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`lë (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.
Acoemetæ, 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 "Faërie 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 Ptolemaïs.
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 Cæsar 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.
Actæon, 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 Ecclesiæ Pontificum.
Adamas`tor, the giant spirit of storms, which Camoëns, 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 2½ 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 Pheræ 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 Aphrodité (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 entrepôt 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.
Æacus, a Greek king renowned as an administrator of distributive justice, after death appointed one of the three judges in Hades. See Minos and Rhadamanthus.
Ædiles, magistrates of ancient Rome who had charge of the public buildings and public structures generally.
Æe`tis, king of Colchis and father of Medea.
Æge`an Sea, the Archipelago.
Ægeus, the father of Theseus, who threw himself into the Ægean Sea, so called after him, in the mistaken belief that his son, who had been to slay the Minotaur, had been slain by him.
Ægi`na, an island 20 m. SW. of Athens, in a gulf of the same name.
Ægir, the god of the sea in the Norse mythology.
Ægis (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.
Æl`fric, a Saxon writer of the end of the 10th century known as the "Grammarian."
Ælia`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.
Æmi`lius Paulus, the Roman Consul who fell at Cannæ, 216 B.C.; also his son, surnamed Macedonicus, so called as having defeated Perseus at Pydna, in Macedonia.
Æne`as, a Trojan, the hero of Virgil's "Æneid," 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.
Æneas Silvius. See Piccolomini.
Æ`neid, an epic poem by Virgil, of which Æneas is the hero.
Ænesidemus, 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.
Æolian action, action of the wind as causing geologic changes.
Æolian Islands, the Lipari Islands (q. v.).
Æo`lians, one of the Greek races who, originating in Thessaly, spread north and south, and emigrated into Asia Minor, giving rise to the Æolic dialect of the Greek language.
Æolotropy, a change in the physical properties of bodies due to a change of position.
Æ`olus, the Greek god of the winds.
Æon, among the Gnostics, one of a succession of powers conceived as emanating from God and presiding over successive creations and transformations of being.
Æpyor`nis, a gigantic fossil bird of Madagascar, of which the egg is six times larger than that of an ostrich.
Æ`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.
Æs`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.).
Æs`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 "Persæ," 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.).
Æscula`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.
Æ`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.
Æso`pus, a celebrated Roman actor, a friend of Pompey and Cicero.
Æsthetics, 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 Châlons, 451; assassinated out of jealousy by the Emperor Valentinian III., 454.
Æto`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 Cæsar 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 depôt 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 Mycenæ 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 Ægisthus and Clytæmnestra, his wife, on his return from the war. His fate and that of his house is the subject of Æschylus' 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.