THE NUTTALL ENCYCLOPAEDIA



BEING

A CONCISE AND COMPREHENSIVE DICTIONARY

OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE



CONSISTING OF

OVER 16,000 TERSE AND ORIGINAL ARTICLES ON NEARLY ALL SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN LARGER ENCYCLOPAEDIAS, AND SPECIALLY DEALING

WITH SUCH AS COME UNDER THE CATEGORIES

OF

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, GEOGRAPHY, LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND ART



EDITED BY THE

REV. JAMES WOOD

EDITOR OF "NUTTALL'S STANDARD DICTIONARY" AND COMPILER OF THE "DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS"

THE SIXTY-FIRST THOUSAND

1907



PREFACE

"The NUTTALL ENCYCLOPAEDIA" is the fruit of a project to provide, in a concise and condensed form, and at a cheap rate, an epitome of the kind of information given in the larger Encyclopaedias, such as may prove sufficient for the ordinary requirements, in that particular, of the generality of people, and especially of such as have not the means for purchasing or the leisure for studying the larger.

An Encyclopaedia is now recognised to be as indispensable a book of reference as a dictionary; for while the latter explains and defines the vehicle of thought, the former seeks to define the subject-matter. Now the rapid increase in the vocabulary of a nation, which makes the possession of an up-to-date dictionary almost one of the necessaries of life, is evidently due to the vast increase in the number of facts which the language has to describe or interpret; and if it is difficult to keep pace with the growth in the language, it is obviously more difficult to attain even a working knowledge of the array of facts which in this age come before us for discussion. No man can now peruse even a daily newspaper without being brought face to face with details about questions of the deepest interest to him; and he is often unable to grasp the meaning of what he reads for want of additional knowledge or explanation. In short, it becomes more and more a necessity of modern life to know something of everything. A little knowledge is not dangerous to those who recognise it to be little, and it may be sufficient to enable those who possess it to understand and enjoy intelligently what would otherwise only weigh as a burdensome reflection upon their ignorance. Even a comparatively exhaustive treatment of the multitudinous subjects comprehended under the term universal knowledge would demand a library of large volumes, hence the extent and heavy cost of the great Encyclopaedias. But it is doubtful whether the mass of information contained in those admirable and bulky works does not either go beyond, or, more frequently than not, fall short of the requirements of those who refer to them. For the special student there is too little, for the general reader too much. Detailed knowledge of any subject in this age of specialisation can be acquired only by study of the works specifically devoted to it. What is wanted in a popular Encyclopaedia is succinct information—the more succinct the better, so long as it gives what is required by the inquiry, leaving it to the authorities in each subject to supply the information desired by those intent on pursuing it further. The value of an Encyclopaedia of such small scope must depend, therefore, upon the careful selection of its materials, and in this respect it is hoped the one now offered to the public will be found adequate to any reasonable demands made upon it. If the facts given here are the facts that the great majority are in search of when they refer to its pages, it may be claimed for "The Nuttall Encyclopaedia" that, in one respect at all events it is more valuable for instant reference than the best Encyclopaedia in many volumes; for "The Nuttall" can lie on the desk for ready-to-hand reference, and yields at a glance the information wanted.

Within the necessary limits of a single volume the Editor persuades himself he has succeeded in including a wide range of subjects, and he trusts that the information he has given on these will meet in some measure at least the wants of those for whom the book has been compiled. To the careful Newspaper Reader; to Heads of Families, with children at school, whose persistent questions have often to go without an answer; to the Schoolmaster and Tutor; to the student with a shallow purse; to the Busy Man and Man of Business, it is believed that this volume will prove a solid help.

The subjects, as hinted, are various, and these the Editor may be permitted to classify in a general way under something like the following rubrics:—

1. Noted people, their nationality, the time when they flourished, and what they are noted for.

2. Epochs, important movements, and events in history, with the dates and their historical significance.

3. Countries, provinces, and towns, with descriptions of them, their sizes, populations, etc., and what they are noted for.

4. Heavenly bodies, especially those connected with the solar system, their sizes, distances, and revolutions.

5. Races and tribes of mankind, with features that characterise them.

6. Mythologies, and the account they severally give of the divine and demonic powers, supreme and subordinate, that rule the world.

7. Religions of the world, with their respective credos and objects and forms of worship.

8. Schools of philosophy, with their theories of things and of the problems of life and human destiny.

9. Sects and parties, under the different systems of belief or polity, and the specialities of creed and policy that divide them.

10. Books of the world, especially the sacred ones, and the spiritual import of them; in particular those of the Bible, on each of which a note or two is given.

11. Legends and fables, especially such as are more or less of world significance.

12. Characters in fiction and fable, both mediaeval and modern.

13. Fraternities, religious and other, with their symbols and shibboleths.

14. Families of note, especially such as have developed into dynasties.

15. Institutions for behoof of some special interest, secular or sacred, including universities.

16. Holidays and festivals, with what they commemorate, and the rites and ceremonies connected with them.

17. Science, literature, and art in general, but these chiefly in connection with the names of those distinguished in the cultivation of them.

Such, in a general way, are some of the subjects contained in the book, while there is a number of others not reducible to the classification given, and among these the Editor has included certain subjects of which he was able to give only a brief definition, just as there are doubtless others which in so wide an area of research have escaped observation and are not included in the list. In the selection of subjects the Editor experienced not a little embarrassment, and he was not unfrequently at a loss to summarise particulars under several of the heads. Such as it is, the Editor offers the book to the public, and he hopes that with all its shortcomings it will not be unfavourably received.



NOTES.

(1) The figures in brackets following Geographical names indicate the number of thousands of population.

(2) The figures in brackets given in Biographical references indicate the dates of birth and death where both are given.



THE NUTTALL ENCYCLOPAEDIA



A

A'ALI PASHA, an eminent reforming Turkish statesman (1815-1871).

AACHEN. See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

AALBORG (19), a trading town on the Liimfiord, in the N. of Jutland.

AAR, a large Swiss river about 200 m. long, which falls into the Rhine as it leaves Switzerland.

AARGAU, a fertile Swiss canton bordering on the Rhine.

AARHUUS (33), a port on the E. of Jutland, with a considerable export and import trade, and a fine old Gothic cathedral.

AARON, the elder brother of Moses, and the first high-priest of the Jews, an office he held for forty years.

ABACA, Manila hemp, or the plant, native to the Philippines, which yield it in quantities.

ABACUS, a tablet crowning a column and its capital.

ABADDON, the bottomless pit, or the angel thereof.

ABARIM, a mountain chain in Palestine, NE. of the Dead Sea, the highest point being Mount Nebo.

ABATEMENT, a mark of disgrace in a coat of arms.

ABAUZIT, FIRMIN, a French Protestant theologian and a mathematician, a friend of Newton, and much esteemed for his learning by Rousseau and Voltaire (1679-1767).

ABBADIE, two brothers of French descent, Abyssinian travellers in the years 1837-1848; also a French Protestant divine (1658-1727).

ABBAS, uncle of Mahomet, founder of the dynasty of the Abbasides (566-652).

ABBAS PASHA, the khedive of Egypt, studied five years in Vienna, ascended the throne at eighteen, accession hailed with enthusiasm; shows at times an equivocal attitude to Britain; b. 1874.

ABBAS THE GREAT, shah of Persia, of the dynasty of the Sophis, great alike in conquest and administration (1557-1628).

ABBAS-MIRZA, a Persian prince, a reformer of the Persian army, and a leader of it, unsuccessfully, however, against Russia (1783-1833).

ABBASIDES, a dynasty of 37 caliphs who ruled as such at Bagdad from 750 to 1258.

AB'BATI, NICCOLO DELL', an Italian fresco-painter (1512-1571).

ABBE, name of a class of men who in France prior to the Revolution prepared themselves by study of theology for preferment in the Church, and who, failing, gave themselves up to letters or science.

ABBEVILLE (19), a thriving old town on the Somme, 12 m. up, with an interesting house architecture, and a cathedral, unfinished, in the Flamboyant style.

ABBOT, head of an abbey. There were two classes of abbots: Abbots Regular, as being such in fact, and Abbots Commendatory, as guardians and drawing the revenues.

ABBOT, GEORGE, archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., and one of the translators of King James's Bible; an enemy of Laud's, who succeeded him (1562-1633).

ABBOT OF MISRULE, a person elected to superintend the Christmas revelries.

ABBOTSFORD, the residence of Sir Walter Scott, on the Tweed, near Melrose, built by him on the site of a farm called Clarty Hole.

ABBOTT, EDWIN, a learned Broad Church theologian and man of letters; wrote, besides other works, a volume of sermons "Through Nature to Christ"; esteemed insistence on miracles injurious to faith; b. 1838.

ABDAL'LAH, the father of Mahomet, famed for his beauty (545-570); also a caliph of Mecca (622-692).

ABDALRAH'MAN, the Moorish governor of Spain, defeated by Charles Martel at Tours in 732.

ABDALS (lit. servants of Allah), a set of Moslem fanatics in Persia.

ABD-EL-KA'DIR, an Arab emir, who for fifteen years waged war against the French in N. Africa, but at length surrendered prisoner to them in 1847. On his release in 1852 he became a faithful friend of France (1807-1883).

ABDE'RA, a town in ancient Thrace, proverbial for the stupidity of its inhabitants.

ABDICATIONS, of which the most celebrated are those of the Roman Dictator Sylla, who in 70 B.C. retired to Puteoli; of Diocletian, who in A.D. 305 retired to Salone; of Charles V., who in 1556 retired to the monastery St. Yuste; of Christina of Sweden, who in 1654 retired to Rome, after passing some time in France; of Napoleon, who in 1814 and 1815 retired first to Elba and then died at St. Helena; of Charles X. in 1830, who died at Goritz, in Austria; and of Louis Philippe, who in 1848 retired to end his days in England.

ABDIEL, one of the seraphim, who withstood Satan in his revolt against the Most High.

ABDUL-AZIZ, sultan of Turkey from 1861, in succession to Abdul-Medjid (1830-1876).

ABDUL-AZIZ, sultan of Morocco, was only fourteen at his accession; b. 1880.

ABDUL-HA'MID II., sultan of Turkey in 1876, brother to Abdul-Aziz, and his successor; under him Turkey has suffered serious dismemberment, and the Christian subjects in Armenia and Crete been cruelly massacred; b. 1842.

ABD-UL-MED'JID, sultan, father of the two preceding, in whose defence against Russia England and France undertook the Crimean war (1823-1861).

ABDUR-RAH'MAN, the ameer of Afghanistan, subsidised by the English; b. 1830.

A'BECKET, GILBERT, an English humourist, who contributed to Punch and other organs; wrote the "Comic Blackstone" and comic histories of England and Rome (1811-1856).

A'BECKET, A. W., son of the preceding, a litterateur and journalist; b. 1844.

ABEL, the second son of Adam and Eve; slain by his brother. The death of Abel is the subject of a poem by Gessner and a tragedy by Legouve.

ABEL, SIR F. A., a chemist who has made a special study of explosives; b. 1827.

ABEL, HENRY, an able Norwegian mathematician, who died young (1802-1828).

AB'ELARD, PETER, a theologian and scholastic philosopher of French birth, renowned for his dialectic ability, his learning, his passion for Heloise, and his misfortunes; made conceivability the test of credibility, and was a great teacher in his day (1079-1142).

ABELLI, a Dominican monk, the confessor of Catharine de Medici (1603-1691).

ABENCERRA'GES, a powerful Moorish tribe in Grenada, whose fate in the 15th century has been the subject of interesting romance.

ABEN-EZ'RA, a learned Spanish Jew and commentator on the Hebrew scriptures (1090-1168).

ABERA'VON (6), a town and seaport in Glamorganshire, with copper and iron works.

ABERCROMBIE, SIR RALPH, a distinguished British general of Scottish birth, who fell in Egypt after defeating the French at Aboukir Bay (1731-1801).

ABERDEEN (124), the fourth city in Scotland, on the E. coast, between the mouths of the Dee and Don; built of grey granite, with many fine public edifices, a flourishing university, a large trade, and thriving manufactures. Old Aberdeen, on the Don, now incorporated in the municipality, is the seat of a cathedral church, and of King's College, founded in 1404, united with the university in the new town.

ABERDEEN, EARL OF, a shrewd English statesman, Prime Minister of England during the Crimean war (1784-1860).—Grandson of the preceding, Gov.-Gen. of Canada; b. 1847.

ABERDEENSHIRE (281), a large county in NE. of Scotland; mountainous in SW., lowland N. and E.; famed for its granite quarries, its fisheries, and its breed of cattle.

ABERNETHY, a small burgh in S. Perthshire, with a Pictish round tower, and once the capital of the Pictish kingdom.

ABERRATION OF LIGHT, an apparent motion in a star due to the earth's motion and the progressive motion of light.

ABERYST'WITH (16), a town and seaport in Cardiganshire, Wales, with a university.

AB'GAR XIV., a king of Edessa, one of a dynasty of the name, a contemporary of Jesus Christ, and said to have corresponded with Him.

ABHORRERS, the Royalist and High Church party in England under Charles II., so called from their abhorrence of the principles of their opponents.

ABIGAIL, the widow of Nabal, espoused by David.

ABICH, W. H., a German mineralogist and traveller (1806-1886).

ABINGDON (6), a borough in Berks, 6 m. S. of Oxford.

ABIOGENESIS, the doctrine of spontaneous generation.

ABIPONES, a once powerful warlike race in La Plata, now nearly all absorbed.

ABLE MAN, man with "a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute" (Gibbon).

ABNER, a Hebrew general under Saul; assassinated by Joab.

ABO, the old capital of Finland and seat of the government, on the Gulf of Bothnia.

AB'OMEY, the capital of Dahomey, in W. Africa.

ABOU'KIR, village near Alexandria, in Egypt, on the bay near which Nelson destroyed the French fleet in 1799; where Napoleon beat the Turks, 1799; and where Abercrombie fell, 1801.

ABOUT, EDMOND, spirited French litterateur and journalist (1828-1885).

ABRAHAM, the Hebrew patriarch, ancestor of the Jews, the very type of an Eastern pastoral chief at once by his dignified character and simple faith.

ABRAHAM, THE PLAINS OF, a plain near Quebec.

ABRAHAM-MEN, a class of lunatics allowed out of restraint, at one time, to roam about and beg; a set of impostors who wandered about the country affecting lunacy.

ABRAN'TES, a town in Portugal, on the Tagus; taken by Marshal Junot, 1807, and giving the title of Duke to him.

ABRAXAS STONES, stones with cabalistic figures on them used as talismans.

ABRUZ'ZI, a highland district in the Apennines, with a pop. of 100,000.

ABSALOM, a son of David, who rebelled against his father, and at whose death David gave vent to a bitter wail of grief. A name given by Dryden to the Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles II.

ABSOLUTE, THE, the philosophical name for the uncreated Creator, or creating cause of all things, dependent on nothing external to itself.

ABSYRTUS, a brother of Medea, whom she cut in pieces as she fled with Jason, pursued by her father, throwing his bones behind her to detain her father in his pursuit of her by stopping to pick them up.

ABT, FRANZ, a German composer of song-music (1819-1885).

ABU, a mountain (6000 ft.) in Rajputana, with a footprint of Vishnu on the top, and two marble temples half-way up, held sacred by the Jains.

AB'UBEKR, as the father of Ayesha, the father-in-law of Mahomet, the first of the caliphs and the founder of the Sunnites; d. 634.

AB'U-KLEA, in the Soudan, where the Mahdi's forces were defeated by Sir H. Stewart in 1885.

A'BUL-FARAJ, a learned Armenian Jew, who became bishop of Aleppo, and wrote a history of the world from Adam onwards (1226-1286).

ABUL-FAZEL, the vizier of the great Mogul emperor Akbar, and who wrote an account of his reign and of the Mogul empire; he was assassinated in 1604.

ABUL-FEDA, a Moslem prince of Hamat in Syria, who in his youth took part against the Crusaders, and wrote historical works in Arabic (1273-1331).

ABU-THA'LEB, uncle of Mahomet, and his protector against the plots of his enemies the Koreish.

ABY'DOS, a town on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, famous as the home of Leander, who swam the Hellespont every night to visit Hero in Sestos, and as the spot where Xerxes built his bridge of boats to cross into Europe in 480 B.C.; also a place of note in Upper Egypt.

ABYSSIN'IA, a mountainous country SE. of Nubia, with an area of 200,000 sq. m., made up of independent states, and a mixed population of some four millions, the Abyssinians proper being of the Semite stock. It is practically under the protectorate of Italy.

ACACIA, a large group of trees with astringent and gum-yielding properties, natives of tropical Africa and Australia.

ACADEMY, a public shady park or place of groves near Athens, where Plato taught his philosophy and whence his school derived its name, of which there are three branches, the Old, the Middle, and the New, represented respectively by Plato himself, Arcesilaos, and Carneades. The French Academy, of forty members, was founded by Richelieu in 1635, and is charged with the interests of the French language and literature, and in particular with the duty of compiling an authoritative dictionary of the French language. Besides these, there are in France other four with a like limited membership in the interest of other departments of science and art, all now associated in the Institute of France, which consists in all of 229 members. There are similar institutions in other states of Europe, all of greater or less note.

ACADIA, the French name for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

ACANTHUS, a leaf-like ornament on the capitals of the columns of certain orders of architecture.

ACAPUL'CO, a Mexican port in the Pacific, harbour commodious, but climate unhealthy.

ACARNA'NIA, a province of Greece N. of Gulf of Corinth; its pop. once addicted to piracy.

ACCA'DIANS, a dark, thick-lipped, short-statured Mongol race in Central Asia, displaced by the Babylonians and Assyrians, who were Semitic.

ACCA-LAURENTIA, the wife of Faustulus, shepherd of Numitor, who saved the lives of Romulus and Remus.

ACCIAIOLI, a Florentine family of 15th century, illustrious in scholarship and war.

ACCOLADE, a gentle blow with a sword on the shoulder in conferring knighthood.

ACCOL'TI, a Tuscan family, of 15th century, famous for their learning.

ACCOR'SO, the name of a Florentine family, of 12th and 13th centuries, great in jurisprudence.

ACCRA (16), capital and chief port in British Gold Coast colony.

ACCRINGTON (39), a manufacturing town 22 m. N. of Manchester.

ACCUM, FRIEDRICH, a German chemist, the first promoter of gas-lighting (1769-1838).

ACCUMULATOR, a hydraulic press for storing up water at a high pressure; also a device for storing up electric energy.

ACERRA (14), an ancient city 9 m. NE. of Naples; is in an unhealthy district.

ACETIC ACID, the pure acid of vinegar; the salts are called acetates.

ACETONE, a highly inflammable liquid obtained generally by the dry distillation of acetates.

ACET'YLENE, a malodorous gaseous substance from the incomplete combustion of hydro-carbons.

ACHAEAN LEAGUE, a confederation of 12 towns in the Peloponnesus, formed especially against the influence of the Macedonians.

ACHAE'ANS, the common name of the Greeks in the heroic or Homeric period.

ACHAI'A, the N. district of the Peloponnesus, eventually the whole of it.

ACHARD, a Prussian chemist, one of the first to manufacture sugar from beetroot (1753-1821).

ACHARD', LOUIS AMEDEE, a prolific French novelist (1814-1876).

ACHA'TES, the attendant of AEneas in his wandering after the fall of Troy, remarkable for, and a perennial type of, fidelity.

ACHELO'UeS, a river in Greece, which rises in Mt. Pindus, and falls into the Ionian Sea; also the god of the river, the oldest of the sons of Oceanus, and the father of the Sirens.

ACHEN, an eminent German painter (1556-1621).

ACHENWALL, a German economist, the founder of statistic science (1719-1772).

ACH'ERON, a river in the underworld; the name of several rivers in Greece more or less suggestive of it.

ACH'ERY, a learned French Benedictine of St. Maur (1609-1685).

ACH'ILL, a rocky, boggy island, sparsely inhabited, off W. coast of Ireland, co. Mayo, with a bold headland 2222 ft. high.

ACHILLE'ID, an unfinished poem of Statius.

ACHIL'LES, the son of Peleus and Thetis, king of the Myrmidons, the most famous of the Greek heroes in the Trojan war, and whose wrath with the consequences of it forms the subject of the Iliad of Homer. He was invulnerable except in the heel, at the point where his mother held him as she dipt his body in the Styx to render him invulnerable.

ACHILLES OF GERMANY, Albert, third elector of Brandenburg, "fiery, tough old gentleman, of formidable talent for fighting in his day; a very blazing, far-seen character," says Carlyle (1414-1486).

ACHILLES TENDON, the great tendon of the heel, where Achilles was vulnerable.

ACHMED PASHA, a French adventurer, served in French army, condemned to death, fled, and served Austria; condemned to death a second time, pardoned, served under the sultan, was banished to the shores of the Black Sea (1675-1747).

ACH'MET I., sultan of Turkey from 1603 to 1617; A. II., from 1691 to 1695; A. III., from 1703 to 1730, who gave asylum to Charles XII. of Sweden after his defeat by the Czar at Pultowa.

ACHIT'OPHEL, name given by Dryden to the Earl of Shaftesbury of his time.

ACHROMATISM, transmission of light, undecomposed and free from colour, by means of a combination of dissimilar lenses of crown and flint glass, or by a single glass carefully prepared.

ACIERAGE, coating a copper-plate with steel by voltaic electricity.

A'CI-REA'LE (38), a seaport town in Sicily, at the foot of Mount Etna, in NE. of Catania, with mineral waters.

A'CIS, a Sicilian shepherd enamoured of Galatea, whom the Cyclops Polyphemus, out of jealousy, overwhelmed under a rock, from under which his blood has since flowed as a river.

ACK'ERMANN, R., an enterprising publisher of illustrated works in the Strand, a native of Saxony (1764-1834).

ACLAND, SIR HENRY, regius professor of medicine in Oxford, accompanied the Prince of Wales to America in 1860, the author of several works on medicine and educational subjects, one of Ruskin's old and tried friends (1815).

ACLINIC LINE, the magnetic equator, along which the needle always remains horizontal.

ACNE, a skin disease showing hard reddish pimples; ACNE ROSACEA, a congestion of the skin of the nose and parts adjoining.

ACOEMETAE, an order of monks in the 5th century who by turns kept up a divine service day and night.

ACONCA'GUA, the highest peak of the Andes, about 100 m. NE. of Valparaiso, 22,867 ft. high; recently ascended by a Swiss and a Scotchman, attendants of Fitzgerald's party.

ACONITE, monk's-hood, a poisonous plant of the ranunculus order with a tapering root.

ACONITINE, a most virulent poison from aconite, and owing to the very small quantity sufficient to cause death, is very difficult of detection when employed in taking away life.

ACORN-SHELLS, a crustacean attached to rocks on the sea-shore, described by Huxley as "fixed by its head," and "kicking its food into its mouth with its legs."

ACOUSTICS, the science of sound as it affects the ear, specially of the laws to be observed in the construction of halls so that people may distinctly hear in them.

ACRASIA, an impersonation in Spenser's "Faerie Queen," of intemperance in the guise of a beautiful sorceress.

ACRE, ST. JEAN D' (7), a strong place and seaport in Syria, at the foot of Mount Carmel, taken, at an enormous sacrifice of life, by Philip Augustus and Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191, held out against Bonaparte in 1799; its ancient name Ptolemais.

ACRES, BOB, a coward in the "Rivals" whose "courage always oozed out at his finger ends."

ACROAMATICS, esoteric lectures, i. e. lectures to the initiated.

ACROLEIN, a light volatile limpid liquid obtained by the destructive distillation of fats.

ACROLITHS, statues of which only the extremities are of stone.

ACROP'OLIS, a fortified citadel commanding a city, and generally the nucleus of it, specially the rocky eminence dominating Athens.

ACROTE'RIA, pedestals placed at the middle and the extremities of a pediment to support a statue or other ornament, or the statue or ornament itself.

ACTA DIURNA, a kind of gazette recording in a summary way daily events, established at Rome in 131 B.C., and rendered official by Caesar in 50 B.C.

ACTA SANCTORUM, the lives of the saints in 62 vols. folio, begun in the 17th century by the Jesuits, and carried on by the Bollandists.

ACTAEON, a hunter changed into a stag for surprising Diana when bathing, and afterwards devoured by his own dogs.

ACTINIC RAYS, "non-luminous rays of higher frequency than the luminous rays."

ACTINISM, the chemical action of sunlight.

ACTINOMYCOSIS, a disease of a fungous nature on the mouth and lower jaw of cows.

ACTIUM, a town and promontory at the entrance of the Ambracian Gulf (Arta), in Greece, where Augustus gained his naval victory over Antony and Cleopatra, Sept. 2, 31 B.C.

ACTON, an adventurer of English birth, who became prime minister of Naples, but was driven from the helm of affairs on account of his inveterate antipathy to the French (1737-1808).

ACTON, LORD, a descendant of the former, who became a leader of the Liberal Catholics in England, M.P. for Carlow, and made a peer in 1869; a man of wide learning, and the projector of a universal history by experts in different departments of the field; b. 1834.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, a narrative account in the New Testament of the founding of the Christian Church chiefly through the ministry of Peter and Paul, written by Luke, commencing with the year 33, and concluding with the imprisonment of Paul in Rome in 62.

ACUN'HA, TRISTRAM D', a Portuguese navigator, companion of Albuquerque; NUNA D', his son, viceroy of the Indies from 1528 to 1539; RODRIQUE D', archbishop of Lisbon, who in 1640 freed Portugal from the Spanish domination, and established the house of Braganza on the throne.

ACUPRESSURE, checking hemorrhage in arteries during an operation by compressing their orifices with a needle.

ACUPUNCTURE, the operation of pricking an affected part with a needle, and leaving it for a short time in it, sometimes for as long as an hour.

ADAIR, SIR ROBERT, a distinguished English diplomatist, and frequently employed on the most important diplomatic missions (1763-1855).

ADAL, a flat barren region between Abyssinia and the Red Sea.

ADALBE'RON, the archbishop of Rheims, chancellor of Lothaire and Louis V.; consecrated Hugh Capet; d. 998.

ADALBERT, a German ecclesiastic, who did much to extend Christianity over the North (1000-1072).

ADALBERT, ST., bishop of Prague, who, driven from Bohemia, essayed to preach the gospel in heathen Prussia, where the priests fell upon him, and "struck him with a death-stroke on the head," April 27, 997, on the anniversary of which day a festival is held in his honour.

ADA'LIA (30), a seaport on the coast of Asia Minor, on a bay of the same name.

ADAM (i. e. man), the first father, according to the Bible, of the human race.

ADAM, ALEX., a distinguished Latin scholar, rector for 40 years of the Edinburgh High School, Scott having been one of his pupils (1741-1809).

ADAM, LAMBERT, a distinguished French sculptor (1700-1759).

ADAM, ROBERT, a distinguished architect, born at Kirkcaldy, architect of the Register House and the University, Edinburgh (1728-1792).

ADAM BEDE, George Eliot's first novel, published anonymously in 1859, took at once with both critic and public.

ADAM KADMON, primeval man as he at first emanated from the Creator, or man in his primeval rudimentary potentiality.

ADAM OF BROMEN, distinguished as a Christian missionary in the 11th century; author of a celebrated Church history of N. Europe from 788 to 1072, entitled Gesta Hammenburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum.

ADAMAS'TOR, the giant spirit of storms, which Camoens, in his "Luciad," represents as rising up before Vasco de Gama to warn him off from the Cape of Storms, henceforth called, in consequence of the resultant success in despite thereof, the Cape of Good Hope.

ADAMAWA, a region in the Lower Soudan with a healthy climate and a fertile soil, rich in all tropical products.

ADAMITES, visionaries in Africa in the 2nd century, and in Bohemia in the 14th and 15th, who affected innocence, rejected marriage, and went naked.

ADAMNAN, ST., abbot of Iona, of Irish birth, who wrote a life of St. Columba and a work on the Holy Places, of value as the earliest written (625-704).

ADAMS, DR. F., a zealous student and translator of Greek medical works (1797-1861).

ADAMS, JOHN, the second president of the United States, and a chief promoter of their independence (1739-1826).

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, his eldest son, the sixth president (1767-1848).

ADAMS, JOHN COUCH, an English astronomer, the discoverer simultaneously with Leverrier of the planet Neptune (1819-1892).

ADAMS, PARSON, a country curate in Fielding's "Joseph Andrews," with a head full of learning and a heart full of love to his fellows, but in absolute ignorance of the world, which in his simplicity he takes for what it professes to be.

ADAMS, SAMUEL, a zealous promoter of American independence, who lived and died poor (1722-1803).

ADAM'S BRIDGE, a chain of coral reefs and sandbanks connecting Ceylon with India.

ADAM'S PEAK, a conical peak in the centre of Ceylon 7420 ft. high, with a foot-like depression 5 ft. long and 21/2 broad atop, ascribed to Adam by the Mohammedans, and to Buddha by the Buddhists; it was here, the Arabs say, that Adam alighted on his expulsion from Eden and stood doing penance on one foot till God forgave him.

ADA'NA (40), a town SE. corner of Asia Minor, 30 m. from the sea.

ADANSON, MICHEL, a French botanist, born in AIX, the first to attempt a natural classification of plants (1727-1806).

AD'DA, an affluent of the Po, near Cremona; it flows through Lake Como; on its banks Bonaparte gained several of his famous victories over Austria.

ADDINGTON, HENRY, Lord Sidmouth, an English statesman was for a short time Prime Minister, throughout a supporter of Pitt (1757-1844).

ADDISON, JOSEPH, a celebrated English essayist, studied at Oxford, became Fellow of Magdalen, was a Whig in politics, held a succession of Government appointments, resigned the last for a large pension; was pre-eminent among English writers for the purity and elegance of his style, had an abiding, refining, and elevating influence on the literature of the country; his name is associated with the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, as well as with a number of beautiful hymns (1672-1749).

A'DELAAR, the name of honour given to Cort Sivertsen, a famous Norse seaman, who rendered distinguished naval services to Denmark and to Venice against the Turks (1622-1675).

ADELAIDE (133), the capital of S. Australia, on the river Torrens, which flows through it into St. Vincent Gulf, 7 m. SE. of Port Adelaide; a handsome city, with a cathedral, fine public buildings, a university, and an extensive botanical garden; it is the great emporium for S. Australia; exports wool, wine, wheat, and copper ore.

ADELAIDE, eldest daughter of Louis XV. of France (1732-1806).

ADELAIDE, PORT, the haven of Adelaide, a port of call, with a commodious harbour.

ADELAIDE, QUEEN, consort of William IV. of England (1792-1849).

ADELAIDE OF ORLEANS, sister of Louis Philippe, his Egeria (1771-1841).

ADELBERG, a town of Carniola, 22 m. from Trieste, with a large stalactite cavern, besides numerous caves near it.

ADELUNG, JOHANN CHRISTOPH, a distinguished German philologist and lexicographer, born in Pomerania (1732-1806).

A'DEN (42), a fortified town on a peninsula in British territory S. of Arabia, 105 m. E. of Bab-el-Mandeb; a coaling and military station, in a climate hot, but healthy.

AD'HERBAL, son of Micipsa, king of Numidia, killed by Jugurtha, 249 B.C.

ADI GRANTH, the sacred book of the Sikhs.

ADIAPH'ORISTS, Lutherans who in 16th century maintained that certain practices of the Romish Church, obnoxious to others of them, were matters of indifference, such as having pictures, lighting candles, wearing surplices, and singing certain hymns in worship.

AD'IGE, a river of Italy, which rises in the Rhetian Alps and falls into the Adriatic after a course of 250 m.; subject to sudden swellings and overflowings.

ADIPOCERE, a fatty, spermaceti-like substance, produced by the decomposition of animal matter in moist places.

ADIPOSE TISSUE, a tissue of small vesicles filled with oily matter, in which there is no sensation, and a layer of which lies under the skin and gives smoothness and warmth to the body.

ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS, a high-lying, picturesque, granite range in the State of New York; source of the Hudson.

ADJUTANT, a gigantic Indian stork with an enormous beak, about 5 ft. in height, which feeds on carrion and offal, and is useful in this way, as storks are.

ADLER, HERMANN, son and successor of the following, born in Hanover; a vigorous defender of his co-religionists and their faith, as well as their sacred Scriptures; was elected Chief Rabbi in 1891; b. 1839.

ADLER, NATHAN MARCUS, chief Rabbi in Britain, born in Hanover (1803-1890).

ADLERCREUTZ, a Swedish general, the chief promoter of the revolution of 1808, who told Gustavus IV. to his face that he ought to retire (1759-1815).

ADME'TUS, king of Pherae in Thessaly, one of the Argonauts, under whom Apollo served for a time as neat-herd. See ALCESTIS.

ADMIRABLE DOCTOR, a name given to Roger Bacon.

ADMIRAL, the chief commander of a fleet, of which there are in Britain three grades—admirals, vice-admirals, and rear-admirals, the first displaying his flag on the main mast, the second on the fore, and the third on the mizzen.

ADMIRALTY, BOARD OF, board of commissioners appointed for the management of naval affairs.

ADMIRALTY ISLAND, an island off the coast of Alaska.

ADMIRALTY ISLANDS, a group NE. of New Guinea, in the Pacific, which belong to Germany.

ADOLF, FRIEDRICH, king of Sweden, under whose reign the nobles divided themselves into the two factions of the Caps, or the peace-party, and the Hats, or the war-party (1710-1771).

ADOLPH, ST., a Spanish martyr: festival, Sept. 27.

ADOLPH OF NASSAU, Kaiser from 1291 to 1298, "a stalwart but necessitous Herr" Carlyle calls him; seems to have been under the pay of Edward Longshanks.

ADOLPHUS, JOHN, an able London barrister in criminal cases, and a voluminous historical writer (1766-1845).

ADONA'I, the name used by the Jews for God instead of Jehovah, too sacred to be pronounced.

ADONA'IS, Shelley's name for Keats.

ADO'NIS, a beautiful youth beloved by Aphrodite (Venus), but mortally wounded by a boar and changed by her into a flower the colour of his blood, by sprinkling nectar on his body.

ADOPTIONISTS, heretics who in the 8th century maintained that Christ was the son of God, not by birth, but by adoption, and as being one with Him in character and will.

ADOR'NO, an illustrious plebeian family in Genoa, of the Ghibelline party, several of whom were Doges of the republic.

ADOUR, a river of France, rising in the Pyrenees and falling into the Bay of Biscay.

ADOWA', a highland town in Abyssinia, and chief entrepot of trade.

ADRAS'TUS, a king of Argos, the one survivor of the first expedition of the Seven against Thebes, who died of grief when his son fell in the second.

ADRETS, BARON DES, a Huguenot leader, notorious for his cruelty; died a Catholic (1513-1587).

A'DRIA, an ancient town between the Po and the Adige; a flourishing seaport at one time, but now 14 m. from the sea.

A'DRIAN, name of six popes: A. I., from 772 to 795, did much to embellish Rome; A. II., from 867 to 872, zealous to subject the sovereigns of Europe to the Popehood; A. III., from 884 to 885; A. V., from 1054 to 1059, the only Englishman who attained to the Papal dignity; A. V., in 1276; A. VI., from 1222 to 1223. See BREAKSPEARE.

ADRIAN, ST., the chief military saint of N. Europe for many ages, second only to St. George; regarded as the patron of old soldiers, and protector against the plague.

ADRIANO'PLE (60), a city in European Turkey, the third in importance, on the high-road between Belgrade and Constantinople.

ADRIA'TIC, THE, a sea 450 m. long separating Italy from Illyria, Dalmatia, and Albania.

ADULLAM, David's hiding-place (1 Sam. xxii. 1), a royal Canaanitish city 10 m. NW. of Hebron.

ADULLAMITES, an English political party who in 1866 deserted the Liberal side in protest against a Liberal Franchise Bill then introduced. John Bright gave them this name. See 1 Sam. xxii.

ADUMBLA, a cow, in old Norse mythology, that grazes on hoar-frost, "licking the rime from the rocks—a Hindu cow transported north," surmises Carlyle.

ADVOCATE, LORD, chief counsel for the Crown in Scotland, public prosecutor of crimes, and a member of the administration in power.

ADVOCATES, FACULTY OF, body of lawyers qualified to plead at the Scottish bar.

ADVOCATES' LIBRARY, a library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, founded in 1632; it alone of Scotch libraries still holds the privilege of receiving a copy of every book entered at Stationers' Hall.

ADVOCATUS DIABOLI, the devil's advocate, a functionary in the Roman Catholic Church appointed to show reason against a proposed canonization.

AEACUS, a Greek king renowned as an administrator of distributive justice, after death appointed one of the three judges in Hades. See MINOS and RHADAMANTHUS.

AEDILES, magistrates of ancient Rome who had charge of the public buildings and public structures generally.

AEE'TIS, king of Colchis and father of Medea.

AEGE'AN SEA, the Archipelago.

AEGEUS, the father of Theseus, who threw himself into the AEgean Sea, so called after him, in the mistaken belief that his son, who had been to slay the Minotaur, had been slain by him.

AEGI'NA, an island 20 m. SW. of Athens, in a gulf of the same name.

AEGIR, the god of the sea in the Norse mythology.

AEGIS (lit. a goat's skin), the shield of Zeus, made of the hide of the goat AMALTHEA (q. v.), representing originally the storm-cloud in which the god invested himself when he was angry; it was also the attribute of Athena, bearing in her case the Gorgon's head.

AEGIS'THUS. See AGAMEMNON.

AEL'FRIC, a Saxon writer of the end of the 10th century known as the "Grammarian."

AELIA'NUS, CLAUDIUS, an Italian rhetorician who wrote in Greek, and whose extant works are valuable for the passages from prior authors which they have preserved for us.

AEMI'LIUS PAULUS, the Roman Consul who fell at Cannae, 216 B.C.; also his son, surnamed Macedonicus, so called as having defeated Perseus at Pydna, in Macedonia.

AENE'AS, a Trojan, the hero of Virgil's "AEneid," who in his various wanderings after the fall of Troy settled in Italy, and became, tradition alleges, the forefather of the Julian Gens in Rome.

AENEAS SILVIUS. See PICCOLOMINI.

AE'NEID, an epic poem by Virgil, of which AEneas is the hero.

AENESIDEMUS, a sceptical philosopher, born in Crete, who flourished shortly after Cicero, and summed up under ten arguments the contention against dogmatism in philosophy. See "SCHWEGLER," translated by Dr. Hutchison Stirling.

AEOLIAN ACTION, action of the wind as causing geologic changes.

AEOLIAN ISLANDS, the LIPARI ISLANDS (q. v.).

AEO'LIANS, one of the Greek races who, originating in Thessaly, spread north and south, and emigrated into Asia Minor, giving rise to the AEolic dialect of the Greek language.

AEOLOTROPY, a change in the physical properties of bodies due to a change of position.

AE'OLUS, the Greek god of the winds.

AEON, among the Gnostics, one of a succession of powers conceived as emanating from God and presiding over successive creations and transformations of being.

AEPYOR'NIS, a gigantic fossil bird of Madagascar, of which the egg is six times larger than that of an ostrich.

AE'QUI, a tribe on NE. of Latium, troublesome to the Romans until subdued in 302 B.C.

AERATED BREAD, bread of flour dough charged with carbonic acid gas.

AERATED WATERS, waters aerated with carbonic acid gas.

AES'CHINES, a celebrated Athenian orator, rival of Demosthenes, who in the end prevailed over him by persuading the citizens to believe he was betraying them to Philip of Macedon, so that he left Athens and settled in Rhodes, where he founded a school as a rhetorician (389-314 B.C.).

AES'CHYLUS, the father of the Greek tragedy, who distinguished himself as a soldier both at Marathon and Salamis before he figured as a poet; wrote, it is said, some seventy dramas, of which only seven are extant—the "Suppliants," the "Persae," the "Seven against Thebes," the "Prometheus Bound," the "Agamemnon," the "Choephori," and the "Eumenides," his plays being trilogies; born at Eleusis and died in Sicily (525-456 B.C.).

AESCULA'PIUS, a son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, whom, for restoring Hippolytus to life, Zeus, at the prayer of Pluto, destroyed with a thunderbolt, but afterwards admitted among the gods as god of medicine and the healing art; the cock, the emblem of vigilance, and the serpent, of prudence, were sacred to him.

AESON, the father of Jason, was restored to youth by Medea.

AE'SOP, a celebrated Greek fabulist of the 6th century B.C., of whose history little is known except that he was originally a slave, manumitted by Iadmon of Samos, and put to death by the Delphians, probably for some witticism at their expense.

AESO'PUS, a celebrated Roman actor, a friend of Pompey and Cicero.

AESTHETICS, the science of the beautiful in nature and the fine arts.

AE'TIUS, a Roman general, who withstood the aggressions of the Barbarians for twenty years, and defeated Attila at Chalons, 451; assassinated out of jealousy by the Emperor Valentinian III., 454.

AETO'LIA, a country of ancient Greece N. of the Gulf of Corinth.

AFFRE, archbishop of Paris, suffered death on the barricades, as, with a green bough in his hand, he bore a message of peace to the insurgents (1793-1848).

AFGHAN'ISTAN' (5,000), a country in the centre of Asia, between India on the east and Persia on the west, its length about 600 m. and its breadth about 500 m., a plateau of immense mountain masses, and high, almost inaccessible, valleys, occupying 278,000 sq. m., with extremes of climate, and a mixed turbulent population, majority Afghans. The country, though long a bone of contention between England and Russia, is now wholly under the sphere of British influence.

AF'GHANS, THE, a fine and noble but hot-tempered race of the Mohammedan faith inhabiting Afghanistan. The Afghans proper are called PATHANS in India, and call themselves Beni Israel (sons of Israel), tracing their descent from King Saul.

AFRA'NIUS, a Latin comic poet who flourished 100 B.C.; also a Roman Consul who played a prominent part in the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey, 60 B.C.

AFRICA, one of the five great divisions of the globe, three times larger than Europe, seven-tenths of it within the torrid zone, and containing over 200,000,000 inhabitants of more or less dark-skinned races. It was long a terra incognita, but it is now being explored in all directions, and attempts are everywhere made to bring it within the circuit of civilisation. It is being parcelled out by European nations, chiefly Britain, France, and Germany, and with more zeal and appliance of resource by Britain than any other.

AFRICA'NUS, JULIUS, a Christian historian and chronologist of the 3rd century.

AFRIDIS, a treacherous tribe of eight clans, often at war with each other, in a mountainous region on the North-Western frontier of India W. of Peshawar.

AFRIKAN'DER, one born in S. Africa of European parents.

AFRIT', a powerful evil spirit in the Mohammedan mythology.

AGA'DES, a once important depot of trade in the S. of the Sahara, much decayed.

AGAG, a king of the Amalekites, conquered by Saul, and hewn in pieces by order of Samuel.

AGAMEM'NON, a son of Atreus, king of Mycenae and general-in-chief of the Greeks in the Trojan war, represented as a man of stately presence and a proud spirit. On the advice of the soothsayer Calchas sacrificed his daughter IPHIGENIA (q. v.) for the success of the enterprise he conducted. He was assassinated by AEgisthus and Clytaemnestra, his wife, on his return from the war. His fate and that of his house is the subject of AEschylus' trilogy "Oresteia."

AGAMOGENESIS, name given to reproduction without sex, by fission, budding, &c.

AGANIPPE, a fountain in Boeotia, near Helicon, dedicated to the Muses as a source of poetic inspiration.

AG'APE, love-feasts among the primitive Christians in commemoration of the Last Supper, and in which they gave each other the kiss of peace as token of Christian brotherhood.

AGAR-AGAR, a gum extracted from a sea-weed, used in bacteriological investigations.

AGA'SIAS, a sculptor of Ephesus, famous for his statue of the "Gladiator."

AGASS'IZ, a celebrated Swiss naturalist, in the department especially of ichthyology, and in connection with the glaciers; settled as a professor of zoology and geology in the United States in 1846 (1807-1873).

AG'ATHE, ST., a Sicilian virgin who suffered martyrdom at Palermo under Decius in 251; represented in art as crowned with a long veil and bearing a pair of shears, the instruments with which her breast were cut off. Festival, Feb. 5.

AGA'THIAS, a Byzantine poet and historian (536-582).

AGATH'OCLES, the tyrant of Syracuse, by the massacre of thousands of the inhabitants, was an enemy of the Carthaginians, and fought against them; was poisoned in the end (361-289 B.C.).

AG'ATHON, an Athenian tragic poet, a rival of Euripides (447-400 B.C.).

AG'ATHON, ST., pope from 676 to 682.

AG'DE (6), a French seaport on the Herault, 3 m. from the Mediterranean.

A'GEN (21), a town on the Garonne, 84 m. above Bordeaux.

AGES, in the Greek mythology four—the Golden, self-sufficient; the Silver, self-indulgent; the Brazen, warlike; and the Iron, violent; together with the Heroic, nobly aspirant, between the third and fourth. In archeology, three—the Stone Age, the Bronze, and the Iron. In history, the Middle and Dark, between the Ancient and the Modern. In Fichte, five—of Instinct, of Law, of Rebellion, of Rationality, of Conformity to Reason. In Shakespeare, seven—Infancy, Childhood, Boyhood, Adolescence, Manhood, Age, Old Age.

AGESAN'DER, a sculptor of Rhodes of the first century, who wrought at the famous group of the Laocoon.

AGESILA'US, a Spartan king, victorious over the Persians in Asia and over the allied Thebans and Athenians at Coronea, but defeated by Epaminondas at Mantinea after a campaign in Egypt; d. 360 B.C., aged 84.

AGGAS, RALPH, a surveyor and engraver of the 16th century, who first drew a plan of London as well as of Oxford and Cambridge.

AGGLUTINATE LANGUAGES, languages composed of parts which are words glued together, so to speak, as cowherd.

AGINCOURT', a small village in Pas-de-Calais, where Henry V. in a bloody battle defeated the French, Oct. 25, 1415.

A'GIS, the name of several Spartan kings, of whom the most famous were Agis III. and IV., the former famous for his resistance to the Macedonian domination, d. 330 B.C.; and the latter for his attempts to carry a law for the equal division of land, d. 240 B.C.

AGLAIA. See GRACES.

AG'NADEL, a Lombard village, near which Louis XII. defeated the Venetians in 1509, and Vendome, Prince Eugene in 1705.

AGNA'NO, LAKE OF, a lake near Naples, now drained; occupied the crater of an extinct volcano, its waters in a state of constant ebullition.

AGNELLO, COL D', passage by the S. of Monte Viso between France and Italy.

AGNES, an unsophisticated maiden in Moliere's L'Ecole des Femmes, so unsophisticated that she does not know what love means.

AGNES, ST., a virgin who suffered martyrdom, was beheaded because the flames would not touch her body, under Diocletian in 303; represented in art as holding a palm-branch in her hand and a lamb at her feet or in her arms. Festival, Jan. 21.

AGNES DE MERANIE, the second wife of Philip Augustus by a marriage in 1193, declared null by the Church, who, being dismissed in consequence, died broken-hearted in 1201.

AGNES SOREL, surnamed Dame de beaute, mistress of Charles VII. of France (1409-1450).

AGNE'SI, MARIA GAETANA, a native of Milan, a woman of extraordinary ability and attainments, prelected for her father in mathematics in the University of Bologna under sanction of the Pope; died a nun at her birthplace (1718-1799).

AG'NI, the god of fire in the Vedic mythology, begets the gods, organises the world, produces and preserves universal life, and throughout never ceases to be fire. One of the three terms of the Vedic trinity, Soma and Indra being the other two.

AGNOLO, a Florentine artist, friend of Michael Angelo and Raphael, distinguished for his carvings in wood (1460-1543).

AGNOSTICISM, the doctrine which disclaims all knowledge of the supersensuous, or denies that we know or can know the absolute, the infinite, or God.

AGNUS DEI, the figure of a lamb bearing a cross as a symbol of Christ, or a medal with this device; also a prayer in the Mass beginning with the words, "Lamb of God."

AGONIC LINE, line along which the needle points due north and south.

AGORA, the forum of a Grecian town.

AGOS'TA, a city on east coast of Sicily.

AGOULT, COUNTESS OF, a French authoress under the pseudonym of Daniel Stern (1805-1876).

AGOUST, CAPT. DE, a "cast-iron" captain of the Swiss Guards, who on May 4, 1788, by order of the Court of Versailles, marched the Parliament of Paris out of the Palais de Justice and carried off the key. See CARLYLE'S "FRENCH REVOLUTION," BK. I. CHAP. VIII.

AGOU'TI, a rodent, native of Brazil, Paraguay, and Guiana; very destructive to roots and sugar-canes.

A'GRA (168), a handsome city on the Jumna, in NW. Province of India, famous for, among other monuments, the Taj Mahal, a magnificent mausoleum erected near it by the Emperor Shah Jehan for himself and his favourite wife; it is a centre of trade, and seat of manufactures of Indian wares.

AG'RAM, (37), a Hungarian town, the capital of Croatia, with a fine Gothic cathedral and a university; is subject to earthquakes.

AGRARIAN LAWS, laws among the Romans regulating the division of lands.

AGRIC'OLA, a Roman general, father-in-law of Tacitus, who conquered Great Britain in 80, recalled by the Emperor Domitian in 87, and retired into private life (37-93).

AGRICOLA, JOHANN, a follower and friend of Luther, who became his antagonist in the matter of the binding obligation of the law on Christians (1492-1566).

AGRICOLA, RUDOLPHUS, a learned and accomplished Dutchman, much esteemed by Erasmus, and much in advance of his time; his most important work, "Dialectics," being an attack on the scholastic system (1442-1485).

AGRIGEN'TUM, an ancient considerable city, now Girgenti, on the S. of Sicily, of various fortune, and still showing traces of its ancient grandeur.

AGRIPPA, H. CORNELIUS, a native of Cologne, of noble birth, for some time in the service of Maximilian, but devoted mainly to the study of the occult sciences, which exposed him to various persecutions through life (1486-1535).

AGRIPPA, HEROD. See HEROD.

AGRIP'PA, M. VIPSANIUS, a Roman general, the son-in-law and favourite of Augustus, who distinguished himself at the battle of Actium, and built the Pantheon of Rome (63-12 B.C.).

AGRIPPI'NA, the daughter of Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, and thus the granddaughter of Augustus; married Germanicus, accompanied him in his campaigns, and brought his ashes to Rome on his death, but was banished from Rome by Tiberius, and d. in 33.

AGRIPPINA, the daughter of Germanicus and the former, born at Cologne, and the mother of Nero. Her third husband was her uncle, the Emperor Claudian, whom she got to adopt her son, and then poisoned him, in order to place her son on the throne; but the latter, resenting her intolerable ascendancy, had her put to death in 59.

AGTELEK, a village NE. of Pesth, in Hungary with vast stalactite caverns, some of them of great height.

AGUA'DO, A. M., an enormously wealthy banker of Spanish-Jewish descent, born in Seville, and naturalised in France (1784-1842).

AGUAS CALIENTES (31), a high-lying inland trading town in Mexico.

AGUE-CHEEK, SIR ANDREW, a silly squire in "Twelfth Night."

AGUESSEAU', D', a French magistrate under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., of unimpeachable integrity and unselfish devotion, a learned jurist and law reformer, and held high posts in the administration of justice (1668-1751).

AGUILAR, GRACE, a Jewess, born at Hackney; authoress of "Magic Wreath," "Home Influence," "Vale of Cedars"; of a delicate constitution, died young (1816-1847).

A'GULHAS, CAPE (i. e. the Needles), the most southerly point of Africa, 100 m. ESE. of the Cape, and along with the bank of the whole south coast, dangerous to shipping.

A'HAB, a king of Israel fond of splendour, and partial to the worship of Baal (918-896 B.C.).

AHASUE'RUS, a traditionary figure known as the Wandering Jew; also the name of several kings of Persia.

AHAZ, a king of Judah who first brought Judea under tribute to Assyria.

AHLDEN, CASTLE OF, a castle in Lueneburg Heath, the nearly lifelong prison-house of the wife of George I. and the mother of George II. and of Sophie Dorothea of Prussia.

AHMADABAD (148), a chief town of Guzerat, in the Bombay Presidency, a populous city and of great splendour in the last century, of which gorgeous relics remain.

AHMED, a prince in the "Arabian Nights," noted for a magic tent which would expand so as to shelter an army, and contract so that it could go into one's pocket.

AH'MED SHAH, the founder of the Afghan dynasty and the Afghan power (1724-1773).

AHMEDNUG'AR (41), a considerable Hindu town 122 m. E. of Bombay.

AHOLIBAH, prostitution personified. See EZEK. XXIII.

AHOLIBAMAH, a grand daughter of Cain, beloved by a seraph, who at the Flood bore her away to another planet.

AH'RIMAN, the Zoroastrian impersonation of the evil principle, to whom all the evils of the world are ascribed.

AIDAN, ST., the archbishop of Lindisfarne, founder of the monastery, and the apostle of Northumbria, sent thither from Iona on the invitation of King Oswald in 635.

AIGNAN, St., the bishop of Orleans, defended it against Attila and his Huns in 451.

AIGUILLON, DUKE D', corrupt minister of France, previously under trial for official plunder of money, which was quashed, at the corrupt court of Louis XV., and the tool of Mme. Du Barry, with whom he rose and fell (1720-1782).

AIKIN, DR. JOHN, a popular writer, and author, with Mrs. Barbauld, his sister, of "Evenings at Home" (1747-1822).

AIKMAN, W., an eminent Scotch portrait-painter (1682-1731).

AILLY, PIERRE D', a cardinal of the Romish Church, and eminent as a theologian, presided at the council of Constance which condemned Huss (1350-1420).

AILSA CRAIG, a rocky islet of Ayrshire, 10 m. NW. of Girvan, 2 m. in circumference, which rises abruptly out of the sea at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde to a height of 1114 ft.

AIMARD, GUSTAVE, a French novelist, born in Paris; died insane (1818-1883).

AIME, ST., archbishop of Sens, in France; d. 690; festival, 13th Sept.

AIN, a French river, has its source in the Jura Mts., and falls into the Rhone; also a department of France between the Rhone and Savoy.

AINMILLER, a native of Muenich, the reviver of glass-painting in Germany (1807-1870).

AI'NOS, a primitive thick-set, hairy race, now confined to Yezo and the islands N. of Japan, aboriginal to that quarter of the globe, and fast dying out.

AINSWORTH, R., an English Latin lexicographer (1660-1743).

AINSWORTH, W. H., a popular English novelist, the author of "Rookwood" and "Jack Sheppard," as well as novels of an antiquarian and historical character (1805-1882).

AIN-TAB (20), a Syrian garrison town 60 m. NE. of Aleppo; trade in hides, leather, and cotton.

AIRD, THOMAS, a Scottish poet, author of the "Devil's Dream," the "Old Bachelor," and the "Old Scotch Village"; for nearly 30 years editor of the Dumfries Herald (1802-1876).

AIRDRIE (19), a town in Lanarkshire, 11 m. E. of Glasgow, in a district rich in iron and coal; is of rapid growth; has cotton-mills, foundries, etc.

AIRDS MOSS, a moor in Ayrshire, between the rivers Ayr and Lugar.

AIRE, a Yorkshire river which flows into the Ouse; also a French river, affluent of the Aisne.

AIRY, SIR G. B., an eminent English astronomer, mathematician, and man of science, astronomer-royal from 1836 to 1881, retired on a pension; was the first to enunciate the complete theory of the rainbow.

AISNE, a French river which, after a course of 150 m., falls into the Oise near Compiegne; also a department in the N. of France.

AISSE, MLLE., a Circassienne brought to France about 1700; left letters on French society in the eighteenth century, sparkling with wit and full of interest.

AITON, WM., a botanist, born in Lanarkshire, the first director of the Royal Gardens at Kew (1731-1793).

AITZEMA, LEO, historian of Friesland (1600-1669).

AIX (22), a town, the ancient capital of Provence, 20 m. N. of Marseilles, the seat of an archbishop and a university; founded by the Romans 123 B.C.; near it Marius defeated the Teutons.

AIX, ISLE OF, island in the Atlantic, at the mouth of the Charente.

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE' (103), in Rhenish Prussia, one of the oldest cities in Germany, made capital of the German empire by Charlemagne; derives its name from its mineral springs; is a centre of manufacturing industries and an important trade; is celebrated for its octagonal cathedral (in the middle of which is a stone marking the burial-place of Charlemagne), for treaties of peace in 1668 and 1748, and for a European congress in 1818.

AIX-LES-BAINS', a small town near Chambery, in the dep. of Savoy, and much frequented by invalids for its waters and baths.

AJAC'CIO (18), the capital of Corsica, the birthplace of the Bonaparte family, of Cardinal Fesch, and Bacciochi.

AJALON, VALLEY OF, in Palestine, scene of a battle between Joshua and five Canaanitish kings, during which the sun and moon stood still at the prayer of Joshua, to enable him to finish his victory.

A'JAN COAST, a district on the E. coast of Africa, from Cape Guardafui to the mouth of the Juba, under the protectorate of Germany.

A'JAX the name of two Greek heroes in the Trojan war, and the synonym of a fiery and impetuous warrior: AJAX, the son of Telamon of Sparta, one of the bravest of the Greeks, who, on the death of Achilles, contended with Ulysses for his arms, but was defeated, in consequence of which he lost his reason and put an end to his life; and AJAX, the son of Oileus, swift of foot, like Achilles, who suffered shipwreck on his homeward voyage, as a judgment for an outrage he perpetrated on the person of Cassandra in the temple of Athena in Troy.

AJMERE' (68), a city in a small territory in the heart of Rajputana, under the rule of the Viceroy; well built, and contains some famous edifices.

AJODHYA, an ancient city of Oudh, 77 m. E. of Lucknow, once, on religious grounds, one of the largest and most magnificent cities of India, now in ruins; the modern town is an insignificant place, but has an annual fair, attended by often 600,000 pilgrims.

AK'ABA, a gulf forming the NE. inlet of the Red Sea.

AKAKIA, DOCTOR, a satire of a very biting nature by Voltaire, directed against pretentious pedants of science in the person of Maupertuis, the President of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, which so excited the anger of Frederick the Great, the patron of the Academy, that he ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman, after 30,000 copies of it had been sold in Paris!

AKAKIA, MARTIN, physician of Francis I., born at Chalons-sur-Marne, his real name being Sans-Malice; d. 1551.

AK'BAR, the great Mogul emperor of India, who, after a minority of a few years, assumed the reins of government at the age of eighteen, and in ten or twelve years, such was his power of conquest, had the whole of India north of the Vindhya Mts. subject to his rule. He was wise in government as well as powerful in war, and one of the most large-minded and largest-hearted rulers recorded in history. He reigned half a century (1542-1605).

AKENSIDE, MARK, an English physician, who wrote, among other productions and pieces, the "Hymn to the Naiads," especially a poem entitled the "Pleasures of Imagination," much quoted from at one time, and suggested by the study of Addison on the Imagination in the Spectator (1721-1770).

AKERS, B. P., an able American sculptor (1825-1861).

AKERMAN' (55), a fortified town in Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Dniester.

AKIBA, BEN JOSEPH, a famous Jewish rabbi of the 2nd century, a great authority in the matter of Jewish tradition, flayed alive by the Romans for being concerned in a revolt in 135.

AKKAS, a wandering race of negro dwarfs in Central Africa, with large heads and slender necks, who live by hunting.

AKRON (27), a town in Ohio, U.S., seat of manufactures and centre of traffic.

AKSAKOF', a Russian litterateur and advocate of Panslavism (1823-1886).

AKSU (20), a trading town in E. Turkestan, 250 m. NE. of Yarkand.

AK'YAB (37), the capital of Aracan, in British Burmah, 90 m. SE. of Calcutta.

AL RAKIM, the dog that guarded the SEVEN SLEEPERS (q. v.), and that stood by them all through their long sleep.

ALABA'MA (1,513), one of the United States of N. America, traversed by a river of the name, a little larger than England, highly fertile and a great cotton-growing country, and abounding in iron, coal, and marble, bounded on the W. by the Mississippi, on the N. by Tennessee, and the E. by Georgia.

ALABAMA, THE, a vessel built in Birkenhead for the Confederates in the late American Civil War, for the devastation done by which, according to the decision of a court of arbitration, the English Government had to pay heavy damages of three millions of money.

ALACOQUE, MARIE, a French nun of a mystic tendency, the founder of the devotion of the Sacred Heart (1647-1690).

ALAD'DIN, one of the chiefs of the Assassins in the 13th century, better known by the name of the Old Man of the Mountain.

ALADDIN, a character in the "Arabian Nights," who became possessed of a wonderful lamp and a wonderful ring, by rubbing which together he could call two evil genii to do his bidding.

ALADINISTS, free-thinkers among the Mohammedans.

ALAGO'AS (397), a maritime province of Brazil, N. of Pernambuco, with tropical products as well as fine timber and dye-woods.

ALAIN DE L'ISLE, a professor of theology in the University of Paris, surnamed the Doctor universel (1114-1203).

ALAINS. See ALANS.

ALAIS' (18), a town at the foot of the Cevennes, in the centre of a mining district; once the stronghold of French Protestantism.

ALAMAN'NI, LUIGI, an Italian poet and diplomatist, born at Florence (1495-1556).

ALAND ISLES, a group of 300 small islands in the Gulf of Bothnia, of which 80 are inhabited; fortified by Russia.

ALANS, a barbarous horde from the East, who invaded W. Europe in the 4th and 5th centuries, but were partly exterminated and partly ousted by the Visigoths.

ALAR'CON Y MENDO'ZA, JUAN RUIZ DE, a Spanish dramatist born in Mexico, who, though depreciated by his contemporaries, ranks after 200 years of neglect among the foremost dramatic geniuses of Spain, next even to Cervantes and Lope de Vega; he was a humpback, had an offensive air of conceit, and was very unpopular; he wrote at least twenty dramas, some of which have been translated into French; d. in 1639.

AL'ARIC I., the king of the Visigoths, a man of noble birth, who, at the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, ravaged Greece, invaded Italy, and took and pillaged Rome; died at Cosenza, in Calabria, in 412, at the early age of thirty-four.

ALARIC II., king of the Visigoths, whose dominions included all Gaul and most of Spain; defeated by the Franks at Poitiers, and killed by the hand of Clovis, their king, in 567.

ALARIC COTIN, Voltaire's nickname for Frederick the Great, the former in recognition of him as a warrior, the latter as a would-be litterateur, after an indifferent French poet of the name of Cotin.

ALAS'CO, JOHN, the uncle of Sigismund, king of Poland, and a zealous promoter in Poland of the Reformation, the friend of Erasmus and Zwinglius (1499-1560).

ALAS'KA (32), an immense territory belonging to the U.S. by purchase from Russia, extending from British N. America to Behring Strait; it is poor in resources, and the inhabitants, who are chiefly Indians and Eskimos, live by hunting and fishing, and by the export of salmon; seal fishery valuable, however.

ALASNAM, a hero related of in the "Arabian Nights" as having erected eight statues of gold, and in quest of a statue for a ninth unoccupied pedestal, finding what he wanted in the person of a beautiful woman for a wife.

ALAS'TOR, an avenging spirit, given to torment families whose history has been stained by some crime.

A'LAVA (97), the southernmost of the three Basque provinces of Spain, largest, but least populous; rich in minerals, and fertile in soil.

ALAVA, RICARDO DE, a Spanish general, born in Vittoria, joined the national party, and was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, and became eventually ambassador to London and Paris (1771-1843).

ALBA LONGA, a city of Latium older than Rome.

ALBACETE (229), a province in Spain, with a capital (30) of same name, 173 m. SE. of Madrid.

ALBAN LAKE, near Alban Mount, 6 m. in circuit, occupying the basin of an extinct volcano, its surface 961 ft. above the sea-level.

ALBAN MOUNT, a small mountain overlooking Alba Longa.

ALBAN, ST., the first martyr in Britain to the Christian faith in 303; represented in art as carrying his head between his hands, having been beheaded.

ALBA'NI, an Italian painter, a disciple of Caracci, born at Bologna; surnamed the Anacreon of painting; his pictures more distinguished for grace than vigour.

ALBA'NI, an illustrious Roman family, members of which attained the highest dignities in the Church, one, Clement XI., having been Pope.

ALBANI, MME., nee Emma la Jeunesse, a well-known and highly popular operatic singer of French-Canadian descent; b. 1847.

ALBA'NIA, a region in Balkan peninsula, on the Adriatic, extending from Servia to Greece.

ALBANO, LAKE OF, a small crater-like lake 15 m. SE. of Rome, near which rises the Castel Gandolfo, where the Pope has a villa.

ALBANY, the old Celtic name for the Scottish highlands.

ALBANY, a town in W. Australia, on King George Sound, 261 m. SE. of Perth, a port of call for Australian liners; also the capital (94) of the State of New York, on the Hudson River, a well-appointed city; seat of justice for the State, with a large trade and numerous manufactures.

ALBANY, COUNTESS OF, wife of English pretender, Prince Charles Stuart, a dissolute woman (1753-1824).

ALBANY, THE DUKE OF, a title formerly given to a member of the royal family, and revived in the present reign.

ALBANY, DUCHESS OF, daughter of Prince Waldeck Pyrmont and widow of Prince Leopold of England; b. 1861, widow since 1884.

ALBATEGNI, a distinguished Arabian astronomer, born in Mesopotamia in the 9th or 10th century of our era; his observations extended over 50 years; he so improved the methods and instruments of observation as to earn the title of the Ptolemy of the Arabs.

ALBATROSS, the largest and strongest of sea-birds, that ranges over the southern seas, often seen far from land; it is a superstition among sailors that it is disastrous to shoot one.

ALBERO'NI, an Italian of humble birth, became a Cardinal of the Church and Prime Minister to Philip V. of Spain, wrought hard to restore Spain to its ancient grandeur, was defeated in his project by the quadruple alliance of England, France, Austria, and Holland, and obliged to retire (1664-1752).

ALBERT, archbishop of Mainz, a dignity granted him by Pope Leo X. at the ransom of L15,000, which he was unable to pay, and which, as the Pope needed it for building St. Peter's, he borrowed, the Pope granting him the power to sell indulgences in order to repay the loan, in which traffic Tetzel was his chief salesman, a trade which roused the wrath of Luther, and provoked the German Reformation (1450-1545).

ALBERT, the last Grandmaster of the Teutonic knights, who being "religious in an eminent degree and shaken in his belief" took zealously to Protestantism and came under the influence of Luther, who advised him to declare himself Duke of Prussia, under the wing of Sigismund of Poland, in defiance of the Teutonic order as no longer worthy of bed and board on the earth, and so doing, became founder of the Prussian State (1490-1568).

ALBERT, markgrave of Brandenburg, defined by Carlyle "a failure of a Fritz," with "features" of a Frederick the Great in him, "but who burnt away his splendid qualities as a mere temporary shine for the able editors, and never came to anything, full of fire, too much of it wildfire, not in the least like an Alcibiades except in the change of fortune he underwent" (1522-1557).

ALBERT, PRINCE, second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, born Aug. 26, 1819, an accomplished man with a handsome presence, who became the consort of Queen Victoria in 1840, and from his prudence and tact was held in the highest honour by the whole community, but died at Windsor of typhoid fever, Dec. 14, 1861, to the unspeakable sorrow of both Queen and country.

ALBERT, ST., bishop of Liege, was assassinated by the emissaries of the Emperor Henry VI. in 1195. Festival, Nov. 21.

ALBERT EDWARD. See WALES, PRINCE OF.

ALBERT I., emperor of Germany from 1298 to 1308, eldest son of Rudolf of Hapsburg, "a most clutching, strong-fisted, dreadfully hungry, tough, and unbeautiful man, whom his nephew at last had to assassinate, and did assassinate, as he crossed the river Reuss with him in a boat, May 1, 1308."

ALBERT II., a successor, "who got three crowns—Hungary, Bohemia, and the Imperial—in one year, and we hope a fourth," says the old historian, "which was a heavenly and eternal one," for he died the next year, 1439.

ALBERT III., elector of Brandenburg. See ACHILLES OF GERMANY.

ALBERT MEDAL, a medal of gold and of bronze, instituted in 1866, awarded to civilians for acts of heroism by sea or land.

ALBERT THE BEAR, markgrave of Brandenburg, called the Bear, "not from his looks or qualities, for he was a tall handsome man, but from the cognisance on his shield, an able man, had a quick eye as well as a strong hand, and could pick what way was straightest among crooked things, was the shining figure and the great man of the North in his day, got much in the North and kept it, got Brandenburg for one there, a conspicuous country ever since," says Carlyle, "and which grows more so in our late times" (1100-1175).

ALBERT NYAN'ZA, a lake in Equatorial Africa, in the Nile basin, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864, 150 m. long by 40 broad, and 2500 feet above sea-level.

ALBER'TA (26), a fertile region with large forests in British America, on the E. slope of the Rocky Mountains, the south abounding in cattle ranches, and the mountainous districts in minerals.

ALBERTI, an illustrious Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Albrizzi.

ALBER'TUS MAGNUS, one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, teacher of Thomas Aquinas, supreme in knowledge of the arts and sciences of the time, and regarded by his contemporaries in consequence as a sorcerer (1190-1280).

ALBI, a town of some antiquity and note in S. of France, 22 m. NE. of Toulouse.

ALBIGEN'SES, a religious sect, odious, as heretical, to the Church, which sprung up about Albi, in the S. of France, in the 12th century, against which Pope Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade, which was carried on by Simon de Montfort in the 13th century, and by the Inquisition afterwards, to their utter annihilation.

ALBINOS, persons or animals with preternaturally pale skin and fair hair, also with pupils of a red or pink colour, and eyes too weak to bear full light.

ALBINUS, an able professor of anatomy and therapeutics at Leyden (1696-1770).

ALBION, a white cliff, the ancient name of Great Britain.

ALBOIN, king of the Lombards in the 6th century, from 561 to 573; invaded Italy as far as the Tiber, and set up his capital in Pavia; incurred the resentment of his wife, who had him assassinated for forcing her to drink wine out of the skull of her father.

ALBORAK, a wonderful horse of Mahomet, an impersonation of the lightning as his steed.

ALBOR'NOZ, a Spanish statesman, archbishop of Toledo, a bold defender of the faith against the Moor and a plain-spoken man in the interest of Christianity (1310-1367).

ALBRECHT. See ALBERT.

ALBRIZZI, a powerful Florentine family, rivals of the Medicis and the Alberti.

ALBUE'RA, a Spanish village 12 m. SE. of Badajoz, scene of a victory (May 16, 1811) of General Beresford over Marshal Soult.

ALBUFE'RA, a lake on the coast of Spain, 7 m. S. of Valencia, near which Marshal Suchet gained a victory over the English in 1811.

AL'BULA, Swiss mountain pass in the canton of Grisons, 7595 ft. high.

ALBUMEN, a glairy substance a constituent of plants and animals, and found nearly pure in the white of an egg or in the serum of the blood.

ALBUQUERQUE', ALFONSO D', a celebrated Portuguese patriot and navigator, the founder of the Portuguese power in India, who, after securing a footing in India for Portugal that he sought for, settled in Goa, where his recall at the instance of jealous rivals at home gave him such a shock that he died of a broken heart just as he was leaving. The Indians long remembered his benign rule, and used to visit his tomb to pray him to deliver them from the oppression of his successors (1453-1513).

ALBYN, ancient Celtic name of Scotland.

ALCAE'US OF MITYLENE, a Greek lyric poet, an aristocrat by birth, a contemporary and an alleged lover of Sappho, and much admired by Horace; flourished about 600 B.C.

ALCA'LA DE HENA'RES (14), a town in Spain, the birthplace of Cervantes, 21 m. E. of Madrid, long the seat of a famous university founded by Cardinal Ximenes.

ALCAN'TARA, a town of Spain, on the Tagus, near Portugal, with a bridge of six arches, 670 ft. long and 210 ft. high, built in honour of Trajan in 104. The Order of Alcantara, a religious and military order, was established in 1176 here, for defence against the Moors, and was suppressed in 1835.

ALCESTE, the chief character in Moliere's Misanthrope.

ALCES'TIS, the wife of Admetus, who gave herself up to death to save her husband. Hercules descended to the lower world and brought her back. She is the subject of one of the tragedies of Euripides.

ALCHEMY, the early analysis of substances which has in modern times developed into chemistry, and which aimed chiefly at the discovery of the philosopher's stone, of a universal solvent, and of the elixir of life; it has been defined to be "an art without art, which has its beginning in falsehood, its middle in toil, and its end in poverty."

ALCIBI'ADES, an Athenian of high birth, and related to Pericles, possessed of a handsome person, brilliant abilities, and great wealth, but was of a wayward temper and depraved, whom Socrates tried hard to win over to virtue, but failed. He involved his country in a rash expedition against Sicily, served and betrayed it by turns in the Peloponnesian war, and died by assassination in exile (450-404 B.C.).

ALCI'DES, the grandson of Alcaeus, a patronymic of Hercules.

ALCIN'OUS, a king of the Phaeacians, the father of Nausicaa, who figures in the Odyssey as the host of Ulysses, who had been shipwrecked on his shore.

ALCI'RA (18), a walled town in Spain, on an island 22 m. SW. of Valencia.

ALCMAN, an early Greek lyric poet, born at Sardis.

ALCME'NE, the wife of Amphitryon and the mother of Hercules.

ALCMEONIDAE, a powerful Athenian family, of which Pericles and Alcibiades were members, who professed to be descended from Alcmaeon, the grandson of Nestor.

ALCOCK, JOHN, an eminent ecclesiastic of the reign of Edward IV., distinguished for his love of learning and learned men; d. 1500.

ALCOHOL, pure or highly rectified spirit obtained from fermented saccharine solutions by distillation, and the intoxicating principle of all spirituous liquors.

ALCOHOLISM, the results, acute or chronic, of the deleterious action of alcohol on the human system.

ALCORAN'. See KORAN.

ALCOTT, LOUISA MARY, a popular American authoress, who acted as a nurse to the wounded during the Civil War; her works mostly addressed to the young (1832-1888).

ALCOY (30), a town in Spain, N. of Alicanti; staple manufacture, paper.

AL'CUIN, a learned Englishman, a disciple of Bede; invited by Charlemagne to introduce scholarly culture into the empire and establish libraries and schools of learning; was one of those men whose work lies more in what they influence others to do than in what they do themselves (735-804).

ALCY'ONE, daughter of AEolus, who threw herself into the sea after her husband, who had perished in shipwreck, and was changed into the kingfisher.

ALDE'BARAN, the bull's-eye, a star of the first magnitude in the eye of the constellation Taurus; it is the sun in the Arabian mythology.

ALDEHYDE, a limpid, very volatile liquid, of a suffocating odour, obtained from the oxidation of alcohol.

AL'DERNEY (2), one of the Channel Islands, 3 or 4 m. long by 2 broad, celebrated for its breed of cows; separated from Cape de la Hogue by the dangerous Race of Alderney.

AL'DERSHOT, a permanent camp, established in 1855, for instruction in military manoeuvres, on a moorland 35 m. SW. of London.

ALDINE EDITIONS, editions, chiefly of the classics, issued from the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice in the 16th century, and remarkable for the correctness of the text and the beauty and clearness of the printing.

ALDINGAR, SIR, legendary character, the steward of Eleanor, wife of Henry II., who accused her of infidelity, and offered to substantiate the charge by combat, when an angel in the form of a child appeared and certified her innocence.

ALDOBRANDINI, a Florentine jurisconsult (1500-1558).

AL'DRED, bishop of Worcester in the reign of Edward the Confessor, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, became archbishop of York, and crowned the last of the Saxon and the first of the Norman kings of England; d. 1063.

AL'DRICH, dean of Oxford, an accomplished ecclesiastic; was a skilful musician, and composed many services for the Church; wrote a system of logic, long in use in Oxford University (1647-1710).

ALDROVAN'DI, ULYSSES, a famous Italian naturalist of Bologna, who collected an immense body of interesting facts in natural history, published partly in his lifetime and partly after his death (1522-1607).

ALDUS MANUTIUS, or ALDO MANUZIO, an Italian printer, born at Bassano, established a printing-office in Venice in 1488, issued the celebrated Aldine Editions of the classics, and invented the italic type, for the exclusive use of which for many years he obtained a patent, though the honour of the invention is more probably due to his typefounder, Franciso de Bologna, than to him (1447-1515).

ALEC'TO, one of the three Eumenides or Furies.

ALEMAN', a Spanish novelist, author of the celebrated romance Guzman de Alfarache, which in 6 years ran through 26 editions, was translated several times into French; died in Mexico in 1610.

ALEMAN'NI, a confederacy of tribes which appeared on the banks of the Rhine in the 3rd cent., and for long gave no small trouble to Rome, but whose incursions were arrested, first by Maximinus, and finally by Clovis in 496, who made them subject to the Franks, hence the modern names in French for Germany and the Germans.

ALEMTE'JO (369), a southern province of Portugal; soil fertile to the east.

ALENCON (17), a town in the dep. of Orne, 105 m. W. of Paris, once famous for its lace.

ALENCON, COUNTS AND DUKES OF, a title borne by several members of the house of Valois—e. g. CHARLES OF VALOIS, who fell at Crecy (1346); JEAN IV., who fell at Agincourt (1415).

ALEP'PO (130), a city in Northern Syria, one of the finest in the East, once one of the greatest trading centres in the world.

ALE'SIA, a strong place in the E. of Gaul, which, as situated on a hill and garrisoned by 80,000 Gauls, cost Caesar no small trouble to take.