain Peredeo at the instigation
of Queen Rosamund, whom Alboin had grievously insulted by
forcing her to drink wine out of her father's skull. After
his death and the short reign of his successor Cleph the
Lombards remained for more than ten years in a state of anarchy.
The authorities for the history of Alboin are Procopius, Paulus
Diaconus and Agnellus (in his history of the church of Ravenna).
ALBONI, MARIETTA (1823-1894), Italian opera-singer, was
born at Cesena, Romagna, and was trained in music at Bologna,
where she became a pupil of Rossini. She had a magnificent
contralto voice, and in 1843 made her first appearance
at La Scala, Milan, being recognized at once as a public
favourite. In England her reputation was established by her
appearance at Covent Garden in 1847, and she had brilliant
success all over Europe in the leading operatic roles;
in 1853 she repeated these triumphs in the United States.
Indeed, with the exception of Malibran, she had no compeer
among the contraltos of the century, the old Italian school
of singing finding in her a really great representative. She
married first Count A. Pepoh, who died in 1866, and secondly
(1877) a French officer, M. Zieger; she lived in Paris
after her first marriage, and died at Ville d'Avray in 1894.
ALBORNOZ, GIL ALVAREZ DE, Spanish cardinal, was born at
Cuenca early in the 14th Century. He was the son of Gil Alvarez
de Albornoz and of Dona Teresa de Luna, sister of Kimeno de
Luna, archbishop of Toledo. He was educated at Saragosa,
while his uncle was bishop of that see, and studied law at
Toulouse. The powerful influence of his family opened him
a public career early in life. He was made archdeacon of
Calatrava, and became a member of the king's council while
young. In 1337 he was chosen archbishop of Toledo in
succession to his uncle by the favour of the king, Alphonso
XI. At the battle of Tarifa he fought against a great invasion
from Africa in 1340, and at the taking of Algeciras in 1344
he led the armed levy of his archbishopric. In 1343 he
had been sent to Pope Clement VI. at Avignon to negotiate
a grant of a tax on the revenues of the Church for the
Crusade. His military and diplomatic ability became known
to the pope, who made him a cardinal in 1350. Albornoz left
Spain on the death of the king Alphonso XI. in that year, and
never returned. It has been said, but not on contemporary
evidence, that he fled from fear of Peter the Cruel. In 1353
Innocent VI. sent him as a legate into Italy, with a view to
the restoration of the papal authority in the states of the
Church. He was recalled in 1357, but was sent again to
Italy after a brief interval, and in 1362 had paved the way
for the return of Urban V. to Rome. As legate, Albornoz
showed himself to be an astute manager of men and effective
fighter. He began by making use of Rienzi, whose release
from prison at Avignon he secured. After the murder of
the tribune in 1354 Albornoz pursued his task of restoring
the pope's authority by intrigue and force with remarkable
success. As a mark of gratitude the pope appointed him
legate at Bologna in 1367, but he died at Viterbo the same
year. According to his own desire his remains were carried
to Toledo, where Henry of Castile caused them to be entombed
with almost royal honours. A work by Albornoz on the
constitution of the Church of Rome, first printed at Jesi in
1473, is now very rare. The college of St Clement at Bologna
was founded by Albornox for the benefit of Spanish students.
See ``De Vita et Rebus Gestis Aegidii Albornotii,'' in Sepulveda's
Opera Omnia, vol. iv. (1780); Cardenal Albornoz der zweite
Begrunder des Kirchenstaates, by Dr H. J. Wurm (1892).
ALBRECHTSBERGER, JOHANN GEORG (1736-1809), Austrian
musician, was born at Kloster-Neuburg, near Vienna, on the 3rd
of February 1736. He studied musical composition under the
court organist, Mann, and became one of the most learned and
skilful contrapuntists of his age. After being employed as
organist at Raab and Maria-Taferl, he was appointed in 1772
organist to the court of Vienna, and in 1792 Kapellmeister
of St Stephen's cathedral. His fame as a theorist attracted
to him in the Austrian capital a large number of pupils,
some of whom afterwards became eminent musicians. Among
these were Beethoven, Hummel, Moscheles and Josef Weigl
(1766-1846). Albrechtsberger died in Vienna on the 7th of March
1809. His published compositions consist of preludes, fugues
and sonatas for the piano and organ, string quartets, &c.; but
the greater proportion of his works, vocal and instrumental,
exists only in manuscript. They are in the library of the
Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Probably the most
valuable service he rendered to music was in his theoretical
Works. In 1790 he published at Leipzig a treatise on composition,
of which a third edition appeared in 1821. A collection
of his writings on harmony, in three volumes, was published
under the care of his pupil Ignaz von Seyfried (1776-1841) in
1826. There is an English version of this published by
Novello in 1855. Beethoven knew his own needs when he put
himself under Albrechtsberger on finding that Haydn was not
thoroughly disposed for the trouble of training him; and
though Albrechtsberger could see nothing in him, and warned his
other pupils against ``that young man who would never turn out
anything in good style,'' he justified Beethoven's confidence.
ALBRET. The lordship (seigneurie) of Albret (Labrit,
Lebret), situated in the Landes, gave its name to one of
the most powerful feudal families of France in the middle
ages. Its members distinguished themselves in the local wars
of that apoch; and during the 14th century they espoused the
English cause for some time, afterwards transferring their
support to the side of France. Arnaud Amanieu, lord of
Albret, helped to take Guienne from the English. His son
Charles became constable of France, and was killed at the
battle of Agincourt in 1415. Alain the Great, lord of Albret
(d. 1522), wished to marry Anne of Brittany, and to that end
fought against Charles VIII.; but his hopes being defeated by
the betrothal of Anne to Maximilian of Austria, he surrendered
Nantes to the French in 1486. At that time the house of
Albret had attained considerable territorial importance, due
in great part to the liberal grants which it had obtained
from successive kings of France. John of Albret, son of
Alain, became king of Navarre by his marriage with Catherine of
Foix. Their son Henry, king of Navarre, was created duke
of Albret and peer of France in 1550. By his wife Margaret,
sister of the French king, Francis I., he had a daughter, Jeanne
d'Albret, queen of Navarre, who married Anthony de Bourbon,
duke of Vendome, and became the mother of Henry IV., king of
France. The dukedom of Albret, united to the crown of France
by the accession of this prince, was granted to the family of
La Tour d'Auvergne in 1651, in exchange for Sedan and Raucourt.
To a younger branch of this house belonged Jean d'Albret,
seigneur of Orval, count of Dreux and of Rethel, governor
of Champagne (d. 1524), who was employed by Francis I.
in many diplomatic negotiations, more particularly in his
intrigues to get himself elected emperor in 1519. (M. P.*)
ALBRIGHT, JACOB (1759-1808), American clergyman, was
born near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of May
1759. He was of ``Pennsylvania-German'' parentage, his name
being originally Albrecht, and was educated in the Lutheran
faith. At an early age he became a tile-burner. In 1790
he was converted to Methodism, and in 1796 determined to
devote himself to preaching that faith among the Pennsylvania
Germans. His efforts met with great success, and in 1800
he founded what was virtually a new and independent church
organization on the Methodist system, of which he became
the presiding elder, and eventually (1807) bishop. This
church is officially the Evangelical Association, but its
adherents have been variously known as ``New Methodists.''
``Albrights,'' and ``Albright Brethren.'' Albright died
on the 18th of May 1808, at Muhlbach, Pennsylvania.
ALBUERA, or ALBUHERA, LA, a small village of Spain,
in the province of Badajoz, 13 m. S.E. of the town of that
name. Pop. (1900) 820. Albuera is celebrated on account of the
victory gained there on the 16th of May 1811 by the British,
Portuguese and Spaniards, under Marshal Beresford, over the
French army commanded by Marshal Soult. (See PENINSULAR WAR.)
ALBUFERA DE VALENCIA, a lagoon, 7 m. S. of Valencia in
Spain, about 12 m. in length and 4 in breadth, 12 ft. being
its greatest depth. It communicates with the sea by a narrow
outlet, which can be opened or closed at pleasure. The lake
is crown property, and is of great value from the fish and
wild-fowl with which it abounds. Rice is grown in large
quantities by the inhabitants of the adjoining villages. In
1812 Marshal Suchet was created duke of Albufera by Napoleon
for his conquest of Valencia, and invested with the domain; but
the battle of Vittoria in 1813 deprived him of his possession,
though he still retained the title. Subsequently the revenues
of Albufera were conferred upon the duke of Wellington in token
of the gratitude of the Spanish nation. (See PENINSULAR WAR.)
ALBULAE AQUAE, a group of springs, 4 m. W. of Tibur, the
water of which is bluish, strongly impregnated with sulphur and
carbonate of lime, and rises at a temperature of about 75 deg. F.
Remains of a Roman thermal establishment exist near the principal
spring, the so-called Lago della Regina (which is continually
diminishing in size owing to the deposit left by the water),
and dedicatory inscriptions in honour of the waters have been
found. The baths are still frequented by the Romans, though
the modern establishment is about 1 m. S. on the high road.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii. 117.
ALBULA PASS, now the principal route from the N. to the Upper
Engadine in the Swiss Canton of the Grisons. It was already
frequented in the 13th century, while a carriage road (highest
point, 7595 ft.) was constructed across it in 1865, but for a
long time it was not as much used as the easier and more direct
Julier Pass (7504 ft.), until the opening of the railway in
1903, which has vastly increased its practical importance.
Starting from Coire the Rhine valley is followed to Reichenau
(6 1/4 m.), and then that of the Hinter Rhine to Thusis (10 1/2
m.). The line then runs through the grand Schyn gorge (cut by
the Albula torrent) to Tiefenkastell (7 1/2 m.), where it leaves
the Julier road on the right (S.) and continues to follow the
course of the Albula past Filisur and Bergun (12 1/2 m.) to
the mouth (5879 ft.) of the great tunnel (3 3/4 m. in length;
highest point, 5987 ft.) which has been pierced below the
pass. The descent lies through the Bevers glen to Bevers (2 1/2
m.), where the Upper Engadine is reached, about 5 m. below St.
Moritz, which is 56 m. from Coire by this route. (W. A. B. C.)
ALBUM (Lat. albus, white), in ancient Rome, a board
chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts and other
public notices were inscribed in black. The Annales Maximi
of the Pontifex Maximus, the annual edicts of the praetor,
the lists of Roman and municipal senators (decuriones) and
jurors (album indicum) were exhibited in this manner. In
medieval and modern times album denotes a book of blank
pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs
and the like are collected. It is also applied to the
official list of matriculated students in a university, and
to the roll in which a bishop inscribes the names of his
clergy. In law, the word is the equivalent of mailles
blanches, for rent paid in silver (``white'') money.
ALBUMAZAR, more properly ABU-MAASCHAR (805-885), Arab
astronomer, was born at Balkh, flourished at Bagdad,
and died at Wasid in Central Asia. His principal works
are: De Magnis Conjunctionibus (Augsburg, 1489);
Introductorium in Astronomiam (Venice, 1506); and
Flores Astrologici (Augsburg, 1488). He maintained in the
first that the world, created when the seven planets were
in conjunction in the first degree of Aries, will come to
an end at a like conjunction in the last degree of Pisces.
See Biog. Universelle (Jourdain); Lalande, Bibliographie
Astronomique; Poggendorff, Biog. literarisches
Handworterbuch; Houzeau, Bibl. Astronomique.
ALBUMIN, or ALBUMEN (Lat. albus, white), an organic
substance typical of a group of bodies (albumins or
albuminates) of very complicated chemical composition. They
are sometimes called the histogenetic bodies or proteids,
because they are essential to the building up of the animal
organism. The vegetable kingdom is the original source of
albuminous substances, the albumins being found in greatest
quantity in the seed. They also occur in the fluids of the
living organism. The chemistry of the albumins is one of
the most complicated and difficult in the whole domain of
organic chemistry. It has attracted the attention of many
workers, and has formed the subject of a huge literature.
In this field Bechamp, Cohnheim, Albrecht Kossel, and,
especially, Emil Fischer and his pupils have been extremely
active. The general trend of these researches lies in the
study of the decomposition or ``breaking down'' products of
the albumin molecules; once these are accurately determined,
the synthesis of an albumin is but a matter of time. Already
we have proceeded far in our knowledge of the decomposition
products, and certain simple proteids have been synthesized.
General characters.
The albumins contain in all cases the elements carbon, hydrogen,
nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen; their composition, however,
varies within certain limits: C = 50-55%, H = 6.9-7.3%, N. =
15-19%, S = 0.3-2.4%, O = 19-24%, crystallized albumin is C =
51.48%, H = 6.76%, N = 8.14%, S = 0.96%, O = 22.66%, which
points to the formula C720H1134N218S5O248,
corresponding to the molecular weight 16,954. A high molecular
weight characterizes these substances, but so far no definite
value has been determined by either physical or chemical means;
A. P. Sabanezhev obtained the value 15,000 by Raoult's method
for purified egg albumin. All albumins are laevo-rotatory; and
on incineration a small amount of inorganic ash is invariably
left. They are usually insoluble in water, alcohol and ether;
and their presence as solutes in vegetable and animal fluids
is not yet perfectly understood, but it is probably to be
connected with the presence of salts or other substances. A
remarkable change occurs when many albumins are boiled with
water, or treated with certain acids, their solubility and
general characters being entirely altered, and the fluid becoming
coagulated. This change is seen in the transformation of the
``white'' of an egg on boiling. Albumins are generally detected
by taking advantage of this property, or of certain colour
changes. The reagents in common use are: Millon's reagent,
a solution of mercuric nitrate containing nitrous acid, this
gives a violet-red coloration; nitric acid, which gives a
yellow colour, turning to gold when treated with ammonia
(xanthoproteic reaction); fuming sulphuric acid, which gives
violet solutions; and caustic potash and copper sulphate, which,
on warming, gives a red to violet coloration (biuret reaction).
Decomposition products.
Boiling with dilute mineral acids, or baryta water, decomposes
albumins into carbon dioxide, ammonia and fatty amino- and other
acids. These decomposition products include: glycocoll or
aminoacetic acid, NH2CH2COOH, alanine or aminopropionic
acid, CH3.CH(NH2).COOH, a-aminobutyric acid,
a-aminovalerianic acid, leucin or isobutyl-a-aminoacetic
acid, (CH3)2CH.CH2.CH(NH2).COOH, isoleucin, probably
b-aminocaproic acid, serin or a-amino- b-hydroxypropionic
acid, HO.CH2.CH(NH2).COOH, aspartic acid or aminosuccinic
acid, HOOC.CH2.CH(NH2).COOH, glutaminic acid or a-amino-
n-glutaric acid, HOOC.(CH2)2.CH(NH2).COOH, diaminoacetic acid,
a-b-diaminopropionic acid, lysin. or a-e-diamino-n-caproic
acid, NH2(CH2)4.CH(NH2).COOH, arginin or guanidine-a-amino-
n-valerianic acid, (NH)(NH2)C.NH.(CH2)3.CH(NH2).COOH,
ornithin or ad-diamino valerianic acid,
NH2.(CH2)3.CH(NH2).COOH, histidin or a-amino- b-imidazol-
_________________
| |
propionic acid HOOC.CH(NH2).CH2.C:CH.N:CH.NH, proline
_________________________________
| |
or a-pyrrolidin carboxylic acid, HOOC.CH.NH.CH2.CH2.CH2,
hydroxyproline, phenyl alanine or phenyl-a-aminopropionic
acid, C6H5.CH2.CH(NH2).COOH, tyrosine or p-hydroxyphenyl-
a- aminopropionic acid, phenyl ethylamine, p-hydroxyphenyl
ethylamine, tryptophane or indol aminopropionic acid,
A. cystin (protein-cystin) or a-amino-b-thioglyceric
acid ``disulphide,'' (S.CH2.CH(NH2).COOH)2, B.
cystin (stone-cystin), or a-thio-b-aminoglyceric acid
``disulphide,'' (NH2.CH2.CH:S.COOH)2. This list is
not exhaustive; other products are given in Gustav Mann,
Chemistry of the Proteids (1906), to which reference should
be made for a complete account of this class of compounds.
Classification of albumins.
The complexity of composition militates in a great measure
against a rational classification of albumins by purely chemical
considerations. Such classifications have been attempted by
A. Kossel and by W. Kuhne and E. P. Pick; but in the present
state of our knowledge, however, the older classification
of E. Dreschel and F. Hoppe- Seyler, based primarily on
solubilities and distribution, may be conveniently retained.
This classification is with certain modifications as follows:-
I. Albumins proper: characterized by having colloidal solutions.
(1) Albumins: serum-albumin, egg-albumin, albumin.
(2) Globulins: serum-globulin, egg-globulin, lacto-
globulin, cell-globulins.
(3) Plant-globulins and plant-vitellines.
(4) Fibrinogen.
(5) Myosin.
(6) Phosphorus containing albumins (nucleo-albumins),
caseins, vitellines, nucleo-albumins of the cell-
protoplasm, mucoid nucleo-albumins.
(7) Histones.
(8) Protamines.
II. Transformation products of the albumins proper.
(1) Acid-albumins, alkali albuminates.
(2) Albumoses, peptones and peptides.
(3) Halogen-albumins, oxyprotein, oxyprotsulphonic
acid, &c.
III. Proteids.
(1) Nucleo-proteids.
(2) Haemoglobin and allied substances.
(3) Glyco-proteids, mucins, mucoids, helico-proteid.
IV. Albuminoids.
(1) Collagen.
(2) Keratin.
(3) Elastin.
(4) Fibroin.
(5) Spongin, &c.
(6) Amyloid.
(7) Albumoid.
(8) Colouring matters derived from albumin.
Albumins proper.--Albumins (as classified above) are
soluble in water, dilute acids and alkalies, and in
saturated neutral salt solutions; they are coagulated by
heat. ``Serum- albumin,'' or ``blood-albumin,'' possibly
C450H720N116S6O140, occurs in blood-serum,
lymph, chyle, milk, &c.; its coagulation temperature is about
67 deg. . It differs from egg-albumin in its specific rotation
(-57 deg. to -64 deg. ), and in being slowly coagulated by alcohol and
ether. Egg-albumin is the chief constituent of the white
of egg; this fluid also contains a globulin and a mucoid.
It coagulates at about 56 deg. , and its specific rotation is
-30.70 deg. . ``Lact-albumin'' occurs in all kinds of milk.
The globulins are insoluble in water and in dilute acids,
but soluble in alkalies and in neutral salt solutions; these
solutions are coagulated on boiling. ``Serum-globulin,'' also
termed globulin or fibrino-plastic globulin, paraglobulin and
paraglobin, occurs in blood serum; ``cell-globulins'' occur
in many organs--liver, kidneys, pancreas and the thyroid
gland, also in muscle-plasma; ``crystalline,'' a globulin
occurring in two forms a and b, is found in the lens
of the eye; ``egg-globulin'' and ``lacto- globulin'' occur
respectively in the white of egg and in milk. Plant albumins
or phyto-albumins have been chiefly investigated in the case
of those occurring in seeds; most are globulins, insoluble
in pure water, but soluble in salt solutions; ``edestin,''
a globulin of this class, is very widely distributed. Other
varieties or classes of these compounds are: plant caseins,
phyto-vitellines, legumins and conglutins. Fibrinogen
occurs in the blood plasma, and is changed by a ferment into
fibrin, to which the clotting of blood is due. Fibrinogen
is insoluble in water, but soluble in salt solutions; it
has three different coagulation temperatures, 56 deg. , 67 deg. ,
75 deg. . Fibrin, produced from fibrinogen by a ferment, is
a jelly-like substance, coagulable by heat, alcohol, &c.
The muscle-albumins include ``myosin'' or paramyosinogen, a
globulin, which by coagulation induces rigor mortis, and
the closely related ``myosinogen'' or myogen; myoglobulin and
myoalbumin are also found in muscles. The nucleo-albumins
or phospho-globulins are insoluble in water and acids, but
soluble in alkalies, and have an acid reaction. ``Caseinogen''
(after W. D. Halliburton) is the chief albumin of milk;
its composition varies with the animal. It is insoluble in
water, while its salts are readily soluble. ``Eucasein'' is
the ammonium salt; ``nutrose'' and ``plasmon'' are sodium
salts. By the rennet ferment caseinogen is converted into
casein, a substance resembling caseinogen in being soluble
in water, but differing in having an insoluble calcium
salt. The formation of casein involves the curdling of
milk. Other phosphoglobulins are vitelline, found in the
yolk of hens' eggs, and ichthulin, found in the eggs of
fish. Histones are a class of albumins soluble in water
and acids, but essentially basic in character; hence they
are precipitated by alkalies. It is remarkable that many
histones are soluble in an excess of alkali. They do not
exist in a free state, but in combination with a ``prosthetic
group'' (after A. Kossel) they give rise to important cell
constituents--haemoglobin, nucleo-proteids, &c. ``Thymus histone''
occurs in the thymus gland; globin occurs in combination as
haemoglobin; other histones have been extracted from the red
blood corpuscles of the goose and the testes of fishes and
other animals. The protamines are a well-characterized
class of albumins found in the ripe spermatozoa of fishes.
Albumoses and Peptones.--The primary products of the dissociation
of albumins are the albumoses, characterized by not being
coagulable by heat, more soluble than the albumins, having a
far less complex composition, and capable of being ``salted
out'' by certain salts, and the peptones, similar to albumoses
but not capable of being ``salted out''; moreover, peptones
are less complex than albumoses. By further decomposition
peptones yield peptides, a certain number of which have been
synthesized by Emil Fischer and his collaborators. Albumoses
and peptones are white powders, readily soluble in water, with
the exception of the hetero-albumoses--a subdivision of primary
albumoses. They give the biuret and xanthoproteic reactions,
and form salts with both acids and bases. Albumoses and
peptones are obtained by peptic digestion, the latter being
termed peptic- peptones; tryptic digestion also produces
peptones. Acids and moist heat induce similar changes.
Proteids.--These substances are combinations of one or more
albumins with a radical of an essentially different nature,
termed by Kossel a ``prosthetic group.'' It is convenient
to classify proteids by those groups. ``Nucleo-proteids,''
constituents of the cell-nucleus, are combinations of albumins
and nucleic acid; they always contain iron. They are loose,
white, non-hygroscopic powders, soluble in water and salt
solutions, and have an acid reaction; they give the colour
reactions of albumins. Nucleic acid is at present of unknown
constitution; decomposition products are: phosphoric acid, uracil
or 2.6-dioxy-pyrimidin,1 cytosin or 2-oxy-6-amino-pyrimidin,
thymin (nucleosin) or 2.6-dioxy-5-methyl pyrimidin hypoxanthin1
or 6-oxypurin, xanthin or 2.6-dioxypurin, adenine or 6
amino-purin, guanine or 2-amino-6-oxypurin, pentoses
(l-xylose), laevulinic acid, ammonia, etc. The nucleic acids
vary with the source of the proteids, there being considerable
differences in chemical composition. In general they are
white, loose powders, slightly soluble in cold water, more
soluble in hot water; they are precipitated by mineral acids,
but dissolve in an excess. They are dextrorotatory, and
the specific rotation is numerically greater than that of
albumin; hence the proteids are, in general, dextrorotatory.
An important nucleo-proteid is haemoglobulin or haemoglobin,
the colouring matter of the red blood corpuscles of vertebrates;
a related substance, haemocyanin, in which the iron of
haemoglobin is replaced by copper, occurs in the blood of
cephalopods and crayfish. Haemoglobin is composed of a
basic albumin and an acid substance haematin; it combines
readily with oxygen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to
form loose compounds (see NUTRITION.) It coagulates at
64 deg. . By a dilute acid haemoglobin is decomposed into
globin, and ``haematin,'' a ferri-pyrrol derivative of the
probable formula C34H34N4FeO5; under certain conditions
the iron-free ``haematoporphyrin'' is obtained. This last
substance may be reduced to mesoporphyrin, C34H38O4N4,
which by further reduction gives haemo-pyrrol, C8H13N,
possibly methyl-propyl-pyrrol or butyl-pyrrol. Other
derivatives are haemin, haemochromogen and the haematinic acids.
``Glyco-proteids'' differ from nucleo-proteids in containing
a carbohydrate radical, which is liberated only by boiling
with mineral acids or alkalies. The mucins and mucoids belong
to this group; they are acid and contain no phosphorus; they
give the albumin colour reactions but are not coagulated by
heat. Mucins occur in most of the slimy fluids of the body; they
vary in composition with their source. Mucoids resemble mucins
in their composition and reactions, but differ, in general, in
their physical properties. They occur in tendons, bones and
cartilage. The ``phospho-glyco-proteids'' resemble the mucins
and mucoids in containing a carbohydrate residue, but differ
in containing phosphorus. Ichthulin (see above) maybe placed
in this group; ``helico-proteid,'' found in the serous gland
of Helix pomatia, the vineyard snail, also belongs here.
Albuminoids is the anatomical name given to albuminous
substances forming the connective tissues. Chemically they
resemble the albumins, being split up by acids or ferments
into albumoses, peptones and amino-acids, forming salts, and
giving the same colour reactions. They are quite insoluble
in water and in salt solutions, and difficultly soluble
in dilute acids and alkalies. Typical albuminoids are
gelatin, keratin, elastin, fibroin, spongin and conchiolin.
``Collagen'' (Gr. kolla, glue, and root gen- of gennaein,
to produce, gignesthai, to become), the ground-substance
of bones and tissues, is decomposed by boiling water or on
warming with acids into substances named gelatin, glutin or
glue. Gelatin forms a white amorphous powder; the commercial
product, however, generally forms glassy plates. The
decomposition products are generally the same as with the
general albumin; it gives the biuret reaction; forms salts
with acids and alkalies, but is essentially acid in nature.
Immersed in cold water gelatin does not dissolve but swells
up; it dissolves readily in hot water, forming, according to
the quantity present, a thick jelly which solidifies to a hard
mass on cooling (the ``glue'' of the wood- worker), or a thin
jelly (used in cookery). Gelatin occurs also in the cornea
and the sclerotic coat of the eye; and in fish scales, the
latter containing 80% of collagen, and 20% of ichthylepidin,
a substance differing from gelatin in giving a well-marked
Millon's reaction. Keratin (Gr. keras, a horn), the chief
constituent of horny material, occurs in hair, nails, hoofs and
feathers. It is quite insoluble in water, dilute acids and
alkalies. Related to this substance are ``neuro-keratin,''
found in the medullary sheath of nerves, and ``gorgonin,''
the matrix of the axial skeleton of the coral Gorgonia
Cavolinii. Elastin occurs either as thick strands or as
membranes; it constitutes the ``elastic tissue'' of the
anatomist. Its insolubility is much the same as keratin.
``Fibroin'' and silk-glue or sericin occur in natural silk
fibres. Fibroin is insoluble in water, acids and alkanes;
silk-glue resembles gelatin in its solubility, but it is less
readily gelatinized. ``Spongin,'' the matrix of bath-sponge, is
insoluble in water and dilute acids, but soluble in concentrated
mineral acids. ``Conchiolin,'' the matrix of shells of the
mollusca, is only slightly soluble in acids. ``Cornein'' forms
the framework of corals. ``Amyloid'' occurs as a pathological
product, and also in the healthy aorta and in old cartilage.
It is an albumin, and not a carbohydrate as was formerly held;
and gives most of the colour reactions of albumins. It forms
shiny, homogeneous masses, quite insoluble in cold water and
in salt solutions, but soluble in alkalies. The albumoids
include, according to Cohnheim, substances which possess
certain properties in common, but differ from the preceding
groups. In general they resemble coagulated albumin, and also the
gelatin-yielding tissues, but they themselves do not yield gelatin.
Colouring matters derived from albumins include the
``melanins'' (Gr. melas, black), substances which differ
very considerably in composition, the sulphur and iron
content being by no means constant; they do not give the
reactions of albumins. The black colouring matter of hair,
the skin of negroes, and of the ink bag of Sepia have been
examined. Melanins obtained from tumours form black,
shiny masses; they are insoluble in water, neutral salt
solutions, dilute acids and in the common organic solvents.
1 6
/N = C\
1 The pyrimidin ring is numbered 2C C5 For the purin
ring, see PURIN. \\N - C//
3 4
ALBUMINURIA (Physiological or Functional), a term indicating
the presence of albumin in the urine. This may depend on
a number of morbid conditions, of which kidney troubles,
acute illnesses and venous congestion are some of the
commoner. But after exclusion of all known pathological
causes, there still remains a large class of cases among
subjects who appear to be in perfect health. This form
has been called functional or physiological albuminuria,
intermittent albuminuria, &c. Its recognition is of extreme
importance, as it must be distinguished from the albuminuria
due to Bright's disease and other troubles. The following
are the main forms that have been described:--(1) Dietetic
Albuminuria. This form affects some people after partaking
of a meal consisting largely of albuminous foods, such as
eggs. In others any extra indulgence in the pleasures of the
table may give rise to it. (2) Cyclic Albuminuria. This name
was first used by the physiologist Pavy, but other observers
have called the same condition ``postural albuminuria.'' It
occurs in people enjoying perfect health, and is characterized
by the presence of albumin in the urine at certain times of the
day. It has been shown to depend entirely on the assumption
of the erect position, and it disappears as a result of
the recumbent position at night. (3) Albuminuria from
exercise. This form affects some people after any unusual
muscular exertion. (4) Prolonged mental strain or worry may
give rise to a transient form of albuminuria. (5) Adolescent
albuminuria is met with in some subjects, especially boys.
The question of the real significance of ``physiological''
albuminuria is one about which there is much difference of
opinion. But its importance and recognition--especially
in questions of life insurance--admits of no question.
ALBUQUERQUE, ALPHONSO D, (in Old Port. AFFONSO
D'ALBOQUERQUE) (1453-1515), surnamed THE GREAT, and
THE PORTUGUESE MARS, was born in 1453 at Alexandria, near
Lisbon. Through his father, Gonzalvo, who held an important
position at court, he was connected by illegitimate descent
with the royal family of Portugal. He was educated at the
court of Alphonso V., and after the death of that monarch
seems to have served for some time in Africa. On his return
he was appointed estribeiro-mor (chief equerry) to John
II. In 1503 he set out on his first expedition to the East,
which was to be the scene of his future triumphs. In company
with his kinsman Francisco he sailed round the Cape of Good
Hope to India, and succeeded in establishing the king of
Cochin securely on his throne, obtaining in return for this
service permission to build a Portuguese fort at Cochin, and
thus laying the foundation of his country's empire in the
East. He returned home in July 1504, and was well received
by King Emmanuel, who entrusted him with the command of a
squadron of five vessels in the fleet of sixteen which sailed
for India in 1506 under Tristan da Cunha. After a series of
successful attacks on the Arab cities on the east coast of
Africa, Albuquerque separated from Da Cunha, and sailed with
his squadron against the island of Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf,
which was then one of the chief centres of commerce in the
East. He arrived on the 25th of September 1507, and soon
obtained possession of the island, though he was unable long
to maintain his position. With his squadron increased by
three vessels, he reached the Malabar coast at the close
of the year 1508, and immediately made known the commission
he had received from the king empowering him to supersede
the governor Francisco de Almeida. The latter, however,
refused to recognize Albuquerque's credentials and cast him
into prison, from which he was only released, after three
months' confinement, on the arrival of the grand-marshal of
Portugal with a large fleet. Almeida having returned home,
Albuquerque speedily showed the energy and determination of his
character. An unsuccessful attack upon Calicut in January
1510, in which the commander- in-chief received a severe
wound, was immediately followed by the investment and capture
of Goa. Albuquerque, finding himself unable to hold the town
on his first occupation, abandoned it in August, to return with
the reinforcements in November, when he obtained undisputed
possession. He next directed his forces against Malacca,
which he subdued after a severe struggle. He remained in
the town nearly a year in order to strengthen the position
of the Portuguese power. In 1512 he sailed for the coast of
Malabar. On the voyage a violent storm arose, Albuquerque's
vessel, the ``Flor de la Mar,'' which carried the treasure
he had amassed in his conquests, was wrecked, and he himself
barely escaped with his life. In September of the same year
he arrived at Goa, where he quickly suppressed a serious revolt
headed by Idalcan, and took such measures for the security
and peace of the town that it became the most flourishing of
the Portuguese settlements in India. Albuquerque had been for
some time under orders from the home government to undertake
an expedition to the Red Sea, in order to secure that channel
of communication exclusively to Portugal. He accordingly
laid siege to Aden in 1513, but was repulsed; and a voyage
into the Red Sea, the first ever made by a European fleet, led
to no substantial results. In order to destroy the power of
Egypt, he is said to have entertained the idea of diverting
the course of the Nile and so rendering the whole country
barren. His last warlike undertaking was a second attack upon
Ormuz in 1515. The island yielded to him without resistance,
and it remained in the possession of the Portuguese until
1622. Albuquerque's great career had a painful and ignominious
close. He had several enemies at the Portuguese court who
lost no opportunity of stirring up the jealousy of the king
against him, and his own injudicious and arbitrary conduct
on several occasions served their end only too well. On his
return from Ormuz, at the entrance of the harbour of Goa, he
met a vessel from Europe bearing despatches announcing that
he was superseded by his personal enemy Soarez. The blow was
too much for him and he died at sea on the 16th of December
1515. Before his death he wrote a letter to the king in
dignified and affecting terms, vindicating his conduct and
claiming for his son the honours and rewards that were justly
due to himself. His body was buried at Goa in the Church
of our Lady, and it is perhaps the most convincing proof
possible of the justice of his administration that, many years
after, Mussulmans and Hindus used to go to his tomb to invoke
protection against the injustice of his successors. The
king of Portugal was convinced too late of his fidelity, and
endeavoured to atone for the ingratitude with which he had
treated him by heaping honours upon his natural son Alfonso.
The latter published a selection from his father's papers under
the title Commentarios do Grande Affonso d'Alboquerque .
See the Cartas de Albuquerque, published by the Lisbon Academy
(vol. i., 1884); also Morse Stephens' Life of Albuquerque;
an article in the Bolitim of the Lisbon Geographical
Society (January to June 1902) on ``O antigo Imperialismo
portuguez, &c.,'' has especial reference to Albuquerque.
ALBUQUERQUE, a city and the county-seat of Bernalillo
county, New Mexico, U.S.A., situated in the central part of the
state, about 325 m. S. by W. of Denver, on the E. bank of
the Rio Grande, at an altitude of 4950 ft. Pop. (1890) 3785;
(1900) 6238 (956 foreign-born and 226 negroes); (1910 census)
11,020. In 1900 Albuquerque was the largest city in New
Mexico. It is the connecting point of two main lines of the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway system. A short distance
E. of the city is the university of New Mexico, under state
control, founded in 1889 and opened in 1892; in 1908 it had
a college of letters and science, a school of engineering,
a school of education, a preparatory school and a commercial
school. Albuquerque is also the seat of the Harwood Industrial
School (Methodist) for Mexican girls, of the Menaul Mission
School (Presbyterian) for Mexican boys, and of a government
Indian training school (1881) for boys and girls. The
city has a public library. The excellent climate has given
Albuquerque and the surrounding country a reputation as a
health resort. The city is an important railway centre, has
extensive railway repair shops and stock-yards, and exports
large quantities of live-stock, hides and wool. The largest
industrial establishment is the American Lumber Company's
plant, including a saw-mill, a sash, door and blind factory
and a box factory. The timber used, chiefly white pine, is
obtained from the Zuni mountains. The city has also flour and
woollen mills, breweries and ice factories. The old Spanish
town of Albuquerque (pop. in 1900 about 1200) lies about 1
m. W. of the present city; it was founded in 1706, and was
named in honour of the duke of Albuquerque, viceroy of New
Spain from 1702 to 1710. During the Civil War it was occupied,
late in February 1862, by Confederate troops under General
Henry Hopkins Sibley (1816-1886), who soon afterwards advanced
with his main body into northern New Mexico. In his retreat
back into Texas he made a stand on the 8th of April 1862 at
Albuquerque, where during the whole day there was a fight
at long range and with few casualties against a detachment
of Union soldiers commanded by Colonel Edward R. S. Canby
(1819-1873). The modern city dates its origin from the
completion of the first railway to Albuquerque in 1880.
ALBURNUM (sapwood), the outermost and youngest part of the
wood of a tree, through which the sap rises. It is distinguished
from the harder inner and older wood, the duramen or heart-wood.
ALBURY, a town in Goulburn county, New South Wales, Australia,
386 m. by rail W.S.W. of Sydney. Pop. (1901) 5821. It stands
near the border of Victoria, on the right bank of the Murray
river, here crossed by two bridges, one built of wood carrying
a road, the other of iron bearing the railway. The Murray
is navigable for small steamers from this town to its mouth,
a distance of 1800 miles. Albury is the centre of a sheep-
rearing and agricultural district; grapes, cereals and tobacco
are largely grown, and the wine produced here is held in high
repute throughout Australia. The tree under which the first
explorers encamped here in November 1824 is still standing
in an enclosed space. Albury became a municipality in 1859.
ALCAEUS (ALKAIOS), Greek lyric poet, an older contemporary
of Sappho, was a native of Mytilene in Lesbos and flourished
about 600 B.C. His life was greatly mixed up with
the political disputes and internal feuds of his native
city. He belonged to one of the noble families, and sided
with his class against the ``tyrants'' who at that time set
themselves up in Mytilene. He was in consequence obliged to
leave his native country, and spent a considerable time in
exile. He is said to have become reconciled to Pittacus, the
ruler set up by the popular party, and to have returned to
Lesbos. The date of his death is unknown. The subjects of
his poems, which were composed in the Aeolic dialect, were
of various kinds: some were hymns to the gods; others were of
a martial or political character; others breathed an ardent
love of liberty and hatred of tyrants; lastly, some were
love-songs. Alcaeus was allotted the second place among the
nine lyric poets in the Alexandrian canon. The considerable
number of fragments extant, and the well-known imitations
of Horace, who regarded Alcaeus as his great model, enable
us to form a fair idea of the character of his poems. A
new fragment has recently been discovered, together with
some fragments of Sappho (Classical Review, May 1902).
See Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci (1882); also The Songs
of Alcaeus, by J. Easby-Smith (Washington, 1901); Plehn,
Lesbiacorum Liber (1826); Flach, Geschichte der griechischen
Lyrik (1883-1884); Farnell, Greek Lyric Poets (1891).
ALCAICS, in ancient poetry, a name given to several kinds
of verse, from Alcaeus, their reputed inventor. The first
kind consists of five feet, viz. a spondee or iambic, an
iambic, a long syllable and two dactyles; the second of two
dactyles and two trochees. Besides these, which are called
dactylic Alcaics, there is another, simply styled Alcaic,
consisting of an epitrite, two choriambi and a bacchius; thus--
Cur timet fla|vum Tiberim | tangere, cur | olivum?
The Alcaic ode is composed of several strophes, each
consisting of four verses, the first two of which are always
eleven-syllable alcaics of the first kind; the third verse
is an iambic dimeter hypercatalectic consisting of nine
syllables; and the fourth verse is a ten-syllable alcaic
of the second kind. The following strophe is of this
species, which Horace calls Alcaei minaces camenae--
Non possidentem multa vocaveris
Recte beatum; rectius occupat
Nomen beati, qui deorum
Muneribus sapienter uti.
There is also a decasyllabic variety of the Alcaic metre.
The Alcaic measure was one of the most splendid inventions
of Greek metrical art. In its best examples it gives
an impression of wonderful vigour and spontaneity.
Tennyson has attempted to reproduce it in English in his
O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies,
O skilled to sing of time or eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages.
German is, however, the only modern literature in which alcaics
have been written with much success. They were introduced by
Klopstock, and used by Holderlin, by Voss in his translations
of Horace, by A. Kopisch and other modern German poets.
ALCALA (Moorish al Kala, the ``Fortress'' or ``Castle''),
the name of thirteen Spanish towns, all founded or named by the
Moors. Alcala de Henares (pop. (1900) 11,206) is separately
described on account of its historical importance. Alcala
la Real (15,973), a picturesque town with a fine abbey, is
situated in mountainous country in the extreme south-west of
Jaen. Its distinctive name la Real, ``the Royal,'' was
conferred in memory of its capture by Alphonso XI. of Leon in
1340. In 1810 the French under Count Sebastiani here defeated
the Spaniards. Alcala de los Gazules (8877), on the river
Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, has a thriving trade in
cork and agricultural produce. Alcala de Guadaira (8198),
on the river Guadaira, near Seville, is popularly called
Alcala de los Panadores, or ``Alcala of the Bakers,''
because it supplies Seville with large quantities of
bread. Alcala de Chisbert (6293) is situated on the coast
of Castellon de la Plana; Alcala del Rio (3006), on the
Guadalquivir, 6 m. N. of Seville; Alcala del Jucar (2968),
on the Jucar, in Albacete; Alcala de la Selva (1490), on
the southern slopes of the Sierra del Gudar, in Teruel;
Alcala de la Vega (712), on the river Cabriel, in Cuenca;
Alcala de Gurrea (632), on the river Seton, in Huesca;
Alcala del Obispo (432), in the same province; Alcala de
Ebro (388) and Alcala de Moncayo (367), both in Saragossa.
ALCALA DE HENARES, a town of Spain, in the province of
Madrid, 17 m. E.N.E. of Madrid, on the river Henares, and
the Madrid-Saragossa railway. Pop. (1900) 11,206. Alcala
de Henares contains a military academy and various public
institutions, but its commercial importance is slight and its
main interest is historical. The town has been identified
with the Roman Complutum, which was destroyed about the year
1000, and was rebuilt by the Moors in 1083. In later times
it was renowned for its richly endowed university, founded by
Cardinal Jimenes de Cisneros in 1510, which at the height of
its prosperity numbered 12,000 students, and was second only
to that of Salamanca. Here the famous edition of the Bible
known as the Complutensian Polyglot was prepared from 1514 to
1517. The college of San Ildefonso, completed in 1583, was
the chief university building. Its modernized Gothic church,
the Colegiata, contains the 16th century marble monument of
Jimenes (d. 1517) and a fine reredos. The greatest of Spanish
writers, Cervantes, was born at Alcala de Henares, and baptized
in the otherwise insignificant church of S. Maria on the 9th
of October 1547. A tablet, set up in 1840, marks the house
in which he is said to have been born. Other illustrious
natives of the town were the emperor Ferdinand I. (1503-1564)
and the Spanish dramatist and historian Antonio de Solis
(1610-1686). After the removal of the university to Madrid
in 1836 the town rapidly declined, and the government turned
most of the principal buildings erected by Cardinal Jimenes
in the 16th century into a depot for the archives of various
state departments. Here are kept very complete and curious
documents of the Inquisition, showing all its workings
from the 15th to the 19th century. One of the principal
libraries is the former palace of the archbishops of Toledo.
For a fuller description of Alcala see the Guia del viajero
en Alcala de Henares, by L. A. de la Torre (Alcala,
1882). The following works are mainly of historical
interest:--M. de Ayala and F. Sastre, Alcala de Henares
(Madrid, 1890); J. C. Garcia, Ensayo de una Tipografia
Complutense (Madrid, 1889); M. Portilla y Esquivel, Historia
de la ciudad de Compluto (Alcala, 1725-1728); and the
``Annales Complutenses'' and ``Chronicon Complutense'' in
Espana Sagrada, by H. Florez and others (Madrid, 1754-1879).
ALCALDE (from the Arab. al-quadi, the ``Cadi'' or
``judge,'), the title in Spanish for officials of somewhat
varied functions, in which, however, there is always a judicial
element. Alcalde de corte was a judge of the palace
court, having jurisdiction in and about the residence of the
king. But the mayor of a town or village who discharged the
functions of a justice of the peace was also an alcalde. It
is in this sense that the title is now exclusively used. He
is subject to yearly election and the post has often been an
undesirable one in Spain. The title of alcalde must be carefully
distinguished from alcaide, which is derived from the Arabic
al-quaid, a general, and means the governor of a fortress.
ALCAMENES, a Greek sculptor of Lemnos and Athens. He was
a younger contemporary of Pheidias and noted for the delicacy
and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an
Aphrodite ``of the Gardens'' were conspicuous. Pausanias
says (v. 10. 8) that he was the author of one of the pediments
of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (see GREEK ART), but this
seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. At Pergamum
there was discovered in 1903 a copy of the head of the Hermes
``Propylaeus'' of Alcamenes (Athenische Mittheilungen,
1904, p. 180). As, however, the deity is represented in
an archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot
be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual
style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive
and original artist. It is safer to judge him by the
sculptural decoration of the Parthenon, in which he must almost
certainly have taken a share under the direction of Pheidias.
ALCAMO, a town of Sicily, in the province of Trapani, 24
m. W.S.W. of Palermo direct (51 1/2 m. by rail). Pop. (1881)
37,497; (1901) 51,809. It was founded in A.D. 828 by the
Saracenic chief Al-Kamuk, who erected the castle (which still
stands, though considerably altered), but was christianized
by the emperor Frederick II. in 1233, who removed the
site lower down. It possesses some medieval buildings of
interest. The surrounding district is very fertile
and the trade in agricultural products is considerable.
ALCANTARA, a small seaport of Brazil, in the state of Maranhao,
on the W. shore of the bay of Sao Marcos, 16 m. from the city of
Maranhao by water. It has a fairly good harbour, and excellent
cotton and rice are grown in the vicinity and shipped thence.
ALCANTARA, a town of western Spain, in the province of
Caceres, situated on a rocky height on the left bank of the
river Tagus, 7 m. from the Portuguese frontier. Pop. (1900)
3248. Alcantara (in Arab. ``the bridge'') owes its name
to the magnificent Roman bridge which spans the Tagus on the
north-west. This was originally built about A.D. 105,
in honour of the Roman emperor Trajan and at the cost of
eleven Lusitanian communities. It is entirely constructed
of granite blocks, without cement, and consists of six
arches of various sizes, with a total length of 616 feet
and a height of about 190 ft. in the middle piers, which are
surmounted by a fortified gateway. One of the arches was
broken down in 1213 and rebuilt in 1553; another was blown
up by the British troops in 1809, and, though temporarily
reconstructed, was again destroyed in 1836, to prevent the
passage of the Carlist forces. But in 1860 the whole was
restored. A small Roman temple, dedicated to Trajan and
other deified emperors, stood on the left bank, adjoining the
bridge. It is doubtful, however, if Alcantara marks the
site of any Roman town, though archaeologists have sometimes
identified it either with Norba Caesarea or with Interamnium.
It first became famous about 1215 as the stronghold of the
knightly Order of Alcantara. Many of the grand masters of
this order lie buried in the 13th-century Gothic church.
The town possesses another interesting church built in 1506.
See Antiguedades y santos de la muy noble villa de Alcantara,
by J. Arias de Quintanaduenas (Madrid, 1661); and Retrato
politico de Alcantara, by L. Santibanez (Madrid, 1779).
ALCAVALA (Spanish, from Arab. al-quabalah, ``tax,''
quabula, ``to receive''; cf. Fr. gabelle), a duty
formerly charged in Spain and its colonies on all transfers
of property, whether public or private. Originally imposed
in 1341 by Alphonso XI. to secure freedom from the Moors,
it was an ad valorem tax of 10, increased afterwards to
14%, on the selling price of all commodities, whether raw
or manufactured, chargeable as often as they were sold or
exchanged. It subjected every farmer, manufacturer, merchant
and shopkeeper to the continual visits and examination
of the tax-gatherers, whose number was necessarily very
great. This monstrous impost was permitted to ruin the
industry and commerce of the greater part of the kingdom
up to the time of the invasion of Napoleon. Catalonia
and Aragon purchased from Philip V. an exemption from the
alcavala, and, though still burdened with other heavy taxes,
were in consequence in a comparatively flourishing state.
ALCAZAR DE SAN JUAN, or ALCAZAR, a town of Spain, in
the province of Ciudad Real, in the plain of La Mancha, at
the junction of the Madrid-Manzanares and Madrid-Albacete
railways. Pop. (1900) 11,499. Owing to its position on two
important railways, Alcazar has a flourishing transit-trade
in the wines of Estremadura and Andalusia; the soda and
alkali of La Mancha are used in the manufacture of soap; and
gunpowder, chocolate and inlaid daggers are also made here.
Alcazar is sometimes identified with the Roman Alce. captured
by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 180 B.C. It derives its
existing name from its medieval Moorish castle (al-kasr),
which was afterwards garrisoned by the knights of St John.
The townsfolk contend that the great Cervantes was a native
of Alcazar; and, although this claim must be disallowed, much
of the action of his masterpiece, Don Quixote, takes place
in the neighbourhood. El Toboso, for instance, a village 12
m. E.N.E. [pop. ( 1900) 1895], was the home of the Lady
Dulcinea del Toboso; Argamasilla de Alba (3505), 22 m. S.E.,
is declared by tradition to be the birthplace of Don Quixote
himself. Local antiquaries even identify the knight with Don
Rodrigo de Pacheco, whose portrait adorns the parish church;
and the same authorities hold that part of the romance was
written while Cervantes was a prisoner in their town. An
edition of Don Quixote was published at Argamasilla in 1864.
ALCESTER, FREDERICK BEAUCHAMP PAGET SEYMOUR, BARON
(1821-1895), British admiral, son of Colonel Sir Horace
Beauchamp Seymour and cousin of Francis George Hugh Seymour,
5th marquess of Hertford, was born on the 12th of April
1821. Entering the navy in 1834, he served in the Mediterranean
and the Pacific, was for three years flag-lieutenant to his
uncle Sir George Seymour, and was promoted to be commander in
1847. He served in Burma as a volunteer in 1852, was made
a captain in 1854, took the ``Meteor'' ironclad battery out
to the Black Sea and home again in 1856, was captain of the
``Pelorus'' on the Australian station from 1857 to 1863,
and commanded the naval brigade in New Zealand during the
Maori War, 1860-61, for which he was made a C.B. He became
a rear-admiral in 1870; in 1871-1872 he commanded the flying
squadron, was a lord of the admiralty in 1872-1874, and
commanded the Channel fleet, 1874-1876. On the 31st of December
1876 he was made a vice-admiral, a K.C.B. on the 2nd of June
1877. In 1880-1883 he was commander-in-chief of the fleet
in the Mediterranean, and in 1880 had also the chief command
of the European squadron sent to the coast of Albania as
a demonstration to compel the Porte to cede Dulcigno to
Montenegro. On the 24th of May 1881 he was made a G.C.B.,
and on the 6th of May 1882 was promoted to the rank of
admiral. In July 1882 he commanded at the bombardment of
Alexandria and in the subsequent operations on the coast of
Egypt, for which service he was raised to the peerage as
Baron Alcester of Alcester in the county of Warwick, received
a parliamentary grant of L. 25,000, the freedom of the city
of London and a sword of honour. On his return from the
Mediterranean he was for a couple of years again at the
admiralty, and in 1886 he was placed on the retired list. For
the next nine years he lived chiefly in London, but latterly
his health was much broken, and he died on the 30th of March
1895. He was unmarried and the peerage became extinct.
ALCESTER [pronounced Auster, a market-town in the
Stratford-on-Avon parliamentary division of Warwickshire,
England, 16 m. W.S.W. from Warwick by the Great Western
railway, served also by the Birmingham-Evesham branch of
the Midland railway. Pop. (1901) 2303. It is pleasantly
situated among low wooded hills at the junction of the small
stream Alne with the Arrow, a northern tributary of the
Avon. The church of St Nicholas, with the exception of the
Decorated tower, is a reconstruction of 1734; among several
monuments is a fine example of Chantrey's work, to the 2nd
marquess of Hertford (d. 1822). There are a picturesque
town hall (1641), raised on stone columns, and a free grammar
school. The manufacture of needles is less important than
formerly, having been absorbed into the centre of the industry
at Redditch in the neighbouring county of Worcestershire. There
are implement works and cycle works, and brewing is prosecuted.
The name (Alnecestre, Alyncester) signifies ``the camp on the
Alne.'' A small Romano-British town or village was situated
here, on the road which runs from Derby and Wall, near Lichfield,
to join the Fosse Way near Cirencester. Its name is not
known. A relief figure in stone, some pavements, potsherds,
coins and burials have been found, but nothing to indicate an
important station. No written document relating to Alcester
exists before the reign of Henry I. No mention occurs in
Domesday, but it is given in a list of serjeanties of the
reign of Henry III. as having been a royal borough in the time
of Henry I., and in 1177 it rendered four marks' aid with the
other boroughs of the county. However, there is no evidence
of the grant of a royal charter, and the title of borough soon
lapsed. In the reign of Henry III. a moiety of the manor
was purchased by Sir Walter Beauchamp, who granted a charter
to the inhabitants of ihe town establishing a Tuesday market
for corn, cattle, and all kinds of merchandise, and also
obtained grants of fairs at the feasts of St Giles (afterwards
transferred to the feast of St Faith) and St Barnabas. In
1444 Sir John Beauchamp purchased the remaining moiety of the
manor, and was granted an additional fair at the feast of St
Dunstan. From this date the Beauchamps were lords of the
whole manor until it passed by female descent to the Grevilles
in the reign of Henry VIII. in 1140 a Benedictine monastery
was founded here by Falph Boteler of Oversley, and received
the name of the Church of Our Lady of the Isle, owing to its
insulation by a moat meeting the river Arrow. The monastery
was suppressed among the smaller houses in 1536. Traces of
the moat and the foundations are still to be seen in Priory
Close. The ancient fairs survived to the end of the 19th century.
in 1830 the needle-manufacture employed nearly a thousand hands.
ALCESTIS (ALKESTIS), in Greek legend the daughter of
Pelias and Anaxibia, and wife of Admetus, king of Pherae in
Thessaly. She consented to die in place of her husband,
and was afterwards rescued by Heracles. This beautiful
story of conjugal devotion forms the subject of the
Alcestis of Euripides, which furnished the basis of
Robert Browning's Balaustion's Adventure. Sophocles
also wrote an Alcestis, of which only fragments remain.
See Dissel, Der Mythos von Admetus und Alkestis, 1882.
ALCHEMY. In the narrow sense of the word, alchemy is the
pretended art of making gold and silver, or transmuting the
base metals into the noble ones. The idea of such transmutation
probably arose among the Alexandrian Greeks in the early
centuries of the Christian era; thence it passed to the
Arabs, by whom it was transmitted to western Europe, and its
realization was a leading aim of chemical workers down to the
time of Paracelsus and even later. But ``alchemy'' was something
more than a particularly vain and deluded manifestation of
the thirst for gold, as it is sometimes represented; in its
wider and truer significance it stands for the chemistry of
the middle ages. The idea of transmutation, in the country
of its origin, had a philosophical basis, and was linked
up with the Greek theories of matter there current; thus,
by supplying a central philosophical principle, it to some
extent unified and focussed chemical effort, which previously,
so far as it existed at all, had been expended on acquiring
empirical acquaintance with a mass of disconnected technical
processes. Alchemy in this sense is merely an early phase of
the development of systematic chemistry; in Liebig's words, it
was ``never at any time anything different from chemistry.''
Regarding the derivation of the word, there are two main views
which agree in holding that it has an Arabic descent, the
prefix al being the Arabic article. But according to one,
the second part of the word comes from the Greek chumeia,
pouring, infusion, used in connexion with the study of the
juices of plants, and thence extended to chemical manipulations
in general; this derivation accounts for the old-fashioned
spellings ``chymist'' and ``chymistry.'' The other view
traces it to khem or khame, hieroglyph khmi, which
denotes black earth as opposed to barren sand, and occurs in
Plutarch as chumeia; on this derivation alchemy is explained
as meaning the ``Egyptian art.'' The first occurrence of
the word is said to be in a treatise of Julius Firmicus, an
astrological writer of the 4th century, but the prefix al
there must be the addition of a later copyist. Among the
Alexandrian writers alchemy was designated as e tes chrusou
te kai argurou poieseos techne theia kai iera or
e episteme iera. In English, Piers Plowman (1362)
contains the phrase ``experimentis of alconomye,'' with
variants ``alkenemye'' and ``alknamye.'' The prefix al
begins to be dropped about the middle of the 16th century.
Origins of Alchemy.--Numerous legends cluster round the
origin of alchemy. According to one story, it was founded
by the Egyptian god Hermes (Thoth), the reputed inventor of
the arts and sciences, to whom, under the appellation Hermes
Trismegistus, Tertullian refers as the master of those who
occupy themselves with nature; after him later alchemists
called their work the ``hermetic art,'' and the seal of
Hermes, which they placed upon their vessels, is the origin
of the common phrase ``hermetically sealed.'' Another legend,
given by Zosimus of Panopolis, an alchemistical writer said
to date from the 3rd century, asserts that the fallen angels
taught the arts to the women they married (cf. Genesis vi.
2), their instruction being recorded in a book called
Chema. A similar story appears in the Book of Enoch,
and Tertullian has much to say about the wicked angels who
revealed to men the knowledge of gold and silver, of lustrous
stones, and of the power of herbs, and who introduced the
arts of astrology and magic upon the earth. Again, the
Arabic Kitab-al-Fihrist, written by al-Nadim towards the
end of the 10th century, says that the ``people who practise
alchemy, that is, who fabricate gold and silver from strange
metals, state that the first to speak of the science of the
work was Hermes the Wise, who was originally of Babylon, but
who established himself in Egypt after the dispersion of the
peoples from Babel.'' Another legend, also to be found in Arabic
sources, asserts that alchemy was revealed by God to Moses and
Aaron. But there is some evidence that, in accordance with
the strong and constant tradition among the alchemists, the
idea of transmutation did originate in Egypt with the Greeks of
Alexandria. In the Leiden museum there are a number of papyri
which were found in a tomb at Thebes, written probably in the
3rd century A.D., though their matter is older. Some are
in Greek and demotic, and one, of peculiar interest from the
chemical point of view, gives a number of receipts, in Greek,
for the manipulation of base metals to form alloys which simulate
gold and are intended to be used in the manufacture of imitation
jewellery. Possibly this is one of the books about gold
and silver of which Diocletian decreed the destruction about
A.D. 290--an act which Gibbon styles the first authentic
event in the history of alchemy (Decline and Fall, chap.
xiii.). The author of these receipts is not under any
delusion that he is transmuting metals; the MS. is merely
a workshop manual in which are described processes in daily
use for preparing metals for false jewellery, but it argues
considerable knowledge of methods of making alloys and colouring
metals. It has been suggested by M. P. E. Berthelot that
the workers in these processes, which were a monopoly of the
priestly caste and were kept strictly secret, though fully
aware that their products were not truly gold, were in time
led by their success in deceiving the public to deceive
themselves also, and to come to believe that they actually
had the power of making gold from substances which were not
gold. Philosophical sanction and explanation of this belief
was then found by bringing it into relation with the theory
of the prima materia, which was identical in all bodies
but received its actual form by the adjunction of qualities
expressed by the Aristotelian elements--earth, air, fire and
water. Some support for this view is gained from study
of the alchemistical writings of the period. Thus, in the
treatise known as Physica et Mystica and falsely ascribed
to Democritus (such false attributions are a constant feature
of the literature of alchemy), various receipts are given
for colouring and gilding metals, but the conception of
transmutation does not occur. This treatise was probably
composed at a date not very different from that of the Leiden
papyrus. Later, however, as in the Commentary on this
work written by Synesius to Dioscorus, priest of Serapis at
Alexandria, which probably dates from the end of the 4th
century, a changed attitude becomes apparent; the more
practical parts of the receipts are obscured or omitted,
and the processes for preparing alloys and colouring
metals, described in the older treatise, are by a mystical
interpretation represented as resulting in real transmutation.
But while there are thus some grounds for supposing that the
idea of transmutation grew out of the practical receipts of
Alexandrian Egypt, the alchemy which embraced it as a leading
principle was also strongly affected by Eastern influences
such as magic and astrology. The earliest Greek alchemistical
writings abound with references to Oriental authorities and
traditions. Thus the pseudo-Democritus, who was reputed the
author of the Physica et Mystica, which itself concludes
each of its receipts with a magical formula, was believed
to have travelled in Chaldaea, and to have had as his master
Ostanes1 the Mede, a name mentioned several times in the
Leiden papyrus, and often by early Christian writers such as
Tertullian, St Cyprian and St Augustine. The practices of
the Persian adepts also are appealed to in the writings of the
pseudo-Democritus, Zosimus and Synesius. The philosopher's
egg, as a symbol of creation, is both Egyptian and
Babylonian. In the Greek alchemists it appears as the symbol
at once of the art and of the universe, enclosing within
itself the four elements; and there is sometimes a play of
words between to on and to won. The conception of
man, the microcosm, containing in himself all the parts
of the universe or macrocosm, is also Babylonian, as again
probably is the famous identification of the metals with the
planets. Even in the Leiden papyrus the astronomical symbols
for the sun and moon are used to denote gold and silver, and
in the Meteorologica of Olympiodorus lead is attributed to
Saturn, iron to Mars, copper to Venus, tin to Hermes (Mercury)
and electrum to Jupiter. Similar systems of symbols, but
elaborated to include compounds, appear in Greek MSS. of
the 10th century, preserved in the library of St Mark's at
Venice. Subsequently electrum (an alloy of gold and silver)
disappeared as a specific metal, and tin was ascribed to Jupiter
instead, the sign of mercury becoming common to the metal and the
planet. Thus we read in Chaucer (Chanouns Yemannes Tale):--
The bodies sevene eek, lo! hem heer anoon:
Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe,
Mars yren, Mercurie quik-silver we clepe,
Saturnus leed and Jupiter is tin,
And Venus coper, by my fader kin!
Literature of Alchemy.--A considerable body of Greek chemical
writings is contained in MSS. belonging to the various great
libraries of Europe, the oldest being that at St Mark's, just
mentioned. The contents of these MSS. are all of similar
composition, and in Berthelot's opinion represent a collection
of treatises made at Constantinople in the 8th or 9th
century. The treatises are nearly all anterior to the 7th
century, and most appear to belong to the 3rd and 4th centuries;
some are the work of authentic authors like Zosimus and
Synesius, while of others, such as profess to be written by
Moses, Democritus, Ostanes, &c., the authorship is clearly
fictitious. Some of the same names and the same works can
be identified in the lists of the Kitab-al- Fihrist. But
the Arabs did not acquire their knowledge of this literature
at first hand. The earliest Hellenic culture in the East was
Syrian, and the Arabs made their first acquaintance with
Greek chemistry, as with Greek philosophy, mathematics,
medicine, &c., by the intermediary of Syriac translations.
(See ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY and SYRIAC LITERATURE.) Examples
of such translations are preserved in MSS. at the British
Museum, partly written in Syriac, partly in Arabic with Syriac
characters. In Berthelot's opinion, the Syriac portions
represent a compilation of receipts and processes undertaken in
the Syrian school of medicine at Bagdad under the Abbasids in
the 9th or 10th century, and to a large extent constituted by
the earlier translations made by Sergius of Resaena in the 6th
century. They contain, under the title Doctrine of Democritus,
a fairly methodical treatise in ten books comprising the
Argyropoeia and Chrysopoeia of the pseudo-Democritus,
with many receipts for colouring metals, making artificial
precious stones, effecting the diplosis or doubling of
metals, &c. They give illustrations of the apparatus employed,
and their close relationship to the Greek is attested by
the frequent occurrence of Greek words and the fact that
the signs and symbols of the Greek alchemists appear almost
unchanged. The other portion seems of somewhat later date.
Another Syriac MS., in the library of Cambridge University,
contains a translation of a work by Zosimus which is so far
unknown in the original Greek. Berthelot gives reproductions
of the British Museum MSS. in vol. ii. of La Chimie au moyen
Several alchemistical treatises, written in Arabic, exist
in manuscript in the National Library at Paris and in the
library of the university of Leiden, and have been reproduced
by Berthelot, with translations, in vol. iii. of La Chimie
au moyen age. They fall into two groups: those in one are
largely composed of compilations from Greek sources, while
those in the other have rather the character of original
compositions. Of the first group the most interesting and
possibly the oldest is the Book of Crates; it is remarkable
for containing some of the signs used for the metals by the
Greek alchemists, and for giving figures of four pieces of
apparatus which closely resemble those depicted in Greek
MSS., the former being never, and the latter rarely, found
in other Arabic MSS. Its concluding words suggest that its
production was due to Khalid ben Yezid (died in 708), who
was a pupil of the Syrian monk Marianus, and according to
the Kitab-al-Fihrist was the first Mussulman writer on
alchemy. The second group consists of a number of treatises
professing to be written by Jaber, celebrated in Latin alchemy
as Geber (q.v..) Internal evidence suggests that they are not
all from the same hand or of the same date, but probably they
are not earlier than the 9th nor later than the 12th century.
The Arabic chroniclers record the names of many other writers
on alchemy, among the most famous being Rhazes and Avicenna.
But the further development of alchemy took place in the West
rather than in the East. With the spread of their empire
to Spain the Arabs took with them their knowledge of Greek
medicine and science, including alchemy, and thence it passed,
strengthened by the infusion of a certain Jewish element, to
the nations of western Europe, through the medium of Latin
translations. The making of these began about the 11th
century, one of the earliest of the translators, Constantinus
Africanus, wrote about 1075, and another, Gerard of Cremona,
lived from 1114 to 1187. The Liber de compositione alchemiae,
which professes to be by Morienus--perhaps the same as the
Marianus who was the teacher of Khalid--was translated by
Robertus Castrensis, who states that he finished the work in
1182, and speaks as if he were making a revelation--``Quid
sit alchemia nondum cognovit vestra Latinitas.'' The earlier
translations, such as the Turba Philosophorum and other
Works printed in collections like the Artis auriferae quam
chemiam vocant (1572), Theatrum chemicum (1602), and
J. J. Manget's Bibliotheca chemica curiosa (1702), are
confused productions, written in an allegorical style, but
full of phrases and even pages taken literally from the Greek
alchemists, and citing by name various authorities of Greek
alchemy. They were followed by treatises of a different
character, clearer in matter, more systematic in arrangement,
and reflecting the methods of the scholastic logic; these are
farther from the Greek tradition, for although they contain
sufficient traces of their ultimate Greek ancestry, their
authors do not know the Greeks as masters and cite no Greek
names. So far as they are Latin versions of Arabico-Greek
treatises, they must have been much remodelled in the course
of translation; but there is reason to suppose that many of
them, even when pretending to be translations, are really
original compositions. It is curious that although we possess
a certain number of works on alchemy written in Arabic, and
also many Latin treatises that profess to be translated from
Arabic, yet in no case is the existence known of both the
Arabic and the Latin version. The Arabic works of Jaber, as
contained in MSS. at Paris and Leiden, are quite Aissimiiar
from the Latin works attributed to Geber, and show few if any
traces of the positive chemical knowledge, as of nitric acid
(aqua dissolutiva or fortis) or of the mixture of nitric
and hydrochloric acids known as aqua regis or regia, that
appears in the latter. The treatises attributed to Geber, in
fact, appear to be original works composed not earlier than the
13th century and fathered on Jaber in order to enhance their
authority. If this view be accepted, an entirely new light
is thrown on the achievements of the Arabs in the history of
chemistry. Gibbon asserts that the Greeks were inattentive
either to the use or to the abuse of chemistry (Decline and
Fall, chap. xiii.), and gives the Arabs the credit of the
origin and improvement of the science (chap. lii.).2 But
the chemical knowledge attributed to the Arabs has been so
attributed largely on the basis of the contents of the Latin
Geber, regarded as a translation from the Arabic Jaber. If,
then, those contents do not represent the knowledge of Jaber,
and if the contents of other Latin translations which there
is reason to believe are really made from the Arabic, show
little, if any, advance on the knowledge of the Alexandrian
Greeks, evidently the part played by the Arabs must be less, and
that of the Westerns greater, than Gibbon is prepared to admit.
The descent of alchemistical doctrine can thus be traced
with fair continuity for a thousand years, from the Greeks
of Alexandria down to the time when Latin alchemy was
firmly established in the West, and began to be written
of by historical authors like Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon
and Arnoldus Villanovanus in the 13th century. But side
by side with this literary transmission Berthelot insists
that there was another mode of transmission, by means of the
knowledge of practical receipts and processes traditional
among jewellers, painters, workers in glass and pottery, and
other handicraftsmen. The chemical knowledge of Egyptian
metallurgists and jewellers, he holds, was early transmitted
to the artisans of Rome, and was preserved throughout the
dark ages in the workshops of Italy and France until about
the 13th century, when it was mingled with the theories of
the Greek alchemists which reached the West by way of the
Arabs. Receipts given in the Leiden papyrus reappear in
the Compositiones ad Tingenda and the Mappae Clavicula,
both workshop receipt books, one known in an 8th-century
MS. at Lucca, and the other in a 10th-century MS. in the
library of Schlettstadt; and again in such works as the De
Artibus Romanorum of Eraclius and the Schedula Diversarum
Artium of Theophilus, belonging to the 11th or 12th century.
Theory of Transmutation.--The fundamental theory of the
transmutation of metals is to be found in the Greek alchemists,
although in details it was modified and elaborated by the
Arabs and the Latin alchemists. Regarding all substances as
being composed of one primitive matter--the prima materia,
and as owing their specific differences to the presence of
different qualities imposed upon it, the alchemist hoped, by
taking away these qualities, to obtain the prima materia
itself, and then to get from it the particular substance he
desired by the addition of the appropriate qualities. The
prima materia was early identified with mercury, not ordinary
mercury, but the ``mercury of the philosophers,'' which was the
essence or soul of mercury, freed from the four Aristotelian
elements--earth, air, fire and water--or rather from the
qualities which they represent. Thus the operator had to
remove from ordinary mercury, earth or an earthy principle or
quality, and water or a liquid principle, and to fix it by
taking away air or a volatile principle. The prima materia
thus obtained had to be treated with sulphur (or with sulphur
and arsenic) to confer upon it the desired qualities that were
missing. This sulphur again was not ordinary sulphur, but some
principle derived from it, which constituted the philosopher's
stone or elixir--white for silver and yellow or red for
gold. This is briefly the doctrine that the metals are
composed of mercury and sulphur, which persisted in one form
or another down to the 17th century. Of course there were
numerous variations and refinements. Thus in the Speculum
Naturale of Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1250) it is said that
there are four spirits--mercury, sulphur, arsenic and sal
ammoniac-- and six bodies--gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and
iron.3 Of these bodies the two first are pure, the four last
impure. Pure white mercury, fixed by the virtue of white
non-corrosive sulphur, engenders in mines a matter which
fusion changes into silver, and united to pure clear red
sulphur it forms gold, while with various kinds of impure
mercury and sulphur the other bodies are produced. Vincent
attributes to Rhazes the statement that copper is potentially
silver, and any one who can eliminate the red colour will
bring it to the state of silver, for it is copper in outward
appearance, but in its inmost nature silver. This statement
represents a doctrine widely held in the 13th century, and
also to be found in the Greek alchemists, that everything
endowed with a particular apparent quality possesses a hidden
opposite quality, which can be rendered apparent by fire.
Later, as in the works attributed to Basil Valentine, sulphur,
mercury and salt are held to be the constituents of the metals.
It must be noted that the processes described by the alchemists
of the 13th century are not put forward as being miraculous
or supernatural; they rather represent the methods employed by
nature, which it is the end of the alchemist's art to reproduce
artificially in the laboratory. But even among the late
Arabian alchemists it was doubted whether the resources of
the art were adequate to the task; and in the West, Vincent of
Beauvais remarks that success had not been achieved in making
artificial metals identical with the natural ones. Thus he
says that the silver which has been changed into gold by the
projection of the red elixir is not rendered resistant to the
agents which affect silver but not gold, and Albertus Magnus
in his De Mineralibus --the De Alchemia attributed to him
is spurious--states that alchemy cannot change species but
merely imitates them--for instance, colours a metal white to
make it resemble silver or yellow to give it the appearance of
gold. He has, he adds, tested gold made by alchemists, and
found that it will not withstand six or seven exposures to
fire. But scepticism of this kind was not universal. Roger
Bacon--or more probably some one who usurped his name--declared
that with a certain amount of the philosopher's stone he could
transmute a million times as much base metal into gold, and
on Raimon Lull was fathered the boast, ``Mare tingerem si
mercurius esset.'' Numerous less distinguished adepts also
practised the art, and sometimes were so successful in their
deceptions that they gained the ear of kings, whose desire
to profit by the achievements of science was in several
instances rewarded by an abundant crop of counterfeit coins.
Later History of Alchemy.--In the earlier part of the
16th century Paracelsus gave a new direction to alchemy by
declaring that its true object was not the making of gold but
the preparation of medicines, and this union of chemistry with
medicine was one characteristic of the iatrochemical school
of which he was the precursor. Increasing attention was paid
to the investigation of the properties of substances and of
their effects on the human body, and chemistry profited by
the fact that it passed into the hands of men who possessed
the highest scientific culture of the time, Still, belief
in the possibility of transmutation long remained orthodox,
even among the most distinguished men of science. Thus it
was accepted, at least academically, by Andreas Libavius (d.
1616); by F. de la Boe Sylvius (1614-1672), though not by
his pupil Otto Tachenius, and by J. R. Glauber (1603-1668);
by Robert Boyle (1627-1691) and, for a time at least, by Sir
Isaac Newton and his rival and contemporary, G. W. Leibnitz
(1646-1716); and by G. E. Stahl (1660-1734) and Hermann Boerhaave
(1668-1738). Though an alchemist, Boyle, in his Sceptical
Chemist (1661), cast doubts on the ``experiments whereby
vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their salt,
sulphur and mercury to be the true principles of things,''
and advanced towards the conception of chemical elements
as those constituents of matter which cannot be further
decomposed. With J. J. Becher (1635-1682) and G. E. Stahl,
however, there was a reversion to earlier ideas. The former
substituted for the salt, sulphur and mercury of Basil
Valentine and Paracelsus three earths--the mercurial, the
vitreous and the combustible--and he explained combustion
as depending on the escape of this last combustible element;
while Stahl's conception of phlogiston--not fire itself,
but the principle of fire--by virtue of which combustible
bodies burned, was a near relative of the mercury of the
philosophers, the soul or essence of ordinary mercury.
Perhaps J. B. van Helmont (1577-1644) was the last distinguished
investigator who professed actually to have changed mercury
into gold, though impostors and mystics of various kinds
continued to claim knowledge of the art long after his
time. So late as 1782, James Price, an English physician,
showed experiments with white and red powders, by the aid
of which he was supposed to be able to transform fifty
and sixty times as much mercury into silver and gold. The
metals he produced are said to have proved genuine on assay;
when, however, in the following year he was challenged to
repeat the experiments he was unable to do so and committed
suicide. In the course of the 19th century the idea that
the different elements are constituted by different groupings
or condensations of one primal matter--a speculation which,
if proved to be well grounded, would imply the possibility
of changing one element into another--found favour with
more than one responsible chemist; but experimental research
failed to yield any evidence that was generally regarded as
offering any support to this hypothesis. About the beginning
of the 20th century, however, the view was promulgated
that the spontaneous production of helium from radium may
be an instance of the transformation of one element into
another. (See RADIOACTIVITY; also ELEMENT and MATTER.)
See M. P. E. Berthelot, Les Origines de l'alchimie (1885);
Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (text and
translation, 3 vols., 1887-1888); Introduction a l'etude de
la chimie des anciens et du moyen age (1889): La Chimie au
moyen age (text and translation of Syriac and Arabic treatises
on alchemy, 3 vols., 1893). Much bibliographical and other
information about the later writers on alchemy is contained
in Bibliotheca Chemica (2 vols., Glasgow, 1906), a catalogue
by John Ferguson of the books in the collection of James
Young of Kelly (printed for private distribution). (H. M. R.)
1 An alchemistical work bearing the name of Ostanes
speaks of a divine water which cures all maladies--an early
appearance of the universal panacea or elixir of life.
2 ``Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the
temples and monasteries of Egypt: much useful experience might
have been acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures,
but the science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement
to the industry of the Saracens. They first invented
and named the alembic for the purposes of distillation,
analyzed the substances of the three kingdoms of nature,
tried the distinction and affinities of alkalis and acids,
and converted the poisonous minerals into soft and salutary
remedies. But the most eager search of Arabian chemistry
was the transmutation of metals, and the elixir of immortal
health: the reason and the fortunes of thousands were
evaporated in the crucibles of alchemy, and the consummation
of the great work was promoted by the worthy aid of mystery,
fable and superstition.'' It may be noted that the word
``alembic'' is derived from the Greek ambix, ``cup,''
with the Arabic article prefixed, and that the instrument
is figured in the MSS. of some of the Greek alchemists.
3 Cf. Chaucer, Chanouns Yemannes Tale, where,
however, mercury figures both as a spirit and a body:--
``The firste spirit quik-silver called is,
The second orpiment, the thridde ywis
Sal armoniak, and the ferthe brimstoon.''
ALCIATI, ANDREA (1492-1550), Italian jurist, was born at
Alzano, near Milan, on the 12th of January 1492. He displayed
great literary skill in his exposition of the laws, and was
one of the first to interpret the civil law by the history,
languages and literature of antiquity, and to substitute original
research for the servile interpretations of the glossators. He
published many legal works, and some annotations on Tacitus.
His Emblems, a collection of moral sayings in Latin verse, has
been greatly admired, and translated into French, Italian and
Spanish. Alciati's history of Milan, under the title Rerum
Potriae, seu Historiae Mediolanensis, Libri IV., was published
posthumously at Milan in 1625. He died at Pavia in 1550.
ALCIBIADES (c. 450-404 B.C.), Athenian general and
politician, was born at Athens. He was the son of Cleinias and
Deinomache, who belonged to the family of the Alcmaeonidae.
He was a near relative of Pericles, who, after the death
of Cleinias at the battle of Coroneia (447), became his
guardian. Thus early deprived of his father's control, possessed
of great personal beauty and the heir to great wealth, which
was increased by his marriage, he showed himself self-willed,
capricious and passionate, and indulged in the wildest freaks
and most insolent behaviour. Nor did the instructors of
his early manhood supply the corrective which his boyhood
lacked. From Protagoras, Prodicus and others he learnt to
laugh at the common ideas of justice, temperance, holiness and
patriotism. The laborious thought, the ascetic life of his
master Socrates, he was able to admire, but not to imitate or
practise. On the contrary, his ostentatious vanity, his amours,
his debaucheries and his impious revels became notorious.
But great as were his vices, his abilities were even greater.
He took part in the battle of Potidaea (432), where his
life was saved by Socrates, a service which he repaid at
the battle of Delium (424). As the reward of his bravery,
the wealthy Hipponicus bestowed upon him the hand of his
daughter. From this time he took a prominent part in Athenian
politics during the Peloponnesian war. Originally friendly to
Sparta, he subsequently became the leader of the war party in
opposition to Nicias, and after the peace of 421 he succeeded
by an unscrupulous trick in duping the Spartan ambassadors,
and persuading the Athenians to conclude an alliance (420) with
Argos, Elis and Mantineia (Thuc. v. 56, 76). On the failure
of Nicias in Thrace (418-417) he became the chief advocate
of the Sicilian expedition, seeing an opportunity for the
realization of his ambitious projects, which included the
conquest of Sicily, to be followed by that of Peloponnesus
and possibly of Carthage (though this seems to have been an
afterthought). The expedition was decided upon with great
enthusiasm, and Alcibiades, Nicias and Lamachus were appointed
joint commanders. But, on the day before the expedition
sailed, there occurred the mysterious mutilation of the Hermae,
and Alcibiades was accused not only of being the originator
of the crime, but also of having profaned the Eleusinian
mysteries. His request for an immediate investigation being
refused, he was obliged to set sail with the charge still
hanging over him. Almost as soon as he reached Sicily
he was recalled to stand his trial, but he escaped on the
journey home and made his way to Sparta. Learning that he
had been condemned to death in his absence and his property
confiscated, he openly joined the Spartans, and persuaded
them to send Gylippus to assist the Syracusans and to
fortify Decelea in Attica. He then passed over to Asia
Minor, prevailed upon many of the Ionic allies of Athens to
revolt, and concluded an alliance with the Persian satrap
Tissaphernes. But in a few months he had lost the confidence
of the Spartans, and at the instigation of Agis II., whose
personal hostility he had excited, an order was sent for his
execution. Receiving timely information of this order he
crossed over to Tissaphernes (412), and persuaded him to
adopt the negative policy of leaving Athens and Sparta to
wear themselves out by their mutual struggles. Alcibiades
was now bent on returning to Athens, and he used his supposed
influence with Tissaphernes to effect his purpose. He entered
into negotiations with the oligarch Peisander, but when these
led to no result he attached himself to the fleet at Samos
which remained loyal to the democracy, and was subsequently
recalled by Thrasybulus, although he did not at once return to
Athens. Being appointed commander in the neighbourhood of the
Hellespont, he defeated the Spartan fleet at Abydos (411)
and Cyzicus (410), and recovered Chalcedon and Byzantium.
On his return to Athens after these successes he was welcomed
with unexpected enthusiasm (407); all the proceedings against
him were cancelled, and he was appointed general with full
powers. His ill success, however, at Andros, and the
defeat at Notium (407) of his lieutenant Antiochus, led the
Athenians to dismiss him from his command. He thereupon
retired to the Thracian Chersonesus. After the battle of
Aegospotami, and the final defeat of Athens, he crossed
the Hellespont and took refuge with Pharnabazus in Phrygia,
with the object of securing the aid of Artaxerxes against
Sparta. But the Spartans induced Pharnabazus to put him out
of the way; as he was about to set out for the Persian court
his residence was set on fire, and on rushing out on his
assassins, dagger in hand, he was killed by a shower of arrows
(404). There can be no doubt that his advice to Sparta in
connexion with Syracuse and the fortification of Decelea
was the real cause of his country's downfall, though it is
only fair to him to add that had he been allowed to continue
in command of the Sicilian expedition he would undoubtedly
have overruled the fatal policy of Nicias and prevented the
catastrophe of 413. His belated attempt to repair his fatal
treachery only exposed the essential selfishness of his
character. Though he must have known that his influence
over the Persian satraps was slender in the extreme, he
used it with the most flagrant dishonesty as a bait first to
Sparta, then to the Athenian oligarchs, and finally to the
democracy. Superficial and opportunist to the last, he
owed the successes of his meteoric career purely to personal
magnetism and an almost incredible capacity for deception.
There are lives of Alcibiades by Plutarch and Cornelius
Nepos, and monographs by Hertzberg, A. der Staatsmann
und Feldherr (1833), and Houssaye, Histoire d'Alcibiade
(1873); but the best accounts will be found in the histories
of Greece by G. Grote (also notes in abridged ed., 1907),
Ed. Meyer, and works quoted under GREECE, Ancient
History, sect. ``Authorities''; also PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
ALCIDAMAS, of Elaea, in Aeolis, Greek sophist and rhetorician,
flourished in the 4th century B.C. He was the pupil and
successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time
as Isocrates, whose rival and opponent he was. We possess
two declamations under his name: Peri Sofiston, directed
against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore
over written speeches (a recently discovered fragment of
another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date);
'Odusseus, in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery
during the siege of Troy (this is generally considered
spurious). According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the
orator was the power of speaking extempore on every conceivable
subject. Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 3) criticizes his writings
as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use
of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived:
Messeniakos, advocating the freedom of the Messenians and
containing the sentiment that ``all are by nature free'';
a Eulogy of Death, in consideration of the wide extent of
human sufferings; a Techne or instruction-book in the art
of rhetoric; and a Fusikos lolos. Lastly, his Mouseion
(a word of doubtful meaning) contained the narrative of the
contest between Homer and Hesiod, two fragments of which are
found in the 'Agon `Omerou kai `Esiodou, the work of
a grammarian in the time of Hadrian. A 3rd-century papyrus
(Flinders Petrie, Papyri, ed. Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.) probably
contains the actual remains of a description by Alcidamas.
See the edition by Blass, 1881; fragments in Muller,
Oratores Attici, ii. (1858); Vahlen, Der Rhetor
Alkidamas (1864); Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit.
ALCINOUS (ALKINOOS), in ancient Greek legend, king of
the fabulous Phaeacians, in the island of Scheria, was the
son of Nausithous and grandson of Poseidon. His reception
and entertainment of Odysseus, who when cast by a storm on
the shore of the island was relieved by the king's daughter,
Nausicaa, is described in the Odyssey (vi.-xiii.). The
gardens and palace of Alcinous and the wonderful ships of
the Phaeacian mariners were famous in antiquity. Scheria was
identified in very early times with Corcyra, where Alcinous
was reverenced as a hero; In the Argonautic legend, his
abode was the island of Drepane (Apoll. Rhodius iv. 990).
ALCINOUS, the Platonic philosopher, lived probably in the
time of the Caesars. He was the author of an 'Epitome
ton Platonos dogmaton, an analysis of Plato's philosophy
according to later writers. It is rather in the manner of
Aristotle, and freely attributes to Plato any ideas of other
philosophers which appeared to contribute to the system. He
produced in the end a synthesis of Plato and Aristotle with an
admixture of Pythagorean or Oriental mysticism, and is closely
allied to the Alexandrian school of thought. He recognized
a God who is unknowable, and a series of beings (daimones)
who hold intercourse with men. He recognized also Ideas and
Matter, and borrowed largely from Aristotle and the Stoics.
The 'Epitome has been translated by Pierre Balbi
(Rome, 1469) and by Marsilio Ficino; into French by J. I.
Combes-Dounous (Paris, 1800), and into English by Thomas
Stanley in his History of Philosophy. Editions: Heinsius
(Leiden, 1630); Fischer (Leipzig, 1783); in Aldine Edition
of Apuleius (Venice, 1521; Paris, 1532); Fell (Oxford,
1667). See Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, iv. 249.
ALCIONIO, PIETRO, or PETRUS ALCYONIUS (c. 1487-1527),
Italian classical scholar, was born at Venice. After having
studied Greek under Marcus Musurus of Candia, he was employed
for some time by Aldus Manutius as a corrector of the press,
and in 1522 was appointed professor of Greek at Florence
through the influence of Giulio de' Medici. When his patron
became pope in 1523 under the title of Clement VII., Alcionio
followed him to Rome and remained there until his death.
Alcionio published at Venice, in 1521, a Latin translation
of several of the works of Aristotle, which was shown by the
Spanish scholar Sepulveda to be very incorrect. He wrote a
dialogue entitled Medices Legatus, sive de Exilio (1522),
in connexion with which he was charged with plagiarism by
his personal enemy, Paulus Manutius. The accusation, which
Tiraboschi has shown to be groundless, was that he had taken
the finest passages in the work from Cicero's lost treatise
De Gloria, and had then destroyed the only existing copy of
the original in order to escape detection. His contemporaries
speak very unfavourably of Alcionio, and accuse him of
haughtiness, uncouth manners, vanity and licentiousness.
ALCIPHRON, Greek rhetorician, was probably a contemporary of
Lucian (2nd century A.D..) He was the author of a collection
of fictitious letters, of which 124 (118 complete and 6
fragments) have been published; they are written in the purest
Attic dialect and are considered models of style. The scene
is throughout at Athens; the imaginary writers are country
people, fishermen, parasites and courtesans, who express
their sentiments and opinions on familiar subjects in elegant
language. The ``courtesan'' letters are especially valuable,
the information contained in them being chiefly derived
from the writers of the New Comedy, especially Menander.
EDITIONS.--Editio princeps (44 letters), 1499;
Bergler (1715); Seiler (1856); Hercher (1873); Schepers
(1905). English translation by Monro and Beloe (1791).
ALCIRA, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia;
on the left bank of the river Jucar, and on the Valencia-
Alicante railway. Pop. (1900) 20,572. Alcira is a walled
town, surrounded by palm, orange and mulberry groves, and by
low-lying rice-swamps, which render its neighbourhood somewhat
unhealthy. Silk, fruit and rice are its chief products.
It is sometimes identified w;th the Roman Saetabicula. In
the middle ages it was a prosperous Moorish trading-station.
ALCMAEON, of Argos, in Greek legend, was the son of Amphiaraus
and Eriphyle. When his father set out with the expedition
of the Seven against Thebes, which he knew would be fatal
to him, he enjoined upon his sons to avenge his death by
slaying Eriphyle and undertaking a second expedition against
Thebes. After the destruction of Thebes by the Epigoni,
Alcmaeon carried out his father's injunctions by killing
his mother, as a punishment for which he was driven mad
and pursued by the Erinyes from place to place. On his
arrival at Psophis in Arcadia, he was purified by its king
Phegeus, whose daughter Arsinoe (or Alphesiboea) he married,
making her a present of the fatal necklace and the peplus of
Harmonia. But the land was cursed with barrenness, and the
oracle declared that Alcmaeon would never find rest until he
reached a spot on which the sun had never shone at the time
he slew his mother. Such a spot he found at the mouth of
the river Achelous, where an island had recently been formed
by the alluvial deposit; here he settled and, forgetting
his wife Arsinoe, married Callirrhoe, the daughter of the
river-god. His new wife longed for the necklace and peplus,
and Alcmaeon, returning to Psophis, obtained possession of
them, on the pretence that he desired to dedicate them at
Delphi. When the truth became known he was pursued and
slain by Phegeus and his sons. After his death Alcmaeon was
worshipped at Thebes; his tomb was at Psophis in a grove of
cypresses. His story was the subject of an old epic and
of several tragedies, but none of these has been preserved.
Homer, Odyssey xv. 248; Apollodorus iii. 7; Thucydides ii, 68,
102; Pausanias viii. 24, x. 10; Ovid, Metam. ix. 400 et seq.
ALCMAEONIDAE, a noble Athenian family, claiming descent
from Alcmaeon, the great-grandson of Nestor, who emigrated
from Pylos to Athens at the time of the Dorian invasion of
Peloponnesus. During the archonship of an Alcmaeonid Megacles
(? 632 B.C.), Cylon, who had unsuccessfully attempted to
make himself ``tyrant''' was treacherously murdered with his
followers. The curse or pollution thus incurred was frequently
in later years raked up for political reasons; the Spartans
even demanded that Pericles should be expelled as accursed at
the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. All the members of
the family went into banishment, and having returned in the
time of Solon (594) were again expelled (538) by Peisistratus
(q.v..) Their great wealth enabled them during their exile
to enhance their reputation and secure the favour of the
Delphian Apollo by rebuilding the temple after its destruction
by fire in 548. Their importance is shown by the fact that
Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, gave his daughter Agariste
in marriage to the Alcmaeonid Megacles in preference to all
the assembled suitors after the undignified behaviour of
Hippocleides. Under the statesman Cleisthenes (q.v.), the
issue of this union, the Alcmaeonids became supreme in Athens
about 510 B.C. To them was generally attributed (though
Herodotus disbelieves the story--see GREECE, Ancient
History, sect. ``Authorities,'' II.) the treacherous raising
of the shield as a signal to the Persians at Marathon,
but, whatever the truth of this may be, there can be little
doubt that they were not the only one of the great Athenian
families to make treasonable overtures to Persia. Pericles
and Alcibiades were both connected with the Alcmaeonidae.
Nothing is heard of them after the Peloponnesian war.
See Herodotus vi. 121-131.
ALCMAN, or ALCMAEON (the former being the Doric form
of the name), the founder of Doric lyric poetry, to whom
was assigned the first place among the nine lyric poets
of Greece in the Alexandrian canon, flourished in the
latter half of the 7th century B.C. He was a Lydian of
Sardis, who came as a slave to Sparta, where he lived in
the family of Agesidas, by whom he was emancipated. His
mastery of Greek shows that he must have come very early to
Sparta, where, after the close of the Messenian wars, the
people were able to bestow their attention upon the arts of
peace. Alcman composed various kinds of poems in various
metres; Parthenia (maidens' songs), hymns, paeans, prosodia
(processionals), and love-songs, of which he was considered the
inventor. He was evidently fond of good living, and traces
of Asiatic sensuousness seem out of place amidst Spartan
simplicity. The fragments are scanty, the most considerable
being part of a Parthenion found in 1855 on an Egyptian
papyrus; some recently discovered hexameters are attributed
to Alcman or Erinna (Oxyrhynchus papyri, i. 1898).
For general authorities see ALCAEUS.
ALCMENE, in ancient Greek mythology, the daughter of
Electryon, king of Mycenae, and wife of Amphitryon. She
was the mother of Heracles by Zeus, who assumed the likeness
of her husband during his absence, and of Iphicles by
Amphitryon. She was regarded as the ancestress of the
Heracleidae, and worshipped at Thebes and Athens.
See Winter, Alkmene und Amphitryon (1876).
ALCOBACA, a town of Portugal, in the district of Leiria,
formerly included in the province of Estremadura, on the Alcoa
and Baca rivers, from which it derives its name. Pop. (1900)
2309. Alcobaca is chiefly interesting for its Cistercian
convent, now partly converted into schools and barracks.
The monastic buildings, which form a square 725 ft. in
diameter, with a huge conical chimney rising above them, were
founded in 1148 and completed in 1222. During the middle
ages it rivalled the greatest European abbeys in size and
wealth. It was supplied with water by an affluent of the
Alcoa, which still flows through the kitchen; its abbot
ranked with the highest Portuguese nobles, and, according
to tradition, 999 monks continued the celebration of mass
without intermission throughout the year. The convent was
partly burned by the French in 1810, secularized in 1834
and afterwards gradually restored. Portions of the library,
which comprised over 100,000 volumes, including many precious
MSS., were saved in 1810, and are preserved in the public
libraries of Lisbon and Braga. The monastic church (1222) is
a good example of early Gothic, somewhat defaced by Moorish
and other additions. It contains a fine cloister and the
tombs of Peter I. (1357-1367) and his wife, Inez de Castro.
ALCOCK, JOHN (c. 1430-1500), English divine, was born at
Beverley in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge. In 1461 he was
made dean of Westminster, and henceforward his promotion was rapid
in church and state. In the following year he was made master
of the rolls, and in 1470 was sent as ambassador to the court of
Castile. He was consecrated bishop of Rochester in 1472 and was
successively translated to the sees of Worcester (1476) and Ely
(1486). He twice held the office of lord chancellor, and
exhibited great ability in the negotiations with James III. of
Scotland. He died at Wisbech Castle on the 1st of October
1500. Alcock was one of the most eminent pre-Reformation
divines; he was a man of deep learning and also of great
proficiency as an architect. Besides founding a charity
at Beverley and a grammar school at Kingston-upon-Hull, he
restored many churches and colleges; but his greatest enterprise
was the erection of Jesus College, Cambridge, which he
established on the site of the former Convent of St Radigund.
Alcock's published writings, most of which are extremely
rare, are: Mons Perfectionis, or the Hill of Perfection
(London, 1497); Gallicontus Johannis Alcock episcopi
Eliensis ad frates suos curatos in sinodo apud Barnwell
(1498), a good specimen of early English printing and quaint
illustrations; The Castle of Labour, translated from the French
(1536), and various other tracts and homilies. See J. Bass
Mullinger's Hist. of the University of Cambridge, vol. i.
ALCOCK, SIR RUTHERFORD (1809-1897), British consul and
diplomatist, was the son of Dr Thomas Alcock, who practised
at Ealing, near London, and himself followed the medical
profession. In 1836 he became a surgeon in the marine
brigade which took part in the Carlist war, and gaining
distinction by his services was made deputy inspector-general
of hospitals. He retired from this service in 1837, and
seven years later was appointed consul at Fuchow in China,
where, after a short official stay at Amoy, he performed the
functions, as he himself expressed it, ``of everything from
a lord chancellor to a sheriff's officer.'' Fuchow was one
of the ports opened to trade by the treaty of 1842, and Mr
Alcock, as he then was, had to maintain an entirely new position
with the Chinese authorities. In so doing he was eminently
successful, and earned for himself promotion to the consulate at
Shanghai. Thither he went in 1846 and made it an especial
part of his duties to superintend the establishment, and
laying out of the British settlement, which has developed
into such an important feature of British commercial life in
China. In 1858 he was appointed consul-general in the newly
opened empire of Japan, and in the following year was promoted
to be minister plenipotentiary. In those days residence in
Japan was surrounded with many dangers, and the people were
intensely hostile to foreigners. In 1860 Mr Alcock's native
interpreter was murdered at the gate of the legation, and
in the following year the legation was stormed by a body
of Ronins, whose attack was repulsed by Mr Alcock and his
staff. Shortly after this event he returned to England on
leave. Already he had been made a C.B. (1860); in 1862 he
was made a K.C.B., and in 1863 hon. D.C.L. Oxon. In 1864
he returned to Japan, and after a year's further residence
he was transferred to Pekin, where he represented the British
government until 1871, when he retired. But though no longer
in official life his leisure was fully occupied. He was
for some years president of the Royal Geographical Society,
and he served on many commissions. He was twice married,
first in May 1841 to Henrietta Mary, daughter of Charles
Bacon, who died in 1853, and secondly (July 8, 1862) to the
widow of the Rev. John Lowder, who died on the 13th of March
1899. He was the author of several works, and was one of the
first to awaken in England an interest in Japanese art; his
best-known book is The Capital of the Tycoon, which appeared in
1863. He died in London on the 2nd of November 1897. (R. K. D.)
ALCOFORADO, MARIANNA (1640-1723), Portuguese authoress,
writer of the Letters of a Portuguese Nun, was the daughter
of a landed proprietor in Alemtejo. Beja, her birthplace,
was the chief garrison town of that province, itself the
principal theatre of the twenty-eight years' war with Spain
that followed the Portuguese revolution of 1640, and her
widowed father, occupied with administrative and military
commissions, placed Marianna in her childhood in the wealthy
convent of the Conception for security and education.
She made her profession as a Franciscan nun at sixteen or
earlier, without any real vocation, and lived a routine
life in that somewhat relaxed house until her twenty-fifth
year, when she met Noel Bouton. This man, afterwards marquis
de Chamilly, and marshal of France, was one of the French
officers who came to Portugal to serve under the great captain,
Frederick, Count Schomberg, the re-organizer of the Portuguese
army. During the years 1665-1667 Chamilly spent much of his
time in and about Beja, and probably became acquainted with
the Alcoforado family through Marianna's brother, who was a
soldier. Custom then permitted religious to receive and entertain
visitors, and Chamilly, aided by his military prestige and some
flattery, found small difficulty in betraying the trustful
nun. Before long their intrigue became known and caused a
scandal, and to avoid the consequences Chamilly deserted Marianna
and withdrew clandestinely to France. The letters to her
lover which have earned her renown in literature were written
between December 1667 and June 1668, and they described the
successive stages of faith, doubt and despair through which she
passed. As a piece of unconscious psychological self-analysis,
they are unsurpassed; as a product of the Peninsular heart
they are unrivalled. These five short letters written by
Marianna to ``expostulate her desertion'' form one of the few
documents of extreme human experience, and reveal a passion
which in the course of two centuries has lost nothing of its
heat. Perhaps their dominant note is reality, and, sad reading
as they are from the moral standpoint, their absolute candour,
exquisite tenderness and entire self-abandonment have excited
the wonder and admiration of great men and women in every
age, from Madame de Sevigne to W. E. Gladstone. There are
signs in the fifth letter that Marianna had begun to conquer
her passion, and after a life of rigid penance, accompanied
by much suffering, she died at the age of eighty-three. The
letters came into the possession of the comte de Guilleragues,
director of the Gazette de France, who turned them into
French, and they were published anonymously in Paris in January
1669. A Cologne edition of the same year stated that Chamilly
was their addressee, which is confirmed by St Simon and Duclos,
but the name of their authoress remained undivulged. In 1810,
however, Boissonade discovered Marianna's name written in a copy
of the first edition by a contemporary hand, and the veracity
of this ascription has been placed beyond doubt by the recent
investigations of Luciano Cordeiro, who found a tradition
in Beja connecting the French captain and the Portuguese
nun. The letters created a sensation on their first appearance,
running through five editions in a year, and, to exploit
their popularity, second parts, replies and new replies were
issued from the press in quick succession. Notwithstanding
that the Portuguese original of the five letters is lost,
their genuineness is as patent as the spuriousness of their
followers, and though Rousseau was ready to wager they were
written by a man, the principal critics of Portugal and France
have decided against him. It is now generally recognized that
the letters are a verbatim translation from the Portuguese.
The foreign bibliography of the Letters, containing almost
one hundred numbers, will be found in Cordeiro's admirable
study, Soror Marianna, A Friera Portugueza, 2nd ed. (Lisbon,
1891). Besides the French editions, versions exist in Dutch,
Danish, Italian and German; and the English bibliography is
given by Edgar Prestage in his translation The Letters of
a Portuguese Nun (Marianna Alcoforado), 3rd ed. (London,
1903). The French text of the editio princeps was printed
in the first edition (1893) of this book. Edmund Gosse in
the Fortnightly Review, vol. xlix. (old series) p. 506,
shows the considerable influence exercised by the Letters on
the sentimental literature of France and England. (E. PR.)
ALCOHOL, in Commerce, the name generally given to ``spirits
of wine''; in systematic organic chemistry it has a wider
meaning, being the generic name of a class of compounds
(hydroxy hydrocarbons) of which ordinary alcohol (specifically
ethyl alcohol) is a typical member (see ALCOHOLS.)
Etymology.
The word ``alcohol'' is of Arabic origin, being derived
from the particle al and the word kohl, an impalpable
powder used in the East for painting the eyebrows. For many
centuries the word was used to designate any fine powder; its
present-day application to the product of the distillation
of wine is of comparatively recent date. Thus Paracelsus
and Libavius both used the term to denote a fine powder, the
latter speaking of an alcohol derived from antimony. At
the same time Paracelsus uses the word for a volatile liquid;
alcool Or alcool vini occurs often in his writings, and
once he adds ``id est vino ardente.'' Other names have
been in use among the earlier chemists for this same liquid.
Eau de vie (``elixir of life'') was in use during the 13th
and 14th centuries; Arnoldus Villanovanus applied it to the
product of distilled wine, though not as a specific name.
Ethyl alcohol.
Ordinary alcohol, which we shall frequently refer to by its
specific name, ethyl alcohol, seldom occurs in the vegetable
kingdom; the unripe seeds of Heracleum giganteum and H.
Sphondylium contain it mixed with ethyl butyrate. In the
animal kingdom it occurs in the urine of diabetic patients and
of persons addicted to alcohol. Its important source lies in
its formation by the ``spirituous'' or ``alcoholic fermentation''
of saccharine juices. The mechanism of alcoholic fermentation
is discussed in the article FERMENTATION, and the manufacture
of alcohol from fermented liquors in the article SPIRITS.
The qualitative composition of ethyl alcohol was ascertained by
A. L. Lavoisier, and the quantitative by N. T. de Saussure in
1808. Sir Edward Frankland showed how it could be derived
from, and converted into, ethane; and thus determined it
to be ethane in which one hydrogen atom was repiaced by a
hydroxyl group. Its constitutional formula is therefore
CH3.CH2.OH. It may be synthetically prepared by any
of the general methods described in the article ALCOHOLS.
Pure ethyl alcohol is a colourless, mobile liquid of an agreeable
odour. It boils at 78.3 deg. C. (760 mm.); at -90 deg. C. it
is a thick liquid, and at -130 deg. it solidifies to a white
mass. Its high coefficient of thermal expansion, coupled with
its low freezing point, renders it a valuable thermometric
fluid, especially when the temperatures to be measured are
below -39 deg. C., for which the mercury thermometer cannot be
used. It readily inflames, burning with a blue smokeless flame,
and producing water and carbon dioxide, with the evolution of
great heat; hence it receives considerable application as a
fuel. It mixes with water in all proportions, the mixing
being attended by a contraction in volume and a rise in
temperature; the maximum contraction corresponds to a mixture
of 3 molecules of alcohol and 1 of water. Commercial alcohol
or ``spirits of wine'' contains about 90% of pure ethyl
alcohol, the remainder being water. This water cannot be
entirely removed by fractional distillation, and to prepare
anhydrous or ``absolute'' alcohol the commercial product
must be allowed to stand over some dehydrating agent, such as
caustic lime, baryta, anhydrous copper sulphate, &c., and then
distilled. Calcium chloride must not be used, since it forms
a crystalline compound with alcohol. The quantity of alcohol
present in an aqueous solution is determined by a comparison
of its specific gravity with standard tables, or directly by
the use of an alcoholometer, which is a hydrometer graduated so
as to read per cents by weight (degrees according to Richter)
or volume per cents (degrees according to Tralles). Other
methods consist in determining the vapour tension by means
of the vaporimeter of Geissler, or the boiling point by the
ebullioscope. In the United Kingdom ``proof spirit'' is
defined as having a specific gravity at 51 deg. of 12/13 (.92308)
compared with water at the same temperature. The ``quantity
at proof'' is given by the formula:-- quantity of sample
X (degrees over or under proof + 100) divided by 100.
The presence of water in alcohol may be detected in several
ways. Aqueous alcohol becomes turbid when mixed with
benzene, carbon disulphide or paraffin oil; when added to
a solution of barium oxide in absolute alcohol, a white
precipitate of barium hydroxide is formed. A more delicate
method consists in adding a very little anthraquinone and
sodium amalgam; absolute alcohol gives a green coloration,
but in the presence of minute traces of water a red coloration
appears. Traces of ethyl alcohol in solutions are detected
and estimated by oxidation to acetaldehyde, or by conversion
into iodoform by warming with iodine and potassium hydroxide.
An alternative method consists in converting it into ethyl
benzoate by shaking with benzoyl chloride and caustic soda.
Alcohol is extensively employed as a solvent; in fact,
this constitutes one of its most important industrial
applications. It dissolves most organic compounds, resins,
hydrocarbons, fatty acids and many metallic salts, sometimes
forming, in the latter case, crystalline compounds in which
the ethyl alcohol plays a role similar to that of water of
crystallization. This fact was first noticed by T. Graham, and,
although it was at first contradicted, its truth was subsequently
confirmed. In general, gases dissolve in it more readily
than in water; 100 volumes of alcohol dissolve 7 volumes of
hydrogen, 25 volumes of oxygen and 16 volumes of nitrogen.
Reactions.
Potassium and sodium readily dissolve in ethyl alcohol
with the production of alcoholates of the formula C2 H5
OK(Na). These are voluminous white powders. Sulphuric acid
converts it into ethyl sulphuric acid (see ETHER, and sulphur
trioxide gives carbyl sulphate. The phosphorous haloids
give the corresponding ethyl haloid. Ethyl chloride (from
the phosphorus chlorides and alcohol) is an ethereal liquid
boiling at 12.5 deg. C., soluble in alcohol, but sparingly so in
water. Oxidation of ethyl alcohol gives acetaldehyde
and acetic acid. Chlorine oxidizes it to acetaldehyde,
and under certain conditions chloral (q.v.) is formed.
Industrial alcohol.
In almost all countries heavy taxes are levied on manufactured
alcohol mainly as a source of revenue. In the United Kingdom
the excise duty is eleven shillings per proof gallon of alcohol,
while the customs duty is eleven shillings and fivepence; the
magnitude of these imposts may be readily understood when one
remembers that the proof gallon costs only about sevenpence to
manufacture. The great importance of alcohol in the arts has
necessitated the introduction of a duty-free product which is
suitable for most industrial purposes, and at the same time
is perfectly unfit for beverages or internal application.
Methylated spirit.
In the United Kingdom this ``denaturized'' alcohol is known
as methylated spirit as a distinction from pure alcohol or
``spirits of wine.'' It was first enacted in 1855 that methylated
spirit, a specific mixture of pure alcohol and wood- naphtha,
should be duty-free; the present law is to be found in the
Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1890, and the Finance Act
(sect. 8) of 1902. From 1858 to 1861 methylated spirit was
duty-free when it was required for manufacturing processes,
and the methylation or ``denaturizing'' was carried out in
accordance with a prescribed process. During the next three
decades (1861-1891) the law was extended, and methylated spirit
was duty-free for all purposes except for use as beverages and
internal medicinal applications. This spirit (``unmineralized
methylated spirit'') consisted of 90 parts of alcohol of
60-66 over-proof (91-95% of pure alcohol) and 10 parts of
wood-naphtha. It was found, however, that certain classes
were addicted to drinking this mixture, and since 1891 the
sale of such spirit has been confined to manufacturers who
must purchase it in bulk from the ``methylators.'' For retail
purposes the ``ordinary'' methylated spirit is mixed with .357%
of mineral naphtha, which has the effect of rendering it quite
undrinkable. The Finance Act of 1902 allows a manufacturer to
obtain a license which permits the use of duty-free alcohol,
if he can show that such alcohol is absolutely essential for
the success of his business, and that methylated spirit is
unsuitable. Notwithstanding this permission there have
been many agitations on the part of chemical manufacturers
to obtain a less restricted use of absolute alcohol, and
in 1905 an Industrial Alcohol Committee was appointed to
receive evidence and report as to whether any modification
of the present law was advisable. In the United States
the same question was considered in 1896 by a Joint Select
Committee on the use of alcohol in the manufactures and arts.
Reference should be made to the reports of these committees
for a full account of the use, manufacture and statistics
of ``denaturized'' spirits in various European countries.
In Germany, the use of duty-free spirit is only allowed to state
and municipal hospitals, and state scientific institutions,
and for the manufacture of fulminates, fuzes and smokeless
powders. The duty-free ``denaturized'' spirits may be
divided into two groups--``completely denaturized'' and
``incompletely denaturized.'' In the first category there
are two varieties:--(1) A mixture of 100 litres of spirit and
2 1/2 litres of a mixture of 4 parts of wood-naphtha and 1 of
pyridine bases; this spirit, the use of which is practically
limited to heating and lighting purposes, may be mixed with 50
grs. of lavender or rosemary, in order to destroy the noxious
odour of the pyridine bases. (2) A mixture of 100 litres of
spirit, 1 1/4 litres of the naphtha-pyridine mixture described
above, 1/4 litre of methyl violet solution, and from 2 to
20 litres of benzol; this fluid is limited to combustion
in motors and agricultural engines. The second category,
or ``incompletely denaturized'' spirits, include numerous
mixtures. The ``general'' mixture consists of 100 litres of
spirit, and 5 litres of wood spirit or 1/2 litre of pyridine.
Of the ``particular'' varieties, we can only notice those used
in the colour industry. These consist of 100 litres of spirit
mixed with either 10 litres of sulphuric ether, or 1 litre of
benzol, or 1/2 litre of turpentine, or .025 litre of animal oil.
The German regulations are apparently based on a keen appreciation
of the fact that while one particular denaturizing agent may
have little or no effect on one industry, yet it would be
quite fatal to the success of another; there is consequently
a great choice of denaturizing agents, and in certain cases
it is sufficient to mix the alcohol with a reagent necessary
for the purpose in hand, or even with a certain amount
of the final product, it being only necessary to satisfy
the state that the spirit is not available as a beverage.
In France, the general denaturizing agent is wood-spirit of
at least 58 over-proof, and containing 25% of acetone and
2.5% of ``impurites pyrogenees''; 10 litres of this spirit
denaturizes 100 litres of alcohol. This mixture is supplied
to manufacturers and corresponds to the British unmineralized
methylated spirit; but the regulations are more stringent. When
sold for lighting and heating purposes, it is further admixed
with 0.5% of heavy benzene boiling at 150 deg. -200 deg. C. Provisions
are also made for special denaturizing processes as in Germany.
In America the internal revenue tax on denaturized alcohol
(formerly duty-free only to scientific institutions)
was removed by Congress in 1906 (act of June 7th).
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics of Alcohol.--
Alcohol is of great medicinal value as a solvent, being
used to form solutions of alkaloids, resins, volatile oils,
iodoform, &c. In strength of about 10% and upwards it is an
antiseptic. If applied to the skin it rapidly evaporates,
thereby cooling the skin and diminishing the amount of sweat
excreted. This refrigerant and anhidrotic action is employed to
soothe many forms of headache by bathing the forehead with eau de
Cologne. If, on the other hand, the alcohol be rubbed into the
skin, or if its evaporation be prevented--as by a watch-glass--it
absorbs water from the tissues and thus hardens them.
Thoroughly rubbed into the skin alcohol dilates the blood-
vessels and produces a mild counter-irritant effect. Many
alcoholic liniments are therefore employed for the relief of
pain, especially muscular pains, as in lumbago and other forms
of so-called ``muscular rheumatism.'' Given internally in
small quantities and in sufficient dilution, alcohol causes
dilatation of the gastric blood-vessels, increased secretion
of gastric juice, and greater activity in the movements of
the muscular layers in the wall of the stomach. It also tends
to lessen the sensibility of the stomach and so may relieve
gastric pain. In a 50% solution or stronger--as when neat
whisky is taken--alcohol precipitates the pepsin which is
an essential of gastric digestion, and thereby arrests this
process. The desirable effects produced by alcohol on
the stomach are worth obtaining only in cases of acute
diseases. In chronic disease and in health the use of
alcohol as an aid to digestion is without the support of
clinical or laboratory experience, the beneficial action
being at least neutralized by undesirable effects produced
elsewhere. The continued use of large doses of alcohol produces
chronic gastritis, in which the continued irritation has led
to overgrowth of connective tissue, atrophy of the gastric
glands and permanent cessation of the gastric functions.
A single dose of concentrated alcohol (e.g. brandy) produces
very valuable reflex effects, the heart beating more rapidly and
forcibly, and the blood-pressure rising. Hence the immediately
beneficial effect produced in the cases of ``fainting'' or
syncope. After absorption, which is very rapid, alcohol
exerts a marked action upon the blood. The oxygen contained
in that fluid, and destined for consumption by the tissues,
is retained by the influence of alcohol in its combination
with the haemoglobin or colouring matter of the red blood
corpuscles. Hence the diminished oxidation of the tissues,
which leads to the accumulation of unused fat and so to the
obesity which is so often seen in those who habitually take
much alcohol. The drug exerts a noteworthy action upon the
body-temperature. As it dilates the blood-vessels of the
skin it increases the subjective sensation of warmth. The
actual consequence, however, is that more heat than before
is necessarily lost from the surface of the body. Alcohol
also diminishes the oxidation which is the main source of the
body-heat. It follows that the drug is an antipyretic, and
it is hence largely used in fevers as a means of reducing the
temperature. This reduction of the temperature, carried to an
undesirable extreme, is the reason why the man who has copiously
consumed spirits ``to keep out the cold'' is often visited with
pneumonia. The largest amount of alcohol that can be burnt up
within the healthy body in twenty-four hours is 1 1/2 oz., but
it must be consumed in great dilution and divided into small
doses taken every four hours. Otherwise the alcohol will for
the most part leave the body unused in the urine and the expired
air. In fever the case is different. The raised temperature
appears to facilitate the oxidation of the substance, so that
quantiries may be taken and completely utilized which would
completely intoxicate the individual had his temperature been
normal. It follows that alcohol is a food in fever, and its
value in this regard is greatly increased by the fact that
it requires no primary digestion, but passes without changes,
and without needing change, to the tissues which are to use
it. According to Sir Thomas Fraser nothing else can compete
with alcohol as a food in desperate febrile cases, and to
this use must be added its antipyretic power already explained
and its action as a soporific. During its administration in
febrile cases the drug must be most carefully watched, as its
action may prove deleterious to the nervous system and the
circulation in certain classes of patient. The state of the
pulse is the best criterion of the action of alcohol in any
given case of fever. The toxicology of alcohol is treated
in other articles. It includes acute alcoholism (i.e.
intoxication), chronic alcoholism, delirium tremens, and
all the countless pathological changes--extending to every
tissue but the bones, and especially marked in the nervous
system-- which alcohol produces. (See DRUNKENNESS: DELIRIUM.)
After death the presence of alcohol can be detected in all the body
fluids. Its especial affinity for the nervous system is indicated
by the fact that, when all traces of it have disappeared elsewhere,
it can still be detected with ease in the cerebro-spinal fluid.
ALCOHOLS, in organic chemistry, a class of compounds which may
be considered as derived from hydrocarbons by the replacement of
one or more hydrogen atoms by hydroxyl groups. It is convenient
to restrict the term to compounds in which the hydroxyl group is
attached to an aliphatic residue; this excludes such compounds
as the hydroxy-benzenes, naphthalenes, &c., which exhibit many
differences from the compounds derived from the aliphatic alkyls.
Alcohols are classified on two distinct principles, one depending
upon the number of hydroxyl groups present, the other on the
nature of the remaining groups attached to the carbon atom which
carries the hydroxyl group. Monatomic or monohydric alcohols
contain only one hydroxyl group; diatomic, two, known as glycols
(q.v.); triatomic, three, known as glycerols (q.v.); and so on.
The second principle leads to alcohols of three distinct
types, known as primary, secondary and tertiary. The genesis
and formulation of these types may be readily understood by
considering the relation which exists between the alcohols
and the parent hydrocarbon. In methane, CH4, the hydrogen
atoms are of equal value, and hence only one alcohol,
viz. CH3OH, can be derived from it. This compound,
methyl alcohol, is the simplest primary alcohol, and it is
characterized by the grouping .CH2OH. Ethane, C2H6, in
a similar manner, can only give rise to one alcohol, namely
ethyl alcohol, CH3CH2OH, which is also primary. Propane,
CH3CH2CH3, can give rise to two alcohols --a primary
alcohol, CH3CH2CH2OH (normal propyl alcohol), formed
by replacing a hydrogen atom attached to a terminal carbon
atom, and a secondary alcohol, CH3.CH(OH).CH3 (isopropyl
alcohol), when the substitution is effected on the middle carbon
atom. The grouping CH.OH characterizes the secondary alcohols;
isopropyl alcohol is the simplest member of this class.
Butane, C4H10, exists in the two isomeric forms--normal
butane, CH3.CH2.CH2.CH3, and iso-butane, CH(CH3)3.
Each of these hydro-carbons gives rise to two alcohols:
n-butane gives a primary and a secondary; and iso-butane a
primary, when the substitution takes place in one of the
methyl groups, and a tertiary, when the hydrogen atom of the
:CH group is substituted. Tertiary alcohols are thus seen to
be characterized by the group :C.OH, in which the residual
valencies of the carbon atom are attached to alkyl groups.
In 1860 Hermann Kolbe predicted the existence of secondary and
tertiary alcohols from theoretical considerations. Regarding
methyl alcohol, for which he proposed the name carbinol, as
the simplest alcohol, he showed that by replacing one hydrogen
atom of the methyl group by an alkyl residue, compounds of the
general formula R.CH2.OH would result. These are the primary
alcohols. By replacing two of the hydrogen atoms, either
by the same or different alkyls, compounds of the formula
(R.R1)CH.OH (i.e. secondary alcohols) would result; while
the replacement of the three hydrogen atoms would generate
alcohols of the general formula (R.R1.R2)C.OH, i.e.
tertiary alcohols. Furthermore, he exhibited a comparison
between these three types of alcohols and the amines. Thus:--
R.NH2 (R1R2)NH (R1R2R3)N
R.CH2OH (R1R2)CH.OH (R1R2R3)C.OH
Primary. Secondary. Tertiary.
To distinguish Priinary, Secondary and Tertiary Alcohols.--
Many reactions serve to distinguish these three types of
alcohols. Of chief importance is their behaviour on oxidation.
The primary alcohols are first oxidized to aldehydes (q.v.),
which, on further oxidation, yield acids containing the same
number of carbon atoms as in the original alcohol. Secondary
alcohols yield ketones q.v.), which are subsequently
oxidized to a mixture of two acids, Tertiary alcohols yield
neither aldehydes nor ketones, but a mixture of two or more
acids. Another method is based upon the different behaviour
of the corresponding nitro-alkyl with nitrous acid. The
alcohol is first acted upon with phosphorus and iodine, and
the resulting alkyl iodide is treated with silver nitrite,
which gives the corresponding nitro-alkyl. The nitro-alkyl is
then treated with potassium nitrite dissolved in concentrated
potash, and sulphuric acid is added. By this treatment a
primary nitro-alkyl yields a nitrolic acid, the potassium
salt of which forms an intense red solution; a secondary
nitro-alkyl forms a pseudo nitrol, which gives an intense blue
solution, while the tertiary compound does not act with nitrous
acid. The reactions outlined above may be thus represented:--
//NOH
R.CH2OH --> R.CH2I --> R.CH2.NO2 --> R.C<
Primary alcohol. \NO2
Nitrolic acid.
R\ R\ R\ /NO2
>CH.OH --> >CH.I --> >CH.NO2 --> >C<
R1/ R1/ R1/ \NO
Secondary alcohol. Pseudo nitrol.
(R1R2R3)C.OH --> (R1R2R3)C.I --> (R1R2R3)C.NO2
Tertiary alcohol.
By heating to the boiling point of naphthalene (218 deg. ) tertiary
alcohols are decomposed, while heating to the boiling point of
anthracene (360 deg. ) suffices to decompose secondary alcohols, the
primary remaining unaffected. These changes can be followed out by
determinations of the vapour density, and so provide a method for
characterizing alcohols (see Compt. Rend. 1904, 138, p. 984).
Preparation.
Alcohols may be readily prepared from the corresponding alkyl
haloid by the action of moist silver oxide (which behaves as
silver hydroxide): by the saponification of their esters; or
by the reduction of polyhydric alcohols with hydriodic acid,
and the subsequent conversion of the resulting alkyl iodide
into the alcohol by moist silver oxide. Primary alcohols
are obtained by decomposing their sulphuric acid esters (from
sulphuric acid and the olefines) with boiling water; by the
action of nitrous acid on primary amines; or by the reduction
of aldehydes, acid chlorides or acid anhydrides. Secondary
alcohols result from the reduction of ketones; and from the
reaction of zinc alkyls on aldehydes or formic acid esters.
/C2H5 /C2H5
CH3CHO --> CH3.CH< --> CH3.CH<
\OZnC2H5 \OH
Acetaldehyde. Methyl ethyl carbinol.
//O /OZnCH3 /CH3 /CH3
HC HC<-CH3 --> R.C<-OZnCH3 --> R.C<-OH
\OC2H5 \Cl \CH3 \CH3
Formic ester. Isopropyl alcohol.
Tertiary alcohols may be synthesized by a method devised
by A. Butlerow in 1864, who thus discovered the tertiary
alcohols. By reacting with a zinc alkyl (methyl or ethyl) on
an acid chloride, an addition compound is first formed, which
decomposes with water to give a ketone. If, however, a second
molecule of a zinc alkyl be allowed to react, a compound is
formed which gives a tertiary alcohol when decomposed with water.
//O /CH3 /CH3 /CH3
R.C R.C<-OZnCH3 --> R.C<-OZnCH3 --> R.C<-OH
\Cl \Cl \CH3 \CH3
Acid chloride. Tertiary alcohol.
It is interesting to note that, whereas zinc methyl and ethyl
give tertiary alcohols, zinc propyl only gives secondary
alcohols. During recent years (1900 onwards) many brilliant
syntheses have been effected by the aid of magnesium-alkyl-haloids.
Properties.
The alcohols are neutral in reaction, and the lower members
possess the property of entering into combination with salts, in
which the alcohol plays the role of water of crystallization.
Sodium or potassium dissolves in them with the formation of
alcoholates, the hydrogen of the hydroxyl group being replaced by
the metal. With strong acids water is split off and esters are
formed. The haloid esters of the paraffin alcohols formed by
heating the alcohols with the halogen acids are the monohaloid
derivatives of the paraffins, and are more conveniently
prepared by the action of the phosphorous haloid on the
alcohol. Energetic dehydration gives the olefine hydrocarbons,
but under certain conditions ethers (see ETHER) are obtained.
The physical properties of the alcohols exhibit a gradation
with the increase of molecular weight. The lower members
are colourless mobile liquids, readily soluble in water and
exhibiting a characteristic odour and taste. The solubility
decreases as the carbon content rises. The normal alcohols
containing 1 to 16 carbon atoms are liquids at the ordinary
temperatures; the higher members are crystalline, odourless
and tasteless solids, closely resembling the fats in
appearance. The boiling points of the normal alcohols
increase regularly about 10 deg. for each CH2 increment;
this is characteristic of all homologous series of organic
compounds. Of the primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols
having the same empirical formula, the primary have the
highest, and the tertiary the lowest boiling point; this
is in accordance with the fairly general rule that a gain
in symmetry is attended by a fall in the boiling point.
The following monatomic alcohols receive special treatment
under their own headings:--ALCOHOL (ETHYL), ALLYL
ALCOHOL, AMYL, ALCOHOLS, BEN zsqrt. L ALCOHOL, BUTYL
ALcohols, METHY L ALcohol, and PROPYL ALCOHOLS.
ALCOTT, AMOS BRONSON (1799-1888), American educationalist
and writer, born on Spindle Hill, in the town of Wolcott,
New Haven county, Connecticut, on the 29th of November
1799. His father, Joseph Chatfield Alcox, was a farmer
and mechanic whose ancestors, then bearing the name of
Alcocke, had setlled in eastern Massachusetts in colonial
days. The son adopted the spelling ``Alcott'' in his early
youth. Self-educated and early thrown upon his own resources,
he began in 1814 to earn his living by working in a clock
factory in Plymouth, Conn., and for many years after 1815
he peddled books and merchardise, chiefly in the southern
states. He began teaching in Bristol, Conn., in 1823, and
subsequently conducted schools in Cheshire, Conn., in 1825-1827,
again in Bristol in 1827-1828, in Boston in 1828-1830, in
Germantown, now part of Philadelphia, in 1831-1833, and
in Philadelphia in 1833. In 1830 he had mariied Abby May,
the sister of Samuel J. May (1797-1871), the reformer and
abolitionist. In 1834 he opened in Boston a school which
became famous because of his original methods; his plan being
to develop self-instruction on the basis of self-analysis, with
an ever-present desire on his own part to stimulate the child's
personality. The feature of his school which attracted most
attention, perhaps, was his scheme for the teacher's receiving
punishment, in certain circumstances, at the hands of an offending
pupil, whereby the sense of shame might be quickened in the
mind of the errant child. The school was denounced in the
press, was not pecuniarily successful, and in 1839 was given
up, although Alcott had won the affection of his pupils, and
his educational experiments had challenged the attention of
students of pedagogy. The school is perhaps best described
in Miss E. P. Peabody's A Record of Mr Alcott's School
(1835). In 1840 Alcott removed to Concord, Massachusetts.
After a visit to England, in 1842, he started with two English
associates, Charles Lane and Henry C. Wright, at ``Fruitlands,''
in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts, a communistic experiment
at farm-living and nature-meditation as tending to develop the
best powers of body and soul. This speedily came to naught,
and Alcott returned (1844) to his home near that of Emerson in
Concord, removing to Boston four years later, and again living
in Concord after 1857. He spoke, as opportunity offered,
before the ``lyceums'' then common in various parts of the
United States, or addressed groups of hearers as they invited
him. These ``conversations,'' as he called them, were more
or less informal talks on a great range of topics, spiritual,
aesthetic and practical, in which he emphasized the ideas of
the school of American Transcendentalists led by Emerson, who
was always his supporter and discreet admirer. He dwelt upon
the illumination of the mind and soul by direct communion with
the Creative Spirit; upon the spiritual and poetic monitions
of external nature; and upon the benefit to man of a serene
mood and a simple way of life. As regards the trend and
results of Alcott's philosophic teaching, it must be said
that, like Emerson, he was sometimes inconsistent, hazy or
abrupt. But though he formulated no system of philosophy, and
seemed to show the influence now of Plato, now of Kant, or of
German thought as filtered through the brain of Coleridge, he
was, like his American master, associate and friend, steadily
optimistic, idealistic, individualistic. The teachings of
William Ellery Channing a little before, as to the sacred
inviolability of the human conscience--anticipating the later
conclusions of Martineau--really lay at the basis of the work
of most of the Concord transcendentalists and contributors
to The Dial, of whom Alcott was one. In his last years,
living in a serene and beautiful old age in his Concord
home, the Orchard House,where every comfort was provided by
his daughter Louisa (q.v.), Alcott was gratified at being
able to become the nominal, and at times the actual, head
of a Concord ``Summer School of Philosophy and Literature,''
which had its first session in 1879, and in which --in
a rudely fashioned building next his house--thoughtful
listeners were addressed during a part of several successive
summer seasons on many themes in philosophy, religion and
letters. Of Alcott's published works the most important is
Tablets (1868); next in order of merit is Concord Days
(1872). His Sonnets and Canzonets (1882) are chiefly
interesting as an old man's experiments in verse. He left
a large collection of personal jottings and memorabilia,
most of which remain unpublished. He died in Boston on the
4th of March 1888. Alcott was a Garrisonian abolitionist.
See A. Bronson Alcott, His Life and Philosophy (2 vols., Boston,
1893), by F. B. Sanborn and William T. Harris; New Connecticut:
an Autobiographical Poem (Boston, 1887), edited by F. B. Sanborn;
and Lowell's criticism in his Fable for Critics. (C. F. R.)
ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY (1832-1888), American author, was the
daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott, and though of New England
parentage and residence, was born in Germantown, now part of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 29th of November 1832.
She began work at an early age as an occasional teacher and
as a writer--her first book was Flower Fables (1854), tales
originally written for Ellen, daughter of R. W. Emerson. In
1860 she began writing for the Atlantic Monthly, and she was
nurse in the Union Hospital at Georgetown, D.C., for six weeks in
1862-1863. Her home letters, revised and published in the
Commonwealth and collected as Hospital Sketches (1863,
republished with additions in 1869), displayed some power of
observation and record; and Moods, a novel (1864), despite
its uncertainty of method and of touch, gave considerable
promise. She soon turned, however, to the rapid production
of stories for girls, and, with the exception of the cheery
tale entitled Work (1873), and the anonymous novelette
A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), which attracted little
notice, she did not return to the more ambitious fields of the
novelist. Her success dated from the appearance of the first
series of Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868),
in which, with unfailing humour, freshness and lifelikeness,
she put into story form many of the sayings and doings of
herself and sisters. Little Men (1871) similarly treated
the character and ways of her nephews in the Orchard House in
Concord, Massachusetts, in which Miss Alcott's industry had
now established her parents and other members of the Alcott
family; but most of her later volumes, An Old-Fashioned
Girl (1870), Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag (6 vols., 1871-1879),
Rose in Bloom (1876), &c., followed in the line of Little
Women, of which the author's large and loyal public never
wearied. Her natural love of labour, her wide-reaching
generosity, her quick perception and her fondness for sharing
with her many readers that cheery humour which radiated from
her personality and her books, led her to produce stories of
a diminishing value, and at last she succumbed to overwork,
dying in Boston on the 6th of March 1888, two days after
the death of her father in the same city. Miss Alcott's
early education had partly been given by the naturalist
Thoreau, but had chiefly been in the hands of her father;
and in her girlhood and early womanhood she had fully shared
the trials and poverty incident to the life of a peripatetic
idealist. In a newspaper sketch entitled ``Transcendental
Wild Oats,'' afterwards reprinted in the volume Silver
Pitchers (1876), she narrated, with a delicate humour, which
showed what her literary powers might have been if freed from
drudgery, the experiences of her family during an experiment
towards communistic ``plain living and high thinking'' at
``Fruitlands,'' in the town of Harvard, Massachusetts, in 1843.
The story of her career has been fully and frankly
told in Mrs Ednah D. Cheney's Louisa May Alcott: Her
Life, Letters and Journals (Boston, 1889). (C. F. R.)
ALCOVE (through the Span. alcova, from the Arab. al-, the,
and quobbah, a vault), an architectural term for a recess in
a room usually screened off by pillars, balustrade or drapery.
ALCOY, a town of south-eastern Spain, in the province of
Alicante, on the small river Serpis, and at the terminus of a
branch railway connected with the Barcelona-Valencia-Alicante
line. Pop. (1900) 32,053. Alcoy is built on high ground
at the entrance to a gorge in the Moncabrer range (4547
ft.). It is a thriving industrial town, devoid of any great
antiquarian or architectural interest, though founded by the
Moors. It owes its prosperity to its manufacture of linen,
woolen goods and paper, especially cigarette paper. Many of
the factories derive their motive power from the falls of a
mountain torrent, known as the Salto de las Aguas. Labour
disturbances are frequent, for, like Barcelona, Alcoy has
become one of the centres of socialistic and revolutionary
agitation, while preserving many old-fashioned customs and
traditions, such as the curious festival held annually in
April in honour of St George, the patron saint of the town.
COCENTAINA (pop. 1900, 7093) is a picturesque and ancient
town, 4 m. N.E. by rail. It is surrounded by Roman walls,
which were partly rebuilt by the Moors, and it contains an
interesting fortified palace, owned by the dukes of Medinaceli.
For an account of the festival of St George of Alcoy,
see Apuntes historicos acerca de las fiestas que
celebra cada ano la ciudad de Alcoy a su patron San
Jorge, by J. A. Llobet y Vallosera (Alcoy, 1853).
ALCUIN (ALCHUINE), a celebrated ecclesiastic and man of
learning in the 8th century, who liked to be called by the
Latin name of ALBINUS, and at the Academy of the palace
took the surname of FLACCUS, was born at Eboracum (York)
in 735. He was related to Willibrord, the first bishop of
Utrecht, whose biography he afterwards wrote. He was
educated at the cathedral school of York, under the celebrated
master AElbert, with whom he also went to Rome in search of
manuscripts. When AElbert was appointed archbishop of York in
766, Alcuin succeeded him in the headship of the episcopal
school. He again went to Rome in 780, to fetch the pallium
for Archbishop Eanbald, and at Parma met Charlemagne, who
persuaded him to come to his court, and gave him the possession
of the great abbeys of Ferrieres and of Saint-Loup at
Troyes. The king counted on him to accomplish the great
work which was his dream, namely, to make the Franks familiar
with the rules of the Latin language, to create schools
and to revive learning. From 781 to 790 Alcuin was his
sovereign's principal helper in this enterprise. He had
as pupils the king of the Franks, the members of his family
and the young clerics attached to the palace chapel; he was
the life and soul of the Academy of the palace, and we have
still, in the Dialogue of Pepin (son of Charlemagne) and
Alcuin, a sample of the intellectual exercises in which they
indulged. It was under his inspiration that Charles wrote his
famous letter de litteris colendis (Boretius, Capitularia,
i. p. 78), and it was he who founded a fine library in the
palace. In 790 Alcuin returned to his own country, to which he
had always been greatly attached, and stayed there some time;
but Charlemagne needed him to combat the Adoptianist heresy,
which was at that time making great progress in the marches of
Spain. At the council of Frankfort in 794 Alcuin upheld the
orthodox doctrine, and obtained the condemnation of the heresiarch
Felix of Urgel. After this victory he again returned to his
own land, but on account of the disturbances which broke out
there, and which led to the death of King AEthelred (796),
he bade farewell to it for ever. Charlemagne had just given
him the great abbey of St Martin at Tours, and there, far
from the disturbed life of the court, he passed his last
years. He made the abbey school into a model of excellence,
and many students flocked to it; he had numerous manuscripts
copied, the calligraphy of which is of extraordinary beauty
(v. Leopold Delisle in the Memoires de l'Academie des
Inscriptions, vol. xxxii., 1st part, 1885) . He wrote
numerous letters to his friends in England, to Arno, bishop
of Salzburg, and above all to Charlemagne. These letters,
of which 311 are extant, are filled chiefly with pious
meditations, but they further form a mine of information as
to the literary and social conditions of the time, and are
the most reliable authority for the history of humanism in
the Carolingian age. He also trained the numerous monks of
the abbey in piety, and it was in the midst of these pursuits
that he was struck down by death on the 19th of May 804.
Alcuin is the most prominent figure of the Carolingian Renaissance,
in which have been distinguished three main periods: in the
first of these, up to the arrival of Alcuin at the court, the
Italians occupy the chief place; in the second, Alcuin and
the Anglo-Saxons are dominant; in the third, which begins in
804, the influence of the Goth Theodulf is preponderant.
Alcuin transmitted to the ignorant Franks the knowledge of
Latin culture which had existed in England since the time of
Bede. We still have a number of his works. His letters have
already been mentioned; his poetry is equally interesting.
Besides some graceful epistles in the style of Fortunatus, he
wrote some long poems, and notably a whole history in verse
of the church at York: Versus de patribus, regibus et sanctis
Eboracensis ecclesiae. We owe to him, too, some manuals used
in his educational work; a grammar and works on rhetoric and
dialectics. They are written in the form of dialogues,
and in the two last the interlocutors are King Charles and
Alcuin. He wrote, finally, several theological treatises:
a treatise de Fide Trinitatis, commentaries on the Bible,
&c. The complete works of Alcuin have been edited by Froben:
Alcuini opera, 1 vol. in 4 parts (Regensburg, 1777); this
edition is reproduced in Migne's Patrolog. lat. vols. c. and
ci. The letters have been published by Jaffe and Dummler in
Jaffe's Bibliotheca rerum germonicarum, vol. vi. pp. 132-897
(1873). E. Dummler has also published an authoritative
edition, Epistolae aevi Carolini, vol. ii. pp. 1-481, in the
Monumenta Germaniae, and has edited the poems in the same
collection: Poetae latini aevi Carolini, vol. i. pp. 169-341.
AUTHORITIES.--Monnier, Alcuin et Charlemagne (Paris,
1863); K. Werner, Alkuin und sein Jahrhundert (Paderborn,
1876); J. Bass Mullinger, The Schools of Charles the Great
and the Restoration of Education in the 9th Century
(London, 1877); Aug. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de
France, vol. i. p. 191; G, Monod, Etudes critiques sur les
sources de l'histoire carolingienne, part i. (Paris, (1898);
C. J. B. Gaskoin, Alcuin: His Life and his Work (London,
1903). See further U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources,
&c., biobibliographie, s.v. Alcuin; Wattenbach, Deutschlands
Geschichtsquellen (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1904), i, p. 186. (C. PF.)
ALCYONE, or HALCYONE, in Greek mythology, daughter of
Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. For their presumption in calling
themselves Zeus and Hera they were changed into birds--Alcyone
into a diver, Ceyx into a kingfisher. According to another
story, Ceyx was drowned and his body cast on the shore.
His wife found the body, and the gods, out of compassion,
changed both her and her husband into kingfishers. By command
of Zeus (or Aeolus) the winds ceased to blow during their
brooding-time, for seven days before and after the shortest
day, that their eggs might not be carried away by the
sea. Hence the expression ``halcyon days,'' used in ancient
and modern times to denote a period of calm and tranquillity.
Apollonius Rhodius i. 1087; Ovid, Metam.
xi. 410 et seq.; Hyginus, Fabulae, 65.
ALDABRA, the collective name of a group of islands in
the Indian Ocean, forming part of the British colony of
Seychelles. They lie in 9 deg. 30' S., 46 deg. E., are 265 m.
N.W. of the northern point of Madagascar and 690 m. S.W. of
Mahe, the principal island of the Seychelles archipelago. The
Comoro Islands lie 220 m. S. by W. of Aldabra. The Aldabra
Islands constitute an atoll consisting of an oval ring of
land, some 40 m. in circumference and about 1 1/2 m. broad,
enclosing a shallow lagoon. Channels divide the ring into four
islands. Grande Terre or South Island forms three-fifths of the
circumference. The other islands are West Island or Ile
Picard, Polymnie and Middle Island. There are in addition
several islets in the lagoon, the most important being Ile
Michel. The total land area is estimated at about 60 sq. m., the
lagoon, 16 m. long and 4 m. wide, covering a somewhat larger
area. Pop. (1906) 127. The islands rise from 20 to 80 ft.
above the sea, and consist of rugged coral rock and limestone,
there being very little soil. The sea-face is generally
overhanging cliff, but in a few places are sandy beaches
and low sandhills. Dense scrub covers most of the land, but
the inner (lagoon) shore is everywhere bounded by mangrove
swamps. The flora and fauna of the islands present features
of unusual interest. They are chiefly noted as the habitat
of the gigantic land tortoise (Testudo elephantina), now
carefully preserved, and of several rare and peculiar birds,
including a rail (Dryolimnas aldabranus), an ibis (Ibis
abbottii) and a dove (Alectroenas sganzini.) Crustacea are
abundant. They include oysters, crabs of great size, and a
small mussel, found in enormous numbers. The flora includes
mangroves, Rubiaceae, Sapotaceae and other forms requiring
more than pure coralline material for their growth. Writing
of the fauna and flora generally, Mr R. Dupont, curator of the
Botanic station at Mahe, who visited Aldabra in 1906. says:
``The specimens represented, besides being partly peculiar,
mostly belong to the Mascarenes, Madagascar and Comoros
species. Many species are also common to East Africa and to
India. . . . The predominant species are Madagascar plants and
birds, which are carried by the currents and the winds. . . .
There are comparatively few (10) species of plants which are
endemic as far as the flora has been investigated, and it is
probable that most of them are also existing in the Comoros,
where the flora is not well known. . . . Endemic inferior
animals and mammals are practically non-existent, except two
bats and one scorpion, which are allied to Madagascar species
or introduced. The reptiles (tortoises) are also nearly
allied to the Mascarenes and Madagascar species which once
existed. With regard to birds and land shells the relation is
much closer to the Comoros species, and the latter, of which
I have collected seven species besides Rachis aldabrae, may
serve to point out more than the birds the land connexion of
Aldabra with the neighbouring countries.'' Aldabra, however,
although situated in that region of the Indian Ocean which
forms part of the site of the Indo-Madagascar continent
of the Secondary period, is not a peak of the submerged
land. It has been built up from the sunken remains of the
old continent by a deposit, in the opinion of Professor A.
Voeltzkow, of foraminiferal remains (mostly coccoliths and
rhabdoliths). In any case, however Aldabra was formed,
there can be no suggestion of its ever having been joined
to any other land (Stanley Gardiner). Dupont states that
at Aldabra the coral foundation is totally above water.
The coral limestone of the atoll has a peculiar vitrified
appearance and gives out a ringing sound when struck or
simply walked on. The coral is generally reddish, but
the colouring ranges from light yellow to chocolate-brown.
Aldabra was visited by Portuguese navigators in 1511. The
islands were already known to the Arabs, from whom they get
their name. They became in the middle of the 18th century
dependencies of the French establishments at Bourbon (Reunion),
whence expeditions were made for the capture of the giant
tortoises. In 1810 with Mauritius, Bourbon, the Seychelles
and other islands, Aldabra passed into the possession of
Great Britain. The inhabitants are emigrants from the
Seychelles. Goats are bred and coco-nuts cultivated,
but fishing is the chief industry. With other outlying
islands Aldabra is held under lease from the Seychelles
government, the lessees having exclusive trading privileges.
See R. Dupont, Report on a Visit of Investigation to . . .
the Aldabra Group of the Seychelles Islands (Seychelles,
1907); Dr Abbott in Proceedings, United States National Museum
(Washington, 1894); A. Voeltzkow in Abh. der Senckenbergischen
Naturferschenden Ges. vol. xxvi. part iv. (1901); J. S.
Gardiner, ``The Indian Ocean,'' Geo. Journ. Oct. 1906.
ALDBOROUGH, a village in the Ripon parliamentary division
of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 16 m. W.N.W. of
York, and 1 m. E. of the market town of Boroughbridge, which
has a station on a branch of the North-Eastern railway.
Aldborough formerly returned two members to parliament, but
was disfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832. The place is
remarkable from its numerous ancient remains. It was the
Isurium Brigantum of the Romans, originally perhaps a capital
of the Brigantes tribe, and afterwards a Romano-British town
of considerable size. Inscriptions, beautiful mosaics and
other traces of comfortable houses have been found, with
many potsherds, coins and bronze, iron and other objects;
and a large part of the town walls, several mosaics and
parts of buildings, can be seen. A fine collection is kept
in the Museum Isurianum in the grounds of the manor-house.
ALDEBURGH [ALDBOROUGH], a market town and municipal
borough in the Eye parliamentary division of Suffolk, England,
the terminus of a branch of the Great Eastern railway, 99 1/2
m. N.E. by E. from London. Area, 1629 acres. Pop. (1901)
2405. The surrounding district is open and somewhat bleak,
but a fine stretch of sand fringes the shallow inlet of
the North Sea known as Aldeburgh Bay. To the W. the river
Alde broadens as if into an estuary, but its outflow is
here prevented by the sand, and it runs south for nearly
10 m. parallel with the shore. The sandbanks have arrested
the encroachments of the sea, which submerged a former
site of Aldeburgh. The church of St Peter and St Paul is
Perpendicular, largely restored, and contains a monument to
the poet George Crabbe, born here on the 24th of December
1754. A small picturesque Moot Hall of the 16th century is
used for corporation meetings. Slaughden Quay on the Alde
admits small vessels, and fishing is carried on. Aldeburgh
is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors.
Aldeburgh (Aldburc) takes its name from the river Alde
on which it stands. It is not mentioned in pre-Conquest
records, but at the Domesday survey most of the land was held
by Robert Malet, a Norman. In 1155 the manor was granted
to the abbey of St John of Colchester, later to Cardinal
Wolsey, and on his disgrace, to Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk,
to whom Elizabeth in 1567 granted a market on Saturday.
In the 16th century Aldeburgh was a place of considerable
commercial importance, due, no doubt, to its position on the
sea-coast. Aldeburgh claims to be a borough by prescription:
the earliest charter is that granted by Henry VIII. in
1529. Edward VI. in 1548 raised it to the rank of a free
borough, granting a charter of incorporation and a market on
Wednesday. Later charters were granted by Philip and Mary in
1553, by Elizabeth in 1558 and 1567, by James I. (who granted
two annual fairs) in 1606, and by Charles I. in 1631 and
1637. The corporation included 2 bailiffs, 10 capital and
24 inferior burgesses, until the Municipal Corporations Act
1883. The fairs and markets became so unimportant that
they were discontinued about the middle of the 19th
century. The town returned two members to Elizabeth's
parliament of 1572, and continued to be so represented
till the Reform Bill of 1832 disfranchised it. Frequent
disastrous incursions of the sea in the 18th century reduced
Aldeburgh to a mere fishing village. In recent years it
has grown as a seaside resort, with excellent golf-links.
See John Kirby, The Suffolk Traveller (2nd ed., 1764); N. F. Hele,
Notes about Aldeburgh (1870); Victoria County History--Suffolk.
ALDEGREVER, or ALDEGRAF, HEINRICH (1502-1558), German
painter and engraver, was born at Paderborn, from which he
removed in early life to Soest, where he died. From the close
resemblance of his style to that of Albrecht Durer he has
sometimes been called the Albert of Westphalia. His numerous
engravings, chiefly from his own designs, are delicate and
minute, though somewhat hard in style, and entitle him to a
place in the front rank of the so-called ``Little Masters.''
There is a good collection in the British Museum. Specimens
of his painting are exceedingly rare. Five pictures are
in continental galleries, but the genuineness of the works
in the Vienna and Munich collections attributed to him is
at least doubtful, the only unchallenged example being a
portrait of Engelbert Therlaen (1551) in the Berlin Museum.
ALDEHYDES, a class of chemical compounds of the general
formula R.CHO (R = an alkyl or an aryl group). The name is
derived from alcohol dehydrogenatum in allusion to the fact
that they may be prepared by the oxidation of alcohols. The
lower members of the series are neutral liquids possessing
a characteristic smell; they are soluble in water and are
readily volatile (formaldehyde, however, is a gas at ordinary
temperatures). As the carbon content of the molecule
increases, they become less soluble in water, and their smell
becomes less marked with the increase in boiling point, the
highest members of the series being odourless solids, which
can only be distilled without decomposition in vacuo.
The aldehydes may be prepared by the careful oxidation of
primary alcohols with a mixture of potassium dichromate and
sulphuric acid,--3R.CH2OH + K2 Cr2O7 + 4H2SO4 = K2SO4
+ Cr2(SO4)3 + 7H2O + 3R.CHO; by distilling the calcium
salts of the fatty acids with calcium formate; and by hydrolysis
of the acetals. L. Bouveault (Bull. soc. chim., 1904 [3],
31, p. 1306) prepares aldehydes by the gradual addition of
disubstituted formamides (dissolved in anhydrous ether) to
magnesium alkyl haloids, the best yields being obtained by
the use of diethyl formamide. Secondary reactions take place
at the same time, yielding more particularly hydrocarbons
of the paraffin series. G. Darzens (Comptes Rendus, 1904,
139, p. 1214) prepares esters of disubstituted glycidic acids,
by condensing the corresponding ketone with monochloracetic
ester, in the presence of sodium ethylate. These esters on
hydrolysis yield the free acids, which readily decompose,
with loss of carbon dioxide and formation of an aldehyde,
/R /CRR1 /CRR1
OC< + Cl.CH2.COOC2H5 --> O< | --> O< |
\R1 \CH.COOC2H5 \CH.COOH
--> CO2 + CHRR1.CHO.
In the German Patent 157573 (1904) it is shown that by
the action of at least two molecular proportions of an alkyl
formate on two molecular proportions of a magnesium alkyl
or aryl haloid, a complex addition compound is formed, which
readily decomposes into a basic magnesium salt and an aldehyde,
C6H5MgBr + HCOOR --> RO.CH.C6H5.OMgBr --> MgBr.OR + C6H5CHO.
The aldehydes are characterized by their great chemical
reactivity. They act as reducing agents, silver nitrate
in the presence of ammonia being rapidly reduced to the
condition of metallic silver. They are easily oxidized to the
corresponding fatty acid, in many cases simply by exposure to
air. Nascent hydrogen reduces them to primary alcohols,
and phosphorus pentachloride replaces the carbonyl oxygen by
chlorine. They form many addition compounds, combining with
ammonia to form aldehyde ammonias of the type R.CH(OH).NH2.
These are colourless crystalline compounds, which are most readily
prepared by passing ammonia gas into an ethereal solution of the
aldehyde. With sodium bisulphite they form the so-called
bisulphite compounds R.CH(OH).SO3Na, which are readily resolved
into their components by distillation with dilute acids, and
are frequently used for the preparation of the pure aldehyde.
With hydrocyanic acid aldehydes form the cyanhydrins R.CH(OH).CN.
They react with hydroxylamine and phenylhydrazine, with the
formation of aldoximes and hydrazones. (For the isomerism of
the aldoximes see OXIMES.) The hydrazones are crystalline
substances which are of value in the characterization of the
aldehydes. Both oximes and hydrazones, on boiling with dilute
acid, regenerate the parent aldehyde. The hydrazones are
best prepared by mixing the aldehyde with phenylhydrazine
in dilute acetic acid solution, in the absence of any free
mineral acid. Semioxamazid, NH2.CO.CO.NH.NH2, has
also been employed for the identification of aldehydes
(W. Kerp and K. Unger, Berichte, 1897, 30. p. 585).
Aldehydes are converted into resins by the action of caustic
alkalies. On heating with alcohols to 100 deg. C. they form
acetals, and they also form condensation products with
para-amido-di-methyl-aniline (A. Calm, Berichte, 1884, 17, p.
2939). They react with the zinc alkyls to form addition products,
which are decomposed by water with formation of secondary
alcohols (K. Thurnlach, Annalen, 1882, 213, p. 369) thus:--
Zn(C2H5)2 H2O
/C2H5 /C2H5
CH3.CHO --> CH3.CH< --> CH3.CH< + ZnO + C2H6.
\OZnC2H5 \OH
The reaction is a general one for all aldehydes with zinc methyl
and zinc ethyl, but not with the higher zinc alkyls. V. Grignard
(Comptes Rendus, 1900 et seq.) showed that aldehydes combine
with magnesium alkyl iodides (in absolute ether solution) to
form addition products, which are decomposed by water with
the formation of secondary alcohols, thus from acetaldehyde
and magnesium methyl iodide, isopropyl alcohol is obtained.
H2O
/CH3
CH3.CHO + CH3MgI --> CH3.CH< --> (CH3)2CH.OH + MgI.OH.
\OMgI
The lower members of the aliphatic series are characterized
by their power of polymerization (see FORMALIN, and the
account of Acetaldehyde below), and also by the so-called
``aldol'' condensation, acetaldehyde in this way forming
aldol, CH3.CHOH.CH2.CHO. These aldols generally lose
the elements of water readily and pass into unsaturated
compounds; aldol itself on distillation at ordinary
atmospheric pressure gives crotonaldehyde, CH3.CH:CH.CHO.
Aldehydes are characterized by the reddish-violet colour which
they give with a solution of fuchsine that has been decolorized
by sulphurous acid (H. Schiff, Ann., 1866, 140, p. 131).
With diazobenzene sulphonic acid in the presence of alkali
and a trace of sodium amalgam, a reddish-violet coloration
is formed on standing (E. Fischer, Ber., 1883, 16, p.
657). A. Angeli (Gazz. chim. Ital., 1896, 22, ii. 17) has
shown that aldehydes in the presence of nitrohydroxylaminic
acid form hydroxamic acid. The aldehydes condense readily
with acetoacetic ester in the presence of ammonia, to pyridines
(see PYRIDINE), whilst O. Doebner and W. v. Miller (Ber.,
1892, 25, p. 2864; 1896, 29, p. 59) have shown that in the
presence of aniline and sulphuric acid they give substituted
quinolines. (See also C. Beyer, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 1908).
The chief aldehydes are shown in the following table:--
_____________________________________________________________________________
| Name. | Formula | Boiling | Melting|
| | | Point. | Point.|
|--------------------|-----------------------------------|---------|--------|
| Formaldehyde | H.CHO |-21 deg. | |
| Acetaldehyde | CH3.CHO | 20.8 deg. | |
| Propyl aldehyde | CH3.CH2.CHO | 49 deg. | |
| n-Butyl '' | CH3.(CH2)2.CHO | 75 deg. | |
| iso- '' '' | (CH3)2.CH.CHO | 61 deg. | |
| n-Valeryl '' | CH3.(CH2)3.CHO |103 deg. | |
| iso- '' '' | (C4H9.CHO | 92 deg. | |
| Oenanthyl '' | CH3.(CH2)5.CHO |155 deg. | |
| Capric '' | CH3.(CH2)8.CHO |121 deg. | |
| Lauric '' | CH3.(CH2)10.CHO | |44.5 deg. |
| Myristic '' | CH3.(CH2)12.CHO | |52.5 deg. |
| Palmitic '' | CH3.(CH2)14.CHO | |58.5 deg. |
| Stearic '' | CH3.(CH2)16.CHO | |63.5 deg. |
|--------------------|-----------------------------------|---------|--------|
| Acrolein | | | |
| ally aldehyde | CH2 : CH.CHO | 52 deg. | |
| Crotonic '' | CH3.CH : CH.CHO |104 deg. | |
| Tiglic '' | | | |
| (guaiacol) | CH3.CH : C.CH3.CHO |116 deg. | |
|--------------------|-----------------------------------|---------|--------|
| Proargylic A. | CH : C.CHO | 59 deg. | |
|--------------------|-----------------------------------|---------|--------|
| Benzaldehyde | C6H5.CHO |179 deg. | |
| {o | |200 deg. | |
| Toluicaldehyde{m | C6H4.CH3.CHO |199 deg. | |
| {p | |204 deg. | |
| Cumic '' | C6H4.C3H7.CHO |235 deg. | |
| Cinnamic '' | C6H5.CH : CH.CHO |247 deg. | |
|____________________|___________________________________|_________|________|
For formaldehyde see FORMALIN. Acetaldehyde, CH3.CHO,
was first noticed by C. Scheele in 1774 and isolated and
investigated by J. v. Liebig (Annalen, 1835, 14, p.
133). It is prepared by oxidizing ethyl alcohol with dilute
sulphuric acid and potassium bichromate, and is a colourless
liquid of boiling point 20.8 deg. C., possessing a peculiar
characteristic smell. Its specific gravity is 0.8009 (0 deg.
C.). It is miscible in all proportions with alcohol, ether and
water. It is readily polymerized, small quantities of
hydrochloric acid, zinc chloride, carbonyl chloride, &c.
converting it, at ordinary temperatures, into paraldehyde,
(C2H4O)3, a liquid boiling at 124 deg. C. and of specific
gravity 0.998 (15 deg. C.). Paraldehyde is moderately soluble in
water, and when distilled with sulphuric acid is reconverted
into the ordinary form. Metaldehyde, (C2H4O)3, is produced
in a similar way to paraldehyde, but at lower temperatures
(e.g. in presence of a freezing mixture). It is a crystalline
solid, which sublimes at 112 deg. -115 deg. C. It is insoluble
in water, and is only slightly soluble in alcohol and
ether. When heated in a sealed tube at 120 deg. C. it is
completely converted into the ordinary form. Paraldehyde
is oxidized by dilute nitric acid, with formation of much
glyoxal, (CHO)2. (For trichloracetaldehyde see CHLORAL.)
By the action of acetaldehyde on alcohol at 100 deg. C.,
acetal, CH3.CH(OC2H5)2, is produced. It may also be
prepared by oxidizing ethyl alcohol with manganese dioxide
and sulphuric acid (A. Wurtz). It is a colourless liquid
of specific gravity 0.8314 (20 deg. /4 deg. ) (J. W. Bruhl) and
boiling point 104 deg. C. Dilute acids readily transform it
into alcohol and aldehyde, and chromic acid oxidizes it to
acetic acid. Chlor- and brom-acetals have been described.
Thioaldehydes are also known, and are obtained by leading
sulphuretted hydrogen into an aqueous solution of acetaldehyde.
By this means a mixture is obtained which by distillation
or the action of hydrochloric acid yields trithioaldehyde,
(C2H4S)3. For the constitution of these substances
see E. Baumann and E. Fromm (Berichte, 1891, 24, p.
1426). Aldehyde ammonia, CH3.CH(OH).NH2, is formed
when dry ammonia gas is passed into an ethereal solution of
acetaldehyde. It crystallizes in glistening rhombohedra,
melting at 70 deg. -80 deg. C., and boiling at 100 deg. C. It is completely
resolved into its components when warmed with dilute acids.
The higher aldehydes of the series resemble acetaldehyde
in their general behaviour. Unsaturated aldehydes are also
known, corresponding to the olefine alcohols; they show the
characteristic properties of the saturated aldehydes and
can form additive compounds in virtue of their unsaturated
nature. The simplest member of the series is acrolein, C3H4O
or CH2 : CH.CHO, which can be prepared by the oxidation
of allyl alcohol, or by the abstraction of the elements of
water from glycerin by heating it with anhydrous potassium
bisulphate. It is also produced by the action of sodium on
a mixture of epichlorhydrin and methyl iodide, C3H5OCl +
CH3I + 2Na = C3H4O + NaI + NaCl + CH4. It is a colourless
liquid, with a very pungent smell, and attacks the mucous
membrane very rapidly. It boils at 52.4 deg. C. and is soluble in
water. It oxidizes readily: exposure to air giving acrylic
acid, nitric acid giving oxalic acid, bichromate of potash
and sulphuric acid giving carbon dioxide and formic acid.
It combines with bromine to form a dibromide, from which E.
Fischer, by the action of baryta water, obtained the synthetic
sugars a- and b-acrose (Berichte, 1889, 22, p. 360).
Metacrolein, (C3H4O)3, is a polymer of acrolein. By passing
acrolein vapour into ammonia, acrolein ammonia, C6H9NO, is
obtained. It is a reddish amorphous mass, insoluble in
alcohol, and when distilled yields picoline (methyl pyridine)
(A. Baeyer, Ann., 1870, 155, p. 283). Citronellal, rhodinal
and geranial are also unsaturated aldehydes (see TERPENES.)
The aromatic aldehydes resemble the aliphatic aldehydes in most
respects, but in certain reactions they exhibit an entirely
different behaviour. They do not polymerize, and in the
presence of caustic alkalies do not resinify, but oxidize
to alcohols and acids (see BENZALDEHYDE for Cannizzaro's
reaction). When heated with alcoholic potassium cyanide
they are converted into benzoins (q.v..) Vanillin does
not give the Cannizzaro reaction, but with alcoholic potash
forms vanillic acid, HOOC(1).C6H3.OCH3 (3).OH(4), and
vanilloin. With ammonia, benzaldehyde does not form an aldehyde
ammonia, but condenses to hydrobenzamide, ( C6H5CH)3N2,
with elimination of water. Cumic aldehyde (cuminol),
(CH3)2CH(1)C6H4.CHO(4), is found in Roman caraway oil and
in oil of the water hemlock. It is a liquid, boiling at 235 deg.
C., and has a specific gravity of 0.973. On distillation with
zinc dust it forms cymene (1.4 methyl isopropyl benzene).
Salicylic aldehyde (ortho-hydroxybenzaldehyde), HO(1).
C6H4.CHO(2), an aromatic oxyaldehyde, is a colourless liquid
of boiling point 196 deg. C. and specific gravity 1.172 (15 deg. ).
It is found in the volatile oils of Spiraea, and can be obtained
by the oxidation of the glucoside salicin, (C13H18O7),
which is found in willow bark. It is usually prepared by the
so-called ``Reimer'' reaction (Ber., 1876, 9, p. 1268), in which
chloroform acts on phenol in the presence of a caustic alkali,
C5H5OH + CHCl3 + 4KHO = 3KCl + 3H2O + KO.C6H4.CHO,
some para-oxybenaldehyde being formed at the same time. It
is volatile (para-oxybenzaldehyde is not) and gives a violet
coloration with ferric chloride. For dioxybenzaldehydes
and their derivatives see PIPERONAL and VANILLIN.
Cinnamic aldehyde (b-phenyl acrolein), C6H5.CH : CH.CHO,
an unsaturated aromatic aldehyde, is the chief constituent of
cinnamon oil. It is prepared by oxidizing cinnamyl alcohol, or
by the action of sodium ethylate on a mixture of benzaldehyde and
acetaldehyde. It is a colourless aromatic-smelling oily liquid,
which boils at 247 deg. C. and readily oxidizes on exposure.
By condensation of aldehydes with pyruvic acid and
naphthylamines, the a-alkyl-naphthoquinoline-g-carboxylic
acids are produced; the same reaction takes place with the
aromatic amines generally (O. Doebner, Ann. 1804, 281, p. 1),
COOH
|
/ \ COOH / \ / \
| | + | + R.CHO = | | | + 2H2O + 2H.
\ / \NH2 CO.CH3 \ / \N/ \R
ALDEN, JOHN (1599?-1687), one of the ``Pilgrims'' who in
1620 emigrated to America on the ``Mayflower'' and founded
the Plymouth Colony. According to William Bradford's
History of the Plimoth Plantation, he was hired as a
cooper at Southampton, ``where the ship victuled,'' just
before the voyage, ``and being a hopfull yong man, was much
desired.'' He was one of the first settlers of Duxbury,
Massachusetts, where he lived during the greater part of his
life, and from 1633 until 1675 he was an ``Assistant'' to
the governor of the colony, frequently serving as acting
governor. At the time of his death, at Duxbury, on the
12th of September 1687, he was the last male survivor of
the signers of the ``Mayflower Compact'' of 1620, and with
the exception of Mary Allerton was the last survivor of the
``Mayflower'' company. He is remembered chiefly because of
a popular legend, put into verse as The Courtship of Miles
Standish by Henry W. Longfellow, concerning his courtship
of Priscilla Mullins, whom he married in 1623, after having
wooed her first on behalf of his friend, Miles Standish.
ALDER, a genus of plants (Alnus) belonging to the order
Betulaceae, the best-known of which is the common alder (A.
glutinosa.) The genus comprises a few species of shrubs or
trees, seldom reaching a large size, distributed through
the North Temperate zone, and in the New World passing
along the Andes southwards to Chile. The British species
A. glutinosa is confined to the Old World. This tree
thrives best in moist soils, has a shrubby appearance, and
grows under favourable circumstances to a height of 40 or 50
ft. It is characterized by its short-stalked roundish leaves,
becoming wedge-shaped at the base and with a slightly toothed
margin. When young they are somewhat glutinous, whence the
specific name, becoming later a dark olive green. As with
other plants growing near water it keeps its leaves longer
than do trees in drier situations, and the glossy green foliage
lasting after other trees have put on the red or brown of
autumn renders it valuable for landscape effect. The stout
cylindrical male catkins are pendulous, reddish in colour
and 2 to 4 in. long; the female are smaller, less than an
inch in length and reddish-brown in colour, suggesting young
fir-cones. When the small winged fruits have been scattered the
ripe, woody, blackish cones remain, often lasting through the
winter. The alder is readily propagated by seeds, but throws
up root-suckers abundantly. It is important as coppice-wood
on marshy ground. The wood is soft, white when first cut and
turning to pale red; the knots are beautifully mottled. Under
water the wood is very durable, and it is therefore used for
piles. The supports of the Rialto at Venice, and many buildings
at Amsterdam, are of alder-wood. Furniture is sometimes made
from the wood, and it supplies excellent charcoal for gunpowder.
The bark is astringent; it is used for tanning and dyeing.
ALDER-FLY, the name given to neuropterous insects of the family
Sialidae, related to the ant-lions, with long filamentous
antennae and four large wings, of which the anterior pair is
rather longer than the posterior. The females lay a vast number
of eggs upon grass stems near water. The larvae are aquatic,
active, armed with strong sharp mandibles, and breathe by
means of seven pairs of abdominal branchial filaments. When
full sized they leave the water and spend a quiescent pupal
stage on the land before metamorphosis into the sexually mature
insect. Sialis lutaria is a well-known British example. In
America there are two genera, Corydalis and Chauliodes,
which are remarkable for their relatively gigantic size and
for the immense length and sabre-like shape of the mandibles.
ALDERMAN (from A.-S. ealdorman, compounded of the
comparative degree of the adjective eald, old, and man),
a term implying the possession of an office of rank or
dignity, and, in modern times, applied to an office-bearer
in the municipal corporations and county councils of England
and Wales,and in the municipal corporations of Ireland and
the United States. Among the Anglo-Saxons, earls, governors
of provinces and other persons of distinction received this
title. Thus we read of the aldermannus totius Angliae, who
seems to have corresponded to the officer afterwards styled
capitalis justiciarius Angliae, or chief-justice of England;
the aldermannus regis, probably an occasional magistrate,
answering to the modern justice of assize, or perhaps an officer
whose duty it was to prosecute for the crown; and aldermannus
comitatus, a magistrate with a middle rank between what was
afterwards called the earl and the sheriff, who sat at
the trial of causes with the bishop and declared the common
law, while the bishop proceeded according to ecclesiastical
law. Besides these, we meet with the titles of aldermannus
civitatis, burgi, castelli, hundredi sive wapentachii, &c.
In England, before the passing of the Municipal Corporations
Act, their functions varied according to the charters of the
different boroughs. By the Municipal Corporations Act 1835,
and other acts, consolidated by the Municipal Corporations Act
1882, the aldermen are elected by the councillors for six
years, one-half going out every three years. The number
of councillors in each borough varies according to its
magnitude. One-fourth of the municipal council consists of
aldermen and three-fourths of councillors. In the counties,
too, the number of aldermen is one-third of the number of
councillors, except in London, where it is one-sixth. In the
municipal corporations of Scotland there is no such title as
alderman, the office-bearers of corresponding rank there being
termed bailies. The corporation of the city of London was
not included in the Borough Reform Act, and the antiquated
system remains there in full force. The court of aldermen
consists of twenty-six, twenty-five of whom are elected for
life by the freemen of the respective wards, who return two
persons, one of whom the court of aldermen elect to supply the
vacancy. The city is divided into twenty-six wards; twenty-four
of these send up one alderman each, the other two combine
to choose a twenty-fifth. The twenty-sixth alderman serves
for the independent borough of Southwark (q.v.) and is
appointed by the other aldermen, who generally select the
senior from among themselves when a vacancy occurs. The lord
mayor is elected from such of the aldermen as have served the
office of sheriff; of these the Common Hall, which consists
of the freemen of the different wards, select two, and the
aldermen elect one of these to the mayoralty. The court of
aldermen has the power of appointment to certain offices,
exercises judicial functions in regard to licensing and in
disputes connected with the ward election, has some power of
disposal over the city cash and possesses magisterial control
over the city, each alderman being a judge and magistrate
for the whole city, and by virtue of his office exercising
the functions of a justice of the peace. The aldermen are
members of the court of common council, the legislative body
of the corporation, which consists in all of 232 members,
the remainder being elected annually by the freemen. In the
United States aldermen form as a rule a legislative rather
than a judicial body, although in some cities they hold
courts and possess very considerable magisterial powers.
ALDERNEY (Fr. Aurigny), one of the Channel Islands, the
northernmost of the principal members of the group, belonging to
England. It lies in 49 deg. 43' N. and 2 deg. 12' W., 9 m. W.
of Cape La Hague on the coast of Normandy. The harbour, on
the north coast in the bay of Braye, is 25 m. from St Peter
Port, Guernsey, by way of which outer communications are
principally carried on, and 55 m. S. by E. of Portland
Bill, the nearest point of England. The length of the
island from N. E. to S. W. is 3 1/2 m., its average breadth 1
m., its area 1962 acres, and its population (1901) 2062.
The strait between the island and Cape La Hague, called
the Race of Alderney (French Raz Blanchard), confined by
numerous rocks and reefs off either coast, is rendered very
dangerous in stormy weather by conflicting currents. Through
this difficult channel the scattered remnant of the French
fleet under Tourville escaped after the defeat of La Hogue in
1692. To the west is the narrower and also dangerous channel
of the Swinge (Sinige), between Alderney and the uninhabited
islets of Burhou, Ortach and others. West of these again are the
Casquets, a group of rocks to which attaches a long record of
shipwreck. Rocks and reefs fringe all the coasts of Alderney. The
island itself is a level open tableland, which on the south-west
and south falls abruptly to the sea in a majestic series of
cliffs. The greatest elevation of the land is about 300
ft. Towards the north-west, north and east the less rocky
coast is indented by several bays, with open sandy shores, of
which those of Crabby, Brave, Corblets and Longy are the most
noteworthy. South-west of Longy Bay, where the coast rises
boldly, there is a remarkable projecting block of sandstone,
called La Roche Pendante (Hanging Rock) overhanging the
cliff. Sandstone (mainly along the north-east coast),
granite and porphyry are the chief geological formations.
There are a few streams, but water is obtained mainly from
wells. Trees are scarce. The town of St Anne stands almost in
the centre of the island overlooking and extending towards the
harbour. Here are the courthouse, a gateway commemorating
Albert, prince-consort, the clock tower, which belonged to
the ancient parish church, and the modern church (1850),
in Early English style, an excellent example of the work of
Sir Gilbert Scott. The church is a memorial to the family
of Le Mesurier, in which the hereditary governorship of
the island was vested until the abolition of the office in
1825. There is a chain of forts round the north coast from
Clanque Fort on the west to Fort Essex on the east; the largest
is Fort Albert, above Brave Bay. In 1847 work was begun on
a great breakwater west of the harbour, the intention being
to provide a harbour of refuge, but although a sum exceeding
one and a half million sterling was spent the scheme was
unsuccessful. The soil of Alderney is light, fertile and
well cultivated; grain and vegetables are grown and early
potatoes are exported. A large part of the island is under
grass, affording pasture for cattle. The well-known term
``Alderney cattle,'' however, has lost in great measure
its former signification of a distinctive breed. Alderney
is included in the bailiwick of Guernsey. It has a court
consisting of a judge and six jurats, attorney-general,
prevot, greffiero and sergent; but as a judicial court
it is subordinate to that of Guernsey, and its administrative
powers are limited to such matters as the upkeep of roads.
For its relations to the constitution of the bailiwick,
and for the history of the island, see CHANNEL ISLANDS.
ALDERSHOT, an urban district in the Basingstoke parliamentary
division of Hampshire, England, 34 m. S.W. by W. of London,
on the London & South-Western and the South- Eastern & Chatham
railways. It was a mere village till 1855, when Aldershot
camp was established. Pop. (1891) 25,595; (1901) 30,974. Its
germ is to be found in the temporary camp on Chobham Ridges,
formed in 1853 by Lord Hardinge, the commander-in-chief, the
success of which convinced him of the necessity of giving
troops practical instruction in the field and affording the
generals opportunities of manoeuvring large bodies of the three
arms. He therefore advised the purchase of a tract of waste
land whereon a permanent camp might be established. His
choice fell on Aldershot, a spot also recommended by strategic
reasons, being situated on the flank of any army advancing upon
London from the south. Nothing came of Lord Hardinge's proposal
till the experience of the Crimean campaign fully endorsed his
opinion. The lands at Aldershot, an extensive open heath
country, sparsely dotted by fir-woods and intersected by the
Basingstoke canal, were then acquired by the crown. Wooden
huts were erected in 1855, and permanent buildings to replace
them were begun in 1881. Under the Barracks Act 1890, and the
Military Works Act of 1897 and 1899, large sums were provided
for completing the work. The former division of North and
South camps and permanent barracks no longer obtains. North
camp is now named Marlborough Lines, with a field artillery
barrack and five infantry barracks called after Marlborough's
victories. South camp is now named Stanhope Lines, after Mr
Stanhope, who was secretary of state for war when the Barracks
Act 1890 was passed and the reconstruction commenced in
earnest. They contain barracks for the Royal Engineers and
Army Service Corps, the general parade, which stretches east
and west, and five infantry barracks called after battles
(other than those of Wellington), of the wars with France,
1793-1815. There are also barracks for the Royal Army Medical
Corps. The old permanent barracks (which were built for the
most part about 1857) have been renamed Wellington Lines, with
cavalry and artillery barracks; and three infantry barracks
called after Wellington's victories in the Peninsula. For
the sick there are the Connaught Hospital in the Marlborough
Lines, the Cambridge Hospital in Stanhope Lines, and the Union
Hospital in Wellington Lines, besides the Louise Margaret Hospital
for women and children and the isolated infection hospital.
The drainage of the station is all modern, and the sewage is
disposed of on a sewage farm under the direction of the war
department. The water supply is partly from the Aldershot Water
Company, and partly from springs and reservoirs collecting
water from a reserved area of war department property.
Most of the barracks can accommodate not only the units they are
constructed for, but also detachments going through courses of
instruction. The total of men, women and children for
whom quarters are provided is at times as high as 24,000.
Besides the regimental buildings there are a large number of
buildings for garrison purposes, such as quarters and offices
for general, staff and departmental officers, with the warrant
and non-commissioned officers employed under them; the supply
depot with abattoir and bakery; the ordnance stores; barrack
stores for furniture and bedding, shops and stores for R. E.
services; the balloon establishment; the detention barracks;
fire brigade stations; five churches; recreation grounds
for officers and men; schools; and especially the military
technical schools of army cooking, gymnastics, signalling,
ballooning and of mounted infantry, Army Service Corps,
Royal Army Medical Corps and veterinary duties. The work of
these schools is, however, only a small part of the military
training afforded at Aldershot; of greater importance is the
field and musketry training, for the carrying out of which a
considerable extent of land is essential. The land required
for these purposes extends at present over an area about 9 1/4
m. in extreme length by 7 3/4 m. in extreme width. In addition
to this there is the land at Sandhurst and the Staff College
(Camberley) about 6 1/2 m. distant, and at Woolmer Forest, 12 m.
distant. The musketry practice of the troops at Aldershot
is carried out at the Ash ranges, 2 m. east of the barracks,
while the Pirbright ranges, alongside those of the National
Rifle Association at Bisley, are utilized by the Household
Cavalry and Guards, who are encamped there in succession.
Suitable grounds in the vicinity of the barracks, of which
Caesar's Camp, the Long Valley and Laffan's Plain are best
known, are utilized for company, battalion and brigade training
of infantry, while the mounted branches work over a wider
area, and the engineers carry out their practices where most
convenient. For the field-days of the combined arms, the
whole of the war department property is available. Aldershot
is the headquarters of the ``Aldershot Army Corps,'' which is
the largest organized force maintained in the United Kingdom.
Besides the troops in barracks, during the drill season there
is often a considerable force in camp, both regular troops from
other stations and militia and volunteer units, so that, including
the regular garrison, sometimes as many as 40,000 troops have
been concentrated at the station for training and manoeuvres.
ALDHELM (c. 640-709), bishop of Sherborne, English
scholar, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He
is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal
house of Wessex, but who was certainly not, as Aldhelm's
early biographer Faritius asserts, the brother of King Ine.
He received his first education in the school of an Irish
scholar and monk, Maildulf, Maeldubh or Meldun (d. c. 675),
who had settled in the British stronghold of Bladon or Bladow
on the site of the town called Mailduberi, Maldubesburg,
Meldunesburg, &c., and finally Malmesbury,1 after him. In
668 Pope Vitalian sent Theodore of Tarsus to be archbishop of
Canterbury, and about the same time came the African scholar
Hadrian, who became abbot of St Augustine's at Canterbury.
Aldhelm was one of his disciples, for he addresses him as
the ``venerable preceptor of my rude childhood.'' He must,
nevertheless, have been thirty years of age when he began
to study with Hadrian. His studies included Roman law,
astronomy, astrology, the art of reckoning and the difficulties
of the calendar. He learned, according to the doubtful
statements of the early lives, both Greek and Hebrew. He
certainly introduces many Latinized Greek words into his
works. Ill-health compelled him to leave Canterbury, and he
returned to Malmesbury, where he was a monk under Maildulf
for fourteen years, dating probably from 661, and including
the period of his studies with Hadrian. When Maildulf
died, Aldhelm was appointed in 675, according to a charter
of doubtful authenticity cited by William of Malmesbury, by
Leutherius, bishop of Dorchester from 671 to 676, to succeed
to the direction of the monastery, of which he became the first
abbot. He introduced the Benedictine rule, and secured the
right of the election of the abbot to the monks themselves.
The community at Malmesbury increased, and Aldhelm was able to
found two other monasteries to be centres of learning at Frome
and at Bradford on Avon. The little church of St Lawrence at
Bradford dates back to his time and may safely be regarded as
his. At Malmesbury he built a new church to replace Maildulf's
modest building, and obtained considerable grants of land for the
monastery. His fame as a scholar rapidly spread into other
countries. Artwil, the son of an Irish king, submitted his
writings for Aldhelm's approval, and Cellanus, an Irish monk
from Peronne, was one of his correspondents. Aldhelm was the
first Englishman, so far as we know, to write in Latin verse,
and his letter to Acircius (Aldfrith or Eadfrith, king of
Northumbria) is a treatise on Latin prosody for the use of his
countrymen. In this work he included his most famous productions,
101 riddles in Latin hexameters. Each of them is a complete
picture, and one of them runs to 83 lines. That his merits
as a scholar were early recognized in his own country is shown
by the encomium of Bede (Eccl. Hist. v. 18), who speaks of
him as a wonder of erudition. His fame reached Italy, and at
the request of Pope Sergius I. (687-701) he paid a visit to
Rome, of which, however, there is no notice in his extant
writings. On his return, bringing with him privileges for
his monastery and a magnificent altar, he received a popular
ovation. He was deputed by a synod of the church in Wessex
to remonstrate with the Britons of Domnonia (Devon and
Cornwall) on their differences from the Roman practice in
the shape of the tonsure and the date of Easter. This he
did in a long and rather acrimonious letter to their king
Geraint (Geruntius), and their ultimate agreement with Rome
is referred by William of Malmesbury to his efforts. In
705, or perhaps earlier, Haeddi, bishop of Winchester, died,
and the diocese was divided into two parts. Sherborne was
the new see, of which Aldhelm reluctantly became the first
bishop. He wished to resign the abbey of Malmesbury which he
had governed for thirty years, but yielding to the remonstrances
of the monks he continued to direct it until his death. He
was now an old man, but he showed great activity in his new
functions. The cathedral church which he built at Sherborne,
though replaced later by a Norman church, is described by
William of Malmesbury. He was on his rounds in his diocese
when he died in the church of Doulting on the 25th of May
709. The body was taken to Malmesbury, and crosses were
set up by the pious care of his friend, Bishop Ecgwine of
Worcester, at the various halting- places. He was buried in
the church of St Michael. His biographers relate miracles due
to his sanctity worked during his lifetime and at his shrine.
Aldhelm wrote poetry in Anglo-Saxon also, and set his own
compositions to music, but none of his songs, which were
still popular in the time of Alfred, have come down to us.
Finding his people slow to come to church, he is said to have
stood at the end of a bridge singing songs in the vernacular,
thus collecting a crowd to listen to exhortations on sacred
subjects. Aldhelm wrote in elaborate and grandiloquent
Latin, which soon came to be regarded as barbarous. Much
admired as he was by his contemporaries, his fame as a scholar
therefore soon declined, but his reputation as a pioneer
in Latin scholarship in England and as a teacher remains.
Aldhelm's works were collected in J. A. Giles's Patres
eccl. Angl. (Oxford, 1844), and reprinted by J. P.
Migne in his Patrologiae Cursus, vol. 89 (1850). The
letter to Geraint, king of Domnonia, was supposed to have
been destroyed by the Britons (W. of Malmesbury, Gesta
Pontificum, p. 361), but was discovered with others of
Aldhelm's in the correspondence of St Boniface, archbishop of
Mainz. A long letter to Eahfrid, a scholar just returned from
Ireland (first printed in Usserii Veterum Epistt. Hiber.
Sylloge, 1632), is of interest as casting light on the
relations between English and Irish scholars. Next to the
riddles, Aldhelm's best-known work is De Laude Virginitatis
sive de Virginitate Sanctorum, a Latin treatise addressed
about 705 to the nuns of Barking,2 in which he commemorates
a great number of saints. This was afterwards turned by
Aldhelm into Latin verse (printed by Delrio, Mainz, 1601).
The chief source of his Epistola ad Acircium sive liber de
septenario, et de metris, aenigmatibus ac pedum regulis
(ed. A. Mai, Class. Auct. vol. v.) is Priscian. For the
riddles included in it, his model was the collection known
as Symposii aenigmata. The acrostic introduction gives the
sentence, ``Aldhelmus cecinit millenis versibus odas,'' whether
read from the initial or final letters of the lines. His
Latin poems include one on the dedication of a basilica built
by Bugge (or Eadburga), a royal lady of the house of Wessex.
AUTHORITIES.--Faritius (d. 1117), an Italian monk of
Malmesbury, afterwards abbot of Abingdon, wrote a Vita S.
Aldhelmi (MS. Cotton, Faustina, B. 4), printed by Giles and
Migne, also in Original Lives of Anglo-Saxons (Caxton
Soc., 1834); but the best authority is William of Malmesbury,
who in the fifth book, devoted to St Aldhelm, of the Gesta
Pontificum proposes to fill up the outline of Faritius,
using the church records, the traditions of Aldhelm's
miracles preserved by the monks of Malmesbury, and the lost
``Handboc'' or commonplace book of King Alfred. His narrative
is divided into four parts: the birth and attainments of
Aldhelm, the religious houses he had established and endowed,
the miracles recorded of him, and the history of the abbey
down to the writer's own time (see De Gestis Pontificum,
ed. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, 1870, for the Rolls Series. pp.
330-443). The life by John Capgrave in his Legenda
Nova (1516) is chiefly an abridgment of Malmesbury's
narrative. Consult also L. Bonhoff, Aldhelm von Malmesbury
(Dresden, 1894); T. D. Hardy. Descriptive Catalogue
(1862), vol. i. pp. 389-396; T. Wright, Biog. Brit. Lit.
(A.-S. Period, 1842); G. F. Browne, bishop of Bristol, St
Aldhelm; his Life and Times (1903); and W. B. Wildman,
Life of S. Ealdhelm, frst Bishop of Sherborne (1905),
containing many interesting local details. For some poems
attributed to Aldhelm, and printed in Dummler's edition of
the letters of St Boniface and Lul in Monumenta Germaniae
Historica (epistt. tom. iii.), see H. Bradley in Eng.
Hist. Review, xv. p. 291 (1900), where they are attributed
to Aldhelm's disciple AEthilwald. The very varied sources
and the chronology of Aldhelm's work are discussed in ``Zu
Aldhelm und Baeda,'' by Max Manitius, in Sitzungsberichte
der kaiserlichen Akad. der Wissenschaften (Vienna, 1886).
An excellent account of his ecclesiastical importance is
given by W. Bright in Chapters on Early English Church
History (Oxford, 1878). For his position as a writer
of Latin verse consult A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte
d. Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande, vol. i. new
edition (1889); M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-
lateinischen Poesie &c. (Stuttgart, 1891), pp. 487-496;
also H. Hahn, Bonifaz und Lul ihre angelsachsischen
Korrespondenten, chap. i. (Leipzig, 1883). The two last-named
works contain many further bibliographical references.
1 For the disputed etymology of Malmesbury,
which some connect with Aldhelm's name, see Bishop
Browne, St Aldhelin: his Life and Times, p. 73.
2 Cuthburga, sister of King Ine of Wessex, and therefore
related to Andhelm, left her husband Aldfrith, king of
Northumbria, to enter the nunnery at Barking. She afterwards
founded the nunnery of Wimborne, of which she became abbess.
ALDINE PRESS, the printing office started by Aldus Manutius
at the end of the 15th century in Venice, from which were issued
the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics of that time. (See
MANUTIUS.) The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography
(q.v.), among other things, for the introduction of italics.
ALDINI, GIOVANNI (1762--1834), Italian physicist, born
at Bologna on the 10th of April 1762, was a brother of the
statesman Count Antonio Aldini (1756-1826) and nephew of L.
Galvani, whose treatise on muscular electricity he edited with
notes in 1791. He became professor of physics at Bologna in
1798, in succession to his teacher Sebastiano Canterzani
(1734-1819). His scientific work was chiefly concerned with
galvanism and its medical applications, with the construction
and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for
preserving human life and material objects from destruction by
fire. He wrote in French and English in addition to his
native Italian. In recognition of his merits, the emperor
of Austria made him a knight of the Iron Crown and a
councillor of state at Milan, where he died on the 17th
of January 1834. He left by will a considerable sum to
found a school of natural science for artisans at Bologna.
ALDRED, or EALDRED (d. 1069), English ecclesiastic,
became abbot of Tavistock about 1027, in 1044 was made
bishop of Worcester, and in 1060 archbishop of York. He
had considerable influence over King Edward the Confessor,
and as his interests were secular rather than religious he
took a prominent part in affairs of state, and in 1046 led
an unsuccessful expedition against the Welsh. In 1050 he
was largely instrumental in restoring Sweyn, the son of Earl
Godwin, to his earldom, and about the same time went to Rome
``on the king's errand.'' In 1054 he was sent to the emperor
Henry III. to obtain that monarch's influence in securing
the return to England of Edward, son of Edmund Ironside,
who was in Hungary with King Andrew I. In this mission he
was successful and obtained some insight into the working of
the German church during a stay of a year with Hermann II.,
archbishop of Cologne. After his return to England he took
charge of the sees of Hereford and Ramsbury, although not
appointed to these bishoprics; and in 1058 made a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, being the first English bishop to take this
journey. Having previously given up Hereford and Ramsbury,
Aldred was elected archbishop of York in 1060, and in 1061
he proceeded to Rome to receive the pallium. On his arrival
there, however, various charges were brought against him by a
synod, and Pope Nicholas II. not only refused his request
but degraded him from the episcopate. The sentence was,
however, subsequently reversed, and Aldred received the pallium
and was restored to his former station. It is stated by
Florence of Worcester that Aldred crowned King Harold II. in
1066, although the Norman authorities mention Stigand as the
officiating prelate. After the battle of Hastings Aldred
joined the party who sought to bestow the throne upon Edgar
the AEtheling, but when these efforts appeared hopeless he
was among those who submitted to William the Conqueror at
Berkhampstead. Selected to crown the new king he performed
the ceremony on Christmas Day 1066, and in 1068 performed
the same office at the coronation of Matilda, the Conqueror's
wife. But though often at court, he seems to have been no
sympathiser with Norman oppression, and is even said to have
bearded the king himself. He died at York on the 11th of
September 1069 and was buried in his own cathedral. Aldred
did much for the restoration of discipline in the monasteries
and churches under his authority, and was liberal in his
gifts for ecclesiastical purposes. He built the monastic
church of St Peter at Gloucester, and rebuilt a large part of
that of St John at Beverley. At his instigation, Folcard, a
monk of Canterbury, wrote the Life of St John of Beverley.
See The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited by C. Plummer
(Oxford, 1892-1899); Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex
Chronicis, edited by B. Thorpe (London, 1848-1849); William
of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, edited
by N. E. S. A. Hamilton (London, 1870); W. H. Dixon, Fasti
Eboracenses, vol. i., edited by J. Raine (London, 1863); T.
Stubbs, Chronica Pontificum Ecclesiae Eboracensis, edited by
J. Raine (London, 1879-1894); E. A. Freeman, History of the
Norman Conquest, vols. ii., iii., iv. (Oxford, 1867-1879).
ALDRICH, HENRY (1647-1710), English theologian and philosopher,
was born in 1647 at Westminster, and was educated at the
collegiate school there, under Dr Busby. In 1662 he entered
Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1689 was made dean in succession
to the Roman Catholic, John Massey, who had fled to the
continent. In 1692 he was vice-chancellor of the University. In
1702 he was appointed rector of Wem in Shropshire, but continued
to reside at Oxford, where he died on the 14th of December
1710. He was buried in the cathedral without any memorial
at his own desire. Aldrich was a man of unusually varied
gifts. A classical scholar of fair merits, he is best known
as the author of a little book on logic (Compendium Artis
Logicae), a work of little value in itself, but used at Oxford
(in Mansel's revised edition) till long past the middle of the
19th century. Aldrich also composed a number of anthems and
church services of high merit, and adapted much of the music of
Palestrina and Carissimi to English words with great skill and
judgment. To him we owe the well-known catch, ``Hark, the
bonny Christ Church bells.'' Evidence of his skill as an
architect may be seen in the church and campanile of All
Saints, Oxford, and in three sides of the so-called Peckwater
Quadrangle of Christ Church, which were erected after his
designs. He bore a great reputation for conviviality,
and wrote a humorous Latin version of the popular ballad--
A soldier and a sailor,
A tinker and a tailor, &c.
Another specimen of his wit is furnished by the
following epigram of the five reasons for drinking:--
Si bene quid memini, causae sunt quinque bibendi;
Hospitis adventus, praesens sitis atque futura,
Aut vini bonitas, aut quaelibet altera causa.
The translation runs:--
If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink:--
Good wine; a friend; because I'm dry;
Or lest I should be by and by;
Or--any other reason why.
ALDRICH, NELSON WILMARTH (1841- ), American politician,
was born at Foster, Rhode Island, on the 6th of November
1841. His first political service was as a member (1869-1875)
and president (1871-1872) of the Providence common council.
He was a member of the lower house of the Rhode Island
legislature in 1875 and 1876, and speaker in the latter
year. By this time he had become a power in Republican
state politics, and in 1878 and 1880 was elected to
Congress. Early in his second term he was chosen United
States senator, and was re-elected in 1886, 1892, 1898 and
1905. In the Senate he was looked upon as the special
representative of the high protective industries and moneyed
interests, and he took a prominent part in all legislation
dealing with the tariff, banking and the merchant marine.
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1907), American author, was
born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 11th of November
1836. When he was but a child his father moved to New Orleans,
but after ten years the boy was sent back to Portsmouth--the
``Rivermouth'' of several of his stories--to prepare for
college. This period of his life is partly described in his
Story of a Bad Boy (1870), of which ``Tom Bailey'' is the
juvenile hero.1 His father's death in 1852 compelled Aldrich to
abandon the idea of college and enter a business office in New
York. Here he soon became a constant contributor to the
newspapers and magazines, and the intimate friend of the young
poets, artists and wits of the metropolitan Bohemia of the
early'sixties, among whom were E. C. Stedman, R. H. Stoddard,
Bayard Taylor and Walt Whitman. From 1856 to 1859 he was
on the staff of the Home Journal, then edited by N. P.
Willis, while during the Civil War he was himself editor of
the New York Illustrated News. In 1865 he moved to Boston
and was editor for ten years for Ticknor and Fields--then
at the height of their prestige--of the eclectic weekly
Every Saturday, discontinued in 1875. From 1881 to 1890
he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly. Meanwhile Aldrich
had written much, both in prose and verse. His genius was
many-sided, and it is surprising that so busy an editor and
so prolific a writer should have attained the perfection of
form for which he was remarkable. His successive volumes of
verse, chiefly The Ballad of Babie Bell (1856), Pampinea,
and Other Poems (1861), Cloth of Gold (1874), Flower
and Thorn (1876), Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book (1881),
Mercedes and Later Lyrics (1883), Wyndham Towers (1889),
and the collected editions of 1865, 1882, 1897 and 1900,
showed him to be a poet of lyrical skill, dainty touch and
felicitous conceit, the influence of Herrick being constantly
apparent. He repeatedly essayed the long narrative or
dramatic poem, but seldom with success, save in such earlier
work as Garnaut Hall. But no American poet has shown more
skill in describing some single picture, mood, conceit or
episode. His best things are such lyrics as ``Hesperides,''
``When the Sultan goes to Ispahan,'' ``Before the Rain,''
``Nameless Pain,'' ``The Tragedy,'' ``Seadrift,'' ``Tiger
Lilies,'' ``The One White Rose,'' ``Palabras Carinosas,''
``Destiny,'' or the eight-line poem ``Identity,'' which did
more to spread Aldrich's reputation than any of his writing
after Babie Bell. Beginning with the collection of stories
entitled Marjorie Daw and Other People (1873), Aldrich
applied to his later prose work that minute care in composition
which had previously characterized his verse--taking a
near, new or salient situation, and setting it before the
reader in a pretty combination of kindly realism and reticent
humour. In the novels, Prudence Palfrey (1874), The
(Queen of Sheba (1877), and The Stillwater Tragedy (1880),
there is more rapid action; but the Portsmouth pictures
in the first are elaborated with the affectionate touch
shown in the shorter humourous tale, A Rivermouth Romance
(1877). In An Old Town by the Sea (1893) the author's
birthplace was once more commemorated, while travel and
description are the theme of From Ponkapog to Pesth
(1883). Aldrich died at Boston on the 19th of March 1907.
His Life was written by Ferris Greenslet (1908).
1 This book has been translated into French as Education et
recreation, and into German as a specimen of American humour.
ALDRINGER (ALTRINGER, ALDRINGEN), JOHANN, COUNT
VON (1588-1634), Austrian soldier, was born at Diedenhofen
(Thionville) in Lorraine. After travelling as page to a
nobleman in France, Italy and the Netherlands, he went to
the university of Paris. In 1606 he entered the service of
Spain, in which he remained until 1618, when he joined the
imperial army. Here he distinguished himself in the field
and in the cabinet. Made a colonel in 1622, two years later
he was employed on the council of war and on diplomatic
missions. At the bridge of Dessau in 1626 he performed very
distinguished service against Ernst von Mansfeld. He and
his constant comrade Matthias Gallas (q.v.) were ennobled
on the same day, and in the course of the Italian campaign
of 1630 the two officers married the two daughters of Count
d'Arco. Aldringer served as Count Rambold Collalto's
major-general in this campaign and was present at the taking of
Mantua. The plunder of the duke of Mantua's treasures made
Gallas and Aldringer wealthy men. Back in Germany in 1631,
he served after Breitenfeld as Tilly's artillery commander,
and, elevated to the dignity of count of the Empire, he was
present at the battle of the Lech, where he was wounded.
When Tilly died of his wounds Aldringer succeeded to the
command. Made field-marshal after the assault of the Alte
Veste near Nuremberg, at which he had been second in command
under Wallenstein, duke of Friedland (with whom he was a
great favourite), he was next placed at the head of the corps
formed by Maximilian I. of Bavaria to support Wallenstein.
In this post his tact and diplomatic ability were put to a
severe test in the preservation of harmony between the two
dukes. Finally Count Aldringer was won over by the court
party which sought to displace the too successful duke of
Friedland. After Wallenstein's death Aldringer commanded
against the Swedes on the Danube, and at the defence of Landshut
he fell (July 22, 1634). His great possessions descended to
his sister, and thence to the family of Clary and Aldringen.
See Brohm, Johann von Aldringen (Halle, 1882), and
Hermann Hallwich, Johann von Aldringen (Leipzig, 1885);
also Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, s.v. Gallas,
correcting earlier biography of Aldringer in the same work.
ALDROVANDI, ULISSI (1522-1605), Italian naturalist, was,
born of noble parentage at Bologna on the 11th of September
1522. He was apprenticed to a merchant in Brescia, but a
commercial career being distasteful to him, he turned his
attention to law and medicine, studying first in his native
town and afterwards at Padua. In 1550 he was accused of
heresy, but succeeded in clearing himself before the
Inquisition. In 1553 he took his doctor's degree in
medicine at Bologna, and in the following year was appointed
professor of philosophy and also lecturer on botany at the
university. In 1560 he was transferred to the chair of natural
history. At his instance the senate of Bologna established in
1568 a botanical garden, of which he was appointed the first
director. About the same time he became inspector of drugs, and
in that capacity published in 1574 a work entitled Antidotarii
Bononiensis Epitome, which formed the model for many subsequent
pharmacopoeias. He was also instrumental in founding the public
museum of Bologna, which contains, especially in the natural
history department, a large number of specimens collected by
him. The results of his various researches were embodied
in a magnum opus, which was designed to include everything
that was known about natural history. The first three
volumes, comprising his ornithology, were published in 1599,
and a fourth, treating of insects, appeared in 1602. After
his death a number of other volumes were compiled from his
manuscript materials, under the editorship of several of his
pupils, to whom the task was entrusted by the senate of
Bologna. The work was enriched by a large number of
illustrations prepared at great expense, the author having,
it is said, employed several celebrated artists for thirty
years. Among these were Lorenzo Benini of Florence and
Christopher Coriolanus of Nuremberg. It has been said,
indeed, that the cost of the undertaking was so great as to
exhaust its author's means, and that he died penniless and
blind in the public hospital of Bologna. This, however, is
probably incorrect, at least as regards the allegation of
poverty. Published records of the senate of Bologna show
that it liberally supported Aldrovandi in his undertaking,
doubling his salary soon after his appointment as professor,
and bestowing on him from time to time sums amounting in
all to 40,000 crowns. If, therefore, he died in the public
hospital, he probably went there for the better treatment of
his disease. His death occurred on the 10th of May 1605.
Aldrovandi was chiefly remarkable for laborious and patient
research. He seems to have been totally destitute of the
critical faculty, and hardly any attempt is made in his great
work to classify facts or to distinguish between the true and
the fabulous, the important and the trivial. Much is thus
included that is of no scientific value, but it also contains
much information of very great interest to the naturalist.
ALE, an old word for a fermented liquor obtained chiefly from
malt. In England ``ale'' is nowadays practically synonymous
with ``beer.'' Before the introduction of hops into England
from Flanders in the 16th century ale was the name exclusively
applied to malt liquor, the term beer being gradually
introduced to describe liquor brewed with an infusion of
hops. This distinction does not apply at the present time,
except in so far as the term ale is not applied to black
beers (stout and porter) nor to lager beer. In the United
States, however, it is customary to confine the designation
beer to the article obtained by the bottom fermentation
process. In former times the Welsh and Scots had two distinct
kinds of ale, called common and spiced ales, the relative
values of which were appraised by law in the following terms:
``If a farmer have no mead, he shall pay two casks of spiced
ale, or four casks of common ale, for one cask of mead.''
There are numerous varieties of English ales, such as mild
ale, which is a full, sweetish beer, of a dark colour and with
relatively little hop; pale ale, which is relatively dry, of
light colour and of a more pronounced hop flavour than the
mild ale; and bitter and stock ales, the latter term being
generally reserved for superior beers, such as are used for
bottling. The terms pale, bitter, stock, light, &c.,
are to be regarded as trade distinctions and not as exact
definitions of quality or type. (See BEER and BREWING.)
Parish Ales.--In old England an ``ale'' was synonymous with
a parish festival or merry-making at which ale was the chief
drink. The word was generally used in composition. Thus
there were leet-ales (that held on leet or manorial court day);
lamb-ales (that held at lamb-shearing); Whitsun-ales, clerk-ales,
church-ales and so on. The word bridal is really bride-ale,
the wedding feast. Bid-ales, once very common throughout
England, were ``benefit'' feasts to which a general invitation
was given, and all the neighbours attending were expected to
make some contribution to help the object of the ``benefit.''
(See ``Bidding-Weddings'' under BRIDE.) These parish festivals
were of much ecclesiastical and social importance in medieval
England. The chief purpose of church-ales and clerk-ales, at
least, was to facilitate the collection of parish-dues, or
to make an actual profit for the church from the sale of the
liquor by the church wardens. These profits kept the parish
church in repair, or were distributed as alms to the poor. At
Sygate, Norfolk, on the gallery of the church is inscribed--
God speed the plough
And give us good ale enow . . .
Be merry and glade,
With good ale was this work made.
On the beam of a screen in the church of Thorpe-le-Soken,
Essex, is the following inscription in raised Gothic
letters, on a scroll held by two angels--``This cost is the
bachelers made by ales thesn be ther med.'' The date is about
1480. The feast was usually held in a barn near the church
or in the churchyard. In Tudor times church-ales were held on
Sundays. Gradually the parish-ales were limited to the
Whitsun season, and these still have local survivals.
The colleges of the universities used formerly to brew
their own ales and hold festivals known as college-ales.
Some of these ales are still brewed and famous, like
``chancellor'' at Queen's College, and ``archdeacon'' at Morton
College, Oxford, and ``audit ale'' at Trinity, Cambridge.
See Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great
Britain (Wm. Carew Hazlitt's edition, 1905).
ALEANDRO, GIROLAMO (HIERONYMUS ALEANDER) (1480- 1542), Italian
cardinal, was born at Motta, near Venice, on the 13th of February
1480. He studied at Venice, where he became acquainted with
Erasmus and Aldus Manutius, and at an early age was reputed
one of the most learned men of the time. In 1508 he went to
Paris on the invitation of Louis XII. as professor of belles
lettres, and held for a time the position of rector in the
university. Entering the service of Eberhard, prince-bishop
of Liege, he was sent by that prelate on a mission to
Rome, where Pope Leo X. retained him, giving him (1519) the
office of librarian of the Vatican. In the following year
he went to Germany to be present as papal nuncio at the
coronation of Charles V., and was also present at the diet of
Worms, where he headed the opposition to Luther, advocating
the most extreme measures to repress the doctrines of the
reformer. His conduct evoked the fiercest denunciations of
Luther, but it also displeased more moderate men and especially
Erasmus. The edict against the reformer, which was finally
adopted by the emperor and the diet, was drawn up and proposed
by Aleandro. After the close of the diet the papal nuncio
went to the Netherlands; where he kindled the flames of
persecution, two monks of Antwerp, the first martyrs of the
Reformation, being burnt in Brussels at his instigation. In
1523 Clement VII., having appointed him archbishop of Brindisi
and Oria, sent him as nuncio to the court of Francis I. He
was taken prisoner along with that monarch at the battle of
Pavia (1525), and was released only on payment of a heavy
ransom. He was subsequently employed on various papal missions,
especially to Germany, but was unsuccessful in preventing the
German princes from making a truce with the reformers, or in
checking to any extent the progress of the new doctrines. He
was created cardinal in 1536 by Paul III. (at the same time as
Reginald Pole) and died at Rome on the 1st of February 1542.
Aleandro compiled a Lexicon Graeco-Latinum (Paris, 1512),
and wrote Latin verse of considerable merit inserted in
M. Tuscanus's Carmina Illustrium Poetarum Italiorum. The
Vatican library contains a volume of manuscript letters and
other documents written by him in connexion with his various
missions against Luther. They were utilized by Pallavicino
in his Istoria del Concilio Tridentino (i. 23-28),
who gives a very partial account of the Worms conference.
Aleandro, who is sometimes called ``the elder,'' must be
distinguished from his grand-nephew, also called Girolamo
Aleandro (1374-1629). The younger Aleandro was a very
distinguished scholar, and wrote Psalmi poenitentiales
versibus elegiacis expressi (Treves, 1593), Gaii, veteris
juris consulti Institutionum fragmenta, cum commentario
(Venice, 1600), Explicatio veteris tabulae marmorcae
solis effigie symbolisque exculptae (Rome, 1616).
ALEARDI, ALEARDO, COUNT (1812-1878), Italian poet, was
born at Verona on the 4th of November 1812, and thus soon
after his birth became an Austrian subject. Inspired from
his cradle with a hatred of the foreigner, he found himself
disqualified for the position in the public service to which
his rank would have entitled him, and unable to publish
his patriotic verses. Arnaldo da Rocca, a narrative poem,
nevertheless appeared in 1842, and the revolutionary year
1848 made an opening for his Lettere a Maria. He took an
active part in the popular uprising, and was for some time
imprisoned. In 1856 he produced the finest of his pieces,
an ode to the maritime cities of Italy, and in 1858 a poem
on his own misfortunes. After the expulsion of the Austrians
from Lombardy he returned to Verona, published his poems in
a collected edition (1862), became professor at the Academy
of Fine Art, member of the Italian parliament and eventually
senator. He died on the 17th of July 1878. Aleardi's
warmth of patriotic feeling hardly finds adequate expression
in his poetry; it is his merit to excel in description,
but his fault to substitute description for action.
ALE-CONNER, an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of
ancient English manors for the assize of ale and ale-measures.
The gustatores cervisiae--called in different localities
by the different names ``ale-tasters,'' ``ale-founders,'' and
``ale- conners''--were sworn to examine beer and ale, to take
care that they were good and wholesome and were sold at proper
prices. In London four ale-conners, whose duty it is to examine
the measures used by beer and liquor sellers to guard against
fraud, are still chosen annually by the liverymen in common
hall assembled on Midsummer Day. Since ale and beer have become
excisable commodities the custom of appointing ale-tasters has
in most places fallen into disuse. (See also ADULTERATION.)
ALECSANDRI, or ALEXANDRI, VASILE (1821-1890), Rumanian
lyric poet, was born at Bacau in Moldavia on the 21st of July
1821. His father was the Spatar Alecsandri, of Jewish and
Italian origin, who had settled in Moldavia in the 18th
century. Vasile was educated first in Jassy and afterwards
(1834-1839) in Paris. In 1839 he started on a long journey
through the Carpathian Mountains, and was the first to
collect Rumanian popular songs, no doubt influenced by Western
examples. He first published his collection in 1844. His
Doine si Lacrimioare, lyrical poems, appeared at Paris in
1852, and in 1852-1853 he produced at Jassy a fuller collection
of popular ballads and songs. He then adapted some French plays
for the newly founded Rumanian theatre, and wrote some original
pieces. His connexion with the revolutionary movement of
1848 compelled him to seek shelter in the west of Europe,
and he visited England. where a beautifully illuminated
edition of his poems was printed in the original Rumanian
language. In 1867 he published some fugitive pieces, written
in a lighter vein, and entitled Pastele; these were followed
in 1871 by the Legende of similar character. More serious
are his dramatic writings which began with Despot Voda and
culminated in Ovid. In later life Alecsandri took an active
part in politics; he became minister for foreign affairs from
1859 to 1860, and in 1885 was appointed Rumanian minister in
Paris. He died on the 26th of August 1890 at his country seat,
Mircesti. His best title to fame consists in the fact that
he gave the first impetus to the collection of Rumanian popular
songs and first drew attention to their inimitable charm.
See L. Sainsanu, Autorii Romani moderni (1891), pp.
90 and 318. A complete edition of Alecsandri's writings in
nine volumes was published at Bucharest in 1875 seq. (M. G.)
ALEMAN, LOUIS (c. 1390-1450), French cardinal, was born
of a noble family at the castle of Arbent near Bugey about the
year 1390. He was successively bishop of Maguelonne (1418),
archbishop of Arles (1423) and cardinal priest of St Cecilia
(1426). He was a prominent member of the council of Basel,
and, together with Cardinal Julian, led the party which
maintained the supremacy of general councils over the pope's
authority. In 1440 Aleman obtained the support of the emperor
Sigismund and of the duke of Milan to his views, and proclaiming
the deposition of Pope Eugenius IV., placed the tiara upon
the head of Amadeus VIII., duke of Savoy (henceforward known
as antipope Felix V.). Eugenius retorted by.excommunicating
the antipope and depriving Aleman of all his ecclesiastical
dignities. In order to make an end of the schism, Felix V.
finally abdicated on Aleman's advice, and Nicholas V., who had
succeeded in 1447, restored the cardinal to all his honours
and employed him as legate to Germany in 1449. On his return
he retired to his diocese of Arles, where he devoted himself
zealously to the instruction of his people. He died on the 16th
of September 1450, and was beatified by Pope Clement VII. in 1527.
See U. Chevalier, Repert. des sources hist. (Paris, 1905), p. 130.
ALEMAN, MATEO (1547-1609?), Spanish novelist and man of
letters, was born at Seville in 1547. He graduated at Seville
University in 1564, studied later at Salamanca and Alcala,
and from 1571 to 1588 held a post in the treasury; in 1594 he
was arrested on suspicion of malversation, but was speedily
released. In 1599 he published the first part of Guzman de
Alfarache, a celebrated picaresque novel which passed through
not less than sixteen editions in five years; a spurious sequel
was issued in 1602, but the authentic continuation did not
appear till 1604. In 1608 Aleman emigrated to America, and
is said to have carried on business as a printer in Mexico;
his Ortografia castellana (1609), published in that city,
contains ingenious and practical proposals for the reform
of Spanish spelling. Nothing is recorded of Aleman after
1609, but it is sometimes asserted that he was still living in
1617. He married, unhappily, Catalina de Espinosa in 1571,
and was constantly in money difficulties, being imprisoned
for debt at Seville at the end of 1602. He is the author
of a life (1604) of St Antony of Padua, and versions of
two odes of Horace bear witness to his taste and metrical
accomplishment. His chief title to remembrance, however,
is Guzman de Alfarache, which was translated into French
in 1600, into English in 1623 and into Latin in 1623.
See J. Hazanas y la Rua, Discursos leidos en la Real
Academia Sevillana de Buenas letras el 25 de mar zo
de 1892 (Sevilla, 1892); J. Gestoso y Perez, Nuevos
datos para`ilustrar las biografias del Maestro Juan de
Malara y de Mateo Aleman (Sevilla, 1896). (J. F.-K.)
ALEMBERT, DEAN LE ROND D' (1717-1783), French mathematician
and philosopher, was born at Paris in November 1717. He was a
foundling, having been exposed near the church of St Jean le
Rond, Paris, where he was discovered on the 17th of November.
It afterwards became known that he was the illegitimate son of
the chevalier Destouches and Madame de Tencin. The infant was
entrusted to the wife of a glazier named Rousseau who lived close
by. He was called Jean le Rond from the church near which he
was found; the surname Alembert was added by himself at a later
period. His father, without disclosing himself, having settled
an annuity on him, he was sent at four years of age to a
boarding-school. In 1730 he entered the Mazarin College
under the Jansenists, who soon perceived his exceptional
talent, and, prompted perhaps by a commentary on the Epistle
to the Romans which he produced in the first year of his
philosophical course, sought to direct it to theology. His
knowledge of the higher mathematics was acquired by his own
unaided efforts after he had left the college. This fact
naturally led to his crediting himself with many discoveries
which he afterwards found had been already established,
often by more direct and elegant processes than his own.
On leaving college he returned to the house of his foster-mother,
where he continued to live for thirty years. Having studied law,
he was admitted as an advocate in 1738, but did not enter upon
practice. He next devoted himself to medicine, but his natural
inclination proved too strong for him, and within a year he
resolved to give his whole time to mathematics. In 1741 he
received his first public distinction in being admitted a
member of the Academy of Sciences, to which he had previously
presented several papers, including a Memoire sur le calcul
integral (1739). In his Memoire sur le refraction des
corps solides (1741) he was the first to give a theoretical
explanation of the phenomenon which is witnessed when a body
passes from one fluid to another more dense in a direction
not perpendicular to the surface which separates the two
fluids. In 1743 he published his Traite de dynamique,
a work famous as developing the mechanical principle, known
as ``Alembert's Principle,'' first enunciated in 1742 (see
MECHANICS.) In 1744 Alembert applied this principle to the
theory of the equilibrium and the motion of fluids (Traite
de l'equilibre et du mouvement des fluides), and all the
problems before solved by geometricians became in some measure
its corollaries. This discovery was followed by that of the
calculus of partial differences, the first trials of which
were published in his Reflexion sur la cause generale
des vents (1747). This work was crowned by the Academy of
Berlin, and was dedicated to Frederick the Great, who made
several unsuccessful attempts to induce him to settle in
Berlin. In 1763 he visited Berlin, and on that occasion
finally refused the office of president of the Academy of
Berlin, which had been already offered to him more than
once. In 1747 he applied his new calculus to the problem
of vibrating chords, the solution of which, as well as the
theory of the oscillation of the air and the propagation of
sound, had been given but incompletely by the geometricians
who preceded him. In 1749 he furnished a method of applying
his principles to the motion of any body of a given figure;
and in 1754 he solved the problem of the precession of the
equinoxes, determined its quantity and explained the phenomenon
of the nutation of the earth's axis. In 1752 he published
an Essai d'une nouvelle theorie sur la resistance des
fluides, which contains a large number of original ideas
and new observations. In 1746 and 1748 he published in the
Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin ``Recherches sur le calcul
integral,'' a branch of mathematical science which is greatly
indebted to him. In his Recherches sur differents points
importants du systeme du monde (1754-1756) he perfected the
solution of the problem of the perturbations of the planets,
which he had presented to the academy some years before.
Alembert's association with Diderot in the preparation
of the Dictionnaire Encyclopedique led him to take a
someuhat wider range than that to which he had previously
confined himself. He wrote for that work the Discours
preliminaire on the rise, progress and affinities of the
various sciences, which he read to the French Academy on
the day of his admission as a member, the 18th of December
1754. He also wrote several literary articles for the first
two volumes of the Encyclopaedia, and to the remaining volumes
he contributed mathematical articles chiefly. One of the
few exceptions was the article on ``Geneva,'' which involved
him in a somewhat keen controversy in regard to Calvinism
and the suppression of theatrical performances within the
town. During the time he was engaged on the Encyclopaedia
he wrote a number of literary and philosophical works which
extended his reputation and also exposed him to criticism and
controversy, as in the case of his Melanges de Philosophie,
d'Histoire, et de Litterature. His Essai sur la societe
des gens de lettres avec les grands was a worthy vindication
of the independence of literary men, and a thorough exposure
of the evils of the system of patronage. He broke new ground
and showed great skill as a translator in his Traduction
de quelques morceaux choisis de Tacite. One of his most
important works was the Elements de Philosophie published in
1759, in which he discussed the principles and methods of the
different sciences. He maintained that the laws of motion were
necessary, not contingent. A treatise, Sur la destruction
des Jesuites (1765), involved him in a fresh controversy,
his own share in which was rendered very easy by the violence
and extravagance of his adversaries. The list of his more
noteworthy literary works is completed by the mention of the
Histoire des membres de l'Academie francaise, containing
biographical notices of all the members of the Academy who
died between 1700 and 1772, the year in which he himself became
secretary. Alembert was much interested in music both as
a science and as an art, and wrote Elements de musique
theorique et pratique (1779), which was based upon the system
of J. P. Rameau with important modifications and differences.
Alembert's fame spread rapidly throughout Europe and procured
for him more than one opportunity of quitting the comparative
retirement in which he lived in Paris for more lucrative and
prominent positions. The offer of Frederick the Great has
already been mentioned. In 1762 he was invited by Catherine
of Russia to become tutor to her son at a yearly salary of
100,000 francs. On his refusal the offer was repeated with
the additional inducement of accommodation for as many of
his friends as he chose to bring with him to the Russian
capital. Alembert persisted in his refusal, and the letter
of Catherine was ordered to be engrossed in the minutes
of the French Academy. In 1755, on the recommendation
of Pope Benedict XIV., he was admitted a member of the
Institute of Bologna. A legacy of L. 200 from David Hume
showed the esteem in which he was held by that philosopher.
Alembert continued to the end to lead the quiet and frugal
life dictated by his limited means as well as his simple
tastes. His later years were saddened by circumstances connected
with a romantic attachment he had formed for Mademoiselle de
Lespinasse, whose acquaintance he made at the house of Madame
du Deffand, a noted resort of literary men and savants. She
nursed him assiduously during an illness he had in 1765, and
from that period till her death in 1776 they lived in the same
house without any scandal. On her part there seems to have
been from first to last nothing more than warm friendship,
but his feelings towards her were of a stronger kind and her
death deeply affected him. He never recovered his elasticity
of spirits, though he continued to occupy himself with his
favourite pursuits, and to frequent the society of his brother
philosophers. After the death of Voltaire (1778), whose friend
and correspondent he had been for more than thirty years, he
was regarded as the leader of the philosophical party in the
Academy. He died at Paris on the 29th of October 1783.
The chief features of Alembert's character were benevolence,
simplicity and independence. Though his income was never
large, and during the greater part of his life was very meagre,
he contrived to find means to support his foster-mother in
her old age, to educate the children of his first teacher,
and to help various deserving students during their college
career. His cheerful conversation, his smart and lively
sallies, a singular mixture of malice of speech with goodness
of heart, and of delicacy of wit with simplicity of manners,
rendered him a pleasing and interesting companion; and
if his manner was sometimes plain almost to the extent of
rudeness, it probably set all the better an example of a
much-needed reform to the class to which he belonged. The
controversy as to the nature of his religious opinions,
arising as it did chiefly out of his connexion with the
Encyclopaedia, has no longer any living interest now that
the Encyclopaedists generally have ceased to be regarded
with unqualified suspicion by those who count themselves
orthodox. It is to be observed, moreover, that as Alembert
confined himself chiefly to mathematical articles, his work
laid him less open to charges of heresy and infidelity than
that of some of his associates. The fullest revelation of
his religious convictions is given in his correspondence
with Voltaire, which was published along with that with
Frederick the Great in Bossange's edition of his works.
The scientific works of Alembert have never been published in a
collected form. The most important of them have been mentioned
above, with the exception of the Opuscules mathematiques
(1761-1780), 8 vols. 4to. His literary and philosophical
works were collected and edited by Bastien (Paris, 1805,
18 vols. 8vo). A better edition by Bossange was published
at Paris in 1821 (5 vols. 8vo). The best account of the
life and writings of Alembert is contained in Condorcet's
Eloge, presented to the Academy and published in 1784.
ALEMBIC (Arab. al, definite article, anbiq, a still;
cognate to the Gr. ambix, a cup), an apparatus for
distillation, used chiefly by the alchemists, and now superseded
by the retort and the worm-still. It varied considerably
in form and construction, but consisted essentially of three
parts--a vessel containing the material to be distilled and
called, from its gourd-like shape, the cucurbit or mattrass;
a vessel to receive and condense the vapour, called the head
or capital; and a receiver for the spirit, connected by a
pipe with the capital. The entire apparatus was sometimes
constructed of glass, but it was more usual to make the cucurbit
of copper or earthenware, and the capital alone of glass.
ALEMTEJO (i.e. ``Beyond the Tagus''), an ancient province of
central and southern Portugal; bounded on the N. by Beira, E. by
Spanish Estremadura and Andalusia, S. by Algarve and W. by the
Atlantic Ocean and Portuguese Estremadura. Pop. (1900) 416,105;
area 9219 sq. m. Alemtejo is traversed by several mountain
ranges, whose height does not generally rise much above 2000
ft. The low and sandy coast has a length of less than 25 m.
and includes no harbour, except at the unimportant town of Villa
Nova de Milfontes (pop. 1900, 825), which overlooks the Mira
estuary. The principal rivers are the Tagus, which divides
Alemtejo from Beira; its tributary the Zatas, or Sorraia, fed
by a whole system of lesser affluents; the Guadiana, which,
crossing the Spanish frontier, flows southwards through the
province; the Sado, which rises in the Serra de Monchique,
and flows to the north; and the Mira, which waters the valley
between the Caldeirao and Monchique ranges. There are
several extensive plains, notably those of Alemtejo, lying
south-west of the Serra de Portalegre; of Beja, between the
Sado and Guadiana; and of Ourique, farther south between the
same rivers. Some portions of these plains are fruitful,
others marshy, while large tracts are mere desolate wastes.
The climate in the lower parts of the country is exceedingly
hot and is rendered unhealthy in summer by the stagnant
marshes. Towards the Spanish frontier the soil is fertile,
and in the south the country is covered by extensive forests of
oak, pine, chestnut, cork and ilex, especially on the sides
of the Mezquita and Caldeirao ranges. In the more fertile
parts, grapes, figs, citrons, pomegranates and other fruits are
produced. Wheat, maize and rice are grown, and some attention
is given to the rearing of mules, asses, goats, cattle and
sheep; while the Alter breed of horses, named after the villages
of Alter do Chao and Alter Pedroso (3971), near Portalegre,
is often accounted the best in the kingdom. Agriculture,
however, is in a backward state, the sparse population being
mostly concentrated in the towns, leaving extensive districts
uncultivated and almost uninhabited. Droves of swine are
fed on the waste lands, growing to a great size and affording
excellent hams. The mineral wealth of Alemtejo is little
exploited, although there are copper and iron mines and marble
quarries. Medicinal springs exist at Aljustrel (3790),
Castello de Vide (5192), Mertola (3873), Portalegre, Vimieiro
(1838) and elsewhere. Chief among the local industries
are the preparation of exceptionally fine olive oil, and
the manufacture of cloth, pottery and leather. Alemtejo is
traversed by three very important main lines of railway, the
Madrid-Caceres-Lisbon, Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon and Lisbon-Faro;
while the two last are connected by a branch line from Casa
Branca to Evora and Elvas. For administrative purposes the
province is divided into the districts of Portalegre in the
north, Evora in the central region and Beja in the south;
but the titles of these new districts have not superseded the
ancient name of Alemtejo in ordinary usage. The chief towns
Beja (8885), Elvas (13,981), Estremoz (7920), Evora (16,020)
and Portalegre (11,820) are described in separate articles.
ALENCON, COUNTS AND DUKES OF. The first line of the counts
of Alencon was founded by Yves, lord of Bellesme, who in the
middle of the 10th century possessed and fortified the town of
Alencon. His successors, involved in all the wars of the
kings of England in Normandy, were alternately deprived and
repossessed of their domains, according to the fluctuations
of fortune between the rival parties. Mabille, countess
of Alencon and heiress of this family (d. 1082 ), married
Roger of Montgomery, and from them descended a second house
of Alencon which became extinct in the person of Robert
IV.; the county of Alencon was then joined to the royal
domain. It was successively granted as an appanage to
Peter, son of St Louis (1268), and to Charles, count of
Valois, brother of Philip the Fair (1293). The third house
of Alencon sprang from Charles, second son of the count of
Valois, who was killed at the battle of Crecy in 1346. The
countship of Alencon was raised to a peerage in 1367 and into
a dukedom in 1414. John, 1st duke of Alencon, was killed
at Agincourt on the 25th of October 1415, after having with
his own hand slain the duke of York. His son, also named
John, was dispossessed of his duchy by the king of England,
but reconquered it in 1449. In 1524 the dukedom of Alencon
reverted to the crown, in consequence of the death of the
duke Charles IV. without issue of his marriage with Margaret,
sister of Francis I. It was given as a jointure to Catherine
de'Medici in 1559, and as an appanage to her son Francis in
1566. It was pawned by Henry IV. to the duke of Wurttemberg,
and subsequently it passed to Gaston, duke of Orleans, by
grant of Louis XIII.; to Elizabeth of Orleans, duchess of
Guise; to Charles, duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV.
(1710); and to Monsieur (Louis XVIII.), brother of Louis XVI.
The title of duc d'Alencon was given to Ferdinand of Orleans, son
of the duc de Nemours, and grandson of Louis-Philippe. (M. P.*)
ALENCON, a town of north-western France, capital of the
department of Orne, 36 m. N. of Le Mans on a branch line
of the Western railway. Pop (1906) 14,378. Alencon, a
clean, regularly built town with broad handsome streets,
is situated in a wide and fertile plain, on the Sarthe
at its confluence with the Briante. The only remains of
the ancient castle of Alencon are two towers of the 15th
century, which serve as a prison, and a third of the 14th
century known as the Tour Couronnee, to which they are
united. Notre-Dame, the chief church, dates from the 15th
century. It is remarkable for a porch ornamented in the
richest Gothic style, and for its stained windows of the 16th
century. Alencon has a large circular corn-market and a cloth-
market. The manufacture of the point d'Alencon lace has
greatly diminished. The weaving and bleaching of cloth,
which is of less importance than formerly, the manufacture of
vehicles, and tanning are carried on; there is a large trade
in the horses of the district, and granite is worked in the
neighbourhood. Alencon is the seat of a prefect and
a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance
and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a lycee,
training-colleges and a chamber of arts and manufactures.
ALENIO, GIULIO (1582-1649), Italian Jesuit missionary, was
born at Brescia. He entered the Society of Jesus and was sent
to the East. He landed at Macao in 1610, and while waiting a
favourable opportunity to penetrate into China busied himself
for three years in teaching mathematics. His thirty years'
residence in China was marked by unceasing zeal and considerable
success. He adopted the dress and manners of the country,
was the first Christian missionary in Kiang-si, and built
several churches in Fo-Kien. He wrote in Chinese a Life of
Christ (Pekin, 1635-1637, 8 vols.; often reprinted, e.g.
in 1887 in 3 vols., and used even by Protestant missionaries)
and a cosmography (Iche fang wai ki Hang-chow, 1623, 6
vols.), which was translated into Manchu under the title The
True Origin of 10,000 Things, a copy of which was sent
from Pekin to Paris in 1789. Alenio died at Fu-chow in 1649.
For bibliography see de Backer and Sommervogel,
Bibl. de la Cie. de Jesus, i. 158-160.
ALEPPO (native Haleb.) (1) A vilayet of Asiatic Turkey,
comprising N. Syria and N.W. Mesopotamia, with an extension N.
of Taurus to the neighbourhood of Gorun. It comprises three
sanjaks, Aleppo, Marash and Urfa. About half is mountain, but
there are fertile plains of great extent N. of Antakia, S. of
Marash and around the city of Aleppo (see below). The only
seaport of importance is Alexandretta (q.v..) The exports
are, on the average, over one million sterling, and imports
about double in value. The settled population is barely a
million; but there is a considerable unsettled element in the
S.E. which cannot well be estimated. The Christians, mainly
Jacobite Syrian, but including also Armenians of several
denominations (e.g. those of Marash and Zeitun), Maronites
and Greeks, form about one-fifth. There are some 20,000
Jews, resident chiefly in the provincial capital; and of the
Moslem majority the bulk is Arab, Turkoman and Ansarieh.
In the N.W. and N. is a considerable Kurdish population.
(2) The provincial capital (anc. Khalep; Gr. Chaljbon-
Beroea), situated on a plateau in the valley of the
Kuwaik (anc. Chalus) about 10 m. above its dissipation
in the great salt-marsh of Matkh. Pop. about 130,000,
three-quarters Moslem. Aleppo is about midway between
the sea and the Euphrates, a little nearer the latter.
The modern city stands on both banks of the Kuwaik, and the
older portions are contained within a Saracenic wall, 3 1/2 m. in
circuit with seven gates. The European residents and Christians
live outside in the Kitab and new Azizieh quarters, and the
Jews in that of Bahsita. A modern citadel occupies the N.W.,
the medieval castle on its mound (partly artificial and not a
strong position, according to Istakhri) being almost deserted
but still forbidden to visitors. There are two mosques of
special interest--the Umawi (or Zakaria) on the site of
a church ascribed to the empress Helena and containing a tomb
reputed to be that of the Baptist's father, and the Kakun.
Many minor ones serve the needs of a population traditionally
fanatical. Gardens extend for miles along the river, and
the bazaars and khans are unusually large. The climate is
cold, dry and healthy, despite the prevalence of the famous
``Aleppo button,'' a swelling which appears either on the
face or on the hands, and breaks into an ulcer which lasts
a year and leaves a permanent scar. It has been ascribed
to a fly, to the water and to other causes; but it is not
peculiar to Aleppo, being rife also at Aintab, Bagdad, &c.
The attempt made by the British Euphrates expedition in
1841 to connect Aleppo with the sea by steamer through the
nearest point on the Euphrates, Meskine, failed owing to
the obstructed state of the stream and the insecurity of the
riparian districts. The latter drawback has been minimized
by the continued success of the Aleppo administration in
inducing the Anazeh Bedouins to become fellahin; but river
traffic has not been resumed. A railway, however, connects
southward with the Beirut-Damascus line at Rayak. Aleppo is
an important consular station for all European powers, the
residence of the Greek and Armenian Patriarchs of Antioch,
and of Jacobite and Maronite bishops, and a station of Roman
Catholic and Protestant missions. It is the emporium of N.
Syria, and manufactures textiles in silk, cotton and wool,
carpets and leather commodities, besides being the centre of
a large district growing cereals, pistachios and fruit. The
Turks regard it as one of the strongholds of their dominion and
faith, and a future capital of their empire should they be
forced into Asia. As a centre from which good natural roads
lead N., N.E., W. and S., Aleppo would make a good capital.
History and Remains.--The site lies high (1400 ft.) on eight
hillocks in a fertile oasis plain, beyond which stretch on the
S. and S.E. grassy steppes merging ere long into desert, and
on the other quarters rather sterile downs. It has superseded
Antioch as the economic centre of N. Syria, and Palmyra as
the great road-station for eastern caravans. But it is rather
a revived than a new capital; Khalep was a very ancient
Syrian and probably ``Hittite'' city of importance, known from
Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian records. Seleucus Nicator
gave it a Macedonian name, Beroea; but Chalcis, some distance
S., was the capital of the province, Chalcidice (later,
Kinnasrin), in which it lay, and the centre of that hellenized
region, now a vast field of ruins, which stretches W. to the
Orontes. Khalep-Beroea, we may infer, remained a native
town and a focus of Aramaic influence, a fact which will
explain the speedy oblivion of its Macedonian name and the
permanent revival of its ancient title, even by Greeks.
As Beroea we hear of the place in Seleucid wars and
dissensions. There Menelaus, the fomenter of war with the
Asmoneans, was put to death by Lysias in 164 B. C., ``as the
manner is in that place'' (Macc. ii. 13. 4), being thrown
into a lofty tower full of cinders. There Heracleon, the court
favourite and murderer of Antiochus Grypus, was born and made
himself a principality (96 B.C.); and there the son of the
latter king besieged his brother Philip in the last struggle
for the heritage of Seleucus. As Chalybon, the town is
called by Ptolemy head of a district, Chalybonitis; but
we continue to hear of it as Beroea up to the Arab conquest,
e.g. in the history of Julian's eastward march in A.D.
363, and in that of the Persian raid of 540. It was occupied
in 611 by Chosroes II. Overwhelmed by the Saracen flood in
A.D. 638, Beroea disappears, and as Moslem society settles
down Halep emerges again as the great gathering-place of
caravans passing from Asia Minor and Syria to Mesopotamia,
Bagdad and the Persian and Indian kingdoms. Like Antioch
it suffered from earthquakes, and late in the 12th century,
after a terrible shock, had to be rebuilt by Nur ed-Din.
But neither earthquakes nor the plague, to which it was also
peculiarly liable, could divert trade and prosperity from
it. It belonged to the Eastern Caliphate (the Hanidanids)
until temporarily reoccupied by John Zimisces, emperor of
Byzantium and a native of neighbouring Hierapolis (q.v.),
A.D. 974, after an abortive attempt by Nicephorus thirteen
years earlier. Thirteen years later it recognized and
received the Fatimites, and passed under various Moslem
dynasties, forming part of the Seljuk dominion from 1090 to
1117. The crusading princes of Antioch never held the place,
though they attacked it in 1124; and Saladin, who took it in
1183, made it a stronghold against them and the northern capital
of himself and his successors until the Tatar invasion of
1260. Thereafter the Mamelukes took and kept possession,
despite the renewed Tatar inroad of 1401, until the final
conquest by the Ottomans in 1517. Under the strong hand of
the latter the trade of Aleppo with the East revived. One of
the first provincial factories and consulates of the British
Turkey (Levant) Company was established there in the reign of
James I.; and a British agent had been in residence there even
in Elizabeth's time. As the eastern outpost of the company's
operations, it was connected with the western outpost of the
East India Company in Bagdad by a private postal service,
and its name became very familiar in England from the part
that its merchants (largely Jewish) bore in the transmission
of Eastern products to Europe (cf., e.g. Shakespeare,
Macb. i. 3. 7; Oth. v. 2. 352). Through it passed the
silks of Bambyce, called bombazines, the light textiles
of Mosul (mosulines--muslins) and many other commodities
for the wealthy and luxurious. The first blow was struck at
this trade by the discovery of the Cape route to India; the
second by the opening of a land route through Egypt to the
Red Sea; the third and final one by the making of the Suez
Canal. Long ere this last event, however, Aleppo had been
declining from internal causes. In the latter part of the
18th century and the first years of the 19th it was constantly
the scene of bloody dissensions between two rival parties,
one led by the local janissaries, the other by the sherifs
(religious); and the Ottoman governors took the side, now
of one, now of the other, in order to plunder a distracted
city, too far removed from the centre to be controlled by the
sultans, and too near the rebellious pashalik of Acre and
the unsettled district of Lebanon not to be affected by the
disorders natural to a frontier province. This state of things
led to the suspension of the British consulate by the Turkey
Company in 1791; and it was not revived till 1800, after which
date till 1825 it was maintained jointly by the East India
Company. In 1803 Jezzar of Acre advanced as near as Hamah;
but his death occurred in the following year; and after a
sanguinary rising in 1805, Aleppo settled down, but was not at
peace, even after a local janissary massacre in 1814, till
Mahmud II. had dealt finally with the corps at headquarters
(1826). Meanwhile there had been a frightful earthquake in
1822, and a visitation of cholera in the following year. More
cholera in 1827 and 1832 and another earthquake in 1830 had
left the place a wreck, with only half its former population,
when Mehemet Ali of Cairo invaded and took Syria. Aleppo
shared, and to some extent headed, the Syrian discontent
with Egyptian rule, and was strongly held by troops whose
huge barracks are still one of the sights of the city. Ready
to rise behind Ibrahim Pasha in 1839, it was only prevented
by the news of Nezib. Tumults and massacres of Christians
occurred in 1850 and 1862, accompanied by great destruction
of property; but on the whole, since the consolidation of
Ottoman rule over Syria by Abdul Mejid's ministers, Aleppo has
been reviving, although its trade is more local than of old.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--F. R. Chesney, The Euphrates Expedition (1850)
H. Guys, Statistique du Pachalik d'Alep (1853), and Esquisse de
l'etat de la Syrie (1862); E. B. B. Barker, Syria and Egypt
(1876); W. F. Ainsworth, Personal Narrative of the Euphrates
Expedition (1888); E. R. Bevan, Heuse of Seleucas (1902); G.
le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890). (D. G. H.)
ALES (ALESIUS), ALEXANDER (1500-1565), Scottish divine
of the school of Augsburg, whose family name was ALANE,
was born at Edinburgh on the 23rd of April 1500. He studied
at St Andrews in the newly-founded college of St Leonard's,
where he graduated in 1515. Some time afterwards he was
appointed a canon of the collegiate church, and at first
contended vigorously for the scholastic theology as against
the doctrines of the Reformers. His views were entirely
changed, however, on the execution of Patrick Hamilton, abbot
of Fern, in 1528. He had been chosen to meet Hamilton in
controversy, with a view to convincing him of his errors,
but the arguments of the Scottish proto-martyr, and above
all the spectacle of his heroism at the stake, impressed
Alesius so powerfully that he was entirely won over to the
cause of the Reformers. A sermon which he preached before
the Synod at St Andrews against the dissoluteness of the
clergy gave great offence to the provost, who cast him into
prison, and might have carried his resentment to the extremest
limit had not Alesius contrived to escape to Germany in
1532. After travelling in various countries of northern
Europe, he settled down at Wittenberg, where he made the
acquaintance of Luther and Melanchthon, and signed the Augsburg
confession. Meanwhile he was tried in Scotland for heresy and
condemned without a hearing. In 1533 a decree of the Scottish
clergy, prohibiting the reading of the New Testament by the
laity, drew from Alesius a defence of the right of the people,
in the form of a letter to James V. A reply to this by John
Cochlaeus, also addressed to the Scottish king, occasioned
a second letter from Alesius, in which he not only amplifies
his argument with great force, but enters into more general
questions connected with the Reformation. In August 1534
he and a few others were excommunicated at Holyrood by the
deputy of the archbishop of St Andrews. When Henry VIII.
broke with the church of Rome Alesius was induced to go to
England, where he was very cordially received (August 1535)
by the king and his advisers Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell.
After a short residence at Lambeth he was appointed, through
the influence of Cromwell, then chancellor of the university,
to lecture on theology at Cambridge; but when he had delivered
a few expositions of the Hebrew psalms, he was compelled by
the opposition of the papal party to desist. Returning to
London he supported himself for some time by practising as a
physician. In 1537 he attended a convocation of the clergy,
and at the request of Cromwell conducted a controversy with
Stokesley, bishop of London, on the nature of the sacraments.
His argument was afterwards published under the title Of
the Auctorite of the Word of God concerning the number of
the Sacraments. In 1539 Alesius was compelled to flee for
the second time to Germany, in consequence of the enactment
of the statute of the Six Articles. He was appointed to a
theological chair in the university of Frankfort-on-Oder,
where he was the first professor who taught the reformed
doctrines. In 1543 he quitted Frankfort for a similar
position at Leipzig, his contention that it was the duty of
the civil magistrate to punish fornication, and his sudden
departure, having given offence to the authorities of the
former university. He was in England again for a short
time during Edward VI.'s reign, and was commissioned by
Cranmer to make a Latin version of the First Prayer-Book
(1549) for the information of Bucer, whose opinion was
desired. He died at Leipzig on the 17th of March 1565.
Alesius was the author of a large number of exegetical,
dogmatic and polemical works, of which over twenty are
mentioned by Bale in his List of English Writers. (See also
the British Museum catalogue.) In his controversial works he
upholds the synergistic views of the Scottish theologian John
Major. He displayed his interest in his native land by the
publication of a Cohortatio ad Concordiam Pietatis, missa in
Patriam suam (1544), which had the express approval of Luther,
and a Cohortatio ad Pietatis Concordiam ineundam (1559).
The best early account of Alesius is the Oratio de Alexandro
Alesio of Jacob Thomasius (April 1661), printed in the
latter's Orationes (No. XIV., Leipzia, 1683): the best
modern account is by Dr A. W. Ward in the Dictionary of
National Biography. See also A. F. Mitchell's introduction
to Gau's Richt Vay (Scottish Text Society, 1888).
ALESIA, the ancient name for a hill in central France, now
Alise-Ste-Reine (department Cote d'Or), where in 52 B.C.
Caesar besieged the Gaulish national leader Vercingetorix
within enormous entrenchments, forced him to surrender, and thus
practically ended his conquest of Gaul. The siege-works have
been excavated by Napoleon III. and others, down to the present
day. The site seems to have been inhabited also during the
Roman empire, but its importance is limited to Caesar's siege.
ALESSANDRI, ALESSANDRO (ALEXANDER AB ALEXANDRO) (1461-1523),
Italian jurist, was born at Naples about the year 1461.
He studied law at Naples and Rome, and afterwards practised
for a time as advocate in both cities. He is said to have
been royal proto-notary at Naples in 1490. Dissatisfied,
according to his own account, with the corrupt administration
of justice, he at length quitted the bar and devoted himself
entirely to literary pursuits, especially to the study of
philology and antiquities. A sinecure appointment, which
he owed to the favour of the pope, enabled him to lead a
life of learned leisure at Rome, where he died on the 2nd
of October 1523. His work entitled Dies Geniales appeared
at Rome in 1522, and was constructed after the model of the
Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of
Macrobius. It consists of a confused mass of heterogeneous
materials relating to philology, antiquities, law, dreams,
spectres, &c., and is characterized by considerable credulity.
ALESSANDRIA, a city and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy,
capital of a province which bears its name, situated on the
river Tanaro, 57 m. E. by S. of Turin by rail. Pop. (1901)
71,298, of which about half reside in the actual town: the
rest are distributed over the suburbs. Alessandria was founded
in 1168 by the inhabitants of the district in order to defend
themselves against the marquis of Monferrato and the town of
Pavia, at whose request it was besieged in 1174 by Frederick
Barbarossa for six months, but without success. The Lombard
League now included it among the allied cities and named it
Alessandria, after Pope Alexander III. The traditional account
of its foundation by the Lombard League has been disproved
by F. Graf, Die Grundung Alessandrias: ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte des Lombardenbunides (1888). After falling
into various hands, it was ceded to Savoy by the peace of
Utrecht in 1713, and its citadel was begun in 1728. During
the French occupation (1800-1814), which began after the
battle of Marengo, it was still more strongly fortified; the
works were entirely destroyed by the Austrians in 1815, but
were afterwards reconstructed, and Alessandria is still an
important fortress and the headquarters of the second army
corps. The citadel is on the left bank of the Tanaro, the
town being on the right bank. It is regularly built and
contains few buildings of architectural interest, but is a
flourishing and important commercial town, not merely owing
to its own manufactures (which are miscellaneous) but for
the products of the district, and one of the greatest railway
centres in Italy. Lines diverge from it to Turin via Asti,
to Valenza (and thence to Vercelli, Mortara--for Novara or
Milan--and Pavia), to Tortona, to Novi, to Acqui and to Bra.
ALESSI, GALEAZZO (1512-1572), Italian architect, was born
at Perugia, and was probably a pupil of Caporali. He was an
enthusiastic student of ancient architecture, and his style gained
for him a European reputation. Genoa is indebted to him for
a number of its most magnificent palaces, and specimens of his
skill may be seen in the churches of San Paolo and Santa Vittoria
at Milan, in certain parts of the Escurial, and in numerous
churches and palaces throughout Sicily, Flanders and Germany.
See Rossi, Di Galeazzo Alessi memorie (Perugia, 1873).
ALETHIOLOGY (from the Gr. aletheia, truth), an
uncommon expression for the doctrine of truth, used by Sir
William Hamilton in his philosophic writings when treating
of the rules for the discrimination of truth and error.
ALETRIUM (mod. Alatri), a town of the Hernici, about 6
m. due N. of Frusino, Italy, mentioned in 306 B.C. for its
fidelity to Rome. In Cicero's time it was a municipium,
and continued in this position throughout the imperial
period. It is chiefly remarkable for its finely preserved
fortifications constructed of tetrahedral and polygonal blocks
of local limestone well jointed, with maximum dimensions
of about 3 by 1 1/2 ft.; the outer circuit of the city wall
measures about 2 1/2 m. It is almost entirely an embanking
wall, as is the rule in the cities of this part of Italy, with
a maximum height, probably, of about 30 ft. Two of the gates
(of which there were perhaps five) are still to some extent
preserved, and three posterns are to be found. In the centre
of the city rises a hill (1647 ft.) which was adopted as the
citadel. Remains of the fortifications of three successive
periods can be traced, of which the last, perhaps a little more
recent than that of the city wall, is the best preserved. In
the first two periods the construction is rough, while in the
third the blocks are very well and finely jointed, and the
faces smoothed; they are mostly polygonal in form and are much
larger (the maximum about 10 by 6 ft.) than those of the city
wall. A flat surface was formed partly by smoothing off the
rock and partly by the erection of huge terrace walls which
rise to a height of over 50 ft., enclosing a roughly rectangular
area of 235 by 115 yds. Two approaches to the citadel were
constructed, both passing through the wall; the openings of
both are rectangular. The architrave of the larger, known
as Porta di Civita, measures about 17 ft. in length, 5 ft.
in height, 6 ft. in thickness; while that of the smaller
is decorated with three phalli in relief. Later, though
probably in ancient times, a ramp was added on the northern
side. In the centre of the arx was a building on the site
of the present cathedral, of which only a small portion is
preserved. Remains of a high-pressure aqueduct, which
supplied the town with water and was constructed with other
public buildings (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x., Berlin, 1883,
p. 5807) by L. Betilienus Varus, may still be traced. A
temple was excavated in 1889 about 1/2 m. to the north of
the town and many fragments of the painted terra-cottas
with which it was decorated were found. A reconstruction of
it has been erected in the Museo di Villa Giulia at Rome.
The present town (pop. in 1901, 15,322) has a picturesque
aspect, and contains many buildings in the Gothic style.
See R. Bassel, Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung, 1881, 121,
p. 134; H. Winnefeld, Romische Mitteilungen, 1889, 126;
G. Fiorelli in Notizie degli Scavi, 1882, 417. (T. As.)
ALEURITES (Gr. aleuritus, pertaining to aleuron, ground
meal, from alein, to grind), a genus of trees belonging
to the natural order Euphorbiaceae. Aleurites moluccana,
or triloba, is widely cultivated throughout the tropical
and sub-tropical parts of the world for its fruit, which
is about the size of a walnut, and contains several seeds
which are rich in oil. The oil is extracted and used
for food and light; it is known in India as kekuna, and
the tree as the ``candle-nut.'' In the Sandwich Islands
the nuts are strung upon strips of wood and used as
torches. The oil is exported to Europe for candle-making.
A. cordata flourishes in China, where it is known as the
varnish- tree, on account of the lac contained in its seeds.
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS (possibly from Chukchi aliat, ``island''),
a chain of small islands situated in the Northern Pacific
Ocean, and extending about 1200 m. westward from the
extremity of the Alaskan peninsula toward the peninsula of
Kamchatka; they constitute part of the District of Alaska,
U.S.A. The islands, of which an alternative collective
name is the Catherine Archipelago, comprise four groups--the
Fox, Andreanof, Rat and Near Islands. They are all included
between 52 deg. and 55 deg. N. lat. and 172 deg. E. and 163 deg. W. long.
The axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska
has a S.W. trend, but near the 129th meridian its direction
changes to the N.W. This change of direction corresponds
to a curve in the line of volcanic fissures which have
contributed their products to the building of the islands.
Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in
the Kurile Islands, the Japanese chain, the Philippines,
&c. The general elevation is greatest in the eastern islands
and least in the western. The island chain is really a
western continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland.
The great majority of the islands bear evident marks of
volcanic origin, and there are numerous volcanic cones on
the north side of the chain, some of them active; many of
the islands, however, are not wholly volcanic, but contain
crystalline or sedimentary rocks, and also amber and beds of
lignite. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn and the
approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising
immediately from the coasts to steep, bold mountains.
The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and
fairly uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Fogs are
almost constant. The summers are much cooler than on the
mainland at Sitka (q.v.), but the winter temperature of
the islands and of south-eastern Alaska is very nearly the
same. The mean annual temperature for Unalaska, the most
important island of the group, is about 38 deg. F.; being about
30 deg. for January and about 52 deg. for August. The highest
and lowest temperatures recorded on the islands are 78 deg. and
5 deg. . The average annual amount of rainfall is about 80 in.,
and Unalaska, with about 250 rainy days per year, is said
to be the rainiest place within the territory of the United
States. The growing season lasts about 135 days, from early
in May till late in September, but agriculture is limited
to the raising of a few vegetables. With the exception of
some stunted willows the islands are practically destitute of
trees, but are covered with a luxuriant growth of herbage,
including grasses, sedges and many flowering plants. On the
less mountainous islands the raising of sheep and reindeer
is believed to be practicable. The principal occupations
of the natives have always been fishing and hunting, and the
women weave basketry of exquisite fineness. From the end
of the 18th century the Russian fur traders had settlements
here for the capture of the seal and the sea otter and the
blue and the Arctic fox. Under the American regime seal
fishing off the Aleutians save by the natives has never been
legal, but the depletion of the Pribilof herd, the almost
complete extinction of the sea otter, and the rapid decrease
of the foxes and other fur animals, have threatened the
Aleuts (as the natives are commonly called) with starvation.
In recent years enterprising traders have raised foxes by
culture and by especially protecting certain small islands,
and this has furnished employment to whole communities of
natives. Fish and sea-fowl are extremely abundant.
The natives are rather low in stature, but plump and well
shaped, with short necks, swarthy faces, black eyes and long
black hair. They are a branch of the Esquimauan family, but
differ greatly from the Eskimo of the mainland in language,
habits, disposition and mental ability. They were good
fighters until they were cowed by the treatment of the Russians,
who practically reduced them to slavery. Sporadic efforts
to Christianize the Aleuts were made in the latter half of
the 18th century, but little impression was made before the
arrival in 1824 of Father Ivan Venyaminov, who in 1840 became
the first Greek bishop of Alaska. While the missionaries
of the Greek Church have nominally converted the natives to
Christianity, white adventurers have more effectually converted
them to various bad habits. In dress and mode of life they
have adopted outwardly civilized customs. From the position
of the Aleutian islands, stretching like a broken bridge
from Asia to America, some ethnologists have supposed that by
means of them America was first peopled. Raised shore-lines,
occasional earthquakes, and slow measurable elevation of the
land about active volcanoes, indicate that elevation is now in
progress, but the geological evidence shows no sign of former
submergence of a connecting isthmus. There is granite at the
core of the Shaler range of mountains in southern Unalaska.
It is stated that before the advent of the Russians there were
25,000 Aleuts on the archipelago, but that the barbarities of the
traders eventually reduced the population to one-tenth of this
number. The number of Aleuts in 1890 was reported as 968;
the total population of the archipelago in 1900 was 2000.
The principal settlements are on the Unalaska Island. Of
these Iliuliuk (also called Unalaska), the oldest, settled in
1760-1775, has a custom house, a Russian-Greek Church, and a
Methodist Mission and orphanage, and is the headquarters for
a considerable fleet of United States revenue cutters which
patrol the sealing grounds of the Pribilofs; adjacent is Dutch
Harbor (so named, it is said, because a Dutch vessel was the
first to enter it), which is an important port for Bering Sea
commerce. The volcano Makushin (5691 ft.) is visible from
Iliuliuk, and the volcanic islets Bogoslof and Grewingk, which
rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 respectively, lie about 30
m. W. of the bay. The latter is still active; in 1906 a new
cone rose between the two earlier islets, and in 1907 still
another: these were nearly demolished by an explosive eruption
on the 1st of September 1907. The population of Unalaska
Island in 1900 was 575 Aleuts and 66 whites. The Commander
Islands group near the Asiatic coast is geographically,
but since the acquisition of the Russian possessions in
America not politically, a part of the Aleutian system.
In 1741 the Russian government sent out Vitus Bering, a
Dane, and Alexei Chirikov, a Russian, in the ships ``Saint
Peter'' and ``Saint Paul'' on a voyage of discovery in
the Northern Pacific. After the ships were separated by a
storm, Chirikov discovered several eastern islands of the
Aleutian group, and Bering discovered several of the western
islands, finally being wrecked and losing his life on the
island of the Commander group that now bears his name.
The survivors of Bering's party reached Kamchatka in a boat
constructed from the wreckage of their ship, and reported
that the islands were rich in fur-bearing animals. Siberian
fur hunters at once flocked to the Commander Islands and
gradually moved eastward across the Aleutian Islands to the
mainland. In this manner Russia gained a foothold on the
north-western coast of North America. The Aleutian Islands
consequently belonged to Russia, until that country in 1867
transferred to the United States all its possessions in
America. During his third and last voyage, in 1778, Captain
James Cook surveyed the eastern portion of the Aleutian
archipelago, accurately determined the position of some of
the more important islands and corrected many errors of former
navigators. Some preliminary surveys have been made by the United
States government with a view to establishing a naval station
on the island Kiska, in the western part of the Aleutian Chain.
ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG) (1857-1893), first
prince of Bulgaria, was the second son of Prince Alexander
of Hesse and the Rhine by his morganatic marriage with
Julia, countess von Hauke. The title of princess of
Battenberg, derived from an old residence of the grand-dukes
of Hesse, was conferred, with the prefix Durchlaucht or
``Serene Highness,'' on the countess and her descendants in
1858. Prince Alexander, who was born on the 5th of April
1857, was nephew of the tsar Alexander II., who had married
a sister of Prince Alexander of Hesse; his mother, a daughter
of Count Moritz von Hauke, had been lady-in-waiting to the
tsaritsa. In his boyhood and early youth he was frequently
at St Petersburg, and he accompanied his uncle, who was
much attached to him, during the Bulgarian campaign of
1877. When Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty was constituted
an autonomous principality under the suzerainty of Turkey, the
tsar recommended his nephew to the Bulgarians as a candidate
for the newly created throne, and Prince Alexander was elected
prince of Bulgaria by unanimous vote of the Grand Sobranye
(April 29, 1879). He was at that time serving as a lieutenant
in the Prussian life-guards at Potsdam. Before proceeding
to Bulgaria, Prince Alexander paid visits to the tsar at
Livadia, to the courts of the great powers and to the sultan;
he was then conveyed on a Russian warship to Varna, and after
taking the oath to the new constitution at Tirnova (July
8, 1879) he repaired to Sofia, being everywhere greeted with
immense enthusiasm by the people. (For the political history
of Prince Alexander's reign, see BULGARIA.) Without any
previous training in the art of government, the young prince
from the outset found himself confronted with difficulties
which would have tried the sagacity of an experienced ruler.
On the one hand he was exposed to numberless humiliations on
the part of the representatives of official Russia, who made
it clear to him that he was expected to play the part of a
roi faineant; on the other he was compelled to make terms
with the Bulgarian politicians, who, intoxicated with newly won
liberty, prosecuted their quarrels with a crude violence which
threatened to subvert his authority and to plunge the nation in
anarchy. After attempting to govern under these conditions
for nearly two years, the prince, with the consent of the tsar
Alexander III., assumed absolute power (May 9, 1881), and a
suspension of the ultra-democratic constitution for a period
of seven years was voted by a specially convened assembly
(July 13). The experiment, however, proved unsuccessful; the
Bulgarian Liberal and Radical politicians were infuriated, and
the real power fell into the hands of two Russian generals,
Sobolev and Kaulbars, who had been specially despatched from St
Petersburg. The prince, after vainly endeavouring to obtain
the recall of the generals, restored the constitution with the
concurrence of all the Bulgarian political parties (September
18, 1883). A serious breach with Russia followed, which was
widened by the part which the prince subsequently played in
encouraging the national aspirations of the Bulgarians. The
revolution of Philippopolis (September 18, 1885), which brought
about the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria, was carried
out with his consent, and he at once assumed the government of
the revolted province. In the anxious year which followed, the
prince gave evidence of considerable military and diplomatic
ability. He rallied the Bulgarian army, now deprived of
its Russian officers, to resist the Servian invasion, and
after a brilliant victory at Slivnitza (November 19) pursued
King Milan into Servian territory as far as Pirot, which he
captured (November 27). Although Servia was protected from the
consequences of defeat by the intervention of Austria, Prince
Alexander's success sealed the union with Eastern Rumelia,
and after long negotiations he was nominated governor-general
of that province for five years by the sultan (April 5,
1886). This arrangement, however, cost him much of his
popularity in Bulgaria, while discontent prevailed among a
certain number of his officers, who considered themselves
slighted in the distribution of rewards at the close of the
campaign. A military conspiracy was formed, and on the night
of the 20th of August the prince was seized in the palace at
Sofia, and compelled to sign his abdication; he was then
hurried to the Danube at Rakhovo, transported on his yacht to
Reni, and handed over to Russian authorities, by whom he was
allowed to proceed to Lemberg. He soon, however, returned to
Bulgaria, owing to the success of the counter- revolution led
by Stamboloff, which overthrew the provisional government set
up by the Russian party at Sofia. But his position had become
untenable, partly owing to an ill-considered telegram which
he addressed to the tsar on his return; partly in consequence
of the attitude of Prince Bismarck, who, in conjunction
with the Russian and Austrian governments, forbade him to
punish the leaders of the military conspiracy. He therefore
issued a manifesto resigning the throne, and left Bulgaria
on the 8th of September 1886. He now retired into private
life. A few years later he married Fraulein Loisinger, an
actress, and assumed the style of Count Hartenau (February 6,
1889). The last years of his life were spent principally at
Gratz, where he held a local command in the Austrian army.
Here, after a short illness, he died on the 23rd of October
1893. His remains were brought to Sofia, where they received
a public funeral, and were eventually deposited in a mausoleum
erected in his memory. Prince Alexander possessed much
charm and amiability of manner; he was tall, dignified and
strikingly handsome. His capabilities as a soldier have been
generally recognized by competent authorities. As a ruler
he committed some errors, but his youth and inexperience and
the extreme difficulty of his position must be taken into
consideration. He was not without aptitude for diplomacy,
and his intuitive insight and perception of character
sometimes enabled him to outwit the crafty politicians by
whom he was surrounded. His principal fault was a want
of tenacity and resolution; his tendency to unguarded
language undoubtedly increased the number of his enemies.
See Drandar, Le Prince Alexandre de Battenberg en Bulgarie
(Paris, 1884); Koch, Furst Alexander von Bulgarien
(Darmstadt, 1887); Matveyev, Bulgarien nach dem Berliner
Congress (Petersburg, 1887); Bourchier, ``Prince Alexander of
Battenberg,'' in Fortnightly Review, January 1894. (J. D. B.)
ALEXANDER I., king of Epirus about 342 B.C., brother of
Olympias the mother of Alexander the Great, and son-in-law
of Philip of Macedon, whose daughter Cleopatra he married
(336). In 332 he crossed over to Italy to assist the
Tarentines against the Lucanians, Bruttians and Samnites.
He gained considerable successes and made an arrangement
with the Romans for a joint attack upon the Samnites; but
the Tarentines, suspecting him of the design of founding
an independent kingdom, turned against him. Although the
advantage at first rested with Alexander, he gradually lost
it, and his supporters dwindled away. In 330 (or earlier)
he was defeated at Pandosia and slain by a Lucanian emigrant.
See Justin viii. 6, ix. 6, xii. 2; Livy viii. 3, 17, 24;
Aulus Gellius xvii. 21; and article MACEDONIAN EMPIRE.
ALEXANDER II., king of Epirus, succeeded his father Pyrrhus,
272 B.C. He attacked Antigonus Gonatas and conquered the
greater part of Macedonia, but was in turn driven out of both
Epirus and Macedonia by Demetrius the son of Antigonus. He
subsequently recovered his kingdom by the aid of the Acarnanians
and Aetolians. He died about 260 (Polybius ii. 45, ix. 34;
Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 9; Justin xviii. 1, xxvi. 2, xxviii. 1).
See Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. viii.;
Droysen, Hellenismus; B. Niese, Gesch. d. griech. u.
maked. Staaten; J. Beloch, Griech. Gesch. vol. iii.
ALEXANDER III., known as THE GREAT1 (356-323 B.C.),
king of Macedon, was the son of Philip II. of Macedon, and
Olympias, an Epirote princess. His father was pre-eminent
for practical genius, his mother a woman of half-wild blood,
weird, visionary and terrible; and Alexander himself is singular
among men of action for the imaginative splendours which guided
him, and among romantic dreamers for the things he achieved.
Youth.
We was born in 356 B.C., probably about October (Hogarth,
pp. 284 ff.). The court at which he grew up was the focus
of great activities, for Philip, by war and diplomacy, was
raising Macedon to the headship of the Greek states, and
the air was charged with great ideas. To unite the Greek
race in a war against the Persian empire was set up as the
ultimate mark for ambition, the theme of idealists. The
great literary achievements of the Greeks in the 5th century
lay already far enough behind to have become invested with a
classical dignity; the meaning of Hellenic civilization had
been made concrete in a way which might sustain enthusiasm for
a body of ideal values, authoritative by tradition. And upon
Alexander in his fourteenth year this sum of tradition was
brought to bear through the person of the man who beyond all
others had gathered it up into an organic whole: in 343-342
Aristotle (q.v.) came to Pella at Philip's bidding to
direct the education of his son. We do not know what faculty
the master-thinker may have had for captivating this ardent
spirit; at any rate Alexander carried with him through life
a passion for Homer, however he may have been disposed to
greyer philosophic theory. But his education was not all from
books. The coming and going of envoys from many states, Greek
and Oriental, taught him something of the actual conditions
of the world. He was early schooled in war. At the age of
sixteen he commanded in Macedonia during Philip's absence
and quelled a rising of the hill-tribes on the northern
border; in the following year (338) he headed the charge
which broke the Sacred Band at Chaeronea. Then came family
dissensions such as usually vex the polygamous courts of the
East. In 337 Philip repudiated Olympias for another wife,
Cleopatra, Alexander went with his mother to her home in Epirus,
and, though he soon returned and an outward reconciliation
between father and son was contrived, their hearts were
estranged. The king's new wife was with child; her kinsmen
were in the ascendant; the succession of Alexander was
imperilled. Some negotiations which Pixodarus, the satrap
of Caria, opened with the Macedonian court with a view to
effecting a marriage alliance between his house and Philip's,
brought Alexander into fresh broils. In 336 Philip was
suddenly assassinated whilst celebrating at Aegae the marriage
of his daughter to Alexander I. of Epirus in the presence of
a great concourse from all the Greek world. It is certain
that the hand of the assassin was prompted by some one in the
background; suspicion could not fail to fall upon Alexander among
others. But guilt of that sort would hardly be consistent
with his character as it appears in those early day's.
Accession.
Alexander was not the only claimant to the vacant throne,
but, recognized by the army, he soon swept all rivals from
his path. The newly born son of Philip by Cleopatra, and
Alexander's cousin Amyntas, were put to death, and Alexander
took up the interrupted work of his father. That work was on
the point of opening its most brilliant chapter by an invasion
of the great king's dominions; the army was concentrated
and certain forces had already been sent on to occupy the
opposite shore of the Hellespont. The assassination of
Philip delayed the blow, for it immediately made the base,
Macedonia, insecure, and in such an enterprise, plunging into
the vast territories of the Persian empire, a secure base was
everything. Philip's removal had made all the hill-peoples
of the north and west raise their heads and set the Greek
states free from their fears. A demonstration in Greece,
led by the new king of Macedonia, momentarily checked the
agitation, and at the diet at Corinth Alexander was recognized
as captain-general (egemon autokrator) of the Hellenes
against the barbarians, in the place of his father Philip.
Leader of the Hellenes.
In the spring of 335 he went out from Macedonia northwards,
struck across the Balkans, probably by the Shipka Pass,
frustrating the mountain warfare of its tribes by a precision
of discipline which, probably, no other army of the time could
have approached, and traversed the land of the Triballians
(Rumelia) to the Danube. To gratify his own imagination or
strike the imagination of the world he took his army over
the Danube and burnt a settlement of the Getae upon the other
side. Meanwhile the Illyrians had seized Pelion (Pliassa),
which commanded the passes on the west of Macedonia, and from
the Danube Alexander marched straight thither over the hills.
He had hardly restored Macedonian prestige in this quarter
when he heard that Greece was aflame. Thebes had taken up
arms. By a forced march he took the Thebans completely by
surprise, and in a few days the city, which a generation before
had won the headship of Greece, was taken. There were to
be no half-measures now; the city was wiped out of existence
with the exception of its temples and the house which had been
Pindar's. Greece might now be trusted to lie quiet for some
time to come. The Panhellenic alliance (from which Sparta
still stood aloof) against the barbarians was renewed. Athens,
although known to be hostile at heart to the cities of Macedonian
power, Alexander treated all through with eager courtesy.
Invasion of Asia Minor.
In the spring of 334, Alexander crossed with an army of between
30,000 and 40,000 men, Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians and
the contingents of the Greek states, into Asia. The place of
concentration was Arisbe on the Hellespont. Alexander himself
first visited the site of Troy and there went through those
dramatic acts of sacrifice to the Ilian Athena, assumption
of the shield believed to be that of Achilles; and offerings
to the great Homeric dead, which are significant of the
poetic glamour shed, in the young king's mind, over the whole
enterprise, and which men will estimate differently according
to the part they assign to imagination in human affairs.
Battle of Granicus.
To meet the invader the great king had in Asia Minor an
army slightly larger, it would seem, than Alexander's,
gathered under the satraps of the western provinces at
Zeleia. He had also, what was more serious, command of the
Aegean. Alexander could communicate with his base only by
the narrow line of the Hellespont, and ran the risk, if he
went far from it, of being cut off altogether. To draw him
after them, while avoiding a conflict, was sound strategy
for the Persian generals. It was urged upon them by their
colleague the Rhodian Memnon. But strategic considerations
were cancelled by the Persian barons' code of chivalry, and
Alexander found them waiting for him on the banks of the
Granicus. It was a cavalry melee, in which the common code
of honour caused Macedonian and Persian chieftains to engage
hand to hand, and at the end of the day the relics of the
Persian army were in flight, leaving the high-roads of Asia
Minor clear for the invader. Alexander could now accomplish
the first part of the task belonging to him as captain-general
to the Hellenes, that liberation of the Greek cities of Asia
Minor, for which Panhellenic enthusiasts had cried out so
long. He first went to take possession of the old Lydian capital
Sardis, the headquarters of the Persian government on this
side of the Taurus, and the strong city surrendered without a
blow. And now in all the Greek cities of Aeolis and Ionia
the oligarchies or tyrants friendly to Persia fell, and
democracies were established under the eye of Alexander's
officers. Only where the cities were held by garasons in
the Persian service, garrisons composed mainly of Greek
mercenaries, was the liberator likely to meet with any
resistance. From Ephesus indeed the garrison fled upon
the news of Granicus, but Miletus required a siege. The
Persian fleet in vain endeavoured to relieve it, and Miletus
did not long hold out against Alexander's attack. It was
at Halicarnassus that Alexander first encountered stubborn
resistance, at Halicarnassus where Memnon and the satraps of
Caria had rallied what land-forces yet belonged to Persia in the
west. When winter fell, Alexander had captured indeed the city
itself, but the two citadels still held out against his blockade.
Meanwhile Alexander was making it plain that he had come not
merely as captain-general for a war of reprisals, but to take
the Persian's place as king of the land. The conquered provinces
were organized under Macedonian governors and in Caria a
dethroned princess of the native dynasty, Ada, was restored to
power. In the winter, whilst Parmenio advanced upon the central
plateau to make the occupation of Phrygia effective, Alexander
himself passed along the coast to receive the submission of the
Lycians and the adherence of the Greek cities of the Pamphylian
sea-board. The hills inland were the domain of fighting
tribes which the Persian government had never been able to
subdue. To conquer them, indeed, Alexander had no time, but
he stormed some of their fortresses to hold them in check,
and marched through their territory when he turned north from
Pamphylia into the interior. The point of concentration for
next year's campaign had been fixed at Gordium, a meeting-place
of roads in Northern Phrygia. The story of Alexander's cutting
the fatal ``Gordian knot'' on the chariot of the ancient
Phrygian king Gordius is connected with his stay in this place.
Extension of Alexander's power.
Whilst Alexander had been grounding his power in Asia Minor,
he had run a narrow risk of losing his base in Europe. He had
after the siege of Miletus disbanded the Graeco- Macedonian
fleet, surrendering for the time all attempts to challenge
the command of the Aegean. Memnon the Rhodian, now in supreme
command of the Persian fleet, saw the European coasts exposed
and set out to raise Greece, where discontent always smouldered
in Alexander's rear. But Memnon died at the critical moment
whilst laying siege to Mytilene and the great plan collapsed.
A Persian fleet still held the sea, but it effected little, and
presently fresh Graeco-Macedonian squadrons began to hold it in
check. It was, however, the need to ensure command of the sea
and free all lines of communication behind him that determined
Alexander's plan for the next campaign. If he mastered the
whole coast-line of the Levant, the enemy's fleet would find
itself left in the air. The Syrian coast was accordingly
his immediate objective when he broke up from Gordium for the
campaign of 333. He was through the Cicilian Gates before the
Persian king, Darius III., had sent up a force adequate to hold
them. His passage through Cilicia was marked by a violent
fever that arrested him for a while in Tarsus, and meantime
a great Persian army was waiting for him in northern Syria
under the command of Darius himself. In the knot of mountains
which close in about the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta,
Alexander, following hard by the coast, marched past the
Persian army encamped on the plains to the east. To cut
Alexander's communications with the rear, Darius now committed
the error of entangling his large force in the mountain defiles.
Battle of Issus.
Alexander turned, and near the town of Issus fought his second
pitched battle, sending Darius and the relic of his army in
wild flight back to the east.2 It was an incident which did
not modify Alexander's plan. He did not press the pursuit
far, although the great king's camp with his harem fell into his
hands. The chivalrous courtesy which he showed to the captive
princesses was a favourite theme for later rhetoricians.
He went on his way to occupy Syria and Phoenicia. It is now
that we get definite evidence as to the reach of Alexander's
designs; for Darius opened negotiations in which he ultimately
went so far as to offer a partition of the empire, all west
of the Euphrates, to be Alexander's. Alexander refused the
bargain and definitely claimed the whole.3 The conquest
of the Phoenician coast was not to be altogether easy, for
Tyre shut its gates and for seven months Alexander had to
sit before it--one of those obstinate sieges which mark the
history of the Semitic races. When it fell, Alexander had
the old Tyrian people scattered to the winds, 30,000 sold as
slaves. Gaza offered a resistance equally heroic, lasting
two months, and here too the old population was dispersed.
The occupation of the rest of Syria and Palestine proceeded
smoothly, and after the fall of Gaza Alexander's way lay
open into Egypt.4 Egypt was the last of the Mediterranean
provinces to be won, and here no defence was made. To the
native Egyptians Alexander appeared as a deliverer from the
Persian tyranny, and he sacrificed piously to the gods of
Memphis. The winter (332-331) which Alexander spent in Egypt
saw two memorable actions on his part. One was the expedition
(problematic in its motive and details) to the oracle of Zeus
Ammon (Oasis of Siwa), where Alexander was hailed by the priest
as son of the god, a belief which the circle of Alexander,
and perhaps Alexander himself, seem hereafter to have liked to
play with in that sort of semi-serious vein which still allowed
him in the moments of every-day commonplace to be the son of
Philip. The other action was the foundation of Alexandria
at the Canopic mouth of the Nile, the place destined to
be a new commercial centre for the eastern Mediterranean
world which Alexander had now taken in possession, to rise
to an importance which the founder, although obviously
acting with intention, can hardly have foreseen (E. Keller,
Alex. d. Grosse nach der Schlacht bei Issus, 1904).
Invasion of Persia.
In the spring of 331 Alexander could at last leave the
Mediterranean to strike into the heart of the Persian empire,
for by his occupation of the Coasts the Persian command of the
sea had inevitably collapsed. Returning through Syria, and
stopping at Tyre to make final arrangements for the conquered
provinces, he traversed Mesopotamia and struck the Tigris some
four marches above the site of Nineveh. It was near Nineveh
that Darius was waiting with the immense host which a supreme
effort could muster from all parts of the empire. The happy
coincidence of a lunar eclipse gives us the 20th of September
331 as the exact day upon which the Macedonian army crossed the
Tigris. Alexander came within sight of the Persian host without
having met with any opposition since he quitted Tyre. He had
now to settle the most serious problem which had yet faced
him, for in the plains the Persian army was formidable by sheer
bulk. But the day showed the Macedonian army equal to the task.
Battle of Arbela.
The last army gathered by an Achaemenian king was shattered in
the battle called popularly after the city of Arbela some 60 m.
distant, or more precisely after the village of Gaugamela hard
by. Darius fled eastwards into Media and again Alexander waited
till he had secured the provinces to the south. He followed the
Tigris into Babylonia, the central seat of the empire and its
richest region, and from Babylon went on to seize the fabulous
riches which the Persian kings had amassed in their spring
residence, Susa. Thence he at last ascended upon the Iranian
plateau. The mountain tribes on the road (the Oxii, Pers,
Huzha), accustomed to exact blackmail even from the king's
train, learnt by a bitter lesson that a stronger hand had
come to wield the empire. Alexander entered Persis, the
cradle of the Achaemenian house, and came upon fresh masses of
treasure in the royal city, Persepolis. He destroyed the royal
palace by fire, an act which has been variously estimated by
historians. Ostensibly a solemn revenge for the burning of Greek
temples by Xerxes, it has been justified as a symbolical act
calculated to impress usefully the imagination of the East, and
condemned as a senseless and vainglorious work of destruction.
With the spring of 330 Alexander was prepared for further
pursuit. Darius fled northwards from Ecbatana upon his
approach. At Ecbatana new masses of treasure were seized,
but when once the necessary measures which its disposal and
the occupation of the Median capital entailed were taken,
Alexander continued the pursuit. It was an exciting chase of
king by king, in which each covered the ground by incredible
exertions, shedding their slower-going followers as they went,
past Rhagae (Rai) and the Caspian gates, till early one morning
Alexander came in sight of the broken train which still clung
to the fallen king. He had become a puppet in the hands of his
cousin Bessus and the Persian magnates with him (see DARIUS
III.), and at this extremity they stabbed him and allowed
Alexander to become master only of his corpse (summer 330).
The pursuit had brought Alexander into that region of
mountains to the south of the Caspian which connects western
Iran with the provinces to the east of the great central
desert. To conquer this remaining portion of the empire,
Alexander now went on through the mountain belt, teaching the
power of his arms to the hillsmen, Tapyri and Mardi, till he
came, passing through Zadracarta (Asterabad), to Parthia
and thence to Aria. In these further provinces of Iran
the Macedonian invader had for the first time to encounter a
serious national opposition, for in the west the Iranian rule
had been merely the supremacy of an alien power over native
populations indifferent or hostile. Here the ruling race was at
home. In Asia Alexander learnt that Bessus, had taken the
diadem as Darius' successor in Bactria, but so soon as he
marched against him Aria rose in his rear, and Alexander had
to return in all haste to bring the revolt under. Nor did
he, when this was accomplished, again strike directly at
Bactria, but made a wide turning movement through Seistan
over Kandahar into the Kabul valley. It was on the way, in
Seistan at Prophthasia (mod. Farrah?), that the alienation
between Alexander and his Macedonian followers, which becomes
sensible in the latter part of his career, first showed itself
in an ugly form. Alexander had come to merge the characters
of Macedonian king and Hellenic Captain-general, with which
he had set out, in that of Oriental despot (Spieker. Hof
u. Hofordnung Al. d. Gr., 1904). He wore on occasions of
state the Persian dress. (According to pseudo-Plutarch, de
fort. Al. i. 8, it was the simpler Persian dress, not the
Median.) A discontent began to work among the Macedonians,
and at Prophthasia the commander of the Macedonian cavalry
Philotas, the son of Parmenio, and certain others were arraigned
before the army on the charge of conspiring against the king's
life. They were condemned and put to death. Not satisfied
with procuring this, Alexander had Parmenio himself, who
had been left in command in Media, put to death by secret
orders. It is perhaps the worst crime, because the most
cold-blooded and ungenerous, which can be laid to his
charge. By the winter of 329-328 Alexander had reached the
Kabul valley at the foot of the Paropamisadae (Hindu Kush).
The ordinarily received chronology makes Alexander reach
the Kabul valley in the winter of 330-329. That to fit
the actions and distances covered by Alexander into such a
scheme, assuming that he went by Seistan and Kandahar, would
involve physical impossibilities has been pointed out by
Count Yorck v. Wartenburg and Mr D. G. Hogarth. Kaerst and
Beloch continue to give the ordinary chronology untroubled.
Invasion of Northern India.
In the spring of 328 Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush into
Bactria and followed the retreat of Bessus across the Oxus and
into Sogdiana (Bokhara). Here Bessus was at last caught and
treated with the barbaric cruelty which the rule of the old
Persian monarchy prescribed for rebels. Till the spring of
327 Alexander was moving to and fro in Bactria and Sogdiana,
beating down the recurrent rebellions and planting Greek
cities. Just as in 335 he had crossed the Danube, so he now
made one raid across the frontier river, the Jaxartes (Sir
Daria), to teach the fear of his name to the outlying peoples
of the steppe (summer 328). And meanwhile the rift between
Alexander and his European followers continued to show itself in
dark incidents--the murder of Clitus at Maracanda (Samarkand),
when Alexander struck down an old friend, both being hot
with wine; the claim that Alexander should be approached with
prostration (proskynesis), urged in the spring of 327, and
opposed boldly by the philosopher Callisthenes, Aristotle's
nephew, who had come in the king's train; the conspiracy of
the pages at Bactria, which was made an occasion for putting
Callisthenes to death. It was now that Alexander completed
the conquest of the provinces north of the Hindu Kush by
the reduction of the last mountain strongholds of the native
princes. In one of them he captured Roxana, the daughter
of Oxyartes, whom he made his wife. Before the summer of
327 he had once more crossed the Hindu Kush on his way to
India (for the campaigns in the N.E. see F. von Schwarz,
Alex. d. Grossen Feldzuge in Turkestan, 1893, v.).
Whilst the heavier troops moved down the Kabul valley to
Pencelaotis (Charsadda) under Perdiccas and Hephaestion,
Alexander with a body of lighter-armed troops and cavalry pushed
up the valleys which join the Kabul from the north--through
the regions now known as Bajour, Swat and Buner, inhabited
by Indian hill peoples, as fierce then against the western
intruder as their Pathan successors are against the British
columns. The books give a number of their ``cities''
reduced by Alexander--walled mountain villages which can
in some cases be identified more or less certainly with
places where the clans are established to-day. The crowning
exploit was the reduction of Aornus,5 a stronghold perched
on a precipitous summit above the Indus, which it was said
that Heracles had failed to take. How much of the story of
Alexander's discovery of the sacred mountain of the Nysa and
the traces of Dionysus is due to the invention of Aristobulus
and Clitarchus (Arrian did not find it in Ptolemy) we cannot
say. Meantime Perdiccas and Hephaestion had built a bridge
over the Indus, and by this in the spring of 326 Alexander
passed into the Punjab (at Ohind, 16 m. above Attock, according
to Foucher, Notes sur la geogr. anc. du Gandhara,
1902). The country into which he came was dominated by three
principalities, that of Ambhi (Gr. Omphis, Curt. viii. 12.
6) between the Indus and the Hydaspes (Jhelum, Jehlam),
centred in the great city of Takkasila (Gr. Taxila), that
of the Paurara rajah (Gr. Porus) between the Hydaspes and
Acesines (Chenab), and that of Abhisara (Gr. Abisares)
between the same two rivers higher up, on the confines of
Kashmir (Stein, Rajatarangini, transl. bk. i. 180, v.
217). The kings of Taxila and Porus were at enmity, and for
this cause the invader could reckon upon Omphis as a firm
ally. Porus was prepared to contest the passage of the
Hydaspes with all his strength. Abisares preferred to play
a double game and wait upon events. Alexander reached the
Hydaspes just as the rains broke, when the river was already
swollen. Porus held the opposite bank with a powerful army,
including 200 elephants. Alexander succeeded in taking
a part of his forces across the river higher up during a
night of torrential rain, and then he fought the fourth
and last of his pitched battles in Asia, the one which put
to proof more shrewdly than any of the others the quality
of the Macedonian army as an instrument of war, and yet
again emerged victorious. Porus fell sorely wounded into
his hands.6 Porus had saved his honour, and now Alexander
tried, and not in vain, to gain him as a friend. When he
continued his progress eastwards across the Acesines, Porus
was an active ally. Alexander moved along close under the
hills. After crossing the Hydraotes (Ravi) he once
more came into contact with hostile tribes, and the work of
storming petty towns began again. Then the Hyphasis (Beas)
was reached, and here the Macedonian army refused to go any
farther. It was a bitter mortification to Alexander, before
whose imagination new vistas had just opened out eastwards,
where there beckoned the unknown world of the Ganges and
its splendid kings. For three days the will of king and
people were locked in antagonism; then Alexander gave way;
the long eastward movement was ended; the return began.
The return.
Alexander left the conquered portion of India east of the
Indus to be governed under Porus, Omphis of Taxila, and
Abisares, the country west of the Indus under Macedonian
governors, and set out to explore the great river to its mouth
(for the organization of the Indian provinces, see especially
Niese, vol. i. pp. 500 f.). The fleet prepared on the
Hydaspes sailed in October, while a land army moved along the
bank. The confluence of the Hydaspes and Acesines passed,
the Macedonians were once more in a region of hostile tribes
with towns to be stormed. It was at one of these, a town
of the Malli, that a memorable incident occurred, such as
characterized the personality of Alexander for all succeeding
time. He leapt from the wall with only three companions
into the hostile town, and, before the army behind him
could effect an entrance, lay wounded almost to death.7
He recovered and beat down the resistance of the tribes,
leaving them annexed to the Macedonian satrapy west of the
Indus. Below the confluence of the Punjab rivers into the
single stream of the Indus the territory of loose tribes
was succeeded by another group of regular principalities,
under the rajahs called by the Greeks Musicanus, Oxycanus and
Sambus. These opposed a national resistance to the Macedonians,
the fires of which were fanned by the Brahmins, but still
the strong arm of the western people prevailed. The rajah of
Patala at the apex of the Indus delta abandoned his country and
fled. It was the high summer of 325 when Alexander reached
Patala. From here he explored both arms of the delta
to the ocean, now seen by the Macedonians for the first
time. He had determined that the Indus fleet should be
used to explore this new world and try to find a waterway
between the Indus and the Persian Gulf. A great part of the
land-forces had been already sent off under Craterus in the
earlier summer to return west by Kandahar and Seistan; the
fleet was to sail under the Greek Nearchus from the Indus
mouth with the winter monsoon; Alexander himself with the rest
of the land-forces set out in October to go by the coast of
Baluchistan, through the appalling sand-wastes of the Mekran.8
He would seem to have kept down to the coast until the
headland of Ras Malan was reached, scattering before him
the bands of Arabitae and Oritae who were the inhabitants
of this well-provisioned tract. For the 150 miles between
Ras Malan and Pasni Alexander was compelled by the natural
barriers to march inland, and it was here that his troops
sank under the horrors of heat and thirst and sand. The coast
once regained, the way was easy; no such desert had to be
traversed, when Alexander again struck inland for the chief
city of the Gedrosians (Pura), and thence made his way into
Carmania. Here the spent troops rested; here the army
of Craterus joined them, and Nearchus came to announce
his safe arrival at the entrance of the Persian Gulf.9
The machine of empire had not functioned altogether smoothly
while the king had been absent, and on Alexander's re-appearance
many incapables and rogues in high office had to be replaced
by better men. In Carmania, in Persis, complaints from the
provinces continued to reach him, as well as the news of
disorders in Macedonia and Greece. New orders and appointments
served to bring the empire into hand again, and at Susa in
the spring of 324 Alexander rested, the task of conquering and
compassing the Achaemenian realm achieved. The task of its
internal reorganization now began to occupy him--changes, for
instance, in the military system which tended to assimilate
Macedonians and Orientals. The same policy of fusion was
furthered by the great marriage festival at Susa, when
Alexander took two more wives from the Persian royal house,
married a number of his generals to Oriental princesses, and
even induced as many as he could of the rank-and-file to take
Asiatic wives. This policy did not allay the discontent of
the Macedonian army, and when Alexander in the summer of 324
moved to the cooler region of Media, an actual mutiny of the
Macedonians broke out on the way at Opis on the Tigris. It
was occasioned by the discharge of the Macedonian veterans,
and only the personal magnetism of Alexander and his threat to
entrust himself altogether to the Orientals availed to quell
it. At Ecbatana the death of Hephaestion for a time plunged
Alexander into a passion of mourning. But by the winter
(324-323) he was again active, bringing the hill- tribes on
the S.W. border of Media, the Cossaei, into subjection. In
the spring of 323 he moved down to Babylon, receiving on the
way embassies from lands as far as the confines of the known
world, for the eyes of all nations were now turned with fear
or wonder to the figure which had appeared with so superhuman
an effect upon the world's stage. The embassy from Rome,
however, is almost certainly a later, and an inevitable,
invention. The exploration of the waterways round about the
empire was Alexander's immediate concern, the discovery of
the presumed connexion of the Caspian with the Northern Ocean,
the opening of a maritime route from Babylon to Egypt round
Arabia. The latter enterprise Alexander designed to conduct
in person; under his supervision was prepared in Babylon an
immense fleet, a great basin dug out to contain 1000 ships,
and the water- communications of Babylonia taken in hand.
Innovations were carried out in the tactical system of the
army which were to modify considerably the methods of future
battle-fields. At last all was ready; the 20th of the month
Daesius (? June 5) was fixed for the king's setting forth.
Illness and death.
On the 15th and 16th Alexander caroused deep into the night at
the house of the favourite Medius. On the 17th he developed
fever; for a time he treated it as a momentary impediment to the
expedition; but on the 27th his speech was gone, and the Macedonian
army were suffered to pass man by man through his chamber to
bid him farewell. On the 28th (? June 13) Alexander died.10
His son by Roxana, the so-called ALEXANDER ``AEGUS,'' was
born a few months later. He and his uncle Philip, as joint
kings, were placed under the guardianship of Perdiccas,
Peithon and Antipater in succession. After the death of
Antipater (319) Roxana fled with him to Epirus, and was
afterwards taken back to Macedonia, together with Olympias, by
Polyperchon. All three fell into the hands of Cassander;
Alexander and his mother were in 310-309 put to death by
order of Cassander (Justin xiv. 6, xv. 2). The meaningless
surname of Aegus, still given in some books to this
Alexander, is derived simply from a modern misreading of
the text of the Astronomical Canon, AIGOU for ALLOU.
Character and policy.
Alexander the Great is one of the instances of the vanity
of appealing from contemporary disputes to ``the verdict of
posterity''; his character and his policy are estimated to-day
as variously as ever. Certain features--the high physical
courage, the impulsive energy, the fervid imagination--stand
out clear; beyond that disagreement begins. That he was a
great master of war is admitted by most of those who judge
his character unfavourably, but even this has been seriously
questioned (e.g. by Beloch, Griech. Gesch. iii. (i.),
p. 66). There is a dispute as to his real designs. That
he aimed at conquering the whole world and demanded to be
worshipped as a god is the traditional view. Droysen denies
the former, and Niese maintains that his ambition was limited
by the bounds of the Persian empire and that the claim to
divine honours is fabulous (Historische Zeitschr. lxxix.,
1897, 1 f.). It is true that our best authority, Arrian,
fails to substantiate the traditional view satisfactorily;
on the other hand those who maintain it urge that Arrian's
interests were mainly military, and that the other authorities,
if inferior in trustworthiness, are completer in range of
vision. Of those, again, who maintain the traditional view,
some, like Niebuhr and Grote, regard it as convicting Alexander
of mad ambition and vainglory, whilst to Kaerst Alexander
only incorporates ideas which were the timely fruit of a
long historical development. The policy of fusing Greeks and
Orientals again is diversely judged. To Droysen and Kaerst
it accords with the historical conditions; to Grote and to
Beloch it is a betrayal of the prerogative of Hellenism.
Some notion of the personal appearance of Alexander may be
got from the literature and the surviving monuments. He is
described as of an athletic frame, though not taller than the
common, and a white and ruddy complexion. The expression
of his eyes had something ``liquid and melting'' (ton
ommaton ten diachusin kai ugroteta), and the hair
which stood up over his forehead gave the suggestion of a
lion. He had a way of carrying his head somewhat aslant. (See
especially Plut. Alex. 4; de Alex. fort. ii. 2.) The
greatest masters of the time executed portraits of him, Lysippus
in sculpture, Apelles in painting and Pyrgoteles in graven
gems. Among surviving monuments, we have no completely
certified portraits except the Tivoli herm (now in the Louvre)
and the coins struck by his successors. The herm is a dry
work and the head upon the coins shows various degrees of
idealization. There are, however, a considerable number of
works which can make out a better or worse claim either to
be portraits of Alexander or to reproduce his type, and a
large field of discussion is therefore open as to their values
and classification (F. Kopp, Uber das Bildnis Alexanders
d. Grossen (1892); K. J. Ujfalvy, Le Type physique
d'Alexandre le Grand (1902); T. Schreiber, Studien uber das
Bildnis Alexanders d. Grossen (1903); J. J. Bernoulli,
Die erhaltenen Darstellungen Alexanders d. Grossen
(1905). Alexander shaved clean, and set the fashion in this
respect for the Graeco-Roman world for the next 500 years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The campaigns and life of Alexander did not
lack contemporary historians, some of them eye-witnesses and even
associates. They included the philosopher Callisthenes, put to
death by Alexander in 327, whose history went up to the death
of Darius, Alexander's general Ptolemy, afterwards king in
Egypt, Nearchus who commanded the fleet that sailed from the
Indus to the Persian Gulf, Onesicritus who served as pilot in
the same fleet, Aristobulus who was with Alexander in India,
Clitarchus, a contemporary, if not an eye-witness, important
from the fact that his highly coloured version of the life
of Alexander became the popular authority for the succeeding
centuries. Besides the historical narrative, there were
works mainly geographical or topographical left by persons
like Baeton and Diognetus, whom Alexander had employed (as
bematistai) to survey the roads over which he passed. All
such original sources have now perished. The fragments are
collected in the Didot edition of Arrian by Karl Muller. Not
reckoning scattered notices, we depend principally opon five
later compositions, Diodorus, book xvii. (c. 20 B.C.),
the work of Quintus Curtius (c. A.D. 42), Plutarch's (c.
45-125 A.D.) Life of Alexander, Arrian's Anabasis and
Indica (c. A.D. 150), and the relevant books of Justin's
abridgment (2nd cent. A.D.) of the history of Trogus (c.
10 B.C.?). To these we may add the Latin Itinerarium
Alexandri, a skeleton outline of Alexander's campaigns dedicated
to the emperor Constantius (A.D. 324-361), printed at the
end of the Didot edition of Arrian, and the Epitome Rerum
Gestarum Alexandri magni, an abridgment made in the 4th or
5th century of a lost Latin work of uncertain date, combining
history with elements taken from the Romance (edited by O.
Wagner, Leipzig, 1900). The relation of these works to the
various original sources constitutes the critical problem
before the modern historian in reference to the history of
Alexander. See Droysen vol. i. appendix i.; A. Schoene, De
rerum Alexandri Magni scriptorum imprimis Arriani & Plutarchi
fontibus (1870); Fraenkel, Die Geschichtschreiber Alex.
d. Grossen (1883); O. Maas, Kleitarch und Diodor (Petersburg,
1894); Kaerst, Ferechungen zur Gesch. Alex. d. Grossen
(1887), and Gesch. d. hellenist. Zeitalters (vol. i., 1901
), pp. 421 f.; F. L. Schoenle, Diodorstudien ( 1891 ); E.
Schwartz, articles ``Aristobulos (14),'' ``Arrianus,'' ``Quintus
Curtius,'' ``Diodorus'' in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie.
For modern views of Alexander see Thirlwall, History of Greece;
Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History (Eng. trans. rev. by
author, 1852) Grote, History of Greece; Droysen, Histoire
de l'Hellenisme (translation by Bouche-Leclerq); Ad. Holm,
History of Greece (Eng. trans., 1898); B. Niese, Gesch.
der griech. u. maked. Staaten (vol. i.); Kaerst, Gesch. des
hellenist. Zeitalters (1901); J. Beloch, Griechische
Gesch. (vol. iii., 1904); J. B. Bury, History of Greece
(1902); A. von Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans (1888). Among
the mass of monographs and special articles, reference may
be made to Freeman, Historical Essays, 2nd series, pp. 182
f.; Dodge, Alexander (in a series called Great Captains)
1890; Mahaffy, Problems in Greek History (1892, ch. viii.;
D. G. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander of Macedon (1897),
a striking effort of historical imagination to reconstruct
Alexander as a man of the real world: Benjamin I. Wheeler,
Alexander the Great (1900) in the ``Heroes of the Nations
Series.'' The purely military aspect of Alexander's campaigns
is treated in general histories of warfare (Rustow-Kochly,
Bauer, Delbruck, Verdy du Vernois), and in special monographs
by Hogarth, Journ. of Philol. vol. xvii., 1888, pp.
1 foll.; H. Droysen, Untersuchungen uber A. des Gr.
Heerwesen (1885), and Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Kurze
Ubersicht der Feldzuge A. de Gr. (1897). For further
references to the literature on Alexander, see Kaerst's article
in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie (1894). (E. R. B.)
1 The use of the surname is proved as far back
as the 1st century B.C. (Nepos, De Reg. 2).
2 See Bauer,``Die Schlacht bei Issus'' in Jahreshefte
d.osterr. archaol. Instit. ii. pp. 105 f.; A. Janke. Auf
Alex. d. grossen Pfaden; Gruhn, Das Schlachtfeld von Issus;
Lammert in Berl. Philol. Wochenschr. (1905), col. 1596 f.
3 Pridik, De Alex. Mog. epist. commercio (Dorpat, 1893);
Schwartz, art. ``Curtius'' in Pauly-Wissowa, col. 1884.
4 The story of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem rests
on no better authority than a later Jewish romance.
5 The best opinion now confirms Abbott's identification
of Aornus with Mahaban--Deane, Journ. R. Asiat. Soc.
(Oct. 1896), p. 673; them, Report of an Archaeological
Tour with the Buner Field Force (Lahore, 1898), pp. 45-48.
6 Beside V. Smith (cited below) see Schubert, ``Die
Porusschlacht,'' in Rhein. Mus. lvi., 1901, p. 543.
7 There seems nothing to fix the exact spot of
this town; the common identification with Multan is,
according to Raverty and V. Smith, certainly wrong.
8 For the indian campaigns of Alexander see especially McCrindle,
Invasion of India by Alexander the Great (1896); Vincent A.
Smith, Early History of India (1904), and the references
there given to the researches of Sir T. H. Holdich, Raverty
and Foucher; A. Anspach, De Alex. Magni exped. ind. (1903).
9 Tomaschek, ``Topographische Erlauterung der Kustenfahrt Nearchs''
in the Sitzungsberichte der kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissensch.
of Vienna (Philosoph.-histor. Klasse, vol. cxxi.); Major
P. M. Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia (1902), pp. 166 f.
10 For Alexander's funeral, see F.
Jacoby in Rhein. Mus. (1903), pp. 461 f.
The Romance of Alexander.
The figure of Alexander naturally impressed itself upon the
imagination of the world which his career had shaken. Even
in India we are told that he was held in honour by the native
kings who took his farthest provinces in possession. But
Eastern tradition, so tenacious of the old myths of primitive
man, has a short memory for actual history, and five centuries
later Alexander was only remembered in Iran as the accursed
destroyer of the sacred books, whose wisdom he had at the
same time pilfered by causing translations to be made into
``Roman.'' That the East to-day has so much to tell about
Alexander is only due to the fact that old mythical stories of
gods or heroes who go travelling through lands of monsters and
darkness, of magical fountains and unearthly oceans, became
attached to his name in the popular literature of the Roman
empire, and this mythical Alexander was reintroduced in the
7th century A.D. into the farther East, where the historical
Alexander was almost forgotten. The romance of Alexander
is found written in the languages of nearly all peoples from
the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, but all these versions are
derived, mediately or immediately, from the Greek original
which circulated under the false name of Callisthenes. The
Greek pseudo-Callisthenes (otherwise Aisopos we possess in
three recensions, based all upon a book produced in Egypt in
the 2nd century A.D. But this book itself was a farrago of
heterogeneous elements--pieces of genuine history, ancient
stories once told in Babylon of Gilgamesh or Etanna, literary
forgeries of the days soon after Alexander, like the oldest
part of the ``Testament of Alexander,'' variations due to
Egyptian patriotic sentiment, like that which made Alexander
the son of the last Pharaoh, Nectanebus. As the story was
reproduced, variations were freely introduced according
to the bent of different times and peoples; in the Persian
version Alexander (Iskander) became a son of Darius; among
the Mahommedans he turned into a prophet, hot against
idols; the pen of Christian monks made him an ascetic saint.
The Alexander romance found its way into Europe through the
medium of Latin, but originated mainly from the versions of
the pseudo-Callisthenes, not from the more sober narrative
of Quintus Curtius. The pseudo-Callisthenes, in a recension
which has not been preserved, was translated into Latin by
Julius Valerius about the end of the 3rd century, and an
epitome of this translation, also in Latin, was made some
time before the 9th century, and is introduced by Vincent
de Beauvais into his Speculum historiale. Much of the
legend is a running travesty of the true history of the
conqueror. The first book deals with his birth and early
exploits. The trace of Alexandrian influence is to be found
in the pretence that his actual father was Nectanebus, a
fugitive king of Egypt. The latter was a great magician,
able, by operating upon waxen figures of the armies and ships
of his enemies, to obtain complete power over their real
actions. Obliged, however, to flee to Pella in Macedonia, he
established himself as an astrologer, and as such was consulted
by the childless Olympias. Having promised that Zeus Ammon
would visit her in the form of a dragon, he himself assumed the
disguise. In due course Alexander was born, and Philip's
suspicions were overcome by a second appearance of the dragon,
which was held to prove the divine fatherhood. The child
was small and somewhat deformed, but of great courage and
intelligence. When he was twelve years old he was instructed
in starcraft by Nectanebus, who was killed by a fall into a
pit, into which he had been playfully pushed by Alexander. The
first book also relates his conquests in Italy, Africa, Syria
and Asia Minor; his return to Macedonia and the submission of
Greece. The second book continues the history of his
conquests, and the third contains the victory over Porus,
the relations with the Brahmins, the letter to Aristotle
on the wonders of India, the histories of Candace and the
Amazons, the letter to Olympias on the marvels of Farther
Asia, and lastly the account of Alexander's death in Babylon.
The most wide-spread Latin version of the story, however, was
the Historia de proeliis,1 printed at Strassburg in 1486,
which began to supersede the Epitome of Julius Valerius
in general favour about the end of the 13th century. It is
said to have been written by the Neapolitan arch-presbyter
Leo, who was sent by Johannes and Marinus, dukes of Campania
(941-965) to Constantinople, where he found his Greek
original. Auxiliary sources for the medieval romance-writers
were:--the opuscule (4th century) known as Alexandri magni
iter ad Paradisum, a fable of Eastern origin directed
against ambition; the Itinerarium Alexandri (340),
based partly on Julius Valerius and dedicated to Constans,
son of the emperor Constantine; the letter of Alexander
to Aristotle (Epist. de situ et mirabilibus Indiae), and
the correspondence between Alexander and the king of the
Brahmins, Dindimus, both of which are often contained in
MSS. of the Epitome; and the treatise (based on a lost
history of Alexander by Onesicritus), De gentibus Indiae et
Bragmanibus, ascribed without certainty to Palladius (d.
c. 430), successively bishop of Helenopolis and Aspona.
The Ethiopic versions are of great interest as a striking
example of literary ``accommodation.'' Not only is the
whole atmosphere Christian in colouring, but we actually
find the Greek gods in the guise of Enoch, Elijah, &c.,
while Philip is a Christian martyr, and Alexander himself a
great apostle, even a saint; quotations from the Bible are
frequent. Syriac and Armenian versions were made in the 5th
century. Persians and Arabs told the deeds of Iskander; and
Firdousi made use of the story in the Shahnama. Another
early Persian poet, Nizami, made the story specially his
own. The crusaders brought back fresh developments; Gog
and Magog (partly Arab and partly Greek) and some Jewish
stories were then added. In the 11th century Simeon
Seth, protovestiarius at the Byzantine court, translated
the fabulous history from the Persian back into Greek.
The Alexander legend was the theme of poetry in all
European languages; six or seven German poets dealt
with the subject, and it may be read in French, English,
Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Flemish and Bohemian.
French.--The earliest known French romance of Alexander,
by Alberic of Besancon (or more properly Briancon), was,
until the discovery of a fragment of 100 lines at Florence in
1852, known only through the German adaptation by Lamprecht
the preacher, who wrote towards the end of the 12th century,
and by the version made by a Poitevin poet named Simon in
decasyllabic lines. Alberic followed the epitome of Julius
Valerius. He had some knowledge of authentic history, and
rejected the more marvellous elements of the story. The
French feudal romance, Li Romans d'Alexandre, was written
in the 12th century by Lambert li Tors of Chateaudun,
Alexandre de Bernai, surnamed de Paris, and others. It
contained 20,000 lines, and was written in twelve-syllabled
lines, whence the term ``alexandrine'' verse. The authors
endowed Alexander with the fashionable virtues of the
chivalric hero, making him especially the type of lavish
generosity. They used as their sources Valerius, the letter
to Aristotle and the Iter ad Paradisum, adding much of their
own. Pierre de Saint Cloud, the writer of the fourth section
of the romance, was evidently acquainted with the Historia de
proeliis. The incident of the Fuerre de Gadres (Foray of
Gaza), interpolated in the second section, is assigned to a
certain Eustache. The redaction of the whole work is due to
Alexandre de Bernai, who replaced the original assonance by
rhyme. According to all the traditions of romance it was
necessary to avenge the death of Alexander. At the end of the
12th century Gui de Cambrai and Jean le Nevelon (or Nevelaux
or Venelais), each wrote a Vengeance d'Alexandre. Jean le
Nevelon relates how Alior, the son of Alexander and Candace,
avenged his father's death on Antipater and others. Between
1310 and 1315 Jacques de Longuyon (or Langhion) introduced
into the account of the Indian war Les Voeux du paon, a
romanesque and fantastic episode very loosely connected with
Alexander. It is interesting for its connexion with the
15th-century romance of Perceforest, since in it Alexander
visits Britain, where he bestows Scotland on Gadifer and
England on Betis (otherwise Perceforest). Les Voeux du
paon enjoyed great popularity, and had two sequels, Le
Restor du paon, written before 1338 by Jean Brisebarre de
Douai, and Le Parfait du paon, written in 1340 by Jean
de la Mote. Florimont, a 12th-century poem by Aimon de
Varenne, relates to a fictitious personage said to have
been the grandfather of Alexander. This poem gave rise
to two prose romances--La Conqueste de Grece faicte par
Philippe de Madien, by Perrinet du Pin, first printed in
1527, and Histoire du roi Florimond (1528). Quintus
Curtius was largely used for the Alexandreis (c. 1180) of
Gaultier de Lille or de Chatillon (Galtherus ab Insulis or de
Castellione). It is a Latin poem in ten books of hexameters,
and contains a curious admixture of Biblical history. It
was translated at the end of the next century into Flemish
by J. van Maerlant and into German by Ulrich von Eschenbach.
Of the French prose versions of the Historia de proeliis
may be noticed the late romance, L'Histoire du noble et
vaillant roy Alixandre le Grant (1506). After an account
of the ancient history of Macedonia and of the intrigue of
Nectanebus we are told how Philip dies, and how Alexander
subdues Rome and receives tribute from all European
nations. He then makes his Persian expedition; the Indian
campaign gives occasion for descriptions of all kinds of
wonders. The conqueror visits a cannibal kingdom and finds
many marvels in the palace of Porus, among them a vine with
golden branches, emerald leaves and fruit of other precious
stones. In one country he meets with women who, after the
burial in the winter, become alive again in the spring full
of youth and beauty. Having reached the ends of the earth
and conquered all nations, he aspires to the dominion of the
air. He obtains a magic glass cage, yoked with eight
griffins, flies through the clouds, and, thanks to enchanters
who know the language of birds, gets information as to
their manners and customs, and ultimately receives their
submission. The excessive heat of the upper regions compels
him to descend, and he next visits the bottom of the sea
in a kind of diving-bell. The fish crowd round him and pay
homage. Alexander returns to Babylon, is crowned with much
pomp and mass is celebrated. He dies by poison soon afterwards.
English Versions.--The Alexander cycle was no less
popular in Great Britain. The letter from Alexander to
Aristotle and his correspondence with Dindimus are found
in Early English versions dating from the 11th century.
These are printed by O. Cockayne in his Narratiunculae
Anglice conscriptae (1861). The Monk (De Cas. ill. vir.)
in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales prefaces his account of
Alexander with the statement that his story is so common
That every wight that hath discrecioun
Hath herd somewhat or all of his fortune.
There are two considerable fragments of an English
alliterative romance on the subject written in the west
midland dialect, and dating from the second half of the 14th
century. The first, The Gestes of the Worthy King and
Emperor Alisaunder of Macedoine (ed. W. W. Skeat, E.E.T.S.,
1877, with William of Palermo) contains an account of
the wars of Philip, of Nectanebus and of the education of
Alexander. A second fragment (ed. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1878)
contains Alexander's visit to the Gymnosophists and his
correspondence with Dindimus. Another alliterative poem in
the northern dialect, of 15th-century origin, is based on
the Historia de proeliis, and was edited by Skeat for the
E.E.T.S. (1886) as The Wars of Alexander. Earlier than
any of these is the rhyming Lyfe of Alisaunder (c. 1330)
which is printed in H. Weber's Metrical Romances (vol. i.,
1810). It is written in unusually picturesque and vigorous
language, and is based on the Roman de toute chevalerie,
a French compilation made about 1250 by a certain Eustace or
Thomas of Kent. Fragments of another rhyming poem (pr. c.
1550) are preserved in the British Museum. The Scots Buik
of the most noble and vailyzeand Conqueror Alexander the
Great, printed by Alexander Arbuthnot (d. 1585) about 1580,
reprinted in 1831 for the Bannatyne Club, is not really a
life. It contains three episodes of the cycle, the ``Forray
of Gadderis'' (not taken from the Fuerre de Gadres but
from the Assaut de Tyr in the Romans d'Alixandre),
``The Avowes of Alexander,'' and ``The Great Battel of
Effesoun,'' taken from the Voeux du paon. Many passages
in John Barbour's Bruce are almost identical with this
book, and it is suggested by G. Neilson (John Barbour, Poet
and Translator, London, 1900) that Barbour was the author,
although the colophon states that it was written in 1438.
Bruce at Bannockburn makes the same oration as Alexander at
``Effesoun.'' A Buke of the Conqueror Alexander the Great
by Sir Gilbert Hay (fl. 1456) is in MS. at Taymouth Castle.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best sketch of the Alexander romance
literature is by Paul Meyer. Alexandre le grand dans la
litterature francaise au moyen age (2 vols., Paris,
1886). The first volume contains some French texts, and
the second a detailed discussion of the various versions
from the pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. See also J.
Zacher, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Forschungen zur . . . .
Alexandersage (Halle, 1867), and for Oriental versions,
T. Noldeke, ksl. Akad. d. Wissenschaben, Phil.-hist.
Klasse, vol. 38: Vienna, 1890). For early printed versions
see Brunet, Manuel du libraire, s.v. ``Alexandre.''
The text of the pseudo-Callisthenes was edited by C. W.
Muller from three MSS. in the Bibl. Nat. and printed in the
Arrian of the Coll. Didot (Paris, 1846), and by H. Meusel
(Leipzig, 1871) from a Leiden MS. A. Mai edited Julius
Valerius (Milan, 1817) and the Itinerarium Alexandri
(Class. Auct. vol. vii.; Milan, 1835); J. Zacher, the Epitome
Halle, 1867) and Alex. iter ad Paradisum (Regensburg,
1859); the Oxford MS. of the Epitome was edited by G. Cilli
(Strassburg, 1903); G. Landgraf, Die ``Vita Alexandri'' .
. . des Archpresbyter Leo (Historia de proeliis), (Erlangen,
1885); Alexander's letter to Aristotle and his correspondence
with Dindimus are included in the Teubner edition of Julius
Valerius (ed. B. Kubler, Leipzig, 1888). A newly discovered
anonymous Epitome was edited by O. Wagner (Leipzig, 1900).
The fragment by Alberic was edited by P. Heyse (Berlin, 1856);
Lamprecht's German text by H. Weismann (Frankfort, 1850) and
by C. Kinzel (Halle, 1884); the Alexandreis of Gaultier de
Lille, by F. A. W. Muldener (Leipzig, 1863); an Icelandic
prose version (c. 1250) of the same, Alexanders Saga, by
C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1848); Li Romans d'Alexandre, by
H. Michelant (Stuttgart, 1846); the Ethiopic version by E.
A. T. Wallis Budge (1896, 2 vols., with English translation);
the Syriac text of pseudo-Callisthenes by Budge (Cambridge,
1889); cp. K. F. Weymann, Die athiopische und arabische
Ubersetzungen des Pseudo-Kallisthenes (Kirchhain, 1901).
Besides the English editions quoted in the text, the
alliterative English poems were partially edited by J. Stevenson
for the Roxburghe Club (1849). There is a great deal of
information on the various texts in H. L. Wood's Catalogue
of Romances in the British Museum (1883, vol. i. pp. 94 et
seq.). See also A. Hermann, Untersuchungen uber das
Scottische Alexanderbuch (1893); and Unters. uber das
med. Gedicht, The Wars of Alexander (Berlin, 1889).
Among other works see E. Ronde, Der griechische Roman (2nd
ed. Leipzig, 1900); B. Meissner, Alexander u. Gilgamos
(Leipzig, 1894); F. Kampers, ``Alex. d. Grosse und die Idee
des Weltimperiums in Prophetic und Sage'' (in H. Granert's
Studien, &c., Freiburg, 1901); Adolf Ausfeld, Der griechische
Alexanderroman (Leipzig, 1907), edited after the author's
death by W. Kroll; Wilhelm Hertz, ``Aristoteles in den
Alex. Dichtungen d. Mittelalters'' (Kgl. Acad. d.
Wissenschaften, Munich, 1891); H. Becker, Die Brahmanen
in d. Alex. Sage (Konigsberg, 1889). (M. BR.)
1 Nativitas et victoriae Alexandri magni regis was the original title.
ALEXANDER, tagus or despot of Pherae in Thessaly, ruled
from 369 to 358 B.C. His tyranny caused the Aleuadae of
Larissa to invoke the aid of Alexander II. of Macedon, whose
intervention was successful, but after his withdrawal Alexander
treated his subjects as cruelly as before. The Thessalians
now applied to Thebes; Pelopidas, who was sent to their
assistance, was treacherously seized and thrown into prison
(368), and it was necessary to send Epaminondas with a large
army to secure his release. Alexander's conduct caused renewed
intervention; in 364 he was defeated at Cynoscephalae by the
Thebans, although the victory was dearly bought by the loss
of Pelopidas, who fell in the battle. Alexander was at last
crushed by the Thebans, compelled to acknowledge the freedom
of the Thessalian cities and to limit his rule to Pherae, and
forced to join the Boeotian league. He was murdered by his
wife's brother at her instigation. Ancient accounts agree in
describing Alexander as a typically cruel and suspicious tyrant.
ALEXANDER (1461-1506), king of Poland and grand- duke of
Lithuania, fourth son of Casimir IV., king of Poland, was
elected grand-duke of Lithuania on the death of his father
in 1492, and king of Poland on the death of his brother
John Albert in 1501. His extreme impecuniosity made him
from the first subservient to the Polish senate and nobles
(szlachta), who deprived him of the control of the mint--then
one of the most lucrative sources of revenue of the Polish
kings--curtailed his prerogative, and generally endeavoured
to reduce him to a subordinate position. This ill-timed
parsimony reacted injuriously upon Polish politics. Thus,
for want of funds, Alexander was unable to assist the Grand
Master of the Order of the Sword against Muscovite aggression,
or prevent Tsar Ivan III. from ravaging Lithuania with the
Tatars. The utmost the king could do was to garrison Smolensk
and other fortresses and employ his wife Helena, the tsar's
daughter, to mediate a truce between his father-in-law and
himself. During his reign Poland suffered much humiliation
from the attempts of her subject principalities, Prussia and
Moldavia, to throw off her yoke. Only the death of Stephen,
the great hospodar of Moldavia, enabled Poland still to hold her
own on the Danube; while the liberality of Pope Julius II., who
issued no fewer than 29 bulls in favour of Poland and granted
Alexander Peter's Pence and other financial help, enabled the
Polish king to restrain somewhat the arrogance of the Teutonic
Order. In Alexander the characteristic virtues of the Jagiellos,
patience and generosity, degenerated into slothfulness and
extravagance. Frequently he was too poor to pay the expenses
of his own table. But he never felt at home in Poland, and
bestowed his favour principally upon his fellow-countrymen,
the most notable of whom was the wealthy Lithuanian magnate
Michael Glinsky, who justified his master's confidence by
his great victory over the Tatars at Kleck (August 5, 1506),
the news of which was brought to Alexander on his deathbed.
See V. Czerny, The Reigns of John Albert and
Alexander Jagiello (Pol.) (Cracow, 1882).
ALEXANDER, the name of eight popes:--
ALEXANDER I. was bishop of Rome from about 106 to 115. He
has been identified, without any foundation, with Alexander,
a martyr of the Via Nomentana, whose day is the 3rd of May.
ALEXANDER II. (Anselmo Baggio), pope from 1061 to 1073, was
a native of Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic
coadjutor with Hildebrand in endeavouring to suppress simony,
and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy. His election, which
Hildebrand had arranged in conformity with the decree of 1059
(see NICHOLAS II.), was not sanctioned by the imperial court of
Germany. This court, faithful to the practice observed by
it in the preceding elections, nominatod another candidate,
Cadalus, bishop of Parma, who was proclaimed at the council
of Basel under the name of Honorius II., marched to Rome, and
for a long time jeopardized his rival's position. At length,
however, he was abandoned by the Germanic court and deposed
by a council held at Mantua; and Alexander's position remained
unchallenged. Alexander was succeeded by his associate
Hildebrand, who took the title of Gregory VII. (L. D.*)
ALEXANDER III. (Orlando Bandinelli), pope from 1159 to
1181, was a Siennese, and as a teacher of canon law in Bologna
composed the Stroma or the Summa Magistri Rolandi, one
of the earliest commentaries on the Decretum Gratiani. In
October 1150 Eugenius III. created him cardinal deacon SS.
Cosmae and Damiani; later he became cardinal priest of St
Mark's. Probably about this time he composed his Sentences,
based on the Introductio ad theologiam of Abelard. In
1153 he became papal chancellor, and was the leader of the
cardinals opposed to Frederick Barbarossa. On the 7th of
September 1159 he was chosen the successor of Adrian IV.,
a minority of the cardinals, however, electing the cardinal
priest Octavian, who assumed the name of Victor IV. This
antipope, and his successors Paschal III. (1164-1168) and
Calixtus III. (1168-1178), had the imperial support; but after
the defeat of Legnano, Barbarossa finally (in the peace of
Venice, 1177) recognized Alexander as pope. On the 12th
of March 1178 Alexander returned to Rome, which he had been
compelled to leave twice, namely, from 1162 until the 23rd of
November 1165, and again in 1167. The first period he spent
in France, the latter chiefly in Gaeta, Benevento, Anagni and
Venice. In March 1179 Alexander held the third Lateran synod,
a brilliant assemblage, reckoned by the Roman church as the
eleventh oecumenical council; its acts embody several of the
pope's proposals for the betterment of the condition of the
church, among them the present law requiring that no one
may be elected pope without the votes of two-thirds of the
cardinals. This synod marks the summit of Alexander's
power. Besides checkmating Barbarossa, he had humbled
Henry II. of England in the affair of Thomas Becket, he
had confirmed the right of Alphonso I. of Portugal to the
crown, and even as a fugitive had enjoyed the favour and
protection of Louis VII. of France. Nevertheless, soon after
the close of the synod the Roman republic forced Alexander
to leave the city, which he never re-entered; and on the 29th
of September 1179 some nobles set up the antipope Innocent
III. By the judicious use of money, however, Alexander
got him into his power, so that he was deposed in January
1180. In 1181 Alexander excommunicated William the Lion of
Scotland and put the kingdom under the interdict. The great
pope died at Civita Castellana on the 30th of August 1181.
See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie, 3rd ed., i. 340-344; Wetzer
and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., 1481. The most elaborate
biography is H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders III. und der Kirche
seiner Zeit (3 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1860). (W. W. R.*)
ALEXANDER IV. (Rinaldo), pope from 1254 to 1261, was, like
Innocent III. and Gregory IX., a member of the family of the
counts of Segni. His uncle Gregory IX. made him cardinal deacon
in 1227 and cardinal bishop of Ostia in 1231. On the death of
Innocent IV. he was elected pope at Naples on the 12th of December
1254. He is described as a stout man, kindly, cheerful, but
of no great brilliancy. He succeeded Innocent IV. as guardian
of Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, promising him
his benevolent protection; but in less than a fortnight he
conspired against him and bitterly opposed Conradin's uncle
Manfred. Alexander fulminated with excommunication and interdict
against the party of Manfred, but in vain; nor could he enlist
the kings of England and Norway in a crusade against the
Hohenstaufen. Rome itself became too Ghibelline for the pope,
who withdrew to Viterbo, where he died on the 25th of May
1261. His pontificate was signalized by efforts to unite
the Greek and Latin churches, by the establishment of the
Inquisition in France, by favours shown to the mendicant orders,
and by an attempt to organize a crusade against the Tatars.
The registers of Alexander IV. are published by Bourel de la
Ronciere and others in the Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises
d'Athenes et de Rome, Paris, 1895 ff. (W. W. R.*)
ALEXANDER V. (Peter Philarges), pope 1409-1410, was born
in Crete of unknown parents and entered the order of St
Francis, for which, as for the other mendicant orders,
he later manifested his affection in a striking manner.
He was a member in turn of the universities of Oxford and
Paris, and finally settled in Lombardy, where, thanks to the
favour of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he became bishop, first of
Piacenza, then of Vincenza, then of Novara, and afterwards
archbishop of Milan. On being created cardinal by Innocent
VII. he devoted all his energies from 1408 onwards to the
realization of the union of the church, in spite of the two
rival popes. He was one of the promoters of the council of
Pisa, and after that assembly had declared Gregory XII. and
Benedict NIII. deposed, the cardinals assembled in conclave
thought they could not do better than crown with the tiara
this cosmopolitan prelate, who had an equal mastery of the
Latin and Greek languages, and was renowned not only for
his learning in theology but for his affability (June 26,
1409). As a matter of fact, the only effect of this election
was to aggravate the schism by adding a third to the number
of rival pontiffs. During his short reign of ten months
Alexander V.'s aim was to extend his obedience with the
assistance of France, and, notably, of the duke Louis II. of
Anjou, upon whom he conferred the investiture of the kingdom
of Sicily, together with the title of gonfalonier of the
church. He proclaimed and promised rather than effected a
certain number of reforms: the abandonment of the rights of
``spoils'' and ``procurations,'' the re-establishment of the
system of canonical election in the cathedral churches and
principal monasteries, &c. But death came upon him almost
without warning at Bologna, in the night of the 3rd-4th May
1410. A rumour went about that he had been poisoned by the
cardinal Baldassare Cossa, impatient to be his successor, who
succeeded him in fact under the name of John XXIII. The crime
has, however, never been proved, though a Milanese physician, who
performed the task of dissecting the corpse of Peter Philarges,
seems to have thought that he found traces of poison. (N. V.)
ALEXANDER VI. (Rodrigo Borgia) (1431-1503), pope from 1492
to his death, is the most memorable of the corrupt and secular
popes of the Renaissance. He was born (January 1, 1431) at
Xativa, near Valencia in Spain, and his father's surname was
Lanzol or Llancol; that of his mother's family, Borgia or
Borja, was assumed by him on the elevation of his maternal
uncle to the papacy as Calixtus III. (April 8, 1455). He
studied law at Bologna, and after his uncle's election he
was created successively bishop, cardinal and vice-chancellor
of the church, an act of nepotism characteristic of the
age. He served in the Curia under five popes and acquired
much administrative experience, influence and wealth,
although no great power; he was economical in his habits;
on occasion he displayed great splendour and lived in a fine
palace. His manners were agreeable and his appearance
fascinating, but, like many other prelates of the day, his
morals were far from blameless, his two dominant passions
being greed of gold and love of women, and he was devotedly
fond of the children whom his mistresses bore him. Although
ecclesiastical corruption was then at its height, his
riotous mode of life called down upon him a very severe
reprimand from Pope Pius II., who succeeded Calixtus III. in
1458. Of his many mistresses the one for whom his passion
lasted longest was a certain Vannozza (Giovanna) dei Cattani,
born in 1442, and wife of three successive husbands. The
connexion began in 1470, and she bore him many children whom
he openly acknowledged as his own: Giovanni, afterwards duke
of Gandia (born 1474), Cesare (born 1476), Lucrezia (born
1480), and Goffredo or Giuffre (born 1481 or 1482). His other
children--Girolamo, Isabella and Pier Luigi--were of uncertain
parentage. Before his elevation to the papacy Cardinal
Borgia's passion for Vannozza somewhat diminished, and she
subsequently led a very retired life. Her place in his
affections was filled by the beautiful Giulia Farnese (Giulia
Bella), wife of an Orsini, but his love for his children by
Vannozza remained as strong as ever and proved, indeed, the
determining factor of his whole career. He lavished vast sums
on them and loaded them with every honour. A characteristic
instance of the corruption of the papal court is the fact that
Borgia's daughter Lucrezia (see BORGIA, LUCREZIA) lived with
his mistress Giulia, who bore him a daughter Laura in 1492.
On the death of Pope Innocent VIII. the three likely candidates
for the Holy See were Cardinals Borgia, Ascanio Sforza and
Giuliano della Rovere; at no previous or subsequent election
were such immense sums of money spent on bribery, and Borgia
by his great wealth succeeded in buying the largest number of
votes, including that of Sforza, and to his intense joy he
was elected on the 10th of August 1492, assuming the name of
Alexander VI. Borgia's elevation did not at the time excite
much alarm, except in some of the cardinals who knew him, and
at first his reign was marked by a strict administration of
justice and an orderly method of government in satisfactory
contrast with the anarchy of the previous pontificate, as
well as by great outward splendour. But it was not long
before his unbridled passion for endowing his relatives
at the expense of the church and of his neighbours became
manifest. For this object he was ready to commit any crime
and to plunge all Italy into war. Cesare, then a youth
of sixteen and a student at Pisa, was made archbishop of
Valencia, his nephew Giovanni received a cardinal's hat,
and for the duke of Gandia and Giuffre the pope proposed
to carve fiefs out of the papal states and the kingdom of
Naples. Among the fiefs destined for the duke of Gandia
were Cervetri and Anguillara, lately acquired by Virginio
Orsini, head of that powerful and turbulent house, with the
pecuniary help of Ferdinand of Aragon, king of Naples (Don
Ferrante). This brought the latter into conflict with
Alexander, who determined to revenge himself by making an
alliance with the king's enemies, especially the Sforza family,
lords of Milan. In this he was opposed by Cardinal della
Rovere, whose candidature for the papacy had been backed by
Ferdinand. Della Rovere, feeling that Rome was a dangerous
place for him, fortified himself in his bishopric of Ostia at
the Tiber's mouth, while Ferdinand allied himself with Florence,
Milan, Venice, and the pope formed a league against Naples
(April 25, 1493) and prepared for war. Ferdinand appealed
to Spain for help; but Spain was anxious to be on good terms
with the pope to obtain a title over the newly discovered
continent of America and could not afford to quarrel with him.
Alexander meditated great marriages for his children. Lucrezia
had been married to the Spaniard Don Gasparo de Procida,
but on her father's elevation to the papacy the union was
annulled, and in 1493 she was married to Giovanni Sforza. lord
of Pesaro, the ceremony being celebrated at the Vatican with
unparalleled magnificence. But in spite of the splendours
of the court, the condition of Rome became every day more
deplorable. The city swarmed with Spanish adventurers,
assassins, prostitutes and informers; murder and robbery were
committed with impunity, heretics and Jews were admitted to
the city on payment of bribes, and the pope himself shamelessly
cast aside all show of decorum, living a purely secular and
immoral life, and indujging in the chase, dancing, stage
plays and indecent orgies. One of his boon companions was
Jem, the brother of the sultan Bayezid, detained as a hostage.
The general political outlook in Italy was of the gloomiest,
and the country was on the eve of the catastrophe of foreign
invasion. At Milan Lodovico Sforza (il Moro) ruled,
nominally as regent for the youthful duke Gian Galeazzo,
but really with a view to making himself master of the
state. He made many alliances to secure his position, but
fearing himself isolated he sought help from Charles VIII. of
France, and as the king of Naples threatened to come to the
aid of Gian Galeazzo, who had married his grand- daughter, he
encouraged the French king in his schemes for the conquest of
Naples. Alexander carried on a double policy, always ready
to seize opportunities to aggrandize his family. But through
the intervention of the Spanish ambassador he made peace with
Naples in July 1493 and also with the Orsini; the peace was
cemented by a marriage between the pope's son Giuffre and Dona
Sancha, Ferdinand's grand-daughter. In order to dominate
the Sacred College more completely he created twelve new
cardinals, among them his own son Cesare, then only eighteen
years old, and Alessandro Farnese, the brother of Giulia Bella,
one of the pope's mistresses, creations which caused much
scandal. On the 25th of January 1494 Ferdinand died and
was succeeded by his son Alphonso II. Charles of France now
advanced formal claims on the kingdom, and Alexander drew
him to his side and authorized him to pass through Rome
ostensibly on a crusade against the Turks, without mentioning
Naples. But when the French invasion became a reality he was
alarmed, recognized Alphonso as king, and concluded an alliance
with him in exchange for various fiefs to his sons (July
1494). Preparations for defence were made; a Neapolitan
army was to advance through the Romagna and attack Milan,
while the fleet was to seize Genoa; but both expeditions
were badly conducted and failed, and on the 8th of September
Charles crossed the Alps and joined Lodovico il Moro at
Milan. The papal states were in a turmoil, and the powerful
Colonna faction seized Ostia in the name of France. Charles
rapidly advanced southward, and after a short stay in Florence
set out for Rome (November 1494). Alexander appealed to
Ascanio Sforza for help, and even to the sultan. He tried
to collect troops and put Rome in a state of defence, but his
position was most insecure, and the Orsini offered to admit
the French to their castles. This defection decided the
pope to come to terms, and on the 31st of December Charles
entered Rome with his troops and the cardinals of the French
faction. Alexander now feared that the king might depose him
for simony and summon a council, but he won over the bishop of St
Malo, who had much influence over the king, with a cardinal's
hat, and agreed to send Cesare, as legate, to Naples with
the French army, to deliver Jem to Charles and to give him
Civitavecchia (January 16, 1495). On the 28th Charles departed
for Naples with Jem and Cesare, but the latter escaped to
Spoleto. Neapolitan resistance collapsed; Alphonso fled and
abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand II., who also had
to fly abandoned by all, and the kingdom was conquered with
surprising ease. But a reaction against Charles soon set
in, for all the powers were alarmed at his success, and on
the 31st of March a league between the pope, the emperor,
Venice, Lodovico il Moro and Ferdinand of Spain was formed,
ostensibly against the Turks, but in reality to expel the
French from Italy. Charles had himself crowned king of Naples
on the 12th of May, but a few days later began his retreat
northward. He encountered the allies at Fornovo, and after a
drawn battle cut his way through them and was back in France
by November; Ferdinand II. with Spanish help was reinstated
at Naples soon afterwards. The expedition, if it produced
no material results, laid bare the weakness of the Italian
political system and the country's incapacity for resistance.
Alexander availed himself of the defeat of the French to
break the power of the Orsini, following the general tendency
of all the princes of the day to crush the great feudatories
and establish a centralized despotism. Virginio Orsini,
who had been captured by the Spaniards, died a prisoner at
Naples, and the pope confiscated his property. But the
rest of the clan still held out, and the papal troops sent
against them under Guidobaldo duke of Urbino and the duke of
Gandia were defeated at Soriano (January 1497). Peace was
made through Venetian mediation, the Orsini paying 50,000
ducats in exchange for their confiscated lands; the duke of
Urbino, whom they had captured, was left by the pope to pay
his own ransom. The Orsini still remained very powerful,
and Alexander could count on none but his 3000 Spaniards.
His only success had been the capture of Ostia and the
submission of the Francophile cardinals Colonna and Savelli.
Now occurred the first of those ugly domestic tragedies for
which the house of Borgia remained famous. On the 14th of
June the duke of Gandia, lately created duke of Benevento,
disappeared; the next day his corpse was found in the Tiber.
Alexander, overwhelmed with grief, shut himself up in Castle
St Angelo, and then declared that the reform of the church
would be the sole object of his life henceforth--a resolution
which he did not keep. Every effort was made to discover
the assassin, and suspicion fell on various highly placed
personages. Suddenly the rumour spread about that Cesare, the
pope's second son, was the author of the deed, and although the
inquiries then ceased and no conclusive evidence has yet come
to light, there is every probability that the charge was well
founded. No doubt Cesare, who contemplated quitting the
church, was inspired by jealousy. of Gandia's influence with
the pope. Violent and revengeful, he now became the most
powerful man in Rome, and even his father quailed before
him. As he needed funds to carry out his various schemes,
the pope began a series of confiscations, of which one of the
victims was his own secretary, in order to enrich him. The
process was a simple one: any cardinal, nobleman or official
who was known to be rich would be accused of some offence;
imprisonment and perhaps murder followed at once, and then
the confiscation of his property. The disorganization of the
Curia was appalling, the sale of offices became a veritable
scandal, the least opposition to the Borgia was punished
with death, and even in that corrupt age the state of things
shocked public opinion. The story of Alexander's relations
with Savonarola is narrated under the latter heading; it is
sufficient to say here that the pope's hostility was due to
the friar's outspoken invectives against papal corruption and
to his appeals for a General Council. Alexander, although
he could not get Savonarola into his own hands, browbeat the
Florentine government into condemning the reformer to death
(May 23, 1498). The pope was unable to maintain order in
his own dominions; the houses of Colonna and Orsini were at
open war with each other, but after much fighting they made
peace on a basis of alliance against the pope. Thus further
weakened, he felt more than ever that he had only his own
kin to rely upon, and his thoughts were ever turned on family
aggrandizement. He had annulled Lucrezia's marriage with Sforza
in 1497, and, unable to arrange a union between Cesare and
the daughter of Frederick, king of Naples (who had succeeded
Ferdinand II. the previous year), he induced the latter by
threats to agree to a marriage between the duke of Bisceglie,
a natural son of Alphonso II., and Lucrezia. Cesare, who
renounced his cardinalate, was sent on a mission to France
at the end of the year, bearing a bull of divorce for the
new king Louis XII., in exchange for which he obtained the
duchy of Valentinois (hence his title of Duca Valentino) and
a promise of material assistance in his schemes to subjugate
the feudal princelings of Romagna; he married a princess of
Navarre. Alexander hoped that Louis's help would be more
profitable to his house than that of Charles had been and,
in spite of the remonstrances of Spain and of the Sforza, he
allied himself with France in January 1499 and was joined by
Venice. By the autumn Louis was in Italy and expelled
Lodovico Sforza from the Milanese. In order to consolidate
his possessions still further, now that French success seemed
assured, the pope determined to deal drastically with Romagna,
which although nominally under papal rule was divided up
into a number of practically independent lordships on which
Venice, Milan and Florence cast hungry eyes. Cesare, nominated
gonfaloniere of the Church, and strong in French favour,
proceeded to attack the turbulent cities one by one (for
detail see BORGIA CESARE.) But the expulsion of the French
from Milan and the return of Lodovico Sforza interrupted his
conquests, and he returned to Rome early in 1500. This year
was a jubilee year, and crowds of pilgrims flocked to the city
from all parts of the world bringing money for the purchase
of indulgences, so that Alexander was able to furnish Cesare
with funds for his enterprise. In the north the pendulum
swung back once more and the French reoccupied Milan in April,
causing the downfall of the Sforzas, much to Alexander's
gratification. But there was no end to the Vatican tragedies,
and in July the duke of Bisceglie, whose existence was no
longer advantageous, was murdered by Cesare's orders; this
left Lucrezia free to contract another marriage. The pope,
ever in need of money, now created twelve new cardinals,
from whom he received 120,000 ducats, and fresh conquests
for Cesare were considered. But while a crusade was talked
of, the real object was central Italy, and in the autumn
Cesare, favoured by France and Venice, set forth with 10,000
men to complete his interrupted enterprise. The local despots
of Romagna were dispossessed and an administration was set
up, which, if tyrannical and cruel, was at least orderly and
strong, and aroused the admiration of Machiavelli (q.v..)
On his return to Rome (June 1501) he was created duke of
Romagna. Louis XII., having succeeded in the north, determined
to conquer southern Italy as well, and concluded a treaty
with Spain for the division of the Neapolitan kingdom, which
was ratified by the pope on the 25th of June, Frederick
being formally deposed. The French army proceeded to invade
Naples, and Alexander took the opportunity, with the help
of the Orsini, to reduce the Colonna to obedience. In his
absence he left Lucrezia as regent, offering the astounding
spectacle of a pope's natural daughter in charge of the Holy
See. Shortly afterwards he induced Alphonso d'Este, son of
the duke of Ferrara, to marry her, thus establishing her
as heiress to one of the most important principalities in
Italy (January 1502). About this time a Borgia of doubtful
parentage was born, Giovanni, described in some papal
documents as Alexander's son and in others as Cesare's.
As France and Spain were quarrelling over the division of
Naples and the Campagna barons were quiet, Cesare set out once
more in search of conquests. In June he seized Camerino and
Urbino, the news of which capture filled the pope with childish
joy. But his military force was uncertain, for the condottieri
were not to be trusted. His attempt to draw Florence into an
alliance failed, but in July Louis of France again invaded Italy
and was at once bombarded with complaints from the Borgia's
enemies. Alexander's diplomacy, however, turned the tide, and
Cesare, in exchange for promising to assist the French in the
south, was given a free hand in central Italy. A new danger
now arose in the shape of a conspiracy against him on the
part of the deposed despots, the Orsini and some of his own
condottieri. At first the papal troops were defeated and
things looked black for the house of Borgia. But a promise of
French help at once forced the confederates to come to terms,
and Cesare by an act of treachery seized the ringleaders at
Senigallia, and put Oliverotto da Fermo and Vitellozzo Vitelli
to death (Dec. 31, 1502). As soon as Alexander heard the
news he decoyed Cardinal Orsini to the Vatican and cast him
into a dungeon, where he died. His goods were confiscated,
his aged mother turned into the street and numbers of other
members of the clan in Rome were arrested, while Giuffre
Borgia led an expedition into the Campagna and seized their
castles. Thus the two great houses of Orsini and Colonna,
who had long fought for predominance in Rome and often flouted
the pope's authority, were subjugated, and a great step
achieved towards consolidating the Borgia's power. Cesare
then returned to Rome, where his father wished him to assist
Giuffre in reducing the last Orsini strongholds; this for some
reason he was unwilling to do, much to Alexander's annoyance,
but he eventually marched out, captured Ceri and made peace
with Giulio Orsini, who surrendered Bracciano. Three more
high personages fell victims to the Borgia's greed this year,
viz. Cardinal Michiel, who was poisoned in April, J. da Santa
Croce, who had helped to seize Cardinal Orsini, and Troches
or Troccio, one of the family's most faithful assassins;
all these murders brought immense sums to the pope. About
Cardinal Ferrari's death there is more doubt; he probably
died of fever, but the pope immediately confiscated his goods.
The war between France and Spain for the possession of Naples
dragged on, and Alexander was ever intriguing, ready to ally
himself with whichever power promised at the moment most
advantageous terms. He offered to help Louis on condition that
Sicily be given to Cesare, and then offered to help Spain in
exchange for Siena, Pisa and Bologna. Cesare was preparing
for another expedition into central Italy in July 1503, when,
in the midst of all these projects and negotiations, both
he and his father were taken ill with fever. The occurrence
was of course attributed to poison, although quite without
foundation, being merely due to malaria, at that time very
prevalent in Rome. On the 18th of August Alexander died
at the age of 72. His death was followed by scenes of wild
disorder, and Cesare, being himself ill, could not attend
to business, but sent Don Michelotto, his chief bravo, to
seize the pope's treasures before the demise was publicly
announced. When the body was exhibited to the people the next
day it was in a shocking state of decomposition, which of course
strengthened the suspicion of poison. At the funeral a brawl
occurred between the soldiers and the priests, and the coffin
having been made too short the body without the mitre was
driven into it by main force and covered with an oil-cloth.
Alexander's successor on the chair of St Peter was Francesco
Todeschini-Piccolomini, who assumed the name of Pius III.
Alexander VI. has become almost a mythical character, and
countless legends and traditions are attached to his name. As
a matter of fact he cannot be regarded in any sense as a great
man. His career shows no great political ideas, and none
of his actions indicate genius. His one thought was family
aggrandizement, and while it is unlikely that he meditated
making the papacy hereditary in the house of Borgia, he
certainly gave away its temporal estates to his children
as though they belonged to him. The secularization of the
church was carried to a pitch never before dreamed of, and
it was clear to all Italy that he regarded the papacy as an
instrument of worldly schemes with no thought of its religious
aspect. During his pontificate the church was brought to its
lowest level of degradation. The condition of his subjects was
deplorable, and if Cesare's rule in Romagna was an improvement
on that of the local tyrants, the people of Rome have seldom
been more oppressed than under the Borgia. Alexander was not
the only person responsible for the general unrest in Italy
and the foreign invasions, but he was ever ready to profit by
them. Even if we do not accept all the stories of his murders
and poisonings and immoralities as true, there is no doubt
that his greed for money and his essentially vicious nature
led him to commit a great number of crimes. For many of
his misdeeds his terrible son Cesare was responsible, but of
others the pope cannot be acquitted. The one pleasing aspect
of his life is his patronage of the arts, and in his days a
new architectural era was initiated in Rome with the coming of
Bramante. Raphael, Michelangelo and Pinturicchio all worked
for him, and a curious contrast, characteristic of the age,
is afforded by the fact that a family so steeped in vice and
crime could take pleasure in the most exquisite works of art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief contemporary authorities for this
reign are: the diary of Alexander's master of ceremonies,
Johannes Burchardus, edited by L. Thuasne (Paris, 1883-1884),
which is characterized by accuracy and extraordinary candour
often amounting to gross indecency; the despatches of
Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, edited by P. Villari
(Florence, 1876), which show great insight and are based on
the most accurate information; and Paolo Cappelli's ``Diarii''
in E. Alberi's Relazioni, series ii., iii. Among modern
works the most important are: F. Gregorovius's Geschichte
der Stadt Rom (3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1881), a work of immense
research and admirable synthesis, giving a very unfavourable
view of the Borgia; A. von Reumont's Geschichte der Stadt
Rom (Berlin, 1867-1870), also a valuable book; M. Creighton's
History of the Papacy (London, 1897) is very learned and
accurate, but the author is more lenient towards Alexander; F.
Gregorovius's Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart, 1874) contains a
great deal of information on the Borgia family; P. Villari's
Machiavelli (English translation, new ed., 1892) deals
with the subject at some length. Of the Catholic writers L.
Pastor, Geschichte der Papste (Freiburg i. B, 1886) should
be consulted, for although the author tries to extenuate
the pope to some extent, on the whole he is fair. (L. V.*)
ALEXANDER VII. (Fabio Chigi), pope from 1655 to 1667, was
born at Siena on the 13th of February 1599. He was successively
inquisitor at Malta, vice-legate at Ferrara and nuncio in Cologne
(1639-1651). Though expected to take part in the negotiations
which led in 1648 to the peace of Westphalia, he refused to
deliberate with heretics, and protested against the treaties
when completed. Innocent X. subsequently made him cardinal
secretary of state. When Innocent died, Chigi, the candidate
favoured by Spain, was elected pope on the 7th of April
1655. The conclave believed he was strongly opposed to the
nepotism then prevalent. In the first year of his reign
Alexander VII. forbade his relations even to visit Rome; but
in 1656 he gave them the best-paid civil and ecclesiastical
offices, also palaces and princely estates. Alexander disliked
business of state, preferring literature and philosophy; a
collection of his Latin poems appeared at Paris in 1656 under
the title Philomathi Labores Juveniles. He also encouraged
architecture, and in particular constructed the beautiful
colonnade in the piazza of St Peter's. He favoured the
Jesuits, especially in their conflict with the Jansenists,
forbade in 1661 the translation of the Roman Missal into
French, and in 1665 canonized Francis of Sales. His pontificate
was marked by protracted controversies with France and
Portugal. He died on the 22nd of May 1667. (W. W. R.*)
ALEXANDER VIII. (Pietro Ottoboni), pope from 1689 to 1691,
was born in 1610 of a noble Venetian family, was created
cardinal, and then successively bishop of Brescia and datary.
The ambassador of Louis XIV. succeeded in procuring his election
on the 6th of October 1689 as successor to Innocent XI.;
nevertheless, after months of negotiation Alexander finally
condemned the declaration made in 1682 by the French clergy
concerning the liberties of the Gallican church. Charities
on a large scale and unbounded nepotism exhausted the papal
treasury. He bought the books and manuscripts of Queen Christina
of Sweden for the Vatican library. Alexander condemned in 1690
the doctrines of so-called philosophic sin, taught in the Jesuit
schools. He died on the 1st of February 1691. (W. W. R.*)
ALEXANDER I. (ALEKSANDER PAVLOVICH) (1777-1825), emperor
of Russia, son of the grand-duke Paul Petrovich, afterwards
Paul I., and Maria Fedorovna, daughter of Frederick Eugene of
Wurttemberg, was born on the 28th of December 1777. The
strange contradictions of his character make Alexander one
of the most interesting as he is one of the most important
figures in the history of the 19th century. Autocrat and
``Jacobin,'' man of the world and mystic, he was to his
contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own
temperament. Napoleon thought him a ``shifty Byzantine,''
and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play
any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be
humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool,
gives him credit for ``grand qualities,'' but adds that he
is ``suspicious and undecided.'' His complex nature was, in
truth, the outcome of the complex character of his early
environment and education. Reared in the free-thinking
atmosphere of the court of Catherine II. he had imbibed from
his Swiss tutor, Frederic Cesar de Laharpe, the principles
of Rousseau's gospel of humanity; from his military governor,
General Soltikov, the traditions of Russian autocracy; while
his father had inspired him with his own passion of military
parade, and taught him to combine a theoretical love of
mankind with a practical contempt for men. These contradictory
tendencies remained with him through life, revealed in
the fluctuations of his policy and influencing through him
the fate of the world. Another element in his character
discovered itself when in 1801 he mounted the throne over
the body of his murdered father: a mystic melancholy liable
at any moment to issue in extravagant action. At first,
indeed, this exercised but little influence on the emperor's
life. Young, emotional, impressionable, well-meaning and
egotistic, Alexander displayed from the first an intention of
playing a great part on the world's stage, and plunged with all
the ardour of youth into the task of realizing his political
ideals. While retaining for a time the old ministers who
had served and overthrown the emperor Paul, one of the first
acts of his reign was to appoint a secret committee, called
ironically the ``Comite du salut public,'' consisting of
young and enthusiastic friends of his own--Victor Gavovich
Kochubey, Nikolai Nikolaevich Novosiltsov, Paul Alexandrovich
Strogonov and Adam Czartoryski--to draw up a scheme of internal
reform. Their aims, inspired by their admiration for English
institutions, were far in advance of the possibilities of
the time, and even after they had been raised to regular
ministerial positions but little of their programme could be
realized. For Russia was not ripe for liberty; and Alexander,
the disciple of the revolutionist Laharpe, was--as he
himself said--but ``a happy accident'' on the throne of the
tsars. He spoke, indeed, bitterly of ``the state of barbarism
in which the country had been left by the traffic in men.''
``Under Paul,'' he said, ``three thousand peasants had been
given away like a bag of diamonds. If civilization were more
advanced, I would abolish this slavery, if it cost me my
head.''1 But the universal corruption, he complained, had
left him no men; and the filling up of the government offices
with Germans and other foreigners merely accentuated the
sullen resistance of the ``old Russians'' to his reforms.
That Alexander's reign, which began with so large a promise of
amelioration, ended by riveting still tighter the chains of
the Russian people was, however, due less to the corruption and
backwardness of Russian life than to the defects of the tsar
himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in fact
unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as
the dispenser of benefits; but his theoretical liberalism was
mated with an autocratic will which brooked no contradiction.
``You always want to instruct me!'' he exlaimed to Derzhavin,
the minister of justice, ``but I am the autocratic emperor,
and I will this, and nothing else!'' ``He would gladly have
agreed,'' wrote Adam Czartoryski, ``that every one should be
free, if every one had freely done only what he wished.''
Moreover, with this masterful temper was joined an infirmity
of purpose which ever let ``I dare not wait upon I would,''
and which seized upon any excuse for postponing measures the
principles of which he had publicly approved. The codification
of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his
reign; nothing was done to improve the intolerable status of
the Russian peasantry; the constitution drawn up by Speranski,
and passed by the emperor, remained unsigned. Alexander, in
fact, who, without being consciously tyrannical, possessed
in full measure the tyrant's characteristic distrust of men
of ability and independent judgment, lacked also the first
requisite for a reforming sovereign: confidence in his people;
and it was this want that vitiated such reforms as were actually
realized. He experimented in the outlying provinces of his
empire; and the Russians noted with open murmurs that, not content
with governing through foreign instruments, he was conferring
on Poland, Finland and the Baltic provinces benefits denied to
themselves. In Russia, too, certain reforms were carried
out; but they could not survive the suspicious interference
of the autocrat and his officials. The newly created council
of ministers, and the senate, endowed for the first time
with certain theoretical powers, became in the end but the
slavish instruments of the tsar and his favourites of the
moment. The elaborate system of education, culminating in the
reconstituted, or new-founded, universities of Dorpat, Vilna,
Kazan and Kharkov, was strangled in the supposed interests of
``order'' and of orthodox piety; while the military colonies
which Alexander proclaimed as a blessing to both soldiers
and state were forced on the unwilling peasantry and army
with pitiless cruelty. Even the Bible Society, through which
the emperor in his later mood of evangelical zeal proposed
to bless his people, was conducted on the same ruthless
lines. The Roman archbishop and the Orthodox metropolitans
were forced to serve on its committee side by side with
Protestant pastors; and village popes, trained to regard any
tampering with the letter of the traditional documents of the
church as mortal sin, became the unwilling instruments for
the propagation of what they regarded as works of the devil.
Alexander's grandiose imagination was, however, more strongly
attracted by the great questions of European politics than
by attempts at domestic reform which, on the whole, wounded
his pride by proving to him the narrow limits of absolute
power. On the morrow of his accession he had reversed the
policy of Paul, denounced the League of Neutrals, and made
peace with England (April 1801), at the same time opening
negotiations with Austria. Soon afterwards at Memel he
entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted
from motives of policy, but in the spirit of true chivalry,
out of friendship for the young king Frederick William and
his beautiful wife. The development of this alliance was
interrupted by the short-lived peace of October 1801; and for
a while it seemed as though France and Russia might come to an
understanding. Carried away by the enthusiasm of Laharpe,
who had returned to Russia from Paris, Alexander began
openly to proclaim his admiration for French institutions
and for the person of Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a
change. Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to
the tsar his Reflexions on the True Nature of the Consulship
for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his
eyes, and revealed Bonaparte ``as not a true patriot,'' but
only as ``the most famous tyrant the world has produced.''
His disillusionment was completed by the murder of the duc
d'Enghien. The Russian court went into mourning for the last of
the Condes, and diplomatic relations with Paris were broken off.
The events of the war that followed belong to the general
history of Europe; but the tsar's attitude throughout is
personal to himself, though pregnant with issues momentous
for the world. In opposing Napoleon, ``the oppressor of
Europe and the disturber of the world's peace,'' Alexander
in fact already believed himself to be fulfilling a divine
mission. In his instructions to Novosiltsov, his special
envoy in London, the tsar elaborated the motives of his policy
in language which appealed as little to the common sense of
Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of
Castlereagh. Yet the document is of great interest, as in it
we find formulated for the first time in an official despatch
those exalted ideals of international policy which were to
play so conspicuous a part in the affairs of the world at the
close of the revolutionary epoch, and issued at the end of
the 19th century in the Rescript of Nicholas II.2 and the
conference of the Hague. The outcome of the war, Alexander
argued, was not to be only the liberation of France, but the
universal triumph of ``the sacred rights of humanity.'' To
attain this it would be necessary ``after having attached the
nations to their government by making these incapable of acting
save in the greatest interests of their subjects, to fix the
relations of the states amongst each other on more precise
rules, and such as it is to their interest to respect.'' A
general treaty was to become the basis of the relations of
the states forming ``the European Confederation''; and this,
though ``it was no question of realizing the dream of universal
peace, would attain some of its results if, at the conclusion
of the general war, it were possible to establish on clear
principles the prescriptions of the rights of nations.'' ``Why
could not one submit to it,'' the tsar continued, ``the positive
rights of nations, assure the privilege of neutrality, insert
the obligation of never beginning war until all the resources
which the mediation of a third party could offer have been
exhausted, having by this means brought to light the respective
grievances, and tried to remove them? It is on such principles
as these that one could proceed to a general pacification,
and give birth to a league of which the stipulations would
form, so to speak, a new code of the law of nations, which,
sanctioned by the greater part of the nations of Europe,
would without difficulty become the immutable rule of the
cabinets, while those who should try to infringe it would
risk bringing upon themselves the forces of the new union.''3
Meanwhile Napoleon, little deterred by the Russian autocrat's
youthful idealogy, never gave up hope of detaching him from
the coalition. He had no sooner entered Vienna in triumph
than he opened negotiations with him; he resumed them after
Austerlitz. Russia and France, he urged, were ``geographical
allies''; there was, and could be, between them no true
conflict of interests; together they might rule the world. But
Alexander was still determined ``to persist in the system of
disinterestedness in respect of all the states of Europe which
he had thus far followed,'' and he again allied himself with
Prussia. The campaign of Jena and the battle of Eylau followed;
and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance,
stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of
the tsar. A party too in Russia itself, headed by the tsar's
brother the grand-duke Constantine, was clamorous for peace;
but Alexander, after a vain attempt to form a new coalition,
summoned the Russian nation to a holy war against Napoleon as
the enemy of the orthodox faith. The outcome was the rout of
Friedland (June 13 and 14, 1807). Napoleon saw his chance and
seized it. Instead of making heavy terms, he offered to the
chastened autocrat his alliance, and a partnership in his glory.
The two emperors met at Tilsit on the 25th of June. Alexander,
dazzled by Napoleon's genius and overwhelmed by his apparent
generosity, was completely won. Napoleon knew well how to
appeal to the exuberant imagination of his new-found friend.
He would divide with Alexander the empire of the world; as a
first step he would leave him in possession of the Danubian
principalities and give him a free hand to deal with Finland;
and, afterwards, the emperors of the East and West, when the
time should be ripe, would drive the Turks from Europe and
march across Asia to the conquest of India. A programme so
stupendous awoke in Alexander's impressionable mind an ambition
to which he had hitherto been a stranger. The interests of
Europe were forgotten. ``What is Europe?'' he exclaimed to the
French ambassador. ``Where is it, if it is not you and we?''4
The brilliance of these new visions did not, however, blind
Alexander to the obligations of friendship; and he refused
to retain the Danubian principalities as the price for
suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia. ``We have made
loyal war,'' he said, ``we must make a loyal peace.'' It
was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to
wane. Napoleon was prodigal of promises, but niggard of their
fulfilment. The French remained in Prussia, the Russians on
the Danube; and each accused the other of breach of faith.
Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of Alexander and
Napoleon were of the most cordial character; and it was hoped
that a fresh meeting might adjust all differences between
them. The meeting took place at Erfurt in October 1808, and
resulted in a treaty which defined the common policy of the two
emperors. But Alexander's relations with Napoleon none
the less suffered a change. He realized that in Napoleon
sentiment never got the better of reason, that as a matter of
fact he had never intended his proposed ``grand enterprise''
seriously, and had only used it to preoccupy the mind of the
tsar while he consolidated his own power in central Europe.
From this moment the French alliance was for Alexander also
not a fraternal agreement to rule the world, but an affair
of pure policy. He used it, in the first instance, to remove
``the geographical enemy'' from the gates of St Petersburg
by wresting Finland from the Swedes (1809); and he hoped
by means of it to make the Danube the southern frontier of
Russia. Events were in fact rapidly tending to the rupture
of the Franco-Russian alliance. Alexander, indeed, assisted
Napoleon in the war of 1809, but he declared plainly that
he would not allow Austria to be crushed out of existence;
and Napoleon complained bitterly of the inactivity of the
Russian troops during the campaign. The tsar in his turn
protested against Napoleon's encouragement of the Poles.
In the matter of the French alliance he knew himself to be
practically isolated in Russia, and he declared that he could
not sacrifice the interest of his people and empire to his
affection for Napoleon. ``I don't want anything for myself,''
he said to the French ambassador, ``therefore the world is
not large enough to come to an understanding on the affairs
of Poland, if it is a question of its restoration.''5 The
treaty of Vienna, which added largely to the grand-duchy of
Warsaw, he complained had ``ill requited him for his loyalty,''
and he was only mollified for the time by Napoleon's public
declaration that he had no intention of restoring Poland, and
by a convention, signed on the 4th of January 1810 but not
ratified, abolishing the Polish name and orders of chivalry.
But if Alexander suspected Napoleon, Napoleon was no less
suspicious of Alexander; and, partly to test his sincerity, he
sent an almost peremptory request for the hand of the grand-
duchess Anne, the tsar's youngest sister. After some little
delay Alexander returned a polite refusal, on the plea of the
princess's tender age and the objection of the dowager empress
to the marriage. Napoleon's answer was to refuse to ratify
the convention of the 4th of January, and to announce his
engagement to the archduchess Marie Louise in such a way as to
lead Alexander to suppose that the two marriage treaties had
been negotiated simultaneously. From this time the relation
between the two emperors gradually became more and more
strained. The annexation of Oldenburg, of which the duke was
the tsar's uncle, to France in December 1810, added another to
the personal grievances of Alexander against Napoleon; while
the ruinous reaction of ``the continental system'' on Russian
trade made it impossible for the tsar to maintain a policy
which was Napoleon's chief motive for the alliance. An acid
correspondence followed, and ill-concealed armaments, which
culminated in the summer of 1812 in Napoleon's invasion of
Russia. Yet, even after the French had passed the frontier,
Alexander still protested that his personal sentiments towards
the emperor were unaltered; ``but,'' he added, ``God Himself
cannot undo the past.'' It was the occupation of Moscow and
the desecration of the Kremlin, the sacred centre of Holy
Russia, that changed his sentiment for Napoleon into passionate
hatred. In vain the French emperor, within eight days of
his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was
one long cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits
of the Grand Army, and appealed to ``any remnant of his
former sentiments.'' Alexander returned no answer to these
``fanfaronnades.'' ``No more peace with Napoleon!'' he cried,
``He or I, I or He: we cannot longer reign together!''6
The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander's life;
and its horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of
the responsibility, overset still more a mind never too well
balanced. At the burning of Moscow, he declared afterwards,
his own soul had found illumination, and he had realized once
for all the divine revelation to him of his mission as the
peacemaker of Europe. He tried to calm the unrest of his
conscience by correspondence with the leaders of the evangelical
revival on the continent, and sought for omens and supernatural
guidance in texts and passages of scripture. It was not,
however, according to his own account, till he met the Baroness
de Krudener--a religious adventuress who made the conversion
of princes her special mission--at Basel, in the autumn of
1813, that his soul found peace. From this time a mystic
pietism became the avowed force of his political, as of his
private actions. Madame de Krudener, and her colleague, the
evangelist Empaytaz, became the confidants of the emperor's
most secret thoughts; and during the campaign that ended in
the occupation of Paris the imperial prayer-meetings were
the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.
Such was Alexander's mood when the downfall of Napoleon left
him the most powerful sovereign in Europe. With the memory
of Tilsit still fresh in men's minds, it was not unnatural
that to cynical men of the world like Metternich he merely
seemed to be disguising ``under the language of evangelical
abnegation'' vast and perilous schemes of ambition. The puzzled
powers were, in fact, the more inclined to be suspicious in
view of other, and seemingly inconsistent, tendencies of the
emperor, which yet seemed all to point to a like disquieting
conclusion. For Madame de Krudener was not the only influence
behind the throne; and, though Alexander had declared war
against the Revolution, Laharpe was once more at his elbow,
and the catchwords of the gospel of humanity were still on his
lips. The very proclamations which denounced Napoleon
as ``the genius of evil,'' denounced him in the name of
``liberty,'' and of ``enlightenment.'' A monstrous intrigue
was suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat with
the Jacobinism of all Europe, which would have issued in the
substitution of an all-powerful Russia for an all-powerful
France. At the congress of Vienna Alexander's attitude
accentuated this distrust. Castlereagh, whose single-minded
aim was the restoration of ``a just equilibrium'' in Europe,
reproached the tsar to his face for a ``conscience'' which
suffered him to imperil the concert of the powers by keeping
his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty obligation.7
Yet Alexander was sincere. Even the Holy Alliance, the pet
offspring of his pietism, does not deserve the sinister reputation
it has since obtained. To the other powers it seemed, at best
``verbiage'' and ``exalted nonsense,'' at worst an effort of
the tsar to establish the hegemony of Russia on the goodwill
of the smaller signatory powers. To the Liberals, then and
afterwards it was clearly a hypocritical conspiracy against
freedom. Yet to Alexander himself it seemed the only means
of placing the ``confederation of Europe'' on a firm basis of
principle8 and, so far from its being directed against liberty
he declared roundly to all the signatory powers that ``free
constitutions were the logical outcome of its doctrines.''
Europe, in fact, owed much at this time to Alexander's exalted
temper. During the period when his influence was supreme,
the fateful years, that is, between the Moscow campaign and
the close of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, it had been used
largely in the interests of moderation and liberty. To him
mainly it was due that France was saved from dismemberment,
and received a constitution which, to use his own words,
``united crown and representatives of the people in a sense
of common interests.''9 By his wise intervention Switzerland
was saved from violent reaction, and suffered to preserve
the essential gains of the Revolution. To his protection it
was due that the weak beginnings of constitutional freedom in
Germany were able for a while to defy the hatred of Austria.
Lastly, whatever its ultimate outcome, the constitution of
Poland was, in its inception, a genuine effort to respond
to the appeal of the Poles for a national existence.
From the end of the year 1818 Alexander's views began to
change. A revolutionary conspiracy among the officers of the
guard, and a foolish plot to kidnap him on his way to the
congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (q.v.), are said to have shaken
the foundations of his Liberalism. At Aix he came for the
first time into intimate contact with Metternich, and the
astute Austrian was swift to take advantage of the psychological
moment. From this time dates the ascendancy of Metternich
over the mind of the Russian emperor and in the councils of
Europe. It was, however, no case of sudden conversion.
Though alarmed by the revolutionary agitation in Germany,
which culminated in the murder of his agent, the dramatist
Kotzebue (q.v.), Alexander approved of Castlereagh's protest
against Metternich's policy of ``the governments contracting
an alliance against the peoples,'' as formulated in the
Carlsbad decrees, 1819, and deprecated any intervention of
Europe to support ``a league of which the sole object is the
absurd pretensions of absolute power.''10 He still declared
his belief in ``free institutions, though not in such as
age forced from feebleness, nor contracts ordered by popular
leaders from their sovereigns, nor constitutions granted in
difficult circumstances to tide over a crisis. ``Liberty,''
he maintained, ``should be confined within just limits.
And the limits of liberty are the principles of order.''11
It was the apparent triumph of the principles of disorder
in the revolutions of Naples and Piedmont, combined with
increasingly disquieting symptoms of discontent in France,
Germany and among his own people, that completed Alexander's
conversion. In the seclusion of the little town of Troppau,
where in October of 1820 the powers met in conference, Metternich
found an opportunity for cementing his influence over Alexander
which had been wanting amid the turmoil and feminine intrigues
of Vienna and Aix. Here, in confidence begotten of friendly
chats over afternoon tea, the disillusioned autocrat confessed
his mistake. ``You have nothing to regret,'' he said sadly
to the exultant chancellor, ``but I have!''12 The issue was
momentous. In January Alexander had still upheld the ideal
of a free confederation of the European states, symbolized
by the Holy Alliance, against the policy of a dictatorship
of the great powers, symbolized by the Quadruple Treaty; he
had still protested against the claims of collective Europe
to interfere in the internal concerns of the sovereign
states. On the 19th of November he signed the Troppau Protocol,
which consecrated the principle of intervention and wrecked
the harmony of the concert. (See TROPPAU, CONGRESS OF.)
At Laibach, whither in the spring of 1821 the congress had
been adjourned, Alexander first heard of the revolt of the
Greeks. From this time until his death his mind was torn between
his anxiety to realize his dream of a confederation of Europe
and his traditional mission as leader of the Orthodox crusade
against the Turks. At first, under the careful nursing of
Metternich, the former motive prevailed. He struck the name
of Alexander Ypsilanti from the Russian army list, and directed
his foreign minister, Count Capo d'Istria, himself a Greek, to
disavow all sympathy of Russia with his enterprise; and, next
year, a deputation of the Greeks of the Morea on its way to
the congress of Verona was turned back by his orders on the
road. He made, indeed, some effort to reconcile the principles
at conflict in his mind. He offered to surrender the claim,
successfully asserted when the sultan had been excluded from
the Holy Alliance and the affairs of the Ottoman empire from
the deliberations of Vienna, that the affairs of the East
were the ``domestic concerns of Russia,'' and to march into
Turkey, as Austria had marched into Naples, ``as the mandatory
of Europe.''13 Metternich's opposition to this, illogical,
but natural from the Austrian point of view, first opened his
eyes to the true character of Austria's attitude towards his
ideals. Once more in Russia, far from the fascination of
Metternich's personality, the immemorial spirit of his people
drew him back into itself; and when, in the autumn of 1825,
he took his dying empress for change of air to the south of
Russia, in order--as all Europe supposed--to place himself
at the head of the great army concentrated near the Ottoman
frontiers, his language was no longer that of ``the peace-maker
of Europe,'' but of the Orthodox tsar determined to take the
interests of his people and of his religion ``into his own
hands.'' Before the momentous issue could be decided, however,
Alexander died at Taganrog on the 1st of December (November
18, O.S.) 1825, ``crushed'', to use his own words, ``beneath
the terrible burden of a crown'' which he had more than once
declared his intention of resigning. A report, current at
the time and often revived, affirmed that he did not in fact
die. By some it is supposed that a mysterious hermit named
Fomich, who lived at Tomsk until 1870 and was treated with peculiar
deference by successive tsars, was none other than Alexander.14
Modern history knows no more tragic figure than that of
Alexander. The brilliant promise of his early years; the
haunting memory of the crime by which he had obtained the
power to realize his ideals; and, in the end, the terrible
legacy he left to Russia: a principle of government which,
under lofty pretensions, veiled a tyranny supported by
spies and secret police; an uncertain succession; an army
permeated by organized disaffection; an armed Poland, whose
hunger for liberty the tsar had whetted but not satisfied;
the quarrel with Turkey, with its alternative of war or
humiliation for Russia; an educational system rotten with
official hypocrisy; a Church in which conduct counted for
nothing, orthodoxy and ceremonial observance for everything;
economical and financial conditions scarce recovering from
the verge of ruin; and lastly, that curse of Russia,--serfdom.
In private life Alexander displayed many lovable qualities.
All authorities combine in praising his handsome presence
and the affability and charm of his address, together with a
certain simplicity of personal tastes, which led him in his
intercourse with his friends or with the representatives of
friendly powers to dispense with ceremonial and etiquette.
His personal friendship, too, once bestowed, was never lightly
withdrawn. By nature he was sociable and pleasure-loving,
he proved himself a notable patron of the arts and he took
a conspicuous part in all the gaieties of the congress of
Vienna. In his later years, however, he fell into a mood
of settled melancholy; and, though still accessible to all
who chose to approach him with complaints or petitions, he
withdrew from all but the most essential social functions, and
lived a life of strenuous work and of Spartan simplicity. His
gloom had been increased by domestic misfortune. He had been
married, in 1793, without his wishes being consulted, to the
beautiful and amiable Princess Maria Louisa of Baden (Elizabeth
Feodorovna), a political match which, as he regretfully
confessed to his friend Frederick William of Prussia, had
proved the misfortune of both; and he consoled himself in the
traditional manner. The only child of the marriage, a little
grand-duchess, died on the 12th of May 1808; and their common
sorrow drew husband and wife closer together. Towards the
close of his life their reconciliation was completed by the
wise charity of the empress in sympathizing deeply with him
over the death of his beloved daughter by Madame Narishkine.
See also EUROPE; RUSSIA; FRANCE; TURKEY; VIENNA,
CONGRESS OF; NAPOLEON; METTERNICH; CAPO D'ISTARIA.
AUTHORITIES.--F. de Martins, Recueil des traites conclus
par la Russie, &c. (St Petersb., 1874, &c.); Wellington
Despatches Castlereagh Correspondence; Prince Adam Czartoryski,
Memoires et correspondance avec l'empereur Alexandre I.
(Paris, 1887, 2 vols.). P. Bailleu (ed). Briefwechsel Konig
Friedrich Wilhelm's III. und der Konigin Luise mit Kaiser
Alexander I. (Leipzig, 1900); Laharpe, Le Gouverneur d'un
Prince (F. C de Laharpe et Alexandre I. de Russie) 1902;
Serge Tatischeff, Alexandre I. et Napoleon d'apres leur
correspondance inedite (Paris, 1901); Joseph de Maistre,
Memoires historiques et correspondance diplomatique,
ed. A. Blanc (2nd ed., 1859); Comtesse de Choiseul-Gouffier,
Memoires historiques sur l'empereur Alexandre (1829),
and Reminiscences sur l'empereur Alexandre I., &c.
(Paris, 1862); Rulemann Friedrich Eylert, Charakterzuge
und historische Fragmente aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich
Wilhelm's III. (1846); H. L. Empaytaz, Notice sur Alexandre
Empereur de Russie (2nd ed., Paris, 1840); Comte A. de
la Garde- Chambonas, Souvenirs du Congres de Vienne;
publ. avec introd. et notes par le Cte. Fleury (1901).
LIVES.--The principal life of Alexander I. is that, in
Russian, by Nikolai Karlovich Schilder, Imperator Aleksander,
&c. (4 vols., St Petersb., 1897, 1898). See also Bogdanovich,
History of the Government of the Emperor Alexander I.
(St Petersburg, 1869-1871, Nikolaus I. Band i. Kaiser
Alexander I. und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit (Berl.,
1904), a valuable study based upon much new material from the
state archives of St Petersburg, Paris, Berlin and Vienna;
A. Vandal, Napoleon et Alexandre I.: l'alliance Russe
sous le premier empire (3 vols., Paris, 1891-1896); A. N.
Pypin, Political and Literary Movements under Alexander
I. (Russian, 2nd ed. St Petersburg, 1885; German, Berlin,
1894). Among the numerous less authoritative biographies
may be mentioned Ivan Golovin, Histoire d'Alexandre I.
(Leipzig, 1859), and C. Joyneville, Life and Times of
Alexander I. (3 vols., 1875). This last contains much
valuable information, but the references in footnotes are
often wanting in precision, and it has no index. (W. A. P.)
1 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 4, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 226.
2 Circular of Count Muraviev, Aug. 24, 1898.
3 Instructions to M. Novosiltsov, Sept. 11, 1804. Tatiseheff, p. 82.
4 Savary to Napoleon, Nov. 18, 1807. Tatischeff, p. 232.
5 Coulaincourt to Napoleon, 4th report, Aug. 3, 1809. Tatischeff, p. 496.
6 Alexander speaking to Colonel Michaud. Tatischeff, p. 612.
7 Castlereagh to Liverpool, Oct. 2, 1814. F.O. Papers. Vienna VII.
8 Martens IV. oart i. p. 49.
9 Etat des negociations actueelles, &c., mem. prepared by
order of the Tsar, July 16, 1815, enclosed in Castlereagh to
Liverpool, F.O. Cont. papers. Congress Paris, Castlereagh, 22.
10 Despatch of Lieven, Nov. 30 (Dec. 12), 1819, and
Russ. Circular of Jan. 27, 1820. Martens IV. part i. p. 270.
11 Apercu des idees de l'Empereur, Martens IV. part i. p. 269.
12 Metternich Mem.
13 Martens IV. part i. pp. 307, &c.
14 See W. Gasiorowski, Tragic Russia,
translated by Viscount de Busancy (London, 1908).
ALEXANDER II. (1818-1881), emperor of Russia, eldest
son of Nicholas I., was born on the 29th of April 1818.
His early life gave little indication of his subsequent
activity, and up to the moment of his accession in 1855 no
one ever imagined that he would be known to posterity as a
great reformer. In so far as he had any decided political
convictions, he seemed to be animated with that reactionary
spirit which was predominant in Europe at the time of his
birth, and continued in Russia to the end of his father's
reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was
heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was
very unfavourable to the development of any originality of
thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet
principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private
initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the
administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in
general conversation, and books or newspapers in which the
most keen-scented press-censor could detect the least odour of
political or religious free-thinking were strictly prohibited.
Criticism of existing authorities was regarded as a serious
offence. The common policeman, the insignificant scribe
in a public office, and even the actors in the ``imperial''
theatres, were protected against public censure as effectually
as the government itself; for the whole administration was
considered as one and indivisible, and an attack on the humblest
representative of the imperial authority was looked on as
an indirect attack on the fountain from which that authority
flowed. Such was the moral atmosphere in which young Alexander
Nicolaevich grew up to manhood. He received the education
commonly given to young Russians of good family at that time--a
smattering of a great many subjects, and a good practical
acquaintance with the chief modern European languages.
Like so many of his countryman he displayed great linguistic
ability, and his quick ear caught up even peculiarities of
dialect. His ordinary life was that of an officer of the
Guards, modified by the ceremonial duties incumbent on him as
heir to the throne. Nominally he held the post of director
of the military schools, but he took little personal interest
in military affairs. To the disappointment of his father,
in whom the military instinct was ever predominant, he showed
no love of soldiering, and gave evidence of a kindliness of
disposition and a tender-heartedness which were considered
out of place in one destined to become a military autocrat.
These tendencies had been fostered by his tutor Zhukovsky,
the amiable humanitarian poet, who had made the Russian
public acquainted with the literature of the German romantic
school, and they remained with him all through life, though
they did not prevent him from being severe in his official
position when he believed severity to be necessary. In 1841
he married the daughter of the grand-duke Louis II. of Hesse,
Maximilienne Wilhelmine Marie, thenceforward known as Maria
Alexandrovna, who bore him six sons and two daughters. He
did not travel much abroad, for his father, in his desire to
exclude from Holy Russia the subversive ideas current in Western
Europe, disapproved foreign tours, and could not consistently
encourage in his own family what he tried to prevent among
the rest of his subjects. He visited England, however, in
1839, and in the years immediately preceding his accession he
was entrusted with several missions to the courts of Berlin
and Vienna. On the 2nd of March 1855, during the Crimean
War, he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father.
The first year of the new reign was devoted to the prosecution
of the war, and after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for
peace. Then began a period of radical reforms, recommended
by public opinion and carried out by the autocratic
power. The rule of Nicholas, which had sacrificed all other
interests to that of making Russia an irresistibly strong
military power, had been tried by the Crimean War and found
wanting. A new system must, therefore, be adopted. All
who had any pretensions to enlightenment declared loudly
that the country had been exhausted and humiliated by the
war, and that the only way of restoring it to its proper
position in Europe was to develop its natural resources and
to reform thoroughly all branches of the administration.
The government found, therefore, in the educated classes a
new-born public spirit, anxious to assist it in any work of
reform that it might think fit to undertake. Fortunately
for Russia the autocratic power was now in the hands of a
man who was impressionable enough to be deeply influenced by
the spirit of the time, and who had sufficient prudence and
practical common-sense to prevent his being carried away by
the prevailing excitement into the dangerous region of Utopian
dreaming. Unlike some of his predecessors, he had no grand,
original schemes of his own to impose by force on unwilling
subjects, and no pet crotchets to lead his judgment astray;
and he instinctively looked with a suspicious, critical eye on
the panaceas which more imaginative and less cautious people
recommended. These traits of character, together with the
peculiar circumstances in which he was placed, determined the
part which he was to play. He moderated, guided and in great
measure realized the reform aspirations of the educated classes.
Emancipation of the serfs.
Though he carefully guarded his autocratic rights and
privileges, and obstinately resisted all efforts to push him
farther than he felt inclined to go he acted for several years
somewhat like a constitutional sovereign of the continental
type. At first he moved so slowly that many of the impatient,
would-be reformers began to murmur at the unnecessary
delay. In reality not much time was lost. Soon after
the conclusion of peace important changes were made in the
legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new
freedom thus accorded produced a large number of limited
liability companies. At the same time plans were formed
for constructing a great network of railways, partly for the
purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and
partly for the purpose of increasing its powers of defence and
attack. Then it was found that further progress was blocked
by a great obstacle, the existence of serfage: and Alexander
II. showed that, unlike his father, he meant to grapple boldly
with the difficult and dangerous problem. Taking advantage of
a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the
Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with the
serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way--meaning
in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors--he authorized
the formation of committees ``for ameliorating the condition
of the peasants,'' and laid down the principles on which the
amelioration was to be effected. This was a decided step
and it was followed by one still more significant. Without
consulting his ordinary advisers, his majesty ordered the
minister of the interior to send a circular to the provincial
governors of European Russia, containing a copy of the
instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania,
praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the
Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the
landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar
desire. The hint was taken, of course, and in all provinces
where serfage existed emancipation committees were formed.
The deliberations at once raised a host of important, thorny
questions. The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian
question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial
ukaz. It contained very complicated problems affecting
deeply the economic, social and political future of the
nation. Alexander II. had little of the special knowledge
required for dealing successfully with such problems, and
he had to restrict himself to choosing between the different
measures recommended to him. The main point at issue was
whether the serfs should become agricultural labourers
dependent economically and administratively on the landlords,
or should be transformed into a class of independent communal
proprietors. The emperor gave his support to the latter
project, and the Russian peasantry accordingly acquired rights
and privileges such as are enjoyed by no other peasantry in
Europe. In the numerous other questions submitted to him be{sic}
began by consulting carefully the conflicting authorities, and
while leaning as a rule rather to the side of those who were
known as ``Liberals,'' he never went so far as they desired,
and always sought some middle course by which conflicting
interests might be reconciled. On the 3rd of March 1861,
the sixth anniversary of his accession, the emancipation law
was signed and published. Other reforms followed in quick
succession during the next five or six years: army and navy
organization, a new judicial administration on the French
model, a new penal code and a greatly simplified system of
civil and criminal procedure, an elaborate scheme of local
self-government for the rural districts and the large towns, with
elective assemhljes possessing a restricted right of taxation,
and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of
the minister of the interior. These new institutions were
incomparably better than the old ones which they replaced, but
they did not work such miracles as inexperienced enthusiasts
expected. Comparisons were made, not with the past, but with
an ideal state of things which never existed in Russia or
elsewhere. Hence arose a general feeling of disappointment,
which acted on different natures in different ways. Some of
the enthusiasts sank into a sceptical, reactionary frame of
mind; while others, with deeper convictions or capable of more
lasting excitement, attributed the failure to the fact that
only half- measures and compromises had been adopted by the
government. Thus appeared in the educated classes two extreme
groups: on the one hand, the discontented Conservatives,
who recommended a return to a more severe disciplinarian
regime; and on the other, the discontented Radicals, who
would have been satisfied with nothing less than the adoption
of a throughgoing socialistic programme. Between the two
extremes stood the discontented Moderates, who indulged freely
in grumbling without knowing how the unsatisfactory state of
things was to be remedied. For some years the emperor, with
his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the
balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of
uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his
zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more
the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation,
he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.
Nihilism.
The revolutionary agitation was of a very peculiar kind.
It was confined to a section of the educated classes,
and emanated from the universities and higher technical
schools. At the beginning of the reform period there had been
enthusiasm for scientific as opposed to classical education.
Russia required, it was said, not classical scholars, but
practical, scientific men, capable of developing her natural
resources. The government, in accordance with this view,
had encouraged scientific studies until it discovered to
its astonishment that there was some mysterious connexion
between natural science and revolutionary tendencies. Many
of the young men and women, who were supposed to be qualifying
as specialists in the various spheres of industrial and
commercial enterprise, were in reality devoting their time
to considering how human society in general, and Russian
society in particular, could be reconstructed in accordance
with the latest physiological, biological and sociological
principles. Some of these young people wished to put their
crude notions immediately into practice, and as their desire
to make gigantic socialist experiments naturally alarmed the
government, their activity was opposed by the police. Many
of them were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to distant
provinces, but the revolutionary work was continued with
unabated zeal. Thus arose a struggle between the youthful,
hot-headed partisans of revolutionary physical science and
the zealous official guardians of political order--a struggle
which has made the strange term Nihilism (q.v.) a familiar
word not only in Russia but also in western Europe. The
movement gradually assumed the form of terrorism, and aimed
at the assassination of prominent officials, and even of
the emperor himself, and the natural result was that the
reactionary tendencies of the government were strengthened.
Foreign policy.
In foreign policy Alexander II. showed the same qualities of
character as in internal affairs, ever trying prudently to
steer a middle course. When he came to the throne a peace
policy was imposed on him by circumstances. The Crimean War
was still going on, but as there was no doubt as to the final
issue, and the country was showing symptoms of exhaustion,
he concluded peace with the allies as soon as he thought the
national honour had been satisfied. Prince Gorchakov could
then declare to Europe, ``La Russie ne boude pas elle
se recueille''; and for fifteen years he avoided foreign
complications, so that the internal strength of the country
might be developed, while the national pride and ambition
received a certain satisfaction by the expansion of Russian
influence and domination in Asia. Twice, indeed, during that
period the chancellor ran the risk of provoking war. The
first occasion was in 1863, when the Western powers seemed
inclined to interfere in the Polish question, and the Russian
chancery declared categorically that no interference would be
tolerated. The second occasion was during the Franco-German
War of 1870-71, when the cabinet of St Petersburg boldly
declared that it considered itself no longer bound by the Black
Sea clause of the treaty of Paris. On both these occasions
hostilities were averted. Not so on the next occasion, when
Russia abandoned her attitude of recueillement. When the
Eastern question was raised in 1875 by the insurrection of
Herzegovina, Alexander II. had no intention or wish to
provoke a great European war. No doubt he was waiting for
an opportunity of recovering the portion of Bessarabia which
had been ceded by the treaty of Paris, and he perceived
in the disturbed state of Eastern Europe a possibility of
obtaining the desired rectification of frontier, but he hoped
to effect his purpose by diplomatic means in conjunction with
Austria. At the same time he was anxious to obtain for the
Christians of Turkey some amelioration of their condition,
and to give thereby some satisfaction to his own subjects.
As autocratic ruler of the nation which had long considered
itself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the
protector of the Slav nationalities, he could not remain
inactive at such a crisis, and he gradually allowed himself
to drift into a position from which he could not retreat
without obtaining some tangible result. Supposing that the
Porte would yield to diplomatic pressure and menace so far as
to make some reasonable concessions, he delivered his famous
Moscow speech, in which he declared that if Europe would not
secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs he would act
alone. The diplomatic pressure failed and war became
inevitable. During the campaign he displayed the same
perseverance and the same moderation that he had shown in the
emancipation of the serfs. To those who began to despair of
success, and advised him to conclude peace on almost any
terms so as to avoid greater disasters, he turned a deaf
ear, and brought the campaign to a successful conclusion;
but when his more headstrong advisers urged him to insist
on terms which would probably have produced a conflict with
Great Britain and Austria, he resolved, after some hesitation,
to make the requisite concessions. In this resolution he
was influenced by the discovery that he could not rely on
the expected support of Germany, and the discovery made
him waver in his devotion to the German alliance, which had
been the main pivot of his foreign policy; but his personal
attachment to the emperor William prevented him from adopting
a hostile attitude towards the empire he had helped to create.
The patriotic excitement produced by the war did not weaken
the revolutionary agitation. The struggle between the
Terrorists and the police authorities became more and more
intense, and attempts at assassination became more and more
frequent. Alexander II. succumbed by degrees to the mental
depression produced originally by the disappointments
which he experienced in his home and foreign policy; and in
1880, when he had reigned twenty-five years, he entrusted
to Count Loris-Melikov a large share of the executive
power. In that year the empress died, and a few weeks
afterwards he married secretly a Princess Dolgoruki, with
whom he had already entertained intimate relations for some
years. Early in 1881, on the advice of Count Loris-Melikov,
he determined to try the effect of some moderate liberal
reforms on the revolutionary agitation, and for this purpose
he caused a ukaz to be prepared creating special commissions,
composed of high officials and private personages who should
prepare reforms in various branches of the administration.
On the very day on which this ukaz was signed--13th of March
1881--he fell a victim to a Nihilist plot. When driving in
one of the central streets of St Petersburg, near the Winter
Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of some
small bombs and died a few hours afterwards. (D. M. W.)
ALEXANDER III. (1845-1894), emperor of Russia, second
son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845.
In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his
soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his
refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning
grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of ``the
first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite
refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never
affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea
of being of the same rough texture as the great majority of
his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured
sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method
of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn,
immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His
education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities.
During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect
of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother,
Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even
when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health
it was believed that his life might be indefinitely prolonged
by proper care and attention, and precautions had been taken
for the succession by his betrothal with Princess Dagmar of
Denmark. Under these circumstances the greatest solicitude
was devoted to the education of Nicholas as cesarevich,
whereas Alexander received only the perfunctory and inadequate
training of an ordinary grand- duke of that period, which
did not go much beyond primary and secondary instruction,
practical acquaintance with French, English and German, and
a certain amount of drill. When he became heir-apparent by
the death of his elder brother in 1865, he began to study
the principles of law and administration under Professor
Pobedonostsef, who did not succeed in awakening in his pupil
a love of abstract studies or prolonged intellectual exertion,
but who influenced the character of his reign by instilling
into his mind the belief that zeal for Eastern Orthodoxy ought,
as an essential factor of Russian patriotism, to be specially
cultivated by every right-minded tsar. His elder brother
when on his deathbed had expressed a wish that his affianced
bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry his successor,
and this wish was realized on the 9th of November 1866. The
union proved a most happy one and remained unclouded to the
end. During those years when he was heir-apparent--1865 to
1881--he did not play a prominent part in public affairs, but
he allowed it to become known that he had certain ideas of his
own which did not coincide with the principles of the existing
government. He deprecated what he considered undue foreign
influence in general, and German influence in particular, and
he longed to see the adoption of genuine national principles
in all spheres of official activity, with a view to realizing
his ideal of a homogeneous Russia--homogeneous in language,
administration and religion. With such ideas and aspirations
he could hardly remain permanently in cordial agreement
with his father, who, though a good patriot according to his
lights, had strong German sympathies, often used the German
language in his private relations, occasionally ridiculed
the exaggerations and eccentricities of the Slavophils and
based his foreign policy on the Prussian alliance. The
antagonism first appeared publicly during the Franco-German
War, when the tsar supported the cabinet of Berlin and the
cesarevich did not conceal his sympathies with the French.
It reappeared in an intermittent fashion during the years
1875-1879, when the Eastern question produced so much excitement
in all ranks of Russian society. At first the cesarevich was
more Slavophil than the government, but his phlegmatic nature
preserved him from many of the exaggerations indulged in by
others, and any of the prevalent popular illusions he may
have imbibed were soon dispelled by personal observation in
Bulgaria, where he commanded the left wing of the invading
army. The Bulgarians had been represented in St Petersburg
and Moscow not only as martyrs but also as saints, and a
very little personal experience sufficed to correct the
error. Like most of his brother officers he could not feel
any very great affection for the ``little brothers,'' as the
Bulgarians were then commonly called, and he was constrained to
admit that the Turks were by no means so black as they had been
painted. He did not, however, scandalize the believers by any
public expression of his opinions, and did not indeed make himself
conspicuous in any way during the campaign. Never consulted
on political questions, he confined himself to his military
duties and fulfilled them in a conscientious and unobtrusive
manner. After many mistakes and disappointments, the army
reached Constantinople and the treaty of San Stefano was
signed, but much that had been obtained by that important
document had to be sacrificed at the congress of Berlin.
Prince Bismarck failed to do what was confidently expected of
him. In return for the Russian support, which had enabled
him to create the German empire, it was thought that he would
help Russia to solve the Eastern question in accordance with
her own interests, but to the surprise and indignation of
the cabinet of St Petersburg he confined himself to acting
the part of ``honest broker'' at the congress, and shortly
afterwards he ostentatiously contracted an alliance with
Austria for the express purpose of counteracting Russian
designs in Eastern Europe. The cesarevich could point to
these results as confirming the views he had expressed during
the Franco-German War, and he drew from them the practical
conclusion that for Russia the best thing to do was to recover
as quickly as possible from her temporary exhaustion and
to prepare for future contingencies by a radical scheme of
military and naval reorganization. In accordance with this
conviction, he suggested that certain reforms should be
introduced. During the campaign in Bulgaria he had found by
painful experience that grave disorders and gross corruption
existed in the military administration, and after his return
to St Petersburg he had discovered that similar abuses existed
in the naval department. For these abuses, several high-placed
personages--among others two of the grand-dukes-- were believed
to be responsible, and he called his father's attention
to the subject. His representations were not favourably
received. Alexander II. had lost much of the reforming zeal
which distinguished the first decade of his reign, and had no
longer the energy required to undertake the task suggested to
him. The consequence was that the relations between father
and son became more strained. The latter must have felt that
there would be no important reforms until he himself succeeded
to the direction of affairs. That change was much nearer
at hand than was commonly supposed. On the 13th of March
1881 Alexander II. was assassinated by a band of Nihilists,
and the autocratic power passed to the hands of his son.
In the last years of his reign, Alexander II. had been
much exercised by the spread of Nihilist doctrines and the
increasing number of anarchist conspiracies, and for some
time he had hesitated between strengthening the hands of the
executive and making concessions to the widespread political
aspirations of the educated classes. Finally he decided in
favour of the latter course, and on the very day of his death
he signed a ukaz, creating a number of consultative commissions
which might have been easily transformed into an assembly of
notables. Alexander III. determined to adopt the opposite
policy. He at once cancelled the ukaz before it was published,
and in the manifesto announcing his accession to the throne
he let it be very clearly understood that he had no intention
of limiting or weakening the autocratic power which he had
inherited from his ancestors. Nor did he afterwards show any
inclination to change his mind. All the internal reforms which
he initiated were intended to correct what he considered as
the too liberal tendencies of the previous reign, so that he
left behind him the reputation of a sovereign of the retrograde
type. In his opinion Russia was to be saved from anarchical
disorders and revolutionary agitation, not by the parliamentary
institutions and so-called liberalism of western Europe, but by
the three principles which the elder generation of the Slavophils
systematically recommended--nationality, Eastern Orthodoxy and
autocracy. His political ideal was a nation containing only
one nationality, one language, one religion and one form
of administration; and he did his utmost to prepare for the
realization of this ideal by imposing the Russian language and
Russian schools on his German, Polish and Finnish subjects, by
fostering Eastern Orthodoxy at the expense of other confessions,
by persecuting the Jews and by destroying the remnants of
German, Polish and Swedish institutions in the outlying
provinces. In the other provinces he sought to counteract
what he considered the excessive liberalism of his father's
reign. For this purpose he clipped the feeble wings of the
zemstvo, an elective local administration resembling the county
and parish councils in England, and placed the autonomous
administration of the peasant communes under the supervision
of landed proprietors appointed by the government. At the
same time he sought to strengthen and centralize the imperial
administration, and to bring it more under his personal
control. In foreign affairs he was emphatically a man of
peace, but not at all a partisan of the docrrine of peace at any
price, and he followed the principle that the best means of
averting war is to be well prepared for it. Though indignant
at the conduct of Prince Bismarck towards Russia, he avoided
an open rupture with Germany, and even revived for a time the
Three Emperors' Alliance. It was only in the last years of
his reign, when M. Katkov had acquired a certain influence
over him, that he adopted towards the cabinet of Berlin a
more hostile attitude, and even then he confined himself to
keeping a large quantity of troops near the German frontier,
and establishing cordial relations with France. With regard
to Bulgaria he exercised similar self-control. The efforts of
Prince Alexander and afterwards of Stamboloff to destroy Russian
influence in the principality excited his indignation, but
he persistently vetoed all proposals to intervene by force of
arms. In Central Asian affairs he followed the traditional
policy of gradually extending Russian domination without
provoking a conflict with Great Britain, and he never allowed
the bellicose partisans of a forward policy to get out of
hand. As a whole his reign cannot be regarded as one of the
eventful periods of Russian history; but it must be admitted that
under his hard unsympathetic rule the country made considerable
progress. He died at Livadia on the 1st of November 1894,
and was succeeded by his eldest son, Nicholas II. (D. M. W.)
ALEXANDER I. (c. 1078-1124), king of Scotland, was the fourth
son of Malcolm Canmore by his wife (St) Margaret, grand-niece
of Edward the Confessor. On the death of his brother Edgar
in 1107 he succeeded to the Scottish crown; but, in accordance
with Edgar's instructions, he inherited only a part of its
possessions. By a partition, the motive of which is not
quite certain, the districts south of the Forth and Clyde
were erected into an earldom for Alexander's younger brother,
David. Alexander, dissatisfied, sought to obtain the whole,
but without success. A curious combination of the fierce
warrior and the pious churchman, he manifested the one
aspect of his character in his ruthless suppression of an
insurrection in his northern dominion (thus gaining for himself
the title of ``the Fierce''), the other in his munificent
foundation of bishoprics and abbeys. Among the latter were
those of Scone and Inchcolm. His strong championship of the
independence of the Scottish church involved him in struggles
with both the English metropolitan sees. He died on the 27th
of April 1124, and was succeeded by his brother, David I.
ALEXANDER II. (1198-1249), king of Scotland, son of William
the Lion and Ermengarde of Beaumont, was born at Haddington
in 1198, and succeeded to the kingdom on the death of his
father in 1214. The year after his accession the clans
MacWilliam and MacHeth, inveterate enemies of the Scottish
crown, broke into revolt; but the insurrection was speedily
quelled. In the same year Alexander joined the English
barons in their struggle against John, and led an army into
England in support of their cause; but on the conclusion of
peace after John's death between his youthful son Henry III.
and the French prince Louis, the Scottish king was included
in the pacification. The reconciliation thus effected
was further strengthened by the marriage of Alexander to
Henry's sister Joanna in 1221. The next year was marked by
the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of
Argyll. A revolt in Galloway in 1235 was crushed without
difficulty; nor did an invasion attempted soon afterwards
by its exiled leaders meet with any better fortune. Soon
afterwards a claim for homage from Henry of England drew
forth from Alexander a counter-claim to the northern English
counties. The dispute, however, was settled by a compromise in
1237. A threat of invasion by Henry in 1243 for a time
interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries;
but the prompt action of Alexander in anticipating his
attack, and the disinclination of the English barons for
war, compelled him to make peace next year at Newcastle.
Alexander now turned his attention to securing the Western
Isles, which still owned a nominal dependence on Norway.
Negotiations and purchase were successively tried but without
success. Alexander next attempted to seduce Ewen, the son of
Duncan, lord of Argyll, from his allegiance to the Norwegian
king. Ewen refused his overtures, and Alexander sailed
forth to compel him. But on the way he was seized with
fever at Kerrera, and died there on the 8th of July 1249.
ALEXANDER III. (1241-1285), king of Scotland, son of
Alexander II. by his second wife Mary de Coucy, was born in
1241. At the age of eight years the death of his father
called him to the throne. The years of his minority were
marked by an embittered struggle for the control of affairs
between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, earl
of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, the justiciar. The
former was in the ascendant during the early years of the
reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in
1251, Henry III. seized the opportunity to demand from his
son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but the claim was
refused. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish
kings at Kelso resulted in the deposition of Menteith and his
party in favour of their opponents. But though disgraced,
they still retained great influence; and two years later,
seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals
to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both
parties. On attaining his majority in 1262, Alexander declared
his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which
had been cut short by the death of his father thirteen years
before. A formal claim was laid before the Norwegian king
Haakon. Not only was this unsuccessful, but next year Haakon
replied by a formidable invasion. Sailing round the west
coast of Scotland he halted off Arran, where negotiations were
opened. These were artfully prolonged by Alexander until
the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of
delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which
greatly damaged his ships. The battle of Largs, fought next
day, was indecisive. But even so Haakon's position was
hopeless. Baffled he turned homewards, but died on the
way. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266
Haakon's successor concluded a treaty by which the Isle of
Man and the Western Isles were ceded to Scotland in return for
a money payment, Orkney and Shetland alone being retained.
Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all his
three children within a few years made the question of the
succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the
Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his grand-daughter
Margaret, the ``Maid of Norway''; and next year the desire for
a male heir led him to contract a second marriage. But all
such hopes were defeated by the sudden death of the king, who
was killed by a fall from his horse in the dark while riding
to visit the queen at Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285.
ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OBRENOVICH) (1876-1903), king of
Servia, was born on the 14th of August 1876. On the 6th of
March 1889 his father, King Milan, abdicated and proclaimed
him king of Servia under a regency until he should attain his
majority at eighteen years of age. King Alexander, on the
13th of April 1893, being then in his seventeenth year, made
his notable first coup d'etat, proclaimed himself of full
age, dismissed the regents and their government, and took the
royal authority into his own hands. His action was popular,
and was rendered still more so by his appointment of a radical
ministry. In May 1894 King Alexander, by another coup
d'etat, abolished the liberal constitution of 1889 and
restored the conservative one of 1869. His attitude during
the Turco-Greek war of 1897 was one of strict neutrality. In
1898 he appointed his father commander-in-chief of the Servian
army, and from that time, or rather from his return to Servia
in 1894 until 1900, ex-king Milan was regarded as the de
facto ruler of the country. But while, during the summer of
1900, Milan was away from Servia taking waters in Carlsbad,
and making arrangements to secure the hand of a German princess
for his son, and while the premier, Dr Vladan Dyorevich,
was visiting the Paris Universal Exhibition, King Alexander
suddenly announced to the people of Servia his engagement to
Mme Draga Mashin, a widow, formerly a lady-in-waiting to Queen
Natalie. The projected union aroused great opposition at
first. Ex-King Milan resigned his post; so did the government;
and King Alexander had great difficulty in forming a new
cabinet. But the opposition subsided somewhat on the
publication of Tsar Nicholas's congratulations to the king on
his engagement and of his acceptance to act as the principal
witness at the wedding. The marriage was then duly celebrated
on the 5th of August 1900. Still this union was unpopular and
weakened the position of King Alexander in the army and the
country. He tried to reconcile political parties by granting
from his own initiative a liberal constitution (April 6,
1901), introducing for the first time in the constitutional
history of Servia the system of two chambers (skupshtina and
senate). This did in a certain measure reconcile the political
parties, but did not reconcile the army, which, already
dissatisfied with the king's marriage, became still more
so at the rumours that one of the two unpopular brothers of
Queen Draga, Lieutenant Nicodiye, was to be proclaimed heir-
apparent to the throne. Meanwhile the independence of the
senate and of the council of state caused growing irritation
to King Alexander, which led him to another coup d'etat.
He suspended (March 1903) the constitution for half an hour,
time enough to publish the decrees by which the old senators
and councillors of state were dismissed and replaced by new
ones. This arbitrary act naturally increased the dissatisfaction
in the country. The general impression was that inasmuch as
the senate was packed with men devoted to the royal couple,
and inasmuch as the government obtained a large majority at
the general elections, King Alexander would not hesitate any
longer to proclaim Queen Draga's brother as the heir to the
throne. Apparently to prevent this, but in reality to replace
Alexander Obrenovich by Peter Karageorgevich, a military
conspiracy was organized. The conspirators penetrated into
the palace and savagely murdered King Alexander and Queen
Draga in the early morning of the 11th of June 1903. (C. MI.)
ALEXANDER, son of Numenius, Greek rhetorician, flourished
in the first half of the second century A.D. In addition to
general treatises on rhetoric, he wrote a special work Peri
ton tes dianoias kai tes lexeos schematon, of which
only an abridgment is extant; later epitomes were made in Latin
by Aquila Romanus and Julius Rufinianus under the title De
Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis. Another epitome was
made in the fourth century by a Christian for use in Christian
schools, containing additional examples from Gregory of Nazianzus.
Text in Spengel, Rhetores Graeci (1856).
ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD (1772-1851), American Presbyterian
divine, was born, of Scottish-Irish descent, in that part
of Augusta county which is now Rockbridge county, Virginia,
on the 17th of April 1772. After completing his preliminary
education in the little school at Lexington, Virginia, which
later developed into Washington and Lee University, he came
under the influence of the religious movement known as the
``great revival'' (1789-1790) and devoted himself to the study of
theology. Licensed to preach in 1791, he was engaged for
several years as an itinerant Presbyterian preacher in his
native state, and acquired during this period the facility in
extemporaneous speaking for which he was remarkable. He was
president of Hampden-Sidney College from 1796 to 1807, with a
short intermission (in 1801-1802), and in 1807 became pastor
of Pine Street Church, Philadelphia. In 1812 he became first
professor in the newly established Presbyterian Theological
Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, where he remained until
his death at Princeton on the 22nd of October 1851, filling
successively the chairs of didactic and polemic theology
(1812-1840), and pastoral and polemic theology (1840-1851). He
married, in 1802, Janetta Waddel, the daughter of the celebrated
blind preacher, James Waddel (1739-1805), whose eloquence
was described in William Wirt's Letters of a British Spy
(1803). Dr Alexander wrote a considerable number of theological
works, which had a large circulation. Among these may be
mentioned his Brief Outline of the Evidences of the Christian
Religion (1825), which passed through several editions, and
was translated into various languages; The Canon of the Old
and New Testament Ascertained; or the Bible Complete without
the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions (1826); A History
of the Israelitish Nation (1852), and Outlines of Moral
Science (1852), the last two being published posthumously.
See the biography (New York, 1854) by his son James W. Alexander.
ALEXANDER, FRANCIS (1800-1881), American portrait- painter,
was born in Windham county, Connecticut, in February 1800.
Brought up on a farm, he taught himself the use of colours,
and in 1820 went to New York City and studied painting with
Alexander Robertson. He spent the winters of 1831 and 1832
in Rome, and then for nearly a decade he lived in Boston,
Massachusetts, where he had considerable vogue, and where
in 1842 he painted a portrait of Charles Dickens. One of
his best portraits is that of Mrs Fletcher Webster in the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He died in 1881 in Florence.
ALEXANDER, GEORGE (1858- ), English actor, whose family
name was Samson, was born in Reading on the 19th of June 1858,
the son of a Scottish manufacturer. He went into business in
London after leaving school, but having acted as an amateur
he determined to make the stage his profession. His first
appearance was at Nottingham in 1879, and after some seasons
of provincial experience he made his first London appearance
as Caleb Deecie in Two Roses in 1881 with Irving at the
Lyceum. He was selected by W. S. Gilbert to support Mary
Anderson in Comedy and Tragedy, returned for a time to the
Lyceum, where he was Irving's principal associate, especially
as Faust (1886) and Macduff (1888); and, after starting
successfully under his own management at the Avenue Theatre in
1890 with Dr Bill, in 1891 became manager of the St James's
Theatre. There he produced a number of successful plays, notably
Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of
being Earnest, Pinero's Second Mrs Tanqueray, The Princess
and the Butterfiy, His House in Order and The Thunderbolt;
C. Haddon Chambers's The Idler; H. A. Jones's Masqueraders;
Alfred Sutro's John Glayde's Honour and The Builder of
Bridges; Carton's Liberty Hall and The Tree of Knowledge;
Anthony Hope's Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau;
and Stephen Phillips's Paolo and Francesca, himself playing
the leading parts with great distinction. In 1907 he was
elected a member of the London County Council as a municipal
reformer, but continued to act regularly at the St James's.
ALEXANDER, SIR JAMES EDWARD (1803-1885), British soldier and
traveller, was born on the 16th of October 1803. He joined
the East India Company's army in 1820, transferring into the
British army in 1825. As aide-de-camp to the British envoy
to Persia, he was an eye-witness of the fighting in the war
between Persia and Russia (1826), and in 1829 was present in
the Balkans during the Russo-Turkish war. In 1832-1834 he was
in Portugal during the Miguelete war, and in 1835 served in
the Kaffir war in South Africa as aide-de-camp to Sir Benjamin
D'Urban. Subsequently he conducted an exploring expedition into
Namaqualand and Damaraland, and was knighted for his services
(1838). From 1841 to 1855 he served in Canada, proceeding
thence to the Crimea, and in 1862 held an important command
in New Zealand during the Maori war. He retired from the
service in 1877, and in 1881 was given the honorary rank of
general. He was largely responsible for the preservation
and transfer to England of Cleopatra's Needle in 1877. His
varied experiences provided material for a large number of
books, among which were Travels from India to England
(1827); Transatlantic Sketches (1833); An Expedition of
Discovery into the Interior of Africa (1838); Passages in
the Life of a Soldier (1857); Incidents of the Maori War
(1863). He was also the author of a Life of Field-Marshal the
Duke of Wellington (1840). He died on the 2nd of April 1885.
ALEXANDER, JOHN WHITE (1856- ), American painter, was
born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on the 7th of October
1836. He was left an orphan when very young, became an
illustrator for Harper's Magazine, studied in Europe, became
a pupil of the Royal Academy at Munich, and also worked in
Venice, in Holland and in Paris, where he attracted much
attention by his exhibition at the Salon of two female
portraits entitled ``Gris'' and ``Noir.'' He became a member
of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts (Paris), of the
National Academy of Design (New York), of the International
Society (London), and of the Vienna and Munich Societies of
Painters. In 1901 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour. He executed decorative panels for the Congressional
Library, Washington, D.C., and a large decoration for
the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; and his
works include numerous portraits and subject pictures.
ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON (1809-1860), American biblical
scholar, the third son of Archibald Alexander, was born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of April 1809. He
graduated at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University)
in 1826, having devoted himself especially to the study of
Hebrew and other oriental languages, and from 1830 to 1833
was adjunct professor of ancient languages and literature
there. In 1834 he became an assistant to Dr Charles Hodge,
professor of oriental and biblical literature in the Princeton
Theological Seminary, and in 1838 became associate professor
of oriental and biblical literature there, succeeding Dr Hodge
in that chair in 1840 and being transferred in 1851 to the
chair of biblical and ecclesiastical history, and in 1859 to
that of Hellenistic and New Testament literature, which he
occupied until his death at Princeton on the 28th of January
1860. Alexander was a remarkable linquist and exegete. He
had been ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1839, and
was well known for his pulpit eloquence. He was the author
of The Earlier Prophecies of Isaiah (1846), The Later
Prophecies of Isaiah (1847), and an abbreviation of these
two volumes, Isaiah Illustrated and Explained (2 vols.,
1851), The Psalms Translated and Explained (3 vols.,
1850), commentaries on Acts (2 vols., 1857), Mark (1858)
and Matthew (1860), and two volumes of Sermons (1860).
See The Life of Joseph A. Alexander (2 vols., 2nd
ed., New York, 1875) by his nephew, Henry C. Alexander.
His brother, JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER (1804-1859), born in
Louisa county, Virginia, on the 13th of March 1804, was a famous
Presbyterian preacher. He graduated at the College of New Jersey
in 1820, studied theology in the Princeton Seminary, and was
pastor of a Presbyterian church in Charlotte county, Virginia,
from 1826 to 1828, and of the First Presbyterian church in
Trenton, New Jersey, in 1829-1832. From 1833 to 1844 he was
professor of belles-lettres and Latin language and literature
in the College of New Jersey, from 1844 to 1849 was pastor of
the Duane Street Presbyterian church in New York City, from
1849 to 1851 was professor of ecclesiastical history, church
government and sacred rhetoric in the Princeton Theological
Seminary, and from 1851 until his death, at Red Sweet Springs,
Virginia, on the 31st of July 1859, was pastor of the Fifth
Avenue Presbyterian church in New York City. He wrote numerous
magazine articles and published a number of books, including
The American Mechanic and Workingman (2 vols., 1847, a
coltection of papers to mechanics first printed under the
pseudonym of ``Charles Quill''), Thoughts on Family Worship
(1847), Sacramental Addresses (1854), The Revival and
its Lessons (1859), Thoughts on Preaching (1861), Faith
(1862), and many juvenile books for Sunday-school libraries.
See Forty Years' Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander (2 vols.,
New York, 1860), edited by Dr John Hall (1806-1894) of Trenton, N. J.
ALEXANDER, WILLIAM (1824- ), Protestant archbishop of
Armagh and primate of all Ireland, was born at Londonderry
on the 13th of April 1824 and educated at Tonbridge Grammar
School and Brasenose College, Oxford. After holding several
livings in the north of Ireland he was made bishop of Derry
and Raphoe in 1867, and was elevated to the primacy in
1896. He was Bampton lecturer in 1816. An eloquent preacher
and the author of numerous theological works, he is best
known to literature as a master of dignified and animated
verse. His poems were collected in 1887 under the title of
St Augustine's Holiday, and other Poems. His wife, Cecil
Francis Humphreys (1818-1895), wrote some tracts in connexion
with the Oxford movement, but is famous as the author of
``Jesus calls us o'er the tumult,'' ``There is a green hill
far away'' and other well-known hymns (nearly four hundred in
all). A collection of her verse was published in 1896.
ALEXANDER, WILLIAM LINDSAY (1808-1884), Scottish divine,
was born at Leith on the 24th of August 1808. He was educated
at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where he
gained a lasting reputation for classical scholarship. He
entered Glasgow Theological Academy under Ralph Wardlaw in
September 1827, but in December of the same year he left
to become classical tutor at the Blackburn Theological
Academy (afterwards the Lancashire Independent College).
At Blackburn he stayed till 1831, lecturing on biblical
literature, metaphysics, Greek and Latin. After short visits
to Germany and London he was invited in November 1834 to
become minister of North College Street church (afterwards
Argyle Square), Edinburgh, an independent church which had
arisen out of the evangelical movement associated with the
Haldanes. He deliberately put aside the ambition to become a
pulpit orator in favour of the practice of biblical exposition,
which he invested with a singular charm and impressiveness.
In 1836 he became one of the editors of the Congregational
Magazine, to which he contributed articles on biblical
literature and theology and on the ``voluntary'' controversy.
In 1840 he delivered the Congregational Lecture in London on
the ``Connexion and Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.''
Alexander took an active part in the ``voluntary'' controversy
which ended in the Disruption, but he also maintained
broad and catholic views of the spiritual relations between
different sections of the Christian church. In 1845 he
visited Switzerland with the special object of inquiring into
the religious life of the churches there. He published an
account of his journey in a book, Switzerland and the Swiss
Churches, which led to an interchange of correspondence
between the Swiss and Scottish churches. In 1845 he received
the degree of D.D. from the university of St Andrews. In 1861
he undertook the editorship of the third edition of Kitto's
Biblical Encyclopaedia with the understanding that the whole
work should be thoroughly revised and brought up to date. In
January 1870 he became one of the committee of Old Testament
revisers, and by his thorough biblical scholarship rendered
exceptional service to the board; he enjoyed the work and
devoted much time to it for the next fourteen years. In 1877 he
became principal of the Edinburgh Theological Hall, a position
which he held, in spite of many tempting offers of preferment
elsewhere, until his death on the 20th of December 1884.
See his Life and Work by James Ross (1887). (D. Mn.)
ALEXANDER AETOLUS, of Pleuron in Aetolia, Greek poet and
man of letters, the only representative of Aetolian poetry,
flourished about 280 B.C. When living in Alexandria he was
commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus to arrange the tragedies
and satyric dramas in the library; some ten years later he
took up his residence at the court of Antigonus Gonatas,
king of Macedonia. His reputation as a tragic poet was so
high that he was allotted a place in the Alexandrian tragic
Pleiad; we only know the title of one play (Astragalistae.)
He also wrote short epics, epigrams and elegies, the
considerable fragments of which show learning and eloquence.
Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1853); Bergk, Poetae
Lyrioi Graeci; Couat, La Poesie alexandrine (1882).
ALEXANDER BALAS (i.e. ``lord''), ruler of the Greek kingdom
of Syria 150-146 B.C., was a native of Smyrna of humble
origin, but gave himself out to be the son of Antiochus IV.
Epiphanes and heir to the Syrian throne. His claims were
recognized by the Roman senate, Ptolemy Philometor of Egypt
and others. At first unsuccessful, he finally defeated
the reigning king Demetrius Soter in 150 B.C. Being now
undisputed master of Syria, he abandoned himself to a life of
debauchery. Demetrius Soter's son profited by the opportunity
to regain the throne. Ptolemy Philometor, who was Alexander's
father-in-law, went over to his side, and Alexander was defeated
in a pitched battle near Antioch in Syria. He fled for refuge
to a Nabataean prince, who murdered him and sent his head to
Ptolemy, who had been mortally wounded in the engagement.
See 1 Maccab. 10 ff.; Justin xxxv. 1 and 2; Josephus,
Antiq. xiii. 2; Appian, Sir. 67; Polybius xxxiii. 14.
ALEXANDER CORNELIUS, Greek grammarian, surnamed POLYHISTOR
from his great learning, born at Miletus or Myndus in
Caria, flourished about 70 B.C. He was taken prisoner in
the Mithridatic war by Sulla, from whom (or from Cornelius
Lentulus) he received his freedom and assumed the name
Cornelius. He accompanied Crassus on his Parthian
campaigns, and perished at the destruction by fire of his
house at Laurentum. He is said to have written ``books
without number,'' chiefly on historical and geographical
subjects. Of the extant fragments (Muller, Fragmenta
Historicorum Graecorum, iii:) those relating to the Jews are
important as containing quotations from lost Jewish authors.
ALEXANDER JANNAEUS, king of the Jews, succeeded his brother
Aristobulus in 103 B.C. and died in 76 B.C. His first act
was the murder of one of his brothers who claimed the throne,
and his reign was disgraced by the cruelties that he perpetrated
in order to retain his position. (See JEWS and PHARISEES.)
ALEXANDER NEVSKY, SAINT (1220-1263), grand-duke of Vladimir,
was the second son of the grand-duke Yaroslav. His childhood
and youth were spent at Great Novgorod, whither his father
sent him to rule (1228) with some guardian boyars. In 1239
he married Alexandra, daughter of Prince Bryachislav of
Polotsk. At an early age he distinguished himself in
constant warfare with the Germans, Swedes and Lithuanians,
who tried to wrest Novgorod and Pskov from Russia while she
was still suffering from the effects of the terrible Tatar
invasion. The most notable of these battles, whereby he
won his honorific epithet of Nevsky (i.e. of the Neva),
was fought on the banks of the Neva (July 15 1240) against
the famous Swedish statesman, Birger Jarl, whom he utterly
defeated, besides wounding him with his lance. In the following
year the Teutonic Order, in conjunction with the Order of the
Sword, succeeded in capturing Pskov; but Alexander recovered
it in 1242, advanced into Livonia, and on the 5th of April
defeated the knights on the ice of Lake Peipus and compelled
them in the ensuing peace to renounce all their conquests.
He also prevented the Swedes (in 1256) from settling in South
Finland. On the death of his father (1246) Alexander and
his younger brother Andrew went on a two years' journey
into Mongolia to obtain their yarluiki, or letters of
investiture, from the Grand Khan, who then disposed of the
fate of all the Russian princes. He returned (1250) as
grand-duke of Kiev and Novgorod, while to Andrew was given
the far more important grand- duchy of Vladimir. In 1252,
however, the Tatars themselves expelled Andrew and placed
Alexander on the throne of Vladimir. Alexander henceforth
did his best for his country by humbling himself before the
Tatars so as to give them no pretext for ravaging the land
again. Most of his spare money he devoted to the ransoming
of the numerous Russian captives detained at the Golden
Horde. But the men of Novgorod, in their semi-independent
republic, continued (1255-1257) to give the grand-duke
trouble, their chief grievance being the imposition of a Tatar
tribute, which they only submitted to in 1259 on the rumour
of an impending Tatar invasion. In 1262 the Tatar tribute
was felt so grievously all over Russia that preparations
were made for a general insurrection, and Alexander, who knew
that an abortive rebellion would make the yoke heavier, was
obliged to go to the Horde in person to prevent the Tatars
from again attacking Russia. He stayed at Sarai, their Volgan
capital, all the Winter, and not only succeeded in obtaining
a mitigation of the tribute, but also the abolition of the
military service previously rendered by the Russians to the
Tatars. This was his last service to his country. He died
on his way home from the Horde, and in the words of his
contemporary, the metropolitan Cyril, ``with him the sun
of Russia set.'' The Orthodox Church has canonized the
ruler who gave his whole life for Russia and the Orthodox
faith. His relics, discovered in 1380, were in 1724
translated by Peter the Great from Vladimir to St Petersburg.
See Sergyei Mikhailovich Solovev, History of Russia
(Rus., 2nd ed., St Petersburg, 1897, vol. 3). (R. N. B.)
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS, pupil of Aristocles of Messene, the
most celebrated of the Greek commentators on the writings of
Aristotle, and styled, by way of pre-eminence, o exegetes (``the
expositor''), was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria. He came
to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century A.D., became
head of the Lyceum and lectured on peripatetic philosophy. The
object of his work was to free the doctrine from the syncretism
of Ammonius and to reproduce the pure doctrine of Aristotle.
Commentaries by Alexander on the following works of Aristotle
are still extant:--the Analytica Priora, i.; the Topica;
the Meteorologica; the De Sensu; and the Metaphysica,
i.-v., together with an abridgment of what he wrote on the
remaining books of the Metaphysica. His commentaries were
greatly esteemed among the Arabians, who translated many of
them. There are also several original writings by Alexander still
extant. The most important of these are a work On Fate, in
which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and
one On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped
reason in man is material (nous ulikos) and inseparable
from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of
immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous
poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect
in man becomes actual, with God. Several of Alexander's works
were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice,
1495-1498; his De Fato and De Anima were printed along
with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former
work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also
by Schulthess, was edited by J. C. Orelli, Zurich, 1824; and
his commentaries on the Metaphysica by H. Bonitz, Berlin,
1847. J. Nourisson has treated of his doctrine of fate (De
la liberte et du hazard, Paris, 1870). In the early
Renaissance his doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted
by F. Pomponazzi against the Thomists and the Averroists.
See PERIPATETICS (ad fin.); ALEXANDRISTS; POMPONAZZI, PIETRO;
also A. Apelt, ``Die Schrift d. Alex. v. Aphr.,'' Philolegus,
xlv., 1886: C. Ruelle, ``Alex. d'Aphr. et le pretendu Alex.
d'Alexandrie,'' Rev. des etudes grecques, v., 1892; E.
Zeller's Outlines of Gk. Phil. (Eng. trans., ed. 1905, p. 296).
ALEXANDER OF HALES (ALEXANDER HALENSIS), surnamed DOCTOR
IRREFRAGABILIS, THEOLOGORUM MONARCHA and FONS VITAE, a
celebrated English theologian of the 13th century, was born in
Gloucestershire. Trained in the monastery of Hales he was
early raised to an archdeaconry. He went, like most of the
scholars of his day, to study at Paris, where he took the
degree of doctor and became celebrated as a teacher. It is
generally held that he taught Bonaventura, Duns Scotus and
Thomas Aquinas, but a comparison of dates makes it clear
that the two latter could not have been his pupils and that
the statement about Bonaventura is open to doubt. In 1222
(or 1231, see Denifle, Chartul. Univers. Paris, Paris,
1889, i. 135) Alexander entered the order of Minorite Friars
and thenceforward lived in strict seclusion. He refused,
however, to renounce his degree of doctor, and was the
first of his order who continued to bear that title after
initiation. He died in 1245 and was buried in the convent
of the Cordeliers at Paris. His most celebrated work was the
Summa Theologiae (Nuremberg, 1452; Venice, 1576; Cologne,
1611), undertaken by the orders of Pope Innocent IV. and
approved by Alexander IV., on the report of seventy learned
theologians, as a system of instruction for all the schools in
Christendom. The form is that of question and answer,
and the method is rigidly scholastic. Of small intrinsic
value, it is interesting partly as the first philosophical
contribution of the Franciscans who were afterwards to take
a prominent part in medieval thought (see SCHOLASTICISM),
and partly as the first work based on a knowledge of the
whole Aristotelian corpus and the Arabian commentators.
See Wadding, Script. ord. minor. (Rome, 1650); for his method
B. Haureau, Hist. de philos. scholast. (Paris, 1880); F.
Picavet, ``Abelard et A. de H.'' in the Bibliothieque de
l'ecole des hautes-etudes (2nd series, Paris, 1896, pp.
222-230); Schwane, Dogmengesch. (Freiburg, 1882); A. Harnack,
Dogmengesch. (1890); J. Endres, ``Des A. von H. Leben und
psvchol. Lehre'' in Philos. Jahrb. (i. Fulda, 1888, pp. 24-55,
203-296): also Vacant's Dict. de theologie catholique, vol. i.
ALEXANDER OP TRALLES (ALEXANDER TRALLIANUS), Greek
physician, born at Tralles in Lydia, lived probably about the
middle of the 6th century and practised medicine with success at
Rome. The Greek text of his Biblia iatrika was printed
at Paris in 1548 and his De Lumbricis at Venice in 1570.
See E. Milward, Trallianus Reviviscens (London, 1734).
ALEXANDER SEVERUS (MARCUS AURELIUS SEVERUS ALEXAXDER)
(208-235), Roman emperor from A.D. 222 to 235, was born
at Arca Caesarea in Palestine on the 1st of October 208. His
father, Gessius Marcianus, held office more than once as an
imperial procurator; his mother, Julia Mamaea, was the daughter
of Julia Maesa and the aunt of Heliogabalus. His original name
was Bassianus, but he changed it in 221 when his grandmother,
Maesa, persuaded the emperor Heliogabalus to adopt his cousin
as successor and create him Caesar. In the next year, on
the 11th of March, Heliogabalus was murdered, and Alexander
was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorians and accepted by the
senate. He was then a mere lad, amiable, well-meaning, but
entirely under the dominion of his mother, a woman of many
virtues, who surrounded him with wise counsellors, watched
over the development of his character and improved the tone
of the administration, but on the other hand was inordinately
jealous, and alienated the army by extreme parsimony, while
neither she nor her son had a strong enough hand to keep tight
the reins of military discipline. Mutinies became frequent
in all parts of the empire; to one of them the life of the
jurist and praetorian praefect Ulpian was sacrificed; another
compelled the retirement of Dio Cassius from his command)
On the whole, however, the reign of Alexander was prosperous
till he was summoned to the East to face the new power of the
Sassanians (see PERSIA: History.) Of the war that followed
we have very various accounts; Mommsen leans to that which
is least favourable to the Romans. According to Alexander's
own despatch to the senate he gained great victories. At all
events, though the Persians were checked for the time, the
conduct of the Roman army showed an extraordinary lack of
discipline. The emperor returned to Rome and celebrated a
triumph (233), but next year he was called to face German
invaders in Gaul, where he was slain (on the 18th or 19th of
March 235), together with his mother, in a mutiny which was
probably led by Maximinus, a Thracian legionary, and at any rate
secured him the throne. Alexander was the last of the Syrian
princes. During his reign, acting, as he did in most things,
under the influence of his mother, he did much to improve
the morals and condition of the people. His advisers were
men like the famous jurist Ulpian, the historian Dio Cassius
and a select board of sixteen senators; a municipal council
of fourteen assisted the city praefect in administering the
affairs of the fourteen districts of Rome. The luxury and
extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court
were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes
were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged;
the lot of the soldiers was improved; and, for the convenience
of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending
money at a moderate rate of interest. In religious matters
Alexander preserved an open mind. In his private chapel he
had busts of Orpheus, Abraham, Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus
Christ. It is said that he was desirous of erecting a temple
to the founder of Christianity, but was dissuaded by the pagan
priests. There is no doubt that, had Alexander's many
excellent qualities been supported by the energy and strength
of will necessary for the government of a military empire,
he would have been one of the greatest of the Roman emperors.
See Lampridius, Alexander Severus; Dio Cassius lxxviii. 30,
lxxix. 17, lxxx. 1; Herodian vi. 1-18; Porrath, Der Kaiser
Alex. Sev. (1876); Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie,
ii. 2526 foll. (Groebe); monograph by R. V. Nind
Hopkins, Cambridge Historical Essays, No. xiv. (1907).
ALEXANDER THE PAPHLAGONIAN, a celebrated impostor and worker
of false oracles, was born at Abonouteichos (see INEBOLI)
in Paphlagonia in the early part of the 2nd century A.D.
The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be
taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain
coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius (J. H.
Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum veterum, ii. pp. 383, 384) and
of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras (Apology, c.
26) to have stood in the forum of Parium. After a period of
instruction in medicine by a doctor who also, according to
Lucian, was an impostor, he succeeded in establishing an
oracle of Aesculapius at his native town. Having circulated
a prophecy that the son of Apollo was to be born again, he
contrived that there should be found in the foundations of
the temple to Aesculapius, then in course of construction at
Abonouteichos, an egg in which a small live snake had been
placed. In an age of superstition no people had so great a
reputation for credulity as the Paphlagonians, and Alexander
had little difficulty in convincing them of the second coming
of the god under the name of Glycon. A large tame snake with
a false human head, wound round Alexander's body as he sat
in a shrine in the temple, gave ``autophones'' or oracles
unasked, but the usual methods practised were those of the
numerous oracle-mongers of the time, of which Lucian gives a
detailed account, the opening of sealed inquiries by heated
needles, a neat plan of forging broken seals, and the giving
of vague or meaningless replies to difficult questions, coupled
with a lucrative blackmailing of those whose inquiries were
compromising. The reputation of the oracle, which was in origin
medical, spread, and with it grew Alexander's skilled plans
of organized deception. He set up an ``intelligence bureau''
in Rome, instituted mysteries like those of Eleusis, from
which his particular enemies the Christians and Epicureans
were alike excluded as ``profane,'' and celebrated a mystic
marriage between himself and the moon. During the plague of
A.D. 166 a verse from the oracle was used as an amulet and
was inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection, and
an oracle was sent, at Marcus Aurelius' request, by Alexander
to the Roman army on the Danube during the war with the
Marcomanni, declaring that victory would follow on the throwing
of two lions alive into the river. The result was a great
disaster, and Alexander had recourse to the old quibble of
the Delphic oracle to Croesus for an explanation. Lucian's
own close investigations into Alexander's methods of fraud
led to a serious attempt on his life. The whole account
gives a graphic description of the inner working of one among
the many new oracles that were springing up at this period.
Alexander had remarkable beauty and the striking personality
of the successful charlatan, and must have been a man of
considerable intellectual abilities and power of organization.
His income is said by Lucian to have reached an enormous
figure. He died of gangrene of the leg in his seventieth year.
See Lucian, 'Alexandros e pseudomantis; Samuel Dill, Roman
Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1904): and F. Gregorovius,
The Emperor Hadrian, trans. by M. E. Robinson (1898).
ALEXANDERS (botanical name, Smyrnium Olusatrum, natural
order Umbelliferae), a stout herbaceous plant with a
furrowed, much-branched stem 1-3 ft. high, and large compound
leaves with broad sheathing stalks, and broad, cut or lobed
segments. The small yellow flowers are borne in compound
umbels. The plant is a native of the Mediterranean region,
and was formerly cultivated as a pot-herb. It is now found
apparently wild in Great Britain and Ireland, growing in
waste places, especially near the sea and amongst ruins.
In England the plant is sometimes popularly termed
``alisander''; in North America Thaspium aureum is sometimes
called ``alexanders.'' ``Alexander's foot,'' botanical
name Anacyclus Pyrethrum, is the pellitory of Spain.
ALEXANDERSBAD, a watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom
of Bavaria, romantically situated in the Fichtelgebirge,
near Wunsiedel, at a height of 1900 ft. above the sea. Pop.
1200. Its waters, which are ferruginous and largely charged
with carbonic acid gas, are of use in nervous and rheumatic
disorders. In the neighbourhood is the Luisenburg (or Luxburg),
so called after a visit paid by Queen Louise of Prussia in
1805, a hill covered by majestic granite rocks, commanding
a grand view of the whole range of the Fichtelgebirge.
ALEXANDRE, NOEL (NATALIS ALEXANDER) (1639-1724), French
theologian and ecclesiastical historian, was born at Rouen
on the 19th of January 1639. In his 15th year he joined the
Dominicans, and shortly after his ordination was appointed
professor of philosophy at the convent of Saint-Jacques in
Paris. The success of his subsequent lectures at the Sorbonne
led to his selection by Colbert as tutor to his son, Jacques
Nicolas Colbert, afterwards archbishop of Rouen. Alexandre
obtained the degree of doctor in divinity from the Sorbonne
in 1675 and for twelve years taught philosophy, theology
and ecclesiastical law to the members of the Saint-Jacques
community. He played a prominent part in ecclesiastical
affairs and preached several times before Louis XIV., who
granted him an annual pension of 800 livres, and in the
general assemblies of the French bishops. He became provincial
of his order in 1706, but was banished to Chatellerault
in 1709 for having subscribed to the Cas de conscience
(1703), and was deprived of his pension in 1713 on account
of his opposition to the bull Unigenitus. He died in Paris
on the 21st of August 1724, having lost his sight some time
before owing to his strenuous literary activity. His numerous
works are still much valued by ecclesiastical students.
His best-known work, the Selecta historiae ecclesiasticae
capita, et in loca ejusdem insignia dissertationes
historicae, chronologicae, dogmaticae (26 vols., Paris,
1676-1686), was placed on the Index by Innocent XI., on
account of his bold defence of the Gallican claims. In 1689
he brought out at Paris his history of the Old Testament:
Selecta historiae Veteris Testamenti capita, &c., in 6
vols. Of the numerous editions of Alexandre's ecclesiastical
history the best is that of P. J. D. Mansi, which contains
many valuable notes and additions (11 vols., Lucca, 1749)
and has been frequently reprinted. Alexandre's principal
contribution to theological literature is his Theologia
dogmatica et moralis secundum ordinem catechismi concilii
Tridentini (10 vols., Paris, 1694), in which he clearly shows
himself a disciple of the Thomist school. His Couformite
des ceremonies chinoises avec l'idolatrie grecque et
romaine and Sept lettres sur les ceremonies de la Chine
(both published at Cologne in 1700) are interesting as they
mark him out as a pioneer in the study of comparative religion.
See Catalogue complet des oeuvres du Pere Alexandre (Paris,
1716); Quetif-Echard, Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum (Paris,
1719-1721), t. ii. p. 810; and full bibliography in A. Vacant, Dict.
de theologie (scholarly article by P. Mandounet, cols. 769-772).
ALEXANDRETTA, or ISKANDERUN (med. Scanderoon), a town
of N. Syria, situated in the N.E. angle of the Levantine
Mediterranean on the S.E. of the gulf to which it gives a
title. Pop. about 10,000, two-thirds Moslem. Iskanderun
preserves the name, but probably not the exact site, of Alexandria
ad Issum, founded by Alexander in 333 B.C., about 23
m. S. of the scene of his victory, to supersede Myriandrus as
key of the Syrian Gates (Beilan Pass). The importance of the
place ever since has been derived from its relation to this
pass, the easiest approach to the open ground of N. Syria of
which Antioch and Aleppo have been the successive capitals;
and this relation has prevailed over the extreme unhealthiness
of the site, which lies on marshy deltaic ground, screened by
the horseshoe of Elma Dagh from all purifying influences of
N. and E. winds. As the main outlet for the overland trade
from Bagdad and India, whose importance was great until the
establishment of the Egyptian overland route, the place was a
great resort, first of Genoese and Venetian merchants, then of
those of West and North European nations. The British Levant
(Turkey) Company maintained an agency and factory here for 200
years, till 1825, in spite of appalling mortality among its
employes. Alexandretta is still the main port for the Aleppo
district, to which a good chaussee leads over the Beilan
Pass, and it has a considerable export trade in tobacco, silk,
cereals, liquorice, textiles. The health of the place has
improved with the draining of the marshes and the provision
of a better supply of water, but still leaves much to be
desired. The wealthier inhabitants have summer residences
at Beilan near the summit of the pass, long a stronghold of
freebooting Dere Beys and the scene of the victory won by
Ibrahim Pasha in 1832, which opened Cilicia to his advance.
There are resident consuls of all the principal powers, and
the port is well served by coasting steamers under European
and Ottoman flags. The distance by road to Aleppo has been
shortened to about 70 m., and Antakia (Antioch) is about 45
m. distant by a branch of the same chaussee. (D. G. H.)
ALEXANDRIA (Arab. Iskenderia), a city and chief seaport
of Egypt, and for over a thousand years from its foundation
the capital of the country, situated on the Mediterranean in
31 deg. 12' N., 29 deg. 15' E., and 129 m. by rail N.W. of Cairo.
The ancient Canopic mouth of the Nile (now dry) was 12 m. E.
I. The Modern City.--The city is built on the strip of land
which separates the Mediterranean from Lake Mareotis ( Mariut),
and on a T-shaped peninsula which forms harbours east and
west. The stem of the T was originally a mole leading to an
island (Pharos) which formed the cross-piece. In the course
of centuries this mole has been silted up and is now an isthmus
half a mile wide. On it a part of the modern city is built.
The cape at the western end of the peninsula is Ras et-Tin (Cape
of Figs); the eastern cape is known as Pharos or Kait Bey. South
of the town--between it and Lake Mareotis--runs the Mahmudiya
canal, which enters the western harbour by a series of locks.
The customs house and chief warehouses are by the western
harbour, but the principal buildings of the city are in the
east and south-east quarters. From the landing-stage, by the
customs house, roads lead to the Place Mehemet Ali, the centre
of the life of the city and the starting-point of the electric
tramways. The place, usually called the Grand Square,
is an oblong open space, tree-lined, in the centre of which
there is an equestrian statue of the prince after whom it is
named. The square is faced with handsome buildings mainly
in the Italian style. The most important are the law courts,
exchange, Ottoman bank, English church and the Abbas Hilmi
theatre. A number of short streets lead from the square
to the eastern harbour. Here a sea wall, completed in
1905, provides a magnificent drive and promenade along
the shore for a distance of about 3 m. In building this
quay a considerable area of foreshore was reclaimed and an
evil-smelling beach done away with. From the south end of
the square the rue Sherif Pasha--in which are the principal
shops--and the rue Tewfik Pasha lead to the boulevard, or
rue, de Rosette, a long straight road with a general E. and W.
direction. In it are the Zizinia theatre and the municipal
palace (containing the public library); the museum lies up a
short street to the N. Opened in 1895 this museum possesses an
important collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities,
found not only in the city but in all Lower Egypt and the
Fayum. The western end of the boulevard leads to the Place
Ibrahim, often called Place Ste Catherine, from the Roman
Catholic church at its S.E. side. In a street running S. from
the boulevard to the railway station is the mosque of Nebi
Daniel, containing the tombs of Said Pasha and other members
of the khedivial family. Immediately E. of the mosque is Kom
ed-Dik, garrisoned by British troops, one of several forts built
for the protection of the city. Except Kom ed-Dik the forts
have not been repaired since the bombardment of 1882. Equally
obsolete is the old line of fortifications which formerly marked
the limits of the city south and east and has now been partly
demolished. Throughout the central part of Alexandria the
streets are paved with blocks of lava and lighted by electricity.
The north quarter is mainly occupied by natives and Levantines.
The narrow winding streets and the Arab bazaars present an
Oriental scene contrasting with the European aspect of the
district already described. This Arab quarter is traversed
by the rue Ras et-Tin, leading to the promontory of than
name. Here, overlooking the harbour, is the khedivial yacht
club (built 1903) and the palace, also called Ras et-Tin,
built by Mehemet Ali, a large but not otherwise noteworthy
building. In the district between the Grand Square and the
western harbour, one of the poorest quarters of the city,
is an open space with Fort Caffareli or Napoleon in the
centre. This quarter has been pierced by several straight
roads, one of which, crossing the Mahmudiya canal by the Pont
Neuf, leads to Gabbari, the most westerly part of the city
and an industrial and manufacturing region, possessing asphalt
works and oil, rice and paper mills. On either side of the
canal are the warehouses of wholesale dealers in cotton, wool,
sugar, grain and other commodities. In the southern part of
the city are the Arab cemetery, ``Pompey's Pillar'' and the
catacombs. ``Pompey's Pillar,'' which stands on the highest
spot in Alexandria, is nearly 99 ft. high, including the
pedestal. The shaft is of red granite and is beautifully
polished. Nine feet in diameter at the base, it tapers to eight
feet at the top. The catacombs, a short distance S.W. of the
pillar, are hewn out of the rocky slope of a hill, and are an
elaborate series of chambers adorned with pillars, statues,
religious symbols and traces of painting (see below, Ancient
City.) Along the northern side of the Mahmudiya canal,
which here passes a little S. of the catacombs, are many fine
houses and gardens (Moharrem Bey quarter), stretching eastward
for a considerable distance, favourite residences of wealthy
citizens. A similar residential quarter has also grown up
on the N.E., where the line of the old fortifications has
become a boulevard. The district extending outside the E.
fortifications, in the direction of Hadra, has been laid out
with fine avenues, and contains numerous garden-cafes and
pleasure resorts. Thence roads lead to the E. suburb known
generally as Ramleh, which stretches along the coast, and is
served by a local railway. It begins E. of the racecourse
with Sidi Gabr, and does not end till the khedivial estates
E. of San Stefano are reached, some 5 m. E. All this space
is filled with villas, gardens and hotels, and is a favourite
summer resort not only of Alexandrians but also of Cairenes.
The eastern bay is rocky, shallow and exposed, and is now used
only by native craft. The harbour is on the W. of Pharos and
partly formed by a breakwater (built 1871-1873 and prolonged
1906-1907), 2 m. long. The breakwater starts opposite the
promontory of Ras et-Tin, on which is a lighthouse, 180 ft.
above the sea, built by Mehemet Ali. Another breakwater starts
from the Gabbari side, the opening between the two works
being about half a mile. A number of scattered rocks lie
across the entrance, but through them two fairways have been
made, one 600 ft. wide and 35 ft. deep, the other 300 ft.
wide and 30 ft. deep. The enclosed water is divided into an
outer and inner harbour by a mole, 1000 yds. long, projecting
N.W. from the southern shore. The inner harbour covers 464
acres. It is lined for 2 1/2 m. by quays, affording accommodation
for ships drawing up to 28 ft. The outer harbour (1400 acres
water area) is furnished with a graving dock, completed in
1905, 520 ft. long, and with quays and jetties along the
Gabbari foreshore. Their construction was begun in 1906.
Alexandria is linked by a network of railway and telegraph
lines to the other towns of Egypt, and there is a trunk
telephone line to Cairo. The city secured in 1906 a new
and adequate water-supply, modern drainage works having been
completed the previous year. Being the great entrepot
for the trade of Egypt, the city is the headquarters of the
British chamber of commerce and of most of the merchants and
companies engaged in the development of the Delta. About 90%
of the total exports and imports of the country pass through
the port, though the completion, in 1904, of a broad-gauge
railway connecting Cairo and Port Said deflected some of the
cotton exports to the Suez Canal route. The staple export
is raw cotton, the value of which is about 80% of all the
exports. The principal imports are manufactured cotton goods
and other textiles, machinery, timber and coal. The value
of the trade of the port increased from L. 30,000,000 in 1900
to L. 46,000,000 in 1906. In the same period the tonnage
of the ships entering the harbour rose from 2,375,000 to
3,695,000. Of the total trade Great Britain supplies from
35 to 40% of the imports and takes over 50% of the exports.
Among the exports sent to England are the great majority of the
80,000,000 eggs annually shipped (see also EGYPT: Commerce.)
The population of the city (1907) was 332,246 or including
the suburbs, about 400,000. The foreigners numbered over
90,000. The majority of these were Greeks, Italians, Syrians,
Armenians and other Levantines, though almost every European
and Oriental nation is represented. The predominant languages
spoken, besides the Arabic of the natives, are Greek, French,
English and Italian. The labouring population is mainly
Egyptian; the Greeks and Levantines are usually shopkeepers
or petty traders. In its social life Alexandria is the
most progressive and occidental of all the cities of North
Africa, with the possible exception of Algiers. (F. R. C.)
II. The Ancient City.--The Greek Alexandria was divided
into three regions: (1) the Jews' quarter, forming the
north-east portion of the city; (2) Rhacotis, on the west,
occupied chiefly by Egyptians; (3) Brucheum, the Royal or
Greek quarter, forming the most magnificent portion of the
city. In Roman times Brucheum was enlarged by the addition of
an official quarter, making up the number of four regiones
in all. The city was laid out as a gridiron of parallel
streets, each of which had an attendant subterranean canal.
Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been
each about 200 ft. wide, intersected in the centre of the
city, close to the point where rose the Sema (or Soma)
of Alexander (i.e. his Mausoleum). This point is very
near the present mosque of Nebi Daniel; and the line of the
great east-west ``Canopic'' street only slightly diverged
from that of the modern Boulevard de Rosette. Traces of its
pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate; but
better remains still of streets and canals were exposed in
1899 by the German excavators outside the E. fortifications,
which lie well within the area of the ancient city.
Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the
island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a mole
nearly a mile long and called the Heptastadium. The end
of this abutted on the land at the head of the present Grand
Square, where rose the ``Moon Gate.'' All that now lies
between that point and the modern Ras et-Tin quarter is built
on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this
mole. The Ras et-Tin quarter represents all that is left
of the island of Pharos, the site of the actual lighthouse
having been weathered away by the sea. On the east of
the mole was the Great Harbour, now an open bay; on the
west lay the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin
Kibotos, now vastly enlarged to form the modern harbour.
In Strabo's time, (latter half of 1st century B.C.) the
principal buildings were as follows, enumerated as they were to
be seen from a ship entering the Great Harbour. (1) The Royal
Palaces, filling the N.E. angle of the town and occupying the
promontory of Lochias, which shut in the Great Harbouron the
east. Lochias, the modern Pharillon, has almost entirely
disappeared into the sea, together with the palaces, the
``Private Port'' and the island of Antirrhodus. There has been
a land subsidence here, as throughout the N. Delta and indeed
all the N.E. coast of Africa; and on calm days the foundations
of buildings may be seen, running out far under sea, near the
Pharillon. Search was made for relics of these palaces by
German explorers in 1898-1899, but without much success. (2)
The Great Theatre, on the modern Hospital Hill near the Ramleh
station. This was used by Caesar as a fortress, where he
stood a siege from the city mob after the battle of Pharsalus.
(3)The Poseideion or Temple of the Sea God, close to the
theatre and in front of it. (4) The Timonium built by Antony.
(5, 6, 7) The Emporium (Exchange), Apostases (Magazines)
and Navalia (Docks), lying west of (4), along the sea-front
as far as the mole. Behind the Emporium rose (8) the Great
Caesareum, by which stood the two great obelisks, later known
as ``Cleopatra's Needles,'' and now removed to New York and
London. This temple became in time the Patriarchal Church,
some remains of which have been discovered: but the actual
Caesareum, so far as not eroded by the waves, lies under
the houses lining the new sea-wall. (9) The Gymnasium
and (10) the Palaestra are both inland, near the great
Canopic street (Boulevard de Rosette) in the eastern half
of the town, but on sites not determined. (11) The Temple
of Saturn: site unknown. (12) The Mausolea of Alexander
(Soma) and the Ptolemies in one ring-fence, near the point
of intersection of the two main streets. (13) The Museum
with its library and theatre in the same region; but on a
site not identified. (14) The Serapeum, the most famous of
all Alexandrian temples Strabo tells us that this stood in
the west of the city; and recent discoveries go far to place
it near ``Pompey's Pillar'' (see above) which, however, was
an independent monument erected to commemorate Diocletian's
siege of the city. We know the names of a few other public
buildings on the mainland, but nothing as to their position.
On the eastern point of the Pharos island stood the Great
Lighthouse, one of the ``Seven Wonders,'' reputed to be 400 ft.
high. The first Ptolemy began it, and the second completed
it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It is the prototype of
all lighthouses (q.v.) in the world. A temple of Hephaestus
also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole. In the Augustan
age the population of Alexandria was estimated at 300,000
free folk, in addition to an immense number of slaves.
III. History.--
Ancient and medieval period.
Founded in 332 B.C. by Alexander the Great, Alexandria was
intended to supersede Naucratis (q.v.) as a Greek centre in
Egypt, and to be the link between Macedonia and the rich Nile
Valley. If such a city was to be on the Egyptian coast, there
was only one possible site, behind the screen of the Pharos
island and removed from the silt thrown out by Nile mouths.
An Egyptian townlet, Rhacotis, already stood on the shore and
was a resort of fishermen and pirates. Behind it (according
to the Alexandrian treatise, known as pseudo-Callisthenes)
were five native villages scattered along the strip between
Lake Mareotis and the sea. Alexander occupied Pharos, and
had a walled city marked out by Deinocrates on the mainland
to include Rhacotis. A few months later he left Egypt for
the East and never returned to his city; but his corpse was
ultimately entombed there. His viceroy, Cleomenes, continued
the creation of Alexandria. The Heptastadium, however, and
the mainland quarters seem to have been mainly Ptolemaic
work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the
centre of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian
and Indian East, the city grew in less than a century to be
larger than Carthage; and for some centuries more it had to
acknowledge no superior but Rome. It was a centre not only of
Hellenism but of Semitism, and the greatest Jewish city in the
world. There the Septuagint was produced. The early Ptolemies
kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum
into the leading Greek university; but they were careful
to maintain the distinction of its population into three
nations, ``Macedonian'' (i.e. Greek), Jew and Egyptian.
From this division arose much of the later turbulence which
began to manifest itself under Ptolemy Philopater. Nominally
a free Greek city, Alexandria retained its senate to Roman
times; and indeed the judicial functions of that body were
restored by Septimius Severus, after temporary abolition by
Augustus. The city passed formally under Roman jurisdiction
in 80 B.C., according to the will of Ptolemy Alexander: but
it had been under Roman influence for more than a hundred years
previously. There Julius Caesar dallied with Cleopatra in
47 B.C. and was mobbed by the rabble; there his example
was followed by Antony, for whose favour the city paid dear
to Octavian, who placed over it a prefect from the imperial
household. Alexandria seems from this time to have regained its
old prosperity, commanding, as it did, an important granary of
Rome. This latter fact, doubtless, was one of the chief
reasons which induced Augustus to place it directly under
the imperial power. In A.D. 215 the emperor Caracalla
visited the city; and, in order to repay some insulting
satires that the inhabitants had made upon him, he commanded
his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing
arms. This brutal order seems to have been carried out
even beyond the letter, for a general massacre was the
result. Notwithstanding this terrible disaster, Alexandria
soon recovered its former splendour, and for some time longer
was esteemed the first city of the world after Rome. Even as
its main historical importance had formerly sprung from pagan
learning, so now it acquired fresh importance as a centre of
Christian theology and church government. There Arianism was
formulated and there Athanasius, the great opponent of both
heresy and pagan rcaction, worked and triumphed. As native
influences, however, began to reassert themselves in the Nile
valley, Alexandria gradually became an alien city, more and
more detached from Egypt; and, losing much of its commerce
as the peace of the empire broke up during the 3rd century
A.D., it declined fast in population and splendour. The
Brucheum, and Jewish quarters were desolate in the 5th century,
and the central monuments, the Soma and Museum, fallen to
ruin. On the mainland life seems to have centred in the
vicinity of the Serapeum and Caesareum, both become Christian
churches: but the Pharos and Heptastadium quarters remained
populous and intact. In 616 it was taken by Chosroes, king
of Persia; and in 640 by the Arabians, under `Amr, after a
siege that lasted fourteen months, during which Heraclius, the
emperor of Constantinople, did not send a single ship to its
assistance. Notwithstanding the losses that the city had
sustained, `Amr was able to write to his master, the caliph
Omar, that he had taken a city containing ``4000 palaces, 4000
baths, 12,000 dealers in fresh oil, 12,000 gardeners, 40,000
Jews who pay tribute, 400 theatres or places of amusement."
The story of the destruction of the library by the Arabs is
first told by Bar-hebraeus (Abulfaragius), a Christian writer
who lived six centuries later; and it is of very doubtful
authority. It is highly improbable that many of the 700,000
volumes collected by the Ptolemies remained at the time of the
Arab conquest, when the various calamities of Alexandria from the
time of Caesar to that of Diocletian are considered, together with
the disgraceful pillage of the library in A.D. 389 under the
rule of the Christian bishop, Theophilus, acting on Theodosius'
decree concerning pagan monumcnts (see LIBRARIES: Ancient
History). The story of Abulfaragius runs as follows:--
John the Grammarian, a famous Peripatetic philosopher,
being in Alexandria at the time of its capture, and in high
favour with `Amr, begged that he would give him the royal
library. `Amr told him that it was not in his power to grant
such a request, but promised to write to the caliph for his
consent. Omar, on hearing the request of his general, is
said to have replied that if those books contained the same
doctrine with the Koran, they could be of no use, since the
Koran contained all necessary truths; but if they contained
anything contrary to that book, they ought to be destroyed; and
therefore, whatever their contents were, he ordered them to be
burnt. Pursuant to this order, they were distributed among
the public baths, of which there was a large number in the
city, where, for six months, they served to supply the fires.
Shortly after its capture Alexandria again fell into the hands
of the Greeks, who took advantage of `Amr's absence with the
greater portion of his army. On hearing what had happened,
however, `Amr returned, and quickly regained possession of the
city. About the year 646 `Amr was deprived of his government
by the caliph Othman. The Egyptians, by whom `Amr was greatly
beloved, were so much dissatisfied by this act, and even
showed such a tendency to revolt, that the Greek emperor
determined to make an effort to reduce Alexandria. The attempt
proved perfectly successful. The caliph, perceiving his
mistake, immediately restored `Amr, who, on his arrival in
Egypt, drove the Greeks within the walls of Alexandria, but
was only able to capture the city after a most obstinate
resistance by the defenders. This so exasperated him that
he completely demolished its fortifications, although he
seems to have spared the lives of the inhabitants as far
as lay in his power. Alexandria now rapidly declined in
importance. The building of Cairo in 969, and, above all,
the discovery of the route to the East by the Cape of Good
Hope in 1498, nearly ruined its commerce; the canal, which
supplied it with Nile water, became blocked; and although it
remained a principal Egyptian port, at which most European
visitors in the Mameluke and Ottoman periods landed, we hear
little of it until about the beginning of the 19th century.
[Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations
of Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798. The French troops
stormed the city on the 2nd of July 1798, and it remained in
their hands until the arrival of the British expedition of 1801.
The battle of Alexandria, fought on the 21st of March of that
year, between the French army under General Menou and the
British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercromby,
took place near the ruins of Nicopohs, on the narrow spit
of land between the sea and Lake Aboukir, along which the
British troops had advanced towards Alexandria after the
actions of Aboukir on the 8th and Mandora on the 13th.
Battle of 1801.
The British position on the night of the 20th extended across
the isthmus, the right resting upon the ruins of Nicopolis and
the sea, the left on the lake of Aboukir and the Alexandria
canal. The line faced generally south-west towards the
city, the reserve division under Major-General (Sir) John
Moore on the right, the Guards brigade in the centre, and
three other brigades on the left. In second line were two
brigades and the cavalry (dismounted). On the 21st the
troops were under arms at 3 A.M., and at 3.30 the French
attacked and drove in the outposts. The French army now
moved forward with great rapidity in their usual formation of
columns. The brunt of the attack fell upon the command of
Moore, and in particular upon the 28th (Gloucestershire
Regiment). The first shock was repulsed, but a French column
penetrated in the dark between two regiments of the British
and a confused fight ensued in the ruins, in which the 42nd
(Black Watch) captured a colour. The front and rear ranks
of the 28th were simultaneously engaged, and the conduct of
the regiment won for it the distinction of wearing badges
both at the front and at the back of their head-dress.
Other regiments which assisted in the overthrow of the French
column were the 23rd, 40th and 58th. In a second attack the
enemy's cavalry inflicted severe losses on the 42nd. Sir
Ralph Abercromby was here engaged in personal conflict with
some French dragoons, and about this time received a mortal
wound, though he remained on the field and in command to the
end. The attack on the centre was repulsed by the cool and
steady fire of the Guards, and the left wing maintained its
position with ease, but the French cavalry for the second time
came to close quarters with the reserve. About half-past eight
the combat began to wane, and the last shots were fired at
ten. The real attack had been pressed home on the British
right, and the History of the Queen's Royal West Surrey
Regiment gives no undue praise to the regiments of the
reserve in saying that ``the determined attack would have been
successful against almost any other troops.'' Technically,
the details of the action show that, while not markedly better
in a melee than the war-seasoned French, the British
infantry had in its volleys a power which no other troops
then existing possessed, and it was these volleys that decided
the day even more than the individual stubbornness of the
men. The 42nd, twice charged by cavalry, had but thirteen
men wounded by the sabre. Part of the French losses, which
were disproportionately heavy, were caused by the gunboats
which lay close inshore and cannonaded the left flank of the
French columns, and by a heavy naval gun which was placed in
battery near the position of the 28th. The forces engaged
on this day mere approximately 14,000 British to about 20,000
French, and the losses were:-- British, 1468 killed, wounded
and missing, including Abercromby (who died on the 28th),
Moore and three other generals wounded; French, 1160 killed
and (?) 3000 wounded. The British subsequently advanced upon
Alexandria, which surrendered on the 31st of August. (C. F. A.)
Modern city.
During the anarchy which accompanied Ottoman rule in Egypt
from first to last, Alexandria sank to a small town of about
4000 inhabitants; and it owed its modern renascence solely to
Mehemet Ali, who wanted a deep port and naval station for his
viceregal domain. He restored its water communication with
the Nile by making the Mahmudiya canal, finished in 1820; and
he established at Ras et-Tin his favourite residence. The
Old Eunostus harbour became the port, and a flourishing city
arose on the old Pharos island and the Heptastadium district,
with outlying suburbs and villa residences along the coast
eastwards and the Mareotic shore. Being the starting-point
of the ``overland route'' to India, and the residence of the
chief foreign consuls, it quickly acquired a European character
and attracted not only Frank residents, but great numbers of
Greeks, Jews and Syrians. There most of the negotiations
between the powers and Mehemet All were conducted; thence
started the Egyptian naval expeditions to Crete, the Morea
and Syria; and thither sailed the betrayed Ottoman fleet in
1839. It was twice threatened by hostile fleets, the Greek in
1827 and the combined British, French and Russian squadrons in
1828. The latter withdrew on the viceroy's promise that
Ibrahim should evacuate the Morea. The fortifications
were strengthened in 1841, and remained in an antiquated
condition until 1882, when they were renovated by Arabi
Pasha. Alexandria was connected with Cairo by railway in
1856. Much favoured by the earlier viceroys of Mehemet Ali's
house, and removed from the Mameluke troubles, Alexandria was
the real capital of Egypt till Said Pasha died there in 1863
and Ismail came into power. Though this prince continued to
develop the city, giving it a municipality in 18661 and new
harbour works in 1871-1878, he developed Cairo still more; and
the centre of gravity definitely shifted to the inland capital.
Bombardment of 1882.
Fate, however, again brought Alexandria to the front. After
a mutiny of soldiers there in 1881, the town was greatly
excited by the arrival of an Anglo-French fleet in May 1882,
and on the 11th of June a terrible riot and massacre took
place, resulting in the death of four hundred Europeans.
Since satisfaction was not given for this and the forts were
being strengthened at the instigation of Arabi Pasha, the
war minister, the British admiral, Sir Beauchamp Seymour
(afterwards Lord Alcester), sent an ultimatum on the 10th of
July and opened fire on the forts the next day. They were
demolished, but as no troops were landed immediately a fresh
riot and massacre ensued. As Arabi did not submit, a British
military expedition landed at Alexandria on the 10th of
August, the sequel being the British occupation of the whole
country, the history of which is set forth under EGYPT.
Since the restoration of tranquillity and the establishment
of sound political and economic conditions in the Nile valley,
Alexandria has greatly expanded. As the British consular
report for 1904 says, ``Building . . . for residential and
other purposes proceeds with almost feverish rapidity. The
cost of living has doubled and the price of land has risen
enormously.'' On the E. and S.E. a new town of handsome
houses, gardens and boulevards has been called into existence,
in the arrangement of which the controlling influence of
the municipality is evident (see Modern Gity above).
IV. Antiquities.--Persistent efforts have been made to explore
the antiquities of Alexandria. Encouragement and help have
been given by the local Archaeological Society, and by many
individuals, notably Greeks justly proud of a city which is
one of the glories of their national story. The past and
present directors of the museum have been enabled from time
to time to carry out systematic excavations when opportunity
offered; Mr D. G. Hogarth made tentative researches on behalf
of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the Society for the Promotion
of Hellenic Studies in 1895; and a German expedition worked
for two years (1898-1899). But two difficulties face the
would-be excavator in Alexandria. First, since the great
and growing modern city stands right over the ancient one,
it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in
which to dig, except at enormous cost. Second, the general
subsidence of the coast has sunk the lower-lying parts of
the ancient town under water. Unfortunately the spaces
still most open are the low grounds to N.E. and S.W., where
it is practically impossible to get below the Roman strata.
The most important results were those achieved by Dr G.
Botti, late director Of the museum, in the neighbourhood
of ``Pompey's Pillar,'' where there is a good deal of open
ground. Here substructures of a large building or group of
buildings have been exposed, which are perhaps part of the
Serapeum. Hard by immense catacombs and columbaria
have been opened which may have been appendages of the
temple. These contain one very remarkable vault with curious
painted reliefs, now lighted by electricity and shown to
visitors. The objects found in these researches are in the
museum, the most notable being a great basalt bull, probably
once an object of cult in the Serapeum. Other catacombs and
tombs have been opened in Kore es-Shugafa Hadra (Roman) and
Ras et-Tin (painted). The Germans found remains of a Ptolemaic
colonnade and streets in the north-east of the city, but little
else. Mr Hogarth explored part of an immense brick structure
under the mound of Kom ed-Dik, which may have been part of
the Paneum, the Mausolea or a Roman fortress. The making of
the new foreshore led to the dredging up of remains of the
Patriarchal Church; and the foundations of modern buildings
are seldom laid without some objects of antiquity being
discovered. The wealth underground is doubtless immense;
but, despite all efforts, there is not much for antiquarians
to see in Alexandria outside the museum and the neighbourhood
of ``Pompey's Pillar.'' The native tomb- robbers, well-sinkers,
dredgers and the like, however, come upon valuable objects from
time to time, which find their way into private collections.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--(1) Modern City. See latest editions of
guidebooks to Lower Egypt (Baedeker, Murray, Macmillan). (2)
History. See authorities for history of EGYPT. (3) Ancient
City and Antiquities. Mahmud Bey el Fallaki, Memoire
sur l'antique Alexandrie (1872); T. D. Neroutsos, L'A
ncienne A lexandrie ( I 888) D.G. Hogarth and E. F.
Benson, Report on Prospects of Research in Alexandria Egypt
Expl. Fund Archaeological Report, 1894-1895); Bulletin
de la Societe Archeologique d'Alexandrie(1898 foll.);
O. Puchstein in Pauly- Wissowa, Realencyclopadie, s.v.
``Alexandria''; U. Wilcken, Observationes ad historiam
Egypti Provinciae Romanae (1885); G. Lumbroso, L'Egitto
al tempo dei Greci e dei Romani (1882); H. Kiepert, Zur
Topographie des alten Alexandria (1872). (D. G. H.)
1 This municipality was superseded by a new municipal
body, with extensive powers, created in 1890.
ALEXANDRIA, a city of Madison county, Indiana, U.S.A., about 46
m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890) 715; (1900) 7221,
(1002 foreign-born); (1910) 5096. Alexandria is served by the
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Lake Erie
& Western railways, and by the Indiana Union Traction System
(electric). In the city are a Carnegie library and Beulah
Park (24 acres), the latter belonging to the Northern Indiana
Holiness Association, which there holds summer camp-meetings.
The city is in a rich farming country, which produces Indian
corn, oats and wheat; and is in the Indiana natural gas region,
to which fact it owes its rapid growth as a manufacturing
centre. It is one of the principal seats of the glass
industry in Indiana-- plate glass, lamp chimneys, mirrors,
&c., being manufactured here--and also has mineral wool
factories and paper mills. The municipality owns and operates
the water-works and the gas-lighting plant. Alexandria
was founded in 1836 and was chartered as a city in 1893.
ALEXANDRIA, a city of Louisiana, U.S.A., capital of Rapides
Parish, on the S. bank of the Red river in almost the exact
geographical centre of the state. Pop. (1890) 2861; (1900)
5648 (3142 negroes); (1910) 11,213. The city is served
by the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company, the St
Louis, Watkins & Gulf, the Texas & Pacific, the Louisiana &
Arkansas, the Southern Pacific, the Chicago, Rock Island &
Pacific, and the Missouri Pacific railways. The Red river is
navigable to Alexandria during the entire year. Alexandria
is on a level plain in the centre of the Louisiana long-leaf
pine forests, in which pine is interspersed with various
hardwoods. The forests stretch on all sides within a radius of 75
m. In the immediate vicinity of the city, on the Red river,
cotton, sugar, alfalfa and garden vegetables are cultivated;
south of the Red river is a peculiarly rich farming country
watered by Bayou Rapides and Bayou Boeuf. Near the city is
the Louisiana Asylum for the Insane. The principal industaes
are cotton- pressing and the manufacture of lumber and of
cotton-seed products; sugar and molasses, artificial ice,
mineral waters and brick are other manufactures. The city
owns and operates the water-works and electric-lighting plant;
the water-supply is derived from artesian wells. Alexandria
was named in honour of Alexander Fulton, on whose grant from
Spain the first settlement was made in 1785; it was first
incorporated as a town in 1818 and received a city charter in
1882. In the spring of 1863 a Union fleet under Admiral David
D. Porter, operating on the Red river, co-operated with land
forces under General N. P. Banks in pushing the Confederates
westward. Alexandria was occupied on the 7th of May 1863,
but the troops were soon withdrawn for the Port Hudson
attack. On the 19th of March 1864 it was again occupied by
the Union forces, who made it the point of concentration for
another land and naval expedition against E. Kirby Smith and
Shreveport. After the check of this expedition and its
abandonment, Alexandria was again vacated on the 12th-13th of
May, when the city was almost entirely burned. The Union
gunboats, which had passed up the river toward Shreveport
at high water, were caught in its decline above the falls at
Alexandria, but they were saved by a splendid piece of engineering
(a dam at the falls), constructed by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph
Bailey (1827-1867), who for this service received the thanks
of Congress and the brevet of brigadier-general of volunteers.
ALEXANDRIA, a town of Rumania, situated among the rich
corn-lands of the Teleorman department, on the right bank of
the river Vedea. Pop. (1900) 13,675. Its chief trade is in
grain, despatched by rail to the Danubian port of Zimnicea, or
by river to Giurgevo. Alexandria was named after its founder,
Alexander John Cuza, prince of Rumania from 1859 to 1866.
ALEXANDRIA, a manufacturing town of Dumbartonshire,
Scotland, situated on the right bank of the Leven about 3
m. north of Dumbarton, on the North British and Caledonian
railways. It owes its origin almost entirely to the cotton
printing and bleaching works of the vicinity, for which there
is an abundant supply of excellent water, and contains one
of the largest of the Turkey-red dyeing establishments in the
Vale of Leven. The public buildings include a public hall,
the mechanics' institute with library and lecture-hall, an
institute for men, with library and recreation rooms, a similar
institution for women, banks and other important commercial
offices. Pop. (1891) 7796; (1901) 8007. Alexandria is
connected with BONHILL, on the opposite bank of the river,
by a bridge which replaced in 1898 one bought three years
earlier by the county council from the Smollett family, who
have been closely associated with the district since the
time of Sir James Smollett, the novelist's grandfather.
The industries of Bonhill centre in the calico printing,
dyeing and bleaching which find their headquarters in the
valley. Population (1891) 3843; (1901) 3333. JAMESTOWN,
about 1 m. to the north-east of Alexandria, with a station
on the Forth & Clyde railway from Balloch to Stirling (North
British), contains some of the largest cotton-printing
works in Scotland. Population (1891) 1668; (1901) 2080.
ALEXANDRIA, a city and a port of entry of Alexandria county,
Virginia, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Potomac river, 6
m. below Washington, D.C., with which it is connected by a
ferry. Pop. (1890) 14,339; (1900) 14,528, of whom 4533 were
negroes; (1910, census), 15,329. Alexandria is served by the
Baltimore & Ohio, the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Southern and the
Washington Southern railways; by the Washington, Alexandria &
Mount Vernon electric railway; and by several lines of river
and coasting steamboats. It is a quaint, old-fashioned city,
with quiet, shady streets, and a number of buildings dating
back to the 18th century; of these the most interesting is the
old Christ Church in which George Washington and Robert E. Lee
worshipped. The city has a public library. About 2 1/2
m. W. of Alexandria is the Protestant Episcopal Theological
Seminary in Virginia, opened here in 1823 and chartered in
1854; in 1906-1907 the Seminary had a faculty of 7 and 46
students. Alexandria is a distributing and jobbing centre for
the north-east counties of Virginia. Among its manufactures
are fertilizers, bottles, carbonated beverages, flour, beer,
shoes, silk thread, aprons, brooms, leather, bricks, and
tiling and structural iron. The total value of its factory
product in 1905 was $2,186,658. The municipality owns and
operates its gas-lighting plant. Alexandria, first known as
Belhaven, was named in honour of John Alexander, who in the
last quarter of the 17th century had bought the land on which
the city now stands from Robert Howison; the first settlement
here was made in 1695. Alexandria was laid out in 1749 and
was incorporated in 1779. From 1790 until 1846 Alexandria
county was a part of the District of Columbia; at present the
city, although within the limits of Alexandria county, is not
administratively a part of it. The city was re-chartered in
1852. For some time Alexandria seemed destined to become
an important commercial centre, but the rise of Washington
created a rival that soon outstripped it, and since the
Civil War the city's growth has been comparatively slight.
At Alexandria in 1755 General Edward Braddock organized his
fatal expedition against Fort Duquesne, and here, in April of
the same year, the governors of Virginia, Massachusetts, New
Yfork, Pennsylvania and Maryland met (in a house still standing)
to determine upon concerted action against the French in
America. In March 1785 commissioners from Virginia and
Maryland met here to discuss the commercial relations of
the two states, finishing their business at Mount Vernon on
the 28th with an agreement for freedom of trade and freedom
of navigation of the Potomac. The Maryland legislature in
ratifying this agreement on the 22nd of November proposed
a conference between representatives from all the states to
consider the adoption of definite commercial regulations.
This led to the calling of the Annapolis convention of 1786,
which in turn led to the calling of the Federal convention of
1787. In 1814 Alexandria was threatened by a British fleet,
but bought immunity from attack by paying about $100,000. At
the opening of the Civil War the city was occupied by Federal
troops, and great excitement throughout the North was caused
by the killing (May 24, 1861) of Colonel E. E. Ellsworth
(1837-1861) by Captain James W. Jackson, a hotel proprietor,
from whose building Ellsworth had removed a Confederate
flag. After the erection of the state of West Virginia (1863),
and until the close of the war, Alexandria was the seat of what
was known as the ``Alexandria Government'' (see VIRGINIA).
ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL. Under this title are generally included
certain strongly marked tendencies in literature, science and
art, which took their rise in the ancient Egyptian city of
Alexandria. That city, founded by Alexander the Great about
the time when Greece, in losing her national independence, lost
also her intellectual supremacy, was in every way admirably
adapted for becoming the new centre of the world's activity and
thought. Its situation brought it into commercial relations
with all the nations lying around the Mediterranean, and at
the same time rendered it the one communicating link with
the wealth and civilization of the East. The great natural
advantages it thus enjoyed were artificially increased to
an enormous extent by the care of the sovereigns of Egypt.
Ptolemy Soter (reigned 323-285 B.C.), to whom, in the
general distribution of Alexander's conquests, this kingdom had
fallen, began to draw around him from various parts of Greece
a circle of men eminent in literature and philosophy. To these
he gave every facility for the prosecution of their learned
researches. Under the inspiration of his friend Demetrius of
Phalerum, the Athenian orator, statesman and philosopher, this
Ptolemy laid the foundations of the great Alexandrian library
and originated the keen search for all written works, which
resulted in the formation of a collection such as the world
has seldom seen. He also built, for the convenience of his
men of letters, the Museum, in which, maintained by the royal
bounty, they resided, studied and taught. This Museum, or
academy of science, was in many respects not unlike a modern
university. The work thus begun by Ptolemy Soter was carried
on vigorously by his descendants, in particular by his
two immediate successors, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Ptolemy
Euergetes. Philadelphus (285-247), whose librarian was the
celebrated Callimachus, bought up all Aristotle's collection
of books, and also introduced a number of Jewish and Egyptian
works. Among these appears to have been a portion pf the
Septuagint. Euergetes (247-222) largely increased the library
by seizing on the original editions of the dramatists laid up
in the Athenian archives, and by compelling all travellers who
arrived in Alexandria to leave a copy of any work they possessed.
The intellectual movement so originated extended over a long
period of years. If we date its rise from the 4th century
B.C., at the time of the fall of Greece and the foundation
of the Graeco- Macedonian empire, we must look for its final
dissolution in the 7th century of the Christian era, at the
time of the fall of Alexandria and the rise of the Mahommedan
power. But this very long period falls into two divisions.
The first, extending from about 306 to 30, includes the time
from the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty to its final
subjugation by the Romans; the second extends from 30 to
A.D. 642, when Alexandria was destroyed by the Arabs. The
characteristic features of these divisions are very clearly
marked, and their difference affords an explanation of
the variety and vagueness of meaning attaching to the term
``Alexandrian School.'' In the first of the two periods the
intellectual activity was of a purely literary and scientific
nature. It was an attempt to continue and develop, under new
conditions, the old Hellenic culture. This direction of
effort was particularly noticeable under the early Ptolemies,
Alexandria being then almost the only home in the world for pure
literature. During the last century and a half before the
Christian era, the school, as it might be called, began to break
up and to lose its individuality. This was due partly to the
state of government under some of the later Ptolemies, partly
to the formation of new literary circles in Rhodes, Syria and
elsewhere, whose supporters, though retaining the Alexandrian
peculiarities, could scarcely be included in the Alexandrian
school. The loss of active life, consequent on this gradual
dissolution, was much increased when Alexandria fell under Roman
sway. Then the influence of the school was extended over the
whole known world, but men of letters began to concentrate
at Rome rather than at Alexandria. In that city, however,
there were new forces in operation which produced a second
grand outburst of intellectual life. The new movement was
not in the old direction--had, indeed, nothing in common
with it. With its character largely determined by Jewish
elements, and even more by contact with the dogmas of
Christianity, this second Alexandrian school resulted in
the speculative philosophy of the Neo-Platonists and the
religious philosophy of the Gnostics and early church fathers.
There appear, therefore, to be at least two definite significations
of the title Alexandrian School; or rather, there are two
Alexandrian schools, distinct both chronologically and in
substance. The one is the Alexandrian school of poetry and
science, the other the Alexandrian school of philosophy.
The term ``school,'' however, has not the same meaning as
when applied to the Academics or Peripatetics, the Stoics or
Epicureans. These consisted of a company united by holding
in common certain speculative principles, by having the same
theory of things. There was nothing at all corresponding to
this among the Alexandrians. In literature their activities
were directed to the most diverse objects; they have only
in common a certain spirit or form. There was among them
no definite system of phllosophy. Even in the later schools
of philosophy proper there is found a community rather of
tendency than of definite result or of fixed principles.
I. Literature.--The general character of the literature of
the school appears as the necessary consequence of the state
of affairs brought about by the fall of Greek nationality and
independence. The great works of the Greek mind had formerly
been the products of a fresh life of nature and perfect
freedom of thought. All their hymns, epics and histories were
bound up with their individuality as a free people. But the
Macedonian conquest at Chaeroneia brought about a complete
dissolution of this Greek life in all its relations, private and
political. The full, genial spirit of Greek thought vanished
when freedom, with which it was inseparably united, was
lost. A substitute for this originality was found at Alexandria
in learned research, extended and multifarious knowledge.
Amply provided with means for acquiring information, and
under the watchful care of a great monarch, the Alexandrians
readily took this new direction in literature. With all the
great objects removed which could excite a true spirit of
poetry, they devoted themselves to minute researches in all
sciences subordinate to literature proper. They studied
criticism, grammar, prosody and metre, antiquities and
mythology. The results of this study constantly appear in their
productions. Their works are never national, never addressed
to a people, but to a circle of learned men. Moreover, the very
fact of being under the protection and, as it were, in the pay
of an absolute monarch was damaging to the character of their
literature. There was introduced into it a courtjy element,
clear traces of which, with all its accompaniments, are found
in the extant works of the school. One other fact, not to
be forgotten in forming a general estimate of the literary
value of their productions, is, that the same writer was
frequently or almost always distinguished in several special
sciences. The most renowned poets were at the same time men
of culture and science, critics, archaeologists, astronomers
or physicians. To such writers the poetical form was
merely a convenient vehicle for the exposition of science.
The forms of poetical composition chiefly cultivated by the
Alexandrians were epic and lyric, or elegiac. Great epics
are wanting; but in their place, as might almost have been
expected, are found the historical and the didactic or expository
epics. The subjects of the historical epics were generally
some of the well-known myths, in the exposition of which
the writer could exhibit the full extent of his learning and
his perfect command of verse. These poems are in a sense
valuable as repertoires of antiquities; but their style is
on the whole bad, and infinite patience is required to clear
up their numerous and obscure allusions. The best extant
specimen is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the
most characteristic is the Alexandra or Cassandra of
Lycophron, the obscurity of which is almost proverbial.
The subjects of didactic epics were very numerous; they
seem to have depended on the special knowledge possessed by
the writers, who used verse as a form for unfolding their
information. Some, e.g. the lost poem of Callimachus,
called Ai'tia, were on the origin of myths and religious
observances; others were on special sciences. Thus we have
two poems of Aratus, who, though not resident at Alexandria,
was so thoroughly imbued with the Alexandrian spirit as to
be with reason included in the school; the one is an essay
on astronomy, the other an account of the signs of the
weather. Nicander of Colophon has also left us two epics, one
on remedies for poisons, the other on the bites of venomous
beasts. Euphorion and Rhianus wrote mythological epics. The
spirit of all their productions is the same, that of learned
research. They are distinguished by artistic form, purity
of expression and strict attention to the laws of metre and
prosody, qualities which, however good in themselves, do
not compensate for want of originality, freshness and power.
In their lyric and elegiac poetry there is much worthy of
admiration. The specimens we possess are not devoid of
talent or of a certain happy art of expression. Yet, for
the most part, they either relate to objects thoroughly
incapable of poetic treatment, where the writer's endeavour
is rather to expound the matter fully than to render it
poetically beautiful, or else expend themselves on short
isolated subjects, generally myths, and are erotic in
character. The earliest of the elegiac poets was Philetas,
the sweet singer of Cos. But the most distinguished was
Callimachus, undoubtedly the greatest of the Alexandrian
poets. Of his numerous works there remain to us only a few
hymns, epigrams and fragments of elegies.1 Other lyric poets
were Phanocles, Hermesianax, Alexander of Aetolla and Lycophron.
Some of the best productions of the school were their
epirams. Of these we have several specimens, and the art
of composing them seems to have been assiduously cultivated,
as might naturally be expected from the court life of the
poets, and their constant endeavours after terseness and
neatness of expression. Of kindred character were the
parodies and satirical poems, of which the best examples
were the Silli of Timon and the Cinaedi of Sotades.
Dramatic poetry appears to have flourished to some
extent. There are still extant three or four varying lists
of the seven great dramatists who composed the Pleiad of
Alexandria. Their works, perhaps not unfortunately, have
perished. A ruder kind of drama, the amoebaean verse, or
bucolic mime, developed into the only pure stream of genial
poetry found in the Alexandrian School, the Idylls of
Theocritus. The name of these poems preserves their
original idea; they were pictures of fresh country life.
The most interesting fact connected with this Alexandrian poetry
is the powerful influence it exercised on Roman literature.
That literature, especially in the Augustan age, is not to be
thoroughly understood without due appreciation of the character
of the Alexandrian school. The historians of this period
were numerous and prolific. Many of them, e.g. Cleitarchus,
devoted themselves to the life and achievements of Alexander the
Great. The best-known names are those of Timaeus and Polybius.
Before the Alexandrians had begun to produce original works,
their researches were directed towards the masterpieces of ancient
Greek literature. If that literature was to be a power in the
world, it must be handed down to posterity in a form capable
of being understood. This was the task begun and carried out
by the Alexandrian critics. These men did not merely collect
works, but sought to arrange them, to subject the texts to
criticism, and to explain any allusion or reference in them
which at a later date might become obscure. The complete
philological examination of any work consisted, according to
them, of the following processes:---diorthosis, arrangement
of the text; anagnosis, settlement of accents; tenn??,
theory of forms, syntax; lxegnsis, explanation either of
words or things; and finally, krisis, judgment on the author
and his work, including all questions as to authenticity and
integrity. To perform their task adequately required from the
critics a wide circle of knowledge; and from this requirement
sprang the sciences of grammar, prosody, lexicography, mythology
and archaeology. The service rendered by these critics is
invaluable. To them we owe not merely the possession of
the greatest works of Greek intellect, but the possession of
them in a readable state. The most celebrated critics were
Zenodotus; Aristophanes of Byzantium, to whom we owe the
theory of Greek accents; Crates of Mallus; and Aristarchus of
Samothrace, confessedly the coryphaeus of criticism. Others
were Lycophron, Callimachus, Eratosthenes and many of a later
age, for the critical school long survived the literary.
Dionysius Thrax, the author of the first scientific Greek
grammar, may also be mentioned. These philological labours
were of great indirect importance, for they led immediately
to the study of the natural sciences, and in particular to a
more accurate knowledge of geography and history. Considerable
attention began to be paid to the ancient history of Greece,
and to all the myths relating to the foundation of states and
cities. A large collection of such curious information
is contained in the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus, a pupil
of Aristarchus who flourished in the 2nd century B.C.
Eratosthenes was the first to write on mathematical and physical
geography; he also first attempted to draw up a chronological
table of the Egyptian kings and of the historical events of
Greece. The sciences of mathematics, astronomy and medicine
were also cultivated with assiduity and success at Alexandria,
but they can scarcely be said to have their origin there, or in
any strict sense to form a part of the peculiarly Alexandrian
literature. The founder of the mathematical school was
the celebrated Euclid (Eucleides); among its scholars were
Archimedes; Apollonius of Perga, author of a treatise on
Conic Sections; Eratosthenes, to whom we owe the first
measurement of the earth; and Hipparchus, the founder of
the epicyclical theory of the heavens, afterwards called the
Ptolemaic system, from its most famous expositor, Claudius
Ptolemaeus. Alexandria continued to be celebrated as a
school of mathematics and science long after the Christian
era. The science of medicine had distinguished representatives
in Herophilus and Erasistratus, the two first great anatomists.
AUTHORITIES.--Muller and Donaldson, History of the
Literature of Ancient Greece; W. Christ, Geschichte
der griechischen Litteratur; Mahaffy, Greek Life
and Thought from the Age of Alexander to the Roman
Empire; Couat, La Poesie alexandrine; and especially
Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der
Alexandninerzeit. Nicolai's Gricchische Literaturgeschichte,
though somewhat out of date, is useful for bibliography.
II. Philosophy.--Although it is not possible to divide
literatures with absolute rigidity by centuries, and although
the intellectual life of Alexandria, particularly as applied to
science, long survived the Roman conquest, yet at that period
the school, which for some time had been gradually breaking up,
seems finally to have succumbed. The later productions in the
field of pure literature bear the stamp of Rome rather than of
Alexandria. But in that city for some time past there had
been various forces secretly working, and these, coming in
contact with great spiritual changes in the world around,
produced a second outburst of intellectual activity, which is
generally known as the Alexandrian school of philosophy. The
doctrines of this school were a fusion of Eastern and Western
thought, and combined in varying proportions the elements of
Hellenistic and Jewish philosophy. Traces of this eclectic
tendency are discoverable as far back as 280 B.C., but for
practical purposes the dates of the school may be given as
from about 30 B.C. to A.D. 529. The city of Alexandria
had gradually become the neutral ground of Europe, Asia and
Africa. Its population, then as at the present day, was a
heterogeneous collection of all races. Alexander had planted
a colony of Jews who had increased in number until at the
beginning of the Christian era they occupied two-fifths of
the city and held some of the highest offices. The contact
of Jewish theology with Greek speculation became the great
problem of thought. The Jewish ideas of divine authority
and their transcendental theories of conduct were peculiarly
attractive to the Greek thinkers who found no inspiration
in the dry intellectualism into which they had fallen (see
NEO-PYTHAGOREANISM). At the same time the Jews of the
Dispersion had to some extent shaken off the exclusiveness
of their old political relations and were prepared to compare
and contrast their old territorial theology with cosmopolitan
culture. Further, when the two sides came to consider
the results of their intellectual inheritance they found
that they had sufficient common ground for the initial
compromise. Thus the Hellenistic doctrine of personal
revelation could be combined with the Jewish tradition of a
complete theology revealed to a special people. The result
was the application of a purely philosophical system to the
somewhat vague and unorganized corpus of Jewish theology. The
matter was Jewish, the arrangement Greek. According to the
relative predominance of these two elements arose Gnosticism,
the Patristic theology, and the philosophical schools of
Neo-Pythagoreanism, Neo-Platonism and eclectic Platonism.
The members of the school may be enumerated under three heads.
(1) The beginnings of the eclectic spirit are, according
to some authorities, discernible in the Septuagint (280
B.C.) (see Frankel, Historisch-kritische Studien zur
Septuaginta, 1841), but the first concrete exemplification is
found in Aristobulus (e. 160 B.C.). So far as the Jewish
succession is concerned, the great name is that of Philo in
the first century of our era. He took Greek metaphysical
theories, and, by the allegorical method, interpreted them
in accordance with the Jewish Revelation. He dealt with
(a) human life as explained by the relative nature of Man
and God, (b) the Divine nature and the existence of God,
and, (c) the great Logos doctrine as the explanation of
the relation between God and the material universe. From
these three arguments he developed an elaborate theosophy
which was a syncretism of oriental mysticism and pure Greek
metaphysic, and may be regarded as representing the climax
of Jewish philosophy. (2) The first purely philosophical
phenomenon of the Alexandrian school was Neo-Pythagoreanism,
the second and last Neo-Platonism. Leaving all detailed
descriptions of these schools to special articles devoted to
them, it is sufficient here to say that their doctrines were a
synthesis of Platonism, Stoicism and the later Aristotelianism
with a leaven of oriental mysticism which gradually became
more and more important. The world to which they spoke had
begun to demand a doctrine of salvation to satisfy the human
soul. They endeavoured to deal with the problem of good and
evil. They therefore devoted themselves to examining the
nature of the soul, and taught that its freedom consists in
communion with God, to be achieved by absorption in a sort
of ecstatic trance. This doctrine reaches its height in
Plotinus, after whom it degenerated into magic and theurgy
in its unsuccessful combat with the victorious Christianity.
Finally this pagan theosophy was driven from Alexandria back
to Athens under Plutarch and Proclus, and occupied itself
largely in purely historical work based mainly on the attempt
to re-organize ancient philosophy in conformity with the
system of Plotinus. This school ended under Damascius when
Justinian closed the Athenian schools (A.D. 529). (3)
The eddies of Neo-Platonism had a considerable effect on
certain Christian thinkers about the beginning of the 3rd
century. Among these the most important were Clement of
Alexandria and Origen. Clement, as a scholar and a theologian,
proposed to unite the mysticism of Neo- Platonism with the
practical spirit of Christianity. He combined the principle
of pure living with that of free thinking, and held that
instruction must have regard to the mental capacity of the
hearer. The compatibility of Christian and later Neo-Platonic
ideas is evidenced by the writings of Synesius, bishop of
Ptolemais, and though Neo-Platonism eventually succumbed to
Christianity, it had the effect, through the writings of
Clement and Origen, of modifying the tyrannical fanaticism
and ultra- dogmatism of the early Christian writers.
AUTHORITIES.--Matter, Histoire de l'ecole d'Alexandrie,
2nd ed. (3 vols., 1840-1844); Simon, Histoire de L'ecole
d'Ajexandrie (2 vols., 1844-1845); Vacherot, Histoire critique
de l'ecole d'Ajexandrie (3 vols., 1846-1851); Kingsley,
Alexandria and her Schools (1854); Gfrorer, Philo und
die Alexandrinische Theosophie (1835) Dahne, Geschict.
Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen Religionsphilosophie
(1834); Histories of Philosophy by Zeller, Uberweg,
Windelband, &c., and Bibliography of CHURCH HISTORY, &c.
1 A considerable fragment of his epic Hecale
has been discovered in the Rainer papyrus.
ALEXANDRIA TROAS (mod. Eski Stambul), an ancient Greek city
of the Troad, situated on the west coast at nearly its middle
point, a little south of Tenedos. It was built by Antigonus,
perhaps about 310 B.C., and was called by him Antigonia
Troas. Early in the next century the name was changed by
Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander's
memory. As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place
prospered greatly in Roman times, and the existing remains
sufficiently attest its former importance. Thence St Paul
sailed for Europe for the first time, and there occurred
later the episode of the raising of Eutychus (Acts xx.
5-12). The site is now covered with valonia oaks, and has
been much plundered, e.g by Mahommed IV., who took columns
to adorn his new Valideh mosque in Stambul; but the circuit
of the old walls can be traced, and in several places they
are fairly well preserved. They had a circumference of about
six English miles, and were fortified with towers at regular
intervals. Remains of some ancient buildings, including a
bath and gymnasium, can be traced within this area. Trajan
built an aqueduct which can still be traced. The harbour had
two large basins, now almost choked with sand. A Roman colony
was sent to the place, as Strabo mentions, in the reign of
Augustus. The abridged name ``Troas'' (Acts xvi. 8) was
probably the current one in later Roman times. (D. G. H.)
ALEXANDRINE VERSE, a name given to the leading measure in
French poetry. It is the heroic French verse, used in epic
narrative, in tragedy and in the higher comedy. There is
some doubt as to the origin of the name; but most probably
it is derived from a collection of romances, collected in
the 12th century, of which Alexander of Macedon was the
hero, and in which he was represented, somewhat like the
British Arthur, as the pride and crown of chivalry. Before
the publication of this work most of the trouvere romances
appeared in octosyllabic verse. There is also a theory that
the form was invented by a poet named Alexander. The new
work, which was henceforth to set the fashion to French
literature, was written in lines of twelve syllables,
but with a freedom of pause which was afterwards greatly
curtailed. The new fashion, however, was not adopted all at
once. The metre fell into disuse until the reign of Francis
I., when it was revived by Jean Antoine de Baif, one of the
seven poets known as the Pleiades. Jodelle mingled episodical
Alexandrines with the vers communs of his tragedies and so
introduced them into drama. It was Ronsard, however, who made
the verse popular, and gave it vogue in France. From his time
it became the recognized vehicle for all great poetry, and
the regulation of its pauses became more and more strict.
The following is an example of the verse as used by Racine--
Ou suis-je? qu'ai-je fait? || que dois-je faire encore?
Quel transport me saisit? || quel chagrin me devore?
Two inexorable laws came to be established with regard to the
pauses. The first is, that each line should be divided into
two equal parts, the sixth syllable always ending with a
word. In the earlier use of this metre, on the contrary,
it frequently happened that the sixth and seventh syllables
belonged to the same word. The other is that, except under
the most stringent conditions, there should be none of
what the French critics call enjambement, that is, the
overlapping of the sense from one line on to the next.
Ronsard completely ignored this rule, which was after his time
settled by the authority of Malherbe. The latest school of
French prosody has given great attention to the breaking up
of the Alexandrine, which no longer possesses the rigidity
of authoritative form which it held until about 1880, but is
often used with a licence no less than when Ronsard wrote.
Michael Drayton, who was twenty-two years of age when Ronsard
died, seemed to think that the Alexandrine might be as
pleasing to English as it was to French ears, and in this
metre he wrote a long poem in twenty-four books called the
Polyolbion. The metre, however, failed to catch the English
ear. The principal English measure is a line of ten
syllables, and the Alexandrine is used only occasionally to
give it variety and weight. In ordinary English heroic verse
it is but rarely introduced; but in the favourite narrative
metre, known as the Spenserian, it comes in regularly as the
concluding line of each stanza. In English usage, moreover,
it is to be observed that there is no fixed rule as to the
position of the pause, though it is true that most commonly
the pause occurs at the end of the sixth syllable. Spenser
is very free in shifting the pause about; and though the
later poets who have used this stanza are not so free, yet,
with the exception of Shenstone and of Byron, they do not
scruple to obliterate all pause between the sixth and seventh
syllables. Thus Thomson (Castle of Indolenee, i. 42):--
And music lent new gladness to the morning air.
The danger in the use of the Alexandrine is that, in
attempting to give dignity to his line, the poet may
only produce heaviness, incurring the sneer of Pope--
A needless Alexandrine ends the song.
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
The Alexandrine was the dominant metre in Dutch poetry from the
16th to the middle of the 19th century, and about the time of its
introduction to Holland it was accepted in Germany by the school of
Opitz. In the course of the 17th century, after being used
without rhyme by Seckendorf and others, it formed a transitional
station on the route to German blank verse, and has since then
been rarely employed, except occasionally in rhymed comedy.
ALEXANDRISTS, the name given to those philosophers of the
Renaissance, who, in the great controversy on the subject
of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the De
Anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias. According to the
orthodox Thomism of the Roman Catholic Church, Aristotle
rightly regarded reason as a facility of the individual
soul. Against this, the Averroists, led by Agostino Nito
(q.v.), introduced the modifying theory that universal
reason in a sense individualizes itself in each soul and
then absorbs the active reason into itself again. These two
theories respectively evolved the doctrine of individual and
universal immortality, or the absorption of the individual
into the eternal One. The Alexandrists, led by Pietro
Pomponazzi, boldly assailed these beliefs and denied that
either was rightly attributed to Aristotle. They held that
Aristotle considered the soul as a material and therefore
a mortal entity which operates during life only under the
authority of universal reason. Hence the Alexandrists denied
the possibillty of immortality in every shape or form.
Since the soul is organically connected with the body, the
dissolution of the latter involves the extinction of the former.
ALEXANDRITE, a variety of chrysoberyl (q.v.) discovered
in the Urals in 1833, on the day set apart for celebrating
the majority of the cesarevich, afterwards the tsar, Alexander
II., in whose honour the stone was named by Nils Gustaf
Nordenskiold, of Helsingfors. It is remarkable for being
strongly dichroic, generally appearing dark green by daylight
and raspberry-red by candle-light, or by daylight transmitted
through the stone. As red and green are the military
colours of Russia, the mineral became highly popular as a
gem-stone. The dark green crystals are usually cloudy and
cracked, and grouped in triplets presenting a pseudo-hexagonal
form. Alexandrite was found originally in the emerald- mine of
Takovaya, east of Ekaterinburg in the Urals, and afterwards
in the gold-bearing sands of the Sanarka in the southern
Urals. Subsequently it was discovered in greater abundance
in the gem-gravels of Ceylon. It has been found also in
Tasmania. Some of the Ceylon alexandrite exhibits,
when suitably cut, the Cat's-eye chatoyance, whence
it has been called alexandrite cat's-eye. (F. W. R.*)
ALEXANDROPOL, or ALEXANDRAPOL. (Turk. Gumri), a
Russian town and fortified camp in Transcaucasia, government
of Erivan, near the junction of the Arpa-chai with the
Aras, 48 m. by rail E.N.E. of Kars. Altitude 5080
ft. It has a trade in silk. Here the Russians defeated
the Turks in 1853. Pop. (1885) 22,670; (1897) 32,735.
ALEXANDROVSK. (1) A town of N. Russia, in the government
of Archangel, on the harbour of Catherine (Ekaterininsk),
on the Murman coast, 5 m. from the mouth of Kola Bay.
It was opened in 1899 and is a naval station, being free
from ice all the year round. It is also called Port
Catherine. Pop. (1901) 300. (2) A town of S. Russia, 83
m. S. of Ekaterinoslav, on the railway to the Crimea, near
the left bank of the Dnieper, below its rapids. Pop. (1897)
16,393. Opposite it is the island of Khortitsa, upon which was
the sich (or syech) or camp of the Zaporozhian cossacks.
All its neighbouthood is strewn with kurgans (tumuli).
ALEXIS, Greek comic poet of the Middle Comedy, was born
about 394 B.C. at Thurii and taken early to Athens,
where he became a citizen. Plutarch says that he lived to
the age of 106, and that he died on the stage while being
crowned. According to Suidas, who calls him Monander's
uncle, he wrote 245 comedies, of which some 130 titles are
preserved. The fragments (about 1000 lines) attest the wit and
refinement of the author (Koch, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta).
ALEXIS, WILLIBALD, the pseudonym of GEORG WILHELM HEINRICH
HARING (1798--1871), German historical novelist. He was
born on the 29th of June 1798 at Breslau, where his father,
who came of a French refugee family, named Hareng, held a high
position in the war department. He attended the Werdersche
Gymnasium in Berlin, and then, serving as a volunteer in
the campaign of 1815, took part in the siege of the Ardenne
fortresses. On his return he studied law at the universities
of Berlin and Breslau and entered the legal profession, but he
soon abandoned this career and devoted himself to literature.
Settling in Berlin he edited, 1827-1835, the Berliner
Konversationsblatt, in which for the first two years he was
assisted by Friedrich Christoph Forster (1791--1868); and in
1828 was created a doctor of philosophy by the university of
Halle. In 1852 he retired to Arnstadt in Thuringia, where after
many years of broken health he died on the 16th of December 1871.
Haring made his name first known as a writer by an idyll in
hexameters, Die Treibjagd (1820), and several short stories
in which the influence of Tieck is observable; but his
literary reputation was first established by the historical
romance Walladmor (1823), which, published as being ``freely
translated from the English of Sir Walter Scott, with a
preface by Willibald Alexis,'' so closely imitated the style
of the famous Scotsman as really to deceive even Scott's
admirers. The work became immediately popular and was
translated into several languages, including English. It
was followed by Schloss Avalon (1827), with regard to
which the author adopted the same tactics and with equal
success. These historical novels, however, were of considerable
literary merit, and would doubtless have achieved popularity
even without the borrowed plumage. Soon afterwards Haring
published a number of successful short stories (Gesammelte
Novellen, 4 vols., 1830-1831), some books of travel, and in
the novels Das Haus Dusterweg (1835) and Zwolf Nachte
(1838) showed for a while a leaning towards the ``Young German''
school. In Cabanis (1832), however, a story of the time
of Frederick the Great, he entered the field of patriotic-
historical romance, in which he so far excelled as to have
earned the name of ``der Markische Walter Scott'' (Walter
Scott of the Mark). From 1840 onwards he published at
short intervals a series of romances, each dealing with
some epoch in the history of Brandenburg. Among them may
be especially noted Der Roland von Berlin (1840), Der
falsche Woldemar (1842), Die Hosen des Herrn von Bredow
(1846-1848), Ruhe ist die erste Burgerpflicht (1852),
Isegrimm (1854) and Dorothe (1856). In all these the
author shows himself as a keen observer of men and things; the
characters, situations and natural surroundings are excellently
delineated, and the patriotic feeling which pervades them is
not overdone. Haring also made a name for himself in the
field of criminology by commencing in 1842, in conjunction
with the publicist, Julius Eduard Hitzig (1780- 1849), the
publication of Der neue Pitaval (continued by A. Vollert, 36
vols., Leipzig, 1842-1865; new edition, 24 vols., Leipzig,
1866-1891), a, collection of criminal anecdotes culled from
all nations and all times. This publication attained great
popularity, and is to-day of psychological interest and value.
His Gesammelte Werke were published in 20 volumes (Berlin,
1874); the Vaterlandische Romane separately in 8 volumes
(Berlin, 1881, 1884), and, since the expiry of the copyright in
1901, in many cheap reprints. Cp. W. Alexis' Erinnerungen,
edited by M. Ewert (1900), and essays by Julian Schmidt (Neue
Bilaer aus dere geistigen Leben unsrer Zeit, 1873), G. Freytag
(Werke, vols. 16 and 23), A. Stern Zur Literatur der Gegenwart,
1880) and T. Fontane (in Bayreuther Blatter, vi., 1883).
ALEXISBAD, a spa of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt, lying
under the Harz mountains, 1000 ft. above the sea, on the railway
from Gernrode to Harzgerode. Pop. 1000. It is celebrated for
its medicinal waters, of which the Abexisbrunnen, a ferruginous
spring, is used for drinking, while the Selkebrunnen supplies
the baths, which are of use in feminine disorders. The
place was founded in 1810 by Duke Alexius of Anhalt-Bernburg.
ALEXIUS I. (1048-1118), emperor of the East, was the third
son of John Comnenus, nephew of Isaac Comnenus, emperor
1057-1059. His father declined the throne on the abdication
of Isaac, who was accordingly succeeded by four emperors
of other families between that date and 1081. Under one
of these emperors, Romanus Diogenes (1067-1071), he served
with distinction against the Seljuk Turks. Under Michael
Parapinaces (1071-1078) and Nicephorus Botaniates (1078-1081)
he was also employed, along with his elder brother Isaac,
against rebels in Asia Minor, Thrace and in Epirus (1071).
The success of the Comneni roused the jealousy of Botaniates
and his ministers, and the Comneni were almost compelled
to take up arms in self- defence. Botaniates was forced to
abdicate and retire to a monastery, and Isaac declined the
crown in favour of his younger brother Alexius, who then
became emperor in the 33rd year of his age. His long reign of
nearly 37 years was full of difficulties (see ROMAN EMPIRE,
LATER). At the very outset he had to meet the formidable
attack of the Normans (Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemund),
who took Dyrrhachium and Corfu, and laid siege to Larissa in
Thessaly. The Norman danger ended for the time with Robert
Guiscard's death (1085) and the conquests were recovered.
He had next to repel the invasions of Patzinaks (Petchenegs)
and Kumans in Thrace, with whom the Manichaean sects of the
Paulicians and Bogomilians made Common cause; and thirdly, he
had to cope with the fast-growing power of the Turks in Asia
Minor. Above all he had to meet the difficulties caused by
the arrival of the warriors of the First Crusade, which had
been in a great degree initiated owing to the representations
of his own ambassadors, though the help which he wanted from
the West was simply mercenary forces and not the immense hosts
which arrived to his consternation and embarrassment. The
first part, under Peter the Hermit, he got rid of by sending
them on to Asia Minor, where they were massacred by the Turks
(1096). The second and much more serious host of warriors,
led by Godfrey of Bouillon, he conducted also into Asia,
promising to supply them with provisions in return for an oath
of homage, and by their victories recovered for the Empire
a number of important cities and islands--Nicaea, Chics,
Rhodes, Smyrna, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Sardis, and in fact
most of Asia Minor (1097-1099). This is ascribed as a credit
to his policy and diplomacy by his daughter, by the Latin
historians of the crusade to his treachery and falseness, but
during the last twenty years of his life he lost much of his
popularity. They were marked by persecution of the followers
of the Paulician and Bogomilian heresies (one of his last
acts was to burn Basilius, a Bogomilian leader, with whom
he had engaged in a theological controversy), by renewed
struggles with the Turks (1110-1117), by anxieties as to the
succession, which his wife Irene wished to alter in favour of
her daughter Anne's husband, Nicephorus Bryennius for whose
benefit the special title panhypersebastos (i.e. as it were
dugustissimus si quis ahus) was created. This intrigue
disturbed even his dying hours. He deserves the credit of
having raised the Empire from a condition of anarchy and
decay at a time when it was threatened on all sides by new
dangers. No emperor devoted himself more laboriously
or with a greater sense of duty to the task of ruling.
AUTHORITIES.--Zonaras xviii. 27-29; Anna Comnena's Life;
see also Du Cange, Familiae Byzantinae; Friedrich Wilken,
Rerum ab Alexio I., Joanne, Manuele et Alexio II. Comnenis
Romanorum, Byzantinorum imperatoribus gestarum, tibri iv.
Commentatio (Heidelberg, 1811); Finlay, History of Greece
(vol. iii., Oxford, 1877); Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, edited with notes, &c., by Prof. J. B. Bury (London,
1898), where further authorities are cited; F. Chalandon, Essai
sur le regne d'Alexis Ier, Comnene (1900). (J. B. B.)
ALEXIUS II. (COMNENUS) (1167-1183), emperor of the
East, was the son of Manuel Comnenus and Maria, daughter of
Kaymund, prince of Antioch, and was born at Constantinople
on the 10th of September 1167. On Manuel's death, Maria,
who hid been immured in a convent under the name of Xene,
had herself proclaimed regent (1179-1180), and handing over
her son to evil counsellors, who encouraged him in every
vice, supported the government of Alexius the protosebastos
(nephew of Manuel), who was supposed to be her lover. The
young Alexius and his friends now tried to form a party
against the empress mother and the protosebastos; and his
sister Maria, wife of Caesar John, stirred up riots in
the streets of the capital. Their party was defeated (May
2, 1182), but Andronicus Comnenus took advantage of these
disorders to aim at the crown, entered Constantinople, where
he was received with almost divine honours, and overthrew the
regents. His arrival was celebrated by a barbarous massacre
of the Latins in Constantinople, which he made no attempt to
stop. He allowed Alexius to be crowned, but forced him to
consent to the death of all his friends, including his mother,
his sister and the Caesar, and refused to allow him the smallest
voice in public affairs. The betrothal in 1180 of Alexius
with Agnes, daughter of Louis VII. of France, a child of
nine, was quashed, and he was married to Irene, daughter of
Andronicus. The latter was now formally proclaimed as
co-emperor, and not long afterwards, on the pretext that
divided rule was injurious to the Empire, he caused Alexius
to be strangled with a bow-string (October 1183). (J. B. B.)
ALEXIUS III. (ANGELUS), emperor of the East, was the
second son of Andronicus Angelus, nephew of Alexius I. In
1195, while his brother Isaac II. was away hunting in
Thrace, he was proclaimed emperor by the troops; he captured
Isaac at Stagira in Macedonia, put out his eyes, and
kept him henceforth a close prisoner, though he had been
redeemed by him from captivity at Antioch and loaded with
honours. To compensate for this crime and to confirm his
position as emperor, he had to scatter money so lavishly
as to empty his treasury, and to allow such licence to the
officers of the army as to leave the Empire practically
defenceless. He consummated the financial ruin of the
state. The empress Euphrosyne tried in vain to sustain his
credit and his court; Vatatzes, the favourite instrument of
her attempts at reform, was assassinated by the emperor's
orders. Eastward the Empire was overrun by the Turks;
from the north Bulgarians and Vlachs descended unchecked
to ravage the plains of Macedonia and Thrace; while Alexius
squandered the public treasure on his palaces and gardens.
Soon he was threatened by a new and yet more formidable
danger. In 1202 the Western princes assembled at Venice,
bent on a new crusade. To them Alexius, son of the deposed
Isaac, made appeal, promising as a crowning bribe to heal the
schism of East and West if they would help him to depose his
uncle. The crusaders, whose objective had been Egypt, were
persuaded to set their course for Constantinople, before which
they appeared in June 1203, proclaiming the emperor Alexius
IV. and summoning the capital to depose his uncle. Alexius
III., sunk in debauchery, took no efficient measures to
resist. His son-in-law, Lascaris, who was the only one
to do anything, was defeated at Scutari, and the siege of
Constantinople began. On the 17th of July the crusaders,
the aged doge Dandolo at their head, scaled the walls and
took the city by storm. During the fighting and carnage
that followed Alexius hid in the palace, and finally, with
one of his daughters, Irene, and such treasures as he could
collect, got into a boat and escaped to Develton in Thrace,
leaving his wife, his other daughters and his Empire to the
victors. Isaac, drawn from his prison and robed once
more in the imperial purple, received hs son in state.
Shortly afterwards Alexius made an effort in conjunction
with Murtzuphlos (Alexius V.) to recover the throne. The
attempt was unsuccessful and, after wandering about Greece,
he surrendered with Euphrosyne, who had meanwhile joined
him, to Boniface of Montferrat, then master of a great part
of the Balkan peninsula. Leaving his protection he sought
shelter with Michael, despot of Epirus, and then repaired
to Asia Minor,where his son-in-law Lascaris was holding his
own against the Latins. Alexius, joined by the sultan of
Iconium (Konieh), now demanded the crown of Lascaris, and
on his refusal marched against him. Lascaris, however,
defeated and took him prisoner. Alexius was relegated to
a monastery at Nicaea, where he died on some date unknown.
AUTHORITIES.--Nicetas Acominatus, George Acropolites, Nicephorus Gregoras;
and the sources for the Fourth Crusade (see CRUSADES). (J. B. B.)
ALEXIUS V., eastern Roman emperor, was proclaimed emperor on
the 5th of February 1204, during the siege of Constantinople
by the Latins (Fourth Crusade). His name was Alexius Ducas
Murtzuphlos, and he was a connexion of the imperial house
of the Angell. His elevation was the result of a revolution
in the city against Isaac II. and Alexius IV. He conducted
the defence with great bravery till it became hopeless
(April 12), whereupon he fled. He would then have made
common cause with Alexius III. against the Latins, but was
blinded by that ex-monarch and fell into the hands of the
crusaders, who put him to death by casting him from the top
of the Pillar of Theodosius as the murderer of Alexius IV.
ALEXIUS MIKHAILOVICH (1624-1676), tsar of Muscovy, the son
of Tsar Michael Romanov and Eudoxia Stryeshnevaya, was born
on the 9th of March 1629. A youth at his father's death
(1645), he was committed to the care of the boyarin Boris
Ivanovich Morozov, a shrewd and sensible guardian, sufficiently
enlightened to recognize the needs of his country, and by no
means inaccessible to Western ideas. Morozov's foreign policy was
pacificatory. He secured the truce with Poland and carefully
avoided complications with the Porte. His domestic policy was
severely equitable, and aimed at relieving the public burdens
by limiting the privileges of foreign traders and abolishing
a great many useless and expensive court offices. On the 17th
of January 1648 he procured the marriage of the tsar with Maria
Miloslavshaya, himself marrying her sister, Anna, ten days
later. The Miloslavskis were typical self-seeking 17th century
boyars, whose extortions made them generally detested. In
May 1648 the people of Moscow rose against them, and the
young tsar was compelled to dismiss both them and their patron
Morozov. The successful issue of the Moscow riots was the
occasion of disquieting disturbances all over the tsardom
culminating in dangerous rebellions at Pskov and Great Novgorod,
with which the government was so unable to cope that they
surrendered, practically granting the malcontents their own
terms. One man only had displayed equal tact and courage at Great
Novgorod, the metropolitan Nikon (q.v.), who in consequence
became in 1651 the tsar's chief minister. In 1653 the weakness
and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged, bleeding at
every pore, from the savage Cossack war, encouraged Alexius
to attempt to recover from her secular rival the old Russian
lands. On the 1st of October 1653 a national assembly met
at Moscow to sanction the war and find the means of carrying
it on, and in April 1654 the army was blessed by Nikon (now
patriarch). The campaign of 1654 was an uninterrupted triumph,
and scores of towns, including the important fortress of
Smolensk, fell into the hands of the Muscovites. In January
1655 the rout of Ochmatov arrested their progress; but in
the summer of the same year, the sudden invasion by Charles
X. of Sweden for the moment swept the Polish state out of
existence; the Muscovites, unopposed, quickly appropriated
nearly everything which was not already occupied by the
Swedes, and when at last the Poles offered to negotiate, the
whole grand-duchy of Lithuania was the least of the demands of
Alexius. Fortunately for Poland, the tsar and the king of
Sweden now quarrelled over the apportionment of the spoil, and
at the end of May 1656 Alexius, stimulated by the emperor and
the other enemies of Sweden, declared war against her. Great
things were expected of the Swedish war, but nothing came of
it. Dorpat was taken, but countless multitudes were lost
in vain before Riga. In the meantime Poland had so far
recovered herself as to become a much more dangerous foe
than Sweden, and, as it was impossible to wage war with both
simultaneously, the tsar resolved to rid himself of the Swedes
first. This he did by the peace of Kardis (July 2, 1661),
whereby Muscovy retroceded all her conquests. The Polish war
dragged on for six years longer and was then concluded by a
truce, nominally for thirteen years, which proved the most
durable of treaties. By the truce of Andrussowo (February
11, 1667) Vitebsk, Polotsk and Polish Livonia were restored
to Poland, but the infinitely more important Smolensk and
Kiev remained in the hands of the Muscovite together with
the whole eastern bank of the Dnieper. This truce was the
achievement of Athanasy Orduin-Nashchokin, the first Russian
chancellor and diplomatist in the modern sense, who after
the disgrace of Nikon became the tsar's first minister till
1670, when he was superseded by the equally able Artamon
Matvyeev, whose beneficent influence prevailed to the end
of the reign. It is the crowning merit of the ever amiable
and courteous tsar Alexius that he discovered so many great
men (like Nikon, Orduin, Matvyeev, the best of Peter's
precursors) and suitably employed them. He was not a man
of superior strength of character, or he would never have
submitted to the dictation of Nikon. But, on the other
hand, he was naturally, if timorously, progressive, or he
would never have encouraged the great reforming boyarin
Matvyeev. His education was necessarily narrow; yet he
was learned in his way, wrote verses, and even began a
history of his own times. His last years, notwithstanding
the terrible rebellion of Stenka Razin, were deservedly
tranquil. By his first consort he had thirteen children,
of whom two sickly sons and eight healthy daughters survived
him. By his second consort, Natalia Naruishkina, he had two
children, the tsarevich Peter and the tsarevna Natalia.
See Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)
ALEXIUS PETROVICH (1600-1718), Russian tsarevich, the sole
surviving son of Peter I. and Eudoxia Lopukhina, was horn on the
19th of February 1690. The young tsar married the boyarinya
Lopukhina at his mother's command. We know nothing of the
bride except that she was beautiful, modest and ``brought up
in the fear of the Lord.'' She would, doubtless, have made a
model tsaritsa of the pre-Petrine period, but, unfortunately,
she was no fit wife for such a vagabond of genius as Peter the
Great. From the first her society bored Peter unspeakably,
and, after the birth of their second short-lived son
Alexander, on the 3rd of October 1691, he practically deserted
her. The young Alexius was ignored by his father till he was
nine years old. Peter was a rare and unwelcome guest in his
own family, and a son who loved his mother could have little
affection for a father who had ever been that mother's worst
persecutor. From his sixth to his ninth year Alexius was
educated by the diffuse and pedantic Vyazemsky, but after the
removal of his mother to the Suzdal Prokovsky Monastery he
was confided to the care of learned foreigners, who taught him
history, geography, mathematics and French. In 1703 Alexius
was ordered to follow the army to the field as a private in a
bombardier regiment. In 1704 he was present at the capture of
Narva. At this period the preceptors of the tsarevich had
the highest opinion of his ability; but, unfortunately, it
was not the sort of ability that his father could make use
of. He was essentially a student, with strong leanings towards
archaeology and ecclesiology. A monastic library was the proper
place for this gentle emotional dreamer, who clung so fondly
to the ancient traditions. To a prince of his temperament the
vehement activity of his abnormally energetic father was very
offensive. He liked neither the labour itself nor its
object. Yet Peter, not unnaturally, wished his heir to
dedicate himself to the service of new Russia, and demanded
from him unceasing labour in order to maintain the brand-new
state at the high level of greatness to which it had been
raised. Painful relations between father and son, quite
apart from the personal antipathies already existing, were
therefore inevitable. It was an additional misfortune
for Alexius that his father should have been too busy to
attend to him just as he was growing up from boyhood to
manhood. He was left in the hands of reactionary boyars
and priests, who encouraged him to hate his father and
wish for the death of the tsar-antichrist. His confessor,
Yakov Ignatiev, whom he promised to obey as ``an angel and
apostle of God,'' was his chief counsellor in these days.
In 1708 Peter sent Alexius to Smolensk to collect provender
and recruits, and thence to Moscow to fortify it against
Charles XII. At the end of 1709 he went to Dresden for twelve
months for finishing lessons in French and German, mathematics
and fortification, and, his education completed, he was
married, greatly against his will, to the princess Charlotte
of Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel, whose sister espoused, almost
simultaneously, the heir to the Austrian throne, the archduke
Charles. The wedding was celebrated at Torgau on the 14th of
October 1711, in the house of the queen of Poland, and three
weeks later the bridegroom was hurried away by his father to
Thorn to superintend the provisioning of the Russian troops in
Poland. For the next twelve months Alexius was kept constantly
on the move. His wife joined him at Thorn in December, but
in April 1712 a peremptory ukaz ordered him off to the army in
Pomerania, and in the autumn of the same year he was forced
to accompany his father on a tour of inspection through
Finland. Evidently Peter was determined to tear his son
away from a life of indolent ease. Immediately on his
return from Finland Alexius was despatched by his father
to Staraya Rusya and Ladoga to see to the building of new
ships. This was the last commission entrusted to him.
On his return to the capital Peter, in order to see what
progress his son had made in mechanics and mathematics,
asked him to draw something of a technical nature for his
inspection. Alexius, in order to escape such an ordeal,
resorted to the abject expedient of disabling his right hand by a
pistol-shot. In no other way could the tsarevich have offended
his father so deeply. He had behaved like a cowardly recruit
who mutilates himself to escape military service. After
this, Peter seemed for a time to take no further interest in
Alexius. He left him entirely to himself. He employed him no
more. He no longer pressed him to attend public functions.
Alexius rejoiced at this welcome change, but he had cause
rather to fear it. It marked the deepening of a hatred which
might have been overcome. Alexius was evidently consoling
himself with the reflexion that the future belonged to
him. He was well aware that the mass of the Russian nation
was on his side. Nearly all the prelates were devoted to
him. Equally friendly were the great boyar families. All
Alexius had to do was to sit still, keep out of his father's
way as much as possible and await the natural course of
events. But with Peter the present was everything. He could
not afford to leave anything to chance. All his life long
he had been working incessantly with a single object --the
regeneration of Russia. What if his successor refused to tread
in his father's footsteps or, still worse, tried to destroy his
father's work? By some such process of reasoning as this must
the idea of changing the succession to the throne, by setting
aside Alexius, have first occurred to the mind of Peter the
Great. Nevertheless he made one last effort to reclaim his
son. On the 22nd of October 1715 Alexius' consort, the princess
Charlotte, died, after giving birth to a son, the grand-duke
Peter, afterwards Peter II. On the day of the funeral Peter
addressed to Alexius a stern letter of warning and remonstrance,
urging him no longer to resemble the slothful servant in the
parable, and threatening to cut him off, as though he were a
gangrenous swelling, if he did not acquiesce in his father's
plans. But it was now that Alexius showed what a poor
creature he really was. He wrote a pitiful reply to his
father, offering to renounce the succession in favour of his
baby half-brother Peter, who had been born the day after the
princess Charlotte's funeral. As if this were not enough, in
January 1716 he wrote to his father for permission to become a
monk. Still Peter did not despair. On the 26th of August
1716 he wrote to Alexius from abroad urging him, if he
desired to remain tsarevich, to join him and the army without
delay. Rather than face this ordeal Alexius fled to Vienna
and placed himself under the protection of his brother-in-law,
the emperor Charles VI., who sent him for safety first to the
Tirolean fortress of Ahrenberg, and finally to the castle of
San Elmo at Naples. He was accompanied throughout his journey
by his mistress, the Finnish girl Afrosina. That the emperor
sincerely sympathized with Alexius, and suspected Peter of
harbouring murderous designs against his son, is plain from
his confidential letter to George I. of England, whom he
consulted on this delicate affair. Peter's agitation was
extreme. The flight of the tsarevich to a foreign potentate
was a reproach and a scandal. He must be recovered and
brought back to Russia at all hazards. This difficult task
was accomplished by Count Peter Tolstoi, the most subtle and
unscrupulous of Peter's servants; but terrorized though he
was, Alexius would only consent to return on his father solemnly
swearing, ``before God and His judgment seat,'' that if he
came back he should not be punished in the least, but cherished
as a son and allowed to live quietly on his estates and marry
Afrosina. On the 31st of January 1718 the tsarevich reached
Moscow. Peter had already determined to institute a most searching
inquisition in order to get at the bottom of the mystery of the
flight. On the 18th of February a ``confession'' was extorted
from Alexius which implicated most of his friends, and he
then publicly renounced the succession to the throne in favour
of the baby grand-duke Peter Petrovich. A horrible reign of
terror ensued, in the course of which the ex-tsaritsa Eudoxia
was dragged from her monastery and publicly tried for alleged
adultery, while all who had in any way befriended Alexius were
impaled, broken on the wheel and otherwise lingeringly done to
death. All this was done to terrorize the reactionaries and
isolate the tsarevich. In April 1718 fresh confessions were
extorted from Alexius, now utterly broken and half idiotic with
fright. Yet even now there were no actual facts to go upon.
Alexius' ``evil designs'' were still in foro conscientiae,
and had not been, perhaps never would be, translated into
practice. The worst that could be brought against him was
that he had wished his father's death. In the eyes of Peter,
his son was now a self-convicted and most dangerous traitor,
whose life was forfeit. But there was no getting over the
fact that his father had sworn ``before the Almighty and His
judgment seat'' to pardon him and let him live in peace if he
returned to Russia. From Peter's point of view the question
was, did the enormity of the tsarevich's crime absolve the
tsar from the oath which he had taken to spare the life of
this prodigal son? This question was solemnly submitted to
a grand council of prelates, senators, ministers and other
dignitaries on the 13th of June 1718. The clergy left the
matter to the tsar's own decision. The temporal dignitaries
declared the evidence to be insufficient and suggested that
Alexius should be examined by torture. Accordingly, on
the 19th of June, the weak and ailing tsarevich received
twenty-five strokes with the knout (as then administered
nobody ever survived thirty), and on the 24th fifteen more.
It was hardly possible that he could survive such treatment;
the natural inference is that he was not intended to survive
it. Anyway, he expired two days later in the guardhouse of
the citadel of St Petersburg, two days after the senate had
condemned him to death for imagining rebellion against his
father, and for hoping for the co-operation of the common
people and the armed intervention of his brother-in-law, the
emperor. This shameful sentence was the outcome of mingled
terror and obsequiousness. Abominable, unnatural as Peter's
conduct to his unhappy and innocent son undoubtedly was,
there is no reason to suppose that he ever regretted it. He
argued that a single worthless life stood in the way of the
regeneration of Russia, and he therefore deliberately removed it.
See Robert Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905). (R. N. B.)
ALFANI, DOMENICO, italian painter, was born at Perugia
towards the close of the 15th century. He was a contemporary
of Raphael, with whom he studied in the school of Perugino.
The two artists lived on terms of intimate friendship, and
the influence of the more distinguished of the two is so
clearly traceable in the works of the other, that these
have frequently been attributed to Raphael. Towards the
close of his life Alfani gradually changed his style and
approximated to that of the later Florentine school. The
date of his death, according to some, was 1540, while others
say he was alive in 1553. Pictures by Alfani may be seen in
collections at Florence and in several churches in Perugia.
ALFELD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Hanover, 10 m. W. of Hildesheim, on the river Leine and
the Hanover-Cassel main line of railway. Pop. (1900)
4900. It has a handsome church with twin spires, and training
colleges for schoolmasters and theological candidates.
Its industries are flourishing, and embrace paper-making,
agricultural machine- works, iron-founding and flax-spinning.
ALFIERI, VITTORIO, COUNT (1749-1803), Italian dramatist,
was born on the 17th of January 1749 at Asti in Piedmont. He
lost his father in early infancy; but he continued to reside
with his mother, who married a second time, till his tenth
year, when he was placed at the academy of Turin. After
he had passed a twelvemonth at the academy, he went on a
short visit to a relation who dwelt at Coni; and during his
stay there he made his first poetical attempt in a sonnet
chiefly borrowed from lines in Ariosto and Metastasio,
the only poets he had at that time read. When thirteen
years of age he was induced to begin the study of civil and
canonical law; but the attempt only served to disgust him
with every species of application and to increase his relish
for the perusal of French romances. By the death of his
uncle, who had hitherto taken some charge of his education
and conduct, he was left, at the age of fourteen, to enjoy
without control his vast paternal inheritance, augmented by
the recent accession of his uncle's fortune. He now began
to attend the riding-school, where he acquired that rage
for horses and equestrian exercise which continued to be one
of his strongest passions till the close of his existence.
After some time spent in alternate fits of extravagant
dissipation and ill-directed study, he was seized with a desire
of travelling; and having obtained permission from the king,
he departed in 1766, under the care of an English preceptor.
Restless and unquiet, he posted with the utmost rapidity
through the towns of Italy; and his improvement was such as
was to be expected from his mode of travelling and his previous
habits. Hoping to find in foreign countries some relief from the
tedium and ennui with which he was oppressed, and being anxious
to become acquainted with the French theatre, he proceeded to
Paris. But he appears to have been completely dissatisfied
with everything he witnessed in France and contracted a
dislike to its people, which his intercourse in future years
rather contributed to augment than diminish. In Holland he
became deeply enamoured of a married lady, who returned his
attachment, but who was soon obliged to accompany her husband to
Switzerland. Alfieri, whose feelings were of the most impetuous
description, was in despair at this separation, and returned
to his own country in the utmost anguish and despondency of
mind. While under this depression of spirits he was induced
to seek alleviation from works of literature; and the perusal
of Plutarch's Lives, which he read with profound emotion,
inspired him with an enthusiastic passion for freedom and
independence. Under the influence of this rage for liberty
he recommenced his travels; and his only gratification, in
the absence of freedom among the continental states, appears
to have been derived from contemplating the wild and sterile
regions of the north of Sweden, where gloomy forests, lakes
and precipices conspired to excite those sublime and melancholy
ideas which were congenial to his disposition. Everywhere
his soul felt as if confined by the bonds of society; he
panted for something more free in government, more elevated
in sentiment, more devoted in love and more perfect in
friendship. In search of this ideal world he posted through
various countries more with the rapidity of a courier than
of one who travels for amusement or instruction. During a
journey to London he engaged in an intrigue with a married
lady of high rank; and having been detected, the publicity
of a rencounter with the injured husband, and of a divorce
which followed, rendered it expedient and desirable for him
to quit England. He then visited Spain and Portugal, where
he became acquainted with the Abbe Caluso, who remained
through life the most attached and estimable friend he ever
possessed. In 1772 Alfieri returned to Turin. This time he
became enamoured of the Marchesa Turinetti di Prie, whom he
loved with his usual ardour, and who seems to have been as
undeserving of a sincere attachment as those he had hitherto
adored. In the course of a long attendance on his mistress,
during a malady with which she was afflicted, he one day wrote
a dialogue or scene of a drama, which he left at her house. On
a difference taking place between them the piece was returned
to him, and being retouched and extended to five acts, it was
performed at Turin in 1775, under the title of Cleopatra.
From this moment Alfieri was seized with an insatiable
thirst for theatrical fame, and the remainder of his life
was devoted to its attainment. His first two tragedies,
Filippo and Polinice were originally written in French
prose; and when he came to versify them in Italian, he
found that, from his Lombard origin and long intercourse
with foreigners, he expressed himself with feebleness and
inaccuracy. Accordingly, with the view of improving his
Italian style, he went to Tuscany and, during an alternate
residence at Florence and Siena, he completed his Filippo
and Polinice, and conceived the plan of various other
dramas. While thus employed he became acquainted with the
countess of Albany, who then resided with her husband at
Florence. For her he formed an attachment which, if less
violent than his former loves, appears to have been more
permanent. With this motive to remain at Florence, he could
not endure the chains by which his vast possessions bound him to
Piedmont. He therefore resigned his whole property to his
sister, the countess Cumiana, reserving an annuity which
scarcely amounted to a half of his original revenues. At
this period the countess of Albany, urged by the ill-treatment
she received from her husband, sought refuge in Rome, where
she at length received permission from the pope to live
apart from her tormentor. Alfieri followed the countess to
that capital, where he completed fourteen tragedies, four
of which were now for the first time printed at Sienna.
At length, however, it was thought proper that, by leaving
Rome, he should remove the aspersions which had been thrown
on the object of his affections. During the year 1783 he
therefore travelled through different states of Italy, and
published six additional tragedies. The interests of his love
and literary glory had not diminished his rage for horses,
which seems to have been at least the third passion of his
soul. He came to England solely for the purpose of purchasing
a number of these animals, which he carried with him to
Italy. On his return he learned that the countess of Albany
had gone to Colmar in Alsace, where he joined her, and
resided with her under the same roof during the rest of his
life. They chiefly passed their time between Alsace and
Paris, but at length took up their abode entirely in that
metropolis. While here, Alfieri made arrangements with
Didot for an edition of his tragedies, but was soon after
forced to quit Paris by the storms of the Revolution. He
recrossed the Alps with the countess, and finally settled at
Florence. The last ten years of his life, which he spent in
that city, seem to have been the happiest of his existence.
During that long period his tranquillity was only interrupted
by the entrance of the Revolutionary armies into Florence in
1799. Though an enemy of kings, the aristocratic feeling
of Alfieri rendered him also a decided foe to the principles
and leaders of the French Revolution; and he rejected with
the utmost contempt those advances which were made with
a view to bring him over to their cause. The concluding
years of his life were laudably employed in the study
of the Greek literature and in perfecting a series of
comedies. His assiduous labour on this subject, which he
pursued with his characteristic impetuosity, exhausted his
strength, and brought on a malady for which he would not
adopt the prescriptions of his physicians, but obstinately
persisted in employing remedies of his own. His disorder
rapidly increased, and he died on the 8th of October 1803.
The character of Alfieri may be best appreciated from the
portrait which he has drawn of himself in his own Memoirs
of his Life. He was evidently of an irritable, impetuous
and almost ungovernable temper. Pride, which seems to
have been a ruling sentiment, may account for many apparent
inconsistencies of his character. But his less amiable
qualities were greatly softened by the cultivation of
literature. His application to study gradually tranquillized
his temper and softened his manners, leaving him at the same
time in perfect possession of those good qualities which he
had inherited from nature--a warm and disinterested attachment
to his family and friends, united to a generosity, vigour and
elevation of character, which rendered him not unworthy to embody
in his dramas the actions and sentiments of Grecian heroes.
It is to his dramas that Alfieri is chiefly indebted for the
high reputation he has attained. Before his time the Italian
language, so harmonious in the Sonnets of Petrarch and so
energetic in the Commedia of Dante, had been invariably
languid and prosaic in dramatic dialogue. The pedantic
and inanimate tragedies of the 16th century were followed,
during the iron age of Italian literature, by dramas of
which extravagance in the sentiments and improbability in
the action were the chief characteristics. The prodigious
success of the Merope of Maffei, which appeared in the
commencement of the 18th century, may be attributed more
to a comparison with such productions than to intrinsic
merit. In this degradation of tragic taste the appearance
of the tragedies of Alfieri was perhaps the most important
literary event that had occurred in Italy during the 18th
century. On these tragedies it is difficult to pronounce a
judgment, as the taste and system of the author underwent
considerable change and modification during the intervals
which elapsed between the three periods of their publication.
An excessive harshness of style, an asperity of sentiment and
total want of Poetical ornament are the characteristics of
his first four tragedies, Filippo, Polinice, Antigone and
Virginia. These faults were in some measure corrected in
the six tragedies which he gave to the world some years after,
and in those which he published along with Saul, the drama
which enjoyed the greatest success of all his productions--a
popularity which may be partly attributed to the severe and
unadorned manner of Alfieri being well adapted to the patriarchal
simplicity of the age in which the scene of the tragedy is
placed. But though there be a considerable difference in his
dramas, there are certain observations applicable to them
all. None of the plots are of his own invention. They are
founded either on mythological fable or history; most of them
had been previously treated by the Greek dramatists or by
Seneca. Rosmunda, the only one which could be supposed of
his own contrivance, and which is certainly the least happy
effusion of his genius, is partly founded on the eighteenth
novel of the third part of Bandello and partly on Prevost's
Memoires d'un homme de qualite. But whatever subject he
chooses, his dramas are always formed on the Grecian model
and breathe a freedom and independence worthy of an Athenian
poet. Indeed, his Agide and Bruto may rather be considered
oratorical declamations and dialogues on liberty than tragedies.
The unities of time and place are not so scrupulously observed
in his as in the ancient dramas; but he has rigidly adhered
to a unity of action and interest. He occupies his scene with
one great action and one ruling passion, and removes from it
every accessory event or feeling. In this excessive zeal for
the observance of unity he seems to have forgotten that its
charm consists in producing a common relation between multiplied
feelings, and not in the bare exhibition of one, divested
of those various accompaniments which give harmony to the
whole. Consistently with that austere and simple manner which
he considered the chief excellence of dramatic composition,
he excluded from his scene all coups de theatre,
all philosophical reflexions, and that highly ornamented
Versification which had been so assiduously cultivated by his
predecessors. In his anxiety, however, to avoid all superfluous
ornament, he has stripped his dramas of the embellishments
of imagination; and for the harmony and flow of poetical
language he has substituted, even in his best performances,
a style which, though correct and pure, is generally harsh,
elaborate and abrupt; often strained into unnatural energy or
condensed into factitious conciseness. The chief excellence
of Alfieri consists in powerful delineation of dramatic
character. In his Filippo he has represented, almost with
the masterly touches of Tacitus, the sombre character, the
dark mysterious counsels, the suspensa semper et obscura
verba, of the modern Tiberius. In Polinice, the characters
of the rival brothers are beautifully contrasted; in Maria
Stuarda, that unfortunate queen is represented unsuspicious,
impatient of contradiction and violent in her attachments.
In Mirra, the character of Ciniro is perfect as a father
and king, and Cecri is a model of a wife and mother. In the
representation of that species of mental alienation where
the judgment has perished but traces of character still
remain, he is peculiarly happy. The insanity of Saul is
skilfully managed; and the horrid joy of Orestes in killing
Aegisthus rises finely and naturally to madness in finding
that, at the same time, he had inadvertently slain his mother.
Whatever may be the merits or defects of Alfieri, he may be
considered as the founder of a new school in the Italian drama.
His country hailed him as her sole tragic poet; and his successors
in the same path of literature have regarded his bold, austere
and rapid manner as the genuine model of tragic composition.
Besides his tragedies, Alfieri published during his life many
sonnets, five odes on American independence and the poem of
Etruria, founded on the assassination of Alexander I., duke of
Florence. Of his prose works the most distinguished for
animation and eloquence is the Panegyric on Trajan, composed
in a transport of indignation at the supposed feebleness of
Pliny's eulogium. The two books entitled La Tirannide and
the Essays on Literature and Government are remarkable for
elegance and vigour of style, but are too evidently imitations
of the manner of Machiavel. His Antigallican, which was
written at the same time with his Defence of Louis XVI.,
comprehends an historical and satirical view of the French
Revolution. The posthumous works of Alfieri consist of satires,
six political comedies and the Memoirs of his Life--a work
which will always be read with interest, in spite of the cold
and languid gravity with which he delineates the most interesting
adventures and the strongest passions of his agitated life.
See Mem. di Vit. Alfieri; Sismondi, De la lit. du midi de
l'Europe; Walker's Memoir on Italian Tragedy; Giorn. de Pisa,
tom. lviii.; Life of Alfieri, by Centofanti (Florence, 1842);
Vita, Giornuli, Lettere di Alfieri, by Teza (Florence, 1861);
Vittorio Alfieri, by Antonini and Cognetti (Turin, 1898).
ALFORD, HENRY (1810-1871), English divine and scholar,
was born in London on the 7th of October 1810. He came of
a Somersetshire family, which had given five consecutive
generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's
early years were passed with his widowed father, who was
curate of Steeple Ashton in Wiltshire. He was an extremely
precocious lad, and before he was ten had written several
Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic
outlines. After a peripatetic school course he went up to
Cambridge in 1827 as a scholar of Trinity. In 1832 he was
34th wrangler and 8th classic, and in 1834 was made fellow of
Trinity. He had already taken orders, and in 1835 began
his eighteen years' tenure of the vicarage of Wymeswold in
Leicestershire, from which seclusion the twice-repeated
offer of a colonial bishopric failed to draw him. He was
Hulsean lecturer at Cambridge in 1841-1842, and steadily
built up a reputation as scholar and preacher, which would
have been enhanced but for his discursive ramblings in the
fields of minor poetry and magazine editing. In September
1853 Alford removed to Quebec Chapel, London, where he had
a large and cultured congregation. In March 1857 Viscount
Palmerston advanced him to the deanery of Canterbury, where,
till his death on the 12th of January 1871, he lived the same
strenuous and diversified life that had always characterized
him. The inscription on his tomb, chosen by himself, is
``Diversorium Viatoris Hierosolymam Proficiscentis.''
Alford was a not inconsiderable artist, as his picture-book,
The Riviera (1870), shows, and he had abundant musical and
mechanical talent. Besides editing the works of John Donne,
he published several volumes of his own verse, The School of
the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), and a
number of hymns, the best-known of which are ``Forward! be our
watch-word,'' ``Come, ye thankful people, come,'' and ``Ten
thousand times ten thousand.'' He translated the Odyssey,
wrote a well-known manual of idiom, A Plea for the Queen's
English (1863), and was the first editor of the Contemporary
Review (1866--1870). His chief fame, however, rests upon his
monumental edition of the New Testament in Greek (4 vols.),
which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he first
brought before English students a careful collation of the
readings of the chief MSS. and the researches of the ripest
continental scholarship of his day. Philological rather
than theological in character, it marked an epochal change
from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent
research, patristic and papyral, has largely changed the
method of New Testament exegesis, Alford's work is still a
quarry where the student can dig with a good deal of profit.
His Life, written by his widow, appeared in 1873 (Rivington). (A. J. G.)
ALFRED, or AELFRED, known as THE GREAT (848-? 900), king
of England, was born in 848 at Wantage, and was the fourth
son of King AEthelwulf and his first wife (Osburh). He seems
to have been a child of singular attractiveness and promise,
and stories of his boyhood were remembered. At the age of
five (853) he was sent to Rome, where he was confirmed by Leo
IV., who is also stated to have ``hallowed him as king.''
Later writers interpreted this as an anticipatory crowning
in preparation for his ultimate succession to the throne of
Wessex. That, however, could not have been foreseen in
853, as Alfred had three elder brothers living. It is
probably to be understood either of investiture with the
consular insignia, or possibly with some titular royalty
such as that of the under-kingdom of Kent. In 855 Alfred
again went to Rome with his father AEthelwulf, returning
towards the end of 856. About two years later his father
died. During the short reigns of his two eldest brothers,
AEthelbald and AEthelberht, nothing is heard of Alfred.
But with the accession of the third brother AEthelred (866)
the public life of Alfred begins, and he enters on his
great work of delivering England from the Danes. It is in
this reign that Asser applies to Alfred the unique title of
secundarius, which seems to indicate a position analogous to
that of the Celtic tanist, a recognized successor, closely
associated with the reigning prince. It is probable that
this arrangement was definitely sanctioned by the witenagemot,
to guard against the danger of a disputed succession should
AEthelred fall in battle. In 868 Alfred married Ealhswith,
daughter of AEthelred Mucill, who is called ealdorman of the
Gaini, an unidentified district. The same year the two
brothers made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve Mercia from
the pressure of the Danes. For nearly two years Wessex had a
respite. But at the end of 870 the storm burst; and the year
which followed has been rightly called ``Alfred's year of
battles.'' Nine general engagements were fought with varying
fortunes, though the place and date of two of them have not
been recorded. A successful skirmish at Englefield, Berks
(December 31, 870), was followed by a severe defeat at Reading
(January 4, 871), and this, four days later, by the brilliant
victory of Ashdown, near Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham
Hundred. On the 22nd of January the English were again
defeated at Basing, and on the 22nd of March at Marton, Wilts,
the two unidentified battles having perhaps occurred in the
interval. In April AEthelred died, and Alfred succeeded to
the whole burden of the contest. While he was busied with
his brother's exequies, the Danes defeated the English in
his absence at an unnamed spot, and once more in his presence
at Wilton in May. After this peace was made, and for the
next five years the Danes were occupied in other parts of
England, Alfred merely keeping a force of observation on the
frontier. But in 876 part of the Danes managed to slip past
him and occupied Wareham; whence, early in 877, under cover of
treacherous negotiations, they made a dash westwards and seized
Exeter. Here Alfred blockaded them, and a relieving fleet
having been scattered by a storm, the Danes had to submit
and withdrew to Mercia. But in January 878 they made a
sudden swoop on Chippenham, a royal vill in which Alfred had
been keeping his Christmas, ``and most of the people they
reduced, except the King Alfred, and he with a little band
made his way . . . by wood and swamp, and after Easter he . .
. made a fort at Athelney, and from that fort kept fighting
against the foe'' (Chron..) The idea that Alfred, during
his retreat at Athelney, was a helpless fugitive rests upon
the foolish legend of the cakes. In reality he was organizing
victory. By the middle of May his preparations were complete
and he moved out of Athelney, being joined on the way by the
levies of Somerset, Wilts and Hants. The Danes on their side
moved out of Chippenham, and the two armies met at Edington in
Wiltshire. The result was a decisive victory for Alfred. The
Danes submitted. Guthrum, the Danish king, and twenty-nine of
his chief men accepted baptism. By the next year (879) not only
Wessex, but Mercia, west of Watling Street, was cleared of the
invader. This is the arrangement known as the peace of Wedmore
(878), though no document embodying its provisions is in
existence. And though for the present the north-eastern half
of England, including London, remained in the hands of the
Danes, in reality the tide had turned, and western Europe
was saved from the danger of becoming a heathen Scandinavian
power. For the next few years there was peace, the Danes
being kept busy on the continent. A landing in Kent in 884
or 885,1 though successfully repelled, encouraged the East
Anglian Danes to revolt. The measures taken by Alfred to
repress this revolt culminated in the capture of London in 885
or 886, and the treaty known as Alfred and Guthrum's peace,
whereby the boundaries of the treaty of Wedmore (with which
this is often confused) were materially modified in Alfred's
favour. Once more for a time there was a lull; but in
the autumn of 892 (893) the final storm burst. The Danes,
finding their position on the continent becoming more and more
precarious, crossed to England in two divisions, amounting in
the aggregate to 330 sail, and entrenched themselves, the larger
body at Appledore and the lesser under Haesten at Milton in
Kent. The fact that the new invaders brought their wives and
children with them shows that this was no mere raid, but a
deliberate attempt, in concert with the Northumbrian and East
Anglian Danes, to conquer England. Alfred, 893 (894), took up
a position whence he could observe both forces. While he was
negotiating with Haesten the Danes at Appledore broke out and
struck north-westwards, but were overtaken by Alfred's eldest
son, Edward, and defeated in a general engagement at Farnham,
and driven to take refuge in Thorney Island in the Hertfordshire
Colne, where they were blockaded and ultimately compelled to
submit. They then fell back on Essex, and after suffering
another defeat at Benfleet coalesced with Haesten's force at
Shoebury. Alfred had been on his way to relieve his son at
Thorney when he heard that the Northumbrian and East Anglian
Danes were besieging Exeter and an unnamed fort on the coast
of North Devon. Alfred at once hurried westwards and raised
the siege of Exeter; the fate of the other place is not
recorded. Meanwhile the force under Haesten set out to march
up the Thames valley, possibly with the idea of assisting their
friends in the west. But they were met by a large force under
the three great ealdormen of Mercia, Wilts and Somerset, and
forced to head off to the north-west, being finally overtaken
and blockaded at Buttington, which some identify with Buttington
Tump at the mouth of the Wye, others with Buttington near
Welshpool. An attempt to break through the English lines
was defeated with loss; those who escaped retreated to
Shoebury. Then after collecting reinforcements they made a
sudden dash across England and occupied the ruined Roman walls of
Chester. The English did not attempt a winter blockade, but
contented themselves with destroying all the supplies in the
neighbourhood. And early in 894 (895) want of food obliged
the Danes to retire once more to Essex. At the end of this
year and early in 895 (896) the Danes drew their ships up the
Thames and Lea and fortified themselves twenty miles above
London. A direct attack on the Danish lines failed, but
later in the year Alfred saw a means of obstructing the
river so as to prevent the egress of the Danish ships. The
Danes realized that they were out-manoeuvred. They struck
off north-westwards and wintered at Bridgenorth. The next
year, 896 (897), they abandoned the struggle. Some retired to
Northumbria, some to East Anglia; those who had no connexions
in England withdrew to the continent. The long campaign was
over. The result testifies to the confidence inspired by
Alfred's character and generalship, and to the efficacy of the
military reforms initiated by him. These were (1) the division
of the fyrd or national militia into two parts, relieving
each other at fixed intervals, so as to ensure continuity in
military operations; (2) the establishment of fortified posts
(burgs) and garrisons at certain points; (3) the enforcement
of the obligations of thanehood on all owners of five hides
of land, thus giving the king a nucleus of highly equipped
troops. After the final dispersal of the Danish invaders
Alfred turned his attention to the increase of the navy, and
ships were built according to the king's own designs, partly to
repress the ravages of the Northumbrian and East Anglian Danes
on the coasts of Wessex, partly to prevent the landing of fresh
hordes. This is not, as often asserted, the beginning of the
English navy. There had been earlier naval operations under
Alfred. One naval engagement was certainly fought under
AEthelwulf (851), and earlier ones, possibly in 833 and 840.
Nor were the new ships a great success, as we hear of them
grounding in action and foundering in a storm. Much, too, was
needed in the way of civil re-organization, especially in the
districts ravaged by the Danes. In the parts of Mercia acquired
by Alfred, the shire system seems now to have been introduced
for the first time. This is the one grain of truth in the
legend that Alfred was the inventor of shires, hundreds and
tithings. The finances also would need careful attention;
but the subject is obscure, and we cannot accept Asser's
description of Alfred's appropriation of his revenue as more
than an ideal sketch. Alfred's care for the administration
of justice is testified both by history and legend; and
the title ``protector of the poor'' was his by unquestioned
right. Of the action of the witenagemot we do not hear very
much under Alfred. That he was anxious to respect its rights
is conclusively proved, but both the circumstances of the
time and the character of the king would tend to throw more
power into his hands. The legislation of Alfred probably
belongs to the later part of the reign, after the pressure of
the Danes had relaxed. The details of it cannot be discussed
here. Asser speaks grandiosely of Alfred's relations with
foreign powers, but little definite information is available.
He certainly corresponded with Elias III., the patriarch of
Jerusalem, and probably sent a mission to India. Embassies
to Rome conveying the English alms to the pope were fairly
frequent; while Alfred's interest in foreign countries is
shown by the insertions which he made in his translation of
Orosius. His relations to the Celtic princes in the southern
half of the island are clearer. Comparatively early in
his reign the South Welsh princes, owing to the pressure
on them of North Wales and Mercia, commended themselves to
Alfred. Later in the reign the North Welsh followed their
example, and the latter co-operated with the English in the
campaign of 893 (894). The Celtic principality in Cornwall,
which seems to have survived at least till 926, must long
have been practically dependent on Wessex. That Alfred
sent alms to Irish as well as to continental monasteries
may be accepted on Asser's authority; the visit of the
three pilgrim ``Scots'' (i.e. Irish) to Alfred in 891
is undoubtedly authentic; the story that he himself in his
childhood was sent to Ireland to be healed by St Modwenna,
though mythical, may point to Alfred's interest in that
island. The history of the church under Alfred is most
obscure. The Danish inroads had told heavily upon it; the
monasteries had been special points of attack, and though
Alfred founded two or three monasteries and imported foreign
monks, there was no general revival of monasticism under
him. To the ruin of learning and education wrought by
the Danes, and the practical extinction of the knowledge
of Latin even among the clergy, the preface to Alfred's
translation of Gregory's Pastoral Care bears eloquent
testimony. It was to remedy these evils that he established
a court school, after the example of Charles the Great; for
this he imported scholars like Grimbald and John the Saxon
from the continent and Asser from South Wales; for this,
above all, he put himself to school, and made the series of
translations for the instruction of his clergy and people,
most of which still survive. These belong unquestionably
to the later part of his reign, not improbably to the last
four years of it, during which the chronicles are almost
silent. Apart from the lost Handboc or Encheiridion,
which seems to have been merely a commonplace-book kept by the
king, the earliest work to be translated was the Dialogues
of Gregory, a book enormously popular in the middle
ages. In this case the translation was made by Alfred's
great friend Werferth, bishop of Worcester, the king merely
furnishing a preface. The next work to be undertaken was
Gregory's Pastoral Care, especially for the benefit of the
clergy. In this Alfred keeps very close to his original;
but the introduction which he prefixed to it is one of the
most interesting documents of the reign, or indeed of English
history. The next two works taken in hand were historical,
the Universal History of Orosius and Bede's Ecclesiastical
History of the English People. The priority should probably
be assigned to the Orosius, but the point has been much
debated. In the Orosius, by omissions and additions, Alfred
so remodels his original as to produce an almost new work;
in the Bede the author's text is closely adhered to, no
additions being made, though most of the documents and some
other less interesting matters are omitted. Of late years
doubts have been raised as to Alfred's authorship of the Bede
translation. But the sceptics cannot be regarded as having
proved their point. We come now to what is in many ways
the most interesting of Alfred's works, his translation of
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, the most popular
philosophical manual of the middle ages. Here again Alfred
deals very freely with his original and though the late Dr
G. Schepss showed that many of the additions to the text are
to be traced not to Alfred himself, but to the glosses and
commentaries which he used, still there is much in the work
which is solely Alfred's and highly characteristic of his
genius. It is in the Boethius that the oft-quoted sentence
occurs: ``My will was to live worthily as long as I lived,
and after my life to leave to them that should come after, my
memory in good works.'' The book has come down to us in two MSS.
only. In one of these the poems with which the original
is interspersed are rendered into prose, in the other into
alliterating verse. The authorship of the latter has been
much disputed; but probably they also are by Alfred. Of the
authenticity of the work as a whole there has never been any
doubt. The last of Alfred's works is one to which he gave the
title Blostman, i. e. ``Blooms'' or Anthology. The first
half is based mainly on the Soliloquies of St Augustine,
the remainder is drawn from various sources, and contains
much that is Alfred's own and highly characteristic of
him. The last words of it may be quoted; they form a fitting
epitaph for the noblest of English kings. ``Therefore he
seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will
not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and
ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall
be made clear.'' Besides these works of Alfred's, the Saxon
Chronicle almost certainly, and a Saxon Martyrology, of
which fragments only exist, probably owe their inspiration to
him. A prose version of the first fifty Psalms has been
attributed to him; and the attribution, though not proved,
is perfectly possible. How Alfred passed to ``the life where
all things are made clear'' we do not know. The very year is
uncertain. The arguments on the whole are in favour of
900. The day was the 26th of October. Alike for what he
did and for what he was, there is none to equal Alfred
in the whole line of English sovereigns; and no monarch
in history ever deserved more truly the epithet of Great.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The chief original authorities for the reign
of Alfred are the so-called Life by Asser (best edition
by W. H. Stevenson, Clarendon Press, 1904); and the Saxon
Chronicles (text and notes by Earle and Plummer, 2 vols.,
Clar. Press, 1892-1899; parallel texts and translation,
Thorpe, 2 vols., 1861, Rolls Series; translation alone,
Joseph Stevenson in Church Historians of England, vol. ii.,
1853). The above sketch is based mainly on C. Plummer's Life
and Times of Alfred the Great (Clar. Press, 1902). Of earlier
biographies that by Pauli is still of great value: Konig
AElfred (Berlin, 1851); Eng. trans. by Thorpe (Bohn, 1853). Of
recent works mention may be made of Alfred the Great, Chapters
on his Life and Times, by various authors, edited by Alfred
Bowker (1899); Earle, The Alfred Jewel (Clar. Press, 1901).
For the bioliography of Alfred's works in general see Wulker,
Grundriss zur Gesch. der angelsachsischen Litteratur, pp.
386-451 (Leipzig, 1885). Only the more recent and accessible
editions are mentioned here. Laws: The Legal Code ofAElfred
the Great (M. H. Turk, Halle, 1893). (For the Anglo-Saxon laws
as a whole see Liebermann, Gesetze der Angelsachsen, Halle,
1898-1903. Earlier editions, Schmid, 1858; Thorpe, 1840.)
Gregory's Dialogues: Hans Hecht, in Grein's Bibliothek der
angels. Prosa (1900). Gregory's Pastoral Care: H. Sweet,
for Early Eng. Text Society (1871--1872). (Dissertations by
Wack and DeWitz, 1889.) Orosius: Thorpe (in his translation of
Pauli, U. S. 1853); Bosworth (1859); Sweet, E.E.T.S. (1883).
(Dissertation Schelling, Konig AElfred's . . . Orosius,
Halle, 1886.) Bede: T. Miller, for E.E.T.S. (1890); Prof.
Schipper, in Grein's Bibliothek (U.S. 1899). Boethius:
W. J. Sedgfield (Clar. Press, 1899); translation by the same
(1900). (Dissertation: G. Schepss, Archiv fur's Studium
der neueren Sprachen, xciv. 14-160.) Blostman: First printed
by Cockayne in the Shrine (1868-1869); reprinted, Englische
Studien, xviii.; new edition by Hararove, Yale Studies in
English, xiii. (1902); translation by the same, ib. xxii.
(1904). (Dissertation: F. G. Hubbard, Modern Language Notes,
ix. 522 ff.) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: see above. Mortyrology:
Cockayne, in the Shrine, v.s. Psalter: Thorpe (Clar.
Press, 1855). (Dissertations: for Alfred's authorship, Wichmann,
Anglia, xi. 19 ff.; against, J. D. Bruce, The Anglo-Saxon
Version of the Book of Psalms, Baltimore, 1894.) (C. PL.)
1 Where alternative dates are given the later date is that
of the Saxon Chronicle. But the evidence of the Continental
Chronicles makes it probable that the Saxon Chronicle
is a year in advance of the true chronology in this part.
ALFRED ERNEST ALBERT, duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and duke
of Edinburgh (1844-1900), second son and fourth child of Queen
Victoria, was born at Windsor Castle on the 6th of August
1844. In 1856 it was decided that the prince, in accordance
with his own wishes, should enter the navy, and a separate
establishment was accordingly assigned to him, with Lieutenant
Sowell, R. E., as governor. He passed a most creditable
examination for midshipman in August 1858, and being appointed
to the ``Euryalus,'' at once began to work hard at the
practical part of his profession. In July 1860, while on this
ship, he paid an official visit to the Cape, and made a very
favourable impression both on the colonials and on the native
chiefs. On the abdication of Otto, king of Greece, in 1862,
Prince Alfred was chosen by the whole people to succeed
him, but political conventions of long standing rendered
it impossible for the British government to accede to their
wishes. The prince therefore remained in the navy, and was
promoted lieutenant on the 24th of February 1863 and captain
on the 23rd of February 1866, being then appointed to the
command of the ``Galatea.'' On attaining his majority in 1865
the prince was created duke of Edinburgh and earl of Ulster,
with an annuity of L. 15,000 granted by parliament. While
still in command of the ``Galatea'' the duke started from
Plymouth on the 24th of January 1867 for his voyage round the
world. On the 11th of June 1867 he left Gibraltar and reached
the Cape on the 24th of July, and landed at Glenelg, South
Australia, on the 31st of October. Being the first English
prince to visit Australia, the duke was received with the greatest
enthusiasm. During his stay of nearly five months he visited
Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Tasmania; and
it was on his second visit to Sydney that, while attending
a public picnic at Clonfert in aid of the Sailors' Home,
an Irishman named O'Farrell shot him in the back with a
revolver. The wound was fortunately not dangerous, and
within a month the duke was able to resume command of his
ship and return home. He reached Spithead on the 26th of
June 1868, after an absence of seventeen months. The duke's
next voyage was to India, where he arrived in December
1869. Both there and at Hong Kong, which he visited on the
way, he was the first British prince to set foot in the
country. The native rulers of India vied with one another
in the magnificence of their entertainments during the duke's
stay of three months. On the 23rd of January 1874 the marriage
of the duke to the grand-duchess Marie Alexandrovna, only
daughter of Alexander II., emperor of Russia, was celebrated
at St Petersburg, and the bride and bridegroom made their
public entry into London on the 12th of March. The duke
still devoted himself to his profession, showing complete
mastery of his duties and unusual skill in naval tactics.
He was promoted rear-admiral on the 30th of December 1878;
vice-admiral, 10th of November 1882; admiral, 18th of October
1887; and received his baton as admiral of the Fleet, 3rd of
June 1893. He commanded the Channel fleet, 1883-1884; the
Mediterranean fleet, 1886-1889; and was commander-in-chief at
Davenport, 1890- 1893. He always paid the greatest attention
to his offiicial duties and was most efficient as an admiral.
On the death of his uncle, Ernest II., duke of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha, on the 22nd of August 1893, the vacant duchy fell to
the duke of Edinburgh, for the prince of Wales had renounced
his right to the succession. At first regarded with some
coldness as a ``foreigner,'' he gradually gained popularity,
and by the time of his death, on the 30th of July 1900, he
had completely won the good opinion of his subjects. The duke
was exceedingly fond of music and an excellent violinist, and
took a prominent part in establishing the Royal College of
music. He was also a keen collector of glass and ceramic
ware, and his collection, valued at half a million of marks,
was presented by his widow to the ``Veste Coburg,'' near
Coburg. When he became duke of Saxe-Coburg he surrendered his
English allowance of L. 15,000 a year, but the L. 10,000 granted
in addition by parliament on his marriage he retained in
order to keep up Clarence House. The duke had one son,
who died unmarried on the 6th of February 1899, and four
daughters. The third daughter, Princess Alexandra Louisa
Olga Victoria, married the hereditary prince Ernest of
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, who became regent of the duchy of
Coburg during the minority of the deceased duke's nephew, the
young duke of Albany, to whom the succession fell. (G. F. B.)
ALFRED, a village in the township of Alfred, Allegany county,
New York, U.S.A., about 75 m. S.W. of Buffalo. Pop. of the
township, including the village (1900), 1615; (1910 U. S. census)
1590. Pop. of the village (1900) 756; (1910 U. S. census) 759.
The township is served, at Alfred station, by the Erie railway.
The village, which is connected by stage with the station, is
situated at the junction of two valleys and commands delightful
views of mountain scenery. On the west slope of pine Hill is
Alfred University (co-educational), which embraces a College
(non-sectarian), an academy (non-sectarian) and a theological
seminary (Seventh-Day Baptist). Closely associated with it
also, and under the management of the university trustees,
is the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics
(1900), one of the most efficient schools of the kind in the
country. In 1908 the legislature of New York appropriated
$80,000 for the establishment of a state school of agriculture
in connexion with the university. The institution had its
beginning in 1836 in a private school. This developed into
an academy, which in 1843 was incorporated as Alfred Academy
and Teachers' Seminary; in 1857 the university was chartered
under its present name. The principal industry of the village
is the manufacture of roofing tiles. The township of Alfred
lies within the territory purchased by Robert Morris in 1791.
He sold it in the same year to a company resident in London,
England. Their agent sold most of it to settlers and, it is
said, named the township, when it was organized in 1806, in
honour of Alfred the Great. The first settlement within its
present limits was made in 1807. For several years most of the
settlers were Seventh-Day Baptists, and in 1812 they organized
a church here. The village of Alfred was chartered in 1887.
J. S. Minard, Allegany County and its People (Alfred, 1896).
ALFRETON, a market town in the mid-parliamentary division of
Derbyshire, England, 14 m N. by E. of Derby, on the Midland
railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 17,505. It lies at a
considerable elevation above the valley of a small stream tributary
to the Derwent. The church of St Martin is Early English and
later. The neighbourhood abounds in ironworks, collieries,
quarries and potteries, and is thickly populated. To the
north-east of Alfreton are South Normanton (pop. 5170), Blackwell
(4144) and Tibshelf (3432); to the north Shirland (3929), to
the south Ironville and other busy industrial villages. The
foundation of Alfreton is traditionally ascribed to King Alfred.
ALFUROS (ALFURES, HORAFORAS), a term of no ethnological value
applied by the Malays to all the uncivilized non- Mahommedan
peoples in the eastern portion of the Malay Archipelago. Its
origin is uncertain, but its meaning is ``wild'' or ``uncivilized.''
The term is not restricted to the aborigines, but is far
more frequently used to describe the tribes of Malayan blood.
ALGAE. The Latin word alga seems to have been the equivalent
of the English word ``seaweed'' and probably stood for any or all
of the species of plants which form the ``wrack'' of a seashore.
Classification.
When the word ``Algae'' came to be employed in botanical
classification as the name of a class, an arbitrary limitation
had to be set to its signification, and this was not always in
keeping with its original meaning. The absence of differentiation
into root, stem and leaf which prevails among seaweeds,
seems, for example, to have led Linnaeus to employ the term
in the Genera Plantarum for a sub-class of Cryptogamia, the
members of which presented this character in a greater or less
degree. Of the fifteen genera included by Linnaeus among
algae, not more than six--viz. Chara, Fucus, Diva and
Conferva, and in part Tremella and Byssus--would to-day,
in any sense in which the term is employed, be regarded as
algae. The excluded genera are distributed among the
liverworts, lichens and fungi; but notwithstanding the
great advance in knowledge since the time of Linnaeus, the
difficulty of deciding what limits to assign to the group
to be designated Algae still remains. It arises from the
fact that algae, as generally understood, do not constitute
a homogeneous group, suggesting a descent from a common
stock. Among them there exist, as will be seen hereafter, many
well-marked but isolated natural groups, and their inclusion
in the larger group is generally felt to be a matter of
convenience rather than the expression of a belief in their
close inter-relationship. Efforts are therefore continually
being made by successive writers to exclude certain outlying
sub-groups, and to reserve the term Algae for a central group
reconstituted on a more natural basis within narrower limits.
It is perhaps desirable, in an article like this, to treat
of algae in the widest possible sense in which the term
may be used, an indication being at the same time given
of the narrower senses in which it has been proposed to
employ it. Interpreted in this way, the place of algae
in the vegetable kingdom may be shown by means of a
_
_ _ | Myxomycetes
| | Thallophyta | Fungi
| Cryptogamia | |_ Algae
The Vegetable | | Bryophyta
Kingdom | |_ Pteridophyta
| _
| | Gymnosperms
| Phanerogamia |_ Angiosperms
|_
Algae in this wide sense may be briefly described as the
aggregate of those simpler forms of plant life usually devoid,
like the rest of the Thallophyta, of differentiation into
root, stem and leaf; but, unlike other Thallophyta, possessed
of a colouring matter; by means of which they are enabled,
in the presence of sunlight, to make use of the carbonic
acid gas of the atmosphere as a source of carbon. It is
true that certain Bryophyta (Marchantiaceae, Anthoceroteae)
possess a thalloid structure similar to that of Thallophyta,
and are at the same time possessed of the colouring matter
of the Green Algae. Their life-cycle, however, the structure
of the reproductive organs and their whole organization
proclaim them to be Bryophyta (q.v..) On the other hand,
certain undoubted animals (Stentor, Hydra, Bonellia) are
provided with a green colouring matter by means of which
they make use of atmospheric carbonic acid. A more important
consideration is the occasional absence of this colour in
species, or groups of species, with, in other respects, algal
affinities. Such aberrant forms are to be regarded in the
same light as Cuscuta and Orobanchaceae, for example, among
Phanerogams. As these non-green plants do not cease to
be classed with other Phanerogams, so must the forms in
question be retained among algae. In all cases the loss
of the colouring matter is associated with an incapacity to
take up carbon from so simple a compound as carbonic acid
It might be mentioned here that the whole group of the
Fungi (q.v.),with its many thousands of species, is now
generally regarded as having been derived from algae, and
the system of classification of fungi devised by Brefeld is
based upon this belief. The similarity of the morphological
characters of one group of fungi to those of certain algae
has earned for it the name Phycomycetes or alga-fungi.
Further discussion of the general characters of algae will be
deferred in order to take a brief survey of the subdivisions
of the group. For this purpose there will be adopted the
classification of algae into four sub-groups, founded on
the nature of the colouring matters present in the plant:--
I. CYANOPHYCEAE, or Blue-green Algae.
II. CHLOROPHYCEAE, or Green Algae.
III. PHAEOPHYCEAE, or Brown Algae.
IV. RHODOPHYCEAE, or Red Algae.
The merits and demerits of this system will appear during the
description of the characters of the members of the several subdivisions.
I. CYANOPHYCEAE.--This group derives its name from the
circumstance that the cells contain in addition to the
green colouring matter, chlorophyll, a blue-green colouring
matter to which the term phycocyanin has been applied.
Sub-divisions.
To the eye, however, members of this group present a greater
variety of colour than those of any other--yellow, brown,
olive, red, purple, violet and variations of all these being
known. They undoubtedly represent the lowest grade of
algal life, and their distribution rivals that of the Green
Algae. They occur in the sea, in fresh water, on moist
earth, on damp rocks and on the bark of trees. Certain
species are regularly found in the intercellular spaces of
higher plants; such are species of Nostoc in the thallus of
Anthoceros, the leaves of Azolla and the roots of Cycads.
Many of them enter into the structure of the lichen-thallus,
as the so-called gonidia. It is remarkable that species
belonging to the Oscillatoriaceae are known to flourish in hot
springs, the temperature of which rises as high as 85 deg. C.
The thallus may be unicellular or multicellular. When unicellular,
it may consist of isolated cells, but more commonly the cells
are held together in a common jelly (Chroococcaceae) derived
from the outer layers of the cell-wall. The multicellular
species consist of filaments, branched or unbranched, which
arise by the repeated divisions of the cells in parallel
planes, no formation of mucilage occurring in the dividing
walls. Such filaments may not give rise to mucilage on the
lateral surface either, in which case they are said to be free;
when mucilage does occur on the lateral wall, it appears as
the sheath surrounding either the single filament, or a sheaf
of filaments of common origin. The mucilage may also form an
embedding substance similar to that of Chroococcaceae, in which
the filaments lie parallel or radiate from a common centre
(Rivulariaceae). The cells of the filament may be all alike,
and growth may occur equally in all parts (Oscillatoriaceae);
or certain cells (heterocysts) may become marked off by
their larger size and the transparency of their contents;
in which case growth may still be distributed equally
throughout (Nostoc), or the filament may be attached
where the heterocyst arises, and grow out at the opposite
extremity into a fine hair (Rivulariaceae). An African form
(Camptothrix), devoid of heterocysts and hair-like at both
extremities, has recently been described. Branching has been
described as ``false'' and ``true.'' The former arises when
a filament in a sheath, either in consequence of growth in
length beyond the capacity of the sheath to accommodate it,
FIG, 1.--Cyanophyceae, variously magnified.
A. Gloeocapsa sp.,colony in mucilage.
B. Phormidium sp., single filament with hormogonium.
C. Microcoleus sp., several filaments in common sheath.
D. Nostoc sp., young colony-filament with heterocysts.
E. Scytonema sp., false branching.
F. Rivularia sp.
G. Stigonema sp., with hormogonium and true branching.
H. Spirulina sp.
(From Engler and Prantl, Pflanzenfamilien,
by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann.)
or because of the decay of a cell, becomes interrupted by
breaking, and the free ends slip past one another. ``True''
branching arises only by the longitudinal division of a
cell of a filament and the lateral outgrowth of one of
the cells resulting from the division (Sirosiohonaceae).
The nature of the contents of the cells of Cyanophyceae has
given rise to considerable controversy. The cells are for
the most part exceedingly minute, and are not easy to free
from their colouring matters, so that investigation has been
attended with great difficulty. Occupying as these algae
do perhaps the lowest grade of plant life, it is a matter of
interest to ascertain whether a nucleus or chromatophore is
differentiated in their cells, or whether the functions and
properties of these bodies are diffused through the whole
protoplast. It is certain that the centre of the cell, which is
usually non-vacuolated, is occupied by protoplasm of different
properties from the peripheral region; and A. Fischer has
further established the fact that the peripheral mass, which
is a hollow sphere in spherical cells, and either a hollow
cylinder or barrel-shaped body in filamentous forms, must
be regarded as the single chromatophore of the Cyanophyceous
cell. But what precisely is the nature of the central
mass is still uncertain. Some investigators, such as R.
Hegler, F. G. Kohl and E. W. Olive, claim that this body is
a true nucleus comparable with that of the higher plants.
It is said to undergo division by a mitosis essentially of
the same character, with the formation of a spindle and the
differentiation of chromosomes. It is further stated by Olive
that the chromosomes undergo longitudinal fission, and that for
the same species the same number of chromosomes appear at each
division. H. Wager speaks with greater reserve, acknowledging,
however, the central body to be a nucleus of a rudimentary
type, but devoid of nuclear membrane and nucleolus. He
thinks it may possibly originate in the vacuolization of the
central region, and the accumulation of chromatin granules
therein. He finds no spindle fibres or true chromosomes, and
considers the division direct, not indirect. With reference
to the existence of a chromatophore, he with others finds
the colouring matter localized in granules in the peripheral
region, but does not consider these individually or in the
aggregate as chromatophores. Among other contents of the cell,
fatty substances and tannin are known. A curious adaptation
seems to occur in certain floating forms, in the presence of a
gas-vacuole, which may be made to vary its volume with varying
pressure. There is evidence that the dividing wall of filamentous
forms is deeply pitted, as is found to be the case in red
algae. Reproduction is chiefly effected by the vegetative
method. Asexual reproductive cells are not infrequent, but
sexual reproduction even in its initial stages is unknown.
Nor is motility by means of cilia known in the group. In the
unicellular forms, cell-division involves multiplication of the
plant. In all the multicellular plants of this group which
have been adequately investigated, vegetative multiplication
by means of what are known as hormogonia has been found to
occur. These are short segments of filaments consisting of a
few cells which disengage themselves from the ambient jelly,
if it be present, in virtue of a peculiar creeping movement
which they possess at this stage. After a time they come
to rest and give rise to new colonies. True reproduction
of the asexual kind occurs, however, in the formation of
sporangia, particularly in the Chamaesiohonaceae. Here
the contents of certain cells break up endogenously into
a great number of spores, which are distributed as a fine
dust. Resting spores are also known. In these cases, certain
cells of a colony of unicellular plants or of the filaments
of multicellular plants enlarge greatly and thicken their
wall. When unfavourable external conditions supervene and
the ordinary cells become atrophied, these cells persist
and reproduce the plant with the return of more favourable
conditions. The Oscillatoriaceae are capable of a peculiar
oscillatory movement, which has earned for them their
name, and which enables them to move through considerable
distances. It is not clear how the movement is effected, though
it has frequently been the subject of careful investigation.
With the Cyanophyceae must be included, as their nearest allies,
the Bacteriaceae (see BACTERIOLOGY.) Notwithstanding the absence
of chlorophyll, and the consequent parasitic or saprophytic
habit, Bacteriaceae agree in so many morphological features
with Cyanophyceae that the affinity can hardly be doubted.
A census of the Cyanophyceae with their two main groups is given below:--
1. Coccogoneae--2 families, 29 genera, 253 species.
2. Hormogoneae--6 families, 59 genera, 701 species.
(Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien, 1900)
II. CHLOROPHYCEAE.--This group includes those algae in which
the green colouring matter, chlorophyll, is not accompanied
by a second colouring matter, as it is in other groups. It
consists of three subdivisions--Conjugatae, Euchlorophyceae and
Characeae. Of these the first and last are relatively small
and sharply defined families, distinguished from the second
family, which forms the bulk of the group, by characters
so diverse that their inclusion with them in one larger
group can only be justified on the ground of convenience.
Chlorophyceae include both marine and freshwater plants.
Euchlorophyceae in their turn have been until recently regarded
as made up of the three series of families--Protococcales,
Confervales and Siphonales. As the result of recent
investigations by two Swedish algologists, Bohlin and Luther, it
has been proposed to make a re-classification of a far-reaching
nature. Algae are withdrawn from each of the three series
enumerated above and consolidated into an entirely new
group. In these algae, the colouring matter is said to
be yellowish-green, not strictly green, and contained in
numerous small discoid chromatophores which are devoid of
pyrenoids. The products of assimilation are stored up in
the form of a fatty substance and not starch. A certain
inequality in the character of the two cilia of the zoospores
of some of the members of the group has earned for it the title
Heterokontae, from the Greek kontos, a punting-pole. In
consonance with this name, its authors propose to re-name
the Conjugatae; Akontae and Oedogoniaceae with a chaplet
of cilia become Stephanokontae, and the algae remaining
over in the three series from which the Heterokontae and
Stephanokontae are withdrawn become Isokontae. Conjugatae,
Protococcales and Characeae are exclusively freshwater;
Confervales and Siphonales are both freshwater and marine,
but the latter group attains its greatest development in the
sea. Some Chlorophyceae are terrestrial in habit, usually
growing on a damp substratum, however. Trentepohlia
grows on rocks and can survive considerable desiccation.
Phycopeltis grows on the surface of leaves, Phyllobium
and Phyllosiphon in their tissues. Gomontia is a
shell-boring alga, FIG. 2.--Chlorophyceae, variously magnified.
A. Chlamydomonas sp., unicellular; chr., chromatophore; p.,
pyrenoid; n., nucleus; p.v., pulsating vacuoles; e.s., eyespot.
B1. Volvox sp., with a, antheridia, and o, oogonia.
B2. Volvox sp., surface view of a single cell showing connexions.
C. Pandorina sp., a 16-celled colony.
D. Hydrodictyon, a single mesh surrounded by 6 cells.
E. Microspora sp., showing H-pieces in the wall.
F. Entoderma sp., endophytic in Ectocarpus.
G. Coleochaete sp., growing as a plate.
H. Oedogonium sp., intercalated growth by
insertion of new piece (a) leaving caps.
K. Struvea sp., showing branches forming a net-work.
L. Caulerpa sp., showing portion of axis
with leaf-like and root- like appendages.
M1. Chara sp., axis with leaf-like appendages and a branch.
M2. Chara sp., apical region.
N. Botrydium, a simple siphonaceous alga with root-like attachment.
O. Acetabularia Mediterranea, mushroom-like calcareous siphonaceous alga.
(A, C, E, F, G, H, K, M1, M2, from from Engler and Prantl,
Pflanzenfamilien, by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann; B1,
N, from Vines, Student's Text Book of Botany, by permission of
Swan Sonnenschein and Co.; B2, D, O from Oltmanns, Morphologie
u. Biologie der Algen, by permission of Gustav Fischer.)
Dermatophyton grows on the carapace of the tortoise and
Trichophilus in the hairs of the sloth. Certain Protococcales
and Confervales exist as the gonidia of the lichenthallus.
The thallus is of more varied structure in this group than in any
other. In the simplest case it may consist of a single cell,
which may remain free during the whole of the greater part
of its existence, or be loosely aggregated together within a
common mucilage, or be held together by the adhesion of the
cell-walls at the surface of contact. These aggregations or
colonies, as they are termed, may assume the form of a plate, a
ring, a solid sphere, a hollow sphere, a perforate sphere, a
closed net, or a simple or branched filament. It is not easy
in all cases to draw a distinction between a colony of planes
and a multicellular individual. in a Volvox sphere, for
example, there is a marked protoplasmic continuity between
all the cells of the colony. The Ulvaceae, the thallus of
which consists of laminae, one or more cells thick, or hollow
tubes, probably represent a still more advanced stage in the
passaae of a colony into a multicellelar plant. Here there
is some amount of localization of growth and distinction of
parts. It is only in such cases as Volvox and Ulvaceae
that there is any pretension to the formation of a true
parenchyma within the limits of the Chlorophyceae. In the
whole series of the Confervales, the thallus consists of
filaments branched or unbranched, attached at one extremity,
and growing almost wholly at the free end. The branches
end in fine hairs in Chaetophoraceae. In Coleochaetaceae
the branches are often welded into a plate, simulating a
parenchyma. In all Conjugatae and most Protococcales, and
in the bulk of the Confervales, the thallus consists of a
cell or cells, the Protoplast of which contains a single
nucleus. In Hydrodictyaceae, Cladophoraceae, Sphaeropleaceae
and Gomontiaceae this is no longer the case. Instead of a
single relatively large nucleus, each cell is found to contain
many small nuclei, and is spoken of as a coenocyte. This
character becomes still more pronounced in the large group of
the Siphonales. Valoniaceae and Dasycladaceae are partially
septate, but elsewhere no cellulose partitions occur, and the
thallus is more or less the continuous tube from which the
group is named. Yet the siphonaceous algae may assume great
variety of form and reach a high degree of differentiation.
Protosiphon and Botrydium, on the one hand, are minute
vesicles attached to muddy surfaces by rhizoids; Caulerpa, on
the other, presents a remarkable instance of the way in which
much the same external morphology as that of cormophytes has
been reached by a totally different internal structure. Many
Siphonales are encrusted with lime like Corallina among Red
Algae. Penicillus is brush-like, Hallimeda and Cymopolia
are jointed, Acetabularia has much the same external form
as an expanded Coprinus, Neomeris simulates the fertile
shoot of Equisetum with its densely packed whorled branches,
and in Microdictyon, Anadyomene, Struvea and Boodlea the
branches, spreading in one plane, become bound together in
a more or less close network. Characeae are separated from
other Chloroohlceae by a long interval, and present the
highest degree of differentiation of parts known among Green
Algae. Attached to the bottom of pools by means of rhizoids,
the thallus of Characeae grows upwards by means of an apical
cell, giving off whorled appendages at regular intervals.
The appendages have a limited growth; but in connexion with
each whorl there arise, singly or in pairs, branches which
have the same unlimited growth as the main axis. There is
thus a close approach to the external morphology of the higher
plants. The streaming of the protoplasm, known elsewhere among
Chlorophyceae, is a conspicuous feature of the cells of Characeae.
The Chlorophyceae excel all other groups of algae in the
magnitude and variety of form of the chlorophyll-bodies. In
Ulva and Mesocarpus the chromatophore is a single plate,
which in the latter genus places its edge towards the incident
light; in Spirogyra they are spiral bands embedded in the
primordial utricle; in Zygnema they are a pair of stellate
masses, the rays of which branch peripherally; in Oedogonium
they are longitudinally-disposed anastomosing bands; in Desmids
plates with irregular margins; in Cladophora polyhedral
plates: in Vaucheria minute elliptical bodies occurring in
immense numbers. Embedded in the chromatophore, much in the
same way as the nucleus is embedded in the cytoplasm, are the
pyrenoids. Unknown in Cyanophyceae and Phoeophyeeae, known
only in Bangiaceae and Nemalion among Rhodophyceae, they
are of frequent occurrence among Chlorophyceae, excepting
Characeae. Sometimes several pyrenoids occur in each
chloroplast, as in Mesocarpus and Spirogyra; sometimes
only an occasional chloroplast contains pyrenoid at all,
as in Cadophora. The pyrenoid seems to be of proteid
nature and gelatinous consistency, and to arise as a new
formation or by division of pre-existing pyrenoids. When
carbon-assimilation is active, starch-granules crowd upon the
surface of the pyrenoid and completely obscure it from view.
Special provision for vegetative multiplication is not common
among Chlorophyceae. Valonia and Caulerpa among Siphonales
detach portions of their thallus, which are capable of independent
growth. In Caulerpa no other means of multiplication is as yet
known. In Characeae no fewer than four methods of vegetative
reproduction have been described, and the facility with which
buds and branches are in these cases detached has been adduced
as an evidence of affinity with Bryophyta, which, as a class, are
distinguished by their ready resort to vegetative reproduction.
With regard to true reproduction, which is characterized by
the formation of special cells, the group Euchlorophyceae
is characterized by the production of zoospores (Gr. zoon,
animal, spora, seed); that is to say, cells capable of
motility through the agency of cilia. Such ciliary motion
is known in the adult condition of the cells of Volvocaceae,
but where this is not the case the reproductive cells are
endowed with motility for a brief period. The zoospore
is usually a pyriform mass of naked protoplasm, the beaked
end of which where the cilia arise is devoid of colouring
matter. A reddish-brown body, known as the eyespot, is
usually situated near the limits of the hyaline portion, and
in the protoolasm contractile vacuoles similar to those of
lower animals have been occasionally detected. The movement
of the zoospore is effected by the lashing of the cilia and
is in the direction of the beak, while the zoospore slowly
rotates on Botrydium and Hydrodictyon only one is present;
in certain species of Cladophora four; in Dasycladus a
chaplet, and in Oedogonium a ring of many cilia. The
so-called zoospore of Vaucheria is a coenocyte covered over
with paired cilia corresponding in position to nuclei lying
below. In all other cases, zoospores are uninucleate bodies.
Zoospores arise in cells of ordinary size and form termed
zoosporangia. In unicellular forms (Sphaerella) the thallus
becomes transformed into a zoosporangium at the reproductive
stage. In the zoosporangia of Oedogonium, Tetraspora and
Coleochaete the contents become transformed into a single
zoospore. In most cases repeated division seems to take
place, and the final number is represented by some power of
two. In coenocytic forms the zoospores would seem to arise
simultaneously, probably because many nuclei are already
present. The escape of zoospores is effected by the
degeneration of the sporangial wall (Chaetophora), or by
a pore (Cladophora), a slit (Pediastrum ), or a circular
fracture (Oedogonium). Zoospores are of two kinds: (1) Those
which come to rest and germinate to form a new plant; these are
asexual and are zoospores proper. (2) Those which are unable
to germinate of themselves, but fuse with another cell, the
product giving rise to a new individual; these are sexual and
are zoogametes (Gr. zoon, animal, and gametes, gamete,
husband, wife). When two similar zoogametes fuse, the process
is conjugation, and the product a zygospore (Gr. zugon,
yoke). Usually, however, only one of the fusing cells is a
zoogamete, the other gamete being a much larger resting
cell. In such a case the zoogamete is male, is called an
antherozoid or spermatozoid, and arises in an antheridium; the
larger gamete is an oosphere and arises in an oogonium. The
fusion is now known as fertilization, and the product is an
oospore. Reproduction by conjugation is also known as isogamy,
by fertilization as oogamy. When zoospores come to rest,
a new cell is formed and germination ensues at once. When
zygospores and oospores are produced a new cell-wall is also
formed, but a long period of rest ensues. All investigation
goes to show that an essential part of sexual union is the
fusion of the two nuclei concerned. It is interesting to
know, on the authority of Oltmanns, that when the oosphere is
forming in the oogonium of Vaucheria, there is a retrocession
of all the included nuclei but one. that the antherozoid of
Vaucheria contains a single nucleus had been inferred before.
From a comparison of those Euchlorophyceae which have been
most closely investigated, it appears probable that sexual
reproductive cells have in the course of evolution arisen
as the result of specialization among asexual reproductive
cells, and that in turn oogamous reproduction has arisen
as the result of differentiation of the two conjugating
cells into the smaller male gamete and the larger male
gamete. It would further appear that oogamous reproduction
has arisen independently in each of the three main groups
of Euchlorophyceae, viz. Ptotococcales, Siphonales and
Confervales. Thus among Volvocaceae, a family of Protococcales,
while in some of the genera (Chloraster, Sphondylomorum)
no sexual union has as yet been observed, in others
(Pandorina, Chlorogonium, Stephanosphaera, Sphaerella)
conjugation of similar gametes takes place, in others still
(Phacotus, Eudorina, Volvox) the union is of the nature of
fertilization. No other family of Protococcales has advanced
beyond the stage of isogamous reproduction. Again, among
Siphonales only one family (Vaucheriaceae) has reached the
stage of oogamy, although an incipient heterogamy is said
to occur in two other families (Codiaceae, Bryopsidaceae).
Elsewhere among Siphonales, in those cases where reproductive
cells are known, the reproduction is either isogamous or
asexual. Among Confervales there is no family in which
sexual reproduction--isogamy or oogamy--is not known to occur
among some of the component species, and as many as four
families (Cylindrocapsaceae, Sphaeropleaceae, Oedogoniaceae,
Coleochaetaceae) are oogamous. On these, as well as other
grounds. Confervales are regarded as having attained to the
highest rank among Euchlorophyceae. Although the phenomena
attending isogamous and oogamous reproduction respectively
are essentially the same in all cases, slight variations in
both instances appear in different families, attributable
doubtless to the independent origin of the process in different
groups. Thus, although isogamy consists in typical cases of
a union of naked motile gametes by a fusion which begins at
the beaked ends, and results in the formation of an immotile
spherical zygote surrounded by a cell-wall, in Leptosira it
is noticeable that the fusion begins at the blunt end; in a
species of Chlamydomonas the two gametes are each included
in a cell-wall before fusion; and in many cases the zygote
retains for some time its motility with the double number of
cilia. Again, in oogamous reproduction, while in general only
one oosphere is differentiated in the oogonium, in Sphaeroplea
several oospheres arise in each oogonium; and while the oospheres
usually contract away from the oogonial wall, acquiring for
themselves a new cell-wall after fertilization, in Coleochaete
the oosphere remains throughout in contact with the oogonial
wall. The oosphere is in all cases fertilized while still within
the oogonium, the antherozoids being admitted by means of a
pore. There is usually distinguishable upon the surface
of the oosphere an area free from chlorophyll, known as the
receptive spot, at which the fusion with the antherozoid
takes place; and in many cases, before fertilization, a small
mucilaginous mass has been observed to separate itself off
from the oosphere at this point and to escape through the
pore. In Coleochaete the oogonial wall is drawn out into a
considerable tube, which is provided with an apical pore, and
this tube has a somewhat similar appearance to the imperforate
trichogyne of Florideae to be hereafter described. In certain
species of Oedogonium minute male plantlets, known as dwarf
males, become attached to the female plant in the neighbourhood
of the oogonia, thus facilitating fertilization. Indeed the
genus Oedogonium exhibits a high degree of specialization
in its reproductive system, considering that its thallus
has not advanced beyond the stage of an unbranched filament.
Many Euchlorophyceae are endowed with both asexual and sexual
reproduction. Such are Coleochaete, Oedogonium, Cylindrocapsa,
Ulothrix, Vaucheria, Volvox, &c. In others only the asexual
method is yet known. When a species resorts to both methods,
it is generally found that the asexual method prevails in the
early part of the vegetative period and the sexual towards
the close of that period. This is in consonance with the
facts already mentioned that zoospores germinate forthwith,
and that the sexually-produced cell or zygote enters upon a
period of rest. It is known that zoogametes, which usually
conjugate, may, when conjugation fails, germinate directly
(Sphaerella.) In rare cases the oosphere has been known to
germinate without fertilization (Oedogonium, Cylindrocapsa.)
The germination of a zygospore or oospore is effected by
the rupture of an outer cuticularized exosporium; then the
cell may protrude an inner wall, the endosporium, and grow
out into the new plant ( Vaucheria), or the contents may
break up into a first brood of zoospores. It is held that
in Coleochaetea parenchyma results from the division of
the oospore, from each cell of which a zoospore arises.
Reproduction is also effected among Euchlorophyceae by means of
aplanospores and akinetes. Aplanospores would seem to represent
zoospores arrested in their development; without reaching
the stage of motility, they germinate within the sporangium.
Akinetes are ordinary thallus cells, which on account of their
acquisition of a thick wall are capable of surviving unfavourable
conditions. Both aplanospores and akinetes may germinate with
or without the formation of zoospores at the initial stage.
Among Conjugatae reproduction is effected solely by means
of conjugation of what are literally aplanospores. Among
those Desmidiaceae which live a free life, two plants
become surrounded by a common mucilage, in which they lie
either parallel (Closterium) or crosswise (Cosmarium.)
Gaps then appear in the apposed surfaces, usually at the
isthmus; the entire protoplasts either pass out to melt into
one another clear of the old walls, or partly pass out and
fuse without complete detachment from the old walls. Among
colonial Desmidiaceae, the break-up of the filament is a
preliminary to this conjugation; otherwise the process is the
same. The zygospore becomes surrounded with its own wall,
consisting finally of three layers, the outer of which is
furnished with spicular prominences of various forms. In
Zygnemaceae there is no dissolution of the filaments, but
the whole contents of one cell pass over by means of a
conjugation-tube into the cavity of a cell of a neighbouring
filament, where the zygospore is formed by the fusion of the two
Fig. 3.--Chlorophyceae, variously magnified.
A. Spirogyra sp., in conjugation.
B. Zoospore of Pandorina. B234, stages of conjugation.
C. Ulothrix sp., zoospores escaping. C23, stages of conjugation.
D1. Oedogonium sp., oogonium at moment
of fertilization with dwarf male attached.
D2. Oedogonium sp., zoospore with crown of cilia.
E1. Coleochaete sp., with antheridia and an oogonium.
E2. Coleochaete sp., fertilized egg with investment of filaments.
E3. Coleochaete sp., zoospore.
F123. Protosiphon, conjugation of zoogametes.
G. Derbesia sp., zoospore with chaplet of cilia.
H1. Chara sp., oogonium and antheridium at a node on a lateral appendage.
H2. Chara sp., antherozoid.
K1. Vaucheria sp., oogonium and antheridium before fertilization.
K2. Vaucheria sp., after fertilization.
(A from Cooke, British Freshwater Algae, by permission
of Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner and Co.; C, E, F. G. H. K
from Engler and Prantl, by permission of Wilheim Engelmann;
B1 from Vines, by permission of Swan Sonnenschein and Co.;
B2, D from Oltmanns, by permission of Gustav Fischer.)
protoplasts. In these cases the activity of one of the
gametes, and the passivity of the other, is regarded
as evidence of incipient sex. In Strogonium there is
cell-division in the parent-cell prior to conjugation; and
as two segments are cut off in the case of the active gamete,
and only one in the case of the passive gamete, there is a
corresponding difference of size, marking another step in
the sexual differentiation. In Zygogonium, although no
cell-division takes place, the gametes consist of a portion
only of the contents of a cell, and this is regularly the
case in Mesocarpaceae, which occupy the highest grade among
Conjugatae. Some Zygnemaceae and Mesocarpaceae form either
a short conjugating tube, or none at all, but the filaments
approach each other by a knee-like bend, and the zygospore is
formed at the point of contact, often being partially contained
within the walls of the parent-cell. It would seem that in
some cases the nuclei of the gametes remain distinct in the
zygospore for a considerable time after conjugation. It is
probable that in all cases nuclear fusion takes place sooner or
later. In Zygnemaceae and Mesocarpaceae the zygospore,
after a period of rest, germinates, to form a new filamentous
colony; in Desmidiaceae its contents divide on germination,
and thus give rise to two or more Desmids. Gametes which fail
to conjugate sometimes assume the appearance of zygospores
and germinate in due course. They are known as azygospores.
The reproduction of Characeae is characterized by a pronounced
oogamy, the reproductive organs being the most highly
differentiated among Chlorophyceae. The antheridia and oogonia
are formed at the nodes of the appendages. The oogonium,
seated on a stalk cell, is surrounded by an investment
consisting of five spirally-wound cells, from the projecting
ends of which segments are cut off, constituting the so-called
stigma. The oosphere is not differentiated within the wall of
the oogonium, but certain cells known as wendungszellen, the
significance of which has given rise to much speculation, are
cut off from the basal portion of the parent-cell during its
development. The antheridia are spherical orange-coloured
bodies of very complex structure. The antherozoid is a
spirally-coiled thread of protoplasm, furnished at one
end with a pair of cilia. It much more resembles the
antherozoids of Bryophyta and certain Pteridophyta than any
known among other algae. The fertilized egg charged with
food reserves rests for a considerable period, surrounded
by its cortex, the whole having assumed a reddish-brown
colour. On germination it gives rise to a row of cells in
which short (nodal) and long (internodal) cells alternate.
From the first node arise rhizoids; from the second a lateral
bud, which becomes the new plant. This peculiar product of
germination, which intervenes between the oospore and the
adult form, is the proembryo. It will be remembered that in
Musci, the asexual spore somewhat similarly gives rise to a
protonema, from which the adult plant is produced as a lateral
bud. The proembryonic branches of Characeae, one of the
means of vegetative reproduction already referred to, are so
called because they repeat the characters of the proembryo.
Before leaving the Chlorophyceae, it should be mentioned
that the genus Volvox has been included by some zoologists
(Butschli, for example) among Flagellata; on the other hand,
certain green Flagellata, such as Euglena, are included by
some botanists (for example, van Tieghem) among unicellular
plants. A similar uncertainty exists with reference to certain
groups of Phaeophyceae, and the matter will thus arise again.
A census of the Chlorophyceae is furnished below:--
1. Confervoideae---12 families, 77 genera, 1021 species.
2. Siphoneae--9 families, 26 genera, 271 species.
3. Protococcoideae--2 families, 90 genera, 342 species.
4. Conjugateae--2 families, 33 genera, 1296
species. (De Toni's Sylloge Algarum, 1889.)
5. Characeae--2 families, 6 genera, 181 species.
(Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien, 1897)
III. PHAEOPHYCEAE.--The Phaeophyceae are distinguished
by the possession of a brown colouring matter, phycophaein,
in addition to chlorophyll. They consist of the following
groups:--Fucaceae, Phaeosporeae; Dictyotaceae, Cryptomonadaceae,
Peridiniaceae and Diatomaceae. Of these the first three
include multicellular plants, some of them of great size; the
last three are unicellular organisms, with little in common
with the rest excepting the possession of a brown colouring
matter. Fucaceae and Phaeosporeae are doubtless closely
allied, and to these Dictyotaceae may be joined, though
the relationship is less close. They constitute the
Euphaeophyceae, and will be dealt with in the first place.
Euphaeophyceae are almost exclusively marine, growing on
rocks and stones on the coast, or epiphytic upon other
algae. In tidal seas they range from the limits of high water
to some distance beyond the low-water line. On the British
coasts zones are observable in passing from high to low water
mark, characterized by the prevalence of different species,
thus:---Pelvetia canaliculata, Fucus platycarpus, Fucus
vesiculosus, Ascophyllum nodosum, Fucus serratus, Laminaria
digitata. Some species are minute filamentous plants, requiring
the microscope for their detection; others, like Lessonia,
are of considerable bulk, or, like Macrocystis, of enormous
length. In Fucaceae, Dictyotacea, and in Laminariaceae and
Sphacelariaceae, among Phaeosporeae, the thallus consists of
a true parenchyma; elsewhere it consists of free filaments,
or filaments so compacted together, as in Cutleriaceae and
Desmarestiaceae, as to form a false parenchyma. In Fucaceae
and Laminariaceae the inner tissue is differentiated into
a conducting system. In Laminariaceae the inflation of
the ends of conducting cells gives rise to the so-called
trumpet-hyphae. In Nereocystis and Macrocystis a zone
of tubes occurs, which present the appearance of sieve-tubes
even to the eventual obliteration of the perforations by a
callus. While there is a general tendency in the group to
mucilaginous degeneration of the cell-wall, in Laminaria
digitata there are also glands secreting a plentiful
mucilage. Secondary growth in thickness is effected by
the tangential division of superficial cells. The most
fundamental external differentiation is into holdfast and
shoot. In Laminariaceae secondary cylindrical props arise
obliquely from the base of the thallus. In epiphytic forms
the rhizoids of the epiphyte often penetrate into the tissue
of the host, and certain epiphytes are not known to occur
excepting in connexion with a certain host; but to what
extent, if any, there is a partial parasitism in these cases
has not been ascertained. In filamentous forms there is
a differentiation into branches of limited and branches of
unlimited growth (Sphacelaria.) In Laminariaceae there is a
distinction of stipe and blade. The blade is centrally-ribbed
in Alaria and laterally-ribbed in Macrocystis. It is
among the Sargassaceae that the greatest amount of external
differentiation, rivalling that of the higher leafy plants, is
reached. A characteristic feature of the more massive
species is the occurrence of air-vesicles in their tissues.
In Fucus vesiculosus they arise in lateral pairs; in
Ascophyllum they are single and median; in Macrocystis
one vesicle arises at the base of each thallus segment; in
Sargassum and Halidrys the vesicles arise on special
branches. They serve to buoy up the plant when attached to the
sea-bottom, and thus light is admitted into the forest-like
growths of the gregarious species. When such plants are
detached they are enabled to float for great distances, and
the great Sargasso Sea of the North Atlantic Ocean is probably
only renewed by the constant addition of plants detached
from the shores of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
Growth in length is effected in a variety of ways. In Dictyota
Sphacelariaceae and Fucaceae there is a definite apical
cell. In the first it is a biconvex lens, from which segments
are continually cut off parallel to the posterior surface;
and in the second an elongated dome, from which segments are
cut off by a transverse wall. While, however, in Dictyota
the product of the subsequent division in the segment enlarges
with each subdivision, the divisions in the cylindrical
segment of Sphacelariaceae are such that the whole product
after subdivision, however many cells it may consist of, does
not exceed in bulk the segment as cut off from the apical
cell. In Dictyotaceae the apical cell occasionally divides
longitudinally, and thus the dichotomous branching is provided
for. In some Sphacelariaceae branches may appear at their
inception as lateral protuberances of the apical cell itself.
In Fucaceae an apical cell is situate at the surface of the
thallus in a slit-like depression at the apex. From this cell
segments are cut off in three or four lateral oblique planes.
A peculiar manner of growth in length is that to which the term
trichothallic has been applied. It may readily be observed
that in the hair-like branches of Ectocarpaceae, the point at
which most rapid division occurs is situate near the base of the
hair. In Desmarestia and Arthrocladia, for example, it is
found that the thallus ends in a tuft of such hairs, each of
them growing by means of an intercalated growing point. In these
cases, however, the portions of the hairs behind the growing
region become agglutinated together into a solid cylindrical
pseudo-parenchymatous axis. In Cutleria the laminated thallus
is formed in the same way. The intercalated growing region of
Laminaria affords an example of another variety of growth in
Phaeophyceae. While the laminated portion of the thallus is
being gradually worn off in our latitudes during the autumnal
storms, a vigorous new growth appears at the junction of
the stipe and the blade, as the result of which a new piece
is added to the stipe and the lamina entirely renovated.
Both asexual and sexual reproduction occur among Euphaeophyceae.
Fucaceae are marked by an entire absence of the asexual
method. The sexual organs--oogonia and antheridia---are
borne on special portions of the thallus in cavities known as
conceptacles. Both organs may occur in one conceptacle, as
in Pelvetia, or each may be confined to one conceptacle
or even one plant, as in Fucus vesiculosus. The oogonia
arise on a stalk cell from the lining layer of the cavity, the
contents dividing to form eight oospheres as in Fucus, four
as in Ascophyllum, two as in Pelvetia, or one only as in
Hallidrys. It would seem that eight nuclei primarily arise
in all Fucaceae, and that a number corresponding to the number
of oospheres subsequently formed is reserved, the rest being
discharged to the periphery, where they may be detected at a late
stage. On the maturation of the oospheres the outer layer of
the oogonial wall ruptures, and the oospheres, still surrounded
by a middle and inner layer, pass out through the mouth of the
conceptacle. Then usually these layers successively give
way, and the spherical naked oospheres float free in the
water. The antheridia, which arise in the conceptacular cavity
as special cells of branched filaments, are similarly discharged
whole, the antherozoids only escaping when the antheridia
are clear of the conceptacle. The antherozoids are attracted
to the oospheres, round each of which they swarm in great
numbers. Suddenly the attraction ceases, and the oosphere is
fertilized, probably at that moment, by the entry of a single
antherozoid into the substance of the oosphere; a cell-wall
is formed thereupon, in some cases in so short an interval
as five minutes. Remarkable changes of size and outline of
the oosphere have recently been described as accompanying
fertilization in Hallidrys. Probably the act of fertilization
in plants has nowhere been observed in such detail as in
Fucaceae. Dictyotaceae resemble Fucaceae in their pronounced
oogamy. They differ, however, in being also asexually
reproduced. The asexual cells are immotile spores arising in
fours in sporangia from superficial cells of the thallus. In
Dictyota the oospheres arise singly in oogonia, crowded together
in sori on the surface of the female plant. The antheridia
have a similar origin and grouping on the male plant. Until the
recent discovery by Williams of motility, by means of a single
cilium, of the antherozoids of Dictyota and Taonia, they
were believed to be immotile bodies, like the male cells of
red seaweeds. in Dictyota the unfertilized oosphere is found
to be capable of undergoing a limited number of divisions,
but the body thus formed appears to atrophy sooner or later.
Of the small family of the Tilopteridaceae our knowledge is
as yet inadequate, but they probably present the only case of
pronounced oogamy among Phaeosporeae. They are filamentous
forms, exhibiting, however, a tendency to division in more
than one plane, even in the vegetative parts. The discovery
by Brebner of the specific identity of Haplospora globosa and
Scaphospora speciosa marks an important step in the advance of
our knowledge of the group. Three kinds of reproductive organs
are known: first, sporangia, which each give rise to a single
tetra-, or multi-nucleate non-motile, probably asexual spore;
second, plurilocular sporangia, which are probably antheridia,
generating antherozoids; and third, sporangia, which are
probably oogonia, giving rise to single uni- nucleate non-motile
oospheres. No process of fertilization has as yet been observed.
The Cutleriaceae exhibit a heterogamy in which the female sexual
cell is not highly specialized, as is in the groups already
described. From each locule of a plurilocular sporangium there
is set free an oosphere, which, being furnished with a pair
of cilia, swarms for a time. In similar organs on separate
plants the much smaller antherozoids arise. Fertilization has
been observed at Naples; but it apparently depends on climatic
conditions, as at Plymouth the oospheres have been observed to
germinate parthenogenetically. The asexual organs in the case
of Cutleria multifida arise on a crustaceous form, Aglaozonia
reptans, formerly considered to be a distinct species. They
are unilocular, each producing a small number of zoospores.
The possession of two kinds of reproductive organs, unilocular
and plurilocular sporangia, is general among the rest of the
Phaeosporeae. Bornet, however, called attention in 1871 to
the fact that two kinds of plurilocular sporangia occurred in
certain species of the genus Ectocarpus--somewhat transparent
organs of an orange tint producing small zoospores, and also
more opaque organs of a darker colour producing relatively larger
zoospores. On the discovery of another such species by F.
H. Buffham, Batters in 1892 separated the three species,
Ectocarpus secundus, E. fenestratus, E. Lebelii, together
with the new species, into a genus, Giffordia, characterized
by the possession of two kinds of plurilocular sporangia.
The suspicion that a distinction of sex accompanied this
difference of structure has been justified by the discovery
by Sauvageau of undoubted fertilization in Gidordia secunda
and G. fenestrata. The conjugation of similar gametes,
arising from distinct plurilocular sporangia, was observed
by Berthold in Ectocarpus siliculosus and Scytosiphon
lomentarius in 1880; and these observations have been recently
confirmed in the case of the former species by Sauvageau,
and in the case of the latter by Kuckuck. In these cases,
however, the potential gametes may, failing conjugation,
germinate directly, like the zoospores derived from unilocular
sporangia. The assertion of Areschoug that conjugation
occurs among zoospores derived from unilocular sporangia,
in the case of Dictyosiphon hippuroides, is no doubt to be
ascribed to error of observation. It would thus seem that
the explanation of the existence of two kinds of sporangia,
unilocular and plurilocular, among Phaeosporeae, lies in the
fact that unilocular sporangia are for asexual reproduction,
and that plurilocular sporangia are gametangia--potential or
actual. It must, however, be remembered that so important
a generalization is as yet supported upon a somewhat narrow
base of observation. Moreover, for the important family
of the Laminariaceae only unilocular sporangia are known to
occur; and for many species of other families, only one or
other kind, and in some cases neither kind, has hitherto been
observed. The four species--Ectocarpus siliculosus,
Giffordia secunda, Cutleria multifida and Haplospora
globosa--may be taken to represent, within the phaeosporeae,
successive steps in the advance from isogamy to oogamy.
The Peridiniaceae have been included among Flagellata under
the title of Dinoflagellata. The majority of the species
belong to the sea, but many are found in fresh water. The
thallus is somewhat spherical and unicellular, exhibiting
a distinction between anterior and posterior extremities,
and dorsal and ventral surfaces. The wall consists of a
basis of cellulose, and in some cases readily breaks up into
a definite number of plates, fitting into one another like
the plates of the carapace of a tortoise; it is, moreover,
often finely sculptured or coarsely ridged and flanged. Two
grooves are a constant feature of the family, one running
transversely and anoiher longitudinally. In these grooves
lie two c;lia, attached at the point of meeting on the dorsal
surface. The protoplast is uninucleate and vacuolate,
and contains chromatophores of a brownish colour. It is
not clear that FIG. 4.--Phaeophyceae, variously magnified.
A. Halopteris, apical region.
B. Chordaria sp., apical region showing so-called trichothallic growth.
C. Dictyota sp., apical cells immediately after dichotomy.
D. Cutleria sp., margin of thallus showing trichothallic growth.
E. Halidrys, apical depression with leading cell.
F. Macrocystis sp., tubular elements from the
medulla, with sieve-like transverse walls.
G. Laminaria sp., hyphae with trumpet-like ends also from medulla.
H. Elachistea sp., Plurilocular sporanges.
K. Ectocarpus sp., unilocular sporange.
L. Ectocarpus siliculosus, female gamete surrounded
by male gametes a, b, c, d, e, stages of conjugation.
M. Cutleria multifida. a, antherozoids, b, a female gamete.
N1. Fucus vesiculosus, young oogonium.
N2. Fucus vesiculosus, discharge of eight oospheres from oogonium
O. Laminaria sp., sporanges among paraphyses.
P. Dictyota dichotoma, a sorus of oogonia.
Q. Dictyota dichotoma, part of a sorus of antheridia.
(A, B, C, D, E, H, L, M, P, from Engler and Prantl, by
permission of Wilhelm Engelmann; F, G, K, O, from Oltmanns,
by permission of Gustav Fischer; Q. from The Annals of
Botany, by permission of the Clarendon Press; N1, N2,
from Hauck, Meeresalgen, by permission of Eduard Kummer.)
the brown colouring matter which is added to chlorophyll
is identical with phycophaein: two varieties of it have
been termed phycopyrrin and peridinine. Certain species,
such as Gymnodinium spirale, are colourless and therefore
saprophytic in their method of nutrition. Multiplication
takes place in some cases by the endogenous formation of
zoospores, the organism having come to rest; in others by
longitudinal division, when the organism is still motile.
No method of sexual reproduction is known with certainty.
The Cryptomonadaceae also are unicellular, and live free or in
colonies. Each cell contains a flattened chromatophore of a
brown or yellow colour. Hydrurus forms a branched gelatinous
colony attached to stones in mountain streams. Chromophyton
forms an eight-celled colony. Both plants multiply solely by
means of zoospores. The Cryptomonadeae and Chromulineae are
motile through the greater part of their life. Cryptomonas,
when dividing in a mucilage after encystment, recalls the
condition in Gloeocystis. In Synura and Chromulina the
cells form a spherical motile colony, recalling Volvocaceae.
Chromulina is uniciliate, and is contained in a hyaline
capsule. Like the Peridiniaceae, the Cryptomonadaceae have
been included among Flagellata. They have no close affinity
with Euphaeophyceae. Such colonial forms as Hydrurus
and Phaeocystis are supposed, however, to indicate
a stage in the passage to the multicellular condition.
Diatomaceae have long been recognized as plants. Together
with Peridiniaceae they constitute the bulk of marine plankton,
and thus play an important part in the support of marine
animal life. They exhibit striking adaptations in these
circumstances to the floating habit. (See DIATOMACEAE.)
A census of Phaeophyceae is given below:--
(1) Cyclosporinae (Fucaceae)--4 families, 32 genera, 347 species.
(2) Tetrasporinae (Dictyotaceae)-- 1 family, 17 genera, 130 species.
(3) Phaeozoosporineae (Phaeosporeae)--24 families, 143
genera, 571 species. (De Toni's Sylloge ALgarum.)
(4) Peridiniales---3 families, 32 genera, 167 species.
(5) Cryptomonadaceae (including Chrysomonadaceae)
--2 families, 28 genera, 50-60 species.
(6) Bacillariales (Diatomaceae)--about 150
genera and 5000 species, fossil and recent.
(Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien)
IV. RHODOPHYCEAE, or FLORIDEAE.--The members of this
group are characterized by the possession of a red colouring
matter, phycoerythrin, in addition to chlorophyll. There is,
however, a considerable amount of difference in the shades
of red which mark different species. The brightest belongs
to those species which grow near low-water mark, or under
the shade of larger algae at higher levels; species which
grow near high-water mark are usually of so dark a hue that
they are easily mistaken for brown seaweeds. Rhodophyceae
are mostly marine, but not exclusively so. Thorea,
Lemanea, Tuomeya, Stenocladia, Batrachospermum, Balbiania
are genera belonging entirely to fresh water; and Bangia,
Chanitransia, Caloglossa, Bostrychia and Delesseria
contain each one or more freshwater species. Most of the
larger species of marine Rhodophyceae are attached by means
of a disc to rocks, stones or shells. Many are epiphytic
on other algae, more especially the larger Phaeophyceae and
Rhodophyceae. As in the case of epiphytic brown seaweeds,
the rhizoids of the epiphyte often penetrate the substance
of the supporting alga. Some Red Algae find a home in the
gelatinous substance of Flustra, Alcyonidium and other
polyzoa, only emerging for the formation of the reproductive
organs. Some are perforating algae and burrow into the
substance of molluscan shells, in company with certain Green
and Blue-green Algae. Some species belonging to the families
Squamariaceae nnd Corallinaceae grow attached through their
whole length and breadth, and are often encrusted with
lime. The forms which grow away from the substratum vary
greatly in external configuration. In point of size the
largest cannot rival the larger Brown Algae, while the majority
require the aid of the microscope for their investigation.
No unicellular Rhodophyceae are known, although a flagellate
organism, Rhodomonas, has recently been described as possessed
of the same red colouring matter. If the sub-group, Bangiaceae,
be excluded, they may be said to consist exclusively of branched
filaments. Growth in these cases takes place by means of an
apical cell, from which successive segments are cut off by means
of a transverse wall. The segment so cut off does not usually
divide again by means of a transverse wall, nor indeed by a
longitudinal wall which passes through the organic axis of the
cell. New cells may be cut off laterally, which become
the apical cells of branches. When the new cells grow no
further, but constitute a palisading round the central cell
covering its whole length, the condition is reached which
characterizes the species of Polysiphonia, the "siphons" of
which may be regarded as one-celled branches. To the law that
no subsequent transverse division takes place in segments cut
off from the apical cell, there seem to be two exceptions:
first, the calcareous genus Corallinia, in the pliable
joints of which intercalated division occurs; and, second,
the Nitophylleae, in which, moreover, median longitudinal
division of axial cells is said to occur. Like the Fungi,
therefore, the Red Algae consist for the most part of branched
filaments, even where the thallus appears massive to the eye,
and, as in the case of Fungi, this fact is not inconsistent
with a great variery of external morphology. In the great
majority the thallus is obviously filamentous, as in some
species of Cillithamnion. In other species of that genus
an apparent cortication arises by the downward growth of
rhizoids, which are retained within the gelatinous wall of the
axial cells. in Batrachospermum the whole system of branches
are retained within a diffluent gelatinous substance derived
from the outer layers of the cell-walls. In other cases the
mucilage is denser and the branches more closely compacted
Helminthora.) In such cases as Lemanea, the terminal
cells of the lateral branches form a superficial layer which
has all the appearance of a parenchyma when viewed from the
surface. In Champia and allied genera, the cylindrical axis
is due not to the derivatives of one axial filament, but of
several, the growth of which is co-ordinated to form a septated
tube. The branching of the thallus, which meets the eye
in all these cases, is due to the unlimited growth of a few
branches. When such a lateral branch overtops the main axis
whose growth has become limited, as in Plocamium and Dasya,
a sympodium is formed. For the most part the branching is
monopodial. Besides the differentiation into holdfast and
shoot, and into branches of limited and branches of unlimited
growth, there appear superficial structures of the nature of
hairs. These are for the most part long, thin-walled,
unicellular and colourless, and arise from the outer cells
of the pseudo-cortex, or from the terminal cells of branches
when the filaments are free. Among Rhodomelaceae, hair-like
structures of a higher order are known. These arise from
the axial cell, and are multicellular and branched. They
soon fall off, and it is from the persistent basal cell that
the branches of unlimited growth arise. Upon them also the
reproductive organs arise in this family. It is not surprising,
therefore, that they have been regarded as the rudiments of
leaves. In Iridaea the thallus is an entire lamina; in
Callophyllis a lobed lamina; in Delesseria it is provided
with midrib and veins, simulating the appearance of a leaf
of the higher plants; in Constantinea the axis remains
cylindrical, and the lateral branches assume the form of
leaves. In the compact thalli a secondary development
often takes place by the growth of rhizoid-like internal
filaments. They present a hypha-like appearance, running
longitudinally for considerable distances. It is not difficult
in such compact species to distinguish between superficial
cells, whose chief function is assimilation, subjacent cells
charged with reserve material, and a core of tissue engaged
in the convection of elaborated material from part to part.
An interesting feature of the minute anatomy of Euflorideae,
as the Red Algae, exclusive of the Bangiaceae, have been
termed, is the existence of the so-called Floridean pit.
When a cell divides it is found that there remains in the
middle of the new wall a single large circular pit, which
persists throughout the life of the cells, becoming more and
more conspicuous with the progress of the thickening of the
wall. These pits serve to indicate the genetic relationship
of adjacent cells, when they form a compact pseudo-parenchyma,
notwithstanding the fact that somewhat smaller secondary pits
appear later between any contiguous cells. Protoplasmic continuity
has been observed in the delicate membrane closing the pit.
Vegetative multiplication occurs only sparingly in Rhodophyceae.
Melobesia callithamnioides gives rise to multicellular
propagula; (Griffithsia corallina is said to give rise
to new individuals, by detaching portions of the thallus
from the base of which new attachment organs have already
arisen. The spores of Monospora are by some regarded as
unicellular propagula. Reproduction is both asexual and
sexual. It is noteworthy that although all the members of
the group are aquatic no zoospores are produced, a negative
character common to them and the Blue-green Algae. As a rule
the asexual cells, and the male and female sexual cells arise
upon different plants, so that the species may be said to be
trioecious. Numerous exceptions, however, occur. Thus in
Lemaneaceae asexual spores are unknown; in Batracho-spermum,
Bonnemaisonia and Polysiphonia byssoides both kinds of
sexual cells appear on the same plant; and in some cases the
asexual cells may occur in conjunction with either the male or
female sexual cells. The asexual cells are termed tetraspores
on account of the usual occurrence of four in each sporangium.
What may be termed monospores, bispores and octospores,
however, are not unknown. The sporangia may be terminal or
intercalated. When they are confined to special branches
such branches are spoken of as stichidia. The tetrasrores
may arise by the simultaneous division of the contents of a
sporangium, when they are arranged tetrahedrally, or they may
arise by two successive divisions, in which case the arrangement
may be zonate when the spores are in a row, or cruciate when
the second divisions are at right angles to the first, or
tetrahedral when the second divisions are at right angles to
the first and also to one another. Tetraspores are at first
naked, but soon acquire a cell-wall and germinate without a
period of rest. The male sexual cells are produced singly
in the terminal cells of branches. They are spoken of as
spermaria. Great numbers of antheridia are usually crowded
together, when the part is distinguishable by the absence
of the usual red colour. In Polysiphonia they cover the
joints of the so-called leaves; in Chondria they arise
on flattened dishs; in the more massive forms they arise in
patches on the ordinary surface; in a few cases (Gracilaria,
Corallina, Galaxaura) they line the walls of conceptacle-like
depressions. The female sexual cell is represented by the
contents of a cell which is terminal on ordinary or specialized
branches. This is the carpogonium: it consists of a neutral
portion which contains a nucleus, but in which no oosphere is
differentiated, and an elongated tubular portion known as the
trichogyne, into which the cytoplasm extends. Fertilization
is effected by the passive convection of a spermatium from
the antheridium to the trichogyne, to which it adheres,
and to which it passes over its nucleus through an open
communication set up at the point of contact. The nucleus
then passes down the trichogyne and fuses with that of the
eeg. This fusion has been observed by Wille in Nemalion
multifidim, and by Schmidle in Batrachospermum. It is
singular that in the last-named species two nuclei occur
regularly in the spermatium. The ventral portion of the
carpogonium may be imbedded deep in the thallus in the
massive species; the trichogyne, however, always reaches the
surface. The first effect of fertilization is the occlusion
of the trichogyne from the fertilized carpogonium. The
subsequent course of development is characteristic of the
Florideae. The carpogonium germinates forthwith, drawing
its nourishment almost wholly from the parent plant. The
ultimate product in all cases is a number of carpospores, but
before this stage is reached the development is different in
different subgroups. In Batrachospermum filaments arise
from the carpogonium on all sides; in Chantransia and
Scinaia on one side only; in Helminthora the filaments
are enclosed in a dense mucilage; in Nemalion, prior to
the formation of the filaments, a sterile segment is cut off
below. In all these cases, however, the end-cells of the
filaments each give rise to a carpospore, and the aggregate
of such sporiferous filaments is a cystocarp. Again, in the
family of the Gelidiaceae, the single filament arising from
the carpogonium grows back into the tissue and preys upon
the cells of the axis and larger branches, after which the
end-cells give rise to carpospores and a diffused cystocarp is
formed. In the whole group of the Cryptonemiales the
parasitism becomes more marked still. The filaments arising
from the carpogonia grow into long thin tubes, which fuse
with special cells rich in protoplasm contents; and from
these points issue isolated tufts of sporogenous filaments,
several of which may form the product of one fertilized female
cell. In Naccaria, one of the Gelidiaceae, it is observable
that the ooblastema filament, as the tube arising from the
fertilized carpogonium has been called, fuses completely with
a cell contiguous to the carpogonium before giving rise to
the foraging filaments already referred to. This is also
the case among Cryptonemiales. In a whole series of Red
Algae, the existence or a highly specialized auxiliary cell
in the neighbourhood of the carpogonium is a characteristic
feature. In the Gigartinales it is already differentiated
previous to fertilization; in Rhodymeniales it arises
subsequent to fertilization. In the Gigartinales, the
filaments which arise from the auxiliary cell may spread and
give rise to isolated tufts of sporogenous filaments, as in the
Cryptonemiales. In the Rhodymeniales a single tuft arises
directly from the auxiliary cell. The carpospores are in
all cases bright red naked masses of protoplasm when first
discharged. They soon acquire a cell-wall, and germinate
without a period of rest. When the cystocarps or segments
of cystocarps are formed in the substance of a thallus, the
site is marked merely by a swelling of the substance. When
the cystocarp is produced externally, it may form a berry-like
mass without an envelope, in which case it it known as a
favella. In Rhodomelaceae there is a special urn-shaped envelope
surrounding the sporogenous filaments. This is a ceramidium.
The attachment of the cell of an ooblastema filament to a
cell of the thallus may be effected by means of a minute
pore, or the two cells may fuse their contents into one
protoplasmic mass. In the latter case, and especially
where the union is with a special auxiliary cell, it is of
importance to know what happens to the nuclei of the fusing
cells. Schmitz was of opinion that in the cases of open
union there occurred a fusion of nuclei similar to that
which occurs in the sexual union of two cells. He founded
his generalization to a large extent upon the observation
that in Gloeosiphonia capillaris two cells completely
fuse, and that only one nucleus can be detecteo in the fused
mass. Oltmanns has recently re-investigated the phenomena in
this plant, among others, and has shown that the nucleus of
the cell which is being preyed upon recedes to the wall and
gradually atrophies. The nucleus of the ooblastema filament
dominates the FIG. 5.--Rhodophyceae, variously magnified.
A. Polysiphonia sp., apical region showing
leading cell and cutting off of pericentral cell.
B. Polysiphonia sp., transverse section through
a branch, and at a, mother-cell of tetraspores.
C. Lomeittaria sp., apex showing growth in length
through coordinated growth of many filaments.
D. Delesseria sp., showing apical region with leading cell.
E. Chrysymenia uvaria, axis with swollen leaf-like appendages.
F. Polyzonia sp., branch with leaf-like branches of limited growth.
G. Collithamnson sp., tetrasporangium with spores arranged in a tetrad.
H. Corallina sp., tetrasporangia with zonate arrangement of tetraspores.
K. Nemalion sp., carpogonial and antheridial branches.
L. Batrachospermum sp., trichogyne with spermatia
attached; carpospores arising from fertilized carpogonium.
M. Polysiphonia sp., antheridium.
N. Constantinea sp., with flattened leaf-like appendages.
O. Dudresnaya coccinea, fusion of ooblastema filaments with auxiliary
cells; a is an axial cell in transverse section with four appendages.
P. Callithamnion corymbosum, a joint cell with
carpogonial branch and a, b, two auxiliary cells.
Q. Callithamnion corymbosum, fusion of products of fertilization with
auxiliary cells, the nuclei of which a and b retire to the wall.
R. Polysiphonia sp., section through young cystocarp.
(A, C, D, E, F, G, H, K, L, M, P, Q, from Oltmanns,
by permission of Gustav Fischer; B, N, O, R, from
Engler and Prantl, by permission of Wilhelm Engelmann.)
mass and from it all the nuclei of the carpospores are thus
derived. There thus seems to be no justification for
believing, as Schmitz taught, that a second sexual
act occurs in the life-cycle of these Florideae.
The Bangiales are a relatively small group of Red Algae,
to which much of the description now given does not apply.
Structurally they are either a plate of cells, as in Porphyra, or
filaments, as in Bangia. There is no exclusive apical growth,
and the cells divide in all directions. The characteristic
pit is also absent. Sexual and asexual reproduction prevail.
The male cell is a spermatium, but the female cell bears no
such receptive trichogyne as occurs in other Rhodophyceae.
After fertilization the equivalent of the oospore divides
directly to form a group of carpospores. There is thus a
certain resemblance to Euflorideae, but sufficient difference
to necessitate their being grouped apart. Fertilization by
means of non-motile spermatia and a trichogyne are known among
the Fungi in the families Collemaceae any Laboulbeniaceae.
A census of Rhodophyceae is furnished below:--
(1) Bangiaceae--4 families, 9 genera, 58 species.
(2) Nemalioninae--4 families, 33 genera, 343 species.
(3) Gigartininae--3 families, 54 genera, 409 species.
(4) Rhodymeninae--4 families, 92 genera, 602
species. (De Toni's Sylloge Algarum, 1897.)
Limits of the algae.
After this survey of the four groups comprised under Algae
it is easier to indicate the variations in the limits of the
class as defined by different authorities. To consider the
Cyanophyceae first, either the marked contrast in the method of
nutrition of the generally colourless Bacteriaceae to that of
the blue-green Cyanophyceae is regarded as sufficient ground for
excluding Bacteriaceae from algae altogether, notwithstanding
their acknowledged morphological affinity with Cyanophyceae,
or, in recognition of the incongruity of effecting such a
separation, the whole group of the Schizophyta --that is to
say, the Cyanophyceae in the narrow sense, together with
Bacteriaceae, is included or excluded together. Again,
while Conjugatae may be shut out from Chlorophyceae as an
independent group co-ordinate with them in rank, the Characeae
constitute so aberrant a group that it has even been proposed
to raise them as Charophyta to the dignity of a main division
co-ordinate with Thallophyta. Similarly, while Diatomaceae
may be excluded from among Phaeophyceae, though retained among
algae, the Cryptomonadaceae and Peridiniaceae, like Euglena
and other Chlorophyceae, may be excluded from Thallophyta
and ranged among the flagellate Protozoa. It is doubtful,
however, whether the conventional distinction between plants
and animals will continue to be urged; and the suggestion of
Haeckel that a class Protista should be established to receive
the forms exhibiting both animal and plant affinities has much
to recommend it on phylogenetic grounds. To adopt a figure,
it is probable that the sources from which the two streams of
life--animal and vegetable--spring may not be separable by a
well-defined watershed at all, but consist of a great level
upland, in which the waterways anastomose. Finally, while
Chlorophyceae and Phaeophyceae exhibit important affinities,
the Rhodophyceae are so distinct that the term ``algae'' cannot
be made to include them, except when used in its widest sense.
Phylogeny.
It has been well said that the attempt to classify plants according
to their natural affinities is an attempt to construct for
them the genealogical tree by which their relationships can be
traced. Algae are, however, so heterogeneous a class, of
which the constituent groups are so inadequately known, that
it is at present futile to endeavour thus to exhibit their
pedigree. A synoptical representation of the present state
of knowledge would be expressed by a network rather than by a
tree. The following table is an adaptation of a scheme
devised by Klebs, and indicates the inter-relationships
PROTOZOA Peridiniaceae......Diatomaceae
| |
Cryptomonadaceae--Hydruraceae--EUPHAEOPHYCEAE
Flagellata
protomastigina......Bacteriaceae--Endosphaeraceae
|
CYANOPHYCEAE........Bangiacaeae--EUFLORIDEAE
Eugleneae
Chloromonadinae Pleurococcaceae--Endosphaeraceae
Volvocaceae Chlorosphaeraceae CONGUGATAE SIPHONALES
Tetrasporaceae----------Ulvaceae----------CONFERVALES......CHARACEAE
FUNGI BRYOPHYTA
of the various constituent groups. The area included in
the thick boundary line represents algae in the widest
sense in which the term is used, and the four included areas
the four main subdivisions. A continuous line indicates a
close affinity, and a dotted line a doubtful relationship.
Alternation of generations.
In comparing algae with the great archegoniate series which
has doubtless sprung from them, it is natural to inquire to
what extent, if any, they present evidence of the existence
of the marked alternation of generations which dominates
the life-history of the higher plants. Turning first to the
Rhodophyceae, both on account of the high place which they
occupy among algae and also the remarkable uniformity in their
reproductive processes, it is clear that, as is the case among
Archegoniatae, the product of the sexual act never germinates
directly into a plant which gives rise to the sexual organs.
Even among Bangiaceae the carpospores arise from the fertilized
cell by division, while in all other Rhodophyceae the oospore,
as it may be called, gives rise to a filamentous structure,
varying greatly in its dimensions, epiphytic, and to a large
extent parasitic upon the egg-bearing parent plant, and in the
end giving rise to carpospores in the terminal cells of certain
branches. There is here obviously a certain parallelism
with the case of Bryophyta, where the sporogonium arising
from the oospore is epiphytic and partially parasitic upon
the female plant, and always culminates in the production of
spores. Not even Riccia, with its rudimentary sporogonium,
has so simple a corresponding stage as Bangia, for, while
there is some amount of sterile tissue in Riccia, in Bangia
the oospore completely divides to form carpospores. Excluding
Bangiaceae, however, from consideration, the Euflorideae
present in the product of the development of the oospore like
Bryophyta a structure partly sterile and partly fertile. There
is, nevertheless, this important difference between the two
cases. While the spore of Bryophyta on germination gives rise
to the sexual plant, the carpospore of the alga may give rise
on germination to a plant bearing a second sort of asexual
cells, viz. the tetraspores, and the sexual plant may only be
reached after a series of such plants have been successively
generated. It is possible, however, that the tetraspore
formation should be regarded as comparable with the prolific
vegetative reproduction of Bryophyta, and in favour of this
view there is the fact that the tetraspores originate on the
thallus in a different way from carpospores with which the
spores of Bryophyta are in the first place to be compared;
moreover, in certain Nemalionales the production of tetraspores
does not occur, and the difficulty referred to does not arise
in such cases. Altogether it is difficult on morphological
grounds to resist the conclusion that Florideae present the
same fundamental phenomenon of alternation of generations
as prevails in the higher plants. It is by means of the
cytological evidence, however, that this problem will finally be
solved. As is well known, the dividing nuclei of the cells
of the sporophyte generation of the higher plants exhibit a
double number of chromosomes, while the dividing nuclei of
the cells of the gametophyte generation exhibit the single
number. In a fern-plant, for example, which is a sporophyte,
every karyokinesis divulges the double number, while in the
prothallium, which is the gametophyte generation, the single
number appears. The doubling process is provided by the
act of fertilization, where an antherozoid with the single
number of chromosomes fuses with an oosphere also with the
single number to provide a fertilized egg with the double
number. The reduction stage, on the other hand, is the
first division of the mother-cell of the spore. From egg to
spore-mother-cell is sporophyte; from spore-mother-cell to
egg is gametophyte. And since this rule has been found to
hold good for all the archegoniate series and also for the
flowering plants where, however, the gametophyte generation
has become so extremely reduced as to be only with difficulty
discerned, it is natural that when alternation of generation
is stated to occur in any group of Thallophyta it should be
required that the cytological evidence should support the
view. The genus Nemalion has been recently investigated by
Wolfe with the object of examining the cytological evidence.
He finds that eight chromosomes appear in karyokinesis in the
ordinary thallus cells, but sixteen in the gonimoblast filaments
derived from the fertilized carpogonium. Eight chromosomes
appear again in the ultimate divisions which give rise to the
carpospores. Upon the evidence it would seem therefore
that so far as Nemalion is concerned an alternation occurs
comparable with that existing in the lower Bryophyta where
the sporophyte is relatively small, being attached to and to
some extent parasitic upon the gametophyte. Nemalion is,
however, one of those Florideae in which tetraspores do not
occur. What is the case with those Florideae which have been
described as trioecious? If the sporophyte generation is confined
to the cystocarp, is the tetrasporiferous plant, as has been
suggested, merely a potential gametophyte reproducing by a
process analogous to the bud- formation of the Bryophyta? In
answer to this question a recent writer, Yamanouchi, states
in a preliminary communication that he has found that in
Polysiphonia violacea the germinating carpospores exhibit
forty chromosomes, and the germinating tetraspores twenty
chromosomes. From this it would seem that in this plant
reduction takes place in the tetraspore mother- cell, and that
the tetrasporiferous plants are sporophytes which alternate with
sexual plants. Novel as this result may seem, the tetraspores
of Florideae become hereby comparable with the tetraspores of
Dictyota, to which reference will be made hereafter. But it
is clear that it becomes on this view increasingly difficult
to explain the occasional occurrence of tetraspores on male,
female and monoecious plants or the role of the carpospores
in the life-cycle of Florideae. The results of future research
on the cytology of the group will be awaited with interest.
Among Phaeophyceae it is well known that the oospore of
Fucaceae germinates directly into the sexual plant, and there
is thus only one generation. Moreover, it is known that
the reduction in the number of chromosomes which occurs at
the initiation of the gametophyte generation in Pteridophyta
occurs in the culminating stage of Fucus, where the oogonium
is separated from the stalk-cell, so that unless it be
contended that the Fucus is really a sporophyte which does
not produce spores, and that the gametophyte is represented
merely by the oogonium and antheridium, there is no semblance
of alternation of generation in this case. The only case
among Phaeophyceae which has been considered to point to the
existence of such a phenomenon is Cutleria. Here the asexual
cells are borne upon the so-called Aglaozonia reptans and the
sexual cells upon the plants known as Cutleria. The spores
of the Aglaozonia form are known to give rise to sexual
plants, and the oospore of Cutleria has been observed to
grow into rudimentary Aglaozonia. Latterly, however, as the
result of the cytological investigations of Mottler and Lloyd
Williams, great advance has been made in our knowledge of the
conditions existing in Dictyota. Mottler first observed that
a reduction in the number takes place in the mother-cells of the
tetraspore. It will be remembered that, as in most Florideae,
the male, female and asexual plants are distinct in this
genus. Mottler's observation has been confirmed by Lloyd
Williams, who has shown, moreover, that the single number
occurs in germlings from the tetraspore, and also in the
adult stages of all sexual plants, while the double number
occurs in germlings from the oospore, and in adult stages of
all asexual plants. It is probable, therefore, that we have
here a sharp alternation of generations, both generations
being, however, precisely similar to the eye up to point of
reproduction. Among Chlorophyceae it is often the case that the
oospore on germination divides up directly to form a brood of
zoospores. In Coleochaete this seems to be preceded by the
formation of a minute parenchymatous mass, in each cell of which
a zoospore is produced. In Sphaeroplea it is only at this
stage that zoospores are formed at all; but in most cases, such
as Oedogogonium, Ulothrix, Coleochaete, similar zoospores
are produced again and again upon the thallus, and the product
of the oospore may be regarded as merely a first brood of a
series. It has been held by some, however, that the first
brood corresponds to the sporophyte generation of the higher
plants, and that the rest of the cycle is the gametophyte
generation. Were the case of Sphaeroplea to stand alone,
the phenomenon might perhaps be regarded as an alternation of
generations, but still only comparable with the case of Bangia,
and not the case of the Florideae. But it is difficult to
apply such a term at all to those cases in which there intervene
between the oospore and the next sexual stage a series of
generations, the zoospores of which are all precisely similar.
Polymorphism.
The difficulty of tracing the relationships of algae is largely
due to the inadequacy of our knowledge of the conditions
under which they pass through the crucial stages of their
life-cycle. Of the thousands of species which have been
distinguished, relatively few have been traced from spore
to spore, as the flowering plants have been observed from
seed to seed. The aquatic habit of most of the species
and the minute size of many of them are difficulties which
do not exist in the case of most seed-plants. From the
analogy of the higher plants observers have justly argued
that when they have seen and marked the characters of the
reproductive organs they have found the plant at the stage
when it exhibits its most noteworthy features, and they have
named and classified the species in accordance with these
observations. While even in such cases it is obvious that
interesting stages in the life of the plant may escape notice
altogether, in the cases of those plants the reproduction of
which is unknown, and which have been named and placed on the
analogy of the vegetative parts alone, there is considerable
danger that a plant may be named as a distinct species which
is only a stage in the life of another distinct and perhaps
already known species. To take an example, Lemanea and
Batrachospermum are Florideae which bear densely-whorled
branches, but which, on the germination of the carpospore,
give rise to a laxly-filamentous, somewhat irregularly-branched
plant, from which the ordinary sexual plants arise at a later
stage. This filamentous structure has been attributed to the
genus Chantransia, which it greatly resembles, especially
when, as is said to be the case in Batrachospermum, it
bears similar monospores. The true Chantransia, however,
bears its own sexual organs as well as monospores. To the
specific identity of Haplospora globosa and Scaphospora
speciosa, and of Cutleria muitifida and Aglaozonia
reptans, reference has already been made. Again, many Green
Algae--some unicellular, like Sphaerella and Chlamydomonas;
some colonial forms, like Volvox and Hormotila; some
even filamentous forms, like Ulothrix and Stigeoclonium--
are known to pass into a condition resembling that of a
Palmella, and might escape identification on this account.
It is, on the other hand, a danger in the opposite sense to
conclude that all Chantransia species are stages in the
life-cycle of other plants, and, similarly, that all irregular
colonial forms, like Palmella, represent phases in the life
of other Green Algae. Long ago Kutzing went so far as to
express the belief that the lower algae were all capable of
transformations into higher forms, even into moss-protonemata.
Later writers have also thought that in all four groups
of algae transformations of a most far-reaching character
occur. Thus Borzi finds that Protoderma viride passes
through a series of changes so varied that at different times
it presents the characters of twelve different genera. Chodat
does not find so general a polymorphism, but nevertheless
holds that Raphidium passes through stages represented by
Protococcus, Characium, Dactylococcus and Sciadium. Klebs
has, however, recently canvassed the conclusions of both
these investigators; and as the result of his own observations
declares that algae, so far from being as polymorphic as
they have been described, vary only within relatively narrow
limits, and present on the whole as great fixity as the higher
plants. It certainly supports his view to discover, on
subjecting to a careful investigation Botrydium granulatum,
a siphonaceous alga whose varied forms had been described
by J. Rostafinski and M. Woronin, that these authors had
included in the life-cycle stages of a second alga described
previously by Kutzing, and now described afresh by Klebs as
Protosiphon bolryoides. In Botrydium the chromatophores
are small, without pyrenoids, and oil-drops are present;
in Protosiphon the chromatophores form a net-work with
pyrenoids, and the contents include starch. Klebs insists
that the only solution of such problems is the subjection of
the algae in question to a rigorous method of pure culture.
It is interesting to learn that G. Senn, pursuing the methods
described by Klebs, has confirmed Chodat's observation of the
passage of Raphidium into a Dactylococcus-stage, although
he was unable to observe further metamorphosis. He has
also seen Pleurococcus viridis dividing so as to form a
filament, but has not succeeded in seeing the formation of
zoospores as described by Chodat. While, therefore, there is
much evidence of a negative character against the existence
of an extensive polymorphism among algae, some amount of
metamorphosis is known to occur. But until the conditions
under which a particular transformation takes place have
been ascertained and described, so that the observation
may be repeated by other investigators, scant credence is
likely to be given to the more extreme polymorphistic views.
Physiology.
In comparison with the higher plants, algae exhibit so much
simplicity of structure, while the conditions under which
they grow are so much more readily controlled, that they have
frequently been the subject of physiological investigation with
a view chiefly to the application of the results to the study
of the higher plants. (See PLANTS: Physiology of.) In the
literature of vegetable physiology there has thus accumulated
a great body of facts relating not only to the phenomena of
reproduction, but also to the nutrition of algae. With
reference to their chemical physiology, the gelatinization
of the cell-wall, which is so marked a feature, is doubtless
attributable to the occurrence along with cellulose of pectic
compounds. There is, however, considerable variation in
the nature of the membrane in different species; thus the
cell-wall of Gedogonium, treated with sulphuric acid and
iodine, turns a bright blue, while the colour is very faint
in the case of Spirogyra, the wall of which is said to
consist for the most part of pectose. While starch occurs
commonly as a cell-content in the majority of the Green
Algae no trace of it occurs in Vaucheria and some of its
allies, nor is it known in the whole of the Phaeophyceae and
Rhodophyceae. In certain Euphaeophyceae bodies built up of
concentric layers, and attached to the chromatophores, were
described by Schmitz as phaeophycean-starch; they do not,
however, give the ordinary starch reaction. Other granules,
easily mistaken for the ``starch'' granules, are also found in
the cells of Phaeophyceae; these possess a power of movement
apart from the protoplasm, and are considered to be vesicles
and to contain phloroglucin. The colourless granules of
Florideae, which are supposed to constitute the carbohydrate
reserve material, have been called floridean-starch. A white
efflorescence which appears on certain Brown Algae (Saccorhiza
bulbosa, Laminaria saccharina), when they are dried in
the air, is found to consist of mannite. Mucin is known in
the cell-sap of Acetabularia. Some Siphonales (Codium)
give rise to proteid crystalloids, and they are of constant
occurrence among Florideae. The presence of tannin has been
established in the case of a great number of freshwater algae.
Colouring matters.
By virtue of the possession of chlorophyll all algae are
capable of utilizing carbonic acid gas as a source of carbon
in the presence of sunlight. The presence of phycocyanin,
phycophaein and phycoerythrin considerably modifies the
absorption spectra for the plants in which they occur. Thus
in the case of phycoerythrin the maximum absorption, apart
from the great absorption at the blue end of the spectrum,
is not, as in the case where chlorophyll occurs alone, near
the Fraunhofer line B, but farther to the right beyond the
line D. By an ingenious method devised by Engelmann, it
may be shown that the greatest liberation of oxygen, and
consequently the greatest assimilation of carbon, occurs in
that region of the spectrum represented by the absorption
bands. In this connexion Pfeffer points out that the penetrating
power of light into a clear sea varies for light of different
colours. Thus red light is reduced to such an extent as
to be insufficient for growth at a depth of 34 metres,
yellow light at a depth of 177 metres and green light at 322
metres. It is thus an obvious advantage to Red Algae, which
flourish at considerable depths, to be able to utilize yellow
light rather than the red, which is extinguished so much
sooner. The experiment of Engelmann referred to deserves
to be mentioned here, if only in illustration of the use
to which algae have been put in the study of physiological
problems. Engelmann observed that certain bacteria were motile
only in the presence of oxygen, and that they retained their
motility in a microscopic preparation in the neighbourhood
of an algal filament when they had come to rest elsewhere
on account of the exhaustion of oxygen. After the bacteria
had all been brought to rest by being placed in the dark,
he threw a spectrum upon the filament, and observed in what
region the bacteria first regained their motility, owing to the
liberation of oxygen in the process of carbon-assimilation.
He found that these places corresponded closely with the
region of the absorption band for the algae under experiment.
Although algae generally are able to use carbonic acid gas
as a source of carbon, some algae, like certain of the higher
plants, are capable of utilizing organic compounds for this
purpose. Thus Spirogyra filaments, which have been
denuded of starch by being placed in the dark, form starch
in one day if they are placed in a 10 to 20% solution of
dextrose. According to T. Bokorny, moreover, it appears
that such filaments will yield starch from formaldehyde
when they are supplied with sodium oxymethyl sulphonate, a
salt which readily decomposes into formaldehyde and hydrogen
sodium sulphite, an observation which has been taken to
mean that formaldehyde is always a stage in the synthesis of
starch. With reference to the assimilation of nitrogen,
it would seem that algae, like other green plants, can
best use it when it is presented to them in the form of a
nitrate. Some algae, however, seem to flourish better
in the presence of organic compounds. In the case of
Scenedesmus acutus it is said that the alga is unable
to take up nitrogen in the form of a nitrate or ammoniacal
salt, and requires some such substance as an amide or a
peptone. On the other hand, it has been held by Bernhard
Frank and other observers that atmospheric nitrogen is fixed
by the agency of Green Algae in the soil: (For the remarkable
symbiotism between algae and fungi see FUNGI and LICHENS.)
Habitat.
Most algae, particularly Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae, spend
the whole of the life-cycle immersed in water. In the case of
the freshwater algae, however, belonging to the Chlorophyceae
and Cyanophyceae, although they required to be immersed during
the vegetative period, the reproductive cells are often capable
of resisting a considerable degree of desiccation, and in this
condition are dispersed through great distances by various
agencies. Again, as is well known, many species of marine
algae growing in the region between the limits of high and low
water are so constituted that they are exposed to the air twice
a day without injury. The occurrence of characteristic algae
at different levels constituting the zones to which reference
has already been made, is probably in part an expression of
the fact that different species vary in the capacity to resist
desiccation from exposure. Thus Laminaria digitata, which
characterizes the lowest zone, is only occasionally exposed at
all, and then only for short periods of time. On the other
hand, Pelvetia canaliculata, which marks the upper belt, is
exposed for longer periods, and during neap tides may not be
reached by the water for many days. Algae of more delicate
texture than either Fucaceae or Laminariaceae also occur in
the region exposed by the ebb of the tide, but these secure
their exemption from desiccation either by retaining water
in their meshes by capillary attraction, as in the case of
Pilayella, or by growing among the tangles of the larger
Fucaceae, as in the case of Polysiphonia fastigiata, or by
growing in dense masses on rocks, as in the case of Laurencia
pinnatifida. Such a species as Delesseria sanguinea or
Callophyllis laciniata would on the contrary run great risk
by exposure for even a short period. A few algae approach
the ordinary terrestrial plants in their capacity to live in
a sub-aerial habitat subject only to such occasional supphes
of water as is afforded by the rainfall. Of this nature are
some of the species of Vaucheria. A very few species, like
Chroolepus, which grows on rock surfaces, are comparable
with the land plants which have been termed xerophilous.
Plankton.
The great majority of the aquatic algae, both freshwater and
marine, are attached plants. Some, however, are wanderers,
either swimming actively with the aid of cilia, or floating
inertly as the result of a specific weight closely approaching
that of the medium. To the aggregate of such forms, both
animal and vegetable, the term plankton has been applied, and
the investigation of the vegetable plankton, both freshwater
and marine, has been pursued in recent times with energy and
success. The German Plankton Expedition of 1889 added greatly
to our knowledge of the floating vegetable life of the North
Atlantic Ocean, while many laboratories established on the
shores of inland seas and lakes have rendered a similar
service in the case of our freshwater phyto-plankton.
The quantitative estimate of the amount of this flora has
revealed its enormous aggregate amount and therefore its great
importance in the economy of oceanic and lacustrine animal
life. The organisms constituting this plankton are mostly
unicellular, often aggregated together in colonies, and the
remarkable structure which they exhibit has added a new chapter
to the story of adaptation to environment. The families
Diatomaceae, Peridiniaceae and Protococcaceae are best
represented in the pelagic plankton, while in addition the
Volvocaceae are an important element in freshwater plankton.
Benthos.
The great majority of algae, however, grow like land-plants
attached to a substratum, and to these the term benthos is
now generally applied. While the root of land-plants serves
for the double purpose of attachment and the supply of water,
it is attachment only that is usually sought in the case of
algae. Immersed as they usually are in a medium containing in
solution the inorganic substances which they require for their
nutrition, the absorption of these takes place throughout
their whole extent. The elaborate provision for the conduct
of water from part to part which has played so important
a role in the morphological development of land plants is
entirely wanting in algae, such conducting tissues as do
exist in the larger Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae serving
rather for the convection of elaborated organic substance, and
being thus comparable with the phloem of the higher plants.
The attachment organ of algae is thus more properly called
a holdfast, and is found to be of very varied structure.
It generally takes the form of a single flattened disc as
in the Fucaceae, or a group of finger- like processes as in
Laminariaceae, or a tuft of filaments as in many instances.
When the attachment is in sand or mud, it often simulates the
appearance of a true root as in Chara or Caulerpa. It is
clear that where the bottom of a lake or sea consists of oozy
mud or shifting sand, it is impossible for algae to secure a
foothold. Thus a rock emerging from a sandy beach may often
be observed to stand covered with vegetation like an oasis in a
desert. The rapidity with which walls, piles and pontoons--stone,
wood and iron--become covered with marine plants is well known,
while the discovery of some effective means of preventing
the fouling of the bottoms of ships by the growth of algae
would be hailed as a boon by shipowners. While rocks and
boulders are the favoured situation for the growth of marine
algae, those which readily disintegrate, like the coarser
sandstones, are naturally less favoured than the hard and
resistant. A large number of algae again live as epiphytes or
endophytes. In the case of the freshwater species the host-plants
are mostly species of aquatic Graminaceae, Naiadaceae or
Nymphaeaceae. In the case of marine algae, the hosts are
chiefly the larger Phaeophyceae and Rhodophyceae. A bed of
Zostera near the level of low water is, however, on the
British coast a favourite collecting ground for the smaller
red and brown epiphytes. Of endophytes a distinction must be
made between those which occupy the cell-wall only and those
which perforate the cells, bringing about their destruction.
There can be little doubt that in some cases the epiphytism
approaches parasitism. In one case described by Kuckuck the
chromaphores of the infesting algae are absent, a circumstance
which points to a complete parasitism. Allusion has already
been made to the peculiar habit of the shell-boring algae.
Habit.
In many algae certain branches of limited growth bear a remarkable
resemblance to leaves. The Characeae among freshwater algae
and the Sargassaceae among marine algae might be cited as
examples. Surveying the whole range of algae life, Oltmanns
distinguishes bush-forms, whip- forms, net-forms, leaf-forms,
sack-forms, dorsi-ventral forms, and cushions, plates and
crusts. The similarity of outline in many species to that
of trees and shrubs will strike any one who examines algae
mounted for the herbarium. Cladophora and Bryopsis among
monosiphonous forms, Chara, Polysiphonia, Ceramium and
Cystoseira among larger algae, are illustrations of this.
The whip-forms are represented by Spirogyra, Chaetomorpha,
Scytosiphon, Nemalion, Himanthalia and Chorda. Net-forms are
found in Hydrodictyon and Microdictyon. The leaf-forms are
very varied and owe their existence to the advantage accruing
from the exposure of a large surface to the influence of the
light. In some cases such as Delesseria, Neurymenia, Fucus,
Alaria, the leaf-like structure is provided with a strengthening
mid-rib, and when as in Delesseria it is also richly veined
the resemblance to the leaf of a flowering plant is striking.
Laminaria, Padina, Cutleria, Punctaria, Iridaea, Ulva,
Porphyra, are leaf-like with a rigidity varying from a fleshy
lamina to the thin and pliable. Agarum, Claudea and Struvea
are leaf-forms which are perforated like Aldrovanda among
flowering plants. Enteromorpha, Asperococcus and Adenocystis
are sack-forms. Dorsi-ventral algae are rare. Leveillea
jungermanneoides bears a remarkable resemblance to a leafy
liverwort. In the next group of forms the simplest are crusts
attached to the substratum throughout their extent, and growing
at the margin. Such are Myrionema, Ralfsia, Melobesia and
Hildebrandtia. Others are attached throughout their extent,
but also grow vertical filaments so as to form a velvety pile.
Such are Coleochaete, Ochlochaete, Elachistea, Ascocyclus and
Rhododermis. Peysonellia squamaria, Melobesia lichenoides,
Leathesia difformis are forms which are not attached
throughout but grow in plates like the foliaceous lichens.
Ecology.
When it is sought to consider algae with a view to the
correlation of the external form to the conditions of life,
a subject the study of which under the name of ecology has
been latterly pursued with great success among land plants,
it is difficult as yet to arrive at generalizations which are
trustworthy. Among land plants, as is well known, similarity
of environment has often called forth similar adaptations
among plants of widely separated families. The similarity
of certain xerophilous Euphorbiaceae to Cactaceae is a ready
illustration of this phenomenon. From what has been already
said it is evident that among algae also strikingly similar
forms exist in widely different groups. Instances might be
multiplied. Compare, for example, the blue-green Gloeocapsa
with the green Gloeocystis, the red Batrachospermum
with the green Draparnaldia, the red Corallina with the
green Cymopolia, the green Enteromorpha with the brown
Asperococcus, the green Ulva with the red Porphyra, the
red Nemalion with the brown Castagnea, and so on. But on
the one hand similar forms seem to grow often under different
conditions, while on the other hand different forms flourish
under the same conditions. The conceivable variations in the
conditions which would count in algal life are variations in
the chemical character of the water--whether fresh, brackish
or salt; or in the rate of movement of the water, whether
relatively quiet, or a stream or a surf; or in the degree of
illumination with the depth and transparency of the water.
But the laws which determine the associations of various
algae under one environment are as yet little understood. The
occurrence of a plentiful mucilage in many freshwater forms
is, however, doubtless a provision against desiccation on
exposure. The fine subdivision of filamentous and net-forms is
similarly a provision for easy access of water and light to all
parts. The calcareous deposits in Characeae, Corallinaceae
and Siphonaceae are at once a protection against attack and
a means of support. The whip-forms would seem to be designed
to resist injury from surf or current. The vesicles of
Fucaceae and Laminariaceae prevent the sinking of the bulkier
forms. But why certain Fucaceae favour certain zones in
the littoral region, why certain epiphytes are confined
to certain hosts, why Red and Brown Algae are not better
represented in fresh water Or Green Algae in salt,--these
are problems to which it is difficult to find a ready answer.
Uses.
Algae cannot be regarded as directly important in the
industries. On the coasts of Europe marine algae detached
by the autumnal gales are commonly carted on to the land as
a convenient manure. Porphyra laciniata and Rhodymenia
palmata are locally used as food, the latter being known as
dulse. Agar-agar is a gelatinous substance derived from an
eastern species of Gracilaria. The ash of seaweeds, known in
Scotland as kelp, and in Brittany as varec, was formerly used as a
source of iodine to a greater extent than is at present the case.
Occurence in the rocks.
Excepting where the thallus is impregnated with silica, as
in Diatomaceae, or carbonate of lime, as in Corallinaceae,
Characeae and some Siphonales, it is perhaps not surprising that
algae should not have been extensively preserved in the fossil
form. Considering, however, that it is generally believed
that Bryophyta and vascular plants are descended from an
algal ancestry, it is natural to suppose that, prior to the
luxuriant vegetable growths of the Carboniferous period,
there must have existed an age of algae. It was doubtless
this expectation that has led to the description of a number
of Silurian and Devonian remains as algae upon what is now
regarded as inadequate evidence. The geologic record is,
as perhaps is to be expected, exceedingly poor, except as
regards the calcareous Siphonales, which are well represented
at various horizons, from the Silurian to the Tertiary;
even the Diatomaceae, which are found in great quantities in
the Tertiary deposits, do not occur at all earlier than the
chalk. It is believed, however, that the Devonian fossil,
Nematophycus, is a Laminarian alga, but it is not until
the late Secondary and the Tertiary formations that fossil
remains of algae become frequent. (See PALAEOBOTANY.)
The subjoined list includes the larger standard works on
algae, together with a number of papers to which reference is
made in this article. For a detailed catalogue of Algological
literature, see the ``Bibliotheca Phycologica'' in de Tonii's
Syllope Algarum, vo1. i. (1889), with the addendum thereto
in vol. iv. (1897) of the same work. GENERAL.--J. G. Agardh,
Species, genera et ordines Algarum (vols. i-iii., Algernes
Systematik (Lund, 1872-1899); J. E. Areschoug, ``Observationes
Phycologicae,'' Nova Acta reg. soc. sci. Upsaliensis
(Upsala, 1866-1875); F. F. Blackman, ``The Primitive Algae
and the Flagellata,'' Ann. of Botany (vol. xiv., Oxford,
1900); E. Bornet and G. Thuret, Notes agologiques (fasc.
i.-ii., Paris, 1876-1880); P. A. Dangeard, ``Recherches sur
les algues inferieures,'' Ann. des sci. naturelles, Bot.
(vol. vii., Paris, 1888); A. Derbes and A. J. J. Solier,
Momoire de la physiologie des algues (Paris, 1856); J.
B. de Toni, Sylloge Algarum---vol. i. Chlorophyceae,
vol. ii. Bacillariaceae, vol. iii. Fucoideae, vol. iv.
Florideae (Padua, 1889-1900); P. Falkenberg, ``Die Algen
im weitesten Sinne,'' Schenk's Handbuch der Botanik (vol.
ii., 1882); W. G. Farlow, Morine Algae of New England
(Washington, 1881); W. H. Harvey, Phycologia Britannica (4
vols., London, 1846-1855); Nereis Boreali-Americana (3
pts., Washington, 1851-1858); Phycologia Australica (5
vols., London, 1858-1863); F. Hauck, ``Die Meeresalgen
Deutschlands und Osterrichs,'' Rabenhort's Kryptogamen-Flora
(Leipzig, 1885); F. R. Kjellman, The Algae of the Arctic Sea
(Stockholm, 1883); F. T. Kutzing, Tabulae Phycologicae (19
vols., Nordhausen, 1845-1869); P. Kuckuck, Beitrage zur
Kenntniss der Meercsalgen (Kiel and Leipzig, 1897-1899); G.
Murray, Phycological Memoirs (London, 1892-1895) Naegeli,
Die neueren Algensysteme (Zurich, 1847); F. Oltmanns,
Morphologie und Biologie der Algen (Jena, Band i. 1904,
Band ii. 1905); N. Pringsheim, ``Beitrage zur Morphologie
der Meeresalgen,'' Abhand. Konigl. Akad. der Wissensch.
(Berlin, 1862); J. Reinke, Atlas deutscher Meeresalgen
(Berlin, 1889-1892); F. Schutt, Das Pflanzenleben der
Hochsee (Leipzig, 1893); J. Stackhouse, Nereis britannica
(ed. i., Bath, 1801; ed. ii., Oxford, 1816); G. Thuret and E.
Bornet, Etudes phycologiques (Paris, 1878); D. Turner,
Historia Fucorum (4 vols., London, 1808-1819); G. Zanardini,
Iconographia Phycologia Adriatica (Venice, 1860-1876).
1. CYANOPHYCEAE.--E. Bornet and Ch. Flahault, ``Revision
des Nostocacees heterocystees,'' Ann. des sc.
naturelles, Bot.(vols. iii.-vii., Paris, 1887-1888); M.
Gomont, ``Monographic des Oscillariees,'' Ann. des sc.
naturelles, Bot. (vols. xv.-xvi., Paris, 1893); Hegler,
``Uber Kerntheilungserscheinungen,'' Ref. Botan. Centralbl.
(vol. lxiv., Cassel, 1895); O. Kirchner, ``Schizophyceae'',
in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien (Leipzig, 1900).
2. CHLOROPHYCEAE.--A. Borzi, ``Studi anamorfici di alcune
alghe verdi,'' Bull. Soc. Bot. Ital. in N. Giorn. Bot.
Ital. (vol. xxii., Pisa, 1890); F. F. Blackman and A. G.
Tansley, A Revision of the Classification of the Green
Algae, reprinted from the New Phytologist (vol. i., London,
1903); K. Bohlin, ``Studier ofver nagra slagten af alggruppen
confervales Borzi,'' Bihang till K. Svenska vel. akad.
Handlinger (Bd. xxiii. afd. 3, 1897);--Ufkasttill, De grona
algernas och arkegomiaternas bylogeni (Upsala, 1901); R.
Chodat, ``On the Polymorphism of the Green Algae,'' Ann.
of Botany (vol. xi., Oxford, 1897); M. C. Cooke, British
Freshwater Algae (2 vols., London, 1884), British Desmids
(London, 1887); G. Klebs, Die Bedingungen der Fortpflanzung
bei einigen Algen und Pilzen (Jena, 1896); A. Luther, ``Uber
Chlorosaccus, n.g.'' Bihang till K. Svenska vel. akad.
Handlinger (Bd. xxiv. afd. 3, 1899); H. Grat zu Solms-Laubach,
``Monograph of the Acetabulariaceae,'' Trans. Linn. Soc.
(Lond.) Bot. (London, 1895); N. Wille, ``Chlorophyceae'',
in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien (Leipzig, 1897).
3. PHAEOPHYCEAE.--E. A. L. Batters, ``On Ectocarpus secundus,''
Grevillea (vol. xxi., London, 1893); G. Berthold, ``Die
geschlechliche Fortpflanzung der eigentlichen Phaeosooreen,''
Mitth. Zool. Stat. Neapel (vol. ii., Leipzig, 1881); G.
Brebner, ``On the Classification of the Tilopteridaceae,''
Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc. (vol. viii., Bristol, 1896-1897);
A. H. Church, ``On the Polymorphy of Cutleria multiflda,''
Ann. of Botany (vol. xii., Oxford, 1898); J. B. Farmer
esnd J. Ll. Williams, ``Contributions to our Knowledge
of the Life- history and Cytology of Fucaceae,'' Phil.
Trans. Roy. Soc. (vol. cxc., London, 1898); E. Janczewski,
``Observations sur l'accroissement du thalle des Phaeosporees,''
Mem. soc. nat. de sc. (Cherbourg, 1895); F. R. Kjellmann,
``Phaeophyceae,'' in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilian
(Leipzig, 1897); F. Oltmanns, ``Beitrage zur Kenntniss der
Fucaceen,'' Bibliotheca botanica, xiv. (Cassel, 1889); C.
Sauvageau, ``Observations relatives a la sexualite des
Phaeosporees,'' Journal de botanique (vol. x., Paris,
1896); E. Strasburger, ``Kerntheilung und Befruchtung bei
Fucus,'' Cytologische Studien (Berlin, 1897); F. Schutt,
Die Peridinien der Plankton-Expedition (Kiel and Leipzig,
1895); R. Valiante, Le Cystoseirae del Golfo di Napoli
(Leipzig, 1883); J. Ll. Williams, ``On the Antherozoids of
Dictyota and Taonia,'' Ann. of Botany (vol. xi., Oxford, 1897).
4. RHODOPHYCEAE.--G. Berthold, ``Die Bangiacen des Golfes
von Neapel,'' Mitth. Zool. Stat. Neapel (Naples, 1882);
F. Oltmanns, ``Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Florideen,''
Botanische Zeitung (1898); R. W. Philligs, ``The Development
of the Cystocarp in Rhodymeniales,'' i. and ii., Annals
of Botany (vols. xi. xii., Oxford. 1897-1898); F. Schmitz,
``Untersuchungen uber die Befruchtung der Florideen,''
Sitzungsber. der konigl. Akad.der Wissensch. (Berlin,
1883); ``Kleinere Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Florideen,''
La Nuova Notarisia, 1892-1894; F. Schmitz, P. Falkenberg,
P. Hauptfleisch, ``Rhodophyceae,'' in Engler and Prantl's
Pflanzenfamilien (1897); W. Schmidle, ``Die Befruchtung,
Keimung und Haarinsertion von Batrachospermum,'' Bot.
Zeitung.. (1899); Sirodot, Les Batrachospermes (Paris,
1884); N. Wille, ``Uber die Befruchtung bei Nemalion
multifidum,'' Ber. d. deutschen bot. Gesellsc. Band
xii. (Berlin, 1894); J. J. Wolfe, ``Cytological Studies on
Nemalion,'' Annals of Botany (vol. xviii., Oxford, 1904);
S. Yamanouchi, ``The Life- History of Polysiphonia violacea,''
Botanical Gazette (vol. xli., Chicago, 1906). (R. W. P.)
ALGARDI, ALESSANDRO (1602-1654), Italian sculptor, was born
at Bologna in 1602. While he was attending the school of the
Caracci his preference for the plastic art became evident,
and he placed himself under the instruction of the sculptor
Conventi. At the age of twenty he was brought under the
notice of Duke Ferdinand of Mantua, who gave him several
commissions. He was also much employed about the same period
by jewellers and others in modelling in gold, silver and
ivory. After a short residence in Venice he went to Rome in
1625 with an introduction from the duke of Mantua to the pope's
nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi, who employed him for a time in
the restoration of ancient statues. The death of the duke of
Mantua left him to his own resources, and for several years
he earned a precarious maintenance from these restorations
and the commissions of goldsmiths and jewellers. In 1640 he
executed for Pietro Buoncompagni his first work in marble, a
colossal statue of San Filippo Neri, with kneeling angels.
Immediately after, he produced a similar group, representing
the execution of St Paul, for the church of the Barnabite
Fathers in Bologna. These works, displaying great technical
skill, though with considerable exaggeration of expression
and attitude, at once established Algardi's reputation, and
other commissions followed in rapid succession. The turning
point in Algardi's fortune was the accession of Innocent
X., of the Bolognese house of Panfili, to the papal throne in
1644. He was employed by Camino Panfili, nephew of the pontiff,
to design the Villa Doria Panfili outside the San Pancrazio
gate. The most important of Algardi's other works were the
monument of Leo XI., a bronze statue of Innocent X. for the
capitol, and, above all, La Fuega d'Attila, the largest
alto-relievo in the world, the two principal figures being
about 10 ft. high. In 1650 Algardi met Velasquez, who
obtained some interesting orders for his Italian companion in
Spain. Thus there are four chimneys by Algardi in the palace
of Aranjuez, where also the figures on the fountain of Neptune
were executed by him. The Augustine monastery at Salamanca
contains the tomb of the count and countess de Monterey, which
was also the work of Algardi. From an artistic point of view,
he was most successful in his portrait-statues and groups of
children, where he was obliged to follow nature most closely.
In his later years he became very avaricious and amassed a
great fortune. He died in Rome on the 10th of June 1654.
See Le arti di Bologna disegnate da A. Caracci ed intagliati da
S. Giulini, con' assistenza d' Alessandro A. Algardi (1740).
ALGAROTH, POWDER OF, a basic chloride of antimony. It was
known to Basil Valentine, and was used medicinally by the
Veronese physician Victor Algarotus about the end of the 16th
century. Its composition is probably Sb4O5Cl2, and it may be
prepared by the addition of much water to a solution of antimony
chloride; a bulky amorphous precipitate being formed, which,
on standing, gradually becomes crystalline. It is soluble in
hydrochloric acid and tartaric acid, but insoluble in alcohol.
On its composition and preparation see E. Peligot, Annalen,
1847, lxiv. 280; L. Schaffer, Annalen, 1869, clii. 314;
and R. W. E. MacIvor, Chem. News, 1875, xxxii. 229.
ALGAROTTI, FRANCESCO, COUNT (1712-1764), Italian philosopher
and writer on art, was born on the 11th of December 1712 at
Venice, and died at Pisa in 1764. He studied at Rome and
Bologna, and at the age of twenty went to Paris, where
he enjoyed the friendship of Voltaire and produced his
great work Neutonianismo per le dame, a work on optics.
Voltaire called him his cher cygne de Padoue. Returning
from a journey to Russia, he met Frederick the Great who
made him a count of Prussia (1740) and court chamberlain
(1747). Augustus III. of Poland honoured him with the title of
councillor. In 1754, after seven years' residence partly in
Berlin and partly in Dresden, he returned to Italy, living
at Venice and then at Pisa, where he died on the 3rd of May
1764. Frederick the Great erected to his memory a monument
on the Campo Santo at Pisa. He was a man of wide knowledge,
a connoisseur in art and music, and the friend of most of
the leading authors of his time. His chief work on art
is the Saggi sopra le belle arti (``Essays on the Fine
Arts''). Among his other works may be mentioned Poems,
Travels in Russia, Essay on Painting, Correspondence.
The best complete edition with biography
was published by D. Michelessi (1791-1794).
ALGARVE, or ALGARVES, an ancient kingdom and province
in the extreme S. of Portugal, corresponding with the modern
administrative district of Faro, and bounded on the N. by
Alemtejo, E. by the Spanish province of Huelva, and S. and W.
by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 255,191; area, 1937 sq.
m. The greatest length of the province is about 85 m. from
E. to W.; its average breadth is about 22 m. from N. to S.
The Serra de Malhao and the Serra de Monchique extend in the
form of a crescent across the northern part of the province,
and, sweeping to the south-west, terminate in the lofty
promontory of Cape St Vincent, the south-west extremity of
Europe. This headland is famous as the scene of many
sea-fights, notably the defeat inflicted on the Spanish
fleet in February 1797 by the British under Admiral Jervis,
afterwards Earl St Vincent. Between the mountainous tracts
in the north and the southern coast stretches a narrow
plain, watered by numerous rivers flowing southward from the
hills. The coast is fringed for 30 m. from Quarteira to
Tavira, with long sandy islands, through which there are six
passages, the most important being the Barra Nova, between Faro
and Olinao. The navigable estuary of the Guadiana divides
Algarve from Huelva, and its tributaries water the western
districts. From the Serra de Malhao flow two streams, the
Silves and Odelouca, which unite and enter the Atlantic below
the town of Silves. In the hilly districts the roads are
bad, the soil unsuited for cultivation, and the inhabitants
few. Flocks of goats are reared on the mountain-sides. The
level country along the southern coast is more fertile, and
produces in abundance grapes, figs, oranges, lemons, olives,
almonds, aloes, and even plantains and dates. The land is,
however, not well suited for the production of cereals, which
are mostly imported from Spain. On the coast the people
gain their living in great measure from the fisheries, tunny
and sardines being caught in considerable quantities. Salt
is also made from sea-water. There is no manufacturing or
mining industry of any importance. The harbours are bad, and
almost the whole foreign trade is carried on by ships of other
nations, although the inhabitants of Algarve are reputed to be
the best seamen and fishermen of Portugal. The chief exports
are dried fruit, wine, salt, tunny, sardines and anchovies.
The only railway is the Lisbon-Faro main line, which passes
north-eastward from Faro, between the Monchique and Malhao
ranges. Faro (11,789), Lagos (8291), Loule (22,478),
Monchique (7345), Olhao (10,009), Silves (9687) and Tavira
(12,175), the chief towns, are described in separate articles.
The name of Algarve is derived from the Arabic, and signifies
a land lying to the west. The title ``king of Algarve,''
held by the kings of Portugal, was first assumed by
Alphonso III., who captured Algarve from the Moors in 1253.
ALGAU, or ALLGAU, the name now given to a comparatively
small district forming the south-western corner of Bavaria,
and belonging to the province of Swabia and Neuburg, but
formerly applied to a much larger territory, which extended
as far as the Danube on the N., the Inn on the S. and the Lech
on the W. The Algau Alps contain several lofty peaks, the
highest of which is Madelegabel (8681 ft.). The district
is celebrated for its cattle, milk, butter and cheese.
ALGEBRA (from the Arab. af-jebr wa'l-muqabala, transposition
and removal [of terms of an equation], the name of a treatise by
Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi), a branch of mathematics which
may be defined as the generalization and extension of arithmetic.
The subject-matter of algebra will be treated in the following
article under three divisions:---A. Principles of ordinary
algebra; B. Special kinds of algebra; C. History. Special
phases of the subject are treated under their own headings,
e.g. ALGEBRAIC FORMS; BINOMIAL; COMBINATORIAL ANALYSIS;
DETERMINANTS; EQUATION; CONTINUED FRACTION; FUNCTION;
GROUPS, THEORY OF; LOGARITHM; NUMBER; PROBABILITY; SERIES.
A. PRINCIPLES OF ORDINARY ALGEBRA
1. The above definition gives only a partial view of the scope of
algebra. It may be regarded as based on arithmetic, or as
dealing in the first instance with formal results of the laws
of arithmetical number; and in this sense Sir Isaac Newton
gave the title Universal Arithmetic to a work on algebra.
Any definition, however, must have reference to the state of
development of the subject at the time when the definition is given.
2. The earliest algebra consists in the solution of equations.
The distinction between algebraical and arithmetical reasoning
then lies mainly in the fact that the former is in a more
condensed form than the latter; an unknown quantity being
represented by a special symbol, and other symbols being
used as a kind of shorthand for verbal expressions. This
form of algebra was extensively studied in ancient Egypt;
but, in accordance with the practical tendency of the
Egyptian mind, the study consisted largely in the treatment
of particular cases, very few general rules being obtained.
3. For many centuries algebra was confined almost entirely
to the solution of equations; one of the most important
steps being the enunciation by Diophantus of Alexandria of
the laws governing the use of the minus sign. The knowledge
of these laws, however, does not imply the existence of a
conception of negative quantities. The development of symbolic
algebra by the use of general symbols to denote numbers is
due to Franciscus Vieta (Francois Viete, 1540-1603).This
led to the idea of algebra as generalized arithmetic.
4. The principal step in the modern development of algebra was
the recognition of the meaning of negative quantities. This
appears to have been due in the first instance to Albert Girard
(1595-1632), who extended Vieta's results in various branches of
mathematics. His work, however, was little known at the time, and
later was overshadowed by the greater work of Descartes (1596-1650).
5. The main work of Descartes, so far as algebra was concerned,
was the establishment of a relation between arithmetical
and geometrical measurement. This involved not only the
geometrical interpretation of negative quantities, but also the
idea of continuity; this latter, which is the basis of modern
analysis, leading to two separate but allied developments,
viz. the theory of the function and the theory of limits.
6. The great development of all branches of mathematics in
the two centuries following Descartes has led to the term
algebra being used to cover a great variety of subjects, many
of which are really only ramifications of arithmetic, dealt
with by algebraical methods, while others, such as the theory
of numbers and the general theory of series, are outgrowths
of the application of algebra to arithmetic, which involve
such special ideas that they must properly be regarded as
distinct subjects. Some writers have attempted unification
by treating algebra as concerned with functions, and Comte
accordingly defined algebra as the calculus of functions,
arithmetic being regarded as the calculus of values.
7. These attempts at the unification of algebra, and its
separation from other branches of mathematics, have usually
been accompanied by an attempt to base it, as a deductive
science, on certain fundamental laws or general rules; and
this has tended to increase its difficulty. In reality, the
variety of algebra corresponds to the variety of phenomena.
Neither mathematics itself, nor any branch or set of branches of
mathematics, can be regarded as an isolated science. While,
therefore, the logical development of algebraic reasoning must
depend on certain fundamental relations, it is important that
in the early study of the subject these relations should be
introduced gradually, and not until there is some empirical
acquaintance with the phenomena with which they are concerned.
8. The extension of the range of subjects to which mathematical
methods can be applied, accompanied as it is by an extension
of the range of study which is useful to the ordinary
worker, has led in the latter part of the 19th century to an
important reaction against the specialization mentioned in
the preceding paragraph. This reaction has taken the form
of a return to the alliance between algebra and geometry
(\S 5), on which modern analytical geometry is based; the
alliance, however, being concerned with the application of
graphical methods to particular cases rather than to general
expressions. These applications are sometimes treated under
arithmetic, sometimes under algebra; but it is more convenient
to regard graphics as a separate subject, closely allied to
arithmetic, algebra, mensuration and analytical geometry.
9. The association of algebra with arithmetic on the one
hand, and with geometry on the other, presents difficulties,
in that geometrical measurement is based essentially on the
idea of continuity, while arithmetical measurement is based
essentially on the idea of discontinuity; both ideas being
equally matters of intuition. The difficulty first arises in
elementary mensuration, where it is partly met by associating
arithmetical and geometrical measurement with the cardinal and
the ordinal aspects of number respectively (see ARITHMETIC.)
Later, the difficulty recurs in an acute form in reference
to the continuous variation of a function. Reference to a
geometrical interpretation seems at first sight to throw light
on the meaning of a differential coefficient; but closer analysis
reveals new difficulties, due to the geometrical interpretation
itself. One of the most recent developments of algebra is
the algebraic theory at number, which is devised with the
view of removing these difficulties. The harmony between
arithmetical and geometrical measurement, which was disturbed
by the Greek geometers on the discovery of irrational numbers,
is restored by an unlimited supply of the causes of disturbance.
10. Two other developments of algebra are of special
importance. The theory of sequences and series is sometimes
treated as a part of elementary algebra; but it is more
convenient to regard the simpler cases as isolated examples,
leading up to the general theory. The treatment of equations
of the second and higher degrees introduces imaginary and
complex numbers, the theory of which is a special subject.
11. One of the most difficult questions for the teacher of
algebra is the stage at which, and the extent to which, the
ideas of a negative number and of continuity may be introduced.
On the one hand, the modern developments of algebra began
with these ideas, and particularly with the idea of a negative
number. On the other hand, the lateness of occurrence of any
particular mathematical idea is usually closely correlated
with its intrinsic difficulty. Moreover, the ideas which
are usually formed on these points at an early stage are
incomplete; and, if the incompleteness of an idea is not
realized, operations in which it is implied are apt to be purely
formal and mechanical. What are called negative numbers in
arithmetic, for instance, are not really negative numbers but
negative quantities (\S 27 (i.)); and the difficulties incident
to the ideas of continuity have already been pointed out.
12. In the present article, therefore, the main portions of
elementary algebra are treated in one section, without reference
to these ideas, which are considered generally in two separate
sections. These three sections may therefore be regarded as to
a certain extent concurrent. They are preceded by two sections
dealing with the introduction to algebra from the arithmetical
and the graphical sides, and are followed by a section dealing
briefly with the developments mentioned in \S \S 9 and 10 above.
[The intermediate portion of this article is typeset in TeX and
is available elsewhere.]
C. HISTORY Various derivations of the word ``algebra,''
which is of Arabian origin, have been given by different
writers. The first mention of the word is to be found in the
title of a work by Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi (Hovarezmi),
who flourished about the beginning of the 9th century. The
full title is ilm al-jebr wa'l-muqabala, which contains
the ideas of restitution and comparison, or opposition and
comparison, or resolution and equation, jebr being derived
from the verb jabara, to reunite, and muqabala, from
gabala, to make equal. (The root jabara is also met with
in the word algebrista, which means a ``bone-setter,''
and is still in common use in Spain.) The same derivation is
given by Lucas Paciolus (Luca Pacioli), who reproduces the
phrase in the transliterated form alghebra e almucabala,
and ascribes the invention of the art to the Arabians.
Other writers have derived the word from the Arabic
particle al (the definite article), and gerber, meaning
``man.'' Since, however, Geber happened to be the name of
a celebrated Moorish philosopher who flourished in about
the 11th or 12th century, it has been supposed that he was
the founder of algebra, which has since perpetuated his
name. The evidence of Peter Ramus (1515-1572) on this point
is interesting, but he gives no authority for his singular
statements. In the preface to his Arithmeticae libri duo
et totidem Algebrae (1560) he says: ``The name Algebra
is Syriac, signifying the art or doctrine of an excellent
man. For Geber, in Syriac, is a name applied to men, and
is sometimes a term of honour, as master or doctor among
us. There was a certain learned mathematician who sent his
algebra, written in the Syriac language, to Alexander the
Great, and he named it almucabala, that is, the book of
dark or mysterious things, which others would rather call
the doctrine of algebra. To this day the same book is in
great estimation among the learned in the oriental nations,
and by the Indians, who cultivate this art, it is called
aljabra and alboret; though the name of the author
himself is not known.,' The uncertain authority of these
statements, and the plausibility of the preceding explanation,
have caused philologists to accept the derivation from al
and jabara. Robert Recorde in his Whetstone of Witte
(1557) uses the variant algeber, while John Dee (1527-1608)
affirms that algiebar, and not algebra, is the correct
form, and appeals to the authority of the Arabian Avicenna.
Although the term ``algebra'' is now in universal use, various
other appellations were used by the Italian mathematicians
during the Renaissance. Thus we find Paciolus calling it
l'Arte Magiore; ditta dal vulgo la Regula de la Cosa
over Alghebra e Almucabala. The name l'arte magiore,
the greater art, is designed to distinguish it from l'arte
minore, the lesser art, a term which he applied to the
modern arithmetic. His second variant, la regula de la
cosa, the rule of the thing or unknown quantity, appears
to have been in common use in Italy, and the word cosa
was preserved for several centuries in the forms coss or
algebra, cossic or algebraic, cossist or algebraist, &c.
Other Italian writers termed it the Regula rei et census,
the rule of the thing and the product, or the root and the
square. The principle underlying this expression is probably
to be found in the fact that it measured the limits of
their attainments in algebra, for they were unable to solve
equations of a higher degree than the quadratic or square.
Franciscus Vieta (Francois Viete) named it Specious
Arithmetic, on account of the species of the quantities
involved, which he represented symbolically by the various
letters of the alphabet. Sir Isaac Newton introduced the term
Universal Arithmetic, since it is concerned with the doctrine
of operations, not affected on numbers, but on general symbols.
Notwithstanding these and other idiosyncratic appellations,
European mathematicians have adhered to the older
name, by which the subject is now universally known.
It is difficult to assign the invention of any art or science
definitely to any particular age or race. The few fragmentary
records, which have come down to us from past civilizations,
must not be regarded as representing the totality of their
knowledge, and the omission of a science or art does not
necessarily imply that the science or art was unknown. It was
formerly the custom to assign the invention of algebra to the
Greeks, but since the decipherment of the Rhind papyrus
by Eisenlohr this view has changed, for in this work there
are distinct signs of an algebraic analysis. The particular
problem---a heap (hau) and its seventh makes 19---is solved
as we should now solve a simple equation; but Ahmes varies his
methods in other similar problems. This discovery carries the
invention of algebra back to about 1700 B.C., if not earlier.
It is probable that the algebra of the Egyptians was of
a most rudimentary nature, for otherwise we should expect
to find traces of it in the works of the Greek aeometers.
of whom Thales of Miletus (640-546 B.C.) was the first.
Notwithstanding the prolixity of writers and the number of the
writings, all attempts at extracting an algebraic analysis
from their geometrical theorems and problems have been
fruitless, and it is generally conceded that their analysis
was geometrical and had little or no affinity to algebra. The
first extant work which approaches to a treatise on algebra
is by Diophantus (q.v.), an Alexandrian mathematician, who
flourished about A.D. 350. The original, which consisted
of a preface and thirteen books, is now lost, but we have a
Latin translation of the first six books and a fragment of
another on polygonal numbers by Xylander of Augsburg (1575),
and Latin and Greek translations by Gaspar Bachet de Merizac
(1621-1670). Other editions have been published, of which
we may mention Pierre Fermat's (1670), T. L. Heath's (1885)
and P. Tannery's (1893-1895). In the preface to this work,
which is dedicated to one Dionysius, Diophantus explains his
notation, naming the square, cube and fourth powers, dynamis,
cubus, dynamodinimus, and so on, according to the sum in
the indices. The unknown he terms arithmos, the number,
and in solutions he marks it by the final s; he explains
the generation of powers, the rules for multiplication and
division of simple quantities, but he does not treat of the
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of compound
quantities. He then proceeds to discuss various artifices
for the simplification of equations, giving methods which
are still in common use. In the body of the work he displays
considerable ingenuity in reducing his problems to simple
equations, which admit either of direct solution, or fall
into the class known as indeterminate equations. This latter
class he discussed so assiduously that they are often known as
Diophantine problems, and the methods of resolving them as
the Diophantine analysis (see EQUATION, Indeterminate.)
It is difficult to believe that this work of Diophantus
arose spontaneously in a period of general stagnation. It
is more than likely that he was indebted to earlier writers,
whom he omits to mention, and whose works are now lost;
nevertheless, but for this work, we should be led to assume
that algebra was almost, if not entirely, unknown to the Greeks.
The Romans, who succeeded the Greeks as the chief
civilized power in Europe, failed to set store on their
literary and scientific treasures; mathematics was all but
neglected; and beyond a few improvements in arithmetical
computations, there are no material advances to be recorded.
In the chronological development of our subject we have now to
turn to the Orient. Investigation of the writings of Indian
mathematicians has exhibited a fundamental distinction between
the Greek and Indian mind, the former being pre-eminently
geometrical and speculative, the latter arithmetical and mainly
practical. We find that geometry was neglected except in so far
as it was of service to astronomy; trigonometry was advanced,
and algebra improved far beyond the attainments of Diophantus.
The earliest Indian mathematician of whom we have certain
knowledge is Aryabhatta, who flourished about the beginning
of the 6th century of our era. The fame of this astronomer
and mathematician rests on his work, the Aryabhattiyam, the
third chapter of which is devoted to mathematics. Ganessa, an
eminent astronomer, mathematician and scholiast of Bhaskara,
quotes this work and makes separate mention of the cuttaca
(``pulveriser''), a device for effecting the solution of
indeterminate equations. Henry Thomas Colebrooke, one of the
earliest modern investigators of Hindu science, presumes that
the treatise of Aryabhatta extended to determinate quadratic
equations, indeterminate equations of the first degree, and
probably of the second. An astronomical work, called the
Surya-siddhanta (``knowledge of the Sun''), of uncertain
authorship and probably belonging to the 4th or 5th century,
was considered of great merit by the Hindus, who ranked it
only second to the work of Brahmagupta, who flourished about
a century later. It is of great interest to the historical
student, for it exhibits the influence of Greek science upon
Indian mathematics at a period prior to Aryabhatta. After an
interval of about a century, during which mathematics attained
its highest level, there flourished Brahmagupta (b. A.D. 598),
whose work entitled Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta (``The revised
system of Brahma'') contains several chapters devoted to
mathematics. Of other Indian writers mention may be made of
Cridhara, the author of a Ganita-sara (``Quintessence of
Calculation''), and Padmanabha, the author of an algebra.
A period of mathematical stagnation then appears to have
possessed the Indian mind for an interval of several centuries,
for the works of the next author of any moment stand but little
in advance of Brahmagupta. We refer to Bhaskara Acarya, whose
work the Siddhanta-ciromani (``Diadem of anastronomical
System''), written in 1150, contains two important chapters, the
Lilavati (``the beautiful [science or art]'') and Viga-ganita
(``root-extraction''), which are given up to arithmetic and algebra.
English translations of the mathematical chapters of the
Brahma-siddhanta and Siddhanta-ciromani by H. T. Colebrooke
(1817), and of the Surya-siddhanta by E. Burgess, with
annotations by W. D. Whitney (1860), may be consulted for details.
The question as to whether the Greeks borrowed their algebra
from the Hindus or vice versa has been the subject of much
discussion. There is no doubt that there was a constant traffic
between Greece and India, and it is more than probable that an
exchange of produce would be accompanied by a transference of
ideas. Moritz Cantor suspects the influence of Diophantine
methods, more particularly in the Hindu solutions of indeterminate
equations, where certain technical terms are, in all probability,
of Greek origin. However this may be, it is certain that
the Hindu algebraists were far in advance of Diophantus. The
deficiencies of the Greek symbolism were partially remedied;
subtraction was denoted by placing a dot over the subtrahend;
multiplication, by placing bha (an abbreviation of bhavita,
the ``product'') after the factom; division, by placing the
divisor under the dividend; and square root, by inserting
ka (an abbreviation of karana, irrational) before the
quantity. The unknown was called yavattavat, and if there
were several, the first took this appellation, and the others
were designated by the names of colours; for instance, x
was denoted by ya and y by ka (from kalaka, black).
A notable improvement on the ideas of Diophantus is to be found
in the fact that the Hindus recognized the existence of two roots
of a quadratic equation, but the negative roots were considered
to be inadequate, since no interpretation could be found for
them. It is also supposed that they anticipated discoveries
of the solutions of higher equations. Great advances were
made in the study of indeterminate equations, a branch of
analysis in which Diophantus excelled. But whereas Diophantus
aimed at obtaining a single solution, the Hindus strove for
a general method by which any indeterminate problem could be
resolved. In this they were completely successful, for
they obtained general solutions for the equations ax(+ or -)by=c,
xy=ax+by+c (since rediscovered by Leonhard Euler) and
cy2=ax2+b. A particular case of the last equation,
namely, y2=ax2+1, sorely taxed the resources of modern
algebraists. It was proposed by Pierre de Fermat to Bernhard
Frenicle de Bessy, and in 1657 to all mathematicians. John
Wallis and Lord Brounker jointly obtained a tedious solution
which was published in 1658, and afterwards in 1668 by John
Pell in his Algebra. A solution was also given by Fermat
in his Relation. Although Pell had nothing to do with the
solution, posterity has termed the equation Pell's Equation, or
Problem, when more rightly it should be the Hindu Problem,
in recognition of the mathematical attainments of the Brahmans.
Hermann Hankel has pointed out the readiness with which the
Hindus passed from number to magnitude and vice versa.
Although this transition from the discontinuous to continuous
is not truly scientific, yet it materially augmented the
development of algebra, and Hankel affirms that if we
define algebra as the application of arithmetical operations
to both rational and irrational numbers or magnitudes,
then the Brahmans are the real inventors of algebra.
The integration of the scattered tribes of Arabia in the 7th
century by the stirring religious propaganda of Mahomet was
accompanied by a meteoric rise in the intellectual powers of
a hitherto obscure race. The Arabs became the custodians of
Indian and Greek science, whilst Europe was rent by internal
dissensions. Under the rule of the Abbasids, Bagdad became
the centre of scientific thought; physicians and astronomers
from India and Syria flocked to their court; Greek and Indian
manuscripts were translated (a work commenced by the Caliph
Mamun (813-833) and ably continued by his successors); and
in about a century the Arabs were placed in possession of
the vast stores of Greek and Indian learning. Euclid's
Elements were first translated in the reign of Harun-al-Rashid
(786-809), and revised by the order of Mamun. But these
translations Were regarded as imperfect, and it remained for
Tobit ben Korra (836-901) to produce a satisfactory edition.
Ptolemy's Almagest, the works of Apollonius, Archimedes,
Diophantus and portions of the Brahmasiddhanta, were also
translated. The first notable Arabian mathematician was
Mahommed ben Musa al-Khwarizmi, who flourished in the reign of
Mamun. His treatise on algebra and arithmetic (the latter part
of which is only extant in the form of a Latin translation,
discovered in 1857) contains nothing that was unknown to the
Greeks and Hindus; it exhibits methods allied to those of both
races, with the Greek element predominating. The part devoted
to algebra has the title al-jeur wa'lmuqabala, and the
arithmetic begins with ``Spoken has Algoritmi,'' the name
Khwarizmi or Hovarezmi having passed into the word Algoritmi,
which has been further transformed into the more modern words
algorism and algorithm, signifying a method of computing.
Tobit ben Korra (836-901), born at Harran in Mesopotamia, an
accomplished linguist, mathematician and astronomer, rendered
conspicuous Service by his translations of various Greek
authors. His investigation of the properties of amicable
numbers (q.v.) and of the problem of trisecting an angle,
are of importance. The Arabians more closely resembled
the Hindus than the Greeks in the choice of studies; their
philosophers blended speculative dissertations with the
more progressive study of medicine; their mathematicians
neglected the subtleties of the conic sections and Diophantine
analysis, and applied themselves more particularly to
perfect the system of numerals (see NUMERAL), arithmetic
and astronomy (q.v..) It thus came about that while some
progress was made in algebra, the talents of the race were
bestowed on astronomy and trigonometry (q.v..) Fahri des
al Karbi, who flourished about the beginning of the 11th
century, is the author of the most important Arabian work on
algebra. He follows the methods of Diophantus; his work
on indeterminate equations has no resemblance to the Indian
methods, and contains nothing that cannot be gathered from
Diophantus. He solved quadratic equations both geometrically and
algebraically, and also equations of the form x2n+axn+b=0;
he also proved certain relations between the sum of the first
n natural numbers, and the sums of their squares and cubes.
Cubic equations were solved geometrically by determining
the intersections of conic sections. Archimedes' problem
of dividing a sphere by a plane into two segments having a
prescribed ratio, was first expressed as a cubic equation by
Al Mahani, and the first solution was given by Abu Gafar al
Hazin. The determination of the side of a regular heptagon
which can be inscribed or circumscribed to a given circle
was reduced to a more complicated equation which was first
successfully resolved by Abul Gud. The method of solving
equations geometrically was considerably developed by
Omar Khayyam of Khorassan, who flourished in the 11th
century. This author questioned the possibility of solving
cubics by pure algebra, and biquadratics by geometry. His
first contention was not disproved until the 15th century,
but his second was disposed of by Abul Weta (940-908), who
succeeded in solving the forms x4=a and x4+ax3=b.
Although the foundations of the geometrical resolution of cubic
equations are to be ascribed to the Greeks (for Eutocius assigns
to Menaechmus two methods of solving the equation x3=a
and x3=2a3), yet the subsequent development by the Arabs
must be regarded as one of their most important achievements.
The Greeks had succeeded in solving an isolated example; the
Arabs accomplished the general solution of numerical equations.
Considerable attention has been directed to the different
styles in which the Arabian authors have treated their
subject. Moritz Cantor has suggested that at one time there
existed two schools, one in sympathy With the Greeks, the
other with the Hindus; and that, although the writings of the
latter were first studied, they were rapidly discarded for
the more perspicuous Grecian methods, so that, among the later
Arabian writers, the Indian methods were practically forgotten
and their mathematics became essentially Greek in character.
Turning to the Arabs in the West we find the same enlightened
spirit; Cordova, the capital of the Moorish empire in
Spain, was as much a centre of learning as Bagdad. The
earliest known Spanish mathematician is Al Madshritti (d.
1007), whose fame rests on a dissertation on amicable
numbers, and on the schools which were founded by his
pupils at Cordoya, Dama and Granada. Gabir ben Allah of
Sevilla, commonly called Geber, was a celebrated astronomer
and apparently skilled in algebra, for it has been supposed
that the word ``algebra', is compounded from his name.
When the Moorish empire began to wane the brilliant
intellectual gifts which they had so abundantly nourished
during three or four centuries became enfeebled, and
after that period they failed to produce an author
comparable with those of the 7th to the 11th centuries.
In Europe the decline of Rome was succeeded by a period, lasting
several centuries, during which the sciences and arts were
all but neglected. Political and ecclesiastical dissensions
occupied the greatest intellects, and the only progress to
be mcorded is in the art of computing or arithmetic, and
the translation of Arabic manuscripts. The first successful
attempt to revive the study of algebra in Christendom was
due to Leonardo of Pisa. an Italian merchant trading in the
Mediterranean. His travels and mercantile experience had
led him to conclude that the Hindu methods of computing,
were in advance of those then in general use, and in 1202 he
published his Liber Abaci, which treats of both algebra and
arithmetic. In this work, which is of great historical
interest, since it was published about two centuries before the
art of printing was discovered, he adopts the Arabic notation
for nulnbers, and solves many problems, both arithmetical and
algebraical. But it contains little that is original, and
although the work created a great sensation when it was first
published, the effect soon passed away, and the book was
practically forgotten. Mathematics was more or less ousted
from the academic curricula by the philosophical inquiries
of the schoolmen, and it was only after an interval of
nearly three centuries that a worthy successor to Leonardo
appeared. This was Lucas Paciolus (Lucas de Burgo), a Minorite
friar, who, having previously written works on algebra,
arithmetic and geometry, published, in 1494, his principal
work, entitled Summa de Arithmetica, Giometria, Proportioni
et Proportionalita. In it he mentions many earlier writers
from whom he had learnt the science, and although it contains
very little that cannot be found in Leonardo's work, yet it
is especially noteworthy for the systematic employment of
symbols, and the manner in which it reflects the state of
mathematics in Europe during this period. These works are
the earliest printed books on mathematics. The renaissance of
mathematics was thus effected in Italy, and it is to that country
that the leading developments of the following century were
due. The first difficulty to be overcome was the algebraical
solution of cubic equations, the pons asinorum of the earlier
mathematicians. The first step in this direction was made by
Scipio Ferro (d. 1526), who solved the equation x3+ax=b.
Of his discovery we know nothing except that he declared it
to his pupil Antonio Marie Floridas. An imperfect solution of
the equation x3+px2=q was discovered by Nicholas Tartalea
(Tartaglia) in 1530, and his pride in this achievement led him
into conflict with Floridas, who proclaimed his own knowledge
of the form resolved by Ferro. Mutual recriminations led
to a public discussion in 1535, when Tartalea completely
vindicated the general applicability of his methods and
exhibited the inefficiencies of that of Floridas. This contest
over, Tartalea redoubled his attempts to generalize his
methods, and by 1541 he possessed the means for solving any
form of cubic equation. His discoveries had made him famous
all over Italy, and he was earnestly solicited to publish
his methods; but he abstained from doing so, saying that he
intended to embody them in a treatise on algebra which he was
preparing. At last he succumbed to the repeated requests of
Girolamo or Geronimo Cardano, who swore that he would regard
them as an inviolable secret. Cardan or Cardano, who was
at that time writing his great work, the Ars Magna, could
not restrain the temptation of crowning his treatise with
such important discoveries, and in 1545 he broke his oath
and gave to the world Tartalea's rules for solving cubic
equations. Tartalea, thus robbed of his most cherished
possession, was in despair. Recriminations ensued until
his death in 1557, and although he sustained his claim for
priority, posterity has not conceded to him the honour of his
discovery, for his solution is now known as Cardan's Rule.
Cubic equations having been solved, biquadratics soon followed
suit. As early as 1539 Cardan had solved certain particular
cases, but it remained for his pupil, Lewis (Ludovici) Ferrari,
to devise a general method. His solution, which is sometimes
erroneously ascribed to Rafael Bombelh, was published in the
Ars Magna. In this work, which is one of the most valuable
contributions to the literature of algebra, Cardan shows
that he was familiar with both real positive and negative
roots of equations whelher rational or irrational, but of
imaginary roots he was quite ignorant, and he admits his
inability to resolve the so-called ``irreducible case'' (see
EQUATION.) Fundamental theorems in the theory of equations
are to be found in the same work. Clearer ideas of imaginary
quantities and the ``irreducible case'' were subsequently
published by Bombelli, in a work of which the dedication is
dated 1572, though the book was not published until 1579.
Contemporaneously with the remarkable discoveries of the
Italian mathematicians, algebra was increasing in popularity
in Germany, France and England. Michael Stifel and Johann
Scheubelius (Scheybl) (1494-1570) flourished in Germany, and
although unacquainted with the work of Cardan and Tartalea,
their writings are noteworthy for their perspicuity and the
introduction of a more complete symbolism for quantities and
operations. Stifel introduced the sign (+) for addition or
a positive quantity, which was previously denoted by plus,
piu, or the letter p. Subtraction, previously written as
minus, mone or the letter m, was symbolized by the sign
(-) which is still in use. The square root he denoted by
(sqrt. ), whereas Paciolus, Cardan and others used the letter R.
The first treatise on algebra written in English was by
Robert Recorde, who published his arithmetic in 1552, and
his algebra entitled The Whetstone of Witte, which is the
second part of Arithmetik, in 1557. This work, which is
written in the form of a dialogue, closely resembles the
works of Stifel and Scheubelius, the latter of whom he often
quotes. It includes the properties of numbers; extraction of
roots of arithmetical and algebraical quantities, solutions of
simple and quadratic equations, and a fairly complete account of
surds. He introduced the sign (=) for equality, and the terms
binomial and residual. Of other writers who published
works about the end of the 16th century, we may mention Jacques
Peletier, or Jacobus Peletarius (De occulta parto Numerorum,
quare Algebram vocant, 1558); Petrus Ramus (Arithmeticae
Libri duo et totidem Algebrae, 1560), and Christoph Clavius,
who wrote on algebra in 1580, though it was not published until
1608. At this time also flourished Simon Stevinus (Stevin) of
Bruges, who published an arithmetic in 1585 and an algebra
shortly afterwards. These works possess considerable
originality, and contain many new improvements in algebraic
notation; the unknown (res) is denoted by a small circle,
in which he places an integer corresponding to the power. He
introduced the terms multinomial, trinomial, quadrinomial,
&c., and considerably simplified the notation for decimals.
About the beginning of the 17th century various mathematical
works by Franciscus Vieta were published, which were afterwards
collected by Franz van Schooten and republished in 1646 at
Leiden. These works exhibit great originality and mark an
important epoch in the history of algebra. Vieta, who does
not avail himself of the discoveries of his predecessors--the
negative roots of Cardan, the revised notation of Stifel
and Stevin, &c.--introduced or popularized many new terms
and symbols, some of which are still in use. He denotes
quantities by the letters of the alphabet, retaining the
vowels for the unknown and the consonants for the knowns;
he introduced the vinculum and among others the terms
coefficient, affirmative, negative, pure and adjected
equations. He improved the methods for solving equations, and
devised geometrical constructions with the aid of the conic
sections. His method for determining approximate values
of the roots of equations is far in advance of the Hindu
method as applied by Cardan, and is identical in principle
with the methods of Sir Isaac Newton and W. G. Horner.
We have next to consider the works of Albert Girard, a Flemish
mathematician. This writer, after having published an edition
of Stevin's works in 1625, published in 1629 at Amsterdam a
small tract on algebra which shows a considerable advance on
the work of Vieta. Girard is inconsistent in his notation,
sometimes following Vieta, sometimes Stevin; he introduced the
new symbols ff. for greater than and sec. for less than; he
follows Vieta in using the plus (+) for addition, he denotes
subtraction by Recorde's symbol for equality (=), and he had
no sign for equality but wrote the word out. He possessed
clear ideas of indices and the generation of powers, of the
negative roots of equations and their geometrical interpretation,
and was the first to use the term imaginary roots. He also
discovered how to sum the powers of the roots of an equation.
Passing over the invention of logarithms (q.v.) by John
Napier, and their development by Henry Briggs and others, the
next author of moment was an Englishman, Thomas Harriot, whose
algebra (Artis analyticae praxis) was published posthumously
by Walter Warner in 1631. Its great merit consists in the
complete notation and symbolism, which avoided the cumbersome
expressions of the earlier algebraists, and reduced the art
to a form closely resembling that of to-day. He follows
Vieta in assigning the vowels to the unknown quantities and
the consonants to the knowns, but instead of using capitals,
as with Vieta, he employed the small letters; equality he
denoted by Recorde's symbol, and he introduced the signs
> and < for greater than and less than. His principal
discovery is concerned with equations, which he showed to be
derived from the continued multiplication of as many simple
factors as the highest power of the unknown, and he was thus
enabled to deduce relations between the coefficients and
various functions of the roots. Mention may also be made
of his chapter on inequalities, in which he proves that the
arithmetic mean is always greater than the geometric mean.
William Oughtred, a contemporary of Harriot, published an
algebra, Clavis mathematicae, simultaneously with Harriot's
treatise. His notation is based on that of Vieta, but he
introduced the sign X for multiplication, @ for continued
proportion, :: for proportion, and denoted ratio by one
dot. This last character has since been entirely restricted
to multiplication, and ratio is now denoted by two dots
(:). His symbols for greater than and less than (@ and
@) have been completely superseded by Harriot's signs`
So far the development of algebra and geometry had been
mutually independent, except for a few isolated applications
of geometrical constructions to the solution of algebraical
problems. Certain minds had long suspected the advairages which
would accrue from the unrestricted application of algebra to
geometry, but it was not until the advent of the philosopher
Rene Descartes that the co-ordination was effected. In his
famous Geometria (1637), which is really a treatise on the
algebraic representation of geometric theorems, he founded
the modern theory of analytical geometry (see GEOMETRY),
and at the same time he rendered signal service to algebra,
more especially in the theory of equations. His notation is
based primarily on that of Harriot; but he differs from that
writer in retaining the first letters of the alphabet for
the known quantities and the final letters for the unknowns.
The 17th century is a famous epoch in the progress of science,
and the mathematics in no way lagged behind. The discoveries
of Johann Kepler and Bonaventura Cavalieri were the foundation
upon which Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
erected that wonderful edifice, the Infinitesimal Calculus
(q.v..) Many new fields were opened up, but there was still
continual progress in pure algebra. Continued fractions, one
of the earliest examples of which is Lord Brouncker's expression
for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle
(see CIRCLE), were elaborately discussed by John Wallis and
Leonhard Euler; the convergency of series treated by Newton,
Euler and the Bernoullis; the binomial theorem, due originally
to Newton and subsequently expanded by Euler and others, was
used by Joseph Louis Lagrange as the basis of his Calcul
des Fonctions. Diophantine problems were revived by Gaspar
Bachet, Pierre Fermat and Euler; the modern theory of numbers
was founded by Fermat and developed by Euler, Lagrange and
others; and the theory of probability was attacked by Blaise
Pascal and Fermat, their work being subsequently expanded by
James Bernoulli, Abraham de Moivre, Pierre Simon Laplace and
others. The germs of the theory of determinants are to be
found in the works of Leibnitz; Etienne Bezout utilized them
in 1764 for expressing the result obtained by the process of
elimination known by his name, and since restated by Arthur Cayley.
In recent times many mathematicians have formulated other
kinds of algebras, in which the operators do not obey the laws
of ordinary algebra. This study was inaugurated by George
Peacock, who was one of the earliest mathematicians to recognize
the symbolic character of the fundamental principles of
algebra. About the same time, D. F. Gregory published a paper
``on the real nature of symbolical algebra.'' In Germany the
work of Martin Ohm (System der Mathematik, 1822) marks a step
forward. Notable service was also rendered by Augustus de
Morgan, who applied logical analysis to the laws of mathematics.
The geometrical interpretation of imaginary quantities had a
far-reaching influence on the development of symbolic algebras.
The attempts to elucidate this question by H. Kuhn (1750-1751)
and Jean Robert Argand (1806) were completed by Karl Friedrich
Gauss, and the formulation of various systems of vector analysis
by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Hermann Grassmann and others,
followed. These algebras were essentially geometrical, and it
remained, more or less, for the American mathematician Benjamin
Peirce to devise systems of pure symbolic algebras; in this
work he was ably seconded by his son Charles S. Peirce. In
England, multiple algebra was developed by James Joseph
Sylvester, who, in company with Arthur Cayley, expanded the
theory of matrices, the germs of which are to be found in the
writings of Hamilton (see above, under (B); and QUATERNIONS.)
The preceding summary shows the specialized nature which algebra
has assumed since the 17th century. To attempt a history
of the development of the various topics in this article is
inappropriate, and we refer the reader to the separate articles.
REFERENCES.---The history of algebra is treated in all
historical works on mathematics in general (see MATHEMATICS:
References.) Greek algebra can be specially studied in
T. L. Heath's Diophantus. See also John Wallis, Opera
Mathematica (1693-1699), and Charles Sutton, Mathematical and
Philosophical Dictionary (1815), article ``Algebra.'' (C. E.*)
[The article on Algebraic Forms is typeset in TeX and is available
elsewhere.]
ALGECIRAS, or ALGEZIRAS, a seaport of southern Spain in the
province of Cadiz, 6 m. W. of Gibraltar, on the opposite side of
the Bay of Algeciras. Pop. (1900) 13,302. Algeciras stands at
the head of a railway from Granada, but its only means of access
to Gibraltar is by water. Its name, which signifies in Arabic
the island, is derived from a small islet on one side of the
harbour. It is supplied with water by means of a beautiful
aqueduct. The fine winter climate of Algeciras attracts many
invalid visitors, on whom the town largely depends for its
prosperity. The harbour is bad, but at the beginning of
the 20th century it became important as a fishing-station.
Whiting, soles, bream, bass and other fish are caught in
great quantities by the Algeciras steam-trawlers, which
visit the Moroccan coast, as well as Spanish and neutral
waters. There is also some trade in farm produce and building
materials which supplies a fleet of small coasters with cargo.
Algeciras was perhaps the Portus Albus of the Romans, but
it was probably refounded in 713 by the Moors, who retained
possession of it until 1344. It was then taken by Alphonso
XI. of Castile after a celebrated siege of twenty months,
which attracted Crusaders from all parts of Europe; among them
being the English earl of Derby, grandson of Edward III. It
is said that during this siege gunpowder was first used by the
Moors in the wars of Europe. The Moorish city was destroyed
by Alphonso; it was first reoccupied by Spanish colonists from
Gibraltar in 1704; and the modern town was erected in 1760 by
King Charles III. During the siege of Gibraltar in 1780- 1782,
Algeciras was the station of the Spanish fleet and floating
batteries. On the 6th of July 1801 the English admiral Sir
James Saumarez attacked a Franco-Spanish fleet off Algeciras,
and sustained a reverse; but on the 12th he again attacked the
enemy, whose fleet was double his own strength, and inflicted
on them a complete defeat. The important international
conference on Moroccan affairs, which resulted in an agreement
between France and Germany, was held at Algeciras from the
16th of January to the 7th of April 1906. (See MOROCCO.)
ALGER OF LIEGE (d c. 1131), known also as ALGER OF
CLUNY and ALGERUS MAGISTER, a learned French priest who
lived in the first half of the 12th century. He was first a
deacon of the church of St Bartholomew at Liege, his native
town, and was then appointed (c. 1100) to the cathedral
church of St Lambert. He declined many offers from German
bishops and finally retired to the monastery of Cluny, where
he died about 1131 at a great age and leaving a good reputation
for piety and intelligence. His History of the Church of
Liege, and many of his other works, are lost. The most
important of those still extant are: 1. De Misericordia et
Justitia, a collection of biblical and patristic extracts
with a commentary (an important work for the history of
church law and discipline), which is to be found in the
Anecdota of Martene, vol. v. 2. De Sacramentis Corporis
et Sanguinis Domini; a treatise, in three books, against
the Berengarian heresy, highly commended by Peter of Cluny and
Erasmus. 3. De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio; given in B. Pez's
Anecdota, vol. iv. 4. De Sacrificio Missae; given in the
Collectio Scriptor. Vet. of Angelo Mai, vol. ix. p. 371.
See Migne, Patrol Ser. Lat. vol. clxxx. pp. 739-.972; Herzog-
Hauck, Realencyk.fur prot. Theol., art. by S. M. Deutsch.
ALGER, RUSSELL ALEXANDER (1836--1907), American soldier and
politician, was born in Lafayette township, Medina county,
Ohio, on the 27th of February 1836. Left an orphan at an early
age, he worked on a farm to pay his expenses at Richfield
(Ohio) Academy, was a schoolmaster for two winters, and,
having studied law in the meantime, was admitted to the bar in
1859. He began practice at Cleveland, Ohio, but early in
1860 he removed to Michigan, where he abandoned his profession
and engaged in the lumber business. Enlisting in a Michigan
cavalry regiment in September 1861, he rose from captain to
colonel, distinguished himself in the Gettysburg campaign
and under Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and in 1864 and
1865 respectively received the brevets of brigadier-general
and major-general of volunteers. After the war he invested
extensively in pine lands in Michigan, and accumulated a large
fortune in the lumber business. In 1884 he was elected governor
of Michigan on the Republican ticket, serving from 1885 to
1887. In 1889--1890 he was commander-in-chief of the Grand
Army of the Republic. From 1897 to 1899 he was secretary
of war in President McKinley's cabinet. His administration
of the war department during the Spanish-American War was
severely criticized for extravagance in army contracts, for
unpreparedness, and for genetal inefficiency, charges which he
answered in his The Spanish-American War (1901). The extent
of his personal responsibility is at least uncertain. In 1902
he was appointed by the governor of Michigan, and in 1903 was
elected by the state legislature, as United States senator to
complete the unexpired term of James Mcmillan (1838-1902).
He died at Washington, D.C., on the 24th of January 1907.
ALGERIA (Algerie), a country of North Africa belonging
to France, bounded N. by the Mediterranean, W. by Morocco,
S. by the Sahara and E. by Tunisia. The boundaries,
however, are in part not accurately determined. Algeria
extends for about 650 m. along the coast, and stretches
inland from 320 to 380 m., lying between 2 deg. 10' W. and 8 deg.
50, E., and 32 deg. and 37 deg. N. It is divided, politically,
into three departments-- Oran in the west, Algiers in the
centre and Constantine in the east. Its area is 184,474 sq.
m., exclusive of the dependent Saharan regions, which have
an area of some 750,000 sq. m. (see SAHARA, TUAT, &c.).
Physical Features.--The character of the Algerian coast
is severe and inhospitable. The western half is bordered
by a hilly rampart, broken only here and there, in the bays
where the larger streams find their outlet, by flat and sandy
plains. Between Dellys and Philippeville high mountains rise
almost sheer from the sea, leaving only a narrow strip of
beach. East of Philippeville the mountains recede from the
coast, and the rampart of hills reappears. Only between Bona
and La Calle is the general character of the sea-board low and
sandy. Save near the towns and in the cultivated district of
Kabylia, the coast is bare and uninhabited; and in spite of
numerous indentations, of which the most important going from
west to east are the Gulf of Oran, the Gulf of Arzeu, the Bay
of Algiers, and the gulfs of Bougie, Stora and Bona, there
are few good harbours. From time immemorial, indeed, this
coast has had an evil reputation among mariners, quite apart
from the pirates who for centuries made it the base of their
depredations. A violent current, starting from the Straits
of Gibraltar, rushes eastward along the shore, and, hurled
back from the headlands, is deflected to the West. In summer
the east wind brings dense and sudden fogs; while in winter
the northerly gales blow straight into the mouths of the
harbours. In these circumstances navigation is especially
perilous for sailing craft. The terrors of this ``savage sea
and inhospitable shore,'' once described by Sallust, have,
however, been greatly mitigated by the introduction of steam,
the improvement of the harbours, and the establishment by
the French government of an excellent system of lighthouses.
Southward from the sea the country falls naturally into three
divisions, clearly distinguished by their broad physical
characteristics. The healthy, and on the whole fertile coast
region, from 50 to 100 m. in width, is known, as in Morocco and
Tunisia. as the Tell (Arabic for ``hill''). It is a mountainous
country intersected with rocky canons and fertile valleys,
which occasionally broaden out into alluvial plains like that
of the Shelif, or the Metija near Algiers, or those in the
neighbourhood of Oran and Bona. Behind the Tell is a lofty
table-land with an average elevation of 3000 ft., consisting
of vast plains, for the most part arid or covered with esparto
grass, in the depressions of which are great salt lakes and
swamps (Arabic, shats) fed by streams which can find no outlet
to the sea through the encircling hills. To the south this
region is divided by the Great Atlas from the deserts of the
Sahara, with its oases, in which the boundary of Algeria is lost.
The country is traversed by lofty ranges of the Atlas system,
which run nearly parallel to the coast, and rise in places over
7000 ft. These are commonly divided into two leading chains,
distinguished as the Great1 and Little Atlas. The Great,
or Saharan Atlas contains some of the highest points in the
country. The chief ranges are Ksur and Amur in the west
and the Aures in the east. The peak of Shellia, the highest
point in Algeria, in the Aures range, has a height of 7611
ft. In the Amur are Jebel Ksel (6594 ft.) and Tuila Makna (6561
ft.). The Little Atlas, otherwise the Tell or Maritime Atlas,
lies between the sea and the Saharan Atlas, and is composed
of many distinct ranges, generally of no great elevation and
connected by numerous transverse chains forming extensive
table-lands and elevated valleys. The principal ranges of
the Little Atlas--from west to east--are the Tlemcen (5500
ft.); the Warsenis (with Kef Sidi Omar, 6500 ft.); the Titeri
(4900 ft.); the Jurjura, with the peak of Lalla Kedija (7542
ft.) and Mount Babor (6447 ft.); and the Mejerda (3700 ft.),
which extends into Tunisia. The Jurjura range, forming the
background of the plains between Algiers and Bougie, extends
through the district of Kabylia, with which for grandeur of
scenery no other part of Algeria can compare. South of the
Jurjura and separated from it by the valley of the Sahel,
is the Biban range with a famous double pass of the same
name, through which alone access is gained to the highlands
beyond. The Bibans or Portes de fer (Iron Gates) consist of
two defiles with stupendous walls of rock, which by erosion have
assumed the most fantastic shapes. In the case of the Petite
porte the walls in some places are not more than twelve feet
apart. The Dahra range (see MOSTAGANEM) overlooks the
sea, and is separated from the Warsenis by the valley of
the Shelif (see ATLAS MOUNTAINS, SAHARA and TUAT.)
The rivers are numerous but the majority are short. Most of
them rise in the mountains near the coast, and rush down through
deep and rocky channels. During the rainy season they render
communication between different parts of the country extremely
difficult. The most important river, both from its length and
volume, is the Shelif. It rises on the northern slopes of
the Amur mountains and flows N.E. across the high plateau,
piercing the little Atlas between the Warsenis and Titeri
ranges. It then turns W. and reaches the Mediterranean at the
eastern end of the Gulf of Arzeu. The Shelif, which has many
tributaries, is about 430 m. long. The Seybuse (about 150 m.
long), formed by the union of several small streams in the
department of Constantine, runs through a fertile valley and
reaches the Mediterranean near Bona. The Sahel (about 100 m.
long), which contains the greatest body of water after the
Shelif, rises in the department of Algiers near Aumale, and
flows for the most part N.E. to its mouth near Bougie. The
Kebir or Rummel--the river is known by both names--is formed
by the union of several small streams south of Constantine, and
flows past that town N.W. 140 m. to the sea. Among the less
important rivers which empty into the Mediterranean are the
Macta, the Tafna, the Harrach and the Mazafran. The Macta,
but 3 m. long, enters the sea in the Gulf of Arzeu, some 25
m. W. of the mouth of the Shelif. It is formed by the
Habra (140 m.) and the Sig (130 m.), which rise in the Amur
mountains and flowing north unite in a marshy plain, whence
issues the Macta. On the lower courses of the Habra and the
Sig, barrages have been built for irrigation purposes. The
Habra barrage holds 38,000,000 cubic metres; that on the Sig
18,000,000. The Tafna (about 100 m.) rises in a large cavern
in the mountains south of Tlemcen and flows N.E. to the sea at
Rachgun. It has many affluents; the largest, the Isser
(70 m.), joins it on the east bank about 30 m. above its
mouth. The Harrach (40 m.), a picturesque stream, enters
the Mediterranean in the Bay of Algiers. The Mazafran (50
m.) crosses the plains S.W of Algiers, reaching the sea N. of
Kolea. The Mejerda and its affluent the Mellegue, rivers
of Tunisia (q.v.), have their rise in Algeria, in the
mountainous country east of Constantine. None of these rivers is
navigable. Besides these there are a number of streams in the
interior, but they are usually dry except in the rainy season.
Algeria abounds in extensive salt lakes and marshes. Of
the lakes in the northern part of the country near the coast
the principal are,--the Fezara, 14 m. S.W. of Bona; Sebkha
and El Melah, south of Oran; and three small lakes in the
immediate vicinity of La Calle. In the high plateaus are
the Shat-el-Gharbi or Western Shat, the Shat-el-Shergui or
Eastern Shat, the Zarhez- Gharbi and the Zarhez-Shergui, the
Shat-el-Hodna and a number of others. South of the Jebel
Aures is another series of salt lakes closely connected with
the Shat-el-Jerid (of Tunisia). The chief of these is the
Shat Melrir. There are a number of warm mineral springs,
containing principally salts of lime, used with success
by both Arabs and Europeans in several kinds of disease.
One of the most remarkable groups of springs is near Guelma,
in the department of Constantine. There are two principal
sources. Their waters unite in one stream whose course is
marked by gigantic limestone cones, some of which are 36 ft.
high. The water, which is at boiling point, falls into
natural basins of a creamy white colour, formed by the deposit
of carbonate of lime. The springs are known to the Arabs
as Hammam Meskutin (the ``accursed baths''). The name and
the cones are accounted for by a legend which represents
that at this spot lived a sheikh who, finding his sister too
beautiful to be married to anyone else, determined to espouse
her himself. Whilst the marriage festivities were being
celebrated the judgment of Heaven descended on the guilty
pair; fire came from below; the water became hot and the
sheikh and his sister were turned into stone. Within a mile
of Hammam Meskutin are ferruginous and sulphureous springs.
[Geology.--The geology of Algeria has been worked out in
considerable detail by French geologists. Rocks of Archean
and Palaeozoic ages contribute only a small share, but there
is a very complete sequence of formations from the Lias to
those of recent date. An interesting and orderly petrological
sequence of Tertiary igneous rocks has been determined.
Archean rocks form the cores of the ancient crystalline masses
within the littoral zone from Algiers to Bona. They consist of
gneiss, mica-schist, quartzites, crystalline limestones and
conglomerates. Primary deposits are doubtfully represented
by the detached fragments of unfossiliferous strata of
Traras, Blida and east of Orleansville. Carboniferous and
Permian strata are possibly represented by some black and
grey micaceous shales with beds of coal in the Jurjura.
At Jebel-kahar and west of Traras, Pomel attributes certain
conglomerates, red sandstones and purple and green shales to
the Permian. The rocks of Secondary and Tertiary ages have
been profoundly affected by the Alpine movements, and are
thrown into a series of complex folds, so that in numerous
instances their stratigraphy is imperfectly understood.
The gypsiferous and saliferous marls of Shellata, Suk Ahras
and Ain Nussi have yielded Triassic fossils. Triassic
rocks are considered to be present in Constantine and in the
Jurjura. Rhaetic beds (Infra Lias), consisting of dolomites
and siliceous limestones, have been recognized at Saida.
The lower and middle divisions of the Jurassic, composed of
massive limestones more or less siliceous and overlain by
the marls and highly fossiliferous limestones of the Upper
Lias, play an important part in the constitution of the chief
mountains of the Tell. In south Oran they determine the
principal axes of the mountain ranges. The Inferior Cretaceous
rocks include the Neocomian and Gault (Albian and Aptian)
subdivisions, and form the flanks of the mountains in the
Tell. In the south the Albian subdivision of the Gault is alone
represented. Rocks of Upper Cretaceous age are represented
in all their stages. The Cenomanian presents two distinct
facies. North of the Atlas it belongs to the European type,
in the south it contains a fauna of oysters and sea-urchins
belonging to the facies ``africano-syrian'' of Zittel. There
is a continuous transition between the Senonian and Danian,
proving that the Algerian region did not participate in the
immersion which occurred in Provence and in the Corbieres
of southern France during the Danian epoch. The Lower Eocene
rocks contain the chief phosphatic deposits of Algeria, those
of the Tebessa region being the best known. Certain species
of nummulites, which are very common, distinguish the various
subdivisions of the Eocene. The highest beds, consisting of
quartzites, shales, marls and sandstones with the remains of
fucoids, are found in the Jurjura and Shellata. The Oligocene
period consists of a marine phase confined to the littoral
zone of Kahylia, and of a continental phase occupying vast
areas composed of lacustrine, alluvial, gypsiferous marls,
sandstones and conglomerates. The Miocene formation obtains
its greatest development in Oran and is much expanded in the
Tell. At the close of the Lower Miocene period (beds with
Ostrea crassissima) great modifications in the relief and
limits of the Algerian formations took place. Hitherto marine
conditions were confined to the littoral; in Middle Miocene
times (Helvetian) the sea broke in and spread in a south-east
direction in the form of long ramified fjords but did not
extend as far as the Sahara. To the Pliocene period the marine
deposits of the Sahel of Algiers and of the Sahel Jijelli
must be attributed; also the lacustrine marls and limestone
of the basin of Constantine, and the ancient alluviums of the
basins and depressions which bear no relation to the existing
valleys. Among the Tertiary volcanic rocks those of acid
types (granites, granulites) were the first to appear and
are developed latitudinally; rocks of intermediate type
(dacites, andesites) characterize the Miocene and early
Pliocene periods; while the basic rocks (ophites, elaeolite
syenites and basalts) attained their maximum in later Pliocene
and Quaternary times. Their development, feeble as compared
with the acid rocks, is meridional. The Quaternary period
includes an older stage containing fragments of fossils from
the underlying formations; a later stage containing the bones
of Hippopotamus, Elephas, Rhinoceros, Camelus, Equus;
and finally the vast accumulations of sand which began to
be formed in prehistoric times. The broad platforms of
the hamada are covered with Quaternary deposits. (W. G.*)]
CIimate.--Although Algeria enjoys a warm climate, the
temperature varies considerably in different parts, according
to the elevation and configuration of the country. Along
the coast the weather is very mild, the thermometer rarely
falling to freezing-point even in winter. The coldest month
is January, the hottest August. The mean annual temperature
in the coast plains is 66 deg. F. Heavy rains prevail from
December to March, and rain is not uncommon during other
months also, excepting June, July, August and September, which
are very hot and rainless. The average annual fall is 29
in. On the mountains and the high plateaus the winter is often
very severe; snow lies for six months on the higher peaks of
the Kabyle mountains. On the plateaus the temperature passes
from one extreme to the other, and rain seldom falls. (For
the climate of the Saharan region see SAHARA.) Throughout
Algeria, especially in the summer, there is a great difference
between day and night temperature, notably in the inland
districts. Between May and September the sirocco, or hot
wind of the desert, sweeps at intervals over the country,
impregnating the air with fine sand; but in general, with
the exception of the vicinity of the marshes, the climate is
healthy. Its salubrity has been increased by the draining
of many marshes in the neighbourhood of the larger towns.
Fauna and Flora.--The fauna of Algeria resembles that of
the Mediterranean system generally, though many animals once
common to South Europe and North Africa--such as the lion,
panther, hyena and jackal--are now extinct in Europe. Lions,
formerly plentiful, have disappeared, and leopards and panthers
are rare; but jackals, hyenas and Algerian apes are not
uncommon. Wild boars are found in the oak forests, and brown
bears in the uplands. In the south are various species of
antelope and wild goat. Red deer (Cervus elaphus barbarus),
which differ from the typical European species only in the
fact that the second tine is absent from their antlers, a
peculiarity which they share with the red deer of Spain and
Corsica, are still found in the forest of Beni Saleh in the
department of Constantine, but are being exterminated by forest
fires and poaching Arabs. Of domestic animals the camel and
sheep are the most important. The chief wealth of the Arab
tribes of the plateaus consists in their immense flocks of
sheep. The horses and mules of Algeria are noted; and the
native cattle are an excellent stock on which to graft the
better European varieties. Of birds, eagles, vultures, hawks,
owls and quails are common; snipe, curlews, plovers, storks
and herons frequent the marshy parts; and the ostrich the
desert. Partridges and woodcocks are fairly common. Among
the reptiles are various species of serpents, tortoises,
turtles, lizards, &c. Locusts are common and sometimes do great
damage. Scorpions are numerous in the acid regions. Algerian
prawns, especially those of Bona, are large and of a delicate
flavour. Of the twenty-one species of freshwater fish, five
are peculiar to the country, but none is of much economic
value save the barbel and eel. A species of trout is found
in the streams near Collo, but in none of the other rivers.
The flora of Algeria consists of about 3000 species, of which
some 450 are indigenous to the country, 100 being peculiar
to the Sahara. The flora of the Tell is South European in
character. The agave and prickly pear, the myrtle, the
olive and the dwarf palm grow luxuriantly; and the fields
are covered with narcissus, iris and other flowers of every
hue. Roses, geraniums, and the like, bloom throughout the
winter. The flora of the high plateaus consists chiefly of
grasses, notably various kinds of alfa or esparto, and aromatic
herbs. In the Saharan oases the characteristic tree is the
date palm--``the king of the desert.'' Over 11,000 sq. m. of
the mountainous country near the coast are covered with forests
of various species of oak, pine, fir, cedar, elm, ash, maple,
olive, many of them of gigantic size, and other trees; and on
the slopes of the mountains up to 3800 ft. above the sea the
fig is common. Its fruit forms one of the staple articles of
food among the Kabyles. Cork and carob trees are also very
common. A magnificent conifer, the Atlantic pinsapo (Abies
Pinsapo), is found on the heights round Bougie. The forests
suffer great damage from fires, occasioned in part by the
custom of burning up the grass every autumn, and in part by
incendiarism. In 1902 alone, according to the British consular
report, ``at a moderate estimate the number of trees damaged
or destroyed might be put down at 6,000,000.'' Forestry is a
state-protected industry, the government owning over 500,000
acres of forest. The chief tree which has commercial value
is the cork, and the stripping of the bark is under official
supervision. The first cork harvest was gathered in 1890, when
1474 cwt. were sold for L. 1361. Since that date the yield has
been very great. Another tree of great commercial value is the
soap tree (Sapindus utilis), introduced into the country in
1845 and grown extensively in low-lying lands near the coast.
Inhabitants.--Algeria had in 1906 a population of 5,231,850,
consisting of a medley of European, Eastern and African
races. The census showed that in addition to French settlers
and their descendants (278,976) there were 117,475 Spaniards
(most of whom are found in the department of Oran), 33,153
Italians (chiefly in the department of Constantine), 64,645
Jews, 6217 Maltese, and smaller communities of British,
Germans, Levantines and Greeks. There were, moreover, 170,444
naturalized French citizens, mainly of Spanish and Italian
origin. (These figures are exclusive of 73,790 persons counted
apart, as not enjoying municipal rights. In the 73,799 the
troops, French and native, are included). The total European
population, in which category are reckoned the Jews, other
than those of Mzab, was 680,263. Compared with the census
of 1901 the figures of 1906 showed a decrease of 14,000
French, 36,000 Spaniards and 5000 Italians, but an increase
of nearly 100,000 in the foreigners naturalized. Of other
races: (1) The Berbers (q.v.) constitute 75% of the entire
population. The Kabyles (q.v.), a division of the Berbers,
occupy chiefly the more mountainous parts of the Tell, but
some live in the plains and valleys. (2) Arabs, a numerous
class, are found principally in the south. (3) The so-called
``Moors,'' generally of mixed blood, inhabit the towns and
villages near the sea-coast. (4) Negroes, originally brought
from the interior and sold as slaves, are now found chiefly
in the towns, where they serve as labourers and domestic
servants. (5) Mzabites (q.v.) or Beni-Mzab, a distinct
branch of the Berber race, are for the most part engaged in
petty trade, and are distinguished by their sleeveless coats
of many colours. (6) A few Tuareg (q.v.), another division
of the Berbers, are among the nomads found in the Algerian
Sahara. The Kabyles, Mzabites, Tuareg, Arabs and Moors all
profess Mahommedanism, though it is only among the Arabs
that its tenets are held in any purity. The census of 1906
gave the number of the native population at 4,447,149. There
were also 28,639 non-European foreigners in the country.
The Turks, though for a considerable period the dominant race,
were never very numerous in Algeria. The majority of them
were repatriated by the French. The Kuluglis, descendants of
Turks by native women--once a distinct race noted for their
energy, bravery and pride--have almost ceased to exist as a
separate people, being merged in the Moors. Jews have long
been settled in Algeria. Some are supposed to have fled
thither when expelled from Cyrenaica in the reign of the
emperor Hadrian, and others on their banishment from Italy in
1342. The purely ``African'' Jew is now found only in the
oases in the extreme south of the country. In the towns the
``native'' Jews have intermarried with later arrivals from
Europe. A remarkable feast is kept annually by the Algerian Jews
to commemorate the defeat by the Turks of the emperor Charles
V.'s attempt to capture Algiers (1541). The Jews, who enjoyed
religious freedom under the Mahommedans, believed that the
success of the Spaniards would but lead to their own persecution.
Chief Towns.--The chief towns are Algiers, the capital
and principal seaport, with a population (1906), including
Mustapha and other suburbs, of 154,049; Oran (100,499),2
a western seaport and capital of the department of the same
name, and Constantine (46,806), an inland town, capital of
the department of Constantine. Besides Algiers and Oran the
principal seaports are Bona (36,004), Mostaganem (19,528),
Philippeville (16,539), Bougie (10,419), Cherchel (4733)
and La Calle (2774). Inland, besides Constantine, are
the important towns of Tlemcen ( 24,060), Sidi-bel-Abbes
(24,494), Mascara (18,989) and Blida (16,866). In the
Sahara are Biskra (4218), El Wad (7586), Tuggurt (2073) and
Wargla (3579). All these places are separately noticed.
Nemours (1229) is a seaport near the Moroccan frontier,
which formerly bore an Arabic name pregnant with its history
--Jamaa-el-Ghazuat (``rendezvous of the pirates''). The
surrounding country is rich in mineral wealth. Arzeu (3085)
occupies a site on the western side of the gulf of the same
name. It has a good harbour, is the outlet for the produce
of several fertile valleys, and the starting-point of a
railway which penetrates into the Sahara. This railway passes
Saida (6256), 106 m. south of Arzeu, one of the capitals of
Abd-el-Kader, and serves to bring down from the high plateaus
their rich crops of esparto grass. Four miles S.E. of Arzeu
is a Berber village, where are interesting ruins of a Roman
settlement, identified by some authorities as the Portus
Magnus of Pliny; other authorities claim Oran as occupying
the site of Portus Magnus. In the vicinity are the famous
quarries of Numidian marbles. Tenes (3176) is a seaport
situated about 100 m. east of Arzeu on the site of the
Phoenician town, afterwards the Roman colony, of Cartenna.
Outside the town to the west is a public garden in which are
several Roman tombs with inscriptions. Between Tenes and
Algiers are Tipasa (q.v.) and Castiglione (1634), formerly
called Bu-Ismail, both pleasant watering-places. Five miles
inland west of Castiglione is Kolea (2932), a town dating
from 1550 and originally peopled by Moslem refugees from
Spain. It was destroyed by earthquake in 1825 and has been
rebuilt largely in European style. It contains the kubba
of a celebrated marabout, Sidi Embarek, who lived in the 17th
century. Dellys (3275), 50 m. by sea E. of Algiers, has a
small harbour sheltered from the W. and N.W. winds only. It
is a walled town regularly laid out, built by the French on
the site of the Roman Ruscurium, the western ramparts of which
may still be seen. Jijelli (4878), on the eastern side of
the Gulf of Bougie, occupies the site of the Roman colony of
Igilgilis. The old town, built on a rocky peninsula, was
completely destroyed by earthquake in 1856. A new town
arose eastward of the former site, which is now restored as a
citadel. Twenty miles by sea west of Philippeville is Collo
(2258), a city of considerable importance during the Roman
occupation. It was the Kollops Magnus of Ptolemy.
Twenty-three miles S.W. by rail from Algiers is Bufarik (the
``hanging well''); pop. 5980. A thoroughly French town, it
dates from 1835, when General Drouet d'Erlon established there
an entrenched camp on a hillock in the midst of a pestilential
swamp. Soon afterwards Marshal Clausel began to build a
regular city, which was at first called Medina Clausel in his
honour. The draining of the site and neighbourhood was a costly
undertaking, and was only accomplished by the sacrifice of many
lives. The town, surrounded by vast orchards and farms, is
now one of the most flourishing in the country; and the most
important market in the colony for the sale of cattle and
agricultural produce is held there. Sixty-three miles S.W.
of Algiers is Medea (4030)--supposed to stand on the site of
a Roman town--finely situated on a plateau 3000 ft. above the
sea. It is surrounded by a wall pierced by five gates.
An ancient aqueduct is built into the eastern side of the
wall. The town, which was chosen by the Turks as capital of
the beylik of Titeri, is now French in character. Miliana
(3991), which occupies the site of the Roman Milliana,
lies about midway between Blida and Orleansville, is 2400
ft. above the sea, and is built on a plateau of the Zakkar
mountains, commanding magnificent views of the valley of the
Shelif. It possesses few remains of antiquity. An old
Moorish minaret has been turned into a clock tower. The
town, which is walled, has been rebuilt by the French.
The chief streets are bordered by trees and have streams of
water running down either side. Hammam R'Irha to the N.E. of
Miliana, noted from the time of the Romans for its thermal
springs, occupies a picturesque position 1800 ft. above the
sea. Being the only place within easy distance of western
Europe where patients can take with safety a course of baths
during the winter months, it has become a resort of invalids.
Orleansville (3510), on the extensive plain of the Shelif, 130
m. S.W. by rail from Algiers. and 132 m. N.E. from Oran, is
an important military station. The basilica of St Reparatus,
discovered in 1843, was allowed to be used as a public stable
and has been completely destroyed. There was in it a beautiful
mosaic of which, fortunately, drawings exist. From this it
appears that the church was built in A.D. 324, and that St
Reparatus, bishop of the diocese, was buried in it in 475.
Orleansville occupies the site of the Roman Castellum Tingitanum.
Ninety miles S.W. of Bougie is Aumale (2350), a town and military
post established by the French in 1846 on the site of the ancient
Auzia. The Roman town was founded in the reign of Augustus,
and it flourished for two centuries before it disappeared from
history. Out of the materials of the ancient city the Turks
built a fort, which at the time of the French occupation was
itself a heap of ruins. Setif (12,261), the Sitifis Colonia
of the Romans, is 50 m. S.E. of Bougie and 97 m. by rail W. of
Constantine. It stands 3573 ft. above the sea, and is the
junction of several great lines of communication. Its market is
attended by Kabyles, Arabs of the plateaus and people from the
Sahara. The town has been entirely rebuilt in the French
style. Most of the Roman ruins, even those existing at the time
of the French occupation (1839), have disappeared. The walls
of the Roman city, restored probably by the Byzantines, have
been incorporated in the French walls, which are pierced by four
gates. Batna (5279), a walled town 3350 ft. above the sea, 50
m. S. of Constantine by the railway to Biskra, commands the
passage of the Aures mountains by which the nomads of the
Sahara were wont to enter the Tell. Its importance rests on
its strategic position. On the railway between Constantine
and Bona and 76 m. from the latter, is Guelma (6584), the Roman
Kalama, finely situated on the right bank of the Seybuse.
The French occupied the place in 1836 and built their town
out of the Roman ruins. Thirty miles S.E. of Guelma is Suk
Ahras (7602), a station on the railway to Tunis, identified
with the Roman city Tagaste, the birthplace of St Augustine.
Towns in the Sahara.--On the southern slopes of the Great
Atlas, 2437 ft. above the sea, looking out on the Saharan
desert, and 200 m. in a straight line S.W. of Algiers, is the
ancient town of El Aghuat (erroneously written Laghouat); pop.
5660. It formerly belonged to Morocco, by whom it was ceded
to the Turks towards the close of the 17th century. It
was stormed on the 4th of December 1852 by the French, who
almost entirely destroyed the Arab town. The modern town
contains little of interest, but is an important military
station. One hundred and twelve miles S. of El Aghuat, and 36
m. W.N.W. of Wargla, is Ghardaia (pop. 7868), the capital
of the Mzab country, annexed by France in 1882. This country
consists of seven oases, five in close proximity and two
isolated. The town of Ghardaia (in the local documents
Taghardeit) is situated on a mosque-crowned hill in the middle
of the Wadi Mzab, 1755 ft. above the sea. Ghardaia, which is
divided by walls into three quarters, is built of limestone and
the houses are in terraces one above the other. The central
quarter is the home of the ruling tribe, the Beni-Mzab. The
eastern quarter belongs to the Jews, of whom there are about
300 families; the western is occupied by the Medabia, Arabs
from the Jebel Amur. The gardens belong exclusively to the
Beni-Mzab. According to native accounts the town was founded
about the middle of the 16th century. Aghrem Baba Saad, a
small ruined town to the west of Ghardaia, is the fortified
post in which the Beni-Mzab took refuge when the Turks
under Salah Rais (about 1555) attempted unsuccessfully to
subjugate the country. Next to Ghardaia the most important
Mzabite town is Beni-Isguen (pop. 4916), an active trading
centre. Guerrara, one of the two isolated oases, 37 m. N.E.
of Ghardaia, contains a flourishing commercial town with 1912
inhabitants. The caravan route south from Ghardaia brings the
traveller, after a journey of 130 m., to the oasis and town
of El Golea (pop. about 2500). The town consists of three
portions--the citadel on a limestone hill, the upper and
the lower town--separated by irregular plantations of date
trees. The place is an important station for the caravan
trade between Algeria and the countries to the south. It was
occupied by the French under General Gallifet in 1873. El
Golea was originally a settlement of the Zenata Berbers, by
whom it was known as Taorert, and there is still a considerable
Berber element in its population. The full Arab name is El
Golea'a el Menia'a, or the ``little fortress well defended.''
Archaeology.--Algeria is rich in prehistoric memorials of
man, especially in megalithic remains, of which nearly every
known kind has been found in the country. Numerous flints of
palaeolithic type have been discovered, notably at Tlemcen and
Kolea. Near Jelfa, in the Great Atlas, and at Mechera-Sfa
(``ford of the flat stones''), a peninsula in the valley
of the river Mina not far from Tiaret in the department of
Oran, are vast numbers of megalithic monuments. In the
Kubr-er-Rumia--``grave of the Roman lady'' (Roman being used
by the Arabs to designate strangers of Christian origin)--the
Medrassen and the Jedars, Algeria possesses a remarkable series
of sepulchral monuments. The Kubr-er-Rumia--best known by its
French name, Tombeau de la Chretienne, tradition making
it the burial-place of the beautiful and unfortunate daughter
of Count Julian--is near Kolea, and is known to be the tomb
of the Mauretanian king Juba II. and of his wife Cleopatra
Selene, daughter of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, and Mark
Antony. It is built on a hill 756 ft. above the sea. Resting
on a lower platform, 209 ft. square, is a circular stone
building surmounted by a pyramid. Originally the monument was
about 130 ft. in height, but it has been wantonly damaged.
Its height is now 100 ft. 8 in.: the cylindrical portion 36
ft. 6 in., the pyramid 64 ft. 2 in. The base, 198 ft. in
diameter, is ornamented with 60 engaged Ionic columns. The
capitals of the columns have disappeared, but their design
is preserved among the drawings of James Bruce, the African
traveller. In the centre of the tomb are two vaulted chambers,
reached by a spiral passage or gallery 6 1/2 ft. broad, about
the same height and 489 ft. long. The sepulchral chambers
are separated by a short passage, and are cut off from the
gallery by stone doors made of a single slab which can be
moved up and down by levers, like a portcullis. The larger
of the two chambers is 142 ft. long by 11 ft. broad and 11 ft.
high. The other chamber is somewhat smaller. The tomb was
early violated, probably in search of treasure. In 1555 Salah
Rais, pasha of Algiers, set men to work to pull it down,
but the records say that the attempt was given up because
big black wasps came from under the stones and stung them to
death. At the end of the 18th century Baba Mahommed tried
in vain to batter down the tomb with artillery. In 1866 it
was explored by order of the emperor Napoleon III., the work
being carried out by Adrian Berbrugger and Oscar Maccarthy.
The Medrassen is a monument similar to the Kubr-er-Rumia, but
older. It was built about 150 B.C. as the burial-place
of the Numidian kings, and is situated 35 m. S.W. of
Constantine. The form is that of a truncated cone, placed
on a cylindrical base, 196 ft. in diameter. It is 60 ft.
high. The columns encircling the cylindrical portion are
stunted and much broader at the base than the top; the
capitals are Doric. Many of the columns, 60 in number,
have been much damaged. When the sepulchral chamber was
opened in 1873 by Bauchetet, a French engineer officer,
clear evidence was found that at some remote period the tomb
had been rifled and an attempt made to destroy it by fire.
The Jedars (Arab. ``walls'' or ``buildings'') are in the
department of Oran. The name is given to a number of sepulchral
monuments placed on hill-tops. A rectangular or square podium
is in each case surmounted by a pyramid. The tombs date from
the 5th to the 7th century of the Christian era, and lie in
two distinct groups between Tiaret and Frenda, a distance of 35
m. Tiaret (pop. 5778), an ancient town modernized by the
French, can be reached by railway from Mostaganem. Near
Frenda (2063), which has largely preserved its old Berber
character, are numerous dolmens and prehistoric rock sculptures.
Algeria contains many Roman remains besides those mentioned and
is also rich in monuments of Saracenic art. For a description of
the chief antiquities see the separate town articles, including,
besides those already cited, Lambessa, Tebessa, Tipasa and Timgad.
Agriculture.--Ever since the time of the Romans Algeria has
been noted for the fertility of its soil. Over two-thirds
of the inhabitants are engaged in agricultural pursuits.
More than 7,500,000 acres are devoted to the cultivation of
cereals. The Tell is the grain-growing land. Under French
rule its productiveness has been largely increased by the
sinking of artesian wells in districts which only required
water to make them fertile. Of the crops raised, wheat,
barley and oats are the principal cereals. A great variety
of vegetables and of fruits, especially the orange, is
exported. A considerable amount of cotton was grown during
the American Civil War, but the industry afterwards declined.
In the early years of the 20th century efforts to extend the
cultivation of the plant were renewed. A small amount of
cotton is also grown in the southern oases. Large quantities
of crin vegetal (vegetable horse-hair) an excellent fibre,
are made from the leaves of the dwarf palm. The olive (both
for its fruit and oil) and tobacco are cultivated with great
success. The soil of Algeria everywhere favours the growth
of the vine. The country, in the words of an expert sent to
report on the subject by the French government, ``can produce
an infinite variety of wines suitable to every constitution
and to every caprice of taste.'' The culture of the vine
was early undertaken by the colonists, but it was not until
vineyards in France were attacked by phylloxera that the
export of wine from Algeria became considerable. Algerian
vineyards were also attacked (1883) despite precautionary
measures, but in the meantime the worth of their wines had been
proved. In 1850 less than 2000 acres were devoted to the
grape, but in 1878 this had increased to over 42,000 acres,
which yielded 7,436,000 gallons of wine. Despite bad seasons
and ravages of insects, cultivation extended, and in 1895 the
vineyards covered 300,000 acres, the produce being 88,000,000
gallons. The area of cultivation in 1905 exceeded 400,000
acres, and in that year the amount of wine produced was
157,000,000 gallons. By that time the limits of profitable
production had been reached in many parts of the country.
Practically the only foreign market for Algerian wine is
France, which in 1905 imported about 110,000,000 gallons.
Fishery is a flourishing but not a large industry. The fish caught
are principally sardines, bonito, smelts and sprats. Fresh fish
are exported to France, dried and preserved fish to Spain and
Italy. Coral fisheries exist along the coast from Bona to Tunis.
Minerals.--Algeria is rich in minerals, found chiefly in
the department of Constantine, where iron, lead and zinc,
copper, calamine, antimony and mercury mines are worked.
The most productive are those of iron and zinc. Lignite is
found in the department of Algiers and petroleum in that of
Oran. Immense phosphate beds were discovered near Tebessa in
1891. They yielded 313,500 tons in 1905. Phosphate beds are
also worked near Setif, Guelma and Ain Beida. There are more
than 300 quarries which produce, amongst other stones, onyx
and beautiful white and red marbles. Algerian onyx from Ain
Tekbalet was used by the Romans, and many ancient quarries have
been found near Kleber in the department of Oran, some being
certainly those from which the long-lost Numidian marbles were
taken. Salt is collected on the margins of the shats.
Shipping and Commerce.--The carrying trade between Algeria
and France is confined, by a law passed in 1889, to French
bottoms. The largest port is Algiers, after which follow
Oran, Philippeville and Bona. There is a considerable
coasting trade. The average number of vessels entering
and clearing Algerian ports each year has been, since 1900,
about 4000, with a total tonnage of some 6,500,000. In
the coasting trade some 12,000 small vessels are engaged.
Under French administration the commerce of Algeria has greatly
developed: The total imports and exports at the time of the
French occupation (1830) did not exceed L. 175,000. In 1850
the figures had reached L. 5,000,000; in 1868, L. 12,000,000; in
1880, L. 17,000,000; and in 1890, L. 20,000,000. From this point
progress was slower and the figures varied considerably year by
year. In 1905 the total value of the foreign trade was
L. 24,500,000. About five-sixths of the trade is with
or via France, into which country several Algerian goods
have been admitted duty-free since 1851, and all since
1867. French goods, except sugar, have been admitted into
Algeria without payment of duty since 1835. After the
increase, in 1892, of the French minimum tariff, which
applied to Algeria also, foreign trade greatly diminished.
The chief exports are sheep and oxen, most of which are
raised in Morocco and Tunisia, and horses; animal products,
such as wool and skins; wine, cereals (rye, barley, oats),
vegetables, fruits (chiefly figs and grapes for the table) and
seeds, esparto grass, oils and vegetable extracts (chiefly
olive oil), iron ore, zinc, natural phosphates, timber,
cork, crin vegetal and tobacco. Of these France takes
fully three-quarters. The import of wool, exceeds the
export. Sugar, coffee, machinery, metal work of all kinds,
clothing and pottery are largely imported. Of these by far
the greater part comes from France. The British imports
consist chiefly of coal, cotton fabrics and machinery.
Communications.--Algeria possesses a railway system covering
over 2000 m. A decree of 1857 granted to the Paris-Lyons
Company the right to construct a line linking Algiers with
Oran (266 m.) and Constantine (290 m.) and shorter lines
joining the seaports to the trunk line, notably Philippeville
to Constantine (54 m.). These lines were opened between
1862 and 1871, but it was not until 1879 that a general
scheme for railway construction was adopted. A trunk line
runs from the frontier of Morocco at Lalla Maghnia, 44
m. W. of Tlemcen, across the Tell to the Tunisian frontier,
whence it is continued to the city of Tunis; while traverse
railways connect the seaports with the trunk line and with
towns to the south, the Philippeville line being continued to
Biskra. From Arzeu a line goes south across the plateaus and
crossing the Ksur range at a height of 4211 ft. enters the
Sahara. Passing Ain Sefra and Figig (372 m. from Arzeu)
the line is continued towards Tuat. The normal gauge of the
railways is 4 ft. 8 1/2 in.; a few ``light lines'' have a gauge
of 3 ft. 3 in. Algeria is also traversed by a network of roads
constructed by the French, of which the routes nationales
alone are 2000 m. in length. There are complete postal and
telegraphic facilities in all parts of the colony save the
Saharan Territories, and cable communication with France.
Central Government.--By the Turks the country was divided
into four provinces--Algiers and Titeri in the centre and
south, Constantine in the east and Mascara or Oran in the
west.3 The last three were governed by beys dependent upon
the representative of the Porte resident at Algiers. The
Turkish governors were in the 17th century replaced by deys
(see below, History.) The French rule was at first (1830)
purely military. In 1834 the post of governor-general was
created. Under the direction of the ministry of war that
official exercised nearly all the executive power. At the
same time a civil administration and consultative council were
formed. The principle of unity of authority was set aside
by the second republic in 1848, when many of the public
services were attached to the corresponding ministries in
Paris, and the departments organized on the metropolitan
model by division into arrondissements and communes and by
placing a prefect at their head. Under Napoleon III. the
governor- generalship was abolished, a minister of Algeria
and the colonies created (24th of June 1858), and the whole
administration conducted from Paris. At the same time the
powers of the prefects were augmented and each department
given a general council. This arrangement was not of long
duration. By decree of the 24th of November 1860, the
ministry of Algeria and the colonies was abolished and the
office of governor-general re-established with increased
powers. This regime, strongly military in its type, ended
with the fall of the second empire. After a brief transitional
period, a decree of the 29th of March 1871 placed at the
head of Algeria a civil governor-general and gave the control
in Paris to the ministry of the interior. In 1876, on the
initiative of General Chanzy, then governor-general, that
official was accorded the right to correspond direct with
all the ministers in Paris. This concession led, however,
to the diminution of the authority of the governor-general,
whose powers were, step by step, absorbed by the various
ministries in France. It had its logical end in the system
adopted in 1881 and known as the rattachement. Under this
system the plan of 1848 was carried out more completely,
every department of state being placed under one or other of
the ministries in Paris, whilst the governor- general became
little more than an ornamental personage. After lasting
fifteen years the rattachement was, with the approval of the
legislature, abrogated by decree dated the 31st of December
1896. The opposing principle, that of concentrating power
in the hands of the governor-general, was re-affirmed, but
in practice was modified by the retention of the direction
from Paris of a few of the public services. The decree of
1896, which was of a provisional character, was replaced by
another, dated the 23rd of August 1898, defining the powers
of the governor-general under the new scheme. By a law of
the 19th of December 1900, Algeria was constituted a legal
personality, with power to own goods, contract loans, &c.,
and a decree of 1901 placed the customs department, until then
directed from Paris, under the control of the governor-general,
whose hands were also strengthened in various minor matters.
It will be seen that the form of government is entirely
dependent on the will of France. The French chambers alone
possess the legislative power, though in the absence of express
legislation decrees of the head of the state have the force of
law. To the legislature in Paris Algeria elects three senators
and six deputies (one senator and two deputies for each
department). The franchise is confined to ``citizens,'' in
which category the native Jews are included by decree of the
24th of October 1870. The Mahommedans, who number nearly
eight-ninths of the population, are not, however, ``citizens''
but ``subjects,'' and consequently have not the vote. They
can, however, acquire ``citizenship'' at their own request, by
placing themselves absolutely under the civil and political laws
of France (decree of 1865, confirmed in 1870). The number of
Mahommedans who avail themselves of this rule is very small;
naturalizations do not exceed an average of thirty persons a
year. For certain specified objects, financial and municipal,
Mahommedans are, however, permitted to exercise the franchise.
The actual form of government may be summarized thus:-- At the
head of the administration in Algeria is a governor- general,
who exercises control over all branches, civil and military,
of the administration, except the services of justice, public
instruction and worship (as far as concerns Europeans) and the
treasury. He corresponds directly with thn other Barbary
states; draws up the budget, and contracts loans on behalf
of the colony. The governor-general is assisted by:--
(1) The Council of Government, a purely advisory body,
composed entirely of high officials;
(2) A Superior Council, composed partly of elected and partly
of nominated members, including representatives of the
Mahommedans. Its duty is to deliberate upon all
administrative matters, including the budget, and it possesses
certain powers over the finances;
(3) The Financial Delegations (created by decree in 1898), an
elective body whose duty is to investigate all matters
affecting taxation and to vote the budget. The
delegations consist of representatives of (a) ``colonists,'' i.e. the
rural community; (b) taxpayers, being citizens other than
``colonists,'' i.e. the urban community; (c) the
Mahommedan population. The last section is partly elective and
partly nominated. A proportion of the members of the
delegations are elected to the superior council.
Local Government.--The departments, presided over by
prefects, are divided into territoires civils and
territoires du commandant. In the regions under civil
administration the local organization closely resembles that of
France. The country is divided into arrondissements and
communes, with most of the apparatus of self-government
enjoyed by the corresponding units in France. The canton
(in France a judicial area) has, however, no existence in
Algeria. In the territoires du commandant, which are the
districts farthest from the coast, and in which the European
population is small, the prefect is replaced by a high military
officer, who exercises all the functions of a prefect.
The prefect of each department is assisted by a general
council, consisting of members elected by the citizens and of
nominated representatives of the Mahommedan population. The
powers of the council correspond to those of the councils in
France. Communes are of three kinds: (1) those with full
powers, (2) mixed, (3) native. In those of the first kind,
modelled on the French communes, the Mahommedans possess
the municipal franchise. The ``mixed'' communes are under
an administrator nominated by the governor-general and
assisted by a municipal council composed of Europeans and
natives. These communes are large areas, each containing
several towns or villages. In the territoires du commandant
the mixed commune is presided over by a military officer who
fulfils the duties of mayor. Native communes are organized
on the same plan as those last mentioned. It will be seen
that communes do not correspond with any natural unit. The
unit among the Mahommedans is the douar, a tribal division
administered by a cadi. The communes with full powers have
each for centre a town with a considerable European population.
By decree of the 14th of August 1905, the frontier between
Saharan territory dependent on Algeria and that attached to
French West Africa was laid down. The Algerian Sahara was
divided into four territories, officially named Tuggurt,
Ghardaia, Ain Sefra and the Saharan Oases (Tuat, Gurara and
Tidikelt). The governor-general represents the territories
in civil affairs; the budget is distinct from that of
Algeria and an annual subvention is provided by France.
Finance.--Revenue is derived chiefly from direct taxation,
customs and monopolies. The heaviest item of expenditure
chargeable on the Algerian budget is on public works, posts and
telegraphs and agriculture. Algeria has had a budget distinct
from that of France since 1901. This budget includes all
the expenses of Algeria save the cost of the army (estimated
at L. 2,000,000 yearly) and the guarantee of interest on the
railways open before 1901. Both these items are borne by
France. The Algerian budget for 1906 showed revenue and
expenditure balancing at L. 3,820,000. The country has a debt
(1905), including capital, annuities and interest, of some
Defence.--The military force constitutes the XIX. army corps of
the French army. There are in addition a territorial army reserve
and a special body of troops, largely Arab, for the defence of
the Saharan territory. The troops quartered in Algeria exceed
50,000. The defence of the coast is provided by the French navy.
Land Tenure.--The colonization of Algeria by the French has
been greatly hampered by the system of land tenure which they
found in force. Except among the Kabyles, private property
in land was unknown. Amongst the Arabs, lands were either
held in common by a whole tribe, under a tenure known as
the arch or sabegha, or sometimes, especially in the,
towns, under a modified form of freehold (melk) by the
family. At the same time the boundaries of property were
ill defined and difficult to determine. This system made
it impossible for French immigrants to obtain land by lawful
transfer. The only lands at the outset available for
settlement were, in fact, the confiscated domains of the
dey. The obvious solution of the difficulty was to encourage
the free movement of real estate by substituting private
ownership for the traditional system. Before doing this,
however, it was necessary to define the limits of tribal
properties already existing--a work of great difficulty--with
a view to their ultimate division, and at the same time to
guard against any premature traffic in the rights of Arabs
in the lands about to be divided. A senatus-consulte
of 1863 laid the basis for the change in the land system
by providing (1) for the delimitation of the territory of
each tribe, (2) for the repartition of the territory thus
delimited among newly formed tribal divisions (douars or
communes), and (3) for the recognition of private ownership
by the issue of title deeds for such individual or family
property (melk) as already existed. The purpose of this
excellent law, which would have laid firmly the basis for
gradual change, was defeated by the impatience of the French
colonists. At the instance of their representatives in the
chambers it was abandoned in 1870, and was not revived till
seventeen years later. A law was passed in 1873, and amended
in 1887, legalizing the immediate conversion of tribal and
family property into private freehold. The result has been
disappointing. For the most part, the Arab tribes have been
reluctant to avail themselves of their new powers, and where
they have done so the hasty reversal of the traditions of
centuries has proved demoralizing to the natives, without
any sufficient equivalent in the way of healthy French
colonization. The main profit has been reaped by Jewish usurers.
The state domains were exhausted by 1870, but were again
replenished by the large confiscations which followed the
Arab revolt of 1871. Government lands were originally given
free to applicants, but with a provisional and insecure
title, which made it impossible for poor colonists to
borrow money on their land. This was modified by a law of
1851. But ultimately, the results not being satisfactory,
the precedent of Australia was followed, and by a law of
1860 domain lands were sold publicly at a fixed price.
This had the effect of attracting more and a better class
of immigrants, but was none the less reversed in 1881.
In September 1904, a new scheme, intended to attract more
European settlers, was adopted. The lands of the state--other
than woods and forests--but especially the barren lands
and brushwoods situated in the plains, were offered for
colonization, to be disposed of (1) by sale at a fixed price,
(2) by auction, and (3), in certain cases, by agreement.
Purchasers were to be Frenchmen, or Europeans naturalized as
French citizens, who had never held ``colonization lands'';
and they were obliged, under pain of forfeiture, either to
take up residence themselves on their property within six
months and to live on it and exploit it for a period of ten
years, or else to place on the land another family fulfilling
the same conditions. If the purchaser farmed the land himself
and made satisfactory progress, the period of obligatory
residence was reduced to five years. When the interests
of colonization required it, free gifts of land might be
made; in which case the grantee must himself exploit his
concession. In no case might land acquired under this scheme
be let to natives until after the expiration of ten years.
For the purpose of creating villages, land was put at the
disposition of societies or individuals, who undertook to people
them with immigrants fulfilling the same conditions as independent
settlers. Two-thirds of the villagers were to be French
immigrants, the other third Frenchmen or naturalized Frenchmen
already settled in Algeria. To favour the establishment
of special industries, the governor-general was given power
to authorize the introduction of foreign instead of French
immigrants. The societies or individuals undertaking village
settlements must do so from philanthropic motives, inasmuch
as within two years of the founding of a village, the land,
under pain of forfeiture to the state, must be transferred
gratuitously to the villagers. As will be seen, settlement
on the land by Europeans is hampered by official restrictions,
especially by the stringent regulations as to residence.
Justice.--Two judicial systems exist in Algeria--native and
French. Native courts decide suits between Mahommedans.
From the decision of the cadis appeal lies to the French
courts. The French system provides, for civil cases, a court
of first instance in each of the sixteen arrondissements
into which the country is divided. A court of appeal sits at
Algiers. There are also tribunals of commerce and justices of
the peace with extensive jurisdiction. The criminal courts are
organized as in France. Trial by jury has been introduced; but
as natives are not allowed to act as jurymen this has often led
to serious miscarriages of justice and to excessive severities.
Whilst modifications of the law require special legislation or
decree, it has been legally decided that all laws in force in
France before the conquest of the country (i.e. those anterior
to the 22nd of July 1834) are in force in Algeria. In practice the
courts allow themselves wide latitude in applying this principle.
Education.--The system of education is complicated by the
co-existence of Mahommedan and Christian communities. Before
the arrival of the French two kinds of instruction were given,
reading and writing being taught in the ordinary schools and
higher education--largely theological--in medressas (colleges),
usually attached to the chief mosques. Attempts by the French
to improve the education of the natives were at first marked
by hesitation and long periods in which little or nothing was
done. The provision for the instruction of the European and
Jewish population was also inadequate. In 1883 a law was
passed for the reorganization of the systems in force, and
primary instruction was made compulsory for Europeans and
Jews, whilst in the case of Mahommedans discretion in the
establishment of schools was vested in the governor- general.
Attempts are made to assimilate the Mahommedan population by means
of Franco-Arab primary and secondary schools, which supplement
the purely French and purely Arab establishments of the same
character. These attempts meet with little success, owing in
part to racial prejudice and in part to the indifference of the
Arabs to education. Few Moslems attend the secondary schools.
Purely Mahommedan higher schools exist at Algiers, Tlemcen and
Constantine. From these establishments the ranks of native
officials are recruited. There is one secondary school for
Moslem girls. The education provided for Europeans resembles
in most respects that given in France. (The lycees at
Algiers, Oran and Constantine are open to Mahommedans, but few
take advantage of them.) Besides the government schools there
are establishments conducted by clerics and laymen. The best
girls' schools are generally those kept by nuns. At Algiers
there is an establishment with faculties of law, medicine and
pharmacy, science and letters. At Oran is a college for
European girls. The scholars attending primary schools number
about 150,000 (over 100,000 being Europeans and some 15,000
Jewish) and those at secondary schools about 6000. (F. R. C.)
HISTORY
Africa Minor.
From a geographical point of view Algeria, together with Morocco
and Tunisia, from which it is separated only by artificial and
purely political frontiers, forms a distinct country. which
it is convenient to designate by the name of Africa Minor.
Both historically and geographically, Africa Minor belongs much
more to the Mediterranean world than to the African. All the
foreign invaders who successively established their dominion
over this country either crossed the Mediterranean or followed
its shores. The Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, the
Byzantines, the Arabs, the Turks and the French, all came
from the east or from the north. The history of Africa Minor
is the history of all those foreigners who have successively
endeavoured to exploit this land, the history of their divers
civilizations struggling against an ever-renascent barbarism.
The political divisions of Africa Minor have changed many
times, for, as the country has no natural centre, many towns
have aspired to play the role of capital. The rivalry of
these towns is intimately connected with the struggles and
insurrections which have stained the land with blood. The
existing division--viz. Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia--dates
back to the time of the Turkish dominion. It is since
that time only that the expression Algeria has been in use.
Struggle with Spain.
At the beginning of the 16th century the native dynasties
which divided Africa Minor between them--the Marinides at
Fez, the Abd-el-Wahid at Tlemcen, and the Hafsides at
Tunis--were without strength and without authority. Two
nations, then at the height of their power, Spain and
Turkey, disputed the empire of the Mediterranean. The
Spaniards took Mers-el-Kebir (1505), Oran (1509), and Bougie
and Tripoli (1510). Two Turkish corsairs, Arouj and his
brother, Khair-ed-Din (otherwise known as Barbarossa), at
first established in the island of Jerba and afterwards at
Jijelli, disputed with the Spaniards the dominion of the
country. Arouj seized Algiers (1516); Khair-ed-Din, succeeding
him in 1518, did homage for his conquest to the sultan at
Constantinople, who named him beylerbey and sent him soldiers
(1519). Then began the struggle of the Turks with Spain. In
1541 the emperor Charles V. undertook a great expedition against
Algiers. He succeeded in landing, and proceeded to attack the
town. But during the night of the 26th of October a violent
storm destroyed a great part of his fleet. His provisions and
his ammunition were lost, his army was compelled to retreat
with considerable loss, and the emperor had to re-embark with
the remnant of his troops. This check completely discouraged
the Spaniards and assured success to the Turks. The Spanish
garrisons established in the coast towns, badly paid and
left without reinforcements, had difficulty in defending
themselves. In the end, the only towns the Spaniards
retained on the Algerian coast were Oran and Mers-el-Kebir.
These two towns, taken by the Turks in 1708 and retaken
by the Spaniards in 1732, were finally abandoned in 1791.
Barbary corsairs.
Under the Turkish dominion Algeria had originally at its head a
beylerbey resident at Algiers. He controlled three beys:--the
bey of Titeri in the south, the bey of the east at Constantine,
and the bey of the west who resided at Mascara and afterwards at
Oran. These three beys existed till 1830. The beylerbeys
were replaced in 1587 by pashas sent triennially by the
Porte. But the authority of these pashas, strangers to the
country, was always precarious. They found themselves, in fact,
in conflict with two forces, which in principle were in their
service, but which in reality held the power--the taiffe des
reis, otherwise called the corporation of the corsairs (see
BARBARY PIRATES), and the janissaries, a kind of military
democracy in which each member was promoted according to
seniority. In 1669 the corsairs drove out the pasha, and put
into his place a dey elected by themselves. After some fruitless
attempts Turkey ceased to send pashas to Algiers--where they
were not allowed even to land--and thus recognized the de
facto independence of this singular republic. The authority
of the deys, moreover, was scarcely more solid than that of the
pashas. They trembled before the janissaries, who from the
18th century elected and deposed them at their pleasure.
The relations which the European powers were able to
maintain with northern Africa were at that time difficult and
uncertain. Ships trading in the Mediterranean were seized
by the corsairs, who pillaged the coasts of Europe, carried
off their captives to Algiers, and destroyed the fishing and
commercial settlements founded by the Marseillais on the shores of
Africa. The Christian governments either uttered useless
and impotent complaints at Constantinople, or endeavoured
to negotiate directly with Algiers, as in the case of the
negotiations of Sanson Napollon during the ministry of
Richelieu. More rarely their patience became exhausted,
and ships were sent to bombard this nest of pirates. Two
naval demonstrations were made by France during the reign of
Louis XIV., one by Abraham Duquesne in 1682, and the other
by Marshal Jean d'Estrees in 1688, but these repressive
measures were too intermittent to produce a durable effect.
In 1815 at the congress of Vienna, and in 1818 at the
congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, the powers endeavoured to
concert measures to put an end to the Barbary piracy.
Nevertheless the naval demonstrations made by Lord Exmouth
in 1816, and by a combined English and French squadron in
1819, remained equally fruitless. But the result which
the European powers in concert had been unable to achieve,
was brought about by the accidental circumstances which led
France to undertake alone an expedition against Algiers.
French intervention.
Some difficulties had arisen between France and the dey of
Algiers with reference to the debts contracted to Bacri and
Busnach, two Algerine Jews who had supplied corn to the
French government under the Directory. This question of
interest would not have been sufficient in itself to bring
about a rupture, but the situation became acute when the dey,
Hussein, struck the French consul, Deval, on the face with his
fly-flap (April 30, 1827). Thereupon the port of Algiers was
blockaded. The minister of war, the duc de Clermont-Tonnerre,
would have gone further, but the president of the council,
the comte de Villele, opposed the sending of an expedition,
while in the Martignac ministry M. de la Ferronays, minister of
foreign affairs, was bent upon negotiating. It needed a second
insult--the firing on ``La Provence,'' a vessel carrying a flag
of truce, in the harbour of Algiers (August 3, 1829)--to spur
the French government to further action than an ineffectual
blockade. An expedition against Algiers was then decided upon,
and Marshal de Bourmont, the minister of war, himself took the
command. On the 14th of June 1830 the French troops landed at
Sidi-Ferruch. On the 19th of June they beat the enemy at
Staoueli. On the 4th of July the fort de l'Empereur was blown
up. On the 5th of July Algiers capitulated. Some days later
the dey was deported, as well as the greater part of the
janissaries. Those who were not married were conveyed
immediately to Asia Minor; the rest had permission to
remain, but in fact they left the country soon afterwards.
Meanwhile the revolution of July 1830 had broken out in
France. The new government found itself very much embarrassed
by the situation bequeathed by the Restoration. The more
serious section in parliament were frankly opposed to the
idea of conquering or of colonizing Algeria; on the other
hand, popular sentiment was hostile to evacuation. The
French government--fearing to displease the other powers
by following up its conquest, and hampered in particular
by its engagements towards England, yet conscious that
the only means of putting an end to the piracy was to
remain--decided provisionally in favour of that intermediate
system, called restricted occupation, which consisted
in occupying merely the principal seaports and awaiting
events. The Algerians extricated the government from its
difficulty by attacking the French troops, who were obliged
to defend themselves. The natives gained some successes,
and it became necessary to avenge the honour of the flag. In
this gradual manner were the French led to conquer Algeria.
General Bertrand Clausel, who succeeded Marshal de Bourmont,
was one of the few men who at that period dreamed of conquering
and colonizing Algeria. His enthusiastic confidence knew no
obstacles. If the dey had left, the three beys remained.
With the feeble resources at his disposal Clausel undertook an
expedition against Bu-Meyrag, the bey of Titeri, took from him
Blida and Medea, dismissed him, replaced him by a successor
devoted to France, and returned to Algiers after having left
a garrison in Medea. Then, not having the means of directly
extending the rule of France to the east or west, Clausel
devised a system of protectorates. He negotiated directly with
the bey of Tunis with a view to installing as beys at Oran and
Constantine Tunisian princes who recognized the authority of
France. But the events which were taking place in Europe made
it imperative to send home a part of the army of Africa, and
Medea had to be evacuated. At the same time the negotiations
set on foot with the bey of Tunis were censured by the
government, and General Clausel was recalled (February 1831).
The period of uncertainty was prolonged under his successors,
General Pierre Berthezene (February to December 1831); A.
J. M. R. Savary, duc de Rovigo (December 1831 to March 1833),
General Avizard (March to April 1833), and General Voirol
(April 1833 to September 1834). The French, not yet certain
whether or not they would retain Algeria, remained on the
defensive. At the time they occupied only the three towns
of Algiers, Bona and Oran, with their suburbs, where their
situation was moreover singularly precarious. The Arabs
would pillage the suburbs and run away. Sometimes they cut
off supplies by ceasing to bring provisions to the market,
but the French were not to be turned aside by such tactics.
At Algiers the energies of the French were devoted to
protecting themselves against the incursions of the
Hajutas. This was sufficient to absorb the attention of the
general-in-chief, who left the guardianship of the east and
west to the initiative of the generals established at Bona and
Oran. At Bona, where General Monk d'Uzer was in command
till 1836, things went fairly well. At once firm and
conciliatory, he had been able to attach to the French cause
the natives whom the cruelty of Ahmed, bey of Constantine, had
alienated. The occupation of Bougie by General Camille Alphonse
Trezel in October 1833 gave the French a footing at another
point of this eastern province. But at Oran, where General
Desmichels had succeeded General P. F. X. Boyer in the spring
of 1833, their situation was much less favourable. There
the French had found a redoubtable adversary in the young
Abd-el-Kader, who had been proclaimed amir at Mascara in 1832.
Abd-el-Kader.
A man of rare intelligence, a fearless horseman and an eloquent
orator, Abd-el-Kader had acquired a great reputation by his
piety. He reunited under his sway the tribes that had
hitherto been divided, and infused a unique spirit into their
resistance. For fifteen years he held the French in check,
treating on terms of equality with their government. Moreover,
the treaty which General Desmichels had the weakness to sign
with him on the 24th of February 1834 greatly improved his
position. In pursuance of this treaty, French officers were
to represent their country at the court of the amir; while
the amir on his part was represented in the three French coast
towns, Oran, Arzeu and Mostaganem, by vakils who immediately
began to act as masters of the natives. Such was the situation
at the period when, the French having at last resolved to keep
Algeria, the ordinance of the 22nd of July 1834 laid down the
bases of the political and administrative organization of the
``French possessions in the north of Africa,'' at the head
of which was placed a governor-general. But this date (July
22, 1834), very important from a judicial point of view, is
much less so from a historical point of view. The position
of the first governor-general, Jean Baptiste Drouet d'Erlon
(1765- 1844), remained fully as precarious as that of his
predecessor. During this time the power of Abd-el-Kader
increased. Master of the province of Oran, he crossed the
Shelif at the appeal of the natives, the people flocking
to witness his progress as that of an emperor. He entered
Miliana and Medea, where he installed beys of his own choice.
All the western part of Algeria belonged to him. General
Trezel, who had succeeded General Desmichels at Oran, resolved
to march against the amir, but was defeated on the banks of
the Macta (June 1835). This defeat shook public opinion.
Drouet d'Erlon was recalled and replaced by Marshal Clausel.
In short, five years after the capitulation of Algiers, the
French dominion extended as yet over only six coast towns.
Clausel, who returned with the same colonial ambitions as in
1830, resolved to conquer the interior of the country. He
marched against the amir, defeated him and entered Mascara.
Then he proceeded to deliver the inhabitants of Tlemcen,
who had been attacked by Abd-el-Kader, and there he left a
garrison. Turning towards the east, Clausel organized
at Bona the first expedition against Constantine. This
failed, and the only result of it was the occupation of
Guelma. Clausel was recalled and replaced by General C. M.
D. Damremont (February 1837). The task of maintaining the
position of France was then divided between Thomas Robert
Bugeaud (1784-1849), acting independently in the west, and
Damremont, who directed all his efforts towards the east.
By the signature of the celebrated treaty of the Tafna (June
1, 1837), Bugeaud made peace with Abd-el-Kader. In return for
a vague recognition of the sovereignty of France in Africa,
this treaty gave up to the amir the whole of western Algeria.
France reserved to herself only Oran and its environs, Mazagran,
Algiers and the Metija; she gave up Tlemcen and the Titeri
beylik. This was a triumph for Abd-el-Kader, who rerarded
the peace as but a truce which would allow him time to gain
strength to resume the war under more favourable conditions.
Damremont, on his part, directed a second expedition on
Constantine. The town was taken, but Damremont was killed
(October 1837). Marshal Sylvain Charles Valee (1773-1846),
who replaced him, founded Philippeville to serve as a seaport
for the region of Constantine, occupied Jijelli, and at the
head of the expeditionary column returned from Constantine
to Algiers by the interior, passing through Setif and les
Portes de fer. Abd-el-Kader maintained that the French had
thus violated the treaty of the Tafna, and began the war
again. For two years his power had been increasing. A whole
hierarchy of khalifas, aghas and caids obeyed him. He had
a regular army of 8000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, without
counting 50,000 goums (bodies of Arab horsemen) brought by the
khalifas. He was well furnished with war material, possessing
magazines and arsenals in the heart of the Tell. He had
attacked and subjugated all who were not willing to recognize his
authority. Under his influence old rivalries were effaced; at
his voice all the tribes joined in the holy war. On the 18th
of November 1839 he sent his declaration of war to Marshal
Valee, but the impatient Hajutas had already devastated the
Metija. Marshal Valee marched against Abd-el-Kader, and at
first gained some successes: the French occupied Cherchel,
Medea and Miliana. But at the end of 1840 valee was recalled
and replaced by Bugeaud, who adopted totally different
tactics. The system of Marshal Valee had been the defensive:
he multiplied the fortified posts in order to draw the enemy
to a spot chosen beforehand. Bugeaud resolutely adopted the
offensive, reduced the weight carried by the soldiers in
order to increase the mobility of his troops, and carried
the war into the province of Oran, from which Abd-el-Kader
drew his principal resources. One after the other, all the
magazines of the amir--those at Takdempt, Boghar, Taza, Saida
and Sebdu--were taken and destroyed. In the spring of 1843
the duc d'Aumale had an opportunity of surprising the smala
(camp) of Abd-el-Kader near Taguin. This was a serious blow
for the amir, whose determination to continue the contest
was, however, as strong as ever. He took refuge in Morocco,
and induced that power to declare war on the French on the
pretext that they would not give up the frontier post of
Lalla-Maghnia. Morocco was soon vanquished. While Francois,
prince de Joinville, was bombarding Tangier and Mogador, Bugeaud
gained the victory of the Isly (August 1844). Morocco signed
a treaty of peace at Tangier on the 10th of September 1844.
The struggle, however, was not ended. Islam made a supreme
effort in Algeria. The Dahra and the Warsenis rose at the voice
of a fanatic called Bu-Maza (``the goat man''), a Khuan of
the order of the Mouley-Taieb. Elsewhere other ``masters of
the hour,'' false Bu-Mazas, rose. Abd-el-Kader reappeared in
Algeria, which he overran with a rapidity which baffled all
pursuit. He beat the French at Sidi Brahim, raided the tribes
of the Tell Oranais which had abandoned him, penetrated as far
as the borders of the Metija, and reached the Jurjura, where he
endeavoured to rouse the Kabyles. But his eloquence offended
the narrow and cramped particularism of those little democratic
cities, deaf to the sentiment of the common interest. From
that time he played a losing game. He returned toward the
west, penetrating farther and farther to the south. Badly
received by the great aristocratic family of the Walid-sidi-
Sheikh, he re-entered Morocco, but the emperor of that country,
dreading his influence and fearing difficulties with the French,
drove him out. This was the end. On the 23rd of December
1847 Abd-el-Kader surrendered to General Lamoriciere in the
plains of Sidi-Brahim. His adversary, Bugeaud, was there no
longer. Having failed to persuade the French government
to adopt his plans of military colonization, he had retired
in June 1847 and had been replaced by the duc d'Aumale.
The surrender of Abd-el-Kader marks the end of the period
of the conquest. It is true that Great Kabylia had to be
subdued only ten years later, and that terrible insurrections
still had to be quelled. But at the end of the reign
of Louis Philippe the essential work was accomplished.
All that remained was to complete and to secure it.
French progress.
Under the second republic Algeria was governed successively
by Generals L. E. Cavaignac (February to April 1848), N. A.
T. Changarnier (April to September 1848), V. Charon (September
1848 to October 1850), and A. H. d'Hautpoul (October 1850 to
December 1851). The policy followed at this period consisted
in assimilating Algeria to France. Important efforts were made
to attract French colonists to the country, the colonization
of Algeria appearing as a means towards the extinction of
pauperism in the mother-country. This point of view suggested
numerous projects, as chimerical as they were generous; two
millions sterling (50 million francs) were expended with a view
to installing Parisian unemployed workmen as colonists, but
this attempt failed miserably. The most remarkable military
events of this period were (1) the siege and destruction
of the oasis of Zaatcha, where the inhabitants, displeased
by an alteration in the tax on palms, rose at the voice of
a fanatic named Bu-Zian; (2) the ineffectual campaign of
Marshal Saint Arnaud in Little Kabylia, where the tribes rose
at the instigation of Bu-Magla (``the mule man'') in 1851.
Marshal J. L. C. A. Randon (1795-1871), named governor-
general of Algeria after the coup d'etat, had at first
to repress in the south a rising of a new ``master of the
hour,'' Mahomet ben Abdallah, the sherif of Wargla. A column
seized Laghouat (El Aghuat) in December 1852. Si-Hamza,
leader of the Walidsidi-Sheikh, an ally of France, indignant
at the growing influence of a base-born agitator, pursued him
and seized Wargla (1853). In 1854 General Desvaux entered
Tuggurt. Henceforth matters remained quiet in the region
of the Sahara, and Marshal Randon turned his efforts towards
Kabylia. Neither the Romans nor the Turks had been able to
subdue this square mountainous tract, of which Bougie, Setif,
Aumale and Dellys form the four corners. But in two months
(May to June 1857) Marshal Randon made himself master of
it, and built in the heart of this country Fort Napoleon (now
Fort National), ``the thorn in the side of Kabylia,'' whose
batteries commanded all the Kabyle villages of the region.
In 1858 the creation of a ``ministry of Algeria and of
the colonies'' brought about the resignation of Marshal
Randon. The administrative headquarters of Algeria was then
transferred from Algiers to Paris. The ministry of Algeria
was entrusted first to Prince Napoleon, and afterwards to
the marquis J. N. S. P. de Chasseloup-Laubat (1805-1873).
But this office, created at the least prematurely, soon
disappeared without causing any regrets. This ephemeral regime
lasted from the 24th of June 1858 to the 24th of November
1860. The decree of the 24th of November 1860 transferred
the services from Paris back to Algiers, and re-established
the functions of governor-general, which were exercised at
the end of the second empire first by Marshal Pelissier,
duc de Malakoff (December 1860 to September 1864) and then
by Marshal Macmahon, duc de Magenta (September 1864 to July
1870). At this period the conception of the Arab kingdom
was prevalent. The emperor Napoleon III., in a celebrated
letter, wrote that he was as much the emperor of the Arabs
as the emperor of the French. Algeria was considered as a
kind of great military fief, and the officers who ruled there
commonly took the side of the native chieftains against the
civil population. European colonization, hampered by the
ill-will of the Arab bureaux, then made little progress.
Revolt of 1864-1871.
It was at this period that the great insurrection of the
Walidsidi-Sheikh broke out in the Sud Oranais. This powerful
family had lived up to that time on a good understanding with
France; Si-Hamza, chief of the elder branch, had remained
until his death (1861) a faithful ally of France. Thanks to
him, the security of the southern frontier was assured. But
after his death his son, Si-Sliman, imbued with anti-French
sentiments, revolted in 1864 and massacred the Beaupretre
column. Several years were occupied in quelling the
insurrection. Compelled to guard themselves on the south
against the Walid-sidi-Sheikh,the French realized how
much they lost by not having the support of these great
chieftains. They then accepted the services offered to them
by Si-Sliman-ben- Kadour, chief of the younger branch of the
Walid-sidi-Sheikh, who maintained tranquillity in the Sud
Oranais during the great insurrection of Kabylia in 1871.
The causes of this insurrection were manifold, and, moreover,
interdependent: the injury done to the military prestige of
France by its defeats in Europe; the fall of the imperial
government, in which, in the eyes of the natives, the
authority of France was incarnate; and the insults offered
with impunity in the streets by the civil population to the
officers, who were loved and respected by the Arabs, at the
same time that the decree of Adolphe Cremieux accorded to
the Algerine Jews the rights of French citizens. The great
native chiefs, bewildered and disquieted, thought themselves
menaced. The insurrection was inevitable. Mokrani, bach-agha
of the Mejana, whom the imperial government had loaded with
honours, gave the signal. He had an interview with El Haddad,
the sheikh of the Khuans, the religious confraternity of
Sidi-Abd-er-Rahman, whose influence was great, and having
secured his support in April 1871, Mokrani proclaimed the holy
war. At the bidding of El Haddad the whole of Kabylia rose,
and numbers of French colonists were massacred; the columns of
Colonel Cerez and General F. G. Saussier had to engage in numerous
fights. The death of the bach-agha at the battle of Suflat,
the submission of the Sheikh El Haddad, and finally the arrest
of Bu-Meyrag, brother of Mokrani, mark the declining stages
of the insurrection, which was completely suppressed by August
1871. A heavy war contribution was imposed upon the rebels
and their lands were sequestrated. The Beni-Manassir, who
rose almost at the same time in the Dahra, were subdued soon
after. Subsequently the native population of the Algerine Tell
remained quiet, the massacre of the colonists at Margueritte
many years later being a local and isolated movement.
Since 1870.
Under the third republic Algeria was governed successively
by Admiral L. H. de Gueydon (March 1871 to June 1873),
General A. E. A. Chanzy (June 1873 to February 1879), J.
P. L. Albert Grevy (March 1879 to November 1881), Tirman
(November 1881 to April 1891), Jules Cambon (April 1891 to
September 1897), Louis Lepine (September 1897 to August
1898), E. J. Laferriere (August 1898 to October 1900),
Charles Jonnart (October 1900 to June 1901), A. J. P. Revoil
(June 1901 to April 1903), and again Jonnart. During the
first years of the new regime a keen reaction was produced
against the political system of the imperial government in
Africa. The civil territory was considerably enlarged at
the expense of the military. An effort was made to attract
French colonists to Algeria by gratuitous concessions of
land. Some lands were granted in particular to natives of
Alsace-Lorraine, who preferred to retain French nationality
after the war. Peasants from the south of France, whose vines
had been destroyed by the phylloxera, crossed the Mediterranean
and established in Algeria an important vineyard. This
double current of immigration notably increased the French
population of North Africa. The tendency then was to treat
Algeria as a piece of France. This assimilative policy
attained its culminating point in the so-called decrees of
rattachement (1881), in pursuance of which each ministerial
department in France was made responsible for Algerine
affairs which came by their nature within its jurisdiction.
After a great inquiry held in 1892 by a senatorial committee
a reaction was produced in France against this excessive
assimilation. The system of rattachement was in great part
abandoned, and decentralization was obtained by augmenting the
powers of the governor-general, and by granting to Algeria legal
personality and a special budget (see above, Central Government.)
These reforms appear to have given satisfaction to Algerian
opinion. Profoundly troubled as Algeria was in the last
years of the 19th century by the anti-Semitic agitation, which
occasioned frequent changes of governors, it appears to-day to
have turned aside from sterile political struggles to interest
itself exclusively in the economic development of the country.
The movement of expansion towards the south was continued under
the third republic. In 1873 General G. A. A. Gailifet entered El
Golea. In 1882 the oasis of Mzab was annexed. In the Sud
Oranais an insurrection, fomented by a marabout named Bu-Amama,
broke out in 1881, and the insurgents massacred the European
labourers engaged in the collection of alfa (or esparto)
grass. But soon the French columns re-established peace, and
Bu-Amama had to take refuge in Morocco. In 1883 Si-Hamza, chief
of the elder branch of the Wahd-sidi-Sheikh, made his submission,
and since then that family has remained devoted to France.
The attempts at penetration into the extreme south, abandoned after
the massacre by Tuareg of a mission sent in 1881, under Colonel
Paul Flatters, to study the question of railway communication
with Senegal, were begun again in 1890, in which year the British
government recognized the western Sahara as within the French
sphere. Since then military stations and scientific and
commercial exploration have increased. But the results of
these efforts remained inconsiderable until the spring of 1900,
when the French authorities decided to occupy the oases of
Gurara, Tuat and Tidikelt. This being accomplished by March
1901, the conquest of the Algerine Sahara was from that time
completed, and nothing any longer hindered the attempts to
join Algeria and the Sudan across the Sahara. (A. GIR.)
BIBLIOORAPHY.--For a general account of Algeria, see Maurice
Wahl, L'Algerie (5th ed., Paris, 1908); P. Leroy-Beaulieu,
Algerie et Tunisie (2nd ed., Paris, 1897); J. A. Battandier
and L. Trabut, L'Algerie; le sol et les habitants (Paris,
1898), specially valuable for agriculture and fauna; Arthur
Girault, Principes de colonisation et de legislation
coloniale, Tome iii. ch. i.-viii. (3rd ed., Paris, 1908),
containing valuable bibliographies of works relating to
legislation, jurisprudence, &c.; Jules Duval, L'Algerie et
les colonies francaises (Paris, 1877). The Statistiaue
generale de l'Algerie is published periodically by the
Algerian government. The British Foreign Office publishes
annual Reports on the Trade of Algeria; Sir R. Lambert
Playfair's Handbook for Travellers in Algeria (Murray's
Handbooks), corrected to 1902, is a capital guide to the
country, as is also Algerie et Tunisie (Paris, 1906), in the
Guides- Joanne Series; the Bibliography of Algeria (London,
1888), and the Supplement to the Bibliography of Algeria
(London, 1898), by Sir Lambert Playfair, contain thousands
of entries and many notes. J. A. Battandier and L. Trabut,
Flore de l'Algerie (Algiers and Paris, 1884 and onwards),
contains a scientific and descriptive catalogue, in several
volumes, of the indigenous flora. For the geology of Algeria,
see M. A. Pomel, Description stratigraphique generale
de l'Algerie (1889), and numerous papers by E. Ficheur, L.
Gentil, G. Rolland, P. Thomas, and J. Welsch will be found
in the Bull. Soc. Geol. France, and Compt. Rend,
Acad. Sci. The volumes of the International Geological
Congress review Algerian geology. The French government
publication, Exploration scientifique de l'Algerie (20
vols., 1844-1853), gives the results of investigations made in
1840-1842. O. Depont and X. Conpolani, Les Confeeries
religiouses musulmanes (Algiers, 1897), and Carte de
l,Algerie . . . domaine geographique des confreries
(Algiers, 1898), have special reference to the Islamic sects in
Algeria. Stephane Gsell's Les monuments antiques de l'Algerie
(2 vols., Baris, 1901), one of the publications of the Service
des monuments historiques of the colony, is an authoritative
and finely illustrated work on the antiquities of Algeria.
For archaeology see also the bibliography in AFRICA, ROMAN.
The best best elementary work on the history of Algeria
is that of Cat, Petite histoire de l'Algerie (Algiers,
1889). For more profound researches consult: (a) for the
Turkish period: H. D. de Gramont, Histoire d'Alger sous la
domination turque (1887); Mercier, Histoire de l'Afrique
septenirionale (1888-1891); Eugene Plantet, Correspondance
des deys d'Alger avec la cour de France (1889--1892); Paul
Masson, Histoire dec etablissements et du commerce francais
dans l'Afrique barbaresque (1903); General Faure-Biguet,
Histoire de l'A.irique septentrionale sous la domination
musulmane (1905); (b) for the French period: Camille Rousset,
La Conquete d'Alger (8th ed., 1899), Les Commencements
d'une conquete; l,Algerie de 1830 a 1840, with atlas
(1887), and La Conquete de l'Algerie, 1841- 1857, with
atlas (1889); Pelissier, Annales algeriennes (1834); Leon
Roches, Trente-deux ans a travers l'Islam (1884-1837); Colonel
Trumelet, Histoire de l'insurrection des Guled-Sidi-Cheik
(1887); Rinn, Histoire de l'insurrection de 1871 (1891).
The best general maps are those of the Carte de l'Algerie,
in numerous sheets, on the scale of 1:50,000 (published by
the Service geographique de l'Armee, Paris). (F. R. C.)
1 The name ``Great'' Atlas is more correctly
applied to the main range in Morocco.
2 The figures given are not those of the communes, but of the
towns proper, certain classes of persons (such as troops, lunatics,
convicts) excluded from the municipal franchise not being counted.
3 This western beylik corresponded roughly
with the former sultanate of Tlemcen (q.v..)
ALGHERO, a seaport and episcopal see on the W. coast of
Sardinia, in the province of Sassari, 21 m. S.S.W. by rail
from the town of Sassari. Pop. (1901) 10,779. The see was
founded in 1503, but the cathedral itself dates from the 12th
century, though it has been reconstructed. The town was strongly
fortified by medieval walls, which have to some extent been
demolished. It was originally founded by the Doria family of
Genoa about 1102, but was occupied by the house of Aragon in
1354, who held it successfully against various attacks until
it fell to the house of Savoy with the rest of Sardinia in
1720. Catalonian is still spoken here. Charles V. visited
Alghero on his way to Africa in 1541. The coral and fishing
industries are the most important in Alghero, but agriculture
has made some progress in the district, which produces good
wine. There is a large penal establishment containing over 700
convicts. Seven miles to the W.N.W. is the fine natural
harbour of Porto Conte, secure in all weather, and on the
W. of this harbour is the Capo Caccia, with two stalactite
grottos, the finest of which, the Grotta di Nettuno, is
accessible only from the sea. The important prehistoric
necropolis of Anghelu Ruju was excavated in 1904 61
m. N. of Alghero (Notizie degli Scavi, 1904, 301 seq.).
ALGIDUS MONS, a portion of the ridge forming the rim of the
larger crater of the Alban volcano (see ALBANUS MONS) and more
especially the eastern portion, traversed by a narrow opening
(now called the Cava d'Aglio) of which the Via Latina took
advantage, and which frequently appears in the early military
history of Rome. That a distinct town existed (Dion. Halic. x.
21, xi. 3) on the mountain is improbable; there must have been
a fortified post, but the extensive castle on the hill (Maschio
d'Ariano) to the south of the Via Latina is entirely medieval,
a fact which has not been recognized by some topographers.
ALGIERS (Fr. Alger, Arab. Jezair, i.e. The Islands),
capital and largest city of Algeria, North Africa, seat of the
governor- general, of a court of appeal, and of an archbishop,
and station of the French XIX. corps d'armee. It is situated
on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean, to which it
gives its name, in 36 deg. 47' N., 3 deg. 4' E., and is built on
the slopes of the Sahel, a chain of hills parallel to the
coast. The view of the city from the sea is one of great
beauty. Seen from a distance it appears like a succession
of dazzling white terraces rising from the water's edge. The
houses being seemingly embowered in the luxuriant verdure of
the Sahel, the effect is imposing and picturesque, and has
given rise to the Arab comparison of the town to a diamond
set in an emerald frame. The city consists of two parts;
the modern French town, built on the level ground by the
seashore, and the ancient city of the deys, which climbs
the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the
kasbah or citadel, 400 ft. above the sea. The kasbah forms
the apex of a triangle of which the quays form the base.
Extending along the front of the town is the boulevard de la
Republique, a fine road built by Sir Morton Peto on a series of
arches, with a frontage of 3700 ft., and bordered on one side
by handsome buildings, whilst a wide promenade overlooking the
harbour runs along the other. Two inclined roads lead from
the centre of the boulevard to the quay 40 ft. below. On the
quay are the landing-stages, the custom-house and the railway
station. At the southern end of the boulevard de la Republique
is the square de la Republique, formerly the place Bresson,
in which is the municipal theatre; at the other extremity of
the boulevard is the place du Gouvernement, which is planted
on three sides with a double row of plane trees and is the
fashionable resort for evening promenade. The principal streets
of the city meet in the place du Gouvernement: the rue Bab
Azoun (Gate of Grief) which runs parallel to the boulevard de
la Republique; the rue Bab-el-Oued (River Gate) which goes
north to the site of the old arsenal demolished in 1900; the
rue de la Marine which leads to the ancient harbour, and in
which are the two principal mosques. A large part of the
modern town lies south of the square de la Republique; in
this quarter are the law courts, hotel de ville, post office
and other public buildings. The streets in the modern town
are regularly laid out; several are arcaded on both sides.
The old town presents a strong contrast to the new town. The
streets are narrow, tortuous and inaccessible to carriages.
They often end in a cul-de-sac. The principal street is
the rue de la Kasbah, which leads up to the citadel by 497
steps. The streets are joined by alleys just wide enough to pass
through. The houses, built of stone and whitewashed, are
square, substantial, flat-topped buildings, presenting to the
street bare walls, with a few slits protected by iron gratings
in place of windows. Each house has a quadrangle in the centre,
into which it looks, and which is entered by a low, narrow
doorway. Shops in the native quarter are simply chambers in
the walls of the houses, and open at the front. In these shops
the few Moorish industries are carried on, such as embroidery
in gold and silver thread, the making of kid slippers of every
kind and colour, the manufacture of gold and silver ornaments.
To European eyes the native city, with its motley throng of
Moors, Arabs, Jews and negroes, is the most interesting sight in
Algiers. Various squares are set apart for markets, and
here are to be witnessed scenes of the greatest animation.
The public buildings of chief interest are the kasbah, the
government offices (formerly the British consulate), the
palaces of the governor-general and the archbishop--all
these are fine Moorish houses; the ``Grand'' and the ``New',
Mosques, the Roman Catholic cathedral of St Philippe, the
church of the Holy Trinity (Church of England), and the
Bibliotheque Nationale d'Alger--a Turkish palace built in
1799-1800. The kasbah was begun in 1516 on the site of an older
building, and served as the palace of the deys until the French
conquest. A road has been cut through the centre of the
building, the mosque turned into barracks, and the hall of
audience allowed to fall into ruin. There still remain a
minaret and some marble arches and columns. Traces exist
of the vaults in which were stored the treasures of the
dey. The Grand Mosque (Jamaa-el-Kebir) is traditionally said
to be the oldest mosque in Algiers. The pulpit (mimbar)
bears an inscription showing that the building existed in
1018. The minaret was built by Abu Tachfin, sultan of
Tlemcen, in 1324. The interior of the mosque is square and
is divided into aisles by columns joined by Moorish arches.
The principal facade, in the rue de la Marine, consists of
a row of white marble columns supporting an arcade. The New
Mosque (Jamaa-el-Jedid), dating from the 17th century, is
in the form of a Greek cross, surmounted by a large white
cupola, with four small cupolas at the corners. The minaret
is 90 ft. high. The interior resembles that of the Grand
Mosque. The church of the Holy Trinity (built in 1870) stands
at the southern end of the rue d'Isly near the site of the
demolished Fort Bab Azoun. The interior is richly decorated
with various coloured marbles. Many of these marbles contain
memorial inscriptions relating to the English residents
(voluntary and involuntary) of Algiers from the time of John
Tipton, British consul in 1580. One tablet records that in 1631
two Algerine pirate crews landed in Ireland, sacked Baltimore,
and carried off its inhabitants to slavery; another recalls
the romantic escape of Ida M`Donnell, daughter of Admiral
Ulric, consul- general of Denmark, and wife of the British
consul. When Lord Exmouth was about to bombard the city in
1816, the British consul was thrown into prison and loaded with
chains. Mrs. M`Donnell--who was but sixteen--escaped to the
British fleet disguised as a midshipman, carrying a basket
of vegetables in which her baby was hidden. (Mrs. M`Donnell
subsequently married the duc de Talleyrand-Perigord and died
at Florence in 1880). Among later residents commemorated is
Edward Lloyd, who was the first person to show the value of
esparto grass for the manufacture of paper, and thus started
an industry which is one of the most important in Algeria.
The cathedral of St Philippe, built on the site of a mosque,
is in the place Malakoff, next to the governor-general's
palace. In its construction an attempt has been made to
produce a building suitable for Christian worship whilst the
architecture is Moorish in style. The principal entrance,
reached by a flight of 23 steps, is ornamented with a portico
supported by four black-veined marble columns. The roof of
the nave is of Moorish plaster work. It rests on a series
of arcades supported by white marble columns. Several of
these columns belonged to the former mosque. In one of the
chapels is a tomb containing the bones of San Geronimo. The
finding of the remains of the saint in 1853 afforded striking
confirmation of an incident recorded by a Spanish Benedictine
named Haedo, who published a topography of Algeria in
1612. Haedo sets forth that a young Arab who had embraced
Christianity and had been baptized with the name of Geronimo
was captured by a Moorish corsair in 1569 and taken to
Algiers. The Arabs endeavoured, to induce Geronimo to renounce
Christianity, but as he steadfastly refused to do so he was
condemned to death. Bound hand and foot he was thrown alive
into a mould in which a block of concrete was about to be
made. The block containing his body was built into an angle
of the Fort of the Twenty-four Hours, then under construction.
In 1853 the Fort of the Twenty-four Hours was demolished, and
in the angle specified by Haedo the skeleton of Geronimo was
found. The bones were interred at St Phihppe. Into the
mould left by the saint's body liquid plaster of Paris was
run, and a perfect model obtained, showing the features of the
youth, the cords which bound him, and even the texture of his
clothing. This model is now in the museum at Mustapha (see below).
Algiers possesses a college with schools of law, medicine,
science and letters. The college buildings are large and
handsome. There is also a lycee in which the instruction
is similar to that given in France, and in which Christians,
Jews and Mahommedans are educated together. The museum (a
state institution), formerly housed in the same building as
the library, was transferred in 1897 to a new building in
the suburb of Mustapha Superieur. In the museum are some
of the ancient sculptures and mosaics discovered in Algeria,
together with medals and Algerian money. New buildings,
to contain specimens of Moslem art, were added in 1903.
The port of Algiers is sheltered from all winds. There are two
harbours, both artificial--the old or northern harbour and
the southern or Agha harbour. The northern harbour covers
an area of 235 acres. The depth at the entrance is 72 to
108 ft., and in port from 36 to 66 ft. Two government dry
docks are available for merchant vessels. The quays cover
18,000 sq. yds. There are three jetties, north, east and
south. Within this harbour is the small harbour of the deys,
now transformed into a wet dock. An opening in the south jetty
affords an entrance into Agha harbour, constructed in Agha
Bay. This harbour is formed by the projection of a mole, 2500
ft. in length, from the eastern jetty of the old harbour. It
provides extensive quayage with a minimum depth of water of 28
ft. Agha harbour has also an independent entrance on its
southern side. Algiers is the chief coaling station in the
Mediterranean, having become so largely at the expense of
Gibraltar. In other respects the trade resembles that of other
Algerian ports. (For trade statistics see ALGERIA.) The inner
harbour was begun in 1518 by Khair-ed- Din (see History,
below), who, to accommodate his pirate vessels, caused the island
on which was Fort Penon to be connected with the mainland by a
mole. The lighthouse which occupies the site of Fort Penon
was built in 1544. Work on the northern harbour was begun in
1836, on the southern in 1904. Algiers maintains communication
with Marseilles by a quick service of steamers, which run the
497 miles across the Mediterranean in twenty-eight to thirty
hours. The journey between Algiers and Paris, from which it is
distant 1031 miles, is accomplished in about forty-five hours.
Algiers was a walled city from the time of the deys until
the close of the 19th century. The French, after their
occupation of the city (1830), built a rampart, parapet and
ditch, with two terminal forts, Bab Azoun to the south and
Bab-el-Oued to the north. The forts and part of the ramparts
were demolished at the beginning of the 20th century, when
a line of forts occupying the heights of Bu Zarea (at an
elevation of 1300 ft. above the sea) took their place.
Owing to the mildness of its climate Algiers has become a
favourite resort for those seeking to escape the rigours
of a European winter. The city is well supplied with
water and its sanitary state is good. The mistral of the
Riviera is entirely absent from Algiers, but in summer
the city occasionally suffers from the sirocco or desert
wind. The environs of Algiers are noted for their beauty and
healthiness. Of the suburbs the most picturesque is Mustapha
Superieur, about 2 m. from the centre of the city on the
slopes of the hills to the south. Here are the summer palace
of the governor-general, many fine Moorish and French villas
and luxurious hotels, all surrounded by beautiful gardens.
A numerous British colony resides at Mustapha, where there is
an English club. Mustapha Inferieur is built on the lower
slopes of the hills. Farther to the south is the large Jardin
d'Essai, containing five avenues of palms, planes, bamboos and
magnolias. Notre-Dame d'Afrique, a church built (1858-
1872) in a mixture of the Roman and Byzantine styles, is
conspicuously situated, overlooking the sea, on the shoulder
of the Bu Zarea hills, 2 m. to the north of the city. Above
the altar is a statue of the Virgin depicted as a black
woman. The church also contains a solid silver statue of the
archangel Michael, belonging to the confraternity of Neapolitan
fishermen. Beyond Notre-Dame d'Afrique is the beautiful Valley
of the Consuls, very little changed since the time of the
deys. (The valley was in those days the favourite residence
of the consuls.) At the Petit Seminaire, on the site of
the old French consulate, Cardinal Lavigerie died (1892).
In 1906 the population of the commune of Algiers was 154,049; the
population municipale, which excludes the garrison, prisoners,
&c., was 145,280. Of this total 138,240 were living in the
city proper or in Mustapha. Of the inhabitants 105,908 were
Europeans. French residents numbered 50,996, naturalized Frenchmen
23,305, Spaniards 12,354, Italians 7368, Maltese 865, and other
Europeans (chiefly British and Germans) 1652, besides 12,490
Jews. The remainder of the population--all Mahommedans--are
Moors, Arabs, Berbers, Negroes, with a few Turks. The vast
majority of the Europeans are Roman Catholics. Most of the
naturalized French citizens are of Spanish or Italian origin.
History.--In Roman times a small town called Icosium existed
on what is now the marine quarter of the city. The rue de la
Marine follows the lines of a Roman street. Roman cemeteries
existed near the rues Bab-el-Oued and Bab Azoun. Bishops of
Icosium--which was created a Latin city by Vespasian --are
mentioned as late as the 5th century. The present city was
founded in 944 by Bulukkin b. Zeiri, the founder of, the
Zeirid-Sanhaja dynasty, which was overthrown by Roger II. of
Sicily in 1148 (see FATIMITES.) The Zeirids had before that
date lost Algiers, which in 1159 was occupied by the Almohades,
and in the 13th century came under the dominion of the Abd-el-
Wahid, sultans of Tlemcen. Numinally part of the sultanate of
Tlemcen, Algiers had a large measure of independence under
amirs of its own, Oran being the chief seaport of the Abd-el-
Nahid. The islet in front of the harbour, subsequently
known as the Penon, had been occupied by the Spaniards as
early as 1302. Thereafter a considerable trade grew up
between Algiers and Spain. Algiers, however, continued of
comparatively little importance until after the expulsion
from Spain of the Moors, many of whom sought an asylum in the
city. In 1510, following their occupation of Oran and other
towns on the coast of Africa, the Spaniards fortified the
Penon. In 1516 the amir of Algiers, Selim b. Teumi, invited
the brothers Arouj and Khair-ed-Din (Barbarossa) to expel the
Spaniards. Arouj came to Algiers, caused Selim to be
assassinated, and seized the town. Khair- ed-Din, succeeding
Arouj, drove the Spaniards from the Penon (1550) and was
the founder of the pashalik, afterwards deylik, of Algeria.
Algiers from this time became the chief seat of the Barbary
pirates. In October 1541 the emperor Charles V. sought to
capture the city, but a storm destroyed a great number of his
ships, and his army of some 30,000, chiefly Spaniards, was
defeated by the Algerians under their pasha, Hassan. Repeated
attempts were made by various European nations to subdue the
pirates, and in 1816 the city was bombarded by a British squadron
under Lord Exmouth, assisted by Dutch men-of-war, and the
corsair fleet burned. The piracy of the Algerians was renewed
and continued until 1830. On the 4th of July in that year a
French army under General de Bourmont attacked the city, which
capitulated on the following day (see ALGERIA, History.)
ALGOA BAY, a wide, shallow bay of South Africa, 436 m. E.
from the Cape of Good Hope, bounded W. by Cape Recife, E. by Cape
Padrone. St Croix Island in the bay is in 33 deg. 47' S. 25 deg.
46' E. On this island Bartholomew Diaz made his second landing
in South Africa some time after the 3rd of February 1488, and
from the cross which he is thought to have erected on it the
island gets its name. Algoa Bay was the first landing-place
of the British emigrants to the eastern province of Cape
Colony in 1820. At a spot 6 m. N.E. of Cape Recife these
emigrants founded a town, Port Elizabeth (q.v.), its harbour
being sheltered from all winds save the S.E. By seafarers
``Algoa Bay'' is used as synonymous with Port Elizabeth.
ALGOL, the Arabic name (signifying ``the Demon'') of b
Persei, a star of the second magnitude, noticed by G. Montanari
in 1669 to fluctuate in brightness. John Goodricke established
in 1782 the periodicity of its change in about 2d 21h and
suggested their cause in recurring eclipses by a large dark
satellite. Their intermittent character prompted the
supposition. The light of Algol remains constant during close
upon 56 hours; then declines in 6 1/2 hours (approximately)
to nearly one-fourth its normal amount, and is restored by
sensibly the same gradations. The amplitude of the phase
is 1.1 magnitude; and the absence of any stationary interval
at minimum proves the eclipse to be partial, not annular.
Its conditions were investigated from photometric data, by
Professor E. C. Pickering in 1880;1 and their realization
was finally demonstrated by Dr H. C. Vogel's spectroscopic
measures in 1889.2 Previously to each obscuration, the
star was found to be moving rapidly away from the earth; its
velocity then diminished to zero pari passu with the loss
of light, and reversed its direction during the process of
recovery. Algol, in fact, travels at the rate of 26.3 miles
a second round the centre of gravity of the system which it
forms with an invisible companion, while the two together
approach the sun with an unvarying speed of 2.3 miles per
second. The elements of this disparate pair, calculated by Dr
Vogel on the somewhat precarious assumption that its dark and
bright members are of equal mean density, are as follows:--
Diameter of Algol . . . . 1,061,000 English miles.
'' Satellite . . . 834,300 '' ''
Distance from centre to centre. 3,230,000 '' ''
Mass of Algol . . . . . 4/9 solar mass.
'' Satellite . . . . 2/9 '' ''
Mean density . . . . . about 1/4 solar.
The plane of the joint orbit, in which no deviation from
circularity has yet been detected, nearly coincides with
the line of sight. The period of Algol, as measured by its
eclipses, is subject to complex irregularities. It shortened
fitfully by eight seconds between 1790 and 1879; soon afterwards,
restoration set in, and its exact length in 1903 was 2d
20h 48m 56s, being only two seconds short of its original
value. By an exhaustive discussion, Dr S. Chandler ascertained
in 1888 the compensatory nature of these disturbances;3 and
he afterwards found the most important among several which
probably conspire to produce the observed effects, to be
comprised in a period of 15,000 light-cycles, equivalent to
118 years.4 An explanatory hypothesis, propounded by him in
1892,5 is still on its trial. The system of Algol, according
to this view, is triple; it includes a large, obscure primary,
round which the eclipsing pair revolves in an orbit somewhat
smaller than that of Uranus, very slightly elliptical, and
inclined 20 deg. to the line of sight, the periodic time being 118
years. The alternate delay and acceleration of the eclipses
are then merely apparent; they represent the changes in the
length of the light-journey as the stars perform their wide
circuit. If these suppositions have a basis of reality, the
proper motion of Algol should be disturbed by a small, but
measurable undulation, corresponding to the projection of its
orbit upon the sky; and although certainty on the point cannot be
attained for some years to come, Lewis Boss regarded the evidence
available in 1895 as tending to confirm Dr Chandler's theory.6
A rival interpretation of the phenomena it dealt with
was put forward by F. Tisserand in 1895.7 It involved
the action of no third mass, but depended solely upon the
progression of the line of apsides in a moderately elliptical
orbit due to the spheroidal shape of the globes traversing
it. Inequalities of the required sort in the returns of
the eclipses would ensue; moreover, their duration should
concomitantly vary with the varying distance from periastron at
the times of their occurrence. It is a moot question whether
changes of the latter kind actually occur. When they are
proved to do so, Tisserand's hypothesis will hold the field.
Algol gives a helium-spectrum which undergoes no alteration at
minimum. Hence the light from the marginal and central portions
of the disc is identical in quality, and the limb can be
little, if at all, darkened by the ``smoke-veil'' absorption
conspicuous in the sun. The rays of this star spend close
upon a century in travelling hither. Dr Chase's measures with
the Yale heliometer indicated for it, in 1894, a parallax of
about 0'' .035;8 and it must, accordingly, be of nearly four
times the total brightness of Sirius, while its aerial lustre
exceeds seventy- fold that of the solar photosphere. Variables
of the Algol class are rendered difficult to discover by the
incidental character of their fluctuations. At the end of
1905, however, about 37 had been certainly recognized, besides
some outlying cases of indeterminate type, in which continuous
occultations by two bright stars, revolving in virtual
contact, are doubtfully supposed to be in progress. (A. M. C.)
1 Proceedings Amer. Acad. vol. xvi. p. 27.
2 Astr. Nach. No. 2947. 3 Astr. Journal, No. 165.
4 Ibid. No. 509. 5 Ibid. Nos. 255-256. 6 Ibid. No. 343.
7 Comptes Rendus, t. cxx. p 125. 8 Astr. Jour. No. 318.
ALGONQUIN, or ALGONKIN (a word formerly regarded as a
French contraction of Algomequin, ``those on the other
side'' of the river, viz. the St Lawrence, hut now believed to
be from the Micmac algoomaking--``at the place of spearing
fish''), a collective term for a number of tribes of North
American Indians dwelling in the valley of the Ottawa river
and around the northern tributaries of the St Lawrence.
The Algonquins allied themselves with the French against the
Iroquois. Many were driven west by the latter and later became
known as Ottawa. The French missionaries at work among the
Algonquins early in the 17th century found their language
to be the key to the many Indian dialects now included by
philologists under the general term ``Algonquian stock.''
The chief tribes included in this stock were the Algonquin,
Malecite, Micmac, Nascapi, Pennacook, Fox, Kickapoo, Delaware,
Cheyenne, Conoy, Cree, Mohican, Massachuset, Menominee, Miami,
Misisaga, Mohegan, Nanticoke, Narraganset, Nipmuc, Ojibway,
Ottawa, Pequot, Potawatami, Sac, Shawnee and Wampanoag. The
Indians of Algonquian stock number between 80,000 and 90,000,
of whom rather more than half are in the United States, the
rest being in Canada. Of the Algonquins proper there remain
about 1500 settled in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
For details see Handbook of American
Indians, ed. F. W. Hodge, Washington, 1907.
ALGUAZIL, a Spanish title often to be met in stories and
plays, derived from the Arabic ``visir'' and the article, ``
al.'' The alguazil among the early Spaniards was a judge, and
sometimes the governor of a town or fortress. In later times he
has gradually sunk down to the rank of an officer of the court,
who is trusted with the service of writs and certain police
duties, but he is still of higher rank than the mere corchete or
catch-poll. The title has also been given to inspectors of
weights and measures in market-places, and similar officials.
ALGUM, or ALMUG TREE. The Hebrew words Algummim or
Almuggim are translated Algum or Almug trees in the authorized
version of the Bible (see 1 Kings x. 11, 12; 2 Chron. ii. 8,
and ix. 10, 11); almug is an erroneous form (see Max Muller,
Science of Language, vol. i.). The wood of the tree was
very precious, and was brought from Ophir (probably some part of
India), along with gold and precious stones, by Hiram, and was
used in the formation of pillars for the temple at Jerusalem,
and for the king's house; also for the inlaying of stairs,
as well as for harps and psalteries. It is probably the red
sanders or red sandal-wood of India ( Pterocarpus santalinus.)
This tree belongs to the natural order Leguminosae, sub-order
Papilionaceae. The wood is hard, heavy, close-grained and of
a fine red colour. It is different from the white fragrant
sandal-wood, which is the produce of Santalum album, a
tree belonging to a distinct natural order Santalaceae.
ALHAMA DE GRANADA, a town of southern Spain, in the province
of Granada, 24 m. S.W. of Granada. Pop. (1900) 7679. Alhama
is finely situated on a ledge of rock which overlooks a deep
gorge traversed by the river Marchan or Alhama; while the rugged
peaks of the Sierra de Alhamarise behind it to a height of 6800
ft. The town is largely modern; for over one thousand of
its picturesque old Moorish houses, which formerly rose in
terraces up the mountain side, were destroyed, together with
five churches, the hospital, the theatre, the prison, and
800 of the inhabitants, in an earthquake which took place in
1884. Subscriptions were received from all parts of Spain,
and the present town was built at a little distance from its
predecessor. Few vestiges of antiquity survived, except the
baths from which Alhama (in Arabic ``the Bath'') derives its
name. These are situated near the river, and appear to have
been used continuously since Roman times (c. 19 B.C.-
A.D. 409) . The temperature of the hot sulphurous springs is
about 112 deg. F.; and, as the waters are considered beneficial
in cases of rheumatism and dyspepsia, many visitors come
to Alhama in spring and autumn, attracted also by the fine
scenery of the district. In the 15th century Alhama, and
the neighbouring fortress of Loja (q.v.), were generally
regarded as the keys of the kingdom of Granada, and their
capture went far to insure the overthrow of the Moorish
power. Alhama was taken by the Spanish marquis of Cadiz
in 1482; and its fall is celebrated in an ancient ballad,
Ay de mi, Alhama, which Byron translated into English.
ALHAMBRA, THE, an ancient palace and fortress of the Moorish
monarchs of Granada, in southern Spain, occupying a hilly
terrace on the south-eastern border of the city of Granada.
This terrace or plateau, which measures about 2430 ft. in
length by 674 ft. at its greatest width, extends from W.N.W. to
E.S.E., and covers an area of about 35 acres. It is enclosed
by a strongly fortified wall, which is flanked by thirteen
towers. The river Darro, which foams through a deep ravine on
the north, divides the plateau from the Albaicin district of
Granada; the Assabica valley, containing the Alhambra Park, on
the west and south, and beyond this valley the almost parallel
ridge of Monte Mauror, separate it from the Antequeruela district.
The name Alhambra, signifying in Arabic ``the red,'' is
probably derived from the colour of the sun-dried tapia,
or bricks made of fine gravel and clay, of which the outer
walls are built. Some authorities, however, hold that it
commemorates the red flare of the torches by whose light the
work of construction was carried on nightly for many years;
others associate it with the name of the founder, Mahomet
Ibn Al Ahmar; and others derive it from the Arabic Dar al
Amra, ``House of the Master.'' (For an account of the period
to which the Alhambra belongs, see GRANADA (city) .) The
palace was built chiefly between 1248 and 1354, in the reigns
of Al Ahmar and his successors; but even the names of the
principal artists employed are either unknown or doubtful.
The splendid decorations of the interior are ascribed to
Yusef I., who died in 1354. Immediately after the expulsion
of the Moors in 1492, their conquerors began, by successive
acts of vandalism, to spoil the marvellous beauty of the
Alhambra. The open work was filled up with whitewash, the
painting and gilding effaced, the furniture soiled, torn or
removed. Charles V. (1516-1556) rebuilt portions in the modern
style of the period, and destroyed the greater part of the
winter palace to make room for a modern structure which has
never been completed. Philip V. (1700-1746) Italianised the
rooms, and completed the degradation by running up partitions
which blocked up whole apartments, gems of taste and patient
ingenuity. In subsequent Centuries the carelessness of the
Spanish authorities permitted this masterpiece of Moorish
art to be still further defaced; and in 1812 some of the
towers were blown up by the French under Count Sebastiani,
while the whole buildings narrowly escaped the same fate. In
Plan of the Alhambra
Scale of Yards
1. Court of Myrtles
2. Hall of Ambassadors
3. Court of Lions
4. Hall of the Abencerrages
5. Room of the Two Sisters
6. Modern Entrance
7. Court of the Vestibule
8. Baths
9. Court of the Council Chamber
10. Queens Robing Room
from Baedeker's Spain & Portugal, by
permission of Karl Baedeker Emery Walker SC.
1821 an earthquake caused further damage. The work of
restoration undertaken in 1828 by the architect Jose
Contreras was endowed in 1830 by Ferdinand VII.; and after
the death of Contreras in 1847, it was continued with fair
success by his son Rafael (d. 1890), and his grandson Mariano.
The situation of the Alhambra is one of rare natural beauty;
the plateau commands a wide view of the city and plain of
Granada, towards the west and north, and of the heights of
the Sierra Nevada, towards the east and south. Moorish poets
describe it as ``a pearl set in emeralds,'' in allusion to
the brilliant colour of its buildings, and the luxuriant
woods round them. The park (Alameda de la Alhambra),
which in spring is overgrown with wild-flowers and grass,
was planted by the Moors with roses, oranges and myrtles;
its most characteristic feature, however, is the dense
wood of English elms brought hither in 1812 by the duke of
Wellington. The park is celebrated for the multitude of its
nightingales, and is usually filled with the sound of running
water from several fountains and cascades. These are supplied
through a conduit 5 m. long, which is connected with the
Darro at the monastery of Jesus del Valle, above Granada.
The Moorish portion of the Alhambra resembles many medieval
Christian strongholds in its threefold arrangement as a
castle, a palace and a residential annexe for subordinates.
The Alcazaba or citadel, its oldest part, is built on the
isolated and precipitous foreland which terminates the plateau
on the north-west. Only its massive outer walls, towers
and ramparts are left. On its watch-tower, the Torre de la
Vela, 85 ft. high, the flag of Ferdinand and Isabella was
first raised, in token of the Spanish conquest of Granada,
on the 2nd of January 1492. A turret containing a huge
bell was added in the 18th century, and restored after
being injured by lightning in 1881. Beyond the Alcazaba
is the palace of the Moorish kings, or Alhambra properly
so-called; and beyond this, again, is the Alhambra Alta (Upper
Alhambra), originally tenanted by officials and courtiers.
In spite of the long neglect, wilful vandalism and ill-judged
restoration which the Alhambra has endured, it remains the
most perfect example of Moorish art in its final European
development, --freed from the direct Byzantine influences
which can be traced in the cathedral of Cordova, more elaborate
and fantastic than the Giralda at Seville. The majority of
the palace buildings are, in ground-plan, quadrangular, with
all the rooms opening on to a central court; and the whole
reached its present size simply by the gradual addition of new
quadrangles, designed on the same principle, though varying in
dimensions, and connected with each other by smaller rooms and
passages. In every case the exterior is left plain and austere,
as if the architect intended thus to heighten by contrast the
splendour of the interior. Within, the palace is unsurpassed
for the exquisite detail of its marble pillars and arches,
its fretted ceilings and the veil-like transparency of its
filigree work in stucco. Sun and wind are freely admitted,
and the whole effect is one of the most airy lightness and
grace. Blue, red, and a golden yellow, all somewhat faded through
lapse of time and exposure, are the colours chiefly employed.
The decoration consists, as a rule, of stiff, conventional
foliage, Arabic inscriptions, and geometrical patterns wrought
into arabesques of almost incredible intricacy and ingenuity.
Painted tiles are largely used as panelling for the walls.
Access from the city to the Alhambra Park is afforded by
the Puerta de las Granadas (Gate of Pomegranates), a massive
triumphal arch dating from the 15th century. A steep ascent
leads past the Pillar of Charles V., a fountain erected in
1554, to the main entrance of the Alhambra. This is the Puerta
Judiciaria (Gate of Judgment), a massive horseshoe archway,
surmounted by a square tower, and used by the Moors as an
informal court of justice. A hand, with fingers outstretched
as a talisman against the evil eye, is carved above this gate
on the exterior; a key, the symbol of authority, occupies the
corresponding place on the interior. A narrow passage leads
inward to the Plaza de los Aljibes (Place of the Cisterns), a
broad open space which divides the Alcazaba from the Moorish
palace. To the left of the passage rises the Torre del Vino
(Wine Tower), built in 1345, and used in the 16th century as a
cellar. On the right is the palace of Charles V., a cold-looking
but majestic Renaissance building, out of harmony with its
surroundings, which it tends somewhat to dwarf by its superior
size. Its construction, begun in 1526, was abandoned about 1650.
The present entrance to the Palacio Arabe, or Casa Real (Moorish
palace), is by a small door from which a corridor conducts
to the Patio de los Arrayanes (Court of the Myrtles), also
called the Patio de la Alberca (Court of the Blessing or Court
of the Pond), from the Moorish birka, ``pond,'' or berka,
``blessing.'' This court is 140 ft. long by 74 ft. broad;
and in the centre there is a large pond set in the marble
pavement, full of goldfish, and with myrtles growing along its
sides. There are galleries on the north and south sides; that
on the south 27 ft. high, and supported by a marble colonnade.
Underneath it, to the right, was the principal entrance, and
over it are three elegant windows with arches and miniature
pillars. From this court the walls of the Torre de Comares are
seen rising over the roof to the north, and reflected in the pond.
The Sala de los Ambajadores (Hall of the Ambassadors) is
the largest in the Alhambra, and occupies all the Torre de
Comares. It is a square room, the sides being 37 ft. in
length, while the centre of the dome is 75 ft. high. This
was the grand reception room, and the throne of the sultan
was placed opposite the entrance. The tiles are nearly 4 ft.
high all round, and the colours vary at intervals. Over them
is a series of oval medallions with inscriptions, interwoven
with flowers and leaves. There are nine windows, three
on each facade, and the ceiling is admirably diversified
with inlaid-work of white, blue and gold, in the shape of
circles, crowns and stars--a kind of imitation of the vault of
heaven. The walls are covered with varied stucco-work of
most delicate pattern, surrounding many ancient escutcheons.
The celebrated Patio de los Leones (Court of the Lions) is
an oblong court, 116 ft. in length by 66 ft. in breadth,
surrounded by a low gallery supported on 124 white marble
columns. A pavilion projects into the court at each
extremity, with filigree walls and light domed roof,
elaborately ornamented. The square is paved with coloured
tiles, and the colonnade with white marble; while the walls
are covered 5 ft. up from the ground with blue and yellow
tiles, with a border above and below enamelled blue and
gold. The columns supporting the roof and gallery are
irregularly placed, with a view to artistic effect; and
the general form of the piers, arches and pillars is most
graceful. They are adorned by varieties of foliage, &c.;
about each arch there is a large square of arabesques; and
over the pillars is another square of exquisite filigree
work. In the centre of the court is the celebrated Fountain
of Lions, a magnificent alabaster basin supported by the
figures of twelve lions in white marble, not designed with
sculptural accuracy, but as emblems of strength and courage.
The Sala de los Abencerrajes (Hall of the Abencerrages) derives
its name from a legend according to which Boabdil, the last
king of Granada, having invited the chiefs of that illustrious
line to a banquet, massacred them here. This room is a perfect
square, with a lofty dome and trellised windows at its base.
The roof is exquisitely decorated in blue, brown, red and gold,
and the columns supporting it spring out into the arch form in
a remarkably beautiful manner. Opposite to this hall is the
Sala de las dos Hermanas (Hall of the two Sisters), so-called
from two very beautiful white marble slabs laid as part of the
pavement. These slabs measure 15 ft. by 7 1/2 ft., and are
without flaw or stain. There is a fountain in the middle of
this hall, and the roof--a dome honeycombed with tiny cells,
all different, and said to number 5000--is a magnificent
example of the so-called ``stalactite vaulting'' of the Moors.
Among the other wonders of the Alhambra are the Sala de la
Justicia (Hall of Justice), the Patio del Mexuar (Court of the
Council Chamber), the Patio de Daraxa (Court of the Vestibule),
and the Peinador de la Reina (Queen's Robing Room), in which
are to be seen the same delicate and beautiful architecture, the
same costly and elegant decorations. The palace and the Upper
Alhambra also contain baths, ranges of bedrooms and summer-
rooms, a whispering gallery and labyrinth, and vaulted sepulchres.
The original furniture of the palace is represented by the
celebrated vase of the Alhambra, a splendid specimen of Moorish
ceramic art, dating from 1320, and belonging to the first
period of Moorish porcelain. It is 4 ft. 3 in. high; the
ground is white, and the enamelling is blue, white and gold.
Of the outlying buildings in connexion with the Alhambra. the
foremost in interest is the Palacio de Generalife or Gineralife
(the Moorish Jennat al Arif, ``Garden of Arif,'' or ``Garden
of the Architect''). This villa probably dates from the end
of the 13th century, but has been several times restored. Its
gardens, however, with their clipped hedges, grottos, fountains,
and cypress avenues, are said to retain their original Moorish
character. The Villa de los Martires (Martyrs' Villa), on the
summit of Monte Mauror, commemorates by its name the Christian
slaves who were employed to build the Alhambra, and confined
here in subterranean cells. The Torres Bermejas (Vermilion
Towers), also on Monte Mauror, are a well-preserved Moorish
fortification, with underground cisterns, stables, and
accommodation for a garrison of 200 men. Several Roman tombs
were discovered in 1829 and 1857 at the base of Monte Mauror.
See Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra;
from drawings taken on the spot by J. Goury and Owen Jones;
with a complete translation of the Arabic inscriptions and a
historical notice of the Kings of Granada, by P. de Gayangos.
These two magnificent folios, though first published in London
between 1842 and 1845, give the best pictorial representation
of the Alhambra. See also Rafael Contreras, La Alhanabra,
El Alcazar, y la gran Mezquita de Occidente Madrid, 1885);
The Alhambra, by Washington Irving, was written in 1832,
and rewritten in 1857, when it had already become widely
celebrated for its picturesque and humorous descriptions.
A well-Illustrated edition was published in London in 1896.
ALHAZEN (ABU ALI AL-HASAN IBN ALHASAN), Arabian mathematician
of the 11th century, was born at Basra and died at Cairo in
1038. He is to be distinguished from another Alhazen who
translated Ptolemy's Almagest in the 10th century. Having
boasted that he could construct a machine for regulating
the inundations of the Nile, he was summoned to Egypt by
the caliph Hakim; but, aware of the impracticability of his
scheme, and fearing the caliph's anger, he feigned madness
until Hakim's death in 1021. Alhazen was, nevertheless,
a diligent and successful student, being the first great
discoverer in optics after the time of Ptolemy. According to
Giovanni Battista della Porta, he first explained the apparent
increase of heavenly bodies near the horizon, although Bacon
gives the credit of this discovery to Ptolemy. He taught,
previous to the Polish physicist Witelo, that vision does
not result from the emission of rays from the eye, and wrote
also on the refraction of light, especially on atmospheric
refraction, showing, e.g. the cause of morning and evening
twilight. He solved the problem of finding the point in a
convex mirror at which a ray coming from one given point shall
be reflected to another given point. His treatise on optics
was translated into Latin by Witelo (1270), and afterwards
published by F. Risner in 1572, with the title Oticae thesaurus
Alhazeni libri VII., cum ejusdem libro de crepusculis et
nubium ascensionibus. This work enjoyed a great reputation
during the middle ages. Works on geometrical subjects were
found in the Bibliotheque nationale de Paris in 1834
by E. A. Sedillot; other manuscripts are preserved in the
Bodleian library at Oxford and in the library of Leiden.
See Casiri, Bibl. Arab. Hisp. Escur.; J. E. Montucla,
Histoire des mathemaltiques (1758); and E. A. Sedillot,
Materiaux pour l'histoire des sciences mathematiques.
ALI, in full, 'ALI BEN ABU TALIB (c. 600-661), the
fourth of the caliphs or successors of Mahomet, was born at
Mecca about the year A.D. 600. His father, Abu Talib, was
an uncle of the prophet, and Ali himself was adopted by Mahomet
and educated under his care. As a mere boy he distinguished
himself by being one of the first to declare his adhesion
to the cause of Mahomet, who some years afterwards gave him
his daughter Fatima in marriage. Ali proved himself to be
a brave and faithful soldier, and when Mahomet died without
male issue, a few emigrants thought him to have the best
claim to succeed him. Abu Bekr, Omar and Othman, however,
occupied this position before him, and it was not until
656, after the murder of Othman, that he assumed the title of
caliph. The fact that he took no steps to prevent this murder
is, perhaps, the only real blot upon his character. Almost
the first act of his reign was the suppression of a rebellion
under Talha and Zobair, who were instigated by Ayesha,
Mahomet's widow, a bitter enemy of Ali, and one of the chief
hindrances to his advancement to the caliphate. The rebel
army was defeated at the ``Battle of the Camel,'' near Bassorah
(Basra), the two generals being killed, and Ayesha taken
prisoner. Ali soon afterwards made Kufa his capital. His
next care was to get rid of the opposition of Moawiya, who
had established himself in Syria at the head of a numerous
army. A prolonged battle took place in July 657 in the
plain of Siffin (Suffein), near the Euphrates; the fighting
was at first, it is said, in favour of Ali, when suddenly
a number of the enemy, fixing copies of the Koran to the
points of their spears, exclaimed that ``the matter ought to
be settled by reference to this book, which forbids Moslems
to shed each other's blood.'' The superstitious soldiers of
Ali refused to fight any longer, and demanded that the issue
be referred to arbitration (see further CALIPHATE, section
B. 1). Abu Musa was appointed umpire on the part of Ali,
and `Amr-ibn-el-Ass, a veteran diplomatist, on the part of
Moawiya. It is said that `Amr persuaded Abu Musa that it would
be for the advantage of Islam that neither candidate should
reign, and asked him to give his decision first. Abu Musa
having proclaimed that he deposed both Ali and Moawiya, `Amr
declared that he also deposed Ali, and announced further that
he invested Moawiya with the caliphate. This treacherous
decision (but see CALIPHATE, ib.) greatly injured the
cause of Ali, which was still further weakened by the loss of
Egypt. After much indecisive fighting, Ali found his position
so unsatisfactory that according to some historians he made an
agreement with Moawiya by which each retained his own dominions
unmolested. It chanced, however--according to a legend, the
details of which are quite uncertain--that three of the fanatic
sect of the Kharijites had made an agreement to assassinate
Ali, Moawiya and `Amr, as the authors of disastrous feuds
among the faithful. The only victim of this plot was Ali,
who died at Kufa in 661, of the wound inflicted by a poisoned
weapon. A splendid mosque called Meshed Ali was afterwards
erected near the city, but the place of his burial is unknown.
He had eight wives after Fatima's death, and in all, it is
said, thirty-three children, one of whom, Hassan, a son of
Fatima, succeeded him in the caliphate. His descendants by
Fatima are known as the Fatimites (q.v.; see also EGYPT:
History, Mahommedan period). The question of Ali's right to
succeed to the caliphate is an article of faith which divided
the Mahommedan world into two great sects, the Sunnites and the
Shiites, the former denying, and the latter affirming, his
right. The Turks, consequently, hold his memory in abhorrence;
whereas the Persians, who are generally Shi`as, venerate
him as second only to the prophet, call him the ``Lion of
God'' (Sher-i-Khuda), and celebrate the anniversary of his
martyrdom. Ali is described as a bold, noble and generous
man, ``the last and worthiest of the primitive Moslems, who
imbibed his religious enthusiasm from companionship with the
prophet himself, and who followed to the last the simplicity
of his example.'' It is maintained, on the other hand, that his
motives were throughout those of ambition rather than piety, and
that, apart from the tragedy of his death, he would have been
an insignificant figure in history. (See further CALIPHATE.)
In the eyes of the later Moslems he was remarkable for learning
and wisdom, and there are extant collections (almost all
certainly spurious) of proverbs and verses which bear his name:
the Sentences of Ali (Eng. trans., William Yule, Edinburgh,
1832); H. L. Fleischer, Alis hundert Spruche (Leipz. 1837);
the Divan, by G. Kuypert (Leiden, 1745, and at Bulak, 1835); C.
Brockelmann, Gesch. d. arabisch. Lit. (vol. i., Weimar, 1899).
ALI, known as ALI BEY (1766-1818), the assumed name
of DOMINGO BADIA Y LEBLICH, a Spanish traveller, born in
1766. After receiving a liberal education he devoted particular
attention to the Arabic language, and made a special study
of the manners and customs of the East. Pretending to be
a descendant of the Abbasids, Badia in 1803 set out on his
travels. Under the name of Ali Bey el Abbassi, and in Mussulman
costume, he visited Morocco, Tripoli, Egypt, Arabia and
Syria, and was received as a person of high rank wherever he
appeared. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca, at that time
in the possession of the Wahabites. On his return to Spain
in 1807 he declared himself a Bonapartist, and was made
intendant first of Segovia and afterwards of Cordova.
When the French were driven from Spain, Badia was compelled
to take refuge in France, and there in 1814, published an
account of his travels under the title of Voyage d'Aii Bey
en Asie et en Afrique, &c. A few years later he set out
again for Syria, under the assumed name of Ali Othman, and,
it is said, accredited as a political agent by the French
government. He reached Aleppo, and there died on the 30th of
August 1818, not without suspicion of having been poisoned.
An account of his Eastern adventures was published in London in
1816, in two volumes, entitled Travels in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus,
Egypt, Arabia, Syria and Turkey, between the years 1803 and 1807.
ALI, known as ALI PASHA (1741-1822),Turkish pasha of
Iannina, surnamed Arslan, ``the Lion,'' was born at Tepeleni,
a village in Albania at the foot of the Klissura mountains.
He was one of the Toske tribe, and his ancestors had for some
time held the hereditary office of bey of Tepeleni. His father,
a man of mild and peaceful disposition, was killed when Ali
was fourteen years old by neighbouring chiefs who seized his
territories. His mother Khamko, a woman of extraordinary
character, thereupon herself formed and led a brigand band,
and studied to inspire the boy with her own fierce and
indomitable temper, with a view to revenge and the recovery
of the lost property. In this wild school Ali proved an apt
pupil. A hundred tales, for the most part probably mythical,
are told of his powers and cunning during the years he spent
among the mountains as a brigand leader. At last, by a
picturesque stratagem, he gained possession of Tepeleni and
took vengeance on his enemies. To secure himself from rivals
in his own family, he is said to have murdered his brother
and imprisoned his mother on a charge of attempting to poison
him. With a view to establishing his authority he now made
overtures to the Porte and was commissioned to chastise the
rebellious pasha of Scutari, whom he defeated and killed. He
also, on pretext of his disloyalty, put to death Selim, pasha of
Delvinon. Ali was now confirmed in the possession of all
his father's territory and was also appointed lieutenant to
the derwend-pasha of Rumelia, whose duty it was to suppress
brigandage and highway robbery. This gave him an opportunity
for amassing wealth by sharing the booty of the robbers in
return for leaving them alone. The disgrace that fell in
consequence on his superior, Ali escaped by the use of lavish
bribes at Constantinople. In 1787 he took part in the war
with Russia, and was rewarded by being made pasha of Trikala
in Thessaly and derwend-pasha of Rumelia. It now suited his
policy to suppress the brigands, which he did by enlisting
most of them under his own banner. His power was now already
considerable; and in 1788 he added to it by securing his
nomination to the pashalik of Iannina by a characteristic trick.
The illiterate brigand, whose boyish ambition had not
looked beyond the recovery of his father's beylick, was now
established as one of the most powerful viziers under the
Ottoman government. Success only stimulated his insatiable
ambition. He earned the confidence of the Porte by the cruel
discipline he maintained in his own sanjak, and the regular
flow of tribute and bribes which he directed to Constantinople;
while he bent all his energies to extending his territories
at the expense of his neighbours. The methods he adopted
would have done credit to Cesare Borgia; they may be studied
in detail in the lurid pages of Pouqueville. Soon, by
one means or another, his power was supreme in all central
Albania. Two main barriers still obstructed the realization
of his ambition, which now embraced Greece and Thessaly, as
well as Albania, and the establishment in the Mediterranean
of a sea-power which should rival that of the dey of Algiers.
The first of these was the resistance of the little Christian
hill community of Suli; the second the Venetian occupation
of the coast, within a mile of which--by convention with the
Porte--no Ottoman soldier might penetrate. It needed three
several attacks before, in 1803, Ali conquered the Suliot
stronghold. Events in western Europe gave him an earlier
opportunity of becoming master of most of the coast towns. Ali
had watched with interest the career of Bonaparte in Italy, and
the treaty of Campo Formio (1797), which blotted the Venetian
republic from the map of Europe, gave him the opportunity he
desired. In response to his advances commissaries of the
French republic visited him at Iannina and, affecting a
sudden zeal for republican principles, he easily obtained
permission to suppress the ``aristocratic'' tribes on the
coast. His plans in Albania were interrupted by the war against
Pasvan Oglu, the rebellious pasha of Widdin, in which Ali
once more did good service. Meanwhile international politics
had developed in a way that necessitated a change in Ali's
attitude. Napoleon's occupation of the Ionian Islands and
his relations with Ali had alarmed Russia, which feared that
French influence would be substituted for her own in the
Balkan peninsula; and on the 5th of September 1798 a formal
alliance, to which Great Britain soon after acceded, was signed
on behalf of the emperor Paul and the sultan. Once more Ali
turned Turk and fought against his recent friends with such
success that in the end he remained in possession of Butrinto,
Prevesa and Vonitza on the coast, was created pasha ``of three
tails'' by the sultan, and received the congratulations of
Nelson. But the campaign of Austerlitz followed, then the
peace of Pressburg which guaranteed to Napoleon the former
dominions of Venice, and finally the treaty of Tilsit,
which involved, among other things, the withdrawal of the
Russians from the Ionian Islands and the Albanian coast.
Amid all the momentous changes the part of Ali was a difficult
one. He had, moreover, to contend with domestic enemies,
and with difficulty defeated a league formed against
him by some Mussulman tribes, under Ibrahim of Berat and
Mustapha of Delvinon, and the Suliots. He knew, however,
how to retain the confidence of the sultan, who not only
confirmed him in the possession of the whole of Albania
from Epirus to Montenegro, but even in 1799 appointed him
vali of Rumelia, an office which he held just long enough
to enable him to return to Iannina laden with the spoils of
Thessaly. He was now at the height of his power. In 1803
the Suliot stronghold fell; and he was undisputed master of
Epirus, Albania and Thessaly, while the pashalik of the Morea
was held by his son Veli, and that of Lepanto by his son
Mukhtar. Only the little town of Parga held out against him
on the coast; and in order to obtain this he once more in 1807
entered into an alliance with Napoleon. The French emperor,
however, preferred to keep Parga, as a convenient gate into
the Balkan peninsula, and it remained in French occupation
until March 1814, when the Pargiots rose against the garrison
and handed the fortress over to the British to save it from
falling into the hands of Ali, who had bought the town from
the French commander, Cozi Nikolo, and was closely investing
it. The cordial relations between Napoleon and the pasha
of Iannina had not long continued. Ali was angered by the
refusal to surrender Parga and justly suspicious of the
ambitions which this refusal implied; he could not feel
himself secure with the Ionian Islands and the Dalmatian
coast in the hands of a power whose plans in the East were
notorious, and he was glad enough to avail himself of Napoleon's
reverses in 1812 to help to rid himself of so dangerous a
neighbor. His services to the allies received their reward.
Still bent on obtaining Parga, he sent a special mission to
London, backed by a letter from Sir Robert Liston, the British
ambassador at Constantinople, calling the attention of the
government to the pasha's supereminent qualities'' and his
services against the French. After some hesitation it was
decided to evacuate Parga and hand it over to the Ottoman
government, i.e. Ali Pasha. The convention by which this
was effected was ultimately signed on the 17th of May 1817,
being ratified by the sultan on the 24th of April 1819.
By its terms the Pargiots were to receive an asylum in the
islands, the Ottoman government undertaking to pay compensation
for their property. Ali had no difficulty in finding the
money; the garrison, as soon as it was received, marched
out with the bulk of the inhabitants; and the last citadel
of freedom in the Balkans fell to the tyrant of Iannina.1
Ali's authority in the great part of the peninsula subject to
him now overshadowed that of the sultan; and Mahmud II., whose
whole policy had been directed to destroying the overgrown
power of the provincial pashas, began to seek a pretext for
overthrowing the Lion of Iannina, whose all-devouring ambition
seemed to threaten his own throne. The occasion came in 1820
when Ali, emboldened by impunity, violated the sanctity of
Stamboul itself by attempting to procure the murder of his
enemy Pacho Bey in the very precincts of the palace. A decree
of disposition was now issued against the sacrilegious vali,
who had dared ``to fire shots in Constantinople, the residence
of the caliph, and the centre of security.'' Its execution was
entrusted to Khurshid Pasha, with the bulk of the Ottoman forces.
For two years Ali, now over eighty years of age, held his
own, in spite of the defection of his vassals and even of his
sons. At last, in the spring of 1822, after a prolonged siege
in his island fortress at Iannina, which even the outbreak
of the Greek revolt had not served to raise, the intrepid old
man was forced to sue for terms. He asked and received an
interview with Khurshid, was received courteously and dismissed
with the most friendly assurances. As he turned to leave the
grand vizier's tent he was stabbed in the back; his head was
cut off and sent to Constantinople. Notwithstanding their
treason to their father, his sons met with the same fate.
In spite of the ferocious characteristics which have been
suggested in the above sketch, Ali Pasha is undoubtedly one
of the most remarkable, as he is one of the most picturesque,
figures in modern history; and as such he was recognized
in his own day. His court at Iannina was the centre of a
sort of barbarous culture, in which astrologers, alchemists
and Greek poets played their part, and was often visited by
travellers. Amongst others, Byron came, and has left a record
of his impressions in ``Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,'' less
interesting and vivid than the prose accounts of Pouqueville,
T. S. Hughes and William M. Leake. Leake (iii. 259) reports
a reproof addressed by Ali to the French renegade Ibrahim
Effendi, who had ventured to remonstrate against some
particular act of ferocity: ``At present you are too young at
my court to know how to comport yourself. . . . You are not
yet acquainted with the Greeks and Albanians: when I hang up
one of these wretches on the plane-tree, brother robs brother
under the very branches: if I burn one of them alive, the
son is ready to steal his father's ashes to sell them for
money. They are destined to be ruled by me; and no one but Ali
is able to restrain their evil propensities.'' This is perhaps
as good an apology as could be made for his character and
methods. To the wild people over whom he ruled none was
needed. He had their respect, if not their love; he is the hero
of a thousand ballads; and his portrait still hangs among the
ikons in the cottages of the Greek mountaineers. All accounts
agree in describing him in later life as a man of handsome
presence, with a venerable white beard, piercing black eyes
and a benevolent cast of countenance, the effect of which was
heightened in conversation by a voice of singular sweetness.
AUTHORITIES.--Apart from the scattered references in the
published and unpublished diplomatic correspondence of the
period, contemporary journals and books of travel contain
much interesting material for the life of Ali. Of these may
especially be mentioned Francois C. H. L. Pouqueville, Voyage en
Moree, a Constantinople, en Albanie, &c. (3 vols., Paris,
1805), of which an English version by A. Plumptre was published
in 1815; ib. Voyage dans la Grece (5 vols., Paris, 1820,
1821). Pouqueville, who spent some time as French resident
at Iannina, had special facilities for obtaining firsthand
information, though his emotionalism makes his observations
and deductions at times somewhat suspect. Very interesting
also are Thomas Smart Hughes, Travels in Greece and Albania
(2 vols., 2nd ed., Lond. 1830); John Cam Hobhouse (Lord
Broughton), A Journey through Albania, &c. . . . during
the years 1809 and 1810 (Lond., 4to, 1813, a new ed., 2
vols., 1855); William Martin Leake, Travels in Northern
Greece (4 vols., Lond. 1845). See also Pouqueville's Hist.
de la regeneration de la Grece, 1740-1824 (4 vols.,
Paris, 1824, 3rd ed., Brussels, 1825); R. A. Davenport,
Life of Ali Pasha, vizier of Epirus (1861). (W. A. P.)
1 In his report on the Ionian Treaty presented to Lord
Castlereagh at the congress of Vienna in December 1814, Sir
Richard Church strongly advocated, not only the retention of
Parga, but that Vonitza, Prevesa and Butrinto also should be
taken from Ali Pasha and placed under British protection, a
measure he considered necessary. for the safety of the Ionian
Islands. ``Ali Pasha,'' he wrote, ``is now busy building
forts along his coast and strengthening his castles in the
interior. In January 1814 he had 14,000 peasants at work on
the castle of Argiro Castro, and about 1500 erecting a fort at
Porto Palermo, nearly opposite Corfu.'' In 1810 he had erected
a fort directly opposite Santa Maura commanding the harbour.
The fate of Parga created intense feeling at the time in
England, and was cited by Liberals as a crowning instance of
the perfidy of the government and of Castlereagh's subservience
to reactionary tendencies abroad. The step, however,
was not lightly taken. In occupying the town the British
general had expressly refrained from pledging Great Britain
to remain there; and the government held that any permanent
occupation of a post on the mainland carried with it risks of
complications out of all proportion to any possible benefit.
ALIAGA, a town of the province of Nueva Ecija, Luzon,
Philippine Islands, about 70 m. N. by W. of Manila. Pop.
(1903) 11,950. It has a comparatively cool and healthful
climate, and is pleasantly situated about midway between the
Pampanga Grande and the Pampanga Chico rivers, and in a large
and fertile valley of which the principal products are Indian
corn, rice, sugar and tobacco. Tagalog is the most important
language; Ilocano, Pampango and Pangasinan are also used.
ALIAS (Lat. for ``at another time''), a term used to
connect the different names of a person who has passed under
more than one, in order to conceal his identity, or for
other reasons; or, compendiously, to describe the adopted
name. The expression alias dictus was formerly used in
legal indictments, and pleadings where absolute precision was
necessary in identifying the person to be charged, as ``John
Jones, alias dictus James Smith.'' The adoption of a name
other than a man's baptismal or surname need not necessarily
be for the purpose of deception or fraud; pseudonyms or
nicknames fall thus under the description of an alias.
Where a person is married under an alias, the marriage is
void when both parties have knowingly and wilfully connived
at the adoption of the alias, with a fraudulent intention.
But if one of the parties to a marriage has acquired a new
name by use and reputation, or if the true name of any one of
the parties is not known to the other, the use of an alias
in these cases will not affect the validity of the marriage.
ALIBI (Lat. for ``elsewhere''), in law, the defence resorted
to in criminal prosecutions, where the person charged alleges
that he was so far distant at the time from the place where the
crime was committed that he could not have been guilty. An alibi,
if substantiated, is the most conclusive proof of innocence.
ALICANTE, a province of south-eastern Spain; bounded
on the N. by Valencia, W. by Albacete and Murcia, S. by
Murcia, and S.E. and E. by the Mediterranean Sea. Pop. (1900)
470,149; area, 2096 sq. m. Alicante was formed in 1833 of
districts taken from the ancient provinces of Valencia and
Murcia, Valencia contributing by far the larger portion.
The surface of the province is extremely diversified. In
the north and west there are extensive mountain ranges of
calcareous formation, intersected by deep ravines; while
farther south the land is more level, and there are many
fertile valleys. On the Mediterranean coast, unhealthy
salt marshes alternate with rich plains of pleasant and
productive huertas or gardens, such as those of Alicante and
Denia. Apart from Segura, which flows from the highlands
of Albacete through Murcia and Orihuela to the sea, there is
no considerable river, but a few rivulets flow east into the
Mediterranean. The climate is temperate, and the rainfall very
slight. Despite the want of rivers and of rain, agriculture is
in a flourishing condition. Many tracts, originally rocky and
sterile, have been irrigated and converted into vineyards and
plantations. Cereals are grown, but the inhabitants prefer
to raise such articles of produce as are in demand for
export, and consequently part of the grain supply has to be
imported. Esparto grass, rice, olives, the sugar-cane, and
tropical fruits and vegetables are largely produced. Great
attention is given to the rearing of bees and silk-worms; and
the wine of the province is held in high repute throughout Spain,
while some inferior kinds are sent to France to be mixed with
claret. There are iron and lignite mines, but the output is
small. Mineral springs are found at various places. The
manufactures consist of fine cloths, silk, cotton, woollen
and linen fabrics, girdles and lace, paper, hats, leather,
earthenware and soap. There are numerous oil mills and brandy
distilleries. Many of the inhabitants are engaged in the
carrying trade, while the fisheries on the coast are also
actively prosecuted, tunny and anchovies being caught in great
numbers. Barilla is obtained from the sea-weed on the shores,
and some of the saline marshes, notably those near Torrevieja,
yield large supplies of salt. The principal towns, which are
separately described, include Alicante, the capital (pop. 1900,
50,142), Crevillente (10,726), Denia (12,431), Elche (27,308),
Novelda (11,388), Orihuela (28,530), and Villena (14,099).
Other towns, of less importance, are Aspe (7927), Cocentaina
(7093), Monovar (10,601), Pinoso (7946), and Villajoyosa (8902).
ALICANTE, the capital of the Spanish province described above,
and one of the principal seaports of the country. Pop. (1900)
50,142. It is situated in 38 deg. 21' N. and 0 deg. 26' W., on
the Bay of Alicante, an inlet of the Mediterranean Sea. It
is the termini of railways from Madrid and Murcia. From its
harbour, the town presents a striking picture. Along the
shore extends the Paseo de los Martires, a double avenue of
palms; behind this, the white flat-roofed houses rise in the
form of a crescent towards the low hills which surround the
city, and terminate, on the right, in a bare rock, 400 ft.
high, surmounted by an ancient citadel. Its dry and equable
climate renders Alicante a popular health-resort. The
city is an episcopal see, and contains a modern cathedral.
The bay affords good anchorage, but only small vessels can come
up to the two moles. The harbour is fortified, and there is
a small lighthouse on the eastern mole; important engineering
works, subsidized by the state, were undertaken in 1902 to
provide better accomodation. In the same year 1737 vessels
of 939,789 tons entered the port. The trade of Alicante
consists chiefly in the manufacture of cotton, linen and woollen
goods, cigars and confectionery; the importation of coal,
iron, machinery, manures, timber, oak staves and fish; and
the exportation of lead, fruit, farm produce and red wines,
which are sent to France for blending with better vintages.
Fine marble is procured in the island of Plana near the coast.
Alicante was the Roman Lucentum; but, despite its
antiquity, it has few Roman or Moorish remains. In 718, it
was occupied by the Moors, who were only expelled in 1304,
and made an unsuccessful attempt to recapture the city in
1331. Alicante was besieged by the French in 1709, and by
the Federalists of Cartagena in 1873. For an account of
the events which led up to these two sieges, see SPAIN.,
For further details of the local history, see J. Pastor
de la Roca, Historia general de la ciudad y castillo de
Alicante, &c. (Alicante, 1854); and the Ensayo biografico
bibliografico de escritores de Alicante y de su provincia,
by M. R. Garcia and A. Montero y Perez (Alicante, 1890).
ALICE MAUD MARY, GRAND-DUCHESS OF HESSE-DARMSTADT
(1843-1878), second daughter and third child of Queen
Victoria, was born at Buckingham Palace, on the 25th of April
1843. A pretty, delicate-featured child--``cheerful, merry,
full of fun and mischief,'' as her elder sister described
her--fond of gymnastics, a good skater and an excellent
horsewoman, she was a general favourite from her earliest
days. Her first years were passed without particular incident
in the home circle, where the training of their children was
a matter of the greatest concern to the queen and the prince
consort. Among other things, the royal children were encouraged
to visit the poor, and the effect of this training was very
noticeable in the later life of Princess Alice. After the
marriage of the Princess Royal in 1858, the new responsibilities
devolving upon Princess Alice, as the eldest daughter at
home, called forth the higher traits of her character, and
brought her into still closer relationship with her parents,
and especially with her father. In the summer of 1860, at
Windsor Castle, Princess Alice first met her future husband,
Prince Louis of Hesse. An attachment quickly sprang up, and
on the prince's second visit in November they were formally
engaged. In the following year, on the announcement of the
contemplated marriage, the House of Commons unanimously voted
a dowry of L. 30,000 and an annuity of L. 6000 to the princess.
In December 1861, while preparations were being made for the
marriage, the prince consort was struck down with typhoid fever,
and died on the 14th. Princess Alice nursed her father during
his short illness with the utmost care, and after his death
devoted herself to comforting her mother under this terrible
blow. Her marriage took place at Osborne, on the 1st of July
1862. The princess unconsciously wrote her own biography
from this period in her constant letters to Queen Victoria,
a selection of which, edited by Dr. Carl Sell, were allowed
to be printed in 1883. These letters give a complete picture
of the daily life of the duke and duchess, and they also
show the intense love of the latter for her husband, her
mother and her native land. She managed to visit England
every year, and it was at her special request that when
she died her husband laid an English flag upon her coffin.
In the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, Hesse-
Darmstadt was upon the side of the Austrians; Prince Louis
accompanied his troops to the front, and was duly appointed
by the grand-duke to the command of the Hessian division.
This was a time of intense trial to the princess, whose
husband and brother-in-law, the crown prince of Prussia, were
necessarily fighting upon opposite sides. The duke of Hesse
also took part in the principal battles of the Franco-Prussian
war, while the duchess was actively engaged in organizing
hospitals for the relief of the sick and wounded. The death
of the duke's father, Prince Charles of Hesse, on the 20th
of March 1877, was followed by that of the grand-duke on the
13th of June, and Prince Louis succeeded to the throne as
Grand Duke Louis IV. In the summer of 1878 the grand-duke and
duchess, with their family, came again to England, and went
to Eastbourne, where the duchess remained for some time.
She returned to Darmstadt in the autumn, and on the 8th of
November 1878 her daughter, Princess Victoria, was attacked by
diphtheria. Three more of her children, as well as her
husband, quickly caught the disease, and the youngest, ``May,''
succumbed on the 16th. On the 7th of December the princess
was herself attacked, and, being weakened by nursing and
anxiety, had not strength to resist the disease, which proved
fatal on the 14th of December, the seventeenth anniversary of
her father's death. She left one son and four daughters. .
See Carl Sell, Alice: Mittheilungen aus ihrem Leben und Briefen,
&c. (Darmstadt, 1883), with English translation by the Princess
Christian, Alice: biographical sketch and letters (1884). (G. F. B.)
ALIDADE (from the Arab.), the movable index of a graduated
arc, used in the measurement of angles. The word is used
also to designate the supporting frame or arms carrying
the microscopes or verniers of a graduated circle.
ALIEN (Lat. alienus), the technical term applied by
British constitutional law to anyone who does not enjoy the
character of a British subject; in general, a foreigner who
for the purposes of any state comes into certain domestic
relations with it, other than those applying to native-born or
naturalized citizens, but owns allegiance to a foreign sovereign.
English law, save with the special exceptions mentioned, admits
to the character of subjects all who are born within the king's
allegiance, that is, speaking generally, within the British
dominions. In the celebrated question of the post-nati in
the reign of James I. of England, it was found, after solemn
trial, that natives of Scotland born before the union of the
crowns were aliens in England, but that, since allegiance
is to the person of the king, those born subsequently were
English subjects. A child born abroad, whose father or whose
grandfather on the father's side was a British subject, may
claim the same character unless at the time of his birth
his father was an attainted traitor, or in the service of
a state engaged in war against the British empire (4th Geo.
II. c. 21). Owing to this exceptional provision some sons of
Jacobite refugees born abroad, who joined in the rebellion of
1745, were admitted to the privilege of prisoners of war.
It has been enacted in the United Kingdom with regard to the
national status of women and children that a married woman
is to be deemed a subject of the state of which her husband
is for the time being a subject; that a natural-born British
woman, having become an alien by marriage, and thereafter
being a widow, may be rehabilitated under conditions slightly
more favourable than are required for naturalization; that
where a father or a widow becomes an alien, the children in
infancy becoming resident in the country where the parent
is naturalized, and being naturalized by the local law,
are held to be subjects of that country; that those of a
father or of a widow readmitted to British nationality or
who obtains a certificate of naturalization, becoming during
infancy resident with such parent in the British dominions
in the former case or in the United Kingdom in the latter,
become readmitted or naturalized (Naturalization Act 1870,
s. 10). The nationality of children not covered by these
enactments is not affected by the change of their parents'
nationality. The same statute provides that a declaration of
alienage before a justice of peace or other competent judge,
having the effect of divesting the declarant of the character
of a British subject, may be made by a naturalized British
subject desiring to resume the nationality of the country
to which he originally belonged, if there be a convention
to that effect with that country; by natural-born subjects
who were also born subjects of another state according to
its law; or by persons born abroad having British fathers.
Naturalization, which means conferring the character of a subject,
may now, under the act of 1870, be obtained by applying to the
home secretary and producing evidence of having resided for not
less than five years in the United Kingdom, or of having been
in the service of the crown for not less than five years, and
of intention to reside in the United Kingdom or serve under the
crown. Such a certificate may be granted by the secretary
of state to one naturalized previously to the passing of the
act, or to a British subject as to whose nationality a doubt
exists, or to a statutory alien, i.e. one who has become
an alien by declaration in pursuance of the act of 1870.
In the United States the separate state laws largely determine
the status of an alien, but subject to Federal treaties. (For
further particulars see ALLEGIANCE and NATURALIZATION.)
Many of the disabilities to which aliens were subject in the
United Kingdom, either by the common law or under various acts
of parliament, have been repealed by the Naturalization Act
1870. It enables aliens to take, acquire, hold and dispose
of real and personal property of every description, and to
transmit a title to it, in all respects as natural-born British
subjects. But the act expressly declares that this relaxation of
the law does not qualify aliens for any office or any municipal,
parliamentary or other franchise, or confer any right of a
British subject other than those above expressed in regard to
property, nor does it affect interests vested in possession
or expectancy under dispositions made before the act, or by
devolution of law on the death of any one dying before the
act. A ship, any share in which is owned by an alien, shall
not be deemed a British ship (Merchant Shipping Act 1894, s.
i.) By the Juries Act 1870, s. 8, aliens who have been domiciled
for ten years in England or Wales, if in other respects duly
qualified, are liable to serve on juries or inquests in England
or Wales; and by the Naturalization Act 1870, s. 5, the ahens'
old privilege of being tried by a jury de medietate linguae
(that is, of which half were foreigners), was abolished.
It seems to be a rule of general public law that an alien
can be sent out of the realm by exercise of the crown's
prerogative; but in modern English practice, whenever it seems
necessary to expel foreigners (see EXPULSION), a special
act of parliament has to be obtained for the purpose, unless
the case falls within the extradition acts or the Aliens Act
1905. The latter prohibits the landing in the United Kingdom
of undesirable alien steerage passengers, called in the act
``immigrants,'' from ships carrying more than twenty alien
steerage passengers, called in the act ``immigrant ships'';
nor can alien immigrants be landed except at certain ports
at which there is an ``immigrant officer,'' to whom power of
prohibiting the landing is given, subject to a right of appeal
to the immigration board of the port. The act contains a number
of qualifications, and among these empowers the secretary of
state to exempt any immigrant ship from its provisions if he
is satisfied that a proper system is maintained to prevent
the immigration of undesirable persons. The principal test of
undesirableness is not having or being in a position to obtain
the means of supporting one's self and one's dependents, or
appearing likely from disease or infirmity to become a charge
on the rates, provided that the immigrant is not seeking to
avoid prosecution or punishment on religious or political
grounds, or persecution, involving danger of imprisonment
or danger to life or limb, on account of religious belief.
Lunatics, idiots, persons who from disease or infirmity
appear likely to become a detriment to the public otherwise
than through the rates, and persons sentenced in a foreign
country for crimes for which they could be surrendered to that
country, are also enumerated as undesirable. Power is also
given to the secretary of state to expel persons sentenced
as just mentioned, or, if recommended by the court in which
they have been convicted, persons convicted of felony or some
offence for which the court has power to impose imprisonment
without the option of a fine, or of certain offences against
the police laws; and persons in receipt of any such parochial
relief as disqualifies for the parliamentary franchise, or
wandering without ostensible mean of subsistence, or living
under insanitary conditions due to overcrowding. (JNO. W.)
ALIENATION (from Lat. alienus, belonging to another), the
act or fact of being estranged, set apart or separated. In
law the word is used for the act of transfer of property by
voluntary deed and not by inheritance. In regard to church
property the word has come to mean, since the Reformation, a
transfer from religious to secular ownership. ``Alienation''
is also used to denote a state of insanity (q.v..)
ALIEN-HOUSES, religious houses in England belonging to
foreign ecclesiastics, or under their control. They generally
were built where property had been left by the donors to
foreign orders to pray for their souls. They were frequently
regular ``priories,'' but sometimes only ``cells,'' and even
``granges,', with small chapels attached. Some, particularly
in cities, seem to have been a sort of mission-houses.
There were more than 100 in England. Many alien-houses
were suppressed by Henry V. and the rest by Henry VIII.
ALIENIST (Lat. alienus, that which belongs to another,
i.e. is external to one's self), one who specializes
in the study of mental diseases, which are often included
in the generic name ``Alienation.'' (See INSANITY.)
ALIGARH, a city and district of British India in the Meerut
division of the United Provinces. The city, also known as
Koil, was a station on the East Indian railway, 876 m. from
Calcutta. Sir Sayad Ahmad Khan, K.C.S.I., who died in 1898,
founded in 1864 the Aligarh Institute and Scientific Society
for the translation into the vernacular of western literature;
and afterwards the Mahommedan Anglo-Oriental College, under
English professors, with an English school attached. The
college meets with strong support from the enlightened portion
of the Mussulman community, whose aim is to raise it to the
status of a university, with the power of conferring degrees.
The population (1901) 70,434, showed an increase of 14% in the
decade. There are several flour-mills, cotton-presses and a dairy
farm. Aligarh Fort, situated on the Grand Trunk road, consists
of a regular polygon, surrounded by a very broad and deep
ditch. It became a fortress of great importance under Sindhia
in 1759, and was the depot where he drilled and organized
his battalions in the European fashion with the aid of De
Boigne. It was captured from the Mahrtatas under the
leadership of Perron, another French officer, by Lord Lake's
army, in September 1803, since which time it has been much
strengthened and improved. In the rebellion of 1857 the
troops stationed at Aligarh mutinied, but abstained from
murdering their officers, who, with the other residents
and ladies and children, succeeded in reaching Hathras.
The district of Aligarh has an area of 1857 sq. m. It is
nearly a level plain, but with a slight elevation in the centre,
between the two great rivers the Ganges and Jumna. The only
other important river is the Kali Nadi, which traverses the
entire length of the district from north-east to south-west.
The district is traversed by several railways and also by the
Ganges canal, which is navigable. The chief trading centre is
Hathras. In 1901 the population was 1,200,822, showing an
increase of 15% in the decade, due to the extension of irrigation.
There are several factories for ginning and pressing cotton.
ALIGNMENT (from Fr. a and ligne, the Lat. linea, a
line), a setting in line, generally straight, or the way
in which the line runs; an expression used in surveying,
drawing, and in military arrangements, the alignment of
a regiment or a camp meaning the situation when drawn
up in line or the relative position of the tents. The
alignment of a rifle has reference to the way of getting the
sights into line with the object, so as to aim correctly.
ALIMENT (from Lat. aliment-um, from alere to nourish),
a synonym for ``food,'' literally or metaphorically.
The word has also been used in the same legal sense as
ALIMONY (q.v..) Aliment, in Scots law, is the sum paid
or allowance given in respect of the reciprocal obligation
of parents and children, husband and wife, grandparents and
grandchildren, to contribute to each other's maintenance.
The term is also used in regard to a similar obligation
of other parties, as of creditors to imprisoned debtors,
the payments by parishes to paupers, &c. Alimentary funds,
whether of the kind above mentioned, or set apart as such
by the deed of a testator, are intended for the mere support
of the recipient, and are not attachable by creditors.
ALIMENTARY CANAL, in anatomy. The alimentary canal, strictly
speaking, is the whole digestive tract from the mouth to the
anus. From the one orifice to the other the tube is some
25 to 30 ft. long, and the food, in its passage, passes
through the following parts one after the other:--mouth,
pharynx, oesophagus, stomach, small intestines, caecum, large
intestines, rectum and anus. Into this tube at various
points the salivary glands, liver and pancreas pour their
secretions by special ducts. As the mouth (q.v.) and
pharynx (q.v.) are separately described, the detailed
description will here begin with the oesophagus or gullet.
The oesophagus (Gr. oiso, I will carry, and fagein, to
eat), a muscular tube lined with mucous membrane, stretches
from the lower limit of the pharynx, at the level of the
cricoid cartilage, to the cardiac orifice of the stomach.
It is about 10 in. long (25 cm.) and half to one inch in
diameter. At first it lies in the lower part of the neck,
then in the thorax, and lastly, for about an inch, in the
abdomen. As far as the level of the fourth or fifth thoracic
vertebra it lies behind the trachea, but when that tube ends,
it is in close contact with the pericardium, and, at the level
of the tenth thoracic vertebra, passes through the oesophageal
opening of the diaphragm (q.v.), accompanied by the two
vagi nerves, the left being in front of it and the right
behind. In the abdomen it lies just behind the left lobe of the
liver. Both in the upper and lower parts of its course it lies
a little to the left of the mid line. Its mucous membrane is
thrown into a number of longitudinal pleats to allow stretching.
The stomach (Gr. stomachos) is an irregularly pear-shaped
bag, situated in the upper and left part of the abdomen.
It is somewhat flattened from before backward and so has
an anterior and posterior surface and an upper and lower
border. When moderately distended the thick end of the
pear or fundus bulges upward and to the left, while
the narrow end is constricted to form the pylorus, by
means of which the stomach communicates with the small
intestine. The cardiac orifice, where the oesophagus
enters, is placed about a third of the way along the upper
border from the left end of the fundus, and, between it and
the pylorus, the upper border is concave and is known as
the lesser curvature. From the cardiac to the pyloric
orifice, round the lower border, is the greater curvature.
The stomach has in front of it the liver (see fig. 1), the
diaphragm and the anterior abdominal wall, while behind it
are the pancreas, left kidney, left adrenal, spleen, colon and
mesocolon. These structures form what is known as the stomach
chamber. When the stomach is empty it contracts into a tubular
organ which is frequently sharply bent, and the transverse
colon ascends to occupy the vacant part of the stomach chamber.
The last inch of the stomach before reaching the pylorus is
From A. Birmingham; Cunningham's Text-Book of Anatomy.
FIG. 1.--The Abdominal Viscera in situ, as seen when the abdomen
is laid open and the great omentum removed (drawn to scale from a
photograph of a male body aged 56, hardened by formalin injections).
The ribs on the right side are indicated by Roman numerals;
it will be observed that the eighth costal cartilage
articulated with the sternum on both sides. The subcostal,
intertubercular, and right and left Poupart lines are drawn
in black, and the mesial plane is indicated by a dotted
line. The intercostal muscles and part of the diaphragm
have been removed, to show the liver and stomach extending up
beneath the ribs. The stomach is moderately distended, and
the intestines are particularly regular in their arrangement.
usually tubular and is known as the pyloric canal. Before
reaching this there is a bulging known as the pyloric vestibule
(see D. J. Cunningham, Tr. R. Soc. of Edinib. vol. xlv.
pt. 1, No. 2). The pylorus is an oval opening, averaging
half an inch in its long axis but capable of considerable
distension; it is formed by a special development of the
circular muscle layer of the stomach, and during life is
probably tightly closed. The mucous membrane of the stomach
is thrown into pleats or rugae when the organ is not fully
distended, while between these it has a mammillated appearance.
Superficial to the mucous coat is a sub-mucous, consisting
of loose connective tissue, while superficial to this are
three coats of unstriped muscle, the inner oblique, the middle
circular and the outer longitudinal. The peritoneal coat is
described in the article on the coelom and serous membranes.
The small intestine is a tube, from 22 to 25 ft. long,
beginning at the pylorus and ending at the ileo-caecal
valve; it is divided into duodenum, jejunum and ileum.
The duodenum is from 9 to 11 in. long and forms a horseshoe
or C-shaped curve, encircling the head of the pancreas. It
differs from the rest of the gut in being retroperitoneal.
Its first part is horizontal and lies behind the fundus of
the gall-bladder, passing backward and to the right from the
pylorus. The second part runs vertically downward in
front of the hilum of the right kidney, and into this part
the pancreatic and bile ducts open. The third part runs
horizontally to the left in front of the aorta and vena
cava, while the fourth part ascends to the left side of
the second lumbar vertebra, after which it bends sharply
downward and forward to form the duodeno-jejunal flexure.
The jejunum forms the upper two-fifths of the rest of
the small intestine; it, like the ileum, is thrown into
numerous convolutions and is attached by the mesentery to the
posterior abdominal wall. (See COELOM AND SEROUS MEMBRANES.)
The ileum is the remaining three-fifths of the small
intestine, though there is no absolute point at which the
one ends and the other begins. Speaking broadly, the jejunum
occupies the upper and left part of the abdomen below the
subcostal plane (see ANATOMY: Superficial and Artistic),
the ileum the lower and right part. About 3 ft. from its
termination a small pouch, known as Meckel's diverticulum,
is very occasionally found. At its termination the ileum
opens into the large intestine at the ileo-caecal valve.
The caecum is a blind sac occupying the right iliac fossa and
extending down some two or three inches below the ileo- caecal
junction. From its posterior and left surface the vermiform
appendix protrudes, and usually is directed upward and to the
left, though it not infrequently hangs down into the true
pelvis. This worm-like tube is blind at its end and is
usually 3 or 4 in. long, though it has been seen as long as 10.
in. Its internal opening into the caecum is about 1 in. below
that of the ileum. On transverse section it is seen to be
composed of (1) an external muscular coat, (2) a submucous
coat, (3) a mass of lymphoid tissue, which appears after
birth, and (4) mucous membrane. In many cases its lumen is
wholly or partly obliterated, though this is probably due to
disease (see R. Berry and L. Lack, Journ. Anat. & Phys.
vol. H. p. 247). Guarding the opening of the ileum into
the caecum is the ileo-caecal valve, which consists of two
cusps projecting into the caecum; of these the upper forms a
horizontal shelf, while the lower slopes up to it obliquely.
Complete absence of the valve has been noticed, and in one
such case the writer found that no abdominal inconvenience had
been recorded during life. The caecum is usually completely
covered by peritoneum, three special pouches of which are
often found in its neighbourhood; of these the ileo-colic is
just above the point of junction of the ileum and caecum, the
ileocaecal just below that point, while the retro-caecal is
behind the caecum. At birth the caecum is a cone, the apex
of which is the appendix; it is bent upon itself to form a
U, and sometimes this arrangement persists throughout life
(see C. Toldt, ``Die Formbildung d. menschl. Blinddarmes,''
Sitz. der Wiener Akad. Bd. ciii. Abteil. 3, p. 41).
The ascending colon runs up from the caecum at the level of the
ileo-caecal valve to the hepatic flexure beneath and behind the
right lobe of the liver; it is about 8 in. long and posteriorly
is in contact with the abdominal wall and right kidney. It is
covered by peritoneum except on its posterior surface (see fig. 1).
The transverse colon is variable in position, depending largely
on the distension of the stomach, but usually corresponding
to the subcostal plane (see ANATOMY: Superficial and
Artistic). On the left side of the abdomen it ascends to the
splenic flexure, which may make an impression on the spleen (see
DUCTLESS GLANDS), and is bound to the diaphragm opposite the
eleventh rib by a fold of peritoneum called the phrenico-colic
ligament. The peritoneal relations of this part are
discussed in the article on the coelom and serous membranes.
The descending colon passes down in front of the left kidney
and left side of the posterior abdominal wall to the crest
of the ilium; it is about 6 in. long and is usually empty and
contracted while the rest of the colon is distended with gas;
its peritoneal relations are the same as those of the ascending
colon, but it is more likely to be completely surrounded.
The iliac colon stretches from the crest of the ilium
to the inner border of the psoas muscle, lying in the left
iliac fossa, just above and parallel to Poupart's ligament.
Like the descending, it is usually uncovered by peritoneum
on its posterior surface. It is about 6 in. in length.
The pelvic colon lies in the true pelvis and forms a
loop, the two limbs of which are superior and inferior
while the convexity reaches across to the right side of the
pelvis. In the foetus this loop occupies the right
iliac fossa, but, as the caecum descends and enlarges
and the pelvis widens, it is usually driven out of this
region. The distal end of the loop turns sharply downward
to reach the third piece of the sacrum where it becomes the
rectum. To this pelvic colon Sir F. Treves (Anatomy of
the Intestinal Canal, London, 1885) has given the name
of the omega loop. Formerly the iliac and pelvic colons
were spoken of as the sigmoid flexure, but Treves and T.
Jonnesco (Le Colon pelvien pendant la vie intra-uterine,
Paris, 1892) have pointed out the inapplicability of the
term, and to the latter author the modern description is due.
The rectum, according to modern ideas, begins in front of
the third piece of the sacrum; formerly the last part of the
O (or omega) loop was described as its first part. It ends
in a dilatation or rectal ampulla, which is in contact with
the back of the prostate in the male and of the vagina in the
female and is in front of the tip of the coccyx. The rectum
is not straight, as its name would imply, but has a concavity
forward corresponding to that of the sacrum and coccyx.
When viewed from in front three bends are usually seen, the
upper and lower of which are sharply concave to the left,
the middle one to the right. At the end of the pelvic colon
the mesocolon ceases, and the rectum is then only covered
by peritoneum at its sides and in front; lower down the
lateral covering is gradually reflected off and then only
the front is covered. About the junction of the middle and
lower thirds of the tube the anterior peritoneal covering
is also reflected off on to the bladder or vagina, forming
the recto-vesical pouch in the male and the pouch of
Douglas in the female. This reflexion is usually about 3
in. above the anal aperture, but may be a good deal lower.
The anal canal is the termination of the alimentary tract,
and runs downward and backward from the lower surface of
the rectal ampulla between the levatores ani muscles. It
is about an inch long and its lateral walls are in contact,
so that in section it appears as an antero-posterior slit
(see J. Symington, Journ. Anat. and Phys. vol. 23, 1888).
Structure of the Intestine.--The intestine has four coats:
serous, muscular, submucous and mucous. The serous or
peritoneal coat has already been described wherever it is
present. The muscular coat consists of unstriped fibres
arranged in two layers, the outer longitudinal and the inner
circular (see fig. 2). In the large intestine the longitudinal
fibres, instead of being arranged evenly round the tube as
they are in the small, are gathered into three longitudinal
bands called taeniae (see fig. 1); by the contraction of
these the large intestine is thrown into a series of sacculi
or slight pouches. The taeniae in the caecum all lead to
the vermiform appendix, and form a useful guide to this
structure. In the rectum the three taeniae once more become
evenly arranged over the whole surface of the bowel, but
more thickly on the anterior and posterior parts. The
circular layer is always thicker than the longitudinal;
in the small intestine it decreases in thickness from the
duodenum to the ileum, but in the large it gradually increases
again, so that it is thickest in the duodenum and rectum.
The submucous coat is very strong and consists of
loose areolar tissue in which the vessels break up.
The mucous coat is thick and vascular (see fig. 2); it
consists of an epithelial layer most internally which
forms the intestinal glands (see EPITHELIAL, ENDOTHELIAL
AND GLANDULAR TISSUES.) External to this is the basement
membrane, outside which is a layer of retiform tissue, and
this is separated from the submucous coat by a very thin
layer of unstriped muscle called the muscularis mucosae. In
the duodenum and jejunum the mucous membrane is thrown into
a series of transverse pleats called valvulae conniventes
(see fig. 3); these begin about an inch from the pylorus and
gradually fade away as the ileum is reached. About 4 in.
from the pylorus the common bile and pancreatic ducts form a
papilla, above which one of the valvulae conniventes makes
a hood and below which a vertical fold, the frenulum, runs
downward. The surface of the mucous membrane of the whole
of the small intestine has a velvety appearance, due to
the presence of closely-set, minute, thread-like elevations
called vilii (see ffg. 2). Throughout the whole length of
the intestinal tract are minute masses of lymphoid tissue
called solitary glands (see fig. 2); these are especially
numerous in the Caecum and appendix, while in the ileum they
are collected into large oval patches, known as agminated
glands or Peyer's patches, the long axes of which,
from half an inch to 4 in. long, lie in the long axis of the
bowel. They are always found in that part of the intestine
which is furthest from the mesenteric attachment. In the
interior of the rectum three shelf-like folds, one above
the other, project into the cavity and correspond to the
lateral concavities or kinks of the tube. They are not
in the same line and the largest is usually on the right
side. They are known as the plicae recti or valves of
Houston. In the anal canal are four or five longitudinal
folds called the columns of Morgagni. (For further
details, see Quain's Anatomy, London, 1896; Gray's Anatomy,
London, 1905; Cunningham's Anatomy, Edinburgh, 1906.)
Embryology.--The greater part of the alimentary canal is
formed by the closing-in of the entoderm to make a longitudinal
tube, ventral and parallel to the notochord. This tube
is blind in front and behind (cephalad and caudad), but
the middle part of its ventral wall is for some distance
continuous with the wall of the yolk-sac, and this part of the
canal, which at first opens into the yolk-sac by a very wide
aperture, is called the mid gut. The part in front of it,
which lies dorsal to the heart, is the fore gut, while the
part behind the aperture of the yolk-sac is the hind gut.
The pharynx, oesophagus, stomach and part of the duodenum are
developed from the fore gut, a good deal of the colon and the
From A. Birmingham; Cunningham's Text-Book of Anatomy.
Fig. 3.--Valvulae Conniventes (natural size).
A, As seen in a bit of jejunum which
has been filled with alcohol and hardened.
B, A portion of fresh intestine spread out under water.
rectum from the hind gut, while the mid gut is responsible
for the rest. The cephalic part of the fore gut forms the
pharynx (q.v.), and about the fourth week the stomach
appears as a fusiform dilatation in the straight tube.
Between the two the oesophagus gradually forms as the embryo
elongates. The opening into the yolk-sac, which at first
is very wide, gradually narrows, as the ventral abdominal
walls close in, until in the adult the only indication of the
connexion between the gut and the yolk-sac is the very rare
presence (about 2%) of Meckel's diverticulum already referred
to. The stomach soon shows signs of the greater and lesser
curvatures, the latter being ventral, but maintains its straight
position. About the sixth week the caecum appears as a lateral
diverticulum, and, until the third month, is of uniform calibre;
after this period the terminal part ceases to grow at the
same rate as the proximal, and so the vermiform appendix is
formed. The mid gut forms a loop with its convexity toward
the diminishing vitelline duct, or remains of the yolk-sac,
and until the third month it protrudes into the umbilical
cord. The greater curvature of the stomach grows more
rapidly than the lesser, and the whole stomach turns over
and becomes bent at right angles, so that what was its left
surface becomes ventral. This turning over of the stomach
throws the succeeding part of the intestine into a duodenal
loop, which at first has a dorsal and ventral mesentery (see
COELOM AND SEROUS MEMBRANES.) The intestine now grows
very rapidly and is thrown into a series of coils; the caecum
ascends and passes to the right ventral to the duodenum, and
presses it against the dorsal wall of the abdomen; then it
descends toward its permanent position in the right iliac fossa.
From the ventral surface on the hinder (caudal) closed end
of the intestinal tube the allantois grows to form the
placenta and bladder (see URINARY SYSTEM, REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM
and PLACENTA), and this region is the cloaca into which
the alimentary, urinary and generative canals or ducts all
open, but later two lateral folds appear which, by their
union, divide the cloaca into a ventral and a dorsal part,
the former being genito-urinary and the latter alimentary or
intestinal. In this way the rectum or dorsal compartment
is shut off from the genito-urinary. Later an ectodermal
invagination at the hind end of the embryo develops and
forms the anal canal; this is the proctodaeum, and for
some time it is separated from the hind (caudal) end of the
rectal part of the mesodaeum (or part of the intestinal
canal formed from the mesoderm) by a membrane called the
anal membrane. This is eventually absorbed and the
digestive tract now communicates with the surface by the anus.
F. Wood Jones (British Medical Journal, 17th of December
1904) has given a somewhat different description of the
development of the cloaca and anus, which better explains the
various abnormalities met with in this region but requires
further confirmation before it is generally accepted. For the
development of the mouth, pharynx, lungs, liver and pancreas from
the primitive alimentary canal, the reader is referred to the
special articles on those structures. (For further details, see W.
His, Anatomie menschlicher Embryonen (Leipzig, 1880-1885); C.
S. Minot's Embryology (New York, 1897); and J. P. M`Murrich,
Development of the Human Body (London, 1906). (F. G. P.)
Comparative Anatomy.--The primitive condition of the vertebrate
alimentary canal may be described as a straight, simple
tube, consisting of an anterior portion, the stomodaeum,
formed by an ectodermal invagination, the mesenteron,
a long median portion lined by endoderm, and a short
posterior portion, the proctodaeum, formed by ectodermal
invagination. In the lower vertebrates the primitive tube
subserved also the purpose of respiration, and traces of the
double function remain in the adult structure of all vertebrates
(see MOUTH, PHARYNX.) In fish, the pharynx, or branchial
region, suddenly becomes narrower, posterior to the gill-slits,
to form the oesophagus; in higher animals the oesophagus,
in the adult, is separated from the primitive pharyngeal
region and lies dorsal to it. Probably, in the primitive
vertebrata, the entire alimentary canal was lined with ciliated
cells. Traces of this ciliation persist in many living
forms. In the Ammocoete, the larval form of Petromyzon
(see CYCLOSTOMATA), the whole canal is ciliated except the
pharynx and the rectum; in the Dipnoi the epithelium of the
stomach and the intestines is ciliated; in Selachii that
of the posterior part of the gullet, and the spiral valve, is
ciliated; extensive ciliation may occur in almost any region
of the gut of the lower teleos. tomes, but in the higher
forms (Teleostei) it is generally absent. In the latter,
however, and in higher groups of vertebrates, a peculiar
striated border on the columnar cells lining the intestinal
tract has been held to be a final trace of ancestral ciliation.
The alimentary canal may be conveniently described in three
divisions, the oesophagus or gullet, the passage by which
food reaches the stomach, the stomach, typically an expanded
region in which the food remains for a considerable time
and is mechanically pulped, mixed with mucus and certain
digestive juices (see NUTRITION) and partly macerated,
the intestinal tract or gut, extending from the distal end
of the stomach to the cloaca or anus, in which the food is
subjected to further digestive action, but which is above all
the region in which absorption of the products of digestion
takes place, the refuse material together with quantities of
waste matter entering the gut from the blood and liver being
gradually passed towards the anus for discharge from the body.
The oesophagus is essentially merely a passage, as straight
as may be, from the pharynx to the stomach, varying in
length with the length of the neck and thoracic regions in
different animals, and in calibre with the nature of the
food. It is almost invariably lined with a many-layered
epithelium, forming a tough coating, readily repaired and
not easily damaged by hard food masses. It is occasionally
separated from the stomach by a slight constriction which may
be capable of contraction so as to prevent regurgitation.
There are few exceptions to this structural and functional
simplicity. In fishes (see ICHTHYOLOGY, Anatomy) the
swim-bladder is developed as a dorsal outgrowth of the oesophagus
and may remain in open connexion with it. In certain Teleosteis
(e.g. Liitodeira) it is longer than the length it has to
traverse and is thrown into convolutions. In many other
fish, particularly Selachiis, a set of processes of the
lining wall project into the cavity near the stomach and have
been supposed to aid in preventing food particles, or living
creatures swallowed without injury, escaping backwards into the
mouth. In some egg-eating snakes the sharp tips of the
ventral spines (hypapophyses) of the posterior cervical
vertebrae penetrate the wall of the oesophagus and are used
for breaking the shells of the eggs taken as food. In some
aquatic Chelonians, the food of which consists chiefly of
seaweeds, the lining membrane is produced into pointed processes
backwardly directed. In birds this region frequently presents
peculiarities. In Opisthocomus it forms an enormously
wide double loop, hanging down over the breast-bone, which
is peculiarly flattened and devoid of a keel in the anterior
portion. In many birds part of the oesophagus may be
temporarily dilated, forming a ``crop,'' as for instance in
birds of prey and humming birds. In the flamingo, many ducks,
storks, and the cormorant the crop is a permanent although
not a highly specialized enlargement. Finally, in the vast
majority of seed- eating birds, in gallinaceous birds, pigeons,
sandgrouse, parrots and many Passeres, particularly the
finches, the crop is a permanent globular dilatation, in which
the food is retained for a considerable time, mixed with a
slight mucous secretion, and softened and partly macerated by
the heat of the body. Many birds feed their young from the
soft contents of the crop, and in pigeons, at the breeding
season, the cells lining the crop proliferate rapidly and
are discharged as a soft cheesy mass into the cavity, forming
the substance known as pigeon's milk. Amongst Mammalia, in
Rodentia, Carnivora, elephants and ruminants, the wall of
the oesophagus contains a layer of voluntary muscle, by the
contraction of which these animals induce anti- peristaltic
movements and can so regurgitate food into the mouth.
Stomach.--Where the oesophagus passes into the stomach, the
lining wall of the alimentary tract changes from a many-layered
epithelium to a mucous epithelium, consisting of a single layer
of endodermal cells, frequently thrown into pits or projecting
as processes; from being chiefly protective, it has become
secretory and absorbing, and maintains this character to the
distal extremity where it passes into the epiblast of the
proctodaeum. In most cases the course of the alimentary
canal from the distal end of the oesophagus to the cloaca or
anus is longer than the corresponding region of the body, and
the canal is therefore thrown into folds. The fundamental
form of the stomach is a sac-like enlargement of the canal,
the proximal portion of which is continuous with the line
of the oesophagus, but the distal portion of which is bent
in the proximal portion, the whole forming an enlarged bent
tube. At the distal end of the tube the intestinal tract
proper begins, and the two regions are separated by a muscular
constriction. In fishes the stomach is generally in one of two
forms; it may be a simple bent tube, the proximal limb of which
is almost invariably much wider than the distal, anteriorly
directed limb; or the oesophagus may pass directly into an
expanded, globular or elongated sac, from the anterior lateral
wall of which, not far from the oesophageal opening, the duodenum
arises. In Batrachia and Reptilia the stomach is in most
cases a simple sac, marked off from the oesophagus only by
increased calibre. In the Crocodilia, however, the anterior
portion of the stomach is much enlarged and very highly
muscular, the muscles radiating from a central tendinous
area on each of the flattened sides. The cavity is lined by
a hardened secretion and contains a quantity of pebbles and
gravel which are used in the mechanical trituration of the
food, so that the resemblance to the gizzard of birds is well
marked. This muscular chamber leads by a small aperture into
a distal, smaller and more glandular chamber. In birds the
stomach exhibits two regions, an anterior glandular region, the
proventriculus, the walls of which are relatively soft and
contain enlarged digestive glands aggregated in patches (e.g.
some Steganopodes), in rows (e.g. most birds of prey) or
in a more or less regular band. The distal region is larger
and is lined in most cases by a more or less permanent lining
which is thick and tough in birds with a muscular gizzard,
very slight in the others. In many birds, specially those
feeding on fish, the two regions of the stomach are of equal
width, and are indistinguishable until, on opening the cavity,
the difference in the character of the lining membrane becomes
visible. In other birds the proventriculus is separated
by a well marked constriction from the posterior and larger
region. In graminiferous forms the latter becomes a
thick-walled muscular gizzard, the muscles radiating from
tendinous areas and the cavity containing pebbles or gravel.
In mammals, the primitive form of the stomach consists of a
more or less globular or elongated expansion of the oesophageal
region, forming the cardiac portion, and a forwardly curved,
narrower pyloric portion, from which the duodenum arises.
The whole wall is muscular, and the lining membrane is richly
glandular. In the Insectivora, Carnivora, Perissodactyla, and
in most Edentata, Chiroptera, Rodentia and Primates, this
primitive disposition is retained, the difference consisting
chiefly in the degrees of elongation of the stomach and the
sharpness of the distal curvature. In other cases the cardiac
portion may be prolonged into a caecal sac, a condition most
highly differentiated in the blood-sucking bat, Desmodeus,
where it is longer than the entire length of the body. There
are two cardiac extensions in the hippopotamus and in the
peccary. In many other mammals one, two or three protrusions
of the cardiac region occur, whilst in the manatee and in
some rodents the cardiac region is constricted off from the
pyloric portion. In the Artiodactyla the stomach is always
complex, the complexity reaching a maximum in ruminating
forms. In the Suidae a cardiac diverticulum is partly
constricted from the general cavity, forming an incipient
condition of the rumen of true ruminants; the general cavity
of the stomach shows an approach to the ruminant condition
by the different characters of the lining wall in different
areas. In the chevrotains, which in many other respects show
conditions intermediate between nonruminant artiodactyles
and true ruminants, the oesophagus opens into a wide cardiac
portion, incompletely divided into four chambers. Three of
these, towards the cardiac extremity, are lined with villi
and correspond to the rumen or paunch; the fourth, which
lies between the opening of the oesophagus and the pyloric
portion of the stomach, is the ruminant reticulum and its
wall is lined with very shallow ``cells.'' A groove runs
along its dorsal wall from the oesophageal aperture to a
very small cavity lined with low, longitudinally disposed
folds, and forming a narrow passage between the cardiac and
pyloric divisions; this is an early stage in the development
of the omasum, psalterium or manyplies of the ruminant
stomach. The fourth or true pyloric chamber is an elongated
sac with smooth glandular walls and is the abomasum, or rennet
sack. In the camel the rumen forms an enormous globular
paunch with villous walls and internally showing a trace of
division into two regions. It is well marked off from the
reticulum, the ``cells'' of which are extremely deep, forming
the well-known water-chambers. The psalterium is sharply
constricted off from the reticulum and is an elongated chamber
showing little trace of the longitudinal ridges characteristic
of this region; it opens directly into the relatively small
abomasum. In the true ruminants, the rumen forms a capacious,
villous reservoir, nearly always partly sacculated, into which
the food is passed rapidly as the animal grazes. The food
is subjected to a rotary movement in the paunch, and is thus
repeatedly subjected to moistening with the fluids secreted
by the reticulum, as it is passed over the aperture of that
cavity, and is formed into a rounded bolus. Most ruminants
swallow masses of hairs, and these, by the rotary action of the
paunch, are aggregated into peculiar dense, rounded balls which
are occasionally discharged from the mouth and are known as
``hair-balls'' or ``bezoars.'' The food bolus, when the animal
is lying down after grazing, is passed into the oesophagus
and reaches the mouth by antiperistaltic contractions of the
oesophagus. After prolonged mastication and mixing with
saliva, it is again swallowed, but is now passed into the
psalterium, which, in true ruminants, is a small chamber with
conspicuous longitudinal folds. Finally it reaches the large
abomasum where the last stages of gastric digestion occur.
In the Cetacea the stomach is different from that found in
any other group of mammals. The oesophagus opens directly
into a very large cardiac sac the distal extremity of which
forms a long caecal pouch. At nearly the first third of
its length this communicates by a narrow aperture into the
elongated, relatively narrow pyloric portion. The latter
is convoluted and constricted into a series of chambers that
differ in different groups of Cetacea. In the Sirenia
the stomach is divided by a constriction into a cardiac and
a pyloric portion, and the latter has a pair of caeca. In
most of the Marsupialia the stomach is relatively simple,
forming a globular sac with the oesophageal and pyloric
apertures closely approximated; in the kangaroos, on the
other hand, the stomach is divided into a relatively small,
caecal cardiac portion and an enormously long sacculated
and convoluted pyloric region, the general arrangement of
which closely recalls the large caecum of many mammals.
Intestinal Tract.--It is not yet possible to discuss the
general morphology of this region in vertebrates as a group,
as, whilst the modifications displayed in birds and mammals
have been compared and studied in detail, those in the
lower groups have not yet been systematically co-ordinated.
Fishes.--In the Cyclostomata, Holocephali and a few
Teleostei the course of the gut is practically straight from
the pyloric end of the stomach to the exterior, and there is
no marked differentiation into regions. In the Dipnoi, a
contracted sigmoid curve between the stomach and the dilated
intestine is a simple beginning of the complexity found in other
groups. In very many of the more specialized teleosteans, the
gut is much convoluted, exhibiting a series of watchspring-like
coils. In a number of different groups, increased surface for
absorption is given, not by increase in length of the whole gut,
but by the development of an internal fold known as the spiral
valve. This was probably originally a longitudinal fold
similar to the typhlosole of chaetopods. It forms a simple
fold in the larval Ammocoete, and in its anterior region
remains straight in some adult fish, e.g. Polypterus, but
in the majority of cases it forms a complex spiral, wound
round the inner wall of the expanded large intestine, the
internal edge of the fold sometimes meeting to form a central
column. It occurs in Cyclostomata, Selachii, Holocephali,
Chondrostei, Crossopterygii, Amiidae, Lepidosteidae and
Dipnoi. A set of organs peculiar to fish and known as the
pyloric caeca are absent in Cyclostomata and Dipnoi,
in most Selachii and in Amia, but present, in numbers
ranging from one to nearly two hundred, in the vast majority of
fish. These are outgrowths of the intestinal tract near
the pyloric extremity of the stomach, and their function is
partly glandular, partly absorbing. In a few Teleostei
there is a single caecal diverticulum at the beginning of
the ``rectum,'' and in the same region a solid rectal gland
occurs in most elasmobranchs, whilst, again, in the Dipnoi
a similar structure opens into the cloaca. These caeca have
been compared with the colic caeca of higher vertebrates,
but there is yet no exact evidence for the homology.
In the Batrachia the course of the intestinal tract is
nearly straight from the pyloric end of the stomach to the
cloaca, in the case of the perennibranchiates there being no
more than a few simple loops between the expanded ``rectum''
and the straight portion that leaves the stomach. In the
Caducibranchiata the anterior end of the enlarged rectum
lies very close to the distal extremity of the stomach, and
the gut, between these two regions, is greatly lengthened,
forming a loop with many minor loops borne at the periphery
of an expanse of mesentery, recalling the Meckelian tract of
birds and mammals. In the tadpole this region is spirally
coiled and is still longer relatively to the length of the
whole tract. In Hyla and Pipa there is a small caecum
comparable with the colic caecum of birds and mammals.
In Reptilia the configuration of the intestinal tract does
not differ much from that in Batrachia, the length and
complexity of the minor coils apparently varying with the general
configuration of the body, that is to say, in reptiles with a
long, narrow, and snake-like body the minor loops of the gut
are relatively short and unimportant, whilst in those with
a more spacious cavity, such as chelonians, many lizards and
crocodiles, the gut may be relatively long and disposed in many
minor coils. There is comparatively little differentiation
between the mid-gut and the gut in cases where the whole
gut is long; in the others the hind-gut is generally marked
by an increase of calibre. A short caecal diverticulum,
comparable with the colic caecum of birds and mammals, is
present in many snakes and lizards and in some chelonians.
In fishes, batrachians and reptiles the intestinal tract
is swung from the dorsal wall of the abdominal cavity by a
mesentery which is incomplete on account of secondary absorption
in places, and which grows out with the minor loops of the
gut. There are also traces, more abundant in the lower
forms, of the still more primitive ventral mesentery.
Intestinal Tract in Birds and Mammals.--There is no doubt but
that the similarity of the modes of disposition of the alimentary
tract in birds and mammals points to the probability of the
chief morphological features of this region in these animals
having been laid down in some common ancestor, although we
FIG. 4.--Intestinal Tract of Chauna chavaria.
c.c. Colic caeca. p.v. Cut root of portal vein.
d. Duodenum. r.v. Rectal vein.
g. Glandular patch. s. Proventriculus.
l.l. Meckel's tract. y. Meckel's diverticulum, or
l.i. Hind-gut. Yolk-sac vestige.
have not yet sufficient exact knowledge of the gut in Pisces,
Batrachia and Reptilia to find amongst these with any
certainty the most probable survival from the ancestral
condition. The primitive gut must be supposed to have run
backwards from the stomach to the cloaca suspended from the
dorsal wall of the body-cavity by a dorsal mesentery. This
tract, in the course of phylogeny of the common ancestors
of birds and mammals, became longer than the straight length
between its extreme points and, consequendy, was thrown into
a series of folds. The mesentery grew out with these folds,
but the presence of adjacent organs, the disturbance due to
the outgrowth of the liver, and the secondary relations brought
about between different portions of the gut, as the out-growing
loops invaded each other's localities, disturbed the primitive
simplicity. Three definite regions of outgrowth, however,
became conspicuous and are to be recognized in the actual
disposition of the gut in existing birds and mammals. The
first of these is the duodenum. In the vast majority of
birds, and in some of the simpler mammals, the portion of
the gut immediately distal of the stomach grows out into a
long and narrow loop (fig. 4, d), the proximal and distal
ends of which are close together, whilst the loop itself may
remain long and narrow, or may develop minor loops on its
course. In mammals generally, however, the duodenum is complex
and is not so sharply marked off from the distal portion
of the gut as in birds. The second portion is Meckel's
tract. It consists of the part generally known as the small
intestines, the jejunum and ileum of human anatomy, and
Fig. 5,--Intestinal Tract of Canis vulpes. S, cut
end of duodenum; C, caecum; R, cut end of rectum.
stretches from the distal end of the duodenum to the caecum or
caeca. It is the chief absorbing portion of the gut, and in nearly
all birds and mammals is the longest portion. It represents,
however, only a very small part of the primitive straight
gut, corresponding to not more than two or three somites of the
embryo. This narrow portion grows out to form the greater part
of what is called the pendent loop in mammalian embryology.
Its anterior or proximal end lies close to the approximated
Fig. 6.--Intestinal Tract of Macropus bennetti. S,
cut end of duodenum; R, cut end of rectum; C, caecum;
C2, accessory caecum; C.L, colic loop of hind-gut.
proximal and distal ends of the duodenal loop, whilst its
distal end passes into the hind-gut at the colic caecum or
caeca. In the embryos of all birds and mammals, the median
point of Meckel's tract, the part of the loop which has
grown out farthest from the dorsal edge of the mesentery, is
marked by the diverticulum caecum vitelli, the primitive
connexion of the cavity of the gut with the narrowing stalk
of the yolk-sac (fig. 4, y.) Naturally, in birds where the
yolk-sac is of great functional importance this diverticulum
is large, and in a majority of the families of birds persists
throughout life, forming a convenient point of orientation. In
mammals, no doubt in association with the functional reduction
of the yolk-sac, this diverticulum, which is known as Meckel's
diverticulum, has less importance, and whilst it has been
observed in a small percentage of adult human subjects has not
been recognized in the adult condition of any lower Mammalia.
In birds, Meckel's tract falls into minor folds or loops,
the disposition of which forms a series of patterns
remarkably different in appearance and characteristic of
different groups. In fig. 4 an extremely primitive type is
represented. In mammals Meckel's tract remains much more
uniform; it may be short, or increase enormously in length,
but in either case it falls into a fairly symmetrical shape,
suspended at the circumference of a nearly circular expanse
of mesentery. Where it is short it is thrown into very
simple minor loops (figs. 5, 6 and 7); where it is long,
these minor loops form a convoluted mass (figs. 8 abd 9).
FIG. 7.--Intestinal Tract of Tapir. S, cut end of
duodenum; R, cut end of rectum; C, caecum; CL, colon.
The third portion of the gut should be termed the hind-gut and
lies between the caecum or caeca and the anus, corresponding to
the large intestines, colon and rectum of human anatomy. It is
formed from a much larger portion of the primitive straight gut
than the duodenum and Meckel's tract together, and its proximal
portion, in consequence, lies very close to the origin of the
duodenum. In the vast majority of birds, the hind-gut in the
adult is relatively extremely short, often being only from
Fig. 8.--Intestinal Tract of Giraffe. S, cut end of duodenum;
R, cut end of rectum; C, caecum; P.C.L, post-caecal
loop; S.P, spiral loop; SF, third loop of hind-gut.
one-eighth to one-thirtieth of the whole length of the
gut. A certain number of primitive birds, however, have
retained a relatively long condition of the hind-gut (fig.
4), the greatest relative length occurring in struthious
birds, and particularly in the ostrich, where the hind-gut
exceeds in length the duodenum and Meckel's tract together.
Mammals may be contrasted with birds as a group in which
the hind-gut is always relatively long, sometimes extremely
long, and in which, moreover, there is a strong tendency to
differentiation of the hind-gut into regions the characters
of which are of systematic importance. The first region is
the colon, which forms a very simple expansion in mammals
such as Carnivora (fig. 5), where the whole hind-gut is
relatively short, or a series of simple loops in mammals
in which the whole gut has a primitive disposition (e.g.
Marsupialia, fig. 6). In the odd-toed Ungulata, the colon
(fig. 7) forms an enormously long loop, the two limbs of which
are closely approximated and the calibre of which is very
large. In Ruminantia (fig. 8) the colon is still more
highly differentiated, displaying first a simple wide loop,
then a complicated watchspring-like coil, and finally a very
long, irregular portion. In the higher Primates (fig. 9)
it forms one enormous very wide loop, corresponding to the
ascending, transverse and descending colons of human anatomy,
and a shorter distal loop, the omega loop of human anatomy.
Other striking patterns are displayed in other mammalian groups.
The second region of the hind-gut is usually known as the rectum.
and although it is sometimes lengthened it is typically little longer
than the portion of the primitive straight gut that it represents.
FIG. 9.--Intestinal Tract of Gorilla. S, cut end of
duodenum; R, cut end of rectum; C, vermiform appendix of
caecum; X, X2, X3, cut ends of factors of the portal vein.
Adaptations of the Intestinal Tract to Function.--The chief
business of the gut is to provide a vascular surface to which
the prepared food is applied so that the nutritive material
may be absorbed into the system. Overlying and sometimes
obscuring the morphological patterns of the gut, are many
modifications correlated with the nature of the food and
producing homoplastic resemblances independent of genetic
affinity. Thus in birds and mammals alike there is a direct
association of herbivorous habit with great relative length of
gut. The explanation of this, no doubt, is simply that
the vegetable matter which such creatures devour is in a
form which requires not only prolonged digestive action,
but, from the intimate admixture of indigestible material,
a very large absorbing surface. In piscivorous birds and
mammals, the gut is very long, with a thick wall and a
relatively small calibre, whilst there is a general tendency
for the regions of the gut to be slightly or not at all
defined. Fish, as it is eaten by wild animals, contains a
large bulk of indigestible matter, and so requires an extended
absorbing surface; the thick wall and relatively small
calibre are protections against wounding by fish bones. In
frugivorous birds the gut is strikingly short, wide and simple,
whilst a similar change has not taken place in frugivorous
mammals. Carnivorous birds and mammals have a relatively short
gut. In birds, generally, the relation of the length and
calibre of the gut to the size of the whole creature is
striking. If two birds of similar habit and of the same
group be compared, it will be found that the gut of the larger
bird is relatively longer rather than relatively wider.
The same general rule applies to Meckel's tract in mammals,
whereas in the case of the hind-gut increase of capacity is
given by increase of calibre rather than by increased length.
The Colic Caeca.--These organs lie at the junction of
the hind-gut with Meckel's tract and are homologous in
birds and mammals although it happens that their apparent
position differs in the majority of cases in the two
groups. In most birds, the hind-gut is relatively very
short, and the caecal position, accordingly, is at a very
short distance from the posterior end of the body. whereas
in most mammals the hind-gut is very long and the position of
the caecum or caeca is relatively very much farther from the
anus. Next, in most birds, the caeca when present are
paired, whereas in most mammals there is only a single
caecum. On the other hand, in certain birds (herons) as a
normal occurrence, and in many birds as an individual variation,
only a single caecum occurs. In some mammals, e.g. many
armadillos, in Hyrax and the manatee, the caeca are normally
paired; in many other (e.g. some rodents and marsupials)
in addition to the normal caecum there is a reduced second
caecum, whilst in quite a number of forms the relation of
the caecum, ileum and colon at their junction is readily
intelligible on the assumption that the caeca were originally
paired. The origin and many of the peculiarities of the
ileo-caecal valve find their best explanation on this hypothesis.
The caeca are hollow outgrowths of the wall of the gut, the
blind ends being directed forwards. The caecal wall is in
most cases highly glandular and contains masses of lymphoid
tissue. In birds and in mammals this tissue may be so
greatly increased as to transform the caecum into a solid
or nearly solid sac, the calibre of which is for the most
part smaller than that of the unmodified caecum. In some
birds, the whole area of the caecum may be modified in
this way; in mammals, it is generally the terminal portion,
which then becomes the vermiform appendix, familiar in
the anthropoid apes, in man and in some rodents. It is
difficult to see in this modification merely a degeneration;
not improbably it is the formation of a new glandular organ.
The caeca exhibit almost every gradation of development,
from relatively enormous size to complete absence, and there
is no definite, invariable connexion between the nature of
the food and the degree of their development. In the case
of birds, it may be said that on the whole the caeca are
generally large in herbivorous forms and generally small in
insectivorous, frugivorous, carnivorous and piscivorous
forms, but there are many exceptions. Thus, owls and falcons
have a diet that is closely similar, and yet owls have a
pair of very long caeca, whilst in the Falconidae these
organs are much reduced and apparently functionless. The
insectivorous and omnivorous rollers, motmots and bee-eaters
have a pair of large caeca, whilst in passerine birds of
similar habit the caeca are vestigial glandular nipples. It
is impossible to doubt that family history dominates in this
matter. Certain families tend to retain the caeca, others
to lose them, and direct adaptation to diet appears only to
accelerate or retard these inherited tendencies. So also
in mammals, no more than a general relation between diet
and caecal development can be shown to exist, although the
large size of the single caecum of mammals is more closely
associated with a herbivorous as opposed to a carnivorous,
frugivorous, piscivorous or omnivorous diet than is the case in
birds. There is no relationship between diet and the complete
or partial presence of both members of the primi-pair of caeca in
mammals, the occurrence of the pair being rather an ``accident''
of inheritance than in any direct relation to function.
LITERATURE.--T. W. Bridge, in The Cambridge Natural History
(vol. vii).; D. S. Jordan, A Guide to the Study of Fishes; R.
Owen, Anatomy of Vertebrates; M. Weber, Die Saugethiere;
W. H. Flower, The Organs of Digestien in Mammalia; R.
Wiedersheim, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie der
Wirbelthiere; A. Oppel, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden
mikroskopischen Anatomie der Wirbelthiere; Chalmers Mitchell,
``The Intestinal Tract of Birds,'' Transactions of the
Linn. Soc. of London (vol. viii., 1901); and ``On the
Intestinal Tract of Mammals,'' Transactions of the Zool.
Soc. of London (vol. xvii., 1905). (In the two latter
memoirs a fuller list of literature is given.) (P. C. M.)
ALIMONY (from Lat. afere, to nourish), in law the
allowance for maintenance to which a wife is entitled out of
her husband's estate for her support on a decree for judicial
separation or for the dissolution of the marriage. Though,
as a rule, payable to a wife, it may, if the circumstances
of the case warrant it, be payable by the wife to the
husband. Alimony is of two kinds, (a) temporary (pendente
lite), and (b) permanent. Temporary alimony, or alimony
pending suit, is the provision made by the husband for the
wife in causes between them to enable her to live during the
progress of the suit, and is allowed whether the suit is by
or against the husband and whatever the nature of the suit may
be. The usual English practice is to allot as temporary
alimony about one-fifth of the husband's net income; where
it appears that the husband has no means or is in insolvent
circumstances, the court will refuse to allot temporary
alimony. So where the wife is supporting herself by her own
earnings, this fact will be taken into consideration. And
where the wife and husband have lived apart for many years
before the institution of the suit, and she has supported
herself during the separation, no alimony will be allotted. Nor
will the wife be entitled to alimony where she has sufficient
means of support independent of her husband. Permanent
alimony is that which is allotted to the wife after final
decree. By the Matrimonial Causes Act 1907, the court may,
if it think fit, on any decree for dissolution or nullity of
marriage, order that the husband shall, to the satisfaction
of the court, secure to the wife such a gross sum of money or
such annual sum of money for any term not exceeding her life,
as having regard to her fortune (if any), to the ability of
her husband, and to the conduct of the parties, it may deem
reasonable. The court may suspend the pronouncing of its
decree until a proper deed or instrument has been executed by
all necessary parties. The court may also make an order on the
husband for payment to the wife during their joint lives of a
reasonable monthly or weekly sum for her maintenance; the court
may also at any time discharge, modify, suspend or increase
the order according to the altered means of the husband; the
court has also power to make provision for children. Alimony
is paid direct to the wife or to a trustee or trustees on her
behalf, but the court may impose any restrictions which seem
expedient. We may also describe as a kind of alimony the
allowance of a reasonable weekly sum not exceeding L. 2 which
in England, under the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women)
Act 1895, may be given to a married woman on applying to
a court of summary jurisdiction if she has been forced by
cruelty to leave her husband or has been deserted by him.
United States.--Alimony is granted by the courts of the
several states on much the same principle as in England, though
in many states the courts of equity as such may grant alimony
without divorce or separation proceedings independently of
any statute, on the ground that it is just that the husband
should support his wife when she lives apart from him for his
fault, and since the courts of common law provide no remedy
the courts of equity will. This is so in Alabama (Brady v.
Brady, 1905, 39 So. Rep. 237), Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa,
California, Ohio, Virginia, South Dakota and the District of
Columbia. In other states alimony without such proceedings
is allowed by statute, and such alimony is now very general
throughout the United States. The usual grounds for the
allowance of it are desertion and such conduct as would amount
to legal cruelty. After divorce a vinculo, alimony or
separate maintenance is sometimes granted on good reason.
The marriage must be proven as a fact, but a ``common law''
marriage, i.e. one established by cohabitation and repute, is
sufficient. In several states alimony or maintenance is by
statute allowed to the husband in certain cases out of the wife's
property. This is so in Massachusetts, Virginia, Rhode Island and
Iowa. In Oregon he is entitled to one-third of his wife's
real estate in addition to maintenance on divorce for her
fault. The amount of alimony depends upon the circumstances of
each case as in England. Permanent alimony is generally more
than when pendenite lite, and usually one-third the husband's
income. It may generally be changed from time to time as the
circumstances of the parties change. Judgment for alimony is
considered a judgment in personam and not in rem, and can
only be enforced outside the state where rendered in case the
husband has been personally served with process within that
state. The remarriage of the man is not sufficient ground for
reducing the alimony (Smith v. Smith, 1905, 102 N.W. Rep.
631), but on remarriage of a woman to one able to support
her, her former husband being in poor circumstances, it will
be reduced (Kiralfy v. Kiralfy, 1901, 36 Wisc. N.S. 407).
ALIN, OSCAR JOSEF (1846--1900), Swedish historian and
politician, was born at Falun on the 22nd of December 1846.
In 1872 he became docent, and in 1882 professor of political
economy at Upsala, of which university he was afterwards
rector. In September 1888 he was elected a member of the
first chamber of the Riksdag, where he attached himself to
the conservative protectionist party, over which, from the
first, he exercised great authority. But it is as a historian
that Alin is most remarkable. Among his numerous works
the following are especially worthy of note: Bidrag till
svenska radets historia under. medeltiden (Upsala, 1872);
Sveriges Historia, 1511-1611 (Stockholm, 1878); Bidrag
till svenska statsrickets historia (Stockholm, 1884-1887);
Den svensk-norsk Unionen (Stockholm, 1889-1891), the best
book on the Norwego-Swedish Union question from the Swedish
point of view; Fjerde Artiklen af Fredstraktaten i Kiel
(Stockholm, 1899); Carl Johan och Sveriges yttre politik,
1810-1815 (Stockholm, 1899); Carl XIV. och Rikets Stander,
1840-1841 (Stockholm, 1893). He also edited Sveniska
Riksdagsakter, 1521-1554 (Stockholm, 1887), in conjunction
with E. Hildebrand, and Sveriges Grundlagar (Stockholm,
1892). He died at Upsala on the 31st of December 1900.
Obituary notice in Sv. Hist. Tidssk. (1901). (R. N. B.)
ALIPUR, a suburb of Calcutta, containing Belvedere
House, the official residence of the lieutenant-governor of
Bengal, and a number of handsome mansions. It lies within
the limits of the south suburban municipality, and is a
cantonment of native troops. On the Calcutta maidan,
opposite Alipur Bridge, stood two trees under which
duels were fought. It was here that the meeting in 1780
between Warren Hastings and Sir Philip Francis took place.
ALIQUOT (a Lat. word meaning ``some,'' ``so many''),
a term generally occurring in the phrase ``aliquot
part,'' and meaning that one quantity is exactly
divisible into another; thus 3 is an aliquot part of 6.
ALIRAJPUR, a native state of India, under the Bhopawar agency
in Central India. It lies in Malwa, near the frontier of
Bombay. It has an area of 836 sq. m.; and a population (1901) of
50,185. The country is hilly, and many of the inhabitants are
aboriginal Bhils. It has from time to time been under British
administration. The chief, whose title is Rana, is a Rahtor
Rajput. He has an estimated revenue of L. 8700, and pays
a tribute of L. 700. The Victoria bridge at Alirajpur
was built to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of 1897.
ALISMACEAE (from the Gr. alisma, a water-plant mentioned by
Dioscorides), in botany, a natural order of monocotyledons belonging
to the series Helobieae, and represented in Britain by the water
plantain, Alisma Plantago, the arrow-head, Sagittaria,
the star-fruit, Damasonium, and flowering rush, Butomus
(from the Gr. bous, ox, temnein, to cut, in allusion to
leaves cutting the tongues of oxen feeding on them). They are
marsh- or water-plants with generally a stout stem (rhizome)
creeping in the mud, radical leaves and a large, much branched
inflorescence. The leaves show a great variety in shape, often
FIG. 1.--Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus.) 1, Flower in
vertical section; 2, horizontal plan of arrangement of flower.
the same plant, according to their position in, on or above the
water. The submerged leaves are long and grass- like, the
floating leaves oblong or rounded, while the aerial leaves
are borne on long, thin stalks above the water, and are often
heart- or arrow-shaped at the base. The flower-bearing stem
is tall; the flowers are borne in whorls on the axis as in
arrow-head, on whorled branchlets as in water plantain or in
an umbel as in Butomus (fig. 1). The flowers are regular
and rather showy, generally with three greenish sepals,
followed in regular succession by three white or purplish
petals, six to indefinite stamens and six to indefinite free
carpels. The floral arrangement thus recalls that of a
buttercup, a resemblance which extends to the fruit, which is
a head of achenes or follicles. The flowers contain honey,
and attract flies, short-lipped bees or other small insects
by the agency of which pollination is effected. The fruit
of Butomus is of interest in having the seeds borne over
the inner face of the wall of the leathery pod (follicle).
Damasonium derives its popular name, star-fruit, from the
fruits spreading when ripe in the form of a star. It is a western
FIG. 2.--Water Plantain (Alisma Plantago.) Plant
about 3 ft. high. 1, Flower; 2, same in vertical
section; 3, horizontal plan of flower; 4, mature fruit.
Mediterranean plant which spreads to the south of England,
where it is sometimes found in gravelly ditches and pools.
The order contains about fifty species in fourteen genera, and
is widely distributed in temperate and warm zones. Alisma
Plantago (fig. 2), a common plant in Britain (except in the
north) in ditches and edges of streams, is widely distributed
in the north temperate zone, and is found in the Himalayas,
on the mountains of tropical Africa and in Australia.
ALISON, ARCHIBALD (1757-1839), Scottish author, son of
Patrick Alison, provost of Edinburgh, was born on the 13th of
November 1757 at Edinburgh. After studying at the university
of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, he took orders in
the Church of England, and was appointed in 1778 to the curacy
of Brancepeth, near Durham. In 1784 he married Dorothea,
youngest daughter of Professor Gregory of Edinburgh. The next
twenty years of his life were spent in Shropshire, where he
held in succession the livings of High Ercall, Roddington and
Kenley. In 1800 he removed to Edinburgh, having been appointed
senior incumbent of St Paul's Chapel in the Cowgate. For
thirty-four years he filled this position with much ability,
his preaching attracting so many hearers that a new and
larger church was built for him. His last years were spent at
Colinton, near Edinburgh, where he died on the 17th of May
1839. Alison published, besides a Life of Lord Woodhouselee,
a volume of sermons, which passed through several editions,
and a work entitled Essays on the Nature and Principles of
Taste (1790), based on the principle of association (see under
AESTHETICS, p. 288). His elder son, Dr Wilham Pulteney Alison
(1790-1859), was a distinguished Edinburgh medical professor.
SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. (1792-1867), the historian,
was the younger son, and was born at Kenley, Shropshire, on
the 29th of December 1792. He studied at the university of
Edinburgh, distinguishing himself especially in Greek and
mathematics. In 1814 he passed at the Scottish bar, but he
did not at once practise. The close of the war had opened
up the continent, and Alison set out in the autumn of 1814
for a lengthened tour in France. It was during this period
that the idea of writing his history first occurred to him.
A more immediate result of the tour was his first literary
work of any importance, Travels in France during the Years
1814-1815, written in collaboration with his brother and A. F.
Tytler, which appeared in the latter year. On his return to
Edinburgh he practised at the bar for some years with very fair
success. In 1822 he became one of the four advocates-depute
for Scotland. As a result of the experience gained in this
office, which he held until 1830, he wrote his Principles of
the Criminal Law of Scotland (1832) and Practice of the
Criminal Law of Scotland (1833), which in 1834 led to his
appointment by Sir Robert Peel to the office of sheriff of
Lanarkshire, which ranks next to a judgeship in the supreme
court. The office, though by no means a sinecure, gave him
time not only to make frequent contributions to periodical
literature, but also to write the long-projected History
of Europe, for which he had been collecting materials for
more than fifteen years. The history of the period from the
beginning of the French Revolution till the restoration of
the Bourbons in 1815 was completed in ten volumes in 1842,
and met with a success almost unexampled in works of its
class. Within a few years it ran through ten editions, and
was translated into many of the languages of Europe, as well
as into Arabic and Hindustani. At the time of the author's
death it was stated that 108,000 volumes of the library
edition and 439,000 volumes of the popular edition had been
sold. A popularity so widespread must have had some basis of
merit, and the good qualities of Alison's work lie upon the
surface. It brought together, though not always in a
well-arranged form, an immense amount of information that
had before been practically inaccessible to the general
public. It at least made an attempt to show the organic
connexion in the policy and progress of the different nations
of Europe; and its descriptions of what may be called external
history--of battles, sieges and state pageants--are spirited and
interesting. On the other hand the faults of the work are
numerous and glaring. The general style is prolix, involved
and vicious; mistakes of fact and false deductions are to be
found in almost every page; and the constant repetition of
trite moral reflections and egotistical references seriously
detracts from its dignity. A more grave defect resulted from
the author's strong political partisanship, which entirely
unfitted him for dealing with the problems of history in
a philosophical spirit. His unbending Toryism made it
impossible for him to give any satisfactory explanation of
so complex a fact as the French Revolution, or accurately to
estimate the forces that were to shape the Europe of the 19th
century. A continuation of the History, embracing the period
from 1815 to 1852, which was completed in four volumes in
1856, did not meet with the same success as the earlier
work. The period being so near as to be almost contemporary,
there was a stronger temptation, which he seems to have found
it impossible to resist, to yield to political prejudice, while
the materials necessary for a clear knowledge of the influences
shaping European affairs were not as yet accessible. The book
is now almost wholly out of date. In 1845 Alison was chosen
rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in 1851 of Glasgow
University. In 1852 a baronetcy was conferred upon him, and
in the following year he was made a D.C.L. of Oxford. His
literary activity continued till within a short time of his
death, the chief works he published in addition to his History
being the Principles of Population (1840), in answer to
Malthus; a Life of Marlborough (1847, 2nd edition greatly
enlarged, 1852); and the Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir C.
Stewart (1861.) This latter, based on MS. material preserved at
Wynyard Park, is still of value, not only as the only available
biography, but more especially because Alison's Tory sympathies
enabled him to give a juster appreciation of the character
and work of Castlereagh than the Liberal writers by whom for
many years he was misjudged and condemned (see LONDONDERRY,
Robert Stewart, 2nd marquess of). Three volumes of Alison's
political, historical and miscellaneous essays were reprinted in
1850. He died at Possil House, Glaagow, on the 23rd of May
1867. His autobiography, Some Account of my Li/e and
Writings, edited by his daughter-in-law, Lady Alison, was
published in 1883 at Edinburgh. Sir Archibald Alison married
in 1825 Elizabeth Glencairn, daughter of Colonel Tytler, by
whom he had three children, Archibald, Frederick and Eliza
Frances Catherine. Both sons became distinguished officers.
SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. (1826-1907), the elder of the
sons, entered the 72nd Highlanders in 1846. He served
at the siege of Sevastopol; and during the Indian Mutiny
he was military secretary to Sir Colin Campbell and was
severely wounded at the relief of Lucknow, losing an
arm. From 1862 to 1873 he was assistant adjutant-general at
headquarters, Portsmouth and Aldershot. He was second in
command of the Ashanti expedition 1873-1874, and was made a
K.C.B. For three years Alison was deputy adjutant-general in
Ireland, and then, for a few months, commandant of the Staff
College. He was promoted to be major-general in 1877,
and was head of the intelligence branch of the war office
(1878-1882). He commanded the troops at Alexandria in 1882
until the arrival of Sir Garnet Wolseley, led the Highland
brigade at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and remained in command
of the army of occupation until 1883. He commanded at Aldershot
1883-1888, was for some months adjutant-general to the forces
during Lord Wolseley's absence in Egypt, was made G.C.B. in
1887, was promoted general, and became a military member of the
Council of India in 1889. He retired in 1893 and died in 1907.
ALIWAL, a village of British India, in the Ludhiana district
of the Punjab, situated on the left bank of the Sutlej, and
famous as the scene of one of the great battles of the 1st Sikh
War. Late in January 1846 it was held by Ranjur Singh, who had
crossed the river in force and threatened Ludhiana. On the 28th
Sir Harry Smith, with a view to clearing the left or British
bank, attacked him, and after a desperate struggle thrice pierced
the Sikh troops with his cavalry, and pushed them into the
river, where large numbers perished, leaving 67 guns to the
victors. The consequence of the victory was the submission
of the whole territory east of the Sutlej to the British.
ALIWAL NORTH, a town of South Africa, on the south bank
of the Orange River, 4300 ft. above the sea, and 282 m. by
rail N.W. by N. of the port of East London. Pop. (1904)
5566, of whom 1758 were whites. The town, a trading and
agricultural centre for the N.E. part of the Cape and the
neighbouring regions of Basutoland and Orange Free State,
presents a pleasing appearance. It contains many fine stone
buildings. The streets are lined with trees, and water from
the neighbouring sulphur springs flows along them in open
channels. The river, here the boundary between the Cape province
and Orange Free State, is crossed by a stone bridge 860 ft.
long. The sulphur springs, 1 m. from the town, which yield
over 500,000 gallons daily, are resorted to for the cure
of rheumatism and skin diseases. By reason of its dry and
bracing climate, Aliwal North is also a favourite residence
of sufferers from chest complaints. In the neighbourhood are
stone quarries. Aliwal North is the capital of a division
of the province of the same name, with an area of 1330 sq.
m. and a pop. (1904) of 14,857, of whom 40% are whites.
Aliwal North was so called to distinguish it from Aliwal
South, now Mossel Bay, the seaport of the pastoral Grasveld
district, on the west side of Mossel Bay. Both places were
named in honour of Sir Harry Smith, governor of Cape Colony
1847-1852, Aliwal (see above) being the village in the Punjab
where in 1846 he gained a great Victory over the Sikhs.
Crossing the Orange River at this spot in September 1848, Sir
Harry noted that it was ``a beautiful site for a town,'' and
in the May following the town was founded. In the early months
of the Boer War of 1899-1902 Aliwal North was held by the
Boers. It was reoccupied by the British in March 1900.
ALIZARIN, or 1.2 DIOXYANTHRAQUINONE,
/CO\
C6H4 C6H2(OH)2[1.2],
\CO/
a vegetable dyestuff formerly prepared from madder root (Rubia
tinctorum) which contains a glucoside ruberythric acid
(C26H28O14). This glucoside is readily hydrolysed by
acids or ferments, breaking up into alizarin and glucose:
C26H28O14 + 2H2O = 2C6H12O6 + C14H8O4
Ruberythric acid = Glucose + Alizarin.
Alizarin was known to the ancients, and until 1868 was obtained
entirely from madder root. The first step in the synthetical
production of alizarin was the discovery in 1868 of C. Graebe
and C. Liebermann that on heating with zinc dust, alizarin
was converted into anthracene. In order to synthesize
alizarin, they converted anthracene into anthraquinone and
then brominated the quinone. The dibrominated product so
obtained was then fused with caustic potash, the melt dissolved
in water, and on the addition of hydrochloric acid to the
solution, alizarin was precipitated. This process, owing
to its expensive nature, was not in use very long, being
superseded by another, discovered simultaneously by the
above-named chemists and by Sir W. H. Perkin; the method being
to sulphonate anthraquinone, and then to convert the sulphonic
acid into its sodium salt and fuse this with caustic soda.
In practice, the crude anthracene is purified by solution
in the higher pyridine bases, after which treatment it is
frequently sublimed. It is then oxidized to anthraquinone
by means of sodium dichromate and sulphuric acid in leaden
vats, steam heated so that the mixture can be brought to the
boil. When oxidation is complete the crude anthraquinone
is separated in filter presses and heated with an excess
of commercial oil of vitriol to 120 deg. C., the various
impurities present in the crude material being sulphonated
and rendered soluble in water, whilst the anthraquinone is
unaffected; it is then washed, to remove impurities, and
dried. The anthraquinone so obtained is then heated for
some hours at about 150-160 deg. C. with fuming sulphuric acid
(containing about 40-50% SO3), and by this treatment is
converted into anthraquinone-b-monosulphonic acid. The
solution is poured into water and sodium carbonate is added
to neutralize the excess of acid, when the sodium salt of
the monosulphonic acid (known as silver salt) separates out
This is filtered, washed, and then fused with caustic soda,
when the sulpho-group is replaced by a hydroxyl group, and a
second hydroxyl group is simultaneously formed; in order to
render the formation of this second group easier, a little
potassium chlorate or sodium nitrate is added to the reaction
mixture. The melt is dissolved in water and the dyestuff is
liberated from the sodium salt by hydrochloric or sulphuric
acid, or is converted into the calcium salt by digestion with hot
milk of lime, then filtered and the calcium salt decomposed by
acid. The precipitated alizarin is then well washed and made
into a paste with water, in which form it is put on to the market.
K. Lagodzinski (Berichte, 1895, 28, p. 1427) has synthesized
alizarin by condensing hemipinic acid [(CH3O)2C6H2(COOH)2]
with benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride. The
product on acidification gives a compound C15H12O5.H2O
which is probably an oxy-methoxy-benzoyl benzoic acid. This
is dissolved in cold concentrated sulphuric acid, in which
it forms a yellowish red solution, but on heating to 100 deg.
C. the colour changes to red and violet, and on pouring out
upon ice, the monomethyl ether of alizarin is precipitated.
This compound is hydrolysed by hydriodic acid and alizarin is
obtained. It can also be synthesized by heating catechol
with phthalic anhydride and sulphuric acid at 150 deg. C.
/CO\ /CO\
C6H4 O + C6H4(OH)2[1.2] = H2O + C6H4 C6H2(OH)2.
\CO/ \CO/
Pure alizarin crystallizes in red prisms melting at 200 deg.
C. It is insoluble in water, and not very soluble in
alcohol. It dissolves readily in caustic alkalis on account
of its phenolic character, and it forms a yellow-coloured
di-acetate. Its value as a dyestuff depends on its power of
forming insoluble compounds (lakes) with metallic oxides. It
has no affinity for vegetable fibres, and consequently cotton
goods must be mordanted before dyeing with it (see DYEING.)
Numerous derivatives of alizarin are known. On solution in
glacial acetic acid and addition of nitric acid, b-nitroalizarin
OH
|
(alizarin orange) / \ /CO\ / \OH
| | | |
\ / \CO/ \ /NO2
is produced, and this on heating with sulphuric
acid and glycerin is converted into alizarin blue.
The trioxyanthraquinones--purpurin, anthrapurpurin, anthragallol
and flavopurpurin---are also very valuable dyestuffs. These
compounds may be represented by the following formulae:
OH OH OH OH
| | | |
/ \ /CO\ / \OH HO/ \ /CO\ / \OH / \ /CO\ / \OH / \ /CO\ / \OH
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
\ / \CO/ \ / \ / \CO/ \ / HO\ / \CO/ \ / \ / \CO/ \ /OH
|
OH
Purpurin. Anthrapurpurin. Flavopurpurin. Anthragallol.
Purpurin (1.2.4 trioxyanthraquinone) is found with
alizarin in madder root; it is now prepared synthetically
by oxidizing alizarin with manganese dioxide and sulphuric
acid. After the separation of the silver salt (see above)
obtained on sulphonating anthraquinone, the remaining acid
liquid gives on treatment with calcium carbonate the calcium
salt of anthraquinone 2.6 disulphonic acid (anthraquinone-
a-disulphonic acid). This is converted into the sodium salt
by means of sodium carbonate, and on alkali fusion yields
fiavopurpurin. In a similar manner anthrapurpurin is
prepared by alkali fusion of anthraquinone 2.8 disulphonic
acid. Anthragallol is synthetically prepared by the
condensation of benzoic and gallic acids with sulphuric acid
OH OH
| |
/ \COOH / \OH / \ /CO\ / \OH
| | + | | = 2 H2O + | | | |
\ / HOOC\ /OH \ / \CO/ \ /OH
or from pyrogallol and phthalic anhydride in
the presence of sulphuric acid or zinc chloride.
A. Baeyer in 1890, by heating alizarin with fuming sulphuric
acid for 24-48 hours at 35-40 deg. C., obtained a product, which
after treatment with caustic soda gave a sulphuric acid ester
of quinalizarin, and this after acidification and boiling was
converted into quinalizarin (Alizarin Bordeaux) or 1.2.6.9
tetra-oxyanthraquinone. Penta-oxyanthraquinones have been
obtained from purpurin and anthrapurpurin, while a hexa-
oxyanthraquinone has been obtained from 1.5 dinitro- anthraquinone.
ALKAHEST (a pseudo-Arabic word believed to have been invented by
Paracelsus), a liquid, much sought after by the alchemists, having
the power of dissolving gold and every other substance, which
it was supposed would possess invaluable medicinal qualities.
ALKALI, an Arabic term originally applied to the ashes of
plants, from which by lixiviation carbonate of soda was obtained
in the case of sea-plants and carbonate of potash in that of
land-plants. The method of making these ``mild'' alkalis into
``caustic'' alkalis by treatment with lime was practised in
the time of Pliny in connexion with the manufacture of soap,
and it was also known that the ashes of shore-plants yielded
a hard soap and those of land-plants a soft one. But the
two substances were generally confounded as ``fixed alkali''
(carbonate of ammonia being ``volatile alkali''), till Duhamel
du Monceau in 1736 established the fact that common salt and
the ashes of sea-plants contain the same base as is found in
natural deposits of soda salts (``mineral alkali''), and that
this body is different from the ``vegetable alkali'' obtained
by incinerating land- plants or wood (pot-ashes). Later,
Martin Heinrich Klaproth, finding vegetable alkali in certain
minerals, such as leucite, proposed to distinguish it as
potash, and at the same time assigned to the mineral alkali the
name natron, which survives in the symbol, Na, now used for
sodium. The word alkali supplied the symbol for potassium,
K (kalium.) In modern chemistry alkali is a general term
used for compounds which have the property of neutralizing
acids, and is applied more particularly to the highly soluble
hydrates of sodium and potassium and of the three rarer ``alkali
metals,'' caesium, rubidium and lithium, also to aqueous
ammonia. In a smaller degree these alkaline properties are
shared by the less soluble hydrates of the ``metals of the
alkaline earths,'' calcium, barium and strontium, and by thallium
hydrate. An alkali is distinguished from an acid or neutral
substance by its action on litmus, turmeric and other indicators.
ALKALI MANUFACTURE. The word ``alkali'' denotes both soda and
potash, but by ``alkali manufacture'' we understand merely
the manufacture of sodium sulphate, carbonate and hydrate.
The corresponding potash compounds are not manufactured in
the United Kingdom, but exclusively in Germany (from potassium
chloride and from the mother-liquor of the strontia process
in the manufacture of beetroot sugar) and in France (from
vinasse) . The term alkali is employed in a technical sense
for the carbonate and hydrate (of sodium), but since in the
Leblanc process the manufacture of sodium sulphate necessarily
precedes that of the carbonate, we include this as well as
the manufacture of hydrochloric acid which is inseparable from
it. We also treat of the utilization of hydrochloric acid
for the manufacture of chlorine and its derivatives, which
are usually comprised within the meaning of the term ``alkali
manufacture.'' A great many processes have been proposed
for the manufacture of alkali from various materials, but
none of these has become of any practical importance except
those which start from sodium chloride (common salt); and
among the latter again only three classes of processes
are actually employed for manufacturing purposes, viz. the
Leblanc, the ammonia-soda, and the electrolytic processes.
I. THE LEBLANC PROCESS
The Leblanc process, which was invented by Nicolas
Leblanc (q.v.) about 1790, begins with the decomposition
of sodium chloride by sulphuric acid, by which sodium
sulphate and hydrochloric acid are produced. The sodium
sulphate is afterwards fluxed with calcium carbonate and
coal, and a mixture is thus obtained from which sodium
carbonate can be extracted by exhausting it with water.
Leblanc himself for a time carried out his process on a
manufacturing scale, but he was ruined in the political troubles
of the time and died by his own hand in 1806. His invention
was, however, at once utilized by others in France; and in
Great Britain, after a few previous attempts on a small scale,
it was definitely introduced by James Muspratt (q.v.) in
1823. From that time onward the Leblanc process spread more and
more, and for a considerable period nearly all the alkali of
commerce was made by it. The rise of the ammonia-soda process
(since 1870) gradually told upon the Leblanc process, which
in consequence has been greatly restricted in Great Britain
and Germany, and has become practically extinct in all other
countries, except as far as its first part, the manufacture
of sodium sulphate and hydrochloric acid, is concerned.
The production of alkali in Great Britain, soon after the
introduction of the Leblanc process, became the most extensive
in the world, and outstripped that of all other countries put
together. With the rise of the ammonia-soda process, for
which the economic conditions are nearly as favourable in other
countries, the predominance of Great Britain in that domain
has become less, but even now that country produces more alkali
than any other single country. Most of the British alkali
works are situated in South Lancashire and the adjoining part of
Cheshire, near the mouth of the Tyne and in the West of Scotland.
Various industries are carried on in Leblanc alkali works, as follows:--
1. Manufacture of sodium sulphate.
2. Manufacture of hydrochloric acid.
3. Preparation of chlorine.
4. Employment of chlorine for the manufacture
of bleaching- powder and of chlorates.
5. Manufacture of ordinary alkali from sulphate of soda.
6. Manufacture of caustic soda.
7. Manufacture of soda crystals.
8. Recovery of sulphur from alkali waste.
1. Manufacture of Sodium Sulphate.--This is commercially
known as salt-cake, and is made by decomposing common
salt with sulphuric acid of about 80%, the reaction being
2NaCl + H2SO4 = Na2SO4 + 2HCl. This reaction proceeds
in two stages. At first principally acid sodium sulphate,
NaHSO4, is formed together with some normal sulphate;
later, when the temperature has risen, the NaHSO4 acts
with more NaCl so that nearly all of it is converted into
Na2SO4. The gaseous hydrochloric acid evolved during
all this time must be absorbed in water, unless it is
directly converted into chlorine (see below, 2 and 3).
The process is carried out either in hand-wrought furnaces, or
mechanical furnaces, both called ``decomposing'' or ``salt-cake
furnaces.'' In the former case, the first reaction is produced
in cast- iron pans or ``pots,'' very heavy castings of circular
section, fired from below, either directly or by the waste
heat from the muffle- furnace. The reaction is completed
in a ``roasting- furnace.'' The latter was formerly often
constructed as a revereratory funace, which is easy to build
and to work, but the hydrochloric acid given off here, being
mixed with the products of the combustion of fuel, cannot
be condensed to strong acid and is partly, if not entirely,
wasted. It is, therefore, decidedly preferable to employ
``muffle-furnaces'' in which the heating is performed from
without, the fire-gases passing first over the arch and
then under the bottom of the muffle. This requires more
time and fuel than the work in ``open'' furnaces, but in
the muffles the gaseous hydrochloric acid is separated
from the fire-gases, just like that evolved in the pot, and
can therefore be condensed into strong hydrochloric acid,
like the pot-acid. This roaster-acid is, however, of less
value than the pot-acid, as it contains more impurities.
It is not easy to keep the muffles permanently tight, and as soon
as any leakages occur, either hydrochloric acid must escape into
the fire-flue, or some fire-gases must enter into the muffle.
The former is decidedly more objectionable than the latter, as
it means that uncondensed hydrochloric acid is sent into the
air. This drawback has been overcome by the construction of
``plus-pressure'' furnaces (figs. 1 and 2), where the fire-grate
is placed 11 ft. below the top of the muffle. In consequence
the fire-gases, when arriving there by the chimney shaft
(a), have already a good upward draught, and when circulatung
round the muffle are at a lower pressure than the gases within
the muffle, so that in case of any cracks being formed, no
hydrochloric acid escapes into the fire-flues, but vice versa.
Since the work with ordinary hand-wrought salt-cake furnaces
is disagreeable and costly, many attempts have been made
to construct mechanical salt-cake furnaces. Of these J.
Mactear's furnaces (fig. 3) have met with the greatest
success. They consist of a horizontal pan, 17 ft. wide,
which is made up of a central pan (e), and a series
of concentric compartments (C1), (C2), (C3), and
which is supported on a frame (d d), revolving round a
perpendicular axis on the wheels (n n). It is with an
arch and heated on the top from one side (l), either by an
ordinary coal-grate or by a gas-producer. A set of stirring
blades carried in the frame (b b), and driven by gearing,
FIGS. 1. and 2.--Salt-cake Furnace. (Sectional Elevation and Plan.) Scale
Figs. 1-9 from Lunge's Handbuch der Soda-Industrie,
by permission of Friedr. Vieweg u. Sohn.
passes through a gap in the arch in such a manner that the gases
cannot escape outwards. The salt is conveyed to the furnace
by a chain of buckets running on the pulley (g), and passing
into the hopper (h), and through the pipe (i) is mixed
with the proper amount of acid supplied by the pipe ( f.)
The mixture is fed in continuously to the central pan (e.)
whence it overflows into the compartments (c1), (c2), (c3)
successively until it reaches the circumference, where it is
discharged continously by o and p into the collecting-box
(q), being now converted into salt-cake. This furnace acts
very well, and has been widely introduced both in Great Britain
and in other countries, but it has one great drawback, apart
from its high cost, viz. that all the hydrochloric acid gas
gets mixed with fire-gases, and consequently is condensed
in a weaker and less pure form than from ordinary pots and
muffles. This has led some factories which had introduced
such furnaces to revert to hand-wrought muffle-furnaces.
Much was expected at one time from the.``direct salt-cake
process'' of Hargreaves and Robinson, in which common salt
is subjected in a series of large cast-iron cylinders to
the action of pyrites-burner gases and steam at a low red
heat. The reaction going on here is: 2NaCl + SO2 + O
+ H2O = Na2SO4 + 2HCl. This means that the previous
manufacture of sulphuric acid in the vitriol-chambers is
done away with, but this apparently great simplification is
balanced by the great cost of the Hargreaves plant, and by
the fact that the whole of the hydrochloric acid is mixed
with nine or ten times its volume of inert gases. Owing to
this, it is practically impossible to condense the gaseous
hydrochloric acid into the commercial acid, although this
acid may be obtained sufficiently strong to be worked up in
the Weldon chlorine process (see below, 3). Therefore the
Hargreaves process has been introduced only in a few places.
Although the consumption of salt-cake for the manufacture of
alkali is now much less than formerly, since the Leblanc alkali
process has been greatly restricted, yet it is largely made and
will continue to be made for the use of glassmakers, who use it
for the ordinary description of glass in the place of soda-ash.
Nor must it be overlooked that salt-cake must be made as long
FIG. 3.--Mechanical Salt-cake Furnace. (Sectional Elevation.) Scale
as there is a sale for hydrochloric acid, or a
consumption of the latter for the manufacture of chlorine.
2. Manufacture of Hydrochloric Acid (commercially also
known as ``muriatic acid''). This unavoidable gaseous
bye-product of the manufacture of salt-cake was, during
the first part of the 19th century, simply sent into the
air. When its deleterious effects upon vegetation, building
materials, &c., became better known, and when at the same
time an outlet had been found for moderate quantities of
hydrochloric acid, most factories made more or less successful
attempts to ``condense'' the gas by absorption in water. But
this was hardly anywhere done to the fullest possible extent,
and in those districts where a number of alkali works were
located at no great distance from one another, their aggregate
escapes of hydrochloric and other acids created an intolerable
nuisance. This was most notably the case in South Lancashire,
and it led to the passing of Lord Derby's ``Alkali Act,'' in
1863, supplemented by further legislation in 1874, 1881 and
later. There is hardly another example in the annals of
legislative efforts equal to this, in respect of the real
benefit conferred by it both on the general public and
on the manufacturers themselves. This is principally the
consequence of the exemplary way in which the duties of
inspector under these acts were carried out by Dr R. Angus
Smith (1817-1884) and his successors, who directed their
efforts not merely to their primary duty of preventing
nuisance, but quite as much to showing manufacturers how to
make the most of the acid formerly wasted in one shape or
another. Not merely Great Britain but all mankind has been
immensely benefited by the labours of the British alkali
inspectors, which were, of course, supplemented by the work of
technical men in all the countries concerned. The scientific
and technical principles of the condensation of hydrochloric
acid are now thoroughly well understood, and it is possible
to recover nearly the whole of it in the state of strong
commercial acid, containing from 32 to 36% of pure hydrochloric
acid, although probably the majority of the manufacturers are
still content to obtain part of the acid in a weaker state,
merely to satisfy the requirements of the law prescribing the
prevention of nuisance. The principles of the condensation,
that is of converting the gaseous hydrochloric acid given
off during the decomposition of common salt into a strong
solution of this gas in water, can be summarized in a few
words. The hydrochloric acid gas, which is always diluted
with air, sometimes to a very great extent, must be brought
into the most intimate contact possible with water, which
greedily absorbs it, forming ordinary hydrochloric acid,
and this process must be carried so far that scarcely any
hydrochloric acid remains in the escaping gases. The maximum
escape allowed by thc Alkali Acts, viz. 5 % of the total
hydrochloric acid, is far above that which is now practically
attained. For a proper utilization of the condensed acid it
is nearly always imperative that it should be as strong as
possible, and this forms a second important consideration
in the construction of the condensing apparatus. Since the
solubility of hydrochloric acid in water decreases with the
increase of the temperature, it is necessary to keep the
latter down--a task which is rendered somewhat difficult
both by the original heat retained by the gases on their
escape from the decomposing apparatus, and by the heat given
off through the reaction of hydrochloric acid upon water.
Very different methods have been employed to effect all the
above purposes. In Great Britain Gay-Lussac's coke-towers,
adapted by W. Gossage to the condensation of hydrochloric
acid, are still nearly everywhere in use, frequently combined
with a number of stone tanks through which the gas from
the furnaces travels before entering the towers, meeting
on its way the acid condensed in the tower. This process
is excellent for effecting a complete condensation of the
hydrochloric acid as prescribed by the Alkali Acts, and for
recovering the bulk of the acid in a tolerably strong state,
but less so for recovering nearly the whole of it in the
most concentrated state, although even this is occasionally
attained. On the continent of Europe, where the last-named
requirement has been for a long time more urgent than in Great
Britain, another system has been generally preferred, namely,
passing the gas through a long series of stoneware receivers,
and ultimately through a small tower packed with stoneware or
coke, making the acid flow in the opposite direction to the
gas. Great success has also been obtained by ``plate-towers''
made of stoneware, which allow both the coke-towers and
most of the stoneware receivers to be dispensed with.
3. Preparation of Chlorine.--In this place we speak only
of the preparation of chlorine from hydrochloric acid by
chemical processes; the electrolytic processes will be treated
hereafter. It is clear that free chlorine must be prepared
from hydrochloric acid by oxidizing the hydrogen. This can
be done most easily by ``active'' oxygen, such as is present
in the peroxides, in chromic or permanganic acid. Practically
the only agent employed in this way, and that already by C. W.
Scheele, the discoverer of chlorine, in 1774, is the peroxide
of manganese (manganese dioxide), found in considerable
quantities in nature as ``manganese ore'' (the purest of which
is called pyrolusite), and also artificially regenerated from
the waste liquors of a former operation. Even now, where
chlorine is required for immediate use in some other chemical
operations on a comparatively small scale, it is obtained by
the action of hydrochloric acid on native manganese dioxide,
according to the equation: Mno2 + 4HCl = MnCl2 + Cl2 +
2H2O. This action must be promoted by heating the mixture,
but even then nothing like all of the hydrochloric acid
employed is made to act as above, because the attack on the
manganese ore requires a certain minimum concentration of the
acid. Formerly, instead of free hydrochloric acid a mixture
of common salt and sulphuric acid was sometimes employed, but
this is never done on a manufacturing scale now. Owing to
the impossibility of employing any metal in contact with the
acid, the ``chlorine stills,'' where the above reaction is
carried out, must be made of acid-proof stones or ``chemical''
stoneware. This process is very costly, as much of the
acid and all of the manganese is wasted. Moreover it is
of a most disagreeable kind, as the waste ``still-liquor,''
containing very much free hydrochloric acid and even some free
chlorine, forms a most deleterious impurity when finding its
way into drains or water- courses, apart from the intolerable
nuisance caused by the escapes of chlorine from the stills
and otherwise, which cannot be at all times avoided.
Many endeavours were made to avoid the loss of the
manganese in this operation, but with only partial or no
success. The difficulty was only overcome by the Weldon
process, being the inventions of Walter Weldon from 1866
onwards, and his process up to this day furnishes the greater
proportion of chlorine manufactured in the world. It begins
with ``still-liquor,'' obtained in the old way from native
manganese ore and hydrochloric acid. This liquor is first
treated with carbonate of lime (ground chalk or limestone)
in a ``neutralizing-well,'' made of acid-proof material and
provided with wooden stirring-gear. Here the free hydrochloric
acid is converted into calcium chloride, and at the same time
any ferric chloride present is converted into insoluble ferric
hydroxide: 2FeCl3 + 3CaCO3 + 3 H2O = 2Fe(OH)3 + 3CaCl2 +
3CO2. The sulphuric acid present is mostly precipitated as
calcium sulphate. The mud thus formed is settled out, and
the clear liquor, which is now quite neutral and contains
both manganese and calcium chlorides, is mixed with cream of
lime and treated by a strong current of air, produced by a
blowing-engine. This is done in a tall iron cylinder, say
9 ft. wide and 30 ft. high, called the ``oxidizer.'' The
air-pipe goes right to the bottom of the cylinder and there
branches out into perforated side-pipes, so that the mass
is thoroughly stirred up all the time. The first action of
the lime is to convert the manganese chloride into manganous
hydrate (Mn(OH)2) and calcium chloride; then more lime
is added which greatly promotes and hastens the oxidizing
process. The object of the latter is to convert the
manganous hydroxide by the atmospheric oxygen into manganese
dioxide, but this would take place much too slowly if there
was not an excess of lime present ready to combine with the
manganese dioxide to form a calcium manganite. Only so much
lime is used that an acid manganite is formed corresponding
to one molecule of calcium oxide to two of manganous
oxide. This additional lime, which is called the ``basis,''
certainly takes up hydrochloric acid in the next stage of
the process, but that causes no more waste of acid than
the incomplete action on native manganese ore, mentioned
before. The product obtained, called ``Weldon mud,'' is of
such fine texture that it acts immediately with hydrochloric
acid when mixed with it in the ``Weldon stills'' (fig.
4), and that this acid can be almost entirely neutralized
thereby. The new still liquor formed in this manner is treated
as above, so that the manganese does its work over and over
again. There is only a slight mechanical loss, which
is reduced in the best managed works to about 2 parts of
manganese dioxide to 100 of bleaching- powder. There are
also other advantages of this process which explain its wide
extension, in spite of the fact that only from 30 to 35
parts of the hydrochloric acid employed is converted into
chlorine, the remainder ultimately leaving the factory in the
shape of a harmless but useless solution of calcium chloride.
Weldon's later attempts at superseding his classical process
by other inventions which utilize a larger proportion
of the chlorine, introduced as hydrochloric acid, have
not been successful in the long run, although some of
them were aided by the great technical skill of A. R.
Pechiney. But the Deacon process, the invention of Henry
Deacon (who was greatly aided by his chemist Dr Ferdinand
Hurter), carried out since 1868, has attained to better,
although nothing like complete, success in that direction.
The Deacon process, like the Weldon process, effects its object
by the oxidizing action of atmospheric air, but in a very
different manner. Weldon retained the principle of the Scheele
FIG. 4.--Weldon Chlorine Still. (Sectional Elevation.) Scale
C, Stone steam column resting in stone socket K.
process by employing the active oxygen of manganese dioxide
to convert hydrochloric acid into free chlorine, and he
employed the atmospheric oxygen only indirectly, for the
recovery of manganese dioxide from the manganese chloride
formed. But Deacon worked on the direct reaction: 2HCl +
O = H2O + Cl2. This reaction in ordinary circumstances
is so slow as to be practically useless. If, however, a
``contact-substance'' is employed and that at the proper
temperature, the process goes on at an immensely quickened
rate and can even be carried out as a continuous operation.
The only substance which possesses sufficiently strong
catalytic properties for the reaction is cupric chloride.
If pieces of porous clay are soaked in a solution of this
salt and dried and kept at a temperature of 450 deg. C. (in
practice it is necessary to go to a rather higher temperature),
it is possible continuously to convert a united stream of
hydrochloric acid and atmospheric air, passed through the
contact- substance in a ``decomposer'' (fig. 5), to a larger
extent into chlorine and water, of course mixed with the excess
of oxygen and all the nitrogen of the air. On a small scale
it is possible to push the decomposition as far as 90% of the
hydrochloric acid, but on the large scale only at most 60% is
reached. The mixture of hydrochloric acid and air is taken
directly from the ``decomposing-pan'' of an ordinary salt-cake
furnace, is first cooled down in pipes sufficiently to
condense most of the moisture present (together with about
8% of the hydrochloric acid), and then passed through a
cast-iron superheater and from this into the ``decomposer.''
The gaseous mixture, issuing from the latter, is washed with
water in the usual condensing apparatus, to remove the 40 or
50 parts of hydrochloric acid left unchanged, and can then be
immediately employed for the manufacture of chlorate of potash.
Where (as is the more usual case) the chlorine has to serve for
the manufacture of bleaching-powder, it must first be deprived
of the great amount of moisture which it contains, by means of
FIG. 5.--Deacon ``Decomposer.'' (Sectional Elevation.)
Scale 1/40. a,a, Upright cast-iron cylinders; b,b,
brick jacket; c,c, flues; d,e, iron plates arranged
like venetian blinds, between which the contact-substance
is contained; f, charging hole; g, discharging hole;
h, entrance pipe for gas; i, exit pipe for gas.
coke-towers fed with moderately strong sulphuric acid. As
the gas issuing from these contains only about 5 volumes % of
hydrochloric acid, it cannot be made to act upon lime in the
ordinary bleaching-powder chambers, but specially constructed
chambers must be provided (see fig. 4). The movement of
the gases through all this complicated set of apparatus is
produced by a Root's blower placed at the end of it all.
The Deacon process makes cheaper chlorine than the Weldon
process, but the plant is complicated and costly and the
working requires a great deal of attention. In skilled
hands it has been proved to yield excellent results.
The hydrochloric acid from the calcining-furnaces or
``roasters'' cannot be employed immediately for the Deacon
process, as the sulphuric acid always contained in the roaster
gases soon ``poisons'' the contact-substance and renders it
inoperative. This acid must, therefore, be condensed in the
ordinary way into liquid hydrochloric acid and formerly could
be worked up only by the Weldon process. R. Hasenclever
has overcome this drawback by running this impure acid into
moderately strong sulphuric acid (140 deg. Twaddell), blowing in
air at the same time. This produces a mixed current of pure
hydrochloric acid gas and air, which is carried into a Deacon
decomposer where it acts in the usual manner. The sulphuric
acid, of which 6 or 7 parts are used to one of impure liquid
hydrochloric acid, is always reserved for use in the same
process, by driving off the excess of water in a lead pan,
fired from the top, so that the principal expense of the
process is that of the fuel required for the last operation.
4. Applications of Chlorine.--Some of the chlorine manufactured
(practically only such as is obtained by the electrolysis
of chlorides) is condensed by cold and pressure into liquid
chlorine. If this is anhydrous, as it must be in any case for
this purpose, it does not act upon the metal of the compressors,
nor upon the iron bottles in which it is sent out. It may
even be sent out in tank wagons, similar to those which are
employed for carrying sulphuric acid, holding 10 tons each.
Sometimes the chlorine is employed directly for bleaching
purposes, especially for some kinds of paper. A number of
organic chlorinated products are also produced on a large
scale. But most of the chlorine is utilized for the production
of bleaching- powder, of bleach-liquor, and of chlorate of potash.
Bleaching-powder is a compound obtained by the action
of free chlorine on hydrated lime, containing a slight
excess of water at ordinary temperatures or slightly above
these. Its composition approaches the formula CaOCl2,
and it is regarded as a double salt of calcium chloride and
hypochlorite, which by the action of water splits up into
a mixture of these salts. It always contains a certain
quantity of chemically combined water and also an excess of
lime. Usually this lime is regarded only as mechanically
mixed with the bleaching-compound, CaOCl2, but some chemists
adopt formulae in which this lime is equally represented.
For the manufacture of bleaching-powder, limestone of high
degree of purity (especially free from magnesia and iron) is
carefully burned so as to drive out nearly all the carbon dioxide
without overheating the lime. The quick-lime is then slaked
with the requisite quantity of water; the product is passed
through a fine-meshed wire sieve and is spread in layers of 2
or 3 in. at the bottom of large boxes, the ``bleaching-powder
chambers,'' made of lead, or sometimes of cast-iron protected by
paint, of slate or even of tarred wood. Chlorine, generated
in an ordinary or a Weldon still, is passed in and is rapidly
absorbed. When the absorption becomes slow, the gas is cut
off and the chamber is left to itself for twelve hours or more,
when it will be found that all the chlorine has been taken
up. Now the door of the chamber is opened, the powder lying
at the bottom is turned over and the treatment with gas is
repeated. Sometimes a third treatment is necessary in order
to get the product up to the strength required in commerce,
viz. 35% of ``available'' chlorine. The finished product is
packed into wooden casks lined with brown paper. The work of
packing is a most disagreeable and unhealthy operation which
is best relieved by erecting the chambers at a higher level
and placing the casks underneath, communication being made by
means of traps in the chamber-bottom. so that the packers can
do their work outside the chambers. The bleaching-powder casks
must be kept in a dry place, as cool as possible, and never
exposed to the direct rays of the sun, in order to prevent a
decomposition which now and then has even led to explosions.
The weak chlorine from the Deacon process cannot be treated in
this manner, as chambers of impossibly large dimensions would be
required. Originally the absorption of the Deacon chlorine took
place in a set of chambers, constructed of large slabs of stone,
containing a great many horizontal shelves superposed over one
another. About sixteen such chambers were combined in such
manner that the fresh gas passed into that chamber which had
been the longest time at work and in which the bleaching-powder
was nearly finished, and so forth until the gas, now all but
entirely exhausted, reached the last-filled chamber in which
it met with fresh lime and there gave up the last of the
chlorine. These ``Deacon chambers'' occupied a large space,
besides being expensive to build and difficult to keep in repair.
They are now mostly replaced by an apparatus, the invention of R.
Hasenclever, consisting of four horizontal cast-iron cylinders
with internal stirring-gear. The fresh lime is continually
charged into the top cylinder, is gradually moved towards the
other end, falls down into the next lower cylinder and thus
gradually makes its way to the lowest cylinder. The weak chlorine
gas from the Deacon apparatus travels precisely the opposite
way, from the bottom upwards, the result being that finished
bleaching- powder is continually discharged at the bottom
and air free from chlorine leaves the apparatus at the top.
Bleaching-powder is manufactured to the extent of several
hundred thousands of tons annually, almost entirely for the
use of papermakers and cotton bleachers. Smaller quantities
are used for disinfection and other purposes. It is usually
sold in ``tierces,'' that is, casks containing about 10 cwt.
Bleach-liquors.--If the chlorine is made to act on cream of
lime, care being taken that the temperature does not rise
above 35 deg. and that the chlorine is not in excess, a solution
is obtained containing a mixture of calcium chloride and
hypochlorite which is a very convenient agent for bleachers,
but which does not bear the expense of carriage over long
distances. Similar liquids are obtained with a basis of sodium
(``eau de Javel''), by passing chlorine into solutions of sodium
carbonate. The former kind of bleach-liquor is mostly used
in the industry of cotton, the latter in that of linen.
Chlorate of Potash.--Formerly all chlorate of potash, as
some is still, was obtained by passing chlorine into milk
of lime, allowing the temperature to rise almost to the
boiling-point, and continuing until the bleaching-solution,
originally formed, is converted into a mixture of calcium
chlorate and chloride, the final reaction being 6Ca(OH)2
+ 6Cl2 = 5Cacl2 + Ca(ClO3)2 + 6H2O. On adding to this
solution, after settling out the mud, a quantity of potassium
chloride equivalent to the calcium chlorate, the reaction
Ca(ClO3)2 + 2KCl = CaCl2 + 2KClO3 is produced, the ultimate
proportions thus being theoretically 2KClO3 to 6CaCl2, though
in reality there is rather more calcium chloride present.
When this solution is concentrated by evaporation and cooled
down, about five-sixths of the chlorate of potash crystallizes
out. It is purified by redissolving and crystallization, and
is sold either in the state of crystals or finely ground.
During these operations care must be taken lest a spark should
produce the inflammation of the chlorate on contact with any
organic substance. Large quantities of potassium chlorate
exposed to strong heat in contact with the wood of casks
or the timber of a roof have produced violent explosions.
Most of the chlorate of potash is now prepared by electrolysis
of potassium chloride (see below). It is employed for
fire-works, for some descriptions of explosives, for safety
matches and as an oxidizer in some operations, especially
in dyeing and tissue printing. For the last-named purpose
it is sometimes replaced by sodium chlorate. The chlorates
are usually sold in wooden kegs containing 1 cwt. each.
5. The Manufacture of Soda-ash from Salt-cake by the Leblanc
process.--This process consists in heating a mixture of commercial
FIG. 6.--Black-ash Furnace and Boiling-down Pan. Scale
[14051]
sulphate of soda (salt-cake) with about the same weight of
crushed limestone and half its weight of coal, until the
materials are fluxed and a reaction has taken place, the
principal phase of which is expressed by the equation Na2SO4
+ CaC03 + 2C = 2CO2 + Na2CO3 + CaS. A number of secondary
reactions, however, occur, owing partly to the excess of
calcium carbonate and coal and partly to the impurities
present, so that the solid product of the process, which is
called ``black-ash,'' has a somewhat complicated composition.
Its principal constituents are always sodium carbonate
and calcium sulphide, which are separated by the action of
water, the former being soluble and the latter insoluble.
The furnace in which the reaction takes place is shown in
fig. 6 in a sectional plan. It is called a ``black-ash''
furnace, and belongs to the class of reverberatory furnaces.
A large fire-grate (ab), having a cave (c) to facilitate
stoking and stepped back at (d), is bounded on one side by a
fire-bridge (e); on the other side of this, separated by an
air-channel (g), there is first the proper fluxing bed (h),
and behind this the ``back-bed'' (i) for pre-heating the
charge. The flame issuing from the furnace by (o) is always
further utilized for boiling down the liquors obtained in
a later stage, either in a pan (p) fired from the top and
supported on pillars (qq) as shown in the drawing, or in
pans heated from below. The charge of salt-cake (generally
3 cwt.), limestone and coal is roughly mixed and put upon
the back-bed; when the front- bed has become empty it is
drawn forward and exposed to the full heat of the fire,
with frequent stirring. After about three- quarters of an
hour the substances are so far fluxed or softened that the
reaction now sets in fully, as shown by the copious escape of
gas. This is at first colourless carbon dioxide, but later
on inflammable gases come out of the mass, which at this stage
has turned into a thicker, pasty condition, showing that the
end of the reaction is near. The inflammable gas is carbon
monoxide, which, however, does not burn with its proper purple
flame, but with a flame tinged bright yellow by the sodium
present. This carbon monoxide is formed by the action of
coal on the lime formed at this stage from the original
limestone. When the ``candles'' of carbon monoxide appear,
the pasty mass is quickly drawn out of the furnace into iron
``bogies,'' where it solidifies into a grey, porous mass, the
``black-ash.'' Care must be taken to heat it no longer than
necessary, as it otherwise turns red and yields bad soda.
The hand-wrought black-ash furnace has been mostly superseded
in the large factories by the revolving black-ash furnace,
shown in fig. 7. These furnaces possess a large cylindrical
shell (e), lined with fire-bricks, and made to revolve
round its horizontal axis by means of a toothed wheel fixed
on its exterior; (ff) are tire-seats holding tires (gg),
which work in friction rollers (h). The flame of a fixed
fireplace (a) enters through an ``eye'' (b) in the centre
of the front end of the cylinder and issues in the centre of
FIG. 7.--Revolving Black-ash Furnace. (Elevation.) Scale
the back end, first into a large dust-chamber (m.) and
then over or under boiling-down pans (p.) These mechanical
furnaces do the work of from four to ten ordinary furnaces
according to their size. with comparatively very little
expense for labour, but they must be very carefully managed
and the black-ash from them is more difficult to lixiviate
than that from hand-wrought furnaces, because it is less
porous. The lixiviation of the black- ash requires great
care, as the calcium sulphide is liable to be changed into
soluble calcium compounds, which immediately react with sodium
carbonate and destroy a corresponding quantity of the latter,
rendering the soda weaker and impure. This change of the
calcium sulphide may be brought about either by the oxidizing
action of the air or by ``hydrolysis,'' produced by prolonged
contact with hot water, the use of which, on the other hand,
cannot be avoided in order to extract the sodium carbonate
itself. The apparatus which has been found most suitable
for the purpose was devised by Professor H. Buff of Giessen,
and first practically carried out by Charles Dunlop at St
Rollox. It consists of a number of tanks or ``vats,'' placed
at the same level and connected by pipes which reach nearly to
the bottom of one tank and open out at the top into the next
tank. The vats are also provided with false bottoms, outlet
cocks, steam pipes and so forth. Tepid water is run in at one
end of the series, where nearly exhausted black-ash is present;
the weak liquor takes up more soda from the intermediate tanks
and at last gets up to full strength in the last tank, charged
with fresh black-ash and kept at a higher temperature, viz.
60 deg. C. When the first tank has been quite exhausted, the
water is turned on to the next, the first tank is emptied by
discharging the ``alkali- waste,'' and is filled with fresh
black-ash, whereupon it becomes the last of the series. In
spite of all precautions a certain quantity of impurities is
always formed, but this should be kept down as much as possible
by strictly watching the temperature in the vats and by taking
care that the black-ash in the wet state is never exposed to the
air. The unavoidable contamination with muddy particles
of vat-waste is removed by allowing the vat- liquor to rest
for some hours in a separate tank and settling out the mud.
The clear vat-liquor, if allowed to cool down to ordinary
temperature, would separate out part of the sodium carbonate
in the shape of decahydrated crystals. As these do not
come out sufficiently pure, they would not be marketable and
therefore they are not allowed to be formed, but the liquid,
while still hot, is either run into the boiling-down pans, or
submitted to one of the purifying operations to be described
below. If it is boiled down without further purification,
the resulting soda-ash is not of the first quality, but it is
sufficiently pure for many purposes. The boiling down is most
economically performed by means of large iron pans covered
with a brick arch and heated from the top by the waste flame
issuing from the black-ash furnaces (see figs. 6 and 7). It
is continued until the contents of the pan have been converted
into a thick paste of small crystals of monohydrated sodium
carbonate, permeated by a mother-liquor which is removed by
draining on perforated plates or by a centrifugal machine,
and is always returned to the pans. The drained crystals are
dried and heated to redness in a reverberatory furnace; when
``finished,'' the mass is of an impure white or light yellow
colour and is sold as ordinary ``soda-ash.'' It is not easy
to make it stronger than 92% of sodium carbonate, which is
technically expressed as ``52 degrees of available soda'' (see next
page). If purer and stronger soda-ash is wanted, the boiling
down must be carried out in pans fired from below, and the
crystals of monohydrated sodium carbonate ``fished'' out as
they are formed, but this is mostly done after submitting the
liquor to the purifying operations which we shall now describe.
The dried or ``finished'' soda-ash is ground to a pretty fine
powder and is packed into wooden casks or ``tierces,'' holding from
10 to about 20 cwt. each, according to the way of filling them.
The principal impurities of crude vat-liquor are sodium
hydrate and sulphide, the latter of which always leads to
the formation of soluble double sulphur salts of sodium and
iron. The other impurities are of minor importance.
The sulphides can be removed by ``oxidizing'' them into
thiosulphates by means of atmospheric air, with or without
the assistance of other agents, such as manganese peroxide;
or by ``carbonating'' them with lime-kiln or other gases
containing carbon dioxide; or by precipitating them with
lead or zinc oxide. The last mentioned is the best but
costliest method, and is employed only in the manufacture
of the highest strengths of caustic soda. The most usual
process, where soda-ash is to be made, is the ``carbonating.''
This is usually effected either by forcing lime-kiln gas
through the liquor, contained in a closed iron vessel, or by
passing the gases through an iron tower filled with coke or
other materials, suitable for subdividing the stream of the
gases and that of the vat-liquor which trickles down in the
tower. The same apparatus is used for ``oxidizing'' by means
of atmospheric air passed through by means of an injector;
sometimes both air and carbon dioxide are passed in at the same
time. The operation is finished when all the sodium sulphide
has been converted into normal sodium carbonate, partly also
into acid sodium carbonate (bicarbonate) NaHCO3; at the
same time a precipitate is formed, consisting of ferrous
sulphide, alumina and silica, which is removed by another
settling tank, and the clear liquor is now ready either
for boiling down in a ``fishing-pan'' for the manufacture
of white soda-ash, or for the process of causticizing.
Soda-ash (as well as caustic soda) is sold by degrees of
``available soda.'' This means that portion which neutralizes the
acid employed for testing, and the degrees mean the percentage
of Na2O thus found, whether it be present as Na2CO3, NaOH,
or sodium aluminate or silicate. The purest soda-ash, equal
to 100% Na2CO3, would be 58 1/2 degrees of available soda. The
ordinary commercial strength of Leblanc soda-ash is from 52 to
54 degrees (in former times much was sold in the state of 48%).
6. Manufacture of Caustic Soda.--Most of the Leblanc liquor
is nowadays converted into caustic soda, as white soda-ash
is more easily and cheaply made by the ammonia-soda process.
We shall therefore in this place describe the manufacture
of caustic soda. This is always made from the carbonate by
the action of slaked lime: Na2CO3 + Ca(OH)2 = CaCO3 +
2NaOH. The calcium carbonate, being insoluble, is easily
separated from the caustic liquor by filtration. But as
this reaction is reversible, we must observe the conditions
necessary for directing it in the right sense. These are:
diluting with water so as not to exceed 10% of sodium carbonate
to 90% of water; boiling this mixture; and keeping it well
agitated. At the best about 92% of the sodium carbonate
can be converted into caustic soda, 8% remaining unchanged.
The operation is performed in iron cylinders, provided
with an agitating arrangement. This may consist of a steam
injector by means of which air is made to bubble through the
liquid, which produces both the required agitation and the
heating, and at the same time oxidizes at least part of the
sulphides; but this method of agitation causes a great waste
of steam and at the same time a further dilution of the
liquor. Many, therefore, prefer mechanical stirring by means
of paddles, fixed either to a vertical or to a horizontal
shaft, and inject only sufficient steam to keep the mass
at the proper temperature. Some heat is also gained by
the slaking of the caustic lime within the liquor. After
from half an hour to a whole hour the conversion of sodium
carbonate into sodium hydrate is brought about as far as is
practicable. The whole mass is now run into the filters,
which are always constructed on the vacuum principle. They
are iron boxes, in which a bed is made of bricks, above
them gravel, and over this sand, covered on the top by iron
grids. The space below the sieve thus formed is connected
by means of an outlet tap with a closed tank, and this again
communicates with a vacuum pump. By this means the filtration
is quickened by the atmospheric pressure, and goes on very
rapidly, as also does the subsequent washing. The filtered
caustic liquor passes to the concentration plants; the
washings are employed for diluting fresh vat-liquor for the
next operation, or for dissolving solid soda-ash for the same
purpose. The washed-out calcium carbonate, which always contains
much calcium hydrate and 2 or 3% of soda in various forms,
usually goes back to the black-ash furnaces, but it cannot be
always used up in this way, and what remains is thrown upon a
heap outside the works. Attempts have been made to use it in
the manufacture of Portland cement, but without much success.
The clear caustic soda liquor must be concentrated in such
a way that the caustic soda cannot to any great extent be
reconverted into sodium carbonate, and that the ``salts''
which it contains, sodium carbonate, sulphate, chloride, &c.,
can be. separated during the process. Formerly the most usual
concentrating apparatus was the ``boat-pan'' (fig. 8). This is an
FIG. 8.--Caustic Soda Concentration Boat-pan. (Sectional Elevation.) Scale
oblong iron pan, the bottom of which slopes from both sides
to a narrow channel. The latter rests on a brick pillar;
the remaining part of the sloping bottom is heated, either
by the waste fire from a black-ash furnace or by a special
fireplace. This arrangement has the effect that the salts, as
they separate out, slide down the sloping part and arrive in
the central channel, which is not exposed to the fire-gases,
so that they quietly settle there, without caking to the pan,
until they are fished out by means of perforated ladles. These
boat-pans were for many years almost everywhere employed, and
did their work quite well, but rather expensively. At many works
they have been replaced by either Thelen pans or vacuum pans.
The ``Thelen pan'' (thus named from its inventor, a foreman
at the Rhenania works near Aachen) is a mechanically worked
fishing-pan, which requires considerably less labour and
coal than ordinary boat-pans. It is a long trough, of nearly
semicircular section, the whole bottom being exposed to the
fire- gases. A horizontal shaft runs length-ways through the
trough, and is provided with stirring blades, arranged in
such a manner that they constantly scrape the bottom, so that
the salts cannot burn fast upon it, and are at the same time
moved forward towards one of the ends of the trough where
they are automatically removed by means of a chain of buckets.
The most efficient evaporating apparatus, as far as economy
of fuel is concerned, is the vacuum-pan, of which from two to
five are combined to form a set, but it has the drawback that
the removal of the salts is much more difficult than with the
older pans, described above. In this apparatus only the first
of the pans is heated directly, usually by means of ordinary
boiler- steam circulating round a number of pipes, containing
the liquid to be concentrated. The steam rising from the latter
is passed into a similar pan, in which it circulates round
another set of pipes, but as it could not bring the liquid in
the latter to boil under ordinary conditions, the second pan
is connected with a vacuum-pump so that the boiling-point of
the liquid in this pan is lowered. This pan may be followed by
a third pan, in which a stronger vacuum is maintained, and so
forth. By this means the latent heat of the steam, issuing
from all pans but the last, is utilized for evaporating
purposes, and from half to three-fourths of the fuel is saved.
After being concentrated up to a certain point, and after
the separation of nearly all the salts, the caustic liquor
is transferred to cast-iron ``finishing-pots'' (fig. 9),
holding from ten to twenty tons. Here it is further boiled
down until the greater part or nearly all of the water
has been removed, and until the salts on cooling would
set to a solid mass. This requires ultimately a good red
heat. Before the mass has reached that point the sulphides
still present have been destroyed, either by the addition of
solid nitrate of soda or by blowing air through the red-hot
melt. Before finishing, the molten mass must be kept at a quiet
FIG. 9.--Caustic Soda ``Finishing-pot.'' (Sectional Elevation.) Scale
heat for some hours in order to settle out the ferric oxide which
it always contains, and which becomes insoluble (through the
destruction of the sodium ferrite) only at high temperatures.
When it has completely cleared, the liquid caustic is ladled
or pumped out into sheet-iron drums, holding about 6 cwt. each,
where it solidifies and forms the caustic soda known to commerce.
The best caustic soda tests from 75 to 76 degrees of
``available soda''; this is only a few per cent removed
from the composition of pure NaOH, which would be = 77.5
degrees Na2O. Most of the caustic soda is sold at a
strength of 70 degrees, sometimes as low as 60 degrees.
Caustic soda is used in very large quantities in the
manufacture of soap, paper, textile fabrics, alizarin
and other colouring matters, and for many other purposes.
7. Soda-Crystals.--Another product made in alkali works is
soda-crystals. Their formula in Na2CO3, 10H2O, corresponding
to 37% of dry sodium carbonate. They are made by dissolving
ordinary soda-ash in hot water, adding a small quantity of
chloride of lime for the destruction of colouring matter and the
oxidation of any ferrous salts present, carefully settling the
solution, without allowing its temperature to fall below the
point of maximum solubility (34 deg. C.), and running the clarified
liquid into cast-iron crystallizers or ``cones,'' where, on
cooling down, most of the sodium carbonate is separated in
large crystals of the decahydrated form. This process lasts
about a week in winter, and up to a fortnight in summer. In
France the crystallization of soda is performed not in large
tanks but in sheet-iron dishes holding only about 1/4 cwt.,
and requires only from 27 to 48 hours in the cool season; it
is not carried on at all in warmer climates during the summer
months. The mother-liquor, drained from the soda-crystals, on
boiling down to dryness yields a very white, but low-strength
soda-ash, as the soluble impurities of the original soda-ash
are nearly all collected here; it is called ``mother-alkali.''
Although the soda-crystals contain the alkali combined
with such a large quantity of water, they are made in large
quantities, because their form, together with their complete
freedom from caustic soda, makes them very suitable for domestic
purposes. Hence they are best known as ``washing-soda.''
Sometimes they are made, not from soda-ash, but from Leblanc
soda-liquor before ``finishing'' the ash, or from the crude
bicarbonate of the ammonia-soda process by prolonged boiling,
until nearly half of the carbonic acid has been expelled.
Formerly bicarbonate of soda was made from Leblanc soda-
crystals by the action of carbonic acid, but this article
is now almost exclusively made in the ammonia-soda process.
8. The Recovery of Sulphur from Alkali-waste.--For many
years all the sulphur used in the Leblanc process in the
shape of sodium sulphate, and originally imported into the
manufacture in the shape of brimstone or pyrites, was wasted
in the crude calcium sulphide remaining from the lixiviation of
black-ash. This ``alkali-waste,'' also called tank-waste or
vat- waste, was thrown into heaps where the calcium sulphide
was gradually acted upon by the moisture and the oxygen of the
air. The sulphur was by these converted partly into gaseous
sulphuretted hydrogen, partly into soluble polysulphides,
thiosulphates and other soluble compounds, and in all shapes
caused a nuisance which became more and more intolerable as
the number and size of alkali works increased. Both the air
and the water in their neighbourhood were contaminated thereby.
Both this nuisance and the loss of the sulphur (whose cost
sometimes amounted to more than half of the total cost of the
soda-ash) led to many attempts at extracting the sulphur from the
alkali-waste. This was first done with a certain amount of
success by the processes of M. Schaffner (1861) and L. Mond
(1862), but as these required the use of hydrochloric acid,
and as they only recovered about half of the sulphur, they
were superseded by another--a process which had been originally
proposed by W. Gossage in 1837, but has been made practicable
only by the inventions of C. F. Claus, in 1883, and from 1887
onward by the technical skill of Messrs Chance Brothers, of
Oldbury. The Claus-Chance process, as it is called, comprises
the following operations. The wet alkali-waste as it comes
from the lixiviating vats, is transferred into upright
iron cylinders in which it is systematically treated with
lime-kiln gases until the whole of the calcium sulphide has
been converted into calcium carbonate, the carbon dioxide of
the lime-kiln gases being entirely exhausted. The sulphur
issues as sulphuretted hydrogen, mixed with the nitrogen of the
air. It is mixed with fresh air containing sufficient oxygen
for the combustion of the hydrogen, and the mixture is passed
through red-hot iron oxide (burnt pyrites) which by its
catalytic action causes the reaction H2S + O = H2O + S to take
place. By cooling the vapours the sulphur is condensed in a
very pure form, and about 85% of the whole of it is recovered,
the remaining 15% escaping in the shape of sulphur dioxide
(SO2) and H2S. Unfortunately it has been hitherto found
impossible to deal with these gases in any profitable way.
It should be noted that this ``recovered sulphur,'' which is equal
in purity to the ``refined brimstone'' of commerce, has a far
higher value than the sulphur contained in the originally employed
pyrites, so that the recovery is a paying process, in spite of
the somewhat considerable cost of the plant and of the working
operations. It has been introduced at most large Leblanc alkali
works, and has, so to say, given them a new lease of life.
II. THE AMMONIA-SODA PROCESS
In spite of the great improvements effected during recent
times the Leblanc process cannot economically compete with
the ammonia-soda process, principally for two reasons. The
sodium in the latter costs next to nothing, being obtained
from natural or artificial brine in which the sodium chloride
possesses an extremely slight value. The fuel required is less
than half the amount used in the Leblanc process. Moreover,
the ammonia process has been gradually elaborated into a very
complicated but perfectly regularly working scheme, in which
the cost of labour and the loss of ammonia are reduced to a
minimum. The only way in which the Leblanc process could still
hold its own was by being turned in the direction of making
caustic soda, to which it lends itself more easily than the
ammonia-soda process; but the latter has invaded even this
field. One advantage, however, still remained to the Leblanc
process. All endeavours to obtain either hydrochloric acid
or free chlorine in the ammonia- soda process have proved
commercial failures, all the chlorine of the sodium chloride
being ultimately lost in the shape of worthless calcium
chloride. The Leblanc process thus remained the sole
purveyor of chlorine in its active forms, and in this way
the fact is accounted for that, at least in Great Britain,
the Leblanc process still furnishes nearly half of all the
alkali made, though in other countries its proportional
share is very much less. The profit made upon the chlorine
produced has to make up for the loss on the alkali.
The ammonia-soda process was first patented in 1838 by H. G.
Dyar and J. Hemming, who carried it out on an experimental
scale in Whitechapel. Many attempts were soon after made
in the same direction, both in England and on the continent
of Europe, the most remarkable of which was the ingenious
combination of apparatus devised by J. J. T. Schloesing and E.
Rolland. But a really economical solution of the problem
was first definitely found in 1872 by Ernest Solvay,
as the result of investigations begun about ten years
previously. The greater portion of all the soda-ash of
commerce is now made by Solvay's apparatus, which alone we
shall describe in this place, although it should be borne
in mind that the principles laid down by Dyar and Hemming
have been and are still successfully carried out in a number
of factories by an entirely different kind of apparatus.
The leading reaction of this process is the mutual decomposition
of ammonium bicarbonate and sodium chloride: NaCl + NH4HCO3
= NaHCO3 + NH4Cl. It begins, however, not with ready-made
ammonium bicarbonate, but with the substances from which
it is formed--ammonia, water and carbon dioxide--which are
made to act on sodium chloride. In practice the process
is carried out as follows. A nearly saturated solution of
sodium chloride is obtained by purifying natural or artificial
brine, i.e. an impure solution of common salt, especially
removing the alkaline earths and so forth by addition of
sodium or ammonium carbonate and settling out the precipitate
formed. This solution is saturated with ammonia, produced
in the recovery plant (see below), in vessels provided with
mechanical agitators and strongly cooled by coils of pipes through
which cold water is made to flow. These vessels, as well as
all others which are used in the process, are not open to the
air, but communicate with it through washers in which fresh
salt solution is employed for retaining any escaping vapours of
ammonia. The ammoniacal salt solution is now saturated with
carbon dioxide. This is employed in the shape of lime-kiln
gases, obtained in a comparatively pure and strong form (up
to 33% CO2), in very large kilns, charged with limestone and
coke. The kilns are closed at the top, and the gases are drawn
out by powerful air-pumps, washers being interposed between the
kilns and the pumps for the purpose of purifying and cooling the
gas. The heat evolved by the compression in the air-pumps
(which rises to four atmospheres or upwards) is again removed
by cooling, and the gas is now passed upwards in the ``Solvay
tower'' (fig. 10). This is a tall iron erection, built up from
superposed cylinders, which are separated from one another by
perforated horizontal diaphragms, constructed in such a way
that the gases are over and over again subdivided into many
smaller streams and are thus thoroughly brought into contact
with the ammoniacal salt solution with which the tower is about
two-thirds filled. There the reaction mentioned above takes
place, and owing to the concentration of the liquid the sodium
bicarbonate formed is to a great extent precipitated in the
shape of small crystals, forming with the mother-liquor a thin
magma. This takes place with considerable evolution of heat
which is removed by internal and external cooling with water.
The temperature must not be allowed to rise beyond a certain
point, for the reaction NaCl + NH4HCO3 = NaHCO3 + NH4Cl is
reversible, and at a temperature of about 60 deg. or 70 deg. C. it
is in fact practically going the wrong way, viz. from right to
left. On the other hand the cooling must not be carried too
far, for in this case the crystals of sodium bicarbonate
become so fine that the muddy mass is very difficult to
filter. The best temperature seems to be about 30 deg. C.
Either at certain intervals, or continuously, a portion of
the contents of the tower is withdrawn and fresh ammoniacal
salt solution is introduced higher up. The muddy liquid
running out is passed on to the vacuum filters (Z, fig.
10). Here a separation takes place between the crystals
of sodium bicarbonate and the mother-liquor. The former
are washed with water until the chlorides are nearly
removed, and are then carried into the drying apparatus.
From Thorpe's Dictionary of Applied Chemistry,
by permission of Longmans, Green & Co.
FIG. 10.--Ammonia - soda Carbonating Towers and Filters.
(Sectional Elevation.) Scale 1/100. AA, Tower; B, ammoniacal brine
main; E, gas-inlet; Z, vacuum filter; V, pipe to air-pump.
This must be constructed in such a manner that the bicarbonate,
which always contains some ammonium salts, is first freed
from these by moderate heating (of course taking care that the
ammonia is completely recovered), and later on, by raising the
temperature, it is decomposed into solid sodium carbonate and
gaseous carbon dioxide. The former needs only grinding to
constitute the final product, ammonia- soda ash; the latter is
again employed in the process of treating the ammoniacal salt
solution with carbon dioxide. Various forms of apparatus are
employed for this treatment of the crude bicarbonate--sometimes
semi-circular troughs with mechanical agitators on the
principle of the Thelen pan (see above)--all acting on the
principle that the escaping ammonia and carbon dioxide must
be fully utilized over again. The soda-ash obtained in the
end is of a high degree of purity, testing from 98 to 99%
Na2CO3, the remaining 1 or 2% consisting principally of NaCl.
A very important part of the process has still to be described,
viz. the recovery of the ammonia from the mother-liquor
coming from the vacuum filters and various washing liquors.
Unless this recovery is carried out in the most efficient
manner, the process cannot possibly pay; but so much progress
has been made in this direction that the loss of ammonia
is very slight indeed, merely a fraction per cent. The
ammonia is for the major part found in the mother-liquor as
ammonium chloride. A smaller but still considerable portion
exists here and in the washings in the shape of ammonium
carbonates. These compounds differ in their behaviour to
heat. The ammonium carbonates are driven out from their
solutions by mere prolonged boiling, being thereby decomposed
into ammonia, carbon dioxide and water, but the ammonium
chloride is not volatile under these conditions, and must
be decomposed by milk of lime: 2NH4Cl + Ca(OH)2 = 2NH3
+ CaCl2 + 2H2O. The solution of calcium chloride is run
to waste, the ammonia is re-introduced into the process.
Both these reactions are carried out in tall cylindrical columns
or ``stills,'' Consisting of a number of superposed cylinders,
having perforated horizontal partitions, and provided with
a steam-heating arrangement in the enlarged bottom portion.
The milk of lime is introduced at a certain distance from the
bottom. The steam causes the action of the lime on the
ammonium chloride to take place in this lower portion of the
still, from which the steam, mixed with all the liberated
ammonia, rises into the upper portion of the column where its
heat serves to drive out the volatile ammonium carbonate. Just
below the top there is a cooling arrangement, so that nearly
all the water is condensed and runs back into the column, while
the ammonia, with the carbon dioxide formerly combined with
part of it, passes on first through an outside cooler where
the remaining water is condensed, and afterwards into the
vessels, already described, where the ammonia is absorbed by
a solution of salt and thus again introduced into the process.
The reversible character of the principal reaction has
the consequence that a considerable portion of the sodium
chloride (up to 33%) is lost, being contained in the waste
calcium chloride solution which issues from the ammonia
stills. This is, however, not of much importance, as it
had been introduced in the shape of a brine where its value
is very slight (6d. per ton of NaCl). It is true that all
the chlorine combined with the sodium is lost partly as NaCl
and partly as CaCl2; none of the innumerable attempts at
recovering the chlorine from the waste liquor has been made to
pay, and success is less likely than ever since the perfection
of the electrolytic processes. (See CHLORINE.) For all
that, especially in consequence of the small amount of fuel
required, and the total absence of the necessity of employing
sulphur compounds as an intermediary, the ammonia-soda process
has supplanted the Leblanc process almost entirely on the
continent of Europe and to a great extent in Great Britain.
III. ELECTROLITIC ALKALI MANUFACTURE
In theory by far the simplest process for making alkalis together
with free chlorine is the electrolysis of sodium (or potassium)
chloride. When this takes place in an aqueous solution, the
alkaline metal at once reacts with the water, so that a solution
of an alkaline hydrate is formed while hydrogen escapes. The
reactions are therefore (we shall in this case speak only of the
sodium compounds): (1) NaCl = Na + Cl, (2) Na + H2O = NaOH + H.
The chlorine escapes at the anode, the hydrogen at the
cathode. If the chlorine and the sodiun hydrate can act upon
each other within the liquid, bleach-liquors are formed: 2NaOH
+ Cl2 = NaOCl + NaOH + H2O. The production of these for the
use of papermakers and bleachers of textile fabrics has become
an important industry, but does not enter into our province.
If, however, the action of the chlorine on the sodium hydrate is
prevented, which can be done in various ways, they can both be
collected in the isolated state and utilized as has been previously
described, viz. the chlorine can be used for the manufacture of
liquid chlorine, bleaching-powder or other bleaching compounds,
or chlorates, and the solution of sodium hydrate can be sold
as such, or converted into solid caustic soda. Precisely the
same can be done in the electrolysis of potassium chloride.
There is a third way of conducting the action, viz. so that
the chlorine can act upon the caustic soda or potash at a
higher concentration and temperature, in which case chlorates
are directly formed in the liquid: KCl + 8H2O = KClO3 +
8H2. This has indeed become the principal, because it is the
cheapest, process for the manufacture of potassium and sodium
chlorate. Perchlorates can also be made in this way.
In all these cases the chlorine, or the products made from
it, really play a greater part than the alkali. From 58.5
parts by weight of NaCl we obtain theoretically 23Na = 40NaOH =
53Na2CO3, together with 35.5 Cl, or 100 bleaching-powder.
As the weight of bleaching-powder consumed in the world is at
most one-fifth of that of alkali, calculated as Na2CO3, it
follows that only about one-tenth of all the alkali required
could be made by electrolysis, even supposing the Leblanc process
to be entirely abolished. The remaining nine-tenths of alkali
must be supplied from other sources, chiefly the ammonia-soda
process. As long as the operation of the Leblanc process is
continued, it will supply a certain share of both kinds of
products. Trustworthy statistics on this point cannot be
obtained, because most firms withhold any information
as to the extent of their production from the public.
The first patents for the electrolysis of alkaline chlorides
were taken out in 1851 and several others later on; but
commercial success was utterly impossible until the invention
of the dynamo machine allowed the production of the electric
current at a sufficiently cheap rate. The first application
of this machine for the present purpose seems to have been
made in 1875 and the number of patents soon rapidly increased;
but although a large amount of capital was invested and
many very ingenious inventions made their appearance, it
took nearly another twenty years before the manufacture of
alkali in this way was carried out in a continuous way on a
large scale and with profitable results. A little earlier
the manufacture of potassium chlorate (on the large scale
since 1890) had been brought to a definite success by H.
Gall and the Vicomte A. de Montlaur; a few years later the
processes worked out at the Griesheim alkali works (near
Frankfort) for the manufacture of caustic potash and chlorine
established definitely the success of electrolysis in the
field of potash, but even then none of the various processes
working with sodium chloride had emerged from the experimental
stage. Only more recently the manufacture of caustic soda
by electrolysis has also been established as a permanent and
paying industry, but as the greatest secrecy is maintained
in everything belonging to this domain, and as neither patent
specifications nor the sanguine assertions and anticipations
of interested persons throw much real light on the actual
facts of the case, nothing certain can be said either in
regard to the date at which the profitable manufacture
of caustic soda was first carried out by electrolysis, or
as to what extent this is the case at the present moment.
We shall here give merely an outline of those more important processes
which are known to be at present working profitably on a large scale.
(1) The Diaphragm process is probably the only one employed
at present for the decomposition of potassium chloride, and
it is also used for sodium chloride. A hot, concentrated
solution of the alkaline chloride is treated by the electric
current in large iron tanks which at the same time serve as
cathodes. The anodes are made of retort-carbon or other
chlorine-resisting material, and they are mounted in cells
which serve as diaphragms. The material of these cells
is usually cement, mixed with certain soluble salts which
impart sufficient porosity to the material. The electrolysis
is carried on until about a quarter of the chloride has
been transformed; it must be stopped at this stage lest
the formation of hypochlorite and chlorate should set
in. The alkaline liquid is now transferred to vacuum pans,
constructed in such a manner that the unchanged chloride,
which ``salts out'' during the concentration, can be removed
without disturbing the vacuum, and here at last a concentrated
pure solution of KOH or NaOH is obtained which is sold in
this state, or ``finished'' as solid caustic in the manner
described in the section treating of the Leblanc soda.
(2) The Castner-Kellner process employs no diaphragm, but a
mercurial cathode. The electrolysis takes place in the central
compartment of a tripartite trough which can be made to rock
slightly either to one side or the other. The bottom of the
trough is covered with mercury. The sodium as it is formed
at the cathode at once dissolves in the mercury which protects
it against the action of the water as long as the percentage
of sodium in the mercury does not exceed, say, 0.02%. When
this percentage has been reached, the cell is rocked to the
other side, so that the amalgam flows into one of the outer
compartments where the sodium is converted by water into sodium
hydrate. At the same time fresh mercury, from which the
sodium had been previously extracted, flows from the other
outside compartment into the central one. After a certain time
the whole is rocked towards the other side, and the process
is continued until the outer compartments contain a strong
solution of caustic soda, free from chloride and hypochlorite.
(3) Aussig process.--Here the anode is fixed in a bell,
mounted in a larger iron tank where the cathodes are
placed. The whole is filled with a solution of common
salt. As the electrolysis goes on, NaOH is formed at the
cathodes and remains at the bottom. The intermediate layer
of the salt solution, floating over the caustic soda solution,
plays the part of a diaphragm, by preventing the chlorine
evolved in the bell from acting on the sodium hydrate formed
outside, and this solution offers much less resistance to
the electric current than the ordinary diaphragms. This
process therefore consumes less power than most others.
(4) The Acker-Douglas process electrolyses sodium chloride
in the molten state, employing a cathode consisting of molten
lead. The latter dissolves the sodium as it is formed and
carries it to an outer compartment where by the action of
water the sodium is converted into caustic soda, while the
lead returns to the inner compartment. This process is carried
on at Niagara Falls, but it is uncertain to what extent.
(5) The Hargreaves-Bird process avoids certain drawbacks
attached to other processes, by employing a wire diaphragm
and converting the caustic soda as it issues on the other
side of this, by means of carbon dioxide, into a mixture
of sodium carbonate and bicarbonate, which separates out
in the solid state. This process is but little used.
It stands to reason that the electrolytic processes have
been principally developed in localities where the electric
current can be produced in the cheapest possible manner by
means of water power, but this is not the only condition
to be considered, as the question of freight to a centre of
consumption and other circumstances may also play an important
part. Where coal is very cheap indeed and the other
conditions are favourable, it is possible to establish such
an industry with a prospect of commercial success, even when
the electric current is produced by means of steam-engines.
Natural Soda.--This is the term applied to certain
deposits of alkaline salts, or their solutions, which occur,
sometimes in very large quantities, in various parts of the
world. The oldest and best known of these are the Natron
lakes in Lower Egypt. The largest occurrence of natural soda
hitherto known is that in Owen's Lake and other salt lakes
situated in eastern California. The soda in all of these
is present as ``sesquicarbonate,'' in reality 4/3 carbonate:
NaHCO3.Na2CO3.2H2O, and is always mixed with large
quantities of chloride and sulphate, which makes its extraction
more difficult than would appear from the outset. Hence,
although for many centuries (up to Leblanc's invention)
hardly any soda was available except from this source, and
although we now know that millions of tons of it exist,
especially in the west of the United States, there is as yet
very little of it practically employed, and that only locally.
REFERENCES.--The principal work on the manufacture of alkali
is G. Lunge's Sulphuric Acid anid Alkali (2nd ed., vols. ii.
and iii., 1895-1896). This work has also appeared in a German
and a French edition. The same author wrote the articles
on the manufacture of sodium and potassium compounds and on
chlorine in Thorpe's Dictionary of applied Chemistry (3
vols., 1890-1893). The subject is also treated, very much
more briefly, in Sorel's Industrie chimique minerale
(1902), and of course in every other general treatise on
chemical technology. A special treatise on the manufaciure
of ammonia soda ash has been published in German by H.
Schreib. Consult also the official Annual reports on Alkali,
&c., and, from 1864 onwards, Journal of the Society of
Chemical Industry, Fischers Jahresberichte der chemischen
Technologie, and Zeitschrift fur angewandte Chemie. (G. L.)
ALKALINE EARTHS. The so-called alkaline earth-metals are
the elements beryllium, magnesium, calcium, strontium and
barium. By the early chemists, the term earth was used to
denote those non-metallic substances which were insoluble in
water and were unaffected by strong heating; and as some of
these substances (e.g. lime) were found to be very similar in
properties to those of the alkalis, they were called alkaline
earths. The alkaline earths were assumed to be elements until
1807, when Sir H. Davy showed that they were oxides of various
metals. The metals comprising this group are never found in
the uncombined condition, but occur most often in the form
of carbonates and sulphates; they form oxides of the type RO,
and in the case of calcium, strontium and barium, of the type
RO2. The oxides of type RO are soluble in water, the solution
possessing a strongly alkaline reaction and rapidly absorbing
carbon dioxide on exposure; they are basic in character and
dissolve readily in acids with the formation of the corresponding
salts. As the atomic weight of the element increases, it is
found that the solubility of the sulphates in water decreases.
Beryllium to a certain extent stands alone in many of its
chemical properties, resembling to some extent the metal
aluminium. Beryllium and magnesium are permanent in dry air;
calcium, strontium and barium, however, oxidize rapidly on
exposure. The salts of all the metals of this group usually
crystallize well, the chlorides and nitrates dissolve readily
in water, whilst the carbonates, phosphates and sulphates
are either very sparingly soluble or are insoluble in water.
ALKALOID, in chemistry, a term originally applied to any
organic base, i.e. a nitrogenous substance which forms
salts with acids; now, however, it is usual to restrict
the term to bases of vegetable origin and characterized by
remarkable toxicological effects. Such bases occur almost
exclusively in the dicotyledons, generally in combination with
malic, citric, tartaric or similar plant-acids. They may
be extracted by exhausting the plant-tissues with a dilute
acid, and precipitating the bases with potash, soda, lime or
magnesia. The separation of the mixed bases so obtained
is effected by repeated fractional crystallization, or by
taking advantage of certain properties of the constituents.
A chemical classification of alkaloids is difficult on
account of their complex constitution. I. A. Wyschnegradsky,
and afterwards W. Konigs, expressed the opinion that the
alkaloids were derivatives of pyridine or quinoline. This
view has been fairly well supported by later discoveries;
but, in addition to pyridine and quinoline nuclei, alkaloids
derived from isoquinoline are known. The purely chemical
literature on the alkaloids is especially voluminous;
and from the assiduity with which the constitutions of
these substances have been and are still being attacked,
we may conclude that their synthesis is but a question of
time. Piperine, conine, atropine, belladonine, cocaine,
hyoscyamine and nicotine have been already synthesized; the
constitution of several others requires confirmation, while
there remain many important alkaloids--quinine, morphine,
strychnine, &c.--whose constitution remains unknown.
The following classification is simple and convenient; the
list of alkaloids makes no pretence at being exhaustive.
(1) Pyridine group. Piperine; conine; trigonelline;
arecaidine; guvacine; pilocarpine; cytisine; nicotine;
sparteine.
(2) Tropine group. Alkaloids characterized by containing
the tropine (q.v.) nucleus. Atropine; cocaine; hygrine;
ecgonine; pelletierine.
(3) Quinoline group. The alkaloids of the quina-barks:
quinine, &c.; the strychnos bases: strychnine, brucine;
and the veratrum alkaloids: veratrine, cevadine, &c.
(4) Isoquinoline group. The opium alkaloids: morphine,
codeine, thebaine, papaverine, narcotine, narceine, &c.;
and the complicated substances hydrastine and berberine.
In addition to the above series there are a considerable number
of compounds derived from purin which are by some writers
classed with the alkaloids. These are treated in the article
PURIN. There are also reasons for including such compounds
as muscarine, choline, neurine and betaine in this group.
The greater number of these substances are of considerable
medicinal value; this aspect is treated generally in the
article PHARMACOLOGY. Reference should also be made
to the articles on the individual alkaloids for further
details as to their medicinal and chemical properties.
The chemistry of the alkaloids is treated in detail by Ame
Pictet in his La Constitution chimique des alcatoides vegetaux
(Paris, 1897); enlarged and translated by H. C. Biddle wiih
the title The Vegetable Alkaloids (New Vork, 1904); and by
J. W. Bruhl, F. HJelt, and O. Aschan: Die Pflanzen-Alkaloide
(1900). A pamphlet, Die Alkaloidchemie in den Jahren
1900-1904, by Julius Schmidt, may also be consulted.
ALKAN, CHARLES HENRI VALENTIN MORHANGE (1813-1888), French
musical composer, was born and died in Paris. Alkan was his
nom de guerre. Admitted to the Conservatoire of Paris in his
sixth year, he had a distinguished career there until 1830.
He visited London in 1833, after which he settled in Paris as
a pianoforte teacher till his death. He is important as the
composer of a large number of pianoforte etudes, embodying
the most extravagant technical difficulties. His invention
was not modern enough to secure for these works that attention
which they deserve as representing a pianoforte technique
and sense of effect in some respects more advanced even
than that of Liszt, though lacking Liszt's economy and tact.
ALKANET (dim. from Span. alcana, Arab. al-hena = henna,
Egyptian privet, or Lawsonia inermis), a plant, Alkanna or
Anchusa tinctoria, of the order Boraginaceae, also known as
orchanet, dyer's bugloss, Spanish bugloss or bugloss of Languedoc,
which is grown in the south of France and on the shores of the
Levant. Its root yields a fine red colouring matter which
has been used to tint tinctures, oils, wines, varnishes, &c.
AL KASR AL KEBIR (``the great castle,'' in Span. ALCAZAR
KEBIR, in Port. ALCACER QUBIR), a town of Morocco, on the
river Lekkus, 80 m. N.W. of Fez. Pop. about 10,000. Its mud
and pantile dwellings are here and there relieved by a mosque
tower, but the aspect of the town is far from inviting. It
is frequently flooded in winter and in consequence fever is
prevalent. The weekly market, held on Sundays in the centre
of the town, gives to the place an appearance of bustle.
A vice-governor is appointed for the town by the basha of
Laraiche, one for the country round by the sultan of Morocco,
a condition which causes much confusion on market-days. Al
Kasr al Rebir was built, according to Leo Africanus, by Yakub
el Mansur (1186-1199). Not far from the town, by the banks
of the river Makhazan, is the site of the battle fought in
1578 between Dom Sebastian, king of Portugal, and the Moors
under Abd el Malek, in which the Moors were victorious, though
both kings perished, as well as the deposed Mahommed XI., who
had called in the Portuguese to his aid against Abd el Malek.
ALKMAAR, a town in the province of North Holland, kingdom of
Holland, 24 1/2 m. by rail N.N.W. of Amsterdam, connected by
steam-tramway with Haarlem and Amsterdam, and on the North Holland
canal. Pop. (1900) 18,373. Alkmaar is a typical North Holland
town, with tree-lined canals and brightly coloured 17th-century
houses. The old city walls have been replaced by pleasant
gardens and walks, and there is a park in which stands a fine
monument (1876) by J. T. Stracke (1817- 1891), symbolizing
Alcmaria victrix, to commemorate the siege by the Spaniards in
1573. The Groote Kerk (1470-1498), dedicated to St Lawrence,
is a handsome building and contains the tomb of Floris
V., count of Holland (d. 1296), a brass of 1546, and some
paintings (1507). In the town hall (1507) are the library
and a small museum with two pictures by the 17th century
artist Caesar van Everdingen, who with his more celebrated
brother Allart van Everdingen (q.v.) was a native of the
town. The weigh-house (1582) is a picturesque building
with quaint gable and tower. Just outside the town lies the
Alkmaar wood, at the entrance to which stands the military
cadet school which serves as a preparatory school for the
royal military academy at Breda. Alkmaar derives its chief
importance from being the centre of the flourishing butter
and cheese trade of this region of Holland. It is also a
considerable market for horses, cattle and grain, and there is
a little boat-building and salt and sail-cloth manufacture.
Tramways connect Alkmaar with Egmond and with the pretty summer
resort of Bergen, which lies sheltered by woods and dunes.
The name of Alkmaar, which means ``all sea,'' first occurs
in the 10th century, and recalls its former situation in the
midst of marshlands and lakes. It was probably originally a
fishing-village, but with the reclamation of the surrounding
morasses, e.g. that of the Schermer in 1685, and their
conversion into rich meadow land, Alkmaar gradually acquired
an imporiant trade. In 1254 it received a charter from
William II., count of Holland, similar to that of Haarlem,
but in the 15in century duke Philip the Good of Burgundy
made the impoverishment of the town, due to ill-government,
the excuse for establishing an oligarchical regime, by
charters of 1436 and 1437. As the capital of the ancient
district of Kennemerland between den Helder and Haarlem,
Alkmaar frequently suffered in the early wars between the
Hollanders and the Frisians, and in 1517 was captured by the
united Gelderlaiiders and Frisians. In 1573 it successfully
sustained a seven-weeks' siege by 16,000 Spaniards under the
duke of Alva. In 1799 Alkmaar gave its name to a conxention
signed by the duke of York and the French general Brune, in
accordance with which the Russo-British army of 23,000 men,
which was defeated at Bergen, evacuated Holland. A monument
was erected in 1901 to commemorate the Russians who fell.
ALLACCI, LEONE [LEO ALLATIUS] (1586-1669), Greek scholar
and theologian, was born in the island or Chios. His early
years were passed in Calabria and at Rome, where he finally
settled as teacher of Greek at the Greek college, at the
same time devoting himself to the study of classics and
theology. In 1622, after the capture of Heidelberg by Tilly,
the elector Maximilian of Bavaria presented its splendid
library composed of 196 cases of MSS. (bibliotheca Palatina)
to Pope Gregory XV. Allacci was sent to superintend its
removal to Rome, where it was incorporated with the Vatican
library. On the death of Gregory, Allacci became librarian to
Cardinal Berberini, and subsequently (1661) librarian of the
Vatican, which post he held till his death on the 18th (or
19th) of January 1669. It is noteworthy that, although a Greek
by birth, he became an ardent Roman Catholic and the bitter
enemy of all heretics, including his own countrymen. Allacci
was a very industrious and voluminous writer, but his works,
although they bear ample testimony to his immense learning,
show an absence of the true critical faculty, and are full of
intolerance, especially on religious subjects. For a list
of these, J. A. Fabricius's Bibliotheca Graeca (xi. 437)
should be consulted, where they are divided into four classes:
editions, translations and commentaries on ancient authors; works
relating to the dogmas and institutions of the Greek and Roman
Churches; historical works; miscellaneous works. The number
of his unpublished writings is also very large; the majority
of them are included in the MSS. of the Vallicellian library.
The main source of our knowledge of Allatius is the incomplete
life by Stephanus Gradi, Leonis Allatii vita, published by
Cardinal Mai, in Nova Bibliotheca Patrum. A complete enumeration
of his works is contained in E. Legrand, Bibliographie
hellenique du XVIIeme siecle (Paris, 1895, iii.
435-471). The accounts of C. N. Sathas in Neoellenvike
filologia (Athens, 1868), and of the pseudo-prince Demetrius
Rhodokanakis, Leonis Allatii Hellas (Athens, 1872, are
inaccurate and untrustworthy. For a special account of his
share in the foundation of the Vatican Library, see Curzio
Mazzi, Leone Allacci e la Palatina di Heidelberg (Bologna,
1893). The theological aspect of his works is best
treated by the Assumptionist Father L. Petit in A. Vacant's
Dictionnaire de theologie (Paris, 1900, cols. 830-833).
ALLAH, the Arabic name used by Moslems of all nationalities
for the one true God. It is compounded of al, the definite
article, and ilah, meaning a god. The same word is
found in Hebrew and Aramaic as well as in ancient Arabic
(Sabaean). The meaning of the root from which it is derived
is very doubtful; cf. Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, p.
82, and the Oxford Hebrew and English Lexicon, pp. 61 ff.
ALLAHABAD, a city of British India, the capital of the United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh, giving its name to a district and a
division. The city is situated at the confluence of the
Ganges and the Jumna in 25 deg. 26' N. lat. and 81 deg. 50' E.
long., 564 m. from Calcutta by rail. Its most conspicuous
feature is the fort, which rises directly from the banks of the
confluent rivers and completely commands the navigation of both
streams. Within the fort are the remains of a splendid palace,
erected by the Emperor Akbar, and once a favourite residence of
his. A great portion of it has been destroyed, and its hall
is converted into an arsenal. Outside the fort the places
of most importance are the sarai and gardens of Khasru, the
son of the Emperor Jehangir, and the Jama Masjid or Great
Mosque. When the town first came into the hands of the
English this mosque was used as a residence by the military
officer commanding the station, and afterwards as an assembly
room. Ultimately it was returned to its former owners, but
the Mahommedans considered it desecrated, and it has never
since been used as a place of worship. Allahabad (Illahabad)
was the name given to the city when Akbar built the great
fort. To the Hindus it is still known by its ancient name
of Prag or Prayag (``place of sacrifice''), and it remains
one of the most noted resorts of Hindu pilgrimage. It owes
its sanctity to its being the reputed confluence of three
sacred streams--the Ganges, the Jumna and the Saraswati. This
last stream, however, actually loses itself in the sands of
Sirhind, 400 m. north-west of Allahabad. The Hindus assert
that the stream joins the other two rivers underground, and
in a subterraneous temple below the fort a little moisture
trickling from the rocky walls is pointed out as the waters
of the Saraswati. An annual fair is held at Allahabad at
the confluence of the streams on the occasion of the great
bathing festival at the full moon of the Hindu month of
Magh. It is known as the Magh-mela, lasts for a whole
month, and is attended by as many as 250,000 persons in
ordinary years, either for religious or commercial purposes.
Every twelfth year there is a special occasion called the
Kumbh-mela, which is attended by a million of devotees at one
time. Allahabad was taken by the British in 1765 from the
wazir of Oudh, and assigned as a residence to Shah Alam,
the titular emperor of Delhi. Upon that prince throwing
himself into the hands of the Mahrattas, the place was
resumed by the British in 1771 and again transferred to
the nawab of Oudh, by whom it was finally ceded together
with the district to the British in 1801, in commutation of
the subsidy which the wazir had agreed to pay for British
protection. During the Mutiny of 1857, Allahabad became
the scene of one of the most serious outbreaks and massacres
which occurred in the North-Western Provinces. The fort was
held by a little garrison of Europeans and loyal Sikhs, until
it was relieved by General Neill on June 11th of that year.
The modern buildings of Allahabad include Government House, the
High Court, the Mayo memorial and town hall, the Muir central
college, the Thornhill and Mayne memorial library and museum,
the Naini central jail, and the Anglican and Roman Catholic
cathedrals. The Jumna is crossed by a railway bridge and
there are two bridges of boats over the Ganges. The military
cantonments contain accommodation for all three arms and
are the headquarters of a brigade in the 8th division of
the eastern army corps. At Allahabad is published the
Pioneer, perhaps the best known English paper in India.
There is an American mission college. Here is the junction
of the great railway system which unites Bengal with Central
India and Bombay, and is developing into a great centre of
1nland and export trade. The population in 1901 was 172,032.
The DISTRICT OF ALLAHABAD has an area of 2811 sq. m. In
shape it is an irregular oblong, and it is very difficult to
define its boundaries, as at one extremity it wanders into
Oudh, while on the south the villages of the state of Rewa
and those of this district are hopelessly intermingled. The
Jumna and the Ganges enclose within their angle a fertile
tract well irrigated with tanks and wells. The East Indian
railway and the Grand Trunk road afford the principal means
of land communication. In 1901 the population was 1,489,358,
showing a decrease of 4% in the decade due to famine.
The division of Allahabad has an area of 17,270 sq. m. The
population in 1901 was 5,540,702, showing a decrease of 4% in the
decade due to the famine of 1896-1897, which was severely felt
throughout the division. It comprises the seven districts of
Cawnpore, Fatehpur, Banda, Hamirpur, Allahabad, Jhansi and Jalaun.
ALLAMANDA, named after J. N. S. Allamand (1713-1787), of
Leiden, a genus of shrubby, evergreen climbers, belonging
to the natural order Apocynaceae, and a native of tropical
America. Several species are grown in hot-houses for the
beauty of their folliage and flowers; the latter, borne in
many-flowered panicles, have a funnel-shaped corolla with
a narrow tube, and often yellow in colour. The plants
are of comparatively easy culture, and very effective
when trained to wires beneath the roof of the house.
ALLAN, DAVID (1744-1796), Scottish historical painter,
was born at Alloa. On leaving Foulis's academy of painting
at Glasgow (1762), after seven years' successful study, he
obtained the patronage of Lord Cathcart and of Erskine of Mar,
on whose estate he had been born. The latter furnished him
with the means of proceeding to Rome (1764), where he remained
for a number of years engaged principally in copying the old
masters. Among the original works which he then painted
was the ``Origin of Portraiture''--representing a Corinthian
maid drawing her lover's shadow--well known through Domenico
Cunego's excellent engraving. This gained for him the gold
medal given by the Academy of St Luke in the year 1773 for
the best specimen of historical composition. Returning
from Rome in 1777, he resided for a time in London, and
occupied himself in portrait-painting. In 1780 he removed
to Edinburgh, where, on the death of Alexander Runciman in
1786, he was appointed director and master of the Academy of
Arts. There he painted and etched in aquatint a variety of
works, those by which he is best known--as the ``Scotch
Wedding,'' the ``Highland Dance,'' the ``Repentance Stool,''
and his ``Illustrations of the Gentle Shepherd''--being
remarkable for their comic humour. He was called the ``Scottish
Hogarth''; but his drolleries hardly entitle him to this
comparison. Allan died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August 1796.
ALLAN, SIR HUGH (1810-1882), Canadian financier, was
born on the 29th of September 1810, at Saltcoats, Ayrshire,
Scotland, the son of Captain Alexander Allan, a shipmaster.
He emigrated to Canada in 1826, and in 1831 entered the
employ of the chief shipbuilding and grain-shipping firm of
Montreal, of which he became a junior partner in 1835. In
1853 he organized the Allan Line of steamships, plying between
Montreal. Liverpool and Glasgow; till his death he was
closely associated with the commercial growth and prosperity
of Canada, and in 1871 was knighted in recognition of his
services. In 1872- 1873 he obtained from the Canadian government
a charter for building the Canadian Pacific railway, but the
disclosures made with reference to his contributions to the
funds of the Conservative party led to the Pacific scandal
(see CANADA, History), and that company was soon afterwards
dissolved. He died in Edinburgh on the 9th of December 1882.
See J. C. Dent, Canadian Portrait Gallery (1881).
ALLAN, SIR WILLIAM (1782-1850), Scottish painter, was born at
Edinburgh, and at an early age entered as a pupil in the School
of Design established in Edinburgh by the Board of Trustees
for Arts and Manufactures, where he had as companions, John
Wilkie, John Burnet the engraver, and others who afterward
distinguished themselves as artists. Here Allan and Wilkie
were placed at the same table, studied the same designs, and
contracted a lifelong friendship. Allan continued his studies
for some time in London; but his attempt to establish himself
there was unsuccessful, and after exhibiting at the Royal
Academy (1805) his first picture, ``A Gipsy Boy and Ass,''
an imitation in style of Opie, he determined, in spite of his
scanty resources, to seek his fortune abroad. He accordingly
set out the same year for Russia, but was carried by stress of
weather to Memel, where he remained for some time, supporting
himself by his pencil. At last, however, he reached St
Petersburg, where the kindness of Sir Alexander Crichton,
the court physician, and other friends procured him abundant
employment. By excursions into southern Russia, Turkey,
the Crimea and Circassia, he filled his portfolio with vivid
sketches, of which he made admirable use in his subsequent
pictures. In 1814 he returned to Edinburgh, and in the two
following years exhibited at the Royal Academy ``The Circassian
Captives'' and ``Bashkirs tonducting Convicts to Siberia.''
The former picture remained so long unsold, that, thoroughly
disheartened, he threatened to retire to Circassia when,
through the kindness of Sir Walter Scott, a subscription of
1000 guineas was obtained for the picture, which fell by lot
into the possession of the earl of Wemyss. About the same time
the Grand Duke Nicholas, afterwards tsar of Russia, visited
Edinburgh, and purchased his ``Siberian Exiles'' and ``Haslan
Gheray crossing the River Kuban,'' giving a very favourable
turn to the fortunes of the painter, whose pictures were now
sought for by collectors. From this time to 1834 he achieved
his greatest success and firmly established his fame by the
illustration of Scottish history. His most important works
of this class were ``Archbishop Sharpe on Magus Moor''; ``John
Knox admonishing Mary Queen of Scots'' (1823), engraved by
Burnet; ``Mary Queen of Scots signing her Abdication'' (1824);
and ``Regent Murray shot by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh.''
The last procured his election as an associate of the Royal
Academy (1825). Later Scottish subjects were ``Lord Byron''
(1831), portraits of Scott and ``The Orphan'' (1834), which
represented Anne Scott seated near the chair of her deceased
father. In 1830 he was compelled, on account of an attack of
ophthalmia, to seek a milder climate, and visited Rome, Naples and
Constantinople. He returned with a rich store of materials,
of which he made excellent use in his ``Constantinople Slave
Market'' and other productions. In 1834 he visited Spain and
Morocco, and in 1841 went again to St Petersburg, when he
undertook, at the request of the tsar, his ``Peter the Great
teaching his Subjects the Art of Shipbuilding,'' exhibited
in London in 1845, and now in the Winter Palace of St
Petersburg. His ``Polish Exiles'' and ``Moorish Love-letter,''
&c., had secured his election as a Royal Academician in 1835;
he was appointed president of the Royal Scottish Academy
(1838), and royal limner for Scotland, after Wilkie's death
(1841); and in 1842 received the honour of knighthood. His
later years were occupied with battle-pieces, the last he
finished being the second of his two companion pictures of the
``Battle of Waterloo.'' He died on the 22nd of February 1850,
leaving a large unfinished picture--``Bruce at Bannockburn.''
ALHAN-DESPREAUX, LOUISE ROSALIE (1810-1856), French
actress, was ``discovered'' by Talma at Brussels in 1820, when
she played Joas with him in Athalie. At his suggestion she
changed her surname, Ross, for her mother's maiden name, and, as
Mlle. Despreaux, was engaged for children's parts at the
Comedie Francaise. At the same time she studied at the
Conservatoire. By 1825 she had taken the second prize for
comedy, and was engaged to play inigenue parts at the Comeedie
Francaise, where her first appearance in this capacity was as
Jenny in L'Argent on the 8th of December 1826. In 1831 the
director of the Gymnase succeeded in persuading her to join his
company. Her six years at this theatre, during which she
married Allan, an actor in the company, were a succession of
triumphs. She was then engaged at the French theatre at St
Petersburg. Returning to Paris, she brought with her, as
Legouve says, a thing she had unearthed, through a Russian
translation, a little comedy never acted till she took it up,
a production half-forgotten, and esteemed by those who knew it
as a pleasing piece of work in the Marivaux style--Un Caprice
by Alfred de Musset, which she had played with success in St
Petersburg. Her selection of this piece for her reappearance
at the Theatre Francaise (1847) laid the corner-stone
of Musset's lasting fame as a dramatist. In the following
year his comedy Il ne faut jurer de rien was acted at the
same theatre, and thus led to the production of his finer
plays. Among plays by other authors in which Mme. Allan won
special laurels at the Theatre Francaise. were Par droit
de conquete, Peril en la demeure, La joie fait peur,
and Lady Tartuffe. In the last, with a part of only fifty
lines, and playing by the very side of the great Rachel, she
yet held her own as an actress of the first rank. Mme. Allan
died in Paris, in the height of her popularity, in March 1856.
/NH-CH-NH-CO-NH2 ALLANTOIN, C4H6N4O3 or CO |
\NH-CO
the diureide of glyoxylic acid. It is found in the allantoic
liquid of the cow, and in the urine of sucking calves. It
can be obtained by the oxidation of uric acid by means of lead
dioxide, manganese dioxide, ozone or potassium permanganate:
C5H4N4O3 + H2O + O = C4H6N4O3 + CO2.
It has been synthesized by E. Grimaux by heating one part of
glyoxylic acid with two parts of urea for ten hours at 100 deg.
C.: 2CO(NH2)2 + CH(OH)2COOH = 3H2O + C4H6N4O3. It
forms glancing prisms of neutral reaction slightly soluble in
water. On standing with concentrated potassium hydroxide solution
it gives potassium allantoate C4H7N4O4K. On heating with
water it undergoes hydrolysis into urea and allanturic acid
C3H4O3N2. It is reduced by sodium amalgam to glycouril
C4H6N4O2, whilst with hydriodic acid it yields urea and hydantoin
C3H4N2O2. Hot concentrated sulphuric acid also decomposes
allantoin, with production of ammonia, and carbon monoxide and
dioxide. By dry distillation it gives ammonium cyanide.
ALLEGHANY, or THE ALLEGHANIES (a spelling now more common
than Allegheny), a name formerly used of all the Appalachian
Mountains (q.v.), U.S.A., and now sometimes of all that
system lying W. and S. of the Hudson river, being steep
and narrow-crested in Pennsylvania (1500-1800 ft.), and in
Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia higher (3000 ft.-4473
ft). and with broader crests. Another usage applies to
the ridges ( ``the Alleghany Ridges'') parallel to the Blue
Ridge; the north-western part of this region is sometimes
called the Alleghany Front or the Front of the Alleghany
Plateau. The Alleghany Plateau is the north-westernmost
division of the Appalachian system; it is an eroded mass of
sedimentary rock sloping north-westward to the Prairie and
Lake Plains and reaching south-west from the south-western
part of New York state through Tennessee and into Alabama.
ALLEGHENY, formerly a city of Allegheny county, Pennsylvania,
U.S.A., on the N. bank of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers.
opposite Pittsburg; since 1907 a part of Pittsburg.
Pop. (1890) 105,287; (1900) 129,896, of whom 30,216 were
foreign-born and 3315 were negroes; of the foreign-born 12,022
were from Germany, 5070 from Ireland, 3929 from Austria, and
2177 from England; (1906, estimate) 145,240. Allegheny is
served by the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pittsburg & Western
railways, by the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago, the Western
Pennsylvania, the Buffalo & Allegheny Valley, the Cleveland &
Pittsburg, the Erie & Pittsburg, the Pittsburg, Youngstown &
Ashtabula, and the Chautauqua divisions of the Pennsylvania
railway system, and by Ohio river freight and passenger
boats. Extending along the river fronts for about 6 1/2 m.
are numerous large manufactories and the headquarters of
the shipping interests; farther back are the mercantile
quarters and public buildings; and on the hills beyond are
the residence districts, commanding extensive views of the
valley. Two of the principal thoroughfares, Federal and Ohio
streets, intersect at a central square, in which are the city
hall, public library, post office and the marketplace; and
surrounding the main business section on the E., N. and W.
is City Park of 100 acres, with lakes and fountains, and
monuments to the memory of Alexander von Humboldt, George
Washington and T. A. Armstrong. Farther out is Riverview
Park (219 acres), in which is the Allegheny Astronomical
Observatory, and elsewhere are a soldiers' monument and a
monument (erected by Andrew Carnegie) in memory of Colonel Johnes
Anderson. In Allegheny are the following institutions of
higher learning:--the Allegheny Theological Seminary (United
Presbyterian), opened in 1825; the Western Theological
Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, opened in 1827; and
the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Presbyterians,
opened in 1856. There is a fine Carnegie library with a
music-hall. Among penal and charitable institutions are the
Riverside State Penitentiary, three hospitals, three homes
for orphans, a home for the friendless and an industrial
school. Six bridges spanning the river and electric lines
crossing them have brought Allegheny into close industrial and
social relations with the main part of Pittsburg, and on the
hills of Allegheny are beautiful homes of wealthy men. As a
manufacturing centre Allegheny was outranked in 1905 by only
two cities in the state--Philadelphia and Pittsburg; among
the more important of its large variety of manufactures are
the products of slaughtering and meat-packing establishments,
iron and steel rolling mills, the products of foundries and
machine- shops, pickles, preserves and sauces, the products of
railway- construction and repair shops, locomotives, structural
iron and plumbers' supplies. In 1905 the total value of
Allegheny's factory products was $45,830,272; this showed an
apparent decrease (exceeded by one city only) of $7,365,106,
from the product-value of 1900, but the decrease was partly
due to the more careful census of 1905, in which there were not
the duplications or certain items which occurred in the 1900
census. But in the live years there was a decrease of 3865
in the average number of wage-earners, and the iron and
steel output was much less. In 1905 Allegheny ranked first
among the cities of the United States in the manufacture of
pickles, preserves and sauces, the product ($6,216,778) being
20.9% of that for the whole country. An important industry
is the shipment of coal, especially on barges down the Ohio.
Allegheny was laid out in 1788 on a portion of a tract which
the state had previously reserved opposite Pittsburg, with a
view to bringing some valuable land into the market for the
payment of its soldiers' claims. When ordered by the state to
be laid out, it was also named as the site of the county-seat
of the newly erected county of Allegheny, but the opposition
of Pittsburg was so strong that by a supplementary act in the
following year that town was made the county-seat. In 1828
Allegheny was incorporated as a borough and in 1840 it was
chartered as a city. The city suffered severely in 1874 from
a fire started by a fire-cracker on the 4th of July and from
a flood caused by a great rain-storm on the 26th of the same
month, but these calamities were followed by years of great
prosperity and rapid growth. In 1906 the question of uniting
Allegheny with Pittsburg under one municipal government was
submitted to a joint vote of the electorate of the two cities,
in accordance with an act of the state legislature, which had
been passed in February of that year, and a large majority
voted for the union; but there was determined opposition in
Allegheny, every ward of the city voting in the negative;
the constitutionality of the act was challenged; the supreme
court of the state on the 11th of March 1907 declared the
act valid, and on the 18th of November 1907 this decision
was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
See J. E. Parke, Recollections of Seventy Years and Historical
Gleanings of Allegheny, Pennsylvania (Boston, 1886).
ALLEGIANCE (Mid. Eng. ligeaunce; med. Lat. ligeantia,
&c.; the al- was probably added through confusion with
another legal term, allegeance, an allegation; the Fr.
allegeance comes from the English; the word is formed from
``liege,'' of which the derivation is given under that heading;
the connexion with Lat. ligare, to bind, is erroneous),
the duty which a subject or a citizen owes to the state or to
the sovereign of the state to which he belongs. It is often
used by English legal commentators in a larger sense, divided
by them into natural and local, the latter applying to the
deference which even a foreigner must pay to the institutions
of the country in which he happens to live; but it is in
its proper sense, in which it indicates national character
and the subjection due to that character, that the word is
important. In that sense it represents the feudal liege
homage, which could be due only to one lord, while simple
homage might be due to every lord under whom the person in
question held land. The English doctrine, which was at one
time adopted in the United States, asserted that allegiance
was indelible:-- Nemo potest exuere patriam. Accordingly,
as the law stood before 1870, every person who by birth or
naturalization satisfied the conditions described in the article
ALIEN, though he should be removed in infancy to another
country where his family resided, owed an allegiance to the
British crown which he could never resign or lose, except by
act of parliament or by the recognition of the independence
or the cession of the portion of British territory in which he
resided. By the Naturalization Act 1870, it was made possible
for British subjects to renounce their nationality and
allegiance, and the ways in which that nationality is lost are
defined. So British subjects voluntarily naturalized in
a foreign state are deemed aliens from the time of such
naturalization, unless, in the case of persons naturalized
before the passing of the act, they have declared their desire
to remain British subjects within two years from the passing
of the act. Persons who from having been born within British
territory are British subjects, but who at birth became under
the law of any foreign state subjects of such state, and also
persons who though born abroad are British subjects by reason of
parentage, may by declarations of alienage get rid of British
nationality. Emigration to an uncivilized country leaves British
nationality unaffected: indeed the right claimed by all states
to follow with their authority their subjects so emigrating is
one of the usual and recognized means of colonial expansion.
The doctrine that no man can cast off his native allegiance
without the consent of his sovereign was early abandoned in
the United States, and in 1868 congress declared that ``the
right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all
people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'' and one of
``the fundamental principles of the republic'' (United
States Revised Statutes, sec. 1999). Every citizen of a
foreign state in America owes a double allegiance, one to it
and one to the United States. He may be guilty of treason
against one or both. If the demands of these two sovereigns
upon his duty of allegiance come into conflict, those of the
United States have the paramount authority in American law.
The oath of allegiance is an oath of fidelity to the sovereign
taken by all persons holding important public office and as a
condition of naturalization. By ancient common law it might
be required of all persons above the age of twelve, and it was
repeatedly used as a test for the disaffected. In England it
was first imposed by statute in the reign of Elizabeth (1558)
and its form has more than once been altered since. Up to
the time of the revolution the promise was, ``to be true and
faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to
bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or
hear of any ill or damage intended him without defending him
therefrom.'' This was thought to favour the doctrine of absolute
non-resistance, and accordingly the convention parliament
enacted the form that has been in use since that time--``I
do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and
bear true allegiance to His Majesty . . .'' (see OATH.)
See also the articles CITIZEN, NATURALIZATION: and
Salmond on ``Citizenship and Allegiance,'' in the Law
Quarterly Review (July 1901, January 1902). (JNO. W.)
ALLEGORY (allos, other, and agoreuein, to speak), a
figurative representation conveying a meaning other than and in
addition to the literal. It is generally treated as a figure of
rhetoric, but the medium of representation is not necessarily
language. An allegory may be addressed to the eye, and is
often embodied in painting, sculpture or some form of mimetic
art. The etymological meaning of the word is wider than that
which it bears in actual use. An allegory is distinguished
from a metaphor by being longer sustained and more fully
carried out in its details, and from an analogy by the fact
that the one appeals to the imagination and the other to the
reason. The fable or parable is a short allegory with one
definite moral. The allegory has been a favourite form in
the literature of nearly every nation. The Hebrew scriptures
present frequent instances of it, one of the most beautiful
being the comparison of the history of Israel to the growth
of a vine in the 80th psalm. In classical literature one
of the best known allegories is the story of the stomach and
its members in the speech of Menenius Agrippa (Livy ii. 32);
and several occur in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Perhaps the
most elaborate and the most successful specimens of allegory
are to be found in the works of English authors. Spenser's
Faerie Queene, Swift's Tale of a Tub, Addison's Vision
of Mirza, and, above all, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, are
examples that it would be impossible to match in elaboration,
beauty and fitness, from the literature of any other nation.
ALLEGRI, GREGORIO, Italian priest and musical composer,
probably of the Correggio family, was born at Rome either
in 1560 or in 1585. He studied music under G. Maria
Nanini, the intimate friend of Palestrina. Being intended
for the church, he obtained a benefice in the cathedral of
Fermo. Here he composed a large number of motets and sacred
pieces, which, being brought under the notice of Pope Urban
VIII., obtained for him an appointment in the choir of the
Sistine Chapel at Rome. He held this from December 1629
till his death on the 18th of February 1652. His character
seems to have been singularly pure and benevolent. Among
the musical compositions of Allegri were two volumes of
concerti, published in 1618 and 1619; two volumes of motets,
published in 1620 and 1621; besides a number of works still in
manuscript. He was one of the earliest composers for
stringed instruments, and Kircher has given one specimen
of this class of his works in the Musurgia. But the most
celebrated composition of Allegri is the Miserere, still
annually performed in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. It is
written for two choirs, the one of five and the other of four
voices, and has obtained a celebrity which, if not entirely
factitious, is certainly not due to its intrinsic merits
alone. The mystery in which the composition was long
enshrouded, no single copy being allowed to reach the public,
the place and circumstances of the performance, and the added
embellishments of the singers, account to a great degree for
much of the impressive effect of which all who have heard
the music speak. This view is confirmed by the fact that,
when the music was performed at Venice by permission of the
pope, it produced so little effect that the emperor Leopold
I., at whose request the manuscript had been sent, thought
that something else had been substituted. In spite of the
precautions of the popes, the Miserere has long been public
property. In 1769 Mozart (q.v.) heard it and wrote it down,
and in 1771 a copy was procured and published in England by Dr
Burney. The entire music performed at Rome in Holy Week, Allegri's
Miserere included, has been issued at Leipzig by Breitkopf and
Hartel. Interesting accounts of the impression produced by
the performance at Rome may be found in the first volume of
Mendelssohn's letters and in Miss Taylor's Letters from Italy.
ALLEGRO (an Italian word, meaning ``cheerful,'' as in Milton's
poem), a term in music to indicate quick or lively time, coming
between andante and presto; it is frequently modified by
the addition of qualifying words. It is also used of a separate
piece of music, or of a movement in a sonata, symphony, &c.
ALLEINE, JOSEPH (1634-1668), English Nonconformist divine,
belonged to a family originally settled in Suffolk. As early
as 1430 some of them--sprung of Alan, lord of Buckenhall
--settled in the neighbourhood of Calne and Devizes, whence
descended the immediate ancestors of ``worthy Mr Tobie Alleine
of Devizes,'' father of Joseph, who, the fourth of a large
family, was born at Devizes early in 1634. 1645 is marked in
the title-page of a quaint old tractate, by an eye-witness,
as the year of his setting forth in the Christian race.
His elder brother Edward had been a clergyman, but in this
year died; and Joseph entreated his father that he might be
educated to succeed his brother in the ministry. In April
1649 he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, and on the 3rd of
November 1651 he became scholar of Corpus Christi College.
On the 6th of July 1653 he took the degree of B.D., and became
a tutor and chaplain of Corpus Christi, preferring this to a
fellowship. In 1654 he had offers of high preferment in the
state, which he declined; but in 1655 George Newton, of
the great church of St Mary Magdalene, Taunton, sought him
for assistant and Alleine accepted the invitation. Almost
coincident with his ordination as associate pastor came
his marriage with Theodosia Alleine, daughter of Richard
Alleine. Friendships among ``gentle and simple''--of the
former, with Lady Farewell, grand-daughter of the protector
Somerset--bear witness to the attraction of Alleine's private
life. His public life was a model of pastoral devotion. This
is all the more remarkable as he found time to continue his
studies, one monument of which was his Theologia Philosophica
(a lost MS.), a learned attempt to harmonize revelation and
nature, which drew forth the wonder of Baxter. Alleine was
no mere scholar or divine, but a man who associated on equal
terms with the founders of the Royal Society. These scientific
studies were, however, kept in subordination to his proper
work. The extent of his influence was, in so young a
man, unique, resting on the earnestness and force of his
nature. The year 1662 found senior and junior pastors
like-minded, and both were among the two thousand ejected
ministers. Alleine, with John Wesley (grandfather of the
celebrated John Wesley), also ejected, then travelled about,
preaching wherever opportunity was found. For this he was
cast into prison, indicted at sessions, bullied and fined. His
Letters from Prison were an earlier Cardiphonia than John
Newton's. He was released on the 26th of May 1664; and in
spite of the Conventicle, or Five Mile Act, he resumed his
preaching. He found himself again in prison, and again
and again a sufferer. His remaining years were full of
troubles and persecutions nobly borne, till at last, worn
out by them, he died on the 17th of November 1668; and the
mourners, remembering their beloved minister's words while
yet with them, ``If I should die fifty miles away, let me
be buried at Taunton,'' found a grave for him in St Mary's
chancel. No Puritan nonconformist name is so affectionately
cherished as is that of Joseph Alleine. His chief
literary work was An Alarm to the Unconverted (1672),
otherwise known as The Sure Guide to Heaven, which had
an enormous circulation. His Remains appeared in 1674.
See Life, edited by Baxter; Joseph Alleine: his
Companions and Times, by Charles Stanford (1861); Wood's
Athenae, iii. 819; Palmer's Nonc. Mem. iii. 208.
ALLEINE, RICHARD (1611-1681), English Puritan divine, was
born at Ditcheat, Somerset, where his father was rector. He
was a younger brother of William Alleine, the saintly vicar of
Blandford. Richard was educated at St Alban's Hall, Oxford,
where he was entered commoner in 1627, and whence, having
taken the degree of B.A., he transferred himself to New Inn,
continuing there until he proceeded M.A. On being ordained
he became assistant to his father, and immediately stirred
the entire county by his burning eloquence. In March 1641
he succeeded the many-sided Richard Bernard as rector of
Batcomb (Somerset). He declared himself on the side of the
Puritans by subscribing ``The testimony of the ministers
in Somersetshire to the truth of Jesus Christ,'' and ``The
Solemn League and Covenant,'' and assisted the commissioners
of the parliament in their work of ejecting unsatisfactory
ministers. Alleine continued for twenty years rector of
Batcomb and was one of the two thousand ministers ejected in
1662. The Five Mile Act drove him to Frome Selwood, and in
that neighbourhood he preached until his death on the 22nd
of December 1681. His works are all of a deeply spiritual
character. His Vindiciae Pietatis (which first appeared
in 1660) was refused licence by Archbishop Sheldon, and was
published, in common with other nonconformist books, without
it. It was rapidly bought up and ``did much to mend this
bad world.'' Roger Norton, the king's printer, caused a
large part of the first impression to be seized on the
ground of its not being licensed and to be sent to the royal
kitchen. Glancing over its pages, however, it seemed to
him a sin that a book so holy--and so saleable--should be
destroyed. He therefore bought back the sheets, says Calamy,
for an old song, bound them and sold them in his own shop.
This in turn was complained of, and he had to beg pardon on
his knees before the council-table; and the remaining copies
were sentenced to be ``bisked,'' or rubbed over with an inky
brush, and sent back to the kitchen for lighting fires. Such
``bisked'' copies occasionally occur still. The book was not
killed. It was often reissued with additions, The Godly
Man's Portion in 1663, Heaven Opened in 1666, The World
Conquered in 1668. He also published a book of sermons
Godly Fear, in 1664, and other less noticeable devotional compilations.
See Calamy, s.v.; Palmer's Nonconf: Mem. iii. 167-168;
C. Stanford's Joseph Ailleine; Researches at Batcomb
and Frome Selwood; Wood's Athenae (Bliss), iv. 13.
ALLEMANDE (Fr. for danse allemande, or German dance),
a name for two kinds of dance, one a German national dance,
in 2-4 time, the other somewhat resembling a waltz. The
movement in a suite following the prelude, and preceding
the courante (q.v.), with which it is contrasted in
rhythm, is also called an allemande, but has no connexion
with the dance. The name, however, is given to pieces
of music based on the dance movement, examples of which
are found in Beethoven's German dances for the orchestra.
ALLEN, ETHAN (1739--1789), American soldier, was born at
Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 10th of January 1739. He
removed, probably in 1769, to the ``New Hampshire Grants,''
where he took up lands, and eventually became a leader of those
who refused to recognize the jurisdiction of New York, and
contended for the organization of the ``Grants'' into a separate
province. About 1771 he was placed at the head of the ``Green
Mountain Boys,'' an irregular force organized for resistance
to the ``Yorkers.'' On the 10th of May 1775, soon after the
outbreak of the War of American Independence, in command of a
force, which he had assisted some members of the Connecticut
assembly to raise for the purpose, he captured Ticonderoga
from its British garrison, calling upon its commanding officer
--according to the unverified account of Allen himself-- to
surrender ``in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental
Congress.'' Seth Warner being elected colonel of the ``Green
Mountain Boys'' in July 1775, Allen, piqued, joined General
Philip Schuyler, and later with a small command, but without
rank, accompanied General Richard Montgomery's expedition
against Canada. On the 25th of September 1775 near Montreal
he was captured by the British, and until exchanged on the
6th of May 1778 remained a prisoner at Falmouth, England, at
Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in New York. Upon his release
he was brevetted colonel by the Continental Congress. He
then, as brigadier-general of the militia of Vermont, resumed
his opposition to New York, and from 1779 to 1783, acting
with his brother, Ira Allen, and several others, carried on
negotiations, indirectly, with Governor Frederick Haldimand of
Canada, who hoped to win the Vermonters over to the British
cause. He seems to have assured Haldimand's agent that
``I shall do everything in my power to make this state a
British province.'' In March 1781 he wrote to Congress, with
characteristic bluster, ``I am as resolutely determined to
defend the independence of Vermont as congress that of the United
States, and rather than fail will retire with the hardy Green
Mountain Boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and
wage war with human nature at large.'' He removed to Burlington,
Vermont, in 1787, and died there on the 11th of February
1789. He was, says Tyler, ``a blustering frontier hero--an
able-minded ignoramus of rough and ready humour, of boundless
self-confidence, and of a shrewdness in thought and action
equal to almost any emergency.'' Allen wrote a Narrative of
Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity (1779), the most celebrated
book in the ``prison literature'' of the American revolution; A
Vindication of the Inhabitants of Vermont to the Government of
New York and their Right to term an Independent Slate (1779);
and Reason, the Only Oracle of Man; or A Compendious System
of Natural Religion, Alternately adorned with Confutations
of a Variety of Doctrines incompatible with it (1784).
Ethan's youngest brother, IRA ALLEN (1751--1814), born
on the 21st of April 1751 at Cornwall, Connecticut, also
removed to the New Hampshire Grants, where he became one of
the most influential political leaders. In 1775 he took part
in the capture of Ticonderoga and the invasion of Canada.
He was a member of the convention which met at Winchester,
Vermont, and in January 1777 declared the independence of the
New Hampshire Grants; served (1776-1786) as a member of the
Vermont council of safety; conducted negotiations, on behalf of
Vermont, for a truce with the British and for an exchange of
prisoners, in 1781; served for eight terms in the general
assembly, and was state treasurer from 1778 to 1786 and
surveyor-general from 1778 to 1787. In 1789, by a gift of
L. 4000, he made possible the establishment of the university of
Vermont, of which institution, chartered in 1791 and built at
Burlington in deference to his wishes, he was thus virtually the
founder. In 1795, on behalf of the state, he purchased from
the French government arms for the Vermont militia, of which
he was then the ranking major-general, but he was captured by
a British cruiser west of Ireland on his return journey, was
charged with attempting to furnish insurrectionary Irish with
arms, and after prolonged litigation in the British courts,
the case not being finally decided until 1504, returned to
Vermont in 1801. During his absence he had been dispossessed
of his large holdings of land through the operation of tax
laws, and to escape imprisonment for debt, he removed to
Philadelphia, where on the 4th of January 1814 he died.
He published a dull and biassed, but useful Natural and
Political History of Vermont (1798), reissued (1870) in vol.
i. of the Collections of the Vermont Historical Society.
There is no adequate biography of Ethan Allen, but Henry
Hall's Ethan Allen (New York, 1892) may be consulted. The
best literary estimate may be found in M. C. Tyler's Literary
History of the American Revolution (2 vols., New York, 1897).
ALLEN, GRANT [CHARLES GRANT BLAIRFINDIE], (1848--1899),
English author, son of a clergyman of Irish descent, was born
at Kingston, Ontario, Canada, on the 24th of February 1848.
He was educated partly in America and France, and in England
at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and afterwards at Merton,
Oxford. He was for a few years a schoolmaster in Jamaica, but
then made his home in England, where he became prominent as a
writer. He died at his house on Hindhead, Haslemere, on
the 24th of October 1899. Grant Allen was a voluminous
author. He was full of interesting scientific knowledge and
had a gift for expression both in biological exposition and in
fiction. His more purely scientific books (such as Physiological
Aesthetics, 1877; The Evolutionist at Large, 1881; The
Evolution of the Idea of God, 1897) contain much original
matter, popularly expressed, and he was a cultured exponent
of the evolutionary idea in various aspects of biology and
anthropology. He first attracted attention as a novelist
with a sensational story, The Devil's Die (1888), though
this was by no means his first attempt at fiction; and The
Woman who Did (1895), which had a succes de scandale on
account of its treatment of the sexual problem, had for the
moment a number of cheap imitators. Other volumes flowed
from his pen, and his name became well known in contemporary
literature. But his reputation was essentially contemporary and
characteristic of the vogue peculiar to the journalistic type.
ALLEN, JAMES LANE (1850- ), American novelist, was born near
Lexington, Rentucky, on the 21st of December 1850. He graduated
at Kentucky University, Lexington, in 1872, taught at Fort
Spring, Kentucky, at Richmond and at Lexington, Missouri, and
from 1877 to 1879 at the academy of Kentucky University, where
he was principal and taught modern languages; in 1880 he was
professor of Latin and English at Bethany College, Bethany,
West Virginia; and then became head of a private school at
Lexington, Kentucky. Subsequently he gave up teaching, went
to New York City, where he secured commissions for sketches of
the ``Blue Grass'' region, and thereafter devoted himself to
literature. His Choir Invisible, coming after other
successful stories, made his name well known in England as
well as America. His published works include: With Flute
and Violin (1891), The Blue Grass Region (1892), John
Gray (1893), A Kentucky Cardinal (1894), Aftermath
(1895), A Summer in Arcady (1896), The Choir Invisible
(1897), The Reign of Law' (1900), The Mettle of the
Pasture (1903), and The Bride of the Mistleloe (1909.)
ALLEN, JOHN (1476--1534), English divine, after studying
at both Oxford and Cambridge, was sent by Archbishop Warham
on an ecclesiastical mission to Rome. On his return he held
a number of livings in succession, and in 1516 was rector of
South Ockendon, Essex, and prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.
In the suppression of the minor monasteries in 1524--1525
he gave Wolsey much assistance, and became prebendary of
Nottingham in 1526 and of St Paul's, London, in 1527. These
prebends he resigned in 1528 on his election as archbishop of
Dublin. For four years he was chancellor of Ireland but his
career was full of trouble. In 1531 he was fined under the
Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, and in 1534 met a violent
death at the hands of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald's followers.
ALLEN, or ALLEYN, THOMAS (1542-1632), English mathematician,
was born at Uttoxeter in Staffordshire on the 21st of December
1542. He was admitted scholar of Trinity College, Oxford,
in 1561; and graduated as M.A. in 1567. In 1580 he quitted
his college and fellowship, retired to Gloucester Hall, and
became famous for his knowledge of antiquity, philosophy and
mathematics. Having received an invitation from Henry Percy,
earl of Northumberland, a great friend and patron of men of
science, he spent some time at the earl's house, where he
became acquainted with Thomas Harriot, John Dee and other famous
mathematicians. He was also intimate with Sir Robert Cotton,
William Camden, and their antiquarian associates. Robert
Dudley, earl of Leicester, had a particular esteem for Allen,
and would have conferred a bishopric upon him, but his love
of solitude made him decline the offer. His great skill in
mathematics and astrology earned him the credit of being a
magician; and the author of Leicester's Commonwealth accuses
him of employing the art of ``figuring'' to further the earl
of Leicester's unlawful designs, and of endeavouring by the
black art to bring about a match between his patron and Queen
Elizabeth. Allen was indefatigable in collecting scattered
manuscripts relating to history, antiquity, astronomy,
philosophy and mathematics. A considerable part of his
collection was presented to the Bodleian library by Sir Kenelm
Digby. He died on the 30th of September 1632 at Gloucester
Hall. He published in Latin the second and third books
of Claudius Ptolemy of Pelusium, Concerning the Judgment
of the Stars, or, as it is commonly called, of the
Quadripartite Construction, with an Exposition. He also
wrote notes on John Bale's De Scriptoribus M. Britanniae.
ALLEN, WILLIAM (1532-1594), English cardinal, born at
Rossall, Lancashire, went in 1547 to Oriel College,
Oxford, and in 1556 became principal of St Mary Hall and
proctor. According to Anthony Wood, he was appointed to a
canonry at York in or about 1558; he therefore had already
entered the clerical state by receiving the tonsure. On
the accession of Elizabeth, he was deprived upon refusing
the oath of supremacy, but remained in Ihe university until
1561. His known opposition to the new learning in religion
giving much offence, he escaped from England and went to
Louvain, where were gathered many students who had left the
English universities for conscience' sake. Here he continued
his theological studies and began to write controversial
treatises. In 1562, on account of health, he returned
secretly to Lancashire and did much, by exhortation and
private meetings, to restrain those Catholics who attended
the new services in order to save their property from
confiscation. His presence being known to the government,
he left Lancashire and retired to the neighbourhood of
Oxford, which he frequently visited, and where he influenced
many of the students. After writing a treatise in defence
of the priestly power to remit sins, he was obliged to
leave and retired to Norfolk, leaving England soon after in
1565. He returned to Flanders, was ordained at Malines, and
began to lecture in theology at the Benedictine college in that
city. In 1567 he went to Rome for the first time, and there
began his plan for establishing a college where English
students could live together and finish their theological
course. The idea subsequently developed into the establishing
of a missionary college, or seminary, to keep up a supply
of priests for England as long as the country remained
separated from the Holy See. With the help of friends,
and notably of the Benedictine abbots of the neighbouring
monasteries, a college was established at Douai (September
29, 1568); and here Allen was joined by many of the English
exiles. This college, the first of the seminaries ordered
by the council of Trent, received the papal approval shortly
after its establishment; the king of Spain took it under his
protection and assigned it an annual grant. Allen continued
his own theological studies and, after taking his doctorate,
became regius professor at the university. Gregory XIII. in
1575 granted him a monthly pension of 100 golden crowns, and,
as the number of students had now risen to one hundred and
twenty, summoned him to Rome to undertake the establishing of
a similar college in the papal city. By Allen's advice, the
old English hospice was turned into a seminary and Jesuits
were placed there to help Dr Maurice Clennock, the rector.
The pope appointed Allen to a canonry in Courtrai and sent
him back to Douai (July 1576); but here he had to face a new
difficulty. Besides the reported plots to assassinate him
by agents of the English government, the insurgents against
Spain, urged on by Elizabeth's emissaries, expelled the
students from Douai as being partisans of the enemy (March
1578). Allen moved his establishment to Reims under the
protection of the house of Guise; and it was here that the
English translation of the Scriptures, known as the Douai
Version, was begun under his direction (see BIBLE, ENGLISH.)
In 1577 he began a correspondence with Robert Parsons (q.v.),
the Jesuit, an intimacy that was fraught with disaster. He was
summoned again to Rome in 1579 to quell the first of the many
disturbances that befell the English college under the Jesuit
influence. Brought now into personal contact with Parsons,
Allen fell completely under the dominating personality of
the redoubtable Jesuit, and gave himself up entirely to his
influence. He arranged that the Society should take over the
English college at Rome and should begin the Jesuit mission
to England (1580). This short-sighted policy was the cause
of much grave trouble in the near future. Returning to
Reims he began to take a part in all the political intrigues
which Parsons' fertile brain had hatched for the promotion
of the Spanish interest in England. Allen's political
career dates from this period. Parsons had already intended
to remove Allen from the seminary at Reims, and for this
purpose, as far back as the 6th of April 1581, had recommended
him to Philip II. to be promoted to the cardinalate. In
furtherance of the intrigues, Allen and Parsons went to Rome
again in 1585 and there Allen was kept for the rest of his
life. In 1587, during the time that he was being skilfully
played with by Philip's agents, he wrote, helped by Parsons,
a shameless defence of a shameful deed. Sir William Stanley,
an English olficer, had surrendered Deventer to the Spaniards;
and Allen wrote a book in defence of Stanley, saying that
all Englishmen were bound, under pain of damnation, to
follow the traitorous example, as Elizabeth was no lawful
queen. He shared in all the projects for the invasion of
England, and was to have been archbishop of Canterbury and
lord chancellor had they succeeded. Representing in reality
only his own party, Allen had on the continent the position
of the head of the Roman Catholics of England; and as such,
just after the death of Mary, queen of Scots, he wrote to
Philip II. (March 19, 1587) to exhort him to undertake the
enterprise against England, and declared that the Catholics
there were clamouring for the king to come and punish ``this
woman, hated by God and man.'' After much negotiation, he
was made cardinal by Sixtus V. on the 7th of August 1587,
nominally to supply the loss of the queen of Scotland, but in
reality to ensure the success of the Armada. On his promotion
Allen wrote to Reims that he owed the hat, under God, to
Parsons. One of his first acts was to issue, under his own
name, two violent works for the purpose of inciting the Catholics
of England to rise against Elizabeth: ``The Declaration of
the Sentence of Sixtus V.'' a broadside, and a book, All
Admonition to the nobility and people of England (Antwerp,
1588). On the failure of the Armada, Philip, to get rid of
the burthen of supporting Allen as a cardinal, nominated him to
the archbishopric of Malines, but the canonical appointment was
never made. Gregory XIV. made him librarian at the Vatican;
and he served on the commission for the revision of the
Vulgate. He took part in four conclaves, but never had any
real influence after the failure of the Armada. Before his
death, which took place in Rome on the 16th of October 1594,
he found reasons to change his mind concerning the wisdom
of the Jesuit politics in Rome and England, and would have
tried to curb their activities, had he been spared. The rift
became so great that ten years after his death, Agazzari could
write to Parsons: ``So long as Allen walked in this matter
(the scheme for England) in union with and fidelity to the
Company, as he used to do, God preserved him, prospered and
exalted him; but when he began to leave this path, in a manner,
the threads of his plans and life were cut short together.''
As a cardinal Allen had lived in poverty and he died in debt.
While we cannot withhold a tribute of respect from Allen for
his zeal and earnestness, and recognize that his foundation
at Douai survives to-day in the two Catholic colleges at
Ushaw and Ware, it is impossible to deny that he injured
the work with which his name will ever be associated, by
his disastrous intercourse with Father Parsons. Known as a
sharer in that plotter's schemes, he gave a reasonable pretext
to Elizabeth's government for regarding the seminaries as
hotbeds of sedition. That they were not so is abundantly
proved. The superiors kept their political actions secret
from the students, and would not allow such matters even to
be talked about or treated as theoretical abstractions in the
schools. Dr Barrett, writing (April 14, 1583) to Parsons,
makes open complaint of Allen's secrecy and refusal to
communicate. How far Allen was really admitted to the full
confidence of Parsons is a question; and his later attitude to
the Society goes to prove that he at last realized that he had
been tricked. Like James II. with Fr. Petre, Allen had been
``bewitched'' for a time and only recovered himself when too late.
AUTHORITIES. -- T. F. Knox, Letters and Memorials of Cardinal
Allen (London, 1882); A. Bellesheim, Wilhelm Cardinal Allen
und die englischen Seminare auf dem Festlande (Mainz, 1885);
First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douai
(London, 1878); Nicholas Fitzherbert, De Antiquitate et
continuatione religionis in Anglia et de Alani Cardinalis vita
libellus (Rome, 1608); E. Taunton, History of the Jesuits
in England (London, 1901); Teulet, vol. v.; the Spanish
State Papers (Simancas), vols. iii. and iv.; a list of
Allen's works is given in J. Gillow, Biographical Dictionary
of English Catholics, vol. i., under his name. (E. TN.)
ALLEN, WILLIAM FRANCIS (1830-1889), American classical
scholar, was born at Northborough, Massachusetts, on the 5th
of September 1830. He graduated at Harvard College in 1851 and
subsequently devoted himself almost entirely to literary work and
teaching. In 1867 he became professor of ancient languages
and history (afterwards Latin language and Roman history)
in the university of Wisconsin. He died in December 1889.
His contributions to classical literature chiefly consist of
schoolbooks published in the Allen (his brother) and Greenough
series. The Collection of Slave Songs (1867), of which he was
joint-editor, was the first work of the kind ever published.
ALLEN, BOG OF, the name given to a congeries of morasses
in Kildare, King's County, Queen's County and Westmeath,
Ireland. Clane Bog, the eastern extremity, is within 17 m.
of Dublin, and the morasses extend westward almost to the
Shannon. Their total area is about 238,500 acres. They do
not form one continuous bog, the tract of the country to which
the name is given being intersected by strips of dry cultivated
land. The rivers Brosna, Barrow and Boyne take their rise
in these morasses, and the Grand and Royal canals cross
them. The Bog of Allen has a general elevation of 250 ft.
above sea level, and the average thickness of the peat of which
it consists is 25 ft. It rests on a subsoil of clay and marl.
ALLENSTEIN, a garrison town of Germany, in the province
of East Prussia, on the river Alle, 100 m. by rail N.E. from
Thorn, and 30 m. from the Russian frontier. Pop. (1900)
24,295. It has a medieval castle, several churches, a synagogue
and various industries--iron-foundries, saw-mills, brick-works,
and breweries; also an extensive trade in cereals and timber.
ALLENTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Lehigh county,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Lehigh river, about 62 m. N.N.W. of
Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 25,228; (1900) 35,416, of whom
2994 were foreign-born, 1065 being of German birth; (1910)
51,913. It is served by the Central of New Jersey, the
Lehigh Valley, the Perkiomen (of the Reading system) and the
Philadelphia & Reading railways. The city is situated on
high ground sloping gently towards the river and commanding
diversified views of the surrounding country. Hamilton
Street, the principal business thoroughfare, extends over
2 m. from E. to W., and in what was once the centre of the
city is Centre Square, in which there is a monument to the
memory of the soldiers and sailors who fell in the Civil War.
Allentown is the seat of a state homoeopathic hospital for the
insane, of the Allentown College for Women (Reformed Church,
1867), and of Muhlenberg College (1867), an Evangelical
Lutheran institution which grew out of the Allentown Seminary
(established in 1848 and incorporated as the ``Allentown
Collegiate Institute and Military Academy'' in 1864); in
1907 the college had 191 students, of whom 109 were in the
Allentown Preparatory School (1904), formerly the academic
department of the college and still closely afliliated with
it. The surrounding country is well adapted to agriculture, and
slate, iron ore, cement rock and limestone are found in the
vicinity. Allentown is an important manufacturing centre, and
the value of its manufactured products increased 90.9% from
1890 to 1900, and of its factory product 13.2% between 1900 and
1905. In 1905 the city ranked sixth among the cities of the
country in the manufacture of silk and silk goods, its most
important industry. Other important manufactures are iron and
steel, slaughtering and meat-packing products, boots and shoes,
cigars, furniture, men's clothing, hosiery and knit goods,
jute and jute goods, linen-thread, malt liquors, brick, cement,
barbed wire, wire nails and planing-mill products. Allentown's
total factory product in 1905 was valued at $16,966,550,
of which $3,901,249, or 23%, was the value of silk and silk
goods. The municipality owns and operates its water-works.
Allentown was first settled in 1751; in 1762 it was laid out
as a town by James Allen, the son of a chief-justice of the
province, in honour of whose family the city is named; in 1811
it was incorporated as a borough and its name was changed to
Northampton; in 1812 it was made the county-seat; in 1838 the
present name was again adopted; and in 1867 the first city
charter was secured. The silk industry was introduced in 1881.
ALLEPPI, or AULAPALAY, a seaport of southern India, in the
state of Travancore, 33 m. south of Cochin, situated on a strip
of coast between the sea and one of those backwaters that here
form the chief means of inland communication. Pop. (1901)
24,918. There is a lighthouse, 85 ft. high, with a revolving
white light visible 18 m. out at sea. Though the third town
in the state in point of population, Alleppi is the first in
commercial importance. It commands a fine harbour, affording
safe anchorage for the greater part of the year. It was
opened to foreign trade towards the latter end of the 18th
century. The exports consist of coffee, pepper, cardamoms and
coco-nuts. There are factories for coir-matting. The raja
has a palace, and Protestant missionaries have a church.
ALLESTREE, or ALLESTRY, RICHARD (1619.-1681), royalist
divine and provost of Eton College, son of Robert Allestree,
and a descendant of an ancient Derbyshire family, was born
at Uppington in Shropshire. He was educated at Coventry
and later at Christ Church, Oxford, under Richard Busby.
He entered as a commoner in 1636, was made student shortly
afterwards, and took the degree of B.A. in 1640 and of M.A. in
1643. In 1642 he took up arms for the king under Sir John
Biron. On the arrival of the parliamentary forces soon
afterwards in Oxford he secreted the Christ Church valuables,
and the soldiers found nothing in the treasury ``except
a single groat and a halter in the bottom of a large iron
chest.'' He escaped severe punishment only by the hasty
retirement of the army from the town. He was present at
the battle of Edgehill in October 1642, after which, while
hastening to Oxford to prepare for the king's visit to Christ
Church, he was captured by a troop of Lord Say's soldiers
from Broughton House, being soon afterwards set free on the
surrender of the place to the king's forces. In 1643 he
was again under arms, performing ``all duties of a common
soldier'' and ``frequently holding his musket in one hand and
his book in the other.'' At the close of the Civil War, he
returned to his studies, took holy orders, was made censor
and became a ``noted tutor.'' But he still remained an ardent
royalist. He voted for the university decree against the
Covenant, and, refusing submission to the parliamentary
visitors in 1648, he was expelled. He found a retreat as
chaplain in the house of the Hon. Francis Newport, afterwards
Viscount Newport, in whose interests he undertook a journey to
France. On his return he joined two of his friends, Dolben
and Fell, afterwards respectively archbishop of York and
bishop of Oxford, then resident at Oxford, and later joined
the household of Sir Antony Cope of Hanwell, near Banbury.
He was now frequently employed in carrying despatches between
the king and the royalists in England. In May 1659 he brought
a command from Charles in Brussels, directing the bishop
of Salisbury to summon all those bishops, who were then
alive, to consecrate clergymen to various sees ``to secure
a continuation of the order in the Church of England,'' then
in danger of becoming extinct.1 While returning from one
of these missions, in the winter before the Restoration, he
was arrested at Dover and committed a prisoner to Lambeth
Palace, then used as a gaol for apprehended royalists, but was
liberated after confinement of a few weeks at the instance,
among others, of Lord Shaftesbury. At the Restoration he
became canon of Christ Church, D.D. and city lecturer at
Oxford. In 1663 he was made chaplain to the king and regius
professor of divinity. In 1665 he was appointed provost of
Eton College, and proved himself a capable administrator.
He introduced order into the disorganized finances of the
college and procured the confirmation of Laud's decree, which
reserved five of the Eton fellowships for members of King's
College. His additions to the college buildings were less
successful; for the ``Upper School,'' constructed by him at
his own expense, was falling into ruin almost in his lifetime,
and was replaced by the present structure in 1689. Allestree
died on the 28th of January 1681, and was buried in the chapel
at Eton College, where there is a Latin inscription to his
memory. His writings are:--The Privileges of the Universily
of Oxford in point of Visitation (1647)--a tract answered
by Prynne in the University of Oxford's Plea Rejected; 18
sermons whereof 15 preached before the king . . . (1669);
40 sermons whereof 21 are now first published . . . (2
vols., 1684); sermons published separately including A
Sermon on Acts xiii. 2, (1660); A Paraphrase and Annotations
upon all the Epistles of St Paul (joint author with Abraham
Woodhead and Obadiah Walker, 1675, see edition of 1853 and
preface by W. Jacobson). In the Cases of Conscience by
J. Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln (1692), Allestree's judgment
on Mr Cottington's Case of Divorce is included. A share
in the composition, if not the sole authorship, of the
books published under the name of the author of the Whole
Duty of Man has been attributed to Allestree (Nichols's
Anecdotes, ii. 603), and the tendency of modern criticism
is to regard him as the author. His lectures, with which he
was dissatisfied, were not published. Allestree was a man of
extensive learning, of moderate views and a fine preacher.
He was generous and charitable, of ``a solid and masculine
kindness,'' and of a temper hot, but completely under control.
AUTHORITIES.---Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (edited by
Bliss), iii. 1269; W.ood's Fasti, i. 480, 514, ii. 57,
241, 370; Richard Allestree, 40 sermons, with biographical
preface by Dr John Fell (2 vols., 1684); Sufferings of the
Clergy, by John Walker; Architectural History of Eton and
Cambridge, by R. Willis, i. 420; Hist. of Eton College,
by Sir H. C. Maxwell-Lyte; Hist. of Eton College, by Lionel
Cust (1899); Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2807 f. 197 b. For
Allestree's authorship of the Whole Duty of Man, see Rev. F.
Barham, Journal of Sacred Literature, July 1864, and C. E.
Doble's articles in the Academy, November 1884. (P. C. Y.)
1 Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2807 f. 197 b; Li/e of Dr John
Barwick, ed. by G. F. Barwick (1903), pp. 107, 129, 134.
ALLEY (from the Fr: allee, a walk), a narrow passageway
between two buildings available only for foot passengers or
hand-carts, sometimes entered only at one end and known as a
``blind alley,'' or cul-de-sac. The name is also given to
the long narrow enclosures where bowls or skittles are played.
ALLEYN, EDWARD (1566-1626), English actor and founder of
Dulwich College, was born in London on the 1st of September
1566, the son of an innkeeper. It is not known at what date
he began to act, but he certainly gained distinction in his
calling while a young man, for in 1586 his name was on the
list of the earl of Worcester's players, and he was eventually
rated by common consent as the foremost actor of his time.
Ben Jonson, a critic little prone to exalt the merits of men
of mark among his contemporaries, bestowed unstinted praise
on Alleyn's acting (Epigrams, No. 89). Nash expresses in
prose, in Pierce Penniless, his admiration of him, while
Heywood calls him ``inimitable,'' ``the best of actors,''
``Proteus for shapes and Roscius for a tongue.'' Alleyn
inherited house property in Bishopsgate from his father.
His marriage on the 22nd of October 1592 with Joan Woodward,
stepdaughter of Philip Henslowe, brought him eventually more
wealth. He became part owner in Henslowe's ventures, and
in the end sole proprietor of several play-houses and other
profitable pleasure resorts. Among these were the Rose Theatre
at Bankside, the Paris Garden and the Fortune Theatre in St
Luke's--the latter occupied by the earl of Nottingham's company,
of which Alleyn was the head. He filled, too, in conjunction
with Henslowe, the post of ``master of the king's games of
bears, bulls and dogs.'' On some occasions he directed the
sport in person, and Stow in his Chronicles gives an account
of how Alleyn baited a lion before James I. at the Tower.
Alleyn's connexion with Dulwich began in 1605, when he bought
the manor of Dulwich from Sir Francis Cation. The landed
property, of which the entire estate had not passed into Alleyn's
hands earlier than 1614, stretched from the crest of that
range of Surrey hills on whose summit now stands the Crystal
Palace, to the crest of the parallel ridge, three miles nearer
London, known in its several portions as Herne Hill, Denmark
Hill and Champion Hill. Alleyn acquired this large property for
little more than L. 10,000. He had barely got full possession,
however, before the question how to dispose of it began to occupy
him. He was still childless, after twenty years of wedded
life. Then it was that the prosperous player--the man ``so
acting to the life that he made any part to become him'' (Fuller,
Worthies)--began the task of building and endowing in his
own lifetime the College of God's Gift at Dulwich. All was
completed in 1617 except the charter or deed of incorporation
for setting his lands in mortmain. Tedious delays occurred
in the Star Chamber, where Lord Chancellor Bacon was scheming
to bring the pressure of kingly authority to bear on Alleyn
with the aim of securing a large portion of the proposed
endowment for the maintenance of lectureships at Oxford and
Cambridge. Alleyn finally carried his point and the College
of God's Gift at Dulwich was founded, and endowed under letters
patent of James I., dated the 21st of June 1619. The building
had been already begun in 1613 (see DULWICH.) Alleyn was
never a member of his own foundation, but he continued to
the close of his life to guide and control its affairs under
powers reserved to himself in the letters patent. His diary
shows that he mixed much and intimately in the life of the
college. Many of the jottings in that curious record of daily
doings and incidents favour the inference that he was a genial,
kind, amiable and religious man. His fondness for his old
profession is indicated by the fact that he engaged the boys
in occasional theatrical performances. At a festive gathering
on the 6th of January 1622 ``the boyes play'd a playe.''
Alleyn's first wife died in 1623. The same year he married
Constance, daughter of John Donne, the poet and dean of St
Paul's. Alleyn died in November 1626 and was buried in the
chapel of the college which he had founded. His gravestone
fixes the day of his death as the 21st, but there are
grounds for the belief that it was the 25th. A portrait of
the actor is preserved at Dulwich. Alleyn was a member of
the corporation of wardens of St Saviour's, Southwark, in
1610, and there is a memorial window to him in the cathedral.
ALL FOURS, a card game (known also in America as Seven
Up, Old Sledge or High-Low-Jack) usually played by two
players, though four may play. A full pack is used and
each player receives seven counters. Four points can be
scored, one each for high, the highest trump out, for
low, the lowest trump dealt, for Jack, the knave of
trumps, and for game, the majority of pips in the cards
of the tricks that a player has won. Ace counts 4, King 3,
Queen 2, Knave 1, and ten 10 points. Low is scored by the
person to whom it is dealt; High of course wins a trick;
Jack is scored by the player who finally has it among his
tricks. If Jack is turned up the dealer scores the point.
A player who plays a high or low trump is entitled to ask if
they are High or Low. The game is 10 or 11 points. Six
cards are dealt to each, the thirteenth being turned up for
trumps. The non-dealer may propose or beg if he does not
like his hand. If the dealer refuses the elder hand scores
a point; if he consents he gives and takes three more cards,
the seventh being turned up for trumps, which must be of a
different suit from the original trump card; otherwise six
more cards are dealt out, and so on till a fresh trump suit
appears. The non-dealer then leads; the other must trump or
follow suit, or forfeit a point. Jack may be played to any
trick. Each pair of cards is a trick, and is collected by the
winner. A fresh deal may be claimed if the dealer exposes
one of his adversary's cards, or if he gives himself or his
adversary too few or too many. In that case the error must be
discovered before a card is played (see also AUCTION PITCH.)
ALLIA (mod. Fosso Bettinia), a small tributary of the
river Tiber, joining it on the left (east) bank, about 11
m. N. of Rome. It gave its name to the terrible defeat which
the Romans suffered at the hands of the Gauls on the 18th of
July 390 B.C. Livy (v. 37) and Diodorus (v. 114) differ with
regard to the site of the battle, the former putting it on the
left, the latter on the right bank of the Tiber. Mommsen and
others support Diodorus, but the question still remains open.
See T. Ashby in Papers of the British School at Rome, iii. 24.
ALLIANCE, a city of Stark county, Ohio, U. S. A., on the
Mahoning river, about 57 m. S.E. of Cleveland, about 1080
ft. above the sea, and about 505 ft. above the level of Lake
Erie. Pop. (1890) 7607; (1900) 8974, of whom 1029 were
foreign-born: (1906, estimate) 9796. It is served by the
Pennsylvania and the Lake Erie, Alliance & Wheeling railways,
and by an electric line connecting with Canton and Salem. The
city is the seat of Mount Union College (Methodist Episcopal),
opened in 1846 as a preparatory school and having in 1907
a library of about 10,000 volumes, a collegiate department
(opened in 1858), a normal department (1858), a school of
music (1855), a commercial school (1868), a faculty of 29
teachers, and an enrolment of 524 students, of whom 274 were
women. Among the manufactures of Alliance are structural
iron, steel castings, pressed sheet steel, gun carriages,
boilers, travelling cranes, pipe organs, street-car indicators,
sashes and doors, and account registers and other material
for file and cabinet-bookkeeping. The municipality owns
and operates its water-works. Alliance was first settled in
1838, when it was laid out as a town and was named Freedom;
it was named Alliance in 1851, was incorporated as a village
in 1854, and became a city of the second class in 1888.
ALLIANCE, in international law, a league between independent
states, defined by treaty, for the purpose of combined action,
defensive or offensive, or both. Alliances have usually
been directed to specific objects carefully defined in the
treaties. Thus the Triple Alliance of 1688 between Great
Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands, and the Grand Alliance
of 1689 between the emperor, Holland, England, Spain and
Saxony, were both directed against the power of Louis XIV.
The Quadruple or Grand Alliance of 1814, defined in the
treaty of Chaumont, between Great Britain, Austria, Russia and
Prussia, had for its object the overthrow of Napoleon and his
dynasty, and the confining of France within her traditional
boundaries. The Triple Alliance of 1882 between Germany,
Austria and Italy was ostensibly directed to the preservation
of European peace against any possible aggressive action
of France or Russia; and this led in turn, some ten years
later, to the Dual Alliance between Russia and France, for
mutual support in case of any hostile action of the other
powers. Occasionally, however, attempts have been made to
give alliances a more general character. Thus the ``Holy
Alliance'' (q.v.) of the 26th of September 1815 was an
attempt, inspired by the religious idealism of the emperor
Alexander I. of Russia, to find in the ``sacred precepts of the
Gospel'' a common basis for a general league of the European
governments, its object being, primarily, the preservation of
peace. So, too, by Article VI. of the Quadruple Treaty signed
at Paris on the 20th of November 1815--which renewed that of
Chaumont and was again renewed, in 1818, at Aix-la-Chapelle--the
scope of the Grand Alliance was extended to objects of common
interest not specifically defined in the treaties. The article
runs:--``In order to consolidate the intimate tie which unites
the four sovereigns for the happiness of the world, the High
Contracting Powers have agreed to renew at fixed intervals,
either under their own auspices or by their respective
ministers, meetings consecrated to great common objects and to
the examination of such measures as at each one of these epochs
shall be judged most salutary for the peace and prosperity of
the nations and the maintenance of the tranquillity of Europe.''
It was this article of the treaty of the 20th of November
1815, rather than the ``Holy Alliance,'' that formed the basis
of the serious effort made by the great powers, between 1815
and 1822, to govern Europe in concert, which will be found
outlined in the article on the history of Europe. In general
it proved that an alliance, to be effective, must be clearly
defined as to its objects, and that in the long run the treaty
in which these objects are defined must---to quote Bismarck's
somewhat cynical dictum --``be reinforced by the interests''
of the parties concerned. Yet the ``moral alliance'' of
Europe, as Count Nesselrode called it, though it failed to
secure the permanent harmony of the powers, was an effective
instrument for peace during the years immediately following
the downfall of Napoleon; and it set the precedent for those
periodical meetings of the representatives of the powers, for
the discussion and settlement of questions of international
importance, which, though cumbrous and inefficient for
constructive work, have contributed much to the preservation
of the general peace (see EUROPE: History.) (W. A. P.)
ALLIARIA OFFICINALIS, also known botanically as Sisymbrium
Alliaria, and popularly as garlic-mustard, Jack-by-the-hedge, or
sauce-alone, a common hedge-bank plant belonging to the natural order
Cruciferae. It is a rankly scented herb, 2 to 3 ft. high, with
long-stalked, coarsely-toothed leaves, and small white flowers
which are succeeded by stout long four-sided pods. It is widely
spread through the north temperate region of the Old World.
ALLIBONE, SAMUEL AUSTIN (1816-1889), American author and
bibliographer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the
17th of April 1816, of French Huguenot and Quaker ancestry.
He was privately educated and for many years was engaged in
mercantile business in his native city. He, however, devoted
himself chiefly to reading and to bibliographical research;
acquired a very unusual knowledge of English and American
literature, and is remembered as the compiler of the well-known
Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and
American Authors (3 vols.: vol. i. 1854, vols. ii. and iii.
1871). To this, two supplementary volumes, edited by John
Foster Kirk, were added in 1891. From 1867 to 1873, and
again in 1877-1879, Allibone was book editor and corresponding
secretary of the American Sunday School Union; and from
1879 to 1888 he was librarian of the Lenox Library, New York
City. He died at Lucerne, Switzerland, on the 2nd of September
1889. In addition to his Critical Dictionary he published
three large anthologies and several religious tracts.
See the ``Memoir'' by S. D. M`Connell, an address delivered before
the Historical Society of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1890).
ALLIER (anc. Elaver), a river of central France flowing
into the Loire. It rises in the department of Lozere, among
the Margeride mountains, a few miles east of the town of
Mende. The upper course of the Allier separates the mountains
of the Margeride from those of the Velay and lies for the most
part through deep gorges. The river then traverses the plains
of Langeac and Brioude, and receives the waters of the Alagnon
some miles above the town of Issoire. Swelled by torrents
from the mountains of Dore and Dome, it unites with the river
Dore at its entrance to the department to which it gives its
name. It then flows through a wide but shallow channel, joining
the Sioule some distance above Moulins, the chief town on its
banks. It soon after becomes the boundary line between the
departments of Cher and Nievre, and reaches the Loire 4 m.
west of Nevers, after a course of 269 m. Its basin has an
area of 6755 sq. m. The Allier is classed as navigable for the
last 154 m. of its course, but there is little traffic on it.
ALLIER, a department of central France, formed in 1790
from the old province of Bourbonnais. Pop. (1906) 417,961.
Area, 2849 sq. m. It is bounded N. by the department of
Nievre, E. by Saone-et-Loire, from which it is divided by
the river Loire, S.E. by Loire, S. by Puy-de-Dome, S.W. by
Crouse and N.W. by Cher. Situated on the northern border
of the Central Plateau, the department slopes from south to
north. Its highest altitudes are found in the south-east,
in the Bois-Noirs, where one point reaches 4239 ft., and in
the Monts de la Madeleine. Plains alternating with forests
occupy the northern zone of the department, while the central
and western regions form an undulating and well-watered
plateau. Entering the department in the south, and, like the
other chief rivers, flowing almost due north, the Allier drains
the central district, receiving on its left the Sioule. East
of the Allier is the Bebre, which joins the Loire within the
limits of the department; and on the west the Cher, with its
tributary the Aumance. Rigorous and rainy in the south-east,
the climate elsewhere is milder though subject to sudden
variations. Agriculturally the department is flourishing,
the valleys of the Allier and the Sioule known as the Limagne
Bourbonnaise comprising its most fertile portion. Wheat, oats,
barley and other cereals are grown and exported, and owing to
the abundance of pasture and forage, sheep and cattle-rearing
are actively carried on. Potatoes and mangels yield good
crops. Wines of fair quality are grown in the valley of the
Sioule; walnuts, chestnuts, plums, apples and pears are principal
fruits. Goats, from the milk of which choice cheese is
made, and pigs are plentiful. A large area is under forests,
the oak, beech, fir, birch and hornbeam being the principal
trees. The mineral waters at Vichy (q.v.), Neris,
Theneuille, Cusset and Bourbon l'Archambault are in much
repute. The mineral wealth of the department is considerable,
including coal as well as manganese and bituminous schist;
plaster, building stone and hydraulic lime are also
produced. Manufactories of porcelain, glass and earthenware
are numerous. Montlucon and Commentry are ironworking
centres. There are flour mills, breweries and saw-mills; and
paper, chemicals, wooden shoes, wool and woollen goods are
produced. Besides the products of the soil Allier exports
coal, mineral waters and cattle for the Paris market. Building
materials, brandy and coal are among the imports. The railways
belong chiefly to the Orleans and Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean
companies. The lateral canal of the Loire, the Berry Canal and
the canal from Roanne to Digoin together traverse about 57 m.
in the department. Allier is divided into the arrondissements
of Moulins, Gannat, Lapalisse and Montlucon (29 cantons, 321
communes). It forms the diocese of Moulins and part of the
ecclesiastical province of Bourges, and falls within the
academie (educational division) of Clermont-Ferrand and the
region of the XIII. army-corps. Its court of appeal is at
Riom. Moulins, the capital, Montlucon and Vichy, are the
principal towns. Souvigny possesses the church of a famous
Cluniac priory dating from the 1ith-12th and 15th centuries,
and containing the splendid tombs (15th century) of Louis
II. and Charles I. of Bourbon. At St Menoux, Ebreuil and
Gannat there are fine Romanesque churches. Huriel has a
church of the 11th century and a well-preserved keep, the
chief survival of a medieval castle. St Pourcain-sur-Sioule
has a large church, dating from the 11th to the 18th
centuries. The castle of Bourbon l'Archambault, which
belonged to the dukes of Bourbon, dates from the 13th and 15th
centuries. The Romanesque churches of Veauce and Ygrande,
and the chateaus of Veauce and Lapalisse, are also of
interest, the latter belonging to the family of Chabannes.
ALLIES, THOMAS WILLIAM (1813-1903), English historical
writer, was born at Midsomer Norton, near Bristol, on the
12th of February 1813. He was educated at Eton and at
Wadham College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in
1833. In 1840 Bishop Blomfield of London appointed him his
examining chaplain and presented him to the rectory of Launton,
Oxfordshire, which he resigned in 1850 on becoming a Roman
Catholic. Allies was appointed secretary to the Catholic poor
school committee in 1853, a position which he occupied till
1890. He died in London on the 17th of June 1903. Allies
was one of the ablest of the English churchmen who joined the
Church of Rome in the early period of the Oxford movement, his
chief work, The Formation of Christendom (London, 8 vols.,
1865-1895) showing much originality of thought and historical
knowledge. His other writings: St Peter, his Name and Office
(1852); The See of St Peter, the Rock of the Church (1850);
Per Crucem ad Lucem (2 vols., 1879), have gone through
many editions and been translated into several languages.
See his autobiography, A Life's Decision (1880); and the study of
his daughier, Mary H. Allies, Thomas Allies, the Story of a Mind
(London, 1906), which contains a full bibliography of his works.
ALLIFAE (mod. Alife), a town of the Samnites, 15
m. N.W. of Telesia, and 17 m. E.N.E. of Teanum. The
site of the Samnite city, which in the 4th century B.C.
had a coinage of its own, is not known; the Roman town
lay in the valley of the Vulturnus, and its walls (4th
century) enclose a circuit of 1 1/2 m., in which are preserved
remains of large baths ( Thermae Herculis) and a theatre.
ALLIGATOR (Spanish el lagarto, ``the lizard''), an animal
so closely allied to the crocodile that some naturalists
have classed them together as forming one genus. It differs
from the true crocodile principally in having the head
broader and shorter, and the snout more obtuse; in having
the fourth, enlarged tooth of the under jaw received, not
into an external notch, but into a pit formed for it within
the upper one; in wanting a jagged fringe which appears on
the hind legs and feet of the crocodile; and in having the
toes of the hind feet webbed not more than half way to the
tips. Alligators proper occur in the fluviatile deposits of
the age of the Upper Chalk in Europe, where they did not die
out until the Pliocene age; they are now restricted to two
species, A. mississippiensis or lucius in the southern
states of North America up to 12 ft. in length, and the small
A. sinensis in the Yang-tse-kiang. In Central and South
America alligators are represented by five species of the genus
Caiman, which differs from Alligator by the absence of a
bony septum between the nostrils, and the ventral armour is
composed of overlapping bony scutes, each of which is formed
of two parts united by a suture. C. sclerops, the spectacled
alligator, has the widest distribution, from southern Mexico
to the northern half of Argentina, and grows to a bulky
size. The largest, attaining an enormous bulk and a length of
20 ft., is the C. niger, the jacare-assu or large caiman
of the Amazons. The names ``alligator'' and ``crocodile''
are often confounded in popular speech; and the structure
and habits of the two animals are so similar that both are
most conveniently considered under the heading CROCODILE.
ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM (1824-1889), Irish man of letters and
poet, was born at Ballyshannon, Donegal, on the 19th of
March 1824 (or 1828, according to some authorities), and was
the son of the manager of a local bank. He obtained a post
in the custom-house of his native town and filled several
similar situations in Ireland and England until 1870, when
he had retired from the service, and became sub-editor of
Fraser's Magazine, which he edited from 1874 to 1879. He
had published a volume of Poems in 1850, followed by Day
and Night Songs, a volume containing many charming lyrics, in
1855. Allingham was on terms of close friendship with D. G.
Rossetti, who contributed to the illustration of the Songs.
His Letters to Allingham (1854-1870) were edited by Dr
Birkbeck Hill in 1897. Lawrence Bloomfield, a narrative
poem illustrative of Irish social questions, appeared in
1864. Allingham married in 1874 Helen Paterson, known under
her married name as a water-colour painter. He died at
Hampstead on the 18th of November 1889. Though working on
an unostentatious scale, Allingham produced much excellent
lyrical and descriptive poetry, and the best of his pieces
are thoroughly national in spirit and local colouring.
William Allingham: a Diary (1907), edited by Mrs Allingham
and D. Radford, contains many interesting reminiscences
of Tennyson, Carlyle and other famous contemporaries.
ALLISON, WILLIAM BOYD (1829-1908), American legislator, was
born at Perry, Ohio, on the 2nd of March 1829. Educated at
Allegheny and Western Reserve Colleges, he studied law, and
practised in Ohio until 1857. In that year he settled in
Dubuque, Iowa, where he took a prominent part in Republican
politics; and in 1860 he was a delegate to the national
convention at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the
presidency. In 1861 he was appointed a member of the staff
of Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood (1813-1894), and was of great
service in the work of equipping and organizing the Iowa
volunteers. From 1863 until 1871 he served with distinction
in the House of Representatives; in 1873 he was elected to the
United States Senate, and re-elected in 1878, 1884, 1890, 1896 and
1902. Here he became one of the highest authorities on questions
connected with finance, and from 1877 he was a member of the
Senate committee on finance. In 1881-1893, and again from
1895, he was chairman of the committee on appropriations, in
which position he had great influence. He declined offers of
the secretaryship of the treasury made to him by Presidents
Garfield and Harrison. He was a prominent candidate for the
presidential nomination in the Republican national conventions
of 1888 and 1896. In 1892 he was chairman of the American
delegation to the International Monetary Conference at
Brussels. He died at Dubuque, Iowa, on the 4th of August 1908.
ALLITERATION (from Lat. ad, to, and littera, letter), the
commencing of two or more words, in close juxtaposition, with
the same sound. As Milton defined rhyme to be ``the jingling
sound of like endings,'' so alliteration is the jingle of like
beginnings. All language has a tendency to jingle in both
ways, even in prose. Thus in prose we speak of ``near and
dear,'' ``high and dry,'' ``health and wealth.'' But the
initial form of jingle is much more common--``safe and sound,''
``thick and thin,'' ``weal or woe,'' ``fair or foul,'' ``spick
and span,'' ``fish, flesh, or fowl,'' ``kith and kin.'' The
poets of nearly all times and tongues have not been slow
to seize upon the emphasis which could thus be produced.
Although mainly Germanic in its character, alliteration
was known to the Latins, especially in early times, and
Cicero blames Ennius for writing ``O Tite tute, Tati,
tibi tanta, tyranne, tulisti.'' Lucretius did not disdain
to employ it as an ornament. We read in Shakespeare:--
``Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are corals made.''
In Pope:--
``Here files of pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux.',
In Gray:--
``Weave the warp and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race.''
In Coleridge:-
``The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free:
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.''
Churchill describes himself, in his Prophecy of Famine, as one
``Who often, but without success, had prayed
For apt alliteration's artful aid,''--
an example which is itself a proof of his failure; for
alliteration is never effective unless it runs upon consonants.
As thus far considered, alliteration is a device wholly
dependent on the poet's fancy. He may use it or not, or
use it much or little, at his pleasure. But there is an
extensive range of Teutonic poetry whose metrical laws
are entirely based on alliteration. This, for example, is
the principle on which Icelandic verse is founded; and we
have a yet nearer interest in it, because it furnishes the
key to Anglo-Saxon and a large portion of early English
verse. For a specimen take the following lines, the spelling
modernized, from the beginning of Piers the Plowman:--
``But in a May morning | on Malvern hills,
Me befel a ferly | of fairy methought;
I was weary of wandering | and went me to rest
Under a broad bank | by a burn-side;
And as I lay and leaned | and looked on the waters,
I slumbered in a sleeping | it sounded so merry.''
The rule of this verse is indifferent as to the number of
syllables it may contain, but imperative as to the number of
accented ones. The line is divided in the middle by a pause,
and each half ought to contain two accented syllables. Of
the four accented syllables, the first three should begin with
the same letter; the fourth is free and may start with any
letter. Those who wish for a more minute analysis of the
laws of alliterative verse, as practised by the Anglo-Saxon
and early English poets, may consult an exhaustive essay
on the subject by Professor W. W. Skeat, prefixed to vol.
iii. of Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript; only the reader
must be on his guard against an error which pervades it,
and which this able writer seems to have derived from Rask.
The question arises--What is the nature of the cadence in
alliterative verse? Now all metrical movement is of two kinds,
according as the beat or emphasis begins the movement or ends
it. If the beat is initial, we say in classical language that
the movement is trochaic or dactylic, according to the number
of its syllables; and if the beat is final, we in like manner
say that the movement is iambic or anapaestic. Skeat and many
others object with some reason to use the classical terms,
and therefore brushing them aside, let us put the question
in the simplest form--Has the movement of alliterative verse
got the initial or the final beat? In the middle of the 18th
century Bishop Percy decided this question with sufficient
accuracy, though he mixed up his statement with a blunder
which it is not easy to account for. He points out how the
poets began to introduce rhyme into alliterative verse, until
at length rhyme came to predominate over alliteration, and
``thus was this kind of metre at length swallowed up and lost
in the common burlesque Alexandrine or anapaestic verse, as
``A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall.''
Percy made a serious mistake when he gave the name of Alexandrine
to anapaestic verse; but he is quite right in his general
statement that alliterative verse became lost in a measure
the movement of which had the final beat. Conybeare has
stated the fact still more accurately. ``In the Saxon poetry
a trochaic character is predominant. In Piers the Plowman
there is a prevailing tendency to an anapaestic cadence.''
It is the result of a change in the language--the loss of
inflexion. Take the word man. The genitive in Saxon would
be mannes, a trochee; in English, of man, an iambus.
The tendency of the language was thus to pass from a metrical
movement, in which the beat was initial, to one in which it was
final. It may therefore be quite right to speak of Anglo-Saxon
alliterative poetry as trochaic or dactylic, and quite wrong to
apply the same terms to the cadence of our later alliterative
verse. And this is precisely the error into which Skeat has
fallen. He says--``Lines do not always begin with a loud
syllable, but often one or two and sometimes (in early English
especially) even three soft syllables precede it. These
syllables are necessary to the sense, but not to the scanision
of the line.'' That is just the point at issue. By leaving
out of account the light syllable or syllables at the beginning
of a line, and taking his start from the first syllable that
has the alliterative beat, Skeat may certainly prove that
all the later alliterative poetry has a movement of initial
beat. But English ears will not submit to this rule. It is
those light syllables of no account which have altered the rhythm
of English descant from one of initial to one of final beat.
ALLIUM (Lat. for ``garlic''), a genus of plants, natural order
Liliaceae, with about 250 species (seven of which occur in
Britain), found in Central and South Europe, North Africa, the
dry country of West and Central Asia, and North and Central
America. The plants are bulbous herbs, with flat or rounded
radical leaves, and a central naked or leafy stem, bearing a
head or umbel of small flowers, with a spreading or bell-shaped
white, pink, red, yellow or blue perianth. Several species
afford useful foods, such as onion (Allium Cepa), leek (A.
Porrum), shallot or eschallot (A. ascalonicum), garlic (A.
sativum), and chives (A. schoenoprasum.) A few species are
cultivated as border plants; such are A. Moly, an old garden
plant with bright yellow flowers, and A. neapolitanum, the
well-known white-flowered species, both natives of southern Europe.
ALLIX, PIERRE (1641-1717), French Protestant divine, was born at
Alencon. He was pastor first at St Agobile in Champagne, and
then at Charenton, near Paris. The revocation of the edict of
Nantes in 1685 compelled him to take refuge in London, where,
under the sanction of James II., he opened a church for the French
exiles. His reputation for learning was such as to obtain for
him, soon after his arrival, the degree of doctor of divinity
from both universities, and in 1690 he received from Bishop
Burnet the more substantial honour of the treasurership and
a canonry in Salisbury Cathedral. He died at London in March
1717. The works of Allix, which are numerous, are chiefly of
a controversial and apologetic character, and must be used with
caution. In opposition to Bossuet he published Some Remarks
upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches
of Piedmont (1690), and Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical
History of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses (1692),
with the idea of showing that the Albigenses were not
Manichaeans, but historically identical with the Waldenses.
ALLMAN, GEORGE JAMES (1812-!898), British biologist, was born
in Cork, Ireland, in 1812, and received his early education at
the Royal Academical Institution, Belfast. For some time he
studied for the Irish bar, but ultimately gave up law in favour
of natural science. In 1843 he graduated in medicine at Dublin,
and in the following year was appointed professor of botany
in that university, succeeding his namesake, William Allman
(1776-1846). This position he held for about twelve years
until he removed to Edinburgh as regius professor of natural
history. There he remained till 1870, when considerations of
health induced him to resign his professorship and retire to
Dorsetshire, where he devoted himself to his favourite pastime of
horticulture. The scientific papers which came from his pen are
very numerous. His most important work was upon the gymnoblastic
hydrozoa, on which he published in 1871-1872, through the Ray
Society, an exhaustive monograph, based largely on his own
researches and illustrated with drawings of remarkable excellence
from his own hand. Biological science is also indebted to
him for several convenient terms which have come into daily
use, e.g. endoderm and ectoderm for the two cellular
layers of the body-wall in Coelenterata. He became a fellow
of the Royal Society in 1854, and received a Royal medal in
1873. For several years he occupied the presidential chair
of the Linnaean society, and in 1879 he presided over the
Sheffield meeting of the British Association. He died
on the 24th of November 1898 at Parkstone, Dorsetshire.
ALLOA, a municipal and police burgh and seaport of
Clackmannanshire, Scotland. It is situated on the north
bank of the Forth, 32 m. from Edinburgh by the North British
railway via the Forth Bridge, and 28 m. from Leith by
steamer. Pop. (1891) 12,643; (1901) 14,458. The Caledonian
railway enters the town from the south-west by a bridge
across the river, and also owns a ferry to South Alloa, on the
opposite shore, in Stirlingshire. Between Alloa and Stirling
the stream forms the famous ``links,'' the course being so
sinuous that whereas by road the two towns are but 6 1/2 m.
apart, the distance between them by river is nearly 12 m.
For its size and population the town enjoys unusual prosperity,
in consequence of its several flourishing industries. Its
manufactures of yarn are on the largest scale, the spinning
mills often working night and day for many months together.
There are also numerous breweries, and Alloa ale has always
been famous. The great distillery at Carsebridge yields an
immense supply of yeast as well as whisky. Other thriving
trades include the glass-works on the shore, pottery-works in
the ``auld toon,'' dye-works and a factory for the making of
electrical appliances. There is a good deal of shipbuilding,
some ironfounding and a brass foundry. The chief article of
export is coal from the neighbouring collieries, the other
leading exports being ale, whisky, glass and manufactured
goods. The imports comprise timber, grain, iron, linseed and
flax. The docks, accessible only at high water, include a
wet basin and a dry dock. Amongst the principal buildings
are the fine Gothic parish church, with a spire 200 ft. high;
the town hall, including the free public library, from designs
by Alfred Waterhouse, R.A., the gift of Mr J. Thomson Paton;
the county and municipal buildings; handsome public baths and
gymnasium, presented to the town by Mr David Thomson; the
accident hospital; the fever hospital; the museum of the
Natural Science and Archaeological Society; the academy,
the burgh school and a secondary school with the finest
technical equipment in Scotland, given by Mr A. Forrester
Paton. There is a public park, besides bowling-greens and
cricket and football fields. The old burying-ground was the
kirkyard of the former parish church, the tower of which still
exists, but a modern cemetery has been formed in Sunnyside.
The town owns the water-supply, gas-works and electric-lighting.
Alloa Park, the seat of the earl of Mar and Kellie, is in the
immediate vicinity, and in its grounds stand the ruins of Alloa
Tower, an ancient structure 89 ft. high, with walls 11 ft.
thick, which was built about 1315, and was once the residence
of the powerful family of Erskine, descendants of the earl of
Mar. The earl who promoted the Jacobite rising in 1715 was born
here. Many of the Scots princes received their education
as wards of the Lords Erskine and the earls of Mar, the last
to be thus educated being Henry, the eldest son of James VI.
ALLOBROGES (in Gr. usually 'Allobriges), a Celtic tribe
in the north of Gallia Narbonensis, inhabiting the low ground
called the ``island'' between the Rhodanus, the Isara and
the Graian Alps, corresponding to the modern Dauphine and
Savoy. If the name is rightly interpreted as meaning
``aliens,'' they would seem to have driven out the original
inhabitants. Their chief towns were Vienna (Vienne),
Genava (Geneva) and Cularo (afterwards Gratianopolis, whence
Grenoble). The Allobroges first occur in history as taking
part with Hannibal in the invasion of Italy. After the
subjugation of the Salluvii (Salyes) by the Romans in 123
B.C., having given shelter to their king Tutomotulus and
refused to surrender him, the Allobroges were attacked and
finally defeated (August 8, 121) at the junction of the Rhodanus
and Isara by Q. Fabius Maximus (afterwards Allobrogicus). But
they still remained hostile to Rome, as is shown by the conduct
of their ambassadors in the Catilinarian conspiracy (63; see
CATILINE); two years later a revolt under Catugnatus was
put down by Gaius Pomptinus at Solonium. Under Augustus they
were included in Gallia Narbonensis; later, in the Viennensis.
See A. Desjardins, Geographie historique de la Gaule romaine,
ii. (1876-1893); . E. Herzog, Galliae Narbonensis Historia
(Leipzig, 1864); Mommsen, Hist. of Rome (Eng. trans.). bk.
iii. ch. 4, iv. ch. 5; T. R. Holmes, Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul (1899): G. Long in Smith's Dict. of Greek anid Roman
Geography: M. Ihm in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie,
i. 2 (1894); A. Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz;
and bibliography in La grande encyclopedie (s.v.).
ALLOCATUR (from med. Lat. allocatur, it is allowed),
in law, a certificate given by a taxing master, at the
termination of an action, for the allowance of costs.
ALLOCUTION (Lat. allocutio, an address), a name given to the
formal addresses made by the pope to the College of Cardinals
and through them to the church generally. They are usually
called forth by ecclesiastical or political circumstances,
and aim at safeguarding papal principles and claims. They are
published by being affixed to the door of St Peter's Church.
ALLODIUM, or ALODIUM, a legal term for lands which are
the absolute property of their owner, and not subject to
any service or acknowledgment to a superior. It is thus
the opposite of fe-odum or fief. The proper derivation
of the word has been much discussed and is still doubtful,
though it is probably compounded of all, whole or entire,
and odh, property. Allodial tenure seems to have been
common throughout northern Europe. It exists in Orkney and
Shetland, but is unknown in England, the feudal system
having been made universal by William the Conqueror.
ALLOMEROUS (Gr. allos, other meros, part), the quality
of bodies (e.g. mineral) by virtue of which they can change
their elements and proportions while preserving their form.
ALLON, HENRY (1818-1892), English Nonconformist divine,
was born on the 13th of October 1818 at Welton near Hull in
Yorkshire. Under Methodist influence he decided to enter the
ministry, but, developing Congregational ideas, was trained
at Cheshunt College. In 1844 he became co-pastor with the
Rev. Thomas Lewis of Union Chapel, Islington. In 1852,
on the death of Lewis, Allon became sole pastor, and this
position he held with increasing influence till his death in
1892. Union Chapel, originally founded by evangelical
members of the Church of England and Nonconformists acting
in harmony, became during Anon's co-pastorate definitely
Congregational in principle and fellowship, and exercised an
ever-expanding influence. His chief service to Nonconformity
was in connexion with the improvement of congregational
worship, and especially the service of praise. In 1852
Dr. H. J. Gauntlett became organist at Union of this class,
Allon published the original edition of his well-known
Congregational Psalmist. For many years his collection of
hymns, chants and anthems was used in hundreds of churches
throughout England. In 1860 Allon began to write, at first
chiefly for the Patriot, then under the editorship of T. C.
Turbeville. In 1864, at the age of forty-five, he was elected
chairman of the Congregational Union, and in 1866 he undertook
the editorship of the British Quarterly Review with H. R.
Reynolds, the principal of Cheshunt. In 1877 he became sole
editor, and in that capacity came into touch with such men
as W. E. Gladstone, Matthew Arnold, F. D. Maurice and Dean
Stanley. The magazine was discontinued in 1886. In 1871
he received the degree of D.D. from the university of Yale,
U.S.A. In 1874 the congregation at Islington decided to
erect new buildings. The church, which was built at a cost of
L. 50,000, was specially adapted for congregational worship
and was mentioned by an architectural journal as one of the
hundred remarkable buildings of the century. The church had
in its Yarious departments about 300 teachers in charge of
more than 3000 children, and was in its organization one of
the earliest instances of the type known as the institutional
church. In 1881. on the occasion of the jubilee of the
Congregational Union of England and Wales, Allon was again
elected chairman. In were A Memoir of James Sherman (1863);
the Sermons of Thomas Binney, with a biographical and
critical sketch (1869); The Vision of God and other sermons
(1876); The Indwelling Christ (1892). Allon was a man of
sound judgment, strong will, great moral courage and personal
kindness. His acquaintance with literature was wide, his
own style lucid and decisive. In social and political
affairs he was a convinced individualist. Both as leader of
Union Chapel and in denominational affairs his courage and
discretion, his simple faith, combined with a broad-minded
symoathy with the intellectual movements of the time, made
his ministry a widespread influence for good. (D. MN.)
ALLONGE (from Fr. alloinger, to draw out), a slip of
paper affixed to a negotiable instrument, as a bill of
exchange, for the purpose of receiving additional indorsements
for which there may not be sufficient space on the bill
itself. An indorsement written on the allonge is deemed to
be written on the bill itself. An allonge is more usually
met with in those countries where the Code Napoleon is in
force, as the code requires every indorsement to express the
consideration. Under English law, as the simple signature of
the indorser on the bill, without additional words, is sufficient
to operate as a negotiation, an allonge is seldom necessary.
ALLOPHANE, one of the few minerals known only in the amorphous
state. It is a glassy substance, usually occurring as
thin encrustations with a mammillary surface; occasionally,
however, it is earthy and pulverulent. The colour varies
considerably. from colourless to yellow, brown, blue or
green. Specimens of a brilliant sky-blue colour, such as
those found formerly in Wheal Haniblyn, near Bridestowe in
Devonshire, and in Sardinia, are specially attractive in
appearance; the colour is here due to the presence of the
copper mineral chrysocolla. The hardness is 3, and the
specific gravity 1.9. Chemically, it is a hydrous aluminium
silicate, Al2SiO5.5H2O. Allophane is always of secondary
origin, resulting from the decomposition of various aluminous
silicates, such as felspar. It is often found copper and
iron. It was first observed in 1809 in marl at Grafenthal,
near Saalfield in Thuringia; and has been found in lines
fissures and funnel-shaped cavities. The name allophane was
given by F. Stromeyer in 1816, from the Gr. allos, another,
and faino, to appear, in allusion to the fact that the
mineral crumbles and changes in appearance when heated
before the blowpipe. Other names for the species are
riemannite and elhuyarite, whilst closely allied minerals are
carolathine, samoite and schrotterite (opal-allophane).
ALLORI, ALESSANDRO (1535--1607), Italian painter of the
Florentine school, was brought up and trained in art by his uncle,
Angelo Bronzino (q.v.) whose name he sometimes assumed in his
pictures. Visiting Rome in his nineteenth year, he carefully
studied the works of Michelangelo; but the influence of that
great master can only be traced in the anatomical correctness
of his drawing of nude figures. He was successful as a portrait
painter. His son CRISTOFANO ALLORI (1577-1621), born at
Florence, received his first lessons in painting from his father,
but becoming dissatisfied with the hard anatomical drawing and
cold colouring of the latter, he entered the studio of Gregorio
Pagani (1558-1605) who was one of the leaders of that later
Florentine school which endeavoured to unite the rich colouring
of the Venetians with the correct drawing of Michelangelo's
disciples. Allori became one of the foremost of this school.
His pictures are distinguished by their close adherence to
nature and the delicacy and technical perfection of their
execution. His technical skill is proved by the fact that
several copies he made after Correggio have been taken to be
duplicates by Correggio himself. His extreme fastidiousness
limited his power of production, though the number of his works
is not so small as is sometimes asserted. Several specimens
are to be seen at Florence and elsewhere. The finest of
all his works is his ``Judith and Holofernes,'' in the Pitti
Palace. The model for the Judith was his mistress, the beautiful
Mazzafirra, who is also represented in his Magdalene; and the
head of Holofernes is generally supposed to represent himself.
ALLOTMENT from O. Fr. a and loter, to divide by
lot), the act of allotting; a share or portion assigned.
In England, the term denotes a portion of land assigned
on partition or under an inclosure award (see COMMONS);
also a division of land into small portions for cultivation
by a labourer or artisan at a small rent (see ALLOTMENTS
AND SMALL HOLDINOS). In company law, ``allotment'' is
the appropriation to an applicant by a resolution of the
directors of a certain number of shares in response to an
application. The document sent to such an applicant, which
announces the number of shares assigned and concludes the
contract, is called a letter of allotment or allotment
certificate. A letter of allotment in England requires a
sixpenny stamp if the value of the shares amounts to L. 5 or
over, and a penny stamp if less than L. 5. (See COMPANY.)
Allotment note is a writing by a seaman authorising his
employers to make an allotment of part of his wages, while he
is on a voyage, in favour either of a ``near'' relative (wife,
father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, child, grandchild,
brother or sister of the seaman), or of a savings bank. Every
allotment note must be in a form sanctioned by the Board of Trade.
ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS. As the meaning of these
terms in agricultural tenure varies in different localities,
it may be as well to say at once that for the present purpose
they are definable as pieces of land detached from cottages,
and hired or owned by labouring men to supplement their main
income. We do not include any farm, however small, from
which the occupier derives his entire support by dairying,
market-gardening, or other form of la petite culture. So,
also, no account is taken of the tiny garden plot, used for
growing vegetables for the table and simple flowers, which
is properly an appurtenance of the cottage. Clearing away
what is extraneous, the essential point round which much
controversy has raged is the labourer's share in the land.
The claim advanced depends upon tradition. In agriculture,
the oldest of all industries, a cash payment is not even now
regarded as discharging the obligations between master and
servant. Mr Wilson Fox, in reporting to the Board of Trade on
the earnings of agricultural labourers in Great Britain, gives,
as a typical survival of an old custom, the case of a shepherd
whose total income was calculated at L. 60 a year, but who got
only L. 16 in money, the rest being made up by rights of grazing
live-stock, growing crops on his master's land, and kindred
privileges. That is exactly in the spirit that used to pervade
agriculture, and doubtless had its origin in the manorial
system. If we turn back to the 13th century, from Walter of
Henley's Husbandry it will be seen that practically there
were only two classes engaged in agriculture, and corresponding
with them were two kinds of land. There were, on the one
hand, the employer, the lord, and his demesne land; on the
other, the villeins and the land held in villenage. Putting
aside for the moment any discussion of the exact degree of
servitude, it will be seen that the essence of the bargain was
that the villein should be permitted to cultivate a virgate of
land for his own use in return for service rendered on the home
farm. This is not altered by the fact that the conditions
approached those of slavery, that the villeins were adscripti
glebae, that in some cases their wives and sons were bequeathed
by deed to the service of religious houses, and that in many
other respects their freedom was limited. Out of this, in
the course of centuries, was developed the system prevailing
to-day. Lammas lands are indeed a survival from it. There
are in the valley of the Lea, and close to London, to take one
example, lands allotted annually in little strips till the
crops are carried, when, the day being fixed by a reeve, the
land becomes a common pasture till the spring closing takes
place once more. Perhaps the feature of this old system
that bears most directly on the question of allotments was
the treatment of the waste of the manor. The lord, like his
tenants, was limited by custom as regards the number of
beasts he could graze on it. After the havoc of the Black
Death in 1349, many changes were necessitated by the scarcity
and dearness of labour. It became less unusual for land
to be let and for money payment to be accepted instead of
services. There was a great demand for wool, and to conduct
sheep-farming on a large scale necessitated a re-arrangement
of the manor and the enclosure of many common fields under
the statute of Merton and the statute of Westminster the
Second. Nevertheless, up to the 18th century, a vast proportion
of agricultural land was technically waste, on which rights
of common were exercised by yeomen, some of whom had acquired
holdings by the ordinary methods of purchase or inheritance,
while others had merely squatted and built a house on the
waste. It is to this period that belongs a certain injustice
to which the peasantry were subject. No reasonable doubt
can be entertained of the necessity of enclosure. Husbandry,
after long stagnation, was making great advance; and among
others, Arthur Young raised his voice against the clumsy
inconvenient common fields that were the first to be enclosed.
Between 1709 and 1797 no fewer than 3110 acts, affecting, as
far as can be calculated, about 3,000,000 acres, were put into
operation. They seem mostly to have been directed to the common
fields. In the first half of the 19th century the movement
went on apace. In a single year, 1801, no fewer than 119
acts were passed; and between 1801 and 1842 close on 2000
acts were passed---many of them expressly directed to the
enclosure of wastes and commons. The same thing continued till
1860. It touched the peasant directly and indirectly. The
enclosure of the common fields proved most hurtful to the
small farmer; the enclosure of the waste injured the labourer
by depriving him, without adequate compensation, of such
useful privileges as the right to graze a cow, a pig, geese
or other small animals. It also discouraged him by tending
to the extinction of small tenancies and freeholds that were
no longer workable at a profit when common rights ceased
to go with them. The industrious labourer could previously
nourish a hope of bettering his condition by obtaining a small
holding. Yet though the labourer suffered, impartial study
does not show any intentional injustice. He held a very
weak position when those interested in a common affixed to
the church door a notice that they intended to petition.
As Mr Cowper (afterwards Lord Mount Temple) said in the
House of Commons on the 13th of March 1844, ``the course
adopted had been to compensate the owner of the cottage to
whom the common right belonged, forgetting the claims of
the occupier by whom they were enjoyed''; and in the same
debate Sir Robert Peel pointed out that not only the rights
of the tenant, but those of his successors ought to have been
studied. The course adopted divorced the labourer from the soil.
Parliament, as a matter of fact, had from a very early
period recognized the wisdom of contenting the peasant.
In the 14th century the labourer lived in rude abundance.
Next century a rural exodus began, owing to the practice of
enclosing the holdings and turning them into sheep walks.
In 1487 an act was passed enjoining landlords to ``keep up
houses of husbandry,'' and attach convenient land to them.
Within the next hundred years a number of similar attempts
were made to control what we may call the sheep fever of the
time. Then we arrive at the reign of Elizabeth and the famous
Small Holdings Act passed in 1597--an anticipation of the
three-acres-and-a-cow policy advocated towards the end of
the 19th century. It required that no person shall ``build,
convert or ordain any cottage for habitation or dwelling
for persons engaged in husbandry'' unless the owner ``do
assign and lay to the same cottage or building four acres of
ground at the least.'' It also provided against any ``inmate
or under-sitter'' being admitted to what was sacred to one
family. This measure was not conceived in the spirit of
modern political economy, but it had the effect of staying
the rural exodus. It was repealed in 1775 on the ground
that it restricted the building of cottages. By that time
the modern feeling in favour of allotments had begun to
ripen, and it was contended that some compensation should be
made to the labourers for depriving them of the advantages
of the waste. Up to then the English labouring rustic had
been very well off. Food was abundant and cheap, so were
clothes and boots; he could graze his cow or pig on the
common, and also obtain fuel from it. Now he fell on evil
days. Prices rose, wages fell, privileges were lost, and in
many cases he had to sell the patch of land whose possession
made all the difference between hardship and comfort. All
this was seen plainly enough both by statesmen and private
philanthropists. One of the first experiments was described
by Sir John Sinclair in a note to the report of a select
committee of the House of Commons on waste lands in 1795.
About 1772 the lord of the manor of some commonable lands
near Tewkesbury had with great success set out 25 acres in
allotments for the use of some of the poor. Sir John was very
much struck with the result, and so heartily applauded the idea
that the committee recommended that any general enclosure bill
should have a clause in it providing for ``the accommodation
of land.'' Sir Thomas Bernard and W. Wilberforce took an
active part in advocating the principle of allotments, on the
ground, to summarize their argument in language employed
later by a witness before the House of Commons, that ``it
keeps the cottagers buoyant and makes them industrious.'' In
1806, at the suggestion of the rector, a clause assigning an
allotment of half an acre to every cottage was inserted in an
enclosure bill Wiltshire. This was done, ``and the example
was followed by nearly every adjoining parish in that part of
Wiltshire. Passing over several praiseworthy establishments
of allotments by private persons, we come to 1819, when
parliament passed an act akin in spirit to several that came
into existence during the later portion of the Victorian
era. It empowered the churchwardens and overseers of any
parish, with the consent of the vestry, to purchase or hire
land not exceeding 25 acres, and to let it in portions to
``any poor and industrious inhabitant of the parish.'' This
was amended in 1831 by an act extending the quantity of land
enable the same authorities to enclose from any waste or
common, land not exceeding 50 acres to be devoted to the same
purpose. This was followed next year by an act relating to
fuel, and in 1834 the Poor Law Commissioners reported favourably
on the principle of granting allotments. In 1843 an important
inquiry into the subject was made by a committee of the House of
Commons, which produced a number of valuable suggestions. One
consequence was the bill of 1845, brought into parliament by Mr
Cowper. It passed the House of Commons; and there Mr Bright
made a remark that probably summarized a general opinion, since
it never came to a third reading in the House of Lords. He
said that ``the voluntary system of arrangement would do all the
good that was expected to accrue from the allotment system.''
At this point in the history of the movement it may be as
well to cause and ask what was the net result of so much
legislation and benevolent action. Messrs Tremenheere and
Tufnall, who prefixed an admirable epitome of what had been
done to the report of the commission ``appointed to inquire
into the employment of women, young persons and children in
agriculture'' (1867), expressed considerable disappointment.
Between 1710 and 1867, 7,660,413 statute acres were added to
the cultivated area of England and Wales, or about one-third of
the area in cultivation at the latter date; and of this total,
484,893 acres were enclosed between 1845 and 1867. Of the
latter, only 2119 acres were assigned as public allotments for
gardens to the labouring poor. It was found to be the case,
as it is now, that land was taken up more readily when offered
privately and voluntarily than when it came through offcial
sources. Meanwhile competent and thoughtful men saw well that
the sullen discontent of the peasantry continued, in Lord Bacon's
phrase, to threaten ``the might and manhood of the kingdom.''
It had existed since the beginning of the Napoleonic wars,
and had become more articulate with the spread of education.
We shall see a consciousness of its presence rehected in the
minds of statesmen and politicians as we briefly examine the
later phase of the movement. This found expression in the
clauses against enclosure introduced by Lord Beaconsheld in
1876, and gave force to the three-acres-and-a-cow agitation,
of which the more prominent leaders were Joseph Arch and Jesse
Collings. In 1882 the Allotments Extension Act was passed,
the object of which was to let the parishioners have charity
land in allotments, provided it or the revenue from it was
not used for apprenticeshio, ecclesiastical or educational
purposes. A committee of the House of Commons, appointed
in 1885 to inquire into the housing of the working classes,
reported strongly in favour of allotments, and this was followed
in 1887 by the Allotments Act---the first measure in which the
principle of compulsory acquisition was admitted in regard to
other than charity lands. Its administration was first given
to the sanitary authority, but passed to the district councils
when these bodies were established in 1894. the local body
is empowered to hire or purchase suitable land, and if they
do not find any in the market they are to petition the county
council, which after due inquiry may issue a provisional
order compeihng owners to sell land, and the Local Government
Board may introduce a bill into parliament to confirm the
order. It was found that the sanitary authority did not
carry out the scheme, and in 1890 another act was passed
for the purpose of allowing applicants for allotments, when
the sanitary authority failed to provide land, to appeal to
the county council. Judging from the evidence laid before
the commission on agricultural depression (1894), the act of
1887 was not a conspicuous success. Most of the witnesses
reported in such terms as these---``the Allotments Act has
been quite inoperative in Cornwall''; ``the act has been a
dead letter in the district (Wigtownshire)''; ``the Allotments
Act has not been in operation in Flintshire''; ``nothing has
been done in the district of Pembrokeshire under the act.''
No evidence whatever was adduced to show that in a single
district a different state of things had to be recorded.
From a return presented by the Local Government Board to
parliament in 1896 we learn that eighty-three rural sanitary
authorities had acquired land for allotment prior to the 28th
of December 1894, the date at which these authorities ceased
to exist under the provisions of the Local Government Act
1894. Land was acquired by compulsory purchase in only one
parish; by purchase or agreement in eighteen parishes; by hire
by agreement in 132 parishes. The total acreage dealt with
was 1836 acres 1 rood 34 poles, and the total number of tenants
4711. The number of county councils that up to the same
date had acquired land was twelve, and they had done so by
compulsory purchase in one parish, by purchase or agreement
in five parishes, by hire by agreement in twenty-four
parishes. The total area dealt with was only 413 acres 1 rood 5
poles, and the total number of tenants 825.The complete totals
affected at the date of the return (August 21, 1895) by the
acts, therefore, were 2249 acres 2 roods 29 poles, and 5536
tenants. A considerable extension has taken place since.
The Small Holdings Act introduced by Mr Henry Chaplin, and
passed by parliament in 1892 was an attempt to appease the rural
discontent that had been seething for some time past and was
silently but most eloquently expressed in a steady migration
from the villages. The object of this measure was to help the
deserving labouring man to acquire a small holding, that is to
say, a portion of land not less than one acre or more than
fifty acres in extent and of an annual value not exceeding
L. 50. It is not necessary here to describe the legal steps
by which this was to be accomplished. The essence of the
bargain was that a fifth of the purchase money should be paid
down, and the remainder in half-yearly instalments spread
over a period not exceeding fifty years. But if the local
authority thought fit a portion of the purchase money, not
exceeding one-fourth. might remain unpaid, and be secured by
a perpetual rent charge upon the holding. It cannot be said
that this act has attained the object for which it was drawn
up. From a return made to the House of Commons in 1895 it
was shown that eight county councils had acquired land under
the Small Holdings Act, which amounted in the aggregate to 483
acres. A further return was made in 1903, which showed that
the total quantity of land acquired from the commencement
of the act up to the end of 1902 was only 652 acres.
It is, however, an English characteristic to prefer private
to public arrangements, and probably a very great majority
of the allotments and small holdings cultivated in 1907 were
due to individual initiative. There are no means of arriving
at the exact figures, but data exist whereby it is at least
possible to form some rough idea of them. It is not the custom
to give in the annual agricultural returns any statement of
the manner in which land is held, and the information is to
be found in the returns presented to parliament from time to
time. From the following table, which includes both the
holdings owned and tenanted, it will be seen that between
1895 and 1904 the tendency was for the holdings to decrease
in number; while the holdings of from 50 to 300 acres slightly
increased, those from 5 to 50 acres were almost stationary,
and there was a decrease in those between 1 and 5 acres.
1895. 1904.
Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent.
1 to 5 acres 117,968 22.68 110,974 21.69
5 to 50 '' 235,481 45.28 232,470 45.44
50 to 300 '' 147,870 28.43 150,050 29.33
Above 300 '' 18,787 3.61 18,084 3.54
These figures become doubly instructive when considered in
connexion with the decline of the strictly rural population.
It will, therefore, be useful to place beside them a summary
published in a report on the decline of rural population in Great
Britain issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1906.
Class. 1881. 1891. 1901. Increase (+) or Decrease (-)
1881-1891. 1891-1901.
No. No. No. No. No.
Farmers and
Graziers 279,126 277,943 277,694 -1,183 -249
Farm Bailiffs
and Foremen 22,895 21,453 27,317 -1,442 +5,864
Shepherds 33,125 31,686 35,022 -1,439 +3,336
Agricultural
Labourers 983,919 866,543 689,292 -117,376 -177,251
These figures must of course be approximate. The effect of
recent development in methods of travelling and the growing custom
for townsmen either to live wholly in the country or to take
week-end cottages, has made it impossible to draw a strict line
of demarcation between rural and urban populations. Still they
are near enough for practical purposes, and they amply justify
the efforts of those who are trying to stay the rural exodus.
While legislation had not, up to 1908, achieved any noteworthy
result in the creation of small holdings, and still left doubts
as to the practicability of re-creating the English yeoman by
act of parliament, many successful efforts have been made by
individuals. One of the most interesting is that of the earl of
Carrington at Sleaford in Lincolnshire. In this case the most
noteworthy feature is that between the landlord and the tenants
there is a body called the South Lincolnshire Small Holdings
Association, which took 650 acres from Lord Carrington on a
twenty years' lease. These acres used to be let to four or five
tenants. They were in 1905 divided among one hundred and
seventy tenants. The Small Holders' Association guaranteed
the rent, which works out at about 33s. per acre, to Lord
Carrington. They let the men on yearly tenancy have it at about
40s. an acre, the difference being used to meet the expenses
of dividing the lands into small holdings, maintaining drains,
fences and roads connected with them, and other unavoidable
outlays. In this way the landlord is assured of his rent,
and the association has lost nothing, as the men were very
punctual in their payments. But very great care was bestowed
in choosing the men for the holdings. They were in a sense
picked men, but men must be picked to work the business
satisfactorily. Lincolnshire is pre-eminently a county of
small holdings, and the labouring residents in it have been
accustomed to the management of them from their infancy
onwards. Here as elsewhere the provision of suitable houses
formed a difficulty, some of the tenants having to walk several
miles to their holdings. Lord Carrington availed himself as
much as possible of the buildings that existed, dividing the
old farm houses so as to make them suitable for the small
tenants. At Cowbit farm, many of the ordinary labourers'
cottages, which were put up at a cost of about L. 300 a pair,
have by the addition of little dairies and other alterations
been made suitable for the tenants. From facts collected
on the spot we have come to the conclusion that on the small
holdings a good tenant makes an average profit of about L. 4 an
acre, but on an allotment cultivated by means of the spade
it would probably be at the rate of over L. 6 an acre. Lord
Carrington was also successful in establishing small holdings
on the Humberston estate in North Lincolnshire and on his
Buckinghamshire estate, near Aylesbury. At Newport Pagnell
the attempt failed because the demand was artificial, the
ground arable, and the men not capable of dealing with it.
Other examples of the establishment of small holdings can
only receive brief reference. The Norfolk Small Holdings
Association acquired three farms at Whissonsett, Watton and
Swaffham, which are broken up into small lots and let mostly
to the village tradespeople. Sir Pearce Edgecumbe established
small holdings at Rew, some of which have been purchased by the
occupiers, and Mr A. B. Markham created similar ownerships at
Twyford (Leicestershire) . At Cudworth in Surrey a group was
formed, but the owners were actuated more by the desire to lead
a simple life than to prove the remunerative value of small
holdings. Mr W. J. Harris created small holdings in Devon,
each of which is let on a life tenancy. There the rural exodus
has been more than arrested. Mr James Tomkinson established
in Cheshire a number of graduated holdings, so contrived as
to offer the successful holders a chance of stepping upwards.
The earl of Harrowby made an interesting experiment on his
Sandon estate in Staffordshire in the midst of a pretty, broken
and undulating country. The estate consists of about 6000
acres, one-third of which is laid out in small holdings.
These fall naturally into three divisions. First, there are
those which belong to men who have regular employment, and
would therefore find it impossible to cultivate any great
quantity of land. Many of that class are anxious to have
a holding of some sort, as it lends a certain elasticity
to their incomes and provides them with a never-failing
interest. One who may be taken as typical hired six acres
with a good cottage and a large garden, paying a rent of L. 20 a
year. When this holding was created it had already a suitable
cottage, but L. 100 was needed to provide outbuildings, and
Lord Harrowby's custom is to charge 5% on outlay of this
kind. This L. 5, however, is included in the total rent of
L. 20 paid for cottage, land and garden. The man was not only
content, but wished to get some more land. The next class
consists of those who have not enough land to live on but
eke out their livelihood by casual labour. Usually a man
of this sort requires from 35 to 50 acres of land mostly
pasture. He can attend to it and yet give a certain number
of days to estate work. The third class is that of the small
farmer who gains his entire livelihood from the land. The
obstacle to breaking up large farms into small lies of course
in the expense of providing the necessary equipment. It has
been found here that a cottage suitable for a small farmer
costs about L. 400 to build in a substantial manner, and the
outbuildings about L. 200. This makes an addition therefore of
about L. 30 to the rent of the land. The ardour with which these
tenancies were sought when vacant formed the best testimony
to the soundness of the principle applied by Lord Harrowby.
A nest of small holdings was created at Winterslow, near
Salisbury, by Major R. M. Poore. The holders completed the
purchase by 1906, and the work may be pronounced a complete
success. Major Poore originally conceived the idea when land
was cheap in 1892, owing to the depression in agriculture.
He purchased an estate that came into the market at the
time. The price came to an average of L. 10 an acre, and
the men themselves made the average for selling it out again
L. 15 on a principle of instalments. His object was not to
make any profit from the transaction, and he formed what is
termed a Landholders' Court, formed of the men themselves,
every ten choosing one to represent them. This court was
found to act well. It collected the instalments, which are
paid in advance; and of course the members of it, down to
the minutest detail, knew not only the circumstances but the
character of every applicant for land. The result speaks for
itself. The owners are, in the true sense of the word,
peasants. They do not depend on the land for a living, but
work in various callings---many being woodmen---for wages
that average about 15s. a week. The holdings vary in size
from less than an acre to ten acres, and are technically
held on a lease of 1999 years, practically freehold, though
by the adoption of a leasehold form a saving was effected
in the cost of transfer. On the holdings most of the men
have erected houses, using for the purpose chalk dug up
from their gardens, it lying only a few inches below the
surface. It is not rock, but soft chalk, so that they
are practically mud walls; but being as a rule at least 18
inches thick, the houses are very cool in summer and warm in
winter. Major Poore calculated that in seven years these
poor people--there are not thirty of them altogether--managed
to produce for their houses and land a gross sum of not
less than L. 5000. This he attributed to the loyal manner
in which even distant members of the family have helped.
The class of holding which owes its existence to the act of
1802 may be illustrated by the history of the Worcestershire
small holdings. The inception of the scheme was due to the
decline of the nail-making business, which caused a number
of the inhabitants to be without occupation. Two candidates
for election to the county council looking out for a popular
cry found it in the demand for land. They promised to do
their best in this direction, and thanks to the energetic
action of Mr Willis Bund, the chairman, the act was put in
force. Woodrow Farm, adjoining the village of Catshill in
the neighbourhood of Birmingham, was purchased on terms that
enabled the land to be sold to the peasant cultivator at L. 40 an
acre. They were paying this back at the rate of 4% on the
purchase money, a rate that included both interest and sinking
fund, so that at the end of forty years they would own the
small estates free from encumbrance. The huge population of
Birmingham is close to the properties. The men turned their
attention mostly to strawberries, to which many acres were
devoted. Costermongers would come out from Birmingham and buy
fruit on the spot, selling part of it to the villas on the way
back, and part in the Birmingham market. The experience gained
in working the act enabled the committee on small holdings to
make a number of practical suggestions for future legislation.
It remains to note the passing in 1907 of a new English
Small Holdings and Allotments Act, experience of which is
too recent for its provisions to be more than indicated
here. The act transferred to the Board of Agriculture the
duties generally of the Local Government Board, and transferred
to parish councils or parish meetings the powers and duties
of rural district councils; it required county councils to
ascertain the demand for land without previous representation to
them, and gave power for its compulsary acquisition; and the
maximum holding of an allotment was raised from one acre to
five. Both compulsary purchase and compulsary hiring (for not
less than 14 nor more than 35 years) were authorized, value
and compensation begin decided by a single arbitrator. A
coercive authority was applied to the county councils in the
form of commissioners appointed by the Board of Agriculture,
who were to hold inquiries independently and to take action
themselves in the case of a defaulting county council. They
were to ascertain the local demand for small holdings, and to
report to the Board, who might then require a county council
to prepare a scheme, whihc, when approved, it was to carry out,
the commissioners begin empowered to do so in the alternative.
Foreign Countries.--It remains to give a brief outline of what
small holdings are like outside Great Britain. From the results
of the Belgian Agricultural Inquiry in 1895 the following table
has been compiled, assuming that one hectare = 2 1/2 acres:--
Occupied by Owner. Occupied by Tenant. Total.
Size of Holding Whole. More than Half. More than half. Whole.
No. No. No. No. No.
1 1/4 acres and under 109,169 8,759 34,779 305,413 458,120
1 1/4 acres and under
5 acres 27,395 19,544 58,829 70,465 176,233
5 acres and under
10 acres 12,089 13,873 30,340 25,006 81,308
10 acres and under
50 acres 16,690 18,909 33,443 28,387 97,429
50 or 100 acres 2,021 1,497 3,315 4,517 11,350
Over 100 acres 903 470 1,417 2,395 5,185
Total 168,267 63,052 162,123 436,183 829,625
It will bbe seen from this table that Belgium is pre-eminently
a country of small holdings, more than half of the total
number being under 50 acres in extent. Of course it is largely
a country of market gardens; but as the holdings are most
numerous in Brabant, East and West Flanders and Hainault,
the provinces showing the largest number of milch cows, it
would seem that dairying and la petite culture go together
There is a slight tendency for the holdings to decrease in
number. In Germany the number of small holdings is proportionately
much larger than in Great Britain. The returns collected
in 1895 showed that there were 3,235,169, or 58.22% of the
total number of holdings under 5 acres in area; and of these
no fewer than 11% are held by servants as part of their
wages. The table below compiled for the Journal at
the Board of Agriculture enables us to compare the other
holdings with those of Great Britain. Great Britain, it
will be seen, has over 40% of large farms of between 50 and
500 acres as compared with Germany's 12.6, while the latter
has 86.8 of small holdings, compared with England's 58.6.
France also has a far larger proportion of small holdings
than Great Britain; its cultivated area of 85,759,000 acres
being divided into 5,618,000 separate holdings, of which the
size averages a little over 15 acres as against 63 in Great
Britain. Of the whole number, 4,190,795 are farmed by the
owners, 934,338 are in meteyage, and 1,078,184 by tenants.
The leading feature is the peasant proprietary. Half of the
arable, more than half of the pasture, six-sevenths of the
vineyards and two-thirds of the garden lands are farmed by their
owners. Comparison with Great Britain is difficult; but it would
appear that, whereas only 11% of British 520,000 agricultural
holdings are farmed by the owners, the proportion in France is
75%. A further point to be noted is that the average agricultural
tenancy in France is just one-fourth of what it is in Great
Britain, and the average owner-farmed estate only one-sixth.
Germany. Great Britain.
Size of Holdings Number. Per cent. Number. Per cent.
5 to 50 acres 2,014,940 86.8 235,481 58.6
50 to 500 '' 292,982 12.6 161,438 40.1
Over 500 '' 13,809 0.6 5,219 1.3
Total 2,321,731 100 402,138 100
In France the tendency is for the very small holdings to increase
in number owing to subdivision, with the consequent decrease
of the size of the average holding. Between the years 1882
and 1892 there was a decrease of 138,237 in the total number of
proprietors, the larger properties moving towards consolidation
and those of the peasant proprietors towards subdivision.
Those interested in the formation of small holdings in Great
Britain will find much to interest them in the history of Danish
legislations. British policy for many generations was to
preserve demesne land, and there are many devices for insuring
that a spendthrift life-owner shall not be able to scatter
the family inheritance; but as long ago as 1769 the Danish
legislators set an exactly opposite example. They enacted that
peasant land should not be incorporated or worked with estate
land; it must always remain in the ownership and occupation of
peasants. In this spirit all subsequent legislation was
conceived, and the allotment law that came into force in October
1899 bears some resemblance to the English Small Holdings Act of
1892. It provides that labourers able to satisfy certain
conditions as to character may obtain from the state a loan equal
to nine-tenths of the purchase money of the land they wish to
acquire. This land should be frm 5 to 7 acres in extent
and of medium quality, but the limits are from 2 3/4 to 10 3/4
acres in the case of better or poorer land. The total value
should not exceed 4000 kr. (L. 222). The interest payable on
the loan received from the state is 3%. The load itself is
repayable after the first five years by annual instalments
of 4% until half is paid off; the remainder by instalments of
3 1/2%, including interest. Provision is, however, made for
cases where the borrower desired to pay off the loan in larger
sums. Regulations are laid down regarding the transfer of
such properties and also their testamentary disposition.
The Treasury was empowered to devote a sum of 2,000,000 kr.
Number and Size of Holdings in Denmark in 1901.
Groups Percentage Percentage Average size
Tondeland. Acres. Number. of Number. Acreage of Area. in Acres.
Under 1 Under 1.36 68,380 27.3 23,455 .3 .34
1-3 1.36-4 18,777 7.5 58,553 .7 3.12
3-27 4-36.7 93,060 37.2 1,408,549 15.8 15.14
27-108 36.7-147 60,872 24.4 4,459,077 50.1 73.25
108-216 147-294 6,502 2.6 1,272,398 14.3 195.69
Over 216 Over 294 2,392 1.0 1,674,730 18.8 700.14
Total 249,983 100.0 8,896,762 100.0 35.59
(L. 111,000) this purpose for five years;
after that the land is . subject to revision.
Even before this law was passed Denmark was a country of small
holdings, the peasant farms amounting to 66% of the whole,
and the number is bound to increase, since the incorporation
of farms is illegal, while there is no obstacle to their
division. Between 1835 and 1885, the number of small holdings
of less than one tondekarthorn increased from 24,800 to
92,856. What gives point to these remarks is, that Denmark seems
in the way to arrest its rural exodus, and was one of the first
countries to escape from the agricultural depression due to the
extraordinary fall in grain prices. The distribution of land
in Denmark may be gathered from a glance at the preceding table
for the compilation of which we are indebted to Major Craigie.
AUTHORITIES.---Walter of Henley's Husbandry; The English
Village Community, by Frederick Seebohm; Annals of
Agriculture by Arthur Young; The Agricultural Labourer,
by T. E. Kebbel; Report on the Employment of Messrs
Tremenheere and Tufnall); A Study of Small Holdings,
by W. E. Bear; The Law and the Labourer, by C. W. Stubbs;
``Agricultural Holdings in England and Abroad,'' by Major
Craigie (Statistical Society's Journal, vol. i.); The
Return to the Land, by Senator Jules Meline; Land
Reform, by the Right Hon. Jesse Collings, M.P.; Report
on the Decline in the Agricultural Population of Great
Britain, issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries;
Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board
of Agriculture and Fisheries to enquire into and report upon
the subject of Small Holdings in Great Britain. (P. A. G.)
ALLOTROPY (Gr. allos, other, and tropos, manner), a name
applied by J. J. Berzelius to the property possessed by certain
substances of existing in different modifications. Custom has
to some extent restricted its use to inorganic chemistry; the
corresponding property of organic compounds being generally termed
isomerism (q.v..) Conspicuous examples are afforded by oxygen,
carbon, boron, silicon, phosphorus, mercuric oxide and iodide.
ALLOWANCE (from ``allow,'' derived through O. Fr. alouer
from the two Lat. origins adlaudare, to praise, and allocare,
to assign a place; so that the English word combined the
general idea of ``assigning with approval''), the action of
allowing, or the thing allowed; particularly, a certain limited
apportionment of money or food and diet (see DIETARY.)
In commercial usage ``allowance'' signifies the deduction made
from the gross weight of goods to make up for the weight of
the box or package, waste, breakages, &c. Allowance, which is
customary in most industries, varies according to the trade,
district or country; e.g. in the coal trade it is customary
for the merchant to receive from the pit 21 cwts. of coal for
every ton purchased by him, the difference of 1 cwt. being the
allowance for the purpose of making good the waste caused through
transhipment, screening and cartage (see TARE AND TRET.)
ALLOXAN, or MESOXALYL UREA, C4H2N2O4
/NH-CO\
CO CO
\NH-CO/
an oxidation product of uric acid, being obtained from it
by the action of cold nitric acid, C5H4N4O3 + H2O +
O = C4H2N3O4 + CO(NH2)2. It crystallizes from water
in colourless rhombic prisms, containing four molecules
of water of crystallization, and possesses a very acid
reaction. It serves as the starting-point for the preparation
of many related substances. Zinc and hydrochloric acid in
the cold convert it into alloxantin (q.v.), hydroxylamine
gives nitroso-barbituric acid, C4H2N2O3: NOH, baryta
water gives alloxanic acid, C4H4N2O5, hot dilute nitric
acid oxidizes it to parabanic acid (q.v.), hot potassium
hydroxide solution hydrolyses it to urea and mesoxalic
acid (q.v.) and zinc and hot hydrochloric acid convert
it into dialuric acid, C4H4N2O4. M. Nencki has shown
that alloxan combines with thiourea in alcoholic solution,
in the presence of sulphur dioxide to form pseudothiouric
acid, C5H6N4SO3. Methyl and dimethylalloxans are also
known, the former being obtained on oxidation of methyl uric
acid, and the latter on oxidation of caffeine (q.v..)
ALLOXANTIN, C8H4N4O7.3H2O, a product obtained by the combination
of alloxan and dialuric acid, probably possessing the constitution
NH--CO CO--NH
| | | |
CO C(OH)--O--CH CO
| | | |
NH--CO CO--NH
one of the three molecules Of water bema possibly constitutional.
It forms small hard prisms which become red on exposure to air
containing ammonia, owing to the formation of murexide (ammonium
purpurate), C8H4(NH4)N5O6. It may also be obtained by the
action of sulphuretted hydrogen on alloxan. The tetramethyl
derivative, amalic acid, C8(CH3)4N4O7, has been prepared
by oxidizing caffeine (q.v.) with chlorine water, and forms
colourless crystals which are only slightly soluble in hot
water. The formation of murexide is used as a test for the
presence of uric acid, which on evaporation with dilute nitric
acid gives alloxantin, and by the addition of ammonia to the
residue the purple red colour of murexide becomes apparent.
ALLOYS (through the Fr. aloyer, from Lat. alligare, to
combine), a term generally applied to the intimate mixtures
obtained by melting together two or more metals, and allowing
the mass to solidify. It may conveniently be extended to similar
mixtures of sulphur and selenium or tellurium, of bismuth and
sulphur, of copper and cuprous oxide, and of iron and carbon,
in fact to all cases in which substances can be made to mix in
varying proportions without very marked indication of chemical
action. The term ``alloy'' does not necessarily imply
obedience to the laws of definite and multiple proportion or
even uniformity throughout the material; but some alloys are
homogeneous and some are chemical compounds. In what follows
we shall confine our attention principally to metallic alloys.
If we melt copper and add to it about 30% of zinc, or 20% of
tin, we obtain uniform liquids which when solidified are the
well-known substances brass and bell-metal. These substances
are for all practical purposes new metals. The difference in
the appearance of brass and copper is familiar to everyone;
brass is also much harder than copper and much more suitable
for being turned in a lathe. Similarly, bell-metal is
harder, more sonorous and more brittle than either of its
components. It is almost impossible by mechanical means
to detect the separate ingredients in such an alloy; we may
cut or file or polish it without discovering any lack of
homogeneousness. But it is not permissible to call brass a
chemical compound, for we can largely alter its percentage
composition without the substance losing the properties
characteristic of brass; the properties change more or less
continuously, the colour, for example, becoming redder with
decrease in the percentage of zinc, and a paler yellow when
there is more zinc. The possibility of continuously varying
the percentage composition suggests analogy between an alloy
and a solution, and A. Matthiessen (Phil. Trans., 1860)
applied the term ``solidified solutions'' to alloys. Regarded
as descriptive of the genesis of an alloy from a uniform liquid
containing two or more metals, the term is not incorrect, and
it may have acted as a signpost towards profitable methods of
research. But modern work has shown that, although alloys
sometimes contain solid solutions, the solid alloy as a
whole is often far more like a conglomerate rock than a uniform
solution. In fact the uniformity of brass and bell-metal is
only superficial; if we adopt the methods described in the
article METALLOGRAPHY, and if, after polishing a plane face
on a bit of gun-metal, we etch away the surface layer and
examine the new surface with a lens or a microscope, we find
a complex pattern of at least two materials. Fig. 1 (Plate)
is from a photograph of a bronze containing 23.3% by weight of
tin. The acid used to etch the surface has darkened the
parts richest in copper, while those richest in tin remained
white. The two ingredients revealed by this process are not
pure copper and pure tin, but each material contains both
metals. In this case the white tin-rich portions are themselves
a complex that can be resolved into two substances by a higher
magnification. The majority of alloys, when examined thus,
prove to be complexes of two or more materials, and the patterns
showing the distribution of these materials throughout the
alloy are of a most varied character. It is certain that the
structure existing in the alloy is closely connected with the
mechanical properties, such as hardness, toughness, rigidity,
and so on, that make particular alloys valuable in the arts,
and many efforts have been made to trace this connexion. These
efforts have, in some cases, been very successful; for example,
in the case of steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon, a
microscopical examination gives valuable information concerning
the suitability' of a sample of steel for special purposes.
Mixture by fusion is the general method of producing an
alloy, but it is not the only method possible. It would
seem, indeed, that any process by which the particles of
two metals are intimately mingled and brought into close
contact, so that diffusion of one metal into the other can
take place, is likely to result in the formation, of an
alloy. For example, if vapours of the volatile metals
cadmium, zinc and magnesium are allowed to act on platinum or
palladium, alloys are produced. The methods of manufacture
of steel by cementation, case-hardening and the Harvey
process are important operations which appear to depend on
the diffusion of the carburetting material into the solid
metal. When a solution of silver nitrate is poured on to
metallic mercury, the mercury replaces the silver in the
solution, forming nitrate of mercury, and the silver is
precipitated; it does not, however, appear as pure metallic
silver, but in the form of crystalline needles of an alloy
of silver and mercury. F. B. Mylius and O. Fromm have shown
that alloys may be precipitated from dilute solutions by zinc
cadmium, tin, lead and copper. Thus a strip of zinc plunged
into a solution of silver sulphate, containing not more than
0.03 gramme of silver in the litre, becomes covered with a
flocculent precipitate which is a true alloy of silver and
zinc, and in the same way, when copper is precipitated
from its sulphate by zinc, the alloy formed is brass. They
have also formed in this way certain alloys or definite
composition, such as AuCd3, Cu2Cd, and. more interesting
still, Cu2Sn. A very similar fact, that brass may be formed
by electrodeposition from a solution containing zinc and
copper, has long been known. W. V. Spring has shown that by
compressing a finely divided mixture of 15 parts of bismuth,
8 parts of lead, 4 parts of tin and 3 parts of cadmium, an
alloy is produced which melts at 100 deg. C., that is. much
below the melting-point of any of the four metals. But these
methods or forming alloys, although they suggest questions
of great interest, cannot receive further discussion bore.
Our knowledge of the nature of solid alloys has been much
enlarged by a careful study of the process of solidification.
Let us suppose that a molten mixture of two substances A and
B, which at a sufficiently high temperature form a uniform
liquid, and which do not combine to form definite compounds,
is slowly cooled until it becomes wholly solid. The phenomena
which succeed each other are then very similar, whether A
and B are two metals, such as lead and tin or silver and
copper, or are a pair of fused salts, or are water and common
salt. All these mixtures when solidified may fairly be termed
alloys.1 If a mixture of A and B be melted and then allowed
to cool, a thermometer immersed in the mixture will indicate
a gradually falling temperature. But when solidification
commences. the thermometer will cease to fall, it may even
rise slightly, and the temperature will remain almost constant
for a short time. This halt in the cooling, due to the heat
evolved in the solidification of the first crystals that form
in the liquid is called the freezing-point of the mixture;
the freezing-point can generally be observed with considerable
accuracy. In the case of a pure substance, and of a certain
small class of mixtures, there is no further fall in temperature
until the substance has become completely solid, but, in
the case of most mixtures, after the freezing-point has been
reached the temperature soon begins to fall again, and as the
amount of solid increases the temperature becomes lower and
lower. There may be other halts in the cooling, both before
and after complete solidification, due to evolution of
heat in the mixture. These halts in temperature that occur
during the cooling of a mixture should be carefully noted,
as they give valuable information concerning the physical and
chemical changes that are taking place. If we determine the
freezing-points of a number of mixtures varying in composition
from pure A to pure B, we can plot the freezing-point
curve. In such a curve the percentage composition can be
plotted horizontally and the temperature of the freezing-point
vertically, as in fig. 5. In such a diagram, a point P defines
a particular mixture, both as to percentage, composition and
temperature; a vertical line through P corresponds to the
mixture at all possible temperatures, the point Q being its
freezing-point. In the case of two substances which neither
form compounds nor dissolve each other in the solid state,
the complete freezing-point curve takes the form shown in
fig. 5. It consists of two branches AC and BC, which meet
in a lowest point C. It will be seen that as we increase
the percentage of B from nothing up to that of the mixture
C, the freezing-point becomes lower and lower, but that if
we further increase the percentage of B in the mixture, the
freezing-point rises. This agrees with the well-known fact
that the presence of an impurity in a substance depresses its
melting-point. The mixture C has a lower freezing or melting
point than that of any other mixture; it is called the eutectic
mixture. All the mixtures whose composition lies between
that of A and C deposit crystals of pure A when they begin to
solidify, while mixtures between C and B in composition deposit
crystals of pure B. Let us consider a little more closely the
solidification of the mixture represented by the vertical line
PCRS. As it cools from P to Q the mixture remains wholly
liquid, but when the temperature Q is reached there is a
halt in the cooling, due to the formation of crystals of A.
The cooling soon recommences and these crystals continue to
form, but at lower and lower temperatures because the still
liquid part is becoming richer in B. This process goes on
until the state of the remaining liquid is represented by
the point C. Now crystals of B begin to form, simultaneously
with the A crystals, and the composition of the remaining
liquid does not alter as the solidification progresses.
Consequently the temoerature does not change and there is
another well-marked halt in the cooling, and this halt lasts
until the mixture has become wholly solid. The corresponding
changes in the case of the mixture TUVW are easily understood
--the first halt at U, due to the crystallization of pure
B, will probably occur at a different temperature, but the
second halt, due to the simultaneous crystallization of A and
B, will always occur at the same temperature whatever the
composition of the mixture. It is evident that every mixture
except the eutectic mixture C will have two halts in its
cooling, and that its solidification will take place in two
stages. Moreover, the three solids S, D and W will differ
in minute structure and therefore, probably, in mechanical
properties. All mixtures whose temperature lies above the
line ACB are wholly liquid, hence this line is often called
the ``liquidus''; all mixtures at temperatures below that
of the horizontal line through C are wholly solid, hence
this line is sometimes called the ``solidus,'' but in more
complex cases the solidus is often curved. At temperatures
between the solidus and the liquidus a mixture is partly solid
and partly liquid. This general case has been discussed at
length because a careful study of it will much facilitate the
comprehension or the similar but more complicated cases that
occur in the examination of alloys. A great many mixtures
of metals have been examined in the above-mentioned way.
Fig. 6 gives the freezing-point diagram for alloys of lead and
tin. We see in it exactly the features described above.
The two sloping lines cutting at the eutectic point are the
freezing-point curves of alloys that, when they begin to
solidify, deposit crystals of lead and tin respectively. The
horizontal line through the eutectic point gives the second
halt in cooling, due to the simultaneous formation of lead
crystals and tin crystals. In the case of this pair of metals,
or indeed of any metallic alloy, we cannot see the crystals
forming, nor can we easily filter them off and examine them
apart from the liquid, although this has been done in a few
cases. But if we polish the solid alloys, etch them if
necessary, and examine them microscopically, we shall find
that alloys on the load side of the diagram consist of
comparatively large crystals of lead embedded in a minute
complex, which is due to the simultaneous crystallization
of the two metals during the solidification at the eutectic
temperature. If we examine alloys on the tin side we shall
find large crystals of tin embedded in the same complex. The
eutectic alloy itself, fig. 2 (Plate), shows the minute complex
of the tin-lead eutectic, photographed by J. A. Ewing and W.
Rosenhain, and fig. 3 (Plate), photographed by F. Osmond, shows
the structure of a silver-copper alloy containing considerably
more silver than the eutectic. Here, the large dark masses
are the silver or silver-rich substance that crystallized
above the eutectic temperature, and the more minute black
and white complex represents the eutectic. It is not safe
to assume that the two ingredients we see are pure silver
and pure copper; on the contrary, there is reason to think
that the crystals of silver contain some copper uniformly
diffused through them, and vice versa. It is, however, not
possible to detect the copper in the silver by means of the
microscope. This uniform distribution of a solid substance
throughout the mass of another, so as to form a homogeneous
material, is called ``solid solution,'' and we may say that
solid silver can dissolve copper. Solid solutions are probably
very common in alloys, so that when an alloy of two metals
shows two constituents under the microscope it is never safe
to infer, without further evidence, that these are the two
pure metals. Sometimes the whole alloy is a uniform solid
solution. This is the case with the copper-tin alloys
containing less than 9% by weight of tin; a microscopic
examination reveals only one material, a copper-like substance,
the tin having disappeared, being in solution in the copper.
Much information as to the nature of an alloy can be obtained
by placing several small ingots of the same alloy in a furnace
which is above the melting-point of the alloy, and allowing
the temperature to fall slowly and uniformly. We then extract
one ingot after another at successively lower temperatures
and chill each ingot by dropping it into water or by some
other method of very rapid cooling. The chilling stereotypes
the structure existing in the ingot at the moment it was
withdrawn from the furnace, and we can afterwards study this
structure by means of the microscope. We thus learn that
the bronzes referred to above, although chemically uniform
when solid, are not so when they begin to solidify, but that
the liquid deposits crystals richer in copper than itself,
and therefore that the residual liquid becomes richer in
tin. Consequently, as the final solid is uniform, the
crystals formed at first must change in composition at a later
stage. We learn also that solid solutions which exist at
high temperatures often break up into two materials as they
cool; for example, the bronze of fig. 1, which in that figure
shows two materials so plainly, if chilled at a somewhat
higher temperature but when it was already solid, is found
to consist of only one material; it is then a uniform solid
solution. The difference between softness and hardness in
ordinary steel is due to the permanence of a solid solution of
carbon in iron if the steel has been chilled or very rapidly
cooled, while if the steel is slowly cooled this solid solution
breaks up into a minute complex of two substances which is called
pearlite. The pearlite when highly magnified somewhat resembles
the lead-tin eutectic of fig. 2 (Plate). In the case of steel
(see IRON AND STEEL) the solid solution is very hard, while
the pearlite complex is much softer. In the case of some
bronzes, for example that with about 25% of tin, the solid
solution is soft, and the complex into which it breaks up by
slow cooling is much harder, so that the same process of heating
and chilling which hardens steel will soften this bronze.
If we melt an alloy and chill it before it has wholly
solidified, we often get evidence of the crystalline character
of the solid matter which first forms. Fig. 4 (Plate) is
the pattern found in a bronze containing 27.7% of tin when so
treated. The dark, regularly oriented crystal skeletons were
already solid at the moment of chilling; they are rich in
copper. The lighter part surrounding them was liquid before
the chill; it is rich in tin. This alloy, if allowed to
solidify completely before chilling, turns into a uniform solid
solution, and at still lower temperatures the solid solution
breaks up into a pearlite complex. The analogy between the
breaking up of a solid solution on cooling and the formation
of a eutectic is obvious. Iron and phosphorus unite to form
a solid solution which breaks up on cooling into a pearlite.
Other cases could be quoted, but enough has been said to
show the importance of solid solutions and their influence
on the mechanical properties of alloys. These uniform solid
solutions must not be mistaken for chemical compounds; they
can, within limits, vary in composition like an ordinary liquid
solution. But the occasional or indeed frequent existence of
chemical compounds in alloys has now been placed beyond doubt.
We can sometimes obtain definite compounds in a pure state
by the action of appropriate solvents which dissolve the
rest of the alloy and do not attack the crystals of the
compound. Thus, a number of copper-tin alloys when digested
with hydrochloric acid leave the same crystalline residue,
which on analysis proves to be the compound Cu3Sn. The bodies
SbNa3, BiNa3, SnNa4, compounds of iron and molybdenum
and many other substances, have also been isolated in this
way. The freezing-point curve sometimes indicates the existence
of chemical compounds. The simple type of curve, such as
that of lead and tin, fig. 6, consisting of two downward
sloping branches meeting in the eutectic point, and that of
thallium and tin, the upper curve of fig. 7, certainly give
no indication of chemical combination. But the curves are
not always so simple as the above. The lower curve of fig.
7 gives the freezing-point curve of mercury and thallium;
here A and E are the melting-points of pure mercury and pure
thallium, and the branches AB and ED do not cut each other,
but cut an intermediate rounded branch BCD. There are thus
two eutectic alloys B and D, and the alloys with compositions
between B and D have higher melting-points. The summit C of
the branch BCD occurs at a percentage exactly corresponding
to the formula Hg2Tl. It is probable that all the alloys
of compositions between B and D, when they begin to solidify,
deposit crystals of the compound; the lower eutectic B
probably corresponds to a solid complex of mercury and the
compound. The point B is at -60 deg. C., the lowest temperature
at which any metallic substance is known to exist in the liquid
state. The higher eutectic D may correspond to a complex of
solid thallium and the compound; but the possible existence of
solid solutions makes further investigation necessary here.
The curves of fig. 7 were determined by N. S. Kurnakow and N. A.
Puschin. Sometimes a freezing-point curve contains more than
one intermediate summit, so that more than one compound is
indicated. For example, in the curve for gold-aluminium,
ignoring minor singularities, we find two intermediate summits,
one at the percentage Au2Al, and another at the percentage
AuAl2. Microscopic examination fully confirms the existence
of these compounds. The substance AuAl2 is the most remarkable
compound of two metals that has so far been discovered;
although it contains so much aluminium its melting-point is
as high as that of gold. It also possesses a splendid purple
colour, more remarkable than that of any other metal or
alloy. Many other inter-metallic compounds have been indicated
by summits in freezing-point curves. For example, the system
sodium-mercury has a remarkable summit at the composition
NaHg2. This compound melts at 350 deg. C., a temperature far
above the melting-point of either sodium or mercury. In the
system potassium-mercury, the compound KHg2 is similarly
indicated. In the curve for sodium-cadmium, the compound
NaCd2 is plainly shown. These three examples are taken
from the work of N. S. Kurnakow. Various compounds of the
alkali metals with bismuth, antimony, tin and lead have been
prepared in a pure state. Such are the compounds SbNa3,
BiNa3, PbNa2, SuNa4. Of these, the first three are well
indicated on the freezing-point curves. The intermediate
summits occurring in the freezing-point curves of alloys are
usually rounded; this feature is believed to be due to the
partial decomposition of the compound which takes place when it
melts. The formulae of the group of substances last mentioned
are in harmony with the ordinary views of chemists as to
valency, but the formulae NaHg2, NaCd2, NaTl2, AuAl2 are
more surprising. They indicate The great gaps in our present
knowledge of the subject of valency. We must not take it for
granted, when the freezing-point curve gives no indication of
the compound, that the compound does not exist in the solid
alloy. For example, the compound Cu3Sn is not indicated
in the freezing-point curve, and indeed a liquid alloy of
this percentage does not begin to solidify by the formation
of crystals of Cu3Sn; the liquid solidifies completely to a
uniform solid solution, and only at a lower temperature does
this change into crystals of the compound, the transformation
being accomoanied by a considerable evolution of heat. Until
recently the vast subject of inter-metallic compounds has
been an unopened book to chemists. But the subject is now
being vigorously studied, and, apart from its importance as
a branch of descriptive chemistry, it is throwing light, and
promises to throw more, on obscure parts of chemical theory.
The graphical representation of the properties of alloys
can be extended so as to record all the changes, thermal and
chemical, which the alloy undergoes after, as well as before,
solidification, For an example of such a diagram, see the
Bakerian Lecture, 1903, Phil. Trans., A. 346. The Phase
Rule of Willard Gibbs, especially as developed by Bakhuis
Roozeboom, is a most useful guide in such investigations.
So far we have been considering alloys containing two metals;
the phenomena they present are by no means simple. But when
three or more metals are present, as is often the case in useful
alloys, the phenomena are much more complicated. With three
component metals the complete diagram giving the variations in
any property must be in three dimensions, although by the use of
contour lines the essential facts can be represented in a plane
diagram. The following method, depending on the constancy
of the sum of the three perpendiculars from any point on to
the sides of an equilateral triangle, can be adopted:--Let
ABC (fig. 8) be an equilateral triangle, the angular points
corresponding to the three pure metals A, B, C. Then the
composition of any alloy can be represented by a point P,
so chosen that the perpendicular Pa on to the side BC gives
the percentage of A in the alloy, and the perpendiculars Pb
and Pc give the percentages of B and C respectively. Points
on the side AB will correspond to binary alloys containing
only A and B, and so on. If now we wish to represent the
variations in some property, such as fusibility, we determine
the freezing-points of a number of alloys distributed fairly
uniformly over the area of the triangle, and, at each point
corresponding to an alloy, we erect an ordinate at right
angles to the plane of the paper and proportional in length
to the freezing temperature of that alloy. We can then
draw a continuous surface through the summits of all these
ordinates, and so obtain a freezing-point surface, or liquidus;
points above this surface will correspond to wholly liquid
alloys. The ternary alloys containing bismuth, tin and
lead have been studied in this way by F. Charpy and by E. S.
Shepherd. We have here a comparatively simple case, as
the metals do not form compounds. The solid alloy consists
of crystals of pure tin in juxtaposition with crystals of
almost pure lead and bismuth. these two metals dissolving
each other in solid solution to the extent of a few per cent
only. If now we cut the freezing-point surface by planes
parallel to the base ABC we get curves giving us all the alloys
whose freezing-point is the same; theee isothermals can be
projected on to the plane of the triangle and are seen as dotted
lines in fig. 9. The freezing surface, in this case, consists
of three sheets each starting from an angular point of the
surface, that is, from the freezing-point of a pure metal.
The sheets meet in pairs along three lines which themselves
meet in a point. In fig. 9, due to F. Charpy, these lines
are projected on to the plane of the triangle as Ee, E'e and
E''e. The area of the triangle is thus divided into three
regions. The region PbEeE' contains all the alloys that
commence their solidification by the crystallization of lead;
similarly, the other two regions correspond to the initial
crystallization of bismuth and tin respectively; these areas
are the projections of the three sheets of the freezing-point
surface. The points E, E', E'' are the eutectics of binary
alloys. Alloys represented by points on Ee, when they begin to
solidify, deposit crystals of lead and bismuth simultaneously;
Ee is a eutectic line, as also are E'e and E''e. The alloy
of the point e is the ternary eutectic; it deposits the
three metals simultaneously during the whole period of its
solidfication and solidifies at a constant temperature. As
the lines of the surface which correspond to Ee, &c., slope
downwards to their common intersection it follows that the
alloy e has the lowest freezing-point of any mixture of the
three metals; this freezing-point is 96 deg. C., and the alloy e
contains about 32% of lead, 15.5% of tin and 52.5% of bismuth.
It is evident that any other property can be represented by
similar diagrams. For example, we can construct the curve of
conductivity of alloys of two metals or the surface of conductivity
of ternary alloys, and so on for any measurable property.
The electrical conductivity of a metal is often very much
decreased by alloying with it even small quantities of another
metal. This is so when gold and silver are alloyed with
each other, and is true in the case of alloys of copper.
When a pure metal is cooled to a very low temperature its
electrical conductivity is greatly increased, but this is not
the case with an alloy. Lord Rayleigh has pointed out that
the difference may arise from the heterogeneity of alloys.
When a current is passed through a solid alloy, a series
of Peltier effects, proportional to the current, are set up
between the particles of the different metals, and these create
an opposing electromotive force which is indistinguishable
experimentally from a resistance. If the alloy were a true
chemical compound the counteracting electromotive force should
not occur; experiments in this direction are much needed.
Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen has shown that in the case
of molten alloys the conduction of electricity is apparently
metallic, no transfer of matter attending the passage of the
current. A group of bodies may, however, be yet discovered
between alloys and electrolytes in which evidence may be found
of some gradual change from wholly metallic to electrolytic
conduction. A. P. Laurie has determined the electromotive
force of a series of copper-zinc, copper-tin and gold-tin
alloys, and as the result of his experiments he points to the
existence of definite compounds. Explosive alloys have been
formed by H. St Claire Deville and H. J. Debray in the case of
rhodium, iridium and ruthenium, which evolve heat when they
are dissolved in zinc. When the solution of the rhodium-zinc
alloy is treated with hydrochloric acid, a residue is left
which undergoes a change with explosive violence if it be heated
in vacuo to 400 deg. . The alloy is then insoluble in ``aqua
regia.'' The metals have therefore passed into an insoluble
form by a comparatively slight elevation of temperature.
Surfusion
Metals do not appear to have been studied from the point
of view of surfusion until 1880, when A. D. van Pieinsdijk
showed that gold and silver would both pass below their
actual freezing-points without becoming solid. Roberts-Austen
pointed out that surfusion might be easily measured in
metals and in alloys by the sensitive method of recording
pyrometry perfected by him. He also showed that the crossing
of curves of solubility, which had already been observed by
H. le Chatelier and by A. C. A. Dahms in the case of salts,
could be measured in the lead-tin alloys. The investigation
of the mutual relations of partially miscible liquids, due
to P. Alexejew, D. P. Konovalow, snd to P. E. Duclaux, was
extended to alloys by Alder Wright. The addition of a third
metal will sometimes render the mixture of two other metals
homogeneous. C. T. Heyccck and F. H. Neville proved that
when one metal is alloyed with a small quantity of some other
metal, the solidification obeys the law of F. M. Raoult. Their
experiments, although not conclusive, appear to indicate that
the molecule of a metal when in dilute solution often consists
of one atom. There are, however, numerous exceptions to this
rule. In the cases of aluminium dissolved in tin and of
mercury or bismuth in lead, it is at least probable that the
molecules in solution are Al2, Hg2 and Bi2 respectively,
while tin in lead appears to form a molecule of the type Sn4.
Industrial applications
Since 1875 increased attention has been devoted to the
applications of the rarer metals. Thus nickel, which was
formerly used in the manufacture of ``German silver'' as
a substitute for silver, is now widely employed in naval
construction and in the manufacture of steel armour-plate and
projectiles. Alloyed with copper, it is used for the envelopes of
bullets. A nickel steel containing 36% of nickel has the
property of retaining an almost constant volume when heated
or cooled through a considerable range of temperature; it is
therefore useful for the construction of pendulums and for
measures of length. Another steel containing 45% of nickel
has, like platinum, the same coefficient of expansion as
glass. It can therefore be employed, instead of that costly
metal, in the construction of incandescent lamps where a
wire has to be fused into the glass to establish electric
connexion between the inside and the outside of the bulb.
Manganese not only forms with iron several alloys of great
interest, but alloyed with copper it is used for electrical
purposes, as an alloy can thus be obtained with an electrical
resistance that does not alter with change of temperature;
this alloy, called manganin, is used in the construction of
resistance-boxes. Chromium also, in comparatively small
quantities, is taking its place as a constituent of steel
axles and tires, and in the manufacture of tool-steel.
Steels containing as much as 12% of tungsten are now used
as a material for tools intended for turning and planing
iron and steel. The peculiarity of these steels is that no
quenching or tempering is required. They are normally hard
and remain so, even at a faint red heat; much deeper cuts
can therefore be taken at a high speed without blunting the
tool. Vanadium, molybdenum and titanium may be expected
soon to play an important part in the constitution of
steel. Titanium is alloyed in small quantities with aluminium
for use in naval architecture. Aluminium, when alloyed
with a few per cent of magnesium, gains greatly in rigidity
while remaining very light; this alloy, under the name of
magnalium, is coming into use for small articles in which
lightness and rigidity have to be combined. One of the most
interesting amongst recent alloys is Conrad Heusler's alloy
of copper, aluminium and manganese, which possesses magnetic
properties far in excess of those of the constituent metals.
The importance is now widely recognized of considering
the mechanical properties of alloys in connexion with the
freezing-point curves to which reference has already been
made. but the subject is a very complicated one, and all
that need be said here, is that when considered in relation
to their melting-points the pure metals are consistently
weaker than alloys. The presence in an alloy of a eutectic
which solidifies at a much lower temperature than the main
mass, implies a great reduction in tenacity, especially if
it is to be used above the ordinary temperature as in the
case of pipes conveying super-heated steam. It has also
been stated that alloys of metals with similar melting-points
have higher tenacity when the atomic volumes of the
constituent metals differ than when they are nearly the same.
RERERENCES.---Alloys have formed a subject of reoorts to
several scientific societies. Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen's
six Reports (1891 to 1904) to the Alloys Research Committee
of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, the
last report being concluded by William Gowland; the Cantor
Lectures on Alloys delivered at the Society of Arts
and the Contribution a l'etude des alliages (1901),
published by the Societe d'encouracement pour l'industrie
nationale under the direction of the Commission des alliages
(1896-1900), should be consulted. The theoretical aspect is
discussed in Leon Guillet's Etude theorique des alliages
metalliques (1904). W. T. Brannt's The Metallic Alloys
(1896); Roberis-Austen's Introduction to the Study of
Metallurgy (1902); and R. G. Thurston's Materials of
Engineering, should be consulted for the more practical
details. in The Iron and Steel Metallurgist, formerly
The Metallographist (Boston, Mass.), and Metallurgie
(Halle). Important memoirs by Ewing and Rosenhain, and by C. T.
Hevcock and F. H. Neville in the Philosophical Transactions,
by N. S. Kunrnakow in the Zeitschrift fur anorganische
Chemie, and by E. S. Shepherd in the Journal of Physical
Chemistry, may also be consulted. (W. C. R.-A.; F. lj. NE.)
1 The instructive case of the solidification of a solution
of common salt in water is discussed in the article FUSION.
ALLPORT, SIR JAMES JOSEPH (1811-1892), English railway
manager, born on the 27th of February 1811, was a son of William
Allport, of Birmingham, and was associated with railways from
an early period of his life. In 1843 he became general manager
of the Birmingham and Derby railway, and in the following year,
succeeded to the same position on the Newcastle and Darlington
line. Six years later he assumed the charge of the Manchester,
Sheffield and Lincolnshire (now the Great Central) railway, and
finally, in 1853, was appointed to the general managership
of the Midland railway--an office which he held continuously,
with the exception of a few years between 1857 and 1860, when
he was managing director to Palmer's Shipbuilding Company
at Jarrow, until his retirement in 1880, when he became a
director. During these twenty-seven years the Midland grew
to be one of the most important railway systems in England,
partly by the absorption of smaller lines and partly by the
construction of two main extensions--on the south to London and
on the north to Carlisle --whereby it obtained an independent
through-route between the metropolis and the north. In the
railvay world Sir James Allport was known as a keen tactician
and a vigorous fighter, and he should be remembered as the
pioneer of cheap and comfortable railway travelling. He was
the first to appreciate the importance of the third-class
passenger as a source of revenue, and accordingly, in 1872,
he inaugurated the policy--subsequently adopted more or less
completely by all the railways of Great Britain of carrying
third-class passengers in well-fitted carriages at the uniform
rate of one penny a mile on all trains. The diminution in the
receipts from second-class passengers, which was one of the
results, was regarded by some authorities as a sign of the
unwisdom of his action, but to him it appeared a sufficient
reason for the abolition of second-class carriages, which
therefore disappeared from the Midland system in 1875, the
first-class fares being at the same time substantially reduced.
He was also the first to introduce the Pullman car on British
railways. Allport received the honour of knighthood in
1884. He died in London on the 25th of April 1892.
ALLPORT, SAMUEL (1816-1897), English petrologist, brother
of the above, was born in Birmingham on the 23rd of January
1816, and educated in that city. Although occupied in
business during the greater portion of his life, his leisure
was given to geological studies, and when residing for a
short period in Bahia, S. America, he made observations
on the geology, published by the Geological Society in
1860. His chief work was in microscopic petrology, to the
studyol which he was attracted by the investigations of Dr
H. C. Sorby; and he became one of the pioneers of this branch
of geology, preparing his own rock-sections with remarkable
skill. The basalts of S. Staffordshire, the diorites of
Warwickshire, the phonolite of the Wolf Rock (to which he
first directed attention), the pitchstones of Arran and the
altered igneous rocks near the Land's End were investigated
and described by him during the years 1869--1879 in the
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society and in the
Geological Magazine. In 1880 he was appointed librarian
in Mason College, a post which he relinquished on account of
ill-health in 1887. In that year the Lyell medal was awarded
to him by the Geological Society. A few years later he
retired to Cheltenham, where he died on the 7th of July 1897.
ALL-ROUND ATHLETICS. Specialization in athletic sports,
although always existent, is to a great extent a modern
product. In ancient times athletes were encouraged to excel in
several branches of sport, often quite opposite in character.
Thus the athlete held in highest honour at the Olympic Games
(see GAMES, CLASSICAL) was the winner of the pentathlon,
which consisted of running, jumping, throwing the javelin
and the discus, and wrestling. All-round championships have
existed for many years both in Scotland and Ireland, and in
America there are both national and sectional championships.
The American national championship was instituted in 1888,
the winner being the athlete who succeeds in obtaining the
highest marks in the following eleven events; 100 yards run;
putting 16 lb. shot; running high jump; half-mile walk; throwing
16 lb. hammer; 120 yards hurdle race; pole vault; throwing
56 lb. weight; one mile run; running broad jump; quarter-mile
run. In each event 1000 points are allowed for equalling the
``record,'' and an increasing number of points is taken off for
performances below ``record,'' down to a certain ``standard,',
below which the competitor scores nothing. For example, in
the 100 yards run the time of 9 4/5 seconds represents 1000
points; that of 10 seconds scores 958, or 42 points less; 10 1/5
seconds scores 916, &c.; and below 14 1/5 seconds the competitor
scores nothing. Should the record be broken 42 points are
added for each 1/5 second. (See also ATHLETIC SPORTS.)
ALL SAINTS, FESTIVAL OF (Festum omnium sanctorum), also
formerly known as ALL HALLOWS, or HALLOWMAS, a feast of
the Catholic Church celebrated on the 1st of November in honour
of all the saints, known or unknown. In the Roman Catholic
Church it is a festival of the first rank, with a vigil and an
octave. Common commemorations, by several churches, of
the deaths of martyrs began to be celebrated in the 4th
century. The first trace of a general celebration is in
Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost, and this custom is
also referred to in the 74th homily of St Chrysostom (407).
The origin of the festival of All Saints as celebrated in
the West is, however, somewhat doubtful. In 609 or 610 Pope
Boniface IV. consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed
Virgin and all the martyrs, and the feast of the dedicatio
Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres has been celebrated at Rome ever
since on the 13th of May. The idea, based on the medieval
liturgiologists, that this festival was the origin of that
of All Saints has now been abandoned. The latter is possibly
traceable to the foundation by Gregory III. (731-741) of an
oratory in St Peter's for the relics ``of the holy apostles
and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just
made perfect who are at rest throughout the world.'' So
far as the Western Church generally is concerned, though
the festival was already widely celebrated in the days of
Charlemagne, it was only made of obligation throughout the
Frankish empire in 835 by a decree of Louis the Pious issued
``at the instance of Pope Gregory IV. and with the assent of
all the bishops,'' which fixed its celebration on the 1st of
November. The festival was retained at the Reformation in
the calendar of the Church of England, and also in that of
many of the Lutheran churches. In the latter, in spite of
attempts at revival, it has fallen into complete disuse.
ALL SOULS, DAY (Commemoratio omnium fidelimm defunctorum), the
day set apart in the Roman Catholic Church for the commemoration
of the faithful departed. The celebration is based on the
doctrine that the souls of the faithful which at death have
not been cleansed from venial sins, or have not atoned for past
transgressions, cannot attain the Beatific Vision, and that they
may be helped to do so by prayer and by the sacrifice of the
mass. The feast falls on the 2nd of November; or on the 3rd
if the 2nd is a Sunday or a festival of the first class.
The practice of setting apart a special day for intercession
for certain of the faithful departed is of great antiquity;
but the establishment of a feast of general intercession
was in the lirst instance due to Odilo, abbot of Cluny (d.
1048). The legend connected with its foundation is given
by Peter Damiani in his Life of St Odilo. According to
this, a pilgrim returning from the Holy Land was cast by a
storm on a desolate island where dwelt a hermit. From him
he learned that amid the rocks was a chasm communicating with
purgatory, from which rose perpetually the groans of tortured
souls, the hermit asserting that he had also heard the demons
complaining of the efficacy of the prayers of the faithful, and
especially of the monks of Cluny, in rescuing their victims.
On returning home the pilgrim hastened to inform the abbot of
Cluny, who forthwith set apart the 2nd of November as a day of
intercession on the part of his community for all the souls in
purgatory. The decree ordaining the celebration is printed
in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum ( Saec. VI, pt. i. p.
585). From Cluny the custom spread to the other houses of
the Cluniac order, was soon adopted in several dioceses in
France, and spread thence throughout the Western Church. At
the Reformation the celebration of All Souls' Day was abolished
in the Church of England, though it has been renewed in certain
churches in connexion with the ``Catholic revival.'' Among
continental Protestants its tradition lias been more tenaciously
maintained. Even Luther's influence was not sufficient to
abolish its celebration in Saxony during his lifetime; and,
though its ecclesiastical sanction lapsed before long even in
the Lutheran Church, its memory survives strongly in popular
custom. Just as it is the custom of French people, of
all ranks and creeds, to decorate the graves of their dead
on the jour des morts, so in Germany the people stream
to the grave-yards once a year with offerings of flowers.
Certain popular beliefs connected with All Souls' Day are
of pagan origin and immemorial antiquity. Thus the dead
are believed by the peasantry of many Catholic countries
to return to their former homes on All Souls' Night and
partake of the food of the living. In Tirol cakes are
left for them on the table and the room kept warm for their
comfort. In Brittany the people flock into the cemeteries at
nightfall to kneel bare-headed at the graves of their loved
ones, and to toll the hollow of the tombstone with holy
water or to pour libations of milk upon it, and at bedtime
the supper is left on the table for the soul's refreshment.
ALLSTON, WASHINGTON (1770-1843), American historical painter
and poet, was born on the 5th of November 1779 at Waccamaw,
South Carolina, where his father was a planter. He graduated
at Harvard in 1800, and for a short time pursued his artistic
studies at Charleston with Edward Greene Maibone (1777-1807)
the miniature painter, and Charles Fraser (1782-1860).
With the former, in 1801, he went to London, and entered
the Royal Academy as a student of Benjamin West. with whom
he formed a lifelong friendship. In 1804 he went to Paris,
and, after a few months' residence there, to Rome, where he
spent the greater part of the next four years. During this
period he became intimate with Coleridge and Thorwaldsen.
From 1809 to 1811 he resided in his native country, and from
1811 to 1817 he painted in England. After visiting Paris a
second time, he returned to the United States, and practised
his profession at Boston (1818--1850), and afterwards at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he died on the 9th of July
1843. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in
1819. In colour and the management of light and shade Allston
closely imitated the Venetian school, and he has hence been
styled the ``American Titian.'' Many of his pictures have
Biblical subjects, and Allston himself had a profoundly
religious nature. His first considerable painting, ``The
Dead Man Revived,'' executed shortly after his second visit to
England, and now at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in
Philadelphia, gained a prize of 200 guineas. In England
he also painted his ``St Peter Liberated by the Angel,''
``Uriel in the Sun'' (at Stafford House), ``Jacob's Dream''
(at Petworth) and ``Elijah in the Wilderness.'' To the period
of his residence in America belong ``The Prophet Jeremiah''
(at Yale), ``Saul and the Witch of Endor,'' ``Miriam,''
``Beatrice,'' ``Rosalie,'' ``Spalatro's Vision of the Bloody
Hand,'' and the vast but unfinished ``Belshazzar's Feast''
(in the Boston Athenaeum), at which he was working at the
time of his death. As a writer, Allston shows great facility
of expression and imaginative power. His friend Coleridge
(a portrait of whom by Allston is in the National Gallery)
said of him that he was surpassed by no man of his age in
artistic and poetic genius. His literary works are--The
Sylphs of the Seasons and other Poems (1813). where he
displays true sympathy with nature and deep knowledge of
the human heart; Monaldi (1841), a tragical romance, the
scene of which is laid in Italy; and Lectures on Art,
edited by his brother-in-law, R. H. Dana the novelist (1850).
See J. B. Flagg's Life and Letters of Washington Allston (New York, 1892).
ALLUVION (Lat. alluvio, washing against), a word taken
from Roman law, in which it was one of the examples of
accessio, that is, acquisition of property without any
act being done by the acquirer. It signifies the gradual
accretion of land or formation of an island by imperceptible
degrees. If the accretion or formation be by a torrent or flood,
the property in the severed portion or new island continues
with the original owner until the trees, if any, swept away
with it take root in the ground. Alluvion never attached at
all in the case of agri limitati, that is, lands belonging
to the state and leased or sold in plots. Dig. xli. 1, 7,
is the main authority. English law is in general agreement
(except as to agri limitati) with Roman, as appears from
the judgment in Foster v. Wright, 1878, 4 C.P.D. 438. The
Scottish law, as laid down by the House of Lords in Earl of
Zetland v. Glover Incorporation, 1872, L.R. 2 H.L., Sc.,
70, is in accordance with the English. (See WATER RIGHTS.)
ALLUVIUM, soil or land deposited by running water. All
streams, from the tiniest rill to the greatest river, are
continually engaged in transporting downstream solid particles of
rock, the product of weathering agencies in the area which they
drain. Since the capacity of a stream to carry matter in
suspension is proportional to its velocity, it follows that
any circumstance tending to retard the rate of flow will induce
deposition. Thus a fall in the gradient at any point in the
course of a stream; any snag, projection or dam, impeding the
current; the reduced velocity caused by the overflowing of
streams in flood and the dissipation of their energy where
they enter a lake or the sea, are all contributing causes to
alluviation, or the deposition of streamborne sediment. It
is evident from the foregoing remarks, that while even the
smallest stream may make deposits of alluvial character it
is in the flood-plains and deltas of large rivers that the
great alluvial deposits are to be found. The finer material
constituting alluvium, often described as ``silt,'' is sand and
mud. Although it may be exceedingly fine-grained, there is
usually very little clay in alluvium. The larger materials
include gravel of all degrees of coarseness; carbonaceous
matter is often an important element. The amount of solid
matter borne by large streams is enormous; many rivers derive
their names from the colour thereby imparted to the water,
e.g. Hwang Ho = Yellow river, Missouri = Big Muddy, the Red
river, &c. It has been estimated that the Mississippi annually
carries 406 1/4 million tons of sediment to the sea; the Hwang Ho
796 million tons; the Po 62 million tons. Many shallow lakes
have been completely filled with alluvium and their sites are
now occupied by fertile plains; this process may be seen in
operation almost anywhere; a good illustration is the delta of
the Rhone in Lake Geneva. Alluvial deposits may be of great
size. The flood-plain of the Mississippi has an area of 50,000
sq. m.; the great delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra has
an area of about 60,000 sq. m.; that of the Hwang Ho reaches
out 300 m. into the sea and has a coastal border of about 400
m. Old alluvial deposits are left high above the existing
level of many rivers, in the form of ``terraces'' of gravel and
loam, the streams to which these owe their existence having
modified their courses and cut deeper channels; such are the
alluvial gravels and brick-earths upon which much of ``greater
London'' is built. In some regions alluvial deposits are the
resting places of gemstones and gold, platinum, &c.; it is
from these deposits that the largest nuggets of gold have been
obtained. Alluvial soils are almost invariably of great
fertility; it is due to the alluvial mud annually deposited by
the Nile that the dwellers in Egypt have been able to grow their
crops for over 4000 years without artificial fertilization.
ALLYL ALCOHOL, C3H5OH or CH2:CH.CH2OH, a compound which
occurs in very small quantities in wood spirit. It may be
prepared from allyl iodide by the action of moist silver oxide
by the reduction of acrolein; or by heating glycerin with oxalic
acid and a little ammonium chloride to 260 deg. C. In this last
reaction glycerol monoformin is produced as an intermediate
product, but is decomposed as the temperature rises:--
C3H5(OH)3+H2C2O4 = C3H5(OH)2.O.CHO+CO2+H2O
glycerol monoformin
C3H5(OH)2.O.CHO = C3H5OH+CO2+H2O
It is a colourless mobile liquid of pungent smell, boiling
at 97 deg. C. Being an unsaturated compound it combines
readily with the halogens. Oxidation by strong oxidizing
agents converts it successively into its aldehyde,
acrolein, and into acrylic acid. By gentle oxidation with
potassium permanganate it may be converted into glycerin.
ALMA, a river of Russia, in the S.W. of the Crimea, entering
the Black Sea 17 m. N. of Sevastopol. It gives its name
to a famous victory gained over the Russians, on the 20th
of September 1854, by the allied armies in the Crimean War
(q.v..) The south bank of the river is bordered by a long
ridge, which becomes steeper as it approaches the sea, and
upon this the Russians, under Prince Menshikov, were drawn
up, to bar the Sevastopol road to the allies, who under
General Lord Raglan and Marshal St Arnaud approached from
the north over an open plain. The Russian commander massed
his troops in heavy columns after the fashion of 1813, and
drew in his left wing so that it should as far as possible
be out of range of the allied men-of-war, which were sailing
down the coast in line with their land forces. The allied
generals decided that the French (right wing) and the Turks
should attack Menshikov's left, while the British, further
inland, were to assault the front of the Russian position.
The forces engaged are stated by Hamley (War in the Crimea)
as, French and Turks, 35,000 infantry, with 68 guns; British,
23,000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 60 guns; Russians, 33,000
infantry, 3800 cavalry and 120 guns; by the Austrian writer
Berndt (Zahl im Kriege) the allied forces are reckoned
at 57,000 men with 108 guns, and the Russians at 33,600 men
with 96 guns The French advance met at first with little
opposition, and several divisions scaled the cliffs of the
lower Alma without difficulty. Menshikov relied apparently
on being able to detach his reserves to cope with them, but
the assailants moved with a rapidity which he had not counted
upon, and the Russians only came into action piecemeal in this
quarter. Opposite the British, who as usual deployed at a
distance and then advanced in long continuous lines, the Russians
were posted on the crest of a long glacis-like slope, which
offered but little dead ground to an assailant. The village
of Burliuk, and the vineyards which bordered the river, were
quickly cleared by the British skirmishers, and the line of
battle behind them crossed, though with some difficulty. On
emerging from the cover afforded by the river-bed the British
divisions, now crowded together, but still preserving their
general line, came under a terrible fire from heavy guns and
musketry. The enemy's artillery was three hundred yards
away, yet the British pressed on in spite of their losses,
and as some of the Light Division troops reached the ``Great
Battery'' the Russians hurried their guns away to safety. In
the meantime. on both sides of this battery, the assailants
had come to close quarters with the Russian columns, which
were aided by their field guns. A brave counter-attack was
made by the Russian Vladimir regiment, 3000 strong, against
the troops which had stormed the great battery, and for want
of support the British were driven out again. But they soon
rallied, and now the second line had crossed and formed for
attack. The Guards brigade attacked the Vladimir regiment, and
on the left the Highland brigade and the cavalry moved forward
also. Some of the field artillery, which had now crossed the
Alma, fired steadily into the closed masses of the Russian
reserve, and the Vladimir regiment lost half of its numbers
under the volleys of the Guards. The French were now severely
pressing the Russian left, and one-third of Menshikov's forces
was drawn into the fight in that quarter. The success of the
frontal assault had dispirited the remainder of the defenders,
and Menshikov drew off his forces southwards. He had lost
5700 men (Berodt and Hamley). The British had about 2000
killed and wounded; the French stated their losses at 1340 men.
ALMACANTAR (from the Arabic for a sun-dial), an astronomical
term for a small circle of the sphere parallel to the horizon;
when two stars are in the same almacantar they have the same
altitude. The term was also given (1880) to an instrument invented
by S. C. Chandler to determine the latitude or correct the timepiece,
of great value because of its freedom from instrumental errors.
ALMACK'S, formerly the name of a famous London club and
assembly rooms. The founder, known as William Almack, is
usually said to have been one Macall, or McCaul, of which
name Almack is an anagram. In 1764 he founded a gentlemen's
club in Pall Mall, where the present Marlborough Club
stands. It was famous for its high play. In 1778 it
was taken over by one Brooks, and established as Brooks's
Club in St James's Street, where it still exists. In 1765
Almack built a suite of assembly rooms in King's Street, St
James's. Here for a ten-guinea subscription a series of
weekly balls was given for twelve weeks. They were managed by
a committee of ladies of rank, and admission was exceedingly
difficult. At Almack's death in 1781 they were left to his
niece Mrs Willis. As ``Willis's Rooms'' they lasted till
1890, when they became a restaurant, but as ``Almack's''
they ceased in 1863. Several clubs, including a mixed club
for ladies and gentlemen, held meetings at Almack's during
the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. A new London
social club (1904) has also adopted the name of Almack's.
ALMADEN, or ALMADEN DEL AZOGUE, a town of Spain, in the
province of Ciudad Real; situated in mountainous country 55
m. W.S.W. of the city of Ciudad Real. Pop. (1900) 7375.
Almaden, the Sisapon of the Romans, is celebrated for its
mercury mines, which were extensively wrought by the Romans
and Moors, and are still productive, the ore increasing in
richness with the depth of the descent. The mines ranked with
those of Adria, in South Austria, as the most valuable in the
world, until the great development of the mercury deposits
at New Almaden, in California, U.S.A., between 1853 and
1857. They were long worked by convict labour, owing to their
unhealthy atmosphere; and exemption from military service is
granted to miners who have worked at Almaden for two years.
The annual yield is about 1,400,000 lb. Lead and sulphur are
obtained in the neighbourhood. The nearest railway station is
that of Chillon, 3 m. S. on the Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon line.
ALMAGRO, DIEGO DE (1475--1538), Spanish commander,
the companion and rival of Pizarro (q.v.), was born at
Aldea del Rey in 1475. According to another account he
was a foundling in the village from which he derived his
name. In 1525 he joined Pizarro and Hernando de Luque at
Panama in a scheme for the conquest of Peru (see PERU:
History.) He was executed by order of Pizarro in 1538 in
consequence of a dispute as to their respective territories.
ALMANAC, a book or table containing a calendar of the days,
weeks and months of the year, a register of ecclesiastical
festivals and saints' days, and a record of various
astronomical phenomena &c. The derivation of the word is
doubtful. The word almanac was used by Roger Bacon (Opus
Majus, 1267) for tables of the apparent motions of the
heavenly bodies. The Italian form is almanacco, French
almanach, and the Spanish is almanaque; all of which,
according to the New English Dictionary, are probably
connected with the Arabic al-manakh, a combination of the
definite article al, and maliakh, a word of uncertain
origin. An Arabic-Castilian vocabulary (1505) gives
manakh, a calendar, and manah, a sun-dial; manakh
has also been connected with the Latin manacus, a sun-dial.
The attention given to astronomy by Eastern nations probably
led to the early construction of such tables as are comprised
in our almanacs; of these we know little or nothing. The
fasti (q.v.) of the Romans are far better known and were
similar to modern almanacs. Almanacs of a rude kind, known
as clogg almanacs, consisting of square blocks of hard
wood, about 8 in. in length, with notches along the four
angles corresponding to the days of the year, were in use
in some parts of England as late as the end of the 17th
century. Dr Robert Plot (1640-1696), keeper of the Ashmolean
Museum and professor of chemistry at Oxford, describes
one of these in his Natural History of Staffordshire
(Oxford, 1686); and another is represented in Gough's
edition of Camden's Britannia (1806, vol. ii. p. 499).
The earliest almanac regarding which J. J. L. de Lalande
(Bibliographic astronomique, Paris, 1803) could obtain
any definite information belongs to the 12th century.
Manuscript almanacs of considerable antiquity are preserved
in the British Museum and in the libraries of Oxford and
Cambridge. Of these the most remarkable are a calendar
ascribed to Roger Bacon (1292), and those of Peter de Dacia
(about 1300), Walter de Elvendene (1327) and John Somers
(1380). It is to be remembered that early calendars (such as
the Kalendarium Lincolniense of Bishop Robert Grosseteste)
frequently bear the names, not of their compilers, but of
the writers of the treatises on ecclesiastical computation on
which the calendars are based. The earliest English calendar
in the British Museum is one for the year 1431. The first
printed almanac known was compiled by Purbach, and appeared
between the years 1450 and 1461; the first of importance is
that of Regiomontanus, which appears to have been printed
at Nuremberg in 1472. In this work the almanacs for the
different months embrace three Metonic cycles, or the 57 years
from 1475 to 1531 inclusive. The earliest almanac printed
in England was The Kalendar of Shepardes, a translation
from the French, printed by Richard Pynson about 1407.
Early almanacs had commonly the name of ``prognostications''
in addition, and what they professed to show may be gathered
from titles like the following, which is quoted by J.
O. Halliwell: ``Pronostycacyon of Mayster John Thybault,
medycyner and astronomer of the Emperyall Majestic, of the
year of our Lorde God MCCCCCXXXIJ., comprehending the iiij.
partes of this yere, and of the influence of the mone, of
peas and warre, and of the sykenesses of this yere, with the
constellacions of them that be under the vij. pianettes, and
the revolucions of kynges and princes, and of the eclipses
and comets.'' Among almanacs of this class published in
England, and principally by the Stationers' Company, are
Leonard Digges's Prognostication Everlasting of Right Good
Effect, for 1553, 1555, &c.; William Lilly's Merlinius
Anglicus Junior for 1644, &c., and other almanacs and ``
prognostications''; John Booker's Bloody Almanac and
Bloody Irish Almanac for 1643, 1647, &c.--the last attributed
erroneously to Richard Napier; John Partridge's Mercurius
Coelestis for 1681, Merlinus Redivivus, &c. The name of
Partridge has been immortalized in Pope's Rape of the Lock;
and his almanacs were very cleverly burlesqued by Swift, who
predicted Partridge's own death, in genuine prognosticator's
style. The most famous of all the Stationers' Company's
predicting almanacs was the Vox Stellarum of Francis Moore
(1657--1715?), the first number of which was completed in July
1700, and contained predictions for 1701. Its publication
has been continued under the title of Old Moore's Almanac.
Of a different but not a better sort was Poor Robin, dating
from 1663, and published by the company down to 1828, which
abounded in coarse, sometimes extremely coarse, humour.
The exclusive right to sell ``almanacs and prognostications''
in England, enjoyed in the time of Elizabeth by two members
of the Company of Stationers, was extended by James I. to the
two universities and the Stationers' Company jointly; but the
universities commuted their privilege for an annuity from the
company. This monopoly was challenged by Thomas Carnan, a
bookseller, who published an almanac for three successive
years, after having been thrice imprisoned on that account
by the company. The case came, in 1775, before the court
of common pleas, and was decided in Carnan's favour, the
question argued being, ``Whether almanacs were such public
ordinances, such matters of state, as belonged to the king
by his prerogative, so as to enable him to communicate an
exclusive right of printing them to a grantee of the crown?''
In 1779 Lord North attempted to reverse this decision by a
parliamentary enactment, but the bill was thrown out. In
consequence of this the universities lost their title to their
annuity, and in lieu of it they received a parliamentary
grant. The company, however, virtually retained its
monopoly for many years, by buying up as much as possible
all the almanacs issued by other publishers, but in more
recent times this power has altogether ceased, although a
considerable proportion of the almanacs published in England
still issue from the hall of the Stationers' Company. A
description of ``Almanac Day'' at Stationers' Hall will be
found in Knight's Cyclopaedia of London (1851), p. 588.
On the 1st of January 1828 the Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge issued the British Almanac for that year--a
publication greatly superior in every way to the almanacs of the
time. The success of the British Almanac, with its valuable
supplement, the Companion to the Almanac, led to a great
improvement in this class of publications. The Stationers'
Company issued the Englishman's Almanac, a work of a similar
kind. The entire repeal in 1834, by the 3rd and 4th Will.
IV. c. 57, of the heavy stamp duty, first imposed in 1710,
on all almanacs of fifteenpence per copy, gave an additional
stimulus to the publication of almanacs of a better class,
and from that time the number has greatly increased. Since
1870, the British Almanac and Companion have been the
principal almanacs published by the Stationers' Company.
Whitaker's Almanac, commenced in 1868 by Joseph Whitaker
(1820-1895), is perhaps the best known of modern almanacs.
In Scotland, almanacs containing much astrological matter
appcared to have been published at about the beginning of
the 16th century; and about a century later those published
at Aberdeen enjoyed considerable reputation. In 1683, the
Edinburgh's True Alnnanack, or a New Prognostication,
appeared; a publication which improved with years and was
issued after 1837 as Oliver and Boyd's New Ediniburgh
Almanac, a standard book of reference for Scottish affairs.
Thom's Irish Almanac (since 1843) deals mainly with Ireland.
The earliest almanac published in the United States is probably
to be ascribed to Bradford's press in Philadelphia, for the
year 1587. Poor Richard's Almanac, commenced in 1732 by
Benjamin Franklin under the pseudonym of ``Richard Saunders,''
and continued by him for twenty-five years, gained a high
reputation for its wise and witty sayings; it may have been
suggested by a somewhat similar publication by Thomas, of
Dedham, Massachusetts. The American Almanac and Repository
of Useful Knowledge was published at Boston from 1828 to
1861; a continuation, The National Almanac, was published
only twice, for 1863 and 1864. The Old Farmer's Almanac
enjoys considerable popularity and has been published for
many years. At the present time nearly every religious
denomination, trade and newspaper have almanacs or year-books.
In France prophetic almanacs circulated very freely among
the poorer and rural classes, although an ordonnance of
Charles IX. required the seal of a diocesan bishop on all
almanacs. In 1579 Henry III. prohibited the publication
of predictions relating to political events, a prohibition
renewed by Louis XIII. Of such almanacs, the most famous
was the Almanach Liegeois first published in 1625 at
Liege by Matthieu Laensbergh, a person of very problematic
existence. Publications of this class subsequently
increased in number to such an extent that, in 1852, their
circulation was forcibly checked by the government. The most
important French almanac is the Almanach Royal, afterwards
Imperial, and now National, first published in 1679.
A number of publications, issued in Germany, from the middle
of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century, under such
titles as Musenalmanach, modelled on the Almanach des
Muses, a contemporary almanac published at Paris, contain
some of the best works of some of the most celebrated German
poets. The Almaniach de Gotha, which has existed since
1763, published since 1871 both in French and German, gives
a particular account of all the royal and princely families
of Europe, and ample details concerning the administration
and the statistics of the different states of the world.
For the Nautical Almanac and similar publications, see EPHEMERIS.
ALMANDINE, or ALMANDITE, a name applied to certain kinds of
precious garnet, being apparently a corruption of alabandicus,
which is the name applied by Pliny to a stone found or worked
at Alabanda, a town in Carla in Asia Minor. Almandine is an
iron alumina garnet, of deep red colour inclining to purple.
It is frequently cut with a convex face, or en cabochon, and
is then known as carbuncle. Viewed through the spectroscope
in a strong light, it generally shows three characteristic
absorption bands, as first pointed out by Prof. A. H. Church.
Almandine occurs rather abundantly in the gem-gravels of
Ceylon, whence it has sometimes been called Ceylon-ruby. When
the colour inclines to a violet tint, the stone is often called
Syrian garnet, a name said to be taken from Syriam, an ancient
town of Pegu. Large deposits of fine almandine-garnets were
found, some years ago, in the Northern Territory of South
Australia, and were at first taken for rubies, whence they were
known in trade for some time afterwards as Australian rubies.
Almandine is widely distributed. Fine rhombic dodecahedra occur
in the schistose rocks of the Zillerthal, in Tyrol, and are
sometimes cut and polished. An almandine in which the ferrous
oxide is replaced partly by magnesia is found at Luisenfeld
in German East Africa. In the United States there are many
localities which yield almandine. Dr G. F. Kunz has figured
a crystal of coarse almandine weighing 91 lb. from New York
city. Fine crystals of almandine embedded in mica-schist occur
near Fort Wrangell in Alaska. The coarse varieties of almandine
are often crushed for use as an abrasive agent. (See GARNET.)
ALMANSA, or ALMANZA, a town of eastern Spain, in the province
of Albacete; 35 m. E.S.E. of Albacete, on the Madrid-Alicante
railway. Pop. (1900) 11,180. Almansa is built at the foot of
a white limestone crag, which is surmounted by a Moorish castle,
and rises abruptly in the midst of a fertile and irrigated
plain. About 1 m. S. stands an obelisk commemorating the
battle fought here on the 25th of April 1707, in which the
French under the duke of Berwick, a natural son of James
II. of Great Britain, routed the allied British, Portuguese
and Spanish troops. (See SPANISH SUCCESSION, WAR OF THE.)
ALMA-TADEMA, SIR LAURENCE (LAURENS) (1836- ). British
artist, was born on the 8th of .fanuary 1836, at Dronrijp, a
Frisian village near Leeuwarden, the son of Pieter Tadema, a
notary, who died when he was four years old. Alma was the
name of his godfather. His mother (d. 1863) was his father's
second wife, and was left with a large family. It was designed
that the boy should follow his father's profession; but he
had so great a leaning towards art that he was eventually
sent to Antwerp, where in 1852 he entered the academy under
Gustav Wappers. Thence he passed to the atelier of Henri
(afterwards Baron) Leys. In 1859 he assisted Leys in the
latter's frescoes in the hall of the hotel de ville at
Antwerp. In the exhibition of Alma-Tadema's collected works
at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in the winter of 1882-1883
were two pictures which may be said to mark the beginning
and end of his first period. These were a portrait of
himself, dated 1852, and ``A Bargain,'' painted in 1860. His
first great success was a picture of ``The Education of the
Children of Clovis'' (1861), which was exhibited at Antwerp.
In the following year he received his first gold medal at
Amsterdam. The ``Education of the Children of Clovis''
(three young children of Clovis and Clotilde practising
the art of hurling the axe in the presence of their widowed
mother, who is training them to avenge the murder of their
own parent) was one of a series of Merovingian pictures, of
which the finest was the ``Fredegonda'' of 1878 (exhibited in
1880), where the dejected wife or mistress is watching from
behind her curtain window the marriage of Chilperic I. with
Galeswintha. It is perhaps in this series that we find the
painter moved by the deeoest feeling and the strongest spirit of
romance. One of the most passionate of all is ``Fredegonda
at the Death-bed of Praetextatus,'' in which the bishop,
stabbed by order of the queen, is cursing her from his dying
bed. Another distinct series is designed to reproduce the life
of ancient Egypt. One of the first of this series, ``Egyptians
3000 Years Ago,'' was painted in 1863. A profound depth of
pathos is sounded in ``The Death of the Firstborn,'' painted in
1873. Among Alma-Tadema's other notable Egyptian pictures
are ``An Egyptian at his Doorway'' (1865), `The Mummy''
(1867), `The Chamberlain of Sesostris'' (1869), ``A Widow''
(1873), and ``Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries''
(1874). On these scenes from Frankish and Egyptian life
Alma-Tadema spent great energy and research; but his strongest
art-impulse was towards the presentation of the life of
ancient Greece and Rome, especially the latter. Amongst the
best known of his earlier pictures of scenes from classical
times are ``Tarquinius Superbus'' (1867), ``Phidias and the
Elgin Marbles'' (1868), and ``The Pyrrhic Dance'' and ``The
Wine Shop'' (1869). ``The Pyrrhic Dance,'' though one of the
simplest of his compositions, stands out distinctly from them
all by reason of its striking movement. ``Phidias and the
Elgin Marbles'' is the first of those glimpses of the art-iife
of classical times, of which ``Hadrian in England,'' ``The
Sculpture Gallery,'' and ``The Picture Gallery'' are later
examples. ``The Wine Shop'' is one of his many pictures of
historical genre, but marked with a more robust humour than
usual. In 1863 Alma-Tadema married a French lady, and lived
at Brussels till 1869, when she died, leaving him a widower
with two daughters, Laurence and Anna, both of whom afterwards
made reputations --the former in literature, the latter in
art. In 1869 he sent from Brussels to the Royal Academy two
pictures, ``Un Amateur romain'' and ``Une Danse pyrrhique,''
which were followed by three pictures, including ``Un Jongleur,''
in 1870, when he came to London. By this time, besides his
Dutch and Belgian distinctions, he had been awarded medals
at the Paris Salon of 1864 and the Exposition Universelle of
1867. In 1871 he married Miss Laura Epos, an English lady
of a talented family, who, under her married name, also won
a high reputation as an artist. After his arrival in England
Alma-Tadema's career was one of continued success. Amongst
the most important of his pictures during this period were
``The Vintage Festival'' (1870), ``The Picture Gallery'' and
``The Sculpture Gallery'' (1875), ``An Audience at Agrippa's''
(1876), ``The Seasons'' (1877), ``Sappho'' (1881), ``The
Way to the Temple'' (1883), his diploma work, ``Hadrian in
Britain'' (1884), ``The Apodyterium (1886), ``The Woman of
Amphissa'' (1887), ``The Roses of Heliogabalus'' (1888), ``An
Earthly Paradise'' (1891), and ``Spring'' (1895). Most of
his other pictures have been small canvasses of exquisite
finish, like the ``Gold-fish'' of 1900. These, as well as
all his works, are remarkable for the way in which flowers,
textures and hard reflecting substances, like metals, pottery,
and especially marble, are painted. His work shows much
of the fine execution and brilliant colour of the old Dutch
masters. By the human interest with which he imbues all his
scenes from ancient life he brings them within the scope of
modern feeling, and charms us with gentle sentiment and playful
humour. He also painted some fine portraits. Alma-Tadema
became a naturalized British subject in 1873, and was knighted
on the occasion of Queen Victoria's eighty-first birthday,
1899. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy in
1876, and a Royal Academician in 1879. In 1907 he was
included in the Order of Merit. He became a knight of the
order Pour le Merite of Germany (Arts and Science Division);
of Leopold, Belgium; of the Dutch Lion; of St Michael of
Bavaria; of the Golden Lion of Nassau; and of the Crown
of Prussia; an officer of the Legion of Honour, France; a
member of the Royal Academies of Munich, Berlin, Madrid and
Vienna. He received a gold medal at Berlin in 1872 and a
grand medal at Berlin in 1874; a first class medal at the
Paris International Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900. He also
became a member of the Royal Society of Water-colours.
See also Geore Ebers, ``Lorenz Alma-Tadema,''
Westermann's Monatshafte, November and December 1885,
since republished in volume form; Helen Zimmern, ``L.
Alma-Tadema, his Life and Work,'' Art Annual, 1886; C.
Monkhouse, British Contemporary Artists (London, 1899).
ALME or ALMAI (from alim, wise, learned), the name of a
class of singing girls in Egypt who are present at festivals and
entertainments, and act as hired mourners at funerals. They
are to be distinguished from the ghawazee, or dancing girls,
who perform in the public streets and are of a lower order.
ALMEIDA, DOM FRANCISCO DE (c. 1450-1510), the first
viceroy of Portuguese India, was born at Lisbon about the
middle of the 15th century. He was the seventh son of the
second count of Abrantes, and thus belonged to one of the
most distinguished families in Portugal. In his youth he took
part under Ferdinand of Aragon in the wars against the Moors
(1485-1492). In March 1505, having received from Emmanuel I.
the appointment of viceroy of the newly conquered territory
in India, he set sail from Lisbon in command of a large and
powerful fleet, and arrived in July at Quiloa (Kilwa), which
yielded to him almost without a struggle. A much more vigorous
resistance was offered by the Moors of Mombasa, but the town
was taken and destroyed, and its large treasures went to
strengthen the resources of Almeida. At other places on his
way, such as the island of Angediva, near Goa, and Cannanore,
he built forts, and adopted measures to secure the Portuguese
supremacy. On his arrival in India he took up his residence
at Cochin, where a Portuguese fort had been built by Alphonso
d'Albuquerque in 1503. The most important events of Almeida's
brief but vigorous administration were the conclusion of a
commercial treaty with Malacca, and the discoveries made by
his son Lorenzo, who acted as his lieutenant. Lorenzo was
probably the first Portuguese who visited Ceylon, where he
established a settlement, and Fernando Soares, a captain
commanding a squadron of his fleet, appears to have been the
first European to sight Madagascar. In 1508 he was killed
at Dabui in a naval engagement with the Egyptians, who at
this time endeavoured to dispute Portuguese supremacy in the
Indian Ocean. His father was preparing to avenge his death
when Albuquerque (q.v.) arrived in Cochin, and presented
a commission empowering him to supersede Almeida in the
government. It was probably Almeida's unwillingness to be
thwarted in his scheme of vengeance that chiefly induced him
to refuse to recognize Albuquerque's commission, and to cast
him into prison. The punishment he inflicted on the Arabs
and their Egyptian allies was speedy and terrible. Sailing
along the coast he pillaged and burned various ports, including
Goa and Dabul, and finally, encountering the enemy's combined
fleet off Diu in February 1509, he completely destroyed
it. Returning immediately to Cochin, he held out for a few
months against the claims of Albuquerque, but in November
1509 he was compelled to yie!d. On the 1st of December he
set sail for Europe with an escort of three vessels. On the
voyage the fleet called at Table Bay, then known as Saldanha
Bay, to procure water, and here Almeida was killed (on the
1st of March 1510) in an attack upon the Hottentot natives,
during vhich he showed great personal courage. In this fight,
vhich took place on the site of Cape Town. 65 Portuguese
perished, including 12 captains. Almeida's body was recovered
on the following day and buried on the spot where he fell.
ALMEIDA, a town of north-eastern Portugal, in the district
of Guarda and formerly included in the province of Beira;
situated in hilly country between the river Coa, a tributary
of the Douro, and the river Turones, a branch of the
Agueda. Pop. (1900) 2330. Almeida was long one of the
principal frontier fortresses of Portugal. It was captured
by the Spaniards in 1762. During the Peninsular War (q.v.),
the country between the Coa and the Spanish fortress
of Ciudad Rodrigo, 25 m. E.S.E., was the scene of hard
fighting. Almeida was taken by the French in 1810 and its
recapture, by the allied British and Portuguese forces under
Lord Wellington, was only effected after a relieving force
under Marshal Massena had been defeated at Fuentes d'Onor
(or Fuentes de Onoro), 13 m. S.S.E. The battle was fought
on the 5th of May 1811 and the fortress fell five days later.
ALMELO, a town in the province of Overysel, Holland, 12 m. by
rail N.W. of Hengelo, at the junction of the Overysel and Aluielo
canals. Pop. (1900) 9957. It is a place of considerable
antiquity, having been the seat of an independent lordship
before the 14th century. But it first rose into importance in
the second half of the 19th century owing to its share in the
extraordinary industrial development of the Twente district, and
now possesses numerous cotton and damask factories. Among the
public buildings are a town hall, court house, corn exchange,
and churches of various denominations, as well as a synagogue.
The lordship of Almelo belonged to the lords of Heeckeren, who
acquired the barony of Rechteren by marriage in 1350 and the
countship of Limpourg in 1711. The elder branch of the mediatized
house of Rechteren-Limpourg is still established at Almelo;
the younger, German branch, at Markt Einersheim in Bavaria.
ALMENDRALEJO, a town of western Spain, in the province
of Badajoz; situated 27 m. E.S.E. of Badajoz, on the
Merida-Seville railway. Pop. (1900) 12,587. Almendralejo is
a thriving town, with broad streets and good modern houses;
including the palace of the marquesses of Monsalfid, which
contains a museum of Roman antiquities discovered in the
neighbourhood. Local prosperity was greatly enhanced during
the period 1875-1905 by the improvement of communications,
which enabled the grain, fruit and wine of the Guadiana
valley, on the north, and of the upland known as the Tierra
de Barros, on the south, to be readily exported by the
Merida-Seville railway. Brandy is produced in large quantities.
ALMERIA, a maritime province of southern Spain, formed in
1833, and comprehending the eastern territories of the ancient
kingdom of Granada. Pop. (1900) 359,013; area, 3360 sq.
m. Almeria is bounded on the N. by Granada and Murcia,
E. and S. by Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea, and W. by
Granada. It is traversed by mountain ridges, with peaks of 6000
to 8000 ft. in altitude; and it is seamed with valleys or great
fertility. The chief sierras, or ranges, are those of
Maria, in the north; Estancias and Oria, north of the Almanzora
river; Filabres, in the middle of the province; Cabrera and
Gata, along the south-east coast; Alhamilla, east of the city
of Almeria; Gador in the south-west; and, in the west, some
outlying ridges of the Sierra Nevada. Three small rivers, the
Adra, or Rio Grande de Adra, in the west, the Almeria in the
centre, and the Almanzora in the north and east, flow down from
the mountains to the sea. On the south coast is the Gulf of
Almeria, 25 m. wide at its entrance, and terminating, on the
cast, in the Cabo de Gata, the southernmost point of eastern
Spain. The climate is mild, except among the higher mountains.
The valleys near the sea are well adapted for agriculture;
oranges, lemons, almonds and other fruit trees thrive;
silk is produced in the west; and the vine is extensively
cultivated, less for the production of wine than to meet the
foreign demand for white Almeria grapes. Although the cost
of transport is very heavy, the exportation of grapes is a
flourishing industry, and more than 2,000,000 barrels are
annually sent abroad. The cattle of the central districts
are celebrated for size and qualityt Almeria is rich in
minerals, especially iron and lead; silver, copper, mercury,
zinc and sulphur are also obtained. At the beginning of the
20th century the mines at work numbered more than two hundred,
and proved very attractive to foreign as well as native
capitalists. Garnets are found in the Sierra de Gata and in
the Sierra Nevada fine marble is quarried. The development
of mining was facilitated by the extension of the railway system
between 1895 and 1905. The main line from Madrid toalmeria
convoys much ore from Granada and Jaen to the sea; while
the railway from Baza to Lorca skirts the Almanzora valley
and transports the mineral products of eastern Almeria by
a branch line from Huercal-Overa to the Murcian port of
Aguilas. Light railways and aerial cables among the mountains
supplement these lines. The chief imports compase coal,
timber, especially oak staves, and various manufactured
goods. The exports are minerals, esparto, oil, grain, grapes
and farm produce generally. The principal seaports are
Almeria, the capital, pop.(1900) 47,326, Adra (11,188), and
Garrucha (4661), which, with Berja (13,224), Cuevas de Vera
(20,562), Huercal-Overa (15,763) and Nijar (12,497), are
described in separate articles. Other towns, important as
mining or agricultural centres, are Albox (10,049), Dalias
(7136), Lubrin (6593), Sorbas (7306), Tabernas (7629),
Velez Blanco (6825), Velez Rubio (10,109) and Vera
(8446). Education is backward and the standard of comfort
low. A constant annual loss of 2000 or 3000 emigrants
to Algeria and elsewhere prevents any rapid increase of
population, despite the high birth-rate and low mortality.
ALMERIA, the capital of the province of Almeria, and one of
the principal seaports on the Mediterranean coast of southern
Spain; in 36 deg. 5' N. and 2 deg. 32' W., on the river Almeria, at
its outflow into the Gulf of Almeria, and at the terminus of
a railway from Madrid. Pop. (1900) 47,326. The city occupies
part of a rich alluvial valley enclosed by hills. It is an
episcopal see, and possesses a Gothic cathedral, dating from
1524, and constructed with massive embattled walls and belfry
so as to resemble a fortress. A dismantled castle, the
Castillo de San Cristobal, overlooks the city, which contains
four Moorish towers rising conspicuously above its modern
streets. Two long piers shelter the harbour, and vessels
drawing 25 ft. can lie against the quays. About 1400 ships,
of nearly 1,000,000 tons, enter the port every year, bringing
fuel and timber, and taking cargoes of iron, lead, esparto and
fruit. White grapes are exported in very large quantities.
Under its ancient name of Urci, Almeria was one of the
chief Spanish harbours after the final conquest of Spain
by the Romans in 19 B.C. It reached the summit of its
prosperity in the middle ages, as the foremost seaport of
the Moorish kingdom of Granada. At this time its population
numbered 150,000; its cruisers preyed upon the fleets of the
neighbouring Christian states; and its merchant ships traded
with countries as distant as Egypt and Syria. Almeria was
captured in 1147 by King Alphonso VII. of Castile and his
Genoese troops. but speedily retaken and held by the Moors
until 1489, when it was finally secured by the Spaniards.
See D. F. Margall, Almeria, (Barcelona, 1886).
ALMERY, AUMEBY, AUMBRIE, or AMBRY (from the medieval form
almarium, cf. Lat. armarium, a place for keeping tools;
cf. O. Fr. aumoire and mod. armoire), in architecture,
a recess in the wall of a church, sometimes square-headed,
and sometimes arched over, and closed with a door like a
cupboard--used to contain the chalices, basins, cruets,
&c., for the use of the priest; many of them have stone
shelves. They are sometimes near the piscina, but more often
on the opposite side. The word also seems in medieval times
to be used commonly for any closed cuoboard and even bookcase.
ALMODOVAR DEL CAMPO, or ALMODOVAR, a town of Spain,
in the province of Ciudad Real, 18 m. S.S.W. of Ciudad
Real, on the northern side of the Sierra de Alcudia.
Pop. (1900l 12,525. Almodovar was a Moorish fortress
in the middle ages. but contains little of antiquarian
interest. It owes its modern prosperity to the nearness of
the valuable Puertollano coal-field, 3 m. S. by a branch of
the Madrid-Badajoz-Lisbon railway. Its manufactures are lace
and linen and it has a brisk trade in live-stock, oil and
wine. South of the Sierra lies the Alcudia valley, owned by
the crown, and used as pasture for immense flocks of sheep.
ALMOGAVARES (from the Arab. Al-Mugavari, a scout),
the name of a class of Spanish soldiers, well known during
the Christian reconquest of Spain, and much employed as
mercenaries in Italy and the Levant, during the 13th and 14th
centuries. The Almogavares (the plural of Almogavar)
came originally from the Pyrenees, and were in later times
recruited mainly in Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia. They were
frontiersmen and foot-soldiers who wore no armour, dressed in
skins, were shod with brogues (abarcas), and carried the same
arms as the Roman legionaries---two heavy javelins (Spanish
azagaya, the Roman pilum), a short stabbing sword and a
shield. They served the king, the nobles, the church or the
towns for pay, and were professional soldiers. When Peter
III. of Aragon made war on Charles of Anjou after the Sicilian
Vespers---30th of March 1282-for the possession of Naples and
Sicily, the Almogavares formed the most effective element
of his army. Their discipline and ferocity, the force with
which they hurled their javelins, and their activity, made
them very formidable to the heavy cavalry of the Angevin
armies. When the peace of Calatabellota in 1302 ended the
war in southern Italy, the Almogavares followed Roger di
Flor (Roger Blum) the unfrocked Templar, who entered the
service of the emperor of the East, Andronicus, as condottieri
to fight against the Turks. Their campaign in Asia Minor,
1303 and 1304, was a series of romantic victories, but their
greed and violence made them intolerable to the Christian
population. When Roger di Flor was assassinated by his Greek
employerin 1305, they turned on the emperor, held Galhpoh and
ravaged the neighbourhood of Constantinople. In 1310 they
marched against the duke of Athens, of the French house of
Brienne. Walter of Brienne was defeated and slain by them with
all his knights at the battle of Cephissus, or Orchomenus, in
Boeotia in March. They then divided the wives and possessions
of the Frenchmen by lot and summoned a prince of the house
of Aragon to rule over them. The foundation of the Aragonese
duchy of Lthens was the culmination of the achievements
of the Almogavares. In the 16th century the name died
out. It was, however, revived for a short time as a party
nickname in the civil wars of the reign of Ferdinand VII.
AUTHORITIES.---The Almogavares are admirably described by
one who fought with them, Ramon de Muntaner, whose Chronicle
has been translated into French by J. A. Buchon, Chronioues
etrangeres (Paris, 1860). The original test was reprinted and
edited by K. Lanz at Stuttgart, 1844. See also the Expedition
des ``Almugavares'' ou routiers catalans en orient, de l'an
1302 a l'an 1311 by G. Schlumberger (Paris, 1902). (D. H.)
ALMOHADES (properly Muwahhadis, i.e. ``Unitarians,''
the name being corrupted through the Spanish), a Mahommedan
religious power which founded the fifth Moorish dynasty in
the 12th century, and conquered all northern Africa as far as
Egypt, together with Moslem Spain. It originated with Mahommed
ibn Tumart, a member of the Masmuda, a Berber tribe of the
Atlas. Ibn Tumart was the son of a lamplighter in a mosque
and had been noted for his piety from his youth; he was small,
ugly, and misshapen and lived the life of a devotee-beggar.
As a youth he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, whence
he was expelled on account of his severe strictures on the
laxity of others, and thence wandered to Bagdad, where he
attached himself to the school of the orthodox doctor al
Ashari. But he made a system of his own by combining
the teaching of his master with parts of the doctrines of
others, and with mysticism imbibed from the great teacher
Ghazali. His main principle was a rigid unitarianism
which denied the independent existence of the attributes of
God, as being incompatible with his unity, and therefore a
polytheistic idea. Mahommed in fact represented a revolt
against the anthropomorphism of commonplace Mahommedan
orthodoxy, but he was a rigid predestinarian and a strict
observer of the law. After his return to Morocco at the age
of twenty-eight, he began preaching and agitating, heading
riotous attacks on wine-shops and on other manifestations of
laxity. He even went so far as to assault the sister of
the Murabti (Almoravide) amir`Ali III., in the streets
of Fez, because she was going about unveiled after the
manner of Berber women. `Ali, who was very deferential to
any exhibition of piety, allowed him to escape unpunished.
Ibn Tumart, who had been driven from several other towns for
exhibitions of reforming zeal, now took refuge among his own
people, the Masmuda, in the Atlas. It is highly probable that
his influence would not have outlived him, if he had not found
a lieutenant in 'Abd-el-Mumin el Kumi, another Berber, from
Algeria, who was undoubtedly a soldier and statesman of a high
order. When Ibn Tumart died in 1128 at the monastery or
ribat which he had founded in the Atlas at Tinmal, after
suffering a severe defeat by the Murabtis, 'Abd-el-Mumin
kept his death secret for two years, till his own influence
was established. He then came forward as the lieutenant
of the Mahdi Ibn Tumart. Between 1130 and his death in
1163, 'Abd-el-Mumin not only rooted out the Murabtis,
but extended his power over all northern Africa as far as
Egypt, becoming amir of Morocco in 1149. Mahommedan Spain
followed the fate of Africa, and in 1170 the Muwahhadis
transferred their capital to Seville, a step followed by
the founding of the great mosque, now superseded by the
cathedral, the tower of which they erected in 1184 to mark the
accession of Ya`kub el Mansur. From the time of Yusef
II., however, they governed their co-religionists in Spain
and Central North Africa through lieutenants, their dominions
outside Morocco being treated as provinces. When their
amirs crossed the Straits it was to lead a jehad against
the Christians and to return fo their capital, Marrakesh.
The Muwahhadi princes had a longer and a more distinguished
career than the Murabtis or ``Almoravides'' (q.v..) Yusef
II. or ``Abu Ya`kub'' (1163-1184), and Ya`kub I. or ``El
Mansur'' (1184-1199), the successors of Abd-el-Mumin, were
both able men. They were fanatical, and their tyranny drove
numbers of their Jewish and Christian subjects to take refuge
in the growing Christian states of Portugal, Castile and
Aragon. But in the end they became less fanatical than the
Murabtis, and Ya`kub el Mansur was a highly accomplished man,
who wrote a good Arabic style and who protected the philosopher
Averroes. His title of El Mansur, ``The Victorious,'' was
earned by the defeat he inflicted on Alphonso VIII. of Castile
at Alarcos in 1195. But the Christian states in Spain were
becoming too well organized to be overrun by the Mahommedans,
and the Muwahhadis made no permanent advance against
them. In 1212 Mahommed III., ``En-Nasir'' (1199-1214), the
successor of El Mansur, was utterly defeated by the allied
five Christian princes of Spain, Navarre and Portugal, at
Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena. All the Moorish
dominions in Spain were lost in the next few years, partly by
the Christian conquest of Andalusia, and partly by the revolt
of the Mahommedans of Granada, who put themselves under the
protection of the Christian kings and became their vassals.
The fanaticism of the Muwahhadis did not prevent them from
encouraging the establishment of Christians even in Fez, and
after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa they occasionally
entered into alliances with the kings of Castile. In Africa
they were successful in expelling the garrisons placed in
some of the coast towns by the Norman kings of Sicily. The
history of their decline differs from that of the Murabtis,
whom they had displaced. They were not assailed by a great
religious movement, but destroyed piecemeal by the revolt of
tribes and districts. Their most effective enemies were the
Beni Marin (``Merinides'') who founded the next Moroccan
dynasty, the sixth. The last representative of the line,
Idris IV., ``El Wathik''' was reduced to the possession
of Marrakesh, where he was murdered by a slave in 1269.
The amirs of the Muwahhadi Dynasty were as follows:--
'Abd-el-Mumin (1145); Yusef II., ``Abu Ya`kub'' (1163);
Ya`kub I., ``Abu Yusef el Mansur'' (1184); Mahommed
III., ``En-Nasir'' (1190); Yusef III., ``Abu Ya'kub
el Mustansir'' (1214); `Abd-el-Wahid, ``El Makhluwi''
(1223); `Abd-Allah II., ``Abu Mahommed'' (1224); Yahya
V., ``El Mu`tasim'' (1226); Idris III., ``El Mamun''
(1229); Rashid I., ```Abd-el-Wahid II.'' (1232); `Ali IV.,
``Es-Sa`id el Mu tadid'' (1242); Omar I., ``El Mortada''
(1248); Idris IV., ``El Wathik'' (1266-1269). (B. M.*; D. H.)
ALMON, JOHN (1737-1805), English political pamphleteer and
publisher, was born at Liverpool on the 17th of December
1737. In early life he was apprenticed to a printer in his
native town, and he also spent two years at sea. He came
to London in 1758 and at once began a career which, if not
important in itself, had a very important influence on the
political history of the country. The Whig opposition,
hampered and harassed by the Government to an extent that
threatened the total suppression of independent opinion,
were in great need of a channel of communication with the
public, and they found what they wauted in Almon. He had
become personally known to the leaders through various
publications of his own which had a great though transient
popularity; the more important of these being The Conduct
of a late Noble Commander [Lord George Sackville Examined
(1759); a Review of his late Majesty's Reign (1760); a
Review of Mr Pitt's Administration (1761); and a number
of letters on political subjects. The review of Pitt's
administration passed through four editions, and secured
for its author the friendship of Earl Temple, to whom it was
dedicated. Brought thus into the counsels of the Whig party,
he was persuaded in 1763 to open a bookseller's shop in
Piccadilly, chiefly for the publication and sale of political
pamphlets. This involved considerable personal risk, and though
he generally received with every pamphlet a sum sufficient to
secure him against all contingencies, he deserves the credit
of having done much to secure the freedom of the press. The
government strengthened his influence by their repressive
measures. In 1765 the attorney-general moved to have him
tried for the publication of the pamphlet entitled Juries and
Libels, but the prosecution failed; and in 1770, for merely
selling a copy of the London Museum containing Junius's
celebrated ``Letter to the King,'' he was sentenced by Lord
Mansfield to pay a fine of ten marks and give security for
his good behaviour. It was this trial that called forth the
letter to Lord Mansfield, one of the bitterest of the Junius
series. Almon himself published an account of the trial, and
of course did not let slip the opportunity of reprinting the
matter that had been the ground of indictment; but no further
proceedings were taken against him. In 1774 Almon commenced
the publication of his Parliamentary Register, a monthly
report of the debates in parliament, and he also issued an
abstract of the debates from 1742, when Richard Chandler's
Reports ceased, to 1774. About the same time, having earned a
competency, he retired to Boxmoor in Hertfordshire, though
he still continued to write on political subjects. He
became proprietor in 1784 of the General Advertiser, in
the management of which he lost his fortune and was declared
insolvent. To these calamities was added an imprisonment for
libel. The claims of his creditors compelled him to leave the
country, but after some years in France he was enabled to
return to Boxmoor, where he continued a career of undiminished
literary activity, publishing among other works an edition of
Junius. His last work was an edition of Wilkes's correspondence,
with a memoir (1805). He died on the 12th of December
1805. Almon's works, most of which appeared anonymously, have
no great literary merit, but they are of very considerable
value to the student of the political history of the period.
ALMOND (from the O. Fr. almaiide or alemande, late Lat.
amandola, derived through a form amingdola from the Gr.
amugdale, an almond; the al- for a- is probably due
to a confusion with the Arabic article al, the word having
first dropped the a- as in the Italian form mandola; the
English pronunciation a-mond and the modern French amande
show the true form of the word). The almond is the fruit of
Amyydalus conimunis, a plant belonging to the tribe Pruneae
of the natural order Rosaceae. The genus Amygdalus is
very closely allied to Prunius (Plum, Cherry), in which it
is sometimes merged; the distinction lies in the fruit, the
soft pulp attached to the stone in the plum being replaced
by a leathery separable coat in the almond. The tree appears
to be a native of western Asia, Barbary and Morocco; but
it has been extensively distributed over the warmtemperate
region of the Old World. It ripens its fruit in the south of
England. It is a tree of moderate size; the leaves are
lanceolate, and serrated at the edges; and it flowers early in
spring. The fruit is a drupe, having a downy outer coat, called
the epicarp, which encloses the reticulated hard stony shell or
endocarp. The seed is the kernel which is contained within
these coverings. The shell-almonds of trade consist of the
endocarps enclosing the seeds. The tree grows in Syria and
Palestine; and is referred to in the Bible under the name
of Shaked, meaning ``hasten.'' The word Luz, which occurs
in Genesis xxx. 37, and which has been translated hazel, is
supposed to be another name for the almond. In Palestine
the tree flowers in January, and this hastening of the period
of flowering seems to be alluded to in Jeremiah i. 11, 12,
where the Lord asks the prophet, ``What seest thou?'' and he
replies, ``The rod of an almond-tree''; and the Lord says,
``Thou hast well seen, for I will hasten my word to perform
it.'' In Ecclesiastes xii. 5 it is saib the ``almond-tree
shall flourish.'' This has often been supposed to refer to the
resemblance of the hoary locks of age to the flowers of the
almond; but this exposition is not borne out by the facts of the
case, inasmuch as the flowers of the almond are not white but
pink. The passage is more probably intended to allude to the
hastening or rapid approach of old age. The application of
Shaked or hasten to the almond is similar to the use of the
name ``May'' for the hawthorn, which usually flowers in that
month in Britain. The rod of Aaron, mentioned in Numbers
xvii., was taken from an almond-tree; and the Jews still carry
rods of almond-blossom to the synagogues on great festival
days. The fruit of the almond supplied a model for certain kinds
of ornamental carved work (Exodus xxv. 33, 34; xxxvii. 19, 20).
There are two forms of the plant, the one (with pink flowers)
producing sweet, the other (with white flowers) bitter
almonds. The kernel of the former contains a fixed oil and
emulsin. It is used internally in medicine, and must not be
adulterated with the bitter almond. The Pulvis Amygdalae
Compositus of the British Pharmacopoeia consists of sweet
almonds, sugar and gum acacia. It may be given in any
dose. The Mistura Amygdalae contains one part of
the above to eight of water; the dose is 1/2 to 1 oz.
The bitter almond is rather broader and shorter than the
sweet almond and has a bitter taste. It contains about
50%, of the fixed oil which also occurs in sweet almonds.
It also contains a ferment emulsin which, in the presence
of water, acts on a soluble glucoside, amygdalin, yielding
glucose, prussic acid and the essential oil of bitter almonds
or benzaldehyde (q.v.), which is not used in medicine.
Bitter almonds may yield from 6 to 8% of prussic acid.
Oleum Amygdalae, the fixed oil, is prepared from either
variety of almond. If intended for internal use, it must,
however, be prepared only from sweet almonds. It is a glyceryl
oleate, with slight odour and a nutty taste. It is almost
insoluble in alcohol but readily soluble in chloroform or
ether. It may be used as a pleasant substitute for olive
oil. The pharmacopoeial preparations of the sweet
almond are used only as vehicles for other drugs. The
sweet almond itself, however, has a special dietetic
value. It contains practically no starch and may therefore
be made into flour for cakes and biscuits for patients
suffering from diabetes mellitus or any other form of
glycosuria. It is a nutritious and very pleasant food.
There are numerous commercial varieties of sweet almond, of
which the most esteemed is the Jordan almond, imported from
Malaga. Valentia almonds are also valued. Fresh sweet
almonds are nutritive and demulcent, but as the outer brown
skin sometimes causes irritation of the alimentary canal, they
are blanched by removal of this skin when used at dessert.
ALMONER (from Lat. eleemosynarius, through med. Lat.
almosynarius, alnionarius, and Fr. almosnisr, almosnier, &c.,
mod. Fr. aumonier), in the primitive sense, an officer
in religious houses to whom belonged the management and
distribution of the alms of the house. By the ancient canons
all monasteries were to spend at least a tenth part of their
income in alms to the poor, and all bishops were required to keep
almoners. Almoners, as distinct from chaplains, appear early
as attached to the court of the kings of France; but the
title of grand almoner of France first appears in the reign
of Charles VIII. He was an important court official whose
duties comprised the superintendence of the Chapel Royal and
all the religious ceremonies of the court. He was a director
of the great hospital for the blind (Quinize-Vingts), and
nominated the regius professors and readers in the College de
France. The office was revived by Napoleon I., was abolished
in 1830, and again created by Napoleon III.; it existed till
1870. In England, the royal almonry still forms a part of
the sovereign's household, the officers being the hereditary
grand almoner (the marquess of Exeter), the lord high
almoner, the sub-almoner, and the secretary to the lord high
almoner. The office of hereditary grand almoner is now merely
titular. The lord high almoner is an ecclesiastical officer,
usually a bishop, who had the rights to the forfeiture of
all deodands (q.v.) and the goods of a felo de se, for
distribution among the poor. He had also, by virtue of an
ancient custom, the power of giving the first dish from the
king's table to whatever poor person he pleased, or, instead of
it, alms in money, which custom is kept up by the lord high
almoner distributing as many silver pennies as the sovereign has
years of age to poor men and women on Maundy Thursday (q.v..)
ALMONRY (Lat. eleemosynarium, Fr. aumonorie, Ger.
Almosenhaus), the name for the place or chamber where
alms were distributed to the poor in churches or other
ecclesiastical buildings. At Bishopstone church, Wiltshire,
it is a sort of covered porch attached to the south
transept, but not communicating with the interior of the
church. At Worcester Cathedral the alms are said to have
been distributed on stone tables, on each side, within
the great porch. In large monastic establishments, as at
Westminster, it seems to have been a separate building of some
importance, either joining the gatehouse or near it, that
the establishment might be disturbed as little as possible.
ALMORA, a town and district of British India, the chief
town and administrative headquarters of the Kumaon division
of the United Provinces, situated on a mountain-ridge of
the Himalayas 5494 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1901) 8506.
The town has a college called after Sir Henry Ramsay; a
government high school; a Christian girls' school; and a large
cantonment. The town was captured by the Gurkhas in 1790,
who constructed a fort on the eastern extremity of the ridge.
Another citadel, Fort Moira, is situated on the other extremity
of the ridge. Almora is also celebrated as the scene of the
British victory which terminated the war with Nepal in April
1815, and which resulted in the evacuation of Kumaon by the
Gurkhas and the annexation of the province by the British.
The DISTRICT OF ALMORA was constituted in 1891, together
with Naini Tal, by a redistribution of the two former districts
of Kumaon and the Tarai. It lies among the mountains of
Kumaon, between the upper waters of the Ganges and the Gogra,
here called the Rali. Area, 5419 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 465,893,
showing an increase of 13% during the decade. Tea is grown
in the district, which includes the military sanatorium of
Ranikliet. The nearest railway via Naini Tal is the extension
of the Oudh and Rohilkhand line from near Bareilly to Kathgodam.
ALMORAVIDES (properly Murabtis, the name being
corrupted through the Spanish), a Berber horde from the Sahara
which, in the 11th century, founded the fourth dynasty in
Morocco. By this dynasty the Moorish empire was extended over
Tlemcen and a great part of Soam and Portugal. The name is
derived from the Arab. Murabit, a religious ascetic (see
MARABOUT.) The most powerful of the invading tribes was
the Lamtuna (``veiled men'') from the upper Niger, whose
best-known representatives now are the Tuareg. They had been
converted to Mahommedanism in the early times of the Arab
conquest, but their knowledge of Islam did not go much beyond
the formula of the creed---``there is no god but God, and
Mahomet is the apostle of God,''--and they were ignorant of the
law. About the year 1040 or a little earlier, one of their
chiefs, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
On his way home he attended the teachers of the mosque at
Kairawan, in Tunisia, who soon learnt from him that his
people knew little of the religion they were supposed to
profess, and that though his will was good, his own ignorance
was great. By the good offices of the theologians of
Kairawan, one of whom was from Fez, Yahya was provided
with a missionary,'Abd-Allah ibn Yazin, a zealous partisan
of the Malokis, one of the four orthodox sects of Islam.
His preaching was for long rejected by the Lamtunas, so
on the advice of his patron Yahya, who accompanied him, he
retired to an island in the Niger, where he founded a ribat
or Moslem monastery, from which as a centre his influence
spread. There was no element of heresy in his creed, which
was mainly distinguished by a rigid formalism and strict
obedience to the letter of the Koran and the orthodox tradition
or Sunna. `Abd-Allah imposed a penitential scourging on all
converts as a purification, and enforced a regular system of
discipline for every breach of the law, even on the chiefs.
Under such directions the Murabtis were brought to excellent
order. Their first military leader, Yahya ibn Omar, gave them
a good military organization. Their main force was infantry,
armed with javelins in the front ranks and pikes behind, formed
into a phalanx and supported by camelmen and horsemen on the
flanks. From the year 1053 the Murabtis began to impose
their orthodox and puritanical religion on the Berber tribes
of the desert, and on the pagan negroes. Yahya was killed
in battle in 1056, but `Abd-Allah, whose influence as a
religious teacher was paramount, named his brother Abu Bakr as
chief. Under him the Murabtis soon began to spread their
power beyond the desert, and subjected the tribes of the
Atlas. They then came in contact with the Berghwata, a
Berber people of central Morocco, who followed a heresy
founded by Salah ibn Tarif 300 years previously. The
Berghwata made a fierce resistance, and it was in battle
with them that `Abd-Allah ibn Yazin won the crown of
martyrdom. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu
Bakr, who espoused the defeated chief's widow, Zainab.
In 1061 Abu Bakr made a division of the power he had
established, handing over the more settled parts to his
cousin Yusef ibn Tashfin, as viceroy, resigning to him
also his favourite wife Zainab, who had the reputation of a
sorceress. For himself he reserved the task of suppressing
the revolts which had broken out in the desert, but when he
returned to resume control he found his cousin too powerful
to be superseded, so he had to go back to the Sahara, where
in 1087 he too attained martyrdom, having been wounded
with a poisoned arrow in battle with the pagan negroes.
Ibn Tashfin, who was largely guided by Zainab, had in the
meantime brought what is now known as Morocco to complete
subjection, and in 1062 had founded the city of Marrakesh
(``Morocco City''). He is distinguished as Yusef I. In
1080 he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen and founded the
present city of that name, his rule extending as far east as
Oran. In 1086 he was invited by the Mahommedan princes in
Spain to defend them against Alphonso VI., king of Castile and
Leon. In that year Yusef passed the straits to Algeciras,
and on the 23rd of October inflicted a severe defeat on
the Christians at Sacrahas, or in Arabic, Zallaka, near
Badajoz. He was debarred from following up his victory
by trouble in Africa which he had to settle in person.
When he returned to Spain in 1090 it was avowedly for the
purpose of deposing the Mahommedan princes and annexing their
states. He had in his favour the mass of the inhabitants,
who were worn out by the oppressive taxation imposed by their
spendthrift rulers. Their religious teachers detested the
native Mahommedan princes for their religious indifference,
and gave Yusef a fetwa---or legal opinion---to the effect
that he had good moral and religious right to dethrone the
heterodox rulers who did not scruple to seek help from the
Christians whose bad habits they had adopted. By 1094 he
had removed them all, and though he regained little from the
Christians except Valencia, he reunited the Mahommedan power
and gave a check to the reconquest of the country by the
Christians. After friendly correspondence with the caliph at
Bagdad, whom he acknowledged as Amir el Aluminin, ``Prince
of the Faithful,'' Yusef in 1097 assumed the title of
``Prince of the Resigned''--- Amir el Muslimin. He died in
1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100.
The Murabti power was at its height at Yusef's death, and
the Moorish empire then included all North-West Africa as
far as Algiers, and all Spain south of the Tagus, with the
east coast as far as th mouth of the Ebro, and the Balearic
Islands. Three years afterwards, under Yusef's son and
successor, `Ali III. of Morocco, Madrid, Lisbon and Oporto were
added, and Spain was again invaded in 1119 and 1121, but the
tide had turned, the French having assisted the Aragonese to
recover Saragossa. In 1138 `Ali III. was defeated by Alphonso
VII. of Castile and Leon, and in 1139 by Alphonso I. of
Portugal, who thereby won his crown, and Lisbon was recovered
by the Portuguese in 1147. `Ali III. was a pious nonentity,
who fasted and prayed while his empire fell to pieces under
the combined action of his Christian foes in Spain and the
agitation of the Muwahhadis or ``Almohades'' (q.v.) in
Morocco. After `Ali's death in 1142, his son Tashfin lost
ground rapidly before the Muwahhadis, and in 1145 he
was killed by a fall from a precipice while endeavouring to
escape after a defeat near Oran. His two successors Ibrahim
and Ishak are mere names. The conquest of the city of
Marrakesh by the Muwahhadis in 1147 marked the fall of
the dynasty, though fragments of the Murabtis continued to
struggle in the Balearic Islands, and finally in Tunisia.
The amirs of the Murabti dynasty were as follows:---Yusef
I., bin Tashfin (1061); `Ali III. (1106); Tashfin
I. (1143); Ibrahim II. (1145); Ishak (1146).
See Budgett Meakin, The Moorish Empire (London, 1899); the
anonymous Raodel el Kartas (Fez. 1326), translated by
Baymier as Roudh el-Kartas; (Paris, 1860); Ibn Khaldun,
Kitab el `Aibr...fi Aiyam el Maghrib, &c. (cir.
1405), partly translated by de Slane as Histoire des
Berbers, vol. ii. (Algiers, 1852-1856); Makkari, History
of the Mahommedan Dynasties in Spain, translated by
Gayangos (London, 1840); Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne,
by R. Dozy, vol. iv. (Leiden, 1861). (B. M.*; D. H.)
ALMQVIST, KARL JONAS LUDWIG (1793-1866), Swedish writer,
was born at Stockholm in 1793. He became a student at Upsala,
where his father was professor of theology, in 1808, and took
his degree in 1815. He began life under highly favourable
auspices; but becoming tired of a university career, in
1823 he threw up the position he held in the capital to lead
a colony of friends to the wilds of Wermland. This ideal
Scandinavian life soon proved a failure; Almqvist found the
pen easier to wield than the plough, and in 1828 he returned
to Stockholm as a teacher in the new Elementary School there,
of which he became rector in 1829. Now began his literary
life; and after bringing out several educational works,
he made himself suddenly famous by the publication of his
great series of novels, called The Book of the Thorn-Rose
(1832-1835). The career so begun developed with extraordinary
rapidity; few writers have equalled Almqvist in productiveness
and versatility; lyrical, epic and dramatic poems; romances;
lectures; philosophical, aesthetical, moral, political and
educational treatises; works of religious edification, studies
in lexicography and history, in mathematics and philology,
form the most prominent of his countless contributions to
modern Swedish literature. So excellent was his style, that
in this respect he has been considered the first of Swedish
writers. His life was as varied as his work. Unsettled,
unstable in all his doings, he passed from one lucrative post
to another, at last subsisting entirely on the proceeds of
literary and journalistic labour. More and more vehemently
he espoused the cause of socialism in his brilliant novels and
pamphlets; friends were beginning to leave him, foes beginning
to triumph, when suddenly all minor criticism was silenced by
the astounding news that Almqvist, convicted of forgery and
charged with murder, had fled from Sweden. This occurred in
1851. For many years no more was heard of him; but it is
now known that he went over to America and settled in St
Louis. During a journey through Texas he was robbed of
all his manuscripts, among which are believed to have been
several unprinted novels. He is said to have appealed in
person to President Lincoln, but the robbers could not be
traced. The American adventures of Almquist remain exceedingly
obscure, and some of the most remarkable have been proved to be
fabulous. In 1865 he returned to Europe, and his strange and
sinister existence came to a close at Bremen on the 26th of
September 1866. It is by his romances, undoubtedly the best in
Swedish, that his literary fame will mainly be supported; but
his singular history will always point him out as a remarkable
figure even when his works are no longer read. He was another
Eugene Arara, but of greater genius, and so far more successful
that he escaped the judicial penalty of his crimes. (E. G.)
ALMS, the giving of relief, and the relief given, whether
in goods or money, to the poor, particularly applied to the
charity bestowed under a sense of religious obligation (see
CHARITY AND CHARITIES.) The word in O. Eng. was aelmysse,
and is derived through the Teutonic adaptation (cf. the modern
Ger. almosen ) of the Latinized form of the Gr. lleemosbne,
compassion or mercy, from ileos, pity. The English word
``eleemosynary,'' that which is given in the way of alms,
charitable, gratuitous, derives direct from the Greek. ``Alms''
is often, like ``riches,'' wrongly taken as a plural word.
ALMSHOUSE, a house built and endowed by private charity for
the residence of poor and usually aged people. The greater
portion were built after the Reformation. Two interesting
examples are the Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester, founded
in 1136, and Coningsby Hospital at Hereford, founded in 1614.
ALMUCE, or AMICE (O. Fr. aumuce, O. Eng. aumuce,
amys, amess, &c., from late Lat. almucia, almucium,
armucia. &c.), a hooded cape of fur, or fur-lined, worn
as a choir vestment by certain dignitaries of the Western
Church. The origin of the word almucium is a philological
mystery. The al- is probably the Arabic article, since
the word originated in the south (Sicilian almuziu, Prov.
almussa, Span. almucio, &c.), but the derivation of the
second part of the word from a supposed old Teutonic term
for cap---Ger. Mutze, Dutch Mutsche, Scot. mutch
(New Eng. Dict. s. ``Amice''; Diez, Worterbuch der
rom. Sprachen) --is the exact reverse of the truth. The
almuce was originally a head-covering only, worn by the
clergy, but adopted also by the laity, and the German word
Mutze, ``cap,'' is later than the introduction of the
almuce in church, and is derived from it (M. H. G., 13th
century, almutz; 14th century, armuz, aremuz, &c.; 15th
century, mutz, mutze, &c.). The word mulzen, to dock,
cut off, which first appears in the 14th century, does not
help much, though the name of another vestment akin to the
almuce---the mozzetta---has been by some traced to it
through the Ital. mozzare and mozzo (but see below).
In numerous documents from the 12th to the 15th century the
almucium is mentioned, occasionally as identical with the
hood, but more often as a sort of cap distinct from it,
e.g. in the decrees of the council of Sens (1485)---non
caputia, sed almucia vel bireta tenentes in capito. By
the 14th century two types of almucium were distinguished:
(1) a cap coming down just over the ears; (2) a hood-like cap
falling over the back and shoulders. This latter was reserved
for the more important canons, and was worn over surplice or
rochet in choir. The introduction. of the biretta (q.v.)
in the 15th century tended to replace the use of the almuce
as a head-covering, and the hood now became smaller, while
the cape was enlarged till in some cases it fell below the
elbows. Another form of almuce at this period covered the
back. but was cut away at the shoulders so as to leave the
arms free, while in front it was elongated into two stole-like
ends. Almuces were occasionally made of silk or wool, but
from the 13th century onward usually of fur, the hem being
sometimes fringed with tails. Hence they were known in England
as ``grey amices'' (from the ordinary colour of the fur), to
distinguish them from the liturgical amice (q.v..) By the
16th century the almuce had become definitely established as
the distinctive choir vestment Of canons; but it had ceased
to have any practical use, and was often only carried over
the left arm as a symbol of office. The almuce has now been
almost entirely superseded by the mozzetta, but it is still worn
at some cathedrals in France, e.g. Amiens and Chartres, at
three churches in Rome, and in certain cathedrals elsewhere in
Italy. The ``grey amice'' of the canons of St Paul's at London
was put down in 1549, the academic hood being substituted.
It was again put down in 1559, and was finally forbidden to
the clergy of the English Church by the unratified canons of
1571 (Report of the sub-committee of Convocation, 1908).
See du Cauge, Glossarium, s. ``Almucia''; Joseph Braun, Die
liturgische Gewandung, p. 359, &c. (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1907); also the bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.
ALNACE, or AULNAGE (from Fr. aune, ell), the official
supervision of the shape and quality of manufactured woollen
cloth. It was first ordered in the reign of Richard I. that
``woollen cloths, wherever they are made, shall be of the
same width, to wit, of two ells within the lists, and of
the same goodness in the middle and sides.'' This ordinance
is usually known as the Assize of Measures or the Assize of
Cloth. Article 35 of Magna Carta re-enacted the Assize of
Cloth, and in the reign of Edward I. an oflicial called an
``alnager'' was appointed to enforce it. His duty was to
measure each piece of cloth, and to affix a stamp to show that
it was of the necessary size and quality. As, however, the
diversity of the wool and the importation of cloths of various
sizes from abroad made it impossible to maintain any specific
standard of width, the rules as to size were repealed in
1353. The increased growth of the woollen trade, and the
introduction of new and lighter drapery in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, compelled a revision of the old standards. A statute
was passed in 1665 creating the office of alnager of the new
drapery, and defining the sizes to which cloth should be woven.
The object of the statute was to prevent people being deceived by
buying spurious woollen cloth, and to provide against fraud and
imposition. Owing to the introduction of the alternative
standard, a distinction arose between ``broadcloth'' (cloth
of two yards) and ``streit'' or ``strait'' (narrowcloth of one
yard). The meaning now attached to broadcloth, however,
is merely that of material of superior quality. Alnage
duties and the office of alnager were abolished in 1699.
See W. J. Ashley, Economic History; and W.
Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce.
ALNWICK, a market-town and the county-town of Northumberland,
England, in the Berwick-upon-Tweed parliamentary division, 309
m. N. by W. from London, on a branch of the North Eastern
railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6716. It is
beautifully situated on the small river Aln, in a hilly
district. Its history has left many marks. Dominating the
town from an eminence above the south bank of the river stands
the castle, held by the Percys since 1309, and long before
this an important border stronghold. A gateway of c. 1350,
a fine Norman arch of the middle of the 12th century, and
the ancient well in the keep, are among noteworthy ancient
portions; but the castle was extensively renovated and altered
in the second half of the 18th century, while in 1854, when
the lofty Prudhoe tower was built, a scheme of decoration
in Italian style was adopted in the interior; so that the
castle, though magnificent, has largely lost its historic
character. It contains numerous fine examples of the works
of Italian and other artists, and collections of British and
Roman and Egyptian antiquities. In the beautiful park are
a monument commemorating the capture of William the Lion of
Scotland when besieging the town in 1174, two memorial towers,
and a British stone chamber. Remains of the wall which formerly
surrounded Alnwick are visible, and one of the four gates,
the Bondgate, stands, dating from the early part of the 15th
century. The church of St Michael has Norman remains, but
is principally perpendicular; it contains several ancient
monuments and incised slabs. The modern church of St Paul
has a fine east window of German stained glass. Within the
confines of the park are ruins of two abbeys. Alnwick Abbey
was a Premonstratensian foundation of 1147; only a gateway
tower stands, but the ground-plan was excavated in 1884 and
is ourlined on the surface. At 3 m. from the town are more
extensive remains of Hulne Abbey (1240), an early Carmelite
monastery. The long narrow church remains unroofed; there
are also a gateway tower, and portions of the chapter-house
and cloisters. The Norman chapel of the hospital of St
Leonard, which, as well as Alnwick Abbey, was founded by
Eustace Fitz John, completes the series of antiquities in
Alnwick. In this interesting locality, however, there
must be mentioned the mansion of Howick, built in the 18th
century, in a fine situation near the coast to the N.E.
Not far from this, overlooking the sea from a rocky cliff
pierced by deep gullies, are the ruins of Dunstanborough
Castle; it dates from the 14th century, though the site
was probably occupied as a stronghold from earlier times.
The chief industries are brewing, tobacco, snuff and fishing-tackle
making, and corn milling. Alnwick is under an urban district
council, but is a borough by prescription, and its freemen
form a body corporate without authority over the affairs of the
town. It is, however, required to pay, under an act of
1882, a sum not less than L. 500 out of the corporate property
towards the upkeep of corporation schools. An ancient peculiar
ceremony was attached until modern times to the making of
freemen; those elected were required to ride in procession to
a large pool called Freemen's Well and there rush through the
water. According to tradition the observance of this custom
was enjoined by King John to punish the inhabitants, the
king having lost his way and fallen into a bog owing to
the neglected condition of the roads in the neighbourhood.
According to the Chronicle of Alnwick Abbey, the barony
of Alnwick belonged before the Conquest to Gilbert Tyson,
whose son and heir William was killed at Hastings, and whose
estates with his daughter were granted by the king to Ivo de
Vescy, although this theory does not seem probable since
Gilbert Tyson was certainly not a Saxon. In 1297 William
de Vescy, a descendant of Ivo, dying without issue, left
the barony to the bishop of Durham, who in 1309 sold it to
Sir Henry Percy, in whose family it still continues. The
town evidently grew up round the castle, which is said to
have been built by Eustace Fitzjohn about 1140. Tradition
states that it received its borough charter from King John.
However, Alnwick is first definitely mentioned as a borough
in a charter given by William de Vescy in the reign of Henry
II., by which the burgesses were to have common of pasture on
Haydon Moor and to hold of him ``as freely and quietly as the
burgosses of Newcastle hold of the king.'' This charter was
confirmed by his grandson, William de wescy, in an undated
charter, and again by William, son of the latter William, in
1290. According to an inquiry of 1291 a market and fair
were held in Alnwick from time immemorial. In 1297 Edward
I., in addition, granted the bishop of Durham a market on
Saturday, and a fair on the 17th of March and six following
days. By charters of Henry VI. the burgesses received
licence to enclose their town with a wall, to have a
free port at Alnmouth, a market on Wednesday as well as
Saturday, and two new fairs on the feasts of SS Philip and
James and St Lucy, and eight days following each. Tanning
and weaving were formerly the principal industries carried
on in Alnwick, and in 1646 there were twenty-two tanneries
there. Alnwick has never been represented in parliament.
See George Tate, The History of the Borough,
Castle, and Barony of Alnwick, 2 vols. (Alnwick,
1866-1869); Victoria County History, Northumberland.
ALOE, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order
Liliaceae, with about 90 species growing in the dry parts of
Africa, especially Cape Colony, and in the mountains of tropical
Africa. Members of the closely allied genera Gasteria
and Haworthia, with a similar mode of growth, are also
cultivated and popularly known as aloes. The plants are
apparently stemless, bearing a rosette of large, thick, fleshy
leaves, or have a shorter or longer (sometimes branched)
stem, along which, or towards the end of which and its
branches, the generally fleshy leaves are borne. They are
much cultivated as ornamental plants, especially in public
buildings and gardens, for their stiff, rugged habit. The
leaves are generally lance-shaped with a sharp apex and a
spiny margin; but vary in colour from grey to bright green,
and are sometimes striped or mottled. The rather small
tubular yellow or red flowers are borne on simple or branched
leafless stems and are generally densely clustered. The
juice of the leaves of certain species yields aloes (see
below). In some cases, as in Aloe venenosa, the juice is
poisonous. The plant called American aloe, Agave americana
(c.v.), belongs to a different order, viz. Amaryllidaceae.
Aloes is a medicinal substance used as a purgative and
produced from various species of aloe, such as A. vera,
vulgaris, socotrina, chinensis, and Perryi. Several
kinds of aloes are distinguished in commerce--Barbadoes,
Socotrine, hepatic, Indian, and Cape aloes. The first two
are those commonly used for medicinal purposes. Aloes is
the expressed juice of the leaves of the plant. When the
leaves are cut the juice flows out, and is collected and
evaporated. After the juice has been obtained, the leaves are
sometimes boiled, so as to yield an inferior kind of aloes.
From these plants active principles termed aloins are
extracted by water. According to W. A. Shenstone, two classes
are to be recognized: (1) Nataloins, which yield picric and
oxalic acids with nitric acid, and do not give a red coloration
with nitric acid; and (2) Barbaloins, which yield aloetic
acid, C7H2N3Q5, chrysammic acid, C7H2N2O6, picric
and oxalic acids with nitric acid, being reddened by this
reagent. This second group may be divided into a-Barbaloins,
obtained from Barbadoes aloes, and reddened in the cold,
and b-Barbaloins, obtained from Socotrine and Zanzibar
aloes, reddened by ordinary nitric acid only when warmed, or
by fuming acid in the cold. Nataloin, 2C17H13O7.H2O,
forms bright yellow scales, melting at 212 deg. -222 deg. ; barbaloin,
C17H18O7, forms yellow prismatic crystals. Aloes also
contain a trace of volatile oil, to which its odour is due.
The dose is 2 to 5 grains, that of aloin being 1/2 to 2 grains.
Aloes can be absorbed from a broken surface and will then cause
purging. When given internally it increases the actual amount
as well as the rate of flow of the bile. It hardly affects
the small intestine, but markedly stimulates the muscular
coat of the large intestine, causing purging in about fifteen
hours. There is hardly any increase in the intestinal
secretion, the drug being emphatically not a hydragogue
cathartic. There is no doubt that its habitual use may be a
factor in the formation of haemorrhoids; as in the case of all
drugs that act powerfully on the lower part of the intestine,
without simultaneously lowering the venous pressure by causing
increase of secretion from the bowel. Aloes also tends to
increase the menstrual flow and therefore belongs to the group of
emmenagogues. Aloin is preferable to aloes for therapeutic
purposes, as it causes less, if any, pain. It is a valuable
drug in many forms of constipation, as its continual use
does not, as a rule, lead to the necessity of enlarging the
dose. Its combined action on the bowel and the uterus is of
especial value in chlorosis, of which amenorrhoea is an almost
constant symptom. The drug is obviously contraindicated in
pregnancy and when haemorrhoids are already present. Many
well-known patent medicines consist essentially of aloes.
The lign-aloes is quite different from the medicinal aloes.
The word is used in the Bible (Numb. xxiv. 6), but as the trees
usually supposed to be meant by this word are not native in
Syria, it has been suggested that the LXX. reading in which
the word does not occur is to be preferred. Lign-aloe is a
corruption of the Lat. lignum-aloe, a wood, not a resin.
Dioscorides refers to it as agallochon, a wood brought from
Arabia or India, which was odoriferous but with an astringent
and bitter taste. This may be Aquilaria agallochum, a
native of East India and China, which supplies the so-called
eagle-wood or aloes-wood, which contains much resin and oil.
ALOIDAE, or ALOADAE, i.e. Otus and Ephialtes, in ancient
Greek legend, the twin-sons of Poseidon by Iphimedeia, wife of
Aloeus. They were celebrated for their extraordinary stature and
strength. According to Homer (Od. xi. 305). they made war
upon the Olympian gods and endeavoured to pile Pelion upon Ossa
in order to storm heaven itself; had they reached the age of
manhood, their attempt would have been successful, but Apollo
destroyed them before their beards began to grow. In the
Iliad (v. 365) Ares is imprisoned by them, but delivered by
Hermes. Apollodorus says that they succeeded in piling Pelion
upon Ossa. Another story is that they were presumptuous
enough to seek Artemis and Hera in marriage, and that Artemis
caused them to slay each other unintentionally on the island of
Naxos, where they were afterwards worshipped as heroes. In
punishment for their offences they were bound back to back with
snakes to a pillar in the lower world (Hyginus, Fab. 28).
The Aloidae (here connected with aloe, threshing-floor)
represent the spirits of the fertile earth and agriculture,
conceived of by the Greeks as engaged in combat with the
Olympian gods. In contrast to these legends, Pausanias tells
us that they were regarded as the first to worship the Muses
on Mt. Helicon, while Diodorus represents them as historical
personages, princes of Thessaly, who defeated the Thracians
in Strongyle, i.e. Naxos, where they made themselves
rulers, and subsequently slew one another in a quarrel.
ALOMPRA, ALOUNG P'HOURA (1711--1760), founder of the last
Burmese dynasty, was born in 1711 at Motshobo, a small village
50 m. north-west of Ava. Of humble origin, he had risen to be
chief of his native village when the invasion of Burma by the
king of Pegu in 1752 gave him the opportunity of attaining to
the highest distinction. The whole country had tamely submitted
to the invader, and the leading chiefs had taken the oaths of
allegiance. Alompra, however, with a more independent spirit,
not only contrived to regain possession of his village, but
was able to defeat a body of Peguan troops that had been sent
to punish him. Upon this the Burmese, to the number of a
thousand, rallied to his standard and marched with him upon
Ava, which was recovered from the invaders before the close of
1753. For several years he prosecuted the war with uniform
success. In 1754 the Peguans, to avenge themselves for
a severe defeat at Keoum-nuoum, slew the king of Burma,
who was their prisoner. The son of the latter claimed
the throne, and was supported by the tribe of Quois; but
Alompra resisted, being determined to maintain his own
supremacy. In 1755 Alompra founded the city of Rangoon.
In 1757 he had established his position as one of the most
powerful monarchs of the East by the invasion and conquest of
Pegu. Before a year elapsed the Peguans revolted; but
Alompra, with his usual promptitude, at once quelled the
insurrection. The Europeans were suspected of having instigated
the rising, and the massacre of the English at Negrais in
October 1759 is supposed to have been approved by Alompra
after the event, though there is no evidence that he ordered
it. Against the Siamese, who were also suspected of having
abetted the Peguan rebels, he proceeded more openly and
severely. Entering their territory, he was just about to
invest the capital when he was seized with an illness which
proved fatal on the 15th of May 1760. Alompra is one of
the most remarkable figures in modern Oriental history. To
undoubted military genius he added considerable political
sagacity, and he deserves particular credit for his efforts
to improve the administration of justice. His cruelty and
deceitfulness were faults common to all Eastern despots.
ALONE. This adjective or adverb requires no definition for its
meaning of ``by oneself'' or ``solitary''; but its etymological
history, as simply a combination of the words ``all'' and ``one''
is rather curious (compare the Ger. allein.) ``Lone'' is merely
a clipped form of the word, and so ``lonely.'' The New English
Dictionary traces the English word back to the year 1300.
ALORA, a town of southern Spain in the province of Malaga;
17 m. W.N.W. of Malaga, on the right bank of the river
Guadalhorce, and on the Cordova-Malaga railway. Pop. (1900)
10,525. Alora, which is an ancient and picturesque town, with
several Moorish ruins, occupies an outlying hill of the Sierra de
Tolox, and overlooks a fertile valley where maize, sugar-cane
and datepalms are cultivated. There are hot sulphurous springs
in the town, which has also a fine climate; and many of the
wealthy families from Malaga reside here in summer. Brandy
distilling is, after agriculture, the chief local industry.
ALOST (Flem. Aalst), a town of Belgium, in the province
of East Flanders, situated on the left bank of the Dender;
the ancient capital of what was called Imperial Flanders.
Pop. (1897) 28,771; (1904) 31,655. Flanders in the feudal
period was a fief of the king of France---the count of
Flanders being the first of the twelve peers of France; but
there was a small strip extending from Alost to the isles of
Zeeland, designated Imperial Flanders, of which the count
was the vassal of the Holy Roman emperor. Attached to the
hotel de ville is a fine belfry of the 15th century, but
unfortunately it was seriously damaged by fire in 1879. In
the church of St Martin, dating from 1498 but unfinished, is
a fine Rubens. The subject is St Roch, the patron saint of
lepers, and the colouring of the scaly skin of the leper in
the forefront of the picture is generally regarded as one
of the master's most striking effects. The work was pointed
to the order of the Brewers' Gild in (it is said) eight
days. It was outside Alost that William Clito, grandson of
William the Conqueror, who was then endeavouring to establish
his claims as count of Flanders, was mortally wounded in
1128. Of all the claims Alost possesses to fame perhaps the
most remarkable is that Thierry Maartens (c. 1474) set up
there one of the first printing presses in Europe. Alost
is famous to-day for its hop gardens and linen-bleaching
establishments. The meadows south of Alost are often covered
with the linen undergoing the process of bleaching, which
makes them assume the aspect of a whitish-blue carpet.
ALP. To the Swiss dwellers in the plains the term ``the
Alps'' (q.v.) signifies the high snowy mountains which they
see on the horizon, but to the dwellers in the valleys which
nature has carved in the sides of those high mountains, the
word alp means exclasively the summer pastures situated on
the slopes above the valley, though below the snow-line.
In fact such pastures are essential to the inhabitants of
pastoral alpine districts, for the fodder to be obtained in
the valley itself would not suffice to support the number
of cattle which are required to afford sustenance to the
inhabitants. Such mountain pastures, made use of only during
the summer months, are of almost immemorial antiquity, cases
occurring in 739, 868 and 999, while they are found in all parts
of the Alpine chain. In France and Italy the system is badly
managed, as also in Tirol (where the local name is Almen),
where, too, these pastures have in the course of years been
largely alienated by the valley inhabitants, and belong to
large villages or small towns almost in the plains. But in
Switzerland, and especially in the German-speaking mountain
districts, the alps are the centre round which the entire
pastoral life of the inhabitants turns. It is reckoned that
in that country there are now about 4778 alps in ail, the
capital value of which is put at rather over L. 3,000,000. Of
these alps about 45% are owned by the communes (exclusively
or jointly) and 54% by individuals, the remaining 1% being
the property of the state or a few great monasteries. In the
case of the alps belonging to the Swiss communes, it must be
borne in mind that ``commune'' here does not signify either
Einwohnergemeinden or Burgergemeinden, but a special
class called Alpgemeinden (for instance in the well-known
valley of Grindelwald there is one Einwohnergemeinde, but
seven Alpgemeinden.) These Alpgemeinden are composed of the
persons who have a right to send cattle up to any particular
alp in summer, this right being attached (in different places)
either to certain plots of ground in the valley or certain
houses in the Village, or to certain persons. In any case
the owners of an alp fix the greatest number of cows which
it can support during the summer without being permanently
damaged. The plot of ground which can support a single cow
(or 2 heifers, 3 calves or sheep, 4 pigs or 8 goats) is called
a Kuhstoss (of which there are 270,389 in Switzerland), and
it is in these terms that the productiveness of the alp is
reckoned. Sometimes a particular alp, or a portion of it,
is reserved exclusively to heifers and calves, or to goats
(in this case it is the loftier portion). On each alp there
are several sets of huts wherein live the cow-herds and
cheese-makers (the latter are called Sennen or Fruitiers),
the cattle being generally left in the open. The cattle, with
their attendants, shift from one to the other of these sets
of huts, between the end of June and the end of September,
making but one sojourn at the highest huts, but two at the
lower. The proper name for these nuts is Sennhutten or
chalets, but the latter term is incorrectly applied also
to houses in the village below. The milk given each day by
each cow is entered in a book, and then made into butter and
cheese. the cow-herds and cheese-makers having the right to
a certain proportion of milk, butter and cheese for their own
sustenance, and receiving a small sum per head of cattle for
looking after them. At the end of the season the net amount
of cheese produced by milk from each cow is handed over to
the owner of that particular cow, and is carried down by him
to his home in the valley from the hut (a small building on
four stone legs to secure the contents from mice) wherein
the cheeses have been stored since they were made--this hut
is called a Speicher. As the owners of Kuhstossen may
exchange them provisionally for others on another alp, or
may hire them out (they can only sell them with the plot or
house to which they are attached), the persons who in any
given summer actually send cows up to an alp (these form the
Besetzerschaft) need not necessarily be absolutely identical
with the true owners of these rights or Besitzerschaft. Hay
is never mown on the true alps save in spots which are not
easily accessible to cattle (in very high spots it belongs
to the mower, and is then called Wildheu), but hay-crops
are made on the Mayens or Voralpen, the lowest pastures,
situated between the homesteads and the true alps; these
Voralpen are individual (not communal) property, though
probably in olden days cut out of the true Alpen. In the
winter the cattle consume the hay mown on these Voralpeii
(which, to a certain extent, are grazed in late spring and
early autumn, that is, before and after the summer sojourn
on the alps), either living in the huts on the Foralpen
while they consume it, or in the stable attached to the
dwelling-houses in the village; in the barn is stored the hay
mown on the homestead and on the meadows near the village,
which may belong to the owner of the cattle. The whole system
is well organized and is well understood by the natives,
though not always by strangers who visit the Alps in summer.
See John Ball, Hints and Notes for Travellers in the Alps (article
x., especially pp: lvii.-lxv.); new edition, London, 1899; Felix
Anderegg, Illustriertes Lehrbuch fur die gesamte schweiz.
Alpwirtschaft (Bern, 1897--1898); the Schweiz-Alpstatistik
(each volume devoted to the alps of a single Swiss canton);
and A. v. Miaskowski's two books, Die schweiz. Allmend
(Leipzig, 1879), and Die Verfassung der Land-, Alpen- und
Forstwirtschaf der Schweiz (Basel, 1878). (W. A. B. C.)
ALPACA, one of two domesticated breeds of South American
camel-like ungulates, derived from the wild huanaco or
guanaco. Alpacas are kept in large flocks which graze on
the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru and northern
Bolivia, at an elevation of from 14,000 to 16,000 ft. above
the sea-level, throughout the year. They are not used
as beasts of burden like llamas, but are valued only for
their wool, of which the Indian blankets and ponchos are
made. The colour is usually dark brown or black and the coat
of great length, reaching nearly to the ground. In stature
the alpaca (Lama huanacos pacos) is considerably inferior
to the llama, but has the same unpleasant habit of spitting.
In the textile industries ``alpaca'' is a name given to two distinct
things. It is primarily a term applied to the wool, or rather
hair, obtained from the Peruvian alpaca. It is, however, more
broadly applied to a style of fabric originally made from the
alpaca wool but now frequently made from an allied type of
wool, viz. mohair, Iceland, or even from lustrous English
wool. In the trade, distinctions are made between alpacas and
the several styles of mohairs and lustres, but so far as the
general purchaser is concerned little or no distinction is made.
The four species of indigenous South American wool-bearing
animals are the llama, the alpaca, the guanaco and the
vicuna. The llama and the alpaca are domesticated; the
guanaco and the vicuna run wild. Of the four the alpaca and
the vicuna are the most valuable wool-bearing animals: the
alpaca on account of the quality and quantity, the vicuna
on account of the softness, fineness and quality of its
wool. In the early days of the 19th century, the usual
length of alpaca staples appears to have been about 12 in.,
this being a three years' growth; but to-day the length is
little more than about half this, i.e. a one to two years'
growth, although from time to time longer staples are to be
found. The fleeces are sorted for colour and quality by
skilled native women. The colour of the greater proportion
of alpaca imported into the United Kingdom is black and
brown, but there is also a fair proportion of white, grey and
fawn. It is customary to mix these colours together, thus
producing a curious ginger-coloured yarn, which upon being
dyed black in the piece takes a fuller and deeper shade
than can be obtained by piece-dyeing a solid-coloured
wool. In physical structure alpaca is somewhat akin to hair,
being very glossy, but its softness and fineness enable the
spinner to produce satisfactory yarns with comparative ease.
The history of the manufacture of this wool into cloth is one
of the romances of commerce. Undoubtedly the Indians of Peru
employed this fibre in the manufacture of many styles of fabrics
for centuries before its introduction into Europe as a commercial
product. The first European importations would naturally be into
Spain. Spain, however, transferred the fibre to Germany and
France. Apparently alpaca yarn was spun in England for the
first time about the year 1808. It does not appear to have
made any headway, however, and alpaca wool was condemned as an
unworkable material. In 1830 Benjamin Outram, of Greetland,
near Halifax, appears to have again attempted the spinning
of this fibre, and for the second time alpaca was condemned.
These two attempts to use alpaca were failures owing to the
style of fabric into which the yarn was woven---a species of
camlet. It was not until the introduction of cotton warps
into the Bradford trade about 1836 that the true qualities
of alpaca could be developed in the fabric. Where the cotton
warp and mohair or alpaca weft plain-cloth came from is not
known, but it was this simple yet ingenious structure which
enabled Titus Salt (q.v.), then a young Bradford manufacturer,
to utilize alpaca successfully. Bradford is still the great
spinning and manufacturing centre for alpacas, large quantities
of yarns and cloths being exported annually to the continent
and to the United States, although the quantities naturally
vary in accordance with the fashions in vogue, the typical
``alpaca-fabric'' being a very characteristic ``dress-fabric.''
The following statistics, taken from Hooper's Statistics of the
Woollen and Worsted Trades of the United Kingdom, give an idea
of the extent of the trade in yarns and fabrics of the alpaca
type; unfortunately statistics for alpaca alone are not published.
Alpaca, Vicuna, and Llama Wool imported into the United Kingdom.
Year Peru Chile1
lb L. lb L.
1854 1,247,015 124,946 15,573 1,557 1860 2,334,048 263,635
520,402 58,443 1870 3,324,454 388,969 563,782 65,996 1880
1,412,365 98,644 890,627 64,621 1890 3,114,336 190,703 564,606
30,694 1900 4,236,566 205,839 1,148,694 51,116 1902 5,038,998
259,927 1,028,171 47,610 1905 2,301,522 119,321 2,302,650 112,367
Note.--in 1840 the imports into, exports from, and consumed in
the United Kingdom of mohair, alpaca, vicuna, &c., amounted to
Exports of Mohair and Alpaca Yarns for 1905.
Russia . . . 1,288,800 lb. . . . L. 168,596
Germany. . . 9,851,200 '' . . . 1,145,795
Belgium. . . . 316,400 '' . . . 40,409
France . . . 2,006,700 '' . . . 223,605
Exports of Alpaca from the United Kingdom to the United States.
1881 . L. 1,256 1900 . .L. 30,631
1890 . . . -- 1905 . . 4,954
Owing to the success in the manufacture of the various styles
of alpaca cloths attained by Sir Titus Salt and other Bradlord
manufacturers, a great demand for alpaca wool arose, and
this demand could not be met by the native product, for
there never seems to have been any appreciable increase
in the number of alpacas available. Unsuccessful attempts
were made to acclimatize the alpaca goat in England, on
the European continent and in Australia, and even to cross
certain English breeds of sheep with the alpaca. There is,
however, a cross between the alpaca and the llama--a true
hybrid in every sense--producing a material placed upon
the Liverpool market under the name ``Huarizo.'' Crosses
between the alpaca and vicuna have not proved satisfactory.
The preparing, combing, spinning, weaving and finishing of
alpacas and mohairs are dealt with under WOOL. (A. F. B.)
1 Grown in Peru but shipped from Valparaiso.
ALP ARSLAN, or AXAN, MAHOMMED BEN DA'UD (1029-1072),
the second sultan of the dynasty of Seljuk, in Persia, and
great-grandson of Seljuk, the founder of the dynasty, was born
in the year A.D. 1029 (421 of the Hegira). He assumed the
name of Mahommed when he embraced the Mussulman faith; and on
account of his military prowess he obtained the surname Alp
Arslan, which signifies ``a valiant lion.'' He succeeded
his father Da'ud as ruler of Khorasan in 1059, and his uncle
Togrul Bey as sultan of Oran in 1063, and thus became sole
monarch of Persia from the river Oxus to the Tigris. In
consolidating his empire and subduing contending factions he
was ably assisted by Nizam ul-Mulk, his vizier, one of the
most eminent statesmen in early Mahommedan history. Peace
and security being established in his dominions, he convoked
an assembly of the states and declared his son Malik Shah
his heir and successor. With the hope of acquiring immense
booty in the rich church of St Basil in Caesarea, the capital
of Cappadocia, he placed himself at the head of the Turkish
cavalry, crossed the Euphrates and entered and plundered that
city. He then marched into Armenia and Georgia, which, in
1064, he finally subdued. In 1068 Alp Arslan invaded the Roman
empire. The emperor Romanus Diogenes, assuming the command in
person, met the invaders in Cihcia. In three arduous campaigns,
the two first of which were conducted by the emperor himself
while the third was directed by Manuel Comnenus, the Turks
were defeated in detail and finally (1070) driven across the
Euphrates. In 1071 Romanus again took the field and advanced
with 100,000 men, including a contingent of the Turkish tribe
of the Uzes and of the French and Normans, under Ursel of
Bahol, into Armenia. At Manzikert, on the Murad Tchai, north
of Lake Van, he was met by Alp Arslan; and the sultan having
proposed terms of peace, which were scornfully rejected by
the emperor, a battle took place in which the greeks, after
a terrible slaughter, were totally routed, a result due
mainly to the rapid tactics of the Turkish cavalry. Romanus
was taken prisoner and conducted into the presence of Alp
Arslan, who treated him with generosity, and terms of peace
having been agreed to, dismissed him, loaded with presents
and respectfully attended by a military guard. The dominion
of Alp Arslan now extended over the fairest part of Asia;
1200 princes or sons of princes surrounded his throne and
200,000 warriors were at his command. He now prepared to
march to the conquest of Turkestan, the original seat of his
ancestors. With a powerful army he advanced td the banks
of the Oxus. Before he could pass the river with safety
it was necessary to subdue certain fortresses, one of which
was for several days vigorously defended by the governor,
Yussuf Kothual, a Kharizmian. He was, however, obliged to
surrender and was carried a prisoner before the sultan, who
condemned him to a cruel death. Yussuf, in desperation,
drew his dagger and rushed upon the sultan. Alp Arslan, the
most skilful archer of his day, motioned to his guards not to
interfere and drew his bow, but his foot slipped, the arrow
glanced aside and he received the assassin's dagger in his
breast. The wound proved mortal, and Alp Arslan expired a
few hours after he received it, on the 15th of December 1072
See Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J.
B. Bury (1898), vi. pp. 235 et seq., and authoriries there cited.
ALPENA, a city and the county seat of Alpena county, Michigan,
U.S.A., on Thunder Bay, a small arm of Lake Huron, at the
mouth of Thunder Bay river, in the N.E. part of the lower
peninsula. Pop. (1890) 11,283; (1900) 11,802, of whom 4193
were foreign-born; (1910 census) 12,706. It is served.by
the Detroit & Mackinac railway and by steamboat lines to
Detroit and other ports. The city is built on sandy ground
on both sides of the river and has a good harbour, which
has been considerably improved by the Federal government;
in 1007 the maximum draft that could be carried over the
shallowest part of the channel was 14 ft. There is good
farming land in the vicinity and Alpena has lumber and
shingle mills, pulp works, Portlald cement manufactories and
tanneries; in 1905 the city's factory products were valued at
$2,905,263. In 1906 the commerce of the port, chiefly in
lumber, cement, coal, cedar posts and ties, fodder and general
merchandise, was valued at $3,018,894. Alpena occupies
the site of an Indian burying-ground. A tradingpost was
established here in 1835, but the permanent settlement
dates from 1858; in 1871 Alpena was chartered as a city.
ALPENHORN, ALPHORN, a musical instrument, consisting of
a natural wooden horn of conical bore, having a cup-shaped
mouthpiece, used by mountaineers in Switzerland and
elsewhere. The tube is made of thin strips of birchwood
soaked in water until they have become quite pliable; they
are then wound into a tube of conical form from 4 to 8 ft.
long, and neatly covered with bark. A cup-shaped mouthpiece
carved out of a block of hard wood is added and the instrument
is complete. The alpenhorn has no lateral openings and
therefore gives the pure natural harmonic series of the open
pipe. The harmonics are the more readily obtained by reason
of the small diameter of the bore in relation to the length.
An alpenhorn made at Rigi-Kulm, Schwytz, and now in the South
Kensington Museum, measures 8 ft. in length and has a straight
tube. The well-known Ranz des Paches is the traditional
melody of the alpenhorn, which has been immortalized by
Beethoven in the finale of the Pastoral Symphony, where
the music is generally rendered by a cor aniglais (q.v..)
Rossini has introduced the melody into his opera William
Tell. Wagner, in the third act of Tristan and Isolde,
was not entirely satisfied with the tone quality of the cor
anglais for representing the natural pipe of the peasant.
Having in his mind the timbre of the alpenhorn, he had a wooden
horn made for him with one valve only and a small pear-shaped
bell, which is used at Bayreuth (see HONZTROMPETE.) The
Swiss alpenhorn varies in shape according to the locality,
being curved near the bell in the Bernese Oberland. Michael
Praetorius mentions the alpenhorn under the name of holzerni
trummet in Syniagma Musicum (Wittenberg, 1615--1619). (K. S.)
ALPES MARITIMES, a department in the S.E. of France, formed
in 1860 out of the county of Nice, to which were added the
districts of Grasse (formerly in the department of the Var)
and of Mentone (purchased from the prince of Monaco). Pop.
(1906) 334,007. It is bounded N.E. and E. by Italy, S. by
the Mediterranean Sea, and W. by the departments of the Var
and the Basses Alpes, while its northern extremity forms a
sharp angle between France and Italy. Its area is 1444 sq.
m., its greatest length is 59 m. and its greatest breadth 48 1/2
m. It is composed of the valley of the Var river (which
is all but completely within this department), together
with those of its chief affluents, the Tinee and the
Vesubie. The region of Grasse is hilly, but the rest of
the department is mountainous, its loftiest point being the
Mont Tinibras (9948 ft.) at the head of the Tinee valley.
Two singular features of the frontier of the department
towards the east are only to be explained by historical
reasons. One is that the ce:itral bit of the Roja valley is
French, while the upper and lower bits of this valley are
Italian; the reason is that those bits which are now Italian
formed part of the county of Ventimiglia, and the central
bit part of the county of Nice, which alone became French in
1860. The result is that the Italians are now unable to build
a railway from Culeo by the Col de Tenda and down the Roja
valley direct to Ventimiglia. The other strange feature is
that from near Isola in the upper Tinee valley southwards
the political frontier does not coincide with the physical
frontier, or the main watershed of the Alpine chain; the reason
(it is said) is that in 1860 all the higher valleys of the
Maritime Alps (on both sides of the watershed) were expressly
excepted from the treaty of cession, in order that Victor
Emmanuel II. might retain his right of chamois hunting in these
parts. The department is divided into three arrondissements
(Nice, Grasse and Puget Thenicrs), 27 cantons and 155
communes. It forms the bishopric of Nice (the first bishop
certainly known is mentioned at the end of the 4th century),
which till 1792 was in the ecclesiastical province of Embrun,
then (1802) in that of Aix en Provence, next in that of Genoa
(1814),and lilally (1860) in that of Aix again. Its chief town is
Nice. The broad-gauge railways in the department cover 56
m., including the line along the coast, while there are also
82 m. of narrow-gauge railways. The chief industries are
distilleries for perfumes and manufacture of olive oil, of
pottery and of tiles, besides a great commerce in cut flowers.
To foreigners the department is best known for its health
resorts, Nice, Cannes, Mentone, Antibes and Beaulieu, while other
important towns are Grasse and Puget Theniers. (W. A. B. C.)
ALPHA and OMEGA (A and O), the first and last letters of
the Greek alphabet, corresponding to the Aleph and Taw of the
Hebrew. They are used as a designation of Himself by the speaker
in Rev.i.8; xxi. 6; xxii. 13. The first and last letters of
the Hebrew alphabet are used in Rabbinic writings in a similar
way. We find also ``the seal of God is Emeth,'' Emeth (truth)
being composed of the first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew
alphabet. God is thus represented as the beginning, middle
and end of all things (see the Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v.).
ALPHABET (see also WRITING.) By the word alphabet, derived
from the Greek names for the first two letters--alpha and
beta--of the Greek alphabet, is meant a series of conventional
symbols each indicating a single sound or combination of
sounds. The ideal alphabet would indicate one sound by one
symbol, and not more than one sound by the same symbol. Symbols
for a combination of sounds are not necessary, though they
may be convenient as abbreviations. In the writing of some
languages, e.g. Sanskrit, such abbreviations are carried to
an extreme; in most Greek MSS. also they are of very frequent
occurrence. These contractions, however, may prove too great
a strain upon the eyesight or the memory, and thus become a
hindrance instead of a help. This was apparently the case in
Greek, for though the early printers cast types for all the
contractions of the Greek MSS. these have now with one consent
been given up. A consonant like x can only be regarded
as an abbreviation; it expresses nothing that cannot as well
be expressed by ks or gz, both of which combinations in
different situations it may represent (see X). No alphabet
corresponds exactly to the ideal which we have postulated,
nor if it did, would it continue long so to do, as the sounds
of most languages are continually changing. Hence in the
case of dead languages or past forms of living languages,
it is often very difficult to define with precision what the
sounds of the past epoch were. The study of the history of
English pronunciation occupied the late Dr A. J. Ellis for
a large part of his life, and the results fill five large
volumes. The sounds which are most difficult to define exactly
are the vowels; a great variety may be indicated by the same
symbol. In the New English Dictionary no fewer than thirteen
different nuances of vowel sound are distinguished under the
symbol A alone. In English, moreover, the vowel sounds tend
to become diphthongs, so that the symbol for the simple sound
tends to become the symbol for that combination which we call a
diphthong. Thus the long i in ride, wine, &c., has become
the diphthong ai, and the name of the symbol I is itself so
pronounced. In familiar, if vulgar, dialects, A tends in the
same direction. In the ``cockney'' dialect, really the dialect
of Essex but now no less familiar in Cambridge and Middlesex,
the ai sound of i is represented by oi as in toime,
``time,'' while a has become ai in Kate, pane, &c. In,
all southern English o becomes more rounded while it is being
pronounced, so that it ends with a slight u sound. In the
vulgar dialect already mentioned, the sound begins as a more
open sound than in the cultivated pronunciation, so that no
is really pronounced as naou. It is clear, therefore, that
the best alphabet would not long indicate very precisely the
sounds which it was intended to represent. See PHONETICS.
But the history of the alphabet shows that at no time has it
represented any European language with much precision, because
it was an importation adapted in a somewhat rough and ready
fashion to represent sounds different from those which it
represented outside Europe. Wherever the alphabet may have
originated, there seems no doubt that its first importation
in a form closely resembling that with which we are familiar
in modern times was from the Phoenicians to the Greeks. The
Phoenicians were certainly using it with freedom in the 9th
century B.C.; with so much freedom, indeed, that they must
have been in possession of it for a considerable time before
we can trace it. With the materials available up to August
1910 it would be idle here to attempt to trace its earlier
history. Great discoveries in Cappadocia, Assyria and
Egypt were then only at their beginning, and any statement
was liable to be quickly disproved by the appearance of new
evidence. The prevalent theory, universally accepted till
a few years ago, was that of Vicomte Emmanuel de Ronge,
first propounded to the Academie des Inscriptions in 1859,
but unnoticed by the world at large till republished, after
derouge's death, by his son in 1874. According to this
view the alphabet was borrowed by the Phoenicians from the
cursive (hieratic) form of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The
resemblances between some Egyptian symbols and some symbols
of the Phoenician alphabet are striking; in other cases the
differences are no less remarkable. As a matter of fact
the Egyptians might have passed about thirty-five centuries
B.C. from the picture writing of hieroglyphs to genuine
alphabetic signs.1 They did not, however, profit by their
discovery, because, amongst the Egyptians, writing was clearly
a mystery in both senses--only possible at that period for
masters in the craft, and also something, like the writing
of medical prescriptions at the present day in Latin, which
was not to be made too easily intelligible to the common
people. At all periods, moreover, hieroglyphic writing was a
branch of decorative art, and it may have been that the ancient
Egyptian, like the modern Turk, resented too much lucidity,
and liked his literary compositions to be veiled in a certain
obscurity. The alphabet devised by the Egyptians consisted
of twenty-four letters. Egyptologists are at variance on the
question whether this alphabet was the original, or had any
influence upon the development of the Phoenician alphabet.
``With the papyrus paper,'' says Professor Breasted,2 ``the
hand customarily written upon it in Egypt now made its way into
Phoenicia, where before the 10th century B.C. it developed
into an alphabet of consonants, which was quickly transmitted
to the Ionian Greeks and thence to Europe.'' On the other
hand, Professor Spiegelberg,3 writing soon after Professor
Breasted, says that investigation has not as yet furnished
proof that the Phoenician alphabet is of Egyptian origin, though
he admits that in some respects the development of the two
alphabets, both without vowel signs, is curiously parallel.
The most recent view is that of Dr A. J. Evans, who argues
ingeniously that the alphabet was taken over from Crete by the
``Cherethites and Pelethites'' or Philistines, who established
for themselves settlements on the coast of Palestine.4
From them it passed to the Phoenicians, who were their near
neighbours, if not their kinsfolk. Symbols like the letters
of the alphabet have been found in European soil painted
upon pebbles belonging to a stratum between the Palaeolithic
and Neolithic age.5 This was in France at Mas d'Azil on the
left bank of the Arize. Elsewhere several series of such
symbols resembling inscriptions have been found scratched on
bones of the same period.6 For the history of writing these
may be important, but for the history of the alphabet, as
we know it, they are not in question. The alphabet may have
originated as Dr Evans thinks, but at present the proof is not
conclusive. The Greek names of the letters, their forms,
and the order of the symbols show that the Greek alphabet
as we know it must have been imported by or from a Semitic
people, and there is no evidence to contradict ancient
tradition that this people was the Phoenicians. The view
propounded by Deecke7 in 1877, that the Phoenician alphabet
had developed out of the late Assyrian cuneiform, never met
with much acceptance and has really no evidence in its favour.
The earliest alphabetic document which can be dated with
comparative certainty is the famous Moabite stone, which was
discovered in 1868, and after a controversy between rival
claimants which led to its being broken in pieces by the Arabs,
ultimately reached the Louvre, where in a restored form it
remains. The long inscription upon it celebrates the achievements
of Mesha, king of Moab, who had been a tributary of Ahab, king
of Israel, and rebelled after his death (1 Kings iii. 4, 5).
Though the chronology of the period is somewhat uncertain, the
date must be in the first half of the 9th century B.C. It
is to be remembered, however, that important as this monument
is for the development of the alphabet, and because it can
be dated with tolerable accuracy, the dialect and alphabet
of Moab are not in themselves proof for the Phoenician forms
which influenced the peoples of the Aegean, and through them
Western Europe. The fragment of a bronze bowl discovered
in Cyprus in 1876, which bears round its edge an inscription
dedicating it to Baal-Lebanon as a gift from a servant of
Hiram, king of the Sidonians, is probably the oldest Phoenician
document which we possess. This bowl, though perhaps a
little earlier than the Moabite stone, in all probability
is not more than a century older, while some authorities
think it is even later. The earliest alphabet consisted
of twenty-two letters, and bears a very close resemblance
to the earliest Green alphabet from A to T. The symbols
in the Greek alphabet from Y to O, or in the numerical
alphabet to @, are not found in the Phoenician alphabet.
As already mentioned, the twenty-two symbols of the Phoenician
alphabet indicate consonantal sounds only. Greek did not possess
so many consonants. The Phoenician alphabet possessed many
more aspirates than were required in Greek, which tended more
and more to drop all its aspirates. Before history begins it
had also lost, except sporadically in out-of-the-way dialects,
the semi-vowel i (approximately English y.) It therefore
made the aspirates A, E, O and the semi-vowel into
vowels, and apparently converted the semi-vowel Y = w into
the vowel Y = u, which it placed at the end of the alphabet
and substituted for it as the sixth symbol of the alphabet
the letter F with the old value of w. The superfluous
sibilants were also adapted in various ways (see below).
Relationship of Greek to Phoenician
The discovery of a large number of very archaic inscriptions
in the island of Thera, which was made by Freiherr Hiller von
Gartringen in 1896, has shown that the earliest Greek alphabet
was even more like the Phoenician than had been heretofore
believed. The symbol for b in Thera (@) is nearer than
any previously known to the Semitic letter (@) though, as not
infrequently happens in the transference of a symbol from one
people to another, its position is inverted--a fate which in
this alphabet has befallen also l (Semitic @, Thera @), and
possibly s (Semitic @, Thera @). The era of excavation
initiated by Dr Schliemann on the grand scale has increased
our knowledge of Greek inscriptions beyond anything that was
earlier dreamt of. Besides the excavations of Athens, Delos,
Epidaurus and Delphi, the results of which are most important
for the 5th century B.C. and later. the exploration of the
sites of Olympia, of the Heraeum near Argos, of Naucratis in
Egypt, and of various Cretan towns (above all the ancient
Gortyn), has revolutionized our knowledge of the archaic
alphabets of Greece. We can now see how long and laborious
was the process by which the Greeks attained to uniformity
in writing and in numeration. In no field, perhaps, was the
centrifugal tendency of the Greeks more persistent than in such
matters. In numeration, indeed, uniformity was not attained
till at least the 2nd century of the Christian era. The
differentiation of the local alphabets is found from the very
beginning of our records: Unfortunately, as yet no record is
preserved which can with any probabilily be dated earlier than
the 7th century B.C., and the Phoenician influence had by
then nearly ceased. How long this influence lasted we cannot
tell. If in Crete a system of writing of an entirely different
nature had been developed seven or eight centuries before,
there must have been some very important reason for the
entire abandonment of the old method and the adoption of a
new. In Crete, at least, the excavations show that the
old civilization must have ended in a social and political
cataclysm. The magnificent palace of Minos--there seems no
reason to withhold from it the name of the great prince whom
Thucydides recognized as the first to hold the empire of the
sea--perished by the flames, and it evidently had been plundered
beforehand of everything that a conqueror would regard as
valuable. The only force in Greek history which we know
that could have produced this change was that of the Dorian
conquest. As everywhere in the Peloponnese, except at Argos,
there seems to have been a sudden break with the earlier
civilization, which can have been occasioned only by the
semi-barbarous Dorian tribes, so the same result seems to
have followed from the same cause in Thera. The Dorians
apparently were without an alphabet, and consequently when
Phoenician traders and pirates occupied the place left
vacant by the downfall of Minos's empire, the people of the
island, and of the sea coasts generally, adopted from them
the Phoenician alphabet.8 The Greeks who migrated to Cyprus,
possibly as the result of the Dorian invasion, adopted a
syllabary, not an alphabet (see Plate; also WRITING.)
That the alphabet was borrowed and adapted independently by
different places not widely separated, and that the earliest
Greek alphabets did not spread from one or a few centres
in Greek lands, seem clear (a) from the different Greek
sounds for which the Phoenician symbols were utilized; (b)
from the different symbols which were employed to represent
sounds which the Phoenicians did not possess, and for which,
therefore, they had no symbols. The Phoenician alphabet was
an alphabet of consonants only, but all Greek alphabets as
yet known agree in employing A, E, I, O, Y as vowels. On
the other band, a table of Greek alphabets9 will show how
widely divergent the symbols for the same sound were. Except
for a single Attic inscription (see Plate), the alphabets of
Thera and of Corinth are the oldest Greek alphabets which we
possess. Yet at Corinth alongside @), which is found for
the so-called spurious diphthong ei (i.e. the Attic ei,
which does not represent an Indo-European ei, but arises by
contraction, as in fileite, or through the lengthening of
the vowel sound as the result of the loss of a consonant, as
in eiremenos for fefremenos) the short e sound is
represented by B; i is found at Corinth in its oldest form
@, and also as S, while in Thera it is @. In Thera the w
sound of digamma (f) was entirely lost, and therefore is not
represented. Both Thera and Corinth employ in the earliest
inscriptions @ for z, not x, though in both alphabets the
ordinary use as x is adopted, no doubt through the influence
of trade with other states. On the other hand. at Cleonae.
which is distant not more than 8 or 9 m. from Corinth, an
ancient inscription written boustrofedon has recently been
discovered, which shows that. though Cleonae for B wrote
@, like the Corinthian @, and, as at Corinth, wrote @ for
a vowel sound, the vowel thus represented was not short and
long e (e and e) as at Corinth, but e only, as in
@ (chrema me.) Here @ represents e, and the spurious
diphthong is represented by ei, as in @ (eimen, Doric
infinitive = einai), a form which shows that i has at
Cleonae the more modern form as distinguished from the Corinthian
Regarding three other questions controversy still rages.
These are: (a) how Greek utilized the four sibilants (Shin,
Samech, Zain and Zade), which it rook over from the Phoenician;
(b) what was the history of development in the symbols
for f, ch, ps, o (the history of x belongs to both
heads); (c) the history of the symbol for the digamma f.
Greek use of Phoenician sibilants.
In the Phoenician alphabet Zain was the seventh letter, occupying
the same position and having the same form approximately
(@) as the early Greek Z, while in pronunciation it was
a, voiced s-sound; Samech (@) followed the symbol for n
and was the ordinary s-sound, though, as we have seen, it
is in different Greek slates at the earliest period z as
well as x; afier the symbol for p came Zade (@), which
was a strong palatal s, though in name it corresponds to
the Greek zera: while lastly Shin (@ follows rhe symbol
for r, and was an sh-sound. The Greek name for the
sibilant (sigma) may simply mean the hissing letter and be
a derivative from sizo; many authorities, however, hold that
it is a corruption of the Phoenician Samech. Unfortunately,
it is not clear how many sibilants ere distinguished in Greek
pronunciation, nor over what areas a particular pronunciation
extended. There is, however, considerable evidence of the view
that Greek ss representing the sound arising from ky, ch
y, ty, thy was pronounced as sh (s), while z
representing gy, dy was pronounced in some districts zh
(
***Possible erro
On an inscriotion of Halicarnassus, a town which stood in
ancient Carian territory, the sound of ss in 'Alikarnasseon
is represented by @, as it is also in the Carian name
Panyassis (Panna Tios, genitive), though the ordinary
@@ is also found in the same inscription. The same
variation occurs at the neighbouring Teos and at Ephesus,
while the coins of Mesembria in Thrace show regularly @ and
@, where @ represents the sound which resulted from the
fusion of thy, and which appears in Homer as ss in
messos, while in later Green it becomes mesos.12.
This symbol @ is in all probability the early form of the
letter which was known to the Greeks as San (san) and in
modern times as Sampi, and which is utilized as the numeral
for 900 in the shape @ According to Herodotus (i. 139), San
was only the Dorian name for the letter which the Ionians
called Sigma. This would bring it into connexion with the
Phoenician @ (Shin), which, turned through a right angle,
is possibly the Greek S, though some forms of Zade on
old Hebrew coins and gems (@) equally resemble the Greek
letter. From other forms of Sade, however, the other early
form of s, viz. @, is probably derived. The confusion
is thus extreme: the name Zade assimilated in Greek to the
names eta and qhra becomes zeta, though the form is
that of Zain; the name of Samech is possibly the origin of
Sigma, while the form of Samech is that of X which has
not taken over a Phoenician name. lt is probable that the
form @ is an abbreviation in writing from right to left
of the earlier @, and @ of the four stroke @. That the
confusion of the sibilants was not coufined to the Greeks
only, but that pronunciation varied within a small area even
among the Semitic stock, is shown by the difficulty which the
Ephraimites found in pronouncing ``shibboleth'' (Judges xii. 6).
History of the digamma.
For the history of the additional symbols which are not
Phoenician, we must begin with @ There is no Greek alphabet
in which the symbol is not represented. But the Phoenician
form corresponding to it is the consonant w, and occupies
the position of the Greek digamma as sixth in the series.
Whence did the Greeks obtain the digamma? The point is not
clear, but probably the Greeks acted here as they did in the
case of the vowel i and the consonant y, adopting the
consonant symbol for the vowel sound. As, however, except in
Cyprus, Pamphylia and Argos, the only y sound which survived
in Greek-- the glide between i and another vowel as in
diia=diya--is never represented, there was no occasion
to use the Phoenician Jod in a double function. With Vau
it was different; the u-sound existed in some form in all
dialects, the w-souud survived in many far into historical
times. The Phoenician symbol having been adopted for the vowel
sound, whence came the new symbol @ or @ for the digamma?
Hitherto there have been two views. Most authorities have
held that the new form was derived from E by dropping the
lowermost crossbar; some have held that it developed out of
the old Vau, a view which is not impossible in itself and
has the similar development in Aramaic (Tema) in its favour.
But as Dr Evans has found a form like the digamma among his
most recent types of symbols, and as we have no intermediate
forms which will prove the development of @ from @ ,
though the form found at Oaxos in Crete, viz. @ shows a form
sufficiently unlike @, it is necessary to suspend judgment.
Greek aspirates, &c.
The Greek aspirates were not the sounds which we represent
by ph, th, ch (Scotch), but corresponded rather to the
sound of the final consonants in such words as lip, bit,
lich, the breath being audible after the formation of the
consonant. It is not clear that Greek took over @ with this
value, for in one Theran inscription @ are found combined as
equivalent to T--H, while the regular representation of f
and ch is @ and K @, or @ (koppa) @ respectively. In
the great Gortyn inscription from Crete and occasionally in
Thera, @ (in Crete in the form C) and K are used alone
for f and ch, just as conversely even in the 5th century
the name of Themistocles has been found upon an ostrakon
spelt Themisthokles. Such confusions show that even to Greek
ears the distinction between the sounds was very small. To
have recorded it in writing at all shows considerable progress
in the observation of sounds. Such progress is more easily
indicated by changes in the symbols among a people whose
acquaintance with the art is not of long standing nor vcry
familiar. English, though possessing sounds comparable to
the Greek th, f, ch, has never made any attempt to represent
them in writing. On the other hand, no doubt Athens in 403
B.C. officially adopted the Ionic alphabet and gave up
the old Attic alphabet. The political situation in Athens,
however, at this time was as exceptional as the French
Revolurion, and offered an opportunity not likely to recur
for the adoption of a system in widely extended use which
private individuals had been employing for a long time.
The history of rhe symbols f and ch is altogether unknown.
The very numerous theories on the subject have generally been
founded on a principle which itself is in need of proof, viz.
that these symbols must have arisen by differentiation from
others already existing in the alphabet. The explanation is
possible, but it is not easy to see why, for example, the
symbol @ or @ = Koppa, the Latin Q, should have been
utilized for a sound so different as p-h; nor, again, why
the symbol for th (@) by losing its cross stroke should
become f, seeing that the sounds of th and f outside
Aeolic (a dialect which is not here in question) are never
confused. On the other hand, if we remember the large number
of symbols belonging to the prehistoric script, it will seem
at least as easy to believe that the persons who, by adding
new letters to the Phoenician alphabet, attempted to bring
the symbols more into accordance with the sounds of the Greek
language, may have borrowed from this older script. It is
now generally admitted that the improvements of the alphabet
were made by traders in the interests of commerce, and that
these improvements began from the great Greek emporia of Asia
Minor, above all from Miletus. Symbols exactly like f,
ch, and ps (@, @, @) are found in the Carian alphabet,
and transliterated by Professor Sayce 13 as v (and
u), h and kh respectively. If the Carian alphabet goes
back to the prehistoric script, why should not Miletus have
borrowed them from it? We have already seen that, in the
earliest alphabets of Thera and Corinth, the ordinary symbol
for x in the Ionic alphabet was used for z. This usage
brought in its train another--the use of @, not for ps as
in Ionic, but for x in the name @ = 'Alexagooa, and
similarly in Melos, @ = Praxikudeos.14 This experiment,
for it was no more, bclongs apparently to the latter part
of the 6th century, and was soon given up. As the Ionians
kept the form @, which the people of Thera used for z,
in the same position in their alphabet as Samech occupied
in the Phoenician alphabet, there can be no doubt as to its
origin. The symbol @ which the Chalcidian Greeks used in
the 6th century B.C. for x may be derived, according to
the most widely accepted theory, from a primitive form of
Samech @, which is recorded only in the abecedaria of the
Chalcidian colonies in Italy. In this case the borrowing of
the Greek alphabet must long precede any Phoenician record we
possess. But it is not probable that the Ionic and Phoenician
@ developed independently from the closed form. Kretschmer,
however, in several publications15 takes a different view.
He thinks that the guttural element in x was a spirant, and
therefore different from ch, which is an aspirate. He points
out that in Naxos, in a 6th-century inscription,16 x in
Naxiou, exochos and Fraxou is represented by @, the
first element in which he regards as a form of @ = h. As
ch is found in the same inscription (in the form X), the
guttural element must have been different, else x would have
been spelt @. Attica and most of the Cyclades kept X for
the guttural element in x (written @ or @) and for ch as
well. On the west of the Aegean a new symbol @ was invented
for the aspirate value, and this spread over the mainland
and was carried by emigrants to Rhodes, Sicily and Italy.
The sign ch was kept in the western group for the guttural
spirant in x, which was written @; but, as this spirant
occurred nowhere else, the combination was often abbreviated,
and X was used for @ precisely as in the Italic alphabets we
shall flnd that F = f develops out of a combination FH.
The development of symbols for the long vowels e and o
was also the work of the Ionians. The h-sound ceased at
a very early period to exist in Ionic, and by 800 B.C. was
ignored in writing. The symbol @ or H was then employed
for the long open e-sound, a use suggested by the name of
the letter, which, by the loss of the aspirate, had passed
from Heta to Eta. About the same period, and probably as a
sequel to this change, the Greeks of Miletus developed @ for
the long open o-sound, a form which in all probability
is differentiated out of O. Centuries passed, however,
before this symbol was generally adopted, Athens using
only O for o, o and ou, the spurious diphthong, until
the adoption of the whole ionic alphabet in 403 B.C.17
Latin alphabet.
The discoveries of the last quarter of the 19th century
carried back our knowledge of the Latin alphabet by
at least two centuries, although the monuments of an
early age which have been discovered are only three.
The Dvenos inscription.
(a) In 1880 was discovered between the Quirinal and Viminal
hills a little earthenware pot of a curious shape, being as it
were, three vessels radiating from a centre, each with a separate
mouth at the top.18 Round the sides of the triangle formed by
the three vessels and under the mouths runs an inscription of
considerable length. The use for which the pot was intended and
the purport of the inscription have been much disputed, there
being at least as many interpretations as there are words in the
inscription. The date is probably the early part of the
4th century B.C. Though found in Rome, the vessel is small
enough to be easily portable, and might therefore have been
brought from elsewhere in Italy. It is equally possible that
the potter who inscribed the words upon it was not a native of
Rome. One or two points in theinscription make it doubtful
whether the Latin upon it is really the Latin of Rome. It
is generally known as the Dvenos inscription, from the name
of the maker who wrote on the vessel from right to left the
inscription, part of which is DVENOS MED FECED ( = fecit).
The Praeneste fibula.
(b) The second of these early records is the inscription
on a gold fibula found at Praeneste and published in 1887.
The inscription runs from right to left, and is in letters
which show more clearly than ever that the Roman alphabet is
borrowed from the alphabets of the Chalcidian Greek colonies in
Italy. Its date cannot be later than the 5th and is possibly
as early as the 6th century B.C. The words are MANIOS MED
FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI, ``Manius made me for Numasius.'' The
symbol for M has still five strokes, s has the angular
form @, @. The inscription is earlier than the Latin change
of s between vowels into r, for Numasioi is the dative
of the older form which corresponds to the later Numerius.
The verb form is remarkable. In the Dvenos inscription the
perfect of facio is feced; here it is a reduplicated form
with the same vowel as the present. The spelling also is
interesting. The symbol K is still in ordinary use,
and not merely used for abbreviations as in the classical
age. But most remarkable is the representation of Latin F
by FH. The reason for this is clear. The value of F in
the Greek alphabet is w and not f as in Latin. Greek had
no sound corresponding to Latin F, consequently an attempt
is made by combining F and H to indicate the difference of
sound. Etruscan uses FH in in the same way. As Latin,
however, made the symbol V indicate not only the vowel sound
u, but also the consonant sound v (i.e. English w),
the sign for the digamma F was left unemployed, and as FH
was a cumbrous method of representing a sound which did not
exist in Greek, the second element came to be left out in
writing. Thus F came to be the representative of the unvoiced
labiodental spirant instead of that for the bilabial voiced
spirant. Whether the form fefaked was ever good Latin
in Rome may be doubted, for the Romans, in spite of the few
miles that separate Praeneste from Rome, were inclined to
sneer at the pronunciation and idiom of the praenestines
(cf. Plautus, Trin. 609, Truc. 691; Quintilian i. 5, 56)
Forum inscriptions.
(c) The last, and in some respects the most important, of
these records was found in 1899 under an ancient pavement in
the Comitium at the north-west corner of the Roman Forum.
It is engraved upon the four sides and one bevelled edge of a
pillar, the top of which has been broken off. As the writing is
boustrofedon, beginning at the bottom of the pillar and running
upwards and down again, no single line of the inscription is
complete. Probably more than half the pillar is lost, so that
it is not possible to make out the sense with certainty. The
inscription is probably not older than that on the fibula from
Praeneste, but has the additional interest of being undoubtedly
couched in the Latin of Rome. The surviving portion of the
inscription contains examples of all the letters of the early
alphabet, though the forms of F and B are fragmentary and
doubtful. As in the Praenestine inscription, the alphabet
is still the western (Chalcidian) alphabet. K is still in
use as an ordinary consonant, and not limited to a symbol for
abbreviations as in the classical period. The rounded form
of g is found with the value of G in RECEI, which is
probably the dative of rex. H has still the closed form
@, M has the five-stroke form, S is the three-stroke
@, tending to become rounded. R appears in the Greek form
without a tail,and V and Y are both found for the same
sound. The manner of writing up and down instead of backwards
and forwards across the stone is obviously appropriate to a
surface which is of considerable length, but comparatively
narrow, a connected sense being thus much easier to observe
than in writing across a narrow surface where, as in the
gravestones of Melos, three lines are required for a single
word. The form of the monument corresponds to that which
we are told was given to the revolving wooden pillars on
which the laws of Solon were painted. That the writing of
Solon's laws, which was boustrofedon, was also vertical
is rendered probable by the phrase o katothen nomos in
Demosthenes' speech Against Aristocrates, sec. 28, for which
Harpocration is unable to supply a satisfactory explanation.
Differentiation of Roman from Greek alphabet.
The differentiation of the Roman alphabet from the Greek is
brought about (a) by utilizing the digamma for the unvoiced
labiodental spirant F; (b) by dropping out the aspirates
th, f, ch (@ in the Chalcidian alrhabet, whence the Roman
is derived) from the alphabet proper and employing them only
as numerals, th (@) being gradually modified till it was
identified with C as though the initial of centum, 100.
Similarly @ became in time identified with M as though
the initial of mille, 1000, aud the side strokes of ch
in the above form were flattened out till it became @, and
ultimately L, 50. (c) After 350 B.C., at latest, there
was in Latin no sound corresponding to Z, which was therefore
dropped. In the Chalcidian alphabet the symbol for x was
placed after the symbols common to all Greek alphabets, a
position which X retains in the Latin (and also in the
Faliscan) alphabet. K in time passed out of use except as an
abbreviation, its place being taken by C, which, as we have
seen, is in the earliest inscrio1ion still g. Three points
here require explanation: (1) Why K fell into disuse: (2)
Why C took the place of K; (3) why the new symbol G was
put in the place of the lost Z. It is clear that C must
have become an equivalent of K before the latter fell out of
use. There is some evidence which seems to point to a
prouunciation of the voiced mutes which, like the South German
pronunciation of g, d, b, but slightly differentiated them
from the unvoiced mutes, so that confusion migh easily arise.
The Etruscans, who were separated from the Romans only by the
Tiber, gradually lost the voiced mutes. But another cause
was perhaps more potent. C and IC, as k was frequently
written, would easily be confused in writing, and Professor Hempl
(Transactions of the Chalcidian Philological Association
for 1899, pp. 24 ff.) shows that the Chalcidian form of z--
I developed into shapes which might have partaken of the
confusion. Owing to this confusion, the new symbol G,
differentiated from C, took the place of the useless I.
In abbreviations, however, C remained as before in the
value of G, as in the names Gaius and Gnaeus. Y and
Z were added in the last century of the republic for use
in transliterating Greek words containing u and z.19
The dialect which was mosr closely akin to Latin was
Faliscan. The men of Falerii, however, regularly took the side
of the Etruscans in wars with Rome, and it is clear that the
civilization of the old Falerii, destroyed for its rebellion
in 241 B.C., was Etruscan and not Roman in character.
Peculiar to this alphabet is the form for f--@. Much more
important than the scanty remains of Faliscan is the Oscan
alphabet. The history of this alphabet is different from that of
Rome. It is certain from the symbols which they develop or
drop that the people of Campania and Samnium borrowed their
alphabet from the Etruscans, who held dominion in Campania
from the 8th to the 5th century B.C. Previous to the Punic
wars Campania had reached a higher stage of civilization than
Rome. Unfortunately, the remains of that civilization are very
scanty, and our knowledge of the official alphabet outside
Capua, and at a later period Pompeii, is practically confined
to two important inscriptions, the tabula Agnonensis, now in
the British Museum, and the Cippus Abellanus, which is now
kept in the Episcopal Seminary at Nola. Of Etruscan origin
also is the Umbrian alphabet, represented first and foremost
in the bronze tablets from Gubbio (the ancient Iguvium).
The Etruscan alphabet, like the Latin, was of Chalcidian
origin. That it was borrowed at an early date is shown by
the fact that most of its numerous inscriptions run from
right to left, though some are written boustrofedon.
That it took over the whole Chalcidian alphabet is rendered
probable by the survival in Umbrian and Oscan, its daughter
alphabets, of forms which are not found in Etruscan itself.
This mysterious language, despite the existence of more than
6000 inscriptions, and the publication in 1892 of a book
written in the language and handed down to us by the accident
of its use to pack an Egyptian mummy, remains as obscure as
ever, but apparently it underwent very great phonetic changes
at an early period, so that the voiced mutes B, D, G
disappeared. Of the existence of the vowel O there is no
evidence. If it ever existed in Etruscan, it had been lost
before the Oscans and Umbrians borrowed their alphabets. On
the other hand, both of their alphabets preserve B and Umbrian
G in the form @. Etruscan also retained this symbol in
the form @, and utilized it exactly as Latin did to replace
@. Oscan, in order to represent D, introduced later a
form @, thus creating confusion between the symbols for d
and for r. This form was adopted for d because @ had
already been borrowed from Etruscan as the symbol for r,
although @ is also found on Etruscan inscriptions. For the
Greek digamma Etruscan used both @ and @, but the former
only was borrowed by the other languages. Etruscan, like
Latin, used @(from right to left) to represent the sound of
Latin F, but, unlike Latin, adopted @ not @ as the single
symbol. This form it then wrote as two lozenges @, whence
developed a later sign, @, which is used also in Umbrian and
Oscan. As the old digamma was kept, this new sign was placed
after those borrowed from the Chalcidian alphabet. Similarly
it used @ and I for the Chalcidian z; Umbrian borrowed
the first, Oscan the second form. The form for h was still
closed @, which Etruscan passed on to Oscan, while Umbrian
modified it to @. The form for m has five strokes; from
a later form @ the Oscan form was borrowed. Of the two
sibilants, M and @ or S, Oscan adopted only @, Umbrian
both M and the rounded form S. @ is found on Etruscan
inscriptions, but not in the alphabet series preserved;
neirher Umbrian nor Oscan has this form. T appears in
Etruscan as @, and X; of these Umbrian borrows the first
two, while Oscan has a form T like Latin. Etruscan took
over the three Greek aspirates, th, f, ch, in their Chalcidian
forms; th survives in Umbrian as @ , the others naturally
disappear. Both Umbrian and Oscan devised two new symbols.
Umbrian took over from Etruscan perhaps the sign @, but
gave it the new value of a spirant whirh developed out of an
earlier d-sound, but which is written in the Latin alphabet
with rs. The second Umbrian symbol was @, which was the
representative of an s-sound developed by palatalizing an
earlier k. In Oscan, which had an o-sound, but no symbol
for it, a new sign was invented by placing a dot between
the legs of the symbol for u-@. This, however, is found
only in the best-written documents, and on some materials
the dot cannot be distinguished. The symbol @ was invented
for the open i-sound and close e'm-sound.20 At a
much later epoch it was introduced into the Latin alphabet
by the emperor Claudius to represent y, and the sound
which was wrirten as i or u in maximus, maxumus, &c.
Besides the Italic alphabets already mentioned, which are all
derived from the alphabet of the Chalcidian Greek colonists
in Italy, there were at least four other alphabets in use in
different parts of Italy: (1) the Messapian of the south-east
part of the peninsula, in which the inscriptions of the
Illyrian dialect in use there were written, an alphabet
which, according to Pauli (Alt-italische Forschungen,
iii. chap. ii.) was borrowed from the Locrian alphabet;
(2) the Sabellic alphabet, derived from that of Corinth and
Corcyra, and found in a few inscriptions of eastern-central
Italy; (3) the alphabet of the Veneti of north-east Italy
derived from the Elean: (4) the alphabet of Sondrio (between
Lakes Como and Garda), which Pauli, on the insufficient
ground that it possesses no symbols corresponding to
f and ch, derives from a source at the same stage of
development as the oldest alphabets of Thera, Melos and Crete.
From the fact that upon the Galassi vase (unearthed at Cervetri,
but probably a product of Caere), which is now in the Gregorian
Museum of the Vatican, a syllabary is found along with one of
the most archaic Greek alphabets, and that a similar combination
was found upon the wall of a tomb at Colle, near Siena, it
has been argued that syllabic preceded alphabetic writing in
Italy. But a syllabary where each syllable is made by the
combinations of a symbol for a consonant with that for a vowel
can furnish no proof of the existence of a syllabary in the
strict sense, where each symbol represents a syllable; it is
rather evidence against the existence of such writing. The
syllabary upon the Galassi vase indicates in all probability
that the vase, which resembles an ink-bottle, belonged to a
child, for whose edification the syllables pa, pi, pe, pu and
the rest were intended. The evidence adduced from the Latin
grammarians, and from abbreviations on Latin inscriptions like
lubs for lubens, is not sufficient to establish the theory.
Teutonic runes.
It has been argued that the runes of the Teutonic peoples
have been derived from a form of the Etruscan alphabet,
inscriptions in which are spread over a great part of northern
Italy, but of which the most characteristic are found in the
neighbourhood of Lugano, and in Tirol near Innsbruch, Botzen and
Trent. The Danish scholar L. F. A. Wimmer, in his great
work Die Runenschrift (Berlin, 1887), contends that the
resemblance, though striking, is superficial. Wimmer's own
view is that the runes were developed from the Latin alphabet
in use at the end of the 2nd century A.D. Wimmer supports his
thesis with great learning and ingenuity, and when allowance
is made for the fact that a script to be written upon wood,
as the runes were, of necessity avoids horizontal lines which
run along the fibres of the wood, and would therefore be
indistinct, most of the runic signs thus receive a plausible
explanation. The strongest argument for the derivation from
the Latin alphabet is undoubtedly the value of attaching to
@; for, as we have seen, the Greek value of this symbol is w,
and its value as f arises only by abbreviation from FH. On
the other hand, several of Wimmer's equations are undoubtedly
forced. Even if we grant that the Latin symbols were inverted
or set at an angle (a proceeding which is paralleled by the
treatment of the Phoenician signs in Greek hands), so that
@ represents Latin V, M, Latin E, @ and @ Latin D;
while the symbol for the voiced spirant th is @ doubled,
@, @, it is difficult to believe that the symbol for the
spirant g, viz. @, represents a Latin K (which was of
rare occurrence), or again @, @ a Latin N, or that the
symbol for ng, do, represents @ = c doubled. Moreover,
the date of the borrowing seems too late. The runes are
found in all Teutonic countries,and the Romans were in close
contact with the Germans on the Rhine before the beginning
of the Christian era. We hear of correspondence between
the Romans and German chieftains in the early day's of the
empire. It is strange, therefore, if the Roman alphabet,
which formed the model for the runes, was that of two
whole centuries later, and even then the formal alphabet of
inscriptions. By that time the Teutons were likely to have more
convenient materials than wood whereon to write, so that the
adaptation of the forms would not have been necessary. That
the Germans were familiar with some sort of marks on wood at
a much earlier period is shown by Tacitus's Germania, chap.
x. There we are told that for purposes of divination certain
signs were scratched on slips of wood from a fruit-bearing
tree (including, no doubt, tile beech; cp. book, German
Buch, and Buchstabe, a letter of the alphabet); the
slips were thrown down promiscuously on a white cloth. whence
the expert picked them up at random and by them interpreted
fate. In these slips we have the origin of the Norse
kefli, the Scots kaivel, which were and are still used as
lots. The fishermen of north-east Scotland, when they return
after a successful haul, divide the spoil into as many shares
as there are men in the boat, with one share more for the
boat. Each man then procures a piece of wood or stone,
on which he puts a private mark. These lots are put in a
heap, and an outsider is called in who throws one lot or
kaivel upon each heap of fish. Each fisherman then finds his
kaivel, and the heap on which it lies is his. This system of
``casting kaivels,'' as it is called, is certainly of great
antiquity. But its existence will not help to prove an
early knowledge of reading or writing, for in order that
everything may be fair, it is clear that the umpire should
not be able to identify the lot as belonging to a particular
individual. It has, however, been contended that a system
of primitive runes existed whence some at least of the later
runes were borrowed, and the ownership marks of the Lapps, who
have no knowledge of reading and writing, have been regarded
as borrowed from these early Teutonic runes.21 Be this as it
may, the resemblances between the runic and the Mediterranean
alphabets are too great to admit of denial that it is from
a Greek alphabet, whether directly or indirectly, that the
runes are derived. That Wimmer postdates the introduction
of the runic alphabet seems clear from the archaic forms
and method of writing. It is very unlikely that a people
borrowing an alphabet which was uniformly written from left
to right should have used it in order to write from right
to left, or boustrofedon. Hence Hempl contends22 that
Wimmer's view must be discarded, and that the runes were
derived about 600 B.C. from a western Greek alphabet which
closely resembled the Formello alphabet (one of the ancient
Chalcidian abecedaria) and the Sabellic and North Etruscan
alphabets. He thus fixes the date at the same period as
Isaac Taylor had done in his Greeks and Goths and The
Alphabet. Taylor, however, derived the runes from the alphabet
of a Greek colony on the Black Sea. Hempl's initiative was
followed by Professor Gundermann of Giessen, who announced
in November 180723 that he had discovered the source of
the runic alphabet, the introduction of which he declares
preceded the first of the phonetic changes known as the
``Teutonic sound-shifting,'' since @ = g is used for k,
X = ch for g, a Theta-like symbol for d, while zd
is used for st. If this view (which is identical with
Taylor's) be true, we have a parallel in the Armenian alphabet,
which is similarly used for a new value of the sounds.
Hempl, on the other hand, contends that the sound-shifting
had already taken place, and, arguing that several of the
symbols have changed places (e.g. @ f and @ a,
@ u and @ b, because at this time b was a bilabial
spirant and not a stop), ultimately obtains an order-- a b
d e f z kgw h i j @@ p r s t u l m n th o. As neither
Gundermann nor Hempl has published the full evidence for his
view, no definite conclusion at the moment is possible.
Ogam writing.
In one of the earliest runic records which we possess, the
pendant found at Vadstena in Sweden in 1774, and dating
from about A.D. 600 (see Plate) the signs are divided up
into three series of eight (the twenty fourth, @, being
omitted for want of room). Upon the basis of this division
a system of cryptography (in the sense that the symbols are
unintelligible without knowledge of the runic alphabet) was
developed, wherein the series and the position within the
series of the letter indicated, were each represented by
straight strokes, the strokes for the series being shorter
than those for the runes or the series being represented
by strokes to the left the runes by strokes to the right of
a medial line.24 From this system probably developed the
ogam writing employed among the Celtic peoples of Britain and
Ireland. The ogam inscriptions in Wales are frequently
accompanied by Latin legend, and they date probably as
far back as the 5th and 6th centuries A D. Hence the
connexion between Celt and Teuton as regards writing must
go back to a period preceding the Viking inroads of the 8th
century. Taylor, however, conjectures (The Alphabet ii.
p 227) that the ogams originated in Pembroke, ``where there
was a very ancieni Teutonic settlement, possibly of Jutes,
who as is indicated by the evidence of runic inscriptions
fonnd in Kent, seem to have been the only Teutonic people
of southern Britain who were acquainted with the Gothic
Futhoro.'' However this may be, the ogam alphabet shows
some knowledge of phonetics and some attempt to classifv
the sounds accordingly. The symbols are as follows25:--
The form of the ogam alphabet made it easy to carve hastily;
hence in the old sagas, when a hero is killed we had the
common formula. ``His grave was dug and his stone was raised,
and his name was written in ogam.'' mccording to Sophus
Muller (Nordische Altertumskunde, ii. p. 264), it was
from Britain that the use of runes upon gravestones was
derived a use which, to judge from the number of bilingual
inscriptions in Britain, the Celts derived from the Romans.
The special forms of the alphabet--the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic
--which have been adopted by certain of the Slavonic peoples
are both sprung directly from the Greek alphabet of the ninth
century A.D , with the considerable additions rendered necessary
by the greater variety of sounds in Slavonic as compared with
Greek. Apart from other evidence, the use of B with the
value of v, of H as well as I with the value of i, of
F with the value of f and X wiih that of the Scotch ch,
would be proof that the alphabet was not borrowed till long
after the Greek classical period, for not till later did b,
f, ch become spirants and e become identified with i.
The confusion of b wirh v necessitated the invention of
a new symbol b in the Cyrillic, @ in the Glagolithic for
b, while new symbols were also required for the sounds or
combinations of sounds z (zh), dz, st (sht), c (ts),
c (ch in church), s (sh), u, i, y (u without
protrusion of the lips), e (a close long e sound), for
the combination of o, a and e with consonantal I (English
y) and for the nasalized vowels e, a (nasalized o
in pronunciation) and the combinations je and ja (English
je and ja) In all these matters Glagolitic differs
very little from Cyrillic; it has only one symbol for ja
(ya) and e because both in this dialect were pronounced the
same. It has also only one symbol for e and je (ye)
for the phonetic reason that je always appears in the
old ecclesiastical Slavonic, for which the alphabets were
fashioned, at the beginning of words and after vowels: cp. the
English use of the symbol u in unspoken and uniform.
Glagolitic has a symbol for the palatalized g (@), but it
is used only in the transcription of Greek words, g having
become y early between vowels in the popular dialects.
Such an elaborate alphabet could hardly have been invented
except by a scholar, and tradition, probably rightly, has
attached the credit for its invention to Cyril (originally
Constantine), who along wi1h his brother Methodius
proceeded in A.D. 863 to Moravia from Constantinople,
for the purpose of converting the Slavonic inhabitants to
Christianity. The only question which concerns us here is
which of the two alphabets was the earlier in use, and after
much discussion authorities on Slavonic seem generally agreed
that it was the Glagolitic (the name is derived from the Old
Bulgarian, i.e old ecclesiastical Slavonic glagolu,
``word''). According to Professor Leskien (Grammatlk der
altbulgariechen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache, Heidelberg,
1909, p. xxi.), Cyril had probably made a prolonged and
careful study of Slavonic before proceeding on his missionary
journey, and probably in the first instance with a view to
preaching the Gospel to the Slavs of Macedonia and Bulgaria,
who were much nearer his own home, Thessalonica, than were
those of Moravia. The Glagolitic was founded upon the
ordinary Greek minuscule writing of the period, as was shown
by Dr Isaac Taylor,26 though the writing of the letters
separately without abbreviations and an obvious attempt at
artistic effect has gradually differentiated it from Greek
writing. This alphabet, which is much more difficult to
read than the bolder Cyrillic founded on the Greek uncial,
survived for ordinary purposes in Croatia and in the islands
of the Quarnero till the 17th century. The Servians and
Russians apparently always used the Cyrillic, and its
advantages gradually ousted the Glagolitic elsewhere, though
the service book in the old ecclesiastical language which
is used by the Roman Catholic Croats is in Glagolitic.27
Phrygian.
While the Carian and Lycian were probabIy independent of the
Greek in origin, so, too, at the opposite end of the Mediterranean
was the Iberian. On the other hand, the Phrygian was very
closely akin to the Greek in alphabet as well as in linguistic
character. The Greek alphabet, with which it was most closely
connected, was the Western, for 1he evidence is strongly in
favour of the form @ having the value of ch, not ps, in
Phrygian, as it certainly has in the Etruscan inscription found
on Lemnos in 1886, which is in an alphabet practically identical.
Armenian.
To a much later era belongs the Armenian alphabet, which,
according to tradition, was revealed to Bishop Mesrob in a
dream. The land might have been Grecized had it not, about
A.D. 387, been divided between Persia and Byzantium, the
greater part falling to the former, who discouraged Greek
and favoured Syriac, which the Christian Armenians did not
understand. As those within Persian terrirory were forbidden
to learn Greek, an Armenian Christian liierature became a
necessity. Taylor contends that the alphabet is Iranian
in origin, but the circumstances justify Gardthausen and
Hubschmann in claiming it for Greek. That some symbols
are like Persian only shows that Mesrob was not able
to rid himself of the influences under which he lived.
Of the later development of Phoenician amongst Phoenician people
little need be said here. It can be traced in the graffiti
of the mercenaries of Psammetichus at Abu Simbel in Upper
Egyrt, where Greeks, Carians and Phoenicians all cut their
names upon the legs of the colossal statues. Still later it
is found on the stele of Byblos, and on the sarcophagus of
Eshmunazar (about 300 B.C.). The most numerous inscriptions
come from the excavations in Carthage, the ancient colony of
Sidon. One general feature characterizes them all, though
they differ somewhat in detail. The symbols become longer
and thinner; in fact, cease to be the script of monuments
and become the script of a busy trading people. While the
Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter
alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less
great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through
them among other peoples still more remote. The carrying
of the alphabet to the Greeks by the Phoenicians at an early
period affords no clue to the period when Semitic ingenuity
constructed an alphabet out of a heterogeneous multitude of
signs. If it be possible to assign to some of the monuments
discovered in Arabia by Glaser a date not later than 1500
B.C., the origin of the alphabet and its dissemination are
carried back to a much earlier period than had hitherto been
supposed. Next in date amongst Semitic records of the
Phoenician type to the bowl of Baal-Lebanon and the Moabite
stone comes the Hebrew inscription found in the tunnel at
the Pool of Siloam in 1881, which possibly dates back to
the reign of Hezekiah (700 B.C.). The only other early
records are seals with Hebrew inscriptions and potters'
marks upon clay vessels found in Lachish and other towns.28
Like the Phoenician, these Hebrew signs are distinctly
cursive in character but, as the legend on the coins of
the Maccabees shows, became stereotyped for monumental use,
while the Jews after the exile gradually adopted the Aramaic
writing, whence the square Hebrew script is descended. The
Samaritans alone stuck fast to the old Hebrew as part of their
contention that they, and not the Jews, were the true Hebrews.
Aramaic
The oldest records in Aramaic were found at Sindjirli, in the
north of Svria, in 1890, and date to about 800 B.C. At this
epoch the Aramaic alphabet, or at any rate the alphabet of these
records, is but little different from that shown upon the Moabite
stone. Either two sounds are confused under one symbol,
or these records represent a dialect which, like Hebrew and
Assyrian, shows sh, z, and c, where the ordinary Aramaic
representation is t, d and t the Arabic th, dh, and
th. The Aramaic became in time by far the most important
of the northern Semitic alphabets. Even while long and
important documents in Assyria were still written on clay
tablets, in cuneiform, a docket or precis of the contents
was made upon the side in Aramaic, which thus became the
alphabet of cursive writing--a fact which explains its later
development. Two changes, the inception of which is early, but
the completion of which belongs to the Persian period, gave the
impulse which Aramaic obeyed in all its later developments.
These were (a) the opening of the heads of letters, so that
beth @, daleth @, and resh @ become respectively
@, @, and @, while O becomes first U and ultimatelv
V. In thc later development the heads tend to be reduced in
size, and finally to disappear. (b) As was natural in cursive
wriiing, angles tend to become rounded, and the tails of the
letters, which in, Phoenician are very long are curved round
in the middie of words so as to join on to the succeeding
letter. These characteristics were naturally emphasized in the
Aramaic writing on papyrus which, beginning about 500 B.C.,
during the Persian sovereignty in Egypt, lasted on there till
about 200 B.C. The gradual development of this script into
the square Hebrew, and the more ornamental writing of Palmyra,
may be traced in the works of Berger and Lidzbarski.30
Arabic.
In the land of the Nabataeans, a people of Arabian origin,
the Aramaic alphabet was employed in a form which ultimately
developed into the modern Arabic alphabet. Probably the
earliest example of the Aramaic script in Atrabia is the stele
of Tema, in north-western Arabia, whereon is commemorated
the establishment of a worship of an Aramaic diviniry. This
monument, now in the Louvre, is not later than the 5th century
B.C. In it the writing preserves its ancient form, the heads
of the closed letters being only very slightly opened. The
Nabataean inscriptions belong to a different epoch and a different
style. They were first discovered by Charles Doughty in
1876-1877, who was followed between 1880 and 1884 by Huber
and Euting, to whom a complete collection of these records is
due. The records are fortunately dated, and belong to the
period from 9 B.C. to A.D. 75. A further development can
be traced in the graffiti wirh which pilgrims adorned the
rocks of Mount Sinai down to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.
By the help of these inscriptions it is possible to trace the
development of the modern Arabic where so many of the forms
of the letters have become similar that diacritic points
are essential to distinguish them, the original causes of
confusion being the continuous development of cursive writing
and the adoption of ligatures. Arabic writing, as known to
us from documents of the early Mahommedan period, exhibits
two principal types which are known respectively as the
Cufic and the nashki. The former soon fell into disuse for
ordinary purposes and was retained only for inscriptions,
coins, &c.; the latter, which is more cursive in character, is
the parent of the Arabic writing of the present day. Another
form of the Aramaic alphabet, namely, the so-called Estrangela
writing which was in use amongst the Christians of northern
Syria, mas carried by Nestorian missionaries into Central
Asia and became the ancestor of a multitude of alphabets
spreading through the Turkomans as far east as Manchuria.
South Semitic.
There still remains a branch of the Semitic languages which,
except for one or two of the languages belonging to it, was
practically unknown till recent years. This is the South
Semitic. Till the 19th century the earliest form known of
this alphabet was the Ethiopian or Geez, in which Christian
documents have been preserved from the early centuries of our
era, and which is still used by the Abyssinians for liturgical
purposes. The travels of two English naval officers,
Wellsted and Cruttenden, through Yemen in southern Arabia in
1835, first called attention to the earlier monuments of
Arabia. Fulgence Fresnel first established the importance
of the inscriptions discovered by these Englishmen, and in
1843, when French consul at Jeddah, obtained through a
French traveller, Francois Arnaud, information about other
monuments of the same kind. In 1869 Joseph Halevy brought
back nearly seven hundred inscriptions from Yemen, and this
number has been increased from other quarters by several
thousands, through the energy of several adventurous scholars,
but chiefly by Eduard Glaser's repeated journeys. The south
Arabian inscrip1ions to which the terms Himyaritic aud Sabaean
are applied fall into two groups, the Sabaean proper and the
Minaean. These are distinguished by differences in grammar and
phraseology rather than in alphabet. The relative age of the
Minaean and Sabaean monuments is a matter of dispute amongst
Semitic scholars. Inscriptions in a kindred dialect were
brought from El-Ola, in the north of the Hedjaz, by Professor
Euting. To these D. H. Muller31 gave the title of
Lihyanite, from the name of the tribe (Lihjan) to which they
belong. Their date is supposed to be earlier than that of
the Sabaean and Minaean. Minaean inscriptions were found
at the same place, the Minaeans having had a trading station
there. In 1893 J. Theodore Bent copied carefully at Yeha
in Abyssinia a few inscriptions, some of which had been
already copied in 1814 by the English traveller Salt. These
inscriptions are of the greatest importance, because they
demonstrate, according to D. H. Muller,32 that the Sabaeans
had colonized Abyssinia as early as 1000 B.C. Other inscriptions
copied by Bent at Aksum belong to the 4th century A.D. and
later. Two of the earliest are written in Sabaean characters,
but in the language which is known as Geez or Ethiopic. From
about A.D 500 Ethiopic was written in an alphabet which
according to Muller was no gradual growth but an ingenious
device of a Greek scholar of this period at the court of
Abyssinia. The Sabaean, like other Semitic, inscriptions
are generallv written from right to left, but a few are
boustrofedon; the Ethiopic is written from left to right,
and makes a marked advance upon the ordinary Semitic manner
of writing by indicating the vowels. This is done by varying
the form of the consonant according to the vowel which follows
it. The Ethiopic system is thus rather a syllabary than an
alphabet. It is noticeable that the changes thus established
were made upon the basis of the old Sabaean script, which
in its oldest form is evidently closely related to the old
Phoenician, though it would be premature to say that the
Sabaean alphabet is derived from the Phoenician. It is as
likely, considering the date of both, that they are equally
descendants from an older source. The characteristics of the
Sabaean are great squareness aud boldness in outline. It has
twenty-nine symbols, whereby it is enabled to differentiate
certain sounds which are not distinguished from one another in
the writing of the northern Semites. As we have seen, it is a
tendency in northern Semitic to open the heads of letters, and
therefore it is possible that the Sabaean form for Jod @ may
be older32 than the Phoenician @. Similarly if Pe means
mouth, Hommel is right in contending that the Sabaean @ is
more like the object than the Phoenician @, if we suppose the
form, like @ or the Phoenician @ and @ for the Phoenician
@ turned through an angle of 90 deg. . So also if Kaf corresponds
to the Babylonian Kappu, ``hollow-hand,'' the Sabaean form
@ which Hommel33 interprets as the outline of the hand
with the fingers turned in and the thumb raised is a better
pictograoh than the various meaningless forms of k (@, &c.).
The rock inscriptions in the wild district of Safah near Damascus
which have been collected by Halevv are also written in an Arabic
dialect, but, owing chiefly to their careless execution, they
are to a large extent unintelligible. The character appears to
be akin to the Sabaean. It has been suggesred that they were
the work of Arabs who had wandered thus far from the south.
Persia.
There still remain for discussion the alphabets of the
Indo-European peoples of Persia and India from which the other
alphabets of the Farther East are descended. When Darius
in 516 B.C. caused the great Behistun inscription to be
engraved, it was the cuneiform writing, already long in use
for the languages of Mesopotamia, that was adopted for this
purpose. We have seen that at Babylon itself the Aramaic
language and character were well known. It is probable
therefore, a priori, that from the Aramaic alphabet the later
writing of Persia should be developed. The conclusion is
confirmed by the coins, the only records with Iranian script
which go back so far; but the special form of Aramaic from
which the Iranian alphabet is derived must at present be left
undecided. The later developments of the Iranian alphabet are
the Pahlavi and the Zend, in which the MSS. of the Avesta are
written. Of Cese manuscripts none is older than the 15th
century A.D. The Pahlavi is properly the alphabet of the
Sassanid kings who ruled in Persia from A.D. 226 till the
Arab conquest in the 7th century A.D. Under the Sassanids
the old Persian worship, which had fallen with the Achaemenid
dynasty in Alexander's time, and had been neglected by the
subsequent Arsacid line, was revived and the remains of
its liturgical literature collected. The name is, however,
also applied to the alphabet on the coins of the Parthian or
Arsacid dynasty, which in its beginnings was clearly under
Greek influence; while later, when a knowledge of Greek
had disappeared, the attempts to imitate the old legends
are as grotesque as those in western Europe to copy the
inscriptions on Roman coins. The relationship between the
Pahlavi and the Aramaic is clearest in the records written
in the ``Chaldaeo-Pahlavi'' characters; the most important of
these documents is the liturgical inscription of Hadji-abad,
where the Arsacid and Sassanian alphabets are found side by
side. Taylor (The Alphabet, ii. p. 248 f.) regards the former
as probably derived from the ``ancient alphabet of Eastern
Iran, a sister alphaber of the Aramaean of the satrapies,''
while the Sassanian belongs to a later stage of Aramaic.
India.
The alphabets of India all spring from two sources: (a) the
Kharosthi, (b) the Brahmi alphabet. The history of
the former is clear. It was always a local alphabet, and
never attained the importance of its rival. According to
Buhler,34 its range lay between 69 deg. and 73 deg. 30' E. and
33 deg. to 35 deg. N., a conclusion which is not invalidated by the
fact that some important modifications are found beyond this
area, nor by Dr Stein's discovery of a great mass of documents
in this alphabet at Khotan in Turkestan, for, according to
tradition, the ancient inhabitants of Khotan were emigrants
banished in the time of King Acoka from the area to which
Buhler assigns this alphabet (see Stins's Preliminary
Report, 1901, p. 51). Rapson35 has pointed out that both
Kharosthi and Brahmi letters are found upon Persian
silver sigloi, which were coined in the Punjab and belong
to the period of the Achaemenid kings of Persia. As Buhler
shows in detail, the Kharosthi alphabet is derived from
the alphabet of the Aramaic inscriptions which date from the
earlier part of the Achaemenid period. The Aramaic alphabet
passed into India with the staff of subordinate officials
by whom Darius organized his conquests there. The people of
India already possessed their Brahmi alphabet, but had this
other alphabet forced upon them in their dealings with their
rulers. The Kharosthi is then the gradual development under
local conditions of the Aramaic alphabet of the Persian
period. As Stein's explorations show, both alphabets
may be found on ooposite sides of the same piece of wood.
The history of the Brami alphabet is more difficult. In
its later forms it is so unlike other alphabets that many
scholars have regarded it as an invention within India
itself. The discovery of earlier inscriptions than were
hitherto known has, however, caused this view to be discarded,
and the problem is to decide from which form of the Semitic
alphabet it is derived. Taylor (The Alphabet, ii. p. 314
ff.), following Weber, argues that it comes from the Sabaeans
who were carrying on trade with India as early as 1000
B.C. Even if the alphabet had not reached India till the
6th century B.C., there would be time, he contends, for
the peculiarities of the Indian form of it to develop before
the period when records begin. The alphabet, according to
Taylor, shows no resemblance to any northern Semitic script,
while its stiff, straight lines and its forms seem like the
Sabaean. Buhler, on the other hand, shows from literary
evidence that writing was in common use in India in the
5th, possibly in the 6th, century B.C. The oldest alphabet
must have been the Brahmi lipi, which is found all over
India. But he rejects Taylor's derivation of this alphabet
from the Sabaean script, and contends that it is borrowed from
the North Semitic. To the pedantry of the Hindu he attributes
its main characteristics, viz. (a) letters made as upright
as possible, and with few exceptions equal in height; (b)
the majority of the letters constructed of vertical lines,
with appendages attached mostly at the foot, occasionally at
the foot and at the top, or (rarely) in the middle, but never
at the top alone: (c) at the tops of the characters the
ends of vertical lines, less frequently straight horizontal
lines, still more rarely curves or the points of angles opening
downwards, and quite exceptionally, in the symbol ma, two
lines rising upwards. A remarkable feature of the alphabet is
that the letters are hung from and do not stand upon a line,
a characteristic which, as Buhler notes (Indian Studies,
iii. p. 57 n.), belongs even to the most ancient MSS.,
and to the Asoka inscriptions of the 3rd century B.C. When
these specially Indian features have been allowed for, Buhler
contends that the symbols borrowed from the Semitic alphabet
can be carried back to the forms of The Phoenician and Moabite
alphabets. The proof deals with each symbol separarately;
as might be expected of its author, it is both scholarly and
ingenious, but, it must be admitted, not very convincing.
Further evidence as to the early history of this alphabet must
be discovered before we can definitely decide what its origin may
be. That such evidence will be forthcoming there is little
doubt. Even since Buhler wrote, the vase, the top of which
is reproduced (see Plate), has been discovered on the borders
of Nepal in a stupa where some of the relics of Buddha were
kept. The inscription is of the same type as the Asoka
inscriptions, but, in Buhler's opinion (Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, xxx., 1898, p. 389), is older than Asoka's
time. It reads as follows: iyam salilanidhane Budhasa
bhagavate sakiyanam sukitibhatinaim sabhaginikam
saputadalanam. ``This casket of relics of the blessed Buddha
is the pious foundation (so Pischel, no doubt rightly, Zeitsch.
d. deutsch. morg. Gesell. lvi. 158) of the Sakyas, their
brothers and their sisters, together with children and wives.''
How this alphabet was modified locally, and how it spread to
other Eastern lands, must be sought in the specialist works to
which reference has already been made. Its extension to new and
hitherto unknown languages was in 1910 in process of being rapidly
demonstrated by English and German expeditions in Chinese Turkestan.
AUTHORITIES.---Owing to the rapid increase of materials,
all early works are out of date. The best general accounts,
though already somewhat antiquated, are: (1) The Alphabet (2
vols., with references to earlier works), by Canon Isaac Taylor
(1883), reprinted from the stereotyped plates with small
necessary corrections (1899); and (2) Histoire de l'ecriture
dans l'antiquite, by M. Philippe Berger (Paris, 1891, 2nd ed.
1892). An excellent popular account is The Story of the
Alphabet, by E. Clodd (no date, about 1900). Faulmann's
Illustrierte Geschichte der Schrift (1880) is a popular
work with good illustrations. For the beginnings of the
alphabet, Dr A. J. Evans's Scripta Minoa (vol. i., 1900)
is indispensable, whether his theories hold their ground or
not. The Semitic alphabet is excellently treated by Lidzbarski
in the Jewish Encyclopaedia (1901); his Nordsemitlsche
Epigraphik (1898) has excellent facsimiles and tables of the
alphabets, and there are many contributions to the history of
the alphabet in the same writer's Ephemeris fur semitische
Epigraphik (Giessen, since 1900). See also ``Writing''
(by A. A. Bevan) in the Encyclopaedia Biblica, and
``Alphabet''(by Isaac Taylor) in Hastings' Dictionary of
the Bible. A very good article, now somewhat antiquated,
is Schlottmann's ``Schrift und Schriftzeichen'' in Riehm's
Handworterbuch des biblischen Altertums (1884, reprinted
1894). For Greek epigraphy the fullest and also most recent
work is W. Larfeld's Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik
(vol. ii., 1902; vol. i., 1907) (see especially Herkunft un
Alter des griechischen Alphabets, i. 330 ff.). For the history
of the Greek alphabet the fundamental work was A. Kirchhoff's
Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets (4th
ed., 1887).: His theories were adopted and worked out on a
much larger scale in E. S. Roberts's Introduction to Greek
Epigraphy, pt. i. ``The Archaic Inscriptions and the Greek
Alphabet'' (1887), pt. ii. (wirh E. A. Gardner) ``The Inscriptions
of Attica'' (1905); See also Salomon Reinach's Traite d'
epigraphie grecque (1885). in Iwan von Muller's Handbuch
der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft important articles on
both Greek and Latin epigraphy and alphabets have appeared
(Greek in edition 1 by G. Heinrichs, 1886; in edition 2 by W.
Larfeld, 1892; Latin by Emil Hubner). See also ``Alphabet,''
by W. Deecke, in Baumeister's Denkmaler des klassischen
Altertums (1884), and by Szanto (Greek) and Joh. Schmidt
(italic) in Pauly's Realencyclopadie edited by Wissowa
(1894). Mommsen's Die unteritalischen Dialekte (1850) is
not without value even now. Other literature and references to
fuller bibliographies in separate departments have been given
in the notes. Elsewhere in this edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica the articles on the various languages and under
the headings INSCRIPTIONS, PALAEOGRAPHY, WRITING, &c.,
should be consulted, while separate articles are given on each
letter of the English alphabet. The writer is indebted to
Dr A. J. Evans for a photograph of the Cretan linear script,
and to Professors A. A. Bevan and Rapson of Cambridge, and to
Mr F. W. Thomas, librarian of the India Office, for help in
their respective departments of Semitic and Indian languages.
(P. Gt.)
1 Breasted, History of Egypt (1906), p. 45.
2 Op. cit. p. 484.
3 Die Schrift und Sprache der alten Agypter (1907), p. 24.
4 Scripta Minoa, i. (1909), sec. 10, pp. 77 ff.
5 E. Piette, L'Anthropologie, vii. (1896) pp. 384 ff.
6 E. Piette, L'Anthropologie, xvi. (1905) pp. 8-9. The
apparent inscriptions of this period are conveniently collected
and figured together in Dechelette's Malnuel d'archeologie
prehistorique celtique et gallo-romaine, i. (1908) p. 233.
7 Der Ursprung des alt-semitischen Alphabets aus der
neu-assyrischen Keilschrift (ZDMG. xxxi. pp. 102
ff.). A still more sweeping theory of the same nature is
propounded by the Rev. C. J. Ball in the Proceedings of
the Society of Biblical Archaeology, xv. 1893) pp. 392 ff.
8 In an excellent summary of the different views held as to
the origin of the alphabet (Journal of the American Oriental
Society, vol. xxii, first half, 1901), Dr J. P. Peters
agrees (pp. 191 fl.) that the best test is ihe etymology
of the names of the letters. He shows that twelve of the
letter-names are words wiih meanings [in the northern dialects
of Semitic], all of them indicating simple objects, six of
the twelve being parts of the body. The objects denoted by
the other six names--ox, house, valve of a door, water, fish
and mark or cross--clearly do not belong to any people in
a nomadic state, but to a settled, town-abiding population.
. . . Six of the letter-names are not words in any known
tongue, and appear to be syllables only. Four lerter-names
are triliterals, and resemble in their form Semitic words.''
As 11 of the 12 which have meanings are to be found in the
Assyrian-Babylonian syllabaries, he suggests a possible Babylonian
origin. Different views with regard to some of these symbols
are expressed by Lidzbarski, Ephemeris fur semitische
Epigraphik, ii. pp. 125 ff. (1906). The earliest tradition
of the names is discussed by Noldeke in his Beitrage
zur semitischen Sprachwissenschait (1904), pp. 124 fl.
9 See, for example, the tables at the end of Roberts's
Introduction to Greek Epigraphy (1887); or Kirchhoff's Studien
zur Geschichte des grieschischen Alphabets (4th ed. 1887); or
Larfeld's Handbuch der grieschischen Epigraphik, vol. i. (1907).
10 Cp. Frankel, Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum Pelopennesi, i., No. 1607.
11 See Witton, in American Journal of Philology, xix. pp. 420
ff., and Lagercrantz, Zur griechischen Lautgeschichte (Upsala, 1898).
12. See Foat, ``Tsade and Sampi'' (Journal of Hellenic Studies,
xxv. pp. 338 fl., xxvi. p. 286). A number of ingenious points
often uncertain are raised by A. Gercke, ``Zur Geschichie des
altesten griechischen Alphabets'' (Hermes, xli., 1906, pp. 540 ff.).
13 See especially Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archaology for 1895, p. 40; cf. also Kalinka, Neue Jahrbucher
fur Philologie, iii. (1899), p. 683. Similar forms are also
found in the Safa inscriptions (South Semitic) with similar
values, and Praetorius argues (Z.D.M.G. lvi., 1902, pp.
677 ff., and again lviii., 1904, pp. 725 f.) that these
were somehow borrowed by Greek in the 8th century B.C.,
while in lxii. pp.283 ff. he argues that the reason why the
Greeks borrowed Th for the aspirated t was its form, the
cross in @ being regarded as T and the surrounding circle
as a variety of @ an occasional form of @ the aspirate.
Here also (p. 287) as in his Ursprung des kanaanaischen
Alphabets, pp. 13 f., he argues that the two forms of the
digamma f and @, and also the South Semitic @ = o, could
all have developed from the Cyprian I = we. But proof
is impossible without evidence of the intermediate steps.
14 Inscriptiones Graecae, xii., fasc. iii. Nos. 811, 1149.
15 See especially Athenische Mitteilungen, xxi. p. 426.
16 Figured in Roberts's Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, p. 65.
17 Details of the history of the individual
letters will be found in separate articles.
18 It is figured most accessibly in Egbert's
Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscriptions, p. 16.
19 Gardthausen ``Ursprung und Entwicklung der grieschen-lateinischen
Schrift '' (Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift, i. (1909),
pp. 337 ff.) argues for a ``proto-Tyrrhenian '' alphabet from
which Etruscan, Umbrian and Oscan descended as one group,
and Faliscan and Latin as the other. Evidence in favour of
such a position for the Latin alphabet is not forthcoming.
20 For further details of these alphabets, see Conway, The
Italic Dialects, ii. pp. 458 ff. The recent discovery by
Keil and Premerstein (Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie,
liii., 1908) of Lydian inscriptions containing the symbol
@ suggests that the old derivation of the Etruscans from
Lydia may be true and that they brought this symbol with
them (see article on f.) But the inscriptions are not yet
deciphered, so that conclusive proof is still wanting.
21 R. M. Meyer, Paul Braune und Sievers'
Beitrage, xxi. (1896), pp. 162 ff.
22 In a paper published in the volume of Philologische
Studien, presented as a ``Festgabe'' to Professor
Sievers in 1896, and in a second paper in the Journal
of Germanic Philology, ii. (1899), pp. 370 ff.
23 See Literaturblott fur germanische und
romanische Philologie for 1897, col. 429 f.
24 A species of cryptography exactly like this, based upon the
`abjad' order of the Arabic letters, is still in use among the Eastern
Persia is (E G. Browne, A Year amongst the Persians, p. 391 f.).
25 Cf. Rhys, Outlines of Manx Phonology, p. 73 (publications
of the Manx Society, vol. xxxiii.) ; Rhys and Brynmor
Jones, The Welsh People, pp 3, 502. An interpretation
of the oldest ogam inscriptions is given by Whitley Stokes
in Bezzenberger's Beitrage, xi (1886), p 183 ff. Besides
the collections of ogams by Brash (1879) and Fergeson (1887),
a new collection by Mr R. A. S. Macalister is in course of
publication (Studies in Irish Epigraphy, 1897, 1902, 1907).
Professor Rhys, who at one time considered runes and ogam
to be connected, now thinks that ogam was the invention of a
grammarian in South Wales who was familiar with Latin letters.
26 Archiv fur slavische Philologie, v. 191 ff.,
where the Glagolitic and the cursive Greek, the Cyrillic
and the Greek uncial are set side by side in facsimile.
27 For further details and references to literature see
the introduction to Leskien's Grammatik (not to be confused
with his Handbuch), from which this is abbreviated.
28 These are figured most accessibly in Lidzbarski's
article on the alphabet in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol.
i. (1901) ; see also his table of symbols added to the 27th
edition of Gesenius' Hebraische, Grammatik (1902).
29 See Berger's Histoire de l'ecriture dans l'antiquite,
p. 252 ff.; Nordsemitische Epigraphik, p. 186 ff., from
whom this summary is taken. Lidzbarski's second volume
and G. A. Cooke's Textbook of North-Semitic Inscriptions
(Oxford, 1903) contain the most convenient collections of
Northern Semitic inscriptions for the student's purposes.
30 Muller, Epigraphische Denkmaler aus Arabien (Vienna, 1889).
31 Epigraphische Denkmaler aus Abessinien (Vienna,
1894). Praetorius (Z.D.M.G. lviii. p. 724) holds that
the oldest Sabaean inscriptions may date from about 700
B.C., that the Lihyan inscriptions are at earliest of the
Hellenistic period and the Safa inscriptions still later.
32 Praetorius (Z.D.M.G. lviii. p. 461 f.) attempts to
trace the development of the Sabaean form from the Phoenician.
33 Hommel, Sud-arabische Chrestomathie (Munich, 1893), p. 5.
34 Buhler, Indian Studies, iii. (2nd. ed., 1898), p. 93.
The account of these alphabets is drawn from this work and from
the same author's Indische Palaographie in the Grundriss der
indo-arischen Philologie, to which is attached an atlas of plates
(Strassburg, 1896), and in which a full bibliography is given.
35 For a coin and a gild token with inscriptions see Rapson's
Indian Coins (in Grundriss d. ind.-ar. Phil.), Plate I.
AL-PHASI, ISAAC (1013--1103), Jewish rabbi and codifier, known
as Riph, was born near Fez in 1013 and died at Lucena in 1103.
'Al-Pinasi means the ``man of Fez'' (medieval Jews were often
named after their birthplaces). He was forced to leave Fez
when an old man of 75, being accused on some unknown political
charge. He then settled in Spain where he was held in much
esteem. His magnanimous character was illustrated by two
incidents. When 'Al-phasi's opponent Isaac 'Albalia died,
'Al-pinasi received 'Albalia's son with the greatest kindness
and adopted him as a son. When, again, 'Al-phasi was himself
on the point of death, he recommended as his successor in the
Lucena rabbinate, not his own son, but his pupil Joseph ibn
Migash. The latter became the teacher of Maimonides, and
thus 'Al-phasi's teaching as well as his work must have
directly influenced Maimonides. 'Al-phasi's fame rests on
his Talmudical Digest called Halakhoth or Decisions. The
Talmud was condensed by him with a special view to practical
law. He omitted all the homiletical passages, and also
excluded those parts of the Talmud which deal with religious
duties practicable only in Palestine. 'Al-pinasi thus occupies
an important place in the development of the Spanish method
of studying the Talmud. In contradistinction to the French
rabbis, the Spanish sought to simplify the Talmud and free it
from casuistical detail. 'Al-pinasi succeeded in producing a
Digest, which became the object of close study, and led in
its turn to the great Codes of Maimonides and of Joseph Qaro.
ALPHEGE [AELFHEAH], SAINT (954-1023), archbishop of
Canterbury, came of a noble family, but in early life gave up
everything for religion. Having assumed the monastic habit
in the monastery of Deerhurst, he pased thence to Bath, where
he became an anchorite and ultimately abbot, distinguishing
himself by his piety and the austerity of his life. In 984 he
was appointed through Dunstan's inlluence to the bishopric of
Winchester, and in 1006 he succeeded AElfric as archbishop of
Canterbury. At the sack of Canterbury by the Danes in
1011 AElfheah was captured and kept in prison for seven
months. Refusing to pay a ransom he was barbarously murdered
at Greenwich on the 19th of April 1012. He was buried in St
Paul's, whence his body was removed by Canute to Canterbury
with all the ceremony of a great act of state in 1023.
Lives of St. Alphege in prose (which survives) and in
verse were written by command of Lanfranc by the Canterbury
monk Osborn (d. c. 1090), who says that his account of
the solemn translation to Canterbury in 1023 was received
from the dean, (Godric, one of Alphege's own scholars.
ALPHEUS ('Alfeios; mod. Ruphia), the chief river of
Peloponnesus. Strictly Ruphia is the modern name for the ancient
Ladon, a tributary which rises in N.E. Elis, but the name
has been given to the whole river. The Alpheus proper rises
near Asea; but its passage thither by subterranean channels
from the Tegean plain and its union with the Eurotas are
probably mythical (see W. Loring, in Journ. Hell. Studies,
xv. p. 67). It consists for the most part of a shallow and
rapid stream, occupying but a small part of its broad, stony
bed. It empties itself into the Ionian sea. Pliny states that
in ancient times it was navigable for six Roman miles from its
mouth. Alpheus was recognized in cult and myth as the chief
or typical river-god in the Peloponnesus, as was Acholous in
northern Greece. His waters were said to pass beneath the sea
and rise again in the fountain Arethusa at Syracuse; such is
the earlier version from which later mythologists and poets
evolved the familiar myth of the loves of Alpheus and Arethusa.
ALPHONSE I., COUNT OF TOULOUSE (1103-1148), son of Count
Raymond IV. by his third wife, Elvira of Castile, was born
in 1103, in the castle of Mont-Pelerin, Tripoli. He was
surnamed Jourdain on account of his being baptized in the river
Jordan. His father died when he was two years old and he
remained under the guardianship of his cousin, Guillaume
Jourdain, count of Cerdagne (d. 1109), until he was five.
He was then taken to Europe and his brother Bertrand gave him
the countship of Rouergue; in his tenth year, upon Bertrand's
death (1112), he succeeded to the countship of Toulouse and
marquisate of Provence, but Toulouse was taken from him by
William IX., count of Poitiers, in 1114. He recovered a part
in 1119, but continued to fight for his possessions until
about 1123. When at last successful, he was excommunicated
by Pope Calixtus II. for having expelled the monks of
Saint-Gilles, who had aided his enemies. He next fought
for the sovereignty of Provence against Raymond Berenger I.,
and not till September 1125 did the war end in an amicable
agreement. Under it Jourdain became absolute master of the
regions lying between the Pyrenees and the Alps, Auvergne
and the sea. His ascendancy was an unmixed good to the
country, for during a period of fourteen years art and industry
flourished. About 1134 he seized the countship of Narbonne,
only restoring it to the Viscountess Ermengarde (d. 1197) in
1143. Louis VII., for some reason which has not appeared,
besieged Toulouse in 1141, but without result. Next year
Jourdain again incurred the displeasure of the church by
siding with the rebels of Montpellier against their lord.
A second time he was excommunicated; but in 1146 he took the
cross at the meeting of Vezelay called by Louis VII., and
in August 1147 embarked for the East. He lingered on the way
in Italy and probably in Constantinople; but in 1148 he had
arrived at Acre. Among his companions he had made enemies
and he was destined to take no share in the crusade he had
joined. He was poisoned at Caesarea, either the wife of Louis
or the mother of the king of Jerusalem suggesting the draught.
See the documentary Histoire generale de Languedoc
by De Vie and Vaissette, vol. iii. (Toulouse, 1872).
ALPHONSE, COUNT OF TOULOUSE AND OF POITIERS (12201271),
the son of Louis VIII., king of France, and brother of St
Louis, was born on the 11th of November 1220. He joined the
county of Toulouse to his appanage of Poitou and Auvergne,
on the death, in September 1249, of Raymond VII., whose
daughter Jeanne he had married in 1237. He took the cross
with his brother, St Louis, in 1248 and in 1270. In 1252,
on the death of his mother, Blanche of Castile, he was joint
regent with Charles of Anjou until the return of Louis IX.,
and took a great part in the negotiations which led to the
treaties of Abbeville and of Paris (1258--1259). His main
work was on his own estates. There he repaired the evils of
the Albigensian war and made a first attempt at administrative
centralization, thus preparing the way for union with the
crown. The charter known as ``Alphonsine,'' granted
to the town of Riom, became the code of public law for
Auvergne. Honest and moderate, protecting the middle
classes against exactions of the nobles, he exercised a happy
influence upon the south, in spite of his naturally despotic
character and his continual and pressing need of money.
He died without heirs on his return from the 8th crusade,
in Italy, probably at Savona, on the 21st of August 1271.
See B. Ledain, Histoire d'Alphonse, frere de S. Louis et du
comte de Poltou sous son administration (1241-1271) (Poitou,
1869); E. Bourarie, Saint Louis et Alphonse de Poitiers
(Paris, 1870); A. Molinier, Etude sur l'administration de S.
Louis et d'Alphonse de Poitiers (Toulouse, 1880); and also
his edition of the Correspondance adminiistrative d'Alphonse
de Poitiers in the Collection de documents inedits
pour servir a l'histoire de France (Paris, 1894 and 1895).
ALPHONSO, the common English spelling of Alfonso, Alonso
and Alfonso, which are respectively the Galician, the
Leonese and the Castilian forms of Ildefonso (Ildefonsus),
the name of a saint and archbishop of Toledo in the 7th
century. The name has been borne by a number of Portuguese
and Spanish kings, who are distinguished collectively below.
Kings of Portugal.
Portuguese Kings.--ALPHONSO I. (Affonso Henriques),
son of Henry of Burgundy, count of Portugal, and Teresa of
Castile, was born at Guimaraes in 1094. He succeeded his
father in 1112, and was placed under the tutelage of his
mother. When he came of age, he was obliged to wrest from
her by force that power which her vices and incapacity had
rendered disastrous to the state. Being proclaimed sole
ruler of Portugal in 1123, he defeated his mother's troops
near Guimaraes, making her at the same time his prisoner.
He also vanquished Alphonso Raymond of Castile, his mother's
ally, and thus freed Portugal from dependence on the crown of
Leon. Next turning his arms against the Moors, he obtained,
on the 26th July 1139, the famous victory of Ourique, and
immediately after was proclaimed king by his soldiers.
He assembled the Cortes of the kingdom at Lamego, where he
received the crown from the archbishop of Braganza; the assembly
also declaring that Portugal was no longer a dependency of
Leon. Alphonso continued to distinguish himself by his
exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarem in
1146 and Lisbon in 1147. Some years later he became involved
in a war that had broken out among the kings of Spain; and in
1167, being disabled during an engagement near Badajoz by a
fall from his horse, he was made prisoner by the soldiers of
the king of Leon, and was obliged to surrender as his r:asom
almost all the conquests he had made in Galicia. In 1184,
in spite of his great age, he had still sufficient energy to
relieve his son Sancho, who was besieged in Santarem by the
Moors. He died shortly after, in 1185. Alphonso was a man of
gigantic stature, being 7 ft. high according to some authors.
He is revered as a saint by the Portuguese, both on account
of his personal character and as the founder of their kingdom.
ALPHONSO II., ``the Fat,'' was born in 1185, and succeeded
his father, Sancho I., in 1211. He was engaged in war with
the Moors and gained a victory over them at Alcacer do Sal in
1217. He also endeavoured to weaken the power of the clergy
and to apply a portion of their enormous revenues to purposes
of national utility. Having been excommunicated for this
by the pope (Honorius III.), he promised to make amends to
the church; but he died in 1223 before doing anything to
fulfil his engagement. He framed a code which introduced
several beneficial changes into the laws of his kingdom.
ALPHONSO III., son of Alphonso II., was born in
1210, and succeeded his brother, Sancho II., in 1248.
Besides making war upon the Moors, he was, like his
father, frequently embroiled with the church. In his
reign Algarve became part of Portugal. He died in 1279.
ALPHONSO IV. was born in 1290, and in 1325 succeeded his
father, Dionis, whose death he had hastened by his intrigues and
rebellions. Hostilities with the Castilians and with the
Moors occupied many years of his reign, during which he gained
some successes; but by consenting to the barbarous murder of
Inez de Castro, who was secretly espoused to his son Peter,
he has fixed an indelible stain on his character. Enraged
at this barbarous act, Peter put himself at the head of an
army and devastated the whole of the country between the
Douro and the Minho before he was reconciled to his father.
Alphonso died almostimmediately after, on the 12th of May 1357.
ALPHONSO w., ``Africano,'' was born in 1432, and succeeded his
father Edward in 1438. During his minority he was placed under
the regency, first of his mother and latterly of his uncle, Dom
Pedro. In 1448 he assumed the reins of government and at
the same time married Isabella, Dom Pedro's daughter. In the
following year, being led by what he afterwards discovered
to be false representations, he declared Dom Pedro a rebel
and defeated his army in a battle at Alfarrobeira, in which
his uncle was slain. In 1458, and with more numerous forces
in 1471, he invaded the territories of the Moors in Africa
and by his successes there acquired his surname of ``the
African.'' On his return to Portugal in 1475 his ambition
led him into Castile, where two princesses were disputing
his succession to the throne. Having been affianced to the
Princess Juana, Alphonso caused himself to be proclaimed
king of Castile and Leon; but in the following year he was
defeated at Toro by Ferdinand, the husband of Isabella of
Castile. He went to France to obtain the assistance of Louis
XI., but finding himself deceived by the French monarch, he
abdicated in favour of his son John. When he returned to
Portugal, however, he was compelled by his son to resume
the sceptre, which he continued to wield for two years
longer. After that he fell into a deep melancholy and
retired into a monastery at Cintra, where he died in 1481.
ALPHONSO VI., the second king of the house of Braganza,
was born in 1643 and succeeded his father in 1656. In 1667
he was compelled by his wife and brother to abdicate the
throne and was banished to the island of Terceira. These
acts, which the vices of Alphonso had rendered necessary, were
sanctioned by the Cortes in 1668. He died at Cintra in 1675.
Kings of medieval and modern Spain.
Spanish Kings.--From Alphonso I. (739-757) to Alphonso
V. (999-1028) the personal history of the Spanish kings
of this name is unknown and their very dates are disputed.
ALPHONSO I. is said to have married Ormesinda, daughter of
Pelavo, who was raised on the shield in Asturias as king
of the Goths after the Arab conquest. He is also said to
have been the son of Peter. duke of Cantabria. It is not
improbable that he was in fact an hereditary chief of the
Basques, but no contemporary records exist. His title of``the
Catholic'' itself may very well have been the invention
of later chronicles. ALPHONSO II. (789-842), his reputed
grandson, bears the name of ``the Chaste.'' The Arab writers
who speak of the Spanish kings of the north-west as the
Beni-Altons, appear to recognize them as a royal stock derived
from Alphonso I. The events of his reign are in reality
unknown. Poets of a later generation invented the story
of the secret marriage of his sister Ximena with Sancho,
count of Saldana, and the feats of their son Bernardo del
Carpio. Bernardo is the hero of a cantar de gesta (chanson de
geste) written to please the anarchical spirit of the nobles.
The first faint glimmerings of medieval Spanish history begin
with ALPHONSO III. (866--914) surnamed ``the Great.'' Of him
also nothing is really known except the bare facts of his reign
and of his comparative success in consolidating the kingdom
known as ``of Galicia'' or ``of Oviedo'' during the weakness
of the Omayyad princes of Cordova. ALPHONSO IV. (924-931)
has a faint personality. He resigned the crown to his brother
Ramiro and went into a religious house. A certain instability
of character is revealed by the fact that he took up arms
against Ramiro, having repented of his renunciation of the
world. He was defeated, blinded and sent back to die in the
cloister of Sahagun. It fell to ALPHONSO V. (999-1028)
to begin the work of reorganizing the Christian kingdom of
the north-west after a most disastrous period of civil war
and Arab inroads. Enough is known of him to justify the
belief that he had some of the qualities of a soldier and a
statesman. His name, and that of his wife Geloria (Elvira),
are associated with the grant of the first franchises of
Leon. He was killed by an arrow while besieging the town
of Viseu in northern Portugal, then held by the Mahommedans.
(For all these kings see the article SPAIN: History.)
With ALPHONSO VI. (1065-1109) we come to a sovereign of
strong personal character. Much romance has gathered round his
name. In the cantar de gesta of the Cid he plays the part
attributed by medieval poets to the greatest kings, to Charlemagne
himself. He is alternately the oppressor and the victim of
heroic and self-willed nobles--the idealized types of the patrons
for whom the jongleurs and troubadours sang. (For the events of
his reign see the article SPAIN: History.) He is the hero
of a cantar de gesta which, like all but a very few of the
early Spanish songs, like the cantar of Bernardo del Carpio
and the Infantes of Lara, exists now only in the fragments
incorporated in the chronicle of Alphonso the Wise or in ballad
form. His flight from the monastery of Sahagnn, where his
brother Sancho endeavoured to imprison him. his chivalrous
friendship for his host Almamun of Toledo, caballero aunique
moni, a gentleman although a Moor, the passionate loyalty of
his vassal Peranzules and his brotherly love for his sister
Urraca of Zamora, may owe something to the poet who took him for
hero. They are the answer to the poet of the nobles who
represented the king as having submitted to take a degrading
oath at the hands of Ruy Diaz of Bivar (the Cid), in the church
of Santa Gadea at Burgos, and as having then persecuted the
brave nian who defied him. When every allowance is made,
Alphonso Vl. stands out as a strong man fighting for his
own hand, which in his case was the hand of the king whose
interest was law and order and who was the leader of the
nation in the reconquest On the Arabs he impressed himself
as an enemy very fierce and astute, but as a keeper of his
word. A story of Mahommedan origin, which is probably no
more historical than the oath of Santa Gadea, tells of how
he allowed himself to be tricked by Ibn Ammar, the favourite
of Al Motamid, the king of Seville. They played chess for
an extremely beautiful table and set of men, belonging to Ibn
Ammar. Table and men were to go to the king if he won.
If Ibn Ammar gained he was to name the stake. The latter
did win and demanded that the Christian king should spare
Seville. Alphonso kept his word. Whatever truth may lie
behind the romantic tales of Christian and Mahommedan, we know
that Alphonso represented in a remarkable way the two great
influences then shaping the character and civilization of
Spain. At the instigation, it is said, of his second
wife. Constance of Burgundy, he brought the Cistercians
into Spain, established them in Sahagun, chose a French
Cistercian, Bernard, as the first archbishop of Toledo after
the reconquest in 1085, married his daughters, legitimate and
illegitimate, to French princes, and in every way forwarded
the spread of French influence--then the greatest civilizing
force in Europe. He also drew Spain nearer to the papacy,
and it was his decision which established the Roman ritual
in place of the old missal of Saint Isidore--the so-called
Mozarabic. On the other hand he was very open to Arabic
influence. He protected the Mahommedans among his subjects and
struck coins with inscriptions in Arabic letters. After the
death of Constance he perhaps married and he certainly lived
with Zaida, said to have been a daughter of ``Benabet'' (Al
Alotamid), Mahommedan king of Seville. Zaida, who became a
Christian under the name of Maria or Isabel, bore him the only
son among his many children, Sancho, whom Alphonso designed
to be his successor, but who was slain at the battle of
Ucles in 1108. Women play a great part in Alphonso's life.
[ALPHOASO I., king of Aragon, ``the Battler,'' who married
Urraca, daughter of Alphonso VI. (1104-1134), is sometimes
counted the VIIth in the line of the kings of Leon and
Castile. A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine
battles against Christian or Moor), he was married to Urraca,
widow of Raymond of Burgundy, a very dissolute and passionate
woman. The marriage had been arranged by Alphonso VI. in
1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the
Almoravides, and to supply them with a capable military
leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as proprietary
queen and had not learnt chastity in the polygamous household
of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality
of the age and came to open war. Alphonso had the support
of one section of the nobles who found their account in the
confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his
opponents he gained victories at Sepalveda and Fuente de
la Culebra, but his only trustworthy supporters were his
Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep down Castile and
Leon. The marriage of Alphonso and Urraca was declared null
by the pope, as they were third cousins. The king quarrelled
with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost
as violently as with his wife. As he beat her, so he drove
Archbishop Bernard into exile and expelled the monks of
Sahagun. He was finally compelled to give way in Castile
and Leon to his stepson Alphonso, son of Urraca and her first
husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II. brought
about an arrangement between the old man and the young.
Alphonso the Battler won his great successes in the middle
Ebro, where he expelled the Moors from Saragossa; in the
great raid of 1125, when he carried away a large part of the
subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of
France, where he had rights as king of Navarre. Three years
before his death he made a will leaving his kingdom to the
Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Knights of the Sepulchre,
which his subjects refused to carry out. He was a fierce,
violent man, a soldier and nothing else, whose piety was wholly
militant. Though he died in 1134 after an unsuccessful battle
with the Moors at Braga, he has a great place in the reconquest.]
ALPHONSO VII., ``the Emperor'' (1126-1157), is a dignified
and somewhat enigmatical figure. A vague tradition had
always assigned the title of emperor to the sovereign who
held Leon as the most direct representative of the Visigoth
kings, who were themselves the representatives of the Roman
empire. But though given in charters, and claimed by Alphonso
VI. and the Battler, the title had been little more than a
flourish of rhetoric. Alphonso VII. was crowned emperor in
1155 after the death of the Battler. The weakness of Aragon
enabled him to make his superiority effective. He appears
to have striven for the formation of a national unity, which
Spain had never possessed since the fall of the V'isigoth
kingdom. The elements he had to deal with could not be welded
together. Alphonso was at once a patron of the church,
and a protector if not a favourer of the Mahommedans, who
formed a large part of his subjects. His reign ended in
an unsuccessful campaign against the rising power of the
Almohades. Though he was not actually defeated, his death
in the pass of Muradel in the Sierra Morena, while on his
way back to Toledo, occurred in circumstances which showed
that no man could be what he claimed to be---``king of the
men of the two religions.'' His personal character does not
stand out with the emphasis of those of Alphonso VI. or the
Battler. Yet he was a great king, the type and to some extent
the victim of the confusions of his age--Christian in creed
and ambition, but more than half oriental in his household.
ALPHONSO VIII. (1158-1214), king of Castile only, and grandson
of Alphonso VII., is a great name in Spanish history, for he
led the coalition of Christian princes and foreign crusaders
who broke the power of the Almohades at the battle of the Navas
de Tolosa in 1212. The events of his reign are dealt with
under SPAIN. His personal history is that of many medieval
kings. He succeeded to the throne on the death of his father,
Sancho, at the age of a year and a half. Though proclaimed
king, he was regarded as a mere name by the unruly nobles to
whom a minority was convenient. The devotion of a squire of
his household, who carried him on the pommel of his saddle
to the stronghold of San Esteban de Gormaz, saved him from
falling into the hands of the contending factions of Castro
and Lara, or of his uncle Ferdinand of Leon, who claimed the
regency. The loyalty of the town of Avila protected his
youth. He was barely fifteen when he came forth to do a man's
work by restoring his kingdom to order. It was only by a surprise
that he recovered his capital Toledo from the hands of the
Laras. His marriage with Leonora of Aquitaine, daughter of
Henry II. of England, brought him under the influence of the
greatest governing intellect of his time. Alphonso VIII.
was the founder of the first Spanish university, the studium
generale of Palencia, which, however, did not survive him.
ALPHONSO IX. (1188--1230) of Leon, first cousin of Alphonso
VIII. of Castile, and numbered next to him as being a junior
member of the family (see the article SPAIN for the division
of the kingdom and the relationship), is said by Ibn Khaldun
to have been called the ``Baboso'' or Slobberer, because he
was subject to fits of rage during which he foamed at the
mouth. Though he took a part in the work of the reconquest,
this king is chiefly remembered by the difficulties into which
his successive marriages led him with the pope. He was first
married to his cousin Teresa of Portugal, who bore him two
daughters, and a son who died young. The marriage was declared
null by the pope, to whom Alphonso paid no attention till he
was presumably tired of his wife. It cannot have been his
conscience which constrained him to leave Teresa, for his next
step was to marry Berengaria of Castile, who was his second
cousin. For this act of contumacy the king and kingdom were
placed under interdict. The pope was, however, compelled to
modify his measures by the threat that if the people could
not obtain the services of religion they would not support the
clergy, and that heresy would spread. The king was left under
interdict personally, but to that he showed himself indifferent,
and he had the support of his clergy. Berengaria left him
after the birth of five children, and the king then returned
to Teresa, to whose daughters he left his kingdom by will.
ALPHONSO X., El Sabio, or the learned (1252-1284), is
perhaps the most interesting, though he was far from being
the most capable, of the Spanish kings of the middle ages.
(His merits as a writer are dealt with in the article SPAIN:
Literature). His scientific fame is based mainly on his
encouragement of astronomy. It may be pointed out, however,
that the story which represents him as boasting of his ability
to make a better world than this is of late authority. If
he said so, he was speaking of the Ptolemaic cosmogony as
known to him through the Arabs, and his vaunt was a humorous
proof of his scientific instinct. As a ruler he showed
legislative capacity, and a very commendable wish to provide
his kingdoms with a code of laws and a consistent judicial
system. The Fuero Real was undoubtedly his work, and he
began the code called the Slete Partidas, which, however,
was only promulgated by his great-grandson. Unhappily for
himself and for Spain, he wanted the singleness of purpose
required by a ruler who would devote himself to organization,
and also the combination of firmness with temper needed for
dealing with his nobles. His descent from the Hohenstaufen
through his mother, a daughter of the emperor Philip, gave him
claims to represent the Swabian line. The choice of the German
electors, after the death of Conrad IV. in 1254, misled him
into wildechemes which never took effect but caused immense
expense. To obtain money he debased the coinage, and then
endeavoured to prevent a rise in prices by an arbitrary
tariff. The little trade of his dominions was ruined, and the
burghers and peasants were deeply offended. His nobles, whom
he tried to cow by sporadic acts of violence, rebelled against
him. His second son, Sancho, enforced his claim to be heir,
in preference to the children of Ferdinand de la Cerda, the
elder brother who died in Alphonso's life. Son and nobles
alike supported the Moors, when he tried to unite the nation
in a crusade; and when he allied himself with the rulers of
Morocco they denounced him as an enemy of the faith. A reaction
in his favour was beginning in his later days, but he died
defeated and deserted at Seville, leaving a will by which he
endeavoured to exclude Sancho and a heritage of civil war.
ALPHONSO XI. (1312-1350) is variously known among Spanish
kings as the Avenger or the Implacable, and as ``he of the
Rio Salado.'' The first two names he earned by the ferocity
with which he repressed the disorder of the nobles after
a long minority; the third by his victory over the last
formidable African invasion of Spain in 1340. The chronicler
who records his death prays that ``God may be merciful to
him, for he was a very great king.'' The mercy was needed.
Alphonso XI. never went to the insane lengths of his son
Peter the Cruel, but he could be abundantly sultanesque in his
methods. He killed for reasons of state without form of trial,
while his open neglect of his wife, Maria of Portugal, and his
ostentatious passion for Leonora de Guzman, who bore him a large
family of sons, set Peter an example which he did not fail to
better. It may be that his early death, during the great
plague of 1350, at the siege of Gibraltar, only averted a
desperate struggle with his legitimate son, though it was a
misfortune in that it removed a ruler of eminent capacity,
who understood his subjects well enough not to go too far.
[Four other kings of Aragon, besides the Battler, bore the
name of Alphonso. All these princes held territory in the
south-east of France, and had a close connexion with Italy.
ALPHONSO II. of Aragon (i162--1106) was the son of Raymond
Berenger, Count of Barcelona, and of Petronilla, niece of
Alphonso the Battler, and daughter of Ramiro surnamed the
Monk. He succeeded to the county of Barcelona in 1162 on
the death of his father, at the age of eleven, and in 1164
his mother renounced her rights in Aragon in his favour.
Though christened Ramon (Raymond), the favourite name of his
line, he reigned as Alphonso out of a wish to please his
Aragonese subjects, to whom the memory of the Battler was
dear. As king of Aragon he took a share in the work of the
reconquest, by helping his cousin Alohonso VIII. of Castile
to conquer Cuenca, and to suppress one Pero Ruiz de Azagra,
who was endeavouring to carve out a kingdom for himself in
the debatable land between Christian and Mahommedan. But his
double position as ruler both north and south of the eastern
Pyrenees distracted his policy. In character and interests
he was rather Provencal than Spanish, a favourer of the
troubadours, no enemy of the Albigensian heretics, and himself
a poet in the southern French dialect. ALPHONSO III. of
Aragon (12851291), the insignificant son of the notable Peter
III., succeeded to the Spanish and Provencal possessions of
his father, but his short reign did not give him time even to
marry. His inability to resist the demands of his nobles left
a heritage of trouble in Aragon. By recognising their right
to rebel in the articles called the Union he helped to make
anarchy permanent. ALPHONSO IV. of Aragon (1327-1336) was a
weak man whose reign was insignificant. ALPHONSO V. of Aragon
(1416-1458), surnamed the Magnanimous, who represented the
old line of the counts of Barcelona only through women, and
was on his father's side descended from the Castilian house of
Trastamara, is one of the most conspicuous figures of the early
Renaissance. No man of his time had a larger share of the
quality called by the Italians of the day ``virtue.'' By
hereditary right king of Sicily, by the will of Joanna II.
and his own sword king of Naples, he fought and triumphed amid
the exuberant development of individuality which accompanied
the revival of learning and the birth of the modern world.
When a prisoner in the hands of Filipo Maria Visconti, duke of
Milan, in 1435, Alphonso persuaded his ferocious and crafty
captor to let him go by making it plain that it was the interest
of Milan not to prevent the victory of the Aragonese party in
Naples. Like a true prince of the Renaissance he favoured
men of letters whom he trusted to preserve his reputation to
posterity. His devotion to the classics was exceptional even
in that time. He halted his army in pious respect before
the birthplace of a Latin writer, carried Livy or Caesar on
his campaigns with him, and his panegyrist Panormita did not
think it an incredible lie to say that the king was cured of
an illness by having a few pages of Quintus Curtius read to
him. The classics had not refined his taste, for he was
amused by setting the wandering scholars, who swarmed to his
court, to abuse one another in the indescribably filthy
Latin scolding matches which were then the fashion. Alphonso
founded nothing, and after his conquest of Naples in 1442
ruled by his mercenary soldiers, and no less mercenary men of
letters. His Spanish possessions were ruled for him by his
brotherjohn. He left his conquest of Naples to his
bastard son Ferdinand; his inherited lands, Sicily and
Sardinia, going to his brother John who survived him.]
ALPHONSO XII. (1857-1885), king of modern Spain, son of
Isabella II. and Maria Fernando Francisco de Assisi, eldest
son of the duke of Cadiz, was born on the 28th of November
1857. When Queen Isabella and her husband were forced to
leave Spain by the revolution of 1868 he accompanied them to
Paris, and from thence he was sent to the Theresianum at
Vienna to continue his studies. On the 25th of June 1870
he was recalled to Paris, where his mother abdicated in his
favour, in the presence of a number of Spanish nobles who
had followed the fortunes of the exiled queen. He assumed
the title of Alphonso XII.; for although no king of united
Spain had previously borne the name, the Spanish monarchy
was regarded as continuous with the more ancient monarchy,
represented by the eleven kings of Leon and Castile already
referred to. Shortly afterwards he proceeded to Sandhurst
to continue his military studies, and while there he issued,
on the 1st of December 1874, in reply to a birthday greeting
from his followers, a manifesto proclaiming himself the sole
representative of the Spanish monarchy. At the end of the
year, when Marshal Serrano left Madrid to take command of the
northern army, General Martinez Campos, who had long been working
more or less openly for the king, carried off some battalions
of the central army to Sagunto, rallied to his own flag the
troops sent against him, and entered Valencia in the king's
name. Thereupon the president of the council resigned, and
the power was transferred to the king's plenipotentiary and
adviser, Canovas del Castillo. In the course of a few days
the king arrived at Madrid, passing through Barcelona and
Valencia, and was received everywhere with acclamation
(1875). In 1876 a vigorous campaign against the Carlists, in
which the young king took part, resulted in the defeat of Don
Carlos and his abandonment of the struggle. Early in 1878
Alphonso married his cousin, Princess Maria de las Mercedes,
daughter of the duc de Montpensier, but she died within six
months of her marriage. Towards the end of the same year a
young workman of Tarragona, Oliva Marcousi, fired at the king in
Madrid. On the 29th of November 1879 he married a princess of
Austria, Maria Christina, daughter of the Archduke Charles
Ferdinand. During the honeymoon a pastrycook named Otero
fired at the young sovereigns as they were driving in
Madrid. The children of this marriage were Maria de las
Mercedes, titular queen from the death of her father until
the birth of her brother, born on the 11th of September 1880,
married on the 14th of February 1901 to Prince Carlos of
Bourbon, died on the 17th of October 1904; Maria Teresa, born
on the 12th of November 1882, married to Prince Ferdinand
of Bavaria on the 12th of January 1906; and Alphonso (see
below). In 1881 the king refused to sanction the law by which the
ministers were to remain in office for a fixed term of eighteen
months, and upon the consequent resignation of Canovas del
Castillo, he summoned Sagasta, the Liberal leader, to form a
cabinet. Alphonso died of phthisis on the 24th of November
1885. Coming to the throne at such an early age, he had served
no apprenticeship in the art of ruling, but he possessed great
natural tact and a sound judgment ripened by the trials of
exile. Benevolent and sympathetic in disposition, he won the
affection of his people by fearlessly visiting the districts
ravaged by cholera or devastated by earthquake in 1885. His
capacity for dealing with men was considerable, and he never
allowed himself to become the instrument of any particular
party. In his short reign, peace was established both at
home and abroad, the finances were well regulated, and the
various administrative services were placed on a basis that
afterwards enabled Spain to pass through the disastrous war
with the United States without even the threat of a revolution.
ALPHONSO XIII. (1886- ), king of Spain, son of Alphonso
XII., was born, after his father's death, on the 17th of May
1886. His mother, Queen Maria Christina, was appointed
regent during his minority (see SPAIN: History.) In 1902,
on attaining his 16th year, the king assumed control of the
government. On the 31st of May 1906 he married Princess
Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena Maria Christina of Battenberg,
niece of Edward VII. of England. As the king and queen were
returning from the wedding they narrowly escaped assassination
in a bomb explosion, which killed and injured many bystanders
and members of the royal procession. An heir to the throne was
born on the 10th of May 1907, and received the name of Alphonso.
AUTHORITIES--The lives of all the early kings of Spain
will be found in the general histories (see the article
SPAIN: Authorities), of which the most trustworthy is
the Anales de la Corona de Aragon, by Geronimo Zurita
(Saragossa, 1610). See also the Chronicles of the Kings
of Castile in the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles de
Riva deneyra Madrid, 1846-1880, vols. 66, 68, 70).
(D.H.)
ALPHONSUS A SANCTA MARIA, or ALPHONSO DE CARTAGENA
(1396-1456), Spanish historian, was born at Carthagena, and
succeeded his father, Paulus, as bishop of Burgos. In 1431
he was deputed by John II., king of Castile, to attend the
council of Basel, in which he made himself conspicuous by his
learning. He was the author of several works, the principal
of which is entitled Rerum Hispanorum Romanorum imperatorum,
summorum pontificum, nec non regum Francorum anacephaleosis.
This is a history of Spain from the earliest times down
to 1456, and was printed at Granada in 1545, and also in
the Rerum Hispanicarum Scriptores aliquot, by R. Bel
(Frankfort, 1579). Alphonsus died on the 12th of July 1456.
ALPINI, PROSPERO (PROSPER ALPINUS), 1553-1617, Italian
physician and botanist, was born at Marostica, in the republic
of Venice, on the 23rd of November 1553. In his youth he
served for a time in the Milanese army, but in 1574 he went to
study medicine at Padua. After taking his doctor's degree in
1578, he settled as a physician in Campo San Pietro, a small
town in the Paduan territory. But his tastes were botanical,
and to extend his knowledge of exotic plants he travelled to
Egypt in 1580 as physician to George Emo or Hemi, the Venetian
consul in Cairo. In Egypt he spent three years, and from a
practice in the management of date-trees, which he observed
in that country, he seems to have deduced the doctrine of
the sexual difference of plants, which was adopted as the
foundation of the Linnaean system. He says that ``the female
date-trees or palms do not bear fruit unless the branches
of the male and female plants are mixed together; or, as is
generally done, unless the dust found in the male sheath or
male flowers is sprinkled over the female flowers.'' On his
return, he resided for some time at Genoa as physician to Andrea
Doria, and in 1593 he was appointed professor of botany at
Padua, where he died on the 6th of February 1617. He was
succeeded in the botanical chair by his son Alpino Alpini (d.
1637). His best-known work is De Plantis Aegypti liber
(Venice, 1592). His De Medicina Egyptiorum (Venice,
1591) is said to contain the first account of the coffee
plant published in Europe. The genus Alpinia, belonging
to the order Zingiberaceae, was named after him by Linnaeus.
ALPS, the collective name for one of the great mountain systems of Europe.
1. Position and Name.---The continent of Europe is no more
than a great poninsula extending westwards from the much vaster
continent of Asia, while it is itself broken up by two inland
seas into several smaher peninsulas--the Mediterranean forming
the Iberian, the Italian and the Greek peninsulas, while the
Baltic forms that of Scandinavia and the much smaller one of
Denmark. Save the last-named, all these peninsulas of Europe
are essentially mountain ranges. But in height and importance
the ranges that rise therein are much surpassed by a great
mountain-chain, stretching from south-eastern France to the
borders of Hungary, as well as between the plains of northern
Italy and of southern Germany. This chain is collectively
known as the Alps, and is the most important physical feature
of the European continent. The Alps, however, do not present
so continuous a barrier as the Himalayas, the Andes or even the
Pyrenees. They are formed of numerous ranges, divided by
comparatively deep valleys, which, with many local exceptions,
tend towards parallelism with the general direction of the
whole mass. This, between the Dauphine and the borders of
Hungary, forms a broad band convex towards the north, while
most of the valleys lie between the directions west to east and
south-west to north-east. But in many parts deep transverse
valleys intersect the prevailing direction of the ridges, and
facilitate the passage of man, plants and animals, as well
as of currents of air which mitigate the contrast that would
otherwise be found between the climates of the opposite slopes.
The derivation of the name Alps is still very uncertain, some
writers connecting it with a Celtic root alb, said to mean
height, while others suggest the Latin adjective albus (white),
referring to the colour of the snowy peaks. But in all parts of
the great chain itself, the term Alp (or Alm in the Eastern
Alps) is exclusively applied to the high mountain pastures
(see ALP), and not to the peaks and ridges of the chain.
2. Limits.---These will depend on the meaning we attach to the
word Alps as referring to the great mountain-chain of central
Europe. If we merely desire to distinguish it from certain
minor ranges (e.g. the Cevenues, the Jura, the hills of
central Germany, the Carpathians, the Apennines), which are
really independent ranges rather than offshoots of the main
chain, the best limits are on the west (strictly speaking
south), the Col d'Altare or di Cadibona (1624 ft.), leading
from Turin to Savona and Genoa, and on the east the line
of the railway over the Semmering Pass (3215 ft.) from
Vienna to Marburg in the Mul valley, and on by Laibach to
Trieste. But if we confine the meaning of the term Alps to
those parts of the chain that are what is commonly called
``Alpine,', where the height is sufficient to support a
considerable mass of perpetual snow, our boundaries to the
west and to the east must be placed at spots other than
those mentioned above. To the west the limit will then be
the Col de Tenda (6145 ft.), leading from Cuneo (Coni) to
Ventimigha, while on the east our line will be the route over
the Radstadter Tauern (5702 ft.) and the Katschberg (5384
ft.) from Salzburg to Villach in Carinthia, and thence by
Klagenfurt to Marburg and so past Laibach in Carniola on to
Trieste; from Villach the direct route to Trieste would be
over the Predil Pass (3813 ft.) or the Pontebba or Saifnitz
Pass (2615 ft.), more to the west, but in either case this
would exclude the Terglou (9400 ft.), the highest summit of
the entire South-Eastern Alps, as well as its lower neighbours.
On the northern side the Alps (in whichever sense we take
this term) are definitely bounded by the course of the
Rhine from Basel to the Lake of Constance, the plain of
Bavaria, and the low region of foot-hills that extend from
Salzburg to the neighbourhood of Vienna. One result of this
limit, marked out by Nature herself, is that the waters
which flow down the northern slope of the Alps find their
way either into the North Sea through the Rhine, or into the
Black Sea by means of the Danube, not a 1lrop reaching the
Baltic Sea. On the southern side the mountains extending from
near Turin to near Trieste subside into the great plain of
Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. But what properly forms the
western bit of the Alps runs, from near Turin to the Col de
Tenda, in a southerly direction, then bending eastwards
to the Col d'Altare that divides it from the Apennines.
It should be borne in mind that the limits adopted above refer
purely to the topographical aspect of the Alps as they exist
at the present day. Naturalists will of course prefer other
limits according as they are geologists, botanists or zoologists.
3. Climate.---It is well known that as we rise from the
sea-level into the upper regions of the atmosphere the
temperature decreases. The effect of mountain-chains on
prevailing winds is to carry warm air belonging to the lower
region into an upper zone, where it expands in volume at
the cost of a proportionate loss of heat, often accompanied
by the precipitation of moisture in the form of snow or
rain. The position of the Alps about the centre of the
European continent has profoundly modified the climate of all
the surrounding regions. The accumulation of vast masses of
snow, which have gradually been converted into permanent
glaciers, maintains a gradation of very different climates
within the narrow space that intervenes between the foot of
the mountains and their upper ridges; it cools the breezes
that are wafted to the plains on either side, but its
most important function is to regulate the water-supply of
thatlarge region which is traversed by the streams of the
Alps. Nearly all the moisture that is precipitated during
six or seven months is stoled upin the form of snow, and is
gradually diffused in the course of the succeeding summer;
even in the hottest and driest seasons the reserves accumulated
during a long preceding period of years in the form of glaciers
are available to maintain the regular flow of the greater
streams. Nor is this all; the lakes that fill several of the
main valleys on the southern side of the Alps are somewhat
above the level of the plains of Lombardy and Venetia, and
afford an inexhaustible supply of water, which, from a remote
period, has been used for that system of irrigation to
which they owe their proverbial fertility. Six regions or
zones, which are best distinguished by their characteristic
vegetation, are found in the Alps. It is an error to
suppose that these are indicated by absolute height above the
sea-level. Local conditions of exposure to the sun, protection
from cold winds, or the reverse, are of primary importance
in determinin8 the climate and the corresponding vegetation.
Olive region.
The great plain of Upper Italy has a winter climate colder than
that of the British Islands. The olive and the characteristic
shrubs of the northern coasts of the Mediterranean do not
thrive in the open air, but the former valuable tree ripens
its fruit in sheltered places at the foot of the mountains, and
penetrates along the deeper valleys and the shores of the Italian
lakes. The evergreen oak is wild on the rocks about the Lake
of Garda, and lemons are cultivated on a large scale, with
partial protection in winter. The olive has been known to
survive severe cold when of short duration, but it cannot be
cultivated with success where frosts are prolonged, or where
the mean winter temperature falls below 42 deg. F.; and to produce
fruit it requires a heat of at least 75 deg. F. during the day,
continued through four or five months of the summer and autumn.
Vine region.
The vine is far more tolerant of cold than the olive, but to
produce tolerable wine it demands, at the season of ripening, a
degree of heat not much less than that needed by the more delicate
tree. These conditions are satisfied in the deeper valleys
of the Alps, even in the interior of the chain, and up to a
considerable height on slopes exposed to the sun. The protection
afforded by winter snow enables the plant to resist severe
and prolonged frosts, such as would be fatal in more exposed
situations. Many wild plants characteristic of the warmer
parts of middle Europe are seen to flourish along with the
vine. A mean summer temperature of at least 68 deg. F. is considered
necessary to produce tolerable wine, but in ordinary seasons
this is much exceeded in many of the great valleys of the Alps.
Mountain region, or region of deciduous trees.
Many writers take the growth of grain as the characteristic of
the mountain region; but so many varieties of all the common
species are in cultivation, and these have such different
climatal requirements, that they do not afford a factory
criterion. A more natural limit is afforded by the presence
of the chief deciduous trees---oak, beech, ash and sycamore.
These do not reach exactly to the same elevation, nor are they
often found growing together; but their upper limit corresponds
accurately enough to the change from a temperate to a colder
climate that is further proved by a change in the wild herbaceous
vegetation. This limit usually lies about 4000 ft. above
the sea on the north side of the Alps, but on the southern
slopes it often rises to 5000 ft., sometimes even to 5500
ft. It must not be supposed that this region is always
marked by the presence of the characteristic trees. The
interference of man has in many districts almost extirpated
them, and, excepting the beech forests of the Austrian Alps, a
considerable wood of deciduous trees is scarcely anywhere to be
found. In many districts where such woods once existed, their
place has been occupied by the Scottish pine and spruce, which
suffer less from the ravages of goats, the worst enemies of tree
vegetation. The mean annual temperature of this region differs
little from that of the British Islands; but the climatal
conditions are widely different. Here snow usually lies for
several months, till it gives place to a spring and summer
considerably warmer than the average of British seasons.
Subalpine region, or region of coniferous trees.
The Subalpine is the region which mainly determines the manner
of life of the population of the Alps. On a rough estimate
we may reckon that, of the space lying between the summits
of the Alps and the low country on either side, one-quarter
is available for cultivation, of which about one-half may
be vineyards and corn-fields, while the remainder produces
forage and grass. About another quarter is utterly barren,
consisting of snow-fields, glaciers, bare rock, lakes and
the beds of streams. There remains about one-half, which
is divided between forest and pasture, and it is the produce
of this half which mainly supports the relatively large
population. For a quarter of the year the flocks and herds
are fed on the upper pastures; but the true limit of the
wealth of a district is the number of animals that can be
supported during the long winter, and while one part of the
population is engaged in tending the beasts and in making
cheese and butter, the remainder is busy cutting hay and
storing up winter food for the cattle. The larger villages
are mostly in the mountain region, but in many parts of the
Alps the villages stand in the subalpine region at heights
varying from 4000 ft. to 5500 ft. above the sea, more rarely
extending to about 6000 ft. The most characteristic feature
of this region is the prevalence of coniferous trees,
which, where they have not been artificially kept down, form
vast forests that cover a large part of the surface. These
play a most important part in the natural economy of the
country. They protect the valleys from destructive avalanches,
and, retaining the superficial soil by their roots, they
mitigate the destructive effects of heavy rains. In valleys
where they have been rashly cut away, and the waters pour
down the slopes unchecked, every tiny rivulet becomes a raging
torrent, that carries off the grassy slopes and devastates
the floor of the valley, covering the soil with gravel and
debris. In the pine forests of the Alps the prevailing
species are the common spruce and the silver fir; on siliceous
soil the larch flourishes, and surpasses every other European
species in height. The Scottish pine is chiefly found at a
lower level and rarely forms forests. The Siberian fir is
found scattered at intervals throughout the Alps but is not
common. The mughus, creeping pine, or Krummholz of the
Germans, is common in the Eastern Alps, and sometimes forms
on the higher mountains a distinct zone above the level of its
congeners. In the Northern Alps the pine forests rarely
surpass the limit of 6000 ft. above the sea, but on the
south side they commonly attain 7000 ft., while the larch,
Siberian fir and mughus often extend above that elevation.
Alpine region.
Throughout the Teutonic region of the Alps the word Alp
is used specifically for the upper pastures where cattle
are fed in summer, but this region is held to include
the whole space between the uppermost limit of trees and
the first appearance of permanent masses of snow. It is
here that the characteristic vegetation of the Alps is
developed in its full beauty and variety. Shrubs are not
wanting. Three species of rhododendron vie with each other
in the brilliancy of their masses of red or pink flowers;
the common juniper rises higher still, along with three
species of bilberry; and several dwarf willows attain nearly
to the utmost limit of vegetation. The upper limit of this
region coincides with the so-called limit of perpetual snow.
Glacial region.
On the higher parts of lofty mountains more snow falls in
each year than is melted on the spot. A portion of this is
carried away by the wind before it is consolidated; a larger
portion accumulates in hollows and depressions of the surface,
and is gradually converted into glacier-ice, which descends
by a slow secular motion into the deeper valleys, where it
goes to swell perennial streams. As on a mountain the snow
does not lie in beds of uniform thickness, and some parts
are more exposed to the sun and warm winds than others, we
commonly find beds of snow alternating with exposed slopes
covered with brilliant vegetation; and to the observer near
at hand there is no appearance in the least corresponding
to the term limit of perpetual snow, though the case
is otherwise when a high mountain-chain is viewed from a
distance. Similar conditions are repeated at many different
points, so that the level at which large snow-beds show
themselves along its flanks is approximately horizontal. But
this holds good only so far as the conditions are similar. On
the opposite sides of the same chain the exposure to the sun
or to warm winds may cause a wide difference in the level of
permanent snow; but in some cases the increased fall of snow
on the side exposed to moist winds may more than compensate
the increased influence of the sun's rays. Still, even with
these reservations, the so-called line of perpetual snow is not
fixed. The occurrence of favourable meteorological conditions
during several successive seasons may and does increase the
extent of the snow-fields, and lower the limit of seemingly
permanent snow; while an opposite state of things may cause
the limit to rise higher on the flanks of the mountains.
Hence all attempts to fix accurately the level of pernetual
snow in the Alps are fallacious, and can at the best approach
only to local accuracy for a particular district. In some
parts of the Alps the limit may be set at about 8000 ft. above
the sea, while in others it cannot be placed much below 9500
ft. As very little snow can rest on rocks that lie at an
angle exceeding 60 deg. , and this is soon removed by the wind,
some steep masses of rock remain bare even near the summits
of the highest peaks, but as almost every spot offering the
least hold for vegetation is covered with snow, few flowering
plants are seen above 11,000 ft. There is reason to think,
however, that it is the want of soil rather than climatal
conditions that checks the upward extension of the alpine
flora. Increased direct effect of solar radiation compensates
for the cold of the nights, and in the few spots where
plants have been found in flower up to a height of 12,000
ft., nothing has indicated that the processes of vegetation
were arrested by the severe cold which they must sometimes
endure. The climate of the glacial region has often been
compared to that of the polar regions, but they are widely
different. Here, intense solar radiation by day, which
raises the surface when dry to a temperature approaching
80 deg. F., alternates with severe frost by night. There, a
sun which never sets sends feeble rays that maintain a low
equable temperature, rarely rising more than a few degrees
above the freezing-point. Hence the upper region of the
Alps sustains a far more varied and brilliant vegetation.
4. Main Chain.---In the case of every mountain system
geographers are disposed to regard, as a general rule, the
watershed (or boundary dividing the waters flowing towards
opposite slopes of the range) as marking the main chain,
and this usage is justified in that the highest peaks often
rise on or very near the watershed. Yet, as a matter of
fact, several important mountain groups are situated on one
or other side of the watershed of the Alps, and form almost
independent ranges, being only connected with the main chain
by a kind of peninsula: such are the Dauphine Alps, the
Eastern and Western Graians, the entire Bernese Oberland, the
Todi, Albula and Silvretta groups, the Ortler and Adamello
ranges, and the Dolomites of south Tirol, not to speak of the
lower Alps of the Vorarlberg, Bavaria and Salzburg. Of course
each of these semi-detached ranges has a watershed of its
own, like the lateral ridges that branch off from the main
watershed. Thus there are lofty ranges parallel to that which
forms the main watershed. The Alps, therefore, are not composed
of a single range (as shown on the old maps) but of a great
``divide,'' flanked on either side by other important ranges,
which, however, do not comprise such lofty peaks as the main
watershed. In the following remarks we propose to follow
the main watershed from one end of the Alps to the other.
Starting from the Col d'Altare or di Cadibona (west of
Savona), the main chain extends first south-west, then
north-west to the Col de Tenda, though nowhere rising much
beyond the zone of coniferous trees. Beyond the Col de Tenda
the direction is first roughly west, then north-west to the
Rocher des Trois Eveques (9390 ft.), just south of the
Mont Enchastraye (9695 ft.), several peaks of about 10,000
ft. rising on the watershed, though the highest of all, the
Punta dell' Argentera(10,794 ft.) stands a little way to its
north. From the Rocher des Trois Eveques the watershed
runs due north for a long distance, though of the two loftiest
peaks of this region One, the Aiguille de Chambeyron (11,155
ft.), is just to the west, and the other, the Monte Viso
(12,609 ft.), is just to the east of the watershed. From the
head of the Val Pellice the main chain runs north-west, and
diminishes much in average height till it reaches the Mont
Thabor (10,440 ft.), which forms the apex of a salient angle
which the main chain here presents towards.the west. Hence
the main watershed extends eastwards, culminating in the
Aiguille de Scolette (11,500 ft.), but makes a great curve
to the north-west and back to the south-east before rising
in the Rochemelon (11,605 ft.), which may be considered as
a re-entering angle in the great rampart by which Italy is
guarded from its neighbours. Thence the direction taken is
north as far as the eastern summit (11,693 ft.) of the Levanna,
the watershed rising in a series of snowy peaks, though the
loftiest point of the region, the Pointe de Charbonel (12,336
ft.), stands a little to the west. Gnce more the chain bends
to the north-west, rising in several lofty peaks (the highest
is the Aiguille de la Grande Sassiere, 12,323 ft.), before
attaining the considerable depression of the Little St Bernard
Pass. Thence for a short way the direction is north to the
Col de la Soigne, and then north-east along the crest of the
Mont Blanc chain, which culminates in the peak of Mont Blanc
(15,782 ft.), the loftiest in the Alps. A number of high peaks
crown our watershed before it attains the Mont Dolent (12,543
ft.). Thence after a short dip to the south-east, our chain
takes near the Great St Bernard Pass the generally eastern
direction that it maintains till it reaches Monte Rosa,whence
it bends northwards, making one small dip to the east as far
as the Simplon Pass. It is in the portion of the watershed
between the Great St Bernard and the Simplon that the main
chain maintains a greater average height than in any other
part. But, though it rises in a number of lofty peaks, such
as the Mont Velan ( 12,353 ft. ), the Matterhorn (14,782 ft.),
the Lyskamm (14,889 ft.), the Nord End of Monte Rosa (15,132
ft.), and the Weissmies (13,226ft.), yet manyof the highest
points of the region, such as the Grand Combin (14,164 ft.),
the Dent Blanche (14,318 ft.), the Weisshorn (14,804 ft.), the
true summit or Dufourspitze (15,217 ft.) of Monte Rosa itself,
and the Dom (14,942 ft.), all rise on its northern slope and
not on the main watershed. On the other hand the chain between
the Great St Bernard and the Simplon sinks at barely half a
dozen points below a level of 10,000 ft. The Simplon Pass
corresponds to what may be called a dislocation of the main
chain. Thence to the St Gotthard the divide runs north-east,
all the higher summits (including the Monte Leone, 11,684
ft., and the Pizzo Rotondo, 10,489 ft.) rising on it, a curious
contrast to the long stretch just described. From the St
Gotthard to the Maloja the watershed between the basins of the
Rhine and Po runs in an easterly direction as a whole, though
making two great dips towards the south, first to near the
Vogelberg (10,565 ft.) and again to near the Pizzo Gailegione
(10,201 ft.), so that it presents a broken and irregular
appearance. But all the loftiest peaks rise on it: Scopi
(10,499 ft.), Piz Medel (10,509 ft.), the Rheinwaldhorn (11,I49
ft.), the Tambohorn (10,749 ft.) and Piz Timun (10,502 ft.).
From the Maloja Pass the main watershed dips to the south-east
for a short distance, and then runs eastwards and nearly over
the highest summit of the Bernina group, the Piz Bernina (13,304
ft.), to the Bernina Pass. Thence to the Reschen Scheideck
Pass the main chain is ill-defined, though on it rises the
Corno di Campo (10,844 ft.), beyond which it runs slightly
north-east past the sources of the Adda and the Fraele Pass,
sinks to form the depression of the Ofen Pass, soon hends
north and rises once more in the Piz Sesvenna (10,568 ft.).
The break in the continuity of the Alpine chain marked by the
deep valley, the Vintschgau, of the upper Adige (Etsch) is
one of the most remarkable features in the orography of the
Alps. The little Reschen lake which forms the chief source
of the Adige is only 13 ft. below the Reschen Scheideck
Pass (4902 ft.), and by it is but 5 m. from the Inn valley.
Eastward of this pass, the main chain runs north-east to the
Brenner Pass along the snowy crest of the Oetzthal and Stubai
Alps, the loftiest point on it being the Weisskugel (12,291
ft., Oetzthal), for the highest summits both of the Oetzthal
and of the Stubai districts, the Wildspitze (12,382 ft.) and
the Zuckerhutl (11,520 ft.) stand a little to the north.
The Brenner (4495 ft.) is almost the lowest of all the great
Carriage-road passes across the main chain, and has always
been the chief means of communication between Germany and
Italy. For some way beyond it the watershed runs eastwards
over the highest crest of the Zillerthal Alps, which attains
11,559 ft. in the Hochfeiler. But, a little farther, at
the Dreiherrenspitze (11,500 ft.) we have to choose between
following the watershed southwards, or keeping due east along
the highest crest of the Greater Tauern Alps. (a) The latter
course is adopted by many geographers and has much in its
favour. The eastward direction is maintained and the watershed
(though not the chief Alpine watershed) continues through
the Greater Tauern Alps, culminating in the Gross Venediger
(12,008 ft.), for the Gross Glockner (12,461 ft.) rises to the
south. Our chain bends north-east near the Radstadter Tauern
Pass, and preserves that direction through the Lesser Tauern
Alps to the Semmering Pass. (b) On the other hand, if from
the Dreiherrenspitze we cleave to the true main watershed
of the Alpine chain, we find that it dips south, passes
over the Hochgall (11,287 ft.), the culminating point of the
Rieserferner group, and then sinks to the Toblach Pass, but at
a point a little east of the great Dolomite peak of the Drei
Zinnen it hends east again, and rises in the Monte Coghans
(9128 ft., the monarch of the Carnic Alps). Soon after our
watershed makes a last bend to the south-east and culminates
in the Terglou (9400 ft.), the highest point of the Julio
Alps, though the Grintovc (8429 ft., the culminating point
of the Karawankas Alps) stands more to the east. Finally
our watershed turns south and ends near the great limestone
plateau of the Birnbaumerwald, between Laibach and Gorz.
As might be expected, the main chain boasts of more glaciers
and eternal snow than the independent or external ranges.
Yet it is a curious fact that the three longest glaciers in
the Alps (the Great Aletsch, 16 1/2 m., and the Unteraar and the
Fiescher, each 10 m.) are all in the Bernese Oberland. In
the main chain the two longest are both 9 1/4 m., the Mer de
Glace at Chamonix and the Gomer at Zermatt. In the Eastern
Alps the longest glacier is the Pasterze (rather over 6 1/4
m.), which is not near the true main watershed, though it
clings to the slope of the Greater Tauern range, east of the
Dreiherrenspitze. But the next two longest glaciers in the Eastern
Alps (the Hintereis, 6 1/2 m., and the Gepatsch, 6 m.) are both
in the Oetzthal Alps, and so close to the true main watershed.
The so-called alpine lakes are the sheets of water found at the
foot of the Alps, on either slope, just where the rivers that
form them issue into the plains. There are, however, alpine
lakes higher up (e.g. the lake of Thun, and those in the
Upper Engadine, in the heart of the mountains, though these are
naturally smaller in extent, while the true lakes of the High
Alps are represented by the glacier lakes of the Marjelensee
(near the Great Aletsch glacier) and those on the northern
slope of the Col de Fenetre, between Aosta and the Val de
Bagnes. The most singular, and probably the loftiest, lake
in the Alps is the ever-frozen tarn that forms the summit
of the Roccia Viva (11,976 ft.) in the Eastern Graians.
Among the great alpine rivers we may distinguish two
classes: those which spring directly from glaciers and those
which rise in lakes, these being fed by eternal snows or
glaciers. In the former class are the Isere, the Rhone,
the Aar, the Ticino, the Tosa, the Hinter (or main)
Rhine and the Linth; while in the latter class we have the
Durance, the Po, the Reuss, the Vorder and middle branches
of the Rhine, the Inn, the Adda, the Ogho and the Adige.
The Piave and the Drave seem to be outside either class.
5. Principal Passes.--Though the Alps form a barrier they have
never formed an impassable barrier, since, from the earliest
days onwards, they have been traversed first, perhaps, for
purposes of war or commerce, and later by pilgrims, students and
tourists. The spots at which they were crossed are called
passes (this word is sometimes though rarely applied to gorges
only), and are the points at which the great chain sinks to
form depressions, up to which deep-cut valleys lead from the
plains. Hence the oldest name for such passes is Mont
(still retained in cases of the Mont Cenis and the Monte
Moro), for it was many ages before this term was especially
applied to the peaks of the Alps, which with a few very rare
exceptions (e.g. the Monte Viso was known to the Romans as
Vesulus) were long simply disregarded. The native inhabitants
of the Alps were naturally the first to use the alpine
passes. But to the outer world these passes first became known
when the Romans traversed them in order to conquer the world
beyond. In the one case we have no direct knowledge (though
the Romans probably selected the passes pointed out to them
by the natives as the easiest), while in the other we hear
almost exclusively of the passes across the main chain or
the principal passes of the Alps. For obvious reasons the
Romans, having once found an easy direct pass across the main
chain, did not trouble to seek for harder and more devious
routes. Hence the passes that can be shown to have been
certainly known to them are comparatively few in number: they
are, in topographical order from west to east, the Col de
l'Argentiere, the Mont Genevre, the two St Bernards, the
Splugen, the Septimer, the Brenner, the Radstadter Tauern, the
Solkscharte, the Plocken and the Pontebba (or Saifnitz). Of
these the Mont Genevre and the Brenner were the most frequented,
while it will be noticed that in the Central Alps only two passes
(the Splugen and the Septimer) were certainly known to the
Romans. In fact the central portion of the Alps was by far
the least Romanised and least known till the early middle
ages. Thus the Simplon is first certainly mentioned in
1235, the St Gotthard (without name) in 1236, the Lukmanier
in 965, the San Bernardino in 941; of course they may have
been known before, but authentic history is silent as regards
them till the dates specified. Even the Mont Cenis (from the
15th to the 19th century the favourite pass for travellers
going from France to Italy) is first heard of in 756 only.
In the 13th century many hitherto unknown passes came into
prominence, even some of the easy glacier passes. It should
always be borne in mind that in the Western and Central Alps
there is but one ridge to cross, to which access is gained
by a deep-cut valley, though often it would be shorter to
cross a second pass in order to gain the plains, e.g. the
Mont Genevre, that is most directly reached by the Col du
Lautaret; and the Simplon, which is best gained by one of the
lower passes over the western portion of the Bernese Oberland
chain. On the other hand, in the Eastern Alps, it is generally
necessary to cross three distinct ridges between the northern
and southern plains, the Central ridge being the highest
and most difficult. Thus the passes which crossed a single
ridge, and did not involve too great a detour through a long
valley of approach, became the most important and the most
popular, e.g. the Mont Cenis, ihe Great St Bernard, the St
Gotthard, the Septimer and the Brenner. As time went on the
travellers (with whatever object) who used the great alpine
passes could not put up any longer with the bad old mule
paths. A few passes (e.g. the Semmering, the Brenner, the
Tenda and the Arlberg) can boast of carriage roads constructed
before 1800, while those over the Umbrail and the Great St
Bernard were not completed till the early years of the 20th
century. Most of the carriage roads across the great alpine
passes were thus constructed in the 19th century (particularly
its first half), largely owing to the impetus given by
Napoleon. As late as 1905, the highest pass over the main
chain that had a carriage road was the Great St Bernard (8111
ft.), but three still higher passes over side ridges have
roads---the Stelvio (9055 ft.), the Col du Galibier (8721
ft.), in the Dauphine Alps, and the Umbrail Pass (8242
ft.). Still more recently the main alpine chain has been
subjected to the further indignity of having railway lines
carried over it or through it---the Brenner and the Pontebba
lines being cases of the former, and the Col de Tenda, the
Mont Cenis (though the tunnel is really 17 m. to the west), the
Simplon and the St Gotthard, not to speak of the side passes
of the Arlberg, Albula and Pyhrn of the latter. There are
also schemes (more or less advanced) for piercing the Splugen
and the Hohe Tauern, both on the main ridge, and the Lotschen
Pass, on one of the external ranges. The numerous mountain
railways, chiefly in Switzerland, up various peaks (e.g.
the Rigi and Pilatus) and over various side passes (e.g.
the Brunig and the Little Scheidegg) do not concern us here.
6. Divisions.---The Alps, within the limits indicated under
(2) above, form a great range, consisting of a main chain, with
ramifications, and of several parallel minor chains. They thus
form a single connected whole as contrasted with the plains
at their base, and nature has made no breaks therein, save at
the spots where they sink to comparatively low depressions or
passes. But for the sake of practical convenience it has
long been usual to select certain of the best marked of
these passes to serve as limits within the range, whether to
distinguish several great divisions from each other, or to
further break up each of these great divisions into smaller
groups. As these divisions, great or small, are so to speak
artificial, several systems have been proposed according
to which the Alps may be divided. We give below that which
seems to us to be the most satisfactory (based very largely
on personal acquaintance with most parts of the range),
considering, as in the case of the limits of the chain,
only its topographical aspect, as it exists at the present
day, while leaving it to geologists, botanists and zoologists
to elaborate special divisions as required by these various
sciences. Our selected divisions relate only to the High Alps
between the Col de Tenda and the route over the Radstadter
Tauern. while in each of the 18 subdivisions the less
elevated outlying peaks are regarded as appendages of the
higher group within the topographical limits of which they
rise. No attempt, of course, has been made to give a
complete catalogue of the peaks and passes of the Alps, while
in the case of the peaks the culminating point of a lower
halfdetached group has been included rather than the loftier
spurs of the higher and main group; in the case of the passes,
the villages or valleys they connect have been indicated,
and also the general character of the route over each pass.
As regards the main divisions, three are generally distinguished;
the Western Alps (chiefly French and Italian, with a small
bit of the Swiss Valais) being held to extend from the Col de
Tenda to the Simplon Pass, the Central Alps (all but wholly
Swiss and Italian) thence to the Reschen Scheideck Pass,
and the Eastern Alps (wholly Austrian and Italian, save the
small Bavarian bit at the northswest angle) thence to the
Radstadter Tauern ro:ite, with a bend outwards towards the
south-east, as explained under (2) in order to include the
higher summits of the SouthEastern Alps. Strictly speaking,
we should follow the Reschen Scheideck route down the
Adigevalley, but as this would include in the Central Alps the
Ortler and some other of the highest Tirolese summits, it is
best (remembering the artificial character of the division)
to draw a line from Mals southwards either over the Umbrail
Pass (the old historical pass) or the Stelvio (wellknown
only since the carriage road was built over it in the first
quarter of the 19th century) to the head of the Valtellina,
and then over the Aprica Pass (as the Bergamasque Alps properly
belong to the Central Alps) to the Oglio valley or the Val
Camonica, and down that valley to the Lake of Iseo and Brescid.
Assuming these three main divisions, we must now consider in
detail the 18 sub-divisions which we distinguish; the first 5
forming the Western Alps, the next 7 the Central Alps, and the
rest the Eastern Alps, the heights throughout being, of course,
given in English feet and representing the latest measurements.
I. WESTERN ALPS
1. Maritime Alps (from the Col de Tenda to the Col de
l'Argentiere).
Punta dell' Argentera . . . . . 10,794 Mont Tinibras. . . . . . . . . . .9,948
Cima dei Golas. . . . . . . . . 10,286 Mont Enchastraye . . . . . . . . .9,695
Monte Matto . . . . . . . . . . 10,128 Monte Bego . . . . . . . . . . . .9,426
Mont Pelat. . . . . . . . . . . 10,017 Mont Monnier . . . . . . . . . . .9,246
Mont Clapier. . . . . . . . . . 9,994 Rocca dell' Abisso . . . . . . . .9,039
Chief passes of the Maritime Alps.
Passo del Pagarin (Vosubie Valley to Valdieri), snow . . . . . . . . . . .9,236
Col di Fremamorta (Tinee Valley to the Baths of Valdieri),
bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,688
Bassa di Druos (same to same), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,629
Passo di Collalunga (Tinee Valley to Vinadio), bridle path. . . . . . .8,531
Coll dell' Agnel (Tenda to Yaldieri), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,426
Col della Ciriegia (St Martin Vesubie to the Baths of Valdieri),
bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,370
Col des Granges Communes (St Etienne de Tinee to Barcelonnette),
bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,242
Col de Pourriac (Tinee Valley to Argentera), foot path. . . . . . . . .8,222
Col della Finestre (St Martin de Vesubie to Valdieri), bridle
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,107
Col di Guercia (Tinee Valley t0 Vinadio), foot path . . . . . . . . . .8,042
Col della Lombarda (same to same), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,858
Col de la Cayolle (Var Valley to Barcelonnette), carriage
road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,717
Col di Santa Anna (Tinee Valley to Vinadio), bridle path. . . . . . . .7,605
Col del Sabbione (Tenda to Valdieri), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,428
Col d'Allos or de Valgelaye (Verdon Valley to Barcelonnette),
carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,382
Col de l'Argentiere (Barcelonnette to Cuneo), carriage road . . . . . .6,545
Col de Tenda (Tenda to Cuneo), carriage road, railway beneath. . . . . . .6,145
2. Cottian Alps (from the Col de l'Argentiere to the Mont Cenis
and westwards to the Col du Galibier).
Chief Peaks of the Cottian Alps.
Monte Viso . . . . . . . . . . 12,609 Dents d'Ambin. . . . . . . . . . 11,096
Viso di Vallante . . . . . . . 12,048 Mont d'Ambin . . . . . . . . . . 11,080
Aiguille de Scolette . . . . . 11,500 Pointe de la Font Sancte . . . . 11,057
Aiguille de Chambeyron . . . . 11,155 Punta Ferrant. . . . . . . . . . 11,037
Grand Rubren . . . . . . . . . 11,142 Visolotto. . . . . . . . . . . . 11,001
Bree de Chambeyron . . . . . . 11,116 Rochebrune . . . . . . . . . . . 10,906
Rognosa d'Etache . . . . . . .11,106 Punta Sommeiller . . . . . . . . 10,896
Bric Froid . . . . . . . . . . 10,860 Tete des Toillies . . . . . . 10,430
Grand Glavza . . . . . . . . . 10,781 Monte Granero. . . . . . . . . . 10,401
Rognosa di Sestrieres . . . 10,758 Mont Chaberton . . . . . . . . . 10,286
Panestrel. . . . . . . . . . . 10,673 Tete de Moyse . . . . . . . . 10,204
Roche du Grand Galibier. . . . 10,637 Monte Meidassa . . . . . . . . . 10,187
Peou Roc. . . . . . . . . . 10,601 Pelvo d'Elva . . . . . . . . . . 10,053
Pic du Pelvat. . . . . . . . . 10,558 Mont Politri . . . . . . . . . . 10,009
Pointe Haute de Mary . . . . . 10,539 Mont Nlbergian . . . . . . . . . .9,974
Pic du Thabor. . . . . . . . . 10,316 Brio Bouchet . . . . . . . . . . .9,853
Mont Thabor. . . . . . . . . . 10,440 Punta Cournour . . . . . . . . . .9,410
Pointe des Cerces. . . . . . . 10,434
Chief Passes in the Cottian Alps.
Col Sommeiller (Bardonneche to Bramans), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,718
Col de la Traversette (Crissolo to Aliries), mainly bridle path
beneath pass tunnel made in 1478-1480 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,679
Col d'Ambin (Exilles to Bramans), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,364
Col de St Veran (Val Varaita to the Queyras Valley), foot
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,331
Col n'Etache (Bardonneche to Bramans), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .9,144
Col dell' Agnello (Val Varaita to the Queyras Valley), bridle
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,003
Col Girardin (Ubaye Valley to the Queyras Valley), bridle
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,855
Col de Sautron (Val Maira to Barcelonnette), bridle path . . . . . . . . .8,823
Col de Longet (Ubaye Valley to Val Varaita), bridle path . . . . . . . . .8,767
Col de Mary or de M iurin ( Ubaye Valley to Val Maira), bridle
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,708
Col d'Abries or de Prali (Perosa to Abries), bridle path . . . . . .8,695
Col de la Roue (Bardonneche to Modane), bridle path . . . . . . . . . .8,419
Col de Freius (same to same), carriage road, beneath which
Col de Clapier (Bramans to Susa), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,173
Col d'Izouard (Briancon to the Queyras Valley), carriage
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,835
Col de la Croix (Torre Pellice to Abries); bridle path. . . . . . . . .7,576
Petit Mont Cenis (Bramans to the Mont Cenis Plateau), bridle
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,166
Col de Vars (Ubaye Valley to the Queyras Valley), carriage
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,939
Mont Cenis (Lanslebourg to Susa), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,893
Col de Sestrieres (Pignerol to Cesanne), carriage road . . . . . . .6,631
Mont Genevre (Briancon to Cesanne), carriage road . . . . . . . .6,083
Col des Echelles de Planpipinet (Briangon to Bardonneche),
partly carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,774
3. Dauphine Alps (from the Col du Galibier, westwards and southwards).
Chief Peaks of the Dauphine Alps.
Pointe des Ecrins . . . . . 13,462 Pic Felix Neff. . . . . . . . 10,571
Meije. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,081 Vieux Chaillol . . . . . . . . . 10,378
Ailefroide . . . . . . . . . . 12,989 Tete de Vautisse. . . . . . . 10,375
Mont Pelvoux . . . . . . . . . 12,973 Grand Pinier . . . . . . . . . . 10,237
Pic Sans Nom . . . . . . . . . 12,845 Pic de Parieres . . . . . . . 10,007
Pic Gaspard. . . . . . . . . . 12,730 Mourre Froid . . . . . . . . . . .9,830
Pic Coolidge . . . . . . . . . 12,323 Belledonne (highest) . . . . . . .9,781
Grande Ruine . . . . . . . . . 12,317 Rocherblanc (Septlaux) . . . . . .9,617
Rateau. . . . . . . . . . . 12,317 Taillefer. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,387
Montagne des Agneaux . . . . . 12,oo8 Pic du Frene. . . . . . . . . .9,219
Les Bans . . . . . . . . . . . 11,979 Tete de l'Obiou . . . . . . . .9,164
Sommet des Rouies. . . . . . . 11,923 Grand Ferrand. . . . . . . . . . .9,059
Aiguille du Plat . . . . . . . 11,818 Pic de Bure (Aurouse). . . . . . .8,898
Pic d'Olan. . . . . . . . . . 11,735 Grand Veymont. . . . . . . . . . .7,697
Pic Bonvoisin. . . . . . . . . 11,680 Mont Aiguille. . . . . . . . . . .6,880
Aiguilles d'Arves (highest Chamechaude. . . . . . . . . . . .6,847
point). . . . . . . . . . . 11,529 Dent de Crolles. . . . . . . . . .6,779
Grandes Rousses. . . . . . . . 11,395 Grand Sore . . . . . . . . . . . .6,670
Roche de la Muzelle. . . . . . 11,349 Mont Granier . . . . . . . . . . .6,358
Sirac. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,280 Dent du Chat . . . . . . . . . . .4,593
Chief Passes of the Dauphine Alps.
Col de la Lauze (St Christophe to La Grave), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . 11,625
Col des Avalanches (La Berarde to Vallouise), snow. . . . . . . . . . 11,520
Col de la Casse Deserte (La Berarde to La Grave), snow . . . . . . 11,516
Col Emile Pic (La Grave to Vallouise), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,490
Col des Ecrins (La Berarde to Vallouise), snow . . . . . . . . . . 11,205
Col du Glacier Blanc (La Grave to Vallouise), snow . . . . . . . . . . . 10,854
Col du Sele (La Berarde to Vallouise), snow . . . . . . . . . . 10,834
Breche de la Meile (La Berarde to la Grave), snow. . . . . . . . . 10,827
Col de la Temple (La Berarde to Vallouise), snow. . . . . . . . . . . 10,772
Col des Aiguilles d'Arves (Valloire to St Jean d'Arvesl,snow . . . . . . 10,335
Col du Says (La Berarde to the Val Gaudemar), snow. . . . . . . . . . 10,289
Col du Clot des Cavales (La Berarde to La Grave), snow. . . . . . . . 10,263
Col du Loup du Valgaudemar (Vallouise to the Val
Gaudemar), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,210
Col Lombard (La Grave to St Jean d'Arves), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,171
Breche des Grandes Rousses (Allemont to Clavans), snow. . . . . . . . 10,171
Col du Sellar (Vallouise to the Val Gaudemar), snow. . . . . . . . . . . 10,063
Col de la Muande (St Christophe to the Val Gaudemar),
snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,037
Col des Quirlies (St Jean d'Arves to Clavans), snow. . . . . . . . . . . .9,679
Col du Goleon (La Grave to Valloire), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . .9,449
Pas de la Cavale (Vallouise to Champoleon), carriage road . . . . . . .8,990
Col d'Orcieres (Dormillouse to Orcieres), bridle path. . . . . . . .8,859
Col de l'Infernet (La Grave to St lean d'Arves), foot path . . . . . . . .8,826
Col du Galibier (Lautaret Hospice to St Michel de Maurienne),
carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,721
Breche de Valsenestre (Bourg d'Oisans to Valsenestre), foot
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,642
Col de Vallonpierre (Val Gaudemar to Champoleon), foot 8,596
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,596
Col de Val Estrete (same to same), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,596
Col de Vaurze (Val Gaudemar to Val souflrey), foot path. . . . . . . . . .8,531
Col de Martignare (La Grave to St lean d'Arves), foot path . . . . . . . .8,531
Col des Tourettes (Orcieres to Chateauroux), bridle path . . . . . .8,465
Col de la Muzelle (St Christophe to Valsenestre), foot path. . . . . . . .8,202
Col de l'Eychauda (Vallouise to Monestier), bridle path. . . . . . . . . .7,970
Col d'Arsine (La Grave to Monestier), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,874
Col des Pres Nouveaux (Le Frenev to St Jean d'Arves),
bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,523
Col dessept Lanx (Allevard to Bourg d'Oisans), bridle path . . . . . . . .7,166
Col du Lautaret (Briancon to Bourg d'Oisans), carriage
road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,808
Col de la Croix de Fer (Bourg d'Oisans to St Jean d'Arves),
carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,765
Col du Glandon (Bourg d'Oisans to La Chambre), carriage
road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,401
Col de l'Alpe de Venose (Venose to Le Freney), bridle path . . . . .5,446
Col d'Ornon (Bourg d'Oisans to La Mure), carrigae road . . . . . . . . . .4,462
Col Bayard (La Mure to Gap), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,088
Col de la Croix Haute (Grenoble to Veynes and Gap),
railway line over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3,829
4. Graian Alps (from the Mont Cenis to the Little St Bernard
Pass). These are usually divided into three groups, the Central
(the watershed between the two passes named), the Western or
French, and the Eastern or Italian; in the following lists the
initials ``C,'' ``W,'' and ``E'' show to which group each peak
and pass belongs.
Chief Peaks of the Graian Alps.
Grand Paradis (E). . . . . . . 13,324 Grande Aiguille Rousse
Grivola (E). . . . . . . . . . 13,022 (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,424
Oirande Casse (W). . . . . . . 12,668 Granta Parey (C) . . . . . . . . 11,395
Mont Pourri (W). . . . . . . . 12,428 Roc du Mulinet (C) . . . . . . . 11,382
Mont Herbetet (E). . . . . . . 12,396 Aiguille Pers (C). . . . . . . . 11,323
Pointe de Charbonel (C). . . . 12,336 Pointe de la Sana (W). . . . . . 11,319
Aiguille de la Grande Cima dell' Auille (C). . . . . . 11,306
Sassiere (C) . . . . . 12,325 Pointe de l.Lchelle (W). . . . . 11,260
Dent Parrachee (W). . . . . 12,179 Punta Foura (E) . . . . . . . 11,188
Tour du Grand St Pierre Pointe des Sengies (E) . . . . . 11,182
(C) . . . . . . . . . . . 11,424 Pointe de la Gliere (W) . . . 11,109
Uja di Ciamareila (C). . . . . 12,061 Pointe de la Galise (C). . . . . 10,975
Cima di Charforon (E). . . . . 12,025 Pointe de la Traversiere
Grande Motte (W) . . . . . . . 12,018 (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,962
Albaron (C). . . . . . . . . . 12,915 Pointe de Mean Martin
Roccia Viva (E). . . . . . . . 11,976 (W) . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,949
Levanna (C). . . . . . . . . . 11,943 Punta Lavina (E) . . . . . . . . 10,854
Bessanese (C). . . . . . . . . 11,917 Ormelune (C) . . . . . . . . . . 10,77i
Punta di Gaij (E). . . . . . . 11,887 Roche Chevriere (W) . . . . . 10,768
Dome de l'Arpont (W) . . . . . 11,874 Signaldu Montlseran (C). . . . . 10,634
Pointe de Ronco (C). . . . . . 11,871 Pointedela Rechasse (W) 10,575
Bec de l'lnvergnan (C) . . . . 11,838 Crand Assaly (C) . . . . . . . . .10,44
Tsanteleina (C). . . . . . . . 11,831 Roisebanque (E). . . . . . . . . 10,381
Dome de Chasseforet (W). 11,802 Bocca di Nona (E). . . . . . . . 10,309
Croce Rossa (C). . . . . . . . 11,703 Torre d'Ovarda (C) . . . . . . . 10,089
Aiguille de Peclot (W). . . 11,700 Pointe du Pousset (E). . . . . . .9,994
Mont Einilius (E). . . . . . . 11,677 Dome de Val d'Isere (C) . . . .9,951
Punta d'Arnas (C). . . . . . . 11,615 UJa di Mondrone (C). . . . . . . .9,725
Aiguille de Polset (W) . . . . 11,608 Bellagarda (C) . . . . . . . . . .9,643
Rochemelon (C) . . . . . . . . 11,605 Monte Marzo (E). . . . . . . . . .9,023
Mont Chalanson(C). . . . . . . 11,582 Petit Mont Blanc de
Tersiva (E). . . . . . . . . . 11,526 Pralognan (W).. . . . . . . .8,809
Grande Traversiere (C). . . 11,467 Mont Jouvet (W). . . . . . . . . .8,409
Tete du Rutor (C) . . . . . 11,438 Monte Civrari (C). . . . . . . . .7,553
Chief Passes of the Graian Alps.
Col de la Grande Rousse (Rhemes Valley to the Val
Grisanche), snow (C). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,483
Col de Gebroulaz (Arc Valley to Mofitiers Tarentaise), snow
(W) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,385
Col de Monel (Cogne to Locana), snow (E) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,247
Col du Grand Paradis (Ceresole to the Val Savaranche),
snow (E). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,988
Col du Charforon (same to same), snow (E). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,929
Col de Teleccio (Cogne to Locana), snow (E). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,913
Col de Lauzon (Cogne to the Val Savaranche), bridle path (E) . . . . . . 10,831
Col du Bouquetin (Bonneval to Val d'Isere), snow (C). . . . . . . . . 10,827
Col de St Grat (Val Grisanche to La Thuille), snow (C) . . . . . . . . . 10,827
Col de l'Herbetet (Cogne to the Val Savaranche), snow (E). . . . . . . . 10,686
Col du Collerin (Bessans to Balme), snow (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,506
Col du Grand Etret (Ceresole to the Val Savaranche), snow (E). . . . . . 10,361
Col de Bassac (Rhemes Valley to the Val Grisanche), snow (C). . . . . 10,345
Col du Carro (Bonneval to Ceresole), snow (C). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,302
Col d'Arbole (Comboe to Brissogne), snow (E) . . . . . . . . . . . 10,292
Col de la Goletta (Va Id'Isere to the Rhemes Valley), snow (C) . . 10,237
Col de Rhemes (same to same), snow (C). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,174
Col de la Grande Casse (Pralognan to the Premou Glen), snow (W) . . . 10,171
Col de Sea (Bonneval to Forno Alpi Graie), snow (C). . . . . . . . . . . 10,115
Col de l'Autaret (Bessans to Usseglio), foot path (C). . . . . . . . . . 10,073
Col de Girard (Bonneval to Forno Alpi Graie), snow (C) . . . . . . . . . .9,987
Col Rosset (Val Savaranche to the Rhemes Valley), bridle path (C) . . .9,922
Col d'Arnas (Bessans to Balme), snow (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,889
Col de la Galise (Ceresole to Val d'Isere), snow (C). . . . . . . . . .9,836
Col de Sort (Val Savaranche to the Rhemes Valley), partly bridle path .9,735
Quecees de Tignes (Val d'Isere to Termignon), snow (W) . . . . . . .9,646
Col della Nouva (Cogne to Pont Canavese), partly bridle path (E) . . . . .9,623
Col de Garin (Aosta to Cogne), foot path (E) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,411
Collarin d'Arnas (Balme to Usseglio), snow (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,351
Finestra del Torrent (Rhemes Valley to the Val Grisanche), foot path. .9,341
Fenetre de Champorcher (Cogne to Champorcher), bridle path (E). . . . .9,311
Col de Vaudet (Isere Valley to the Val Grisanche), foot path (C). . . .9,305
Col de Bardoney (Cogne to Pont Canavese), snow (E) . . . . . . . . . . . .9,295
Col de Chaviere (Modane to Pralognan), foot path (W). . . . . . . . . .9,206
Col de la Leisse (Tignes to Termignon), snow (W) . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,121
Col du Mont Iseran (Bonneval to Val d'Isere), bridle path (C) . . . . .9,085
Ghicet di Sea (Balme to Forno Alpi Graie), foot path (C) . . . . . . . . .8,973
Col de la Sachette (Tignes to Bourg St Maurice), foot path (W) . . . . . .8,954
Col du Palet (Tignes to Moutiers Tarentaise or Bourg St Maurice),
bridle path (W) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,721
Col du Mont (Ste Foy to the Val Grisanche), bridle path (C). . . . . . . .8,681
Col de la Croix de Nivolet (Ceresole to the Val Savaranche), bridle
path (E). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,665
Col della Crocetta (Ceresole to Forno Alpi Graie), bridle path (C) . . . .8,649
Col de la Platiere (St Jean de Maurienne to Moutiers Tarentaise),
partly bridle path (W). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,531
Col de la Vanoise (Pralognan to Termignon), bridle path (W). . . . . . . .8,291
Col des Encombres (St Michel de Maurienne to Moutiers Tarentaise),
bridle path (W) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,668
Little St Bernard (Aosta to Moutiers Tarentaise), carriage road (C) . .7,179
Col de la Madeleine (La Chambre to Moutiers Tarentaise), bridle
path (W). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,509
5. Pennine Alps (from the Little St Bernard to the Simplon Pass).
This range contains all the highest peaks in the Alps, save the
Finsteraarhorn (14,026) in the Bernese Oberland.
Chief Peaks of the Pennine Alps.
Mont Blanc . . . . . . . . . . 15,782 Mont Blanc de Seilon . . . . . . 12,700
Monte Rosa (Dufourspitze). . . 15,217 Aiguille du Midi . . . . . . . . 12,609
Tour Noir. . . . . . . . . . . . 12,586
Nord End (Monte Rosa). . . . . 15,132 Aiguille des Glaciers. . . . . . 12,579
Dom (Mischabelhorner) . . . 14,942 Mont Dolent. . . . . . . . . . . 12,543
Lyskamm. . . . . . . . . . . . 14,889 Aiguille du Chardonnet . . . . . 12,540
Weisshorn. . . . . . . . . . . 14,804 Cima di Jazzi. . . . . . . . . . 12,527
Matterhorn . . . . . . . . . . 14,782 Balfrin. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,474
Taschhorn . . . . . . . . . 14,758 Pigne d'Arolla . . . . . . . . . 12,471
Mont Maudit. . . . . . . . . . 14,669 Mont Velan. . . . . . . . . . 12,353
Dent Blanche . . . . . . . . . 14,318 Aiguille du Dru. . . . . . . . . 12,320
Dome du Gouter . . . . . 14,210 Tete Blanche. . . . . . . . . 12,304
Grand Combin . . . . . . . . . 14,164 L'Eveque. . . . . . . . . . . 12,264
Castor . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,879 Mont Pleureur. . . . . . . . . . 12,159
Zinal Rothhorn . . . . . . . . 13,856 Dome de Miage. . . . . . . . . . 12,100
Alphubel . . . . . . . . . . . 13,803 Lo Besso . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,058
Grandes Jorasses . . . . . . . 13,797 Aiguille de la Za. . . . . . . . 12,051
Rimpfischhorn. . . . . . . . . 13,790 Mont Collon. . . . . . . . . . . 11,956
Strahlhorn . . . . . . . . . . 13,751 Diablons . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,828
Dent d'Herens . . . . . . . 13,715 Aiguille de Tour . . . . . . . . 11,615
Zermatt Breithorn. . . . . . . 13,685 Mont Gele . . . . . . . . . . 11,539
Aiguille Verte . . . . . . . . 13,541 Bec de Luseney . . . . . . . . . 11,503
Ober Gabelhorn . . . . . . . . 13,364 Aiguille de Grepon. . . . . . 11,489
Aiguille de Bionnassay . . . . 13,341 Chateau des Dames . . . . . . 11,447
Allalinhorn. . . . . . . . . . 13,236 Aiguille des Charmoz . . . . . . 11,293
Weissmies . . . . . . . . . . 13,226 Aiguille du Tacul. . . . . . . . 11,280
Aiguille du Geant . . . . . 13,170 Grand Tournalin. . . . . . . . . 11,086
Laquinhorn . . . . . . . . . . 13,140 Pointe de Rosa Blanche . . . . . 10,985
Rossbodenhorn. . . . . . . . . 13,128 Mont Avril . . . . . . . . . . . 10,962
Grand Cornier. . . . . . . . . 13,022 Grande Rochere. . . . . . . . 10,913
Aiguille de Trelatete. . 12,832 Corno Bianco . . . . . . . . . . 10,893
Aiguille d'Argentiere . . . 12,819 Grauhaupt. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,876
Ruinette . . . . . . . . . . . 12,727 Pointe d'Orny. . . . . . . . . . 10,742
Aiguille de Triolet. . . . . . 12,717 Dent du Midi . . . . . . . . . . 10,696
Mont Favre . . . . . . . . . . 10,693 Tagliaferro. . . . . . . . . . . .9,725
Sasseneire . . . . . . . . . . 10,693 Riffelhorn . . . . . . . . . . . .9,617
Grand Golliaz. . . . . . . . . 10,630 Pointe Percee du Reposoir . . .9,029
Tour Sallieres. . . . . . . 10,588 Crammont . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,980
Pizzo Bianco . . . . . . . . . 10,552 Pointe des Fours . . . . . . . . .8,921
Latelhorn. . . . . . . . . . . 10,523 Pointe du Colloney . . . . . . . .8,832
Schwarzhorn (Augstbord). . . . 10,512 Catogne. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,527
Gornergrat . . . . . . . . . . 10,289 Monte Bo. . . . . . . . . . . .8,386
Pointe de Lechaud . . . . . 10,260 Mont Joly. . . . . . . . . . . . .8,291
Buet . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,201 Brevent . . . . . . . . . . . .8,284
Mont Ruan. . . . . . . . . . . 10,099 Pointe de Salles . . . . . . . . .8,183
Mont Neri . . . . . . . . . 10,073 Aiguille de Varens . . . . . . . .8,163
Bella Tola . . . . . . . . . . 9,935 Mont Chetif . . . . . . . . . .7,687
Pointe de Tanneverge . . . . . 9,784 Mole. . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,132
Belvedere (Aigs. Rouges) 9,731 Saleve (highest point). . . . .4,528
Chief Passes of the Pennine Alps.
Sesiajoch (Zermatt to Alagna), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,515
Col de la Brenva (Courmayeur to Chamonix), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,217
Domjoch (Randa to Saas), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,062
Lysjoch (Zermatt to Gressoney), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,033
Mischabeljoch (Zermatt to Saas), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,651
Alphubel Pass (same to same), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,474
Adler Pass (same to same), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,461
Moming Pass (Zermatt to Zinal), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,287
Schwarzthor (Zermatt to Ayas), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,274
Col de Triolet (Chamonix to Courmayeur), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,110
Ried Pass (St Niklaus to Saas), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,800
New Weissthor (Zermatt to Macugnaga), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,746
Allalin Pass (Zermatt to Saas), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,713
Col de Valpelline (Zermatt to Aosta), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,687
Biesjoch (Randa to Turtmann), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,644
Triftjoch (Zermatt to Zinal), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,615
Col d'Argentiere (Chamonix to Orsieres), snow. . . . . . . . . . . 11,536
Col du Sonadon (Bourg St Pierre to the Val de Bagnes), snow. . . . . . . 11,447
Col de Talefre (Chamonix to Courmayeur), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,430
Col d'Herens (Zermatt to Evolena), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,418
Col Durand (Zermatt to Zinal), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,398
Col des Maisons Blanches (Bourg St Pierre to the Val de Bagnes), snow. . 11,241
Col de Bertol (Arolla to the Col d'Herens), snow. . . . . . . . . . . 11,200
Col de Miage (Contamines to Courmayeur), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,077
Col du Geant (Chamonix to Courmayeur), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,060
Col du Mont Rouge (Val de Bagnes to the Val d'Heremence), snow . . 10,962
Col du Chardonnet (Chamonix to Orsieres), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,909
Col de St Theodule (Zermatt to Chatillon), snow. . . . . . . . . . 10,899
Col du Tour (Chamonix to Orsieres), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,762
Fenetre de Saleinaz (Saleinaz Glacier to Trient Glacier), snow. . . . 10,709
Col de Tracuit (Zinal to Turtmann), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,670
Zwischbergen Pass (Saas to Gondo), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,657
Col d'Oren (Val de Bagnes to the Valpelline), snow . . . . . . . . . . . 10,637
Col de Seilon (Val de Bagnes to the Val d'Heremence), snow . . . . 10,499
Col du Cret (Val de Bagnes to the Val d'Heremence), snow. . . . 10,329
Col de Valcournera (Val Tournanche to the Valpelline), snow . . . . . 10,325
Col de Collon (Arolla to Aosta), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,270
Col de Valsorey (Bourg St Pierre to Aosta), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,214
Col de Chermontane (Val de Bagnes to Arolla), snow . . . . . . . . . . . 10,119
Cimes Blanches (Val Tournanche to Ayas), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . .9,777
Col de Torrent (Evolena to the Val de Torrent), bridle path. . . . . . . .9,593
Augstbord Pass (St Niklaus to Turtmann), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . .9,492
Col de Crete Seche (Val de Bagnes to the Valpelline), snow . . . . .9,475
Col de Breuil (Bourg St Maurice to La Thuille), snow . . . . . . . . . . .9,446
Col d'Olen (Alagna to Gressoney), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,420
Monte Moro (Saas to Macugnaga), partly bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . .9,390
Pas de Chevres (Arolla to the Val d'Heremence), foot path . . . .9,354
Antrona Pass (Saas to Antrona), partly bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . .9,331
Col de Sorebois (Zinal to the Val de Torrent), bridle path . . . . . . . .9,269
Col de Vessona (Valpelline to the St Barthelemy Glen), foot path. . . .9,167
Col de Fenetre (Val de Bagnes to Aosta), bridle path. . . . . . . . . .9,141
Z'Meiden Pass (Zinal to Turtmann), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,095
Turlo Pass (Alagna to Macugnaga), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,977
Col de Fenetre (Great St Bernard to the Swiss Val Ferret),
bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,855
Bettafurka (Ayas to Gressoney), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,780
Col du Mont Tondu (Contamines to Courmayeur), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .8,498
Col Serena (Great St Bernard to Courmayeur). foot path . . . . . . . . . .8,327
Col Ferret (Courmayeur to Orsieres), carriage road in progress. . . . .8,311
Col de la Seigne (Chapieux to Courmayeur) bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .8,242
Col de Susanfe (Champery to Salvan), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . .8,202
Col du Bonhomme (Contamines to Chapieux), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .8,147
Col de Valdobbia (Gressoney to the Val Sesia), bridle path . . . . . . . .8,134
Great St Bernard (Martigny to Aosta), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . .8,111
Col de Sagerou (Sixt to Champery), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,917
Col de Moud (Alagna to Rima and Varallo), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .7,622
Col d'Anterne (Sixt to Servos), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,425
Col d'Egua (Rima to the Val Anzasca), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,336
Col de Balme (Chamonix to the Trient Valley), bridle path. . . . . . . . .7,221
Simplon Pass (Brieg to Domo d'Ossola), carriage road over,
railway tunnel beneath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,592
Col de Checouri (Courmayeur to the Lac de Combal),bridle path . . . . .6,431
Baranca Pass (Varallo to the Val Anzasca), bridle path . . . . . . . . . .5,971
Col de Voza (Chamonix to Contamines), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .5,496
Col de la Forclaz (Chamonix to St Gervais), bridle path. . . . . . . . . .5,105
Col de la Forclaz (Trient Valley to Martigny), carriage road . . . . . . .4,987
II. CENTRAL ALPS
6. Bernese Oberland (from the Lake of Geneva to the Furka, the
Reuss Valley and the Lake of Lucerne). This general name seems
best to describe the range in question, though, of course, portions of
it are in Cantons other than that of Berne, viz. Vaud, Fribourg, the
Valais, Lucerne, Uri and Unterwalden.
Chief Peaks of the Bernese Oberland.
Finsteraarhorn . . . . . . . . 14,026 Wellhorn . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,486
Aletschhorn. . . . . . . . . . 13,721 Mettenberg . . . . . . . . . . . 10,194
Jungfrau . . . . . . . . . . . 13,669 Loffelhorn. . . . . . . . . . 10,165
Monch . . . . . . . . . . . 13,468 Grand Muveran. . . . . . . . . . 10,043
Gross Schreckhorn. . . . . . . 13,386 Gross Wendenstock. . . . . . . . .9,987
Gross Fiescherhorn . . . . . . 13,285 Sparrhorn. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,928
Eiger. . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,042 Torrenthorn. . . . . . . . . . . .9,853
Bietschhorn. . . . . . . . . . 12,970 Grande Dent de Morcles . . . . . .9,777
Gross Wannehorn. . . . . . . . 12,812 Schilthorn . . . . . . . . . . . .9,754
Gross Nesthorn . . . . . . . . 12,533 Eggishorn. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,626
Lauterbrunnen Breithorn. . . . 12,399 Uri Rothstock. . . . . . . . . . .9,620
Balmhorn . . . . . . . . . . . 12,176 Schwarzhorn(Grindelwald) . . . . .9,613
Wetterhorn (Mittelhorn). . . . 12,166 Gross Siedelhorn . . . . . . . . .9,452
Wetterhorn (Hash Jungfrau) . . 12,149 Albristhorn. . . . . . . . . . . .9,069
Rothihorn.. . . . . . . . . . .9,052
Wetterhorn (Rosenhorn) . . . . 12,110 Faulhorn . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,803
Blumlisalphorn. . . . . . . 12,044 Gummfluh . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,074
Gross Doldenhorn . . . . . . . 11,966 Sulegg . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,914
Atels. . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,930 Vanil Noir . . . . . . . . . . . .7,858
Dammastock . . . . . . . . . . 11,920 Niesen . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,763
Galenstock . . . . . . . . . . 11,802 Brienzer Rothhorn. . . . . . . . .7,714
Sustenhorn . . . . . . . . . . 11,523 Tour d'Ai. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,658
Gspaltenhorn . . . . . . . . . 11,293 Hohgant. . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,225
Fleckistock. . . . . . . . . . 11,214 Stockhorn. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,192
Gross Huhnerstock . . . . . 10,985 Kaiseregg. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,182
Ewigschneehorn . . . . . . . . 10,929 Pilatus (Tomlishorn) . . . . . . .6,995
Ritzlihorn . . . . . . . . . . 10,768 Chamossaire. . . . . . . . . . . .6,943
Wildhorn . . . . . . . . . . . 10,709 Gemmenalphorn. . . . . . . . . . .6,772
Wildstrubel. . . . . . . . . . 10,673 Rochers de Nave. . . . . . . . . .5,710
Diablerets . . . . . . . . . . 10,650 Moleson . . . . . . . . . . . .6,582
Titlis . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,627 Dent de Jaman. . . . . . . . . . .6,165
Gross Spannort . . . . . . . . 10,516 Napf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,629
Chief Passes of the Bernese Oberland.
Lauithor (Lauterbrunnen to the Eggishorn), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,140
Monchjoch (Grindelwald to the Eggishorn), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . 11,680
Jungfraujoch (Wengern Alp to the Eggishorn), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . 11,385
Strahlegg Pass (Grindelwald to the Grimsel), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,995
Grunhornlueke (Great Aletsch Glacier to the Fiescher
Glacier), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,844
Oberaarjoch (Grimsel to the Eggishorn), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,607
Gauli Pass (Grimsel to Meiringen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,519
Petersgrat (Lauterbrunnen to the Lotschenthal), snow. . . . . . . . . 10,516
Lotschenlucke (Lotschenthal to the Eggishorn), snow . . . . . . 10,512
Lauteraarsattel (Grindelwald to the Grimsel), snow . . . . . . . . . . . 10,355
Beichgrat (Lotschenthal to the Bel Alp), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,289
Lammernjoch (Lenk to the Gemmi), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,276
Triftlimmi (Rhone Glacier to the Gadmen Valley), snow. . . . . . . . . . 10,200
Sustenlimmi (Stein Alp to Goeschenen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,181
Gamchilucke (Kien Valley to Lauterbrunnen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . .9,295
Tschiugel Pass (Lauterbrunnen to Kandersteg), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .9,265
Hohthurli Pass (Kandersteg to the Kien Valley), foot path . . . . . . .8,882
Lotschen Pass (Kandersteg to the Lotschenthal), snow . . . . . . . .8,842
Sefinenfurka (Lauierbrunnen to the Kien Valley), foot path . . . . . . . .8,583
Wendenjoch (Engelberg to the Gadmen Valley), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . .8,544
Furtwangsattel (Guttannen to the Gadmen Valley), foot path . . . . . . . .8,393
Furka Pass (Rhone Glacier to Andermatt), carriage road . . . . . . . . . .7,992
Rawil Pass (Sion to Lenk), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,924
Gemmi Pass (Randersteg to Leukerbad), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,641
Surenen Pass (Engelberg to Altdorf), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,563
Susten Pass (Meiringen to Wassen), partly carriage road. . . . . . . . . .7,422
Sanetsch Pass (Sion to Saanen), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,331
Joch Pass (Meiringen to Engelberg), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,267
Grimsel Pass (Meiringen to the Rhone Glacier), carriage road . . . . . . .7,100
Kleine Scheidegg (Grindelwald to Lauterbrunnen), railway over. . . . . . .6,772
Col de Cheville (Sion to Bex), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,723
Grosse Scheidegg (Grindelwald to Meiringen), bridle path . . . . . . . . .6,454
Col de Jaman (Montreux to Montbovon), mule path over, railway
tunnel beneath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,974
Brunig Pass (Meiringen to Lucerne), railway over. . . . . . . . . . . .3,396
7. Lepontine Alps (from the Simplon to the Splugen and south
of the Furka and Oberalp Passes). The eastern portion of this
range, from the St Gotthard Pass to the Splugen, is sometimes
named the Adula Alps.
Chief Peaks of the Lepontine Alps.
Monte Leone. . . . . . . . . . 11,684 Piz Blas . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,918
Rheinwaldhorn. . . . . . . . . 11,149 Monte Giove. . . . . . . . . . . .9,876
Guferhorn . . . . . . . . . 11,132 Pizzo Centrale . . . . . . . . . .9,853
Blindenhorn. . . . . . . . . . 11,103 Pizzas d'Annarosa. . . . . . . . .9,850
Basodino . . . . . . . . . . . 10,749 Piz Beverin. . . . . . . . . . . .9,843
Tambohorn. . . . . . . . . . . 10,749 Weisshorn (Splugen) . . . . . .9,817
Helsenhorn . . . . . . . . . . 10,742 Pizzo Lucendro . . . . . . . . . .9,708
Wasenhorn. . . . . . . . . . . 10,680 Piz Tomul . . . . . . . . . . .9,676
Ofenhorn . . . . . . . . . . . 10,637 Piz Cavel. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,659
Cherbadung . . . . . . . . . . 10,542 Barenhorn . . . . . . . . . . .9,620
Piz Medel. . . . . . . . . . . 10,509 Six Madun (Badus). . . . . . . . .9,619
Scopi. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,499 Piz Muraun . . . . . . . . . . . .9,512
Pizzo Rotondo. . . . . . . . . 10,489 Zervreilerhorn . . . . . . . . . .9,508
Pizzo dei Piani. . . . . . . . 10,361 Monte Cistella . . . . . . . . . .9,353
Piz Terri. . . . . . . . . . . 10,338 Piz Lukmanier. . . . . . . . . . .9,115
Piz Aul. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,250 Monte Prosa. . . . . . . . . . . .8,983
Pizzo di Pesciora. . . . . . . 10,247 Pizzo Columbe . . . . . . . . .8,363
Wyttenwasserstock. . . . . . . 10,119 Monte Camoghe . . . . . . . . .7,303
Campo Tencia . . . . . . . . . 10,089 Piz Mundaun. . . . . . . . . . . .6,775
Leckihorn. . . . . . . . . . . 10,069 Monte Generoso . . . . . . . . . .5,591
Bruschghorn. . . . . . . . . . 10,020 Monte San Salvatore. . . . . . . .3,004
Alperschellihorn . . . . . . . 9,991
Chief Passes of the Lepontine Alps.
Zapport Pass (Hinterrhein to Malvaglia and Biasca), snow . . . . . . . . 10,103
Guferlucke (Kanal Glen to the Lenta Glen), snow. . . . . . . . . . .9,777
Lentalucke (Hinterrhein to Vals Platz), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,692
Hohsand Pass (Binn to Tosa Falls), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,603
Lecki Pass (Wyttenwasser Glen to the Mutten Glen), snow. . . . . . . . . .9,554
Passo Rotondo (Airolo to Oberwald), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,449
Kaltwasser Pass (Simplon Hospice to Veglia Alp), snow. . . . . . . . . . .9,331
Scaradra Pass (Vals Platz to Olivone), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,088
Satteltelucke (Vals Platz to Vrin), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,082
Ritter Pass (Binn to Veglia Alp), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,832
Cavanna Pass (Realp to the Val Bedretto), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,566
Scatta Minoja (Devero to the Val Formazza), bridle path. . . . . . . . . .8,521
Bocca di Cadlimo (Airolo to the Lukmanier Pass), foot path . . . . . . . .8,340
Valserberg (Hinterrhein to Vals Platz), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . .8,225
Safierberg (Splugen to Safien Platz), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . .8,170
Geisspfad Pass (Binn to Devero), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,120
Gries Pass (Ulrichen to Tosa Falls), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,098
Passo di Naret (Fusio to Airolo), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,015
Nufenen Pass (Ulrichen to Airolo), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,006
Diesrut Pass (Vrin fo the Somvix Oolen), bad bridle path . . . . . . . . .7,953
Albrun Pass (Binn to Devero and Baceno), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . .7,907
Greina Pass (Olivone to the Somvix Glen), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .7,743
San Giacomo Pass (Airolo to Tosa Falls), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . .7,573
Passo di Buffalora (Val Mesocco to the Val Calanca), foot path . . . . . .7,431
Passo dell' Uomo (Airolo to the Lukmanier Pass), bridle path . . . . . . .7,258
Splugen Pass (Thusis to Chiavenna), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . .6,946
St Gotthard Pass (Andermatt to Airolo), carriage road over,
railway tunnel beneath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,936
San Bernardino Pass (Thusis to Bellinzona), carriage road. . . . . . . . .6,769
Lukmanier Pass (Disentis to Olivone), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . .6,289
8. The Range of the Todi (from the Oberalp Pass to the Klausen Pass).
Todi. . . . . . . . . . . . 11,887 Piz Segnes . . . . . . . . . . . 10,178
Bifertenstock. . . . . . . . . 11,241 Piz Giuf . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,165
Piz Urlaun . . . . . . . . . . 11,060 Crispalt . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,105
Oberalpstock . . . . . . . . . 10,926 Bristenstock . . . . . . . . . . 10,086
Gross Scheerhorn . . . . . . . 10,814 Selbsanft. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,938
Claridenstock. . . . . . . . . 10,729 Vorab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,925
Dussistock. . . . . . . . . 10,703 Tschingelhorner (Elm) . . . . .9,351
Ringelspitz. . . . . . . . . . 10,667 Piz Sol (Grauehorner) . . . . .9,348
Brigelserhorner (highest) . 10,663 Calanda. . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,213
Grosse Windgalle. . . . . . 10,473 Karpfstock. . . . . . . . . . .9,177
Hausstock. . . . . . . . . . . 10,342 Mageren. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,294
Gross Ruchen . . . . . . . . . 10,289 Murtschenstock. . . . . . . . .8,012
Chief Passes of the Range of the Todi.
Clariden Pass (Amsteg to Linththal), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,741
Planura Pass (same to same), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,646
Kammlilucke or Scheerjoch (Maderanerthal to Unterschachen), snow . .9,344
Sardona Pass (Flims to Ragaz), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,318
Sand Alp Pass (Disentis to Linththal), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,121
Brunni Pass (Disentis to Amsteg), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,977
Segnes Pass (Elm to Flims), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,613
Kisten Pass (Linththal to Ilanz), bad bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .8,203
Panixer Pass (Elm to Ilanz), bad bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,897
Kruzli Pass (Amsteg to Sedrun), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,710
Foo or Ramin Pass (Elm to Weisstannen), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . .7,290
Oberalp Pass (Andermatt to Disentis), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . .6,719
Klausen Pass (Altdorf to Linththal), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . .6,404
9. The Alps of North-Eastern Switzerland (north of the Klausen Pass).
Chief Peaks of the North-Eastern Swiss Alps.
Glarnisch (highest) . . . . 9,580 Gross Mythen . . . . . . . . . . .6,240
Boser Faulen. . . . . . . . 9,200 Rigikulm . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,906
Santis. . . . . . . . . . . 8,216 Hoher Kasten . . . . . . . . . . .5,899
Altmann. . . . . . . . . . . . 7,999 Rossberg . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,194
Faulfirst. . . . . . . . . . . 7,925 Zugerberg (Hochwacht). . . . . . .3,255
Alvier . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,753 Albis Hochwacht. . . . . . . . . .2,887
Kurfursten (highest). . . . 7,576 Uetliberg. . . . . . . . . . . . .2,864
Speer. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,411
Chief Passes of the North-Eastern Swiss Alps.
Ruosalperkulm (Schachen Valley to the Muota Valley), foot path. . . . .7,126
Karren Alp Pass (Muota Valley to Linththal), foot path . . . . . . . . . .6,877
Kinzigkulm Pass (Schachen Valley to the Muota Valley), foot path. . . .6,811
Saasberg Pass (Einsiedeln to Glarus), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,227
Kamor Pass (Appcnzell to Ruti), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,512
Saxerlucke (Appenzell to Sax), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,417
Schwein Alp Pass (Waggithal to the Klon Glen), bridle path . . . . .5,158
Pragel Pass (Muotathal to Glarus), carriage road in progress . . . . . . .5,099
Hacken Pass (Schwyz to Einsiedeln), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,649
Holzegg Pass (same to same), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,616
Ibergeregg Pass (Schwyz to Iberg and Einsicdeln), carriage road. . . . . .4,613
Krazeren Pass (Nesslau to Urnasch), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .3,993
10. Bernina Alps (from the Maloja to the Reschen Scheideck and
the Stelvio, south and east of the Val Bregaglia and of the Engadine
and north of the Vultellina).
Chief Peaks of the Bernina Alps.
Piz Bernina. . . . . . . . . . 13,304 Piz Languard . . . . . . . . . . 10,716
Piz Zupo . . . . . . . . . . . 13,131 Piz Sesvenna . . . . . . . . . . 10,568
Monte di Scerscen. . . . . . . 13,116 Piz Pisoc. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,427
Piz Roseg. . . . . . . . . . . 12,934 Piz Murtarol. . . . . . . . . 10,424
Piz Palu. . . . . . . . . . 12,835 Piz Quaiervals . . . . . . . . . 10,358
Crast' Aguzza . . . . . . . 12,704 Pizzo della Margna . . . . . . . 10,355
Piz Morteratsch. . . . . . . . 12,317 Cima di Redasco. . . . . . . . . 10,299
Monte della Disgrazia. . . . . 12,067 Piz Lischanna. . . . . . . . . . 10,204
Pizzo di Verona. . . . . . . . 11,359 Pizzo di Sena. . . . . . . . . . 10,099
Cima di Piazzi . . . . . . . . 11,283 Piz Casana . . . . . . . . . . . 10,079
Cima di Castello . . . . . . . 11,155 Monte Foscagno . . . . . . . . . 10,010
Cima Viola . . . . . . . . . . 11,103 Pizzo del Teo. . . . . . . . . . 10,007
Pizzo Cengalo. . . . . . . . . 11,070 Pizzo del Ferro. . . . . . . . . 10,007
Cima di Rosso. . . . . . . . . 11,060 Piz Umbrail. . . . . . . . . . . .9,955
Pizzo Scalino. . . . . . . . . 10,903 Zwei Schwestern. . . . . . . . . .9,784
Pizzo Badile . . . . . . . . . 10,863 Monte Braulio. . . . . . . . . . .9,777
Corno di Campo . . . . . . . . 10,844 Monte Spluga . . . . . . . . . . .9,321
Pizzo di Dosde. . . . . . . 10,762 Monte Massuccio. . . . . . . . . .9,239
Cima di Saoseo . . . . . . . . 10,752 Mont la Schera . . . . . . . . . .8,494
Chief Passes of the Bernina Alps.
Fuorcla Bellavista (Ponrresina to Chiesa, in Val Malenco), snow. . . . . 12,087
Fuorcla Crast' Aguzza (same to same), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,805
Fuorcla Tschierva (same to same), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,572
Fuorela Sella (same to same), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,840
Passo di Bondo (Bondo to the Baths of Masino), snow. . . . . . . . . . . 10,227
Passo di Castello (Maloja to Morbegno), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,171
Passo Tremoggia (Sils to Chiesa), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,912
Passo di Mello Chiareggio to Val Masino), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,813
Diavolezza Pass (Bernina road to the Morteratsch Glen), snow . . . . . . .9,767
Passo di Dosde (Val Grosina to Val Viola Bormina), foot path. . . . . .9,351
Passo di Sacco (Bernina road to Grosio), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . .9,026
Passo di Zocca (Vicosoprano to Val Masino), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,000
Casana pass (Scants to Livigno), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,832
Muretto pass (Maloja to Chiesa), partly snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,389
Umbrail Pass or Wormserjoch (Munster Valley to the
Stelvio road), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,242
Passo di Val Viola (Bernina road to Bormio), bridle path . . . . . . . . .7,976
Giufplan Pass (Ofen road to Fraele), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . .7,723
Bernina Pass (Pontresina to Tirano), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . .7,645
Forcola di Livigno (Bernina Pass to Livigno), small carriage road. . . . .7,638
Cruschetta Pass (Schuls by Scarl to Taufers), bridle path. . . . . . . . .7,599
Passo di Verva (Bormio to Grosio), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,592
Sursass or Schlinig Pass (Remus to Mals) foot path. . . . . . . . . . .7,540
Foscagno Pass (Bormio to Trepalle), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,517
Alpisella Lass (Uivigno to Fraule), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . .7,497
Scarl Pass (Scarl to Santa Maria Munster), carriage road. . . . . . . .7,386
Dossradond Pass (Santa Maria Munster to Fraele), bridle path. . .7,349
Passo Dheira (Livigno to Trepalle) bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,248
Ofen Pass (Zernez to Mals), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,071
Fraele Pass (Bormio to the Ofen road), partly bridle path . . . . . . .6,398
Scale di Fraele (Borniio to Fraele), bridle path . . . . . . . . . .6,372
Maloja Pass (St Moritz to Chiavenna), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . .5,935
11. Albula Range (from the Splugen Pass to the Fluela Pass.
north and west of the Val Bregaglia and of the Engadine).
Chief Peaks of the Albula Range.
Piz Kesch. . . . . . . . . . . 11,228 Pizzo Stella . . . . . . . . . . 10,375
Piz dellas Calderas. . . . . . 11,132 Fluela Schwarzhorn. . . . . . 10,355
Piz Platta . . . . . . . . . . 11,109 Pizzo della Duana. . . . . . . . 10,279
Piz Julier . . . . . . . . . . 11,106 Pizzo Gallegione . . . . . . . . 10,201
Piz d'Err. . . . . . . . . . . 11,093 Gletscherhorn. . . . . . . . . . 10,191
Piz d'Aela . . . . . . . . . . 10,959 Cima di Lago . . . . . . . . . . 10,112
Cima da Flex . . . . . . . . . 10,785 Hoch Ducan . . . . . . . . . . . 10,060
Piz Uertsch. . . . . . . . . . 10,739 Piz Grisch . . . . . . . . . . . 10,000
Piz Forbisch . . . . . . . . . 10,689 Averser Weissberg. . . . . . . . .9,987
Piz Ot . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,667 Surettahorn. . . . . . . . . . . .9,971
Gross Piz Vadret . . . . . . . 10,584 Arosa Rothhorn . . . . . . . . . .9,794
Piz Timun or Emet. . . . . . . 10,502 Piz Curver . . . . . . . . . . . .9,761
Tinzenhorn . . . . . . . . . . 10,430 Pizzo Lunghino . . . . . . . . . .9,121
Piz Michel . . . . . . . . . . 10,378 Statzerhorn . . . . . . . . . .8,450
Chief Passes of the Albula Range.
Fuorcla Calderas (Molins to Bevers), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,270
Fuorcla d'Eschia (Madulein to Bergun), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,869
Passo della Duana (Avers Vnlley to the Val Bregaglia), snow. . . . . . . .9,187
Sertig Pass (Davos to Scanfs), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,062
Forcella di Prassignola (Avers Valley to Soglio), old paved
cattle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,924
Tinzenthor (Bergun to Savognino), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,918
Forcella di Lago or Madris Pass (Avers Valley to Chiavenna), foot path . .8,793
Forcellina (Avers Valley to the Septimer Pass), foot path. . . . . . . . .8,770
Ducan Pass (Davos to Bergun), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,763
Passo di Lei (Avers Valley to Chiavenna), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . .8,724
Forcella di Lunghino (Maloja to the Septimer Pass), foot path. . . . . . .8,645
Scaletta Pass (Davos to Scanfs), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,593
Suvretta Pass (St Moritz to Bevers), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,590
Fuorcla d'Alp Fontauna (Bergun to Scanfs), foot path. . . . . . . . . .8,580
Stallerberg (Avers Valley to Bivio-Stalla), foot path. . . . . . . . . . .8,478
Grialetsch Pass (Davos to Sus), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,353
Fluela Pass (Davos to Sus), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,838
Strela Pass (Davos to Langwies), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,799
Albula Pass (Bergun to Ponte), carriage road over,
railway tunnel beneath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,595
Septimer Pass (Bivio-Stalla to Casaccia), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .7,582
Julier Pass (Thusis to Silvaplana), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,504
Passo di Madesimo or d'Emet (Avers Valley to Madesimo), foot path. . . . .7,481
12. Silvretta and Rhatikon Ranges (from the Fuela Pass to the
Reschen Scheideck and the Arlberg Pass).
Chief Peaks of the Silvretta and Rhatikon Ranpes.
Piz Linard . . . . . . . . . . 11,201 Vesulspitze. . . . . . . . . . . 10,145
Fluchthorn . . . . . . . . . . 11,165 Fluela Weisshorn. . . . . . . 10,132
Gross Piz Buin . . . . . . . . 10,880 Piz Minschun . . . . . . . . . . 10,079
Verstanklahorn . . . . . . . . 10,831 Patteriol. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,037
Muttler. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,821 Piz Faschalba. . . . . . . . . . 10,010
Piz Fliana . . . . . . . . . . 10,775 Hexenkopf. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,968
Stammerspitze. . . . . . . . . 10,689 Gemsbleiskopf. . . . . . . . . . .9,899
Silvrettahorn. . . . . . . . . 10,657 Pischahorn . . . . . . . . . . . .9,784
Augstenberg. . . . . . . . . . 10,611 Scesaplana . . . . . . . . . . . .9,741
Plattenhorn. . . . . . . . . . 10,568 Rothbleiskopf. . . . . . . . . . .9,640
Dreilanderspitze. . . . . . 10,539 Hohes Rad. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,554
Piz Tasna. . . . . . . . . . . 10,443 Schiltfluh . . . . . . . . . . . .9,482
Kuchenspitze . . . . . . . . . 10,401 Plattenpspitze . . . . . . . . . .9,449
Hoher Riffler. . . . . . . . . 10,368 Madrishorn . . . . . . . . . . . .9,285
Piz Mondin . . . . . . . . . . 10,325 Drusenfluh . . . . . . . . . . . .9,282
Kuchelspitze. . . . . . . . 10,315 Sulzfluh . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,252
Gross Seehorn. . . . . . . . . 10,247 Zimbaspitze. . . . . . . . . . . .8,678
Vesilspitze. . . . . . . . . . 10,220 Naafkopf . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,445
Gross Litzner. . . . . . . . . 10,207 Falknis. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,419
Chief Passes of the Silvretta and Rhatikon Ranges.
Jamjoch (Guarda to Galtur), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 112
Fuorcla del Confin (Silvretta Pass to the Vermunt Glacier), snow . . . . 10,033
Buinlucke (Guarda to Patenen), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,020
Silvretta Pass (Klosters to Lavin), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,886
Zahnlucke (Jam Glen to the Fimber Glen), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,712
Verstanklathor (Klosters to Lavin), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,682
Fuorcla d'Urezzas (Ardez to Galtur), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,564
Fuorcla Tasna (Ardez to Ischgl), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,374
Fuorcla Maisas (Remus to the Samnaun Glen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . .9,357
Vermunt or Fermunt Pass (Guarda to Patenen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,193
Futschol Pass (Ardez to Galtur), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,098
Fuorcla Zadrell or Vernela Pass (Klosters to Lavin), snow. . . . . . . . .9,033
Cuolm d'Alp bella or Vignitz Pass (Samnaun Glen to Kappl), foot path . . .8,852
Schafbucheljoch (Mathon to St Anton), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . .8,685
Fimber Pass (Remus to Ischgl), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,570
Scheien Pass (Klosters to the See Glen), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . .8,557
Vereina Pass or Pass da Val Torta (Klosters to Lavin), foot path . . . . .8,540
Zebles Pass (Ischgl to the Samnaun Glen), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .8,350
Garnerajoch (Klosters to Gaschurn), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,153
Fless Pass (Klosters to Sus), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,045
St Antonien or Gargellenjoch (St Antonien to St Gallenkirch),
foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,792
Drusenthor (Schiers to Schruns), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,710
Verrajochl (Lunersee to the Schweizerthor), foot path. . . . . . . .7,648
Ofen Pass (Schweizerthor to Schruns), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,523
Cavelljoch (Bludenz and the Lunersee to Seewis), foot path. . . . . . .7,343
Gruben Pass (St Antonien to Schruns), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . .7,333
Schlappinerjoch (Klosters to St Gallenkirch), bridle path. . . . . . . . .7,218
Schweizerthor (Schiers to Schruns), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 057
Bielerhohe (Patenen to Galtur), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . .6,631
Zeinisjoch (Patenen to Galtur), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,076
Arlberg Pass (Landeck to Bludenz), carriage road over,
railway tunnel beneath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,912
III. EASTERN ALPS
13. The Alps of Bavaria, the Vorarlberg and Salzburg (north of
the Arlberg Pass, Innsbruck, the Pinzgau, and the Enns valley).
Chief Peaks of the Alps of Bavaria, the Vorarlberg and Salzburg.
Parseierspitze . . . . . . . . 9,968 Watzmann . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,901
Dachstein. . . . . . . . . . . 9,830 Rothewandspitze. . . . . . . . . .8,878
Zugspitze. . . . . . . . . . . 9,738 Gross Krottenkopf(Allgau) . . .8,718
Hochkonig . . . . . . . . . 9,639 Selbhorn . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,711
Valluga. . . . . . . . . . . . 9,223 Hohes Licht. . . . . . . . . . . .8,701
Rockspitze . . . . . . . . . . 9,059 Madelegabel . . . . . . . . . .8,681
E. Hohe Griesspitze. . . . . . 9,052 Hochvogel. . . . . . . . . . . . .8,511
Stanskogel . . . . . . . . . . 9,052 Elmauer Haltsspitze
Birkkarspitze (Karwendel). . . 9,042 (Kaisergebirge) . . . . . . .7,691
Chief Passes of the Alps of Bavaria, the Vorarlberg and Salzburg.
Gentschel Pass (Oberstdorf to Schrocken), bridle path . . . . . . . . .6,480
Schrofen Pass (Oberstdorf to Warth), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,538
Gerlos Pass (Zell to Mittersill), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,876
Pass Thurn (Kirzbuhel to Mittersill), carriage road . . . . . . . . . .4,183
Fern Pass (Reutte to Nassereit), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,026
Scharnitz or Seefeld Pass (Partenkirchen to Zirl), carriage road . . . . .3,874
Hirschbuhel Pass (Berchtesgaden to Saalfelden), carriage road . . . . .3,858
Hochfilzen Pass (Saalfelden to Kitzbuhel), railway over . . . . . . . .3,173
Pyhrn Pass (Linz to Liezen), carriage road over, railway tunnel
beneath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3,100
Wagreinstattel (Radstadt to St Johann in Pongau), carriage road. . . . . .2,743
14. Central Tirol Alps (from the Brenner Pass to the Radstadter
Tauern Pass, north of the Drave Valley and south of the Pinzgau
and the Enns Valley). This division takes in the Zillerthal and
Tuern Ranges.
Chief Peaks of the Central Tirol Alps.
Gross Glockner . . . . . . . . 12,461 Ruthnerhorn(Rieserferner). . . . 11,024
Gross Venediger. . . . . . . . 12,008
Gross Wiesbachhorn . . . . . . 11,713 Hochalmspitze. . . . . . . . . . 11,008
Hochfeiler (Zillerthal). . . . 11,559 Reichenspitze (Z). . . . . . . . 10,844
Dreiherrenspitze . . . . . . . 11,500 Gross Rotherknopf (Schober). . . 10,814
Mosele (Z). . . . . . . . . 11,438
Olperer (Z). . . . . . . . . . 1i,418 Gross Morchner (Z). . . . . . 10,785
Johannisberg . . . . . . . . . 11,375 Hochnarr (Goldberg). . . . . . . 10,689
Hochgall (Rieserferner). . . . 11,287 Ankogel. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,673
Thurnerkamp (Z). . . . . . . . 11,228 Hochschober. . . . . . . . . . . 10,663
Gross Loflier (Z) . . . . . 11,096 Kitzsteinhorn. . . . . . . . . . 10,512
Fusstein (Z) . . . . . . . . . 11,090 Sonnblick. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,196
Schwarzenstein (Z) . . . . . . 11,057 Zsigmondyspitze. . . . . . . . . 10,122
Gross Geiger . . . . . . . . . 11,041 Reckner (Tuxergebirge) . . . . . .9,485
Chief Passes of the Central Tirol Alps.
Mitterbachjoch (Breitlahner to Taufers), snow (Z). . . . . . . . . . . . 10,270
Trippachsattel (Floiten Valley to Taufers), snow (Z) . . . . . . . . . . 10,020
Riffelthor (Kaprun to Heiligenblut), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,010
Bockkarscharte (Ferleiten to Heiligenblut), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,994
Sonnblickscharte (Rauris to Heiligenblut), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,774
Alpeinerscharte (Breitlahner to St Jodok am Brenner), foot path (Z). . . .9,712
Vorder Umbalthorl (Pragraten to Kasern), snow. . . . . . . . . . . .9,607
Ober Sulzbachthorl (Pragraten to Wald), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .9,600
Keilbachjoch (Mayrhofen to Steinhaus), foot path (Z) . . . . . . . . . . .9,410
Unter Sulzbachthorl (Wald to Gschloss), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .9,400
Schwarzkopfscharte (Bramberg to Gschloss), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .9,351
Pragraterthorl (Pragraten to the Defereggen Glen),foot path . . .9,338
Glodisthorl (Lienz to Kals), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,292
Antholzerscharte (Rein Valley to the Antholz Valley), snow . . . . . . . .9,252
Krimmlerthorl (Krimml Glen to the Obersulzbach Glen) snow . . . . . . .9,233
Goldzechscharte (Heiligenblut to Rauris), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,220
Kalserthorl (Kals to Liens), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,197
Ober Tramerscharte (Rauris to Dollach), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,193
Kleine Elendscharte (Gastein to Gmund), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,987
Kleine Zirknitzscharte (Dollach to Fragant or Rauris), snow . . . . . .8,921
Dossener or Maunitzerscharte (Mallnitz to Gmund), snow . . . . . . .8,783
Grosse Elendscharte (Mallnitz to the Upper Malta Glen), snow . . . . . . .8,770
Unter Pfandlscharte (Ferleiten to Heiligenblut), snow. . . . . . . . . . .8,744
Heiliggeistjochl (Mayrhofen to Kasern), foot path (Z) . . . . . . . . .8,721
Bergerthorl (Kals to Heiligenblut), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,695
Kaprunerthorl (upper Kaprun Glen to the upper Stubach Glen), snow . . .8,645
Krimmler Tauern (Krimml to Kasern), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,642
Virgner or Defereggerthorl (Defereggen Glen to Virgen and
Pragraten), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,586
Backlenke or Trojerjoch (Pragraten to the Defereggen Glen),
foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,573
Hochthor or Heiligenbluter Tauern (Heiligenblut to Rauris), foot path. . .8,442
Horndljochl (Mayrhofen to Steinhaus), foot path (Z). . . . . . . . .8,383
Velber Tauern (Windisch Matrei to Mittersill), bridle path . . . . . . . .8,334
Kalser Tauern (Kals to Uttendorf), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,242
Hohe or Korn Tauern (Mallnitz to Gastein), bridle path over,
railway tunnel beneath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,081
Niedere or Mallnitzer Tauern (Mallnitz to Gastein), bridle path. . . . . .7,920
Fuscherthorl (Ferleiten to the Seidlwinkel Glen), foot path . . . . . .7,891
Lappacherjoch (Lappach to theahrn Valley), foot path (Z) . . . . . . . . .7,763
Tuxerjoch or Schmirnjoch (Mayrhofen to St Jodok am Brenner),
foot path (Z) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,697
Klammljoch (Taufers to the Defereggen Valley), bridle path . . . . . . . .7,517
Arlscharte (St Johann in Pongau to Gmund), foot path. . . . . . . . . .7,386
Pfitscherjoch (Mayrhofen to Sterzing), foot path (Z) . . . . . . . . . . .7,376
Kals Matreierthorl (Kals to Windisch Matrei), bridle path . . . . . . .7,238
Die Stanz (Gastein to Rauris), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,900
Stallersattel (Defereggen Glen to the Antholz Glen), bridle path (R) . . .6,742
Radstadter Tauern (Radstadt to Mautendorf), carriage road . . . . . . .5,702
15. Ortler, Oetzthal and Stubai Banges (from the Reschen
Scheideck and the Stelvio to the Brenner Pass, south of the Inn
Valley, and north of the Tonale Pass).
Chief Peaks of the Ortler, Oetzthal and Stubai Ranges.
Ortler . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,802 Zuckerhutl (Stubai) . . . . . 11,520
Konigsspitze. . . . . . . . 12,655 Schalfkogel. . . . . . . . . . . 11,516
Monte Cevedale . . . . . . . . 12,382 Schrankogel. . . . . . . . . . . 11,483
Wildspitze (Oetzthal). . . . . 12,382 Hochwildspitze . . . . . . . . . 11,418
Weisskugel . . . . . . . . . . 12,291 Sonklarspiize. . . . . . . . . . 11,405
Monte Zebru. . . . . . . . . . 12,254 Tuckettspitze. . . . . . . . . . 11,346
Palon della Mare . . . . . . . 12,156 Wilder Freiger . . . . . . . . . 11,241
Funta San Matteo . . . . . . . 12,113 Veneziaspitze. . . . . . . . . . 11,103
Thurwieserspitze . . . . . . . 11,946 Tscheugelser Hochwand. . . . . . 11,083
Hintere Schwarze. . . . . . 11,920 Monte Confinale. . . . . . . . . 11,057
Similaun . . . . . . . . . . . 11,821 Glockthurm . . . . . . . . . . . 11,011
Pizzo Tresero. . . . . . . . . 11,818 Fernerkogel. . . . . . . . . . . 10,827
Gross Ramolkogel . . . . . . . 11,651 Monte Sobretta . . . . . . . . . 10,814
Vtertainspitze . . . . . . . . 11,618 Habicht. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,758
Hochvernagtspitze. . . . . . . 11,585 Pflerscher Tribulaun . . . . . . 10,178
Chief Passes of the Ortler, Oetzthal and Stubai Ranges.
Hochjoch (Sulden to the Zebru Glen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11,602
Vioz Pass (Santa Caterina to Pejo), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,949
Sonklarscharte (Solden to Sterzing), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,916
Konigsjoch (Sulden to Santa Caterina), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,811
Cevedale Pass (Santa Caterina to the Martell Glen), snow . . . . . . . . 10,732
Gepatschjoch (Vent to the Kauns Valley), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,640
Ramoljoch (Vent to Gurgl), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.479
Langtaufererjoch (Vent to the Reschen Scheideck Pass), snow. . . . . . . 10,391
Bildstockljoch (Solden to Ranalt), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,296
Gurgler Eisjoch (Gurgl to the Pfossen Glen), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,292
Eissee Pass (Sulden to the Martell Glen), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,279
Langthalerjoch (Gurgl to Pfelders), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,033
Passo del Zebru (Santa Caterina to the Zebru Glen), snow . . . . . . . . .9,925
Sallentjoch (Martell Glen to Rabbi), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,913
Nederjoch (Vent to the Schnals Valley), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,899
Sforzellina Pass (Santa Caterina to Pejo), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,859
Pitzthalerjochl (Mittelbera to Solden), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .9,826
Eisjochl am Bild (Pfelders to the Pfossen Glen), snow . . . . . . . . .9,541
Venter Hochjoch (Vent to the Schnals Valley), snow . . . . . . . . . . . .9,465
Tabarettascharte (Sulden to Trafoi), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,459
Stelvio Pass (Trafoi to Bormio), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,055
Gavia Pass (Santa Caterina to Ponte di Legno), foot path . . . . . . . . .8,651
Timmeljoch or Timblerjoch (Solden to the Passeierthal and
Meran), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,232
Jaufen Pass (Sterzing to Meran), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,870
Reschen Scheideck Pass (Landeck to Meran), carriage road . . . . . . . . .4,902
Brenner Pass (Innsbruck to Verona), railway over . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,495
16. Lombard Alps flrom the Lake of Como to the Adige Valley,
south of the Valtellina and the Aprica and Tonale Passes. This
division includes the Adamello, Presanella, Brenta and Bergamasque
ranges.
Chief Peaks of the Lombard Alps.
Presanella. . . . . . . . . . 11,694 Pizzo del Diavolo. . . . . . . . .9,564
Adamello . . . . . . . . . . . 11,661 Re di Castello. . . . . . . . .9,482
Care Alto . . . . . . . . . 11,369 Recastello . . . . . . . . . . . .9,475
Dosson di Genova . . . . . . . 11,254 Monte Gleno. . . . . . . . . . . .9,459
Crozzon di Lares . . . . . . . 11,004 Monte Tornello . . . . . . . . . .8,819
Corno di Baitone . . . . . . . 10,929 Corno Stella . . . . . . . . . . .8,596
Busazza. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,922 Monte Legnone. . . . . . . . . . .8,563
Lobliia Alta . . . . . . . . . 10,486 Pizzo dei Tre Signori. . . . . . .8,380
Cima Tosa (Brenta) . . . . . . 10,420 Pizzo di Presolana . . . . . . . .8,239
Cima di Brenta . . . . . . . . 10,352 Grigna . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,907
Crozzon di Brenta. . . . . . . 10,247 Monte Baldo. . . . . . . . . . . .7,218
Pizzo di Coca (Bergamasque). . 10,014 Monte Spinale. . . . . . . . . . .7,094
Pizzo di Scais . . . . . . . . .9,974 Monte Gazza. . . . . . . . . . . .6,529
Pizzo di Redorta . . . . . . . .9,964 Monte Resegone . . . . . . . . . .6,155
Pietra Grande. . . . . . . . . .9,630
Chief Passes of the Lombard Alps.
Passo di Lares (Lares Glacier to the Lobbia Glacier), snow . . . . . . . 10,483
Passo di Cercen (gal di Genova to Fucine), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,984
Passo della Lobbia Alta (Lobbia Glacier to the Mandron
(Glacier), snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,961
Passo di Presena (Val di Genova to the Tonale Pass), snow. . . . . . . . .9,879
Pisgana f'ass ()al di Genova to Ponte di Legno), snow . . . . . . . . .9,626
Bocca di Tuckett (Campiglio to Molveno), snow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,714
Passo di Val Morta or del Diavolo (Val Seriana to Sondrio),
foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,534
Ulocca di Brenta (Pinzolo or Campiglio to Molveno), snow . . . . . . . . .8,376
Passo del Groste fcampiglio to Clesl, foot path . . . . . . . . . . . .8,006
Passo di Veniua (kal Brembana to Sondrio), foot path . . . . . . . . . . .7,983
Passo del Salro (Val Seriana to Sondrio), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . .7,937
Passo del Venerocolo (Val di Scalvc to the Aprica road),
bridle path.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,595
Passo della Forcellina or di Campo (Cedegolo to the Val di
Fomo), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,507
V'asso di Idordona (Val Brembana to Sondrio), foot path. . . . . . . . . .6,824
Passo di San Marco (Bergamo to Morbegno), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . .6,513
Croce Domini Pass (Breno to Bagolino in Val Caffaro), bridle
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,217
Tonale Tass (.Trent to Edolo), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,181
Passo di Zovetto (Val di Scalve to Edolo), bridle path . . . . . . . . . .5,968
Colle Maniva (Val Trompia to Bagolino), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . .5,476
Campo or Ginevrie Pass (Oimaro by Campiglio to Pinzolo),
carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,407
Ciampenjoch (Cles to Meran), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,051
Mendel Pass (Botzen to Cles), railway on the E. slope. . . . . . . . . . .4,462
Passo di Castione or Presolana Pass (Clusone to the Val di
Scalve), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,219
Aprica Pass (Edolo to Tirano), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3,875
17. The Dolomites of South Tirol (from the Brenner Pass to the
Monte Croce Pass, and south of the Pusterthal).
Chief Peaks of the Dolomites of South Tirol.
Marmolata. . . . . . . . . . 10,972 Pala di San Martino. . . . . . . .9,831
Antelao. . . . . . . . . . . 10,706 Rosengartenspitze. . . . . . . . .9,781
Tofana di Mezzo. . . . . . . 10,633 Marmarole. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,715
Sorapiss . . . . . . . . . . 10,594 Cima di Fradusta . . . . . . . . .9,649
Monte Civetta .. . . . . . . 10,564 Fermedathurm . . . . . . . . . . .9,407
Vernel . . . . . . . . . . . 10,319 Cima d'Asta. . . . . . . . . . . .9,344
Monte Cristallo. . . . . . . 10,496 Cima di Canali . . . . . . . . . .9,338
Cima di Vezzaoa. . . . . . . 10,470 Croda Grande . . . . . . . . . . .9,315
Cimon della Pala . . . . . . 10,453 Vajoletthurm (highest) . . . . . .9,256
Langkofel . . . . . .. . . . 10,427 Sass Maor. . . . . . . . . . . . .9,239
Pelmo . . . . . . . .. . . . 10,397 Cima di Ball . . . . . . . . . . .9,131
Dreischusterspitze . . . . . 10,375 Cima della Madonna
Boespitze . . . . . . . . 10,342 (Sass Maor) . . . . . . . . . .9,026
Croda Rossa (Hoher . . . . . 10,329 Rosetta. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,993
Caisl) . . . . . . . . 10,329 Croda da Lago. . . . . . . . . . .8,911
Piz Popena . . . . . . . . . 10,312 Central Grasleitenspitze . . . . .8,875
Elferkofel . . . . . . . . . 10,220 Schlern. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,406
Grohmannspitze . . . . . . . 10,207 Sasso di Mur . . . . . . . . . . .8,380
Zwolferkofel. . . . . . . 10,142 Cima delle Dodici. . . . . . . . .7,671
Sass Rigais(Geislerspitzen). .9,932 Monte Pavione. . . . . . . . . . .7,664
Drei Zinnen . . . . . . . . .9,853 Cima di Posta. . . . . . . . . . .7,333
Kesselkogel (Rosengarten). . .9,846 Monte Pasubio. . . . . . . . . . .7,323
Funffingerspitze. . . . . .9,833
Chief Passes of the Dolomites of South Tirol.
Passo d' Ombretta (Campitello to Caprile), foot path . . . . . . . . . . .8,983
Langhofeljoch (Groden Valley to Campirello), foot path. . . . . . . . .8,803
Tschagerjoch (Karersee to the Vnjolet Glen), foot path . . . . . . . . . .8,675
Crasleiten Pass (Vniolet Glen to thegrasleiten Glen), foot path. . . . . .8,521
Passo di Pravitale (Rosetta Plateau to the Pravitale Glen),
foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,465
Passo delle Comelle (same to Cencenighe), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . .8,462
Passo della Rosetta (San Martino di Castrozza to the great
limestone Rosetta plateau), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,442
Vajolet Pass (Tiers to the Vajolet Glen), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . .8,363
Passo di Canali (Primiero to Agordo), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,193
Tiersalpljochl (Campitello to'I.iers), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . .8,055
Passo di Ball (San Martino di Castrozza to the Pravitale Glen),
foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,038
Forcella di Giralba (Sexte11 to Auronzo), foot path . . . . . . . . . .7,992
Col dei Bos (F.alzarego Glen to the Travernanzes GIen), foot
path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,589
Forcella Grande (San Vito to Auronzo), foot path . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,422
Pordoi Pass (Caprile to Canipitello), carriage road. . . . . . . . . . . .7,382
Sellajoch (Groden Glen to Camphello), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . .7,277
Tre Sassi Pass (Cortina to St Cassian), foot path. . . . . . . . . . . . .7,215
Mahlknechtjoch (Upper Duron Glen to the Seiser Alp), foot path . . . . . .7,113
Grodenerjoch (Groden Glen to Colfuschg), bridle path . . . . . . . .7,011
Falzarego Pass (Caprile to Cortina), small carriage road . . . . . . . . .6,946
Fedaja Pass (Campitello to Caprile), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,713
Passo di Valles (Paneveggio to Cencenighe), foot path. . . . . . . . . . .6,667
Rolle Pass (Predazzo to San Martino di Castrozza and
Primiero), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,509
Forcella Forada (Caprile to San Vito), bridle path . . . . . . . . . . . .6,480
Passo di San Pellegrino (Moena to Cencenighe), small carriage, path . .6,267
Forcella d'Alleghe (Alleghe to the Zoldo Glen), foot path. . . . . . . . .5,971
Tre Croci Pass (Cortina to Auronzo), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . .5,932
Karersee or Caressa Pass (WClschenofen to Vigo di Fassa),
Ndonte Croce Pass (Innichen and Sexten to the Piave Valley
and Belluno), carriage road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,374
Ampezzo Pass (Toblach to Cortina and Belluno), carriage path . . . . . . .5,066
Cereda Pass (Primiero to Agordo), bridle path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,501
Toblach Pass (Bruneck to Lienz), railway over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3,967
18. South-Eastern Alos (east of the Monte Croce Pass). This
division includes three small groups, the J ulic, Carnic and Karawankas
Alps--each peak and pass being distinguished by one of the initial
letters ``J,'' ``C'' or ``K.''
Chief Peaks of the South-Eastern Alps.
Terglou or Triglav (J) . . . . 9,400 Monte Cridola (C). . . . . . . . .8,468
Monte Coglians (C) . . . . . . 9,128 Grintovc (K) . . . . . . . . . . .8,429
Kellerwand (C) . . . . . . . . 9,105 Prestrelenik (J) . . . . . . . . .8,202
Jof del Montasio (J) . . . . . 9,039 Monte Cavallo (C). . . . . . . . .7,386
Cima dei Preti (C) . . . . . . 8,868 Krn (J). . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,369
Monte Paralba (C). . . . . . . 8,829 Stou (K) . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,346
Manhart (J). . . . . . . . . . 8,786 Dobratsch (C). . . . . . . . . . .7,120
Jalouc (J) . . . . . . . . . . 8,711 Velka Kappa (K). . . . . . . . . .5,059
Monte Canin (J). . . . . . . . 8,471
Chief Passes of the South-Eastern Alps.
Oefnerjoch (Forno Avoltri to St Lorenzen in the Gail Valley),
foot path (C). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7,550
Wolayer Pass (same to Mauthen), foot path (C). . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,306
Loibl Pass (Klagenfurt to Laibach), carriage road (K). . . . . . . . . . .4,495
Plocken Pass (.Tolmezzo to Mauthen), bridle path (C). . . . . . . . . .4,462
Predil Pass (Villach by d'arvis and Flitsch to Gorz), carriage road (J)3,183
Birnbaumerwald (Laibach to Gorz), carriage road (J) . . . . . . . . . .2,897
Saifnitz or Pontebba Pass (Villach by Tarvis and Pontebba
to Udine), railway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2,615
Political History and Modern State of the Inhabitants
of the Alps.--We know practically nothing of the early
dwellers in the Alps, save from the scanty acocunts preserved
to us by Roman and Greek historians and geographers. A few
details have come down to us of the conquest of many of the
Alpine tribes by Augustus, though not much more than their
names. The successive emigrations and occupation of the
Alpine region by divers Teutonic tribes from the 5th to the
6th centuries are, too, known to us only in outline, while to
them, as to the Frankish kings and emperors, the Alps offered
a route from one place to another rather than a permanent
residence. It is not till the final break up of the Carolingian
empire in the 10th and 11th centuries that it becomes possible
to trace out the local history of different parts of the Alps.
In the case of the Western Alps (minus the bit from the chain
of Mont Blanc to the Simplon, which followed the fortunes of
the Valais), a prolonged struggle for the Alpine region took
place between the feudal lords of Savoy, the Dauphine and
Provence. In 1349 the Dauphine fell to France, while in
1388 the country of Nice passed from Provence to the house
of Savoy, which too held Piedmont as well as other lands
on the Italian side of the Alps. The struggle henceforth
was limited to France and the house of Savoy, but little by
France succeeded in pushing back the house of Savoy across the
Alps, thus forcing it to become a purely Italian power. One
turning-point in the rivalry was the treaty of Utrecht (1713),
by which France gave up to Savoy the districts (all forming
part of the Dauphine, and lying on the Italian slope of the
Alps) of Exilles, Bardonneche, Oulx, U.enestrelles, and
Chatean Dauphin, while Savoy handed over to France the valley
of Barcelonnette, situated on the western slope of the Alps
and forming part of the county of Nice. The final act in the
long-continued struggle took place in 1860, when France obtained
by cession the rest of the county of Nice and also Savoy,
thus remaining sole mistress on the western slope of the Alps.
In the Central Alps the chief event, on the northern side of
the chain, is the gradual formation from 1291 to 1815 of the
Swiss Confederation, at least so far as regards the mountain
Cantons, and with especial reference to the independent
confederations of the Grisons and the Valais, which only
became full members of the Confederation in 1803 and 1815
respectively. The attraction of the south was too strong
for both the Forest Cantons and the Grisons, so that both
tried to secure, and actually did secure, various bits of the
Milanese. The former, in the 15th century, won the Val
Leventina (down which the St Gotthard train now thunders)
as well as Bellinzona and the Val Blenio (though the Ossola
Valley was held for a time only), while the latter added to
the Val Bregaglia (which had been given to the bishop of Coire
in 960 by the emperor Otto I.) the valleys of Mesocco and of
Poschiavo. Further, in 1512, the Swiss Confederation as a
whole won the valleys of Locarno with Lugano, which, combined
with the 15th century conquests by the Forest Cantons, were
formed in 1803 into the new Canton of Ticino or Tessin. On
the other hand, the Grisons won in 1512 the Valtellina, with
Bormio and Chiavenna, but in 1797 these regions were finally
lost to it as well as to the Swiss Confederation, though
the Grisons retained the valleys of Mesocco, Bregaglia and
Poschiavo, while in 1762 it had bought the upper bit of the
valley of Munster that lies on the southern slope of the Alps.
In the Eastern Alps the political history is almost
monotonous, for it relates simply to the advance or retreat
of the house of Habsburg, which still holds all but the
whole of the northern portion (the exception is the small
bit in the north-west that belongs to Bavaria) of that
region. The Habsburgers, whose original home was in the
lower valley of the Aar, where still stand the ruins of their
ancestral castle, lost that district to the Swiss in 1415,
as they had previously lost various other bits of what is now
Switzerland. But they received a rich compensation in the
Eastern Alps (not to speak of the imperial crown), for they
there gathered in the harvest that numerous minor dynasties
had prepared for them, albeit unconsciously. Thus they won the
duchy of Austria with Styria in 1282, Carinthia and Carniola in
1335, Tirol in 1363, and the Vorarlberg in bits from 1375 to
1523, not to speak of minor ``rectifications'' of frontiers
on the northern slope of the Alps. But on the other slope
their progress was slower, and finally less successful.
It is true that they early won Primiero (1373), as well as
(1517) the Ampezzo Valley and several towns to the south of
Trent. In 1797 they obtained Venetia proper, in 1803 the
secularized bishoprics of Trent and Briken (as well as that of
Salzburg, more to the north), besides the Valtellina region,
and in 1815 the Bergamasque valleys, while the Milanese had
belonged to them since 1535. But, as is well known, in 1859
they lost to the house of Savoy both the Milanese and the
Bergamasca, and in 1866 Venetia proper also, so that the Trentino
is now their chief possession on the southern slope of the
Alps. The gain of the Milanese in 1859 by the future king of
Italy (1861) meant that Italy then won the valley of Livigno
(between the Upper Engadine and Bormio), which is the only
important bit it holds on the non-Italian slope of the Alps,
besides the county of Tenda (obtained in 1575, and not lost
in 1860), with the heads of certain glens in the Maritime
Alps, reserved in 1860 for reasons connected with hunting.
Thus the Alpine states (Italy, Switzerland and Austria), other
than France and Bavaria, hold bits of territory on the slope
of the Alps where one would not expect to find them Roughly
speaking, in each of these five lands the Alpine population
speaks the tongue of the country, though in Italy there are a
few French-speaking districts (the Waldensian valleys as well
as the Aosta and Oulx valleys) as well as some German-speaking
and Ladin-speaking settlements. In Switzerland there are
Italian-speaking regions, as well as some spots (in the
Grisons) where the old Romance dialect of Romansch or Ladin
survives; while in Austria, besides German, Italian and Ladin,
we have a Slavonic-speaking population in the South-Eastern
Alps. The highest permanently inhabited village in the
Alps is Juf, 6998 ft. (Grisons); while in the French Alps,
L'Ecot, 6713 ft. (Savoy), and St Veran, 6726 ft. (Dauphine),
are rivals; the Italian Alps boast of Trepalle, 6788 ft.
(between Livigno and Bormio), and the Tirolese Alps of Ober
Gurgl, 6322 ft., and Fend, 6211 ft. (both in the Oetzthal).
8. Exploration of the High Alps.---The higher region of
the Alps were long left to the exclusive attention of the
men of the adjoining valleys, even when Alpine travellers
(as distinguished from Alpine climbers) began to visit these
valleys. It is reckcned that about 20 glacier passes were
certainly known before 1600. about 25 more before 1700, and
yet another score before 1800; but though the attempt of
P. A. Arnod (an official of the duchy of Aosta) in 1689 to
``re-open'' the Col du Ceant may be counted as made by a
non-native, we do not come upon another case of the kind till
the last quarter of the 18th century. Nor did it fare mach
better with the high peaks, though the two earliest recorded
ascents were due to non-natives, that of the Rochemelon
in 1358 having been undertaken in fulfilment of a vow, and
that of the Mont Aiguihe in 1492 by order of Charles VIII.
of France, in order to destroy its immense reputation for
inaccessibility-- in 1555 Conrad Gesner did not climb Pilatus
proper, but only the grassy mound of the Gnepfstein, the lowest
and the most westerly of the seven summits. The two first
men who really systematically explored the regions of ice
and snow were H. B. de Saussure (1740-1799), as regards the
Pennine Alps, and the Benedictine monk of Disentis, Placidus
a Spescha (1752-1833, most of whose ascents were made before
1806), in the valleys at the sources of the Rhine. In the
early 19th century the Meyer family of Aarau conquered in
person the Jungfrau (1811) and by deputy the Finsteraarhorn
(1812), besides opening several glacier passes, their energy
being entirely confined to the Bernese Oberland. Their
pioneer work was continued in that district, as well as others,
by a number of Swiss, pre-eminent among whom were Gottlieb
Studer (1804-1890) of Bern, and Edouard Desor (1811-1882) of
Neuchatel. The first-known English climber in the Alps
was Colonel Mark Beaufoy (1764-1827), who in 1787 made an
ascent (the fourth) of Mont Blanc, a mountain to which his
fellow-countrymen long exclusively devoted themselves, with
a few noteworthy exceptions, such as Principal J. D. Forbes
(1809-1868), A. T. Malkin (1803-1888), John Ball (1818-1889),
and Sir Alfred Wills (b. 1828). Around Monte Rosa the Vincent
family, Josef Zumstein (1783-1861), and Giovanni Gnifetti
(1801--1867) did good work during the half century between
1778 and 1842, while in the Eastern Alps the Archduke John
(1782-1850), Prince F.J. C. von Schwarzenberg, archbishop
of Salzburg (1809-1885), Valentine Stanig (1774-1847), Adolf
Schaubach (1800-1850), above all, P. J. Thurwieser (1789-1865),
deserve to be recalled as pioneers in the first half of the 19th
century. In the early fifties of the 19th century the taste
for mountaineering 1apidly developed for several very different
reasons. A great stimulus was given to it by the foundation
of the various Alpine clubs, each of which drew together the
climbers who dwelt in the same country. The first was the
English Alpine Club (founded in the winter of 1857--1858),
followed in 1862 by the Austrian Alpine Club (which in 1873
was fused, under the name of the German and Austrian Alpine
Club, with the German Alpine Club, founded in 1869), in 1863
by the Italian and Swiss Alpine Clubs, and in 1874 by the
French Alpine Club, not to mention numerous minor societies
of more local character. It was by the members of these clubs
(and a few others) that the minute exploration (now all but
complete) of the High Alps was carried out, while much has
been done in the way of building club huts, organizing and
training guides, &c., to smooth the way for later comers,
who benefit too by the detailed information published in the
periodicals (the first dates from 1863 only) issued by these
clubs. Limits of space forbid us to trace out in detail
the history of the exploration of the High Alps, but the two
sub-joined lists give the dates of the conquest of about fifty
of the greater peaks (apart from the two climbed in 1358 and
in 1402, see above), achieved before and after 1st January
1858. As a proof of the rapidly-growing activity of Englishmen,
it may be pointed out that while before 1858 only four summits
(the Mittelhorn, or central peak of the Wetterhorner, the
highest point of Monte Rosa, Laquinhorn and Pelmo) were
first ascended by Englishmen, in the case of the second list
only five (Grand Combin, Wildspitze, Marmolata, Langkofel
and Meije) were not so conquered (if the present writer, an
American, be included among the English pro hac vice.)
(1) Before 1st January 1858:---Titlis (1744), Ankogel
(1762), Mont Velan (1779), Mont Blanc (1786), Rheinwaldhorn
(1789), Gross Glockner (1800), Ortler (1804), Jungfrau (1811),
V.insteraarhorn (1812), Zumsteinspitze (1820),Todi (1824),
Altels (1834), Piz Linard (1835), Gross Venediger (1841),
Signalkuppe (1842), Wetterhorner (1844-1845), Mont Pelvoux
(1848), Ieiablerets and Piz Bernina (both in 1850), highest
point of Monte Rosa (1855), Laquinhorn (1856) and Pelmo (1857).
(2) After 1st January 1858:--Dom (1858), Aletschhorn,
Bietschhorn and Grand Combin (all in 1859), Grand Paradis
and Grande Casse (both in 1860), Wbisshorn, Monte Viso, Gross
Schreckhorn, Lyskamm and Wildspitze (all in 1861), Dent
Blanche, Monte della Disgrazia and Taschhorn (all in 1862),
Marmolata, Presanella, Pointe des Ecrins and Zinal Rothhorn
(all in 1864), Matterhorn, Ober Gabelhorn, Aiguille Verte and
Piz Roseg (all in 1865), Langkofel (1869), Cimon della Pala
(1870), Rosengarten (1872), Meije (1877), Aiguilledu Dru
(1878), Punta dell' Argentera (1879), Aiguille des Charmoz
(1880), Aiguille de Grepon (1881) and Aiguille du Geant (1882).
9. GENERAL LIST OF BOOKS AND MAPS.--(1) Books.---For
a longer list than we can give see sohn Ball's Hints and
Notes for Travellers in the Alps (new ed., 1899) and also
A. Wuber's Landes- und Reisebeschreibungen der Schwelz
(1899, supplement in 1907). in general see s. Ball's The
Alpine Guide (3 vols., new ed. of vol. i., 1898 last ed. of
vol. ii., 1876, and of vol. iii., 1879); H. A. Berlepsch, Die
Alpen in Natur- und Lebensbildern (last ed., 1885, Eng.
trans., 1861); T. G. Bonney, The Alpine Regions of Switzerland
and the Neighbouring Countries (1868); A. Civiale, Les
Alpes au point de vue de ta geographie physique (1882);
Sir Martin Conway, The Alps (1904); W. A. B. Coolidge,
Swiss Travel and Swiss Guide-Books (1889) and The Alps
(1908); R. von Lendenfeld, Aus den Alpen (2 vols., 1896); C.
Lentheric, L'Homme devant les Alpes (1896); F. Umlauft,
Die Alpen (1887, Eng. trans., 1889). On some special
subjects see W. A. Baillie-Grohmann, Sport in the Alps
i1896); A. Mosso. Fisiologia dell' Uomo sulle Alpi (1897,
English trans., 1898); N. Zuntz and others, Hohenklima und
Bergwanderungen in ihrer Wirkungen auf den Menschen (1906);
G. Perndt, Der Fohn (1896, the south wind, so important
in mountain districts); and the article on GLACIER..''
As to Alpine legends, consult Maria Savi-Lopez, Leggende
delle Alpi (1889); M. Tscheinen, VLalliscr-Sagen (1872);
Th. Vernaleken, Alpensagen (1858); and I. V. Zingerle,
Sagen aus Tirol (1859); and as to Alpine poetry--J. Adam,
Der Natursinn in der deutschen Dichtung (1906); E. A.
Baker and F. E. Ross, The Voice of The Mountalns (1905,
an anthology in verse and prose); A. von Haller, Die Alpen
(1732, first ed., 1882, illustrated ed., 1902); and H. E.
Jenny, Die Alpendichtung in der deutschen Schweiz (1905).
As to Alpine dialects, consult J. Alton, Die ladinischen
Idiome in Ladinien, Groden, Fassa, Buchenstein, Ampezzo
(1879); J. A. Chabrand and A. de Rochas d'Aiglun, Patois des
Alpes cottiennes (1877).; Z. and E. Pallioppi, Dizionari dels
Idioms Romauntschs d'Engiadina ota e bassa, &c. (1895); A.
Socin, Schriftsprache und Dialekte im Deutschen (1888); F.
J. Stalder, Die Landessprachen der Schweiz (1819), and J.
Zimmerli, Die deutsch-franzosische Sprachgrenze in der Schweiz
(3 vols., 1891-1899); besides the great Swiss Dialect Dictionary
(Schweiz. Idiotikon) in course of publication since 1881.
As to the history of the Alps, the following works touch on
various aspects of the subject:---G. Allais, Le Alpi Occidentali
nell' Antichita 1891); W. Brockedon, Illustrations of the
Passes of the Alps (2 vols., 1828-1829); J. Grand-Carteret,
La Montagne a travers les ages (2 vols., 1902-1904); G.
Oberziner, Le Guerre di Augusto contro i populi alpini
(1900); E. Oehlmann, Die Alpenpasse im Mittelalter (1878-1879);
R. Peinhard, Passe und Strassen in den Schweizer Alpen
(1903); and L. Vaccarone, Le Vie delle Alpi Occidentali
negli antichi tempi (1884); while W. A. B. Coolidge's
Joslas Simler et les originies de l'alpinisme Jusqu'en
1600 (1904) summarises our knowledge of the Alps up to 1600.
Among works of a more or less descriptive nature (based
on actual travels), the following list includes all the
standard works dated before 1855:--Le Alpi che cingono
l'Italia (1845); J. G. Altmann, Versuch einer hist. u.
phys. Beschreibung der helvetischen Eisbergen (1751); A. C.
Bordier, Voyage pittoresque aux glacieres de Savoye (173);
P. J. de Bourcet, Memoires militaires sur les Jrontieres
de la France, du Piemont, et de la Savoie (1801); M. T.
Bourrit, Descrip non des glacieres, glaciers, et amas de glace
du duche de Savoye (1773, Eng. trans., 1775), Description
des Alpes pennines et rhetiennes (2 vols., 178i, 3rd vol.,
1785), and Descriptioni des cols ou passages des Alpes (2
vols., 1803); W. Brockedon, Journals of Excursions in the
Alps (1833); U. Campell, Raetioe alpestris topographica
descriptio (finished in 1572, but publ. only in 1884, with a
supplement in 1900); J. A. Deluc and P. G. Dentan, Relation
de differents voyages dans les Alpes du Faucigny (1776);
E. Desor Excursions et sejours dans les glaciers (2 series,
1844-1845l; C. M. Engelhardt, Naturschilderungen aus den
hochsten Schweizer-Alpen (1840), and Das Monte-Rosa und
Matterhorn-Gebirg (1852); J. D. Forbes, Travels through
the Alps of Kivoy (1843: new ed., 1900): Sir John Forbes,
A Physician's Holiday (1849); J. Frobel, Reise in die
weniger bekannten Thaler auf der Nordseite der penninischen
Alpen (1840); G. Gnifetti, Nozioni topografiche del Monte
Rosa ed ascensioni su di esso (1845, 2nd ed., 1838); G.
S. Gruner, Die Eisgebirge des Schwelzerlandes (3 vols.,
1760); J. Hegetschweiler, Reisen in den Gebirgsstock
zwischen Glarus und Graubunden, 1819--1822 (1825); G.
Hoffmann, Wanderungen in der Gletscherwelt (1843); F. J.
Hugi, Naturhistorische Alpenreise (1830); C. J. Latrobe, The
Alpenstock (1829) and The Pedestrian (1832); J. R. and H.
Meyer, Reise auf den Jungjfrau-Gletscher und Ersteigung seines
Gipfels (1811): De Montannel, La Topographic militaire de
la frontiere des Alpes (written in 1777, but publ. in 1875
only); Operations geodesiques et astroniomiques pour
la mesure d'un arc du parallele moyen (2 vols., 1825-1827);
H. R. Rebmann, Ein poetisch Gastmal und Gesprach zweyer
Bergen, nemlich des Niesens und Stockhorns (1606); C.
Rohrdorf, Reise uber die Grindelwald-Vescher-Gletscher und
Ersteigung des Gletschers des Jungfrau-Berges (1828); H.
B. de Saussure, Voyages dans les Alpes (4 vols., 1779-1796);
A. Schaubach, Deutsche Alpen (4 vols., 1845-1847); J. J.
Scheuchzer, Helvetiae Stoicheiographia, Orographia, et
Oreographia (1716), and Itinera per Helvetiae alpinas
regiones facta annis 1702-1711 (4 vols., 1725); J. Simler.
Vallesiae Descriptio et de Alpibus Commentarius (1574, new
ed. in 1904, see Coolidge above); Albert Smith, The Story of
Mont Blanc (1853); G. Studer, Topographische Mitteilungen
aus dem Alpengebirge (1843); R. Topffer, Voyages en
zigzag (2 series, 1844 and 1853); Aegid. Tschudi, De
prisca ac vera alpina Rhaetia (1538, also in German,
same date); and L. von Weldon, Der Monte Rosa (1824).
As to works published after 1855 we can only give a short,
though carefully selected, list. C. Aeby and others, Das
Hochgebirge von Grindelwald (1865); W. A. Baillie-Grohmann,
Tyrol and the Tyrolese (1876), and Gaddings with a
Primitive People (2 vols., 1878); H. von Barth, Aus den
nordlichen Kalkalpen (1874); L. Barth and L. Pfaundler,
Die Stubaiergebirgsgruppe (1863); G. F. Browne, Off the
Mill (1895); Mrs H. W. Cole, A Lady's Tour round Monte
Rosa (1859); E. T. Coleman, Scenes from the Snow Fields
(1859); Sir Marrin Conway, The Alps from End to End (1895);
A. Daudet, Tartarin sur les Alpes (1885, Eng. trans., same
date); C. T. Dent, Above the Snow Line (1883); Miss A. B.
Edwards, Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys (1873,
Dolomites); Max Forderreuther, Die Allgauer Alpen (1906);
D. W. Freshfield, Across Country from Thonon to Trent
(1865), and Italian Alps (1875); Mrs Henry Freshfield, Alpine
Byways (1861), and A Summer Tour in the Grisons (1862); H.
B. George, The Oberland and its Glaciers (1866); J. Gilbert
and G. C. Churchill, The Dolomite Mountains (1854); A. G.
Girdlestone, The High Alps without Guides (1870); P. Grohmann,
Wanderungen in den Dolomiten (1877); P. Gussfeldt, In
den Hochalpen (1886), and Der Montblanc (1894); T. W.
Hinchliff, Summer Months among the Alps (1857); C. Hudson and
E. S. Kennedy, Where there's a Will there's a Way (1856); E.
Javelle, Souvenirs d' un Alpiniste (1886, Eng. trans.,
1899); S. W. King, The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps
(1858); Le V'alli di Lanzo (publ. by the Italian Alpine
Club in 1899); A. Lorria and E. A. Mariel, Le Mossif de
la Bernina (1894); J. Michelet, La Montagne (1868, Eng.
trans., 1872); A. W. Moore, The Alps in 1864 (1867, publ.
ed., 1902); A. F. Mummery, My Climbs in the Alps (1895);
Norman-Neruda, The Climbs of (1899); Peaks, Passes and
Glaciers (3 vols., 1859-1862); L. Purtscheller, Uber Fels
und Firn (1901); E. Rambert, Ascensions et flaneries (2
vols., 1888); G. Rey, Il Monte Cervino (1904); John Ruskin,
vol. iv. (On Mountain Beauty) of Modern Painters (1856); A.
von Ruthner, Aus den Tauern (1864) and Aus Tirol (1869);
V. Sella and D. Vallino, Monte Rosa e Gressoney (1890); F.
Simony, Das Dachsteingebict (1889-1896); L. Sinigaglia,
Climbing Reminiscences of the Dolomites (1896); K. von
Sonklar, Die Oetzthaler Gebirgsgruppe (1860), and Die
Glebirgsgruppe der Hohen-Tauern (1866); Sir L. Stephen,
The Playground of Europe (1871); B. Studer, Geschichte
der physischen Geographie der Schweiz bis 1815 (1863); G.
Studer and others, Berg- und Gletscherfahrten (2 series,
1859 and 1863); G. Theobald, Naturbilder aus den rhatischen
Alpen (1860), and Das Bundner Oberland (1861); F. F.
Tuckett, Hochalpenstudien (2 vols., 1873-1874); Miss L.
Tuckett, How we Spent the Summer (1864), Pictures in Tyrol
(1867), and Zigzagging amongst Dolomites (1871); J. Tyndall,
The Glaciers of the Alps (1860), Mountaineering in 1861
(1862), and Hours of Exercise in the Alps (1871); J. J.
Weilenmann, Aus der Firnenwelt (3 vols., 1872-1877); E.
Whymper, Scrambles amongst the Alps (1871); Sir A. Wills,
Wanderings among the High Alps (1856), and The ``Eagle's
Nest''in the Valley of Sixt (1860); G. Yeld, Scrambles in the
Eastern Graians (1900); H. Zschokke, Reise auf die Eisgebirge
des Kantons Bern und Ersteigung ihrer hochsten Gipfel
im Sommer von 1812 (1813); E. Zsigmondy, Im Hochgebirge
(1889); M. Zurbriggen, From the Alps to the Andes (1899).
Many useful practical hints as to climbing are to be found
in C. T. Dent and others, Mountaineering (1892, 3rd ed.,
1900, ``Badminton Library''); the Manuel d'Alpinisme
(1904, publ. by the French Alpine Club); J. Meurer, Handbuch
der alpinen Sport 1882), Katechismus fur Bergsteiger
(1892), and Der Bergsteiger im Hochgebirge (1893);
.and C. Wilson, Mountaineering (1893, ``All England''
series). As regards the dangers of Alpine climbing consult
C. Fiorio and C. Ratti, I Pericoli dell' Alpinismo (1889),
and E. Zsigmondy, Die Gefahren der Alpen (1885, Fr. trans.,
1889). There are also special guide-books for the use of
climbers in the Alps---the ``Climbers' Guides'' series,
edited by Sir Martin Conway and W. A. B. Coolidge (10 vols.,
1890--1894); W. A. B. Coolidge, H. Duhamel and F. Perrin,
Guide du Haut Dauphine (1887, with supplement in 1890, Eng.
trans., 1892 and 1905); L. Purtscheller and H. Hess, Der
Hochtourist in den Ostalpen (2 vols., 1894, 3 vols., 3rd
ed., 1903); the 3 vols. publ. (1902-1905) by the Swiss Alpine
Club under the name of Clubfuhrer to the Alps of Glarus and
Uri, and V. Wolf von Glanvell, Dolomitenfuhrer (1898).
As regards the early history of Alpine exploration consult W.
A. B. Coolidge, Josias Simler et les origines de l'alpinisme
jusqu'en 1600 (1904), and F. Gribble, The Early Mountaineers
(1899). For the later period see, besides the more general
works of travel mentioned above, the publications (that date
from 1863) of the various Alpine Clubs--the Alpine Journal
(English A. C.), the Annuaire, Bulletin, La Montagne, and
Revue alpine (French A. C.), the Jahrbuch, Mitteilungen,
Verhandlungen, and Zeitschrift (German and Austrian A. C.),
the Alpinista, Bollettino, and Rivista Mensile (Italian A.
C.), and the Alpina, Echo des Alpes, Jahrbuch, Schweizer
Alpen-Zeitung (Swiss A. C.), besides those of the smaller
societies, such as the Osterreichische Alpen-Zeitung
(Austrian A. C.), the Annuaire (Societe des Touristes du
Dauphine), and the Anunuario (Societa degli Alpinisti
Tridentini). Summaries of the Alpine history of the three
great divisons of the Alps are given in (W. Alps) L. Vaccarone,
Statistica delle Prime Ascensioni nelle Alpi Occidentali
(3rd. ed., 1890--this work omits the Dauphine Alps, as to
which see the 1887 work or its Eng. version 1905, mentioned
above); (Central and Swiss Alps) G. Studer, Uber Eis
und Schnee (2nd ed. 3 vols., 1896-1899); and (E. Alps) G.
Groger and J. Rabi, Die Entwickelung der Hochtouristik
in den osterreichischen Alpen (1890), and E. Pichter, Die
Erschliessung der Ostalpen (3 vols., 1894). The detailed
history of Mont Blanc has been written by Ch. Durier, Le
Mont Blanc (1877, 4th ed., 1897), and C. E. Mathews, The
Annals of Mont Blanc (1898). Lives of some of the most
celebrated mountain guides have been written in C. D. Cunningham
and W. de W. Abney, Pioneers of the Alps (2nd ed., 1888).
(2) Maps--There is no good modern and fairly large-scale
map of the entire chain of the Alps. But L. Ravenstein's
maps (scale 1:250,000) of the Swiss Alps (2 sheets) and
of the Eastern Alps (8 sheets) include the whole chain,
save that portion south of the range of Mont Blanc.
All the countries which include Alpine districts have now
issued official Government maps. The French map on a scale of
1:80,000 is clearer and more accurate than that on a scale of
1:100,000. The Italian Government has published maps on
scales of 1:50,000 and 1:100,000. the Austrian on a scale
of 1:75,000, and the Bavarian on a scale of 1:50,000.
But the most splendid Government map of all is that put
forth by the Swiss Federal Topographical Bureau, under the
title of Siegfried Atlas (scale 1:50,000 for the Alpine
districts), which has quite superseded the Dufour Map (scale
1:100,000), the history of which was published in 1896. For
maps of the Swiss Alps and their neighbours, see J. H. Graf,
Literatur der Lalndesvermessung (1896 with a supplement).
A few of the best special maps of certain districts may
be mentioned-- such as H. Duhamel's maps of the Dauphine
Alps (4 sheets on a scale of 1:i oo,ooo, 1889, 2nd ed.,
1892), and that of the range of Mont Blanc (scale 1:50,000,
1896, 2nd ed., 1905), by X. Imfeld and L. Kurz. The German
and Austrian Alpine Club is publishing a very fine set of
maps (scale 1:50,000) of the Eastern Alps, which are clearer
and better than the Austrian Government's Topographische
Detailkarten (11 sheets, scale 1:50,000). (W.. A. B. C.)
10. Geology.---The Alps form but a small portion of a great
zone of crumpling which stretches, in a series of curves, from
the Atlas Mountains to the Himalayas. Within this zone the
crust of the earth has been ridged up into a comolex system
of creases or folds, out of which the great mountain chains
of southern Europe and Asia have been carved by atmospheric
agencies. Superficially, the continuity of the zone is broken
at intervals by gaps of greater or less extent; but these
are due, in part at least, to the subsidence of portions of
the folded belt and their subsequent burial by more recent
accumulations. Such a gap is that between the Alps and the
Carpathians, but a glance at a geological map of the region
will show that the folding was probably at one time continuous.
Leaving, however, the larger question of the connexion
between the great mountain ranges of Europe and Asia, we find
that the Alps are formed cf a series of wrinkles or folds,
one behind another, frequently arranged en echelon. The
folds run, in general, in the direction of the chain, and
together they form an arc around the plain of Lombardy and
Piedmont. Outside this arc lies a depression along which
the waters of the upper Danube and the lower Rhone find their
way towards the sea; and beyond rise the ancient crystalline
masses of Bohemia, the Black Forest and the central plateau
of France, together with the intervening Mesozoic beds of
southern Germany and the Jura. The depression is filled by
Miocene and later beds, which for the most part lie flat and
undisturbed as they were laid down. Beyond the depression
also, excepting in the Jura Mountains, there is no sign of
the folding which has raised the Alpine chain. Some of the
older beds indeed are crumpled, but the folding is altogether
different in age and in direction from that of the Alps.
To assist in forming a clear idea of the relations of the
Alps to the surrounding regions, a simple illustration will
suffice. Upon a table covered by a cloth lay two books in the
relative positions shown in figure. The book A represents the
central plateau of France and the book B represents the rocks
of Bohemia and southern Germany. If the two hands be placed
flat upon the table, in the angle between the two books, and
the cloth pushed towards the corner, it will at once be rucked
up into a fold which will follow a curve not unlike that of the
Alps. The precise character and form of the folds produced
will depend upon the nature of the cloth and other accidental
circumstances; but with a little adjustment not only a
representation of the chain of the Alps, but even a subsidiary
fold in front in the position of the Jura Mountains may be
obtained. Imperfect though this illustration may be, it will
serve to explain the modern conception of the forces concerned
in the formation of the Alps. Within the crust of the earth,
whether by the contraction of the interior or in any other
way, tangential pressures were set up. Since the crust is
not of uniform strength throughout, only the weaker portions
yielded to the pressure; and these were crumpled up against
the more resisting portions and sometimes were pushed over
them. In the case of the Alps it seems natural enough that
the crystalline masses of Bohemia, the Black Forest and the
central plateau of France should be firmer than the more modern
sedimentary deposits; but it is not so easy to understand why
the Mesozoic rocks of southern Germany resisted the folding,
while those of the Jura yielded. It should, however, be borne
in mind that the resisting mass is not necessarily at the
surface. Such is in outline the process by which the Alps
were elevated; but when the chain is examined in detail, it
is found that its history has not been uniform throughout;
and it will be convenient, for purposes of description,
to divide it into three portions, which may be called
the Eastern Alps, the Swiss Alps, and the Western Alps.
The Eastern Alps consist of a central mass of crystalline and
schistose rocks flanked on each side by a zone of Mesozoic
beds andon the north by an outer band of Tertiary deposits.
On the Italian side there is usually no zone of folded
Tertiaries and the Mesozoic band forms the southern border
of the chain. Each of these zones is folded within itself,
and the folding is more intense on the Bavarian side than
on the Italian, the folds often leaning over towards the
north. The Tertiary zone of the northern border is of
especial significance and is remarkable for its extent and
uniformity. It is divided longitudinally into an outer zone
of Molasse and an inner zone of Flysch. The line of
separation is very clearly defined; nowhere does the Molasse
pass beyond it to the south and nowhere does the Flysch extend
beyond it to the north. The Molasse, in the neighbourhood
of the mountains, consists chiefly of conglomerates and
sandstones, and the Flysch consists of sandstones and shales;
but the Molasse is of Miocene and Oligocene age, while the
Flysch is mainly Eocene. The relations of the two series
are never normal. Along the line of contact, which is
often a fault, the oldest beds of the Molasse crop out,
and they are invariably overturned and plunge beneath the
Flysch. A few miles farther north these same beds rise
again to the surface at the summit of an anticlinal which
runs parallel to the chain. Beyond this point all signs of
folding gradually cease and the beds he flat and undisturbed.
The Flysch is an extraordinarily thick and uniform mass of
sandstones and shales with scarcely any fossils excepting
fucoids. It is intensely folded and is constantly separated
from the Mesozoic zone by a fault. Throughout the whole
extent of the Eastern Alps it is strictly limited to
the belt between this fault and the marginal zone of
Molasse. Eocene beds, indeed, penetrate farther within
the chain, but these are limestones with nummulites or
lignite-bearing shales and have nothing in common with the
Flysch. But although the Flysch is so uniform in character,
and although it forms so well defined a zone, it is not
everywhere of the same age. In the west it seems to be
entirely Eocene, but towards the east intercalated beds with
Inoceramus, &c., indicate that it is partly of Cretaceous
age. It is, in fact, a facies and nothing more. The most
probable explanation is that the Flysch consists of the detritus
washed down from the hills upon the flanks of which it was
formed. It bears, indeed, very much the same relation to the
Alps that the Siwalik beds of India bear to the Himalayas.
The Mesozoic belt of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps consists
mainly of the Trias, Jurassic and Cretaceous beds playing
a comparatively subordinate part. But between the Trias
of the Eastern Alps and the Trias of the region beyond the
Alpine folds there is a striking contrast. North of the
Danube, in Germany as in England, red sandstones, shales and
conglomerates predominate, together with beds of gypsum and
salt. It was a continental formation, such as is now
being formed within the desert belt of the globe. Only the
Muschelkalk, which does not reach so far as England, and
the uppermost beds, the Rhaetic, contain fossils in any
abundance. The Trias of the Eastern Alps, on the other
hand, consists chiefly of great masses of limestone with
an abundant fauna, and is clearly of marine origin. The
Jurassic and Cretaceous beds also differ, though in a less
degree, from those of northern Europe. They consist largely
of limestone; but marls and sandstones are by no means
rare, and there are considerable gaps in the succession
indicating that the region was not continuously beneath the
sea. Tithonian fossils, characteristic of southern Europe,
occur in the upper Jurassic, while the Gosau beds, belonging
to the upper Cretaceous, contain many of the forms of the
Hippuritic sea. Nevertheless, the difference between the
deposits on the two sides of the chain shows that the central
ridge was dry land during at least a part of the period.
The central zone of crystalline rock consists chiefly of
gneisses and schists, but folded within it is a band of
Palaeozoic rocks which divides it longitudinally into two
parts. Palaeozoic beds also occur along the northern and
southern margins of the crystalline zone. The age of a
great part of the Palaeozoic belts is somewhat uncertain,
but Permian, Carboniferous, Devonian and Silurian fossils
have been found in various parts of the chain, and it is
not unlikely that even the Cambrian may be represented.
The Mesozoic belt of the southern border of the chain extends
from Lago Maggiore eastwards. Jurassic and Cretaceous beds
play a larger part than on the northern border, but the Trias
still predominates. On the west the belt is narrow, but
towards the east it gradually widens, and north of Lago di
Garda its northern boundary is suddenly deflected to the
north and the zone spreads out so as to include the whole of
the Dolomite mountains of Tirol. The sudden widening is due
to the great Judicaria fault, which runs from Lago d'Idro
to the neighbourhood of Meran, where it bends round to the
east. The throw of this fault may be as much as 2000 metres,
and the drop is on its south-east side, i.e. towards the
Adriatic. It is probable, indeed, that the fault took a large
share in the formation of the Adriatic depression. On the whole,
the Mesozoic beds of the southern border of the Alps point to a
deeper and less troubled sea than those of the north. Clastic
sediments are less abundant and there are fewer breaks in the
succession. The folding, moreover, is less intense; but in
the Dolomites of Tirol there are great outbursts of igneous
rock, and faulting has occurred on an extensive scale.
Swiss Alps.
West of a line which runs from Lake Constance to Lago Maggiore
the zones already described do not continue with the same
simplicity. The zone of the Molasse is little changed,
but the Flysch is partly folded in the Mesozoic belt and
no longer forms an absolutely independent band. The Trias
has almost disappeared, and what remains is not of the
marine type characteristic of the Eastern Alps but belongs
rather to the continental facies which occurs in Germany and
France. Jurassic and Cretaceous beds form the greater part
of the Mesozoic band. On the southern side of the chain the
Mesozoic zone disappears entirely a little west of Lago Maggiore
and the crystalline rocks rise directly from the plain.
Perhaps the strangest problem in the whole of Switzerland
is that presented by the so-called Klippen. Within the
Alps, when normally developed, we may trace the individual
folds for long distances and observe how they arise,
increase and die out, to be replaced by others of similar
direction. But at times, within or on the border of the
northern Eocene trough, the continuity of the folds is
suddenly broken by mountain masses of quite different
constitution. These are the Klippen, and they are especially
important in the Chablais and between the Lakes of Geneva
and Thun. Not only is the folding of the Klippen wholly
independent of that of the zone in which they lie, but the
rocks which form them are of foreign facies. They consist
chiefly of Jurassic and Triassic beds, but it is the Trias
and the Jura of the Eastern Alps and not of Switzerland.
Moreover, although they interrupt the folding of the zone
in which they occur, they do not disturb it: they do not, in
fact, rise through the zone, but lie upon it like unconformable
masses -- in other words, they rest upon a thrust-plane.
Whence they have come into their present position is by no
means clear; but the character of the beds which form them
indicates a distant origin. It is interesting to note, in this
connexion, that the pebbles of the Swiss Molasse are not generally
such as would be derived from the neighbouring mountains, but
resemble the rocks of the Eastern Alps. The Klippen are, no
doubt, the remains of a much larger mass brought into the
region upon a thrust-plane, and much of the Molasse has been
derived from its destruction. Although the explanation here
given of the origin of the Swiss Klippen is that which now is
usually accepted, it should be mentioned that other theories
have been proposed to account for their peculiarities.
Western Alps.
In the Western Alps the outer border of Molasse persists; but it
no longer forms so well-defined a zone, and strips are infolded
amongst the older rocks. The Eocene has altogether lost
its independence as a band and occurs only in patches within
the Mesozoic zone. The latter, on the other hand, assumes a
greater importance and forms nearly the whole of the subalpine
ranges. It consists almost entirely of Jurassic and Cretaceous
beds, the Trias in these outer ranges being of very limited
extent. The main chain is formed chiefly of crystalline
and schistose rocks, which on the Italian side rise directly
from the plain without any intervening zone of Mesozoic
beds. But it is divided longitudinally by a well-marked
belt of stratified deposits, known as the zone of the
Brianconnais, composed chiefly of Carboniferous, Triassic
and Jurassic beds. The origin of the schistose rocks has
long been under discussion, and controversy has centred
more particularly around the schistes lustres, which
are held by some to be of Triassic age and by others to be
pre-Carboniferous and even, perhaps, Archaean. Partly in
consequence of the uncertainty as to the age of these and
other rocks, there is considerable difference of opinion as
to the structure of the Western Alps. According to the view
most widely accepted in France the main chain as a whole
forms a fan, the folds on the eastern side leaning towards
Italy and those on the western side towards France. The
zone of the Brianconnais lies in the middle of the fan.
Asymmetry of the Alps.
From the above account it will at once appear that between
the convex and the concave margins of the Alpine chain
there is a striking difference. Upon the outer side of
the arc the central zone of crystalline rocks is flanked by
Mesozoic and Tertiary belts; towards the west, indeed, the
individuality of these belts is lost, to a large extent,
but the rocks remain. Upon the inner side the Tertiary
band is found only in the eastern part of the chain, while
towards the west, first the Tertiary and then the Mesozoic
band disappears against the modern deposits of the low
land. The appearance is strongly suggestive of faulting;
and probably the southern margin of the chain lies buried
beneath the plain of northern Italy.
Age of the Alps.
The chain of the Alps was not raised by a single movement
nor in a single geological period. Its growth was gradual
and has not been uniform throughout. In the Eastern Alps
the central ridge seems to have been in existence at least
as early as Triassic times, but it has since been subject
to several oscillations. The most conspicuous folding, that
of the Mesozoic and Tertiary belts, must have occurred in
Tertiary times, and it was not completed till the Miocene
period. The structure of the zones in the Bavarian Alps
seems to suggest that the chain grew outwards in successive
stages, each stage being marked by the formation of a boundary
fault. A precisely similar structure is seen in the Himalayas.
AUTHORITIES. -- The literature is very extensive. The
following list includes a few selected works on each portion
of the chain: -- F. Frech, ``Die karnischen Alpen,'' Abh.
naturf Ges Halle, xviii (1892 and 1894); A. Rothpletz, Ein
geologischer Querschnitt durch die Ost-Alpen (Stuttgart,
1894); C. Diener, ``Bru und Bild der Ostalpen unrides
Karstgebietes,'' in Bau und Bild Osterreichs (Vienna and
Leipzig, 1903): Livret-guide geologique dans le Jura et les
Alpes de la Suisse (Paris and Lausanne, 189h); A. Helm,
Mechanismus der Gebirgsbildung (Basel, 1878); D. Zaccagna,
``Riassunto di osservauoni geologiche fatte sul versante
occidentale delle Alpi Graie,'' Boll. R. Com. Geol. Ital.
vol. xxiii. (1892), pp. 175-244; C. Diener, Der Glebirpsbau
der West-Alpen (1894); M. Bertrand, ``Etudes dans les Alpes
francaises,'' Bull. Soc. Geol France, ser. 5, vol. xxii
(1894), pp. 69-162; S. Franchi, ``Sull' eta mesozoica della
zona delle pietri verdi nelle Alpi Occidentali,'' Boll. R.
Geol. Ital. vol. xxix. (1898), pp. 173-217, 325-482, pts.
v.-ix. For the broader question of the relation of the
Alps to other regions, E. Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde
Vienna, 1885) (English translation, Oxford, 1904) should
be consulted. The Geologischer Fuhrer durch die Alpen,
published by Borntraeger, Berlin, are handy guides. (P. LA.)
11. Flora. -- The Alps owe the richness and beauty of
their plant life partly to their position as the natural
boundary between the ``Baltic'' flora on the north and the
``Mediterranean'' flora on the south, but chiefly to the
presence on their heights of a third flora which has but
little in common with either of the others. The stronghold
of this last, the distinctively ``Alpine'' flora, is the
region above the tree-limit. Its closest relationship
is with the flora of the Pyrenees; but an alpine flora
is characteristic of all the lofty mountains of central
Europe. According to J. Ball, 2010 well-marked species of
flowering plants occur within the limits of the Alps. If
now we confine our attention to the alpine and higher regions
of the Alps and exclude from our list all those plants
which, however abundant in these regions, are not less so
in the adjacent lowlands, we have left some 700 species
(693, according to Dr Christ). We must observe, as regards
the plants of the lower alpine region, that it is the actual
presence of a forest vegetation, rather than the theoretical
tree-limit, which affects their vertical distribution; so
that, e.g. they overflow into the extensive clearings made
by man in the primeval mountain forests. Indeed, an analysis
of the composition of the alpine flora as a whole leads
to the conclusion that the chief bond of union between its
members consists in the treeless character of their habitat.
We may broadly distinguish two main geographical elements in
the alpine flora, namely, the northern element and the endemic
element. This division (which is not, however, strictly
exhaustive) directs special attention to what is undoubtedly
the most striking feature of the flora -- namely, that of
its 693 species no less than 271 reappear in the extreme
north. This relation of the arctic to the alpine flora is all
the more remarkable in view of the very important differences
between the arctic and alpine climates. The following
circumpolar species are common, and widely diffused throughout
the whole of the Alps: Silene acaulis, Dryas octopetala,
Saxifsaga oppositifolia, S. aizoides, S. steliaris, Erigeron
alpinus, Azalea procumbens, M. yosotis alpestris, Polygonum
viviparum, Salix retusa, S. herbacea, Phleum alpinum, Juniperus
nana. The proportion of northern forms, as regards both
species and individuals, increases as we ascend to the higher
regions. In the highest vegetation-zone, the snow-region --
i.e. on islands of rock above the snow-line -- they attain
to an equality with the endemic forms. As examples of northern
flowers which are characteristic of the snow-region, we may
mention Silene acaulis, Eritrichium nanuin and Arenaria
ciliata. On the other hand, typical endemic species of
this highest zone are Androsace helvetica, A. glacialis,
Petrocallis pyrenaica and Cherleria sedoides. All the
plants just named, we may observe, are ``cushion-plants.''
Their compact, moss-like growth and general structural
peculiarities are not an expression of mutual affinity, but
are in adaptation to the combined cold and dryness of their
habitat. It is noteworthy that among the northern plants of
the alpine zone, in the narrower sense of the term (i.e.
of the region between the tree-limit and the snow-line),
there is a marked predominance of species that affect moist
localities; and conversely, the majority of alpine flowers
of wet habitat are found also in the north. For example,
in the genus Primula, a highly characteristic genus of
the alpine flora, whose members are among the most striking
ornaments of the rocks, the single northern species, P.
Jarinosa, grows only in marshy meadows. On the whole, then,
adaptation to cold and wet is the note of the northern element.
As for the explanation of the community between the alpine
and arctic floras, all authorities are agreed that the key
to the problem is furnished by the occurrence of the glacial
period. In the ice-free belt, between the northern ice-sheet
and the vastly extended glaciers of the Alps, the two floras
must have found a common refuge and congenial conditions of
existence; and this view is confirmed by direct palaeontological
evidence. With the return of a milder climate, the so-called
northern forms of the present alpine flora were split in
two, one portion following close on the northern ice in
its gradual retreat to the Arctic, the other following the
shrinking glaciers till the plants were able to establish
(or re-establish) themselves on the slopes of the Alps. The
same explanation covers the case of the similarity of the
flora (not merely as regards the northern element) on all the
high mountains of central Europe. So much seems to be beyond
reasonable doubt. But at this point disagreement begins
between the most eminent writers on the subject. While some
(e.g. Sir J. D. Hooker, Heer) regard the Arctic, and some
(e.g. Wettstein) the Alps, as the original home of at
least the bulk of the ``northern'' element, others (e.g.
Ball, Christ) locate this in the highlands of temperate
Asia. For it is a remarkable fact that, of the 230 northern
species which are most typical of the far north, 182 are found
also in the Altai (taking this as a collective name for the
mountains that form the southern boundary of Siberia). In
any case, however, the migration of these plants to the Alps
must for the most part have taken place via the Arctic. The
possibility of any extensive east to west migration having
taken place direct from the Altai to the Alps seems excluded
by the fact that 50% of the arctico-altaic alpine plants are
absent from the Caucasus. A score of species, it is true --
not such a number, be it observed, as was formerly supposed
-- are common to the Alps and Altai, but absent from the
Arctic. But the species composing this Altaic element
are not so numerous as the arctico-alpine species that
are absent from the Altai. On the whole, a common origin
in the north for at least the arctico-altaic group of
alpine plants seems to be the most reasonable hypothesis.
Side by side with the northern element (which in some respects,
we may observe to point the contrast, would be better named
the tundra-element) we find a group of species usually spoken
of as the xerothermic or meridional element. These do not,
however, form an ``element,'' in the strict geographical
sense in which this term is otherwise used here. They are
those species which, on general phyto-geographical grounds,
must be regarded as having originated under steppe-like
conditions. Their affinities are chiefly, though not
exclusively, with the present Mediterranean flora -- about
fifty are of presumably Mediterranean origin -- and a large
proportion of them are restricted to the southern slopes
of the Alps. The following, however, among others, are
distributed throughout the whole, or a great part, of the
range: Colchicum alpinain, Crocus vernus, Orchis globosa,
Petroeallis pyrenaica, Astragalus depressus, A. aristatus,
Oxytropis Halleri, Erynigium alpinum, Erica carnea, Linaria
alpina, Globularia nudicaulis, G. cordifolia, Leontopodium
alpinum. The last named (the well-known ``edelweiss'')
is at the present day characteristic of the Siberian
steppes. The presence of these plants among the alpine flora
is traceable to the steppe-like conditions which prevailed
in central Europe both during the warmer inter-glacial
periods and (probably) for a time after the close of the
ice-age. Subsequently, as the climate of the plains
assumed a colder and more humid character, they retired
before the invading forests to the high mountains. Here,
in the intenser insolation which they enjoy on the alpine
slopes, they seem to find a compensation for the drawbacks
incidental to the altitude of their present station.
As regards now the endemic element as a whole, the question as
to the time and place of its origin is of a highly complicated
and controversial nature. The question, too, in the case of
this element, is necessarily of genetic rather than purely
geographical scope. It must suffice to say that the weight
of scientific opinion inclines to the view that at least the
majority of endemic species are of pre-glacial origin, and
are either strictly indigenous or products of the neighbouring
lowlands. About 40% of the endemic element in the alpine
flora are endemic also in the narrower sense, i.e. they
are confined to the Alps. Many of them are restricted to
some one small portion of the chain; these occur chiefly in
the southern and eastern Alps. It is an interesting fact
that the centrally situated Bernese Alps produce hardly a
single peculiar species. The greater richness of certain
districts in the matter of species is partly due to the
variety of soils encountered therein; but in part may be
explained by the fact that these districts were the first to
be freed from the ice-sheet at the end of the glacial period.
The following is a list of the most thoroughly characteristic
alpine plants -- all of them ipso facto members of the
endemic element -- which are at once peculiar to the Alps (or
practically so) and widely distributed within the limits of the
chain. These are: Festuca pulchella, Carex microstyla, Salix
caesia, Rumex nivalis, Alsine aretioides, Aquilegia alpina,
Thlaspi rotundifolium, Saxifeaga Seguieri, S. aphylla,
Astragalus leontinus, Daphne striata, Eryngium alpinum,
Bupleurum stellatum, Androsace helvetica, A. glacialis, Gentiana
bavarica, Phyteuma humile, Campanula thyrsoidea, C. cenisia,
Achillea atrata, Cirsium spinosissimum, Crepis Terglouensis.
AUTHORITIES. -- Among the voluminous literature on Alpine
flora, the following works are particularly noteworthy: --
Ball, ``On the Origin of the Flora of the European Alps,''
in proceed. of the Roy. Geog. Soc., 1879; Bennett, The
Flora of the Alps, 2 vols. with 120 coloured plates (1896);
Briquet, ``Les Colonies vegetales xerothermiques des alpes
lemaniennes,'' in Bull. d. l. Murithienne, soc. valaisienne
des sciences nat., xxvii. and xxviii. (1898-1899); Alph.
de Candolle, ``Sur les causes de l'ineaale distribution des
Plantes rares dans la chaine des Alpes,'' Extr. des Actes
du Congres botan. internat. de Florence (1875); Chodat
u. Pampanini, ``Sur la distribution des plantes des alpes
austro-orientales,'' Extr. du Globe, organe de la soc. de
geographie de Geneve, tome xli. (1902); H. Christ, Das
Pflanzenleben der Schweiz (1882) -- the chief classic
on the subject; Engler, Die Pfanzenformationen und die
pflanzengeographische Gliederung der Alpenkette (1901);
Heer, Uleber die nivale Kora der Schweiz (1885); Jerosch,
Geschichte und Herkunft der schweizerischen Alpenfforal
cine Ubersicht uber den gegenwartigen Stand der Frage
(1903). Schroter, Das Pflanzenleben der Alpen (Zurich,
1908); R. von Wettstein, Die Geschichte unserer Alpenflora
(1896). The best book of coloured plates is the Atlas
der Alpemflora, in 5 vols., pub. by the Deutscher
u. Oesterreichischer Alpenverein (2nd. ed., 1897).
12. Fauna. -- The fauna of the lower zones in the Alps
is, on the northern side of the chain, practically identical
with that of central Europe, and on the southern side with
that of the Mediterranean basin. But in the higher regions
it presents many features of special interest alike to the
zoologist and the traveller. It seems therefore best to treat
here principally of the animal inhabitants of the high Alps.
Though among mammalia -- as also in the case of the birds
-- there are but few forms peculiar to the Alps, many
interesting animals have found in the high mountains at
least a temporary refuge from man. The European bison, the
urus, the elk and the wild swine have disappeared since Roman
times. But the lynx (Lynx vulgaris) perhaps lingers in remote
parts, and the brown bear (Hrsus arctos) still survives
in the dense forests of the Lower Engadine. The fox (Canis
vulpes), the stonemarten (Martes foina) and the stoat
or ermine (Putorius ermiiiea) range in summer above the
tree-limit. The Ungulata are represented by the chamois
(Rupicapra tragus) and the bouquetin or steinbock (Capra
ibex). The former -- the sole representative, in western
Europe, of the antelopes -- is found elsewhere only in
the Pyrenees, Carpathians, Caucasus and the mountains of
eastern Turkey; the latter survives only in the eastern
Graian Alps. Of the Rodentia the most interesting and
conspicuous is the marmot (Arctomys marmota), which
lives in colonies close to the snow-line. The snow-mouse
(Arvicola nivalis) is confined to the alpine and snow
regions, and is abundant at these levels throughout the whole
chain of the Alps. The mountain hare (Lepus variabilis
or timidus) replaces the common hare (Lepus europaeus)
in the higher regions; though absent from the intervening
plains it again appears in the north of Europe and in
Scotland. Among the Insectivora, the alpine shrew (Sorex
alpinus) is restricted to the Alps. Of the Cheiroptera
(bats) only Vesperugo maurus is characteristically alpine.
The birds of the Alps are proportionately very numerous. The
lammergeyer (Gypaetus barbatus), once common, is now extremely
rare, even if it has not already become extinct in the Alps;
but the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) still holds its
own. Some of the smaller birds of prey are not uncommon, but
there is none that can be regarded as specially characteristic
either of the Alps as a whole or of the alpine region. As
characteristic birds of the snow-region may be mentioned the
alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax alpinus), which is frequently
seen at the summits even of the loftiest mountains, the
alpine swift (Cypselus melba), the wallcreeper ( Tichodroma
muraria), snow-finch (Montifringilla nivalis) and ptarmigan
(Lagopus mutus); the geographical distribution of this last
being similar to that of the mountain hare. The black redstart
(Rulicilla titys), though common in the lower regions, is
also met with in fair numbers almost up to the snow-line.
The raven (Corpus corax) is fairly common in the alpine
and sub-alpine regions. On the highest pastures we find,
further, the alpine accentor (Accentor collaris) and
the alpine pipit (Anthus spipoletta). The crag-martin
(Cotyle rupestris) haunts lofty cliffs in the alpine
region. On the upper verge of the pine forests, or in
the scrubby vegetation just beyond, the following are not
uncommon -- black woodpecker (Picus martius), ring-ousel
(Turdus torquatus), Bonelli's warbler (Phylloscopus
Bonellii), crested til (Parus cristatus), citril finch
(Citrinella alpina), siskin (Chrysomitris spinus),
crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), nutcracker (Nucifraga
caryocatactes), blackcock (Tetrao tetrix), and the
alpine varieties of the marsh-tit (Parus palustris,
borealis) and tree-creeper (Certhia familiaris, costae).
The remaining classes of Vertebrata are very sparsely represented
in the high Alps; and what few species occur are mostly common
to the plains as well. In fact, among the remaining land
vertebrates, only the black salamander (Salamandra atra)
is exclusively alpine. This interesting animal, though
a member of the Amphibia, is terrestrial and viviparous.
The former connexion between the Arctic and the Alps, which
has left such unmistakable traces in the present alpine
flora, affords, as regards the fauna also, the only possible
explanation of the present geographical distribution of many
alpine forms; but it is chiefly among the Invertebrata that
we find this collateral testimony to the influence of the
glacial period. In this respect we may note that two small
crustaceans, Diaptomus bacillifer and D. denticornis,
swarm in the ice-cold waters of the highest alpine tarns
throughout the entire chain; and the former of these is also
a characteristic inhabitant of pools formed from melting snow
in the extreme north. Among the remaining divisions of
Invertebrata special mention may be made of the air-breathing
Arthropoda -- on the whole the most important and interesting
group. About one-third of the animals belonging thereto that
occur in the higher regions are exclusively alpine (or alpine
and northern); these characteristically alpine forms being
furnished chiefly by the spiders, beetles and butterflies.
Most numerous are the beetles. Those of the highest zone are
remarkable for the great predominance of predaceous species
and of wingless forms. In this last respect they present a
striking analogy with the endemic coleopterous fauna of oceanic
islands. As for the butterflies, not more than one-third of
the species found in the alpine region occur in the neighbouring
lowlands. The relations between alpine butterflies and plants
are especially interesting, as regards not only their bionomic
interdependence but also the analogies of their geographical
distribution. It should be noted that butterflies are the
chief agents in securing the continued existence of such
alpine flowers as depend on insect fertilization, the other
insect fertilizers being mostly wanting at great heights.
The classic of alpine zoology is F. von Tschudi's Das
Tierleben der Alpenwelt (11th ed., 1890). See also
zoological section, by K. W. v. Dalla Torre, of Anleitung
zu wissenschaftlichen Beobachtungen auf Alpenreisen.
For the Vertebrata, see V. Fatio's Faune des vertebres
de la Suisse (3 vols., 1869-1904). Die Tierwelt der
Hochgebirgsseen, by F. Zschokke (1900) is an important
treatise on an interesting department of alpine natural
history. C. Zeller's Alpentiere im Wechsel der Zeit
(1892) gives a reliable account of the gradual disappearance
of some of the larger forms of life from the Alps. For
the inter-relations of alpine insects and flowers, see H.
Muller's Alpenblumen, ihre Befruchtung durch Insekten,
und ihre Anpassung an dieselben (1881). (H. V. K.)
ALPUJARRAS or ALPUXARRAS, THE (Moorish al Busherat,
``the grass-land''), a mountainous district of southern Spain,
in the province of Granada, consisting principally of valleys
which descend at right angles from the crest of the Sierra
Nevada on the north, to the Sierras Almijara, Contraviesa
and Gador, which sever it from the Mediterranean Sea, on the
south. These valleys are among the most beautiful and
fertile in Spain. They contain a rich abundance of fruit
trees, especially vines, oranges, lemons and figs, and in
some parts present scenes of almost Alpine grandeur. The
inhabitants are the descendants of the Moors, who, after the
Spanish conquest of Granada in 1492, vainly sought to preserve
the last relics of their independence in their mountain
fastnesses. Many of the names of places in the Alpujarras
are of Moorish origin. The district contains many villages
of 1000 to 4000 inhabitants, the four largest being Lanjaron,
with its ruined castle and chalybeate baths, Orgiba, Trevelez
and Ugijar; all situated at a considerable elevation.
Trevelez, the highest, stands 5332 ft. above the sea.
`ALQAMA IBN `ABADA, generally known as `ALQAMA AL-FAHL,
an Arabian poet of the tribe Tamim, who flourished in
the second half of the 6th century. Of his life we know
practically nothing except that his chief poem concerns an
incident in the wars between the Lakhmids and the Ghassanids
(see ARABIA, History). Even the date of this is
doubtful, but it is generally referred to the period after
the middle of the 6th century. His poetic description of
ostriches is said to have been famous among the Arabs.
His diwan consists of three qusidas (elegies) and eleven
fragments. Asma` i considered three of the poems genuine.
The poems were edited by A. Swain with Latin translation as
Die Gedichte des Alkama Alfahl (Leipzig, 1867), and are
contained in W. Ahlwardt's The Diwans of the six ancient
Arabic Poets (Lond., 1870); cf. W. Ahlwardt's Bemerkungen
uber die Aechtheit der alten arabischen Gledichte
(Greifswald, 1872), pp. 65-71 and 146-168. (G. W. T.)
ALQUIFOU (etymologically the same word as ``alcohol''), a
lead ore found in Cornwall, used by potters for its green glaze.
ALREDUS, ALURED or ALUREDUS, OF BEVERLEY, was
sacristan of the church of Beverley in the first half of the
12th century. He wrote, apparently about the year 1143, a
chronicle entitled Annales sive Historia de gestis regum
Britanniae, which begins with Brutus and carries the history
of England down to 1129. This work was edited by T. Hearne
(Oxford, 1716), and at one time enjoyed some reputation as an
authority. It is, however, a mere compilation and of no
value. Geoffrey of Monmouth and Simeon of Durham are
Alured's chief sources. Among the Cottonian MSS. there is
a collection of records relating to Beverley, Liberlales
Ecclesiae S. Johannis de Beverlae, which is attributed
to Alured, but on no good authority. (H. W. C. D.)
ALSACE (Ger. Elsass), a former province of France, divided
after the Revolution into the departments of Haut-Rhin and
Bas-Rhin, and incorporated since the war of 1870 with the
German empire (see ALSACE-LORRAINE). It is bounded on the
north by the Rhenish Palatinate, on the east by the Rhine,
on the south by Switzerland and on the west by the Vosges
Mountains; and it comprises an area of 3344 English sq.
m. The district possesses many natural attractions, and
is one of the most fertile in central Europe. There are
several ranges of hills, but no point within the province
attains a great elevation. The only river of importance
is the Ill, which falls into the Rhine after a course of
more than 100 m., and is navigable below Colmar. The hills
are generally richly wooded, chiefly with fir, beech and
oak. The agricultural products are corn, flax, tobacco,
grapes and various other fruits. The country has a great
wealth of minerals, silver having been found, and copper, lead,
iron, coal and rock-salt being wrought with profit. There are
considerable manufactures, chiefly of cotton and linen. The
chief towns are Mulhausen and Colmar in the upper district
and Strassburg in the lower. The province is traversed from
east to west by the railway from Strassburg to Nancy, and the
main line north and south runs between Basel and Strassburg.
History. -- From a very early period Alsace has been a
disputed territory, and has suffered in the contentions of
rival races. Inhabited by the Rauraci and the Sequani, it
formed part of ancient Gaul, and was therefore included in
the Roman empire in the provinces of Germania Superior and
Maxima Sequanorum. The Romans held it nearly five hundred
years, and on the dissolution of their power it passed
under the sway of the Franks. In the Merovingian period
it formed a duchy attached to the kingdom of Austrasia,
and was governed by the descendants of duke Eticho, one
of whom was St Odilia. After the death of Charlemagne,
Alsace, like the rest of the empire, was divided into
countships. But the duchy was re-established after the
death of the German king Henry I., and became hereditary in
the Hohenstaufen family, and then in the house of Austria,
which succeeded in 1273 to the imperial dignity. In the
beginning of the 12th century the country was divided between
the two landgraviates of Upper and Lower Alsace, but to
counteract the power of the nobles the emperors established
in Alsace a great number of free towns. This state of
things continued until 1648, when a large part of Alsace,
comprising the two landgraviates of Upper and Lower Alsace
and the prefecture of the ten free imperial towns, was ceded
to France by the treaty of Westphalia. In the war which
preceded this peace (generally known as the Thirty Years' War)
Alsace had been so terribly devastated by the Swedes and the
French that the German emperor found himself unable to hold
it. The population was greatly reduced in numbers, and
much of the land was left uncultivated. In the war between
France and the Empire, arising out of the attempt of Louis
XIV to seize Holland, that part of Alsace which remained
to Germany was again overrun by the French. Although this
war was terminated in 1678 by the treaty of Nijmwegen, the
French monarch was desirous of incorporating a still larger
amount of Rhine territory; and accordingly in 1680 he laid
claim to a number of territories, belonging to princes
of the Empire, which he alleged had been dismembered from
Alsace. It was ordered that these territories should be at
once restored to that province under the crown of France,
and several independent sovereigns were cited to appear
before two chambers of inquiry, called chambres de reunion,
which Louis had established at Brisach and Metz. The princes
appealed to the emperor and to the diet; but the previous
wars had so exhausted the power of the former that nothing
could be done to resist the aggression. In 1681 the French
troops under Louvois seized Strassburg, aided by the treachery
of the bishop and other great men of the city. A further
war broke out, but by the treaty of Ratisbon (Regensburg) in
1684, Strassburg was secured to France. The war was renewed
in 1688 and continued until 1697, when the peace of Ryswick
confirmed definitively the annexation of Strassburg to
France. Some remaining territories of small extent were
acquired by the French after the revolution of 1789, including
Mulhausen, which had been a republic allied to Switzerland.
Originally Celtic, the population was modified during the Roman
period by the arrival of a Germanic people, the Triboci. In
the 5th century came other German tribes, the Alamanni, and
then the Franks, who drove the Alamanni into the south. Since
that period the population has in the main been Teutonic; and
the French conquests of the 17th century, while modifying this
element, still left it predominant. The people continued
to use a German dialect as their native tongue, though the
educated classes also spoke French. Protestantism was professed
by a large number of the inhabitants; and in many respects
their characteristics identified them rather with the race to
the east than that to the west of the Rhine. In process of
time, however, they considered themselves French, and lost
all desire for reannexation to any of the German states.
Alsace suffered a good deal in the war of 1870-71. The
earlier battles of the campaign were fought there; Strassburg
and other of its fortified towns were besieged and taken; and
its people were compelled to submit to very severe exactions.
The civil and military government of the province, as well
as that of Lorraine, was assumed by the Germans as soon as
they obtained possession of those parts of France, which was
very shortly after the commencement of the war. The Alsatian
railways were reorganized and provided with a staff of German
officials. German stamps were introduced from Berlin;
the occupied towns were garrisoned by the Landwehr; and
requisitions on a large scale were demanded, and paid for in
cheques which, at the close of the war, were to be honoured
by whichever side should stand in the unpleasant position
of the conquered. The people, notwithstanding their German
origin, showed a very strong feeling against the invaders,
and in no part of France was the enemy resisted with greater
stubbornness. It was evident from an early period of the
war, however, that Prussia was resolved to reannex Alsace
to German territory. When the preliminaries of peace came
to be discussed at Versailles in February 1871, the cession
of Alsace, together with what is called German Lorraine,
was one of the earliest conditions laid down by Bismarck
and accepted by Thiers. This sacrifice of territory was
afterwards ratified by the National Assembly at Bordeaux,
though not without a protest from the representatives of
the departments about to be given up; and thus Alsace once
more became German. By the bill for the incorporation
of Alsace and German Lorraine, introduced into the German
parliament in May 1871, it was provided that the sole and
supreme control of the two provinces should be vested in
the German emperor and the federal council until the 1st of
January 1874, when the constitution of the German empire was
established. Bismarck admitted the aversion of the population
to Prussian rule, but said that everything would be done
to conciliate the people. This policy appears really
to have been carried out, and it was not long in bearing
fruit. Many of the inhabitants of the conquered districts,
however, still clung to the old connexion, and on the
30th of September 1872 -- the day by which the people were
required to determine whether they would consider themselves
German subjects and remain, or French subjects and transfer
their domicile to France -- 45,000 elected to be still
French, and sorrowfully took their departure. The German
system of compulsory education of every child above the
age of six was introduced directly after the annexation.
ALSACE-LORRAINE (Ger. Elsass-Lothringen), a German
imperial territory (since 1871), consisting of the former
French province Alsace (then divided into the departments of
Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin), together with its capital Strassburg,
and German Lorraine (which included the department of the
Moselle and portions of the departments of Meurthe and Vosges),
together with the capital and fortress of Metz. The imperial
territory (Reichsland) is bounded S. by Switzerland; E. by
Baden, from which it is separated by the Rhine; N.E. and
N. by the Bavarian Palatinate, the Prussian Rhine Province
and Luxemburg, and W. by France. Its area is 5601 sq.
m. The maximum length from N. to S. is 145 m.; the maximum
breadth E. to W. 105 m., and the minimum breadth, on a line
drawn through Schlettstadt, 24 m. In respect of its physical
features, Alsace-Lorraine falls into three parts -- mountain
land, plain and plateau. The first, practically co-extensive
with the western half of Alsace, consists of the Vosges
range, which running in a northerly direction from the deep
gap or pass of Belfort (trouee de Belfort) forms in its
highest ridges the natural frontier line between Germany and
France. Between this mountain chain and its spurs, which
fall steeply to the E., and the Rhine, stretches a fertile
plain forming the eastern half of Alsace. In the N.W. a high
and undulating plateau, which gently descends in the W. to
the valley of the Moselle, occupies nearly the whole area of
Lorraine. The drainage of the Vosges valleys and of the
Rhine valley is collected and carried into the Rhine about
10 m. below Strassburg by the Ill, which has a course of
more than 100 m. and is navigable below Colmar. With the
exception of a few streams which run to the Rhone, all
the waters of Alsace flow into the Rhine. The climate is
on the whole temperate -- warmest in the lowest districts
(460 ft. above sea-level) of N. Alsace, and coldest on the
summits of the Vosges, where snow lies six months in the
year. The mean annual temperature at Strassburg is 49.8 deg.
F., at Metz 48.2 deg.; the rainfall at Strassburg 26 1/4 in.,
and at Metz 27 1/2 in. The Rhine Valley is in great part
fertile, yielding good crops of potatoes, cereals (including
maize), sugar beet, hops, tobacco, flax, hemp and products
of oleaginous plants. But grapes and fruit are amongst the
most valuable of the crops. The cereals chiefly grown are
wheat, oats, barley and rye. Great quantities of hay are
harvested. This description embraces also the production of
Lorraine, where agriculture is less strenuously carried on,
and the fertility of the soil is less. But Lorraine possesses,
in compensation, greater riches in the earth, in coal and
iron and salt mines. Cows are grazed on the S. Vosges in
summer, and large quantities of cheese (Munster cheese)
are made and exported. Total population (1905) 1,814,626.
The farms in Alsace are mostly small and are beld partly as a
private possession, partly on the communal system; in Lorraine
there are some larger occupations. The manufacture of cottons,
and on a smaller scale of woollens, is special to Alsace, the
chief centres of the industry being Mulhausen, Colmar and
the valleys of the Vosges. The territory has always been
the centre of an active commerce, owing to its situation
on the confines of Germany, France and Switzerland, and
alongside the great highway of the Rhine. The communications
embraced some 1249 m. of railway (1903), of which 1108 m.
belonged to the state, a good system of roads, and several
canals (notably the Rhine-Rhone, the Rhine-Marie and the Saar
Canals), in addition to the rivers. Administratively the
territory is divided into the following three districts,
showing a density of population of about 316 to the sq. m.:--
Population.
Districts. Area in sq. miles. 1885. 1905.
Upper Alsace . . 1354 462,549 512,709
Lower Alsace . . 1845 612,077 686,359
Lorraine . . . 2402 489,729 615,558
On the sex division, 935,305 were in 1905 males, and 879,321
females. The percentage of illegitimacy is about 7. The
rural population embraces 51% of the whole, the urban
population 48%. The largest towns are Strassburg (the capital
of the territory), Mulhausen, Metz, Colmar, all above
20,000 inhabitants each. Classified according to religion
there were, in 1904, 372,078 Protestants, 1,310,391 Roman
Catholics, and 32,379 Jews. Education is provided for at the
university of Strassburg, in 21 classical and pro-classical
schools, in 18 modern schools, and in nearly 4000 elementary
schools. Over 85% of the people speak German as their
mother-tongue, the rest French, or a patois of French. The
annual revenue and expenditure are each somewhat in excess of
L. 3,000,000. Customs and indirect taxes yield more than
three-fifths of the total revenue, and direct taxes less than
one-fourth. The state forests give about one-ninth of the
whole. The higher administration of justice is devolved upon
six provincial courts and a supreme court, sitting at Colmar.
Moreover, there are purely industrial tribunals at Mulhausen,
Thann, Markirch, Strassburg and Metz. The fish-breeding
establishment at Huningen in Upper Alsace should be mentioned.
Constitution. -- The sovereignty over the territory was
by a law (Reichsgesetz) of the 9th of June 1871 vested
in the German emperor, who, until the introduction of the
imperial constitution on the 1st of January 1874, had, with
the assent of the federal council (Bundesrat) and, in a few
cases, that of the imperial diet (Reichstag), the sole
right of initiating legislation. In October of this last
year a committee (Landesausschuss) of the whole territory
was appointed to deliberate on laws proposed to it before
they received the final sanction of the emperor. On the
2nd of May 1877, the Landesausschuss was itself empowered
to initiate legislation within the competence of the
territory, and in 1879 the imperial viceroy (Statthalter),
representing the imperial chancellor, who had until then
been the responsible minister, took up his residence in
Strassburg. He is assisted in the government by 4 ministers
of departments, under the presidency of a secretary of
state, and, when occasion demands the extraordinary
discussion of legislative proposals, by a council of state
(Staatsrat), consisting of the secretary of state, under
secretaries, the president of the supreme court of justice
of the territory and, as a rule, of 12 nominees of the
emperor. The Lanitesaus-schuss, a constitutional body
with parliamentary privileges, consists of 58 members, 34
being appointed out of their number by the various district
councils (Bezirkslage), 4 by the large towns, and 20 by
the rural districts. Alsace-Lorraine is represented in the
Bundesrat by two commissioners, who have, however, but one
voice; and the territory returns 15 members to the Reichstag.
See A. Schmidt, Elsass unid Lothringen (Lerp., 1859); Spach,
Histoire de la basso Alsace et de la ville de Strasbourg
(Stras., 1860); von Mullenheim Rechberg, Die Annexion des
Elsass durch Frankreich und Ruckblick auf die Verwaltung
des Landes, 1648-1697 (Stras., 1897); Du Prel, Die deutsche
Verwaltung in Elsass, 1870-1879 (Stras., 1879); L. Petersen,
Das Deutschtum in Elsass-Lothringen (Munich, 1902). (P. A. A.)
ALSATIA (the old French province of Alsace), long a
``debatable ground'' between France and Germany, and
hence a name applied in the 17th century to the district
of Whitefriars, between the Thames and Fleet Street, in
London, which afforded sanctuary (q.v.) to debtors and
criminals. The privileges were abolished in 1697. The
term is also used generally of any refuge for criminals.
ALSEN (Danish Als), an island in the Baltic, off the
coast of Schleswig, in the Little Belt. It formerly
belonged to Denmark, but, as a result of the Danish war of
1864, was incorporated with Germany. Its area is 105 sq.
m.; the length nearly 20, and the breadth from 3 to 12
m. Pop. (1900) 25,000, most of whom speak Danish. The
island is fertile, richly wooded, and yields grain and
fruit. Sonderburg, the capital, with a good harbour and a
considerable trade, is connected with the mainland by a pontoon
bridge. Other places of note are Norburg and Augustenburg.
On the peninsula Rekenis at the S.W. end of Alsen there is a
lighthouse. Here, in 1848, the Danes directed their main attack
against Field-marshal Wrangel's army. In 1864 the Prussians
under Herwarth von Bittenfeld took Alsen, which was occupied
by 9000 Danish troops under Steinmann, thus bringing the
Danish war to a close. Since 1870 Alsen has been fortified.
'ALSHEKH, MOSES, Jewish rabbi in Safed (Palestine) in the
later part of the 16th century. He was the author of many
homiletical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. His works
still justly enjoy much popularity, largely because of their
powerful influence as practical exhortations to virtuous life.
ALSIETINUS LACUS (mod. Lago di Martignano), a small lake
in southern Etruria, 15 m. due N.N.W. of Rome, in an extinct
crater. Augustus drew from it the Aqua Alsietina; the water
was hardly fit to drink, and was mainly intended to supply
his naumachia (lake made for a sham naval battle) at Rome,
near S. Francesco a Ripa, on the right bank of the Tiber,
where some traces of the aqueduct were perhaps found in 1720.
The course of the aqueduct, which was mainly subterranean,
is practically unknown: Frontinus tells us that it received
a branch from the lake of Bracciano near Careiae (Galera):
and an inscription relating to it was found in this district
in 1887 (F. Barnabei, Notizie degli Scavi, 1887, 181).
ALSIUM (mod. Palo), an ancient town of Etruria, 29
m. W. by N. of Rome by rail, on the Via Aurelia, by which
it is about 22 m. from Rome. It was one of the oldest
cities of Etruria, but does not appear in history till the
Roman colonization of 247 B.C., and was never of great
importance, except as a resort of wealthy Romans, many of whom
(Pompey, the Antonine emperors) had villas there. About 1 1/2
m. N.E. of Palo is a row of large mounds called I Monteroni,
which belong to tombs of the Etruscan cemetery. Considerable
remains of ancient villas still exist along the low sandy
coast, one of which, about 1 m. E. of Palo, occupies an
area of some 400 by 250 yds. The medieval castle belongs to
the Odescalchi family. Near Palo is the modern sea-bathing
resort Ladispoli, founded by Prince Odescalchi. See G.
Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, i. 219.
ALSOP, VINCENT (c. 1630- 1703), English Nonconformist
divine, was of Northamptonshire origin and was educated at St
John's College, Cambridge. He received deacon's orders from a
bishop, whereupon he settled as assistant-master in the free
school of Oakham, Rutland. He was reclaimed from indifferent
courses and associates here by a very ``painful'' minister,
the Rev. Benjamin King. Subsequently he married Mr King's
daughter, and ``becoming a convert to his principles, received
ordination in the Presbyterian way, not being satisfied with
that which he had from the bishop.'' He was presented to the
living of Wilby in Northamptonshire; but was thence ejected
under the act of Uniformity in 1662. After his ejection he
preached privately at Oakham and Wellingborough, sharing the
common pains and penalties of nonconformists, -- e.g. he was
imprisoned six months for praying with a sick person. A book
against William Shedock, dean of St Paul's, called Antisozzo
(against Socinus), written in the vein of Andrew Marvell's
Rehearsal Transprosed, procured him much celebrity as a
wit. Dr Robert South, no friend to nonconformists, publicly
pronounced that Alsop had the advantage of Sherlock in every
way. Besides fame, Antisozzo procured for its author an
invitation to succeed the venerable Thomas Cawton (the younger)
as independent minister in Westminster. He accepted the
call and drew great multitudes to his chapel. He published
other books which showed a fecundity of wit, a playful
strength of reasoning, and a provoking indomitableness of
raillery. Even with Dr Goodman and Dr Stillingfleet for
antagonists, he more than held his own. His Mischief of
Impositions (1680) in answer to Stillingfleet's Mischief
of Separation, and Melius Inquirenduni (1679) in answer
to Goodman's Compassionate Inquiry, remain historical
landmarks in the history of nonconformity. Later on, from
the entanglements of a son in alleged treasonable practices,
he had to sue for and obtained pardon from King James II.
This seems to have given a somewhat diplomatic character
to his closing years, inasmuch as, while remaining a
nonconformist, he had a good deal to do with proposed political-
ecclesiastical compromises. He died on the 8th of May 1703,
having preserved his ``spirits and smartness'' to the last.
See Wood's A thenae (Bliss) iv. 106; Calamy's Life of Baxter, ii.
487; Wilson's History and Ant. of Dissenting Churches, iv. 63-66.
(A. J. G.)
ALSTED, JOHANN HEINRICH (1588-1638), German Protestant
divine. He was some time professor of philosophy and
theology at Herborn, in Nassau, and afterwards at Weissenburg
in Transylvania, where he remained till his death in
1638. He was a marvellously prolific writer. His
Encyclopaedia (1630), the most considerable of the earlier
works of that class, was long held in high estimation.
ALSTON, CHARLES (1683-1760), Scottish botanist, was born
at Eddlewood, near Hamilton, in 1683, and became lecturer
in materia medica and botany at Edinburgh and also
superintendent of the botanical gardens, of the plants in
which he published a catalogue in 1740. He was a critic of
Linnaeus's system of plant-classification (see BOTANY.) He
died on the 22nd of November 1760 at Edinburgh. His Lectures
on Materia Medica were published posthumously in 1770.
ALSTON, a market-town in the Penrith parliamentary division
of Cumberland, England, 29 m. by road E.S.E. of Carlisle,
on a branch of the North-Eastern railway from Haltwhistle.
Pop. (1901) 3133. It lies in the uppermost part of the
valley of the South Tyne, among the high bleak moors of the
Pennines. Copper and blende are found, and there are limestone
quarries. The mines of argentiferous lead, belonging to
Greenwich Hospital, London, were formerly of great value, and
it was in order that royalties on the Alston lead mines and
on those elsewhere in the county might be jointly collected
that the parish was first included within the borders of
Cumberland, in the 18th century. As many as 119 lead mines
were worked in the parish in 1768, but the supply of metal
has been almost exhausted. Coal is worked chiefly for
lime-burning, and umber is prepared for the manufacture of
colours. Thread and flannels are also made. Whitley Castle, 2
m. N., was a Roman fort, the original name of which is not
known, guarding the road which ran along the South Tyne valley
and over the Pennines. It has no connexionwith Alston itself.
ALSTROMER, JONAS (1685-1761), Swedish industrial re-former,
was born at Alingsas in Vestergotland, on the 7th of January
1685. He left his native village at an early age, and in
1707 became clerk to Alberg, a merchant of Stockholm, whom he
accompanied to London. After carrying on business for three
years, Alberg failed, and Alstrom (as his name was before
his ennoblement) engaged in the business of shipbroker on
his own account, and eventually proved very successful.
After travelling for several years on the continent, he was
seized with the patriotic desire to transplant to his native
country some of the industries he had seen flourishing in
Britain. He accordingly returned to Alingsas, and in
1724 established a woollen factory in the village. After
preliminary difficulties it became a very profitable
business. He next established a sugar refinery at Gothenburg,
introduced improvements in the cultivation of potatoes and
of plants suitable for dyeing, and directed attention to
improved methods in shipbuilding, tanning and the manufacture
of cutlery. But his most successful undertaking was the
importation of sheep from England, Spain and Angora. He
received many marks of distinction, was created (1748) knight
of the order of the North Star, and a few years later received
letters of nobility, with permission to change his name to
Alstromer. He died on the 2nd of June 1761, leaving several
works on practical industrial subjects. A statue was erected
in his honour in the exchange at Stockholm. One of his sons,
Clas (Claude) (1736-1794), was a naturalist of considerable
eminence. During a voyage to Spain he noticed a native
Peruvian plant known in Peru as the lily of the Incas, at
the Swedish counsul's at Cadiz; he sent a few seeds to his
master and friend, Linnaeus, who named the genus in his honour
Alstromeria. He also wrote a work on sheep-breeding.
ALTAI (in Mongolian Altain-ula, the ``Mountains of Gold''),
a term used in Asiatic geography with Various significations.
The Altai region, in West Siberia and Mongolia, is similar
in character to Switzerland, but covers a very much greater
area. It extends from the river Irtysh and the Dzungarian
depression (46 deg. -47 deg. N.) northwards to the Siberian railway
and to the Sayan mountains. The backbone of the region is
the Sailughem or Silyughema mountains, also known as Kolyvan
Altai, which stretch north-eastwards from 49 deg. N. and 86 deg.
E. towards the western extremity of the Sayan mountains in
51 deg. 60' N. and 89 deg. E. Their mean elevation is 5000-5500
ft. The snow-line runs at 6700 ft. on the northern
versant and at 7800 ft. on the southern, and above it the
rugged peaks tower up some 3200 ft. more. Passes across
the range are few and difficult, the chief being the
Ulan-daban at 9275 ft. (9445 ft. according to Kozlov), and
the Chapchan-daban, at 10,555 ft., in the south and north
respectively. On the east and south-east this range is
flanked by the great plateau of Mongolia, the transition
being effected gradually by means of several minor plateaus,
such as Ukok (7800 ft.), Chuya (6000 ft.), Kendykty (8200
ft.), Kak (8270 ft.), Suok (8500 ft.), and Juvlu-kul (7900
ft.). This region, which is not accurately known, is studded
with large lakes, i.e. Ubsa-nor (2370 ft. above sea-level),
Kirghiz-nor, Durga-nor and Kobdo-nor (3840 ft.), and traversed
by various mountain ranges, of which the principal are the
Tannu-ola, running roughly parallel with the Sayan mountains
as far east as the Kosso-gol (100 deg. -101 deg. E. long.), and
the Khan-khu mountains, also stretching west and east.
The range of the Altai proper, known also as the Ek-tagh,
Mongolian Altai, Great Altai and Southern Altai, likewise
extend in two twin parallel chains eastwards as far as
99 deg. , if not farther. The Ek-tagh or Mongolian Altai, which
separates the Kobdo basin on the north from the Irtysh basin
on the south, is a true border-range, in that it rises in
a steep and lofty escarpment from the Dzungarian depression
(1550 to 3000 ft.), but descends on the north by a relatively
short slope to the plateau (4000-5500 ft.) of north-western
Mongolia. East of 94 deg. the range is continued by a double
series of mountain chains, all of which exhibit less sharply
marked orographical features and are at considerably lower
elevations. The southern chain bears the names of Karaadzirga
and Burkhan-ola, and terminates in about 99 deg.; but the northern
range, the principal names of which are Artsi-bogdo and Saikhat,
extends probably most of the way to the great northward bend
of the Hwang-ho or Yellow River round the desert of Ordos.
Whereas the western Ek-tagh Altai rises above the snowline
and is destitute of timber, the eastern double ranges barely
touch the snow-line and are clothed with thick forests up to
an altitude of 6250 ft. The slopes of the constituent chains
of the system are inhabited principally by nomad Kirghiz.
The north-western and northern slopes of the Sailughem
mountains are extremely steep and very difficult of access.
On this side lies the culminating summit of the range, the
double-headed Byelukha (the Mont Blanc of the Altai), whose
summits reach 14,890 and 14,560 ft. respectively,1 and give
origin to several glaciers (30 sq. m. in aggregate area).
Here also are the Kuitun (12,000 ft.) and several other lofty
peaks. Numerous spurs, striking in all directions from the
Sailughem mountains, fill up the space between that range and
the lowlands of Tomsk, but their mutual relations are far from
being well known. Such are the Chuya Alps, having an average
altitude of 9000 ft., with summits from 11,500 to 12,000 ft.,
and at least ten glaciers on their northern slope; the Katun
Alps, which have a mean elevation of about 10,000 ft. and are
mostly snow-clad; the Kholzun range; the Korgon (6300 to 7600
ft.), Talitsk and Selitsk ranges; the Tigeretsk Alps, and so
on. Several secondary plateaus of lower altitude are also
distinguished by geographers. The Katun valley begins as a
wild gorge on the south-west slope of Byelukha; then, after
a big bend, the river (400 m. long) pierces the Katun Alps,
and enters a wider valley, lying at an altitude of from
2000 to 3500 ft., which it follows until it emerges from
the Altai highlands to join the Biya in a most picturesque
region. The Katun and the Biya together form the Ob. The
next valley is that of the Charysh, which has the Korgon and
Tigeretsk Alps on one side and the Talitsk and Bashalatsk
Alps on the other. This, too, is very fertile. The Altai,
seen from this valley, presents the most romantic scenes,
including the small but deep Kolyvan lake (altitude, 1180
ft.), which is surrounded by fantastic granite domes and
towers. Farther west the valleys of the Uba, the Ulba and the
Bukhtarma open south-westwards towards the Irtysh. The lower
part of the first, like the lower valley of the Charysh, is
thickly populated; in the valley of the Ulba is the Riddersk
mine, at the foot of the Ivanovsk peak (6770 ft.), clothed
with beautiful alpine meadows. The valley of the Bukhtarma,
which has a length of 200 m., also has its origin at the
foot of the Byelukha and the Kuitun peaks, and as it falls
some 5000 ft. in less than 200 m., from an alpine plateau
at an elevation of 6200 ft. to the Bukhtarma fortress (1130
ft.), it offers the most striking contrasts of landscape and
vegetation. Its upper parts abound in glaciers, the best
known of which is the Berel, which comes down from the
Byelukha. On the northern side of the range which separates
the upper Bukhtarma from the upper Katun is the Katun
glacier, which after two ice-falls widens out to 700-900
yards. From a grotto in this glacier bursts tumultuously
the Katun river. The middle and lower parts of the Bukhtarma
valley have been colonized since the 18th century by runaway
Russian peasants -- serfs and nonconformists (Raskolniks)
-- who created there a free republic on Chinese territory;
and after this part of the valley was annexed to Russia in
1869, it was rapidly colonized. The high valleys farther
north, on the same western face of the Sailughem range,
are but little known, their only visitors being Kirghiz
shepherds. Those of Bashkaus, Chulyshman, and Chulcha, all
three leading to the beautiful alpine lake of Teletskoye
(length, 48 m.; maximum width, 3 m.; altitude, 1700 ft.;
area, 87 sq. m.; maximum depth, 1020 ft.; mean depth, 660
ft.), are only inhabited by nomad Telenghites or Teleuts.
The shores of the lake -- reminding a visitor somewhat of
the Swiss lake of Lucerne -- rise almost sheer to over 6000
ft. and are too wild to accommodate a numerous population.
From this lake issues the Biya, which joins the Katun at
Biysk, and then meanders through the beautiful prairies of the
north-west of the Altai. Farther north the Altai highlands
are continued in the Kuznetsk district, which has a slightly
different geological aspect, but still belongs to the Altai
system. But the Abakan river, which rises on the western
shoulder of the Sayan mountains, belongs to the system of the
Yenisei. The Kuznetsk Ala-tau range, on the left bank of the
Abakan, runs north-east into the government of Yeniseisk, while
a complexus of imperfectly mapped mountains (Chukchut, Salair,
Abakan) fills up the country northwards towards the Siberian
railway and westwards towards the Ob. The Tom and its numerous
tributaries rise on the northern slopes of the Kuznetsk Ala-tau,
and their fertile valleys are occupied by a dense Russian
population, the centre of which is Kuznetsk, on the Tom.
Geology. -- Geologically the Altai mountains consist of
two distinct elements which differ considerably from each
other in composition and structure. The Russian Altai is
composed mainly of mica and chlorite schists and slates,
together with beds of limestone, and in the higher horizons
Devonian and Carboniferous fossils occur in many places.
There is no axial zone of gneiss, but intrusions of granite
and other plutonic rocks occur, and the famous ore deposits
are found chiefly near the contact of these intrusions with the
schists. The strata are thrown into folds which run in
the direction of the mountain ridges, forming a curve with
the convexity facing the south-east. The Mongolian or Great
Altai, on the other hand, consists mainly of gneiss and
Archaean rocks. The strike of the rocks is independent
of the direction of the chain, and the chain is bounded by
faults. It is, in fact, a horst and not a zone of folding.
Flora.--The flora of the Altai, explored chiefly by Karl
F. von Ledebour (1785-1851), is rich and very beautiful.
Up to a level of 1000 ft. on the northern and 2000 ft. on
the southern slopes, plant life belongs to the European
flora, which extends into Siberia as far as the Yenisei. The
steppe flora penetrates into the mountains, ascending some
1100-1200 ft., and in sheltered valleys even up to 5500 ft.,
when it of course comes into contact with the purely alpine
flora. Tree vegetation, which reaches up as high as 6500 and
8150 ft., the latter limit on the north and west, consists of
magnificent forests of birch, poplar, aspen, and Coniferae,
such as Pinus cerebra, Abies sibirica, Larix sibirica, Picea
obovata, and so on, though the fir is not found above 2500
ft., while the meadows are abundantly clothed with brightly
coloured, typical assortments of herbaceous plants. The alpine
meadows, which have many species in common with the European
Alps, have also a number of their own peculiar Altaian species.
Mineral wealth.--The Altai proper is rich in silver, copper,
lead and zinc ores, while in the Kuznetsk Ala-tau, gold,
iron and coal are the chief mineral resources. The Kuznetsk
Ala-tau mines are only now beginning to be explored, while
the copper, and perhaps also the silver, ores of the Altai
proper were worked by the mysterious prehistoric race of the
Chudes at a time when the use of iron was not yet known.
Russians began to mine in 1727 at Kolyvan, and in 1739 at
Barnaul. Most of the Altai region, covering an area of some
170,000 sq. m. and including the Kuznetsk district, has since
1746 formed a domain of the imperial family under the name
of the Altai Mining District. The ores of the Altai proper
nearly always appear in irregular veins, containing silver,
lead, copper and gold -- sometimes all together, -- and they
are, or were, worked chiefly by Zmeinogorsk (or Zmeiev),
Zyryanovsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk and Riddersk (abandoned in
1861). They offer, however, great difficulties, especially
on account of their continually varying productivity and
temperature of fusion. The beautiful varieties of porphyry
-- green, red, striped -- which are obtained, often in big
monoliths, near Kolyvan, are cut at the imperial stone-cutting
factory into vases and other ornaments, familiar in the art
galleries and palaces of Europe. Aquamarines of mediocre
quality but enormous size (up to 3 in. in diameter) are
found in the Korgon mine. The northern, or Salair, mining
region is rich in silver ores, and the mine of this name
used formerly to yield up to 93,300 oz. of silver in the
year. But the chief wealth of the northern Altai is in the
Kuznetsk coal-basin, also containing iron-ores, which fills
up a valley between the Kuznetsk Ala-tau and the Salair
range for a length of about 270 m., with a width of about 65
m. The coal is considered equal to the best coal of
England and south Russia. The country is also covered
with thick diluvial and alluvial deposits containing
gold. However, all the mining is now on the decline.
Population.--The Russian population has rapidly increased
since the fertile valleys belonging to the imperial
family have been thrown open to settlement, and it has
been estimated that in 1908 the population of the region
(Biysk, Barnaul and Kuznetsk districts) reached about
800,000. Their chief occupations are agriculture (about
3,500,000 acres under culture), cattle-breeding, bee-keeping,
mining, gathering of cedar-nuts and hunting. All this
produce is exported partly to Tomsk and partly to Kobdo in
Mongolia. The natives may represent a population of about
45,000. They are Altaians in the west and Telenghites or
Teleuts in the east, with a few Kalmucks and Tatars. Although
all are called Kalmucks by the Russians, they speak a Turkish
language. Both the Telenghites and the Altaians are Shamanists
in religion, but many of the former are already quite
Russified. The virgin forests of the Kuznetsk Ala-tau -- the
Chern, or Black Forest of the Russians -- are peopled by Tatars,
who live in very small settlements, sometimes of the Russian
type, but mostly in wooden yurts or huts of the Mongolian
fashion. They can hardly keep any cattle, and lead the
precarious life of forest-dwellers, living upon various wild
roots when there is no grain in the spring. Hunting and
fishing are resorted to, and the skins and furs are tanned.
Towns.--The capital of the Altai region is Barnaul,
the centre of the mining administration and an animated
commercial town; Biysk is the commercial centre; Kuznetsk,
Ust-Kamenogorsk, and the mining towns of Kolyvan, Zmeinogorsk,
Riddersk and Salairsk are the next largest places.
AUTHORITIES. -- P. Semenov and G. N. Potanin, in supplementary
vol. of Russian ed. of Ritter's Asien (1877); Ledebour,
Reise durch das Altaigebirge (1829-1830); P. Chikhatchev,
Voyage scientifique dans l'Altai oriental (1845);
Gebler, Ubersicht des katunischen Gebirges (1837); G.
von Helmersen, Reise nach dem Altai (St Petersburg, 1848);
T. W. Atkinson, Oriental and Western Siberia (1838); and
Cotta, Der Altai (1871), are still worth consulting. Of
modern works see Adrianov, ``Journey to the Altai,'' in
Zaeiski Russ. Geogr. Soc. xi.; Yadrintsev, ``Journey
in West Siberia,'' in Zapiski West Sib. Geogr. Soc.
ii.; Golubev, Altai (1890, Russian); Schmurlo, ``Passes
in S. Altai'' (Sailughem), in Izvestia Russ. Geogr. Soc.
(1898), xxxiv. 5; V. Saposhnikov, various articles in same
periodical (1897), xxxiii. and (1899) xxxv., and, by the
same, Katun i yeya Istoka (Tomsk, 1901); S. Turner,
Siberia (1905); Deniker, on Kozlov's explorations, in La
Geographie (1901, pp. 41, &c.); and P. Ignatov, in Izvestia
Russ. Geog. Soc. (1902, No. 2). (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.)
1 Mr S. Turner estimates the culminating peak of Mt. Byelukha at
14,800 ft., but to Willer's Peak, a little to the N. W. of Byelukha,
he assigns an altitude of 17,800 ft. (p. 205 of Siberia.)
ALTAMURA, a town of Apulia, Italy, in the province of
Bari, 28 m. S.S.W. of the town of that name, and 56 m.
by rail via Gioia del Colle. Pop. (1901) 22,729. It
possesses a fine Romanesque cathedral begun in 1232 and
restored in 1330 and 1531, the portal being especially
remarkable. It is one of the four Palatine churches of
Apulia. The surrounding territory is fertile. The medieval
walls, erected by the emperor Frederick II., rest upon
the walls of an ancient city of unknown name. These early
walls are of rough blocks of stone without mortar. Ancient
tombs with fragments of vases have also been found, and
there are cases which have been used as primitive tombs or
dwellings, and a group of some fifty tumuli near Altamura.
ALTAR (Lat. altare, from altus, high; some ancient
etymological guesses are recorded by St Isidore of Seville in
Etymologiae xv. 4), strictly a base or pedestal used for
supplication and sacrifice to gods or to deified heroes.
The necessity for such sacrificial furniture has been felt in
most religions, and consequently we find its use widespread
among races and nations which have no mutual connexion.
Mesopotamia. -- Altars are found from the earliest
times in the remains of Babylonian cities; the oldest
are square erections of sun-dried bricks. In Assyrian
mounds limestone and alabaster are the chief material.
They are of varying form; an altar shown in a relief at
Khorsabad is ornamented with stepped battlements, which
are the equivalent of the familiar ``altarhorns'' in Hebrew
ritual. An altar also from Khorsabad (now in the British
Museum) has a circular table and a solid base triangular on
plan, with pilasters ornamented with animals' paws at the
angles. A third variety, of which an 8th century B.C. example
from Nimrod exists in the British Museum, is a rectangular
block ornamented at the ends by cylindrical rolls. These
altars are in height from 2 to 3 ft. According to Herodotus
(i. 183) the great altars of Babylonia were made of gold.
Egypt. -- In Egypt altars took the form of a truncated
cone or of a cubical block of polished granite or of
basalt, with one or more basin-like depressions in the upper
surface for receiving fluid libations. These had channels
whereby fluids poured into the receptacles could be drained
off. The surface was plain, inscribed with dedicatory
or other legends, or adorned with symbolical carving.
Palestine. -- Recent excavations, especially at Gezer,
have shown that the earliest altars, or rather sacrifice
hearths, in Palestine were circular spaces marked out by
small stones set on end. At Gezer a pre-Semitic place of
worship was found in which three such hearths stood together,
and drained into a cave which may reasonably be supposed to
have been regarded as the residence of the divinity. These
circular hearths persisted into the Canaanite period, but
were ultimately superseded by the Semitic developments. To
the primitive nomadic Semite the presence of the divinity
was indicated by springs, shady trees, remarkable rocks and
other landmarks; and from this earliest conception grew the
theory that a numen might be induced to take up an abode in
an artificial heap of stones, or a pillar set upright for the
purpose. The blood of the victim was poured over the stone as
an offering to the divinity dwelling within it; and from this
conception of the stone arose the further and final view, that
the stone was a table on which the victim was to be burned.
Very few specimens of early Palestinian altars remain. The
megalithic structures common in the Hauran and Moab may be
entirely sepulchral. At Gezer no definite altar was discovered
in the great High Place; though it is possible that a bank of
intensely hard compact earth, in which were embedded a large
number of human skulls, took its place. A very remarkable
altar, at present unique, was found at Taanach by the Austrian
excavators. It is pyramidal in shape, and the surface
is ornamented with human-headed animals in relief. This,
like the earliest Babylonian altars, is of baked earth.
The Old Testament conception of the altar varies with the
stage of religious development. In the pre-Deuteronomic
period altars are erected in any place where there had appeared
to be a manifestation of deity, or under any circumstance
in which the aid of deity was invoked; not by heretical
individuals, but by the acknowledged religious leaders, such
as Noah at Ararat, Abraham at Shechem, Bethel &c., Isaac
at Beersheba, Jacob at Bethel, Moses at Rephidim, Joshua at
Ebal, Gideon at Ophrah, Samuel at Raman, Elijah at Carmel,
and others. These primitive altars were of the simplest
possible description -- in fact they were required to be so
by the regulation affecting them, preserved in Exodus xx.
24, which prescribes that in every place where Yahweh
records his name an altar of earth or of unhewn stone, without
steps or other extraneous ornamentation, shall be erected.
The priestly regulations affecting altars are of a very elaborate
nature, and are framed with a single eye to the essential
theory of later Hebrew worship -- the centralization of all
worship at one shrine. These recognize two altars, which by
the authors of this portion of the Pentateuch are placed from
the first in the tabernacle in the wilderness -- a theory
which is inconsistent with the other evidences of the nature
of the earlier Hebrew worship, to which we have just alluded.
The first of these altars is that for burnt-offering. This
altar was in the centre of the court of the tabernacle, of
acacia wood, 3 cubits high and 5 square. It was covered
with copper, was provided with ``horns'' at the corners (like
those of Assyria), hollow in the middle, and with rings on
the sides into which the staves for its transportation could
be run (Ex. xxvii. 1-8). The altar of the Solomonic temple
is on similar lines, but much larger. It is now generally
recognized that the description of the tabernacle altar is
intended to provide a precedent for this vast structure,
which would otherwise be inconsistent with the traditional
view of the simple Hebrew altars. In the second temple a
new altar was built after the fashion of the former (1 Macc.
iv. 47) of ``whole stones from the mountain.'' In Herod's
temple the altar was again built after the same model. It is
described by Josephus (v. 5. 6) as 15 cubits high and 50 cubits
square, with angle horns, and with an ``insensible acclivity''
leading up to it (a device to evade the pre-Deutero- nomic
regulation about steps). It was made without any use of iron,
and no iron tool was ever allowed to touch it. The blood
and refuse were discharged through a drain into the
brook Kedron; this drain probably still remains, in
the Bir el-Arwah, under the ``Dome of the Rock''
in the mosque which covers the site of the temple.
The second altar was the altar of incense, which was in the
holy place of the tabernacle. It was of similar construction
to the altar of burnt-offering, but smaller, being 2 cubits
high and 1 cubit square (Ex. xxx. 1-5). It was overlaid with
gold. Solomon's altar of incense (1 K. vi. 20) is referred
to in a problematical passage from which it would appear to
have been of cedar. But the authenticity of the passages
describing the altar of incense in the tabernacle, and the
historicity of the corresponding altar in Solomon's temple,
are matters of keen dispute among critics. The incense altar
in the second temple was removed by Antiochus Epiphanes (1
Macc. i. 21) and restored by Judas Maccabaeus (1 Macc. iv.
49). That in the temple of Herod is referred to in Luke i. 11.
The ritual uses of these altars are sufficiently explained
by their names. On the first was a fire continually
burning, in which the burnt-offerings were consumed. On
the second an offering of incense was made twice a day.
In the pre-Deuteronomic passage, Exodus xxi. 14, the use of the
altar as an asylum is postulated, though denied to the wilful
murderer. This is a survival of the ancient belief that the
deity resided in the pillar or stone-heap, and that the fugitive
was placing himself under the protection of the local numen
by seeking sanctuary. From 1 Kings i. 50 it would appear
that the suppliant caught hold of the altar-horns (compare
1 Kings ii. 28), as though special protective virtue resided
in this important though obscure part of the structure.
Greece and Rome. -- According to the difference in the
service for which they were employed, altars fell into two
classes. Those of the first class were pedestals, so
small and low that the suppliant could kneel upon them;
these stood inside the temples, in front of the sacred
image. The second class consisted of larger tables destined
for burnt sacrifice; these were placed in the open air,
and, if connected with a temple, in front of the entrance.
Possibly altars of the former class were in historical times
substitutes for, and rendered the same service as, the bases
of the sacred images within the temples in earlier ages. In
this case the altar of Apollo at Delphi, upon which on the
Greek vases Neoptolemus is frequently represented as taking
refuge from Orestes, might be regarded as the pedestal of
an invisible image of the god, and as fulfilling the same
function as did the base of the actual image of Athene in Troy,
towards which Cassandra fled from Ajax. The second class of
altars, called bomoi by the Greeks and altaria by the
Romans, appears to have originated in temporary constructions
such as heaps of earth, turf or stone, made for kindling a
sacrificial fire as occasion required. But sacrifices to earth
divinities were made on the earth itself, and those to the
infernal deities in sunk hollows (Odyss. x. 25; Festus s.
v. Altaria). The note of Eustathius (Odyss. xii. 252)
perhaps indicates some customs reminiscent of a primitive
antiquity in which the sacrifice was made without an altar at
all. He says apobomia tina iera on ouk epi bomou
o kathagis mos all' epi edafous -- ``some holy
places away from altars, whose offering is made not on
an altar but on the floor.'' Pausanias (vi. 20. 7) speaks of
an altar at Olympia made of unbaked bricks. In some primitive
holy shrines the bones and ashes of the victims sacrificed
were allowed to accumulate, and upon this new fires were
kindled. Altars so raised were, like most religious survivals,
considered as endowed with particular sanctity; the most
remarkable recorded instances of such are the altars of Hera
at Samos, and of Pan at Olympia (Paus. v. 14. 6; v. 15.
5), of Heracles at Thebes (Paus. ix. 11. 7), and of Zeus
at Olympia (Paus. v. 13. 5). The last-mentioned stood on a
platform (prothusis) measuring 125 ft. in circumference,
and led up to by steps, the altar itself being 22 ft. high.
Women were excluded from the platform. Where hecatombs were
sacrificed, the prothusis necessarily assumed colossal
proportions, as in the case of the altar at Parion, where it
measured on each side 600 ft. The altar of Apollo at Delos
(o keratinos bomos) was made of the horns of goats
believed to have been slain by Diana; while at Miletus was
an altar composed of the blood of victims sacrificed (Paus.
v. 13. 6). The altar at Phorae in Achaea was of unhewn
stones (Paus. vii. 22. 3). The altar used at the festival
in honour of Daedalus on Mt. Cithaeron was of wood, and was
consumed along with the sacrifice (Paus. ix. 3. 4). Others
of bronze are mentioned. But these were exceptional, the
usual material of an altar was marble, and its form, both
among the Greeks and Romans, was either square or round;
polygonal altars, of which examples still exist, being
exceptions. When sculptured decorations were added they
frequently took the form of imitations of the actual festoons
with which it was usual to ornament altars, or of symbols,
such as crania and horns of oxen, referring to the victims
sacrificed. As a rule, the altars which existed apart
from temples bore the name of the person by whom they were
dedicated and the names of the deities in whose service they
were, or, if not the name, some obvious representation of the
deity. Such, for example, is the purpose of the figures of
the Muses on an altar dedicated to them, now to be seen in
the British Museum. An altar was retained for the service of
one particular god, except where through local tradition two
or more deities had become intimately associated, as in the
case of the altar at Olympia to Artemis and Alpheus jointly,
or that of Poseidon and Erechtheus in the Erechtheum at
Athens. The most remarkable instance of multiple dedication
was, however, at Oropus, where the altar was divided into five
parts, one dedicated to Heracles, Zeus and Paean Apollo, a
second to heroes and their wives, a third to Hestia, Hermes,
Amphiaraus and the children of Amphilochus, a fourth to Aphrodite
Panacea, Jason, Health, and Healing Athene, and the fifth to
the Nymphs, Pan, and the rivers Archelous and Cephissus (Paus.
i. 34. 2). Such deities were styled sbmbomoi, each having
a separate part of the altar (Paus. i. 34. 2). Other terms
are agonioi, or omobomioi. Deities of an inferior
order, who were conceived as working together -- e.g. the
wind gods -- had an altar in common. In the same way, the
``unknown gods'' were regarded as a unit, and had in Athens
and at Olympia one altar for all (Paus. i. 1. 4; v. 14. 5;
cf. Acts of Apostles, xvii. 18). An altar to all the gods is
mentioned by Aeschylus (Suppl. 222). Among the exceptional
classes of altars are also to be mentioned those on which
fire could not be kindled (bomoi apuroi), and those
which were kept free from blood (bomoi anaiaaktoi), of
which in both respects the altar of Zeus Hypatos at Athens
was an example. The lstia was a round altar; the
eschara, one employed apparently for sacrifice to inferior
deities or heroes (but lschara Toibou, Aesch. Pers.
205). In Rome an altar erected in front of a statue of a
god was always required to be lower than the statue itself
(Vitruvius iv. 9). Altars were always places of refuge,
and even criminals and slaves were there safe, violence
offered to them being insults to the gods whose suppliants
the refugees were for the time being. They were also taken
hold of by the Greeks when making their most solemn oaths.
Ancient America. -- As a single specimen of an altar, wholly
unrelated to any of the foregoing, we may cite the ancient
Mexican example described by W. Bullock (Six Months in Mexico,
London, 1824, p. 335). This was cylindrical, 25 ft. in
circumference, with sculpture representing the conquests of the
national warriors in fifteen different groups round the side.
Portable altars and tables of offerings were used in
pre-Christian as well as in Christian ritual. One such was
discovered in the Gezer excavations, dating about 200 B.C.
It was a slab of polished limestone about 6 in. square with
five cups in its upper surface. Another from the same place
was a small cubical block of limestone bearing a dedication to
Heracles. They have also been found in Assyria. Pocket
altars are still used in some forms of worship in India. See
the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1852, p. 71.
1 Bullock also says (p. 354) that the altar in the
church of the indian village of S. Miguel de los Ranchos
which he visited was ``of the same nature as those
in use before the introduction of Christianity.''
ALTARS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
I. The Early Church. -- The altar is spoken of by the
early Greek and Latin ecclesiastical writers under a variety
of names: -- trapefa, the principal name in the Greek
fathers and the liturgies; thusiasterion (rarer; used in
the Septuagint for Hebrew altars); ilasterion; bomos
(usually avoided, as it is a word with heathen associations);
mensa Domini; ara (avoided like bomos, and for the
same reason); and, most regularly, altare. After the 4th
century other names or expressions come into use, such as
mensa tremenda, series corporis et sanguinis Christi.
The earliest Christians had no altars, and were taunted by
the pagans for this. It is admitted by Origen in his reply
to Celsus (p. 389), who has charged the Christians with being
a secret society ``because they forbid to build temples, to
raise altars.'' ``The altars,'' says Origen, ``are the heart
of every Christian.'' The same appears from a passage in
Lactantius, De Origine Erroris, ii. 2. We gather from these
passages that down to about A.D. 250, or perhaps a little
later, the communion was administered on a movable wooden
table. In the Catacombs, the arcosolia or bench-like tombs
are said (though the statement is doubtful) to have been
used to serve this purpose. The earliest church altars were
certainly made of wood; and it would appear from a passage
in William of Malmesbury (De Gest. Pontif. Angl. iii.
14) that English altars were of wood down to the middle
of the 11th century, at least in the diocese of Worcester.
The cessation of persecution, and consequent gradual
elaboration of church furniture and ritual, led to the
employment of more costly materials for the altar as for
the other fittings of ecclesiastical buildings. Already
in the 4th century we find reference to stone altars in the
writings of Gregory ot Nyssa. In 517 the council of Epaone in
Burgundy forbade any but stone pillars to be consecrated with
chrism; but of course the decrees of this provincial council
would not necessarily be received throughout the church.
Pope Felix I. (A.D. 269-274) decreed that ``mass should be
celebrated above the tombs of martyrs'' -- an observance probably
suggested by the passage in Revelation vi. 9, ``I saw under
the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of
God.'' This practice developed into the medieval rule that no
altar can be consecrated unless it contain a relic or relics.
The form of the altar was originally table-shaped, consisting
of a plane surface supported by columns. There were usually
four, but examples with one, two and five columns are also
recorded. But the development of the relic-custom led
to the adoption of another form, the square box shape
of an ``altar- tomb.'' Transitional examples, combining
the box with the earlier table shape, are found dating
about 450. Mention is made occasionally of silver and
gold altaus in the 5th to the 8th centuries. This means
no doubt that gold and silver were copiously used in its
decoration. Such an altar still remains in Sant' Ambrogio
at Milan, dating from the 9th century (see fig. 1).
II. The Medieval Church. -- It will be convenient now to
pass to the fully-developed altar of the Western Church
with its accessories, though the rudiments of most of the
additional details are traceable in the earlier period.
In the Roman Catholic Church, which preserves in this respect
the tradition that had become established during the middle
ages, the component parts of a fixed altar in the liturgical
sense are the table (mensa), or super-altar, consisting of
a stone slab; the support (stipes), consisting either of a
solid mass or of four or more columns; the sepulchrum, or
altar-cavity, a small chamber for the reception of the relics of
martyrs. The support, in the technical sense, must be of stone
solidly joined to the table; but, if this support consist of
columns, the intervals may be filled with other materials,
e.g. brick or cement. The altar- slab or ``table'' alone
is consecrated, and in sign of this are cut in its upper
surface five Greek crosses, one in the centre and one in each
corner. These crosses must have been anointed by the bishop
with chrism in the ritual of consecration before the altar
can be used. Crosses appear on the portable altar buried
with St Cuthbert (A.D. 687), but the history of the origin
and development of this practice is not fully worked out.
According to the Caeromoniale (i. 12. 13) a canopy (balda
chinum) should be suspended over the altar; this should be
square, and of sufficient size to cover the altar and the
predella on which the officiating priest stands. This
baldachin, called liturgically the ciborium, is sometimes
hung from the roof by chains in such a way that it can be
lowered or raised; sometimes it is fixed to the wall or reredos;
sometimes it is a solid structure of wood covered with metal
or of marble supported on four columns. The latter form
is, however, usual only in large churches, more especially
of the basilica type, e.g. St Peter's at Rome or the
Roman Catholic cathedral at Westminster. The origin of the
ciborium is not certain, but it is represented in a mosaic
at Thessalonica of a date not later than A.D. 500. Even at
the present day, in spite of a decree of the Congregation of
Rites (27th of May 1697) ordering it to be placed over all
altars, it is -- even at Rome itself -- usually only found
over the high altar and the altar of the Blessed Sacrament.
Multiplication of altars is another medieval characteristic.
This also is probably a result of the edict of Pope Felix
already mentioned. In a vault where more than one martyr was
buried an altar might be erected for each. It is in the 6th
century that we begin to find traces of the multiplication of
altars. In the church of St Gall, Switzerland, in the
9th century there were seventeen. In the modern Latin
Church almost every large church contains several altars
-- dedicated to certain saints, in private side chapels,
established for masses for the repose of the founder's
soul, &c. Archbishop Wuifred in 816 ordered that beside
every altar there should be an inscription recording its
dedication. This regulation fell into abeyance after the 12th
century, and such inscriptions are very rare. One remains
mutilated at Deerhurst (Archaeologia, vol. 1. p. 69).
Where there is in a cathedral or church more than one altar,
the principal one is called a ``high altar.'' Where there is a
second high altar, it is generally at the end of the choir or
chancel. In monastic churches (e.g. formerly at St Albans) it
sometimes stands at the end of the nave close to the choir screen.
Beside the altar was a drain (piscina) for pouring
away the water in which the communion vessels were
rinsed. This seems originally to have been under
the altar, as it is still in the Eastern Church.
That the primitive communion table was covered with a
communion-cloth is highly probable, and is mentioned by Optatus
(c. A.D. 370), bishop of Alilevis. This had developed
by the 14th or 15th century into a cerecloth, or waxed cloth,
on the table itself; and three linen coverings one above
the other, two of about the size of the table and one rather
wider than the altar, and long enough to hang down at each
end. Five crosses are worked upon it, four in the corners
and one in the middle, and there is an embroidered edging.1
In front was often a hanging panel of embroidered cloth
(the frontal; but frontals of wood, ornamented with carving
or enamel, &c., are also to be found). These embroidered
frontals are changeable, so that the principal colour in
the pattern can accord with the liturgical colour of the
day. Speaking broadly, red is the colour for feasts of
martyrs, white for virgins, violet for penitential seasons,
&c.; no less than sixty-three different uses differing
in details have been enumerated. A similar panel of
needlework (the dossal) is suspended behind the altar.
Portable altars have been used on occasion since the time of
Bede. They are small slabs of hard stone, just large enough
for the chalice and paten. They are consecrated and marked
with the five incised crosses in the same way as the fixed
altar, but they may be placed upon a support of any suitable
material, whether wood or stone. They are used on a journey in
a heretical or heathen country, or in private chapels. In the
inventory of the field apparel of Henry, earl of Northumberland,
A.D. 1513, is included ``A coffer wyth ij liddes to serue
for an Awter and ned be'' (Archaeologia, xxvi. 403).
On the altar are placed a cross and candlesticks -- six
in number, and seven when a bishop celebrates in his
cathedral; and over it is suspended or fixed a tabernacle
or receptacle for the reservation of the Sacrament.
III. Post-Reformation Altars. -- At the Reformation the
altars in churches were looked upon as symbols of the
unreformed doctrine, especially where the struggle lay
between the Catholics and the Calvinists, who on this
point were much more radical revolutionaries than the
Lutherans. In England the name ``altar''2 was retained in
the Communion Office in English, printed in 1549, and in the
complete English Prayer-book of the following year, known
to students as the First Book of Edward VI. But orders were
given soon after that the altars should be destroyed, and
replaced by movable wooden tables; while from the revised
Prayer book of 1552 the word ``altar'' was carefully expunged,
``God's board'' or ``the table'' being substituted. The short
reign of Mary produced a temporary reaction, but the work
of reformation was resumed on the accession of Elizabeth.
The name ``altar'' has been all along retained in the
Coronation Office of the kings of England, where it occurs
frequently. It was also recognized in the canons of 1640,
but with the reservation that ``it was an altar in the sense
in which the primitive church called it an altar and in no
other.'' In the same canons the rule for the position of the
communion tables, which has been since regularly followed
throughout the Church of England, was formulated. In the
primitive church the altars seem to have been so placed
that, like those of the Hebrews, they could be surrounded
on all sides by the worshippers. The chair of the bishop
or celebrant was on their east side, and the assistant
clergy were ranged on each side of him. But in the middle
ages the altars were placed against the east wall of the
churches, or else against a reredos erected at the east
side of the altar, so as to prevent all access to the table
from that side; the celebrant was thus brought round to the
west side and caused to stand between the people and the
altar. On the north and south sides there were often
curtains. When tables were substituted for altars in the
English churches, these were not merely movable, but at the
administration of the Lord's Supper were actually moved into
the body of the church, and placed table-wise -- that is,
with the long sides turned to the north and south, and the
narrow ends to the east and west, -- the officiating clergyman
standing at the north side. In the time of Archbishop Laud,
however, the present practice of the Church of England was
introduced. The communion table, though still of wood
and movable, is, as a matter of fact, never moved; it
is placed altar-wise -- that is, with its longer axis
running north and south, and close against the east wall.
Often there is a reredos behind it; it is also fenced in
by rails to preserve it from profanation of various kinds.
In 1841 the ancient church of the Holy Sepulchre at
Cambridge was robbed of most of its interest by a calamitous
``restoration'' carried out under the superintendence and
partly at the charge of the Camden Society. On this occasion
a stone altar, consisting of a flat slab resting upon three
other upright slabs, was presented to the parish, and was
set up in the church at the east wall of the chancel.
This was brought to the notice of the Court of Arches in
1845, and Sir H. Jenner Fust (Faulkner v. Lichfield and
Stearn) ordered it to be removed, on the ground that a
stone structure so weighty that it could not be carried
about, and seeming to be a mass of solid masonry, was not a
communion-table in the sense recognized by the Church of England.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. -- For altars in the ancient East see M.
Jastrow, Religion of Assyria anid Babylonia; Perrot and
Chipiez, Art in Chaldea (i. 143, 255); Sir i. Gardiner
Wilkinson, A Second Series of the Monners and Customs of
the Ancient Egyptians, ii. 387; Benzinger's and Nowack's
works on Hebraische Archaologie. For classical altars,
much information can be obtained from the notes in J. G.
Frazer's Pausaniae. See also Schomann, Griechische
Alterthumer, vol. ii.; the volume on ``Gottesdienstliche
Altcrthumer'' in Hermann's Lehrbuch der griechischen
Antiquitaten. On domestic altars and worship see
Petersen, Hausgottesdienst der Griechen (Cassel, 1851).
On plural dedications consult Maurer, De aribus graecorum
pluribus deis in commune positis (Darmstadt, 1885). For
Christian altars, reference is best made to the articles on
the subject in the dictionaries of Christian and liturgical
antiquities of Migne, Martigny, Smith and Cheetham, and
Pugin, where practically all the available information is
collected. See also Ciampinus, Vetera Monumenta (Rome,
1747), where numerous illustrations of altars are to be found;
Martune, De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus, iii. vi. (Rouen,
1700); Voigt, Thyslasteriologia sive de altaribus veterum
Christianorum (Hamburg, 1709); and the liturgical works of
Bona. Many articles on various sections of the subject have
appeared in the journals of archaeoloeical societies; we may
mention Nesbitt on the churches of Rome earlier than 1150
(Archaeologia, xl. p. 210), Didron, ``L'Autel chretien''
(Annales archeologiques, iv. p. 238), and a paper by
Texier on enamelled altars in the same volume. (R. A. S. M.)
1 In the Eastern Church four small pieces of cloth marked
with the names of the Evangelists are placed on the four
corners of the altar, and covered with three cloths,
the uppermost (the corporal) being of smaller size.
2 Except in one place where the term used is ``God's Board.''
ALTDORF, the capital of the Swiss canton of Uri. It is
built at a height of 1516 ft. above sea-level, a little
above the right bank of the Reuss, not far above the point
where this river is joined on the right by the Schachen
torrent. In 1900 the population was 3117, all Romanists and
German-speaking. Altdorf is 34 m. from Lucerne by the
St Gotthard railway and 22 m. from Goeschenen. Its port
on the Lake of Lucerne, Fluelon, is 2 m. distant. There
is a stately parish church, while above the little town
is the oldest Capuchin convent in Switzerland (1581).
Altdorf is best known as the place where, according to the
legend, William Tell shot the apple from his son's head.
This act by tradition happened on the market-place, where
in 1895, at the foot of an old tower (with rude frescoes
commemorating the feat), there was set up a fine bronze
statue (by Richard Kissling of Zurich) of Tell and his
son. In 1899 a theatre was opened close to the town for
the sole purpose of performing Schiller's play of Wilhelm
Tell. The same year a new carriage-road was opened from
Altdorf through the Schachen valley and over the Klausen
Pass (6404 ft.) to the village of Linththal (30 m.) and so to
Glarus. One and a half mile from Altdorf by the Klausen road
is the village of Burglen, where by tradition Tell was born;
while he is also said to have lost his life, while saving
that of a child, in the Schachen torrent that flows past the
village. On the left bank of the Reuss, immediately opposite
Altdorf, is Attinghausen, where the ruined castle (which
belonged to one of the real founders of the Swiss Confederation)
now houses the cantonal museum of antiquities. (W. A. B. C.)
ALTDORFER, ALBRECHT (N 1480-1538), German painter and
engraver, was born at Regensburg (Ratisbon), where in 1505 he
was enrolled a burgher, and described as ``twenty-five years
old.'' Soon afterwards he is known to have been prosperous,
and as city architect he erected fortifications and a public
slaughter-house. Altdorfer has been called the ``Giorgione
of the North.,' His paintings are remarkable for minute and
careful finish, and for close study of nature. The most
important of them are to be found in the Pinakothek at Munich.
A representation of the battle of Arbela (1529), included in
that collection, is usually considered his chief work. His
engravings on wood and copper are very numerous, and rank next
to those of Albrecht Durer. The most important collection is
at the Bedin museum. Albrecht's brother, Erhard Altdorfer, was
also a painter and engraver, and a pupil of Lucas Cranach.
ALTEN, SIR CHARLES [Karl] (1764-1840), Hanoverian and
British soldier, son of Baron Alten, a member of an old
Hanoverian family, entered the service of the elector as a
page at the age of twelve. In 1781 he received a commission
in the Hanoverian guards, and as a captain took part in the
campaigns of 1793- 1795 in the Low Countries, distinguishing
himself particularly on the Lys in command of light
infantry. In 1803 the Hanoverian army was disbanded, and
Alten took service with the King's German Legion in British
pay. In command of the light infantry of this famous
corps he took part with Lord Cathcart in the Hanoverian
expedition of 1805 and in the siege of Copenhagen in 1807,
and was with Moore in Sweden and Spain, as well as in the
disastrous Walcheren expedition. He was soon employed
once more in the Peninsula, and at Albuera commanded a
brigade. In April 1813 Wellington placed him at the head
of the famous ``Light Division'' (43rd, 52nd, 95th, and
Cacadores), in which post he worthily continued the records
of Moore and Robert Craufurd at Nivelle, Nive, Orthez and
Toulouse. His officers presented him with a sword of
honour as a token of their esteem. In 1815 Alten commanded
Wellington's 3rd division and was severely wounded at
Waterloo. His conduct won for him the rank of Count von
Alten. When the King's German Legion ceased to exist, Alten
was given the command of the Hanoverians in France, and in 1818
he returned to Hanover, where he became subsequently minister
of war and foreign affairs, and rose to be field-marshal,
being retained on the British Army list at the same time
as Major-General Sir Charles Alten, G. C. B. He died in
1840. A memorial to Alten has been erected at Hanover.
See Glentleman's Magazine, 1840; N. L. Beamish, Hist.
of the King's German Legion, 2 vols. (1832-1837).
ALTENA, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Westphalia,
on the river Lenne, 38 m. S.S.E. from Dortmund. Pop. (1900)
12,769. It consists of a single street, winding up a deep
valley for about 3 m. There are three churches, a museum,
high grade and popular schools. Its hardware industries are
important, and embrace iron rolling, the manufacture of fine
wire, needles, springs and silver ornaments. On the neighbouring
Schlossberg is the ancestral castle of the counts of La Marok,
ancestors, on the female side, of the Prussian royal house.
ALTENBURG, a town of Germany, capital of the duchy of
Saxe-Altenburg, situated near the river Pleisse, 23 m. S.
of Leipzig, and at the junction of the Saxon state railways
Leipzig- Hof and Altenburg-Zeitz. Pop. (1905) 38,811. The
town from its hilly position is irregularly built, but many
of its streets are wide, and contain a number of large and
beautiful buildings. Its ancient castle is picturesquely
situated on a lofty porphyry rock, and is memorable as the
place from which, in 1455, Kunz von Kaufungen carried off
the young princes Albert and Ernest, the founders of the
present royal and ducal families of Saxony. Its beautiful
picture gallery, containing portraits of several of the
famous princes of the house of Wettin, was almost totally
destroyed by fire in January 1905. Altenburg is the seat
of the higher courts of the Saxon duchies, and possesses a
cathedral and several churches, schools, a library, a gallery
of pictures and a school of art, an infirmary and various
learned societies. There is also a museum, with natural
history, archaeological, and art collections, and among other
buildings may be mentioned St Bartholomew's church (1089), the
town hall (1562-1564), a lunatic asylum, teachers' seminary
and an agricultural academy. There is considerable traffic
in grain and cattle brought from the surrounding districts;
and twice a year there are large horse fairs. Cigars, woollen
goods, gloves, hats and porcelain are among the chief
manufactures. There are lignite mines in the vicinity.
ALTENSTEIN, a castle upon a rocky mountain in Saxe-
Meiningen, on the south-western slope of the Thuringerwald,
not far from Eisenach. It is the summer residence of the
dukes of Meiningen, and is surrounded by a noble park, which
contains, among other objects of interest, a remarkable
underground cavern, 500 ft. long, through which flows a large
and rapid stream. Boniface, the apostle of the Germans,
lived and preached at Altenstein in 724; and near by is the
place where, in 1521, Luther was seized, by the order of
the elector Frederick the Wise, to be carried off to the
Wartburg. An old beech called ``Luther's tree,'' which
tradition connected with the reformer, was blown down in
1841, and a small monument now stands in its place.
ALTERNATION (from Lat. aiternare, to do by turns), strictly,
the process of ``alternating''' i.e. of two things following
one another regularly by turns, as night alternates with day.
A somewhat different sense is attached to some usages of the
derivatives. Thus, in American political representative bodies
and in the case of company directors, a substitute is sometimes
called an ``alternate.'' An ``alternative'' IS that which
is offered as a choice of two things, the acceptance of the
one implying the rejection of the other. It is incorrect
to speak of more than two alternatives, though Mr Gladstone
wrote in 1857 of a fourth (Oxf. Essays, 26). When there
is only one course open there is said to be no alternative.
ALTHAEA, in classical legend, daughter of Thestius, king of Aetolia,
wife of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and mother of Meleager (q.v..)
ALTING, JOHANN HEINRICH (1583--1644), German divine, was
born at Emden, where his father, Menso Alting ( 1541-1612), was
minister. Johann studied with great success at the universities
of Groningen and Herborn. In 1608 he was appointed tutor of
Frederick, afterwards elector-palatine, at Heidelberg, and
in 1612 accompanied him to England. Returning in 1613 to
Heidelberg, after the marriage of the elector with Princess
Elizabeth of England, he was appointed professor of dogmatics,
and in 1616 director of the theological department in the
Collegium Sapientiae. In 1618, along with Abraham
Scultetus, he represented the university in the synod of
Dort. When Count Tilly took the city of Heidelberg (1622)
and handed it over to plunder, Alting found great difficulty
in escaping the fury of the soldiers. He first retired to
Schorndorf; but, offended by the ``semi-Pelagianism'' of the
Lutherans with whom he was brought in contact, he removed to
Holland, where the unfortunate elector and ``Winter King''
Frederick, in exile after his brief reign in Bohemia, made
him tutor to his eldest son. In 1627 Alting was appointed
to the chair of theology at Groningen, where he continued
to lecture, with increasing reputation, until his death in
1644. Though an orthodox Calvinist, Alting laid little
stress on the sterner side of his creed and, when at Dort
he opposed the Remonstrants, he did so mainly on the
ground that they were ``innovators.'' Among his works are:
--Notae in Decadem Problematum Jacobi Behm (Heidelberg,
1618); Scripta Pheologica Meidelbergensia (Amst.,
1662); Exegesis Augustanae Confessionis (Amst., 1647).
ALTINUM (mod. Altino), an ancient town of Venetia,
12 m. S.E. of Tarvisium (Treviso), on the edge of the
lagoons. It was probably only a small fishing village until
it became the point of junction of the Via Postumia and the
Via Popillia (see AQUILEIA). At the end of the republic
it was a municipium. Augustus and his successors brought
it into further importance as a point on the route between
Italy and the north-eastern portions of the empire. After
the foundation of the naval station at Ravenna, it became the
practice to take ship from there to Altinum, instead of following
the Via Popillia round the coast, and thence to continue
the journey by land. A new road, the Via Claudia Augusta,
was constructed by the emperor Claudius from Altinum to the
Danube, a distance of 350 m., apparently by way of the Lake of
Constance. The place thus became of considerable strategic
and commercial importance, and the comparatively mild climate
(considering its northerly situation) led to the erection of
villas which Martial (Epigr. iv. 25) compares with those of
Baiae. It was destroyed by Attila in A.D. 452, and its
inhabitants took refuge in the islands of the lagoons,
forming settlements from which Venice eventually sprang.
ALTITUDE (Lat. altitudo, from altus, high), height or
eminence, and particularly the height above the ground or above
sea-level. In geometry, the altitude of a triangle is the
length of the perpendicular from the vertex to the base. In
astronomy, the altitude of a heavenly body is the apparent
angular elevation of the body above the plane of the horizon
(see ASTRONOMY: Spherical). Apparent altitude is the
value which is directly observed; true altitude is deduced
by correcting for astronomical refraction and dip of the
horizon; geocentric altitude by correcting for parallax.
ALTMUHL, a river of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria.
It is an important left bank tributary of the Danube,
rising in the Franconian plateau (Frankische Terrasse),
and after a tortuous course of 116 m., at times flowing
through meadows and again in weird romantic gorges, joins
the Danube at Kelheim. From its mouth it is navigable
up to Dietfurt (18 m.), whence the Ludwigscanal (100 m.
long) proceeds to Bamberg on the Regnitz, thus establishing
communication between the Danube and the Rhine.
ALTO (Ital. for ``high',), a musical term applied
to the highest adult male voice or counter-tenor,
and to the lower boy's or woman's (contralto) Voice.
ALTON, a market-town in the Fareham parliamentary division
of Hampshire, England, 46 1/2 m. S.W. of London by the London
& South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5479.
It has a pleasant undulating site near the headwaters of the
river Wey. Of the church of St Lawrence part, including the
tower, is Norman; the building was the scene of a fierce
conflict between the royalist and parliamentary troops in
1643. There is a museum of natural history; the collection is
reminiscent of the famous naturalist Gilbert White, of Selborne
in this vicinity. Large markets and fairs are held for corn,
hops, cattle and sheep; and the town contains some highly
reputed ale breweries, besides paper mills and iron foundries.
ALTON, a city of Madison county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the W.
part of the state, on the Mississippi river, about 10 m. above
the mouth of the Missouri, and about 25 m. N. of St Louis,
Missouri. Pop. (1890) 10,294; (1900) 14,210, of whom 1638
were foreign-born; (1910) 17,528. Alton is served by the
Chicago & Alton, the Chicago, Peoria & St Louis, the Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Illinois Terminal
railways. The river is here spanned by a bridge. The
residential portion of the city lies on the river bluffs,
some of which rise to a height of 250 ft. above the water
level, and the business streets are on the bottom lands of the
river. Alton has a public library and a public park. Upper
Alton (pop. 2918 in 1910), about 1 1/2 m. N.E. of Alton, is
the seat of the Western Military Academy (founded in 1879 as
Wyman Institute; chartered in 1892), and of Shurtleff College
(Baptist, founded in 1827 at Rock Spring, removed to Upper
Alton in 1831, and chartered in 1833), which has a college
of liberal arts, a divinity school, an academy and a school
of music; and the village of Godfrey, 5 1/2 m. N. of Alton,
is the seat of the Monticello Ladies' Seminary, founded by
Benjamin Godfrey, opened in 1838, and chartered in 1841. Among
the manufactures of Alton are iron and glass ware, miners'
tools, shovels, coal-mine cars, flour, and agricultural
implements; and there are a large oil refinery and a large lead
smelter. The value of the city's factory products increased
from $4,250,389 in 1900 to $8,696,814 in 1905, or 104.6%.
The first settlement on the site of Alton was made in 1807,
when a trading post was established by the French. The
town was laid out in 1817, was first incorporated in 1821,
and in 1827 was made the seat of a state penitentiary,
which was later removed to Joliet, the last prisoners being
transferred in 1860. Alton was first chartered as a city in
1837. In 1836 the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy (1802-1837), a
native of Albion, Maine, removed the Observer, a religious
(Presbyterian) periodical of which he was the editor,
from St Louis to Alton. He had attracted considerable
attention in St Louis by his criticisms of slavery, but
though he believed in emancipation, he was not a radical
abolitionist. After coming to Alton his anti-slavery views
soon became more radical, and in a few months he was an avowed
abolitionist. His views were shared by his brother, Owen
Lovejoy (1811-1864), a Congregational minister, who also at
that time lived in Alton, and who from 1857 until his death
was an able anti-slavery member of Congress. Most of the
people of southern Illinois were in sympathy with slavery,
and consequently the Lovejoys became very unpopular. The
press of the Observer was three time destroyed, and on
the 7th of November 1837 E. P. Loveioy was killed while
attempting to defend against a mob a fourth press which he
had recently obtained and which was stored in a warehouse in
Alton. His death caused intense excitement throughout the
country, and he was everywhere regarded by abolitionists
as a martyr to their cause. In 1897 a monument, a granite
column surmounted by a bronze statue of Victory, was erected
in his honour by the citizens of Alton and by the state.
See Henry Tanner, The Martyrdom of Lovejoy (Chicago,
1881), and ``The Alton Tragedy'' in S. J. May's Some
Recollections of Our Anti-Slavery Conflict (Boston, 1869).
ALTONA, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Schleswig-Holstein, on the right bank of the Elbe immediately
west of Hamburg. Though administratively distinct, the
two cities so closely adjoin as virtually to form one
whole. Lying higher than Hamburg, Altona enjoys a purer
and healthier atmosphere. It has spacious squares and
streets, among the latter the Palmaille, a stately avenue
ending on a terrace about 100 ft. above the Elbe, whence
a fine view is obtained of the river and the lowlands
beyond. Of the six Evangelical churches, the Hauptkirche
(parish church), with a lofty steeple, is noteworthy.
The main thoroughfares are embellished by several striking
monuments, notably the memorials of the wars of 1864 and
1870, bronze statues of the emperor William I. and Bismarck
and the column of Victory (Siegessaule). The museum (1901)
is an imposing building in the German Renaissance style and
contains, in addition to a valuable library, ethnographical
and natural history collections. Its site is that formerly
occupied by the terminus of the Schleswig-Holstein railways,
but a handsome central station lying somewhat farther to
the N., connected with Hamburg by an elevated railway, now
accommodates all the traffic and provides through communication
with the main Prussian railway systems. There are also fine
municipal and judicial buildings, a theatre (under the same
management as the Stadttheater in Hamburg), a gymnasium,
technical schools, a school of navigation and a hospital.
In respect of its local industries Altona has manufactures
of tobacco and cigars, of machinery, woollens, cottons and
chemicals. There are also extensive breweries, tanneries
and soap and oil works. Altona carries on an extensive
maritime trade with Great Britain, France and America, but
it has by no means succeeded in depriving Hamburg of its
commercial superiority -- indeed, so dependent is it upon its
rival that most of its business is transacted on the Hamburg
exchange, while the magnificent warehouses on the Altona river
bank are to a large extent occupied by the goods of Hamburg
merchants. Since 1888, when Altona joined the imperial
Zollverein, approximately half a million sterling has been
spent upon harbour improvement works. The exports and imports
resemble those of Hamburg. In the ten years 1871-1880,
the port was entered on an average annually by 737 vessels
of 67,735 tons, in 1881-1890 by 608 vessels of 154,713
tons, and in 1891-1898 by 839 vessels of 253,384 tons.
In 1890 the populous suburbs of Ottensen to the W., where the
poet Gottlieb Klopstock lies buried, Bahrenfeld, Othmarschen
and Ovelgonne were incorporated. Without these suburbs the
growth of the town may be seen from the following figures: --
(1864, when it ceased to he Danish) 53,039; (1880) 91,049;
(1885) 104,717; (1890) together with the four suburbs,
143,249; (1895) 148,944; (1900) 161,508; (1905) 168,301.
Altona is the headquarters of the IX. German army corps.
The name Altona is said to be derived from allzu-nah (``all
too near''), the Hamburgers' designation for an inn which
in the middle of the 16th century lay too close to their
territory. For a long time this was the only house in the
locality. When in 1640 Altona passed to Denmark it was
a small fishing village. Its rise to its present position
is mainly due to the fostering care of the Danish kings
who conferred certain customs privileges and exemptions
upon it with a view to making it a formidable rival to
Hamburg. In 1713 it was burnt by the Swedes, but rapidly
recovered from this disaster, and despite the trials of
the Napoleonic wars, gradually increased in prosperity.
In 1853, owing to the withdrawal by Denmark of its customs
privileges, its trade waned. In 1864 Altona was occupied in
the name of the German Confederation, passed to Prussia after
the war of 1866, and 1888 together with Hamburg joined the
Zollverein, while retaining certain free trade rights over the
Freihafengebiet which it shares with Hamburg and Wandsbek.
See Wichmann, Geschichte Altonas (2 vols., Alt., 1896); Ehrenberg
& Stahl, Altonas topographische Entwickelung (Alt., 1894).
ALTOONA, a city of Blair county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.,
about 117 m. E. by N. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 30,337;
(1900) 38,973, of whom 3301 were foreign-born, 1518 being
German; (1010) 52,127. It lies in the upper end of Logan
Valley at the base or the Alleghany mountains, about 1180
ft. above sea-level, and Commands views of some of the most
picturesque mountain scenery in the state. A short distance
to the W. is the famous Horseshoe Bend of the Pennsylvania
railway. Altoona is served by the Pennsylvania railway,
and is one of the leading railway cities in the United
States. Its freight yard is 7 m. long, and has 221 m. of
tracks. Large numbers of eastbound coal trains from the
mountains and westbound ``empties'' returning to the mines
stop here; and the cars of these trains are classified
here and new trains made up. Locomotives and cars are sent
to Altoona to be repaired from all over the Pennsylvania
railway system E. of Pittsburg, and cars and locomotives
are built here; and in the south Altoona foundries car
wheels and general castings for locomotives and cars are
made. The several departments of railway work are used to
give training in a sort of railway university. Graduates of
technical schools are received as special apprentices and
are directed in a course of four years through the erecting
shops, vice shop, blacksmith shop, boiler shop, roundhouse,
test department, machine shop, air-brake shop, iron foundry,
car shop, work of firing on the road, office work in the
motive power accounting department, and drawing room; the most
competent may be admitted through the grades of inspector, in
the office of the master mechanic or of the road foreman of
engines, assistant master mechanic, assistant engineer of
motive power, master mechanic and superintendent of motive
power. The Pennsylvania railway, co-operating with the
public school authorities, established at Altoona, in 1907, a
railway high school, the first institution of the kind in the
country. It has a well-equipped drawing room, carpenter shop,
forging room, foundry, science laboratories and machinery
department, in which expert instruction is given. In 1905
the city's factory products were valued at $14,349,963, and
in this year the railway shops gave employment to 83.7% of
all wage-earners employed in manufacturing establishments.
The manufacture of silk is the only other important industry
in the city. The site of the city (formerly farming
land) was purchased in 1849 by the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company and was laid out as a town. It was incorporated
as a borough in 1854 and was chartered as a city in 1868.
ALTO-RELIEVO (Ital. for ``high relief''), the term applied
to sculpture that projects from the plane to which it is
attached to the extent of more than one-half the outline of
the principal figures, which may be nearly or in parts entirely
detached from the background. It is thus distinguished from
basso-relievo (q.v.), in which there is a greater or
less approximation in effect to the pictorial method, the
figures being made to appear as projecting more than half
their outline without actually doing so. At the same time
it is not only the actual degree of relief which is implied
by these two terms, but a resultant difference also of design
and treatment necessitated by the contingent differences
of light and shadow. (See RELIEF and SCULPTURE.)
ALTOTTING, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria,
On the Morren, not far from its junction with the Inn,
and on the Mulildorf-Burghausen railway. Pop. (1900)
4344. It has long been a place of pilgrimage to which
Roman Catholics, especially from Austria, Bavaria and Swabia
resort in large numbers, on account of a celebrated image
of the Virgin Mary in the Holy Chapel, which also contains
the hearts of some Bavarian princes in silver caskets. In
the church of St Peter and St Paul is the tomb of Tilly.
ALTRANSTADT, a village of Germany, in Prussian Saxony near
Merseburg (q.v.), with (1900) 813 inhabitants. Altranstadt
is famous in history for two treaties concluded here: (1)
the peace which Augustus II., king of Poland and elector of
Saxony, was forced to ratify, on the 24th of September 1706,
with Charles XII. of Sweden, whereby the former renounced
the throne of Poland in favour of Stanislaus Leszczynski
-- a treaty which Augustus declared null and void after
Charles XII.'s defeat at Poltava (8th of July 1709); (2)
the treaty of the 31st of August 1707, by which the emperor
Joseph I. guaranteed to Charles XII. religious tolerance
and liberty of conscience for the Silesian protestants.
ALTRINCHAM, or ALTRINOHAM (and so pronounced), a market-town,
in the Altrincham padiamentary division of Cheshire England, 8
m. S.W. by S. of Manchester, on the London & North-Western,
Manchester, South Junction & Altrincham and Cheshire Lines
railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 16,831. Many
residences in the locality are occupied by those whose
business lies in Manchester, who are attracted by the healthy
climate and the vicinity of Bowdon Downs and Dunham Massey
Woods. Market gardening is carried on, large quantities
of fruit and flowers being grown for sale in Manchester.
Cabinet-making is also practised; and there are sawmills, iron
foundries, and manufactures of cotton, yarn and worsted.
Altrincham (Aldringham) was originally included in the barony
of Dunham Massey, one of the eight baronies founded by Hugh,
earl of Chester, after the Conquest. An undated charter
from Hamo de Massey, lord of the barony, in the reign of
Edward I., constituted Altrincham a free borough, with a
gild merchant, the customs of Macclesfield, the right to
elect reeves and bailiffs for the common council and other
privileges. In 1290 the same Hamo obtained a grant of
a Tuesday market and a three days' fair at the feast of
the Assumption of the Virgin; but in 1319, by a charter
from Edward II., the date of the fair was changed to the
feast of St James the Apostle. A mayor of Altrincham is
mentioned by name in 1452, but the office probably existed
long before this date; it has now for centuries been a
purely nominal appointment, the chief duty consisting in
the opening of the annual fairs. The trade in worsted
and woollen yarns, which formerly furnished employment
to a large section of the population, has now completely
declined, partly owing to the introduction of Irish worsted.
See Victoria County History, Cheshire; Alfred Ingham,
History of Altrincham and Bowdon (Altrincham, 1879).
ALTRUISM (Fr. autrui, from Lat. alter, the other of
two), a philosophical term used in ethics for that theory of
conduct which regards the good of others as the end of moral
action. It was invented by Auguste Comte and adopted
by the English positivists as a convenient antithesis to
egoism. According to Comte the only practical method of
social regeneration is gradually to inculcate the true
social feeling which subordinates itself to the welfare of
others. The application to sociological problems of the
physical theory of organic evolution further developed the
altruistic theory. According to Herbert Spencer, the life
of the individual in the perfect society is identical with
that of the state: in other words, the first object of him
who would live well must be to take his part in promoting
the well-being of his fellows individually and collectively.
Pure egoism and pure altruism are alike impracticable. For
on the one hand unless the egoist's happiness is compatible
to some extent with that of his fellows, their opposition
will almost inevitably vitiate his perfect enjoyment; on the
other hand, the altruist whose primary object is the good of
others, must derive his own highest happiness -- i.e. must
realize himself most completely -- in the fulfilment of this
object. In fact, the altruistic idea, in itself and apart from a
further definition of the good, is rather a method than an end.
The self-love theory of Hobbes, with its subtle perversions
of the motives of ordinary humanity, led to a reaction
which culminated in the utilitarianism of Bentham and the two
Mills; but their theory, though superior to the extravagant
egoism of Hobbes, had this main defect, according to Herbert
Spencer, that it conceived the world as an aggregate of
units, and was so far individualistic. Sir Leslie Stephen
in his Science of Ethics insisted that the unit is the
social organism, and therefore that the aim of moralists
is not the ``greatest happiness of the greatest number,''
but rather the ``health of the organism.'' The socialistic
tendencies of subsequent thinkers have emphasized the ethical
importance of altruistic action, but it must be remembered
always that it is ultimately only a form of action, that
it may be commended in all types of ethical theory, and
that it is a practical guide only when it is applied in
accordance with a definite theory of ``the good.'' Finally,
he who devotes himself on principle to furthering the
good of others as his highest moral obligation is from the
highest point of view realizing, not sacrificing, himself.
See works of Comte, Spencer, Stephen, and text-books of
ethics (cf. bibliography at end of article ETHICS).
ALTWASSER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Silesia, 43 m. by rail S.W. from Breslau, and 3 m. N. from
Waldenburg. It has factories for glass, porcelain, machinery,
cotton-spinning, iron-foundries and coal-mines. Pop. (1900) 12,144.
ALTYN-TAGH, or ASTYN-TAOH, one of the chief constituent
ranges of the Kuen-lun (q.v.) in Central Asia, separating
Tibet from east Turkestan and the Desert of Gobi.
ALUM, in chemistry, a term given to the crystallized double
sulphates of the typical formula M2SO4.M2111.(SO4)324H2O,
Where M is the sign of an alkali metal (potassium, sodium,
rubidium, caesium), silver or ammonium, and M111 denotes
one of the trivalent metals, aluminium, chromium or ferric
iron. These salts are employed in dyeing and various
other industrial processes. They are soluble in water,
have an astringent, acid, and sweetish taste, react acid
to litmus, and crystallize in regular octahedra. When
heated they liquefy; and if the heating be continued, the
water of crystallization is driven off, the salt froths
and swells, and at last an amorphous powder remains.
Potash alum is the common alum of commerce, although both
soda alum and ammonium alum are manufactured. The presence
of sulphuric acid in potash alum was known to the alchemists.
J. H. Pott and A. S. Marggraf demonstrated that alumina was
another constituent. Pott in his Lithogeognosia showed
that the precipitate obtained when an alkali is poured into
a solution of alum is quite different from lime and chalk,
with which it had been confounded by G. E. Stahl. Marggraf
showed that alumina is one of the constituents of alum, but
that this earth possesses peculiar properties, and is one of
the ingredients in common clay (Experiences faites sur la
terre de l'alun, Marggraf's Opusc. ii. 111) . He also
showed that crystals of alum cannot be obtained by dissolving
alumina in sulphuric acid and evaporating the solutions, but
when a solution of potash or ammonia is dropped into this
liquid, it immediately deposits perfect crystals of alum (Sur
la regeneration de l'alun, Marggraf's Opusc. ii. 86).
T. O. Bergman also observed that the addition of potash or ammonia
made the solution of alumina in sulphuric acid crystallize, but
that the same effect was not produced by the addition of soda
or of lime (De confectione aluminus, Bergman's Opusc. i.
225), and that potassium sulphate is frequently found in alum.
After M. H. Klaproth had discovered the presence of potassium
in leucite and lepidolite, it occurred to L. N. Vauquelin
that it was probably an ingredient likewise in many other
minerals. Knowing that alum cannot be obtained in crystals
without the addition of potash, he began to suspect that
this alkali constituted an essential ingredient in the salt,
and in 1797 he published a dissertation demonstrating that
alum is a double salt, composed of sulphuric acid, alumina
and potash (Annales de chimie, xxii. 258). Soon after,
J. A. Chaptal published the analysis of four different kinds
of alum, namely, Roman alum, Levant alum, British alum and
alum manufactured by himself. This analysis led to the same
result as that of Vauquelin (Ann. de chim xxii. 280).
The word alumen, which we translate alum, occurs in
Pliny's Natural History. In the 15th chapter of his 35th
book he gives a detailed description of it. By comparing
this with the account of stupteria given by Dioscorides
in the 123rd chapter of his 5th book, it is obvious that
the two are identical. Pliny informs us that alumen was
found naturally in the earth. He calls it salsugoterrae.
Different substances were distinguished by the name of
''alumen''; but they were all characterized by a certain
degree of astringency, and were all employed in dyeing and
medicine, the light-coloured alumen being useful in brilliant
dyes, the dark-coloured only in dyeing black or very dark
colours. One species was a liquid, which was apt to be
adulterated; but when pure it had the property of blackening
when added to pomegranate juice. This property seems
to characterize a solution of iron sulphate in water; a
solution of ordinary (potash) alum would possess no such
property. Pliny says that there is another kind of alum which
the Greeks call schistos. It forms in white threads upon
the surface of certain stones. From the name schistos, and
the mode of formation, there can be little doubt that this
species was the salt which forms spontaneously on certain
slaty minerals, as alum slate and bituminous shale, and
which consists chiefly of sulphates of iron and aluminium.
Possibly in certain places the iron sulphate may have been
nearly wanting, and then the salt would be white, and would
answer, as Pliny says it did, for dyeing bright colours.
Several other species of alumen are described by Pliny, but
we are unable to make out to what minerals he alludes.
The alumen of the ancients, then, was not the same with the
alum of the moderns. It was most commonly an iron sulphate,
sometimes probably an aluminium sulphate, and usually a
mixture of the two. But the ancients were unacquainted with
our alum. They were acquainted with a crystallized iron
sulphate, and distinguished it by the names of misy, sory,
chalcanthum (Pliny xxxiv. 12). As alum and green vitriol
were applied to a variety of substances in common, and as
both are distinguished by a sweetish and astringent taste,
writers, even after the discovery of alum, do not seem
to have discriminated the two salts accurately from each
other. In the writings of the alchemists we find the words
misy, sory, chalcanthum applied to alum as well as to iron
sulphate; and the name atramentum sutorium, which ought
to belong, one would suppose, exclusively to green vitriol,
applied indifferently to both. Various minerals are employed
in the manufacture of alum, the most important being alunite
(q.v.) or alum-stone, alum schist, bauxite and cryolite.
In order to obtain alum from alunite, it is calcined and
then exposed to the action of air for a considerable
time. During this exposure it is kept continually moistened
with water, so that it ultimately falls to a very fine
powder. This powder is then lixiviated with hot water, the
liquor decanted, and the alum allowed to crystallize. The
alum schists employed in the manufacture of alum are mixtures
of iron pyrites, aluminium silicate and various bituminous
substances, and are found in upper Bavaria, Bohemia, Belgium
and Scotland. These are either roasted or exposed to the
weathering action of the air. In the roasting process,
sulphuric acid is formed and acts on the clay to form aluminium
sulphate, a similar condition of affairs being produced during
weathering. The mass is now systematically extracted with
water, and a solution of aluminium sulphate of specific
gravity 1.16 is prepared. This solution is allowed to stand
for some time (in order that any calcium sulphate and basic
ferric sulphate may separate), and is then evaporated until
ferrous sulphate crystallizes on cooling; it is then drawn
off and evaporated until it attains a specific gravity of
1.40. It is now allowed to stand for some time, decanted from
any sediment, and finally mixed with the calculated quantity
of potassium sulphate (or if ammonium alum is required, with
ammonium sulphate), well agitated, and the alum is thrown
down as a finely-divided precipitate of alum meal. If much
iron should be present in the shale then it is preferable
to use potassium chloride in place of potassium sulphate.
In the preparation of alum from clays or from bauxite, the
material is gently calcined, then mixed with sulphuric acid
and heated gradually to boiling; it is allowed to stand for
some time, the clear solution drawn off and mixed with acid
potassium sulphate and allowed to crystallize. When cryolite
is used for the preparation of alum, it is mixed with calcium
carbonate and heated. By this means, sodium aluminate is
formed; it is then extracted with water and precipitated
either by sodium bicarbonate or by passing a current of
carbon dioxide through the solution. The precipitate is then
dissolved in sulphuric acid, the requisite amount of potassium
sulphate added and the solution allowed to crystallize.
Potash alum, K2SO4.Al2(SO4)3.24H2O, crystallizes in regular
octahedra and is very soluble in water. The solution redens
litmus and is an astringent. When heated to nearly a red
heat it gives a porous friable mass which is known as ``burnt
alum.'' It fuses at 92 deg. C. in its own water of crystallization.
``Neutral alum'' is obtained by the addition of as much sodium
carbonate to a solution of alum as will begin to cause the
separation of alumina; it is much used in mordanting. Alum
finds application as a mordant, in the preparation of lakes for
sizing hand-made paper and in the clarifying of turbid liquids.
Sodium alum, Na2SO4.Al2(SO4)3.24H2O, occurs in nature
as the mineral mendozite. It is very soluble in water, and
is extremely difficult to purify. In the preparation of
this salt, it is preferable to mix the component solutions
in the cold, and to evaporate them at a temperature
not exceeding 60 deg. C. 100 parts of water dissolve 110
parts of sodium alum at 0 deg. C. (W. A. Tilden, Jour.
Chem. Soc., 1884, 45, p. 409), and 51 parts at 16 deg.
C. (E. Auge, Comptes rendus, 1890, 110, p. 1139).
Chrome alum, K2SO4.Cr2(SO 4/0)3.24H2O, appears chiefly
as a by-product in the manufacture of alizarin, and
as a product of the reaction in bichromate batteries.
The solubility of the various alums in water varies greatly,
sodium alum being readily soluble in water, whilst caesium
and rubidium alums are only sparingly soluble. The
various solubilities are shown in the following table: --
Ammonium Alum. Caesium Alum. Potash Alum. Rubidium Alum.
t deg. C. 100 parts t deg. C. 100 parts t deg. C. 100 parts t deg. C. 100 parts
water water water water
dissolve dissolve dissolve dissolve
0 2.62 0 0.19 0 3.9 0 0.71
10 4.5 10 0.29 10 9.52 10 1.09
50 15.9 50 1.235 50 44.11 50 4.98
80 35.2 80 5.29 80 134.47 80 21.60
100 70.83 100 357.48
Poggiale C. Setterberg Poggiale C. Setterberg
Ann. Chim. phys. Ann. 1882,
[3] 8, p. 467 211, p. 104
ALUMINIUM (symbol Al; atomic weight 27.0), a metallic
chemical element. Although never met with in the free
state, aluminium is very widely distributed in combination,
principally as silicates. The word is derived from the
Lat. alumen (see ALUM), and is probably akin to the
Gr. als (the root of salt, halogen, &c.). In 1722
F. Hoffmann announced the base of alum to be an individual
substance; L. B. Guyton de Morveau suggested that this
base should be called alumine, after Sel alumineux, the
French name for alum; and about 1820 the word was changed
into alumina. In 1760 the French chemist, T. Baron de
Henouville, unsuccessfully attempted ``to reduce the base
of alum'' to a metal, and shortly afterwards various other
investigators essayed the problem in vain. In 1808 Sir Humphry
Davy, fresh from the electrolytic isolation of potassium and
sodium, attempted to decompose alumina by heating it with
potash in a platinum crucible and submitting the mixture
to a current of electricity; in 1809, with a more powerful
battery, he raised iron wire to a red heat in contact with
alumina, and obtained distinct evidence of the production of
an iron-aluminium alloy. Naming the new metal in anticipation
of its actual birth, he called it alumium; but for the
sake of analogy he was soon persuaded to change the word
to aluminum, in which form, alternately with aluminium,
it occurs in chemical literature for some thirty years.
Preparation.
In the year 1824, endeavouring to prepare itbychemicalmeans,
H. C. Oersted heated its chloride with potassium amalgam,
and failed in his object simply by reason of the mercury,
so that when F. Wohler repeated the experiment at Gottingen
in 1827, employing potassium alone as the reducing agent,
he obtained it in the metallic state for the first time.
Contaminated as it was with potassium and with platinum from
the crucible, the metal formed a grey powder and was far
from pure; but in 1845 he improved his process and succeeded
in producing metallic globules wherewith he examined its
chief properties, and prepared several compounds hitherto
unknown. Early in 1854, H. St Claire Deville, accidentally
and in ignorance of Wohler's later results, imitated the
1845 experiment. At once observing the reduction of the
chloride, he realized the importance of his discovery and
immediately began to study the commercial production of the
metal. His attention was at first divided between two
processes -- the chemical method of reducing the chloride
with potassium, and an electrolytic method of decomposing
it with a carbon anode and a platinum cathode, which was
simultaneously imagined by himself and R. Bunsen. Both
schemes appeared practically impossible; potassium cost about
L. 17 per lb, gave a very small yield and was dangerous to
manipulate, while on the other hand, the only source of
electric current then available was the primary battery, and
zinc as a store of industrial energy was utterly out of the
question. Deville accordingly returned to pure chemistry
and invented a practicable method of preparing sodium which,
having a lower atomic weight than potassium, reduced a larger
proportion. He next devised a plan for manufacturing pure
alumina from the natural ores, and finally elaborated a
process and plant which held the field for almost thirty
years. Only the discovery of dynamo-electric machines and
their application to metallurgical processes rendered it
possible for E. H. and A. H. Cowles to remove the industry from
the hands of chemists, till the time when P. T. L. Heroult
and C. M. Hall, by devising the electrolytic method now in
use, inaugurated the present era of industrial electrolysis.
Ores.
The chief natural compounds of aluminium are four in number:
oxide, hydroxide (hydrated oxide), silicate and fluoride.
Corundum, the only important native oxide (Al2O3),
occurs in large deposits in southern India and the United
States. Although it contains a higher percentage of metal
(52.9%) than any other natural compound, it is not at present
employed as an ore, not only because it is so hard as to be
crushed with difficulty, but also because its very hardness
makes it valuable as an abrasive. Cryolite (AlF3.5NaF) is
a double fluoride of aluminium and sodium, which is scarcely
known except on the west coast of Greenland. Formerly it was
used for the preparation of the metal, but the inaccessibility
of its source, and the fact that it is not sufficiently pure
to be employed without some preliminary treatment, caused it
to be abandoned in favour of other salts. When required in
the Heroult-Hall process as a solvent, it is sometimes made
artificially. Aluminium silicate is the chemical body of
which all clays are nominally composed. Haolin or China
clay is essentially a pure disilicate (Al2O3.2SiO2.2H2O),
occurring in large beds almost throughout the world, and
containing in its anhydrous state 24.4% of the metal,
which, however, in common clays is more or less replaced
by calcium, magnesium, and the alkalis, the proportion of
silica sometimes reaching 70%. Kaolin thus seems to be the
best ore, and it would undoubtedly be used were it not for
the fatal objection that no satisfactory process has yet
been discovered for preparing pure alumina from any mineral
silicate. If, according to the present method of winning the
metal, a bath containing silica as well as alumina is submitted
to electrolysis, both oxides are dissociated, and as silicon
is a very undesirable impurity, an alumina contaminated with
silica is not suited for reduction. Bauxite is a hydrated
oxide of aluminium of the ideal composition, Al2O3.2H2O.
It is a somewhat widely distributed mineral, being met within
Styria, Austria, Hesse, French Guiana, India and Italy; but
the most important beds are in the south of France, the north
of Ireland, and in Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas in North
America. The chief Irish deposits are in the neighbourhood
of Glenravel, Co. Antrim, and have the advantage of being
near the coast, so that the alumina can be transported by
water-carriage. After being dried at 100 deg. C., Antrim
bauxite contains from 33 to 60% of alumina, from 2 to 30% of
ferric oxide, and from 7 to 24% of silica, the balance being
titanic acid and water of combination. The American bauxites
contain from 38 to 67% of alumina, from 1 to 23% of ferric
oxide, and from 1 to 32% of silica. The French bauxites are
of fairly constant composition, containing usually from 58
to 70% of alumina, 3 to 15% of foreign matter, and 27% made
up of silica, iron oxide and water in proportions that
vary with the colour and the situation of the beds.
Before the application of electricity, only two compounds
were found suitable for reduction to the metallic
state. Alumina itself is so refractory that it cannot be
melted save by the oxyhydrogen blowpipe or the electric
arc, and except in the molten state it is not susceptible
of decomposition by any chemical reagent. Deville first
selected the chloride as his raw material, but observing
it to be volatile and extremely deliquescent, he soon
substituted in its place a double chloride of aluminium and
sodium. Early in 1855 John Percy suggested that cryolite
should be more convenient, as it was a natural mineral and
might not require purification, and at the end of March in
that year, Faraday exhibited before the Royal Institution
samples of the metal reduced from its fluoride by Dick and
Smith. H. Rose also carried out experiments on the decomposition
of cryolite, and expressed an opinion that it was the best
of all compounds for reduction; but, finding the yield of
metal to be low, receiving a report of the difficulties
experienced in mining the ore, and fearing to cripple his
new industry by basing it upon the employment of a mineral
of such uncertain supply, Deville decided to keep to his
chlorides. With the advent of the dynamo, the position of
affairs was wholly changed. The first successful idea of
using electricity depended on the enormous heating powers
of the arc. The infusibility of alumina was no longer
prohibitive, for the molten oxide is easily reduced by
carbon. Nevertheless, it was found impracticable to smelt
alumina electrically except in presence of copper, so that
the Cowles furnace yielded, not the pure metal, but an
alloy. So long as the metal was principally regarded as a
necessary ingredient of aluminium-bronze, the Cowles process was
popular, but when the advantages of aluminium itself became
more apparent, there arose a fresh demand for some chief
method of obtaining it unalloyed. It was soon discovered
that the faculty of inducing dissociation possessed by the
current might now be utilized with some hope of pecuniary
success, but as electrolytic currents are of lower voltage
than those required in electric furnaces, molten alumina
again became impossible. Many metals, of which copper, silver
and nickel are types, can be readily won or purified by the
electrolysis of aqueous solutions, and theoretically it may
be feasible to treat aluminium in an identical manner. In
practice, however, it cannot be thrown down electrolytically
with a dissimilar anode so as to win the metal, and certain
difficulties are still met with in the analogous operation
of plating by means of a similar anode. Of the simple
compounds, only the fluoride is amenable to electrolysis
in the fused state, since the chloride begins to volatilize
below its melting-point, and the latter is only 5 deg. below its
boiling-point. Cryolite is not a safe body to electrolyse,
because the minimum voltage needed to break up the aluminium
fluoride is 4.0, whereas the sodium fluoride requires only
4.7 volts; if, therefore, the current rises in tension,
the alkali is reduced, and the final product consists of
an alloy with sodium. The corresponding double chloride
is a far better material; first, because it melts at about
180 deg. C., and does not volatilize below a red heat, and
second, because the voltage of aluminium chloride is 2.3 and
that of sodium chloride 4.3, so that there is a much wider
margin of safety to cover irregularities in the electric
pressure. It has been found, however, that molten cryolite
and the analogous double fluoride represented by the formula
Al2F6.2NaF are very efficient solvents of alumina, and that
these solutions can be easily electrolysed at about 800 deg. C.
by means of a current that completely decomposes the oxide
but leaves the haloid salts unaffected. Molten cryolite
dissolves roughly 30% of its weight of pure alumina, so
that when ready for treatment the solution contains about
the same proportion of what may be termed ``available''
aluminium as does the fused double chloride of aluminium and
sodium. The advantages lie with the oxide because of its easier
preparation. Alumina dissolves readily enough in aqueous
hydrochloric acid to yield a solution of the chloride, but
neither this solution, nor that containing sodium chloride, can
be evaporated to dryness without decomposition. To obtain the
anhydrous single or double chloride, alumina must be ignited
with carbon in a current of chlorine, and to exclude iron
from the finished metal, either the alumina must be pure or
the chloride be submitted to purification. This preparation
of a chlorine compound suited for electrolysis becomes more
costly and more troublesome than that of the oxide, and in
addition four times as much raw material must be handled.
At different times propositions have been made to win the
metal from its sulphide. This compound possesses a heat
of formation so much lower that electrically it needs but a
voltage of 0.9 to decompose it, and it is easily soluble in
the fused sulphides of the alkali metals. It can also be
reduced metallurgically by the action of molten iron. Various
considerations, however, tend to show that there cannot be
so much advantage in employing it as would appear at first
sight. As it is easier to reduce than any other compound, so
it is more difficult to produce. Therefore while less energy is
absorbed in its final reduction, more is needed in its initial
preparation, and it is questionable whether the economy possible
in the second stage would not be neutralized by the greater
cost of the first stage in the whole operation of winning the
metal from bauxite with the sulphide as the intermediary.
Chemical reductions.
The Deville process as gradually elaborated between 1855 and
1859 exhibited three distinct phases: -- Production of metallic
sodium, formation of the pure double chloride of sodium and
aluminium, and preparation of the metal by the interaction
of the two former substances. To produce the alkali metal,
a calcined mixture of sodium carbonate, coal and chalk was
strongly ignited in flat retorts made of boiler-plate; the sodium
distilled over into condensers and was preserved under heavy
petroleum. In order to prepare pure alumina, bauxite and
sodium carbonate were heated in a furnace until the reaction
was complete; the product was then extracted with water to
dissolve the sodium aluminate, the solution treated with
carbon dioxide, and the precipitate removed and dried. This
purified oxide, mixed with sodium chloride and coal tar, was
carbonized at a red heat, and ignited in a current of dry
chlorine as long as vapours of the double chloride were given
off, these being condensed in suitable chambers. For the
production of the final aluminium, 100 parts of the chloride
and 45 parts of cryolite to serve as a flux were powdered
together and mixed with 35 parts of sodium cut into small
pieces. The whole was thrown in several portions on to the
hearth of a furnace previously heated to low redness and
was stirred at intervals for three hours. At length when the
furnace was tapped a white slag was drawn off from the top,
and the liquid metal beneath was received into a ladle and
poured into cast-iron moulds. The process was worked out by
Deville in his laboratory at the Ecole Normale in Paris.
Early in 1855 he conducted large-scale experiments at Javel
in a factory lent him for the purpose, where he produced
sufficient to show at the French Exhibition of 1855. In the
spring of 1856 a complete plant was erected at La Glaciere,
a suburb of Paris, but becoming a nuisance to the neighbours,
it was removed to Nanterre in the following year. Later it
was again transferred to Salindres, where the manufacture
was continued by Messrs. Pechiney till the advent of the
present electrolytic process rendered it no longer profitable.
When Deville quitted the Javel works, two brothers C. and A.
Tissier, formerly his assistants, who had devised an improved
sodium furnace and had acquired a thorough knowledge of their
leader's experiments, also left, and erected a factory at
Amfreville, near Rouen, to work the cryolite process. It
consisted simply in reducing cryolite with metallic sodium
exactly as in Deville's chloride method, and it was claimed
to possess various mythical advantages over its rival. Two
grave disadvantages were soon obvious -- the limited supply of
ore, and, what was even more serious, the large proportion
of silicon in the reduced metal. The Amfreville works
existed some eight or ten years, but achieved no permanent
prosperity. In 1858 or 1859 a small factory, the first
in England, was built by F. W. Gerhard at Battersea, who
also employed cryolite, made his own sodium, and was able
to sell the product at 3s. 9d. per oz. This enterprise
only lasted about four years. Between 1860 and 1874 Messrs
Bell Brothers manufactured the metal at Washington, near
Newcastle, under Deville's supervision, producing nearly
2 cwt. per year. They took part in the International
Exhibition of 1862, quoting a price of 40s. per lb troy.
In 1881 J. Webster patented an improved process for making
alumina, and the following year he organized the Aluminium
Crown Metal Co. of Hollywood to exploit it in conjunction
with Deville's method of reduction. Potash-alum and pitch
were calcined together, and the mass was treated with
hydrochloric acid; charcoal and water to form a paste were
next added, and the whole was dried and ignited in a current
of air and steam. The residue, consisting of alumina and
potassium sulphate, was leached with water to separate
the insoluble matter which was dried as usual. All the
by-products, potassium sulphate, sulphur and aluminate of
iron, were capable of recovery, and were claimed to reduce
the cost of the oxide materially. From this alumina the
double chloride was prepared in essentially the same manner
as practised at Salindres, but sundry economies accrued in
the process, owing to the larger scale of working and to the
adoption of W. Weldon's method of regenerating the spent
chlorine liquors. In 1886 H. Y. Castner's sodium patents
appeared, and The Aluminium Co. of Oldbury was promoted to
combine the advantages of Webster's alumina and Castner's
sodium. Castner had long been interested in aluminium, and
was desirous of lowering its price. Seeing that sodium was
the only possible reducing agent, he set himself to cheapen
its cost, and deliberately rejecting sodium carbonate for
the more expensive sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), and
replacing carbon by a mixture of iron and carbon -- the
so-called carbide of iron -- he invented the highly scientific
method of winning the alkali metal which has remained in
existence almost to the present day. In 1872 sodium prepared
by Deville's process cost about 4s. per lb, the greater
part of the expense being due to the constant failure of
the retorts; in 1887 Castner's sodium cost less than 1s.
per lb, for his cast-iron pots survived 125 distillations.
In the same year L. Grabau patented a method of reducing the
simple fluoride of aluminium with sodium, and his process
was operated at Trotha in Germany. It was distinguished
by the unusual purity of the metal obtained, some of his
samples containing 99.5 to 99.8%. In 1888 the Alliance
Aluminium Co., organized to work certain patents for winning
the metal from cryolite by means of sodium, erected plant
in London, Hebburn and Wallsend, and by 1889 were selling
the metal at 11s. to 15s. per lb. The Aluminium Company's
price in 1888 was 20s. per lb and the output about 250
lb per day. In 1889 the price was 16s., but by 1891 the
electricians commenced to offer metal at 4s. per lb, and
aluminium reduced with sodium became a thing of the past.
Electric reduction.
About 1879 dynamos began to be introduced into metallurgical
practice, and from that date onwards numerous schemes for
utilizing this cleaner source of energy were brought before the
public. The first electrical method worthy of notice is
that patented by E. H. and A. H. Cowles in 1885, which was
worked both at Lockport, New York, U.S.A., and at Milton,
Staffordshire. The furnace consisted of a flat, rectangular,
firebrick box, packed with a layer of finely-powdered charcoal
2 in. thick. Through stuffing-boxes at the ends passed the
two electrodes, made after the fashion of arc-light carbons,
and capable of being approached together according to the
requirements of the operation. The central space of the
furnace was filled with a mixture of corundum, coarsely-powdered
charcoal and copper; and an iron lid lined with firebrick was
luted in its place to exclude air. The charge was reduced
by means of a 50-volt current from a 300-kilowatt dynamo,
which was passed through the furnace for 1 1/2 hours till
decomposition was complete. About 100 lb of bronze, containing
from 15 to 20 lb of aluminium, were obtained from each run,
the yield of the alloy being reported at about 1 lb per 18
e.h.p.-hours. The composition of the alloys thus produced
could not be predetermined with exactitude; each batch was
therefore analysed, a number of them were bulked together
or mixed with copper in the necessary proportion, and melted
in crucibles to give merchantable bronzes containing between
1 1/4 and 10% of aluminium. Although the copper took no part
in the reaction, its employment was found indispensable,
as otherwise the aluminium partly volatilized, and partly
combined with the carbon to form a carbide. It was also
necessary to give the fine charcoal a thin coating of calcium
oxide by soaking it in lime-water, for the temperature was
so high that unless it was thus protected it was gradually
converted into graphite, losing its insulating power and
diffusing the current through the lining and walls of the
furnace. That this process did not depend upon electrolysis,
but was simply an instance of electrical smelting or
the decomposition of an oxide by means of carbon at the
temperature of the electric arc, is shown by the fact that
the Cowles furnace would work with an alternating current.
In 1883 R. Cratzel patented a useless electrolytic process
with fused cryolite or the double chloride as the raw
material, and in 1886 Dr E. Kleiner propounded a cryolite
method which was worked for a time by the Aluminium
Syndicate at Tyldesley near Manchester, but was abandoned in
1890. In 1887 A. Minet took out patents for electrolysing
a mixture of sodium chloride with aluminium fluoride, or
with natural or artificial cryolite. The operation was
continuous, the metal being regularly run off from the bottom
of the bath, while fresh alumina and flouride were added as
required. The process exhibited several disadvantages,
the electrolyte had to be kept constant in composition lest
either fluorine vapours should be evolved or sodium thrown
down, and the raw materials had accordingly to be prepared
in a pure state. After prolonged experiments in a factory
owned by Messrs Bernard Freres at St Michel in Savoy,
Minet's process was given up, and at the close of the 19th
century the Heroult-Hall method was alone being employed
in the manufacture of aluminium throughout the world.
The original Deville process for obtaining pure alumina
from bauxite was greatly simplified in 1889 by K. T. Bayer,
whose improved process is exploited at Larne in Ireland and
at Gardanne in France. New works on the same process have
recently been erected near Marseilles. Crude bauxite is
ground, lightly calcined to destroy organic matter, and
agitated under a pressure of 70 or 80 lb per sq. in. with
a solution of sodium hydroxide having the specific gravity
1.45. After two or three hours the liquid is diluted
till its density falls to 1.23, when it is passed through
filter-presses to remove the insoluble ferric oxide and
silica. The solution of sodium aluminate, containing aluminium
oxide and sodium oxide in the molecular proportion of 6 to 1,
is next agitated for thirty-six hours with a small quantity
of hydrated alumina previously obtained, which causes the
liquor to decompose, and some 70% of the aluminium hydroxide
to be thrown down. The filtrate, now containing roughly
two molecules of alumina to one of soda, is concentrated to
the original gravity of 1.45, and employed instead of fresh
caustic for the attack of more bauxite; the precipitate is
then collected, washed till free from soda, dried and ignited
at about 1000 deg. C. to convert it into a crystalline oxide
which is less hygroscopic than the former amorphous variety.
The process of manufacture which now remains to be described
was patented during 1886 and 1887 in the name of C. M. Hall
in America, in that of P. T. L. Heroult in England and
France. It would be idle to discuss to whom the credit of
first imagining the method rightfully belongs, for probably
this is only one of the many occasions when new ideas have
been born in several brains at the same time. By 1888 Hall
was at work on a commercial scale at Pittsburg, reducing
German alumina; in 1891 the plant was removed to New
Kensington for economy in fuel, and was gradually enlarged
to 1500 h.p.; in 1894 a factory driven by water was erected
at Niagara Falls, and subsequently works were established at
Shawenegan in Canada and at Massena in the United States.
In 1890 also the Hall process operated by steam power was
installed at Patricroft, Lancashire, where the plant had a
capacity of 300 lb per day, but by 1894 the turbines of the
Swiss and French works ruined the enterprise. About 1897
the Bernard factory at St Michel passed into the hands of
Messrs Pechiney, the machinery soon being increased, and
there, under the control of a firm that has been concerned
in the industry almost from its inception, aluminium is
being manufactured by the Hall process on a large scale.
In July 1888 the Societe Metallurgique Suisse erected
plant driven by a 500 h.p. turbine to carry out Heroult's
alloy process, and at the end of that year the Allgemeine
Elektricitats Gesellschaft united with the Swiss firm in
organizing the Aluminium Industrie Action Gesellschaft of
Neuhasen, which has factories in Switzedand, Germany and
Austria. The Societe Electrometallurgique Francaise,
started under the direction of Heroult in 1888 for the
production of aluminium in France, began operations on a
small scale at Froges in Isere; but soon after large works
were erected in Savoy at La Praz, near Modane, and in 1905
another large factory was started in Savoy at St Michel.
In 1895 the British Aluminium Company was founded to mine
bauxite and manufacture alumina in Ireland, to prepare the
necessary electrodes at Greenock, to reduce the aluminium
by the aid of water-power at the Falls of Foyers, and to
refine and work up the metal into marketable shapes at the
old Milton factory of the Cowles Syndicate, remodelled to
suit modern requirements. In 1905 this company began works
for the utilization of another water-power at Loch Leven.
In 1907 a new company, The Aluminium Corporation, was started in
England to carry out the production of the metal by the Heroult
process, and new factories were constructed near Conway in North
Wales and at Wallsend-on-Tyne, quite close to where, twenty
years before, the Alliance Aluminium Co. had their works.
The Heroult cell consists of a square iron or steel box
lined with carbon rammed and baked into a solid mass; at the
bottom is a cast-iron plate connected with the negative pole
of the dynamo, but the actual working cathode is undoubtedly
the layer of already reduced and molten metal that lies in
the bath. The anode is formed of a bundle of carbon rods
suspended from overhead so as to be capable of vertical
adjustment. The cell is filled up with cryolite, and the
current is turned on till this is melted; then the pure
powdered alumina is fed in continuously as long as the operation
proceeds. The current is supplied at a tension of 3 to 5
volts per cell, passing through 10 or 12 in series; and it
performs two distinct functions: -- (1) it overcomes the
chemical affinity of the aluminium oxide, (2) it overcomes
the resistance of the electrolyte, heating the liquid at the
same time. As a part of the voltage is consumed in the latter
duty, only the residue can be converted into chemical work,
and as the theoretical voltage of the aluminium fluoride
in the cryolite is 4.0, provided the bath is kept properly
supplied with alumina, the fluorides are not attacked. It
follows, therefore, except for mechanical losses, that one
charge of cryolite lasts indefinitely, that the sodium and
other impurities in it are not liable to contaminate the
product, and that only the alumina itself need be carefully
purified. The operation is essentially a dissociation of
alumina into aluminium, which collects at the cathode, and
into oxygen, which combines with the anodes to form carbon
monoxide, the latter escaping and being burnt to carbon dioxide
outside. Theoretically 36 parts by weight of carbon are oxidized
in the production of 54 parts of aluminium; practically the
anodes waste at the same rate at which metal is deposited. The
current density is about 700 amperes per sq. ft. of cathode
surface, and the number of rods in the anode is such that
each delivers 6 or 7 amperes per sq. in. of cross-sectional
area. The working temperature lies between 750 deg. and 850 deg.
C., and the actual yield is 1 lb of metal per 12 e.h.p.
hours. The bath is heated internally with the current rather
than by means of external fuel, because this arrangement
permits the vessel itself to be kept comparatively cool;
if it were fired from without, it would be hotter than the
electrolyte, and no material suitable for the construction
of the cell is competent to withstand the attack of nascent
aluminium at high temperatures. Aluminium is so light
that it is a matter requiring some ingenuity to select a
convenient solvent through which it shall sink quickly,
for if it does not sink, it short-circuits the electrolyte.
The molten metal has a specific gravity of 2.54, that of
molten cryolite saturated with alumina is 2.35, and that
of the fluoride Al2F6.2NaF saturated with alumina 1.97.
The latter therefore appears the better material, and was
originally preferred by Hall; cryolite, however, dissolves
more alumina, and has been finally adooted by both inventors.
Properties.
Aluminium is a white metal with a characteristic tint
which most nearly resembles that of tin; when impure, or
after prolonged exposure to air it has a slight violet
shade. Its atomic weight is 27 (26.77, H=I, according to J.
Thomson). It is trivalent. The specific gravity of cast
metal is 2.583, and of rolled 2.688 at 4 deg. C. It melts at 626 deg.
C. (freezing point 654.5 deg. , Heycock and Neville). It is the
third most malleable and sixth most ductile metal, yielding
sheets 0.000025 in. in thickness, and wires 0.004 in. in
diameter. When quite pure it is somewhat harder than tin, and
its hardness is considerably increased by rolling. It is not
magnetic. It stands near the positive end of the list of
elements arranged in electromotive series, being exceeded only
by the alkalis and metals of the alkaline earths; it therefore
combines eagerly, under suitable conditions, with oxygen and
chlorine. Its coefficient of linear expansion by heat is
0.0000222 (Richards) or 0.0000231 (Roberts Austen) per 1 deg.
C. Its mean specific heat between 0 deg. and 100 deg. is 0.227,
and its latent heat of fusion 100 calories (Richards). Only
silver, copper and gold surpass it as conductors of heat, its
value being 31.33 (Ag= 100, Roberts-Austen). Its electrical
conductivity, determined on 99.6% metal, is 60.5% that of
cooper for equal volumes, or double that of copper for equal
weights, and when chemically pure it exhibits a somewhat
higher relative efficiency. The average strength of 98%
metal is approximately shown by the following table:--
Elastic limit, Ultimate strength, Reduction
tons per sq. in. tons per sq. in. of Area %
Cast . . . 3 7 15
Sheet . . . 5 1/2 11 35
Bars . . . 6 1/2 12 40
Wire . . . 7-13 13-29 60
Weight for weight, therefore, aluminium is only exceeded in
tensile strength by the best cast steel, and its own alloy,
aluminium bronze. An absolutely clean surface becomes
tarnished in damp air, an almost invisible coating of oxide
being produced, just as happens with zinc; but this film
is very permanent and prevents further attack. Exposure to
air and rain also causes slight corrosion, but to nothing
like the same extent as occurs with iron, copper or brass.
Commercial electrolytic aluminium of the best quality contains
as the average of a large number of tests, 0.48% of silicon
and 0.46% of iron, the residue being essentially aluminium
itself. The metal in mass is not affected by hot or cold water,
the foil is very slowly oxidized, while the amalgam decomposes
rapidly. Sulphuretted hydrogen having no action upon it,
articles made of it are not blackened in foggy weather or in
rooms where crude coal gas is burnt. To inorganic acids, except
hydrochloric, it is highly resistant, ranking well with tin
in this respect; but alkalis dissolve it quickly. Organic
acids such as vinegar, common salt, the natural ingredients
of food, and the various extraneous substances used as food
preservatives, alone or mixed together, dissolve traces of
it if boiled for any length of time in a chemically clean
vessel; but when aluminium utensils are submitted to the
ordinary routine of the kitchen, being used to heat or cook
milk, coffee, vegetables, meat and even fruit, and are also
cleaned frequently in the usual fashion, no appreciable
quantity of metal passes into the food. Moreover, did it do
so, the action upon the human system would be infinitely
less harmful than similar doses of copper or of lead.
The highly electro-positive character of aluminium is most
important. At elevated temperatures the metal decomposes nearly
all other metallic oxides, wherefore it is most serviceable
as a metallurgical reagent. In the casting of iron, steel and
brass, the addition of a trifling proportion (0.005%) removes
oxide and renders the molten metal more fluid, causing the
finished products to be more homogeneous, free from blow-holes
and solid all through. On the other hand, its electro-positive
nature necessitates some care in its utilization. If it be
exposed to damp, to sea-water or to corrosive influences of
any kind in contact with another metal, or if it be mixed
with another metal so as to form an alloy which is not a true
chemical compound, the other metal being highly negative to
it, powerful galvanic action will be set up and the structure
will quickly deteriorate. This explains the failure of boats
built of commercially pure aluminium which have been put
together with iron or copper rivets, and the decay of other
boats built of a light alloy, in which the alloying metal
(copper) has been injudiciously chosen. It also explains
why aluminium is so difficult to join with low-temperature
solders, for these mostly contain a large proportion of
lead. This disadvantage, however, is often overestimated since
in most cases other means of uniting two pieces are available.
Alloys.
The metal produces an enormous number of useful alloys, some of
which, containing only 1 or 2% of other metals, combine the
lightness of aluminium itself with far greater hardness and
strength. Some with 90 to 99% of other metals exhibit
the general properties of those metals conspicuously
improved. Among the heavy alloys, the aluminium bronzes
(Cu, 90-97.5%; Al, 10-2.5%) occupy the most important
position, showing mean tensile strengths increasing from
20 to 41 tons per sq. in. as the percentage of aluminium
rises, and all strongly resisting corrosion in air or
sea-water. The light copper alloys, in which the proportions
just given are practically reversed, are of considerably less
utility, for although they are fairly strong, they lack power
to resist galvanic action. This subject is far from being
exhausted, and it is not improbable that the alloy-producing
capacity of aluminium may eventually prove its most valuable
characteristic. In the meantime, ternary light alloys
appear the most satisfactory, and tungsten and copper, or
tungsten and nickel, seem to be the best substances to add.
Uses.
The uses of aluminium are too numerous to mention. Probably
the widest field is still in the purification of iron and
steel. To the general public it appeals most strongly as
a material for constructing cooking utensils. It is not
brittle like porcelain and cast iron, not poisonous like
lead-glazed earthenware and untinned copper, needs no enamel
to chip off, does not rust and wear out like cheap tin-plate,
and weighs but a fraction of other substances. It is largely
replacing brass and copper in all departments of industry
-- especially where dead weight has to be moved about, and
lightness is synonymous with economy -- for instance, in
bed-plates for torpedo-boat engines, internal fittings for
ships instead of wood, complete boats for portage, motor-car
parts and boiling-pans for confectionery and in chemical
works. The British Admiralty employ it to save weight in
the Navy, and the war-offices of the European powers equip
their soldiers with it wherever possible, As a substitute for
Solenhofen stone it is used in a modified form of lithography,
which can be performed on rotary printing machines at a high
speed. With the increasing price of copper, it is coming
into vogue as an electrical conductor for uncovered mains;
it is found that an aluminium wire 0.126 in. in diameter will
carry as much current as a copper wire 0.100 in. in diameter,
while the former weighs about 79 lb and the latter 162 lb per
mile. Assuming the materials to be of equal tensile strength
per unit of area -- hard-drawn copper is stronger, but has a
lower conductivity -- the adoption of aluminium thus leads
to a reduction of 52% in the weight, a gain of 60% in the
strength, and an increase of 26% in the diameter of the
conductor. Bare aluminium strip has recently been tried
for winding-coils in electrical machines, the oxide of the
metal acting as insulators between the layers. When the
price of aluminium is less than double the price of copper
aluminium is cheaper than copper per unit of electric
current conveyed; but when insulation is necessary, the
smaller size of the copper wire renders it more economical.
Aluminium conductors have been employed on heavy work in
many places, and for telegraphy and telephony they are in
frequent demand and give perfect satisfaction. Difficulties
were at first encountered in making the necessary joints,
but these have been overcome by practice and experience.
Two points connected with this metal are of sufficient
moment to demand a few words by way of conclusion. Its
extraordinary lightness forms its chief claim to general
adoption, yet is apt to cause mistakes when its price is
mentioned. It is the weight of a mass of metal which governs
its financial value; its industrial value, in the vast majority
of cases, depends on the volume of that mass. Provided it be
rigid, the bed-plate of an engine is no better for weighing
30 cwt. than for weighing 10 cwt. A saucepan is required to
have a certain diameter and a certain depth in order that it
may hold a certain bulk of liquid: its weight is merely an
encumbrance. Copper being 3 1/3 times as heavy as aluminium,
whenever the latter costs less than 3 1/2 times as much as
copper it is actually cheaper. It must be remembered,
too, that electrolytic aluminium only became known during
the last decade of the 19th century. Samples dating from
the old sodium days are still in existence, and when they
exhibit unpleasant properties the defect is often ascribed
to the metal instead of to the process by which it was
won. Much has yet to be learnt about the practical qualities
of the electrolytic product, and although every day's
experience serves to place the metal in a firmer industrial
position, a final verdict can only be passed after the lapse of
time. The individual and collective influence of the several
impurities which occur in the product of the Heroult cell
is still to seek, and the importance of this inquiry will
be seen when we consider that if cast iron, wrought iron and
steel, the three totally distinct metals included in the
generic name of ``iron'' -- which are only distinguished
one from another chemically by minute differences in the
proportion of certain non-metallic ingredients -- had only
been in use for a comparatively few years, attempts might
occasionally be made to forge cast iron, or to employ
wrought iron in the manufacture of edge-tools. (E. J. R.)
Compounds of Aluminium.
Aluminium oxide or alumina, Al2O3, occurs in nature
as the mineral corundum (q.v.), notable for its hardness
and abrasive power (see EMERY), and in well-crystallized
forms it constitutes, when coloured by various metallic
oxides, the gem-stones, sapphire, oriental topaz, oriental
amethyst and oriental emerald. Alumina is obtained as a
white amorphous powder by heating aluminium hydroxide.
This powder, provided that it has not been too strongly
ignited, is soluble in strong acids; by ignition it becomes
denser and nearly as hard as corundum; it fuses in the
oxyhydrogen flame or electric arc, and on cooling it assumes
a crystalline form closely resembling the mineral species.
Crystallized alumina is also obtained by heating the fluoride
with boron trioxide; by fusing aluminium phosphate with
sodium sulphate; by heating alumina to a dull redness in
hydrochloric acid gas under pressure; and by heating alumina
with lead oxide to a bright red heat. These reactions are
of special interest, for they culminate in the production
of artificial ruby and sapphire (see GEMS, ARTIFICIAL).
Aluminium Hydrates. -- Several hydrated forms of aluminium
oxide are known. Of these hydrargillite or gibbsite, Al(OH)3,
diaspore, AlO(OH), and bauxite, Al2O(OH)4, occur in the
mineral kingdom. Aluminium hydrate, Al(OH)3, is obtained
as a gelatinous white precipitate, soluble in potassium or
sodium hydrate, but insoluble in ammonium chloride, by adding
ammonia to a cold solution of an aluminium salt; from boiling
solutions the precipitate is opaque. By drying at ordinary
temperatures, the hydrate Al(OH)3.H2O is obtained; at
300 deg. this yields AlO(OH), which on ignition gives alumina,
Al2O3. Precipitated aluminium hydrate finds considerable
application in dyeing. Soluble modifications were obtained
by Waiter Crum (Journ. Chem. Soc., 1854, vi. 216), and
Thomas Graham (Phil. Trans., 1861, p. 163); the first
named decomposing aluminium acetate from lead acetate and
aluminium sulphate) with boiling water, the latter dialysing
a solution of the basic chloride (obtained by dissolving
the hydroxide in a solution of the normal chloride).
Both these soluble hydrates are readily coagulated by
traces of a salt, acid or alkali; Crum's hydrate does
not combine with dye-stuffs, neither is it soluble in
excess of acid, while Graham's compound readily forms
lakes, and readily dissolves when coagulated in acids.
In addition to behaving as a basic oxide, aluminium oxide (or
hydrate) behaves as an acid oxide towards the strong bases
with the formation of aluminates. Potassium aluminate,
K2Al2O4, is obtained in solution by dissolving aluminium
hydrate in caustic potash; it is also obtained, as crystals
containing three molecules of water, by fusing alumina
with potash, exhausting with water, and crystallizing the
solution in vacuo. Sodium aluminate is obtained in the
manufacture of alumina; it is used as a mordant in dyeing,
and has other commercial applications. Other aluminates
(in particular, of iron and magnesium), are of frequent
occurrence in the mineral kingdom, e.g. spinel, gahnite, &c.
Salts of Aluminium. -- Aluminium forms one series of
salts, derived from the trioxide, Al2O3. These exhibit, in
certain cases, marked crystallographical and other analogies
with the corresponding salts of chromium and ferric iron.
Aluminium fluoride, AlF3, obtained by dissolving the
metal in hydrofluoric acid, and subliming the residue
in a current of hydrogen, forms transparent, very obtuse
rhombohedra, which are insoluble in water. It forms a
series of double fluorides, the most important of which
is cryolite (q.v.); this mineral has been applied to the
commercial preparation of the metal (see above). Aluminium
chloride, AlCl3, was first prepared by Oersted, who heated
a mixture of carbon and alumina in a current of chlorine, a
method subsequently improved by Wohler, Bunsen, Deville and
others. A purer product is obtained by heating aluminium
turnings in a current of dry chlorine, when the chloride
distils over. So obtained, it is a white crystalline solid,
which slowly sublimes just below its melting point (194 deg. ).
Its vapour density at temperatures above 750 deg. corresponds
to the formula AlCl3; below this point the molecules are
associated. It is very hygroscopic, absorbing water with the
evolution of hydrochloric acid. It combines with ammonia to
form AlCl3.3NH3; and forms double compounds with phosphorus
pentachloride, phosphorus oxychloride, selenium and tellurium
chlorides, as well as with many metallic chlorides; sodium
aluminium chloride, AlCl3.NaCl, is used in the production
of the metal. As a synthetical agent in organic chemistry,
aluminium chloride has rendered possible more reactions
than any other substance; here we can only mention the
classic syntheses of benzene homologues. Aluminium bromide,
AlBr3, is prepared in the same manner as the chloride. It
forms colourless crystals, melting at 90 deg. , and boiling at
265 deg. -270 deg. . Aluminium iodide, AlI3, results from the
interaction of iodine and aluminium. It forms colourless
crystals, melting at 185 deg. , and boiling at 360 deg. . Aluminium
sulphide, Al2S3, results from the direct union of the metal
with sulphur, or when carbon disulphide vapour is passed over
strongly heated alumina. It forms a yellow fusible mass,
which is decomposed by water into alumina and sulphuretted
hydrogen. Aluminium sulphate Al(SO4)3, occurs in the
mineral kingdom as keramohalite, Al2(SO4)3.18H2O, found
near volcanoes and in alum-shale; aluminite or websterite is
a basic salt, Al3(SO4)(OH)4.7H2O. Aluminium sulphate,
known commercially as ``concentrated alum'' or ``sulphate of
alumina,'' is manufactured from kaolin or china clay, which,
after roasting (in order to oxidize any iron present), is
heated with sulphuric acid, the clear solution run off, and
evaporated. ``Alum cake'' is an impure product. Aluminium
sulphate crystallizes as Al2(SO4)3.18H2O in tablets
belonging to the monoclinic system. It has a sweet astringent
taste, very soluble in water, but scarcely soluble in
alcohol. On heating, the crystals lose water, swell up, and
give the anhydrous sulphate, which, on further heating, gives
alumina. It forms double salts with the sulphates of the
metals of the alkalis, known as the alums (see ALUM.)
Aluminium nitride (AlN) is obtained as small yellow crystals
when aluminium is strongly heated in nitrogen. The nitrate,
Al(NO3)3, is obtained as deliquescent crystals (with 8H2O)
by evaporating a solution of the hydroxide in nitric acid.
Aluminium phosphates may be prepared by Precipitating a
soluble aluminium salt with sodium phosphate. Wavellite
Al8(PO4)3(OH)15.9H2O, is a naturally occurring
basic phosphate, while the gem-stone turquoise (q.v.)
is Al.(PO4).(OH)2.H2O, coloured by traces of copper.
Aluminium silicates are widely diffused in the mineral
kingdom, being present in the commonest rock-forming minerals
(felspars, &c.), and in the gem-stones, topaz, beryl,
garnet, &c. It also constitutes with sodium silicate the
mineral lapis-lazuli and the pigment ultramarine (q.v..)
Forming the basis of all clays, aluminium silicates play a
prominent part in the manufacture of pottery and porcelain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. -- The metallurgy and uses of aluminium are
treated in detail in P. Moissonnier, L'Aluminium (Paris,
1903); in J. W. Richards, Aluminium (1896); and in A. Miner,
Production of Aluminium, Eng. trans. by L. Waldo (1905);
reference may also be made to treatises on general metallurgy,
e.g. C. Schnabel, Handbook of Metalurgy, vol. ii. (1907).
For the chemistry see Roscoe and Schlorlemmer, Treatise on
Inorganic Chemistry, vol. ii. (1908); H. Moissan, Traite
de chimie minerale; Abegg, Handbuch der anorgenischen
Chemie; and O. Dammer, Handbuch der anorganischen Chemie.
Aluminium alloys have been studied in detail by Guillet.
ALUNITE, or ALUMSTONE, a mineral first observed in the
15th century at Tolfa, near Rome, where it is mined for the
manufacture of alum. Extensive deposits are also worked
in Tuscany and Hungary, and at Bulladelah in New South
Wales. By repeatedly roasting and lixiviating the mineral,
alum is obtained in solution, and this is crystallized out
by evaporation. Alunite occurs as seams in trachytic and
allied volcanic rocks, having been formed by the action
of sulphureous vapours on these rocks. The white, finely
granular masses somewhat resemble limestone in appearance,
and the more compact kinds from Hungary are so hard and
tough that they are used for millstones. Distinct crystals
of alunite are rarely met with in cavities in the massive
material; these are rhombohedra with interfacial angles of
90 deg. 50', so that they resemble cubes in. appearance. Minute
glistening crystals have also been found loose in cavities
in altered rhyolite. The hardness is 4 and the specific
gravity 2.6. The mineral is a hydrated basic aluminium and
potassium sulphate, KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6. It is insoluble
in water, but soluble in sulphuric acid. First called
aluminilite by J. C. Delametherie in 1797, this name was
contracted by F. S. Beudant in 1824 to alunite. (L. J. S.)
ALUR (Lur, Luri, Lurem), a Negro people of the Nile valley,
living on the north-west coast of Albert Nyanza. They are akin
to the Acholi (q.v.), speaking practically the same language.
ALURE (O. Fr., from aller, to walk), an architectural term for
an alley, passage, the water-way or flat gutter behind a parapet,
the galleries of a clerestory, sometimes even the aisle itself of a
church. The term is sometimes written valure or valoring.
ALVA, or ALBA, FERNANDO ALVAREX DE TOLEDO, DUKE OF,
(1508-1583), Spanish soldier, descended from one of the
most illustrious families in Spain, was born in 1508. His
grandfather, Ferdinand of Toledo, educated him in military
science and politics; and he was engaged with distinction
at the battle of Pavia while still a youth. Selected for a
military command by Charles V., he took part in the siege of
Tunis (1535), and successfully defended Perpignan against the
dauphin of France. He was present at the battle of Muhlberg
(1547), and the victory gained there over John of Saxony was
due mainly to his exertions. He took part in the subsequent
siege of Wittenberg, and presided at the court-martial which
tried the elector and condemned him to death. In 1552 Alva
was intrusted with the command of the army intended to invade
France, and was engaged for several months in an unsuccessful
siege of Metz. In consequence of the success of the French
arms in Piedmont, he was made commander-in-chief of all the
emperor's forces in Italy, and at the same time invested
with unlimited power. Success did not, however, attend
his first attempts, and after several unfortunate attacks
he was obliged to retire into winter quarters. After the
abdication of Charles he was continued in the command by Philip
II., who, however, restrained him from extreme measures.
Alva had subdued the whole Campagna and was at the gates of
Rome, when he was compelled by Philip's orders to negotiate a
peace. One of its terms was that the duke of Alva should in
person ask forgiveness of the haughty pontiff whom he had
conquered. Proud as the duke was by nature, and accustomed
to treat with persons of the highest dignity, he confessed
his voice failed him at the interview and his presence of
mind forsook him. Not long after this (1559) he was sent at
the head of a splendid embassy to Paris to espouse, in the
name of his master, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, king of
France. In 1567, Philip, who was a bigoted Catholic,
sent Alva into the Netherlands at the head of an army of
10,000 men, with unlimited powers for the extirpation of
heretics. When he arrived he soon showed how much he
merited the confidence which his master reposed in him,
and instantly erected a tribunal which soon became known
to its victims as the ``Court of Blood,'' to try all persons
who had been engaged in the late commotions which the civil
and religious tyranny of Philip had excited. He imprisoned
the counts Egmont and Horn, the two popular leaders of the
Protestants, brought them to an unjust trial and condemned
them to death. In a short time he totally annihilated every
privilege of the people, and with unrelenting cruelty put
multitudes of them to death. The executioner was employed
in removing all those friends of freedom whom the sword had
spared. In most of the considerable towns Alva built
citadels. In the city of Antwerp he erected a statue of
himself, which was a monument no less of his vanity than of
his tyranny: he was figured trampling on the necks of two
smaller statues, representing the two estates of the Low
Countries. His attempt to raise money by imposing the Spanish
alcabala, a tax of 5% on all sales, aroused the opposition
of the Catholic Netherlands themselves. The exiles from
the Low Countries, encouraged by the general resistance
to his government, fitted out a fleet of privateers, and
after strengthening themselves by successful depredations,
ventured upon the bold exploit of seizing the town of
Brielle. Thus Alva by his cruelty became the unwitting
instrument of the future independence of the seven Dutch
provinces. The fleet of the exiles, having met the Spanish
fleet, totally defeated it, and reduced North Holland and
Mons. Many cities hastened to throw off the yoke; while the
states-general, assembling at Dordrecht, openly declared
against Alva's government, and marshalled under the banners
of the prince of Orange. Alva's preparations to oppose
the gathering storm were made with his usual vigour, and
he succeeded in recovering Mons, Mechlin and Zutphen, under
the conduct of his son Frederick. With the exception of
Zealand and Holland, he regained all the provinces; and at
last his son stormed Naarden, and massacring its inhabitants,
proceeded to invest the city of Haarlem, which, after
standing an obstinate siege, was taken and pillaged. Their
next attack was upon Alkmaar; but the spirit of desperate
resistance was raised to such a height in the breasts of
the Hollanders that the Spanish veterans were repulsed
with great loss and Frederick constrained reluctantly to
retire. Alva's feeble state of health and continued disasters
induced him to solicit his recall from the government of
the Low Countries; a measure which, in all probability,
was not displeasing to Philip, who was now resolved to make
trial of a milder administration. In December 1573 the
much-oppressed country was relieved from the presence of the
duke of Alva, who, returning home accompanied by his son,
made the infamous boast that during the course of six years,
besides the multitudes destroyed in battle and massacred after
victory, he had consigned 18,000 persons to the executioner.
On his return he was treated for some time with great distinction
by Philip. A tardy and imperfect justice, however, overtook
him, when he was banished from court and confined in the
castle of Uzeda for complicity in certain disgraceful conduct
of his son. Here he had remained two years, when the success
of Don Antonio in assuming the crown of Portugal determined
Philip to turn his eyes towards Alva as the person in whose
fidelity and abilities he could most confide. A secretary was
instantly despatched to Alva to ascertain whether his health
was sufficiently vigorous to enable him to undertake the
command of an army. The aged chief returned an answer full
of loyal zeal, and was immediately appointed to the supreme
command in Portugal. It is a striking fact, however, that
the liberation and elevation of Alva were not followed by
forgiveness. In 1581 Alva entered Portugal, defeated Antonio,
drove him from the kingdom, and soon reduced the whole
under the subjection of Philip. Entering Lisbon he seized
an immense treasure, and suffered his soldiers, with their
accustomed violence and rapacity, to sack the suburbs and
vicinity. It is reported that Alva, being requested to give
an account of the money expended on that occasion, sternly
replied, ``If the king asks me for an account, I will make
him a statement of kingdoms preserved or conquered, of signal
victories, of successful sieges and of sixty years' service.''
Philip deemed it proper to make no further inquiries. Alva,
however, did not enjoy the honours and rewards of his last
expedition, for he died in January 1583 at the age of 74.
AUTHORITIES. -- See the Life, by Rustant (Madrid,
1751). His correspondence during his Flemish government
has been published by M. Gachard (Brussels, 1850). See
also Coleccion de documentos ineditos para la historial de
Espana, vols. iv., vii., viii., xiv., xaxii. and xxxv.
(Madrid); and Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856).
ALVA, a police burgh of Clackmannanshire, Scotland, 3 1/2 m.
N. of Alloa, terminus of a branch line of the North British
railway. Pop. (1891) 5225; (1901) 4624. It is situated at
the foot of three front peaks of the Ochils -- West Hill (1682
ft.), Middle Hill (1436 ft.) and Wood Hill (1723 ft.). There
are spinning-mills, and manufactures of tweeds, tartans and
other woollen goods. Silver, lead and other metals have been
found in the hills, but not in paying quantities. The glen
to the east of the town, in which are abandoned workings,
is called the Silver Glen. Alva House is the seat of the
Johnstones, a family which has been intimately connected
with the district since the latter half of the 18th century.
ALVARADO, PEDRO DE (1495-1541), one of the Spanish leaders
in the discovery and conquest of America, was born at Badajoz
about 1495. He held a command in the expedition sent from
Cuba against Yucatan in the spring of 1518, and returned in
a few months, bearing reports of the wealth and splendour of
Montezuma's empire. In February 1519 he accompanied Hernando
Cortes in the expedition for the conquest of Mexico, being
appointed to the command of one of the eleven vessels of the
fleet. He acted as Cortes's principal officer, and on the
first occupation of the city of Mexico was left there in
charge. When the Spaniards had temporarily to retire before
the Mexican uprising, Alvarado led the rear-guard (1st of
July 1520), and the Salto de Alvarado -- a long leap with
the use of his spear, by which he saved his life -- became
famous. He was engaged (1523-24) in the conquest of
Guatemala, of which he was subsequently appointed governor
by Charles V. In 1534 he attempted to bring the province of
Quito under his power, but had to content himself with the
exaction of a pecuniary indemnity for the expenses of the
expedition. During a visit to Spain, three years later,
he had the governorship of Honduras conferred upon him in
addition to that of Guatemala. He died in Guatemala in 1541.
ALVAREZ, FRANCISCO (c. 1465-1541?), Portuguese missionary
and explorer, was born at Coimbra. He was a chaplain-
priest and almoner to Dom Manuel, king of Portugal, and
was sent in 1515 as secretary to Duarte Galvao and Rodrigo
da Lima on an embassy to the negus of Abyssinia (Lebna
Dengel Dawit (David) II.). The expedition having been
delayed by the way, it was not until 152O that he reached
Abyssinia, where he remained six years, returning to Lisbon in
1526-1527. In 1533 he was sent to Rome on an embassy to
Pope Clement VII. The precise date of his death, like that
of his birth, is unknown, but it must have been later than
1540, in which year he published at Lisbon under the king's
patronage an account of his travels in one volume folio,
entitled Yerdadera Informacam das terras do Preste
Joam. This curious work was translated into Italian (G.
B. Ramusio, Navagationi, vol. i., Venice, 1550); into
Spanish (Historia de las Cosas de Etiopia, by Fray Thomas de
Padilla, Antwerp, 1557); into French (Historiale Description
de l'Ethiopie, Christ. Plantin, Antwerp, 1558); into German
(Wahrhaftiger Bericht von ... Ethiopien, Eisieben, 1566);
into English (Sam. Purchas, Pilgrimes, part ii., London,
1625). The information it contains must, however, be received
with caution, as the author is prone to exaggerate, and does
not confine himself to what came within his own observation.
ALVAREZ, DON JOSE (1768-1827), Spanish sculptor, was born
at Priego, in the province of Cordova, in 1768. His full
name was Jose Alvarez de Pereira y Cubero. Bred to his
father's trade of a stone-mason, he devoted all his spare
time to drawing and modelling. His education in art was due
partly to the teaching of the French sculptor Verdiguier at
Cordova, and partly to lessons at Madrid, where he attended
the lectures of the academy of San Fernando. In 1799 he
obtained from Charles IV. a pension of 12,000 reals to enable
him to visit Paris and Rome. In the former city he executed
in 1804 a statue of Ganymede, which placed him at once in the
front rank of the sculptors of his time, and which is now in
the sculpture gallery of the Prado. Shortly afterwards his
pension was more than doubled, and he left Paris for Rome,
where he remained till within a year of his death. He had
married in Paris Elizabeth Bougel, by whom he had a son in
1805. This son, known as Don Jose Alvarez y Bougel, also
distinguished himself as a sculptor and a painter, but he
died at Burgos before he had reached the age of twenty-five,
a little more than two years after his father's death in
Madrid in 1827. One of the most successful works of the
elder Alvarez was a group representing Antilochus and Memnon,
which was commissioned in marble (1818) by Ferdinand VII.,
and secured for the artist the appointment of court-sculptor.
It is now in the museum of Madrid. He also modelled a few
portrait busts (Ferdinand VII., Rossini, the duchess of
Alba), which are remarkable for their vigour and fidelity.
ALVAREZ, DON MANUEL (1727--1797), Spanish sculptor, was born at
Salamanca. He followed classical models so closely that he was
styled by his countrymen El Griego, ``The Greek.'' His works,
which are very numerous, are chiefly to be found at Madrid.
ALVARY, MAX (1858-1898), German singer, was born at
Dusseldorf. Gifted with a fine tenor voice and handsome
presence he speedily made a reputation in Germany in
the leading roles in Wagnerian opera, and from 1885
onwards appeared also in America and England. He was at
his best in 1892, when his performances as Tristan and
Siegfried at Covent Garden aroused great enthusiasm.
ALVEARY (from the Lat. alvearium), a beehive; used, like
apiarium in the same sense, figuratively for a collection of
hard-working people, or a scholarly work (e.g. dictionary)
involving bee-like industry. By analogy the term is
used for the hollow of the ear, where the wax collects.
ALVENSLEBEN, CONSTANTIN VON (1809-1892), Prussian general,
was born on the 26th of August 1809 at Eichenbarleben in
Prussian Saxony, and entered the Prussian guards from the
cadet corps in 1827. He became first lieutenant in 1842,
captain in 1849, and major on the Great General Staff in
1853, whence after seven years he went to the Ministry of
War. He was soon afterwards promoted colonel, and commanded
a regiment of Guard infantry up to 1864, when he became a
major-general. In this rank he commanded a brigade of guards
in the war of 1866. At the action of Soor (Burkersdorf)
on the 28th of June he distinguished himself very greatly,
and at Koniggratz, where he led the advanced guard of
the Guard corps, his energy and initiative were still more
conspicuous. Soon afterwards he succeeded to the command
of his division, General Hiller v. Gartringen having
fallen in the battle; he was promoted lieutenant-general,
and retained this command after the conclusion of peace,
receiving in addition the order pour le merite for his
services. In 1870, on the outbreak of war with France, von
Alvensleben succeeded Prince Frederick Charles in command
of the III army corps which formed part of the II German
Army commanded by the prince. Under their new general, the
Brandenburg regiments forming the III corps proved themselves
collectively the best in the whole German army, with the
possible exception of the Prussian guards, and, if Prince
Frederick Charles is entitled to the chief credit in training
the III corps, Alvensleben had contributed in almost equal
degree to the efficiency of the Guard infantry, while his
actual leadership of the III corps in the battles of 1870 and
1871 showed him afresh as a fighting general of the very first
rank. The battle of Spicheren, on the 6th of August, was
initiated and practically directed throughout by him, and
in the confusion which followed this victory, for which the
superior commanders were not prepared, Alvensleben showed his
energy and determination by resuming the advance on his own
responsibility. This led to the great battles of the 14th,
16th and 18th of August around Metz, and again the III corps
was destined, under its resolute leader, to win the chief
credit. Crossing the Moselle the instant that he received
permission from his army commander to do so, Alvensleben
struck the flank of Bazaine's whole army (August 16th) in
movement westward from Metz. The III corps attacked at once,
and for many hours bore the whole brunt of the battle at
Vionville. By the most resolute leading, and at the cost
of very heavy losses, Alvensleben held the whole French
army at bay while other corps of the I and II German Armies
gradually closed up. In the battle of Gravelotte, on the
18th, the corps took little part. Its work was done, and it
remained with the II Army before Metz until the surrender of
Bazaine's army. Prince Frederick Charles then moved south-west
to co-operate with the grand-duke of Mecklenburg on the
Loire. At the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande, the corps,
with its comrades of Vionville, the X corps under General
v. Voigts-Rhetz, won new laurels, and it participated in
the advance on Le Mans and the battle at that place on the
12th of January 1871. At the close of the war Alvensleben
received the oak-leaves of the order pour le merite,
the first class of the Iron Cross and a grant of 100,000
thalers. He became full general of infantry in 1873 and
retired immediately afterwards. In 1889 the emperor William
II. ordered that the 52nd infantry regiment (one of the
distinguished regiments of Vionville) should thereafter bear
Alvensleben's name, and in 1892, on the anniversary of the
battle of Le Mans, the old general received the order of the
Black Eagle. He died on the 28th of March 1892 at Berlin.
His brother, GUSTAV VON ALVENSLEBEN (1803-1881), Prussian
general of infantry, was born at Eichenbarleben on the 30th of
September 1803, entered the Guard infantry in 1821, and took
part as a general staff officer in the suppression of the Baden
insurrection of 1849. He became a major-general in 1858,
aide-de-camp to the king in 1861, and lieutenant-general in
1863, and in the campaign of 1866 performed valuable military
and political services. He was promoted general of infantry in
1868. In the war of 1870 he commanded the IV army corps,
which took a conspicuous part in the action of Beaumont
and afterwards served in the siege of Paris. He received
the Iron Cross, the order pour le merite, and a money
grant, as a reward for his services, and retired in 1872.
He died at Gernrode in the Harz on the 30th of June 1881.
Another brother, ALBRECHT, COUNT von ALVENSLEBEN
(1794- 1858), was a distinguished Prussian statesman.
ALVEOLATE (from Lat. alveolus), honeycombed, a word used
technically in biology, &c., to mean pitted like a honeycomb.
ALVERSTONE, RICHARD EVERARD WEBSTER, IST BARON (1842-
), lord chief justice of England, was born on the 22nd
of December 1842, being the second son of Thomas Webster,
Q.C. He was educated at King's College and Charterhouse
schools, and Trinity College, Cambridge; was called to the
bar in 1868, and became Q.C. only ten years afterwards. His
practice was chiefly in commercial, railway and patent cases
until (June 1885) he was appointed attorney-general in the
Conservative Government in the exceptional circumstances
of never having been solicitor-general, and not at the time
occupying a seat in parliament. He was elected for Launceston
in the following month, and in November exchanged this seat
for the Isle of Wight, which he continued to represent until
his elevation to the House of Lords. Except under the brief
Gladstone administration of 1886, and the Gladstone-Rosebery
cabinet of 1892-1895, Sir Richard Webster was attorney-general
from 1885 to 1900. In 1890 he was leading counsel for The
Times in the Parnell inquiry; in 1893 he represented Great
Britain in the Bering Sea arbitration; in 1898 he discharged
the same function in the matter of the boundary between
British Guiana and Venezuela; and in 1903 was one of the
members of the Alaska Boundary Commission. He was well
known as an athlete in his earlier years, having represented
his university as a runner, and his interest in cricket
and foot-racing was kept up in later life. In the House of
Commons, and outside it, he was throughout his political
career prominently associated with church work; and his
speeches were distinguished for gravity and earnestness.
In 1900 he succeeded Sir Nathaniel Lindley as Master of the
Rolls, being raised to the peerage as Baron Alverstone, and
in October of the same year he was elevated to the office of
lord chief justice upon the death of Lord Russell of Killowen.
ALWAR, or ULWAR, a native state of India in the Rajputana
agency. It is bounded on the E. by the state of Bharatpur
and the British district of Gurgaon, on the N. by Gurgaon
district and the state of Patiala, on the W. by the
states of Nabha and Jaipur, and on the S. by the state of
Jaipur. Its configuration is irregular, the greatest length
from north to south being about 80 m., and breadth from
east to west about 60 m., with a total area of 3141 sq.
m. The eastern portion of the state is open and highly
cultivated; the western is diversified by hills and peaks,
which form a continuation of the Aravalli range, from 12 to
20 m. in breadth. These hills run in rocky and precipitous
parallel ridges, in some places upwards of 2200 ft. in
height. The Sabhi river flows through the north-western part
of the state, the only other stream of importance being the
Ruparel, which rises in the Alwar hills, and flows through
the state into the Bharatpur territory. The population
in 1901 was 828,487, showing an increase of 8% during the
decade. When compared with a heavy decrease elsewhere
throughout Rajputana, this increase may be attributed to the
successful administration of famine relief, under British
officials. The revenue is L. 185,000. The maharaja Jai
Singh, who succeeded in 1892 at the age of ten, was educated
at the Mayo college, where he excelled both in sports and in
knowledge of English. He came of age in 1903, when he was
invested by the viceroy with full ruling powers. Alwar was
the first native state to accept a currency struck at the
Calcutta mint, of the same weight and assay as the imperial
rupee, with the head of the British sovereign on the obverse.
Imperial service troops are maintained, consisting of both
cavalry and infantry, with transport. The state is traversed
by the Delhi branch of the Rajputana railway. A settlement of
the land revenue has been carried out by an English civilian.
The state was founded by Pratap Singh (1740-1791), a Rajput
of ancient lineage, and increased by his adopted son Bakhtawar
Singh. The latter joined the British against the Mahrattas,
and in 1803, after the battle of Laswari (Nov. 1), signed a
treaty of offensive and defensive alliance with the British
government. In 1811, owing to his armed intervention in Jaipur,
a fresh engagement was made, prohibiting him from political
intercourse with other states without British consent. In 1857
the raja Binni Singh sent a force of Mussulmans and Rajputs
to relieve the British garrison in Agra; the Mussulmans,
however, deserted, and the rest were defeated by the mutineers.
The CITY OF ALWAR has a railway station on the Rajputana
line, 98 m. from Delhi; pop. (1901) 56,771, showing a steady
increase. It stands in a valley overhung by a fortress 1000 ft.
above. It is surrounded by a rampart and moat, with five gates,
and contains fine palaces, temples and tombs. The water-supply
is brought from a lake 9 m. distant. It has a high school,
affiliated to the Allahabad university; and a school for the
sons of nobles, founded to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee
of Queen Victoria. The Lady Dufferin hospital is under the
charge of an English lady doctor, with two female assistants.
ALYATTES, king of Lydia (609-560 B.C.), the real founder
of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house
of the Mermnadae. For several years he continued the war
against Miletus begun by his father, but was obliged to turn
his attention to the Medes and Babylonians. On the 28th
of May 585, during a battle on the Halys between him and
Cyaxares, king of Media, an eclipse of the sun took place;
hostilities were suspended, peace concluded, and the Halys
fixed as the boundary between the two kingdoms. Alyattes
drove the Cimmerii (see SCYTIHA) from Asia, subdued the
Carians, and took several Ionian cities (Smyrna, Colophon).
He was succeeded by his son Croesus. His tomb still exists on
the plateau between lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the
north of Sardis -- a large mound of earth with a substructure
of huge stones. It was excavated by Spiegelthal in 1854,
who found that it covered a large vault of finely-cut marble
blocks approached by a flat-roofed passage of the same stone
from the south. The sarcophagus and its contents had been
removed by early plunderers of the tomb, all that was left
being some broken alabaster vases, pottery and charcoal.
On the summit of the mound were large phalli of stone.
See A. von Olfers, ``Uber die lydischen
Konigsgraber bei Sardes,'' Abh. Berl. Ak., 1858.
ALYPIUS, a Greek writer on music whose works, with those of
six others, were collected and published with a commentary and
explanatory notes (Antiquae Musicae Auctores Septem, Amstel.,
1652), by Mark Meibomius (1630-1711). He is said to have
written before Euclid and Ptolemy; and Cassiodorus arranges
his Introduction to Music between those of Nicomachus and
Gaudentius. The work consists solely of a list of symbols of
the various scales and modes, and is probably only a fragment.
ALYPIUS OF ANTIOCH, a geographer of the 4th century, who
was sent by the emperor Julian into Britain as first prefect,
and was afterwards commissioned to rebuild the temple of
Jerusalem. Among the letters of Julian are two (29 and 30)
addressed to Alypins; one inviting him to Rome, the other thanking
him for a geographical treatise, which no longer exists.
See also Ammianus Marcellinus xxiii. 1, sec. 2.
ALYTES, the midwife toad, first discovered by P. Demours in
1741, on the border of a small pond in the Jardin des Plantes,
in the very act of parturition which has rendered it famous,
and described as Petit crapaud male accoucheur de sa femelle.
Alytes obstetricans is of special interest as the first known
example of paternal solicitude in Batrachians, and although
many no less wonderful cases of nursing instinct have since been
revealed to us, it remains the only one among European forms.
Alytes obstetricans is a small toad-like Batrachian, two inches
in length, of dull greyish coloration, plump form with warty
skin and large eyes with vertical pupils. Although toad-like
it is not really related to the toads proper, but belongs to the
family Discoglossidae, characterized by a circular, adherent
tongue, teeth in the upper jaw and on the palate, short but
distinct ribs on the anterior vertebrae, and convex-concave
vertebrae. It inhabits France, Belgium, Switzerland, Western
Germany (eastwards to the Weser), Spain and Portugal. A second
species, A. cisternasii, occurs in Spain and Portugal.
Alytes is nocturnal and slow in its movements. It is
thoroughly terrestrial, selecting for its retreat in the daytime
holes made by small mammals, or interstices between stones.
Towards evening it reveals its presence by a clear whistling
note, which has often been compared to the sound of a little
bell, or to a chime when produced by numerous individuals.
The breeding season lasts throughout spring and summer, and the
female is able to spawn two, three or even four times in the
year. Pairing and oviposition take place on land; the male
seizes the female round the waist. The eggs are large and
yellow, and produced in two rosary-like strings, as if strung
together by elastic filaments continuous with the gelatinous
capsules. After impregnation, the male twists them round his
legs and returns to his usual retreat, going about at night
in order to feed himself and to keep up the moisture of the
eggs, even resorting to a short immersion in the water during
exceptionahy dry nights. The development of the embryo
within the egg takes about three weeks. When the time for
eclosion has come, the male enters the water with his burden;
the larvae, in the full tadpole condition, measuring 14 to 17
millimetres, bite their way through their tough envelope, which
is not abandoned by the father until all the young are liberated,
and complete in the ordinary way their metamorphosis. The
tadpoles grow to a large size considering that of the adult,
the body equalling in size a sparrow's or even a small pigeon's
egg, and they often remain more than a year in that condition.
See A. de l'Isle, ``Memoire sur les moeurs et
l'accouchement de l'Alytes obstetricans,'' Ann.
Sci. Nat. (6) iii. 1876; G. A. Boulenger. Tailless
Batrachians of Europe (Ray Society, 1897). (G. A. B.)
ALZEY, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Hesse-
Darmstadt, 18 m. S. of Mainz by rail. Pop. (1900) 6893.
There are a Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, several
high-grade schools and a teachers' seminary. Alzey has industries
of dyeing and weaving, breweries, and does a considerable
trade in wine. It is immortalized in the Nibelungenlied
in the person of ``Volker von Alzeie,'' the warrior who in
the last part of the epic plays a part second only to that of
Hagen, and who ``was called the minstrel (spilman) because
he could fiddle.'' It became an imperial city in 1277. In
1620 it was sacked by the Spaniards and in 1689 burnt by the
French. Annexed to France during the Napoleonic wars,
it passed in 1815 to the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt.
ALZOG, JOHANN BAPTIST (1808-1878), German theologian,
was born at Ohlau, in Silesia, on the 29th of June 1808.
He studied at Breslau and Bonn and was ordained priest at
Cologne in 1834. In the following year he accepted the
chairs of exegesis and church history at the seminary of
Posen. He removed in 1844 to Hildesheim, where he had been
appointed rector of the seminary. He became professor of
church history at the university of Freiburg in the Breisgau
in 1853 and held that post till his death on the 1st of March
1878. Together with Dollinger, Alzog was instrumental in
convoking the famous Munich assembly of Catholic scholars in
1863. He also took part, with Bishops Hefele and Haseberg,
in the preparatory work of the Vatican Council and voted in
favour of the doctrine of papal infallibility but against
the opportuneness of its promulgation. Alzog's fame rests
mainly on his Handbuch den Caniversal-Kirchengeschichte
(Mainz, 1841, often reprinted under various titles; Eng.
trans. by Pabisch and Byrne, A Manual of Church History, 4
vols. Cincinnati, 1874). Based upon the foundations laid
by Mohler, this manual was generally accepted as the best
exposition of Catholic views, in opposition to the Protestant
manual by C. A. Hase, and was translated into several
languages. Besides a host of minor writings on ecclesiastical
subjects, and an active collaboration in the great Kirchen-
lexicon of Wetzer and Welte, Alzog was also the author of
Grundriss der Patrologic (Freiburg, 1866, 4th ed. 1888), a
scholarly work, though now superseded by that of O. Bardenhewer.
A full list of Alzog's writings is given in H. Hurter's Nomenclator
titerarius recentioris theologiae catholicae, vol. iii. For
an account of his life see the funeral oration by F. X. Kraus,
entitled: Gedachtnissrede auf Johannes Alzog (Freiburg, 1879).
AMADIS DE GAULA. This famous romance of chivalry survives
only in a Castilian text, but it is claimed by Portugal as
well as by Spain. The date of its composition, the name of its
author, and the language in which it was originally written
are not yet settled. It is not even certain when the romance
was first printed, for though the oldest known edition (a
unique copy of which is in the British Museum) appeared at
Saragossa in 1508, it is highly probable that Amadis was
in print before this date: an edition is reported to have
been issued at Seville in 1496. As it exists in Spanish,
Amadis de Gaula consists of four books, the last of which
is generally believed to be by the regidor of Medina del
Campo, Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo (whose name is given as
Garci Ordonez de Montalvo in all editions of Amadis later
than that of 1508, and as Garci Gutierrez de Montalvo in some
editions of the Sergas de Esplandian). Montalvo alleges
that the first three books were arranged and corrected by
him from ``the ancient originals,'' and a reference in the
prologue to the siege of Granada points to the conclusion
that the Spanish recast was made shortly after 1492; it is
possible, however, that the prologue alone was written after
1492, and that the text itself is older. The number of these
``ancient originals'' is not stated, nor is there any mention
of the language in which they were composed; Montalvo's
silence on the latter point might be taken to imply that
they were in Castilian, but any such inference would be
hazardous. Three hooks of Areadis de Gaula are mentioned
by Pero Ferrus who was living in 1379, and there is evidence
that the romance was current in Castile more than a quarter
of a century earlier; but again there is no information as
to the language in which they were written. Gomes Eannes de
Azurara, in his Chronica de Conde D. Pedro de Menezes (c.
1450), states that Amadis de Gaula was written by Vasco de
Lobeira in the time of king Ferdinand of Portugal who died
in 1383: as Vasco de Lobeira was knighted in 1385, it would
follow that he wrote the elaborate romance in his earliest
youth. This conclusion is untenable, and the suggestion that
the author was Pedro de Loboira (who flourished in the 15th
century) involves a glaring anachronism. A further step was
taken by the historian Joao de Barros, who maintained in
an unpublished work dating between 1540 and 1550 that Vasco
de Lobeira wrote Amadis de Gaula in Portuguese, and that
his text was translated into Castilian; this is unsupported
assertion. Towards the end of the 16th century Miguel Leite
Ferreira, son of the Portuguese poet, Antonio Ferreira,
declared that the original manuscript of Amadis de Gaula
was then in the Aveiro archives, and an Amadis de Gaula
in Portuguese, which is alleged to have existed in the conde
de Vimeiro's library as late as 1586, had vanished before
1726. In the absence of corroboration, these dubious details
must be received with extreme reserve. A stronger argument in
favour of the Portuguese case is drawn from the existing Spanish
text. In book I, chapters 40 and 42, it is recorded that
the Infante Alphonso of Portugal suggested a radical change
in the narrative of Briolanja's relations with Amadis. This
prince has been identified as the Infante Alphonso who died in
1312, or as Alphonso IV. who ascended the Portuguese throne
in 1325. Were either of these identifications established,
the date of composition might be referred with certainty to
the beginning of the 14th century or the end of the 13th.
But both identifications are conjectural. Nevertheless the
passage in the Spanish text undeniably lends some support
to the Portuguese claim, and recent critics have inclined to
the belief that Areadis de Gaula was written by Joao de
Lobeira, a Galician knight who frequented the Portuguese
court between 1258 and 1285, and to whom are ascrihed two
fragments of a poem in the Colocci-Brancuti Canzoniere
(Nos. 240 and 240b) which reappears with some unimportant
variants in Amadis de Gaula (book II, chapter 11). The
coincidence may be held to account in some measure for the
traditional association of a Lobeira with the authorship of
Amadis de Gaula; but, though curious, it warrants no
definite conclusion being drawn from it. Against the Portuguese
claim it is argued that the Villancico corresponding to
Joao de Lobeiro's poem is an interpolation in the Spanish
text, that Portuguese prose was in a rudimentary stage of
development at the period when -- ex hypothesi -- the
romance was composed, and that the book was very popular
in Spain almost a century before it is even mentioned in
Portugal. Lastly, there is the incontrovertible fact that
Amidis de Gaula exists in Castilian, while it remains
to be proved that it ever existed in Portuguese. As to its
substance, it is beyond dispute that much of the text derives
from the French romances of the Round Table; but the evidence
does not enable us to say (1) whether it was pieced together
from various French romances; (2) whether it was more or
less literally translated from a lost French original; or
(3) whether the first Peninsular adapter or translator was a
Castilian or a Portuguese. On these points judgment must be
suspended. There can, however, be no hesitation in accepting
Cervantes' verdict on Amadis de Gaula as the ``best of
all the books of this kind that have ever been written.''
It is the prose epic of feudalism, and its romantic spirit,
its high ideals, its fantastic gallantry, its ingenious
adventures, its mechanism of symbolic wonders, and its
flowing style have entranced readers of such various types
as Francis I. and Charles V., Ariosto and Montaigne.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. -- Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos and
Gottfried Baist in the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie
(Strassburg, 1897 ), ii. Band, 2. Abteiluna, pp. 216-226
and 440-442: Ludwig Braunfels, Kritischer Versuch uber den
Roman Annadie von Glallien (Leipzig, 1876); Theophilo Braga,
Historia das novelas portuguezas de cavalleria (Porto,
1873), Curso de litteratura e arte portugueza (Lisboa,
1881), and Questoes de litteratura e arte portugueza
(Lisboa, 1885); Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo, Origenes de
la novela (Madrid, 1905); Eugene Baret, De l,Amadis de
Glaule et de son influence sur les moeurs et la litterature
au XVIe et au XVIIe siecle (Paris, 1873). (J. F. K.)
AMADOU, a soft tough substance used as tinder, derived
from Polyporus fomentarius, a fungus belonging to the
group Basidiomycetes and somewhat resembling a mushroom in
manner of growth. It grows upon old trees, especially the
oak, ash, fir and cherry. The fungus is cut into slices
and then steeped in a solution of nitre. Amadou is prepared
on the continent of Europe, chiefly in Germany, but the
fungus is a native of Britain. Polyporus igniarius and
other species are also used, but yield an inferior product.
AMAKUSA, an island belonging to Japan, 26 1/2 m. long and 13 1/2
in extreme width, situated about 32 deg. 20' N., and 130 deg. E.
long., on the west of the province of Higo (island of Kiushiu),
from which it is separated by the Yatsushiro-kai. It has
no high mountains, but its surface being very hilly -- four
of the peaks rise to a height over 1500 ft. -- the natives
resort to the terrace system of cultivation with remarkable
success. A number of the heads of the Christians executed
in connexion with the Shimabara rebellion in the first half
of the 17th century were buried in this island. Amakusa
produces a little coal and fine kaolin, which was largely
used in former times by the potters of Hirado and Satsuma.
AMAL, the name of the noblest family among the Ostrogoths,
and that from which nearly all their kings were chosen.
AMALARIC (d. 531), king of the Visigoths, son of Alaric II.,
was a child when his father fell in battle against Clovis,
king of the Franks (507). He was carried for safety into
Spain, which country and Provence were thenceforth ruled by
his maternal grandfather, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, acting
through his vice- gerent, an Ostrogothic nobleman named
Theudis. In 522 the young Amalaric was proclaimed king,
and four years later, on Theodoric's death, he assumed full
royal power in Spain and a part of Languedoc, relinquishing
Provence to his cousin Athalaric. He married Clotilda,
daughter of Clovis; but his disputes with her, he being
an Arian and she a Catholic, brought on him the penalty
of a Frankish invasion, in which he lost his life in 531.
AMALASUNTHA or AMALASUENTHA, queen of the Ostrogoths (d.
535), daughter of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, was
married in 515 to Eutharic, an Ostrogoth of the old Areal
line, who had previously been living in Spain. Her husband
died, apparently in the early years of her marriage, leaving
her with two children, Athalaricand Matasuentha. On the
death of her father in 526, she succeeded him, acting as
regent for her son, but being herself deeply imbued with the
old Roman culture, she gave to that son's education a more
refined and literary turn than suited the ideas of her Gothic
subjects. Conscious of her unpopularity she banished, and
afterwards put to death, three Gothic nobles whom she suspected
of intriguing against her rule, and at the same time opened
negotiations with the emperor Justinian with the view of
removing herself and the Gothic treasure to Constantinople.
Her son's death in 534 made but little change in the posture of
affairs. Amalasuntha, now queen, with a view of strengthening
her position, made her cousin Theodahad partner of her throne
(not, as sometimes stated, her husband, for his wife was
still living). The choice was unfortunate. Theodahad,
notwithstanding a varnish of literary culture, was a coward
and a scoundrel. He fostered the disaffection of the Goths,
and either by his orders or with his permission, Amalasuntha
was imprisoned on an island in the Tuscan lake of Bolsena,
where in the spring of 535 she was murdered in her bath.
The letters of Cassiodorus, chief minister and literary adviser of
Amalasuntha, and the histories of Procopius and Jordanea, give
us our chief information as to the character of Amalauentha.
AMALEKITES, an ancient tribe, or collection of tribes,
in the south and south-east of Palestine, often mentioned
in the Old Testament as foes of the Israelites. They were
regarded as a branch of the Edomites (Gen. xxxvi. 12, see
EDOM), and appear to have numbered among their divisions
the Kenites. When the Israelites were journeying from Egypt
to the land of Canaan, the Amalekites are said to have taken
advantage of their weak condition to harry the stragglers
in the rear, and as a judgment for their hostility it was
ordained that their memory should be blotted out from under
heaven (Deut. xxv. 17-19). An allusion to this appears
in the account of Israel's defeat on the occasion of the
attempt to force a passage from Kadesh through Hormah,
evidently into Palestine (Num. xiv. 43-45, cp. Deut. i.
44-46). The statements are obscure, and elsewhere Hormah
is the scene of a victory over the Canaanites by Israel
(Num. xxi. 1-3), or by the tribes Judah and Simeon (Judg.
i. 17). The question is further complicated by the account
of Joshua's overthrow of Amalek apparently in the Sinaitic
peninsula. The event was commemorated by the erection of the
altar ``Yahwehnissi'' (``Yahweh my banner'' or ``memorial''),
and rendered even more memorable by the utterance, ``Yahweh
hath sworn: Yahweh will have war with Amalek from generation
to generation'' (Ex. xvii. 8-16, on its present position, see
EXODUS [BOOK]). The same sentiment recurs in Yahweh's
command to Saul to destroy Amalek utterly for its hostility
to Israel (1 Sam. xv.), and in David's retaliatory expedition
when he distributed among his friends the spoil of the
``enemies of Yahweh'' (xxx. 26). Saul himself, according to one
tradition, was slain by an Amalekite (2 Sam. i., contrast 1
Sam. xxxi.). A similar spirit appears among the prophecies
ascribed to Balaam: ``Amalek, first (or chief) of nations,
his latter end [will be] destruction'' (Num. xxiv. 20).
The district of Amalek lay to the south of Judah (cp. I
Chron. iv. 42 seq.), probably between Kadesh and Hormah (cp.
Gen. xiv. 7; 1 Sam. xv. 7, xxvii. 8), and the interchange of
the ethnic with ``Canaanites'' and ``Amorites'' suggests that
the Amalekites are merely one of Israel's traditional enemies
of the older period. Hence we find them taking part with
Ammonites and Midianites (Judg. iii. 13, vi. 3), and their king
Agag, slain by Samuel as a sacrificial offering (1 Sam. xv.
9), was a byword for old-time might and power (Num. xxiv. 7).
Even in one of the Psalms (lxxxiii. 7) Amalek is mentioned
among the enemies of Israel -- just as Greek writers of the 6th
century of this era applied the old term Scythians to the Goths
(Noldeke), -- and the traditional hostility between Saul and
Amalek is reflected still later in the book of Esther where
Haman the Agagite is pitted against Mordecai the Benjamite.
Twice Amalek seems to be mentioned as occupying central
Palestine (Judg. v. 14, xii. 15), but the passages are
textually uncertain. The name is celebrated in Arabian
tradition, but the statements regarding them are confused and
conflicting, and for historical purposes are practically
worthless, as has been proved by Th. Noldeke (Uleber
die Amalekiter, Gottingen, 1864). On the biblical
data, see also E. Meyer, Die Israeliten (Index, s.v..)
(S. A. C.)
AMALFI, a town and archiepiscopal see of Campania, Italy, in
the province of Salerno, from the town of which name it is
distant 12 m. W.S.W. by road, on the N. coast of the Gulf of
Salerno. Pop. (1901) 6681. It lies at the mouth of a deep
ravine, in a sheltered situation, at the foot of Monte Cerreto
(4314 ft.), in the centre of splendid coast scenery, and is
in consequence much visited by foreigners. The cathedral
of S. Andrea is a structure in the Lombard-Norman style, of
the 11th century; the facade in black and white stone was
well restored in 1891; the bronze doors were executed at
Constantinople before 1066. The campanile dates from 1276.
The interior is also fine, and contains ancient columns and
sarcophagi. The conspicuous Capuchin monastery on the
W. with fine cloisters (partly destroyed by a landslip in
1899) is now used as an hotel. Amalfi is first mentioned
in the 6th century, and soon acquired importance as a naval
power; in the 9th century it shared with Venice and Gaeta
the Italian trade with the East, and in 848 its fleet went
to the assistance of Pope Leo IV. against the Saracens.
It was then an independent republic with a population of
some 70,000, but in 1131 it was reduced by King Roger of
Sicily. In 1135 and 1137 it was taken by the Pisans, and
rapidly declined in importance, though its maritime code,
known as the Tavole Amalfitane, was recognized in the
Mediterranean until 1570. In 1343 a large part of the town was
destroyed by an inundation, and its harbour is now of little
importance. Its industries too, have largely disappeared,
and the paper manufacture has lost ground since 1861.
AMALGAM, the name applied to alloys which contain mercury.
It is said by Andreas Libavius to be a corruption of
malagma; in the alchemists the form algamala is also
found. Many amalgams are formed by the direct contact of a
metal with mercury, sometimes with absorption, sometimes with
evolution, of heat. Other methods are to place the metal
and mercury together in dilute acid, to add mercury to the
solution of a metallic salt, to place a metal in a solution
of mercuric nitrate, or to electrolyse a metallic salt using
mercury as the negative electrode. Some amalgams are liquids,
especially when containing a large proportion of mercury;
others assume a crystalline form. In some cases definite
compounds have been isolated from amalgams which may be regarded
as mixtures of one or more of such compounds with mercury in
excess. In general these compounds are decomposable by heat,
but some of them, such as those of gold, silver, copper and
the alkali metals, even when heated above the boiling point
of mercury retain mercury and leave residues of definite
composition. Tin amalgam is used for ``silvering'' mirrors,
gold and silver amalgam in gilding and silvering, cadmium and
copper amalgam in dentistry, and an amalgam of zinc and tin for
the rubbers of electrical machines; the zinc plates of electric
batteries are amalgamated in order to reduce polarization.
AMALRIC, the name of two kings of Jerusalem. AMALRIC I.,
king from 1162 to 1174, was the son of Fulk of Jerusalem, and
the brother of Baldwin III. He was twice married: by his first
wife, Agnes of Edessa, he had issue a son and a daughter,
Baldwin IV. and Sibylla, while his second wife, Maria Comnena,
bore him a daughter Isabella, who ultimately carried the
crown of Jerusalem to her fourth husband, Amalric of Lusignan
(Amalric II.). The reign of Amalric I. was occupied by the
Egyptian problem. It became a question between Amalric and
Nureddin, which of the two should control the discordant
viziers, who vied with one another for the control of the
decadent caliphs of Egypt. The acquisition of Egypt had
been an object of the Franks since the days of Baldwin I.
(and indeed of Godfrey himself, who had promised to cede
Jerusalem to the patriarch Dagobert as soon as he should
himself acquire Cairo). The capture of Ascakm by Baldwin
III. in 1153 made this object more feasible; and we find
the Hospitallers preparing sketch-maps of the routes best
suited for an invasion of Egypt, in the style of a modern war
office. On the other hand, it was natural for Nureddin to
attempt to secure Egypt, both because it was the terminus
of the trading route which ran from Damascus and because the
acquisition of Egypt would enable him to surround the Latin
kingdom. For some five years a contest was waged between
Amalric and Shirguh (Shirkuh), the lieutenant of Nureddin,
for the possession of Egypt. Thrice (1164, 1167, 1168)
Amalric penetrated into Egypt: but the contest ended in the
establishment of Saladin, the nephew of Shirguh, as vizier
-- a position which, on the death of the puppet caliph in
1171, was turned into that of sovereign. The extinction of
the Latin kingdom might now seem imminent; and envoys were
sent to the West with anxious appeals for assistance in
1169, 1171 and 1173. But though in 1170 Saladin attacked
the kingdom, and captured Aila on the Red Sea, the danger
was not so great as it seemed. Nureddin was jealous of
his over-mighty subject, and his jealousy bound Saladin's
hands. This was the position of affairs when Amalric died,
in 1174; but, as Nureddin died in the same year, the position
was soon altered and Saladin began the final attack on the
kingdom. Amalric I., the second of the native kings of
Jerusalem, had the qualities of his brother Baldwin III.
(q.v.) He was something of a scholar, and it was he who
set William of Tyre to work. He was perhaps still more of
a lawyer: his delight was in knotty points of the law, and
he knew the Assises better than any of his subjects.
The Church had some doubts of him, and he laid his hands on
the Church. William of Tyre was once astonished to find him
questioning, on a bed of sickness, the resurrection of the
body; and his taxation of clerical goods gave umbrage to the
clergy generally. But he maintained the state of his kingdom
with the resources which he owed to the Church; and he is
the last in the fine list of the early kings of Jerusalem.
William of Tyre is our original authority: see xix. 2-3 for
his sketch of Amalric. Rohricht narrates the reign of Amalric
I., Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem, c. xvii.-xviii.
Amalric II., king from 1197 to 1205, was the brother of Guy of
Lusignan. He had been constable of Jerusalem, but in 1194, on
the death of his brother, he became king of Cyprus, as Amalric
I. He married Isabella, the daughter of Amalric I. by his second
marriage, and became king of Jerusalem in right of his wife in
1197. In 1198 he was able to procure a five years' truce
with the Mahommedans, owing to the struggle between Saladin's
brothers and his sons for the inheritance of his territories.
The truce was disturbed by raids on both sides, but in 1204
it was renewed for six years. Amalric died in 1205, just
after his son and just before his wife. The kingdom of Cyprus
passed to Hugh, his son by an earlier marriage, while that
of Jerusalem passed to Maria, the daughter of Isabella by
her previous marriage with Conrad of Montferrat. (E. B. R.)
AMALRIC (Fr. AMAURY) OF BENA (d.c. 1204-1207), French
theologian, was born in the latter part of the 12th century
at Bena, a village in the diocese of Chartres. He taught
philosophy and theology at the university of Paris and enjoyed
a great reputation as a subtle dialectician; his lectures
developing the philosophy of Aristotle attracted a large
circle of hearers. In 1204 his doctrines were condemned by
the university, and, on a personal appeal to Pope Innocent
III., the sentence was ratified, Amalric being ordered to
return to Paris and recant his errors. His death was caused,
it is said, by grief at the humiliation to which he had been
subjected. In 1209 ten of his followers were burnt before
the gates of Paris, and Amalric's own body was exhumed
and burnt and the ashes given to the winds. The doctrines
of his followers, known as the Amalricians, were formally
condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Amalric
appears to have derived his philosophical system from Erigena
(q.v.), whose principles he developed in a one-sided and
strongly pantheistic form. Three propositions only can with
certainty be attributed to him: (1) that God is all; (2) that
every Christian is bound to believe that he is a member of
the body of Christ, and that this belief is necessary for
salvation: (3) that he who remains in love of God can commit no
sin. These three propositions were further developed by
his followers, who maintained that God revealed Himself
in a threefold revelation, the first in Abraham, marking
the epoch of the Father; the second in Christ, who began
the epoch of the Son; and the third in Amalric and his
disciples, who inaugurated the era of the Holy Ghost. Under
the pretext that a true believer could commit no sin, the
Amalricians indulged in every excess, and the sect does
not appear to have long survived the death of its founder.
See W. Preger, Gleschichte der deutschen Mystik im
Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1874, i. 167-173); Haureau, Hist.
de la phil. scol. (Paris, 1872); C. Schmidt, Hist. de
l'Eglise d'Occident itendant le moyen age (Paris, 1885);
Hefele, Conciliengesch. (2nd ed., Ereiburg, 1886).
AMALTEO, the name of an Italian family belonging to Oderzo,
Treviso, several members of which were distinguished in
literature. The best known are three brothers, Geronimo
(1507-1574), Giambattista (1525-1573) and Cornelio (1530-1603),
whose Latin poems were published in one collection under
the title Trium Fralrum Amaltheorum Carmina (Venice,
1627; Amst., 1689). The eldest brother, Geronimo, was a
celebrated physician; the second, Giambattista, accompanied
a Venetian embassy to England in 1554, and was secretary
to Pius IV. at the council of Trent; the third, Cornelio,
was a physician and secretary to the republic of Ragusa.
AMALTEO, POMPONIO (1505-1584), Italian painter of the Venetian
school, was born at San Vito in Friuli. He was a pupil and
son-in-law of Pordenone, whose style he closely imitated. His
works consist chiefly of frescoes and altar-pieces and many
of them (e.g. in the church of Santa Maria de' Battisti, at
San Vito) have suffered greatly from the ravages of time.
AMALTHEIA, in Greek mythology, the foster-mother of Zeus.
She is sometimes represented as the goat which suckled
the infant-god in a cave in Crete, sometimes as a nymph of
uncertain parentage (daughter of Oceanus, Haemonius, Olen,
Melisseus), who brought him up on the milk of a goat. This
goat having broken off one of its horns, Amaltheia filled it
with flowers and fruits and presented it to Zeus, who placed
it together with the goat amongst the stars. According to
another story, Zeus himself broke off the horn and gave it to
Amaltheia, promising that it would supply whatever she desired
in abundance. Amaltheia gave it to Acholous (her reputed
brother), who exchanged it for his own horn which had been
broken off in his contest with Heracles for the possession of
Deianeira. According to ancient mythology, the owners of
the horn were many and various. Speaking generally, it was
regarded as the symbol of inexhaustible riches and plenty,
and became the attribute of various divinities (Hades,
Gaea, Demeter, Cybele, Hermes), and of rivers (the Nile) as
fertilizers of the land. The term ``horn of Amaltheia'' is
applied to a fertile district, and an estate belonging to
Titus Pomponius Atticus was called Amaltheum. Cretan coins
represent the infant Zeus being suckled by the goat; other
Greek coins exhibit him suspended from its teats or carried in
the arms of a nymph (Ovid, Fasti, v. 115; Metam. ix. 87).
AMANA, a township in Iowa county, Iowa, U.S.A., 19 m.
S.W. (by rail) of Cedar Rapids. Pop. (1900) 1748; (1910)
1729. It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, and
the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railways. The township is
the home of a German religious communistic society, the Amana
Society, formerly the True Inspiration Society (so called
from its belief in the present inspiration of the truly
godly and perfectly pious), whose members live in various
villages near the Iowa river. These villages are named Amana,
West Amana, South Amana, East Amana, Middle Amana, High
Amana and Homestead. The houses are of brick or unpainted
wood. The society has in all 26,000 acres of land, of which
about 10,000 acres are covered with forests. The principal
occupation of the members is farming, although they also have
woollen mills (their woollens being of superior quality),
a cotton print factory, flour mills, saw mills and dye
shops. Each family has its own dwelling-place and a small
garden; each member of a family has an annual allowance of
credit at the common store and a room in the dwelling-house;
and each group of families has a large garden, a common
kitchen and a common dining hall where men and women eat
at separate tables. Between the ages of five and fourteen
education is compulsory for the entire year. In the schools
nature study and manual training are prominent; German
is used throughout and English is taught in upper classes
only. No man is permitted to marry until twenty-four years
of age, and no woman until twenty. The society's views and
practices are nearly related to the teachings of Schwenkfeld
and Boehme. Baptism is not practised; the Lord's Supper is
celebrated only once in two years; foot-washing is held as a
sacrament. At an annual spiritual examination of the
members, there are mutual criticisms and public confessions of
sin. The Inspirationists are opposed to war and to taking of
oaths. The Society became attached to the Separatist
leader, Eberhard Ludwig Gruber (d. 1728) in Wetterau in
1714; in 1842-1844 about 600 members, led by Christian
Metz, the ``divine instrument'' of the Society, emigrated
from Germany to the United States and settled in a colony
called Ebenezer, in Erie county, near Buffalo, N.Y.; in 1855
the colony began to remove to its present home, which it
named from the mountain mentioned in the Song of Solomon,
iv. 8, the Hebrew word meaning ``remain true'' (or, more
probably, ``fixed''), and in 1859 it was incorporated under
the, name of the Amana Society. Metz died in 1864 and was
succeeded by Barbara Landmann, since whose death in 1884
the community has lacked an inspired leader. Amana was the
strongest in numbers of the few sectarian communities in
America which outlived the 19th century. A few new members
have joined the community from Switzerland and Germany in
recent years. In 1905 the community won a suit brought
against it for its dissolution on the ground that, having
been incorporated solely as a benevolent and religious
body, it was illegally carrying on a general business.
See W. R. Perkins and B. L. Wick, History of the Amana Society
or Community of True Inspiration, Historical Monograph, No. 1,
in State University of Iowa publications (Iowa City, 1891); R.
T. Ely, ``Amana: A Study of Religious Communism,'' in Harper's
Magazine for October 1902; and Bertha M. H. Shambaugh, Amana,
the Community of True Inspiration (Iowa City, 1908).
AMANITA. The amanitas include some of the most showy
representatives of the Agaricineae or mushroom order of fungi
(q.v.). In the first stages of growth, they are completely
enveloped by an outer covering called the veil. As the plant
develops the veil is ruptured; the lower portion forms a sheath
or volva round the base of the stem, while the upper portion
persists as white patches or scales or warts on the surface of
the cap. The stem usually bears an upper ring of tissue, the
Amanita muscaria. A, the young plant. g, the gills.
B, the mature plant. a, the annulus, or remnant of
C, longitudinal section of mature velum partiale.
plant. v, remains of volva or velum
p, the pileus. universale. s, the stalk.
remains of an inner veil, that stretched from the stem to the
edge of the cap and broke away from the cap as the latter
expanded. The presence of the volva, and the clear white
gills and spores, distinguish this genus from all other
agarics. They are beautiful objects in the autumn woods;
Amanita muscaria, the fly fungus, formerly known as Agaricus
muscarius, being especially remarkable by its bright red
cap covered with white warts. Others are pure white or
of varying shades of yellow or green. There are sixteen
British species of Amanita; they grow on the ground in
or near woods. Several of the species are very poisonous.
AMANUENSIS (a Latin word, derived from the phrase servus
a manu, slave of the hand, a secretary), one who writes,
from dictation or otherwise, on behalf of another.
AMAPALA, the only port on the Pacific coast of Honduras, on the
northern shore of Tigre island, in the Bay of Fonseca (q.v.);
in 13 deg. 3, N., and 87 deg. 94 W. Pop. (1905) about 4000. Amapala
was founded in 1838, and its port was opened and declared free
in 1868. The roadstead is perfectly sheltered and so deep
that the largest vessels can lie within a few yards of the
shore. It is the natural outlet for the commerce of some of
the richest parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and Salvador; and
during the 19th century it exported large quantities of gold,
silver and other ores, although its progress was retarded by the
delay in constructing a transcontinental railway from Puerto
Cortes. Its depots on the mainland, both about 30 m. distant,
are La Brea, for the line to Puerto Cortes, and San Lorenzo, for
Tegucigalpa. Silver is still exported, in addition to hides,
timber, coffee and indigo, and there are valuable fisheries.
AMARANTH, or AMARANG (from the Gr. amarantos, unwithering),
a name chiefly used in poetry, and applied to
certain plants which, from not soon fading, typified
immortality. Thus Milton (Paradise Lost, iii. 353) --
``Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven
Rolls o'er elysian flowers her amber stream:
With these that never fade the spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks.''
It should be noted that the proper spelling of the word is amarant;
the more common spelling seems to have come from a hazy notion
that the final syllable is the Greek word anthos, ``flower,''
which enters into a vast number of botanical names.
The plant genus Amarantus (natural order Amarantaceae)
contains several well-known garden plants, such as love-lies-
bleeding (A. caudatus), a native of India, a vigorous hardy
annual, with dark purplish flowers crowded in handsome drooping
spikes. Another species A. hypochondriacus, is prince's
feather, another Indian annual, with deeply-veined lance-shaped
leaves, purple on the under face, and deep crimson flowers
densely packed on erect spikes. ``Globe amaranth'' belongs
to an allied genus, Gomphrena, and is also a native of
India. It is an annual about 18 in. high, with solitary
round heads of flowers; the heads are violet from the
colour of the bracts which surround the small flowers.
In ancient Greece the amaranth (also called chrusanthemon
and elichrusos) was sacred to Ephesian Artemis. It was
supposed to have special healing properties, and as a symbol of
immortality was used to decorate images of the gods and tombs.
In legend, Amarynthus (a form of Amarantus) was a hunter of
Artemis and king of Euboea; in a village of Amarynthus, of which
he was the eponymous hero, there was a famous temple of Artemis
Amarynthia or Amarysia (Strabo x. 448; Pausan. i. 31, p. 5).
See Lenz, Botanik der alt. Greich. und Rom. (1859); J.
Murr, Die Pflanzenwelt in der griech. Mythol. (1890).
AMARAPURA (``the city of the gods''), formerly the capital
of the Burmese kingdom, now a suburb of Mandalay, Burma,
with a population in 1901 of 9103. The town was founded
in 1783 to form a new capital about 6 m. to the north-east
of Ava. It increased rapidly in size and population, and in
1810 was estimated to contain 170,000 inhabitants; but in
that year the town was destroyed by fire, and this disaster,
together with the removal of the native court to Ava in 1823,
caused a decline in the prosperity of the place. In 1827
its population was estimated at only 30,000. It suffered
severe calamity from an earthquake, which in 1839 destroyed
the greater part of the city. It was finally abandoned in
1860, when king Mindon occupied Mandalay, 5 or 6 m. farther
north. Amarapura was laid out on much the same plan as Ava.
The ruins of the city wall, now overgrown with jungle, show
it to have been a square with a side of about three-quarters
of a mile in length. At each corner stood a solid brick
pagoda about 100 ft. high. The most remarkable edifice
was a celebrated temple, adorned with 250 lofty pillars
of gilt wood, and containing a colossal bronze statue of
Buddha. The remains of the former palace of the Burmese
monarchs still survive in the centre of the town. During the
time of its prosperity Amarapura was defended by a rampart
and a large square citadel, with a broad moat, the walls
being 7000 ft. long and 20 ft. high, with a bastion at each
corner. The Burmans know it now as Myohaung, ``the old
city.'' It has a station on the Rangoon-Mandalay railway,
and is the junction for the line to Maymyo and the Kunlong
ferry and for the Sagaing-Myitkyina railway. The group of
villages called Amarapura by Europeans is known to the Burmans
as Taung-myo, ``the southern city,'' as distinguished from
Mandalay, the Myauk-myo, or ``northern city,'' 3 m. distant.
AMARAR, a tribe of African ``Arabs'' inhabiting the
mountainous country on the west side of the Red Sea from
Suakin northwards towards Kosseir. Between them and the
Nile are the Ababda and Bisharin tribes and to their south
dwell the Hadendoa. The country of the Amarar is called the
Etbai. Their headquarters are in the Ariab district. The
tribe is divided into four great famines: (1) Weled Gwilei,
(2) Weled Aliab, (3) Woled Kurbab Wagadab, and (4) the
Amarar proper of the Ariab district. They claim to be of
Koreish blood and to be the descendants of an invading Arab
army. Possibly some small bands of Koreish Arabs may have
made an inroad and converted some of the Amarar to Islam.
Further than this there is little to substantiate their claim.
See Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, edited by Count Gleichen (London,
1905): Sir F. R. Wingate, Mahdism and the Egyptian Sudan (London,
1891); A. H. Keane, Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan (London, 1884).
AMARA SINHA (c. A.D. 375), Sanskrit grammarian and poet,
of whose personal history hardly anything is known. He is said
to have been ``one of the nine gems that adorned the throne
of Vikramaditya,'' and according to the evidence of Hsuan
Tsang, this is the Chandragupta Vikramaditya that flourished
about A.D. 375. Amara seems to have been a Buddhist; and an
early tradition asserts that his works, with one exception,
were destroyed during the persecution carried on by the
orthodox Brahmins in the 5th century. The exception is the
celebrated Amara-Xosha (Treasury of Amara), a vocabulary
of Sanskrit roots, in three books, and hence sometimes
called Trikanda or the ``Tripartite.'' It contains 10,000
words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in
metre, to aid the memory. The first chapter of the Kosha
was printed at Rome in Tamil character in 1798. An edition
of the entire work, with English notes and an index by H. T.
Colebrooke, appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanskrit text
was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by A.
L. A. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps as published at Paris in 1839.
AMARI, MICHELE (1806-1889), Italian orientalist and patriot,
was born at Palermo. From his earliest youth he imbibed
liberal principles from his relatives, especially from his
grandfather, and although at the age of fourteen he was
appointed clerk in the Bourbon civil service, he joined
the Carbonari like many other young Sicilians and actively
sympathized with the revolution of 1820. The movement, which
was separatist in its tendencies, was quickly suppressed, but
the conspiracies continued, and Amari's father, implicated
in that of 1822, was arrested and condemned to death
together with many others; but his sentence was commuted to
imprisonment, and in 1834 he was liberated. Michele Amari
still held his clerkship, but he regarded the Neapolitan
government with increasing hatred, and he led a life of
active physical exercise to train himself for the day of
revolution. He devoted much of his time to the study
of English and of history; his first literary essay was a
translation of Sir Walter Scott's Marmion (1832), and in
1839 he published a work on the Sicilian Vespers, entitled
Hn Periodo delle storie Siciliane del XIII. secolo,
filled with political allusions reflecting unfavourably on the
government. The book had an immediate success and went
through many editions, but it brought the author under the
suspicion of the authorities, and in 1842 he escaped from
a boat just as he was about to be arrested. He settled in
Paris, where he came in contact with a number of literary
men, such as Michelet and Thierry, as well as with the Italian
exiles. Having no private means he had to earn a precarious
livelihood by literature. He was much struck with certain
French translations of Arabic works on Sicily,which awoke
in him a desire to read the authors in the original. With
the assistance of Prof. Reinaud and Baron de Slane he soon
acquired great proficiency in Arabic, and his translations
and editions of oriental texts, as well as his historical
essays, made him a reputation. In 1844 he began his great
work La Storia dei Musulmani in Sicilia, but the revolution
of 1848 plunged him into politics once more. His pamphlet,
Quelques Observations sur le droit public de la Sicile,
advocating the revival of the 1812 constitution for the
island, met with great success, and on arriving at Palermo,
whence the Bourbon government had been expelled, he was chosen
member of the war committee and appointed professor of public
law at the university. At the general elections Amari was
returned for Palermo and became minister of finance in the
Stabile cabinet. On its fall he was sent to Paris and London
to try to obtain help for the struggling island; having failed
in his mission he returned to Sicily in 1849, hoping to
fight. But the Neapolitan troops had re-occupied the island,
the Liberals were in disagreement among themselves, and
Amari with several other notables with difficulty escaped to
Malta. Characteristic of his scholarly nature is the
fact that he delayed his flight to take the impress of an
important Arabic inscription. He returned to Paris, sad and
dejected at the collapse of the movement, and devoted himself
once more to his Arabic studies. He published a work on
the chronology of the Koran, for which he received a prize
from the Academie des Inscriptions, edited the Solwan el
Mota by Ibn Zafer (a curious collection of philosophical
thoughts) and Ibn Haukal's Description og Palermo, and in
1854 the first volume of his history of the Mahommedans in
Sicily appeared. He received a meagre stipend for cataloguing
the Arabic MSS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and he
contributed many articles to the reviews. Although a firm
friend of Mazzini, he discouraged the latter's premature
conspiracies. In 1859, after the expulsion of the central
Italian despots, Amari was appointed professor of Arabic at
Pisa and afterwards at Florence. But when Garibaldi and his
thousand had conquered Sicily, Amari returned to his native
island, and was given an appointment in the government.
Although intensely Sicilian in sentiment, he became one of
the staunchest advocates of the union of Sicily with Italy,
and was subsequently made senator of the kingdom at Cavour's
instance. He was minister of education in the Farini and
Minghetti cabinets, but on the fall of the latter in 1864, he
resumed his professorship at Florence and spent the rest of
his life in study. His circle of acquaintances, both in Italy
and abroad, was very large, and his sound scholarship was
appreciated in all countries. He died in 1889, loaded with
honours. The last volume of his Storia dei Musulmani
appeared in 1873, and in addition to the above-mentioned
works he published many others on oriental and historical
subjects. His work on the Sicilian Vespers was re-written
as La Guerra dei Vespro (9th ed., Milan, 1886). He was
the pioneer of Arabic studies in modern Italy, and he still
remains the standard authority on the Mussulman domination
in Sicily, though his judgment on religious questions
is sometimes warped by a violently anti-clerical bias.
See A. D'Ancona, Carteggio di Michele Amari coll' elogio
di lui (Turin, 1896); and Oreste Tommasini's essay in his
Scritti di storial e critica (Rome, 189I). (L. V.n)
AMARYLLIS (the name of a girl in classical pastoral poetry), in
botany, a genus of the natural order Amaryllidaceae, containing
the belladonna lily (Amaryllis Belladonna), a native of South
Africa, which was introduced into cultivation at the beginning
of the 18th century. This is a half-hardy bulbous plant,
producing in the spring a number of strap-shaped, dull green
leaves, 1-1 1/2 ft. long, arranged in two rows, and in autumn a
solid stem, bearing at the top a cluster of 6-12 funnel-shaped
flowers, of a rose colour and very fragrant. Several forms
are known in cultivation. Most of the so-called Amaryllis
of gardens belong to the allied genus Hippeastrum (q.v.).
AMASIA (anc. Amasia), the chief town of a sanjak in the
Sivas vilayet of Asia Minor and an important trade centre
on the Samsun-Sivas road, beautifully situated on the Yeshil
Irmak (Iris). Pop. 30,000; Moslems about 20,000, of
whom a large proportion are Kizilbash (Shia); Christians
(mostly Armenians), 10,000. It was one of the chief towns
of the kingdom of Trebizond and of the Seljuks, one of whose
sultans, Kaikobad I., enriched it with fine buildings and
restored the castle, which was thus enabled to stand a
seven months' siege by Timur. It was also much favoured by
the early Osmanli sultans, one of whom, Sclim I., was born
there. Bayezid II. built a fine mosque. The place was
modernized about a generation ago by Zia Pasha, the poet,
when governor, and is now an unusually well built Turkish
town with good bazaar and khans and a fine clock-tower.
The Americans and the Jesuits have missionary schools for
the Armenian population. Amasia has extensive orchards and
fruit gardens still, as in Ibn Batuta's time, irrigated by
water wheels turned by the current of the river; and there
are steam flourmills. Wheat, flour and silk are exported.
Ancient Amasia has left little trace of itself except
on the castle rock, on the left of the river, where the
acropolis walls and a number of splendid rock-cut tombs,
described by Strabo as those of the kings of Pontus, can be
seen. The cliff is cut away all round these immense
sepulchres so that they stand free. The finest, known from
its polished surfaces as the ``Mirror Tomb,'' is about 2 m.
from the modern city. Amasia rose into historical importance
after the time of Alexander as the cradle of the power
of Pontus; but the last king to reign there was the father
of Mithradates Eupator ``The Great.'' The latter, however,
made it the base of his operations against the Romans in
89, 72 and 67 B.C. Pompey made it a free city in 65, after
Mithradates' fall. It was the birthplace of Strabo. (D. G. H.)
AMASIS, or AMOSIS (the Greek forms of the Egyptian name
Ahmase, Ahmosi, ``the moon is born,'' often written Aahmes or
Ahmes in modern works), the name of two kings of ancient Egypt.
AMASIS I., the founder of the XVIIIth dynasty, is famous for
his successful wars against the Hyksos princes who still ruled in
the north-east of the Delta (see EGYPT: History, sect. 1.)
AMASIS II. was the last great ruler of Egypt before the
Persian conquest, 570-526 B.C. Most of our information
about him is derived from Herodotus (ii. 161 et seq.) and
can only be imperfectly controlled by monumental evidence.
According to the Greek historian he was of mean origin.
A revolt of the native soldiers gave him his opportunity.
These troops, returning home from a disastrous expedition to
Cyrene, suspected that they had been betrayed in order that
Apries, the reigning king, might rule more absolutely by
means of his mercenaries, and their friends in Egypt fully
sympathized with them. Amasis, sent to meet them and quell
the revolt, was proclaimed king by the rebels, and Apries,
who had now to rely entirely on his mercenaries, was defeated
and taken prisoner in the ensuing conflict at Momemphis; the
usurper treated the captive prince with great lenity, but
was eventually persuaded to give him up to the people, by
whom he was strangled and buried in his ancestral tomb at
Sais. An inscription confirms the fact of the struggle
between the native and the foreign soldiery, and proves that
Apries was killed and honourably buried in the 3rd year of
Amasis. Although Amasis thus appears first as champion of
the disparaged native, he had the good sense to cultivate
the friendship of the Greek world, and brought Egypt into
closer touch with it than ever before. Herodotus relates
that under his prudent administration Egypt reached the
highest pitch of prosperity; he adorned the temples of Lower
Egypt especially with splendid monolithic shrines and other
monuments (his activity here is proved by remains still
existing). To the Greeks Amasis assigned the commercial
colony of Naucratis on the Canopic branch of the Nile, and
when the temple of Delphi was burnt he contributed 1000
talents to the rebuilding. He also married a Greek princess
named Ladice, the daughter of Battus, king of Cyrene, and
he made alliances with Polycrates of Samos and Croesus of
Lydia. His kingdom consisted probably of Egypt only, as
far as the First Cataract, but to this he added Cyprus, and
his influence was great in Cyrene. At the beginning of his
long reign, before the death of Apries, he appears to have
sustained an attack by Nebuchadrezzar (568 B.C.). Cyrus
left Egypt unmolested; but the last years of Amasis were
disturbed by the threatened invasion of Cambyses and by
the rupture of the alliance with Polycrates of Samos. The
blow fell upon his son Psammetichus III., whom the Persian
deprived of his kingdom after a reign of only six months.
See NAUCRATIS: also W. M. Flinders Petrie, History,
vol. iii.; Breasted, History and Historical Documents,
vol. iv. p. 509; Maspero, Les Empires. (F. LL. G.)
AMATEUR (Lat. amator, lover), a person who takes part in any
art, craft, game or sport for the sake of the pleasure afforded
by the occupation itself and not for pecuniary gain. Being
thus a person for whom the pursuit in question is a recreation
and not a business, and who therefore presumably devotes to
it a portion only of his leisure and not his working hours,
the average amateur possesses less skill than the average
professional, whose livelihood and reputation depend on his
proficiency, and who therefore concentrates all his energies
on the task of attaining the greatest possible mastery in
his chosen career. In the arts, such as music, painting and
the drama, the best amateurs are outdistanced as executants
not merely by the best professionals but by professionals
far below the highest rank; and although the inferiority
of the amateur is not perhaps so pronounced or so universal
in the case of games and outdoor sports, the records of
such pastimes as horse-racing, boxing, rowing, billiards,
tennis and golf prove that here also the same contrast is
generally to be found. Hence it has come about that the term
``amateur,'' and more especially the adjectival derivative
``amateurish,'' has acquired a secondary meaning, usually
employed somewhat contemptuously, signifying inefficiency,
unskilfulness, superficial knowledge or training.
The immense increase in popularity of athletic contests
and games of all kinds in modern times, and especially the
keen competition for ``records'' and championships, often
of an international character, have made it a matter of
importance to arrive at a clear and formal definition of
the amateur as distinguished from the professional. The
simple, straightforward definition of the amateur given
above has been proved to be easily evaded. Many leading
cricketers, for example, preserve their amateur status
who, although they are not paid wages for each match they
play like their professional colleagues, are provided with
an annual income by their county or club under the guise of
salary for performing the duties of ``secretary'' or some
other office, leaving them free to play the game six days a
week. Similarly, ``gentlemen riders'' are often presented
with a cash payment described as a bet, or under some other
pretext. Nor is the dividing-line between ``out-of-pocket
expenses'' allowed to the amateur and the remuneration payable
to the professional always strictly drawn. The various
associations controlling the different branches of sport have
therefore devised working regulations to be observed so far
as their jurisdiction extends. Thus the Amateur Athletic
Association of Great Britain defines an amateur as ``one who
has never competed for a money prize or staked bet, or with
or against a professional for any prize, or who has never
taught, pursued or assisted in the practice of athletic
exercises as a means of obtaining a livelihood.'' The rules of
the Amateur Rowing Association are stricter, denying amateur
status to anyone who has ever steered or rowed in a race with
a professional for any prize, or who is or has been by trade
or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer, or
engaged in any menial duty, besides insisting upon the usual
restrictions in regard to taking money and competing with
professionals. In association football the rules are much
more lax, for although amateurs are clearly distinguished
from professionals, an amateur may even become a regular
member, though unsalaried, of a professional team without
losing his amateur status. The Rugby game was, up to 1895,
entirely controlled by the Rugby Football Union, which, by the
strictness of its laws, effectually prevented the growth of
professionalism, but there had been much dissatisfaction in
the provinces with the Union's decision against reimbursing
day- working players for ``broken time,'' i.e. for that
part of their wages which they lost by playing on working
days, and this resulted in the formation (1895) of the
Northern Union, which permits remuneration for ``broken
time,'' but allows no person who works for his living to play
football unless regularly employed at his particular trade.
In America the amateur question is less complicated than in
Great Britain; but the intensely business-like character of
American ideas of sport has encouraged the modern spirit of
professionalism. All important sports in America, except
baseball, football, cricket, golf and rowing, are, however,
under the control of the Amateur Athletic Union of the
United States, the rules of which, so far as they relate to
professionalism, are as follows. No person shall be eligible
to compete in any athletic meeting, game or entertainment,
given or sanctioned by this Union, who has (1) received
or competed for compensation or reward in any form for the
display, exercise or example of his skill or knowledge of
any athletic exercise, or for rendering personal service
of any kind to any athletic organization, or for becoming
or continuing a member of any athletic organization; or (2)
has entered any competition under a name other than his own,
or from a club of which he was not at that time a member in
good standing; or (3) has knowingly entered any competition
open to any professional or professionals, or has knowingly
competed with any professional for any prize or token; or
(4) has issued or allowed to be issued in his behalf any
challenge to compete against any professional or for money;
or (5) has pawned, bartered or sold any prize won in athletic
competition. It will be seen that by rule 3 the American
Union enacts a standard for all athletes not much different
from that of the British Amateur Rowing Association. The
rules for the sports not within the Union's jurisdiction are
practically the same, except that in baseball, cricket and golf
amateurs may compete with professionals, though not for cash
prizes. In the case of open golf competitions professional
prize-winners receive cash, while amateurs are given plate
to the value of their prizes as in Great Britain. There are
practically no professional football players in America.
On both sides of the Atlantic the question of the employment
of professional coaches has occasioned much discussion. In
America it has been accepted as legal. In England the same
is almost universally true, but there are certain exceptions,
such as the decision of the Henley Regatta Committee, that
no crew entering may be coached by a professional within two
months of the race-day. Whether such a regulation be wise
or the reverse is a question that depends upon the spirit
in which games are regarded. Nobody wants to disparage
proficiency; but if a game is conducted on business methods,
the ``game'' element tends to be minimized, and if its
object is pecuniary it ceases to be ``sport'' in the old
sense, and the old idea of the ``amateur'' who indulges
in it for love of the mere enjoyment tends to disappear.
AMATHUS, an ancient city of Cyprus, on the S. coast, about 24
m. W. of Larnaka and 6 m. E. of Limassol, among sandy
hills and sand-dunes, which perhaps explain its name in
Greek (amathos, sand). The earliest remains hitherto
found on the site are tombs of the early Iron Age period
of Graeco-Phoenician influences (1000-600 B.C.). Amathus
is identified by some (E. Oberhummer, Die Insel Cypern,
i., 1902, pp. 13-14; but see CITIUM) with Kartihadasti
(Phoenician ``New-Town'') in the Cypriote tribute-list of
Esarhaddon of Assyria (668 B.C.). It certainly maintained
strong Phoenician sympathies, for it was its refusal to
join the phil-Hellene league of Onesilas of Salamis which
provoked the revolt of Cyprus from Persia in 500-494 B.C.
(Herod. v. 105), when Amathus was besieged unsuccessfully
and avenged itself by the capture and execution of
Onesilas. The phil-Hellene Evagoras of Salamis was similarly
opposed by Amathus about 385-380 B.C. in conjunction
with Citium and Soli (Diod. Sic. xiv. 98); and even after
Alexander the city resisted annexation, and was bound over
to give hostages to Seleucus (Diod. Sic. xix. 62). Its
political importance now ended, but its temple of Adonis and
Aphrodite (Venus Amathusia) remained famous in Roman time.
The wealth of Amathus was derived partly from its corn
(Strabo 340, quoting Hipponax, fi. 540 B.C.), partly
from its copper mines (Ovid, Met. x. 220, 531), of
which traces can be seen inland (G. Mariti, i. 187; L.
Ross, Inselreise, iv. 195; W. H. Engel, Kypros, i. 111
ff.). Ovid also mentions its sheep (Met. x. 227); the
epithet Amathusia in Roman poetry often means little more
than ``Cypriote,'' attesting however the fame of the city.
Amathus still flourished and produced a distinguished patriarch
of Alexandria (Johannes Eleemon), as late as 606-616, and a
ruined Byzantine church marks the site; but it was already
almost deserted when Richard Coeur de Lion won Cyprus by
a victory there over Isaac Comnenus in 1191. The rich
necropolis, already partly plundered then, has yielded
valuable works of art to New York (L. P. di Cesnola, Cyprus,
1878 passim) and to the British Museum (Excavations in
Cyprus, 1894 (1899) passim); but the city has vanished,
except fragments of wall and of a great stone cistern on the
acropolis. A similar vessel was transported to the Louvre in
1867. Two small sanctuaries, with terra-cotta votive
offerings of Graeco-Phoenician age, lie not far off, but the
great shrine of Adonis and Aphrodite has not been identified
(M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, i. ch.1). (J. L. M.)
AMATI, the name of a family of Italian violin-makers, who
flourished at Cremona from about 1550 to 1692. According
to Fetis, Andrea and Nicolo Amati, two brothers, were the
first Italians who made violins. They were succeeded by
Antonio and Geronimo, sons of Nicolo. Another Nicolo, son
of Geronimo, was born on the 3rd of September 1596 and died
on the 12th of August 1684. He was the most eminent of the
family. He improved the model adopted by the rest of the
Amatis and produced instruments capable of yielding greater
power of tone. His pattern was usually small, but he also
made the so-called ``Grand Amatis.'' Of his pupils the
most famous were Andrea Enamieri and Antonio Stradivari.
AMATITLAN, or SAN JUAN DE AMATITLAN, the capital of
a department bearing the same name in Guatemala, on Lake
Amatitlan, 15 m. S.W. of Guatemala city by the transcontinental
railway from Puerto Barrios to San Jose. Pop. (1905) about
10,000. The town consists almost entirely of one-storeyed
adobe huts inhabited by mulattoes and Indians, whose chief
industry is the production of cochineal. In 1840 only a small
Indian village marked its site, and its subsequent growth
was due to the sugar plantations established by a Jesuit
settlement. The wells of the town are strongly impregnated
with salt and alum, and in the vicinity there are several hot
springs. Lake Amatitlan, 9 m. long and 3 m. broad, lies
on the northern side of the great Guatemalan Cordillera.
Above it rises the four- cratered volcano of Pacaya (8390
ft.), which was in eruption in 1870. The outlet of the lake
is a swift river 65 m. long, which cuts a way through the
Cordillera, and enters the Pacific at Istapa, after forming
at San Pedro a fine waterfall more than 200 ft. high.
AMAUROSIS (Gr. for ``blinding,''), a term for ``deprivation of
sight,'' limited chiefly to those forms of defect or loss of vision
which are caused by diseases not directly involving the eye.
AMAZON, the great river of South America. Before the
conquest of South America, the Rio de las Amazonas had no
general name; for, according to a common custom, each savage
tribe gave a name only to the section of the river which it
occupied -- such as Paranaguazu, Guyerma, Sclimoes and
others. In the year 1500, Vicente Yanez Pinzon, in command
of a Spanish expedition, discovered and ascended the Amazon
to a point about 50 m. from the sea. He called it the Rio
Santa Maria de la Mar Dulce, which soon became abbreviated
to Mar Dulce, and for some years, after 1502, it was
known as the Rio Grande. The principal companions of
Pinzon, in giving evidence in 1513, mention it as El Ryo
Haranon. There is much controversy about the origin
of the word Maranon. Peter Martyr in a letter to Lope
Hurtado de Mendoza in 1513 is the first to state that it is
of native origin. Ten years after the death of Pinzon, his
friend Oviedo calls it the Maranon. Many writers believe
that this was its Indian name. We are disposed to agree
with the Brazilian historian Constancio that Maranon is
derived from the Spanish word marana, a tangle, a snarl,
which well represents the bewildering difficulties which the
earlier explorers met in navigating not only the entrance
to the Amazon, but the whole island-bordered, river-cut and
indented coast of the now Brazilian province of Maranhao.
The first descent of the mighty artery from the Andes to
the sea was made by Orellana in 1541, and the name Amazonas
arises from the battle which he had with a tribe of Tapuya
savages where the women of the tribe fought alongside the men,
as was the custom among all of the Tapuyas. Orellana, no
doubt, derived the name Amazonas from the ancient Amazons
(q.v.) of Asia and Africa described by Herodotusand Diodorus.
The first ascent of the river was made in 1638 by Pedro
Texiera, a Portuguese, who reversed the route of Orellana
and reached Quito by way of the Rio Napo. He returned
in 1639 with the Jesuit fathers Acuna and Artieda,
delegated by the viceroy of Peru to accompany him.
The river Amazon has a drainage area of 2,722,000 sq.
m., if the Tocantins be included in its basin. It drains
four-tenths of South America, and it gathers its waters
from 5 deg. N. to 20 deg. S. latitude. Its most remote sources
are found on the inter-Andean plateau, but a short distance
from the Pacific Ocean; and, after a course of about 4000
m. through the interior of Peru and across Brazil, it enters
the Atlantic Ocean on the equator. It is generally accepted
by geographers that the Maranon, or Upper Amazon, rises in
the little lake, Lauricocha, in 10 deg. 30' S. latitude, and 100
m. N.N.E. of Lima. They appear to have followed the
account given by Padre Fritz which has since been found
incorrect. According to Antonio Raimondi, it is the Rio
de Nupe branch of the small stream which issues from the
lake that has the longer course and the greater volume of
water. The Nupe rises in the Cordillera de Huayhuath and
is the true source of the Maranon. There is a difference
among geographers as to where the Maranon ends and the Amazon
begins, or whether both names apply to the same river. The
Pongo de Manseriche, at the base of the Andes and the head
of useful navigation, seems to be the natural terminus of the
Maranon; and an examination of the hydrographic conditions
of the great valley makes the convenience and accuracy of this
apparent. Raimondi terminates the Maranon at the mouth of
the Ucayali, Reclus the same, both following the missionary
fathers of the colonial period. C. M. de la Condamine uses
``Amazon'' and ``Maranon'' indiscriminately and considers
them one and the same. Smyth and Lowe give the mouth of
the Javary as the eastern limit, as does d'Orbigny. Wolf,
apparently uncertain, carries the ``Maranon or Amazon''
to the Peruvian frontier of Brazil at Tabatinga. Other
travellers and explorers contribute to the confusion.
This probably arises from the rivalry of the Spaniards and
Portuguese. The former accepted the name Maranon in Peru,
and as the missionaries penetrated the valley they extended
the name until they reached the mouth of the Ucayali;
while, as the Portuguese ascended the Amazon, they carried
this name to the extent of their explorations. Beginning
with the lower river we propose to notice, first, the great
affluents which go to swell the volume of the main stream.
Tributaries.
The TOCANTINS is not really a branch of the Amazon, although
usually so considered. It is the central fluvial artery
of Brazil, running from south to north for a distance of
about 1500 m. It rises in the mountainous district known as
the Pyreneos; but its more ambitious western affluent, the
Araguay, has its extreme southern headwaters on the slopes
of the Serra Cayapo, and flows a distance of 1080 m.
before its junction with the parent stream, which it appears
almost to equal in volume. Besides its main tributary, the
Rio das Mortes, it has twenty smaller branches, offering
many miles of canoe navigation. In finding its way to the
lowlands, it breaks frequently into falls and rapids, or
winds violently through rocky gorges, until, at a point about
100 m. above its junction with the Tocantins, it saws its
way across a rocky dyke for 12 m. in roaring cataracts.
The tributaries of the Tocantins, called the Maranhao and
Parana-tinga, collect an immense volume of water from the
highlands which surround them, especially on the south and
south-east. Between the latter and the confluence with the
Araguay, the Tocantins is occasionally obstructed by rocky
barriers which cross it almost at a right angle. Through
these, the river carves its channel, broken into cataracts
and rapids, or cachoeiras, as they are called throughout
Brazil. Its lowest one, the Itaboca cataract, is about 130
m. above its estuarine port of Cameta, for which distance the
river is navigable; but above that it is useless as a commercial
avenue, except for laborious and very costly transportation.
The flat, broad valleys, composed of sand and clay, of both
the Tocantins and its Araguay branch are overlooked by
steep bluffs. They are the margins of the great sandstone
plateaus, from 1000 to 2000 ft. elevation above sea-level,
through which the rivers have eroded their deep beds.
Around the estuary of the Tocantins the great plateau has
disappeared, to give place to a part of the forest-covered,
half submerged alluvial plain, which extends far to the
north-east and west. The Para river, generally called one
of the mouths of the Amazon, is only the lower reach of the
Tocantins. If any portion of the waters of the Amazon
runs round the southern side of the large island of Marajo
into the river Para, it is only through tortuous, natural
canals, which are in no sense outflow channels of the Amazon.
The XINGU, the next large river west of the Tocantins,
is a true tributary of the Amazon. It was but little known
until it was explored in 1884-1887 by Karl von den Steinen
from Cuyaba. Travelling east, 240 m., he found the river
Tamitatoaba, 180 ft. wide, flowing from a lake 25 m. in
diameter. He descended this torrential stream to the river
Romero, 1300 ft. wide, entering from the west, which receives
the river Colisu. These three streams form the Xingu, or
Parana-xingu, which, from 73 m. lower down, bounds along a
succession of rapids for 400 m. A little above the head of
navigation, 105 m. from its mouth, the river makes a bend to
the east to find its way across a rocky barrier. Here is the
great cataract of Itamaraca, which rushes down an inchned
plane for 3 m. and then gives a final leap, called the fall of
Itamaraca. Near its mouth, the Xingu expands into an
immense lake, and its waters then mingle with those of the
Amazon through a labyrinth of eanos (natural canals),
winding in countless directions through a wooded archipelago.
The TAPAHOS, running through a humid, hot and unhealthy
valley, pours into the Amazon 500 m. above Para and is about
1200 m. long. It rises on the lofty Brazilian plateau near
Diamantino in 14 deg. 25' S. lat. Near this place a number of
streams unite to form the river Arinos, which at latitude
10 deg. 25' joins the Juruena to form the Alto Tapajos, so
called as low down as the Rio Manoel, entering from the
east. Thence to Santarem the stream is known as the
Tapajos. The lower Arinos, the Alto Tapajos and the Tapajos
to the last rapid, the Maranhao Grande, is a continuous
series of formidable cataracts and rapids; but from the
Maranhao Grande to its mouth, about 188 m., the river can
be navigated by largevessels. For its last 100 mi. it is from
4 to 9 m. wide and much of it very deep. The valley of the
Tapajos is bordered on both sides by bluffs. They are from
300 to 400 ft. high along the lower river; but, a few miles
above Santarem, they retire from the eastern side and only
approach the Amazon flood-plain some miles below Santarem.
The MADEIRA has its junction with the Amazon 870 mi. by
river above Para, and almost rivals it in the volume of its
waters. It rises more than 50 ft. during the rainy season,
and the largest ocean steamers may ascend it to the Fall
of San Antonio, 663 m. above its mouth; but in the dry
months, from June to November, it is only navigable for
the same distance for craft drawing from 5 to 6 ft. of
water. According to the treaty of San Ildefonso, the
Madeira begins at the confluence of the Guapore with the
Mamore. Both of these streams have their headwaters
almost in contact with those of the river Paraguay. The
idea of a connecting canal is based on ignorance of local
conditions. San Antonio is the first of a formidable series
of cataracts and rapids, nineteen in number, which, for
a river distance of 263 m., obstruct the upper course of
the Madeira until the last rapid called Guajara Merim
(or Small Pebble), is reached, a little below the union
of the Guapore with the Mamore. The junction of the
great river Beni with the Madeira is at the Madeira Fall,
a vast and grand display ofreefs, whirlpools and boiling
torrents. Between Guajara-Merim and this fall, inclusive,
the Madeira receives the drainage of the northeastern slopes
of the Andes, from Santa Cruz de la Sierra to Cuzco, the
whole of the south-western slope of Brazilian Matto (irosso
and the northern one of the Chiquitos sierras, an area about
equal to that of France and Spain. The waters find their
way to the falls of the Madeira by many great rivers, the
principal of which, if we enumerate them from east to west,
are the Guapore or Itenez, the Baures and Blanco, the Itonama
or San Miguel, the Mamore, Beni, and Mayutata or Madre de
Dios, all of which are reinforced by numerous secondary but
powerful affluents. The Guapore presents many difficulties
to continuous navigation; the Baures and Itonama offer
hundreds of miles of navigable waters through beautiful
plains; the Mamore has been sounded by the writer in the
driest month of the year for a distance of 500 m. above
Guajara-Merim, who found never less than from 10 to 30 ft.
of water, with a current of from 1 to 3 m. an hour. Its Rio
Grande branch, explored under the writer's instructions, was
found navigable for craft drawing 3 ft. of water to within
30 m. of Santa Cruz de la Sierra -- a level sandy plain
intervening. The Grande is a river of enormous length, rising
in a great valley of the Andes between the important cities
of Sucre and Cochabamba, and having its upper waters in
close touch with those of the Pilcomayo branch of the river
Paraguay. It makes a long curve through the mountains, and,
after a course of about 800 m., joins the Mamore near 15 deg. S.
lat. The Chapare, Secure and Chimore, tributaries of the
Mamore, are navigable for launches up to the base of the
mountains, to within 130 m. of Cochabamba. The Beni has a
12-ft. fall 18 m. above its mouth called ``La Esperanza'';
beyond this, it is navigable for 217 m. to the port of Reyes
for launches in the dry season and larger craft in the wet
one. The extreme source of the Beni is the little river La Paz,
which rises in the inter-Andean region, a few miles south-east
of Lake Titicaca, and flows as a rivulet through the Bolivian
city of La Paz. From this point to Reyes the river is a torrent.
The principal affluent of the Beni, and one which exceeds it in
volume, enters it 120 m. above its mouth, and is known to the
Indians along its banks as the Mayutata, but the Peruvians
call it the Madre de Dios. Its ramifications drain the
slopes of the Andes between 12 deg. and 15 deg. of latitude. It
is navigable in the wet season to within 180 m. of Cuzco.
Its upper waters are separated by only a short transitable
canoe portage of 7 m. in a straight line from those of the
Ucayali. The portage on the eastern side terminates at
the Cashpajah river 22 m. above its junction with the
Manu. For the first 13 m. it is navigable all the year
for craft drawing 18 in. of water, but the remaining 9 m.
present many obstacles to navigation. At the Manu junction
the elevation above sea-level is 1070 ft., the river width
300 ft., depth 8 ft., current 1 1/4 m. per hour. The general
direction of the Manu is south-east for 158 m. as far as the
Pilcopata river, where under the name of Madre de Dios it
continues with a flow of 22,000 cubic metres per minute.
Here its elevation is 718 ft. above the sea and its width 500
ft. During the above course of 158 m. the Manu receives 135
large and small affluents. Although the inclination of its bed
is not great, the obstacles to free navigation are abundant,
and consist of enormous trees and masses of tree-trunks
which have filled the river during the period of freshets.
From the time it receives the Manu, the Madre de Dios carries
its immense volume of waters 485 m. to the Beni over the
extremely easy slope of a vast and fertile plain. Its banks are
low, its bottom pebbly. A greater part of its course is filled
with large and small islands some 63 in number. Its average
width is about 1500 ft. Below the mouth of the Tambopata,
the flow is estimated at 191,250 cubic metres per minute. The
average current is 2 1/2 m. per hour. There are two important
rapids and one cataract on the lower 300 m. of the river.
The Mayutata receives three principal tributaries from
the south -- the Tambopata, Inambari and Pilcopata.
The Peruvian government has sought to open a trade route
between the Rio Ucayali and the rich rubber districts of the
Mayutata. All of the upper branches of the river Madeira find
their way to the falls across the open, almost level Mojos and
Beni plains, 35,000 sq. m. of which are yearly flooded to an
average depth of about 3 ft. for a period of from three to four
months. They rival if they do not exceed in fertility the
valley of the Nile, and are the healthiest and most inviting
agricultural and grazing region of the basin of the Amazon.
The PURUS, a very sluggish river, enters the Amazon west
of the Madeira, which it parallels as far south as the falls
of the latter stream. It runs through a continuous forest at
the bottom of the great depression lying between the Madeira
river, which skirts the edge of the Brazilian sandstone
plateau, and the Ucayali which hugs the base of the Andes.
One of its marked features is the five parallel furos1
which from the north-west at almost regular intervals the
Amazon sends to the Purus; the most south-westerly one
being about 150 m. above the mouth of the latter river.
They cut a great area of very low-lying country into five
islands. Farther down the Purfis to the right three smaller
furos also connect it with the Amazon. Chandless found its
elevation above sea-level to be only 107 ft. 590 m. from its
mouth. It is one of the most crooked streams in the world,
and its length in a straight line is less than half that by its
curves. It is practically only a drainage ditch for the
half-submerged, lake-flooded district it traverses. Its
width is very uniform for 1000 m. up, and for 800 m. its
depth is never less than 45 ft. It is navigable by steamers
for 1648 m. as far as the little stream, the Curumaha,
but only by light-draft craft. Chandless ascended it 1866
m. At 1792 m. it forks into two small streams. Occasionally
a cliff touches the river, but in general the lands are
subject to yearly inundations throughout its course, the
river rising at times above 50 ft., the numerous lakes
to the right and left serving as reservoirs. Its main
tributary, the Aquiry or Acre, enters from the right about
1104 m. from the Amazon. Its sources are near those of the
Mayutata. It is navigable for a period of about five months
of the year, when the Purus valley is inundated; and,
for the remaining seven months, only canoes can ascend it
sufficiently high to communicate overland with the settlements
in the great india-rubber districts of the Mayutata and
lower Beni; thus these regions are forced to seek a canoe
outlet for their rich products by the very dangerous,
costly and laborious route of the falls of the Madeira.
The JURUA is the next great southern affluent of the
Amazon west of the Purus, sharing with this the bottom
of the immense inland Amazon depression, and having all
the characteristics of the Purus as regards curvature,
sluggishness and general features of the low, half-flooded
forest country it traverses. It rises among the Ucayali
highlands, and is navigable and unobstructed for a
distance of 1133 m. above its junction with the Amazon.
The Javary, the boundary line between Brazil and Peru,
is another Amazon tributary of importance. It is supposed
to be navigable by canoe for 900 m. above its mouth to
its sources among the Ucayali highlands, but only 260 have
been found suitable for steam navigation. The Brazilian
Boundary Commission ascended it in 1866 to the junction
of the Shino with its Jaquirana branch. The country
it traverses in its extremely sinuous course is very
level, similar in character to that of the Jurua, and is
a fostered wilderness occupied by a few savage hordes.
The UCAYALI, which rises only about 70 m. north of Lake
Titicaca, is the most interesting branch of the Amazon next
to the Madeira. The Ucayali was first called the San Miguel,
then the Ucayali, Ucayare, Poro, Apu-Poro, Cocama and Rio de
Cuzco. Peru has fitted out many costly and ably-conducted
expeditions to explore it. One of them (1867) claimed to
have reached within 240 m. of Lima, and the little steamer
``Napo'' forced its way up the violent currents for 77 m.
above the junction with the Pachitea river as far as the river
Tambo, 770 m. from the confluence of the Ucayali with the
Amazon. The ``Napo'' then succeeded in ascending the
Urubamba branch of the Ucayali 35 m. above its union with the
Tambo, to a point 200 m. north of Cuzco. The remainder of
the Urubamba, as shown by Bosquet in 1806 and Castelnau in
1846, is interrupted by cascades, reefs and numberless other
obstacles to navigation. Senor Torres, who explored the
Alto Ucayali for the Peruvian government, gives it a length
of 186 m., counting from the mouth of the Pachitea to the
junction of the Tambo and Urubamba. Its width varies from
1300 to 4000 ft., due to the great number of islands. The
current runs from 3 to 4 m. an hour, and a channel from 60
to 150 ft. wide can always be found with a minimum depth of 5
ft. There are five bad passes, due to the accumulation of
trees and rafts of timber. Sometimes enormous rocks have
fallen from the mountains and spread over the river-bed causing
huge whirlpools. ``No greater difficulties present themselves
to navigation by 10-knot steamers drawing 4 ft. of water.''
The TAMBO, which rises in the Vilcanota knot of mountains
south of Cuzco, is a torrential stream valueless for commercial
purposes. The banks of the Ucayali for 500 m. up are
low, and in the rainy season extensively inundated.
The HUALLAGA (also known as the Guallaga and Rio de los
Motilones), which joins the Amazon to the west of the
Ucayali, rises high among the mountains, in about 10 deg. 40'
S. lat., on the northern slopes of the celebrated Cerro de
Pasco. For nearly its entire length it is an impetuous
torrent running through a succession of gorges. It has
forty-two rapids, its last obstruction being the Pongo de
Aguirre, so called from the traitor Aguirre who passed
there. To this point, 140 m. from the Amazon, the Huallaga
can be ascended by large river steamers. Between the Huallaga
and the Ucayali lies the famous ``Pampa del Sacramento,''
a level region of stoneless alluvial lands covered with
thick, dark forests, first entered by the missionaries in
1726. It is about 300 m. long, from north to south, and
varies in width from 40 to 100 m. Many streams, navigable
for canoes, penetrate this region from the Ucayali and the
Huallaga. It is still occupied by savage tribes.
The river MARANON rises about 100 m. to the north-east of
Lima. It flows through a deeply-eroded Andean valley in
a north-west direction, along the eastern base of the
Cordillera of the Andes, as far as 5 deg. 36' S. lat.; then it
makes a great bend to the north-east, and with irresistible
power cuts through the inland Andes, until at the Pongo de
Manseriche2 it victoriously breaks away from the mountains
to flow onwards through the plains under the name of the
Amazon. Barred by reefs, and full of rapids and impetuous
currents, it cannot become a commercial avenue. At the point
where it makes its great bend the river Chinchipe pours into
it from southern Ecuador. Just below this the mountains
close in on either side of the Marapon, forming narrows
or pongos for a length of 35 m., where, besides numerous
whirlpools, there are no less than thirty-five formidable
rapids, the series concluding with three cataracts just
before reaching the river Imasa or Chunchunga, near the
mouth of which La Condamine embarked in the 18th century to
descend the Amazon. Here the general level of the country
begins to decrease in elevation, with only a few mountain
spurs, which from time to time push as far as the river
and form pongos of minor importance and less dangerous to
descend. Finally, after passing the narrows of Guaracayo,
the cerros gradually disappear, and for a distance of about
20 m. the river is full of islands, and there is nothing
visible from its low banks but an immense forest-covered
plain. But the last barrier has yet to be passed, the Pongo
de Manseriche, 3 m. long, just below the mouth of the Rio
Santiago, and between it and the old abandoned missionary
station of Borja, in 38 deg. 30' S. lat. and 77 deg. 30' 40'' W.
long. According to Captain Carbajal, who descended it in
the little steamer ``Napo,' in 1868, it is a vast rent in
the Andes about 2000 ft. deep, narrowing in places to a
width of only 100 ft., the precipices ``seeming to close in
at the top.'' Through this dark canon the Maranon leaps
along, at times, at the rate of 12 m. an hour3. The Pongo
de Manseriche was first discovered by the Adelantado Joan de
Salinas. He fitted out an expedition at Loxa in Ecuador,
descended the Rio Santiago to the Maranon, passed through
the perilous Pongo in 1557 and invaded the country of the
Maynas Indians. Later, the missionaries of Cuenca and Quito
established many missions in the Pais de los Maynas, and
made extensive use of the Pongo de Manseriche as an avenue
of communication with their several convents on the Andean
plateau. According to their accounts, the huge rent in the
Andes, the Pongo, is about five or six m. long, and in places
not more than 80 ft. wide, and is a frightful series of torrents
and whirlpools interspersed with rocks. There is an ancient
tradition of the savages of the vicinity that one of their
gods descending the Maranon and another ascending the Amazon
to communicate with him, they opened the pass called the
Pongo de Manseriche. From the northern slope of its basin the
Amazon receives many tributaries, but their combined volume
of water is not nearly so great as that contributed to the
parent stream by its affluents from the south. That part of
Brazil lying between the Amazon and French, Dutch and British
Guiana, and bounded on the west by the Rio Negro, is known
as Brazilian Guiana. It is the southern watershed of a
tortuous, low chain of mountains running, roughly, east and
west. Their northern slope, which is occupied by the three
Guianas first named, is saturated and river-torn; but their
southern one, Brazilian Guiana, is in general thirsty and
semi-barren, and the driest region of the Amazon valley.
It is an area which has been left almost in the undisturbed
possession of nomadic Indian tribes, whose scanty numbers find
it difficult to solve the food problem. From the divortium
aquarum between French Guiana and Brazil, known as the
Tumuc-humac range of highlands, two minor streams, the Yary
and the Parou, reach the Amazon across the intervening broken
and barren tableland. They are full of rapids and reefs.
The TROMBETAS is the first river of importance we meet on
the northern side as we ascend the Amazon. Its confluence
with this is just above the town of Obidos. It has its
sources in the Guiana highlands, but its long course
is frequently interrupted by violent currents, rocky
barriers, and rapids. The inferior zone of the river,
as far up as the first fall, the Porteira, has but little
broken water and is low and swampy; but above the long
series of cataracts and rapids the character and aspect
of the valley completely change, and the climate is much
better. The river is navigable for 135 m. above its mouth.
The NEGRO, the great northern tributary of the Amazon,
has its sources along the watershed between the Orinoco
and the Amazon basins, and also connects with the Orinoco
by way of the Casiquiare canal. Its main affluent is the
Uaupes, which disputes with the headwaters of the Guaviari
branch of the Orinoco the drainage of the eastern slope of
the ``Oriental', Andes of Colombia. The Negro is navigable
for 450 m. above its mouth for 4 ft. of water in the dry
season, but it has many sandbanks and minor difficulties.
In the wet season, it overflows the country far and wide,
sometimes to a breadth of 20 m., for long distances, and
for 400 m. up, as far as Santa Isabella, is a succession of
lagoons, full of long islands and intricate channels, and the
slope of the country is so gentle that the river has almost no
current. But just before reaching the Uaupes there is a long
series of reefs, over which it violently flows in cataracts,
rapids and whirlpools. The Uaupes is full of similar
obstacles, some fifty rapids barring its navigation, although
a long stretch of its upper course is said to be free from
them, and to flow gently through a forested country. Despite
the impediments, canoes ascend this stream to the Andes.
The Branco is the principal affluent of the Negro from the
north; it is enriched by many streams from the sierras
which separate Venezuela and British Guiana from Brazil.
Its two upper main tributaries are the Urariquira and the
Takutu. The latter almost links its sources with those of the
Essequibo. The Branco flows nearly south, and finds its way
into the Negro through several channels and a chain of lagoons
similar to those of the latter river. It is 350 m. long, up to
its Urariquira confluence. It has numerous islands, and, 235
m. above its mouth, it is broken by a bad series of rapids.
CASIQUIARE CANAL. In 1744 the Jesuit Father Roman, while
ascending the Orinoco river, met some Portuguese slave-traders
from the settlements on the Rio Negro. He accompanied
them on their return, by way of the Casiquiare canal, and
afterwards retraced his route to the Orinoco. La Condamine,
seven months later, was able to give to the French Academy
an account of Father Roman's extraordinary voyage, and
thus confirm the existence of this wonderful waterway first
reported by Father Acuna in 1639. But little credence was
given to Father Roman's statement until it was verified, in
1756, by the Spanish Boundary-line Commission of Yturriaga y
Solano. The actual elevation of the canal above sea-level
is not known, but is of primary importance to the study of
the hydrography of South America. Travellers in general
give it at from 400 to 900 ft., but, after much study of the
question of altitudes throughout South America, the writer
believes that it does not exceed 300 ft. The canal connects
the upper Orinoco, 9 m. below the mission of Esmeraldas, with
the Rio Negro affluent of the Amazon near the town of San
Carlos. The general course is south-west, and its length,
including windings, is about 200 m. Its width, at its
bifurcation with the Orinoco, is approximately 300 ft., with a
current towards the Negro of three-quarters of a mile an hour;
but as it gains in volume from the very numerous tributary
streams, large and small, which it receives en route, its
velocity increases, and in the wet season reaches 5 and even
8 m. an hour in certain stretches. It broadens considerably
as it approaches its mouth, where it is about 1750 ft. in
width. It will thus be seen that the volume of water it
captures from the Orinoco is small in comparison to what
it accumulates in its course. In flood-time it is said to
have a second connexion with the Rio Negro by a branch which
it throws off to the westward called the Itinivini, which
leaves it at a point about 50 m. above its mouth. In the
dry season it has shallows, and is obstructed by sandbanks,
a few rapids and granite rocks. Its shores are densely
wooded, and the soil more fertile than that along the Rio
Negro. The general slope of the plains through which the
canal runs is south-west, but those of the Rio Negro slope
south-east. The whole line of the Casiquiare is infested
with myriads of tormenting insects. A few miserable groups
of Indians and half-breeds have their small villages along
its southern portion. It is thus seen that this marvellous
freak of nature is not, as is generally supposed, a sluggish
canal on a flat tableland, but a great, rapid river which,
if its upper waters had not found contact with the Orinoco,
perhaps by cutting back, would belong entirely to the Negro
branch of the Amazon. To the west of the Casiquiare there
is a much shorter and more facile connexion between the
Orinoco and Amazon basins, called the isthmus of Pimichin,
which is reached by ascending the Terni branch of the Atabapo
affluent of the Orinoco. Although the Terni is somewhat
obstructed, it is believed that it could easily be made
navigable for small craft. The isthmus is 10 m. across, with
undulating ground, nowhere over 50 ft. high, with swamps and
marshes. It is much used for the transit of large canoes,
which are hauled across it from the Terni river, and which
reach the Negro by the little stream called the Pimichin.
The YAPURA. West of the Negro the Amazon receives
three more imposing streams from the north-west -- the
Yapura, the Ica or Putumayo, and the Napo. The first
was formerly known as the Hyapora, but its Brazilian part
is now called the Yapura, and its Colombian portion the
Caqueta. Barao de Marajo gives it 600 m. of navigable
stretches. Jules Crevaux, who descended it, describes it as
full of obstacles to navigation, the current very strong and
the stream frequently interrupted by rapids and cataracts.
It rises in the Colombian Andes, nearly in touch with the
sources of the Magdalena, and augments its volume from many
branches as it courses through Colombia. It was long supposed
to have eight mouths; but Ribeiro de Sampaio, in his voyage of
1774, determined that there was but one real mouth, and that
the supposed others are all furos or canos4 In 1864-1868
the Brazilian government made a somewhat careful examination
of the Brazilian part of the river, as far up as the rapid of
Cupaty. Several very easy and almost complete water-routes
exist between the Yapura and Negro across the low, flat
intervening country. Barao de Marajo says there are six
of them, and one which connects the upper Yapura with the
Uaupes branch of the Negro; thus the Indian tribes of the
respective valleys have facile contact with each other.
The ICA or PUTUMAYO, west of and parallel to the Yapura,
was found more agreeable to navigate by Crevaux. He ascended
it in a steamer drawing 6 ft. of water, and running day and
night. He reached Cuemby, 800 m. above its mouth, without
finding a single rapid. Cuemby is only 200 m. from the
Pacific Ocean, in a straight line, passing through the
town of Pasto in southern Colombia. There was not a stone
to be seen up to the base of the Andes; the river banks
were of argillaceous earth and the bottom of fine sand.
The NAPO rises on the flanks of the volcanoes of Antisana,
Sincholagua and Cotopaxi. Before it reaches the plains it
receives a great number of small streams from impenetrable,
saturated and much broken mountainous districts, where the
dense and varied vegetation seems to fight for every square
foot of ground. From the north it is joined by the river
Coca, having its sources in the gorges of Cayambe on the
equator, and also a powerful river, the Aguarico, having
its headwaters between Cayambe and the Colombian frontier.
From the west it receives a secondary tributary, the Curaray,
from the Andean slopes, between Cotopaxi and the volcano of
Tunguragua. From its Coca branch to the mouth of the Curaray
the Napo is full of snags and shelving sandbanks, and throws
out numerous canos among jungle-tangled islands, which
in the wet season are flooded, giving the river an immense
width. From the Coca to the Amazon it runs through a forested
plain where not a hill is visible from the river -- its
uniformly level banks being only interrupted by swamps and
lagoons. From the Amazon the Napo is navigable for river
craft up to its Curaray branch, a distance of about 216 m.,
and perhaps a few miles farther; thence, by painful canoe
navigation, its upper waters may be ascended as far as Santa
Rosa, the usual point of embarkation for any venturesome
traveller who descends from the Quito tableland. The Coca
river may be penetrated as far up as its middle course, where
it is jammed between two mountain walls, in a deep canyon, along
which it dashes over high falls and numerous reefs. This is
the stream made famous by the expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro.
The NANAY is the next Amazon tributary of importance west
of the Napo. It belongs entirely to the lowlands, and is very
crooked, has a slow current and divides much into canos
and strings of lagoons which flood the flat, low areas of
country on either side. It is simply the drainage ditch
of districts which are extensively overflowed in the rainy
season. Captain Butt ascended it 195 m., to near its source.
The TIGRE is the next west of the Nanay, and is navigable for
125 m. from its confluence with the Amazon. Like the Nanay,
it belongs wholly to the plains. Its mouth is 42 m. west of
the junction of the Ucayali with the Amazon. Continuing west
from the Tigre we have the Parinari, Chambira, and Nucuray,
all short lowland streams, resembling the Nanay in character.
The PASTAZA (the ancient river Sumatara) is the next large
river we meet. It rises on the Ecuadorian tableland, where
a branch from the valley of Riobamba unites with one from
the Latacunga basin and breaks through the inland range
of the Andes; and joined, afterwards, by several important
tributaries, finds its way south-east among the gorges;
thence it turns southward into the plains, and enters the
Amazon at a point about 60 m. west of the mouth of the
Huallaga. So far as known, it is a stream of no value
except for canoe navigation. Its rise and fall are rapid
and uncertain, and it is shallow and full of sandbanks
and snags. It is a terrible river when in flood.
The MORONA flows parallel to the Pastaza and immediately to
the west of it, and is the last stream of any importance on
the northern side of the Amazon before reaching the Pongo de
Manseriche. It is formed from a multitude of water-courses
which descend the slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes south of
the gigantic volcano of Sangay; but it soon reaches the
plain, which commences where it receives its Cusulima
branch. The MORONA is navigable for small craft for about
300 m. above its mouth, but it is extremely tortuous. Canoes
may ascend many of its branches, especially the Cusuhma and
the Miazal, the latter almost to the base of Sangay. The
Morona has been the scene of many rude explorations, with
the hope of finding it serviceable as a commercial route
between the inter-Andean tableland of Ecuador and the Amazon
river. A river called the Paute dashes through the eastern
Andes from the valley of Cuenca; and a second, the Zamora,
has broken through the same range from the basin of Loja.
Swollen by their many affluents, they reach the lowlands
and unite their waters to form the Santiago, which flows
into the Maranon at the head of the Pongo de Manseriche.
There is but little known of a trustworthy character
regarding this river, but Wolf says that it is probably
navigable up to the junction of the Paute with the Zamora.
The Main River.
Physical characteristics.
The AMAZON MAIN RIVER is navigable for ocean steamers
as far as Iquitos, 2300 m. from the sea, and 486 m. higher
up for vessels drawing 14 ft. of water, as far as Achual
Point. Beyond that, according to Tucker, confirmed by
Wertheman, it is unsafe; but small steamers frequently
ascend to the Pongo de Manseriche, just above Achual Point
The average current of the Amazon is about 3 m. an hour;
but, especially in flood, it dashes through some of its
contracted channels at the rate of 5 m. The U.S. steamer
``Wilmington'' ascended it to Iquitos in 1899. Commander
Todd reports that the average depth of the river in the
height of the rainy season is 120 ft. It commences to rise
in November, and increases in volume until June, and then
falls until the end of October. The rise of the Negro branch
is not synchronous; for the steady rains do not commence
in its valley until February or March. By June it is full,
and then it begins to fall with the Amazon. According to
Bates, the Madeira ``rises and sinks'' two months earlier
than the Amazon. The Amazon at times broadens to 4 and 6
m. Occasionally, for long distances, it divides into two
main streams with inland, lateral channels, all connected
by a complicated system of natural canals, cutting the low,
flat igapo lands, which are never more than 15 ft. above
low river, into almost numberless islands.5 At the narrows
of Obidos, 400 m. from the sea, it is compressed into a
single bed a mile wide and over 200 ft. deep, through which
the water rushes at the rate of 4 to 5 m. an hour. In the
rainy season it inundates the country throughout its course
to the extent of several hundred thousand square miles,
covering the flood-plain, called vargem. The flood-levels
are in places from 40 to 50 ft. high above low river. Taking
four roughly equidistant places, the rise at Iquitos is 20
ft., at Teffe 45, near Obidos 35, and at Para 12 ft.
The first high land met in ascending the river is on the
north bank, opposite the mouth of the Xingu, and extends
for about 150 m. up, as far as Monte Alegre. It is a
series of steep, table-topped hills, cut down to a kind of
terrace which lies between them and the river. Monte Alegre
reaches an altitude of several hundred feet. On the south
side, above the Xingu, a line of low bluffs extends, in
a series of gentle curves with hardly any breaks nearly to
Santarem, but a considerable distance inland, bordering the
flood-plain, which is many miles wide. Then they bend to
the south-west, and, abutting upon the lower Tapajos, merge
into the bluffs which form the terrace margin of that river
valley. The next high land on the north side is Obidos, a
bluff, 56 ft. above the river, backed by low hills. From
Serpa, nearly opposite the river Madeira, to near the mouth of
the Rio Negro, the banks are low, until approaching Manaos,
they are rolling hills; but from the Negro, for 600 m. as
far up as the village of Canaria, at the great bend of the
Amazon, only very low land is found, resembling that at the
mouth of the river. Vast areas of it are submerged athigh
water, above which only the upper part of the trees of the
sombre forests appear. At Canaria, the high land commences
and continues as far as Tabatinga, and thence up stream.
On the south side, from the Tapajos to the river Madeira,
the banks are usually low, although two or three hills break
the general monotony. From the latter river, however, to
the Ucayali, a distance of nearly 1500 m., the forested
banks are just out of water, and are inundated long before
the river attains its maximum flood-line. Thence to the
Huallaga the elevation of the land is somewhat greater;
but not until this river is passed, and the Pongo de
Manseriche approached, does the swelling ground of the
Andean foot-hills raise the country above flood-level.
The Amazon is not a continuous incline, but probably consists
of long, level stretches connected by short inclined planes
of extremely little fall, sufficient, however, owing to
its great depth, to give the gigantic volume of water a
continuous impulse towards the ocean. The lower Amazon
presents every evidence of having once been an ocean
gulf, the upper waters of which washed the cliffs near
Obidos. Only about 10% of the water discharged by the
mighty stream enters it below Obidos, very little of which
is from the northern slope of the valley. The drainage area
of the Amazon basin above Obidos is about 1,945,000 sq.
m., and, below, only about 423,000 sq. m., or say 20%,
exclusive of the 554,000 sq. m. of the Tocantins basin.
The width of the mouth of the monarch river is usually measured
from Cabo do Norte to Punto Patijoca, a distance of 207
statute m.; but this includes the ocean outlet, 40 m. wide,
of the Para river, which should be deducted, as this stream
is only the lower reach of the Tocantins. It also includes
the ocean frontage of Marajo, an island about the size of
the kingdom of Denmark lying in the mouth of the Amazon.
Following the coast, a little to the north of Cabo do
Norte, and for 100 m. along its Guiana margin up the
Amazon, is a belt of half-submerged islands and shallow
sandbanks. Here the tidal phenomenon called the bore,
or Pororoca, occurs, where the soundings are not over 4
fathoms. It commences with a roar, constantly increasing,
and advances at the rate of from 10 to 15 m. an hour, with
a breaking wall of water from 5 to 12 ft. high. Under
such conditions of warfare between the ocean and the river,
it is not surprising that the former is rapidly eating
away the coast and that the vast volume of silt carried
by the Amazon finds it impossible to build up a delta.
The Amazon is not so much a river as it is a gigantic
reservoir, extending from the sea to the base of the Andes,
and, in the wet season, varying in width from 5 to 400
m. Special attention has already been called to the
fourteen great streams which discharge into this reservoir,
but it receives a multitude of secondary rivers, which in
any other part of the wodd would also be termed great.
Population, trace, &c.
For 350 years after the discovery of the Amazon, by Pinzon,
the Portuguese portion of its basin remained almost an
undisturbed wilderness, occupied by Indian tribes whom
the food quest had split into countless fragments. It is
doubtful if its indigenous inhabitants ever exceeded one
to every 5 sq. m. of territory, this being the maximum it
could support under the existing conditions of the period in
question, and taking into account Indian methods of life. A
few settlements on the banks of the main river and some of
its tributaries, either for trade with the Indians or for
evangelizing purposes, had been founded by the Portuguese
pioneers of European civilization. The total population of
the Brazilian portion of the Amazon basin in 1850 was perhaps
300,000, of whom about two-thirds were white and slaves,
the latter numbering about 25,000. The principal commercial
city, Para, had from 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants, including
slaves. The town of Manaos, at the mouth of the Rio Negro,
had from 1000 to 1500 population; but all the remaining
villages, as far up as Tabatinga, on the Brazilian frontier
of Peru, were wretched little groups of houses which
appeared to have timidly effected a lodgment on the river
bank, as if they feared to challenge the mysteries of the
sombre and gigantic forests behind them. The value of the
export and import trade of the whole valley in 1850 was but
On the 6th of September 1850 the emperor, Dom Pedro II.,
sanctioned a law authorizing steam navigation on the Amazon,
and confided to an illustrious Brazilian, Barao Maua (Irineu
Evangilista de Sousa), the task of carrying it into effect.
He organized the ``Compania de Navigacao e Commercio do
Amazonas'' at Rio de Janeiro in 1852; and in the following
year it commenced operations with three small steamers, the
``Monarch,'' the ``Marajo'' and ``Rio Negro.'' At first the
navigation was principally confined to the main river; and
even in 1857 a modification of the government contract only
obliged the company to a monthly service between Para and
Manaos, with steamers of 200 tons cargo capacity, a second
line to make six round voyages a year between Manaos and
Tabatinga, and a third, two trips a month between Para and
Cameta. The government paid the company a subvention of
L. 3935 monthly. Thus the first impulse of modern progress
was given to the dormant valley. The success of the venture
called attention to the unoccupied field; a second company
soon opened commerce on the Madeira, Purus and Negro; a
third established a line between Para and Manaos; and a
fourth found it profitable to navigate some of the smaller
streams; while, in the interval, the Amazonas Company
had largely increased its fine fleet. Meanwhile private
individuals were building and running small steam craft of
their own, not only upon the main river but upon many of its
affluents. The government of Brazil, constantly pressed
by the maritime powers and by the countries encircling the
upper Amazon basin, decreed, on the 31st of July 1867, the
opening of the Amazon to all flags; but limited this to
certain defined points -- Tabatinga, on the Amazon; Cameta,
on the Tocantins; Santarem, on the Tapajos; Borba, on the
Madeira; Manaos, on the Rio Negro; the decree to take effect
on the 7th of September of the same year. Para, Manaos
and Iquitos are now thriving commercial centres. The first
direct foreign trade with Manaos was commenced about 1874.
The local trade of the river is carried on by the English
successors to the Amazonas Company -- the Amazon Steam
Navigation Company. In addition to its excellent fleet there
are numerous small river steamers, belonging to companies
and firms engaged in the rubber trade, navigating the Negro,
Madeira, Purfis and many other streams. The principal exports
of the valley are india-rubber, cacao, Brazil nuts and a few
other products of very minor importance. The finest quality
of india-rubber comes from the Acre and Beni districts of
Bolivia, especially from the valley of the Acre (or Aquiry)
branch of the river Purus. Of the rubber production of the
Amazon basin, the state of Para gives about 35%. The cacao
tree is not cultivated, but grows wild in great abundance.
There is but one railway in the whole valley; it is a short
line from Para towards the coast. The cities of Para and
Manaos have excellent tramways, many fine public buildings
and private residences, gardens and public squares, all of
which give evidence of artistic taste and great prosperity.
The number of inhabitants in the Brazilian Amazon basin (the states
of Amazonas and Para) is purely a matter of rough estimate.
There may be 500,000 or 600,000, or more; for the immigration
during recent years from the other parts of Brazil has been
large, due to the rubber excitement. The influx from the state
of Ceara alone, from 1892 to 1899 inclusive, reached 98,348.
As Commander Todd, in his report to the United States
government, says: ``The crying need of the Amazon valley is
food for the people.... At the small towns along the river
it is nearly impossible to obtain beef, vegetables, or fruit
of any sort, and the inhabitants depend largely upon river
fish, mandioc, and canned goods for their subsistence.''
Although more than four centuries have passed since the
discovery of the Amazon river, there are probably not 25
sq. m. of its basin under cultivation, excluding the limited
and rudely cultivated areas among the mountains at its
extreme headwaters, which are inaccessible to commerce.
The extensive exports of the mighty valley are almost
entirely derived from the products of the forest. (G. E. C.)
1 A furo is a natural canal -- sometimes merely a deviation from
the main channel, which it ultimately rejoins, sometimes a connexion
across low flat country between two entirely separate streams.
2 Pongo is a corruption of the Quichua puncu and the
Aymara ponco, meaning a door. The Pongo de Manseriche
was first named Maranon, then Santiago, and later
Manseric, afterwards Mansariche and Manseriche, owing to
the great numbers of parrakeets found on the rocks there.
3 One of the most daring deeds of exoloration ever known in
South America was done by the engineer A. Wertheman. He fitted
out three rafts, in August 1870, and descended this whole
series of rapids and cascades from the Rio Chinchipe to Borja.
4 A cano, like furo, is a kind of natural canal; it
forms a lateral discharge for surplus water from a river.
5 Igapo is thus the name given to the recent alluvial
tracts along the margins of rivers, submerged by moderate
floods, whereas vargem is the term used for land between
the levels of moderate and high floods, while for land
above this the people use the term terra firma.
AMAZONAS, the extreme north-western and largest state of
Brazil, bounded N. by Colombia and Venezuela, E. by the state
of Para, S. by the state of Matto Grosso and Bolivia, and
W. by Peru and Colombia. It embraces an area of 742,123 sq.
m., wholly within the Amazon basin. A small part bordering
the Venezuelan sierras is elevated and mountainous, but
the greater part forms an immense alluvial plain, densely
wooded, traversed by innumerable rivers, and subjected to
extensive annual inundations. The climate is tropical and
generally unfavourable to white settlement, the exceptions
being the elevated localities on the Amazon exposed to
the strong winds blowing up that river. The state is
very sparsely populated; two-thirds of the inhabitants are
Indians, forming small tribes, and subject only in small
part to government control. The principal products are
rubber, cacao and nuts; cattle are raised on the elevated
plains of the north, while curing fish and collecting turtle
eggs for their oil give occupation to many people on the
rivers. Coffee, tobacco, rice and various fruits of superior
quality are produced with ease, but agriculture is neglected
and production is limited to domestic needs. The capital,
Manaos, is the only city and port of general commercial
importance in the state; other prominent towns are Serpa and
Teffe on the Amazon, Borba and Crato on the Madeira, and
Barcellos on the Rio Negro. Up to 1755 all the Portuguese
territory on the Amazon formed part of the capitania of
Para. The upper districts were then organized into a separate
capitania, called S. Jose do Rio Negro, to facilitate
administration. When Brazil became independent in 1822, Rio
Negro was overlooked in the reorganization into provinces
and reverted, notwithstanding the protests and an attempted
revolution (1832) of the people, to a state of dependence
upon Para. In 1850 autonomy was voted by the general
assembly at Rio de Janeiro, and on the 1st of January
1852 the province of Amazonas was formally installed. In
1389 it became a federal state in the Brazilian republic.
AMAZONAS, a northern department of Peru, covering a
mountainous district between the departments of Loreto and
Cajamarca, with Ecuador on the N. The Maranon river forms
the greater part of its W. boundary-line. Area, 13,943 sq.
m.; pop. (1896) 70,676. The rainfall is abundant, and the
soil of the heavily wooded valleys and lower mountain slopes
is exceptionally fertile and productive. Its settlement and
development is seriously impeded by the lack of transportation
facilities. The capital, Chachapoyas, is a small town
(pop. about 6000) situated on a tributary of the Maranon,
7600 ft. above sea-level. It is the seat of a bishopric,
created in 1802, which covers the departments of Amazonas and
Loreto, and one province of Libertad. It has an imposing
cathedral and a university. The climate is equable and
delightful, the mean temperature for the year being 62 deg. F.
AMAZONAS, a territory belonging to Venezuela, and occupying
the extreme southern part of that republic, adjoining the
Brazilian state of Amazonas. It lies partly within the drainage
basin of the Orinoco and partly within that of the Rio Negro,
an affluent of the Amazon. The territory is covered with
dense forests and is filled with intricate watercourses, one
of which, the Casiquiare, forms an open communication between
the Orinoco and the Rio Negro and is navigable for large
canoes. The capital of the territory is Maroa, situated
on the Guainia river, an affluent of the Rio Negro.
AMAZONS, an ancient legendary nation of female warriors.
They were said to have lived in Pontus near the shore of the
Euxine sea, where they formed an independent kingdom under
the government of a queen, the capital being Themiscyra on
the banks of the river Thermodon (Herodotus iv. 110-117).
From this centre they made numerous warlike excursions -- to
Scythia, Thrace, the coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of
the Aegean, even penetrating to Arabia, Syria and Egypt.
They were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them
Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, Paphos. According to another
account, they originally came to the Thermodon from the Palus
Maeotis (Sea of Azov). No men were permitted to reside in
their country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race
from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighbouring
tribe. The male children who were the result of these visits
were either put to death or sent back to their fathers;
the female were kept and brought up by their mothers, and
trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of
war (Strabo xi. p. 503). It is said that their right breast
was cut off or burnt out, in order that they might be able
to use the bow more freely; hence the ancient derivation of
'Amaxones from mafos, ``without breast.'' But there is
no indication of this practice in works of art, in which the
Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although
the right is frequently covered. Other suggested derivations
are: a (intensive) and mafos, breast, ``full-breasted'';
a (privative) and masso, touch, ``not touching men'';
maza, a Circassian word said to signify ``moon,'' has
suggested their connexion with the worship of a moon-
goddess, perhaps the Asiatic representative of Artemis.
The Amazons appear in connexion with several Greek legends.
They invaded Lycia, but were defeated by Bellerophon, who
was sent out against them by Iobates, the king of that
country, in the hope that he might meet his death at their
hands (Iliad, vi. 186). They attacked the Phrygians, who
were assisted by Priam, then a young man (Iliad, iii. 189),
although in his later years, towards the end of the Trojan
war, his old opponents took his side against the Greeks
under their queen Penthesileia, who was slain by Achilles
(Quint. Smyr. i.; Justin ii. 4; Virgil, Aen. i. 490).
One of the tasks imposed upon Heracles by Eurystheus was
to obtain possession of the girdle of the Amazonian queen
Hippolyte (Apollodorus ii. 5). He was accompanied by his friend
Theseus, who carried off the princess Antiope, sister of
Hippolyte, an incident which led to a retaliatory invasion of
Attica, in which Antiope perished fighting by the side of
Theseus. The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an
expedition against the island of Leuke, at the mouth of the
Danube, where the ashes of Achilles had been deposited by
Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero appeared and so
terrified the horses, that they threw and trampled upon
the invaders, who were forced to retire. They are heard
of in the time of Alexander the Great, when their queen
Thalestris visited him and became a mother by him, and Pompey
is said to have found them in the army of Mithradates.
The origin of the story of the Amazons has been the subject
of much discussion. While some regard them as a purely
mythical people, others assume an historical foundation for
them. The deities worshipped by them were Ares (who is
consistently assigned to them as a god of war, and as a god
of Thracian and generally northern origin) and Artemis,
not the usual Greek goddess of that name, but an Asiatic
deity in some respects her equivalent. It is conjectured
that the Amazons were originally the temple-servants and
priestesses (hierodulae) of this goddess; and that the
removal of the breast corresponded with the self-mutilation
of the galli, or priests, of Rhea Cybele. Another theory
is that, as the knowledge of geography extended, travellers
brought back reports of tribes ruled entirely by women,
who carried out the duties which elsewhere were regarded as
peculiar to man, in whom alone the rights of nobility and
inheritance were vested, and who had the supreme control of
affairs. Hence arose the belief in the Amazons as a nation
of female warriors, organized and governed entirely by
women. According to J. Vurtheim (De Ajacis origine,
1907), the Amazons were of Greek origin: ``all the Amazons
were Dianas, as Diana herself was an Amazon.'' It has been
suggested that the fact of the conquest of the Amazons
being assigned to the two famous heroes of Greek mythology,
Heracles and Theseus -- who in the tasks assigned to them
were generally opposed to monsters and beings impossible in
themselves, but possible as illustrations of permanent danger
and damage, -- shows that they were mythical illustrations
of the dangers which beset the Greeks on the coasts of
Asia Minor; rather perhaps, it may be intended to represent
the conflict between the Greek culture of the colonies on
the Euxine and the barbarism of the native inhabitants.
In works of art, combats between Amazons and Greeks are
placed on the same level as and often associated with combats
of Greeks and centaurs. The belief in their existence,
however, having been once accepted and introduced into the
national poetry and art, it became necessary to surround
them as far as possible with the appearance of not unnatural
beings. Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the
bow, spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a
crescent, called pelta, and in early art a helmet, the
model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess
Athena. In later art they approach the model of Artemis,
wearing a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on the
later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian
-- that is, close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the
kidaris. They were usually on horseback but sometimes on
foot. The battle between Theseus and the Amazons is a
favourite subject on the friezes of temples (e.g. the
reliefs from the frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae,
now in the British Museum), vases and sarcophagus reliefs;
at Athens it was represented on the shield of the statue of
Athena Parthenos, on wall-paintings in the Theseum and in the
Poikile Stoa. Many of the sculptors of antiquity, including
Pheidias, Polyclitus, Cresilas and Phradmon, executed statues
of Amazons; and there are many existing reproductions of these.
The history of Bohemia affords a parallel to the Greek
Amazons. During the 8th century a large band of women, under
a certain Vlasta, carried on war against the duke of Bohemia,
and enslaved or put to death all men who fell into their
hands. In the 16th century the Spanish explorer Orellana
asserted that he had come into conflict with fighting women in
South America on the river Maranon, which was named after them
the Amazon (q.v.) or river of the Amazons, although others
derive its name from the Indian amassona (boat-destroyer),
applied to the tidal phenomenon known as the ``bore.'' The
existence of ``Amazons'' (in the sense of fighting women)
in the army of Dahomey in modern times is an undoubted
fact, but they are said to have died out during the French
protectorate. For notable cases of women who have become soldiers,
reference may be made to Mary Anne Talbot and Hannah Snell.
See A. D. Mordtmann, Die Amazonen (1862); W. Stricker,
Die A. in Sage und Geschichte (1868); A. Klugmann, Die
A. in der attischen Literatur und Kunst (1875); H. L.
Krause, Die Amazonensage (1893); F. G. Bergmann, Les
Amazones dans l'histoire et dans la fable (1853); P.
Lacour, Les Amazones (1901); articles in Pauly- Wissowa's
Realencyclopadie and Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie;
Grote, Hist. of Greece, pt. i. ch. 11. In article GREEK
ART, fig. 40 represents three types of Amazons, and
fig. 70 (pl. iv.) a battle between Amazons and Greeks.
AMAZON-STONE, or AMAZONITE, a green variety of microcline-
felspar. The name is taken from that of the river Amazon,
whence certain green stones were formedy obtained, but it
is doubtful whether green felspar occurs in the Amazon
district. The modern amazon-stone is a mineral of restricted
occurrence. Formerly it was obtained almost exclusively
from the neighbourhood of Miyask, in the Ilmen mountains, 50
m. S.W. of Chehabinsk, Russia, where it occurs in granitic
rocks. Of late years, magnificent crystals have been obtained
from Pike's Peak, Colorado, where it is found associated with
smoky quartz, orthoclase and albite in a coarse granite or
pegmatite. Some other localities in the United States
yield amazon-stone, and it is also found in pegmatite in
Madagascar. On account of its lively green colour, it
is cut and polished to a limited extent as an ornamental
stone. The colour has been attributed to the presence
of copper, but as it is discharged by heat it is likely
to be due to some pigment of organic origin, and an organic
salt of iron has been suggested. (See MICROCLINE.)
AMBARVALIA, an annual festival of the ancient Romans,
occurring in May, usually on the 29th, the object of which
was to secure the growing crops against harm of all kinds.
The priests were the Arval Brothers (q.v.), who conducted
the victims -- ox, sheep and pig (suovetaurilia) -- in
procession with prayer to Ceres round the boundaries of the ager
Romanus. As the extent of Roman land increased, this could
no longer be done, and in the Acta of the Fratres, which
date from Augustus, we do not find this procession mentioned
(Henzen, Acta Fratrum Arvalium, 1874); but there is a good
description of this or a similar rite in Virgil, Georg. i.
338 ff., and in Cato's work de Re Rustica (141) we have full
details and the text of the prayers used by the Latin farmer
in thus ``lustrating'' his own land. In this last case the
god invoked is Mars. The Christian festival which seems to
have taken the place of these ceremonies is the Rogation or
Gang week of the Roman Church. The perambulation or beatinc
of bounds is probably a survival of the same type of rite.
See W. W. Fowler, Roman Festivals (1899), p. 124 ff.
(W. W. F.*)
AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used
in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare
Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of
the Med. Lat. ambasciator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c.,
derived from Med. Lat. ambasciare or ambactiare, ``to
go on a mission, to do or say anything in another's name,''
from Lat. ambactus,1 a vassal or servant; see Du Cange,
Glossarium, s.v. ambasciare), a public minister of the first
rank, accredited and sent by the head of a sovereign state
as his personal representative to negotiate with a foreign
government, and to watch over the interests of his own nation
abroad. The power thus conferred is defined in the credentials
or letters of credence of which the ambassador is the bearer,
and in the instructions under the sign-manual delivered to
him. The credentials consist of a sealed letter addressed
by the sovereign whom the ambassador represents to the
sovereign to whom he is accredited, and they embody a general
assurance that the sovereign by whom the ambassador is
sent will confirm whatever is done by the ambassador in his
name. In Great Britain letters of credence are under
the royal sign-manual, and are not countersigned by a
minister. Ambassadors are distinguished as ordinary and
extraordinary, which implied originally the difference between
a permanent mission and one appointed to conduct a particular
negotiation. The style of ambassador extraordinary is,
however, now often given to a minister accredited to a court for
an indefinite time and implies a somewhat more dignified rank.
By the protocol of the 19th of March 1815, afterwards embodied
in the treaty of Vienna (1815) and confirmed by an instrument
signed by the five great powers at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 21st
of November 1818, it was finally determined that ``ambassadors
and papal legates and nuncios alone have a representative
character,'' i.e. in the most exalted and peculiar sense,
as representing the person of the sovereign, or the head of
a republic, as well as the state to which they belong. It
follows that only states enjoying ``royal honours,'' i.e.
empires, kingdoms, grand duchies, the great republics (e.g.
France, Switzerland, the United States of America) and the
Holy See, have the right to send or to receive ambassadors.
By custom it has moreover been established that, as a general
rule, only the greater ``royal states'' are represented by
ambassadors, and then only when these are accredited to
states esteemed, for one reason or another. to be of equal
rank. Thus the promotion of the Japanese legations in Europe
and the United States to the rank of embassies, and the
corresponding change in the representation of the various
powers at Tokio, marked in 1905 the definite recognition
of Japan as a great power. To this rule the United States
of America long remained an exception, and was content,
in accordance with the tradition of republican simplicity,
to be represented abroad only by ministers of the second
rank. The subordinate position given to the representatives
of so great a power, however, inevitably led to many
inconveniences, and in 1893 an act of Congress empowered
the president to accredit ambassadors to the great powers.
The distinction between an ambassador and ministers of the
second rank is one rather of rank and dignity than of power or
functions. His special immunities he shares with other
diplomatic representatives of all classes. The peculiar
privilege which he claims of free access to the sovereign
has, in common practice, been reduced to the right of being
received on presenting his credentials in public or private
audience by the sovereign in person, it being obviously
against public policy that a foreign representative should
negotiate with the ruler otherwise than through his responsible
ministers. In Great Britain the sovereign, when granting an
audience to a foreign ambassador, is always attended by one
or more ministers, and the same is usual in other states.
An ambassador, however, unless specially armed with plenary
authority, cannot decide any questions beyond his instructions
without reference to his government. Thus Lord Londonderry
(Lord Stewart), who represented Great Britain at the
conferences of Troppau in 1820 and Laibach in 1821, had
not the same standing as the plenipotentiaries of the other
powers present, and efforts were even made to exclude him
from some of the more important discussions in consequence,
not on the ground of inferior rank but of defective powers.
Socially, the position of an ambassador is one of great
dignity. The pomp and magnificence which in earlier days
characterized his progresses and his ``entries'' are
indeed no longer observed. He is received, however, by the
sovereign to whom he is accredited with elaborate state,
of which every detail is minutely regulated, and ranks, as
representing his own sovereign, next to the princes of the
blood in the court where he resides. The controversies
that once raged as to the order of precedence of the various
ambassadors accredited to any one court were settled by
the treaties already mentioned, it being decided that they
should rank in order of seniority according to the date of
the presentation of their credentials. In Roman Catholic
countries, however -- as in France before the abrogation
of the concordat, -- the position of doyen (dean) of the
diplomatic body is given by courtesy to the nuncio of the pope.
The special immunities and privileges enjoyed by ambassadors
are dealt with in the articles EXTERRITORIALITY and
DIPLOMACY. See also the latter for the history of the subject.
The most authoritative modern hand-book on the subject is Charles
de Martens, Manuel diplomatlque (Paris, 1822; new ed., 1868).
See also Henry Wheaton, Hist. of the Law of Nations (New York,
1845); L. Oppenheim, International Law (London, 1905); and the
list of books attached to the article DIPLOMACY. (W. A. P.)
1 Ambactus is explained by Festus (Paulus Diaconus ex
Festo, ed. C. O. Muller) as a Gallic word used by Ennius
and meaning servus. Caesar (De Bello Gallico, vi. 15)
says of the Gallic equites, ``atque eorum ut quisque est
genere copiisque amplissimus, plurimos circum se ambactos
clientesque habent.'' Accepting the Celtic origin of the word,
it has been connected with the Welsh amaeth, a tiller of the
ground. A Teutonic origin has been suggested in the Old High
Ger. ambaht, a retainer, which appears in a Scandinavian
word amboht, bondwoman or maid, in the Ormulum (c. 1200).
AMRATO, or ASIENTO DE AMBATO, an inland town of Ecuador,
capital of the province of Tunguragua, 80 m. S. of Quito by
the highway, and near the northern foot of Chimborazo. Pop.
(est.) 10,000. The town stands in a bowl-like depression,
8606 ft. above sea-level, surrounded by steep, sandy, barren
mountains, and has an equable climate, which has been likened
to a perpetual autumn. The immediate environs are very fertile
and produce a great variety of fruits, including many of
the temperate zone, but the surrounding country is arid and
sterile, producing scanty crops of barley, Indian corn and
pease. The cochineal insect is found on the cactus which
grows in abundance in the vicinity, and the town is known
throughout Ecuador for its manufacture of boots and shoes,
and for a cordage made from cabuya, the fibre of the agave
plant. Ambato was destroyed by an eruption of Cotopaxi in 1698,
and has been badly damaged two or three times by earthquakes.
AMBATO is also the name of a range of mountains in
northern Argentina, being a spur of the Sierra de Aconquija
crossing the province of Catamarca from north to south.
AMBER, a ruined city of India, the ancient capital of Jaipur
state in the Rajputana agency. The name of Amber is first
mentioned by Ptolemy. It was founded by the Minas and was
still flourishing in A.D. 967. In 1037 it was taken by the
Rajputs, who held it till it was deserted. In 1728 it was
supplanted by the modern city of Jaipur, from which it is 5 m.
distant. The picturesque situation of Amber at the mouth
of a rocky mountain gorge, in which nestles a lovely lake,
has attracted the admiration of all travellers, including
Jacquemont and Heber. It is now only remarkable for its
architecture. The old palace begun by Man Sing in 1600 ranks
second only to Gwalior. The chief building is the Diwan-i-Khas
built by Mirza Raja. ``No sooner,'' (it is related) ``had
Mirza completed the Diwan-i-Khas than it came to the ears
of the emperor Jehangir that his vassal had surpassed him in
magnificence, and that this last great work quite eclipsed
all the marvels of the imperial city; the columns of red
sandstone having been particularly noticed as sculptured with
exquisite taste and elaborate detail. In a fit of jealousy
the emperor commanded that this masterpiece should be thrown
down, and sent commissioners to Amber charged with the
execution of this order; whereupon Mirza, in order to save
the structure, had the columns plastered over with stucco,
so that the messengers from Agra should have to acknowledge
to the emperor that the magnificence, which had been so
much talked of, was after all pure invention. Since then
his apathetic successors have neglected to bring to light
this splendid work; and it is only by knocking off some of
the plaster that one can get a glimpse of the sculptures,
which are perfect as on the day they were carved.''
AMBER, a fossil resin much used for the manufacture of
ornamental objects. The name comes from the Arab. anbar,
probably through the Spanish, but this word referred originally
to ambergris, which is an animal substance quite distinct
from yellow amber. True amber has sometimes been called
karabe, a word of oriental derivation signifying ``that
which attracts straw,'' in allusion to the power which amber
possesses of acquiring an electric charge by friction. This
property, first recorded by Thales of Miletus, suggested the
word ``electricity,'' from the Greek, elektron, a name
applied, however, not only to amber but also to an alloy
of gold and silver. By Latin writers amber is variously
called electrum, sucinum (succinum), and glaesum or
glesum. The Hebrew hashmal seems to have been amber.
Amber is not homogeneous in composition, but consists of several
resinous bodies more or less soluble in alcohol, ether and
chloroform, associated with an insoluble bituminous substance.
The average composition of amber leads to the general formula
C10H16O. Heated rather below 300 deg. C. amber suffers
decomposition, yielding an ``oil of amber,'' and leaving a
black residue which is known as ``amber colophony,'' or ``amber
pitch''; this forms, when dissolved in oil of turpentine
or in linseed oil, ``amber varnish'' or ``amber lac.''
True amber yields on dry distillation succinic acid, the
proportion varying from about 3 to 8%, and being greatest
in the pale opaque or ``bony'' varieties. The aromatic
and irritating fumes emitted by burning amber are mainly
due to this acid. True Baltic amber is distinguished by its
yield of succinic acid, for many of the other fossil resins
which are often termed amber contain either none of it, or
only a very small proportion; hence the name ``succinite''
proposed by Professor J. D. Dana, and now commonly used
in scientific writings as a specific term for the real
Prussian amber. Succinite has a hardness between 2 and
3, which is rather greater than that of many other fossil
resins. Its specific gravity varies from 1.05 to 1.10.
The Baltic amber or succinite is found as irregular nodules in
a marine glauconitic sand, known as ``blue earth,'' occurring
in the Lower Oligocene strata of Samland in East Prussia,
where it is now systematically mined. It appears, however,
to have been partly derived from yet earlier Tertiary deposits
(Eocene); and it occurs also as a derivative mineral in later
formations, such as the drift. Relics of an abundant flora
occur in association with the amber, suggesting relations with
the flora of Eastern . Asia and the southern part of North
America. H. R. Goppert named the common amber-yielding pine
of the Baltic forests Pinites succiniter, but as the wood,
according to some authorities, does not seem to differ from
that of the existing genus it has been also called Pinius
succinifera. It is improbable, however, that the production
of amber was limited to a single species; and indeed a large
number of conifers belonging to different genera are represented
in the amber-flora. The resin contains, in addition to the
beautifully preserved plant-structures, numerous remains of
insects, spiders, annelids, crustaceans and other small
organisms which became enveloped while the exudation was
fluid. In most cases the organic structure has disappeared,
leaving only a cavity, with perhaps a trace of chitin. Even
hair and feathers have occasionally been represented among the
enclosures. Fragments of wood not infrequently occur, with the
tissues well-preserved by impregnation with the resin; while
leaves, flowers and fruits are occasionally found in marvellous
perfection. Sometimes the amber retains the form of drops and
stalactites, just as it exuded from the ducts and receptacles
of the injured trees. The abnormal development of resin has
been called ``succinosis.'' Impurities are often present,
especially when the resin dropped on to the ground, so that
the material may be useless except for varnish-making, whence
the impure amber is called firniss. Enclosures of pyrites
may give a bluish colour to amber. The so-called ``black
amber'' is only a kind of jet. ``Bony amber'' owes its cloudy
opacity to minute bubbles in the interior of the resin.
Although amber is found along the shores of a large part
of the Baltic and the North Sea, the great amber-producing
country is the promontory of Samland. Pieces of amber torn
from the sea-floor are cast up by the waves, and collected at
ebb-tide. Sometimes the searchers wade into the sea, furnished
with nets at the end of long poles, by means of which they
drag in the sea-weed containing entangled masses of amber;
or they dredge from boats in shallow water and rake up amber
from between the boulders. Divers have been employed to
collect amber from the deeper waters. Systematic dredging on
a large scale was at one time carried on in the Kurisches Haff
by Messrs Stantien and Becker, the great amber merchants of
Konigsberg. At the present time extensive mining operations
are conducted in quest of amber. The ``pit amber'' was formerly
dug in open works, but is now also worked by underground
galleries. The nodules from the ``blue earth'' have to
be freed from matrix and divested of their opaque crust,
which can be done in revolving barrels containing sand and
water. The sea-worn amber has lost its crust, but has
often acquired a dull rough surface by rolling in sand.
Amber is extensively used for beads and other trivial ornaments,
and for cigar-holders and the mouth-pieces of pipes. It is
regarded by the Turks as specially valuable, inasmuch as it
is said to be incapable of transmitting infection as the pipe
passes from mouth to mouth. The variety most valued in the
East is the pale straw-coloured, slightly cloudy amber. Some
of the best qualities are sent to Vienna for the manufacture
of smoking appliances. In working amber, it is turned on the
lathe and polished with whitening and water or with rotten
stone and oil, the final lustre being given by friction with
flannel. During the working much electricity is developed.
By gradually heating amber in an oil-bath it becomes soft and
flexible. Two pieces of amber may be united by smearing the
surfaces with linseed oil, heating them, and then pressing
them together while hot. Cloudy amber may be clarified in
an oil-bath, as the oil fills the numerous pores to which
the turbidity is due. Small fragments, formerly thrown away
or used only for varnish, are now utilized on a large scale
in the formation of ``ambroid'' or ``pressed amber.'' The
pieces are carefully heated with exclusion of air and then
compressed into a uniform mass by intense hydraulic pressure;
the softened amber being forced through holes in a metal
plate. The product is extensively used for the production
of cheap jewellery and articles for smoking. This pressed
amber yields brilliant interference colours in polarized
light. Amber has often been imitated by other resins
like copal and kauri, as well as by celluloid and even
glass. True amber is sometimes coloured artificially.
Amber was much valued as an ornamental material in very early
times. It has been found in Mycenaean tombs; it is known
from lake-dwellings in Switzerland, and it occurs with
neolithic remains in Denmark, whilst in England it is found
with interments of the bronze age. A remarkably fine cup
turned in amber from a bronze-age barrow at Hove is now in
the Brighton Museum. Beads of amber occur with Anglo-Saxon
relics in the south of England; and up to a comparatively
recent period the material was valued as an amulet. It
is still believed to possess certain medicinal virtue.
Rolled pieces of amber, usually small but occasionally of
very large size, may be picked up on the east coast of
England, having probably been washed up from deposits under
the North Sea. Cromer is the best-known locality, but it
occurs also on other parts of the Norfolk coast, as well as
at Yarmouth, Southwold, Aldeburgh and Felixstowe in Suffolk,
and as far south as Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, whilst
northwards it is not unknown in Yorkshire. On the other
side of the North Sea, amber is found at various localities
on the coast of Holland and Denmark. On the shores of the
Baltic it occurs not only on the Prussian and Pomeranian
coast but in the south of Sweden, in Bornholm and other
islands, and in S. Finland. Amber has indeed a very wide
distribution, extending over a large part of northern Europe
and occurring as far east as the Urals. Some of the amber
districts of the Baltic and North Sea were known in prehistoric
times, and led to early trade with the south of Europe.
Amber was carried to Olbia on the Black Sea, Massilia on the
Mediterranean, and Hatria at the head of the Adriatic; and
from these centres it was distributed over the Hellenic world.
Whilst succinite is the common variety of European
amber, the following varieties also occur: --
Gedanite, or ``brittle amber,'' closely resembling succinite,
but much more brittle, not quite so hard, with a lower
melting- point and containing no succinic acid. It is
often covered with a white powder easily removed by wiping.
The name comes from Gedanum, the Latin name of Danzig.
Stantienite, a brittle, deep brownish-black
resin, destitute of succinic acid.
Beckerite, a rare amber in earthy-brown nodules, almost
opaque, said to be related in properties to gutta-percha.
Glessite, a nearly opaque brown resin, with numerous microscopic cavities
and dusty enclosures, named from glesum, an old name for amber.
Krantzite, a soft amber-like resin, found in the lignites of Saxony.
Allingite, a fossil resin allied to succinite, from Switzerland.
Roumanite, or Rumanian amber, a dark reddish resin, occurring
with lignite in Tertiary deposits. The nodules are penetrated
by cracks, but the material can be worked on the lathe.
Sulphur is present to the extent of more than 1%, whence the
smell of sulphuretted hydrogen when the resin is heated.
According to G. Murgoci the Rumanian amber is true succinite.
Simetite, or Sicilian amber, takes its name from the river
Simeto or Giaretta. It occurs in Miocene deposits and
is also found washed up by the sea near Catania. This
beautiful material presents a great diversity of tints, but
a rich hyacinth red is common. It is remarkable for its
fluorescence, which in the opinion of some authorities adds
to its beauty. Amber is also found in many localities in
Emilia, especially near the sulphur-mines of Cesena. It
has been conjectured that the ancient Etruscan ornaments
in amber were wrought in the Italian material, but it
seems that amber from the Baltic reached the Etruscans at
Hatria. It has even been supposed that amber passed from
Sicily to northern Europe in early times -- a supposition said
to receive some support from the fact that much of the amber
dug up in Denmark is red; but it must not be forgotten that
reddish amber is found also on the Baltic, though not being
fashionable it is used rather for varnish-making than for
ornaments. Moreover, yellow amber after long burial is
apt to acquire a reddish colour. The amber of Sicily seems
not to have been recognized in ancient times, for it is
not mentioned by local authorities like Diodorus Siculus.
Burmite is the name under which the Burmese amber is now
described. Until the British occupation of Burma but little
was known as to its occurrence, though it had been worked for
centuries and was highly valued by the natives and by the
Chinese. It is found in fiat rolled pieces, irregularly
distributed through a blue clay probably of Miocene age. It
occurs in the Hukawng valley, in the Nangotaimaw hills, where
it is irregularly worked in shallow pits. The mines were
visited some years ago by Dr Fritz Noetling, and the mineral
has been described by Dr Otto Helm. The Burmese amber is yellow
or reddish, some being of ruby tint, and like the Sicilian
amber it is fluorescent. Burmite and simetite agree also in
being destitute of succinic acid. Most of the Burmese amber
is worked at Mandalay into rosary-beads and ear-cylinders.
Many other fossil resins more or less allied to amber
have been described. Schraufite is a reddish resin from
the Carpathian sandstone, and it occurs with jet in the
cretaceous rocks of the Lebanon; ambrite is a resin found
in many of the coals of New Zealand; retinite occurs in
the lignite of Bovey Tracey in Devonshire and elsewhere;
whilst copaline has been found in the London clay of
Highgate in North London. Chemawinite or cedarite is an
amber-like resin from the Saskatchewan river in Canada.
Amber and certain similar substances are found to a
limited extent at several localities in the United
States, as in the green- sand of New Jersey, but they
have little or no economic value. A fluorescent amber is
said, however, to occur in some abundance in Southern
Mexico. Amber is recorded also from the Dominican Republic.
REPERENCES. -- See, for Baltic amber, P. Dahms, ``Ueber
die Vorkommen und die Verwendung des Bernsteins,'' Zeitsch.
fur praktische Geologic, 1901, p. 201; H. Conwentz,
Monographic der baltischen Bernsteinbaume (Danzig, 1890);
R. Klebs, Guide to Exhibit of the German Amber Industry
at World's Fair (St Louis, 1904); and abstract by G. F. Kunz
in Mineral Resources of the U. S. (1904). U. or Sicilian
amber, W. Arnold Bullum, The Tears of the Helialdes, or
Amber as a Gem (London, 1896). For Burmese amber, papers
by Fritz Noetling and Otto Helm in Records of Geol. Surv.
of India, vol. xxvi. (1893), pp. 31, 61. For British
amber, Clement Reid in Trans. Norfolk Nat. Soc., vol. iii.
(1884) p. 601; vol. iv. (1886) p. 247; and H. Conwentz in
Natural Science, vol. ix. (1896) pp. 99, 161. (F. W. R.*)
AMBERG, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria,
formerly the capital of the Upper Palatinate, situated
on both sides of the Vils, 42 m. E. of Nuremberg by
rail. Pop. 22,089. It has a town hall with handsome rooms,
a library, a gymnasium, a lyceum, elementary schools, an
arsenal, and eleven churches, the finest of which is St
Martin's, of the 15th century, with many excellent paintings
and a tower 300 ft. high. A former Jesuit monastery is
now used for a grammar school and seminary. There are
also a pilgrimage church on a hill 1621 ft. high, a large
convict prison for men, an industrial, commercial and other
schools. The principal manufactures are firearms, ironmongery,
earthenware, woollen cloth, beer, stoneware, zinc goods,
colours and salt; in the neighbourhood are iron and coal
mines. The French under Jourdan were defeated by the
Austrians under the Archduke Charles near Amberg in 1796.
AMBERGRIS (Ambra grisea, Ambre gris, or grey amber),
a solid, fatty, inflammable substance of a dull grey or
blackish colour, the shades being variegated like marble,
possessing a peculiar sweet, earthy odour. It occurs as
a biliary concretion in the intestines of the spermaceti
whale (Physeter macrocephalus), and is found floating
upon the sea, on the sea-coast, or in the sand near the
sea-coast. It is met with in the Atlantic Ocean; on the
coasts of Brazil and Madagascar; also on the coast of Africa,
of the East Indies, China, Japan and the Molucca islands;
but most of the ambergris which is brought to England comes
from the Bahama Islands, Providence, &c. It is also sometimes
found in the abdomen of whales, always in lumps of various
shapes and sizes, weighing from 1/2 oz. to 100 or more
pounds. Ambergris, when taken from the intestinal canal of
the sperm whale, is of a deep grey colour, soft consistence
and a disagreeable smell. On exposure to the air it
gradually hardens, becomes pale and develops its peculiar
sweet, earthy odour. In that condition its specific gravity
ranges from 0.780 to 0.926. It melts at about 62 deg. C. to a
fatty, yellow resinous-like liquid; and at 100 deg. C. it is
volatilized into a white vapour. It is soluble in ether,
and in volatile and fixed oils; it is only feebly acted on by
acids. By digesting in hot alcohol, a substance termed
ambrein, closely resembling cholesterin, is obtained,
which separates in brilliant white crystals as the solution
cools. The use of ambergris in Europe is now entirely confined
to perfumery, though it formerly occupied no inconsiderable
place in medicine. In minute quantities its alcoholic solution
is much used for giving a ``floral'' fragrance to bouquets,
washes and other preparations of the perfumer. It occupies a
very important place in the perfumery of the East, and there
it is also used in pharmacy and as a flavouring material in
cookery. The high price it commands makes it peculiarly
liable to adulteration, but its genuineness is easily tested
by its solubility in hot alcohol, its fragrant odour, and its
uniform fatty consistence on being penetrated by a hot wire.
AMBERT, a town of central France, capital of an
arrondissement of the department of Puy-de-Dome, on the
Dore, 52 m. E.S.E. of Clermont-Ferrand by rail. Pop. (1906),
town, 3889; commune, 7581. The town has a church of the
15th and 16th centuries and carries on the manufacture of
paper, lace, ribbon, rosaries, &c., and trade in cheese.
It is the seat of a sub-prefect, and the public institutions
include tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a
chamber of arts and manufactures, and a communal college.
AMBIENT (from Lat. ambi, on both sides, and ire, to go),
surrounding; a word implying a moving rather than a stationary
encircling. It is used mostly in the phrase the ``ambient
air,'' though Bacon applied it as an adjective to the clergy,
suggesting ``ambition.'' In astrology it means the sky.
AMBIGU, a French game of cards, composed of the characteristic
elements of whist, bouillotte and piquet. A whist pack with
the court cards deleted is used, and from two to six persons may
play. Each player is given an equal number of counters,
and a limit of betting is agreed upon. Two cards are dealt,
one at a time, to each player, after each has placed two
counters in a pool. Each player then either keeps his
hand, saying ``Enough,'' or takes one or two new cards from
the top of the stock, after which the stock is reshuffled
and cut, and each player receives two more cards, one at a
time. The players then either ``play'' or ``pass.'' If a
person ``plays,'' he bets a number of counters and the others
may equal this bet or raise it. Should no player meet the
first bet, the bettor takes back his bet, leaving the pool
intact, and receives two counters from the last player who
refuses to play. When two or more bet the same number, they
again draw cards and ``pass'' or ``play'' as before. If
all ``pass,'' each pays a counter to the pool and a new deal
ensues. The player betting more than the others call wins the
pool. He then exposes his hand and is paid by each adversary
according to its value. The hands rank as follows: --
``Point,'' the number Of pips on two or more cards of a suit
(one counter). ``Prime,'' four cards of different suits (two
counters). ``Grand Prime,'' the same with the number of pips
over 30 (three counters). ``Sequence,'' a hand containing
three cards of the same suit in sequence (three counters).
``Tricon,'' three of a kind (four counters). ``Flush,''
four cards of the same suit (five counters). ``Doublet,''
a hand containing two counting combinations at once, as 2,
3, 4 and 7 of spades, amounting to both a ``sequence'' and a
``flush'' (eight counters). ``Fredon,'' four of a kind (the
highest possible hand), ten or eleven counters, according to
the number of pips. Ties are decided by the number of pips.
AMBIGUITY (Fr. ambiguite, med. Lat. ambiguitas, from
Lat. ambiguus, doubtful; ambi, both ways, agere, to
drive), doubtful ness or uncertainty. In law an ambiguity
as to the meaning of the words of a written instrument may
be of considerable importance. Ambiguity, in law, is of two
kinds, patent and latent. (1) Patent ambiguity is that
ambiguity which is apparent on the face of an instrument
to any one perusing it, even if he be unacquainted with
the circumstances of the parties. In the case of a patent
ambiguity parol evidence is admissible to explain only what
has been written, not what it was intended to write. For
example, in Saunderson v. Piper, 1839, 5, B.N.C. 425,
where a bill was drawn in figures for L. 245 and in words
for two hundred pounds, evidence that ``and forty-five''
had been omitted by mistake was rejected. But where it
appears from the general context of the instrument what
the parties really meant, the instrument will be construed
as if there was no ambiguity, as in Saye and Sate's case,
10 Mod. 46, where the name of the grantor had been omitted
in the operative part of a grant, but, as it was clear from
another part of the grant who he was, the deed was held to
be valid. (2) Latent ambiguity is where the wording of an
instrument is on the face of it clear and intelligible, but
may, at the same time, apply equally to two different things
or subject matters, as where a legacy is given ``to my nephew,
John,'' and the testor is shown to have two nephews of that
name. A latent ambiguity may be explained by parol evidence,
for, as the ambiguity has been brought about by circumstances
extraneous to the instrument, the explanation must necessarily
be sought for from such circumstances. (See also Evidence.)
AMBIORIX, prince of Eburones, a tribe of Belgian Gaul.
Although Caesar (q.v.) had freed him from paying tribute
to the Aduztuci, he joined Catuvolcus (winter, 54 B.C.)
in rising against the Roman forces under Q. Titurius
Sabinus and I. Aurunculeius Cotta, and almost annihilated
them. An attack on Quintus Cicero (brother of the orator),
then quartered with a legion in the territory of the
Nervii, failed owing to the timely appearance of Caesar.
Ambiroix is said to have found safety across the Rhine.
Caesar, Bell. Gall. v. 26-51, vi. 29-43,
viii. 24; Dio Cassius xl. 7-11; Florus iii. 10.
AMBLESIDE, a market-town in the Appleby parliamentary
division of Westmorland, England, a mile from the head of
Windermere. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2536. It is most
beautifully situated, for though the lake is hardly visible
from the town, the bare sharply rising hills surrounding
the richly wooded valley of the Rothay afford a series of
exquisite views. The hills immediately above this part of
the valley are Wansfell on the east, Loughrigg Fell on the
west, and Rydal Fell and the ridge below Snarker Pike
(2096 ft.) to the north. At the head of Windermere is
Waterhead, the landing-stage of Ambleside, which is served
by the lake steamers of the Furness Railway Company. The
chief roads which centre upon Ambleside are -- one from the
town of Windemere, following the eastern shore of the lake;
one from Ullswater, by Patterdale and Kirkstone Pass; one
from Keswick, by Dunmail Raise and Grasmere, and the two
lovely lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water; and one from the
Brathay valley and the Langdales to the west. Ambleside
is thus much frequented by tourists. In its vicinity
is Rydal Mount, for many years the residence of the poet
Wordsworth. The town has some industry in bobbin-making,
and there are slate quarries in the neighbourhood.
Close by the lake side the outlines are still visible of
a Roman fort, the name of which is not known. It appears
to have guarded a route over the hills by Hardknott and
Wrynose Pass to Ravenglass on the Coast of Cumberland.
AMBLYGONITE, a mineral usually found as cleavable or columnar,
and compact masses; it is translucent and has a vitreous
lustre, and the colour varies from white to pale shades of
violet, grey, green or yellow. There are good cleavages in two
directions. The hardness is 6 and the specific gravity 3.0. The
mineral is thus not unlike felspar in general appearance, but
it is readily distinguished from this by its chemical characters,
being an aluminium and lithium fluophosphate, Li(AlF)PO4, with
part of the lithium replaced by sodium and part of the fluoine by
hydroxyl. Crystals, which are rarely distinctly developed,
belong to the anorthic system, and frequently show twin lamellae.
The mineral was first discovered in Saxony by A. Breithaupt
in 1817, and named by him from the Greek amblus, blunt,
and gouia, angle, because of the obtuse angle between the
cleavages. Later it was found at Montebras, dep. Creuse,
France, and at Hebron in Maine; and on account of slight
differences in optical character and chemical composition
the names montebrasite and hebronite have been applied to
the mineral from these localities. Recently it has been
discovered in considerable quantity at Pala in San Diego
county, California, and at Caceres in Spain. Amblygonite
occurs with lepidolite, tourmaline and other lithia-bearing
minerals in pegmatite-veins. It contains about 10% of
lithia, and, since 1886, has been utilized as a source
of lithium salts, the chief commercial sources being the
Montebras deposits, and later the Californian. (L.J.S.)
AMBLYPODA, a suborder of primitive ungulate mammals, taking
its name from the short and stumpy feet, which were furnished
with five toes each, and supported massive pillar-like
limbs. The brain-cavity was extremely small, and insignificant
in comparison to the bodily bulk, which was equal to that
of the largest rhinoceroses. These animals are, in fact,
descendants of the small ancestral ungulates which have
retained all the primitive characters of the latter accompanied
by a huge increase in bodily size. They are confined to
the Eocene period, and occur both in North America and
Europe. The cheek teeth are short crowned (brachyodont),
with the tubercles more or less completely fused into
transverse ridges, or cross-crests (lophodont type); and
the total number of teeth is in one case the typical 44,
but in another is reduced below this. The vertebrae of
the neck unite by nearly flat surfaces, the humerus has
lost the foramen, or perforation, at the lower end, and the
third trochanter to the femur may also be wanting. In the
fore-limb the upper and lower series of carpal bones scarcely
alternate, but in the hind- foot the astragalus overlaps the
cuboid, while the fibula, which is quite distinct from the
tibia (as is the radius from the ulna in the fore-limb),
articulates with both astragalus and calcaneum. The most
generalized type is Coryphodon, representing the family
Coryphodontidae, from the lower Eocene of Europe and North
America, in which there were 44 teeth, and no horn-like excrescences
on the long skull, while the femur had a third trochanter. The
canines are somewhat elongated, and were followed by a short
gap in each jaw, and the cheek-teeth were adapted for succulent
food. The length of the body reached about 6 ft. in some cases.
In the middle Eocene formations of North America occurs the
more specialized Hintatherium (or Dinoceras), typifying
the family Uintatheriidae, which also contains species
sometimes separated as Tinoceras. Uintatheres were huge
creatures, with long narrow skulls, of which the elongated
facial portion caraed three pairs of bony horn-cores,
probably covered with short horns in life, the hind-pair
being much the largest. The dental formula is i. 0/3, c.
1/1, p. $3\over 3\cdot4$, m. 3/3; the upper canines
being long sabre-like weapons, protected by a descending
flange on each side of the front of the lower iaw.
In the basal Eocene of North America the Amblypoda were represented
by extremely primitive, five-toed, small ungulates such as
Periptychus and Pantolambda, each of these typifying a
family. The full typical series of 44 teeth was developed
in each, but whereas in the Periptychidae the upper molars
were bunodont and tritubercular, in the Pantolambdidae
they have assumed a selenodont structure. Creodont
characters (see CREODONTA) are displayed in the skeleton.
See also H. F. Osborn, ``Evolution of the Amblypoda,''
Bull. Amer. Mus. vol x. p. 169. (R. L.*)
AMBO, or AMBON (Gr. ambon, from anabainein, to
walk up, the reading-desk of early Basilican churches,
also called purgos. Originally small and movable, it
was afterwards made of large proportions and fixed in one
place. In the Byzantine and early Romanesque periods it
was an essential part of church furniture; but during the
middle ages it was gradually superseded in the Western
Church by the pulpit and lectern. The gospel and epistle
are still read from the ambo in the Ambrosian rite at
Milan. The position of the ambo was not absolutely uniform;
sometimes in the central point between the sanctuary and the
nave, sometimes in the middle of the church, and sometimes
at one or both of the sides of the chancel. The normal
ambo, when the church contained only one, had three stages
or degrees, one above the other, and it was usually mounted
by a flight of steps at each end. The uppermost stage was
reserved for the deacon who sang the gospel (facing the
congregation); for promulgating episcopal edicts; reciting the
names inscribed on the diptychs (see DIPTYCH); announcing
fasts, vigils and feasts; reading ecclesiastical letters
or acts of the martyrs celebrated on that day; announcing
new miracles for popular edification, professions by new
converts or recantations by heretics; and (for priests and
deacons) preaching sermons, -- bishops as a general rule
preaching from their own throne. The second stage was for
the sub-deacon who read the epistle (facing the altar); and
the third for the subordinate clergy who read other parts of
scripture. The inconvenience of having a single ambo led
to the substitution of two separate ambones, between which
these various functions were divided, one on the south side
of the chancel being for the reading of the gospel, and one
on the north for reading the epistle. In the Russian Orthodox
Church the term ``ambo'' is used of the semicircular steps
leading to the platform in front of the iconostasis (q.v.),
but in Cathedrals the bishop has an ambo in the centre of the
church. In the Greek Church the older form remains, usually
placed at the side. In the Uniate Greek Catholic Church
the ``ambo'' has become a table, on which are placed a
crucifix and lights, before the doors of the iconostasis;
here baptisms, marriages and confirmations take place.
Ambones were made of wood or else of costly marbles, and
were decorated with mosaics, reliefs, gilding, &c.; sometimes
also covered with canopies supported on columns. They were
often of enormous size; that at St Sophia in Constantinople
was large enough for the ceremonial of coronation.
The churches in Rome possess many fine examples of ambones in
marble, of which the oldest is probably that in S. Clemente,
reconstructed in the beginning of the 12th century. Those of
slightly later date are enriched with marble mosaic known as
Cosmati work, of which the examples in S. Maria-in-Ara-Coeli,
S. Maria-in-Cosmedin and S. Lorenzo are those which are best
known. Some early ambones are found in Ravenna, and in the
south of Italy are many fine examples; the epistle ambo in the
cathedral at Ravello (1130), which is perhaps the earliest, shows
a Scandinavian influence in the design of its mosaic inlay, an
influence which is found in Sicilian work and may be a Norman
importation. The two ambones in the Cathedral of Salerno,
which are different in design, are magnificent in effect and
are enriched with sculpture as well as with mosaic. In the
gospel ambo in the cathedral of Ravello (1272), and also in
that of the convent of the Trinita della Cava near Salerno,
the spiral columns inlaid with mosaic stand on the backs of
lions. In the epistle ambo at Salerno and the gospel ambones at
Cava and San Giovanni del Toro in Ravello, the columns support
segmental arches carrying the ambones; the epistle ambo at
Ravello and all those in Rome are raised on solid marble bases.
See the litumical and ecclesiastical dictionaries of Martigny,
Migne, and Smith and Cheetham, sub voce, where all the
scattered references are collected together and summarized.
In Ciampinus, Vetera Monumenta (Rome, 1747), plates
xii., xiii., are several illustrations of actual examples.
AMBOISE, GEORGES D', (1460-1510), French cardinal and minister
of state, belonged to a noble family possessed of considerable
influence. His father, Pierre d'Amboise, seigneur de Chaumont,
was chamberlain to Charles VII. and Louis XI. and ambassador at
Rome. His eldest brother, Charles d'Amboise, was governor
of the Isle of France, Champagne and Burgundy, and councillor
of Louis XI. Georges d'Amboise was only fourteen when his
father procured for him the bishopric of Montauban, and
Louis XI. appointed him one of his almoners. On arriving at
manhood d'Amboise attached himself to the party of the duke
of Orleans, in whose cause he suffered imprisonment, and
on whose return to the royal favour he was elevated to the
archbishopric of Narbonne, which after some time he changed
for that of Rouen (1493). On the appointment of the duke
of Orleans as governor of Normandy, d'Amboise became his
lieutenant-general. In 1498 the duke of Orleans mounted
the throne as Louis XII., and d'Amboise was suddenly raised
to the high position of cardinal and prime minister. His
administration was, in many respects, well-intentioned and
useful. Having the good fortune to serve a king who was
both economical and just, he was able to diminish the
imposts, to introduce order among the soldiery, and above
all, by the ordinances of 1499, to improve the organization of
justice. He was also zealous for the reform of the church,
and particularly for the reform of the monasteries; and it
is greatly to his credit that he did not avail himself of the
extremely favourable opportunities he possessed of becoming a
pluralist. He regularly spent a large income in charity,
and he laboured strenuously to stay the progress of the
plague and famine which broke out in 1504. His foreign
policy, less happy and less wise, was animated by two aims
-- to increase the French power in Italy and to seat himself
on the papal throne; and these aims be sought to achieve by
diplomacy, not by force. He, however, sympathized with,
and took part in, the campaign which was begun in 1499 for
the Conquest of Milan. In 1500 he was named lieutenant-
general in Italy and charged with the organization of the
conquest. On the death of Alexander VI. he aspired to the
papacy. He had French troops at the gates of Rome, by means
of which he could easily have frightened the conclave and
induced them to elect him; but he was persuaded to trust
to his influence; the troops were dismissed, and an Italian
was appointed as Pius III.; and again, on the death of Pius
within the month, another Italian, Julius II., was chosen
(1503). D'Amboise received in compensation the title of
legate for life in France and in the Comtat Venaissin. He
was one of the negotiators of the disastrous treaties of
Blois (1504), and in 1508 of the League of Cambrai against
Venice. In 1509 he again accompanied Louis XII. into
Italy, but on his return he was seized at the city of Lyons
with a fatal attack of gout in the stomach. He died there
on the 25th of May 1510. His body was removed to Rouen,
and a magnificent tomb, on which he is represented kneeling
in the attitude of prayer, was erected to his memory in
the cathedral of that town. Throughout his life he was an
enlightened patron of letters and art, and it was at his
orders that the chateau of Gaillon near Rouen was built.
See Lettres du roi Louis XII. et du cardinal d'Amboise
(Brussels, 1712); L. Legendre, Vie du cardinal d'Amboise
(Rouen, 1726); E. Lavisse, Histoire de France (vol. v. by
H. Lemonnier, Paris, 19O3); J. A. Deville, Tombeaux de la
cathedrale de Rouen (3rd ed., 1881). For a bibliography
of the printed sources see, H. Hauser, Les Sources de
l'histoire de France, KM`siecle, vol. i. (1906). (J. I.)
AMBOISE, a town of central France in the department
of Indre-et-Loire, on the left bank of the Loire, 12
m. E. of Tours by the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906)
4632. Amboise owes its celebrity to the imposing chateau
which overlooks the Loire from the rocky eminence above the
town. The Logis du Roi, the most important portion, was the
work of Charles VIII.; the other wing was built under Louis
XII. and Francis I. The ramparts are strengthened by two
massive towers containing an inclined plane on which horses
and carriages may ascend. The chapel of St Hubert, said to
contain the remains of Leonardo da Vinci, who was summoned
to Amboise by Francis I., king of France, and died there
in 1519, is in the late Gothic style; a delicately carved
relief over the doorway represents the conversion of St
Hubert. The hotel de ville is established in a mansion
of Renaissance architecture; a town gateway of the 15th
century, surmounted by a belfry, is also of architectural
interest. Iron-founding, wool-weaving, and the manufacture
of boots and farm implements are among the industries.
Amboise at the end of the 11th century was a lordship under the
counts of Anjou, one of whom, Hugues I., rebuilt the ancient
castle. Its territory was united to the domain of the crown
of France by Charles VII. about the middle of the 15th
century, and thenceforth the chateau became a favourite
residence of the French kings. The discovery in 1560 of
the ``conspiracy of Amboise,'' a plot of the Huguenots
to remove Francis II. from the influence of the house of
Guise, was avenged by the death of 1200 members of that
party. In 1563 Amboise gave its name to a royal edict allowing
freedom of worship to the Huguenot nobility and gentry.
After that period the chateau was frequently used as a state
prison, and Abd-el-Kader was a captive there from 1848 to
1852. In 1872 it was restored by the National Assembly to the
house of Orleans, to which it had come by inheritance from the
duke of Penthievre in the latter half of the 18th century.
AMBOYNA (Dutch Ambon), the name of a residency, its chief town, and
the island on which the town is situated, in the Dutch East Indies.
The residency shares with that of Ternate the administration of
the Moluccas, the previous government of which was abolished in
1867. It includes a mass of islands in the Banda Sea (2 deg.
30' - 8 deg. 20' S. and 125 deg. 45' - 135 deg. E.), including the
island-belt which surrounds the sea on the north, east
and south; and is divided for administrative purposes into
nine districts (afdeelingen): 1) Amboyna, the island of
that name; (2) Saparua, with Oma and Nusa Laut; (3) Kajeli
(Eastern Burn); (4) Masareti (Western Burn); (5) Kairatu
(Western Ceram); (6) Wahai (the northern part of Mid-Ceram);
(7) Amahai (the southern part of Mid-Ceram); (8) the Banda
Isles, with East Ceram, Ceram Laut and Gorom; (9) the islands
of Aru, Kei, Timor Laut or Tenimber, and the south-western
islands. The total area of the residency is about 19,861 sq.
m., and its population 296,000, including 2400 Europeans.
Amboyna Island lies off the south-west of Ceram, on the north
side of the Banda Sea, being one of a series of volcanic isles
in the inner circle round the sea. It is 32 m. in length, with
an area of about 386 sq. m., and is of very irregular figure,
being almost divided into two. The south-eastern and smaller
portion (called Leitimor) is united to the northern (Hitoe) by
a neck of land a few yards in breadth. The highest mountains,
Wawani (3609 ft.) and Salhutu (4020 ft.), have hot springs
and solfataras. They are considered to be volcanoes, and the
mountains of the neighbouring Uliasser islands the remains of
volcanoes. Granite and serpentine rocks predominate, but the
shores of Amboyna Bay are of chalk, and contain stalactite
caves. The surface is fertile, the rivers are small and not
navigable, and the roads are mere footpaths. Cocoa is one
of the products. The climate is comparatively pleasant
and healthy; the average temperature is 80 deg. F., rarely
sinking below 72 deg. . The rainfall, however, after the
eastern monsoons, is very heavy, and the island is liable to
violent hurricanes. It is remarkable that the dry season
(October to April) is coincident with the period of the west
monsoon. Indigenous mammals are poor in species as well as
few in number; birds are more abundant, but of no greater
variety. The entomology of the island, however, is very
rich, particularly in respect of Lepidoptera. Shells
are obtained in great numbers and variety. Turtle-shell
is also largely exported. The vegetation is also rich,
and Amboyna produces most of the common tropical fruits and
vegetables, including the sago-palm, bread-fruit, cocoa-nut,
sugar-cane, maize, coffee, pepper and cotton. Cloves,
however, form its chief product, though the trade in them
is less important than formerly, when the Dutch prohibited
the rearing of the clove-tree in all the other islands
subject to their rule, in order to secure the monopoly to
Amboyna. Amboyna wood, of great value for ornamental work,
is obtained from the hard knots which occur on certain
trees in the forests of Ceram. The population (about 39,000)
is divided into two classes-- orang burger or citizens,
and orang negri or villagers, the former being a class
of native origin enjoying certain privileges conferred on
their ancestors by the old Dutch East India Company. The
natives are of mixed Malay-Papuan blood. They are mostly
Christians or Mahommedans. There are also, besides the
Dutch, some Arabs, Chinese and a few Portuguese settlers.
Amboyna, the chief town, and seat of the resident and
military commander of the Moluccas, is protected by Fort
Victoria, and is a clean little town with wide streets, well
planted. Agriculture, fisheries and import and export
trade furnish the chief means of subsistence. It lies on
the north-west of the peninsula of Leitimor, and has a safe
and commodious anchorage. Its population is about 8000.
The Portuguese were the first European nation to visit Amboyna
(1511). They established a factory there in 1521, but
did not obtain peaceable possession of it till 1580, and
were dispossessed by the Dutch in 1609. About 1615 the
British formed a settlement in the island, at Cambello,
which they retained until 1623, when it was destroyed by the
Dutch, and frightful tortures inflicted on the unfortunate
persons connected with it. In 1654, after many fruitless
negotiations, Cromwell compelled the United Provinces to
give the sum of L. 300,000, together with a small island,
as compensation to the descendants of those who suffered in
the ``Amboyna massacre.'' In 1673 the poet Dryden produced
his tragedy of Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to
the English Merchants. In 1796 the British, under Admiral
Rainier, captured Amboyna, but restored it to the Dutch at
the peace of Amiens in 1802. It was retaken by the British
in 1810, but once more restored to the Dutch in 1814.
AMBRACIA (more correctly AMPRACIA), an ancient Corinthian
colony, situated about 7 m. from the Ambracian Gulf, on a
bend of the navigable river Aracthus (or Aratthus), in the
midst of a fertile wooded plain. It was founded between
650 and 625 B.C. by Gorgus, son of the Corinthian tyrant
Cypselus. After the expulsion of Gorgus's son Periander
its government developed into a strong democracy. The
early policy of Ambracia was determined by its loyalty to
Corinth (for which it probably served as an entrepot in the
Epirus trade), its consequent aversion to Corcyra, and its
frontier disputes with the Amphilochians and Acarnanians.
Hence it took a prominent part in the Peloponnesian War
until the crushing defeat at Idomene (426) crippled its
resources. In the 4th century it continued its traditional
policy, but in 338 surrendered to Philip II. of Macedon. After
forty-three years of autonomy under Macedonian suzerainty it
became the capital of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who adorned
it with palace, temples and theatres. In the wars of Philip
V. of Macedon and the Epirotes against the Aetolian league
(220-205) Ambracia passed from one alliance to the other,
but ultimately joined the latter confederacy. During the
struggle of the Aetolians against Rome it stood a stubborn
siege. After its capture and plunder by M. Fulvius Nobilior in
189, it fell into insignificance. The foundation by Augustus
of Nicopolis (q.v.), into which the remaining inhabitants
were drafted, left the site desolate. In Byzantine times a
new settlement took its place under the name of Arta (q.v.).
Some fragmentary walls of large, well-dressed blocks near
this latter town indicate the early prosperity of Ambracia.
AUTHORITIES. -- Thucydides ii. 68 - iii. 114; Aristotle,
Politics, 1303a sqq.; Strabo p. 325; Polybius xxii. 9-13;
Livy xxxviii. 3-9; G. Wolfe, Journal of Geographical Society
(London), iii. (1833) pp. 77-94; E. Oberhummer, Akarnanien,
Ambrakien, &c. im Altertum (Munich, 1887). (M. O. B. C.)
AMBRIZ, a West African seaport belonging to Portugal, at
the mouth of the Loje River, in 7 deg. 50' S., 13 deg. E., some 70
m. N. of Loanda. It forms a part of the province of Angola
(q.v.). The town is within the free-trade area of the
conventional basin of the Congo river. Its chief exports are
rubber, gum, coffee and copper. Pop. about 2500. Ambriz
was, previously to 1884, the northernmost point of Africa
south of the equator acknowledged as Portuguese territory.
AMBROS, AUGUST WILHELM (1816-1876), Austrian composer
and historian of music, was born at Mauth near Prague. His
father was a cultured man, and his mother was the sister of
R. G. Kiesewetter (1773-1850), the musical archaeologist and
collector. Ambros was well educated in music and the
arts, which were his abiding passion: but he was destined
for the law and an official career in the Austrian civil
service, and he occupied various important posts under
the ministry of justice, music being the employment of his
leisure. From 1850 onwards he became well known as a
critic and essay-writer, and in 1860 he began working on his
magnum opus, his History of Music, which was published
at intervals from 1864 in five volumes, the last two
(1878, 1882) being edited and completed by Otto Kade and
Langhaus. Ambros became professor of the history of music
at Prague in 1869. He was an excellent pianist, and the
author of numerous compositions somewhat reminiscent of
Mendelssohn. He died at Vienna on the 28th of June 1876.
AMBROSE (fl. 1190), Norman poet, and chronicler of the
Third Crusade, author of a work called L'Estoire de la
guerre sainte, which describes in rhyming French verse
the adventures of Richard Coeur de Lion as a crusader. The
poem is known to us only through one Vatican MS., and long
escaped the notice of historians. The credit for detecting
its value belongs to the late Gaston Paris, although his
edition (1897) was partially anticipated by the editors
of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, who published some
selections in the twenty-seventh volume of their Scriptores
(1885). Ambrose followed Richard I. as a noncombatant,
and not improbably as a court-minstrel. He speaks as an
eye-witness of the king's doings at Messina, in Cyprus,
at the siege of Acre, and in the abortive campaign which
followed the capture of that city. Ambrose is surprisingly
accurate in his chronology; though he did not complete his
work before 1195, it is evidently founded upon notes which
he had taken in the course of his pilgrimage. He shows no
greater political insight than we should expect from his
position; but relates what he had seen and heard with a naive
vivacity which compels attention. He is prejudiced against the
Saracens, against the French, and against all the rivals or
enemies of his master; but he is never guilty of deliberate
misrepresentation. He is rather to be treated as a biographer
than as a historian of the Crusade in its broader aspects.
None the less he is the chief authority for the events
of the years 1190-1192, so far as these are connected with
the Holy Land. The Itinerarium Regis Ricardi (formerly
attributed to Geoffrey Vinsauf, but in reality the work of
Richard, a canon of Holy Trinity, London) is little more
than a free paraphrase of Ambrose. The first book of the
Itinerarium contains some additional facts; and the whole
of the Latin version is adorned with dowers of rhetoric
which are foreign to the style of Ambrose. But it is no
longer possible to regard the Itinerarium as a first-hand
narrative. Stubbs's edition of the Itinerarium (Rolls
Series, 1864), in which the contrary hypothesis is maintained,
appeared before Gaston Paris published his discovery.
See the edition of L'Estoire de la guerre sainte by Gaston
Paris in the Collection des documents inedits sur l'histoire
de France (1897); the editor discusses in his introduction
the biography of Ambrose, the value of the poem as a
historical source, and its relation to the Itinerarium.
R. Pauli's remarks (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
Scriptores, xxvii.) also deserve attention. (H. W. C. D.)
AMBROSE, SAINT (c. 340-307), bishop of Milan, one of the
most eminent fathers of the church in the 4th century, was
a citizen of Rome, born about 337-340 in Treves, where his
father was prefect of Gallia Narbonensis. His mother was a
woman of intellect and piety. Ambrose was early destined to
follow his father's career, and was accordingly educated in
Rome. He made such progress in literature, law and rhetoric,
that the praetor Anicius Probus first gave him a place in
the council and then made him consular prefect of Liguria
and Emilia, with headquarters at Milan, where he made an
excellent administrator. In 374 Auxentius, bishop of Milan,
died, and the orthodox and Arian parties contended for the
succession. An address delivered to them at this crisis
by Ambrose led to his being acclaimed as the only competent
occupant of the see; though hitherto only a catechumen, he was
baptized, and a few days saw him duly installed as bishop of
Milan. He immediately betook himself to the necessary
studies, and acquitted himself in his new office with ability,
boldness and integrity. Having apportioned his money among
the poor, and settled his lands upon the church, with the
exception of making his sister Marcellina tenant during
life, and having committed the care of his family to his
brother, he entered upon a regular course of theological
study, under the care of Simplician, a presbyter of Rome, and
devoted himself to the labours of the church, labours which
were temporarily interrupted by an invasion of Goths, which
compelled Ambrose and other churchmen to retire to Illyricum.
The eloquence of Ambrose soon found ample scope in the dispute
between the Arians and the orthodox or Catholic party, whose
cause the new bishop espoused. Gratian, the son of the elder
Valentinian, took the same side; but the younger Valentinian,
who had now become his colleague in the empire, adopted the
opinions of the Arians, and all the arguments and eloquence
of Ambrose could not reclaim the young prince to the orthodox
faith. Theodosius, the emperor of the East, also professed
the orthodox belief; but there were many adherents of Arius
scattered throughout his dominions. In this distracted
state of religious opinion, two leaders of the Arians,
Palladius and Secundianus, confident of numbers, prevailed
upon Gratian to call a general council from all parts of the
empire. This request appeared so equitable that he complied
without hesitation; but Ambrose, foreseeing the consequence,
prevailed upon the emperor to have the matter determined
by a council of the Western bishops. A synod, composed of
thirty-two bishops, was accordingly held at Aquileia in the
year 381. Ambrose was elected president; and Palladius, being
called upon to defend his opinions, declined, insisting that
the meeting was a partial one, and that, all the bishops
of the empire not being present, the sense of the Christian
church concerning the question in dispute could not be
obtained. A vote was then taken, when Palladius and his
associate Secundianus were deposed from the episcopal office.
Ambrose was equally zealous in combating the attempt made
by the upholders of the old state religion to resist the
enactments of Christian emperors. The pagan party was led
by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (q.v.), consul in 391, who
presented to Valentinian II. a forcible but unsuccessful
petition praying for the restoration of the altar of Victory
to its ancient station in the hall of the senate, the proper
support of seven vestal virgins, and the regular observance
of the other pagan ceremonies. To this petition Ambrose
replied in a letter to Valentinian, arguing that the devoted
worshippers of idols had often been forsaken by their deities;
that the native valour of the Roman soldiers had gained
their victories, and not the pretended influence of pagan
priests; that these idolatrous worshippers requested for
themselves what they refused to Christians; that voluntary
was more honourable than constrained virginity; that as the
Christian ministers declined to receive temporal emoluments,
they should also be denied to pagan priests; that it was
absurd to suppose that God would inflict a famine upon the
empire for neglecting to support a religious system contrary
to His will as revealed in the Scriptures; that the whole
process of nature encouraged innovations, and that all
nations had permitted them even in religion; that heathen
sacrifices were offensive to Christians; and that it was the
duty of a Christian prince to suppress pagan ceremonies. In
the epistles of Symmachus and of Ambrose both the petition
and the reply are preserved. They are a strange blend of
sophistry, superstition, sound sense and solid argument.
The increasing strength of the Arians proved a formidable
task for ambrose. In 384 the young emperor and his mother
Justina, along with a considerable number of clergy and laity
professing the Arian faith, requested from the bishop the use
of two churches, one in the city, the other in the suburbs of
Milan. Ambrose refused, and was required to answer for
his conduct before the council. He went, attended by a
numerous crowd of people, whose impetuous zeal so overawed
the ministers of Valentinian that he was permitted to retire
without making the surrender of the churches. The day
following, when he was performing divine service in the
Basilica, the prefect of the city came to persuade him to
give up at least the Portian church in the suburbs. As he
still continued obstinate, the court proceeded to violent
measures: the officers of the household were commanded to
prepare the Basilica and the Portian churches to celebrate
divine service upon the arrival of the emperor and his
mother at the ensuing festival of Easter. Perceiving the
growing strength of the prelate's interest, the court deemed
it prudent to restrict its demand to the use of one of the
churches. But all entreaties proved in vain, and drew
forth the following characteristic declaration from the
bishop: -- ``If you demand my person, I am ready to submit:
carry me to prison or to death, I will not resist; but I
will never betray the church of Christ. I will not call
upon the people to succour me; I will die at the foot of
the altar rather than desert it. The tumult of the people
I will not encourage: but God alone can appease it.''
Many circumstances in the history of Ambrose are strongly
characteristic of the general spirit of the times. The
chief causes of his victory over his opponents were his
great popularity and the superstitious reverence paid to the
episcopal character at that period. But it must also be noted
that he used several indirect means to obtain and support his
authority with the people. He was liberal to the poor; it was
his custom to comment severely in his preaching on the public
characters of his times; and he introduced popular reforms
in the order and manner of public worship. It is alleged,
too, that at a time when the influence of Ambrose required
vigorous support, he was admonished in a dream to search
for, and found under the pavement of the church, the remains
of two martyrs, Gervasius and Protasius. The applause of the
vulgar was mingled with the derision of the court party.
Although the court was displeased with the religious principles
and conduct of Ambrose, it respected his great political
talents; and when necessity required, his aid was solicited
and generously granted. When Maximus usurped the supreme
power in Gaul, and was meditating a descent upon Italy,
Valentinian sent Ambrose to dissuade him from the undertaking,
and the embassy was successful. On a second attempt of the
same kind Ambrose was again employed; and although he was
unsuccessful, it cannot be doubted that, if his advice had
been followed, the schemes of the usurper would have proved
abortive; but the enemy was permitted to enter Italy; and
Milan was taken. Justina and her son fled; but Ambrose remained
at his post, and did good service to many of the sufferers
by causing the plate of the church to be melted for their
relief. Theodosius, the emperor of the East, espoused the
cause of Justina, and regained the kingdom. This Theodosius
was sternly rebuked by Ambrose for the massacre of 7000
persons at Thessalonica in 390, and was bidden imitate
David in his repentance as he had imitated him in guilt.
In 302, after the assassination of Valentinian and the usurpation
of Eugenius, Ambrose fled from Milan; but when Theodosius
was eventually victorious, he supplicated the emperor for
the pardon of those who had supported Eugenius. Soon after
acquiring the undisputed possession of the Roman empire,
Theodosius died at Milan in 395, and two years later (4th
April 397) Ambrose also passed away. He was succeeded by Simplician.
A man of pure character, vigorous mind, unwearying zeal and
uncommon generosity, Ambrose ranks high among the fathers
of the ancient church on many counts. His chief faults were
ambition and bigotry. Though ranking with Augustine, Jerome,
and Gregory the Great, as one of the Latin ``doctors,'' he
is most naturally compared with Hilary, whom he surpasses in
administrative excellence as much as he falls below him in
theological ability. Even here, however, his achievements are
of no mean order, especially when we remember his juridical
training and his comparatively late handling of Biblical
and doctrinal subjects. In matters of exegesis he is, like
Hilary, an Alexandrian; his chief productions are homiletic
commentaries on the early Old Testament narratives, e.g.
the Hexaemeron (Creation) and Abraham, some of the Psalms, and
the Gospel according to Luke. In dogmatic he follows Basil
of Caesarea and other Greek authors, but nevertheless gives
a distinctly Western cast to the speculations of which he
treats. This is particularly manifest in the weightier emphasis
which he lays upon human sin and divine grace, and in the
place which he assigns to faith in the individual Christian
life. His chief works in this field are De fide ad Gratianuni
Augustunn, De Spiritu Sancto, De incarnationis Dominicae
sacramento, De mysteriis. His great spiritual successor,
Augustine, whose conversion was helped by Ambrose's sermons,
owes more to him than to any writer except Paul. Ambrose's
intense episcopal consciousness furthered the growing doctrine
of the Church and its sacerdotal ministry, while the prevalent
asceticism of the day, continuing the Stoic and Ciceronian
training of his youth, enabled him to promulgate a lofty
standard of Christian ethics. Thus we have the De officiis
ministrorum, De viduis, De virginitate and De paenitentia.
Ambrose has also left several funeral orations and ninety-
one letters, but it is as a hymn-writer that he perhaps
deserves most honour. Catching the impulse from Hilary and
confirmed in it by the success of Arian psalmody, Ambrose
composed several hymns, marked by dignified simplicity,
which were not only effective in themselves but served
as a fruitful model for later times. We cannot certainly
assign to him more than four or five (Deus Creator Omnium,
Aeterne rerum conditor, Jam surgit hora tertia, and
the Christmas hymn Veni redemptor gentium) of those
that have come down to us. Each of these hymns has eight
four-line stanzas and is written in strict iambic tetrameter.
On the Ambrosian ritual see LITURGY; on the Ambrosian library
see LIBRARIES; on the church founded by him at Milan in 387 see
MILAN. Editions: The Benedictine (4 vols., Venice, 1748 ff.);
Migne, Patrol. Lat. xiv.-xvii.; P. A. Ballerini (6 vols.,
Milan, 1875 ff.). LITERATURE: Th. Forster, Ambrose, B. of
Mailand (Halle, 1884), and art. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk.,
where the literature is cited in full; A. Ebert, Glesch. der
christlich-latein. Litt. (2nd ed., 1889); O. Bardenhewer,
Patrologic (2nd ed., 1891); A. Harnack, Hist. of Dogma,
esp. vol. v.; W. Bright, Age ofthe Fathers. (A. J. G.)
AMBROSE (ANDREY SERTIS-KAMENSKIY) (1708-1771), archbishop
of Moscow, was born at Nezhine in the government of Chernigov,
and studied in the school of St Alexander Nevskiy, where
he afterwards became a tutor. At the age of thirty-one
he entered a monastery, where he took the name of Ambrose.
Subsequently he was appointed archimandrite of the convent
of New Jerusalem at Voznesensk. From this post he was
transferred as bishop, first to the diocese of Pereyaslav,
and afterwards to that of Krusitsy near Moscow, finally
becoming archbishop of Moscow in 1761. He was famous not
only for his interest in schemes for the alleviation of
poverty in Moscow, but also as the founder of new churches and
monasteries. A terrible outbreak of plague occurred in Moscow
in 1771, and the populace began to throng round an image
of the Virgin to which they attributed supernatural healing
power. Ambrose, perceiving that this crowding together
merely enabled the contagion to spread, had the image secretly
removed. The mob, suspecting that he was responsible for
its removal, attacked a monastery to which he had retired,
dragged him away from the sanctuary, and, having given him
time to receive the sacrament, strangled him. Ambrose's
works include a liturgy and translations from the Fathers.
AMBROSE (AMBROISE), AUTPERT (d. 778), French Benedictine
monk. He became abbe of St Vincent on the Volturno ``in
the time of Desiderius, king of the Lombards.'' He wrote
a considerable number of works on the Bible and religious
subjects generally. Among these are commentaries on
the Apocalypse (see Bibl. Patrum, xiii. 403), on the
Psalms, on the Song of Solomon; Lives of SS. Paldo, Tuto
and Vaso (according to Mabillon); Assumption of the
Virgin; Combat between the Virtues and the Vices.
See Mabillon, Acta sanct. Bolland. III. ii. 259, 266;
Georg Lommel, Der ostrsankische Reformator Ambrosius
(Giessen, 1847); Bollandist Bibl. hag. lat. (1898), 61.
AMBROSE, ISAAC (1604-1663/4), English Puritan divine,
was the son of Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, and was
probably descended from the Ambroses of Lowick in Furness,
a well-known Catholic family. He entered Brazenose College,
Oxford, in 1621, in his seventeenth year. Having graduated
B.A. in 1624 and been ordained, he received in 1627 the
little cure of Castleton in Derbyshire. By the influence
of William Russell, earl of Bedford, he was appointed one
of the king's itinerant preachers in Lancashire, and after
living for a time in Garstang, he was selected by the Lady
Margaret Hoghton as vicar of Preston. He associated himself
with Presbyterianism, and was on the celebrated committee
for the ejection of ``scandalous and ignorant ministers
and schoolmasters'' during the Commonwealth. So long as
Ambrose continued at Preston he was favoured with the warm
friendship of the Hoghton family, their ancestral woods and
the tower near Blackburn affording him sequestered places
for those devout meditations and ``experiences'' that give
such a charm to his diary, portions of which are quoted
in his Prima Media and Ultima (1650, 1659). The immense
auditory of his sermon (Redeeming the Time) at the funeral
of Lady Hoghton was long a living tradition all over the
county. On account of the feeling engendered by the civil
war Ambrose left his great church of Preston in 1654, and
became minister of Garstang, whence, however, in 1662 he
was ejected with the two thousand ministers who refused to
conform. His after years were passed among old friends and
in quiet meditation at Preston. He died of apoplexy about
the 20th of January 1663/4. As a religious writer Ambrose
has a vividness and freshness of imagination possessed by
scarcely any of the Puritan Nonconformists. Many who have
no love for Puritan doctrine, nor sympathy with Puritan
experience, have appreciated the pathos and beauty of his
writings, and his Looking to Jesus long held its own in
popular appreciation with the writings of John Bunyan.
AMBROSE THE CAMALDULIAN, the common name of AMBROGIO
TRAVERSARI (1386-1439), French ecclesiastic, born near
Florence at the village of Portico. At the age of fourteen
he entered the Camaldulian Order in the monastery of Sta Maria
degli Angeli, and rapidly became a leading theologian and
Hellenist. In Greek literature his master was Emmanuel
Chrysoloras. He became general of the order in 1431, and
was a leading advocate of the papacy. This attitude he
showed clearly when he attended the council of Basel as
legate of Eugenius IV. So strong was his hostility to
some of the delegates that he described Basel as a western
Babylon. He likewise supported the pope at Ferrara and
Florence, and worked hard in the attempt to reconcile
the Eastern and Western Churches. Though this cause was
unsuccessful, Ambrose is interesting as typical of the new
humanism which was growing up within the church. Voigt says
that he was the first monk in Florence in whom the love of
letters and art became predominant over his ecclesiastical
views. Thus while among his own colleagues he seemed merely
a hypocritical and arrogant priest, in his relations with his
brother humanists, such as Cosimo de Medici, he appeared as
the student of classical antiquities and especially of Greek
theological authors. His chief works are: -- Hodoeporicon,
an account of a journey taken by the pope's command, during
which he visited the monasteries of Italy; a translation of
Palladius' Life of Chrysostom; of Nineteen Sermons
of Ephraem Syrus; of the Book of St Basil on
Virginity. A number of MSS. remain in the library of
St Mark at Venice. He died on the 20th of October 1439.
See G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klass. Altertums (2
vols., 3rd ed., 1893); his Epistolae were published by
Cannato (Florence, 1759 with a life by Menus; Bollandist
Bibl. hag. lat. (1898), 65; A. Masius, Uber die Stellung
des Kamaldulensers Amborgio Traversari zum Papst Eugen
IV. und zum Basler Konzil (Dobeln, 1888); Savigny,
Geschichte rom. Rechts, Mittel. (1850), vi. 422-424.
AMBROSIA, in ancient mythology, sometimes the food,
sometimes the drink of the gods. The word has generally been
derived from Gr. a, not, and mbrotos, mortal; hence the
food or drink of the immortals. A. W. Verrall, however,
denies that there is any clear example in which the word
ambrosios necessarily means ``immortal,'' and prefers
to explain it as ``fragrant,'' a sense which is always
suitable; cf. W. Leaf, Iliad (2nd ed.), on the phrase
ambrosios upuos (ii. 18). If so, the word may be derived
from the Semitic ambar (ambergris) to which Eastern nations
attribute miraculous properties. W. H. Roscher thinks that both
nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey, in which case their
power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed
healing and cleansing power of honey (see further NECTAR).
Derivatively the word Ambrosia (neut. plur.) was given to
certain festivals in honour of Dionysus, probably because
of the predominance of feasting in connexion with them.
The name Ambrosia was also applied by Dioscorides and Pliny
to certain herbs, and has been retained in modern botany
for a genus of plants from which it has been extended to
the group of dicotyledons called Ambrosiaceae, including
Ambrosia, Xanthium and Iva, all annual herbaceous
plants represented in America. Ambrosia maritima and
some other species occur also in the Mediterranean region.
There is also an American beetle, the Ambrosia beetle,
belonging to the family of Scolytidae, which derives its name
from its curious cultivation of a succulent fungus, called
ambrosia. Ambrosia beetles bore deep though minute galleries
into trees and timber, and the wood-dust provides a bed for the
growth of the fungus, on which the insects and larvae feed.
AMBROSIANS, the name given to several religious brotherhoods
which at various times since the 14th century have sprung
up in and around Milan; they have about as much connexion
with St Ambrose as the ``Jeromites'' who were found chiefly
in upper Italy and Spain have with their patron saint. Only
the oldest of them, the Pratres S. Ambrosii ad Nemus, had
anything more than a very local significance. This order
is known from a bull of Gregory XI. addressed to the monks
of the church of St Ambrose outside Milan. These monks, it
would appear, though under the authority of a prior, had no
rule. In response to the request of the archbishop, the
pope had commanded them to follow the rule of Augustine and
to be known by the above name. They were further to recite
the Ambrosian office. Subsequently the order had a number of
independent establishments in Italy which were united into
one congregation by Eugenius IV., their headquarters being at
Milan. Their discipline afterwards became so slack that an
appeal was made to Cardinal Borromeo asking him to reform their
houses. By Sixtus V. the order was amalgamated with the
congregation of St Barnabas, but Innocent X. dissolved it in 1650.
The name Ambrosians is also given to a 16th-century Anabaptist
sect, which laid claim to immediate communication with God
through the Holy Ghost. Basing their theology upon the
words of the Gospel of St John i. 9 -- ``There was the true
light which lighteth every man, coming into the world'' --
they denied the necessity of any priests or ministers to
interpret the Bible. Their leader Ambrose went so far as
to hold further that the revelation which was vouchsafed
to him was a higher authority than the Scriptures. The
doctrine of the Ambrosians, who belonged probably to that
section of the Anabaptists known as Pneumatici, may be
compared with the ``Inner Light'' doctrine of the Quakers.
See Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopadie, i. 439.
AMBROSIASTER. A commentary on St Paul's epistles, ``brief
in words but weighty in matter,'' and valuable for the
criticism of the Latin text of the New Testament, was long
attributed to St Ambrose. Erasmus in 1527 threw doubt on
the accuracy of this ascription, and the author is usually
spoken of as Ambrosiaster or pseudo-Ambrose. Owing to the
fact that Augustine cites part of the commentary on Romans
as by ``Sanctus Hilarius'' it has been ascribed by various
critics at different times to almost every known Hilary. Dom
G. Morin (Rev. d'hist. et de litt. religiouses, tom. iv. 97
f.) broke new ground by suggesting in 1899 that the writer was
Isaac, a converted Jew, writer of a tract on the Trinity and
Incarnation, who was exiled to Spain in 378-380 and then
relapsed to Judaism, but he afterwards abandoned this theory
of the authorship in favour of Decimus Hilarianus Hilarius,
proconsul of Africa in 377. With this attribution Professor
Alex. Souter, in his Study of Ambrosiaster (Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1905), agrees. There is scarcely anything
to be said for the possibility of Ambrose having written
the book before he became a bishop, and added to it in later
years, incorporating remarks of Hilary of Poitiers on Romans.
The best presentation of the case for Ambrose is by P. A.
Ballerini in his complete edition of that father's works.
In the book cited above Professor Souter also discusses the
authorship of the Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, which
the MSS. ascribe to Augustine. He concludes, on very thorough
philological and other grounds, that this is with one possible
slight exception the work of the same ``Ambrosiaster.'' The
same conclusion had been arrived at previously by Dom Morin.
AMBROSINI, BARTOLOMEO (1588-1657), Italian naturalist,
was born and died at Bologna. He was a pupil of Aldrovandi,
several of whose works he published, and whom he succeeded
eventually as director of the university botanical garden.
He studied at the university, and became successively
professor of philosophy, of botany and of medicine; and
during the plague of 1630 in Bologna he worked assiduously
for the relief of the sufferers. He was the author of
several medical works of some importance in their day.
His brother, GIACINTO AMBROSINI (1605-1672), was a distinguished
botanist, who succeeded Bartolomeo as professor of botany
and director of the university garden in 1657. He published
a catalogue of its plants and also a botanical dictionary.
AMBROSIUS AURELIANUS, leader of the Britons against the
Saxons in the 5th century, was, according to the legends
preserved in Gildas and the Historia Brittonum, of Roman
extraction. There are signs of the existence of two parties in
the national opposition to the invaders, but as Pascent, son of
Vortigern, is said by Nennius to have held his dominions in the
west by leave of Ambrosius, the Roman element seems to have
triumphed. Some measure of success appears to have attended the
efforts of Ambrosius, and it has been suggested that Amesbury in
Wiltshire is connected with Emrys, the Celtic form of his name.
See Bede, Eccl. Hist. (Plummer), i. 16; Nennius, Hist.
Britt. sec. 31; Gildas, De excidio Brittarum, sec. 25;
J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (1884), pp. 104, 105, 107.
AMBULANCE (from the Fr. ambulance, formerly hopital
ambulant, derived from the Lat. ambulare, to move about),
a term generally applied in England and America to the wagon
or other vehicle in which the wounded in battle, or those
who have sustained injuries in civil life, are conveyed to
hospital. More strictly, in military parlance, the term
imports a hospital establishment moving with an army in the
field, to provide for the collection, treatment and care of
the wounded on the battlefield, and of the sick, until they
can be removed to hospitals of a more stationary character.
In 1905-1906 the term ``field ambulance'' was adopted in
the British service to denote this organization, the former
division of the ambulance service into ``bearer companies''
and ``field hospitals'' being done away with. The description
of the British service given below applies generally to
the system in vogue in the army after the experience gained
in the South African War of 1899-1902; but in recent years
the medical arrangements in connexion with the British army
hospitals have been altered in various details, and the
changes in progress showed no sign of absolute finality.
Some of these, however, were rather of nomenclature than of
substance, and hardly affect the principles as described below.
History.
The ambulance organization which, variously modified in
details, now prevails in all civilized armies, only dates
from the last decade of the 18th century. Before that time
wounded soldiers were either carried to the rear by comrades
or left unattended to and exposed until the fighting was
over. Surgical assistance did not reach the battlefield till
the day after the engagement, or even later; and for many of
the wounded it was then too late. In 1792 Baron Dominique
Jean Larrey (1766-1842) of the French army introduced his
system of ambulances volantes, or flying field hospitals,
capable of moving with speed from place to place, like
the ``flying artillery'' of that time. They were adapted
both for giving the necessary primary surgical treatment
and for removing the wounded quickly from the sphere of
fighting. Napoleon warmly supported Larrey in his efforts
in this direction, and the system was soon brought to a high
state of efficiency in the Grande Armee. About the same
time another distinguished surgeon in the French army, Baron
Pierre Francois Percy (1754-1825), organized a corps of
brancardiers, or stretcher-bearers. These were soldiers
trained and equipped for the duty of collecting the wounded
while a battle was in progress, and carrying them to a place of
safety, where their wounds and injuries could be attended to.
Geneva Convention.
Animportant step towards the amelioration of the condition
of the wounded of armies in the field was the European
Convention signed at Geneva in 1864, by the terms of
which, subject to certain regulations, not only the
wounded themselves but also the official staff of ambulances
and their equipment were rendered neutral, the former,
therefore, not being liable to be retained as prisoners of
war, nor the latter to be taken as prize of war. This
convention has greatly favoured the development of ambulance
establishments, but as all combatants have not the same
knowledge of the conditions of this convention, or do not
interpret them in the same way, charges of treachery and abuse
of the Red Cross flag are but too common in modern warfare.
The American Civil War marked the beginning of the modern
ambulance system. The main feature, however, of the hospital
organization throughout that war was the railway hospital
service, which provided for the rapid conveyance of the sick
and wounded to the rear of the contending armies. Hospital
carriages, equipped with medical stores and appliances,
for the transport of cases from the front to the base, were
rapidly introduced into other armies, and played a great
part in the ambulance service of the Franco-German War.
German system.
The German hospital service as existing at the time of the
Franco-German War of 1870-71 was modified and extended by the
Kriegs Sanitats Ordnung of 1878 and the KriegsEtappen
Ordnung of 1887, which completed the organization by the
addition in time of war of numerous subordinate offices and
departments. The main divisions of the ambulance organization
of the German army in the field fall into: (1) sanitary
detachments, (2) field hospitals, (3) flying hospitals,
(4) hospital reserve depots, (5) ``committees for the
transport of the sick,'' and (6) railway hospital trains.
The whole administration of the ambulance service of the
grand army in the field is in the hands of the chief of the
ambulance sanitary staff, who is attached to headquarters.
Next in command come surgeons- general of armies in the
field, surgeons-general of army corps, and under them again
surgeons-in-chief of divisions and regiments. Civil consulting
surgeons of eminence, and professors from the universities,
are also attached to the various armies and divisions to
co-operate with and act as advisers to the surgeons of the
standing military surgical staff. The hospital transport
service on the lines of communication is highly organized
and the hospital railway carriages are elaborately equipped.
French system. The French ambulance system, finally settled
by the reglement of 1884, is organized on almost identical
lines with the German; one of the principal peculiarities of
the former being the ambulances volantes already referred
to. The peace organization of the German and French systems
does not materially differ from that of the British service.
Japanese system.
In the Japanese army a special feature is the sanitary corps,
whose duty is the prevention of disease among the troops; it
has been brought to a great pitch of perfection, with the
result that in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) the immunity
of the troops from all forms of preventable disease surpassed
all previous experience. Not only was the army accompanied
by sanitary experts who advised on all questions of camping
grounds, water supply, &c., but before the war began the
Intelligence Department collected information as to the
diseases of the country likely to be the scene of operations,
unhealthy places to be avoided, and precautions to be taken.
British army system.
Coming now to the ambulance system of the British army, in
which are comprised the arrangements and organization of the
medical department for the care and treatment of the sick and
wounded from the time they are injured or taken ill, till they
are able to return to duty or are invalided home, we will trace
the progress of a wounded man from the field of battle to his
home; remembering that, as British troops are usually engaged
overseas, hospital ships as well as land transport are necessary.
First field dressing.
When a soldier falls wounded in action he is attended by
the regimental surgeon and stretcher-bearers, who apply
some extemporized method of stopping bleeding and dress
the wounds with the ``first field dressing'' -- a packet of
antiseptic material which every officer and man on active
service carries stitched to some part of his clothing, and
which contains everything necessary for dressing an ordinary
gunshot wound. Recent wars have demonstrated that in all
uncomplicated cases it is better to leave this dressing
undisturbed, as the wounds made by modern projectiles heal up
at once if left alone, if air and dirt have been thus excluded.
Collecting station.
From the field he is carried on a stretcher by bearers (formerly
of the ``Bearer Companies'') of the Royal Army Medical Corps
to the collecting station, where he is placed on an ambulance
wagon of the first line of assistance and taken to the dressing
station. Here his would will be examined if considered
necessary, but as on the field the first medical officer who
examined him has already attached a ``specification tally''
to the patient, giving particulars of the wound, it will
probably not be disturbed unless complicated by bleeding,
splintering of bone or some other condition requiring
interference. Any operation, however, which is urgently
called for will be here performed, nourishment, stimulants
and opiates administered if required, and the patient moved
to the field hospital in an ambulance wagon of the second
line of assistance. From the field hospital he is transferred
as soon as possible by the ambulance train to the general
hospital at the advanced base of operations, and from there
in due time in another train to the base of operations at
the coast, from which he is ultimately either returned to
duty or sent home in a hospital ship. The organization by
which these requirements are fulfilled is the following: --
Regimental arrangements.
Every regiment and fighting unit has posted to it, on
proceeding on active service, a medical officer who looks
after the health of the men and advises the commanding
officer on sanitary matters. When the regiment goes into
action he takes command of the regimental stretcher-bearers
who, to the number of two per company have been in peace time
instructed in first aid and in the carrying the wounded on
stretchers. These men leave their arms behind and wear
the Red Cross armlets, to indicate their non-combatant
functions, but in these days, when a battle is often fought
at long ranges, it is not to be wondered at, or attributed
to disregard of the red cross flag by the enemy, if medical
officers and stretcher-bearers are hit. The bearer company
into whose charge the wounded man next passes is composed
of men of the Royal Army Medical Corps, with a detachment
of the Army Service Corps for transport duties. In future,
bearer sections of the Field Ambulances will perform the
duties of the bearer company. Its function is to collect and
succour the wounded on the battlefield and to hand them over
to the field hospitals, with which these bearer companies
are closely associated, though separately organized. In
the Indian army the bearer company is provided from the
personnel of the field hospital when there is a battle,
and reverts to the hospital again after it is over. The
war in South Africa of 1899- 1902 clearly demonstrated
the superiority of the Indian plan; for after the action
the bearer company staff should be available to give the
much-needed help in the field hospital, and some amalgamation
of the two organizations, or something after the plan of the
ambulance volante of the French, is necessary. The bearers
afford the wounded any treatment required, supply water and
sedatives, and then carry them back on stretchers to the
collecting station in the rear, whence they are conveyed to
the dressing station in the wagons or other form of transport.
At the dressing station, which ought to be out of range
of the firing, and should have a good water supply, the
patient is made as comfortable as possible, nourishment and
stimulants are administered, and he is then taken to the field
hospital. In times of great stress, when it is desirable to
remove the wounded quickly from the field, and there are no
roads or wheeled transport is not available, large numbers of
bearers are employed to carry them on stretchers, &c. These
men are engaged locally and are soon given the slight training
necessary. This was done in Natal after the battles on the
Tugela (1899), in which there were some thousands of wounded
to be conveyed; also in Egypt, where the local troops not
required for the fighting line were requisitioned; the Japanese
in Mongolia employed hundreds of Chinese coolies for this
purpose, the general use of sedan-chairs in China having
accustomed the poorer class of natives to this kind of labour.
Indian bearers.
In India, the rank and file of the Royal Army Medical
Corps not being employed, the bearer work is carried
out by natives specially enlisted and organized into a
corps. These men are bearers by caste -- a reminiscence
of the system which prevailed generally a hundred years
ago, and is still met with in out-of-the-way places, of
conveyance of travellers in dhoolies, which are closed
wooden carriages fixed on long poles and carried on men's
shoulders. The bearers convey the wounded in dandies, similar
to dhoolies, but made mostly of canvas, so that they are much
lighter. The courage of these bearers on the battlefield has
often been praised. The old bearer caste is, however, rapidly
dying out owing to the general discontinuance of the use of
dhoolies. Thus the ambulance organization in India is
entirely different from that in other parts of the British
empire. The rank and file of the Royal Army Medical Corps
are not employed there, although the medical officers
are. The warrant and non-commissioned ranks are replaced by
a most useful body of men of Anglo-Indian or Eurasian (half
caste) birth, called the Subordinate Medical Department, the
members of which, now called assistant surgeons (formerly
apothecaries), receive a three years' training in medical work
at the Indian medical schools and are competent to perform
the compounding of medicines and to deal with all but the
most serious cases of injury and illness. In the hospitals
the men of the Royal Army Medical Corps are replaced by the
Native Army Hospital Corps, subdivided into ward-servants,
cooks, water- carriers, sweepers and washermen. The caste
system necessitates this division of labour, and the men are
not so efficient or trustworthy as the white soldiers whose
places they take. The bearers of the wounded are a separate
and distinct class, partly attached to regiments, &c., as
part of the regimental transport, and partly organized into
bearer companies, attached to field hospitals. The dandies in
which they carry the wounded are much more comfortable than
stretchers, being fitted with roofs and sides of canvas to
keep off sun and rain, thus being collapsible so that the
dandy is quite flat when not in use. Still they are heavy,
clumsy, and cannot be folded up into a small compass for
transport like a stretcher; they also take up a good deal
of room in wagons and can scarcely be carried on the backs
of animals owing to the length of the pole. Hence riding
ponies and mules are much used in Indian warfare, especially
in the mountains, for the carriage of less seriously wounded
men. In India separate hospitals are necessary for white
and native troops, and the latter have accommodation for the
large numbers of non-combatant camp-followers, mule-drivers,
cooks, officers' servants, &c., &c., which constitute one of
the most remarkable features of the Indian army organization.
Field hospitals.
Field hospitals, under the new scheme furnished by tent
sections of the Field Ambulances, are each supposed to provide
accommodation for 100 patients, who live on their field
rations suitably cooked and supplemented by various medical
comforts. The patients are not supplied with hospital clothing,
nor do they have beds, but he on straw, which is spread on the
ground and covered with waterproof sheets and blankets; of these
latter a considerable reserve is carried. These hospitals can
and must at times accommodate more than the regulation number
of patients, but in the South African War their resources were
at times considerably overtaxed, with consequent discomfort
and hardship to the patients, the medical equipment proving
insufficient for unexpectedly heavy calls upon its resources.
Hospitals on the lines of communication.
These hospitals are supposed to move with the army, and
therefore it is imperative to pass the wounded quickly
back from these to the stationary hospitals on the lines
of communication (which vary according to the length of
these lines) and thence to the general hospitals at the
base. The size of the lines of communication hospitals
varies according to circumstances, and they are as a rule
``dieted,'' that is to say proper hospital diets and not
field rations are issued to the patients, who also are
supplied with beds and proper hospital clothing. In these
hospitals also there may be nursing sisters, who of course
are unsuited for the rough work and life nearer the front.
Sisters are also employed on the hospital trains, which were
found most useful and brought to great perfection in the South
African War, being fitted with beds, kitchens, dispensaries,
&c., so that patients were moved long distances in comfort.
General hospitals.
Arrived at the base of operations the wounded are admitted to
the general hospitals, of which the numbers and situation vary
with circumstances, but each is supposed to have an officers'
ward. In the South African War, owing to the inability of the
comparatively small Royal Army Medical Corps to meet all the
requirements of the enormous force which was ultimately employed,
many of the doctors were drawn from the civil profession, and
the rank and file from the St John's Ambulance Association and
the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps, while many nursing sisters
belonged to the Army Nursing Reserve, ordinarily employed
in civil hospitals but liable to be drafted out during war.
Civil general hospitals.
In the South African War the patriotism and liberality
of the British public furnished several large general
hospitals, perfectly equipped, and officered by some of the
most eminent members of the medical profession in the United
Kingdom. Among others may be mentioned the Princess Christian,
the Imperial Yeomanry (both field and general hospitals),
the Langman, the Portland, the Scottish, Irish and Welsh
hospitals. These were staffed entirely by civilians, except
that an officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps was attached
to each as administrator and organizer; and their personnel
was made up of physicians, surgeons, nurses, dressers (medical
students and in some cases fully qualified surgeons) and
servants; the numbers, of course, varying with the size of the
hospitals. In addition to the staff of these hospitals
several eminent civil surgeons, including Sir William
Maccormac and Sir F. Treves, went out to the seat of war
as consultants: an innovation in the British service, but
in accordance with the system long in vogue in Germany.
To the Army Medical organization is affiliated in war
time that of the Red Cross Society and other charitable
associations, which during the South African War aided
the Army Medical Service greatly by gifts of clothing,
money and numerous luxuries for the sick and wounded.
Hospital ships.
Lastly, the wounded man is transferred to a hospital ship,
which is fitted up with comfortable swinging cots in airy
wards, with refrigerators for preserving provisions and the
supply of ice, punkahs for hot weather, &c. Each division
of an army corps is supposed to have one such ship, with
from 200 to 250 beds and the same staff of doctors, nurses,
&c., as a hospital of similar size on shore, when necessary.
Red Cross societies.
Different regulations are made by various powers as to
the work of the Red Cross societies under the Geneva
flag. Whereas in Germany and France such aid is officially
recognized and placed under direct military control, the
English Red Cross societies have acted side by side with,
but independently of, the military ambulance organization.
In the South African War (1899-1902), however, the bonds
of union were drawn considerably closer, and cordial
co-operation was brought about to prevent overlapping and
waste of money. In Germany the volunteer organization is
presided over by an imperial commission or inspector-general
appointed in peace time, who in time of war is attached to
the headquarters staff. His functions are to control the
relations of the various Red Cross societies and secure
harmonious co-operation. Delegates appointed by him are
attached to the various corps and transport commissions. No
volunteer assistance can be utilized which is not entirely
subordinate to the military control, and has not already in
peace time received official recognition and been organized
on a skeleton footing. Moreover, only persons of German
nationality can be employed under it with the armies in the
field. In case of base hospitals situated in Germany itself,
the services of foreigners may be employed when specially
authorized by the war office. In France, in the main, the
same rules obtain in the case of volunteer hospital service.
St. John's Ambulance Association.
Great attention has been paid to civil ambulance organization in
England. In 1878 the British ambulance association of St
John of Jerusalem was founded. Its object was to render
first aid to persons injured in accidents on the road,
railway, or in any of the occupations of civil life. As the
result of the initiative taken by this society, ambulance
corps have been formed in most large towns of the United
Kingdom; and police, railway servants and workmen have been
instructed how to render first aid pending the arrival of a
doctor. This samaritan work has been further developed
and extended to most parts of the British empire, notably
Canada, Australia and India, and there is no doubt that many
lives are saved annually by the knowledge, diffused by this
association, as to how to stop bleeding, resuscitate the
apparently drowned, &c. Moreover, during the South African
War this association provided a most valuable reserve for
the Royal Army Medical Corps, and drafted out some hundreds
of partially trained men whose assistance was most valuable
to the Army Medical Service in dealing with the enormous
numbers of sick and wounded who came upon their hands.
Civil ambulance in America.
In America each city has its own system and organization of civil
ambulance service. In some, as in Boston, the service is worked
by the police; in others, notably New York, by the hospitals,
while Chicago has an admirable service under municipal control.
In most of the capitals of Europe similar systems prevail.
Ambulance wagons.
British ambulance wagons are built very strongly to stand
rough roads, and are of several patterns; those used in the
war in South Africa were reported on as heavy, uncomfortable,
and so unwieldy as to be incapable very often of keeping
up with the troops; but a new and more mobile vehicle, to
convey four patients lying down as well as six seated, or
fourteen all seated (whereas the old pattern wagons only
accommodated two lying-down cases), has been introduced.
All patterns of wagons weigh from 17 1/2 to 18 1/3 cwt., while
the Boers and the British Colonial auxiliaries used much
lighter-carts, which were taken at a gallop over almost any
country. The Indian ambulances are small two-wheeled
carts, called tongas, drawn by two bullocks or mules;
very strongly made, they are capable of holding two men
lying down, or four sitting up, besides the native driver.
Various other forms of transport are found, such as mule
litters in mountainous districts, where wheeled carriages
cannot go, camel litters in the Sudan, dhoolies in India,
hammocks on the west coast of Africa, or sedan-chairs in
China. In the Russo-Japanese War an ingenious form of mule
litter for serious cases was made by fixing the ends of
two long springy poles about 15 ft. long into each side of
the pack saddles of two mules, one in front of the other,
so as to support a bed for the patient between them; the
length and resiliency of the poles prevented jolting of
the wounded man, and the mules were able to carry him long
distances over any kind of ground. The ordinary mule or
camel litter provides for a wounded man (lying down) being
carried on a sort of stretcher on either side of the animal,
or in cacolets in which the less serious cases are slung
in seats (one on each side of the animal), sitting up.
Mobilization.
In Great Britain, the material and equipment required are
stored in times of peace at the various headquarters stations
and carefully examined twice a year; and on orders for
mobilization being issued, the doctors and various ranks
of attendants, who have previously been told off to each
unit, repair to the allotted station, draw the equipment and
transport, and embark with the brigade to which they are
attached. The tendency of the present day is towards
reduction in bulk and concentration of strength of drugs,
points which simplify the question of transport of ambulance
material. As the fighting man can carry concentrated
nourishment enough for thirty-six hours, in the form of
an emergency ration, in a tin the size of an ordinary
cigar-case, and enough sweetening material in the form of
saccharine to last a fortnight in a bottle smaller than an
ordinary watch, so the medical department can take their
drugs in the form of compressed tabloids, each the correct
dose, and each occupying about one-tenth of the space
the drug ordinarily would; while the medical officers
can carry hypodermic cases, not so large as an ordinary
cigarette-case, containing a syringe and hundreds of doses of
highly concentrated remedies. Again, the traction engines
which now accompany an army can also supply electricity for
X-ray work, electric-lighting, ice-making, &c. (J. R. D.)
AMBULATORY (Med. Lat. ambulatorium, a place for walking,
from ambulare, to walk), the covered passage round a cloister;
a term applied sometimes to the procession way round the east
end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar.
AMBUSH (older form, ``embush,'' O. Fr. embusche,
from the Ital. imboscata, in and bosco, a wood),
the hiding of troops, primarily in a wood, and so
any concealment for the purpose of a sudden attack.
AMEDEO FERDINANDO MARIA DI SAVOIA, duke of Aosta (1845-1890),
third son of Victor Emmanuel II., king of Italy, and of Adelaide,
archduchess of Austria, was born at Turin on the 30th of May
1845. Entering the army as captain in 1859 he fought through
the campaign of 1866 with the rank of major-general, leading
his brigade into action at Custozza and being wounded at Monte
Torre. In May 1867 he married the princess Maria Carlotta
del Pozzo della Cisterna. In 1868 he was created vice-admiral
of the Italian navy, but, two years later, left Italy to
ascend the Spanish throne, his reluctance to accept the
invitation of the Cortes having been overridden by the Italian
cabinet. On the 16th of November 1870 he was proclaimed
king of Spain by the Cortes; but, before he could arrive at
Madrid, Marshal Prim, chief promoter of his candidature, was
assassinated. Undeterred by rumours of a plot against his own
life, Amedeo entered Madrid alone, riding at some distance
from his suite to the church where Marshal Prim's body lay
in state. His efforts as constitutional king were paralysed
by the rivalry between the various Spanish factions, but with
the approval of his father he rejected all idea of a coup
d'etat. Though warned of a plot against his life (August
18, 1872) he refused to take precautions, and, while returning
from Buen Retiro to Madrid in company with the queen, was
repeatedly shot at in Via Avenal. The royal carriage was
struck by several revolver and rifle bullets, the horses
wounded, but its occupants escaped unhurt. A period of
calm followed the outrage. On the 11th of February 1873,
however, Amedeo, abandoned by his partisans and attacked
more fiercely than ever by his opponents, signed his
abdication. Upon returning to Italy he was cordially welcomed
and reinstated in his former position. His consort, whose
health had been undermined by anxiety in Spain, died on
the 3rd of November 1876. Not until the 11th of September
1888 did Amedeo contract his second marriage, with his niece
Princess Letitia Bonaparte. Less than two years later
(January 18, 1890) he died at Turin in the arms of his elder
brother, King Humbert I., leaving four children -- the duke
of Aosta, the count of Turin, the duke of the Abruzzi (issue
of his first marriage), and the count of Salemi. (H. W. S.)
AMELIE-LES-BAINS, a watering-place of south-western
France, in the department of Pyrenees-Orientales, at the
junction of the Mondony with the Tech, 28 1/2 m. S.S.W. of
Perpignan by rail. Pop. (1906) 1247. It has numerous sulphur
springs (68 deg. -145 deg. F.) used as baths by sufferers from
rheumatism and maladies of the lungs. The town is situated
at a height of 770 ft. and has both a winter and summer
season. There are two bathing establishments, one of which
preserves remains of Roman baths, and a large military thermal
hospital. The town, formerly called Arles-les-Bains,
is named after Queen Amelia, wife of Louis Philippe.
AMELOT DE LA HOUSSAYE, ABRAHAM NICOLAS (1634-1706), French
historian and publicist, was born at Orleans in February
1634, and died at Paris on the 8th of December 1706. Little
is known of his personal history beyond the fact that he
was secretary to an embassy from the French court to the
republic of Venice. In his Histoire du gouvernement de
Venise he undertook to explain, and above all to criticize,
the administration of that republic, and to expose the
causes of its decadence. The work was printed by the
king's printer and dedicated to Louvois, which points to
the probability that the government did not disapprove of
it. It appeared in March 1676, and provoked a warm protest
from the Venetian ambassador, Giustiniani. The author was
sent to the Bastille, where he remained, however, only six
weeks (Archives de la Bastille, vol. viii. pp. 93 and 94).
A second edition with a supplement, published immediately
after, drew forth fresh protestations, and the edition was
suppressed. This persecution gave the book an extraordinary
vogue, and it passed through twenty-two editions in three
years, besides being translated into several languages; there
is an English translation by Lord Falconbridge, son-in-law
of Oliver Cromwell. Amelot next published in 1683 a
translation of Fra Paolo Sarpi's History of the Council of
Trent. This work, and especially certain notes added by the
translator, gave great offence to the advocates of unlimited
papal authority, and three separate memorials were presented
asking for its repression. Under the pseudonym of La Motte
Josseval, Amelot subsequently published a Discours politique
sur Tacite, in which he analysed the character of Tiberius.
AMEN, a Hebrew word, of which the root meaning is
``stability,'' generally adopted in Christian worship as a
concluding formula for prayers and hymns. Three distinct
biblical usages may be noted. (a) Initial Amen, referring
back to words of another speaker, e.g. 1 Kings i. 36; Rev.
xxii. 20. (b) Detached Amen, the complementary sentence
being suppressed, e.g. Neh. v. 13; Rev. v. 14 (cf. 1 Cor.
xiv. 16). (c) Final Amen, with no change of speaker, as
in the subscription to the first three divisions of the
Psalter and in the frequent doxologies of the New Testament
Epistles. The uses of amen (``verily'') in the Gospels form a
peculiar class; they are initial, but often lack any backward
reference. Jesus used the word to affirm his own utterances,
not those of another person, and this usage was adopted by the
church. The liturgical use of the word in apostolic times
is attested by the passage from 1 Cor. cited above, and
Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 150) describes the congregation as
responding ``amen,'' to the benediction after the celebration
of the Eucharist. Its introduction into the baptismal formula
(in the Greek Church it is pronounced after the name of each
person of the Trinity) is probably later. Among certain Gnostic
sects Amen became the name of an angel, and in post-biblical
Jewish works exaggerated statements are multiplied as to the
right method and the bliss of pronouncing it. It is still
used in the service of the synagogue, and the Mahommedans
not only add it after reciting the first Sura of the Koran,
but also when writing letters, &c., and repeat it three
times, often with the word Qimtir, as a kind of talisman.
AMENDMENT (through the O. Pr. amender, to correct, from bat.
mendum, a fault), an improvement, correction or alteration
(nominally at least) for the better. The word is used either
of moral character or, more especially, in connexion with
``amending'' a bill or motion in parliament or resolution at a
meeting; and in law it signifies the correction of any defect
or error in the record of a civil action or on a criminal
indictment. All written constitutions also usually contain
a clause providing for the method by which they may be
amended. Another noun, in the plural form of ``amends,''
is restricted in its meaning to that of the penalty paid
for a fault or wrong committed. In its French form the
amende, or amende honorable, once a public confession
and apology when the offender passed to the seat of justice
barefoot and bareheaded, now signifies in the English phrase
a spontaneous and satisfactory rectification of an error.
AMENTIFERAE, or AMENTACEAE, a name which has been used to
include in one class several natural orders of plants which
bear their flowers in catkins (amenta). They are trees
and shrubs chiefly of temperate climates, and include many
common British trees. It comprised the following orders: --
Salicaceae, willows and poplars; Corylaceae, hazel, hornbeam;
Betulaceae, birch, alder; Fagaceae, oak, beech, chestnut;
Casuarinaceae, Casuarina (beefwood); Platanaceae, plane;
Juglandaceae, walnut; Myricaceae, bog myrtle. This class
is not retained in the most modern systems of classification.
AMERCEMENT, or AMERCIAMENT (derived, through the Fr.
a merci, from Lat. merces, pay), in English law, an
arbitrary pecuniary penalty, inflicted in old days on an
offender by the peers or equals of the party amerced.
The word has in modern times become practically a poetical
synonym for fine or deprivation. But an amercement differed
from a fixed fine, prescribed by statute, by reason of its
arbitrary nature; it represented a commutation of a sentence of
forfeiture of goods, while a fine was originally a composition
agreed upon between the judge and the prisoner to avoid
imprisonment. The fixing or assessment of an amercement was
termed an affeerment. In the lower courts the amercement was
offered by a jury of the offender's neighbours (affoerors);
in the superior courts by the coroner, except in the case
of officers of the court, when the amount was affeered by
the judges themselves. All judgments were entered on the
court roll as ``in mercy'' (sit in misericordia), and
the word misericordia, or some contracted form of it,
was written on the margin. Articles twenty to twenty-two
of Magna Carta regulated the assessment of amercements.
See Stephen, History of Criminal Law; Pollock and Maitland,
History of English Law; W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (1905).
AMERIA (mod. Amelia), a city of Umbria, situated about 65 m.
N. of Rome on the Via Amerina (which approached it from the S.
starting from Falerii and passing through Castellum Amerinum,
probably mod. Orte, where it crossed the Tiber). It has a
fine position, 1332 ft. above sea-level, and still retains
considerable remains of the city wall, built in polygonal masonry
of carefully jointed blocks of limestone, some 12 ft. in total
thickness, and showing traces of reconstruction at different
periods. Various remains of the Roman period exist between
the walls, including a large water reservoir divided into ten
chambers. The lofty campanile of the cathedral was erected
in 1050 with fragments of Roman buildings. Ameria is not
mentioned in the history of the Roman conquest of Umbria,
but is alluded to as a flourishing place, with a fertile
territory extending to the Tiber, by Cicero in his speech in
defence of Sextus Roscius Amerinus, and its fruit is often
extolled by Roman writers. Augustus divided its lands among
his veterans, but did not plant a colony here. The bishopric
of Ameria was founded in the middle of the 4th century.
AMERICA. I. Physical Geography. -- The accidental use
of a single name, America, for the pair of continents that
has a greater extension from north to south than any other
continuous land area of the globe, has had some recent
justification, since the small body of geological opinion
has turned in favour of the theory of the tetrahedral
deformation of the earth's crust as affording explanation
of the grouping of continents and oceans. America,
broadening in the north as if to span the oceans by reaching
to its neighbours on the east and west, tapering between
vast oceans far to the south where the nearest land is in
the little-known Antarctic regions, roughly presents the
triangular outline that is to be expected from tetrahedral
warping; and although greatly broken in the middle, and
standing with the northern and southern parts out of a
meridian line, America is nevertheless the best witness
among the continents of to-day to the tetrahedral theory.
There seems to be, however, not a unity but a duality in
its plan of construction, for the two parts, North and South
America, resemble each other not only in outline but, roughly
speaking, in geological evolution also; and the resemblances
thus discovered are the more remarkable when it is considered
how extremely small is the probability that among all the
possible combinations of ancient mountain systems, modern
mountain systems and plains, two continents out of five should
present so many points of correspondence. Thus regarded, it
becomes reasonable to suppose that North and South America
have in a broad way been developed under a succession of
somewhat similar strains in the earth's crust, and that they
are, in so far, favourable witnesses to the theory that
there is something individual in the plan of continental
growth. The chief points of correspondence between these
two great land masses, besides the southward tapering, are
as follows: -- (1) The areas of ancient fundamental rocks
of the north-east (Laurentian highlands of North America,
uplands of Guiana in South America), which have remained
without significant deformation, although suffering various
oscillations of level, since ancient geological times;
(2) the highlands of the south-east (Appalachians and
Brazilian highlands) with a north-east south-west crystalline
axis near the ocean, followed by a belt of deformed and
metamorphosed early Palaeozoic strata, and adjoined farther
inland by a dissected plateau of nearly horizontal later
Palaeozoic formations -- all greatly denuded since the ancient
deformation of the mountain axis, and seeming to owe their
present altitude to broad uplifts of comparatively modern
geological date; (3) the complex of younger mountains along
the western side of the continents (Western highlands, or
Cordilleras, of North America; Andean Cordilleras of South
America) of geologically modern deformation and upheaval,
with enclosed basins and abundant volcanic action, but
each a system in itself, disconnected and not standing in
alignment; (4) confluent lower lands between the highlands,
giving river drainage to the north (Mackenzie, Orinoco),
east (St Lawrence, Amazon), and south (Mississippi, La
Plata). Differences of dimension and detail are numerous,
but they do not suffice to mask what seems to be a resemblance
in general plan. Indeed, some of the chief contrasts of the
two continents arise not so much from geological unlikeness
as from their unsymmetrical situation with respect to the
equator, whereby the northern one lies mostly in the temperate
zone, while the southern one lies mostly in the torrid
zone. North America is bathed in frigid waters around its
broad northern shores; its mountains bear huge glaciers
in the north-west; the outlying area of Greenland in the
north-east is shrouded with ice; and in geologically recent
times a vast ice-sheet has spread over its north-eastern
third; while warm waters bring corals to its southern shores.
South America has warm waters and corals on the north-east,
and cold waters and glaciers only on its narrowing southern
end. If the symmetry that is so noticeable in geological
history had extended to climate as well, many geographical
features might now present likenesses instead of contrasts.
The relation of the Americas to each other and to the rest
of the world, as the home of plants and animals, is greatly
affected by the breadth of the adjacent oceans, and also by
the geologically recent changes of altitude whereby the breadth
of the narrower parts of the lands and the oceans has been
significantly altered. Between the parallels of 60 deg. and 70 deg.
N. the east and west widening of North America forms more than
a third of the almost continuous land ring around a zone of
sub-Arctic climate, through the middle of which runs the Arctic
circle. As a result there is a remarkable community of
resemblance of plant and animal life in the high northern
latitudes of North America and Eurasia. In strong contrast
with this relation of close fellowship is the exceptional
isolation of far southern South America. Excepting the
barren lands of the Antarctic regions, with which Patagonia
is somewhat associated by a broken string of islands, the
nearest continental lands of a more habitable kind are South
Africa and New Zealand. In contrast to the sub-Arctic land
ring, here is a sub-Antarctic ocean ring, and as a result
the land flora and fauna of South America to-day are strongly
unlike the life forms of the other south-ending continents.
For further treatment of the physical geography of the
American continents. see NORTH AMERICA, SOUTH AMERICA.
(W. M. D.)
II. General Historical Sketch. -- The name America was derived
from that of Amerigo Vespucci (q.v.). In Waldseemuller's
map of 1507 the name is given to a body of land roughly
corresponding to the continent of South America. As discovery
revealed the existence of another vast domain to the north, the
name spread to the whole of the pair of continents by customary
use, in spite of the protests of the Spaniards, by whom it was
not officially used of North America till the 18th century.
The discovery of America is justly dated on the 12th (N.S.
21st) of October 1492, when Christopher Columbus (q.v.),
the Genoese, made his landfall on the island of Guanahani,
now identified with Watling Island in the Bahamas. In the
10th and 11th centuries Norse sea-rovers, starting from
Iceland, had made small settlements in Greenland and had
pushed as far as the coast of New England (or possibly
Nova Scotia) in transient visits (see VINLAND and LEIF
ERICSSON). But the Greenland colony was obscure, the country
was believed to form part of Europe, and the records of the
farther explorations were contained in sagas which were only
rediscovered by modern scholarship. Throughout the middle
ages, legendary tales of mythical lands lying in the western
ocean -- the Isle of St Brandan, of Brazil and Antilia -- bad
been handed down. Scholars, guessing from isolated passages
in classic writers, or arguing on general principles, had
held that the ``Indies'' could be reached by sailing due
west. But the venture was beyond the resources of the ships
and the seamanship of the time. The opinions of scholars,
and the fantasies of poets, became an enthusiastic belief
in the mind of Columbus. After many disappointments he
persuaded the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain to furnish him with a squadron of three small
vessels. With it he sailed from Palos in Andalusia on
the 3rd of August 1492, reached Guanahani on the 12th of
October, touched on the coast of Cuba and Hispaniola,
established a small post on the latter, and returned to
Lisbon on the 4th of March 1493, and thence to Spain.
It was the belief of Columbus and his contemporaries that he
had reached the islands described by Marco Polo as forming the
eastern extremity of Asia. Hence he spoke of the ``Indies,''
and ``las Indias'' continued to be the official name given
to their American possessions by the Spaniards for many
generations. His feat produced a diplomatic controversy
with Portugal which was destined to have important political
consequences. In 1454 Pope Nicholas V. had given the
Portuguese the exclusive right of exploration and conquest
on the road to the Indies. His bull contemplated only the
use of the route by the coast of Africa to the south and
east. In 1488 the Portuguese Bartholomeu Diaz had rounded
the Cape of Good Hope. After the return of Columbus
and his supposed demonstration that the Indies could be
reached by sailing west, disputes might obviously arise
between the two powers as to their respective ``spheres
of influence.'' The Catholic sovereigns applied to Pope
Alexander VI., a Spaniard, for a confirmation of their
rights. The pope drew a line from north to south one hundred
leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, and gave
the Spaniards the claim to all to the west (May 4, 1493)
. The Portuguese thought the division unfair to them, and
protested. A conference was held between the two powers
at Tordesillas in 1494, and by common consent the line was
shifted to three hundred and seventy leagues west of the
Cape Verde Islands. The boundary line corresponded to the
50th 1 degree of longitude west of Greenwich, which strikes
the mainland of South America about the mouth of the Amazon.
Thenceforward the Spaniards claimed the right to exclude all
other peoples from trade or settlement ``beyond the line.''
Between September 1493 and the time of his last voyage (May
1502 to November 1504), Columbus explored the West Indies,
reached the mainland of South America at the mouth of the
Orinoco and sailed along the coast of Central America from
Cape Honduras to Nombre de Dios (near Colon). Henry VII. of
England allowed the Bristol merchants to fit out a western
voyage under the command of another Genoese, John Cabot
(q.v.), in 1497. The history of the venture is very
obscure, but Cabot is thought to have reached Newfoundland
and the mainland. Between 1500 and 1503 a Portuguese family
of the name of Cortereal carried out voyages of exploration
on the eastern coast of North America, with the consent of
their government, and with little regard for the treaty of
Tordesillas. In 1500 the Portuguese Pedro Alvarez Cabral,
while on his way to the East Indies, sighted the coast of
Brazil at Monte Pascoal in the Aimores, and took formal
possession. The belief that the eastern extremity of Asia had
been reached died slowly, and the great object of exploration
in America continued for some years to be the discovery of a
passage through to the Spice Islands, in order to compete with
the Portuguese, who had reached them by the Cape route. The
first Spanish settlement in Hispaniola spread to the mainland
by the adventure of Alonso de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuesa in
Darien in 1509. Cuba was occupied by Diego de Velazquez in
1511. In 1512 (or 1513) Juan Ponce de Leon made the first
recorded exploration of the coast of Florida and the Bahama
Channel. In 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the
isthmus of Darien and saw the South Sea (Pacific). The
hope that a passage through to the Spice Islands would
be found near existing Spanish settlements was now given
up. One was sought farther south, and in November 1520
Ferdinand Magellan (q.v.) passed through the strait which
bears his name and sailed across the Pacific. At last the
existence of a continent divided by a vast stretch of ocean
from Asia, and mostly lying within the sphere of influence
assigned to Spain by the pope, was revealed to the world.
The first aim of the Spaniards had been trade with the Indies.
The Casa de Contratacion, a committee for the regulation of
trade, was established at Seville in 1503. European plants
and animals were introduced into Hispaniola and Cuba, and
sugar plantations were set up. But the main object of the
Spaniards, who could not labour in the tropics even if they
had wished to do so, was always gold, to be won by slave
labour. As the surface gold of the islands was exhausted,
and the feeble island races perished before the invaders,
the Spaniards were driven to go farther afield. In 1510
Pedrarias Davila transferred the Darien settlement to Panama.
In that and the following year the coasts of Yucatan and of
the Gulf of Mexico were explored successively by Francisco
Hernandez Cordova and Juan de Grijalva, who both sailed from
Cuba. From Cuba it was that Hernan Cortes (q.v.) sailed
on the 10th (or 18th) of February 1519 for the conquest of
Mexico. Hitherto the Spaniards had met only the weak
islanders, or the more robust cannibal Caribs, both alike pure
savages. In Mexico they found ``pueblo'' or town Indians who
possessed an organized government and had made some progress in
civilization. The hegemony of the Aztecs, who dominated
the other tribes from the central valley of Mexico, was
oppressive. Cortes, the most accomplished and statesmanlike
of the Spanish conquerors, raised the subject peoples against
them. His conquest was effected by 1521. His example
stimulated the settlers at Panama, who had heard of a great
people owning vast quantities of gold to the south of them.
Between 1524 and 1535 Francisco Pizarro (q.v.) and Diego
de Almagro had completed the conquest of Peru, which was
followed, however, by a long period of strife among the
Spaniards, and of rebellions. The country between Peru and
Panama was subdued before 1537 by the conquest of Quito by
Sebastian de Benalcazar and of New Granada by Jimenez de
Quesada. From Peru the Spaniards advanced southwards to
Chile, which was first unsuccessfully invaded (1535-37)
by Diego de Almagro, and afterwards occupied (1540-53) by
Pedro de Valdivia. Their advance to the south was checked
by the indomitable opposition of the Araucanians, but
from the southern Andes the Spaniards overflowed on to the
great plains which now form the interior of the Argentine
Republic. The first permanent settlement at the mouth
of the river Plate at Buenos Aires dates from 1580.
In its main lines the Spanish conquest was complete by
1550. What the Spaniards had then overrun from Mexico to
Chile is still Spanish America. Brazil, after a period of
exploration which began in 1510, was gradually settled by
the Portuguese, though its bounds on the south remained a
subject of dispute with the Spaniards till the 18th century.
The vast territories acquired by Spain in this brief period
were held to be, by virtue of the pope's bull, the peculiar
property of the sovereign. When the wide and dangerous powers
granted to Columbus by his patent were confiscated, Ferdinand
first imposed Bishop Fonseca on him as a check. In 1509
the council of the Indies was established, but it did not
take its final form till 1524. It consisted of a president,
with a board of advisers, who possessed legislative and
administrative powers, and who varied in number at different
times. There was an appeal to it from all colonial governors
and courts. The Casa de Contratacion, another hoard,
regulated the trade. In America the crown was represented by
governors. After the preliminary period of conquest the
whole of the Spanish possessions were divided into the two
``kingdoms'' of New Spain, -- consisting of Venezuela and
the Spanish possessions north of the isthmus -- and of New
Castile, a title soon changed to Peru, which included the
Central American isthmus and all of South America except
Venezuela and Brazil. Each was ruled by a viceroy. As the
Spanish dominions became more settled, the viceroyalty of
Peru was found to be unwieldy. New Granada (which included
the present republics of Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador) was
created a viceroyalty in 1718 (soon abolished, but re-created in
1740). A fourth viceroyalty for the river Plate was formed in
1778. Other governments known as captain-generalships were cut
out of the viceroyalties at different periods -- Guatemalain
1527, Venezuelain 1773, Cubain 1777 and Chile in 1778. The
captains-general corresponded directly with the council of the
Indies, and were independent of the viceroys except in war
time. The administrative powers of the viceroys were very
great. They were, however, checked by the audiencias,
or law courts, of which there were eleven from the reign of
Philip IV. -- Santo Domingo, Mexico, Panama, Lima, Guatemala,
Guadalajara, Bogota, La Plata, Quito, Chile, Buenos Aires.
They acted as councils to the governors, and had civil and
criminal jurisdiction with an appeal to the council of
the Indies at Seville. The towns had municipal franchises,
exercised by a governing body comprised of Spaniards, either
immigrants from Old Spain, or Creoles, i.e. descendants
of Spanish settlers. The places were often sold, and were
objects of ambition to the richer merchants. In practice
the selling of a seat in the town councils, or cabildos,
did not have the bad consequences which might have appeared
inevitable. In the earlier stages of Spanish colonial history
meetings of delegates (procurators) of the town councils,
in imitation of the national cortes of Spain, were not
uncommon. The kings of Spain had obtained from the popes
Alexander VI. and Julius II. the right of levying the tithe,
and of naming the holders of all ecclesiastical benefices.
These immense concessions, made when the development of the
Spanish settlements could not be foreseen, were regretted by
later popes, but the crown adhered firmly to its regalities.
The government of Spain administered its dominions from the
beginning in the strictest spirit of the ``colonial system.''
The Indies were expected to supply precious metals and raw
materials, and to take all manufactures from the mother
country. In order to facilitate the regulation of the
trade by the Casa de Contratacion, it was concentrated
first in Seville, and when the Guadalquivir was found
to be becoming too shallow for the growing tonnage of
ships, at Cadiz. Merchant vessels were required for their
protection to sail in convoy. The convoys or flotas
sailed in October first to Cartagena in South America, and
from thence to Nombre de Dios or, in later times, Porto
Bello. The yearly fairs at these places received the
imports from Europe and the colonial trade of the Pacific
coast, first collected at Panama and then carried over the
isthmus. From Nombre de Dios or Porto Bello the convoys went
to La Vera Cruz for the trade of New Spain, and returned home
in July by the Florida straits. One-fifth of the produce
of the mines belonged to the crown. The collection of this
bullion was at all times a main object with the Spanish
government, and more especially so after the discovery of the
great silver deposits of Potosi in Bolivia. Forced labour
was required to work them and the natives were driven to the
toil. The excesses of the earliest Spanish settlers have
become a commonplace, largely through the passionate eloquence
of Bartolome de Las Casas (see LAS CASAS). The Spanish
government made strenuous attempts to regulate forced labour
by limiting the rights of the masters. An encomienda was
required by anyone who wished to exact labour, i.e. the
Indians of a district were given to him ``in commendam'' with
the power to demand a corvee from them and a small yearly
payment per head. The laws endeavoured to check abuses, but
there can be no doubt that they were often defeated by the
greed of the colonists -- more especially in the viceroyalty
of Peru, which was always less well governed than Mexico.
But the bulk of the inhabitants of the Spanish possessions
were of pure or mixed Indian blood, and many Indians were
prosperous as traders, manufacturers, farmers and artisans.
The Portuguese settlement in Brazil was more purely colonial
than the Spanish possessions. Until 1534 little was done to
regulate the activity of private adventures. In that year
the coast was divided into captaincies, which were united
under a single governor-general in 1549. Between 1555 and
1567 the Portuguese had to contend with the French Huguenot
invaders who seized Rio, and whom they expelled. Between
1572 and 1576 there were in Brazil the two governments
of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, but its history is of little
importance till the occupation of Portugal by Philip II.
drew the country into the wars of the Spanish monarchy.
The claim of the Peninsula powers to divide the American
continent between them, based as it was on an award given in
entire ignorance of the facts, would in no case have been
respected. In the great upheaval of the Renaissance and
the Reformation it was certain to be defied. As England was
in general alliance with the sovereigns of Spain during the
early 16th century, Englishmen turned their attention at
first towards the discovery of a route to the Spice Islands
round the north of Asia. But the rivalry of Francis I. and
Charles V. gave France a strong motive for assailing the
Spaniards in the New World now revealed to the ambition of
Europe. King Francis encouraged the ill-recorded and disputed
voyages of the Florentine Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524,
and the undoubted explorations of Jacques Cartier. Between
1534 and 1542 this seaman, a native of St Malo, explored the
Strait of Belle Isle and the Gulf of St Lawrence, and visited
the Indian village of Hochelaga, now Montreal. The claims
of France to the possession of a great part of the northern
half of America were based on the voyages of Verrazano and
Cartier. The death of King Francis, and the beginning of the
wars of religion, suspended colonial enterprise under royal
direction. But the Huguenots, under the inspiration of
Coligny, made three attempts to found colonies to the
south -- at Rio de Janeiro in 1555-1567, near the present
Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1562, and in Florida in 1565.
These ventures were ruined partly by the hostility of the
Spaniards and Portuguese, partly by the dissensions of the
colonists. Meanwhile French corsairs from St Malo and
Dieppe had been active in infesting the West Indies and
the trade route followed by the Spanish convoys. After
the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and the beginning of the
breach between England and Spain, they were joined by English
sea-rovers. The English claimed the right to trade with all
Spanish possessions in or out of Europe by virtue of their
treaty of trade and amity made in the reign of Charles V.
The Spaniards disputed this interpretation of the treaty, and
maintained that there was ``no peace beyond the line,'' i.e.
Pope Alexander's line as finally fixed by the conference at
Tordesillas. The English retaliated by armed smuggling voyages.
It was, however, not till late that they attempted to found
permanent settlements. In 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained
a patent for discovery and settlement. In 1583 he perished
in an effort to establish a colony in Newfoundland. His
work was taken up by his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh in
1584. Between 1586 and 1603 Sir Walter made successive efforts
to settle a colony in the wide territory called Virginia, in
honour of Queen Elizabeth, a name of much wider significance
then than in later days. His colony at Roanoke, in what
is now the state of North Carolina, was unsuccessful, and
after his fall his patent reverted to the crown, but the new
Virginia Company carried on his schemes. In 1607 the first
lasting settlement was made in Virginia, and after a period
of struggle began to flourish by the cultivation of tobacco.
In 1620 another settlement was made. A small body of
religious dissentients, one hundred and one men, women and
children, including some who had fled to Holland to escape
the discipline of the church of England, secured leave from
the Virginia Company to plant themselves within its bounds.
They sailed in a single ship, the ``Mayflower,'' and landed
near Cape Cod, where they founded the colony of Plymouth,
afterwards (1621) obtaining a patent from the council for New
England. From these two centres, and from later settlements,
arose the ``Plantations'' of the English, which gradually
increased to the number of thirteen and were destined to
become the United States of America. Two strongly contrasted
types were found among them. The Virginian or southern
type, which may be said to have prevailed from Maryland
southward, were for the most part planters producing tobacco,
Indian corn, rice, indigo and cotton, largely by the labour
of negro slaves. They had no very pronounced religious
leaning, though Maryland was founded as a Roman Catholic
refuge, but they had a prevailing leaning to the church of
England. The northern or New England element began by
endeavouring to establish a Puritan theocracy which broke
down. But the tendency was towards ``Independency,'' and
the New Englanders were farmers tilling their own land,
traders and seafaring men. In the middle region between
them religion had a large share in promoting the formation of
Pennsylvania, which was founded by the Quaker William Penn.
The English colonies, though divided by interest or
character, were all alike jealous to defend, and eager to
extend, their freedom of self-government, based on charters
granted by, or extorted from, the crown. The settlers by
degrees threw off the control of the proprietors who had
received grants from the crown and had promoted the first
settlements. It was a marked characteristic of the English
colonists, and a strong element in their prosperity, that
they were hospitable in welcoming men of other races, --
Germans from the Palatinate, and French Huguenots driven
out by persecution who brought with them some capital,
more intelligence and an enduring hatred of Roman Catholic
France. Though the British government gave, more or less
unwillingly, a large measure of self-government to the
Plantations, it was no less intent than the Spanish crown
on retaining the whole colonial trade in British hands, and
on excluding foreigners. Like the Spaniards it held that
this trade should be confined to an exchange of colonial
raw produce for home manufactures. Two foreign settlements
within the English sphere -- the Dutch colony of New
Netherland, now New York, and the Swedish settlement on the
Delaware -- were absorbed by the growing English element.
While the English plantations were striking root along the
coast, by somewhat prosaic but fruitful industry, and were
growing in population with rapid strides, two other movements
were in progress. To the south, the English, French and
Dutch, though often in rivalry with one another, combined to
break in on the monopoly of the Spaniards. They turned the
maxim that ``there is no peace beyond the line'' against its
inventors. They invaded the West Indies, seized one island
after another, and formed the freebooting communities known
as the Brethren of the Coast and the Buccaneers (q.v).
After the renewal of the war between Spain and Holland in
1621, the Dutch invaded the Portuguese colony of Brazil,
and seized Bahia. A long period of struggle followed,
but, after the declaration of Portuguese independence
in 1640, local opposition, and the support given to the
Portuguese by the French, led to the retreat of the Dutch.
To the north, to the west and to the south of the English
settlements on the mainland, a most characteristic French
colonial policy was being carried out. No sooner were the wars
of religion over than the French again set about making good
their claim to Canada, and to whatever they could represent
as arising naturally out of Canada. In 1599, under the
encouragement of Henry IV., speculators began to frequent the
St Lawrence in pursuit of the fur trade. Their settlements
were mainly trading posts. Their colonists were not farmers
but trappers, woodrangers, coureurs du bois, who married
Indian women, and formed a mixed race known as the bois
brules. Not a few of the leaders, notably Samuel de Champlain
(q.v.), who founded Quebec in 1608, were brave ingenious
men, but the population provided no basis for a lasting
colony. It was adventurous, small, scattered and unstable.
The religious impulse which was so strong both in the Spanish
and the English colonies was prominent in the French, but in
the most fatal form. Pious people were eager to bring about
the conversion of the Indians, and were zealously served by
missionaries. The Jesuits, whose first appearance in New
France dates from 1611, were active and devoted. Their aim was
to reduce the fierce Red men to a state of childlike docility
to priests, and they discouraged all colonization in their
neighbourhood. It was true that the most active French colonial
element, the trappers, were barbarized by the natives, and
that the pursuit of the fur trade and other causes had brought
the French into sharp collision with the most formidable
of the native races, the confederation known as the Five
(or Six) Nations. During the reign of Louis XIV., after
1660, the French government paid great attention to Canada,
but not in a way capable of leading to the formation of a
colony. The king was as intent as the rulers of Spain had
been to keep the American possessions free from all taint of
heresy. Therefore he carried on the policy of excluding
the Huguenots -- the only colonizing element among his
subjects, -- and drove them into the English plantations.
A small handful of obedient peasants, priest-ridden and
over-administered, formed the basis of the colony. On
this narrow foundation was raised a vast super- structure,
ecclesiastical, administrative and military. His priests,
and his officials civil and military, gave the French king
many daring explorers. While the English colonies were
slowly digging their way, taking firm hold of the soil, and
growing in numbers, from the sea to the Alleghanies, French
missionaries and explorers had ranged far and wide. In 1682
Robert Cavelier, sieur de la Salle, who had already explored
the Ohio, sailed down the Mississippi and took possession
of the region at the mouth by the name of Louisiana.
The problem which was to be settled by a century of strife
was now posed. On the one hand were the English plantations,
populated, cultivated, profitable, stretching along the
east coast of North America; on the other were the Canadian
settlements, poverty-stricken, empty, over-officialled,
a cause of constant expense to the home government, and,
at a vast distance, those of Louisiana, struggling and
bankrupt. The French remedy for an unsuccessful colony has
always been to annex more territory, and forestall a possible
rival. Therefore the French government strove to unite the
beggarly settlements in Canada and Louisiana by setting up
posts all along the Ohio and the Mississippi, in order to
confine the English between the Alleghanies and the sea.
The political history of North America till 1763 is mainly
the story of the pressure of the English colonies on this
paper barrier. As regards Spanish America, England was
content to profit by the Asiento (q.v.) treaty, which gave
her the monopoly of slave- hunting for the Spanish colonies
and an opening for contraband trade. In the river Plate
region, where the dissensions of Spaniards and Portuguese
afforded another opening, English traders smuggled. The
Spaniards, with monstrous fatuity, refused to make use of
the superb waterways provided by the Parana and Paraguay,
and endeavoured to stifle all trade. England's main struggle
was with France. It was prolonged by her entanglement in
European disputes and by political causes, by the want of
co-operation among the English colonies and their jealousy
of control by the home government. The organization of
the French colonies, though industrially ruinous, gave them
Illustrations representative of the primitive cultures of Central
America, Mexico and Peru (q.q.v.) selected and arranged by
Dr Walter Lehmann of the Royal Ethinographical Museum, Munich.
Fig. 1. -- Stone Sculpture, from Teotihuacan
Mexico. Prae-Mexican culture (? Totonacan).
Fig. 2. -- View of the Giant Pyramid of the Sun. Teotihuacan.
Plateau region, Mexico. Prae-Mexican culture (? Totonacan).
(Figs. 2 and 6 from photos by Waite, Mexico.)
Fig. 3. -- Alabaster Vessel, with carved lizard as
handle. Teotihuacan, Mexico. Proto-Mexican culture.
Fig. 5. -- Carved Stone Figure of the god of sports and
dancing (Xochipilli- Miacuilxochitl, ``five flowers''),
squatting on a stool, decorated with flowers and tonallo
emblems. Plateau region, Mexico. Mexican culture.
Fig. 6. -- Sculptured Frieze of the Temple of Xochicalco. Plateau
region, Mexico. Mexican culture with Mayan influence.
Fig. 7. -- Stone Tablet in memory of the year chicuei-acatl
(``8 reeds''), A.D. 1487, when the Great Temple in
Mexico was consecrated; above are the figures of the
Kings Ticoc and Ahuitzol, sacrificing with the date
of the beginning of the rebuilding, chicome-acatl (``7
reeds''), A.D. 1447. Mexico City. Mexican culture.
Fig. 8. -- Leaf 3 of the Tonalamatl or sacred cycle of
260 days from the Aubin collection. Figures of the gods
Quetzalcoatl and Tepeyollotli. Mexico. Mexican culture.
Fig. 9. -- Leaf 10 of Codex Borbonicus with figure of the god of
the underworld (Mictlantecutli) as regent of the tenth of the
20 sections, each of 13 days, of the tonalamatl, which begins
with ``one flint'' (ce tepcatl). Mexico, Mexican culture.
Fig. 10. -- Leaf 54 of Codex Borbonicus B., with figures
of the ancient moon-god, the twelve months, and the rabbit
as the animal moon-emblem. Mexico. Mexican culture.
(Figs. 8 - 10 from the publications of the duke of Loubat.)
Fig. 1. -- Male Clay Figure, holding weapon (?). From near
Tzintzuntzan Michoacan, Mexico. (?) Tarascan culture.
Fig. 2. -- View of the Ruins of the Pyramid Temple of
Papantla, near Vera Cruz, Mexico. Totonacan culture.
Fig. 3. -- Hump-Backed Clay Figure, standing on a
fish; a reed staff in one hand, and incised lines on
face. From Tzintzuntzan. (?) Tarascan culture.
Fig. 4. -- Human Figure with a rattle-stick in the right hand.
From near Alvarado, Vera Cruz, Mexico. Totonacan culture.
Fig. 5. -- Stone Carving, deeply undercut, of the so-called Palma type.
From Coatepec, Canton Falapa, Vera Cruz, Mexico. Totonacau culture.
Fig. 6. -- Similar Carving with human
figure. From Coatepec. Totonacan culture.
Fig. 7. -- Stone Yoke, carved in the so-called
frog-type. Vera Cruz, Mexico. Totonacan culture.
Fig. 8. -- Crucified Figure, pierced with arrows of the victim at
the festival of the god Nipe (Mexican Tlacaxipernaliztli), with
the symbols of the god. Culture of the Mayan transitional peoples
of the Atlantic coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Totonaran culture.
Fig. 9. -- Temple Chambers, with stone pillars, from
the ruins of Mitla, Oaxaca, with wall mosaic of joined
stores. Zapotecan culture with proto-Mexican influence.
Fig. 10. -- Wall Mosaic of joined stone from the ruins of
Mitla. Zapotecan culture with proto-Mexican influence.
(Figs. 2, 9, and 10 are from photos by Waite, Mexico; Fig 8,
from the ``Codex Nuttall,'' publications of the Peabody Museum.)
the command of more available military forces than were at
the disposal of the English. Thus the fight dragged on, and
was constantly maintained in Acadia, where the sovereignty
had been early disputed, and the border never properly
settled. At last, when under the leadership of the elder Pitt
(see CHATHAM, EARL OF) England set to work resolutely to
force a final settlement, the end came. The British navy cut
off the French from all help from home, and after a gallant
struggle, their dominion in Canada was conquered, and the
French retired from the North American continent. They
surrendered Louisiana to Spain, which had suffered much in an
attempt to help them, and their possessions in America were
reduced to their islands in the West Indies and French Guiana.
The fall of the French dominion on the continent of North
America was practically the beginning of the existence of
independent nations of European origin in the New World.
The causes which led to the revolt of the Plantations, the
political and military history of the War of Independence,
are dealt with under the heading of UNITED STATES
(History) and AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. The
significance of these great events in the general history
of America is that from 1783 onwards there was, in the New
World, an autonomous community not wholly unified at once,
nor without strife, but self-governing and self-subsisting,
in entire separation from European control. Such a polity,
surrounded as it was by territory dependent on European
sovereigns, could not be without a profound influence on its
neighbours. Of deliberate direct action there was not
much, nor was it needed. The peoples of the thirteen states
which had secured emancipation from British sovereignty
were wisely intent on framing their own Federal Union, and
in taking effective possession of the vast territories in
the Ohio region and beyond the Mississi. But their example
worked. Their independence tempted, their prosperity
stimulated. From the freedom of the United States came the
revolt of Spanish America, and the grant by Great Britain
to Canada of the amplest rights of self-government.
The effect which the establishment of the great northern
republic was bound to have on their own colonies was not
unknown to the wiser among the rulers of Spain. They
took, however, few and weak steps to counteract the visible
peril. During the later 17th century and the whole of the
18th, the history of the Spanish colonies and of the Portuguese
in Brazil, was not, as has often been said, one of pure
stagnation. Apart from such a peculiar development as the
rise, formation and fall of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay,
there was growth and change. The Creole population
increased and was steadily recruited from home. Apart from
settlers who came for trade, the flow of government officials,
and soldiers, both officers and men, ended generally in
recruiting the Creole element. The newcomers married in the
country, and died there, leaving their families to grow up
Americans. San Martin, the military leader of Buenos Aires
in the revolt, was the son of a Spanish army officer and a
Creole mother, and he is quoted as the example of thousands.
He was educated in Spain, and began as an officer in the
Spanish army. Increasing numbers of Creoles came home for
education, and though they rarely went beyond Spain, yet
Spain itself was being permeated by the influence of French
philosophic and economic writers. The Creoles brought back new
ideas. Slow as the Spanish government was to move, and
obstinately as it clung to old ways, it was forced to remove
restrictions on trade, largely by the discovery that it could
not prevent smuggling, which was, in fact, carried on with
the connivance of its own corrupt officials. The attempt
to prevent all trade on the river Plate was given up, and
a vigorous commercial community arose. A revolt of the
Indians in Peru in 1780, which was savagely suppressed, forced
the government to take note of the abuses of its colonial
administration. Many reforms were introduced. Spanish
America was never so well governed as at the end of the 18th
century, and was on the whole prosperous. But the reforms and
concessions of Spain came too late. In commerce it had to
compete with the highly developed maritime industry of Great
Britain. In government it had to meet with the growing
discontent of the Creoles, who found themselves treated as
children, and their country looked on as a milch cow. The
wars of the French Revolution and of the emperor Napoleon,
in which Spain was entangled, interrupted its communications
with its colonies, and weakened its hold on them. The
defeat, in 1806 and 1807, of two British expeditions to Buenos
Aires and Montevideo, resulting in the capitulation of the
English force, gave a great impulse to the self-reliance of
the colonists, to whom the credit of the victory entirely
belonged. When the intervention of Napoleon in Spain plunged
the mother country into anarchy, the colonists began to act for
themselves. They were still loyal, but they were no longer
passive. The brutality of some Spanish governors on the
spot provoked anger. The cortes assembled in Cadiz, being
under the influence of the merchants and mob, could make no
concessions, and all Spanish America flamed into revolt. For the
details of the struggle the reader must refer to the articles
ARGENTINA, BOLIVIA, CHILE, COLOMBIA, ECUADOR, PANAMA, PERU,
PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, VENEZUELA. Brazil followed the same
course in a milder way and a little later. The struggle of
Spanish America for independence lasted from 1810 to 1826.
This vast extension of the area of independence in America
could not but have its proportionate effect on the general
balance of power among nations. So long as Spain retained her
colonies on the mainland, while England held Canada, and the
English, Dutch and French had possessions in Guiana, the New
World must have remained in political dependence on the Old.
When the Spanish colonies secured effective independence, and
even before their freedom was formally recognized, foreign
sovereignty became at once the exception in America. The
change thus established de facto owed its first diplomatic
consecration to the developments of international politics
in the Old World. The committee of the great powers which,
since the downfall of Napoleon, had succeeded to the authority
which he had usurped in Europe (see EUROPE: History), was
for the few years of its unbroken existence fully occupied
with the task of preserving the ``European Confederation''
from the peril to its peace of renewed revolutionary
outbreaks. As early as the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle
(1818), however, the question of the relations of Spain and
her colonies had been brought up and the suggestion made of
concerted intervention, to put an end to a state of things
scandalous in itself and dangerous, if only by force of
example, to the monarchical principle. The proposal came
to nothing, and fared no better when revived at subsequent
conferences, owing to the opposition of Great Britain and of
Spain herself. Spanish pride resented the interference of an
alliance in which Spain had no part; Great Britain could not
afford to allow any action to be taken which might end in the
re-establishment of the old Spanish colonial system and the
destruction of the considerable British trade, still nominally
contraband, which had grown up with the colonies during the
troubles. Had the Spanish government frankly accepted the
situation and acknowledged the trade as legitimate, England
would have had no objection to the re-establishment of the
Spanish sovereignty in America. But the stubborn blindness
of Ferdinand VII. and his ministers made any such solution
impossible, and, before the meeting of the congress of Verona,
in 1822, Castlereagh had realized the eventual necessity
of recognizing the independence of the South American
states. Matters were brought to a crisis by the outcome of
the Verona conferences (see VERONA, CONGRESS OF), and the
re-establishment, in 1823, of the absolute power of the king
in Spain by French arms and under French influence, the logical
consequence of which seemed to be the reconquest, with the
aid of France, of the Spanish colonies. Great Britain could
not afford to stand aside and watch the accomplishment of an
ambition to prevent which she had, at immense sacrifice of
blood and treasure, overthrown the power of Louis XIV. and of
Napoleon. She had exhausted every art of diplomatic obstruction
to the aggressive action of France; her counterstroke to the
unexpectedly easy victory of the French arms was the formal
recognition of the revolted colonies as independent states.
``If France has Spain,'' cried Canning in parliament, ``at
least it shall be Spain without the Indies. We have called a
New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.''
On the 23rd of July 1824, a commercial treaty was signed between
Great Britain and Brazil; Colombia and Mexico were acknowledged
in December of the same year; and the recognition of the
other states followed, as each was able to give guarantees
of stable government. Meanwhile the United States, acting in
harmony, but not in formal co-operation, with England, had
taken decisive action. President Monroe, in his message to
Congress on the 2nd of December 1823, laid down the rule that
no part of America was any longer res nullius, or open to
colonial settlement. Though the vast ultimate consequences
of this sudden appearance of the great western republic in
the arena of international politics were not realized even
by those in sympathy with Monroe's action, the weight of
the United States thrown into the scale on the side of Great
Britain made any effective protest by the European powers
impossible; Russia, Austria and Prussia contented themselves
with joining in a mild expression of regret that the action
of Great Britain ``tended to encourage that revolutionary
spirit it had been found so difficult to control in Europe.''
Great Britain and the United States were, indeed, not in
complete agreement as to the legitimacy of fresh colonial
settlements in the New World, but they were practically
resolved that nobody should make any new settlements except
themselves. From President Monroe's declaration has
grown up what is now known as the Monroe Doctrine (q.v.),
which, in substance, insists that America forms a separate
system apart from Europe, wherein still existing European
possessions may be tolerated, but on the understanding that no
extension of them, and no establishment of European control
over a nominally independent American state, will be allowed.
The Monroe Doctrine is indeed the recognition, rather than
the cause, of undeniable fact. Europe is still possessed of
some measure of sovereign power in the New World, in Canada,
in Guiana and in the West Indian islands. But Canada is
bound only by a voluntary allegiance, Guiana is unimportant,
and in the West Indian islands, where the independence of
Hayti and the loss of Cuba and Porto Rico by Spain have
diminished the European sphere, European dominion is only
a survival of the colonial epoch. America, North and South,
does form a separate system. Within that system power is
divided as it has not been in Europe since the fall of the
Roman empire. On the one hand are the United States and
Canada. On the other are all the states formed out of
the colonial empires of Spain and Portugal. The states
of the American Union are non-tropical, adapted to the
development of European races, not mixed with Indian blood,
and possessed by long inheritance of the machinery needed
for the successful conduct of self-government. They grew
during the 19th century in population and wealth at a rate
that placed them far ahead of the Spanish and Portuguese
states, which in the year 1800 were the richer and the more
populous. The Spanish and Portuguese states of America are mainly
tropical, and therefore ill adapted to the health of a white
race. Their population is divided between a white minority,
among whom there are to be found strains of Indian blood,
and a coloured majority, sometimes docile and industrious,
sometimes mere savages. They inherited no machinery of
self-government. Townships governed by close corporations,
and all embedded in the despotic power of the crown, presented
none of the elements out of which a commonwealth could be
formed. It was inevitable that in the early stages of
their history, the so-called Latin communities should fall
under the control of ``the single person,'' and no less
inevitable that he should be a soldier. The sword and
military discipline supplied the only effective instruments of
government. It would have been a miracle if the first
generation of Mexican and South American history had not been
anarchical. And though in recent years Spanish America has
seemingly settled down, and republican institutions have
followed upon long periods of continual revolution, yet over
the American continent as a whole there is an overwhelming
predominance, material and intellectual, of the communities
of English speech and politically of English origin.
AUTHORITIES. -- Separate bibliographies will be found
under the headings of the separate states. Amid the
plethora of books, the reader cannot do better than
consult the Narrative and Critical History of America,
edited by Justin Winsor (1886-1889), in eight large octavo
volumes, in which all the chapters are supplied with
copious and carefully-compiled bibliographies. (D. H.)
1 The exact position has been disputed. According to
John Fiske, the line would be between 41 deg. and 44 deg. long.
III. Ethnology and Archaeology.--
The American aborigines.
A summary account is heregiven of the American aborigines,
who are discussed in more detail under INDIANS, NORTH
AMBRICAN. Whether with Payne it is assumed that in some
remote time a speechless anthropoid passed over a land
bridge, now the Bering Sea, which then sank behind him;
or with W. Boyd Dawkins and Brinton, that the French cave
man came hither by way of Iceland; or with Keane, that
two subvarieties, the long-headed Eskimo-Botocudo type
and the Mexican round- headed type, prior to all cultural
developments, reached the New World, one by Iceland,
the other by Bering Sea; or that Malayoid wanderers were
stranded on the coast of South America; or that no breach
of continuity has occurred since first the march of tribes
began this way -- ethnologists agree that the aborigines
of the western came from the eastern hemisphere, and there
is lacking any biological evidence of Caucasoid or Negroid
blood flowing in the veins of Americans before the invasions
of historic times. The time question is one of geology.
Following Notes and Queries on Anthropology, published by
the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the
study of the American aborigines divides itself into two
parts: that relating to their biology, and that relating
to their culture. In the four subdivisions of humanity
based on the hair, the Americans are straight-haired or
Mongoloid. But it will free this account of them from
embarrassments if they be looked upon as a distinct subspecies
of Homo sapiens. Occupying 135 degrees of latitude,
living on the shores of frozen or of tropical waters; at
altitudes varying from sea-level to several thousands
of feet; in forests, grassy prairies or deserts; here
starved, there in plenty; with a night here of six months'
duration, there twelve hours long; here among health-giving
winds, and there cursed with malaria -- this brown man
became, in different culture provinces, brunette or black,
tall or short, long-headed or short-headed, and developed
on his own hemisphere variations from an average type.
Since the tribes practised far more in-breeding than
out-breeding, the tendency was toward forming not only verbal
linguistic groups, but biological varieties; the weaker the
tribe, the fewer the captures, the greater the isolation and
harder the conditions -- producing dolichocephaly, dwarfism
and other retrogressive characteristics. The student will
find differences among anthropologists in the interpretation
of these marks -- some averring that comparative anatomy is
worthless as a means of subdividing the American subspecies,
others that biological variations point to different Old
World origins, a third class believing these structural
variations to be of the soil. The high cheek-bone and the
hawk's- bill nose are universally distributed in the two
Americas; so also are proportions between parts of the body,
and the frequency of certain abnormalities of the skull,
the hyoid bone, the humerus and the tibia. Viability, by
which are meant fecundity, longevity and vigour, was low in
average. The death-rate was high, through lack of proper
weaning foods, and hard life. The readiness with which
the American Indian succumbed to disease is well known. For
these reasons there was not, outside of southern Mexico,
northern Central America and Peru, a dense population. In
the whole hemisphere there were not over ten million souls.
The materials for studying the American man biologically
are abundant in the United States National Museum in
Washington; the Peabody Museum, at Cambridge, Massachusetts;
the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the
Academy of Sciences and the Free Museum of Arts and Sciences,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the Field Museum in Chicago;
the National Museum, city of Mexico, and the Museum of La
Plata. In Europe there are excellent collections in
London, Cambridge, Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg and Prague.
Professor Putnam measured for the World's Columbian Exposition
1700 living Indians, and the results have been summed up by
Boas. The breadth of the Indian face is one centimetre more than
that of the whites, and the half-breeds are nearer the Indian
standard; this last is true also of colour in the skin, eyes and
hair. In stature, the tall tribes exceed 170 cm.; middle stature
ranges between 166 and 170; and short tribes are under 166
cm. The Indians are on the whole a tall people. Tribes that
have changed residence have changed stature. The tallest
statures are on the plains in both Americas. The mountains
of the south-east and of the west reveal the shortest
statures. The whole Mississippi valley was occupied by tall
peoples. The Athapascans of New Mexico are of middle stature,
the Pueblo peoples are short. The Shoshoni, Shahaptin
and Salish tribes are of middle stature; on the coast of
British Columbia, Puget Sound, in Oregon, and northern
California, are the shortest of all the North Americans save
the Eskimo, while among them, on the Columbia, are taller
tribes. The comparison of cranial indexes is rendered
difficult by intentional flattening of the occiput by the hard
cradle-board. The Mississippi valley tribes are nearly
brachycephalic; the index increases around the Great Lakes, and
lessens farther east. The eastern Eskimo are dolichocephalic,
the western are less so, and the Aleuts brachycephalic.
On the North Pacific coast, and in spots down to the Rio
Grande, are short heads, but scattered among these are long
heads, frequent in southern California, but seen northward to
Oregon, as well as in Sonora and some Rio Grande pueblos.
The same variety of index exists in South America.
In the regions of greatest linguistic mixture
is the greatest heterogeneity of cephalic index.
Classification.
The concepts on which the peoples of the Old World have been
classified, such as stature, colour, skeletal measurements,
nationality, and so on, cannot as yet be used in America with
success. The only basis of division practicable is language,
which must be kept separate in the mind from the others.
However, before the conquest, in no other part of the globe did
language tally so nearly with kinship. Marriage was exogamic
among clans in a tribe, but practically, though not wholly
endogamic as between tribes, wife and slave capture being
common in places. In his family tree of Homo Americanus Keane
follows out such a plan, placing the chief linguistic family
names on the main limbs, North American on one side, and South
American on the other. Deniker groups mankind into twenty-
nine races and sub-races. American are numbered thus:-- 21,
South American sub-race; Palaeo-Americans and South Americans.
22, North American sub-race; tall, mesocephalic. 23, Central
American race; short, brachycephalic. 24, Patagonian race;
tall, brachycephalic. 25, Eskimo race; short, dolichocephalic.
Farrand speaks of physical, linguistic, geographic, and
cultural criteria, the first two the more exact, the latter
more convenient and sometimes the only feasible bases.
Culture provinces.
Zoologists divide the earth into biological areas or regions,
so both archaeologists and ethnologists may find it convenient
to have in mind some such scheme of provinces as the following,
named partly after the dominant ethnic groups:--Eskimo, on
Arctic shores; Dene (Tinneh), in north-western Canada;
Algonquin-Iroquois, Canada and eastern United States; Sioux,
plains of the west; Muskhogee, Gulf States; Tlinkit-Haida,
North Pacific coast; Salish-Chinook, Fraser- Columbia coasts
and basins; Shoshoni, interior basin; California- Oregon,
mixed tribes; Pueblo province, southwestern United States and
northern Mexico; Nahuatla-Maya, southern Mexico and Central
America; Chibcha-Kechua, the Cordilleras of South America;
Carib-Arawak, about Caribbean Sea; Tupi-Guarani, Amazon drainage;
Araucanian, Pampas; Patagonian, peninsula; Fuegian, Magellan
Strait. It is necessary to use geographical terms in the
case of California and the North Pacific, the Caucasus
or cloaca gentium of the western hemisphere, where were
pocketed forty out of one hundred or more families of native
tribes. The same is true in a limited sense of Matto Grosso.
That these areas had deep significance for the native races
is shown by the results, both in biology and culture. The
presence or absence of useful minerals, plants and animals
rendered some congenial, others unfriendly; some areas were
the patrons of virile occupations, others of feminine pursuits.
Among the languages of America great differences exist in
the sounds used. A collection of all the phonetic elements
exhausts the standard alphabets and calls for new letters.
A comparison of one family with another shows also that some
are vocalic and soft, others wide in the range of sounds,
while a third set are harsh and guttural, the speaking of
them (according to Payne) resembling coughing, barking and
sneezing. Powell also thinks that man lived in America before
he acquired articulate speech. The utterance of these speech
elements in definite order constitutes the roots and sentences
of the various tongues. From the manner of assemblage, all
American languages are agglutinative, or holophrastic, but
they should not be called polysynthetic or incorporative or
inflexional. They were more or less on the way to such organized
forms, in which the world's literatures are preserved. As
in all other languages, so in those of aboriginal America,
the sentence is the unit. Words and phrases are the organic
parts of the sentence, on which, therefore, the languages are
classified. It is on this basis of sentential elements
that Powell has arranged the linguistic families of North
America. He has brought together, in the Bureau of American
Ethnology in Washington, many hundreds of manuscripts, written
by travellers, traders, missionaries, and scholars; and,
better still, in response to circulars, carefully prepared
vocabularies, texts and long native stories have been written
out by trained collectors. A corps of specialists--Boas,
Dall, Dorsey, Gatschet, Hewitt, Mooney, Pilling, J. R.
Swanton--have studied many of these languages analytically and
comparatively. Other institutional investigations have been
prosecuted, the result of all which will be an intelligent
comprehension of the philology of a primitive race.
Linguistic families.
Attention is frequently called to the large number of linguistic
families in America, nearly 100 having been named, embracing over
1000 languages and dialects. A few of them, however, occupied
the greater part of lands both north and south of Panama;
the others were encysted in the territory of the prevailing
families, or concealed in culs- de-sac of the mountains. They
are, through poverty of material, unclassed languages, merely
outstanding phenomena. Factions separated from the parent
body developed dialects or languages by contact, intermarriage
and incorporation with foreign tribes. To the old-time belief
that languages multiplied by splitting and colonizing, must be
added the theory that languages were formerly more numerous,
and that those of the Americans were formed by combining.
The families of North America, Middle America and South America are here
given in alphabetical order, the prevailing ones in small capitals:--
North America.
ALGONQUIN, E. Can., N. Atlantic States, middle States, middle
western States; ATHAPASCAN, N.W. Can., Alaska, Wash., Or.,
Cal., Ariz., Mex.; Attacapan, La.; Beothukan, Nova Scotia;
CADDOAN, Tex., Neb., Dak.; Chimakuan, Wash.; Chimarikan, N.
Cal.; CHIMMESYAN, Brit. Col.; CHINOOKAN, Or.; Chitimachan,
La.; Chumashan, S. Cal,; Coahuiltecan, Tex.; Copehan, N. Cal.;
Costanoan, Cal.; ESKIMAUAN, Arctic province; Esselenian,
Cal.; IROQUOIAN, N.Y., N.C.; Kalapooian, Or.; Karankawan,
Tex.; KERESAN, N. Mex.; KIOWAN, Neb.; KITUNAHAN,
Brit. Col.; KOLUSCHAN, S. Alaska; KULANAPAN, Cal.; Kusan,
Cal.; Lutuamian, Or.; Mariposan, Cal.; Moquelumnan, Cal.;
MUSKHOGEAN, Gulf States; NATCHESAN, Miss.; Palaihnihan,
Cal.; PIMAN, Ariz.; Pujunan, Cal.; Quoratean, Or.; Salinan,
Cal.; SALISHAN, Brit. Col.; Sastean, Or.; SHAHAPTIAN,
Or.; SHOSHONEAN, Interior Basin; SIOUAN, Mo. Valley;
SKITTAGETAN, Brit. Col.; Takilman, Or.; TANYOAN, Mex.;
Timuquanan, Fla.; Tonikan, Miss.; Tonkawan, Tex.; Uchean,
Ga.; Waiilatpuan, Or.; WAKASHAN, Vancouver I.; Washoan,
Nev.; Weitspekan, Or.; Wishoskan, Cal.; Yakonan, Or.;
Yanan, Or.; Yukian, Cal.; Yuman, L. Cal.; ZUNYAN, N. Mex.
Middle America.
CHAPANECAN, Chi.; Chinantecan, Oax.; Chontalan, S. Mex.;
Huatusan, Nic.; Huavean, Tehuant.; Lencan, Hon.; MAYAN,
Yuc. and Guat.; NAHUATLAN, Mex.; OTOMITLAN, Cen.
Mex.; Raman, Hond.; Serian, Tiburon I.; Subtiaban, Nic.;
TARASCAN, Mich.; Tehuantepecan, Isthmus; Tequistlatecan,
Oax.; TOTONACAN, Mex.; Triquian, S. Mex.; Ulvan, Nic.;
Xicaquean, Hond.; ZAPOTECAN, Oax.; ZOQUEAN, Tehuant.
South America.
Alikulufan, T. del Fuego; Arauan, R. Purus; ARAWAKIAN, E.
Andes; Atacamenyan, S. Peru; ARAUCANIAN, Pampas; AYMARAN,
Peru; Barbacoan, Colombia; Betoyan, Bogota; Canichanan,
Bolivia; Carahan, S. Brazil; CARIBIAN, around Caribbean
Sea; Catamarenyan, Chaco; Changuinan, Panama; Charruan,
Parana R.; CHIBCHAN, Colombia; Churoyan, Orinoco R.;
Coconucan, Colombia; Cunan, Panama; GUAYCURUAN, Paraguay
R.; JIVAROAN, Ecuador; KECHUAN, Peru; Laman, N.E. Peru;
Lulean, Vermejo R.; Mainan, S. Ecuador; Matacoan, Vermejo R.;
Mocoan, Colombia; Mosetenan, E. Bolivia; ONAN, T. del Fuego;
Paniquitan, Colombia; Panoan, Ucayali R., Peru; Payaguan, Chaco;
Puquinan, Titicaca L.; Samucan, Bolivia; Tacanan, N. Bolivia;
TAPUYAN, Brazil; Timotean, Venezuela; TUPIAN, Amazon
R.; TZONECAN, Patagonia; YAHGAN, T. del Fuego; Yuncan,
Truxillo, Peru; Yurucarian, E. Bolivia; ZAPAROAN, Ecuador.
Written language was largely hierographic and heroic. The
drama, the cult image, the pictograph, the synecdochic
picture, the ideaglyph, were steps in a progress without a
break. The warrior painted the story of conflicts on his
robe only in part, to help him recount the history of his
life; the Eskimo etched the prompters of his legend on ivory;
the Tlinkit carved them on his totem post; the women fixed
them in pottery, basketry, or blankets. At last, the central
advanced tribes made the names of the abbreviated pictures
useful in other connexions, and were far on the way to a
syllabary. Intertribal communication was through gestures;
it may be, survivals of a primordial speech, antedating
the differentiated spoken languages. See publications of
the Bureau of American Ethnology, by F. W. Hodge (1906);
Farrand, Basis of Am. History, chap. xviii.; and Orozco
y Berra, Geografia de las lenguas, &c. (Mexico, 1868).
Technology.
To supply their wants the Americans invented modifications in
natural materials, the working of which was their industries.
The vast collections in richly endowed European and American
museums are the witnesses and types of these. There is
danger of confounding the products of native industries.
The following classes must be carefully discriminated: (a)
pre-Columbian, (b) Columbian, (c) pre-contact, (d)
first contact, (e) post-contact, (f) present, and (g)
spurious. Pre-Columbian or pre-historic material is further
classified into that which had been used by Indians before the
discovery, and such as is claimed to be of a prior geological
period. Columbian, or 15th-century material, still exists
in museums of Europe and America, and good descriptions are
to be found in the writings of contemporary historians.
Pre-contact material is such as continued to exist in any
tribe down to the time when they were touched by the presence
of the trade of the whites. In some tribes this would bring
the student very near to the present time; for example, before
Steinen, the Indians in Matto Grosso were in the pre- contact
period. Post-contact material is genuine Indian work more
or less influenced by acculturation. It is interesting in
this connexion to study also first contact in its lists of
articles, and the effects produced upon aboriginal minds and
methods. For example, a tribe that would jump at iron arrow-heads
stoutly declined to modify the shafts. Present material
is such as the Indian tribes of the two Americas are making
to-day. Spurious material includes all that mass of objects
made by whites and sold as of Indian manufacture; some of it
follows native models and methods; the rest is fraudulent and
pernicious. The question whether similarities in technology
argue for contact of tribes, or whether they merely show
corresponding states of culture, with modifications produced by
environment, divides ethnologists. (See Farrand, chap. xviii. )
Aboriginal mechanics.
The study of mechanics involves materials, tools, processes and
products. No iron tools existed in America before the invasion
of the whites. Mineral, vegetable and animal substances, soft
and hard, were wrought into the supply of wants by means of
tools and apparatus of stone, wood and bone tools for cutting,
or edged tools; tools for abrading and smoothing the surfaces
of substances, like planes, rasps and sandpaper; tools for
striking, that is, pounding for the sake of pounding, or for
crushing and fracturing violently; perforating tools; devices
for grasping and holding firmly. These varied in the different
culture provinces according to the natural supply, and the
presence or absence of good tool material counted for as much
as the presence or absence of good substances on which to
work. As a means of grading progress among the various
tribes, the tool is valuable both in its working part and
its hafting, or manual part. Fire drills were universal.
Besides chipped stone knives, the teeth of rodents, sharks,
and other animals served an excellent purpose. In north-west
America and in the Caribbean area the adze was highly
developed. In Mexico, Colombia and Peru the cutting of friable
stone with tough volcanic hammers and chisels, as well as rude
metallurgy, obtained, but the evidences of smelting are not
convincing. Engineering devices were almost wanting. The Eskimo
lifted his weighted boat with sheer-legs made of two paddles; he
also had a tackle without sheaves, formed by reaving a greased
thong through slits cut in the hide of a walrus. The north-
west coast Indians hoisted the logs that formed the plates of
their house frames into position with skids and parbuckles of
rope. The architectural Mexicans, Central Americans, and
especially the Peruvians, had no derricks or other hoisting
devices, but rolled great stones into place along prepared
ways and up inclined planes of earth, which were afterwards
removed. In building the fortress of Sacsahuaman, heights
had to be scaled; in Tiahuanaco stones weighing 400 tons were
carried seventeen miles; in the edifices of Ollantaytambo not
only were large stones hauled up an ascent, but were fitted
perfectly. The moving of vast objects by these simple
processes shows what great numbers of men could be enlisted
in a single effort, and how high a grade of government
it was which could hold them together and feed them. In
Arizona, Mexico and Peru, reservoirs and aqueducts prove that
hydrotechny was understood. (Hodge, Am. Anthrop. vi. 323.)
Time-keeping devices were not common. Sun-dials and calendar
monuments were known among the more advanced tribes. Fractional
portions of time were gauged by shadows, and time of day
indicated by the position of the sun with reference to natural
features. No standards of weighing or measuring were known,
but the parts of the body were the units, and money consisted
in rare and durable vegetable and animal substances, which
scarcely reached the dignity of a mechanism of exchange.
If the interpretation of the Maya calculiform glyphs be
trustworthy, these people had carried their numeral system into
the hundreds of thousands and devised symbols for recording
such high numbers. (See Bulletin 28, Bur. Am. Ethnol.)
Food.
The Americans were, in most places, flesh-eaters. The air,
the waters and the land were their base of supplies, and
cannibalism, it is admitted, was widespread. With this animal
diet everywhere vegetable substances were mixed, even in the
boreal regions. Where the temperature allowed, vegetable
diet increased, and fruits, seeds and roots were laid under
tribute. Storage was common, and also the drying of ripened
fruits. The most favoured areas were those where corn and
other plants could be artificially produced, and there barbaric
cultures were elaborated. This farming was of the rudest
kind. Plots of ground were burned over, trees were girdled,
and seeds were planted by means of sharpened sticks. The first
year the crop would be free from weeds, the second year only
those grew whose seeds were wafted or carried by birds, the
third year the crop required hoeing, which was done with sticks,
and then the space was abandoned for new ground. Irrigation
and terrace culture were practised at several points on the
Pacific slope from Arizona to Peru. The steps along which
plant and animal domestication passed upwards in artificiality
are graphically illustrated in the aboriginal food quest.
Clothing and adornment.
Except in the boreal areas the breech-clout was nearly universal
with men, and the cincture or short petticoat with women. Even
in Mexico and Mayan sculptures the gods are arrayed in gorgeous
breech-clouts. The foot-gear in the tropics was the sandal,
and, passing northward, the moccasin, becoming the long boot
in the Arctic. Trousers and the blouse were known only among
the Eskimo, and it is difficult to say how much these have
been modified by contact. Leggings and skin robes took their
place southward, giving way at last to the nearly nude.
Head coverings also were gradually tabooed south of the 49th
parallel. Tattooing and painting the body were well-nigh
universal. Labrets, i.e. pieces of bone, stone, shell,
&c., were worn as ornaments in the lip (Latin, labrum) or
cheek by Eskimo, Tlinkit, Nahuatlas and tribes on the Brazilian
coast. For ceremonial purposes all American tribes were expert in
masquerade and dramatic apparel. A study of these in the historic
tribes makes plain the motives in gorgeous Mexican sculptures.
Habitation.
The tribal system of family organization, universal in America,
dominated the dwelling. The Eskimo underground houses of
sod and snow, the Dene (Tinneh) and Sioux bunch of bark
or skin wigwams, the Pawnee earth lodge, the Iroquois long
house, the Tlinkit great plank house, the Pueblo with its
honeycomb of chambers, the small groups of thatched houses
in tropical America and the Patagonian toldos of skin are
examples. The Indian habitation was made up of this composite
abode, with whatever out-structures and garden plots were
needed. A group of abodes, however joined together, constituted
the village or home of the tribe, and there was added to these
a town hall or large assembly structure where men gathered and
gossiped, and where all dramatic and religious ceremonies were
held. Powell contends that in a proper sense none of the
Indian tribes was nomadic, but that, governed by water-supply,
bad seasons and superstition (and discomfort from vermin
must be added), even the Pueblo tribes often tore down and
rebuilt their domiciles. The fur trade, the horse, the gun,
disturbed the sedentary habit of American tribes. Little
attention was paid to furniture. In the smoke-infested
wigwam and hut the ground was the best place for sitting or
sleeping. The communal houses of the Pacific coast had
bunks. The hammock was universal in the tropics, and chairs
of wood or stone. Eating was from the pot, with the hand or
spoon. Tables, knives, forks and other prandial apparatus were
as lacking as they were in the palaces of kings a few centuries
before. (Morgan, Houses and House Life; Farrand, p. 286.)
Stone-working.
Stone-working was universal in America. The tribes quarried
by means of crowbars and picks of wood and bone. They
split the silicious rocks with stone hammers, and then
chipped them into shape with bone tools. Soapstone for
pottery was partly cut into the desired shape in the native
ledge, broken or prised loose, and afterwards scraped into
form. Paint was excavated with the ubiquitous digging-stick,
and rubbed fine on stones with water or grease. For polished
stonework the material was pecked by blows, ground with other
stones, and smoothed with fine material. Sawing was done by
means of sand or with a thin piece of harder stuff. Boring
was effected with the sand- drill; the hardest rocks may have
been pierced with specially hard sand. At any rate stones
were sawed, shaped, polished, carved and perforated, not
only by the Mexicans, but among other tribes. For building
purposes stones were got out, dressed, carved and sculptured
with stone hammers and chisels made of hard and tenacious
rock. Stone-cutters' tools of metal are not known to have
existed, and they were not needed. Their quarrying and
stone-working were most wasteful. Those localities where
chipping was done reveal hundreds of tons of splinters and
failures, and these are often counted as ruder implements of
an earlier time. The dressed stones for great buildings were
pecked out of the ledges, and broken off with levers in pieces
much too large for their needs. (McGuire, "The Stone Hammer,"
Am. Anthrop. iv., 1891; Holmes, Archaeological Studies;
see Hodge's List, Bur. Am. Ethnol., 1906, and Handbook.)
Metallurgy.
Metals were treated as malleable stones by the American
aborigines. No evidence of smelting ores with fluxes is
offered, but casting from metal melted in open fires is
assumed. Gold, silver, copper, pure or mixed with tin or
silver, are to be found here and there in both continents,
and nuggets were objects of worship. Tools and appliances
for working metals were of the rudest kind, and if moulds
for casting were employed these were broken up; at least no
museum contains samples of them, and the processes are not
described. In the Arctic and Pacific coast provinces, about Lake
Superior, in Virginia and North Carolina, as well as in ruder
parts of Mexico and South America, metals were cold-hammered
into plates, weapons, rods and wire, ground and polished,
fashioned into carved blocks of hard, tenacious stone by
pressure or blow, overlaid, cold-welded and plated. Soldering,
brazing and the blowpipe in the Cordilleran provinces are
suspected, but the evidence of their existence must be further
examined. A deal of study has been devoted to the cunning
Tubal Cains, the surprising productions of whose handiwork
have been recovered in the art provinces of Mexico and the
Cordilleras, especially in Chiriqui, between Costa Rica and
Colombia. It must be admitted, however, that both the
tools and the processes have escaped the archaeologist,
as they did "the ablest goldsmiths in Spain, for they
never could conceive how they had been made, there being
no sign of a hammer or an engraver or any other instrument
used by them, the Indians having none such" (Herrera).
Pottery.
The potter's wheel did not exist in the western world, but
it was almost invented. Time and muscle, knack and touch,
a trained eye and brain and an unlimited array of patterns
hanging on fancy's walls, aided by a box of dry sand, were
competent to give the charming results. No more striking
contrast can be found between forlorn conditions and refined art
products. Art in clay was far from universal in the two
Americas. The Eskimo on Bering Sea had learned to model shallow
bowls for lamps. No pottery existed in Athapascan boundaries.
Algonquin-Iroquois tribes made creditable ware in Canada and
eastern United States. Muskhogean tribes were potters, but
Siouan tribes, as a rule, in all the Mississippi drainage were
not. In their area, however, dwelt clay-working tribes, and
the Mandans had the art. Moreover, the mound-builders in the
eastern half of this vast plain, being sedentary, were excellent
potters. The efflorescence of aboriginal pottery is to be
found in the Pueblo region of south- western United States, in
Mexico, Central America, Caribbean Islands, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru and restricted areas of eastern Brazil. (The literature
on this subject is extensive. See Cushing, Fewkes, Holmes,
Hough, Stevenson.) On the Pacific side of the continent not
one of the forty linguistic families made pottery. The only
workers in clay west of the Rockies and north of the Pueblo
country belonged to the Shoshonean family of the Interior Basin.
Textile industries.
The study of Indian textiles includes an account of their
fibres, tools, processes, products, ornaments and uses. The
fibres were either animal or vegetable; animal fibres were
hair, fur on the skin, feathers, hide, sinew and intestines;
vegetable fibres were stalks of small trees, brush, straw,
cotton, bast, bark, leaves and seed vessels in great variety
as one passes from the north southward through all the culture
provinces. The products of the textile industry in America
were bark cloth, wattling for walls, fences and weirs, paper,
basketry, matting, loom products, needle or point work,
net-work, lacework and embroidery. In the manufacture of
these the substances were reduced to the form of slender
filaments, shreds, rods, splints, yarn, twine and sennit or
braid. All textile work was done by hand; the only devices
known were the bark peeler and beater, the shredder, the
flint-knife, the spindle, the rope-twister, the bodkin, the
warp- beam and the most primitive harness. The processes
involved were gathering the raw material, shredding, splitting,
gauging, wrapping, twining, spinning and braiding. Twining
and spinning were done with the fingers of both hands, with
the palm on the thigh, with the spindle and with the twister.
Ornamentation was in form, colour, technical processes and
dyes. The uses to which the textiles were put were for
clothing, furniture for the house, utensils for a thousand
industries, fine arts, social functions and worship.
In order to comprehend the more intricate processes of the
higher peoples it is necessary to examine the textile industry
in all of the culture areas. It is essentially woman's work,
though among the Pueblos, strangely enough, men are weavers.
The Eskimo woman did not weave, but was expert in sewing and
embroidering with sinew thread by means of a bodkin. The
Dene (Tinneh) peoples used strips of hide for snowshoes and
game-bags, sewed their deerskin clothing with sinew thread,
and embroidered in split quill. Their basketry, both in Canada
and in Arizona, was coiled work. The northern Algonquin and
Iroquoian tribes practised similar arts, and in the Atlantic
states wove robes of animal and bird skins by cutting the
latter into long strips, winding these strips on twine of
hemp, and weaving them by the same processes employed in their
basketry. Textile work in the Sioux province was chiefly
the making of skin garments with sinew thread, but in the
Gulf states the existence of excellent cane and grasses gave
opportunity for several varieties of weaving. On the Pacific
coast of America the efflorescence of basketry in every form
of technic was known. This art reached down to the borders of
Mexico. Loom-weaving in its simplest form began with the
Chilkats of Alaska, who hung the warp over a long pole, and
wrought mythological figures into their gorgeous blankets
by a process resembling tapestry work. The forming of bird
skins, rabbit skins and feathers into robes, and all basketry
technic, existed from Vancouver Island to Central America.
In northern Mexico net-work, rude lace-work in twine, are
followed farther south, where finer material existed, by
figured weaving of most intricate type and pattern; warps
were crossed and wrapped, wefts were omitted and texture
changed, so as to produce marvellous effects upon the
surface. This composite art reached its climax in Peru,
the llama wool affording the finest staple on the whole
hemisphere. Textile work in other parts of South America
did not differ from that of the Southern states of the
Union. The addition of brilliant ornamentation in shell,
teeth, feathers, wings of insects and dyed fibres completed
the round of the textile art. A peculiar type of coiled
basketry is found at the Strait of Magellan, but the
motives are not American. (Consult the works of Boas,
Dixon, G. T. Emmons, Holmes, Otis T. Mason, Matthews, John
Murdoch, E. W. Nelson, A. P. Niblack, Lucien M. Turner.)
Zootechny.
Since most American tribes lived upon flesh, the activities of
life were associated with the animal world. These activities
were not confined to the land, but had to do also with those
littoral meadows where invertebrate and vertebrate marine
animals fed in unlimited numbers. An account of savage life,
therefore, includes the knowledge of the animal life of America
and its distribution, regarding the continent, not only as a
whole, but in those natural history provinces and migrations
which governed and characterized the activities of the
peoples. This study would include industries connected with
capture, those that worked up into products the results of
capture, the social organizations and labours which were
involved in pursuit of animals, the language, skill, inventions
and knowledge resulting therefrom, and, finally, the religious
conception united with the animal world, which has been named
zootheism. In the capture of animals would be involved the
pedagogic influence of animal life; the engineering embraced
in taking them in large numbers; the cunning and strategy
necessary to hunters so poorly armed giving rise to disguises
and lures of many kinds. Capture begins among the lower tribes
with the hand, without devices, developing knack and skill in
seizing, pursuing, climbing, swimming, and maiming without
weapons; and proceeds to gathering with devices that take the
place of the hand in dipping, digging, hooking and grasping;
weapons for striking, whether clubs, missiles or projectiles;
edged weapons of capture, which were rare in America; piercing
devices for capture, in lances, barbed spears, harpoons and
arrows; traps for enclosing, arresting and killing, such as
pens, cages, pits, pen-falls, nets, hooks, nooses, clutches,
adhesives, deadfalls, impalers, knife traps and poisons;
animals consciously and unconsciously aiding in capture; fire
in the form of torches, beacons, burning out and smoking out;
poisons and asphyxiators; the accessories to hunting, including
such changes in food, dress, shelter, travelling, packing,
mechanical tools and intellectual apparatus as demanded by
these arts. Finally, in this connexion, the first steps in
domestication, beginning with the improvement of natural
corrals or spawning ground, and hunting with trained dogs and
animals. Zootechnic products include food, clothing, ornaments,
habitations, weapons, industrial tools, textiles, money, &c.
In sociology the dependence of the American tribes upon
the animal world becomes most apparent. A great majority
of all the family names in America were from animal
totems. The division of labour among the sexes was based on
zootechny. Labour organizations for hunting, communal
hunt and migrations had to do with the animal world.
In the duel between the hunter and the beast-mind the
intellectual powers of perception, memory, reason and will
were developed; experience and knowledge by experience were
enlarged, language and the graphic arts were fostered, the
inventive faculty was evoked and developed, and primitive
science was fostered in the unfolding of numbers, metrics,
clocks, astronomy, history and the philosophy of causation.
Beliefs and practices with reference to the heavenly world
were inspired by zoic activities; its location, scenery and
environment were the homes of beast gods. It was largely a
zoopantheon; thus zootheism influenced the organization of
tribes and societies in the tribes. The place, furniture,
liturgies and apparatus of worship were hereby suggested.
Myths, folk-lore, hunting charms, fetishes, superstitions
and customs were based on the same idea. (For life zones, see
C. H. Merriam, Biol. Survey, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.)
Travel.
Excepting for extensive and rapid travel over the snow in
the Arctic regions by means of dog sleds, the extremely
limited transportation by dog travail (or sledge) in the
Sioux province, and the use of the llama as a beast of burden
throughout the Peruvian highlands, land travel was on foot,
and land transportation on the backs of men and women. One
of the most interesting topics of study is the trails along
which the seasonal and annual migrations of tribes occurred,
becoming in Peru the paved road, with suspension bridges and
wayside inns, or tambos. In Mexico, and in Peru especially,
the human back was utilized to its utmost extent, and in
most parts of America harness adapted for carrying was made
and frequently decorated with the best art. In the Mexican
codices pictures of men and women carrying are plentiful.
Travelling on the water was an important activity in aboriginal
times. Hundreds of thousands of miles of inland waters
and archipelagoes were traversed. Commencing in the Arctic
region, the Eskimo in his kayak, consisting of a framework
of driftwood or bone covered with dressed sealskin, could
paddle down east Greenland, up the west shore to Smith Sound,
along Baffin Land and Labrador, and the shores of Hudson Bay
throughout insular Canada and the Alaskan coast, around to
Mount St Elias, and for many miles on the eastern shore of
Asia. In addition to this most delicate and rapid craft,
he had his umiak or freight boat, sometimes called woman's
boat. The Athapascan covered all north-western Canada with
his open and portable birch-bark canoe, somewhat resembling the
kayak in finish. The Algonquin-Iroquois took up the journey
at Bear Lake and its tributaries, and by means of paddling
and portages traversed the area of middle and eastern Canada,
including the entire St Lawrence drainage. The absence of good
bark, dugout timber, and chisels of stone deprived the whole
Mississippi valley of creditable water-craft, and reduced
the natives to the clumsy trough for a dugout and miserable
bull-boat, made by stretching dressed buffalo hide over a
crate. On the Atlantic coast of the United States the dugout
was improved in form where the waters were more disturbed. John
Smith's Indians had a fleet of dugouts. The same may be said
of the Gulf states tribes, although they added rafts made of
reed. Along the archipelagoes of the North Pacific coast, from
Mount St Elias to the Columbia river, the dugout attained its
best. The Columbia river canoe resembled that of the Amur, the
bow and stern being pointed at the water-line. Poor dugouts and
rafts, made by tying reeds together, constituted the water-craft
of California and Mexico until Central America is reached.
The Caribs were the Haidas of the Caribbean Sea and
northern South America. Their craft would vie in form, in
size, and seaworthiness with those of the North Pacific
coast. The catamaran and the reed boat were known to the
Peruvians. The tribes of Venezuela and Guiana, according
to Im Thurn, had both the dugout and the built-up hull.
The simplest form of navigation in Brazil was the woodskin,
a piece of bark stripped from a tree and crimped at the
ends. The sangada, with its platform and sail, belonging to
the Brazilian coast, is spoken of as a good seaworthy craft.
Finally, the Fuegian bark canoe, made in three pieces so that
it can be taken apart and transported over hills and sewed
together, ends the series. The American craft was propelled
by poling, paddling, rowing, and by rude sails of matting.
Fine art.
The aesthetic arts of the American aborigines cannot be
studied apart from their languages, industries, social
organizations, lore and worships. Art was limited most of all
by poverty in technical appliances. There were just as good
materials and inspirations, but what could the best of them
do without metal tools? One and all skilful to a surpassing
degree--weavers, embroiderers, potters, painters, engravers,
carvers, sculptors and jewellers,--they were wearied by
drudgery and overpowered by a never-absent, weird and grotesque
theology. The Eskimo engraved poorly, the Dene (Tinneh)
embroidered in quill, the North Pacific tribes carved skilfully
in horn, slate and cedar, the California tribes had nimble
fingers for basketry, the Sioux gloried in feathers and painted
parfleche. The mound builders, Pueblo tribes, middle Americans
and Peruvians, were potters of many schools; gorgeous colour
fascinated the Amazonians, the Patagonians delighted in skins,
and even the Fuegians saw beauty in the pretty snail shells
of their desolate island shores. Of the Mexican and Central
American sculpture and architecture a competent judge says
that Yucatan and the southern states of Mexico are not rich
in sculptures, apart from architecture; but in the valley of
Mexico the human figure, animal forms, fanciful life motives
in endless variety, were embodied in masks, yokes, tablets,
calendars, cylinders, disks, boxes, vases and ornaments.
The Nahuatl lapidaries had at hand many varieties of workable
and beautiful stone--onyx, marble, limestone, quartz and
quartz crystal, granite, syenite, basalt, trachyte, rhyolite,
diorite and obsidian, the best of material prepared for them
by nature; while the Mayas had only limestone, and hard,
tenacious rock with which to work it, and timber for burning
lime. However, looking over the whole field of North American
achievement, architectural and non-architectural, composite and
monolithic, the palm for boldness, magnitude of proportions
and infinity of labour, must go to the sculptured mosaics of
Yucatan. Maya architecture is the best remaining index of
the art achievements of the American race. The construction
of such buildings as the palace at Uxmal and the castillo at
Chichen (Chichenitza) indicates a mastery in architectural
design. There is lack of unity in plan and grouping, and
an enormous waste of material as compared with available
room. At Uxmal the mass of masonry is to chamber space
about as forty to one. The builders were "ignorant of
some of the most essential principles of construction, and
are to be regarded as hardly more than novices in the art"
(Holmes, Archaeological Studies, &c.). As for the marvels
of Peru, the walls of the temple of the sun in Cuzco, with
their circular form and curve inward, from the ground upward,
are most imposing. Some of the gates without lintels are
beautiful, and the geometric patterns in the walls extremely
effective. The same objection to over-massiveness might
not apply here as in Mexico, owing to volcanic activity.
Sociology.
Institutions in Europe and America have gathered abundant
material for an intelligent comprehension of American Indian
sociology. The British Association had a committee reporting
during many years on the tribes of northwest Canada. The
American Museum in New York has prepared a series of monographs
on the tribes of the North Pacific coast, of northern Mexico,
and of the Cordilleras of South America. The reports of
the Bureau of American Ethnology in Washington cover the
Eskimo, east and west, and all the tribes of the United
States. In Mexico the former labours of Pimentel and Orozco
y Berra are supplemented by those of Bandolier, Penafiel,
Herrera and Alfredo Chavero. Otto Stoll's studies in Guatemala,
Berendt's in Central America, Ernst's in Venezuela, Im Thurn's
in Guiana, those of Ehrenreich, von den Steinen, Meyer in
Brazil, or of Bandolier, Bastian, Bruhl, Middendorf, von
Tschudi in Peru, afford the historian of comparative sociology
ample groundwork for a comprehensive grasp of South American
tribes. In all parts of the western hemisphere society
was organized on cognate kinship, real or artificial, the
unit being the clan. There were tribes where the basis
of kinship was agnate, but these were the exceptions. The
headship of the clan was sometimes hereditary, sometimes
elective, but each clan had a totemic name, and the clans
together constituted the tribe, the bond being not land, but
blood. Women could adopt prisoners of war, in which case
the latter became their younger sons. When a confederacy
was organized under a council, intermarriage between tribes
sometimes occurred; an artificial kinship thus arose, in which
event the council established the rank of the tribes as elder
and younger brother, grandfather, father and sons, rendering
the relationship and its vocabulary most intricate, but
necessary in a social system in which age was the predominant
consideration and etiquette most exacting. (See Morgan,
Tables of Consanguinity, Smithsonian Contributions, xvii.)
The Eskimo have a regular system of animal totem marks and
corresponding gentes. Powell sets forth the laws of real
and artificial kinship among the North American tribes, as
well as tribal organization and government, the formation of
confederacies, and the intricate rules of artificial kinship
by which rank and courtesy were established. (Many papers
in Reports of Bur. Am. Ethnol.) Bandolier declares that
in Mexico existed neither state nor nation, nor political
society of any kind, but tribes representing dialects,
and autonomous in matters of government, and forming
confederacies for the purposes of self-defence and conquest.
The ancient Mexican tribe was composed of twenty autonomous
kins. According to Brinton the social organization of ancient
Peru was a government by a council of the gentes. The Inca
was a war chief elected by the council to carry out its
commands. Among the Caribs a like social order prevailed;
indeed, their family system is identical with the totem
system of North American Indians. Dominated by the rule of
blood relationship, the Indians regulated all co-operative
activities on this basis. Not only marriage, but speech
and common industries, such as rowing a boat or chasing a
buffalo, were under its sway. It obtrudes itself in fine art,
behaviour, law-making, lore and religion. In larger or smaller
numbers of cognate kindred, for shorter or longer periods of
time, near or far from home, the aborigines developed their
legislatures, courts, armies, secret societies and priesthoods.
Art of war.
In organization, engineering, strategy, offence and defence,
the art of war was in the barbarous and the savage status or
grade. One competent to judge asserts that peace, not
war, was the normal intertribal habit. They held frequent
intercourse, gave feasts and presents, and practised unbounded
hospitality. Through this traffic objects travelled far
from home, and now come forth out of the tombs to perplex
archaeologists. Remembering the organization of the tribe
everywhere prevalent, it is not difficult to understand that
the army, or horde, that stands for the idea, was assembled
on the clan basis. The number of men arrayed under one
banner, the time during which they might cohere, the distances
from home they could march, their ability to hold permanently
what they had gained, together form an excellent metric scale
of the culture grade in the several American provinces, and
nowhere, even in the most favoured, is this mark high. With
the Mexicans war was a passion, but warfare was little above
the raid (Bandelier; Farrand). The lower tribes hunted their
enemies as they hunted animals. In their war dances, which
were only rehearsals, they disguised themselves as animals, and
the pantomime was a mimic hunt. They had striking, slashing
and piercing weapons held in the hand, fastened to a shaft or
thong, hurled from the hand, from a sling, from an atlatl or
throwing-stick, or shot from a bow. Their weapons were all
individual, not one co-operative device of offence being
known among them, although they understood fortification.
The term "slavery" is often applied to the aboriginal American
tribes. The truth of this depends upon the definition of the
word "slave." If it means the capture of men, and especially of
women, and adoption into the tribe, this existed everywhere;
but if subjection to a personal owner, who may compel service,
sell or put to death the individual, slavery was far from
universal. Nieboer finds it only on the North Pacific coast
as far south as Oregon, among the Navajo and the Cibola
pueblos, and in a few tribes of Middle and South America.
Lore.
The thought life of the American aborigines is expressed in
their practical knowledge and their lore. The fascination
which hangs around the latter has well-nigh obscured the
former. As in medicine theory is one thing and practice
another, so among these savages must the two be carefully
discriminated. Dorsey, again, draws a distinction between
lore narratives, which can be rehearsed without fasting or
prayer, and rituals which require the most rigid preparation.
In each culture province the Indians studied the heavenly
bodies. The Arctic peoples regulated their lives by the
long day and night in the year; among the tribes in the
arid region the place of sunrise was marked on the horizon
for each day; the tropical Indians were not so observant,
but they worshipped the sun-god above all. The Mayas had
a calendar of 360 days, with intercalary days; this solar
year was intersected by their sacred year of twenty weeks
of thirteen days each, and these assembled in bewildering
cycles. Their knowledge of the air and its properties
was no less profound. Heat and cold, rain and drought,
the winds in relation to the points of the compass, were
nearest their wants and supplies, and were never out of their
thoughts. In each province they had found the best springs,
beds of clay, paint, soapstone, flinty rock, friable stone
for sculpture and hard, tenacious stone for tools, and used
ashes for salt. The vegetal kingdom was no less familiar to
them. Edible plants, and those for dyes and medicines,
were on their lists, as well as wood for tools, utensils
and weapons, and fibres for textiles. They knew poisonous
plants, and could eliminate noxious properties. The universal
reliance on animal life stimulated the study of the animal
kingdom. Everywhere there were names for a large number of
species; industries and fine arts were developed through animal
substances. Society was organized in most cases on animal
clans, and religion was largely zoomorphic. The hunting
tribes knew well the nature and habits of animals, their
anatomy, their migrations, and could interpret their
voices. Out of this practical knowledge, coupled with the
belief in personeity, grew a folk-lore so vast that if it
were written down the world would not contain the books.
Religion.
The religion of the American aborigines, so far as it can
be made a subject of investigation, consisted (1) in what
the tribes believed about spirits, or shades, and the spirit
world--its organization, place, activities and relation to
our world; and (2) in what they did in response to these
beliefs. The former was their creeds, the latter their cults or
worships. In these worships, social organization, religious
dramas and paraphernalia, amusement and gambling, and private
religion or fetichism, found place. In order to obtain an
intelligent grasp of the religion of tribes in their several
culture provinces, it must be understood: (1) That the form
of belief called animism by Tylor (more correctly speaking,
personeity), was universal; everything was somebody, alive,
sentient, thoughtful, wilful. This personeity lifts the
majority of earthly phenomena out of the merely physical world
and places them in the spirit world. Theology and science are
one. All is supernatural, wakan. (2) That there existed
more than one self or soul or shade in any one of these
personalities, and these shades had the power not only to go
away, but to transform their bodily tenements at will; a
bird, by raising its head, could become a man; the latter,
by going on all fours, could become a deer. (3) That the
regulative side of the spirit world was the natural outcome
of the clan social system and the tribal government in each
tribe. Even one's personal name had reference to the world of
ghosts. The affirmation that American aborigines believed in
an all-pervading, omnipotent Spirit is entirely inconsistent
with the very nature of the case. (4) Worship was everywhere
dramatic. Only here and there among the higher tribes were
bloody sacrifices in vogue, and prayers were in pantomime.
In the culture areas the environment gave specific characters
to the religion. In the Arctic province the overpowering
influence of meteorological phenomena manifested itself
both in the doctrine of shades and in their shamanistic
practices. The raven created the world. The Dene (Tinneh)
myths resembled those of the Eskimo, and all the hunting
tribes of eastern Canada and United States and the Mississippi
valley have a mythology based upon their zootechny and their
totemism. The religious conceptions of the fishing tribes
on the Pacific coast between Mount St Elias and the Columbia
river are worked out by Boas; the transformation from the
hunting to the agricultural mode of life was accompanied by
changes in belief and worship quite as radical. These have
been carefully studied by Cushing, Stevenson and Fewkes.
The pompous ceremonials of the civilized tribes of Mexico
and the Cordilleras in South America, when analysed, reveal
only a higher grade of the prevailing idea. Im Thurn says of
the Carib: "All objects, animate and inanimate, seem exactly
of the same nature, except that they differ in the accident
of bodily form." These mythological ideas and symbols of the
American aborigines were woven in their textiles, painted on
their robes and furniture, burned into their pottery, drawn in
sand mosaics on deserts, and perpetuated in the only sculptures
worthy of the name, in wood and stone. They are inseparable
from industry; language, social organization and custom wait
upon them: they explain the universe in the savage mind.
Archaeology.
The archaeology of the western hemisphere should be divided
as follows: (1) that of Indian activities; (2) the question
of man's existence in a prior geological period. There is no
dividing line between first-contact ethnology and pre-contact
archaeology. Historians of this time, both north and south of
Panama, described tools and products of activities similar to
those taken from beneath the soil near by. The archaeologist
recovers his specimens from waste places, cave deposits,
abandoned villages, caches, shell-heaps, refuse-heaps,
enclosures, mounds, hut rings, earthworks, garden beds, quarries
and workshops, petroglyphs, trails, graves and cemeteries,
cliff and cavate dwellings, ancient pueblos, ruined stone
dwellings, forts and temples, canals or reservoirs. The
relics found in these places are material records of language,
industries, fine arts, social life, lore and religion.
Here and there in the Arctic province remains of old village
sites have been examined, and collections brought away by whalers
and exploring expeditions. Two facts are established--namely,
that the Eskimo lived formerly farther south on the Atlantic
coast, and that, aboriginally, they were not specially adept
in carving and etching. The old apparatus of hunting and
fishing is quite primitive. The Dene (Tinneh) province
in Alaska and north-western Canada yields nothing to the
spade. Algonquin-Iroquois Canada, thanks to the Geological
Survey and the Department of Education in Ontario, has revealed
old Indian camps, mounds and earthworks along the northern
drainage of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and pottery in a curved
line from Montreal to Lake of the Woods. Throughout eastern
United States shell-heaps, quarries, workshops and camp sites
are in abundance. The Sioux and the Muskhogee province is
the mound area, which extends also into Canada along the
Red river. The forms of these are earth-heaps, conical
mounds, walls of earth, rectangular pyramids and effigies
(Putnam). Thomas sums up the work of the Bureau of American
Ethnology upon the structure, contents and distribution of
these earth monuments, over a vast area from which adobe,
building stone and stone-working material were absent. (See
Hodge's List of Pubs. of the Bur. Am. Ethnol.) No writings
have been recovered, the artisans shaping small objects in
stone were specially gifted, the potters in only a few places
approached those of the Pueblos, the fine art was poor, and
relics found in the mounds do not indicate in their makers
a grade of culture above that of the Indian tribes near
by. The archaeology of the Pacific coast, from the Aleutian
Islands, is written in shell-heaps, village sites, caves,
and burial-places (Dall, Harlan I. Smith, Schumacher).
The relics of bone, antler, stone, shell and copper are of
yesterday. Even the Calaveras man is no exception, since
his skull and his polished conical pestle, the latter made
of stone more recent than the auriferous gravels, show him
to have been of Digger Indian type. In Utah begin the ruins
of the Pueblo culture. These cover Arizona and New Mexico,
with extensions into Colorado on the north and Mexico on the
south. The reports of work done in this province for several
years past form a library of text and illustration. Cliff
dwellings, cavate houses, pueblos and casas are all brought
into a series without a break by Bandelier, Cushing, Fewkes,
Holmes, Hough, Mindeleff, Nordenskjold, Powell and Stevenson.
From Casa Grande, in Chihuahua, to Quemada, in Zacatecas, Carl
S. Lumholtz found survivals of the cliff dwellers. Between
Quemada and Copan, in Honduras, is an unbroken series of mural
structures. The traditions agree with the monuments, whatever
may be objected to assigning any one ruin to the Toltec, the
Chichimec or the Nahuatl, that there are distinct varieties
in ground-plan, motives, stone-craft, wall decorations and
sculptures. Among these splendours in stone the following
recent explorers must be the student's guide:--Bowditch, Charnay,
Forstemann, F. T. Goodman, Gordon, Holmes, Maudslay, Mercer,
Putnam, Sapper, Marshall H. Saville, Seler, Cyrus Thomas,
Thompson. A list of the ruins, printed in the handbook on
Mexico published by the Department of State in Washington,
covers several pages. The special characteristics of each
are to be seen partly in the skill and genius of their makers,
and partly in the exigencies of the site and the available
materials. A fascinating study in this connexion is that of the
water-supply. The cenotes or underground reservoirs were the
important factors in locating the ruins of northern Yucatan.
From Honduras to Panama the urn burials, the pottery, the rude
carved images and, above all, the grotesque jewellery, absorb the
archaeologist's attention. (Publications of Peabody Museum.)
Beyond Chiriqui southward is El Dorado. Here also bewildering
products of ancient metallurgy tax the imagination as to
the processes involved, and questions of acculturation also
interfere with true scientific results. The fact remains,
however, that the curious metal-craft of the narrow strip
along the Pacific from Mexico to Titicaca is the greatest of
archaeological enigmas. Bandelier, Dorsey, Holmes, Seler and
Uhle have taken up the questions anew. Beyond Colombia are
Ecuador and Peru, where, in the widening of the continent,
architecture, stone-working, pottery, metallurgy, textiles
are again exalted. Among the Cordilleras in their western
and interior drainages, over a space covering more than twenty
degrees of latitude, the student comes again upon massive
ruins. The materials on the coast were clay and gravel
wrought into concrete, sun-dried bricks and pise, or rammed
work, cut stalks of plants formed with clay a kind of
staff, and lintels were made by burying stems of cana brava
(Gynerium saccharoides) in blocks of pise. On the uplands
structures were of stone laid up in a dozen ways. Walls for
buildings, garden terraces and aqueducts were straight or
sloping. Doorways were usually square, but corbelled archways
and gateways surmounted with sculptures were not uncommon.
Ornamentation was in carving and in colour, the latter far
more effectively used than in Middle America. A glance at the
exquisite textiles reveals at once the inspiration of mural
decorations. The most prolific source of Peruvian relics is
the sepulchres or huacas, the same materials being used in
their construction as in building the houses. Here, owing to
a dry climate, are the dead, clad and surrounded with food,
vessels, tools and art products, as in life. The textiles
and the pottery can only be mentioned; their quality and
endless varieties astonish the technologist. In the Carib
province there are no mural remains, but the pottery, with
its excessive onlaying, recalls Mexico and the jewellers of
Chiriqui. The polished stone work is superb, finding its
climax in Porto Rico, which seems to have been the sacred
island of the Caribs. For the coasts of South America the
vast shell-heaps are the repositories of ancient history.
Paleolithic man.
Since 1880 organized institutions of anthropology have
taken the spade out of the hands of individual explorers in
order to know the truth concerning Glacial or Pleistocene
man. The geologist and the trained archaeologist are
associated. In North America the sites have been examined
by the Peabody Museum, the Bureau of American Ethnology, and
others, with the result that only the Trenton gravels have
any standing. The so-called palaeolithic implements are
everywhere. The question is one of geology, simply to decide
whether those recovered at Trenton are ancient. Putnam
and George Frederick Wright maintain that they are ancient,
Alex. Francis Chamberlain and Holmes that they are post-Glacial
and comparatively recent (Am. Anthrop., N.S. i. pp. 107,
614). Elsewhere in the United States fossilized bones,
crania of a low order, association of human remains with
those of fossil animals are not necessarily evidence of vast
antiquity. In South America the shell-heaps, of enormous
size, are supposed to show that the animals have undergone
changes in size and that such vast masses require untold ages to
accumulate. The first is a biological problem. As for the
second, the elements of savage voracity and wastefulness,
of uncertainty as to cubical contents on uneven surface,
and of the number of mouths to fill, make it hazardous to
construct a chronological table on a shell-heap. Hudson's
village sites in Patagonia contain pottery, and that brings
them all into the territory of Indian archaeology. Ameghino
refers deposits in Patagonia, from which undoubted human
bones and relics have been exhumed, to the Miocene. The
question is of the age of the sediments from which these were
taken. The bones of other associated animals, says John B.
Hatcher, demonstrate the Pleistocene nature of the deposits,
by which is not necessarily meant older Quaternary, for their
horizons have not been differentiated and correlated in South
America. Hatcher believes that "there is no good evidence
in favour of a great antiquity for man in Patagonia." In a
cave near Consuelo Cove, southern Patagonia, have been found
fragments of the skin and bones of a large ground-sloth,
Grypotherium (Neomylodon) listai, associated with human
remains. Ameghino argues that this creature is still living,
while Ur Moreno advances the theory that the animal has been
extinct for a long period, and that it was domesticated by
a people of great antiquity, who dwelt there prior to the
Indians. Rodolfo Hauthal, Walter E. Roth and Dr R. Lehmann
Nitsche review their work with the conclusion, not unanimously
held by them, that man co-existed here with all the other
animals whose remains were found during an inter-Glacial
period. Arthur Smith Woodward sums up the question in
Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, closing with
this sentence: "If we accept the confirmatory evidence afforded
by Mr Spencer Moore, we can hardly refuse to believe that this
ground-sloth was kept and fed by an early race of men." These
are individual opinions, subject to revision by that court of
appeals, the institutional judgment. (Summary in H. Hesketh
Prichard, Through the Heart of Patagonia (1902), Appendix A.)
AUTHORITIES.--A valuable endowment of research in specimens,
literature and pictures, deposited in libraries, museums and
galleries since 1880, will keep ethnologists and archaeologists
employed for many years to come. The scientific inquirer will
find a mass of material in the papers and reports contributed
to the numerous societies and institutions which are devoted
to anthropological research. Museums of aboriginal culture
are without number; in Washington the Smithsonian Institution,
the National Museum, the Bureau of American Ethnology and the
American Anthropologist issue publications on every division
of the subject, lists of their publications and general
bibliographies. Also the Peabody Museum, Cambridge; the
American Museum of Natural History, New York; the Academy of
Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; the Field Museum, Chicago; the
California Academy and the California University, San Francisco;
and the Canadian Institute, Toronto, publish monographs and
lists. The most comprehensive work on North America is the
Handbook of American Indians (prepared by the Bureau of American
Ethnology, under W. H. Holmes, and edited by F. Webb Hodge).
The following represent a select list of works on the American
aborigines:--H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific
States of North America, vols. i.-v. (1874-1876); A. F.
Bandelier, Papers on the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico
(see Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America,
1881, 1890, 1892); also 10th, 11th, 12th Reports Peabody
Museum; Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo (6th Rep. Bur. Am.
Ethnol., 1888); also Bulls. 20, 26, 27 and Reports Brit.
Assoc. 1885-1898; Charles P. Bowditch, Mexican and Central
American Antiquities; Bull. 28, Bur. Am. Ethnol.; also The
Temples of the Cross and Mayan Nomenclature (Cambridge,
Mass., 1906); David Boyle, Reports of the Provincial Museum
of Toronto on Archaeology and Ethnology of Canada; D. G.
Brinton, Library of Aboriginal American Literature, vols.
i.-viii. (Philadelphia, 1822-1890); The American Race (New
York, 1891); Gustav Bruhl, Die Cultur-volker Amerikas
(Cincinnati, 1889); Desire Charnay, The Ancient Cities
of the New World (New York, 1887); Frank Cushing, Zuni
Folk Tales (New York, 1901); William H. Dall, Alaska and
its Resources (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1870) (also papers by
Bur. Am. Ethnol.); J. Deniker, The Races of Man (London,
1900); Roland B. Dixon, The Northern Maidu, Cal., Bull. 17,
Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. (New York, 1905); Paul Ehrenreich, Die
Volkerstamme Brasiliens (Berlin, 1892); Anthropologische
Studien uber die Urbewohner Brasiliens (Berlin, 1897);
Livingston Farrand, The American Nation: A History, vol. ii.
(New York, 1904), with copious references; J. W. Fewkes, A
Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, vols. i.-iv.
(Boston, 1891-1894); Pliny Earle Goddard, Life and Culture
of the Hupa, Univ. of Cal., vol. i. (1903): papers by F. W.
Hodge, List of Publications of the Bur. Am. Ethnol., Bull.
31 (1906); W. H. Holmes, Handbook of the Indians North of
Mexico; Alice C. Fletcher, Francis la Flesche and John Comfort
Fillmore, "A Study of Omaha Indian Music," Peabody Museum
Archaeological and Ethnological Papers. i. (1893); George
Byron Gordon, "Researches in Central America," Memoirs of the
Peabody Museum, vol. i. Nos. 1, 4, 5, 6; and Proc. Mus.
Univ. of Pa.; William H. Holmes, Archaeological Studies among
the Ancient Cities of Mexico (Chicago, 1895); Walter Hough,
Archaeological Field Work in N.-E. Arizona, Museum-Gates
Expedition of 1901; Report U.S. National Museum, 1901;
Ales. Hrdlicka, "The Chichimecs," Am. Anthropologist,
1903, pp. 385-440; also papers on physical anthropology in the
Handbook and Pubs. of the National Museum and the American
Museum; Archer Butler Hulbert, Historic Highways of America,
16 vols. (Cleveland, O.); E. F. Im Thurn, Among the Indians
of British Guiana (London, 1883); A. H. Keane, Ethnology
(Cambridge, 1896); and Man, Past and Present (Cambridge,
1899); A. L. Kroeber, Papers on Eskimo, Arapaho, Languages
and Culture of California Tribes, in Pubs. of California
University and the American Museum of Natural History, N. Y.;
Albert Buell Lewis, "Tribes of the Columbia Valley," Mem.
Anthrop. Assoc. vol. i. (1906), with bibliography; Joseph
D. McGuire, "The Stone Hammer and its Various Uses," Am.
Anthropologist, iv. (1891); Teobert Maler, "Researches in
Usumatsintla Valley" (1901- 1903), Peabody Museum Mem. ii.;
Clements R. Markham, Cuzco (London, 1836, and Hakluyt Soc.,
1859); Marquis de Nadaillac, L'Amerique prehistorique
(Paris, 1883); H. J. Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial System
(The Hague, 1900); G. Nordenskjold, The Cliff Dwellers of
the Mesa Verde, Colorado (Stockholm, 1893); Zelia Nuttall,
The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (Univ. of
Cal., 1903); An Ancient Mexican Codex, special publications
of the Peabody Museum (Cambridge, Mass., 1902); Edward John
Payne, History of the New World called America (vol. i.
1892, vol. ii. 1899, Oxford ); Antonio Penafiel, Monumentos
del Arte Mexicano antiguo (Berlin, 1890); James C. Pilling,
"Bibliographies of Indian Languages," Bulls. Bur. Am.
Ethnol. 5-19; J. W. Powell, "Indian Linguistic Families,"
7th Report Bureau of American Ethnology (1891); H. Hesketh
Prichard, Through the Heart of Patagonia (New York, 1902)
(appendix on the co-existence of mylodon and man); F. W.
Putnam, "Archaeology and Ethnology," vol. vii., Wheeler
Surveys, &c. (Washington, 1879); Charles Rau, The Palenque
Tablet, Smithsonian Contributions, Washington; Caecilie
Seler, Auf alten Wegen in Mexico und Guatemala (Berlin,
1900); Harlan I. Smith, "Archaeological Discoveries in
North-Western America," Bull. Am. Geographical Society
(May 1906); also Mem. Am. Mus. Nat. History (New York); Karl
von den Steinen, Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brasiliens
(Berlin, 1884); E. H. Thompson, "Explorations in Loltun and
Labna," Memoirs Peabody Museum of Archaeol. and Ethnol.
i. 1897; Max Uhle, "Explorations in Peru," Memoir Univ. of
Cal. i.; Washington Matthews, Navaho Legends (Cambridge,
Mass.); Anne Cary Maudslay and Alfred Percival Maudslay, A
Glimpse at Guatemala (London, 1899) (Maudslay's whole series
in Biologia Centrali Americana, 1889-1902, are valuable);
H. C. Mercer, The Hill Caves of Yucatan (Philadelphia,
1896); Clarence B. Moore, papers on archaeology of Florida and
neighbouring states, Journal Acad. Nat. Sc. (Philadelphia,
vol. xiii., 1905); Lewis H. Morgan, Smithsonian Contributions,
xvii., 1869; and Ancient Society, New York. (O. T. M.)
AMERICA ISLANDS, a name given to Christmas, Fanning, Palmyra
and attendant islets, belonging to Great Britain, in the
Central Pacific Ocean, between the equator and 6 deg. N., and
about 160 deg. W. They are so named because frequented for their
guano by traders from the United States. Christmas Island
is probably the largest atoll in the Pacific (it is about 90
m. in circuit), and was discovered by Captain Cook in 1777.
The islands were annexed by Great Britain in 1888 in view of
the laying of the Pacific cable, of which Fanning Island is a
station. Guano and mother-of-pearl shells are the principal
articles of export; the population of the islands is about 300.
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR (1861-1865). 1. The Civil War between
the northern and southern sections of the United States, which
began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on the 12th of April
1861, and came to an end, in the last days of April 1865,
with the surrender of the Confederates, was in its scope one
of the greatest struggles known to history. Its operations
were spread over thousands of miles, vast numbers of men were
employed, and both sides fought with an even more relentless
determination than is usual when "armed nations" meet in
battle. The duration of the war was due to the nature of the
country and the enormous distances to be traversed, not to
any want of energy, for the armies were in deadly earnest and
their battles and combats (of which two thousand four hundred
can be named) sterner than those of almost any war in modern
history. The political history of the war, its antecedents
and its consequences, are dealt with in the articles
UNITED STATES (History) and CONFEDERATE STATES. For
the purposes of the military narrative it is sufficient to
say that eleven southern states seceded from the Union and
formed the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis
was chosen president of this confederacy, and an energetic
government prepared to repel the expected attack of the "Union"
states. The "resumption" by the seceding states of the
coast defences (built on land ceded by the various states
to the Federal government, and, it was argued, withdrawn
therefore by the act of secession) brought on the war.
2. Bombardment of Fort Sumter.--South Carolina, finding
other means of seizing or regaining Fort Sumter at Charleston
ineffectual, ushered in the great struggle by the bombardment
of the 12th of April 1861. Against overwhelming odds the
United States troops held out until honour was satisfied; they
then surrendered the ruins of the fort and were conveyed by
warships to the north. At once the war spirit was aroused.
President Lincoln called out 75,000 men. The few southern
states which had not yet seceded, refused their contingents
and promptly joined the "rebels," but there was no hesitation
in the people of the North, and the state troops volunteered
in far greater numbers than had been demanded. Nearly the
whole of the nation had now definitely taken sides in the
quarrel. The Confederacy consisted of eleven states (Virginia,
North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee). All the remaining
states and territories stood by the Union, except Missouri,
Kentucky and Maryland, in which public opinion was divided.
But the first operations of the war brought about the willing
or unwilling adhesion of these border states to the Federal
cause. Citizens of these states served on either side in the
war. The small, but highly efficient, regular army stood by
the president, though large numbers of the officers, amongst
them many of the best in the service, left it when their states
seceded. The navy likewise remained national, and of its
officers very few went with their states, for the foreign
relations of the navy tended to produce a sentiment wider than
local. But the Federal armaments were not on such a scale
as to enable the government to cope with a "nation in arms,"
and the first call for volunteers was followed by more and
more, until in the end the Federals had more than a million
men under arms. At first the troops on both sides were
voluntarily enlisted, but the South quickly, the North later,
put in force conscription acts. Reducing the figures to a
three years' average, the North furnished about 45% of her
military population, the South not less than 90% for that
term. Even so the Confederacy was numerically, as in every
other respect, far weaker, and rarely, after the second year,
opposed equal numbers to the troops of the Union. Throughout
the critical period of the war, that is, from the beginning
of 1862 up to the day of Chattanooga, three distinct campaigns
were always in progress. Virginia, separating the two hostile
capitals, Richmond and Washington, was the theatre of the
great campaigns of the east, where the flower of both armies
fought. In the centre, the valleys of the Ohio, the Cumberland
and the Tennessee were the battle-ground of large armies
attacking and defending the south and south-eastern states
of the Confederacy, while on and beyond the great waterway
of the Mississippi was carried on the struggle for those
interests, vital to either party, which depended on the mighty
river and its affluents. Until the end of 1863 the events in
these three regions remain distinct episodes; after that the
whole theatre of war is comprised in the "anaconda policy,"
which concentrated irresistible masses of troops from all
sides on the heroic remnants of the Confederacy. In Virginia
and the east, Washington, situated on the outpost line of
the Union, and separated by the "border" state of Maryland
from Pennsylvania and the North, was for some time in great
peril. Virginia, and with it the Federal navy yard at Norfolk
and the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, was controlled by the
rebels. Baltimore was the scene of a bloody riot as the first
Northern regiment (6th Mass.) passed through on its way to
Washington on the 19th of April, and, until troops could be
spared to protect the railway through Maryland, all reinforcements
for the national capital had to be brought up to Annapolis by
sea. When that state was reduced to order, the Potomac became
the front, and, later, the base, of the Northern armies.
3. Missouri and West Virginia.--Missouri, at the other flank
of the line, contained an even stronger Confederate element,
and it was not without a severe struggle that the energy of
Mr (afterwards General) F. P. Blair, and of Nathaniel Lyon,
the Unionist military commander, prevailed over the party of
secession. In Kentucky the Unionist victory was secured
almost without a blow, and, even at the end of 1861, the
Confederate outposts west of the Alleghenies lay no farther
north than the line Columbus--Bowling Green--Cumberland
Gap, though southern Missouri was still a contested
ground. Between the Mississippi and the mountains the whole
of the year was spent by both sides in preparing for the
contest. In the east hostilities began in earnest in western
Virginia. This part of the state, strongly Unionist, had
striven to prevent secession, and soon became itself a state
of the Union (1863). A force under General G. B. McClellan
advanced from the Ohio in June and captured Philippi. This
promptitude was not only dictated by the necessity of preserving
West Virginia, but imposed by the necessity of holding the
Baltimore & Ohio railway, which, as the great link between
east and west, was essential to the Federal armies. A month
later, an easy triumph was obtained by McClellan and Rosecrans
against the Confederates of Virginia at Rich Mountain.
4. First Bull Run.--The opposing forces now in the field
numbered 190,000 Unionists and half that number of Confederates;
sixty-nine warships flew the Stars and Stripes and a number
of improvised ironclads and gunboats the rival "Stars and
Bars." On the 10th of June a Federal force was defeated at Big
Bethel (near Fortress Monroe), and soon afterwards the main
Virginian campaign began. On the Potomac the Unionist generals
McDowell and Patterson commanded respectively the forces at
Washington and Harper's Ferry, opposed by the Confederates under
Generals J. E. Johnston and Beauregard at Winchester and at
Manassas. The forces of these four commanders were raw but
eager, and the people behind them clamoured for a decision.
Much against his own judgment, Lieutenant-General Winfield
Scott, the Federal general-in-chief, a veteran of the second
war with England and of the war with Mexico, felt constrained
to order an advance against Beauregard, while Patterson was to
hold Johnston in check on the Shenandoah. On the 21st of July
took place the first battle of Bull Run (q.v.) between McDowell
and Beauregard, fought by the raw troops of both sides with an
obstinacy that foreboded the desperate battles of subsequent
campaigns. The arrival of Johnston on the previous evening
and his lieutenant Kirby Smith at the crisis of the battle
(for Patterson's part in the plan had completely failed),
turned the scale, and the Federals, not yet disciplined to
bear the strain of a great battle, broke and fled in wild
rout. The equally raw Confederates were in no condition to
pursue. A desultory duel between the forces of Rosecrans and
Robert E. Lee in West Virginia, which ended in the withdrawal
of the Confederates, and a few combats on the Potomac
(Ball's Bluff or Leesburg, October 21; Dranesville, December
20), brought to a close the first campaign in the east.
5. Close of the First Year.--In the end Bull Run did more
harm to the victors than to the conquered. The Southerners
undeniably rested on their laurels, and enabled McClellan, who
was now called to the chief military command at Washington, to
raise, organize and train the famous Army of the Potomac, which,
in defeat and victory, won its reputation as one of the finest
armies of modern history. Johnston meanwhile was similarly
employed in fashioning the equally famous Army of northern
Virginia, which for three years carried the Confederacy on its
bayonets. It was not until the people was stung by the
humiliation of Bull Run that the unorganized enthusiasm of the
North settled down into an invincible determination to crush
the rebellion at all costs. The men of the South were not less
in earnest, and the most highly individualized people in the
world was thus found ready to accept a rigorous discipline as
the only way to success. In the autumn, a spirited attempt
was made by the Arkansas Confederates to reoccupy Missouri.
Fremont, the Federal commander, proved quite unable to deal
with this, and the gallant Lyon was defeated and killed at
Wilson's Creek (August 10). Soon afterwards, after a steady
resistance, the Unionist garrison of Lexington surrendered
to Sterling Price. But the work of Blair and Lyon had not
been in vain, and the mere menace of Fremont's advance
sufficed to clear the state, while General John Pope, by
vigorous action in the field and able civil administration,
restored order and quiet in the northern part of the
state. In the central theatre (Kentucky), the only event
of importance was a daring reconnaissance of the Confederate
fort at Columbus on the Mississippi by a small force under
Brigadier-General U. S. Grant (action of Belmont, November 7).
6. The Blockade.--Meanwhile the Federal navy had settled
down to its fourfold task of blockading the enemy's coast
against the export of cotton and the import of war material,
protecting the Union commerce afloat, hindering the creation
of a Confederate navy and co- operating with the land
forces. From the first months of the war the sea power of the
Federals was practically unchallenged, and the whole length of
the hostile coast-line was open to invasion. But the blockade
of 3000 miles of coast was a far more formidable task, and
international law required it to be effective in order to be
respected. Nevertheless along the whole line some kind of
surveillance was established long before the close of 1861,
and, in proportion as the number of vessels available increased,
the blockade became more and more stringent, until at last it
was practically unbreakable at any point save by the fastest
steamers working under unusually favourable conditions of
wind and weather. As against the civilian enemy the navy
strangled commerce; its military preponderance nipped in the
bud every successive attempt of the Confederates to create a
fleet (for each new vessel as it emerged from the estuary or
harbour in which it had been built, was destroyed or driven
back), while at any given point a secure base was available
for the far- ranging operations of the Union armies. Two
hundred and twelve warships or converted merchantmen were
in commission on the 1st of January 1862. There had been
several coastal successes in 1861, notably the occupation of
Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, by Commodore S. H. Stringham
and General B. F. Butler (August 28-29, 1861), and the
bombardment and capture of Forts Beauregard and Walker at Port
Royal, South Carolina, by the fleet under Commodore S. F.
duPont and the forces of General T. W. Sherman (November 7,
1861). Early in 1862 a large expedition under General A. E.
Burnside and Commodore L. M. Goldsborough captured Roanoke
Island, and the troops penetrated inland as far as Newborn
(actions of February 8 and March 14). About the same time Fort
Pulaski (the main defence of Savannah, Georgia) was invested and
captured. But the greatest and most important enterprise
was the capture of New Orleans (q.v.) by Flag-Officer D.
G. Farragut and General Butler (April 18-25, 1862). This
success opened up the lower Mississippi at the same time as
the armies of the west began to move down that river under
Grant, who was always accompanied by the gunboat flotilla
which had been created on the upper waters in 1861. A slight
campaign in New Mexico took place in February 1862, in which
several brilliant tactical successes were won by the Texan
forces, but no permanent foothold was secured by them.
7. Fort Donelson.--In the early months of 1862 preparations
on a gigantic scale were made for the conquest of the South.
McClellan and the Army of the Potomac faced Johnston, who
with the Army of northern Virginia lay at Manassas, exercising
and training his men with no less care than his opponent.
Major General D. C. Buell in Kentucky had likewise drilled his
troops to a high state of efficiency and was preparing to move
against the Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnston, whose
reputation was that of being the foremost soldier on either
side. Farther west the troops on both sides were by no
means so well trained, yet active operations began on the
Tennessee. Here Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, Fort Henry
on the Tennessee and Columbus on the Mississippi guarded the
left of the Southern line, Sidney Johnston himself maintaining
a precarious advanced position at Bowling Green, with his
lieutenants, Zollicoffer and Crittenden, farther east at
Mill Springs, and a small force under General Marshall in
the mountains of eastern Kentucky. The last-named was soon
defeated by General James A. Garfield at Prestonburg, and a
few days later General G. H. Thomas won his first victory at
Mill Springs (Logan's Cross Roads). Zollicoffer was killed and
his army forced to make a disastrous retreat (January 19-20,
1862). The centre of Johnston's line (Forts Henry and Donelson)
was next attacked by General Grant and Flag- Officer A. H.
Foote. On the 6th of February Fort Henry fell to Foote's
gunboat flotilla, and Grant then moved overland to Donelson.
His troops were raw and possessed no decisive superiority in
numbers, and sharp fighting took place when the garrison of
Donelson tried to cut its way out. The attempt failed when
almost on the point of success, and the Federals, under the
excellent leadership of Generals C. F. Smith, Lew Wallace and
McClernand, effected a lodgment in the works. The Confederate
commanders proved themselves quite unequal to the crisis, and
15,000 men surrendered with the fort on the 16th of February.
8. Island No. 10 and Pea Ridge.--This very considerable
success thrust back Johnston's whole line to New Madrid,
Corinth and the Memphis & Charleston railway. The left
flank, even after the evacuation of Columbus, was exposed,
and the Missouri divisions under Pope quickly seized New
Madrid. The adjoining river defences of Island No. 10 in
the Mississippi proved more formidable. Foote's gunboats
could, and did, run the gauntlet, but a canal had to be cut
right round the batteries for the transports, before the land
forces could cross the river and attack the works in rear;
when this was accomplished, by the skill and energy of all
concerned, the place with its garrison of 7000 men surrendered
at once (April 8, 1862). Meanwhile, in the Missouri theatre,
the Federal general Curtis, outnumbered and outmanoeuvred
by the forces of Price and Van Dorn, fought, and by his
magnificent tenacity won, the battle of Pea Ridge (March
7-8), which put an end to the war in this quarter. On the
whole, the first part of the western campaign was uniformly
a brilliant success for the Federal arms. General H. W.
Halleck, who was here in control of all the operations of
the Federals, had meanwhile ordered Grant's force to ascend
the Tennessee river and operate against Corinth; Buell's
well-disciplined forces were to march overland from Nashville
to join him, and General O. M. Mitchel with a division was
sent straight southwards from the same place to cut the Memphis
& Charleston line. The latter mission, brilliantly as it
was executed, failed, through want of support, to secure a
foothold. Had Halleck reinforced Mitchel, that officer might
perhaps have forestalled the later victories of Grant and
Sherman. As it was, the enterprise became a mere diversion.
9. Shiloh.--Meanwhile Grant was encamped at Pittsburg Landing
on the Tennessee with an army of 45,000 men, and Buell with
37,000 men about two marches away. Early on the 6th of April
A. S. Johnston and Beauregard completely surprised the camps
of Grant's divisions. The battle of Shiloh (q.v.) was a
savage scuffle between two half- disciplined hosts, contested
with a fury rare even in this war. On the 6th the Unionists,
scattered and unable to combine, were driven from point to
point, and at nightfall barely held their ground on the
banks of the river. The losses were enormous on both sides,
Johnston himself being amongst the killed. The arrival of
Buell enabled the Federals to take the offensive next morning
along the whole line, and by sunset on the 7th, after another
sanguinary battle, Beauregard was in full retreat. Some
weeks afterwards, Halleck with the combined armies of Grant,
Buell and Pope began the siege of Corinth, which Beauregard
ultimately evacuated a month later. Thus the first campaign
of the western armies, completed by the victory of the gunboat
flotilla at Memphis (June 6), cleared the Mississippi as far
down as Vicksburg, and compelled the Confederates to evacuate
the Cumberland and a large portion of the Tennessee basins.
10. The Peninsula.--Many schemes were discussed between
McClellan and President Lincoln before the Army of the Potomac
finally took the offensive in Virginia. It was eventually
decided that General Banks was to oppose "Stonewall" Jackson
in the Shenandoah Valley, Fremont to hold western Virginia
against the same general's enterprise, and McDowell with a
strong corps to advance overland to meet McClellan, who, with
the main army, was to proceed by sea to Fortress Monroe and
thence to advance on Richmond. The James river, afterwards
so much used for the Federal operations, was not yet clear,
and it was here, in Hampton Roads, that the famous fight took
place between the ironclads "Merrimac", (or "Virginia") and
"Monitor" (March 8-9, 1862). McClellan's advance was opposed
by a small force of Confederates under General Magruder,
which, gradually reinforced, held the historic position of
Yorktown for a whole month, and only evacuated it on the 3rd
of May. Two days later McClellan's advanced troops fought
a sharp combat at Williamsburg and the Army of the Potomac
rendezvoused on the Chickahominy with its base at White House
on the Pamunkey (May 7). J. E. Johnston had, long ere this,
fallen back from Manassas towards Richmond, and the two armies
were in touch when a serious check was given to McClellan by
the brilliant successes of Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley.
11. Jackson's Valley Campaign.--The "Valley of Virginia,"
called also the "Granary of the Confederacy," was cut into long
parallel strips by ridges and rivers, across which passages
were rare, and along which the Confederates could, with little
fear of interruption from the east, debouch into Maryland
and approach Washington itself. Here Stonewall Jackson lay
with a small force, and in front of him at the outlet of the
valley was Banks, while Fremont threatened him from West
Virginia. Jackson had already fought a winter campaign which
ended in his defeat at the hands of General Shields at Kernstown
(March 23). Banks's main army, early in May, lay far down the
Valley at Strasburg and Front Royal, Fremont at the town of
McDowell. Jackson's first blow fell on part of Fremont's
corps, which was sharply attacked and driven into the mountains
(McDowell, May 8). The victor quickly turned upon Banks,
destroyed his garrison of Front Royal and nearly surrounded
his main body; barely escaping, Banks was again defeated
at Winchester and driven back to the Maryland border (May
23-25). These rapid successes paralysed the Federal
offensive. McDowell, instead of marching to join McClellan,
was ordered to the Valley to assist in "trapping Jackson,"
an operation which, at one critical moment very near
success, ended in the defeat of Fremont at Cross Keys and
of McDowell's advanced troops at Port Republic (June 8-9)
and the escape of the daring Confederates with trifling
loss. McClellan, deprived of McDowell's corps, felt himself
reduced to impotence, and three Federal armies were vainly
marching up and down the Valley when Johnston fell with
all his forces upon the Army of the Potomac. The Federals
lay on both sides of the Chickahominy river, and at this
moment Johnston heard that McDowell's arrival need not be
feared. The course of the battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks
(q.v.) bore some resemblance to that of Shiloh; a sharp
attack found the Unionists unprepared, and only after severe
losses and many partial defeats could McClellan check the rebel
advance. Here also fortune was against the Confederates. J.
E. Johnston fell severely wounded, and in the end a properly
connected and combined advance of the Army of the Potomac drove
back his successor into the lines of Richmond (May 31-June 1).
12. The Seven Days.--Bad weather and skilful defence
completely checked the assailants for another three weeks,
and the situation was now materially altered. Jackson with
the Valley troops had stealthily left Harrisonburg by rail
on the 17th of June, and was now at Ashland in McClellan's
rear. General Lee, who had succeeded Johnston in the
command of the Army of northern Virginia, proposed to attack
the Federals in their line of communication with White
House, and passed most of his forces round to the aid of
Jackson. The Seven Days' Battle (q.v.) opened with the
combat of Mechanicsville on the 26th of June, and the battle
of Gaines' Mill on the 27th. Lee soon cut the communication
with White House, but McClellan changed his base and retreated
towards Harrison's landing on the James river. It was some
time before Lee realized this. In the end the Federals
were sharply pursued, but McClellan had gained a long start
and, fighting victoriously almost every day, at length placed
himself in a secure position on the James, which was now
patrolled by the Federal warships (June 26-July 1). But the
second advance on Richmond was clearly a strategical failure.
13. The Campaign of Perryville.--After the capture of
Corinth Halleck had suspended the Federal advance all along
the line in the west, and many changes took place about this
time. Halleck went to Washington as general-in-chief, Pope
was transferred to Virginia, Grant, with his own Army of
the Tennessee and Rosecrans's (lately Pope's) Army of the
Mississippi, was entrusted with operations on the latter
river, while Buell's Army of the Ohio was ordered to east
Tennessee to relieve the inhabitants of that district, who,
as Unionist sympathizers, were receiving harsh treatment
from the Confederate and state authorities. Late in July
Braxton Bragg, who had succeeded Beauregard in command of the
Confederates, transferred his forces to the neighbourhood of
Chattanooga. Tennessee was thenceforward to be the central
theatre of war, and too late it was recognized that Mitchel
should have been supported in the spring. The forces left
south of Corinth were enough to occupy the attention of
Grant and Rosecrans, and almost contemporaneously with Lee's
advance on Washington (see below), Price and Bragg took the
offensive against Grant and Buell respectively. The latter
early in August lay near Murfreesboro, covering Nashville,
but the Confederate general did not intend to threaten that
place. The valleys and ridges of eastern Tennessee screened him
as he rapidly marched on Louisville and Cincinnati. The whole
of the Southern army in the west swung round on its left wing
as the pivot, and Buell only just reached Louisville before his
opponent. The Washington authorities, thoroughly dissatisfied,
ordered him to turn over the command to General Thomas, but
the latter magnanimously declined the offer, and Buell on the
8th of October fought the sanguinary and indecisive battle of
Perryville, in consequence of which Bragg retired to Chattanooga.
14. The Western Campaign.--The Union leader was now ordered
once more to east Tennessee, but he protested that want of
supplies made such a move impossible. Rosecrans, the victor
of Corinth and Iuka (see below), was thereupon ordered
to replace him. Buell's failure to appreciate political
considerations as a part of strategy justified his recall,
but the value of his work, like that of McClellan, can
hardly be measured by marches and victories. The disgraced
general was not again employed, but the men of the Army of
the Ohio retained throughout, as did those of the Army of the
Potomac, the impress of their first general's discipline and
training. Sterling Price in the meanwhile had been ordered
forward against Grant and Rosecrans, and Van Dorn promised his
assistance. Before the latter could come up, however, Rosecrans
defeated Price at Iuka (September 19). The Confederates,
not dismayed thereby, effected their junction and moved on
Corinth, which was defended by Rosecrans and 23,000 Federal
troops. Grant's other forces were split up into detachments,
and when Van Dorn, boldly marching right round Rosecrans,
descended upon Corinth from the north, Grant could hardly
stir to help his subordinate. Rosecrans, however, won
the battle of Corinth (October 3-4), though on the evening
of the 3rd he had been in a perilous position. The
Confederates fell back to the southward, escaping Grant once
more, and thus ended the Confederate advance in the West.
15. Pope's Campaign in Virginia.--The Army of Virginia under
Pope was composed of the troops lately chasing Jackson in
the Valley-- Fremont's (now Sigel's), Banks's and McDowell's
corps. Halleck (at the Washington headquarters) began by
withdrawing McClellan from the James to assist Pope in central
Virginia; Lee, thus released from any fear for the safety of
Richmond, turned swiftly upon Pope. That officer desired
to concentrate his command on Gordonsville, but Jackson was
before him at that place, and he fell back on Culpeper.
On the 9th of August Banks and Jackson joined battle once
more at Cedar Mountain (or Cedar Run); the Federals, though
greatly inferior in numbers, attacked with much vigour.
Banks was eventually beaten, but he had come very near to
success, and Jackson soon retired across the Rapidan, where
(the Army of the Potomac having now begun to leave the James)
Lee joined him (August 17) with the corps of Longstreet.
Pope now fell back behind the Rappahannock without showing
fight. Here Halleck's orders bade him cover both Washington
and Aquia Creek (whence the Army of the Potomac was to join
him), orders almost impossible of execution, as any serious
change of position necessarily uncovered one of these
lines. The leading troops of the Army of the Potomac were
now landed, and set out to join Pope's army, which faced
Longstreet and Jackson on the Rappahannock between Bealton and
Waterloo. On the 24th of August Lee ordered Jackson to
march round Pope's right wing and descend on his rear through
Thoroughfare Gap on Manassas and the old battle-ground of
1861. Pope was at this moment about to take the offensive,
when a violent storm swelled the rivers and put an end to all
movement. On the 26th of August the daring flank march of
Jackson's corps ended at Manassas Station (see BULL RUN).
Longstreet followed Jackson, and Lee's army was reunited on the
battlefield. By the 1st of September the campaign of "Second
Manassas" was over. Pope's army and such of the troops of the
Army of the Potomac as had been involved in the catastrophe were
driven, tired and disheartened, into the Washington lines.
The Confederates were once more masters of eastern Virginia.
16. Antietam.--It was at this moment that Bragg was in the
full tide of his temporary success in Tennessee and Kentucky,
and, after his great victory of Second Bull Run, Lee naturally
invaded Maryland, which, it was assumed, had not forgotten
its Southern sympathies. But Lee received no real accession
of strength, and when McClellan with all available forces
moved out of Washington to encounter the Army of northern
Virginia, the Confederates were still but a few marches from
the point where they had crossed the Potomac. Lee had again
divided his army. On the 13th of September Jackson was
besieging 11,000 Federals in Harper's Ferry, Longstreet was at
Hagerstown, Stuart's cavalry holding the passes of the South
Mountain, while McClellan's whole army lay at Frederick. Here
extraordinary good fortune put into the enemy's hands a copy
of Lee's orders, from which it was clear that the Confederates
were dangerously dispersed. Had McClellan moved at once he
could have seized the passes without difficulty, as he was
aware that he had only cavalry to oppose him. But the 13th
was spent in idleness, and stubborn infantry now held the
passes. A serious and costly action had to be fought before
the way was cleared (battle of South Mountain, September 14).
On the following day Harper's Ferry capitulated after a weak
defence. Jackson thereupon swiftly rejoined Lee, leaving
only a division to carry out the capitulation. On the 16th
McClellan found Lee in position behind the Antietam Creek,
and on the 17th was fought the sanguinary and obstinately
contested battle of Antietam (q.v.) or Sharpsburg. At the
price of enormous losses both sides escaped defeat in the
field, but Lee's offensive was at an end and he retired into
Virginia. Thenceforward the Confederacy was purely on the
defensive. Only twice more did the forces of the South
strike out (Gettysburg, 1863; Nashville, 1864), and then
the offensive was more of a counter-attack than an advance.
17. Vicksburg in 1862.--The Confederate failures of Corinth,
Perryville and Antietam were followed by a general advance by the
Federals. It is about this time that Vicksburg becomes a place of
importance. Farragut from New Orleans, and the gunboat flotilla
from the upper waters, had engaged the batteries in June and
July, but had returned to their respective stations, while a
Federal force under General Williams, which had appeared before
the fortress, retired to Baton Rouge. Early in August, Van
Dorn, now in command of the place, sent a force to attack
Williams, and on the 5th a hard-fought action took place at Baton
Rouge, in which Williams was killed but his troops held their
own. At this time the minor fortress of Port Hudson was
established to guard the rear of Vicksburg. In November Grant,
with 57,000 men, began to move down from the north against
General J. C. Pemberton, who had superseded the talented Van
Dorn. A converging movement made by Grant from Grand
Junction, W. T. Sherman from Memphis, and a force from Helena
on the Arkansas side, failed, owing to Pemberton's prompt
retirement to Oxford, Mississippi, and complications brought
about by the intrigues of an able but intractable subordinate,
McClernand, induced Grant to make a complete change of
plan. Sherman was to proceed down the great river, and join
the ships from the Gulf before Vicksburg, while Grant himself
drove Pemberton southwards along the Mississippi Central
railway. This double plan failed. Grant, as he pushed
Pemberton before him to Granada, lengthened day by day his
line of communication, and when Van Dorn, ever enterprising,
raided the great Federal depot of Holly Springs the game was
up. Grant retired hastily, for starvation was imminent, and
Pemberton, thus freed, turned upon Sherman, and inflicted a
severe defeat on that general at Chickasaw Bayou near Vicksburg
(December 29). McClernand now assumed command, and on the 11th
of January 1863 captured Fort Hindman near Arkansas Post.
This was the solitary gain of the whole operation. Meanwhile
Vicksburg was steadily becoming stronger and more formidable.
18. Fredericksburg.--McClellan, after the battle of the
Antietam, paused for some time to reorganize his forces, some
of which had barely recovered from the effects of Pope's unlucky
campaign. He then slowly moved down the east side of the
Blue Ridge, while Lee retired up the Valley on the west side
of the same range. On the 6th of November the Army of the
Potomac was at Warrenton, Lee at Culpeper, and Jackson in the
Valley. When on the point of resuming the offensive,
McClellan was suddenly superseded by Burnside, one of his
corps commanders. Like Buell, McClellan had tempered the
tools with which others were to strike; he was not again
employed, and in his fall was involved his most brilliant
subordinate, Fitz John Porter (q.v..) Burnside was by
no means the equal of his predecessor, though a capable
subordinate, and indeed only accepted the chief command with
reluctance. He began his campaign by cancelling McClellan's
operation, and, his own plan being to strike at Richmond from
Fredericksburg, he moved the now augmented army to Falmouth
opposite that place, hoping to surprise the crossing of the
Rappahannock. Delays and neglect, not only at the front,
but on the part of the headquarters staff at Washington,
permitted Lee to seize the heights of the southern bank in
time. When Burnside fought his battle of Fredericksburg
(q.v.) an appalling reverse was the result, the more
terrible as it was absolutely useless (December 13).
19. Closing Operations of 1862.--Chickasaw Bayou and
Fredericksburg ended the Federal initiative in the west and the
east; the Army of the Cumberland under Rosecrans alone could
claim a victory. Buell's successor retained the positions about
Nashville, whilst a new Army of the Ohio prepared to operate
in east Tennessee. Bragg lay at Murfreesboro (see STONE
RIVER), where Rosecrans attacked him on the 31st of December
1862. A very obstinate and bloody two days' battle ended
in Bragg's retirement towards Chattanooga. During these
campaigns the United States navy had not been idle. The part
played by the gunboats on the upper Mississippi had been most
conspicuous, as had been the operations of Farragut's heavier
ships in the lower waters of the same river. The work of Du
Pont and Goldsborough on the Atlantic coast has been alluded to
above. Charleston was attacked without success in 1862, but
from June to August 1863 it was besieged by General Gillmore
and Admiral Dahlgren, and under great difficulties the Federals
secured a lodgment, though it was not until Sherman appeared
on the land side early in 1865 that the Confederate defence
collapsed. Fort Fisher near Wilmington also underwent a
memorable siege by land and sea. Certain incursions were
from time to time made at different points along the whole
sea-board. Minor operations moreover, especially in Arkansas
and southern Missouri, were continually undertaken by both
sides during 1862-1863, of which the battle of Prairie
Grove, Arkansas (December 7, 1862), was the most notable
incident. Meanwhile the blockade had become so stringent
that few ordinary vessels could expect to break through, and
a special type of steamer came into vogue for the purpose.
20. Capture of Vicksburg.--In 1863 the campaigns once more
divided themselves accurately into those of east, centre and
west. This year saw the greatest successes and the heaviest
reverses of the Union army, Gettysburg and Vicksburg and
Chattanooga against Chancellorsville and Chickamauga.
Operations began in the west with the second advance upon
Vicksburg. One corps of the Army of the Tennessee was
detached to cover the Memphis & Charleston railway.
Grant, with the other three under Sherman, McClernand and
McPherson, moved by water to the neighbourhood of the
fortress. Many weeks passed without any success to the Union
arms. Vicksburg and its long line of fortifications stood
on high bluffs, all else was swampy lowland and intricate
waterways. As Sherman in 1862, so now Grant was unable to
obtain any foothold on the high ground, and no effective
attack was possible until this had been gained. At last,
after many trials and failures, Grant took a daring step.
The troops with their supplies marched round through a network
of lakes and streams to a point south of Vicksburg; Admiral
Porter's gunboats and the transports along with them "ran" the
batteries. At Bruinsburg, beyond Pemberton's reach, a landing
was made on the eastern bank and, without any base of supplies
or line of retreat, Grant embarked upon a campaign which made
him in the end master of the prize. On the 4th of July Pemberton
surrendered the fortress and 37,000 men. Grant's endurance
and daring had won what was perhaps the greatest success of the
war. General Joseph Johnston with a small relieving army had
appeared at Jackson, Mississippi, but had been held in check by
General F. P. Blair and a force from the Army of the Tennessee;
when Vicksburg surrendered a larger force was at once sent
against him, whereupon he retired. In the meanwhile Banks
had moved upstream from New Orleans, and laid siege to Port
Hudson. Operations were pressed with vigour, and the place
surrendered four days after Vicksburg. A Confederate attack
on the post of Helena, Arkansas, was the last serious fight on
the great river, and before the end of July the first merchant
steamer from St Louis discharged her cargo at New Orleans.
21. Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.--In Virginia Burnside
had made, in January 1863, an attempt to gain by manoeuvre
what he had missed in battle. The sudden swelling of rivers
and downpour of rain stopped all movement at once, and the
"Mud March" came to an end. A Federal general could retain
his hold on the men after a reverse, but not after a farce:
Burnside was replaced by General Joseph Hooker, who had
a splendid reputation as a subordinate leader. The new
commander displayed great energy in reorganizing the Army of
the Potomac, the discipline of which had not come unscathed
through a career of failure. Lee still held the battlefield
of Fredericksburg and had not attempted the offensive, and in
April he was much weakened by the detachment of Longstreet's
corps to a minor theatre of operations. Hooker's operations
began well, Lee was outmanoeuvred and threatened in flank
and rear, but the Federals were in the end involved in the
confused and disastrous battle of Chancellorsville (q.v.).
Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded, but his men and those
of Longstreet's who had remained with Lee defeated Hooker and
forced him to retire again beyond the Rappahannock, though
he had double Lee's force. But Hooker could at least make
himself obeyed, and when Lee initiated his second invasion of
the North a month after the battle of Chancellorsville, the
Army of the Potomac was as resolute as ever. On the 9th of
June the cavalry combat of Brandy Station made it clear to the
Federal staff that Lee was about to use the Valley once more
to screen an invasion of Maryland. Longstreet, A. P. Hill
and Ewell (who were now Lee's corps commanders) were at one
time scattered from Strasburg in the Valley to Fredericksburg,
and Hooker earnestly begged to be allowed to attack them in
detail. Success was certain, but the scheme was vetoed by the
Federal headquarters and government, whose first and ruling
idea was to keep the Army of the Potomac between Lee and
Washington. Hooker was thus compelled to follow Lee's
movements. Ewell's men were raiding unchecked as far north
as the Susquehanna, while Hooker was compelled to inactivity
before the forces of Hill and Longstreet. The Federal general,
within his limitations, acted prudently and skilfully. The
Army of the Potomac crossed that river only one day later than
Lee, and concentrated at Frederick. But Hooker was no longer
trusted by the Washington authorities, and his dispositions
were interfered with. Not allowed to control the operations
of his own men, the unfortunate general resigned his command
on the 28th. He was succeeded by General G. G. Meade, who,
besides steadiness and ability, possessed the confidence
of Lincoln and Halleck which Hooker had lacked. Meade was
thus able to move promptly, Lee was compelled to meet him,
and the Army of the Potomac began to take up its position
on Pipe Creek, screened by Generals Reynolds and Buford at
Gettysburg (q.v..) On the 1st of July the heads of Lee's
columns engaged Buford's cavalry outposts, and the conflict
began. All troops on both sides hurried to the unexpected
battlefield, and after a great three days' battle, the Army of
the Potomac emerged at last with a decisive victory. On the
4th, as Pemberton surrendered at Vicksburg, Lee drew off his
shattered forces. One third of the Army of northern Virginia
and one quarter of the Army of the Potomac remained on the
field. Pursuit was not seriously undertaken, and the armies
manoeuvred back to the old battle-grounds of the Rapidan and the
Rappahannock. A war of manoeuvre followed, each side being
reduced in turn by successive detachments sent to aid Rosecrans
and Bragg in the struggle for Tennessee. In October Lee
attempted a third Bull Run campaign on the same lines as the
second, but Meade's steadiness foiled him, and he retired
to the Rapidan again, where he in turn repulsed Meade's
attempt to surprise him (Mine Run, November 26-28, 1863).
22. Chickamauga.--In the centre Rosecrans and Bragg spent
the first six months of the year, as it were glaring at each
other. Nothing was done by the main armies, but the far-ranging
cavalry raids of the Confederates under J. H. Morgan and
other leaders created much excitement, especially "Morgan's
Raid" (June 27-July 26), through Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio,
which states had hitherto little or no experience of the
war on their own soil. At last the Army of the Cumberland
advanced. Rosecrans manoeuvred his opponent out of one
position after another until Bragg was driven back into
Chattanooga. These operations were very skilfully conducted
by Rosecrans and his second-in-command, Thomas, and, at a
trifling cost, advanced the Union outposts to the borders of
Georgia. Burnside and the new Army of the Ohio had now
cleared east Tennessee and occupied Knoxville (September 2),
and meanwhile Rosecrans by a brilliant movement, in which he
displayed no less daring in execution than skill in planning,
once more manoeuvred Bragg out of his position and occupied
Chattanooga. But he had to fight to maintain his prize, and
in the desperate battle of Chickamauga (q.v.) on the 19th
and 20th of September, Bragg, reinforced by Longstreet from
Virginia, won a complete victory. Thomas's defence won him
the popular title of the "Rock of Chickamauga" and enabled
Rosecrans to draw off his men, but the critical position of
the Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga aroused great alarm.
23. Chattanooga.--Grant was now given supreme command in the
west, and the Army of the Tennessee (now under Sherman) and
two corps from Virginia under Hooker were hurried by rail to
Tennessee. In spite of his good record Rosecrans was deprived
of his command. But Thomas, his successor, was one of the
greatest soldiers of the war, and Grant's three generals, all
men of great ability, set to work promptly. Hooker defeated
Longstreet at Wauhatchie and revictualled Chattanooga (q.v.),
and on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of November the three armies
attacked Bragg's position. On the left Sherman made little
progress; on the right, however, Hooker and the men from
the Potomac army fought and won the extraordinary "Battle
above the Clouds" on Lookout Mountain, and on the 25th the
Confederate centre on Missionary Ridge was brilliantly stormed
by Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland. Grant's triumph was
decisive of the war in the west, and with Burnside's victory
over Longstreet at Knoxville, the struggle for Tennessee was
over. Vicksburg, Gettysburg and Chattanooga ended the crisis
of the war, which had been at its worst for the Union in this
year. Henceforth the South was fighting a hopeless battle.
24. Plan of Campaign for 1864.--Grant, now the foremost
soldier in the Federal army, was on the 9th of March 1864
commissioned lieutenant-general and appointed general-in-chief.
Halleck, Lincoln and Stanton, the intractable, if energetic,
war secretary, now stood aside, and the efforts of the whole
vast army were to be directed and co-ordinated by one supreme
military authority. Sherman was to command in the west,
Grant's headquarters accompanied Meade and the Army of the
Potomac. The general plan was simple and comprehensive. Meade
was to "hammer" Lee, and Sherman, at the head of the armies
which had been engaged at Chattanooga and Knoxville, was to
deal with the other great field army of Confederates under
Johnston, and as far as possible gain ground for the Union
in the south-east. Sherman's own plans went farther still,
and included an eventual invasion of Virginia itself from the
south, but this was not contemplated as part of the immediate
programme. Butler with the new Army of the James was to move
up that river towards Richmond and Petersburg. Subsidiary
forces were to operate on the sea-board, in the Shenandoah
Valley and elsewhere. At this time took place the Red River
Expedition, which was intended for the subjugation of western
Louisiana. The troops of General Banks and the war
vessels under Admiral Porter moved up the Red river, and
on the 16th of March 1864 reached Alexandria. Skirmishing
constantly with the Confederates under Kirby Smith and
Taylor, the Federals eventually on the 8th and 9th of April
suffered serious reverses at Sabine Cross Roads and Pleasant
Hill. Banks thereupon retreated, and, high water in the
river having come to an end, the fleet was in the gravest
danger of being cut off, until Colonel Bailey suggested, and
rapidly carried out, the construction of a dam and weir over
which the ships ran down to the lower waters. Eventually the
various forces retired to the places whence they had come.
25. The Wilderness Campaign.--Virginia was now destined
to be the scene of the bloodiest fighting of the whole
war. Grant and Meade, reinforced by Burnside's IX. Corps to a
strength of 120,000 men, crossed the Rapidan on the 4th of May
with the intention of attacking Lee's inner flank, that nearer
Richmond. With a bare 70,000 men the Confederate general
struck at the flank of Grant's marching columns in that same
Wilderness where Jackson had won his last battle twelve months
before. The battle of the Wilderness (q.v.) went on for
two days, with little advantage to either side. On his part
Grant had lost 18,000 men. Lee had lost fewer, but could
ill spare them, and Longstreet had been severely wounded (May
5-6). Grant, astonished perhaps, but here as always resolute,
tried again to reach Lee's right wing, and on the 8th another
desperate battle began at Spottsylvania (q.v.) Court House.
The fighting on this field lasted ten days, at the end of
which Grant had doubled his losses and was as far as ever from
success. On the 21st of May, with extraordinary pertinacity,
he sent Meade and Burnside once more against the inner flank
of the Army of northern Virginia. The action of North Anna
ended like the rest, though on this occasion the loss was
small. A week later the Federals, again moving to their
left, arrived upon the ground on which McClellan had fought
two years before, and at Cold Harbor (Porter's battle-field
of Gaines' Mill) the leading troops of the Army of the James
joined the lieutenant-general. Meanwhile the minor armies
had come to close quarters all along the line. The Army of
the James moved towards Richmond on the same day on which the
Army of the Potomac crossed the Rapidan. On the 16th of May
Butler fought the indecisive battle of Drury's Bluff against
Beauregard, in consequence of which he had to retire to
Bermuda Hundred, whence most of his troops were sent to join
Grant. At the same time the Union troops under Sigel in
the Shenandoah Valley were defeated at New Market (May
15). General Hunter, who replaced Sigel, won a combat at
Piedmont, and marched on the 8th of June towards Lynchburg.
The danger threatening this important point caused Lee to
send thither General Early with the remnants of Jackson's
old Valley troops. Hunter's assault (June 18) failed, and
the Federals, unable to hold their ground, had to make a
circuitous retreat to the Potomac by way of West Virginia.
26. Cold Harbor.--On the 3rd of June at Cold Harbor (q.v.)
took place the last of Grant's "hammering" battles in the open
fields. The attack of the Federals failed utterly; not even
Fredericksburg was so disastrous a defeat. Six thousand
men fell in one hour's fighting, and the total losses on
this field, where skirmishing went on for many days, were
13,000. But Grant was as resolute as ever. His forces once
more manoeuvred against Lee's inner flank, still found no weak
spot, and eventually arrived upon the James. The river was
crossed, Lee as usual conforming to the movement, and on
the 15th of June the Federals appeared before the works of
Petersburg (q.v.). Here, and in the narrow neck of land
between the Appomattox and the James, was the ganglion of
the Confederacy, and the struggle for its possession was
perhaps the greatest of modern history. A first assault made
at once (June 15-18) failed with a loss of 8150 men. Two
sharp combats followed on the 22nd of June and the 2nd of
July, as Grant once more began to feel Lee's right. But the
anniversary of Gettysburg saw Lee's works still intact, and
72,000 men of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the
James had fallen since the campaign had opened two months
before. History has few examples to show comparable to this
terrible campaign in Virginia. The ruthless determination
of the superior leaders had been answered splendidly by the
devotion of the troops, but the men of Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg were mostly dead or wounded, and the recruits
attracted by bounties or compelled by the "draft," which
had at last been enforced in the North, proved far inferior
soldiers to the gallant veterans whom they replaced.
27. Petersburg.--There was no formal siege of Lee's
position. A vast network of fortifications covered the
front of both armies, whose flank extended far to the
south-west, Grant seeking to capture, Lee to defend, the
Danville railway by which the Confederates received their
supplies. Richmond, though no longer of paramount importance,
was no less firmly held than Petersburg, and along the
whole long line fighting went on with little interruption.
On the 30th of July the Federal engineers exploded a mine
under the hostile works, and Burnside's corps rushed to the
assault. But the attempt ended in failure--the first defeat
of the Army of the Potomac which could fairly be called
discreditable. Still, Lee was losing men, few it is true,
but most precious, since it was impossible to replace them,
while the North poured unlimited numbers into the Federal
camps. The policy of "attrition" upon which Grant had
embarked, and which he was carrying through regardless of his
losses, was having its effect. About this time Early, freed
from the opposition of Hunter's forces, made a bold stroke upon
Washington. Crossing the Potomac, he marched eastward, and,
defeating a motley force (action of the Monocacy) which General
Lew Wallace had collected to oppose him, appeared before the
lines of Washington. The Federal capital was at the moment
almost denuded of troops, and forces hastily despatched from
the James only arrived just in time to save it. Thereupon the
Confederates retired, narrowly escaping Hunter, and the brief
campaign came to an end with an engagement at Kernstown. Early
had been nearer to the immediate success than Lee had been
in 1862 and 1863, but he had failed utterly to relax Grant's
hold on Petersburg, which was becoming daily more crushing.
On the decisive theatre the Federals made their way, little by
little and at a heavy cost, to the Weldon railway, and beyond
it to the westward. Lee's lines were becoming dangerously
extended, but he could not allow the enemy to cut him off
from the west. On the 25th of August there was a battle at
Reams Station, in which the Federals were forced back, and
the famous II. Corps under Hancock was for the first time
routed. But Grant was tireless, and five days later another
battle was fought, at Peebles Farm, in which the lost
ground was regained. Butler and the Army of the James at
the same time won some successes in front of the Richmond
works. One more attempt to outflank Lee to the westward was
made by Grant without success, before winter came on, and the
campaign closed with an expedition, under the direction of
General Warren, which destroyed the Weldon line. Grant had
not reached Lee's flank at any point, and his casualties from
first to last had been unprecedentedly heavy, but "hammering"
was steadily prevailing where skill and valour had failed.
28. Sheridan's Valley Campaign.--In the closing months of
the year Grant's brilliant cavalry commander Sheridan had
been put in command of an army to operate against Early in the
Valley. The Federals in this quarter had hitherto suffered
from want of unity in the command (e.g. Banks, Fremont and
McDowell in 1862). The Army of the Shenandoah would not be
thus handicapped, for Sheridan was a leader of exceptional
character. The first encounter took place on the Opequan near
Winchester. Early was defeated, but not routed (September
19), and another battle took place near Strasburg (Fisher's
Hill) on the 22nd. Always disposing of superior numbers,
Sheridan on this occasion won an important victory without much
loss. A combat which took place, at Mount Jackson, during
the pursuit, again ended successfully, and the triumphant
Federals retired down the Valley, ruthlessly destroying
everything which might be of the slightest value to the
enemy. Early sharply followed them up, his men infuriated by
the devastation of the "Granary of the Confederacy." At Cedar
Creek (q.v.), during a momentary absence of the Federal
commander, his camps were surprised by Early (October 19).
The Army of the Shenandoah was routed and driven towards the
Potomac. But the gallant stand of the old Potomac troops of
the VI. Corps checked the Confederates. Sheridan arrived on
the scene to find a new battle in progress. He was at his
best at such a moment, and the rallied Federals under his
command swept all before them. The victory was decisive,
and, the country being now bare of supplies, the Army of the
Shenandoah was sent to reinforce Grant, while the remnant of
Early's forces also went to Petersburg. Sheridan's campaign
was a famous episode of the war. It was conducted with
skill, though, with twice the numbers of the enemy at his
command, Sheridan's victory was a foregone conclusion.
But he had at least shown that he possessed to an unusual
degree the real attribute of a great captain--power over men.
29. Sherman and Johnston.--Meanwhile Sherman had fought his
Atlanta campaign. General Johnston opposed him almost on the
old Chickamauga battle-ground, where the Federal commander,
after a brief campaign in Mississippi and Alabama, the result
of which was to clear his right flank (February 3-March 6,
1864), collected his armies--the Army of the Tennessee under
McPherson, the Army of the Cumberland under Thomas (Hooker's
troops had now become part of this army) and the Army of
the Ohio under Schofield. In the celebrated campaign of
Atlanta the highest manoeuvring skill was displayed by both
the famous commanders. Whilst Grant, with his avowed object
of crushing Lee's army, lost no opportunity of fighting a
battle coute que coute, Sherman, intent rather on the
conquest of territory, acted on different lines. Johnston,
than whom there was no better soldier in the Confederate
service when a careful defence was required, disposed of
sensibly inferior forces, and it was to be expected that
the 18th-century methods of making war by manoeuvring and by
combats, not battles, would receive a modern illustration in
Georgia. Operations began early in May 1864, and five days
of manoeuvring and skirmishing about Resaca and Rocky Face
ended in Johnston's retirement to Resaca. A fortnight later
the same manoeuvres, combined with constant "tapping" at
the Confederate defences, caused him to fall back again. At
Adairsville the same process was gone through, and Johnston
retired to Cassville, where he offered battle. Sherman was
far too wary to be drawn into an action under unfavourable
conditions. If each general had been able to obtain a
great battle upon his own terms, each would have fought most
willingly, for neither desired a useless prolongation of the
war. As it was, both declined to risk a decision. Johnston's
inferiority in numbers was now becoming lessened as Sherman
had to detach more and more troops to his ever-lengthening
communications with Chattanooga. Another manoeuvre brought
about a heavy combat near Dallas (Pickett's Mills and New
Hope Church, May 25- 27). After a time Johnston fell back,
and on the 6th of June the Federals appeared before Marietta
(q.v.). Hitherto neither leader had offered a weak spot to
his opponent, though the constant skirmishing had caused a loss
of 9000 men to Sherman and about two- thirds of that number
to the Confederates. At this moment Sherman suddenly changed
his policy and sent his troops straight against the hostile
entrenchments. The neighbourhood of Marietta witnessed
for the next fortnight very heavy fighting, notably at Pine
Mountain on the 14th and Kenesaw on the 27th, both actions
being frontal assaults gallantly pushed home and as gallantly
repulsed. Sherman acted thus in order to teach his own
men and the enemy that he was not "afraid," and the lesson
was not valueless. He then resumed his manoeuvring, which
was now facilitated by improved weather and better roads.
30. Atlanta.--Johnston in due time evacuated the Marietta
lines. On the 7th of July his fortifications on the Chattahoochee
river were turned, and he fell back into the Atlanta (q.v.)
position, which was carefully prepared, like all the others,
beforehand. Here Johnston was deprived of his command. His
campaign had not been unsuccessful, for Sherman had never
succeeded in taking him at a disadvantage, but the whole of the
South, including President Davis and his chief of staff General
Bragg, clamoured for a more "energetic" policy, and General J.
B. Hood was put in command on the understanding that he should
"fight." The new general, whose bold and skilful leading had been
conspicuous on most of the Virginia battlefields, promptly did
so. At first successful, the Confederates had in the end to
retire. A few days after this battle (called Peach Tree
Creek) took place the battle of Atlanta, which was fiercely
contested by the veterans of both sides, and in which
McPherson, one of the best generals in the Union army, was
killed. Still, Hood was again beaten. The Army of the
Tennessee, under its new commander General O. O. Howard, fought
and won the battle of Ezra Church on the 28th of July, and,
Atlanta being now nearly surrounded, Hood was compelled to adopt
the Fabian methods of his predecessor, and fell back to the
southward. An attack on the Army of the Ohio near Jonesboro
concluded the Atlanta campaign, which left Sherman in control
of Atlanta, but hampered by the necessity of preserving his
communications with Chattanooga and weakened by a total loss
of 30,000 men. In this celebrated campaign the American
generals rivalled if they did not excel the exploits of
Marlborough, Eugene and Villars, under allied conditions.
31. The March to the Sea.--Although General Canby, with a
Federal force in the south, had been ordered to capture Mobile
early in the year--after which he was to operate towards
Atlanta--Mobile still flew the Confederate flag, and Hood,
about to resume the offensive, was thus able to base himself
on Montgomery in order to attack Sherman in flank and rear.
But the Federal commander was not to be shaken off from his
prize. He held firmly to Atlanta, clearing the city of non-
combatants and in other ways making ready for a stubborn
defence. Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland were sent back
to guard Tennessee. A heavy attack on the post of Allatoona
(to the garrison of which Sherman sent the famous message,
"Hold the fort, for I am coming") was repulsed (October 5).
The main armies quickly regained contact, each edging away
northwestwards towards the Tennessee and coming into contact at
Gaylesville, Alabama, and again at Decatur. General Slocum
with Hooker's old Potomac troops garrisoned Atlanta, and every
important post along the railway to Chattanooga was held in
force. Sherman had now resolved to execute his plan of
a march through Georgia to the sea and thence through the
Carolinas towards Virginia, destroying everything of military
value en route. With the provisos that if Lee turned upon
Sherman, Grant must follow him up sharply, and that Thomas
could be left to deal with Hood (both of which could be,
and were, done), the scheme might well be decisive of the
war. Preparations were carefully made. Fifty thousand picked
men were to march through Georgia with Sherman, and Thomas
was to be reinforced by all other forces available. There was
no force to oppose the "March to the Sea." Hood was far away
on the Tennessee, which he crossed on the 29th of October at
Tuscumbia, making for Nashville. Want of supplies checked the
Confederates after a few marches, while Schofield was pressing
forward to meet them at Pulaski and Thomas was gathering, at
Nashville, a motley army drawn from all parts of the west.
It was at this same time that Sherman broke up his railway
communication, destroying Atlanta as a place of arms, and set
out on his adventurous expedition. There was little in his
path. Skirmishes at Macon and Milledgeville alone varied
the daily routine of railway-breaking and supply-finding, in
which a belt of country 60 m. wide was absolutely cleared.
On the 10th of December the army, thoroughly invigorated
by its march, appeared before the defences of Savannah.
On the 13th of December a division stormed Fort McAllister,
and communication was opened with the Federal fleet. The
march concluded with the occupation of Savannah on the 20th.
32. Nashville.--Hood, at a loss to divine Sherman's purpose,
hastened on into Tennessee amidst weather which would have
stopped most troops. Schofield met him on the Duck river,
while Thomas was shaping his army in rear. Hood manoeuvred
Schofield out of his lines and pushed on once more. At Franklin
Schofield had to accept battle, and thirteen distinct assaults
on his works were made, all pushed with extraordinary fury
and lasting far into the night. Thomas ordered his lieutenant
to retire on Nashville, Hood following him up, impressing
recruits, transports and supplies, and generally repeating the
scenes of Bragg's march of 1862. The civil authorities and the
lieutenant-general also urgently demanded that Thomas should
advance. Constancy of purpose was the salient feature of
Thomas's military character. He would not fight till he was
ready. But this last great counterstroke of the Confederacy
alarmed the whole North. So great was the tension that Grant
finally sent General J. A. Logan to take command. But before
Logan arrived, Thomas had on the 15th and 16th of December
fought and won the battle of Nashville (q.v.), the most
crushing victory of the whole war. Hood's army was absolutely
ruined. Only a remnant of it reassembled beyond the Tennessee.
33. The Carolinas.--From Savannah, Sherman started on
his final march through the Carolinas. Columbia, his first
objective, was reached on the 17th of February 1865. As
usual, all that could be of possible value to the enemy
was destroyed and, by some accident, the town itself was
burned. Sherman, like Sheridan, was much criticized for his
methods of reducing opposition, but it does not seem that his
"bummers" were guilty of wanton cruelty and destructiveness,
at least in general, though the cavalry naturally gave
more ground for the accusation than the main body of the
army. And the methods of the Confederates had on occasion
been somewhat similar. The Confederate general Hardee managed
to gather some force (chiefly from the evacuated coast towns)
wherewith to oppose the onward progress of the Federals. As
commander-in-chief, Lee now reappointed Johnston to command,
and the latter soon attacked and very nearly defeated his
old opponent at Bentonville (March 19-20). But the "bummers"
were no mere marauders, but picked men from the armies that
had won Vicksburg and Chattanooga, and, though surrounded,
held their ground stoutly and successfully. Advancing once
more, they were joined at Goldsboro by the forces lately
besieging Fort Fisher (see below), and nearly 90,000 men marched
northward towards Virginia, pushing Johnston's weak army before
them. Meanwhile the bulk of the forces at Nashville had been
sent to the north-east to close Lee's escape to the mountains,
and in March the final campaign had opened at Petersburg.
34. The Final Campaign.--At last Lee's men had lost heart
in the unequal struggle. Sheridan raided the upper James
and destroyed all supplies. Grant lay in front of the
Army of northern Virginia with 125,000 men, and when active
operations began Lee had no resource but to try and escape
to the south-west in order to join Johnston. The western
movement was covered by a furious sortie from the lines of
Petersburg, which was repulsed with heavy loss. Grant felt
that this was a mere feint to screen some other move, and
instantly carried the Army of the Potomac to the westward,
leaving a bare screen of troops in his lines. On the 29th
of March the movement began, followed in rapid succession
by the combats of White Oak Road and Dinwiddie Court House
and Sheridan's great victory of Five Forks. At the same
time the VI. Corps at last carried the Petersburg lines by
storm. Thereupon Lee and Longstreet evacuated the Petersburg
and Richmond lines and began their retreat. Their men were
practically starving, though their rearguard showed a brave
front. The remnant of Ewell's corps was cut off at Sailor's
Creek, and when Sheridan got ahead of the Confederates while
Grant furiously pressed them in the rear, surrender was
inevitable (April 8). On the 9th the gallant remnant of the
Army of northern Virginia laid down its arms at Appomattox
Court House, and the Confederacy came to an end. Johnston
surrendered to Sherman at Durham Station on the 26th, and soon
afterwards all the remaining Confederate soldiers followed their
example. So ended the gigantic struggle, as to the conduct
of which it is only necessary to quote, with a more general
application, the envoi of a Federal historian, "It has not
seemed necessary to me to attempt a eulogy of the Army of the
Potomac or the Army of northern Virginia." The general terms
of surrender were that the Confederates should give up all
material, and sign a parole not to take up arms again. There
were no manifestations of triumph or exultation on the part
of the victors, the lot of the vanquished was made as easy as
possible, and after a short time the armies melted into the
mass of the people without disturbance or disorder. A general
amnesty proclaimed by the president of the United States
on the 29th of May was the formal ending of the Civil War.
35. Character of the War.--No undisciplined levies could
have fought as did the armies on both sides. Grave faults
the men had, from the regular's point of view. They required
humouring, and their march discipline was very elastic. But in
battle the "thinking bayonets" resolutely obeyed orders, even
though it were to attack a Marye's Hill, or a "Bloody Angle,"
for they had undertaken their task and would carry it through
unflinchingly. So much may be said of both armies. The great
advantage of the Confederate--an advantage which he had in a
less degree as against the hardier and country-bred Federal
of the west--was that he was a hunter and rider born and bred,
an excellent shot, and still not infrequently settled his
quarrels by the duel. The town-bred soldier of the eastern
states was a thoughtful citizen who was determined to do his
duty, but he had far less natural aptitude for war than his
enemy from the Carolinas or his comrade from Illinois or
Kansas. At the same time the more varied conditions of
urban life made him more adaptable to changes of climate
and of occupation than the "Southron." Irish brigades
served on both sides and shot each other to pieces as at
Fredericksburg. They had the reputation of being excellent
soldiers. The German divisions, on the other hand, were rarely
as good as the rest. The leading of these men was in the
hands, as a rule, of regular or ex-regular officers, who made
many mistakes in their handling of large masses, but had been
taught at West Point and on the Indian frontier to command
men in danger, and administer them in camp. The volunteer
officers rarely led more than a division. When given high
command at once they usually failed, but the best of them
rose gradually to the superior ranks; Logan, for instance,
became an army commander, Sickles, Terry and others corps
commanders. Cleburne, one of the best division commanders of
the South, had been a corporal in the British army. Meagher,
the leader of the "Irish brigade" at Fredericksburg, was the
young orator of the "United Irishmen." But Lee, the Johnstons,
McClellan, Grant and Sherman had all served in the old army.
Most of them were young men in 1861. Stuart was twenty-eight,
Sheridan thirty, Grant and Jackson under forty, while some of
the subordinate generals were actually fresh from West Point.
36. Strategy and Tactics.--The roughness of much of the
country gave a peculiar tone to the strategy of the combatants.
Roads were untrustworthy, rivers swelled suddenly, advance and
retreat were conditioned and compelled, especially in the case
of the ill-equipped Confederates, by the exigencies of food
supply. Long forward strides of the Napoleonic type were
rarely attempted; "changes of base" were indeed made across
country, and over considerable distances, as by Sherman in
1864, but ordinarily either the base and the objective were
connected by rail or water, or else every forward step was,
after the manner of Marlborough's time, organized as a separate
campaign. Hence field fortifications played an unusually
prominent part, time and material being available as a rule
for works of solid construction. In isolated instances of
more rapid campaigning--e.g. Antietam and Gettysburg--they
were of subordinate importance. The attack and defence of
these entrenchments led to tactical phenomena of unusual
interest. Cavalry could not bring about the decision in
such country, and sought a field for its restless activity
elsewhere. Artillery had fallen, technically, far behind
the infantry arm, and in face of long- range rifle fire could
not annihilate the hostile line with case-shot fire as in the
days of Napoleon. In a battle such as Chancellorsville or
the Wilderness guns were almost valueless, since there was
little open space in which they might be used. It thus fell
to the infantry to attack and defend with its own weapons, and
the defence was, locally, almost inexpugnable behind its tall
breastworks. One line of works could be stormed, but there
were almost always two or three retrenchments behind. The
attacking infantry, who found it necessary to cross a fire-swept
zone 1000 yds. broad, had to be used resolutely in masses,
line following line, and each carrying forward the wrecks
of its predecessor. Partial attacks were invariably costly
failures. The use of masses was never put in practice more
sternly than by Grant in 1864. At the same time, as has
been said, the cavalry arm found plenty of work. The horses
were not trained for European shock- tactics, nor did the
country offer charging room, and though melees of mounted
men engaging with sword and pistol were not infrequent, the
usual method of fighting was dismounted fire action, which
was practised with uncommon skill by the troopers on both
sides. The far-ranging strategic "raid" was a notable feature
of the war; freely employed by both sides, it was sometimes
harmful, more usually profitable, especially to the South, by
reason of the captures in material, the information acquired
and the alarm and confusion created. These raids, and the more
ordinary screening work, were never executed more brilliantly
than by Lee's great cavalry general, "Jeb" Stuart, in Virginia,
but the Federal generals, Pleasonton and Sheridan, did
excellent work in the east, as also Wheeler and Forrest on the
Confederate, Wilson and Grierson on the Federal, side in the
west. The technical services, in which the mechanical skill and
ingenuity of the American had full play, developed remarkable
efficiency. Whether it was desired to build a railway
bridge, disable a locomotive or cut a canal, the engineers
were always ready with some happy expedient. On one occasion
an infantry division of 8000 men repaired 102 miles of
railway and built 182 bridges in 40 days, forging their own
tools and using local resources. Many novelties, too, such as
the field telegraph, balloons and signalling, were employed.
37. The Union and Confederate Navies.--The naval war had
been likewise fruitful of lessons for the future. Though
wooden ships were still largely employed, the ironclad even
then had begun to take a commanding place, and the sailing ship
at last disappeared from naval warfare. Mines, torpedoes and
submarines were all employed, and with the "Monitor" may fairly
be said to have begun the application of mechanical science
to the uses of naval war. The Federal navy was enormously
expanded. Three hundred and thirteen steamers were brought
into the service. Sloops of an excellent type were built for
work on the high seas, of which the celebrated "Kearsarge" was
one. Gunboats were constructed so fast that they were called
"ninety-day gunboats." Special reversible paddle steamers
(called double-enders) were designed for service in the inlets
and estuaries, and sixty-six ironclads were built and employed
during the four years. Mississippi river steamers were armed
with heavy guns and protected by armour, boiler-plates, cotton
bales, &c., and some fast cruisers were constructed for ocean
work, one of them actually reaching the high speed of 17.75
m. per hour. The existing Federal navy of 1861 already
included some large and powerful modern vessels, such as the
"Minnesota" and "Powhatan." To oppose them the Confederates,
limited as they were for means, managed to construct various
ironclads, and to improvise a considerable fleet of minor
vessels, and, though a fighting navy never assembled under a
Confederate flag-officer, the Southern warships found another
more damaging and more profitable scope for their activity. It
has been said that the blockade of the Confederate coast became
in the end practically impenetrable, and that every attempt
of the Confederate naval forces to break out was checked at
once by crushing numerical preponderance. The exciting and
profitable occupation of blockade- running led to countless
small fights off the various harbours, and sometimes the United
States navy had to fight a more serious action when some new
"rebel" ironclad emerged from her harbour, inlet or sound.
38. Fort Fisher.--Many of the greater combats in which the
navy was engaged on the coast and inland have been referred
to above, and the fighting before Charleston, New Orleans,
Mobile and Vicksburg is described in separate articles. One
of the heaviest of the battles was fought at Fort Fisher in
1864. This place guarded the approaches to Wilmington, North
Carolina. Troops under Butler and a large fleet under Admiral
Porter were destined for this enterprise. An incendiary
vessel was exploded close to the works without effect on
the 23rd-24th of December, and the ships engaged on the
24th. The next day the troops were disembarked, only to be
called off after a partial assault. Butler then withdrew,
and Porter was informed on the 31st that "a competent force
properly commanded," would be sent out. On the 8th of January
1865 General Terry arrived with the land forces, and the armada
arrived off Fisher on the 12th. On the 13th, 6000 men were
landed, covered by the guns of the fleet, and, after Porter
had subjected the works to a terrific bombardment, Fisher
was brilliantly carried by storm on the 15th. Reinforcements
arriving, the whole force then marched inland to meet Sherman.
39. Other Naval Actions.--Apart from this, and other actions
referred to, two incidents of the coast war call for notice--the
career of the "Albemarle" and the duel between the "Atlanta"
and the "Weehawken." The ironclad ram "Albemarle," built at
Edwards' Ferry on the Roanoke river, had done considerable damage
to the Federal vessels which, since Burnside's expedition to
Newberne, had cruised in Albemarle Sound, and in 1864 a force
of double-enders and gunboats, under Captain Melancton Smith,
U.S.N., was given the special task of destroying the rebel
ram. A naval battle was fought on the 5th of May 1864, in
which the double-ender "Sassacus" most gallantly rammed the
"Albemarle" and was disabled alongside her, and Smith's vessel
and others, unarmoured as they were, fought the ram at close
quarters. After this the ironclad retired upstream, where she
was eventually destroyed in the most daring manner by a boat's
crew under Lieutenant W. B. Cushing. Making his way up the
Roanoke as far as Plymouth he there sank the ironclad at her
wharf by exploding a spar-torpedo (October 27). On the 17th of
June 1863 after a brief action the monitor "Weehawken" captured
the Confederate ironclad "Atlanta" in Wassaw Sound, South
Carolina. This duel resembled in its attendant circumstances
the famous fight of the "Chesapeake" and the "Shannon." Captain
John Rodgers, like Broke, was one of the best officers, and
the "Weehawken," like the "Shannon," was known as one of the
smartest ships in the service. Five heavy accurate shots from
the Federal's turret guns crushed the enemy in a few minutes.
40. The Commerce-Destroyers.--Letters of marque were issued
to Confederate privateers as early as April 1861, and Federal
commerce at once began to suffer. When, however, surveillance
became blockade, prizes could only with difficulty be brought
into port, and, since the parties interested gained nothing
by burning merchantmen, privateering soon died out, and was
replaced by commerce-destroying pure and simple, carried out
by commissioned vessels of the Confederate navy. Captain
Raphael Sommes of the C.S.S. "Sumter" made a successful cruise
on the high seas, and before she was abandoned at Gibraltar
had made seventeen prizes. Unable to build at home, the
Confederates sought warships abroad, evading the obligations
of neutrality by various ingenious expedients. The "Florida"
(built at Liverpool in 1861-1862) crossed the Atlantic,
refitted at Mobile, escaped the blockaders, and fulfilled the
instructions which, as her captain said, "left much to the
discretion but more to the torch." She was captured by the
U.S.S. "Wachusett" in the neutral harbour of Bahia (October 7,
1862). The most successful of the foreign-built cruisers
was the famous "Alabama," commanded by Sommes and built at
Liverpool. In the course of her career she burned or
brought into port seventy prizes, fought and sank the U.S.S.
"Hatteras" off Galveston, and was finally sunk by the U.S.S.
"Kearsarge," Captain Winslow, off Cherbourg (June 19, 1864).
The career of another promising cruiser, the "Nashville," was
summarily ended by the Federal monitor "Montauk" (February 28,
1863). The "Shenandoah" was burning Union whalers in the
Bering Sea when the war came to an end. None of the various
"rams" built abroad for the "rebel" government ever came into
action. The difficulties of coaling and the obligations
of neutrality hampered these commerce-destroyers as much as
the Federal vessels that were chasing them, but, in spite of
drawbacks, the guerre de course was the most successful
warlike operation undertaken by the Confederacy. The
mercantile marine of the United States was almost driven off
the high seas by the terror of these destructive cruisers.
41. Cost of the War.--The total loss of life in the Union
forces during the four years of war was 359,528, and of the
many thousands discharged from the services as disabled or
otherwise unfit, a large number died in consequence of injuries
or disease incurred in the army. The estimate of 500,000 in
all may be taken as approximately correct. The same number is
given as that of the Southern losses, which of course fell upon
a much smaller population. The war expenditure of the Federal
government has been estimated at $3,400,000,000; the very large
sums devoted to the pensions of widows, disabled men, &c.,
are not included in this amount (Dodge). In 1879 an estimate
made of all Federal war expenses up to that date, including
pension charges, interest on loans, &c., showed a total of
$6,190,000,000 (Dewey, Financial History of the United States.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The United States government's Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (70 vols., most
of which are divided into two or three "parts," and atlas,
1880-1900) include every important official document of either
side that it was possible to obtain in the course of many years'
work. A similar but less voluminous work is the Records of
the Union and Confederate Navies (1894- ); The Rebellion
Record (1862-1868), edited by F. W. Moore, a contemporary
collection, has been superseded to a great extent by the
official records, but is still valuable as a collection of
unofficial documents of all kinds. Battles and Leaders of
the Civil War (1887-1889) is a series of papers, covering
the whole war, written by the prominent commanders of both
sides. The sixteen volumes of the Campaigns of the Civil War
(1881-1882) and the Navy in the Civil War (1883) (written
by various authors) are of very unequal merit, but several
of the volumes are indispensable to the study of the Civil
War. Of general works the following are the best:- -Comte de
Paris, History of the Civil War in America, translated
from the French (1875-1888); Horace Greeley, The American
Conflict (1864-1866); J. Scheibert, Der Burgerkrieg i.
d. Nordam. Freistaaten (Berlin, 1874); Wood and Edmonds,
Civil War in the United States (London, 1905); T. A. Dodge,
Bird's Eye View of our Civil War (revised edition, 1887);
E. A. Pollard, A Southern History of the War (1866).
The contemporary accounts mentioned should be studied with
caution. Of critical works, J. C. Ropes, The Story of
the Civil War (1894-1898); G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall
Jackson and the American Civil War (London, 1898) and The
Science of War, chapters viii. and ix. (London, 1905);
C. C. Chesney, Essays in Military Biography (1874);
Freytag-Loringhoven, Studien uber Kriegfuhrung, 1861-1865
(Berlin, 1901-1903), are the most important. Publications
of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts (vols.
i.-x., 1881 onwards) also comprise critical accounts of
nearly all the important campaigns. A critical account of
the Virginian operations and the Chickamauga campaign is
Gen. E. P. Alexander's Military Memoirs of a Confederate
(1906). C. R. Cooper, Chronological and Alphabetical Record
of the Great Civil War (Milwaukee, 1904) may be mentioned
as a work of reference. A fairly complete bibliography will
be found in J. N. Larned, Literature of American History
(Boston, 1902), and useful lists in Ropes, op. cit., and
in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii. p. 812. For
biographies, memoirs and general works, see the lists
appended to the various biographical articles and to the
articles UNITED STATES and CONFEDERATE STATES. (C. F. A.)
AMERICAN LAW. The laws of the various states and territories
of the United States rest at bottom on the same foundation
as those of England, namely, the English common law as it
existed at the beginning of the 17th century. (See ENGLISH
LAW.) The only exceptions worth noting are to be found in
the state of Louisiana, the territory of New Mexico, and
the acquisitions following the Spanish war of 1898. Those
derive most of their law from France or Spain, and thus
remotely from the principles of Roman jurisprudence. A part
also, but comparatively a small part, of the law of Texas,
Missouri, Arizona and the Pacific states comes from similar
sources. The United States as a whole has no common law,
except so far as its courts have followed the rules of English
common-law procedure in determining their own. Most of the
positive law of the United States comes from the several
states. It is the right of each state to regulate at its
pleasure the general relations of persons within its territory
to each other, as well as all rights to property subject to its
jurisdiction. Each state has also its own system of adjective
law. The trial courts of the United States of original
jurisdiction follow in general the practice of the state
in which they sit as to procedure in cases of common-law
character. As to that in equity, or what means the same
thing, chancery causes, they follow in general the practice
of the English court of chancery as it existed towards the
close of the 18th century, when the original Judiciary Act
of the United States was adopted. The public statutes of
the United States are to be found in the Revised Statutes
of 1873, and in the succeeding volumes of the Statutes at
Large, enacted by each Congress. Those of each state and
territory are printed annually or biennially as they are
enacted by each legislature, and are commonly revised every
fifteen or twenty years, the revision taking the place of
all former public statutes, and being entitled Revised
Statutes, General Statutes, or Public Laws. The private
or special laws of each state, so far as such legislation is
permitted by its constitution, are in some states published
separately, and made the subject of similar compilations
or revisions; in others they are printed with the public
session laws. American courts are often given power by
statute to make rules of procedure which have the force of
laws. Municipal subdivisions of a state generally have
authority from the legislature to make ordinances or by-laws
on certain subjects, having the character of a local law,
with appropriate sanctions, commonly by fine or forfeiture.
Law in the United States has been greatly affected by the
results of the Civil War. During its course (1861-1865) the
powers of the president of the United States may be said to
have been re-defined by the courts. It was its first civil
war, and thus for the first time the exercise of the military
authority of the United States within a state which had not
sought its aid became frequent and necessary. Next followed
the amendments of the Constitution of the United States having
for their special purpose the securing beyond question of the
permanent abolition of slavery and the civil and political
rights of the coloured race. At the outset the Supreme Court
of the United States was inclined to treat them as having a very
limited operation in other directions. One of the provisions
of the XIVth Amendment is that no state shall deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws. The benefit of this guarantee was claimed by the butchers
of New Orleans, in contending against a monopoly in respect
of the slaughter of cattle granted by the state of Louisiana
to a single corporation. Their suit was dismissed by the
Supreme Court in 1873, with the expression of a doubt whether
any action of a state not directed by way of discrimination
against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race,
would ever be held to come within the purview of the provision
in question.1 The chief justice and three of his associates
dissented from the judgment, holding that the XIVth Amendment
did protect the citizens of the United States against the
deprivation of their common rights by state legislation.2
Public sentiment supported the view of the minority, and it
was not long before changes in the personnel of the court,
occurring in common course, led it to the same conclusions. The
protection of the XIVth Amendment is now invoked before it more
frequently than is that afforded by any other article of the
Constitution. In one of its recent terms twenty-one cases of
this nature were decided.3 Very few of them related to the
negro. Since the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, the
controversies as to the constitutional rights of the negro have
been comparatively infrequent, but there has been a great and
steadily increasing number in all the courts in the country,
involving questions of discrimination in favour of or against
particular individuals, or of changes affecting the rights
of parties in the accustomed forms of judicial procedure.
Down to 1868, when this amendment was adopted, it was, as
to most matters, for the state alone to settle the civil
rights and immunities of those subject to its jurisdiction.
If they were to be free from arbitrary arrests, secure in
liberty and property, equal in privilege and entitled to an
impartial administration, it was because the constitution
of the state so declared. Now they have the guarantee of
the United States that the state shall never recede from
these obligations. This has readjusted and reset the
whole system of the American law of personal rights.4
The Supreme Court of the United States has used the great
power thus confided to it with moderation. Its general
rules of decision are well stated in these words of Mr
Justice Brown, found in one of its recent opinions:--
"In passing upon the validity of legislation, attacked
as contrary to the XIVth Amendment, it has not failed to
recognize the fact that the law is, to a certain extent, a
progressive science; that in some of the states methods of
procedure, which at the time the constitution was adopted
were deemed essential to the protection and safety of the
people or to the liberty of the citizen, have been found to
be no longer necessary; that restrictions which had formerly
been laid upon the conduct of individuals, or of classes of
individuals, had proved detrimental to their interests;
while, upon the other hand, certain other classes of persons,
particularly those engaged in dangerous or unhealthful
employments, have been found to be in need of additional
protection. Even before the adoption of the constitution,
much had been done toward mitigating the severity of the
common law, particularly in the administration of its criminal
branch. The number of capital crimes, in this country at
least, had been largely decreased. Trial by ordeal and by
battle had never existed here, and had fallen into disuse in
England. The earlier practice of the common law, which denied
the benefit of witnesses to a person accused of felony, had
been abolished by statute, though, so far as it deprived
him of the assistance of counsel and compulsory process for
the attendance of his witnesses, it had not been changed in
England. But, to the credit of her American colonies, let it be
said that so oppressive a doctrine had never obtained a foothold
there. The 19th century originated legal reforms of no less
importance. The whole fabric of special pleading, once
thought to be necessary to the elimination of the real issue
between the parties, has crumbled to pieces. The ancient
tenures of real estate have been largely swept away, and land
is now transferred almost as easily and cheaply as personal
property. Married women have been emancipated from the
control of their husbands, and placed upon a practical equality
with them with respect to the acquisition, possession and
transmission of property. Imprisonment for debt has been
abolished. Exemptions from executions have been largely
added to, and in most of the states homesteads are rendered
incapable of seizure and sale upon forced process. Witnesses
are no longer incompetent by reason of interest, even though
they be parties to the litigation. Indictments have been
simplified, and an indictment for the most serious of crimes
is now the simplest of all. in several of the states grand
juries, formerly the only safeguard against a malicious
prosecution, have been largely abolished, and in others the
rule of unanimity, so far as applied to civil cases, has
given way to verdicts rendered by a three-fourths majority.
This case does not call for an expression of opinion as to
the wisdom of these changes, or their validity under the
XIVth Amendment, although the substitution of prosecution by
information in lieu of indictment was recognized as valid in
Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516. They are mentioned
only for the purpose of calling attention to the probability
that other changes of no less importance may be made in the
future, and that while the cardinal principles of justice are
immutable, the methods by which justice is administered are
subject to constant fluctuation, and that the Constitution
of the United States, which is necessarily and to a large
extent inflexible and exceedingly difficult of amendment,
should not be so construed as to deprive the states of the
power to amend their laws so as to make them conform to the
wishes of the citizens as they may deem best for the public
welfare without bringing them into conflict with the supreme
law of the land. Of course, it is impossible to forecast
the character or extent of these changes, but in view of the
fact that from the day Magna Carta was signed to the present
moment, amendments to the structure of the law have been made
with increasing frequency, it is impossible to suppose that
they will not continue, and the law be forced to adapt itself
to new conditions of society, and particularly to the new
relations between employers and employees, as they arise."5
The Civil War deeply affected also the course of judicial
decision in the southern states. During its progress it
engaged the attention of a very large part of the population,
and the business of the courts necessarily was greatly
lessened. Upon its close political power passed, for a
time, into new hands, and many from the northern and western
states took prominent positions both at the bar and on the
bench. The very basis of society was changed by the abolition of
slavery. New state constitutions were adopted, inspired or
dictated by the ideas of the North. The transport system
was greatly extended, and commerce by land took to a large
extent the place formerly filled by commerce by navigation.
Manufacturing came in to supplement agricultural industry.
Cities grew and assumed a new importance. Northern capital
sought investment in every state. It was a natural consequence
of all these things that the jurisprudence of the South should
come to lose whatever had been its distinctive character. The
unification of the nation inevitably tended to unify its law.
The Bar Association.
An important contribution towards this result was made by the
organization of the American Bar Association in 1878. Of the
fourteen signers of the call for the preliminary conference, five
were from the southern states. Its declared objects were "to
advance the science of jurisprudence, promote the administration
of justice and uniformity of legislation throughout the Union,
uphold the honour of the profession of the law, and encourage
cordial intercourse among the members of the American Bar."
Law schools.
Largely through its efforts, the American law schools have
taken on a new character. The course of study has been both
broadened and prolonged, and the attendance of the students
has increased in full proportion to the additions to the
facilities for obtaining a more thorough training in the
profession. When the association commenced its labours,
those studying law in the offices of practising lawyers
very largely outnumbered those found in the law school.
The proportion is now reversed. During the year 1900, for
instance, the state board of law examiners in New York
examined 899 applicants for admission to the bar of that
state. Of these all but 157 had received their legal education
wholly or in part at a law school.6 In 1878 few law schools
had adopted any system of examination for those desiring
to enter them. Such a requirement for admission is now
common. In only one school were opportunities then afforded
for advanced studies by graduate students with a view to
attaining the doctorate in law. Courses of this description
are now offered by several of the university schools.
Reports.
A more scientific character has thus been taken on by American
law. It is noticeable both in legal text-books and in the
opinions of the courts of last resort. In the latter precision
of statement and method in discussion are invited by the
uniform practice of preparing written opinions. The original
practice of reading these from the bench has been generally
discontinued. They are simply handed down to an official
reporter for publication, which is done at the expense of
the government by which the court is commissioned. With
the judicial reports of each state the lawyers of that state
are required to be familiar; and this is rendered possible,
even in the larger ones, by state digests, prepared every
few years by private enterprise. Outside of the state their
circulation is comparatively limited, though sets of all are
generally found in each state library, and of many in the Bar
libraries at the principal county seats. The private libraries
of lawyers in large practice also often contain the reports
of adjoining and sometimes those of distant states as well
as those of their own and of the Supreme Court of the United
States. The decisions of one state, however, are now best known
in others through unofficial reports. One large publishing
concern prints every case decided in the courts of last
resort. They are published in several distinct series, those,
for instance, coming from the northern Atlantic states being
grouped together as the Atlantic Reporter, and those from the
states on the Pacific coast as the Pacific Reporter. Another
house has published a compilation professing to give all the
leading American cases from the first to the latest volume of
reports. Another makes a similar selection from the decisions
of each year as they appear, and publishes them with critical
annotations. There are also annual digests of a national
character, comprehending substantially all American cases and
the leading English cases reported during the preceding year.
These various publications are widely diffused, and so the
American lawyer is enabled, in preparing for the argument
of any cause involving questions of difficulty, to inform
himself with ease of such precedents as may apply. A
court in Texas is thus as likely to be made acquainted
with a decision in Maine or Oregon as with one in any
nearer state, and in the development of American law all
American courts are brought in close touch with each other.
English and American law.
This tendency has been advanced by the steady growth of
codification. That is beginning also to serve to bring English
and American law nearer together in certain directions.
A Negotiable Instruments Act, promoted by the American Bar
Association and prepared by a conference of commissioners
appointed by the several states to concert measures of uniform
legislation, has been adopted in the leading commercial
states. It is founded upon the English "Chalmers's Act,"
and the English decisions giving a construction to that
have become of special importance. The acts of parliament
known as the Employers' Liability Act and the Railway and
Canal Traffic Act have also served as the foundation of
similar legislation in the United States, and with the same
result. Modern English decisions are, however, cited less
frequently in American courts than the older ones; and the older
ones themselves are cited far less frequently than they once
were. In the development of their legislation, England
and the United States have been in general harmony so far
as matters of large commercial importance are concerned,
but as to many others they have since 1850 drawn apart.
Statutes, at one point or another, probably now affect the
disposition of most litigated causes in both countries. Their
application, therefore, must serve more or less to obscure
or displace general principles, which might otherwise control
the decision and make it a source of authority in foreign
tribunals. The movement of the judicial mind in the United
States, and also its modes and form of expression, have a
different measure from that which characterizes what comes
from the English bench. American judges are so numerous,
and (except as to the Supreme Court of the United States) the
extent of their territorial jurisdiction so limited, that they
can give more time to the careful investigation of points of
difficulty, and also to the methodical statement of their
conclusions. Whatever they decide upon appeal being announced
in writing, and destined to form part of the permanent
published records of the state, they are expected and
endeavour to study their words and frame opinions not only
sound in law but unobjectionable as literary compositions.
The choice of American judges, particularly in the older
states, has been not uninfluenced by these considerations.
Marshall, Bushrod Washington, Story, Kent, Ware, Bradley, and
many of their contemporaries and successors, were put upon the
bench in part because of their legal scholarship and their power
of felicitous expression. Hence the better American opinions
have more elaboration and finish than many which come from the
English courts, and are more readily accepted as authorities
by American judges. But the great multiplication of reports
has so widened the field of citation as in effect to reduce
it. Each of the larger and older states has now a settled
body of legal precedent of its own, beyond which its judges
in most cases do not look. If a prior decision applies, it is
controlling. If there be none, they prefer to decide the
case, if possible, on principle rather than authority.
While the state courts are bound to accept the construction
placed upon the Constitution and laws of the United States by
the Supreme Court of the United States, and thus uniformity of
decision is secured in that regard, the courts of the United
States, on the other hand are as a rule obliged to accept in
all other particulars the construction placed by the courts
of each state on its constitution and laws. This often gives
a seeming incongruity to the decisions of the Supreme Court
of the United States. A point in a case coming up from one
judicial circuit may be determined in a way wholly different
from that followed in a previous judgment in a cause turning
upon the same point, but appealed from another circuit,
because of a departure from the common law in one state which
has not been made in another. In view of this, a doctrine
originally proposed by Mr Justice Story in 18427 has not
been infrequently invoked of late years, which rests upon the
assumed existence of a distinctive federal jurisprudence of
paramount authority as to certain matters of general concern,
as for example those intimately affecting commerce between
the states or with foreign nations. The consequence is that
a case involving such questions may be differently adjudged,
according as it is brought in a state or in a federal court.8
The divergences now most noticeable between English
and American law are in respect of public control over
personal liberty and private property, criminal procedure
and the scope of the powers of municipal corporations.
Under the constitutional provision that no one shall be
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process
of law, American courts frequently declare void statutes
which in England would be within the acknowledged powers of
parliament. These provisions are liberally expounded in
favour of the individual, and liberty is held to include
liberty of contract as well as of person. Criminal procedure
is hedged about with more refinements and safeguards to the
accused than are found in England, and on the other hand,
prosecutions are more certain to follow the offence, because
they are universally brought by a public officer at public
expense. The artificiality of the proceedings is fostered by
a general right of appeal on points of law to the court of last
resort. It is in criminal causes involving questions of
common-law liability and procedure9 that English law-books
and reports are now most frequently cited. American municipal
corporations are confined within much narrower limits than
those of England, and their powers more strictly construed.
Trial by jury.
Trial by jury in civil causes seems to be declining in public
esteem. The expenses necessarily incident to it are
naturally increasing, and the delays are greater also from a
general tendency, especially in cities, where most judicial
business is transacted, to reduce the number of hours a
day during which the court is in session. The requirement
of unanimity is dispensed with in a few states, and it has
been thus left without what many deem one of its essential
features. The judge interposes his authority to direct
and expedite the progress of the trial less frequently and
less peremptorily than in England. A jury is waived more
often than formerly, and there is a growing conviction that,
with a capable and independent judiciary, justice can be
looked for more confidently from one man than from thirteen.
The United States entered on the work of simplifying the forms
of pleading earlier than England, but has not carried it so
far. Demurrers have not been abandoned, and in some states
little has been done except to replace one system of formality
by another hardly less rigid. The general plan has been
to codify the laws of pleading by statute. In a few states
they have proceeded more nearly in accordance with the
principles of the English Judicatare Act, and left details
to be worked out by the judges, through rules of court.10
The legislature and the courts.
Most of the state constitutions assume that the powers of
government can be divided into three distinct departments,
executive, legislative and judicial; and direct such a
distribution. In thus ignoring the administrative functions
of the state, they have left a difficult question for the
courts, upon which the legislature often seeks in part to cast
them. The general tendency has been to construe, in such
circumstances, the judicial power broadly, and hold that it
may thus be extended over much which is rather to be called
quasi-judicial.11 A distinction is taken between entrusting
jurisdiction of this character to the courts, and imposing
it upon them. Where the statute can be construed as simply
permissive, the authority may be exercised as a matter of
grace, when it would be peremptorily declined, were the meaning
of the legislature that it must be accepted.12 The courts,
for similar reasons, have generally declined (in the absence
of any constitutional requirement to that effect) to advise the
legislature, at its request, whether a proposed statute, if
enacted, would be valid. While its validity, were it to be
enacted, might become the subject of a judicial decision, it
is thought for that reason, if for no other, to be improper to
prejudge the point, without a hearing of parties interested. The
constitutions of several states provide for such a proceeding,
and in these the Supreme Court is not infrequently called upon
in this way, and gives responses which are always considered
decisive of legislative action, but would not be treated as
conclusive in any subsequent litigation that might arise.
Police power of states.
The general trend of opinion in the Supreme Court of the United
States since 1870, upon questions other than those arising
under the XIVth Amendment, has been towards recognizing the
police power of the several states as entitled to a broad
scope. Even, for instance, in such a matter as the regulation
of commerce between different states, it has been upheld as
justifying a prohibition against running any goods trains
on a Sunday, and a requirement that all railway cars must
be heated by steam.13 In the "Granger Cases,"14 the
right of the state to fix the rate of charges for the use
of a grain elevator for railway purposes, and for general
railway services of transportation, was supported, and
although the second of these was afterwards overruled,15 the
principle upon which it was originally rested was not shaken.
On the other hand, reasons of practical convenience have
necessarily favoured the substantial obliteration of state
lines as to the enforcement of statutory private rights.
Massachusetts in 1840, six years before the passage of Lord
Campbell's Act, provided a remedy by indictment for the negligent
killing of a man by a railway company, a pecuniary penalty being
fixed which the state was to collect for the benefit of his
family. In most of the other states by later statutes a
similar result has been reached through a civil action brought
by the executor or administrator as an agent of the law. In
some, however, the state must be the plaintiff; in others the
widow, if any there be. The accident resulting in death often
occurs in a state where the man who was killed does not reside,
or in which the railway company does not have its principal
seat. It may therefore be desirable to sue in one state
for an injury in another. Notwithstanding such an action
is unknown to the common law, and rests solely on a local
statute, the American courts uniformly hold that, when civil
in form, it can be brought under such statutes in any state
the public policy of which is not clearly opposed to such a
remedy. In like manner, the responsibilities of stockholders
and directors of a moneyed corporation, under the laws of the
state from which the charter is derived, are enforced in any
other states in which they may be found. Thus a double liability
of stockholders to creditors, in case of the insolvency of
the company, or a full liability to creditors of directors
who have made false reports or certificates regarding its
financial condition, is treated as of a contractual nature,
and not penal in the international sense of that term.16 As
a judgment of one state has equal force in another, so far as
the principle of res adjudicata is concerned, the orders of
a court in a state to which a corporation owes its charter,
made in proceedings for winding it up, may be enforced to
a large extent in any other. The shareholders are regarded
as parties by representation to the winding- up proceedings,
and so bound by decrees which are incidental to it.17
The provisions of the United States law on different subjects
and the literature concerning them are given in the separate
articles. See the bibliography to the article LAW; also
Cooley on The Constitutional Limitations which rest upon
the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union;
Andrews on American Law; and Russell on The Police
Power of the State, and Decisions thereon as illustrating
the Development and Value of Case Law. (S. E. B.)
1 The Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wallace's Reports, 36, 81.
2 Ibid. 89, 111, 129.
3 Guthrie on the Fourteenth Amendment, 27.
4 Baldwin's Modern Political Institutions, 111, 112.
5 Holden v. Hardy, 169 United States Reports, 336, 385-387.
6 Columbia Law Review, i. 99.
7 Swift v. Tyson, 16 Peters' Reports, 1, 19.
8 See Forepaugh v. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad
Company, 128 Pennsylvania State Reports, 267; Faulkner v. Hart,
82 New York Reports, 313; and Lake Shore & Michigan Southern
Railway Company v. Prentice, 147 United States Reports, 101.
9 See, as examples, Commonwealth v. Rubin, 165 Massachusetts
Reports, 453, in which Holmes, C.J., traces the rule that, if
a man abuse an authority given him by the law, he becomes a
trespasser ab initio, back to the Year Books; and Commonwealth
v. Cleary, 172 Massachusetts Reports, 175, in which the
same judge refers to Glanville and Fleta as authority for the
proposition that the admission in evidence, in cases of rape,
of complaints made by the woman soon after the commission of the
offence is a perverted survival of the old rule that she could
not bring an appeal unless she had made prompt hue and cry.
10 This has been carried furthest in Connecticut. See
Botsford v. Wallace, 72 Connecticut Reports, 195.
11 Norwalk Street Railway Company's Appeal, 69
Connecticut Reports, 576; 38 Atlantic Reporter, 708.
12 Zanesville v. Zanesville Telephone Company, 63
Ohio State Reports, 442; 59 North-Eastern Reporter, 109.
13 New York Railroad v. New York, 165 United States Reports, 628.
14 Munn v. Illinois, 94 United States Reports,
113; Chicago Railroad Company v. Iowa, ibid. 155.
15 Wabash Railway Company v. Illinois, 118
United States Reports, 557; Reagan v. Farmers' Loan
and Trust Company, 154 United States Reports, 362.
16 Huntington v. Attrill, 146 United States Reports, 657.
17 Great Western Telegraph Company v. Purdy,
162 United States Reports, 329; Fish v. Smith, 73
Connecticut Reports, 377; 47 Atlantic Reporter, 710.
AMERICAN LITERATURE.
Beginnings.
The earliest books which are commonly described as the
beginnings of American literature were written by men born
and bred in England; they were published there; they were,
in fact, an undivided part of English literature, belonging
to the province of exploration and geographical description
and entirely similar in matter and style to other works of
voyagers and colonizers that illustrate the expansion of
England. They contain the materials of history in a form
of good Elizabethan narrative, always vigorous in language,
often vivid and picturesque. John Smith (1579-1631) wrote
the first of these, A True Relation of such Occurrences
and Accidents of Note as hath happened in Virginia (1608),
and he later added other accounts of the country to the
north. William Strachey, a Virginian official of whom little
is known biographically, described (1610) the shipwreck of
Sir Thomas Gates on the Bermudas, which is believed to have
yielded Shakespeare suggestions for The Tempest. Colonel
Henry Norwood (d. 1689), hitherto unidentified, of Leckhampton,
Gloucestershire, a person eminent for loyalty in the reign of
Charles I. and distinguished in the civil wars, later governor
of Tangiers and a member of parliament for Gloucester, wrote
an account of his voyage to Virginia as an adventurer, in
1649. These are characteristic works of the earliest period,
and illustrate variously the literature of exploration which
exists in numerous examples and is preserved for historical
reasons. The settlement of the colonies was, in general,
attended by such narratives of adventure or by accounts
of the state of the country or by documentary record of
events. Thus George Alsop (b. 1638) wrote the Character
of the Province of Maryland (1666), and Daniel Denton a
Brief Description of New York (1670), and in Virginia
the progress of affairs was dealt with by William Stith
(1689-1755), Robert Beverly (f. 1700), and William Byrd
(1674-1744). Each settlement in turn, as it came into
prominence or provoked curiosity, found its geographer and
annalist, and here and there sporadic pens essayed some practical
topic. The product, however, is now an indistinguishable mass,
and titles and authors alike are found only in antiquarian
lore. The distribution of literary activity was very uneven
along the sea-board; it was naturally greatest in the more
thriving and important colonies, and bore some relation
to their commercial prosperity and political activity and
to the closeness of the connexion with the home culture of
England. From the beginning New England, owing to the character
of its people and its ecclesiastical rule, was the chief seat
of the early literature, and held a position apart from the
other colonies as a community characterized by an intellectual
life. There the first printing press was set up, the first
college founded, and an abundant literature was produced.
The characteristic fact in the Puritan colonies is that
literature there was in the hands of its leading citizens
and was a chief concern in their minds. There were books
of exploration and description as in the other colonies,
such as William Wood's (d. 1639) New England's Prospect
(1634), and John Josselin's New England's Rarities (1672),
and tales of adventure in the wilderness and on the sea, most
commonly described as "remarkable providences," in the vigorous
Elizabethan narrative; but besides all this the magistracy
and the clergy normally set themselves to the labour of
history, controversy and counsel, and especially to the care of
religion. The governors, beginning with William Bradford
(1590-1657) of Plymouth, and John Winthrop (1588-1649) of
Massachusetts Bay, wrote the annals of their times, and the
line of historians was continued by Winslow, Nathaniel Morton,
Prince, Hubbard and Hutchinson. The clergy, headed by John
Cotton (1585-1652), Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), Nathaniel
Ward (1579- 1652), Roger Williams (1600-1683), Richard Mather
(1596-1669), John Eliot (1604-1690), produced sermons,
platforms, catechisms, theological dissertations, tracts of all
sorts, and their line also was continued by Shepard, Norton,
Wise, the later Mathers and scores of other ministers. The
older clergy were not inferior in power or learning to the
leaders of their own communion in England, and they commanded
the same prose that characterizes the Puritan tracts of the
mother country; nor did the kind of writing deteriorate in their
successors. This body of divines in successive generations gave
to early New England literature its overwhelming ecclesiastical
character; it was in the main a church literature, and its
secular books also were controlled and coloured by the Puritan
spirit. The pervasiveness of religion is well illustrated
by the three books which formed through the entire colonial
period the most popular domestic reading of the Puritan
home. These were The Bay Psalm Book (1640), which was
the first book published in America; Michael Wigglesworth's
(1631-1705) Day of Doom (1662), a doggerel poem; and the
New England Primer (c. 1690), called "the Little Bible." The
sole voice heard in opposition was Thomas Morton's satirical
New English Canaan (1637), whose author was sent out of
the colony for the scandal of Merrymount, but satire itself
remained religious in Ward's Simple Cobbler of Agawam
(1647). Poetry was represented in Anne Bradstreet's (1612-1672)
The Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America (1650), and was
continued by a succession of doggerel writers, mostly ministers
or schoolmasters, Noyes, Oakes, Folger, Tompson, Byles and
others. The world of books also included a good proportion
of Indian war narratives and treatises relating to the
aborigines. The close of the 17th century shows literature,
however, still unchanged in its main position as the special
concern of the leaders of the state. It is Chief-Justice Samuel
Sewall's (1652-1730) Diary (which remained in manuscript until
1878) that affords the most intimate view of the culture and
habits of the community; and he was known to his contemporaries
by several publications, one of which, The Selling of
Joseph (1700), was the first American anti-slavery tract.
Puritanism.
The literature of the first century, exemplified by these few
titles, is considerable in bulk, and like colonial literature
elsewhere is preserved for historical reasons. In general,
it records the political progress and social conditions of
the Puritan state, and the contents of the Puritan mind. The
development of the original settlement took place without any
violent check. Though the colony was continually recruited
by fresh immigration, the original 20,000 who arrived before
1640 had established the principles of the state, and their
will and ideas remained dominant after the Restoration as
before. It was a theocratic state controlled by the clergy,
and yet containing the principle of liberty. The second
and third generations born on the soil, nevertheless, showed
some decadence; notwithstanding the effort to provide against
intellectual isolation and mental poverty by the foundation
of Harvard College, they felt the effects of their situation
across the sea and on the borders of a wilderness. The people
were a hardfaring folk and engaged in a material struggle
to establish the plantations and develop commerce on the
sea; their other life was in religion soberly practised and
intensely felt. They were a people of one book, in the true
sense,--the Bible; it was the organ of their mental life
as well as of their spiritual feelings. For them, it was
in the place of the higher literature. But long resident
there in the strip between the sea and the forest, cut off
from the world and consigned to hard labour and to spiritual
ardours, they developed a fanatical temper; their religious
life hardened and darkened; intolerance and superstition
grew. Time, nevertheless, ripened new changes, and the
colony was to be brought back from its religious seclusion
into the normal paths of modern development. The sign was
contained, perhaps, most clearly in the change effected in
the new charter granted by King William which made property
the basis of the franchise in place of church-membership, and
thus set the state upon an economic instead of a religious
foundation. It is rather by men than by books that these
times are remembered, but it is by the men who were writers
of books. In general, the career of the three Mathers
coincides with the history of the older Puritanism, and
their personal characteristics reflect its stages as their
writings contain its successive traits. Richard Mather, the
emigrant, had been joint author in the composition of The
Bay Psalm Book, and served the colony among the first of its
leaders. It was in his son, Increase Mather (1639-1723),
that the theocracy, properly speaking, culminated. He was
not only a divine, president of Harvard College and a prolific
writer; but he was dominant in the state, the chief man of
affairs. It was he who, sent to represent the colony in
England, received from King William the new charter. His
son, Cotton Mather (1663-1728), succeeded to his father's
distinction; but the changed condition is reflected in his
non-participation in affairs; he was a man of the study and
led there a narrower life than his father's had been. He
was, nevertheless, the most broadly characteristic figure of
the Puritan of his time. He was able and learned, abnormally
laborious, leaving over 400 titles attributed to him; and at
the same time he was an ascetic and visionary. The work by
which he is best remembered, the Magnalia Christi Americana,
or the Ecclesiastical History of New England from its First
Planting in the Year 1620, unto the Year of our Lord 1698
(1702), is the chief historical monument of the period, and
the most considerable literary work done in America up to that
time. It is encyclopaedic in scope, and contains an immense
accumulation of materials relating to life and events in the
colony. There the New England of the 17th century is
displayed. His numerous other works still further amplify the
period, and taken all together his writings best illustrate
the contents of Puritanism in New England. The power of the
clergy was waning, but even in the political sphere it was far
from extinction, and it continued under its scheme of church
government to guard jealously the principles of liberty.
In John Wise's (1652-1725) Vindication of the Government of
New England Churches (1717) a precursor of the Revolution is
felt. It was in another sphere, however, that Puritanism
in New England was to reach its height, intellectually and
spiritually alike, in the brilliant personality of Jonathan
Edwards (1703-1758), its last great product. He was free
of affairs, and bred essentially the private life of a
thinker. He displayed in youth extraordinary precocity and
varied intellectual curiosity, and showed at the same early
time a temperament of spiritual sensitiveness and religious
ideality which suggests the youth of a poet rather than of a
logician. It was not without a struggle that he embraced
sincerely the Calvinistic scheme of divine rule, but he was
able to reconcile the doctrine in its most fearful forms with
the serenity and warmth of his own spirit; for his soul at
all times seems as lucid as his mind, and his affections were
singularly tender and refined. He served as minister to the
church at Northampton; and, driven from that post, he was for
eight years a missionary to the Indians at Stockbridge; finally
he was made president of Princeton College, where after a few
weeks' incumbency he died. The works upon which his fame is
founded are Treatise concerning the Religious Affections
(1746), On the Freedom of the Will (1754), Treatise on
Original Sin (1758). They exhibit extraordinary reasoning
powers and place him among the most eminent theologians.
He contributed by his preaching great inspiring force to the
revival, known as "the Great Awakening," which swept over the
dry and formal Puritanism of the age and was its last great
flame. In him New England idealism had come to the birth. He
illustrates, better than all others, the power of Puritanism
as a spiritual force; and in him only did that power reach
intellectual expression in a memorable way for the larger
world. The ecclesiastical literature of Puritanism, abundant
as it was, produced no other work of power; nor did the
Puritan patronage of literature prove fruitful in other
fields. If Puritanism was thus infertile, it nevertheless
prepared the soil. It impressed upon New England the
stamp of the mind; the entire community was by its means
intellectually as well as morally bred; and to its training
and the predisposition it established in the genius of the
people may be ascribed the respect for the book which has
always characterized that section, the serious temper and
elevation of its later literature and the spiritual quality of
the imagination which is so marked a quality of its authors.
Franklin.
The secularization of life in New England, which went on
concurrently with the decline of the clergy in social power,
was incidental to colonial growth. The practical force
of the people had always been strong; material prosperity
increased and a powerful class of merchants grew up; public
questions multiplied in variety and gained in importance.
The affairs of the world had definitely obtained the upper
hand. The new spirit found its representative in the great
figure of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), who, born in Boston,
early emigrated to Philadelphia, an act which in itself may
be thought to forecast the transfer of the centre of interest
to the west and south and specifically to that city where
the congress was to sit. Franklin was a printer, and the
books he circulated are an index to the uses of reading in
his generation. Practical works, such as almanacs, were
plentiful, and it is characteristic that Franklin's name is, in
literature, first associated with Poor Richard's Almanack
(1732). The literature of the 18th century outside of New
England continued to be constituted of works of exploration,
description, colonial affairs, with some sprinkling of crude
science and doctrines of wealth; but it yields no distinguished
names or remembered titles. Franklin's character subsumes
the spirit of it. In him thrift and benevolence were main
constituents; scientific curiosity of a useful sort and invention
distinguished him; after he had secured a competence, public
interests filled his mature years. In him was the focus of the
federating impulses of the time, and as the representative of
the colonies in England and during the Revolution in France,
he was in his proper place as the greatest citizen of his
country. He was, first of men, broadly interested in all the
colonies, and in his mind the future began to be comprehended
in its true perspective and scale; and for these reasons to
him properly belongs the title of "the first American." The
type of his character set forth in the Autobiography (1817)
was profoundly American and prophetic of the plain people's
ideal of success in a democracy. It is by his character and
career rather than by his works or even by his great public
services that he is remembered; he is a type of the citizen-
man. Older than his companions, and plain while they were of
an aristocratic stamp, he greatens over them in the popular
mind as age greatens over youth; but it was these companions
who were to lay the foundations of the political literature of
America. With the increasing political life lawyers as a
class had naturally come into prominence as spokesmen and
debaters. A young generation of orators sprang up, of
whom James Otis (1725-1783) in the north, and Patrick Henry
(1736-1799) in the south, were the most brilliant; and a group
of statesmen, of whom the most notable were Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), James Madison (1751-1836), and Alexander Hamilton
(1757-1804), held the political direction of the times; in the
speeches and state-papers of these orators and statesmen and
their fellows the political literature of the colonies came to
hold the first place. The chief memorials of this literature
are The Declaration of Independence (1776), The Federalist
(1788), a treatise on the principles of free government, and
Washington's Addresses (1789-1793-1796). Thus politics
became, in succession to exploration and religion, the most
important literary element in the latter half of the 18th century.
18th-century poetry and fiction.
The more refined forms of literature also began to receive
intelligent attention towards the close of the period. The
Revolution in passing struck out some sparks of balladry and
song, but the inspiration of the spirit of nationality was
first felt in poetry by Philip Freneau (1752-1832), whose
Poems (1786) marked the best political achievement up to his
time. Patriotism was also a ruling motive in the works of
the three poets associated with Yale College, John Trumbull
(1750-1831), Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), and Joel Barlow
(1754-1812), authors respectively of McFingal (1782), a
Hudibrastic satire of the Revolution, The Conquest of Canaan
(1785), an epic, and The Vision of Columbus (1787), later
remade into The Columbiad, also an epic. These poets gathered
about them a less talented company, and all were denominated
in common the "Hartford Wits," by which name rather than by
their works they are remembered. The national hymn, "Hail
Columbia," was composed by Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842) in
1798. Fiction, in turn, was first cultivated by Charles Brockden
Brown (1771-1810), a Philadelphian, who wrote six romantic
novels (1798-1801) after the style of Godwin, but set in the
conditions of the new world and mixing local description and
observation with the material of mystery and terror. Fiction
had been earlier attempted by Mrs Susanna Haswell Rowson, whose
Charlotte Temple (1790) is remembered, and contemporaneously
by Mrs Hannah Webster Foster in The Coquette (1797) and by
Royall Tyler (1758-1826) in The Algerian Captive (1799);
but to Brown properly belongs the title of the first American
novelist, nor are his works without invention and intensity
and a certain distinction that secure for them permanent
remembrance. The drama formally began its career on a regular
stage and with an established company, in 1786 at New York,
with the acting of Royall Tyler's comedy The Contrast; but
the earliest American play was Thomas Godfrey's (1736-1763)
tragedy, The Prince of Parthia, acted in Philadelphia in
1767. William Dunlap (1766-1839) is, however, credited with
being the father of the American theatre on the New York
stage, where his plays were produced. One other earlier
book deserves mention, John Woolman's (1720-1772) Journal
(1775), an autobiography with much charm. With these various
attempts the 18th century was brought to an end. In 200
years no literary classic had been produced in America.
The new nation.
The new nation, which with the 19th century began its integral
career, still retained the great disparities which originally
existed between the diverse colonies. Political unity,
the simplest of the social unities, had been achieved; "a
more perfect union," in the language of the founders, had
been formed; but even in the political sphere the new state
bore in its bosom disuniting forces which again and again
threatened to rive it apart until they were dissipated in
the Civil War; and in the other spheres of its existence,
intellectually, morally, socially, its unity was far from being
accomplished. The expansion of its territory over the
continental area brought new local diversity and prolonged the
contrasts of border conditions with those of the long-settled
communities. This state of affairs was reflected in the
capital fact that there was no metropolitan centre in which
the tradition and forces of the nation were concentrated.
Washington was a centre of political administration; but that was
all. The nation grew slowly, indeed, into consciousness of
its own existence; but it was without united history, without
national traditions of civilization and culture, and it was
committed to the untried idea of democracy. It was founded
in a new faith; yet at the moment that it proclaimed the
equality of men, its own social structure and habit north and
south contradicted the declaration, not merely by the fact
of slavery, but by the life of its classes. The south long
remained oligarchic; in the north aristocracy slowly melted
away. The coincidence of an economic opportunity with a
philosophic principle is the secret of the career of American
democracy in its first century. The vast resources of an
undeveloped country gave this opportunity to the individual,
while the nation was pledged by its fundamental idea to material
prosperity for the masses, popular education and the common
welfare, as the supreme test of government. In this labour,
subduing the new world to agriculture, trade and manufactures,
the forces of the nation were spent, under the complication of
maintaining the will of the people as the directing power; the
subjugation of the soil and experience in popular government
are the main facts of American history. In the course of this
task the practice of the fine arts was hardly more than an
incident. When anyone thinks of Greece, he thinks first of
her arts; when anyone thinks of America, he thinks of her arts
last. Literature, in the sense of the printed word, has had a
great career in America; as the vehicle of use, books, journals,
literary communication, educational works and libraries have
filled the land; nowhere has the power of the printed word
ever been so great, nowhere has the man of literary genius
ever had so broad an opportunity to affect the minds of men
contemporaneously. But, in the artistic sense, literature, at
most, has been locally illustrated by a few eminent names.
The most obvious fact with regard to this literature is
that--to adopt a convenient word--it has been regional.
It has flourished in parts of the country, very distinctly
marked, and is in each case affected by its environment
and local culture; if it incorporates national elements
at times, it seems to graft them on its own stock. The
growth of literature in these favoured soils was slow and
humble. There was no outburst of genius, no sudden movement,
no renaissance; but very gradually a step was taken in
advance of the last generation, as that had advanced upon its
forefathers. The first books of true excellence were
experiments; they seem almost accidents. The cities of
Boston, New York and Philadelphia were lettered communities;
they possessed imported books, professional classes, men
of education and taste. The tradition of literature was
strong, especially in New England; there were readers used
to the polite letters of the past. It was, however, in
the main the past of Puritanism, both in England and at
home, and of the 18th century in general, on which they were
bred, with a touch ever growing stronger of the new European
romanticism. All the philosophic ideas of the 18th century were
current. What was most lacking was a standard self-applied
by original writers; and in the absence of a great national
centre of standards and traditions, and amid the poverty of such
small local centres as the writers were bred in, they sought
what they desired, not in England, not in any one country nor
in any one literature, but in the solidarity of literature
itself, in the republic of letters, the world-state itself,--the
master-works of all European lands; they became either actual
pilgrims on foreign soil or pilgrims of the mind in fireside
travels. The foreign influences that thus entered into American
literature are obvious and make a large part of its history;
but the fact here brought out is that European literature and
experience stood to American writers in lieu of a national
centre; it was there that both standard and tradition were found.
Early 19th-century classics.
American literature first began to exist for the larger world
in the persons of Washington Irving (1785-1859) and James
Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851). Their recognition was almost
contemporaneous. The Sketch Book (1810) was the first
American book to win a great reputation in England, and The
Spy (1821) was the first to obtain a similar vogue on the
continent. The fame of both authors is associated with New
York, and that city took the first place as the centre of the
literature of the period. It was not that New York was more
intellectual than other parts of the country; but it was a highly
prosperous community, where a mercantile society flourished and
consequently a certain degree of culture obtained. The first
American literature was not the product of a raw democracy
nor of the new nationality in any sense; there was nothing
sudden or vehement in its generation; but, as always, it was
the product of older elements in the society where it arose
and flourished under the conditions of precedent culture. The
family of Irving were in trade. Cooper's father was in the
law. A third writer, William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), is
associated with them, and though he announced his poetic talent
precociously by Thanatopsis (1807), his Poems (1832),
immediately republished in London, were the basis of his true
fame. Born in Massachusetts, he lived his long life in New
York, and was there a distinguished citizen. His father was a
physician. All three men were not supremely endowed; they
do not show the passion of genius for its work which marks
the great writers; they were, like most American writers, men
with the literary temperament, characteristically gentlemen,
who essayed literature with varying power. If the quality
of this early literature is to be appreciated truly, the fact
of its provenance from a society whose cultivation was simple
and normal, a provincial bourgeois society of a prosperous
democracy, must be borne in mind. It came, not from the people,
but from the best classes developed under preceding conditions.
Irving.
Irving all his life was in the eyes of his countrymen, whatever
their pride might be in him, more a travelled gentleman
than one of themselves. He had come home to end his days at
Sunnyside by the Hudson, but he had won his fame in foreign
fields. In his youth the beginnings of his literary work
were most humble--light contributions to the press. He
was of a most social nature, warm, refined, humorous, a
man belonging to the town. He was not seriously disposed,
idled much, and surprised his fellow-citizens suddenly by
a grotesque History of New York (1809), an extravaganza
satirizing the Dutch element of the province. He discovered
in writing this work his talent for humour and also one
part of his literary theme, the Dutch tradition; but he did
not so convince himself of his powers as to continue, and
it was only after the failure of his commercial interests
that, being thrown on himself for support, he published in
London ten years later, at the age of thirty-six, the volume
of sketches which by its success committed him to a literary
career. In that work he found himself; sentiment and
distinction of style characterized it, and these were his main
traits. He remained abroad, always favoured in society
and living in diplomatic posts in Spain and England, for
seventeen years, and he later spent four years in Spain as
minister. Spain gave him a larger opportunity than England
for the cultivation of romantic sentiment, and he found there
his best themes in Moorish legend and history. On his return
to America he added to his subjects the exploration of the
west; and he wrote, besides, biographies of Goldsmith and
Washington. He was, as it turned out, a voluminous writer;
yet his books successively seem the accident of his situation.
The excellence of his work lies rather in the treatment than
the substance; primarily, there is the pellucid style, which
he drew from his love of Goldsmith, and the charm of his
personality shown in his romantic interest, his pathos and
humour ever growing in delicacy, and his familiar touch with
humanity. He made his name American mainly by creating the
legend of the Hudson, and he alone has linked his memory
locally with his country so that it hangs over the landscape
and blends with it for ever; he owned his nativity, too,
by his pictures of the prairie and the fur-trade and by his
life of Washington, who had laid his hand upon his head;
but he had spent half his life abroad, in the temperamental
enjoyment of the romantic suggestion of the old world, and by
his writings he gave this expansion of sympathy and sentiment
to his countrymen. If his temperament was native-born and
his literary taste home-bred, and if his affections gave
a legend to the countryside and his feelings expanded with
the view of prairie and wilderness, and if he sought to
honour with his pen the historic associations and memory of
the land which had honoured him, it was, nevertheless, the
trans-Atlantic touch that had loosed his genius and mainly fed
it, and this fact was prophetic of the immediate course of
American literature and the most significant in his career.
Cooper's initiation into literature was similar to that of
Irving. He had received, perhaps, something more of scanty
formal education, since he attended Yale College for a
season, but he early took to the sea and was a midshipman.
He was thirty years old before he began to write, and it was
almost an accident that after the failure of his first novel
he finished The Spy, so deterring was the prejudice that no
American book could succeed. He was, however, a man of great
energy of life, great force of will; it was his nature to
persist. The way once opened, he wrote voluminously and with
great unevenness. His literary defects, both of surface and
construction, are patent. It was not by style nor by any
detail of plot or character that he excelled; but whatever
imperfections there might be, his work was alive; it had body,
motion, fire. He chose his subjects from aspects of life
familiar to him in the woods or on the sea or from patriotic
memories near to him in the fields of the Revolution. He thus
established a vital connexion with his own country, and in so
far he is the most national by his themes of any of the American
writers. What he gave was the scene of the new world, both
in the forest and by the fires of the Revolution and on
the swift and daring American ships; but it was especially
by his power to give the sense of the primitive wilderness
and the ocean weather, and adventure there, that he won
success. In France, where he was popular, this came as
an echo out of the real world of the west to the dream of
nature that had lately grown up in French literature; and,
besides, of all the springs of interest native to men in
every land adventure in the wild is, perhaps, the easiest
to touch, the quickest and most inflaming to respond.
Cooper stood for a true element in American experience and
conditions, for the romance in the mere presence of primeval
things of nature newly found by man and opening to his coming;
this was an imaginative moment, and Cooper seized it by his
imagination. He especially did so in the Indian elements
of his tale, and gave permanent ideality to the Indian
type. The trait of loftiness which he thus incorporated
belongs with the impression of the virgin forest and prairie,
the breadth, the silence and the music of universal nature.
The distinction of his work is to open so great a scene
worthily, to give it human dignity in rough and primitive
characters seen in the simplicity of their being, and to
fill it with peril, resourcefulness and hardihood. It is
the only brave picture of life in the broad from an American
pen. Scott, in inventing the romantic treatment of history in
fiction, was the leader of the historical novel; but Cooper,
except in so far as he employed the form, was not in a true
sense an imitator of Scott; he did not create, nor think, nor
feel, in Scott's way, and he came far short of the deep human
power of Scott's genius. He was not great in character; but
he was great in adventure, manly spirit and the atmosphere of
the natural world, an Odysseyan writer, who caught the moment
of the American planting in vivid and characteristic traits.
Bryant.
This same spirit, but limited to nature in her most elemental
forms and having the simplest generic relations to human
life, characterizes Bryant. He, too, had slender academic
training, and came from the same social origins as Irving and
Cooper; but, owing to his extraordinary boyish precocity, the
family influences upon him and the kind of home he was bred
in are more clearly seen. He framed his art in his boyhood
on the model of 18th-century verse, and though he felt the
liberalizing influences of Wordsworth later there always
remained in his verse a sense of form that suggests a severer
school than that of his English contemporaries. He lived the
life of a journalist and public man in New York, but the poet
in him was a man apart and he jealously guarded his talent in
seclusion. Though he was at times abroad, he resembled
Cooper in being unaffected by foreign residence; he remained
home-bred. He wrote a considerable quantity of verse; but
it is by a quality in it rather than by its contents that his
poetry is recalled, and this quality exists most highly in
the few pieces that are well known. To no verse is the phrase
"native wood-notes wild" more properly applied. His poetry
gives this deep impression of privacy; high, clear, brief in
voice, and yet, as it were, as of something hidden in the
sky or grove or brook, or as if the rock spoke, it is nature
in her haunts; it is the voice of the peak, the forests, the
cataracts, the smile of the blue gentian, the distant rosy
flight of the water-fowl,--with no human element less simple
than piety, death or the secular changes of time. It is,
too, an expression of something so purely American that it
seems that it must be as uncomprehended by one not familiar
with the scene as the beauty of Greece or Italian glows; it
is poetry locked in its own land. This presence of the pure,
the pristine, the virginal in the verse, this luminousness,
spaciousness, serenity in the land, this immemorialness of
natural things, is the body and spirit of the true wild,
such as Bryant's eyes had seen it and as it had possessed his
soul. In no other American poet is there this nearness to
original awe in the presence of nature; nowhere is nature so
slightly humanized, so cosmically felt, and yet poetized.
Poetry of this sort must be small in amount; a few hundred
lines contain it all; but they alone shrine the original
grandeur, not so much of the American landscape, as of wild
nature when first felt in the primitive American world.
American romanticism thus began with these three writers,
who gave it characterization after all by only a few simple
traits. There was in it no profound passion nor philosophy
nor revolt; especially there was no morbidness. It was sprung
from a new soil. The breath of the early American world was
in Bryant's poetry; he had freed from the landscape a Druidical
nature-worship of singular purity, simple and grand, unbound
by any conventional formulas of thought or feeling but deeply
spiritual. The new life of the land filled the scene of
Cooper; prairie, forest and sea, Indians, backwoodsmen and
sailors, the human struggle of all kinds, gave it diversity
and detail; but its life was the American spirit, the epic
action of a people taking primitive possession, battling with
its various foes, making its world. Irving, more brooding and
reminiscent, gave legend to the landscape, transformed rudeness
with humour and brought elements of picturesqueness into
play; and in him, in whom the new race was more mature, was
first shown that nostalgia for the past, which is everywhere
a romantic trait but was peculiarly strong under American
conditions. He was consequently more free in imagination
than the others, and first dealt with other than American
subjects, emancipating literature from provinciality of
theme, while the modes of his romantic treatment, the way
he felt about his subjects, still owed much to his American
birth. In all this literature by the three writers there
was little complexity, and there was no strangeness in their
personalities. Irving was more genially human, Cooper
more vitally intense; Bryant was the more careful artist
in the severe limits of his art, which was simple and
plain. Simplicity and plainness characterize all three;
they were, in truth, simple American gentlemen, of the
breeding and tastes that a plain democracy produced as its
best, who, giving themselves to literature for a career,
developed a native romanticism, which, however obvious and
uncomplicated with philosophy, passion or moods, represented
the first stage of American life with freshness of power,
an element of ideal loftiness and much literary charm.
General progress.
Though Irving, Cooper and Bryant were associated with New
York, there was something sporadic in their germination.
They have no common source; they stood apart; and their work
neither overlapped nor blended, but remained self-isolated.
None of them can be said to have founded a school, but
Irving left a literary tradition and Cooper had followers
in the field of historical fiction. The literary product
up to the middle of the century presents generally from its
early years the appearance of an indistinguishable mass, as
in colonial days, in which neither titles nor authors are
eminent. The association of American literature with the
periodical press is, perhaps, the most important trait to be
observed. New York and Philadelphia were book- markets, and
local presses had long been at work issuing many reprints.
Magazines in various degrees of importance sprang up in
succession to the earlier imitations of English 18th-century
periodicals, which abounded at the beginning of the century;
and as time went on these were accompanied by a host of annuals
of the English Keepsake variety. Philadelphia was especially
distinguished by an early fertility in magazines, which later
reached a great circulation, as in the case of Godey's and
Graham's; the Knickerbocker became prominent in New York
from 1833, when it was founded; Richmond had in The Southern
Literary Messenger the chief patron of southern writers from
1834, and there were abortive ventures still farther south in
Charleston. These various periodicals and like publications
were the literary arena, the place of ambition for young and
old, for known and unknown, and there literary fame and what
little money came of its pursuit were found. Minor poetry
flourished in it; sketches, tales, essays, every sort of
writing in prose multiplied there. A change in the atmosphere
of letters is also to be noted. The 18th century was fairly
left behind. The Philadelphian reprint of Galignani's
Paris edition of Keats, Shelley and Coleridge had brought
in the new romantic poetry with wide effect; and Disraeli,
Bulwer and, later, Dickens are felt in the prose; in verse,
especially by women, Mrs Hemans and Mrs Browning ruled the
moment. The product was large. In poetry it was displayed
on the most comprehensive scale in Rufus Wilmot Griswold's
(1815-1857) collections of American verse, made in the middle
of the century. Mrs Lydia Sigourney (1791-1865), a prolific
writer, and Mrs Maria Gowan Brooks (1795-1845), known as
Southey's "Maria del Occidente," a more ambitious aspirant,
the "Davidson sisters," (1808-1825: 1823-1838), and Alice
(1820-1871) and Phoebe Cary (1824-1871) illustrate the work
of the women; and Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847), George
Pope Morris (1802-1864), Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884)
and Willis Gaylord Clark (1810-1841) may serve for that of
men. In this verse, and in the abundant prose as well, the
sentimentality of the period is strongly marked; it continued
to the times of the Civil War. Two poets of a better type,
Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820), distinguished by delicacy
of fancy, and Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867), who showed
ardour and a real power of phrase, are remembered from an
earlier time for their brotherhood in verse, but Drake died
young and Halleck was soon sterilized, so that the talents of
both proved abortive. The characteristic figure that really
exemplifies this secondary literature at its best is Nathaniel
Parker Willis (1806-1867) who, though born in Portland,
Maine, was the chief litterateur of the Knickerbocker
period. He wrote abundantly in both verse and prose, and
was the first of the journalist type of authors, a social
adventurer with facile powers of literary entertainment, a man
of the town and immensely popular. He was the sentimentalist
by profession, and his work, transitory as it proved, was
typical of a large share of the taste, talent and ambition
of the contemporary crowd of writers. Neighbouring him in
time and place are the authors of various stripe, known as
"the Literati," whom Poe described in his critical papers,
which, in connexion with Griswold's collections mentioned
above, are the principal current source of information
concerning the bulk of American literature in that period.
Poe.
This world of the magazines, the Literati and sentimentalism,
was the true milieu of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Born in
Boston, his mother a pleasing English actress and his father
a dissipated stage- struck youth of a Baltimore family, left
an orphan in childhood, he was reared in the Virginian home
of John Allan, a merchant of Scottish extraction; he received
there the stamp of southern character. He was all his life
characteristically a southerner, with southern ideals of
character and conduct, southern manners towards both men
and women and southern passions. He showed precocity in
verse, but made his real debut in prose as editor of The
Southern Literary Messenger at Richmond in 1835. He was
by his talents committed to a literary career, and being
usually without definite means of support he followed the
literary market, first to Philadelphia and later to New
York. He was continuously associated with magazines as editor,
reviewer or contributor; they were his means of sustenance;
and, whether as cause or effect, this mode of life fell in
with the nature of his mind, which was a contemporary mind.
He was perhaps better acquainted with contemporary work in
literature than any of his associates; he took his first cues
from Disraeli and Bulwer and Moore, and he was earliest to
recognize Tennyson and Mrs Browning; his principal reading was
always in the magazines. He was, however, more than a man of
literary temperament like Irving and Cooper; he was a child of
genius. As in their case, there was something sporadic in
his appearance on the scene. He had no American origins,
but only American conditions of life. In fact he bore little
relation to his period, and so far as he was influenced, it
was for the worse; he transcended the period, essentially, in
all his creative work. He chose for a form of expression the
sketch, tale or short story, and he developed it in various
ways. From the start there was a melodramatic element in
him, itself a southern trait and developed by the literary
influence of Disraeli and Bulwer on his mind. He took the
tale of mystery as his special province; and receiving it as
a mystery that was to be explained, after the recent masters
of it, he saw its fruitful lines of development in the fact
that science had succeeded to superstition as the source of
wonder, and also in the use of ratiocination as a mode of
disentanglement in the detective story. Brilliant as his
success was in these lines, his great power lay in the tale
of psychological states as a mode of impressing the mind with
the thrill of terror, the thrall of fascination, the sense of
mystery. It is by his tales in these several sorts that he
won, more slowly than Irving or Cooper and effectually only
after his death, continental reputation; at present no American
author is so securely settled in the recognition of the world
at large, and he owes this, similarly to Cooper, to the power
of mystery over the human mind universally; that is, he owes
it to his theme, seconded by a marvellous power to develop it
by the methods of art. He thus added new traits to American
romanticism, but as in the case of Irving's Spanish studies
there is no American element in the theme; he is detached from
his local world, and works in the sphere of universal human
nature, nor in his treatment is there any trace of his American
birth. He is a world author more purely than any other American
writer. Though it is on his tales that his continental
reputation necessarily rests, his temperament is more subtly
expressed in his verse, in which that fond of which his tales
are the logical and intelligible growth gives out images and
rhythms, the issue of morbid states, which affect the mind
rather as a form of music than of thought. Emotion was, in
art, his constant aim, though it might be only so simple a
thing as the emotion of colour as in his landscape studies;
and in his verse, by an unconscious integration and flow of
elements within him it must be thought, he obtained emotional
effects by images which have no intellectual value, and
which float in rhythms so as to act musically on the mind
and arouse pure moods of feeling absolutely free of any other
contents. Such poems must be an enigma to most men, but
others are accessible to them, and derive from them an original
and unique pleasure; they belong outside of the intellectual
sphere. It is by virtue of this musical quality and immediacy
that his poetry is characterized by genius; in proportion
as it has meaning of an intelligible sort it begins to fade
and lower; so far as "Lenore" and "Annie" and "Annabel Lee"
are human, they are feeble ghosts of that sentimentality
which was so rife in Poe's time and so maudlin in his own
personal relations; and except for a half- dozen pieces,
in which his quality of rhythmical fascination is supreme,
his verse as a whole is inferior to the point of being
commonplace. Small as the quantity of his true verse is,
it more sustains his peculiar genius in American eyes than
does his prose; and this is because it is so unique. He
stands absolutely alone as a poet with none like him; in his
tales, as an artist, he is hardly less solitary, but he has
some ties of connexion or likeness with the other masters of
mystery. Poe lived in poverty and died in misery; but without
him romanticism in America would lose its most romantic
figure, and American literature the artist who, most of
all its writers, had the passion of genius for its work.
Poe left even less trace of himself in the work of others
than did Irving, Cooper and Bryant. He stands in succession
to them, and closed the period so far as it contributed to
American romanticism anything distinguished, original or
permanent. The ways already opened had, however, been
trod, and most notably in fiction. The treatment of manners
and customs, essentially in Irving's vein, was pleasingly
cultivated in Maryland by John Pendleton Kennedy (1795- 1870)
in Swallow Barn (1832) and similar tales of Old Dominion
life. In Virginia, Beverly Tucker (1784-1851) in The Partisan
Leader (1836), noticeable for its prophecy of secession,
and John Esten Cooke (1830-1886) in The Virginia Comedians
(1854), also won a passing reputation. The champion in the
south, however, was William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), born in
Charleston, a voluminous writer of both prose and verse, who
undertook to depict, on the same scale as Cooper and in his
manner, the settlement of the southern territory and its
Indian and revolutionary history; but of his many novels, of
which the characteristic examples are The Yemassee (1335),
The Partisan (1835) and Beauchampe (1842), none attained
literary distinction. The sea-novel was developed by Herman
Melville (1819- 1891) in Typee (1846) and its successors,
but these tales, in spite of their being highly commended by
lovers of adventure, have taken no more hold than the work of
Simms. Single novels of wide popularity appeared from time
to time, of which a typical instance was The Wide, Wide
World (1850) by Susan Warner (1819-1885). The grade of
excellence was best illustrated, perhaps, for the best current
fiction which was not to be incorporated in literature, by
the novels of Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867), of a
western Massachusetts family, in Hope Leslie (1827) and its
successors. The distinct Knickerbocker strain was best
preserved by James Kirke Paulding (1778-1860) among the
direct imitators of Irving; but the better part of the Irving
tradition, its sentiment, social grace and literary flavour,
was not noticeable until it awoke in George William Curtis
(1824-1892), born a New Englander but, like Bryant, a journalist
and public man of New York, whose novels, notes of travel and
casual brief social essays brought that urbane style to an
end, as in Donald Grant Mitchell (born 1822) the school of
sentiment, descended from the same source, died not unbecomingly
in the Reveries of a Bachelor (1850) and Dream Life
(1851). Two poets, just subsequent to Poe, George Henry
Boker (1823-1890) and Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872), won
a certain distinction, the former especially in the drama,
in the Philadelphia group. The single popular songs, "The
Star-Spangled Banner" (1813), by Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) of
Maryland, "America" (1832) by Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895)
of Massachusetts, and "Home, Sweet Home" (1823) by John Howard
Payne (1792-1852) of New York, may also be appropriately recorded
here. The last distinct literary personality to emerge from
the miscellany of talent in the middle of the century, in the
middle Atlantic states, was James Bayard Taylor (1825-1878)
who, characteristically a journalist, gained reputation by
his travels, poems and novels, but in spite of brilliant
versatility and a high ambition failed to obtain permanent
distinction. His translation of Faust (1870) is his chief
title to remembrance; but the later cultivation of the oriental
motive in American lyrical poetry owes something to his example.
New England scholarship.
In New England, which succeeded to New York as the chief
source of literature of high distinction, the progress of
culture in the post- Revolutionary period was as normal and
gradual as elsewhere in the country; there was no violence of
development, no sudden break, but the growth of knowledge and
taste went slowly on in conjunction with the softening of the
Puritan foundation of thought, belief and practice. What most
distinguished literature in New England from that to the west and
south was its connexion with religion and scholarship, neither
of which elements was strong in the literature that has been
described. The neighbourhood of Harvard College to Boston was
a powerful influence in the field of knowledge and critical
culture. The most significant fact in respect to scholarship,
however, was the residence abroad of George Ticknor (1791-1871),
author of The History of Spanish Literature (1849), of
Edward Everett (1794-1865), the orator, and of George Bancroft
(1800-1891), author of the History of the United States
(1834-1874), who as young men brought back new ideals of
learning. The social connexion of Boston, not only with
England but with the continent, was more constant, varied
and intimate than fell to the fortune of any other city, and
owing to the serious temper of the community the intellectual
commerce with the outer world through books was more
profound. Coleridge was early deeply influential on the
thought of the cultivated class, and to him Carlyle, who
found his first sincere welcome and effectual power there,
succeeded. The influence of both combined to introduce, and
to secure attention for, German writers. Translation, as
time went on, followed, and German thought was also further
sustained and advanced in the community by Frederick Henry
Hedge (1805-1890), a philosophical theologian, who conducted
a propaganda of German ideas. The activity of the group
about him is significantly marked by the issue of the series
of Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature (1838), edited
by George Ripley (1802-1880), the critic, which was the
first of its kind in America. French ideas, as time went on,
were also current, and the field of research extended to the
Orient, the writings of which were brought forward especially
in connexion with the Transcendental Movement to which all
these foreign studies contributed. In New England, in other
words, a close, serious and vital connexion was made, for
the first time, with the philosophic thought of the world and
with its tradition even in the remote past. Unitarianism,
which was the form in which the old Puritanism dissolved
in the cultivated class, came in with the beginning of the
century, and found its representative in the gentle character,
refined intelligence and liberal humanity of William Ellery
Channing (1780- 1842), who has remained its chief apostle.
It was the expression of a moral maturing and intellectual
enlightenment that took place with as little disturbance
as ever marked religious evolution in any community. The
people at large remained evangelical, but they also felt
in a less degree the softening and liberalizing tendency;
nevertheless it was mainly in the field of Unitarianism that
literature flourished, as was natural, and Transcendentalism
was a phenomenon that grew out of Unitarianism, being
indeed the excess of the movement of enlightenment and the
extreme limit of intuitionalism, individualism and private
judgment. These two factors, religion and scholarship, gave
to New England literature its serious stamp and academic
quality; but the preparatory stage being longer, it was slower
to emerge than the literature of the rest of the country.
The first stirrings of romanticism in New England were
felt, as in the country to the south, by men of literary
temperament in a sympathetic enjoyment and feeble imitation
of the contemporary English romantic school of fiction
exemplified by Mrs Radcliffe, Lewis and Godwin. Washington
Allston (1779-1843), the painter, born in South Carolina but
by education and adoption a citizen of Cambridge, showed the
taste in Monaldi (1841), and Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879)
in Paul Felton (1833); in his poem of the same date, "The
Buccaneer," the pseudo-Byronic element, which belongs to the
conception of character and passion in this school of fiction,
appears. These elder writers illustrate rather the stage of
imaginative culture at the period, and show by their other
works also--Allston by his poems "The Sylphs of the Seasons"
(1813), and Dana by his abortive periodical The Idle Man
(1821) issued at New York--their essential sympathy with
the literary conditions reigning before the time of Irving.
They both were post-Revolutionary, and advanced American
culture in other fields rather than imagination, Allston in
art and Dana in criticism, as editor of The North American
Review, which was founded in 1815, and was long the chief
organ of serious thought and critical learning, influential
in the dissemination of ideas and in the maintenance of the
intellectual life. The influence of their personality in the
community, like that of Channing, with whom they were closely
connected, was of more importance than any of their works.
Emerson: Hawthorne: Longfellow.
The definite moment of the appearance of New England in
literature in the true sense was marked by Ralph Waldo Emerson's
(1803-1882) Nature (1836), Nathaniel Hawthorne's (1804-1864)
Twice-Told Tales (1837) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's
(1807-1882) Voices of the Night (1839). Of this group
of men Longfellow is the most national figure, and from the
point of view of literary history the most significant by
virtue of what he contributed to American romanticism in the
large. He felt the conscious desire of the people for an
American literature, and he obeyed it in the choice of his
subjects. He took national themes, and his work is in
this respect the counterpart in poetry to that of Cooper in
prose. In Hiawatha (1855) he poetized the Indian life; and,
though the scene and figures of the poem are no more localized
than the happy hunting-grounds, the ideal of the life of
the aborigines in the wilderness is given with freshness and
primitive charm and with effect on the imagination. It is the
sole survivor of many poetic attempts to naturalize the Indian
in literature, and will remain the classic Indian poem. In
Evangeline (1847), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
and The New England Tragedies (1868), he depicted colonial
life. As he thus embodied national tradition in one portion
of his work, he rendered national character in another, and
with more spontaneity, in those domestic poems of childhood
and the affections, simple moods of the heart in the common
lot, which most endeared him as the poet of the household.
These are American poems as truly as his historical verse,
though they are also universal for the English race. In another
large portion of his work he brought back from the romantic
tradition of Europe, after Irving's manner, motives which he
treated for their pure poetic quality, detached from anything
American, and he also translated much foreign verse from the
north and the south of Europe, including Dante's Divine Comedy
(1867). He has, more than any other single writer, reunited
America with the poetic past of Europe, particularly in its
romance. The same serenity of disposition that marked Irving
and Bryant characterized his life; and his art, more varied
than Bryant's or Irving's, has the same refinement, being
simple and so limpid as to deceive the reader into an oblivion
of its quality and sometimes into an unwitting disparagement
of what seems so plain and natural as to be commonplace. In
Longfellow, as in Irving, one is struck by that quietude,
which is so prevailing a characteristic of American literature,
and which proceeds from its steady and even flow from sources
that never knew any disturbance or perturbation. The life,
the art, the moods are all calm; deep passion is absent.
Hawthorne was endowed with a soul of more intense brooding,
but he remained within the circle of this peace. He developed
in solitude exquisite grace of language, and in other respects
was an artist, the mate of Poe in the tale and exceeding
Poe in significance since he used symbolism for effects of
truth. He, like Longfellow, embodied the national tradition,
in this case the Puritan past; but he seized the subject,
not in its historical aspects and diversity of character and
event, but psychologically in its moral passion in The Scarlet
Letter (1850), and less abstractly, more picturesquely, more
humanly, in its blood tradition, in The House of the Seven
Gables. In his earlier work, as an artist, he shows the
paucity of the materials in the environment, especially in
his tales; but when his residence in Italy and England gave
into his hands larger opportunity, he did not succeed so well
in welding Italy with America in The Marble Faun (1860),
or England with America in his experimental attempts at the
work which he left uncompleted, as he had done in the Puritan
romances. He had, however, added a new domain to American
romanticism; and, most of all these writers, he blended
moral truth with fiction; he, indeed, spiritualized romance,
and without loss of human reality,--a rare thing in any
literature. Both Longfellow and Hawthorne were happy in
reconciling their art with their country: both, not less than
Poe, were universal artists, but they incorporated the national
past in their art and were thereby more profoundly American.
Emerson, whose work lay in the religious sphere, not unlike
Jonathan Edwards at an earlier time of climax but in a different
way, marked the issue of Puritanism in pure idealism, and
was more contemporaneously associated with life in the times
than were the purely imaginative writers. He was the central
figure of Transcendentalism, and apart from his specific
teachings stood for the American spirit, disengaged from
authority, independent, personal, responsible only to himself.
He reached a revolutionary extreme, but he had not arrived
at it by revolutionary means; without storm or stress, with
characteristic peacefulness, he came to the great denials, and
without much concerning himself with them turned to his own
affirmations of spiritual reality, methods of life and personal
results. Serenity was his peculiar trait; amid all the
agitation about him he was entirely unmoved, lived calmly and
wrote with placid power, concentrating into the slowly wrought
sentences of his Essays (1841-1875) the spiritual essence
and moral metal of a life lived to God, to himself and to his
fellow-men. He, more than any other single writer, reunited
American thought with the philosophy of the world; more than all
others, he opened the ways of liberalism, wherever they may
lead. He was an emancipator of the mind. In his Poems
(1847-1867), though the abstract and the concrete often
find themselves awkward mates, his philosophic ideas are
put forth under forms of imagination and his personal life
is expressed with nobility; his poetic originality, though
so different in kind, is as unique as Poe's, and reaches a
height of imaginative faculty not elsewhere found in American
verse. His poetry belongs more peculiarly to universal art,
so pure in general is its philosophic content and so free from
any temporal trait is the style; but it is as distinguished
for the laconic expression of American ideas, minted with
one blow, as his prose is for the constant breathing of
the American spirit. It is the less possible to define the
American traits in Emerson, because they constituted the
man. He was as purely an American type as Lincoln. The
grain of the man is in his work also; and the best that his
prose and verse contain is his personal force. In him alone
is genius felt as power; in the others it impresses one
primarily as culture, modes of artistic faculty, phases of
temperament. In this, too, he brings to mind Jonathan Edwards,
the other climax of the religious spirit in New England; in
Edwards it was intellectual power, in Emerson it was moral
power; in both it was indigenous, power springing from what
was most profound in the historic life of the community.
Whittier: Holmes: Lowell.
Three other names, John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892),
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), James Russell Lowell
(1819-1891), complete the group of the greater writers of New
England. Holmes was a more local figure, by his humour and
wit and his mental acuteness a Yankee and having the flavour
of race, but neither in his verse nor his novels reaching
a high degree of excellence and best known by The Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table (1858), which is the Yankee prose
classic. His contemporary reputation was largely social and
owed much to the length of his life, but his actual hold on
literature already seems slight and his work of little permanent
value. Whittier stands somewhat apart as the poet of the soil
and also because of his Quakerism; he was first eminent as
the poet of the anti-slavery movement, to which he contributed
much stirring verse, and later secured a broader fame by
Snowbound (1866) and his religious poems of simple piety,
welcome to every faith; he was also a balladist of local
legends. In general he is the voice of the plain people
without the medium of academic culture, and his verse though
of low flight is near to their life and faith. Lowell first
won distinction by The Biglow Papers (1848), which with the
second series (1886) is the Yankee classic in verse, and is
second only to his patriotic odes in maintaining his poetic
reputation; his other verse, variously romantic in theme and
feeling, and latterly more kindred to English classic style,
shows little originality and was never popularly received;
it is rather the fruit of great talent working in close
literary sympathy with other poets whom from time to time he
valued. His prose consists in the main of literary studies in
criticism, a field in which he held the first rank. Together
with Holmes and Whittier he gives greater body, diversity
and illustration to the literature of New England; but in the
work of none of these is there the initiative or the presence
of single genius that characterize Emerson, Hawthorne and
Longfellow. Lowell was a scholar with academic ties, a patriot
above party, master of prose and verse highly developed and
finished, and at times of a lofty strain owing to his moral
enthusiasm; Whittier was a Quaker priest, vigorous in a
great cause of humanity, with fluent power to express in
poetry the life of the farm, the roadside and the legends
that were like folklore in the memory of the settlement;
Holmes was a town wit and master of occasional verse, with
notes here and there of a higher strain in single rare poems.
Transcendentalism.
The secondary literature that accompanied the work of
these writers was abundant. It was largely the product of
Transcendentalism and much of it gathered about Emerson.
In The Dial (1840), the organ of Transcendentalism, he
introduced to the public his young friend, Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862), author of Walden (1854) and the father of the
nature-writers, who as a hermit-type has had some European
vogue and shows an increasing hold as an exception among
men, but whose work has little literary distinction; and
together with him, his companion, William Ellery Channing
(1818-1901), a poet who has significance only in the
transcendentalist group. With them should be named Emerson's
coeval, Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), the patriarch of
the so-called Concord philosophers, better esteemed for
his powers of monologue than as a writer in either prose or
verse. Emerson's associate-editor in The Dial was Sarah
Margaret Fuller, afterwards Marchioness d'Ossoli (1810-1850),
a woman of extraordinary qualities and much usefulness, who
is best remembered by her Woman in the Nineteenth Century
(1844), but contributed no permanent work to literature.
She was a leading figure at Brook Farm, the socialistic
community founded by members of the group, and especially by
Ripley, who like her afterwards emigrated to New York and
together with her began a distinguished critical career in
connexion with The New York Tribune. Transcendentalism
produced also its peculiar poet in Jones Very (1813-1881),
whose Poems (1839) have original quality though slight
merit, and its novelist in Sylvester Judd (1813-1853), whose
Margaret (1845) is a unique work in American fiction.
Other transcendentalist poets were Christopher Pearse Cranch
(1813-1892), and Charles Timothy Brooks (1813-1883), who
translated Faust (1856), besides a score of minor names.
Outside of this group Thomas William Parsons (1819-1892), who
translated Dante's Inferno (1843), was a poet of greater
distinction, but his product was slight. The prose of the
movement, though abundant, yielded nothing that is remembered.
History.
The literary life of Boston was, however, by no means confined
within this circle of thought. It was most distinguished
in the field of history, where indeed the writers rivalled
the imaginative authors in public fame. They were, besides
George Bancroft already mentioned, John Gorham Palfrey
(1796-1881), author of The History of New England (1858),
William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859), whose field was
Spanish and Spanish-American history, John Lothrop Motley
(1814- 1877), whose attention was given to Dutch history,
and Jared Sparks (1789-1866), whose work lay in biography.
In the writings of Prescott and Motley the romanticism of
the period is clearly felt, and they attained the highest
distinction in the literary school of history of the period.
Oratory.
Oratory also flourished in Daniel Webster (1782-1852), Edward
Everett (1794-1865), Rufus Choate (1799-1859), Wendell Phillips
(1811-1884), Charles Sumner (1811-1874), and Robert Charles
Winthrop (1809-1894), the last survivor of a long line of
fiery or classic oratory in which New England was especially
distinguished and had rivalry only from Henry Clay (1777-1852)
of Virginia, and John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850) of South
Carolina. The church also produced two powerful speakers in
Theodore Parker (1810-1860), the protagonist of the liberals
in Boston, and Henry Ward Beecher (1813- 1887), who sustained
a liberal form of New England congregationalism in Brooklyn,
New York, where he made Plymouth Church a national pulpit.
Fiction.
The single memorable novel of the period was Mrs Harriet Beecher
Stowe's (1811-1896) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which had a
world-wide vogue; it is the chief contribution of the anti-slavery
movement to American literature and stands for plantation life
in the old south. Another female writer, Mrs Lydia Maria Child
(1802-1880), remembered by her Philothea (1836), deserves
mention in the line of notable American women who served their
generation in literary ways and by devotion to public causes.
Scholarship.
Criticism was served excellently by Edwin Percy Whipple
(1819-1885), and less eminently by Henry Theodore Tuckerman
(1813-1871), who emigrated to New York; but scholarship in
general flourished under the protection of Harvard College,
where Ticknor, Longfellow and Lowell maintained a high ideal of
literary knowledge and judgment in the chair they successively
filled, and were accompanied in English by Francis James Child
(1825-1896), whose English and Scottish Ballads, first
issued in 1858, was brought to its final and monumental form in
1892. Cornelius Conway Felton (1807-1862), president of
Harvard College, stood for Greek culture, but the classical
influence was little in evidence. Elsewhere in New England
George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882) of Vermont, long minister to
Italy, and William Dwight Whitney (1827-1894) of Yale, were
linguistic scholars of high distinction. The development
of the colleges into universities was already prophesied in
the presence and work of these men. Outside of New England
scholarship had been illustrated in New York by Charles Anthon
(1797-1867), the classical editor, by the Duyckincks, Evert
Augustus (1816-1878) and George Long (1823-1863), editors of
the Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1855), and by Giulian
Crommelin Verplanck (1786-1870), editor of Shakespeare (1846).
Characteristics of New England literature.
New England thus, standing somewhat apart, produced a characteristic
literature, more deeply rooted in the community than was the
case elsewhere; and this literature, blending with what was
produced to the south and west, became a predominant share
of what has been nationally accepted as standard American
literature. It is also the more profound and scholarly share;
and if quantity as well as quality be counted, and, as is
proper, Bryant be included as the product of Puritan culture,
it is the more artistic share. American standard literature,
so constituted, belongs to romanticism, and is a phase of the
romanticism which was then the general mood of literature;
but it is a native product, with traits of its own and inward
development from local conditions, not only apparent by its
themes, but by its distinct evolution. Though it owed much
to contact with Europe through its travelled scholars and its
intellectual commerce by means of translations and imported
books, and often dealt with matter detached from America both
in prose and poetry, it was essentially self-contained. It
was, in a marked way, free from the passions whose source
was the French Revolution and its after-throes from 1789 to
1848; it is by this fact that it differs most from European
romanticism. Just as the Puritan Rebellion in England left
the colonies untouched to their own development, the political
revolutions in Europe left the new nation unaffected to its normal
evolution. There was never any revolution, in the French
sense, in America, whether social, political, religious or
literary; its great historical changes, such as the termination
of English rule, the passing away of Puritanism, the abolition
of slavery with the consequent destruction of the old South,
were in a true sense conservative changes, normal phases of new
life. In literature this state of things is reflected in the
absence in it of any disturbance, its serenity of mood, its
air of quiet studies. It is shown especially in its lack of
passion. The only ardours displayed by its writers are moral,
patriotic or religious, and in none of them is there any sense of
conflict. The life which they knew was wholesome, regular,
still free from urban corruption, the experience of a plain,
prosperous and law-abiding people. None of these writers,
though like Hawthorne they might deal with sin or like Poe
with horror and a lover's despair at death, struck any tragic
note. No tragedy was written, no love-poetry, no novel of
passion. No literature is so maiden-pure. It is by refinement
rather than power that it is most distinguished, by taste
and cultivation, by conscientiousness in art, in poetic and
stylistic craft; it is romance retrospectively seen in the
national past, or conjured out of foreign lands by reminiscent
imagination, or symbolically created out of fantasy; and this
is supplemented by poetry of the domestic affections, the
simple sorrows, all "that has been and may be again" in daily
human lives, and by prose similarly related to a well-ordered
life. If it is undistinguished by any work of supreme genius, it
reflects broadly and happily and in enduring forms the national
tradition and character of the land in its dawning century.
The original impulse of this literature had spent its
force by 1861-- that is, before the Civil War. The greater
writers had, in general, already done their characteristic
work, and though the survivors continued to produce till
toward the close of the century, their works contained no
new element and were at most mellow fruits of age. The war
itself, like the Revolution, left little trace in literature
beyond a few popular songs and those occasional poems which
the older poets wrote in the course of the conflict. Their
attitude toward it and (with the exception of Whittier and
Lowell) toward the anti- slavery movement which led up to
it was rather that of citizens than of poets, though in the
verse of Longfellow and Emerson there is the noble stamp
of the hour, the impress of liberty, bravery and sorrow.
Lowell is the exception; he found in the Commemoration Ode
(1865) his loftiest subject and most enduring fame. The
work began to fall into new hands, and a literature since
the war grew up, which was, however, especially in poetry,
a continuation of romanticism and contained its declining
force. It was contributed to from all parts of the older
country, and also from the west, and a generation has now
added its completed work to the sum. No author, in this late
period, has received the national welcome to the same degree
as the men of the elder time; none has had such personal
distinction, eminence or public affection; and none has found
such honourable favour abroad, either in England or on the
continent. Poetry has felt the presence of the art of
Tennyson, which has maintained an extreme sensitiveness
among the poets to artistic requirements of both material and
technique; and it also has taken colour from the later English
schools. It has, however, yielded its pre-eminent position to
prose. The novel has displaced romance as the highest form of
fiction, and the essay has succeeded the review as the form of
criticism. The older colleges have grown into universities,
and public libraries have multiplied throughout the north and
west. The literature of information, meant for the popularization
of knowledge of all kinds, has been put forth in great quantity,
and the annual increase in the production of books keeps
pace with the general growth of the country. Literature of
distinction, however, makes but a small part of this large mass.
Later writers.
In poetry the literary tradition was continued in Boston by
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907), essentially a stylist in
verse, brief, definite, delicate, who carried the lighter
graces of the art, refinement, wit, polish, to a high point of
excellence. His artistic consanguinity is with Herrick and
Landor, and he takes motive and colour for his verse from every
land, as his predecessors had done, but with effects less
rich. He divided attention between drama and lyric, but as
his dramas look strictly to the stage, it is on the lyrics
that his reputation rests. He was master also of an excellent
prose and wrote novels, sketches of travel, and especially
stories, strongly marked by humour, surprise and literary
distinction. In New York, Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908)
became the chief representative of the literary profession.
He was both poet and critic, and won reputation in the former
and the first rank in the latter field. His Victorian
Poets (1875) and Poets of America (1885), followed by
comprehensive anthologies (1894-1900), together with The Nature
and Elements of Poetry (1892), are the principal critical
work of his generation, and indeed the sole work that is
eminent. His verse, less practised as time went on, was well
wrought and often distinguished by flashes of spirited song and
balladry. With him is associated his elder friend, Richard
Henry Stoddard (1825- 1903), who made his appearance before
the Civil War, and whose verse belongs in general character
to the style of that earlier period and is as rapidly
forgotten. Both Stedman and Stoddard were of New England birth,
as was also the third to be mentioned, William Winter (born
1836), better known as the lifelong dramatic critic of the
metropolis. The last of the New York poets of established
reputation, Richard Watson Gilder (b. 1844 in New Jersey;
d. 1909), was at first affiliated with the school of
Rossetti, and his work in general, Five Books of Song
(1894), strongly marked by artistic susceptibility, is in a
high degree refined and delicate. In the country at large
popular success, in England as well as in America, was won
by Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), in Hans Breitmann's
Ballads (1871), humorous poems in the Pennsylvania Dutch
dialect. Born in Philadelphia, he spent the greater part of
his mature life abroad and wrote numerous works on diverse
topics, but his reputation is chiefly connected with his books
on gypsy life and lore. Another foreign resident who deserves
mention was Wilham Wetmore Story (1819-1895), the sculptor, of
Massachusetts, connected with the Boston group, whose verse
and prose gave him the rank of a litterateur. The South
again entered into literature with the work of Sidney Lanier
(1842-1881), in succession to Henry Timrod (1829-1867) and
Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830-1886), who find a place rather
by the affection in which they are held at the South than
by positive merit. Lanier showed originality and a true
poetic gift, but his talents were little effectual. From
the West humorous poetry was produced by Francis Bret Harte
(1839-1902), born in Albany, in The Heathen Chinee (1870)
and similar verse, but he is better remembered as the artistic
narrator of western mining life in his numerous stories and
novels. Verse of a similar kind also first brought into
literary notice John Hay (1838-1905), in Pike County
Ballads (1871), who also wrote in prose; but his reputation
was rather won as a statesman in the closing years of his
life. Minor poets of less distinction but with a vein superior
to that of the earlier period, more excellent in workmanship
and more coloured with imagination and mood, arose in all
parts, of whom the most notable are Julia Ward Howe (born
1819), in Boston, the venerable friend of many good causes,
Henry Howard Brownell (1820-1872) of Rhode Island, author
of the most vigorous and realistic poetry of the Civil War,
War Lyrics (1866), Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887), born
in Connecticut but associated with California, Henry Van Dyke
(born 1852), in New York, better known by his prose in tale
and essay, Silas Weir Mitchell (born 1830), in Philadelphia,
whose repute as a novelist has overshadowed his admirable
verse, Eugene Field (1850-1895) of Chicago, James Whitcomb
Riley (born 1853) of Indiana, both distinguished for their
humorous and childhood verse, and Joaquin Miller (born
1841) of Oregon, whose first work, Songs of the Sierras
(1871), had in it much of the spirit of the wild land, the
colour of the desert, the free, adventurous character of the
filibuster, all strangely mixed with pseudo-Byronic passions.
Whitman.
Apart from all these, whether minor or major poets, stands
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), whose Leaves of Grass (1855) first
appeared before the war, but whose fame is associated rather
with its successive editions and its companion volumes, and
definitely dated, perhaps, from 1867. He received attention
in England, as did Miller, on an assumption that his works
expressed the new and original America, the unknown democracy,
and he has had some vogue in Germany mainly owing to his
naturalism. His own countrymen, however, steadily refuse to
accept him as representative of themselves, and his naturalism
is uninteresting to them, while on the other hand a group
apparently increasing in critical authority treat his work as
significant. It is, in general, only by those few fine lyrics
which have found a place in all anthologies of American verse
that he is well known and highly valued in his own land.
The later novel.
The chief field of literary activity has been found in
the novel, and nowhere has the change been so marked as
here. The romantic treatment of the novel practically
disappeared, and in its place came the realistic or analytic
treatment, rendering manners by minute strokes of observation
or dissecting motives psychologically. This amounted to a
substitution of the French art of fiction, in some of its forms,
for the English tradition of broad ideality and historical
picturesqueness. The protagonist of the reform was William
Dean Howells (born 1837), a cultivated literary scholar, and
a various writer of essays, travel sketches, poetry and plays,
editor of many magazines and books, whose career in letters
has been more laborious and miscellaneous than any other
contemporary, but whose main work has been the long series of
novels that he has put forth almost annually throughout the
period. He not only wrote fiction, but he endeavoured to
make known to Americans fiction as it was practised in other
lands, Russia, Italy, Spain, and to bring the art that was
dearest to him into line with the standard of the European
world. He was an apostle of the realistic school, and directed
his teaching to the advocacy of the novel of observation,
which records life in its conditions and attempts to realize
what is in the daily lives and experience of man rather than
what belongs to adventure, imagination or the dreaming part of
life. Of his works, The Lady of the Aroostook (1879),
The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), A Hazard of New Fortunes
(1889), are characteristic examples. He won a popular vogue,
and if it is now less than it was, it is because after a score
of years tastes and fashions change. The conscientiousness
of his art continues the tradition of American writers in
that respect, and he is master of an affable style. His
work, including all its phases, is the most important body
of work done in his generation. Henry James (born 1843),
who mainly resided abroad, is his compeer, and in a similar
way has followed French initiative. He also has been a
various writer of criticism and travel and the occasional
essay; but his equally long series of novels sustains his
reputation. He has developed the psychological treatment of
fiction, and of his work The Portrait of a Lady (1881),
The Princess Casamassima (1886) and The Tragic Muse
(1890) are characteristic. He has had less vogue owing to
both matter and style, but in certain respects his power,
more intellectual than that of Howells, has greater artistic
elements, while the society with which he deals is more
complex. He is really a cosmopolitan writer and has no other
connexion with America than the accident of birth. A third
novelist, also a foreign resident, Francis Marion Crawford
(1854-1909), falls into the same category. A prolific novelist,
in the beaten track of story-telling, he has always a story
to tell and excellent narrative power. The work regarded
as most important from his hand is Saracinesca (1887) and
its sequels; but his subjects are cosmopolitan, his talent
is personal, and he has no effectual connexion with his own
country. The romantic tradition of the older time was continued
by Lew Wallace (1827-1905) of Indiana, a distinguished general
and diplomat, in his Mexican tale, The Fair God (1873),
and his oriental romances, Ben Hur (1880), one of the most
widely circulated of American books, and The Prince of India
(1893). A mode of the novel which was wholly unique was
practised by Francis Richard Stockton (1834-1902) in his droll
tales, of which Rudder Grange (1879) is the best known.
The principal minor product of the novel lay in the provincial
tale. The new methods easily lent themselves to the portraiture
of local conditions, types and colour. Every part of the
country had its writers who recorded its traits in this
way. For New England Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe described the
older life in Old Town Folks (1869), and was succeeded by
Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) and Mary Eleanor Wilkins (born
1862). The West was notably treated by Edward Eggleston
(1837-1902) in The Hoosier School Master (1871), Mary
Hallock Foote (born 1847) in Led-Horse Claim (1883)
and Hamlin Garland (born 1860) in Main Travelled Roads
(1891). The South was represented by Mary Noailles Murfree
["Charles Egbert Craddock"] (born 1850) in In the Tennessee
Mountains (1884) and its successors, by Thomas Nelson Page
(born 1853) in Marse Chan (1887) and other tales of the
reconstruction in Virginia, and with most literary grace
by George Washington Cable (born 1844), whose novels of
Louisiana are remarkable for their poetic charm. The list is
sufficiently illustrative of the general movement, which made
what was called the dialect novel supreme for the season. This
was succeeded by a revival of the historical novel in local
fields, of which Winston Churchill (born 1871) in Richard
Carvel (1899) is the leading exponent, and together with
it the sword and dagger tale of the Dumas type, the special
contemporary plot invented by Anthony Hope, and romance in
its utmost forms of adventure and extravagance, came in like
a flood at the close of the Spanish War. There were during the
period from 1870 to 1900 many other writers of fiction, who
often proceeded in conventional and time-honoured ways to tell
their tale, but none of them is especially significant for
the general view or as showing any tendencies of an original
sort. The pietistic novel, for example, was produced with
immense popularity by Edward Payson Roe (1838-1888), who shared
the same vogue as Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819-1881), and both
fell heir to the same audience which in the earlier period had
welcomed The Wide, Wide World with the same broad acceptance.
Essayists.
The essay, and the miscellaneous work which may be classed with
it, was cultivated with most distinction by Thomas Wentworth
Higginson (born 1823), one of the Boston group, a writer of
the greatest versatility, as in his life he followed many
employments, from that of preaching in a Unitarian pulpit
to that of commanding a negro regiment in the Civil War. He
has written good verse and excellent prose, and his familiar
style, often brilliant with life and wit, especially becomes
the social essay or reminiscent paper in which he excelled,
and gives agreeableness to his writings in every form.
Atlantic Essays (1871) is a characteristic book; and, in
general, in his volumes is to be found a valuable fund of
reminiscence about the literature and the times of his long
life, not elsewhere so abundant or entertaining. Charles
Dudley Warner (1829-1900) of Hartford, also in close touch
in the later years with the Boston group, was more gifted
with gentle humour and of a literary temperament that made
the social essay his natural expression. He won popularity
by My Summer in a Garden (1870), and was the author of many
volumes of travel and several novels, but the familiar essay,
lighted with humour and touched with a reminiscence of the
Irving quality in sentiment, was his distinctive work. The
long life of Edward Everett Hale (1822- 1909), minister at
Boston, was fruitful in many miscellaneous volumes, including
fiction of note, The Man Without a Country (1868), but the
most useful writing from his pen falls into prose resembling
the essay in its form and manner of address, though cousin,
too, to the sermon. John Burroughs (b. 1837) of New York
carried on in essay form the nature tradition of Thoreau,
touched with Emersonianism in the thought, and after his
example books of mingled observation, sentiment and literary
quality, with an out-of-door atmosphere, have multiplied.
Humour.
American humour often cultivates a form akin to the essay,
but it also falls into the mould of the tale or scene from
life. In the period before the Civil War, to sum up the whole
subject in this place, it had the traits which it has since
maintained, as its local tang, of burlesque, extravaganza,
violence, but it recorded better an actual state of manners
and scene of life in raw aspects. Its noteworthy writers
were Seba Smith (1792-1868) of Maine, author of the Letters
of Major Jack Downing, which began to appear in the press
in 1830; Augustus Baldwin Longstreet of Georgia in Georgia
Scenes (1835); William Tappan Thompson (1812-1882),
born in Ohio but associated with the South by descent and
residence, in Major Jones' Courtship (1840), a Georgian
publication; Joseph G. Baldwin (1815-1864) in Flush Times
in Alabama and Mississippi (1853); and Benjamin Penhallow
Shillaber (1814-1890) in Life and Sayings of Mrs Partington
(1854). A fresh form, attended by whimsicality, appears in
George Horatio Derby's (1823-1861) Phoenixiana (1855). In
the war-times Robert Henry Newell (1836-1901) and David Ross
Locke (1833-1888), respectively known as "Orpheus C. Kerr"
and "Petroleum V. Nasby" cultivated grotesque orthography
in a characteristic vein of wit; and with more quaintness
and drollery Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818-1885) and Charles
Farrar Browne (1834-1867), known as "Josh Billings" and
"Artemus Ward," won immense popularity which extended to
England. These latter writers were men of Northern birth,
but of Western and wandering journalistic experience as a
rule. Their works make up a body of what is known as "American
humour," a characteristic native product of social conditions
and home talent. One poet, John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)
of Vermont, attempted something similar in literary verse
after the style of Tom Hood. The heir to this tradition
of farce, drollery and joke was Samuel Langhorne Clemens
(1835-1910), known as "Mark Twain," born in Missouri, who
raised it to an extraordinary height of success and won
world-wide reputation as a great and original humorist. His
works, however, include a broader compass of fiction, greater
humanity and reality, and ally him to the masters of humorous
creation. Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) of Georgia
introduced a new variety in Nights with Uncle Remus
(1883), which is literary negro folklore, and Finley Peter
Dunne (born 1857) of Chicago, the creator of "Mr Dooley,"
continues the older American style in its original traits.
History.
History was represented in this period with a distinction
not inferior to that of the elder group by Francis Parkman
(1823-1903) of Boston, who, however, really belongs with the
preceding age by his affiliations; his series of histories
fell after the Civil War by their dates of publication, but
they began with History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851);
he was the contemporary of Lowell and differed from the other
members of the elder group, who survived, only by the fact
of the later maturing of his work. He was not less eminent
than Motley and Prescott and his history is of a more modern
type. In the next generation the field of American history
was cultivated by many scholars, and a large part of local
history and of national biography was for the first time
recorded. James Ford Rhodes's (1848) History of the United
States (1892) holds standard rank; the various writings of
John Fiske (1842-1901), distinguished also as a philosophical
writer, in the colonial and revolutionary periods are valued
both for scholarship and for excellent literary style; and
Theodore Roosevelt's (born 1858) The Winning of the West (1889)
and his several biographical studies deserve mention by their
merit as well as for his eminent position. The historians,
however, have seldom sought literary excellence, and their
works belong rather to learning than to literature. The same
statement is true of the scholarship of the universities in
general, where the spirit of literary study has changed. In
the department of scholarship little requires mention beyond
Horace Howard Furness's (born 1833) lifelong work on his
Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, the Shakespearian labours
of Henry Norman Hudson (1814-1886) and Richard Grant White
(1821-1885), the Chaucerian studies of Thomas Raynesford
Lounsbury (born 1838) of Yale, and the translations of Dante
(1867, 1892) by Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908) of Harvard.
Modern ideas.
The period has been one of great literary activity, effort
and ambition, but it affects one by its mass rather than its
details; it presents few eminent names. The romantic motives
fixed in early colonizing history as a taking possession of
the land by a race of Puritans, pioneers, river-voyagers,
backwoodsmen, argonauts, have been exhausted; and no new motives
have been found. The national tradition has been absorbed and
incorporated, so far as literature was able to accomplish
this. The national character on the other hand has been expressed
rather in local types, the colour of isolated communities and
provincial conditions for their picturesque value and human
truth, and in commonplace characters of average life; but no
broadly ideal types of the old English tradition have been
created, and the great scene of life has not been staged after
the manner of the imaginative masters of the past. There
has been no product of ideas since Emerson; he was, indeed,
the sole author who received and fertilized ideas as such,
and he has had no successor. America is, in truth, perhaps
intellectually more remote from Europe than in its earlier
days. The contact of its romanticism with that of Europe
was, as has been seen, imperfect, but its touch with the later
developments and reactions of the movement in Europe is far more
imperfect. With Tolstoy, Ibsen, d'Annunzio, Zola, Nietzsche,
Maeterlinck, Sudermann, the American people can have no
effectual touch; their social tradition and culture make them
impenetrable to the present ideas of Europe as they are current
in literary forms. Nor has anything been developed from within
that is fertile in literature. The political unity of the
nation is achieved, but it is not an integral people in other
respects. It has not the unity of England or France or
even of the general European mind; it rather contains such
disparate elements as characterize the Roman or the Turkish
empire. It is cleft by political tradition and in social
moral conviction, north and south, and by intellectual
strata of culture east and west; it is still a people in the
making. Its literature has been regional, as was said,
centred in New England, New York, Philadelphia, contributed to
sporadically from the South, growing up in Western districts
like Indiana or germinating in Louisville in Kentucky,
abundant in California, but always much dependent on the
culture of its localities; it blends to some extent in the
mind of the national reading public, but not very perfectly.
The universities have not, on the whole, been its sources or
fosterers, and they are now filled with research, useful for
learning but impotent for literature. The intellectual life
is now rather to be found in social, political and natural
science than elsewhere; the imaginative life is feeble,
and when felt is crude; the poetic pulse is imperceptible.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The best general histories of American
literature are by Barrett Wendell (1900) and William P. Trent
(1903). Histories of particular periods or topics, most
serviceable, are M. C. Tyler's History of American Literature
during the Colonial Time (2 vols., 1878), Literary History of
the American Revolution (2 vols., 1897); J. F. Jameson, History
of Historical Writing in America (1891); H. D. Addison, The
Clergy in American Life and Letters (1900); W. H. Venable,
Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley (1891); M.
Nicholson, The Hoosiers (1900); A. H. Smith, Philadelphia
Magazines and their Contributors, 1741-1850 (1892); W. B.
Cairns, Development of American Literature, 1815-1833 (1898);
O. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England (1876); L.
Swift, Brook Farm (1900); T. W. Higginson, Old Cambridge
(1900). The entire field is covered encyclopaedically by
Stedman and Hutchinson, Library of American Literature (11
vols., 1888-1890) and the Duyckincks, Cyclopaedia (3rd
ed., 1875), and portions of it in R. W. Griswold's successive
collections, Poets and Poetry or America (1842), Prose
Writers of America (1847), Female Poets of America (1848);
Trent and Wells, Colonial Prose and Poetry (3 vols., 1901);
Louise Manly, Southern Literature (1900), and E. C. Stedman,
American Anthology (1900). The American Men of Letters
series (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston) and the English Men
of Letters, American Series (Macmillan, New York), present
the biographical and critical view in general, to which may
be added E. C. Stedman, Poets of America (1885); W. C.
Lawton, The New England Poets (1898), and G. E. Woodberry,
America in Literature (1903). Detailed and admirable
bibliographies for all aspects of the subject are to be found
in Wendell's and Trent's Histories, and abundant and minute
biographical detail in Stedman's indexes of authors in his
collections. See also the separate bibliographies to the
articles in this work on each individual writer. (G. E. W.)
AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1775-1781). This war, by
which the United States definitely separated themselves from
the British connexion, began with the affair of Lexington in
Massachusetts, on the 19th of April 1773, and was virtually ended
by the capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, on the
l0th of October 1781. In this article the progress of the war
itself is alone considered, its political side being treated
under UNITED STATES: History. From a military standpoint
as well as politically it was a conspicuous and instructive
conflict,--conspicuous, or even unique, as being the most
famous struggle in history where colonial dependencies defeated
their powerful parent state, and instructive as presenting
exceptional conditions and consequent errors in the attempt to
break down the revolt. The reasons for Great Britain's failure
appear in the progress of the war, which assumed two distinct
stages, operations in the north followed by operations in the
south. In point of time and energy military activity was
about equally divided between these two fields. As the
naval operations in connexion with the war have a European
interest as well, they are dealt with in a separate section.
Land operations.
To strike at the rebellion first in the north was natural and
inevitable. To King George and his ministry, Massachusetts
was the hotbed of disloyalty, the head and front of opposition
to their colonial policy, and there coercion should begin.
It was also a convenient point for a prompt display of
authority, as the town of Boston was the headquarters of General
Gage, recently appointed royal governor of Massachusetts
and commander of the king's troops in North America. He had
with him four regiments of regulars, the initial force with
which to overawe the restless and defiant population in his
vicinity. While Gage is to be credited with advising his
government that not less than 20,000 men would be necessary
for the work in hand, he proceeded at once to suppress
demonstrations around Boston. His principal expedition
brought about the skirmish of the 19th of April 1775 (see
LEXINGTON), in which a detachment sent to seize some military
stores collected at Concord suffered heavily at Lexington,
Concord and other places, at the hands of the surrounding
militia. This encounter roused the New England colonies,
and in a few days some 16,000 of their townsmen marched
in small bands upon Boston to protest against and resist
further similar incursions; and in this irregular body we
have the nucleus of the colonial forces which carried the war
through. A noteworthy incident of the Concord affair, and
characteristic of the attitude which the provincials had
maintained and continued to maintain for another year, was
the official representation to the king by the Massachusetts
people that the regulars were the first to fire upon them,
and that they returned the fire and fought through the day
in strict defence of their rights and homes as Englishmen.
They repeated their professions of loyalty to his majesty
and the principles of the English Constitution. Conscious,
nevertheless, that a struggle impended, they instantly
sent word to all the other colonies, whose whig elements
sympathetically responded to the alarm. The war had opened.
Bunker Hill.
The home government extended its precautions and preparations.
General (Sir) William Howe, who succeeded Gage in the chief
command in October, and Generals (Sir) Henry Clinton and John
Burgoyne were sent out at once with reinforcements. Cornwallis
followed a year later. These four generals were identified
with the conduct of the principal operations on the side of
the British. The force at Boston was increased to 10,000
men. The American Congress at Philadelphia, acting for all
the thirteen colonies, voted general defensive measures,
called out troops and appointed George Washington of Virginia
commander-in-chief. Before he reached the camp forming
around Boston, a second and more important collision took
place. On the 17th of June 1775 occurred the battle of Bunker
Hill (q.v.), in which, although victorious, the British
suffered heavily, losing one-third of their force in storming
the hastily constructed lines of the "rebels." The latter's
most serious loss was that of General Joseph Warren, one
of the prominent leaders of the revolutionary movement in
Massachusetts. In moral effect the battle proved anything
but a defeat to the Americans, who now drew a cordon of works
around Boston, hemming Howe's army in a contracted, and, as it
proved, untenable, position. On the 3rd of July Washington
took command of the American army at Cambridge and proceeded
with what is known as the "siege of Boston," which was marked
by no special incident, and closed with the evacuation of the
town by the British on the 17th of March 1776, Howe sailing
away to Halifax, Nova Scotia. While the main interest centred
at this point, the year 1775 was marked by two enterprises
elsewhere. Fort Ticonderoga, the key to the passage of Lakes
George and Champlain to Canada, was surprised and taken on the
10th of May by a small band under Colonel Ethan Allen, while
Colonel Benedict Arnold headed an expedition through the Maine
woods to effect the capture of Quebec, where Sir Guy Carleton
commanded. Arnold joined General Richard Montgomery, who
was already near the city, and the combined force assaulted
Quebec on the 31st of December, only to meet with complete
defeat. Montgomery was killed and many of his men taken
prisoners. Demonstrations against Canada were soon discontinued,
Arnold drawing off the remnant of his army in May 1776.
The events of 1775, though favourable to America, were but
a prelude to the real struggle to come. For the campaign
of 1776 both sides made extensive preparations. To the home
government the purely military problem, although assuming
larger dimensions and more difficulties, still seemed to
admit of a simple solution, namely, to strike hard where
the rebellion was most active and capable of the longest
resistance. Defeated there, it would quickly dissipate in all
quarters. As much more than one-half of the population and
resources of the colonists lay north of Chesapeake Bay--New
England alone having an estimated population of over 700,000
persons--it was only a question as to what point in this
area should be made the future base of operations. Largely
upon the representations of Howe, Burgoyne and others, it
was determined to shift the field from Boston to New York
city, from there to hold the line of the Hudson river in
co-operation with a force to move down from Canada under Carleton
and Burgoyne, and thus effectually to isolate New England.
Long Island.
Upon this plan the new campaign opened in June 1776.
Howe, heavily reinforced from home, sailed on the 10th from
Halifax to New York and on the 5th of July encamped on Staten
Island. Washington, anticipating this move, had already
marched from Boston and fortified the city. His left flank
was thrown across the East river beyond the village of
Brooklyn, while his front and right on the harbour and North
or Hudson river were open to a combined naval and military
attack. The position proved untenable. Howe drove Washington
out of it, and forced the abandonment of the whole of Manhattan
Island by three well-directed movements upon the American
left. On the 22nd of August he crossed the Narrows to the
Long Island shore with 15,000 troops, increasing the number to
20,000 on the 25th, and on the 27th surprised the Americans,
driving them into their Brooklyn works and inflicting a loss
of about 1400 men. Among the prisoners were Generals J.
Sullivan and W. Alexander, soi-distant earl of Stirling. (See
LONG ISLAND.) Howe has been criticized, rightly or wrongly,
for failing to make full use of his victory. Washington
skilfully evacuated his Brooklyn lines on the night of the
29th, and in a measure relieved the depression which the
defeat had produced in his army. On the 15th of September
Howe crossed the East river above the city, captured 300
of the militia defending the lines and occupied the city.
Washington had withdrawn his main army to the upper part of the
island. A skirmish, fought the next day, opposite the west
front of the present Columbia University, and known as the
affair of Harlem Heights, cost the British a loss of seventy
of their light infantry. Delaying until the 12th of October,
Howe again moved forward by water into Westchester county,
and marching toward White Plains forced another retreat on
Washington. In the fight on Chatterton Hill at the Plains,
on the 28th of October, an American brigade was defeated.
Fort Washington.
Instead of pressing Washington further, Howe then returned to
Manhattan Island, and on the 16th of November captured Fort
Washington with nearly 3000 prisoners. This was the heaviest
blow to the Americans throughout the war in the north. The
British then pushed down through New Jersey with designs on
Philadelphia. Washington, still retreating with a constantly
diminishing force, suddenly turned upon Lieutenant-Colonel
Rall's advanced corps of Hessians at Trenton on the 26th of
December and captured nearly 1000 prisoners. This brilliant
exploit was followed by another on the 3rd of January, when
Washington, again crossing the Delaware, outmarched Cornwallis
at Trenton, and marching to his rear defeated three British
regiments and three companies of light cavalry at Princeton,
New Jersey. Marching on to Morristown, Washington encamped
there on the flank of the British advance in New Jersey, thus
ending the first campaign fought on the new issue of American
Independence, which had been declared on the 4th of July 1776.
Branywine.
While these closing successes inspirited the Americans, it
was undeniable that the campaign had gone heavily against
them. Having raised a permanent force for the war called the
Continental Line, they awaited further operations of the enemy.
Following up the occupation of New York, Howe proceeded in 1777
to capture Philadelphia. Complete success again crowned his
movements. Taking his army by sea from New York to the head
of the Chesapeake, he marched up into Pennsylvania, whither
Washington had repaired to watch him, and on the 26th of
September entered the city. The Americans attempted to check
the advance of the British at the river Brandywine, where an
action occurred on the 11th, resulting in their defeat (see
BRANDYWINE); and on the 4th of October Washington directed a
well-planned attack upon the enemy's camp at Germantown on the
outskirts of the city, but failed of success. (See GERMANTOWN.)
Howe's victorious progress in Pennsylvania was neutralized by
disasters farther north. Burgoyne marched from Canada in June
1777, with a strong expeditionary force, to occupy Albany
and put himself in touch with Howe at the other end of the
Hudson. Driving the Americans under General Arthur St Clair out
of Ticonderoga, and making his way through the deep woods with
difficulty, he reached the Hudson at Fort Edward on the 30th of
July. General Philip Schuyler, commanding the Americans in
that quarter, retreated to Stillwater, 30 m. above Albany,
barricading the roads and impeding Burgoyne's progress.
Dissatisfaction with his conduct led Congress to replace him
in command by General Gates. On the 13th of August Burgoyne
despatched a force to Bennington, Vermont, under the German
colonel Friedrich Baum, to capture stores and overawe the
country. On the 16th Baum was attacked by General John
Stark with the militia from the surrounding country, and was
overwhelmed. Colonel Breyman, marching to his relief, was
also routed. The misfortune cost the British 1000 men.
Saratoga.
Equally unfortunate was the fate of an expedition sent
under Colonel Barry St Leger to co-operate with Burgoyne
by way of the Mohawk Valley. On the 6th of August he was
met at Oriskany by General Nicholas Herkimer and forced to
retreat. Despite these disasters Burgoyne pushed south to
Stillwater, where he was defeated by Gates's improvised army
of continentals and militia in two battles on the 19th of
September (Freeman's Farm) and the 7th of October (Bemis's
Height). On the 17th he was forced to surrender. (See SARATOGA,
BATTLE OF.) This disaster was followed by the alliance between
America and France in 1778, and later by the addition of
Spain to England's enemies--events of far-reaching importance.
A movement of importance, in 1778-79, was the expedition
of George Rogers Clark, under the authority of the state of
Virginia, against the British posts in the north-west. With
a company of volunteers Clark captured Kaskaskia, the chief
post in the Illinois country, on the 4th of July 1778, and
later secured the submission of Vincennes, which, however, was
recaptured by General Henry Hamilton, the British commander at
Detroit. In the spring of 1779 Clark raised another force,
and recaptured Vincennes from Hamilton. This expedition
did much to free the frontier from Indian raids, gave
the Americans a hold upon the north-west, of which their
diplomats duly took advantage in the peace negotiations,
and later, by giving the states a community of interest
in the western lands, greatly promoted the idea of union.
In 1778 Sir Henry Clinton succeeded Howe in the chief command in
America. With fewer resources than his predecessor had disposed
of, he could accomplish practically nothing in the north.
In June 1778 he evacuated Philadelphia, with the intention of
concentrating his force at New York. Washington, who had passed
the winter at Valley Forge, overtook him at Monmouth, N.J., and
in an action on the 28th of June both armies suffered about equal
loss. Thereafter (except in the winter of 1779, at Morristown)
Washington made West Point on the Hudson the headquarters of
his army, but Clinton avowed himself too weak to attack him
there. In 1779 he attempted to draw Washington out of the
Highlands, with the result that in the manoeuvres he lost
the garrison at Stony Point, 700 strong, the position being
stormed by Wayne with the American light infantry on the 16th of
July. During the summer General John Sullivan marched with
a large force against the Indians (all the Iroquois tribes
except the Oneidas and part of the Tuscaroras siding with the
British during the war) and against the Loyalists of western
New York, who had been committing great depredations along the
frontier; and on the 29th of August he inflicted a crushing
defeat upon them at Newtown, on the site of the present
Elmira. In addition several Indian villages and the crops of the
Indians were destroyed in the lake region of western New York.
Meanwhile the co-operation of the French became active. In
July Count Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island. That
place had been occupied by the British from 1776 to the close of
1779. An unsuccessful attempt was made to drive them out in
1778 by the Americans assisted by the French admiral d'Estaing
and a French corps. The year 1780 is also marked by the
treason of General Benedict Arnold (q.v.), and the consequent
execution of Major Andre. Minor battles and skirmishes
occurred until in August 1781 Washington conceived the project
of a combined American-French attack on Cornwallis at Yorktown,
Va., the success of which was decisive of the war (see below).
Campaign in Georgia.
The inadequate results of the British campaigns against the
northern colonies in 1776 and 1777 led the home government
to turn its attention to the weaker colonies in the south.
Operations in the north were not to cease, but a powerful
diversion was now to be undertaken in the south with a view
to the complete conquest of that section. Success there would
facilitate further movements in the north. An isolated attack
on Charleston, South Carolina, had been made by Sir Henry
Clinton and Sir Peter Parker as early as June 1776, but this was
foiled by the spirited resistance of General William Moultrie;
after 1778 the southern attempts, stimulated in part by the
activity of the French in the West Indies, were vigorously
sustained. On the 29th of December of this year Colonel
Archibald Campbell (1739- 1791) with an expeditionary corps of
3500 men from Clinton's army in New York, captured Savannah,
Georgia, defeating the American force under General Robert
Howe. In the following month he pushed into the interior
and occupied Augusta. General Benjamin Lincoln, succeeding
Howe, undertook to drive the British out of Georgia, but
General Augustine Prevost, who had commanded in Florida,
moved up and compelled Lincoln to retire to Charleston.
Prevost, making Savannah his headquarters, controlled
Georgia. In September 1779 he was besieged by Lincoln in
conjunction with a French naval and military force under Admiral
d'Estaing, but successfully repelled an assault (October 9), and
Lincoln again fell back to Charleston. In this assault Count
Casimir Pulaski, on the American side, was mortally wounded.
Charleston.
The prestige thus won by the British in the south in 1779
was immensely increased in the following year, when they
victoriously swept up through South and North Carolina.
Failing, as stated, to achieve any advantage in the north in
1779, Sir Henry Clinton, under instructions from government,
himself headed a combined military and naval expedition
southward. He evacuated Newport, R.I. (October 25), left New
York in command of the German general Wilhelm von Knyphausen,
and in December sailed with 8500 men to join Prevost at
Savannah. Cornwallis accompanied him, and later Lord Rawdon
joined him with an additional force. Marching upon Charleston,
Clinton cut off the city from relief, and after a brief
siege, compelled Lincoln to surrender on the 12th of May. (See
CHARLESTON.) The loss of this place and of the 3000 troops
included in the surrender was a serious blow to the American
cause. The apparent submission of South Carolina followed.
In June Clinton returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis
in command, with instructions to reduce North Carolina
also. Meanwhile an active and bitter partisan warfare
opened. The British advance had been marked by more than
the usual destruction of war; the Loyalists rose to arms;
the whig population scattered and without much organization
formed groups of riflemen and mounted troopers to harass the
enemy. Little mercy was shown on either side. The dashing
rider, Colonel Banastre Tarleton, cut to pieces (April
14, 1780) a detachment of Lincoln's cavalry, and followed
it up by practically destroying Buford's Virginia regiment
near the North Carolina border. On the other hand, daring
and skilful leaders such as Francis Marion and Thomas
Sumter kept the spirit of resistance alive by their sudden
attacks and surprises of British outposts. Hanging Rock,
Ninety-Six, Rocky Mount and other affairs brought their
prowess and devotion into notice. By the month of August
1780, with the main British force encamped near the North
Carolina line, the field seemed clear for the next advance.
Camden.
The threatening situation in the Carolinas alarmed Congress and
Washington and measures were taken to protect the distressed
section. Before Cornwallis could be brought to bay he was
faced successively by four antagonists--Generals Gates,
Greene, Lafayette and Washington. They found in him the most
capable and dangerous opponent of the war. Greene called
him "the modern Hannibal." With Lincoln's surrender of nearly
all the continental soldiers in the south, a new force had to
be supplied to meet the British veterans. Two thousand men,
mainly the Maryland line, were hurried down from Washington's
camp under Johann de Kalb; Virginia and North Carolina put
new men into the field, and the entire force was placed under
command of General Gates. Gates marched towards Camden, S.C.,
and on the 16th of August encountered Cornwallis near that
place. Each army by a night march attempted a surprise of the
other, but the British tactics prevailed, and Gates was utterly
routed. The reputation he had won at Saratoga was ruined on
the occasion by over-confidence and incompetence. De Kalb
was killed in the action. General Greene, standing next
to Washington as the ablest and most trusted officer of the
Revolution, succeeded Gates. Cornwallis marched leisurely
into North Carolina, but before meeting Greene some months
later he suffered the loss of two detachments sent at intervals
to disperse various partisan corps of the Americans. On the
7th of October 1780 a force of 1100 men under Major Patrick
Ferguson was surrounded at King's Mountain, S.C., near the
North Carolina line, by bands of riflemen under Colonels
Isaac Shelby, James Williams, William Campbell and others,
and after a desperate fight on the wooded and rocky slopes,
surrendered. Ferguson himself was killed. On the 17th of
January 1781 General Daniel Morgan was attacked at Cowpens,
south-west of King's Mountain, by Colonel Tarleton with his
legion. Both were leaders of repute, and a most stirring
action occurred in which Morgan, with Colonel William
Washington leading his cavalry, practically destroyed Tarleton's
corps. Despite the weakening his army suffered by these
losses, Cornwallis marched rapidly through North Carolina,
giving Greene a hard chase nearly to the Virginia line.
Guilford Court House.
On the 15th of March the two armies met at Guilford Court
House (near the present Greensboro, N.C.), and a virtually
drawn battle was fought. The British, by holding their ground
with their accustomed tenacity when engaged with superior
numbers, were tactically victors, but were further weakened by
a loss of nearly 600 men. Greene, cautiously avoiding another
Camden, retreated with his forces intact. With his small
army, less than 2000 strong, Cornwallis declined to follow
Greene into the back country, and retiring to Hillsborough,
N.C., raised the royal standard, offered protection to the
inhabitants, and for the moment appeared to be master of
Georgia and the two Carolinas. In a few weeks, however, he
abandoned the heart of the state and marched to the coast
at Wilmington, N.C., to recruit and refit his command.
At Wilmington the British general faced a serious problem,
the solution of which upon his own responsibility unexpectedly
led to the close of the war within seven months. Instead of
remaining in Carolina he determined to march into Virginia,
justifying the move on the ground that until Virginia was reduced
he could not firmly hold the more southern states he had just
overrun. This decision was subsequently sharply criticized
by Clinton as unmilitary, and as having been made contrary
to his instructions. To Cornwallis he wrote in May: "Had
you intimated the probability of your intention, I should
certainly have endeavoured to stop you, as I did then as
well as now consider such a move likely to be dangerous to
our interests in the Southern Colonies." The danger lay in
the suddenly changed situation in that direction; as General
Greene, instead of following Cornwallis to the coast, boldly
pushed down towards Camden and Charleston, S.C., with a
view to drawing his antagonist after him to the points where
he was the year before, as well as to driving back Lord
Rawdon, whom Cornwallis had left in that field. In his main
object, the recovery of the southern states, Greene succeeded
by the close of the year; but not without hard fighting and
repeated reverses. "We fight, get beaten, and fight again,"
were his words. On the 25th of April 1781 he was surprised
in his camp at Hobkirk's Hill, near Camden, by Lord Rawdon
and defeated, both sides suffering about an equal loss.
Eutaw Springs.
On the 22nd of May he attempted to storm the strong British
post at Ninety-Six but was repulsed; and finally on the 8th
of September he fought the last battle of the war in the
lower southern states at Eutaw Springs, S.C. In the first
part of the action Greene was successful after a desperate
conflict; in the pursuit, however, the Americans failed to
dislodge the British from a stone house which they held,
and their severe loss in both engagements was over 500
men. The British lost about 1000, one-half of whom were
prisoners. Better success attended the American partisan
operations directed by Greene and conducted by Marion,
Sumter, Andrew Pickens, Henry Lee and William Washington.
They fell upon isolated British posts established to protect
the Loyalist population, and generally captured or broke them
up. Rawdon found himself unable with his diminishing
force to cover the country beyond Charleston; and he fell
back to that place, leaving the situation in the south as
it had been in the early part of 1780. On the American
side, Greene was hailed as the deliverer of that section.
Virginia campaign.
Cornwallis, meantime, pursued his Virginia project. Leaving
Wilmington, N.C., on the 25th of April 1781, he reached
Petersburg on the 20th of May. There he found British
detachments, 2000 strong, composed of troops whom Clinton
had sent down separately under Generals Benedict Arnold and
William Phillips to establish a base in the Chesapeake, as
a diversion in favour of the operations of Cornwallis in the
Carolinas. Virginia at the moment presented a clear field
to the British, and they overran the state as far north as
Fredericksburg and west to Charlottesville. At the latter
place Jefferson, governor of the state, barely escaped
capture by Tarleton's men. A small American force under
Lafayette, whom Wayne reinforced during the summer, partially
checked the enemy. At Green Spring, near Jamestown Island,
Lafayette boldly attacked his antagonist on the 6th of
July, but had to save himself by a hasty retreat. Early
in August Cornwallis retired to Yorktown to rest and await
developments. There he fortified himself, and remained until
the American-French military and naval combination, referred to
above, appeared and compelled his surrender. (See YORKTOWN.)
With this event war operations ceased. Preliminary articles
of peace, signed on the 30th of November 1782, were followed
by a definitive treaty concluded on the 3rd of September
1783. Charleston, S.C., was evacuated late in 1782; New
York on the 25th of November 1783. The reasons of Great
Britain's misfortunes and failure may be summarized as
follows:--Misconception by the home government of the
temper and reserve strength of her colonists, a population
mainly of good English blood and instincts; disbelief at the
outset in the probability of a protracted struggle covering
the immense territory in America; consequent failure to
despatch sufficient forces to the field; the safe and Fabian
generalship of Washington; and finally, the French alliance
and European combinations by which at the close of the
conflict England was without a friend or ally on the continent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The most exhaustive reference work for
this period is vol. vi. of Winsor's Narrative and Critical
History of America (Boston, 1887). Its nine chapters,
prepared by different writers, give a complete review of the
struggle, both military and naval, and each closes with
numerous illustrative notes, editorial criticisms and a full
list of authorities. The volume is interspersed, far more
extensively and richly than any other treatise on the war,
with reproductions of contemporary plans, maps, documents,
portraits and prints. Supplementing Winsor and bringing
the material down to recent date is Prof. C. H. Van Tyne's
American Revolution (Harper's "Am. Nation" Series, New
York, 1905), chap. xviii., on bibliographical aids and
authorities. General histories of the war are mainly of
American authorship, such as: George Bancroft's History of
the United States (Boston, 1883-1885) which, in spite of minor
errors of fact and judgment, will remain standard; J. Fiske's
American Revolution (2 vols., Boston, 1891); Carrington's
Battles of the American Revolution (New York, 1876) is a
critical study by a military officer; L. J. Lossing's Pictorial
Field Book of the Revolution (2 vols., New York, 1850-1859),
not always accurate, but preserves local traditions and
details. Monographs on single events or campaigns abound:
Dawson's papers on Ticonderoga, "Storming of Stony Point,"
&c. (New York, 1866-); Johnston's "Campaign of 1776 around
New York" (L. I. Hist. Soc., 1877), "Yorktown Campaign" New
York, 1881), &c.; Sargent's Life of Major John Andre
(Boston, 1861), one of the best of Revolutionary biographies:
Gen. William Stryker's Battles of Trenton and Princeton
(Boston, 1898); and others mentioned in Winsor and Van Tyne.
English works of importance are Lord Mahon's History of England,
vol. vi.; Sir George O. Trevelyan's American Revolution
(New York and London; vol. i., 1899; 4 vols. published,
1908), a new study of cabinet and parliamentary politics of
the period, with review of the military events; Hon. J. W.
Fortescue, History of the British Army, vol. iii. (1902);
Stedman's American War (2 vols., 1794); Col. Tarleton's
Southern Campaigns, 1780-1781 (London, 1787); the pamphlet
controversy between Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis
(1783), see Winsor, vi., p. 516, n.; Burgoyne's State of the
Expedition from Canada in 1777 (London, 1780). (H. P. J.*)
Effect of sea-power.
The naval operations of the War of Independence divide
themselves naturally into two periods. (1) From 1775 till the
summer of 1778 the British navy was engaged in co-operating
with the troops employed against the insurgents, on the
coasts, rivers and lakes of North America, or in endeavouring
to protect British commerce against the enterprise of American
privateers. (2) During the second period the successive
interventions of France, Spain and Holland extended the
naval war till it ranged from the West Indies to the Bay of
Bengal. This second period lasted from the summer of 1778
to the middle of 1783, and it included both such operations
as had already been in progress in America, or for the
protection of commerce, and naval campaigns on a great
scale carried out by the fleets of the maritime powers.
First Period.--The history of the naval war from 1775
to 1778 was made up of many small operations. The naval
force at the disposal of the admirals commanding on the
station, who until Lord Howe took up the command on the 12th
of July 1776 were Samuel Graves and Molyneux Shuldham, was
insufficient to patrol the long line of coast. A large part
of such squadrons as there were was necessarily limited to
aiding General Gage and Sir W. Howe at Boston, in seeking
stores for the army and in supplying naval brigades. At
other points of the coast the British navy was employed in
punitive expeditions against the coast towns--as for example
the burning of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) in October
1775--which served to exasperate, rather than to weaken the
enemy, or the unsuccessful attack on Charleston, S.C., in June
1776. It was wholly unequal to the task of blockading
the many towns from which privateers could be fitted
out. British commerce therefore suffered severely, even as
far off as the Irish coasts, where it was found necessary
to supply convoy to the Belfast linen trade. The Americans
were not yet in a position to provide a fleet. On the 23rd
of March 1776 Congress did indeed issue letters of marque and
reprisal, and efforts were made to fit out a national force.
But the so-called "continental" vessels which sailed with the
commission of the Congress hardly differed in character, or
in the nature of their operations, from the privateers. The
British navy was able to cover the retreat of the army from
Boston to Halifax in April 1776, and to convey it to New York in
June. It assisted in the expedition to Philadelphia in July
1777. On the St Lawrence and the Lakes it was able to play
a more aggressive part. The relief of Quebec by Captain-
-afterwards Sir Charles--Douglas in May 1776 forced the
American general Arnold to retreat. The destruction of his
squadron on Lake Champlain in October covered the frontier
of Canada, and supplied a basis for the march of General
Burgoyne in 1777 which ended in the surrender at Saratoga.
Second Period.--The disaster at Saratoga was followed in
1778 by war with France, which had already given much private
help to the American privateers and to their forces in the
field. The rupture came in March when the British ambassador,
Lord Stormont, was recalled from Paris, but as neither fleet
was ready for service, actual conflict did not take place till
July. The French government was somewhat more ready than the
British. On the 13th of April it despatched a squadron of
twelve sail of the line and four frigates from Toulon to
America under the command of the Count d'Estaing. As no
attempt was made to stop him in the Straits of Gibraltar, he
passed them on the 16th of May, and though the rawness of his
crews and his own error in wasting time in pursuit of prizes
delayed his passage, he reached the mouth of the Delaware
on the 8th of July unopposed. The French government, which
by the fault of the British administration was allowed to
take the offensive, had three objects in view--to help the
Americans, to expel the British from the West Indies and
to occupy the main strength of the naval forces of Great
Britain in the Channel. Therefore a second and more powerful
fleet was fitted out at Brest under the command of the Count
d'Orvilliers. The British government, having neglected to
occupy the Straits of Gibraltar in time, despatched Admiral
Byron from Plymouth on the 9th of June with thirteen sail of
the line to join Admiral (Lord) Howe, Sir William's brother,
in America, and collected a strong force at home, called the
Western Squadron, under Viscount Keppel. Keppel, after a
preliminary cruise in June, brought d'Orvilliers to action
off Brest on the 27th of July. The fleets were equal and
the action was indecisive,--as the two forces merely passed
one another, cannonading. A violent quarrel exacerbated by
political differences broke out among the British commands,
which led to two courts-martial and to the resignation of
Keppel, and did great injury to the discipline of the
navy. No further event of note occurred in European waters.
On the coast of America the news of the approach of d'Estaing
compelled the British commanders to evacuate Philadelphia
on the 18th of June. Howe then concentrated his force of
nine small line-of-battle ships at Sandy Hook on the 29th of
June, and on the 11th of July he learnt that d'Estaing was
approaching. The French admiral did not venture to make an
attack, and on the 22nd of July sailed to co-operate with the
Americans in an endeavour to expel the British garrison from
Rhode Island. Howe, who had received a small reinforcement,
followed. The French admiral, who had anchored above Newport,
R.I., came to sea to meet him, but both fleets were scattered by
storms. D'Estaing sailed to Boston on the 21st of August.
Howe received no help from Byron, whose badly appointed fleet
was damaged and scattered by a gale on the 3rd of July in
mid-Atlantic. His ships dropped in by degrees during September.
Howe resigned on the 25th of that month, and was succeeded by
Byron. The approach of winter made a naval campaign on the coast
of North America dangerous. The operations of naval forces in
the New World were largely dictated by the facts that from June
to October are the hurricane months in the West Indies, while
from October to June includes the stormy winter of the northern
coast. On the 4th of November d'Estaing sailed for the West
Indies, on the very day that Commodore William Hotham was
despatched from New York to reinforce the British fleet in those
waters. On the 7th of September the French governor of
Martinique, the marquis de Bouille, had surprised the British
island of Dominica. Admiral Samuel Barrington, the British
admiral in the Leeward Islands, had retaliated by seizing
Santa Lucia on the 13th and 14th of December after the arrival
of Hotham from North America. D'Estaing, who followed Hotham
closely, was beaten off in two feeble attacks on Barrington
at the Cul-de-Sac of Santa Lucia on the 15th of December.
On the 6th of January 1779 Admiral Byron reached the West
Indies. During the early part of this year the naval forces
in the West Indies were mainly employed in watching one
another. But in June, while Byron had gone to Antigua to guard
the trade convoy on its way home, d'Estaing first captured
St Vincent, and then on the 4th of July Grenada. Admiral
Byron, who had returned, sailed in hopes of saving the island,
but arrived too late. An indecisive action was fought off
Grenada on the 6th of July. The war now died down in the West
Indies. Byron returned home in August. D'Estaing, after
co-operating unsuccessfully with the Americans in an attack on
Savannah, in September also returned to Europe. In European
waters the Channel had been invaded by a combined French and
Spanish fleet of sixty-six sail of the line, Spain having now
joined the coalition against Great Britain. Only thirty-five
sail of the line could be collected against them under the
command of Sir Charles Hardy. But they came late and did
nothing. The allies retired early in September and were
not even able to molest the British trade convoys. In the
meantime the Spaniards had formed the siege of Gibraltar.
So far the British navy had stood on the defensive, without
material loss except in the West Indies, but without
triumph. The operations of 1780 went on much the same lines.
The British government, not feeling strong enough to blockade
Brest and the Spanish ports, was compelled to regulate its
movements by those of its opponents. In the Channel it was
saved from disaster by the ineptitude of the French and Spanish
fleets. The only real success achieved by this numerically
imposing force was the capture on the 8th and 9th of August
of a large British convoy of ships bound for the East and
West Indies carrying troops. But on the American coast and in
the West Indies more vigour was displayed. Early in the year
Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot was sent to take command in North
America. On the French side the count de Guichen was sent
with reinforcements to the West Indies to take command of the
ships left in the previous year by d'Estaing. He arrived in
March, and was able to confine the small British force under
Sir Hyde Parker at Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia. In May M.
d'Arzac de Ternay was sent from Brest with seven line-of-battle
ships, and a convoy carrying 6000 French troops to act with the
Americans. He had a brush with a small British force under
Cornwallis near Bermuda on the 20th of June, and reached Rhode
Island on the 11th of July. During the rest of the year, and
part of the next, the British and French naval forces in North
American waters remained at their respective headquarters,
New York and Newport, watching one another. The West Indies
was again the scene of the most important operations of the
year. In February and March a Spanish force from New Orleans,
under Don Bernardo de Galvez, invaded West Florida with
success. But the allies made no further progress. At the
close of 1779 Sir George Rodney had been appointed to command
a large naval force which was to relieve Gibraltar, then
closely blockaded, and send stores to Minorca. Rodney was to
go on to the West Indies with part of the fleet. He sailed
on the 29th of December 1779 with the trade for the West
Indies under his protection, captured a Spanish convoy on his
way off Finisterre on the 8th of January, defeated a smaller
Spanish force near Cape St Vincent on the 16th, relieved
Gibraltar on the 19th, and left for the West Indies on the
13th of February. On the 27th of March he joined Sir Hyde
Parker at Santa Lucia, and Guichen retired to Fort Royal in
Martinique. Until July the fleets of Rodney and Guichen, of
equal strength, were engaged in operations round the island of
Martinique. The British admiral endeavoured to force on a close
engagement. But in the first encounter on the 17th of April
to leeward of the island, Rodney's orders were not executed
by his captains, and the action was indecisive. He wished to
concentrate on the rear of the enemy's line, but his captains
scattered themselves along the French formation. In two
subsequent actions, on the 15th and 19th of May, to windward of
Martinique, the French admiral would not be brought to close
action. The arrival of a Spanish squadron of twelve ships
of the line in June gave a great numerical superiority to
the allies, and Rodney retired to Gros Islet Bay in Santa
Lucia. But nothing decisive occurred. The Spanish fleet
was in bad health, the French much worn-out. The first
went on to Havana, the second to San Domingo. In July,
on the approach of the dangerous hurricane season, Rodney
sailed for North America, reaching New York on the 14th of
September. Guichen returned home with the most worn-out of his
ships. On the 6th of December Rodney was back at Barbadoes
from the North American station, where he was not able to
effect anything against the French in Narragansett Bay.
The rambling operations of the naval war till the close
of 1780-- directed by the allies to such secondary objects
as the capture of West Indian islands, or of Minorca and
Gibraltar, and by Great Britain to defensive movements--began
to assume a degree of coherence in 1781. Holland having now
joined the allies, the British government was compelled to
withdraw part of its fleet from other purposes to protect
the North Sea trade. A desperate battle was fought on the
Dogger Bank on the 5th of August between Sir Hyde Parker and
the Dutch admiral Zoutman, both being engaged in protecting
trade; but Holland did not affect the general course of the
war. The allies again failed to make a vigorous attack on the
British forces in the Channel. They could not even prevent
Admiral George Darby from relieving Gibraltar and Minorca in
April. The second of these places was closely invested later
on, and was compelled to surrender on the 5th of February
1782. But a vigorous policy was carried out by France
in the West Indies and America, while she began a most
resolute attack on the British position in the East Indies.
In the West Indies Rodney, having received news of the
breach with Holland early in the year, took the island of St
Eustatius, which had been a great depot of contraband of war,
on the 3rd of February. The British admiral was accused of
applying himself so entirely to seizing and selling his booty
that he would not allow his second in command, Sir Samuel
Hood, who had recently joined him, to take proper measures
to impede the arrival of French forces known to be on their
way to Martinique. The French admiral, the count de Grasse,
reached the island with reinforcements in April. Until July
he was engaged in a series of skilful operations directed to
menacing the British islands while he avoided being brought
to battle by Rodney. In July he sailed for the coast of North
America, whither he was followed in August by Sir S. Hood,
Rodney having been compelled to return home in ill- health.
On the coast of North America the war came to its crisis.
In the earlier part of the year the British at New York and
the French at Newport continued to watch one another. In
April the British admiral Arbuthnot did indeed succeed in
baffling an attempt of the French to carry reinforcements
to the American cause in Virginia. The action he fought
off the capes of Virginia on the 16th of April was ill
conducted, but his main purpose was achieved. Washington,
who was wisely anxious to concentrate attack on one or other
of the centres of British power in Virginia or New York,
had to wait till the arrival of Grasse before he could see
his ideas applied. The French admiral gave the allies a
superiority of naval strength on the coast of Virginia, and
Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, was beleaguered in
Yorktown. Admiral Thomas Graves, Arbuthnot's successor, who
had been joined by Hood from the West Indies, endeavoured to
drive off the French fleet. But the feeble battle he fought
on the 5th of September failed to shake the French hold on the
Chesapeake, and Grasse having been reinforced, Graves sailed
away. Yorktown fell on the 19th of October, and the war was
settled as far as the coast of North America was concerned.
The French admiral, having rendered this vital service to his
ally, now returned to the West Indies, whither he was followed
by Hood, and resumed the attacks on the British islands.
In January and February 1782 he conquered St Christopher,
in spite of the most determined opposition of Hood, who with
a much inferior force first drove him from his anchorage at
Basseterre, and then repulsed his repeated attacks. The next
purpose of the French was to combine with the Spaniards for an
attack on Jamaica. Sir George Rodney, having returned to his
command with reinforcements, baffled this plan by the series
of operations which culminated in the battle of the 12th of
April 1782. (See SAINTS, BATTLE OF.) No further operations
of note occurred in the West Indies. At home Howe relieved
Gibraltar for the last time in September and October 1782.
The war in the East Indies formed a separate series of
episodes. In 1778 the British authorities had little difficulty
in seizing the French settlement of Pondicherry. A naval
engagement of a very feeble kind took place on the 10th of
August in the Bay of Bengal, between the British naval officer
in command and M. de Tronjoly. But the French were too weak
in these seas for offensive movements, and therefore remained
quiescent at Bourbon and Mauritius till the beginning of
1782. In the spring of 1781 the bailli de Suffren was sent
to the East with a small squadron; on his way he fell upon
a British force which had been sent to take the Cape from
the Dutch, and which he found in the Portuguese anchorage
of Porto Praya, on the 16th of April. Having provided for
the security of the Cape, Suffren went on to the French
islands. He sailed from them early in 1782 to carry out a
vehement attack on the British forces in the Bay of Bengal.
From the 17th of February 1782 to the 20th of June 1783 he
fought a series of fine actions against Sir Edward Hughes, by
which he secured a marked superiority on the water. Though
he had no port in which to refit and no ally save Hyder Ali,
he kept the sea and did not even return to the French islands
during the north-easterly monsoon. Suffren failed in his main
purpose, which was to make such a capture as would put his
government in a strong position during the negotiations for
peace. But his capture of Trincomalee in July 1782 in spite
of Sir Edward Hughes, and the heavy loss he inflicted on the
British fleet in several of the actions he fought, constitute the
most honourable part of the French naval operations in the war.
AUTHORITIES.--The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
Captain Mahan, gives the best critical examination of the
naval aspects of the war. The French side will be found
in the Histoire de la marine francaise pendant la Guerre
de l'Independence americaine (Paris, 1877), by Captain
Chevalier. For accounts of the American navy see C. O.
Paullin, The Navy of the American Revolution (Chicago,
1906); E. S. Maclay, History of the U.S. Navy, vol.
i. (New York, 1897): C. H. Lincoln, Naval Records of
the American Revolution (Washington, 1906); and Edward
Field, Esek Hopkins, Commander-in-chief of the Continental
Navy during the American Revolution (Providence, R.I.,
1898). For details of actions the reader may be referred to
Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from
1727 to 1783 (London, 1804), and to Sir W. Laird Clowes's
The Royal Navy: A History (London, 1897, &c.). (D. H.)
AMERICAN WAR OF 1812. The war between the United States
and Great Britain, commonly known as "of 1812," began by the
American declaration of war on the 18th of June of that year,
and lasted till the beginning of 1815. The treaty of peace
signed at Ghent on the 24th of December 1814 was ratified by
the president of the United States on the 17th of February
1815. These two years and a half of conflict were filled
with isolated encounters which can hardly be reduced to
coherent and ordered operations. Although the outbreak of
war had been preceded by years of angry diplomatic dispute,
the United States were absolutely unready, while Great Britain
was still hard pressed by the hostility of Napoleon, and was
compelled to retain the greater part of her forces and her
best crews in European waters, till the ruin of the Grande
Armee in Russia and the rising of Germany left her free
to send an overwhelming force of ships to American waters.
The forces actually available on the American side when
the war began consisted of a small squadron of very fine
frigates and sloops in an efficient state. Twenty-two was
the extreme limit of the naval force the States were able to
commission. The paper strength of the army was 35,000, but
the service was voluntary and unpopular, while there was an
almost total want of trained and experienced officers. The
available strength was a bare third of the nominal. The
militia, called in to aid the regulars, proved untrustworthy.
They objected to serve beyond the limits of their states, were
not amenable to discipline, and behaved as a rule very ill in
the presence of the enemy. On the British side, the naval force
in American waters under Sir John Borlase Warren, who took up
the general command on the 26th of September 1812, consisted
of ninety-seven vessels in all, of which eleven were of the
line and thirty-four were frigates, a power much greater than
the national navy of America, but inadequate to the blockade
of the long coast from New Brunswick to Florida. The total
number of British troops present in Canada in July 1812 was
officially stated to be 5004, consisting in part of Canadians.
The scene of operations naturally divided into three
sections:--(1) the ocean; (2) the Canadian frontier, from
Lake Huron, by Lakes Erie and Ontario, the course of the
St Lawrence and Lake Champlain; (3) the coast of the United
States. As the operations on these three fields had little
interaction on one another, it will be more convenient to take
them separately than to follow the confusing chronological
order. Operations on the Ocean.--These cover all cruises
of sea-going ships, even when they did not go far from the
coast. They again subdivide into the actions of national
vessels, and the raids of the privateers. The first gave
to the United States the most brilliant successes of the
war. When it began two small squadrons were getting ready
for sea at New York; the frigate "President" (44) and sloop
"Hornet" (18), under Commodore John Rodgers, who had also
the general command; and the frigates "United States" (44)
and "Congress" (38), with the brig "Argus" (16) to which
two guns were afterwards added, under Captain Stephen
Decatur. Rodgers would have preferred to keep his command
together, and to strike with it at the main course of British
commerce, but he was overruled. He sailed on the 21st of
June, and after chasing the British frigate "Belvidera"
(36), which escaped into Halifax by throwing boats, &c.,
overboard, stood across the North Atlantic in search of a
West Indian convoy, which he failed to sight, returning by the
31st of August to Boston. While he was absent, Captain Isaac
Hull, commanding the "Constitution" (44), sailed from the
Chesapeake, and after a narrow escape from a British squadron,
which pursued him from the 18th to the 20th of July, reached
Boston. Going to sea again on the 2nd of August he captured
and burned the British frigate "Guerriere," (38). On the
8th of October Rodgers and Decatur sailed--the first on
a cruise to the east, the second to the south. Commodore
Rodgers met with no marked success, but on the 25th of October
Captain Decatur in the "United States" captured the British
frigate "Macedonian" (38), which he carried back to port.
At the close of the month Captain Bainbridge sailed with the
"Constitution," "Essex" (32) and "Hornet" (18) on a southerly
cruise. On the 20th of December, when off Bahia, he fell
in with the British frigate "Java" (38), which was carrying
General Hislop, the governor of Bombay, to India, and took her
after a sharp action. The "Essex" and "Hornet" were not in
company. The first, under the command of Captain David
Porter, went on to the Pacific, where she did great injury
to British trade, till she was captured off Valparaiso by
the British frigate "Phoebe" (38) and the sloop "Cherub"
(24) on the 28th of March 1814. In these actions, except the
last, the Americans had the advantage of greater size and a
heavier broadside, but they showed excellent seamanship and
gunnery. The capture of three British frigates one after
another caused a painful impression in Great Britain and
stimulated her to greater exertions. Vessels were accumulated
on the American sea-board, and the watch became more
strict. On the 1st of June 1813 the capture of the U.S.
frigate "Chesapeake" (38), by the British frigate "Shannon"
(38), a vessel of equal force, counterbalanced the moral
effect of previous disasters. The blockade of American ports
was already so close that the United States ships found it
continually more difficult to get to sea, or to keep the sea
without meeting forces of irresistibly superior strength.
The operations of American privateers were too numerous
and far- ranging to be told in detail. They continued
active till the close of the war, and were only partially
baffled by the strict enforcement of convoy by the British
authorities. A signal instance of the audacity of the
American cruisers was the capture of the U.S. sloop "Argus"
(20) by the British sloop "Pelican" (18) so far from home
as St David's Head in Wales on the 14th of August 1813.
The "Pelican's" guns were heavier than those of the "Argus."
Operations on the Lakes.--The American people, who had
expected little from their diminutive navy, had calculated
with confidence on being able to overrun Canada. As,
however, they had taken no effectual measures to provide a
mobile force they were disappointed. The British general,
Sir George Prevost, was neither able nor energetic, but his
subordinate, Major-General Isaac Brock, was both. In July,
before the Americans were ready, Brock seized Mackinac at
the head of Lake Huron; and on the 16th of August Detroit in
the channel between Huron and Erie was surrendered. Kingston
was held at the east end of Ontario. Montreal on the St
Lawrence was a strong position on the British side to which,
however, the Americans had an easy road of approach by Lake
Champlain. Sound reasoning would have led the Americans to
direct their chief attacks on Kingston and Montreal, since
success at those points would have isolated the British
posts on Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron. But they were much
influenced by fear of the Indians, who had been won over
to the British side by the energy of Brock. They therefore
looked more carefully to the lakes than to the course of the
St Lawrence, and it may be added that their leaders showed
an utter want of capacity for the intelligent conduct of war.
The impracticable character of the communications by land made
it absolutely necessary for both parties to obtain control
of the water. Neither had made any preparations, and the
war largely resolved itself into a race of shipbuilding. The
Americans, who had far greater facilities for building than
the British, allowed themselves to be forestalled. In the
second half of 1812 the British general, Sir Isaac Brock,
lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, adopted measures for
opposing the Americans on the frontier line, between Huron and
Erie. The American brigadier-general William Hull invaded
Canada on the 12th of July from Detroit, just below the
small Lake of St Clair between Huron and Erie. His army was
mainly composed of militiamen, who behaved very badly, and
his papers having been captured in a boat, his plans were
revealed. General Brock drove him back and forced him
to surrender at Detroit on the 16th of August. Brock now
promptly transferred himself to the western end of Erie, where
the American general Henry Dearborn was attempting another
invasion. Brock fell in action on the 13th of October, while
repulsing Dearborn's subordinate Van Rensselaer, a politician
named to command by favour, and ignorant of a soldier's
business. The Americans were driven back. In this field also
their militia behaved detestably. The Canadians on the other
hand, both the French who were traditionally amenable to
authority and those of English descent, who being largely sons
of loyalists of the War of Independence had a bitter hatred
of the Americans, did excellent service. The discontent of
New England with the war both hampered the American generals
and also aided the British, who drew their supplies to a great
extent from United States territory. On the 22nd of January
1813, at Frenchtown, the American troops under Winchester
surrendered to a British and Indian force under Procter.
During the winter both sides were busy in building ships. On
Ontario the Americans pushed on their preparations at Sackett's
Harbour under Isaac Chauncey; the English were similarly
engaged at Kingston. Sir James Lucas Yeo took command on
the 15th of May 1813. On Erie the American headquarters were
at Presqu' Isle, now the city of Erie; the English at Fort
Malden. The American commander was Captain Oliver Perry, the
British commander, Captain Robert Barclay. On Lake Ontario
Yeo formed a more mobile though less powerful force than
Chauncey's, and therefore manoeuvred to avoid being brought
to close action. Three engagements, on the 10th of August,
11th of September and 28th of September, led to no decisive
result. By the close of the war Yeo had constructed a ship
of 102 guns which gave him the superiority, and the British
became masters of Lake Ontario. On Lake Erie the energy
of Captain Perry, aided by what appears to have been the
misjudgment of Barclay, enabled him to get a superior force
by the 4th of August, and on the 10th of September he fought
a successful action which left the Americans masters of Lake
Erie. The military operations were subordinate to the
naval. In April 1813 the Americans took York (now Toronto),
and in May moved on Fort George; but a counter-attack by
Yeo and Prevost on Sackett's Harbour, on the 29th of May,
having made the Americans anxious about the safety of their
base, naval support failed the American generals, and they
were paralysed. A success was gained by them (October
5) at the Thames, where the Indian chief Tecumseh fell,
but they made no serious progress. The Americans turned
to the east of Ontario, intending to assail Montreal by
the St Lawrence in combination with their forces at Lake
Champlain. But the combination failed; they were severely
harassed on the St Lawrence, and the invasion was given up.
The operations of 1814 bear a close resemblance to those of
1813, with, however, one important difference. The American
generals, having by this time brought their troops to order,
were able to fight with much better effect. Their attack on
the Niagara peninsula led to hot fighting at Chippewa (July
5) and Lundy's Lane (July 25), the first a success for the
Americans, the second a drawn battle. The fall of Napoleon
having now freed the British government from the obligation
to retain its army in Europe, troops from Spain began to pour
in. But on the Canadian frontier they made little difference.
In August 1814 Sir George Prevost attacked the American forces at
Champlain. But his naval support, ill prepared, was hurried
into action by him at Plattsburg on the 11th of September, and
defeated. Prevost then retired. His management of the
war, more especially on Lake Champlain, was severely
criticized, and he was threatened with a court-martial,
but died before the trial came on. A British occupation of
part of the coast of Maine proved to be mere demonstration.
Operations on the American Coast.--When the war began the
British naval forces were unequal to the work of blockading
the whole coast. They were also much engaged in seeking for
the American cruisers under Rodgers, Decatur and Bainbridge.
The British government, having need of American foodstuffs for
its army in Spain, was willing to benefit by the discontent of
the New Englanders. No blockade of New England was at first
attempted. The Delaware and Chesapeake were declared in a
state of blockade on the 26th of December 1812. This was
extended to the whole coast south of Narragansett by November
1813, and to the whole American coast on the 31st of May
1814. In the meantime much illicit trade was carried on
by collusive captures arranged between American traders
and British officers. American ships were fraudulently
transferred to neutral flags. Eventually the United States
government was driven to issue orders for the purpose of
stopping illicit trading, and the commerce of the country was
ruined. The now overpowering strength of the British
fleet enabled it to occupy the Chesapeake and to execute
innumerable attacks of a destructive character on docks and
harbours. The burning by the American general McClure, on
the 10th of December 1813, of Newark (Niagara on the Lake),
for which severe retaliation was taken at Buffalo, was made
the excuse for much destruction. The most famous of these
destructive raids was the burning of the public buildings
at Washington by Sir Alexander Cochrane, who succeeded
Warren in April in the naval command, and General Robert
Ross. The expedition was carried out between the 19th and
29th of August 1814, and was well organized and vigorously
executed.1 On the 24th the American militia, collected at
Bladensburg to protect the capital, fled almost before they were
attacked. A subsequent attack on Baltimore, in which General
Ross was killed (September 12, 1814), was a failure. The
expedition to New Orleans (q.v.) is separately dealt with.
AUTHORITIES.--In his Sea Power in its Relations to the
War of 1812 Captain Mahan has given a careful account
of the war by land and sea with reference to services.
The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt (New York,
1882), is lively but somewhat passionate, and not free from
prejudice. A vehement statement of the Canadian side will be
found in How Canada was held for the Empire, by James Hannay
(London, Edinburgh, Toronto, 1903). See also The Canadian
War of 1812, by Charles P. Lucas (Oxford, 1906). (D. H.)
1 The burning of Washington was an act of vandalism by no means
approved of by many of the British officers who were compelled
to take part in it. (See SMITH, Sir HENRY GEORGE WAKELYN.)
AMERICUS, a city and the county-seat of Sumter county,
Georgia, U.S.A., about 71 m. S.S.W. of Macon. Pop. (1880)
3635; (1890) 6398; (1900) 7674, of whom 4661 were of negro
descent. It is served by the Central of Georgia and the
Seaboard Air Line railways, and is the seat of the Third
Congressional District Agricultural High School, a branch
of the state university of Georgia. The city is in a rich
sugar-cane and fruit country, is a large cotton and mule and
horse market, and has division shops of the Seaboard Air Line
railway. Among the city's manufactures are cotton-seed oil,
fertilizers, chemicals, iron, carriages and wagons and harness
(especially horse collars). The city owns the waterworks; the
water-supply is obtained from artesian wells. Americus was
settled in 1832, and was first chartered as a city in 1855.
AMERSFOORT, a town in the province of Utrecht, Holland, on
the navigable Eem, and a junction station 14 m. by rail N.E.
by E. of Utrecht. Pop. (1900) 19,089. It is situated in the
midst of picturesque and undulating country, consisting of
wide sandy heaths and woods, and dotted with many fine country
houses. One of the most interesting of its few historic
monuments is the Koppelpoort, an old gateway situated at the end
of a fine avenue of trees bordering the canal. Close by is a
lofty Gothic tower (1500), which belonged to the ancient church
of St Mary, which was wrecked by an explosion of gunpowder in
1787. The large plain church of St George dates from the
first half of the 13th century. There is also a Jansenist
church, to which a seminary is attached. Besides these there
are a town hall, a court of primary jurisdiction, industrial
and other schools. Amersfoort has a large garrison, consisting
chiefly of artillery, and manufactures woollen goods, cotton,
silk, glass and brandy. It has also a considerable trade in
tobacco, grown in the neighbourhood, and in corn and fish.
AMERSHAM, a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary
division of Buckinghamshire, England, 24 m. W.N.W. of
London by the Metropolitan railway. Pop. (1901) 2674. It
is pleasantly situated in the narrow valley of the Misbourne
stream, which is flanked by the well-wooded slopes of the
Chiltern Hills. The church of St Mary is almost entirely
Perpendicular, and has a beautiful south porch, brasses of
the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and numerous monuments,
several of which, in a chantry, commemorate members of the
family of Drake, lords of the manor. The town hall was
built by Sir William Drake in 1642. At Coleshill, near
Amersham, Edmund Waller the poet was born in 1606; he sat
in parliament for the former borough of Amersham. The town
has flour mills and breweries, and some straw-plaiting and
lace-making are carried on in the vicinity. The district is
one of the most beautiful near London; the village of Chenies,
overlooking the valley of the Chess, is especially picturesque.
Amersham (Elmodesham, Agmondesham, Hagmondesham, Aumundesham,
Homersham) at the time of the Domesday Survey was divided into
no less than six holdings. The manor, or chief of them, was
held by Geoffrey de Mandeville. At the time of Edward the
Confessor it was held by Queen Edith. The manor afterwards
descended to the families of Fitz Piers, Bohun and Stratford,
and was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Russell, ancestor
of the earls of Bedford. In 1638 Francis, earl of Bedford,
conveyed it to William Drake, by whose descendants it is still
held. The north chapel in the church of St Michael, Chenies, has
been the burial-place of the Russell family since its erection
in 1556, and contains a number of fine memorials, notably
that of Anne, countess of Bedford (d. 1558), who founded the
chapel. Amersham was formerly a parliamentary borough by
prescription, and returned two members in 1300, 1306, 1307 and
1309. In 1623 this privilege was restored, and was only annulled
by the Reform Bill of 1832. The annual fair, in September, is
held under a charter secured by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of
Essex, in 1200, that on Whit Monday under a charter of 1614,
secured by Edward, earl of Bedford, which transferred the Friday
market, also granted under the earlier charter, to Tuesday.
AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), American statesman, orator
and political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician,
was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April
1758. He graduated at Harvard College in 1774, and began
the practice of the law at Dedham in 1781, but eventually
abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of
politics. He was a prominent member of the Massachusetts
convention which (February 1788) ratified for that state the
Federal Constitution, and in the same year, having entered the
lower house in the state legislature, he distinguished himself
greatly by his eloquence and readiness in debate. During
the eight years of Washington's administration (1789-1797)
he was a prominent Federalist member of the national House of
Representatives. On the 28th of April 1796, when the
Republicans, hostile to the Jay Treaty, were on the point
of holding up the appropriation necessary for its execution,
Ames, who had just arisen from a sick-bed, made what has
been considered the greatest speech of his life; before the
delivery of his speech his opponents had claimed a majority
of six, but the appropriation was finally passed, in the
committee of the whole, by the casting vote of the chairman.
When Washington retired from the presidency, Congress voted
him an address and chose Ames to deliver it. In 1797 he
returned to Dedham to resume the practice of the law, which
the state of his health after a few years obliged him to
relinquish. He published numerous essays, chiefly in relation
to the contest between Great Britain and revolutionary France,
as it might affect the liberty and prosperity of America. Ames
was one of the group of New England ultra-Federalists known as
the "Essex Junto," who opposed the French policy of President
John Adams in 1798, and were conspicuous for their British
sympathies. Four years before his death he was chosen president
of Harvard College, an honour which his broken state of health
obliged him to decline. He died on the 4th of July 1808.
His writings and speeches, which abound in sparkling
passages, displaying great fertility of imagination, were
collected and published, with a memoir of the author, in
1809, by the Rev. Dr J. T. Kirkland, in one large octavo
volume. A more complete edition in two volumes was
published by his son, Seth Ames, at Boston, Mass., in 1854.
AMES, JOSEPH (1689-1759), English author, was born at Yarmouth
on the 23rd of January 1689. He wrote an account of printing
in England from 1471 to 1600, Typographical Antiquities
(1749). Ames sent out circular letters with a list of two
hundred and fifteen English printers with whose works he
intended to deal, asking for any available information.
He earned the gratitude of subsequent bibliographers by
disregarding printed lists and consulting the title- pages
of the books themselves. An interleaved copy of the work
with many notes in the author's hand is now in the British
Museum. Editions of his works were published with added
information by William Herbert (3 vols., 1785-1790), and T. F.
Dibdin (4 vols., 1810-1819). Ames's occupation is variously
given. It is uncertain whether he was a ship-chandler, a
patten-maker, a plane-iron maker or an ironmonger; but
he led a prosperous life at Wapping, and amassed valuable
collections of antiquities. He died on the 7th of October
1759. His other works are catalogues of English printers,
of the collection of coins which belonged to the earl of
Pembroke, of some two thousand English portraits, and
Parentalia (1750), a memoir of the Wrens, undertaken in
conjunction with Sir Christopher Wren's grandson, Stephen
Wren. Part of his correspondence in bibliography is
included in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes and Illustrations.
AMES, OAKES (1804-1873), American manufacturer, capitalist
and politician, was born in Easton, Massachusetts, on the 10th
of January 1804. As a manufacturer of shovels, in association
with his father and his brother Oliver (1807-1877), he
amassed a large fortune. In 1860 he became a member of the
executive council of Massachusetts, and from 1863 to 1873 was
a republican member of the national House of Representatives.
As a member of the committee on railroads he became interested
in the project, greatly aided by the government, to build a
trans-continental railway, connecting the eastern states with
California. Others having failed, he was induced in 1865 to
assume the direction of the work, and to him more than to any
other one man the credit for the construction of the Union
Pacific railway was due. The execution was effected largely
through a construction company, the Credit Mobilier Company of
America. In disposing of some of the stock of this company,
Ames in 1867-1871 sold a number of shares to members of Congress
at a price much below what these shares eventually proved to be
worth. This, on becoming known, gave rise in 1872-1873 to
a great congressional scandal. After an investigation by a
committee of the House, which recommended the expulsion of
Ames, a resolution was passed on the 28th of February 1873,
"that the House absolutely condemns the conduct of Oakes
Ames...in seeking to secure congressional attention to the
affairs of a corporation in which he was interested, and
whose interest directly depended upon the legislation of
Congress, by inducing members of Congress to invest in the
stocks of said corporation." Many have since attributed this
resolution to partisanship, and the influence of popular
clamour, and in 1883 the legislature of Massachusetts
passed a resolution vindicating Ames. He died at North
Easton, Mass., on the 8th of May 1873. His son, OLIVER
AMES (1831-1895), was lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts
from 1883 until 1887, and governor from 1887 to 1890.
See CREDIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA and the references
there given. For a defence of Oakes Ames, see Oakes
Ames, A Memorial Volume (Cambridge, Mass., 1884).
AMES, WILLIAM (1576-1633), English Puritan divine, better
known, especially in Europe, as Amesius, was born of
an ancient family at Ipswich, Suffolk, in 1576, and was
educated at the local grammar school and at Christ's College,
Cambridge, where, as throughout his life, he was an omnivorous
student. He was considerably influenced by his tutor, the
celebrated William Perkins, and by his successor, a man of
kindred intellect and fervour, Paul Bayne. He graduated
B.A. and M.A. in due course, and was chosen to a fellowship
in Christ's College. He was universally beloved in the
university. His own college (Christ's) would have chosen
him for the mastership; but a party opposition led to the
election of Valentine Cary, who had already quarrelled with
Ames for disapproving of the surplice and other outward
symbols. One of Ames's sermons became historical in the Puritan
controversies. It was delivered on St Thomas's day (1609)
before the feast of Christ's nativity, and in it he rebuked
sharply "lusory lotts" and the "heathenish debauchery" of the
students during the twelve days ensuing. The scathing vehemence
of his denunciations led to his being summoned before the
vice-chancellor, who suspended him "from the exercise of his
ecclesiastical function and from all degrees taken or to be
taken." After Cary's election he left the university and would
have accepted the great church of Colchester, but the bishop
of London refused to grant institution and induction. Like
persecution awaited him elsewhere, and at last he passed over
to Holland, being aided by certain wealthy English merchants
who wished him to controvert the supporters of the English
church in Leiden. At Rotterdam, clad in the fisherman's habit
donned for the passage, he opposed Grevinchovius (Nicholas
Grevinckhoven, d. 1632), minister of the Arminian or Remonstrant
church, and overwhelmed him with his logical reasoning from
Phil. ii. 13, "It is God that worketh in us both to will
and to do." The fisherman-controversialist made a great
stir, and from that day became known and honoured in the Low
Countries. Subsequently Ames entered into a controversy
in print with Grevinchovius on universal redemption and
election, and cognate problems. He brought together all he
had maintained in his Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem--his
most masterful book, which figures largely in Dutch church
history. At Leiden, Ames became intimate with the venerable
Mr Goodyear, pastor of the English church there. While thus
resident in comparative privacy he was sent for to the Hague
by Sir Horatio Vere, the English governor of Brill, who
appointed him a minister in the army of the states-general,
and of the English soldiers in their service, a post held by
some of the greatest of England's exiled Puritans. He married
a daughter of Dr Burgess, who was Vere's chaplain, and, on
his father-in-law's return to England, succeeded to his place.
It was at this time he began his memorable controversy with
Episcopius, who, in attacking the Coronis, railed against
the author as having been "a disturber of the public peace
in his native country, so that the English magistrates had
banished him thence; and now, by his late printed Coronis,
he was raising new disturbances in the peaceable Netherlands."
It was a miserable libel and was at once rebutted by
Goodyear. The Coronis had been primarily prepared for
the synod of Dort, which sat from November 1618 until May
1619. At this celebrated synod the position of Ames was a
peculiar one. The High Church party in England had induced
Vere to dismiss him from the chaplaincy; but he was still
held, deservedly, in such reverence, that it was arranged
he should attend the synod, and accordingly he was retained
by the Calvinist party at four florins a day to watch the
proceedings on their behalf and advise them when necessary.
A proposal to make him principal of a theological college
at Leiden was frustrated by Archbishop Abbot; and when
later invited by the state of Friesland to a professoriate
at Franeker, the opposition was renewed, but this time
abortively. He was installed at Franeker on the 7th of May
1622, and delivered a most learned discourse on the occasion
on "Urim and Thummin." He soon brought renown to Franeker
as professor, preacher, pastor and theological writer. He
prepared his Medulla Theologiae, a manual of Calvinistic
doctrine, for his students. His De Conscientia, ejus Jure
et Casibus (1632), an attempt to bring Christian ethics
into clear relation with particular cases of conduct and
of conscience, was a new thing in Protestantism. Having
continued twelve years at Franeker (where he was rector in
1626), his health gave way, and he contemplated removal
to New England. But another door was opened for him. He
yearned for more frequent opportunities of preaching to his
fellow-countrymen, and an invitation to Rotterdam gave him such
opportunity. His friends at Franeker were passionately
opposed to the transference, but ultimately acquiesced.
At Rotterdam he drew all hearts to him by his eloquence and
fervour in the pulpit, and his irrepressible activity as a
pastor. Home-controversy engaged him again, and he prepared
his Fresh Suit against Ceremonies--the book which made Richard
Baxter a Nonconformist. It ably sums up the issues between
the Puritan school and that of Hooker. It was posthumously
published. He did not long survive his removal to Rotterdam.
Having caught a cold from a flood which inundated his house,
he died in November 1633, at the age of fifty-seven, apparently
in needy circumstances. He left, by a second wife, a son and a
daughter. His valuable library found a home in New England.
Few Englishmen have exercised so formative and controlling an
influence on European thought and opinion as Ames. He was a
master in theological controversy, shunning not to cross swords
with the formidable Bellarmine. He was a scholar among scholars,
being furnished with extraordinary resources of learning. His
works, which even the Biographia Britannica (1778) testifies
were famous over Europe, were collected at Amsterdam in 5 vols.
4to. Only a very small proportion was translated into his mother
tongue. His Lectiones in omnes Psalmos Davidis (1635) is
exceedingly suggestive and terse in its style, reminding of
Bengel's Gnomon, as does also his Commentarius utriusque
Epist. S. Petri. His "Replies" to Bishop Morton and Dr
Burgess on "Ceremonies" tell us that even kinship could
not prevent him from "contending earnestly for the faith."
See John Quick's MS. Icones Sacrae Anglicanae, which gives
the fisherman anecdote on the personal authority of one
who was present; Life by Nethenus prefixed to collected
edition of Latin works (5 vols., Amsterdam, 1658); Winwood's
Memorials, vol. iii. pp. 346- 347; Heal's Puritans, i.
532; Fuller's Cambridge (Christ's College); Hanbury's
Hist. Memorials, i. 533; Collections of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, vol. vi., fourth series, 1863, pp. 576-577.
AMES, a city of Story county, Iowa, U.S.A., about 35 m. N.
of Des Moines, at the intersection of two lines of the Chicago
& North- Western railway. Pop. (1890) 1276; (1900) 2422; (1905,
state census) 4223. The city is the seat of the state college
of agriculture and mechanic arts; this institution, opened in
1869, has for its use about 1175 acres of land, on which the
state has erected, at a cost of $1,200,000, thirty-two college
buildings, besides dwelling-houses and buildings for farm
purposes. On the college campus are beautiful groves containing
several hundred varieties of trees, and in a central position
stands a campanile with excellent chimes. The college offers
four-year courses in agronomy, animal husbandry, dairying,
domestic economy, general science, veterinary medicine, and
civil, mechanical, electrical and mining engineering. In
1909-1910 it had an enrollment of 2631 students (including
796 in the winter short course) and a library Of 23,000
volumes. The cost of instruction and experimentation is met
by the income from national grants (under the Morrill Acts of
1862 and 1882) and by state appropriations. Ames has a Carnegie
library, and owns and operates its electric-lighting plant and
waterworks. It was laid out as a town in 1864 and was named
in honour of Oakes Ames, at the time one of the proprietors
of the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River railway (now part of the
Chicago & North- Western); five years later it was incorporated.
AMESBURY, a small town in the Wilton parliamentary division
of Wiltshire, England, 8 m. N. of Salisbury, on the London
& South- Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1143. It stands on
a wooded upland, amid the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain.
The church of St Mary is cruciform, with a low square tower,
and is largely Early English, with some richly decorated
windows in the chancel. A curious two-storeyed building
which adjoins the north transept consists of a chapel with
a piscina below and a priest's chamber above. Amesbury
Abbey, a beautiful house built by Inigo Jones for the dukes of
Queensberry, stands close to the village, in a park watered
by the river Avon, here famous for its trout. Stonehenge
(q.v.), the greatest surviving megalithic work in the
British Isles, is a mile and a half distant; and on a hill
near the village is Vespasian's Camp or the Ramparts, a large
earthwork, which is undoubtedly of British, not Roman, origin.
At Amesbury (Ambresberia, Aumbresbery) a witenagemot was held in
932, while about 980 AElfthryth (Ethelfrida), queen-dowager of
Edgar, erected here a nunnery in expiation of the murder of her
stepson. The house afterwards acquired such ill repute that
in 1177 the nuns were dispersed and the house was attached
to the abbey of Fontevrault, by whom it was re-established.
From this date, by a succession of royal charters and private
gifts, the nunnery amassed vast wealth and privileges, and
became a fashionable retreat for ladies of high rank, among
whose number were Eleanor, widow of Henry III., and Mary,
daughter of Edward I. After the dissolution in 1540 the site
was granted to Edward, earl of Hertford, afterwards duke
of Somerset and protector of the kingdom. It subsequently
passed to the duke of Queensberry. According to the Domesday,
Amesbury was a royal manor and did not pay geld, but was under
the obligation of providing one night's entertainment for the
king. In 1317 the prioress obtained a Saturday market and
a three days' fair at the feast of St Melor (Meliorus). The
market was subsequently changed to Friday, and three additional
fairs were granted. Pipeclay abounds in the neighbourhood,
and in the 17th century Amesbury was famous for the best pipes
in England, many of which are preserved in Salisbury museum.
See Victoria County History--Wiltshire; Sir Richard
Colt Hoare, History of Modern Wiltshire (1822-1844).
AMESBURY, a township of Essex county, in N.E. Massachusetts,
U.S.A., situated on the Merrimac river, about 6 m. above its
mouth. Pop. (1890) 9798; (1900) 9473, of whom 2448 were
foreign-born; (1905, state census), 8840. Amesbury is served
by two divisions of the Boston & Maine railway, and is connected
by electric line with Haverhill and Newburyport, Mass., and with
Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and Salisbury Beach, Mass., two
summer resorts. The township covers a land area of about 13 sq.
m. The surface is hilly. The Powow river, a small stream,
passes through the centre of the township. There is a public
library. Among Amesbury's manufactures are hats, cotton
goods, carriages, automobile bodies, carriage and automobile
lamps, thermometers, brass castings and motor boats. In 1905
the factory products were valued at $3,614,692. Amesbury was
settled about 1644 as a separate part of Salisbury, and in
1654, by mutual agreement of the old and new "towns," became
practically independent, although not legally a township until
1666 (named Amesbury, from the English town in Wilts, in 1667).
It suffered repeatedly in the course of the colonial Indian
wars. Quakers settled here as early as 1701. Josiah Bartlett
(1729-1795), a signer of the Declaration of Independence,
was born here, and is commemorated by a statue (1888) by Karl
Gerhardt. Shipbuilding was an important industry in the 18th
and especially the first quarter of the 19th century, and
the U.S. frigate "Alliance" was built at Salisburypoint in
1778. A nail factory, one of the earliest in the country,
was built on the Powow in 1796. The manufacture of iron
began about 1710, of hats in 1769, of carriages in 1800 and
of cotton goods in 1812. Paul Moody, who with F. C. Lowell
constructed in 1814 at Waltham the first successful power-loom
in America, was engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods in
Amesbury. The township was the home of John G. Whittier
from 1836 to 1892; here were written most of the poems
of his middle and later life, many of which describe the
surrounding country. In 1876 Merrimac township was created
out of the territory of Amesbury; in 1886 the west part
of the old township of Salisbury was united to Amesbury.
See Joseph Merrill, History of Amesbury (Haverhill, 1880); S. T. Pickard,
Whittier-land, A Handbook of North Essex (Boston, New York, 1904).
AMETHYST, a violet or purple variety of quartz used as an ornamental
stone. The name is generally said to be derived from the Gr.
a, "not," and methbskein, "to intoxicate," expressing the old
belief that the stone protected its owner from strong drink.
It was held that wine drunk out of a cup of amethyst would not
intoxicate. According, however, to the Rev. C. W. King, the word
may probably be a corruption of an Eastern name for the stone.
The colour of amethyst is usually attributed to the presence
of manganese, but as it is capable of being much altered
and even discharged by heat it has been referred by some
authorities to an organic source. Ferric thiocyanate has been
suggested, and sulphur is said to have been detected in the
mineral. On exposure to heat, amethyst generally becomes
yellow, and much of the cairngorm or yellow quartz of jewellery
is said to be merely "burnt amethyst." Veins of amethystine
quartz are apt to lose their colour on the exposed outcrop.
Amethyst is composed of an irregular superposition of alternate
lamellae of right-handed and left-handed quartz. (See QUARTZ.)
It has been shown by Prof. J. W. Judd that this structure may
be due to mechanical stresses. In consequence of this composite
formation, amethyst is apt to break with a rippled fracture, or
to show "thumb markings," and the intersection of two sets of
curved ripples may produce on the fractured surface a pattern
something like that of "engine turning." Some mineralogists,
following Sir D. Brewster, apply the name of amethyst to all
quartz which exhibits this structure, regardless of its colour.
The amethyst was used as a gem-stone by the ancient Egyptians,
and was largely employed in antiquity for intaglios. Beads
of amethyst are found in Anglo-Saxon graves in England.
Amethyst is a very widely distributed mineral, but fine clear
specimens fit for cutting as ornamental stones are confined
to comparatively few localities. Such crystals occur either
in cavities in mineral-veins and in granitic rocks, or as a
lining in agate geodes. A huge geode, or "amethyst- grotto,"
from near Santa Cruz in southern Brazil, was exhibited at the
Dusseldorf Exhibition of 1902. Many of the hollow agates of
Brazil and Uruguay contain a crop of amethyst-crystals in the
interior. Much fine amethyst comes from Russia, especially from
near Mursinka in the Ekaterinburg district, where it occurs in
drusy cavities in granitic rocks. Many localities in India yield
amethyst; and it is found also in Ceylon, chiefly as pebbles.
Purple corundum, or sapphire of amethystine tint, is called
(Oriental amethyst, but this expression is often applied
by jewellers to fine examples of the ordinary amethystine
quartz, even when not derived from Eastern sources.
Amethyst occurs at many localities in the United States, but
rarely fine enough for use in jewellery. Among these may be
mentioned Amethyst Mountain, Texas; Yellowstone National Park;
Delaware Co., Pennsylvania; Haywood Co., North Carolina; Deer
Hill, and Stow, Maine. It is found also in the Lake Superior
district. See G. F. Kunz, Gems &c. of North America (1890),and
Report for 12th Census (vol. "Mines and Quarries"). (F. W. R.*)
AMHARA, the central province of Abyssinia. The chief town,
Gondar (q.v.), by which name the province is also known, was
the residence of the negus negusti, or emperor, of Abyssinia
from the middle ages up to 1854. The speech of the inhabitants,
Amharic, which differs in several features from the dialects
spoken in Tigre and Shoa, is the official language of Abyssinia.
AMHERST, JEFFREY AMHERST, BARON (1717-1797), British
soldier, was the son of Jeffrey Amherst of Riverhead, Kent,
and by the interest of the duke of Dorset obtained an ensigncy
in the Guards in 1731. He served in Germany and the Low
Countries as aide-de-camp to General (Lord) Ligonier, and
was present at Dettingen, Fontenoy and Roucoux. He then
served on Cumberland's staff, and took part with the duke
in the later campaigns of the Austrian Succession war, in
the battle of Val, and the North German campaign of 1757,
including the battle of Hastenbeck. A year previously he had
been promoted to a lieutenant- colonelcy. In 1758 William
Pitt caused Amherst to be made a major- general, and gave
him command of an expedition to attack the French in North
America. For the great plan of conquering Canada, Pitt chose
young and ardent officers, with Amherst, distinguished for
steadiness and self-control, as their commander-in-chief.
The first victory of the expedition, the capture of Louisburg
(July 26, 1758), was soon followed by other successes, and
Amherst was given the chief command of all the forces in
the theatre of war. In the campaign of 1759 Amherst's own
share was the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, while
Fort Niagara fell to another column, and Quebec was taken by
Wolfe. In 1760 a concentric march on Montreal was carried
out with complete success, Amherst was immediately appointed
governor-general of British North America, and in the following
year was made a K.B. His conduct of the operations against
the Indians under Pontiac was, however, far from being as
successful as his generalship against regular troops; and he
returned to England in 1763, being made governor of Virginia
and colonel of the 60th regiment in the same year. In 1768
the king, who had had a quarrel with Amherst, made amends by
giving him another colonelcy; in 1770 he was made governor of
Guernsey; and two years later, though not yet a full general,
he was made lieutenant-general of the ordnance and acting
commander-in- chief of the forces. In this capacity he was
the chief adviser at headquarters during the American War of
Independence. He was created a peer in 1776, was promoted
general in 1778 and became colonel of the 2nd Horse Grenadiers
(2nd Life Guards) two years later. He aided in suppressing
the Gordon riots of 1780. The rest of his active life, with
a short interval in 1782-1783, he spent at the Horse Guards
as commander-in-chief, but he was no longer capable of good
service, and in 1795 he was succeeded by the duke of York.
In 1796 Lord Amherst was made field-marshal; and he died on
the 3rd of August 1797 at "Montreal," his residence in Kent.
AMHERST, WILLIAM PITT AMHERST, EARL (1773-1857),
governor- general of India, was the nephew of Jeffrey,
Baron Amherst, and succeeded to his title in 1797 by the
remainder provided when the patent of nobility was renewed in
1788. In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary
to the court of China, with a view of establishing more
satisfactory commercial relations between that country and Great
Britain. On arriving in the Peiho he was given to understand
that he could only be admitted to the emperor's presence on
condition of performing the ko-tou (kow-tow), a ceremony
which Western nations consider degrading, and which is,
indeed, a homage exacted by a Chinese sovereign from his
tributaries. To this Lord Amherst, following the advice
of Sir George T. Staunton, who accompanied him as second
commissioner, refused to consent, as Lord Macartney had done
in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was
entitled to the same show of reverence from a mandarin of his
rank. In consequence of this he was not allowed to enter
Pekin, and the object of his mission was frustrated. His ship,
the "Alceste," after a cruise along the coast of Korea and
to the Loo-Choo Islands, on proceeding homewards was totally
wrecked on a sunken rock in Gaspar Strait. Lord Amherst and
part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats
to Batavia, whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship
in which he returned to England in 1817 having touched at St
Helena, he had several interviews with the emperor Napoleon
(see Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China,
1817; M'Leod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. "Alceste,"
1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of
India from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal event
of his government was the first Burmese war of 1824, resulting
in the cession of Arakan and Tenasserim to Great Britain. He
was created Earl Amherst of Arakan in 1826. On his return to
England he lived in retirement till his death in March 1857.
See A. Thackeray and R. Evans, Lord
Amherst ("Rulers of India" series), 1894.
AMHERST, a town and district in the Tenasserim division
of Lower Burma. The town is situated about 30 m. S. of
Moulmein. It was founded by the British in 1826 on the
restoration of the town of Martaban to the Burmese, and
named in compliment to the governor- general of India of
that day; but in 1827 the headquarters were transferred to
Moulmein. Amherst has been eclipsed in prosperity by the
latter city, and is now merely a bathing-place for Moulmein.
The district forms a narrow strip of land between the
Indian Ocean and the mountains which separate it from the
independent kingdom of Siam. It has an area of 7062 sq. m.
and had a population in 1901 of 300,173; it consists partly
of fertile valleys formed by spurs of mountain system which
divides it from Siam, and partly of a rich alluvial tract
created by the great rivers which issue from them. The most
important of these are the Salween and the Gyaing, formed by
the junction of the Hlaingbwe and Haungtharaw rivers. The
river highways bring down inexhaustible supplies of rice to
Moulmein, the chief town of the district, as also of the
province of Tenasserim. The district is subject to very heavy
rainfall approaching 150 in. in the year, and has a uniform
temperature of about 80 deg. F. throughout the twelvemonth.
AMHERST, a village of Amherst township, Hampshire county,
Massachusetts, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 7
m. N.E. of Northampton. Pop. of the township (1890) 4512;
(1900) 5028; (1905, state census) 5313. It is served by the
Boston & Maine and the Central Vermont railways, and by interurban
electric railways to Northampton, Holyoke, Sunderland and
Pelham. The village is picturesquely situated on a plateau
within a rampart of hills on the E. side of the Connecticut river
valley. About 3 m. to the S. are the Holyoke Mountains (so
called), while on the three remaining sides the land slopes to
meadows, beyond which rise on the W. the Hampshire and Berkshire
Hills, on the E. the Sugar Loaf Mountains and Mt. Toby, and
on the E. the Pelham Hills, including Mt Lincoln (1246 ft.).
Two small rivers (Mill and Fort) flow through the township.
Amherst is a quiet, pleasing, academic village of attractive
homes. It is noteworthy as the seat of Amherst College,
one of the best known of the smaller colleges of the United
States. Amherst Academy (opened about 1814, chartered 1816),
a co-educational school at which Mary Lyon, the founder of
Mt. Holyoke College, was educated, preceded the college (not
co-educational), which was opened in 1821 and was chartered in
1825. It was originally a collegiate charitable institution,
its basis being a fund for the schooling of ministers, and the
charity element has remained very large relatively to other
colleges. The principal college buildings are College
Hall (1828); College Chapel (1828); the Henry T. Morgan
Library; Williston Hall, containing the Mather Art Museum,
the rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association, and
several lecture-rooms; Walker Hall, with college offices and
lecture-rooms; Hitchcock Hall; Barrett Hall (1859), the first
college gymnasium built in the United States, now used as
a lecture hall; the Pratt Gymnasium and Natatorium and the
Pratt Health Cottage, whose donors also gave to the college
the Pratt Field; an astronomical observatory; and the two
dormitories, North College and South College, supplemented by
several fraternity houses. The natural history collections
(including the very large ichnological collection of President
Hitchcock, and Audubon's collection of birds) are of exceptional
richness. At Amherst is also the Massachusetts Agricultural
College (co-educational; 1867) and experiment station (1887).
Among the presidents of Amherst College have been in 1845-
1854 and in 1876-1890 respectively--Edward Hitchcock, the
famous geologist, and the Rev. Julius H. Seelye (1824-1895),
a well-known educationalist. The township seems to have
been first settled in 1731; it was incorporated in 1759 as a
"district" (i.e. having all the rights of a township save
corporate representation in the legislature) and in 1776 as
a "town" (township). It was originally part of Hadley. Its
name was given to it in honour of General Jeffrey Amherst
(1717-1797). During the Shays' Rebellion Amherst was a centre
of disaffection and a rallying-point of the insurgents.
Noah Webster lived in the village from 1812 to 1822, when
working on his Dictionary; and Emily Dickinson and Helen
M. Fiske (later Helen Hunt- Jackson, "H. H.") were born here.
See William Seymour Tyler, A History of Amherst
College (New York, 1896), and Carpenter and Morehouse,
The History of the Town of Amherst (New York, 1896).
AMHERST, the county town of Cumberland county, and
port of entry in Novia Scotia, Canada, at the head of
Chignecto Bay and on the Intercolonial railway, 138 m. from
Halifax. Pop. (1901) 4964. It is situated in a rich
agricultural and mining district, and contains county and
railway buildings and numerous mills and factories. It is
the distributing centre for the surrounding district, and
exports railway carriages, engines, boilers, stoves, &c.
AMHURST, NICHOLAS (1697-1742), English poet and political
writer, was born at Marden, Kent, on the 16th of October
1697. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and
received an exhibition (1716) to St John's College, Oxford.
In 1719 he was expelled from the university, ostensibly for
his irregularities of conduct, but in reality, according to
his own account, because of his whig principles, which were
sufficiently evident in a congratulatory epistle to Addison,
in Protestant Popery; or the Convocation (1718), an attack
on the opponents of Bishop Hoadly, and in The Protestant
Session ... by a member of the Constitution Club at Oxford
(1719), addressed to James, first Earl Stanhope, and printed
anonymously, but doubtless by Amhurst. He had satirized Oxford
morals in Strephon's Revenge; a Satire on the Oxford Toasts
(1718), and he attacked from time to time the administration
of the university and its principal members. An old Oxford
custom on public occasions permitted some person to deliver from
the rostrum a humorous, satirical speech, full of university
scandal. This orator was known as Terrae filius. In 1721
Amhurst produced a series of bi-weekly satirical papers under
this name, which ran for seven months and incidentally provides
much curious information. These publications were reprinted
in 1726 in two volumes as Terrae Filius; or the secret
history of the University of Oxford; in several essays....
He collected his poems in 1720, and wrote another university
satire, Oculus Britanniae, in 1724. On leaving Oxford for
London he became a prominent pamphleteer on the opposition
side. On the 5th of December 1726 he issued the first number
of the Craftsman, a weekly periodical, which he conducted
under the pseudonym of Caleb D'Anvers. The paper contributed
largely to the final overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole's
government, and reached a circulation of 10,000 copies. For
this success Amhurst's editorship was not perhaps chiefly
responsible. It was the organ of Lord Bolingbroke and William
Pulteney, the latter of whom was a frequent and caustic
contributor. In 1737 an imaginary letter from Colley Cibber
was inserted, in which he was made to suggest that many plays
by Shakespeare and the older dramatists contained passages
which might be regarded as seditious. He therefore desired
to be appointed censor of all plays brought on the stage.
This was regarded as a "suspected" libel, and a warrant was
issued for the arrest of the printer. Amhurst surrendered
himself instead, and suffered a short imprisonment. On the
overthrow of the government in 1742 the opposition leaders
did nothing for the useful editor of the Craftsman, and
this neglect is said to have hastened Amhurst's death,
which took place at Twickenham on the 27th of April 1742.
AMIANTHUS, a corruption of amiantus (Gr. amiautos, undefiled),
a name applied to the finer kinds of asbestos (q.v.), in
consequence, it is said, of the mineral being unaffected by
fire. Some of the finest amianthus, with long silky
flexible fibres, occurs in the district of the Tarentaise
in Savoy. According to Dr J. W. Evans, the ancient
amianthus, derived mostly from Karystos in Euboea and from
Cyprus, was probably a fibrous serpentine, or chrysotile
(now called locally pampakopetrai or cotton-stone).
See Mineralogical Mag. (London) vol.
xiv. no. 65 (1906), art. by J. W. Evans.
AMICABLE NUMBERS, two numbers so related that the sum of
the factors of the one is equal to the other, unity being
considered as a factor. Such a pair are 220 and 284; for
the factors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and
110, of which the sum is 284; and the factors of 284 are 1,
2, 4, 71, and 142, of which the sum is 220. Amicable numbers
were known to the Pythagoreans, who accredited them with
many mystical properties. A general formula by which these
numbers could be derived was invented by the Arabian astronomer
Tobit ben Korra (836-901): if p=3.2m-1, q=3.2m-1-1 and
r=9.22m-1-1, where m is an integer and p,q,r prime
numbers, then 2m pq and 2m r are a pair of amicable
numbers. This formula gives the pairs 220 and 284, 17,296
and 18,416, 9,463,584 and 9,437,056. The pair 6232 and
6368 are amicable, but they cannot be derived from this
formula. Amicable numbers have been studied by Al Madshritti
(d. 1007), Rene Descartes, to whom the formula of Tobit
ben Korra is sometimes ascribed, C. Rudolphus and others.
AMICE (earlier forms: amyt, amys, O. Fr. amit, Lat.
amictus, from amicire, to throw or wrap round, the change
of t to s being probably due to an early confusion with
the aumuce: see ALMUCE), a liturgical vestment of the
Western Church. It is a rectangular piece of cloth which
is wrapped round the neck, shoulders and breast. Sometimes,
more particularly in Germany, it is called the humerale
(from humerus, shoulder). According to modern Roman
use, laid down by the decree of the Congregation of Rites in
1819, the amice must be of linen or of a hempen material,
not wool; and, as directed by the new Roman Missal (1570),
a small cross must be sewn or embroidered in the middle of
it. In putting it on it is first laid on the head, then
allowed to fall on the shoulders, and finally folded round
the chest and tied with the strings attached for that purpose
(see fig. 1). The amice is now worn under the alb, except at
Milan and Lyons, where it is put on over it. The vestment
was at first a perfectly plain white cloth, but in the 12th
century the custom arose of decorating the upper border with
a band of embroidery, the parure (parura) or "apparel."
This was abandoned at Rome about the end of the 15th century
and is not prescribed in the Missal; it survived, however,
in many parts of Europe till much later. This apparel, when
the vestment has been adjusted, forms a sort of stiff collar
which appears above the chasuble or dalmatic (see fig. 2). In
some exceptional cases, as at Milan, it has become detached
from the amice and is fixed like a collar to the chasuble.
The Latin word amictus was applied to any wrap-like
garment, and, according to Father Braun, the liturgical amice
originated in the ordinary neck-cloth worn by all classes of
Romans. It had at the outset no liturgical significance
whatever, and was simply adopted by the clergy for the same
reason that the clergy of the 18th century wore wigs--because
it was part of the full dress of ordinary life. The first
record of its ecclesiastical use is at Rome in the 8th
century, when it was worn only with the dalmatic and was
known as the anabolagium (anagolaium, anagolagium, from
Gr. anabolaion), a name it continued to bear at Rome till
the 13th century. In the 9th century it spread to the other
countries that adopted the Roman use: it is mentioned in an
inventory of vestments given by Abbot Angilbert (d. 814) to
the monastery at Centula (St Riguier) and in the de clericorum
institutione of Hrabanus Maurus (c. 820). The amice was
worn first simply as a shoulder-cloth, but at the end of the
9th century the custom grew up of putting it on over the head
and of wearing it as a hood, either while the other vestments
were being put on or, according to the various uses of local
churches, during part of the Mass, though never during the
canon. This ceased at Rome at the same time as the apparel
disappeared; but two relics of it survive--(1) in the directions
of the Missal for putting on the amice, (2) in the ordination
of subdeacons, when the bishop lays the vestment on the
ordinand's head with the words, "Take the amice, which symbolizes
discipline over the tongue, &c." The priest too in putting
it on prays, "Place on my head the helmet of salvation, &c."
The amice, whatever its origin or symbolism, became specifically
a vestment associated with the sacrifice of the Mass, and as
such it was rejected with the other "Mass vestments" in England
at the Reformation. Its use has, however, been revived in
many Anglican churches, the favourite form being the medieval
apparelled amice. (See VESTMENTS.) A vestment akin to the
amice is also worn in the Armenian and some other oriental
churches, but it is unknown to the Orthodox Eastern Church.
Akin to the amice is a vestment peculiar to the popes, the
fanone (Med. Lat. fano, "cloth," Goth. fana, "cloth,"
Mod. Ger. Fahne, "a flag"), also called the orale (from
ora, an edge, border). This is at present a circular
broad collar of two thicknesses of silk, ornamented with gold
stripes and a gold- embroidered cross (see fig. 3). It is put
on after the alb, &c., and under the tunicle, dalmatic and
chasuble, but then drawn up so as to fall over the latter like a
collar. The fanone was originally a cloth like the amice and
was wrapped round neck and shoulders; until the 15th century,
moreover, it was not worn with the amice. Since then, however,
both vestments have been worn, one under, the other over, the
alb. It is worn by the popes only on certain special days or
occasions, and forms part of the vestments in which they are buried.
See Joseph Braun, S. J., Die liturgische Gewandung, pp. 21-56 (Freiburg
im Breisgau, 1907), and bibliography to the article VESTMENTS.
AMICI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1786-1863), Italian astronomer and
microscopist, was born on the 25th of March 1786 at Modena.
After studying at Bologna, he became professor of mathematics at
Modena, and in 1831 was appointed inspector-general of studies
in the duchy. A few years later he was chosen director of the
observatory at Florence, where he also lectured at the museum
of natural history. He died at Florence on the 10th of April
1863. His name is best known for the improvements he effected
in the mirrors of reflecting telescopes and especially in the
construction of the microscope. He was also a diligent and
skilful observer, and busied himself not only with astronomical
subjects, such as the double stars, the satellites of Jupiter
and the measurement of the polar and equatorial diameters of the
sun, but also with biological studies of the circulation of
the sap in plants, the fructification of plants, infusoria, &c.
AMICIS, EDMONDO DE (1846-1908), Italian writer, was born at
Oneglia, in Liguria, on the 21st of October 1846. After some
schooling at Cuneo and Turin, he was sent to the Military
School at Modena, from which he was appointed to a lieutenancy
in the 3rd regiment of the line in 1865. He fought at the
battle of Custozza in 1866. In 1867 he became director of
the Italia Militare, Florence. In the following year
he published his first book, La Vita Militare, which
consisted of sketches of military life, and attained wide
popularity. After the overthrow of the pope's temporal power
in 1870, De Amicis retired from the army and devoted himself
to literature, making his headquarters at Turin. Always a
traveller by inclination, he found opportunity for this in
his new leisure, and some of his most popular books have been
the product of his wanderings. Several of these have been
translated into English and the other principal languages of
Europe. The most important of these are his descriptions of
Spain (1873), Holland (1874), Constantinople (1877) and Morocco
(1879). These gained him a well- deserved reputation as a
brilliant depicter of scenery and the external aspects of life;
solid information is not within their sphere; and much of their
success is owing to the opportunities they afford for spirited
illustration. Subsequently De Amicis greatly extended his
fame as a writer of fiction, especially by Il Romanzo d' un
Maestro, and the widely read Il Cuore (translated into
English as An Italian Schoolboy's Journal); later volumes
from his pen being La Carozza di tutti (centring round an
electric tram), Memorie, Speranze e glorie, Ricordi d'
infanzia e di scuola, L' Idioma gentile, and a volume
of short stories, Nel Regno dell' Amore. He died suddenly
of heart disease at Bordighera on the 12th of March 1908.
AMICUS CURIAE (Lat. for "a friend of the court"), a term used
primarily in law, signifying a person (usually a member of the
bar) who, having special knowledge but not being engaged in the
suit, intervenes during its hearing to give information for
the assistance of the court, either upon some fact relevant
to the issue or upon a point of law, such as the hearing
of a local custom, the precedent of some decided case, &c.
AMIDINES, in organic chemistry, the name given to compounds
of general formula R.C:(NH).NH2, which may be considered as
derived from the acid-amides by replacement of oxygen by the
divalent imino (=NH) group. They may be prepared by the action
of ammonia or amines on imide chorides, or on thiamides (O.
Wallach, A. Bernthsen); by the action of ammonium chloride
or hydrochlorides of amines on nitriles; by condensing
amines and amides in presence of phosphorus trichloride; by
the action of hydrochloric acid on acid-amides (O. Wallach,
Ber., 1882, 15, p. 208); and by the action of ammonia or
amines on imino-ethers (A. Pinner, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 1647;
1884, 17, p. 179). They are monacid bases, which are not
very stable; they readily take up the elements of water
(when boiled with acids or alkalies), yielding amides and
ammonia. On dry distillation they yield nitriles and ammonia.
When warmed with sulphuretted hydrogen they yield thiamides,
R.C:(NH).NHR+H2S = R.C(NH2)(SH)NHR = R.CSNH2 + NH2.R or
RCS.NHR + NH3. With b-ketonic esters, HO(CH3)C:CH.CO2R,
they yield oxypyrimidines (A. Pinner, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 3820).
Formamidine, HC:(NH)NH2, is only known in the form of
its salts, the hydrochloride being obtained by the action
of ammonia on the hydrochloride of formimido-ethyl ether
(A. Pinner, Ber., 1883, 16, p. 357). Acetamidine,
CH3C:(NH).NH2, is alkaline in reaction, and readily
splits up into acetic acid and ammonia when warmed with
acids. Its hydrochloride melts at 163 deg. C., and crystallizes
from alcohol in colourless deliquescent prisms. Acetic
anhydride converts the base into an acetamino-dimethyl
pyrimidine, acetic acid and acetamide being also formed.
Benzamidine, C6H5.C:(NH)NH2, forms colourless crystals
which melt at 75-80 deg. C. When warmed it breaks down into ammonia
and cyanphenine (s-triphenyl triazine). It condenses with
acetic anhydride to form a methyldiphenyl triazine, acetamide
being also formed; with acetyl-acetone to form dimethylphenyl
pyrimidine (A. Pinner, Ber., 1893, 26, p. 2125); and with
trimethylene bromide to form a phenyl tetrahydropyrimidine
(Pinner). H. v. Pechmann (Ber., 1895, 28, p. 2362) has
shown that amidines of the type R.C: (NY).NHZ sometimes
react as if they possessed the constitution R.C: (NZ).NHY;
but this only appears to occur when Y and Z are groups which
function in the same way. If Y and Z are groups which behave
very differently, then there is apparently no tautomerism
and a definite formula can be given to the compound.
The formulae of the ringed compounds mentioned above are here shown:
N--C--(CH3)
// \\
R.C CH
\ /
N==C--(OH)
Oxypyrimidine.
N--C--(CH3)
// \\
CH3.C CH
\ /
N==C--(NHCOCH3)
Acetaminodimethyl pyrimidine.
C6H5
/
N--C
// \\
C6H5.C N
\ /
N==C
\
CH3
Methyl diphenyl triazine.
N--CH2
// \
C6H5.C CH2
\ /
NH--CH2
Phenyl tetrahydropyrimidine.
AMIEL, HENRI FREDERIC (1821-1881), Swiss philosopher
and critic, was born at Geneva on the 27th of September
1821. He was descended from a Huguenot family driven to
Switzerland by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Losing
his parents at an early age, he travelled widely, became
intimate with the intellectual leaders of Europe and made
a special study of German philosophy in Berlin. In 1849
he was appointed professor of aesthetics at the academy of
Geneva, and in 1854 became professor of moral philosophy.
These appointments, conferred by the democratic party,
deprived him of the support of the aristocratic party; which
comprised nearly all the culture of the city. This isolation
inspired the one book by which Amiel lives, the Journal
Intime, which, published after his death, obtained a European
reputation. It was translated into English by Mrs Humphry
Ward. Although second-rate as regards productive power,
Amiel's mind was of no inferior quality, and his journal
gained a sympathy which the author had failed to obtain in his
life. In addition to the Journal, he produced several
volumes of poetry and wrote studies on Erasmus, Madame de Stael
and other writers. He died in Geneva on the 11th of March
1881. His chief poetical works are Grains de mil, Il
penseroso, Part du reve, Les Etrangeres, Charles
le Temeraire, Romancero historique, Jour a jour.
See Life of Amiel by Mdlle Berthe Vadier (Paris, 1885); Paul
Bourget, Nouveaux essais (Paris, 1885); E. Scherer, introd. to
the Journal and in Etudes sur la litt. contemp. (vol. viii.).
AMIENS, a city of northern France, capital of the
department of Somme, on the left bank of the Somme, 81
m. N. of Paris on the Northern railway to Calais. Pop. (1906)
78,407. Amiens was once a place of great strength, and still
possesses a citadel of the end of the 16th century, but the
ramparts which surrounded it have been replaced by boulevards,
bordered by handsome residences. Suburbs, themselves bounded
by another line of boulevards, have arisen beyond these
limits, and the city also extends to the right bank of the
Somme. The busy quarter of Amiens lies between the river
and the railway, which for some distance follows the inner
line of boulevards. The older and more picturesque quarter
is situated directly on the Somme; its narrow and irregular
streets are intersected by the eleven arms of the river and
it is skirted on the north by the canal derived therefrom.
Besides its boulevards Amiens has the ample park or Promenade
de la Hotoie to the west and several fine squares, notably
the Place Longueville and the Place St Denis, in which
stands the statue of the famous 17th-century scholar Charles
Ducange. The cathedral (see ARCHITECTURE: Romanesque and
Gothic Architecture in France; and CATHEDRAL), which is
perhaps the finest church of Gothic architecture in France,
far exceeds the other buildings of the town in importance.
Erected on the plans of Robert de Luzarches, chiefly between
1220 and 1288, it consists of a nave, nearly 140 ft. in height,
with aisles and lateral chapels, a transept with aisles, and
a choir (with deambulatory) ending in an apse surrounded by
chapels. The total length is 469 ft., the breadth 216
ft. The facade, which is flanked by two square towers
without spires, has three portals decorated with a profusion
of statuary, the central portal having a remarkable statue
of Christ of the 13th century; they are surmounted by two
galleries, the upper one containing twenty-two statues of the
kings of Judah in its arcades, and by a fine rose-window.
A slender spire rises above the crossing. The southern
portal is remarkable for a figure of the Virgin and other
statuary. In the interior, which contains beautifully carved
stalls, a choir-screen in the flamboyant style and many
other works of art, the most striking features are the height
of the nave and the boldness of the columns supporting the
vaulting. The chief of the other churches of Amiens is
St Germain (15th century), which has some good stained
glass. The hotel de ville, begun in 1550, a belfry of
the 14th and 18th centuries and several old mansions are of
interest. Amiens has a rich library and admirable collections
of paintings, sculptures and antiquities in the museum of
Picardy. Its learned associations include the Societe
des Antiquaires de Picardie, by whom the museum was built in
1854-1864. The city is the seat of a bishop, a prefect,
a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and headquarters
of the II. Army Corps. There are also tribunals of first
instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a
chamber of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France.
The educational institutions include lycees for boys and
girls, training-colleges for teachers, a preparatory school of
medicine, a school of music and a school of iron-working and
wood-working. The textile industries for which Amiens has
been celebrated since the middle ages include manufactures
of velvet, cotton-, wool-, silk-, hemp- and flax-spinning,
and the weaving of hosiery and a variety of mixed fabrics.
Manufactures of machinery, chemicals, blacking, polish and
sugar, and printing, dyeing and iron-founding are also carried
on. Market gardens, known as hortillonnages, intersected
by small canals derived from the Somme and Avre, cover a
considerable area to the north-east of Amiens; and the city has
trade in vegetables, as well as in grain, sugar, wool, oil-seeds
and the duck-pasties and macaroons for which it is renowned.
Amiens occupies the site of the ancient Samarobriva, capital
of the Ambiani, from whom it probably derives its name. At the
beginning of the 4th century Christianity was preached there
by St Firmin, its first bishop. During the middle ages its
territory formed the countship of Amienois. The authority
of the counts was, however, balanced by that of the bishops,
and early in the 12th century the citizens, profiting by this
rivalry, gained a charter of enfranchisement. The fief became
for the first time a dependency of the French crown in 1185,
when Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, ceded it to Philip
Augustus. It more than once passed out of the power of the
French kings, notably in 1435, when, by the treaty of Arras,
it came into the possession of the dukes of Burgundy, to whom
it belonged till 1477. Surprised by the Spaniards in 1597,
the city was recaptured from them after a long siege by Henry
IV. Till 1790 it was the capital of the gouvernement of
Picardy (q.v.). The famous treaty between Great Britain,
France, Spain and Holland which took its name from Amiens
was signed in the hotel de ville on the 25th of March
1802. During the war between France and Germany, Amiens,
after an important action, fell into the hands of the Prussians
on the 28th of November 1870. (See FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.)
See A. de Calonne, Histoire de la ville d'Amiens
(1900); John Ruskin, The Bible of Amiens (1881); La
Picardie historique et monumentale, tome i., published
by the Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie (1893).
AMINES, in chemistry, derivatives of ammonia in which one
or more of the hydrogen atoms are replaced by alkyl or aryl
groups. The replacement of one hydrogen atom by one alkyl
or aryl group gives rise to primary amines; of two hydrogen
atoms by two groups, to secondary amines; of three hydrogen
atoms by three groups, to tertiary amines. The tertiary amines
possess the power of combining with one molecular proportion
of an alkyl iodide to form quaternary ammonium salts. The
structural relations of these compounds may be shown thus:
NH3; NH2R; NHR2; NR3;
Ammonia; primary amine; secondary amine; tertiary amine;
NR4I.
quaternary ammonium iodide.
Aliphatic amines.--These compounds possess properties very
similar to those of ammonia, the lowest members of the series
being combustible gases readily soluble in water. The next
higher members of the series are liquids of low boiling point
also readily soluble in water, the solubility and volatility,
however, decreasing with the increasing carbon content of
the molecule, until the highest members of the series are
odourless solids of high boiling point and are insoluble in
water. They are all strong bases, readily forming salts with
the mineral acids and double salts with the chlorides of gold,
platinum and mercury. They are ionized in aqueous solution
to a much greater extent than ammonia, the quaternary ammonium
bases being the most ionized, and the secondary bases being
more strongly ionized than the primary or tertiary bases.
For data concerning the conductivity of the organic bases
see G. Bredig (Zeit. fur phys. Chem., 1894, 13, p. 289).
Many methods have been devised for the preparation of the
amines, the first amine having been isolated in 1849 by
A. Wurtz on boiling methyl isocyanate with caustic potash,
CON.CH3 + 2KHO = CH3NH2 + K2CO3. The primary amines may
also be prepared by heating the alkyl iodides with ammonia
(A. W. Hofmann); by the reduction of nitriles with alcohol and
sodium (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 783); by heating
the esters of nitric acid with alcoholic ammonia at 100 deg.
C. (O. Wallach, Ber., 1881, 14, p. 421); by the action of
reducing agents on nitroparaffins; by the action of zinc and
hydrochloric acid on aldehyde ammonias (German Patent 73,812);
by the reduction of the phenylhydrazones and oximes of aldehydes
and ketones with sodium amalgam in the presence of alcohol
and sodium acetate (J. Tafel, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 1925; 1889,
22, p. 1854; H. Goldschmidt, Ber., 1886, 19, p. 3232); by
the action of dilute hydrochloric acid on the isonitriles, R.NC
+ 2H2O = R.NH2 + H2CO2; by heating the mustard oils with
a mineral acid, by the hydrolysis of the alkyl phthalimides
(S. Gabriel, Ber., 1887, 20, p. 2224; 1891, 24, p. 3104),
CO CO
/ \ RI / \ 2H2O
C6H4 NK ---> C6H4 NR -------->
\ / \ /
CO CO
COOH
/
C6H4 + NH2R;
\
COOH
by distilling the amino-acids with baryta; by the action
of bromine and caustic potash on the acid-amides (A. W.
Hofmann, Ber., 1885, 18, p. 2734; 1886, 19, p. 1822);
CH3CONH2 --> CH3CONHBr --> CH3CONKBr -->
CH3NCO --> CH3NH2;
and by the hydrolysis of substituted urethanes (Th.
Curtius, Ber., 1894, 27, p. 779; 1896, 29, p. 1166),
N2H4.H20 HONO
R.COOH --> R.COOR1 ------------------> R.CONH.NH2 ----->
acid ester hydrazide
C2H5OH HCI
R.CON3 -------------> R.NH.CO2C2H5 ----> R.NH2
azide urethane
The secondary amines are prepared, together with the primary and
tertiary, by the action of ammonia on the alkyl iodides (see
below), or by the hydrolysis of para-nitroso derivatives of
tertiary aromatic amines, such as para-nitrosodimethylaniline,
thus: NO.C6H4.N(CH3)2 + H2O = NO.C6H4.OH + NH(CH3)2.
By the action of ammonia on the alkyl iodides a complex
mixture of primary, secondary and tertiary amines, along with a
quaternary ammonium salt, is obtained, the separation of which is
difficult. The method worked out by A. W. Hofmann is as
follows:--the mixture is distilled with caustic potash, when
the primary, secondary and tertiary amines distil over, and
the quaternary ammonium salt remains behind unaffected. The
aqueous solution of the amines is now shaken up with diethyl
oxalate, when the primary amine forms a crystalline dialkyl
oxamide and the secondary amine an insoluble liquid, which
is an ethyl dialkyl oxamate, the tertiary amine not reacting:
(CO2C2H5)2 + 2NH2R = (CO.NHR)2 + 2C2H5OH; (CO2C2H5)2
+ NHR2 = C2H5O2C.CONR2 + C2H5OH. The tertiary amine
is then distilled off, the residual products separated
by filtration and finally hydrolysed by a caustic alkali.
The primary, secondary and tertiary amines may be readily
distinguished by their behaviour with various reagents. Primary
amines when heated with alcoholic potash and chloroform yield
isonitriles, which are readily detected by their offensive
smell. The secondary and tertiary amines do not give this
reaction. With nitrous acid, the primary amines yield alcohols,
the secondary amines yield nitrosamines and the tertiary
amines do not react: R.NH2 + ONOH = R.OH + N2 + H2O; R2NH
+ ONOH = R2N.NO + H2O. With benzene sulphochloride in the
presence of alkali, the primary amines yield compounds of the
type C6H5SO2NHR, soluble in alkalies, whilst the secondary
amines yield compounds of the type C6H5SO2NR2, insoluble
in alkalies (O. Hinsberg, Ber., 1890, 23, p. 2963). Primary
amines heated with carbon bisulphide in alcoholic solution
are converted into mustard oils, when the dithiocarbamate
first produced is heated with a solution of mercuric chloride.
Methylamine, CH3NH2, occurs in Mercurialis perennis, in
bone-oil, and herring brine. It is also a decomposition product
of many alkaloids. At ordinary temperatures it is a gas, but may
be condensed to a liquid which boils at -6 deg. C. It has a strong
ammoniacal smell, burns readily and is exceedingly soluble in
water. Its critical temperature is 155 deg. C. and critical
pressure 72 atmos. (C. Vincent, J. Chappuis, Jahresb., 1886,
p. 202). Dimethylamine, (CH3)2NH, is found in Peruvian
guano. It is a heavy vapour which condenses at 7 deg. C. to a
liquid, having a pronounced fish-like smell. Trimethylamine,
(CH3)3N, is very similar to dimethylamine, and condenses to
a liquid which boils at 3.2-3.8 deg. C. It is usually obtained
from "vinasses," the residue obtained from the distillation of
beet sugar alcohol, and is used in the manufacture of potassium
bicarbonate by the Solvay process, since its hydrochloride is
much more soluble than potassium carbonate. Tetramethylammonium
iodide, N(CH3)4I, is the chief product obtained by the
action of methyl iodide on ammonia (Hofmann). It crystallizes
in quadratic prisms and has a bitter taste. By warming its
aqueous solution with an excess of silver oxide it is converted
into tetramethylammonium hydroxide, N(CH3)4OH, which
crystallizes in hygroscopic needles, and has a very alkaline
reaction. It forms many crystalline salts and absorbs carbon
dioxide. It precipitates many metallic hydroxides. On dry
distillation it is resolved into trimethylamine and methyl
alcohol. If the nitrogen atom in the quaternary ammonium
salts be in combination with four different groups, then
the molecule is asymmetrical, and the salt can be resolved
into optically active enantiamorphous isomerides. W. J.
Pope (Jour. Chem. Soc., 1901, 79, p. 828) has resolved
benzyl-allyl-phenyl-methylamine iodide by boiling with silver
d-camphorsulphonate in a nearly anhydrous mixture of acetone
and ethyl acetate. The silver iodide is separated and the
solvent distilled off. The residue crystallizes slowly, and
the crystalline product is almost wholly d-benzyl-ally-phenyl-
ammonium-d-sulphonate, the corresponding l-compound
remaining as a syrupy residue. The corresponding iodides
are obtained by the addition of potassium iodide to solutions
of the sulphonates, and are optically active antipodes.
Diamines.--The diamines contain two amino groups and bear
the same relation to the glycols that the primary monamines
bear to the primary alcohols. They are of importance, since
the higher homologues are identical in many cases with the
ptomaines produced by the putrefactive action of some bacteria
on albumen and other related substances. Ethylene diamine,
C2H4(NH2)2, may be prepared by heating ethylene dibromide
with alcoholic ammonia to 100 deg. C. (F. S. Cloez, Jahresb.,
1853, p. 468); or by the action of tin and hydrochloric acid
on cyanogen (T. Fairley, Ann. Suppl., 3, 1864, p. 372). It
is an alkaline liquid, which when anhydrous boils at 116.5 deg.
C. Nitrous acid converts it into ethylene oxide. It combines
directly with many metallic salts. (See S. F. Jorgensen, Jour.
pr. Chem., 1889 (2), 39, p. 8.) Trimethylene diamine,
NH2.(CH2)3.NH2, is prepared by the action of ammonia
on trimethylene bromide (E. Fischer, Ber., 1884, 17, p.
1799). It is a liquid which boils at 135-136 deg. C., and is
readily soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform and benzene.
Tetramethylene diamine (putrescine), NH2.(CH2)4.NH2, is
prepared by reducing ethylene dicyanide (succinonitrile) with
sodium in absolute alcoholic solution (A. Ladenburg, Ber.,
1886, 19, p. 780). It melts at 27 deg. C., and is easily soluble in
water. Pentamethylene diamine (cadaverine), NH2.(CH2)5.NH2,is
prepared by reducing trimethylene cyanide in ether solution by
zinc and hydrochloric acid (A. Ladenburg, Ber., 1883, 16, p.
1151). J. v. Braun (Ber., 1904, 37, p. 3583) has prepared
pentamethylene derivatives from piperidine by the action of
phosphorus pentachloride. On heating piperidine with phosphorus
pentachloride to 200 deg. C. in a sealed tube pentamethylene
dichloride is obtained, and this on treatment with potassium
phthalimide gives a condensation product of composition,
C6H4[CO]2N(CH2)5N[CO]2C6H4, which is finally hydrolysed
by hydrochloric acid. Cadaverine is a syrup at ordinary
temperatures, and boils at 178-179 deg. C. It is readily soluble
in water and alcohol, but only slightly soluble in ether.
Aromatic Amines.--The aromatic amines in some respects
resemble the aliphatic amines, since they form salts with
acids, and double salts with platinum chloride, and they
also distil without decomposition. On the other hand, they
are much weaker bases than the aliphatic amines, their salts
undergoing hydrolytic dissociation in aqueous solution. The
primary aromatic amines may be prepared by the reduction of
the nitro-hydrocarbons, the reducing agents used being either
alcoholic-ammonium sulphide (N. Zinin), zinc and hydrochloric
acid (A. W. Hofmann), an alcoholic solution of stannous
chloride (containing hydrochloric acid) (R. Anschutz, Ber.,
1886, 19, p. 2161), tin and hydrochloric acid, or, on the
manufacturing scale, iron and hydrochloric acid. They may
also be obtained by the reduction of nitroso compounds and of
hydrazo compounds and of hydrazones (J. Tafel, Ber., 1886,
19, p. 1924), by distilling the amido-acids with lime, by
heating phenols with zinc chloride ammonia (V. Merz, Ber.,
1880, 13, p. 1298), and by heating the secondary and tertiary
bases with concentrated hydrochloric acid to about 180 deg. C.
At a temperature of about 300-400 deg. C. the alkyl chloride
formed in this reaction attacks the benzene nucleus and
replaces hydrogen by an alkyl group or groups, forming primary
amines homologous with the original amine; thus methylaniline
hydrochloride is converted into para- and ortho-toluidine
hydrochloride, and trimethyl phenyl ammonium iodide is converted
into mesidine hydriodide. It is to be noted that only traces
of the aromatic amines are produced by heating the halogen
substituted benzenes with ammonia, unless the amino group be
situated in the side chain, as in the case of benzylamine.
The primary amines are colourless liquids or crystalline
solids, which are insoluble in water, but readily soluble
in the common organic solvents. When heated with alkyl or
aryl iodides, they are converted into secondary and tertiary
amines. Concentrated nitric acid attacks them violently,
producing various oxidation products, but if the amino group
be "protected" by being previously acetylated, then nitro
derivatives are obtained. When heated with concentrated
sulphuric acid for some time, they are sulphonated. They
form condensation products with aldehydes, benzaldehyde and
aniline forming benzylidene aniline, C6H5N: CHC6H5, and
when heated with acids they form anilides. They give the
isonitrile reaction (see above) when warmed with chloroform
and a caustic alkali, and form alkyl thioureas when heated with
an alcoholic solution of carbon bisulphide. When warmed with
a solution of nitrous acid, they are converted into phenols;
if, however, nitrous acid be added to an ice-cold solution
of a primary amine in excess of mineral acid, a diazonium
salt is formed (see AZO COMPOUNDS and DIAZO COMPOUNDS),
or in absence of excess of acid, a diazoamine is produced.
The secondary amines may be of two types--namely, the purely
aromatic amines, and the mixed secondary amines, which contain an
aromatic residue and an alkyl group. The purely aromatic amines
result upon heating the primary amines with their hydrochlorides,
and, in some cases, by heating a phenol with a primary amine
and anhydrous zinc chloride. The mixed secondary amines are
prepared by the action of alkyl iodides on the primary amines,
or by heating salts of the primary amine with alcohols under
pressure. The mixed secondary amines have basic properties,
but the purely aromatic secondary amines are only very feeble
bases. Both classes readily exchange the imide hydrogen
for acid radicals, and give nitrosamines with nitrous acid.
The secondary amines do not give the isonitrile reaction.
The tertiary amines may also be of two types, the purely
aromatic and the mixed type. The mixed tertiary amines
are produced by the action of alkyl halides on the
primary amines. The simplest aromatic tertiary amine,
triphenylamine, is prepared by the action of brombenzene
on sodium diphenylamine (C. Heydrich, Ber., 1885, 18, p.
2156). The simplest aromatic monamine is aniline (q.v.),
and the simplest mixed amines are mono- and di-methyl
aniline. These substances are treated in the article ANILINE.
The aromatic amine resembling the aliphatic amines is
benzylamine, C6H5.CH2.NH2, which may be prepared by
reducing benzonitrile in alcoholic solution by means of
zinc and acetic acid (O. Mendius, Ann. 1862, 121, p. 144),
or by metallic sodium (E. Bamberger, Ber., 1887, 20, p.
1709). It can also be obtained by the action of ammonia
on benzyl chloride (S. Cannizzaro, Ann., 1865, 134, p.
128), but di- and tri-benzylamines are simultaneously
formed. It is a liquid, which boils at 183 deg. C., and is
miscible in all proportions with water, alcohol and ether. It
is basic in character, and has a strongly alkaline reaction.
Diphenylamine, (C6H5)2NH, is the simplest representative of
the true aromatic secondary amines. It is prepared by heating
aniline and aniline hydrochloride for some hours to 210-240 deg.
C, (Ch. Girard and G. de Laire, Zeit. fur Chem., 1866, p.
438). It crystallizes in white plates, which melt at 45 deg.
C. and boil at 302 deg. C. It is almost insoluble in water, but
readily volatilizes in steam. When heated with monobasic
saturated acids and zinc chloride it yields acridines.
Aromatic Diamines.--The diamines are prepared by reducing the
nitranilines or the dinitrohydrocarbons. They crystallize in
plates, and for the most part distil without decomposition.
Orthophenylene diamine, C6H4(NH2)2, crystallizes from
water in plates, which melt at 102-103 deg. C. and boil at
256-258 deg. C. When heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg.
C. it yields pyrocatechin (Jacob Meyer, Ber., 1897, 30, p.
2569). The orthodiamines are characterized by the large
number of condensation products they form. (See IMIDAZOLES,
QUINOXALINES, &c.). Metaphenylene diamine crystallizes in
rhombic plates which melt at 63 deg. C. and boil at 287 deg. C.
It is easily soluble in water and alcohol. When heated with
10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields resorcin (J.
Meyer). Paraphenylene diamine may be prepared as above, and
also by the reduction of amidoazobenzene. It crystallizes
in tables which melt at 140 deg. C. and boil at 267 deg. C. When
heated with 10% hydrochloric acid to 180 deg. C. it yields
hydroquinone (J. Meyer). Manganese dioxide and dilute sulphuric
acid oxidize it to quinone. The three classes of diamines
may be distinguished by their behaviour towards nitrous
acid. The ortho-compounds condense to azimido benzenes, the
metacompounds yield azo-dyestuffs, and the para- compounds
yield bis-diazo compounds of the type XN2.C6H4.N2X.
AMIOT, JEAN JOSEPH MARIE (1718-1793), French Jesuit missionary,
was born at Toulon in February 1718. He entered the Society
of Jesus in 1737 and was sent in 1750 as a missionary to
China. He soon won the confidence of the emperor Kien-lung
and spent the remainder of his life at Pekin, where he died
on the 9th of October 1793. Amiot was eminently fitted to
make good use of the advantages which his situation afforded,
and his works did more than had ever been done before to make
known to the Western world the thought and life of the Far
East. His Dictionnaire tatare-mantchou-francais (Paris,
1789) was a work of great value, the language having been
previously quite unknown in Europe. His other writings
are to be found chiefly in the Memoires concernant
l'histoire, les sciences et les arts de Chinois (15 vols.,
Paris, 1776-1791). The Vie de Confucius, the twelfth
volume of that collection, is complete and accurate.
For full bibliography see De Backer and C. Sommervogel,
Bibliotheque de la Cie. de Jesus, i. 294-303;
for his works on Chinese music see F. J. Fetis,
Biog. univers. des musiciens (Brussels, 1837-1844).
AMIR, or AMEER (an Arabic word meaning "commander,"
from the root amr, "commanding"), a title common in the
Mahommedan East. The form emir is also commonly employed in
English. The word originally signified a military commander,
but very early came to be extended to anyone bearing rule,
Mahomet himself being styled by the pagan Arabs amir of
Mecca. Thus the term gradually came to be applied to any high
office-bearer, or to any lord or chief. The caliph has the
style of Amir ul Omara, "lord of lords." The title Amir ul
Muminim, or "commander of the faithful," now borne by the
sultan of Turkey, was first assumed by Abu Bekr, and was
taken by most of the various dynasties which claimed the
caliphate, including the Fatimites, the Spanish Omayyads and the
Almohades. The Almoravides and the Merinides assumed the
style of Amir ul Muslimin, "commander of the Mussulmans."
The use of the word is, in fact, closely akin to that of
the English "lord," sometimes connoting office, as in Amir
ul-ahghal (minister of finance) under the Almohades (cf.
"lord of the treasury"), sometimes mere dignity, as in the
case of the title of honour borne by all descendants of the
Prophet, or of the title Mir assumed by men of great rank
in the Far East. Sometimes it implies a temporary office of
dignity and command--e.g. the Amir ul-haj, "commander of
the pilgrimage" (to Mecca). Sometimes again it connotes the
meaning of "sovereign lord," in which sense it was early assumed
by the princes of Sind and by the rulers of Afghanistan and
Bokhara, the title implying a lesser dignity than that of
sultan. Thus too it is very generally applied in the East
to the chiefs of independent or semi-independent tribes.
In the Lebanon both the Christian clans and the Druses are
ruled by hereditary amirs. Finally the word (confused not
unnaturally with the particle usually attached to it) was
borrowed by the West, and is the origin of the English "admiral."
AMIS ET AMILES, the title of an old French romance based
on a widespread legend of friendship and sacrifice. In its
earlier and simpler form it is the story of two friends,
one of whom, Amis, was smitten with leprosy because he had
committed perjury to save his friend. A vision informed him
that he could only be cured by bathing in the blood of Amiles's
children. When Amiles learnt this he killed the children, who
were, however, miraculously restored to life after the cure of
Amis. The tale was probably of Oriental origin, and introduced
to the West by way of Byzantium. It found its way into
French literature through the medium of Latin, as the names
Amicus and Amellus indicate, and was eventually attached to
the Carolingian cycle in the 12th-century chanson de geste
of Amis et Amiles. This poem is written in decasyllabic
assonanced verse, each stanza being terminated by a short
line. It belongs to the heroic period of French epic, containing
some passages of great beauty, notably the episode of the
slaying of the children, and maintains a high level of poetry
throughout. Amis has married Lubras and become count of
Blaives (Blaye), while Amiles has become seneschal at the
court of Charlemagne, and is seduced by the emperor's daughter,
Bellisant. The lovers are betrayed, and Amiles is unable
to find the necessary supporters to enable him to clear
himself by the ordeal of single combat, and fears, moreover,
to fight in a false cause. He is granted a reprieve, and
goes in search of Amis, who engages to personate him in the
combat. He thus saves his friend, but in so doing perjures
himself. Then follows the leprosy of Amis, and, after a
lapse of years, his discovery of Amiles and cure. There are
obvious reminiscences in this story of Damon and Pythias,
and of the classical instances of sacrifice at the divine
command. The legend of Amis and Amiles occurs in many forms
with slight variations, the names and positions of the friends
being sometimes reversed. The crown of martyrdom was not
lacking, for Amis and Amiles were slain by Ogier the Dane at
Novara on their way home from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Jourdain de Blaives, a chanson de geste which partly
reproduces the story of Apollonius of Tyre, was attached
to the geste of Amis by making Jourdain his grandson.
The versions of Amis and Amiles include--(a) numerous Latin
recensions in prose and verse, notably that given by Vincent
de Beauvais in his Speculum historiale (lib. xxiii. cap.
162-166 and 169); (b) an Anglo-Norman version in short rhymed
couplets, which is not attached to the Charlemagne legend
and agrees fairly closely with the English Amis and Amiloun
(Midland dialect, 13th century); these with the old Norse
version are printed by E. Kolbing, Altengl. Bibl. vol. ii.
(1889), and the English romance also in H. Weber, Metrical
Romances, vol. ii. (1810); (c) the 12th- century French
chanson de geste analysed by P. Paris in Hist. litt. de
la France (vol. xxii.), and edited by K. Hofmann (Erlangen,
1882) with the addition of Jourdain de Blaives; (d) the
Latin Vita Sanct. Amici et Amelii (pr. by Kolbing, op.
cit.) and its Old-French translation, Li amitiez de Ami et
Amile, ed. L. Moland and C. d'Hericault in Nouvelles
... du xiiie siecle (Paris, 1856); (e) a 14th-century
drama, Un Miracle de Notre Dame d'Amis et Amile, ed. L.
J. N. Monmerque and F. Michelin Theatre fr. au moyen
age (1839); (f) old Norse, Icelandic, Danish versions,
&c. (see K. Hofmann, op. cit.); (g) an imitation which
under the name of Oliver and Artus was current in many
languages and was the subject of Hans Sachs's comedy, Die
treuen Gesellen (1556); (h) Engelhart und Engeltrut, by
the minnesinger Conrad von Wurzburg (ed. M. Haupt, Leipzig,
1844, 2nd ed., 1900); (i) the late prose romances, with many
changes and additions, Milles et Amys, printed by A. Verard
(Paris, c. 1503), &c., for which see G. Brunet, Manuel du
libraire, s.v. "Milles." A different version of the legend is
inserted at considerable length in L'Ystoire des sept sages
(ed. G. Paris, Soc. des anc. textes fr., 1876), in which
the friends are called Alexandre and Louis, and Bellisant
Florentine. For a further bibliography see L. Gautier, Bibl.
des chansons de geste (Paris, 1897). William Morris's version
of the French romance was printed at the Kelmscott Press in
1894. See also the essay by W. Pater in The Renaissance, 1893.
AMITERNUM, an ancient town of the Sabines, situated about 5
m. N. of Aquila, in the broad valley of the Aternus, from
which, according to Varro, it took its name. It was stormed by
the Romans in 293 B.C., and though it suffered from the wars
of the Republican period, it seems to have risen to renewed
prosperity under the empire. This it owed largely to its
position. It lay at the point of junction of four roads--the
via Caecilia, the Via Claudia Nova and two branches of the
Via Salaria, which joined it at the 64th and 89th miles
respectively. The fertility of its territory was also
praised by ancient authors. There are considerable remains
of an aqueduct, an amphitheatre and a theatre (the latter
excavated in 1880--see Notizie degli scavi, 1880, 290,
350, 379), all of which belong to the imperial period, while
in the hill on which the village of S. Vittorino is built
are some Christian catacombs. Amiternum was the birthplace
of the historian Sallust. In a gorge 1 1/2 m. east are
massive remains of cyclopean walls (i.e. in rough blocks),
probably intended to regulate the flow of the stream (N.
Persichetti in Romische Mitteilungen, 1902, 134 seq..)
AMLWCH (llwch = "lake"), a market town of Anglesey, North
Wales, situated on slightly rising ground on the N. coast of the
island, 15 m. N.W. of Beaumaris and 262 m. from London, by the
London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901)
2994. Originally it owed its whole importance to the copper
mines of the Parys (probably, Parry's) mountain, as, before
ore was discovered in March 1768, it was a small hamlet of
fishermen. The mines once produced 3000 tons of metal
annually, copper smelting being largely carried on, but have
now almost ceased working. Though apparently not mentioned by
Ptolemy, they were perhaps Roman. Robert Parys, chamberlain
of North Wales under Henry IV., is often given as their
godfather. The poor harbour called the "port," protected
by a breakwater, has been cut out of the rock (shingle).
Amlwch is the terminus of the branch railway from Gaerwen
to Amlwch, formerly the Anglesey Central Railway Company.
Porthllechog, or Bull Bay (so called from the Bull Rock), at
a mile's distance, is a small but favourite watering-place.
Beyond, on the coast, some 3 m. distant, are the remains of
a British fort and of the Llanllaianau monastery, opposite
the Middle Mouse islet and close to Llanbadrig old church and
Cemmaes. Industries include slate quarrying, shipbuilding,
iron and brass foundries, alum, vitriol, manure, guano and
tobacco works. At Llanllaianau was found, in 1841, a stone
coffin, holding a well- preserved skeleton of 7 1/2 ft. in
length. The coffin was apparently of Aberdovey (Aberdyfi)
limestone, much corroded. At Llangefni, not far from
Amlwch, in 1829, and at Llangristiolus, 3 m. distant from
Llangefni, about 1770, were found human bones of a high
antiquity, between Glan Hwfa and Fron, and at Capel,
respectively. The town has an old Anglican church (St Eleth's).
AMMAN, JOHANN CONRAD (1669-c. 1730), Swiss physician,
was born at Schaffhausen in 1669. After graduating at Basel
in 1687 he began to practise at Amsterdam, where he gained
a great reputation. He was one of the earliest writers
on the instruction of the deaf and dumb, and first called
attention to his method in his Surdus loquens (Amsterdam,
1692), which was often reprinted, and was reproduced by
John Wallis in the Philosophical Transactions (1698). His
process consisted principally in exciting the attention of
his pupils to the motions of his lips and larynx while he
spoke, and then inducing them to imitate these movements,
till he brought them to repeat distinctly letters, syllables
and words. The edition of Caelius Aurelianus, which was
undertaken by the Wetsteins in 1709, was superintended by
Amman. He died about 1730 at Warmoud, near Leiden.
AMMAN, JOST (1539-1591), Swiss artist, celebrated chiefly
for his engravings on wood, was born at Zurich. Of his
personal history little is known beyond the fact that he
removed in 1560 to Nuremberg, where he continued to reside
until his death in March 1591. His productiveness was very
remarkable, as may be gathered from the statement of one of
his pupils, that the drawings he made during a period of four
years would have filled a hay wagon. A large number of his
original drawings are contained in the Berlin collection of
engravings. The genuineness of not a few of the specimens
to be seen elsewhere is at least questionable. A series of
copperplate engravings by Amman of the kings of France, with short
biographies, appeared at Frankfort in 1576. He also executed
many of the woodcut illustrations for the Bible published at
Frankfort by Sigismund Feierabend. Another serial work, the
Panoplia Omnium Liberalium Mechanicarum et Sedentariarum
Artium Genera Continens, containing 115 plates, is of great
value. Amman's drawing is correct and spirited, and his
delineation of the details of costume, &c., is minute and
accurate. He executed too much, however, to permit of his reaching
the highest style of art. Paintings in oil and on glass are
attributed to him, but no specimen of these is known to exist.
AMMAN, PAUL (1634-1691), German physician and botanist, was
born at Breslau in 1634. In 1662 he received the degree of
doctor of physic from the university of Leipzig, and in 1664
was admitted a member of the society Naturae Curiosorum,
under the name of Dryander. Shortly afterwards he was chosen
extraordinary professor of medicine in the above-mentioned
university; and in 1674 he was promoted to the botanical
chair, which he again in 1682 exchanged for the physiological.
He died at Leipzig in 1691. He seems to have been a man of
critical mind and extensive learning. His principal works
were: Medicina Critica (1670); Paraenesis ad Docentes
occupata circa Institutionum Medicarum Emendationem (1673);
Irenicum Numae Pompilii cum Hippocrate (1689); Supellex
Botanica (1675); and Character Naturalis Plantarum (1676).
AMMANATI, BARTOLOMEO (1511-1592), Florentine architect and
sculptor. He studied under Bandinelli and Jacopo Sansovino,
and closely imitated the style of Michelangelo. He was more
distinguished in architecture than in sculpture. He designed many
buildings in Rome, Lucca and Florence, an addition to the Pitti
Palace in the last- named city being one of his most celebrated
works. He was also employed in 1569 to build the beautiful
bridge over the Arno, known as Ponte della Trinita--one of
his celebrated works. The three arches are elliptic, and
though very light and elegant, have resisted the fury of the
river, which has swept away several other bridges at different
times. Another of his most important works was the fountain
for the Piazza della Signoria. In 1550 Ammanati married
Laura Battiferri, an elegant poet and an accomplished woman.
AMMIANUS, MARCELLINUS, the last Roman historian of
importance, was born about A.D. 325-330 at Antioch; the
date of his death is unknown, but he must have lived till
391, as he mentions Aurelius Victor as the city prefect
for that year. He was a Greek, and his enrolment among the
protectores domestici (household guards) shows that he
was of noble birth. He entered the army at an early age,
when Constantius II. was emperor of the East, and was sent
to serve under Ursicinus, governor of Nisibis and magister
militiae. He returned to Italy with Ursicinus, when he
was recalled by Constantius, and accompanied him on the
expedition against Silvanus the Frank, who had been forced
by the unjust accusations of his enemies into proclaiming
himself emperor in Gaul. With Ursicinus he went twice to the
East, and barely escaped with his life from Amida or Amid
(mod. Diarbekr), when it was taken by the Persian king Shapur
(Sapor) II. When Ursicinus lost his office and the favour of
Constantius, Ammianus seems to have shared his downfall;
but under Julian, Constantius's successor, he regained his
position. He accompanied this emperor, for whom he expresses
enthusiastic admiration, in his campaigns against the Alamanni
and the Persians; after his death he took part in the retreat
of Jovian as far as Antioch, where he was residing when the
conspiracy of Theodorus (371) was discovered and cruelly put
down. Eventually he settled in Rome, where, at an advanced
age, he wrote (in Latin) a history of the Roman empire from
the accession of Nerva to the death of Valens (96-378), thus
forming a continuation of the work of Tacitus. This history
(Rerum Gestarum Libri XXXI.) was originally in thirty-one
books; of these the first thirteen are lost, the eighteen
which remain cover the period from 353 to 378. As a whole
it is extremely valuable, being a clear, comprehensive and
impartial account of events by a contemporary of soldierly
honesty, independent judgment and wide reading. "Ammianus is
an accurate and faithful guide, who composed the history of
his own times without indulging the prejudices and passions
which usually affect the mind of a contemporary" (Gibbon).
Although Ammianus was no doubt a heathen, his attitude
towards Christianity is that of a man of the world, free from
prejudices in favour of any form of belief. If anything he
himself inclined to neo-Platonism. His style is generally
harsh, often pompous and extremely obscure, occasionally
even journalistic in tone, but the author's foreign origin
and his military life and training partially explain this.
Further, the work being intended for public recitation, some
rhetorical embellishment was necessary, even at the cost of
simplicity. It is a striking fact that Ammianus, though a
professional soldier, gives excellent pictures of social and
economic problems, and in his attitude to the non-Roman peoples
of the empire he is far more broad-minded than writers like
Livy and Tacitus; his digressions on the various countries he
had visited are peculiarly interesting. In his description
of the empire--the exhaustion produced by excessive taxation,
the financial ruin of the middle classes, the progressive
decline in the morale of the army--we find the explanation
of its fall before the Goths twenty years after his death.
The work was discovered by Poggio, who copied the original
MS. Editio princeps (bks. 14-26) by Sabinus, 1474; completed
by Accursius, 1533; with variorum notes, by Wagner-Erfurdt,
1808; latest edition of text, Gardthausen, 1874-1875. English
translations by P. Holland, 1609; Yonge (Bohn's Classical
Library), 1862; also Max Budinger, Ammianus Marcellinus und
die Eigenart seines Geschichtswerkes (1895); F. Liesenberg,
Die Sprache des Ammianus Marcellinus (1888-1890); T. R.
Glover, Life and Letters in the Fourth Century (1901); Abbe
Gimazane, Ammianus Marcellinus, sa vie et son oeuvre (Toulouse,
1889), a work containing a number of very doubtful theories.
For a criticism of his views on Roman society see S. Dill, Roman
Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (London, 1898).
AMMIRATO, SCIPIONE (1531-1601), Italian historian, born at
Lecce, in the kingdom of Naples. His father, intending him
for the profession of law, sent him to study at Naples, but
his own decided preference for literature prevented him from
fulfilling his father's wishes. Entering the church, he resided
for a time at Venice, and afterwards engaged in the service
of Pope Pius IV. In 1569 he went to Florence, where he was
fortunate in securing the patronage and support of Duke Cosimo
I., who gave him a residence at the Medici Palace and the Villa
Zopaja on the understanding that he should write his Istorie
Fiorentine (1600), the work by which he is best known. In 1595
he was made a canon of the cathedral of Florence. He died in
1601. Among the other works of Ammirato, some of which were
first published after his death, may be mentioned discourses on
Tacitus and genealogies of the families of Naples and Florence.
AMMON, the Graecized name of an Egyptian deity, in the
native language Amun, connected by the priests with a root
meaning "conceal." He was, to begin with, the local deity of
Thebes, when it was an unimportant town on the east bank of
the river, about the region now occupied by the temple of
Karnak. The XIth dynasty sprang from a family in the
Hermonthite nome or perhaps at Thebes itself, and adorned
the temple of Karnak with statues. Amenemhe, the name of
the founder of the XIIth dynasty, was compounded with that
of Amun and was borne by three of his successors. Several
Theban kings of the later part of the Middle Kingdom adopted
the same name; and when the Theban family of the XVIIth
dynasty drove out the Hyksos, Ammon, as the god of the royal
city, was again prominent. It was not, however, until the
rulers of the XVIIIth dynasty carried their victorious arms
beyond the Egyptian frontiers in every direction that Ammon
began to assume the proportions of a universal god for the
Egyptians, eclipsing all their other deities and asserting
his power over the gods of all foreign lands. To Ammon the
Pharaohs attributed all their successful enterprises, and on
his temples they lavished their wealth and captured spoil.
Ammon is figured of human form, wearing on his head a plain deep
circlet from which rise two straight parallel plumes, perhaps
representing the tail feathers of a hawk. Two main types are
seen: in the one he is seated on a throne, in the other he is
standing, ithyphallic, holding a scourge, precisely like Min,
the god of Coptos and Chemmis (Akhmim). The latter may be
his original form, as a god of fertility, before whom the king
ceremoniously breaks up the ground for sowing or cuts the ripe
corn. His consort was sometimes called Amaune (feminine of
Amun), but more usually Mut, "mother": she was human-headed,
wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, and their
son was Khons (Chon or Chons), a lunar god, represented as
a youth wearing the crescent and disk of the moon. A great
temple was built to Mut at Karnak not later than the XVIIIth
dynasty, and another to Khons not later than the XXth dynasty.
The name of Re, the sun-god, was generally joined to Ammon,
especially in his title as "king of the gods": the rule of
heaven belonged to the sun-god in the Egyptian cosmos, and
this identification with Re was only logical for a supreme
deity. Ammon was entitled "lord of the thrones of the two
lands," or, more proudly still, "king of the gods." Such
indeed was his unquestioned position when suddenly he was
overthrown and his worship proscribed. Not even a henotheist
fervently worshipping one of many gods, Amenophis (Amenhotp)
IV. of the XVIIIth dynasty became the monotheist Akhenaton;
discarding all the gods of Egypt, and especially persecuting
Ammon the arch-god, he devoted himself to the purer and more
sublime worship of Aton, the sun. But he failed to win the
permanent adhesion of the people to his reform, or to conciliate
or entirely crush the enormously powerful priesthood of
Ammon. A few years after the reformer's death, the old cults
were re-established and the monuments of Aton studiously
defaced. Hymns were then addressed to Amen-re, which are
almost monotheistic in expression. The cult of the supreme
god spread throughout Egypt and was carried by the Egyptian
conquerors into other lands, Syria, Ethiopia and Libya, and
was accepted by the natives both in Ethiopia and in the Libyan
cases, where civilization was low and Egyptian influence
permanent. After the XXth dynasty the centre of power was
removed from Thebes, and the authority of Ammon began to
wane. In the XXIst dynasty the secondary line of priest kings
of Thebes upheld his dignity to the best of their power, and
the XXIInd dynasty favoured Thebes: but as the sovereignty
weakened the division between Upper and Lower Egypt asserted
itself, and thereafter Thebes would have rapidly decayed had
it not been for the piety of the kings of Ethiopia towards
Ammon, whose worship had long prevailed in their country.
Thebes was at first their Egyptian capital, and they honoured
Ammon greatly, although their wealth and culture were not
sufficient to effect much. Ammon (Zeus) continued to be the
great god of Thebes in its decay, and notwithstanding that
a nome-capital in the north of the Delta and many lesser
temples, from El Hibeh in Middle Egypt to Canopus on the
sea, acknowledged Ammon as their supreme divinity, he probably
in some degree represented the national aspirations of Upper
Egypt as opposed to Middle and Lower Egypt: he also remained
the national god of Ethiopia, where his name was pronounced
Amane. The priests of Amane at Meroe and Napata, in
fact, regulated through his oracle the whole government
of the country, choosing the king, directing his military
expeditions (and even compelling him to commit suicide,
according to Diodorus) until in the 3rd century B.C.
Arkamane (Ergamenes) broke through the bondage and slew the
priests. Ammon had yet another outburst of glory. There was
an oracle of Ammon established for some centuries in Libya,
in the distant oasis of Siwa. Such was its reputation among
the Greeks that Alexander journeyed thither, after the battle
of Issus, and during his occupation of Egypt, in order to be
acknowledged the son of the god. The Egyptian Pharaohs of
the XVIIIth dynasty had likewise been proclaimed mystically
sons of this god, who, it was asserted, had impregnated
the queen-mother; and on occasion wore the ram's horns of
Ammon, even as Alexander is represented with them on coins.
The Egyptian goose (chenalopex) is figured in the XVIIIth
dynasty as sacred to Ammon; but his most frequent and celebrated
incarnation was the woolly sheep with curved ("Ammon") horns (as
opposed to the oldest native breed with long horizontal twisted
horns and hairy coat, sacred to Khnum or Chnumis). It is found
as representing Ammon from the time of Amenophis III. onwards.
As king of the gods Ammon was identified by the Greeks with
Zeus and his consort Mut with Hera. Khnum was likewise
identified with Zeus probably through his similarity to
Ammon; his proper animal having early become extinct, Ammon
horns in course of time were attributed to this god also.
See Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion (London, 1907); Ed.
Meyer, art. "Ammon" in Roscher's Lexikon der griechischen und
romischen Mythologie; Pietschmann, arts. "Ammon," "Ammoneion"
in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie; and works on Egyptian
religion quoted under EGYPT, section Religion. (F. LL. G.)
AMMON, CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON (1766-1850), German theological
writer and preacher, was born at Baireuth. He studied at
Erlangen, held various professorships in the philosophical
and theological faculties of Erlangen and Gottingen,
succeeded Franz Reinhard (1753-1812) in 1813 as court preacher
and member of the consistorial court at Dresden, retired
from these offices in 1849, and died on the 21st of May
1850. Seeking to establish for himself a middle position
between rationalism and supernaturalism, he declared for a
"rational supernaturalism," and contended that there must
be a gradual development of Christian doctrine corresponding
to the advance of knowledge and science. But at the same
time he sought, like other representatives of this school of
thought, such as K. G. Bretschneider and Julius Wegscheider,
to keep in close touch with the historical theology of the
Protestant churches. He was a man of great versatility and
extensive learning, a philologist and philosopher as well as
a theologian, and a very voluminous author. His principal
theological work was the Fortbildung des Christenthums zur
Weltreligion, in 4 volumes (Leipzig, 1833-1840). Entwurf
einer reinbiblischen Theologie appeared in 1792 (2nd ed.,
1801), Summa Theologiae Christianae in 1803 (other editions,
1808, 1816, 1830); Das Leben Jesu in 1842, and Die wahre
und falsche Orthodoxie in 1849. Von Ammon's style in
preaching was terse and lively, and some of his discourses are
regarded as models of pulpit treatment of political questions.
See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie; Otto Pfleiderer, The
Development of Theology in Germany since Kant, pp. 89 ff.
AMMONIA (NH3). Salts of ammonia have been known from very
early times; thus the term Hammoniacus sal appears in the
writings of Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxi. 39), although it is
not known whether the term is identical with the more modern
sal-ammoniac (q.v.). In the form of sal-ammoniac, ammonia
was known, however, to the alchemists as early as the 13th
century, being mentioned by Albertus Magnus, whilst in the 15th
century Basil Valentine showed that ammonia could be obtained
by the action of alkalies on sal-ammoniac. At a later period
when sal-ammoniac was obtained by distilling the hoofs and
horns of oxen, and neutralizing the resulting carbonate with
hydrochloric acid, the name spirits of hartshorn was applied to
ammonia. Gaseous ammonia was first isolated by J. Priestley
in 1774 and was termed by him "alkaline air." In 1777 K.
W. Scheele showed that it contained nitrogen, and C. L.
Berthollet, in about 1785, ascertained its composition.
Ammonia is found in small quantities as the carbonate in
the atmosphere, being produced from the putrefaction of
nitrogenous animal and vegetable matter; ammonium salts are
also found in small quantities in rain-water, whilst ammonium
chloride (sal-ammoniac) and ammonium sulphate are found in
volcanic districts; and crystals of ammonium bicarbonate
have been found in Patagonian guano. Ammonium salts too are
found distributed through all fertile soil, in sea- water,
and in most plant and animal liquids, and also in urine.
Ammonia can be synthesized by submitting a mixture of
nitrogen and hydrogen to the action of the silent electric
discharge, the combination, however, being very imperfect.
It is obtained by the dry distillation of nitrogenous
vegetable and animal products; by the reduction of nitrous
acid and nitrites with nascent hydrogen; and also by the
decomposition of ammonium salts by alkaline hydroxides or by
slaked lime, the salt most generally used being the chloride
(sal- ammoniac, q.v.) thus 2NH4Cl + Ca(OH)2 = CaCl2
+ 2H2O + 2NH3. It also results on decomposing magnesium
nitride (Mg3N2) with water, Mg3N2 + 6H2O = 3Mg(OH)2 +
2NH3. Large quantities of ammonia and ammonium salts
are now obtained from the ammoniacal liquor of gas-works.
Ammonia is a colourless gas possessing a characteristic pungent
smell and a strongly alkaline reaction; it is lighter than
air, its specific gravity being 0.589 (air=1). It is easily
liquefied and the liquid boils at -33.7 deg. C., and solidifies
at -75 deg. C. to a mass of white crystals. It is extremely
soluble in water, one volume of water at 0 deg. C. and normal
pressure absorbs 1148 volumes of ammonia (Roscoe and W.
Dittmar). All the ammonia contained in an aqueous solution
of the gas may be expelled by boiling. It does not support
combustion; and it does not burn readily unless mixed with
oxygen, when it burns with a pale yellowish-green flame.
Ammonia gas has the power of combining with many substances,
particularly with metallic halides; thus with calcium chloride
it forms the compound CaCl2.8NH3, and consequently calcium
chloride cannot be used for drying the gas. With silver
chloride it forms two compounds (F. Isambert, Comptes rendus,
1868, lxvi. p. 1259)--one, AgCl.3NH3 at temperatures below
15 deg. C.; the other, 2AgCl.3NH3 at temperatures above 20 deg.
C. On heating these substances, ammonia is liberated and
the metallic chloride remains. It was by the use of silver
chloride ammonia compounds that in 1823 M. Faraday was first
able to liquefy ammonia. It can be shown by Isambert's
results that the compound AgCl.3NH3 cannot be formed above
20 deg. C., by the action of ammonia on silver chloride at
atmospheric pressure; whilst 2AgCl.3NH3, under similar
conditions, cannot be formed above about 68 deg. C. Liquid ammonia
is used for the artificial preparation of ice. It readily
dissolves sodium and potassium, giving in each case a dark blue
solution. At a red heat ammonia is easily decomposed into
its constituent elements, a similar decomposition being
brought about by the passage of electric sparks through the
gas. Chlorine takes fire when passed into ammonia, nitrogen
and hydrochloric acid being formed, and unless the ammonia be
present in excess, the highly explosive nitrogen chloride NCl3
is also produced. With iodine it reacts to form nitrogen
iodide. This compound was discovered in 1812 by Bernard
Courtois, and was originally supposed to contain nitrogen
and iodine only, but in 1840 R. F. Marchand showed that it
contained hydrogen, whilst R. Bunsen showed that no oxygen was
present. As regards its constitution, it has been given at
different times the formulae NI3, NHI2, NH2I, N2H3I3,
&c., these varying results being due to the impurities in the
substance, owing to the different investigators working under
unsuitable conditions, and also to the decomposing action of
light. F. D. Chattaway determined its composition as
N2H3I3, by the addition of excess of standard sodium sulphite
solution, in the dark, and subsequent titration of the excess
of the sulphite with standard iodine. The constitution has
been definitely determined by O. Silberrad (Jour. of Chem.
Soc., 1905, lxxxvii. p. 55) by the interaction of nitrogen
iodide with zinc ethyl, the products of the reaction being
triethylamine and ammonia; the ammonia liberated was absorbed
in hydrochloric acid, and 95% of the theoretical amount of the
ammonium chloride was obtained. On these grounds O. Silberrad
assigns the formula NH3.NI3 to the compound, and explains
the decomposition as taking place, 2NH3.NI3 + 6Zn(C2H5)2
= 6ZnC2H5.I + 2NH3 + 2N(C2H5)3. The hydrogen in ammonia
is capable of replacement by metals, thus magnesium burns
in the gas with the formation of magnesium nitride Mg3N2,
and when the gas is passed over heated sodium or potassium,
sodamide, NaNH2, and potassamide, KNH2, are formed.
One of the most characteristic properties of ammonia is its
power of combining directly with acids to form salts; thus with
hydrochloric acid it forms ammonium chloride (sal-ammoniac); with
nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, &c. It is to be noted that H. B.
Baker (Journal of Chem. Soc., 1894, lxv. p. 612) has shown
that perfectly dry ammonia will not combine with perfectly dry
hydrochloric acid, moisture being necessary to bring about the
reaction. The aqueous solution of ammonia is very basic in
its reactions, and since it is a weak electrolyte, one must
assume the solution to contain a certain amount of ammonium
hydroxide NH4OH, although it is probably chiefly composed
of a solution of ammonia in water. (On the constitution of
aqueous ammonia solutions see also Carl Frenzel, Zeit fur
angew. Chemie, xxxii. 3, p. 319.) Ammonia finds a wide
application in organic chemistry as a synthetic reagent; it
reacts with alkyl iodides to form amines (q.v.), with esters
to form acid amides (q.v.), with halogen fatty acids to
form amino-acids; while it also combines with isocyanic esters
to form alkyl ureas and with the mustard oils to form alkyl
thioureas. Aldehydes also combine directly with ammonia.
Liquid ammonia possesses strong ionizing powers, and solutions
of salts in liquid ammonia have been much studied. For details
see E. C. Franklin and C. A. Kraus, Amer. Chem. Jour.,
1899, xxi. p. 8; 1900, xxiv. p. 83; 1902, xxviii. p. 277; also
Carl Frenzel, Zeits fur Elektrochemie, 1900, vi. p. 477.
The salts produced by the action of ammonia on acids are known
as the ammonium salts and all contain the compound radical
ammonium (NH4). Numerous attempts have been made to isolate
this radical, but so far none have been successful. By the
addition of sodium amalgam to a concentrated solution of
ammonium chloride, the so-called ammonium amalgam is obtained
as a spongy mass which floats on the surface of the liquid;
it decomposes readily at ordinary temperatures into ammonia
and hydrogen; it does not reduce silver and gold salts, a
behaviour which distinguishes it from the amalgams of the alkali
metals, and for this reason it is regarded by some chemists
as being merely mercury inflated by gaseous ammonia and
hydrogen. M. le Blanc has shown, however, that the effect of
ammonium amalgam on the magnitude of polarization of a battery
is comparable with that of the amalgams of the alkali metals.
Many of the ammonium salts are made from the ammoniacal liquor of
gas- works, by heating it with milk of lime and then absorbing the
gas so liberated in a suitable acid. (See GAS: Manufacture.)
Ammonium bromide, NH4Br, can be prepared by the direct
action of bromine on ammonia. It crystallizes in colourless
prisms, possessing a saline taste; it sublimes on heating and
is easily soluble in water. On exposure to air it gradually
assumes a yellow colour and becomes acid in its reaction.
Ammonium chloride, NH4Cl. (See SAL-AMMONIAC.)
Ammonium fluoride, NH4F, may be obtained by neutralizing
ammonia with hydrofluoric acid. It crystallizes in small prisms,
having a sharp saline taste, and is exceedingly soluble in
water. It decomposes silicates on being heated with them.
Ammonium iodide, NH4I, can be prepared by the action
of hydriodic acid on ammonia. It is easily soluble in
water, from which it crystallizes in cubes, and also in
alcohol. It gradually turns yellow on standing in moist
air, owing to decomposition with liberation of iodine.
Ammonium chlorate, NH4ClO3, is obtained by neutralizing
chloric acid with either ammonia or ammonium carbonate, or by
precipitating barium, strontium or calcium chlorates with ammonium
carbonate. It crystallizes in small needles, which are readily
soluble in water, and on heating, decompose at about 102 deg. C.,
with liberation of nitrogen, chlorine and oxygen. It is soluble
in dilute aqueous alcohol, but insoluble in strong alcohol.
Ammonium carbonates. The commercial salt is known as
sal-volatile or salt of hartshorn and was formerly obtained
by the dry distillation of nitrogenous organic matter such
as hair, horn, decomposed urine, &c., but is now obtained
by heating a mixture of sal-ammoniac, or ammonium sulphate
and chalk, to redness in iron retorts, the vapours being
condensed in leaden receivers. The crude product is refined
by sublimation, when it is obtained as a white fibrous mass,
which consists of a mixture of hydrogen ammonium carbonate,
NH4.HCO3, and ammonium carbamate, NH2COONH4, in molecular
proportions; on account of its possessing this constitution
it is sometimes called ammonium sesquicarbonate. It possesses
a strong ammoniacal smell, and on digestion with alcohol the
carbamate is dissolved and a residue of ammonium bicarbonate
is left; a similar decomposition taking place when the
sesquicarbonate is exposed to air. Ammonia gas passed into
a strong aqueous solution of the sesquicarbonate converts
it into normal ammonium carbonate, (NH4)2CO3, which can
be obtained in the crystalline condition from a solution
prepared at about 30 deg. C. This compound on exposure to air
gives off ammonia and passes back to ammonium bicarbonate.
Ammonium bicarbonate, NH4.HCO3, is formed as shown above and
also by passing carbon dioxide through a solution of the normal
compound, when it is deposited as a white powder, which has
no smell and is only slightly soluble in water. The aqueous
solution of this salt liberates carbon dioxide on exposure
to air or on heating, and becomes alkaline in reaction. The
aqueous solutions of all the carbonates when boiled undergo
decomposition with liberation of ammonia and of carbon dioxide.
Ammonium nitrate, NH4NO3, is prepared by neutralizing
nitric acid with ammonia, or ammonium carbonate, or by
double decomposition between potassium nitrate and ammonium
sulphate. It can be obtained in three different crystalline
forms, the transition points of which are 35 deg. C., 83 deg. C. and
125 deg. C. It is easily soluble in water, a considerable lowering
of temperature taking place during the operation; on this
account it is sometimes used in the preparation of freezing
mixtures. On gentle heating, it is decomposed into water
and nitrous oxide. P. E. M. Berthelot in 1883 showed that if
ammonium nitrate be rapidly heated the following reaction takes
place with explosive violence:--2NH4NO3 = 4H2O + 2N2 + O2.
Ammonium nitrite, NH4NO2, is formed by oxidizing ammonia with
ozone or hydrogen peroxide; by precipitating barium or lead
nitrites with ammonium sulphate, or silver nitrite with ammonium
chloride. The precipitate is filtered off and the solution
concentrated. It forms colourless crystals which are soluble in
water and decompose on heating, with the formation of nitrogen.
Ammonium phosphates. The normal phosphate, (NH4)3PO4,is
obtained as a crystalline powder, on mixing concentrated solutions
of ammonia and phosphoric acid, or on the addition of excess of
ammonia to the acid phosphate (NH4)2HPO4. It is soluble in
water, and the aqueous solution on boiling loses ammonia and
the acid phosphate NH4H2PO4 is formed. Diammonium hydrogen
phosphate, (NH4)2HPO4, is formed by evaporating a solution
of phosphoric acid with excess of ammonia. It crystallizes in
large transparent prisms, which melt on heating and decompose,
leaving a residue of metaphosphoric acid, (HPO3). Ammonium
dihydrogen phosphate, NH4.H2PO4, is formed when a solution
of phosphoric acid is added to ammonia until the solution
is distinctly acid. It crystallizes in quadratic prisms.
Ammonium sodium hydrogen phosphate,
NH4.NaHPO4.4H2O. (See MICROCOSMIC SALT.)
Ammonium sulphate (NH4)2SO4 is prepared commercially from
the ammoniacal liquor of gas-works (see GAS: Manufacture)
and is purified by recrystallization. It forms large rhombic
prisms, has a somewhat saline taste and is easily soluble in
water. The aqueous solution on boiling loses some ammonia and
forms an acid sulphate. It is used largely as an artificial
manure, and also for the preparation of other ammonium salts.
Ammonium persulphate (NH4)2S2O8 has been prepared by
H. Marshall (Jour. of Chem. Soc., 1891, lix. p. 777) by
the method used for the preparation of the corresponding
potassium salt (see SULPHUR). Pure specimens are
difficult to obtain. It is very soluble in cold water,
a large fall of temperature accompanying solution.
Ammonium sulphide, (NH4)2S, is obtained, in the form of
micaceous crystals, by passing sulphuretted hydrogen mixed with
a slight excess of ammonia through a well-cooled vessel; the
hydrosulphide NH4.HS is formed at the same time. It dissolves
readily in water, but is probably partially dissociated in
solution. The hydrosulphide NH4.HS can be obtained as
a white solid, by mixing well-cooled ammonia with a slight
excess of sulphuretted hydrogen. According to W. P. Bloxam
(Jour. of Chem. Soc., 1895, lxvii. p. 283), if sulphuretted
hydrogen is passed into strong aqueous ammonia at ordinary
temperature, the compound (NH4)2S.2NH4HS is obtained,
which, on cooling to 0 deg. C. and passing more sulphuretted
hydrogen, forms the compound (NH4)2S.12NH4HS. An
ice-cold solution of this substance kept at 0 deg. C. and having
sulphuretted hydrogen continually passed through it gives the
hydrosulphide. Several complex polysulphides of ammonium have
been isolated, for details of which see Bloxam's paper quoted
above. Compounds are known which may be looked upon as
derived from ammonia by the replacement of its hydrogen by
the sulpho-group (HSO3); thus potassium ammon-trisulphonate,
N(SO3K)3.2H2O, is obtained as a crystalline precipitate
on the addition of excess of potassium sulphite to a
solution of potassium nitrite, KNO2 + 3K2SO3 + 2H2O =
N(SO3K)3 + 4KHO. It can be recrystallized by solution in
alkalies. On boiling with water, it is converted, first
into the disulphonate NH(SO3K)2 thus, N(SO3K)3 + H2O =
NH(SO3K)2 + KHSO4, and ultimately into the monosulphonate
NH2.SO3K. The disulphonate is more readily obtained
by moistening the nitrilosulphonate with dilute sulphuric
acid and letting it stand for twenty-four hours, after
which it is recrystallized from dilute ammonia. It forms
monosymmetric crystals which by boiling with water yield
amidosulphonic acid. (See also E. Divers, Jour. of Chem.
Soc., 1892, lxi. p. 943.) Amidosulphonic acid crystallizes in
prisms, slightly soluble in water, and is a stable compound.
Ammonia and ammonium salts can be readily detected, in very
minute traces, by the addition of Nessler's solution, which
gives a distinct yellow coloration in the presence of the least
trace of ammonia or ammonium salts. Larger quantities can be
detected by warming the salts with a caustic alkali or with
quicklime, when the characteristic smell of ammonia will be
at once apparent. The amount of ammonia in ammonium salts
can be estimated quantitatively by distillation of the salts
with sodium or potassium hydroxide, the ammonia evolved being
absorbed in a known volume of standard sulphuric acid and the
excess of acid then determined volumetrically; or the ammonia
may be absorbed in hydrochloric acid and the ammonium chloride so
formed precipitated as ammonium chlorplatinate, (NH4)2PtCl6.
AMMONIACUM, or GUM AMMONIAC, a gum-resin exuded from the
stem of a perennial herb (Dorema ammoniacum), natural order
Umbelliferae. The plant grows to the height of 8 or 9 ft.,
and its whole stem is pervaded with a milky juice, which
oozes out on an incision being made at any part. This juice
quickly hardens into round tears, forming the "tear ammoniacum"
of commerce. "Lump ammoniacum," the other form in which the
substance is met with, consists of aggregations of tears,
frequently incorporating fragments of the plant itself, as
well as other foreign bodies. Ammoniacum has a faintly fetid,
unpleasant odour, which becomes more distinct on heating;
externally it possesses a reddish-yellow appearance, and when
the tears or lumps are freshly fractured they exhibit a waxy
lustre. It is chiefly collected in central Persia, and
comes to the European market by way of Bombay. Ammoniacum
is closely related to asafetida and galbanum (from which,
however, it differs in yielding no umbelliferone) both in
regard to the plant which yields it and its therapeutical
effects. Internally it is used in conjunction with squills
in bronchial affections; and in asthma and chronic colds it
is found useful, but it has no advantages over a number of
other substances of more constant and active properties (Sir
Thomas Fraser). Only the "tear ammoniacum" is official.
African ammoniacum is the product of a plant said to be Ferula
tingitana, which grows in North Africa; it is a dark coloured
gum-resin, possessed of a very weak odour and a persistent acrid taste.
AMMONITES, or the "children of Ammon," a people of east
Palestine who, like the Moabites, traced their origin to
Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, and must have been
regarded, therefore, as closely related to the Israelites and
Edomites. Both the Ammonites and Moabites are sometimes
spoken of under the common name of the children of Lot
(Deut. ii. 19; Ps. lxxxiii. 8); and the whole history shows
that they preserved throughout the course of their national
existence a sense of the closest brotherhood. According to the
traditions, the original territory of the two tribes was the
country lying immediately on the east of the Dead Sea, and
of the lower half of the Jordan, having the Jabbok for its
northern boundary; and of this tract the Ammonites laid claim
to the northern portion between the Arnon and the Jabbok, out
of which they had expelled the Zamzummim (Judg. xi. 13; Deut.
ii. 20 sqq.; cf. Gen. xiv. 5), though apparently it had been
held, in part at least, conjointly with the Moabites, or
perhaps under their supremacy (Num. xxi. 26, xxii. 1; Josh.
xiii. 32). From this their original territory they had been
in their turn expelled by Sihon, king of the Amorites, who
was said to have been found by the Israelites, after their
deliverance from Egypt, in possession of both Gilead and
Bashan, that is, of the whole country on the left bank of the
Jordan, lying to the north of the Arnon (Num. xxi. 13). By
this invasion, as the Moabites were driven to the south of
the Arnon, which formed their northern boundary from that
time, so the Ammonites were driven out of Gilead across
the upper waters of the Jabbok where it flows from south to
north, which henceforth continued to be their western boundary
(Num. xxi. 24; Deut. ii. 37, iii. 16). The other limits of
the Ammonitis, or country of the Ammonites ('Lmmanitis
chora, 2 Mac. iv. 26), there are no means of exactly
defining. On the south it probably adjoined the land of
Moab; on the north it may have met that of the king of Geshur
(Josh. xii. 5); and on the east it probably melted away into
the desert peopled by Amalekites and other nomadic races.
The chief city of the country, called Rabbah, or Rabbath of
the children of Ammon, i.e. the metropolis of the Ammonites
(Deut. iii. 11), and Rabbathammana by the later Greeks
(Polyb, v. 7. 4), whose name was changed into Philadelphia
by Ptolemy Philadelphus, a large and strong city with an
acropolis, was situated on both sides of a branch of the
Jabbok, bearing at the present day the name of Nahr
`Amman, the river of Ammon, whence the designation "city
of waters" (2 Sam. xii. 27); see Survey of E. Pal (Pal.
Explor. Fund), pp. 19 sqq. The ruins called Amman by the
natives are extensive and imposing. The country to the south
and east of Amman is distinguished by its fertility; and
ruined towns are scattered thickly over it, attesting that
it was once occupied by a population which, however fierce,
was settled and industrious, a fact indicated also by the
tribute of corn paid annually to Jotham (2 Chron. xxvii. 5).
The traditional history of Ammon as related in the Old
Testament is not free from obscurity, due to the uncertain
date of the various references and to the doubt whether the
individual details belong to the particular period to which
each is ascribed. (See further MOAB.) From the Assyrian
inscriptions we learn that the Ammonite king Ba'sa (Baasha)
(son) of Ruhubi, with 1000 men joined Ahab and the Syrian
allies against Shalmaneser II. at the battle of Karkar in 854.
In 734 their king Sanip(b)u was a vassal of Tiglathpileser
IV., and his successor, P(b)udu-ilu, held the same position
under Sennacherib and Esarhaddon. Somewhat later, their
king Amminadab was among the tributaries who suffered in the
course of the great Arabian campaign of Assurbanipal. With
the neighbouring tribes, the Ammonites helped the Babylonian
monarch Nebuchadrezzar against Jehoiakim (2 Kings xxiv. 2);
and if they joined Zedekiah's conspiracy (Jer. xxvii. 3), and
were threatened by the Babylonian army (Ezek. xxi. 20 sqq.),
they do not appear to have suffered punishment at that period,
perhaps on account of a timely submission. When, after the
destruction of Jerusalem, the fugitive Jews were again gathered
together, it was at the instigation of Baalis, king of Ammon,
that Gedaliah, the ruler whom Nebuchadrezzar had appointed over
them, was murdered, and new calamities were incurred (Jer.
xl. 14); and when Nehemiah prepared to rebuild the walls of
Jerusalem an Ammonite was foremost in opposition (Neh. ii.
10, 19, iv. 1-3).1 True to their antecedents, the Ammonites,
with some of the neighbouring tribes, did their utmost to
resist and check the revival of the Jewish power under Judas
Maccabaeus (1 Macc. v. 6; cf. Jos. Ant. Jud. xii. 8. 1.).
The last notice of them is in Justin Martyr (Dial. cum Tryph.
sec. 119), where it is affirmed that they were still a numerous
people. The few Ammonite names that have been preserved
(Nahash, Hanun, and those mentioned above, Zelek in 2 Sam.
xxiii. 37 is textually uncertain) testify, in harmony with
other considerations, that their language was Semitic, closely
allied to Hebrew and to the language of the Moabites. Their
national deity was Moloch or Milcon. (See MOLOCH.) (S. A. C.)
1 The allusions in Jer. xlix. 1-6; Zeph. ii. 8-11; Ezek.
xxi. 28- 32; Judg. xi. 12-28, have been taken to refer to
an Ammonite occupation of Israelite territory after the
deportation of the east Jordanic Israelites in 734, but more
probably belong to a later event. The name Chephar-Ammoni
(in Benjamin; Josh. xviii. 24) seems to imply that the
"village" became a settlement of "Ammonites." Some light
is thrown upon the obscure history of the post-exile period
by the references to the mixed marriages which aroused the
reforming zeal of Ezra and culminated in the exclusion of
Ammon and Moab from the religious community--on the ground
of incidents which were ascribed to the time of the "exodus"
(Deut. xxiii. 3 sqq.; Ezr. ix. 1 sqq.; Neh. xiii. 1 sqq.).
AMMONIUS GRAMMATICUS, the supposed author of a treatise
entitled Peri omoion kai dialoron lfxeon (On the
Differences of Synonymous Expressions), of whom nothing is
known. He was formerly identified with an Egyptian priest
who, after the destruction of the pagan temple at Alexandria
(389), fled to Constantinople, where he became the tutor of the
ecclesiastical historian Socrates. But it seems more probable
that the real author was Herennius Philo of Byblus, who was born
during the reign of Nero and lived till the reign of Hadrian,
and that the treatise in its present form is a revision prepared
by a later Byzantine editor, whose name may have been Ammonius.
Text by Valckenaer, 1739, Schafer, 1822; Kopp, De
Ammonii . . . Distinctionibus Synonymicis, 1883.
AMMONIUS HERMIAE (5th century A.D.), Greek philosopher,
the son of Hermias or Hermeias, a fellow-pupil of
Proclus. He taught at Alexandria, and had among his scholars
Asclepius, John Philoponus, Damascius and Simplicius.
His commentaries on Plato and Ptolemy are lost. Those on
Aristotle are all that remain of his reputedly numerous
writings. Of the commentaries we have--(1) one on the Isagoge
of Porphyry (Venice, 1500 fol.); (2) one on the Categories
(Venice, 1503 fol.), the authenticity of which is doubted by
Brandis; (3) one on the De Interpretatione (Venice, 1503
fol.). They are printed in Brandis's scholia to Aristotle,
forming the fourth volume of the Berlin Aristotle; they
are also edited (1891-1899) in A. Busse's Commentaria in
Aristot. Graeca. The special section on fate was published
separately by J. C. Orelli, Alex. Aphrod., Ammonii, et
aliorum de Fato quae supersunt (Zurich, 1824). A life of
Aristotle, ascribed to Ammonius, but with more accuracy to John
Philoponus, is often prefixed to editions of Aristotle. It has
been printed separately, with Latin translation and scholia, at
Leiden, 1621, at Helmstadt, 1666, and at Paris, 1850. Other
commentaries on the Topics and the first six books of the
Metaphysics still exist in manuscript. Of the value of the
logical writings of Ammonius there are various opinions. K.
Prantl speaks of them with great, but hardly merited, contempt.
For a list of his works see J. A. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca,
v. 704-707: C. A. Brandis, Uber d. Reihenf. d. Bucher d.
Aristot. Org., 283 f.; K. Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, i. 642.
AMMONIUS SACCAS (3rd century A.D.), Greek philosopher of
Alexandria, often called the founder of the neo-Platonic
school. Of humble origin, he appears to have earned a
livelihood as a porter; hence his nickname of "Sack-bearer"
(Sakkas, for sakkoforos.) The details of his life are
unknown, insomuch that he has frequently been confused with
a Christian philosopher of the same name. Eusebius (Church
History, vi. 19), who is followed by Jerome, asserts that
he was born a Christian, remained faithful to Christianity
throughout his life, and even produced two works called
The Harmony of Moses and Jesus and The Diatessaron, or
Harmony of the Four Gospels, which is said by some to exist
in a Latin version by Victor, bishop of Capua. Porphyry,
quoted by Eusebius, ib. vi. 19. 6, however, says that
he apostatized in later life and left no writings behind
him. There seems no reason, therefore, to doubt that Eusebius
is here referring to the Christian philosopher. After long
study and meditation, Ammonius opened a school of philosophy in
Alexandria. His principal pupils were Herennius, the two
Origens, Cassius Longinus and Plotinus. As he designedly
wrote nothing, and, with the aid of his pupils, kept his
views secret, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, his
philosophy must be inferred mainly from the writings of
Plotinus. As Zeller points out, however, there is reason
to think that his doctrines were rather those of the earlier
Platonists than those of Plotinus. Hierocles, writing in the
5th century A.D., states that his fundamental doctrine was
an eclecticism, derived from a critical study of Plato and
Aristotle. His admirers credited him with having reconciled
the quarrels of the two great schools. His death is variously
given between A.D. 240 and 245. See NEO-PLATONISM, ORIGEN.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--C. Rosler, De commentitiis philosophiae
Ammoniaceae fraudibus et noxis (Tubingen, 1786); L. J.
Dehaut, Essai historique sur la vie et la doctrine d' Ammonius
Saccas (Brussels, 1856); E. Zeller, "Ammonius Saccas und
Plotinus," Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos. vii., 1894, pp.
295-312; E. Vacherot, Hist. crit. de l'ecole d'Alexandrie
(Paris, 1846); T. Whittaker, The Neo-platonists (Camb.,
1901); Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., trans. A. C. M'Giffert
(Oxford and New York, 1890), notes on passages quoted above.
AMMUNITION, a military term (derived, through the French,
from Lat. munire, to provide), for consumable stores used
in attack or defence, such as rifle cartridges, cartridges,
projectiles, igniting tubes and primers for ordnance, &c.
The components of ammunition intended for rifles and ordnance
may be divided into (a) explosives and propellants (see
EXPLOSIVES and GUNPOWDER), (b) projectiles of all
kinds, and (c) cartridges. The military classification
of explosives differs somewhat from that of the Explosives
Act 1875, but, broadly speaking, they are divided into two
groups. The first of these comprises explosives in bulk,
made-up cartridges for cannon, and filled quick- firing
cartridges; Group II. contains small-arm cartridges, fuzes,
primers, tubes, filled shells (fuzed or unfuzed), &c. Each
group is subdivided, and arrangements are made for storing
certain divisions of Group I. in a magazine in separate
compartments. All the divisions of Group II. are, and the
remaining divisions of Group I. (comprising wet gun-cotton, picric
acid and Q.F. cartridges) may be, stored in ammunition stores.
These general conditions apply to the storage of ammunition in
fortresses. Here the positions for the magazine and ammunition
stores are so chosen as to afford the best means of protection
from an enemy's fire. Huge earth parapets cover these
buildings, which are further strengthened, where possible,
by traverses protecting the entrances. For the purpose of
filling, emptying and examining cannon cartridges and shell,
a laboratory is generally provided at some distance from the
magazine. The various stores for explosives are classified
into those under magazine conditions (viz. magazines,
laboratories and cartridge stores) and those with which these
restrictions need not be observed (viz. ammunition and shell
stores). The interior walls of a magazine are lined and
the floors laid so that there may be no exposed iron or
steel. At the entrance there is a lobby or barrier, inside
which persons about to enter the magazine change their clothes
for a special suit, and their boots for a pair made without
nails. In an ammunition or shell store these precautions need
not be taken except where the shell store and the adjacent
cartridge store have a common entrance; persons entering may
do so in their ordinary clothes. A large work may have a
main magazine and several subsidiary magazines, from which the
stock of cartridges is renewed in the cartridge stores attached
to each group of guns or in the expense cartridge stores and
cartridge recesses. The same applies to main ammunition stores
which supply the shell stores, expense stores and recesses.
The supply of ammunition may be divided roughly into (a)
that for guns forming the movable armament, (b) that for
guns placed in permanent positions. The movable armament will
consist of guns and howitzers of small and medium calibre,
and it is necessary to arrange suitable expense cartridge
stores and shell stores in close proximity to the available
positions. They can generally be constructed to form part
of the permanent work in the projected face of traverses
or other strong formations, and should be arranged for a
twenty-four hours' supply of ammunition. These stores are
refilled from the main magazine every night under cover of
darkness. Light railways join the various positions. The
guns mounted in permanent emplacements are divided into
groups of two or three guns each, and usually each group
will require but one calibre of ammunition. A cartridge
store, shell store and a general store, all well ventilated,
are arranged for the especial service of such a group of
guns. In the cartridge store the cylinders containing the
cartridges are so placed and labelled that the required
charge, whether reduced or full, can be immediately selected.
In the shell store also for the same reason the common shell
are separated from the armour-piercing or shrapnel. Each
nature of projectile is painted in a distinctive manner
to render identification easy. The fuzes, tubes, &c., are
placed in the general store with the tools and accessories
belonging to the guns. The gun group is distinguished by
some letter and the guns of the group by numerals; thus,
A/1 is No. I gun of group A. The magazine and shell stores
are also indicated by the group letter, and so that mistakes,
even by those unaccustomed to the fort, may be avoided,
the passages are pointed out by finger posts and direction
boards. For the immediate service of each gun a few cartridges
and projectiles are stored in small receptacles--called
cartridge and shell recesses respectively--built in the
parapet as near the gun position as practicable. In some
cases a limited number of projectiles may be placed close
underneath the parapet if this is conveniently situated
near the breech of the gun and not exposed to hostile fire.
In order to supply the ammunition sufficiently rapidly for
the efficient service of modern guns, hydraulic, electric
or hand-power hoists are employed to raise the cartridges
and shell from the cartridge store and shell store to the
gun floor, whence they are transferred to a derrick or
loading tray attached to the mounting for loading the gun.
Projectiles for B.L. guns above 6-in. calibre are stored in
shell stores ready filled and fuzed standing on their bases,
except shrapnel and high-explosive shell, which are fuzed only
when about to be used. Smaller sizes of shells are laid on
their sides in layers, each layer pointing in the opposite
direction to the one below to prevent injury to the driving
bands. Cartridges are stored in brass corrugated cases
or in zinc cylinders. The corrugated cases are stacked in
layers in the magazine with the mouth of the case towards
a passage between the stacks, so that it can be opened and
the cartridges removed and transferred to a leather case
when required for transport to the gun. Cylinders are
stacked, when possible, vertically one above the other.
The charges are sent to the gun in these cylinders, and
provision is made for the rapid removal of the empty cylinders.
The number and nature of rounds allotted to any fortress
depends on questions of policy and location, the degrees
of resistance the nature of the works and personnel
could reasonably be expected to give, and finally on
the nature of the armament. That is to say, for guns of
large calibre three hundred to four hundred rounds per gun
might be sufficient, while for light Q.F. guns it might
amount to one thousand or more rounds per gun. (A. G. H.)
Supply of ammunition in the field.
With every successive improvement in military arms there has
necessarily been a corresponding modification in the method
of supplying ammunition and in the quantity required to be
supplied. When hand-to-hand weapons were the principal
implements of battle, there was, of course, no such need,
but even in the middle ages the archers and crossbowmen had
to replenish the shafts and bolts expended in action, and
during a siege stone bullets of great size, as well as heavy
arrows, were freely used. The missiles of those days were,
however, interchangeable, and at the battle of Towton (1461)
the commander of the Yorkist archers, by inducing the enemy
to waste his arrows, secured a double supply of ammunition
for his own men. This interchangeability of war material
was even possible for many centuries after the invention of
firearms. At the battle of Liegnitz (1760) a general
officer was specially commissioned by Frederick the Great
to pack up and send away, for Prussian use, all the muskets
and ammunition left on the field of battle by the defeated
Austrians. Captured material is, of course, utilized whenever
possible, at the present time, and in the Chino-Japanese War
the Japanese went so far as to prepare beforehand spare parts
for the Chinese guns they expected to capture (Wei-Hai-Wei,
1895), but it is rare to find a modern army trusting to
captures for arms and ammunition; almost the only instance
of the practice is that of the Chilean civil war of 1891,
in which the army of one belligerent was almost totally
dependent upon this means of replenishing stores of arms and
cartridges. But what was possible with weapons of comparatively
rough make is no longer to be thought of in the case of
modern arms. The Lee-Metford bullet of .303 in. diameter
can scarcely be used in a rifle of smaller calibre, and
in general the minute accuracy of parts in modern weapons
makes interchangeability almost impossible. Further, owing
to the rapidity with which, in modern arms, ammunition is
expended, and the fact that, as battles are fought at longer
ranges than formerly, more shots have to be fired in order
to inflict heavy losses, it is necessary that the reserves
of ammunition should be as close as possible to the troops
who have to use them. This was always the case even with
the older firearms, as, owing to the great weight of the
ammunition, the soldier could carry but few rounds on his
person. Nevertheless it is only within the past seventy years
that there has grown up the elaborate system of ammunition
supply which now prevails in all regularly organized
armies. That which is described in the present article is the
British, as laid down in the official Combined Training
(1905) and other manuals. The new system designed for stronger
divisions, and others, vary only in details and nomenclature.
Infantry.--The infantry soldier generally carries, in
pouches, bandoliers, &c., one hundred rounds of small-arms
ammunition (S.A.A.), and it is usual to supplement this,
when an action is imminent, from the regimental reserve (see
below). It is to be noticed that every reduction in the
calibre of the rifle means an increase in the number of rounds
carried. One hundred rounds of the Martini-Henry ammunition
weighed 10lb. 10 oz.; the same weight gives 155 with .303
ammunition (incl. charges), and if a .256 calibre is adopted the
number of rounds will be still greater. It is, relatively, a
matter of indifference that the reserves of ammunition include
more rounds than formerly; it is of the highest importance
that the soldier should, as far as possible, be independent
of fresh supplies, because the bringing up of ammunition to
troops closely engaged is laborious and costly in lives. The
regimental reserves are carried in S.A.A. carts and on pack
animals. Of the former each battalion has six, of the latter
eight. The six carts are distributed, one as reserve to the
machine gun, three as reserve to the battalion itself, and two
as part of the brigade reserve, which consists therefore of
eight carts. The brigade reserve communicates directly with
the brigade ammunition columns of the artillery (see below).
The eight pack animals follow the eight companies of their
battalion. These, with two out of the three battalion carts,
endeavour to keep close to the firing line, the remaining cart
being with the reserve companies. Men also are employed as
carriers, and this duty is so onerous that picked men only are
detailed. Gallantry displayed in bringing up ammunition is
considered indeed to justify special rewards. The amount of
S.A.A. in regimental charge is 100 rounds in the possession
of each soldier, 2000 to 2200 on each pack animal, and 16,000
to 17,600 in each of four carts, with, in addition, about 4000
rounds with the machine gun and 16,000 more in the fifth cart.
Artillery.--The many vehicles which accompany batteries
(see ARTILLERY) carry a large quantity of ammunition, and
with the contents of two wagons and the limber each gun may
be considered as well supplied, more especially as fresh
rounds can be brought up with relatively small risk, owing
to the long range at which artillery fights and the use of
cover. Each brigade of artillery has its own ammunition
column, from which it draws its reserve in the first instance.
Ammunition Columns.--An ammunition column consists of
military vehicles carrying gun and S.A. ammunition for the
combatant unit to which the column belongs. Thus the ammunition
columns of a division, forming part of the brigades of field
artillery, carry reserve ammunition for the guns, the machine
guns of the infantry and the rifles of all arms. Generally
speaking, the ammunition column of each of the artillery
brigades furnishes spare ammunition for its own batteries and
for one of the brigades of infantry. All ammunition columns
are officered and manned by the Royal Artillery. They are
not reserved exclusively to their own brigades, divisions,
&c., but may be called upon to furnish ammunition to any unit
requiring it during an action. The officers and men of the
R.A. employed with the ammunition column are, as a matter of
course, immediately available to replace casualties in the
batteries. Teams, wagons and materiel generally are also
available for the same purpose. The horse artillery, howitzer
and heavy brigades of artillery have each their own ammunition
columns, organized in much the same way and performing similar
duties. The ammunition column of the heavy brigade is
divisible into three sections, so that the three batteries,
if operating independently, have each a section at hand
to replenish the ammunition expended. The horse artillery
brigade ammunition columns carry, besides S.A.A. for all
corps troops other than artillery, the reserve of pom-pom
ammunition. In action these columns are on the battlefield
itself. Some miles to the rear are the divisional and corps
troops columns, which on the one hand replenish the empty
wagons of the columns in front, and on the other draw fresh
supplies from the depots on the line of communication.
These also are in artillery charge; a divisional column is
detailed to each division (i.e. to replenish each set of
brigade ammunition columns), and the corps troops column
supplies the columns attached to the heavy, howitzer and
horse artillery brigades. The ammunition thus carried
includes ordinarily seven or eight kinds at least. S.A.A.,
field, horse, howitzer and heavy gun shrapnel, howitzer and
heavy gun lyddite shells, cartridges for the four different
guns employed and pom-pom cartridges for the cavalry,--in
all twelve distinct types of stores would be carried for a
complete army corps. Consequently the rounds of each kind
in charge of each ammunition column must vary in accordance
with the work expected of the combatant unit to which it
belongs. Thus pom-pom ammunition is out of place in the
brigade ammunition columns of field artillery, and S.A.A. is
relatively unnecessary in that attached to a heavy artillery
brigade. Under these circumstances a column may be unable to
meet the particular wants of troops engaged in the vicinity;
for instance, a cavalry regiment would send in vain to a heavy
artillery ammunition section for pom-pom cartridges. The point
to be observed in this is that the fewer the natures of weapons
used, the more certain is the ammunition supply. (C. F. A.)
The first projectiles fired from cannon were the darts and
stone shot which had been in use with older weapons. These
darts ("garros") had iron heads or were of iron wrapped with
leather to fit the bore of small guns, and continued in use up
to nearly the end of the 16th century. Spherical stone shot
were chosen on account of cheapness; forged iron, bronze and
lead balls were tried, but the expense prevented their general
adoption. Further, as the heavy metal shot necessitated the
use of a correspondingly large propelling charge, too great
a demand was made on the strength of the feeble guns of the
period. Stone shot being one-third the weight of those of
iron the powder charge was reduced in proportion, and this
also effected an economy. Both iron and stone shot were
occasionally covered with lead, probably to preserve the interior
of the bore of the gun. Cast iron, while known in the 14th
century, was not sufficiently common to be much used for the
manufacture of shot, although small ones were made about that
time. They were used more frequently at the latter part of
the following century. Towards the end of the 16th century
nearly all shot were of iron, but stone shot were still used
with guns called Petrieroes (hence the name) or Patararoes,
for attacking weak targets like ships at short range.
Case shot are very nearly as ancient as spherical shot.
They can be traced back to the early part of the 15th century,
and they have practically retained their original form up to
the present date. They are intended for use at close quarters
when a volley of small shot is required. With field guns they
are not of much use at ranges exceeding about four hundred
yards; those for heavy guns are effective up to one thousand
yards. In the earlier forms lead or iron shot were packed
in wood casks or in canvas bags tied up with twine like the
later quilted shot. In the present (fig. 2) type small shot
are placed in a cylindrical case of sheet iron, with iron
ends, one end being provided with handles. For small guns
the bullets are made of lead and antimony--like shrapnel
bullets--while for larger calibres they are of cast iron
weighing from two ounces to three and a half pounds each.
Grape shot is now obsolete. It consisted generally of three
tiers of cast-iron balls separated by iron plates and held in place
by an iron bolt which passed through the centre of the plates.
There was also another type called quilted shot which consisted
of a number of small shot in a canvas covering tied up by rope.
Chain shot, in the days of sailing ships, was much in favour as
a means of destroying rigging. Two spherical shot were fastened
together by a short length of chain. On leaving the gun they
began gyrating around each other and made a formidable missile.
Red-hot shot were invented in 1579 by Stephen Batory, king of
Poland. They were used with great effect by the English
during the siege of Gibraltar, especially on the 13th of
September 1782, when the French floating batteries were
destroyed, together with a large part of the Spanish fleet.
Martin's shell was a modified form; here a cast-iron
shell was filled with molten cast iron and immediately
fired. On striking the side of a ship the shell broke up,
freeing the still molten iron, which set fire to the vessel.
Rotation.--Projectiles intended for R.M.L. guns were at first
fitted with a number of gun-metal studs arranged around them
in a spiral manner corresponding to the twist of rifling. This
was defective, as it allowed, as in the old smooth-bore guns,
the powder gas to escape by the clearance (called "windage")
between the projectile and the bore, with a consequent loss
of efficiency; it also quickly eroded the bore of the larger
guns. Later the rotation was effected by a cupped copper
disc called a "gas check" attached to the base end of the
projectile. The powder gas pressure expanded the rim of
the gas check into the rifling grooves and prevented the
escape of gas; it also firmly fixed the gas check to the
projectile, thus causing it to rotate. A more regular and
efficient action of the powder gas was thus ensured, with a
corresponding greater range and an improvement in accuracy.
With the earlier Armstrong (R.B.L.) guns the projectiles were
coated with lead (the late Lord Armstrong's system), the lead
being forced through the rifling grooves by the pressure of the
exploded powder gas. The lead coating is, however, too soft
with the higher velocities of modern B.L. guns. Mr Vavasseur,
C.B., devised the plan of fitting by hydraulic pressure a
copper "driving band" into a groove cut around the body of the
projectile. This is now universal. It not only fulfils the
purpose of rotating the projectile, but renders possible the
use of large charges of slow- burning explosive. The copper
band, on being forced through the gun, gives rise to considerable
resistance, which allows the propelling charge to burn properly
and thus to exert its enormous force on the projectile.
The laws which govern the designs of projectiles are not
well defined. Certain formulae are used which give the
thickness of the walls of the shell for a known chamber
pressure in the gun, and for a particular stress on the
material of the shell. The exact proportions of the
shell depend, however, greatly on experimental knowledge.
Armour-piercing Shot and Shell.--On the introduction
of iron ships it was found that the ordinary cast-iron
projectile readily pierced the thin plating, and in order to
protect the vital parts of the vessel wrought-iron armour of
considerable thickness was placed on the sides. It then became
necessary to produce a projectile which would pierce this
armour. This was effected by Sir W. Palliser, who invented
a method of hardening the head of the pointed cast-iron
shot. By casting the projectile point downwards and forming
the head in an iron mould, the hot metal was suddenly
chilled and became intensely hard, while the remainder
of the mould being formed of sand allowed the metal to
cool slowly and the body of the shot to be made tough.
These shot proved very effective against wrought-iron armour,
but were not serviceable against compound and steel armour.
A new departure had, therefore, to be made, and forged steel
shot with points hardened by water, &c., took the place of
the Palliser shot. At first these forged steel shot were made
of ordinary carbon steel, but as armour improved in quality
the projectiles followed suit, and, for the attack of the
latest type of cemented steel armour, the projectile is formed
of steel--either forged or cast--containing both nickel and
chromium. Tungsten steel has also been used with success.
Armour-piercing shot or shell are generally cast from a
special mixture of chrome steel melted in pots; they are
afterwards forged into shape. The shell is then thoroughly
annealed, the core bored and the exterior turned up in the
lathe. The shell is finished in a similar manner to others
described below. The final or tempering treatment is very
important, but details are kept strictly secret. It consists
in hardening the head of the projectile and tempering it in
a special manner, the rear portion being reduced in hardness
so as to render it tough. The cavity of these projectiles
is capable of receiving a small bursting charge of about
2% of the weight of the complete projectile, and when
this is used the projectile is called an armour-piercing
shell. The shell, whether fuzed or unfuzed, will burst
on striking a medium thickness of armour. Armour-piercing
shells, having a bursting charge of about 3% of the weight
of the complete projectile, are now often fitted with a soft
steel cap (fig. 3) for the perforation of hard steel armour.
For the theory of the action of the cap see ARMOUR PLATES.
Even with these improvements the projectile cannot,
with a reasonable velocity, be relied upon to pierce one
calibre in thickness of modern cemented steel armour.
Explosive shells do not appear to have been in general
use before the middle of the 16th century. About that
time hollow balls of stone or cast iron were fired from
mortars. The balls were nearly filled with gunpowder and the
remaining space with a slow-burning composition. This plan
was unsatisfactory, as the composition was not always ignited
by the flash from the discharge of the gun, and moreover the
amount of composition to burn a stipulated time could not
easily be gauged. The shell was, therefore, fitted with a
hollow forged iron or copper plug, filled with slow-burning
powder. It was impossible to ignite with certainty this
primitive fuze simply by firing the gun; the fuze was
consequently first ignited and the gun fired immediately
afterwards. This entailed the use of a mortar or a very short
piece, so that the fuze could be easily reached from the muzzle
without unduly endangering the gunner. Cast-iron spherical
common shell (fig. 4) were in use up to 1871. For guns they were
latterly fitted with a wooden disc called a sabot, attached
by a copper rivet, intended to keep the fuze central when
loading. They were also supposed to reduce the rebounding
tendency of the shell as it travelled along the bore on
discharge. Mortar shell (fig. 5) were not fitted with sabots.
Cast iron held its own as the most convenient material
for projectiles up to recent years, steel supplanting it,
first for projectiles intended for piercing armour, and
afterwards for common shell for high-velocity guns where the
shock of discharge has been found too severe for cast iron.
Common shell is essentially a material destructor. Filled
with ordinary gunpowder, the larger natures are formidable
projectiles for the attack of fortifications and the
unarmoured portions of warships. On bursting they break up
into somewhat large pieces, which carry destruction forward
to some distance from the point of burst. For the attack of
buildings common shell are superior to shrapnel and they are
used to attack troops posted behind cover where it is impossible
for shrapnel to reach them; their effect against troops is,
however, generally insignificant. When filled with lyddite,
melinite, &c., they are called high-explosive (H.E.) shell (see
below). Common shell for modern high-velocity guns may
be made of cast steel or forged steel; those made of cast
iron are now generally made for practice, as they are found
to break up on impact, even against earthworks, before the
fuze has time to act; the bursting charge is, therefore, not
ignited or only ignited after the shell has broken up, the
effect of the bursting charge being lost in either case. So
long as the shell is strong enough to resist the shocks of
discharge and impact against earth or thin steel plates, it
should be designed to contain as large a bursting charge as
possible and to break up into a large number of medium-sized
pieces. Their effect between decks is generally more
far-reaching than lyddite shell, but the purely local effect is
less. Light structures, which, at a short distance from the
point of burst, successfully resist lyddite shell and confine
the effect of the explosion, may be destroyed by the shower
of heavy pieces produced by the burst of a large common shell.
To prevent the premature explosion of the shell, by the
friction of the grains of powder on discharge, it is heated
and coated internally with a thick lacquer, which on cooling
presents a smooth surface. Besides this the bursting charge
of all shell of 4-in. calibre and upwards (also with all other
natures except shrapnel) is contained in a flannel or canvas
bag. The bag is inserted through the fuze hole and the
bursting charge of pebble and fine grain powder gradually poured
in. The shell is tapped on the outside by a wood mallet to
settle the powder down. When all the powder has been got
in, the neck of the bag is tied and pushed through the fuze
hole. A few small shalloon primer bags, filled with seven
drams of fine grain powder, are then inserted to fill up the
shell and carry the flash from the fuze through the burster bag.
In the United States specially long common shell called torpedo
shell, about 4.7 calibres in length, are employed with the
coast artillery 12-in. mortars. They were made of cast steel,
but owing to a premature explosion in a mortar, supposed to
be due to weakness of the shell, they are now made of forged
steel. The weight of the usual projectile for this mortar is 850
lb. . The torpedo shell, however, weighs 1000 lb. and contains
137 lb. of high explosive; it is not intended for piercing
armour but for producing a powerful explosion on the armoured
deck of a warship. The compression, and consequent generation
of heat on discharge of the charge in these long shell,
render them liable to premature explosion if fired with high
velocities. Some inventors have, therefore, sought to overcome
this by dividing the shell transversely into compartments
and so making each portion of the charge comparatively short.
Cast-steel common shell (fig. 6) are cast in sand moulds head
downwards from steel of the required composition to give the
proper tenacity. A large head, which is subsequently removed,
is cast on the base to give solidity and soundness to the
castings. The castings are annealed by placing them in a
furnace or oven until red hot, then allowing them to cool
gradually. The process of casting is very similar to
that for the old cast-iron common shell, which, however,
were cast base downwards. The steel castings after being
annealed are dressed and carefully examined for defects.
The exterior of the body is generally ground by an emery
wheel or turned in a lathe; the groove for the driving band
is also turned and the fuze hole fitted with a gun-metal
bush. Forged-steel common shell are made from solid steel
billets. These are heated to redness and shaped by a series
of punches which force the heated metal through steel dies
by hydraulic pressure. If the shell is intended for a
nose fuze the base end is shaped by the press and the head
subsequently formed by a properly shaped die, or, in the case
of small shell, the head can, when red hot, be spun up in a
lathe by a properly formed tool. For a base fuze shell the
head is produced by the punches and dies, and the base is
subsequently formed by pressing in the metal to the desired
shape. The shell is then completed as described above.
High-explosive shell (fig. 7), as used in the English service,
are simply forged-steel common shell filled with lyddite and
having a special nose fuze and exploder. The base end of
lyddite shell is made solid to prevent the possibility of the
gas pressure in the gun producing a premature explosion. In
filling the shell great precautions are necessary to prevent
the melted lyddite (picric acid) from coming in contact with
certain materials such as combinations of lead, soda, &c.,
which produce sensitive picrates. The shell are consequently
painted externally with a special non-lead paint and lacquered
inside with special lacquer. The picric acid is melted in an
oven, the temperature being carefully limited. The melted
material is poured into the shell by means of a bronze
funnel, which also forms the space for the exploder of picric
powder. On cooling, the material solidifies into a dense, hard
mass (density 1.6), in which state it is called lyddite.
The fuze on striking ignites the exploder and in turn the
lyddite. When properly detonated a dense black smoke is
produced and the projectile is broken up into small pieces,
some of which are almost of the fineness of grains of sand.
The radius of the explosion is about 25 yds., but the local
effect is intense, and hence on light structures in a confined
space the destruction is complete. The shell is only of use
against thin plates; against modern armour it is ineffective.
When detonation has not been complete, as sometimes happens
with small shells, the smoke is yellowish and the pieces of the
exploded shell are as large as when a powder burster is used.
The French high-explosive shell obus torpille or obus
a melinite was adopted in 1886. The melinite was
originally filled into the ordinary cast-iron common shell
(obus ordinaire) with thick walls, but soon afterwards a
forged-steel thin-walled shell (obus allonge) was introduced.
To explode the shell a steel receptacle (called a gaine) is
screwed into the nose of the shell. It is filled with explosive
and fitted with a detonator which is exploded by a percussion
fuze. Except for the means adopted to ensure detonation
this shell is practically the same as the lyddite shell.
Picric acid in some form or other is used in nearly all
countries for filling high-explosive shell. In some the
explosive is melted and poured into cardboard cases instead
of being poured directly into the shell. The cases are placed
in the shell either by the head of the shell unscrewing from
the body or by a removable base plug. The French melinite
and the Italian pertite are believed to be forms of picric
acid. Russia and the United States use compressed wet gun-cotton
(density 1.2) as the charge for their high-explosive shell.
The gun-cotton is packed in a thin zinc or copper case and is
placed in the shell either by the head or base of the shell being
removable. The gun-cotton is detonated by a powerful exploder,
the form of which differs in each country. Ammonal is also
used in high-explosive shell, but owing to its light density
it is not in great favour. For field-gun and other small
high-explosive shells, ordinary smokeless powder is often used.
Double shell is a term given to a common shell which was
made abnormally long, so as to receive a large bursting
charge. They were intended to be fired with a reduced charge
at short range. They are now practically obsolete; their
place with modern B.L. guns has been taken by high-explosive
shell. Star shell are intended for illuminating the enemy's
position. They are very similar to shrapnel shell,
composition stars made up in cylindrical paper cases taking
the place of the bullets. The shell on bursting, blows
off the head and scatters the ignited stars. This shell
is only supplied to mountain guns and howitzers, and takes
the place of the older types of illuminating shell, viz.
the ground light ball and the parachute light ball.
Hand grenades were used at the assault of entrenchments or
in boat attacks. Although generally regarded as obsolete, they
were much used by the Japanese at the siege of Port Arthur,
1904. In the British service they were small, thin, spherical
common shell weighing 3 lb. for land service and 6 lb. for sea
service, filled with powder. They were fitted with a small
wood time fuze to burn 7.5 seconds. The grenade was held in the
hand and the fuze lighted by a port-fire. It was then thrown
some 20 to 30 yds. at the enemy's works or boats. Sometimes a
number were fired from a mortar at an elevation of about 30 deg.
so that none should strike the ground too near the mortar.
New types of grenades filled with high explosives detonated by
a percussion fuze have been produced of late years, and it is
probable that they will be again introduced into most countries.
Shrapnel shell were invented by Lieutenant (afterwards
Lieutenant- General) Henry Shrapnel, R.A. (1761-1842), in
1784. They were spherical common shell with lead bullets
mixed with the bursting charge. Although far superior to
common shell in man-killing effect, their action was not
altogether satisfactory, as the shell on bursting projected
the bullets in all directions, and there was a liability
of premature explosion. In order to overcome these
defects Colonel Boxer, R.A., separated the bullets from the
bursting charge by a sheet-iron diaphragm--hence the name
of "diaphragm shell" (fig. 8). The bullets were hardened by
the addition of antimony, and, as the bursting charge was
small, the shell was weakened by four grooves made inside
the shell extending from the fuze hole to the opposite side.
With rifled guns the form of the shell altered, but its character
remained. The body of the shell was still made of cast iron
with a cavity at the base for the bursting charge; on this
was placed a thick steel diaphragm with a hollow brass tube
which communicated the flash from the nose fuze to the bursting
charge. The body was filled with hard lead bullets, and
a wood head covered with sheet iron or steel surmounted it
and carried the fuze. By making the body of toughened steel
(fig. 9) and by slightly reducing the diameter of the bullets,
the number of bullets contained was much increased. In the
older field shrapnel, bullets of 18 and 34 to the lb. were
used; for later patterns see table in ORDNANCE: Field
Equipments. Thus with the cast-iron body the percentage
of useful weight, i.e. the proportion of the weight of
the bullets to the total weight of the shell, was from 26 to
28%, while with modern steel shell it is from 47 to 53%. The
limit of the forward effect of shrapnel at effective range
is about 300 yds. and the extent of front covered 25 yds.
[Fig. 10 shows in plan the different effects of (a) shrapnel
and of (b) high-explosive, burst in the air with a time
fuze in the usual way. It will be seen that the shrapnel
bullets sweep an area of about 250 yds. by 30 yds., half
the bullets falling on the first 50 yds. of the beaten
zone. With the high-explosive shell, however, the fragments
strike the ground closer to the point of burst and beat a
shallow, but broad, area of ground (about 7 yds. by 55
yds.). These areas show the calculated performance of
the German field gun (96 N.A.), firing at a range of 3300
yds. In the case of the high- explosive shell, the
concussion of the burst is highly dangerous, quite apart
from the actual distribution of the fragments of the shell.]
The term "shooting shrapnel" is given to certain
howitzer shrapnel, which are designed to contain a large
bursting charge for the purpose of considerably augmenting
the velocity of the bullets when the shell bursts.
High-explosive shell of a compound type have also lately
appeared. Messrs Krupp have made a kind of ring shell with
a steel body; a central tube conveys the flash from the
fuze to a base magazine containing a smoke-producing charge,
while surrounding the central tube is a bursting charge of
ordinary smokeless nitro-powder. A shrapnel on somewhat
similar lines has been made by Ehrhardt; in form (fig. 11) it
is an ordinary shrapnel with base burster, but near the head
is a second magazine filled with a high-explosive charge;
this is attached to the end of the fuze and is so arranged
that when the shell is burst as time shrapnel the flash
from the fuze passes clear of the high-explosive magazine
and ignites only the base magazine, the bullets being blown
out in the usual manner. When, however, the fuze acts on
graze, the percussion part detonates the high-explosive
charge and the bullets are blown out sideways and thus reach
men behind shields, &c. (fig. 10). There is some loss of
bullet capacity in this shell, and it appears likely that the
bullets will be materially deformed when detonation occurs;
the advantages may, however, counterbalance their objections.
Segment and ring shell are varieties of shrapnel, the
interior of the shell being built up of cast-iron segments
or rings (which break up into segments) about a tinned-iron
cylinder which formed the magazine of the shell. The shell
was completed by a cast-iron body formed around the segments or
rings. The German army in 1870 employed ring shell almost
exclusively against the French. The French found that common
shell (obus ordinaire) when made of cast iron broke up on
bursting into a small number of irregularly shaped pieces, and
in order to obtain a systematic fragmentation for small shells
they adopted a variety of projectiles of the segment and shrapnel
types. With the improvements made latterly these have become
obsolete, and the French system does not now materially differ
from that employed in England and other countries. The old
shell are, however, of sufficient interest to be enumerated;
thus the "double-walled shell" (obus a double parol) was
built up of two shells, the internal portion had a cylindrical
chamber for the bursting charge, but on the outside it was so
shaped as to break up into well-defined pieces; the external
portion of the shell was cast around the internal part, and
also broke up into a number Of pieces; this shell was liable
to premature explosion. The obus a couronnes de balles
(1879) was practically a segment shell with cast-iron balls
in lieu of segments; thin iron partitions separated each
layer, and the balls were flattened where they came in contact
with the plates. The obus a balles libres, adopted in
1880, were of the same type, but there were no separating
plates. The obus a anneaux was simply a ring shell of
the same type as used in England. The obus a mitraille
adopted in 1883 for field and siege guns had a cast-iron
disc for its base with the body built up of segments and
steel balls; a hollow ogival head surmounted this and a thin
steel envelope bound all together. The head was filled with
powder and fitted with a fuze; on explosion the head burst
and rupturing the envelope set free the balls and segments.
It is of importance in firing shrapnel shell that the position
of the burst shall be plainly seen. With the larger patterns
of shell this presents no difficulty, but with the shrapnel
for field guns which contain a small bursting charge only,
and at long range in certain states of the atmosphere, the
difficulty becomes pronounced. The problem has been solved in
some cases by packing the bullets in fine grain black powder
(instead of resin) and compressing both bullets and powder in
order to prevent the generation of heat when the bullets set
back on the discharge of the gun. In Germany a mixture of
red amorphous phosphorus and fine grain powder is used for the
same purpose and produces a dense white cloud of smoke. In
Russia a mixture of magnesium and antimony sulphide is used.
Fuzes.--The fuzes first used were short iron or copper
tubes filled with slow-burning composition. They were roughly
screwed on the exterior to fit a similar thread in the fuze
hole of the shell. There was no means of regulating the
length of time of burning, but later, about the end of the
17th century, the fuze case was made of paper or wood, so
that, by boring a hole through the outer casing into the
composition, the fuze could be made to burn approximately
for a given time before exploding the shell--or the fuze
could be cut to the correct length for the same purpose.
Early attempts to produce percussion fuzes were unsuccessful,
but the discovery of fulminate of mercury in 1799 finally
afforded the means of attaining this object. Some fifty years,
however, elapsed before a satisfactory fuze was made. This
was the Pettman fuze, in which a roughened ball covered with
detonating composition was released by the discharge of the
gun. When the shell hit any object, the ball struck against
the interior walls of the fuze, the composition was exploded
and thence the bursting charge of the shell. At present there
are three types of percussion fuzes--(1) those which depend
on the gas pressure in the gun setting the pellet of the fuze
free--this type is necessarily a base fuze; (2) those which
rely on the shock of discharge or the rotation of the shell
setting the pellet free, as in various kinds of nose and base
fuzes; (3) those relying on direct impact with the object.
The British base percussion fuze (fig. 12) illustrates
type (1). In this, before firing, the needle pellet is held
back by a central spindle with a pressure plate attached to
its rear end. For additional safety a centrifugal bolt is
added which is released by the rotation of the shell. On
discharge, the gas pressure pushes the pressure plate in, the
central spindle is carried forward with it and unlocks the
centrifugal bolt; this is withdrawn by the rotation of the
shell, and the needle pellet is then free to move forward
and explode the detonating cap when the shell strikes.
Type (2) is that usually adopted in small base fuzes and in
the percussion part of "time and percussion" fuzes. Here the
ferrule, on shock of discharge, moves back relatively to the
percussion pellet by collapsing the stirrup spring; this leaves
the pellet free to move forward, on the shell striking, and
its detonator to strike the needle fixed in the fuze body. A
spiral spring prevents any movement of the pellet during flight.
The direct-action or impact fuzes of type (3) are very simple
(see fig. 13 of direct-action fuze). They are made of such
a strength that during discharge nothing happens, but on
striking an object the needle disc is crushed in and the needle
explodes the detonating composition and thence the powder.
The action of all time fuzes is started by the discharge
of the gun. By this the pellet strikes the detonator and
so ignites a length of slow-burning composition which is
pressed into a wood tube or into a channel formed in a metal
ring. To regulate the time of burning of the wood fuze, a
hole is bored through into the composition as before stated,
so that when it has burnt down to this hole one of the side
channels filled with powder is ignited and explodes the
shell. Wood fuzes are now only used for R.M.L. guns.
With modern long-burning fuzes (fig. 14), two composition
time rings are used. The lower of these rings is made movable
so that it can be turned to bring any desired place over a
hole in the body of the fuze, which is filled with powder and
communicates with the magazine. On the gun being fired the
detonator is exploded and its flash ignites the upper time
ring. This burns round to a passage made in the lower ring, when
the lower ring begins to burn and continues to do so until the
channel to the magazine is reached. The gases from the ignited
composition escape from an external hole made in each time ring.
Mechanical time fuzes depending on the rotation of the shell
to give a regular motion to clockwork have been tried, but
so far no practicable form of these fuzes has been found.
It is important that all fuzes should be rigidly guarded against
dampness, which tends to lengthen their time of burning; hence
they are protected either by being kept in hermetically sealed
tins holding one or more fuzes, or by some similar means.
Tubes and Primers.--In ancient times various devices were
adopted to ignite the charge. Small guns were fired by thrusting
a hot wire down the vent into the charge, or slow-burning
powder was poured down the vent and ignited by a hot wire.
Later the priming powder was ignited by a piece of slow match held
in a lint-stock (often called linstock). About A.D. 1700 this
was effected by means of a port-fire (this was a paper case about
FIG. 14.--Fuze, Time and Percussion, No. 80, Mk. I
16 in. long filled with slow-burning composition which burnt
rather more than 1 in. per minute). Later again the charge was
exploded by paper tubes (sometimes called Dutch tubes) filled with
powder and placed in the vent and ignited by a port- fire. In
comparatively modern times friction tubes have been used, while
in the latest patterns percussion or electric tubes are employed.
In most B.L. guns it is essential to stop the erosion of the
metal of the vent by preventing the escape of gas through it
when the gun is fired. For this purpose the charges in such
guns are ignited by ``vent-sealing tubes.'' For M.L. guns and
small B.L. guns radially vented, especially those using black
powder, the amount of erosion in the vent is not so serious.
The charge is fired by ordinary friction tubes, which are blown
away by the escape of gas through the vent. In all guns axially
vented, vent- sealing tubes, which are not blown out, must be
employed so that the men serving the gun may not be injured.
The common friction tube is a copper tube, driven with powder,
having at the upper end a short branch (called a nib piece) at
right angles. This branch is filled with friction composition
in which a friction bar is embedded. On the friction bar being
sharply pulled out, by means of a lanyard, the composition is
ignited and sets fire to the powder in the long tube; the flash
is conveyed through the vent and explodes the gun charge. For
FIG. 15.--T-headed Friction Tube.
naval purposes, in order that the sailors should not be cut
about the face or hurt their feet, tubes of quill instead
of copper were used. If friction tubes are employed when
cordite or other smokeless powder charges are used, the
erosion of the vent is very rapid unless the escape of the
gas is prevented; in this case T-headed tubes (fig. 15) are
used. They are similar in action to the ordinary type,
but are fixed to the vent by the head fitting a bayonet
joint formed with the vent. The explosion blows a small
FIG. 16.--Electric Tube.
ball upwards and blocks the coned hole at the
top of the tube and so prevents any rush of gas.
The vent-sealing tube accurately fits into a chamber formed
at the end of the vent, and is held in place by the gun
lock or some similar means. The force of the explosion
expands the tube against the walls of its chamber, while
the internal structure of the tube renders it gas-tight,
any escape of gas through the vent being thus prevented.
In the English service electric tubes (in the United States
called ``primers'') are mostly used, but percussion or
friction tubes are in most favour on the continent, and
electric tubes are seldom or never used. There are two types
of electric tube, one with long wires (fig. 16) for joining
FIG. 17.--Wireless Tube.
up with the electric circuit and the other without external
wires. The first type has two insulated wires led into the
interior and attached to two insulated brass cones which are
connected by a wire ``bridge'' of platinum silver. This bridge
is surrounded by a priming composition of guncotton dust and
mealed powder and the remainder of the tube is filled with
powder. On an electric current passing, the bridge is
heated to incandescence and ignites the priming composition.
In the wireless tube (fig. 17) the lock of the gun makes the
electric contact with an insulated disc in the head of the
tube. This disc is connected by an insulated wire to a brass
cone, also insulated, the bridge being formed from an edge of
the cone to a brass wire which is soldered to the mouth of the
tube. Priming composition surrounds the bridge and the tube
is filled with powder. The electric circuit passes from the
gun lock to the disc, thence through the bridge to the body of
the tube, returning through the metal of the gun and mounting.
The percussion tube (fig. 18) has a similarly shaped body to the
wireless electric tube, but the internal construction differs;
it is fitted with a striker, below which is a percussion cap
on a hollow brass anvil, and the tube is filled with powder.
With Q.F. guns (that is, strictly, those using metallic cartridge
cases) the case itself is fitted with the igniting medium;
in England these are called primers. For small guns the case
contains a percussion primer, usually a copper cap filled with
a chlorate mixture and resting against an anvil. The striker of
FIG. 18.--Primer.
the gun strikes the cap and fires the mixture. For larger guns an
electric primer (fig. 19) is used, the internal construction and
action of which are precisely similar to the wireless tube already
described; the exterior is screwed for the case. For percussion
FIG. 19.--Electric Primer.
firing an ordinary percussion tube is placed in an
adapter screwed into the case. In some foreign services
a combined electric and percussion primer is used;
the action of this will be understood from fig. 20.
The first cartridges for cannon were made up of gunpowder
packed in a paper bag or case. For many years after the
introduction of cannon the powder was introduced into the bore
by means of a scoop-shaped ladle fixed to the end of a long
stave. The ladle was made of the same diameter as the shot,
and it had a definite length so that it was filled once for
the charging of small guns but for larger guns the ladle
had to be filled twice or even thrice. The rule was to
make the powder charge the same weight as that of the shot.
Cartridges made up in paper or canvas bags were afterwards
used in forts at night-time or on board ship, so that
the guns could be more rapidly loaded and with less risk
than by using a ladle. Before loading, a piece of the
paper or canvas covering had to be cut open immediately
under the vent; after the shot had been rammed home
FIG. 20.--Combined Primer.
the vent was filled with powder from a priming horn, and the gun
was then fired by means of a hot iron, quick match or port-fire.
The ancient breech-loading guns were not so difficult to
load, as the powder chamber of the gun was removable
and was charged by simply filling it up with powder and
ramming a wad on top to prevent the escape of the powder.
Paper, canvas and similar materials are particularly
liable to smoulder after the gun has been fired, hence
the necessity of well sponging the piece. Even with this
precaution accidents often occurred owing to a cartridge
being ignited by the still glowing debris of the previous
round. In order to prevent this, bags of non-smouldering
material, such as flannel, serge or silk cloth are used;
combustible material such as woven gun-cotton cloth has also
been tried, but there are certain disadvantages attending this.
All smokeless powders are somewhat difficult to ignite in a
gun, so that in order to prevent hang-fires every cartridge
has a primer or igniter, of ordinary fine grain gunpowder,
placed so as to intercept the flash from the tube; the outside
of the bag containing this igniter is made of shalloon,
to allow the flash to penetrate with ease. The charge for
heavy guns (above 6 in.) is made up in separate cartridges
containing half and quarter charges, both for convenience
of handling, and to allow of a reduced charge being used.
The cartridges are made of a bundle of cordite,or other smokeless
powder, tightly tied with silk, placed in a silk cloth bag with
the primer or igniter stitched on the unclosed end; the exterior
is taped with silk cloth tape so as to form a stiff cartridge. For
FIG. 21.--10-inch B.L. Gun Cartridge.
some of the longer guns, the exterior of the cartridre
is conveniently made of a coned shape, the coned form
being produced by building up layers outside a cylindrical
core. In these large cartridges a silk cord becket runs up
the centre with a loop at the top for handling (fig. 21).
For howitzers, variable charges are used, and are made up so
that the weight can be readily altered. The following typical
instance (fig. 22) will serve to show the general method of making
Fig. 22.--6-inch B.L. Howitzer Cartridge.
such charges, whether for B.L. or Q.F. howitzers. Small
size cordite is used, and the charge is formed of a
mushroom-shaped core, made up in a shalloon bag; on the
stalk, so as to be easily removed, three rings of cordite are
placed. The bottom of the core contains the primer, and
the rings can be attached to the core by two silk braids.
The weight of the rings is graduated so that by detaching
one or more the varying charges required can be obtained.
For quick-firing guns the charge is contained in a brass
case to which is fitted a primer for igniting the charge.
This case is inserted into the gun, and when fired slightly
expands and tightly fits the chamber of the gun, thus acting
as an obturator and preventing any escape of gas from the
breech. This class of ammunition is especially useful
for the smaller calibres of guns, such as 3-pr., 6-pr. and
field guns, but Messrs Krupp also employ metallic cartridge
cases for the largest type of gun, probably on account of
the known difficulty of ensuring trustworthy obturation
by any other means practicable with sliding wedge guns.
The charges for these cases are made up in a very similar manner to
those already described for B.L. guns. Where necessary, distance
pieces formed of papier-mache tubes and felt wads are used to
fill up the space in the case and so prevent any movement of the
charge. The mouth of the case is closed either by the base
end of the projectile (fig. 23), in which case it is called
``fixed ammunition'' or ``simultaneous loading ammunition.''
or by a metallic cap (fig. 24), when it is called ``separate
FIG. 24.--4.7-inch Q.F. Cartridge greatly reduced scale).
loading ammunition,'' projectile and charge being
thus loaded by separate operations. (A. G. H.)
The Bullet.--The original musket bullet was a spherical leaden
ball two sizes smaller than the bore, wrapped in a loosely
fitting paper patch which formed the cartridge. The loading
was, therefore, easy with the old smooth-bore Brown Bess and
similar military muskets. The original muzzle-loading rifle,
on the other hand, with a closely fitting ball to take the
grooves, was loaded with difficulty, particularly when foul, and
for this reason was not generally used for military purposes.
In 1826 Delirque, a French infantry officer, invented a
breech with abrupt shoulders on which the spherical bullet
was rammed down until it expanded and filled the grooves.
The objection in this case was that the deformed bullet
had an erratic flight. The Brunswick rifle, introduced
into the British army in the reign of William IV., fired a
spherical bullet weighing 557 grs. with a belt to fit the
grooves. The rifle was not easily loaded, and soon
fouled. In 1835 W. Greener produced a new expansive bullet,
an oval ball, a diameter and a half in length, with a flat
end, perforated, in which a cast metallic taper plug was
inserted. The explosion of the charge drove the plug
home, expanded the bullet, filled the grooves and prevented
windage. A trial of the Greener bullet in August 1835, at
Tynemouth, by a party of the 60th (now King's Royal) Rifles,
proved successful. The range and accuracy of the rifle were
retained, while the loading proved as easy as with a smooth-bore
musket. The invention was, however, rejected by the military
authorities on the ground that the bullet was a compound one.
In 1852 the government awarded Minie, a Frenchman, L. 20,000 for
a bullet of the same principle, adopted into the British
service. Subsequently, in 1857, Greener was also awarded
L. 1000 for ``the first public suggestion of the principle of
expansion, commonly called the Minie principle, in 1836.'' The
Minie bullet contained an iron cup in a cavity in the base of
the bullet. The form of the bullet was subsequently changed
from conoidal to cylindro-conoidal, with a hemispherical iron
cup. This bullet was used in the Enfield rifle introduced into
the British army in 1855. It weighed 530 grs., and was made
up into cartridges and lubricated as for the Minie rifle. A
boxwood plug to the bullet was also used. The bullet used in
the breech-loading Martini-Henry rifle, adopted by the British
government in 1871 in succession to the Snider-Enfield rifle,
weighed 480 grs., and was fired from an Eley-Boxer cartridge-
case with a wad of wax lubrication at the base of the bullet.
Between 1854 and 1857 Sir Joseph Whitworth conducted a long
series of rifle experiments, and proved, among other points, the
advantages of a smaller bore and, in particular, of an elongated
bullet. The Whitworth bullet was made to fit the grooves of
the rifle mechanically. The Whitworth rifle was never adopted
by the government, although it was used extensively for match
purposes and target practice between 1857 and 1866, when it
was gradually superseded by Metford's System mentioned below.
The next important change in the history of the rifle
bullet occurred in 1883, when Major Rubin, director of the
Swiss Laboratory at Thun, invented the small-calibre rifle,
one of whose essential features was the employment of an
elongated compound bullet, with a leaden core in a copper
envelope. About 1862 and later, W. E. Metford had carried out
an exhaustive series of experiments on bullets and rifling,
and had invented the important system of light rifling with
increasing spiral, and a hardened bullet. The combined
result of the above inventions was that in December 1888
the Lee-Metford small-bore .303 rifle, Mark I., was finally
adopted for the British army. The latest development of this
rifle is now known as the .303 Lee-Enfleld, which fires a
long, thin, nickel-covered, leaden-cored bullet 1.25 in.
long, weighing only 215 grs., while the Martini-Henry bullet,
1.27 in. in length and .45 in. in diameter, weighed 480 grs.
The adoption of the smaller elongated bullet, necessitated
by the smaller calibre of the rifle, entailed some definite
disadvantages. The lighter bullet is more affected by
wind. Its greater relative length to diameter necessitates
a sharper pitch of rifling in order properly to revolve the
bullet (one turn in 10 in. for the .303 rifle as compared with
one turn in 22 in. for the Martini-Henry). This, in its turn,
necessitates a hard nickel envelope for the leaden bullet in
order to prevent its ``stripping,'' or being forced through
the barrel without rotation. The general result is that,
while the enveloped bullet has a much higher penetrative power
than one of lead only, it does not usually inflict so severe
a wound, nor has it such a stunning effect as the old lead
bullet. It cuts a small clean hole, but does not deform.
This fact is of some military importance, as, for example,
in warfare with savages, in which the chief danger is usually
a rush of large numbers at close quarters. The advantages,
however, of the smaller calibre and the lighter bullet and
ammunition are considered to outweigh the disadvantages, and
they have been universally adopted for all military rifles.
Bullets for target and sporting-rifles have, in the main,
followed, or occasionally preceded, the line of progress of
military rifle bullets. In 1861 Henry introduced a modification
of the grooving of the cylindrical Whitworth bullet, and in
1864 and 1865 the Rigby mechanically fitting bullet was used
with success at the National Rifle Association meeting, and
in the second stage of the Queen's prize. The bullets of
sporting rifles, and particularly those of Express rifles,
are often lighter than military bullets, and made with hollow
points to ensure the expansion of the projectile on or after
impact. The size and shape of the hollow in the point vary
according to the purpose required and the nature of the game
hunted. If greater penetration is needed, the leaden bullet
is hardened with mercury or tin, or the military nickel-coated
bullet is used with the small-bore, smokeless- powder rifles.
Explosive bullets filled with detonating powder were at one
time used in Express and large-bore rifles for large game.
The use of these bullets is now practically abandoned owing to
their uncertainty of action and the danger involved in handling
them. Their use in warfare is prohibited by international law.
The nickel-covered bullet, when used in a modern small-bore
rifle for sporting purposes, is made into an expanding
bullet, either by leaving the leaden core uncovered at
the nose of the bullet, with or without a hollow point,
or by cutting transverse or longitudinal nicks of varying
depth in the point or circumference of the bullet.
A cone-shaped sharp-pointed bullet, named the Spitzer bullet,
has been tried in the United States under the auspices
of the Ordnance Department, in a Springfield rifle, which
is practically identical with the British service .303
Lee-Enfield. This bullet is lighter than the Lee-Enfield
bullet (150 grs. as against 215 grs.), and when fired with
a heavier charge of powder (51 grs. as against 31 grs.)
gives, it is claimed, better results in muzzle-velocity,
trajectory, deflexion from wind and wear and tear of rifling,
than the present universally used cylinder-shaped bullet.
In 1906 details of its prototype, the German ``S'' bullet
(Spitzgeschoss), and of the French ``D'' bullet, were published.
The Cartridge.--The original cartridge for military small
arms dates from 1586. It consisted of a charge of powder
and a bullet in a paper envelope. This cartridge was used
with the muzzle- loading military firearm, the base of the
cartridge being ripped or bitten off by the soldier, the
powder poured into the barrel, and the bullet then rammed
home. Before the invention of the firelock or flint-lock,
about 1635, the priming was originally put into the pan of
the wheel-lock and snaphance muskets from a flask containing
a fine-grained powder called serpentine powder. Later the
pan was filled from the cartridge above described before
loading. The mechanism of the flint-lock musket, in which the
FIG. 25.
pan was covered by the furrowed steel struck by the flint,
rendered this method of priming unnecessary, as, in loading, a
portion of the charge of powder passed from the barrel through
the vent into the pan, where it was held by the cover and hammer.
The next important advance in the method of ignition was the
introduction of the copper percussion cap. This was only generally
applied to the British military musket (the Brown Bess) in
1842, a quarter of a century after the invention of percussion
powder and after an elaborate government test at Woolwich in
1834. The invention which made the percussion cap possible
was patented by the Rev. A. J. Forsyth in 1807, and consisted
of priming with a fulminating powder made of chlorate of
potash, sulphur and charcoal, which exploded by concussion.
This invention was gradually developed, and used, first in a
steel cap, and then in a copper cap, by various gunmakers and
private individuals before coming into general military use
nearly thirty years later. The alteration of the military
flint-lock to the percussion musket was easily accomplished
by replacing the powder pan by a perforated nipple, and by
replacing the cock or hammer which held the flint by a smaller
hammer with a hollow to fit on the nipple when released by the
trigger. On the nipple was placed the copper cap containing
the detonating composition, now made of three parts of chlorate
of potash, two of fulminate of mercury and one of powdered
glass. The detonating cap thus invented and adopted, brought
about the invention of the modern cartridge case, and rendered
possible the general adoption of the breech-loading principle
for all varieties of rifles, shot guns and pistols. Probably
no invention connected with firearms has wrought such changes
in the principle of gun construction as those effected by
the expansive cartridge case. This invention has completely
revolutionized the art of gunmaking, has been successfully
applied to all descriptions of firearms, and has produced a
new and important industry--that of cartridge manufacture.
Its essential feature is the prevention of all escape of
gas at the breech when the weapon is fired, by means of
an expansive cartridge case containing its own means of
ignition. Previous to this invention shot guns and sporting
rifles were loaded by means of powder flasks and shot flasks,
bullets, wads and copper caps, all carried separately. The
earliest efficient modern cartridge case was the pin-fire,
patented, according to some authorities, by Houiller, a Paris
gunsmith, in 1847; and, according to others, by Lefaucheux,
also a Paris gunsmith, in or about 1850. It consisted of
thin weak shell made of brass and paper which expanded by the
force of the explosion, fitted perfectly into the barrel, and
thus formed an efficient gas check. A small percussion cap
was placed in the middle of the base of the cartridge, and
was exploded by means of a brass pin projecting from the side
and struck by the hammer. This pin also afforded the means of
extracting the cartridge case. This cartridge was introduced
in England by Lang, of Cockspur Street, London, about 1855.
The central-fire cartridge was introduced into England in
1861 by Daw. It is said to have been the invention of Pottet
of Paris, improved upon by Schneider, and gave rise to
much litigation in respect of its patent rights. Daw was
subsequently defeated in his control of the patents by Eley
Bros. In this cartridge the cap in the centre of the
cartridge base is detonated by a striker passing through
the standing breech to the inner face, the cartridge case
being withdrawn, or, in the most modern weapons, ejected
by a sliding extractor fitted to the breech end of the
barrel, which catches the rim of the base of the cartridge.
This is practically the modern cartridge case now in universal
use. In the case of shot guns it has been gradually inproved
in small details. The cases are made either of paper of
various qualities with brass bases, or entirely of thin
brass. The wadding between powder and shot has been thickened
and improved in quality; and the end of the cartridge case is
now made to fit more perfectly into the breech chamber. These
cartridges vary in size from 32 bore up to 4 bore for shoulder
guns. They are also made as small as .410 and .360 gauge:
their length varies from 1 3/4 in. to 4 in. Cartridges for punt
guns are usually 1 1/2 in. in diameter and 9 3/4 in. in length.
In the case of military rifles the breech-loading cartridge
case was first adopted in principle by the Prussians about
1841 in the needle-gun (q.v.) breech-loader. In this
a conical bullet rested on a thick wad, behind which was
the powder, the whole being enclosed in strong lubricated
paper. The detonator was in the hinder surface of the wad,
and fired by a needle driven forward from the breech, through
the base of the cartridge and through the powder, by the action
of a spiral spring set free by the pulling of the trigger.
In 1867 the British war office adopted the Eley-Boxer
metallic central-fire cartridge case in the Enfield rifles,
which were converted to breech-loaders on the Snider
principle. This consisted of a block opening on a hinge,
thus forming a false breech against which the cartridge
rested. The detonating cap was in the base of the cartridge,
and was exploded by a striker passing through the breech
block. Other European powers adopted breech-loading military
rifles from 1866 to 1868, with paper instead of metallic
cartridge cases. The original Eley-Boxer cartridge case
was made of thin coiled brass. Later the solid-drawn,
central-fire cartridge case, made of one entire solid piece
of tough hard metal, an alloy of copper, &c., with a solid
head of thicker metal, has been generally substituted.
Central-fire cartridges with solid-drawn metallic cases
containing their own means of ignition are now universally
used in all modern varieties of military and sporting rifles
and pistols. There is great variety in the length and
diameter of cartridges for the different kinds and calibres
of rifles and pistols. Those for military rifies vary
from 2.2 in. to 2.25 in. in length, and from .256 to .315
gauge. For sporting rifles from 2 1/4 in. to 3 1/2 in. in
length, and through numerous gauges from .256 in. to .600
in. For revolvers, pistols, rook and rabbit rifles, and for
Morris tubes, cartrillges vary from .22 in. to .301 in. in
gauge. All miniature cartridges with light charges are made
for breech adapters to enable .303 military rifles to be
used on miniature rifle ranges. All the above cartridges are
central-fire. Rim-fire cartridges for rifles, revolvers
and pistols vary from .22 in. to .56 in. gauge according to
the weapon for which they are required. The cartridge for
the British war office miniature rifle is .22 calibre, with
5 grs. of powder and a bullet weighing 40 grs. Most modern
military rifles are supplied with clip or charger loading
arrangements, whereby the magazine is filled with the required
number of cartridges in one motion. A clip is simply a case
of cartridges which is dropped into the magazine; a charger
is a strip of metal holding the bases of the cartridges,
and is placed over the magazine, the cartridges being
pressed out into the latter. Both clips and chargers, being
consumable stores, may be considered as ammunition. (H. S.-K.)
AMNESTY (from the Gr. amnestia, oblivion), an act of
grace by which the supreme power in a state restores those
who may have been guilty of any offence against it to the
position of innocent persons. It includes more than pardon,
inasmuch as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the
offence. Amnesties, which may be granted by the crown alone,
or by act of parliament, were formerly usual on coronations
and similar occasions, but are chiefly exercised towards
associations of political criminals, and are sometimes granted
absolutely, though more frequently there are certain specified
exceptions. Thus, in the case of the earliest recorded
amnesty, that of Thrasybulus at Athens, the thirty tyrants and
a few others were expressly excluded from its operation; and
the amnesty proclaimed on the restoration of Charles II. did
not extend to those who had taken part in the execution of his
father. Other celebrated amnesties are that proclaimed by Napoleon
on the 13th of March 1815, from which thirteen eminent persons,
including Talleyrand, were excepted; the Prussian amnesty of
the 10th of August 1840; the general amnesty proclaimed by the
emperor Francis Joseph of Austria in 1857; the general amnesty
granted by President Johnson after the Civil War in 1868; and
the French amnesty of 1905. The last act of amnesty passed
in Great Britain was that of 1747, which proclaimed a pardon
to those who had taken part in the second Jacobite rebellion.
AMOEBA, the Greek equivalent of the name ``Amibe'' given
by Bery St Vincent to the Proteus animalcule of earlier
naturalists, used as a quasi-popular term for any simple naked
protist the sole external organs of which are pseudopodia,
i.e. temporary outgrowths of the clearer outer layer of the
soft protoplasmic body. It is also used as a generic name,
and in its present limitations by E. Penard includes only
those the pseudopodia of which are constantly changing, blunt
outgrowths. In the former wider sense, amoebae are found
in sluggish waters, fresh and salt, all over the world; they
readily make their appearance in infusions putrefying after
infection from aerially carried germs, and the leucocytes
or colourless blood corpuscles of Metazoa are essentially
amoebae in their structure and behaviour. The protoplasm of
the individual is divided into a centrally placed body, the
nucleus, of relatively stable shape, and the cytoplasm, itself
divided into an outer, clearer ectoplasm (``ectosarc'') and an
inner, more granular endoplasm (``endosarc''), passing into one
another. The movements of amoebae are of several kinds. (1)
The amoeba may grow out irregularly into blunt lobes, the
pseudopodia, some being emitted while others are retracted, and
so may advance in any direction by the emission of pseudopodia
thitherward, and the enlargement of these by the passage of
the organism into them. (2) Again, it may advance by a sort
of rolling: the lower surface, or that in contact with the
substratum over or under which it is passing, is viscid and
adheres to the substratum, the superficial dorsal layer passing
forward and bending over to the ventral side; whilst the
converse action takes place at the hinder end; (3) or again, the
pseudopodia, when long, well marked and relatively permanent,
may serve as actual limbs on which the body is supported
and on which it moves. In the outgrowth of a pseudopod the
process may take place gradually, the ectoplasm growing as it
stretches, or it may take place by the limiting layer of the
ectosarc bursting, as it were, and a rounded prominence of
the endosarc protruding and at once forming a new ``skin', or
pellicle. This last mode, termed ``eruptive,'' is common
in the case of the enormous, multinucleate amoeba termed
Pelomyxa palustris, which attains a diameter when contracted
and spherical of as much as a line (over 2 mm.). From the
ease with which amoebae are obtained and kept alive under
the microscope, as well as from their identity in structure
with the primitive elements of Metazoa, they have always
been favourite objects of study for protoplasmic physiology
under its simplest conditions. Among the investigators of
protoplasmic movements we may cite F. Dujardin, O. Butschli,
L. Rhumbler and H. S. Jennings. The opening to the exterior
of the contractile vesicle has been found here. Pelomyxa
has yielded to A. E. Dixon and M. Hartog a peptic ferment,
such as has been extracted by C. F. W. Krukenberg from the
myxomycete Fuligo (Flowers of Tan), which is the largest
known naked mass of protoplasm without cellular differentiation.
Amoeba shows also the multiplication by fission, so
characteristic of the cell: for the study of other modes of
reproduction, spore formation and syngamic (or so-called
fertilization) processes, fresh-water or salt-water amoebae
are ill suited, and up to this date we do not know the life
cycle of any free-living naked amoeba, though that of some
parasitic forms and shell-bearers have been fully made out. Some
amoebae are certainly young states of Myxomycetes. Encystment,
the excretion of a membrane around the cell to tide over
unfavourable circumstances, has been noted in almost all species.
Amoeba coli and A. histolytica are parasites in the gut
of man, the former relatively harmless, the latter the cause
of severe dysentery and hepatic abscess, common in India.
H. S. Jennings has recently made a full study of the movements
of Amoeba, and of its general behaviour, and found therein
many indications that these are on the whole such as we
should expect of an organism working by ``trial and error''
rather than the uniform modes of non-living beings. Thus the
operations of an amoeba ingesting a round, encysted Euglena
are summed up thus: ``One seems to see that the amoeba is
trying to obtain this cyst for food, that it shows remarkable
pertinacity in continuing its attempts to put forth efforts to
accomplish this in various ways, and that it shows remarkable
pertinacity in continuing its attempts to ingest the food
when it meets with difficulties. Indeed the scene could be
described in a much more vivid and interesting way by the use
of terms still more anthropomorphic in tendency.'' (M. HA.)
AMOL, or AMUL, a town of Persia, in the province of
Mazandaran, 23 m. W. of Barfurush, in 36 deg. 28' N. Lat. and
52 deg. 23' E. long. Pop. about 10,000. It is situated on both
banks of the Heraz, or Herhaz river, which is crossed here by
a very narrow stone bridge of twelve arches and flows into the
Caspian Sea 12 m. lower down. Amol is not walled and is now
a place of little importance, but in and around it there are
ruins and ancient buildings which bear witness to its former
greatness. Of these the most conspicuous is the mausoleum of
Seyed Kavvam ud-din, king of Mazandaran, who died in 1379, and
one old mosque dates from A.D. 793. The town has spacious
and well-supplied bazaars and post and telegraph offices.
AMONTONS, GUILLAUME (1663-1705), French experimental
philosopher, the son of an advocate who had left his native
province of Normandy and established himself at Paris, was
born in that city on the 31st of August 1663. He devoted
himself particularly to the improvement of instruments
employed in physical experiments. In 1687 he presented to
the Academy of Sciences an hygrometer of his own invention,
and in 1695 he published his only book, Remarques et
experiences physiques sur la construction d'une nouvelle
clepsydre, sur les barometres, les thermometres et les
hygrometres. In 1699 he published some investigations
on friction, and in 1702-1703 two noteworthy papers on
thermometry. He experimented with an air-thermometer, in
which the temperature was defined by measurement of the length
of a column of mercury; and he pointed out that the extreme
cold of such a thermometer would be that which reduced the
``spring'' of the air to nothing, thus being the first to
recognize that the use of air as a thermometric substance led
to the inference of the existence of a zero of temperature.
In 1704 he noted that barometers are affected by heat as well
as by the weight of the atmosphere, and in the following year
he described barometers without mercury, for use at sea.
Amontons, who through disease was rendered almost completely
deaf in early youth, died at Paris on the 11th of October 1705.
'AMORA (Hebrew for ``speaker'' or ``discourser''), a
title applied to the rabbis of the 2nd to 5th centuries,
i.e. to the compilers of the Talmud. Each tana--or
rabbi of the earlier period--had a spokesman, who repeated
to large audiences the discourses of the tana. But the
'amora soon ceased to be a mere repeater, and developed
into an original expounder of scripture and tradition.
AMORITES, the name given by the Israelites to the earlier
inhabitants of Palestine. They are regarded as a powerful
people, giants in stature ``like the height of the cedars,''
who had occupied the land east and west of the Jordan. The
Biblical usage appears to show that the terms ``Canaanites''
and ``Amorites'' were used synonymously, the former being
characteristic of Judaean, the latter of Ephraimite and
Deuteronomic writers. A distinction is sometimes maintained,
however, when the Amorites are spoken of as the people of
the past, whereas the Canaanites are referred to as still
surviving. The old name is an ethnic term, evidently to be
connected with the terms Amurru and Amar, used by Assyria
and Egypt respectively. In the spelling Mar-tu, the name
is as old as the first Babylonian dynasty, but from the
15th century B.C. and downwards its syllabic equivalent
Amurru is applied primarily to the land extending northwards
of Palestine as far as Kadesh on the Orontes. The term
``Canaan,'' on the other hand, is confined more especially
to the southern district (from Gebal to the south of
Palestine). But it is possible that the terms at an early date
were interchangeable, Canaan being geographical and Amorite
ethnical. The wider extension of the use of Amurru by the
Babylonians and Assyrians is complicated by the fact that
it was even applied to a district in the neighbourhood of
Babylonia. If the people of the first Babylonian dynasty
(about 21st century B.C.) called themselves ``Amorites,''
as Ranke seems to have shown, it is possible that some
feeling of common origin was recognized at that early date.
See Ranke, Bab. Exped. Pennsylvania, series D, iii. 33
sqq.; and for general information, W. M. Muller, Asien u.
Europa, 217 sqq.; Pinches, Old Testament, Index (s.v..)
The people of Amar are represented on the Egyptian monuments
with yellow skin, blue eyes, red eyebrows and beard, whence
it has been conjectured that they were akin to the Libyans
(Sayce, Expositor, July 1888). Senir, the ``Amorite',
name of Hermon (Deut. iii. 9). appears to be identical
with Saniru in the Lebanon, mentioned by Shalmaneser Il.
In the Old Testament the chief references may be classified
as follows:--primitive inhabitants generally, Is. xvii. 9
(on text see comm.), Ezek. xvi. 3; a people W. of Jordan,
Josh. x. 5; Judg. i. 34-36; Deut. i. 7, 44; Gen. xiv. 7,
xlviii. 22: E. of Jordan, Num. xxi. 13, 21 sqq.; Josh. ii.
10, xxiv. 8; Judg. x. 8. See further CANAAN, PALESTINE.
AMORPHISM (from a, privative, and morfe, form),
a term used in chemistry and mineralogy to denote the
absence of regular or crystalline structure in a body;
the adjective ``amorphous,'' formless or of irregular
shape, being also used technically in biology, &c.
AMORT, EUSEBIUS (1692--1775), German Catholic theologian,
was born at Bibermuhle, near Tolz, in Upper Bavaria, on
the 15th of November 1692. He studied at Munich, and at
an early age joined the Canons Regular at Polling, where,
shortly after his ordination in 1717, he taught theology and
philosophy. In 1733 he went to Rome as theologian to Cardinal
Niccolo Maria Lercari (d. 1757). He returned to Polling in 1735
and devoted the rest of his life to the revival of learning in
Bavaria. He died at Polling on the 5th of February 1775.
Amort, who had the reputation of being the most learned man
of his age, was a voluminous writer on every conceivable
subject, from poetry to astronomy, from dogmatic theology to
mysticism. His best known works are: a manual of theology
in 4 vols., Theologia electica, moralis et scholastica
(Augsburg, 1752; revised by Benedict XIV. for the 1753
edition published at Bologna); a defence of Catholic doctrine,
entitled Demonstratio critica religionis Catholicae
(Augsburg, 1751); a work on indulgences, which has often been
criticized by Protestant writers, De Origine, Progressu,
Valore, et Fructu Indulgentiorum (Augsburg, 1735); a treatise
on mysticism, De Revelationibus et Visionibus, &c. (2
vols., 1744); and the astronomical work Nova philosophiae
planetarum et artis criticae systemata (Nuremberg, 1723).
The list of his other works, including his three erudite
contributions to the question of authorship of the Imitatio
Christi, will be found in C. Toussaint's scholarly article
in A. Vacant's Dict. de theologie (1900, cols. 1115-1117).
AMORTIZATION (derived through the French from Lat. ad,
and mortem, to death), literally an extinction or doing
to death, a word formerly used of alienating lands in
mortmain, and now for the paying off of a debt, particularly
by means of a regular sinking-fund; thus ``amortization''
and ``amortization fund'' generally refer to the latter
method of extinguishing some pecuniary liability.
AMORY, THOMAS (c. 1691-1788), British author, was born
about 1601, his father being the secretary for the forfeited
estates in Ireland. He was an eccentric character and seems
to have lived a very secluded life. He published Memoirs;
containing the lives of several Ladies of Great Britain; a
History of Antiquities &c. (1755) and Life of John Buncle
Esq. (1756 and 1766). Both books are an extraordinary mixture
of fiction, autobiography, scenic description and theological
discussion. Amory died on the 25th of November 1788.
AMOS, in the Bible, an Israelitish prophet of the 8th
century B.C. He was a native of Tekoa, i.e. as most
suppose, a place which still bears the same name 6 m. S. of
Bethlehem. He was a shepherd, or perhaps a sheep-breeder,
but combined this occupation with that of a tender of sycomore
figs. It is true, the Tekoa just mentioned lies too high
for sycomores; so it has been almost too ingeniously supposed
that Amos may have owned a plantation of sycomores in the
hill country leading down to Philistia, technically called
the Shephelah (R. Y., ``lowland''). Here there were
sycomores in abundance (1 Kings x. 27). That this was his
usual occupation we learn from a better source than the heading
(i. 1), viz. a narrative (vii. 10, 17), evidently of early
origin, which interrupts the series of prophetic visions on
the fall of the kingdom of Israel. Amos, it appears, though
himself a Judahite, had been prophesying in the northern
kingdom, when his activity was brought to an abrupt close by
the head priest of the royal sanctuary at Bethel, Amaziah,
who bade him escape to the land of Judah and get his living
there. The reply of Amos is full of instruction. ``No prophet
am I; no prophet's son am I; a shepherd am I, and one who tends
sycomore-figs. And Yahweh took me from behind the flock; and
Yahweh said to me, Go, prophesy against my people Israel.''
The following words show that a prophet in ancient Israel
had the utmost freedom of speech. It was far otherwise
in the period of the fall of Judah. (See JEREMIAH.)
But what had Amos said that appeared so dangerous to the head
priest? Amaziah summarizes it thus, ``Jeroboam shall die by the
sword, and Israel shall go away into captivity from his own
land'' (vii. 11; cf. vii. 9b, v. 27, vi. 7). He omits all the
reasons for this stern prophecy. The reasons are that the good
old Israelitish virtue of brotherliness is dying away, that
oppression and injustice are rampant (ii. 6-8, iii. 9, 10, iv.
1, v. 11, 12, viii. 4-6), and that rites are practised in the
name of religion which are abhorrent to Yahweh, because they
either have no moral meaning at all, and are mere forms (v.
21-23), or else, jndged from Amos's purified point of view,
are absolutely immoral (ii. 7; cf. viii. 14). On the details
of the captivity Amos preserves a mysterious vagueness. The
fact, however, he puts forward with the confidence of one who
is intimate with his God (iii. 7), and most probably it was at
some great festival that he spoke the words which so perturbed
Amaziah. The priest may not indeed himself have believed
them, but he probably feared their effect on the moral courage
of the people. And it is perhaps not arbitrary to suppose
that the splendour of the ritual in Amos's time implies a
tremulous anxiety that Israel's seeming prosperity under
Jeroboam II. (see JEWS) may not be as secure as could be
wished. For Amos cannot have been quite alone either in
Israel or in Judah; there must have been a little flock of
those who felt with Amos that there was small reason indeed
to ``desire the day of Yahweh'' (v. 18; see Harper's note).
But why did Amos so emphatically decline to be called a
prophet? A prophet in some true sense he certainly was, a
prophet who, within his own range, has not been surpassed.
He means this--that he is no mere ecstatic enthusiast or
``dervish,'' whose primary aim is to keep up the warlike
spirit of the people, taking for granted that Yahweh is on
the people's side, and that he is perfectly free from the
taint of selfishness, not having to support himself by his
prophesying. He could not indeed tell Amaziah this, but it
is nevertheless true that he was the founder, or one of the
founders, of a new type of prophet. He was also either the
first, or one of the first, to write down, or to get written
down, the substance of his spoken prophecies, and perhaps
also prophecies which he never delivered at all. This was
the consequence of his ill success as a public preacher.
The other prophets of the same order may be presumed to have
been hardly less unsuccessful. Hence the new phenomenon
of written prophecies. The literary skill of Amos leads
one to suppose that he had prepared in advance for this,
perhaps we may say, not altogether unfortunate necessity.
That there are many hard problems connected with the
fascinating book of Amos cannot be denied. The one point
on which we have indicated a doubt, viz. as to the situation
of Tekoa, ought strictly to be accompanied by others. For
instance, how came Amos to transfer himself to northern
Israel? How hard it must have been to obtain a footing there
while he was a mere student and observer! And how came he by
his wide knowledge of people outside the limits of Israel?
The most recent and elaborate commentator even calls him an
``ethnologist.'' And lastly, whence came his mastery of the
poetical and literary arts? Is he really the Columbus of
written prophecy? And behind these questions is the fundamental
problem of the text, which has been somewhat too slightly
treated. The text of Hosea may be in a much worse condition,
but a keen scrutiny discloses many an uncertainty, not to say
impossibility, in the traditional form of Amos. That the
text has been much adapted and altered is certain; not less
obvious are the corruptions due to carelessness and accident.
The main divisions of the book are plain, viz. chaps. i.-ii.,
chaps. iii.-vi., and chaps. vii.-ix. This arrangement,
however, is probably not due to Amos himself, or to his
immediate disciples, but to some later redactor. A number
of passages seem to have been inserted subsequently to the
time of Amos, on which see Ency. Bib., ``Amos,'' and the
introduction to Robertson Smith's Prophets of Israel(2),
though in some cases the final decision will have to be
preceded by a more thorough examination of the traditional
text. The most obvious non-Amosian passage in the book is the
concluding passage, ix. 8-15, which has evidently supplanted
the original close of the section. The meaning of the phrase
``the tabernacle (booth) of David that is fallen'' (ver. 11)
is not perfectly clear. Beyond reasonable doubt, however,
the writer seeks to take out the sting of the preceding
passage in which Israel is devoted to utter destruction.
The penitent and God-fearing Jews of the post-exilic age
needed some softening appendix, and this the editor provided.
English readers are now well supplied with books on Amos.
Driver's Joel and Amos (see JOEL) (1897) and G. A. Smith's
Twelve Prophets, vol. i. (1896), supplement and illustrate
each other. Harper's Amos anid Hosea (see HOSEA) (1905)
gives the cream of all the good things that have been said
before, with a generally sound judgment; it is addressed to
advanced students, and is perhaps less cautious than the two
former. The German commentaries on the Minor Prophets by
Nowack (2nd ed., 1905) and (especially) Marti (1904) must
not, however, be neglected. Wellhausen's briefer work (3rd
ed., 1898) is esriecially suggestive for textual criticism.
Cheyne's Critica Biblica (1904), cf. his review of Harper in
Hibbert Journal, iii. 824 fl., breaks new ground. (T. K. C.)
AMOS, SHELDON (1835-1886), English jurist, was educated
at Clare College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar
as a member of the Middle Temple in 1862. In 1869 he was
appointed to the chair of jurisprudence in University College,
London, and in 1872 became reader under the council of legal
education and examiner in constitutional law and history
to the university of London. Failing health led to his
resignation of those offices, and he took a voyage to the South
Seas. He resided for a short time at Sydney, and finally
settled in Egypt, where he practised as an advocate. After
the bombardment of Alexandria, and the reorganization of
the Egyptian judicature, he was appointed judge of the court
of appeal, but being without any previous experience of
administrative work he found the strain too great for his
health. He came to England on leave in the autumn of 1885,
and on his return to Egypt he died suddenly at Alexandria
on the 3rd of January 1886. His principal publications
are: Systematic View of the Science of Jurisprudence
(1872); Lectures on International Law (1873); Science
of Law (1874); Science of Politics (1883); History and
Principles of the Civil Law of Rome as Aid to the Study of
Scientific and Comparative Jurisprudence (1883), and numerous
pamphlets. His wife, Mrs Sheldon Amos (Sarah Maclardie
Bunting), took a prominent part in Liberal Nonconformist
politics and in movements connected with the position of
women. She died at Cairo on the 21st of January 1908.
AMOY, a city and treaty-port in the province of Fuh-kien,
China, situated on the slope of a hill, on the south coast
of a small and barren island named Hiamen, in 24 deg. 28'
N. and 118 deg. 10' E. It is a large and exceedingly dirty
place, about 9 m. in circumference, and is divided into two
portions, an inner and an outer town, which are separated
from each other by a ridge of hills, on which a citadel of
considerable strength has been built. Each of these divisions
of the city possesses a large and commodious harbour, that
of the inner town, or city proper, being protected by strong
fortifications. There are dry-docks and an excellent
anchorage. Amoy may be regarded as the port of the inland
city of Chang-chow, with which it has river communication,
and its trade, both foreign and coastwise, is extensive and
valuable. The chief articles imported are sugar, rice, raw
cotton and opium, as well as cotton cloths, iron goods and
other European manufactures. The chief exports are tea,
porcelain and paper. The trade carried on by means of Chinese
junks is said to be large, and the native merchants are
considered to be among the wealthiest and most enterprising in
China. By other vessels the trade in 1870 was:--imports,
L. 1,915,427; exports, L. 1,440,000. In 1904 the figures
were:--imports, L. 2,081,494; exports, L. 384,494. The falling
off of exports is due to the decreased demand for China
tea, for which Amoy was one of the chief centres. The native
population is now estimated at 300,000, and the foreign
residents number about 280. A large part of the trade is
that carried on with the neighbouring Japanese island of
Formosa. The province of Fuh-kien is claimed by the Japanese
as their particular sphere of influence. Amoy was captured by
the British in 1841, after a determined resistance, and is one
of the five ports that were opened to British commerce by the
treaty of 1842; it is now open to the ships of all nations.
AMPELIUS, LUCIUS, possibly a tutor or schoolmaster, and
author of an extremely concise summary--a kind of index--of
universal history (Liber Memorialis) from the earliest
times to the reign of Trajan. Its object and scope are
sufficiently indicated in the dedication to a certain Macrinus:
``Since you desire to know everything, I have written this
`book of notes,' that you may learn of what the universe and
its elements consist, what the world contains, and what the
human race has done.'' It seems to have been intended as a
text-book to be learnt by heart. The little work, in fifty
chapters, gives a sketch of cosmography, geography, mythology
(chaps. i.-x.), and history (chap. x.-end). The historical
portion, dealing mainly with the republican period, is
untrustworthy, and the text in many places corrupt; the earlier
chapters are more valuable, and contain some interesting
information. In chap. viii. (Miracula Mundi) occurs the
only reference in an ancient writer to the famous sculptures of
Pergamum, discovered in 1871, excavated in 1878, and now at
Berlin: ``At Pergamum there is a great marble altar, 40 ft.
high, with colossal sculptures, representing a battle of the
giants.'' Nothing is known of the author or of the date at
which he lived: the times of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius,
the beginning of the 3rd century, and the age of Diocletian
and Constantine have all been suggested. The Macrinus to whom
the work is dedicated may have been the emperor, who reigned
217-218, but the name is not uncommon, and it seems more
likely that he was a young man with a thirst for universal
knowledge, which the Liber Memorialis was compiled to satisfy.
There is no English edition or translation. The first
edition of Ampelius was published in 1638 by Salmasius
(Saumaise) from the Dijon MS., now lost, together with
the Epitome of Florus; the latest edition is by Wolfflin
(1854), based on Salmasius's copy of the lost codex.
See Glaser, Rheinisches Museum, ii. (1843); Zink, Eos,
ii (1866); Wolfflin, De L. Ampelii Libro Memoriali (1854).
AMPELOPSIS (from Gr. ampelos, vine, and opsis, appearance,
as it resembles the grape-vine in habit), a genus of the
vine order Ampelideae and nearly allied to the grape-vine.
The plants are rapidly-growing, hardy, ornamental climbers,
which flourish in common garden soil, and are readily
propagated by cuttings. They climb by means of tendrils.
A. quinquefolia, Virginian creeper, a native of North
America, introduced to Europe early in the 17th century, has
palmately compound leaves with three to five leaflets. A.
tricuspidata, better known as A. Veitchii, a more recent
introduction (1868) from Japan, has smaller leaves very
variable in shape; it clings readily to stone or brick work
by means of suckers at the ends of the branched tendrils.
AMPERE, ANDRE MARIE (1775-1836), French physicist,
was born at Polemieux, near Lyons, on the 22nd of January
1775. He took a passionate delight in the pursuit of knowledge
from his very infancy, and is reported to have worked out
long arithmetical sums by means of pebbles and biscuit crumbs
before he knew the figures. His father began to teach him
Latin, but ceased on discovering the boy's greater inclination
and aptitude for mathematical studies. The young Ampere,
however, soon resumed his Latin lessons, to enable him to
master the works of Euler and Bernouilli. In later life he
was accustomed to say that he knew as much about mathematics
when he was eighteen as ever he knew; but his reading embraced
nearly the whole round of knowledge--history, travels, poetry,
philosophy and the natural sciences. When Lyons was taken
by the army of the Convention in 1793, the father of Ampere,
who, holding the office of juge de paix, had stood out
resolutely against the previous revolutionary excesses, was
at once thrown into prison, and soon after perished on the
scaffold. This event produced a profound impression on his
susceptible mind, and for more than a year he remained sunk in
apathy. Then his interest was aroused by some letters on
botany which fell into his hands, and from botany he turned to
the study of the classic poets, and to the writing of verses
himself. In 1796 he met Julie Carron, and an attachment
sprang up between them, the progress of which he naively
recorded in a journal (Amorum). In 1799 they were
married. From about 1796 Ampere gave private lessons at
Lyons in mathematics, chemistry and languages; and in 1801
he removed to Bourg, as professor of physics and chemistry,
leaving his ailing wife and infant son at Lyons. She died in
1804, and he never recovered from the blow. In the same year
he was appointed professor of mathematics at the lycee of
Lyons. His small treatise, Considerations sur la theorie
mathematique du jeu, which demonstrated that the chances of
play are decidedly against the habitual gambler, published in
1802, brought him under the notice of J. B. J. Delambre, whose
recommendation obtained for him the Lyons appointment, and
afterwards (1804) a subordinate position in the polytechnic
school at Paris, where he was elected professor of mathematics
in 1809. Here he continued to prosecute his scientific
researches and his multifarious studies with unabated
diligence. He was admitted a member of the Institute in
1814. It is on the service that he rendered to science in
establishing the relations between electricity and magnetism,
and in developing the science of electromagnetism, or, as
be called it, electrodynamics, that Ampere's fame mainly
rests. On the 11th of September 1820 he heard of H. C. Oersted's
discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic
current. On the 18th of the same month he presented a paper
to the Academy, containing a far more complete exposition
of that and kindred phenomena. (See ELECTROKINETICS.) The
whole field thus opened up he explored with characteristic
industry and care, and developed a mathematical theory which
not only explained the electromagnetic phenomena already
observed but also predicted many new ones. His original
memoirs on this subject may be found in the Ann. Chim.
Phys. between 1820 and 1828. Late in life he prepared
a remarkable Essai sur la philosophie des sciences. In
addition, he wrote a number of scientific memoirs and papers,
including two on the integration of partial differential
equations (Jour. Ecole Polytechn. x., xi.). He died at
Marseilles on the 10th of June 1836. The great amiability
and childlike simplicity of Ampere's character are well
brought out in his Journal et correspondance (Paris, 1872).
AMPERE, JEAN JACQUES (1800-1864), French philologist and
man of letters, only son of Andre Marie Ampere, was born at
Lyons on the 12th of August 1800. He studied the folk-songs
and popular poetry of the Scandinavian countries in an extended
tour in northern Europe. Returning to France, he delivered
in 1830 a series of lectures on Scandinavian and early German
poetry at the Athenaeum in Marseilles. The first of these
was printed as De l'Histoire de la poesie (1830), and was
practically the first introduction of the French public to
the Scandinavian and German epics. In Paris he taught at
the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French
literature at the College de France. A journey in northern
Africa (1841) was followed by a tour in Greece and Italy, in
company with Prosper Merimee and others. This bore fruit
in his Voyage dantesque (printed in his Grece, Rome et
Dante, 1848), which did much to popularize the study of Dante in
France. In 1848 he became a member of the French Academy, and
in 1851 he visited America. From this time he was occupied
with his chief work, L'Histoire romaine a Rome (4 vols.,
1861-1864), until his death at Pau on the 27th of March 1864.
The Correspondance et souvenirs (2 vols.) of A. M. and J. J.
Ampere (1805-1854) was published in 1875. Notices of J. J. Ampere
are to be found in Sainte-Beuve's Portraits litteraires, vol.
iv., and Nouveaux Lundis, vol. xiii.; and in P. Merimee's
Portraits historiques et litteraires (2nd ed., 1875).
AMPEREMETER, or AMMETER, an instrument for the measurement
of electric currents in terms of the unit called the ampere.
(See ELECTROKINETICS; CONDUCTION, ELECTRIC; and UNITS,
PHYSICAL.) Since electric currents may be either continuous,
i.e. unidirectional, or alternating, and the latter of high or
of low frequency, amperemeters may first be divided into those
(1) for continuous or direct currents, (2) for low frequency
alternating currents, and (3) for high frequency alternating
currents. A continuous electric current of one ampere is
defined to be one which deposits electrolytically 0.001118 of
a gramme of silver per second from a neutral solution of silver
nitrate.1 An alternating current of one ampere is defined
to be one which produces the same heat in a second in a wire
as the unit continuous current defined as above to be one
ampere. These definitions provide a basis on which the
calibration of amperemeters can be conducted. Amperemeters
may then be classified according to the physical principle
on which they are constructed. An electric current in a
conductor is recognized by its ability (a) to create heat
in a wire through which it passes, (b) to produce a magnetic
field round the conductor or wire. The heat makes itself
evident by raising the temperature and therefore elongating
the wire, whilst the magnetic field creates mechanical forces
which act on pieces of iron or other conductors conveying
electric currents when placed in proximity to the conductor in
question. Hence we may classify ammeters into (1) Thermal;
(2) Electromagnetic, and (3) Electrodynamic instruments.
1. Thermal Ammeters.--These instruments are also called
hot-wire ammeters. In their simplest form they consist
of a wire through which passes the current to be measured,
some arrangement being provided for measuring the small
expansion produced by the heat generated in the wire.
This may consist simply in attaching one end of the wire
to an index lever and the other to a fixed support, or the
elongation of the wire may cause a rotation in a mirror from
which a ray of light is reflected, and the movement of this
ray over a scale will then provide, the necessary means of
indication. It is found most convenient to make use of the
sag of the wire produced when it is stretched between two
fixed points (K1K2, fig. 1) and then heated. To render
the elongation evident, another wire is attached to its
centre S2, this last having a thread fixed to its middle of
which the other end is twisted round the shaft of an index
needle or in some way connected to it through a multiplying
gear. The expansion of the working wire when it is heated will
then increase or create a sag in it owing to its increase in
FIG. 1.--Diagram showing the arrangements
of Hartmann and Braun's Hotwire Ammeter.
length, and this is multiplied and rendered evident by the
movement of the index needle. In order that this may take
place, the heated wire must be flexible and must therefore
be a single fine wire or a bundle of fine wires. In ammeters
for small currents it is customary to pass the whole current
through the heating wire. In instruments for larger currents
the main current passes through a metallic strip acting
as a bye-pass or shunt, and to the ends of this shunt are
attached the ends of the working wire. A known fraction
of the current is then indicated and measured. This shunt
is generally a strip of platinoid or constantin, and the
working wire itself is of the same metal. There is therefore
a certain ratio in which any current passing through the
ammeter is divided between the shunt and the working wire.
Thermal ammeters recommend themselves for the following
reasons:--(1) the same instrument can be used for continuous
currents and for alternating currents of low frequency;
(2) there is no temperature correction, (3) if used with
alternating currents no correction is necessary for frequency,
unless that frequency is very high. It is, however, requisite
to make provision for the effect of changes in atmospheric
temperature. This is done by mounting the working wire on
a metal plate made of the same metal as the working wire
itself; thus if the working wire is of platinoid it must
be mounted on a platinoid bar, the supports which carry
the ends of the working wire being insulated from this bar
by being bushed with ivory or porcelain. Then no changes
of external temperature can affect the sag of the wire,
and the only thing which can alter its length relatively
to the supporting bar is the passage of a current through
it. Hot-wire ammeters are, however, liable to a shift of
zero, and means are always provided by some adjusting screw
for slightly altering the sag of the wire and so adjusting
the index needle to the zero of the scale. Hot-wire ammeters
are open to the following objections:--The scale divisions
for equal increments of current are not equal in length,
being generally much closer together in the lower parts of the
scale. The reason is that the heat produced in a given
time in a wire is proportional to the square of the strength
of the current passing through it, and hence the rate at
which the heat is produced in the wire, and therefore its
temperature, increases much faster than the current itself
increases. From this it follows that hot-wire ammeters are
generally not capable of giving visible indications below a
certain minimum current for each instrument. The instrument
therefore does not begin to read from zero current, but from
some higher limit which, generally speaking, is about one-tenth
of the maximum, so that an ammeter reading up to 10 amperes
will not give much visible indication below 1 ampere. On
the other hand, hot-wire instruments are very ``dead-beat,''
that is to say, the needle does not move much for the small
fluctuations in the current, and this quality is generally
increased by affixing to the index needle a small copper plate
which is made to move in a strong magnetic field (see fig.
2). Hot-wire instruments working on the sag principle can be
used in any position if properly constructed, and are very
portable. In the construction of such an instrument it is
essential that the wire should be subjected to a process of
preparation or ``ageing,'' which consists in passing through
it a fairly strong current, at least the maximum that it will
ever have to carry, and starting and stopping this current
frequently. The wire ought to be so treated for many hours
FIG. 2.--Hot-wire Ammeter.
before it is placed in the instrument. It is also necessary
to notice that shunt instruments cannot be used for high
frequencies, as then the relative inductance of the shunt and wire
becomes important and affects the ratio in which the current is
divided, whereas for low frequency currents the inductance is
unimportant. In constructing a hot-wire instrument for the
measurement of high frequency currents it is necessary to
make the working wire of a number of fine wires placed in
parallel and slightly separated from one another, and to-pass
the whole of the current to be measured through this strand.
In certain forms, hot-wire instruments are well adapted for
the measurement of very small alternating currents. One useful
form has been made as follows:--Two fine wires of diameter
not greater than .001 in. are stretched parallel to one
another and 2 or 3 mm. apart. At the middle of these parallel
wires, which are preferably about 1 m. in length, rests a
very light metallic bridge to which a mirror is attached,
the mirror reflecting a ray of light from a lamp upon a
screen. If a small alternating current is passed through one
wire, it sags down, the mirror is tilted, and the spot of
light on the screen is displaced. Changes of atmospheric
temperature affect both wires equally and do not tilt the
mirror. The instrument can be calibrated by a continuous
current. Another form of hot-wire ammeter is a modification
of the electric thermometer originally invented by Sir W. Snow
Harris. It consists of a glass bulb, in which there is a loop
of fine wire, and to the bulb is attached a U-tube in which
there is some liquid. When a current is passed through the
wire, continuous or alternating, it creates heat, which expands
the air in the bulb and forces the liquid up one side of the
U-tube to a certain position in which the rate of loss of
heat by the air is equal to the rate at which it is gaining
heat. The instrument can be calibrated by continuous currents
and may then be used for high frequency alternating currents.
2. Electromagnetic Ammeters.--Another large class of ammeters
depend for their action upon the fact that an electric current
creates an electric field round its conductor, which varies in
strength from point to point, but is otherwise proportional to the
current. A small piece of iron placed in this field tends to move
from weak to strong places in the field with a force depending
on the strength of the field and the rate at which the field
varies. In its simplest form an electromagnetic ammeter consists
of a circular coil of wire in which is pivoted eccentrically
an index needle carrying at its lower end a small mass of
iron. The needle is balanced so that gravity compels it to
take a certain position in which the fragment of iron occupies
a position in the centre of the field of the coil where it is
weakest. When a current is passed through the coil the
iron tends to move nearer to the coil of the wire where the
field is stronger and so displaces the index needle over the
scale. Such an instrument is called a soft-iron gravity
ammeter. Another type of similar instrument consists of a coil
of wire having a fragment of iron wire suspended from one arm
of an index needle near the mouth of a coil. When a current
is passed through the wire forming the coil, the fragment of
iron is drawn more into the aperture of the coil where the
field is stronger and so displaces an index needle over a
scale. In the construction of this soft-iron instrument it
is essential that the fragment of iron should be as small and
as well annealed as possible and not touched with tools after
annealing; also it should be preferably not too elongated in shape
so that it may not acquire permanent magnetization but that its
magnetic condition may follow the changes of the current in the
coil. If these conditions are not fulfilled sufficiently,
the ammeter will not give the same indications for the same
current if that current has been reached (a) by increasing
from a smaller current, or (b) by decreasing from a larger
current. In this case there is said to be hysteresis in the
readings. Although therefore most simple and cheap to construct,
such soft-iron instruments are not well adapted for accurate
work. A much better form of electromagnetic ammeter can be
constructed on a principle now extensively employed, which
consists in pivoting in the strong field of a permanent magnet a
small coil through which a part of the current to be measured is
sent. Such an instrument is called a shunted movable coil ammeter,
and is represented by a type of instrument shown in fig. 3. The
FIG. 3.--Shunted Movable Coil Ammeter, Isenthal & Co.
construction of this instrument is as follows:--Within
the instrument is a horseshoe magnet having soft-iron
pole pieces so arranged as to produce a uniform magnetic
field. In this magnetic field is pivoted a small circular
or rectangular coil carried in jewelled bearings, the current
being passed into and out of the movable coil by fine flexible
conductors. The coil carries an index needle moving over a
scale, and there is generally an iron core in the interior
of the coil but fixed and independent of it. The coil is
so situated that, in its zero position when no current is
passing through it, the plane of the coil is parallel to
the direction of the lines of force of the field. When a
current is passed through the coil it rotates in the field
and displaces the index over the scale against the control
of a spiral spring like the hairspring of a watch. Such
instruments can be made to have equidivisional scales and to
read from zero upwards. It is essential that the permanent
magnet should be subjected to a process of ageing so that
its field may not be liable to change subsequently with time.
In the case of ammeters intended for very small currents, the
whole current can be sent through the coil, but for larger
currents it is necessary to provide in the instrument a
shunt which carries the main current, the movable coil being
connected to the ends of this shunt so that it takes a definite
small fraction of the current passed through the instrument.
Instruments of this type with a permanent magnetic field are
only available for the measurement of continuous currents, but
soft-iron instruments of the above-described gravity type can
be employed with certain restrictions for the measurement of
alternating currents. Direct reading equidivisional movable
coil ammeters can be made in various portable forms, and
are very much employed as laboratory instruments and also as
ammeters for the measurement of large electric currents in
electric generating stations. In this last case the shunt
need not be contained in the instrument itself but may be at
a considerable distance, wires being brought from the shunt
which carries the main current to the movable coil ammeter
itself, which performs the function simply of an indicator,
3. Electrodynamic Ammeters.--Instruments of the third class
depend for their action on the fact discovered by Ampere,
that mechanical forces exist between conductors carrying
electric currents when those conductors occupy certain relative
positions. If there be two parallel wires through which
currents are passing, then these wires are drawn together
if the currents are in the same direction and pressed apart
if they are in opposite directions. (See ELECTROKINETICS.)
Instruments of this type are called Electrodynamometers, and
have been employed both as laboratory research instruments
and for technical purposes. In one well-known form, called
a Siemens Electrodynamometer, there is a fixed coil (fig.
4), which is surrounded by another coil having its axis at
right angles to that of the fixed coil. This second coil is
suspended by a number of silk fibres, and to the coil is also
attached a spiral spring the other end of which is fastened
to a torsion head. If then the torsion head is twisted, the
suspended coil experiences a torque and is displaced through
FIG. 4.--Siemens Electrodynamometer. F, Fixed
coil; D, Movable coil; S, Spiral spring; T,
Torsion head; MM, Mercury cups; I, Index needle.
an angle equal to that of the torsion head. The current can
be passed into and out of the movable coil by permitting the
ends of the coil to dip into two mercury cups. If a current
is passed through the fixed coil and movable coil in series
with one another, the movable coil tends to displace itself so
as to bring the axes of the coils, which are normally at right
angles, more into the same direction. This tendency can be
resisted by giving a twist to the torsion head and so applying
to the movable coil through the spring a restoring torque,
which opposes the torque due to the dynamic action of the
currents. If then the torsion head is provided with an index
needle, and also if the movable coil is provided with an
indicating point, it is possible to measure the torsional angle
through which the head must be twisted to bring the movable
coil back to its zero position. In these circumstances the
torsional angle becomes a measure of the torque and therefore
of the product of the strengths of the currents in the two
coils, that is to say, of the square of the strength of the
current passing through the two coils if they are joined up in
series. The instrument can therefore be graduated by passing
through it known and measured continuous currents, and it then
becomes available for use with either continuous or alternating
currents. The instrument can be provided with a curve or table
showing the current corresponding to each angular displacement
of the torsion head. It has the disadvantage of not being
direct reading when made in the usual form, but can easily be
converted into a direct reading instrument by appropriately
dividing the scale over which the index of the torsion head moves.
Ampere Balance.--Very convenient and accurate instruments based
on the above principles have been devised by Lord Kelvin, and
a large variety of these ampere balances, as they are called,
suitable for measuring currents from a fraction of an ampere
up to many thousands of amperes, have been constructed by that
illustrious inventor. The difficulty which has generally presented
itself to those who have tried to design instruments on the
FIG. 5.--Kelvin Flexible Metallic Ligament.
electrodynometer principle for use with large currents has
been that of getting the current into and out of the movable
conductor, and yet permitting that conductor to remain free to
move under very small force. The use of mercury cups is open to
many objections on account of the fact that the mercury becomes
oxidized, and such instruments are not very convenient for
transportation. The great novelty in the ampere balances
of Lord Kelvin was a joint or electric coupling, which is at
once exceedingly flexible and yet capable of being constructed
to carry with safety any desired current. This he achieved
by the introduction of a device which is called a metallic
ligament. The general principle of its construction is as
follows:--Let +A, -A (fig. 5), be a pair of semi-cylindrical
fixed trunnions which are carried on a supporting frame and
held with flat sides downwards. Let +B, -B, be two smaller
trunnions which project out from the sides of the two strips
connecting together a pair of rings CC. The rings and the
connecting strips constitute the circuit which is to be rendered
movable. A current entering by the trunnion + B flows round
the two halves of the circuit, as shown by the arrows, and
comes out at the trunnion -B. In fig. 5 the current is shown
dividing round the two rings; but in all the balances, except
those intended for the largest currents, the current really
circulates first round one ring and then round the other.
To make the ligament, a very large number of exceedingly fine
copper wires laid close together are soldered to the upper
surface of the upper trunnion. The movable circuit CC thus
hangs by two ligaments which are formed of very fine copper
wires. This mode of suspension enables the conductor CC
to vibrate freely like a balance, but at the same time very
large currents can easily be passed through this perfectly
flexible joint. Above and below these movable coils, which
form as it were the two scale- pans of a balance, are fixed
other stationary coils, and the connexions of all these
six coils (shown in fig. 6) are such that when a current
FIG. 6.--Connexions of Kelvin Ampere Balance.
is passed through the whole of the coils in series, forces of
attraction and repulsion are brought into existence which tend
to force one movable coil upwards and the other movable coil
downwards. This tendency is resisted by the weight of a mass of
metal, which can be caused to slide along a tray attached to
the movable coils. The appearance of the complete instrument is
shown by fig. 7. When a current is passed through the instrument
it causes one end of the movable system to tilt downwards, and
the other end upwards; the sliding weight is then moved along
the tray by means of a silk cord until equilibrium is again
established. The value of the current in amperes is then obtained
approximately by observing the position of the weight on the
scale, or it may be obtained more accurately in the following
FIG. 7.--Lord Kelvin's Ampere Balance.
manner:--The upper edge of the shelf on which the weights
slide (see fig. 8) is graduated into equal divisions, and the
weight is provided with a sharp tongue of metal in order that
its position on the shelf may be accurately determined. Since
the current passing through the balance when equilibrium is
obtained with a given weight is proportional to the square
root of the couple due to this weight, it follows that the
current strength when equilibrium is obtained is proportional
to the product of the square root of the weight used
FIG. 8.--Slider of Kelvin Ampere Balance.
and the square root of the displacement distance of this
weight from its zero position. Each instrument is accompanied
by a pair of weights and by a square root table, so that the
product of the square root of the number corresponding to the
position of the sliding weight and the ascertained constant
for each weight, gives at once the value of the current in
amperes. Each of these balances is made to cover a certain
range of reading. Thus the centi-ampere balance ranges from
1 to 100 centi-amperes, the deci-ampere balance from 1 to 100
deci-amperes, the ampere balance from 1 to 100 amperes, the
deka-ampere balance from 1 to 100 amperes, the hecto-ampere
balance from 6 to 600 amperes, and the kilo-ampere balance from
100 to 2500 amperes. They are constructed for the measurement
not only of continuous or unvarying but also of alternating
currents. In those intended for alternating currents, the
main current through the movable coil, whether consisting
of one turn or more than one turn, is carried by a wire
rope, of which each component strand is insulated by silk
covering, to prevent the inductive action from altering the
distribution of the current across the transverse section of
the conductor. To avoid the creation of induced currents,
the coil frames and the base boards are constructed of
slate. Kelvin ampere balances are made in two types--(1) a
variable weight type suitable for obtaining the ampere value
of any current within their range; and (2) a fixed weight
type intended to indicate when a current which can be varied
at pleasure has a certain fixed value. An instrument of the
latter type of considerable accuracy was designed by Lord Kelvin
for the British Board of Trade Electrical Laboratory, and it
is there used as the principal standard ampere balance. A
fixed weight is placed on one coil and the current is varied
gradually until the balance is just in equilibrium. In these
circumstances the current is known to have a fixed value in
amperes determined by the weight attached to the instrument.
Calibration.--The calibration of ammeters is best conducted
by means of a series of standard low resistances and of a
potentiometer (q.v..) The ammeter to be calibrated is placed
in series with a suitable low resistance which may be .1
ohm, .01 ohm, .001 ohm or more as the case may be. A steady
continuous current is then passed through the ammeter and low
resistance, placed in series with one another and adjusted
so as to give any required scale reading on the ammeter.
The potential difference of the ends of the low resistance
is at the same time measured on the potentiometer, and the
quotient of this potential difference by the known value of
the low resistance gives the true value of the current passing
through the ammeter. This can be then compared with the
observed scale reading and the error of the ammeter noted.2
A good ammeter should comply with the following qualifications:--(1)
its readings should be the same for the same current whether
reached by increasing from a lower current or decreasing
from a higher current; (2) if used for alternating currents
its indications should not vary with the frequency within
the range of frequency for which it is likely to be used;
(3) it should not be disturbed by external magnetic fields;
(4) the scale divisions should, if possible, be equal in
length and there should be no dead part in the scale. In
the use of ammeters in which the control is the gravity
of a weight, such as the Kelvin ampere balances and other
instruments, it should be noted that the scale reading or
indication of the instrument will vary with the latitude and
with the height of the instrument above the mean sea-level.
Since the difference between the acceleration of gravity
at the pole and at the equator is about 1/2%, the correction
for latitude will be quite sensible in an instrument which
might be used at various times in high and low latitudes.
If G is the acceleration of gravity at the equator and g
that at any latitude l, then g = G (1 + 0.00513 sin2
l). In the case of an instrument with gravity control, the
latitude at which it is calibrated should therefore be stated.
FIG. 9.-- Edgewise Switchboard Ammeter, Kelvin & James White Ltd.
Switchboard Ammeters.--For switchboard use in electric supply
stations where space is valuable, instruments of the type called
edgewise ammeters are much employed. In these the indicating
needle moves over a graduated cylindrically shaped scale, and they
are for the most part electromagnetic instruments (see fig. 9).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Lord Kelvin (Sir W. Thomson), ``New
Standard and Inspectional Electrical Measuring Instruments,''
Proc. Soc. Telegraph Engineers, 1888, 17, p. 540; J. A.
Fleming, A Handbook for the Electrical Laboratory and
Testing Room (2 vols., London, 1901, 1903 ); G. D. Aspinall
Parr, Electrical Measuring Instruments (Glasgow, 1903); J.
Swinburne, ``Electric Light Measuring instruments,'' Proc.
Inst. Civ. Eng., 1891-1892, 110, pt. 4; K. Edgcumbe and F.
Punga, ``Direct Reading Measuring Instruments for Switchboard
Use,'' Jour. Inst. Elec. Eng., 1904, 33, p. 620. (J. A. F.)
1 See J. A. Fleming, A Handbook for the Electrical
Laboratory and Testing Room, vol. i. p. 341 (1901),
also A. Gray, Absolute Measurements in Electricity
and Magnetism, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 412 (1893).
2 See ``The Electrolysis of Copper Sulphate in Standardizing
Electrical Instruments,'' by A. W. Meikle, read before
the Physical Society of Glasgow University on the 27th
of January 1888, or J. A. Fleming, A Handbook for the
Electrical Laboratory and Testing Room, vol. i. p. 343.
AMPERSAND (a corruption of the mixed English and Latin
phrase, ``and per se and,'' of which there are many dialect
forms, as ``ampussyand,'' or ``amperseand''), the name of
the sign & or &, which is a combination of the letters e,
t, of the Lat. et= and. The sign is now usually called
``short and.'' In old-fashioned primers and nursery books the
name and sign were always added at the end of the alphabet.
AMPHIARAUS, in Greek mythology, a celebrated seer and
prince of Argos, son of Oicles (or Apollo) and Hypermestra,
and through his father descended from the prophet Melampus
(Odyssey, xv. 244). He took part in the voyage of the
Argonauts and in the chase of the Calydonian boar; but his
chief fame is in connexion with the expedition of the Seven
against Thebes, organized by Adrastus, the brother of his
wife Eriphyle, for the purpose of restoring Polyneices to the
throne. Amphiaraus, foreseeing the disastrous issue of the
war, at first refused to share in it; he had, however, promised
Eriphyle when he married her that, in the event of any dispute
arising between her brother and himself, she should decide
between them; and now Eriphyle, bribed by Polyneices with the
fatal necklace given by Cadmus to Harmonia, persuaded him against
his better judgment to set out on the expedition. Knowing his
doom, he bade his sons, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, avenge his
death upon their mother, upon whom, as he stepped into his
chariot, he turned a look of anger. This scene was represented
upon the chest of Cypselus described by Pausanias (v. 17).
The assault on Thebes was disastrous for the Seven; and
Amphiaraus, pursued by Periclymenus, would have been slain
with his spear, had not Zeus with a thunderbolt opened a chasm
into which the seer, with his chariot, horses and charioteer,
disappeared. Henceforth he was numbered with the immortals and
worshipped as a god. Near Oropus, on the supposed site of his
passing, his sanctuary arose, with healing springs, and an
oracle famous for its interpretation of dreams (Pausanias i.
34). The ruins of this temple, with inscriptions which identify
it, have been discovered and preserved at Mavrodilisi, in the
provinces of Boeotia and Attica. There was another temple
dedicated to him on the road from Thebes to Potniae, and here
was the oracle of Amphiaraus consulted by Croesus and Mardonius.
Homer, Odyssey, xi. 326; Herodotus viii. 134; Pindar,
Olympia, vi., Nemea, ix.; Apollodorus iii. 6.
AMPHIBIA, a zoological term originally employed by Linnaeus
to denote a class of the Animal Kingdom comprising crocodiles,
lizards and salamanders, snakes and Caeciliae, tortoises
and turtles and frogs; to which, in the later editions of
the Systema Naturae he added some groups of fishes. In
the Tableau Elementaire, published in 1795, Cuvier adopts
Linnaeus's term in its earlier sense, but uses the French
word ``Reptiles,'' already brought into use by Brisson, as
the equivalent of Amphibia. In addition Cuvier accepts the
Linnaean subdivisions of Amphibia-Reptilia for the tortoises,
lizards (including crocodiles), salamanders and frogs; and
Amphibia-Serpentes for the snakes, apodal lizards and Caeciliae.
In 17991 Alexandre Brongniart pointed out the wide differences
which separate the frogs and salamanders (which he terms
Batrachia) from the other reptiles; and in 1804 P. A.
Latreille,2 rightly estimating the value of these differences,
though he was not an original worker in the field of vertebrate
zoology, proposed to separate Brongniart's Batrachia from
the class of Reptilia proper, as a group of equal value,
for which he retained the Linnaean name of Amphibia.
Cuvier went no further than Brongniart, and, in the Regne
Animal, he dropped the term Amphibia, and substituted
Reptilia for it. J. F. Meckel,3 on the other hand, while
equally accepting Brongniart's classification, retained the term
Amphibia in its earlier Linnaean sense; and his example has
been generally followed by German writers, as, for instance,
by H. Stannius, in that remarkable monument of accurate and
extensive research, the Handbuch der Zootomie (2nd ed., 1856).
In 1816, de Blainville,4 adopting Latreille's view, divided the
Linnaean Amphibia into Squamiferes and Nudipelliferes,
or Amphibiens; though he offered an alternative arrangement,
in which the class Reptiles is preserved and divided into
two subclasses, the Ornithoides and the Ichthyoides. The
latter are Brongniart's Batrachia, plus the Caeciliae,
whose true affinities had, in the meanwhile, been shown
by A. M. C. Dumeril; and, in this arrangement, the name
Amphibiens is restricted to Proteus and Siren.
B. Merrem's Pholidota and Batrachia (1820), F. S. Leuckart's
Monopnoa and Dipnoa (1821), J. Muller's Squamata and Nuda
(1832), are merely new names for de Blainville's Ornithoides
and Ichthyoides, though Muller gave far better anatomical
characters of the two groups than had previously been put forward.
Moreover, following the indications already given by K. E.
von Baer in 1828,5 Muller calls the attention of naturalists
to the important fact, that while all the Squamata possess
an amnion and an allantois, these structures are absent in
the embryos of all the Nuda. An appeal made by Muller
for observations on the development of the Caeciliae,
and of those Amphibia which retain gills or gill-clefts
throughout life, has unfortunately yielded no fruits.
In 1825 P. A. Latreille6 published a new classification of the
Vertebrata, which are primarily divided into Haematherma.
containing the three classes of Mammifera, Monotremata and
Aves; and Haemacryma, also containing three classes--
Reptilia, Amphibia and Pisces. This division of the
Vertebrata into hot and cold blooded is a curiously retrograde
step, only intelligible when we reflect that the excellent
entomologist had no real comprehension of vertebrate morphology;
but he makes some atonement for the blunder by steadily
upholding the class distinctness of the Amphibia. In this
he was followed by Dr J. E. Gray; but Dumeril and Bibron in
their great work,7 and Dr Gunther in his Catalogue, in
substance, adopted Brongniart's arrangement, the Batrachia
being simply one of the four orders of the class Reptilia.
Huxley adopted Latreille's view of the distinctness of the
Amphibia, as a class of the Vertebrata, co-ordinate with
the Mammalia, Aves, Reptilia and Pisces; and the same
arrangement was accepted by Gegenbaur and Haeckel. In the
Hunterian lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons in
1863, Huxley divided the Vertebrata into Mammals, Sauroids and
Ichthyoids, the latter division containing the Amphibia and
Pisces. Subsequently he proposed the names of Sauropsida
and Ichthyopsida for the Sauroids and Ichthyoids respectively.
Sir Richard Owen, in his work on The Anatomy of Vertebrates,
followed Latreille in dividing the Vertebrata into Haematotherma
and Haematocrya, and adopted Leuckart's term of Dipnoa
for the Amphibia. T. H. Huxley, in the ninth edition of this
Encyclopaedia, treated of Brongniart's Batrachia, under
the designation Amphibia, but this use of the word has not been
generally accepted. (See BATRACHIA.) (T. H. H.; P. C. M.)
1 Brongniart's Essai d'une classification naturelle des reptiles
was not published in full till 1803. It appears in the volume of
the Memoires presentes a l'Institut par divers savans for 1805.
2 Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle, xxiv., cited
in Latreille's Fannilles naturelles du regne animal.''
3 System der vergleichenden Anatomie (1821).
4 ``Prodrome d'une Nouvelle Distribution du regne Animal.'' Bulletin
des sciences par la Societe Philomatique de Paris (1816), p. 113.
5 Entwickelungs-Geschichte der Thiere, p. 262
6 Familles naturelles du regne animal.
7 Erpetologie generale, ou histoire
naturelle complete des reptiles (1836).
AMPHIBOLE, an important group of rock-forming minerals, very
similar in chemical composition and general characters to the
pyroxenes, and like them falling into three series according to
the system of crystallization. They differ from the pyroxenes,
however, in having an angle between the prismatic cleavage of
56 deg. instead of 87 deg. ; they are specifically lighter than the
corresponding pyroxenes; and, in their optical characters,
they are distinguished by their stronger pleochroism and
by the wider angle of extinction on the plane of symmetry.
They are minerals of either original or secondary origin;
in the former case occurring as constituents (hornblende) of
igneous rocks, such as granite, diorite, andesite, &c. Those
of secondary origin have either been developed (tremolite)
in limestones by contact-metamorphism, or have resulted
(actinolite) by the alteration of augite by dynamo-metamorphism.
Pseudomorphs of amphibole after pyroxene are known as uralite.
The name amphibole (from the Gr. amfibolos, ambiguous)
was used by R. J. Hauy to include tremolite, actinolite
and hornblende; this term has since been applied to the
whole group. Numerous sub-species and varieties are
distinguished, the more important of which are tabulated
below in three series. The formulae of each will be seen
to conform to the general metasilicate formula R''SiO3.
ORTHORHOMBIC SERIES.
Anthophyllite . . (Mg,Fe)SiO3.
MONOCLINIC SERIES.
Tremolite . . CaMg3(SiO3)4.
Actinolire . . Ca(Mg,Fe)3(SiO3)4.
Cummingtonite . (Fe,Mg)SiO3.
Richterite . . (K2,Na2,Mg,Ca,Mn)SiO3.
Hornblende . . {Ca(Mg,Fe)3(SiO3)4 with
{NaAl(SiO3)2 and (Mg,Fe) (Al,Fe)2SiO6.
MONOCLINIC SERIES--continued.
Glaucophane . . NaAl(SiO3)2.(Fe,Mg)SiO3.
Crocidolite . . NaFe(SiO3)2.FeSiO3.
Riebeckite . . 2NaFe(SiO3)2.FeSiO3.
Arfvedsonite . . Na8(Ca,Mg)3(Fe,Mn)14(Al,Fe)2 Si21O45.
ANORTHIC SERIES.
Aenigmatite . . Na4Fe''9Al Fe'' '(Si,Ti)12O38.
Of these, tremolite, hornblende and crocidolite, as well as the
important varieties, asbestos and jade, are treated under their own
headings. Brief mention only need be here made of some of the
others. Naturally, on account of the wide variations in
chemical composition, the different members vary considerably
in characters and general appearance; the specific gravity, for
example, varies from 2.9 in tremolite to 3.8 in aenigmatite.
Anthophyllite occurs as brownish, fibrous or lamellar masses with
hornblende in mica-schist at Kongsberg in Norway and some other
localities. An aluminous variety is known as gedrite, and a deep
green, Russian variety containing little iron as kupfferite.
Actinolite is an important member of the monoclinic series,
forming radiating groups of acicular crystals of a bright
green or greyish-green colour. It occurs frequently as
a constituent of crystalline schists. The name (from
aktis, a ray, and lithos, a stone) is a translation
of the old German word Strahlstein, radiated stone.
Glaucophane, crocidolite, riebeckite and arfvedsonite form a
somewhat special group of alkali-amphiboles. The two former are
blue fibrous minerals occurring in crystalline schists, and are
the result of dynamo-metamorphic processes; the two latter are
dark green minerals which occur as original constituents of igneous
rocks rich in soda, such as nepheline-syenite and phonolite.
Aenigmatite and its variety cossyrite are rare
minerals forming constituents of igneous rocks of the
nepheline-syenite and phonolite groups. (L. J. S.)
AMPHIBOLITE, the name given to a rock consisting mainly of
amphibole (hornblende), the use of the term being restricted,
however, to metamorphic rocks. Holocrystalline plutonic
igneous rocks composed essentially of hornblende are known as
hornblendites. As is the case with most petrological terms the
exact connotation is not very strictly defined; most authors
allow that accessory minerals such as felspar, garnet, augite
and quartz may be present in variable and often considerable
amount. A foliated or schistose structure, though often
developed in these rocks, is not universal. The hornblende
is usually dark green (actinolite) but may be nearly black
in the hand specimen; in the microscopic slide it is commonly
green of various shades, but may be brown, blue or nearly
colourless. It frequently occurs in elongated bladed prisms,
but rarely shows good crystal faces. The term hornblende-schist
is employed by many writers as nearly synonymous with
amphibolite; most hornblende-schists contain felspar and iron
oxides, while sphene, rutile, quartz and apatite are rarely
absent. Reddish garnets are often conspicuous in the rocks
of this group (garnet-amphibolites), and when in addition
a green-coloured augite occurs the rocks are intimately
allied to the hornblende-eclogites. Epidote also, in yellow
grains, is common (epidote-amphibolites), and in these rocks
the hornblende may be of the blue and richly pleochroic
variety known as glaucophane (glaucophane-epidote-schists).
Hornblende-schists containing dark green ferriferous hornblende
(grunorite-schists) are abundant in some parts of North
America. Tremolite-schists consist essentially of white or
very pale green amphibole; occasionally they are black from
the presence of numerous minute grains of iron oxide or of
graphite. Many tremolite-schists contain much talc and
chlorite, and as these rocks have been derived from peridotites
they not infrequently show residual grains of olivine.
Nephrite (Gr. nefros, a kidney) is a very compact, hardly
schistose amphibolite, consisting of fine interwoven fibres of
hornblende. Among other accessory minerals biotite, chlorite,
talc, scapolite and tourmaline may be mentioned; if abundant they
give rise to special varieties such as biotite-amphibolite, &c.
The amphibolites are typical rocks of the metamorphic group
and as such attain a large development in all regions of
crystalline schists and gneisses such as the Alps, Ardennes,
Harz, Scottish Highlands, and the Lakes district of North
America. They occur in two ways, viz. as large circular or
elliptical areas which mark the site of old plutonic stocks or
bosses of basic rock, and as long narrow strips intercalated
among outcrops of other metamorphic rocks. Regarded from the
point of view of their origin they fall into two groups, the
ortho-amphibolites, which are modified igneous rocks, and the
para-amphibolites, which are altered sediments. The former are
far the more common. Igneous rocks which contain much augite
(e.g. dolerites, gabbros, diabases, pyroxenites and many
peridotites) are usually converted into amphibolites when they
are subjected to pressure and interstitial movements during
earth-folding. If felspar be present also, epidote may
form, while part of the felspar recrystallizes as a species
of the same mineral richer in alkalies or as mica. Olivine
and ilmenite, the other common constituents of these rocks,
may, alone or in conjunction with the above-named minerals,
yield garnet, talc, sphene, rutile, &c. There is little or
no alteration in the bulk composition of the rock, but its
component elements enter into new combinations. Chemical
analysis, accordingly, will often enable us to identify an
igneous rock (diabase, &c.) under the guise of an amphibolite.
The transformation of the rock may be complete, so that no
trace is left of the original structures or minerals. Very
often, however, it is only partial, and by obtaining a
sufficiently large number of specimens a series of intermediate
or transitional stages may be studied; these prove conclusively
the nature of the process, though its causes are less clearly
understood. Green hornblende may be seen gradually replacing
augite, at first in needle-like crystals, for which gradually
more compact masses are substituted. The felspar breaks up
into a mosaic in which albite, epidote or zoisite, quartz and
garnet may often be identified. Biotite and primary hornblende
suffer comparatively little change; olivine disappears, and
garnet, talc and tremolite or anthophyllite take its place.
The original structures of this group of rocks (ophitic,
porphyritic, poikilitic, vesicular, &c.) gradually fade away,
and merge into those of the metamorphic amphibolites. Even
when the greater part of the rock mass has suffered complete
reconstruction, kernels or phacoids may remain, showing
the old igneous structures, though the minerals are greatly
altered. The transitional stages from gabbro or diabase to
amphibolite are so common that they form a widespread and
important group of rocks, which have been described under
the names greenstone, greenstone-schist, flaser-gabbro,
saussurite- gabbro, meta-diabase, &c. The ortho-amphibolites
also include a small group of igneous rocks, which have a
foliated or banded structure due to movements and pressure
during consolidation, e.g. foliated diorite or diorite-schist.
The sedimentary amphibolites or para-amphibolites, less common
than those above described, are frequent in some districts,
such as the northern Alps, southern highlands of Scotland, Green
Mountains, U.S.A. Many of them have been ash-beds, and their
conversion into hornblende-schists follows exactly similar
stages to those exemplified by basic crystalline igneous
rocks. Others have been greywackes of varied composition with
epidote, chlorite, felspar, quartz, iron oxides, &c., and
may have been mixed with volcanic materials, or may be partly
derived from the disintegration of basic rocks. When they are
most metamorphosed they are often very hard to distinguish from
igneous hornblende-schists; yet they rarely fail to reveal signs
of bedding, pebbly structure, sedimentary banding and gradual
transition into undoubtedly sedimentary types of gneiss and
schist. Deposits containing dolomite and siderite also readily
yield amphibolites (tremolite-schists, grunorite-schists,
&c.) especially where there has been a certain amount of
contact metamorphism by adjacent granitic masses. (J. S. F.)
AMPHIBOLOGY, or AMPHIBOLY (Gr. ampibolia), in logic,
a verbal fallacy arising from ambiguity in the grammatical
structure of a sentence (Aristot., Organon,Soph., El.,
chap. iv.). It occurs frequently in poetry, owing to the
alteration for metrical reasons of the natural order of
words; Jevons quotes as an example Shakespeare, Henry
VI.: ``The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose.''
AMPHICTYONY (Gr. amfiktuonia, i.e. a body composed
of amfiktiones, amfiktuones, ``dwellers around''),
an association of ancient Greek communities centring in a
shrine. As the extant sources do not define the term,
and as they apply it to but five or six associations, the
majority of which are little known, modern scholars are in
doubt as to the essential character of the institution, and
hesitate therefore to extend the name beyond this limited
list. The word itself indicates that the association primarily
comprised neighbours, though the Delphic amphictyony came in
time to include relatively distant communities (Strabo ix.
3, 7). For the origin of the institution it is safe to assume
that neighbouring communities, whether tribes (ethne) or
cities, desiring friendly intercourse with one another chose
the sanctuary of some deity conveniently situated, at which
to hold their periodical festival for worship and their fair
for the interchange of goods. If the limited use of the word
according to our sources is not purely accidental, at all
events there were many Greek leagues, not expressly termed
amphictyonies, which had the characteristics here stated.
The Delian amphictyony probably reached the height of its
splendour early in the 7th century B.C. The Hymn to the Delian
Apollo, composed about that time, celebrates the gathering
of the Ionians with their wives and children at the shrine of
their god on the island of Delos, to worship him with music,
dancing and gymnastic contests (vv. 146-164; cf. Thuc. iii.
104). The later misfortunes of the Ionians caused a decline of the
festival. Peisistratus, taking possession of Delos, seems to
have used the sanctuary as a means of extending his political
influence. When after the great war with Persia the Aegean
cities under the leadership of Athens united in a political
league (477 B.C.), they chose as its centre the temple of the
Delian Apollo, doubtless through a desire to connect the new
alliance with the associations of the old amphictyony. How far
the council and other institutions of the Delian confederacy
were based upon the amphictyonic organization cannot be
determined. The removal of the treasury to Athens in 454 B.C.
deprived Delos of political importance, though the amphictyony
continued. The council gradually dwindled, and probably
came to an end without formal abolition. In 426 B.C. the
Athenians purified the island and instituted a great festival
to be held under their presidency every four years (Thuc. iii.
104). In 422 they expelled the Delians (Thuc. v. 1). At the
end of the Peloponnesian War Athens was deprived of Delos
along with her other possessions, but she appears to have
regained control of the island after the victory of Cnidus
(394). An inscription of 390 B.C. proves that at this date
Athenian authority had been restored. The affairs of the temple
were managed by a board of five Athenian amphictyons, assisted
by some Delian officials (inscrr. in Bull. Hell. viii. 284,
304, 307 f.); and in the 4th century we again hear of a council
in addition to the board (CIG. i. 158). At this time the
amphictyony is known to have embraced both the Athenians and
the inhabitants of the Cyclades; but a strong Delian party
bitterly opposed Athenian rule (cf. inscr. in Bull. Hell.
iii. 473 f.), which came to an end with the supremacy of
Macedon. The dissolution of the amphictyony soon followed.
Far more famous is the Delphic, or more strictly, the
Pylaeic-Delphic, amphictyony. It was originally composed of
twelve tribes dwelling round Thermopylae--the Thessalians,
Boeotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaebians, Magnetes, Locrians,
Oetaeans, Phthiotes, Mahans, Phocians (Aeschin. ii. 116), and
Dolopians (Paus. x. 8. 2). The name of the council (pylaea)
and of one set of deputies (pylagori), together with the
important place held in the amphictyony by the temple of Demeter
at Anthela, near Thermopylae, suggests that this shrine was
the original centre of the association. How and when Delphi
became a second centre is quite uncertain. The council of the
league included deputies of two different kinds--pylagori
and hieromnemones. the latter were twenty-four in number,
two from each tribe. As the league was originally made up of
neighbours, the Dorian tribe must have comprised simply the
inhabitants of Doris; the Locrians were probably the eastern
(Opuntian) branch; and the Ionians were doubtless limited to
the adjacent island of Euboea. Afterwards, by affiliating
themselves to Doris, the Peloponnesian Dorians gained
admission, and Athens must have entered as an Ionian city
before the first Sacred War. Henceforth Athens monopolized one
of the two Ionian votes, while the other passed in rotation
among the remaining Ionic, perhaps only among the Euboeic,
cities. In the same way Doris held one Dorian vote and
the other passed in rotation among the Dorian cities of
Peloponnesus; and the east and west Locrians came to have one
each. When after the second Sacred War the Phocians were
expelled, Macedon received their two votes (346 B.C.)
About the same time the Perrhaebians and the Dolopians were
deprived of half their representation, and the two votes
were transferred to the Delphians (inscrr. in N. Jahrb. f.
cl. Philol. clv. 742, cf. 743, 753; Bull. Hell. xxi.
322, cf. 325; Bourguet, Sanct. Pyth. 145, 147). In the
following century the Aetolians gained such dominance in the
amphictyony as to convert the council into an organ of their
league. Recent research has made it appear certain (cf.
Pomptow, ib. 754 ff.) that they were never formally admitted
to membership, but that they maintained their supremacy in the
council (Livy xxxi. 32. 3; Polyb. iv. 25. 8) by controlling
the votes of their allies, who-- called Aetolians in the
inscriptions--were often in the majority. They made no material
change in its composition, which, accordingly, after the
dissolution of their league by the Romans is found to be nearly
as it was after the second Sacred War. A few minor changes
came in under the supremacy of the Roman republic; and finally
Augustus increased the number of votes to thirty, and distributed
them according to his pleasure. In the age of the Antonines
the association was still in existence (paus. x. 8. 4 f.).
Although the hieromnemones of the Thessalians, who held the
presidency, and perhaps of a few other communities, must have
been elected, the office was ordinarily, as at Athens, filled
by lot. As a rule they were renewed annually (Aristoph.
Clouds, 623 f.; Foucart, in Bull. Hell. vii. 411, 413
f.). Each hieromnemon was accompanied by two pylagori,
elected semi-annually (Demosth. xviii. 149; Aeschin.
iii. 115; Tim. Lex. Plat., s.v. 'Amfiktuones), and
representing the same tribe, though not necessarily the same
city. On one occasion Athens is known to have sent three.
The hieromnemones were formally superior, but because of the
method of appointment they were necessarily men of mediocre
ability, inexperienced in speaking and public business, and
for that reason they readily became the tools of the pylagori,
who were orators and statesmen. In the literary sources,
accordingly, the latter are rightly given credit for the acts
of the council; it was the pylagori who set a price on the
head of the traitor Ephialtes ( Herod. vii. 213 ), and who
on the motion of Themistocles rejected the proposition of
Lacedaemon for the expulsion of the states which had sided
with Persia (Plut. Them. 20). The pylagori had a right
to propose measures and to take part in the deliberations;
they as well as the hieromnemones were required to take the
juror's oath; and the acts of the council were inscribed
officially as resolutions of the hieromnemones and pylagori
conjointly. The hieromnemon, however, cast the vote of his
community, though in the record his two pylagori were made
equally responsible for it. The necessary inference from these
facts is that the vote was determined by a majority of the three
deputies (inscr. in Bull. Hell. xxvii. 106-111, A 20-33; B
1-10). The council decided all questions which fell within its
competence. Matters of greater importance, as the levy of an
extraordinary fine on a state or the declaration of a sacred
war, it presented in the form of a resolution to an assembly
(ekklesia), composed of the deputies, the amphictyonic
priests, and any other citizens of the league who chanced
to be present (Aeschin. iii. 124; cf. Hyp. iv. 7, 26
f.). This assembly was relatively unimportant, however,
and is mentioned only by the two authorities here cited.
It is now well established by epigraphic evidence (Bull.
Hell. vii. 412 f., 417; Pomptow, in N. Jahrb. f. cl.
Philol. cxlix. 826-829) that the amphictyons met both in
the spring and in the autumn at Delphi, and the literary
sources should alone be sufficient authority for meetings
in the same seasons at Thermopylae (Hyp. iv. 7, 25 ff.;
Strabo ix. 3, 7, 4, 17; Harpocration, s.v. Pulai.)
It is known, too, that the meeting at Thermopylae followed
that at Delphi (inscr. in Bull. Hell. xxiv. 136 f.).
The primary function of the council was to administer the
temporal affairs of the two shrines, of which the sanctuary
of Apollo at Delphi claimed by far the greater share of
attention. The hieromnemones were required periodically to
inspect the lands belonging to this god, to punish those who
encroached, and to see that the tenants rendered their quota
of produce; and the council held the states responsible for
the right performance of such duties by their respective
deputies (CIA. ii. 545; inscr. in Bull. Hell. vii. 428
f.). Another task of the council was to supervise the treasury,
to protect it from thieves, and by investments to increase
the capital (Strabo ix. 3, 7; Isoc. xv. 232; Demosth. xxi.
144; Plut. Sull. 12). Naturally, too, it controlled the
expenditure. We find it, accordingly, in the 6th century
B.C. contracting for the rebuilding of the Delphic temple
after it had been destroyed by fire (Herod. v. 62; Paus. x. 5.
13), and in the 4th century creating an Hellenic college of
temple-builders for the purpose (inscrr. in Bull. Hell.
xx. 202 f., 206, xxi. 478, xxiv. 464), adorning the interior
with statues and pictures (Diod. xvi. 33), inscribing the
proverbs of the Seven Sages on the walls (Paus. x. 24. 1),
bestowing crowns on benefactors of the god (CIG. i. 1689 b),
preparing for the Pythian games, awarding the prizes (Pind.
Pyth. iv. 66, x. 8 f.), instituting a board of treasurers
(inscr. in Bourguet, Sanct. Pyth. 175 ff.) and issuing
coins. It was also in the material interest of Apollo that
the council passed a law which forbade the Greeks to levy tolls
on pilgrims to the shrine (Aeschin. iii. 107; Strabo ix. 3,
4), and another requiring the amphictyonic states to keep in
repair their own roads which led towards Delphi (CIA. ii.
545). A law of great interest, dating from the beginning
of the institution, imposed an oath upon the members of the
league not to destroy an amphictyonic city or to cut it off
from running water in war or peace; but to wage war upon
those who transgressed this ordinance, to destroy their
cities, and to punish any others who by theft or plotting
sought to injure the god (Aeschin. ii. 115). In this
regulation, which was intended to mitigate the usages of
war amongst the members of the league, we have one of the
origins of Greek interstate law. Though other regulations
were made to secure peace at the time of the festival
(Dion. Hal. iv. 25. 3), and though occasionally the council
was called upon to arbitrate in a dispute (cf. Demosth.
xviii. 135), no provision was made to compel arbitration.
For the enforcement of such laws and for administrative
efficiency in general it was necessary that the council should
have judicial power. As jurors the deputies took an oath to
decide according to written law, or in cases not covered by
law, according to their best will and judgment (CIA. ii.
545). The earliest known amphictyonic penalty was the
destruction of Crisa for having levied tolls on pilgrims
(Aeschin. iii. 107; Strabo ix. 3, 4; cf. Paus. x. 37.
5-8). This offence was the cause of the first Sacred War.
The second and third Sacred Wars, fought in the 4th century
B.C., were waged by the amphictyons against the Phocians
and the Amphissaeans respectively for alleged trespassing on
the sacred lands (Aeschin. iii. 124, 128; Diod. xvi. 23, 31
f.). In the 5th century the council fined the Dolopians for
having disturbed commerce by their piracy (Plut. Cim. 8),
and in the 4th century the Lacedaemonians for having occupied
the citadel of Thebes in time of peace (Diod. xvi. 23, 29).
The judgments of the council were sometimes considered unfair,
and were occasionally defied by the states affected. The
Lacedaemonians refused to pay the fine above mentioned; the
Athenians protested against the treatment of Amphissa, and were
slow in accepting the decisions given under the influence of
Macedon. The inability of the council to enforce its
resolutions was chiefly due to its composition; the majority
of the communities represented were even in combination no
match for individual cities like Athens, Sparta or Thebes.
The council was a power in politics only when manipulated by
a great state, as Thebes, Macedon or Aetolia, and in such a
case its decrees were most likely to give offence by their
partisanship. Although the council sometimes championed
the Hellenic cause, as could any association or individual,
it never acquired a recognized authority over all Greece;
and notwithstanding its frequent participation in political
affairs, it remained essentially a religious convocation.
In addition to the three associations thus far mentioned
there was an amphictyony of Onchestus (Strabo ix. 2, 33).
It may be inferred from a comparison of Paus. iv. 5. 2 with
Herod. vi. 92 that there was an amphictyony of Argos of
which Epidaurus and Aegina were members. An amphictyony
of Corinth has, with less justification, been assumed on
the strength of a passage in Pindar (Nem. Od. vi. 40-42).
AUTHORITIES.--Foucart, ``Amphictyones,'' in Daremberg and
Saglio, Dict. d. antiq. grecq. et rom. (1873) i. 235-238; F.
Qauer, ``Amphiktyonia,'' in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl. d.
cl. Altertumswiss. (1894) i. 1904-1935; Pomptow, Fasti
Delphici, ii. in Neue Jalhrb. f. cl. Philol. (1894) cxlix.
497-558, clv. (1897) 737-763, 783-848; E. A. Freeman, History
of Federal Government in Greece and Italy (2nd ed., London
and New York, 1895), 95-111; W. S. Ferguson, Schomann-Lipsius,
Griechische Alterthumer (1902), ii. 29-44; E. Bourguet,
L'Administration financiere du sanctuaire pythioue au IVe
siecle avant J.-C (Paris, 1905). The earlier literature
has been deprived of a great part of its value by recent
discoveries of inscriptions, many of which may be found in
the Bulletin de correspondance hellenique, iii. vii.
viii. x. xx. xxi. xxiv. xxvi. xxvii., edited with commentary
chiefly by Bourguet, Colin, Foucart and Homolle. See also
H. Collitz, Sammlung d. griech. Dialekt-Inschriften, ii.
p. 643 ff. and Nos. 2508 ff., edited by Baunack. (G. W. B.)
AMPHILOCHUS, in Greek legend, a famous seer, son of Amphiaraus
and Eriphyle and brother of Alcmaeon. According to some
he assisted in the murder of Eriphyle, which, according to
others, was carried out by Alcmaeon alone (Apollodorus iii.
6, 7). He took part in the expedition of the Epigoni against
Thebes and in the Trojan War. After the fall of Troy he
founded, in conjunction with Mopsus, another famous seer,
the oracle of Mallos in Cilicia. The two seers afterwards
fought for its possession, and both were slain in the
combat. Amphilochus is also said to have been killed by
Apollo (Strabo xiv. 675, 676). According to another story,
he returned to Argos from Troy, but, being dissatisfied
with the condition of things there, left it for Acarnania,
where he founded Amphilochian Argos on the Ambracian
gulf. He was worshipped at Oropus, Athens and Sparta.
Strabo xiv. pp. 675, 676; Thucydides ii. 68; Pausanias i. 34, iii. 15.
AMPHION and ZETHUS, in ancient Greek mythology, the twin
sons of Zeus by Antiope. When children, they were exposed
on Mount Cithaeron, but were found and brought up by a
shepherd. Amphion became a great singer and musician, Zethus
a hunter and herdsman (Apollodorus iii. 5). After punishing
Lycus and Dirce for cruel treatment of Antiope (q.v.),
they built and fortified Thebes, huge blocks of stone forming
themselves into walls at the sound of Amphion's lyre (Horace,
Odes, iii. 11). Amphion married Niobe, and killed himself
after the loss of his wife and children (Ovid, Metam. vi.
270). The brothers were buried in one grave and worshipped
as the Dioscuri ``with white horses'' (Eurip. Phoen. 609).
AMPHIOXUS, or LANCELET, the name of small, fish-like,
marine creatures, forming the class Cephalochorda, of the
phylum Vertebrata. Lancelets are found in brackish or salt
water, generally near the coast, and have been referred to
several genera and many species. They were first discovered
by P. S. Pallas in 1778, who took them to be slugs and
described them under the name Limax lanceolatus. The
true position in the animal kingdom was first recognized in
1834 by O. G. Costa, who named the genus Branchiostoma,
and it has since been dealt with by many writers.
The theoretical interest of Amphioxus depends upon a variety of
circumstances. In its manner of development from the egg, and
in the constitution of its digestive, vascular, respiratory
(branchial), excretory, skeletal, nervous and muscular systems
it exhibits what appears to be a primordial condition of
vertebrate organization, a condition which is, in fact, partly
recapitulated in the course of the embryonic stages of craniate
vertebrates. In comparative morphology it provides many
illustrations of important biological principles (such, for
example, as substitution and change of function of organs),
and throws new light upon, or at least points the way to
new ideas of, the primitive relations of different organic
systems in respect of their function and topography. One of
the most puzzling features in its structure, and, at the same
time, one of the greatest obstacles to the view that it is
essentially primitive and not merely a degenerate creature,
is the entire absence of the paired organs of special sense,
olfactory, optic and auditory, which are so characteristic
of the higher vertebrates. Although it is true that there
is a certain amount of gradation in the degree of development
to which these organs have attained in the various orders,
yet it is hardly sufficient to enable the imagination to
bridge over the gap which separates Amphioxus from the
lowest fishes in regard to this feature of organization.
Classification.--On account of the absence of anything in
the nature of a skull, Amphioxus has been regarded as the
type of a division, Acrania, in contrast with the Craniata
which comprise all the higher Chordata. The ordinal name
for the genera and species of Amphioxus is Cephalochorda,
the term referring to the extension of the primary backbone
or notochord to the anterior extremity of the body; the
family name is Branchiostomidae. The amount of generic
divergence exhibited by the members of this family is not great
in the mass, but is of singular interest in detail. There
are two principal genera--1. Branchiostoma Costa, having
paired sexual organs (gonadic pouches); 2. Heteropleuron
Kirkaldy, with unilateral gonads. Of these, the former
includes two subgenera, Amphioxus (s. str.) Yarrell and
Dolichorhynchus Willey. The species belonging to the
genus Heteropleuron are divided among the three subgenera
Paramphioxus Haeckel, Epigonichthys Peters, and Asymmetron
Andrews. The generic characters are based upon definite
modifications of form which affect the entire facies of the
animals, while the specific diagnoses depend upon minor
characters, such as the number of myotomes or muscle-segments.
Habits and Distribution.--With regard to its habits, all that
need be said here is that while Amphioxus is an expert swimmer
when occasion requires, yet it spends most of its time burrowing
in the sand, in which, when at rest, it lies buried with head
protruding and mouth wide agape. Its food consists of microscopic
organisms and organic particles; these are drawn into the mouth
FIG. 1.--Epigonichthys cultellus from below and from the left
side. (Slightly altered from Kirkaldy.) rm and lm, Right and
left metapleur; at, atriopore; an, anus; e, ``eyespot''
at anterior end of neurochord projecting beyond the myotomes
(my); n, notochord; rgo, gonads of right side only showing
through by transparency; go 20, the last gonad; dfr, dorsal
fin with fin chambers and fin rays; vfc, ventral fin chambers.
together with currents of water induced by the action of the
vibratile cilia which are abundant along special tracts on
the sides and roof of the vestibule of the mouth and in the
walls of the perforated pharynx (``ciliary ingestion'').
Amphioxus favours a littoral habitat, and rarely if ever
descends below the 50-fathom line. Species occur in all
seas of the temperate, tropical and subtropical zones. The
European species, A. lanceolatus, is found in the Black
and Mediterranean Seas, and on the coasts of France, Great
Britain and Scandinavia, while a closely allied species or
subspecies, A. caribaeus, frequents the Caribbean region
from Chesapeake to La Plata. A. californiensis occurs
on the coast of California, and A. belcheri extends its
area of distribution from Queensland through Singapore to
Japan. A recently described species, Dolichorhynchus indicus,
characterized by the great length of the praeoral lobe or
snout, has been dredged in the Indian Ocean. Paramphioxus
bassanus occurs on the coast of Australia from Port Phillip
to Port Jackson; P. cingalensis at Ceylon. Epigonichthys
cultellus (fig. 1) inhabits Torres Strait, and has also been
FIG. 2.--Amphioxus lanceolatus, Yarrell (Branchiostoma
lubricum, Coste). (From Ray Lankester.) (1) Lateral view
of adult, to show general form, the myomeres, fin rays and
gonads. A, Oral tentacles 28 to 32 in full-grown animals, 20
to 24 in half-grown specimens); B, praeoral hood or praeoral
epipleur; C, plicated ventral surface of atrial chamber;
D1, D17, D26, gonads, twenty-six pairs, coincident
with myotomes 10 to 36; E, metapleur or lateral ridge on
atrial epipleur; F, atripore, coincident with myotome 36;
G1, G15, G34, double ventral fin rays, extending from
myotomes 37 to 52, but having no numerical relation to
them; H, position of anus, between myotomes 51 and 52; I,
notochord, projecting beyond myotomes; K7, K27, K62,
myotomes or muscular segments of body-wall, 62 in number;
L100, L230, L253, dorsal fin rays, about 250 in
number, the hard substance of the ray being absent at the
extreme ends of the body (these have no constant numerical
relation to the myomeres); M, notochord as seen through the
transparent myotomes, the thin double-lined spaces being the
connective-tissue septa and the broader spaces the muscular
tissue of the myotomes; N, position of brown funnel of left
side (atrio-coelomic canal); O, nerve tube resting on notochord.
(2) Dissection of Amphioxus. By a horizontal incision on
each side of the body a large ventral area has been separated
and turned over, as it were on a hinge, to the animal's left
side. The perforated pharyngeal region has then been detached
from the adherent epipleura or opercular folds (wall of atrial
or branchial chamber) by cutting the fluted pharyngo-pleural
membrane d, and separated by a vertical cut from the
intestinal region. a, Edge of groove formed by adhesion
of median dorsal surface of alimentary canal to sheath of
notochord; b, median dorsal surface of alimentary canal;
c, left dorsal aorta; cc, single dorsal aorta, formed by
union of the two anterior vessels; cc', same vessel resting
on intestine; d, cut edge of pharyngo-pleural folds of
atrial tunic, really the original outer body-wall before the
downgrowth of epipleura; d', atrial tunic (original body-wall)
at non-perforate region, cut and turned back so as to expose
peri-enteric coelom and intestine r; e', upstanding folds
of body-wall (pharyngo-pleural folds) on alternate bars of
perforate region of body; f, atrio-coelomic canals or brown
funnels (collar-pores of Balanoglossus); g, cavity of
a gonad-sac; m, cut musculature of body-wall; n, anus;
o, post-atrioporal extension of atrial chamber in form
of a tubular caecum; p, atriopore; q, hepatic caecum;
r, intestine; s, coelom; t, area of adhesion between
alimentary canal and sheath of notochord; v, atrial chamber
or branchial cavity; w, post-atrioporal portion of intestine;
x, canals of metapleura exposed by cutting; E, probe passing
through atriopore into atrial or branchial chamber; FF', probe
passing from coelom, where it expands behind the atriopore,
into narrower peri-enteric coelom of praeatrioporal region.
(3) Portion of (2) enlarged to show atrio-coelomic canals
(``brown funnels'' of Lankester). Lettering as in (2).
(4)Section taken transversely through praeoral region near
termination of nerve tube. a, Olfactory ciliated pit on
animal's left side, its wall confluent with substance of
nerve tube; b, pigment spot (rudimentary eye) on anterior
termination of nerve tube; c, first pair of nerves in
section; d, fin ray; e, myotome; f, notochord; g, space
round myotome (?artifact or coelom); h, subchordal canal (?
blood-vessel); i, a symmetrical epipleura of praeoral hood.
found at Ternate. Asymmetron lucayanum is the Bahaman
representative of the family, with a subspecies, A. caudatum,
in the South Pacific from New Guinea to the Loyalty Islands. The
Peruvian species, Branchiostoma elongatum, with nearly eighty
myotomes, cannot at present be assigned to its proper subgenus.
External Form.--The following description, unless otherwise
stated, refers to A. lanceolatus. Amphioxus is a small
fish-like creature attaining a maximum length of about 3
in., semitransparent in appearance, showing iridescent play of
colour. The body is narrow, laterally compressed and pointed
at both ends. The main musculature can be seen through the thin
skin to be divided into about sixty pairs of muscle-segments
(myotomes) by means of comma-shaped dissepiments, the
myocommas, which stretch between the skin and the central
skeletal axis of the body. These myotomes enable it to swim
rapidly with characteristic serpentine undulations of the
body, the movements being effected by the alternate contraction
and relaxation of the longitudinal muscles on both sides.
Apparently correlated with this peculiar locomotion is the
anatomical fact of the alteration of the myotomes on the two
sides. Symmetrical at their first appearance in the embryo,
the somites (from which the myotomes are derived) early undergo
a certain distortion, the effect of which is to carry the
somites of the left side forwards through the length of one
half-segment. For example, the twenty-seventh myotome of
the left side is placed opposite to the twenty-sixth myocomma
of the right side. The back of the body is occupied by a
crest, called the dorsal fin, consisting of a hollow ridge,
the cavity of which is divided into about 250 compartments
or fin chambers, into each of which, with the exception
of those near the anterior and posterior end of the body,
projects a stout pillar composed of characteristic laminar
tissue, the fin ray. The dorsal crest is continued round
both extremities, becoming expanded to form the rostral
fin in front and the caudal fin behind. Even in external
view, careful inspection will show that the body is divisible
into four regions, namely, cephalic, atrial, abdominal and
caudal. The cephalic region includes the rostrum or praeoral
FIG.--Transverse sections of amphioxus. (From Lankester.)
A. Section through region of atrio-coelomic canal s, v.
B . Section in front of mouth; the right and left sides
are transposed. a, Cavity surrounding fin ray; a', fin
ray; b, muscular tissue of myotome; c, nerve- cord;
d, notochord; c, left aorta; f thickened ridges of
epithelium of praeoral chamber (Rader organ); g, coiled
tube lying in a coelomic space on right side of praeoral
hood, apparently an artery; h, cuticle of notochord; i,
connective-tissue sheath of notochord; k, median ridge of
skeletal canal of nerve-cord; l, skeletal canal protecting
nerve-cord; m, inter-segmental skeletal septum of myotome;
n, subcutaneous skeletal connective tissue; o, ditto of
metapleur (this should be relatively thicker than it is);
q, subcutaneous connective tissue of ventral surface of
atrial wall (not a canal, as supposed by Stieda and others);
r, epiblastic epithelium; s gonad-sac containing ova;
t, pharyngeal bar in section, one of the pharyngo-pleural
fold and coelom; v, atrio-coelomic funnel; w, so-called
``dorsal'' coelom; x, lymphatic space or canal of metapleur;
y, sub-pharyngeal vascular trunk; z, blood-vessel (portal
vein) on wall of hepatic caecum; aa, space of atrial or
branchial chamber; bb, ventral groove of pharynx (anteriorly
this takes the form of a ridge); cc, hyperbranchial groove
of pharynx; dd, lumen or space of hepatic caecum; ee,
narrow coelomic space surrounding hepatic caecum; ff)
lining cell-layer of hepatic caecum; gg, inner face of a
pharyngeal bar clothed with hypoblast, the outer face covered
with epiblast (represented black); hh, a main pharyngeal bar
with projecting pharyngeal fold (on which the reference line
rests) in section, showing coelomic space beneath the black
epiblast; ii, transverse ventral muscle of epipleura; kk,
raphe or plane of fusion of two down-grown epipleura; ll,
space and nucleated cells on dorsal face of notochord; mm,
similar space and cells on its ventral face. lobe and the
mouth. As already stated, the notochord extends beyond the
mouth to the tip of the rostrum. The mouth consists of two
portions, an outer vestibule and an inner apertura oris;
the latter is surrounded by a sphincter muscle, which forms
the so-called velum. The vestibule of the mouth is the space
bounded by the oral hood; this arises by secondary downgrowth
of lid-like folds over the true oral aperture, and is provided
with a fringe of tentacular cirri, each of which is supported
by a solid skeletal axis. The oral hood with its cirri has a
special nerve supply and musculature by which the cirri can be
either spread out, or bent inwards so that those of one side
may interdigitate with those of the other, thus completely
closing the entrance to the mouth. The velum is also provided
with a circlet of twelve tantacles (in some species sixteen)
which hang backwards into the pharynx; these are the velar
tentacles. The atrial region extends from the mouth over about
two-thirds of the length of the body, terminating at a large
median ventral aperture, the atriopore; this is the excurrent
orifice for the respiratory current of water and also serves
for the evacuation of the generative products. This region
FIG. 4.--Amphioxus lanceolatus laid open ventrally.
(After Rathke, slightly altered.) m, Mouth appearing as
an elongated slit when relaxed (as in the lamprey); p,
perforated pharynx; e, endostyle; g, gonads; l, liver;
at, level of atriopore; i, intestine; an, anus.
In this species the atrium is produced as an asymmetrical
blind pouch behind the atriopore as far as the anus.
is really the branchiogenital region, although the fact
is not apparent in external view. The ventral side of the
body in the atrial region is broad and convex, in the atrial
region is broad and convex, so that the body presents the
appearance of a spherical triangle in transverse section, the
apex being formed by the dorsal fin and the angles bordered
by two hollow folds, the metapleural folds, each of which
contains a continuous longitudinal lymph-space, the metapleural
canal. In the genus Branchiostoma the metapleural folds
terminate symmetrically shortly behind the atriopore, but in
Heteropleuron the right metapleur passes uninterruptedly into
the median crest of the ventral fin (fig. 1). In this connexion
it may also be mentioned that in all cases the right half of
the oral hood is directly continuous with the rostral fin (fig.
2). The abdominal region comprises a short stretch of body
between atriopore and anus, the termination of the alimentary
canal. It is characterized by the presence of a special
development of the lophioderm or median fin-system, namely,
the ventral fin, which is composed of two portions, a lower
keel-like portion, which underlies an upper chambered portion,
each chamber containing typically a pair of gelatinous fin
rays. Finally, the caudal region comprises the post-anal
division of the trunk. The keel of the ventral fin is continued
past the anus into the expanded caudal fin, and so it happens
that the anal opening is displaced from the middle line to
the left side of the fin. In Asymmetron the caudal region
is remarkable for the curious elongation of the notochord,
which is produced far beyond the last of the myotomes.
Alimentary, Respiratory and Excretory Systems.--Although
the function of the two latter systems of organs is the
purification of the blood, they are not usually considered
together, and it is therefore the more remarkable that their
close association in Amphioxus renders it necessary to
treat them in common. The alimentary canal is a perfectly
straight tube lined throughout by ciliated epithelium. As food
particles pass in through the mouth they become enveloped in a
slimy substance (secreted by the endostyle) and conveyed down
the gut by the action of the vibratile cilia as a continuous
food-rope, the peristaltic movements of the gut-wall being very
feeble. The first part of the alimentary canal consists of
the pharynx or branchial sac, the side walls of which are
perforated by upwards of sixty pairs of elongated slits, the
gill-clefts. Each primary gill-cleft becomes divided into two
by a tongue-bar which grows down secondarily from the upper
wall of the cleft and fuses with the ventral wall. New clefts
continue to form at the posterior end of the pharynx during
the adult life of the animal. The gill-clefts open directly
from the cavity of the pharynx into that of the atrium, and
so give egress to the respiratory current which enters the
mouth with the food (fig. 4). The atrium or atrial chamber
is a peripharyngeal cavity of secondary origin effecting
the enclosure of the gill-clefts, which in the larva opened
directly to the exterior. The atrium is thus analogous to the
opercular cavity of fishes and tadpoles, and, as stated above,
remains in communication with the exterior by means of the
atriopore. The primary and secondary bars which separate
and divide the successive gill-clefts from one another are
traversed by blood-vessels which run from a simple tubular
contractile ventral branchial vessel along the bars into a
dorsal aorta. The ventral branchial vessel lies below the
hypobranchial groove or endostyle; and is the representative
of a heart. As water for respiration streams through the
clefts, gaseous interchange takes place between the circulating
colourless blood and the percolating water. The pharynx
projects freely into the atrium; it is surrounded at the sides
and below by the continuous atrial cavity, but dorsally it is
held in position in two ways. First, its dorsal wall (which
is grooved to form the hyperpharyngeal groove) is closely
adherent to the sheath of the notochord; and secondly, the
pharynx is attached through the intermediation of the primary
bars. These are suspended to the muscular body- wall by
a double membrane, called the ligamentum denticulatum,
which forms at once the roof of the atrial chamber and the
floor of a persistent portion of the original body-cavity
or coelom (the dorsal coelomic canal on each side of the
pharynx). The ligamentum denticulatum is thus lined on
one side by the epiblastic atrial epithelium, and on the
other by mesoblastic coelomic epithelium. Now this ligament
is inserted into the primary bars some distance below the
upper limits of the gill-clefts, and it therefore follows
that, corresponding with each tongue-bar, the atrial cavity
is produced upward beyond the insertion of the ligament into
a series of bags or pockets, which may be called the atrial
pouches. At the top of each of these pouches there is a minute
orifice, the aperture of a small tubule lying above each pouch
in the dorsal coelom. These tubules are the excretory tubules
or nephridia. They communicate with the coelom by several
openings or nephrostomes, and with the atrium by a single
opening in each case, the nephridiopore. It is important to
emphasize the fact that in Amphioxus the excretory tubules
are co-extensive with the gill-clefts. The perforated pharynx
terminates some distance in front of the atriopore. At the
level of its posterior end a pair of funnelashaped pouches
of the atrium are produced forwards into the dorsal coelom.
These are the atrial coelomic funnels or brown funnels, so
called on account of the characteristic pigmentation of their
walls. There are reasons for supposing that these funnels
are vestiges of an ancient excretory system, which has
given way by substitution to the excretory tubules described
above. In the same region of the body, namely, close behind
the pharynx, a large diverticulum is given off from the
ventral side of the gut. This is the hepatic caecum (fig.
2,2,q, fig. 4, l), which is quite median at its first
origin, but, as it grows in length, comes to lie against
the right wall of the pharynx. Although within the atrial
cavity, it is separated from the latter by a narrow coelomic
space, bounded towards the atrium by coelomic and atrial
epithelium. No food passes into the hepatic caecum, which has
been de finitely shown on embryological and physiological grounds
to be the simplest persistent form of the vertebrate liver.
Nervous System.--As has already been indicated, a solid
subcylindrical elastic rod, the notochord, surrounded by
a sheath of laminar connective tissue, the cordal sheath,
lies above the alimentary canal in contact with its dorsal
wall, and extends beyond it both in front and behind to the
obtusely pointed extremities of the body. This notochord
represents the persistent primordial skeletal axis which, in
the higher Craniata (though not so in the lower), gives way by
substitution to the segmented vertebral column. Immediately
above the notochord there lies another subcylindrical cord,
also surrounded by a sheath of connective tissue. This
cord is neither elastic nor solid, but consists of nerve
tissue, fibres and ganglion cells, surrounding a small central
canal. For the sake of uniformity in nomenclature this
nerve-cord may be called the neurochord. It is the central
nervous system, and contains within itself the elements of
the brain and spinal marrow of higher forms. The neurochord
tapers towards its posterior end, where it is coextensive
with the notochord, but ends abruptly in front, some distance
behind the tip of the snout. The neurochord attains its
greatest thickness not at its anterior end but some way behind
this region; but the central canal dilates at the anterior
extremity to form a thin-walled cerebral vesicle, in the
front wall of which there is an aggregation of dark pigment
cells constituting an eyespot, visible through the transparent
skin (fig. 1). There are two pairs of specialized cerebral
nerves innervating the praeoral lobe, and provided with
peripheral ganglia placed near the termination of the smaller
branches. Corresponding with each pair of myotomes, and
subject to the same alternation, two pairs of spinal nerves
arise from the neurochord, namely, a right and left pair of
compact dorsal sensory roots without ganglionic enlargement,
and a right and left pair of ventral motor roots composed of
loose fibres issuing separately from the neurochord and passing
directly to their termination on the muscle-plates of the
myotomes. The first dorsal spinal nerve coincides in position
with the myocomma which separates the first myotome from the
second on each side, and thereafter the successive dorsal
roots pass through the substance of the myocommata on their
way to the skin; they are therefore septal or intersegmental in
position. The ventral roots, on the contrary, are myal or
segmental in position. In addition to the cerebral eyespot
there are large numbers of minute black pigmented bodies beside
and below the central canal of the neurochord, commencing
from the level of the third myotome. It has been determined
that these bodies are of the nature of eyes (Becheraugen, R.
Hesse), each consisting of two cells, a cup-shaped pigment
cell and a triangular retinal cell. These may be called the
spinal eyes, and it is said that they are disposed in such
a way as to receive illumination preferentially from the
right side, although this fact has no relation with the side
upon which Amphioxus may lie upon the sand. When kept in
captivity the animal often lies upon one side on the surface
of the sand, but on either side indifferently. Over the
cerebral eye there is a small orifice placed to the left of
the base of the cephalic fin, leading into a pit which extends
from the surface of the body to the surface of the cerebral
vesicle; this is known as A. von Kolliker's olfactory pit.
Reproductive System.--The sexes are separate, and the male or female
Fig. 5.--Diagram of embryo gonads, or Amphioxus seen from above
in optical section. (Adapted from Hatschek.) pc, Praechordal
head-cavity of embryo; cc, collar-cavity (first somite); my,
mesodermic somites (myocoelomic or archenteric pouches); ch,
notochord with the neural tube (neurochord) lying upon it; np,
anterior neuropore; ne, position of posterior neurenteric canal.
gonads, which are exactly similar in outward appearance, occur
as a series of gonadic pouches projecting into the atrial cavity
at the base of the myotomes (figs. 2, 3, 4). At the breeding
season the walls of the pouches burst and the sexual elements
pass into the atrium, whence they are discharged through the
atriopore into the water, where fertilization takes place.
Development.--The development of Amphioxus possesses many
features of interest, and cannot fail to retain its importance
as an introduction to the study of embryology. The four
principal phases in the development are: (1) Blastula, (2)
Gastrula, (3) Flagellate Embryo, (4) Larva. The segmentation
or cleavage of the ovum which follows upon fertilization
terminates in the achievement of the blastula form, a minute
sphere of cells surrounding a central cavity. Then follows
the phenomenon of gastrulation, by which one-half of the
blastula is invaginated into the other, so as to obliterate
the segmentation cavity. The embryo now consists of two
layers of cells, epiblast and hypoblast, surrounding a cavity,
the archenteron, which opens to the exterior by the orifice
of invagination or blastopore. One important fact should
FIG. 6.--Anterior region of two pelagic larvae of A.
lanceolatus obtained by the tow-net in 8-10 fathoms, showing
the asymmetry of the large lateral sinistral mouth with its
ciliated margin cm and the dextral series of simple primary
gill-slits (1ps-14ps.) The larvae swim normally like the
adult or suspend themselves by their flagella (not shown in
the figures) vertically in mid-water. There is nothing in
their mode of life which will afford an explanation of the
asymmetry which is a developmental phenomenon. Lettering of
upper figure.--anp, Anterior neural pore; bc, rudiment
of buccal skeleton; c, cilia; cb, ciliated band; cc,
ciliated groove; cm, cilia at margin of mouth; gl, external
opening of club-shaped gland; Hn, Hatschek's nephridium;
lm, left metapleur; n, notochord; pp, praeoral pit;
ps, primary gill-slits, 1, 5, and 13; rm, right metapleur
showing through. Lettering of'lower fgure.--a, Atrium;
al, alimentary canal; bp, blood-vessel; cv, cerebral
vesicle; df, dorsal section of myocoel (=fin spaces); e,
``eyespot''; end, endostyle; gl, club-shaped gland; lm,
edge of left metapleur; m, lower edge of mouth; n, notochord;
nt} pigmented nerve tube; ps, primary gill-slits, 1, 9,
and 14; rc, renal cells on atrial floor; rm, edge of right
metapleur; so, sense organ opening into praeoral pit; ss,
thickenings, the rudiments of the row of secondary gill-slits.
be noted with regard to the gastrula, in which it seems to
differ from the gastrulae of invertebrata. After invagination
is completed, the embryo begins to elongate, the blastopore
becomes narrower, and the dorsal wall of the gastrula loses its
convexity, and becomes flattened to form the dorsal plate,
the outer layer of which is the primordium of the neurochord
and the inner layer the primordium of the notochord. While
still within the egg-membrane the epiblastic cells become
flagellated, and the gastrula rotates within the membrane.
About the eighth hour after commencement of development the
membrane ruptures and the oval embryo escapes, swimming by
means of its flagella at the surface of the sea for another
twenty-four hours, during which the principal organs are laid
down, although the mouth does not open until the close of this
period. The primordium of the neurochord (neural or medullary
plate) referred to above becomes closed in from the surface by
the overgrowth of surrounding epiblast, and its edges also bend
up, meet, and finally fuse to form a tube, the medullary or neural
tube. An important fact to note is that the blastopore is
included in this overgrowth of epiblast, so that the neural
tube remains for some time in open communication with the
archenteron by means of a posterior neurenteric canal. It is
still longer before the neural tube completes its closure in
front, exhibiting a small orifice at the surface, the anterior
neuropore. It is thus possible that the neurenteric canal
is due to the conjunction of a posterior neuropore with
the blastopore, i.e. it is a complex and not a simple
structure. Paired archenteric pouches meanwhile appear at
the sides of the axial notochordal tract, the mesoblastic
somites. The first of these differs in several respects from
those which succeed, and has been called the collar cavity
(MacBride). In front of the latter there remains a portion
of the archenteron, which becomes constricted off as the head
cavity. This becomes divided into two, the right half
forming the cavity of the rostrum, while the left acquires
an opening to the exterior, and forms the praeoral pit
of the larva, which subsequently gives rise to special
ciliated tracts in the vestibule of the mouth mentioned
above. The larval period commences at about the thirty-sixth
hour with the perforation of the mouth, first gill-cleft and
anus. The larva is curiously asymmetrical, as many as
fourteen gill-clefts appearing in an unpaired series on the
right side, while the mouth is a large orifice on the left
side, the anus being median. The adult form is achieved by
metamorphosis, which cannot be further described here.
One point must not be omitted, namely, the homogeny of the
endostyle of Amphioxus and the thyroid gland of Craniata.
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des Amphioxus,'' Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. lxiii. (1898), p
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Micr. Sci. xxxi. (1890), p. 489; A. Willey, Amphioxus
and the ancestry of the Vertebrates (1894); ``Remarks on
some recent Work on the Protochorda,'' Quart. J. Micr.
Sci. xliii. (1899), p. 223; pleuron of New Zealand,'' ib.
(1901); E. Burchardt, ``Finer Anatomy of Amphioxus,'' with
bibliography, Jena Zeitschr. xxxiv. (1900), p. 719. (A. W.*)
AMPHIPOLIS (mod. Yeni Keui), an ancient city of
Macedonia, on the east bank of the river Strymon, where
it emerges from Lake Cercinitis, about 3 m. from the sea.
Originally a Thracian town, known as 'Ennea `Odoi (``Nine
Roads''), it was colonized by Athenians with other Greeks
under Hagnon in 437 B.C., previous attempts--in 497, 476
(Schol. Aesch. De fals. leg. 31) and 465--having been
unsuccessful. In 424 B.C. it surrendered to the Spartan
Brasidas without resistance, owing to the gross negligence
of the historian Thucydides, who was with the fleet at
Thasos. In 422 B.C. Cleon led an unsuccessful expedition
to recover it, in which both he and Brasidas were slain.
The importance of Amphipolis in ancient times was due to
the fact that it commanded the bridge over the Strymon, and
consequently the route from northern Greece to the Hellespont;
it was important also as a depot for the gold and silver mines
of the district, and for timber, which was largely used in
shipbuilding. This importance is shown by the fact that, in
the peace of Nicias (421 B.C.), its restoration to Athens
is made the subject of a special provision, and that about
417, this provision not having been observed, at least one
expedition was made by Nicias with a view to its recovery.
Philip of Macedon made a special point of occupying it (357),
and under the early empire it became the headquarters of the
Roman propraetor, though it was recognized as independent. Many
inscriptions, coins, &c., have been found here, and traces of
the ancient fortifications and of a Roman aqueduct are visible.
AMPHIPROSTYLE (from the Gr. amfi, on both sides,
and prostulos, a portico), the term for a temple
(q.v.) with a portico both in the front and in the rear.
AMPHISBAENA (a Greek word, from amfis, both ways, and
bainein, to go), a serpent in ancient mythology, beginning
or ending at both head and tail alike. Its fabled existence
has been utilized by the poets, such as Milton, Pope and
Tennyson. In modern zoology it is the name given to the
main genus of a family of worm-shaped lizards, most of which
inhabit the tropical parts of America, the West Indies and
Africa. The commonest species in South America and the
Antilles is the sooty or dusky A. fuliginosa. The body of
the amphisbaena, from 18 to 20 in. long, is of nearly the
same thickness throughout. The head is small, and there can
scarcely be said to be a tail, the vent being close to the
extremity of the body. The animal lives mostly underground,
burrowing in soft earth, and feeds on ants and other small
animals. From its appearance, and the ease with which it
moves backwards, has arisen the popular belief that the
amphisbaena has two heads, and that when the body is cut in
two the parts seek each other out and reunite. From this has
arisen another popular error, which attributes extraordinary
curative properties to its flesh when dried and pulverized.
AMPHITHEATRE (Gr. amfi, around, and theatron, a
place for spectators), a building in which the seats for
spectators surround the scene of the performance. The
word was doubtless coined by the Greeks of Campania, since
it was here that the gladiatorial shows for which the
amphitheatre was primarily used were first organized as public
spectacles. The earliest building of the kind still extant
is that at Pompeii, built after 80 B.C. It is called
spectacula in a contemporary inscription. The word
amphitheatrum is first found in writers of the Augustan age.
In Italy, combats of gladiators at first took place in the
forums, where temporary wooden scaffoldings were erected for
the spectators; and Vitruvius gives this as the reason why in
that country the forums were in the shape of a parallelogram
instead of being squares as in Greece. Wild beasts were
also hunted in the circus. But towards the end of the Roman
republic, when the shows increased both in frequency and in
costliness, special buildings began to be provided for them.
The first amphitheatre at Rome was that constructed, 59 B.C.,
by C. Scribonius Curio. Pliny tells us that Curio built two
wooden theatres, which were placed back to back, and that after
the dramatic representations were finished, they were turned
round, with all the spectators in them, so as to make one
circular theatre, in the centre of which gladiators fought;
but the story is incredible, and must have arisen from the
false translation of amfitheatron by ``double theatre.''
It is uncertain whether Caesar, in 46 B.C., constructed a
temporary amphitheatre of wood for his shows of wild beasts;
at any rate, the first permanent amphitheatre was built by
C. Statilius Taurus in 20 B.C. Probably the shell only
was of stone. It was burnt in the great fire of A.D. 64.
We hear of an amphitheatre begun by Caligula and of a wooden
structure raised in the year A.D. 57 by Nero; but these
were superseded by the Amphitheatrum Flavium (known at
least since the 8th century as the Colosseum, from its
colossal size), which was begun by Vespasian on the site of
an artificial lake included in the Golden House of Nero, and
inaugurated by Titus in A.D. 80 with shows lasting one hundred
days. It was several times restored by the emperors, having
been twice struck by lightning in the 3rd century and twice
damaged by earthquake in the 5th. Gladiatorial shows were
suppressed by Honorius in A.D. 404, and wild beast shows
are not recorded after the reign of Theodoric (d. A.D.
526). In the 8th century Bede wrote Quamdiu stabit Coliseus,
stabit et Roma; quando cadet Coliseus, cadet et Roma. A
large part of the western arcades seem to have collapsed in the
earthquake of A.D. 1349, and their remains were used in the
Renaissance as a quarry for building materials (e.g. for the
Palazzo di Venezia, the Cancelleria and the Palazzo Farnese).
Rome possesses the remains of a second amphitheatre on the
Esquiline, called by the chronologist of A.D. 354 Amphitheatrum
Castrense, which probably means the ``court'' or ``imperial''
amphitheatre. Its fine brickwork seems to date from Trajan's
reign. It was included by Aurelian in the circuit of his
wall. The remains of numerous amphitheatres exist in the
various provinces of the empire. The finest are--in Italy,
those of Verona (probably of the Flavian period), Capua (built
under Hadrian) and Pozzuoli; in France, at Nimes, Arles and
Frejus; in Spain, at Italica (near Seville); in Tunisia, at
Thysdrus (El-Jem); and at Pola, in Dalmatia. The builders
often took advantage of natural features, such as a depression
between hills; and ruder structures, mainly consisting of
banked-up earth, are found, e.g. at Silchester (Calleva).
The amphitheatre at Pompeii (length 444ft., breadth 342 ft.,
seating capacity 20,000) is formed by a huge embankment of
earth supported by a retaining wall and high buttresses carrying
arches. The stone seats (of which there are thirty-five rows
in three divisions) were only gradually constructed as the
means of the community allowed. Access to the highest seats
was given by external staircases, and there was no system
of underground chambers for wild beasts, combatants, &c.
In contrast to this simple structure the Colosseum represents
the most elaborate type of amphitheatre created by the architects
of the empire. Its external elevation consisted of four
storeys. The three lowest had arcades whose piers were
adorned with engaged columns of the three Greek orders. The
arches numbered eighty. Those of the basement storey served
as entrances; seventy-six were numbered and allotted to the
general body of spectators, those at the extremities of the
major axis led into the arena, and the boxes reserved for
the emperor and the presiding magistrate were approached from
the extremities of the minor axis. The higher arcades had a
low parapet with (apparently) a statue in each arch, and gave
light and air to the passages which surrounded the building.
The openings of the arcades above the principal entrances
were larger than the rest, and were adorned with figures of
chariots. The highest stage was composed of a continuous
wall of masonry, pierced by forty small square windows, and
adorned with Corinthian pilasters. There was also a series of
brackets to support the poles on which the awning was stretched.
The interior may be naturally divided into the arena and the cavea
(see annexed plan, which shows the Colosseum at two different levels).
The arena was the portion assigned to the combatants,
and derived its name from the sand with which it was
strewn, to absorb the blood and prevent it from becoming
slippery. Some of the emperors showed their prodigality
by substituting precious powders, and even gold dust, for
sand. The arena was generally of the same shape as the
amphitheatre itself, and was separated from the spectators
by a wall built perfectly smooth, that the wild beasts might
not by any possibility climb it. At Rome it was faced inside
with polished marble, but at Pompeii it was simply painted.
For further security, it was surrounded by a metal railing or
network, and the arena was sometimes surrounded also by a ditch
(euripus), especially on account of the elephants. Below
the arena were subterranean chambers and passages, from which
wild beasts and gladiators were raised on movable platforms
(pegmata) through trap-doors. Such chambers have been found
in the amphitheatres of Capua and Pozzuoli as well as in the
Colosseum. Means were also provided by which the arena could
be flooded when a sea-fight (naumachia) was exhibited,
as was done by Titus at the inauguration of the Colosseum.
The part assigned to the spectators was called cavea. It was
divided into several galleries (maeniana) concentric with
the outer walls, and therefore, like them, of an elliptical
form. The place of honour was the lowest of these, nearest to
the arena, and called the podium. The divisions in it were
larger, so as to be able to contain movable seats. At Rome
it was here that the emperor sat, his box bearing the name of
suggestus, cubiculum or pulvinar. The senators, principal
magistrates, vestal virgins, the provider (editor) of the
show, and other persons of note, occupied the rest of the
podium. At Nimes, besides the high officials of the town,
the podium had places assigned to the principal gilds,
whose names are still seen inscribed upon it, with the number
of places reserved for each. In the Colosseum there were
three maeniana above the podium, separated from each
other by terraces (praecinctiones) and walls (baltei),
and divided vertically into wedge-shaped blocks (cunei) by
stairs. The lowest was appropriated to the equestrian
order, the highest was covered in with a portico, whose
roof formed a terrace on which spectators found standing
room. Numerous passages (vomitoria) and small stairs
gave access to them; while long covered corridors, behind
and below them, served for shelter in the event of rain.
At Pompeii each place was numbered, and elsewhere their
extent is defined by little marks cut in the stone. The
spectators were admitted by tickets (tesserae), and order
preserved by a staff of officers appointed for the purpose.
The height of the Colosseum is about 160 ft.; but the fourth
storey in its present form is not earlier in date than the
3rd century A.D. It seems to have been originally of wood,
since an inscription of the year A.D. 80 mentions the summum
maenianum in ligneis. It is stated in the Notitia Urbis
Romae (4th century) that the Colosseum contained 87,000
places; but Huelsen calculates that the seats would accommodate
45,000 persons at most, besides whom 5000 could find standing
room. The exaggerated estimate is due to the fact that
space was allotted to corporate bodies, whose numbers were
taken as data. The greatest length is about 615 ft., and
the length of the shorter axis of the ellipse about 510
ft. The dimensions of the arena were 281 ft. by 177 ft.
The following table, giving the dimensions of some
of the principal amphitheatres, is based mainly
on the figures given by Friedlander (l.c.):--
|----------------------|---------------------|--------------------|
| | ENTIRE BUILDING. | ARENA. |
| |---------|-----------|----------|---------|
| | Greater | Shorter | Greater | Shorter |
| | Axis. | Axis. | Axis. | Axis. |
| |---------|-----------|----------|---------|
| Rome (Colosseum) | 615 | 510 1/2 | 281 | 177 |
| Capua | 557 | 458 | 250 | 148 |
| Julia Caesarea | 551 | 289 | 459 | 197 |
|Italica (Seville) | 514 | 439 1/2 | . . | . . |
| Verona | 502 1/2| 403 | 248 | 145 1/2 |
| Thysdrus | 488 | 406 | 308 | 197 |
| Tarraco | 486 | 390 | 277 | 181 |
| Pozzuoli | 482 | 383 | 236 1/2 | 137 3/4 |
| Tours | 472 | 406 | 223 | 98 1/2 |
| Pola | 449 1/2| 367 1/2 | 230 | 144 1/2 |
| Arles | 448 | 352 | 229 | 129 |
| Pompeii | 444 | 342 | 218 1/2 | 115 |
| Nimes | 440 | 336 | 227 | 126 1/2 |
|----------------------|---------|-----------|----------|---------|
BIBLIOGRPHY.--Arts. ``Amphitheatrum'' in Smith's Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 1890), and in Daremberg
and Saglio's Dictionnaire des antiquites; Friedlander,
Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (6th ed., 1888-1890),
vol. ii. pp. 551-620; Durm, Geschichte der Baukunst, II.2
(1905), 360 ff. Of older works, J. Lipsius, De Amphitheatris
(1585): Carlo Fontana, L'Anfiteatro Flavio (1725); and
Maffei, Verona Illustrata, vol. ii. (1826), are worthy of
mention. For the amphitheatre at Pompeii, see Mau-Kelsey.
Pompeii, its Life and Art (2nd ed. 1904), chap. 30; for
the Colosseum, Middleton, Remains of Ancient Rome, ii.
pp. 78-110, and Huelsen's art. ``Flavium Amphitheatrum''
in Pauly-Wossowa, Realencyclopadie. (H. S. J.)
AMPHITRITE, in ancient Greek mythology, a sea-goddess,
daughter of Nereus (or Oceanus) and wife of Poseidon. She
was so entirely confined in her authority to the sea and
the creatures in it, that she was never associated with
her husband either for purposes of worship or in works of
art, except when he was to be distinctly regarded as the
god who controlled the sea. She was one of the Nereids,
and distinguishable from the others only by her queenly
attributes. It was said that Poseidon saw her first dancing
at Naxos among the other Noreids, and carried her off (Schol.
on Od. iii. 91). But in another version of the myth, she
then fled from him to the farthest ends of the sea, where
the dolphin of Poseidon found her, and was rewarded by being
placed among the stars (Eratosthenes, Catast. 31). In works
of art she is represented either enthroned beside him, or
driving with him in a chariot drawn by sea-horses or other
fabulous creatures of the deep, and attended by Tritons and
Nereids. In poetry her name is often used for the sea.
AMPHITRYON, in Greek mythology, son of Alcaeus, king of
Tiryns in Argolis. Having accidentally killed his uncle
Electryon, king of Mycenae, he was driven out by another uncle,
Sthenelus. He fled with Alcmene, Electryon's daughter, to
Thebes, where he was cleansed from the guilt of blood by
Creon, his maternal uncle, king of Thebes. Alcmene, who
had been betrothed to Amphitryon by her father, refused to
marry him until he had avenged the death of her brothers,
all of whom except one had fallen in battle against the
Taphians. It was on his return from this expedition that
Electryon had been killed. Amphitryon accordingly took the
field against the Taphians, accompanied by Creon, who had
agreed to assist him on condition that he slew the Teumessian
fox which had been sent by Dionysus to ravage the country.
The Taphians, however, remained invincible until Comaetho,
the king's daughter, out of love for Amphitryon cut off her
father's golden hair, the possession of which rendered him
immortal. Having defeated the enemy, Amphitryon put Comaetho
to death and handed over the kingdom of the Taphians to
Cephalus. On his return to Thebes he married Alcmene, who
gave birth to twin sons, Iphicles being the son of Amphitryon,
Heracles of Zeus, who had visited her during Amphitryon's
absence. He fell in battle against the Minyans, against
whom he had undertaken an expedition, accompanied by the
youthful Heracles, to deliver Thebes from a disgraceful
tribute. According to Euripides (Hercules Furens) he
survived this expedition, and was slain by his son in his
madness. Amphitryon was the title of a lost tragedy of
Sophocles; the episode of Zeus and Alcmene forms the subject
of comedies by Plautus and Moliere. From Moliere's line
``Le veritable Amphitryon est l'Amphitryon ou l'on dine''
(Amphitryon, iii. 5), the name Amphitryon has come to be
used in the sense of a generous entertainer, a good host.
Apollodorus ii. 4; Herodotus v. 59; Pausanias viii. 14, ix,
10, 11, 17; Hesiod, Shield, 1-56; Pindar, Pythia, ix. 81.
AMPHORA (a Latin word from Gr. amforeus, derived from
amfi, on both sides, and ferein, to bear), a large
big-bellied vessel used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for
preserving wine, oil, honey, and fruits; and in later times
as a cinerary urn. It was so named from usually having an
ear or handle on each side of the neck (diota.) It was
commonly made of earthenware, but sometimes of stone, glass
or even more costly materials. Amphorae either rested on a
foot, or ended in a point so that they had to be fixed in the
ground. The older amphorae were oval-shaped, such as the vases
filled with oil for prizes at the Panathenaic festival, having
on one side a figure of Athena, on the other a representation
of the contest; the latter were tall and slender, with voluted
handles. The first class exhibits black figures on a reddish
background, the second red figures on a black ground. The
amphora was a standard measure of capacity among both Greeks
and Romans, the Attic containing nearly nine gallons, and
the Roman about six. In modern botany it is a technical
term sometimes denoting the lower part of the capsule called
pyxidium, attached to the flower stalk in the form of an urn.
AMPLIATIVE (from Lat. ampliare, to enlarge), an adjective
used mainly in logic, meaning ``extending,' or ``adding to that
which is already known.'' In Norman law an ``ampliation'' was a
postponement of a sentence in order to obtain further evidence.
AMPLITUDE (from Lat. amplus, large), in astronomy, the
angular distance of the rising or setting sun, or other heavenly
body, from the east or west point of the horizon; used mostly
by navigators in finding the variation of the compass by the
setting sun. In algebra, if a be a real positive quantity
and o a root of unity, then a is the amplitude of the
product ao. In elliptic integrals, the amplitude is
the limit of integration when the integral is expressed in
the form $\int_0^\phi\sqrt{1-N^2\sin^2\phi}d\phi$. The
hyperbolic or Gudermannian amplitude of the quantity
x is tan-1 (sinh x.) In mechanics, the amplitude
of a wave is the maximum ordinate. (See WAVE.)
AMPSANCTUS, or AMSANCTUS (mod. Sorgente Mefita), a
small lake in the territory of the Hirpini, IO m. S.E.
of Aeclanum, close to the Via Appia. There are now two
small pools which exhale carbonic acid gas and sulphuretted
hydrogen. Close by was a temple of the goddess Mephitis,
with a cave from which suffocating vapours rose, and for
this reason the place was brought into connexion with the
legends of the infernal regions. Virgil's description
(Aeneid, vii. 563) is not, however, very accurate.
AMPTHILL, ODO WILLIAM LEOPOLD RUSSELL, 1ST BARON (1829-1884),
British diplomatist and ambassador, was born in Florence on
the 20th of February 1829. He was the son of Major- General
Lord George William Russell, by Elizabeth Ann, niece of the
marquess of Hastings, who was governor-general of India during
the final struggle with the Mahrattas. His education, like
that of his two brothers--Hastings, who became eventually
9th duke of Bedford, and Arthur, who sat for a generation in
the House of Commons as member for Tavistock--was carried on
entirely at home, under the general direction of his mother,
whose beauty was celebrated by Byron in Beppo. Lady William
Russell was as strong-willed as she was beautiful, and certainly
deserved to be described as she was by Disraeli, who said in
conversation, ``I think she is the most fortunate woman in
England, for she has the three nicest sons.'' If it had not
been for her strong will it is as likely as not that all
the three would have gone through the usual mill of a public
school, and have lost half their very peculiar charm. In
March 1849 Odo was appointed by Lord Malmesbury attache at
Vienna. From 1850 to 1852 he was temporarily employed in the
foreign office, whence he passed to Paris. He remained there,
however, only about two months, when he was transferred to
Vienna. In 1853 he became second paid attache at Paris,
and in August 1854 he was transferred as first paid attache
to Constantinople, where he served under Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe. He had charge of the embassy during his chief's
two visits to the Crimea in 1855, but left the East to work
under Lord Napier at Washington in 1857. In the following
year he became secretary of legation at Florence, but was
detached from that place to reside in Rome, where he remained
for twelve years, till August 1870. During all that period
he was the real though unofficial representative of England
at the Vatican, and his consummate tact enabled him to do
all, and more than all, that an ordinary man could have
done in a stronger position. A reference, however, to his
evidence before a committee of the House of Commons in 1871
will make it clear to any unprejudiced reader that those were
right who, during the early 'fifties, urged so strongly the
importance of having a duly accredited agent at the papal
court. The line taken by him during the Vatican council
has been criticized, but no fault can justly be found with
it. Abreast as he was of the best thought of his time--the
brother of Arthur Russell, who, more perhaps than any other
man, was its most ideal representative in London society--he
sympathized strongly with the views of those who laboured
to prevent the extreme partisans of papal infallibility from
having everything their own way. But in his capacity of
clear-headed observer, whose business it was to reflect the
actual truth upon the mind of his government, he was obliged
to make it quite clear that they had no chance whatever,
and in conversing with those whose opinions were quite
unlike his own, such as Cardinal Manning, he seems to have
shown that he had no illusions about the result of the long
debate. In 1868 Odo Russell married Lady Emily Theresa
Villiers, the daughter of Lord Clarendon. In 1870 he was
appointed assistant under-secretary at the foreign office, and
in November of that year was sent on a special mission to the
headquarters of the German army, where he remained till 1871.
It was in connexion with this mission that an episode occurred
which at the time threw much discredit upon Gladstone's
government. Russia had taken advantage of the collapse of
France and her own cordial relations with Prussia to denounce
the Black Sea clauses of the treaty of Paris of 1856. Russell,
in an interview with Bismarck, pointed out that unless Russia
withdrew from an attitude which involved the destruction of
a treaty solemnly guaranteed by the powers, Great Britain
would be forced to go to war ``with or without allies.'' This
strong attitude was effective, and the question was ultimately
referred to and settled by the conference which met at London in
1871. Though the result was to score a distinct diplomatic
success for the Liberal government, the bellicose method
employed wounded Liberal sentiment and threatened to create
trouble for the ministry in parliament. On the 16th of February
1871, accordingly, Gladstone, in answer to a question, said
that ``the argument used by Mr Odo Russell was not one which
had been directed by her Majesty's government,'' that it was
used by him ``without any specific instructions or authority
from the government,'' but that, at the same time, no blame
was to be attached to him, as it was ``perfectly well known
that the duty of diplomatic agents requires them to express
themselves in that mode in which they think they can best
support and recommend the propositions of which they wish to
procure acceptance.'' This Gladstonian explanation was widely
criticized as an illegitimate attack on Russell. What is
certain is that the foreign office and the country profited
by Russell's firmness. (See Morley's Gladstone, ii. 534.)
A little later in the same year he received the well-deserved
reward of his labours by being made ambassador at Berlin.
During the months he passed at the foreign office he was
examined before the committee of the House of Commons, already
alluded to, and had an opportunity of stating very distinctly
in public some of his views with regard to his profession.
``If you could only organize diplomacy properly,'' he said,
``you would create a body of men who might influence the
destinies of mankind and ensure the peace of the world.'' In
these words we have the key to the thought and habitual action
of one of the best and wisest public servants of the time.
Russell remained at Berlin, with only brief intervals of
absence, from the 16th of October 1871 till his death at Potsdam
on the 25th of August 1884. He was third plenipotentiary at
the Berlin congress, and is generally credited with having
prevented, by his tact and good sense, the British prime
minister from making a speech in French, which he knew very
imperfectly and pronounced abominably. In 1874 Odo Russell
received a patent of precedence raising him to the rank of a
duke's son, and after the congress of Berlin he was offered
a peerage by the Conservative government. This he naturally
declined, but accepted the honour in 1881 when it was offered
by the Liberals, taking the title of Baron Ampthill. He became
a privy councillor in 1872 and was made a G.C.B. somewhat
later. At the conference about the Greek frontier, which
followed the congress of Berlin, he was the only British
representative. During all his long sojourn in the Prussian
capital, he did everything that in him lay to bring about
close and friendly relations between Great Britain and
Germany. He kept on the best of terms with Bismarck, carefully
avoiding everything that could give any cause of offence to
that most jealous and most unscrupulous minister, whom he,
however, did not hesitate to withstand when his unscrupulousness
went the length of deliberately attempting to deceive.
He was succeeded as 2nd baron by his son, ARTHUR OLIVER
VILLIERS RUSSELL (b. 1869), who rowed in the Oxford
eight (1889, 1890, 1891) and became a prominent Unionist
politician. He was private secretary to Mr Chamberlain,
1895-1897, and governor of Madras, 1899-1906. In 1904
he acted temporarily as Viceroy of India. (M. G. D.)
AMPTHILL, a market town in the northern parliamentary division
of Bedfordshire, England, 44 m. N.N.W. of London by the Midland
railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2177. It lies on
the southern slope of a low range of hills, in a well-wooded
district. The church of St Andrew ranges in date from Early
English to Perpendicular. It contains a monument to Richard
Nicolls (1624-1672), who, under the patronage of the duke of
York, brother to Charles II., to whom the king had granted
the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland, received
the submission of its chief town, New Amsterdam, in 1664,
and became its first English governor, the town taking the
name of New York. Nicolls perished in the action between
the English and Dutch fleets at Solebay, and the ball which
killed him is preserved on his tomb. Houghton Park, in the
vicinity, contains the ruins of Houghton House, built by
Mary, countess of Pembroke, in the time of James I. To
this countess Sir Philip Sidney dedicated the Arcadia.
Ampthill Park became in 1818 the seat of that Lord Holland
in whose time Holland House, in Kensington, London, became
famous as a resort of the most distinguished intellectual
society. In the park a cross marks the site of Ampthill
Castle, the residence of Catherine of Aragon while her divorce
from Henry VIII. was pending. A commemorative inscription
on the cross was written by Horace Walpole. Brewing,
straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in Ampthill.
AMPULLA (either a diminutive of amphora, or from Lat.
ambo, both, and olla, a pot), a small, narrow-necked,
round-bodied vase for holding liquids, especially oil and
perfumes. It is the Latin term equivalent to the Greek
lekuthos. It was used in ancient times for toilet purposes
and anointing the bodies of the dead, being then buried with
them. Gildas mentions the use of ampullae as established
among the Britons in his time, and St Columba is said to have
employed one in the coronation of King Aidan. Both the name
and the function of the ampulla have survived in the Western
Church, where it still signifies the vessel containing the
oil consecrated by the bishop for ritual uses, especially in
the sacraments of Confirmation, Orders and Extreme Unction.
The word occurs repeatedly in the service of coronation of
the English sovereign in connexion with the ancient ceremony
of anointing by the archbishop of Canterbury, which is still
observed. The ampulla of the regalia of England takes the form
of a golden eagle with outspread wings. The most celebrated
ampulla in history was that known as la sainte ampoule, in the
abbey of St Remi at Reims, from which the kings of France were
anointed. According to the legend it had been brought from
heaven by a dove for the coronation of Clovis, and at one period
the kings of France claimed precedence over all other sovereigns
on account of it. It was destroyed at the Revolution. The
word ``ampulla'' is used in biology, by analogy from the shape,
for a certain portion of the anatomy of a plant or animal.
AMRAM (d. 875), a famous gaon or head of the Jewish
Academy of Sura (Persia) in the 9th century. He was author
of many ``Responsa,'' but his chief work was liturgical.
He was the first to arrange a complete liturgy for the
synagogue, and his Prayer-Book (Siddur Rab `Amram) was
the foundation of most of the extant rites in use among the
Jews. The Siddur was published in Warsaw in two parts (1865).
AMRAOTI, or UMRAWATTEE, a town and district of India, in
Berar, Central Provinces. The district was reconstituted
in 1905, when that of Ellichpur was incorporated with
it. The town has a station 6 m. from Badnera junction on
the Great Indian Peninsula line. Pop. (1901) 34,216, showing
an increase of 22% in the decade. It is the richest town of
Berar, with the most numerous and substantial commercial
population. It possesses a branch of the Bank of Bombay,
and has the largest cotton mart, where an average of 80,593
bojas of cotton are bought and sold annually. It has also a
large grain market, cotton presses, ginning factories and oil
mills. Amraoti raw cotton is quoted on the Liverpool Exchange.
The district of Amraoti has an area of 4754 sq. m. In 1901
the population was 630,245, showing a decrease of 4% in the
decade; on the area as now constituted it was 809,499. The
district is an extensive plain, about 800 ft. above sea-level,
the general flatness being only broken by a small chain of
hills, running in a north-westerly direction between Amraoti
and Chandor, with an average height from 400 to 500 ft.
above the lowlands. The principal towns, besides Amraoti,
are Karinja, Kolapur, and Badnera, which lies on the Great
Indian Peninsula railway, the main line of which crosses the
district. Severe drought visited Amraoti in 1899-1900.
AMRAVATI, or AMARAVATI, a ruined city of India in the
Guntur district of the Madras presidency, on the south
bank of the Kistna river, 62 m. from its mouth. The town
is of great interest for the antiquary as one of the chief
centres of the Buddhist kingdom of Vengi, and for its stupa
(sepulchral monument). Amravati has been identified with
Hsuan Tsang's To-na-kie-tse-kia and with the Rahmi of Arab
geographers. Subsequent to the disappearance of Buddhism
from this region the town became a centre of the Sivaite
faith. When Hsuan Tsang visited Amravati in A.D. 639
it had already been deserted for a century, but he speaks
in glowing terms of its magnificence and beauty. Very
careful and artistic representations of the stupa with its
daghoba and interesting rail, pillars and sculptures will
be found in Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, and in
his History of Indian Architecture (1876). Its elaborate
carvings illustrate the life of Buddha. Some are preserved
in the British Museum; others in the museum at Madras.
An account by Dr James Burgess was published in 1877 as one
of the volumes of the Archaeological Survey of Southern India.
`AMR-IBN-EL-ASS, or `AMR (strictly `AMR B. `AS), one
of the most famous of the first race of the Saracen leaders,
was of the tribe of Koreish (Qureish). In his youth he was
an antagonist of Mahomet. His zeal prompted him to undertake
an embassy to the king of Ethiopia, in order to stimulate him
against the converts whom he had taken under his protection,
but he returned a convert to the Mahommedan faith and joined
the fugitive prophet at Medina. When Abu Bekr resolved to
invade Syria, he entrusted `Amr with a high command. `Amr soon
perceived that his troops were not sufficient for a serious
battle. Reinforced by Khalid b. al-Walid, whom Abu Bekr
sent in all haste from Irak to Syria, he defeated the imperial
troops, commanded by Theodorus, the brother of Heraclius,
not far from Ramleh in Palestine, on the 31st of July 634.
When Omar became caliph he made Khalid chief commander of
the Syrian armies, `Amr remaining in Palestine to complete
the submission of that province. It is not certain that `Amr
assisted Khalid in the siege of Damascus, but very probable
that he took part in the decisive battle of Yarmuk, 20th of
August 636. After this battle he laid siege to Jerusalem, in
which enterprise he was seconded a year later by Abu Obeida,
then chief commander. After the surrender of Jerusalem `Amr
began the siege of Caesarea, which, however, was brought to
a successful end in September or October 640 by Moawiya, `Amr
having obtained Omar's sanction for an expedition against
Egypt. Towards the end of 639 he led an army of 4000 Arabs
into that country. During his march a messenger from Omar
arrived with a letter containing directions to return if he
should have received it in Syria, but if in Egypt to advance,
in which case all needful assistance would be instantly sent to
him. The contents of the letter were not made known to his
officers until he was assured that the army was on Egyptian
soil, so that the expedition might be continued under the
sanction of Omar's orders. Having taken Farama (Pelusium), he
advanced to Misr, north of the ancient Memphis, and besieged
it and the strong fortress of Babylon for seven months.
Although numerous reinforcements arrived, he would have found
it very difficult to storm the place previous to the inundation
of the Nile but for treachery within the citadel; the Greeks
who remained there were either made prisoners or put to the
sword. On the same spot `Amr built a city named Fostat (``the
encampment''), the ruins of which are known by the name of Old
Cairo. The mosque which he erected and called by his own
name is described in Asiatic Journal (1890), p. 759. `Amr
pursued the Greeks to Alexandria, but finding that it was
impossible to take the place by storm, he contented himself with
blockading it with the greater part of his army, and reducing
the Delta to submission with the rest. At the end of twelve
months Alexandria sued for peace, and a treaty was signed on
the 8th of November 641. To `Amr acting on Omar's command has
been attributed the burning of the famous Alexandrian library.
(See LIBRARIES and ALEXANDRIA.) Not only is this act of
barbarism inconsistent with the characters of Omar and his
general, but the earliest authority for the story is Abulfaragius
(Barhebraeus), a Christian writer, who lived six centuries
later. After the conquest of Egypt `Amr carried his conquests
eastward along the North African coast as far as Barca and even
Tripolis. His administration of Egypt was moderate and
statesmanlike, and under his rule the produce of the Nile
Valley was a constant source of supply to the cities of
Arabia. He even reopened a canal at least 80 m. long
from the Nile to the Red Sea with the object of renewing
communication by sea. Removed from his office by Othman in
647, who replaced him by Ibn abi Sarh, he sided with Moawiya
in the contest for the caliphate, and was largely responsible
for the deposition of Ali (q.v.) and the establishment of
the Omayyad dynasty. (See CALIPHATE, section B.) In 658 he
reconquered Egypt in Moawiya's interest, and governed it till
his death on the 6th of January 664. In a pathetic speech
to his children on his deathbed, he bitterly lamented his
youthful offence in opposing the prophet, although Mahomet had
forgiven him and had frequently affirmed that ``there was no
Mussulman more sincere and steadfast in the faith than `Amr.''
Sir W. Muir, The Caliphate (London, 1891); E. Gibbon,s
Decline and Fall; M. J. de Goeje, Memoire sur la conquete
de la Syrie (Leiden, 1900); Butler, Arab Conquest of Egypt
(Oxford, 1902); art. EGYPT, History, Mahommedan Period.
`AMR IBN KULTHUM, Arabian poet, author of one of the
Mo`allakat. Little or nothing is known of his life save that he
was a member of the tribe of Taghlib and that he is said to have
died of excessive wine-drinking. Some stories of him are told
in the Book of Songs (see ABULFARAJ), vol. ix. pp. 181-185.
AMRITSAR, or UMRITSAR, a city and district of British
India, in the Lahore division of the Punjab. The city has a
station on the North Western railway 32 m. E. of Lahore, its
position on which has greatly assisted its development. Amritsar
is chiefly notable as the centre of the Sikh religion and the
site of the Golden Temple, the chief worshipping place of the
Sikhs. Ram Das, the fourth guru, laid the foundations of
the city upon a site granted by the emperor Akbar. He also
excavated the holy tank from which the town derives its name
of Amrita Turas, or Pool of Immortality. It is upon a small
island in the middle of this tank that the Golden Temple is now
situated. About two centuries afterwards, in the course of
the struggle between the Sikhs and the Mahommedans, Ahmad
Shah Durani routed the Sikhs at the great battle of Panipat,
and on his homeward march he destroyed the town of Amritsar,
blew up the temple with gunpowder, filled in the sacred tank
with mud, and defiled the holy place by the slaughter of
cows. But when Ahmad Shah returned to Kabul the Sikhs rose
once more and re-established their religion. Finally the
city and surrounding district fell under the sway of Ranjit
Singh at Lahore, and passed with the rest of the Punjab
into the possession of the British after the second Sikh
war. The Golden Temple is so called on account of its copper
dome, covered with gold foil, which shines brilliantly
in the rays of the Indian sun, and is reflected back from
the waters of the lake; but the building as a whole is
too squat to have much architectural merit apart from its
ornamentation. Marble terraces and balustrades surround the
tank, and a marble causeway leads across the water to the
temple, whose gilded walls, roof, dome and cupolas, with
vivid touches of red curtains, are reflected in the still
water. The temple was considerably enriched by the spoils
taken by Ranjit Singh in his conquests. The population of
Amritsar in 1901 was 162,429. A Sikh college for university
education was opened in 1897. The other public buildings
include two churches, a town hall and a hospital. Amritsar
is famous for its carpet-weaving industry. It was the first
mission station of the church of England in the Punjab.
The district is bounded on the N.W. by the river Ravi, on
the S.E. by the river Beas, on the N.E. by the district of
Gurdaspur, and on the S.W. by the district of Lahore. Amritsar
district is a nearly level plain, with a very slight slope
from east to west. The banks of the Beas are high, and on
this side of the district well-water is not found except at
50 ft. below the surface; while towards the Ravi wells are
less than 20 ft. in depth. The only stream passing through
the district is the Kirni or Saki, which takes its rise
in a marsh in the Gurdaspur district, and after traversing
part of the district empties itself into the Ravi. Numerous
canals intersect the district, affording ample means of
irrigation. The Sind, Punjab and Delhi railway (North Western)
and Grand Trunk road, which runs parallel with it, afford
the principal means of land communication and traffic. The
area of the district is 1601 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 1,023,828,
showing an increase of 3% on the previous decade. It is the
headquarters of the Sikh religion, containing 264,329 Sikhs as
against 280,985 Hindus and 474,976 Mahommedans. The principal
crops are wheat, pulse, maize, millet, with some cotton and
sugar-cane. There are factories for ginning and pressing cotton.
AMROHA, a town of British India, in the Moradabad
district of the United Provinces. It contains the tomb
of a Mahommedan saint, Shaikh Saddu, and has been for
many centuries a Mahommedan centre. Pop. (1901) 40,077.
AMRUM, or AMROM, a German island in the North Sea,
off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein to the south of
Sylt. Pop. (1900) 900. It is 6 m. long and 3 m. broad, with
an area of 10 1/2 sq. m., and is reached from the mainland
by a regular steamboat service to Wittdun, a favourite
sea-bathing resort; or at low water by carriage from
Fohr. The larger part of Amrum consists of a treeless
sandy expanse, but a fringe of rich marshes affords good
pasture-land. The principal place is Nebel, connected by a
light railway with Wittdun. (See also FRISIAN ISLANDS.)
AMRU'-UL-QAIS, or IMRU'-UL QAIS, IBN HUJR, Arabian
poet of the 6th century, the author of one of the Mo`allaat
(q.v.), was regarded by Mahomet and others as the most
distinguished poet of pre-Islamic times. He was of the kingly
family of Kinda, and his mother was of the tribe of Taghlib.
While he was still young, his father was killed by the Bani
Asad. After this his life was devoted to the attempt to
avenge his father's death. He wandered from tribe to tribe
to gain assistance, but his attempts were always foiled by
the persistent following of the messengers of Mundhir of Hira
(Hira). At last he went to the Jewish Arabian prince,
Samu`al, left his daughter and treasure with him, and
by means of Harith of Ghassan procured an introduction
to the Byzantine emperor Justinian. After a long stay
in Constantinople he was named phylarch of Palestine, and
received a body of troops from Justin II. With these he
started on his way to Arabia. It is said that a man of Asad,
who had followed him to Constantinople, charged him before
the emperor with the seduction of a princess, and that Justin
sent him a poisoned cloak, which caused his death at Ancyra.
His poems are contained in W. Ahlwardt's The Divans of
the six ancient Arabic Poets (London, 1870), and have
been published separately in M`G. de Slane's Le Diwan
d'Amro'lkais (Paris, 1837); a German version with life and
notes in F. Ruckert's Amrilkais der Dichter und Konig
(Stuttgart, 1843). Many stories of his life are told in
the Kitab ul-Aghani, vol. viii. pp. 62-77. (G. W. T.)
AMSDORF, NICOLAUS VON (1483-1565), German Protestant
reformer, was born on the 3rd of December 1483 at Torgau, on the
Elbe. He was educated at Leipzig, and then at Wittenberg,
where he was one of the first who matriculated (1502) in
the recently founded university. He soon obtained various
academical honours, and became professor of theology in
1511. Like Andreas Carlstadt, he was at first a leading
exponent of the older type of scholastic theology, but
under the influence of Luther abandoned his Aristotelian
positions for a theology based on the Augustinian doctrine of
grace. Throughout his life he remained one of Luther's most
determined supporters; was with him at the Leipzig conference
(1519), and the diet of Worms (1521); and was in the secret
of his Wartburg seclusion. He assisted the first efforts
of the Reformation at Magdeburg (1524), at Goslar (1531)
and at Einbeck (1534); took an active part in the debates
at Schmalkalden (1537), where he defended the use of the
sacrament by the unbelieving; and (1539) spoke out strongly
against the bigamy of the landgrave of Hesse. After the
death of the count palatine, bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz, he was
installed there (January 20, 1542), though in opposition to the
chapter, by the elector of Saxony and Luther. His position
was a painful one, and he longed to get back to Magdeburg,
but was persuaded by Luther to stay. After Luther's death
(1546) and the battle of Muhlberg (1547) he had to yield to
his rival, Julius von Pflug, and retire to the protection of
the young duke of Weimar. Here he took part in founding Jena
University (1548); opposed the ``Augsburg Interim'' (1548);
superintended the publication of the Jena edition of Luther's
works; and debated on the freedom of the will, original sin,
and, more noticeably, on the Christian value of good works, in
regard to which he held that they were not only useless, but
prejudicial. He urged the separation of the High Lutheran
party from Melanchthon (1557), got the Saxon dukes to oppose
the Frankfort Recess (1558) and continued to fight for the
purity of Lutheran doctrine. He died at Eisenach on the
14th of May 1565, and was buried in the church of St George
there, where his effigy shows a well-knit frame and sharp-cut
features. He was a man of strong will, of great aptitude for
controversy, and considerable learning, and thus exercised
a decided influence on the Reformation. Many letters
and other short productions of his pen are extant in MS.,
especially five thick volumes of Amsdorfiana, in the Weimar
library. They are a valuable source for our knowledge of
Luther. A small sect, which adopted his opinion on good works,
was called after him; but it is now of mere historical interest.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Life, in Th. Pressel, Leben u. ausgewahlte
Schrift. der Vater der luth. Kirche, vol. viii.
(published separately Elberfeld, 1862, 8vo); J. Meier in
Das Leben der Altvater der luth. Kirche, vol, iii.
ed. M. Meurer (1863); art. by G. Kawerau in Herzog-Hauck,
Realencyk. fur prot. Theologie (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1896).
AMSLER, SAMUEL (1791-1849), Swiss engraver, was born at
Schinznach, in the canton of Aargau. He studied his art
under Johan Heinrich Lips (1758-1817) and Karl Ernst Hess, at
Munich, and from 1816 pursued it in Italy, and chiefly at
Rome, till in 1829 he succeeded his former master Hess as
professor of copper engraving in the Munich academy. The works
he designed and engraved are remarkable for the grace of the
figures, and for the wonderful skill with which he retains and
expresses the characteristics of the original paintings and
statues. He was a passionate admirer of Raphael, and had great
success in reproducing his works. Amsler's principal engravings
are: ``The Triumphal March of Alexander the Great,'' and a
full-length ``Christ,'' after the sculptures of Thorwaldsen and
Dannecker; the ``Entombment of Christ,'' and two ``Madonnas''
after Raphael; and the ``Union between Religion and the Arts,''
after Overbeck, his last Work, on which he spent six years.
AMSTERDAM, the chief city of Holland, in the province of
North Holland, on the south side of the Y or Ij, an arm of
the Zuider Zee, in 52 deg. 22`N. and 4 deg. 53' E. Pop. (1900)
523,557. It has communication by railway and canal in every
direction; steam-tramways connect it with Edam, Purmerend,
Alkmaar and Hilversum, and electric railways with Haarlem
and the sea-side resort of Zandvoort. Amsterdam, the ``dam
or dyke of the Amstel'', is so called from the Amstel, the
canalized river which passes through the city to the Y. Towards
the land the city is surrounded by a semicircular fosse or
canal, and was at one time regularly fortified; but the
ramparts have been demolished and are replaced by fine gardens
and houses, and only one gateway, the Muiderpoort, is still
standing. Within the city are four similar canals (grachten)
with their ends resting on the Y, extending in the form of
polygonal crescents nearly parallel to each other and to the
outer canal. Each of these canals marks the line of the city
walls and moat at different periods. Lesser canals intersect
the others radially, thus virtually dividing the city into a
number of islands; whence it has been compared with Venice.
The nucleus of the town lies within the innermost crescent
canal, and, with the large square, the Dam, in the centre,
represents the area of Amsterdam about the middle of the 14th
century. At one extremity of the enclosing canal is the
Schreijerstoren (1482) or ``Weepers' Tower,'' so called on
account of its being at the head of the ancient harbour,
and the scene in former days of sorrowful leave-takings.
Between this and the next crescent of the Heeren Gracht sprang
up, on the east, the labyrinthine quarter where for more
than three centuries the large Jewish population has been
located, and in the middle of which the painter Rembrandt
lived (1640-1656) and the philosopher Spinoza was born
(1632). Beyond the Heeren Gracht lie the Keizers Gracht and
the Prinsen Gracht respectively, and these three celebrated
canals, with their tree-bordered quays and plain but stately
old-fashioned houses, form the principal thoroughfares of the
city. West of the Prinsen Gracht lies the region called
De Jordaan, a corruption of Le Jardin, the name which it
acquired from the fact of its streets being called after
various flowers. It was formed by the settlement of
French refugees here after the revocation of the edict of
Nantes. The outermost crescent canal is called the Singel
Gracht (girdle canal), and marks the boundary of the city
at the end of the 17th century. The streets in the oldest
part of Amsterdam are often narrow and irregular, and the
sky-line is picturesquely broken by fantastic gables, roofs and
towers. The site of the city being originally a peat bog,
the foundations of the houses have to be secured by driving
long piles (4-20 yds.) into the firm clay below, the palace
on the Dam being supported on nearly 14,000 piles. As late
as 1822, however, an overladen corn magazine sank into the
mud. Modern Amsterdam extends southward beyond the Singel
Gracht, and here the houses are often very handsome, while
the broad streets are planted with rows of large trees. In
the middle of this new region lies the Vondel Park, named
after the great national poet Joost van den Vondel (d. 1679),
whose statue stands in the park. The Willems Park adjoining
was added in later times. In the older part of the town the
chief open space is the Zoological Gardens in the north-eastern
corner. They belong to a private society called Natura
Artis Magistra, and came into existence in 1838. They
have, however, been much enlarged since then, and bear a high
reputation. In connexion with the gardens there are an aquarium
(1882), a library, and an ethnographical and natural history
museum. Concerts are given here in summer as well as in
the Vondel Park. Close to the Zoological Gardens are the
Botanical Gardens, and a small park, also the property of
a private society, in which there is a variety theatre.
The public squares of the city include the Sophiaplein,
with the picturesque old mint-tower; the Rembrandtplein,
with a monument (1852) to the painter by Lodswyk Royer;
the Thorbeckeplein, with a monument to the statesman, J.
R. Thorbecke (1798-1872), and the Leidscheplein, with the
large town theatre, rebuilt in 1890-1894 after a fire.
Buildings and Institutions.--The Dam is the vital centre of
Amsterdam. All the tramways meet here, and some of the busiest
streets, and here too are situated the Nieuwe Kerk and the
palace. In the middle of the Dam stands a monument to
those who fell in the Belgian revolution of 1830-1831, and
called the Metal Cross after the war medals struck at that
time. The palace is an imposing building in the classical
style, originally built as a town-hall in 1648-1655 by the
architect Jacob van Kempen. It was first given up to royalty
on the occasion of the visit of the Stadtholder William V.
in 1768, and forty years later was appropriated as a royal
palace by Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland. But King William
I. afterwards formally returned the palace to the city, and
the sovereign is therefore actually the city's guest when
residing in it. Beautifully decorated on the exterior with
gable reliefs by Artus Quellinus (1609-1668) of Antwerp, its
great external defect is the absence of a grand entrance.
The architectural and ornamental sculpture of the interior
is mostly by the same artist, and there are a few interesting
pictures, as well as some realistic wall paintings by the
18th century artist Jacob de Wit similar to those in the
Huis ten Bosch near the Hague. The great hall is one of the
most splendid of its kind in Europe. Like most of the lesser
apartments, it is lined with white Italian marble, and in
spite of its enormous dimensions the roof is unsupported by
pillars. Ancient flags captured in war decorate the walls,
and in the middle of the marble floor is a representation
of the firmament inlaid in copper. The Nieuwe Kerk (St
Catherine's), in which the sovereigns of Holland are crowned,
is a fine Gothic building dating from 1408. Internally it
is remarkable for its remains of ancient stained glass, fine
carvings and interesting monuments, including one to the famous
Admiral de Ruyter (d. 1676). A large stained-glass window
commemorates the taking of the oath by Queen Wilhelmina in
1898. The new exchange (1901) is a striking building in red
brick and stone, and lies a short distance away between the
Dam and the fine central station (1889). The Oude Kerk (St
Nicholaas), so called, was built about the year 1300, and
contains some beautiful stained glass of the 16th and 17th
centuries, by Pieter Aertsen of Amsterdam (1508-1575) and
others. One window contains the arms of the burgomasters of
Amsterdam from 1578 to 1767. Among the monuments are those
to various naval heroes, including Admirals van Heemskerk (d.
1607), Sweers (d. 1673) and van der Hulst (d. 1666). The
North Church was the last work of the architect Hendrik de
Keyser (1565-1621) of Utrecht. The Roman Catholic church of
St Nicholaas (1886) was built to replace the accommodation
previously afforded by a common dwelling-house, now the Museum
Amstelkring of ecclesiastical antiquities. Among the numerous
Jewish synagogues, the largest is that of the Portuguese Jews
(1670), which is said to be an imitation of the temple of
Solomon. Other buildings of interest are the St Antonieswaag,
built as a town gate in 1488-1585, and now containing the
city archives; the Trippenhuis, built as a private house in
1662, and now the home of the Royal Society of Science, Letters
and Fine Arts; the Netherlands Bank (1865-1869), built by the
architect W. A. Froger; the new building (1860) of the Seamen's
Institute, founded in 1785; the cellular prison; and the
so-called Paleis van Volksvlijt, an immense building of iron
and glass with a fine garden, built by Dr Samuel Sarphati, and
used for industrial exhibitions, the performance of operas,
&c. The museums and picture galleries of Amsterdam are of great
interest. The Ryks Museum, or state museum, is the first in
Holland. It is a large, handsome and finely situated building
designed by Dr P. J. H. Cuyper in the Dutch Renaissance style,
and erected in 1876-1885. The exterior is decorated with
sculptures and tile-work, and internally it is divided, broadly
speaking, into a museum of general antiquities below, and the
large gallery of pictures of the Dutch and Flemish schools
above. The nucleus of this unsurpassed national collection
of pictures was formed out of the collections removed
hither from the Pavilion at Haarlem, consisting of modern
paintings, and from the town-hall, the van der Hoop Museum
and the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. The important van der Hoop
collection arose out of bequests by Adrian van der Hoop and
his widow in 1854 and 1880; but the most famous pictures in
the Ryks Museum are perhaps the three which come from the
Trippenhuis, namely, the so-called ``Nightwatch'' and the
``Syndics of the Cloth Hall'' by Rembrandt, andlthe ``Banquet
of the Civic Guard,'' by van der Helst. The Trippenhuis gallery
consisted of the pictures brought from the Hague by Louis
Bonaparte, king of Holland, and belonging to the collection
of the Orange family dispersed during the Napoleonic period.
The municipal museum contains a collection of furniture,
paintings, &c., bequeathed by Sophia Lopez-Suasso (1890), a
medico-pharmaceutical collection, and the National Guard Museum.
The Joseph Fodor Museum (1860) contains modern French and Dutch
pictures. The private collection founded by Burgomaster
Jan Six (d. 1702), the friend and patron of Rembrandt, was
sold to the state in 1907; the pictures, except the family
Rembrandts, are in the Ryks Museum. Close to this is the
Willet-Holthuysen Museum (1895) of furniture, porcelain, &c.
Education and Charities.--There are two universities in
Amsterdam: the Free University (1880), and the more ancient
state university of Amsterdam, originally founded in 1632,
but reconstructed in 1887. In addition to the numerous
science laboratories the state university possesses a very
fine library of about 100,000 volumes, including the Rosenthal
collection of over 8000 books on Jewish literature. Modern
educational institutions include a school of engineering (1879),
a school for teachers (1878) and a school of industrial art
(1879). Amsterdam is also remarkable for the number and
high character of its benevolent institutions, which are to
a large extent supported by voluntary contributions. Among
others may be mentioned hospitals for the sick, the aged, the
infirm, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the insane, and homes
for widows, orphans, foundlings and sailors. The costumes
of the children educated at the different orphanages are
varied and picturesque, those of the municipal orphanage being
dressed in the city colours of red and black. In the Walloon
orphanage are some interesting pictures by van der Helst and
others. The Society for Public Welfare (Maatschappij tot nut
van het Algemeen), founded in 1785, has for its ob)ect the
promotion of the education and improvement of all classes, and
has branches in every part of Holland. Among other Amsterdam
societies are the Felix Meritis (1776), and the Arti et
Amicitiae (1839), whose art exhibitions are of a high order.
Harbour and Commerce.--The first attempt which the city of
Amsterdam made to overcome the evils wrought to its trade by
the slow formation of the Pampus sandbank at the entrance to
the Y from the Zuider Zee, was the construction of the North
Holland canal to the Helder in 1825. But the route was too
long and too intricate, and in 1876 a much larger and more
direct ship canal was built across the isthmus to the North
Sea at Ymuiden. The serious rivalry of Rotterdam, especially
with regard to the transit trade, and the inadequacy of the
Keulsche Vaart, which connected the city with the Rhine,
led to the construction in 1892 of the Merwede canal to
Gorinchem. Meanwhile a complete transformation took
place on the Y to suit the new requirements of the city's
trade. The three islands built out into the river serve
to carry the railway across the front of the city, and form
a long series of quays. On either side are the large East
and West docks (1825-1834), and beyond these stretch the
lone quays at which the American and East Indian liners are
berthed. On the west of the West dock is the timber dock,
and east of the East dock is another series of islands joined
together so as to form basins and quays, one of which is the
State Marine dock (1790-1795) with the arsenal and admiralty
offices. Opening out of one of the crescent canals which
penetrate the city from the Y is the State Entrepot dock
(1900), the free harbour of Amsterdam, where the produce
from the Dutch East Indies is stored. On the north
side of the Y are the dry docks and the petroleum dock
(1880-1890). The principal imports are timber, coal, grain,
ore, petroleum and colonial produce. Under the last head fall
tobacco, tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, Peruvian bark and other
drugs. Diamond-cutting has long been practised by the Jews
and forms one of the most characteristic industries of the
city. Other industries include sugar refineries, soap, oil,
glass, iron, dye and chemical works; distilleries, breweries,
tanneries; tobacco and snuff factories; shipbuilding and the
manufacture of machinery and stearine candles. Although no
longer the Centre of the banking transactions of the world,
the Amsterdam exchange is still of considerable importance
in this respect. The celebrated Bank of Amsterdam, founded
in 1609, was dissolved in 1796, and the present Bank of the
Netherlands was established in 1814 on the model of the Bank of
England. The money market is the headquarters of companies
formed to promote the cultivation of colonial produce.
History.--In 1204, when Giesebrecht II. of Amstel built
a castle there, Amstetdam was a fishing hamlet held in fee
by the lords of Amstel of the bishops of Utrecht, for whom
they acted as bailiffs. In 1240 Giesebrecht III., son of
the builder of the castle, constructed a dam to keep out the
sea. To these two, then, the origin of the city may be
ascribed. The first mention of the town is in 1275, in a charter
of Floris IV., count of Holland, exempting it from certain taxes.
In 1296 the place passed out of the hands of the lords of
Amstel, owing to the part taken by Giesebrecht IV. in
the murder of Count Floris V. of Holland. Count John (d.
1304), after coming to an understanding with the bishop of
Utrecht, bestowed the fief on his brother, Guy of Hainaut.
Guy gave the town its first charter in 1300. It established
the usual type of government under a bailiff (schout)
and judicial assessors (scabini, or schoppenen), the
overlord's supremacy being guarded, and an appeal lying from
the court of the scabini, in case of their disagreement, to
Utrecht. In 1342 more extensive privileges were granted by
Count William IV., including freedom from tolls by land and
water in return for certain annual dues. In 1482 the town
was surrounded with walls; and in the 16th century, during
the religious troubles, it received a great increase of
prosperity owing to the influx of refugees from Antwerp and
Brabant. Amsterdam, influenced by its trading interests,
did not join the other towns in revolt against Spain until
1578. In 1587 the earl of Leicester made an unsuccessful
attempt to seize it. The great development of Amsterdam
was due, however, to the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, by
which its rival, Antwerp, was ruined, owing to the closing
of the Scheldt. The city held out obstinately against
the pretensions of the stadtholders, and in 1650 opened
the dykes in order to prevent William II. from seizing
it. The same device was successful against Louis XIV. in
1672; and Amsterdam, now reconciled with the stadtholder,
was one of the staunchest supporters of William III. against
France. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685
it opened its gates to numerous French refugees; but this
hardly compensated it for its losses during the war. In
1787 Amsterdam was occupied by the Prussians, and in 1795
by the French under Pichegru. It was now made the capital
of the Batavian Republic and afterwards of the kingdom of
Holland. When, in 1810, this was united with the French
empire, Amsterdam was recognized officially as the third
town of the empire, ranking next after Paris and Rome.
See J. ter Gouw, Geschiedeniss van Amsterdam (3 vols.,
Amsterdam, 1879-1881), a full history with documents.
AMSTERDAM (NEW AMSTERDAM), an uninhabited and almost
inaccessible island in the Indian Ocean, in 37 deg. 47' S., and
77 deg. 34' E., about 60 m. N. of St Paul Island, and nearly midway
between the Cape of Good Hope and Tasmania. It is an extinct
volcano, rising 2989 ft. from the sea. It was discovered by
Anthony van Diemen in 1633, and annexed by France in 1893. It
may have been sighted by the companions of Magellan returning
to Europe in 1522, and by a Dutch vessel, the ``Zeewolf,'' in
1617. In 1871 the British frigate ``Megaera'' was wrecked here,
and most of the 400 persons on board had to remain upwards of
three months on the island. The Memoires of a Frenchman,
Captain Francois Peron (Paris, 1824), who was marooned
three years on the island (1792-1795), are of much interest.
AMSTERDAM, a city of Montgomery county, New York, U.S.A.,
on the north bank of the Mohawk river, about 33 m. N.W. of
Albany. Pop. (1890) 17,336; (1900) 20,929, of whom 5575
were foreign-born; (1910) 31,267. It is served by the New
York Central & Hudson River and the West Shore railways,
and by the Erie Canal. Hills on both sides of the river
command fine views of the Mohawk Valley. Amsterdam has two
hospitals, a free public library and St Mary's Institute (Roman
Catholic). Manufacturing is the most important industry,
and carpets and rugs, hosiery and knit goods are the most
important products. In 1905 the city's factory products
were valued at $15,007,276 (an increase of 41% over their
value in 1900); carpets and rugs being valued at $5,667,742,
and hosiery and knit goods (in the manufacture of which
Amsterdam ranked third among the cities of the country) at
$4,667,022, or 3.4% of the total product of the United
States. Among the other manufactures are brushes, brooms,
buttons, silk gloves, paper boxes, electrical supplies, dyeing
machines, cigars, and wagon and carriage springs. Amsterdam
was settled about 1775, and was called Veedersburg until
1804, when its present name was adopted. It was incorporated
as a village in 1830, and was chartered as a city in 1885.
AMUCK, RUNNING (or more properly AMOK), the native term
for the homicidal mania which attacks Malays. A Malay will
suddenly and apparently without reason rush into the street
armed with a kris or other weapon, and slash and cut at
everybody he meets till he is killed. These frenzies were
formerly regarded as due to sudden insanity. It is now,
however, certain that the typical amok is the result of
circumstances, such as domestic jealousy or gambling losses,
which render a Malay desperate and weary of his life. It is,
in fact, the Malay equivalent of suicide. ``The act of running
amuck is probably due to causes over which the culprit has
some amount of control, as the custom has now died out in the
British possessions in the peninsula, the offenders probably
objecting to being caught and tried in cold blood'' (W. W. Skeat).
Though so intimately associated with the Malay there is some
ground for believing the word to have an Indian origin, and
the act is certainly far from unknown in Indian history.
Some notable cases have occurred among the Rajputs. Thus, in
1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amuck at the
court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor,
but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century,
again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur
chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the
prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.
In Malabar there were certain professional assassins known
to old travellers as Amouchi or Amuco. The nearest modern
equivalent to these words would seem to be the Malayalim
Amar-khan, ``a warrior'' (from amar, ``fight''). The Malayalim term
chaver applied to these ruffians meant literally those
``who devote themselves to death.'' In Malabar was a custom
by which the zamorin or king of Calicut had to cut his throat
in public when he had reigned twelve years. In the 17th
century a variation in his fate was made. He had to take his
seat, after a great feast lasting twelve days, at a national
assembly, surrounded by his armed suite, and it was lawful
for anyone to attack him, and if he succeeded in killing him
the murderer himself became zamorin (see Alex. Hamilton, ``A
new Account of the East Indies,'' in Pinkerton's Voyages and
Travels, viii. 374). In 1600 thirty would-be assassins were
killed in their attempts. These men were called Amar-khan,
and it has been suggested that their action was ``running
amuck'' in the true Malay sense. Another proposed derivation
for amouchi is Sanskrit amokshya, ``that cannot be
loosed,'' suggesting that the murderer was bound by a vow,
an explanation more than once advanced for the Malay amuck;
but amokshya in such a sense is unknown in Malayalim.
See Sir F. A. Swettenham, Malay Sketches (1895);
H. Clifford, Studies in Brown Humanity (1898).
AMULET (Late Lat. amuletum, origin unknown; falsely
connected with the Arab. himalah, a cord used to suspend
a small Koran from the neck), a charm, generally, but not
invariably, hung from the neck, to protect the wearer against
witchcraft, sickness, accidents, &c. Amulets have been of many
different kinds, and formed of different substances,--stones,
metals, and strips of parchment being the most common, with
or without characters or legends engraved or written on
them. Gems have often been employed and greatly prized,
serving for ornaments as well as for charms. Certain herbs,
too, and animal preparations have been used in the same
way. In setting them apart to their use as amulets, great
precautions have been taken that fitting times be selected,
stellar and other magic influences propitious, and everything
avoided that might be supposed to destroy or weaken the
force of the charm. From the earliest ages the Oriental
races have had a firm belief in the prevalence of occult
evil influences, and a superstitious trust in amulets and
similar preservatives against them. There are references
to, and apparently correctives of, these customs in the
Mosaic injunctions to bind portions of the law upon the hand
and as frontlets between the eyes, as well as write them
upon the door-posts and the gates; but, among the later Jews
especially, the original design and meaning of these usages
were lost sight of; and though it has been said that the
phylacteries were not strictly amulets, there is no doubt that
they were held in superstitious regard. Amulets were much
used by the ancient Egyptians, and also among the Greeks and
Romans. We find traces of them too in the early Christian
church, in the emphatic protests of Chrysostom, Augustine
and others against them. The fish was a favourite symbol on
these charms, from the word ichthus being the initials of
'Iesous Christos Theou uios soter. A firm faith in amulets
still prevails widely among Asiatic nations. Talisman, also
from the Arabic, is a word of similar meaning and use, but
some distinguish it as importing a more powerful charm. A
talisman, whose ``virtues are still applied to for stopping
blood and in cases of canine madness,'' figures prominently
in, and gives name to, one of Sir Walter Scott's novels.
See also Arpe, De Prodigiis Naturae et Artis Operibus Talismanes
et Amuleta dictis (Hamburg, 1717); Ewele, Ueber Amulete (1827);
and Koop's Palaeographica Critica, vols. iii. and iv. (1829).
AMUR (known also as the Sakhalin-ula.) a river of
eastern Asia, formed by the confluence of the Argun and the
Shilka, at Ust-Stryelka, in 53 deg. 19' N. lat. and 120 deg. 30' E.
long. Both these rivers come from the south-west: the Argun,
or Kerulen as it is called above Lake Kulun (Dalai-nor),
through which it flows about half way between its source and
Ust-Stryelka, rises in 49 deg. N. lat. and 109 deg. E. long.;
the Shilka is formed by the union of the Onon and the
Ingoda, both of which have their sources a little farther
north-east than the Kerulen (Argun). The Amur proper flows
at first in a south-easterly direction for about 800 m.,
as far as long. 132' E., separating Manchuria from the Amur
government; it then turns to the north-east, cuts its way
through the Little Khingan mountains in a gorge 2000 ft. wide
and 140 m. long, and after a total course of over 1700 m.
discharges into the Sea of Okhotsk, opposite to the island of
Sakhalin. It is estimated to drain an area of 772,000 sq.
m. Its principal tributaries from the south are the Sungari,
which the Chinese consider to be the true head-river of the
Amur, and the Usuri; from the north it receives the Oldoi,
Zeya, Bureya, Kur, Gorin and Amgun. As the mouth is choked with
sandbanks, goods are disembarked at Mariinsk and carried by
train (9 m.) to Alexandrovsk at the head of the Gulf of Tartary.
Navigation on the river is open from April to early in November.
See T. W. Atkinson, Travels in the Region of the Amoor (1860);
Collins, Exploration of the Amoor (ed. 1864) and Voyage
down the Amoor (1866); Andree, Das Amurgebiet (ed. 1876);
and Grum- Grshimaylo, Accounit of the Amur (Russian, 1894).
AMUR, a government of East Siberia, stretching from the
Stanovoi (Yablonoi) mountains southwards to the left bank of
the Amur river. It includes the basins of the Oldoi, Zeya and
Bureya, left-bank tributaries of the river Amur, and has the
governments of Transbaikalia on the W., Irkutsk and Yakutsk on
the N., the Maritime province on the E., and Manchuria on the
S.W. and S. Area, 172,848 sq. m. Immense districts are quite
uninhabited. All the north-western part is occupied by a high
plateau, bordered by the Great Khingan range, whose exact
position in the region is not yet definitely settled. Next
comes a belt of fertile plateaus bounded on the east by the
Little Khingan, or Dusse-alin, a picturesque well-wooded
range, which stretches in a north-easterly direction from
Kirin across Manchuria, is pierced by the Amur, and continues
on its left bank, separating the Bureya from the Amgun. To
the east of it stretches in the same direction a strip of
marshy lowlands. In the ranges which rise above the high
plateau in the north-west, in the vicinity of the Stanovoi
watershed, gold mines of great richness are worked. Coal
of inferior quality is known to exist on the Oldoi, Zeya and
Bureya. The Russians are represented by the Amur Cossacks,
whose villages, e.g. Albazin, Kumara, Ekaterino-Nikolsk
and Mikhailo-Semenovsk, are strung at intervals of 17
to 20 m. along the whole course of the river; by peasant
immigrants, chiefly nonconformists, who are the wealthiest
part of the population; and by a floating population of gold
miners. Nomadic Tungus (Orochons), Manegres and Golds hunt
and fish along the rivers. Steamers ply regularly along the
Amur for 6 1/2 months, from Khaharovsk to Stryetensk, on the
Shilka terminus of the Trans-Siberian railway; but only light
steamers with 2 to 3 ft. draught can navigate the upper Amur
and Shilka. In the winter the frozen river is the usual
highway. Rough roads and bridle-paths only are found in the
interior. The great engineering difficulties in building
a railway along the Amur induced the Russian government
to obtain from China permission to build a railway through
Manchuria, but the project for a railway from Khabarovsk
to Stryetensk received imperial sanction in the summer of
1906. The Amur government has a continental climate, the
yearly average at Blagovyeshchensk (50 deg. N. lat.) being 30 deg.
Fahr. (January, 17 deg. ; July, 70 deg. ). It benefits from the
influence of the monsoons. Cold north-west winds prevail from
October to March, while in July and August torrential rains
fall, resulting in a sudden and very considerable rise in
the Amur and its right-bank tributaries. The only town is
Blagovyeshchensk, but the centre of the administration is
Khabarovsk in the Maritime province. The settled population
in 1897 was 119,909, of whom 31,515 lived in towns.
The governor-generalship of Amur includes this government
and the Maritime province, the total area being 888,830 sq.
m., and the total population in 1897, 339,127. This region
became known to the Russians in 1639. In 1649-1651 a party of
Cossacks, under Khabarov, built a fort at Albazin on the Amur
river, but in 1689 they withdrew in favour of the Chinese.
From 1847 onwards they once more turned their attention to
this region, and began to make settlements, especially after
1854, when a powerful flotilla sailed from Ust-Stryelka down
to the mouth of the river. Four years later China ceded to
Russia the whole left bank of the Amur, and also the right
bank below the confluence of the Ussuri, and in 1860 all the
territory between the Ussuri and the Eastern Sea. (P. A. K.)
AMYGDALIN (from the Gr. amugdale, almond),
C20H27NO11, a glucoside isolated from bitter almonds
by H. E. Robiquet and A. F. Boutron-Charlard in 1830, and
subsequently investigated by Liebig and Wohler, and others.
It is extracted from almond cake by boiling alcohol; on
evaporation of the solution and the addition of ether, amygdalin
is precipitated as white minute crystals. Sulphuric acid
decomposes it into d-glucose, benzaldehyde and prussic acid;
while hydrochloric acid gives mandelic acid, d-glucose and
ammonia. The decomposition induced by enzymes may occur in two
ways. Maltase partially decomposes it, giving d-glucose
and mandelic nitrile glucoside, C6H5CH(CN)O.C6H11O5;
this compound is isomeric with sambunigrin, a glucoside
found by E. E. Bourquelot and Danjou in the berries of the
common elder, Sambucus nigra. Emulsin, on the other hand,
decomposes it into benzaldehyde, prussic acid, and two molecules
of glucose; this enzyme occurs in the bitter almond, and
consequently the seeds invariably contain free prussic acid and
benzaldehyde. An ``amorphous amygdalin'' is said to occur in the
cherry-laurel. Closely related to these glucosides is dhurrin,
C14H17O7N, isolated by W. Dunstan and T. A. Henry from
the common sorghum or ``great millet,'' Sorghum vulgare;
this substance is decomposed by emulsin or hydrochloric acid
into d-glucose, prussic acid, and p-hydroxybenzaldehyde.
AMYGDALOID, a term meaning ``almond-shaped,'' used in anatomy and geology.
AMYL ALCOHOLS (C5H11OH). Eight amyl alcohols are known:
normal amyl alcohol CH3.(CH2)4.OH, isobutyl carbinol
or isoamyl alcohol (CH3)2.CH.CH2.CH2OH, active amyl
alcohol (CH3)(C2H5):CH.CH2OH, tertiary butyl carbinol
(CH3)3C.CH2OH, diethyl carbinol (C2H5)2CH.OH, methyl (n)
propyl carbinol (CH3.CH2.CH2)(CH3):CH:OH, methyl isopropyl
carbinol (CH3)2:CH(CH3):CHOH, and dimethyl ethyl carbinol
(CH3)2.(C2H5).:C.OH. Of these alcohols, the first
four are primary, the last one a tertiary, the other three
secondary alcohols; three of them, viz. active amyl alcohol,
methyl (n) propyl carbinol, and methyl isopropyl carbinol,
contain an asymmetric carbon atom and can consequently each
exist in two optically active, and one optically inactive form.
The most important is isobutyl carbinol, this being the chief
constituent of fermentation amyl alcohol, and consequently a
constituent of fusel (q.v.) oil. It may be separated from
fusel oil by shaking with strong brine solution, separating the
oily layer from the brine layer and distilling it, the portion
boiling between 125 deg. and 140 deg. C. being collected. For further
purification it may be shaken with hot milk of lime, the oily
layer separated, dried with calcium chloride and fractionated,
the fraction boiling between 128 deg. and 132 deg. C. only being
collected. It may be synthetically prepared from isobutyl alcohol
by conversion into isovaleryl-aldehyde, which is subsequently
reduced to isobutyl carbinol by means of sodium amalgam.
It is a colourless liquid of specific gravity 0.8248 (0 deg. C.),
boiling at 131.6 deg. C., slightly soluble in water, easily
soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform and benzene. It
possesses a characteristic strong smell and a sharp burning
taste. When perfectly pure, it is not a poison, although
the impure product is. On passing its vapour through a
red-hot tube, it undergoes decomposition with production of
acetylene, ethylene, propylene, &c. It is oxidized by chromic
acid mixture to isovaleryl-aldehyde; and it forms crystalline
addition compounds with calcium and stannic chlorides.
The other amyl alcohols may be obtained synthetically. Of
these, tertiary butyl carbinol has been the most difficult
to obtain, its synthesis having only been accomplished in
1891, by L. Tissier (Comptes Rendus, 1891, 112, p. 1065)
by the reduction of a mixture of trimethyl acetic acid
and trimethylacetyl chloride with sodium amalgam. It is a
solid which melts at 48 deg. -50 deg. C. and boils at 112.3 deg. C.
AMYL NITRITE (isoamyl nitrite), C5H11.ONO, a liquid
prepared by passing nitrous fumes (from starch and concentrated
nitric acid) into warm isoamyl alcohol; or by distilling a
mixture of 26 parts of potassium nitrite in 15 parts of water
with 30 parts of isoamyl alcohol in 30 parts of sulphuric acid
(Renard, Jahresb., 1874, p. 352). It is a yellow-coloured
liquid of specific gravity 0.877, boiling at about 95 deg. -96 deg.
C. It has a characteristic penetrating odour, and produces
marked effects on the system when its vapour is inhaled.
It is insoluble in water, but dissolves readily in alcohol,
ether, glacial acetic acid, chloroform and benzene. On heating
with methyl alcohol it is converted into isoamyl alcohol,
methyl nitrite being produced at the same time; a similar
reaction takes place with ethyl alcohol, but the change is less
complete. It is readily decomposed by nascent hydrogen, with
the formation of ammonia and isoamyl alcohol; and on hydrolysis
with caustic potash it forms potassium nitrite and isoamyl
alcohol. When the liquid is dropped on to fused caustic
potash, it forms potassium valerate. Amyl nitrite finds
application in medicine, and in the preparation of anhydrous
diazonium salts (E. Knoevenagel, Berichte, 1890, 23, p. 2094).
AMYMONE, in ancient Greek legend, daughter of Danaus.
With her sisters, she had been sent to look for water, the
district of Argos being then parched through the anger of
Poseidon. Amymone having thrown her spear at a stag, missed
it, but hit a satyr asleep in the brake. The satyr pursued
her, and she called for help on Poseidon, who appeared,
and for love of her beauty caused a spring to well up,
which received her name. Aeschylus wrote a satyric drama
on the subject. By the god Amymone became the mother of
Nauplius, the wrecker. Her meeting with Poseidon at the
spring is frequently represented on ancient coins and gems.
Apollodorus ii. 1, 4; Hyginus, Fab. 169; Propertius ii. 26.
AMYNTAS I., king of Macedonia (c. 540-498 B.C.), was a
tributary vassal of Darius Hystaspes. With him the history of
Macedonia may be said to begin. He was the first of its rulers
to have relations with other countries; he entered into an
alliance with the Peisistratidae, and when Hippias was driven
out of Athens he offered him the territory of Anthemus on the
Thermaic Gulf, with the object of turning the Greek party
feuds to his own advantage (Herodotus v. 17, 94; Justin vii. 2;
Thucydides ii. 100; Pausanias ix. 40). See MACEDONIAN EMPIRE.
AMYNTAS II. (or III.), son of Arrhidaeus, great-grandson
of Alexander I., king of Macedonia from 393 (or 389) to 369
B.C. He came to the throne after the ten years of confusion
which followed the death of Archelaus, the patron of art and
literature, and showed the same taste for Greek culture and its
representatives. But he had many enemies at home; in 383
he was driven out by the Illyrians, but in the following
year, with the aid of the Thessalians, he recovered his
kingdom. He concluded a treaty with the Spartans, who
assisted him to reduce Olynthus (379). He also entered into
a league with Jason of Pherae, and assiduously cultivated the
friendship of Athens. By his wife, Eurydice, he had three
sons, the youngest of whom was the famous Philip of Macedon.
Diodorus xiv. 89, xv. 19, 60; Xenophon, Hellenica, v. 2; Justin vii. 4.
AMYOT, JACQUES (1513-1593), French writer, was born of poor
parents, at Melun, on the 30th of October 1513. He found his
way to the university of Paris, where he supported himself by
serving some of the richer students. He was nineteen when he
became M.A. at Paris, and later he graduated doctor of civil
law at Bourges. Through Jacques Colure (or Colin), abbot of
St Ambrose in Bourges, he obtained a tutorship in the family
of a secretary of state. By the secretary he was recommended
to Marguerite de Valois, and through her influence was made
professor of Greek and Latin at Bourges. Here he translated
Theagene et Chariclee from Heliodorus (1547 fol.),
for which he was rewarded by Francis I. with the abbey of
Bellozane. He was thus enabled to go to Italy to study the
Vatican text of Plutarch, on the translation on whose Lives
(1559; 1565) he had been some time engaged. On the way he
turned aside on a mission to the council of Trent. Returning
home, he was appointed tutor to the sons of Henry II., by one
of whom (Charles IX.) he was afterwards made grand almoner
(1561) and by the other (Henry III.) was appointed, in spite
of his plebeian origin, commander of the order of the Holy
Ghost. Pius I. promoted him to the bishopric of Auxerre, and
here he continued to live in comparative quiet, repairing his
cathedral and perfecting his translations, for the rest of his
days, though troubled towards the close by the insubordination
and revolts of his clergy. He was a devout and conscientious
churchman, and had the courage to stand by his principles.
It is said that he advised the chaplain of Henry III. to
refuse absolution to the king after the murder of the Guise
princes. He was, nevertheless, suspected of approving the
crime. His house was plundered, and he was compelled to leave
Auxerre for some time. He died on the 6th of February 1593,
bequeathing, it is said, 1200 crowns to the hospital at Orleans
for the twelve ``deniers'' he received there when ``poor and
naked'' on his way to Paris. He translated seven books of
Diodorus (1554), the Daphnis et Chloe of Longus (1559) and
the Opera Moralia of Plutarch (1572). His vigorous and
idiomatic version of Plutarch, Vies des hommes illustres,
was translated into English by Sir Thomas North, and supplied
Shakespeare with materials for his Roman plays. Montaigne
said of him,``I give the palm to Jacques Amyot over all our
French writers, not only for the simplicity and purity of his
language in which he surpasses all others, nor for his constancy
to so long an undertaking, nor for his profound learning .
. . but I am grateful to him especially for his wisdom in
choosing so valuable a work.'' It was indeed to Plutarch that
Amyot devoted his attention. His other translations were
subsidiary. The version of Diodorus he did not publish,
although the manuscript had been discovered by himself. Amyot
took great pains to find and interpret correctly the best
authorities, but the interest of his books to-day lies in the
style. His translation reads like an original work. The
personal method of Plutarch appealed to a generation addicted to
memoirs and incapable of any general theory of history. Amyot's
book, therefore, obtained an immense popularity, and exercised
great influence over successive generations of French writers.
There is a good edition of the works of Amyot from the firm of Didot
(25 vols., 1818-1821) . See also Augnste de Blignieres, Essai sur
Amyot et les traducteurs francais au xvie siecle (Paris, 1851).
AMYRAUT, MOSES (1596-1664), also known as AMYRALDUS,
French Protestant theologian and metaphysician, was born at
Bourgueil, in the valley of Anjou, in 1306. His father was a
lawyer, and, designing Moses for his own profession, sent him
on the completion of his study of the humanities at Orleans
to the university of Poitiers. Here he took the degree of
licentiate (B.A.) of laws. On his way home from the university
he passed through Saumur, and, having visited the pastor of the
Protestant church there, was introduced by him to Philippe de
Mornay, governor of the city. Struck with young Amyraut's
ability and culture, they both urged him to change from law to
theology. His father advised him to revise his philological and
philosophical studies, and read over Calvin's Institutions,
before finally determining. He did so, and decided for
theology. He thereupon removed to Saumur--destined to be for
ever associated with his name--and studied under J. Cameron,
who ultimately regarded him as his greatest scholar. He
had a brilliant course, and was in due time licensed as a
minister of the French Protestant Church. The contemporary
civil wars and excitements hindered his advancement. His
first church was in St Aignan, in the province of Maine.
There he remained two years. The eminent theologian, Jean
Daille, being then removed to Paris, advised the church at
Saumur to secure Amyraut as his successor, praising him ``as
above himself.'' The university of Saumur at the same time
had fixed its eyes on him as professor of theology. The great
churches of Paris and Rouen also contended for him, and to
win him sent their deputies to the provincial synod of Anjou.
Amyraut had left the choice to the synod. He was appointed
to Saumur in 1633, and to the professor's chair along with the
pastorate. On the occasion of his inauguration he maintained
for thesis De Sacerdotio Christi. His co-professors were
Louis Cappel and Josue de la Place, who also were Cameron's
pupils. Very beautiful was the lifelong friendship of
these three remarkable men, who collaborated in the Theses
Salmurienses, a collection of theses propounded by candidates
in theology prefaced by the inaugural addresses of the three
professors. Full of energy, Amyraut very speedily gave
to French Protestantism a new force. In 1631 he published
his Traite des religions, a book that still lives;
and from this year onward he was a foremost man in the
church. Chosen to represent the provincial synod of Anjou,
Touraine and Maine at the national synod held in 1631 at
Charenton, he was appointed as orator to present to the
king ``The Copy of their Complaints and Grievances for the
Infractions and Violations of the Edict of Nantes.'' Previous
deputies had addressed the king on their bended knees, whereas
the representatives of the Catholics had been permitted to
stand. Amyraut consented to be orator only if the assembly
authorized him to stand. There was intense resistance.
Cardinal Richelieu himself, preceded by lesser dignitaries,
condescended to visit Amyraut privately, to persuade him to
kneel; but Amyraut held resolutely to his point and carried
it. His ``oration'' on this occasion, which was immediately
published in the French Mercury, remains a striking landmark
in the history of French Protestantism. During his absence
on this matter the assembly debated ``Whether the Lutherans
who desired it, might be admitted into communion with the
Reformed Churches of France at the Lord's Table.'' It was
decided in the affirmative previous to his return; but he
approved with astonishing eloquence, and thereafter was ever
in the front rank in maintaining intercommunication between
all churches holding the main doctrines of the Reformation.
P. Bayle recounts the title-pages of no fewer than thirty-two
books of which Amyraut was the author. These show that he
took part in all the great controversies on predestination
and Arminianism which then so agitated and harassed all
Europe. Substantially he held fast the Calvinism of his
preceptor Cameron; but, like Richard Baxter in England, by
his breadth and charity he exposed himself to all manner of
misconstruction. In 1634 he published his Traite de la
predestination, in which he tried to mitigate the harsh
features of predestination by his ``Universalismus hypotheticus.''
God, he taught, predestines all men to happiness on condition
of their having faith. This gave rise to a charge of
heresy, of which he was acquitted at the national synod held
at Alencon in 1637, and presided over by Benjamin Basnage
(1580-1652). The charge was brought up again at the national
synod of Charenton in 1644, when he was again acquitted. A
third attack at the synod of Loudun in 1659 met with no better
success. The university of Saumur became the university
of French Protestantism. Amyraut had as many as a hundred
students in attendance upon his prelections. Another historic
part filled by Amyraut was in the negotiations originated by
Pierre le Gouz de la Berchere (1600-1653), first president
of the parlement of Grenoble, when exiled to Saumur, for a
reconciliation and reunion of the Catholics of France with
the French Protestants. Very large were the concessions made
by Richelieu in his personal interviews with Amyraut; but, as
with the Worcester House negotiations in England between the
Church of England and nonconformists, they inevitably fell
through. On all sides the statesmanship and eloquence of
Amyraut were conceded. His De l'elevation de la foy et
de l'abaissement de la raison en la creance des mysteres
de la religion (1641) gave him early a high place as a
metaphysician. Exclusive of his controversial writings,
he left behind him a very voluminous series of practical
evangelical books, which have long remained the fireside
favourites of the peasantry of French Protestantism.
Amongst these are Estat Jes fideles apres la mort; Sur
l'oraison dominicale; Du merite des oeuvres; Traite de la
justification; and paraphrases of books of the Old and New
Testament. His closing years were weakened by a severe fall
he met with in 1657. He died on the 18th of January 1664.
See Edm. Saigey, Moses Amyraut, sa vie et ses ecrits (1849);
Alex. Schweizer in Tub. theol. Jahrbb., 1852, pp. 41 ff. 155
ff., Protestant. Central-Dogmen (1854 ff.), ii. 225 ff., and in
Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie; Bayle, s.v.; Biog. Univ.,
s.v.; John Quick's Synod. in Gall. Reform. pp. 352-357;
Ibid. MS. Icones Sacrae Gallicanae: Life of Cameron.
ANA, a Latin neuter plural termination appropriated to
various collections of the observations and criticisms
of eminent men, delivered in conversation and recorded by
their friends, or discovered among their papers after their
decease. Though the term Ana is of comparatively modern
origin, the introduction of this species of composition is not
of recent date. It appears, from d'Herbelot's Bibliotheque
Orientale, that from the earliest periods the Eastern
nations were in the habit of preserving the maxims of their
sages. From them the practice passed to the Greeks and
Romans. Plato and Xenophon treasured up and recorded the
sayings of their master Socrates; and Arrian, in the concluding
books of his Enchiridion, now lost, collected the casual
observations of Epictetus. The numerous apophthegms scattered
in Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius and other writers, show that
it was customary in Greece to preserve the colloquially
expressed ideas of illustrious men. It appears that Julius
Caesar compiled a book of apophthegms, in which he related
the bons mots of Cicero; and Quintilian informs us that
a freedman of that celebrated wit and orator composed three
books of a work entitled De Jocis Ciceronis. We are told
by Suetonius that Caius Melissus, originally the slave but
afterwards the freedman and librarian of Maecenas, collected
the sayings of his master; and Aulus Gellius has filled his
Noctes Atticae with anecdotes which he heard from the eminent
scholars and critics whose society he frequented in Rome.
But though vestiges of Ana may be traced in the classical
ages, it is only in modern times that they have come to be
regarded as constituting a distinct species of composition,
comprising literary anecdotes, critical reflexions, and
historical incidents, mingled with the detail of bons
mots and ludicrous tales. The term Ana seems to have been
applied to such collections as far back as the beginning
of the 15th century. Francesco Barbaro, in a letter to
Poggio, says that the information and anecdotes which Poggio
and Bartolommeo of Montepulciano had picked up during a
literary excursion through Germany will be called Ana:
``Quemadmodum mala ab Appio e Claudia gente Appiana, et
pira a Mallio Malliana cognominata sunt, sic haec literarum
quae vestra ope et opera Germania in Italiam deferentur,
aliquando et Poggiana et Montepolitiana vocabuntur.''
Poggio Bracciolini, to whom this letter is addressed, and to
whom the world is indebted for the preservation of so many
classical remains, is the first eminent person of modern
times whose jests and opinions have been transmitted to
posterity. Poggio was secretary to five successive popes.
During the pontificate of Martin V., who was chosen in 1417,
Poggio and other members of the Roman chancery were in the
habit of assembling in a common hall adjoining the Vatican, in
order to converse freely on all subjects. Being more studious
of wit than of truth, they termed this apartment Buggiale,
a word which Poggio himself interprets Mendaciorum Officina.
Here Poggio and his friends discussed the news and scandal
of the day; communicated entertaining anecdotes; attacked
what they did not approve (and they approved of little); and
indulged in the utmost latitude of satiric remark, not sparing
even the pope and cardinals. The jests and stories which
occurred in these unrestrained conversations were collected by
Poggio, and formed the chief materials of his Facetiae, first
printed, according to de Bure, in 1470. This collection,
which forms a principal part of the Poggiana, is chiefly
valuable as recording interesting anecdotes of eminent men
of the 14th and 15th centuries. It also contains a number
of quibbles or jeux de mots, and a still greater number of
facetiae, idle and licentious stories. These Facetiae
form, upon the whole, the most amusing and interesting part
of the Poggiana printed at Amsterdam in 1720; but this
collection also comprehends additional anecdotes of Poggio's
life, and a few extracts from his graver compositions.
Though Poggio was the first person whose remarks and bons
mots were collected under the name of Ana, the Scaligerana,
which contains the opinions of Joseph Scaliger, was the first
worked published under that appellation, and accordingly
may be regarded as having led the way to that class of
publications. There are two collections of Scaligerana--the
Prima and Secunda. The first was compiled by a physician
named Francois Vertunien, sieur de Lavau, who attended a
family with whom Joseph Scaliger resided. He, in consequence,
had frequent opportunities of meeting the celebrated
critic, and was in the custom of committing to writing
the observations which dropped from him in the course of
conversation, to which he occasionally added remarks of his
own. This collection, which was chiefly Latin, remained
in manuscript many years after the death of the compiler.
It was at length purchased by M. de Sigogne, who published
it in 1669, under the title of Prima Scaligerana, nusquam
antehac edita, calling it prima in order to preserve
its claim of priority over another Scaligerana, which,
though published three years before, had been more recently
compiled. This second work, known as Secunda Scaligerana,
was collected by two brothers of the name of Vassan, students
of the university of Leiden, of which Scaliger was one of the
professors. Being particularly recommended to Scaliger, they
were received in his house, and enjoyed his conversation.
Writing down what they had heard, particularly on historical
and critical subjects, they soon made up a large manuscript
volume, in which, however, there was neither connexion
nor arrangement of any description. After passing through
various hands this manuscript came into the possession of M.
Daille, who for his own use arranged in alphabetical order
the articles which it contained. Isaac Vossius, obtaining
the manuscript in loan from M. Daille, transcribed it, and
afterwards published it at the Hague, under the title of
Scaligerana, sive Excerpta ex Ore Josephi Scaligeri. This
edition was full of inaccuracies and blunders, and a more
correct impression was afterwards published by M. Daille,
with a preface complaining of the use that Vossius had made
of the manuscript, which he declares was never intended for
publication, and was not of a nature to be given to the
world. Indeed, most literary men in that age conceived
that the Scaligerana, particularly the second, detracted
considerably from the reputation of the great scholar.
Joseph Scaliger, with more extensive erudition, but, as some
think, less genius than his father Julius Caesar Scaliger,
had inherited his vanity and dogmatical spirit. Conversing
with two young students, he would probably be but little
cautious in the opinions he expressed, as his literary errors
could not be detected or exposed. Unfortunately the blind
admiration of his pupils led them to regard his opinions as
the responses of an oracle, and his most unmerited censures
as just condemnations. The Scaligerana, accordingly,
contains many falsehoods, with much unworthy personal
abuse of the most distinguished characters of the age.
In imitation of the Scaligerana, a prodigious number of
similar works appeared in France towards the end of the 17th and
beginning of the 18th century. At first these collections were
confined to what had fallen from eminent men in conversation;
but they were afterwards made to embrace fragments found among
their papers, and even passages extracted from their works and
correspondence. Of those which merely record the conversations
of eminent men, the best known and most valuable is the
Menagiana. Gilles Menage was a person of good sense, of
various and extensive information and of a most communicative
disposition. A collection of his oral opinions was published
in 1693, soon after his death; and this collection, which was
entitled Menagiana, was afterwards corrected and enlarged by
Bernard de la Monnoye, in an edition published by him in 1715.
The Perroniana, which exhibits the opinions of Cardinal du
Perron, was compiled from his conversation by C. Dupuy, and
published by Vossius in 1666, by the same contrivance which
put him in possession of the Scaligerana. The Thuana,
or observations of the president de Thou, have usually been
published along with the Perroniana, but first appeared in 1669.
The Valesiana is a collection of the literary opinions
of the historiographer Adrien de Valois, published by his
son. M. de Valois was a great student of history, and the
Valesiana accordingly comprehends many valuable historical
observations, particularly on the works of du Cange.
The Fureteriana (1696) contains the bone mots of
Antoine Furetiere, the Academician, the stories which
he was in the habit of telling, and a number of anecdotes
and remarks found in his papers after his decease.
The chevraeana (1697), so called from Urbain Chevreau, is
more scholarly than most works of a similar description, and
probably more accurate, as it differs from the Ana proper, of
which the works described above are instances, in having been
published during the life of the author and revised by himself.
Parrhasiana (1699-1701) is the work of Jean le Clerc, a
professor of Amsterdam, who bestowed this appellation on
his miscellaneous productions with the view of discussing
various topics of philosophy and politics with more
freedom than he could have employed under his own name.
The Huetiana contains the detached thoughts and criticisms
of P. D. Huet. bishop of Avranches, which he himself committed
to writing when he was far advanced in life. Huet was born in
1630, and in 1712 he was attacked by a malady which impaired
his memory, and rendered him incapable of the sustained
attention necessary for the completion of a long or laborious
work. In this situation he employed himself in putting
his detached observations on paper. These were published
by the Abbe d'Olivet the year after his death (1722).
The Casauboniana presents us with the miscellaneous
observations, chiefly philological, of the celebrated Isaac
Casaubon. During the course of a long life that eminent
commentator was in the daily practice of committing to paper
anything remarkable which he heard in conversation with his
friends, especially if it bore on the studies in which he was
engaged. He also made annotations from day to day on the
works he read, with which he connected his judgments concerning
the authors and their writings. This compilation was styled
Ephemerides. His Adversaria, and materials amassed for a
refutation of the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius, were
bequeathed by his son Meric Casaubon to the Bodleian Library at
Oxford. These were shown to J. C. Wolf during a visit which
he paid to that university; and having been transcribed by
him, were published in 1710 under the title of Casauboniana.
Besides the above a great many works under the title of Ana
appeared in France about the same period. Thus, the opinions
and conversation of Charpentier, Colomesius and St Evremond
were recorded in the Carpenteriana, Colomesiana and St
Evremoniana; and those of Segrais in the Segraisiana,--a
collection formed by a person stationed behind the tapestry in
a house where Segrais was accustomed to visit, of which Voltaire
declared, ``que de tous les Ana c'est celui qui merite le plus
d'etre mis au rang des mensonges imprimes, et surtout des
mensonges insipides.'' The Ana, indeed, from the popularity
which they now enjoyed, were compiled in such numbers and with
so little care that they became almost proverbial for inaccuracy.
In 1743 the Abbe d'Olivet spoke indignantly of ``ces ana, dont
le nombre se multiple impunement tous les jours a la honte de
notre siecle.'' About the middle of the 18th century, too, they
were sometimes made the vehicles of revolutionary and heretical
opinions. Thus the evil naturally began to cure itself, and by
a reaction the French Ana sank in public esteem as much below
their intrinsic value as they had formerly been exalted above it.
Of the examples England has produced of this species of
composition, perhaps the most interesting is the Walpoliana,
a transcript of the literary conversation of Horace Walpole,
earl of Orford. Most other works which in England have been
published under the name of Ana, as Baconiana, Atterburyana,
&c., are rather extracts from the writings and correspondence
of eminent men than memorials of their conversation.
There are some works which, though they do not bear the
title, belong more strictly to the class of Ana than many
of the collections which are known under that appellation.
Such are the Melanges d'histoire et de litterature,
published under the name of Vigneul Marville, though the
work of a Benedictine, d'Argonne; and the Locorum Communium
Collectanea, ex Lectionibus Philippi Melanchthonis,--a
work of considerable reputation on account of its theological
learning, and the information it communicates concerning the
early state of the Reformed Church. But of those productions
which belong to the class, though they do not bear the name,
of Ana, the most celebrated are the Colloquia Mensalia of
Luther and Selden's Table-Talk. The former, which comprehends
the conversation of Luther with his friends and coadjutors
in the great work of the Reformation, was first published in
1566. Captain H. Bell, who translated it into English in
the time of the Commonwealth, informs us that, an edict
having been promulgated commanding the works of Luther to be
destroyed, it was for some time supposed that all the copies
of the Colloquia Mensalia had been burned; but in 1626,
on the foundation of a house being removed, a printed copy
was found lying in a deep hole and wrapped up in a linen
cloth. The book, translated by Bell, and again by the
younger Hazlitt in 1847, was originally collected by Dr Anton
Lauterbach (1502-1569) ``out of the holy mouth of Luther.'' It
consists chiefly of observations and discussions on idolatry,
auricular confession, the mass, excommunication, clerical
jurisdiction, general councils, and all the points agitated by
the reformed church in those early periods. The Table-Talk
of Selden contains a more genuine and undisguised expression
of the sentiments of that eminent man than we find in his
more studied productions. It was published after his death
by Richard Milward, his amanuensis, who affirms that for
twenty years he enjoyed the opportunity of daily hearing his
discourse, and made it his practice faithfully to commit to
writing ``the excellent things that usually fell from him.''
The most remarkable collection of Ana in the English
language--and, indeed, in any language--is to be found
in a work which does not correspond to the normal type
either in name or in form. In his Life of Samuel Johnson,
LL.D., Boswell relates that to his remark, a propos
of French literature, ``Their Ana are good,'' Johnson
replied, ``A few of them are good; but we have one book of
that kind better than any of them--Selden's Table-Talk.''
Boswell's own work, however, is incomparably superior to all.
J. C. Wolf has given a history of the Ana in a preliminary
discourse to his edition of the Casauboniana, published in
1710. In the Repertoire de bibliographies speciales, curieuses,
et instructives, by Peignot, there is a Notice bibliographique
of these collections; but many of the books there enumerated
consist of mere extracts from the writings of popular authors.
ANABAPTISTS (``re-baptizers,'' from Gr. ana and baptizo),
a name given by their enemies to various sects which on the occasion
of Luther's revolt from Romanism denied the validity of infant
baptism, and therefore baptized those whom they quite logically
regarded as not having received any Christian initiation at all.
On the 27th of December 1521 three ``prophets'' appeared in
Wittenberg from Zwickau, Thomas Munzer, Nicolas Storch and Mark
Thomas Stubner. Luther's reform was not thorough enough for
them. He professed to rest all upon Scripture, yet accepted
from the Babylon of Rome a baptism neither scriptural nor
primitive, nor fulfilling the chief conditions of admission
into a visible brotherhood of saints, to wit, repentance,
faith, spiritual illumination and free surrender of self to
Christ. Melanchthon, powerless against the enthusiasts
with whom his co-reformer Carlstadt sympathized, appealed to
Luther, still concealed in the Wartburg. He had written to
the Waldenses that it is better not to baptize at all than
to baptize little children; now he was cautious, would not
condemn the new prophecy off-hand; but advised Melanchthon
to treat them gently and to prove their spirits, less
they be of God. There was confusion in Wittenberg, where
schools and university sided with the ``prophets'' and were
closed. Hence the charge that Anabaptists were enemies
of learning, which is sufficiently rebutted by the fact
that the first German translation of the Hebrew prophets
was made and printed by two of them, Hetzer and Denk, in
1527. The first leaders of the movement in Zurich--Grebel,
Manz, Blaurock, Hubmaier--were men learned in Greek, Latin and
Hebrew. On the 6th of March Luther returned, interviewed
the prophets, scorned their ``spirits,'' forbade them the
city, and had their adherents ejected from Zwickau and
Erfurt. Denied access to the churches, the latter preached
and celebrated the sacrament in private houses. Driven from
the cities they swarmed over the countryside. Compelled to
leave Zwickau, Munzer visited Bohemia, resided two years
at Alltstedt in Thuringia, and in 1524 spent some time in
Switzerland. During this period he proclaimed his revolutionary
doctrines in religion and politics with growing vehemence,
and, so far as the lower orders were concerned, with growing
success. The crisis came in the so-called Peasants' War in
South Germany in 1525. In its origin a revolt against feudal
oppression, it became, under the leadership of Munzer, a
war against all constituted authorities, and an attempt to
establish by force his ideal Christian commonwealth, with
absolute equality and the community of goods. The total
defeat of the insurgents at Frankenhausen (May 15, 1525),
followed as it was by the execution of Munzer and several
other leaders, proved only a temporary check to the Anabaptist
movement. Here and there throughout Germany, Switzerland
and the Netherlands there were zealous propagandists, through
whose teaching many were prepared to follow as soon as another
leader should arise. A second and more determined attempt
to establish a theocracy was made at Munster, in Westphalia
(1532-1535). Here the sect had gained considerable
influence, through the adhesion of Rothmann, the Lutheran
pastor, and several prominent citizens; and the leaders,
Johann Matthyszoon or Matthiesen, a baker of Haarlem, and
Johann Bockholdt, a tailor of Leiden, had little difficulty
in obtaining possession of the town and deposing the
magistrates. Vigorous preparations were at once made, not
only to hold what had been gained, but to proceed from Munster
as a centre to the conquest of the world. The town being
besieged by Francis of Waldeck, its expelled bishop (April
1534), Matthiesen, who was first in command, made a sally
with only thirty followers, under the fanatical idea that he
was a second Gideon, and was cut off with his entire band.
Bockholdt, better known in history as John of Leiden, was now
supreme. Giving himself out as the successor of David, he
claimed royal honours and absolute power in the new ``Zion.''
He justified the most arbitrary and extravagant measures by
the authority of visions from heaven, as others have done
in similar circumstances. With this pretended sanction he
legalized polygamy, and himself took four wives, one of whom
he beheaded with his own hand in the market-place in a fit of
frenzy. As a natural consequence of such licence, Munster
was for twelve months a scene of unbridled profligacy. After
an obstinate resistance the town was taken by the besiegers
on the 24th of June 1535, and in January 1536 Bockholdt and
some of his more prominent followers, after being cruelly
tortured, were executed in the market-place. The outbreak at
Munster was the crisis of the Anabaptist movement. It never
again had the opportunity of assuming political importance,
the civil powers naturally adopting the most stringent measures
to suppress an agitation whose avowed object was to suppress
them. It is difficult to trace the subsequent history of the
sect as a religious body. The fact that, after the Munster
insurrection the very name Anabaptist was proscribed in Europe,
is a source of twofold confusion. The enforced adoption
of new names makes it easy to lose the historical identity
of many who really belonged to the Munster Anabaptists,
and, on the other hand, has led to the classification of
many with the Munster sect who had no real connexion with
it. The latter mistake, it is to be noted, has been much more
common than the former. The Mennonites, for example, have
been identified with the earlier Anabaptists, on the ground
that they included among their number many of the fanatics of
Munster. But the continuity of a sect is to be traced in
its principles, and not in its adherents, and it must be
remembered that Menno and his followers expressly repudiated
the distinctive doctrines of the Munster Anabaptists. They
have never aimed at any social or political revolution, and
have been as remarkable for sobriety of conduct as the Munster
sect was for its fanaticism (see MENNONITES.) In English
history frequent reference is made to the Anabaptists during
the 16th and 17th centuries, but there is no evidence that
any considerable number of native Englishmen ever adopted the
principles of the Munster sect. Many of the followers of
Munzer and Bockholdt seem to have fled from persecution in
Germany and the Netherlands to be subjected to a persecution
scarcely less severe in England. The mildest measure adopted
towards these refugees was banishment from the kingdom, and
a large number suffered at the stake. It was easier to burn
Anabaptists than to refute their arguments, and contemporary
writers were struck with the intrepidity and number of their
martyrs. Thus Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579), a Polish cardinal
and bishop of Warmie, wrote (Opera, Venice, 1573, p. 202):--
``They are far readier than followers of Luther and Zwingli
to meet death, and bear the harshest tortures for their
faith. For they run to suffer punishments, no matter how
horrible, as if to a banquet; so that if you take that as a
test either of the truth of doctrine or of their certitude of
grace, you would easily conclude that in no other sect is to be
found a faith so true or grace so certain. But as Paul wrote:
``Even if I give my body to to be burned and have not charity,
it avails me naught. But he has not charity who divides the
unity. . . . He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church.''
The excesses of John of Leiden, the Brigham Young of that
age, cast an unjust stigma on the Baptists, of whom the vast
majority were good, quiet people who merely carried out in,
practice the early Christian ideals of which their persecutors
prated. They have been reckoned an extreme left wing of the
Reformation, because for a time they followed Luther and
Zwingli. Yet their Christology and negative attitude towards
the state rather indicate, as in the case of Wicklif, Hus and
the Fraticelli, an affinity to the Cathari and other medieval
sects. But this affiliation is hard to establish. The earliest
Anabaptists of Zurich allowed that the Picardi or Waldensians
had, in contrast with Rome and the Reformers, truth on their
side, yet did not claim to be in their succession; nor can
it be shown that their adult baptism derived from any of the
older Baptist sects, which undoubtedly lingered in parts of
Europe. Later on Hermann Schyn claimed descent for the peaceful
Baptists from the Waldensians, who certainly, as the records
of the Flemish inquisition, collected by P. Fredericq, prove,
were wide-spread during the 15th century over north France and
Flanders. It would appear from the way in which Anabaptism
sprang up everywhere independently, as if more than one ancient
sect took in and through it a new lease of life. Ritschl
discerned in it the leaven of the Fraticelli or Franciscan
Tertiaries. In Moravia, if what Alex. Rost related be
true, namely that they called themselves Apostolici, and
went barefooted healing the sick, they must have at least
absorbed into themselves a sect of whom we hear in the 12th
century in the north of Europe as deferring baptism to the
age of 30, and rejecting oaths, prayers for the dead, relics
and invocation of saints. The Moravian Anabaptists, says
Rost, went bare-footed, washed each other's feet (like the
Fraticelli), had all goods in common, worked everyone at a
handicraft, had a spiritual father who prayed with them every
morning and taught them, dressed in black and had long graces
before and after meals. Zeiler also in his German Itinerary
(1618) describes their way of life. The Lord's Supper, or
bread-breaking, was a commemoration of the Passion, held once a
year. They sat at long tables, the elders read the words of
institution and prayed, and passed a loaf round from which
each broke off a bit and ate, the wine being handed round in
flagons. Children in their colonies were separated from the
parents, and lived in the school, each having his bed and
blanket. They were taught reading, writing and summing,
cleanliness, truthfulness and industry, and the girls married
the men chosen for them. In the following points Anabaptists
resembled the medieval dissenters:--(1) They taught that Jesus
did not take the flesh from his mother, but either brought his
body from heaven or had one made for him by the Word. Some
even said that he passed through his mother, as water through
a pipe, into the world. In pictures and sculptures of the
15th century and earlier, we often find represented this idea,
originated by Marcion in the 2nd century. The Anabaptists
were accused of denying the Incarnation of Christ: they
did, but not in the sense that he was not divine; they rather
denied him to be human. (2) They condemned oaths, and also
the reference of disputes between believers to law-courts. (3)
The believer must not bear arms or offer forcible resistance
to wrongdoers, nor wield the sword. No Christian has the
jus gladii. (4) Civil government belongs to the world, is
Caesar. The believer who belongs to God's kingdom must not
fill any office, nor hold any rank under government, which is
to be passively obeyed. (5) Sinners or unfaithful ones are to
be excommunicated, and excluded from the sacraments and from
intercourse with believers unless they repent, according to
Matt. xviii. 15 seq. But no force is to be used towards them.
Some sects calling themselves Spirituales or Perfecti
also held that the baptized cannot sin, a very ancient tenet.
They seem to have preserved among them the primitive manual
called the Teaching of the Apostles, for Bishop Longland
in England condemned an Anabaptist for repeating one of
its maxims ``that alms should not be given before they did
sweat in a man's hand.'' This was between 1518 and 1521.
On the 12th of April 1549, certain London Anabaptists
brought before a commission of bishops asserted7--
``That a man regenerate could not sin; that though the
outward man sinned, the inward man sinned not; that there was
no Trinity of Persons; that Christ was only a holy prophet
and not at all God; that all we had by Christ was that he
taught us the way to heaven; that he took no flesh of the
Virgin, and that the baptism of infants was not profitable.''
The Anabaptists were great readers of Revelation and of the
Epistle of James, the latter perhaps by way of counteracting
Luther's one-sided teaching of justification by faith
alone. Luther feebly rejected this scripture as ``a right
strawy epistle.'' English Anabaptists often knew it by
heart. Excessive reading of Revelation seems to have been
the chief cause of the aberrations of the Munster fanatics.
In Poland and Holland certain of the Baptists denied the Trinity,
hence the saying that a Socinian was a learned Baptist (see SOCINUS.)
With these Menno and his followers refused to hold communion.
One of the most notable features of the early Anabaptists
is that they regarded any true religious reform as involving
social amelioration. The socialism of the 16th century was
necessarily Christian and Anabaptist. Lutheranism was more
attractive to grand-ducal patriots and well-to-do burghers
than to the poor and oppressed and disinherited. The
Lutherans and Zwinglians never converted the Anabaptists.
Those who yielded to stress of persecution fell back into
Papalism and went to swell the tide of the Catholic reaction.
AUTHORITIES.--Fussli, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie der mittlern
Zeit (contains Bullinger); Zwinglius, In catabaptistarum
strophas elenchus (1527) (Opera iii. 351); Bullinger,
Der Wiedertaafsr Ursprung (1560); Gieseler, Ecclesiastical
History, Engl. tr. v. 344; Spanheim, De origine Anabapt.
(Lugd. 1643); Ranke's History of the, Reformation;
Melanchthon, Die Historic von Th. Muntzer (1525) (in
Luthers Werke, ed. Walch, xvi. 199); Strobel, Leben Th.
Muntzers (1795); C. A. Cornelius, Die niederlandischen
Wiedertaufer, in publications of Bavarian Academy (1869);
J. G. Walch, Hist. u. theolog. Einleitung (Jena, 1733);
Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History; Gerbert, Gesch. d.
Strassb. Sektenbewegung (Strassburg, 1889); W. Moeller,
History of the Christian Church, tr. by Freese, 1900; Jos.
v. Beck, Die Geschichtsbucher der Wiedertaufer in
Osterr.-Ung. (Wien, 1883), (Fontes rerum Austr. II. xliii.,
a valuable history of the sect from their own early documents);
Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, vol. i. (Bonn, 1880);
Loserth, B. Hubmaier und die Anfange der Wiedertaufer
in Mahren (Brunn, 1893); Kolde, in Kirchengesch. Studien
(Leipzig, 1888); Kessler, Sabbata; Leendertz and Zur Linden,
M.. Hofmann (Haarlem, 1883-1885); Erbkam, Gesch. der
prot. Sekten der Reform. (1848); Justus Menius, Der
Weidertaufer Lehre (Wittenberg, 1534); Johann Cloppenburg
and Fred. Spanheim, Gangraena theologiae Anabaptisticae
(Franekerd, 1656); Balthasar Lydius, Waldensia, id est
conservatio verae Ecclesiae (Rotterdam, 1616); Herman
Schyn, Historiae Mennonitarum (Amsterdam, 1729); John.
Henr. Ottius, Annales Anabaptistici (Basileae. 1772);
Karl Rembert, Die Wiedertaufer in Herzogtum Julich
(Munster, 1873); Universal Lexicon, art. ``Wiedertaufer''
(Leipzig. 1748); Tielmann Janssen van Bracht, Martyrologia
Mennonitarum (Haarlem. 1615-1631); John. Gastii,
Tractat. de Anabapt. Exordio (Basel, 1545); Jehring,
History of the Baptists; Auss Bundt, or hymns written
by and of the Baptist martyrs from 1526-1620, first printed
without date or place, reprinted Basel, 1838. (F. C. C.)
ANABASIS (anabasis, a march up country), the
title given by Xenophon (q.v.) to his narrative of
the expedition of Cyrus the younger against his brother,
Artaxerxes of Persia, 401 B.C., and adopted by Arrian
for his history of the expedition of Alexander the Great.
ANABOLISM (Gr. ana, up, bole, a throw), the biological
term for the building up in an organism of more complex from
simpler substances, constructive metabolism. (See PHYSIOLOGY.)
ANACHARSIS, a Scythian philosopher, who lived about 600
B.C. He was the son of Gnurus, chief of a nomadic tribe
of the Euxine shores, and a Greek woman. Instructed in the
Greek language by his mother, he prevailed upon the king to
entrust him with an embassy to Athens about 589 B.C. He
became acquainted with Solon, from whom he rapidly acquired
a knowledge of the wisdom and learning of Greece, and by
whose influence he was introduced to the principal persons in
Athens. He was the first stranger who received the privileges
of citizenship. He was reckoned one of the Seven Sages,
and it is said that he was initiated into the Eleusinian
mysteries. After he had resided several years at Athens,
he travelled through different countries in quest of
knowledge, and returned home filled with the desire of
instructing his countrymen in the laws and the religion of the
Greeks. According to Herodotus he was killed by his brother
Saulius while he was performing sacrifice to the goddess
Cybele. It was he who compared laws to spiders' webs, which
catch small flies and allow bigger ones to escape. His
simple and forcible mode of expressing himself gave birth
to the proverbial expression ``Scythian eloquence,'' but his
epigrams are as unauthentic as the letters which are often
attributed to him. According to Strabo he was the first
to invent an anchor with two flukes. Barthelemy borrows
his name as the title for his Anacharsis en Grece.
Herodotus iv. 76; Lucian, Scytha; Cicero,
Tusc. Disp. v. 32; Diog. Laert. i. 101.
ANACHRONISM (from ana, back, and chronos, time), a
neglect or falsification, whether wilful or undesigned, of
chronological relation. Its commonest use restricts it to
the ante-dating of events, circumstances or customs; in other
words, to the introduction, especially in works of imagination
that rest on a historical basis, of details borrowed from
a later age. Anachronisms may be committed in many ways,
originating, for instance, in disregard of the different modes
of life and thought that characterize different periods, or
in ignorance of the progress of the arts and sciences and the
other ascertained facts of history, and may vary from glaring
inconsistency to scarcely perceptible misrepresentation. Much
of the thought entertained about the past is so deficient in
historical perspective as to be little better than a continuous
anachronism. It is only since the close of the 18th century
that this kind of untruthfulness has jarred on the general
intelligence. Anachronisms abound in the works of Raphael and
Shakespeare, as well as in those of the meanest daubers and
playwrights of earlier times. In particular, the artists, on
the stage and on the canvas, in story and in song, assimilated
their dramatis personae to their own nationality and their own
time. The Virgin was represented here as an Italian contadina,
and there as a Flemish frow; Alexander the Great appeared
on the French stage in the full costume of Louis XIV. down
to the time of Voltaire; and in England the contemporaries
of Addison could behold, without any suspicion of burlesque,
``Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.''
Modern realism, the progress of archaeological research,
and the more scientific spirit of history, have made an
anachronism an offence, where our ancestors saw none.
ANACOLUTHON (Gr. for ``not following on''), a grammatical
term, given to a defectively constructed sentence which does
not run on as a continuous whole; this may occur either, in
a text, by some corruption, or, in the case of a writer or
speaker, simply through his forgetting the way in which he
started. In the case of a man who is full of his subject,
or who is carried along by the passion of the moment, such
inconsequents are very apt to occur. Of Niebuhr it is told
that his oral lectures consisted almost entirely of anacoluthic
constructions. To this kind of licence some languages,
as Greek and English, readily lend themselves; while the
grammatical rigidity of others, as Latin and French, admits
of it but sparingly. In Herodotus, Thucydides, Aeschylus,
Pindar and Plato, abundant specimens are to be found; and
the same is true of the writers of the Elizabethan age in
English. The following is an example:--``And he charged him
to tell no man; but go show thyself,'' &c. (Luke v. 14).
ANACONDA, a city and the county-seat of Deer Lodge county,
Montana, U.S.A., situated in the mountains on the W. side of
Deer Lodge Valley, in the S.W. part of the state, about 26
m. N.W. of Butte, and at an altitude of about 5300 ft. Pop.
(1890) 3075; (1900) 9453, of whom 3478 were foreign-born;
(1910, census) 10,134. It is connected with Butte by the
Butte, Anaconda & Pacific railroad. Among its public buildings
are the county court-house and the Hearst free public library
(1898). Industrially, Anaconda is essentially a smelting
camp for the copper ores from the Butte mines, probably the
largest copper- smelter in the world being located here;
the principal copper-mine at Butte--one of the most famous
copper-mines in the world--is called the Anaconda. In 1905
the capital invested in manufacturing was $13,728,456, and
the factory product was valued at $28,581,530. Electric
power generated at the Helena Power Transmission Company's
plant on the Missouri river, 18 m. from Helena, comes to
Anaconda over 110 m. of wire at 70,000 voltage. Anaconda
is to a large degree the market and trading-place of the
Big Hole Basin cattle country in the north-western part of
Beaverhead county; with Wisdom, in the Big Hole Basin, it was
connected in 1905 by a 65 m. telephone line. Anaconda was
first settled in 1884 and was chartered as a city in 1888.
ANACONDA, an aquatic boa, inhabiting the swamps and rivers
of the dense forests of tropical South America. It is the
largest of all modern snakes, said to attain over 30 ft. in
length. The Eunectes murinus (formerly called Boa
murina) differs from Boa by the snout being covered with
shields instead of small scales, the inner of the three nasal
shields being in contact with that of the other side. The
general colour is dark olive-brown, with large oval black
spots arranged in two alternating rows along the back, and
with smaller white-eyed spots along the sides. The belly
is whitish, spotted with black. The anaconda combines an
arboreal with an aquatic life, and feeds chiefly upon birds and
mammals, mostly during the night. It lies submerged in the
water, with only a small part of its head above the surface,
waiting for any suitable prey, or it establishes itself upon
the branches of a tree which overhangs the water or the track of
game. Being eminently aquatic this snake is viviparous.
It is the only large boa which is decidedly ill-tempered.
ANACREON, Greek lyric poet, was born about 560 B.C., at
Teos, an Ionian city on the coast of Asia Minor. Little
is known of his life, except a few scattered notices, not
in all cases certainly authentic. He probably shared the
voluntary exile of the mass of his fellow-townsmen, who,
when Cyrus the Great was besieging the Greek cities of Asia
(545), rather than surrender their city to his general
Harpagus, sailed to Abdera in Thrace, where they founded a
colony. Anacreon seems to have taken part in the fighting, in
which, on his own admission, he did not distinguish himself,
but, like Alcaeus and Horace, threw away his shield and
fled. From Thrace he removed to the court of Polycrates of
Samos, one of the best of those old ``tyrants''' who by no
means deserved the name in its worst sense. He is said to
have acted as tutor to Polycrates; that he enjoyed the tyrant's
confidence we learn on the authority of Herodotus (iii. 121),
who represents the poet as sitting in the royal chamber when
audience was given to the Persian herald. In return for his
favour and protection, Anacreon wrote many complimentary odes
upon his patron. Like his fellow-lyrist, Horace, who was
one of his great admirers, and in many respects of a kindred
spirit, Anacreon seems to have been made for the society of
courts. On the death of Polycrates, Hipparchus, who was then
in power at Athens and inherited the literary tastes of his
father Peisistratus, sent a special embassy to fetch the popular
poet to Athens in a galley of fifty oars. Here he became
acquainted with the poet Simonides, and other members of the
brilliant circle which had gathered round Hipparchus. When
this circle was broken up by the assassination of Hipparchus,
Anacreon seems to have returned to his native town of Teos,
where, according to a metrical epitaph ascribed to his friend
Simonides, he died and was buried. According to others,
before returning to Teos, he accompanied Simonides to the
court of Echecrates, a Thessalian dynast of the house of the
Aleuadae. Lucian mentions Anacreon amongst his instances of
the longevity of eminent men, as having completed eighty-five
years. If an anecdote given by Pliny (Nat. Hist. vii. 7) is
to be trusted, he was choked at last by a grape-stone, but the
story has an air of mythical adaptation to the poet's habits,
which makes it somewhat apocryphal. Anacreon was for a long
time popular at Athens, where his statue was to be seen on the
Acropolis, together with that of his friend Xanthippus, the
father of Pericles. On several coins of Teos he is represented,
holding a lyre in his hand, sometimes sitting, sometimes
standing. A marble statue found in 1835 in the Sabine
district, and now in the Villa Borghese, is said to represent
Anacreon. Anacreon had a reputation as a composer of hymns,
as well as of those bacchanalian and amatory lyrics which
are commonly associated with his name. Two short hymns to
Artemis and Dionysus, consisting of eight and eleven lines
respectively, stand first amongst his few undisputed remains,
as printed by recent editors. But pagan hymns, especially when
addressed to such deities as Aphrodite, Eros and Dionysus, are
not so very unlike what we call ``Anacreontic'' poetry as to
make the contrast of style as great as the word might seem to
imply. The tone of Anacreon's lyric effusions has probably
led to an unjust estimate, by both ancients and moderns, of
the poet's personal character. The ``triple worship'' of the
Muses, Wine and Love, ascribed to him as his religion in an
old Greek epigram (Anthol. iii. 25, 51), may have been as
purely professional in the two last cases as in the first,
and his private character on such points was probably neither
much better nor worse than that of his contemporaries.
Athenaeus remarks acutely that he seems at least to have
been sober when he wrote; and he himself strongly repudiates,
as Horace does, the brutal characteristics of intoxication
as fit only for barbarians and Scythians (Fr. 64). Of the
five books of lyrical pieces by Anacreon which Suidas and
Athenaeus mention as extant in their time, we have now but
the merest fragments, collected from the citations of later
writers. Those graceful little poems (most of them first
printed from the MSS. by Henry Stephens in 1554), which long
passed among the learned for the songs of Anacreon, and which
are well-known to many English readers in the translations
of Cowley and Moore, are really of much later date, though
possibly here and there genuine fragments of the poet are
included. Modern critics, however, regard the entire collection
as imitations belonging to different periods--the oldest probably
to Alexandrian times, the most recent to the last days of
paganism. They will always retain a certain popularity
from their lightness and elegance, and some of them are fair
copies of Anacreon's style, which would lend itself readily
enough to a clever imitator. A strong argument against their
genuineness lies in the fact that the peculiar forms of the
Ionic Greek, in which Anacreon wrote, are not to be found in
these reputed odes, while the fragments of his poems quoted
by ancient writers are full of Ionicisms. Again, only one
of the quotations from Anacreon in ancient writers is to be
found in these poems, which further contain no references
to contemporaries, whereas Strabo (xiv. p. 638) expressly
states that Anacreon's poems included numerous allusions to
Polycrates. The character of Love as a mischievous little
boy is quite different from that given by Anacreon, who
describes him as ``striking with a mighty axe, like a smith,''
and is more akin to the conceptions of later literature.
The best edition of the genuine fragments of Anacreon, as well
as of the Anacreontea, is by Bergk (Poetae lyrici graeci,
1882). He includes in an appendix a similar collection
of imitations from the Anecdota graeca of P. Matranga
(1850), which had their origin in the beginning of the middle
ages, and resemble the Christian anacreontics of Sophronius.
ANACREONTICS (from the name of the Greek poet Anacreon),
the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind,
dealing with love and wine. The English word appears to
have been first used in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who called
a section of his poems ``anacreontiques,'' because they
were paraphrased out of the so-called writings of Anacreon
into a familiar measure which was supposed to represent the
metre of the Greek. Half a century later, when the form
had been much cultivated, John Phillips (1631-1706) laid
down the arbitrary rule that an anacreontic line ``consists
of seven syllables, without being tied to any certain law
of quantity.'' In the 18th century, the antiquary William
Oldys (1696-1761) was the author of a little piece which
is the perfect type of an anacreontic: this begins:--
``Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Drink with me, and drink as I;
Freely welcome to my cup,
Could'st thou sip and sip it up.
Make the most of life you may;
Life is short and wears away.''
In 1800 Tom Moore published a collection of erotic anacreontics
which are also typical in form; Moore speaks of the necessity of
catching ``the careless facility with which Anacreon appears to
have trifled,'' as a reason why anacreontics are often tame and
worthless. He dwells, moreover, on the absurdity of writing
``pious anacreontics,'' a feat, however, which was performed
by several of the Greek Christian poets, and in particular
by Gregory of Nazianzus and John of Damascus. (E. G.)
ANADYOMENE ('Anaduoene), an epithet of Aphrodite
(Venus), expressive of her having sprung from the foam of the
sea. In a famous picture by Apelles she was represented
under this title as if just emerged from the sea and in the
act of wringing her tresses. This painting was executed
for the temple of Asclepius at Cos, from which it was taken
to Rome by Augustus in part payment of tribute, and set
up in the temple of Caesar. In the time of Nero, owing to
its dilapidated condition, it was replaced by a copy made
by the painter Dorotheus (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxv. 36).
There are several epigrams on it in the Greek anthology.
ANADYR, (1) a gulf, and (2) a river, in the extreme N.E. of
Siberia, in the Maritime Province. The gulf extends from Cape
Chukchi on the north to Cape Navarin on the south, forming part
of the Bering Sea. The river, taking its rise in the Stanovoi
mountains as the Ivashki or Ivachno, about 67 deg. N. lat. and
173 deg. E. long., flows through the Chukchi country, at first
south-west and then east, and enters the Gulf of Anadyr after
a course of about 500 m. The country through which it passes
is thinly populated, barren and desolate. For nine months of
the year the ground is covered with snow. Reindeer, upon which
the inhabitants subsist, are found in considerable numbers.
ANAEMIA (from Gr. an-, privative, and aima, blood),
literally ``want of blood,'' a word used as a generic
term for various forms of disease characterized by a
defective constitution of the blood. For different types
of anaemia see the article BLOOD, section Pathology.
ANAESTHESIA and ANAESTHETICS (Gr. anaisthesia, from
an-, privative, and aisthesis, sensation), terms
used in medicine to describe a state of local or general
insensibility to external impressions, and the substances
used for inducing this state. In diseases of the brain or
spinal cord anaesthesia is an occasional symptom, but in such
cases it is usually limited in extent, involving a limb or
a definite area of the body's surface. Complete anaesthesia
occurs in a state of catalepsy or trance-- conditions
associated with no definite lesion of the nervous system.
The artificial induction of anaesthesia has come to occupy
a foremost place in modern medicine, but there is abundant
evidence to show that it is a practice of great antiquity.
Besides the mention by Homer of the anaesthetic effects of
nepenthe, and the reference by Herodotus to the practice of
the Scythians of inhaling the vapours of a certain kind of
hemp to produce intoxication, the employment of anaesthetics
in surgery by the use of mandragora is particularly alluded
to by Dioscorides and Pliny. It also appears, from an old
Chinese manuscript laid before the French Academy by Stanislas
Julien, that a physician named Hoa-tho, who lived in the 3rd
century, gave his patients a preparation of hemp, whereby
they were rendered insensible during the performance of
surgical operations. Mandragora was extensively used as
an anaesthetic by Hugo de Lucca, who practised in the 13th
century. The soporific effects of mandrake are alluded to by
Shakespeare, who also makes frequent mention of anaesthetizing
draughts, the composition of which is not specified.
In the Medical Gazette, vol. xii. p. 515, Dr Sylvester, quoting
from a German work by Meissner, published in 1782, mentions
the case of Augustus, king of Poland, who underwent amputation
while rendered insensible by a narcotic. But the practice
of anaesthesia never became general, and surgeons appear to
have usually regarded it with disfavour. When, towards the
close of the 18th century, the discoveries of Priestley gave
an impetus to chemical research, the properties of gases and
vapours began to be more closely investigated, and the belief
was then entertained that many of them would become of great
medicinal value. In 1800, Sir Humphry Davy, experimenting
on nitrous oxide (the so-called ``laughing gas''), discovered
its anaesthetic properties, and described the effects it
had on himself when inhaled with the view of relieving local
pain. He suggested its employment in surgery in the following
words:--``As nitrous oxide, in its extensive operation,
seems capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be
used with advantage in surgical operations in which no great
effusion of blood takes place.'' His suggestion, however,
remained unheeded for nearly half a century. The inhalation
of sulphuric ether for the relief of asthma and other lung
affections had been employed by Dr Pearson of Birmingham as early
as 1785; and in 1805 Dr J. C. Warren of Boston, U.S.A., used
this treatment in the later stages of pulmonary consumption.
In 1818 Faraday showed that the inhalation of the vapour of ether
produced anaesthetic effects similar to those of nitrous oxide; and
this property of ether was also shown by the American physicians,
John D. Godman (1822), James Jackson (1833), Wood and Bache (1834).
These observations, however, appear to have been regarded
in the light of mere scientific curiosities and subjects for
lecture- room experiment, rather than as facts capable of
being applied practically in the treatment of disease, till
December 1844, when Dr Horace Wells, a dentist of Hartford,
Connecticut, underwent in his own person the operation
of tooth-extraction while rendered insensible by nitrous
oxide. Satisfied, from further experience, that teeth could
be extracted in this way without pain, Dr Wells proposed
to establish the practice of painless dentistry under the
influence of the gas; but in consequence of an unfortunate
failure in an experiment at Boston he abandoned the project.
On the 30th of September 1846 Dr W. T. G. Morton, a dentist
of Boston, employed the vapour of ether to procure general
anaesthesia in a case of tooth-extraction, and thereafter
administered it in cases requiring surgical operation with
complete success. This great achievement marked a new era in
surgery. Operations were performed in America in numerous
instances under ether inhalation, the result being only to
establish more firmly its value as a successful anaesthetic.
The news of the discovery reached England on the 17th of December
1840. On the 19th of December Mr Robinson, a dentist in
London, and on the 21st Robert Liston, the eminent surgeon,
operated on patients anaesthetized by ether; and the practice
soon became general both in Great Britain and on the continent.
Sir James Simpson was the first to apply anaesthesia by
ether to midwifery practice; this he did in 1847, and
found that the pains of labour could be abolished without
interference with uterine contractions or injury to the
child. On the 8th of March 1847 M. J. P. Flourens read a
paper before the Academie des Sciences on the effect of
chloroform on the lower animals, but no notice was taken
of what has since proved to be a discovery of epoch-making
importance. In November of the same year Simpson announced
his discovery of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform, the
trial of which had been suggested to him by Waldie, a chemist of
Liverpool. As the result, chloroform came to be widely used
instead of ether, though it was found by several casualties
that it was not the absolutely safe anaesthetic that had
at first been hoped. It, however, remained the drug that
was chiefly used till Dr J. T. Clover (1825-1882) of London
introduced his regulating ether-inhaler in 1876, embodying
a new principle--that of limiting the quantity of air during
etherization and regulating the strength of the vapour.
During the intervening period, as the results of the labours of
John Snow, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, Thomas Nunnely, and Colton
amongst others, several drugs were found to possess anaesthetic
properties. Of these one, ethyl chloride, which was speedily
given up, has come into deserved prominence at the present time;
and another, nitrous oxide, which had been lost sight of since
Wells's failure at Boston, was reintroduced, and it became and
has remained the most popular anaesthetic in dental practice.
Since 1876 no new drugs have been introduced; the progress
has been in the direction of improvements in the technique of
anaesthetization. The most important of these is the
administration of oxygen with nitrous oxide, resulting from
the recognition of the fact that this drug does not owe its
anaesthetic properties to partial asphyxia, as was thought
till the contrary was shown by Edmund Andrews of Chicago in
1868. It was not till twenty years later that this knowledge
was put to practical use, when F. W. Hewett introduced
his regulating stopcock, which enabled the anaesthetist to
exhibit the nitrous oxide and oxygen in such proportions as
were demanded by the patient's condition. At the present
time the anaesthetics in common use are the following:--
(1) Nitrous oxide gas, or laughing gas, N2O. This is a
colourless, odourless gas, which for convenience is carried
about in liquid form in iron cylinders. When about to be used,
it is allowed to escape into a large rubber bag, connected
with a closely- fitting face-piece, which covers up the nose
and mouth, and allows of inspiration only from the bag of
gas, expiration being into the air. When thus given the
patient is exposed to a certain degree of asphyxia. This
asphyxia is not only not necessary but is harmful, and may
be obviated by giving oxygen in small amounts simultaneously
by means of Hewett's regulating stopcock. This drug is used
chiefly for dental operations, and for minor surgery where
absolute muscular relaxation is not required. When mixed
with oxygen, it can he given if necessary for an hour or
longer. It has an induction period of a few breaths only,
and the recovery is as a rule unaccompanied by excitement or
nausea. It is also used as a preliminary to ether; the gas
is given till unconsciousness is reached, the unpleasant
taste of the ether being thus avoided and the induction
period shortened. The mortality from nitrous oxide is
small, and from the gas and oxygen in expert hands nil.
(2) Ethyl chloride, C2H5Cl, a colourless liquid of a pleasant
odour, boiling at 12.5 deg. C. It is used in the same class
of operations as the last anaesthetic. It is best given in
an apparatus that consists of a mask closely adapted to the
face, and a rubber bag of small capacity, with which is
connected the bottle containing the ethyl chloride. The vapour
supplied from the bottle is breathed backwards and forwards
from the bag, fresh air being admitted in small quantities
only. The period of induction is shorter than in the case of
nitrous oxide, the patient losing consciousness in two or three
breaths; the stage of recovery is not so uniformly pleasant,
headache, nausea and vomiting occurring not infrequently.
It is difficult at present to estimate the mortality, as
it has only recently come into general use, but it seems to
occupy an intermediate position between ether and chloroform.
(3) Ether, or ethyl oxide, (C2H5)2O, a colourless, volatile
liquid, boiling at 36.5 deg. C. It has a pungent odour. It is best
administered, as in the case of ethyl chloride, by limiting the
amount of air during inhalation. The induction is much slower
than in the case of the last two drugs, and it is accompanied
by a feeling of suffocation, owing to the pungent odour of the
ether. On that account the anaesthetic is best started with
nitrous oxide or ethyl chloride. The recovery is always
marked by some nausea and very frequently by vomiting. The
mortality is small during the actual operation, but fatalities
from respiratory complications later on are not uncommon.
(4) Chloroform, CHCl3, a colourless liquid of a penetrating
odour, boiling at 63 deg. C. It is administered in such a way
as to ensure the free admixture of air. To secure this
the face-piece must be loosely-fitting, and the strength of
the vapour so gradually increased that the patient is never
inconvenienced or impelled to hold the breath. The induction
is slow, occupying two or more minutes, but it is not at all
unpleasant; nausea and vomiting during recovery are rarer
than in the case of ether, but if they do occur they last
longer. The mortality on the table is about 1 in 2500.
The question as to which is the better anaesthetic, ether
or chloroform, for long operations, is a moot point. In
the hands of an experienced anaesthetist there is probably
nothing to choose as regards safety, and the anaesthetic
advantages of the latter are incontestable. In the hands of
the less-experienced anaesthetist, ether is the more suitable
drug. At the extremes of life, chloroform is well taken,
as it is also by women in labour, and it is indicated where
there has been recent inflammation of the air passages. In
operations, too, about the mouth, chloroform must be the drug
used, as a closely-fitting mask is obviously impossible.
The introduction by inhalation of any of the above drugs into
the organism produces an anaesthesia, the degree of which at
any moment varies directly as the amount or tension of the
vapour in the blood, and therefore also as the tension of
the vapour in the inspired air. The organism in this case
may be compared to an electric lamp, of which the voltage
is, say 100; a current of any less voltage will only produce
a red heat, however many amperes are forced through; with
the voltage at 100 the filament will be white hot, at over
100 the filament will fuse. So with these drugs: with the
vapour at a low tension a certain low depth of anaesthesia
is obtained; if the administrator increases the tension,
true surgical anaesthesia is produced; if he increases it
again, the filament fuses and the patient dies. This is the
principle which guides the anaesthetist; it is the quality of
the vapour that decides the depth of the anaesthesia, not the
quantity. An infinite quantity of chloroform may be absorbed
with impunity if the tension be low, but a few drops will
kill if the tension be high. For practical purposes four
degrees of anaesthesia are described, through which a patient
passes from unconsciousness to (in the last resort) death:--
(1) A state of disordered consciousness, with analgesia;
the patient's ideas are confused, the special senses are
disturbed, and though the application of stimuli to the
skin causes no mental impression, yet in response to
them there may be what look like purposeful movements.
(2) In the second stage there is complete loss of consciousness;
and though the reflexes persist, the movements in response to
the stimuli are purposeless. The muscles generally act strongly.
(3) The stage of surgical anaesthesia; there is a
general muscular relaxation, with the loss of many of the
reflexes, i.e. an operation may be performed without
evoking any movement on the part of the patient, while
the vital reflexes and the vital centres in the medulla
are still active, and the heart muscle is not paralysed.
(4) Finally, the stage of paralysis of the medulla, when
the respiratory and circulatory centres are paralysed,
and the heart muscle itself is poisoned and death ensues.
The aim of the anaesthetist is to keep the patient in the
third degree of anaesthesia, thus avoiding the movements
of the second and the dangers of the fourth; he therefore
keeps the patient under close observation, and by watching
the respiration, pulse and facial aspect, is able to judge
the condition of the respiration and circulation. He has
a further guide in the lid- reflex, i.e. the movement of
the eyelid when the globe is touched; this and the size of
the pupil tell him to what extent the central nervous system
is depressed and complete the information he requires.
It will have been observed that the administration of
the above drugs is by inhalation, and has to be continued
throughout the operation, the reason being that all the drugs
are as rapidly excreted as they are absorbed, especially
by the lungs, and therefore no other method would be of any
avail. That there are drugs which are sufficiently slowly
eliminated to allow of an operation being performed between
the moment of induction and that of recovery, cannot be
doubted, and their discovery and use can only be a matter of
time. Even at the present time there is one, urethane,
which, if injected with a hypodermic needle, soon produces
a profound general anaesthesia. It has only been used
on the lower animals, as its depressing effect on the
respiratory centre contra-indicates its use in human beings.
Local Anaesthesia.--Much attention has recently been devoted
to the discovery of methods by which the insensibility may be
confined to the area of operation and the loss of consciousness
avoided. Such a procedure has been common for many years
for small operations, but it is only lately that it has
been successfully applied to the severer ones. It is very
doubtful whether local anaesthesia will ever replace general
in the latter class. Though the preliminary starvation is
avoided, and the patient has the shock of operation alone to
recover from, without the cardiac depression resulting from
the anaesthetic during the operation, the patient, unless
of a very apathetic temperament, is in that state of severe
nervous strain, when any unexpected movement or remark, or
sight of a soiled instrument, may produce an alarming or fatal
syncope. The earliest local anaesthetic was cold, produced
by a mixture of ice and salt. In place of this cumbersome
method, the skin is now frozen by means of a fine spray of
ether or ethyl chloride directed upon it. The spraying is
discontinued when the skin becomes white, and it is then
allowed to regain its colour. The moment this occurs the
incision is made and will be quite painless. The recovery,
like that from any other frost-bite, is very painful, and
the time during which an operation can be done is very short;
consequently this method has been very largely superseded by
the use of drugs. The drugs chiefly used are cocaine and its
derivatives. Cocaine has by far the highest anaesthetic
properties; it is, however, in certain individuals a most
powerful cardiac depressant and has caused numerous fatalities,
and further, it cannot be sterilized by heat, as it undergoes
decomposition. Eucaine has now largely taken its place,
though its anaesthetic properties are less; it is, however,
less toxic, and can be sterilized by heat. In combination
with these drugs there is usually given some of the extract
of the suprarenal body of the sheep; this substance increases
and prolongs the anaesthetic effect by constricting the
blood-vessels, the result of which is to reduce the haemorrhage,
and also to prevent the too rapid absorption of the drug into
the general system, confining it to the area of operation.
The chief methods of bringing about local anaesthesia are as follows:--
(1) Painting or spraying a solution of the drugs
on to the area on which it is proposed to operate.
(2) Injection by means of a needle of the
solution into the skin and the deeper structures.
(3) Spinal analgesia. The method of inducing analgesia by injecting
solutions into the sheath surrounding the spinal cord was devised
by Bier in 1898, and for the purpose he employed a solution of
cocaine. It was found, however, that there was considerable
danger with this drug, so the method was not adopted to any
great extent, until Fourneau discovered stovaine in 1904.
The principle involved in spinal anaesthesia is this: that a
substance in solution is injected into the sac containing the
spinal cord in the lumbar region. The spinal cord as such
ends at the level of the first lumbar vertebra in a leash of
nerves termed the cauda equina. When giving an injection
there is little danger of injuring these nerves because in
this situation there is a space filled with fluid between the
wall of the sac and the nerves. The substances injected, by
virtue of their specific action on nervous tissues, cause loss
of painful sensations in the lower limbs and for a variable
distance up the trunk. It has been found that the specific
gravity of the solution injected has some influence on the
height to which the analgesia will extend up the trunk, and this
distance can also be controlled by altering the position of the
patient. The canal in which the cord is situated is not a
straight tube, but is curved backwards in the sacral and upper
dorsal regions, and forwards in the lower dorsal and lumbar
regions. Therefore with the patient lying on his back, any
solution injected that has a greater specific gravity than
that of the cerebrospinal fluid which bathes the cord, tends
to gravitate towards the sacral and upper dorsal regions;
and, conversely, any solution of lower specific gravity than
that of the cerebrospinal fluid tends to rise and produce
analgesia at a still higher level. In this way the situation
of the fluid producing analgesia can be controlled to some
extent. It has been found that a very serious danger exists
if the solution passes up to the brain, or even if it passes
higher than the sixth cervical nerve. It is important that
the osmotic pressure of the solutions employed should be as
nearly as possible that of the cerebrospinal fluid, that is to
say, the nearer the solution is isotonic with the cerebrospinal
fluid, the better will be the analgesia, and the less will
be the harmful effects. At present it has not been found
possible to separate in any of the substances employed the
radicle which produces motor effects from that which blocks
the advent of sensory stimuli. Although both effects last
only a short time there seems to be a certain risk due to
the temporary muscular paralysis, and in a patient with a
tendency to bronchitis this is a matter of considerable moment.
The fluid is injected in the following manner. A puncture
is made with a special trocar and canula in the lumbar region
between the second and third or third and fourth lumbar
spines. The sheath of the sac having been entered, as is
evidenced by the loss of resistance to the point of the
trocar, and by the fact that cerebrospinal fluid escapes
when the trocar is withdrawn, the dose of the fluid selected
is injected through the canula, which is then withdrawn.
An important point is that the operation must be absolutely
aseptic; great care is taken to sterilize thoroughly the
instruments, site of operation and fluid used. The patient
is placed in that position which will yield the best and
safest analgesia for the operation; it is essential, however,
that the patient's head be raised well above the level of the
spine. The injection is followed very quickly, generally
within three to five minutes, by the production of analgesia,
which lasts for a period varying from half an hour to two
hours. Various substances have been used for the injection,
of which the following are the chief --tropacocaine, stovaine,
novocaine, cocaine, eucaine and alypin. All of these have
been combined with adrenalin hydrochloride with a view to
limiting their action in one degree or another; and also
with other inert substances in such quantity as will produce
isotonic solutions of relatively high specific gravity.
The points in favour of this method of producing analgesia are
as follows: (a) The patient is not rendered unconscious, and
is often able to assist at his own operation, such as by coughing
or moving his limbs in any way as may be desired. (b) There
are no troublesome after-effects, such as nausea, vomiting and
thirst. (c) The formation of haematoma is less frequent. (d)
Surgical shock is considerably lessened, especially in such
operations as amputations and severe abdominal emergencies.
(e) The risk attending a general anaesthetic is avoided.
The disadvantages at present attending the method are:
(a) A severe form of headache may sometimes follow, but
this has seemed to depend on the kind of fluid injected,
and in the recent cases has not been so frequent as in the
early ones. (b) The paralysis of muscles. In a very few
cases this has been permanent. The temporary paralysis of
the muscles of respiration is apt to be a serious matter.
(c) Occasionally incontinence of urine and faeces occurs;
this, however, has not been permanent except in a few of the
earlier cases. (d) The uncertainty of the method, so that
the analgesia is not always as complete as is desirable.
(e) The analgesia for safety must be limited to a line
below the level of the second rib in front. (f) The use of
the Trendelenburgh position is impossible, or indeed the use
of any position which involves lowering the patient's head.
It would appear that the method undoubtedly has its uses, and that
it will take its place in surgery and find its proper level. A
large amount of work is being done on the subject, with a view
of determining the limitations and possibilities of the method,
the best kind of substance to use and the proper dose to employ.
Finally, a large number of operations have been performed under
a local anaesthesia produced by hypnotism (q.v.), but this
is a method that can only be used on selected cases. (H. C. C.)
ANAGNIA [mod. Anagni; pop. (1901) 10,059], an ancient
town of the Hernici, situated on a hill (1558 ft.) above the
valley of the Trerus and the Via Labicana (the post-station
3 m. below the town, from which a branch road ascended to
it, was Compitum Anagninum, which was 40 m. E.S.E. of Rome:
see T. Ashby, in Papers of the British School at Rome, i.
215). In 1880 a pre-Aryan grave was found between the town
and the river, with a skeleton painted red, stone implements
and a bronze dagger. After the Italian immigration, its
position in a fertile district soon gave it importance,
and it became the seat of the assembly of the Hernican
towns. In the War of 306 B.C. it was conquered by Q.
Marcius Tremulus and lost its independence. Its inhabitants
had certainly acquired Roman citizenship before the Social
War and it continued to be a municipium throughout the Roman
period. It was besieged by the Saracens in 877, but in the
11th century was a place of considerable importance, the
Conti and Gaetani being the chief families; Pope Boniface
VIII., a member of the latter, was there made prisoner in
1303. The ancient city walls are in some points still
existing, in others they have been much restored; they are
built of rectangular blocks of porous limestone about 1 1/2ft.
high. On the north of the town they are especially
well-preserved, and at one point the area within them is
slightly extended by a terrace supported by three lofty
pillars. Within the city there are no ancient remains, except
some massive substruction walls which supported buildings on the
hillside. The present town still preserves in parts its
medieval aspect. The cathedral, constructed in 1074 at the
summit of the hill, is externally plain; it has a fine Gothic
interior, somewhat spoilt by restoration, with a good Cosmati
pavement, and a canopy and paschal candlestick in the same
style. The crypt contains frescoes of the 13th century,
and in the treasury are valuable vestments. Lower down
is the Palazzo Civico, belonging to the 11th or early 12th
century, which is supported on arches of a single span, under
which the road passes. Its posterior facade is fine. Pope
Adrian IV. (Nicholas Breakspeare) died here, and there is
a chapel of St Thomas Becket in the crypt of the cathedral.
See L. Pigorini, in Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana (1880,
8 seq.); J. Kulakowski, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale
di Scienze Storiche (Rome, 1904), v. 673 seq. (T. As.)
ANAGRAM (Gr. ana, back, and grafein, to write), the
result of transposing the letters of a word or words in such
a manner as to produce other words that possess meaning. The
construction of anagrams is an amusement of great antiquity,
its invention being ascribed without authority to the Jews,
probably because the later Hebrew writers, particularly the
Kabbalists, were fond of it, asserting that ``secret mysteries
are woven in the numbers of letters.'' Anagrams were known to
the Greeks and also to the Romans, although the known Latin
examples of words of more than one syllable are nearly all
imperfect. They were popular throughout Europe during the
middle ages and later, particularly in France, where a certain
Thomas Billon was appointed ``anagrammatist to the king''
by Louis XIII. W. Camden (Remains, 7th ed., 1674) defines
``Anagrammatisme'' as ``a dissolution of a name truly written
into his letters, as his elements, and a new connection of it
by artificial transposition, without addition, subtraction or
change of any letter, into different words, making some perfect
sence applyable to the person named.'' Dryden disdainfully
called the pastime the ``torturing of one poor word ten
thousand ways,'' but many men and women of note have found
amusement in it. A well-known anagram is the change of Ave
Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum into Virgo serena, pia,
munda et immaculata. Among others are the anagrammatic
answer to Pilate's question, ``Quid est veritas''--namely,
``Est vir qui adest''; and the transposition of ``Horatio
Nelson'' into ``Honor est a Nilo''; and of ``Florence
Nightingale'' into ``Flit on, cheering angel.'' James I.'s
courtiers discovered in ``James Stuart'' ``A just master,''
and converted ``Charles James Stuart'' into ``Claimes Arthur's
seat.'' ``Eleanor Audeley,'' wife of Sir John Davies, is said
to have been brought before the High Commission in 1634 for
extravagances, stimulated by the discovery that her name could
be transposed to ``Reveale, O Daniel,'' and to have been laughed
out of court by another anagram submitted by the dean of the
Arches, ``Dame Eleanor Davies,'' ``Never soe mad a ladie.''
There must be few names that could furnish so many anagrams
as that of ``Augustus de Morgan,'' who tells that a friend
had constructed about 800 on his name, specimens of which
are given in his Budget of Paradoxes, P. 82. The pseudonyms
adopted by authors are often transposed forms, more or less
exact, of their names; thus ``Calvinus'' becomes ``Alcuinus'';
``Francois Rabelais,'' ``Alcofribas Nasier''; ``Bryan Waller
Proctor,'' ``Barry Cornwall, poet''; ``Henry Rogers,'' ``R.
E. H. Greyson,'' &c. It is to be noted that the last two
are impure anagrams, an ``r'' being left out in both cases.
``Telliamed,'' a simple reversal, is the title of a well
known work by ``De Maillet.'' The most remarkable pseudonym
of this class is the name ``Voltaire,'' which the celebrated
philosopher assumed instead of his family name, ``Francois
Marie Arouet,'' and which is now generally allowed to be an
anagram of ``Arouet, l.j.,'' that is, Arouet the younger.
Perhaps the only practical use to which anagrams have been
turned is to be found in the transpositions in which some of
the astronomers of the 17th century embodied their discoveries
with the design apparently of avoiding the risk that, while
they were engaged in further verification, the credit of what
they had found out might be claimed by others. Thus Galileo
announced his discovery that Venus had phases like the moon in
the form, ``Haec immatura a me jam feustra leguntur--oy,''
that is, ``Cynthiae figuras aemulatur Mater Amorum.''
Another species of anagram, called ``palindrome'' (Cr. palin,
back, and dromos, running), is a word or sentence which
may be read backwards as well as forwards, letter by letter,
while preserving the same meaning; for example, the words
``Anna,'' ``noon,'' ``tenet,'' or the sentence with which Adam
is humorously supposed to have greeted Eve: ``Madam, I'm Adam!''
A still more complicated variety is the ``logogram'' (Gr.
logos, word), a versified puzzle containing several
words derived from recombining the letters of the original
word, the difficulty lying in the fact that synonyms of the
derived words may be used. Thus, if the original word be
``curtain,'' the word ``dog'' may be used instead of ``cur.''
ANAH, or `ANA, a town on the Euphrates, about mid-way
between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Persian Gulf. It
is called Hanat in a Babylonian letter (about 2200 B.C.),
and An-at by the scribe of Assur-nasir-pal (879 B.C.),
'Anatho (Isidore Charax), Anatha (Ammianus Marcellinus) by
Greek and Latin writers in the early Christian centuries,
`ANA (sometimes, as if plural, `Anat) by Arabic
writers. The name has been connected with that of the deity
Anat. Whilst `Ana has thus retained its name for forty-one
centuries the site is variously described. Most early writers
concur in placing it on an island; so Assurnasir-pal, Isidore,
Ammianus Marcellinus, Ibn Serapion, al- Istakri, Abulfeda and
al-Karamani. Ammianus (lib. 24, c. 2) calls it a
munimentum, Theophylactus Simocatta (iv. 10, v. 1, 2) to
'Anathon frourion, Zosimus (iii. 14) a frourion, opp.
Fathusai, which may be the Beth(th)ina of Ptolemy (v. 19).1
Leonhart Rauwolff, in A.D. 1574, found it ``divided . .
. into two towns,'' the one ``Turkish,'' ``so surrounded by
the river, that you cannot go into it but by boats,'' the
other, much larger, on the Arabian side of the river.2 G.
A. Olivier in the beginning of the 19th century describes
it as a long street (5 or 6 m. long), parallel to the right
bank of the Euphrates--some 100 yards from the water's edge
and 300 to 400 paces from the rocky barrier of the Arabian
desert--with, over against its lower part, an island
bearing at its north end the ruins of a fortress (p. 451).
This southernmost town of Mesopotamia proper (Gezira)
must have shared the chequered history of that land (see
MESOPOTAMIA.) Of `Ana's fortunes under the early Babylonian
empire the records have not yet been unearthed; but in a letter
dating from the third millennium B.C., six men of Hanat
(Ha-na-atK1) are mentioned in a statement as to certain
disturbances which had occurred in the sphere of the Babylonian
Resident of Suhi, which would include the district of `Ana.
How `Ana fared at the hands of the Mitanni and others is
unknown. The suggestion that Amenophis (Amenhotep) I.
(16th century B.C.) refers to it is improbable; but we
seem to be justified in holding `Ana to be the town ``in
the middle of the Euphrates'' opposite (ina put) to which
Assur-nasir-pal halted in his campaign of 879 B.C. The
supposed reference to `Ana in the speech put into the mouth
of Sennacherib's messengers to Hezekiah (2 Kings xix. 13,
Is. xxxvii. 13) is exceedingly improbable. The town may be
mentioned, however, in four 7th century documents edited by C.
H. W. Johns.3 It was at'Ana that the emperor Julian met the
first opposition on his disastrous expedition against Persia
(363), when he got possession of the place and transported
the people; and there that Ziyad and Shureih with the
advanced guard of `Ali's army were refused passage across
the Euphrates (36/657) to join `Ali in Mesopotamia (Tabari i.
3261). Later `Ana was the place of exile of the caliph
Qaim (al-qaim bi-amr-illah) when Basisiri was in power
(450/1058.) In the 14th century `Ana was the seat of a
Catholicos, primate of the Persians (Marin Sanuto). In
1610 Della Valle found a Scot, George Strachan, resident
at `Ana (to study Arabic) as physician to the amir (i.
671-681). In 1835 the steamer ``Tigris'' of the English
Euphrates expedition went down in a hurricane just above
`Ana, near where Julian's force had suffered from a similar
storm. Della Valle described `Ana as the chief Arab town on the
Euphrates, an importance which it owes to its position on one
of the routes from the west to Bagdad; Texeira said that the
power of its amir extended to Palmyra (early 17th century);
but Olivier found the ruling prince with only twenty-five
men in his service, the town becoming more depopulated every
day from lack of protection from the Arabs of the desert.
Von Oppenheim (1893) reported that Turkish troops having
been recently stationed at the place, it had no longer to pay
blackmail (huwwa) to the Arabs. F. R. Chesney reported some
1800 houses, 2 mosques and 16 water-wheels; W. F. Ainsworth
(1835) reported the Arabs as inhabiting the N.W. part of the
town, the Christians the centre, and the Jews the S.E.;
Della Valle (1610) found some sun-worshippers still there.
Modern `Ana lies from W. to E. on the right bank along
a bend of the river just before it turns S. towards Hit,
and presents an attractive appearance. It extends, chiefly
as a single street, for several miles along a narrow strip
of land between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. The
houses are separated from one another by fruit gardens.
`Ana marks the boundary between the olive (N.) and the date
(S.). Arab poets celebrated its wine (Yuqut, iii. 593
f.), and Mustaufi (8/14th century) tells of the fame of its
palm-groves. In the river, facing the town, is a succession
of equally productive islands. The most easterly contains
the ruins of the old castle, whilst the remains of the
ancient Anatho extend from this island for about 2 m. down
the left bank. Coarse cloth is almost the only manufacture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--in addition to the authorities cited above
may be mentioned: G. A. Olivier, Voyage dans l'empire
othoman, &c., iii. 450-459 (1807); Carl Ritter, Erdkunde
von Asien, vii. b., pp. 716- 726 (1844); W. F. Ainsworth,
Euphrates Expedition, i. 401-418 (1888). For a map see
sheet 5 of the atlas accompanying Chesney's work. (H. W. H.)
1 Steph. Byz. (sub Turos) says that Arrian calls Anatha Turos.
2 Texeira (1610) says that ``Anna'' lay on both
banks of the river, and so Della Valle (i. 671).
3 Ass. Deeds and Doc. nos. 23, 168, 228, 385.The
characters used are DIS TU, which may mean Ana-tu.
ANAHEIM, a city of Orange county, California, U.S.A., about 14
m. S.E. of Los Angeles, about 12 m. from the Pacific Ocean,
and about 3 m. from the Santa Ana river. (1900) 1456; (1910)
2628. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, and
the Southern Pacific railways. It lies in a fine fruit region,
in which oranges, lemons, apricots, grapes and walnuts are
raised. The plain on which it is laid out, now fertile and
well-watered, was originally an arid waste. Water for irrigation
is obtained from the Santa Ana river, about 15 m. above the
nearest point along the river to the city. The city itself
has an area of only 1 1/2 sq. m., and in 1908 the population
of the district, including that of the city, was estimated at
5000. The principal manufactures are dried and canned fruits,
wine, beer, and agricultural implements. Anaheim is of
particular interest as the earliest of various settlements in
southern California in which co-operation has made possible
the establishment of intensive fruit culture in semi-desert
regions. In 1857 fifty Germans (mostly mechanics) organized
in San Francisco the Los Angeles Vineyard Association and
bought 1165 acres of land here which could be irrigated from
the Santa Ana river; each member took possession of a 20
acre share only when gradual improvement had made everything
ready for occupancy and the tracts had been distributed by
lot, with bonuses or rebates to equalize them in value to
the drawers. This ended the co-operative feature of the
enterprise, which was never communistic except that its
irrigating canal remained common property. The settlement was
uninterruptedly successful, and was influential as a pioneer
experiment. Anaheim was incorporated as a town in 1870;
this incorporation was revoked in 1872; in 1878 the town was
incorporated again; and in 1888 Anaheim received a city charter.
ANAHUAC, a geographical district of Mexico, limited by the
traditional and vaguely defined boundaries of an ancient Indian
empire or confederation of that name previous to the Spanish
conquest. The word is said to signify ``country by the
waters'' in the old Aztec language; hence the theory that
Anahuac was located on the sea coast. One of the theories
relating to the location of Anahuac describes it as all the
plateau region of Mexico, with an area equal to three-fourths
of the republic, and extending between the eastern and
western coast ranges from Rio Grande to the isthmus of
Tehuantepec. A more exact description, however, limits it
to the great plateau valley in which the city of Mexico is
located, between 18 deg. 40' and 20 deg. 30' N. lat., about 200 m.
long by 75 m. wide, with an average elevation of 7500 ft.,
and a mean temperature of 62 deg. . The accepted meaning of the
name fits this region as well as any on the sea coast, as
the lakes of this valley formerly covered one-tenth of its
area. The existence of the name in southern Utah, United States,
and on the gulf coast of Mexico, has given rise to theories
of other locations and wider bounds for the old Indian empire.
ANALCITE, a commonly occurring mineral of the zeolite
group. It crystallizes in the cubic system, the common form
being the icositetrahedron (211), either alone (fig. 1) or in
combination with the cube (100); sometimes the faces of the
cube predominate in size, and its corners are each replaced by
three small triangular faces representing the icositetrahedron
(fig. 2). Although cubic in form, analcite usually shows
feeble double refraction, and is thus optically anomalous.
This feature of analcite has been much studied, Sir David
Brewster in 1826 being the earliest investigator. Crystals of
analcite are often perfectly colourless and transparent with
a brilliant glassy lustre, but some are opaque and white or
pinkish-white. The hardness of the mineral is 5 to 5 1/2,
and its specific gravity is 2.25. Chemically, analcite
is a hydrated sodium and aluminium silicate, NaAlSi2O6 +
H2O; small amounts of the sodium being sometimes replaced
by calcium or by potassium. The water of crystallization is
readily expelled by heat, with modification of the optical
characters of the crystals. Before the blowpipe the mineral
readily fuses with intumescence to a colourless glass. It
is decomposed by acids with separation of gelatinous silica.
FIG. 1. FIG. 2.
Analcite usually occurs, associated with other zeolitic
minerals, lining amygdaloidal cavities in basic volcanic
rocks such as basalt and melaphyre, and especially in such as
have undergone alteration by weathering; the Tertiary basalts
of the north of Ireland frequently contain cavities lined
with small brilliant crystals of analcite. Larger crystals
of the same kind are found in the basalt of the Cyclopean
Islands (Scogli de' Ciclopi or Faraglioni) N.E. of Catania,
Sicily. Large opaque crystals of the pinkish-white colour
are found in cavities in melaphyre at the Seisser Alpe near
Schlern in southern Tirol. In all such cases the mineral
is clearly of secondary origin, but of late years another
mode of occurrence has been recognized, analcite having been
found as a primary constituent of certain igneous rocks such
as monchiquite and some basalts. The irregular grains, of
which it has the form, had previously been mistaken for glass.
Owing to the fact that analcite often crystallizes in cubes,
it was long known as cubic zeolite or as cuboite. The name
now in use was proposed in 1797 in the form analcime, by R. J.
Hauy, in allusion to the weak (analkis) electrification
of the mineral produced by friction. Euthallite is a compact,
greenish analcite, produced by the alteration of elaeolite at
various localities in the Langesund-fjord in southern Norway.
Eudnophite, from the same region, was originally described as
an orthorhombic mineral dimorphous with analcite, but has since
been found to be identical with it. Cluthalite, from the Clyde
(Clutha) valley, is an altered form of the mineral. (L. J. S.)
ANALOGY (Gr. analogia, proportion), a term signifying,
(1) in general, resemblance which falls short of absolute
similarity or identity. Thus by analogy, the word ``loud,''
originally applied to sounds, is used of garments which obtrude
themselves on the attention; all metaphor is thus a kind of
analogy. (2) Euclid used the term for proportionate equality;
but in mathematics it is now obsolete except in the phrase,
``Napier's Analogies'' in spherical trigonometry (see NAPIER,
JOHN.) (3) In grammar, it signifies similarity in the dominant
characteristics of a language, derivation, orthography and so
on. (4) In logic, it is used of arguments by inference from
resemblances between known particulars to other particulars
which are not observed. Under the name of ``example''
(paradeigma) the process is explained by Aristotle (Prior
Anal. ii. 4) as an inference which differs from induction
(q.v.) in havinga particular, not a general, conclusion;
i.e. if A is demonstrably like B in certain respects, it may
be assumed to be like it in another, though the latter is not
demonstrated. Kant and his followers state the distinction
otherwise, i.e. induction argues from the possession of an
attribute by many members of a class that all members of the
class possess it, while analogy argues that, because A has
some of B's qualities, it must have them all (cf. Sir Wm.
Hamilton, Lectures on Logic, ii. 165-174, for a slight
modification of this view). J. S. Mill very properly rejects
this artificial distinction, which is in practice no distinction
at all; he regards induction and analogy as generically the
same, though differing in the demonstrative validity of
their evidence, i.e. induction proceeds on the basis of
scientific, causal connexion, while analogy, in absence of
proof, temporarily accepts a probable hypothesis. In this
sense, analogy may obviously have a universal conclusion.
This type of inference is of the greatest value in physical
science, which has frequently and quite legitimately used
such conclusions until a negative instance has disproved or
further evidence confirmed them (for a list of typical cases
see T. Fowler's edition of Bacon's Nov. Org. Aph. ii. 27
note). The value of such inferences depends on the nature
of the resemblances on which they are based and on that of
the differences which they disregard. If the resemblances
are small and unimportant and the differences great and
fundamental, the argument is known as ``False Analogy.'' The
subject is dealt with in Francis Bacon's Novum Organum,
especially ii. 27 (see T. H. Fowler's notes) under the head
of Instantiae conformes sive proportionatae. Strictly
the argument by analogy is based on similarity of relations
between things, not on the similarity of things, though it
is, in general, extended to cover the latter. See works on
Logic, e.g. J. S. Mill, T. H. Fowler, W. S. Jevons. For
Butler's Analogy and its method see BUTLER, JOSEPH.
The term was used in a special sense by Kant in his phrase,
``Analogies of Experience,'' the third and most important group
in his classification of the a priori elements of knowledge.
By it he understood the fundamental laws of pure natural science
under the three heads, substantiality, causality, reciprocity
(see F. Paulsen, I. Kant, Eng. trans. 1902, pp. 188 ff.).
ANALYSIS (Gr. ana and luein, to break up into parts), in
general, the resolution of a whole into its component elements;
opposed to synthesis, the combining of separate elements or
minor wholes into an inclusive unity. It differs from mere
``disintegration', in proceeding on a definite scientific
plan. In grammar, analysis is the breaking up of a sentence
into subject, predicate, object, &c. (an exercise introduced
into English schools by J. D. Morell about 1852); so the
analysis of a book or a lecture is a synopsis of the main
points. The chief technical uses of the word, which
retains practically the same meaning in all the sciences,
are in (1) philosophy, (2) mathematics, (3) chemistry.
(1) Logical analysis is the process of examining into the
connotation of a concept or idea, and separating the attributes
from the whole and each other. It, therefore, does not increase
knowledge, but merely clarifies and tests it. In this sense
Kant distinguished an analytic from a synthetic judgment, as
one in which the predicate is involved in the essence of the
subject. Such judgments are also known as verbal, as
opposed to real or ampliative judgments. The processes of
synthesis and analysis though formally contradictory are
practically supplementary; thus to analyse the connotation is
to synthesize the denotation of a term, and vice versa; the
process of knowledge involves the two methods, analysis being
the corrective of synthetic empiricism. In a wider sense the
whole of formal logic is precisely the analysis of the laws of
thought. Analytical psychology is distinguished from genetic
and empirical psychology inasmuch as it proceeds by the method
of introspective investigation of mental phenomena instead
of by physiological or psycho-physical experiment. For the
relation between analysis and synthesis on the one hand,
and deduction and induction on the other, see INDUCTION.
(2) In mathematics, analysis has two distinct meanings, conveniently
termed ancient and modern. Ancient analysis, as described by
Pappus, related chiefly to geometrical problems, and is the
method of reasoning from the solution, as taken for granted,
to consequences which are known to be true, whereas synthesis
reasons from known data to the solution. (See GEOMETRY.)
Modern analysis is practically coeval with Descartes, the
founder of ``analytical geometry,'' although the calculus of
general quantities had previously been termed analysis. Many
mathematical subjects are now included under this name, and
are treated in the following articles:--GEOMETRY, ANALYTICAL;
INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS; DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION; VARIATIONS,
CALCULUS OF; CURVE; SURFACE; FUNCTION; SPHERICAL HARMONICS;
SERIES; FOURIER'S SERIES; GROUPS, THEORY OF; PROBABILITY.
(3) In Chemistry, the word analysis was introduced
by Robert Boyle to denote the determination of the
composition of substances. (See CHEMISTRY, Analytical.)
ANALYST, in modern times, a person professionally skilled in
chemical analysis. He may be called upon, in the discharge of his
profession, to analyse a wide range of substances. Apart from
private practitioners and those engaged in large manufacturing
concerns, analysts employed by public bodies are termed public
analysts. In most large manufacturing establishments there
is usually a staff of analysts, whose duty it is primarily
to exercise constant watchfulness over the processes of
manufacture, to test the purity of the substances used, as
well as that of the final products. The services of analysts
are constantly required in judicial enquiries, sometimes
in purely criminal cases, sometimes in civil proceedings,
such as offences against the customs or excise or under the
various British Food and Drugs Acts. In the case of criminal
proceedings, the services of the official analyst attached
to the British Home Office are employed. The inland revenue
department has a laboratory at Somerset House, with a staff of
analysts, who are engaged in analysing for excise and other
purposes. Under the Fertilizers and Feeding Stuffs Act 1893,
the Board of Agriculture employs an agricultural chemist,
whose duty is the analysis of fertilizers and feeding stuffs.
A ``public analyst'' is an analyst appointed by a local authority
for the purposes of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. He must be
possessed of competent medical, chemical and microscopical knowledge
to analyse all articles of food and drink (see ADULTERATION).
ANALYTIC (the adjective of ``analysis''' q.v.), according
with, or consisting in, the method of separating a whole
into its parts, the opposite of synthetic. For analytic
chemistry, analytic language, &c., see the articles
under the noun-headings. The title of analutika or
Analytics was given by Aristotle to his treatises on logic.
ANAMALAI HILLS, a range of mountains in southern India,
in the Coimbatore district of Madras, lying between 10 deg. 13'
and 10 deg. 31' N. lat., and between 76 deg. 52' and 77 deg. 23' E.
long., forming a portion of the Western Ghats, after this
range has been broken by the Palghat Pass, south of the
Nilgiris. They really consist of a forest-clad and grassy
tableland, with summits rising about 8000 ft.; the Anaimudi
mountain, which is the highest in southern India, having an
altitude of 8850 ft. Their geological formation is metamorphic
gneiss, veined with felspar and quartz, and interspersed
with reddish porphyrite. The lower slopes yield valuable
teak and other timber; and some land has been taken up
for coffee planting. The only inhabitants are a few wild
tribes who live by hunting and collecting jungle produce.
ANAMORPHOSIS (a Gr. word, derived from ana, back,
and morpe, form: the second o in the Greek is long,
but in English the Pronunciation varies), a deformation or
distortion of appearance; in drawing, the representation of
an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflexion in a
mirror; in botany, e.g. in the case of fungi or lichens, an
abnormal change giving the appearance of a different species.
`ANAN BEN DAVID, a Persian Jew of the 8th century, and founder
within Judaism of the sect of Qaraites (Karaites) which set
itself in opposition to the rabbinic tradition. `Anan was an
unsuccessful candidate for the dignity of Exilarch, and thus
his opposition to the rabbanite Jews was political as well as
theological. His secession occurred at a moment when the time
was ripe for a reaction against rabbinism, and `Anan became the
rallying point for many opponents of tradition. (See QARAITES.)
ANANDA, one of the principal disciples of the Buddha
(q.v..) He has been called the beloved disciple of the
Buddhist story. He was the first cousin of the Buddha, and
was devotedly attached to him. Ananda entered the Order
in the second year of the Buddha's ministry, and became one
of his personal attendants, accompanying him on most of his
wanderings and being the interlocutor in many of the recorded
dialogues. He is the subject of a special panegyric delivered
by the Buddha just before his death (Book of the Great
Decease, v. 38); but it is the panegyric of an unselfish
man, kindly, thoughtful for others and popular; not of the
intellectual man, versed in the theory and practice of the
Buddhist system of self-culture. So in the long list of
the disciples given in the Anguttara (i. xiv.) where each
of them is declared to be the chief in some gift, Ananda is
mentioned five times (which is more often than any other),
but it is as chief in conduct and in service to others and
in power of memory, not in any of the intellectual powers
so highly prized in the community. This explains why he had
not attained to arahatship; and in the earliest account of
the convocation said to have been held by five hundred of
the principal disciples immediately after the Buddha's death,
he was the only one who was not an arahat (Cullavagga,
book xi.). In later accounts this incident is explained
away. Thirty-three verses ascribed to Ananda are preserved
in a collection of lyrics by the principal male and female
members of the order (Thera Gatha, 1017-1050). They
show a gentle and reverent but simple spirit. (T. W. R. D.)
ANANIAS, the Gr. form of Hananiah, or Ananiah, a name
occurring several times in the Old Testament and Apocrypha
(Neh. iii. 23, 1 Ch. xxv. 23, Tob. v. 12. &c.), and three
times in the New Testament. Special mention need be made
only of the bearers of the name in the New Testament. (1) A
member of the first Christian community, who, with his wife
Sapphira, was miraculously punished by Peter with sudden death
for hypocrisy and falsehood (Acts v. 1-10; cf. Josh. vii.
1 ff.). (2) A disciple at Damascus who figures in the story
of the conversion and baptism of Paul (Acts ix. 10-17, xxh.
12-16.) (3) Son of Nedebaios (Jos. Ant. xx. 5. 2), a high
priest who presided during the trial of Paul at Jerusalem and
Caesarea (Acts xxiii. 2, xxiv. 1-5). He officiated as high
priest from about A.D. 47 to 59. Quadratus, governor of
Syria, accused him of being responsible for acts of violence.
He was sent to Rome for trial (A.D. 52), but was acquitted
by the emperor Claudius. Being a friend of the Romans, he
was murdered by the people at the beginning of the Jewish war.
ANANTAPUR, a town and district of India, in the Madras
presidency. The town has a station on the Madras
railway, 62 m. S.E. from Bellary. Pop. (1901) 7938.
The district of Anantapur was constituted in 1882 out of
the unwieldy district of Bellary. It has an area of 5557
sq. m., and in its northern and central portions is a high
plateau, generally undulating, with large granite rocks or
low hill ranges rising here and there above its surface.
In the southern portion of the district the surface is
more hilly, the plateau there rising to 2600 ft. above the
sea. There is a remarkable fortress rock at Gooty, 2171 ft.
above the sea, and a similar but larger rock at Penukonda,
with an elevation equal to that of Bangalore, about 3100
ft. Gooty fortress was a stronghold of the Mahrattas,
but was taken from them by Hyder Ali. In 1789 it was ceded
by Tippoo to the nizam, and in 1800 the nizam ceded the
district of Anantapur with others to the British in payment
for a subsidiary British force. The population in 1901 was
788,254, showing an increase of 8% in the decade. The
principal crops are millet, rice, other food grains, pulse,
oil seeds and cotton. There are several steam factories
for pressing cotton. Two railways traverse the district.
ANAPA, a seaport town of Russia, in the government of Kuban,
on the N. coast of the Black Sea, 45 m. S.E. from the Strait
of Yenikale or Kerch, giving access to the Sea of Azov. It was
originally built in 1781 as a frontier fortress of the Turks
against Russia. Three times captured by the Russians, in 1791,
1807 and 1828, and twice restored by them, in 1792 and 1812,
it was finally left in their hands by the treaty of Adrianople
in 1829. During the Crimean War its fortifications were
destroyed (1855) by the Russians themselves. Pop. (1897) 6676.
ANAPAEST (from Gr. anapaistos, reversed), a metrical
foot consisting of three syllables, the first two short
and the third long and accented; so called as the reverse
of a dactyl, which has the first a long syllable, followed
by two short ones. An anapaestic verse is one which
only contains, or is mostly made up of, anapaestic feet.
ANARCHISM (from the Gr. an-, and arche, contrary
to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of
life and conduct under which society is conceived without
government --harmony in such a society being obtained, not
by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but
by free agreements concluded between the various groups,
territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake
of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of
the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized
being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary
associations which already now begin to cover all the fields
of human activity would take a still greater extension
so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its
functions. They would represent an interwoven network,
composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations
of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and
international-- temporary or more or less permanent--for
all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange,
communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual
protection, defence of the territory, and so on; and, on
the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing
number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable
needs. Moreover, such a society would represent nothing
immutable. On the contrary--as is seen in organic life
at large--harmony would (it is contended) result from an
ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium
between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this
adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the
forces would enjoy a special protection from the state.
If, it is contended, society were organized on these principles,
man would not be limited in the free exercise of his powers
in productive work by a capitalist monopoly, maintained
by the state; nor would he be limited in the exercise of
his will by a fear of punishment, or by obedience towards
individuals or metaphysical entities, which both lead to
depression of initiative and servility of mind. He would
be guided in his actions by his own understanding, which
necessarily would bear the impression of a free action and
reaction between his own self and the ethical conceptions
of his surroundings. Man would thus be enabled to obtain
the full development of all his faculties, intellectual,
artistic and moral, without being hampered by overwork for
the monopolists, or by the servility and inertia of mind
of the great number. He would thus be able to reach full
individualization, which is not possible either under the
present system of individualism, or under any system of
state- socialism in the so-called Volkstaat (popular state).
The Anarchist writers consider, moreover, that their conception
is not a Utopia, constructed on the a priori method,
after a few desiderata have been taken as postulates. It is
derived, they maintain, from an analysis of tendencies that
are at work already, even though state socialism may find a
temporary favour with the reformers. The progress of modern
technics, which wonderfully simplifies the production of all
the necessaries of life; the growing spirit of independence,
and the rapid spread of free initiative and free understanding
in all branches of activity--including those which formerly
were considered as the proper attribution of church and
state--are steadily reinforcing the no-government tendency.
As to their economical conceptions, the Anarchists, in common
with all Socialists, of whom they constitute the left wing,
maintain that the now prevailing system of private ownership in
land, and our capitalist production for the sake of profits,
represent a monopoly which runs against both the principles
of justice and the dictates of utility. They are the main
obstacle which prevents the successes of modern technics from
being brought into the service of all, so as to produce general
well-being. The Anarchists consider the wage-system and
capitalist production altogether as an obstacle to progress.
But they point out also that the state was, and continues to
be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize
the land, and the capitalists to appropriate for themselves
a quite disproportionate share of the yearly accumulated
surplus of production. Consequently, while combating the
present monopolization of land, and capitalism altogether,
the Anarchists combat with the same energy the state, as
the main support of that system. Not this or that special
form, but the state altogether, whether it be a monarchy
or even a republic governed by means of the referendum.
The state organization, having always been, both in ancient and
modern history (Macedonian empire, Roman empire, modern European
states grown up on the ruins of the autonomous cities), the
instrument for establishing monopolies in favour of the ruling
minorities, cannot be made to work for the destruction of these
monopolies. The Anarchists consider, therefore, that to hand
over to the state all the main sources of economical life--the
land, the mines, the railways, banking, insurance, and so
on--as also the management of all the main branches of industry,
in addition to all the functions already accumulated in its
hands (education, state-supported religions, defence of the
territory, &c.), would mean to create a new instrument of
tyranny. State capitalism would only increase the powers of
bureaucracy and capitalism. True progress lies in the direction
of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in
the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative,
and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in
lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to the periphery.
In common with most Socialists, the Anarchists recognize
that, like all evolution in nature, the slow evolution of
society is followed from time to time by periods of accelerated
evolution which are called revolutions; and they think that
the era of revolutions is not yet closed. Periods of rapid
changes will follow the periods of slow evolution, and these
periods must be taken advantage of--not for increasing and
widening the powers of the state, but for reducing them,
through the organization in every township or commune of the
local groups of producers and consumers, as also the regional,
and eventually the international, federations of these groups.
In virtue of the above principles the Anarchists refuse to
be party to the present state organization and to support
it by infusing fresh blood into it. They do not seek to
constitute, and invite the working men not to constitute,
political parties in the parliaments. Accordingly,
since the foundation of the International Working Men's
Association in 1864-1866, they have endeavoured to promote
their ideas directly amongst the labour organizations and
to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital,
without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation.
The Historical Development of Anarchism.--The conception of
society just sketched, and the tendency which is its dynamic
expression, have always existed in mankind, in opposition to
the governing hierarchic conception and tendency--now the one
and now the other taking the upper hand at different periods of
history. To the former tendency we owe the evolution, by
the masses themselves, of those institutions--the clan,
the village community, the gild, the free medieval city--by
means of which the masses resisted the encroachments of
the conquerors and the power-seeking minorities. The same
tendency asserted itself with great energy in the great
religious movements of medieval times, especially in the early
movements of the reform and its forerunners. At the same
time it evidently found its expression in the writings of
some thinkers, since the times of Lao-tsze, although, owing
to its non-scholastic and popular origin, it obviously found
less sympathy among the scholars than the opposed tendency.
As has been pointed out by Prof. Adler in his Geschichte
der Sozialismus und Kommunismus, Aristippus (b. c. 430
B.C.), one of the founders of the Cyrenaic school, already
taught that the wise must not give up their liberty to the
state, and in reply to a question by Socrates he said that he
did not desire to belong either to the governing or the governed
class. Such an attitude, however, seems to have been dictated
merely by an Epicurean attitude towards the life of the masses.
The best exponent of Anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece
was Zeno (342-267 or 270 B.C.), from Crete, the founder of
the Stoic philosophy, who distinctly opposed his conception
of a free community without government to the state-Utopia of
Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its
intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty
of the moral law of the individual--remarking already that,
while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to
egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing
man with another instinct--that of sociability. When men are
reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will
unite across the frontiers and constitute the Cosmos. They
will have no need of law-courts or police, will have no temples
and no public worship, and use no money--free gifts taking the
place of the exchanges. Unfortunately, the writings of Zeno
have not reached us and are only known through fragmentary
quotations. However, the fact that his very wording is
similar to the wording now in use, shows how deeply is laid
the tendency of human nature of which he was the mouth-piece.
In medieval times we find the same views on the state expressed
by the illustrious bishop of Alba, Marco Girolamo Vida, in his
first dialogue De dignitate reipublicae (Ferd. Cavalli, in
Mem. dell' Istituto Veneto, xiii.; Dr E. Nys, Researches in
the History of Economics.) But it is especially in several
early Christian movements, beginning with the 9th century
in Armenia, and in the preachings of the early Hussites,
particularly Chojecki, and the early Anabaptists, especially
Hans Denk (cf. Keller, Ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer),
that one finds the same ideas forcibly expressed--special
stress being laid of course on their moral aspects.
Rabelais and Fenelon, in their Utopias, have also expressed
similar ideas, and they were also current in the 18th
century amongst the French Encyclopaedists, as may be
concluded from separate expressions occasionally met with
in the writings of Rousseau, from Diderot's Preface to
the Voyage of Bougainville, and so on. However, in all
probability such ideas could not be developed then, owing
to the rigorous censorship of the Roman Catholic Church.
These ideas found their expression later during the great French
Revolution. While the Jacobins did all in their power to
centralize everything in the hands of the government, it appears
now, from recently published documents, that the masses of the
people, in their municipalities and ``sections,'' accomplished
a considerable constructive work. They appropriated for
themselves the election of the judges, the organization
of supplies and equipment for the army, as also for the
large cities, work for the unemployed, the management of
charities, and so on. They even tried to establish a direct
correspondence between the 36,000 communes of France through
the intermediary of a special board, outside the National
Assembly (cf. Sigismund Lacroix, Actes de la commune de Paris.)
It was Godwin, in his Enquiry concerning Political Justice
(2 vols., 1793), who was the first to formulate the political
and economical conceptions of Anarchism, even though he did
not give that name to the ideas developed in his remarkable
work. Laws, he wrote, are not a product of the wisdom
of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions,
their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The
remedy they offer is worse than the evils they pretend to
cure. If and only if all laws and courts were abolished, and
the decisions in the arising contests were left to reasonable
men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be
evolved. As to the state, Godwin frankly claimed its abolition.
A society, he wrote, can perfectly well exist without any
government: only the communities should be small and perfectly
autonomous. Speaking of property, he stated that the rights
of every one ``to every substance capable of contributing to
the benefit of a human being'' must be regulated by justice
alone: the substance must go ``to him who most wants it.''
His conclusion was Communism. Godwin, however, had not the
courage to maintain his opinions. He entirely rewrote later
on his chapter on property and mitigated his Communist views
in the second edition of Political Justice (8vo, 1796).
Proudhon was the first to use, in 1840 (Qu'est-ce que
la propriete? first memoir), the name of Anarchy with
application to the no-government state of society. The name
of ``Anarchists'' had been freely applied during the French
Revolution by the Girondists to those revolutionaries who did
not consider that the task of the Revolution was accomplished
with the overthrow of Louis XVI., and insisted upon a series of
economical measures being taken (the abolition of feudal rights
without redemption, the return to the village communities of
the communal lands enclosed since 1669, the limitation of landed
property to 120 acres, progressive income-tax, the national
organization of exchanges on a just value basis, which already
received a beginning of practical realization, and so on).
Now Proudhon advocated a society without government, and used
the word Anarchy to describe it. Proudhon repudiated, as is
known, all schemes of Communism, according to which mankind
would be driven into communistic monasteries or barracks, as
also all the schemes of state or state-aided Socialism which
were advocated by Louis Blanc and the Collectivists. When
he proclaimed in his first memoir on property that ``Property
is theft,'' he meant only property in its present, Roman-law,
sense of ``right of use and abuse''; in property-rights, on the
other hand, understood in the limited sense of possession,
he saw the best protection against the encroachments of the
state. At the same time he did not want violently to dispossess
the present owners of land, dwelling-houses, mines, factories
and so on. He preferred to attain the same end by rendering
capital incapable of earning interest; and this he proposed
to obtain by means of a national bank, based on the mutual
confidence of all those who are engaged in production, who
would agree to exchange among themselves their produces at
cost-value, by means of labour cheques representing the hours
of labour required to produce every given commodity. Under
such a system, which Proudhon described as ``Mutuellisme,''
all the exchanges of services would be strictly equivalent.
Besides, such a bank would be enabled to lend money without
interest, levying only something like 1%, or even less, for
covering the cost of administration. Every one being thus
enabled to borrow the money that would be required to buy a
house, nobody would agree to pay any more a yearly rent
for the use of it. A general ``social liquidation'' would
thus be rendered easy, without violent expropriation.
The same applied to mines, railways, factories and so on.
In a society of this type the state would be useless. The chief
relations between citizens would be based on free agreement and
regulated by mere account keeping. The contests might be settled
by arbitration. A penetrating criticism of the state and all
possible forms of government, and a deep insight into all economic
problems, were well-known characteristics of Proudhon's work.
It is worth noticing that French mutualism had its precursor
in England, in William Thompson, who began by mutualism
before he became a Communist, and in his followers John
Gray (A Lecture on Human Happiness, 1825; The Social
System, 1831) and J. F. Bray (Labour's Wrongs and
Labour's Remedy, 1839). It had also its precursor in
America. Josiah Warren, who was born in 1708 (cf. W. Bailie,
Josiah Warren, the First American Anarchist, Boston,
1900), and belonged to Owen's ``New Harmony,'' considered
that the failure of this enterprise was chiefly due to the
suppression of individuality and the lack of initiative and
responsibility. These defects, he taught, were inherent
to every scheme based upon authority and the community of
goods. He advocated, therefore, complete individual liberty.
In 1827 he opened in Cincinnati a little country store which
was the first ``Equity Store,'' and which the people called
``Time Store,'' because it was based on labour being exchanged
hour for hour in all sorts of produce. ``Cost--the limit of
price,'' and consequently ``no interest,'' was the motto of his
store, and later on of his ``Equity Village,'' near New York,
which was still in existence in 1865. Mr Keith's ``House of
Equity'' at Boston, founded in 1855, is also worthy of notice.
While the economical, and especially the mutual-banking,
ideas of Proudhon found supporters and even a practical
application in the United States, his political conception of
Anarchy found but little echo in France, where the Christian
Socialism of Lamennais and the Fourierists, and the State
Socialism of Louis Blanc and the followers of Saint-Simon, were
dominating. These ideas found, however, some temporary
support among the left-wing Hegelians in Germany, Moses Hess
in 1843, and Karl Grun in 1845, who advocated Anarchism.
Besides, the authoritarian Communism of Wilhelm Weitling
having given origin to opposition amongst the Swiss working
men, Wilhelm Marr gave expression to it in the 'forties.
On the other side, Individualist Anarchism found, also in Germany,
its fullest expression in Max Stirner (Kaspar Schmidt), whose
remarkable works (Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum and articles
contributed to the Rheinische Zeitung) remained quite overlooked
until they were brought into prominence by John Henry Mackay.
Prof. V. Basch, in a very able introduction to his interesting
book, L'Individualisme anarchiste: Max Stirner (1904), has
shown how the development of the German philosophy from Kant to
Hegel, and ``the absolute'' of Schelling and the Geist of
Hegel, necessarily provoked, when the anti-Hegelian revolt
began, the preaching of the same ``absolute'' in the camp
of the rebels. This was done by Stirner, who advocated,
not only a complete revolt against the state and against the
servitude which authoritarian Communism would impose upon
men, but also the full liberation of the individual from all
social and moral bonds--the rehabilitation of the ``I,'' the
supremacy of the individual, complete ``a-moralism,'' and the
``association of the egotists.'' The final conclusion of that
sort of Individual Anarchism has been indicated by Prof.
Basch. It maintains that the aim of all superior civilization
is, not to permit all members of the community to develop in
a normal way, but to permit certain better endowed individuals
``fully to develop,'' even at the cost of the happiness and
the very existence of the mass of mankind. It is thus a
return towards the most common individualism, advocated by
all the would-be superior minorities, to which indeed man
owes in his history precisely the state and the rest, which
these individualists combat. Their individualism goes so far
as to end in a negation of their own starting-point,--to say
nothing of the impossibility for the individual to attain a
really full development in the conditions of oppression of
the masses by the ``beautiful aristocracies.'' His development
would remain uni-lateral. This is why this direction of
thought, notwithstanding its undoubtedly correct and useful
advocacy of the full development of each individuality, finds
a hearing only in limited artistic and literary circles.
Anarchism in the International Working Men's Association.--A
general depression in the propaganda of all fractions of
Socialism followed, as is known, after the defeat of the uprising
of the Paris working men in June 1848 and the fall of the
Republic. All the Socialist press was gagged during the reaction
period, which lasted fully twenty years. Nevertheless, even
Anarchist thought began to make some progress, namely in
the writings of Bellegarrique (Coeurderoy), and especially
Joseph Dejacque (Les Lazareennes, L'Humanisphere,
an Anarchist-Communist Utopia, lately discovered and
reprinted). The Socialist movement revived only after 1864,
when some French working men, all ``mutualists,'' meeting in
London during the Universal Exhibition with English followers
of Robert Owen, founded the International Working Men's
Association. This association developed very rapidly and
adopted a policy of direct economical struggle against
capitalism, without interfering in the political parliamentary
agitation, and this policy was followed until 1871. However,
after the Franco-German War, when the International Association
was prohibited in France after the uprising of the Commune,
the German working men, who had received manhood suffrage for
elections to the newly constituted imperial parliament, insisted
upon modifying the tactics of the International, and began to
build up a Social-Democratic political party. This soon led
to a division in the Working Men's Association, and the Latin
federations, Spanish, Italian, Belgian and Jurassic (France
could not be represented), constituted among themselves a
Federal union which broke entirely with the Marxist general
council of the International. Within these federations
developed now what may be described as modern Anarchism.
After the names of ``Federalists'' and ``Anti-authoritarians''
had been used for some time by these federations the name
of ``Anarchists,'' which their adversaries insisted upon
applying to them, prevailed, and finally it was revindicated.
Bakunin (q.v.) soon became the leading spirit among these
Latin federations for the development of the principles of
Anarchism, which he did in a number of writings, pamphlets and
letters. He demanded the complete abolition of the state,
which--he wrote--is a product of religion, belongs to a lower
state of civilization, represents the negation of liberty, and
spoils even that which it undertakes to do for the sake of general
well-being. The state was an historically necessary evil,
but its complete extinction will be, sooner or later, equally
necessary. Repudiating all legislation, even when issuing
from universal suffrage, Bakunin claimed for each nation,
each region and each commune, full autonomy, so long as it
is not a menace to its neighbours, and full independence
for the individual, adding that one becomes really free
only when, and in proportion as, all others are free. Free
federations of the communes would constitute free nations.
As to his economical conceptions, Bakunin described himself,
in common with his Federalist comrades of the International
(Cesar De Paepe, James Guillaume Schwitzguebel), a
``Collectivist Anarchist''--not in the sense of Vidal and
Pecqueur in the 'forties, or of their modern Social-Democratic
followers, but to express a state of things in which all
necessaries for production are owned in common by the Labour
groups and the free communes, while the ways of retribution
of labour, Communist or otherwise, would be settled by each
group for itself. Social revolution, the near approach of
which was foretold at that time by all Socialists, would
be the means of bringing into life the new conditions.
The Jurassic, the Spanish, and the Italian federations and
sections of the International Working Men's Association, as
also the French, the German and the American Anarchist groups,
were for the next years the chief centres of Anarchist thought
and propaganda. They refrained from any participation in
parliamentary politics, and always kept in close contact with
the Labour organizations. However, in the second half of the
'eighties and the early 'nineties of the 19th century, when
the influence of the Anarchists began to be felt in strikes,
in the 1st of May demonstrations, where they promoted the
idea of a general strike for an eight hours' day, and in the
anti-militarist propaganda in the army, violent prosecutions
were directed against them, especially in the Latin countries
(including physical torture in the Barcelona Castle) and the
United States (the execution of five Chicago Anarchists in
1887). Against these prosecutions the Anarchists retaliated
by acts of violence which in their turn were followed by
more executions from above, and new acts of revenge from
below. This created in the general public the impression
that violence is the substance of Anarchism, a view repudiated
by its supporters, who hold that in reality violence is
resorted to by all parties in proportion as their open
action is obstructed by repression, and exceptional laws
render them outlaws. (Cf. Anarchism and Outrage, by C. M.
Wilson, and Report of the Spanish Atrocities Committee,
in ``Freedom Pamphlets''; A Concise History of the Great
Trial of the Chicago Anarchists, by Dyer Lum (New
York, 1886); The Chicago Martyrs: Speeches, &c.).1
Anarchism continued to develop, partly in the direction
of Proudhonian ``Mutuellisme,'' but chiefly as Communist-
Anarchism, to which a third direction, Christian-Anarchism, was
added by Leo Tolstoy, and a fourth, which might be ascribed as
literary-Anarchism, began amongst some prominent modern writers.
The ideas of Proudhon, especially as regards mutual
banking, corresponding with those of Josiah Warren, found
a considerable following in the United States, creating
quite a school, of which the main writers are Stephen Pearl
Andrews, William Grene, Lysander Spooner (who began to
write in 1850, and whose unfinished work, Natural Law,
was full of promise), and several others, whose names will
be found in Dr Nettlan's Bibliographie de l'anarchie.
A prominent position among the Individualist Anarchists
in America has been occupied by Benjamin R. Tucker, whose
journal Liberty was started in 1881 and whose conceptions
are a combination of those of Proudhon with those of Herbert
Spencer. Starting from the statement that Anarchists are
egotists, strictly speaking, and that every group of
individuals, be it a secret league of a few persons, or the
Congress of the United States, has the right to oppress all
mankind, provided it has the power to do so, that equal liberty
for all and absolute equality ought to be the law, and ``mind
every one your own business'' is the unique moral law of
Anarchism, Tucker goes on to prove that a general and thorough
application of these principles would be beneficial and would
offer no danger, because the powers of every individual would
be limited by the exercise of the equal rights of all others.
He further indicated (following H. Spencer) the difference
which exists between the encroachment on somebody's rights
and resistance to such an encroachment; between domination
and defence: the former being equally condemnable, whether
it be encroachment of a criminal upon an individual, or the
encroachment of one upon all others, or of all others upon one;
while resistance to encroachment is defensible and necessary.
For their self-defence, both the citizen and the group have
the right to any violence, including capital punishment.
Violence is also justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an
agreement. Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, like him, opens
(in the present writer's opinion) the way for reconstituting
under the heading of ``defence'' all the functions of the
state. His criticism of the present state is very searching,
and his defence of the rights of the individual very powerful.
As regards his economical views B. R. Tucker follows Proudhon.
The Individualist Anarchism of the American Proudhonians finds,
however, but little sympathy amongst the working masses.
Those who profess it--they are chiefly ``intellectuals''--soon
realize that the individualization they so highly praise
is not attainable by individual efforts, and either abandon
the ranks of the Anarchists, and are driven into the Liberal
individualism of the classical economists, or they retire
into a sort of Epicurean a-moralism, or super-man-theory,
similar to that of Stirner and Nietzsche. The great bulk of
the Anarchist working men prefer the Anarchist-Communist ideas
which have gradually evolved out of the Anarchist Collectivism
of the International Working Men's Association. To this
direction belong--to name only the better known exponents of
Anarchism--Elisee Reclus, Jean Grave, Sebastien Faure, Emile
Pouget in France; Enrico Malatesta and Covelli in Italy; R.
Mella, A. Lorenzo, and the mostly unknown authors of many
excellent manifestos in Spain; John Most amongst the Germans;
Spies, Parsons and their followers in the United States,
and so on; while Domela Nieuwenhuis occupies an intermediate
position in Holland. The chief Anarchist papers which have
been published since 1880 also belong to that direction;
while a number of Anarchists of this direction have joined
the so-called Syndicalist movement--the French name for the
non-political Labour movement, devoted to direct struggle with
capitalism, which has lately become so prominent in Europe.
As one of the Anarchist-Communist direction, the present
writer for many years endeavoured to develop the following
ideas: to show the intimate, logical connexion which exists
between the modern philosophy of natural sciences and
anarchism; to put Anarchism on a scientific basis by the
study of the tendencies that are apparent now in society and
may indicate its further evolution; and to work out the basis
of Anarchist ethics. As regards the substance of Anarchism
itself, it was Kropotkin's aim to prove that Communism--at
least partial--has more chances of being established than
Collectivism, especially in communes taking the lead, and that
Free, or Anarchist- Communism is the only form of Communism
that has any chance of being accepted in civilized societies;
Communism and Anarchy are therefore two terms of evolution which
complete each other, the one rendering the other possible and
acceptable. He has tried, moreover, to indicate how, during
a revolutionary period, a large city--if its inhabitants
have accepted the idea--could organize itself on the lines
of Free Communism; the city guaranteeing to every inhabitant
dwelling, food and clothing to an extent corresponding to
the comfort now available to the middle classes only, in
exchange for a half-day's, or a five-hours' work; and how
all those things which would be considered as luxuries might
be obtained by every one if he joins for the other half of
the day all sorts of free associations pursuing all possible
aims--educational, literary, scientific, artistic, sports and so
on. In order to prove the first of these assertions he has
analysed the possibilities of agriculture and industrial
work, both being combined with brain work. And in order
to elucidate the main factors of human evolution, he has
analysed the part played in history by the popular constructive
agencies of mutual aid and the historical role of the state.
Without naming himself an Anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his
predecessors in the popular religious movements of the 15th
and 16th centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took
the Anarchist position as regards the state and property
rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of
the teachings of the Christ and from the necessary dictates of
reason. With all the might of his talent he made (especially
in The Kingdom of God in Yourselves) a powerful criticism
of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially
of the present property laws. He describes the state as the
domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force.
Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized
government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices
which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon
men by the church, the state and the existing distribution of
property, and from the teachings of the Christ he deduces the
rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all
wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined
with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of
the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works
appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.
It would be impossible to represent here, in a short sketch,
the penetration, on the one hand, of Anarchist ideas into
modern literature, and the influence, on the other hand, which
the libertarian ideas of the best comtemporary writers have
exercised upon the development of Anarchism. One ought to
consult the ten big volumes of the Supplement litteraire
to the paper La revolte and later the Temps nouveaux,
which contain reproductions from the works of hundreds of
modern authors expressing Anarchist ideas, in order to realize
how closely Anarchism is connected with all the intellectual
movement of our own times. J. S. Mill's Liberty, Spencer's
Individual versus The State, Marc Guyau's Morality
without Obligation or Sanction, and Fouillee's La morale,
l'art et la religion, the works of Multatuli (E. Douwes
Dekker), Richard Wagner's Art and Revolution, the works of
Nietzsche, Emerson, W. Lloyd Garrison, Thoreau, Alexander
Herzen, Edward Carpenter and so on; and in the domain of
fiction, the dramas of Ibsen, the poetry of Walt Whitman,
Tolstoy's War and Peace, Zola's Paris and Le travail,
the latest works of Merezhkovsky, and an infinity of works of
less known authors,--are full of ideas which show how closely
Anarchism is interwoven with the work that is going on in modern
thought in the same direction of enfranchisement of man from
the bonds of the state as well as from those of capitalism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--William Godwin, An Enquiry concerning
Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and
Happiness, 1st edition, 2 vols. (1793). Mutualism:--John
Gray, A Lecture on Human Happiness (1825); The Social
System, a Treatise on the Principles of Exchange (1831);
Proudhon, Qu'est-ce que la propriete 11er memoire
(1840) (Eng. trans. by B. Tucker); Idee generale sur
la revolution (1851);. Confession d'un revolutionnaire
(1849); Contradictions economiques (1846); Josiah
Warren, Practicable Details of Equitable Commerce (New
York, 1852); True Civilizaltion (Boston, 1863); Stephen
Pearl Andrews, The Science of Society (1851); Cost, the
Limit of Price; Moses Hess, ``Sozialismus und Communismus,
Philosophie der That'' (on Herwegh's Ein-und-Zwanzip Bogen
aus der Schweiz, 1843); Karl Grun, Die soziale Bewegung
in Frankreich und Belgien (1845); W. Marr, Das junge
Deutschland (1845). Anarchist Individualism:--Max Stirner
(J. K. Schmidt), Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (1845) (Fr.
trans., 1900); J. H. Mackay, Max Stirner, sein Leben und
sein Werk (1898): V. Basch, L'Individualisme anarchists
(1904). Transition period:--J. Dejacque, Les Lazareennes
rj85I); Le Libertaire, weekly, New York, 1858--1861,
containing Anarchist Collectivism of the International:--The
papers Egalite, Progres (Locle), Solidaritet; James
Guillaume, Idees sur l'organisation seciale (1876);
Bulletin de la .federation jurassienne (1872-1879); A.
Schwitzguebel, OEuvres; Paul Brousse, Le Suffrage
universel (1874); L'Etat a Versailles et dans l'association
internationale (1874); newspaper L'Avant-garde (suppressed
1878); Arthur Arnould, L'Etat et la revolution (1877);
Histoire populaire de la commune (3 vols., 1878); Cesar de
Paepe, in Rive gauche and La liberte (1867-1883). Many
others are in the Comptes rendus of the congresses of the
International Working Men's Association. All these ideas,
conceived as a whole, may be found in Bakunin's Federalisme,
socialisme et anti-theologisme, published first in portions
under the names of L'Empire knouto-germanique, Dieu et
l'etat, The State-Idea and Anarchy (Russian), and only
now reproduced in full in his OEuvres (Paris, 1905 and
seq.); Sozialpolitischer Briefwechsel (1894); Statuts de
l'alliance internationale (1868); Proposition motivee au
comite central de la ligue de la paix et de la llberte
(1868.) The famous Revolutionary Catechism attributed to
Bakunin, was not his work. Biographie von Michael Bakunin,
by Dr M. Nettlan, 3 large vols., contains masses of letters,
&c. (hectographed in 50 copies; in all chief libraries).
MODERN ANARCHISM.--The best sources are the collections of
newspapers which, although compelled sometimes to change their
names, were run for considerable lengths of time and are appearing
still: J. Most, Freiheit, since 1878; Le Revolte--La
Revolte--Temps nouveaux, since 1878; Domela Nieuwenhuis,
Recht voor Allen, since 1878; Freedom, since 1886; Le
Libertaire; Pouget's Pere Pesuard; Reveil-Risveglio;
see Nettlan's Bibliographie. These papers and a great
number of pamphlets are indispensable for those who intend to
know anarchism, as the works published in book form are not
numerous. Of the latter only a few will be mentioned:--Elisee
Reclus, Evolution and Revolution, many editions in all
languages; ``Anarchy by an Anarchist,'' in Contemp. Review
(May, 1884); The Ideal and Youth (1895); Jean Grave, La
Societe au lendemain de la revolution, many editions
since 1882; La Societe mourante et l'anarchie (1893);
L'Autonomie selon la science (1882); La Societe future
(1895); L'Anarchie, son but, ses moyens; Sebastien Faure,
La Douleur universelle (1892); A. Hamon, Les Hemmes
et les theories de l'anarchie (1893); Psychologie de
l'anarchiste-socialiste (1895); Enrico Malatesta, Fra
Contadini, transl. in all languages--Eng. trans. A Talk
about Anarchist Communism, in ``Freedom Pamphlets'' (1891);
Anarchy (do. 1892); Au cafe; and many other Italian
pamphlets, as also several papers started at various times
in Italy under different names: F. S. Merlino, Socialismo
o Menopolismo (1887). Pamphlets, reviews and papers by
P. Gori, L. Molinari, E. Covelli, &c. The manifestos of the
Spanish Federations contain excellent expositions of Anarchism;
cf. also many books, pamphlets and papers by J. Llunas y
Pujals, J. Serrano y Oteiza, Ricardo Mella, A. Lorenzo, &c.
John Most, the paper Freiheit, of which a few articles
only have been reprinted as pamphlets in the Internationale
Bibliothek (``The Deistic Pestilence,'' ``The Beast of
Property'' in English); Memoiren, 3 fascicules. F. Domela
Nieuwenhuis, Le Socialisme en danger (1895); C. Malato,
Philosophie de l'anarchie (1890); Charlotte Wilson, Anarchism
(``Fabian Tracts,'' 4); Anarchism and Violence (``Freedom
Pamphlets''); Albert Parsons, Anarchism, its Philosophy and
Scientific Basis (Chicago, 1888); The Chicago Martyrs:
Speeches in Court; P. Kropotkin, Paroles d'un revolte
(1884); Conquest of Bread (1906) (1st French ed. in 1890);
Anarchist Morality; Anarchy, its Philosophy and Ideals;
Anarchist Communism; The State, its Historic Role; and other
``Freedom Pamphlets''; Fields, Factories and Workshops (5th
popular edition, 1807); Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution
(1904). Modern Individualist Anarchists:--B. Tucker, the
paper Liberty (1892 sqq.); Instead of a Book, by one too
busy to write one (Boston, 1893); Dyer Lum, Social Problems
(1883); Lysander Spooner, Natural Law, or the Science of
Justice (Boston, 1891). Religious Anarchists:--Leo Tolstoy,
The Kingdom of God in Yourselves; My Faith; Confession; &c.
The best work on Anarchism, and in fact the only one
written with full knowledge of the Anarchist literature,
and quite fairly, is by a German judge Dr Paul Eltzbacher,
Anarchismus (transl. in all chief European languages,
except English). Prof. Adler's article ``Anarchismus'' in
Conrad's Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, vol.
i., is less accurate for modern times than for the earlier
periods. G. v. Zenker, Der Anarchismus (1895); and
Prof. Edmund Bernatzik, ``Der Anarchismus,'' in Schmoller's
Jahrbuch, may also be mentioned--the remainder being
written with absolute want of knowledge of the subject.
A most important work is the reasoned Bibliographie de l'anarchie,
by Dr M. Nettlan (Brussels, 1897, 8vo, 294 ff.), written with a
full knowledge of the subject and its immense literature. (P. A. K.)
1 It is imoortant to remember that the term ``Anarchist', is
inevitably rather loosely used in public, in connexion with
the authors of a certain class of murderous outrages, and
that the same looseness of definition often applies to the
professions of ``Anarchism'' made by such persons. As stated
above, a philosophic Anarchist would repudiate the connexion.
And the general public view which regards Anarchist doctrines
indiscriminately is to that extent a confusion of terms. But the
following resume of the chief modern so-called ``Anarchist''
incidents is appended for convenience in stating the facts
under the heading where a reader would expect to find them.
Between 1852 and 1886, in France, Prince Kropotkin, Louise
Michel and others were imprisoned. In England, Most, one of
the German Anarchist leaders, founded Die Freiheit, and,
for defending in it the assassination of Alexander II. at St
Petersburg, was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment
with hard labour. After this he moved to the United States,
and re-established his paper there in New York, in May
1886. During this period there were several Anarchist
congresses in the United States. In one at Albany, in 1878,
the revolutionary element, led by Justus Schwab, broke away
from the others; at Allegheny City, in 1879, again there
was a rupture between the peaceful and the revolutionary
sections. The Voice of the People at St Louis, the
Arbeiter Zeitung at Chicago, and the Anarchist at Boston,
were the organs of the revolutionary element. In 1883, at
Pittsburg, a congress of twenty-eight delegates, representing
twenty-two towns, drew up an address to the working men of
America. The programme it proposed was as follows:--
First, Destruction of the existing class rule by all means, i.e.
energetic, relentless, revolutionary and international action.
Second, Establishment of a free society, based
upon co-operative organization of production.
Third, Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the
productive organizations, without commerce and profit-mongery.
Fourth, Organization of education on a secular,
scientific and equal basis for both sexes.
Fifth, Equal rights for all, without distinction
of sex or race. the autonomous (independent) communes
and associations, resting on a federalistic basis.
This, together with an appeal to the working men to organize,
was published in Chicago, November 1883, by a local committee
of four, representing French, Bohemian, German and English
sections, the head of the last being August Spies, who was
hanged in 1887 for participation in the Haymarket affair in
Chicago, 4th May 1886. This affair was the culmination of a
series of encounters between the Chicago working men and the
police, which had covered several years. The meeting of 4th
May was called by Spies and others to protest against the
action of the police, by whom several working men had been
killed in collisions growing out of the efforts to introduce
the eight hours' day. The mayor of the city attended the
meeting, but, finding it peaceful, went home. The meeting was
subsequently entered by the police and commanded to disperse.
A bomb was thrown, several policemen being killed and a number
wounded. For this crime eight men were tried in one panel and
condemned, seven--Spies, Parsons, Engel, Fischer, Fielden,
Schwab, and Ling--to death, and one--Neebe--to imprisonment
for fifteen years. The sentences on Fielden and Schwab were
commuted by Governor Oglesby to imprisonment for life, on
the recommendation of the presiding judge and the prosecuting
attorney. Ling committed suicide in jail, and Spies, Parsons,
Engel and Fischer were hanged, 11th November 1887. On 26th
June 1893 an unconditional pardon was granted the survivors,
Fielden, Schwab and Neebe, by Governor Altgeld. The reasons
for the pardon were stated by the governor to be that, upon
an examination of the records he found that the jury had not
been drawn in the usual manner, but by a special bailiff, who
made his own selection and had summoned a ``prejudiced jury'';
that the ``state had never discovered who it was that threw
ihe bomb which killed the policemen, and the evidence does
not show any connexion whatever between the defendants and the
man who did throw it,'' . . . or that this man ``ever heard
or read a word coming from the defendants, and consequently
fails to show that he acted on any advice given by them.''
Judge Gary, the judge at the trial, published a defence of
its procedure in the Century Magazine, vol. xxiii p. 803.
A number of outbreaks in later years were attributed to the
propaganda of reform by revolution, like those in Spain and
France in 1892, in which Ravachol was a prominent figure. In
1893 a bomb was exploded in the French Chamber of Deputies by
Vaillant. The spirit of these men is well illustrated by the
reply which Vaillant made to the judge who reproached him for
endangering the lives of innocent men and women: ``There can
be no innocent bourgeois.'' In 1894 there was an explosion in
a Parisian cafe, and another in a theatre at Barcelona. For
the latter outrage six men were executed. President Carnot
of the French Republic was assassinated by an Italian at
Lyons in the same year. The empress Elizabeth of Austria was
assassinated in September 1898. These events, all associated
by the public with ``Anarchism,'' led to the passage by the
Uniied States Congress of a law, in 1894, to keep out foreign
Anarchists, and to deport any who might be found in the country,
and also to the assemblage of an international conference in
Rome, in 1898, to agree upon some plan for dealing with these
revolutionists. It was proposed that their offences should
no longer be classed as political, but as common-law crimes,
and be made subject to extradition. The suppression of the
revolutionary press and the international co-operation of the
police were also suggested. The results of the conference
were not, however, published; and the question of how to
deal with the campaign against society fell for a while into
abeyance. The attempt made by the youth Sipido on the (then)
prince of Wales at Brussels in 1900 recalled attention to the
subject. The acquittal of Sipido, and the failure of the
Belgian government to see that justice was done in an affair of
such international importance, excited considerable feeling in
England, and was the occasion of a strongly-worded note from
the British to the Belgian government. The murder of King
Humbert of Italy in July 1900 renewed the outcry against Italian
Anarchists. Even greater horror and indignation were excited
by the assassination of President McKinley by Czolgoscz on the
6th of September 1901, at Buffalo, U.S.A. And a particularly
dastardly attempt was made to blow up the young king and
queen of Spain on their wedding-day in 1906. (ED. E.B.)
ANASTASIUS, the name of four popes. ANASTASIUS I.,
pope from 399-401. He it was who condemned the writings
of Origen shortly after their translation into Latin.
ANASTASIUS II., pope from 496-498. He lived in the time of
the schism of Acacius of Constantinople. He showed some tendency
towards conciliation, and thus brought upon himself the lively
reproaches of the author of the Liber pontificalis. On the
strength of this tradition, Dante has placed this pope in hell.
ANASTASIUS III., pope from 911-913, was a Roman by birth.
Practically nothing is recorded of him, his pontificate falling
in the period when Rome was in the power of the Roman nobles.
ANASTASIUS IV. was pope from 1153 to 1154. He was a Roman
named Conrad, son of Benedictus, and at the time of his
election, on the 9th of July 1153, was cardinal bishop of
Sabina. He had taken part in the double election of 1130,
had been one of the most determined opponents of Anacletus II.
and, when Innocent II. fled to France, had been left behind
as his vicar in Italy. During his short pontificate, however,
he played the part of a peacemaker; he came to terms with the
emperor Frederick I. in the vexed question of the appointment
to the see of Magdeburg and closed the long quarrel, which
had raged through four pontificates, about the appointment of
William Fitzherbert (d. 1154)--commonly known as St William
of York--to the see of York, by sending him the pallium, in
spite of the continued opposition of the powerful Cistercian
order. Anastasius died on the 3rd of December 1154, and
was succeeded by Cardinal Nicholas of Albano as Adrian IV.
ANASTASIUS I. (c. 430-518), Roman emperor, was born at
Dyrrhachium not later than A.D. 430. At the time of the death
of Zeno (491), Anastasius, a palace official (silentiarius),
held a very high character, and was raised to the throne
of the Roman empire of the East, through the choice of
Ariadne, Zeno's widow, who married him shortly after his
accession. His reign, though afterwards disturbed by foreign
and intestine wars and religious distractions, commenced
auspiciously. He gained the popular favour by a judicious
remission of taxation, and displayed great vigour and energy
in administering the affairs of the empire. The principal
wars in which Anastasius was engaged were those known as
the Isaurian and the Persian. The former (492-496) was
stirred up by the supporters of Longinus, the brother of
Zeno. The victory of Cotyaeum in 493 ``broke the back'' of
the revolt, but a guerilla warfare continued in the Isaurian
mountains for some years longer. In the war with Persia
(502-505), Theodosiopolis and Amida were captured by the
enemy, but the Persian provinces also suffered severely
and the Romans recovered Amida. Both adversaries were
exhausted when peace was made (506) on the basis of status
quo. Anastasius afterwards built the strong fortress of
Daras to hold Nisibis in check. The Balkan provinces were
devastated by invasions of Slavs and Bulgarians; to protect
Constantinople and its vicinity against them he built the
``Anastasian wall,'' extending from the Propontis to the
Euxine. The emperor was a convinced Monophysite, but his
ecclesiastical policy was moderate; he endeavoured to maintain
the principle of the Henotikon of Zeno and the peace of the
church. It was the uncompromising attitude of the orthodox
extremists, and the rebellious demonstrations of the Byzantine
populace, that drove him in 512 to abandon this policy and
adopt a monophysitic programme. His consequent unpopularity
in the European provinces was utilized by an ambitious
man, named Vitalian, to organize a dangerous rebellion, in
which he was assisted by a horde of ``Huns'' (514-515); it
was finally suppressed by a naval victory won by the general
Marinus. The financial policy of Anastasius was so prudent
and economical that it gained him a reputation for avarice
and contributed to his unpopularity. He died in 518.
AUTHORITIES.--Sources: Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle,
ed. Wright, with English translation, Cambridge, 1882;
Marcellinus, Chronicle; Zachariah of Mytilene, Chronicle
(Eng. trans. by Hamilton and Brooks, London, 1899); Evagrius,
Ecclesiastical History; John Lydus, De Magistratibus; John
Malalas, Chronicle. Modern works: Gibbon, Decline and Fall,
vol. iv. (ed. Bury); Bury, Later Roman Empire, vol. i.
ANASTASIUS II. (d. 721), Roman emperor in the East, whose
original name was Artemius, was raised to the throne of
Constantinople by the voice of the senate and people in A.D.
713, on the deposition of Philippicus, whom he had served in
the capacity of secretary. The empire was threatened by the
Saracens both by land and sea, and Anastasius sent an army
under Leo the Isaurian, afterwards emperor, to defend Syria;
adopted wise and resolute measures for the defence of his
capital; attempted to reorganize the discipline of the army;
and equipped and despatched to Rhodes a formidable naval
force, with orders not only to resist the approach of the
enemy, but to destroy their naval stores. The troops of the
Opsikian province, resenting the emperor's strict measures,
mutinied, slew the admiral, and proclaimed Theodosius, a
person of low extraction, emperor. After a six months' siege,
Constantinople was taken by Theodosius; and Anastasius, who
had fled to Nicaea, was compelled to submit to the new emperor,
and, retiring to Thessalonica, became a monk (716). In 721
he headed a revolt against Leo, who had succeeded Theodosius,
and receiving a considerable amount of support, laid siege
to Constantinople; but the enterprise failed, and Anastasius,
falling into Leo's hands, was put to death by his orders.
AUTHORITIES.--Sources: Theophanes, Chronicle: Nicephorus
Patriarches, Breviarium. Modern works: Gibbon, Decline and
Fall, vol. v. (ed. Bury); Bury, Later Roman Empire, vol. ii.
ANASTOMOSIS (a Greek word in which the second o is long,
from anastomoun, to furnish with a mouth or outlet),
the intercommunication between two vessels; a word used in
vegetable and animal anatomy for the communication between
channels (arteries and veins) containing fluid, and also for
the crossing between the veins or branches of leaves, trees,
insect-wings or river-connexions, and by analogy in art-design.
ANATASE, one of the three mineral forms of titanium dioxide.
It is always found as small, isolated and sharply developed
crystals, and like rutile, a more commonly occurring modification
of titanium dioxide, it crystallizes in the tetragonal system;
but, although the degree of symmetry is the same for both,
there is no relation between the interfacial angles of the two
minerals, except, of course, in the prism-zone of 45 deg. and
90 deg. . The common pyramid {111} (fig. 1) of anatase,1 parallel
to the faces of which there are perfect cleavages, has an angle
over the polar edge of 82 deg. 9', the corresponding angle (111):
(111) of rutile being 56 deg. 52 1/2'. It was on account of this
steeper pyramid of anatase that the mineral was named, by R.
J. Hauy in 1801, from the Gr. anatasis, ``extension,''
the vertical axis of the crystals being longer than in rutile.
There are also important differences between the physical
characters of anatase and rutile; the former is not quite
so hard (H= 5 1/2-6) or dense (sp. gr. = 3.9); it is optically
negative, rutile being positive; and its lustre is even more
strongly adamantine or metallic-adamantine than that of rutile.
Two types or habits of anatase crystals may be distinguished.
The commoner occurs as simple acute double pyramids {111}
(fig. 1) with an indigo-blue to black colour and steely
lustre. Crystals of this kind are abundant at Le Bourg
d'Oisans in Dauphine, where they are associated with
rock-crystal, felspar and axinite in crevices in granite and
mica-schist. Similar crystals, but of microscopic size,
are widely distributed in sedimentary rocks, such as
sandstones, clays and slates, from which they may be separated
by washing away the lighter constituents of the powdered
rock. Crystals of the second type have numerous pyramidal
faces developed, and they are usually flatter or sometimes
prismatic in habit (fig. 2); the colour is honey-yellow to
FIG. 1. FIG. 2.
brown. Such crystals closely resemble xenotine in appearance
and, indeed, were for a long time supposed to belong to
this species, the special name wiserine being applied to
them. They occur attached to the walls of crevices in
the gneisses of the Alps, the Binnenthal near Brieg in
canton Valais, Switzerland, being a well-known locality.
When strongly heated, anatase is converted into rutile, changing
in specific gravity to 4.1; naturally occurring pseudomorphs of
rutile after anatase are also known. Crystals of anatase have
been artificially prepared by several methods; for instance,
by the interaction of steam and titanium chloride or fluoride.
Another name commonly in use for this mineral is octahedrite,
a name which, indeed, is earlier than anatase, and given
because of the common (acute) octahedral habit of the
crystals. Other names, now obsolete, are oisanite and
dauphinite, from the well-known French locality. (L. J. S.)
1 For the notation see CRYSTALLOGRAPHY.
ANATHEMA (from Gr. anatithenai, to lift up), literally
an offering, a thing set aside. The classical Greek form
anathema (Lat. anathema) was the technical term for
a gift (cf. donarium, oblatio) made to a god either in
gratitude or with a view to propitiation. Thus at Athens
the Thesmothetae (perhaps all the archons) made a vow that,
should they break any law, they would dedicate a life-size
gilt statue in the temple at Delphi. Similarly, of spoils
taken in war, a part, generally a tenth, was dedicated to the
god of the city (e.g. to Athena); to this class probably
belong the trophies erected by the victors on the field of
battle; sometimes a captured ship was placed upon a hill as
an offering to Poseidon (Neptune). Persons who had recovered
from an illness offered anathemata in the temples of
Asclepius (Aesculapius); those who had escaped from shipwreck
offered their clothes, or, if these had been lost, a lock of
hair, to Neptune (Hor. Odes, i. 5. 13; Virg. Aeneid, xii.
768). The latter offering was very commonly made by young
men and girls, especially young brides. Works of art of
all kinds and the implements of a craftsman giving up his
work were likewise dedicated. Such presents were far more
common, as also more valuable, among the Greeks than among the
Romans. Similar practices were prevalent, to an extent hardly
realized, among the Christians up to the middle ages and even
later. Just as the ancients hung their offerings on trees,
temple columns and the images of the gods, so offerings were
made to the Cross, to the Virgin Mary and on altars generally.
In the form anathema, the word is used in the Septuagint,
the New Testament and ecclesiastical writers as the equivalent
of the Hebrew herem, which is commonly translated
``accursed thing'' (A.V.) or ``devoted thing'' (R.V.; cf.
the Roman devotio.) In Hebrew the root h-r-m means
to ``set apart,'' ``devote to Yahweh,'' for destruction;
but in Arabic it means simply to separate or seclude (cf.
``harem''). The idea of destruction or perdition is thus
a secondary meaning of the Word, which gradually lost its
primary sense of consecration. In the New Testament, though
it is used in the sense of ``offering'' (Luke xxi. 5), it
generally signifies ``separated'' from the church, i.e.
``accursed'' (cf. Gal. i. 8 ff.; 1 Cor. xvi. 22), and it became
the regular formula of excommunication from the time of the
council of Chalcedon in 451, especially against heretics,
e.g. in the canons of the council of Trent and those of
the Vatican council of 1870. See EXCOMMUNICATION; PENANCE.
The expression maranatha (``the Lord cometh''), which
follows anathema in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, is often erroneously
quoted as though it were an amplification of the curse.
ANATOLI, JACOB (c. 1194-1256), Hebrew translator from the
Arabic. He was invited to Naples by the enlightened ruler Frederick
II., and under this royal patronage and in association with Michael
Scot, made Arabic learning accessible to Western readers. Among
his most important services were translations of works by Averroes.
ANATOLIA (Gr. anatole, sunrise, i.e. eastern land), in
ancient geography, the country east of the Aegean, i.e. Asia
Minor. It was the name of one of the three themes (provinces)
into which Phrygia was divided in the military reorganization
of the East Roman empire. It is now used (by the Turks in
the form (Anadoli) to denote a division of the Turkish
empire, practically coincident with Asia Minor (q.v..)
ANATOMY (Gr. anatome, from ana-temnein, to cut up),
literally dissection or cutting asunder, a term always used
to denote the study of the structure of living things; thus
there is animal anatomy (zootomy) and vegetable anatomy
(phytotomy). Animal anatomy may include the study of the
structure of different animals, when it is called comparative
anatomy or animal morphology, or it may be limited to
one animal only, in which case it is spoken of as special
anatomy. From a utilitarian point of view the study of Man
is the most important division of special anatomy, and this
human anatomy may be approached from different points of
view. From that of the medical man it consists of a knowledge
of the exact form, position, size and relationship of the various
structures of the human body in health, and to this study the
term descriptive or topographical human anatomy is given,
though it is often, less happily, spoken of as Anthropotomy.
An accurate knowledge of all the details of the human body takes
years of patient observation to gain and is possessed by only a
few. So intricate is man's body that only a small number of
professional human anatomists are complete masters of all its
details, and most of them specialize on certain parts, such
as the brain, viscera, &c.; contenting themselves with a
good working knowledge of the rest. Topographical anatomy
must be learned by each person for himself by the repeated
dissection and inspection of the dead human body. It is no
more a science than a pilot's knowledge is, and, like that
knowledge, must be exact and available in moments of emergency.
From the morphological point of view, however, human anatomy
is a scientific and fascinating study, having for its object
the discovery of the causes which have brought about the
existing structure of Man, and needing a knowledge of the allied
sciences of embryology or ontogeny, phylogeny and histology.
Pathological or morbid anatomy is the study of diseased
organs, while sections of normal anatomy, applied to various
purposes, receive special names such as medical, surgical,
gynaecological, artistic and superficial anatomy. The
comparison of the anatomy of different races of mankind is
part of the science of physical anthropology or anthropological
anatomy. In the present edition of this work the subject of
anatomy is treated systematically rather than topographically.
Each anatomical article contains first a description of the
structures of an organ or system (such as nerves, arteries,
heart, &c.), as it is found in Man; and this is followed by
an account of the development or embryology and comparative
anatomy or morphology, as far as vertebrate animals are
concerned; but only those parts of the lower animals which
are of interest in explaining Man's structure are here dealt
with. The articles have a twofold purpose; first, to give
enough details of man's structure to make the articles on
physiology, surgery, medicine and pathology intelligible;
and, secondly, to give the non-expert inquirer, or the
worker in some other branch of science, the chief theories on
which the modern scientific groundwork of anatomy is built.
The following separate anatomical articles
will be found under their own headings:--
Alimentary canal. Nervous system.
Arteries. Nerve.
Brain. Olfactory system.
Coelom and serous membranes. Pharynx.
Connective tissues. Pancreas.
Diaphragm. Placenta.
Ductless glands. Reproductive system.
Ear. Respiratory system.
Epithelial, endothelial and Scalp.
glandular tissues. Skeleton.
Eye. Skin and Exoskeleton.
Heart. Skull.
Joints. Spinal cord.
Liver. Teeth.
Lymphatic system. Tongue.
Mammary gland. Urinary system.
Mouth and salivary glands. Vascular system.
Muscular system. Veins.
HISTORY OF ANATOMY1 In tracing the history of the origin
of anatomy, it may be justly said that more learning than
judgment has been displayed. Some writers claim for it the
highest antiquity, and pretend to find its first rudiments
alternately in the animal sacrifices of the shepherd kings,
the Jews and other ancient nations, and in the art of embalming
as practised by the Egyptian priests.2 Even the descriptions
of wounds in the Iliad have been supposed adequate to
prove that in the time of Homer mankind had distinct notions
of the structure of the human body. Of the first it may
be said that the rude information obtained by the slaughter
of animals for sacrifice does not imply profound anatomical
knowledge; and those who adduce the second as evidence are
deceived by the language of the poet of the Trojan War, which,
distinguishing certain parts by their ordinary Greek epithets,
as afterwards used by Hippocrates, Galen and all anatomists,
has been rather too easily supposed to prove that the poet
had studied systematically the structure of the human frame.
Hippocrates.
With not much greater justice has the cultivation of anatomical
knowledge been ascribed to Hippocrates, who, because he is
universally allowed to be the father of medicine, has also
been thought to be the creator of the science of anatomy.
Of the seven individuals of the family of the Heracleidae
who bore this celebrated name, the second, who was the
son of Heraclides and Phenarita, and grandson of the first
Hippocrates, was indeed distinguished as a physician of great
observation and experience, and the first who appreciated
the value of studying accurately the phenomena, effects
and terminations of disease. It does not appear, however,
notwithstanding the vague and general panegyrics of J. Riolan,
Bartholin, D. le Clerc, and A. Portal, that the anatomical
knowledge of this illustrious person was either accurate or
profound. Of the works ascribed to Hippocrates, five only are
genuine. Most of them were written either by subsequent
authors of the same name, or by one or other of the numerous
impostors who took advantage of the zealous munificence of
the Ptolemies, by fabricating works under that illustrious
name. Of the few which are genuine, there is none expressly
devoted to anatomy; and of his knowledge on this subject
the only proofs are to be found in the exposition of
his physiological opinions, and his medical or surgical
instructions. From these it appears that Hippocrates had some
accurate notions on osteology, but that of the structure of the
human body in general his ideas were at once superficial and
erroneous. In his book on injuries of the head, and in that on
fractures, he shows that he knew the sutures of the cranium
and the relative situation of the bones, and that he had some
notion of the shape of the bones in general and of their mutual
connexions. Of the muscles, of the soft parts in general, and
of the internal organs, his ideas are confused, indistinct and
erroneous. The term fleps he seems, in imitation of the
colloquial Greek, to have used generally to signify a blood-vessel,
without being aware of the distinction of vein and artery;
and the term arteria, or air-holder, is restricted to the
windpipe. He appears to have been unaware of the existence
of the nervous chords; and the term nerve is used by him,
as by Grecian authors in general, to signify a sinew or
tendon. On other points his views are so much combined with
peculiar physiological doctrines, that it is impossible to
assign them the character of anatomical facts; and even the
works in which these doctrines are contained are with little
probability to be ascribed to the second Hippocrates. If,
however, we overlook this difficulty, and admit what is contained
in the genuine Hippocratic writings to represent at least the
sum of knowledge possessed by Hippocrates and his immediate
descendants, we find that he represents the brain as a gland,
from which exudes a viscid fluid; that the heart is muscular
and of pyramidal shape, and has two ventricles separated by a
partition, the fountains of life--and two auricles, receptacles
of air; that the lungs consist of five ash-coloured lobes,
the substance of which is cellular and spongy, naturally
dry, but refreshed by the air; and that the kidneys are
glands, but possess an attractive faculty, by virtue of which
the moisture of the drink is separated and descends into the
bladder. He distinguishes the bowels into colon and rectum
(o
***Many errors here***
The knowledge possessed by the second Eippochrates was transmitted
in various degrees of purity to the descendants and pupils,
cheifly of the familys of the Eerachleidae, who succeeded
him. Several of these, with feelings of grateful affection,
appear to have studied to preserve the written memorpy of his
instructions, and in this manner to have contributed to form
part of that collection of treatises which have long been
known to hee learned world under the general name of the
Hippocratic writings. Though composed, like the genuine
remains of the physician of Cos, in the Ionian dialect, all
of them differ from these in being more diffuse in style, more
elaborate in form, and in studying to invest their anatomical
and medical matter with the fanciful ornaments of the Platonic
philosophy. Hippocrates had the merit of early recognizing
the value of facts apart from opinions, and of those facts
especially which lead to general results; and in the few genuine
writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he
has recourse to the simplest language, expresses himself in
terms which, though short and pithy, are always precise and
perspicuous, and is averse to the introduction of philosophical
dogmas. Of the greater part of the writings collected
under his name, on the contrary the general character is
verboseness, prolixity and a great tendency to speculative
opinions. For these reasons, as well as for others derived
from internal evidence, while the Aphorisms, the Epidemics and
the works above mentioned, bear distinct marks of being the
genuine remains of Hippocrates, it is impossible to regard the
book Peri fusios anthropou as entirely the composition
of that physician; and it appears more reasonable to view
it as the work of some one of the numerous disciples to whom
the author had communicated the results of his observation,
which they unwisely attempted to combine with the philosophy
of the Platonic school and their own mysterious opinions.
Polybus.
Among those who aimed at this distinction, the most fortunate
in the preservation of his name is Polybus, the son-in-law of
the physician of Cos. This person, who must not be confounded
with the monarch of Corinth, immortalized by Sophocles in the
tragic story of Oedipus, is represented as a recluse, severed
from the world and its enjoyments, and devoting himself to
the study of anatomy and physiology, and to the composition of
works on these subjects. To him has been ascribed the whole
of the book on the Nature of the Child and most of that On
Man; both physiological treatises interspersed with anatomical
sketches. His anatomical information, with which we are
specially concerned, appears to have been rude and inaccurate,
like that of his preceptor. He represents the large vessels
of the body as consisting of four pairs; the first proceeding
from the head by the back of the neck and spinal cord to the
hips, lower extremities and outer ankle; the second, consisting
of the jugular vessels (ai sfagitides), proceeding to the
loins, thighs, hams and inner ankle; the third proceeding from
the temples by the neck to the scapula and lungs, and thence
by mutual intercrossings to the spleen and left kidney, and
the liver and right kidney, and finally to the rectum; and the
fourth from the fore-part of the neck to the upper extremities,
the fore-part of the trunk, and the organs of generation.
This specimen of the anatomical knowledge of one of the most
illustrious of the Hippocratic disciples differs not essentially
from that of Syennesis, the physician of Cyprus, and Diogenes,
the philosopher of Apollonia, two authors for the preservation
of whose opinions we are indebted to Aristotle. They may be
admitted as representing the state of anatomical knowledge
among the most enlightened men at that time, and they only
show how rude and erroneous were their ideas on the structure
of the animal body. It may indeed, without injustice, be
said that the anatomy of the Hippocratic school is not only
erroneous, but fanciful and imaginary in often substituting
mere supposition and assertion for what ought to be matter of
fact. From this censure it is impossible to exempt even the
name of Plato himself, for whom some notices in the Timaeus on
the structure of the animal body, as taught by Hippocrates and
Polybus, have procured a place in the history of the science.
Aristotle.
Amidst the general obscurity in which the early history of
anatomy is involved, only two leading facts may be admitted
with certainty. The first is, that previous to the time of
Aristotle there was no accurate knowledge of anatomy; and
the second, that all that was known was derived from the
dissection of the lower animals only. By the appearance
of Aristotle this species of knowledge, which was hitherto
acquired in a desultory and irregular manner, began to be
cultivated systematically and with a definite object; and
among the services which the philosopher of Stagira rendered
to mankind, one of the greatest and most substantial is,
that he was the founder of Comparative Anatomy, and was the
first to apply its facts to the elucidation of zoology. The
works of this ardent and original naturalist show that his
zootomical knowledge was extensive and often accurate; and
from several of his descriptions it is impossible to doubt
that they were derived from frequent personal dissection.
Aristotle, who was born 384 years before the Christian era,
or in the first year of the 99th Olympiad, was at the age of
thirty-nine requested by Philip to undertake the education
of his son Alexander. During this period it is said he
composed several works on anatomy, which, however, are now
lost. The military expedition of his royal pupil into Asia,
by laying open the animal stores of that vast and little-known
continent, furnished Aristotle with the means of extending
his knowledge, not only of the animal tribes, but of their
structure, and of communicating more accurate and distinct
notions than were yet accessible to the world. A sum of 800
talents, and the concurrent aid of numerous intelligent
assistants in Greece and Asia, were intended to facilitate
his researches in composing a system of zoological knowledge;
but it has been observed that the number of instances in
which he was thus compelled to trust to the testimony of
other observers led him to commit errors in description
which personal observation might have enabled him to avoid.
The first three books of the History of Animals, a
treatise consisting of ten books, and the four books on the
Parts of Animals, constitute the great monument of the
Aristotelian Anatomy. From these we find that Aristotle
was the first who corrected the erroneous statements of
Polybus, Syennesis and Diogenes regarding the blood-vessels,
which they made, as we have seen, to arise from the head and
brain. These he represents to be two in number, placed before
the spinal column, the larger on the right, the smaller on
the left, which, he also remarks, is by some called aorta
(aorte), the first time we observe that this epithet
occurs in the history. Both he represents to arise from the
heart, the larger from the largest upper cavity, the smaller
or aorta from the middle cavity, but in a different manner
and forming a narrower canal. He also distinguishes the
thick, firm and more tendinous structure of the aorta from
the thin and membranous structure of vein. In describing
the distribution of the latter, however, he confounds the
vena cava and pulmonary artery, and, as might be expected,
he confounds the ramifications of the former with those of
the arterial tubes in general. While he represents the lung
to be liberally supplied with blood, he describes the brain
as an organ almost destitute of this fluid. His account
of the distribution of the aorta is wonderfully correct.
Though he does not notice the coeliac, and remarks that the
aorta sends no direct branches to the liver and spleen, he
had observed the mesenteric, the renal and the common iliac
arteries. It is nevertheless singular that though he remarks
particularly that the renal branches of the aorta go to the
substance and not the pelvis (koilia) of the kidney, he
appears to mistake the ureters for branches of the aorta.
Of the nerves (neura) he appears to have the most confused
notions. Making them arise from the heart, which he says
has nerves (tendons) in its largest cavity, he represents the
aorta to be a nervous or tendinous vein (neuroder fleps.)
By and by, afterwards saying that all the articulated bones
are connected by nerves, he makes them the same as ligaments.
He distinguishes the windpipe or air-holder (arteria) from
the oesophagus, because it is placed before the latter, because
food or drink passing into it causes distressing cough and
suffocation, and because there is no passage from the lung to the
stomach. He knew the situation and use of the epiglottis, seems
to have had some indistinct notions of the larynx, represents
the windpipe to be necessary to convey air to and from the
lungs, and appears to have a tolerable understanding of the
structure of the lungs. He repeatedly represents the heart,
the shape and site of which he describes accurately, to be the
origin of the blood-vessels, in opposition to those who made
them descend from the head; yet, though he represents it as
full of blood and the source and fountain of that fluid, and
even speaks of the blood flowing from the heart to the veins,
and thence to every part of the body, he says nothing of the
circular motion of the blood. The diaphragm he distinguishes
by the name diazoma, and upozoma. With the liver
and spleen, and the whole alimentary canal, he seems well
acquainted. The several parts of the quadruple stomach of
the ruminating animals are distinguished and named; and he
even traces the relations between the teeth and the several
forms of stomach, and the length or brevity, the simplicity or
complication of the intestinal tube. Upon the same principles
distinguishes the jejunum (e nestis), or the empty portion
of the small intestines in animals (to enteron lepton),
the caecum (tuflon ti kai ogkodes), the colon
(to kolon), and the sigmoid flexure (stenoteron kai
eligmenon.) The modern epithet of rectum is the literal
translation of his description of the straight progress
(euthu) of the bowel to the anus (proktos.) He knew the
nasal cavities and the passage from the tympanal cavity of
the ear to the palate, afterwards described by B. Eustachius.
He distinguishes as ``partes similares'' those structures,
such as bone, cartilage, vessels, sinews, blood, lymph, fat,
flesh, which, not confined to one locality, but distributed
throughout the body generally, we now term the tissues or
textures, whilst he applies the term ``partes dissimilares''
to the regions of the head, neck, trunk and extremities.
Next to Aristotle occur the names of Diocles of Carystus
and Praxagoras of Cos, the last of the family of the
Asclepiadae. The latter is remarkable for being the first
who distinguished the arteries from the veins, and the
author of the opinion that the former were air-vessels.
Alexandrian school.
Hitherto anatomical inquiry was confined to the examination
of the bodies of brute animals. We have, indeed, no
testimony of the human body being submitted to examination
previous to the time of Erasistratus and Herophilus; and
it is vain to look for authentic facts on this point before
the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty of sovereigns in
Egypt. This event, which, as is generally known, succeeded
the death of Alexander, 320 years before the Christian era,
collected into one spot the scattered embers of literature and
science, which were beginning to languish in Greece under
a weak and distracted government and an unsettled state of
society. The children of her divided states, whom domestic
discord and the uncertainties of war rendered unhappy at
home, wandered into Egypt, and found, under the fostering
hand of the Alexandrian monarchs, the means of cultivating
the sciences, and repaying with interest to the country of
Thoth and Osiris the benefits which had been conferred on
the infancy of Greece by Thales and Pythagoras. Alexandria
became in this manner the repository of all the learning and
knowledge of the civilized world; and while other nations were
sinking under the effects of internal animosities and mutual
dissensions, or ravaging the earth with the evils of war,
the Egyptian Greeks kept alive the sacred flame of science,
and preserved mankind from relapsing into their original
barbarism. These happy effects are to be ascribed in an eminent
degree to the enlightened government and liberal opinions of
Ptolemy Soter, and his immediate successors Philadelphus and
Euergetes. The two latter princes, whose authority was equalled
only by the zeal with which they patronized science and its
professors, were the first who enabled physicians to dissect
the human body, and prevented the prejudices of ignorance
and superstition from compromising the welfare of the human
race. To this happy circumstance Herophilus and Erasistratus
are indebted for the distinction of being known to posterity as
the first anatomists who dissected and described the parts of
the human body. Both these physicians flourished under Ptolemy
Soter, and probably Ptolemy Philadelphus, and were indeed the
principal supports of what has been named in medical history
the Alexandrian School, to which their reputation seems to
have attracted numerous pupils. But though the concurrent
testimony of antiquity assigns to these physicians the merit
of dissecting the human body, time, which wages endless war
with the vanity and ambition of man, has dealt hardly with
the monuments of their labours. As the works of neither
have been preserved, great uncertainty prevails as to the
respective merits of these ancient anatomists; and all that is
now known of their anatomical researches is obtained from the
occasional notices of Galen, Oribasius and some other writers.
Erasistratus.
From these it appears that Erasistratus recognized the
valves of the heart. and distinguished them by the names of
tricuspid and sigmoid; that he studied particularly the
shape and structure of the brain, and its divisions, and
cavities, and membranes, and likened the convolutions to
the folds of the jejunum; that he first formed a distinct
idea of the nature of the nerves, which he made issue from
the brain; and that he discovered lymphatic vessels in the
mesentery, first in brute animals, and afterwards, it is
said, in man. He appears also to have distinguished
the nerves into those of sensation and those of motion.
Herophilus.
Of Herophilus it is said that he had extensive anatomical
knowledge, acquired by dissecting not only brutes but human
bodies. Of these he probably dissected more than any
of his predecessors or contemporaries. Devoted to the
assiduous cultivation of anatomy, he appears, to have studied
with particular attention those parts which were least
understood. He recognized the nature of the pulmonary
artery, which he denominates arterious vein; he knew the
vessels of the mesentery, and showed that they did not go
to the vena portae, but to certain glandular bodies;
and he first applied the name of twelve-inch or duodenum
(dodekadaktulos) to that part of the alimentary canal
which is next to the stomach. Like Erasistratus, he appears
to have studied carefully the configuration of the brain; and
though, like him, he distinguishes the nerves into those
of sensation and those of voluntary motion, he adds to them
the ligaments and tendons. A tolerable description of the
liver by this anatomist is preserved in the writings of
Galen. He first applied the name of choroid or vascular
membrane to that which is found in the cerebral ventricles;
he knew the straight venous sinus which still bears his name;
and to him the linear furrow at the bottom of the fourth
ventricle is indebted for its name of calamus scriptorius.
The celebrity of these two great anatomists appears to have
thrown into the shade for a long period the names of all other
inquirers; for, among their numerous and rather celebrated
successors in the Alexandrian school, it is impossible to
recognize a name which is entitled to distinction in the
history of anatomy. In a chasm so wide it is not uninteresting
to find, in one who combined the characters of the greatest
orator and philosopher of Rome, the most distinct traces of
attention to anatomical knowledge. Cicero, in his treatise
De A'atura Deorum, in a short sketch of physiology, such
as it was taught by Aristotle and his disciples, introduces
various anatomical notices, from which the classical
reader may form some idea of the state of anatomy at that
time. The Roman orator appears to have formed a pretty
distinct idea of the shape and connexions of the windpipe
and lungs; and though he informs his readers that he knows
the alimentary canal, he omits the details through motives of
delicacy. In imitation of Aristotle, he talks of the blood
being conveyed by the veins (venae), that is, blood-vessels,
through the body at large; and, like Praxagoras, of the air
inhaled by the lungs being conveyed through the arteries.
Aretaeus, though chiefly known as a medical author, makes
some observations on the lung and the pleura, maintains
the glandular structure of the kidney, and describes the
anastomoses or communications of the capillary extremities
of the vena cava with those of the portal vein.
Celsus.
The most valuable depository of the anatomical knowledge of
these times is the work of Celsus, one of the most judicious
medical authors of antiquity. He left, indeed, no express
anatomical treatise; but from the introductions to the 4th
and 8th books of his work, De Medicina, with incidental
remarks in the 7th, the modern reader may form very just
ideas of his anatomical attainments. From these it appears
that Celsus was well acquainted with the windpipe and lungs
and the heart; with the difference between the windpipe
and oesophagus (stomachus), which leads to the stomach
(ventriculus); and with the shape, situation and relations
of the diaphragm. He enumerates also the principal facts
relating to the situation of the liver, the spleen, the
kidneys and the stomach. He appears, however, to have been
unaware of the distinction of duodenum or twelve-inch
bowel, already admitted by Herophilus, and represents the
stomach as directly connected by means of the pylorus
with the jejunum or upper part of the small intestine.
The 7th and 8th books, which are devoted to the consideration
of those diseases which are treated by manual operation,
contain sundry anatomical notices necessary to explain the
nature of the diseases or mode of treatment. Of these,
indeed, the merit is unequal; and it is not wonderful that
the ignorance of the day prevented Celsus from understanding
rightly the mechanism of the pathology of hernia. He appears,
however, to have formed a tolerably just idea of the mode of
cutting into the urinary bladder; and even his obstetrical
instructions show that his knowledge of the uterus, vagina
and appendages was not contemptible. It is in osteology,
however, that the information of Celsus is chiefly conspicuous.
He enumerates the sutures and several of the holes of the
cranium, and describes at great length the superior and inferior
maxillary bones and the teeth. With a good deal of care he
describes the vertebrae and the ribs, and gives very briefly
the situation and shape of the scapula, humerus, radius and
ulna, and even of the carpal and metacarpal bones, and then
of the different bones of the pelvis and lower extremities.
He had formed a just idea of the articular connexions, and
is desirous to impress the fact that none is formed without
cartilage. From his mention of many minute holes (multa et
tenuia foramina) in the recess of the nasal cavities, it is
evident that he was acquainted with the perforated plate of
the ethmoid bone; and from saying that the straight part of
the auditory canal becomes flexuous and terminates in numerous
minute cavities (multa et tenuia foramina diducitur), it
is inferred by Portal that he knew the semicircular canals.
Though the writings of Celsus show that he cultivated anatomical
knowledge, it does not appear that the science was much studied
by the Romans; and there is reason to believe that, after the
decay of the school of Alexandria, it languished in neglect and
obscurity. It is at least certain that the appearance of
Marinus during the reign of Nero is mentioned by authors
as an era remarkable for anatomical inquiry, and that this
person is distinguished by Galen as the restorer of a branch
of knowledge which had been before him suffered to fall into
undeserved neglect. From Galen also we learn that Marinus
gave an accurate account of the muscles, that he studied
particularly the glands, and that he discovered those of the
mesentery. He fixed the number of nerves at seven; he observed
the palatine nerves, which he rated as the fourth pair;
and described as the fifth the auditory and facial, which
he regards as one pair, and the hypoglossal as the sixth.
Rufus.
Not long after Marinus appeared Rufus (or Ruffus) of
Ephesus, a Greek physician, who in the reign of Trajan was
much attached to physiology, and as a means of cultivating
this science studied Comparative Anatomy and made sundry
experiments on living animals. Of the anatomical writings
of this author there remains only a list or catalogue of
names of different regions and parts of the animal body. He
appears, however, to have directed attention particularly
to the tortuous course of the uterine vessels, and to have
recognized even at this early period the Fallopian tube. He
distinguishes the nerves into those of sensation and those of
motion. He knew the recurrent nerve. His name is further
associated with the ancient experiment of compressing in
the situation of the carotid arteries the pneumogastric
nerve, and thereby inducing insensibility and loss of voice.
Galen.
Of all the authors of antiquity, however, none possesses so
just a claim to the title of anatomist as Claudius Galenus,
the celebrated physician of Pergamum, who was born about the
130th year of the Christian era, and lived under the reigns of
Hadrian, the Antonines, Commodus and Severus. He was trained
by his father Nicon (whose memory he embalms as an eminent
mathematician, architect and astronomer) in all the learning
of the day, and initiated particularly into the mysteries of
the Aristotelian philosophy. In an order somewhat whimsical
he afterwards studied philosophy successively in the schools
of the Stoics, the Academics, the Peripatetics and the
Epicureans. When he was seventeen years of age, his father,
he informs us, was admonished by a dream to devote his son
to the study of medicine; but it was fully two years after
that Galen entered on this pursuit, under the auspices of
an instructor whose name he has thought proper to conceal.
Shortly after he betook himself to the study of anatomy under
Satyrus, a pupil of Quintus, and of medicine under Stratonicus,
a Hippocratic physician, and Aeschrion, an empiric. He had
scarcely attained the age of twenty when he had occasion to
deplore the loss of the first and most affectionate guide of
his studies; and soon after he proceeded to Smyrna to obtain
the anatomical instructions of Pelops, who, though mystified
by some of the errors of Hippocrates, is commemorated by his
pupil as a skilful anatomist. After this he appears to have
visited various cities distinguished for philosophical or
medical teachers; and, finally, to have gone to Alexandria
with the view of cultivating more accurately and intimately
the study of anatomy under Heraclianus. Here he remained till
his twenty-eighth year, when he regarded himself as possessed
of all the knowledge then attainable through the medium of
teachers. He now returned to Pergamum to exercise the art
which he had so anxiously studied, and received, in his
twenty-ninth year, an unequivocal testimony of the confidence
which his fellow-citizens reposed in his skill, by being
intrusted with the treatment of the wounded gladiators;
and in this capacity he is said to have treated wounds with
success which were fatal under former treatment. A seditious
tumult appears to have caused him to form the resolution
of quitting Pergamum and proceeding to Rome at the age of
thirty-two. Here, however, he remained only five years; and
returning once more to Pergamum, after travelling for some
time, finally settled in Rome as physician to the emperor
Commodus. The anatomical writings ascribed to Galen, which
are numerous, are to be viewed not merely as the result
of personal research and information, but as the common
depository of the anatomical knowledge of the day, and as
combining all that he had learnt from the several teachers
under whom he successively studied with whatever personal
investigation enabled him to acquire. It is on this account
not always easy to distinguish what Galen had himself
ascertained by personal research from that which was known
by other anatomists. This, however, though of moment to the
history of Galen as an anatomist, is of little consequence
to the science itself; and from the anatomical remains of
this author a pretty just idea may be formed both of the
progress and of the actual state of the science at that time.
The osteology of Galen is undoubtedly the most perfect of
the departments of the anatomy of the ancients. He names
and distinguishes the bones and sutures of the cranium nearly
in the same manner as at present. Thus, he notices the
quadrilateral shape of the parietal bones; he distinguishes the
squamous, the styloid, the mastoid and the petrous portions
of the temporal bones; and he remarks the peculiar situation
and shape of the sphenoid bone. Of the ethmoid, which he
omits at first, he afterwards speaks more at large in another
treatise. The malar he notices under the name of zygomatic
bone; and he describes at length the upper maxillary and
nasal bones, and the connexion of the former with the
sphenoid. He gives the first clear account of the number and
situation of the vertebrae, which he divides into cervical,
dorsal and lumbar, and distinguishes from the sacrum and
coccyx. Under the head Bones of the Thorax, he enumerates the
sternum, the ribs (ai pleurai), and the dorsal vertebrae,
the connexion of which with the former he designates as a
variety of diarthrosis. The description of the bones of the
extremities and their articulations concludes the treatise.
Though in myology Galen appears to less advantage than in
osteology, he nevertheless had carried this part of anatomical
knowledge to greater perfection than any of his predecessors.
He describes a frontal muscle, the six muscles of the eye
and a seventh proper to animals; a muscle to each ala nasi,
four muscles of the lips, the thin cutaneous muscle of the
neck, which he first termed platysma myoides or muscular
expansion, two muscles of the eyelids, and four pairs of
muscles of the lower jaw--the temporal to raise, the masseter
to draw to one side, and two depressors, corresponding to the
digastric and internal pterygoid muscles. After speaking of
the muscles which move the head and the scapula, he adverts
to those by which the windpipe is opened and shut, and the
intrinsic or proper muscles of the larynx and hyoid bone.
Then follow those of the tongue, pharynx and neck, those of
the upper extremities, the trunk and the lower extremities
successively; and in the course of this description he swerves
so little from the actual facts that most of the names by
which he distinguishes the principal muscles have been retained
by the best modern anatomists. It is chiefly in the minute
account of these organs, and especially in reference to the
minuter muscles, that he appears inferior to the moderns.
The angiological knowledge of Galen, though vitiated by
the erroneous physiology of the times and ignorance of the
separate uses of arteries and veins, exhibits, nevertheless,
some accurate facts which show the diligence of the author in
dissection. Though, in opposition to the opinions of Praxagoras
and Erasistratus, he proved that the arteries in the living
animal contain not air but blood, it does not appear to have
occurred to him to determine in what direction the blood flows,
or whether it was movable or stationary. Representing the left
ventricle of the heart as the common origin of all the arteries,
though he is misled by the pulmonary artery, he nevertheless
traces the distribution of the branches of the aorta with some
accuracy. The vena azygos also, and the jugular veins,
have contributed to add to the confusion of his description,
and to render his angiology the most imperfect of his works.
In neurology we find him to be the author of the dogma that
the brain is the origin of the nerves of sensation, and the
spinal cord of those of motion; and he distinguishes the
former from the latter by their greater softness or less
consistence. Though he admits only seven cerebral pairs, he
has the merit of distinguishing and tracing the distribution
of the greater part of both classes of nerves with great
accuracy. His description of the brain is derived from
dissection of the lower animals, and his distinctions of
the several parts of the organ have been retained by modern
anatomists. His mode of demonstrating this organ, which
indeed is clearly described, consists of five different
steps. In the first the bisecting membrane--i.e. the falx
(menigx dichotomousa)--and the connecting blood-vessels
are removed; and the dissector, commencing at the anterior
extremity of the great fissure, separates the hemispheres gently
as far as the torcular, and exposes a smooth surface (ten
choran tulode pos ousan), the mesolobe of the moderns,
or the middle band. In the second he exposes by successive
sections the ventricles, the choroid plexus and the middle
partition. The third exhibits the pineal body (soma
konoeides) or conarium, concealed by a membrane with numerous
veins, meaning that part of the plexus which is now known by
the name of velum interpositum, and a complete view of the
ventricles. The fourth unfolds the third ventricle (tis
alle trite koilia), the communication between the two
lateral ones, the arch-like body (soma psalidoeides)
fornix, and the passage from the third to the fourth
ventricle. In the fifth he gives an accurate description
of the relations of the third and fourth ventricle, of the
situation of the two pairs of eminences, nates (glouta)
and testes (didumia or orcheis), the scolecoid or
worm-like process, anterior and posterior, and lastly the
linear furrow, called by Herophilus calamus scriptorius.
In the account of the thoracic organs equal accuracy may be
recognized. He distinguishes the pleura by the name of
inclosing membrane (umen upezokos, membrana succingens),
and remarks its similitude in structure to that of the
peritoneum, and the covering which it affords to all the
organs. The pericardium also he describes as a membranous
sac with a circular basis corresponding to the base of
the heart and a conical apex; and after an account of the
tunics of the arteries and veins, he speaks shortly of the
lung, and more at length of the heart, which, however, he
takes somepains to prove not to be muscular, because it is
harder, its fibres are differently arranged, and its action
is incessant, whereas that of muscle alternates with the
state of rest; he gives a good account of the valves and of
the vessels; and notices especially the bony ring formed in
the heart of the horse, elephant and other large animals.
The description of the abdominal organs, and of the kidneys
and urinary apparatus, is still more minute, and in general
accurate. Our limits, however, do not permit us to give
any abstract of them; and it is sufficient in general to
say that Galen gives correct views of the arrangement of
the peritoneum and omentum, and distinguishes accurately the
several divisions of the alimentary canal and its component
tissues. In the liver, which he allows to receive an
envelope from the peritoneum, he admits, in imitation of
Erasistratus, a proper substance or parenchyma, interposed
between the vessels, and capable of removal by suitable
dissection. His description of the organs of generation
is rather brief, and is, like most of his anatomical
sketches, too much blended with physiological dogmas.
This short sketch may communicate some idea of the condition
of anatomical knowledge in the days of Galen, who indeed
is justly entitled to the character of rectifying and
digesting, if not of creating, the science of anatomy among the
ancients. Though evidently confined, perhaps entirely by
the circumstances of the times, to the dissection of brute
animals, so indefatigable and judicious was he in the mode of
acquiring knowledge, that many of his names and distinctions
are still retained with advantage in the writings of the
moderns. Galen was a practical anatomist, and not only
describes the organs of the animal body from actual
dissection, but gives ample instructions for the proper mode of
exposition. His language is in general clear, his style as
correct as in most of the authors of the same period, and
his manner is animated. Few passages in early science are
indeed so interesting as the description of the process for
demonstrating the brain and other internal organs which is
given by this patient and enthusiastic observer of nature.
To some it may appear absurd to speak of anything like good
anatomical description in an author who writes in the Greek
language, or anything like an interesting and correct manner
in a writer who flourished at a period when taste was depraved
or extinct and literature corrupted--when the philosophy of
Antoninus and the mild virtues of Aurelius could do little
to soften the iron sway of Lucius Verus and Commodus; but
the habit of faithful observation in Galen seems to have
been so powerful that in the description of material objects,
his genius invariably rises above the circumstances of his
age. Though not so directly connected with this subject,
it is nevertheless proper to mention that he appears to
have been the first anatomist who can be said, on authentic
grounds, to have attempted to discover the uses of organs
by vivisection and experiments on living animals. In this
manner he ascertained the position and demonstrated the action
of the heart; and he mentions two instances in which, in
consequence of disease or injury, he had an opportunity of
observing the motions of this organ in the human body. In
short, without eulogizing an ancient author at the expense of
critical justice, or commending his anatomical descriptions
as superior to those of the moderns, it must be admitted
that the anatomical writings of the physician of Pergamum
form a remarkable era in the history of the science; and
that by diligence in dissection and accuracy in description
he gave the science a degree of importance and stability
which it has retained through a lapse of many centuries.
The death of Galen, which took place at Pergamum in the
seventieth year of his age and the 200th of the Christian
era, may be regarded as the downfall of anatomy in ancient
times. After this period we recognize only two names of any
celebrity in the history of the science--those of Soranus and
Oribasius, with the more obscure ones of Meletius and Theophilus,
the latter the chief of the imperial guard of Heraclius.
Soranus, who was an Ephesian, and flourished under the
emperors Trajan and Hadrian, distinguished himself by his
researches on the female organs of generation. He appears
to have dissected the human subject; and this perhaps is one
reason why his descriptions of these parts are more copious
and more accurate than those of Galen, who derived his
knowledge from the bodies of the lower animals. He denies
the existence of the hymen, but describes accurately the
clitoris. Soranus the anatomist must be distinguished from
the physician of that name, who was also a native of Ephesus.
Oribasius.
Oribasius, who was born at Pergamum, is said to have been
at once the friend and physician of the emperor Julian, and
to have contributed to the elevation of that apostate to the
imperial throne. For this he appears to have suffered the
punishment of a temporary exile under Valens and Valentinian;
but was soon recalled, and lived in great honour till
the period of his death (387). By le Clerc, Oribasius is
regarded as a compiler; and indeed his anatomical writings
bear so close a correspondence with those of Galen that the
character is not altogether groundless. In various points,
nevertheless, he has rendered the Galenian anatomy more
accurate; and he has distinguished himself by a good account
of the salivary glands, which were overlooked by Galen.
To the same period generally is referred the Anatomical Introduction
of an anonymous author, first published in 1618 by Lauremberg, and
afterwards by C. Bernard. It is to be regarded as a compilation
formed on the model of Galen and Oribasius. The same character
is applicable to the treatises of Meletius and Theophilus.
The decline indicated by these languid efforts soon sank
into a state of total inactivity; and the unsettled state
of society during the latter ages of the Roman empire was
extremely unfavourable to the successful cultivation of
science. The sanguinary conflicts in which the southern
countries of Europe were repeatedly engaged with their northern
neighbours between the 2nd and 8th centuries tended gradually
to estrange their minds from scientific pursuits; and the
hordes of barbarians by which the Roman empire was latterly
overrun, while they urged them to the necessity of making
hostile resistance, and adopting means of self-defence,
introduced such habits of ignorance and barbarism, that science
was almost universally forgotten. While the art of healing
was professed only by some few ecclesiastics or by itinerant
practitioners, anatomy was utterly neglected; and no name
of anatomical celebrity occurs to diversify the long and
uninteresting period commonly distinguished as the dark ages.
Arabian Physicians.
Anatomical learning, thus neglected by European nations, is
believed to have received a temporary cultivation from the
Asiatics. Of these, several nomadic tribes, known to Europeans
under the general denomination of Arabs and Saracens, had
gradually coalesced under various leaders; and by their
habits of endurance, as well as of enthusiastic valour in
successive expeditions against the eastern division of the Roman
empire, had acquired such military reputation as to render
them formidable wherever they appeared. After a century and
a half of foreign warfare or internal animosity, under the
successive dynasties of the Omayyads and Abbasids, in which
the propagation of Islam was the pretext for the extinction
of learning and civilization, and the most remorseless system
of rapine and destruction, the Saracens began, under the
latter dynasty of princes, to recognize the value of science,
and especially of that which prolongs life, heals disease
and alleviates the pain of wounds and injuries. The caliph
Mansur combined with his official knowledge of Moslem law the
successful cultivation of astronomy; but to his grandson Mamun,
the seventh prince of the line of the Abbasids, belongs the
merit of undertaking to render his subjects philosophers and
physicians. By the directions of this prince the works of
the Greek and Roman authors were translated into Arabic;
and the favour and munificence with which literature and its
professors were patronized speedily raised a succession of
learned Arabians. The residue of the rival family of the
Omayyads, already settled in Spain, was prompted by motives
of rivalry or honourable ambition to adopt the same course;
and while the academy, hospitals and library of Bagdad bore
testimony to the zeal and liberality of the Abbasids, the
munificence of the Omayyads was not less conspicuous in
the literary institutions of Cordova, Seville and Toledo.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the Arabian princes, however,
and the diligence of the Arabian physicians, little was
done for anatomy, and the science made no substantial
acquisition. The Koran denounces as unclean the person
who touches a corpse; the rules of Islam forbid dissection;
and whatever their instructors taught was borrowed from the
Greeks. Abu-Bekr Al-Rasi, Abu-Ali Ibn-Sina, Abul-Qasim and
Abul Walid ibn Rushd, the Rhazes, Avicenna, Abulcasis and
Averroes of European authors, are their most celebrated names
in medicine; yet to none of these can the historian with
justice ascribe any anatomical merit. Rhazes has indeed
left descriptions of the eye, of the ear and its meatus,
and of the heart; and Avicenna, Abul-Qasim and Averroes give
anatomical descriptions of the parts of the human body. But
of these the general character is, that they are copies from
Galen, sometimes not very just, and in all instances mystified
with a large proportion of the fanciful and absurd imagery
and inflated style of the Arabian writers. The chief reason
of their obtaining a place in anatomical history is, that by
the influence which their medical authority enabled them to
exercise in the European schools, the nomenclature which they
employed was adopted by European anatomists, and continued
till the revival of ancient learning restored the original
nomenclature of the Greek physicians. Thus, the cervix,
or nape of the neck, is nucha; the oesophagus is meri;
the umbilical region is sumen or sumac; the abdomen is
myrach; the peritoneum is siphac; and the omentum, zirbus.
From the general character now given justice requires that
we except Abdallatif, the annalist of Egyptian affairs. This
author, who maintains that it is impossible to learn anatomy
from books, and that the authority of Galen must yield to
personal inspection, informs us that the Moslem doctors did
not neglect opportunities of studying the bones of the human
body in cemeteries; and that he himself, by once examining a
collection of bones in this manner, ascertained that the lower
jaw is formed of one piece; that the sacrum, though sometimes
composed of several, is most generally of one; and that Galen
is mistaken when he asserts that these bones are not single.
School of Bologna.
The era of Saracen learning extends to the 13th century; and
after this we begin to approach happier times. The university
of Bologna, which, as a school of literature and law, was
already celebrated in the 12th century, became, in the course
of the following one, not less distinguished for its medical
teachers. Though the misgovernment of the municipal rulers
of Bologna had disgusted both teachers and students, and given
rise to the foundation of similar institutions in Padua and
Naples,--and though the school of Salerno, in the territory
of the latter, was still in high repute,--it appears, from
the testimony of M. Sarti, that medicine was in the highest
esteem in Bologna, and that it was in such perfection as
to require a division of its professors into physicians,
surgeons, physicians for wounds, barber-surgeons, oculists
and even some others. Notwithstanding these indications
of refinement, however, anatomy was manifestly cultivated
rather as an appendage of surgery than a branch of medical
science; and according to the testimony of Guy de Chauliac,
the cultivation of anatomical knowledge was confined to
Roger of Parma, Roland, Jamerio, Bruno, and Lanfranc or
Lanfranchi of Milan; and this they borrowed chiefly from Galen.
Mondino.
In this state matters appear to have proceeded with the
medical school of Bologna till the commencement of the 14th
century, when the circumstance of possessing a teacher of
originality enabled this university to be the agent of as
great an improvement in medical science as she had already
effected in jurisprudence. This era, indeed, is distinguished
for the appearance of Mondino (Mundinus), under whose
zealous cultivation the science first began to rise from the
ashes in which it had been buried. This father of modern
anatomy, who taught in Bologna about the year 1315, quickly
drew the curiosity of the medical profession by well-ordered
demonstrations of the different parts of the human body. In
1315 he dissected and demonstrated the parts of the human body
in two female subjects; and in the course of the following
year he accomplished the same task on the person of a single
female. But while he seems to have had sufficient original
force of intellect to direct his own route, J. Riolan accuses
him of copying Galen; and it is certain that his descriptions
are corrupted by the barbarous leaven of the Arabian schools,
and his Latin defaced by the exotic nomenclature of Avicenna
and Rhazes. He died, according to G. Tiraboschi, in 1325.
Mondino divides the body into three cavities (ventres), the
upper containing the animal members, as the head, the lower
containing the natural members, and the middle containing the
spiritual members. He first describes the anatomy of the lower
cavity or the abdomen, then proceeds to the middle or thoracic
organs, and concludes with the upper, comprising the head and
its contents and appendages. His general manner is to notice
shortly the situation and shape or distribution of textures or
membranes, and then to mention the disorders to which they are
subject. The peritoneum he describes under the name of
siphac, in imitation of the Arabians, the omentum under that
of zirbus, and the mesentery or eucharus as distinct from
both. In speaking of the intestines he treats first of the
rectum, then the colon, the left or sigmoid flexure of
which, as well as the transverse arch and its connexion with
the stomach, he particularly remarks; then the caecum or
monoculus, after this the small intestines in general under
the heads of ileum and jejunum, and latterly the duodenum,
making in all six bowels. The liver and its vessels are
minutely, if not accurately, examined; and the cava, under
the name chilis, a corruption from the Greek koile,
is trcated at length, with the emulgents and kidneys. His
anatomy of the heart is wonderfully accurate; and it is a
remarkable fact, which seems to be omitted by all subsequent
authors, that his description contains the rudiments of the
circulation of the blood. ``Postea vero versus pulmonem est
aliud orificium venae arterialis, quae portat sanguinem ad
pulmonem a corde; quia cum pulmo deserviat cordi secundum modum
dictum, ut ei recompenset, cor ei transmittit sanguinem
per hanc venam, quae vocatur vena arterialis; est vena, quia
portat sanguinem, et arterialis, quia habet duas tunicas; et
habet duas tunicas, primo quia vadit ad membrum quod existit
in continuo motu, et secundo quia portat sanguinem valde
subtilem et cholericum.'' The merit of these distinctions,
however, he afterwards destroys by repeating the old assertion
that the left ventricle ought to contain spirit or air, which
it generates from the blood. His osteology of the skull is
erroneous. In his account of the cerebral membranes, though
short, he notices the principal characters of the dura mater.
He describes shortly the lateral ventricles, with their anterior
and posterior cornua, and the choroid plexus as a blood-red
substance like a long worm. He then speaks of the third or
middle ventricle, and one posterior, which seems to correspond
with the fourth; and describes the infundibulum under the
names of lacuna and emboton. In the base of the organ he
remarks, first, two mammillary caruncles, the optic nerves,
which he reckons the first pair; the oculomuscular, which he
accounts the second; the third, which appears to be sixth of the
moderns; the fourth; the fifth, evidently the seventh; a sixth,
the nervus vagus; and a seventh, which is the ninth of the
moderns. Notwithstanding the misrepresentations into which
this early anatomist was betrayed, his book is valuable, and has
been illustrated by the successive commentaries of Alessandro
Achillini, Jacopo Berengario and Johann Dryander (1500-1560).
Matthew de Gradibus, a native of Gradi, a town in Friuli,
near Milan, distinguished himself by composing a series of
treatises on the anatomy of various parts of the human body
(1480). He is the first who represents the ovaries of the
female in the correct light in which they were subsequently
regarded by Nicolas Steno or Stensen (1638-1687).
Objections similar to those already urged in speaking
of Mondino apply to another eminent anatomist of those
times. Gabriel de Zerbis, who flourished at Verona towards
the conclusion of the 15th century, is celebrated as the
author of a system in which he is obviously more anxious
to astonish his readers by the wonders of a verbose and
complicated style than to instruct by precise and faithful
description. In the vanity of his heart he assumed the title
of Medicus Theoricus; but though, like Mondino, he derived
his information from the dissection of the human subject,
he is not entitled to the merit either of describing truly
or of adding to the knowledge previously acquired. He is
superior to Mondina, however, in knowing the olfactory nerves.
Achillini.
Eminent in the history of the science, and more distinguished
than any of this age in the history of cerebral anatomy, Achillini
of Bologna (1463-1512), the pupil and commentator of Mondino,
appeared at the close of the 15th century. Though a follower
of the Arabian school, the assiduity with which he cultivated
anatomy has rescued his name from the inglorious obscurity
in which the Arabian doctors have in general slumbered. He
is known in the history of anatomical discovery as the first
who described the two tympanal bones, termed malleus and
incus. In 1503 he showed that the tarsus consists of seven
bones; he rediscovered the fornix and the infundibulum; and
he was fortunate enough to observe the course of the cerebral
cavities into the inferior cornua, and to remark peculiarities
to which the anatomists of a future age did not advert. He
mentions the orifices of the ducts, afterwards described by
Thomas Wharton (1610-1673). He knew the ileo-caecal valve;
and his description of the duodenum, ileum and colon shows
that he was better acquainted with the site and disposition of
these bowels than any of his predecessors or contemporaries.
Berenger.
Not long after, the science boasts of one of its most
distinguished founders. Berengario, commonly called Berenger
of Carpi, in the Modenese territory, flourished at Bologna
at the beginning of the 16th century. In the annals of
medicine his name will be remembered not only as the most
zealous and eminent in cultivating the anatomy of the human
body, but as the first physician who was fortunate enough
to calm the alarms of Europe, suffering under the ravages
of syphilis, then raging with uncontrollable virulence.
In the former character he surpassed both predecessors and
contemporaries; and it was long before the anatomists of the
following age could boast of equalling him. His assiduity
was indefatigable; and he declares that he dissected above one
hundred human bodies. He is the author of a compendium, of
several treatises which he names Introductions (Isagogae),
and of commentaries on the treatise of Mondino, in which
he not only rectifies the mistakes of that anatomist, but
gives minute and in general accurate anatomical descriptions.
He is the first who undertakes a systematic view of the
several textures of which the human body is composed; and
in a preliminary commentary he treats successively of the
anatomical characters and properties of fat, of membrane in
general (panniculus), of flesh, of nerve, of villus or fibre
(filum), of ligament, of sinew or tendon, and of muscle in
general. He then proceeds to describe with considerable
precision the muscles of the abdomen, and illustrates their
site and connexions by woodcuts which, though rude, are
spirited, and show that anatomical drawing was in that early age
beginning to be understood. In his account of the peritoneum
he admits only the intestinal division of that membrane, and
is at some pains to prove that Gentilis Fulgineus, who justly
admits the muscular division also, is in error. In his account
of the intestines he is the first who mentions the vermiform
process of the caecum; he remarks the yellow tint communicated
to the duodenum by the gall-bladder; and he recognizes the
opening of the common biliary duct into the duodenum (quidam
porus portans choleram.) In the account of the stomach he
describes the several tissues of which that organ is composed,
and which he represents to be three, and a fourth from the
peritoneum; and afterwards notices the rugae of its villous
surface. He is at considerable pains to explain the organs
of generation in both sexes, and gives a long account of the
anatomy of the foetus. He was the first who recognized the
larger proportional size of the chest in the male than in the
female, and conversely the greater capacity of the female
than of the male pelvis. In the larynx he discovered the two
arytenoid cartilages. He gives the first good description
of the thymus; distinguishes the oblique situation of the
heart; describes the pericardium, and maintains the uniform
presence of pericardial liquor. He then describes the
cavities of the heart; but perplexes himself, as did all
the anatomists of that age, about the spirit supposed to be
contained. The aorta he properly makes to arise from the left
ventricle; but confuses himself with the arteria venalis,
the pulmonary vein, and the vena arterialis, the pulmonary
artery. His account of the brain is better. He gives a minute
and clear account of the ventricles, remarks the corpus
striatum, and has the sagacity to perceive that the choroid
plexus consists of veins and arteries; he then describes the
middle or third ventricle, the infundibulum or lacuna of
Mondino, and the pituitary gland; and lastly, the passage
to the fourth ventricle, the conarium or pineal gland, and
the fourth or posterior ventricle itself, the relations of
which he had studied accurately. He rectifies the mistake
of Mondino as to the olfactory or first pair of nerves, gives
a good account of the optic and others, and is entitled to
the praise of originality in being the first observer who
contradicts the fiction of the wonderful net and indicates the
principal divisions of the carotid arteries. He enumerates
the tunics and humours of the eye, and gives an account of the
internal ear, in which he notices the malleus and incus.
French school.
Italy long retained the distinction of giving birth to the
first eminent anatomists in Europe, and the glory she acquired
in the names of Mondino, Achillini, Berenger and N. Massa,
was destined to become more conspicuous in the labours of R.
Columbus, G. Fallopius and Eustachius. While Italy, however,
was thus advancing the progress of science, the other nations
of Europe were either in profound ignorance or in the most
supine indifference to the brilliant career of their zealous
neighbours. The 16th century had commenced before France
began to acquire anatomical distinction in the names of Jacques
Dubois, Jean Fernel and Charles Etienne; and even these
celebrated teachers were less solicitous in the personal study
of the animal body than in the faithful explanation of the
anatomical writings of Galen. The infancy of the French school
had to contend with other difficulties. The small portion
of knowledge which had been hitherto diffused in the country
was so inadequate to eradicate the prejudices of ignorance,
that it was either difficult or absolutely impossible to
procure human bodies for the purposes of science; and we are
assured, on the testimony of A. Vesalius and other competent
authorities, that the practical part of anatomical instruction
was obtained entirely from the bodies of the lower animals.
The works of the Italian anatomists were unknown; and it is a
proof of the tardy communication of knowledge that, while the
structure of the human body had been taught in Italy for more
than a century by Mondino and his followers, these anatomists
are never mentioned by Etienne, who flourished long after.
Dubois.
Such was the aspect of the times at the appearance of Jacques
Dubois (1478-1555), who, under the Romanized name of Jacobus
Sylvius, according to the fashion of the day, has been fortunate
in acquiring a reputation to which his researches do not entitle
him. For the name of Dubois the history of anatomy, it is said,
is indebted to his inordinate love of money. At the instance
of his brother Francis, who was professor of eloquence in the
college of Tournay at Paris, he devoted himself to the study
of the learned languages and mathematics; but discovering that
these elegant accomplishments do not invariably reward their
cultivators with the goods of fortune, Dubois betook himself to
medicine. After the acquisition of a medical degree in
the university of Montpellier, at the ripe age of fifty-one
Dubois returned to Paris to resume a course of anatomical
instruction. Here he taught anatomy to a numerous audience in
the college of Trinquet; and on the departure of Vidus Vidius
for Italy was appointed to succeed that physician as professor
of surgery to the Royal College. His character is easily
estimated. With greater coarseness in his manners and language
than even the rude state of society in his times can palliate,
with much varied learning and considerable eloquence, he was a
blind, indiscriminate and irrational admirer of Galen, and
interpreted the anatomical and physiological writings of
that author in preference to giving demonstrations from the
subject. Without talent for original research or discovery
himself, his envy and jealousy made him detest every one
who gave proofs of either. We are assured by Vesalius, who
was some time his pupil, that his manner of teaching was
calculated neither to advance the science nor to rectify the
mistakes of his predecessors. A human body was never seen in
the theatre of Dubois; the carcases of dogs and other animals
were the materials from which he taught; and so difficult even
was it to obtain human bones, that unless Vesalius and his
fellow-students had collected assiduously from the Innocents
and other cemeteries, they must have committed numerous
errors in acquiring the first principles. This assertion,
however, is contradicted by J. Riolan, and afterwards by K. P.
J. Sprengel and T. Lauth, the last of whom decidedly censures
Vesalius for this ungrateful treatment of his instructor.
It is certain that opportunities of inspecting the human body
were by no means so frequent as to facilitate the study of the
science. Though his mention of injections has led some to
suppose him the discoverer of that art, he appears to have
made no substantial addition to the information already
acquired; and the first acknowledged professor of anatomy to
the university of Paris appears in history as one who lived
without true honour and died without just celebrity. He
must not be confounded with Franciscus Sylvius (de le Boe),
who is mentioned by F. Ruysch and M. V. G. Malacarne as the
author of a particular method of demonstrating the brain.
Etienne.
Almost coeval may be placed Charles Etienne (1503-1564), a
younger brother of the celebrated printers, and son to Henry,
who Hellenized the family name by the classical appellation
of Stephen (Stefanos.) It is uncertain whether he taught
publicly. But his tranquillity was disturbed, and his pursuits
interrupted, by the oppressive persecutions in which their
religious opinions involved the family; and Charles Etienne
drew the last breath of a miserable life in a dungeon in
1564. Etienne, though sprung of a family whose classical
taste has been their principal glory, does not betray the same
servile imitation of the Galenian anatomy with which Dubois is
charged. He appears to have been the first to detect valves
in the orifice of the hepatic veins. He was ignorant,
however, of the researches of the Italian anatomists; and his
description of the brain is inferior to that given sixty years
before by Achillini. His comparison of the cerebral cavities
to the human ear has persuaded F. Portal that he knew the
inferior cornua, the hippocampus and its prolongations;
but this is no reason for giving him that honour to the
detriment of the reputation of Achillini, to whom, so far as
historical testimony goes, the first knowledge of this fact is
due. The researches of Etienne into the structure of the
nervous system are, however, neither useless nor inglorious;
and the circumstance of demonstrating a canal through the
entire length of the spinal cord, which had neither been
suspected by contemporaries nor noticed by successors
till J. B. Senac (1693-1770) made it known, is sufficient
to place him high in the rank of anatomical discoverers.
Vesalius.
The French anatomy of the 16th century was distinguished
by two circumstances unfavourable to the advancement of
the science --extravagant admiration of antiquity, with
excessive confidence in the writings of Galen, and the general
practice of dissecting principally the bodies of the lower
animals. Both these errors were much amended, if not entirely
removed, by the exertions of a young Fleming, whose appearance
forms a conspicuous era in the history of anatomy. Andreas
Vesalius (1514-1564), a native of Brussels, after acquiring at
Louvain the ordinary classical attainments of the day, began
at the age of fourteen to study anatomy under the auspices of
Dubois. Though the originality of his mind soon led him
to abandon the prejudices by which he was environed, and
take the most direct course for attaining a knowledge of
the structure of the human frame, he neither underrated the
Galenian anatomy nor was indolent in the dissection of brute
animals. The difficulties, however, with which the practical
pursuit of human anatomy was beset in France, and the dangers
with which he had to contend, made him look to Italy as a
suitable field for the cultivation of the science: and in
1536 we find him at Venice, at once pursuing the study of
human anatomy with the utmost zeal, and requested, ere he had
attained his twenty-second year, to demonstrate publicly in the
university of Padua. After remaining here about seven years,
Vesalius went by express invitation to Bologna, and shortly
afterwards to Pisa; and thus professor in three universities,
he appears to have carried on his anatomical investigations
and instructions alternately at Padua, Bologna and Pisa, in
the course of the same winter. It is on this account that
Vesalius, though a Fleming by birth and trained originally in
the French school, belongs, as an anatomist, to the Italian, and
may be viewed as the first of an illustrious line of teachers
by whom the anatomical reputation of that country was in the
course of the 16th century raised to the greatest eminence.
Vesalius is known as the first author of a comprehensive and
systematic view of human anatomy. The knowledge with which
his dissections had furnished him proved how many errors
were daily taught and learned under the broad mantle of
Galenian authority; and he perceived the necessity of a new
system of anatomical instruction, divested of the omissions
of ignorance and the misrepresentations of prejudice and
fancy. The early age at which he effected this object
has been to his biographers the theme of boundless
commendation; and we are told that he began at the age of
twenty-five to arrange the materials he had collected, and
accomplished his task ere he had completed his 28th year.
Soon after this period we find him invited as imperial
physician to the court of Charles V., where he was occupied
in the duties of practice and answering the various charges
which were unceasingly brought against him by the disciples of
Galen. After the abdication of Charles he continued at
court in great favour with his son Philip II. To this
he seems to have been led principally by the troublesome
controversies in which his anatomical writings had involved
him. It is painful to think, however, that even imperial
patronage bestowed on eminent talents does not ensure immunity
from popular prejudice; and the fate of Vesalius will be a
lasting example of the barbarism of the times, and of the
precarious tenure of the safety even of a great physician.
On the preliminary circumstances authors are not agreed;
but the most general account states that when Vesalius was
dissecting, with the consent of his kinsmen, the body of a
Spanish grandee, it was observed that the heart still gave some
feeble palpitations when divided by the knife. The immediate
effects of this outrage to human feelings were the denunciation
of the anatomist to the Inquisition; and Vesalius escaped the
severe treatment of that tribunal only by the influence of the
king, and by promising to perform a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. He forthwith proceeded to Venice, from which he
sailed with the Venetian fleet, under James Malatesta, for
Cyprus. When he reached Jerusalem, he received from the
Venetian senate a message requesting him again to accept the
Paduan professorship, which had become vacant by the death of
his friend and pupil Fallopius. His destiny, however, which
pursued him fast, suffered him not again to breathe the Italian
air. After struggling for many days with the adverse winds
in the Ionian Sea, he was wrecked on the island of Zante,
where he quickly breathed his last in such penury that
unless a liberal goldsmith had defrayed the funeral charges,
his remains must have been devoured by beasts of prey. At
the time of his death he was scarcely fifty years of age.
To form a correct estimate of the character and merits of
Vesalius, we must not compare him, in the spirit of modern
perfection, with the anatomical authors either of later times
or of the present day. Whoever would frame a just idea of
this anatomist must imagine, not a bold innovator without
academical learning, not a genius coming from a foreign country,
unused to the forms and habits of Catholic Europe, nor a wild
reformer, blaming indiscriminately everything which accorded
not with his opinion; but a young student scarcely emancipated
from the authority of instructors, whose intellect was still
influenced by the doctrines with which it had been originally
imbued,--a scholar strictly trained in the opinions of the
time, living amidst men who venerated Galen as the oracle of
anatomy and the divinity of medicine,--exercising his reason
to estimate the soundness of the instructions then in use, and
proceeding, in the way least likely to offend authority and
wound prejudice, to rectify errors, and to establish on the
solid basis of observation the true elements of anatomical
science. Vesalius has been denominated the founder of human
anatomy; and though we have seen that in this career he was
preceded with honour by Mondino and Berenger, still the small
proportion of correct observation which their reverence for
Galen and Arabian doctrines allowed them to communicate,
will not in a material degree impair the original merits of
Vesalius. The errors which he rectified and the additions
which he made are so numerous, that it is impossible, in such
a sketch as the present, to communicate a just idea of them.
Besides the first good description of the sphenoid bone, he
showed that the sternum consists of three portions and the
sacrum of five or six; and described accurately the vestibule
in the interior of the temporal bone. He not only verified
the observation of Etienne on the valves of the hepatic
veins, but he described well the vena azygos, and discovered
the canal which passes in the foetus between the umbilical
vein and the vena cava, since named ductus venosus. He
described the omentum, and its connexions with the stomach,
the spleen and the colon; gave the first correct views of
the structure of the pylorus; remarked the small size of the
caecal appendix in man; gave the first good account of the
mediastinum and pleura and the fullest description of the
anatomy of the brain yet advanced. He appears, however, not
to have understood well the inferior recesses; and his account
of the nerves is confused by regarding the optic as the first
pair, the third as the fifth and the fifth as the seventh.
The labours of Vesalius were not limited to the immediate effect
produced by his own writings. His instructions and examples
produced a multitude of anatomical inquirers of different
characters and varied celebrity, by whom the science was
extended and rectified. Of these we cannot speak in detail;
but historical justice requires us to notice shortly those to
whose exertions the science of anatomy has been most indebted.
Eustachius.
The first that claims attention on this account is Bartolomeo
Eustachi of San Severino, near Salerno, who though greatly
less fortunate in reputation than his contemporary Vesalius,
divides with him the merit of creating the science of human
anatomy. He extended the knowledge of the internal ear by
rediscovering and describing correctly the tube which bears
his name; and if we admit that G. F. Ingrassias anticipated him
in the knowledge of the third bone of the tympanal cavity, the
stapes, he is still the first who described the internal and
anterior muscles of the malleus, as also the stapedius, and
the complicated figure of the cochlea. He is the first who
studied accurately the anatomy of the teeth, and the phenomena
of the first and second dentition. The work, however, which
demonstrates at once the great merit and the unhappy fate
of Eustachius is his Anatomical Engravings, which, though
completed in 1552, nine years after the impression of the
work of Vesalius, the author was unable to publish. First
communicated to the world in 1714 by G. M. Lancisi, afterwards
in 1744 by Cajetan Petrioli, again in 1744 by B. S. Albinus,
and subsequently at Bonn in 1790, the engravings show that
Eustachius had dissected with the greatest care and diligence,
and taken the utmost pains to give just views of the shape,
size and relative position of the organs of the human body.
The first seven plates illustrate the history of the kidneys
and some of the facts relating to the structure of the
ear. The eighth represents the heart, the ramifications of
the vena azygos, and the valve of the vena cava, named
from the author. In the seven subsequent plates is given a
succession of different views of the viscera of the chest and
abdomen. The seventeenth contains the brain and spinal
cord; and the eighteenth more accurate views of the origin,
course and distribution of the nerves than had been given
before. Fourteen plates are devoted to the muscles.
Eustachius did not confine his researches to the study of
relative anatomy. He investigated the intimate structure
of organs with assiduity and success. What was too minute
for unassisted vision he inspected by means of glasses.
Structure which could not be understood in the recent
state, he unfolded by maceration in different fluids, or
rendered more distinct by injection and exsiccation. The
facts unfolded in these figures are so important that it is
justly remarked by Lauth, that if the author himself had been
fortunate enough to publish them, anatomy would have attained
the perfection of the 18th century two centuries earlier at
least. Their seclusion for that period in the papal library
has given celebrity to many names which would have been known
only in the verification of the discoveries of Eustachius.
Columbus.
M. R. Columbus and G. Fallopius were pupils of Vesalius.
Columbus, as his immediate successor in Padua, and afterwards
professor at Rome, distinguished himself by rectifying
and improving the anatomy of the bones; by giving correct
accounts of the shape and cavities of the heart, of the
pulmonary artery and aorta and their valves, and tracing
the course of the blood from the right to the left side
of the heart; by a good description of the brain and its
vessels, and by correct understanding of the internal ear,
and the first good account of the ventricles of the larynx.
Fallopius.
Fallopius, who, after being professor at Pisa in 1548, and at
Padua in 1551, died at the age of forty, studied the general
anatomy of the bones; described better than heretofore the
the internal ear, especially the tympanum and its osseous
ring, the two fenestrae and their communication with the
vestibule and cochlea; and gave the first good account of
the stylo-mastoid hole and canal, of the ethmoid bone and
cells, and of the lacrymal passages. In myology he rectified
several mistakes of Vesalius. He also devoted attention
to the organs of generation in both sexes, and discovered
the utero-peritoneal canal which still bears his name.
Ingrassias.
Osteology nearly at the same time found an assiduous cultivator
in Giovanni Filippo Ingrassias ( 1545-1580), a learned Sicilian
physician, who, in a skilful commentary on the osteology
of Galen, corrected numerous mistakes. He gave the first
distinct account of the true configuration of the sphenoid
and ethmoid bones, and has the merit of first describing
(1546) the third bone of the tympanum, called stapes,
though this is also claimed by Eustachius and Fallopius.
Aranzi.
The anatomical descriptions of Vesalius underwent the
scrutiny of various inquirers. Those most distinguished
by the importance and accuracy of their researches, as
well as the temperate tone of their observations, were
Julius Caesar Aranzi (1530-1589), anatomical professor for
thirty-two years in the university of Bologna, and Constantio
Varoli, physician to Pope Gregory XIII. To the former we
are indebted for the first correct account of the anatomical
peculiarities of the foetus, and he was the first to show
that the muscles of the eye do not, as was falsely imagined,
arise from the dura mater but from the margin of the optic
hole. He also, after considering the anatomical relations
of the cavities of the heart, the valves and the great
vessels, corroborates the views of Columbus regarding the
course which the blood follows in passing from the right to
the left side of the heart. Aranzi is the first anatomist
who describes distinctly the inferior cornua of the ventricles
of the cerebrum, who recognizes the objects by which they are
distinguished, and who gives them the name by which they are
still known (hippocampus); and his account is more minute
and perspicuous than that of the authors of the subsequent
century. He speaks at large of the choroid plexus, and gives a
particular description of the fourth ventricle, under the name
of cistern of the cerebellum, as a discovery of his own.
Varollus.
Italy, though rich in anatomical talent, has probably few
greater names than that of Constantio Varoli (b. 1543) of
Bologna. Though he died at the early age of thirty-two, he
acquired a reputation not inferior to that of the most eminent
of his contemporaries. He is now known chiefly as the author
of an epistle, inscribed to Hieronymo Mercuriali, on the optic
nerves, in which he describes a new method of dissecting the
brain, and communicates many interesting particulars relating
to the anatomy of the organ. He observes the threefold
division of the inferior surface or base, defines the limits
of the anterior, middle and posterior eminences, as marked
by the compartments of the skull, and justly remarks that the
cerebral cavities are capacious, communicate with each other,
extending first backward and then forward, near the angle
of the pyramidal portion of the temporal bone, and that they
are folded on themselves, and finally lost above the middle
and inferior eminence of the brain. He appears to have been
aware that at this point they communicate with the exterior
or convoluted surface. He recognized the impropriety of the
term corpus callosum, seems to have known the communication
called afterwards foramen Monroianum, and describes the
hippocampus more minutely than had been previously done.
Among the anatomists of the Italian school, as a pupil of
Fallopius, Eustachius and U. Aldrovandus, is generally
enumerated Volcher Coiter (b. 1534) of Groningen. He
distinguished himself by accurate researches on the cartilages,
the bones and the nerves, recognized the value of morbid
anatomy, and made experiments on living animals to ascertain
the action of the heart and the influence of the brain.
The Frutefull and Necessary Briefo Worke of John Halle3
(1565) and The Englisheman's Treasure by Master Thomas Vicary
(1586),4 English works published at this time, are tolerable
compilations from former authors, much tinged by Galenian and
Arabian distinctions. A more valuable compendium than either is,
however, that of John Banister (1578), entitled The Historie of
Man, from the most approved Anathomistes in this Present Age.
Fabricius.
The celebrity of the anatomical school of Italy was worthily
maintained by Hieronymo Fabricio of Acquapendente, who,
in imitation of his master Fallopius, laboured to render
anatomical knowledge more precise by repeated dissections,
and to illustrate the obscure by researches on the structure
of animals in general. In this manner he investigated the
formation of the foetus, the structure of the oesophagus,
stomach and bowels, and the peculiarities of the eye, the
ear and the larynx. The discovery, however, on which his
surest claims to eminence rest is that of the membranous
folds, which he names valves, in the interior of veins.
Several of these folds had been observed by Fernel, Sylvius
and Vesalius; and in 1547 G. B. Canani observed those of
the vena azygos; but no one appears to have offered any
rational conjecture on their use, or to have traced them
through the venous system at large, until Fabricius in
1574, upon this hypothesis, demonstrated the presence of
these valvular folds in all the veins of the extremities.
Fabricius, though succeeded by his pupil Julius Casserius of
Placenza, may be regarded as the last of that illustrious
line of anatomical teachers by whom the science was so
successfully studied and taught in the universities of
Italy. The discoveries which each made, and the errors which
their successive labours rectified, tended gradually to give
anatomy the character of a useful as well as an accurate
science, and to pave the way for a discovery which, though
not anatomical but physiological, is so intimately connected
with correct knowledge of the shape and situation of parts,
that it exercised the most powerful influence on the future
progress of anatomical inquiry. This was the knowledge
of the circular motion of the blood--a fact which though
obscurely conjectured by Aristotle, Nemesius, Mondino and
Berenger, and partially taught by Servetus, Columbus, Andreas
Caesalpinus and Fabricius, it was nevertheless reserved
to William Harvey fully and satisfactorily to demonstrate.
Mondino believed that the blood proceeds from the heart
to the lungs through the vena arterialis or pulmonary
artery, and that the aorta conveys the spirit into the
blood through all parts of the body. This doctrine was
adopted with little modification by Berenger, who further
demonstrated the existence and operation of the tricuspid
valves in the right ventricle, and of the sigmoid valves at
the beginning of the pulmonary artery and aorta, and that
there were only two ventricles separated by a solid impervious
septum. These were afterwards described in greater detail by
Vesalius, who nevertheless appears not to have been aware
of the important use which might be made of this knowledge.
Servetus.
It was the Spaniard Michael Servet or Servetus (born in
1509, burnt in 1553) who in his treatise De Trinitatis
Erroribus, published at Haguenau in 1531, first
maintained the imperviousness of the septum, and the
transition of the blood by what he terms an unknown route, namely,
from the right ventricle by the vena arteriosa (pulmonary
artery) to the lungs, and thence into the arteria venosa or
pulmonary vein and left auricle and ventricle, from which, he adds
afterwards, it is conveyed by the aorta to all parts of the body.5
Though the leading outlines, not only of the pulmonary
or small but even of the great circulation, were sketched
thus early by one who, though a philosopher, was attached
to the church, it was only in his work De Re Anatomica,
published at Venice in 1559, that Columbus formally and
distinctly announced the circular course of the blood as
a discovery of his own; and maintained, in addition to the
imperviousness of the septum, the fact that the arteria
venalis (pulmonary vein) contains, not air, but blood
mixed with air brought from the lungs to the left ventricle
of the heart, to be distributed through the body at large.
Caesalpinus.
Soon after, views still more complete of the small or pulmonary
circulation were given by Andreas Caesalpinus (1519-1603)
of Arezzo, who not only maintained the analogy between the
structure of the arterious vein or pulmonary artery and the
aorta, and that between the venous artery or pulmonary veins
and veins in general, but was the first to remark the swelling
of veins below ligatures, and to infer from it a refluent
motion of blood in these vessels. The discoveries of Aranzi
and Eustachius in the vessels of the foetus tended at first
to perplex and afterwards to elucidate some of these notions.
Harvey.
At length it happened that, between the years 1598 and 1600,
a young Englishman, William Harvey, pursuing his anatomical
studies at Padua under Fabricius, learnt from that anatomist
the existance of the valves in the veins of the extremities,
and undertook to ascertain the use of these valves by
experimental inquiry. It is uncertain whether he learnt
from the writings of Caesalpinus the fact observed by that
author of the tumescence of a vein below the ligature, but he
could not fail to be aware, and indeed he shows that he was
aware, of the small circulation as taught by Servetus and
Columbus. Combining these facts already known, he, by a
series of well-executed experiments, demonstrated clearly
the existence, not only of the small, but of a general
circulation from the left side of the heart by the aorta
and its subdivisions, to the right side by the veins.
This memorable truth was first announced in the year 1619.
It is unnecessary here to consider the arguments and facts by
which Harvey defended his theory, or to notice the numerous
assaults to which he was exposed, and the controversies in
which his opponents wished to involve him. It is sufficient
to say that, after the temporary ebullitions of spleen and
envy had subsided, the doctrine of the circular motion of
the blood was admitted by all enlightened and unprejudiced
persons, and finally was universally adopted as affording
the most satisfactory explanation of many facts in anatomical
structure which were either misunderstood or entirely
overlooked. The inquiries to which the investigation of
the doctrine gave rise produced numerous researches on the
shape and structure of the heart and its divisions, of the
lungs, and of the blood-vessels and their distribution. Of
this description were the researches of Nicolas Steno on the
structure of the heart, the classical work of Richard Lower,
the dissertation of J. N. Pechlin, the treatise of Raymond
Vieussens, the work of Marcello Malpighi on the structure of
the lungs, several sketches in the writings of John Mayow,
and other treatises of less moment. Systematic treatises
of anatomy began to assume a more instructive form, and to
breathe a more philosophical spirit. The great work of Adrian
Spigelius, which appeared in 1627, two years after the death
of the author, contains indeed no proof that he was aware of
the valuable generalization of Harvey; but in the institutions
of Caspar Bartholinus, as republished and improved by his son
Thomas in 1651, the anatomical descriptions and explanations
are given with reference to the new doctrine. A still more
unequivocal proof of the progress of correct anatomical
knowledge was given in the lectures delivered by Peter
Dionis, at the Jardin Royal of Paris, in 1673 and the seven
following years, in which that intelligent surgeon gave most
accurate demonstrations of all the parts composing the human
frame, and especially of the heart, its auricles, ventricles
and valves, and the large vessels connected with it and the
lungs. These demonstrations, first published in 1690, were
so much esteemed that they passed through seven editions in
the space of thirty years, and were translated into English.
Aselli.
The progress of anatomical discovery continued in the mean-time
to advance. In the course of the 16th century Eustachius,
in studying minutely the structure of the vena azygos, had
recognized in the horse a white vessel full of watery fluid,
connected with the internal jugular vein, on the left side of
the vertebral column, corresponding accurately with the vessel
since named thoracic duct. Fallopius also described vessels
belonging to the liver distinct from arteries and veins; and
similar vessels appear to have been noticed by Nicolaus Massa
(1499-1569). The nature and properties of these vessels
were, however, entirely unknown. On the 23rd of July 1622
Gaspar Aselli, professor of anatomy at Pavia, while engaged
in demonstrating the recurrent nerves in a living dog, first
observed numerous white delicate filaments crossing the
mesentery in all directions; and though he took them at first
for nerves, the opaque white fluid which they shed quickly
convinced him that they were a new order of vessels. The
repetition of the experiment the following day showed that
these vessels were best seen in animals recently fed; and as
he traced them from the villous membrane of the intestines,
and observed the valves with which they were liberally
supplied, he inferred that they were genuine chyliferous
vessels. By confounding them with the lymphatics, he made
them proceed to the pancreas and liver--a mistake which
appears to have been first rectified by Francis de le Boe. The
discovery of Aselli was announced in 1627; and the following
year, by means of the zealous efforts of Nicolas Peiresc, a
liberal senator of Aix, the vessels were seen in the person
of a felon who had eaten copiously before execution, and
whose body was inspected an hour and a half after. In 1629
they were publicly demonstrated at Copenhagen by Simon Pauli,
and the same year the thoracic duct was observed by Jacques
Mentel (1599-1670) for the first time since it was described by
Eustachius. Five years after (1634), John Wesling, professor
of anatomy and surgery at Venice, gave the first delineation of
the lacteals from the human subject, and evinced more accurate
knowledge than his predecessors of the thoracic duct and the
lymphatics. Nathaniel Highmore6 in 1637 demonstrated
unequivocally the difference between the lacteals and the
mesenteric veins; and though some perplexity was occasioned
by the discovery of the pancreatic duct by Christopher
Wirsung, this mistake was corrected by Thomas Bartholinus;
and the discovery by Jean Pecquet in 1647 of the common trunk
of the lacteals and lymphatics, and of the course which the
chyle follows to reach the blood, may be regarded as the
last of the series of isolated facts by the generalization
of which the extent, distribution and uses of the most
important organs of the animal body were at length developed.
Joyliffe.
To complete the history of this part of anatomical science
one step yet remained--the distinction between the lacteals
and lymphatics, and the discovery of the termination of the
latter order of vessels. The honour of this discovery is
divided between George Joyliffe (1621--1658), an English
anatomist, and Olaus Rudbeck (1630-1702), a young Swede. The
former, according to the testimony of Francis Glisson and
Thomas Wharton, was aware of the distinct existence of the
lymphatics in 1650, and demonstrated them as such in 1652.
It is nevertheless doubtful whether he knew them much before
the latter period; and it is certain that Rudbeck observed
the lymphatics of the large intestines, and traced them to
glands, on the 27th of January 1651, after he had, in the
course of 1650, made various erroneous conjectures regarding
them, and, like others, attempted to trace them to the
liver. The following year he demonstrated them in presence
of Queen Christina, and traced them to the thoracic duct,
and the latter to the subclavian vein. Their course and
distribution were still more fully investigated by Thomas
Bartholinus, Wharton, J. Swammerdam and G. Blaes, the last two
of whom recognized the existence of valves; while Antony Nuck
of Leiden, by rectifying various errors of his predecessors,
and adding several new and valuable observations, rendered
this part of anatomy much more precise than formerly.
After this period anatomists began to study more minutely the
organs and textures. Francis Glisson7 distinguished himself
by a minute description of the liver (1654), and a clearer
account of the stomach and intestines, than had yet been
given. Thomas Wharton8 investigated the structure of
the glands with particular care; and though rather prone
to indulge in fanciful generalization, he developed some
interesting views of these organs; while Walter Charleton
(1619-1707), who appears to have been a person of great
genius, though addicted to hypothesis, made some good
remarks on the communication of the arteries with the veins,
the foetal circulation and the course of the lymphatics.
Willis.
But the circumstance which chiefly distinguished the history
of anatomy at the beginning of the 17th century was the
appearance of Thomas Willis9 (1621-1675), who rendered
himself eminent not only by good researches on the brain and
nerves, but by many judicious observations on the structure
of the lungs, the intestines, the blood-vessels and the
glands. His anatomy of the brain and nerves is so minute
and elaborate, and abounds so much in new information,
that the reader is struck by the immense chasm between the
vague and meagre notices of his predecessors and the ample
and correct descriptions of Willis. This excellent work,
however, is not the result of his own personal and unaided
exertions; and the character of Willis derives additional
lustre from the candid avowal of his obligations to Sir
Christopher Wren and Thomas Millington, and, above all, to
the diligent researches of his fellow-anatomist Richard Lower.
Willis was the first who numbered the cranial nerves in the
order in which they are now usually enumerated by anatomists.
His observation of the connexion of the eighth pair with the
slender nerve which issues from the beginning of the spinal
cord is known to all. He remarked the parallel lines of the
mesolobe, afterwards minutely described by Felix Vicq d'Azyr
(1748-1794). He seems to have recognized the communication
of the convoluted surface of the brain and that between
the lateral cavities beneath the fornix. He described the
corpora striata and optic thalami; the four orbicular
eminences, with the bridge, which he first named annular
protuberance; and the white mammillary eminences, behind the
infundibulum. In the cerebellum he remarks the arborescent
arrangement of the white and grey matter, and gives a good
account of the internal carotids, and the communications
which they make with the branches of the basilar artery.
Malpighi.
About the middle of the 17th century R. Hooke and Nehemiah
Grew employed the simple microscope in the minute examination
of plants and animals; and the Dutch philosopher A.
Leeuwenhoek with great acuteness examined microscopically
the solids and fluids of the body, recognized the presence
of scales in the cuticle, and discovered the corpuscles
in the blood and milk, and the spermatozoa in the seminal
fluid. The researches of Malpighi also tended greatly to
improve the knowledge of minute structure. He gave the first
distinct ideas on the organization of the lung, and the mode
in which the bronchial tubes and vessels terminate in that
organ. By the microscope he traced the transition of the
arteries into the veins, and saw the movements of the blood
corpuscles in the capillaries. He endeavoured to unfold, by
dissection and microscopic observation, the minute structure
of the brain. He studied the structure of bone, he traced
the formation and explained the structure of the teeth; and
his name is to this day associated with the discovery of
the deeper layer of the cuticle and the Malpighian bodies
in the spleen and kidney. In these difficult inquiries
the observations of Malpighi are in general faithful, and
he may be regarded as the founder of histological anatomy.
Nicolas Steno, or Stensen, described with accuracy (1660)
the lacrymal gland and passages, and rediscovered the parotid
duct. L. Bellini studied the structure of the kidneys,
and described the tongue and tonsils with some care; and
Charles Drelincourt laboured to investigate the changes
effected on the uterus by impregnation, and to elucidate the
formation of the foetus. The science might have derived still
greater advantages from the genius of Regnier de Graaf, who
investigated with accuracy the structure of the pancreas and
of the organs of generation in both sexes, had he not been
cut off at the early age of thirty-two. Lastly, Wepfer,
though more devoted to morbid anatomy, made, nevertheless,
some just observations on the anatomical disposition of
the cerebral vessels, the glandular structure of the liver,
and the termination of the common duct in the duodenum.
Ruysch.
The appearance of Frederic Ruysch, who was born in 1638,
became professor of anatomy at Amsterdam in 1665 and died in
that city in 1731, gave a new impulse to anatomical research,
and tended not only to give the science greater precision,
but to extend its limits in every direction. The talents
of Ruysch are said to have been developed by accident. To
repel the audacious and calumnious aspersions with which Louis
de Bils attacked de le Boe and van Horne, Ruysch published
his tract on the valves of the lymphatics, which completely
established his character as an anatomist of originality and
research. This, however, is the smallest of his services to the
science. The art of injecting, which had been originally
attempted by Eustachi and Varoli, and was afterwards rudely
practised by Glisson, Bellini and Willis, was at length carried
to greater perfection by de Graaf and Swammerdam, the former of
whom injected the spermatic vessels with mercury and variously
coloured liquors; while the latter, by employing melted wax with
other ingredients, made the first approach to the refinements
of modern anatomy. By improving this idea of using substances
which, though solid, may be rendered fluid at the period of
injecting, Ruysch carried this art to the highest perfection.
By the application of this happy contrivance he was enabled
to demonstrate the arrangement of minute vessels in the
interior of organs which had escaped the scrutiny of previous
anatomists. Scarcely a part of the human body eluded the
penetration of his syringe; and his discoveries were proportionally
great. His account of the valves of the lymphatics, of
the vessels of the lungs, and their minute structure; his
researches on the vascular structure of the skin, of the
bones, and their epiphyses, and their mode of growth and
union; his observations on the spleen, the glans penis, the
clitoris, and the womb impregnated and unimpregnated, were
but a limited part of his anatomical labours. He studied
the minute structure of the brain; he demonstrated the
organization of the choroid plexus; he described the state
of the hair when affected with Polish plait; he proved the
vascular structure of the teeth; he injected the dura mater,
the pleura, the pericardium and peritoneum; he unfolded the
minute structure of the conglomerate glands; he investigated
that of the synovial apparatus placed in the interior of the
joints; and he discovered several curious particulars relating
to the lacteals, the lymphatics and the lymphatic glands.
Meanwhile, H. Meibomius rediscovered (1670) the palpebral
glands, which were known to Casserius; Swammerdam studied
the action of the lungs, described the structure of the human
uterus, and made numerous valuable observations on the coeca
and pancreatoid organs of fishes; and Th. Kerckring laid the
foundation of a knowledge of the process of ossification.
John Conrad Brunner, in the course of experiments on the
pancreas, discovered (1687) the glands of the duodenum named
after him, and J. Conrad Peyer (1677-1681) described the
solitary and agminated glands of the intestinal canal. Leonard
Tassin, distinguished for original observation, rendered
the anatomical history of the brain more accurate than
heretofore, and gave particular accounts of the intestinal
tube, the pancreatic duct and the hepatic ligaments (1678).
Duverney.
That France might not be without participation in the glory of
advancing the progress of anatomical knowledge, the names of
Joseph Guichard Duverney and Vieussens are commemorated with
distinction. Duverney, born in 1648, and first introduced
into public life in 1676 in the Royal Academy of Sciences,
decorated with the honorary title of professor of anatomy to
the dauphin, and appointed in 1679 professor at the Jardin
Royal, distinguished himself by the first accurate account
of the organ of hearing, and by his dissections of several
animals at the academy supplied valuable materials for the
anatomical details of the natural history of animals published
by that learned body. He appears to have been the first who
demonstrated the fact that the cerebral sinuses open into the
jugular veins, and to have been aware that the former receives
the veins of the brain and are the venous receptacles of the
organ. He understood the cerebral cavities and their mode
of communication; distinguishes the posterior pillars of
the vault from the pedes hippocampi; recognizes the two
plates of the septum lucidum; and, what is still more
remarkable, he first indicates distinctly the discussation
of the anterior pyramids of the medulla oblongata--a fact
afterwards verified by the researches of Mistichelli, F.
P. du Petit and G.D. Santorini. He studied the ganglions
attentively, and gives the first distinct account of the
formation, connexions and distribution of the intercostal
nerves. It is interesting to remark that his statement that
the veins or sinuses of the spinal cord terminate in the
vena azygos was verified by the subsequent researches of
G. Dupuytren (1777-1835) and G. Breschet (1784-1845), which
showed that the vertebral veins communicate by means of the
intercostal and superior lumbar veins with the azygos and
hemi-azygos. His account of the structure of bones and of the
progress of ossification is valuable. He recognized the vascular
structure of the spleen, and described the excretory ducts of
the prostate gland, the verumontanum, and the anteprostates.
One of the circumstances which at this time tended
considerably to the improvement of anatomical science was the
attention with which Comparative Anatomy was beginning to be
cultivated. In ancient times, and at the revival of letters,
the dissection of the lower animals was substituted for
that of the human body; and the descriptions of the organs
of the latter were too often derived from the former. The
obloquy and contempt in which this abuse involved the study
of animal anatomy caused it to be neglected, or pursued with
indifference, for more than two centuries, during which
anatomists confined their descriptions, at least very much,
to the parts of the human body. At this period, however,
the prejudice against Comparative Anatomy began to subside;
and animal dissection, though not substituted for that of
the human body, was employed, as it ought always to have
been, to illustrate obscurities, to determine doubts and to
explain difficulties, and, in short, to enlarge and rectify
the knowledge of the structure of animal bodies generally.
For this revolution in its favour, Comparative Anatomy was in
a great measure indebted to the learned societies which were
established about this time in the different countries of
Europe. Among these, the Royal Society of London, embodied
by charter by Charles II. in 1662, and the Academy of Sciences
of Paris, founded in 1666 by J. B. Colbert, are undoubtedly
entitled to the first rank. Though later in establishment,
the latter institution was distinguished by making the first
great efforts in favour of Comparative Anatomy; and Claude
Perrault, Pecquet, Duverney and Jean Mery, by the dissections
of rare animals obtained from the royal menagerie, speedily
supplied valuable materials for the anatomical naturalist.
Collins.
In England, Nehemiah Grew, Edward Tyson10 and Samuel
Collins11 cultivated the same department with diligence and
success. Grew has left an interesting account of the
anatomical peculiarities of the intestinal canal in various
animals; Tyson, in the dissection of a porpoise, an opossum
and an orang outang, adduces some valuable illustrations
of the comparative differences between the structure of the
human body and that of the lower animals; Collins has the
merit of conceiving, and executing on an enlarged plan, a
comprehensive system, embodying all the information then extant
(1685). With the aid of Tyson and his own researches, which
were both extensive and accurate, he composed a system of
anatomical knowledge in which he not only gives ample and
accurate descriptions of the structure of the human body, and
the various morbid changes to which the organs are liable, but
illustrates the whole by accurate and interesting sketches of
the peculiarities of the lower animals. The matter of this
work is so excellent that it can only be ascribed to ignorance
that it has received so little attention. Though regarded
as a compilation, and though indeed much of the human anatomy
is derived from Vesalius, it has the advantage of the works
published on the continent at that time, that it embodies
most of the valuable facts derived from Malpighi, Willis and
Vieussens. The Comparative Anatomy is almost all original, the
result of personal research and dissection; and the pathological
observations, though occasionally tinged with the spirit of the
times, show the author to have been endowed with the powers
of observation and judicious reflexion in no ordinary degree.
About this time also we recognize the first attempts
to study the minute constitution of the tissues, by the
combination of the microscope and the effects of chemical
agents. Bone furnished the first instance in which this
method was put in use; and though Gagliardi, who undertook the
inquiry, had fallen into some mistakes which it required the
observation of Malpighi to rectify, this did not deter Clopton
Havers12 and Nesbitt,13 in England, and Courtial, H. L.
Duhamel-Dumonceau and Delasone, and afterwards Herissant,
in France, from resuming the same train of investigation.
The mistakes into which these anatomists fell belong to the
imperfect method of inquiry. The facts which they ascertained
have been verified by recent experiment, and constitute no
unessential part of our knowledge of the structure of bone.
Ten years after the publication of the work of Collins,
Ridley,14 another English anatomist, distinguished
himself by a monograph (1695) on the brain, which, though
not free from errors, contains, nevertheless, some valuable
observations. Ridley is the first who distinguishes by
name the restiform processes, or the posterior pyramidal
eminences. He recognized the figure of the four eminences
in the human subject; he remarked the mammillary bodies;
and he discovered the sinus which passes under his name.
Vieussens.
Raymond Vieussens, by the publication of his great work on
neurography in 1684, threw new light on the configuration
and structure of the brain, the spinal cord and the nerves;
and gave a description of the arrangement and distribution
of the latter more precise than heretofore. Of the formation
and connexions of the sympathetic nerve especially he
gave views which have been generally adopted by subsequent
anatomists. His new arrangement of the vessels, published in
1705, contains several curious opinions. His observations on
the structure of the heart, published in 1706, and enlarged
in 1715, exhibit the first correct views of the intimate
structure of an organ which afterwards was most fully
developed by the labours of G. M. Lancisi and J. B. Senac.
To the same period (1685-1697) belong the rival publications of
G. Bidloo15 and Wilham Cowper, the latter of whom, however,
stained a reputation otherwise good by publishing as his own the
engravings of the former. Cowper further distinguished himself
by a minute account of the urethral glands, already known to
Columbus and Mery; by a good description of the intestinal
glands, discovered by Brunner and Peyer; and by demonstrating
the communication of the arteries and veins of the mesentery.
The anatomical genius of Italy, which had slumbered since
the death of Malpighi, was destined once more to revive in
Lancisi, A. M. Valsalva, and his illustrious pupils G. D.
Santorini and J. B. Morgagni. Valsalva especially distinguished
himself by his description of the structure of the ear,
which, in possessing still greater precision and minuteness
than that of Duverney, is valuable in setting the example
of rendering anatomy altogether a science of description.
Santorini.
Santorini, who was professor at Venice, was no unworthy friend
of Valsalva and Morgagni. His anatomical observations, which
relate to the muscles of the face, the brain and several
of the nerves, the ducts of the lachrymal gland, the nose
and its cavities, the larynx, the viscera of the chest and
belly, and the organs of generation in the two sexes, furnish
beautiful models of essays, distinguished for perspicuity,
precision and novelty, above anything which had then
appeared. These observations, indeed, which bear the impress
of accurate observation and clear conception, may be safely
compared with any anatomical writings which have appeared
since. Those on the brain are particularly interesting.
Morgagni.
Morgagni, though chiefly known as a pathological anatomist,
did not neglect the healthy structure. His Adversaria, which
appeared between 1706 and 1719, and his Epistles, published in
1728, contain a series of observations to rectify the mistakes
of previous anatomists, and to determine the characters of
the healthy structure of many parts of the human body. Many
parts he describes anew, and indicates facts not previously
observed. All his remarks show how well he knew what true
anatomical description ought to be. In this respect, indeed, the
three anatomists now mentioned may be said to have anticipated
their contemporaries nearly a century; for, while other authors
were satisfied with giving loose and inaccurate or meagre
notices of parts, with much fanciful supposition, Valsalva,
Santorini and Morgagni laboured to determine with precision
the anatomical characters of the parts which they describe.
Winslow.
The same character is due to J. B. Winslow (1669-1760),
a native of Denmark, but, as pupil and successor of
Duverney, as well as a convert to Catholicism, naturalized
in France, and finally professor of anatomy at the Royal
Gardens. His exposition of the structure of the human body
is distinguished for being not only the first treatise of
descriptive anatomy, divested of physiological details and
hypothetical explanations foreign to the subject, but for
being a close description derived from actual objects, without
reference to the writings of previous anatomists. About the
same time W. Cheselden in London, the first Alexander Monro in
Edinburgh, and B. S. Albinus in Leiden, contributed by their
several treatises to render anatomy still more precise as a
descriptive science. The Osteographia of the first-mentioned
was of much use in directing attention to the study of
the skeleton and the morbid changes to which it is liable.
Albinus.
This work, however, magnificent as it was, was excelled by
that of Albinus, who in 1747 published engravings, executed
by Jan Wandelaar (1691-1759), of the bones and muscles, which
had never been surpassed in accuracy of outline or beauty of
execution. The several labours of Albinus, indeed, constitute
an important era in the history of the science. He was the
first who classified and exhibited the muscles in a proper
arrangement, and applied to them a nomenclature which is
still retained by the consent of the best anatomists. He
gives a luminous account of the arteries and veins of the
intestines, represents with singular fidelity and beauty the
bones of the foetus, inquires into the structure of the skin
and the cause of its colour in different races; represents
the changes incident to the womb in different periods of
pregnancy, and describes the relations of the thoracic duct
and the vena azygos with the contiguous parts. Besides
these large and magnificent works, illustrated by the most
beautiful engravings, six books of Academical Annotations
were the fruits of his long and assiduous cultivation of
anatomy. These contain valuable remarks on the second structure
and morbid deviations of numerous parts of the human body.
Haller.
Albinus found a worthy successor in his pupil Albert von Haller
(1708-1777), who, with a mind imbued with every department
of literature and science, directed his chief attention,
nevertheless, to the cultivation of anatomical and physiological
knowledge. Having undertaken at an early age (twenty-one) to
illustrate, with commentaries, the physiological prelections
of his preceptor H. Boerhaave, he devoted himself assiduously
to the perusal of every work which could tend to facilitate
his purpose; and, as he found numerous erroneous or imperfect
statements, and many deficiencies to supply, he undertook an
extensive course of dissection of human and animal bodies to
obtain the requisite information. During the seventeen years
he was professor at Gottingen, he dissected 400 bodies, and
inspected their organs with the utmost care. The result of
these assiduous labours appeared at intervals in the form of
dissertations by himself, or under the name of some one of
his pupils, finally published in a collected shape between
1746 and 1751 (Disputationes Anatomicae Selectiores), and
in eight numbers of most accurate and beautiful engravings,
representing the most important parts of the human body, e.g.
the diaphragm, the uterus, ovaries and vagina, the arteries
of the different regions and organs, with learned and critical
explanatory observations. He verified the observations that
in the foetus the testicles lie in the abdomen, and showed
that their descent into the scrotum may be complicated with the
formation of congenital hernia. Some years after, when he had
retired from his academical duties at Gottingen, he published
between 1757 and 1765 the large and elaborate work which, with
singular modesty, he styled Elements of Physiology. This
work, though professedly devoted to physiology, rendered,
nevertheless, the most essentially services to anatomy.
Haller, drawing an accurate line of distinction between the
two, gave the most clear, precise and complete descriptions
of the situation, position, figure, component parts and minute
structure of the different organs and their appendages. The
results of previous and coeval inquiry, obtained by extensive
reading, he sedulously verified by personal observation; and
though he never rejected facts stated on credible authorities,
he in all cases laboured to ascertain their real value by
experiment. The anatomical descriptions are on this account
not only the most valuable part of his work, but the most
valuable that had then or for a long time after appeared. It
is painful, nevertheless, to think that the very form in which
this work is composed, with copious and scrupulous reference to
authorities, made it be regarded as a compilation only; and
that the author was compelled to show, by a list of his personal
researches, that the most learned work ever given to the
physiologist was also the most abundant in original information.
With the researches of Haller it is proper to notice those of
his contemporaries, John Frederick Meckel, J. N. Lieberkuhn,
and his pupil John Godfrey Zinn. The first, who was professor
of anatomy at Berlin, described the Casserian ganglion, the
first pair of nerves and its distribution and that of the
facial nerves generally, and discovered the spheno-palatine
ganglion (1748-1751). He made some original and judicious
observations on the tissue of the skin and the mucous net
(1753-1757); and above all, he recognized the connexion of
the lymphatic vessels with the veins--a doctrine which, after
long neglect, was revived by Vincent Fohmann (1794-1837) and
Lippi. He also collected several valuable observations on the
morbid states of the heart and brain. Lieberkuhn published
in 1745 a dissertation on the villi and glands of the small
intestines. Zinn, who was professor of medicine at Gottingen,
published a classical treatise on the eye (1755), which
demonstrated at once the defects of previous inquiries, and
how much it was possible to elucidate, by accurate research
and precise description, the structure of one of the most
important organs of the human frame. It was republished
after his death by H. A. Wrisberg (1780). About the same
time J. Weitbrecht gave a copious and minute account of the
ligaments, and J. Lieutaud (1703-1780), who had already laboured
to rectify many errors in anatomy, described with care the
structure and relations of the heart and its cavities, and
rendered the anatomy of the bladder very precise, by describing
the triangular space and the mammillary eminence at its neck.
The study of the minute anatomy of the tissues, which had
originally been commenced by Leeuwenhoek, Malpighi and
Ruysch, began at this period to attract more general
attention. Karl August von Bergen had already demonstrated
(1732) the general distribution of cellular membrane, and
showed that it not only incloses every part of the animal
frame, but forms the basis of every organ--a doctrine
which was adopted and still more fully expanded (1757) by
his friend Haller, in opposition to what was asserted by
Albinus, who maintains that each part has a proper tissue.
W. Hunter.
William Hunter at the same time gave a clear and ingenious
statement of the difference between cellular membrane
and adipose tissue (1757), in which he maintained the
general distribution of the former, and represented it
as forming the serous membranes, and regulating their
physiological and pathological properties--doctrines which
were afterwards confirmed by his brother John Hunter.
A. Bonn.
A few years after, the department of general anatomy first
assumed a substantial form in the systematic view of the
membranes and their mutual connexions traced by Andrew Bonn of
Amsterdam. In his inaugural dissertation De Continuationibus
Membranarum, published at Leiden in 1763, this author, after
some preliminary observations on membranes in general and
their structure, and an exposition of that of the skin, traces
its transition into the mucous membranes and their several
divisions. He then explains the distribution of the cellular
membrane, the aponeurotic expansions, and the periosteum and
perichondrium, by either of which, he shows, every bone of the
skeleton is invested and connected. He finally gives a very
distinct view of the arrangement of the internal membranes of
cavities, those named serous and fibro-serous, and the manner
of their distribution over the contained organs. This essay,
which is a happy example of generalization, is remarkable
for the interesting general views of the structure of the
animal body which it exhibits; and to Bonn belongs the merit
of sketching the first outlines of that system which it was
reserved for the genius of M. F. X. Bichat to complete and
embellish. Lastly, T. de Bordeu, in an elaborate essay
(1767) on the mucous tissue, or celluar organ, as he
terms it, brought forward some interesting views of the
constitution, nature and extent of the cellular membrane.
Though anatomy was hitherto cultivated with much success as
illustrating the natural history and morbid states of the
human body, yet little had been done for the elucidation
of local diseases, and the surgical means by which they may
be successfully treated. The idea of applying anatomical
knowledge directly to this puroose appears to have originated
with Bernardin Genga, a Roman surgeon, who published in 1672,
at Rome, a work entitled Surgical Anatomy, or the Anatomical
History of the Bones and Muscles of the Human Body, with
the Description of the Blood- vessels. This work, which
reached a second edition in 1687, is highly creditable to the
author, who appears to have studied intimately the mutual
relations of different parts. It is not improbable that
the example of Genga led J. Palfyn, a surgeon at Ghent, to
undertake a similar task about thirty years after (1718-
1726). For this, however, he was by no means well qualified;
and the work of Palfyn, though bearing the name of Surgical
Anatomy, is a miserable compilation, meagre in details,
inaccurate in description, and altogether unworthy of the honour
of being republished, as it afterwards was by Antony Petit.
While these two authors, however, were usefully employed
in showing what was wanted for the surgeon, others were
occupied in the collection of new and more accurate facts.
Albinus, indeed, ever assiduous, had, in his account of the
operations of Rau, given some good sketches of the relative
anatomy of the bladder and urethra; and Cheselden had
already, in his mode of cutting into the urinary bladder,
shown the necessity of an exact knowledge of the relations
of contiguous parts. The first decided application,
however, of this species of anatomical research it was
reserved for a Dutch anatomist of the 18th century to make.
Camper.
Peter Camper, professor of anatomy at Amsterdam, published
in 1760 and 1762 his anatomico- pathological demonstrations
of the parts of the human arm and pelvis, of the diseases
incident to them, and the mode of relieving them by operation,
and explained with great clearness the situation of the
blood-vessels, nerves and important muscles. His remarks on
the lateral operation of lithotomy, which contain all that
was then known on the subject, are exceedingly interesting
and valuable to the surgeon. It appears, further, that he
was the first who examined anatomically the mechanism of
ruptures, his delineations of which were published in 1801
by S. T. Sommerring. Camper also wrote some important
memoirs on Comparative Anatomy, and he was the author of a
well-known work on the Relations of Anatomy to the Fine Arts.
The attention of anatomists was now directed to the elucidation
of the most obscure and least explored parts of the human
frame--the lymphatic vessels and the nerves. Although, since
the first discovery of the former by Aselli, Rudbeck and Pecquet.
much had been done, especially by Ruysch, Nuck, Meckel and
Haller, many points, notwithstanding, relating to their origin
and distribution in particular organs, and in the several classes
of animals, were imperfectly ascertained or entirely unknown.
W. and J. Hunter.
William Hunter investigated their arrangement, and proposed
the doctrine that they are absorbents; and John Hunter, who
undertook to demonstrate the truth of this hypothesis by
experiment, discovered, in 1758, lymphatics in the neck in birds.
Hewson.
As the doctrine required the existence of this order of
vessels, not only in quadrupeds and birds but in reptiles and
fishes, the inquiry attracted attention among the pupils of
Hunter; and William Hewson16 at length communicated, in
December 1768, to the Royal Society of London an account of the
lacteals and lymphatics in birds, fishes and reptiles, as he
had discovered and demonstrated them. The subject was about
the same time investigated by the second Alexander Monro, who
indeed claimed the merit of discovering these vessels in the
classes of animals now mentioned. But whatever researches
this anatomist may have instituted, Hewson, by communicating
his observations to the Royal Society, must be allowed
to possess the strongest as well as the clearest claim to
discovery. The same author, in 1774, gave the first complete
account of the anatomical peculiarities of the lymphatic
system in man and other animals, and thereby supplied an
important gap in this department. Hewson is the first who
distinguishes the lymphatics into two orders--the superficial
and the deep--both in the extremities and in the internal
organs. He also studied the structure of the intestinal
villi, in which he verified the observations of Lieberkuhn;
and he made many important observations on the corpuscles
of the lymph and blood. He finally applied his anatomical
discoveries to explain many of the physiological and
pathological phenomena of the animal body. Ten years after,
John Sheldon, another pupil of Hunter, gave a second history
and description of the lymphatics, which, though divested of
the charm of novelty, contains many interesting anatomical
facts. He also examined the structure of the villi.
Cruikshank.
Lastly, Cruikshank,17 in 1786, published a valuable history
of the anatomy of the lymphatic system, in which he maintains
the accuracy of the Hunterian doctrine, that the lymphatics are
the only absorbents; gave a more minute account than heretofore
of these vessels, of their coats and valves; and explained
the structure of the lymphatic glands. He also injected the
villi, and examined them microscopically, verifying most of the
observations of Lieberkuhn . The origin of the lymphatics he
maintains rather by inference than direct demonstration. To
these three works, though in other respects very excellent, it
is a considerable objection that the anatomical descriptions
are much mixed with hypothetical speculation and reasonings
on properties, and that the facts are by no means always
distinguished from mere matters of opinion. At the same time
J. G. Haase published an account of the lymphatics of the
skin and intestines, and the plexiform nets of the pelvis.
Mascagni.
To complete this sketch of the history of the anatomy of
the lymphatic system, it may be added that Paolo Mascagni,
who had been engaged from the year 1777 to 1781 in the same
train of investigation, first demonstrated to his pupils
several curious facts relating to the anatomy of the lymphatic
system. When at Florence in 1782 he made several preparations,
at the request of Peter Leopold, grand duke of Tuscany;
and when the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris announced
the anatomy of this system for their prize essay appointed
for March 1784, Mascagni resolved on communicating to the
public the results of his researches--the first part of his
commentary, with four engravings. Anxiety, however, to complete
his preparations detained him at Florence till the close
of 1785; and from these causes his work did not appear till
1787. These delays, however, unfavourable as they were to
his claims of priority to Sheldon and Cruikshank, were on
the whole advantageous to the perfection of his work, which
is not only the most magnificent, but also the most complete
that ever was published on the lymphatics. In his account
of the vessels and their valves he confirms some of Hewson's
observations and rectifies others. Their origin he proves
by inference much in the same manner as Cruikshank; but he
anticipates this author in the account of the glands, and he
gives the most minute description of the superficial and deep
lymphatics, both in the members and in the internal organs.
General accounts of the nerves had been given with various
degrees of accuracy by Willis, Vieussens, Winslow, and the first
Monro; and the subject had been much rectified and improved
by the indefatigable Haller. The first example of minute
descriptive neurography was given in 1748 by John Frederick
Meckel, whose account of the fifth pair and of the nerves
of the face will long remain a lasting proof of accuracy and
research. The same subject was investigated in 1765 by Hirsch
and in 1777 by Wrisberg. In 1766 Metzger examined the origin,
distribution and termination of the first pair--a point which
was afterwards very minutely treated by A. Scarpa18 in his
anatomical disquisitions, published in 1780; and the internal
nerves of the nostrils were examined in 1791 by Haase. The
optic nerve, which had been studied originally by Varoli, and
afterwards by Mery, Duverney, J. F. Henkel, Moeller, Hein
and Kaldschmid, was examined with extreme accuracy, with the
other nerves of the organ of vision, by Zinn in his elaborate
treatise. The phrenic nerves and the oesophageal branches of
the vagus were studied by Haase; the phrenic, the abdominal
and the pharyngeal nerves, by Wrisberg; those of the heart
most minutely by Andersch; and the origins, formation and
distribution of the intercostal nerves, by Iwanov, C. G.
Ludwig, and Girardi. The labours of these anatomists, however,
were eclipsed by the splendid works of Walter (1783) on the
nerves of the chest and belly; and those of Scarpa (1794) on
the distribution of the eighth pair and splanchnic nerves in
general. In minuteness of description and in beauty of engraving
these works have not yet been equalled, and will never perhaps be
surpassed. About the same time, Scarpa, so distinguished in
every branch of anatomical research, investigated the minute
structure of the ganglions and plexuses. The anatomy of the
brain itself was also studied (1780) with great attention
by the second Monro, M. V. G. Malacarne and Vicq d'Azyr.
Lastly, the anatomy of the gravid uterus, which had been originally
studied by Albinus, Roederer and Smellie, was again illustrated
(1774) most completely by William Hunter, whose engravings will
remain a lasting memorial of scientific zeal and artistic talent.
19th century.
The perfection which anatomical science attained in the last
ten years of the 18th and during the 19th century is evinced
not only in the improved character of the systems published by
anatomists, but in the enormous advance which has taken place in
the knowledge of the minute structure of the animal tissues, of
the development of the tissues and organs, and of the modifications
in form and structure exhibited by various groups of animals.
Sommering.
The first who gave a good modern system was R. B. Sabatier;
but his work was speedily eclipsed by the superior merits of
the treatises of Sommerring, Bichat and Portal. The excellent
work by Samuel Thomas Sommerring, originally published in
the German languaae. between the years 1791 and 1796; then
in the Latin language, between the years 1794 and 1800;
and in a second edition in the German language in 1800 and
1801, maintaining the high character which it first possessed
for clear arrangement, accurate description and general
precision, was, between the years 1841 and 1844 republished
in eight volumes at Leipzig by Th. L. W. Bischoff, F. G. J.
Henle, E. H. Huschke, Theile, G. G. Valentin, Vogel, and R.
Wagner, with suitable additions, and a large amount of new
and accurate information. In this edition Rudolph Wagner
gives, in the first division of the first volume, the life,
correspondence and literary writings of Sommerring; and in
the second volume the anatomy of the bones and ligaments.
The third volume contains the anatomy of the muscles and
the vascular system by Theile. G. G. Valentin devotes one
volume, the fourth, to the minute anatomy of the nervous
system and its parts, as disclosed by careful examination by
the microscope; and it must be allowed that the author has
been at great pains to present just views of the true anatomy
of the brain, the spinal cord, the nervous branches and the
ganglia. In the fifth volume, E. H. Huschke of Jena gives
the anatomical history of the viscera and the organs of the
senses, a department which had been left in some degree
incomplete in the original, but for one division of which the
author had left useful materials in his large figures already
mentioned. In the sixth volume, an entire and complete system
of general anatomy, deduced from personal observation and that
of other careful observers, the materials being in general
new, and in all instances confirmed and rectified, is given
by F. G. J. Henle. The seventh volume contains the history of
the process of development in mammalia and man, by Th. L. W.
Bischoff. The eighth volume treats of the pathological
anatomy of the human body, by Julius Vogel, but contains
only the first division, relating to the generalities of the
subject. This, which is probably the most accurate as
it is the most elaborate system of anatomical knowledge
up to the date of its publication in 1844, was translated
into the French language by Jourdan, and published in 1846
under the name of Encyclopedie anatomique. The eighth
volume was translated into English in the year 1847.
Bichat.
The Anatomie generale of M. F. X. Bichat is a monument
of his philosophical genius which will last as long as the
structure and functions of the human body are objects of
interest. His Anatomie descriptive is distinguished by clear
and natural arrangement, precise and accurate description,
and the general ingenuity with which the subject is treated.
The physiological observations are in general correct, often
novel, and always highly interesting. It is unfortunate,
however, that the ingenious author was cut off prematurely during
the preparation of the third volume. The later volumes are,
however, pervaded with the general spirit by which the others
are impressed, and are highly creditable to the learning, the
judgment and the diligence of P. J. Roux and M. F. R. Buisson.
French systematic anatomists.
The system of A. Portal is a valuable and correct digest
of anatomical and pathological knowledge, which, in exact
literary information, is worthy of the author of the Histoire
de l'anatomie et de la chirurgie, and, in accuracy of
descriptive details, shows that Portal trusted not to the
labours of his predecessors only. A. Boyer published in
1803 a complete treatise on descriptive anatomy. H. Cloquet
formed, on the model of the Anatomie descriptive of Bichat,
a system in which he avails himself of the literature and
precision of Sommerring and the details of Portal. An
English translation of this work was prepared by Dr Robert
Knox. Jean Cruveilhier published in 1834-1835 a good
general treatise on descriptive anatomy, which was translated
into English, and published as a part of The Library of
Medicine. Cruveilhier's treatise has passed through several
editions. The most elaborate work of the French school is
the great treatise of M. J. Bourgery, consisting of four
divisions, on descriptive, general, surgical and philosophical
anatomy (1832-1854). These are beautifully illustrated.
MODERN HUMAN ANATOMY (Anthropotomy)
The history of modern human anatomy in Great Britain begins with
the time at which the dissection of the human body became part
of the training of students of medicine, and this is one of the
greatest debts, though by no means the best recognized, of the
many which medical science owes to that remarkable man William
Hunter. Before his time the anatomy professors of the most
celebrated schools both at home and abroad used one or at
most two subjects to illustrate their courses of lectures,
and were in the habit of demonstrating the performance of
surgical operations not on human bodies but on those of lower
animals. Few students dissected the human body, because for
such dissection they had no opportunities. The English law,
since the time of Henry VIII., allowed only the bodies of
persons executed for murder to be dissected, and the supply
seems to have been sufficient for the humble needs of the
time. The reformation of this antiquated and imperfect
system took place in 1747, when Hunter established complete
courses of anatomical lectures and opened a school for
dissection. The practice of dissection grew so rapidly that
by about 1793 there were 200 regular anatomy students in
London, while in 1823 their number was computed at about
1000. Of course the supply of murderers was not enough for
all these students, and the very fact that only murderers
were allowed for this purpose made people bitterly hostile to
the bodies of their relations and friends being dissected.
In accounting for the great aversion which there has always
been from dissection in England, it should be remembered
that, although capital punishment was the penalty for very
many offences at the beginning of the 19th century, only
the bodies of murderers were handed over to the anatomists.
When once the absolute necessity of a surgeon's having a
good knowledge of anatomy was realized, bodies had to be
procured at any hazard, and the chief method was to dig them
up as soon as possible after their burial. This practice
of exhumation or ``body-snatching'' on a large scale seems
to have been peculiar to Great Britain and America, and not
to have been needed on the continent of Europe. In France,
Italy, Portugal and Austria no popular objection was raised
to the bodies of friendless people, who died in hospitals,
or of those whose burial was paid for by the state, being
dissected, provided a proper religious service was held over
them. In Germany it was obligatory that the bodies of all
people unable to pay for their burials, all dying in prisons,
all suicides and public women should be given up. In all these
countries the supply was most ample, exhumation was unknown,
and the cost of learning anatomy to the students was very
moderate. In Great Britain the earlier exhumations seem
to have caused very little popular concern; Hunter, it is
said, could manage to get the body of any person he wanted,
were it that of giant, dwarf, hunchback or lord, but later,
when the number of students increased very rapidly, the
trade of ``resurrection man'' became commoner, and attracted
the lowest dregs of the vicious classes. It is computed
that in 1828 about 200 people were engaged in it in London
alone, though only a few gained their entire livelihood by
it. In the first half of the 18th century, and for some time
afterwards, the few dissections which were undertaken were
carried out in the private houses of medical men. In 1702 a
rule was passed at St Thomas's Hospital preventing the surgeons
or pupils from dissecting bodies there without the express
permission of the treasurer, but by 1780 this rule seems to
have lapsed, and a definite dissecting-room was established, an
example which was soon followed by Guy's and St Bartholomew's.
In the early years of the 19th century the number of
students increased so rapidly that a good many private
anatomy schools grew up, and in 1828 we find that the total
list of London dissecting rooms comprised those of Guy's,
London, St Bartholomew's and St Thomas's hospitals, the Webb
Street school of Mr Grainger, the Aldersgate school of Mr
Tyrrell, the Windmill Street school where Caesar Hawkins and
Herbert Mayo lectured, and the schools of Messrs. Bennett,
Carpue, Dermott and Sleigh. These schools needed and, it
seems, obtained nearly 800 bodies a year in the years about
1823, when there were nearly 1000 students in London, and it
is recorded that bodies were even sent to Edinburgh and Oxford.
When it is realized that the greater number of these were
exhumed, it is easy to understand how hostile the public
feeling became to the body-snatchers or ``resurrection men,''
and also in a modified form to the teachers of anatomy and
medical students. This was increased by the fact that it
soon became well known that many of the so-called resurrection
men only used their calling as a cloak for robbery, because,
if they were stopped with a horse and cart by the watch at
night, the presence of a body on the top of stolen goods was
sufficient to avert suspicion and search. It is in many places
suggested, though not definitely stated, that the Home Office
authorities understood how absolutely necessary it was that
medical students should learn the details of the human body,
on which they would be called to operate, and that the police
had instructions not to interfere more than was necessary with
the only method by which that education could be supplied,
however unlawful it might be. So emboldened and careless did
these body-snatchers become, and so great was the demand for
bodies, that they no longer confined themselves to pauper
graves, but took the remains of the wealthier classes, who
were in a position to resent it more effectually; often
they did not even take the trouble to fill in the graves
after rifling their contents, and, in consequence, many
sextons, who no doubt had been bribed, lost their posts, and
men armed with firearms watched the London burial-places at
night. The result of this was that the ``resurrection men''
had to go farther afield, and their occupation was attended
with considerable danger, so that the price of a body gradually
rose from L. 2 to about L. 14, which seems the maximum ever
paid. In addition to this heavy sum the anatomical teachers
had to pay the fines of the exhumers when they were caught,
or to support their families when they were imprisoned. By
1828 the annual supply of bodies had dropped to about 450,
and about 200 English students were forced each year to go
to Paris for their anatomical instruction. There they could
get a body for about seven francs and could also be taught by
English anatomists who settled in that city for the purpose.
As early as about 1810 an anatomical society was formed, to impress
on the government the necessity for an alteration in the law, and
among the members we find the names of John Abernethy, Charles
Bell, Everard Home, Benjamin Brodie, Astley Cooper and Henry
Cline. It was owing to the exertions of this body that in 1828
a select committee was appointed by the government to report
on the whole question, and to the minutes of evidence taken
before this body the reader is referred for further details.
The report of this committee led to the Anatomy Act of
1832, but there can be little doubt that its passage
through the House was expedited by the recent discovery
and arrest of the infamous William Burke and William Hare,
who, owing to the extreme difficulty of procuring subjects
for dissection in Edinburgh and the high price paid for
them, had made a practice of enticing men to their lodgings
and then drugging and suffocating them in order to sell
their bodies to Dr Knox. Hare turned king's evidence but
Burke was executed. (See MacGregor's History of Burke and
Hare, 1884, Lonsdale's Life and Writings of Robert Knox,
1870. Many further details connected with the condition of
anatomy, especially in Dublin, before the passing of the
Anatomy Act, will be found in Memoirs of James Macartney
by Professor A. Macalister, F.R.S.) The bill to legalize and
regulate the supply of subjects for dissection did not pass
without considerable opposition. In 1829 the College of
Surgeons petitioned against it, and it was withdrawn in the
House of Lords owing to the opposition of the archbishop of
Canterbury, but in 1832 a new Anatomy Bill was introduced,
which, though violently opposed by Messrs Hunt, Sadler
and Vyvyan, was supported by Macaulay and O'Connell, and
finally passed the House of Lords on the 19th of July 1832.
This is the act which governs the practice of anatomy in the
British Isles up to the present day, and which has only been
slightly modified as to the time during which bodies may be kept
unburied in the schools. It provides that any one intending
to practise anatomy must obtain a licence from the home
secretary. As a matter of fact only one or two teachers in
each institution take out this licence and are known as licensed
teachers, but they accept the whole responsibility for the
proper treatment of all bodies dissected in the building for
which their licence is granted. Watching over these licensed
teachers, and receiving constant reports from them, are
four inspectors of anatomy, one each for England, Scotland,
Ireland and London, who report to the home secretary and
know the whereabouts of every body which is being dissected.
The main clause of the act is the seventh, which says that
a person having lawful possession of a body may permit it to
undergo anatomical examination provided no relative objects;
the other clauses are subsidiary and detail the methods of
carrying this into effect. In clause 16, however, the old
act of Henry VIII. is repealed and the bodies of murderers
are no longer to be given up for dissection after execution.
There can be little doubt that this act has worked well
and with a minimum of friction; it at once did away with
body-snatching and crimes like those of Burke and Hare. No
licensed teacher now could or would receive a body without
a medical certificate and a warrant from the inspector of
anatomy, and, when the bodies are buried, a proper religious
service, according to the creed professed during life, is
provided. The great majority of bodies are those of
unclaimed poor in the workhouse infirmaries, but a few are
obtained each year from the general hospitals. Occasionally
a well-to-do person, following the example of Jeremy
Bentham, leaves his body for the advancement of science,
but even then, if his relatives object, it is not received.
The ample supply of subjects obtained by legitimate means
which the anatomy act provided was followed by the opening of
anatomical schools at all the great London hospitals and the
universities, with the result that anatomical research was
stimulated and text-books embodying the latest discoveries were
brought out. It is wonderful, however, how much descriptive
anatomy was taught in the days before text-books were common
and how much of what is essential to the study of surgery and
medicine the students knew. In looking through an old book of
anatomical questions and answers dated 1812, one is struck by
the fact that any one working through them with the body would
probably pass an average modern anatomical examination to-day.
The various phases which anatomy in the British Isles has
passed through have also been experienced in America, though
it is difficult to compare the two countries owing to the
fact that each state in the Union makes its own laws as to
dissection, and that these vary considerably. The first
anatomy act worthy of the name was that of Massachusetts, and
was passed in 1831, one year before the British act. There
is reason to believe, however, that, in some states, all the
evils of body-snatching existed up to the end of the 19th
century. In some more enlightened states, such as Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts, the modern acts are in advance of the
British in that they are mandatory instead of permissive,
and their compulsory nature is found rather to reduce than
to increase public opposition to dissection. A study of
the history of anatomy in the United States during the 19th
century furnishes an instructive lesson on the futility
of attempting to suppress dissection by legislation and on
the serious and sometimes terrible crimes to which any such
attempt naturally leads. It also teaches that, when unclaimed
bodies must be given up and must be treated reverently
and buried decently, there is less friction than when public
boards have the right of arbitrarily refusing to allow their
unclaimed dead to be used for the service of the living.
In all the important countries of Europe, with the exception
of Russia and Turkey, anatomy acts exist. They almost all
differ from the British act in being mandatory instead of
permissive; in other words, certain unclaimed bodies must be
given up to the schools of anatomy. As a rule these come from
the general hospitals, but sometimes, as in Germany, Austria
and Sweden, suicides are received and form a considerable
part of the whole number. Even where executed criminals are
available they nowadays form a negligible contribution, but
the unclaimed bodies of people dying in prison are provided
for in the French, Belgian, Norwegian, Swedish, German and
Italian regulations, and in Paris they form an important
element of the supply. In Russia several attempts to gain
an anatomy act have been made, but have always been opposed
by those in authority, and there is good reason to believe
that bodies are procured by bribing hospital and mortuary
attendants. It is said that the army contributes a large
percentage of the total number. In Turkey no facilities for
dissecting the dead body exist, as the practice is against
the Mahommedan religion; the German pathologists in Turkey,
however, insist on making post mortem examinations. In
the British colonies anatomical regulations vary a good deal;
sometimes, as in New South Wales, the act is founded on that of
Great Britain and is permissive, but in Victoria the minister
may authorize the medical officer of any public institution
supported wholly or in part by funds from the general revenue
to permit unclaimed bodies to be dissected, provided the
persons, during life had not expressed a wish against
it. This act in its working is equivalent to a mandatory
one, since the power of refusing bodies is not left in the
hands of, in this respect, uneducated poor law guardians.
In the early years of the 19th century Sir Charles Bell's work
on human anatomy is by far the most important in the British
Isles. He wrote the article on the nerves in his brother John
Bell's work on the anatomy of the human body, as well as his
own classical works on the anatomy of expression, the hand
and the arteries; but his chief work was the discovery of the
difference between motor and sensory nerves. Sir Astley Cooper
brought out his beautifully illustrated monograph on hernia in
1807. Besides these, the Edinburgh school had contributed
the systematic treatises of Andrew Fyfe, John Bell, the third
Monro and John Gordon. In 1828 appeared the first edition of
Quain's Anatomy, written by Jones Quain. This monumental
work, which is still among the very first of English text-books,
has run through ten editions, and is of even greater value
to the teacher and researcher than to the medical student,
because of its excellent bibliographies and the way in which
it has been kept abreast of modern morphological knowledge
by its various editors. Hardly any of the original work now
remains. In 1858 another famous text-book on systematic
anatomy appeared, written by Henry Gray, and this has
always been particularly popular with students both in
Great Britain and in America; it pays more attention to the
surgical applications of anatomy than to the scientific and
morphological side, and has reached its sixteenth edition.
The Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology, edited by Dr Robert
Todd from 1835 to 1859, which contained articles on both human
and comparative anatomy, is now somewhat out of date, but
did much for the advancement of the science when it appeared.
In 1893 a text-book written by several authors and edited by
Henry Morris appeared. It has run through three editions and
is especially popular in America. The latest English systematic
work of first-rate importance is the splendid compilation
edited by D. J. Cunningham (1902) and written, with one or two
exceptions, by pupils of the veteran anatomist Sir William
Turner. It is dedicated to him and will long serve as a
memento of the work which he has done in training anatomists
for the whole of the British empire. Besides these systematic
treatises, many dissecting manuals have been published. The
earliest were the Dublin Dissector and the London Dissector;
others still in use are those of G. V. Ellis, C. Heath, D. J.
Cunningham, and J. Cleland and J. Mackay. In 1889 Professor
A. Macalister published a book on anatomy, which combined the
advantages of a text-book with those of a dissecting guide.
In America the English text-books are largely used in addition to that
edited by F. H. Gerrish. There is a special American edition of Gray.
Many systematic works on modern anatomy have come from
Germany. J. F. Meckel, J. C. Rosenmuller, C. F. Krause,
G. F. Hildebrandt, J. Hyrtl, H. Luschka and A. Meyer have
all published works which have made their mark, but by far
the most important, and, as some consider, still the best
of all anatomical text-books, is that of F. G. J. Henle,
professor of anatomy in Gottingen, which was comlpleted in
1873. The beautiful illustrations of frozen specimens of
the body brought out by W. Braune added a great deal to
the student's opportunities of learning the relations of
the various structures, and are largely used all over the
world. Rudinger's Anatomy also contains many plates showing
various sections, but the most complete text-book in the German
language is that by Prof. Karl von Bardeleben of Jena; this is
in eight volumes and contains notices of the latest literature
on descriptive and morphological anatomy by the most prominent
German anatomists. In addition to these W. Spalteholz and
C. Toldt have brought out valuable atlases. In France J.
Testut's and Poirier's anatomies, both of great excellence
and beautifully illustrated, are the ones in common use.
There are two epoch-making dates in the history of modern
English anatomy besides that of the passing of the Anatomy
Act in 1832. The first of these is 1867, when the first
volume of the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology appeared.
This afforded a medium for English anatomists to publish
their original work, besides containing valuable reviews
and notices of books and work published abroad; it has
appeared quarterly without a break since that time, and was
long under the immediate direction of Sir William Turner.
The second date is 1887, when the Anatomical Society
of Great Britain and Ireland was founded through the
exertions of Mr C. B. Lockwood. It meets three times a
year in London and once, in the summer, at some provincial
school. It numbers some one hundred and fifty members, and
enables anatomists from the whole British empire to meet one
another and discuss subjects of common interest. Its first
president was Prof. Murray Humphry of Cambridge, and its
official organ is the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology.
No account of modern anatomical work would be complete without
drawing attention to the great mass of special periodical
literature containing the records of original work which are
being published. It is said that some three or four thousand
articles on anatomy appear in six hundred journals each
year. To mention a few of these, in addition to the British
Journal of Anatomy and Physiology there is an American
Journal of Anatomy, the French Bulletin et memoires de la
societe anatomique, and La journal de l'anatomie et de la
physiologie, and the German Internationale Monatschrift fur
Anatomie und Physiologie, Anatomischer Anzeiger, Waldeyer's
Archiv fur Anatomie und Physiologie, Schwalbe's Zeitschrift
fur Morphologie und Anthropologie, Gegenbaur's Morphologisches
Jahrbuch, edited by Ruge, and Merkel's Anatomische Hefte.
Unfortunately the outlook of anatomy in Great Britain is not
altogether satisfactory. The number of subjects for dissection
has since 1895 been steadily diminishing, especially in
London. This is due partly to the modern system of
insuring lives for small sums and so decreasing the number
of unclaimed bodies, and partly to the fact that, owing to
the permissive nature of the British Anatomy Act, several
boards of guardians will not allow even unclaimed bodies
to be used for dissection and for the teaching of operative
surgery. It is not popularly understood that a dearth of
bodies means not only a check to abstract science, but a serious
handicap to medical education, which must react more upon
the poor than upon the rich, since the latter can afford to
pay for the services of medical men educated abroad, where no
difficulties are placed in the way of their learning fully the
structure of the body they have to treat in disease. (F. G. P.)
SUPERFICIAL AND ARTISTIC
The objects of the study of superficial anatomy are to
show, first, the form and proportions of the human body and,
second, the surface landmarks which correspond to deeper
structures hidden from view. This study blends imperceptibly
with others, such as physical anthropology, physiognomy,
phrenology and palmistry, but whereas these deal chiefly with
variations, superficial anatomy is concerned with the type.
With regard to the proportions of the body the artist and
anatomist approach the subject from a slightly different
point of view. The former, by a process of artistic
selection, seeks the ideal and adopts the proportions which
give the most pleasing effect, while the latter desires
to know only the mean of a large series of measurements.
The scheme which Dr Paul Richer suggests( Anatomie artistique,
Paris, 1890), and Professor Arthur Thomson approves (Anatomy
for Art Students, 1896), is to divide the whole body
into head-lengths, of which seven and a half make up the
stature. Four of these are above the fork and three and a
half below (see figs. 1 and 2). Of the four above, one forms
the head and face, the second reaches from the chin to the
level of the nipples, the third from the nipples to the navel,
and the fourth from there to the fork. By dividing these
into half-heads other points can be determined; for instance
the middle of the first head-length corresponds to the eyes,
the middle of the second to the shoulder, of the fourth to
the top of the hip-joint, and of the fifth to the knee-joint.
The elbow-joint, when the arms are by the side, is a little
above the lower limit of the third head-length, whilst the
wrist is opposite the very centre of the stature, three
head-lengths and three-quarters from the crown or the soles.
The tips of the fingers reach a little below the middle of the
fifth head-length. (In fig. 1 the fingers are bent.) By making
the stature eight head-lengths instead of seven and a half
the artistic effect is increased, as it is also by slightly
lengthening the legs in proportion to the body. Approximate
average breadth measurements are two heads for the greatest
width of the shoulders, one and a half for the greatest width
of the hips, one for the narrowest part of the waist, and
three-quarters for the breadth of the head on a level with the eyes.
The relation of superficial landmarks to deep structures cannot
be treated here in full detail, but the chief points may be
indicated. Certain parts of the head may easily be felt through
the skin. If the finger is run along the upper margin of the
orbit, the notch for the supraorbital nerve may usually be
felt at the junction of the inner and middle thirds. At the
outer end of the margin is its junction with the malar bone,
and this easily felt point is known as the external angular
process. The junction of the frontal and nasal bones at the
root of the nose is the nasion, while at the back of the skull
the external occipital protuberance or inion is felt and marks
the position of the torcular Herophili, where the venous sinuses
meet. The zygoma may be felt running back from the malar bone
to just in front of the ear, and two fingers' breadth above
the middle of it marks the pterion, a very important point in
the localization of intracranial structures. It corresponds
to the anterior branch of the middle meningeal artery, to the
Sylvian point where the three limbs of the fissure of Sylvius
diverge, to the middle cerebral artery, the central lobe of the
brain or island of Reil, and the anterior part of the corpus
striatum. The fissure of Sylvius can be marked out by drawing
a line from the external angular process back through the
Sylvian point to the lower part of the parietal eminence.
Fig. 1. Fig. 2.
a, Serratus magnus. b, Dimple over posterior superior
b, Deltoid. spine of ilium.
g, Biceps. g, Lower angle of scapula.
d, Poupart's ligament. d, External head of triceps.
e, Patella. e, Depression over the great
T.P. Transpyloric plane. trochanter.
S.C. Subcostal plane. z, Popliteal space.
I.T. Intertubercular plane. e, Gastrocnemius.
The scale between the figures represents head-lengths.
The position of the sulcus of Rolando is important because
of the numerous cortical centres which lie close to it.
For practical purposes it may be mapped out by taking the
superior Rolandic point, 1/2 in. behind the bisection of a
line drawn from the nasion to the inion over the vault of the
skull, and joining that to the inferior Rolandic point, which
is just above the line of the fissure of Sylvius and 1 in.
behind the Sylvian point. The external parieto-occipital
fissure, which forms the boundary between the parietal and
occipital lobes of the brain, is situated practically at
the lambda, which is a hand's breadth (2 3/4 in.) above the
inion. The lateral sinus can be mapped out by joining the
inion to the asterion, a point two-thirds of the distance from
the lambda to the tip of the mastoid process; thence the sinus
curves downward and forward toward the tip of the mastoid
process. A point 1 in. horizontally backward from the
top of the external auditory meatus will always strike it.
Cranio-cerebral topography has been dealt with by Broca,
Bischoff, Turner, Fere, Pozzi, Giacomini, Ecker, Hefftler and
Hare. Among the more recent papers are those of R. W.
Reid (Lancet, 27th September 1884), W. Anderson and G.
Makins (Lancet, 13th July 1889), Prof. Chiene (detailed
in Cunningham's Text-Book of Anatomy), V. Horsley (Am.
Journal Med. Sci., 1887), G. Thane and R. Godlee (Quain's
Anatomy--appendix to 10th edition). D. J. Cunningham
discusses the whole question in his ``Contribution to the
Surface Anatomy of the Cerebral Hemispheres'' (Cunningham
Memoirs, No. vii. R. Irish Academy, Dublin, 1892),
and he has prepared a series of casts to illustrate it.
The Face.--On the front of the face a line drawn down from
the supraorbital notch between the bicuspid teeth to the
side of the chin will cut the exit of the second division
of the fifth nerve from the infraorbital foramen, a quarter
of an inch below the infraorbital margin, and also the exit
of the third division of the fifth at the mental foramen,
midway between the upper and lower margins of the body of the
jaw. In practice it will be found that the angle of the
mouth at rest usually corresponds to the interval between
the bicuspid teeth. The skin of the eyelids is very thin,
and is separated from the subjacent fibrous tarsal plates
by the orbicularis palpebrarum muscle. On everting the lids
the delicate conjunctival membrane is seen, and between this
and the tarsal plates lie the meibomian glands, which can
be faintly seen as yellowish streaks. From the free edges
of the eyelids come the eyelashes, between which many large
sweat- glands open, and when one of these is inflamed it
causes a ``stye.'' Internally the two eyelids form a little
recess called the internal canthus, occupied by a small
red eminence, the caruncula lachrymalis, just external to
which a small vertical fold of conjunctiva may often be
seen, called the plica semilunaris, representing the third
eyelid of birds and many mammals. By gently drawing down
the lower eyelid the lower punctum may be seen close to the
caruncula; it is the pinhole opening into the lower of the two
canaliculi which carry away the tears to the lachrymal sac and
duct. On the side of the face the facial artery may be felt
pulsating about an inch in front of the angle of the jaw;
it runs a tortuous course to near the angle of the mouth,
the angle of the nose and the inner angle of the eye; in the
greater part of its course its vein lies some distance behind
it. The parotid gland lies between the ramus of the jaw
and the mastoid process; anteriorly it overlaps the masseter
to form the socia parotidis, and just below this its duct,
the duct of Stensen, runs forward to pierce the buccinator
and open into the mouth opposite the second upper molar
tooth. The line of this duct may be marked out by joining
the lower margin of the tragus to a point midway between
the lower limit of the nose and the mouth. The facial or
seventh nerve emerges from the skull at the stylomastoid
foramen just in front of the root of the mastoid process;
in the parotid gland it forms a network called the pes
anserinus, after which it divides into six branches which
radiate over the face to supply the muscles of expression.
The Neck.--In the middle line below the chin can be felt the
body of the hyoid bone, just below which is the prominence of
the thyroid cartilage called ``Adam's apple,'' better marked
in men than in women. Still lower the cricoid cartilage is
easily felt, while between this and the suprasternal notch
the trachea and isthmus of the thyroid gland may be made
out. At the side the outline of the sterno-mastoid muscle
is the most striking mark; it divides the anterior triangle
of the neck from the posterior. The upper part of the former
contains the submaxillary gland, which lies just below the
posterior half of the body of the jaw. The line of the
common and the external carotid arteries may be marked by
joining the sterno-clavicular articulation to the angle of the
jaw. The eleventh or spinal accessory nerve corresponds
to a line drawn from a point midway between the angle
of the jaw and the mastoid process to the middle of the
posterior border of the sterno-mastoid muscle and thence
across the posterior triangle to the deep surface of the
trapezius. The external jugular vein can usually be seen
through the skin; it runs in a line drawn from the angle of
the jaw to the middle of the clavicle, and close to it are
some small lymphatic glands. The anterior jugular vein is
smaller, and runs down about half an inch from the middle
line of the neck. The clavicle or collar-bone forms the
lower limit of the neck, and laterally the outward slope of
the neck to the shoulder is caused by the trapezius muscle.
The Chest.--It is important to realize that the shape of
the chest does not correspond to that of the bony thorax
which encloses the heart and lungs; all the breadth of the
shoulders is due to the shoulder girdle, and contains the
axilla and the head of the humerus. In the middle line the
suprasternal notch is seen above, while about three fingers'
breadth below it a transverse ridge can be felt, which is
known as Ludovic's angle and marks the junction between the
manubrium and gladiolus of the sternum. Level with this line
the second ribs join the sternum, and when these are found
the lower ribs may be easily counted in a moderately thin
subject. At the lower part of the sternum, where the seventh
or last true ribs join it, the ensiform cartilage begins,
and over this there is often a depression popularly known as
the pit of the stomach. The nipple in the male is situated
in front of the fourth rib or a little below; vertically it
lies a little external to a line drawn down from the middle of
the clavicle; in the female it is not so constant. A little
below it the lower limit of the great pectoral muscle is seen
running upward and outward to the axilla; in the female this
is obscured by the breast, which extends from the second to
the sixth rib vertically and from the edge of the sternum
to the mid-axillary line laterally. The female nipple is
surrounded for half an inch by a more or less pigmented disc,
the areola. The apex of a normal heart is in the fifth left
intercostal space, three and a half inches from the mid-line.
The Abdomen.--In the mid-line a slight furrow extends
from the ensiform cartilage above to the symphysis pubis
below; this marks the linea alba in the abdominal wall, and
about its middle point is the umbilicus or navel. On each
side of it the broad recti muscles can be seen in muscular
people. The outline of these muscles is interrupted by
three or more transverse depressions indicating the lineae
transversae in the recti; there is usually one about the
ensiform cartilage, one at the umbilicus, and one between;
sometimes a fourth is present below the umbilicus. The upper
lateral limit of the abdomen is the subcostal margin formed
by the cartilages of the false ribs (8, 9, 10) joining one
another; the lower lateral limit is the anterior part of the
crest of the ilium and Poupart's ligament running from the
anterior superior spine of the ilium to the spine of the pubis
(see fig. 1, d); these lower limits are marked by definite
grooves. Just above the pubic spine is the external abdominal
ring, an opening in the muscular wall of the abdomen for
the spermatic cord to emerge in the male. The most modern
method of marking out the abdominal contents is to draw
three horizontal and two vertical lines; the highest of the
former is the transpyloric line of C. Addison (fig. 1, T.P.
), which is situated half-way between the suprasternal
notch and the top of the symphysis pubis; it often cuts the
pyloric opening of the stomach an inch to the right of the
mid-line. The hilum of each kidney is a little below it,
while its left end approximately touches the lower limit
of the spleen. It corresponds to the first lumbar vertebra
behind. The second line is the subcostal (fig. 1, S.C.),
drawn from the lowest point of the subcostal arch (tenth
rib); it corresponds to the upper part of the third lumbar
vertebra, and is an inch or so above the umbilicus; it indicates
roughly the transverse colon, the lower ends of the kidneys,
and the upper limit of the transverse (3rd) part of the
duodenum. The third line is called the intertubercular
(fig. 1, I.T.), and runs across between the two rough
tubercles, which can be felt on the outer lip of the crest
of the ilium about two and a half inches from the anterior
superior spine. This line corresponds to the body of the
fifth lumbar vertebra, and passes through or just above
the ileo-caecal valve where the small intestine joins the
large. The two vertical or mid-Poupart lines are drawn from
the point midway between the anterior superior spine and the
pubic symphysis on each side vertically upward to the costal
margin. The right one is the most valuable, as the ileo-caecal
valve is situated where it cuts the intertubercular line,
while the orifice of the vermiform appendix is an inch lower
down. At its upper part it meets the transpyloric line at
the lower margin of the ribs, usually the ninth, and here
the gallbladder is situated. The left mid-Poupart line
corresponds in its upper three-quarters to the inner edge of
the descending colon. The right subcostal margin corresponds
to the lower limit of the liver, while the right nipple is
about half an inch above the upper limit of this viscus.
The Back.--There is a well-marked furrow stretching all
the way down the middle line of the back from the external
occipital protuberance to the cleft of the buttocks. In this
the spinous processes of the vertebrae can be felt, especially
if the model bend forward. The cervical spines are difficult to
feel, except the seventh and sometimes the second, and although
the former is called the vertebra prominens, its spine is less
easily felt than is that of the first thoracic. In practice
it is not very easy to identify any one spine with certainty:
one method is to start from the prominent first thoracic and
to count down; another is to join the lower angles of the two
scapulae (fig. 2, g) when the arms are hanging down, and to
take the spine through which the line passes as the seventh.
The spinal furrow is caused by the prominence of the erector
spinae muscles on each side; these become less well marked
as they run upward. The outlines of the scapulae can be
well seen; they cover the ribs from the second to the seventh
inclusive. The scapular spine is quite subcutaneous, and can
be followed upward and outward from the level of the third
thoracic spine to the acromion, and so to the outer end of the
clavicle. On the lower margin of the acromion is a little
tubercle known as the metacromial process or acromial angle,
which is very useful for taking measurements from. The
tip of the twelfth rib may usually be felt about two inches
above the middle of the iliac crest, but this rib is very
variable in length. The highest point of the iliac crest
corresponds to the fourth lumbar spine, while the posterior
superior iliac spine is on a level with the second sacral
vertebra. This posterior superior spine is not easily felt,
owing to the ligaments attached to it, but there is usually a
little dimple in the skin over it (fig. 2, b) . By drawing
horizontal lines through the 1st, 3rd and 5th lumbar spines, the
transpyloric, subcostal and intertubercular lines or planes
may be reproduced behind and the same viscera localized.
The Arm.--Running downward and outward from the inner
half of the clavicle, where that bone is convex forward, is
the clavicular part of the pectoralis major, while from the
outer third of the bone, where it is concave forward, is the
clavicular part of the deltoid; between these two muscles is
an elongated triangular gap with its base at the clavicle,
and here the skin is somewhat depressed, while the cephalic
vein sinks between the two muscles to join the axillary
vein. The tip of the coracoid process is situated just under
cover of the inner edge of the deltoid, one inch below the
junction between the outer and middle thirds of the clavicle.
The deltoid muscle (fig. 1, b) forms the prominence of the
shoulder, and its convex outline is due to the presence of
the head of the humerus deep to it; when this is dislocated
the shoulder becomes flattened. The pectoralis major forms
the anterior fold of the axilla or armpit, the posterior being
formed by the latissimus dorsi and teres major muscles. The
skin of the . floor of this space is covered with hair in the
adult, and contains many large sweat glands. The axillary
vessels and brachial plexus of nerves lie in the outer wall,
while on the inner wall are the serrations of the serratus
magnus muscle, the outlines of some of which are seen on the
side of the thorax, through the skin, when the arm is raised
(fig. 1, a) . Below the edge of the pectoralis major, the
swelling of the biceps (fig. 1, g) begins to be visible,
and this can easily be traced into its tendon of insertion,
which reaches below the level of the elbow joint. On each side
of the biceps is the external and internal bicipital furrow,
in the latter of which the brachial artery may be felt and
compressed. The median nerve is here in close relation to the
artery. At the bend of the elbow the two condyles of the
humerus may be felt; the inner one projects beneath the
skin, but the outer one is obscured by the rounded outline
of the brachio-radialis muscle. The superficial veins at
the bend of the elbow are very conspicuous; they vary a good
deal, but the typical arrangement is an M, of which the radial
and ulnar veins form the uprights, while the outer oblique
bar is the median cephalic and the inner oblique the median
basilic vein. At the divergence of these two the median
vein comes up from the front of the forearm, while the two
vertical limbs are continued up the arm as the cephalic and
basilic, the former on the outer side, the latter on the
inner. On the back of the arm the three heads of the triceps
are distinguishable, the external forming a marked oblique
swelling when the forearm is forcibly extended and internally
rotated (fig. 2, d.) In the upper part of the front of
the forearm the antecubital fossa or triangle is seen;
its outer boundary is the brachio-radialis, its inner the
pronator radii teres, and where these two join below is the
apex. In this space are three vertical structures--externally
the tendon of the biceps, just internal to this the
brachial artery, and still more internally the median
nerve. Coming from the inner side of the biceps tendon the
semi-lunar fascia may be felt; it passes deep to the median
basilic vein and superficial to the brachial artery, and
in former days was a valuable protection to the artery when
unskilful operators were bleeding from the median basilic
vein. About the middle of the forearm the fleshy parts of
the superficial flexor muscles cease, and only the tendons
remain, so that the limb narrows rapidly. In front of the
wrist there is a superficial plexus of veins, while deep to
this two tendons can usually be made to start up if the wrist
be forcibly flexed; the outer of these is the flexor carpi
radialis, which is the physician's guide to the radial artery
where the pulse is felt. If the finger is slipped to the
outer side of this tendon, the artery, which here is very
superficial, can be felt beating. The inner of the two tendons
is the palmaris longus, though it is not always present. On
cutting down between these two the median nerve is reached.
The wrist joint may be marked out by feeling the styloid process
of the radius on the outer side, and the styloid process of the
ulna on the inner side behind, and joining these two by a line
convex upward. The superficial appearance of the palm of the
hand is described in the article on PALMISTRY; with regard
to anatomical landmarks the superficial palmar arterial arch
is situated in the line of the abducted thumb, while the deep
arch is an inch nearer the wrist. The digital nerves correspond
to lines drawn from the clefts of the fingers toward the
wrist. On the back of the forearm the olecranon process of
the ulna is quite subcutaneous, and during extension of the
elbow is in a line with the two condyles, while between it and
the inner condyle lies the ulnar nerve, here known popularly
as the ``funny bone.'' From the olecranon process the finger
may be run down the posterior border of the ulna, which
is subcutaneous as far as the styloid process at the lower
end. On the dorsum of the hand is a plexus of veins, deep
to which the extensor tendons are seen on extending the
fingers. When the thumb is extended, two tendons stand out
very prominently, and enclose a triangular space between them
which is sometimes known as the ``anatomical snuff box'';
the outer of these is the tendon of the extensor brevis,
the inner of the extensor longus pollicis. Situated deeply
in the space is the radial artery, covered by the radial
vein. On the dorsum of the hand there is a plexus of
veins, and deep to these the tendons of the extensor longus
digitorum stand out when the wrist and fingers are extended.
The Leg.--Just below Poupart's ligament (fig. 1, d), a
triangular depression with its apex downward may be seen in
muscular subjects; it corresponds to Scarpa's triangle, and
its inner border is the tendon of the adductor longus, which
is easily felt if the model forcibly adducts the thigh. In
this triangle the superficial inguinal glands may be made out.
The head of the femur lies just below the centre of Poupart's
ligament. The sartorius muscle forms the outer boundary of
the triangle, and may be traced from the anterior superior
spine obliquely downward and inward, across the front of the
thigh, to the inner side of the knee. The two vasti muscles
are well marked, the internal being the lower and forming with
the sartorius the rounded bulging above the inner side of the
knee. The internal saphenous vein runs superficially up the
inner side of the thigh from behind the internal condyle to
the femur to the saphenous opening in the deep fascia, the top
of which is an inch horizontally outward from the spine of the
pubis. On the other side of the thigh a groove runs down
which corresponds to the ilio-tibial hand, a thickening of
the fascia lata or deep fascia; the lower end of this leads to
the head of the fibula. On the front of the thigh, below the
sartorius, the rectus muscle makes a prominence which leads
down to the patella, the outlines of which bone are very
evident (fig. 1, e.) The only part of the femur besides
the great trochanter which is superficial is the lower end,
and this forms the two condyles for articulation with the
tibia. If the posterior part of the inner condyle be joined
to the mid-point between the anterior superior spine and the
symphysis pubis, when the thigh is externally rotated, the
line will correspond in its upper two-thirds to that of the
common and superficial femoral arteries, the former occupying
the upper inch and a half. The common femoral vein lies just
internal to its artery, while the anterior crural nerve is a
quarter of an inch external to the latter. The rounded mass
of the buttock is formed by the gluteus maximus muscle covered
by fat; the lower horizontal boundary is called the fold of the
nates, and does not correspond exactly to the lower edge of the
muscle. At the side of the buttock is a depression (fig. 2,
e) where the great trochanter of the femur can be felt; a
line, named after Nelaton, drawn from the anterior superior
spine to the tuberosity of the ischium, passes through the top of
this. On the back of the thigh the hamstrings form a distinct
swelling; below the middle these separate to enclose the
diamond-shaped popliteal space (fig. 2, z), the outer hamstrings
or biceps being specially evident, while, on the inner side,
the tendons of the semi-tendinosus and semi-membranosus can be
distinguished. The external popliteal nerve may be felt
just behind the biceps tendon above the head of the fibula.
On the front of the leg, below the knee, the ligamentum
patellae is evident, leading down from the patella (fig. 1,
e) to the tubercle of the tibia. From this point downward
the anterior border of the tibia or shin is subcutaneous, as is
also the internal surface of the tibia. Internal to the skin
is the fleshy mass made by the tibialis anticus and extensor
longus digitorum muscles. At the inner side of the ankle the
internal malleolus is subcutaneous, while on the outer side
the tip of the external malleolus is rather lower and farther
back. Both this malleolus and the lower quarter of the shaft
of the fibula are subcutaneous, and this area, if traced upward,
is continuous with a furrow on the outer side of the leg which
separates the anterior tibial from the peroneal groups of
muscles, and eventually leads to the subcutaneous head of the
fibula. At the back of the leg the two heads of the gastrocnemius
form the calf, the inner one (fig. 2, e) being larger than the
outer. Between the two, in the mid-line of the calf, the
external saphenous vein and nerve lie, while lower down they
pass behind the external malleolus to the outer side of the
foot. The internal saphenous vein and nerve lie just behind
the internal border of the tibia, and below pass in front
of the internal malleolus. At the level of the ankle-joint
the tibialis posticus and flexor longus digitorum tendons
lie just behind the internal malleolus, while the peroneus
longus and brevis are behind the external. Running down to
the heel is the tendo Achillis with the plantaris on its inner
side. On the dorsum of the foot the musculo-cutaneous nerve
may be seen through the skin in thin people when the toes are
depressed; it runs from the anterior peroneal furrow, already
described, to all the toes, except the cleft between the
two inner ones. There is also a venous arch to be seen, the
two extremities of which pass respectively into the external
and internal saphenous veins. The long axis of the great
toe, even in races unaccustomed to boots, runs forward and
outward, away from the mid-line between the two feet, so
that perfectly straight inner sides to boots are not really
anatomical. The second toe in classical statues is often
longer than the first, but this is seldom seen in Englishmen.
On the outer side of the sole the skin is often in contact
with the ground all along, but on the inner side the arch
is more marked, and, except in flat-footed people, there is
an area in which the sole does not touch the ground at all.
For further details of surface anatomy see Anatomy for Art
Students, by A. Thomson (Oxford, 1896); Harold Stiles's
article in Cunningham's Text-Book of Anatomy (Young J.
Pentland, 1902); G. Thane and R. Godlee's Appendix to
Quain's Anatomy (Longmans, Green & Co., 1896); Surface
Anatomy, by B. Windle and Manners Smith (H. K. Lewis, 1896);
Landmarks and Surface Markings of the Human Body, by
L. B. Rawling (H. K. Lewis, 1906); Surface Anatomy, by
T. G. Moorhead (Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, 1903). No one
interesred in the subject should omit to read an article
on ``Art in its relation to Anatomy,'' by W. Anderson,
British Medical Journal, 10th August 1895. (F. G. P.)
1 The article in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia,
dealing with the history of anatomy, and written by the late
Dr Craigie of Edinburgh, has gained such a just reputation
as the classical work on the subject in the English language
that it is substantially reproduced. Here and there points
of special or biographical interest are drawn attention to
in the shape of footnotes, but any reader interested in the
subject would do well to consult, with this article, the work
of R. R. von Toply, Studien zur Geschichte der Anatomie im
Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1898). In addition to this Professor
A. Macalister has published a series of articles, under
the head of ``Archaeologia Anatomica,'' in the Journal of
Anatomy and Physiology. These are written from a structural
rather than a biblioraphical point of view, and will be found
under the following headings: ``Atlas and Epistropheus,''
J. Anat. vol. xxxiii. p. 204; ``Veins of Forearm,'' vol.
xxxiii. p. 343; ``Poupart's Ligament,'' vol. xxxiii. p.
493; ``Tendo-Achillis,'' vol. xxxiii. p. 676; ``Parotid,''
vol. xxxv. p. 117; ``Trochanter,'' vol. xxxv. p. 269.
2The oldest anatomical treatise extant is an Egyptian papyrus
probably written sixteen centuries before our era. It shows
that the heart, vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, ureters and
bladder were recognized, and that the blood-vessels were known
to come from the heart. Other vessels are described, some
carrying air, some mucus, while two to the right ear are said to
carry the breath of life, and two to the left ear the breath of
death. See A. Macalister, ``Archaeologia Anatomica,'' J. Anat.
and Phys. vol. xxxii. p. 775. But see also the article OMEN.
3 An interesting article on the character and work of the
Maidstone surgeon, John Halle, by E. Barclay Smith, will
be found in the J. Anat. and Phys. vol. xxxiv. p. 275.
4 It has been pointed out by Dr J. F. Payne that Vicary's
work is merely an abridged copy of an unpublished English
anatomical treatise of the 14th century. The name of the
author is unknown, but internal evidence shows that he was
a London surgeon. The manuscript was written in English in
1392. See British Medical Journal, January 25, 1896.
5 The passage of Servetus is so interesting that our readers
may feel some curiosity in perusing it in the language of
the author; and it is not unimportant to remark that Servetus
appears to have been led to think of the course of the blood
by the desire of explaining the manner in which the animal
spirits were supposed to be generated:-- ``Vitalis spiritus
in sinistro cordis ventriculo suam originem habet, juvantibus
maxime pulmonibus ad ipsius perfectionem. Est spiritus tenuis,
caloris vi elaboratus, flavo colore, ignea potentia, ut sit quasi
ex puriore sanguine lucens, vapor substantiam continens aquae,
aeris, et ignis. Generatur ex facta in pulmone commixtione
inspirati aeris cum elaborato subtili sanguine, quem dexter
ventriculus sinistro communicat. Fit autem communicatio
haec, non per parietem cordis medium, ut vulgo creditur, sed
magno artificio a dextro cordis ventrioulo, longo per pulmones
ductu agitatur sanguis subtilis; a pulmonibus praeparatur,
flavus efficitur, et a vena arteriosa in arteriam venosam
transfunditur. Deinde in ipsa arteria venosa, inspirato aeri
miscetur et exspiratione a fuligine expurgatur; aique ita
tandem a sinistro cordis ventriculo totum mixtum per diastolen
attrahitur, apta supellex, ut fiat spiritus vitalis. Quod ita
per pulmones fiat communicatio et praeparatio, docet conjunctio
varia, et communicatio venae arteriosae cum arteria venosa in
pulmonibus. Confirmat hoc magnitudo insignis venae arteriosae,
quae nec talis nec tanta esset facta, nec tantam a corde ipso
vim purissimi sanguinis in pulmones emitteret, ob solum eorum
nutrimentum; nec cor pulmonibus hac ratione serviret, cum
praesertim antea in embryone solerent pulmones ipsi aliunde
nutriri, ob membranulas illas seu valvulas cordis, usque ad
horum nativitatem; ut docet Galenus, &c. Itaque ille spiritus
a sinistro cordis ventriculo arterias totius corporis deinde
transfunditur, ita ut qui tenuior est, superiora petit, ubi
magis elaboratur, praecipue in plexu retiformi, sub basi
cerebri sito, ubi ex vitali fieri incipit animalis, ad propriam
rationalis animae rationem accedens.''-- De Trinitate, lib. v.
6 Highmore was a physician practising at Sherborne all his life (1613-1685).
7 Glisson was for forty years professor of physic at Cambridge.
8 Wharton was a graduate both of Oxford and
Cambridge, and physician to St Thomas's Hospital.
9 Willis was Sedleian professor of natural philosophy
in Oxford in 1660. Later he practised in London.
10 Tyson was a graduate both of Oxford and Cambridge.
He was reader of anatomy at Surgeons' Hall, London.
11 Collins was an M. D. of Padua, Oxford and
Cambridge. He was physician in ordinary to Charles II.
12 Havers was a London physician, and died in 1702.
13 Robert Nesbitt (d. 1761) studied at
Leiden and practised as a physician in London.
14 Humphrey Ridley (1653-1708) was a London physician who studied at Leiden.
15 Bidloo was a Dutch anatomist and Cowper a London surgeon.
16 Hewson was a partner with William Hunter
in the Windmill Street School of Anatomy.
17 Cruikshank followed W. Hunter as lecturer at the Windmill Street school.
18 Scarpa was professor of anatomy at Modena and Pavia.
ANATTO (possibly a native American name, with many
variants such as annatto, arnotto), a colouring matter
produced from the seeds of Bixa orellana (natural order
Flacourtiaceae), a small tree which grows in Central and
South America. The seeds are surrounded with a thin coating
of a waxy pulp, which is separated from them by washing in
water, passing the liquid through a sieve and allowing the
suspended pulp to deposit. The water is then drained away
and the paste dried, till it is a thick, stiff, unctuous
mass. In this state it has a dark orange-red colour and is
known as ``roll'' or ``flag'' arnotto, according to the form
in which it is put up, but when further dried it is called
``cake'' arnotto. Arnotto is much used by South American
Indians for painting their bodies; among civilized communities
its principal use is for colouring butter, cheese and
varnishes. It yields a fugitive bright orange colour, and
is to some extent used alone, or in conjunction with other
dyes, in the dyeing of silks and in calico printing. It
contains a yellow colouring matter, bixin, C16H26O2.
ANAXAGORAS, Greek philosopher, was born probably about
the year 500 B.C. (Apollodorus ap. Diog. Laert. ii. 7.)
At his native town of Clazomenae in Asia Minor, he had, it
appears, some amount of property and prospects of political
influence, both of which he surrendered, from a fear that
they would hinder his search after knowledge. Nothing is
known of his teachers; there is no reason for the theory
that he studied under Hermotimus of Clazomenae, the ancient
miracle-worker. In early manhood (c. 464-462 B.C.) he
went to Athens, which was rapidly becoming the headquarters of
Greek culture. There he is said to have remained for thirty
years. Pericles learned to love and admire him and the poet
Euripides derived from him an enthusiasm for science and
humanity. Some authorities assert that even Socrates was
among his disciples. His influence was due partly to his
astronomical and mathematical eminence, but still more to the
ascetic dignity of his nature and his superiority to ordinary
weaknesses--traits which legend has embalmed. It was he
who brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry
from Ionia to Athens. His observations of the celestial
bodies led him to form new theories of the universal order,
and brought him into collision with the popular faith. He
attempted, not without success, to give a scientific account of
eclipses, meteors, rainbows and the sun, which he described
as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnesus;
the heavenly bodies were masses of stone torn from the earth
and ignited by rapid rotation. The ignorant polytheism of
the time could not tolerate such explanation, and the enemies
of Pericles used the superstitions of their countrymen
as a means of attacking him in the person of his friend.
Anaxagoras was arrested on a charge of contravening the
established dogmas of religion (some say the charge was one
of Medism), and it required all the eloquence of Pericles
to secure his acquittal. Even so he was forced to retire
from Athens to Lampsacus (434-433 B.C. ), where he died
about 428 B.C., honoured and respected by the whole city.
It is difficult to present the cosmical theory of Anaxagoras
in an intelligible scheme. All things have existed in
a sort of way from the beginning. But originally they
existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves,
endless in number and inextricably combined throughout the
universe. All things existed in this mass, but in a confused
and indistinguishable form. There were the seeds (spermata)
or miniatures of corn and flesh and gold in the primitive
mixture; but these parts, of like nature with their wholes
(the omoiomere of Aristotle), had to be eliminated from
the complex mass before they could receive a definite name and
character. The existing species of things having thus been
transferred, with all their specialities, to the prehistoric
stage, they were multiplied endlessly in number, by reducing
their size through continued subdivision; at the same time
each one thing is so indissolubly connected with every
other that the keenest analysis can never completely sever
them. The work of arrangement, the segregation of like
from unlike and the summation of the omoiomere into
totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason;
panta chremata en omou . eita nous elthon auta
diekosmese. This peculiar thing, called Mind (nous),
was no less illimitable than the chaotic mass, but, unlike
the Intelligence of Heraclitus (q.v.), it stood pure and
independent (mounos ef eoutou), a thing of finer
texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the
same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and
power, is especially seen ruling in all the forms of life.
Its first appearance, and the only manifestation of it which
Anaxagoras describes, is Motion. It originated a rotatory
movement in the mass (a movement far exceeding the most rapid
in the world as we know it), which, arising in one corner or
point, gradually extended till it gave distinctness and reality
to the aggregates of like parts. But even after it has done
its best, the original intermixture of things is not wholly
overcome. No one thing in the world is ever abruptly
separated, as by the blow of an axe, from the rest of things.
The name given to it signifies merely that in that congeries
of fragments the particular ``seed'' is preponderant. Every
a of this present universe is only a by a majority, and
is also in lesser number b, c, d. It is noteworthy that
Aristotle accuses Anaxagoras of failing to differentiate
between nous and psuche, while Socrates (Plato, Phaedo,
98 B) objects that his nous is merely a deus ex machina
to Which he refuses to attribute design and knowledge.
Anaxagoras proceeded to give some account of the stages in
the process from original chaos to present arrangements.
The division into cold mist and warm ether first broke the
spell of confusion. With increasing cold, the former gave
rise to water, earth and stones. The seeds of life which
continued floating in the air were carried down with the
rains and produced vegetation. Animals, including man,
sprang from the warm and moist clay. If these things be
so, then the evidence of the senses must be held in slight
esteem. We seem to see things coming into being and passing
from it; but reflection tells us that decease and growth
only mean a new aggregation (sugkrisis) and disruption
(diakrisis.) Thus Anaxagoras distrusted the senses, and
gave the preference to the conclusions of reflection. Thus he
maintained that there must be blackness as well as whiteness
in snow; how otherwise could it be turned into dark water?
Anaxagoras marks a turning-point in the history of philosophy.
With him speculation passed from the colonies of Greece to
settle at Athens. By the theory of minute constituents of
things, and his emphasis on mechanical processes in the
formation of order, he paved the way for the atomic theory.
By his enunciation of the order that comes from reason, on
the other hand, he suggested, though he seems not to have
stated explicitly, the theory that nature is the work of
design. The conception of reason in the world passed
from him to Aristotle, to whom it seemed the dawn of sober
thought after a night of disordered dreams. From Aristotle
it descended to his commentators, and under the influence
of Averroes became the engrossing topic of speculation.
AUTHORITIES.--The fragments of Anaxagoras have been collected
by E. Schaubach (Leipzig, 1827), and W. Schorn (Bonn, 1829);
see also F. W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta Philos. Graec. i.
243-252; A. Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece
(1898). For criticism see, T. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers (Eng.
trans., L. Magnus, 1901), bk. ii. chap. 4; E. Bersot, De
controversis quibusdam Anaxagorae doctrinis (Paris, 1844); E.
Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen (Eng. trans., S. F.
Alleyne, 2 vols., London, 1881); J. M. Robertson, Short
History of Freethought (London, 1906); W. Windelband,
History of Philosophy (Eng. trans., J. H. Tufts, 1893);
J. I. Beare, Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition
(1906); L. Parmentier, Euripide et Anaxagore (1892); F.
Lortzing, ``Bericht uber die griechischen Philosophen
vor Sokrates'' (for the years 1876-1897) in Bursian's
Jahresbericht uber die Fortschritte der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft, cxvi. (1904), with references
to important articles in periodicals. (W. W.; J. M. M.)
ANAXARCHUS (c. 340 B.C. a Greek philosopher of the
school of Democritus, was born at Abdera. He was the
companion and friend of Alexander in his Asiatic campaigns.
He checked the vainglory of Alexander, when he aspired to
the honours of divinity, by pointing to his wounded finger,
saying, ``See the blood of a mortal, not of a god.'' The story
that at Bactra in 327 B.C. in a public speech he advised
all to worship Alexander as a god even during his lifetime,
is with greater probability attributed to the Sicilian
Cleon. It is said that Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus, commanded
him to be pounded to death in a mortar, and that he endured
this torture with fortitude; but the story is doubtful,
having no earlier authority than Cicero. His philosophical
doctrines are not known, though some have inferred from the
epithet eudaimonikos (``fortunate''), usually applied
to him, that he held the end of life to be eudaimonia.
ANAXILAUS, of Larissa, a physician and Pythagorean philosopher,
who was banished from Rome by Augustus, B.C. 28, on the charge
of practising the magic art. This accusation appears to have
originated in his superior skill in natural philosophy, by
which he produced effects that the ignorant attributed to magic.
Euseb., Chron. ad Olymp. clxxxviii.; St Iren. i. 13;
Pliny xix. 4, xxv. 95, xxviii. 49, xxxii. 52, xxxv. 50.
ANAXIMANDER, the second of the physical philosophers of
Ionia, was a citizen of Miletus and a companion or pupil of
Thales. Little is known of his life. Aelian makes him the
leader of the Milesian colony to Amphipolis, and hence some
have inferred that he was a prominent citizen. The computations
of Apollodorus have fixed his birth in 611, and his death
shortly after 547 B.C. Tradition, probably correct in its
general estimate, represents him as a successful student of
astronomy and geography, and as one of the pioneers of exact
science among the Greeks. He taught, if he did not discover,
the obliquity of the ecliptic, is said to have introduced
into Greece the gnomon (for determining the solstices) and
the sundial, and to have invented some kind of geographical
map. But his reputation is due mainly to his work on nature,
few words of which remain. From these fragments we learn
that the beginning or first principle (arche, a word
which, it is said, he was the first to use) was an endless,
unlimited mass (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor
decay, and perpetually yielding fresh materials for the
series of beings which issued from it. He never defined
this principle precisely, and it has generally (e.g. by
Aristotle and Augustine) been understood as a sort of primal
chaos. It embraced everything, and directed the movement
of things, by which there grew up a host of shapes and
differences. Out of the vague and limitless body there
sprung a central mass,--this earth of ours, cylindrical in
shape, poised equidistant from surrounding orbs of fire,
which had originally clung to it like the bark round a
tree, until their continuity was severed, and they parted
into several wheel-shaped and fire-filled bubbles of
air. Man himself and the animals had come into being by like
transmutations. Mankind was supposed by Anaximander to
have sprung from some other species of animals, probably
aquatic. But as the measureless and endless had been the
prime cause of the motion into separate existences and
individual forms, so also, according to the just award of
destiny, these forms would at an appointed season suffer the
vengeance due to their earlier act of separation, and return
into the vague immensity whence they had issued. Thus the
world, and all definite existences contained in it, would lose
their independence and disappear in the ``indeterminate.''
The blazing orbs, which have drawn off from the cold earth and
water, are the temporary gods of the world, clustering round the
earth, which, to the ancient thinker, is the central figure.
See Histories of the Ionian School by Ritten, Mallet;
Schleiercher, ``Dissert. sur la philosophie d'Anaximandre,''
in the M.emoires de l'acad. des sciences de Berlin (1815);
J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (Lond. 1892);. A. W.
Benn, Greek Philosophers (Lond. 1883 foll.); A. Fairbanks,
First Philosophers of Greece (Lond. 1898); Ritter and
Preller, Historia Phil. sec. sec. 17-22; Mullach, Fragmenta
Phil. Graec. i. 237-240, and IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY.
ANAXIMENES, of Lampsacus (fl. 380-320 B.C.), Greek
rhetorician and historian, was a favourite of Alexander the
Great, whom he accompanied in his Persian campaigns. He
wrote histories of Greece and of Philip, and an epic on
Alexander (fragments in Muller, Scriptores Rerum Alexandri
Magni.) As a rhetorician, he was a determined opponent of
Isocrates and his school. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum,
usually included among the works of Aristotle, is now
generally admitted to be by Anaximenes, although some consider
it a much later production (edition by Spengel, 1847).
See P. Wendland, Anax. von Lampsakos (1905); also RHETORIC.
ANAXIMENES, of Miletus, Greek philosopher in the latter
half of the 6th century, was probably a younger contemporary
of Anaximander, whose pupil or friend he is said to have
been. He held that the air, with its variety of contents, its
universal presence, its vague associations in popular fancy
with the phenomena of life and growth, is the source of all that
exists. Everything is air at different degrees of density, and
under the influence of heat, which expands, and of cold, which
contracts its volume, it gives rise to the several phases of
existence. The process is gradual, and takes place in two
directions, as heat or cold predominates. In this way was
formed a broad disk of earth, floating on the circumambient air.
Similar condensations produced the sun and stars; and the flaming
state of these bodies is due to the velocity of their motions.
See Schmidt, Dissertatio de Anaximensis psychologia (Jena, 1869);
Ritter and Preller, Historia Phil. sec. sec. 23-27; A. Fairbanks,
First Philosophers of Greece (1898); Mullach, Fragmenta Phil.
Graec. i. 241-243; also IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY; EVOLUTION.
ANAZARBUS (med. Ain Zarba; mod. Navarza.) an ancient
Cilician city, situated in the Aleian plain about 10
m. W. of the main stream of the Pyramus (Jihun) and near its
tributary the Sempas Su. A lofty isolated ridge formed its
acropolis. Though some of the masonry in the ruins is
certainly pre-Roman, Suidas's identification of it with
Cyinda, famous as a treasure city in the wars of Eumenes of
Cardia, cannot be accepted in the face of Strabo's express
location of Cyinda in western Cilicia. Under the early
Roman empire the place was known as Caesarea, and was
the metropolis of Cilicia Secunda. Rebuilt by the emperor
Justin after an earthquake, it became Justinopolis (A.D.
525); but the old native name persisted, and when Thoros
I., king of Lesser Armenia, made it his capital early in the
12th century, it was known as Anazarva. Its great natural
strength and situation, not far from the mouth of the Sis
pass, and near the great road which debouched from the
Cilician gates, made Anazarbus play a considerable part in the
struggles between the Byzantine empire and the early Moslem
invaders. It had been rebuilt by Harun al-Rashid in 796
A.D., refortified at great expense by Saif addaula, the
Hamdanid (10th century) and Saiked, and ruined by the crusaders.
The present wall of the lower city is of late construction, probably
Armenian. It encloses a mass of ruins conspicuous in which
are a fine triumphal arch, the colonnades of two streets, a
gymnasium, &c. A stadium and a theatre lie outside on the south.
The remains of the acropolis fortifications are very interesting,
including roads and ditches hewn in the rock; but beyond ruins
of two churches and a fine tower built by Thoros I. there are
no notable structures in the upper town. For picturesqueness
the site is not equalled in Cilicia, and it is worth while to
trace the three fine aqueducts to their sources. (D. G. H.)
ANBAR, originally called FIRUZ SHAPUR, or PERISAPORA, a
town founded about A.D. 350 by Shapur (Sapor) II. Sassanid,
king of Persia, on the east bank of the Euphrates, just
south of the Nahr Isa, or Sakhlawieh canal, the northernmost
of the canals connecting that river with the Tigris, in
lat. 33 deg. 22' N., long. 43 deg. 49' E. It was captured and
destroyed by the emperor Julian in A.D. 363, but speedily
rebuilt. It became a refuge for the Christian and Jewish
colonies of that region, and there are said to have been
90,000 Jews in the place at the time of its capture by Ali
in 657. The Arabs changed the name of the town to Anbar
(``granaries''). Abu,l-'Abbas as-Saffah, the founder
of the Abbasid caliphate, made it his capital, and such it
remained until the founding of Bagdad in 762. It continued
to be a place of much importance throughout the Abbasid
period. It is now entirely deserted. The site is occupied
only by ruin mounds, as yet unexplored. Their great extent
indicates the former importance of the city. (J. P. PE.)
ANCACHS, a coast province of central Peru, lying between
the departments of Lima and Libertad, and W. of the Maranon
river. Area, 16,562 sq. m.; pop. (1896) 428,703. The department
was created in 1835, and received its present name in 1839,
and its last accession of territory in 1861. Lying partly on
the arid coast, partly in the high Cordilleras and partly in
the valley of the Maranon, it has every variety of climate and
productions. Rice, cotton, sugar-cane, yucas (Manihot aipi)
and tropical fruits are produced in the irrigated valleys of
the coast, and wheat, Indian corn, barley, potatoes, coffee,
coca, &c., in the upland regions. Cattle and sheep are also
raised for the coast markets. Mining is likewise an important
industry. The capital, Huaraz (est. pop. 8000 in 1896),
on the Rio Santa or Huaraz, is a large mining centre in the
sierras, 9931 ft. above sea-level, from which a railway
runs to the small seaports of Santa and Chimbote, 172 m.
distant. Other noteworthy towns are Caraz (6000) and Carhuaz
(5000) in the sierra region, and Huarmey (1500) on the coast.
ANCAEUS, in Greek legend, son of Zeus or Poseidon, king of
the Leleges of Samos. In the Argonautic expedition, after
the death of Tiphys, helmsman of the ``Argo,'' he took his
place. It is said that, while planting a vineyard, he was
told by a soothsayer that he would never drink of its wine.
As soon as the grapes were ripe, he squeezed the juice into a
cup, and, raising it to his lips, mocked the seer, who retorted
with the words, Polla metaxu pelei kulikos kai cheileos
akrou (``there is many a slip between the cup and the
lip''). At that moment it was announced that a wild boar
was ravaging the land. Ancaeus set down the cup, leaving
the wine untasted, hurried out, and was killed by the boar.
Apollonius Rhodius, i. 188 (and Scholiast), ii. 867-900.
ANCASTER AND KESTEVEN, DUKE OF, an English title borne by
the well-known Lincolnshire family of Bertie from 1715 to 1809.
ROBERT BERTIE (1660-1723), son and heir of Robert, third
earl of Lindsey (d. 1701), who succeeded his father as lord
great chamberlain of England, was created marquess of Lindsey
in 1706, being made duke of Ancaster and Kesteven in July
1715. His eldest surviving son, PEREGRINE (1686-1742),
who had been a member of parliament for Lincolnshire from
1708 to 1714, succeeded to the dukedom and also to the
lord-lieutenancy of Lincolnshire, which had been held by his
father. His son and successor, PEREGRINE (1714-1778),
who was also lord great chamberlain and lord-lieutenant of
Lincolnshire, attained the rank of general in the British
army. The fourth duke was ROBERT (1756-1779), son of the
third duke, who died in July 1779, when his barony of Willoughby
de Eresby and the hereditary office of lord great chamberlain
fell into abeyance until 1780. The dukedom, however, and
other honours came to his uncle BROWNLOW (1729-1809), on
whose death in February 1809 the dukedom of Ancaster and
Kesteven became extinct; but the earldom of Lindsey descended
to a distant kinsman, Albemarle Bertie (1744-1818). After a
second period of abeyance the barony of Willoughby de Eresby
was revived in 1871 in favour of Clementina Elizabeth (d.
1888), a descendant of the Berties, who was the widow of Gilbert
John Heathcote, 1st Baron Aveland (d. 1867). Her son and
successor, GILBERT HENRY HEATHCOTE-DRUMMOND-WILLOUGHBY (b.
1830), 23rd Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and joint hereditary
lord great chamberlain, was created earl of Ancaster in 1898.
ANCELOT, JACQUES ARSENE FRANCOIS POLYCARPE (1794-1854),
French dramatist and litterateur, was born at Havre,
on the 9th of February 1794. He became a clerk in the
admiralty, and retained his position until the revolution of
1830. In 1816 his play Warwick was accepted by the Theatre
Francais, but never produced, and three years later a five-act
tragedy, Louis IX., was staged. Three editions of the play
were speedily exhausted; it had a run of fifty representations,
and brought him a pension of 2000 francs from Louis XVIII.
His next work, Le Maire du palais, was played in 1825
with less success; but for it he received the cross of the
legion of honour. In 1824 he produced Fiesque, a clever
adaptation of Schiller's Fiesco. In 1828 appeared Olga, ou
l'orpheline russe, the plot of which had been inspired by a
voyage he made to Russia in 1826. About the same period he
produced in succession Marie de Brabant (1825), a poem
in six cantos; L'Homme du monde (1827), a novel in four
volumes, afterwards dramatized with success; and in 1829 a
play, Elisabeth d'Angleterre. By the revolution of July
1830 he lost at once his royal pension and his office as
librarian at Meudon; and he was chiefly employed during the
next ten years in writing vaudevilles and light dramas and
comedies. A tragedy, Maria Padilla (1838), gained him
admission to the French Academy in 1841. Ancelot was sent by
the French government in 1849 to Turin, Florence, Brussels and
other capitals, to negotiate on the subject of international
copyright; and the treaties which were concluded soon after were
the result, in a great measure, of his tact and intelligence.
ANCESTOR-WORSHIP, a general name for the cult of deceased
parents and forefathers. Aristotle in his Ethics stigmatizes
as ``extremely unloving'' (lian afilon) the denial that
ancestors are interested in or affected by the fortunes of
their descendants; and in effect ancestor-worship is the
staple of most religions, ancient or modern, civilized or
savage. The ancient Jews were a striking exception; for
though the frequent mention of ancestral graves on hilltops
or in caves, and in connexion with sacred trees and pillars,
and the resemblance of the ``elohim'' in Exod. xxi. 4-6 to
household gods, may suggest that cults of the dead preceded
that of Yahweh, nevertheless in the classical age of their
religion (see HEBREW RELIGION) as reflected in the Old
Testament, ancestor-worship has already vanished. ``The Semitic
nomads,'' remarks Renan in his History of Israel (tome 1,
p. 50), ``were the religious race par excellence, because
in fact they were the least superstitious of the families of
mankind, the least duped by the dream of a beyond, by the
phantasmagory of a double or a shadow surviving in the nether
regions. . . . They suppressed the chimeras which went with
belief in a complete survival after death, chimeras which
were homicidal at the time, in so far as they robbed man of
the true notion of death and led him to multiply murders.''
Renan here refers to the burial rite of an ancient Scythian
king (as described by Herodotus, iv. 71), at whose tomb were
strangled his concubine, cup-bearer, cook, groom, lackey,
envoy, and several of his horses. Such cruel customs were,
of course, and still are associated in many lands with the
cult of the dead; but, on the other hand, there are gentler
and more beneficial aspects observable to-day in China and
Japan. There the mighty dead are present with the living,
protect them and their houses and crops, are their strength
in battle, and teach their hands to war and their fingers to
fight. In the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-5 the greatest
incentive to deeds of patriotic valour was for Japanese
soldiers the belief that the spirits of their ancestors were
watching them; and in China it is not the man himself that is
ennobled for his philanthropic virtues or learning, but his
ancestor. No more solemn duty weighs upon the Chinaman than that
of tending the spirits of his dead forefathers. Confucius, it
is recorded, sacrificed to the dead, as if they were present,
and to the spirits, as if they were there. In view of such
Chinese sacrifices the names of the dead are inscribed on
wooden plaques called spirit-tablets, into which the spirits
are during the ceremony supposed to enter, having quitted
the very heaven and presence of God in order to commune with
posterity. Twice a year, in spring and autumn,1 a Chinese
ruler goes in state to the imperial college in Pekin, and
presents the appointed offerings before the spirit-tablets of
Confucius and of the worthies who have been associated with
him in his temples. He greets the sage's spirit with this
prayer:-- ``This year, in this month, on this day, I, the
emperor, offer sacrifice to the philosopher K'ung, the ancient
teacher, the perfect sage, and say, O teacher, in virtue equal
to heaven and earth. . . Now in this second month of spring,
in reverent observance of the old statutes, with victims,
silks, spirits, and fruits, I offer sacrifice to thee.''
In ancient Rome painted wax images of ancestors who had served
the state in its highest offices were preserved in the atria
or halls of their descendants, inscribed, like the Chinese
tablets, with titles recording their dignity and exploits.
Whether the departed spirits tenanted them according to the
Chinese belief is not recorded; though it probably was so, for
at funerals they might be carried, like the images of the gods
in Lectisternia (see IMAGE WORSHIP), on couches before the
corpse. Oftener, however, they were mere masques worn at
funerals by men who personated the ancestors and wore their
robes of office. Perhaps the vulgar regarded these men as
temporary reincarnations of those whom they thus represented.
The word Manes signified the friendly ancestral ghosts of a
Roman household. To them, under the name of Lares, it was
the solemn preoccupation of male descendants to offer food and
sacrifice and to keep alight the hearth fire which cooked the
offerings. Small waxen images of the Manes called Lares,
clothed in dogskin, and on feast days crowned with garlands,
stood round the family hearth of which they were the unseen
guardians (but see LARES.) To lack such care and tendance
was--along with want of regular burial--the most dreadful fate
that could overtake an ancient; and a Roman, like a Hindu, in
case he was childless, adopted a male child whose duty it would
be, as if his own son, to continue after his death the family
rites or sacra. On this side the ancestor-worship of the
Aryans has been productive of the most important institutions
of adoption and will or testament. Sir Henry Maine (Ancient
Law, ch. v.) has justly observed that ``the history of political
ideas begins with the assumption that kinship in blood is the
sole possible ground of community in political functions,''
and that in early commonwealths ``citizens considered all
the groups in which they claimed membership to be founded
on common lineage.'' A man only shared in house, tribe and
state, so far as he was descended from particular ancestors
and eponymous heroes, and due cult of these illustrious dead
was the condition of his enjoying any rights or inheriting
any property. Yet if society was to grow, men of alien
descent had to be admitted into the original brotherhood and
amalgamated therewith. ``Adverting to Rome singly,'' adds
the same author, ``we perceive that the primary group, the
family, was being constantly adulterated by the practice of
adoption.'' Thus transition was made possible from an agnatic
society based on blood ties to one based on contiguity.
In the worship of the Lares the head of a Roman household
commemorated and reinforced the blood tie which made one flesh
of all its members living and dead. The gens in turn was
regarded as an expansion of the family, as was the state of
the gens; and members of these larger units by worship of
common ancestors--usually mythical--kept alive the feeling
that they were a single organic whole animated by a common soul
and joined in consanguinity. Outcasts alone, the offspring
of irregular unions, could be ignorant of the blood which ran
in their veins, of the unseen ancestors to be fed and tended
in family and gentile rites.2 Such considerations help us
to understand the enormous importance attached in ancient
societies to the right of intermarriage, as also to grasp
the origin of wills and testaments. For a will was to begin
with but a mode of indicating (not necessarily in writing)
on whom devolved the duty of conducting a parent's funeral,
and together with that duty the right of inheriting his
property. The due performance of funeral rites re-created the
blood tie and renewed the kinship of living and dead at the
moment when death seemed specially to endanger it by removal
of that representative of the household whose special duty
it had been to keep up the family sacra. In Hindostan, as
Maine remarks (op. cit. ch. vi.), we have a parallel to the
Roman system; for there ``the right to inherit a dead man's
property is exactly co-extensive with the duty of performing his
obsequies. If the rites are not properly performed or not
performed by the proper person, no relation is considered as
established between the deceased and anybody surviving him;
the law of succession does not apply, and nobody can inherit
the property. Every great event in the life of a Hindu
seems to be regarded as leading up to and bearing on these
solemnities. If he marries, it is to have children who
may celebrate them after his death; if he has no children,
he lies under the strongest obligation to adopt them from
another family, `with a view,' writes the Hindu doctor, `to
the funeral cake, the water and the solemn sacrifice.'''
``May there be born in our lineage,'' so the Indian Manes are
supposed to say, ``a man to offer to us, on the thirteenth
day of the moon, rice boiled in milk, honey and ghee.''3
It is then in connexion with the history of inheritance and
adoption, and of the gradual evolution from societies held
together only by blood-kinship to societies consolidated
on other, bases, especially on that of local contiguity,
that ancestor-worship chiefly calls for investigation.
We must now pass on to other aspects of it less important for
the student of ancient law, but interesting to the folklorist.
In ancient Rome the Di manes, or as we should say the
blessed dead, who reposed in their necropolis outside the
walls, were specially commemorated on the dies parentales
or days of placating them (placandis Manibus.) These
began on the 13th of February and ended on the 22nd with the
Caristia or feast of Cara Cognatio. The family have on
the preceding days solemnly visited the grave, and offered
to the shades gifts of water, wine, milk, honey, oil, and
the blood of black victims; they have decked the tomb with
flowers, have renewed the feast and farewell of the funeral,
and have prayed to the ancestors to watch over their welfare.
Now the survivors return home and hold a love-feast, in which
all quarrels are healed, all trespasses forgiven. The Lares
are brought out to preside over this solemn feast, and for the
occasion are incincti or clothed in tunics girt at the loins.
It is doubtful whether we should dignify by the name of
ancestor-worship the older Roman festival of the Lemuria, which
was held on the 9th, 11th and 13th of May. For the lemures
were, like our unlaid ghosts, unburied, mischievous or inimical
spirits, and these three days were nefasti or unlucky,
because their malign influence was abroad. The ghosts had to
be driven out of the house, and Ovid (Fasti, v. 432) relates
how the head of the family arose at midnight, and with feet
unfettered by shoon or sandals, and with washen hands traversed
his house beckoning against the ghosts with fingers joined to
thumb. Nine times with averted glance he spat a black bean out
of his mouth and cried: ``With these I redeem me and mine.''
The ghosts followed and picked up, or perhaps entered into the
beans. Then he washed afresh, and rattled his brass vessels,
and nine times over bade them begone with the polite formula,
Manes exite paterni, ``Go forth, O paternal manes.''
The gesture described was probably the same as that with
which a Christian priest averts demonic influences from the
heads of his congregation in the act of blessing them. The
many hands of Zeus Sabazios turned up in ancient excavations
observe a similar gesture. All over the earth we meet with
such periodically recurrent ceremonies of expelling demons and
ghosts, who usually are given a meal before being hunted back
into their graves. But an account of such ceremonies belongs
rather to demonology than to the history of the worship of
Manes, which are peaceful, well-conducted and beneficent
beings, endowed and, so to speak on the foundation, like
the Christian souls for whose masses money has been left.
Ancestor-worship has its parallels in Christian cults of the
dead and of the saints; it must be remembered, however, that
a saint is not as a rule an ancestor, and that his cult is
not based upon family feeling and love of kinsmen, nor tends
to stimulate and encourage the same. Such cults have never
prevented those who participated in them from fighting one
another. Ancestor-worship on this side is also in strong
contrast with the teaching of the Gospel, for it is an
apotheosis of family affections and supplies a real cement
wherewith to bind society together; whereas the Christian
Messiah, taught that, ``If any cometh to me, and hateth not
his father and his mother, and his wife and his children,
and his brethren and his sister, yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple.'' To the ordinary good citizen of
antiquity, whose religion was the consecration of family
ties, such a precept was no less scandalous than it is to a
Chinaman or Hindu of to-day. Was not the duty of following
the Messiah to supersede even that of burying one's parents,
the most sacred of all ancient obligations? The Church when
it had once conquered the world allowed such precepts to
lapse and fall into the background, and no one save monks or
Manichaean heretics remembered them any more; indeed modern
divines affect to believe that marriage rites and family ties
were the peculiar concern of the Church from the very first;
and few moderns will fail to sympathize with the misgivings
of the barbarian chief who, having been converted and being
about to receive Christian baptism, paused as he stepped
down into the font, and asked the priests if in the heaven
to which their rites admitted him he would meet and converse
with his pagan ancestors. On being assured that he would not,
he stepped out again and declined their methods of salvation.
In the above paragraphs we have drawn examples only from
races organized on a patriarchal basis among whom the headship
passes from father to son. But many primitive societies do
not trace descent through males and yet may be said to worship
ancestors. The aborigines of Australia furnish an example.
The Aruntas among them are said to have no idea of paternity,
but believe that local spirits of tree, rock or stream enter
women as they pass by their haunts. In doing so they drop
a wooden soul-token called a Churinga. This the elders of
the tribe pick up or pretend to find, and carefully store
up in a cleft of the hills or in a cave which no woman may
approach. The souls of members of the tribe who have died
survive in these slips of wood, which are treasured up for long
generations and repaired if they decay. They are carried into
battle to assist the tribe, are regularly anointed, fondled
and invoked; for it is believed that the souls present in
them are powerful to work weal and woe to friend and enemy
respectively. They thus resemble the Chinese spirit tablet.
Reference has been made above to the possibility that the
Roman imago of an ancestor actually embodied his ghost,
at least on solemn occasions. The custom of providing a
material abode or nidus for the ghost is found all over
the earth; e.g. in New Ireland a carved chalk figure of the
deceased, indicating the sex, is procured, and entrusted
to the chief of a village, who sets it up in a funeral
hut in the middle of a large taboo house adorned with
plants. The survivors believe that the ghostly ogre, being
so well provided for, will abstain from haunting them.
The Romans, as we remarked above, distinguished between the
Lemures or wandering mischievous ghosts and the Manes snugly
interred and tended in the, cemetery which was part of every
Italian settlement. The distinction, however, is one for which
survivors alone are responsible and not one inherent in the
nature of ghosts. No race at all, it would seem, except the
Jews, has ever been able to regard a man's death as the end
of him; and except in the higher forms of Christianity the
dead are everywhere supposed to need the same sort of food,
equipment, tenement and gear which they enjoyed in life, and to
molest the living unless they obtain it. It may be affection,
or it may be fear, which prompts the survivor to feed and tend
his dead; in general no doubt it is a mixture of both feelings.
In Africa and other savage countries a third motive sometimes
operates, namely the desire to consult the dead--as Odysseus,
anxious about his return home, was constrained to do--or to use
them against the living; for negro magicians are reputed even
to murder remarkable individuals in order to possess themselves
of their power and to be able to use them as familiar spirits.
The question has often been raised, what is the relation of
private cults of ancestors to public religion? Do men after
death become gods? Euhemerus of Messenia tried of old to
rationalize the Greek myths by supposing that the Olympian
gods were deified men. Such a theory, like its modern rival
of the sun-myth, may of course be pushed till it becomes
absurd; yet in India critical observers, like Sir Alfred C.
Lyall, attest innumerable examples of the gradual elevation
into gods of human beings, the process even beginning in their
lifetime. There a man wins local fame as an ascetic with
abnormal powers, or a wife, because Alcestis-like she
sacrificed herself for her husband and immolated herself on his
pyre. Miracles occur at their shrines, and the surviving
relatives who guard them wax rich off the offerings brought.
``In the course of a very few years, as the recollection
of the man's personality becomes misty, his origin grows
mysterious, his career takes a legendary hue, his birth and
death were both supernatural; in the next generation the names
of the elder gods get introduced into the story, and so the
marvellous tradition works itself into a myth, until nothing
but a personal incarnation can account for such a series of
prodigies. The man was an Avatar of Vishnu or Siva; his
supreme apotheosis is now complete, and the Brahmins feel warranted
in providing for him a niche in the orthodox pantheon.''4
AUTHORITIES.--H. S. Maine, Ancient Law (London, 1906);
E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1903); and article
on the ``Matriarchal Family System,'' in the Nineteenth
Century, xl. 81 (1896); de Coulanges, La Cite antique
(17th ed., 1900); L. Andre, Le Culte des morts chez
les Hebreux (1895); C. Gruneisen, Der Ahnenkultus und
die Urreligion Israels (Halle, 1900); Grant Allen, The
Evolution of the Idea of God (London, 1897); F. B. Jevons,
Introduction to the History of Religion (London, 1896); Sir
A. C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies (London, 1899 and 1907); D. G.
Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples (New York, 1897); H.
Oldenberg, Die religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894). (F. C. C.)
1 Prof. J. Legge, in Religious Systems of the World, London, 1892, p. 72.
2 Livy iv. 2:--``Quam enim aliam vim connubia promiscua habere,
nisi ut ferarum prope ritu vulgentur concubitus plebis Patrumque?
ut qui natus sit, ignoret, cujus sanguinis, quorum sacrorum sit.''
3 E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. p. 119.
4 A. C. Lyall, Asiatic Studies (reprinted
by Watts and Co., London, 1907), p. 19.
ANCHISES, in Greek legend, Trojan hero, son of Capys and
Themis, grandson (according to Hyginus, son) of Assaracus,
connected on both sides with the royal family of Troy, was
king of Dardanus on Mt. Ida. Here Aphrodite met him and,
enamoured of his beauty, bore him Aeneas. For revealing the
name of the child's mother, in spite of the warnings of the
goddess, he was killed or struck blind by lightning (Hyginus,
Fab. 94). In the more recent legend, adopted by Virgil in
the Aeneid, he was conveyed out of Troy on the shoulders
of his son Aeneas, whose wanderings he followed as far as
Sicily, where he died and was buried on Mt. Eryx. On the other
hand, there was a grave on Mt. Ida at Troy pointed out as
his. From the name Assaracus, from the intercourse between
the Phoenicians and the early inhabitants of the Troad, and
from the connexion of Aphrodite, the protecting goddess of the
Phoenicians, with Anchises, it has been inferred that his family
was originally of Assyrian origin. His flight on the shoulders
of Aeneas is frequently represented on engraved gems of the
Roman period; and his visit from Aphrodite is rendered in a
beautiful bronze relief, engraved in Millingen's Unedited Gems.
ANCHOR (from the Greek agkura, which Vossius considers
is from ogke, a crook or hook), an instrument of iron
or other heavy material used for holding ships or boats in
any locality required, and preventing them from drifting by
winds, tides, currents or other causes. This is done by the
anchor, after it is let go from the ship by means of the cable,
fixing itself in the ground and there holding the vessel fast.
The word ``anchor'' is also used figuratively for anything which
gives security, or for any ornament or appendage which takes
the same form. Owing to a vessel's safety depending upon the
anchor, it is obviously an appliance of great importance, and
too much care cannot be expended on its manufacture and proper
construction. The most ancient anchors consisted of large
stones, baskets full of stones, sacks filled with sand, or
logs of wood loaded with lead. Of this kind were the anchors
of the ancient Greeks, which, according to Apollonius Rhodius
and Stephen of Byzantium, were formed of stone; and Athenaeus
states that they were sometimes made of wood. Such anchors
held the vessel merely by their weight and by the friction
along the bottom. Iron was afterwards introduced for the
construction of anchors, and an improvement was made by
forming them with teeth or ``flukes'' to fasten themselves
into the bottom; whence the words odontes and dentes
are frequently taken for anchors in the Greek and Latin
poets. The invention of the teeth is ascribed by Pliny to
the Tuscans; but Pausanias gives the credit to Midas, king of
Phrygia. Originally there was only one fluke or tooth, whence
anchors were called eterostomoi; but a second was added,
according to Pliny, by Eupalamus, or, according to Strabo,
by Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher. The anchors with
two teeth were called amfiboloi or amfistomoi, and
from ancient monuments appear to have resembled generally
those used in modern days, except that the stock is absent
from them all. Every ship had several anchors; the largest,
FIG. 1.--Rodger's Anchor. FIG. 2.--lmproved Martin Anchor.
corresponding to our sheet anchor, was only used in extreme danger,
and was hence peculiarly termed iera or sacra, whence the
proverb sacram anchoram solvere, as flying to the last refuge.
Until the beginning of the 19th century anchors were of
imperfect manufacture, the means of effecting good and efficient
welding being absent and the iron poor, whilst the arms,
being straight, generally parted at the crown, when weighing
from good holding-ground. A clerk in Plymouth Yard, named
Pering, in the early part of that century (1813) introduced
curved arms; and after 1852 the Admiralty anchor, under the
direction of the Board, was supplied to H.M. ships, followed
by Lieutenant (afterwards Captain) Rodger's anchor (fig.
1). This marked a great departure from the form of previous
anchors. The arms, de, df were formed in one piece, and were
pivoted at the crown d on a bolt passing through the forked
shank ab. The points or pees e, f, to the palms g were
blunt. This anchor had an excellent reputation amongst
nautical men of that period, and by the committee on anchors,
appointed by the admiralty in 1852, it was placed second
only to the anchor of Trotman. Later came the self-canting
anchor, which, passing through successive improvements,
became the improved Martin anchor (fig. 2) made of forged
iron. A projection in the centre of the arms works in a recess
at the hub of the shank: the vacancies outside the shank are
filled by blocks bolted through on each side, and are flush
with the side plates, which keep the flukes in position.
FIG. 3.--Improved Martin-Adelphi Anchor.
The introduction of cast steel in 1894 led to the improved
Martin-Adelphi pattern (fig. 3), in which the crown and arms
are cast in one, and, with the stock, are made of cast steel,
the shank remaining of forged iron. A projection in the crown
works in a recess (right, fig. 3), and is secured in its place
by a forged steel pin, fitted with a nut and washer, which
passes through the crown and the heel of the shank. All the
above anchors were provided with a stock (fig. 1, hk), the
use of which is to ``cant'' the anchor. If it falls on the
ground, resting on one arm and one stock, when a strain is
brought on the cable, the stock cants the anchor, causing the
arms to lie at a downward angle to the holding ground; and the
pees enter and bury themselves below the surface of the soil.
To stow a stocked anchor on the forecastle, it is hove up close
to the forefoot, and by means of a ground chain (secured to a
balancing or gravity band on the anchor), which is joined to a
catting chain rove through a cat davit, the anchor is hove up
FIG. 4.--Anchor Crane.
horizontally and placed on its bed, where it is secured by
chains passing over a rod fitted with a lever for ``letting
go.'' The cat davit is hinged at its base, and can be laid flat
on the deck for right ahead fire or when at sea. Ground and
catting chains have been superseded in some ships by a wire
pendant and cat hook; the anchor is then hove close up to the
hawse-pipe. To avoid cutting away a portion of the forecastle,
in the ``Cressy,'' ``Terrible'' and ``Diadem'' classes of
the British navy, the anchors, secured by chains, are stowed
a-cock-bill, outside the ship, with their crowns resting on
iron shoes secured to the ship's side and the flukes fore and
aft. A difficulty is experienced in stowing the anchors when
the ship is pitching or rolling heavily. Fig. 4 illustrates
an anchor with cat davit or anchor crane used in the P.
and O. Company's steamers (``India'' class, 8000 tons);
for sea the anchor is stowed on board by the anchor crane.
Stockless anchors have been extensively used in the British
mercantile marine and in some foreign navies. In 1903 they
FIG. 5.--Hall's Improved FIG. 6.--W. L.
Byer's Stockless Anchor. Stockless Anchor.
were adopted generally for the British navy, after extensive
anchor trials, begun in 1885. Their advantages are:--handiness
combined with a saving of time and labour; absence of davits,
anchor-beds and other gear, with a resulting reduction in
weight; and a clear forecastle for ``right ahead'' gun fire
or for working ship. On the other hand a larger hawse-pipe is
required, and there appears to be a consensus of opinion that
a stockless anchor when ``let go'' does not hold so quickly
as a stocked one, is more uncertain in its action over uneven
ground, and is more liable to ``come home,' (drag). The
stockless anchors principally in use in the British navy are
Hall's improved, Byer's, and Wasteneys Smith's. In Hall's
improved (fig. 5) the arms and crown of cast steel are in one
piece, and the shank of forged steel passes up through an
aperture in the crown to which it is secured by two cross
bolts. Two trunnions or lugs are forged to the lower end of the
shank. In Byer's plan (fig. 6) the flukes and crown consist
of a steel-casting secured to a forged shank by a through bolt
of mild steel, the axis of which is parallel to the points
of the flukes; one end of the bolt has a head, but the other
is screwed and fitted with a phosphor bronze nut to allow the
bolt to be withdrawn for examination. A palm is cast on each
side of the crown to trip the flukes when the anchor is on the
ground, and for bringing them snug against the ship's side when
weighing. Wasteneys Smith's anchor (fig. 7) is composed of
Fig. 7.--Wasteneys Smith's Stockless anchor.
three main parts, the shank and crown which form one forging,
and the two flukes or arms which are separate castings. A bolt
passes through the crown of the anchor, connecting the flukes
to it; to prevent the flukes working off the connecting through
bolt, two smaller bolts pass through the flukes at right angles
to the through bolt and are recessed half their diameter into it.
Fig. 8 represents the starboard bow of H.M.S. ``New Zealand''
FIG. 8.--Starboard Bow of H.M.S. ``New Zealand.''
(16,350 tons) with lower and sheet (spare) anchors stowed.
To let go a stockless anchor (fig. 9) the cable or capstan
holder C is unscrewed, and in practice it is found desirable
to knock off the bottle screw-slip A, allowing the weight
of the anchor to be taken by the inner slip A' (Blake's
stopper). Stern, stream and kedge anchors are usually
stowed with special davits. A portable anchor suitable for
small yachts is the invention of Mr Louis Moore; the shank
passes through the crown of the anchor like the handle of
a pickaxe and the stock over the head of the shank. At
the end of the stock are loose pawls. There are no keys or
bolts, and the only fastening is for the cable. The anchor
takes to pieces readily and stows snugly. In 1890 Colonel
Bucknill also invented a portable anchor for small yachts.
Iron buoy-sinkers (fig. 10), as used by the London Trinity
House Corporation, weigh from 8 to 40 cwt.; the specified
weight is cast on them in large raised figures, and the
cast and wrought irons used are of special quality, of which
samples are previously submitted to the engineer-in-chief.
The anchors supplied to ships of the British navy are reqaired
FIG. 9.--Forecastle of H.M.S. ``New Zealand.,' A.
Bottle or screw-slip. B. Deck or navel pices. A'. Slip
or Blake's stopper. F. Fairleads for wire hawsers. D.
Bitts. H. Hawse-pipes. C. Cable or Capstan-holders. S.
Stopoer-bolts. C'. Centre line capstan. R. Rollers.
to withstand a certain tensile strain, expressed in tons,
proportionate to their weights in cwts. New anchors are
supplied by contractors, but repairs are made in H.M. dockyards,
a record of its repairs being stamped on each anchor. In
the Anchors and Cables Act 1899 a list is given of authorized
testing-establishments, with their distinctive marks and
charges, and testing- houses for foreign-owned vessels are
Fig. 10.--Iron Buoy- Sinker.
enumerated in Table 22 of Lloyd's Register of British and
Foreign Shipping. Cast-steel anchors, in addition to the
statutory tests, are subjected to percussive, hammering and
bending tests, and are stamped ``annealed steel.'' (J. W. D.)
ANCHOVY (Engraulis encrasicholus), a fish of the herring
family, easily distinguished by its deeply-cleft mouth,
the angle of the gape being behind the eyes. The pointed
snout extends beyond the lower jaw. The fish resembles a
sprat in having a forked tail and a single dorsal fin, but
the body is round and slender. The maximum length is 8 1/8
in. Anchovies are abundant in the Mediterranean, and are
regularly caught on the coasts of Sicily, Italy, France and
Spain. The range of the species also extends along the
Atlantic coast of Europe to the south of Norway. In winter
it is common off Devon and Cornwall, but has not hitherto been
caught in such numbers as to be of commercial importance. Off
the coast of Holland in summer it is more plentiful, entering
the Zuider Zee in such numbers as to give rise to a regular
and valuable fishery. It is also taken in the estuary of the
Scheldt. There is reason to believe that the anchovies found
at the western end of the English Channel in November and
December are those which annually migrate from the Zuider
Zee and Scheldt in autumn, returning thither in the following
spring; they must be held to form an isolated stock, for
none come up from the south in summer to occupy the English
Channel, though the species is resident on the coast of
Portugal. The explanation appears to be that the shallow
and landlocked waters of the Zuider Zee, as well as the sea
on the Dutch coast, become raised to a higher temperature
in summer than any part of the sea about the British coasts,
and that therefore anchovies are able to spawn and maintain
their numbers in these waters. Their reproduction and
development were first described by a Dutch naturalist from
observations made on the shores of the Zuider Zee. Spawning
takes place in June and July, and the eggs, like those of
the majority of marine fishes, are buoyant and transparent,
but they are peculiar in having an elongated, sausage-like
shape, instead of being globular. They resemble those of
the sprat and pilchard in having a segmented yolk and there
is no oil globule. The larva is batched two or three days
after the fertilization of the egg, and is very minute and
transparent. In August young specimens 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 in. in
length have been taken in the Zuider Zee, and these must be
held to have been derived from the spawning of the previous
summer. There is no evidence to decide the question whether
all the young anchovies as well as the adults leave the Zuider
Zee in autumn, but, considering the winter temperature there,
it is probable that they do. The eggs have also been obtained
from the Bay of Naples, and near Marseilles, also off the coast
of Holland, and once at least off the coast of Lancashire.
The occurrence of anchovies in the English Channel has been
carefully studied at the laboratory of the Marine Biological
Association at Plymouth. They were most abundant in 1889 and
1890. In the former year considerable numbers were taken
off Dover in drift nets of small mesh used for the capture of
sprats. In the following December large numbers were taken
together with sprats at Torquay. In November 1890 a thousand
of the fish were obtained in two days from the pilchard boats
fishing near Plymouth; these were caught near the Eddystone.
When taken in British waters anchovies are either thrown away
or sent to the market fresh with the sprats. If salted in
the proper way, they would doubtless be in all respects equal
to Dutch anchovies, if not to those imported from Italy. The
supply, however, is small and inconstant, and for this reason
English fish-curers have not learnt the proper way of preparing
them. The so-called ``Norwegian anchovies'' imported into
England in little wooden kegs are nothing but sprats pickled
in brine with bay-leaves and whole pepper. (J. T. C.)
ANCIEN REGIME, THE, a French phrase commonly used, even
by English writers, to denote the social and political system
established in France under the old monarchy, which was swept
away by the Revolution of 1789. The phrase is generally
applicable only to France, for in no other country, with perhaps
the exception of Japan, has there been in modern times so
clearly marked a division between ``the old order'' and the new.
ANCIENT (also spelt ANTIENT; derived, through the Fr.
ancien, old, from the late Lat. anitianum, from ante,
before), old or in olden times. ``Ancient history'' is
distinguished from medieval and modern, generally as meaning
before the fall of the western Roman empire. In English legal
history, ``ancient'' tenure or demesne refers to what was
crown property in the time of Edward the Confessor or William
the Conqueror. ``The Ancient of days'' is a Biblical phrase
for God. In the London Inns of Court the senior barristers
used to be called ``ancients.'' From the 16th to the 18th
century the word was also used, by confusion with ``ensign,''
i.e; flag or standard-bearer, for that military title, as
in the case of Shakespeare's ``ancient Pistol''; but this
use has nothing to do with ``ancient'' meaning ``old.''
ANCIENT LIGHTS, a phrase in English law for a negative
easement (q.v.) consisting in the right to prevent the
owner or occupier of an adjoining tenement from building
or placing on his own land anything which has the effect of
illegally obstructing or obscuring the light of the dominant
tenement. At common law a person, who opens a window in his
house, has a natural right to receive the flow of light
that passes through it. But his neighbour is not debarred
thereby from building on his own land even though the
effect of his action is to obstruct the flow of light thus
obtained. Where, however, a window had been opened for so
long a time as to constitute immemorial usage in law, the
light became an ``ancient light'' which the law protected from
disturbance. The Prescription Act 1832 created a statutory
prescription for light. It provided (s. 3) that ``when the
access and use of light to and for'' (any building) ``shall
have been actually enjoyed therewith for the full period of
20 years without interruption, the right thereto shall be
deemed absolute and indefeasible, any local usage or custom
to the contrary notwithstanding, unless it shall appear that
the same was enjoyed by some consent or agreement, expressly
made or given for that purpose by deed or writing.'' The
statute does not create an absolute or indefeasible right
immediately on the expiration of twenty years. Unless and
until the dominant owner's claim is brought into question
(s.4) no absolute or indefeasible title can arise under the
act. The dominant owner has only an inchoate right to avail
himself under the act of the twenty years' uninterrupted
enjoyment, if his claim is brought into question. But in the
meantime, however long the enjoyment may have been, his right
is just the same, and the origin of his right is just the
same as if the act had never been passed. These principles
were laid down in 1904 by the House of Lords in the leading
case of Colls v. Home & Colonial Stores Ltd. (1904 A.C.
179). They overrule an earlier view propounded by Lord
Westbury in 1865 (Tapling v. Jones, 11 H.L.C. 290) that the
Prescription Act 1832 had abrogated the common law prescription
as to light, that the right to ``ancient lights'' now depends
upon positive enactment alone, and does not require, and
ought not to be rested on, any fiction of a ``lost grant''
(see EASEMENT.) There has been much difference of judicial
opinion as to what constitutes an actionable interference
with ``ancient lights.'' On the one hand, the test has
been prescribed that if an angle of 45 deg. --uninterrupted sky
light--was left, the easement was not interfered with, and,
while this is not a rule of law, it is a good rough working
criterion. On the other hand, it was held in effect by the
Court of Appeal in the case of Colls v. Home & Colonial
Stores Ltd. (1902; 1 Ch. 302) that to constitute an actionable
obstruction of ancient lights it was sufficient if the light
was sensibly less than it was before. The House of Lords,
however, in the same case (1904 A. C. 179) overruled this
view, and held that there must be a substantial privation
of light enough to render the occupation of the house or
building uncomfortable according to the ordinary notions of
mankind and (in the case of business premises) to prevent the
plaintiff from carrying on his business as beneficially as
before. See also Kine v. Jolly (1905; 1 Ch. 480).
There is, in Scots law, no special doctrine as to ``ancient
lights.'' The servitude of light in Scotland is simply the
Roman servitude non officiendi luminibus vel prospectui (see
EASEMENT and ROMAN LAW). The same observation applies
to the Code Civil and other European Codes based on it. The
doctrine as to ancient lights does not prevail generally in
the United States (consult Rulinig Cases, under ``Air'').
ANCILLARY (from the Lat. anicilla, a handmaid), an
adjective meaning ``subordinate to'' or ``merely helping,''
as opposed to ``essential.'' By Thackeray and some other
writers it is also employed rather affectedly in its
primary meaning of ``pertaining to a maid-servant.''
ANCILLON, CHARLES (1659--1715), one of a distinguished family
of French Protestants, was born on the 28th of July 1659, at
Metz. His father, David Ancillon (1617-1692), was obliged
to leave France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes,
and became pastor of the French Protestant community in
Berlin. Charles Ancillon studied law at Marburg, Geneva, and
Paris, where he was called to the bar. At the request of the
Huguenots at Metz, he pleaded its cause at the court of Louis
XIV., urging that it should be excepted in the revocation of
the edict of Nantes, but his efforts were unsuccessful, and
he joined his father in Berlin. He was at once appointed
by the elector Frederick ``juge et directeur de colonic
de Berlin.'' He had before this published several works on
the revocation of the edict of Nantes and its consequences,
but his literary capacity was mediocre, his style stiff and
cold, and it was his personal character rather than his
reputation as a writer that earned him the confidence of the
elector. In 1687 he was appointed head of the so-called
Academie des nobles, the principal educational establishment
of the state; later on, as councillor of embassy, he took
part in the negotiations which led to the assumption of
the title of king by the elector. In 1699 he succeeded
Pufendorf as historiographer to the elector, and the same
year replaced his uncle Joseph Ancillon as judge of all the
French refugees in Brandenburg. He died on the 5th of July
1715. Ancillon's chief claim to remembrance is the work
that he did for education in Prussia, and the share he took,
in co-operation with Leibnitz, in founding the Academy of
Berlin. Of his fairly numerous works the only one still
of value is the Histoire de l'etablissement des Francais
refugies dans les etats de Brandebourg (Berlin, 1690).
ANCILLON, JOHANN PETER FRIEDRICH (1766-1837), Prussian
historian and statesman, great-grandson of Charles Ancillon,
was born at Berlin on the 30th of April 1766. He studied
theology at Geneva, and after finishing his course was
appointed minister to the French community at Berlin.
At the same time his reputation as a historical scholar
secured him the post of professor of history at the military
academy. In 1793 he visited Switzerland, and in 1796 France,
and published the impressions gathered during his travels
in a series of articles which he afterwards collected under
the title of Melanges de litterature et de philosophie
(1801). Ancillon took rank among the most famous historians
of his day by his next work, Tableau des revolutions
du systeme politique de l'Europe depuis le XVe siecle
(1803, 4 vols.; new ed., 1824), which gained him the eulogium
of the Institute of France, and admission to the Academy of
Berlin. It was the first attempt to recognize psychological
factors in historical movements, but otherwise its importance was
exaggerated. Its ``sugary optimism, unctuous phraseology and
pulpit logic'' appealed, however, to the reviving pietism of
the age succeeding the Revolution, and these qualities, as well
as his eloquence as a preacher, early brought Ancillon into
notice at court. In 1808 he was appointed tutor to the royal
princes, in 1809 councillor of state in the department of
religion, and in 1810 tutor of the crown prince (afterwards
Frederick William IV.), on whose sensitive and dreamy
nature he was to exercise a powerful but far from wholesome
influence. In October 1814, when his pupil came of age, Ancillon
was included by Prince Hardenberg in the ministry, as privy
councillor of legation in the department of foreign affairs,
with a view to utilizing his supposed gifts as a philosophical
historian in the preparation of the projected Prussian
constitution. But Ancillon's reputed liberalism was of too
invertebrate a type to survive the trial of actual contact with
affairs. The practical difficulty of the constitutional problem
gave the ``court parson''--as Gneisenau had contemptuously
called him--excuse enough for a change of front which,
incidentally, would please his exalted patrons. He covered
his defection from Hardenberg's liberal constitutionalism
by a series of ``philosophical'' treatises on the nature of
the state and of man, and became the soul of the reactionary
movement at the Berlin court, and the faithful henchman of
Metternich in the general politics of Germany and of Europe.
In 1817 Ancillon became a councillor of state, and in 1818
director of the political section of the ministry for foreign
affairs under Count Bernstorff. In his chief's most important
work, the establishment of the Prussian Zollverein, Ancillon
had no share, while the entirely subordinate role played
by Prussia in Europe during this period, together with the
personal part taken by the sovereign in the various congresses,
gave him little scope for the display of any diplomatic
talents he may have possessed. During this time he found
plentiful leisure to write a series of works on political
philosophy, such as the Nouveaux essais de politique et
de philosophie (Paris, 1824). In May 1831 he was made an
active privy councillor, was appointed chief of the department
for the principality of Neuchatel, in July became secretary
of state for foreign affairs, and in the spring of 1832, on
Bernstorff's retirement, succeeded him as head of the ministry.
By the German public, to whom Ancillon was known only through
his earlier writings and some isolated protests against the
``demagogue-hunting'' in fashion at Berlin, his advent to
power was hailed as a triumph of liberalism. They were soon
undeceived. Ancillon had convinced himself that the rigid class
distinctions of the Prussian system were the philosophically
ideal basis of the state, and that representation ``by estates''
was the only sound constitutional principle; his last and indeed
only act of importance as minister was his collaboration with
Metternich in the Vienna Final Act of the 12th of June 1834,
the object of which was to rivet this system upon Germany for
ever. He died on the 19th of April 1837, the last of his
family. His historical importance lies neither in his
writings nor in his political activity, but in his personal
influence at the Prussian court, and especially in its
lasting effect on the character of Frederick William IV.
See C. A. L. P. Varnhagen von Ense, Blatter aus der
preussischen Geschichte, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1868-1869);
ib. Tagebucher, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1861); H. O. Treitschke,
Deutsche Geschichte (Leipzig, 1879-1894), and essay
on Ancillon in Preussiche Jahrbucher for April 1872;
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, s.v. (Leipzig, 1875).
ANCON, a small village and bathing-place on the coast
of Peru, 22 m. N. of Lima by rail. The bay is formed
by two projecting headlands and is one of the best on the
coast. It has a gently sloping beach of fine sand and has
been a popular bathing-place since the time of President
Balta, although the country behind it is arid and absolutely
barren. At some time previous to the discovery of America,
Ancon had a large aboriginal population. Traces of
terraces on the southern headland can still be seen, and the
sand-covered hills and slopes overlooking the bay contain
extensive burial-grounds which were systematically explored
in 1875 by Messrs W. Reiss and A. Stubel (see Reiss and
Stubel's The Necropolis of Anicon in Peru, translated by
A. H. Keane, 3 vols., Berlin, 1880-1887). In modern times
Ancon has been the scene of several important historical
events. Its anchorage was used by Lord Cochrane in 1820
during his attacks on Callao; it was the landing-place of
an invading Chilean army in 1838; it was bombarded by the
Chileans in 1880; and in 1883 it was the meeting-place
of the Chilean and Peruvian commissioners who drew up the
treaty of Ancon, which ended the war between Chile and Peru.
ANCON (from the Gr. agkon), the anatomical name for
``elbow''; ``ancones'' in architecture are the projecting
bosses left on stone blocks or on drums of columns, to allow
of their being either hoisted aloft or rubbed backwards and
forwards to obtain a fine joint; the term is also given by
Vitruvius to the trusses or console brackets on each side
of the doorway of a Greek or Roman building which support
the cornice over the same. A particular sort of sheep,
with short crooked forelegs, is called ``ancon'' sheep.
ANCONA, ALESSANDRO (1835- ), Italian critic and man of
letters, was born at Pisa on the 20th of February 1835, of
a wealthy Jewish family, and educated in Florence; at the
age of eighteen he published his essay on the life and work
of the philosopher Tommaso Campanella. In 1855 Ancona went
to Turin, nominally to study law, but in reality to act as
intermediary between the Tuscan Liberals and Cavour; he was an
intimate friend of Luigi Carlo Farini (q.v.) and represented
Tuscany in the Societa Nazionale. On the fall of the Austrian
dynasty in Tuscany (April 27, 1859) he returned to Florence,
where he edited the newly founded newspaper La Nazionie.
In 1861 he was appointed professor of Italian literature at
the university of Pisa. Among his works the following may
be mentioned: Operadi Tommaso Campanella, 2 vols. (Turin,
1854); Sacre Rappresentazioni dei secoli XIV., XV., e XVI.
(3 vols., Florence, 1872); Origini del Teatro in Italia (2
vols., Florence, 1877); La Poesia popolare italiana (Livorno,
1878), besides several volumes of literary essays, editions
of the works of Dante and other early Italian writers, &c.
ANCONA, a seaport and episcopal see of the Marches, Italy,
capital of the province of Ancona, situated on the N.E. coast of
Italy, 185 m. N.E. of Rome by rail and 132 m. direct, and 127
m. S.E. of Bologna. Pop. (1901) 56,835. The town is finely
situated on and between the slopes of the two extremities
of the promontory of Monte Conero, Monte Astagno to the S.,
occupied by the citadel, and Monte Guasco to the N., on which
the cathedral stands (300 ft.). The latter, dedicated to S.
Ciriaco, is said to occupy the site of a temple of Venus, who
is mentioned by Catullus and Juvenal as the tutelary deity
of the place. It was consecrated in 1128 and completed in
1189. Some writers suppose that the original church was in
the form of a Latin cross and belonged to the 8th century.
An early restoration was completed in 1234. It is a fine
Romanesque building in grey stone, built in the form of a Greek
cross, with a dodecagonal dome over the centre slightly altered
by Margaritone d' Arezzo in 1270. The facade has a Gothic
portal, ascribed to Giorgio da Como (1228), which was intended
to have a lateral arch on each side. The interior, which has
a crypt in each transept, in the main preserves its original
character. It has ten columns which are attributed to the
temple of Venus, and there are good screens of the 12th
century, and other sculptures. In the dilapidated episcopal
palace Pope Pius II. died in 1464. An interesting church
is S. Maria della Piazza, with an elaborate arcaded facade
(1210). The Palazzo del Comune, with its lofty arched
substructures at the back, was the work of Margaritone d'
Arezzo, but has been since twice restored. There are also
several fine late Gothic buildings, among them the churches
of S. Francesco and S. Agostino, the Palazzo Benincasa, and
the Loggia dei Mercanti, all by Giorgio Orsini, usually called
da Sebenico (who worked much at Sebenico, though he was not
a native of it), and the prefecture, which has Renaissance
additions. The portal of S. Maria della Misericordia is an
ornate example of early Renaissance work. The archaeological
museum contains interesting pre-Roman objects from tombs in
the district, and two Roman beds with fine decorations in
ivory (E. Brizio, in Notizie degli scavi, 1902, 437, 478).
To the east of the town is the harbour, now an oval basin of
990 by 880 yards, the finest harbour on the S. W. coast of the
Adriatic, and one of the best in Italy. It was originally
protected only by the promontory on the N., from the elbow-like
shape of which (Gk. agkon) the ancient town, founded by
Syracusan refugees about 390 B.C., took the name which it still
holds. Greek merchants established a purple factory here
(Sil. Ital. viii. 438). Even in Roman times it kept its
own coinage with the punning device of the bent arm holding
a palm branch, and the head of Aphrodite on the reverse, and
continued the use of the Greek language. When it became a
Roman colony is doubtful.1 It was occupied as a naval station
in the Illyrian war of 178 B.C. (Liv. xli. 1). Caesar took
possession of it immediately after crossing the Rubicon. Its
harbour was of considerable importance in imperial times, as
the nearest to Dalmatia,2 and was enlarged by Trajan, who
constructed the north quay, his architect being Apollodorus of
Damascus. At the beginning of it stands the marble triumphal
arch with a single opening, and without bas-reliefs, erected
in his honour in A.D. 115 by the senate and people. Pope
Clement II. prolonged the quay, and an inferior imitation of
Trajan's arch was set up; he also erected a lazaretto at the
south end of the harbour, now a sugar refinery, Vanvitelli
being the architect-in-chief. The southern quay was built
in 1880, and the harbour is now protected by forts on the
heights, while the place is the seat of the 7th army corps.
The port of Ancona was entered in 1904 by 869 steamships
and 600 sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 961,612
tons. The main imports were coal, timber, metals,
jute. The main exports were asphalt and calcium
carbide. Sugar refining and shipbuilding are carried on.
Ancona is situated on the railway between Bologna and Brindisi,
and is also connected by rail with Rome, via Foligno and Orte.
After the fall of the Roman empire Ancona was successively
attacked by the Goths, Lombards and Saracens, but recovered
its strength and importance. It was one of the cities of
the Pentapolis under the exarchate of Ravenna, the other four
being Fano, Pesaro, Senigallia and Rimini, and eventually
became a semi-independent republic under the protection of
the popes, until Gonzaga took possession of it for Clement
VII. in 1532. From 1797 onwards, when the French took it,
it frequently appears in history as an important fortress,
until Lamoriciere capitulated here on the 29th of September
1860, eleven days after his defeat at Castelfidardo. (T. As.)
1 Scanty remains of the ancient town walls, of a gymnasium
near the harbour and of the amphitheatre are still extant.
2 It was connected by a road with the Via
Flaminia at Nuceria (Norcera), a distance of 70 m.
ANCREN RIWLE, a Middle English prose treatise written for
a small community of three religious women and their servants
at Tarent Kaines (Tarrant Crawford), at the junction of the
Stour and the Tarrant, Dorset. It was generally supposed to
date from the first quarter of the 13th century, but Professor
E. Kolbing is inclined to place the Corpus Christi MS.
about the middle of the 12th century. The house of Tarrant
was founded by Ralph de Kahaines, and greatly enriched about
1230 by Richard Poor, bishop successively of Chichester,
Salisbury and Durham, who was born at Tarrant and died there in
1237. At the time when the Ancren Riwle was addressed to
them the anchoresses did not belong to any of the monastic
orders, but the monastery was under the Cistercian rule before
1266.1 There are extant seven English MSS. of the work, and
one Latin, the Latin version being generally supposed to be a
translation. The Latin MS., Regula Anachoritarum sive de vita
solitaria ( Magdalen College, Oxford, No. 67, fol. 50) has
a prefatory note:-- Hic incipit prohemium venerabilis patris
magistri Simonis de Gandavo, episcopi Sarum, in librum de
vita solitaria, qaem scripsit sororibus suis anachoritis
apud Tarente. But Bishop Simon of Ghent, who died in 1315,
could not have written the book, if it dates, at latest, from
the early 13th century. It has been tentatively attributed
to Richard Poor, who was connected with Tarrant, and was
actually a benefactor of the monastery. But the adoption of
Prof. Kolbing's early date would almost destroy Poor's claim.
The Ancren Riwle is written in a simple, non-rhetorical
style. The severity of the doctrine of self-renunciation
is softened by the affectionate tone in which it is
inculcated. The book contains rules for the conduct of the
anchoresses, and gives liturgical directions for divine
service; but the greater part of it is taken up with the
purely spiritual side of religion. The rules for the
restraint of the senses, for Confession and penance, are
subordinated to the central idea of the supreme importance
of purity of heart and the love of Christ. The last chapter
deals with the domestic affairs and administration of the
monastery. Incidentally the writer gives a picture of the
manners and ideas of the time, and provides an account of
the doctrine then generally accepted in the English church.
Ancren Riwale was edited for the Camden Society by the Rev.
James Morton in 1843 from the Cotton MS. (Nero A xiv.). A
collation of this text with the MS. by E. Kolbing is printed
in the Jahrbuch fur romanische u. engl. Spr. und Lit.
xv. 180 seq. (1876). The Ancren Riwle (ed. Abbot F. A.
Gasquet, 1905) is available for the ordinary reader in The
King's Classics. There are three English MSS. of Ancren
Riwle in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum,
numbered Nero A xiv., Titus D xviii., and Cleopatra C vi. Nero
A xiv. is written in pure south-western dialect. Portions of
this text are printed in Henry Sweet's First Middle English
Primer (Oxford, 2nd ed., 1895), which contains a grammatical
introduction. MS. 402 in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, contains the earliest version of Ancren
Riwle, entitled Ancren Wisse, and dating (according to E.
Kolbing in Englische Studien, 1886, vol. ix. 116) from about
1150. The language shows considerable traces of the Midland
dialect. MS. 234 in Caius College, Cambridge, contains a
considerable portion of the Ancren Riwle, but does not
follow the order of the other MSS. For its exact contents
see Kolbing, in Englische Studien, iii. 533 (1880).
A more recently discovered version in Magdalene College,
Cambridge, in MS. Pepys 2498, is entitled The Recluse, and
is abridged and differently arranged. It ir written in English
of the latter half of the 14th century (see A. C. Paues in
Englische Studien, xxx. 344-346, 1902). A Latin version
(Cotton MS. Vitellins E vii.), and a French copy (ibid.
F vii.) were seriously damaged in the fire at Ashburnham
House, but both MSS. have been recently restored. The Latin
MS. (Codex lxvii.) at Magdalen College, Oxford, is probably
a copy of another Latin text, for it contains obvious slips.
See also R. Wulker, ``Uber die Sprache der Ancren Riwle
und die der Homilie: Halli Meidenhad,'' in Beitrage zur
Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle,
1874, i. 209), giving an analysis of the differences in
dialect between the two works; and Edgar Elliott Bramlette,
``The Original Language of the Ancren Riwle,'' in
Anglia, xv. 478-498, arguing in favour of a Latin original.
1 For information on the subject of Tarent Kaines see Sir W.
Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (new ed., 1846), vol. v. 619 et seq.
ANCRUM, a village on Ale or Alne Water (a tributary of the
Teviot), Roxburghshire, Scotland, 2 m. W. of Jedfoot Bridge
station on the Roxburgh-Jedburgh branch of the North British
railway. Pop. (1901) 973. The earlier forms of the name,
``Alnecrumba,'' ``Ankrom'' and ``Alnecrom,'' indicate its
Gaelic derivation from crom, ``crooked''--``the crook or
bend of the Alne.'' The village is of considerable antiquity,
and was formerly held by the see of Glasgow. Its cross,
said to date from the time of David I., is one of the best
preserved crosses in the Border counties. Ancrum Moor, 2
m. N.W., was the scene of the battle in which, on the 17th
of February 1545, the Scots under the earl of Angus, Sir
Walter Scott of Buccleuch, and Norman Leslie, defeated 5000
English, whose leaders, Sir Ralph Evers or Eure and Sir
Brian Latoun or Layton, were slain. A Roman road, 24 ft.
broad, forms the N.E. boundary of the parish of Ancrum.
ANCUS MARCIUS (640-616 B.C.), fourth legendary king of
Rome. Like Numa, his reputed grandfather, he was a friend of
peace and religion, but was obliged to make war to defend his
territories. He conquered the Latins, and a number of them he
settled on the Aventine formed the origin of the Plebeians. He
fortified the Janiculum, threw a wooden bridge across the Tiber,
founded the port of Ostia, established salt-works and built a prison.
Ancus Marcius is merely a duplicate of Numa, as is shown by
his second name, Numa Marcius, the confidant and pontifex of
Numa, being no other than Numa Pompilius himself, represented as
priest. The identification with Ancus is shown by the legend
which makes the latter a bridge-builder (pontifex), the
constructor of the first wooden bridge over the Tiber. It is
in the exercise of his priestly functions that the resemblance
is most clearly shown. Like Numa, Ancus died a natural death.
See Livy i. 32, 33; Dion Halic. iii. 36-45; Cicero, De
Republica, ii. 18. For a critical examination of the story
see Schwegler, Romische Geschichte, bk. xiii.; Sir G.
Cornewall kewis, Credibility of Early Roman History,
ch. xi.; W. Ihne, History of Rome, i.; R. Pais, Storia di
Roma, i. (1898), who considers that the name points to the
personification of the cult of Mars, and that the military
achievements of Ancus are anticipations of later events.
ANCYLOPODA, or ANCYLODACTYLA, an apparently primitive extinct
subordinal group of Ungulata showing certain resemblances to
the Perissodactyla, both as regards the cheek-teeth and the
skeleton, but broadly distinguished by the feet being of
an edentate type, carrying long curved and cleft terminal
claws. From this peculiar structure of the feet it would
seem that the weight of the body was mainly carried on their
outer sides, as in Edentates. The group is typified by
Chalicotherium, of which the original species was discovered
in the Lower Pliocene strata of Eppelsheim, Hesse-Darmstadt,
in 1825, and named on the evidence of the teeth, the limbs
being subsequently described as Macrotherium. The skull
is short, with a dental formula of i. 3/3, c. 0/1, p. 3/3,
m. 3/3, but in fully adult animals most of the front teeth were
shed. The molar teeth recall those of Palaeosyops (see
TITANOTHERIIDAE.) Remains referred to Chalicotherium
have been also obtained from the Lower Pliocene and Upper
Miocene strata of Greece, Hungary, India, China and North
America. A skull from Pikermi, near Mt. Pentelikon,
Attica, shows the absence in the adult state of upper and
lower incisors and upper canines, much the same condition
being indicated in an Indian skull. There were three toes
to each foot, and the femur lacked a third trochanter.
Macrotherium, which is typically from the Middle Miocene
of Sansan, in Gers, France, may indicate a distinct genus.
Limb-bones nearly resembling those of Macrotherium, but
relatively stouter, have been described from the Pliocene beds
of Attica and Samos as Ancylotherium. In America the names
Morothorium and Moropus have been applied to similar bones,
on the belief that they indicated edentates. Macrotherium
magnum must have been an animal of about 9 ft. in length.
The South American genus Homalodontotherium is often placed
in the Ancylopoda, but reasons against this view are given in
the article LITOPTERNA. Professor H. F. Osborn considers that
the Ancylopoda are directly descended from the Condylarthra.
See also H. F. Osborn, ``The Ancylopoda Chalicotherium and Artionyx,''
Amer. Nat. (1893), p. 118, and ``Artionyx, a New Genus of
Ancylopoda,'' Bull. Amer. Mus. vol. v. p. 1 (1893). (N.B.--
Artionyx was subsequently found to be an Artiodactyle.] (R. L.*)
ANCYRA (mod. Angora, q.v.), an ancient city of Galatia
in Asia Minor, situated on a tributary of the Sangarius.
Originally a large and prosperous Phrygian city on the Persian
Royal Road, Ancyra became the centre of the Tectosages,
one of the three Gaulish tribes that settled permanently in
Galatia about 232 B.C. The barbarian occupation dislocated
civilization, and the town sank to a mere village inhabited
chiefly by the old native population who carried on the
arts and crafts of peaceful life, while the Gauls devoted
themselves to war and pastoral life (see GALATIA.) In 189
B.C. Ancyra was occupied by Cn. Manlius Vulso, who made
it his headquarters in his operations against the tribe.
In 63 B.C. Pompey placed it (together with the Tectosagan
territory) under one chief, and it continued under native rule
till it became the capital of the Roman province of Galatia
in 25 B.C. By this time the population included Greeks,
Jews, Romans and Romanized Gauls, but the town was not yet
Hellenized, though Greek was spoken. Strabo (c. A.D. 19)
calls it not a city, but a fortress, implying that it had none
of the institutions of the Graeco-Roman city. Inscriptions
and coins show that its civilization consisted of a layer
of Roman ideas and customs superimposed on Celtic tribal
characteristics, and that it is not until c. A.D. 150 that
the true Hellenic spirit begins to appear. Christianity was
introduced (from the N. or N.W.) perhaps as early as the 1st
century, but there is no shred of evidence that the Ancyran
Church (first mentioned A.D. 192) was founded by St Paul
or that he ever visited northern Galatia. The real greatness
of the town dates from the time when Constantinople became
the metropolis of the Roman world: then its geographical
situation raised it to a position of importance which it
retained throughout the middle ages. See further ANGORA (1).
The modern town contains many remains of the Roman and Byzantine
periods. The most important monument is the Augusteum,
a temple of white marble erected to ``Rome and Augustus''
during the lifetime of that emperor by the common council
or diet of the three Galatian tribes. The temple was
afterwards converted into a church, and in the 16th century
a fine mosque was built against its S. face. On the walls
of the temple is engraved the famous Monumentum Ancyranum,
a long inscription in Latin and Greek describing the Res
gestae divi Augusti; the Latin portion being inscribed on
the inner left-hand wall of the pronaos, the Greek on the
outside wall of the naos (cella.) The inscription is a
grave and majestic narrative of the public life and work of
Augustus. The original was written by the emperor in
his 76th year (A.D. 13-14) to be engraved on two bronze
tablets placed in front of his mausoleum in Rome, and as a
mark of respect to his memory a copy was inscribed on the
temple walls by the council of the Galatians. Thus has been
preserved an absolutely unique historical document of great
importance, recounting (1) the numerous public offices
and honours conferred on him, (2) his various benefactions
to the state, to the plebs and to his soldiers, and (3)
his military and administrative services to the empire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--C. Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, vol.
xviii. (1837- 1859); Hamilton, Researches in A. M. (1842);
Texier, Descrip. de l'Asie Min. (1839-1849); Perrot,
Explor. de la Galatie (1862): Humann and Puchstein,
Reisen in Kleinasien (1890). For Mon. Ancyr., Mommsen,
Res gestae divi Augusti (1883); and Inscr. graecae ad
res Romanas pertinentes, iii. (1902). For coins, Brit.
Museum Catal., Galatia (1899); Babelon-Reinach, Recueil
general d, A. M. See also under GALATIA. (J. G. C. A.)
SYNOD OF ANCYRA.--An important ecclesiastical synod was held at
Ancyra, the seat of the Roman administration for the province of
Galatia, in A.D. 314. The season was soon after Easter; the
year may be safely deduced from the fact that the first nine
canons are intended to repair havoc wrought in the church by
persecution, which ceased after the overthrow of Maximinus in
313. The tenth canon tolerates the marriages of deacons who
previous to ordination had reserved the right to take a wife;
the thirteenth forbids chorepiscopi to ordain presbyters or
deacons; the eighteenth safeguards the right of the people in
objecting to the appointment of a bishop whom they do not wish.
See Mansi, ii. 514 ff. The critical text of R. B. Rackham
(Oxford, 1891), Studia Biblica et ecclesiastica,
iii. 139 ff., is conveniently reprinted in Lauchert 29
ff. H. R. Percival translates and comments on an old
text in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2nd series),
xiv. 61 ff. An elaborate discussion is found in Hefele,
Concilien- geschichte (2nd ed.), i. 219 ff. (English
translation, i. 199 ff.); more briefly in Herzog-Hauck (3rd
ed.), i. 497. For full titles see COUNCIL. (W. W. R.*)
ANDALUSIA, or ANDALUCIA, a captaincy-general, and
formerly a province, of southern Spain; bounded on the
N. by Estremadura and New Castile, E. by Murcia and the
Mediterranean Sea, S. by the Mediterranean and Atlantic,
and W. by Portugal. Pop. (1900) 3,563,606; area, 33,777 sq.
m. Andalusia was divided in 1833 into the eight provinces of
Almeria, Cadiz, Cordova, Granada, Jaen, Huelva, Malaga and
Seville, which are described in separate articles. Its
ancient name, though no longer used officially, except to
designate a military district, has not been superseded in
popular speech by the names of the eight modern divisions.
Andalusia consists of a great plain, the valley of the
Guadalquivir, shut in by mountain ranges on every side except
the S.W., where it descends to the Atlantic. This lowland,
which is known as Andalucia Baja, or Lower Andalusia,
resembles the valley of the Ebro in its slight elevation above
sea-level (300-400 ft.), and in the number of brackish lakes
or fens, and waste lands (despoblados) impregnated with
salt, which seem to indicate that the whole surface was covered
by the sea at no distant geological date. The barren tracts
are, however, exceptional and a far larger area is richly
fertile. Some districts, indeed, such as the Vega of Granada,
are famous for the luxuriance of their vegetation. The
Guadalquivir (q.v.) rises among the mountains of Jaen and
flows in a south-westerly direction to the Gulf of Cadiz,
receiving many considerable tributaries on its way. On the
north, its valley is bounded by the wild Sierra Morena; on the
south, by the mountains of the Mediterranean littoral, among
which the Sierra Nevada (q.v.), with its peaks of Mulhacen
(11,421 ft.)and Veleta(11,148 ft.), is the most conspicuous.
These highlands, with the mountains of Jaen and Almeria on
the east, constitute Anidalucia Alta or Upper Andalusia.
No part of Spain has greater natural riches. The sherry
produced near Jerez de la Frontera, the copper of the Rio
Tinto mines and the lead of Almeria are famous. But the
most noteworthy characteristics of the province are, perhaps,
the brilliancy of its climate, the beauty of its scenery
(which ranges in character from the alpine to the tropical),
and the interest of its art and antiquities. The climate
necessarily varies widely with the altitude. Some of the
higher mountains are covered with perpetual snow, a luxury
which is highly prized by the inhabitants of the valleys,
where the summer is usually extremely hot, and in winter the
snow falls only to melt when it reaches the ground. Here the
more common European plants and trees give place to the wild
olive, the caper bush, the aloe, the cactus, the evergreen
oak, the orange, the lemon, the palm and other productions
of a tropical climate. On the coasts of the Mediterranean
about Marbella and Malaga, the sugar-cane is successfully
cultivated. Silk is produced in the same region. Agriculture
is in a very backward state and the implements used are
most primitive. The chief towns are Seville (pop. 1900,
148,315), which may be regarded as the capital, Malaga
(130,109), Granada (75,900), Cadiz (69,382), Jerez de la
Frontera (63,473), Cordova (58,275) and Almeria (47,326).
Andalusia has never been, like Castile or Aragon, a separate
kingdom. Its history is largely a record of commercial and
artistic development. The Guadalquivir valley is often,
in part at least, identified with the biblical Tarshish
and the classical Tartessus, a famous Phoenician mart.
The port of Agadir or Gaddir, now Cadiz, was founded as
early as 1100 B.C. Later Carthaginian invaders came from
their advanced settlements in the Balearic Islands, about
516 B.C. Greek merchants also visited the coasts. The
products of the interior were conveved by the native Iberians
to the maritime colonies, such as Abdera (Adra), Calpe
(Gibraltar) or Malaca (Malaga), founded by the foreign
merchants. The Punic wars transferred the supreme power from
Carthage to Rome, and Latin civilization was established firmly
when, in 27 B.C., Andalusia became the Roman province of
Baetica--so called after its great waterway, the Baetis
(Guadalquivir). In the 5th century the province was overrun
by successive invaders--Vandals, Suevi and Visigoths-- from
the first of whom it may possibly derive its name. The forms
Vandalusia and Vandalitia are undoubtedly ancient; many
authorities, however, maintain that the name is derived from
the Moorish Andalus or Andalosh, ``Land of the West.''
The Moors first entered the province in 711, and only in 1492
was their power finally broken by the capture of Granada.
Their four Andalusian kingdoms, Seville, Jaen, Cordova and
Granada, developed a civilization unsurpassed at the time in
Europe. An extensive literature, scientific, philosophical and
historical, with four world-famous buildings--the Giralda and
Alcazar of Seville, the Mezquita or cathedral of Cordova and the
Alhambra at Granada--are its chief monuments. In the 16th and
17th centuries, painting replaced architecture as the distinctive
art of Andalusia; and many of the foremost Spanish painters,
including Velazquez and Murillo, were natives of this province.
Centuries of alien domination have left their mark upon the
character and appearance of the Andalusians, a mixed race,
who contrast strongly with the true Spaniards and possess
many oriental traits. It is impossible to estimate the
influence of the elder conquerors, Greek, Carthaginian and
Roman; but there are clear traces of Moorish blood, with
a less well-defined Jewish and gipsy strain. The men are
tall, handsome and well-made, and the women are among the most
beautiful in Spain; while the dark complexion and hair of both
sexes, and their peculiar dialect of Spanish, so distasteful
to pure Castilians, are indisputable evidence of Moorish
descent. Their music, dances and many customs, come from the
East. In general, the people are lively, good-humoured
and ready-witted, fond of pleasure, lazy and extremely
superstitious. In the literature and drama of his country,
the Andalusian is traditionally represented as the Gascon of
Spain, ever boastful and mercurial; or else as a picaresque
hero, bull-fighter, brigand or smuggler. Andalusia is
still famous for its bull-fighters; and every outlying
hamlet has its legends of highwaymen and contraband.
In addition to the numerous works cited under the heading
SPAIN, see Curiosidades historicas de Andalucia, by N.
Diaz de Escovar (Malaga, 1900): Histoire de la conquete de
l'Andalousie, by O. Houdas (Paris, 1889); Andalousie et Portugal
(Paris, 1886); El. Folk-Lore Andaluz (Seville, 1883); and
Nobleza de Andalucia, by G. Argote de Molina (Seville, 1588).
ANDALUSITE, a mineral with the same chemical composition
as cyanite and sillimanite, being a basic aluminium silicate,
Al2SiO5. As in sillimanite, its crystalline form is
referable to the orthorhombic system. Crystals of andalusite
have the form of almost square prisms, the prism-angle
being 89 deg. 12'; they are terminated by a basal plane and
sometimes by small dome-faces. As a rule the crystals are
roughly developed and rude columnar masses are common, these
being frequently altered partially to kaolin or mica. Such
FIG. 1.
crystals, opaque, and of a greyish or brownish colour, occur
abundantly in the mica-schist of the Lisens Alp near Innsbruck
in Tirol, while the first noted of the many localities of the
mineral is in Andalusia, from which place the mineral derives its
name. The unaltered mineral is found as transparent pebbles
with topaz in the gem-gravels of the Minas Novas district,
in Minas Geraes, Brazil. These pebbles are usually green
but sometimes reddish-brown in colour, and are remarkable for
their very strong dichroism, the same pebble appearing green
or reddish-brown according to the direction in which it is
viewed. Such specimens make very effective gem-stones,
the degree of hardness of the mineral (H.= 7 1/2) being quite
sufficient for this purpose. Its specific gravity is 3.18; it
is unattacked by acids and is infusible before the blowpipe.
FIG. 2.--Transverse sections of a crystal of Chiastolite.
Andalusite is typically a mineral of metamorphic origin,
occurring most frequently in altered clay-slates and crystalline
schists, near the junction of these with masses of intrusive
igneous rocks such as granite. It has been recognized
also, however, as a primary constituent of granite itself.
A curious variety of andalusite known as chiastolite is
specially characteristic of clay-slates near a contact with
granite. The elongated prismatic crystals enclose symmetrically
arranged wedges of carbonaceous material, and in cross-section
show a black cross on a greyish ground. Cross-sections of such
crystals are polished and worn as amulets or charms. Crystals
of a size suitable for this purpose are found in Brittany and
the Pyrenees, while still larger specimens have been found
recently in South Australia. The name chiastolite is derived
from the Greek chiastos, crossed or marked with the latter ch:
cross-stone and macle are earlier names, the latter having
been given on account of the resemblance the cross-section of
the stone bears to the heraldic macula or mascle. (L. J. S.)
ANDAMAN ISLANDS, a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal.
Large and small, they number 204, and lie 590 m. from the mouth
of the Hugli, 120 m. from Cape Negrais in Burma, the nearest
point of the mainland, and 340 m. from the northern extremity of
Sumatra. Between the Andamans and Cape Negrais intervene two
small groups, Preparis and Cocos; between the Andamans and
Sumatra lie the Nicobar Islands, the whole group stretching
in a curve, to which the meridian forms a tangent between Cape
Negrais and Sumatra; and though this curved line measures 700
m., the widest sea space is about 91 m. The extreme length
of the Andaman group is 219 m. with an extreme width of 32
m. The main part of it consists of a band of five chief islands,
so closely adjoining and overlapping each other that they have
long been known collectively as ``the great Andaman.'' The
axis of this band, almost a meadian line, is 156 statute miles
long. The five islands are in order from north to south: North
Andaman (51 m. long); Middle Andaman (59 m.); South Andaman
(49 m.); Baratang, running parallel to the east of the South
Andaman for 17 m. from the Middle Andaman; and Rutland Island (11
m.). Four narrow straits part these islands: Austin Strait,
between North and Middle Andaman; Homfray's Strait between
Middle Andaman and Baratang, and the north extremity of South
Andaman; Middle (or Andaman) Strait between Baratang and South
Andaman; and Macpherson Strait between South Andaman and Rutland
Island. Of these only the last is navigable by ocean-going
vessels. Attached to the chief islands are, on the extreme
N., Landfall Islands, separated by the navigable Cleugh
Passage; Interview Island, separated by the very narrow but
navigable Interview Passage, off the W. coast of the Middle
Andaman; the Labyrinth Island off the S.W. coast of the South
Andaman, through which is the safe navigable Elphinstone
Passage; Ritchie's (or the Andaman) Archipelago off the E.
coast of the South Andaman and Baratang, separated by the wide
and safe Diligent Strait and intersected by Kwangtung Strait
and the Tadma Juru (Strait). Little Andaman, roughly 26 m. by
16, forms the southern extremity of the whole group and lies 31
m. S. of Rutland Island across Duncan Passage, in which lie
the Cinque and other islands, forming Manners Strait, the
main commercial highway between the Andamans and the Madras
coast. Besides these are a great number of islets lying off
the shores of the main islands. The principal outlying islands
are the North Sentinel, a dangerous island of about 28 sq. m.,
lying about 18 m. off the W. coast of the South Andaman; the
remarkable marine volcano, Barren Idand (1150 ft.), quiescent
for more than a century, 71 m. N.E. of Port Blair; and the
equally curious isolated mountain, the extinct volcano of
Narcondam, rising 2330 ft. out of the sea, 71 m. E. of the North
Andaman. The land area of the Andaman Idands is 2508 sq.
m. About 18 m. to the W. of the Andamans are the dangerous
Western Banks and Dalrymple Bank, rising to within a few fathoms
of the surface of the sea and forming, with the two Sentinel
Islands, the tops of a line of submarine hills parallel to the
Andamans. Some 40 m. distant to the E. is the Invisible Bank,
with one rock just awash; and 34 m. S.E. of Narcondam is a
submarine hill rising to 377 fathoms below the surface of the
sea. Narcondam, Barren Island and the Invisible Bank, a
great danger of these seas, are in a line almost parallel
to the Andamans inclining towards them from north to south.
Topography.--The islands forming Great Andaman consist of a
mass of hills enclosing very narrow valleys, the whole covered
by an exceedingly dense tropical jungle. The hills rise,
especially on the east coast, to a considerable elevation:
the chief heights being in the North Andaman, Saddle Peak
(2400 ft.); in the Middle Andaman, Mount Diavolo behind
Cuthbert Bay (1678 ft.); in the South Andaman, Koiob (1505
ft.), Mount Harriet (1193 ft.) and the Cholunga range (1063
ft.); and in Rutland Island, Ford's Peak (1422 ft.). Little
Andaman, with the exception of the extreme north, is practically
flat. There are no rivers and few perennial streams in the
islands. The scenery is everywhere strikingly beautiful and
varied, and the coral beds of the more secluded bays in
its harbours are conspicuous for their exquisite colouring.
Harbours.--The coasts of the Andamans are deeply indented,
giving existence to a number of safe harbours and tidal creeks,
which are often surrounded by mangrove swamps. The chief
harbours, some of which are very capacious, are (starting
northwards from Port Blair, the great harbour of South
Andaman) on the E. coast: Port Meadows, Colebrooke Passage,
Elphinstone Harbour (Homfray's Strait), Stewart Sound and Port
Cornwallis. The last three are very large. On the W. coast:
Temple Sound, Interview Passage, Port Anson or Kwangtung Harbour
(large), Port Campbell (large), Port Mouat and Macpherson
Strait. There are besides many other safe anchorages about
the coast, notably Shoal Bay and Kotara Anchorage in the
South Andaman; Cadell Bay and the Turtle Islands in the
North Andaman; and Outram Harbour and Kwangtung Strait in the
archipelago. The whole of the Andamans and the outlying
islands were completely surveyed topographically by the Indian
Survey Department under Colonel Hobday in 1883-1886, and the
surrounding seas were charted by Commander Carpenter in 1888-1889.
Geology.--The Andaman Islands, in conjunction with the
other groups mentioned above, form part of a lofty range
of submarine mountains, 700 m. long, running from Cape
Negrais in the Arakan Yoma range of Burma, to Achin Head in
Sumatra. This range separates the Bay of Bengal from the
Andaman Sea; and it contains much that is geologically
characteristic of the Arakan Yoma, and formations common also
to the Nicobars and to Sumatra and the adjacent islands. The
older rocks are early Tertiary or late Cretaceous but there
are no fossils to indicate age. The newer rocks, common also
to the Nicobars and Sumatra, are in Ritchie's Archipelago
chiefly and contain radiolarians and foraminifera. There is
coral along the coasts everywhere, and the Sentinel Islands
are composed of the newer rocks with a superstructure of
coral. A theory of a still continuing subsidence of the
islanda was formed by Kurz in 1866 and confirmed by Oldham in
1884. Signs of its continuance are found on the east coast
in several places. Barren Island is a volcano of the general
Sunda group which includes also the Pegu group to which
Narcondam belongs. Barren Island was last in eruption in
1803, but there is still a thin column of steam from a
sulphur bed at the top and a variable hot spring at the
point where the last outburst of lava flowed into the sea.
Climate.--Rarely affected by a cyclone, though within
the influence of practically every one that blows in the
Bay of Bengal, the Andamans are of the greatest importance
because of the accurate information relating to the
direction and intensity of storms which can be communicated
from them better than from any other point in the bay,
to the vast amount of shipping in this part of the Indian
Ocean. Trustworthy information also regarding the weather
which may be expected in the north and east of India, is
obtained at the islands, and this proves of the utmost value
to the controllers of the great trades dependent upon the
rainfall. A well-appointed meteorological station has been
established at Port Blair since 1868. Speaking generally,
the climate of the Andamans themselves may be described as
normal for tropical islands of similar latitude. It is warm
always, but tempered by pleasant sea-breezes; very hot when
the sun is northing; irregular rainfall, but usually dry
during the north-east, and very wet during the south-west
monsoon. Not only does the rainfall at one place vary from
year to year, but there is an extraordinary difference in the
returns for places quite close to one another. The official
figures in inches for the station at Port Blair, which is
situated in by far the driest part of the settlement, were:--
_______________________________________________________________________
| 1895. | 1896. | 1897. | 1898. | 1899. | 1900. | 1901. |
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| 125.64 | 107.28 | 136.41 | 127.22 | 87.01 | 83.28 | 132.50 |
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A tidal observatory has also been maintained at Port Blair since 1880.
Flora.--A section of the Forest Department of India has
been established in the Andamans since 1883, and in the
neighbourhood of Port Blair 156 sq. m. have been set apart
for regular forest operations which are carried on by convict
labour. The chief timber of indigenous growth is padouk
(Pterocarpus dalbergioides) used for buildings, boats,
furniture, fine joinery and all purposes to which teak,
mahogany, hickory, oak and ash are applied. This tree
is widely spread and forms a valuable export to European
markets. Other first-class timbers are koko (Albizzia
lebbek), white chuglam (Terminalia bialata), black
chugiam (Myristica irya), marble or zebra wood (Diospyros
kurzii) and satin-wood (Murraya exotica), which differs
from the satin-wood of Ceylon (Chloroxylon swietenia.)
All of these timbers are used for furniture and similar
purposes. In addition there are a number of second-and
third-class timbers, which are used locally and for export to
Calcutta. Gangaw (Messua ferrea) the Assam iron-wood, is
suitable for sleepers; and didu (Bombax insigne) is used
for tea-boxes and packing-cases. Among the imported flora
are tea, Siberian coffee, cocoa, Ceara rubber (which has
not done well), Manila hemp, teak, cocoanut and a number
of ornamental trees, fruit-trees, vegetables and garden
plants. Tea is grown in considerable quantities and the
cultivation is under a department of the penal settlement.
The general character of the forests is Burmese with an
admixture of Malay types. Great mangrove swamps supply
unlimited fire-wood of the best quality. The great peculiarity
of Andaman flora is that, with the exception of the Cocos
islands, no cocoanut palms are found in the archipelago.
Fauna.--Animal life is generally deficient throughout the
Andamans, especially as regards mammalia, of which there
are only nineteen separate species in all, twelve of these
being peculiar to the islands. There is a small pig (Sus
andamanensis), important to the food of the people, and a wild
cat (Paradoxurus tytleri); but the bats (sixteen species) and
rats (thirteen species) constitute nearly three-fourths of the
known mammals. This paucity of animal life seems inconsistent
with the theory that the islands were once connected with the
mainland. Most of the birds also are derived from the distant
Indian region, while the Indo-Burmese and Indo-Malayan regions
are represented to a far less degree. Rasorial birds, such as
peafowl, junglefowl, pheasants and partridges, though well
represented in the Arakan hills, are rare in the islands; while
a third of the different species found are peculiar to the
Andamans. Moreover, the Andaman species differ from those
of the adjacent Nicobar Islands. Each group has its distinct
harrier-eagle, red-cheeked paroquet, oriole, sun- bird and
bulbul. Fish are very numerous and many species are peculiar to
the Andaman seas. Turtles are abundant and supply the Calcutta
market. Of imported animals, cattle, goats, asses and dogs
thrive well, ponies and horses indifferently, and sheep
badly, though some success has been achieved in breeding them.
Population.--The Andaman Islands, so near countries that
have for ages attained considerable civilization and have
been the seat of great empires, and close to the track of a
great commerce which has gone on at least 2000 years, are the
abode of savages as low in civilization as almost any known on
earth. Our earliest notice of them is in a remarkable
collection of early Arab notes on India and China (A.D.
851) which accurately represents the view entertained of this
people by mariners down to modern times. ``The inhabitants
of these islands eat men alive. They are black, with
woolly hair, and in their eyes and countenances there is
something quite frightful. . . . They go naked and have no
boats. If they had, they would devour all who passed near
them. Sometimes ships that are windbound and have exhausted
their provision of water, touch here and apply to the natives
for it; in such cases the crews sometimes fall into the
hands of the latter and most of them are massacred.'' The
traditional charge of cannibalism has been very persistent;
but it is entirely denied by the islanders themselves, and is
now and probably always has been untrue. Of their massacres
of shipwrecked crews, even in quite modern times, there is no
doubt, but the policy of conciliation unremittingly pursued
for the last forty years has now secured a friendly reception
for shipwrecked crews at any port of the islands except the
south and west of Little Andaman and North Sentinel Island.
The Andamanese are probably the relics of a negro race that
once inhabited the S.E. portion of Asia and its outlying
islands, representatives of which are also still to be found
in the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines. Their antiquity
and their stagnation are attested by the remains found in their
kitchen-middens. These are of great age, and rise sometimes to
a height exceeding 15 ft. The fossil shells, pottery and rude
stone implements, found alike at the base and at the surface
of these middens, prove that the habits of the islanders have
not varied since a remote past, and lead to the belief that
the Andamans were settled by their present inhabitants some
time during the Pleistocene period, and certainly no later
than the Neolithic age. The population is not susceptible
of accurate computation, but probably it has always been
small. The estimated total at a census taken in 1901 was
only 2000. Though all descended from one stock, there are
twelve distinct tribes of the Andamanese, each with its own
clearly-defined locality, its own distinct variety of the one
fundamental language and to a certain extent its own separate
habits. Every tribe is divided into septs fairly well
defined. The tribal feeling may be expressed as friendly within
the tribe, courteous to other Andamanese if known, hostile
to every stranger, Andamanese or other. Another division
of the natives is into Aryauto or long-shore-men, and the
Eremtaga or jungle-dwellers. The habits and capacities of
these two differ, owing to surroundings, irrespectively of
tribe. Yet again the Andamanese can be grouped according to
certain salient characteristics: the forms of the bows and
arrows, of the canoes, of ornaments and utensils, of tattooing
and of language. The average height of males is 4 ft. 10 1/2
in.; of females, 4 ft. 6 in. Being accustomed to gratify
every sensation as it arises, they endure thirst, hunger,
want of food and bodily discomfort badly. The skin varies in
colour from an intense sheeny black to a reddish-blown on the
collar-bones, cheeks and other parts of the body. The hair
varies from a sooty black to dark and light brown and red. It
grows in small rings, which give it the appearance of growing
in tufts, though it is really closely and evenly distributed
over the whole scalp. The figures of the men are muscular and
well-formed and generally pleasing; a straight, well-formed
nose and jaw are by no means rare, and the young men are often
distinctly good-looking. The only artificial deformity is
a depression of the skull, chiefly among one of the southern
tribes, caused by the pressure of a strap used for carrying
loads. The pleasing appearance natural to the men is not
a characteristic of the women, who early have a tendency to
stoutness and ungainliness of figure, and sometimes to pronounced
prognathism. They are, however, always bright and merry, are
under no special social restrictions and have considerable
influence. The women's heads are shaved entirely and the
men's into fantastic patterns. Yellow and red ochre mixed
with grease are coarsely smeared over the bodies, grey in
coarse patterns and white in fine patterns resembling tattoo
marks. Tattooing is of two distinct varieties. In the south
the body is slightly cut by women with small flakes of glass
or quartz in zigzag or lineal patterns downwards. In the north
it is deeply cut by men with pig-arrows in lines across the
body. The male matures when about fifteen years of age,
marries when about twenty-six, begins to age when about
forty, and lives onto sixty or sixty-five if he reaches old
age. Except as to the marrying age, these figures fairly
apply to women. Before marriage free intercourse between the
sexes is the rule, though certain conventional precautions
are taken to prevent it. Marriages rarely produce more
than three children and often none at all. Divorce is rare,
unfaithfulness after marriage not common and incest unknown.
By preference the Andamanese are exogamous as regards sept
and endogamous as regards tribe. The children are possessed
of a bright intelligence, which, however, soon reaches its
climax, and the adult may be compared in this respect with
the civilized child of ten or twelve. The Andamanese are,
indeed, bright and merry companions, busy in their own pursuits,
keen sportsmen, naturally independent and not lustful, but
when angered, cruel, jealous, treacherous and vindictive,
and always unstable--in fact, a people to like but not to
trust. There is no idea of government, but in each sept
there is a head, who has attained that position by degrees on
account of some tacitly admitted superiority and commands a
limited respect and some obedience. The young are deferential
to their elders. Offences are punished by the aggrieved
party. Property is communal and theft is only recognized as to
things of absolute necessity, such as arrows, pigs' flesh and
fire. Fire is the one thing they are really careful about,
not knowing how to renew it. A very rude barter exists between
tribes of the same group in regard to articles not locally
obtainable. The religion consists of fear of the spirits of the
wood, the sea, disease and ancestors, and of avoidance of acts
traditionally displeasing to them. There is neither worship
nor propitiation. An anthropomorphic deity, Puluga, is the
cause of all things, but it is not necessary to propitiate
him. There is a vague idea that the ``soul'' will go somewhere
after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of
a corporeal resurrection. There is much faith in dreams,
and in the utterances of certain ``wise men,'' who practise
an embryonic magic and witchcraft. The great amusement of
the Andamanese is a formal night dance, but they are also
fond of simple games. The bows differ altogether with each
group, but the same two kinds of arrows are in general use:
(1) long and ordinary for fishing and other purposes; (2)
short with a detachable head fastened to the shaft by a thong,
which quickly brings pigs up short when shot in the thick
jungle. Bark provides material for string, while baskets and
mats are neatly and stoutly made from canes and buckets out
of bamboo and wood. None of the tribes ever ventures out of
sight of land, and they have no idea of steering by sun or
stars. Their canoes are simply hollowed out of trunks with the
adze and in no other way, and it is the smaller ones which are
outrigged; they do not last long and are not good sea-boats,
and the story of raids on Car Nicobar, out of sight across a
stormy and sea-rippled channel, must be discredited. Honour
is shown to an adult when he dies, by wrapping him in a cloth
and placing him on a platform in a tree instead of burying
him. At such a time the encampment is deserted for three
months. The Andaman languages are extremely interesting
from the philological standpoint. They are agglutinative in
nature, show hardly any signs of syntactical growth though
every indication of long etymological growth, give expression
to only the most direct and the simplest thought, and are purely
colloquial and wanting in the modifications always necessary
for communication by writing. The sense is largely eked out by
manner and action. Mincopie is the first word in Colebrooke's
vocabulary for ``Andaman Island, or native country,'' and
the term--though probably a mishearing on Colebrooke's part
for Mongebe (``I am an Onge,'' i.e. a member of the
Onge tribe)--has thus become a persistent book-name for the
people. Attempts to civilize the Andamanese have met with
little success either among adults or children. The home
established near Port Blair is used as a sort of free asylum
which the native visits according to his pleasure. The
policy of the government is to leave the Andamanese alone,
while doing what is possible to ameliorate their condition.
Penal Setllement.--The point of enduring interest as regards
the Andamans is the penal system, the object of which is to turn
the life-sentence and few long-sentence convicts, who alone are
sent to the settlement, into honest, self-respecting men and
women, by leading them along a continuous course of practice
in self-help and self-restraint, and by offering them every
inducement to take advantage of that practice. After ten years'
graduated labour the convict is given a ticket-of-leave and
becomes self-supporting. He can farm, keep cattle, and marry
or send for his family, but he cannot leave the settlement or be
idle. With approved conduct, however, he may be absolutely
released after twenty to twenty-five years in the settlement;
and throughout that time, though possessing no civil rights,
a quasi-judicial procedure controls all punishments inflicted
upon him, and he is as secure of obtaining justice as if
free. There is an unlimited variety of work for the labouring
convicts, and some of the establishments are on a large
scale. Very few experts are employed in supervision;
practically everything is directed by the officials, who
themselves have first to learn each trade. Under the chief
commissioner, who is the supreme head of the settlement,
are a deputy and a staff of assistant superintendents and
overseers, almost all Europeans, and sub-overseers, who are
natives of India. All the petty supervising establishments
are composed of convicts. The garrison consists of 140
British and 300 Indian troops, with a few local European
volunteers. The police are organized as a military battalion
643 strong. The number of convicts has somewhat diminished
of late years and in 1901 stood at 11,947. The total
population of the settlement, consisting of convicts, their
guards, the supervising, clerical and departmental staff,
with the families of the latter, also a certain number of
ex-convicts and trading settlers and their families, numbered
16,106. The labouring convicts are distributed among four
jails and nineteen stations; the self-supporters in thirty-eight
villages. The elementary education of the convicts' children
is compulsory. There are four hospitals, each under a
resident medical officer, under the general supervision of
a senior officer of the Indian medical service, and medical
aid is given free to the whole population. The net annual
cost of the settlement to the government is about L. 6 per
convict. The harbour of Port Blair is well supplied with
buoys and harbour lights, and is crossed by ferries at fixed
intervals, while there are several launches for hauling local
traffic. On Ross Island there is a lighthouse visible for 19
m. A complete system of signalling by night and day on
the Morse system is worked by the police. Local posts are
frequent, but there is no telegraph and the mails are irregular.
History.--It is uncertain whether any of the names of the
islands given by Ptolemy ought to be attached to the Andamans;
yet it is probable that his name itself is traceable in the
Alexandrian geographer. Andaman first appears distinctly
in the Arab notices of the 9th century, already quoted. But
it seems possible that the tradition of marine nomenclature
had never perished; that the 'Agathou daimonos nesos
was really a misunderstanding of some form like Agdaman,
while Nesoi Baroussai survived as Lanka Balus, the
name applied by the Arabs to the Nicobars. The islands
are briefly noticed by Marco Polo, who probably saw without
visiting them, under the name Angamanain, seemingly an
Arabic dual, ``The two Angamans,'' with the exaggerated
but not unnatural picture of the natives, long current,
as dog-faced Anthropophagi. Another notice occurs in the
story of Nicolo Conti (c. 1440), who explains the name to
mean ``Island of Gold,'' and speaks of a lake with peculiar
virtues as existing in it. The name is probably derived
from the Malay Handuman, coming from the ancient Hanuman
(monkey). Later travellers repeat the stories, too well
founded, of the ferocious hostility of the people; of whom we
may instance Cesare Federici (1569), whose narrative is given
in Ramusio, vol. iii. (only in the later editions), and in
Purchas. A good deal is also told of them in the vulgar and
gossiping but useful work of Captain A. Hamilton (1727).
In 1788-1789 the government of Bengal sought to establish
in the Andamans a penal colony, associated with a harbour of
refuge. Two able officers, Colebrooke of the Bengal Engineers,
and Blair of the sea service, were sent to survey and
report. In the sequel the settlement was established by Captain
Blair, in September 1789, on Chatham Island, in the S.E. bay
of the Great Andaman, now called Port Blair, but then Port
Cornwallis. There was much sickness, and after two years,
urged by Admiral Cornwallis, the government transferred
the colony to the N.E. part of Great Andaman, where a naval
arsenal was to be established. With the colony the name also
of Port Cornwallis was transferred to this new locality.
The scheme did ill; and in 1796 the government put an end to
it, owing to the great mortality and the embarrassments of
maintenance. The settlers were finally removed in May
1796. In 1824 Port Cornwallis was the rendezvous of the fleet
carrying the army to the first Burmese war. In 1839, Dr Helfer,
a German savant employed by the Indian government, having
landed in the islands, was attacked and killed. In 1844 the
troop-ships ``Briton'' and ``Runnymede'' were driven ashore
here, almost close together. The natives showed their usual
hostility, killing all stragglers. Outrages on shipwrecked
crews continued so rife that the question of occupation had
to be taken up again; and in 1855 a project was formed for
such a settlement, embracing a convict establishment. This
was interrupted by the Indian Mutiny of 1857, but as soon
as the neck of that revolt was broken, it became more urgent
than ever to provide such a resource, on account of the great
number of prisoners falling into British hands. Lord Canning,
therefore, in November 1857, sent a commission, headed by
Dr F. Mouat, to examine and report. The commission reported
favourably, selecting as a site Blair's original Port
Cornwallis, but pointing out and avoiding the vicinity of a
salt swamp which seemed to have been pernicious to the old
colony. To avoid confusion, the name of Port Blair was given
to the new settlement, which was established in the beginning of
1858. For some time sickness and mortality were excessively
large, but the reclamation of swamp and clearance of jungle
on an extensive scale by Colonel Henry Man when in charge
(1868-1870), had a most beneficial effect, and the health of
the settlement has since been notable. The Andaman colony
obtained a tragical notoriety from the murder of the viceroy,
the earl of Mayo, by a Mahommedan convict, when on a visit
to the settlement on the 8th of February 1872. In the same
year the two groups, Andaman and Nicobar, the occupation of
the latter also having been forced on the British government
(in 1869) by the continuance of outrage upon vessels, were
united under a chief commissioner residing at Port Blair.
See Sir Richard Temple, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands
(Indian Census, 1901); C. B. Kloss, In the Andamans and
Nicobars (1903); E. H. Man, Aboriginal Inhabitants of
the Andaman Islands (1883); M. V. Portman, Record of the
Andamanese (11 volumes MS. in India Office, London, and
Home Department, Calcutta), 1893- 1898, Andamanese Monual
(1887), Notes on the Languages of the South Andaman Group
of Tribes (1898), and History of our Relations with
the Andamanese (1899); S. Kurz, Vegetation of the Andamans
(1867); G. S. Miller, Mammals of the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands (vol. xxiv. of the Proceedings of the National
Museum, U.S.A.); A. L. Butler, ``Birds of the Andamans and
Nicobars'' (Proc. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., vols. xii. and
xiii.); and A. Alcock, A Naturalist in Indian Seas (1902).
ANDANTE (Ital. for ``moving slowly,'' from andare, to
go), a musical term to indicate pace, coming between adagio
and allegro; it is also used of an independent piece of
music or of the slow movement in a sonata, symphony, &c.
ANDERIDA, an ancient Roman fort at Pevensey, near Eastbourne
in Sussex (England), built about A.D. 300 as part of a scheme
of land-defence against the Saxon pirates; repaired, probably
by the great Stilicho, about A.D. 400; and after the Norman
Conquest utilized by William the Conqueror for a Norman castle.
Its massive Roman enceinte still stands but little damaged.
ANDERNACH, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province,
on the left bank of the Rhine, 10 m. N.W. of Coblenz by
the main line to Cologne. Pop. (1900) 7889. Viewed from
the river it makes a somewhat gloomy, though picturesque,
impression, with its parish church (a basilica dating from
the 12th century, with four towers), the round watch-tower
on the Rhine, old walls in places 15 ft. thick, and a famous
crane (erected 1554) for lading merchandise. Among other
buildings are a Gothic Minorite church (now Protestant), a town
hall, and a prison, formerly the castle of the archbishops of
Cologne. Andernach has considerable industries, brewing and
manufactures of chemicals and perfumes, and has also a trade
in corn and wine. But its most notable article of commerce
is that of mill-stones, made of lava and tufa-stone, a product
much used by the Dutch in the construction of their dykes.
Andernach (Antunnacum) is the old Roman Castellum ante
Nacum, founded by Drusus and fortified in the 3rd century
A.D. In 1109 Andernach received civic rights, passed in 1167
to the electors of Cologne, in 1253 joined the confederation
of the Rhine cities and was the most southern member of the
Hanseatic league. Here in 1474 a treaty was signed between
the emperor Frederick III., the four electors of the Rhine and
France. In 1794 Andernach passed to France, but in 1815 was
ceded, together with the left bank of the Rhine, to Prussia.
ANDERSEN, HANS CHRISTIAN (1805-1875), Danish poet and
fabulist, was born at Odense, in Funen, on the 2nd of April
1805. He was the son of a sickly young shoemaker of
twenty-two, and his still younger wife: the whole family lived
and slept in one little room. Andersen very early showed
signs of imaginative temperament, which was fostered by the
indulgence and superstition of his parents. In 1816 the
shoe-maker died and the child was left entirely to his own
devices. He ceased to go to school; he built himself a little
toy-theatre and sat at home making clothes for his puppets,
and reading all the plays that he could borrow; among them
were those of Holberg and Shakespeare. At Easter 1819 he
was confirmed at the church of St Kund, Odense, and began to
turn his thoughts to the future. It was thought that he was
best fitted to be a tailor; but as nothing was settled, and
as Andersen wished to be an opera-singer, he took matters
into his own hand and started for Copenhagen in September
1819. There he was taken for a lunatic, snubbed at the theatres,
and nearly reduced to starvation, but he was befriended by
the musicians Christoph Weyse and Siboni, and afterwards by
the poet Frederik Hoegh Guldberg (1771-1852). His voice
failed, but he was admitted as a dancing pupil at the Royal
Theatre. He grew idle, and lost the favour of Guldberg,
but a new patron appeared in the person of Jonas Collin, the
director of the Royal Theatre, who became Andersen's life-long
friend. King Frederick VI. was interested in the strange
boy and sent him for some years, free of charge, to the great
grammar-school at Slagelse. Before he started for school he
published his first volume, The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave
(1822). Andersen, a very backward and unwilling pupil, actually
remained at Slagelse and at another school in Elsinore until
1827; these years, he says, were the darkest and bitterest in his
life. Collin at length consented to consider him educated, and
Andersen came to Copenhagen. In 1829 he made a considerable
success with a fantastic volume entitled A Journey on Foot
from Holman's Canal to the East Point of Amager, and he
published in the same season a farce and a book of poems. He
thus suddenly came into request at the moment when his friends
had decided that no good thing would ever come out of his early
eccentricity and vivacity. He made little further progress,
however, until 1833, when he received a small travelling
stipend from the king, and made the first of his long European
journeys. At Le Locle, in the Jura, he wrote Agnate and
the Merman; and in October 1834 he arrived in Rome. Early
in 1835 Andersen's novel, The Improvisatore, appeared, and
achieved a real success; the poet's troubles were at an end at
last. In the same year, 1835, the earliest instalment of
Andersen's immortal Fairy Tales (Eventyr) was published in
Copenhagen. Other parts, completing the first volume, appeared
in 1836 and 1837. The value of these stories was not at first
perceived, and they sold slowly. Andersen was more successful
for the time being with a novel, O.T., and a volume of
sketches, In Sweden; in 1837 he produced the best of his
romances, Only a Fiddler. He now turned his attention,
with but ephemeral success, to the theatre, but was recalled
to his true genius in the charming miscellanies of 1840 and
1842, the Picture-Book without Pictures, and A Poet's
Bazaar. Meanwhile the fame of his Fairy Tales had been
steadily rising; a second series began in 1838, a third in
1845. Andersen was now celebrated throughout Europe, although
in Denmark itself there was still some resistance to his
pretensions. In June 1847 he paid his first visit to
England, and enjoyed a triumphal social success; when he
left, Charles Dickens saw him off from Ramsgate pier. After
this Andersen continued to publish much; he still desired to
excel as a novelist and a dramatist, which he could not do,
and he still disdained the enchanting Fairy Tales, in the
composition of which his unique genius lay. Nevertheless he
continued to write them, and in 1847 and 1848 two fresh volumes
appeared. After a long silence Andersen published in 1857
another romance, To be or not to be. In 1863, after a
very interesting journey, he issued one of the best of his
travel-books, In Spain. His Fairy Tales continued to
appear, in instalments, until 1872, when, at Christmas, the
last stories were published. In the spring of that year
Andersen had an awkward accident, falling out of bed and
severely hurting himself. He was never again quite well,
but he lived till the 4th of August 1875, when he died very
peacefully in the house called Rolighed, near Copenhagen. (E. G.)
ANDERSON, ADAM (1692--1765), Scottish economist, was born in
1692, and died in London on the 10th of January 1765. He was a
clerk for forty years in the South Sea House, where he published
a work entitled Historical and Chronological Deduction
of the Origin of Commerce from the Earliest Accounts to the
Present Time, containing a History of the Great Commercial
Interests of the British Empire (1762, 2 vols. fol.).
ANDERSON, ALEXANDER (c. 1582-1620?), Scottish mathematician,
was born at Aberdeen. In his youth he went to the continent
and taught mathematics at Paris, where he published or
edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various geometrical
and algebraical tracts, which are conspicuous for their
ingenuity and elegance. He was selected by the executors of
Franciscus Vieta to revise and edit his manuscript works, a
task which he discharged with great ability. The works of
Anderson amount to six thin 4to volumes, and as the last of
them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author
died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown.
ANDERSON, SIR EDMUND (1530-1605), English lawyer, descended
from a Scottish family settled in Lincolnshire, was born
in 1530 at Flixborough or Broughton in that county. After
studying for a short time at Lincoln College, Oxford, he
became in 1550 a student of the Inner Temple. In 1579 he
was appointed serjeant-at-law to Queen Elizabeth, and also
an assistant judge on circuit. As a reward for his services
in the trial of Edmund Campian and his followers (1581), he
was, on the death of Sir James Dyer, appointed lord chief
justice of the Common Pleas (1582), and was knighted. He
took part in all the leading state trials which agitated
England during the latter years of Elizabeth's reign. Though
a great lawyer and thoroughly impartial in civil cases, he
became notorious by his excessive severity and harshness when
presiding over the trials of catholics and nonconformists; more
markedly so in those of Sir John Perrot, Sir Walter Raleigh,
and John Udall the puritan minister. Anderson was also one
of the commissioners appointed to try Mary queen of Scots in
1586. He died on the 1st of August 1605 at Eyworth in
Bedfordshire. In addition to Reports of Many Principal
Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Time of Queen Elizabeth
in the Common Bench, published after his death, he drew
up several expositions of statutes enacted in Elizabeth's
reign which remain in manuscript in the British Museum.
ANDERSON, ELIZABETH GARRETT (1836- ), English medical
practitioner, daughter of Newson Garrett, of Aldeburgh,
Suffolk, was born in 1836, and educated at home and at a private
school. In 1860 she resolved to study medicine, an unheard-of
thing for a woman in those days, and one which was regarded
by old-fashioned people as almost indecent. Miss Garrett
managed to obtain some more or less irregular instruction at
the Middlesex hospital, London, but was refused admission as a
full student both there and at many other schools to which she
applied. Finally she studied anatomy privately at the London
hospital, and with some of the professors at St Andrews
University, and at the Edinburgh Extra-Mural school. She
had no less difficulty in gaining a qualifying diploma to
practise medicine. London University, the Royal Colleges
of Physicians and Surgeons, and many other examining bodies
refused to admit her to their examinations; but in the end
the Society of Apothecaries, London, allowed her to enter
for the License of Apothecaries' Hall, which she obtained in
1865. In 1866 she was appointed general medical attendant to
St Mary's dispensary, a London institution started to enable
poor women to obtain medical help from qualified practitioners
of their own sex. The dispensary soon developed into the
New hospital for women, and there she worked for over twenty
years. In 1870 she obtained the Paris degree of M.D. The
same year she was elected to the first London School Board,
at the head of the poll for Marylebone, and was also made one
of the visiting physicians of the East London hospital for
children; but the duties of these two positions she found to
be incompatible with her principal work, and she soon resigned
them. In 1871 she married Mr J. G. S. Anderson (d. 1907), a
London shipowner, but did not give up practice. She worked
steadily at the development of the New hospital, and (from
1874) at the creation of a complete school of medicine in
London for women. Both institutions have since been handsomely
and suitably housed and equipped, the New hospital (in the
Euston Road) being worked entirely by medical women, and the
schools (in Hunter Street, W.C.) having over 200 students,
most of them preparing for the medical degree of London
University, which was opened to women in 1877. In 1897 Mrs
Garrett Anderson was elected president of the East Anglian
branch of the British Medical Association. In 1908 she was
elected (the first lady) mayor of Aldeburgh. The movement
for the admission of women to the medical profession, of
which she was the indefatigable pioneer in England, has
extended to every civilized country except Spain and Turkey.
ANDERSON, JAMES (1662-1728), Scottish genealogist, antiquary
and historian, was born at Edinburgh on the 5th of August
1662. He was educated for the law, and became a writer to
the signet in 1691. His profession gave him the opportunity
of gratifying his taste for the study of ancient documents;
and just before the union the Scottish parliament commissioned
him to prepare for publication what remained of the public
records of the kingdom, and in their last session voted a sum
of L. 1940 sterling to defray his expenses. At this work he
laboured for several years with great judgment and perseverance;
but it was not completed at his death in 1728. The book was
published posthumously in 1739, edited by Thomas Ruddiman,
under the title Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiae
Thesaurus. The preparation of this great national work involved
the author in considerable pecuniary loss; and soon after his
death, the numerous plates, engraved by Sturt, were sold for
L. 530. These plates are now lost, and the book has become
exceedingly scarce. After the union of the crowns, Anderson
was appointed in 1715 postmaster-general for Scotland, as
some compensation for his labours; but in the political
struggles of 1717 he was deprived of this office, and never
again obtained any reward for his services. He died on the
3rd of April 1728. He published, during the controversy
about the union, An Historical Essay showing that the Crown
and Kingdom of Scotland is Imperial and Independent (Edin.,
1705,), and later Collections relating to the History of
Mary Queen of Scotland (in 4 vols., Edin., 1727-1728).
ANDERSON, JAMES (1739-1808), Scottish agriculturist and
economist, was born at Hermiston, near Edinburgh, in
1739. While still a boy he undertook the working of a farm
in Mid- Lothian which his family had occupied for several
generations, and later he rented in Aberdeenshire a farm
of 1300 acres of unimproved land. In 1783 he settled in
Edinburgh, where in 1791 he projected a weekly publication
called The Bee, which was largely written by himself, and
of which eighteen volumes were published. In 1797 he began
to reside at Isleworth, and from 1799 to 1802 he produced
a monthly publication, Recreations in Agriculture,
Natural History, Arts and Miscellaneous Literature. He
was also the author of many pamphlets on agricultural and
economical topics. He died on the 15th of October 1808.
ANDERSON, JOHN (1726-1796), Scottish natural philosopher,
was born at Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, in 1726. In 1756 he
became professor of oriental languages in the university of
Glasgow, where he had finished his education; and in 1760
he was appointed to the more congenial post of professor of
natural philosophy. He devoted himself particularly to the
application of science to industry, instituting courses of
lectures intended especially for artisans, and he bequeathed
his property for the foundation of an institution for
the furtherance of technical and scientific education in
Glasgow, Anderson's College, now merged in the Glasgow and
West of Scotland Technical College. He died in Glasgow on
the 13th of January 1796. His Institutes of Physics,
published in 1786, went through five editions in ten years.
ANDERSON, MARY (1859- ), American actress, was born at
Sacramento, California, on the 28th of July 1859. Her father,
an officer in the Confederate service in the Civil War, died in
1863. She was educated in various Roman Catholic institutions,
and at the age of thirteen, with the advice of Charlotte
Cushman, began to study for the stage, making her first
appearance at Louisville, Kentucky, as Juliet in 1875. Her
remarkable beauty created an immediate success, and she played
in all the large cities of the United States with increasing
popularity. Between 1883 and 1889 she had several seasons in
London, and was the Rosalind in the performance of As You
Like It which opened the Shakespeare Memorial theatre at
Stratford-on-Avon. Among her chief parts were Galatea (in W.
S. Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea), Clarice (in his Comedy
and Tragedy, written for her), Hermione, Perdita, and Julia
(in The Hunchback.) In 1889 she retired from the stage and
in 1890 married Antonio de Navarro, and settled in England.
See William Winter's Stage Life of Mary Anderson (New
York, 1886), and her own A Few Momories (New York, 1896).
ANDERSON, RICHARD HENRY (1821-1879), American soldier, was
born in South Carolina on the 7th of October 1821. Graduating
at West Point in 1842, he served in the Mexican War (in which
he won the brevet of first lieutenant) and in the Kansas
troubles of 1856-1857, becoming first lieutenant in 1848 and
captain in 1855. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861
he resigned his commission in the U.S. army, and entered the
Confederate service as a brigadier-general, being promoted
major-general in August 1862 and lieutenant-general in May
1864. With the exception of a few months spent with the army
under Bragg in 1862, Anderson's service was wholly in the Army
of Northern Virginia. Under Lee and Longstreet he served as
a divisional commander in nearly every battle from 1862 to
1864, winning especial distinction at Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg. When Longstreet was wounded at the battle of
the Wilderness, Anderson succeeded him in command of the
1st corps, which he led in the subsequent battles. His
services at the battle of Spottsylvania (q.v.) were most
important. He remained with the army, as a corps commander,
to the close of the war, after which he retired into private
life. He died at Beaufort S.C. on the 26th of June 1879.
ANDERSON, ROBERT (1750-1830), Scottish author and critic,
was born at Carnwath, Lanarkshire, on the 7th of January
1750. He studied first divinity and then medicine at the
university of Edinburgh, and subsequently, after some experience
as a surgeon, took the degree of M.D. at St Andrews in 1778.
He began to practise as a physician at Alnwick, but he became
financially independent by his marriage with the daughter of Mr
John Gray, and abandoned his profession for a literary life in
Edinburgh. For several years his attention was occupied
with his edition of The Works of the British Poets, with
Prefaces Biographical and Critical (14 vols. 8vo, Edin.,
1792-1807). His other publications were, The Miscellaneous
Works of Tobias Smollett, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life
and Writings (Edin., 1796); Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.,
with Critical Observations on his Works (Edin., 1815);
The Works of John Moore, M.D., with Memoirs of his Life
and Writings (Edin., 7 vols., 1820); and The Grave and other
Poems, by Robert Blair; to which are prefixed some Account
of his Life and Observations on his Writings (Edin., 1826).
Dr Anderson died at Edinburgh on the 20th of February 1830.
ANDERSON, a city and the county-seat of Madison county, Indiana,
U.S.A., situated on the west fork of the White river, about 35
m. N.E. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1880) 4126; (1890) 10,741;
(1900) 20,178, of whom 1081 were foreign-born; (1910, census)
22,476. It is served by the Central Indiana, the Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Pittsburg, Chicago & St
Louis railways, and also by the Indiana Union Traction System
(electric), the general offices and central power plant of
which are situated there. Its importance as a manufacturing
centre is due to its location in the natural gas region. In
1905 Anderson ranked first among the cities of the state in
the manufacture of carriage and wagon material, and iron and
steel. Among its many other manufactures are glass and
glassware, paper, strawboards, crockery and tiles. In 1905
the total factory product was valued at $8,314,760. There is a
good public library; much attention has been devoted to public
improvements; and the water works and the electric lighting
plants are owned and operated by the city. In connexion
with the water works there is a good filtration plant.
First settled about 1822, Anderson was incorporated in 1865.
ANDERSONVILLE, a village of Sumter county, Georgia, U.S.A.,
in the S.W. part of the state, about 60 m. S.W. of Macon,
on the Central of Georgia railway. Pop. (1910) 174. From
November 1863 until the close of the Civil War it was the seat
of a Confederate military prison. A tract of 16 1/2 acres of
land near the village was cleared of trees and enclosed with a
stockade. Prisoners began to arrive in February 1864, before
the prison was completed and before adequate supplies had
been received, and in May their number amounted to about
12,000. In June the stockade was enlarged so as to include
26 1/2 acres, but the congestion was only temporarily relieved,
and in August the number of prisoners exceeded 32,000. No
shelter had been provided for the inmates: the first arrivals
made rude sheds from the debris of the stockade; the others
made tents of blankets and other available pieces of cloth,
or dug pits in the ground. Owing to the slender resources
of the Confederacy, the prison was frequently short of
food, and even when this was sufficient in quantity it was
of a poor quality and poorly prepared on account of the lack
of cooking utensils. The water supply, deemed ample when
the prison was planned, became polluted under the congested
conditions. During the summer of 1864 the prisoners
suffered greatly from hunger, exposure and disease, and in
seven months about a third of them died. In the autumn,
after the capture of Atlanta, all the prisoners who could
be moved were sent to Millen, Georgia and Florence, South
Carolina. At Millen better arrangements prevailed, and when,
after Sherman began his march to the sea, the prisoners were
returned to Andersonville, the conditions there were somewhat
improved. During the war 49,485 prisoners were received at
the Andersonville prison, and of these about 13,000 died.
The terrible conditions obtaining there were due to the lack
of food supplies in the Confederate States, the incompetence
of the prison officials, and the refusal of the Federal
authorities in 1864 to make exchanges of prisoners, thus filling
the stockade with unlooked-for numbers. After the war Henry
Wirz, the superintendent, was tried by a court-martial, and
on the 10th of November 1865 was hanged, and the revelation
of the sufferings of the prisoners was one of the factors
that shaped public opinion regarding the South in the Northern
states, after the close of the Civil War. The prisoners' burial
ground at Andersonville has been made a national cemetery, and
contains 13,714 graves of which 921 are marked ``unknown.''
There is an impartial account of the Andersonville prison
in James F. Rhodes, History of the United States (vol.
v., New York, 1904). The partisan accounts are numerous;
see, for instance, A. C. Hamlin, Martyria; or, Andersonville
Prison (Boston, 1866); and R. R. Stevenson, The Southern
Side; or, Andersonville Prison (Baltimore, 1876).
ANDES, a vast mountain system forming a continuous chain
of highland along the western coast of South America. It is
roughly 4400 m. long, 100 m. wide in some parts, and of an
average height of 13,000 ft.1 The connexion of this system
with that of the Rocky Mountains, which has been pointed out
by many writers, has received much support from the discovery
of the extensive eruptions of granite during Tertiary times,
extending from the southern extremity of South America to
Alaska. The Andean range is composed of two great principal
chains with a deep intermediate depression, in which, and at
the sides of the great chains, arise other chains of minor
importance, the chief of which is that called the Cordillera
de la Costa of Chile. This starts from the southern extremity
of the continent, and runs in a northerly direction, parallel
with the coast, being broken up at its beginning into a number
of islands, and afterwards forming the western boundary of
the great central valley of Chile. To the north this coastal
chain continues in small ridges or isolated hills along the
Pacific as far as Colombia, always leaving the same valley
more or less visible to the west of the western great chain.
Tierra del Fuego.
Of the two principal chains the eastern is generally called Los
Andes, and the western La Cordillera, in Colombia, Peru and
Bolivia, where the eastern is likewise known as Cordillera Real
de los Andes, while to the south of parallel 23 deg. S. lat. in
Chile and Argentina, the western is called Cordillera de los
Andes. The eastern disappears in the centre of Argentina,
and it is therefore only the Cordillera de los Andes that
is prolonged as far as the south-eastern extremity of the
continent. The Cordillera de la Costa begins near Cape
Horn, which is composed principally of crystalline rocks,
and its heights are inconsiderable when compared with
those of the true Cordillera of the Andes. The latter,
as regards its main chain, is on the northern coast of the
Beagle Channel, in Tierra del Fuego, bounded on the north
by the deep depression of Lake Fagnano and of Admiralty
Sound. Staten Island appears to be the termination to the
east. The Cordillera of the Andes in Tierra del Fuego is
formed of crystalline schists, and culminates in the snow-capped
peaks of Mount Darwin and Mount Sarmiento (7200 ft.), which
contains glaciers of greater extent than those of Mont
Blanc. The extent of the glaciers is considerable in this
region, which, geographically, is more complex than was formerly
supposed. Although, in the explored portion of the Fuegian
chain, the volcanoes which have been mentioned from time to
time have not been met with, there seem to have existed to the
south, on the islands, many neo-volcanic rocks, some of which
appear to be contemporaneous with the basaltic sheet that covers
a part of eastern Patagonia. The insular region between Mount
Sarmiento and the Cordillera de los Andes, properly so called,
i.e. that which extends from Magellan Strait northwards, is
not fully explored, and all that is known of it is that it is
principally composed of the same rocks as the Fuegian section,
and that the greater part of its upper valleys is occupied
by glaciers that reach down to the sea amid dense forest.
Chile-Argentina, 52 deg. -38 deg. S.
As Admiralty Sound and Lake Fagnano bound the Cordillera to
the north in Tierra del Fuego, so at the eastern side of the
Cordillera in the southernmost part of the continent there is
a longitudinal depression which separates the Andes from some
independent ridges pertaining to a secondary parallel broken
chain called the pre-Cordillera. This depression is occupied
in great part by a series of lakes, some of these filling
transversal breaches in the range, whilst others are remains
of glacial reservoirs, bordered by morainic dams, extending
as far as the eastern tableland and corresponding in these
cases with transversal depressions which reach the Atlantic
Ocean. Between the larger lakes, fed by the Andine glaciers
of the eastern slope of the Southern Andes, are Lakes
Maravilla, 100 sq. m., and Sarmiento, 26 sq. m., 51 deg. S.
lat., which overflow into Last Hope Inlet; Argentino, 570 sq.
m., 50 deg. S. lat.; and Viedma, 450 sq; m., 49 deg. 30' S. lat.,
which empty into the river Santa Cruz; the fjordian Lake San
Martin, 49 deg. S. lat;, and Lakes Nansen, 18 sq. m.; Azara,
8 sq. m.; and Belgrano, 18 sq. m., which are dependents of
Lake San Martin (380sq. m.), and Lakes Pueyrredon (98 sq. m.)
and Buenos Aires (700 sq. m.), which now overflow into the
Pacific, through one of the remarkable inlets that are found
throughout the Cordillera, the Calen Inlet, which is the
largest western fjord of Patagonia. To the north of Lake
Buenos Aires there is Lake Elizalde, which, while situated
on the eastern slope, sends its waters to the Pacific Ocean,
and Lakes Fontana (30 sq. m.) and La Plata (34 sq. m.), 45 deg.
S. lat., which feed the river Senguerr, which flows to the
Atlantic. Lake General Paz (66 sq. m.) on the eastern slope
of the Andes, at 44 deg. S. lat., is the principal source of
the Palena river, which cuts all the Cordillera, while Lakes
Fetalauquen (20 sq. m.) Menendez (28 sq. m.), Rivadavia (10
sq. m.), and other smaller lakes, also situated between 43 deg.
30', and 42 deg. 30' S. lat. on the eastern slope send their
waters to the Pacific by the river Fetaleufu which cuts
through the Andes by a narrow gorge. The waters of Lake
Puelo (18 sq. m.) likewise flow into the same ocean through
the river of that name, which also cuts the Cordillera, and
of which the principal affluent likewise drains the waters
of a system of small lakes, the largest of which, Lake
Mascardi, measures 17 sq. m., which in comparatively recent
times formed part of the basin of Lake Nahuel Huapi (207 sq.
m.), 41 deg. S. lat. An extensive area of glacial deposits
shows that a sheet of ice formerly covered the whole eastern
slope to a great distance from the mountains. To the west
another sheet reached at the same time the Pacific Ocean.
From the Strait of Magellan up to 52 deg. S. lat., the western
slope of the Cordillera does not, properly speaking, exist.
Abrupt walls overlook the Pacific, and great longitudinal and
transversal channels and fjords run right through the heart of the
range, cutting it generally in a direction more or less oblique
to its axis, the result of movements of the earth's crust.
The mountains forming the Cordillera between Magellan Strait
and 41 deg. S. lat. are higher than those previously mentioned
in Tierra del Fuego. Generally composed of granite, gneiss
and Palaeozoic rocks, covered in many parts by rugged masses
of volcanic origin, their general height is not less than
6500 ft., while Mount Geikie is 7500 ft. and Mount Stokes
7100ft. To the north are Mounts Mayo (7600 ft.), Agassiz
(10,600 ft.), and Fitzroy, in 49 deg. S. lat. (11,120 ft.). The
section from 52 deg. to 48 deg. S. lat. is a continuous ice-capped
mountain range, and some of the glaciers extend from the
eastern lakes to the western channels, where they reach the
sea-level. The level of the lakes begins at 130 ft. at Lake
Maravilla and gradually ascends to nearly 700 ft. at Lake San
Martin. Passing the breach through which Lake San Martin
empties itself into Calen Inlet, in 48 deg. S. lat., is found a wide
oblique opening in the range, through which flows the river Las
Heras, fed by Lake Pueyrredon, which is only 410 ft. above the
sea-level to the east of the Andes, while Lake Buenos Aires,
immediately to the north, is 710 ft. The Andes continue to be
to the west an enormous rugged mass of ice and snow of an average
height of 9000 ft., sending glaciers to all the eastern fjords.
Mount San Lorenzo, detached from the main chain in the
Pre-Cordillera, is 11,800 ft. high. Mount San Valentin
(12,700 ft.) is the culminating point of the Andes in the
region extending from 49 deg. to 46 deg. S. lat., a little north of
which is the river Huemules which is followed by the breach
of the river Aisen. These two rivers have emptied a large
system of lakes, which in pre-Glacial times occupied the
eastern zone, thus forming a region suitable for colonization
in the broad valleys and hollows, where the rivers, as in
the case with those in the north, cut through the Andes by
narrow gaps, forming cataracts and rapids between the snowy
peaks. Volcanic action is still going on in these latitudes,
as the glaciers are at times covered by ashes, but the
predominant rocks to the east are the Tertiary granite,
while to the west gneiss, older granite and Palaeozoic rocks
prevail. The highest peaks, however, seem to be of volcanic
origin. Farther north, up to 41 deg. S. lat., the water gaps are
situated at a lesser distance one from the other, owing mainly
to more continuous erosion, this section of the continent
being the region of the maximum rainfall on the western
coast to the south of the equator. Between the gaps of the
river Aisen and river Cisnes or Frias, which also pierces the
chain, is found a huge mountain mass, in which is situated
Mount la Torre (7150 ft.). These form the continental
watershed, but in this region erosion is taking place so
rapidly that the day is not far distant when Lakes La Plata and
Fontana, situated to the east at a height of 3000 ft. and now
tributaries of the Atlantic, may become tributaries of the
Pacific. Already filtrations from the former go to feed
western affluents through the granitic masses. To the north
of Mount la Torre flows in the river Cisnes, 44 deg. 48' S. lat.,
across another water gap, continuing the range to the north
with high peaks, as Alto Nevado (7350 ft.) and Cacique (7000
ft.). The glaciers reach almost the western channels, as is
the case at the river Quelal. The northern glaciers, descending
nearly to sea- level, are situated at 43 deg. 40' S. lat. To
the north 45 deg. S. lat. a well-defined western longitudinal
valley, at some recent time occupied by lakes and rivers,
divides the Cordillera into two chains, the eastern being
the main chain, to which belong Mounts Alto Nevado, Cacique,
Dentista, Maldonado, Serrano, each over 7000 ft. high; and
Torrecillas (7400 ft.), Ventisquero (7500 ft.), and Tronador
(11,180 ft.); while the western chain, broken into imposing
blocks, contains several high volcanic peaks such as Mounts
Tanteles, Corcovado, Minchimahuida, Hornopiren and Yates. The
rivers Palena, with its two branches, Pico and Carrenleufu,
Fetaleufu, Puelo and Manso cut the two chains, while the rivers
Renihue, Bodadahue and Cochamo have their sources in the main
eastern ridge. Mention has been made of active volcanoes in
51 deg. , 49 deg. and 47 deg. S. lat., but these have not been properly
located. The active volcanoes south of 41 deg. , concerning
which no doubt exists, are the Huequen, in 43 deg. lat., and the
Calbuco, both of which have been in eruption in modern times.
The surroundings of Mount Tronador, consisting of Tertiary
granite and basalt, form one of the most interesting regions
in the Pataronian Andes for the mountaineers of the future. To
the east extends the large and picturesque lake of Nahuel-Huapi,
to the west is Lake Todos Los Santos (50 sq. m.), to which
the access is easy and of which the scenery is of surpassing
beauty. Between 41 deg. and 38 deg. S. lat., among other smaller
lakes, are Lakes Traful (45 sq. m.), Lacar (32 sq. m.),
which, properly belonging to the system of Atlantic lakes,
empties itself by the only water gap that occurs in this zone
of the Cordillera into the river Valdivia, a tributary of
the Pacific, Lake Lolog (15 sq. m.), Huechu-lafquen (45 sq.
m.), and Lake Alumine (21 sq. m.). The volcanoes of Lanin
(12,140 ft.), Quetropillan (9180 ft.), Villarica (10,400 ft.),
Yaimas and Tolhuaca are all more or less active; the first
is in the main chain, while the others are on the western
slope. The scenery in the neighbourhood is magnificent, the
snowy cones rising from amidst woods of araucaria, and being
surrounded by blue lakes. While the scenery of the western
slope of the Andes is exceedingly grand, with its deep fjords,
glaciers and woods, yet the severity of its climate detracts
considerably from its charm. The climate of the eastern
slope, however, is milder, the landscapes are magnificent, with
wooded valleys and beautiful lakes. The valleys are already
partly settled by colonists. Between 52 deg. and 40 deg. S. lat.
erosion has carried the watershed of the continent from the
summit of the Cordillera to the eastern plains of Patagonia.
From 40 deg. S. southward the Chile-Argentine Boundary Commission
under Sir T. H. Holdich carried out important investigations in
1902; and between 38 deg. and 33 deg. S. lat. the Andes were somewhat
extensively explored about the close of the 19th century by
Argentine and Chilean Commissions. The highest peaks in the
latter section are volcanic and their eruptions have sensibly
modified the character of the primitive ridges. Outflows
of lava and tufa cover the mountain sides and fill up the
valleys. The Jurassic and Cretaceous formations, which in
the Southern Cordillera are situated outside of the range
to the east, form to a considerable extent the mass of the
great range, together with quartz porphyry, the Tertiary,
granite and other eruptive rocks, which have been observed
along all the chain in South America up to Alaska in the
north. Gneiss is seldom met with, but there are crystalline
rocks, belonging chiefly to the pre-Cordillera of the eastern
and to the Cordillera de la Costa on the western side.
Chile-Argentina from 38 deg. S. northward.
About 38 deg. S. the Andes take a great transversal extension;
there are no wide intermediate valleys between the different
ridges but the main ridge is perfectly defined. Volcanic
cones continue to predominate, the old crystalline rocks
almost disappear, while the Mesozoic rocks are most
common. The higher peaks are in the main chain, while
the Domuyo (15,317 ft.) belongs to a lateral eastern
ridge. The principal peaks between this and Mount Tupungato
at 33 deg. S. lat. are: Mount Cochico (8255 ft.), Campanario,
(13,140 ft.), Peteroa (13,297 ft.), Tinguiririca, Castillo
(16,535 ft.), Volcano Maipu (17,576 ft.), Alvarado (14,600
ft.), Amarillo (15,321 ft.), Volcano San Jose (19,849 ft.),
Piuquenes (17,815 ft.), and Volcano Bravard (19,619 ft.).
North of Maipu volcano, ascended by R. P. Gussfeldt in
1883, the Cordillera is composed of two huge principal ridges
which unite and terminate in the neighbourhood of Mount
Tupungato. The valley between them is 9000 ft. high; and in
that part of the Cordillera are situated the highest passes
south of 33 deg. S. lat., one of which, the Piuquenes Pass,
reaches 13,333 ft., whilst the easiest of transit and almost
the lowest is that of Pichachen (6505 ft.), which is the most
frequented during winter. Mount Tupungato reaches 22,329
ft., according to Argentine measurement. To the north of this
mountain, situated at the watershed of the Andes, extends
a lofty region comprising peaks such as Chimbote (18,645
ft.) and Mount Polleras (20,266 ft.). The Pircas Pass is
situated at a height of 16,962 ft. The gaps of Bermejo and
Iglesia, in the Uspallata road, the best known of all the
passes between Argentina and Chile, are at 13,025 ft. and
13,412 ft. altitude respectively, while the nearest peaks,
those of Juncal and Tolorsa, are 19,358 and 20,140 ft. high.
Mounts Tupungato, Aconcagua (23,393 ft.) and Mercedario
A. Alluvium G. Upper Jurassic Gypsum
C. Cretaceous (including upper & lower) YV. Younger Volcanic Rocks
M. Upper Jurassic (Malm) } OV. Older Volcanic Rocks
D. Middle Jurassic (Dogger) }mostly porphyrite Di. Dioritic Rocks
L. Liassic }porphyritic X. Change of bearing in the
conglomerate Sections
(21,982 ft.) are the highest peaks of the central Argentine-Chilean
Andes. These three peaks are formed of eruptive rocks,
surrounded by Jurassic beds which have undergone a thorough
metamorphosis. While in the west of the Andes, from the
latitude of Aconcagua, the central valley of Chile runs
without any notable interruption to the south end of the
continent, a valley which almost disappears to the north,
leaving only some rare inflexions which are considered by
Chilean geographers and geologists to be a continuation of
the same valley; to the east in Argentina a longitudinal
valley, perfectly characterized, runs along the eastern
foot of the Cordillera, separating this from the pre-
Cordillera, which is parallel to the Cordillera de la Costa of
Chile. Between Aconcagua and Mercedario are the passes of
Espinacito (14,803 ft.) and Los Patos or Valle Hermoso (11,736
ft.), chosen by the Argentine General San Martin, when he
made his memorable passage across the chain during the War of
Independence. North of Valle Hermoso the Andean ridges,
while very high, are not abrupt, and the passes are more
numerous than in the south; some of them descending 10,000
ft., but most of them between 13,000 and 14,000 ft. The pass
of Quebrada Grande is 12,468 ft. in altitude; Cencerro, 12,944
ft.; Mercedario, 13,206 ft.; Ojota, 14,304 ft.; Pachon, 14,485
ft.; while Gordito is 10,318 ft. Farther north the passes are
higher. Barahona Pass is 15,092 ft.; Ternera, 15,912 ft.;
San Lorenzo, 16,420 ft., while the peak of the volcano
reaches 18,143 ft.; Mount Olivares, 20,472 ft.; Porongos,
19,488 ft.; Tortolas, 20,121 ft.; and Potro, 19,357 ft.
Bolivia.
As far as 28 deg. S. lat. the Cordillera de los Andes has been
principally formed by two well-defined ridges, but to the
north, recent volcanic action has greatly modified its
orography. Only a single line of passes characterizes the
main ridge, and amongst them are the passes of Ollita (15,026
ft.), Penas Negras (14,435 ft.), Pircas Negras (13,615 ft.),
La Gallina (I6,240 ft.), Tres Quebradas (15,535 ft.), and
Aguita (15,485 ft.). To the north of Mount Potro the peaks
in the Cordillera are not very prominent as far as the great
mass of Tres Quebradas, but here are to be met with some
that may he considered as amongst the highest of the whole
range. Mount Aguita is 20,600 ft., and the culminating
peak of those of Tres Cruces reaches 226,58 ft. To the
east of the eastern longitudinal valley, at 27 deg. S. lat.,
begins a high volcanic plateau between the Cordillera and
the southern prolongation of the Bolivian Cordillera Real,
which contains lofty summits, such as Mount Veladero ( 20,998
ft.), Mount Bonete (21,980), Mount Reclus (20,670), Mount
Pissis (22,146), Mount Ojo del Salado (21,653), and Incahuasi
(21,719). To the north of Tres Cruces is a transversal
depression in the Cordillera, which is considered to be
the southern termination of the high plateau of the Puna de
Atacama. The Cordillera of the Andes borders the Puna to the
west, while the Bolivian Cordillera Real bounds it to the
east. In that region the Cordillera of the Andes is of
comparatively recent origin, being principally constituted
by a line of high volcanoes, the chief summits being those of
Juncal, Panteon de Aliste, Azufre or Listarria (18,636 ft.),
Llullaillaco (21,720), Miniques (19,357), Socompa (19,948),
Licancaur (19,685), Viscachuelas (20,605), Tapaquilcha (19,520),
Oyahua (19,242), Ancaquilcha (20,275), Olca (19,150), Mino
(20,112), Sillilica (21,100), Perinacota (20,918), Sagama
(22,339), Tacona (19,740), Misti (19,029); to the east
closes in the intermediary high plateau which begins at 28 deg.
S. lat. in Argentina. The principal peaks of the Bolivian
Andes and its prolongation from south to north, are Famatina,
in the centre of Argentina, (20,340 ft.), Languna Blanca
(18,307), Diamante (18,045), (Cachi (20,000), Granadas, Lipez
(19,680), Guadalupe (18,910), Chorolque (18,480), Cuzco
(17,930), Enriaca (18,716), Junari (16,200), Michiga (17,410),
Quimza-Cruz (18,280), Illimani (21,190) and Sorata (21,490).
While the western range of the Cordillera is principally
formed by volcanic rocks, the eastern (to the east of the
range is Cerro Potosi, 15,400 ft.) Andes of Bolivia are chiefly
composed of old crystalline rocks. Between the ranges in the
high plateau north to 27 deg. are numerous isolated volcanoes
which have been in activity in recent times, such as Peinado
(18,898 ft.), San Pedro (18,701), Antuco (19,029), Antofalla
(20,014), Rincon (17,881), Pastos Grandes (17,553), Zapalegui
(17,553), Suniguira (19,258), Tahue (17,458); volcanoes which
have been elevated from a lncustrine basin, which very recently
occupied the whole extension, and the remains of which are,
in the south, the Laguna Verde, at 28 deg. , and in the north Lake
Titicaca. The discovery of great Pampean mammals in the
Pleistocene beds of that region shows that this upheaval of the
latter is very recent, for in the heart of the Cordillera, as
well as on the west coast of Bolivia and Peru, there have been
discovered, in very recent deposits, the remains of some mammals
which cannot have crossed the high range as it now exists.
Peru-Ecuador.
The two Cordilleras that formed the Andes to the north of
28 deg. S. lat. are continued in Peru. The western, which
reaches an altitude of about 10,000 ft., then ceases to
exist as a continuous chain, there remaining only a short,
high ridge, called by Edward Whymper the ``Pacific range of
the equator,'' and between this ridge and the crystalline
Andean axis, the ``avenue of volcanoes,'' to use his words,
arises amidst majestic scenery. Chimborazo, which is not
in the main chain, reaches 20,517 ft.; Cotopaxi (19,580),
Antisana (19,260), Coyambo (19,200) are in the eastern range,
with many other peaks over 16,000 ft. which still contain
glaciers. Sangay (17,380 ft.), under the equator, according
to Wolff, appears to be the most active volcano in the
world. Pichincha (15,804 ft.) and Cotocachi (16,297 ft.) are
the loftiest volcanoes of the western range. In Colombia the
three principal chains are continuations of those under the
equator, and show very slight traces of volcanic action,
Columbia.
In the western chain, which is remarkable for its regularity,
the highest peak is 11,150 ft., and the lowest pass 6725
ft. The central chain, separated from the western chain by
the valley of the Cauca and from the eastern by the valley
of the Magdalena, is unbroken; it is the more important
owing to its greater altitudes and is of volcanic character.
To the south, near the equator, are Mounts Arapul (13,360
ft.) and Chumbul (15,720 ft.). The volcanoes Campainero
(12,470 ft.) and Pasto (14,000 ft.) are also in that zone.
Farther north is the volcano Purace, which presents a height
of 16,000 ft.; then come Huila (18,000), Santa Catalina
(16,170), and Tolima (18,400), Santa Isabel (16,760), Ruiz
(17,390) and Hervas (18,340). The eastern chain begins north
of the equator at 6000 ft., gradually rises to the height
of Nevado (14,146 ft.), Pan de Azucar (12,140 ft.), and in
the Sierra Nevada de Cochi attains to peaks of 16,700 ft.
The snow-line of the Andes is highest in parts of Peru
where it lies at about 16,500 ft. Its general range
from the extreme north to Patagonia is 14,000 to 15,500
ft., but along the Patagonian frontier it sinks rapidly,
until in Tierra del Fuego it lies at about 4900 ft.
Structure.--The structure of the Andes is least complex
in the southern portion of the range. Between 33 deg. and 36 deg.
S. the chain consists broadly of a series of simple folds of
Jurassic and Cretaceous beds. It is probably separated on
the east from the recent deposits of the pampas by a great
fault, which, however, is always concealed by an enormous
mass of scree material. The Cretaceous beds lie in a broad
synclinal upon the eastern flank, but the greater part of
the chain is formed of Jurassic beds, through which, on the
western margin, rise the numerous andesitic volcanic centres.
There is no continuous band of ancient gneiss, nor indeed
of any beds older than the Jurassic. There is very little
over-folding or faulting, and the structure is that of the
Jura mountains rather than of the Alps. The inner or eastern
ridge farther north of Argentina consists of crystalline rocks
with infolded Ordovician and Cambrian beds, often overlaid
unconformably by a sandstone with plant-remains (chiefly
Rhaetic). In Bolivia this eastern ridge, separated from the
western Cordillera by the longitudinal valley in which Lake
Titicaca lies, is formed chiefly of Archaean and Palaeozoic
rocks. All the geological systems, from the Cambrian to the
Carboniferous, are represented and they are all strongly
folded, the folds leaning over towards the west. West of the
great valley the range is composed of Mesozoic beds, together
with Tertiary volcanic rocks. (The Cordillera of Argentina
and Chile is clearly the continuation of the western chain
alone.) In Ecuador there is still an inner chain of ancient
gneisses and schists and an outer chain composed of Mesozoic
beds. The longitudinal valley which separates them is
occupied mainly by volcanic deposits. North of Ecuador the
structure becomes more complex. Of the three main chains
into which the mountains are now divided, the western
branch is formed mostly of Cretaceous beds; but the inner
chains no longer consist exclusively of the older rocks, and
Cretaceous beds take a considerable share in their formation.
The great volcanoes, active and extinct, are not confined
to any one zone. Sometimes they rise from the Mesozoic
zone of the western Cordillera, sometimes from the ancient
rocks of the eastern zone. But they all he within the
range itself and do not, as in the Carpathians and the
Apennines, form a fringe upon the inner border of the chain.
The curvature of the range around the Brazilian massif,
and the position of the zone of older rocks upon the eastern
flank, led Suess to the conclusion that the Andes owe their
origin to an overthrust from east to west, and that the
Vorland lies beneath the Pacific. In the south Wehrli
and Burckhardt maintain that the thrust came from the
west, and they look upon the ancient rocks of Argentina
as the Vorland. In this part of the chain, however,
there is but little evidence of overthrusting of any kind.
AUTHORITIES.--John B. Minchin, ``Journey in the Andean Tableland
of Bolivia,'' Proceedings of Geographical Society (1882);
Paul Gussfeldt, Reise in den centralen chileno-argentinischen
Andes (Berlin, 1884); John Ball, Notes of a Naturalist in
South America (London, 1887); Alfred Hettner, Reisen in den
colombianischen Andeen (Leipzig, 1888); ``Die Kordillere
von Bogota,'' Peterm. Mitteilungen, civ. (1892); Edward
Whymper, Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator
(London, 1892); Teodoro Wolff, Geografia y Geologia del
Ecuador (Leipzig, 1892); E. A. Fitzgerald, The Highest
Andes (London, 1899); Sir Martin Conway, ``Explorations
in the Bolivian Andes,'' Geogr. Journ. xiv. (London,
1899); The Bolivian Andes (London and New York, 1901);
Carl Burckhardt, Expedition geologique dans la region
Andine, 38 deg. --39 deg. S. lat.; Leo Wehrli, ``Cordillere
argentino-chilienne, 40 deg. et 41 deg. S. lat.'' Revista del
Museo de La Plata (1899); F. P. Moreno, ``Explorations
in Patagonia,'' Geogr. Journ. xvi. (1900); Hans Steffen,
``The Patagonian Cordillera and its Main Rivers, between 41 deg.
and 48 deg. S. lat.,'' Geogr. Journ. (London, 1900); Paul
Kruger, Die chilenische Renihue Expedition (Berlin,
1900); Carl Burckhardt, ``Profils geologiques transversaux
de la Cordillera argentino-chilienne,'' Anales del Museo
de La Plata (1900); Argentine-Chilian Boundaries in the
Cordillera de los Andes, Argentine Evidence (London,
1900); ``South America; Outline of its Physical Geography,''
Geogr. Journ. xvii. (1901); Maps of Cordillera de los
Andes, Surveys of Argentine Boundary Commission; L. R. Patron,
Cordillera de los Andes (Republica de Chile, Oficina des
Limites) Santiago (Chile), 1903 et seq.); Sir T. H. Holdich,
``The Patagonian Andes,'' Geogr. Journ. xxiii: (1904).
1 As to the specific elevations of many of the peaks mentioned in
this article, various authorities differ, and it is impossible in
many cases to rate one estimate as of greater value than another.
ANDESINE, a member of the group of minerals known as
plagioclase felspars, occupying a position in the isomorphous
series about midway between albite (NaAlSi3O8) and anorthite
(CaAl2Si2O8); its chemical composition and physical characters
are therefore intermediate between those of the two extremes
of the series. Distinctly developed crystals or crystallized
specimens are rarely met with, the mineral usually occurring as
embedded crystals and grains in the igneous and gneissic rocks,
of which it forms a component part. It occurs, for example,
in the andesite of the Andes, from whence it derives its name.
ANDESITE, a name first applied by C. L. von Buch to a series
of lavas investigated by him from the Andes, which has passed
into general acceptance as the designation of a great family
of rocks playing an important part in the geology of most of
the volcanic areas of the globe. Not only the Andes but most
of the Cordillera of Central and North America consist very
largely of andesites; they occur also in great numbers in
Japan, the Philippines, Java and New Zealand. They belong to
all geological epochs, and are frequent among the Silurian and
Devonian rocks of Britain, forming the ranges of the Cheviots,
Ochils, Breidden Hills, and part of the Lake district. The
well-known volcanoes, Montagne Pelee, the Soufriere of St
Vincent, Krakatoa, Tarawera and Bandaisan have within recent
years emitted great quantities of andesitic rocks with disastrous
violence. No group of lavas is more widespread and more
important from a geographical standpoint than the andesites.
They are typical intermediate rocks, containing on an average
about 60% of silica, but showing a considerable range of
composition. Most of them correspond to the plutonic diorites,
but others more nearly represent the gabbros. Their essential
distinguishing features are mineralogical and consist in the
presence of much soda-lime felspar (ranging from oligoclase
to bytownite and even anorthite), along with one or more of
the ferro-magnesian minerals, biotite, hornblende, augite and
hypersthene. Both olivine and quartz are typically absent,
though in some varieties they occur in small quantity.
Orthoclase is more common than these two, but is never very
abundant. The andesites have mostly a porphyritic structure,
and the larger felspars and ferro-magnesian minerals are
often visible to the naked eye, lying in a finer groundmass,
usually crystalline, but sometimes to a large extent
vitreous. When very fresh they are dark-coloured if they
contain much glass, but paler in colour, red, grey or
pinkish when more thoroughly crystallized. They weather to
various shades of dark brown, reddish-brown, green, grey and
yellow. Many of them are highly vesicular or amygdaloidal.
The older (pre-Tertiary) andesites are grouped together by many
German, and formerly by British petrologists, under the term
porphyrites, but are distinguished only by being, as a rule,
in a less fresh condition. Apart from this there are three
great subdivisions of this family of rocks, the quartz-andesites
or dacites, the hornblende-and biotite-andesites, and the
augite and hypersthene-andesites (or pyroxene-andesites). The
dacites, a term first applied by Karl Heinrich Hektor Guido
Stache (b. 1833 ) to quartz-bearing andesite of Transylvania
or Dacia, contain primary quartz, and are the most siliceous
members of the family; their quartz may appear in small blebs
(or phenocrysts), or may occur only as minute interstitial
grains in the groundmass; other dacites are very vitreous
(dacitic-pitchstones). In many of their structural peculiarities
they closely simulate the rhyolites, from which they differ in
containing less potash and more soda, and in consequence less
orthoclase felspar and more plagioclase. The hornblende- and
biotite-andesites, like the dacites, have in most cases a pale
colour (pink, yellow or grey), being comparatively rich in
felspar. They resemble the trachytes both in appearance and
in structure, but their felspar is mostly plagioclase, not
sanidine. The biotite and hornblende have much the same
characters in both of these groups of rocks, and are often
surrounded by black borders produced by corrosion and partial
resorption by the magma. A pale green augite is common in
these andesites, but bronzite or hypersthene is comparatively
rare. The pyroxene-andesites are darker, more basic rocks, with
a higher specific gravity, and approach closely to the basalts
and dolerites, especially when they contain a small amount of
olivine. They are probably the commonest types of andesite,
both at the present time and in former geological periods. Often
their groundmass consists of brownish glass, filled with small
microliths of augite and felspar, and having a velvety, glistening
lustre when observed in a good light (hyalopilitic structure).
In addition to the accessory minerals, zircon, apatite and iron
oxides, which are practically never absent, certain others occur
which, on account of their rarity and importance, are of special
interest. Sharply-formed little crystals of cordierite are
occasionally found in andesites (Japan, Spain, St Vincent,
Cumberland); they seem to depend on more or less complete
digestion of fragments of gneiss and other rocks in the molten
lava. Garnet and sapphire have also been found in andesites,
and perhaps have the same signification; a rose-red variety
of epidote (withamite) is known as a secondary product in
certain andesites (Glencoe, Scotland), and the famous red
porphyry (porfido rosso) of the ancients is a rock of this
type. Ore deposits very frequently occur in connexion with
andesitic rocks (Nevada, California, Hungary, Borneo, &c.),
especially those of gold and silver. They have been laid
down in fissures as veins of quartz, and the surrounding
igneous rocks are frequently altered and decomposed
in a peculiar way by the hot ascending metalliferous
solutions. Andesites affected in this manner are known as
propylites. The alteration is one of those post-volcanic,
pneumatolytic processes, so frequent in volcanic districts.
Propylitization consists in the replacement of the original
minerals of the andesite by secondary products such as
kaolin, epidote, mica, chlorite, quartz and chalcedony, often
with the retention of the igneous structures of the rocks.
In microscopic characters the andesites present considerable
variety; their porphyritic felspars are usually of tabular
shape with good crystalline outlines, but often filled
with glass enclosures. Zonal structure is exceedingly
common, and the central parts of the crystals are more basic
(bytownite, &c.) than the edges (oligoclase). Sanidine occurs
with considerable frequency, but not in notable amount.
The biotite and hornblende are yellow or brown and richly
pleochroic. The hypersthene is nearly always idiomorphic,
with a distinct pleochroism ranging from salmon-pink to
green. Augite may be green in the more acid andesites, but
is pale brown in the pyroxene-andesites. The apatite is
often filled with minute dust-like enclosures. In the dacites
felsitic groundmasses are by no means rare, but microcrystalline
types consisting of plagioclase and sanidine with quartz
are more prevalent. The hornblende- and mica-andesites have
groundmasses composed mainly of acid plagioclase with little
orthoclase or glassy base (pilotaxitic groundmass). Clear
brown glass with many small crystals of plagioclase and pale
brown augite (hyalopilitic groundmass) is very frequent in
pyroxene-andesites. Vitreous rocks belonging to all of the
above groups are well known though not very common, and exhibit
the perlitic, pumiceous, spherulitic and other structures,
characteristic to volcanic obsidians and pitchstones. (J. S. F.)
ANDIJAN, a town of Russian Turkestan, Province of Ferghana.
eastern terminus of the Transcaspian railway, 84 m. by rail
E.N.E. of Khokand, on the left bank of the upper Syr-darya.
Altitude 1630 ft. Pop. (1900) 49,682. It was formerly the
residence of the khans of Khokand, and has beautiful gardens
and a large park in the middle of the town. Andijan is a centre
for the trade in raw cotton and has cotton factories. All over
Central Asia, West Turkestan merchants are known generally as
Andijani. The town was destroyed by an earthquake on the
16th-17th of December 1902, when 5000 persons perished and
16,000 houses were demolished. It has since been rebuilt.
ANDIRON (older form anderne; med. Lat. andena, anderia),
a horizontal iron bar, or bars, upon which logs are laid
for burning in an open fireplace. Andirons stand upon short
legs and are usually connected with an upright guard. This
guard, which may be of iron, steel, copper, bronze, or even
silver, is often elaborately ornamented with conventional
patterns or heraldic ornaments, such as the fleur-de-lys,
with sphinxes, grotesque animals, mythological statuettes or
caryatides supporting heroic figures or emblems. Previously
to the Italian Renaissance, andirons were almost invariably
made entirely of iron and comparatively plain, but when the
ordinary objects of the household became the care of the artist,
the metal-worker lavished skill and taste upon them, and even
such a man as Jean Berain, whose fancy was most especially
applied to the ornamentation of Boulle furniture, sometimes
designed them. Indeed the fire-dog or chenet reached its
most artistic development under Louis XIV. of France, and the
first extant examples--often of cast-iron--are to be found
in French museums and royal palaces. Fire-dogs, with little
or no ornament, were also used in kitchens, with ratcheted
uprights for the spits. Very often these uprights branched
out into arms or hobs for stewing or keeping the viands hot.
ANDKHUI, a town and khanate in Afghan Turkestan. The town
(said to have been founded by Alexander the Great) stands
between the northern spurs of the Paropamisus and the Oxus;
it is 100 m. due west of Balkh on the edge of the Turkman
desert. The khanate is of importance as being one of the
most northern in Afghanistan, on the Russian border. Until
1820 it was subject to Bokhara, but in that year Mahmud
Khan besieged it for four months, took it by storm and
left it a heap of ruins. To preserve himself from utter
destruction the khan threw himself into the arms of the
Afghans. The tract in which Andkhui stands is fertile, but
proverbially unhealthy; the Persians account it ``a hell
upon earth'' by reason of its scorching sands, brackish
water, flies and scorpions. The population, estimated at
15,000, consists principally of Turkmans with a mixture
of Uzbegs and a few Tajiks. The district was allotted to
Afghanistan by the Russo- Afghan boundary commission of 1885.
ANDOCIDES, one of the ``ten'' Attic orators, was born
about 440 B.C. Implicated in the mutilation of the Hermae
(415), although he saved his life by turning informer, he
was condemned to partial loss of civil rights and went into
exile. He engaged in commercial pursuits, and after two
unsuccessful attempts returned to Athens under the general
amnesty that followed the restoration of the democracy (403),
and filled some important offices. In 391 he was one of the
ambassadors sent to Sparta to discuss peace terms, but the
negotiations failed, and after this time we hear no more of
him. Oligarchical in his sympathies, he offended his own party
and was distrusted by the democrats. Andocides was no professional
orator; his style is simple and lively, natural but inartistic.
Speeches extant:--De Reditu, plea for his return and
removal of civil disabilities; De Mysteriis, defence
against the charge of impiety in attending the Eleusinian
mysteries; De Pace, advocating peace with Sparta; Contra
Alcibiadem, generally considered spurious. Text:--Blass,
1880, Lipsius, 1888; De Myst., with notes by Hickie, 1885;
De Red. and De Myst., with notes by Marchant, 1889; see
Jebb, Attic Orators; L. L. Forman, Index Andocideus, 1897.
ANDORRA, or ANDORRE, a small, neutral, autonomous, and
semi-independent state, on the Franco-Spanish frontier, and
chiefly on the peninsular side of the eastern Pyrenees.
Pop. (1900) about 5500; area about 175 sq. m. Andorra is
surrounded by mountains, and comprises one main valley,
watered by the Gran Balira, Valira or Balire, a tributary
of the Segre, which itself flows into the Ebro; with several
smaller valleys, the most important being that of the Balira
del Orien, which joins the Gran Balira on the left. The
territory was once densely wooded, and is said to derive
its name from the Moorish Aldarra, ``the place thick with
trees''; but almost all the forests have been destroyed for
fuel. The climate is generally cold, with very severe
winters. The land is chiefly devoted to pasture for the
numerous flocks and herds; but on the more sheltered southern
slopes it is carefully cultivated, and produces grain,
potatoes, fruit and tobacco. Game and trout are plentiful;
milk, butter, hams, hides and wool are exported, principally to
France. The local industries are of the most primitive
kind, merely domestic, as in the middle ages. Lack of
capital, of coal, and of good means of communication prevents
the inhabitants from making use of the iron and lead in
their mountains. During the coldest winter months their
communications are much easier with Spain than through the
snow-clad passes leading into Ariege. The only roads are
bridle-paths, and one municipal road by the Balira valley,
connecting Andorra with the high road to Seo de Urgel and
Manresa; but in 1904 France and Spain agreed to build a railway
from Ax to Ripoll, which would greatly facilitate traffic.
The Andorrans are a robust and well-proportioned race, of an
independent spirit, simple and severe in their manners. They
are all Roman Catholics. Apart from the wealthier landowners,
who speak French fluently, and send their children to be
educated in France, they use the Catalan dialect of Spanish.
Andorra comprises the six parishes or communes of Andorra
Vicilla, Canillo, Encamp, La Massana, Ordino and San Julian de
Loria, which are subdivided into fifty-two hamlets or pueblos.
Preserved from innovations by the mutual jealousy of rival
potentates, as well as by the conservative temper of a
pastoral population, Andorra has kept its medieval usages and
institutions almost unchanged. In each parish two consuls,
assisted by a local council, decide matters relating to roads,
police, taxes, the division of pastures, the right to collect
wood, &c. Such matters, as well as the general internal
administration of the territory, are finally regulated by a
Council General of 24 members (4 to each parish), elected since
1866 by the suffrages of all heads of families, but previously
confined to an aristocracy composed of the richest and oldest
families, whose supremacy had been preserved by the principle of
primogeniture. A general syndic, with two inferior syndics,
chosen by the Council General, constitutes the supreme
executive of the state. Two viguiers--one nominated by
France, and the other by the bishop of Urgel--command the
militia, which consists of about 600 men, although all capable
of bearing arms are liable to be called out. This force is
exempt from all foreign service, and the chief office of the
viguiers is the administration of criminal justice, in which
their decisions, given simply according to their judgment and
conscience, there being no written laws, are final. Civil
cases, on the other hand, are tried in the first instance
before one of the two aldermen, who act as deputies of the
viguiers; the judgment of this court may be set aside by
the civil judge of appeal, an officer nominated by France and
the bishop of Urgel alternately; the final appeal is either to
the Court of Cassation at Paris or to the Episcopal College at
Urgel. The French viguier is taken from the French department
of Ariege and appointed for life, but the viguier of the
bishop must be an Andorran, holding office for three years and
re-eligible. There are notaries and clerks, auditors for each
parish elected by the heads of families, police agents and
bailiffs, chosen and sworn in, like all the above officers,
by the Council General. The archives are mostly kept in the
``house of the valley'' in the capital, Andorra Vicilla, a
struggling village of 600 inhabitants. In this government
house the Council General meets and has a chapel. Here
also the aldermen, viguiers and judge of appeal administer
justice and assemble for all purposes of administration. Two
magistrates, styled rahanadores, are appointed by the Council
General to see that viguiers and judges preserve the customs
and privileges of Andorra. The parishes have a permanent
patrol of six armed men besides the militia. Spain and the
bishop of Urgel are very jealous of French encroachments, and
claim to have a better right ultimately to annex the little
state. In the meanwhile it continues to pay each of the
suzerain powers L. 40 a year, levied by a tax on pastures.
Andorra is the sole surviving specimen of the independence
possessed in medieval times by the warlike inhabitants of
many Pyrenean valleys. Its privileges have remained intact,
because the suzerainty of the district became equally and
indivisibly shared in 1278 between the bishops of Urgel and
the counts of Foix, the divided suzerainty being now inherited
by the French crown and the present bishop of Urgel; and
the two powers have mutually checked innovations, while the
insignificant territory has not been worth a dispute. Thus
Andorra is not a republic, but is designated in official
documents as the Vallees et Suzerainetes. Before 1278
it was under the suzerainty of the neighbouring counts of
Castelbo, to whom it had been ceded in 1170 by the counts of
Urgel. A marriage between the heiress of Castelbo and Roger
Bernard, count of Foix, carried the rights of the above-named
Spanish counts into the house of Foix, and hence subsequently
to the crown of France, when the heritage of the feudal
system was absorbed by the sovereign; but the bishops of
Urgel claimed certain rights, which after long disputes were
satisfied by the ``Act of Division'' executed in 1278. The
claims of the bishopric dated from Carolingian times, and the
independence of Andorra, like most other Pyrenean anomalies,
has been traditionally ascribed to Charlemagne (742-814).
AUTHORITIES.--With the exception of Etudes geographiques
sur la vallee d'Andorre, by J. Blade (Paris, 1875), the
standard books on Andorra deal mainly with its history and
institutions. They comprise the following:--The Valley of
Andorra, translated from the French of E. B. Berthet by F.
H. Deverell (Bristol, 1886); J. Aviles Arnau, El Pallas y
Andorra (Barcelona, 1893); L. Dalmau de Baquer, Historia
de la Republica de Andorra (Barcelona, 1849): C. Baudon
de Mony, Origines historiques de la question d'Andorre
(in the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Chartes, vol.
46, Paris, 1885). See also C. Baudon de Mony, Relations
politiques des comtes de Foix avec la Catalogue, jusqu'au
commencement du XIVe siecle (Paris, 1896). A fair
map was published by A. Hartleben, of Vienna, in 1898.
ANDOVER, a market-town and municipal borough in the Andover
parliamentary division of Hampshire, England, 67 m. W.S.W.
of London by the London & South Western railway, served also
by the Midland & South Western Junction railway. Area 8663
acres. Pop. (1901) 6509. It is pleasantly situated
on the river Anton, a tributary of the Test, in a hilly
district. The church of St Mary replaced an ancient one
in 1848; a Norman doorway is preserved from the original
structure. The site of a Norman priory can be traced. Several
early earthworks are seen in the vicinity, among which the
circular camp on Bury Hill, S.W. of the town, is a very fine
example. It is probably of British origin. Andover is
the centre of a large agricultural district. Malting
is carried on and there is a large iron-foundry; but the
silk manufactures, once prosperous, are now extinct. The
corporation consists of a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors.
There are numerous Roman villas in the district, but Andover
itself is not a Roman site. The town, the name of which
appears in the forms Andefeian, Andieura and Andover, probably
owes much of its importance to the neighbourhood of the
Roman road from Silchester to Old Sarum. It is mentioned
in King Edred's will, a document of doubtful authenticity,
dated c. 955. Later the Witenagemot met here, and it is the
traditional scene of the meeting of AEthelred and Olaf the
Dane. Andover existed as a borough before 1176, and Henry II.
exempted its inhabitants from toll and passage. In 1201 King
John increased the farm paid by the burgesses, while Henry
III. granted them return of writs, probate of wills and other
privileges. The corporation was reconstituted in 1599 and
again in 1682. From 1295 till 1305 the burgesses returned
two members to parliament but then ceased to do so till
1586. After the reform of 1867 they returned only one member
and in 1885 the borough was disfranchised. A gild merchant is
mentioned as early as 1175. The cattle-market was granted in
1682, and there is an ancient corn-market, probably held by
prescription. The November sheep-fair dates from 1205, and the
neighbouring fair at Weyhill: (since 1599 a part of the borough)
was formerly among the most important in England. The town
possessed an iron-market early m the 14th century. At that date
the wool-trade also was very prosperous, and the manufactures of
silk and parchment are among the extinct industries of the town.
ANDOVER, a township of Essex county, Massachusetts,
U.S.A., pleasantly situated on the S. side of the Merrimac
Valley. Pop. (1890) 6142; (1900) 6813; (1910 U.S. census)
7301. The Shawsheen river supplies power for a considerable
manufacturing industry (twine, woollens and rubber goods being
manufactured) in the villages of Andover, Ballardville and
Frye. Andover, the principal village, is about 23 m. N. of
Boston and is served by the western division of the Boston
& Maine railway and by interurban electric railways. The
township is noteworthy for its educational institutions. Abbot
Academy, opened in 1829, is said to be the oldest existing
academy in the United States incorporated for the education of
girls alone; an art gallery, given to the academy by Mrs John
Byers, was opened in 1907. Phillips Academy, opened in 1778
(incorporated in 1780), was the first incorporated academy
of the state; it was founded through the efforts of Samuel
Phillips (1752-1802, president of the Massachusetts senate
in 1785-1787 and in 1788-1801, and lieutenant-governor of
Massachusetts in 1801-1802), by his father, Samuel Phillips
(1715-1790), and his uncle, John Phillips (1719-1795), ``for
the purpose of instructing youth, not only in English and Latin
grammar, writing, arithmetic and those sciences wherein they
are commonly taught, but more especially to learn them the great
end and real business of living.'' It is one of the largest
secondary schools in New England and enjoys a wide and high
reputation. An archaeological department, with an important
collection in American archaeology, was founded by Robert S.
Peabody and his wife in 1901. The Academy grounds include
those occupied in 1808-1909 by the Andover Theological Seminary
before its removal to Cambridge (q.v..) Andover was settled
about 1643 and was incorporated in 1646, being named from the
English town of Andover, Hampshire, whence some of the chief
settlers had migrated; the first settlement was made in what
is now the township of North Andover (pop. 5529 in 1910),
which was separated from Andover in 1885. Simon Bradstreet
(1603-1697), important among the early men of Massachusetts,
was one of the founders; and his wife, Anne Dudley Bradstreet
(1612-1672), was the first woman versifier of America; the
Bradstreet house in North Andover, said to have been built about
1667, is still standing. Andover was a prominent centre in
the witchcraft trials of 1692. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps-Ward
was born and lived for many years in Andover, and Harriet
Beecher Stowe lived here from 1852 to 1864 and is buried here.
See S. L. Bailey, Historical Sketches of Anidover (Boston, 1880);
John L. Taylor, Memoir of Samuel Phillips (Boston, 1856); and
Philena and Phebe F. M`Keen, History of Abbot Academy (Andover, 1880).
ANDRADA, DIEGO DE PAIVA DE (1528-1575), Portuguese
theologian, was born at Coimbra, son of the grand treasurer
of John III. His original bent was towards foreign mission.
He earned distinction in 1562 at the council of Trent as
envoy of King Sebastian. Between 1562 and 1567 he published
many controversial tracts, especially against the Lutheran,
Martin Chemnitz (q.v..) His first tract, De Societatis
Jesu Origine, led to his being erroneously presumed a
Jesuit (P. Alegambe, Biblioth. Scriptorum S. J., 1676, p.
177). His De Conciliorum Auctoritate was welcomed
at Rome as exalting the papal authority. Posthumous were
his Defensio Tridentinae Fidei, 1578 (remarkable for its
learned statement of various opinions regarding the Immaculate
Conception), and three sets of his sermons in Portuguese.
His nephew, DIEGO, the younger (1586-1660), produced Chauleidos
(1628) and other Latin poems, including sacred dramas; a novel,
Casamento Perfeito (1630); and shone as a historical critic.
See Bibliographie Universelle (1811); N. Antonio, Biblioth.
Hisp. Nova (1783), i. 304; and for the nephew, life
by A. Dos Reys in Corp. Illust Poet. Lat. (1745) iii.
ANDRADA E SYLVA, BONIFACIO JOZE D', (1765-1838), Brazilian
statesman and naturalist, was born at Villa de Santos, near Rio
Janeiro. In 1800 he was appointed professor of geology at
Coimbra, and soon after inspector-general of the Portuguese mines;
and in 1812 he was made perpetual secretary of the Academy of
Lisbon. Returning to Brazil in 1819, he urged Dom Pedro to
resist the recall of the Lisbon court, and was appointed one
of his ministers in 1821. When the independence of Brazil was
declared, Andrada was made minister of the interior and of
foreign affairs; and when it was established, he was again
elected by the Constituent Assembly, but his democratic
principles resulted in his dismissal from office, July
1823. On the dissolution of the Assembly in November, he
was arrested and banished to France, where he lived in exile
near Bordeaux till, in 1829, he was permitted to return to
Brazil. But being again arrested in 1833, and tried for
intriguing on behalf of Dom Pedro I., he passed the rest of
his days in retirement till he died at Nictheroy in 1838.
ANDRASSY, JULIUS (GYULA), COUNT (1823-1890), Hungarian
statesman, the son of Count Karoly Andrassy and Etelka
Szapary, was born at Kassa in Hungary on the 8th of March
1823. The son of a Liberal father, who belonged to the
Opposition at a time when to be in opposition was to be in
danger, Andrassy at a very early age threw himself into
the political struggles of the day, adopting at the outset
the patriotic side. Count Istvan Szechenyi was the first
adequately to appreciate his capacity, when in 1845 the young
man first began his public career as president of the society
for the regulation of the waters of the Upper Theiss. In
1846 he attracted attention by his bitter articles against
the government in Kossuth's paper, the Pesti Hirlap, and
was returned as one of the Radical candidates to the diet of
1848, where his generous, impulsive nature made him one of the
most thorough-going of the patriots. When the Croats under
Jellachich invaded Hungary, Andrassy placed himself at the head
of the gentry of his county, and served with distinction at the
battles of Pakozd and Schwechat, as Gorgei's adjutant (Sept.
1848). Towards the end of the war Andrassy was sent to
Constantinople by the revolutionary government to obtain at
least the neutrality of Turkey during the struggle. After the
catastrophe of Vilagos he migrated first to London and then to
Paris. On the 21st of September 1851 he was hanged in effigy
by the Austrian government for his share in the Hungarian
revolt. He employed his ten years of exile in studying
politics in what was then the centre of European diplomacy,
and it is memorable that his keen eye detected the inherent
weakness of the second French empire beneath its imposing
exterior. Andrassy returned home from exile in 1858, but
his position was very difficult. He had never petitioned
for an amnesty, steadily rejected all the overtures both
of the Austrian government and of the Magyar Conservatives
(who would have accepted something short of full autonomy),
and clung enthusiastically to the Deak party. On the 21st
of December 1865 he was chosen vice-president of the diet,
and in March 1866 became president of the sub-committee
appointed by the parliamentary commission to draw up the
Composition (commonly known as the Ausgleich) between
Austria and Hungary, of which the central idea, that of the
``Delegations,'' originated with him. It was said at that
time that he was the only member of the commission who could
persuade the court of the justice of the national claims.
After Koniggratz he was formally consulted by the emperor
for the first time. He advised the re-establishment of the
constitution and the appointment of a responsible ministry.
On the 17th of February 1867 the king appointed him the first
constitutional Hungarian premier. It was on this occasion
that Deak called him ``the providential statesman given
to Hungary by the grace of God.'' As premier, Andrassy by
his firmness, amiability and dexterity as a debater, soon
won for himself a commanding position. Yet his position
continued to be difficult, inasmuch as the authority of Deak
dwarfed that of all the party leaders, however eminent.
Andrassy chose for himself the departments of war and foreign
affairs. It was he who reorganized the Honved system, and
he used often to say that the regulation of the military
border districts was the most difficult labour of his life.
On the outbreak of the Franco-German War of 1870, Andrassy
resolutely defended the neutrality of the Austrian monarchy,
and in his speech on the 28th of July 1870 warmly protested
against the assumption that it was in the interests of Austria
to seek to recover the position she had held in Germany before
1863. On the fall of Beust (6th of November 1871), Andrassy
stepped into his place. His tenure of the chancellorship was
epoch-making. Hitherto the empire of the Habsburgs had
never been able to dissociate itself from its Holy Roman
traditions. But its loss of influence in Italy and Germany,
and the consequent formation of the Dual State, had at length
indicated the proper, and, indeed, the only field for its
diplomacy in the future--the near East, where the process of the
crystallization of the Balkan peoples into nationalities was still
incomplete. The question was whether these nationalities
were to be allowed to become independent or were only to
exchange the tyranny of the sultan for the tyranny of the
tsar. Hitherto Austria had been content either to keep out the
Russians or share the booty with them. She was now, moreover, in
consequence of her misfortunes deprived of most of her influence
in the councils of Europe. It was Andrassy who recovered
for her her proper place in the European concert. First he
approached the German emperor; then more friendly relations
were established with the courts of Italy and Russia by means
of conferences at Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg and Venice.
The ``Andrassy Note.''
The recovered influence of Austria was evident in the negotiations
which followed the outbreak of serious disturbances in Bosnia in
1875. The three courts of Vienna, Berlin and St Petersburg
had come to an understanding as to their attitude in the
Eastern question, and their views were embodied in the
dispatch, known as the ``Andrassy Note,'' addressed on the
30th of December 1875 by Count Andrassy to Count Beust,
now Austrian ambassador to the court of St James's. In it
he pointed out that the efforts of the powers to localize
the revolt seemed in danger of failure, that the rebels were
still holding their own, and that the Ottoman promises of
reform, embodied in various firmans, were no more than
vague statements of principle which had never had, and were
probably not intended to have, any local application. In
order to avert the risk of a general conflagration, therefore,
he urged that the time had come for concerted action of the
powers for the purpose of pressing the Porte to fulfil its
promises. A sketch of the more essential reforms followed:
the recognition rather than the toleration of the Christian
religion; the abolition of the system of farming the taxes;
and, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the religious was
complicated by an agrarian question, the conversion of the
Christian peasants into free proprietors, to rescue them from
their double subjection to the great Mussulman landowners. In
Bosnia and Herzegovina also elected provincial councils were
to be established, irremovable judges appointed and individual
liberty guaranteed. Finally, a mixed commission of Mussulmans
and Christians was to be empowered to watch over the carrying
out of these reforms. The fact that the sultan would be
responsible to Europe for the realization of his promises would
serve to allay the natural suspicions of the insurgents.1
To this plan both Great Britain and France gave a general
assent, and the Andrassy Note was adopted as the basis of
negotiations. When war became inevitable between Russia and
the Porte, Andrassy arranged with the Russian court that, in
case Russia prevailed, the status quo should not be changed
to the detriment of the Austrian monarchy. When, however,
the treaty of San Stefano threatened a Russian hegemony in
the near East, Andrassy concurred with the German and British
courts that the final adjustment of matters must be submitted
to a European congress. At the Berlin Congress in 1878 he
was the principal Austrian plenipotentiary, and directed his
efforts to diminish the gains of Russia and aggrandize the Dual
Monarchy. The latter object was gained by the occupation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina under a mandate from the congress. This
occupation was most unpopular in Hungary, both for financial
reasons and because of the strong philo-Turk sentiments of the
Magyars, but the result brilliantly justified Andrassy's
policy. Nevertheless he felt constrained to bow before the
storm, and placed his resignation in the emperor's hands (8th
of October 1879). The day before his retirement he signed the
offensive-defensive alliance with Germany, which placed the
foreign relations of Austria-Hungary once more on a stable footing.
After his retirement, Andrassy continued to take an active
part in public affairs both in the Delegations and in the Upper
House. In 1885 he warmly supported the project for the reform
of the House of Magnates, but on the other hand he jealously
defended the inviolability of the Composition of 1867, and on
the 5th of March 1889 in his place in the Upper House spoke
against any particularist tampering with the common army. In
the last years of his life he regained his popularity, and his
death on the 18th of February 1890 was universally mourned as
a national calamity. He was the first Magyar statesman who,
for centuries, had occupied a European position. Breadth of
view, swift resourcefulness, and an intimate knowledge of men
and things were his distinguishing qualities as a statesman.
Personally he was the most amiable of men; it has been well said
that he united in himself the Magyar magnate with the modern
gentleman. His motto was: ``It is hard to promise, but it
is easy to perform.'' If Deak was the architect, Andrassy
certainly was the master-builder of the modern Hungarian state.
By his wife, the countess Katinka Kendeffy, whom he
married in Paris in 1856, Count Andrassy left two sons,
and one daughter, Ilona (b. 1859), who married Count Lajos
Batthyany. Both the sons gained distinction in Hungarian
politics. The eldest, Tivador (Theodore) Andreas (b. 10th of
July 1857), was elected vice-president of the Lower House of
the Hungarian parliament in 1890. The younger, Gyula (Julius,
b. 30th of June 1860), became under-secretary in the Wekerle
ministry in 1892; in 1893 he became minister of education,
and in June 1894 was appointed minister in attendance on the
king, retiring in 1895 with Wekerle; in 1898, with his elder
brother, he left the Liberal party, but returned to it again
after the fall of the Banffy ministry; he is the author of
Ungarns Ausgleich mit Osterreich vom Jahre 1867 (Ger.
ed., Leipzig, 1897), and a work in Hungarian on the origins
of the Hungarian state and constitution (Budapest, 1901).
See Andrassy's Speeches (Hung.) edited by Bela Lederer
(Budapest, 1891); Memoir (Hung.) by Benjamin Kallay
(Budapest, 1891); Necrology (Hung.) in the Akad. Ertesito,
Evf. 14 (Budapest, 1891; Recollections of Count Andrassy
(Hung.), by Mano Konyi (Budapest, 1891). (R. N. B.)
1 Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, No. 456, vol. iv. p. 2418.
ANDRE, JOHN (1751-1780), British soldier, was born in London
in 1751 of Genevese parents. Accident brought him in 1769 to
Lichfield, where, in the house of the Rev. Thomas Seward, whose
daughter Anna was the centre of a literary circle, he met the
beautiful Miss Honora Sneyd. A strong attachment sprang up
between the two, but their marriage was disapproved of by Miss
Sneyd's family, and Andre was sent to cool his love in his
father's counting-house in London and on a business tour to the
continent. Commerce was, however, too tame an occupation for
his ambitious spirit, and in March 1771 he obtained a commission
in the Seventh (Royal Fusiliers), which, after travel in
Germany, he joined in Canada in 1774. Here his character,
conduct and accomplishments gained him rapid promotion.
Miss Sneyd in 1773 married R. L. Edgeworth, the father of the
novelist, Maria Edgeworth, having previously refused Thomas
Day, the author of Sanford and Merton; but Andre remained
faithful to his love for her. In a letter to Anna Seward,
written shortly after being taken prisoner by the Americans
at the capitulation of St John's on the 3rd of November 1775,
he states that he has been ``stripped of everything except the
picture of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth. Preserving
this I yet think myself fortunate.'' Exchanged towards the
close of 1776, Andre became in succession aide-de-camp to
General Grey and to the commander-in-chief of the British
forces, Sir Henry Clinton, who raised him to the rank of
major and appointed him adjutant- general of the forces in
1778. Early in 1780 the American general, Benedict Arnold (q
.v.), thinking himself injuriously treated by his colleagues,
made overtures to the British to betray to them the important
fortress of West Point on the Hudson river, the key of the
American position, of which he was commandant. This seemed
to Sir Henry Clinton a favourable opportunity for concluding
the war, and Major Andre was appointed to negotiate with
Arnold. For this purpose he landed from a vessel bearing a
flag of truce and had an interview with Arnold, who delivered
to him full particulars and plans of the fortress of West
Point, and arranged with him to co-operate with the British
during an attack which was to be made in a few days.
Unfortunately for Andre, the British vessel was fired on before
the negotiations were finished and obliged to drop down the
river. Andre, therefore, could not return by the way he
came and was compelled to pass the night within the American
lines. After making the fatal mistake of exchanging his
uniform for a civilian disguise, he set out next day by
land for New York, provided by Arnold with a passport,
and succeeded in passing the regular American outposts
undetected. Next day, however, just when all danger seemed
to be over, Andre was stopped by three American militiamen,
to whom he gave such contradictory answers that, in spite of
Arnold's pass, they searched him and discovered in his boots
the fatal proofs of his negotiations for the betrayal of West
Point. Notwithstanding his offer of a large sum for his
release, his captors delivered him up to the nearest American
officer. Washington, although admitting that Andre was ``more
unfortunate than criminal,'' sent him before a court-martial,
by which, notwithstanding a spirited defence, he was, in
consequence of his own admissions, condemned to death as a
spy. In spite of the protests and entreaties of Sir Henry
Clinton and the threats of Arnold he was hanged at Tappan on
the 2nd of October 1780. Arnold, warned by the unfortunate
Andre, escaped by flight the punishment he so richly merited.
The justice of Andre's execution has been a fruitful theme for
discussion, but both British and American military writers
are agreed that he undoubtedly acted in the character of a
spy, although under orders and entirely contrary to his own
feelings. Washington's apparent harshness in refusing
the condemned man a soldier's death by shooting has also
been censured, but it is evident that no other course was
open to the American commander, since a mitigation of the
sentence would have implied a doubt as to its justice.
Besides courage and distinguished military talents, Major
Andre was a proficient in drawing and in music, and showed
considerable poetic talent in his humorous Cow-chase, a
kind of parody on Chevy-chase, which appeared in three
successive parts at New York, the last on the very day of his
capture. His fate excited universal sympathy both in America
and Europe, and the whole British army went into mourning for
him. A mural sculptured monument to his memory was erected
in Westminster Abbey by the British government when his
remains were brought over and interred there in 1821; and
a memorial has been erected to him by Americans on the spot
where he was taken. Andre's military journal, giving an
interesting account of the British movements in America from
June 1777 to the close of 1778, was taken to England in 1782
by General Grey, whose descendant, Earl Grey, discovered
it in 1902 and disposed of it to an American gentleman.
See The Life and Career of Major John Andre, &c., by
Winthrop Sargent (new ed., New Vork, 1902); Andre's
Journal (Boston, Mass., The Bibliophile Society, 1904).
ANDREA, GIOVANNI (1275-1348), Italian canonist, was born at
Mugello, near Florence, about 1275. He studied canon law at
Bologna, where he distinguished himself in this subject so
much that he was made professor at Padua, and later at Pisa
and Bologna, rapidly acquiring a high reputation for his
learning and his moral character. Curious stories are told
of him; for instance, that by way of self-mortification he
lay every night for twenty years on the bare ground with only
a bear's skin for a covering; that in an audience he had with
Pope Boniface VIII. his extraordinary shortness of stature
led the pope to believe he was kneeling, and to ask him three
times to rise, to the immense merriment of the cardinals;
and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law
as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence,
and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest
her face should distract the attention of the students. He
is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and
an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was
buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque
Morum, testifies to the public estimation of his character.
Andrea wrote a Gloss on the Sixth Book of the Decretals,
Closses on the Clementines and a Commentary on the Rules of
Sextus. His additions to the Speculum of Durando are a mere
adaptation from the Consilia of Oldradus, as is also the
book De Sponsalibus et Matrimonio, from J. Anguisciola.
ANDREA DEL SARTO (1487-1531). This celebrated painter of
the Florentine school was born in Gualfonda, Florence, in
1487, or perhaps 1486, his father Agnolo being a tailor
(sarto): hence the nickname by which the son is constantly
designated. There were four other children. The family,
though of no distinction, can be traced back into the 14th
century. Vannucchi has since 1677 been constantly given as
the surname--according to some modern writers, without any
authority. It has recently been said that the true name
is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco di Luca di Paolo del
Migliore. But this only gives, along with our painter's
Christian name, the Christian names of his antecessors for
five generations, and is in no way his own surname. In 1494
Andrea was put to work under a goldsmith. This occupation he
disliked. He took to drawing from his master's models, and
was soon transferred to a skilful woodcarver and inferior
painter named Gian Barile, with whom he remained until
1498. Barile, though a coarse-grained man enough, would not
stand in the way of the advancement of his promising pupil,
so he recommended him to Piero di Cosimo as draughtsman and
colourist. Piero retained Andrea for some years, allowing
him to study from the famous cartoons of Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo. Finally Andrea agreed with his friend
Franciabigio, who was somewhat his senior, that they would
open a joint shop; at a date not precisely defined they took a
lodging together in the Piazza del Grano. Their first work in
partnership may probably have been the ``Baptism of Christ,''
for the Florentine Compagnia dello Scalzo, a performance of no
great merit, the beginning of a series, all the extant items
of which are in monochrome chiaroscuro. Soon afterwards the
partnership was dissolved. From 1509 to 1514 the brotherhood
of the Servites employed Andrea, as well as Franciabigio and
Andrea Feltrini, the first- named undertaking in the portico
of the Annunziata three frescoes illustrating the life of the
Servite saint Filippo Benizzi (d. 1285). He executed them in
a few months, being endowed by nature with remarkable readiness
and certainty of hand and unhesitating firmness in his work,
although in the general mould of his mind he was timid and
diffident. The subjects are the saint sharing his cloak with a
leper, cursing some gamblers, and restoring a girl possessed
with a devil. The second and third works excel the first,
and are impulsive and able performances. These paintings
met with merited applause, and gained for their author
the pre-eminent title ``Andrea senza errori'' (Andrew the
unerring)--the correctness of the contours being particularly
admired. After these subjects the painter proceeded with
two others--the death of S. Filippo and the children cured
by touching his garment,--all the five works being completed
before the close of 1510. The youth of twenty-three was
already in technique about the best fresco-painter of central
Italy, barely rivalled by Raphael, who was the elder by four
years. Michelangelo's Sixtine frescoes were then only in
a preliminary stage. Andrea always worked in the simplest,
most typical and most trying method of fresco--that of
painting the thing once and for all, without any subsequent
dry-touching. He now received many commissions. The
brotherhood of the Servites engaged him to do two more
frescoes in the Annunziata at a higher price; he also painted,
towards 1512, an Annunciation in the monastery of S. Gallo.
The ``Tailor's Andrew'' appears to have been an easy-going
plebeian, to whom a modest position in life and scanty gains
were no grievances. As an artist he must have known his own
value; but he probably rested content in the sense of his
superlative powers as an executant, and did not aspire to the
rank of a great inventor or leader, for which, indeed, he had no
vocation. He led a social sort of life among his compeers of
the art, was intimate with the sculptor Rustici, and joined
a jolly dining-club at his house named the Company of the
Kettle, also a second club named the Trowel. At one time,
Franciabigio being then the chairman of the Kettle-men, Andrea
recited, and is by some regarded as having composed, a comic
epic, ``The Battle of the Frogs and Mice''--a rechauffe, as
one may surmise, of the Greek Batrachomyomachia, popularly
ascribed to Homer. He fell in love with Lucrezia (del Fede),
wife of a hatter named Carlo Recanati; the hatter dying
opportunely, the tailor's son married her on the 26th of
December 1512. She was a very handsome woman and has come
down to us treated with great suavity in many a picture of
her lover-husband, who constantly painted her as a Madonna
and otherwise; and even in painting other women he made them
resemble Lucrezia in general type. She has been much less
gently handled by Vasari and other biographers. Vasari, who
was at one time a pupil of Andrea, describes her as faithless,
jealous, overbearing and vixenish with the apprentices.
She lived to a great age, surviving her husband forty years.
By 1514 Andrea had finished his last two frescoes in the
court of the Servites, than which none of his works was more
admired-- the ``Nativity of the Virgin,'' which shows the
influence of Leonardo, Domenico Ghirlandajo and Fra Bartolommeo,
in effective fusion, and the ``Procession of the Magi,''
intended as an amplification of a work by Baldovinetti; in
this fresco is a portrait of Andrea himself. He also executed
at some date a much-praised head of Christ over the high
altar. By November 1515 he had finished at the Scalzo the
allegory of Justice, and the ``Baptist preaching in the
desert,''--followed in 1517 by ``John baptizing,'' and other
subjects. Before the end of 1516 a ``Pieta'' of his
composition, and afterwards a Madonna, were sent to the French
court. These were received with applause; and the art-loving
monarch Francis I. suggested in 1518 that Andrea should come to
Paris. He journeyed thither towards June of that year,
along with his pupil Andrea Sguazzella, leaving his wife
in Florence, and was very cordially received, and for the
first and only time in his life was handsomely remunerated.
Lucrezia, however, wrote urging his return to Italy. The king
assented, but only on the understanding that his absence from
France was to be short; and he entrusted Andrea with a sum of
money to be expended in purchasing works of art for his royal
patron. The temptation of having a goodly amount of pelf
in hand proved too much for Andrea's virtue. He spent the
king's money and some of his own in building a house for
himself in Florence. This necessarily brought him into
bad odour with Francis, who refused to be appeased by some
endeavours which the painter afterwards made to reingratiate
himself. No serious punishment, however, and apparently no
grave loss of professional reputation befell the defaulter.
In 1520 he resumed work in Florence, and executed the ``Faith''
and ``Charity'' in the cloister of the Scalzo. These were
succeeded by the ``Dance of the Daughter of Herodias,'' the
``Beheading of the Baptist,'' the ``Presentation of his head
to Herod,'' an allegory of Hope, the ``Apparition of the Angel
to Zacharias'' (1523), and the monochrome of the Visitation.
This last was painted in the autumn of 1524, after Andrea had
returned from Luco in Mugello,--to which place an outbreak of
plague in Florence had driven him, his wife, his step-daughter
and other relatives. In 1525 he painted the very famous fresco
named the ``Madonna del Sacco,'' a lunette in the cloisters of
the Servites; this picture (named after a sack against which
Joseph is represented propped) is generally accounted his
masterpiece. His final work at the Scalzo was the ``Birth of
the Baptist'' (1526), executed with some enhanced elevation of
style after Andrea had been diligently studying Michelangelo's
figures in the sacristy of S. Lorenzo. In the following
year he completed at S. Salvi, near Florence, a celebrated
``Last Supper,'' in which all the personages seem to be
portraits. This also is a very fine example of his style,
though the conception of the subject is not exalted. It
is the last monumental work of importance which Andrea del
Sarto lived to execute. He dwelt in Florence throughout the
memorable siege, which was soon followed by an infectious
pestilence. He caught the malady, struggled against it with
little or no tending from his wife, who held aloof, and he
died, no one knowing much about it at the moment, on the 22nd
of January 1531, at the comparatively early age of forty-three.
He was buried unceremoniously in the church of the Servites.
Various portraits painted by Andrea are regarded as likenesses
of himself, but this is not free from some doubt. One is in
London, in the National Gallery, an admirable half-figure,
purchased in 1862. Another is at Alnwick Castle, a young
man about twenty years of age, with his elbow on a table.
Another at Panshanger may perhaps represent in reality his
pupil Domenico Conti. Another youthful portrait is in the
Uffizi Gallery, and the Pitti Gallery contains more than
one. Among his more renowned works not already specified
are the following. The Virgin and Child, with St Francis
and St John the Evangelist and two angels, now in the
Uifizi, painted for the church of S. Francesco in Florence;
this is termed the ``Madonna di S. Francesco,'' or ``Madonna
delle Arpie,'' from certain figures of harpies which are
decoratively introduced, and is rated as Andrea's masterpiece in
oil-painting. The altar-piece in the Uffizi, painted for
the monastery of S. Gallo, the ``Fathers disputing on the
doctrine of the Trinity''--SS. Augustine, Dominic, Francis,
Lawrence, Sebastian and Mary Magdalene--a very energetic
work. Both these pictures are comparatively early--towards
1517. The ``Charity'' now in the Louvre (perhaps the
only painting which Andrea executed while in France). The
``Pieta,'' in the Belvedere of Vienna; this work, as well as
the ``Charity,'' shows a strong Michelangelesque influence. At
Poggio a Caiano a celebrated fresco (1521) representing Julius
Caesar receiving tribute, various figures bringing animals
from foreign lands--a striking perspective arrangement; it
was left unfinished by Andrea and was completed by Alessandro
Allori. Two very remarkable paintings (1523) containing
various incidents in the life of the patriarch Joseph, executed
for the Borgherini family. In the Pitti Gallery two separate
compositions of the ``Assumption of the Virgin,'' also a fine
``Pieta.'' In the Madrid museum the ``Virgin and Child,''
with Joseph, Elizabeth, the infant Baptist and an Archangel.
In the Louvre the ``Holy Family,'' the Baptist pointing
upwards. In Berlin a portrait of his wife. In Panshanger
a fine portrait named ``Laura.'' The second picture in the
National Gallery ascribed to Andrea, a ``Holy Family,'' is
by some critics regarded as the work rather of one of his
scholars--we hardly know why. A very noticeable incident in
the life of Andrea del Sarto relates to the copy, which he
produced in 1523, of the portrait group of Leo X. by Raphael;
it is now in the Naples Museum, the original being in the Pitti
Gallery. Ottaviano de' Medici, the owner of the original, was
solicited by Frederick II., duke of Mantua, to present it to
him. Unwilling to part with so great a pictorial prize and
unwilling also to disoblige the duke, Ottaviano got Andrea to
make the copy, which was consigned to the duke as being the
original. So deceptive was the imitation that even Giulio
Romano, who had himself manipulated the original to some
extent, was completely taken in; and, on showing the
supposed Raphael years afterwards to Vasari, who knew the
facts, he could only be undeceived when, a private mark on
the canvas was named to him by Vasari and brought under his
eye. It was Michelangelo who had introduced Vasari in 1524
to Andrea's studio. He is said to have thought very highly
of Andrea's powers, saying on one occasion to Raphael,
``There is a little fellow in Florence who will bring
sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in great works.''
Andrea had true pictorial style, a very high standard of
correctness and an enviable balance of executive endowments.
The point of technique in which he excelled least was perhaps
that of discriminating the varying textures of different
objects and surfaces. There is not much elevation or ideality
in his works--much more of reality. His chiaroscuro is
not carried out according to strict rule, but is adjusted
to his liking for harmony of colour and fused tone and
transparence; in fresco more especially his predilection
for varied tints appears excessive. It may be broadly said
that his taste in colouring was derived mainly from Fra
Bartolommeo, and in form from Michelangelo; and his style
partakes of the Venetian and Lombard, as well as the Florentine
and Roman--some of his figures are even adapted from Albert
Durer. In one way or other he continued improving to the
last. In drawing from nature, his habit was to sketch very
slightly, making only such a memorandum as sufficed to work
from. The scholars of Andrea were very numerous; but, according
to Vasari, they were not wont to stay long, being domineered
over by his wife; Pontormo and Domenico Puligo may be mentioned.
In this account of Andrea del Sarto we have followed
the main lines of the narrative of Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, supplemented by Vasari, Lanzi and others.
There are biographies by Biadi (1829), by von Reumont
(1831), by Baumann (1878), and by Guinness (1899). (W. M. R.)
ANDREANI, ANDREA, Italian engraver on wood, in chiaroscuro,
was born at Mantua about 1540 (Brulliot says 1560) and died
at Rome in 1623. His engravings are scarce and valuable,
and are chiefly copies of Mantegna, Durer and Titian. The
most remarkable of his works are ``Mercury and Ignorance,''
the ``Deluge,'' ``Pharaoh's host drowned in the Red Sea''
(after Titian), the ``Triumph of Caesar'' (after Mantegna),
and ``Christ retiring from the judgment-seat of Pilate.''
ANDREE, KARL (1808-1875), German geographer, was born at
Brunswick on the 20th of October 1808. He was educated at
Jena, Gottingen and Berlin. After having been implicated in
a students' political agitation he became a journalist, and in
1851 founded the Bremer Handelsblatt. From 1855, however, he
devoted himself entirely to geography and ethnography, working
successively at Leipzig and at Dresden. In 1862 he founded
the important geographical periodical Globus. His works
include Nordamerika in geographischen und geschichtlichen
Umrissen (Brunswick, 1854), Geographische Wanderungen
(Dresden, 1859), and Geographie des Welthandels (Stuttgart,
1867-1872). He died at Wildungen on the 10th of August 1875.
His son RICHARD, born on the 26th of February 1835,
followed his father's career, devoting himself especially to
ethnography. He wrote numerous books on this subject,
dealing notably with the races of his own country, while
an important general work was Ethnographische Parallelen
und Vorgleiche (Stuttgart, 1878). He also took up
cartography, having a chief share in the production of the
Physikalisch-statistische Atlas des deutschen Reiches
(Leipzig, 1877), Allgemeine Handatlas (first ed., 1881), and
other atlases; and he continued the editorship of the Globus.
ANDREE, SALOMON AUGUST (1854-1897?), Swedish engineer,
was born at Grenna, on Lake Vetter, on the 18th of October
1854. After education at the Stockholm technical college,
he studied aeronautics, and in 1895 elaborated a plan for
crossing the north polar region by a balloon which should be
in some degree dirigible by sails and trailing ropes. After
an abortive effort in 1896, the winds being contrary, he
started with two companions from Danes Island, Spitsbergen,
on the 11th of July 1897. The party was never seen again,
nor is the manner of its fate known. Of several expeditions
sent in search of it, the first started in November 1897,
on the strength of a report of cries of distress heard by
shipwrecked sailors at Spitsbergen; in 1898 and 1899 parties
searched the north Asiatic coast and the New Siberia Islands;
and in May 1899 Dr Nathorst headed an expedition to eastern
Greenland. None was successful, and only scanty information
was obtained or inferred from the discovery of a few buoys (on
the west of Spitsbergen, northern Norway, Iceland, &c.) which
the balloonists had arranged to drop, and a message taken from
a carrier pigeon despatched from the balloon two days after its
ascent. There were also messages in two of the buoys, but they
dated only from the day of the ascent. The others were empty.
ANDREINI, FRANCESCO, Italian actor, was born at Pistoia in
the last half of the 16th century. He was a member of the
company of the Gelosi which Henry IV. summoned to Paris
to please his bride, the young queen Marie de' Medici. His
wife ISABELLA ANDREINI (1562-1604) was a member of her
husband's company, distinguished alike for her acting and
her character,--commemorated in the medal struck at Lyons
in the year of her death, with her portrait on one side, and
the figure of Fame on the reverse with the words aeterna
fama. She was also known in literature, her books including
a pastoral, Mirtilla (Verona, 1588), a volume of songs,
sonnets and other poems (Milan, 1601), and a collection of
letters, published after her death. She inspired many of the
French poets, notably Isaac du Ryer (d. c. 1631). Her son
GIAMBATTISTA ANDREINI (1578-1650) was born in Florence, and
had a great success as a comedian in Paris under the name of
Leylio. He was a favourite with Louis XIII., and also
with the public, especially as the young lover. He left a
number of plays full of extravagant imagination. The best
known are L'Adamo (Milan, 1613), The Penitent Magdalene
(Mantua, 1617), and The Centaur (Paris, 1622). From the
first of these three volumes, which are extremely rare,
Italians have often asserted that Milton, travelling at that
time in their country, took the idea of Paradise Lost.
ANDREOSSY, ANTOINE-FRANCOIS, COUNT (1761-1828), French
soldier and diplomatist, was born at Castelnaudary, in Languedoc,
on the 6th of March 1761. He was of Italian extraction, and
his ancestor Francois Andreossy (1633-1688) had been concerned
with Riquet in the construction of the Languedoc Canal in
1669. He had a brilliant career at the school of artillery at
Metz, obtained his commission in 1781, and became captain in
1788. On the outbreak of the Revolution he adopted its
principles. He saw active service on the Rhine in 1794 and
in Italy in 1795, and in the campaign of 1796-97 was employed
in engineer duties with the Army of Italy. He became chef
de brigade in December 1796 and general of brigade in
1798, in which year he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt. He
served in the Egyptian campaign with distinction, and was
selected as one of Napoleon's companions on his return to
Europe. Andreossy took part in the coup d'etat of the
18th of Brumaire, and on the 6th of January 1800 was made
general of division. Of particular importance was his term
of office as ambassador to England during the short peace
which followed the treaties of Amiens and Luneville. It
had been shown (Coquille, Napoleon and England, 1904)
that Andreossy repeatedly warned Napoleon that the British
government desired to maintain peace but must be treated with
consideration. His advice, however, was disregarded. When
Napoleon became emperor he made Andreossy inspector-general
of artillery and a count of the empire. In the war of
1805 Andreossy was employed on the headquarters staff of
Napoleon. From 1808 to 1809 he was French ambassador at Vienna,
where he displayed a hostility to Austria which was in marked
contrast to his friendliness to England in 1802-1803. In the
war of 1809, Andreossy was military governor of Vienna during
the French occupation. In 1812 he was sent by Napoleon as
ambassador to Constantinople, where he carried on the policy
initiated by Sebastiani. In 1814 he was recalled by Louis
XVIII. Andreossy now retired into private life, till the
escape of his former master from Elba once again called him
forth. In 1826 he was elected to the Academie des Sciences,
and in the following year was deputy for the department of the
Aude. His numerous works included the following:--on artillery
(with which arm he was most intimately connected throughout
his military career), Quelques idees relatives a l'usage
de l'artillerie dans l'attaque et . . . la defense des
places (Metz); Essai sur le tir des projectiles creux
(Paris, 1826); and on military history, Campagne sur le
Main et la Rednitz de l'armee gallo-batave (Paris, 1802);
Operations des pontonniers en Italie . . . 1195-1796
(Paris, 1843). He also wrote scientific memoirs on the
mouth of the Black Sea (1818-1819); on certain Egyptian lakes
(during his stay in Egypt); and in particular the history
of the Languedoc Canal (Histoire du canal du Midi, 2nd
ed., Paris, 1804), the chief credit of which he claimed
for his ancestor. Andreossy died at Montauban in 1828.
See Marion, Notice necrologique sur le Lt.-General Comte Andreossy.
ANDRES, JUAN (1740-1817), Spanish Jesuit, was born at
Planes in the province of Valencia, and became professor
of literature at Gandia and finally royal librarian at
Naples. He died at Rome on the 12th of January 1817. He
is the author of many miscellaneous treatises on science,
music, the art of teaching the deaf and dumb, &c. But his chief
work, the labour of fully twenty years, is entitled Dell'
origine, progressi, e stato attuale d' ogni Letteratura
(7 vols., Parma, 1782-1799). A Spanish translation by his
brother Carlos appeared at Madrid between 1784 and 1806,
and an abridgment in French (1838-1846) was compiled by
the Jesuit Alexis Nerbonne. The original was frequently
reprinted during the first half of the 19th century.
See C. Sommervogel, Bibliotheque de la compagnie de Jesus,
premiere partie (Brussels and Paris), vol. i. col. 342-350.
ANDREW (Gr. Andreas, manly), the Christian Apostle,
brother of Simon Peter, was born at Bethsaida on the Lake of
Galilee. He had been a disciple of John the Baptist (John
i. 37-40) and was one of the first to follow Jesus. He
lived at Capernaum (Mark i. 29). In the gospel story he is
referred to as being present on some important occasions
as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus
(Mark xiii. 3; John vi. 8, xii. 22); in Acts there is only
a bare mention of him (i. 13). Tradition relates that he
preached in Asia Minor and in Scythia, along the Black Sea
as far as the Volga. Hence he became a patron saint of
Russia. He is said to have suffered crucifixion at Patras
(Patrae) in Achaea, on a cross of the form called Crux
decussata (X) and commonly known as ``St Andrew's cross.''
According to tradition his relics were removed from Patras to
Constantinople, and thence to St Andrews (see below). The
apocryphal book, The Acts of Andrew, mentioned by Eusebius,
Epiphanius and others, is generally attributed to Leucius the
Gnostic. It was edited and published by C. Tischendorf in
the Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig, 1821). This
book, as well as a Gospel of St Andrew, was declared
apocryphal by a decree of Pope Gelasius. Another version of
the Andrew legend is found in the Passio Andreae, published
by Max Bonnet (Supplementum II Codicis apocryphi, Paris,
1895). On this was founded an Anglo-Saxon poem (``Andreas und
Elene,'' first published by J. Grimm, 1841; cf. C. W. Goodwin,
The Anglo-Saxon Legends of S. Andreas and S. Veronica,
1851). The festival of St Andrew is held on the 30th of November.
See APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE: also Lipsius, Die apokryphen
Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegeniden, vol. i.
(1883), and Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, s.v.
Scottish Legends.--About the middle of the 8th century
Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. Concerning
this there are several legends which state that the relics
of Andrew were brought under supernatural guidance from
Constantinople to the place where the modern St Andrews
stands (Pictish, Muckross; Gaelic, Kilrymont). The oldest
stories (preserved in the Colbertine MSS., Paris, and the
Harleian MSS. in the British Museum) state that the relics
were brought by one Regulus to the Pictish king Angus (or
Ungus) Macfergus (c. 731-761). The only historical Regulus
(Riagail or Rule, whose name is preserved by the tower
of St Rule) was an Irish monk expelled from Ireland with
St Columba; his date, however, is c. 573-600. There are
good reasons for supposing that the relics were originally
in the collection of Acca, bishop of Hexham, who took them
into Pictland when he was driven from Hexham (c. 732), and
founded a see, not, according to tradition, in Galloway, but
on the site of St Andrews. The connexion with Regulus is,
therefore, due in all probability to the desire to date the
foundation of the church at St Andrews as early as possible.
See A. Lang, St Andrews (London, 1893), pp. 4 ff.; W. F.
Skene, Celtic Scotland; also the article ST ANDREWS.
ANDREW II. (1175-1235), king of Hungary, son of Bela III., king
of Hungary, succeeded his nephew, the infant Ladislaus III., in
1205. No other Magyar king, perhaps, was so mischievous to his
country. Valiant, enterprising, pious as he was, all these
fine qualities were ruined by a reckless good nature which
never thought of the morrow. He declares in one of his decrees
that the generosity of a king should be limitless, and he
acted up to this principle throughout his reign. He gave away
everything, money, villages, domains, whole counties, to the
utter impoverishment of the treasury, thereby rendering the
crown, for the first time in Hungarian history, dependent
upon the great feudatories, who, in Hungary as elsewhere,
took all they could get and gave as little as possible in
return. In all matters of government, Andrew was equally
reckless and haphazard. He is directly responsible for the
beginnings of the feudal anarchy which well-nigh led to the
extinction of the monarchy at the end of the 13th century.
The great feudatories did not even respect the lives of the
royal family, for Andrew was recalled from a futile attempt
to reconquer Galicia (which really lay beyond the Hungarian
sphere of influence), through the murder of his first wife
Gertrude of Meran (September 24, 1213), by rebellious nobles
jealous of the influence of her relatives. In 1215 he married
Iolanthe of France, but in 1217 was compelled by the pope to
lead a crusade to the Holy Land, which he undertook in hopes
of being elected Latin emperor of Constantinople. The crusade
excited no enthusiasm in Hungary, but Andrew contrived to
collect 15,000 men together, whom he led to Venice; whence, not
without much haggling and the surrender of all the Hungarian
claims upon Zara, about two-thirds of them were conveyed to
Acre. But the whole expedition was a forlorn hope. The
Christian kingdom of Palestine was by this time reduced to
a strip of coast about 440 sq. m. in extent, and after a
drawn battle with the Turks on the Jordan (November 10), and
fruitless assaults on the fortresses of the Lebanon and on Mount
Tabor, Andrew started home (January 18, 1218) through Antioch,
Iconium, Constantinople and Bulgaria. On his return he found
the feudal barons in the ascendant, and they extorted from
him the Golden Bull (see HUNGARY, History.) Andrew's last
exploit was to defeat an invasion of Frederick of Austria in
1234. The same year he married his third wife, Beatrice of
Este. Besides his three sons, Bela, Coloman and Andrew,
Andrew had a daughter Iolanthe, who married the king of
Aragon. He was also the father of St Elizabeth of Hungary.
No special monograph for the whole reign exists, but there
is a good description of Andrew's crusade in Reinhold
Roehricht, Geschichte des Konigreiches Jerusalem
(Innsbruck, 1898) . The best account of Andrew's
government is in Laszlo Szalav's History of Hungary
(Hung.), vol. i. (Leipzig and Pest, 1851-1862). (R. N. B.)
ANDREW OF LONGJUMEAU (Longumeau, Lonjumel, &c.), a French
Dominican, explorer and diplomatist. He accompanied the
mission under Friar Ascehn, sent by Pope Innocent IV. to
the Mongols in 1247; at the Tatar camp near Kars he met a
certain David, who next year (1248) appeared at the court
of King Louis IX. of France in Cyprus. Andrew, who was now
with St Louis, interpreted to the king David's message, a
real or pretended offer of alliance from the Mongol general
Ilchikdai (Ilchikadai), and a proposal of a joint attack
upon the Islamic powers for the conquest of Syria. In
reply to this the French sovereign despatched Andrew as his
ambassador to the great Khan Kuyuk; with Longjumeau went his
brother (a monk) and several others--John Goderiche, John
of Carcassonne, Herbert ``le sommelier,'' Gerbert of Sens,
Robert a clerk, a certain William, and an unnamed clerk of
Poissy. The party set out about the 16th of February 1249,
with letters from King Louis and the papal legate, and rich
presents, including a chapel-tent, lined with scarlet cloth
and embroidered with sacred pictures. From Cyprus they went
to the port of Antioch in Syria, and thence travelled for
a year to the khan's court, going ten leagues a day. Their
route led them through Persia, along the southern and eastern
shores of the Caspian (whose inland character, unconnected
with the outer ocean, their journey helped to demonstrate),
and probably through Talas, north-east of Tashkent. On
arrival at the supreme Mongol court--either that on the
Imyl river (near Lake Ala-kul and the present Russo-Chinese
frontier in the Altai), or more probably at or near Karakorum
itself, south-west of Lake Baikah--Andrew found Kuyuk Khan
dead, poisoned, as the envoy supposed, by Batu's agents.
The regent-mother Ogul Gaimish (the ``Camus'' of Rubruquis)
seems to have received and dismissed him with presents and
a letter for Louis IX., the latter a fine specimen of Mongol
insolence. But it is certain that before the friar had
quitted ``Tartary''' Mangu Khan, Kuyuk's successor, had been
elected. Andrew's report to his sovereign, whom he rejoined
in 1251 at Caesarea in Palestine, appears to have been a
mixture of history and fable; the latter affects his narrative
of the Mongols' rise to greatness, and the struggles of their
leader, evidently Jenghiz Khan, with Prester John; it is still
more evident in the position assigned to the Tatar homeland,
close to the prison of Gog and Magog. On the other hand,
the envoy's account of Tatar manners is fairly accurate, and
his statements about Mongol Christianity and its prosperity,
though perhaps exaggerated (e.g. as to the 800 chapels
on wheels in the nomadic host), are based on fact. Mounds
of bones marked his road, witnesses of devastations which
other historians record in detail; Christian prisoners, from
Germany, he found in the heart of ``Tartary'' (at Talas);
the ceremony of passing between two fires he was compelled
to observe, as a bringer of gifts to a dead khan, gifts
which were of course treated by the Mongols as evidence of
submission. This insulting behaviour, and the language of
the letter with which Andrew reappeared, marked the mission
a failure: King Louis, says Joinville, ``se repenti fort.''
We only know of Andrew through references in other writers: see
especially William of Rubruquis in Recueil de voyages, iv. (Paris,
1839), pp. 261, 265, 279, 296, 310, 353, 363, 370; Joinville,
ed. Francisque Michel (1858, &c.), pp. 142, &c.; Jean Pierre
Sarrasin, in same vol., pp. 254-235; W.illiam of Nangis in
Recueil des historiens des Gaules, xx. 359-367; . Remusat,
Memoires sur les relations politiques des princes chretiens
. . . avec les . . . Mongols (1822, &c.), p. 52. (C. R. B.)
ANDREW, JOHN ALBION (1818-1867), American political leader,
``war governor'' of Massachusetts, was born at Windham, Maine,
on the 31st of May 1818. He graduated at Bowdoin College in
1837, studied law in Boston, was admitted to the Suffolk bar in
1840, and practised his profession in Boston. He also took
a deep interest in religious matters, was a prominent member
of the Church of the Disciples (Unitarian; founded in Boston
by the Rev. James Freeman Clarke), and was assistant editor
for some time of The Christian World, a weekly religious
paper. With ardent anti-slavery principles, he entered
political life as a ``Young Whig'' opposed to the Mexican War;
he became an active Free-Soiler in 1848, and in 1854 took part
in the organization in Massachusetts of the new Republican
party. He served one term, in 1858, in the state House of
Representatives, and in 1859 declined an appointment to
a seat on the bench of the state supreme court. In this
year he took such an active part in raising funds to defend
John Brown, then on trial in Virginia, that he aroused the
suspicions of a senatorial committee investigating Brown's
raid, and was summoned to Washington to tell what he knew
of the affair. In 1860 he was chairman of the Massachusetts
delegation to the Republican national convention at Chicago,
which nominated Lincoln for the Presidency; and from 1861 to
January 1866, throughout the trying period of the Civil War,
he was governor of Massachusetts, becoming known as one of the
ablest, most patriotic and most energetic of the remarkable
group of ``war governors'' in the North. Immediately after
his inauguration he began filling the militia regiments with
young men ready for active service, saw that they were well
drilled and supplied them with good modern rifles. As a
result, Massachusetts was the only northern state in any
way prepared for war when the Confederates fired on Fort
Sumter; and her troops began to muster in Boston on the 16th
of April, the very day after President Lincoln's call for
volunteers. On the next day the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer
Infantry started south for the defence of Washington, and
was the first fully armed and equipped volunteer regiment to
reach the capital. Within six days after the call, nearly
four thousand Massachusetts volunteers had departed for
Washington. In 1865, at Governor Andrew's own request, the
secretary of war authorized him to raise several regiments
of negro troops, with white commissioned officers, and the
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry was the first regiment of
free negroes raised in the North. Governor Andrew's example
was quickly followed in other states, and before the end
of the year 36,000 negroes had been enrolled in the Union
armies. When the war department ruled that the negro troops
were entitled to pay only as ``labourers'' and not as soldiers,
Governor Andrew used all his influence with the president
and the secretary of war to secure for them the same pay as
white troops, and was finally successful. Notwithstanding
his loyal support of the administration during the struggle,
he did not fully approve of its conduct of the war, which he
deemed shifting and timid; and it was with great reluctance
that he supported Lincoln in 1864 for a second term. In 1865
he rejected the more radical views of his party as to the
treatment to be accorded to the late Confederate states, opposed
the immediate and unconditional enfranchisement of freedmen,
and, though not accepting President Johnson's views in their
entirety, he urged the people of Massachusetts to give the
new president their support. On retiring from the governor's
office he declined the presidency of Antioch College, at
Yellow Springs, Ohio, and various positions in the service
of the Federal government, and resumed the practice of law,
at once achieving great success. In 1865 he presided at the
first national convention of the Unitarian Church. He died
suddenly of apoplexy, at Boston, on the 30th of October 1867.
See Henry G. Pearson's Life of John A.
Andrew (2 vols., Boston and New York, 1904).
ANDREWES, LANCELOT (1555-1626), English divine, was born in
1555 in London. His family was an ancient Suffolk one; his
father, Thomas, became master of Trinity House. Lancelot was
sent to the Cooper's free school, Ratcliff, in the parish of
Stepney, and then to the Merchant Taylors' school under Richard
Mulcaster. In 1571 he was entered as a Watts scholar at
Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where in 1574-1575 he graduated
B.A., proceeding M.A. in 1578. In 1576 he had been elected
fellow of Pembroke. In 1580 he took orders; in 1581 he was
incorporated M.A. at Oxford. As catechist at his college
he read lectures on the Decalogue, which, both on their
delivery and on their publication (in 1630), created much
interest. He also gained much reputation as a casuist. After
a residence in the north as chaplain to Henry Hastings, earl of
Huntingdon, President of the North, he was made vicar of St
Giles's, Cripplegate, in 1588, and there delivered his striking
sermons on the temptation in the wilderness and the Lord's
prayer. In a great sermon on the 10th of April (Easter
week) 1588, he stoutly vindicated the Protestantism of the
Church of England against the Romanists, and, oddly enough,
adduced ``Mr Calvin'' as a new writer, with lavish praise and
affection. Andrewes was preferred to the prebendal stall of
St Pancras in St Paul's, London, in 1589, and on the 6th of
September of the same year became master of his own college of
Pembroke, being at the time one of the chaplains of Archbishop
Whitgift. From 1589 to 1609 he was also prebendary of
Southwell. On the 4th of March 1590, as one of the chaplains of
Queen Elizabeth, he preached before her a singularly outspoken
sermon, and in October gave his introductory lecture at St
Paul's, undertaking to comment on the first four chapters of
Genesis. These seem to have been worked up later into a
compilation called The Orphan Lectures (1657). Andrewes
was an incessant worker as well as preacher, and often
laboured beyond his strength. He delighted to move among
the people, and yet found time to meet with a society of
antiquaries, of which Raleigh, Sidney, Burleigh, Arundel, the
Herberts, Saville, Stow and Camden were members. In 1598
he declined the two bishoprics of Ely and Salisbury, as the
offers were coupled with a proposal to alienate part of the
revenues of those sees. On the 23rd of November 1600 he
preached at Whitehall a remarkable sermon on justification,
which gave rise to a memorable controversy. On the 4th of
July 1601 he was appointed dean of Westminster and gave much
attention to the school there. He assisted at the coronation
of James I. and in 1604 took part in the Hampton Court
conference. His name is the first on the list of divines
appointed to make the authorized version of the Bible. In
1605 he was consecrated bishop of Chichester and made lord
almoner. In 1609 he published Tortura Torti, a learned
work which grew out of the Gunpowder Plot controversy and
was written in answer to Bellarmine's Matthaeus Tortus,
which attacked James I.'s book on the oath of allegiance.
After his translation to Ely (1609), he again controverted
Bellarmine in the Responsio ad Apologiam, a treatise never
answered. In 1617 he accompanied James I. to Scotland with a
view to persuading the Scots that Episcopacy was preferable to
Presbyterianism. In 1618 he attended the synod of Dort, and
was soon after made dean of the Chapel Royal and translated
to Winchester, a diocese which he administered with loving
prudence and the highest success. He died on the 26th of
September 1626, mourned alike by leaders in Church and state.
Two generations later, Richard Crashaw caught up the
universal sentiment, when, in his lines ``Upon Bishop
Andrewes' Picture before his Sermons,'' he exclaims:--
``This reverend shadow cast that setting sun,
Whose glorious course through our horizon run,
Left the dim face of this dull hemisphere,
All one great eye, all drown'd in one great teare.''
Andrewes was distinguished in many fields. At court, though
no trifler or flatterer, he was a favourite counsellor in three
successive reigns, but he never meddled much in civil or temporal
affairs. His learning made him the equal and the friend of
Grotius, and of the foremost contemporary scholars. His
preaching was a unique combination of rhetorical splendour
and scholarly richness; his piety that of an ancient saint,
semi-ascetic and unearthly in its self-denial. As a churchman
he is typically Anglican, equally removed from the Puritan
and the Roman positions. He stands in true succession to
Richard Hooker in working out the principles of the Puritanism,
Andrewes chiefly combated Romanism. A good summary of his
position is found in his First Answer to Cardinal Perron,
who had challenged James I.'s use of the title ``Catholic.''
His position in regard to the Eucharist is naturally more
mature than that of the first reformers. ``As to the Real
Presence we are agreed; our controversy is as to the mode of
it. As to the mode we define nothing rashly, nor anxiously
investigate, any more than in the Incarnation of Christ
we ask how the human is united to the divine nature in One
Person. There is a real change in the elements--we allow ut
panis iam consecratus non sit panis quem natura formavit;
sed, quem benedictio consecravit, et consecrando etiam
immutavit'' Responsio, p. 263). Adoration is permitted,
and the use of the terms ``sacrifice'' and ``altar''
maintained as being consonant with scripture and antiquity.
Christ is ``a sacrifice--so, to be slain; a propitiatory
sacrifice--so, to be eaten'' (Sermons, vol. ii. p. 296).
``By the same rules that the Passover was, by the same may
ours be termed a sacrifice. In rigour of speech, neither of
them; for to speak after the exact manner of divinity, there
is but one only sacrifice, veri nominis, that is Christ's
death. And that sacrifice but once actually performed at
His death, but ever before represented in figure, from the
beginning; and ever since repeated in memory to the world's
end. That only absolute, all else relative to it, reprerentative
of it, operative by it. . . . Hence it is that what names
theirs carried, ours do the like, and the Fathers make no
scruple at it--no more need we'' (Sermons, vol. ii. p.
300). As to reservation, ``it needeth not: the intent is had
without it,'' since an invalid may always have his private
communion. Andrewes declares against the invocation of saints,
the apparent examples in patristic literature are ``rhetorical
outbursts, not theological definitions.'' His services to his
church have been summed up thus:--(1) he has a keen sense of
the proportion of the faith and maintains a clear distinction
between what is fundamental, needing ecclesiastical commands,
and subsidiary, needing only ecclesiastical guidance and
suggestion; (2) as distinguished from the earlier protesting
standpoint, e.g. of the Thirty-nine Articles, he emphasized
a positive and constructive statement of the Anglican position.
LITERATURE.--Of his works the Manual of Private Devotions
is the best known, for it appeals to Christians of every
church. One of the many good modern editions is that by
Alex. Whyte (1900). Andrewes's other works occupy
eight volumes in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology
(1841-1854). Of biographies we have those by H. Isaacson
(1650), A. T. Russell (1863), R. L. Ottley (1894), and Dean
Church's essay in Masters in English Theology. See also W.
H. Frere, Lancelot Andrewes as a Representative of Anglican
Principles (1898; Church Hist. Soc. Publications, No. 44).
ANDREWS, JAMES PETTIT (c. 1737-1797), English historian
and antiquary, was the younger son of Joseph Andrews, of Shaw
House, Newbury, Berkshire, where he was born. He was educated
privately, and having taken to the law was one of the magistrates
at the police court in Queen Square, Westminster, from 1792
to his death. He developed a taste for literature, and his
miscellaneous works include The Savages of Europe (London,
1764), a satire on the English which he translated from the
French, and Anccdotes Ancient and Modern (London, 1789) a.n
amusing collection of gossip. His chief work was a History
of Great Britain connected with the Chronology of Europe
from Caesar's Invasion to Accession of Edward VI., in 2 vols.
(London, 1794-1795) . Its plan is somewhat singular, as a
portion of the history of England is given on one page, and
a general sketch of the contemporaneous history of Europe on
the opposite page. He also wrote a History of Great Britain
from Death of Henry VIII. to Accession of James VI. of
Scotland, a continuation of Robert Henry's History of Great
Britain, published in 1796 and again in 1806. Andrews died at
Brompton on the 6th of August 1797, and was buried in Hampstead
Church. He married Anne Penrose, daughter of a rector of Newbury.
ANDREWS, THOMAS (1813-1885), Irish chemist and physicist,
was born on the 19th of December 1813 at Belfast, where his
father was a linen merchant. After attending the Belfast
Academy and also the Academical Institution, he went to
Glasgow in 1828 to study chemistry under Professor Thomas
Thomson, and thence migrated to Trinity College, Dublin, where
he gained distinction in classics as well as in science.
Finally, he graduated as M.D. at Edinburgh in 1835, and
settled down to a successful medical practice in his native
place, also giving instruction in chemistry at the Academical
Institution. Ten years later he was appointed vice-president
of the newly established Queen's College, Belfast, and
professor of chemistry, and these two offices he held till
1879, when failing health compelled his retirement. He died
on the 26th of November 1885. Andrews first became known as
a scientific investigator by his work on the heat developed
in chemical actions, for which the Royal Society awarded him
a Royal medal in 1844. Another important research, undertaken
with P. G. Tait, was devoted to ozone. But the work on which
his reputation mainly rests, and which best displayed his
skill and resourcefulness in experiment, was concerned with
the liquefaction of gases. He carried out a very complete
inquiry into the laws expressing the relations of pressure,
temperature and volume in carbonic dioxide, in particular
establishing the conceptions of critical temperature and
critical pressure, and showing that the gas passes from the
gaseous to the liquid state without any breach of continuity.
His scientific papers were published in a collected form
in 1889, with a memoir by Professors Tait and Crum Brown.
ANDRIA, a town and episcopal see of Apulia, Italy, in the
province of Bari; 35m. W. of the town of Bari by steam tramway,
and 6 m. S.S.E. of Barletta. Pop. (1901) 49,569. It was
founded probably about 1046 by Peter, the first Norman count of
Andria. It was a favourite residence of the emperor Frederick
II., whose second and third wives, Iolanthe and Isabella
of England, were buried in the cathedral dedicated to St
Richard, who is believed to have come from England in 492;
their tombs, however, no longer exist. There are several
other fine churches of the 13th century. The Castel del
Monte, 9 1/2 m. S. of Andria, was constructed by Frederick
II., who frequently resided here; it is an octagonal
building in two storeys with octagonal towers at each angle,
and was further surrounded by three outer walls. Despite
its massive and imposing exterior, its details are fine.
See E. Rocchi in L'Arte, i. (1898) 121.
ANDRIEU, BERTRAND (1761-1822), French engraver of
medals, was born at Bordeaux. He is considered as the
restorer of the art in France, which had declined after
the time of Louis XIV.; and during the last twenty years
of his life he was entrusted by the French government with
the execution of every work of importance. Many of his
medals are figured in the Medallic History of Napoleon.
ANDRIEUX, FRANCOIS GUILLAUME JEAN STANISLAS (1759-1833),
French man of letters, was born at Strassburg on the 6th of May
1759. He was educated at Strassburg and proceeded to Paris
to study law. There he became a close friend of Collin
d'Harleville. He became secretary to the duke of Uzes, and
practised at the bar, but his attention was divided between
his profession and literature. His plays are of the 18th
century style, comedies of intrigue, but they rank with those
of Collin d'Harleville among the best of the period next to
those of Beaumarchais. Les Etourdis, his best comedy, was
represented in 1788 and won for the author the praise of La
Harpe. Andrieux hailed the beginning of the Revolution with
delight and received a place under the new government, but
at the beginning of the Terror he retreated to Mevoisins,
the patrimony of his friend Collin d'Harleville. Under the
Convention he was made civil judge in the Court of Cassation,
and was one of the original members of the Institute. A moderate
statesman, he was elected secretary and finally president of
the Tribunat, but with other of his colleagues he was expelled
for his irreconcilable attitude towards the establishment of
the civil code. On his retirement he again turned to write
for the stage, producing Le Tresor and Moliere avec ses
amis in 1804. He became librarian to Joseph Bonaparte and
to the Senate, was professor of grammar and literature at
the Ecole Polytechnique and eventually at the College de
France. As a professor he was extraordinarily successful,
and his lectures, which have unhappily not been preserved,
attracted mature men as well as the ordinary students. He
was rigidly classical in his tastes, and an ardent opponent of
romanticism, which tended in his opinion to the subversion of
morals. Among his other plays are La Comedienine (1816),
one of his best comedies, and a tragedy, Lucius Junius
Brutus (1830). Andrieux was the author of some excellent
stories and fables: La Promenade de Fenelon, Le Bulle
d'Alexandre VI. and the Meunier de Saint-Souci. In 1829 he
became perpetual secretary to the Academy, and in fulfilment
of his functions he worked hard at the completion of the
Dictionary. He died on the 9th of May 1833 in Paris.
See also A. H. Taillandier, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages
d'Andrieux (1850); Sainte-Beuve, Portraits litteraires, vol. i.
ANDRISCUS, often called the ``pseudo-Philip,'' a fuller of
Adramyttium, who claimed to be a son of Perseus, last king of
Macedonia. He occupied the throne for a year (149-148 B.C..)
Unable to obtain a following in Macedonia, he applied to
Demetrius Soter of Syria, who handed him over to the Romans.
He contrived, however, to escape; reappeared in Macedonia with
a large body of Thracians; and, having completely defeated
the praetor Publius Juventius (149), he assumed the title of
king. His conquest of Thessaly and alliance with Carthage
made the situation dangerous. Eventually he was defeated by
Q. Caecilius Metellus (148), and fled to Thrace, whose prince
gave him up to Rome. He figured in the triumph of Metellus
(146), who received the title of ``Macedonicus'' for his
victory. Andriscus's brief reign was marked by cruelty and
extortion. After this Macedonia was formally reduced to a province.
Velleius Paterculus i. 11; Florus ii. 14;
Livy, Epit. 49, 50, 52; Diod. Sic. xxxii. 9.
ANDROCLUS, a Roman slave who lived about the time of
Tiberius. He is the hero of a story told by Aulus Gellius
(v. 14), which states that Androclus had taken refuge from
the cruelties of his master in a cave in Africa, when a lion
entered the cave and showed him his swollen paw, from which
Androclus extracted a large thorn. The gratelul animal
subsequently recognized him when he had been captured and thrown
to the wild beasts in the circus, and, instead of attacking
him, began to caress him (Aelian, De Nat. An. vii. 48).
ANDROMACHE, in Greek legend, the daughter of Eetion,
prince of Thebe in Mysia, and wife of Hector. Her father and
seven brothers fell by the hands of Achilles when their town
was taken by him; her mother, ransomed at a high price, was
slain by Artemis (Iliad, vi. 414). During the Trojan War
her husband was slain by Achilles, and after the capture of
the city her son Astyanax (or Scamandrius) was hurled from
the battlements (Eurip. Troades, 720). When the captives
were allotted, Andromache fell to Neoptolemus (Pyrrhus),
the son of Achilles, whom she accompanied to Epirus, and
to whom she bore three sons. When Neoptolemus was slain at
Delphi, he left his wife and kingdom to Helenus, the brother
of Hector (Virgil, Aen. iii. 294). After the death of her
third husband, Andromache returned to Asia Minor with her
youngest son Pergamus, who there founded a town named after
himself. Andromache is one of the finest characters in
Homer, distinguished by her affection for her husband and
child, her misfortunes and the resignation with which she
endures them. The death of Astyanax, and the farewell
scene between Andromache and Hector (Iliad, vi. 323),
were represented in ancient works of art, while Andromache
herself is the subject of tragedies by Euripides and Racine.
ANDROMEDA, in Greek legend, the daughter of Cepheus and
Cassiopeia (Cassiope, Cassiepeia), king and queen of the
Ethiopians. Cassiopeia, having boasted herself equal in beauty
to the Nereids, drew down the vengeance of Poseidon, who sent
an inundation on the land and a sea-monster which destroyed
man and beast. The oracle of Ammon having announced that
no relief would be found until the king exposed his daughter
Andromeda to the monster, she was fastened to a rock on the
shore. Here Perseus, returning from having slain the Gorgon,
found her, slew the monster, set her free, and married her
in spite of Phineus, to whom she had before been promised.
At the wedding a quarrel took place between the rivals, and
Phineus was turned to stone by the sight of the Gorgon's head
(Ovid, Metam. v. 1). Andromeda followed her husband to
Tiryns in Argos, and became the ancestress of the family of the
Perseidae. After her death she was placed by Athena amongst
the constellations in the northern sky, near Perseus and
Cassiopeia. Sophocles and Euripides (and in modern times
Corneille) made the story the subject of tragedies, and its
incidents were represented in numerous ancient works of art.
Apollodorus ii. 4; Hyginus, Fab. 64; Ovid, Metam.
iv. 662; Fedde, De Perseo et Andromeda (1860).
The Greeks personified the constellation Andromeda as a
woman with her arms extended and chained. Its Latin names
are Persea, Mulier catenata (``chained woman''), Virgo
devota, &c.; the Arabians replaced the woman by a seal;
Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635) named the constellation
``Abigail''; Julius Schiller assigned to it the figure of a
sepulchre, naming it the ``Holy Sepulchre.'' In 1786 Johann
Elert Bode formed a new constellation, named the ``Honours
of Frederick,'' after his patron Frederick II., out of
certain stars situated in the arm of Ptolemy's Andromeda;
this innovation found little favour and is now discarded.
Twenty-three stars are catalogued by Ptolemy and Tycho
Brahe; Hevelius increased this number to forty seven, while
Flamsteed gave sixty-six. The most brilliant stars are a
Andromedae or ``Andromeda's head,'' and b Andromedae
in the girdle (Arabic mirach or mizar), both of the
second magnitude; g Andromedae in the foot (alamak
or alhames), of the third magnitude. Scientific interest
centres mainly on the following:--the nebula in Andromeda,
one of the finest in the sky (see NEBULA); g Andromedae,
the finest binary in the heavens, made up of a yellow star
of magnitude 2 1/2, and a blue-green of magnitude 5 1/2, the
latter being itself binary; Nova Andromedae, a ``new''
star, discovered in the nebula by C. E. A. Hartwig in
1885, and subsequently spectroscopically examined by many
observers; R Andromedae, a regularly variable star; and the
Andromedids, a meteoric swarm, associated with Biela's comet,
and having their radiant in this constellation (see METEOR.)
ANDRON (Gr. andron), that part of a Greek house
which was reserved for men, as distinguished from
the gynaeceum (gunaikeion), the women's quarters.
ANDRONICUS I. (COMNENUS), emperor of the East, son of
Isaac, and grandson of Alexius I. Comnenus, was born about
the beginning of the 12th century. He was endowed by nature
with the most remarkable gifts both of mind and body. He
was handsome and eloquent, but licentious; and at the same
time active, hardy, courageous, a great general and an able
politician. His early years were spen in alternate pleasure
and military service. In 1141 he was taken captive by the
Turks (Seljuks) and remained in their hands for a year. On
being ransomed he went to Constantinople, where was held the
court of his cousin, the emperor Manuel, with whom he was a
great favourite. Here the charms of his niece, the princess
Eudoxia, attracted him. She became his mistress, while her
sister Theodora stood in a similar relation to the emperor
Manuel. In 1152, accompanied by Eudoxia, he set out for
an important command in Cilicia. Failing in his principal
enterprise, an attack upon Mopsuestia, he returned, but was
again appointed to the command of a province. This second
post he seems also to have left after a short interval, for he
appeared again in Constantinople, and narrowly escaped death
at the hands of the brothers of Eudoxia. About this time
(1153) a conspiracy against the emperor, in which Andronicus
participated, was discovered and he was thrown into prison.
There he remained for about twelve years, during which time
he made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to escape. At
last, in 1165, he was successful; and, after passing through
many dangers, reached the court of Yaroslav, grand prince of
Russia, at Kiev. While under the protection of the grand
prince, Andronicus brought about an alliance between him and
the emperor Manuel, and so restored himself to the emperor's
favour. With a Russian army he joined Manuel in the invasion of
Hungary and assisted at the siege of Semlin. After a successful
campaign they returned together to Constantinople (1168); but
a year after, Andronicus refused to take the oath of allegiance
to the prince of Hungary, whom Manuel desired to become his
successor. He was removed from court, but received the
province of Cilicia. Being still under the displeasure of the
emperor, Andronicus fled to the court of Raymund, prince of
Antioch. While residing here he captivated and seduced the
beautiful daughter of the prince, Philippa, sister of the empress
Maria. The anger of the emperor was again roused by this
dishonour, and Andronicus was compelled to fly. He took refuge
with Amalric, king of Jerusalem, whose favour he gained, and
who invested him with the town of Berytus, now Beirut. In
Jerusalem he saw Theodora, the beautiful widow of the late king
Baldwin and niece of the emperor Manuel. Although Andronicus
was at that time fifty-six years old, age had not diminished
his charms, and Theodora became the next victim of his artful
seduction. To avoid the vengeance of the emperor, she fled
with him to the court of the sultan of Damascus; but not deeming
themselves safe there, they continued their perilous journey
through Persia and Turkestan, round the Caspian Sea and across
Mount Caucasus, until at length they settled among the Turks
on the borders of Trebizond. Into that province Andronicus,
with a body of adventurers, made frequent and successful
incursions. While he was absent upon one of them, his castle
was surprised by the governor of Trebizond, and Theodora with
her two children were captured and sent to Constantinople.
To obtain their release Andronicus made abject submission to
the emperor; and, appearing in chains before him, implored
pardon. This he obtained, and was allowed to retire with
Theodora into banishment in the little town of Oenoe, on
the shores of the Black Sea. In 1180 the emperor Manuel
died, and was succeeded by his son Alexius II., who was under
the guardianship of the empress Maria. Her conduct excited
popular indignation; and the consequent disorders, amounting
almost to civil war, gave an opportunity to the ambition of
Andronicus. He left his retirement, secured the support of
the army and marched upon Constantinople, where his advent
was stained by a cruel massacre of the Latin inhabitants.
Alexius was compelled to acknowledge him as colleague in the
empire, but was soon put to death. Andronicus, now (1183)
sole emperor, married Agnes, widow of Alexius II., a child
eleven years of age. His short reign was characterized
by strong and wise measures. He resolved to suppress many
abuses, but, above all things, to check feudalism and limit
the power of the nobles. The people, who felt the severity
of his laws, at the same time acknowledged their justice,
and found themselves protected from the rapacity of their
superiors. The aristocrats, however, were infuriated against
him, and summoned to their aid William of Sicily. This
prince landed in Epirus with a strong force, and marched
as far as Thessalonica, which he took and destroyed; but he
was shortly afterwards defeated, and compelled to return to
Sicily. Andronicus seems then to have resolved to exterminate
the aristocracy, and his plans were nearly crowned with
success. But in 1185, during his absence from the capital,
his lieutenant ordered the arrest and execution of Isaac
Angelus, a descendant of the first Alexius. Isaac escaped and
took refuge in the church of St Sophia. He appealed to the
populace, and a tumult arose which spread rapidly over the whole
city. When Andronicus arrived he found that his power was
overthrown, and that Isaac had been proclaimed emperor. Isaac
delivered him over to his enemies, and for three days he was
exposed to their fury and resentment. At last they hung him
up by the feet between two pillars. His dying agonies were
shortened by an Italian soldier, who mercifully plunged a
sword into his body. He died on the 12th of September 1185.
ANDRONICUS II. (PALAEOLOGUS) (1260-1332), eastern Roman
emperor, was the elder son of Michael Palaeologus, whom he
succeeded in 1282. He allowed the fleet, which his father
had organized, to fall into decay; and the empire was thus
less able than ever to resist the exacting demands of the
rival powers of Venice and Genoa. During his reign the Turks
under Osman conquered nearly the whole of Bithynia; and to
resist them the emperor called in the aid of Roger di Flor,
who commanded a body of Spanish adventurers. The Turks were
defeated, but Roger was found to be nearly as formidable
an enemy to the imperial power. He was assassinated by
Andronicus's son and colleague, the emperor Michael IX., in
1305. His adventurers (known as the Catalan Grand Company)
declared war upon Andronicus, and, after devastating Thrace and
Macedonia, conquered the duchy of Athens and Thebes. From
1320 onwards the emperor was engaged in war with his grandson
Andronicus (see below). He abdicated in 1328 and died in 1332.
ANDRONICUS III. (c. 1296-1341), eastern Roman emperor,
was the son of Michael, son of Andronicus II. His conduct
during youth was so violent that, after the death of his
father Michael in 1320, his grandfather resolved to deprive
him of his right to the crown. Andronicus rebelled; he had a
powerful party, and the first period of civil war ended in his
being crowned and accepted as colleague by his grandfather,
1325. The quarrel broke out again and, notwithstanding
the help of the Bulgarians, the older emperor was compelled
to abdicate, 1328. During his reign Andronicus III. was
engaged in constant war, chiefly with the Turks, who greatly
extended their conquests. He annexed large regions in
Thessaly and Epirus, but they were lost before his death
to the rising power of Servia under Stephen Dusan. He did
something for the reorganization of the navy, and re-covered
Lesbos and Chios from the Genoese. He died in 1341.
ANDRONICUS OF CYRRHUS, Greek astronomer, flourished about
100 B.C. He built a horologium at Athens, the so-called
``tower of the winds,'' a considerable portion of which still
exists. It is octagonal, with figures carved on each side,
representing the eight principal winds. A brazen Triton on
the summit, with a rod in his hand, turned round by the wind,
pointed to the quarter from which it blew. From this model
is derived the custom of placing weathercocks on steeples.
ANDRONICUS OF RHODES (c. 70 B.C.), the eleventh scholarch
of the Peripatetics. His chief work was the arrangement of
the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus with materials
supplied to him by Tyrannion. Besides arranging the works,
he seems to have written paraphrases and commentaries, none
of which is extant. Two treatises are sometimes erroneously
attributed to him, one on the Emotions, the other a commentary
on Aristotle's Ethics (really by Constantine Palaeocappa
in the 16th century, or by John Callistus of Thessalonica).
ANDROPHAGI (Gr. for ``man-eaters''), an ancient nation of
cannibals north of Scythia (Herodotus iv. 18, 106), probably
in the forests between the upper waters of the Dnieper
and Don. They were most likely Finns (Samoyed has the same
meaning) and perhaps the ancestors of the Mordvinians (q.v..)
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